U.S. senators questioned State Department officials closely on Thursday about corruption in Afghanistan and said failure to address it could cause them to rethink the billions of dollars the United States spends there each year.





"I don't know what the political will here in the United States will be to continue to support the Afghans in light of what is going on there," said Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.





Menendez described himself as someone who has been supportive of U.S. Afghanistan policy, but said he would "have a totally different view" if the government in Kabul does not act.





On Wednesday, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued a report that strongly criticized Washington for pouring billions of dollars into Afghanistan with so little oversight that it fueled corruption and undermined the U.S. mission.





The United States spends $5 billion per year in Afghanistan, about $4 billion for defense and national security and another $1 billion in civilian assistance, plus billions more for the cost of the thousands of troops and military contractors there.





Richard Olson, the State Department's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, agreed that corruption can undermine governance. But he called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani "a committed partner" in fighting corruption. - Read More




CEOs whose businesses are complicit in human rights atrocities  like the mass murder of people who object to land-grabs by mineral extraction companies  can now be tried in the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Unfortunately, China, India and Russia are not under ICC jurisdiction, and the USA, Israel and Sudan have announced that they will not honor future rulings.



The court's decision was sparked by a case filed by a group of Cambodians who alleged that authorities, including the government, military, police and the courts, have been complicit in land grabbing since 2002, which has led to the forced eviction of more than 300,000 people. International legal experts say the court's widened focus could potentially open up criminal prosecutions for climate change.



CEOs Can Now Be Prosecuted Like War Criminals at the Hague

[Global Witness-Guardian/Telesur]





(via Naked Capitalism)
SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 17 Indian troopers were killed and over 20 others wounded Sunday in a suicide attack on an Indian military base near Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir, officials said.

Four militants, believed to have carried out the attack, were also killed in retaliatory fire inside the base.

The attack took place at garrison Uri town in frontier Baramulla district, about 109 km northwest of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," a statement issued by Indian military said.

According to defense officials, the attackers entered the military base, throwing grenades and using automatic rifles to target troopers.

Locals said they heard loud explosions and saw columns of smoke going up into the sky at the fortification.

"Today morning, a group of heavily armed militants targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri. The tents and temporary shelters which caught fire inside the base resulted in heavy casualties," a military spokesman said. "Four attackers have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress in the area."

According to the spokesman, the administrative base had large strength of troops stationed in tents and temporary shelters inside it at the time of the attack.

Reports said militants stormed the garrison early Sunday at around 4:00 a.m. (local time), firing bullets and grenades, thereby triggering a fierce gunfight. The militants took different positions inside the fortification to engage the Indian military troopers.

Indian military pressed in helicopters to take on the militants inside the base and airlifted wounded soldiers to the army's main hospital in Srinagar city. The stand-off lasted for several hours.

India's official broadcaster - All India Radio (AIR) said at least 20 troopers were injured in the attack, some of them critically, and they were airlifted to Srinagar for advanced treatment.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the deadly attack and expressed sympathy with the families of the slain troopers.

"We salute all those martyred in Uri," Modi wrote on twitter. "Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families."

Modi spoke to Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar over the attack. Parrikar has reached Srinagar on Sunday evening to review the security scenario and meet the wounded troopers.

Singh has called an emergency meeting of top defense officials in New Delhi and cancelled his tour to Russia and the United States.

Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag has reached Srinagar following the deadly attack. Suhag, according to reports, has met the wounded troopers and visited Uri base to take stock of situation.

Defense analysts say Uri attack is one of the "deadliest" in recent past in the restive region.

In 2014, a similar attack on the military fortification at village Mohra in Uri killed at least eight Indian troopers including their officer and three policemen. Six attackers responsible for the attack were also killed inside the fortification.

A guerrilla war has been going on between militants and Indian troops stationed in the region since 1989. Gunfight between militants and Indian troopers takes place intermittently in the restive region. So far, no militant outfit has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The attack comes at a time when Indian-controlled Kashmir is grappling with violent unrest. The region has been witnessing the largest protests in recent years since July 8, following the killing of a militant commander in a gunfight with Indian troops.

Authorities have imposed curfew and restrictions to contain street protests, and the region is observing a complete shutdown.

Clashes between civilian protesters and government forces have so far resulted in killing of 80 people, mostly young men and children, besides injuries to thousands of others.

Meanwhile, Indian-controlled Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said the attack in Uri seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region.
Rescue workers search for victims on the Chao Phraya River in Thailand's Ayuttaya, Sept. 18, 2016. A ship carrying about 100 people capsized on the Chao Phraya River in Thailand's Ayuttaya on Sunday afternoon, and four people have been confirmed dead. (Xinhua)

BANGKOK, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 13 people have been killed, 30 others injured and dozens have gone missing after a ship carrying about 100 people capsized in Chao Phraya River in Ayutthaya Sunday afternoon.

Authorities said they are using a crane to lift the ship.

Ayutthaya provincial governor Prayoon Rattanaseni said earlier that he was informed at about 16:00 local time, and the ship might crash into river bank and thus capsized, according to Thai media TNN.

Passengers of the ship, mainly Thai Muslims from Nonthaburi province, were on their way back to the province after attending a ceremony in a mosque in Ayutthaya. Enditem
Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong (C) attends a ceremony to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the "Sept. 18 Incident", in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, Sept. 18, 2016. On Sept. 18, 1931, Japanese troops blew up a section of the railway under their control near Shenyang, and then accused Chinese troops of sabotage as a pretext for attack. They bombarded barracks near Shenyang the same evening, beginning a large-scale armed invasion of northeast China. The incident was followed by Japan's full-scale invasion of China and the rest of Asia, triggering the war against Japanese aggression. (Xinhua/Yao Jianfeng)

SHENYANG, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- About 1,000 Chinese people including Vice Premier Liu Yandong on Sunday gathered at a bell-tolling ceremony in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the September 18 Incident.

Liu joined a group of veterans, officials and public representatives to strike the bell 14 times, which represents the 14 years that the Chinese people fought against Japanese aggressors. Air raid sirens rang across the northeastern Chinese city, and trains, ships and cars whistled and sounded their horns.

After the ceremony, Liu said in a speech that the Chinese nation loves peace and has the courage to safeguard it.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese people understand the value of peace and development and consider it their duty to promote world peace and development, said Liu.

Liu called on the Chinese people to uphold patriotism and to use the spirit of those who fought the Japanese aggressors to realize the Chinese dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The ceremony attended by senior CPC officials, World War II veterans, as well as officials from local Party, government and army units, was followed by a visit to a museum dedicated to the history of the September 18 Incident.

On Sept. 18, 1931, Japanese troops blew up a section of railway under its control near Shenyang, then accused Chinese troops of sabotage as a pretext for attack. They bombarded barracks near Shenyang the same evening, triggering the 14-year bloody invasion of China.

Air raid sirens also sounded in cities in 12 provincial-level regions on Sunday morning.

In east China's Jiangsu Province, thousands of sirens rang for 19 minutes while citizens stood in silent tribute.

A tourist surnamed Zhang, from Anhui Province, took a tour to the memorial hall of the victims of the Nanjing Massacre in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu, to mark the day.

"We forgive (the crime), but remember the history. And we'll cherish life today in peacetime," she said.

At a village administered by Changde City in central China's Hunan Province, a monument for thousands of victims of Japanese germ warfare during WWII in Changde was completed on Sunday.

Scores of people, including families of the victims, Chinese scholars and Japanese lawyers, attended the ceremony for the completion.

In 1941, 16 residents of Ji'anwan Village died from plague caused by the troops. Last year, the family of one of the victims proposed the monument be built.

"The tablet records the miserable fate of our compatriots and provides a place for us to mourn them," said Gao Feng, head of the association of Changde germ war victims.
SUNYANI, Ghana, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Ghana's ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) launched its Manifesto for the 2016 election campaign here in the Brong Ahafo Regional Capital, Sunyani, 400 km north of the capital Saturday.

President John Dramani Mahama argued that the document titled "Changing Lives, Transforming Ghana" is the authentic blueprint, with which the party envisions the transformation of the country in the next four years.

"We are poised to change more lives and to transform Ghana. Beyond the commitment we are making under education, health, social protection and infrastructure, I am poised to implement an economic transformation and livelihood empowerment program," the president stated.

He explained this transformation is "anchored on diversification and value addition to create more employment opportunities especially for the young people".

The ruling party's blueprint is based on four thematic areas, namely, putting people first, building a strong and resilient economy, expanding socio-economic infrastructure as well as transparent and accountable governance.

"Our manifesto is bringing peaceful change to our country. We are the party of change, of peaceful progressive change, not disruptive and destructive change. We are the people who bring change that transforms and makes things better," said Vice President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur.
AMMAN, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) to Jordan deployed Sunday 40 short-term observers throughout the country, an official said.

The group is the last batch of EU observers and it brings the overall number of EU observers in Jordan to 108.

"The short-term observers will be deployed across the Governorates of Jordan, in both urban and rural areas. Together with the other EU EOM observers, they will be the eyes and the ears of the mission on election day during polling, counting and tabulation of results," Deputy Chief Observer Nikolai Vulchanov said in a press conference Sunday.

Prior to their deployment, the short-term observers received a two-day in-depth briefing in Amman on the electoral background, voting procedures, the political environment and other topics.

On Tuesday, Jordanians will head to the voting centers to elect the 18th Lower House of Parliament.

The upcoming elections are marked by the participation of all political parties including the Islamic Action Front, which is the largest opposition party in Jordan.

The short-term observers will observe together with a Delegation of the European Parliament and EU diplomats. In total the EU EOM deploys on the election day 108 observers from all 28 EU member states as well as Norway, Switzerland and Canada.

"The mission observers will be visiting many polling stations from the opening to the closing of the polls," said Vulchanov, stressing that the EU EOM is independent, neutral and will not interfere in the electoral process.

The mission will issue a preliminary statement on its findings on Thursday. A final report - with recommendations for future elections - will be published within two months from the completion of the electoral process.
BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Weather forecasters issued an orange alert for waves and a yellow alert for storms on Sunday as Typhoon Malakas moved along the east coast of the Chinese mainland.

Typhoon Malakas was at sea off southeastern coast of Zhejiang Province at 8 a.m. Sunday, said China's National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center.

The National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Civil Affairs have initiated the level-four disaster relief emergency response, dispatching a team to Zhejiang to review the situation in the affected region and assist in disaster relief.

From Sunday to Monday, the typhoon is expected to bring up to nine meter waves in the East China Sea. Waves up to four meters are expected near the Diaoyu Islands, in the Huanghai Sea, Taiwan Strait, and off the coast of Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Fujian.

Storm surges of up to one meter are expected in coastal areas in parts of Jiangsu and Fujian provinces.

The center issued an orange alert for waves and storms on Saturday.

In China's four-tier severe weather warning system, red is the most serious alert, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
TEHRAN, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Sunday denied Saudi claims that Tehran was arming Yemeni opposition groups, Press TV reported.

The Saudi allegations about transporting arms into Yemen are "unfounded and undocumented," Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said in a statement.

On Sept. 14, a letter by Saudi Arabia to the UN Security Council alleged that Iran was transferring weapons to the Shiite Yemeni Houthi fighters in violation of UN Resolution 2216.

"Unsubstantiated claims can be seen in Saudi Arabia's letter, claims that no impartial body has ever been able to prove," the statement said.

"Saudi Arabia has, for over a year and a half, been involved in a full-scale, unequal war against the people of Yemen, and has perpetrated undeniable crimes against the country's defenseless civilians, children and women," it added.

In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition started airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, with Riyadh saying the move was aimed at restoring the legitimacy of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The UN Resolution 2216 orders Iran-backed Houthi militias to withdraw from capital Sanaa and all other cities, hand over weapons and release political prisoners before forming a new transitional government.

However, the Houthis and their allies, for their part, say that they represent the country's de facto rulers and urged to form a new transitional government before discussing withdrawal from cities and other topics.
Workers are occupied on a production line at a workshop under the BAIC Motor in Huanghua city, north China's Hebei Province, Jan. 6, 2016. China's economy grew by 6.9 percent in 2015. (Xinhua/Mou Yu)

SAN JOSE, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- In pursuing development, China crafted a plan according to its own needs, and this is the lesson Latin America should learn from the Asian giant, Costa Rica's former ambassador Marco Vinicio Ruiz told Xinhua.

Cookie-cutter solutions are rarely as effective as tailored plans, and in that sense Costa Rica and China have something in common, said Ruiz, who is also former minister of foreign trade.

"I believe we have not strictly followed what others told us (and) neither did China .... They decided what they wanted to do and they have made enormous progress in different areas, especially in lifting many of the people out of poverty," said Ruiz.

Costa Rica's formula has been promoting education and a skilled work force, said Ruiz.

"Costa Rica is an example of a country that has promoted development in the past 30 years by investing in our people, in education, in developing a culture of sustainable development," said Ruiz.

When devising their own development programs, regional countries can learn from China's experience, said Ruiz, who helped broker the free-trade agreement between China and Costa Rica.

"China's example, in certain ways, is very important for Latin America. They have done a terrific job in trying to develop less developed areas, such as bringing people from the countryside into the industrial age and at the same time improving their quality of life. That's the reality," said Ruiz.

Photo taken on Sept. 11, 2015 shows an aerial view of the highest building in Puxi, east China's Shanghai Municipality. (Xinhua/Shen Chunchen)

"We have to find ways for people to really progress -- that is the only way any political system can be sustained -- and China has done that for the past 30 years. That sets a good example," he added.

"In terms of infrastructure, China has shown that it is much better to build infrastructure first, and then development will follow. That is what you can see anywhere you go in China," he said.

"In Costa Rica, we strongly believe that one of the advantages of having ties with China is so we can learn a lot from its development," said Ruiz.

Inspired by China, Costa Rica is studying the feasibility of establishing special economic development zones, "similar to the ones China has built along its eastern and southern coasts," said Ruiz.

"That's a good example of how we can collaborate, learning from China's experience," he said.
AMMAN, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Ambassador in Amman Alice Wells said Sunday Washington will cooperate with Jordan and the international community to address the issue of thousands of Syrian refugees stranded on the border with Syria, state-run Petra news agency reported.

The United States is aware of the security and humanitarian challenges Jordan is facing in dealing with the refugee crisis, Wells told reporters in Amman.

As many as 75,000 Syrian refugees are estimated to be stranded on the border between Jordan and Syria.

"We will work with Jordan and the international community to explore the best options to address Jordan's security requirements and the humanitarian plight of these vulnerable Syrians," the diplomat added.

U.S. President Obama has invited Jordan to be one of the co-hosts of the Leaders' Summit on the Global Refugee Crisis that will be held in the United States on Tuesday, she noted.

The summit is expected to result in new financial commitments and pledges to support countries that host refugees, and increase the number of refugees resettled in other countries, including in the United States.
Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) wait for the opening of the 10th Nacional Guerrilla Conference at Llanos del Yari, in Caqueta Department, Colombia, on Sept. 17, 2016. (Xinhua/Jhon Paz)

EL DIAMANTE, Colombia, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group on Friday gathered for what is expected to be their last convention as a rebel army before their demobilization.

The FARC's top commander, Rodrigo Londono Echeverri, whose nom de guerre is "Timochenko" or "Timoleon Jimenez," inaugurated the 10th National Guerrilla Conference in a remote rural enclave called El Diamante in southeast Colombia.

"More than 1,000 rebels from all over the country," according to Colombia's Caracol news website, gathered to discuss the group's transition from an armed guerrilla force to a political party or movement, following a peace agreement to be signed with the government on Sept. 26.

The deal "makes very clear that in this war there are no winners or losers," Timochenko told the crowd.

Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) wait for the opening of the 10th Nacional Guerrilla Conference at Llanos del Yari, in Caqueta Department, Colombia, on Sept. 17, 2016. (Xinhua/Jhon Paz)

A video of the event posted by Caracol showed a smiling Timochenko addressing the crowd, a giant screen mounted on the stage behind him broadcasting his image for those seated in the back rows.

The FARC leader acknowledged that some rebels have been skeptical of the nearly four-year peace talks and the final agreement.

"Those who still have doubts about our struggle, we hope you approach us," said Timochenko.

Average Colombians will also have a chance to reject or accept the peace deal at a referendum scheduled for Oct. 2.

The conflict between the Colombian government and the rebel group started in the 1960s as an uprising for land rights. It has left about 220,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly 7 million displaced.
After a string of high-profile cyberbullying and revenge-porn incidents, the Italian Chamber of Deputies has put forward a bill that will do nothing to prevent these abuses, and everything to allow for rampant, unaccountable censorship of the Italian internet, without rule of law or penalty for abuse.

Under the proposed law, the "site manager" of Italian media, including bloggers, newspapers and social networks would be obliged to censor "mockery" based on "the personal and social condition" of the victim  that is, anything the recipient felt was personally insulting. The penalty for failing to take action is a fine of 100,000. Truthfulness is not a defense in suits under this law  the standard is personal insult, not falsehood.

Let's start with what this won't do: it won't stop bullying, harassment or revenge porn in Italy. The majority of services on which Italians express themselves are not based in Italy, and those with Italian sales-offices, etc, can and will simply move offices rather than face a 100,000 fine every time someone insults someone else online.

But what it will do is create a tool for easy censorship without due process or penalty for misuse. The standard proposed in the bill is merely that the person on the receiving end of the argument feel aggrieved. Think of the abuse of copyright takedowns: online hosts already receive millions of these, more than they could possibly evaluate, and so we have a robo-takedown regime that lets the rich and powerful routinely remove material that puts them in an unflattering light.

As bad as that is, at least it makes censorship contingent on something specific and objective: copyright infringement, which has a wealth of caselaw defining its contours. Indeed, so much that you need to be a trained expert to adjudicate a claim of infringement. But at least you can objectively assess whether a copyright infringement has taken place.





The standard set by the proposed Italian law allows for purely subjective claims to be made, and for enormous penalties to be imposed on those who question them before undertaking sweeping acts of censorship.

Like any civil law, the proposed Italian law favours the rich and powerful, who have are better able to afford civil litigation  think of the notorious abuses of Britain's old libel laws, that shielded powerful, corrupt people for decades while they sexually abused children with impunity, an open secret that no one dared report upon.

What's more, the online outlets most likely to be in Italian jurisdiction are those that discuss Italian politics and civil society, meaning that this law will disproportionately affect speech of local, political interest, giving the rich and the powerful, the criminal and the corrupt, the unchecked power to simply remove material that offends them  without regard to whether the material is true or false.

Internet-savvy Italian deputy Stefano Quintarelli has proposed an amendment that makes the law marginally saner: under his amendment, failure to act on a censorship notice wouldn't automatically give rise to a fine; rather, it would make the person who ignored the complaint a party to any eventual civil penalty imposed by a court of law.

That is a step in the right direction, but it is really just a plaster over a gaping chasm of bad, reactionary lawmaking. The people who are genuinely aggrieved will continue to struggle for justice; the genuine bad actors (like revenge-porn sites) will continue with impunity out of Italian jurisdiction, and the rich and the powerful will get a force-multiplier for silencing their critics without meaningful penalties for abuse.

The Berlusconi years gave Italy a reputation for political chaos. In the post-Berlusconi era, we'd hoped for better. By seriously considering ideas as bad as this one, the Italian chamber of deputies continues to make Italian politics into a global joke.

PROPOSTA DI LEGGE

n. 3139 [SENATO DELLA REPUBBLICA]

SEDUTA DI GIOVEDI 15 SETTEMBRE 2016

PRESIDENZA DEL VICEPRESIDENTE LUIGI DI MAIO

INDI

DEL VICEPRESIDENTE SIMONE BALDELLI [Camera dei Deputati]
ACCRA, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama will address the United Nations (UN) General Assembly meeting on Sept. 21, a release form the presidency said Sunday.

The president left the country early Sunday for New York to attend the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly scheduled to open on Sept. 20.

Mahama, who is Co-Chair of the UN Advocacy Group on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will co-host a number of side events related to the successful implementation and advocacy for the SDGs.

Mahama will also co-host with the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Program a side event on "Pathways to Zero Hunger", added the release.

The president will also join other leaders at a U.S.-Africa Business Forum being organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

"President Mahama will hold bilateral meetings with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, President David Granger of Guyana, the Chief Executive of the Millenium Challenge Corporation and other organizations," the statement said. Enditem
DUBAI, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) urged Sunday its citizens who are currently staying in New York or will travel to the U.S. metropolis to exercise caution and avoid public places, following the explosion in the Chelsea area on Saturday.

In a tweet, the UAE embassy in Washington and the UAE consulate in New York said the Gulf Arab state's missions were following the events in New York "closely."

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said Saturday that there is "no evidence at this point of a terror connection" to an explosion in New York Saturday evening, in which 29 people were injured.

The mayor made the remarks at a news conference Saturday night, saying the real cause of the explosion is still under investigation.

Authorities said police are investigating the blast as a criminal act not immediately linked to any terror organization.

New York is a popular destination for Emirati businessmen, tourists and students. The two international UAE carriers Emirates Airline from Dubai and Etihad Airways from the UAE capital Abu Dhabi fly daily to New York.
Yu Zhengsheng (2nd R, rear), chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, meets with a delegation of county and city officials from Taiwan, in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 18, 2016. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng on Sunday met in Beijing with a delegation of county and city officials from Taiwan.



The delegation includes officials from New Taipei City and the counties of Hsinchu, Hualien, Taitung, Kinmen, Lienchiang, Miaoli and Nantou.

Yu praised the delegation's efforts to adhere to the political foundation of the 1992 Consensus, promote cross-Strait exchanges at county and city level, and maintain the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, "even against the backdrop of big changes in the situation."

Taiwan's current Democratic Progressive Party administration refuses to recognize the 1992 Consensus, which affirms that both sides of the Strait belong to one China.

According to Yu, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, this undermines the political foundation of cross-Strait relations, leading to a loss of trust and damaging previously amicable cross-Strait ties.

The halting of institutional communication has had a severe impact on relations that had proceeded well for eight years, and harmed the immediate interests of compatriots on both sides, especially those from Taiwan, said Yu, who is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

It is a situation that people on both sides would prefer never to have seen, he added.

Yu stressed that facing the new situation, the mainland will not change its policy toward Taiwan, including adherence to the 1992 Consensus. Any elaboration of the 1992 Consensus must not deny the historical facts nor change its core meaning, he said.

"Our standards and attitudes are consistent," Yu said, adding that cross-Strait institutional exchanges could resume as soon as Taiwan acknowledges the Consensus.

The mainland firmly opposes any form of Taiwan independence and will remain consistent with regard to national sovereignty and territorial integrity, Yu said.

"We will never tolerate secessionist activities in any form, neither radical Taiwan independence nor independence in a gradual or soft way," he said.

He also stressed the mainland's sincere resolution to pursue cooperation in various fields for benefit of all, mainlanders and islanders alike.

The more complex relations become, the more must be done in terms of exchanges, said Yu.

Whichever county or city in Taiwan recognizes the true nature of cross-Strait relations and county-level exchanges, and is willing to contribute to mutually beneficial ties, will be warmly received, he said.

EIGHT MEASURES TO PROMOTE EXCHANGES

The mainland will adopt eight measures to promote exchanges with the eight counties making up the delegation, according to Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office.

The mainland will:

-- welcome and support the counties to hold farm produce fairs on the mainland;

-- encourage mainland enterprises to visit the counties to discuss the purchase of agri-products;

-- support the counties promoting tour products to mainlanders;

-- promote cooperation on green industries, high-tech sectors, smart cities and other fields;

-- promote cross-Strait cultural and people-to-people exchanges;

-- promote youth exchange;

-- expand trade and personnel exchanges between coastal regions of Fujian Province, Kinmen and Matsu counties, and

-- support mainland departments in their contacts with Taiwanese counties and expand cooperation with regard to immediate concerns of the public.

Yu Zhengsheng said county-level exchanges should serve the big picture of cross-Strait relations, increasing benefits and strengthening the affection between the two sides.

County-level communication should support people-to-people exchanges, he said, adding that counties in Taiwan could strengthen cooperation with the mainland based on their own conditions and needs by making use of the mainland's resources and market.

The political advisor said he hoped for enhanced confidence, less interference and careful preservation of the positive results of cross-Strait relations in pursuit of the realization of a community of common destiny across the Strait.
LONDON, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Members of Britain's main opposition Labour Party have until noon on Wednesday to vote in a leadership battle that could determine the fate of the party.

Current leader Jeremy Corbyn remains the bookmaker's favorite to beat challenger, the Welsh MP Owen Smith.

In a last minute scramble to win the remaining votes among the more than 600,000 members entitled to take part in the ballot, both sides Sunday continued in the war of words.

Corbyn, according to mainstream media reports, says he will introduce reforms if he holds onto the leadership. This would mean grassroots members being involved in deciding party policy, as well as a shake-up in the way Labour's front bench is chosen.

According to the reports, Corbyn proposes one third of the front bench team elected by MPs, a third by himself and a third by the membership.

The leadership election was triggered after 172 of Labour MPs backed a vote of no-confidence in Corbyn as leader, with just 40 backing him. At the same time virtually all of his shadow cabinet members resigned.

Despite being estranged from his own MPs, Corbyn has gathered massive grass roots support.

Also being trailed Sunday is a television interview due to be aired Monday in which former Labour leader Neil Kinnock says that unless things in the party dramatically change, he doubts if he will see a Labour government in his lifetime.

Kinnock, who now sits in the House of Lords, is best known as the party leader who in the 1980s declared war on the so-called faction, Militant Tendency, an ultra left wing group that dominated the political landscape at that time.

Ironically the result of the leadership contest will be announced Saturday in Liverpool, the city famed as the flagship of Militant Tendency in the mid-1980s.

Kinnock has given a stark warning about the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn.

Kinnock in his interview adds that stretching back to the 1930s, the current situation is the greatest crisis that Labour has faced.

Reports also hit the Sunday papers claiming 25 percent of Labour MPs supported forming a new political party if Corbyn wins the election.

Many MPs fear they will face selection contests in their own constituencies in the run-up to the next general election, due in 2020.

Their concern is that with many of the hundreds of thousands of new party members backing Corbyn, the so-called Corbynistas, MPs who opposed their hero will be fired.

Momentum, a left-wing political organisation, was formed just weeks after Corbyn won the Labour leadership in a surprise, but landslide victory last September.

The group says it exists to strengthen the Labour Party by increasing participation and engagement at local, regional and national levels.

The growing activity of Momentum with local branches of the party has fuelled fears of long-serving MPs being rejected.

A number of anti-Corbyn Labour MPs also say they and their office staff have faced intimidation and threats during what has been described as the party's "civil war".

MP Angela Eagle, who deputised for Corbyn in the House of Commons before she resigned, was the first to challenge him for the leadership. She withdrew to pave the way for a single opponent, Owen Smith.

Eagle, MP for the constituency of Wallasey near Liverpool, says in recent months she has received numerous death threats, and her office was attacked by vandals.

Meanwhile the latest poll from YouGov this week shows the Conservatives are still way ahead Labour, but the gap has narrowed from 11 points to just seven. YouGov said in a general election taking place today 38 percent would vote Conservative, a drop of two percent, while 31 percent would back Labour, a rise of two percent.
A Yemeni woman inspects the damage on September 15, 2016 at a factory allegedly targeted by Saudi-led airstrikes in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. (AFP/Xinhua)

TEHRAN, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Sunday denied Saudi claims that Tehran was arming Yemeni opposition groups, Press TV reported.

The Saudi allegations about transporting arms into Yemen are "unfounded and undocumented," Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said in a statement.

On Sept. 14, a letter by Saudi Arabia to the UN Security Council alleged that Iran was transferring weapons to the Shiite Yemeni Houthi fighters in violation of UN Resolution 2216.

"Unsubstantiated claims can be seen in Saudi Arabia's letter, claims that no impartial body has ever been able to prove," the statement said.

"Saudi Arabia has, for over a year and a half, been involved in a full-scale, unequal war against the people of Yemen, and has perpetrated undeniable crimes against the country's defenseless civilians, children and women," it added.

In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition started airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, with Riyadh saying the move was aimed at restoring the legitimacy of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The UN Resolution 2216 orders Iran-backed Houthi militias to withdraw from capital Sanaa and all other cities, hand over weapons and release political prisoners before forming a new transitional government.

However, the Houthis and their allies, for their part, say that they represent the country's de facto rulers and urged to form a new transitional government before discussing withdrawal from cities and other topics.
KUNMING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- A delegation of national political advisors from Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), headed by former chief executive Edmund Ho Hau Wah, has discussed possible cooperation fields with officials in southwestern Yunnan Province.

The delegation of 40 members arrived in Kunming, capital of Yunnan, on Sunday, to begin a four-day visit.

Ho, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said Macao, which plans to become a global tourism and recreation center and a trade cooperation platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, is complementary with Yunnan Province in many fields.

Macao is willing to see the establishment of the southern Silk Road economic, tourism and cultural circle, which will help Macao expand development space, he said.
XINING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Six workers were killed and one is missing after a blast at a chemical plant in northwest China's Qinghai Province on Sunday.

The explosion occurred in a dust collection device at a cement production line belonging to Qinghai Salt Lake Haina Chemical Company when 26 workers were on site, said Liu Yunzhou, head of the administration commission of Ganhe Industrial Park in the Xining economic and technological development zone.

Two died on the spot and 12 others were injured. Four of the injured later died in hospital. The other eight are receiving treatment and are described as stable.

Search for the missing worker continues. The cause of the accident is being investigated.

The company started production in 2013 with a daily capacity of 2,500 tonnes of cement.
Syrian Mohammed Ibrahim (L) and Abu Majd distil melted plastic in a barrel as part of a refining process to produce fuel on September 10, 2016, in Aleppo's rebel-held eastern district of Sakhur. (AFP/Xinhua)

DAMASCUS, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Warplanes struck several neighborhoods of the northern city of Aleppo Sunday, the first in Aleppo since a nationwide ceasefire went into effect last Monday, a monitor group reported.

At least one woman was killed when the airstrikes targeted the rebel-held areas of Sakhour, Karm al-Jabal and Karm al-Baik, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The airstrikes were the first in Aleppo, since the city enjoyed a relative calm following the implementation of a U.S.-Russian brokered truce in Syria.

Earlier in the day, Syria's national TV said tens of civilians evacuated the rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo city, as part of a renewed government call on civilians and armed men to leave the besieged rebel-held areas in Aleppo.

The U.S.-Russian ceasefire deal is threatened with a recent escalation between Washington and Moscow, after the U.S.-led airstrikes killed 90 Syrian soldiers in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, the first U.S. strike to target government forces since the coalition started operations in Syria in late 2014.
TEHRAN, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian minister of roads and urban development said Sunday that the financial obstacles imposed by the United States against the Islamic republic discourage the aircraft producers to sell the passenger planes to Iran, official IRNA news agency reported.

Iran has no serious problem in providing the required funds for the purchase of passenger planes, and it can keep the negotiations with the producers of the aircrafts to the end, Abbas Akhoundi told an aviation meeting in the capital Tehran.

On Sunday, the meeting named Iran Aviation Finance Summit kicked off at Imam Khomeini International Airport to seek financial solutions to the country's international aircraft deals.

In the two-day summit, business and financial representatives of 150 aviation companies, banks, airport operators, investors and infrastructure developers will explore financial solutions for purchasing passenger planes and developing aviation infrastructure, Press TV reported.

According to the report, Iran has placed orders with Airbus and Boeing to buy 200 passenger planes worth some 50 billion U.S. dollars, but the country has difficulties in financing because major international banks are reluctant to process the transactions for fear of possible penalties from the United States.

"All the necessary institutions for global competition in the aviation sector are taking shape in the country," and Iran is eager to expand its aviation sector, Akhoundi told the meeting.

Any negotiations with the plane producers depend on a much-delayed move by the U.S. Treasury Department to lift restrictions in deals with the Islamic republic, said Akhoundi.

Tehran hopes the U.S. Treasury Department would soon facilitate purchase of planes by the country, the Iranian minister was quoted as saying by Press TV.

The strong participation by aviation companies in the meeting shows that all businesses in this industry want the United States to move ahead with approving sales of planes to Iran, he added.

On Sunday, Iran's Deputy Roads and Urban Development Minister Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan said in the meeting that the U.S. Treasury Department will soon approve licenses for Airbus and Boeing to provide the Islamic republic with the planes, Press TV reported.

"We are expecting the approval (by the U.S. Treasury Department) by the end of September," Fakhrieh was quoted as saying.

Any failure by the United States to approve the licenses would breach a nuclear deal that Iran sealed with the world powers last year, he stressed.

The deal, reached between Iran and world powers in July last year to settle the former's controversial nuclear program, was implemented in January.

The deal makes Iran scrap major part of its nuclear program in return for the removal of Western and international sanctions.

The United States has still its sanction on Iran over the alleged violations of human rights and support for terrorism, which Iran denies.

Also, Washington has recently blacklisted some Iranian and foreign entities for being involved in Iran's missile program.

In addition, Since January, the U.S. Congress has made it clear that those sanctions are there to stay. These restrictions bar American companies from doing business with the Iranian government or with any entity that has links to Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

Besides, U.S. financial institutions are barred from dollar transactions involving Iran, a major hurdle for all global companies, since countless transactions pass through a U.S. financial intermediary at some point.

These continued restrictions have raised concerns among the international companies that they could fall victim of the U.S. law if they invest in Iran.

The average age of Iran's aviation fleet stands at 22 years, and Iran needs to purchase new planes, deputy director of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization (CAO), Mohammad Khodakarami, said earlier.

Iran has announced its need for about 400 passenger planes in the next decade to modernize its aging fleet.

Experts said the U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iran over the past years, which prevented its allies from selling aircraft or aircraft parts to the country, have undermined safety standards within Iran's civil and military aviation fleet with the likelihood of further air disasters.
MANILA, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Sunday that his administration needs another six months to win the war against drug-related crimes in the country.

"I never realized the (illegal drug) problem is this big," Duterte said when he presented a freed Norwegian hostage who had been released a day ago from captivity by the Abu Sayyaf bandits.

"Just give me a little extension of maybe another six months," the Philippine president said.

Duterte, who assumed presidency on June 30, has vowed to solve the problem of rampant criminality and illegal drug trade in the country in six months.

But he admitted for the first time on Sunday that in spite of his administration's relentless and sustained war against drug-related crimes, the six-month deadline he imposed on himself is not enough.

The initial self-imposed deadline to curb illegal drugs will end in December.

According to Philippine police, nearly 3,000 people have been killed in police anti-drug operations and extrajudicial killings in the past more than two months.

Philippine police have so far carried out 18,500 operations to arrest suspected drug users and pushers, which have resulted in the arrest of 17,528 suspects.

More than 700,000 users and pushers have already "surrendered," including local officials, rogue policemen, military generals whom Duterte included in his long list of drug users, pushers and protectors.
BELGRADE, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Around 1,000 people took part in a parade here on Sunday to show their support to the rights of the LGBT group in Serbia.

Sunday's event marks the fourth parade of its kind in Serbia and the third year in a row for organizers to host such an event since 2014.

Under tight security measures, supporters and activists of LGBT(lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights marched around one kilometer from Slavija Square in Belgrade to the main Republic Square, waving rainbow flags, dancing and singing.

Organizers claim the parade, under the theme "Love Changes the World" this year, has finally managed to become part of regular life of the Serbian capital city and the atmosphere was significantly better than in the past.

Boban Stojanovic, one of the organizers of the parade, said fewer police officers were showing up during the parade this year, compared with that of previous years. The goal of the organizers was to ensure the event to "become the lifeblood of the city," he said.

"We want to believe that our decade-long relationships to be legalized and that we have the same rights enjoyed by others - the right to health care and inheritance, the right to make decisions in case of sickness of our partners... because we are family," said Stojanovic.

After two unsuccessful attempts in organizing the Pride Parade respectively in 2001 and 2004 due to security issues, LGBT activists organized their first parade in 2010 which was marked by heavy violence between anti-LGBT protesters and police.

From 2011 to 2013, the parade was canceled due to negative security assessment while since 2014 it has been organized regularly under heavy police presence.

This time around 5,000 policemen were sent to protect participants of the parade, who walked through the Belgrade downtown. The parade area was surrounded by armored cars, horse brigades, and officers equipped with heavy anti-demonstration equipment. Helicopters were also used to monitor the security situation during the parade.

During the event, activists spent one minute in silence in the middle of their route in order to pay respect to the LGBT community across the world. They also welcomed activists from Turkey to attend the Belgrade Pride Parade.

Several arrests were made while there were also small groups of people protest against the parade. However, there was no big incidents and the event ended peacefully at the Republic Square with concerts by Serbian pop stars and DJs.

Ana Brnabic, minister of local self-government who has revealed her LGBT orientation in public, and Belgrade mayor Sinisa Mali were present at the parade. Meanwhile, chief of the European Union delegation to Serbia Michael Davenport and ambassadors from the United States, Germany and Italy also attended the event.

By organizing the parade, Serbia sends a positive message about its efforts to respect human rights, said Davenport.

Brnabic said there is a major breakthrough when it comes to LGBT rights, as proved by the presence of government and city officials,

"Raising the level of tolerance in our society is the number one priority," she said. Enditem
by William M. Reilly

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 200 VIPs and diplomats descended on New York for a Climate Summit and the annual General Debate in the UN General Assembly on Sunday in the echo of heated accusations between Russia and the United States over Syria and a mysterious explosion only a few kilometers away in a crowded neighborhood of New York City.

The Saturday night blast in the popular Chelsea neighborhood, injuring 29 people, one seriously, was not believed a terrorist attack, officials said.

Some of the leading topics expected to be discussed in the 71st General Assembly session this week include Syria, its refugees and migration, as well as other Middle East hot spots, conflicts in Africa and Asia, the missile launches and nuclear tests of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, UN reform, selection of the next secretary-general and terrorism.

Scores more of topics will be discussed in the 1,100 bi-lateral private meetings between nations requested, said conference officials.

"Eighty-six heads of state signed up for the General Debate, 1 crown prince, 5 vice presidents, 48 heads of government, 51 ministers and three observers, for a total of 195, which is two more than last year," Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, told reporters last week. He said 545 meetings have been requested, including side events and regular meetings

Ban, who retires on Dec. 31 after serving two five-year-terms, has more than 120 bi-lateral meetings scheduled and will participate in 62 events, said Dujarric.

In a light-hearted moment during a usually all-too-serious briefing, considering global conflicts and tragedies, the spokesman said diplomatic "rock stars" were joining the usual host of ambassadors on hand in a sort of a UN "fashion week," an apparent reference to the VIPs -- some in national dress -- arriving on the heels of New York's recent Fashion Week.

This high-profile week -- complete with high security tying up foot, road and maritime traffic on Manhattan's East Side -- follows the "intentional" Chelsea explosion just over three kilometers away in a busy West Side neighborhood. There were no claims of responsibility.

The blast occurred about an hour after a 7:30 pm EDT (0030 GMT Sunday) emergency Security Council session on Syria called for by Russia following reports U.S. aircraft attacked Syrian government forces, killing more than 60 people.

Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the world body, said it was an accident and apologized, adding that Russia calling for the meeting was a "stunt" since it hadn't called for any emergency meetings for attacks by the Damascus government on civilians in the 5-year old conflict.

Ambassador Vitaly Churkin of Russia called her remarks "demagoguery."

The heated exchange came during a troubled 7-day humanitarian "cessation of hostilities" in Syria worked out between Russia and the United States. It was hoped that accord could lead to further cooperation, possibly worked out while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry were in New York for the UN meetings.

Humanity deliveries had been delayed by lack of sufficient security assurances, UN officials said.

The week of meetings at UN headquarters on the banks of Manhattan's East River get into full swing Monday morning with a first-ever General Assembly summit on refugees and migrants.

UN officials say there are 65 million refugees -- those fleeing to safe ground from strife in there home countries -- and economic migrants, the most since World War II, officials said. Most refugees are from Syria, flowing into neighboring lands and many attempting to flee to countries they attempt to settle in, in Europe.

This massive flow has triggered xenophobia in several nations where refugees and migrants land.

Now the assembly is taking up the topic at the highest level for a better international response.

President Barack Obama of the United States was scheduled to arrive from Washington for the summit. As with the secretary-general, it will be Obama's last General Debate while in office. Obama's second four-year term ends Jan. 20, 2017.

A Security Council diplomat said the 15-country peace and security body is trying to find a way of helping neighboring countries aid refugees from next-door conflict states so that they can return home more easily when peace resumes.

A declaration is expected to come out of the one-day session as well as the formal "marrying" into the UN family by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi. The IOM is an intergovernmental agency that arose from the ashes of WWII and is now headed up by former U.S. Ambassador William Swing.

Tuesday will be the official opening of the General Debate whose official theme is "The Sustainable Development Goals: A Universal Push to Transform our World," referring to the 2030 global goals adopted last year.

After Ban's welcoming remarks, Brazil, by tradition, is the first country allowed to take the green marble podium in the cavernous hall. Next on the list, by wit of being the host country for UN headquarters, is the United States, represented by Obama.

Wednesday will see a high-level conclave on the margins of the General Debate on anti-microbial resistance (AMR). Officials say the problem is one of the biggest threats to global health and endangers other major priorities, such as human development. The health problem stems from increasing resistance by micro-organisms to antibiotics because of over use of anti-microbial drugs.

The same day, Ban will also push for countries to deposit their instruments of accession to the climate agreement reached last year in Paris. Notably, the two greatest emitters of pollutants in the world, China and the United States have already done so.

After taking his oath of office last week the new president of the 71st session of the General Assembly (PGA), Ambassador Peter Thomson of Fiji, called two grand-daughters, five and seven years old, to his side and expressed the hope because of action in the assembly the world will be a safer place for them when they become young adults.

The General Debate is expected to last, with next Sunday off, until Monday morning Sept. 26.
JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- South African Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said on Sunday that she is receiving full cooperation from all parties in her investigation into the alleged "state capture" by the Indian Gupta family.

This was contained in a letter Madonsela wrote to the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) after it had requested a progress report.

Madonsela is investigating if the wealthy Gupta family influenced President Jacob Zuma in the appointment of cabinet ministers and deputy ministers.

Deputy Minister of Finance Mcebisi Jonas and former African National Congress (ANC) legislator, Vytjie Mentor, alleged that they were offered cabinet posts by the Gupta family on condition that they give them business deals in the future. The Guptas have rejected the allegations.

Madonsela said, "I can confirm that the investigation is proceeding and that I am receiving full cooperation from most parties involved. I have been provided various voluminous information and documentation for review."

Madonsela said that because of the nature of the investigation, she could not provide any progress report into the findings since she is still in the process of conducting the investigation.

"I have consulted numerous witnesses and interested parties and I am continuing to interview several people," she said.

In July this year, the Public Protector received funding of 1.5 million rand (about 107,143 U.S. dollars) from the National Treasury to assist her in this investigation into alleged improper and unethical conduct by Zuma and officials of state organs due to their inappropriate relationship with the Gupta family. She had requested 3 million rand (214,286 dollars).

Madonsela started the investigation when a group of Catholic priests and brothers, the Dominican Order of Southern Africa, asked her to do so.

DA leader Mmusi Maimane on Sunday welcomed the public pronouncement by Madonsela.

Maimane said he requested Mandosela to also investigate if the president put himself in any situation involving the risk of a conflict between his official responsibilities and his private interests.

Maimane said the DA wants a probe into allegations that Zuma used his position or any information entrusted to him, to enrich himself or improperly benefit any other person.

"The Democratic Alliance remains committed to ensuring that corruption in all its manifestations is investigated and that those found to be robbing the people of opportunities are held accountable," Maimane said.

The Gupta family, which came to the country in the early 90s, are involved in the mining, media, information technology and other sectors. They have stated that they are innocent and all their business deals are clean and were conducted in a proper way.
David Nabarro, special adviser on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, delivers a speech during a joint high-level symposium on 2030 Agenda in Nyingchi, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 30, 2016. The theme of the symposium is "Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Through an Equitable, Open, All-around and Innovative Approach". (Xinhua/Liu Dongjun)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- China has committed a real and considered effort to tackle a set of global goals for sustainable development to end poverty, inequality and combat climate change, said David Nabarro, UN special adviser on 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The UN-facilitated 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by world leaders one year ago. It outlines 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), aiming to guide the world to pursue economic and social progress while protecting the environment.

Recalling his work with different Chinese authorities, Nabarro said he was impressed by the attention being given to the importance of environmental factors in development by the Chinese government.

Within China's national development plan, known as the 13th Five-Year Plan, the Chinese government has prioritized the environment and has decided it will pursue development through a low carbon pathway, he noted.

"China has also recognized the importance of the equality dimension," he said, adding that he has been working with the Chinese government to address the challenge of how to help the less well-off population to come forward for development.

On implementing the sustainable development goals, Nabarro said it requires action by nations working together. "You can't just approach the SDGs from a single nation perspective."

He said global challenges like climate change, public health and ocean protection need to be tackled "with different nations coming together, finding common purpose and working together for the future."

"It's all nations, sometimes we call it working for global public goods," he added.

Mentioning that both China and the United States ratified the Paris Agreement earlier in September, he called it a "real milestone" as the international community is moving ahead strongly in priority areas like climate change through cooperation.

In addition, Nabarro said new technologies are also required to involve people's participation in earning progress on the sustainable development goals.

He said the use of technology is important for engaging all sections of society, including all levels of governments, businesses and civil society organizations, in promoting sustainable development.

To illustrate, Nabarro noted Tencent, a renowned Chinese Internet company, through which he has seen progress through social media to make certain that there can be greater people's involvement by using cell phones and other techniques.

He also said by working with Alibaba, China's biggest online commerce company, he has seen how the involvement of small and medium enterprises in sustainable development can be transformative.

In this regard, he called for educating more people about the SDGs through new technologies so that a wider population can play a role in their implementation.
Photo taken on July 22, 2016 shows a high-speed train driving past fields in Tianyang County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Wei Wanzhong)

by Xinhua writer Shuai Rong

BRUSSELS, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- China has the power to lead on structural economic reform which is necessary across the globe, an European expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Center for International Political Economy said China and the other G20 members are right to call for much more structural economic reform which is necessary across the globe during the two-day Hangzhou G20 summit.

The expert said he believed that G20 summits are "opportunities for world leaders to understand each other and learn how countries react to different events."

"China made the right call to focus this summit on growth and the need to revive innovation, productivity, trade and economic growth, but the lasting effect of the summit will probably be that leaders had an occasion to speak to each other at an extraordinary difficult time for the world economy and world politics," Erixon said.

The world economy is in a structural slow down, driven by falling levels of trade growth and low energy levels in most leading economies, he said.

"Many Western economies are now confronted with a bitter economic reality, which two decades of rapid trade growth had masked -- their economies lack underlying strength and productivity growth has been on a downward trend for 40 years," said Erixon.

In his opinion, the global economy is now being held up by extraordinary support from central banks and governments running fiscal deficits, "but that is not sustainable."

Changing that direction, which requires far more innovation and economic dynamism, is not easy, and "no political leader face opinions and electorates that are desiring structural economic reforms," he told Xinhua.

"If you add to that the risk of forthcoming elections in Europe and America to electing populists, it is easy to see how a perfect storm may hit the world economy in 2017," he added.

The structural reform which is necessary across the globe won't emerge because of summit discussions and communiques, Erixon said. "The challenge is to deliver the reform, especially as they challenge incumbent interests in many countries," he added.

"China has strong power to lead on these issues -- to be an exemplar to other countries, showing that growth can be revitalised," the expert concluded.
BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday that the presence of the Turkish troops near the Iraqi northern city of Mosul is hampering the efforts to free the major stronghold of Islamic State (IS) militants in the city.

"What I want to confirm is that the presence of the Turkish forces on the Iraqi territories is hampering our efforts to eliminate Daesh (IS group)," Abadi told reporters at a press conference in Baghdad.

"If Turkey is serious in fighting Daesh, then they have to withdraw its forces from Iraq," Abadi said, adding "but Turkey is not willing to end its military presence, and is ignoring the principle of violating the sovereignty of Iraq as an independent country."

Earlier, Iraq said Turkish forces had entered Iraqi territory without the knowledge of Baghdad, which viewed their presence as a "hostile act."

However, the Turkish government said that withdrawing Turkish troops from Iraq is out of the question and the Turkish soldiers are in Iraq as part of a training mission.

The deployment of the Turkish troops in Iraq, however, has caused a row between Turkey and Iraq as the latter claimed the presence of Turkish troops to the camp was violation of the country's sovereignty.

However, Abadi said Iraq has no problem with the people and the government of Turkey, "but we have problem with the (Turkish) mentality that deals with the relations between the two countries."

"Turkey has to know that Iraq, as neighboring country, wants to hold ties built on common interests, but sending those troops (in northern Iraq) is poisoning the relations between the two countries," Abadi said.

As for the long-awaited battle to free Mosul from IS extremist militants, Abadi said, the Iraqi government is committed to the timetable of plans that aimed at liberating Mosul.

Abadi did not say whether the predominantly Shiite paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units would participate in the battle of the Sunni city of Mosul.

"The national interest of Iraq and the nature of the battle will determine which forces would involve in the battle of Mosul, whether it will be Hashd Shaabi units, army, anti-terrorism, or federal police," Abadi said.

He said there are some priorities in the battle to liberate Mosul, including implementing well-prepared plans in order to reduce the casualties among the troops as well as the civilians and their property.

Iraqi security forces have been fighting IS militants around Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, as part of a major offensive targeting liberating the IS stronghold in Mosul, the capital of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh.

Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, has been under the IS control for more than two years, when the extremist group took control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014. Enditem
An Iraqi man walks near smoke billowing from oil wells, set ablaze by Islamic State (IS) group militants before fleeing the oil-producing region of Qayyarah, on August 30, 2016. (AFP/Xinhua)

BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday that the presence of the Turkish troops near the Iraqi northern city of Mosul is hampering the efforts to free the major stronghold of Islamic State (IS) militants in the city.

"What I want to confirm is that the presence of the Turkish forces on the Iraqi territories is hampering our efforts to eliminate Daesh (IS group)," Abadi told reporters at a press conference in Baghdad.

"If Turkey is serious in fighting Daesh, then they have to withdraw its forces from Iraq," Abadi said, adding "but Turkey is not willing to end its military presence, and is ignoring the principle of violating the sovereignty of Iraq as an independent country."

Earlier, Iraq said Turkish forces had entered Iraqi territory without the knowledge of Baghdad, which viewed their presence as a "hostile act."

However, the Turkish government said that withdrawing Turkish troops from Iraq is out of the question and the Turkish soldiers are in Iraq as part of a training mission.

The deployment of the Turkish troops in Iraq, however, has caused a row between Turkey and Iraq as the latter claimed the presence of Turkish troops to the camp was violation of the country's sovereignty.

However, Abadi said Iraq has no problem with the people and the government of Turkey, "but we have problem with the (Turkish) mentality that deals with the relations between the two countries."

"Turkey has to know that Iraq, as neighboring country, wants to hold ties built on common interests, but sending those troops (in northern Iraq) is poisoning the relations between the two countries," Abadi said.

As for the long-awaited battle to free Mosul from IS extremist militants, Abadi said, the Iraqi government is committed to the timetable of plans that aimed at liberating Mosul.

Abadi did not say whether the predominantly Shiite paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units would participate in the battle of the Sunni city of Mosul.

"The national interest of Iraq and the nature of the battle will determine which forces would involve in the battle of Mosul, whether it will be Hashd Shaabi units, army, anti-terrorism, or federal police," Abadi said.

He said there are some priorities in the battle to liberate Mosul, including implementing well-prepared plans in order to reduce the casualties among the troops as well as the civilians and their property.

Iraqi security forces have been fighting IS militants around Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, as part of a major offensive targeting liberating the IS stronghold in Mosul, the capital of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh.

Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, has been under the IS control for more than two years, when the extremist group took control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.
Investigators are seen near the blast site in New York, U.S., Sept. 18, 2016. All 29 people wounded in Saturday's blast in New York City were released from hospitals, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday at a news conference on the explosion. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

NEW YORK, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- New York City will deploy "bigger than ever" police presence during the upcoming UN General Assembly week after an explosion injured 29 on Saturday evening, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday.

"You will see a very substantial NYPD presence this week, bigger than ever," de Blasio told reporters at a press conference on the explosion.

Police officers will be deployed in force in key public locations around the United Nations headquarters and the Times Square, including the newer units of Critical Response Command and Strategic Response Group, said de Blasio.

The city will also see an increased bag search and canine activities throughout the mass transit systems, said city officials.

At the press conference, the mayor said all 29 people wounded in Saturday's blast were released from hospitals and the motivation behind the explosion remains unknown.

He termed the Saturday blast which occurred around 8:30 p.m. Saturday EDT (0030 GMT Sunday)) in the popular Chelsea district in west 23rd street, Manhattan, "a very serious incident", saying a lot more work needs to be done to find out the motivation behind the blast.

He called the blast an "intentional" and "criminal" act. However, he declined to call the blast a terrorist attack. "We'll not jump to conclusions," he said.

A second explosive device was found a few blocks near the explosion site.

The mayor noted there was no specific and credible threat against the city, calling for the vigilance of New Yorkers and asked for tips and information from the public.

He also said there was no specific evidence of connection between the New York explosion and a New Jersey pipe bomb blast, which happened on Saturday along the route of a Marines charity run, causing no injuries or damage.

Meanwhile, New York City Police Commissioner James O'Neill said at the press conference that no one has claimed responsibility for the New York explosion, which he categorized as a "violent criminal act".

City officials confirmed that the explosion in the popular Chelsea neighborhood was caused by a bomb with "components indicative of an IED", not an accident.

New York police are beefing up extra security at bus terminals, airports and on subways in the city for the UN General Assembly week.

In an earlier press briefing, New York State Governer Andrew Cuomo also said the state will be deploying an additional 1,000 state troopers and members of the National Guard throughout New York City.

The suspects and motives were still unknown, and investigations were still in early stages, according to city officials.

Also on Saturday night, a man wearing a private security company uniform stabbed nine people at a mall in St. Cloud, 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Minneapolis, the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota, before an off-duty police officer shot him dead.

Three of the nine victims were hospitalized, one with life-threatening injures, local police said on Sunday at a news conference.

The Islamic radical group ISIS has claimed responsibility for the mall stabbing attack, CNN reported on Sunday.

The U.S. Federal Bureau Investigation has investigated the Minnesota stabbings as a "potential" act of terrorism.

CNN cited a police chief in St. Cloud as saying that there was no evidence at this point of a link between the New York blast and the mall stabbing spree.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (1st L) and his wife Cheng Hong (2nd L) arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the United States, Sept. 18, 2016. Premier Li Keqiang will attend the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

NEW YORK, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived here Sunday to attend the 71st session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly.

China is an active supporter of all causes of the UN, and strongly defends the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and actively participates in the work of the UN as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Li said.



China is willing to work with all sides to make contributions to better address global challenges and promote world peace and development, the premier said upon his arrival.

Li, accompanied by his wife Cheng Hong and senior Chinese officials, arrived in New York as guest of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

During his stay in the city, the premier will outline China's stance on major issues including international order, global governance, and peace and development, while addressing the general debate of the UN General Assembly.

The premier is also expected to announce China's pragmatic measures to support the UN's endeavor and cope with global challenges.

Li is also scheduled to chair a symposium on sustainable development, attend the UN General Assembly's high level meeting on solving the problem of mass movement of refugees and immigrants, and a leaders' summit on refugee issues.

The premier's attendance at the UN General Assembly is one of China's major diplomatic events in the multilateral arena this year and shows that China values the UN and multilateralism, Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong said Wednesday in Beijing.

"China hopes to take the premier's UN tour as an opportunity to strengthen communication with other sides and underline the basic norms of international relations. The international community should jointly establish a new international order with cooperation and reciprocity at its core," Li Baodong told a press conference.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the restoration of China's seat in the United Nations.

On the sidelines of the UN conferences, the premier will meet with Ban and hold talks with some state leaders.

During his stay in New York, the premier is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, and meet local figures in the fields of economy, finance, think tanks and media, and attend events held by institutions including the Economic Club of New York.

After concluding his tour in New York, Li will leave for official visits to Canada and Cuba.

During the upcoming visit to Canada, the first by a Chinese premier in 13 years, Li and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will hold talks to promote bilateral relations.

Cuba, the first country in Latin America to establish diplomatic ties with China, is the last stop of Li's visit. It will be the first official visit by a Chinese premier since the two countries established diplomatic ties 56 years ago.




ADEN, Yemen, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's internationally recognized President Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi issued Sunday a decree to sack the board of the central bank and relocated it to the country's temporary capital Aden, the government-run Saba News agency reported.

According to Saba, Hadi appointed former finance minister Monasser Al Quaiti as the new central bank governor, moving the entire bank from the Houthi-controlled Sanaa to Aden province.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni President Hadi also issued slew of decrees appointing new ministers and government officials.

Sources close to the Shiite Houthi group in Sanaa said that they won't accept moving central bank to Aden and a new government will be formed in Sanaa soon.

The situation in Yemen has deteriorated economically and politically since March 2015, when war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.

Houthis and Saleh's forces hold most of Yemen's northern regions while government forces backed by Saudi-led military coalition share control of the rest of the country including seven southern provinces.

The civil war, ground battles and airstrikes have already killed more than 6,400 people, half of them civilians, injured more than 35,000 others and displaced over two millions, according to humanitarian agencies. Enditem
A teacher conduct her class under an improvised shelter in the Northern Province of Cameroon on September 16, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / REINNIER KAZE)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday hailed a plan for the largest expansion of education opportunity in history, describing education as "the most powerful investment we can make in the future; a fundamental driver of personal, national and global development."

The statement came as the secretary-general was speaking at the launch of a report by the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity.

"The report launched today sets out a plan for the largest expansion of education opportunity in history," Ban noted. "It is a roadmap to creating the Learning Generation."

"The report points to education as the most powerful investment we can make in the future; a fundamental driver of personal, national and global development," he said.

"It makes the case for investment in education as a prerequisite for economic growth, sustainable development and global stability," he said.

The report -- The Learning Generation: Investing in Education for a Changing World -- noted that without an urgent increase in education investments by national governments, children in low-income countries will remain trapped in intergenerational cycles of poverty and be left without the skills and knowledge they need to contribute to their societies and economies when they reach adulthood.

More than 1.5 billion adults will have no education beyond primary school in 2030, according to the report.

"The international community must be ready to support countries that commit to making the reforms and investments needed to transform their education systems," Ban said.

"At a time of multiple global crises, the crisis in education is eminently solvable," he said.

When more than 250 million children are out of school, and another 330 million children are failing to achieve the most basic learning outcomes, he said, "we cannot hope to achieve the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development."

The 2030 Agenda was approved in September 2015 as the blueprint for the global development efforts for the next 15 years.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on inclusive and equitable quality education is a catalyst, Ban noted, adding that an accelerator that will turbo-charge progress on the other 16 goals and deliver for people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnerships.

"But if current trends continue, we will not achieve universal primary education until 2042, and upper secondary education until 2084," he said. "We will miss SDG4 by half a century."

Meanwhile, Ban said, "Education is the key to preventing the spread of poisonous ideologies and violent extremism."

"The extremists and terrorists know this," he said. "That is why they have repeatedly attacked schools: in Kenya, in Pakistan, in Nigeria. They fear children, and particularly girls, with books."

Investment in high-quality education that promotes critical thinking and universal values is a key element of my Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism, he said.

Furthermore, education is a human right and a universal good, he said.

When the United Nations conducted the global survey that led to the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the world body asked the world's people what mattered most to them, he said.

Seven million people took part in the survey, he said. "More than five million of them said education was their top priority."

"For too long, quality education has been accessible to the privileged few in our world," he added. "Our world is not prosperous, if it is too poor to educate its children."
Living Gospel Equality Now: Loving in the Heart of God: Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests
South, Central cops seize guns

Police also seized 46 rounds of assorted ammunition and 51 grammes of marijuana .

A 36-year-old man of Peter Trace, La Romaine has been charged with possession of the 9 mm pistol with 12 rounds of ammunition. He was arrested when officers of the Tableland Police Station stopped the car he was driving and carried out a search. Officers found the loaded weapon and a bag containing a further 19 rounds of ammunition .

PC Tyson laid the charge .

The Glock 19 pistol with 15 rounds of ammunition were recovered by officers who were on mobile patrol along Monty Street, Marabella and saw a man, known to them, drop a bag and run off .

Police are searching for the suspect. The exercise included Insp Gajadhar, Sgt Lewis, PCs Rampersad, Ramdhanie, Khalli and Valentine .

And in a separate exercise in Central Trinidad, police report that last Monday, at about 10 pm, PCs Bowen and Poonwasie were on mobile patrol along Main Road, Montrose when they observed a white AD Wagon with three occupants acting suspiciously. The officers caused the vehicle to stop and conducted a search and seized a black .38 revolver with four rounds of ammunition and a black Walther .22 pistol with five rounds of ammunition .

Three suspects identified as a 22-year-old man of Parbatia Trace, Chase Village, Chaguanas, and his accomplices, 27, and, 34, both from La Quasa Road, Freeport were arrested and are assisting with enquires into other gun-related crimes as police said the men were wanted for armed robberies in Central and East Trinidad .

Officers believe the men were at the time on their way to carry out a crime. PC Poonwasie is continuing investigations .
Victims must speak out

Yesterday, the 35-year-old mother of two said she had since learned the man had a pattern of approaching girls and encouraged them to step forward and speak out.

The concerned woman said since she shared the mans picture on social media, she has learnt her daughter was not his first victim.

This must never happen again, the infuriated mother told Sunday Newsday yesterday.

I have been told and have also been reading comments on social media that it is not the first time. This seem to be something ongoing, so I am asking members of the public, anyone who he may have interfered with already, whether physical or verbal, in whatever way, to please come forward and talk about it so we can build an even stronger case for him to stay in there (locked up) longer. The woman and relatives captured the 29-year-old man when he showed up at her home in Central Trinidad last Thursday night thinking her would be meeting her daughter.

Her daughter reported the man to her when she travelled home as a passenger in his PH taxi after school.

He had asked the girl to give him her cell number and she did so to appease him so he would let her out of the car. The man began sending WhatsApp messages to the girls number but the replies he received where not from her but from her mother pretending to be the girl. He made his way to the womans house and was nabbed and beaten before being turned over to the police.

Up to yesterday, the suspect remained in police custody at the Chaguanas Police Station as investigations continued into allegations made against him.

Sunday Newsday understands he is expected to be charged for entering the womans home even as investigators review whether he can be charged for offences under the Childrens Act.

After the incident, the woman circulated photos of him on social media.

His picture is out there, her mother said.

If only more people can come forward so that he can be charged accordingly.

This cannot be the first time he has done this because you take baby steps in this kind of action. For him to actually come back the said day to the girls premises, shows that this is not the first time.

(He) accustom doing this thing. She said she learned the man operated the car as a taxi for a woman, and plied the Chaguanas/ Enterprise and Chaguanas/Longdenville routes.

As for those who chastised her for exposing the suspect on social media, the Chaguanas mother said she will not be fazed.

I cannot be bothered with the negative comments because at the end of the day, my childs safety is my only concern. All we are concerned about is seeing that justice is done and that no family has our experience. Her dad is standing behind our action 100 percent and we want to see something come out of this. She said the experience has been very traumatic and she would be seeking counselling for her daughter.
Island dump!

However, Planning Minister Camille Robinson-Regis admitted that although the volunteers worked hard, the garbage collected was just the tip of the iceberg and their efforts had not made much of a difference. She noted one water course on the island was covered with so many plastic bottles and bags that the water could not be seen.

She said she hoped the cleanup brought awareness to the public on making sure the environment stayed clean, especially when it concerned plastic as it does not decay, and to start a national movement.

So we are asking people when they come and enjoy the beaches, to take away they garbage with them, take away the plastics, dont just leave them on the coast. Its really a terrible state, she said.

Robinson-Regis told members of the media the ministry intended to work with the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) on patrolling the islands regularly to ensure persons take their garbage with them, as well as to find a way to bring heavy equipment to do extensive clean up of the islands.

A camper on Chacachacare Island told Sunday Newsday he was disgusted with how dirty it was, especially because it was citizens of the country who left it in that state. He added he and his group of friends from San Francique Jamaat in Penal had to clean up their area before they could set up to spend the day.

He stressed that the group brought their own garbage bags and made sure to use it. I would suggest that everybody who visits here take back their garbage with them because there is no disposal here. But its a beautiful place so people should really keep it clean, he said.

One young volunteer from Macoya, John-Paul Mollineaux, said the reason he chose to help at that location was because he frequented Chacachacare Island and the last time he visited there was too much garbage about.

I have been attending International Coastal Clean Up Day for the past two years because I know how important it is to preserve our environment, especially on our beautiful islands.

I think what we did made a difference but it needs continuous clean up after this, with someone coming to collect the garbage on all the islands at least once per week, he added.

Tamika Perkins with the CDA Dragon Boat Team said she volunteered because she liked to help others and the environment.

Sometimes you really feel as if you are wasting your time but someone has to do it. Also when you see the vast improvement of the place, that is its own reward, she said.

One volunteer suggested the CDA place plastic bag dispensers and large bins on the island for people to throw the bags in when they leave, as well as a governing unit to ensure the dispenser was stocked and to collect the garbage.

However she also noted that there were signs throughout the island discouraging littering, but there was no enforcement, which she said, was essential if any plans were to work.

The Environmental Management Authority also had teams cleaning up the Caroni Swamp and yesterday said volunteers collected 516 pounds of debris (104 lbs glass, 149 lbs plastic and 262 lbs general waste).

Local volunteers also headed to Las Cuevas, Manzanilla and other coastal areas to help clear away garbage.
OSHA: Arouca Govt school a fire risk

I am really hoping that the problem could be rectified in a day or two because contractors are already on the site, he said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Following a visit to the Golden Grove Road school on Friday, Occupational Safety and Health Authority and Agency (OSHA) Inspector Sherwyn Charles advised that it be closed with immediate effect until an inspection of its electrical system was conducted.

In a September 16, 2016, prohibition notice addressed to Lenor Baptiste-Simon, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Charles said the schools electrical meter, located on the southern wall of the Standard One and Standard Four blocks, was completely burnt out as a result of a fire which seemed to have originated from inside the meter. This presented a serious risk of an electrical fire throughout the school buildings and possible burns (critical/ fatal) to the school population, he said in the notice.

Garcia yesterday told Sunday Newsday electrical problems at the school arose last year which resulted in students having to stay away from classes for about six weeks.

We (Government) looked at it and did the necessary rewiring but that school and others were installed with equipment, ICT, things that they were not originally used for and so because of the greater demand on the electricity some things went..., Garcia said.

Referring specifically to Arouca Government, Garcia said he did not know what had caused the meter box to become defective since everything was okay with it. He said the TT Electricity Commission (TTEC) and the Education Facilities Company Limited, the ministrys executing agency, were working assiduously to address the problem.

But you know where electricity is concerned, you have to pass the test with a Certificate of Compliance, he said, adding that extensive work at huge cost was undertaken at the school when the PNM assumed office. I am just hoping it will not delay classes for too long, Garcia said.
Mora: Vigilante justice dangerous

Commenting on Thursdays incident in which a suspected child molester was beaten by a Chaguanas woman and members of her family for allegedly trying to develop a relationship with her 11-yearold daughter, Mora said while many have applauded the woman for taking matters into her own hands, such action could set a bad precedent.

Trinidad and Tobago is already a lawless society with a crime rate that is sky high, she told Sunday Newsday during a forum on parenting, hosted by the T&T Association of Psychologists at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope.

Mora sided with the Childrens Authority, which had earlier shared the view that vigilante justice was not the way to go.

However, she said the fact that the woman felt impelled to take action, given the prevailing view in some quarters that the Police Service and other security agencies rarely respond expeditiously in addressing such matters, spoke volumes.

Many people feel that they dont even get an ear and that the police is not available.

So, they take matters into their own hands, Mora said.

Reports are that the quick-thinking mother, now being hailed a hero, lured a suspected child molester to her Chaguanas home on Thursday and, together with other family members, gave the young man a sound beating before handing him over to police.
Beryls home no more

It is very ironic that the home of Trinidad and Tobagos Queen of Dance, the late Beryl McBurnie, was demolished in September, National Patriotism Month.

A big black and yellow construction rig now sits where a home dance studio, with mirrors along the wall, used to be. Dexter John, a St James resident and the new owner of Mc- Burnies property, has plans to begin building a home for his family on the site in June of 2017.

However, he is open to anyone who may be interested in negotiating with him for the land.

On whether he felt sad for breaking down the home of a national icon, John stated, Yea, but anyone could have bought the property and do it over and put up an apartment or a grocery...

I dont think I will build right now because there might be a lot of discrepancies of who might want to make an offer right now. When asked if the belongings of McBurnie were taken out, John stated, there were some cultural books and pictures of her there still. Sharing his views on the situation, Rubadiri Victor, cultural activist and president of the Artists Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago, explained the financial difficulties that the Little Carib Theatre was experiencing was known publicly. With managing the two properties, both The Little Carib Theatre and McBurnies house, they were unable to pay many of the debts they had. Victor explained the Coalition brought proposals before the last Peoples Partnership administration to provide the LCT with $1 million to refurbish the house and the theatre. When plans for the granting of the funds were denied, the LCT had to seek ways to fund its maintenance and selling the property became the answer.

Though residents in the area remember the house being empty for about 20 years, it still surprised many that the house was actually sold.

Victor said he felt the sale was done in some sort of secrecy and that the people of the coalition, who were a part of the attempt to save the house, were not even notified.

Victor commented that maintaining McBurnies home as a museum could have brought in millions of dollars each year, but with the house now gone the Coalition would not be interested in negotiating with John for the site.

Heritage is about authenticity, the bedroom Beryl slept in, the room Paul Robeson visited, he said. In moving forward, he did state the importance of battl( ing) for a Caribbean dance museum in tribute to Beryl McBurnie, Pearl Primus and Dai Ailian. He made the point Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley needs to build up the National Trust and National Museum Board so that no more pieces of TTs heritage would be lost.

Known as La Belle Rosette, Mc Burnie, born on November 2, 1913 died on March 3, 2000.
Maracas residents: No to limestone quarry

They also cited a lack of confidence in the discretion of the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) in the application of their Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) process based on our previous experience with applications for new quarries according to president of the Acono Village Dynamic Action Committee (AVDAC), Maracas Valley, Simeon Nakhid.

They promised to take legal action if Blue Diamond does not hold proper consultations with them.

Posters of No Blue Diamond Quarry Limited, tacked onto lampposts, lined the main road to the venue of the public consultation on the proposed quarry held on Friday evening at the Maracas Valley Community Centre, Maracas, St Joseph.

As the meeting began a number of residents held placards expressing their opposition to the proposal.

Residents began to express their concerns even before representatives of Ecoengineering Consultants Limited, which hosted the meeting  were able to make their presentation.

Even though the small community centre was packed, residents called for proper consultation at a time when all residents were available.

In the first instance, they said that the meeting was called at a time when the majority of working residents would be coming home from work and would not have been able to voice their concerns. The also noted that the venue was too small to accommodate everyone and suggested the use of the Presbyterian school in the area.

Another resident noted the majority of the people living in the area are Seventh-day Adventists and they do not do business after 5 pm on Fridays.

They also do not work on Saturdays.

The objective of the c onsultation according to Ecoengineering was in keeping with the requirements to present information about the proposed limestone quarry, to give details about the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) with specific reference to field studies, and to receive comments.

Residents main concern was that the area was already home to a quarry, Coosals Quarry, and it could not accommodate another. The proposed quarry is located off Caurita Road in an area called Santa Rosalia, located on the western part of the Northern Range.

Caurita Village is located along Caurita Road.

Ecoengineering said a geological survey determined that about 3,190 million cubic metres of high quality limestone are distributed over an area of 21.64 acres. The proposed extraction of limestone covers a 20- year period in which 917,000 cubic metres is to be mined in the first five-year phase.
Ill be a trusting leader

It may be an ambitious task given the numerous issues plaguing the education sector but she is ready to embrace the challenge.

It would mean that I would have to be ready for the tremendous challenges which are attached to this male dominated position such as improving organisational efficiency and effectiveness, leading a union in these difficult economic times, effecting change and earning respect, she said of the position.

If elected TTUTA president, Chinebas-Dindial would join a small group of women who have already made their mark as leaders of teachers organisations within the region and beyond. These include Celia Nicolas, president of the Dominica Association of Teachers Union and head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten.

Contesting the leadership under the Team TNT (The new TTUTA) slate for the October 20 election, Chinebas-Dindial, who claims to have been endorsed by three previous TTUTA leaders, said her main thrust, if elected, would be to inspire, motivate and set direction for the union.

I will strive to become a trusting leader, she said, adding that strategic leadership will be practised using communication intensive activities.

She said people would become a common pillar, of her stewardship.

Saying that student violence and indiscipline, long a concern within the sector, ranked highly among her teams list of priorities, Chinebas- Dindial said teachers will be empowered to play a critical role in this regard.

We will provide training for our members to deal with deviant behaviour and will continue to hold symposiums and conferences to assist with strategies for the way forward, she told Sunday Newsday.

Chinebas-Dindial said the union will collaborate with the Ministry of Education to ensure schools are provided with sufficient security personnel.

The union, she said, also will communicate with the ministry to ensure that Student Support Services functions effectively to provide the much needed support for students.

We intend to engage the NPTA (National Parent-Teacher Association) in continuous discussions to attain strategies to move ahead such as parenting workshops, she said.

Also on her teams agenda will be the construction of the long-awaited Teachers Centre for which most of the approvals have already been received through incumbent treasurer Gewan Durga, Chinebas-Dindial said. Durga is again seeking to retain his position as treasurer on the Team TNT slate.

Appointed principal of the Upper Carapichaima Presbyterian Primary School in February 2010, Chinebas- Dindial attended the Todds Road RC Primary School and later, Holy Faith Convent, Couva.

She began her teaching career in September 1992, attending Corinth Teachers College, San Fernando, from 1995 to 1997.

A devout Presbyterian, Chinebas- Dindial completed her Bachelors in Education degree in 2006 at the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies.

A Masters in Education degree (concentration in curriculum) followed three years later.

Chinebas-Dindial, who is the chairman of the Caroni Educational District, believes the various portfolios she has held in organisations within the region coupled with her 24-year involvement with TTUTA made her ideal for the position of president.

She regarded TTUTA as a dynamic organisation.

It is a service organisation with the important task of representing teachers and ensuring that their rights are upheld. Leadership for TTUTA needs to be carefully chosen, Chinebas-Dindial said.

I have interfaced with the current President and other officers quite often at many levels. I know that I possess the competencies needed to fulfil the requirements of this leadership. Chinebas-Dindial said a TTUTA, under her leadership, will pursue vigorously negotiations for the 2014-2017 collective agreement through effective research and sound negotiations with the Chief Personnel Officer.

We will be working towards increased benefits for our membership especially our retirees, she added.

Engaging stakeholders to ensure that matters affecting education are dealt with in a timely fashion will be among the unions to-do list, Chinebas- Dindial said.

We will be proactive and reactive when necessary, she said.

Cognisant of the fact that teachers are under increasing levels of scrutiny, Chinebas-Dindial said the union would take the necessary aggressive steps to promote teacher professionalism.

She told Sunday Newsday: The education sector needs change if we are to mould the students to face the realities of the society in which we live. Training for teachers must be aligned to their needs so as to equip them with the skills to deliver to their students. Painting a somewhat gloomy picture of aspects of the sector, Chinebas- Dindial proposed measures to streamline, more effectively, its operations.

We are in crisis when it comes to resources, infrastructure and workload, she said.

TTUTA has been lobbying for non-contact time for primary school teachers for years. Many schools have not received furniture for years. Repairs have been minimal and schools are being housed in facilities which have numerous health and safety issues. She also said the curriculum must cater to the needs of all students.

Careful thought needs to be had in terms of the enactment of the curriculum content, Chinebas-Dindial said.

Consistent guidance and evaluation must be provided for the purpose of review and change during the implementation. Change is needed for improvement. TTUTA along with other stakeholders must take part in consultations. Saying that Team TNT was noted for producing excellent leaders and results, Chinebas-Dindial said she was proud to lead the team.

There is not a doubt in my mind that victory will be ours because we exude
Driver records highest drunk reading

The minimum permitted while driving is 35 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The young man was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, at about 11 pm on Thursday, during and exercise along Clarke Road, Penal, a police report stated.

Officers said it was a first for the unit. We have had persons just over 180 microgrammes but never so high, an officer revealed.

And 24 hours later, in a similar exercise in La Brea, a 63-year-old retiree of Point Dor, La Brea, was also charged with drunk driving when he gave a reading of 156 microgrammes. Police also arrested and charged a third offender. He has been identified as a 33-year-old technician of Clifton Hill, Point Fortin who, according to police, is currently engaged in community service for one year for a similar offence. He had been charged twice before for drunk driving in Tunapuna and San Fernando.

The exercise which continues over the weekend is being led by Sgt Gosine and officers of the DUI (Driving Under the Influence) Unit of South Western Division.
CJ: Rules to protect childrens rights

2. CASE MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM A major part of the project is the introduction, piloting and testing of a new Case Management Information system. Court Case Management Information Systems, their development and the attendant licensing present a large expenditure to all Judiciaries.

While our JEMS system has served us relatively well over the years, the ever-increasing cost and limited access to source codes have for some years taken a toll on the Judiciarys budget, its resources and its efficiency. The Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago has not been alone in this dilemma, as Judiciaries worldwide have grappled with the problems posed.

The National Centre for State Courts and the Nigerian Judiciary had embarked some three years ago on the development of base software that NCSC had created for Bosnia several years ago. Together they worked with TATA of India to develop a common law friendly version of this CMIS for the Judiciary of Nigeria.

The President of the International Division of NCSC and Lord Zana of the Nigerian judiciary together graciously agreed to give this software and its source codes to the Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago for the use of any and all the courts of Trinidad and Tobago.

Together with other Caribbean Chief Justices, I visited Nigeria to meet with the Judiciary of Nigeria and to observe the software in final development stage.

We are now in receipt of the Nigerian customized software. The JCP team, Judiciary IT and other court staff are working with the NCSC to customize the software for application in pilot phase in the Children Court. Success in its implementation and further Trinidad and Tobago specific development is a welcome development that is expected to herald greater efficiency and a significant cost saving for the Judiciary. It will also afford the judiciary, for the foreseeable future, the ability and opportunity to develop and customize and make its own software changes and undertake the interface of our CMIS with other addon modules.

3. JUDGES RULES FOR CHILDREN In previous addresses, I have referred to the historical deficiencies that have persisted in respect of children in the criminal justice system. The development of Judges Rules aimed specifically at children is an attempt to address that lacuna and bring us in line with our International Treaty obligations regarding the rights of children, the preservation and protection of their dignity and interests (having regard to their particular vulnerabilities), while maintaining the same common law protections afforded to adults with respect to voluntariness of admissions and the presumption of innocence.

Accordingly, Rules have now been finalised for signature today that will take effect from November of this year. They will, among other things, give primacy of place to the following principles: -  Family relationships between a child and members of his family shall where appropriate and, so far as is possible, be preserved and strengthened;  All decisions regarding the child shall be based on the consideration that they are in the best interest of the child;  Unless the public interest requires otherwise, criminal proceedings shall not be instituted or continued against a child if there are alternative means of dealing appropriately with the matter (this is of course ultimately a matter solely within the discretion of the DPP);  A balanced approach shall be taken between the needs of the child, the rights of any victim of the childs offence and the interests of the community;  Due regard is to be had to the views and voice of the child consistent with his/her age and maturity and there is to be equality of treatment regardless of socio-economic status, race, sex, orientation, religion or family situation;  A parent, guardian or person with responsibility for a child shall be encouraged to fulfil his or her responsibility for the care and supervision of the child;  It is desirable that a child who commits and offence must bear responsibility for his actions and wherever possible make reparation while also being assisted with his reintegration into the community so as to sustain family and community ties.

The Rules are very comprehensive and cover every aspect of interaction from initial engagement, questioning, stop and search to the conduct of identification parades and the obtaining of statements and intimate samples.

I would like to publicly acknowledge the contributions and hard work of the representatives of the Criminal Bar, the DPP, the CPC, Police, Prisons, Solicitor Generals Department, Legal Aid, Childrens Authority, Probation Department, the Juvenile Court Project team, and our own Registrars, Masters and Judges who worked tirelessly and for no personal reward to bring this labour of love to fruition. And I know it was a labour of love because they sat with me through evenings and weekends and public holidays [when I wasnt racking up the frequent flier miles] to debate and to thrash out, sometimes passionately, what was best for our children. I think we can be justly proud of the final product and it will inform in due course, new Judges Rules with more general application. We are talking about the judges initiating a culture change in the way we interface with power...so where better to start than with our most vulnerable? 4. CRIMINAL PROCEDURE RULES The much anticipated Criminal Procedure Rules that were completed with the collaboration of the Trinidad and Tobago Bar, the CPC, the DPP, and the Criminal Justice Advisor so kindly provided by the UK and Canadian Governments, have finally been laid in Parliament. They are expected to bring more discipline to the criminal trial process in much the same way the Civil Procedure Rules have enabled the Court to more effectively manage the pre-trial and trial processes.

Full implementation is now carded for the beginning of 2017 with the expectation that aggressive case management will lead to greater trial efficiency. Stringent timelines for both the defence and the prosecution supported by appropriate sanctions for breach of those timelines will work as a management tool to assist the Courts in developing consistency in the way matters are advanced through the system.

By way of example, the Court, in the management of cases will be able to give a direction on its own initiative or on application by a party. Such a direction may be:  to ask or allow a party to propose a certain direction;  for the purpose of giving directions, receiving applications and representations by letter, by telephone or by any other means of electronic communication, and to conduct a hearing by such means;  to fix, postpone, bring forward, extend, cancel or adjourn a hearing;  to give directions without a hearing; or even  to shorten or extend (even after it has expired) a time limit fixed by a direction.

These extended powers of the Court especially as they relate to the use of real-time electronic communication now recognised and accepted as an official means of communication between the Court and parties, will have a tremendous impact on the speed at which matters can proceed. This should go a long way toward reducing delay and backlog in our Criminal Justice System. The Rules also provide for early disclosure and disposal of preliminary issues and for matters to be dealt with expeditiously. Training of stakeholders in the application of the Rules begins next month.

5. COURT ANNEXED MEDIATION As many of you are aware, the Judiciary has successfully conducted pilot ADR projects utilising Mediation and Judicial Settlement Conferencing and I committed to the introduction of ADR as a standard component of the civil dispute resolution process.

I am happy to report that in February 2016 the judiciary finally received Cabinet approval for funding the implementation of Court Annexed Alternative Dispute Resolution as a service to be implemented on a continuous basis. Cabinet also agreed to the engagement of a Consultant with the relevant expertise to perform critical services related to the deployment for a period of eighteen (18) months.

The Judiciary has requested the services of the Central Tenders Board to procure a mediation service provider and short-term consultant to assist with the roll-out and implementation is currently awaiting the award of contracts by the Central Tenders Board for both the engagement of a Consultant and a Mediation Agency respectively.

6. JUDICIAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING At the core of our consolidation for enhanced delivery is the belief that our most important resource is our human resource. Lasting change that maintains our relevance to the needs of the society that we serve is not possible without change in the culture of the judiciary as well as constant updating of skills. The work of the Judicial Education Institute and our Human Resource Unit is therefore of paramount importance, particularly at a time when stringent austerity requires us to get best value for money.

The Judicial Education Institute of Trinidad and Tobago (JEITT ) has continued to focus on commitment to growth through learning in all of our programmes for the 2015/2016 calendar year, with the aim of assisting the Judiciary to perform in a manner that upholds its independence and integrity, and ensures public trust and confidence in the administration of justice. Consistently operating with the motto  Transformation through Education  in mind, our training programmes are developed as a result of the expressions of need by our participants as well as by reference to our strategic goals. Following the success of our Train the Trainers programme, the JEI has had the opportunity to engage participants as facilitators for many of this years workshops and training programmes.

Our philosophy is to develop in-house faculty thereby saving cost and honouring one of our core values, which is a commitment to the professional development of our human resource. Among the highlights were:  In September 2015, members of the Board and staff of the JEITT attended the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO) 4th Biennial Conference in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

This allowed us the opportunity to engage with judicial officers from across the region, informing them on what a Judicial Education Institute does, including our history and our operations, and displaying our publications. This was also an opportunity to launch a pilot survey for research purposes.

Sessions attended at the conference included judgment writing, restorative justice, and ethics and judicial conduct, amongst others.

 In October 2015, three Board Members of the JEITT were invited to participate in the National Association of State Judicial Educators (NASJE) 39th Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington, at which they attended sessions on curriculum planning, leadership programmes, and faculty development.

 In November 2015, the International Organisation for Judicial Training (IOJT) requested the JEITT to do a presentation at their 7th International Conference in Recife, Brazil in November on Training in the Judiciary  Judicial Excellence through Education.

As such, I attended along with Mr Kent Jardine, Judicial Educator, and presented a paper written by The Honourable Mr Justice Peter Jamadar and Mr Kent Jardine, which was very well received, and was later used to develop the JEIs historical publication.

 2016 began with a Magistrates Workshop on Proceeds of Crime and Asset Recovery, held in both Port-of- Spain and San Fernando and a Sentence Indication Seminar for Judges facilitated by The Honourable Madame Justice Gillian Lucky. The latter was undertaken as part of the adoption of MSI hearings as a strategy to improve the throughput of indictable matters which, as you will hear when I get to the statistical reporting, is already bearing fruit.

 The beginning of March 2016 brought with it the JEITT s Sixth Annual Distinguished Jurist Lecture (DJL).

Our distinguished jurist Professor Richard Drayton PhD FRHistS delivered an insightful, thought-provoking lecture on Whose Constitution? Law, Justice and History in the Caribbean to a full Convocation Hall in the Hall of Justice, Port-of-Spain  our most well attended DJL yet! This years lecture was followed by Conversations on the topic, in which attendees had the opportunity to discuss the lecture with Professor Drayton, fellow attendees, and a specially invited panel of facilitators.

 Also held in March were the Civil Judges Half-day session on Costs, facilitated by The Honourable Mr Justice Robin Mohammed, which looked at the new costs regime and discussed quantification determinations (further examined in a follow-up session held in May), and the Court Administrative Units Continuing Education Seminar on the topic Organisational Trust and Team Building.  In June 2016, the JEITT brought together  for the first time  our Judges, Masters, Registrars, and Magistrates for a joint Continuing Education Seminar on the topic Implicit Bias: Pathways for Transformation. This extremely well received session looked at the sociological, anthropological, and historical sources of biases, discussed Justice and Culture, and worked toward strategies and ideas for reducing implicit bias in our justice system.

Notwithstanding scepticism in some circles, it should be understood that it is accepted international best practice in developed societies for judiciaries to have continuous training in this area in order to maintain relevance and effectiveness. At the same time, the opportunity to bring together judicial officers from all of our various courts provided an opportunity for communication and sharing of expertise on all levels of the system.

 Workshops for June of this year included Difficult Conversations attended by the Judicial Research Counsel, Referring Accused Persons for Psychiatric Assessments and Psychiatric Evidence for the Criminal Judges and Magistrates, and the Criminal Judges Halfday session on The Criminal Proceedings Rules: Management and Case Flow Management facilitated by The Honourable Madame Justice Charmaine Pemberton.

 For July 2016, The Honourable Mr Justice Gregory Smith JA held one of his two-part workshops on Super Clarity in Judgement Writing, this part dealing with the Principles of Macro Organisation, held for Judges and Judicial Officers. In addition to training programmes, the JEITT produces publications each year in order to expand the reach of judicial education to the public. During the 2015/2016 year, the JEITT published the following:  Celebrating 50 Years of an Independent Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago 1962-2012: With a narrative by Bridget Brereton, this publication celebrates the very rich legacy left by a group of outstanding jurists who took the administration of justice in our country from colonialism to independence and beyond.

 The Republic of Trinidad and Tobagos Criminal Bench Book 2015: This Bench Book allows for critical information relating to the norms for conducting a fair and just criminal trial to be readily available, thus promoting transparency, accountability and consistency in the criminal justice system. I am told that it is now a standard reference tool for attorneys and judicial officers throughout the region  Distinguished Jurist Lecture 2015 publication: Dame Linda Dobbs DBE, the Distinguished Jurist for the JEITT s Fifth Annual Distinguished Jurist Lecture, delivered the lecture Whos Afraid of Human Rights? The Judges Dilemma on May 13th, 2015. This publication details Dame Lindas captivating lecture on the history of Human Rights legislation and the examination of Trinidad and Tobagos legislation by comparison, and includes the analytical panel discussion that followed.

 Our Story  the Judicial Education Institute of Trinidad and Tobago: This publication delves into the inception, development, and operations of the JEITT from 1996 to 2016; our story, throughout the years.

Training and Development led by the Judiciarys Human Resource Unit Some of the key areas of Training and Development for 2016 were: Managing Relationships  Protocol and Etiquette for staff of the Judiciary  Crisis Management and Contingency Planning  In-house Court Reporting Services Unit Workshop  Cultivating Respect in the Workplace (EAP)  Industrial Relations Management for the Public Sector  Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) Sensitisation Sessions Managing Information And Information Flows  Microsoft Office Suite (Excel)  Introduction to Records Management for Records Staff  Introduction to Virtualisation  Census and Survey Processing System (CSPro) Analytical Training Programme  Probate GUI JEMS Training Managing For Results  High Impact Business Communication Skills  Project Management for Facilities Professionals  Fundamentals of Procurement, Negotiation and Contracting  UWI Inventory Management (A Systems Approach to Inventory Management)  Change Management - AdPros Prosci Change Management Certificate Programme  Operations and Maintenance Workshop  Change Management (Taming the Change Tiger)  Structured Query Language Workshop (Family Court) STATISTICS How does all of that translate into performance statistics? I do not propose in the context of a speech of this length to delve into great detail except to say that what might at first glance be regarded as a flattening of output must be looked at in light of the fact that, along with the rest of the public sector, we had to undertake a cut in expenditure at the very beginning of the fiscal year. As a result, some positions that became vacant through normal attrition could not be filled and, as in previous years, we continued to function below strength in terms of numbers of employees at every level including the bench. As I have tried to outline, the focus was on institutional strengthening for the future. Having said that, the news is far from discouraging, as I will attempt to demonstrate: Court of Appeal While the total number of appeals filed remained static, there was a significant (17%) increase in appeals from the High Court that was offset by a 24% decrease in magisterial appeals. This actually represents an increase in the complexity of the work with the majority (397) (or 64%) being Civil High Court Appeals. We were only able to dispose of 195 regular Civil Appeals, which is slightly below the 6-year average of 201 but there was actually a 6% increase in matters disposed of after a hearing, which was offset by a 38% decrease in matters withdrawn.

The overall picture on the Civil side is therefore one of better utilisation of the Court since fewer untenable appeals are being filed but we are still falling behind in terms of the total transit time from filing of appeal to disposition, in part because we were functioning below strength.

While 79% of all the matters disposed of were completed within 2 years of filing (58% within 1 year), I would like to improve that figure. Two new appointments to the Court of Appeal were announced at the end of the last term and we expect to further strengthen the complement during the course of this year. There was no change in the number of Criminal High Court Appeals disposed of while filings and dispositions of Magisterial appeals were down by 24% and 25% respectively. We disposed of 19 Family Court Appeals.

We continue to be inundated with procedural appeals, many of which are wholly misconceived and unnecessary and I am firmly resolved to introduce limits on the size of bundles and time for oral argument. Perhaps the time has come to amend the Rules so that most procedural appeals can be disposed of on paper without a hearing. In that way the time and resources of the court can be more rationally employed, in accordance with the overriding objective, on the matters that actually require more attention.

High Court Civil The steady downward trend in total filings that began four years ago continued with 4,333 filings compared to the six-year average of 4,883. 3,661 matters were disposed of which means that the clearance ratio showed a slight uptick from 0.82 to 0.84. In terms of transit time, 78% of the matters disposed of were less than two years from the date of filing.

Again this is a figure that compares favourably with international norms but we expect that automatic mediation and settlement conferencing will improve performance in this area particularly with the outlier matters that are proving to be more intransigent.

Some introspection may also be required with regard to firmer case management as well as cooperation from the bar, but again one reasonable interpretation of the data is that we are simply at the limit of our current capacity.

High Court Criminal There are a number of different ways of parsing the data depending on what one wants to see. What I can say is that there is good news and there is bad news but the trend remains disturbing.

The good news is that despite some trials occupying an inordinately long length of time the extraordinary effort put in by the judges in the Criminal jurisdiction of the High Court resulted in a second successive year where there was an increase in the number of indictments disposed of for both Capital and Non-Capital matters. The total rose from 140 to 152. The use of maximum sentence indication hearings leading to guilty pleas contributed in no small measure to this as had been anticipated.

The disposition to filing ratio also improved from 0.74 to 0.86. The bad news is that the median time from filing of indictments to disposition is in excess of three years. This is not counting the time spent from charging through preliminary inquiry to committal so that the total transit time for the average matter through the criminal justice system is simply unacceptable.

Not only does this compare unfavourably to the civil justice system, much of it as I have pointed out ad nauseum is wholly unnecessary and translates into hardship and deprivation of liberty that is avoidable.

One statistic in particular speaks volumes. While it is true that 185 accused persons had their indictments dealt with, 75 of those (or 41%) had retrials ordered so that their matters were simply recycled into the system.

Simply put, the jury system is not working! I dont know how many times I have to make the point to those who have no understanding of how it works that if matters are heard by a judge alone he/she has to make a decision one way or the other that is definitive and subject to appeal based on a consideration of transparent written reasons, none of which applies to juries. If the current inefficient and ineffective is what the country wants to have then fine, but dont blame me for the consequences! I was appalled at the conclusion of a recent matter that occupied a court for over two years to hear the bleating about the vindication of the jury system.

Of course for those who were acquitted one can well understand the sense of elation, but what about those who have to be retried, are they and the victims families not entitled to some finality in determination of guilt or innocence within a reasonable time? From a management, process, justice or simply any common sense point of view, any proceeding that occupies so much time and resources without producing a definitive result is a total disaster. That is not a criticism of the judge who had to manage an extraordinarily complex trial nor of the jury who, untutored in the principles of law and evidence had to sift through mountains of evidence and complex directions. It is a systemic failure that I do not have the power to fix because I do not pass legislation. Yes, better criminal case management will help but it does not get to the root of the problem. This is one area in which I will continue to hammer away! Family and Probate Divorces were down for the first time in four years with Decrees Nisi dropping from 2,253 to 2110 (94% being granted within a year of filing) while Probate dispositions held steady at 3,140 (a decrease of only eight from 3,148 the previous year) Subjective Performance Measures In keeping with our mission and mandate to attract and retain public trust and confidence, the judiciary has also included customer satisfaction data in its performance metrics. This involves surveying both internal and external clients and stakeholders.

In that regard we have recently engaged an external service provider so as not to avoid bias in the results and I think I have a duty to report the preliminary findings while we await the final detailed report, without going into details of the research methodology.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric that divides an institutions customers into three categories: Promoters, Passives and Detractors.

 Promoters are satisfied customers who provide positive feedback and word of mouth.

Promoters are optimistic in their dealings with the institution and are more likely to emphasize positive interactions experienced.

 Passives are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to the impacts of negative interactions.

 Detractors are unhappy customers who can damage a brand through negative wordof- mouth.

The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who are detractors from the percentage who are promoters.

The NPS therefore theoretically ranges from a minimum of -100 to a maximum of 100.

Of the three stakeholder groups examined, all returned positive Net Promoter Scores with six in ten persons indicating overall satisfaction with the services received and in most areas respondents were neutral in terms of whether subjective experience exceeded or fell short of expectations. Interestingly enough, Lawyers as a group were most positive with civil society not far behind. Further details will be made public, as appropriate, when final results are in and thoroughly analysed.

Physical Infrastructure Last year, I expressed my frustration at the fact that over the previous 5 years none of the promised judicial complexes had materialized. We are faced with the reality that we now exist in difficult economic circumstances.

Nevertheless, we were finally able to complete the refurbishment of the Chaguanas Magistrates Court which now provides improved comfort and increased work spaces for staff; revamped work flows; modern court and telephony technologies; modern records management systems, introduction of a number/ticketing system; secure circulation zones, and enhanced security surveillance systems among others.

This is the model for gradual replacement of our aged physical plant. We must thank and commend again our staff, burgesses of the Borough, and residents of the District for their remarkable patience and understanding during the time works were ongoing and when they had to travel to Tunapuna to receive the services of the Court.

Work continues on the Siparia Magistrates Court, which was in a dire state, and we expect to complete the new Magistrates Court Building in San Fernando by mid-2017
Rowley: I want to inspire youngsters

He said, A lot of young people in this country will read this and bolster themselves by saying, If he could make it, I could make it too.

Rowley also said he had learnt that a lot of people do not know him - as shown by one critic describing him as upper-middle class in contrast to his pastoral upbringing in Tobago - and he hoped the book could remedy this.

He shared personal insights into his politics. He said in 2008 he had decided to quit politics but that his firing from the Patrick Manning Cabinet had pushed him to stay on in politics to fight his corner so that his children and grandchildren would not have to bear any stain on his family name.

Rowley also said why he is involved in politics. If you look at the schools at the end of the day when children are pouring out, somebody has to be there for them.

If you can come from very far and dodge so many near-misses, there might be a future for us all. Rowley said the book-cover - a 2002 painting of his grandfather, Joe Rowley, on his donkey, on front of their humble home - summarised the spirit of the book.

Earlier, historian, Prof Bridget Brereton, spoke of how Rowley was influenced by Joe Rowley, a self-reliant, hardworking, community- oriented farmer. Hailing the strong network of extended families that had raised Rowley as a boy, Brereton said, His Tobago grounding carried him through life and shaped his character. Anglican Bishop, Claude Berkely, at times speaking in the rhyme of a Tobago speech-band, saluted Rowley as a mannish fellow and a fighter who had battled his way out of political persecution. He said the book might alternatively had been titled, A man of near misses, alluding to close-calls in Rowleys past, such as hiding from the police in Morvant after participating in 1970s Black Power demonstrations.
PNM: Dress code for teachers

In making the announcement, yesterday, at the partys post general council news conference at Balisier House in Port-of-Spain, PNM Chairman Franklin Khan said Education Minister Anthony Garcia had updated members about the situation, which he said, will be dealt with frontally.

Talks between Garcia and the T&T Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA), Khan claimed, had reached a sensitive stage.

Khan recalled that during his years in school, many of the male teachers had worn ties to work but now the dress code has deteriorated significantly. Khan said a poor dress code among teachers had far-reaching consequences in relation to the moulding of the countrys young, impressionable minds.

He said the lack of discipline in all aspects of national life, including schools, were rooted in many issues.

And such matters simply go a long way in peoples psyche, he said. TTUTA president Devanand Sinanan could not be reached for comment but head of the National Parent-Teacher Association (NPTA), Zena Ramatali, said her association stood firmly behind the move.

The dress code has gone to a very low standard across the country and I am hoping that teachers would agree because we have students that see teachers as role models and if they are telling the students that they should adhere to the Code of Conduct for schools, we will hope that there will be a change of attitude in how they adorn themselves in the classroom, she said.

Meanwhile, Khan said the committee Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had commissioned to review matters relating to the teaching of History in primary and secondary schools was nearing the end of its assessment and an announcement will be made soon.

On the upcoming Local Government election, Khan said the PNM will complete its screening of candidates for some 30 outstanding electoral districts on Thursday.
Kamla: Abuse with no trial by jury

She called for consultation before such a fundamental change is made in the Judiciary. Persad-Bissessar said removing jury trial had potential for abuse. On Friday in address at the opening of the 2016/2017 law term Chief Justice Ivor Archie said the jury system was not working calling it a systematic failure. She stated: And I will I say at this point in time unless we get widespread consultation on that issue of trial without a jury, from my point of view and I think the opposition will support me on this, we will not support abolishing jury trial at this time, we will not support it. Saying her Peoples Partnership administration did consider abolishing the jury system but was forced to shelve it as there was little consensus. She said views expressed suggested that it whilst a jury could be intimidated it was easier to bribe a judge. I am not saying it may happen, she told the crowd as she went on to say that said such fundamental change should not be done without widespread consultation throughout the length and breath of the land. Imagine if you only you had one stop before a judge. She said many may not think it an important issue, but she believes it will become important especially if they find themselves with trumped up charges brought against them.

She said there are other measures available to improve the criminal justice system including plea bargaining, categorized murders and forensics.
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AG: Train cops to aid accident victims

The first to be called in on accidents on the highway or anywhere else is the police.

When they arrive they have to wait on health experts to deal with victims who may be badly injured, al-Rawi said yesterday.

It is either officers receive emergency medical training or have their own emergency technicians as part of the service.

Al-Rawi made the observation to reporters at Embacadere, San Fernando while attending a Rotary Club event.

The AG disclosed he had witnessed an accident close to the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba yesterday morning, observing that the police arrived on time but could not help the injured and had to wait for an ambulance to arrive.

These victims definitely needed immediate service and this is why the police should be equipped to treat these victims or they should have the facility to take them to they nearest hospital, he said, adding he will be looking into this matter as member of Parliament and as the AG.

Mon Repos police yesterday confirmed three people were in a car accident which occurred along the Solomon Hochoy Highway near the Brian Lara Stadium, disclosing they were taken to the San Fernando General Hospital but none had life threatening injuries.
Help communities in need

Al-Rawi, also the member of Parliament for San Fernando West, noted that no one government could handle the problems that exists in society.

It was while commending the Rotary Club of San Fernando for its outreach in Embacadere, that the AG declared more of the social groups in Trinidad and Tobago should follow in this path and help the communities that may be in need. The Rotary Club hosted a day of activities where NGOs and government services, among them YTEPP, Family Planning, the NESC, Scouts and Girl Guides, provided information and demonstrations for the people of Embacadere, San Fernando.

Al-Rawi observed Embacadere was a unique community since both the poorest and richest lived in close proximity to each other.

In this context, businesses too must also help communities in need by providing employment, said the AG, noting the opportunities did not have to be the conventional trade but investment in new areas such as the arts and sports.

Al-Rawi outlined in the case of state employment, even government services are facing challenges as well, as a result of the recession, not 65 percent of the expenditure goes into wages.

He encouraged those attending the exhibition to take advantage of the opportunity the Rotary offered in it mentoring and education programmes.

Make sure that this kind of service takes effect and allow this volunteerism to bare fruits, al-Rawi said. He complimented Olympians Keston Bledman and Rheaza Grant who are from Embacadere and attended the function.

Also present was Frederick Thomas the 12-year-old Gasparillo boy, a student of Open Bible High School, who scored a distinction in mathematics in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CESC) examination, becoming one of the youngest students to achieve this success.

Nagen Annamanthodo, of the Rotary Club, outlined some of its outreach programmes which include beautification drives, medical services and free education available on the internet.

People can come together in a classroom and learn real skills offered on the net free of charge, he said, announcing this initiative will be undertaken at Embacadere.

Deputy Mayor of San Fernando Junia Regrello also addressed the audience saying the services offered by the Rotary Club will help in preparing people for the job market.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

The state media on Sunday reported that the US and UK had a hand in 'false' reports about Zimbabwean police shooting live bullets at protesters during yesterday's NERA countrywide demonstration.Opposition parties under the National Electoral Reform Agenda held countrywide mass protests on Saturday, which the state media and Zimbabwe Republic Police claim never happened.Yesterday there were reports of police firing live bullets at protesters in Dzivaresekwa and Kuwadzana suburbs in Harare.According to the state media, national police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Nyathi on Saturday claimed that there were no countrywide demonstrations.The law enforcement official disclosed yesterday's shooting claims as "falsehoods"."Those are complete falsehoods because our officers never fired shots at anyone."The Sunday Mail reports of two UK spies, Adamson and Birnie, entering the country on the 5th of September "on a mission to review the civil disturbances that occurred in Harare, Bulawayo and Beitbridge in July/August."Even though the state media and the police claim that #Nerademo never happened, below are short video clips of #NeraDemo in Bulawayo. #AroundZimbabwe with @Bulawayo24News - Live Update (17 Sep 2016)
Kids from Meridian, Mississippi and the surrounding area didn't let the rain stop them from having fun in the park on Saturday!The city of Meridian's Parks and Recreation Department hosted its fourth annual Nickelodeon Worldwide Day Of Play event on Saturday 17th September 2016. Families and kids enjoyed free food, a splash pad, bounce houses, along with games prizes and other fun activities at the event, held at Highland Park."We are soaked, the kids were out here having a good time. They won prizes it was really a great day at the park," Parks and Recreation Supervisor Aleasha Jordan told ABC11 Nickelodeon's Worldwide Day Of Play event at Highland Park was co-sponsored by the Boys and Girls Club in Meridian. This summer, Nickelodeon celebrated kids' love of play by holding "Road to Worldwide Day of Play" events in six cities across the USA (Las Vegas, Nevada; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Jacksonville, Florida; Dallas, Texas; Far South Side, Chicago ; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) with a record number of kids and partners to encourage kids to get outside and get active. The initiative culminated with Nickelodeon's 13th annual "Worldwide Day of Play" event on Saturday 17th September 2016, when the network suspended programming from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. (ET/PT) and hosted grassroots activities with its partners across the U.S. to celebrate play in order to encourage kids to get up, get out and get active. For the latest up-to-date information about Nickelodeon's Worldwide Day of Play 2016, games, videos, tour photos and the 2016 WWDoP Playbook, visit nick.com/play
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Negotiations are underway between Morocco and Russia on the delivery of the Amur-class 1650 super-quite submarine, which will be the Kingdoms first submarine, Moroccan press reported.

The Amur-1650 diesel-electric powered submarine will significantly boost Moroccos capabilities as it will carry Club cruise missiles in addition to featuring air-independent propulsion (AIP). With a length of 66.8 meters and a beam of 7.1 meters, the submarine can sink into a depth of 250 meters.

Morocco, a usual customer of western military equipment, is also interested in strengthening its air defense capabilities with the purchase of Russias SU-34 tactical bombers.

If the deal is struck, it would mark a shift in Moroccos armament strategy, as the Kingdom seeks to diversify suppliers and to acquire advanced Russian equipment to boost its defenses. The deal would also add a fresh momentum to bilateral relations following a successful visit by King Mohammed VI to Russia in March 2016.

As for Moscow, the success of its air campaign in Syria gave Russian arms producers an edge in the international weapons market and offered them new opportunities in North Africa and the Middle East.

Russia has long been the worlds second largest arms exporter after the US, with an average annual income in 201215 reaching 14.5 billion dollars.
Algerias ambiguity and its suspicious role in the fight against terrorism were raised during the meeting of Presidents and Speakers of Parliaments from the 47 Council of Europe member states, held on September 15-16 in Strasbourg.

The remarks made at the Congress signal a growing confidence crisis between Algiers and the EU regarding the fight against terrorism, reports Algerias widely read newspaper El Khabar.

The paper considers that the widening rift between Europe and Algeria over counter terrorism efforts is due to the surge of terrorist activities in the Sahara and the Sahel and the perceived connivance of Algerian security services with terrorist groups affiliated to Al Qaida or Daech (IS).

Several factors show Algerias compromise with some terrorist groups, such as Ansar Dine led by Iyad Ag Ghali, a collaborator with Algerias Intelligence agency (DRS). Through this compromise with terrorist organizations, Algeria keeps an upper hand on northern Mali, Niger and Chad.

There are also indicators of secret deals between Algerian security authorities and Mokhtar Belmokhtar- known as the One-eyed- who is wanted by the international community. The connivance between this terrorist and Algerias security services was unveiled during the hostage taking operation in Algerias In Amenas site in 2013.

The European Legislators also raised Algerias obstinacy to abide by the international humanitarian law in Tindouf where a military junta holds, in the Tindouf camps, thousands hostage, deprived of basic rights including the freedom of movement.

In this respect, they deplored that the Algerian regime continues to bar access to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN).

In a report last May, the EMHRN held Algeria accountable for not allowing the conduct of an enquiry in Tindouf camps on the human rights violations inflicted on a population held against its will in abject living conditions.
Former French President Jacques Chirac was rushed to hospital from the Moroccan Atlantic city of Agadir to Paris after falling sick on Sunday.

Media reports say that Chirac was spending holidays at a Royal palace in Agadir when he was rushed on board a Royal jet to Paris.

The family of the former French President said he suffers from lung infection which requires staying in hospital for a couple of days.
Outside the Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, following the attack. Photo: David Peterlinz/Twitter/KARE 11

At least eight people were injured when an assailant began stabbing people at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on Saturday night. The St. Cloud Times reports that the knife-wielding assailant, who was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer, apparently made references to Allah while he perpetrated the attack. St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson also told reporters that the man asked at least one person if they were Muslim during the attack, which started around 8:15 p.m. and continued across several areas of the mall. None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

Anderson did not call the attack an act of terrorism, however, as he said the mans motive had not yet been determined. The Crossroads Center mall, which is about 70 miles northwest of Minneapolis, was put on lockdown as a result of the incident, but those inside were expected to be released by early Sunday. The Star Tribune reports that the still-unidentified suspect was wearing a private security uniform, and that his only prior run-ins with police were for traffic stops. All but one of the injured victims were released from the hospital on Saturday night.
UNITED NATIONS -- Premier Li Keqiang is to attend the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 18-21, and to offer the Chinese measures to help promote peace and development of the international community, said a Chinese diplomate here on Sunday.

Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, said during an interview with Xinhua that, as the world's most authoritative and representative intergovernmental organization, the UN has been contributing heavily to safeguarding world peace and promoting common development since its founding in 1945.

"Against the backdrop of the current complicated international situation, the role of the UN has never been so important," said Liu.

This year also marks the 45 anniversary of the restoration of China's seat in the UN. As a firm supporter and practitioner of multilateralism, China will contribute its efforts in protecting world peace and motivating development, the Chinese diplomat said.

First, China will lead international development and cooperation, and promote implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

"As the world's largest developing country, China has a unique advantage in implementing creative, harmonious, green, open and shared development, as well as promoting development and cooperation among countries," the Chinese envoy pointed out.

In early September, China successfully hosted the Group of 20 Summit. For the first time China put the issue of development on top of its world policy agenda, thus injecting vigor in global development, Liu recalled.

Second, China plans to play a bigger role in safeguarding international peace and security.

"Among UN Security Council permanent members, China sends the largest group of peacekeepers to overseas posts," Liu said, "China is also the second largest peacekeeping funder."

"China has always been proposing to peacefully solve disputes through dialogue and negotiation, and safeguard security through joint, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable efforts," he added.

Third, China firmly supports a "strong and robust" role for the UN.

China is one of the founding members of the UN, and the third largest fee payers among UN members, Liu said. Since the restoration of China's seat in the UN in 1971, China has always been defending the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

"Under the banner of peace, development, cooperation, and win-for-all, China adamantly supports the multilateral cooperative work of the UN, and helps push its work in various fields to move forward," the Chinese diplomat said.

During the UN's 70th anniversary summit last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China will establish a 1-billion-dollar China-UN peace and development fund to support the UN's work, creating a new scenario of China-UN cooperation, Liu noted.

"China's endeavor of keeping international peace and promoting common development is always on the way, and will not stop," the Chinese envoy concluded.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Heal Zimbabwe Trust has condemned the abduction of #Tajamuka /Sesijikile acting spokesperson, Silvanos Mudzvova by alleged state agents on 12 September 2016. Mudzvova was abducted by about six men who broke into his house in Crowborough."The six men took him and forced him into their car while blindfolding him and drove him to a bush that is close to Farm B in Nharira Hills. Upon arrival, the six men took turns to assault and torture him and interrogated him on a wide range of issues that included the source of funding for #Tajamuka /Sesijikile. The six assailants then left Mudzvova unconscious and drove off. Mudzvova is currently admitted at Avenues clinic," said the trust."Heal Zimbabwe is greatly worried by the increase in the number of abductions with the latest being that of Mudzvova. Last month, Gift Ostallos Siziba, an activist working as the public relations officer at Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (RTUZ), was reportedly abducted by suspected plain clothes men during protests that broke out in Harare .On 27 August 2016 again, around 1am, Kerina Gweshe Dewah, the MDC-T Harare Provincial Vice Chairperson, was also abducted by 18 unknown armed men from her Glen View home."Heal Zimbabwe said it notes that the continued use of abductions and torture as a tool to punish and instil fear in citizens to intimidate them from peacefully demonstrating and petitioning government is regrettable."Government should respect the right to life, assembly and association instead of subjecting people to torture. In addition, the government should look for amicable means of addressing concerns being raised by protestors," said the trust."The latest abduction of Mudzvova come at a time when the rest of the world is this week commemorating International Day of Democracy under the theme, "Democracy and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development". While Mudzvova is nursing wounds sustained at the hands of alleged state agents at a local clinic. The United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1945 in Article 21(3) establishes democracy as the basis of good governance."Heal Zimbabwe said it implores the government that as a member state of the United Nations, it should adhere to the principles of democracy such as respecting constitutional provisions such as the right to demonstrate and petition.
it does look really good

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We have a couple Russians here and probably more Russian speaking members...they just never bring it up lol.

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we hide among you

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nah it's because I just wanted to make this post

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russian cinema is underrated <3

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Shush. When Hollywood produces a director as superb as Andrei Tarkovski you have permission to speak.

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yea but I'm obviously not talking about those.

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ikr



I have ideas abt Russian animation, LGBT cinema & horror movie ontd orig posts but idk if it's worth the effort lmao

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looks pretty and quite intriguing but considering 99% of "big" russian movies are trash I won't get my hopes up

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This looks good

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idk, it kind of reminds me of Ben-Hur (2016). A bit too Hollywood-ish, maybe?

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I wish they'd make another Night/Day Watch sequel :(

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All of this!!

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I wish they would release Day Watch on DVD with the good subtitles :-/ Night Watch has them but the Day Watch one doesn't.

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glad i don't need subtitles /russian

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looks gorgeous if nothing else. i'm in.

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It's nice to finally get a trailer with the english subs, I've been really excited for this film.

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But it will be as good as Odin's biopic?

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Why are there so many straight white men in this?

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It's a movie about vikings...

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White cause vikings and straight cause Russia doesn't allow 'homosexual propoganda'.



I'm not sure what you were expecting.

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This film really, really does look epic. Hopefully it leaks with English subtitles after it's release.

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I thought it was cheesy but fun) It is certainly beautiful and the music is wonderful.

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this is gorgeous



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Danila is a babe. I will watch pretty much anything with Vikings in it so I'm sold.

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lol right?

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If everyone is trying to hire the same ones, that should tell you there's a problem.

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I feel like we get these articles every year and every year they're more disappointing. I'm so tired of the various "boys clubs" that run so much of Hollywood, both on big and small screens.

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I also feel like the caliber of women directors on TV is so much higher then men too. Like a lot of the director for hire directors are women who used to make feature films but need to eat whereas their male counterparts flit between indies, studio work and then doing a whole series based on them and their vision.



Like no offense to Ava DuVernay who is great, but I was kind of depressed to see her whole roster of women she hired for Queen Sugar was made up of phenomenal indie feature film directors. I wish they could get by just making their own work!



And it's such a stupid self-fulfilling sexist cycle of everyone just hiring the same people. Like I look at Lexi Alexander and she made films and one flopped and couldn't get any work for years and then started doing activism work and speaking out and then finally one showrunner was like "Hmm, maybe I should hire more women" and hired Lexi and she did so well she's now done 5 TV eps on 5 different shows in less than a year and her film career is back on. But there was a period of like 5 years where no one would hire her. It's ridiculous.

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Yeah, I feel like their indie films should have ALREADY led to their own opportunities y'know? Like men who direct small well received indies go on to direct bigger indies and then studio work. Women have to move on to TV? Like TV is good work but you have to conform to someone else's vision and you're not feeding your own artistry in the same way as a film project.



I see this all the time with women directors. Amy Heckerling directed Clueless and now she has to do TV. Jamie Babbitt did But I'm a Cheerleader and now she works primarily in TV. Same with Kimberly Peirce who did Boys Don't Cry. These are exactly the type of directors you would think would be able to do studio movies to sustain themselves and they never get those offers.



It's so, so backwards for women it's unbelievable.

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I feel like every year women kill it in their performances, there's not one year where we sit here and go "wow the men's categories is stacked". I'm here for more women cinematographers tho!

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"When asked about the lack of female directors, one of Better Call Saul showrunners, Peter Gould, said that its difficult to book women to direct because everyone is trying to hire the same ones."



Ugh, what kind of shitty excuse, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of good women directors who he can hire, but ok.



And talking about the Emmy's, I hope that either Keri Russel or Viola win the emmy as lead actress, I'll be happy with either of them, and The Americans needs to sweep.

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god men are truly terrible



every time i remember that the only woman to have written and directed an x files episode was its fucking lead i rage a little

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I'm not surprised by these stats at all. It's actually kind of depressing if you read the names in the end credits on pretty much any project.

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How is this news? All you have to do is look at the credits of literally any tv show or movie and you realize there is a problem. We are just decorations to them. That's it. They don't actually want to hear what we have to say and if they do we better fucking look good doing it or else well.. good luck in your career.

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Didn't Matt Damon tell us it's not important who is behind the camera? Come on, guys.

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They're still learning, let's have a little bit of compassion <3

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Fucking straight white men ruining everything

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Stuff like this is why instead of going to film school like I desperately wanted, I instead got a social sciences degree and got a desk job doing research analysis.

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They just choose who happens to be the best for the job



So I guess women/POC just don't cut it



*kanye shrug*

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can't tell if this is sarcasm or not...

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"There is a rumor in the industry about the fact that the ex lovers are not allowed to see each other, because they contractually can't."



moar deets plz

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MTE

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Fanfic conspiracy theory bullshit is pretty much all the deets going there, I suspect. lol

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good, they're terrible for each other. people need to stop shipping them

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MTE it grosses me out so much cuz I think if like my friends wanted me to still be with my ex, like how insulting

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IA! He's married and has a kid, afterall. I just want them to be friendly again. They did grow up together, afterall.

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its a big fuckin city, Im sure it won't be that hard

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I don't understand why these rumours still exist



Why would Justin go for someone like Britney at this point? Mentally/intellectually speaking they're mismatched.

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"Mentally/intellectually speaking they're mismatched"



you could say that about Britney and just about anyone though lol

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lol I mean generally that's true, but the Britney/Justin fixation is particularly unbelievable

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true, and justin has treated britney in such a disgusting way following the end of their relationship anyway.

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Really?



You actually think Britney has no wits about her behind closed doors?

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Britney isn't stupid though? She's just super anxious in interviews and I think people perceive that as stupid.

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I'm not buying that rumour. At all.

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Lol its not that hard to avoid each other. London is huge

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Ya, london is a big place..

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They're probably atending the same events

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"what is the truth?"

prob not the info coming from the mirror or daily star lol

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Lol  I agree.

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srsly

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lmao mte

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He's trash and never deserved her anyway

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YAY WHITE PEOPLE PROBLEMS.

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Yay bringing up race for NO reason

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idc im loving the brit and justin rumors lately



let me relive my tween years ontd!

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This is dumb.

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lmao yes I'm sure they're thinking about each other and purposefully trying to avoid each other even though they won't be crossing paths in the slightest uh huh.

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people need to get over it. she's a grown 30something woman and mother. i'm pretty sure her high school bf is the last thing on her mind when traveling to a major metropolis for work.

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No to JT on the Graham Norton show, plz. Graham is too good for this smug narcissist.

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Lol old news but she's still a goddamn asshole. BYE GIRL.

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"Being Asian is not an identity. Being gay is not an identity. Being deaf, blind, or wheelchair-bound is not an identity, nor is being economically deprived.





oh



okay

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mr. urban, what are your thoughts? 

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I can't believe a rich, straight, and able-bodied white person is saying this. Actually wait, I can....

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Wait. So...what's an identity?

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"Idk man sometimes I'm just so quirky and RANDOM teehee ;)"



now im imagining her saying that lmao

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"I'm so privileged that I don't understand why political identities have been created out of these categories"

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lmao



this book/movie made me re-think wanting to have kids tbqh



Edited at 2016-09-18 04:05 pm (UTC)

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lmao

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adblock forever

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Ugh, this whole movie was nauseating. Not surprised the author is too.

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i need to see this movie

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No you don't.

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oh god. why.

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Penelope is such an underrated movie.

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It really is. I love it, especially the extended version.

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I love it so much.

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lol this breatheheavy level gif

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OMG

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lmfaoooooo i am wheezin

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So I'm glad I never read any of her work, her speech is total nonsense.



Also the second source OP linked to is a response from a Korean American writer that's really good and thoughtful. Recommend reading it.

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Shut the fuck up.

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is this an onion article? the imagery alone from that last sentence has decked me. rip.

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lmao mte

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I was wondering the same thing.



Like this cannot be real.

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LMFAO, I literally immediately sent this to my friends with "I thought this was the Onion"



That last line just seemed like total parody

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Not an onion article. Just me.

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No

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this post lacks context. If she doesn't think those things are an identity, how does she define it?



Also, I personally believe cultural appropriation exists but that people are a bit too sensitive about it.

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yes, how dare people refuse to let their culture be taken out of context for mass consumption when they've endured the scrutiny of it before hand

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too sensitive about it



ok





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Define "too sensitive"

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White people wearing cornrows or dreads, I'm black and still can't get over the fact that some black people think that only African Americans are the only people on the planet entitled to these hair styles. I get the whole black women are sent home from school or work, are called ghetto by white people from wearing some of these hairstyles, but that doesn't mean that a non black person wearing a hairstyle worn mostly by black people, who may be doing none of those things should be banned from wearing it.

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Her speech lacked context. It was all over the place.

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Is this performance art? I cannot @ her wearing a sombrero. This sounds like something from the Colbert Report.

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i'm so hype for this

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Jackie won platform unanimously too, apparently.

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Lmao

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Shhh. You know that's going to be part of the tag when they use it to campaign.

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lmfao

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tbh getting 3 pretentious critics to agree on something is a feat

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booo, you beat me to it



La La Land and Free Fire were both amazing - I'm praying for Free Fire to get distribution. Manchester by the Sea, Raw, A Monster Calls, The Belko Experiment, and Toni Erdmann were my other favourites.



I also saw Sadako vs. Kayako last night and it was hilarious



Edited at 2016-09-18 06:08 pm (UTC)

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Did you see all of those? That is amazing.

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yeah! I fit in 18 movies, which wasn't too bad

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I really wanna see Manchester By The Sea and Free Fire, I hope they get a bigger release.



Edited at 2016-09-18 06:10 pm (UTC)

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So jealous you've already seen LLL and MBTS

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Damn now I regret not going downtown to try and get tickets lol.

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There will be a free screening of it tonight

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Yeah but I'd have to start waiting in line for it around now and I'm just.................. too tired lol.

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Yay @ Lion and Queen of Katwe and La La Land!



SO many interesting things, my downloading is going to ramp up when screeners hit.

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i'm really looking forward to this

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When was the last really successful non-animated original musical? Even in the golden age of Hollywood musicals, you tended to see mainly adaptations of existing stage hits and what we now call jukebox musicals (e.g., Singin' in the Rain, though most people today don't realize this).

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Moulin Rouge was a jukebox musical (one that uses only pre-existing music), albeit a very audacious one.

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chicago?



idk, I hate hollywood musicals so whatevs

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I did some Googling and the last original movie musical I could find that fit that criteria was Cannibal! The Musical, lmao

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Once is the only one I could think of, but it doesn't really fit "really successful".

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i don't know if you're thinking like a blockbuster or something, but "once" was pretty successful for an indie and got a lot of critical acclaim, won an oscar, etc. not on the level of best picture though.

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was Begin Again considered successful? it had that one song that got nominated for the Oscar and i think it got good reviews

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I can't wait for this film. It just looks so beautiful.

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I can't wait to see this omg. I love musicals so much

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I can't wait to see this! There are so many movies that are getting great reviews, this coming months are gonna be packed.

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emma stone looks like dooneese maharelle.

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my friend saw this and shes in love with it

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Will Jackie be successful at the Box Office?

How well do biopics often do at the Box Office?

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idk, i guess it depends on how good they are?

i think The Social Network did okay, but Snowden isn't doing particularly well (it's not a big budget movie anyway though).

and i'm not sure about the Obama one...or the steve jobs ones





oh i think straight outta compton made LOTS of money (it's a biopic, right?)

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I ask because Steve Jobs a well reviewed biopic flop at the box office, which got articles calling Fassbender a box office poison.

Yeah I would consider Straight Outta Compton a biopic (I forgot about that one, thanks).

Maybe Jackie will do as well as The King Speech and The Queen though I have no interested in seeing it simple b/c too many Kennedys films and tv shows.



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no... i can't see it getting a wide release, unless kennedy interest and nostalgia are what drives it, or their media campaign is really good. it's a really contained/artistic ~film, even though it's a political drama. the king's speech and the queen were a lot more digestible for a mainstream audience.



it is amazing though.

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A new investigation reveals the hand Scientology played in Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise's epic break-up https://t.co/KEYW3P220W  smh.com.au (@smh) September 17, 2016

Imagining Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's entire relationship through their films https://t.co/WjphXNUSjh pic.twitter.com/cU3By0E3XU  Broadly (@broadly) September 16, 2016

Let's add on to the Jason Lee Scientology news!A new book is out next week about Scientology's impact on Australia called Fair Game. It gets quite a bit into Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidmans epic eleven year relationship through stories from former Scientologists, former employees, and Marty Rathbun, Tom's former auditor. * Tom was obsessed and completely in love with Nicole. One staffer said it was suffocating but others said it was endearing. One staffer tells about him running across the lawn and into the house after a day of filming, yelling "Nic! Nic!" He loved to be around her.* Tom's former agent called Tom and Nicole two peas in a pod, sharing the same sense of humor and passion for acting and each other (other staffers have noted over the years that they used to light up at the sight or mention of each other).* Tom's affair with Nicole on the set of Days of Thunder was encouraged by Scientology leader David Miscavige, because he wanted Tom's wife (and the one responsible for pulling him into Scientology) Mimi Rogers out of the picture. The plan backfired because it wasn't a fling, Tom was actually madly in love with Nicole.* Nicole is called both beneficiary and victim of David Miscavige's "obsession" with Tom. She received perks and special treatment such as labor, cars, presents, and sessions, but Miscavige was obsessed with destroying her after she pulled Tom away from Scientology.* Nicole was initially into Scientology, advancing faster up the ladder than any new member, and she found some lessons useful. However, she turned against Scientology and realized they were a cult when they tried to turn her against her own father, a prominent Australian psychiatrist. Between that, a Time magazine article on Scientology being like the mafia and seeing Miscavige being a bad influence on Tom, Nicole was done and she was taking Tom with her.* They again bring up Tom's obsession/love for Nicole, saying if she said jump, he'd ask how high. If she didn't want him involved in Scientology, he wouldn't be, and that's exactly what happened. The two began to drift away in 1992, and by 1996, Tom was avoiding calls from Miscavige, which enraged him.* Tom and Nicole flourished professionally and privately without Scientology. Tom was extremely close to Nicole's family, including her mom, sister and brother-in-law.* During filming of Eyes Wide Shut, Miscavige decided they needed to remove Nicole and get Tom back. Michael Doven, Tom's assistant, was a Scientologist who spied on the couple and reported to Miscavige.* Through Doven, Tom was convinced to get auditing again in 1998, which is basically- unknown to the victim- a form of hypnosis or brainwashing. Marty Rathbun was assigned to reinforce in Tom his deepest insecurities about his relationship, including that Nicole was the problem.* From 1998 to 2001, Tom was being unknowingly brainwashed, resulting in Doven calling Miscavige, saying Tom was in shambles, he wanted help and auditing and he wanted a divorce. The divorce took Nicole by shock.* Staffers to this day don't know what they could have told Tom to leave Nicole (a former high-ranking staffer implied he was told Nicole cheated and the baby she was carrying wasn't his). Tom was so paranoid he had Nicole's buddy Russell Crowe followed, which resulted in nothing but a close friendship with Nicole. (Note: Tom and Russell have appeared to have mended their friendship, and will be in an upcoming film together).* Nicole was paranoid over wiretapping and even after the divorce, Miscavige wouldn't let up, now brainwashing their children against her. Former staffers have said Tom and his children are now closely watched to prevent them from having extended contact with Nicole or to research outside views, including tapping their phones and confiscating their computers. This was somewhat confirmed by Leah Remini in her book.* As we all know, Nicole was distraught after the divorce, suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts, although she pulled through and won an Oscar through her pain like a queen. Tom, after his relationship breakdown with Penelope Cruz (who also hated Scientology and Miscavage, big shock), allowed Scientology to find him a girlfriend/wife to their liking. We all know how that turned out.* Tom and his children remain in the cult, while Nicole has remarried and has two younger children. As of 2015 , Nicole still spoke of Tom with affection, but off the record out of respect to her husband. She's rumored to have reestablished contact with her older children. Tom remains a devoted member of Scientology, cutting off contact with his youngest child, who isnt a member. And a pretty sad read within the sudden social media interest in Tom and Nicole:Someone's gotta take one for the team and let this dude know what Scientology did to his family. Fucked up.
In the world of liquefied natural gas (LNG), no market is watched with more interest or more potential excitement than India. In 2015 the country with the second-largest population on earth imported 15 million tons of LNG, but some forecasters predict it will import nearly 50 million by 2030.

LNG faces a critical juncture, with some 40-50 million tons reckoned to be homeless by 2020 unless new contracts are signed; this has placed buyers like India and Japan in privileged positions, with the leverage to re-negotiate existing LNG contracts (which are generally signed for long-term, fixed amounts) and take advantage of a global glut to make short-term and spot price buys, minimizing divergence with market prices. India, currently the worlds fourth largest LNG importer, may turn into an LNG juggernaut, taking in the new production from Australia, the U.S., Iran and elsewhere. It has announced plans to increase re-gasification capacity to 55 million metric tons in order to feed demand. But the key question remains: is that demand reliable?

Indian Oil, the state-run refining company, has announced that it expects to earn 15 percent of its total revenue from gas-related projects by 2021. At the moment, gas trading contributes only 5 percent to the companys bottom line, and India overall relies on gas for 6.5 percent of its energy needs, lagging behind the global average of 23.8 percent. India Oil is set to invest $27 billion in oil and natural gas inside India, including a planned mega refinery in partnership with foreign capital. The company has reportedly secured 13 million tons of LNG regasification capacity across terminals in India, and has retained a commitment to importing two cargos of LNG from the Dahej import terminal every month.

The terminal is run by Petronet, the countrys single largest LNG importer, which has been exploiting low prices to feed a buying binge: its expanding Dahejs capacity from 10 million cubic meters a year to 15 million and is constructing a brand new terminal in the Indian province of Gangavaram on the East coast. These projects come with a high price tag, but Petronet can apparently afford it: the company reported a 55 percent increase in net profit for the first quarter (ending June), though the increase amounts to total net profits of $56 million, chump change for energy majors.

The commercial ambition of Indias energy companies is matched by that of Indias government, which wants natural gas to account for 15 percent of overall energy use, an official said on September 6. Greater imports are needed to make up for Indias stagnant natural gas production. In 2015 the countrys production fell by 5 percent, while its per capita average (39 cubic meters) lags far behind the world average (369 cubic meters). There remains a vast number of Indians, estimated at some 280 million, who do not have access to reliable sources of electricity. Increased interest in imports is matched by a desire to grow domestic production: India is currently holding bid rounds for 67 new fields. There are also plans for a domestic natural gas hub, so that domestic prices can be traded more efficiently. Related: Goldman Sachs Crushes Hopes Of Oil Price Recovery

India is superbly placed to take advantage of a growing ocean of LNG that is building worldwide. Qatar, long the worlds leader in LNG exports, re-negotiated its long-term contract with Indian importers through RasGas last December and remains Indias major LNG supplier. Indeed, it was the RasGas deal which sent Indian LNG prices falling earlier this year. But Qatars position is being challenged by Iran and Australia, which are each particularly well-positioned to feed Indias LNG demand.

Energy diplomacy during 2016 has brought Iran and India closer together, with India recently expressing interest in constructing a terminal in Iran for facilitating exports back to India. Irans LNG output has not yet reached its potential, but expectations that it could compete with Qatar are running high.

Australia has already built a significant LNG infrastructure and is ready to export. Massive projects like Chevrons Gorgon facility are finally in a position to begin exporting large quantities of LNG. Japans Tokyo Gas Co. recently accepted its first cargo from Gorgon, a further sign that the facilitys much-publicized woes may finally be at an end. Other ailing LNG projects are benefiting from more capital, a sign that whatever the current market conditions, Australian commitment to LNG production remains strong. Global conditions point to thriving small-scale LNG production, even as high-profile mega projects like Gorgon struggle.

Like other countries worldwide, Indias natural gas ambitions are one part economic, one part political. India has committed itself to bringing down its greenhouse gas emissions. Coal accounts for 61 percent of its total energy use, and like China, India has shown an interest in moving away from coal as an energy source. Global commitment to reducing greenhouse gases are helping to feed demand for cleaner natural gas, but the transition from dirtier fuel sources has been slow, while competition from renewable energy sources has been tougher than expected. India is trying to accelerate the transition by feeding natural gas to power plants, including nine in the southern part of the country, while the government is trying to encourage shipping to adopt natural gas as a new fuel source. Related: The Hidden Costs Of Obama's Cheap Gas

But challenges lie in the way of Indias LNG ambitions. In the summer, the big story was India snapping up LNG adrift on the European market, for want of a buyer. The price was plummeting, a glut was exceeding demand, and India was well positioned to feed growing domestic demand. Imports from March to May soared, only to stagnate in July. Total imports this year are more than 20 percent higher than last year, but that may be a product of low prices rather than actualized demand: importers are taking advantage of favorable market conditions to snatch up LNG while they can.

Despite government interest in LNG as a new, clean energy source, there has been a commitment within the government of prime minister Narendra Modi to increase the countrys coal production to 1 billion tons a year by 2020, announced in July 2015. This was in part a political move, designed to answer accusations in 2014 (when Modi came to office) that the countrys coal stores were dangerously low. When the announcement was made last year, a number of Indias coal-fired power stations sat idle for want of fuel.

Now, the situation has been reversed. Coal India, the state-run mining company, has been producing and importing massive new stocks of coal, but recently reported a decline of 14.7 percent first quarter profits from 2015. Demand for more coal is projected to be sluggish, and the ambitious call for 1 billion tons toned down. While this may bode well for natural gas, it points to another potential problem: energy demand in India may not be as robust as expected.

So, while hopes are running high that India can save LNG from its current woes, it remains to be seen whether those hopes will be dashed upon the subcontinents shores.

By Gregory Brew for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Oil & Gas Bankruptcy Continues to Climb to $50.4 Billion in August

Three more companies joined the ranks of those that have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since the fall in oil prices. The three companies had combined debt of approximately $367 million, bringing the total number of oil and gas producers to file for bankruptcy in 2016 to 58, and a total combined debt of $50.4 billion, according to Haynes and Boones Oil Patch Bankruptcy Monitor.

The total number of North American oil and gas producers to file for bankruptcy since the beginning of 2015 is now at 102. The total secured and unsecured debt for those filings is approximately $67.8 billion.

(Click to enlarge)

Companies emerging from bankruptcy quickly

A number of companies that filed in recent months have already emerged from Chapter 11 with new capital structures. Many companies have been reaching agreements with their creditors before filing for bankruptcy, creating prepackaged bankruptcies that allow the companies to move through the process quickly.

Most recently, companies like Penn Virginia Corporation and Halcon Resources (ticker: HK), have come out of bankruptcy in a matter of months. Halcons case took 57 days, while Penn Virginias took roughly three months to work its way through the courts. Through Chapter 11, Halcon and Penn Virginia were able to reduce their debt by $1.8 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively.

There are a lot more folks today taking companies into bankruptcy, and theyre looking to pre-negotiate the whole deal, said Blackhill Partners Managing Director Jeff Jones. So they cut a deal with the bond holders and they cut a deal with the lien holders, and they get the agreement of 80 percent of the parties on what this plan structure is going to be, and therefore, it goes much more quickly. Those are usually well negotiated and researched, and theyre usually set up a good amount of time in advance. Related: Despite Criticism, Prime Minister May Gives Go-Ahead To Hinkley Point

Even though companies are coming out of bankruptcy more quickly than in the past, most are making very conservative estimates about the future. Companies do not want to get their restructuring wrong in Chapter 11 and come back for a second round in the courts.

Its an embarrassment to all the advisors, especially the financial advisors who should know better than to let their client come out with an unwieldy capital structure, said Jones.

Haynes and Boone Partner Patrick Hughes told Oil & Gas 360 that analysts with whom he had spoken thought the industry was only one-third of the way through the bankruptcy cycle, meaning there could be even more to come in the near future.

By Oil & Gas 360

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
This article appeared on Alternet on 9/18/16.

The only way



Truly listening before talking is crucial

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According to most commentators, the prototypical Trump supporter is an uneducated, narrow-minded bigot with legitimate grievances against the faltering economy that Trump has skillfully alchemized into violent rage toward non-whites, Muslims and successful women. The Trump voter is a patriarchal authoritarian primed since early childhood to fearfully submit to a bullying father who always knows best. In the circular logic of the authoritarian mindset, might makes right and so, Trump as the strongman is necessarily the winner in a competition against losers.

There is some truth in this profile, but it doesn't capture the nuances of experience, emotion and belief that are about to lead tens of millions of voters to pull the lever for Trump, including, as of July, 11% of Muslims , 13% of Latinos , 34% of women and significant numbers of professionals. Progressives tend to react to such information with groaning disbelief at which point we either give up or rededicate ourselves to enlightening the ignorant dupes with scads of facts that contradict the false narrative spun by Trump.

As anyone who's ever tried to reason someone out of their core beliefs knows, the mind filters out contradictory information, particularly the mind of an authoritarian whose panic button is stuck in the on position. Debating them and trying to convince them to dump Trump will make them dig in deeper-- that's what people do when they feel threatened. Also, as Newt Gingrich makes woefully clear in this John Oliver clip , everyone's got their own set of "facts" these days so flinging more facts back and forth is futile.

So what should we do instead? To answer this question, I contacted communication guru Sharon Ellison, creator of Powerful Non-Defensive Communication and author of Taking the War Out of Our Words . Ellison has trained thousands of educators, government officials and corporate and non-profit leaders, myself included, in a completely novel, straightforward style of communication that avoids the pitfalls of the conventional adversarial approach. She was credited with turning around a trailing gubernatorial campaign by training the candidate in powerful non-defensive communication, and her website teems with testimonials from trainees who've achieved communication and relationship breakthroughs they'd never imagined.

I asked Ellison for tips on engaging with Trump supporters in ways that encourage them to drop their mental defenses and rethink their position. The starting place, she says, is curiosity.

Instead of blasting Trump or insulting the morality or intelligence of his supporters, first, just get curious. You don't have to agree, you're simply gathering information and trying to understand where they're coming from, even if you believe they're deeply misguided.

Make it a dialogue, not a debate or an inquisition. No matter how true and rational your analysis is, force feeding it will not go down well. Nor will a pre-meditated series of sugar-coated questions designed to subtly lead the person to "get it." The right question, skillfully and non-aggressively posed, could prompt someone to gain unexpected insights, and when they realize something for themselves, they can more easily accept it.

Your questions should be very specific but posed in a non-judgmental way. (Note that I'm calling the questions "specific" rather than "pointed" which implies that a question is a weapon).

Ellison cautions, when talking to a Trump supporter, against the use of very general, open-ended questions--some of us gravitate toward these because they feel softer, but they can wind up serving as an invitation to rant. For example, my instinct was to ask Trump supporters what makes them feel afraid and how Trump makes them feel safe. I was envisioning a heartwarming scene in which the person shares his deepest fears and I empathize so beautifully that he then realizes that Trump poses an existential threat to the future of life on this planet. But the more likely outcome of my question, Ellison says, is that he goes off on a tirade about a racial or religious minority and I angrily storm out.

Below is a list of options for curiosity-based questions you could ask. It doesn't matter how the person answers your question(s)--the answer gives you important information as a basis for asking either another question or making your own statement. Later on, I'll show you how to follow up with position statements that express your beliefs in ways that can also disarm defensiveness.

Opening Questions:

"May I ask you something about what you just said?"

"May I ask about what you said when we were talking the other day?"

General Questions:

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Reprinted from Gush Shalom

ZIONISM WAS a revolutionary idea. It proposed that the "Jewish people" should create a new Jewish entity in the land of Palestine.

The Zionist project was very successful indeed. By 1948, the embryo nation was strong enough to create a state. Israel was born.

When one builds a house, one needs scaffolding. When the building is finished, the scaffolding is removed.

But political ideas and structures don't die easily. The human mind is lazy and apprehensive, and clings to familiar ideas, long after they have become obsolete. Also, political and material interests become vested in the idea and resist change.

Thus "Zionism" continued to exist after its aim had already been achieved. The scaffolding became superfluous, indeed obstructive.

WHY OBSTRUCTIVE? Let's take Australia, for example. It was created by British settlers, as a colony of Britain. Australians were deeply committed to Britain. During World War II they came to us, on their way to fight for Britain in North Africa. (We liked them very much.)

But Australia is not Britain. A different climate, a different geography, a different location, which dictates different political options.

If we consider World Jewry as a kind of motherland, like Britain for Australia, Israel should have cut the umbilical cord at birth. A new nation. A new location. A different neighborhood. Different options.

This never happened. Israel is a "Zionist" state, or so the vast majority of its citizens and leaders believe. Not being a Zionist means being an apostate, almost a traitor.

But what do Israelis mean by "Zionism"? Patriotism? Nationalism? Solidarity with Jews around the world? Or something much more: the idea that Israel does not really belong to its citizens, but to all the Jews around the world?

THESE BASIC conceptions, whether conscious or unconscious, have wide-ranging consequences.

Israel is officially and judicially defined as "a Jewish and democratic state." Does that mean that non-Jewish citizens of Israel, such as the Arabs, do not really belong, but are only tolerated and their civil rights are questionable? Does it mean that Israel as such is, in reality, a Western nation transplanted to the Middle East? (In itself a Western name.)

Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, suggested in his fundamental book "The Jewish State" that in Palestine we would volunteer to serve as an outpost for European civilization against barbarism. Which barbarians did he have in mind?

Some 110 years later, the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, expressed the same idea in more colorful words, when he described Israel as a "villa in the Jungle." Again, it is easy to guess which wild beasts he had in mind.

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News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Heal Zimbabwe Trust has said evidence of political intolerance continues to grow within the Zimbabwean body politics."Political intolerance, in the context of Zimbabwe is the unwillingness of political parties and their members to accept the opinions, views and or behaviour that differ with theirs. This can be internally within their parties or across political parties. About 29 cases of political intolerance were recorded," the trust said."Currently political intolerance is manifesting in the form of political threats of violence, abduction, rape and denial of food against perceived opposition parties and individuals. For example, in Gutu ward 6, Mr. Michael Bhema, a ZANU PF elected Councillor threatened villagers who attended the Zimbabwe People First rally at Mucheke Stadium in Masvingo on the 19th of July 2016.Bhema said "those who attended Zimbabwe People First rally in Masvingo will have their names submitted to the Central Intelligence Officers and dealt with before the 2018 elections."The trust said these remarks show the relationship and a conflation between state structures and political party businesses which is a violation of the constitution."The constitution prohibits security structures from supporting any political party and from acting in a partisan manner. In Uzumba Ward 6, on the 20th of August, ZANU PF Ward 6 Chairperson Godfrey Chikono moved around the ward threatening members of the public who attended a public meeting hosted by the Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (RTUZ) on the 19th of August 2016 at Mutawatawa Business Centre," reported the trust."He threatened violence and eviction to those who disregarded his words and instructed that only meetings announced by ZANU PF should be attended. Similar threats were also reported in Buhera ward 5, a ZANU PF Councillor, Jane Ziki ordered people at community gatherings and meetings that all opposition supporters in the area should "repent" before the 2018 elections, or face the "consequences".Other cases of political intolerance were also reported in Shamva ward 11, Gutu Ward 2, Mbire Ward 17 and Nyanga North ward 2, Chinhoyi ward 15 and Mazowe North constituency.The trust said in Mazowe, ZANU PF Mashonaland Central Provincial Chairperson, Dickson Mafios was addressing rallies campaigning for the Parliamentary by election candidate, Advocate Martin Dinha where he threatened people with evictions if Mr Dinha lose the election.
Some quotes:

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."--Winston Churchill

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."--John 8:32

"You may think times are bad, and the young are taking this country in the wrong direction. The elders always see it that way. It's no different today."--old men

"I don't want eternal truth; I want a chili dog."-- Anonymous, 1966

"greed, for lack of a better word, is good."--Gordon Gekko

"If there was another way I would take it. But there is no alternative"--Margaret Thatcher

"If we don't do this tomorrow, we won't have an economy on Monday." -- Ben Bernanke to Congress September 18, 2008

"Unless you act, the financial system of this country and the world will melt down in a matter of days." --Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to Congress September 18, 2008

"Madoff made off with all the money. And his clients are down to skunk weed. Repeat after me it's so easy to see. We're only talking simple greed."--Jimmy Buffett, (A Lot to Drink About)

Okay, okay. Enough with the quotes! My point is this: Everybody knows there's something wrong in the USA. But practically nobody knows what or why. And that includes economists who have won a Nobel Prize. One, Milton Friedman, did know how to be an authority figure for plutocrats to point to when defending their vast and growing wealth and the growing poverty that has been noticed by others.

But is there really "no alternative"? Is this polarized economy of winners and losers really a democracy? Is greed really good? Instinctively, we know better, but if we don't know what we don't know, we can't hope to propose a better way and a realistic path to its adoption.

Friedman's economic theories are, unfortunately for the 99.9%, the received wisdom of today. The Federal Reserve System and all other central banks worldwide are stripping assets from individuals, governments, and the Earth as rapidly as possible through debt slavery. The end result of this con game will be the death of humanity and, perhaps, the destruction of all life on Earth if it is allowed to play out.

There are, however, a few economists today who understand what is wrong and have explained it in language the general intelligent reader can readily understand. They do their work primarily at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Some of the most prolific authors among them are Michael Hudson, L. Randall Wray, and William Black. There are others as well. The most notable predecessor of these scholars, IMO, was Hyman Minsky, who passed away on October 24, 1996.

I recommend Hudson's Killing the Host as a first book for those interested in learning what is wrong and what to do about it. Next, I suggest reading Why Minsky Matters, by Wray, who studied under Minsky.

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Reprinted from Paul Craig Roberts Website



Putin and Obama

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The Russian government is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The Russian government keeps making agreements with Washington, and Washington keeps breaking them.

This latest exercise in what Einstein defined as insanity is the latest Syrian cease-fire agreement. Washington broke the agreement by sending the US Air Force to bomb Syrian troop positions, killing 62 Syrian soldiers and wounding 100, thus clearing the way for ISIS to renew the attack.

Russia caught Washington off guard in September 2015 when the Russian Air Force was sent to bomb ISIS positions in Syria, thus enabling the Syrian Army to regain the initiative. Russia had the war against ISIS won, but pulled out unexpectedly before the job was done. This allowed the US or its agents to resupply ISIS, which renewed the attack.

So Russia had to return to Syria. In the interval, Washington had inserted itself. Now the Russian air attacks on ISIS are more complicated, as is the sky over Syria. Russia notifies Washington of its planned attacks on ISIS, and Washington warns ISIS and perhaps Turkey which shot down a Russian plane. Nevertheless, the Syrian Army gained ground.

But each time victory was stymied by "peace talks" or a "cease fire," during which the US supported forces would regroup. Consequently, a war that Russia and Syria could have already won continues, and with a new element. Now Washington has directly attacked the Syrian army.

The US military claims it thought it was striking ISIS. Think about that a minute. The US claims to be a military superpower. It spies on the entire world, even on the personal emails and cell phone calls of its European vassals. Yet, somehow all this spy power failed to differentiate a known Syrian Army position from ISIS. If we believe that, we must conclude that the US is militarily incompetent.

This is what has happened: Priot to the current "cease fire," the Russians could attack the US-supported jihadists, but the US could not attack Syrian forces directly, only through its jihadist proxies. The US has used the "cease fire" to create a precedent for US direct attacks on the Syrian Army.

The Russians, who almost had the war won, have shifted their focus to "peace talks" and "cease fires" that the US has used to introduce Washington's direct participation into the conflict.

It is a mystery that the Russian government believes Washington and Moscow have any common interest in the outcome in Syria. Washington's interest is to remove Assad and put Syria into the chaos that rules in Libya and Iraq. Russia's interest is to stabalize Syria as a bulwark against the spread of jihadism. It is extraordinary that the Russian government is so misinformed that it thinks Moscow and Washington have a common interest in fighting terrorism, when terrorism is Washington's weapon for destabilizing the Middle East.

How can the Russian memory be so short? Washington promised Gorbachev that if he permitted the reunification of Germany, NATO would not move one inch to the East. But the Clinton regime placed NATO on Russia's border.

The George W. Bush regime violated the ABM Treaty by pulling out of it, and the Obama regime is putting missile bases on Russia's border.

The neoconservatives deep-sixed no first use of nuclear weapons and elevated them to pre-emptive first strike in US war doctrine.

The Obama regime overthrew the Ukrainian government and installed a US puppet government in a former constituent part of Russia. The puppet government launched a war against the Russian populations in Ukraine, causing secession movements that Washington has mischaracterized as "Russian invasion and annexation."

Yet, the Russian government thinks Washington is a "partner" with whom it has common interests.

Go figure.
This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Reprinted from Counterpunch



Syrian Arab Republic Flag

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American and NATO aggressions must be opposed wherever they surface in the world. That statement ought to be the starting point for anyone calling themselves left, progressive, or anti-war. Of course the aggressors always use a ruse to diminish resistance to their wars of terror. In Syria and elsewhere they claim to support freedom fighters, the moderate opposition and any other designation that helps hide imperialist intervention. They label their target as a tyrant, a butcher, or a modern day Hitler who commits unspeakable acts against his own populace. The need to silence opposition is obvious and creating the image of a monster is the most reliable means of securing that result.

The anti-war movement thus finds itself confused and rendered immobile by this predictable propaganda. It is all too easily manipulated into being at best ineffectual and at worst supporters of American state sponsored terror.

For five years the United States, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar and Turkey have given arms and money to terrorist groups in an effort to topple Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Some of those bad actors felt flush with success after overthrowing and killing Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. They had high hopes of picking off another secular Arab government. Fortunately, Assad was hard to defeat and the barbarians cannot storm the gates. Most importantly, Russia stopped giving lip service to Assad and finally provided military support to the Syrian government in 2015.

The United States government is responsible for the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria. The so-called barrel bomb doesn't kill more people than conventional weapons provided by the United States and its puppets. There would not be bombs of any kind, sieges, starving children, or refugees if the Obama administration had not given the green light to the rogues gallery.

Whatever their political beliefs or feelings about Assad, Syrians did not ask the United States to turn their country into a ruin. They don't want ISIS to behead children, as they infamously did on camera. American presidents, beginning with Jimmy Carter, have all used jihadists at opportune moments when they want regime change. The name of the country under attack changes but the story ends with massive human suffering.

Instead of siding unequivocally with America's victims some in the anti-war movement instead live in greater fear of being labeled "pro Assad." Assad didn't invade Iraq and kill one million people. George W. Bush did that. Assad did not give support to jihadists to destroy Libya, kill 50,000 people, ignite a race war and create another refugee crisis. Barack Obama did that. The list of human rights abuses carried out by the American government is a long one indeed. There is torture in the United States prison system, the largest in the world. American police are given tacit permission to kill three people every day. Yet the fear of being thought of as an Assad supporter is so powerful that it silences people and organizations who should be in the forefront of confronting their country domestically and internationally.

Of course American propaganda is ratcheted up at the very moment that sides must be chosen. Any discussion or debate regarding Syria's political system was rendered moot as soon as the United States targeted that country for destruction. There is only one question now: when will America tell its minions to stop fighting?

Obama didn't start a proxy war with an expectation of losing, and Hillary Clinton makes clear her allegiance to regime change. The United States will only leave if Syria and its allies gain enough ground to force a retreat. They will call defeat something else at a negotiating table but Assad must win in order for justice and reconciliation to begin.

Focusing on Assad's government and treatment of his people may seem like a reasonable thing to do. Most people who call themselves anti-war are serious in their concern for humanity. But the most basic human right, the right to survive, was taken from 400,000 people because the American president decided to add one more notch on his gun. Whether intended or not, criticism of the victimized government makes the case for further aggression.

The al-Nusra Front may change its name in a public relations effort, but it is still al Qaeda and still an ally of the United States. The unpredictable Donald Trump may not be able to explain that he spoke the truth when he accused Obama and Clinton of being ISIS supporters, but the anti-war movement should be able to explain without any problem. Cessations of hostilities are a sham meant to protect American assets whenever Assad is winning. If concern for the wellbeing of Syrians is a paramount concern, then the American anti-war movement must be united in condemning their own government without reservation or hesitation.
Reprinted from Campaign For America's Future

Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has a new book out entitled "The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe." On "The Zero Hour," we spoke with Professor Stiglitz about the tension between globalization and democracy, the mistaken thinking that gave rise to the euro experiment, and what that experience can tell us about the need to resist bad trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, renegotiate older ones like NAFTA, and invest in jobs and growth in the United States. He also expressed opposition to a tax giveaway that's reportedly in the works for corporations like Apple.

Stiglitz described the euro as "a fascinating experiment from an economist's perspective," adding that "it's a failed experiment" but "there's a lot we can learn." As with globalization overall, he said, "the economics advanced faster than the political institutions that would make it work."

Stiglitz noted that 62 percent of the voters in Spain, Portugal and Greece have voted against the draconian austerity policies imposed upon them by the Germans and the European Central Bank. He shared the concern that these policies are undermining European democracy and giving rise to extremist parties and movements on the far right.

In the era of Trump, is that a lesson for the United States? "Very much so," said Stiglitz, "and it's precisely that sort of connection that provided some of my motivation for writing the book. It's often easier to see what's gone wrong by looking at other countries than by looking at one's own country."

Stiglitz added:

"In the United States we've had similar promises about how NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement] and other trade agreements would bring greater prosperity, and for large fractions of America that is not been the case. Even now, President Obama is ... pushing forward on a trade agreement, TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership... that benefits corporate interests, not ordinary Americans."

Stiglitz is, however, optimistic that the current political mood will help defeat the TPP. "I'm hopeful," he said, "that there is the beginning of a realization that blindly going forward globalization is not going to bring the country prosperity -- at least, not to the bottom 90 percent."

But why did center-left parties in Europe, and the Democratic Party leadership here, support these deals and the thinking behind them for so long? In Stiglitz's view, that may have been a defensible position 20 or 25 years ago but is not today, given the experience of the last two decades.

Then why so many policymakers in Europe and the United States continued to push globalization, despite the evidence? "In American politics," Stiglitz replied, "part of the reason is of course the influence of money." He pointed out that both presidential candidates now say they oppose the TPP, which he takes as a hopeful sign.

Stiglitz laid the blame for some of the trade agreements' most harmful policies on our own government:

"Occasionally you'll hear somebody say 'we bargained badly' in these trade agreements. Well, the fact of the matter is, it wasn't our trading partners that were demanding many of the provisions that have been so painful to ordinary Americans -- the kinds of provisions that make it more difficult to protect our environment, the economy, our health, our safety, raising drug prices, and so forth. It's actually America's trade negotiators or TPP negotiators reflecting corporate interests ..."

Stiglitz said that, if the next president wants to renegotiate past deals like NAFTA, "I believe we could make significant progress."

While Stiglitz sounded an optimistic note on trade, he expressed greater concern about bank regulation. On taxation, he said, "there's a real worry that multinationals like Apple will get tax relief. They're supposed to be paying taxes of 35 percent; they've taken advantage of this special loophole, shipping money abroad. Now there's lots of discussion that ... we'll pass a special bill that allows them to bring it back at very low rate."

"We'll be rewarding them for not investing in America," Stiglitz concluded, "which is just wrong."

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Our century, merely 16 years old has seen the re-invention of word "Spring" in the most unexplained manner. Commencing from Arab peninsula, it has become synonymous with the notion of "change", converging political and social feature onto one platform.

A similar spring is blooming, no more silently in a region not far from where the genesis came, however it is being ignored in the same manner as the former was misunderstood. The region, or valley as they call it is "Kashmir", which remains volatile and disputed between arch historical and nuclear rivals India and Pakistan for close to seven decades now. The "Global Reluctance" I quote in the heading comes from the fact that when world leaders unite under the context of world peace, progress and order at UN General Assembly later into this week, the "Kashmir Question" will be nowhere to be seen. Yes, the drive will remain Syria, Refugee Crisis, and Sustainability on top of the agenda, it is once again regrettable that neither security council nor general assembly learns from the fact that taking on issues that pose threat is the key to peace, rather than resolving as mediator when the tide has already passed the breaking point with Syria the best example.

So what is wrong with Kashmir and the Kashmiris, and why is the world so divided in addressing this root cause of a major outstanding rivalry between the two South Asian neighbors is all this article is directed to place in front of the readers. Let's not enslave us with the tales of last century or more, referred especially in the case of Kashmir, the accession question of the Maharaja, the war that waged in 1948, the division of the valley into Pakistan and Indian controlled, the UN resolution and subsequent inaction. Learning from the past is the key, however remaining in the past might not be the answer in a case like Kashmir as we see it today. The fact is that it is time to internationalize the growing crisis in Kashmir instead of burying it into the past half explained historical facts and the context of "Bilateral Solution". The latter especially is as vague as a puzzle can be, with Both India and Pakistan lacking the capacity to settle the issue on their own.

The "Spring in Kashmir" has been witnessed in the Indian held region, and the last three months have been critical especially. An unending reign of curfew and crackdown by the Indian security forces has been equally matched by the resilience of ordinary Kashmiris, flocking out into the streets to register their protests. The clashes have left scores of civilians dead, with immense force being deployed by Indian state to counter the wave, which is gaining momentum every passing moment. The presence of Pakistani flags during marches and protests, has become symbolic with this wave. For India, this is the worst nightmare, a popular uprising and that too with Pakistan being made a party. Quoting India's nightmare, the same is translated for Pakistan, which itself houses a sizable proportion of Kashmir population and territory, and remaining aloof to the situation will only make it untrustworthy for both Kashmiris living inside its domain as well as across the Line of Control. So what does the hoisting of Pakistani flags by protestors under curfew signifies, is a question needs understanding. The Kashmiris are looking for a platform, the reluctance of global community to consider their voice leaves them with no option but to call for the next door neighbor. A call of this magnitude, unheard on state level will not be the case with the Kashmiris and civilians in Pakistan for a longer time, and any action in this direction can dissolve the already weakened trust barriers between New Delhi and Islamabad into an open conflict.

The optimism for a solution of Kashmir, based on multilateral international diplomacy comes from the fact that even inside India, the old wine being projected in the renewed bottle of "Cross Border Infiltration of Mujahedeen" isn't selling the way PM Narendar Modi would have liked to. It is important to establish that the new India has been caught between the wave of modernization and the centuries old conservative illusion of "Greater India" at this crucial junction. The former comes from the fact that in 2016, India has a very legitimate regional and global presence stemming from its economical bloom while the latter comes from the fact that leadership like Modi knows the long tested "Hate and Segregation" card to bring home the electoral victory and divine presence. Yes, the "Spring" seen in Kashmir (Indian Held) has nothing to do with any support coming from Pakistan or any other land. The uprising is against the non-secular lines explored and exploited by BJP under PM Modi, and Kashmiris have only reacted upon seeing their survival at a risk.

One important aspect not to be ignored is the fact that the new trends of radicalism globally reflect that under oppression or tyranny, the forces like Al Qaeda, ISIS or other local chapters have an easier access or penetration and Kashmir stands no exception. The present momentum is from internal forces, in the face of atrocities inflicted by the Indian state. However, severity in it or extension of crackdown can soon bring all unwanted elements into Kashmir, something which will bring down both Pakistan and India into an unwanted but unavoidable confrontation.

To conclude, the great powers not limited to US and Russia alone needs to step up and undertake their due role in addressing the issue of Kashmir as the situation is quite volatile for only Pakistan and India to be left alone to address. The lesson from Syria, in view of newly found understanding and arrangement between US and Russia is crystal clear that the millions killed in civil war is all because the two power houses took too long to understand their responsibility, that finally came at a very heavy cost. Let's hope the same doesn't imply for Kashmir.
Reprinted from Consortium News

If you think you already know the story of Edward Joseph Snowden, the man who leaked evidence of the global mass surveillance programs that the U.S. and U.K. governments have been conducting not just on enemies abroad but on their citizens at home, think again. Very few people know the complexities of the man and his backstory.

Even if you saw "Citizenfour," Laura Poitras's Oscar-winning documentary about Snowden's historic act, Oliver Stone's movie, "Snowden," tells a significantly different story, using dramatic license to take you on an emotional journey into Snowden's experiences and motivations.

As Stone emphasized in person at a screening that I attended, the film is not a documentary and was decidedly fictionalized for dramatic effect. That said, many specifics and incidents are true -- and Stone remained true to Snowden in terms of his intelligence, temperament and reasoning that helped shape the actions he took.

This riveting film -- Stone's latest foray into the dangers and excesses of the National Security State -- has all the ingredients that we've come to expect from the frequent Academy Award winner and nominee. Stone's touch is everywhere evident in the film.

The story that Stone and co-writer Kieran Fitzgerald weaves is compelling. The characters grow and evolve over the course of the film. The score is evocative. Shots are artfully crafted to make a rich movie-going experience. The visuals -- and in one particular sequence, visualizations -- are stunning.

Stone takes us along on Snowden's personal journey of discovery in a film that is anchored by the love story between initially political opposites who grow, change and learn to make sacrifices to protect each other.

The film opens near the end of his story, with Snowden holed up in the Mira Hotel in Hong Kong, awaiting his first rendezvous with activist Laura Poitras and the lawyer-turned-journalist Glenn Greenwald. The film jumps back and forth in time from that "present" to Snowden's past, which proceed in parallel throughout the film.

Snowden had originally tried to join the Special Forces, having been upset by the 9/11 tragedy that befell New York City and by proxy the rest of America. Due to an injury, Snowden turns to his interest in computers, and his technical prowess helps him rise quickly through the ranks of the CIA and brings him to the attention of the National Security Agency at the highest levels.

Like so many Americans, Snowden believed that what the secret elements of our government were doing were benign and necessary, due to the rise of terrorism. Snowden wanted to participate in covert operations and was given the opportunity. But when he realized that covert operations involved compromising people who had committed no crimes just so they could be forced to help the CIA, he had a change of heart and for a time left the agency.

And, the more Snowden learned from his work in America's intelligence services, including the communications-spying NSA, the more he understood that with great power comes a great temptation to use it for evil as well as for good. Eventually, the weight of bearing the secrets he carried caused him to break some oaths in order to honor the higher calling of protecting the American people from unwarranted and unjustifiable surveillance.

The Human Value of Privacy

In the film, at one point, Snowden gets upset when his girlfriend says so what if the government listens in -- she had nothing to hide. But everyone has something to hide. That's why you have a password on your computer, why your medical records aren't made public, why your taxes stay between you and the IRS (unless, of course, you are running for president, in which case there is an expectation of greater transparency).

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The Cliff Road Chop House or Death at The Acropolis

by John Martini

In early 2012, the new Lands End Lookout Visitor Center began taking final shape on Point Lobos Avenue just east of Merrie Way. Few people, though, realize the site of the shiny new visitor center has a much darker history as the location of the ill-fated Acropolis Chophouse.

The chop house on Point Lobos Avenue was the largest of several vending stands located along what was then called Cliff Avenue between Sutro Baths and the steam train depot at 48th Avenue. These stands, originally built as informational and concession kiosks at the 1894 Midwinter Fair in Golden Gate Park, had been purchased by Adolph Sutro at the fairs end. He acquired at least twenty, many going into his new Sutro Baths to serve as display cases while others were re-erected around the grounds of Sutros mini-amusement park called (alternately) the Midway Plaissance, Merry Street, or Merrie Way.

The midways attractions included a Firth Wheel, a Scenic Railway, a Haunted Swing, and a Mystic Mirror Maze, all recycled from the 1894 Fair. [Read more on Merrie Way on this page and this page.]

Sutro had several of the recycled kiosks sited along the north side of Cliff Avenue, carefully positioned to intercept visitors walking downhill from the train depot to the Cliff House and Sutro Baths, or lingering at the Merrie Way rides. The 1899-1900 Sanborn fire map of Cliff Avenue reveals there were originally nine kiosks lining the street. 1

Sutro must have calculated that Merrie Way and the Baths would be such huge attractions that he could lease all nine kiosks to eager concessionaires. But his vision turned out very wrong. Adolph Sutro died in August 1898, and within a year the rides and attractions along Merrie Way began to shut down, possibly as a cost-saving measure ordered by his executrix-daughter Emma Sutro Merritt. Photos taken at the turn of the 20th century reveal an abandoned midway with several kiosks standing empty, marred by broken windows and To Let signs on their fronts. 2

By 1910 only two stands remained  the Chop House and a fruit stand located about 80 feet to its west. 3

The Chop House Owner

City Directories indicate the chop house opened around 1898 as The Acropolis Oyster Stand," operated by Manuel Varvare (also spelled Vavare, Varvaris, and Varvares in various documents) who ran the stand until his death in 1908. Over the years, he advertised it variously as an oyster stand, a lunch stand, a restaurant, and a chop house, the changing descriptions probably reflecting both the physical growth of the structure and its menu. 4

By the turn of the century, the Acropolis restaurant consisted of the original 1894 kiosk and a welter of lean-to additions that housed a kitchen and dining room and a standup oyster bar. Varvaris lived in a small room at the rear (north end) of the restaurant, close to the tracks of the abandoned Scenic Railroad and the empty midway.

Business must have been very bad following Sutros death and the ensuing demise of Merrie Way, and Manuel Varvare tried to sell his Acropolis Chophouse twice, first in 1899 and again in 1901, stating in the newspaper ads that he planned to go to Europe. But he apparently either changed his mind or couldn't find any takers. 5

Not only did the spelling of Varvares name change in the City directories, but so did the Acropolis address. At various times it was shown as Cliff Avenue near Sutro Heights, Cliff Avenue near the Cliff House, 5 Cliff Avenue, and 840 Point Lobos Avenue. Varvare couldnt seem to decide on the restaurants location either, describing it as Sutro Heights and half a block from the baths in advertisements.

Varvare also had exceptionally bad luck with his patrons. The San Francisco Call reported in February 1905 that a trio of soldiers refused to pay for their meals at the Acropolis, and when the proprietor demanded payment, They attacked Vavare [sic] with knives, cutting his clothing and body. They also beat him on the head and body with a club. 6

Things would get much, much worse.

Three years later, on February 7, 1908, an armed robber held up Varvare in his restaurant, forcing him at gunpoint through the dining room, kitchen and tiny bedroom, and taking $87 in gold eagles and pocket change. The robber then wrote down Varvaris name on a scrap of paper and threatened to return and kill him if he reported the crime to the police.

Varvare, a good citizen, immediately alerted the San Francisco Police Department about the robbery. 7

True to his word, the robber returned to the restaurant four days later. The Call reported what happened:

Friday night [February 21] Varvaris heard a heavy knock on the front door of his restaurant at 5 Cliff avenue, the scene of the first robbery. Believing it was a customer he opened the door. No sooner had he done so than the thug attacked Varvaris, beating him with the butt end of a 45 caliber revolver, fracturing his skull. Leaving his victim to die the robber disappeared, but not before the victim had recognized his assailant as the man who attacked him the previous occasion. 8

Manuel Varvare died at French Hospital on March 7, 1908. The police admit that as yet they have not the slightest clew [sic] to the identity of the murderer.

Following Varvaris murder, the Acropolis Chophouse was taken over by Nicholas Antipa, the owner of the neighboring fruit stand on Cliff Avenue. The Antipa family apparently continued to operate the Acropolis for a few more years, and then either closed it down or converted the restaurant into an expanded fruit and candy stand. (The old directories give conflicting addresses for the Antipa familys holdings.) No listings appear after 1917, and it's likely the old restaurant stood vacant for several years. 9

In 1922, the city widened and realigned the former Cliff Avenue, and in the process demolished the old Acropolis and Antipa Fruit Stand. 10

Contribute your own stories about western neighborhoods places!
News / National

by Staff reporter

Zimbabwe was yesterday tense and resembled a war zone, with police officers opening fire as they fought running battles with protesters in residential areas around Harare.The protests took place in several cities and towns in Zimbabwe amid reports of hordes of opposition supporters being arrested. Gunfire was heard in some areas as police used live bullets, apparently firing into the air to scare away protesters, who in many cases continued to advance towards retreating police.The protests were organised by the National Election Reform Agenda (Nera) and were spread countrywide, with the result that police reaction teams appeared overwhelmed in some instances. Protesters are pushing for electoral reforms among other concerns against the rule of President Robert Mugabe's government.In many parts of Harare and other cities and towns, riot police in armoured vehicles and water cannons were seen patrolling the streets.There were also reports that soldiers and Zanu PF militia had been terrorising people since Friday night as they tried to instil fear into would-be demonstrators.However, spontaneous protests started yesterday mid-morning around the country and they were sporadic in nature. They turned into vicious running battles in some areas where police had to fire gunshots to force advancing demonstrators to retreat.In other parts of the country demonstrations failed to kick off after police and militias sealed off the routes that were going to be followed by the protestors.Yesterday's demonstration came following yet another Nera protest march last month that turned violent after police attacked peaceful protesters.Yesterday in Harare several high-density areas were turned into war zones as police struggled to disperse the demonstrators.In Epworth The Standard witnessed an incident where police intercepted the demonstration but when they saw several pockets of determined resistance they fired numerous shots into the air. They only managed to break the demonstration after threatening they would fire live bullets into the demonstrators.In Mabvuku and Tafara, several people were left injured as police applied brute force to break the demonstration.Police caught up with demonstrators on their way to Old Tafara where they ordered every protestor to get into their lorry. When the protestors refused, baton wielding officers descended on them before they dispersed in different directions.The few who were arrested were later released.In Kuwadzana police also fired gunshots into the air to scare protestors while in Waterfalls police intercepted the demonstrators near the police station and indiscriminately assaulted them before arresting about 10 of them.Kuwadzana legislator and MDC-T vice president Nelson Chamisa described police's action yesterday as brutal, callous and savage."Citizens are very peaceful. Residents are very law abiding and for some reasons it appears there are people who tarnish the image of our police force by using terror tactics where there is no need for such things," Chamisa said while accusing police of turning Kuwadzana into a warzone."This behaviour is a cause of concern. This must worry those in government and those outside the government. That kind of behaviour is not good. We should not become legendary in heavy handedness in treating citizens."He added: "No government can sustain existence on the basis of terror, fear and force. All deaf governments are always short lived and the sooner this government listens to the people the better."In an interview yesterday NERA convener and ZimPF elder Didymus Mutasa described Mugabe's administration as "boyish" in character over its prolonged unprovoked attacks on citizens."I don't quite understand why Mugabe's administration is boyish. Those who work for Mugabe used tear gas and beaten up people doing a peaceful march. When this is presented to the international community it will tarnish Mugabe's image," Mutasa said."Mugabe is doing the same thing that (former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian) Smith did to him on Tsvangirai and Amai Mujuru. I don't quite understand why his administration is doing this."In Bulawayo hundreds of opposition supporters marched from Lunar park in Masotsha Avenue through Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo street to the Bulawayo City Hall where they handed over a petition to MPs to take to parliament.The demonstration was attended by several opposition leaders from various political parties including MDC-T vice President, Thokozani Khupe, MDC-T chairman, Lovemore Moyo, MDC Director of Strategy Ellen Shiriyedenga and Zapu Secretary General Strike Mkandla.Addressing protestors during the march, Khuphe said the time had come for opposition parties "to draw a line in the sand and say never again will we allow an election without reforms.""We want the whole of the ZEC administration to be disbanded, totally; so that we have a non-partisan and professional commission. Police and other security forces should play their part in a non-political and non-partisan manner. Their role is to promote peace and order, not to beat people up," Khupe said.In Chinhoyi riot police swiftly moved in at Gwayagwaya business centre and dispersed some opposition supporters who had gathered to protest.By midday more than 10 people had been arrested and were being held at Chinhoyi Central police station without charge.Among those arrested were MDC-T Chinhoyi District youth chairperson Garikayi Dendera who was picked up while on his way to the demonstration venue.On Friday night suspected Zanu PF militia attacked houses belonging to top MDC-T and Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF) provincial members. The suspects stoned the houses in the middle of the night, breaking windows, presumably to instil fear before today's protests.Officials whose houses were damaged include ZimPF Provincial Women secretary Hilda Musendami and Willie Nyambe MDC-T Chinhoyi district chairperson.On Friday night police rounded up opposition leaders in Kadoma in an apparent move to instil fear in protestors ahead of yesterday's demonstration.In Karoi and other parts of Mashonaland West government reportedly deployed armed soldiers and riot police while several opposition activists were arrested.A survey conducted by The Standard in Karoi's oldest suburb of Chikangwe revealed that anti-riot police were deployed around 7.30 am while state militia were on the prowl in the suburb.By mid-morning heavily armed soldiers were seen patrolling the suburb as terrified residents watched.Police also clamped hard on demonstrators in Mutare resulting in the arrest of Mutasa Central legislator Trevor Saruwaka. According to Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, police arrested several people including legislators as they sought to thwart the demonstration.In Gwanda, Matabeleland South province, police detained MDC Gwanda Central MP Nomathemba Ndlovu, prominent pro-democracy campaigner Kukhanyakwenkosi Mkandla, Solani Moyo and 14 others who were only released after the intervention of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) and Abammeli Human Rights Lawyers.In Midlands province ZLHR lawyers were also deployed to offer emergency legal services to some Zvishavane residents who were arrested for participating in the demonstrations.Scores of protestors were also arrested in Harare including Harare Senator Ronia Bunjira. Glen View North MP Fani Munengami was also reportedly thoroughly beaten by police.Contacted for comment, National Police spokesperson, Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba referred questions to Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi who said he was not in the office yesterday.Sources told The Standard that rattled by increasing protests, Mugabe has ordered his security ministers and security commanders not to allow any demonstration to take place in his absence amid growing suspicion that some of his top officials were supporting dissenting views.They said before his departure for the United Nations General Assembly, Mugabe told his security ministers led by Home Affairs boss, Ignatius Chombo and senior service chiefs that he was fed up with images of violent protests being showed to the world from Zimbabwe."Mugabe initially supported a proposal that had been tabled by police and some ministers to crush protests using excessive force, but later changed his mind opting for a total ban on protests until the UN General Assembly is over," said a senior Zanu PF official."The president is convinced that the current wave of protest are aimed at attracting international attention ahead of the UN summit. This is so because, from the intelligence reports, there are certain names that are featuring predominately in these demonstrations and it's not by coincidence that they are all members of demonstrating institutions or parties."A senior government official said some names such as Pride Mukono, Denford Ngadziore, Tatenda Mombeyarara, Oliver Chikumba and Makomborero Haruzivishe were featuring in all the demonstrations taking place.He said the government discovered that they had been meeting at a certain backyard house in Mufakose and Hatcliffe for strategic meetings plotting demonstrations."We know who is supplying them with white T-shirts inscribed "Mugabe must go" and we know who is funding these meeting. So the president said he would rather ban all demonstrations and police have been told not to approve any, especially in Harare," the official said."We have our informers who have attended some of their backyard meetings in Hatcliffe disguised as a community feedback meeting for residents. They do slogans and discuss how to attack police officers during the demos as well as how to prevent suffocation when tear gas is thrown at them. We have videos and audios of them plotting on who should be at the fore-front and who should be sacrificed for arrest."Chombo said the so called peaceful protests' were not permissible claiming that from past experience, not even a demo led by church leaders could be described as peaceful."Most of these protests are violent and we are against that. Tell your people that we can't have a country that permits violence by rogue elements to disturb our peace. No! No! That will not be allowed," Chombo said last week.But insiders said Mugabe feared a possible uprising by the people.
KP proposed FATA merger before 2018 election

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has proposed the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) merger with the northwestern province by 2018 and holding of the local government elections under the KP Local Government Act, 2013, saying any delay could derail the entire reform and integration process beyond redemption, government officials say.



Officials familiar with discussions on the proposed merger say that the KP chief minister during a formal meeting with the Fata Reforms Committee held in Peshawar earlier this month did not agree with the five-year merger plan.



KPs view was that the merger could take place sooner rather than later and that the five-year plan proposed by the Committee led by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz would push the whole process into an indefinite and uncertain future.



Everybody wants merger and wants it quick, says CM Khattak

Mr Aziz had come to Governor House in Peshawar on Sept 7, along with his team that included National Security Adviser retired Lt Gen Nasser Khan Janjua and Secretary State and Frontier Regions Shehzad Arbab. He briefed KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, CM Khattak and senior ministers Sikandar Sherpao and Inayatullah on the proposed reforms.



In an 80-page document, the Fata Reforms Committee has proposed a set of parallel and concurrent political, administrative, judicial and security reforms as well as a massive reconstruction and rehabilitation programme to prepare Fata for a five-year transition period for merger with KP.



The provincial government, however, believes that the merger could and should take place by 2018 to allow its people to contest elections and send their representatives to the KP Assembly.



The province has also proposed that instead of holding the local bodies elections under a different system, the Committee should look into adopting the KPs Local Government Act, 2013 to ensure Fatas smooth and uniform transition and merger with KP.



I think both suggestions were valid and hold water, said a senior government official, who was present in the meeting. He said the suggestions would now form part of the document to be presented to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after its recommendations were reviewed by parliament.



My gut feeling is that we should be able to wrap up the entire discussion and submit a summary to Prime Minister Sharif by the end of October, he said. It shouldnt take longer than that.



Mr Khattak confirmed to Dawn the suggestions he had put forward to the Committee. The CM said he had told them that their five-year-long plan would push the entire merger process into an uncertain future.



If Fata misses the opportunity to send its representatives to the KP Assembly in 2018, the next opportunity would come in 2023. Who knows what happens until then, he remarked. What we say is pragmatic and practical, he said. I dont see any problems, he asserted.



What we can do is turn the seven tribal agencies into seven or eight districts, he suggested. Our officers are already serving there. Administrative merger would not be an issue at all.



Mr Khattak was critical of the hybrid judicial system proposed for Fata. He said he had asked the Committee to fully mainstream Fata.



What is this Riwaj Act? If the recommendation is to merge Fata with KP, why introduce a different legal system? he asked. Why are you creating another Pata (Provincially Administered Tribal Areas), another Malakand? Let there be one province, one government and one system, he argued.



The chief minister said that he had consulted all the political parties in KP before putting his suggestions before the Committee. There is a consensus in KP, he claimed. Everybody wants merger and wants it quick, he said. This is a historic opportunity. Prime Minister Sharif should seize this opportunity and make history.
Pakistan delegation to UN strongly rebutted India stance on IHK

GENEVA: The Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in Geneva, Ambassador Tehmina Janjua, on Saturday said Indias attempts to deny its illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir is a travesty of history.



The Pakistani delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council also strongly rebutted Indias stance on India-held Kashmir (IHK) and also slammed the Indian states interference in Balochistan.



India had introduced a bill in its own parliament seeking to penalise those who depict Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory. This was yet another pathetic effort to alter facts to conform to their own deluded sense of reality, said Janjua.



The Pakistani delegate also drew the attention of the Council to the recent speech by a Kashmiri member of the Indian Parliament, who described the current Indian repression as worse than that by Nazi forces.



He had also said that if India had any respect of international law, India would end its occupation and let Kashmiris decide their own fate.



We are not surprised by the remarks of the Indian leadership and its delegation, which would constitute open interference in Pakistans internal affairs, especially in Balochistan, said Pakistan representative in the UN.



She added that Indias behaviour is consistent with its record of interfering in neighbouring countries.



The sudden Indian focus on Balochistan is consistent with their playbook of seeking to distract attention from their repression in India-occupied Kashmir.



Janjua pointed out Pakistan had avoided commenting on Indias internal human rights situation.



Given the persistent, irresponsible flouting of international norms governing inter-state behaviour by India, we are constrained to point out the abysmal human rights record of the Indian government, said Janjua.



Pakistan has restrained itself from commenting on the unrelenting repression unleashed by the Indian state in many of its areas. We, instead, only address the situation in India-occupied Kashmir, as that is an international dispute acknowledged in repeated UN resolutions, she added.



In the worst civilian violence to hit the restive region of Indian-held Kashmir since 2010, at least 90 Kashmiri civilians have been killed and thousands more injured in Indian-held Kashmir in clashes with security forces after the killing of a prominent Kashmiri separatist leader Burhan Wani, in a military operation on July 8.



Wani, a 22-year-old commander of Kashmir's largest pro-independence militant group Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), was killed along with two other separatists during a gun battle with Indian government forces.



Wani joined the HM group at the age of just 15, and was viewed as a hero by many in Kashmir. The state's former chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted after his death that he had become the new icon of Kashmir's disaffected.



Witnesses said tens of thousands attended his funeral despite a curfew imposed by Indian authorities, chanting independence slogans.



Indian government troops in IHK have reportedly fired live ammunition, and used pellet guns and tear gas to control anti-government protesters.



Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called an emergency meeting to discuss escalating violence in India-held Kashmir amid anti-India protests.



Pakistan's Foreign Office has also condemned the violence in Indian-held Kashmir.



HM is one of several groups that for decades have been fighting around half a million Indian troops deployed in the region, calling for independence for Kashmir or a merger with Pakistan. Indian paramilitary soldiers patrol during curfew in Srinagar.



Kashmir has been divided between rivals India and Pakistan since 1947, but both claim the territory in its entirety.



Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting since 1989.



Violence had sharply declined in recent years following a major crackdown by the hundreds of thousands of Indian forces deployed in the region.
Pakistan-India to raise IHK,Baloch issue in UN

WASHINGTON: As Pakistan prepares to highlight the current situation in India-held Kashmir at the UN General Assembly and India plans to counter it by raising the Baloch issue, the United States has made it clear that it will not back either side.



What we have said  nothing is changed about our view that we want to see India and Pakistan work this out bilaterally, said State Department spokesman John Kirby when asked to define the US policy on Kashmir.



The US was one of the co-sponsors of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 47 that calls for a free and impartial plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir on the question of its accession to India or Pakistan. But since then, it has slightly changed its position and for the past several decades calls for bilateral talks between the two countries for resolving this dispute. Belgium, Canada, China, Colombia and Britain were the other sponsors of the resolution that the UN Security Council adopted at its 286th meeting on April 21, 1948.



When asked how he viewed Pakistans efforts to raise the issue at international forums, Mr Kirby said: Thats for them to speak to.



A popular uprising in the Kashmir valley this summer has once again highlighted the issue as about 100 people have already been killed and almost 10,000 injured in clashes with Indian security forces.



The killings forced UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Raad Zeid Al Hussein to declare that an international probe into Kashmir killings was imperative now.



Amnesty International also asked India to let its representatives visit the valley to assess the situation but instead of allowing it to do so, an Indian court registered a sedition case against the rights group.



In Islamabad, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters that Pakistan would forcefully raise the Kashmir issue at the UN General Assembly in New York this week.



Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also said that he would raise the Kashmir issue in his address, urging the international community to live up to their promise of the right to self-determination to the people of Kashmir.



Mr Sharif, who arrives in New York on Sunday, has appointed 20 special envoys to travel across the globe for drawing attention to the situation in Kashmir.



Two senior envoys  Senator Mushahid Hussain and AJK President Masood Khan  are coming to Washington early next month to raise the issue with US leaders and at American think-tanks.



India plans to counter Pakistans efforts by raising the Baloch issue at the UN and other world forums, arguing that the Baloch are also seeking independence from Pakistan and deserve international support.



India is also backing efforts of some Baloch activists to hold a demonstration outside the UN headquarters during the prime ministers speech.



Both Pakistan and India are trying to persuade the US to support their positions. The US, however, appears to have decided not to take sides.



Mr Kirbys stance that the Kashmir dispute should be settled bilaterally between Pakistan and India is apparently a damper for Pakistans efforts to persuade other nations to condemn Indian atrocities in the Kashmir valley.



But his statement on Balochistan, at an earlier briefing, was equally, if not more, disappointing for India. He declared unequivocally that the US government respects the unity and territorial integrity of Pakistan and we do not support independence for Balochistan.



At Fridays briefing, the State Department spokesman also ignored efforts to make him condemn the ongoing paramilitary operations in Karachi, but did convey US concern over the situation.



Were monitoring those events very closely, said Mr Kirby when asked what the US assessment was of the Karachi situation.



Were aware that Pakistani security forces have arrested some MQM members allegedly involved in violent protests and that these operations have included the closure and demolition of offices deemed to have been illegally constructed, he said. But Im going to refer you to the government of Pakistan for the latest information about these events.



Asked if the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had shared its assessment of the situation in Karachi with the State Department, Mr Kirby said: Im not aware that there had been specific concerns relayed to us by members of the MQM.



But have you spoken to the Pakistani officials on this? asked the reporter. We routinely communicate with our Pakistani counterparts about issues like this, the US official replied.
PTI backed suspended SSP

KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan waded into the controversy over the arrest and release of Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hasan on Saturday when he threw his weight behind a recalcitrant police officer and accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of forcing the Sindh chief minister to suspend the officer.



However, the Sindh government made it clear that the prime minister had nothing to do with the suspension of Malir SSP Rao Anwar as Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had taken this administrative decision before speaking to the premier.



On Friday, Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Khawaja Izhar, who had got pre-arrest bail in 25 cases pertaining to listening to the provocative speeches of MQM supremo Altaf Hussain, was arrested under a similar FIR by SSP Anwar.



Both the prime minister and the chief minister expressed concerns over the manner in which the opposition leader was arrested, without any intimation to the speaker of the provincial assembly. The Sindh police chief suspended the SSP and Khawaja Izhar was released on a personal bond in the case.



The PTI chief took no time in using the opportunity to heap scorn on his main political rival, as he said in a statement that Mr Sharif was feeling so threatened by the Panama Papers inquiry issue that he was prepared to go to any length to appease the PPP and MQM.



Talking about the suspension of SSP Anwar  who is said to be close to former president Asif Ali Zardari as well as an influential property tycoon  Mr Khan slammed the prime minister for compelling the Sindh chief minister to get the MQM leader released and for suspending the police officer who was simply acting according to the law and in line with his duties.



He said such political interference was the reason why police in Sindh and Punjab were unable to do their job and effectively maintain law and order.



Without naming the PTI chief, a spokesman for the chief minister denied the impression being given by certain political leaders that SSP Anwar was suspended at the behest of the prime minister. The CM took this administrative decision on his own and PM Sharif called him over the phone later.



In an apparent reference to the action of SSP Anwar, PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari promised on Saturday to depoliticise the police force as he believed that the partiality of law-enforcers could weaken peace efforts in Karachi.



Also on Saturday, Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Mustafa Kamal asked MQM-Pakistan chief Dr Farooq Sattar to resign from parliament and take to the streets to struggle for the release and recovery of the held and missing workers in the same manner as he and his party had done for the release of Khwaja Izhar.



He said that his party would fully support their struggle if the MQM lawmakers resigned.



Khwaja Izhar appeared before a sessions court which was informed by the investigation officer of a hate speech case that he was released under Section 497(2) of the criminal procedure code for lack of evidence. The court gave 14 days to the IO to submit a final charge-sheet.



The IO submitted in his report that a man, called Khan Muhammad, had lodged a complaint that he had watched on social media a video in which the MQM chief was criticising the military establishment and giving remarks which were tantamount to sedition. The complaint also nominated Khwaja Izhar for allegedly facilitating the hate speech and applauding its content.



However, the IO said, no proof was found against the MQM leader.



Later, a reluctant Khwaja Izhar told the media that the Sindh CM had shown courage on Friday but only time would tell whether he would stick to his decisions or not.



Meanwhile, the suspension of SSP Anwar did not stop him from appearing on television talk shows to defend his action.



However, a top-ranking police officer told Dawn that the inquiry against SSP Anwar would also focus on his frequent appearance on television talk shows, which might land him in a difficult position because it was a gross violation of the code of conduct for police officers issued by Inspector General of Police A.D. Khowaja.



Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officer said that SSP Anwar arrested the opposition leader at the behest of someone important, as he came to know only on Friday that Khwaja Izhar was a criminal and chief of target killers.
ISRAEL - LIGHT TO THE NATIONS

It's not exactly what you think.




From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As...
News / National

by Staff reporter

Former Zanu PF guru and now a senior member of Zimbabwe People First (ZPF), Kudakwashe Bhasikiti is complaining that he is losing thousands of dollars worth of sugarcane in his 40-hectare piece of land to Zanu PF activists who are feeding their cattle on the plants.Zanu PF politicians and in particular, the Minister of State for Masvingo, Shuvai Mahofa has attacked Bhasikiti at every turn after he was fired from the ruling party and joined ZPF.Bhasikiti said the hooligans are also stealing security fence and destroying orange plantations at his farm.He said he made several Police reports but Police is not acting despite the reports."Zanu PF supporters are sabotaging operations at my Moria Farm. They are herding cattle in the sugarcane fields and orange plantations. I made several Police reports but Police are not acting as no-one has been arrested. We know the people and one of them is a Zanu PF activist called Zindari and they are saying vegetation is in my sugarcane fields since Mwenezi is dry at the moment."Everything is political, they want to punish me because I exercised my freedom to join a Kudakwashe Bhasikiti.political party of my choice. I have lost 40 hectares of sugarcane which is a lot of money."I am a law abiding citizen so I will not take the law into my hands but will increase security at the farm," said Bhasikiti.Bhasikiti loses 40 hectares of sugarcane to Zanu PF 'thugs.
Logs are stacked along the river on the outskirts of Pontianak city, in West Kalimantan province, Borneo

The forest around Manjau in Borneo once reverberated with the scream of chainsaws, as gangs of illegal loggers felled ancient hardwood trees for sale to timber merchants downstream.

But many loggers in the remote Indonesian village are hanging up their chainsaws in return for affordable healthcare, through a community incentive scheme that aims to save lives and protect Borneo's fragile rainforests.

This strategy is set to be rolled out elsewhere in Indonesia, where impoverished communities often reliant on illegal industries for survival are putting enormous strain on the environment.

In western Borneo, where the approach was first pioneered, logging had long been the lifeblood of many communities, providing quick cash whenever it was desperately needed for weddings or health emergencies

A single Bornean ironwooda rare, slow-growing giant prized for its durable timbercould fetch hundreds of dollars at a lumber mill, a small fortune for local villagers.

But for Juliansyah, a father-of-two from Manjau, the income was unreliable and the workoften involving days-long missions alone in the forestwas tiring and dangerous.

The cash was gone as soon as it had been earned, spent on medicine, school books or other essential items, he told AFP on the edge of Gunung Palung National Park.

A doctor performs an ultrasound on an pregnant woman from a former logging family at a non-profit health clinic in Sukadana, West Kalimantan province, Borneo

"One day you're rewarded, the next there's nothing. You cannot save anything," explained Juliansyah, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

It is illegal to cut down trees inside the park, a critical habitat for endangered orangutans, sun bears and hornbills in southwestern Borneo, a biodiverse island shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

His village was eventually approached by Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), a non-profit organisation based in nearby Sukadana and made an unusual offer.

If they agreed to cease logging, the entire village would be granted discounts on medical bills at the local health clinic, and free training for new careers as forest custodians and farmers.

Villages onside

The incentives have worked, says American physician Kinari Webb, who co-founded ASRI and established Oregon-based charity Health in Harmony, its key financial backer.

A worker takes care of seedlings given by former loggers as payment for health treatment and to be replanted in reforestation efforts in Manjau, West Kalimantan province

Of the 24 villages surrounding Gunung Palung, all but one have agreed to put down their chainsaws, Webb said. Since 2007, when ASRI started working with villages, the number of logging households has plunged from nearly 1,400 to 180.

The rampant destruction of the old-growth forest Webb encountered when she first arrived in western Borneo 22 years ago has slowed to a trickle, with degraded areas slowly regrowing.

"There was pretty much never a day standing right here that you couldn't hear a chainsaw in that forest," Webb told AFP, gesturing to the lush greenery behind the clinic.

"Now, occasionally you will still hear a chainsaw... But it's a completely different scene."

The clinic, where patients watch videos on forest conservation while waiting to see a doctor, has evolved into the primary healthcare provider for around 60,000 people living alongside Gunung Palung.

Nearly 7,300 villagers received medical treatment at the clinic in 2015. But that caseload is set to balloon when a modern hospitalequipped with operating theatres, a blood bank and vaccine fridgesopens in October.

The remains of burned-down forest near Pontianak, in West Kalimantan, Borneo

"Green villages", or those that stop logging entirely, are granted 70 percent reductions on treatment. Yellow and red villageswhich are on track to stopping loggingreceive 50 and 30 percent discounts respectively.

But anyone who cannot afford healthcare can offset the cost by collecting seeds for replanting in degraded forest, said Farida, who manages a nursery of native saplings outside Sukadana.

Challenges ahead

In April, ASRI co-founder doctor Hotlin Ompusunggu won a 50,000 pound ($65,700) grant from the Whitley Fund for Nature at an award ceremony attended by legendary naturalist David Attenborough.

The prize moneythe second significant endowment gifted to ASRI by the Britain-based charitywill help fund the scale-up of the project.

Communities on the islands of Sulawesi and Sumatra, and in the eastern region of Papua, who are dependent on industries like mining and blast fishing have been canvassed, with a second launch site expected to be announced in January.

A dentist and assistant work on the family member of a former logger at a non-profit health clinic in Sukadana, West Kalimantan provinc

Webb said one possible location is Raja Ampat, a string of idyllic islands in Papua famed for marine biodiversity. Villagers there have been dynamiting the pristine reef to make ends meet, jeapordizing their future livelihood, she said.

There are always setbacks. Satellite imaging, observed by forest guardians who keep a close watch on communities, revealed in June that Juliansyah's village had cleared protected land inside park boundaries.

The village will be downgraded to yellow but can always redeem itself, said Fransiscus Xaverius, who oversees reforestation projects around Gunung Palung.

On a dirt road separating the protected park from a massive palm oil plantationanother source of pressure on Borneo's forestsa motorcyclist drives past with a load of ironwood slats, likely carved from a felled stump, said Xaverius.

"It's very challenging if you want to do conservation work in Borneo," he told AFP, as tankers carrying crude palm oil thundered by.

"On the one hand there's people who want to save the forest, and on the other there's people who want to survive."

Explore further Jungle school helps rescued orangutans return to wild

 2016 AFP
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News / National

by Thobekile Zhou

The National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) has said many protesters are missing after Saturday's nationwide demonstrations.Police arrested many participants including opposition legislators.A majority were released hours after the protests ended without charges.In an update today, the organization said "'" #NERA Today we recount the causalities; many arrested, many injured and many missing."If this is the cost of freedom then we shall fight on!".Police reportedly fired live ammunition on protesters in Harare.
Opinion / Columnist

Boldness and sound advocacy is highly required for the ban of Fossil Fuels Industry in the implementation processes of averting the effects of Climate Change. The global movements on climate change are seriously challenging UNFCCC and Inter governmental climate change and energy implementation projects to shrug off the influence of Fossil Fuels Industry and their transnational oil conglomerates who are silently and diplomatically undermining sustainable processes executed by global climate advocates and the UNFCCC by using influence of their bulky financial resources as well as their hyper super power political connections.The UNFCCC should borrow a leaf from the FCTC , WHO FRAME WORK CONVENTION ON TOBACCO CONTROL which is fast achieving its intended goal of putting stringent guidelines of tobacco trade and to a larger extent banning tobacco growing and trade. The PROTOCOL to ELIMININATE ILLICIT TRADE OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS with the guidelines , policy options and recommendations for implantation are already awaiting for ratification at the COP7 to be held in New Delhi India from the 7th to 12th of November 2016 and this is a serious global and united challenge against the negative influence and impact of Tobacco industry to global health economy.Several documents on the illicit of tobacco trade have been developed to support the Implementation of the WHO FCTC on her introduction of the Tobacco Industry and the Illicit Trade of Tobacco Products Dr Stella Bialous argued that , "The illicit tobacco trade is a global problem that threatens the public health gains of tobacco control and the outcomes of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC). In addition to the damage caused to health, the illicit trade in tobacco is a form of tax evasion and thus also inflicts significant economic harm. The global nature of illicit tobacco trade, and its widespread reach, demand a global and coordinated effort to eliminate the trade and to promote tobacco control and public health. Article 15 of the WHO FCTC provides a framework for Parties to take action against the illicit tobacco trade. However, the complexity of the issue, and the multiple government and inter-government organizations involved in combating the illicit trade, led Parties to the WHO FCTC to develop the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products1 , hereafter referred to as the Protocol or ITP.This provides more specific guidance and solutions, as well as new obligations for Parties2 , to tackle the global illicit tobacco trade problem3 . Adopted on 12 November 2012 at the fifth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP5) of the WHO FCTC, the Protocol had 13 parties as of 10 December 2015. It takes effect once 40 Parties ratify, accept, accede or otherwise formally approve the instrument. This document examines the different approaches the tobacco industry is using to portray itself as a key partner in combating the illicit trade and how in reality it is interfering with the entry into force and implementation of the Protocol, and as a consequence, of related provisions of the WHO FCTC. This report aims to inform policy and decision makers, especially those from non-health sectors, who may not yet be familiar with the WHO FCTC and the Protocol. It highlights increasing evidence that the tobacco industry is re-using well established strategies to oppose the WHO FCTC, to counteract the Protocol and to promote itself as a partner in its implementation. This could potentially hinder the Protocol's entry into force and thus confound governments seeking to independently control tobacco product distribution and control" .http://www.who.int/fctc/publications/The_TI_and_the_Illicit_Trade_in_Tobacco_Products.pdf?ua=1The UNFCCC should also be able to take such bold steps in the implementation of the ban of the unrepentant Fossil Fuels Industry for us to achieve a global climate change , mostly in elimination and adaptations as espoused by the FCTC in the fight for the achievement of Risk Free Global Health Economy. In 2015 the Union of Concerned Scientists{Science for Health Planet and Safer World} revealed the Climate Deception Dossiers revealing the decades of disinformation by Fossil Fuels Industry in a bid to deceive the public on the threat of Fossil fuels and their products to the global climate and the livelihood of the human race. Transnational Oil giants like EXXON and SHELL mentioned as big and influential perpetrators of such deception. " Major fossil fuel companies have known for decades that their productsoil, natural gas, and coalcause global warming. Their own scientists told them so more than 30 years ago.In response, they decided to deceive shareholders, politicians, and the publicyou!about the facts and risks of global warming.They repeatedly fought efforts to move the country away from fossil fuels. They slowed progress on the most important challenge of our time. And some continue to spread disinformation and obstruct climate policies even today. All while being aware of the role their products play in climate impacts.These companies should immediately stop funding climate deception. They should bear their fair share of responsibility for the damage caused by their products". UCUSUSA revealed. A lot more other investigations on the deception and the threat of Fossil Fuel Industry to the Climate Change Campaign are being done and global movements are fervently calling for the ban and removal of Fossil Fuels Industry . Researches done by Science and Climate scholar Richard Heede of the Climate Accountability Institute seal the whole issue with serious and well researched evidence on the largest producers of pollution and global warming .The statement below is from a research done by scientist Richard Heede"63 percent, of the industrial carbon pollution released into the atmosphere since 1854 can be directly traced to the carbon extracted from the Earth by just 90 entities  83 producers of coal, oil, and natural gas, and seven cement manufacturers.Almost all of these giant multinational corporations, state-held companies, and fully nationalized companies are still operating today.Topping the list of private and state-held companies are Chevron, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, British Petroleum, Gazprom, Shell and the National Iranian Oil Company. These seven companies alone have produced almost one-fifth (18.7 percent) of all industrial carbon released into the atmosphere since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution".Cooperate Accountability International has this to say with its campaign codenamed Kickbigpollutersout "Corporate Accountability International and other organizations are calling on the Parties to the UNFCCC to protect the U.N. climate talks and climate policymaking around the world from the influence of big polluters. And we don't have any time to waste.Even as Parties came together to adopt the Paris Agreement at COP21 in December, corporations with ties to coal and gas were sponsoring the negotiations. Corporations were promoting false solutions in a giant expo in Paris. And corporations like Exxon, BP, and Shell were gaining legitimacy for their voluntary commitments on climate through the UNFCCC. As governments came together around new commitments on climate, big polluters time and time again tried to exert their influence over the process.There's a growing global movement to slow down climate change. And we need governments to fulfil and exceed the commitments they made in Paris to seize this momentum. But only when our policymaking space is free from the influence of big polluters can our leaders take the bold action we need them to take".350.ORG a serious Fossil fuel ban advocacy organisations is calling for more serious action and implementation of the ban by the UNFCCC following a bold move by the World Health Organisation in the banning of Tobacco Lobbyists. The 350.ORG organisation has so far collected 53 000 signatures and more in struggle for ban of this evasive industry. Advocates and Partners of the communication have a strong argument on this fact. Hoda Baraka , the Global Communication manager of 350.org says that the process requires to hear the voices of the people not looters and she adds very thought provoking statements which in turn encompasses the need for the ban ,"The fossil fuel industry is actively lobbying against climate action and standing in the way of progress. When you're trying to burn the table down, you don't deserve a seat at it." Hoda Baraka boldly argued."Here in Lima, we're seeing how the interests of rich countries and their dirty energy corporations are put before the needs of vulnerable people and the planet," said Pascoe Sabido, Researcher and Campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory. "It's just common sense that those who are causing the crisis should be kept as far away from solving it as possible. If the UN talks are going to deliver fair and ambitious actions on climate change, we need to see both national and international actions to end the cosy relationship between polluters and our governments." Pascoe Sabido added.To achieve this greatest milestone UNFCCC should be bold to gain trust from scientists , climate change advocates , global climate movements, social change activists and economists as well as the global populace in its quest to bring the global solution in averting and implementing process that defend the global community from the impact of climate change. The boldest policy option is to ban Fossil Fuels Industry from the Global Campaign , Strategy and Implementation processes and put guidelines and protocols that dictates the operations of such.Feedback to girlchildcreativity@gmail.com
GLENS FALLS  Glens Falls firefighters dealt with their third house fire in five days on Saturday when a blaze hit a home on Platt Street, and a man who was at the scene of two of the blazes was charged Sunday in connection with one of the earlier fires.

The fire at 5 Platt St. was reported at 6:56 p.m. and no one was hurt, but investigators have deemed it suspicious. The building housed two apartments where three people lived, and firefighters helped rescue one person from a second-floor apartment.

A Friday morning fire at 14 Culvert St. has also been deemed suspicious, and a tenant of that building who was seen at the Platt Street fire was arrested Sunday after he admitted starting the earlier fire, officials said.

Aditep S. "Tepi" White, 33, was charged with second-degree reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, for the Culvert Street blaze after he admitted to detectives that he started the fire by throwing a lighted cigarette in clothes and not putting it out. He was a tenant of the building, and residents said he was in the process of being evicted.

Glens Falls Police Chief Tony Lydon said the investigation was continuing and a review of forensic evidence may result in an arson charge. He said White's possible role in the Saturday fire was also being investigated, as he was spotted at the scene of the fire.

White is on parole for a 2014 felony grand larceny conviction in Washington County, for which he was sentenced to 1-1/3 to 4 years in prison. He was arraigned Sunday and sent to Warren County Jail, and has been charged with violating parole, Lydon said.

He has an extensive criminal record and history of mental health issues, officials said.

"At this point it was a matter of public safety. Three fires in a week is unheard of around here," the chief said. "We had enough evidence to arrest him and put him in jail on the parole violation and the investigation is continuing into both fires."

White's behavior at the Culvert Street fire was curious, as he repeatedly asked other residents how the fire started and was considerably more agitated than other residents. He told a reporter who talked to him at the fire scene that he opened his apartment door after smelling smoke as he awoke from a nap and found the hallway on fire.

He seemed to have been the only tenant of 13 in the building who had time to gather belongings before fleeing the fire, as he had a backpack full of items with him while he watched the fire burn.

He was questioned Friday morning, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him pending a determination of the fire's cause by fire investigators. It was unclear whether he admitted throwing a cigarette into clothes at that point or after Saturday's fire.

The Platt Street home suffered extensive fire and smoke damage and the cause remained under investigation on Sunday. It was believed to have started on the first floor in the rear of the building.

Glens Falls firefighters also responded to fires that heavily damaged buildings on East Notre Dame Street on Tuesday and Culvert Street on Friday. The East Notre Dame Street fire was blamed on a utility problem and is not believed to have been suspicious.
GLENS FALLS  The city of Glens Falls is seeking a $100,000 state Attorney Generals office grant for a crackdown on zombie properties.

The money could be used to hire additional code enforcement staff and to compile a data base of information about abandoned homes in the mortgage foreclosure process, said EDC Warren County President Edward Bartholomew.

Information in the data base would be readily available if the city takes legal action against property owners.

Its a very competitive grant, Bartholomew said, referring to the grant that is funded from state legal settlements with banks.

Municipalities that have 100 or more homes in foreclosure are eligible to apply for the grant, Bartholomew said at the city Common Council meeting on Tuesday.

A recent inventory found 122 home in the city in foreclosure.

Common Council members also discussed the feasibility of establishing a fund for emergency repairs at abandoned homes in foreclosure.

The city would file law suits to recoup the expenses and replenish the fund.

You cant get reimbursement unless you go into court, Bartholomew said.

State legislation allows the municipality the option of prosecuting cases instead of the state Department of Financial Services, he said.

It gives us the legal authority to do the things that we think are necessary, said 3rd Ward Councilwoman Jane Reid, a lawyer.

I think we have to start doing what we need to do, said Councilman at-Large Dan Hall.
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In the future, if Andrew Cuomo is praised for nothing else  and he might not be  he will be praised for the 2012 deal that led to the states acquisition of huge tracts of Adirondack forestland that used to belong to Finch Paper.

The deal was facilitated by the Nature Conservancy, which bought 161,000 acres of woodlands from Finch Paper. The Nature Conservancy sold 89,000 acres to a Danish company for timber operations, while at the same time selling conservation easements on that land to the state. The land could still supply timber to local mills, and jobs for local lumberjacks, but could not be developed for housing or any other environmentally degrading purpose.

Next, the state agreed to buy over a period of about five years, for about $50 million, 69,000 acres of beautiful woods and waters, including 175 lakes and ponds, 180 miles of rivers and streams, bogs, fens, hills and mountains.

It was a stupendous deal for New York, one that will remain an undimmed highlight in Gov. Cuomos very mixed legacy.

With the states purchase this spring of the 20,758-acre Boreas Ponds tract, the deal is mostly complete. One part that isnt done is classification of the lands within the Adirondack Park Agencys zoning scheme. We have advocated for most of the Boreas Ponds tract to be classified as wilderness, which, with other nearby forests  including the High Peaks Wilderness Area  would create an unbroken region of about 280,000 acres, one of the largest wilderness areas in the country outside Alaska.

The arguments now focus on minor elements and should be easily settled through compromise. For example, Gulf Brook Road runs from Blue Ridge Road about 7 miles in to a spot where paddlers can put in their boats.

Some strict environmentalists want the whole road closed to cars, while those advocating for public access want the whole road opened. The Adirondack Council suggests leaving about 6 of the 7 miles open to cars, but closing the last mile as a wilderness buffer. That seems a sensible compromise. Hiking a mile, even with a canoe or kayak, is not too much to ask of people seeking a special wilderness experience.

Other compromises have been struck, too, with the creation of a snowmobile connector trail between North Hudson and Newcomb, and the opening to bicyclists of about 20 miles of roads in the Essex Chain of Lakes area  another part of the Finch land deal.

The current arrangement in the Boreas Ponds tract allows for biking only up and down the 7-mile stretch of the Gulf Pond Road, not on any of the other old roads around the ponds. We sympathize with the argument for keeping bikes out of the wilderness, but are puzzled by the states simultaneous allowance of horses and horse-drawn wagons on about 25 miles of roads through the tract.

Its hard to argue that bikes are disruptive to the wilderness experience and even, possibly, dangerous to hikers sharing the trails, but horses arent. Its hard to argue that two or three people on mountain bikes will do more damage to an old dirt road than a wagon being drawn by a couple of horses.

Perhaps horses are being appreciated as more natural than bikes, regardless of the actual amount of disruption or damage either one of them does to the wilderness.

But aside from haggles over small issues of classification, the Finch land deal is essentially done, and the Adirondack Park, already a wonder of beauty and wildness, is now even more glorious.

Local editorials represent the opinion of The Post-Star editorial board, which consists of Publisher Terry Coomes, Editor Ken Tingley, Projects Editor Will Doolittle, Controller/Operations Director Brian Corcoran and citizen representative Stuart Ginsburg.




















U.S.-led coalition air strikes killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, Russia and a monitoring group said, putting a U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire in jeopardy and prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting.









The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.









A U.S. military official said he was "pretty sure" targets mistakenly hit in the strikes were Syrian forces.









Russia called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council after the incident, and diplomats said the 15-member body was due to meet behind closed doors at 7:30 p.m. ET.





Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the jihadist militants.









"We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.





She said the strikes threatened to undermine the ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, which has been aiding Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, and the United States, which has backed some rebel groups.









The Russian Defence Ministry said U.S. jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.





The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 80 Syrian soldiers had been killed.









Syria's army said the U.S.-led strikes, which took place at around 5 p.m. local time (10.00 a.m. ET) were "conclusive evidence" of U.S. support for Islamic State, calling them "dangerous and blatant aggression".





The incident also threatens to undermine proposed joint targeting by the United States and Russia of Islamic State and some other jihadist groups across Syria.

































Russia demands full and detailed explanation from US after over 60 Syrian army troops killed in coalition attack





The UN Security Council will hold urgent consultations on Saturday after US-led coalition air strikes hit Syrian military positions, diplomats said.





We demand Washingtons full and detailed explanation, and that must be made before the UN Security Council, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in Moscow.

Russia requested the meeting, which is set to take place from 7:30 pm (2330 GMT).





Russia is very concerned by the strikes that directly targeted the Syrian army, which has been consistently fighting the Islamic State groups forces, she added. The bombing hit an army position in the east, near the IS-controlled town of Deir Ezzor, a Russian army statement said.

At least 62 soldiers were killed in the strike, according to Russian officials and a Syrian monitoring group.

These strikes endanger everything that has been done so far by the international community to reach peace in Syria, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said.









Zakharova accused the United States of being simply incapable of honoring its commitment to distinguish between jihadists and Syrian mainstream rebels in the implementation of a ceasefire in force since Monday.





Earlier, a Russian army statement said warplanes from the international anti-jihadist coalition carried out four air strikes today against Syrian forces surrounded by the Islamic State group in the Deir Ezzor air base.





Sixty-two Syrian soldiers were killed and a hundred others were injured in these strikes. American officials admitted the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria may have hit Syrian military positions.





























Air strikes blamed by Moscow and Damascus on the US-led coalition hit a Syrian army position in the east on Saturday, killing more than 60 soldiers, the Russian army said.





The situation in Syria is deteriorating, the Russian military said earlier, adding that the United States would be responsible if the current ceasefire breaks down.





Warplanes from the international anti-jihadist coalition carried out four air strikes today against Syrian forces surrounded by the Islamic State group in the Deir Ezzor air base, a Russian army statement said.





Sixty-two Syrian soldiers were killed and a hundred others were injured in these strikes.









American officials said the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria may have hit Syrian military positions.





Britain-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 80 soldiers were killed, but could not specify who carried out the raids. Syrias army has been fighting off a fierce offensive by the Islamic State jihadist group on the Deir Ezzor military airbase since last year. This is a dangerous and bold attack against the Syrian state and army, and clear evidence that the United States and its allies support the terrorist group Daesh, the army statement reported by the SANA official news agency said, referring to IS.

The situation in Syria is worsening, Russian General Vladimir Savchenko said in a televised briefing earlier. In the past 24 hours, the number of attacks have risen sharply, with 55 attacks on government positions and civilians. He said 12 civilians had been killed.





Russian military officials lashed out at the United States in the strongest language yet over the ceasefire struck last week in Geneva, a last-ditch effort to stop the bloodshed in Syria. The ceasefire started on Monday and has so far lasted five days. Russia is exerting all possible effort to restrain government troops from returning fire, senior army general Viktor Poznikhir said during the televised briefing.

If the American side does not take the necessary measures to carry out its obligations a breakdown of the ceasefire will be on the United States. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Syrian rebels of using the ceasefire to regroup, as diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Washington simmered over a lack of humanitarian aid access.




Some farmers were injured in an attempt to drive the elephants away from the giant mammal that had besieged their farms.

Farm produce amounting to thousands of cedis have also been destroyed wit cocoa farmers reported to the majority of losers. Many farms in Ghana, just like several businesses, are not insured. `

Established as a reserve in 1931, Kakum, which cover 375 square kilometres, became a national park in 1992. The park has a canopy walkway, the longest in the world, and is rich in wildlife and exotic plants.
President Mahama, the National Democratic Congress presidential nominee, said this will ensure food security as well as provide the base for the implementation of the party's agro-processing strategy.

The next NDC government would launch a green revolution aimed at doubling the output of our staple products particularly grains and tubers by the year 2021," he said.

"This would guarantee food security for a growing population as well as provide the raw material base for implementing our agro industrial strategy, he added.

The president also promised to make Ghana "a Net exporter of rice and maize as well as become self sufficient in poultry, sugar and tomato production.

His opponents have skewered him for supervising the decline of the agric sector over the last four years. They have also criticised him for the consistent decline of cocoa output, which is one of the main raw materials the nation export for foreign exchange.

According to Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, vice presidential candidate of the NPP, the decline of agriculture in the country is due to decline in the budgetary allocation of the ministry.
However, multiple media reports suggest ECG has decided not to pay the fine, describing PURC's fine as arbitrary.

But Dr Wereko-Brobby, a former boss of the Volta River Authority, said PURC acted "rightly" by imposing the fine on the management f ECG.

In an interview with Citi FM, he said failure to pay the fine will constitute anarchy.

He said: the PURC has acted rightly in asking the management of ECG to pay, and if they wont pay they have to show just cause and reason why they wont payTo simply say we will not pay and we are not responsible, that is anarchyI think it is unfortunate that anybody will say they wouldnt pay because they think it is capricious and it is not their fault.

According to him, the ECG should be compelled to give tangible explanations as to why it should not be fined if it decides to challenge the PURCs move.

In a statement, PURC warned thatfailure by the ECG to comply with this order shall attract an additional GH10,000 for each non-compliance order.

The staff of ECG embarked on a nationwide sit-down strike for three-day in protest of a government decision to release ECG to a concessionaire.

During this time the PURC asked the leaders of the Company to put in contingency measures to ensure that customers are served without any hitches. This request was not met by ECG.

The PURC argues that this is a breach of LI 1861 and LI 1935 hence the need for the Commission to protect the consumer.
At the graduation ceremony, the students were awarded with degrees and diplomas for successfully completing the various programmes in Communications Studies.

The 17th congregation of the university was under the theme Media responsibility and democratic development elections.

The Rector of GIJ, Dr Wilberforce Dzisah spoke about the need critical role that the media plays in a democracy like Ghana especially with the upcoming elections in December.

He urged the media to contribute to national peace and unity with a balance report before, during and after the elections.

The Ghana Institute of Journalism was established in 1959 by Dr Kwame Nkrumah and is the premier communications institution in Africa. It received its presidential charter in 2009 establishing it as one of Ghanas public university.

The university runs a two year diploma programme, a four year degree programme in journalism and public relations and a masters programme in various fields.
He specifically accused unnamed journalist with Nhyira FM in Kumasi as being behind the false reportage.

During the launch of the NDC manifesto Saturday, a report surfaced online claiming the musician, who recently endorsed the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, is at the venue with colleague Musician Rex Omar.

Speaking in Twi, Lucky Mendah said: "People, this is Lucky Mensah. I was at home sleeping when I got numerous calls that I am in Sunyani. They said they saw me in Sunyani with Rex Omar. I think the reporter has gone for money. He has received money from the NDC to fabricate lies about me.

"It is something they have planned to destroy the NPP... I want all Ghanaians to know the lies of the NDC. This is what will send them back to opposition.

"God forbid that I will have anything to do with the NDC. This year, I have endorsed NPP and Nana Akufo Addo," he concluded.

Lucky Mensah severed ties with the NDC after promises made to him after he endorsed the late Professor Evans Atta Mills were never fulfilled.

On Tuesday, September 6, 2016, he disassociated himself from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) after 8 years of working together.

On Monday (Sept. 5), he released a song, "Yresesamu," endorsing the candidature of the flagbearer of the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo.

He subsequently met with Akufo-Addo on Thursday, September 8 and presented to him a copy of his endorsement song.

After their meeting, Nana Addo shared photos together on his Facebook page with the caption: "Ghanaian highlife musician, Lucky Mensah, visited me at my Nima residence this morning.
Regulars on social media had already started discussing the matter the day before when Ms. Kinna Likimani, the daughter of Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo (the poet laureate), posted the news, which went viral on Facebook.

I, like many people in this country, hold Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo in high esteem not least because there are precious few internationally-recognised female writers from this country.

I also respect her as someone who has stood up for the notion of equality and the rights of marginalised groups, including women and young people. It was for this reason that as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations of the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA) at the University of Ghana, she was amongst a select group of other female achievers singled out for honour.

Last Saturdays award event at which a banner and programme heading contained a misprint of Prof. Ama Ata Aidoos name was meant to both celebrate her achievements and affirm her as a role model for young aspiring writers from her alma mater  the University of Ghana.

For those unfamiliar with CEGENSA, let me briefly state it was established to support the University community as well as the larger public through teaching, research and advocacy on gender-related issues.

The Centre has developed, and now successfully teaches, a mandatory undergraduate course on gender at the University. It was also the driving force behind the sexual harassment policy currently in place at Legon, a policy which many other institutions in this country could learn from.

Those who care to dig beneath the surface of controversy would also find useful policy research on key gender and development issues at CEGENSA, including a recent comparative study on domestic violence and the state of protection services for DV survivors.

I point out the bona fides of the Centre not to excuse the misspelling on the banner and in the programme heading, but to simply provide information on a little known centre caught in the eye of a public storm and now defined by the unfortunate incident for people who had never heard of it or know very little about what it does.

I have read several comments suggesting the Centre did not know the correct spelling of its honorees name and had disrespected her by getting the spelling wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I was not part of the team which organized the event but I was there that day and was told the misspelling had resulted from the printers who had erroneously assumed (probably because of the dominant spelling of that name) that what had been submitted to them  Ata  was wrong and so had added the extra t.

Still, there is little doubt responsibility for the mistake lies with the Centre because having at the last minute discovered the misprint they should not have used the banner or programme, despite the expense they had gone through to print them. I teach journalism and drum in the ears of my students that misspelling names is unacceptable. This incident was a useful case study to share with them in my Monday class.

To be fair, the organisers of the event immediately owned up to the mistake and accepted responsibility right there at the venue when Prof. Ata Aidoo expressed outrage. They apologized profusely and went as far as kneeling down to beg, a sign of contrition in our culture.

Unfortunately that did not prevent the honoree from walking out on the event, nor did it stop her daughter from posting the incident on Facebook in what has turned out to be a public shaming of CEGENSA.

Ms. Likimanis Facebook post sought to further tarnish the image of the Centre by incorrectly claiming the brochure had her mothers birth year wrong. To that I take exception.

The birth year in the programme brochure was 1940. It is a matter of public record that there is some confusion about the year of birth of Prof Ama Ata Aidoo. As noted in the book Essays in Honour of Ama Ata Aidoo at 70, edited by Anne Adams, her year of birth is published in a majority of literary-biographical sources as 1942 although from knowledge gained since and through a few other sources  Ama Ata herself being not the least among them  1940 had to be conceded as the birth year.

Ms. Likimani herself announced in her post that at 76 years Ama Ata Aidoo, after 60 years writing, publishing and teaching, will walk out. We are in the year 2016. Do the math for yourself.

But as Ms. Likimani stated in her post the misspelling of her mothers name appears to be a uniquely Ghanaian problem which her mother has been battling for a while. And so I guess this was an opportunity to wage a public battle; the last stand as it were.

I can understand the frustration for constantly having to correct people who ought to know better on the spelling of your name. I do not think Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo is wrong in taking a public stand on this matter.

The issue, in my view, is where, and how, and against whom, and at whose expense, this much admired progressive socialist feminist and her daughter chose to do battle. Indeed I am unsure the battle has been won at all and, if it has, it is at best a pyrrhic victory; a victory in which the victors have certainly suffered as great a loss as those they defeated. And here is why.

By walking out on the event the salacious became the news. The personal slight and retribution attracted far more media attention than the fact that a successful writing competition had been organized in honour of Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo, and that it had attracted as many as 75 entries, despite commonly expressed anxieties that young people no longer read, let alone write.

The Facebook commentators, some of whom often bemoan the trivialities in the media, remained firmly disinterested in this good news even when confronted with it, preferring to continue to dwell on that extra t and how it represented the worst form of mediocrity and sloppiness in our country. By walking into that African Regency Hall and then walking out to press home the point to organisers that their sloppiness would not be tolerated, Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo wound up walking out on the 75 University of Ghana students who were inspired by her and the opportunity CEGENSA had given them, to showcase their writing talent.

By choosing not to be magnanimous to her allies in the feminist struggle during their moment of weakness, she also let down the five top winners, all female, who were looking forward to having a conversation with her about their work and perhaps hoping that, true to Mbaasems vision of mentoring young female writers, they too could become her mentees.

Finally, walking out meant she missed the reading of Bean Cake, the winning short story by Nana Yaa Asantewaa Asante-Darko, a final year student at the University of Ghana Business School.

It was a tale of child marriage and kayayee so cleverly crafted and written in such a riveting manner it left the audience on the edge of their seats when extracts were read at the event.

Oh how I so wish we could all see the forest for the tress and that it was Bean Cake that had gone viral on Facebook. Or Noon, the second winning story on albinism by Margaret Adomako, which judges had described as an African Cinderella story.

Or Fear of the Ring by Ruthfirst Eva Ayande, which brought together the themes of feminism, artificial insemination, career women and witchcraft. Or Rima by Sarah Faakor Toseafa, about a young girl who became a rapper.

Or The Last Girl Cut, submitted by Awo Aba Odua Gyan, which had impressed reviewers because of how the young writer had used humour to address the harrowing experience of Female Genital Mutilation.
According to him, the governing NDC will build 35 new polyclinics across the country in the second term of President John Mahama.

He said by the end of 2017, the 1000 bed Military hospital in Afari in the Ashanti region would have been completed, including the Ridge Hospital, Police Hospital, University of Ghana Teaching Hospital and the District hospitals for Madina and Kwabenya.

But the future is far more important than the past and the present. And thats why President Mahama is saying that over the next four years, he is going to build 35 polyclinics across the country.
As Co-Chair of the UN Advocacy Group on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), President Mahama will be co-hosting a number of side events related to the successful implementation and advocacy for the SDGs, a statement from the Flagstaff House said.

It said President Mahama will also co-host with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) a side event on Pathways to Zero Hunger, which will showcase concrete transformations in food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture in support of the delivery of the 2030 Agenda.

The President will join other leaders at a US- Africa Business Forum being organised by the US Department of Commerce and Bloomberg Philanthropies, and also attend meetings of the SDG Advocacy Group.
According to him, the President John Mahama, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer, stands for unity, while the New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, stands for divisiveness.

He said: On December 7, you will be called upon to make a choice between unity and divisiveness, Come December 7, you will be called upon to make a choice between progress and retrogression.

"On December 7, you be called upon to make a choice between humility and arrogance. We and the generality of Ghanaians, have decided to choose to unity, to choose progress and to choose humility, and that is why we are saying JM-Toaso [JM Continue]. We in the NDC, we believe all men are created equal.

Dr Omane Boamah also touted the achievement of president Mahama especially in the health sector, saying he has a "solid rock of achievement."

He said in the Brong Ahafo region, five polyclinic projects are underway. "In the Ashanti Region, by the end of 2017, at least he would have added a 1000 hospital beds to their current stock. I am referring to the Military hospital in Afari, the district hospital in Bekwai, Fomena and Tepa, and other district hospitals all around the country."

"But that is not all, in the Greater Accra Region you talk about Ridge Hospital, Police Hospital, University of Ghana Teaching Hospital and the District hospitals for Madina and Kwabenya," he said.

Omane Bomoah also said the president in his second term will build additional 35 polyclinics across the country.

But the future is far more important than the past and the present. And thats why President Mahama is saying that over the next four years, he is going to build 35 polyclinics across the country.
She made a post on her Instagram on Friday, September 16, 2016, where she described the sort of officer to arrest her.

Orjiakor wrote, "Hmmm my cats Buhari and Goodluck discussing about the Nigerian Economy . dollar rate.."

"All i want is a good looking sexy police officer like with Donald duke face. Uti nwachukwu eye.. Psquare flat board chest and ehhhh dbang...no long thing.."

"He should come with those sexy handcuffs maybe the purple one I saw one on alibaba page.... Pls ooo don't send any policeman with oshomole face or obansanjo or goodluck or tinubu or mr IBU.. And he should speak phoney like jimiyke."

"All i want is a Super handsome police office with 6pack and stamina to arrest me this morning . and take me to aso rock prison. And serve aso rock food cuz mummy victor market is too expensive this days PS."

"If its a police woman then she must have fat soft ass and big tits. Hahahahhaha I must be high on some cheap stuff this morning."
He disclosed this while attending a charity event on Saturday, September 17, 2016, which also had in attendance Walker's father and brother, Us Magazine reports.

"Paul was very instrumental in my segue into fatherhood. He was the one that told me to go to the hospital. He's the one that told me to cut the umbilical cord."

"He told me to cut the umbilical cord! [He was] the only person, in California, that knew I was about to have a child."

"He must've been God-sent because he put me on the right path. He set me up. And when we did the first Fast & Furious, I was already 30 years old or something, but he was a father."

"When we were in the cars in between takes, he would tell me, 'Hey, Vin, it's not a scary thing to become a father' [and] give me all the good advice."

"Next thing I know, I am a dad ... [He] is why I named my daughter Pauline because of the credit that Paul Walker deserves in my personal life."

Diesel already has two daughters, Hania and Pauline, and a son named Vincent.
Parents with one child are having nightmares while those with more than one can't even sleep. As for those with children studying abroad, the Lord is their strength.

Change begins with us, so says our esteemed President. And even though he stole Obamas 2008 speech, what he says is true, we can feel the pains of change.

I don't mean the imaginary pains felt by our Senate PresidentBukola Saraki who receives a fat governor's pension and also has all his bills paid for by the government.

Nor that of Femi Adesina who now goes hungry after he graciously took a pay cut, so he can serve his beloved nation.

Unlike these martyrs, we can feel the change in every aspect of our lives - the prices of foodstuffs, fuel, rent and now school fees.

Private schools across Nigeria are reporting mass withdrawals of students by parents who can no longer afford to pay the school fees.

While some parents can no longer afford N2M per term, we also have those that can no longer afford N50,000 per term and plenty others who have lost their jobs.

UNICEFs recent ranking of Nigeria as the tenth worst country for access to primary school education is about to get worse.

Students whose parents can no longer pay their school fees will be sent home on a scale never seen before in Nigeria.

Once capable parents who have had their incomes wiped out by the devaluation of the Naira. Yes, not only Dangote lost out.

The recession is biting harder and the effects of rising prices and declining income can be felt deeper now.

They say it's darkest just before dawn but I see no silver lining. I am no pessimist, I simply draw my conclusions from the situations on the ground and our governments inept response to them.

And unless you also believe the prayers of our N197 to a Dollar pilgrims will save us, then you better hunker down and brace yourself because this storm is far from over.
The incident, which occurred in November 2015, saw Ogunwunmi's health deteriorate rapidly.

According to many reports, the pupil was unable to feed properly as he was unable to swallow liquid substances during the period of his ill-health.

ALSO READ: Man poses with giant snake he killed

Speaking concerning the incident, the deceased mother, Toyin said, My son would have died long ago if not because of the money that kind Nigerians raised for his treatment. The money financed his surgeries and rehabilitation since that time."

If I knew he had no chance of survival, I would have prayed that God should give him rest long ago because my son suffered for every day he lived after that incident."

"Every day, I saw him lying in the hospital bed or sitting at home struggling to drink ordinary water with pain, I cried bitterly.

Modupe Mujota, the Ogun State Commissioner of Police revealed that though an investigation was launched into the matter, there was however no evidence sufficient to charge the school management.

There was a full investigation. But because there was no hard evidence, it became difficult to take the issue up legally."

"We combed the premises of the school and nothing was found, probably because time had elapsed and the school might have cleaned up,

There are larger factors to be considered when you want to close down a school like the population the school is serving.

If they say we did not visit, we have pictures as evidence of our teams visit to the child and his mother."
Alhaji Hamisu Dauran, the Project Manager of the State Malaria Elimination Programme (SMEP), made this known while speaking at the commencement of a one-day training of religious and traditional leaders on malaria eradication.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training was organised by the Nigerian Inter-Faith Action Association (NIFAA) in collaboration with Health Community Capacity Collaboration (HC3), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO).

Dauran said that within the first and second quarters of 2016, the state recorded 276 deaths and over 76,000 reported malaria cases of under-five children across in health centres across the state.

He lamented that the number of the incidents was rising in spite of the efforts being made by the governments, in collaboration with international organizations in reducing malaria challenges in the state.

Dauran, who attributed the development to poor cooperation from local stakeholders in the fight against the disease, expressed hope that intervention of associations like NIFAA would assist in tackling the problem.

Earlier, Executive Director of NIFAA, Dr Sunday Onuoha, had said that the association had decided to support the campaign against malaria considering its dangers to Nigerians, especially at the grassroots.

Onuoha said, We all know the dangers and problems associated to malaria, therefore, we have come together in spite of the differences in our religious affiliations to contribute in fight against the disease.

Traditional and religious leaders have vital role to play in enlightening the general public on fight against malaria.

In their remarks, the emir of Gusau, Alhaji Ibrahim Bello, represented by senior district head in the emirate, Alhaji Bashir Danbaba, and the President of the state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Iliya Balarabe, assured support to the programme.
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The air force disclosed on Sunday, Septembers 18, that its fighter jets conducted several air strikes at suspected locations on the outskirts of Tumbin Gini and Tumbin Kayewa Northeastern Borno on Friday 16 September 2016.

The air strikes were as a result of ground based intelligence and successive Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance reports obtained from several missions flown by NAF platforms," a statement by Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa, Director of Public Relations said.

He added: In a video released by the NAF, some of the terrorists could be seen at one of the rendezvous where they were believed to be holding a high-level meeting when NAF jets were scrambled to hit the locations.

A post-strike battle damage assessment of the strikes revealed that the rendezvous was badly damaged with many casualties while those far from the vicinity could be seen scrambling to safety.

The aircraft involved in the air strikes are the NAF F-7Ni and the Alpha jets. The air offensive of the NAF has continued to deny the terrorists any hiding place and room for maneuver.

This has enabled unhindered advance by the surface forces as part of the ongoing Operation GAMA AIKI.
In a statement issued on Sunday, September 18, by his spokesman, Lere Olayinka, the Governor said the the President is destroying the essence of Nigeria.

He said: Our President, through his actions and inactions is destroying everything that makes Nigeria a country and well-meaning. Nigerians must stand-up to be counted in the crusade to save the country from going under.

Fayose said Buhari should note that Nigerians will not measure his government on the basis of what his predecessors failed to do, but on what he does or neglected to do between May 29, 2016 and May 29, 2019.

He also said the President shot himself in the foot by describing all Nigerians, to foreigners, as thieves and dishonest people.

''Which foreign investor will invest his money in a country of dishonest people? Who made investors to leave Nigeria if not President Buhari, who created atmosphere of economic and political instability in the country by his acts of nepotism and vindictiveness?," Fayose said.

President Buhari has not only taking Nigeria to economic recession, he has moved the country to economic depression and nepotism has prevented him from engaging even the best hands in his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

No nation has ever reached greatness by their leaders engaging in blame game, nepotism and vengeance as being done by President Buhari and his APC government.

Nigerians must begin to speak out now before the country is totally destroyed by this one-man government, which does not see any idea coming from those perceived as opposed to the government as worthy of consideration.

Like I said before, the main issue confronting Nigerians now is hunger and hunger does not speak the language of politics. It is therefore no longer about politics; it is about preventing hunger from killing Nigerians, the governor said.

He rubbished the idea of the Federal Government injecting N350 billion into the economy through execution of capital projects, saying the government should stop deceiving Nigerians.

If they inject even N500 billion into the economy by paying contractors executing federal government capital projects, how does that affect the price of rice and other food items? How does it affect the price of basic drugs?"
Brig.Gen. Victor Ezugwu, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 7 Division, made the call while speaking at a Civil-Military Forum organised by the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri.

Ezugwu was reacting to criticisms by residents that soldiers often refuse to join queues at the ATM points in the town.

He said that the army had written several letters to the banks for the deployment of ATM machines to the barracks without much success.

We have been battling with the issue of lack of ATM in the barracks for the use of soldiers in the front line zone.

I wrote letters to the banks over seven months ago for them to deploy the ATM at the Maimalari Cantonment for soldiers use, but there is no response yet, he said.

Ezugwu said that the military was concerned about the development and urged the residents to intervene.

I want to urge everybody here, especially traditional rulers, to help put pressure on the banks so that they can give us ATM at the barracks and allow you to use the ones in town.

We are aware of the fact that everybody needs the ATM at one point or another, he said.

 A soldier carrying 12 ATM cards at a time must have brought his colleagues cards from the frontline to take money and send to their families all over Nigeria.

We have areas where there is no network, it is only through the ATM that the soldiers can send money home to their families he said.

ALSO READ: Army recovers 55 assorted weapons, kills 23 militants in gun duel
Maitama-Sule told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kano on Sunday that the ban should be backed by law passed by the National Assembly.

But this will be possible when there is a law to back it and we hope the law will be enacted soon to support the idea, he said.

He noted that the fear of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by public officers is now the beginning of wisdom.

EFCC has done extremely well in the discharge of its responsibilities so far, as there are a lot of recovered looted funds now.

But the biggest challenge for EFCC is that it can investigate but it does not have the power to spend money and utilise it for other purposes.

Maitama-Sule, who is also a former Nigerias Permanent Representative to the United Nations, also called for an enabling law for the government to utilise the recovered looted funds to improve the living standard of Nigerians, especially the common man.

He suggested the revitalisation of education, agriculture and power sectors in order to give the nations moribund industries a new lease of life using the recovered funds.

The elder statesman commended President Muhammadu Buhari for tackling insurgency, especially in the North-East.

We have to thank God Almighty for the peace that has since been restored in the country and we will continue to pray for its sustenance.

No meaningful development can be achieved in any country without peace and even the most diehard cynics know that President Buhari has done well in terms of restoration of peace in the country, he said.

ALSO READ: Patience Jonathan files $200M suit against EFCC
Mohammed Sanusi-Liman, Vice Chancellor of the university, told journalists on Sunday, September 18, in Lafia that the council took the decision due to insufficient funds.

Mr. Sanusi-Liman explained that the affected staff, who were employed by the institution earlier in the year, comprised 11 corps members who were retained after their service year and 24 others.

He said the council had directed the management to source for funds and pay off the affected staff since they had worked for over five months without being paid.

It would be inhuman to keep the staff working when we cannot pay them giving our poor budget and that is why the council decided that we should pay them off, he said.

According to him, the university has consistently encountered a shortfall of over N38 million in its allocation for several months, which had adversely affected the running of the institution.

He also confirmed that the management had uncovered a job racketeering syndicate in the university, which had offered illegal employment to some persons.

When we got wind of the matter, the management set up an investigative committee which turned in a report that was submitted to the council.

The university council referred the matter to its disciplinary committee for investigation and appropriate action, he said.

On the post UTME screening of candidates for admission into the university for the 2016/2017 academic session, the vice chancellor said that over 4,000 applicants had been screened.

ALSO READ: Federal Government to inject N350 billion into economy

He added that the council would meet to determine its carrying capacity before the admission list would be released.
The group seized Kjartan Sekkingstad from an upscale resort on Samal island in Davao del Norte along with a Filipina, who has already been freed, and two Canadians, whom the militants later executed.

Abu Sayyaf, based in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines, is known for kidnappings, beheadings and extortion. It had initially demanded one billion pesos ($21 million) each for the detainees, but it later lowered the ransom to 300 million pesos each.

The group released Sekkingstad in the town of Patikul in the Sulu Archipelago and he is now in the custody of Nur Misuari, founder of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), in the regional capital Jolo, said Jesus Dureza, a peace adviser to the Philippines' president.

Sekkingstad had been due to meet President Rodrigo Duterte later on Saturday but the meeting was cancelled due to bad weather.

"His first words when I spoke to him on the phone (were): "Thank you to President Duterte," Dureza said in a statement. "His release from captivity capped months of quiet, patient but determined efforts with the assistance of all sectors."

Major Filemon Tan, spokesman of the military's Western Mindanao Command, said the release of Sekkingstad was the result of "intense" military operations against the Abu Sayyaf.

Tan also credited the MNLF for helping the government in seeking the release of the Norwegian.

In Oslo, the government welcomed the development but remained cautious, noting that Sekkingstad was not yet in government custody.

"We are still working on this and we will not rejoice until Sekkingstad is safe and sound with Philippine authorities," Norwegian foreign minister Boerge Brende said in an emailed statement to Reuters, adding that "it would likely happen tomorrow".

"We are following the situation closely and are working together Philippine authorities to bring Sekkkingstad to safety," he said.

Abu Sayyaf beheaded the two Canadians it seized last year with Sekkingstad, the first one in April and the other in June, after a deadline for the payment of ransom money lapsed. The Filipina victim was released in June.

It was unclear whether a ransom had been paid in exchange for Sekkingstad's freedom, but it is widely believed that no captives are released by the group wit`hout it.

Security experts say brokers, messengers and go-betweens are involved at multiple levels, some taking substantial cuts. Payments are euphemistically called "board and lodgings".
The accident took place on the Chao Phraya river in Ayutthaya, a UNESCO World Heritage site located some 80 kms (43 miles) north of the Thai capital Bangkok.

The dead include seven women, four men and one boy, Rewat Prasong, deputy governor of Ayutthaya province, told Reuters.

The passengers were on their way back from a religious activity when the double-decker boat hit the bank of the river before sinking, district chief Suchon Phaitirat told Reuters.

The accident on Sunday comes as Thailand expects to welcome some 33 million visitors this year, a record.

Road and boat accidents involving tourists are common in Thailand where safety standards are sometimes well below international norms.

ALSO READ: 9 musicians die in boat accident in Kenya

But such accidents barely make a dent on Thailand's tourism industry, one of the few bright spots in an otherwise lacklustre economy, nor have a series of bomb blasts in southern Thailand had an impact.
Turkey has suffered a series of suicide bombings and attacks by Islamic State and Kurdish militants over the past year. It launched its first major military incursion into Syria last month to push jihadists away from its border and prevent Kurdish fighters from seizing territory as they retreated.

Thousands of foreign fighters from countries including Turkey, Britain, Europe and the United States have joined the Islamist militants in their self-proclaimed caliphate in recent years, many of them passing through Turkey.

Ankara has since launched a crackdown on the networks facilitating their passage.

At least seven suspected suicide bombings across Turkey since July 2015, which have killed more than 250 people, have been blamed on Islamic State.

ALSO READ: Turkish soldiers, Kurdish militants killed in violence
Three Turkish soldiers were also wounded in the clashes in village of Agacdibi, around 20 kilometeres south of Hakkari province bordering Iraq and Iran.

An operation to capture the militants is underway, sources said.

In Sirnak province bordering Iraq, several Turkish attack helicopters bombed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets near Cudi and Gabar mountains in support of land troops carrying out operations in the area.

Southeastern Turkey has seen a surge in violence since the PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in the region, abandoned a ceasefire in 2015. Thousands of militants, security force members and civilians have been killed in fighting across the region.
Police this week issued an order barring protests in the capital Harare, but campaigners on Friday vowed to challenge the ban through the courts, which overturned a similar order earlier this month.

A coalition of opposition parties under the banner of the National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) is demanding reform ahead of the 2018 election, when Mugabe, now aged 92, plans to stand again.

Promise Mkwananzi, spokesman for the protest group Tajamuka, said they would march on Saturday, despite the police order.

"The constitution and the high court allow for peaceful demonstrations," he told AFP.

"The police are promoting lawlessness in the country by banning peaceful demonstrations."

Two weeks ago, police detained scores of people including activists and bystanders following violent protests in the capital.

"Tensions have been visibly mounting and the momentum for more protest is growing," the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies said in a report this week.

"The state has a limited repertoire of options to respond with, so far falling back on its traditional modes of repressive policing."

Mugabe has vowed to end the wave of recent protests, last weekend warning marchers that they were "playing a dangerous game".
If your summer adventures lead you through western or central Nevada, a side trip to Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park may be worth a day or so of your time.

If your summer adventures lead you through western or central Nevada, a side trip to Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park may be worth a day or so of your time.

For your trouble, youll get two park experiences in one  not only seeing rare ichthyosaur fossils, but also wandering one of the Wests best-preserved ghost towns.

The 1,540 acre park lies on the western slope of the Shoshone Mountains, surrounded by U.S. Forest lands. The park was established in 1957 to protect and display the remains of ichthyosaurs, seagoing reptiles that lived about the time of the dinosaurs. Because its our state fossil, most elementary school children in Nevada are familiar with the creature, and even know how to pronounce it: ick-thee-o-soar. They can probably tell you that these prehistoric denizens of the deep sometimes reached 50 feet in length, breathed air, and resembled the whales and dolphins of today, even though they are not related.

When you first arrive in the park you will be in the Berlin townsite area, which was incorporated into the park in 1970. The first major ore discovery in this area was in 1863, and led to the founding of Union Mining District. The Berlin Mine was added in 1896 and did pretty well until 1908 when labor disputes and low yields sent the place into decline. By 1911, it was pretty much a ghost town.

But because of its remote location and the protection of the Nevada State Parks system, much more of it remains, after nearly 100 years, than on the sites of many younger ghost towns. The best way to explore the town is to park your car and head out on foot for a self-guided tour. There are more than a dozen buildings and 73 historic sites to visit, many with interpretive plaques to read, along a network of obvious trails. The Berlin Mill building shouldnt be missed. Take a look inside the windows and you can see some separating tables, a bank of stamps and other artifacts. This mill once housed 30 stamps, a primary crusher, boilers and steam engines.

To visit the ichthyosaur fossils youll need to travel about 1.7 miles from Berlin up a well-maintained gravel road to the sheltered quarry. Along the way you will pass through the remains of another townsite, Union. There are 22 historic sites here found along a half-mile trail. But this townsite didnt fare so well as Berlin, and most are in ruins.

Ichthyosaur fossils were discovered here in 1928 but excavation wasnt started until 1954. A shelter was built in 1966 to protect the fossils from weathering. The remains are interesting to look at but youll need to use your imagination to make what some of them are. With concentration, its possible to see skulls, jaws, backbones and flipper bones.

Because the parks elevation ranges from 6,840 to 7,880 feet, summer temperatures are fairly cool. Its a great place to camp at one of their 14 sites and some are suitable for RVs up to 25 feet. Each site offers a fire ring, barbecue grill, and covered table. At this time no water is available. There is also a picnic area with tables, grills and restroom located near the fossil shelter.

Fossil shelter tours run daily from Memorial Day through Labor Day at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., with an additional noon tour on Saturday and Sunday. Tours last about 40 minutes. Call 775-684-2770 for more information.

Deborah Wall is the author of Base Camp Las Vegas, Hiking the Southwestern States, Great Hikes, A Cerca Country Guide, and co-author of Access For All, Touring the Southwest with Limited Mobility. Wall can be reached at Deborabus@aol.com.
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Federal charges have been leveled against four members of a drug trafficking organization that is suspected of distributing crystal methamphetamine in the Quad-City region since 2012, according to a criminal complained filed last week in U.S. District Court, Rock Island.

Crystal methamphetamine, also known as Ice, is a very pure form of methamphetamine, according to the criminal complaint.

Jared Hedeen, 41, of Rapids City, Valerie Ballard, 44, of Rock Island and Regina Heavener, 48, and Phillip Goodwin, 37, both of Hillsdale, each are charged with conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute 50 grams and more of methamphetamine.

Each will have a detention hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court, Rock Island. The case was unsealed Tuesday.

Law enforcement officers from the Scott County Sheriffs Office, Rock Island County Sheriffs Office, Quad-City Metropolitan Enforcement Group and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration all contributed to the investigation.

According to the criminal complaint, the investigation made use of several cooperating defendants who opted to work with law enforcement in the case, as well as other confidential sources who made purchases based on information from the cooperating defendants.

Among those instances, according to the criminal complaint, in August 2013, after being arrested on methamphetamine charges in U.S. District Court, Rock Island, a cooperating defendant told agents that in 2012 Heavener and Goodwin had a source of methamphetamine from Colorado. On one occasion, the cooperating defendant accompanied Goodwin to Colorado to acquire about 36 grams of methamphetamine. On two occasions, Heavener had crystal methamphetamine sent to the cooperating defendants home in the amounts of 32 and 28 grams, respectively.

Also, according to the criminal complaint, after her arrest in Rock Island on Illinois charges of possessing crystal methamphetamine on April 28, Ballard told agents she began obtaining methamphetamine from Hedeen in September 2015 and continued until her arrest. Ballard also told agents she acquired methamphetamine from Heavener and Goodwin and began regularly using meth with the two in July 2015.

On May 3, a confidential source made a purchase of 3.6 grams of methamphetamine from Heavener at a house in Hillsdale, according to the criminal complaint.

Also in May, a cooperating defendant who had been arrested and charged in federal court in Davenport told agents about selling methamphetamine to Hedeen and buying methamphetamine from Hedeen at Hedeens Rapids City home.

Ballard was arrested again Aug. 30 and accused of possessing methamphetamine in Moline. Hedeen was taken into custody Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, law enforcement searched the Hillsdale home of Heavener and Goodwin and seized 15.5 grams of methamphetamine. Heavener and Goodwin were then taken into custody.

All four are being held in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending their detention hearing Wednesday.
DES MOINES  Overdose deaths in Iowa from heroin and other opioid drugs more than doubled in the decade from 2005 to 2015, and treatment admissions more than quadrupled, according to state public health department data.

The dramatic increases are attributed largely to an increase in prescribed opioid painkillers such as hydrocodone and oxycodone; in 2012, health care providers prescribed enough opioid painkillers to put one bottle in the hands of every American adult, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Iowa lawmakers and Gov. Terry Branstad in 2016 took a small step toward addressing the opioid epidemic  one that has gripped the entire nation  by making it legal for first responders and family members to possess and administer life-saving drugs called antagonists to people overdosing on opioids.

But other measures, such as requiring doctors and pharmacists to check registries before prescribing opioid painkillers or requiring insurance companies to cover antagonists, have stalled in the Iowa Legislature.

I think it is a good step forward to help saving lives, Rep. John Forbes, a Democrat in the Iowa House and a Des Moines pharmacist, said of the new Iowa law. But it still doesnt fix the national problem where we have people abusing these medications and causing themselves a lot of harm, and of course, their families, too.

According to an Associated Press report from an investigation in conjunction with the Center for Public Integrity, the makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids.

Collectively, the AP and the Center for Public Integrity found, the drugmakers and allied advocacy groups employed an annual average of 1,350 lobbyists in legislative hubs from 2006 through 2015, when opioids addictive nature came under increasing scrutiny.

The opioid lobby has been doing everything it can to preserve the status quo of aggressive prescribing, Dr. Andrew Kolodny, founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and an outspoken advocate for opioid reform, told the AP. They are reaping enormous profits from aggressive prescribing.

Drugmakers that devoted significant resources lobbying and donating to Iowa lawmakers include California-based Merck and Co. and Pfizer Inc.

Pfizer donated $197,000 to lawmakers and candidates  mostly at the state level but some federal  between 2006 and 2014, according to the AP and Center for Public Integrity report, and spent almost $380,000 on lobbying from 2010 to 2016, according to state records.

Merck donated more than $76,000 to lawmakers and candidates and spent more than $550,000 on lobbying.

There is no way to discern how much of those resources were dedicated specifically to lobbying on opioid-related issues.

These are other measures designed to address the opioid epidemic in Iowa, but they have not garnered sufficient support for passage:

 A bill that would require insurance companies to cover opioid antagonists for individuals deemed by his or her health-care provider as at-risk for an overdose passed the Senate on a 44-2 vote and passed multiple House committees, but it was not brought to the floor by House leadership. The bill also provided immunity for any person who sought medical help for an individual experiencing an opioid overdose. Insurance companies objected to the requirement.

 A bill that would require physicians and pharmacists to check state drug registries before prescribing or dispensing a controlled substance, including opioids, received no hearing in the Legislature. Hospitals objected, saying it would put undue stress on physicians workloads. Seventeen states have such a law, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

 Another bill that didn't get a hearing was a sweeping opioid bill introduced by Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, that included the immunity provision; would permit pharmacists to dispense naloxone hydrochloride, an opioid overdose antagonist; would require the state health department to publish an annual report on unintended drug overdose fatalities; and would establish grants for drug overdose treatment projects.

Merck did not register as a lobbyist on any of the bills. Pfizer did not register on two, and on the others, it registered only as undecided.

Iowa is just below the national average in terms of opioid prescriptions per capita and has one of the nations lowest rates of drug deaths.

Nonetheless, Forbes thinks the opioid epidemic remains worthy of lawmakers attention.

I think theres (prescriptions) being written by physicians here in Iowa and across the country that are being diverted for other, illegal purposes, Forbes said. We could cut down on this opioid epidemic.
About 200 migrating monarchs were released Saturday at Nahant Marsh in Davenport en route to their winter homes in Mexico.

And if all goes right, some of their ancestors will be back here next year.

All monarchs, except migrators, live about a month, said Lori Harris, owner of Salt Creek Butterfly Farm in Western Springs, Illinois, who supplied the monarchs for the event. They were three days old Saturday.

Migrators live nine months," she said. "They will fly to Mexico, migrate this winter and then get as far as Texas where they will lay eggs. Each monarch will lay about 400 eggs. But only two out of 100 survive. Then, their great-great grandchildren will come back here next year, or Ohio, but this far north.

The event was the second-year fundraiser for the Scott County Soil and Water Conservation District. Monarch butterflies were sponsored by community members as part of the TallgrassQC initiative and held at the Nahant Marsh Education Center.

TallgrassQC is a collaboration to raise the awareness of prairie ecology in the Quad-City region.

Harris raises monarchs and brought them Saturday. Prior to their release, parents and children got the opportunity to go inside a screened tent to hold the butterflies and watch them eat before they begin their long journey.

They are tagging and feeding them as we speak. They are eating Gatorade and watermelon, said Lindsey Kennedy, marketing coordinator of Nahant Marsh.

All the monarchs will be tagged, and people will be able to go online to see if they go through the waystations from here to Mexico, said Jan McClurg, conservation assistant for Scott County Soil and Water Conservation, one of the sponsors. We try to make it educational.

Harris said she gives away 5,000 eggs per year to individuals, organizations and schools.

She was busy answering a host of questions from children inside the tent as the monarchs ate. She even showed them how to tell a female monarch from a male, by the black dots on their wings.

She said programs such as Saturday's are important because monarchs are a vanishing breed.

We have 80 percent fewer monarchs than 20 years ago, she said.

Harris said monarchs spend about two weeks in a chrysalis before they are hatched. She said only moths actually evolve in cocoons.

More than 260 people attended the event that also included some hiking prior to the release.

Katie Baustian of Hillsdale, Illinois, brought sons, Jake, 9, and Luke, 6.

This is something kids learn at school, and it seemed like a good way to learn more. This is something they are interested in, she said.

I think it is really fun, Jake said. I was kind of surprised by the food they ate.

I knew they liked milkweed. Sometimes, they eat leaves and milkweed, and they call it milkweed because it has milk in it, Luke said.

Christine Drayer of Eldridge attended with friends and her children, Charlotte, 6, and Aiden, 2.

I want to take care of the creatures, Charlotte said of the monarchs. I had a boy. I knew it was a boy because of the black dots. I learned they eat watermelon and drink Gatorade with their tongue.

The kids enjoyed it, Christine Drayer said.

Selecting the monarch to rescue and increase in numbers was a good choice, said Brian Ritter, director of Nahant Marsh.

Everybody knows monarchs. They are kind of the canary in the coal mine, he said. The thought is, there is real value. People can connect with them.
The Quad-Cities lost two influential leaders at the end of the week, dominating the week's news.

1. Social justice icon

Monsignor Marvin Mottet, 86, died Friday at the Kahl Home, just months after celebrating 60 years in the priesthood. Area leaders described him as a civil rights icon and champion for social justice in the Quad-Cities and within the Catholic church. "We've lost a giant," said Ida Johnson, founder and executive director of United Neighbors Inc. in Davenport.

2. Public servant

Iowa state Sen. Joe Seng, 69, also died Friday after battling brain cancer since being diagnosed with a tumor two years ago. Seng was in public service for 20 years, on the Davenport City Council and in the state Legislature. He also was admired for his work as a veterinarian and for his work with people in need.

3. A resignation

Last week in this space, we recounted the story of Walmart backing out of a plan to build a Supercenter at the former Watch Tower Plaza in Rock Island after the city spent $15 million getting the site ready. Then on Friday, we learned that Rock Island City Manager Thomas Thomas is resigning after five years on the job. A City Council member tied the resignation to the Walmart deal, but Stephen Tollenaer also said Thomas shouldn't have been blamed. He also praised the work Thomas did during his tenure.

4. Food truck drama

Davenport's food truck pilot program, dubbed Food Truck Tuesdays, is a major success on many fronts. Six vendors posted great sales last Tuesday night. But it wasn't all happy times. A mix up on needed permits left four mobile eateries unable to participate. By Wednesday, however, city officials and Scott County health leaders worked out the kinks, they said. The remaining two September Tuesdays will continue the test, and the city is talking about extending the pilot into October.

5. A veteran's paperwork

In a follow-up you could find only in the our paper, columnist Barb Ickes continued to delve into the suicide of veteran Brandon Ketchum and how the VA treated him. Barb received 1,200 pages of records from the VA about Ketchum, although a lot of pages or parts of pages were blacked out. Still, the documents showed that Ketchum, indeed, had asked to be admitted for treatment but was told no. Within hours, Ketchum made his last post on Facebook and killed himself. We're still waiting for an Inspector General's report on the case.

6. Growing pot legally

In another story you could find only in the Times, reporter Jack Cullen took readers on a tour of an Illinois grow house for medical marijuana. The In Grown Farms cultivation center in Freeport hosted media tours last week, and Cullen and Photo Editor Kevin E. Schmidt saw how the marijuana is grown, harvested and prepared for delivery to patients in the state.

7. Moline hotel plan

Heart of America Group, a hotel and restaurant firm that is based in Moline, now plans a new hotel in the city. The company is acquiring the 5th Avenue Building at 1630 5th Ave. and will redevelop it into a hotel, owner Mike Whalen said last week. The project involved negotiations between Heart of America, Moline and developer Rodney Blackwell.

8. Cruising the river

The Isle of Capri's gambling boat has been docked along Bettendorf's riverfront for years. Now that the casino has moved a short distance away to land, the riverboat is about to get new life. American Queen Steamboat Co. of Memphis is buying the gambling palace and will turn it into a real riverboat that will cruise the Mississippi under the name American Duchess.

9. Two die in crash

Tragedy struck in LeClaire last Sunday when two motorcycle riders died in a crash that also involved an SUV and a third motorcycle. The crash occurred on U.S. 67 when a Ford Explorer driven by Darryl Wilson, 52, of Silvis crossed the center line into the path of the motorcycles, according to Scott County Sheriff's investigators. The first two motorcyclists, William Bruce Griffith, 57, of Davenport, and Ronald Gene Fox, 59, of Blue Grass, were killed. The third operator was treated at the scene. Wilson was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries.

10. Heartfelt ceremony

Our colleagues at The Gazette in Cedar Rapids shared a story with us this week that was one of the more popular posts at qctimes.com. Nikole Carey, 27, of Orion, Illinois, married Brandon Kommer in the chapel at University Hospitals in Iowa City. It's where Carey received a heart transplant when she was 12, and it's where her son Kameron Brown, 11, now awaits a heart transplant. Also present at the ceremony: the doctor who performed Carey's transplant and who is Kameron's doctor and the mother of the young boy whose heart is beating in Carey's chest.
Judy Weise didnt know much about civil asset forfeiture  but she got a hard lesson in it a year ago.

Weise, then 70 years old, let her grandson borrow her car to drive to work. But little did the Moline, Ill. woman know her grandson would be arrested for driving on a suspended license and her car would be seized by police in the middle of the night. For five months, this left Weise without transportation to therapy appointments for her broken arm and unable to make trips to the grocery store without help from friends.

How was this possible? State asset forfeiture laws allow law enforcement to take property they suspect is involved in a crime without proving it in court  or without even charging the property owner with a crime at all.

If this can happen to grandmothers in Moline, it can happen to anyone. Illinois law enforcement agencies have gained over $319 million through asset forfeiture between 2005 and 2015, according to data obtained from the Illinois State Police pursuant to a FOIA request.

But now, new polling data show the state may finally be ripe for change.

Illinoisans are strongly opposed to civil asset forfeiture, an Illinois Policy Institute-commissioned poll of Illinois registered voters shows. And voters of every political persuasion are significantly more likely to vote for candidates who support reforming asset forfeiture laws.

One of the polls questions asked whether police should be allowed to seize and permanently take away property from people who have not been convicted of a crime. Eighty-nine percent of poll respondents said no; only 8 percent said yes. Among those polled, 93 percent of Democrats, 86 percent of Republicans and 89 percent of Independents opposed this practice.

Pollsters asked respondents if a candidate for office supported reforming civil asset forfeiture laws to keep law enforcement from seizing and permanently taking away property from people who have not been convicted of a crime, would that make you more likely to vote for that candidate? Fifty-four percent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for such a candidate, compared to 33 percent who didnt know or said it would make no difference  just 13 percent would be less likely.

Its not hard to see why Illinois residents widely revile this practice. Civil asset forfeiture disregards due process, property rights and fairness all at once.

Civil asset forfeiture is especially unfair to low-income victims like Weise, who couldnt afford an attorney on her $733 monthly income. She tried repeatedly to get her property back herself but failed until she engaged pro bono representation by Larry Vandersnick, a former states attorney. Days later, Vandersnick reached a settlement with Rock Island County prosecutors, and Weises vehicle was returned.

With hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and property taken from residents without a clear account of how many owners were proven to have committed crimes, the public is right to distrust the process. And since police and prosecutors profit from these asset seizures, theres a legitimate concern about policing for profit  taking assets to pad law enforcement budgets.

Reform should start with requiring law enforcement to publicly report on how it acquires and uses forfeited funds. But this is only a first step. Substantive policy changes should require law enforcement to prove property owners  not a third party  committed a crime with the property in question before the property is allowed to be permanently seized.

Property rights are too important to allow the government to casually violate them with little public accountability.

Springfield needs to heed voters opinions and deliver on reform.
Iowa Farm Bureau has two options: accept that conservation initiatives are here to stay, or go extinct.

The farm bureau last week took initial steps toward accepting reality. It no longer directly opposes new state funding for water quality, a problem in Iowa most frequently pinned on farmers. The state's most influential agricultural organization hasn't, however, endorsed any way to raise the millions needed to actually fund water scrubbing projects.

Change is hard.

But Iowa Soybean Association made the farm bureau's old guard look downright out of touch. Last week, that group joined Iowas Water and Land Legacy Coalition, which offers more than some vague almost-support for clean water projects and nutrient reduction programs. The coalition brought forward an idea to fund the projects, taking the shape of a three-eighths sales tax increase.

The coalition's pitch already has more support than Gov. Terry Branstad's idea to bilk school funding, which went absolutely nowhere this past legislative session. In fact, one form or another is getting kicked around by politicians from all sides of the spectrum. Voters years ago approved the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund, they say. It's the Legislature that failed to fund it. The sales tax hike would only fulfill voters' wishes, they say.

Sales tax, in one form or another, is shaping up to be the state's probable answer to the water question.

And then, there's the farm bureau, caught between some of its most vocal members and a political reality. Conservation is no longer a dirty word and farmers no longer dictate how people interact with their environment. That's the harsh reality with which the farm bureau must come to grips if it intends on surviving well into the 21st century.

It's not as if Iowa's political landscape shifted without cause. Des Moines Water Works came along. It filed a federal lawsuit against rural drainage districts, potentially seeking millions in lost revenue spent on cleaning ag-polluted water. Just last week, attorneys for the water agency attacked a century of precedent in state Supreme Court that have historically protected drainage districts. Federal judges are scheduled next summer to hear the agency's argument. Almost universally, state officials want to avoid a federal consent order. They obviously think Des Moines Water Works might win. Otherwise, theyd keep ignoring the problem as they have for decades.

The state and federal suits could forever reshape Iowa's relationship with the intersection between people and the land in Iowa. It's the ultimate outcome of an increasingly scientific, health-conscious population who, for decades, moved away from rural pastures for urban living. Between 2000 and 2010, Iowa's four largest, mostly urban counties experienced significant population growth. The vast majority of the rest were either flat or lost population.

Census data show that even Iowa, the poster-child for endless fields of corn, isn't immune to the urbanization movement, as once-family farms are bought up by large-scale operations.

Fewer farmers equates to an existential threat to the Iowa Farm Bureau. Its options are limited and evolution is the best-case scenario.

Iowa Farm Bureau is an important, fundamental piece of Iowa's political stew. But it's now threatened with a fate destined to all things incapable of staying current. It too should be proposing funding mechanisms.

Last week, the farm bureau wanted to have it both ways, to send a conciliatory signal to some without enraging others.

Water quality concerns are here to stay. Iowa Farm Bureau has little choice but come to grips with reality and start offering solutions.
NATION

Ships to be named after Medal of Honor recipients

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says two destroyers will be named for Marines who received the Medal of Honor for actions during World War II.

He said Saturday in Oxford that the ships will be the first named for Jack H. Lucas and Louis H. Wilson Jr.

Lucas was a 17-year-old private when he got on top of on one grenade and pulled another under his body in a trench during the Battle of Iwo Jima. He was injured and saved three other Marines from injury. Lucas was the youngest World War II service member to receive the Medal of Honor.

As a captain, Wilson commanded a company that destroyed a larger attacking force during the Battle of Guam. He became a general and the Marine Corps' 26th commandant.

Officers fired on in Philly

Authorities say police officers came under fire in Philadelphia for the second night in a row, but no one was injured.

Police says officers noticed a 19-year-old man apparently smoking marijuana shortly before midnight Saturday in an area of central Philadelphia packed with restaurants, shops and clubs.

Officers pursued him to a nearby street, where authorities allege that he opened fire, discharging at least three shots. The officers didn't return fire. They arrested him and recovered a gun.

WORLD

Syrians regain ground lost to IS

Islamic State militants shot down a Syrian warplane on Sunday as Syrian forces regained ground lost to the extremists following a U.S.-led airstrike that hit government forces the day before, state media said.

The U.S. military says it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against IS in eastern Syria on Saturday. The incident has threatened an already fragile U.S. and Russian-brokered cease-fire that has largely held despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides.

Opposition monitoring groups said warplanes struck rebel-held neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo for the first time since the cease-fire went into effect last Monday, wounding several people. In southern Syria, government helicopters dropped barrels bombs on a rebel-held village, killing eight people.

Suicide bomber kills general

A powerful car bomb killed a Somali military general and five of his bodyguards in the capital Sunday, according to a Somali police officer.

Gen. Mohamed Roble Jimale Gobanle and his bodyguards were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle next to the general's car near Somalia's defense ministry compound in Mogadishu, said Capt. Ali Nur.

Gobanle was the commander of the Somali army's 3rd Brigade, a combat team fighting the al-Shabab Islamic extremists in southern Somalia.

17 soldiers die in rebel attack

Suspected rebels using guns and grenades sneaked into a crucial army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir early Sunday and killed at least 17 soldiers in the deadliest attack on a military base in the disputed Himalayan region in recent years, the army said.

Four rebels were killed as the soldiers returned gunfire after the surprise assault before dawn on the base, located near the highly militarized Line of Control dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Loud explosions were heard and several barracks caught fire in the initial hours of the attack. Afterward, military helicopters hovered over the base as the army conducted what it described as "mopping up" operations.

Officials said at least 30 soldiers were wounded in the attack, including about a dozen who were in critical condition.
The Morningside Cafe is tucked away in the corner of 710 N. Lacrosse St., Suite 2, snuggled between attorneys offices and the Taste of Chicago eatery.

Were so hidden back in the corner, no one knows were here. It amazes me how tourists can find us, but locals cant, owner Dan Gluhm said.

The cafe also drew a visit from burglars who broke into the business in March. Gluhm said he was closed for a few days, repairing damage to windows and the front door and restoring his office, which had been thoroughly ransacked by the thieves, who have not been caught.

But after that bump in the road and a lackluster August because the Sturgis motorcycle rally did not meet expectations, the Morningside Cafe is on the comeback trail.

Gluhm has changed his operating hours, hired new staff and added specials, including afternoon coffee and dessert deals.

Its been kind of rough, but were getting back, he said. We had that break-in, now we got to get something going back up again, pick it up.

Hometown restaurants and cafes, with their usual favorite dishes and cozy atmosphere, are a draw for patrons looking for a unique dining experience. Many travelers seek out one-of-a kind diners and eateries to get away from well-known chains found most everywhere.

They get tired of franchise places. They want to come to a place and have meatloaf or pork chops, home-cooked meals, he said.

On Sept. 6, they added dinner hours at the request of many customers, Gluhm said. Their Monday through Friday hours are now 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday hours are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday hours are 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Regional Health awards

Regional Health is among four health-care organizations in the nation recognized with the ASCEND Peak Performance Award for outstanding clinical and supply chain performance.

The award was presented by Premier Inc., a health-care improvement company, at its 2016 Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition held in National Harbor, Maryland, according to a news release.

Supply chain in a health-care context refers to a facilitys ability to efficiently deliver pharmaceuticals and devices to the right patient at the right time. The complexities of supply chain start with insurance providers and are one of the largest expenses of a health-care provider.

Our supply chain and value analysis teams at Regional Health have proven their dedication to achieving great efficiency in our supply-chain management and that has allowed us the ability to improve care and reduce costs, said Brad Haupt, Regional vice president of supply chain.

According to the release, Premier Inc., based in Charlotte, North Carolina., selected Regional Health for the award based on its commitment to supply chain efficiency through contract implementation, devotion to sharing best practices during ASCEND educational sessions, overall compliance to ASCEND programs, and submission of timely, accurate data to properly scale performance improvement opportunities.

And Regional Health's Spearfish Regional Hospital was recently recognized by HealthStream, Inc., with an Excellence Through Insight Award for Most Improved in Home Care.

The award, for 2015, will be presented during the HealthStream Summit in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 27.

We are tremendously proud of our home care team for this outstanding accomplishment, Larry Veitz Spearfish Regional president, said in a news release. This hard-working and talented team has gone above and beyond to give patients and their families the best experience possible.

To qualify for an award a hospital must have scored in the 75th percentile or better. Spearfish Regional Hospital was chosen for receiving the highest or most improved ratings among HealthStreams clients, as well as for exceeding industry standards, according to the release.
Each year Spearfish social science teacher Patrick Gainey teaches students in his 11th and 12th grade history classes about the invention of the telephone.

During the lesson, Gainey conducts an informal poll to see who still has a cellphone.

Each year there are fewer and fewer hands, said Gainey, who has taught in Spearfish for 25 years. We even got rid of our landline a few years ago.

Many families have done away with the landline, swapping out a mobile phone for each family member that they can take anywhere  even school. With most students owning their own iPhones, Androids and other smart devices, schools have included cellphone use policies in student handbooks to keep them out of the classrooms.

The Spearfish School District has a policy that forbids cellphone use in class. However, Gainey said mistakes are made.

I wouldnt say I have a problem with it, he said. It occasionally happens and its as big of a deal as the teacher makes it. Ive accidentally left my cellphone on so I cant get on kids too much if mine goes off.

Gainey simply tells his students to limit the distractions and put the cellphone away.

And although Gainey has not had an issue with cellphone usage in class, he said other teachers have.

There have been issues where kids take their phones out and text back and forth, or kids taking pictures of tests or quizzes and sending them to each other, he said.

Jonathan Gibson, assistant professor of psychology at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, forbids the use of cellphones is his classroom, just like the area elementary and high schools. And his rule is generally followed, as Gibson noted he doesnt have an issue with cellphones in the classroom.

The extensive use and access to smartphones is a downfall for students, though, Gibson said.

Cellphones distract students from class discussions, and they can be used to look up answers to cheat on tests or quizzes, he said.

Students in Spearfish who are caught using cellphones to look up answers to tests or sending information to other students are subject to suspension and academic dishonesty, Gainey said.

Scott Howard, who also teaches at Spearfish High School, warns students once and then takes their phone for the remainder of the class. If a student gets a third warning, he takes disciplinary action and turns the cellphone into the school office.

But, hes never had to do that.

Its not at all a problem if you set the expectation the first day and stick to it, he said. It comes down to classroom management. If students are working and learning, then the issue doesnt come up.

Students all the way down to the third grade pack cellphones in the backpack each day.

Jessica Smith is a third grade teacher at Creekside Elementary in Spearfish. Less than half of her third-graders have a smartphone, but several do wear the new Apple Watches to class, she said.

Although the students may have stowed away their cellphones in their lockers, the Apple Watch allows them to still receive and view text messages.

I just tell them to make sure the watch is turned off, Smith said.

Cellphones may be a distraction for some students, Gainey said, but in a way, smartphones have changed the way teachers educate students.

Im able to teach more on the whys of history, rather than memorization of names and dates, he said. Cellphones have allowed students to easily access information, instantaneously.

Its the cellphone, iPad, video game generation. Everything is just so easily accessible.
A rural Lemmon couple is ponying up $2,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of cattle rustlers.

They also want people to know that cattle theft  which state crime statistics show has a very low rate of cases solved  is alive and well, especially in remote areas of South Dakota.

The reward from Vincent and Susan Gunn is coupled with the standard $5,000 reward that the South Dakota State Brand Board offers for information leading to a conviction for livestock theft, bringing the total amount of the award to $7,000.

Vincent Gunn said seven of his cows were stolen in June from his ranch southwest of Lemmon, located just south of the North Dakota state line about 190 miles northeast of Rapid City.

We had gone up to Medora (North Dakota) for a day with some friends, and somebody must have gotten wind that we were gone, he said.

The thief or thieves took the cattle from a pasture near the Gunns house, where Vincent was keeping them so he could sort some out to sell. He figures the stolen cattle were worth up to $9,000 in total.

To deal with the financial loss, Vincent said, the Gunns had to borrow money from a bank. They had insurance, but their insurance company has refused to pay, apparently because there is insufficient evidence that a theft occurred.

The thief or thieves left no trail, and investigations by the local sheriff and the state Division of Criminal Investigation have turned up no leads, according to the Gunns.

Vincent suspects the rustlers may have rebranded the cattle and sold them elsewhere, or simply passed the Gunns brand off as their own, perhaps with the aid of forged brand documents.

Another Perkins County resident, John Merriman, said he recently suffered the theft of six heifers. He figured his loss is about $7,000, and he had no insurance. Hes not offering a reward of his own because he assumes the case will never be solved.

Merriman said he has a gravel pit and was able to sell some of the gravel to fill part of the financial hole created by the theft.

Its just one of those things where you swallow it and you tighten your belt and you drive an old pickup like I do, he said.

Experiences like those suffered by the Gunns and Merriman are common. Numbers provided by the state Attorney Generals Office show that from 1999 through 2013, there were 220 reported cases of stolen livestock and only 21 cases in which the livestock was recovered. Thats a recovery rate of about 10 percent.

A separate report for 2015 shows $133,395 worth of livestock was reported stolen that year, and only $2,100 worth of livestock was recovered, for a rate of 2 percent, which is one of the lowest recovery rates for any type of theft. By comparison, the statewide rate of recovery for all types of stolen property in 2015 was 25 percent.

Vincent knows hes facing long odds. He suggested that the Legislature could help solve more cases by providing funding to increase the brand boards standard reward amount.

To raise his chances of solving the crime, he recently placed an ad in the statewide newspaper classifieds about the reward for his case.

Im losing hope, Gunn said. Thats why I put an ad in the papers.
A dozen or so people were left stranded for more than an hour on a carnival ride Aug. 28 in Rosebud, according to witnesses.

The incident happened on the Super Shot, which lifts riders up a tall vertical tower and then drops them quickly to induce the sensation of free-falling.

Videos posted to social media websites by witnesses at the Rosebud Fair show a Super Shot stuck about halfway between its high point and the ground. Although the height of the Super Shot used at the Rosebud Fair is not publicly known, various online sources report that Super Shots range from 90 to 140 feet tall.

At Rosebud, lift-bucket trucks known as cherrypickers had to be used to extract people from the stuck ride. Ida Marshall, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribes Special Events Committee, said in a Journal phone interview that people were stuck on the ride for about an hour before the trucks arrived from the Cherry-Todd Electric Cooperative. It was at least another hour before all the riders were safely on the ground, she said. No injuries were reported.

The tribe contracted with Family Fun Shows, of Mankato, Minn., to provide the carnival rides for the fair. Company co-owner Greg Hughes said in a phone interview with the Journal that the Super Shot was booked in, a common practice in which carnival companies add extra rides to an event by essentially renting a competitors ride.

Hughes said he suspects an equipment malfunction was to blame rather than other potential causes, such as operator error or patron tampering, but he does not know exactly what went wrong because he immediately sent the ride back to its owner, GoldStar Amusements, of Minneapolis. That company will likely inspect the ride and determine what happened, Hughes said.

No one from GoldStar Amusements returned phone messages from the Journal.
Typically, when the Rapid City Retired Senior Volunteer Program recognizes its volunteer of the year, one or two of the honoree's family members attend.

In the latest recognition ceremony, about 35 family members showed up to cheer for Natalie Termes.

"Her family lined up, and oh my goodness, she just squealed in delight," Angie Weeks said.

Weeks, director of the Black Hills RSVP+ program, said Termes was named the 2016 Volunteer of the Year Tuesday at the program's annual recognition event. At the event, Weeks presented Termes with a plaque, medallions and a letter from Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender.

Termes, 96, started volunteering with RSVP in August 1987 and has logged more than 11,000 hours of community service with the program, continuing what Weeks described as a lifetime of community service and involvement for the retired postmistress.

"Formally, she joined our program 29 years ago, but volunteering I think has always been a way of life for Natalie," Weeks said.

Weeks said Termes' volunteer service includes the Good Samaritan Center in New Underwood, Minneluzahan Senior Center, Senior Meals Program as well as working at bazaars, working on mailings, volunteering for the PTA, at church and local schools.

Even more impressive, Weeks said, is that Termes  who turns 97 next month  drives the roughly 20 miles in to Rapid City every day from New Underwood to volunteer.

"Shes quite a remarkable woman," Weeks said. "Shes just extremely inspiring to other seniors."

Volunteers of the quarter were also recognized at the festival, including Sue Ferguson, Marian Reed, Lila Doud, Clinton and Rose VanBlaricum, who Weeks said are equally as inspiring as Termes. Weeks said there are 600 volunteers in the Black Hills RSVP+ program who donate more than 135,000 hours of community service each year.

"Each one of the volunteers that serve in this program are making a difference," Weeks said.

Drumming up support

Black Hills State University delivered more than $700 to the Spearfish Community Food Pantry this week.

According to a release from the university, donations for the cause were collected during BHSU Night at Downtown Friday Nights over the past few weeks as students returned to campus. Beeline (BHSU Drumline) performed during the Friday night event.

Area residents and businesses were invited to wear BHSU T-shirts during move-in weekend and during the Friday Night event. In exchange for the shirts, BHSU collected donations for the food pantry.

It makes such a memorable impact to the students and their families as they arrive in Spearfish to see the support and pride our community has in BHSU, spokeswoman Corinne Hansen said in the release. Its a mutual feeling and were glad to do our part by working together to raise funds for the Spearfish Food Pantry.
WASHINGTON | If Democrats want to beat Donald Trump, they need to get past the freak-out stage and get to work.

In a sane and just world, this presidential race would be a walkover. Commentators would already be sketching out their postmortem analyses of an all-but-certain Hillary Clinton victory. Pare the contest down to its essentials: A former senator and secretary of state, eminently qualified to be president, is running against a dangerous demagogue who has never held public office and should not be allowed anywhere near the White House. Ought to be case closed.

But it's not. Clinton's big lead in national polls following the party conventions, which approached double digits, has shrunk to about 2 points  far too close for comfort. Trump has gained ground in swing-state polls as well. If the election were held tomorrow, Clinton would probably win. But Nov. 8 is many weeks away, and the recent trend line is hardly in her favor.

Why has the race tightened? I've heard a lot of theories, but I'm not sure I really buy any of them.

Trump's current set of handlers  campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and chief executive Steve Bannon  have done a better job than their predecessors of keeping their candidate from committing acts of self-destruction. They have gotten him to use a teleprompter more, rant and rave less, and sometimes go as long as 48 hours without spewing idiotic vitriol on Twitter. These are no small accomplishments.

Conway bravely goes on the cable shows every day and tries to explain the unexplainable. Sometimes she is made into a liar by her own candidate, as happened Wednesday when she denied that Trump would release any medical records on "The Dr. Oz Show," only to see him do just that a few hours later.

Pretty much every time she appears, she has to pretend that one or another of Trump's nonsensical issue positions makes sense  or, on many issues, that he even has a settled position. But she is unfailingly patient, polite and nonthreatening.

Clinton, meanwhile, has been through a rough patch. Just as it seemed she might be getting past the latest hubbub over her emails, she told backers at a fundraiser that half of Trump's supporters fit into a "basket of deplorables." Then she felt wobbly at Sunday's 9/11 commemoration and later disclosed that she has pneumonia.

And by the way, I'm well aware that Trump has said worse things about the voting public; there is video of him opining that half of Americans are freeloaders. I'm also aware that in the larger sense there is no real comparison between Clinton's serious, inclusive, fact-based campaign and Trump's noxious stew of bigotry, resentment and juvenile fantasy.

Voters have been informed of Trump's ignorant and outrageous statements, his real and potential conflicts of interest, his bankruptcies, his hucksterism, his untempered temperament and all the other factors that make him unthinkable as a president. Coverage by the news media brought all this information to light. Don't blame the media for the fact that many people say they plan to vote for him anyway.

Instead, if you want to stop Trump, focus on the fundamentals and get busy.

Ordinarily, this would be a tough election for any Democratic candidate to win. That is because, historically, a party that controls the White House for two terms in a row has difficulty winning a third. In addition to that headwind, nearly 70 percent of Americans say they believe the country is on the wrong track  an ominous sign for the incumbent party.

Trump, with his soaring unpopularity and general flakiness, is no normal candidate. Many voters  including many Republicans  obviously believe that while it may be the GOP's turn to take the helm, it will never be Trump's turn. Still, there are those who have real doubts about Trump but may still vote for him because they want change.

But the Democratic Party has structural advantages in a presidential year, as Barack Obama so vividly demonstrated. The party's coalition of women, young people, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Hispanics has growing weight in the electorate. Trump's base  older, whiter, more male  is a shrinking portion of the overall vote.

And the electoral map favors Democrats, giving Clinton more paths to victory than Trump. If she wins Florida, it's over. Same if she wins Ohio. And she could even lose both and still get to 270.

Angst doesn't help. Energizing the Democratic Party's reliable voters, especially in crucial states, can make all the difference.
At the top of Elk Mountain, Kristin Barker hopped into the bed of the Ford pickup sometimes called The Green Monster, raised the radio telemetry antenna high above her head and put the receiver to her ear.

From her vantage point, she could see far and wide, the tops of other mountains draped in forest green, the tamaracks that hadnt started turning golden yet, the sky in striations of gray and silver.

As the masters candidate in the wildlife biology program at the University of Montana listened for a single bull elk, she turned the device one way, then another.

The receiver crackled, but it didnt beep.

Honestly, I dont have high hopes, but we have to do our due diligence, Barker said.

The researcher with an undergraduate degree in English was in the field far up Miller Creek at the tail end of a study examining how elk migration patterns affect their nutrition.

Barker said she was attracted to the project because its collaborative and also meaningful outside the classroom. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and a private conservation company called MPG Ranch also are working on the study.

I would like to do something that is important and applicable in the real world, Barker said.

Truth be told, shed rather be out in the great outdoors any day of the week, although at this point in the research, shes spending more time at the computer screen looking for stories in the heaps of data the team gathered rather than trekking through the woods.

I actually would have preferred to do 100 percent in the field, but my adviser (Mike Mitchell) told me I already know how to do field work, and Im here to learn science, Barker said, who estimated overall field work at some 50 percent. Thats fair.

And in Montana, the connection between research in the lab and work in the field is close, sometimes just a short truck ride away.

***

Before heading out, Barker tossed a couple of backpacks into the backseat of The Green Monster, also called The Hulk, and stuck her coffee thermos in the console.

On any given trip, she and any of the researchers heading into the field might carry a topographical map, a GPS unit, radio telemetry equipment, PVC pipe squares for vegetation work, high-tech scissors, calipers to measure shrubs, iPads, and brown paper bags for samples.

And latex gloves for handling fecal samples. Very important, Barker said.

The project started in 2014, she said, and as is typical with this type of work, the team brought on the masters student in 2015, after its inception, to carry out the data analysis portion toward the end.

To collect information, the scientists had collared 65 elk in the Sapphire Mountains. Most of the collars had dropped off and been retrieved, but Barker was looking for data from one that remained.

Two bulls still have collars on em. One of them hasnt transmitted in a while, Barker said.

It sounded like a lovely problem for Barker; even though her main job at this point was looking at data at a computer in the Natural Sciences building on campus, she had to chase one last elk.

***

The trip to the top of the mountain took Barker through meadows, past a small vegetable farm, and under a deep green canopy of pine, maybe spruce  Id have to touch the needles to be sure.

Once, a tiny rabbit hopped along on the side of the road, one of the many critters Barker has encountered on her excursions. Shed seen a black bear, whitetail deer, mule deer, and lots of birds.

Once, I found a little caterpillar cocoon, Barker said.

The mountain lions were there, too, but they observe the people; rarely is it the other way around.

Last week, the researcher had to tread with special care because it was hunting season, and she didnt want to upset the balance in the field. Barker didnt want to get in the way of the hunters, nor did she want to force elk from any hiding spots.

During hunting season, you want to be real cautious to be fair to both parties, said Barker, a hunter herself.

On the drive, Barker spoke about the project in a way that made it clear science is a creative pursuit. The researchers have many different hypotheses, not just one, and they were testing different answers, which werent mutually exclusive.

For instance, one idea is that the more an elk migrates, the better access it has to more nutritious food.

You have to be creative to even come up with a good question, Barker said.

To find answers, the team collected data about the elk, and nutritional information about plants, such as balsamroot and spotted knapweed, at various stages of life.

At least last week, Barker only had preliminary conclusions to the question about nutrition posed by the agency. Shes scheduled to graduate in December 2017, and before she does, she plans to use the data to answer one of her own questions about elk in the Sapphires, too.

Im trying to understand why the full continuum of migration behavior is represented in this population, Barker said.

Some elk migrate, but some start to migrate and then return, and their range of behaviors is wide. Some people believe they see patterns in elk movement, but so far the stories are only anecdotal and not backed by data, Barker said.

Some species, such as the wildebeest, have stopped migrating altogether, she said.

Migratory behavior seems to be changing in a lot of species, Barker said.

The state agency will keep the data from the study, she said, and theyll continue to seek answers in it to questions about life and wild places even after this particular project ends.

***

Before coming to Montana, Barker worked in the software industry in Colorado.

Eventually, she found her volunteer work monitoring bats more interesting, and she decided to seek an advanced degree in wildlife biology. She headed to Missoula because she liked the town itself  which she had visited earlier while doing wolf research  as well as the campus lab, called the Montana Cooperative Research Unit, and the strength of the program, recognized nationally.

Its one of the better wildlife bio programs in the country, Barker said.

After a few fruitless minutes with the antenna on the top of the mountain, the researcher revved up the truck again and rolled to a different vantage site. She didnt have luck there and she figured the batteries had died in the collar.

Typically, the collars upload data to a satellite every two hours, but it hadnt been sending information and she couldnt pick it up manually.

He could be anywhere, she said.

With most of the collars already secure, though, Barker hopped back in the truck and headed back to campus, where she traded her socks and boots for a pair of sandals and settled in for computer analysis.

This is where the magic happens, she said, joking.

Really, the magic seemed to be the way the campus and the field were bound together. Barker had landed on the top of Elk Mountain in the morning to listen for the signal of one bull elk, and she was back in her office the same afternoon, looking at the results of a couple of seasons of elk on the move in Montana.
North Valley Public Library is losing a champion.

Beverly Helrich is retiring after 13 years of service to the library and the community it serves. She fought to keep the library when it was in danger of closing, built up the Friends of the Library and served as the president for 12 years.

Helrich said when she first moved to Stevensville 14 years ago, she thought the library was a hotel.

There was no sign on the outside, Helrich said. I heard there was a meeting to close the library, I couldnt have that so I went to the meeting.

Helrich lead the 2004 campaign efforts to save the library.

Former board chair John Conlan credits Helrich with saving the community library.

We would not have reached our goal of establishing North Valley Public Library as the states first independent library district and then adequately funding the library, if not for the efforts of Beverly, he said. I am forever thankful for Bevs efforts in helping establish the library and to build the friends group back up. Beverly is a one-of-a-kind person that has enriched our lives and brought many a smile to our faces, spreading happiness along the way.

During Helrichs years of service at the library, she was the driving force behind the popular book sale fundraisers, Chocolate and Authors party and the local art painted chair auction. She also represented the library at Civic Club meetings, solicited donations from local businesses and advertised the library and Friends group through local media and a wide network of contacts.

In 2006, Helrich was selected by the Montana Library Association to receive its Special Friend to Libraries Award for her outstanding service.

Helrich said she loves the North Valley Public Library.

Its a wonderful, old, country library and vital to the community, she said. We have computers that people use every day, videos, music, books and Wi-Fi. We have wonderful childrens programs and summer reading programs. Children love our library and take stacks of books out every week.

Denise Ard, library director, said Helrich enriched the library.

Beverley is full of humor and life, Ard said. It is not too strong a statement to say that my life is better from having known Beverly and the library is better for her contributions.

Ard said the Friends of the Library paid for the Humanities Montana series, including the educational lecture Perspective on Islam by Professor Samir Bitar.

The Friends also bought four wingback chairs, art display panels and supplemented the childrens programming budget, Ard said. We especially appreciate her hosting thank you parties for board members, volunteers and staff since that is something we dont budget with taxpayer funds.

Helrich said she is moving to Nevada to be near family.

It is bittersweet to leave and I do it with regret, she said. I need to be near one of my own. Im 91 you know.

Helrich said she would miss her friends and contacts at the library but said it is in the good hands of the new Friends of the NVPL president Diana Griffin.

Ive formed so many wonderful friendships and good acquaintances and they are outstanding, Helrich said. I leave with a feeling of great satisfaction.

The North Valley Public Library is honoring Helrich from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the community room on Wednesday, Sept. 28. The North Valley Public Library is located at 208 Main Street, Stevensville. For more information, call the library at 406-777-5061.
BIG HOLE VALLEY  Conservationists say they cant save the Big Hole River  an internationally renowned blue ribbon fishing spot  but cleaning up its tributaries will help the Big Holes future drought issues.

The Big Hole River, like all rivers in Montana, face perpetual low flows and high water temperatures in late summer months.

Big Hole Watershed Committee president Randy Smith grew up hearing from old-timers that the Big Hole River suffered low flow conditions in the 1920s and 1930s. So, despite the fact that the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration reports 2016 will likely be the hottest year on record, breaking 2015, which in turn broke 2014s record, the Big Holes flow and temperature issues are not new.

Smith has been living on a ranch in the Big Hole valley since 1964.

But while the Big Holes flow and temperature problems are not unusual, what is unique about the Big Holes problems are that some of its tributaries contain metal exceedances during heavy storms due to decades of copper smelting  a fiery process that turned raw ore into product  in Anaconda.

But two tributaries to the Big Hole  French Creek and California Creek - are in the process of getting work done in the Mount Haggin Wildlife Management Area about 15 miles east of Anaconda. The impetus for the work is to mitigate the significant damage done by placer mining  where rocks were used to search for gold - and from smelting.

That work will help flows and high water temperature issues for the Big Hole. It will also restore 40 miles of native fishery.

Big Hole Watershed Committee executive director Jen Downing said even after the work on California Creek and French Creek are complete, more small projects will be in the works to cool the water and keep it in the tributaries as long as possible.

This totally relates to drought management, Downing said in late August during a tour of the two tributaries. Resiliency is the key.

All of the work is being done on state land and the work involves a variety of state agencies as well as the Big Hole Watershed Committee.

The price tag for the work so far is estimated at around $10 million, Downing said.

French Creek

With its headwaters starting in the Fleecer Mountains, French Creek suffered huge impacts due to placer mining in the late 1800s and early 1900s, said Big Hole Watershed Committee restoration program manager Padro Marques.

Miners brought in hydraulic hoses and blasted the side of the mountain trying to find gold along French Creek.

They really devastated that part of the stream. Theres no fish after a certain point, Marques said. The impacts of mining were pretty severe.

That area near the headwaters is so devastated state agencies and the watershed committee lack the resources to tackle it, Marques said. But work began this summer on another section of the creek just off Highway 569. Contractors are removing 15,000 cubic yards of sediment and completely replacing 3 miles of the devastated creek so it meanders again.

By creating a natural system again where the stream can overtop its banks, restoration workers are creating a sponge-like area so the water will stay in the ground longer and because it stays in the ground longer, the water stays cooler, said Marques.

Farther downstream, less than a mile from French Creeks confluence with Deep Creek, Fish Wildlife and Parks are planning a fish passage barrier to be constructed in the fall of 2017 said FWP fish biologist Jim Olsen. Once it is complete, FWP will remove the nonnative brook and rainbow trout in 2018 and reintroduce tens of thousands of native Westslope cutthroat trout and native Arctic grayling to the creek that feeds into the Big Hole. The reintroduction is also expected to help pearl shelled mussels that live along the bottom of the creek bed and could be as much as 100 years old.

In order to complete their life cycle, the mussel need native fish to travel through the water to relocate and then reproduce.

This is the first big Arctic grayling reintroduction, said Olsen. Due to a lack of reintroduction history, FWP doesnt know how the Montana grayling will do.

The Big Hole River is the Arctic graylings last remaining native habitat in the lower 48 states and has been the cause of litigation for decades as environmentalists have fought to get U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list it as endangered. Montana Tech professor Pat Munday, Montana fishing guide George Wuerthner and Center for Biological Diversity lost the most recent round last month when U.S. federal district court judge Sam Haddon ruled there was no basis for their critique of the federal agencys decision not to list the fish. U.S. Fish and Wildlife announced the Arctic grayling did not meet the criteria for Endangered Species listing in August 2014.

The fish passage barrier and reintroduction of native fish is expected to replace 40 miles of native fishery, Marques said.

California Creek

When it rains, thousands of tons of sediment goes roaring down Sugarloaf Mountain side through gulleys into California Creek, which then flows into the Big Hole River. Some of that sediment contains metals.

Over the course of three years, from 2013 to 2016, conservationists and the state have stretched $1.286 million to clean up California Creek, said Downing. The current work is expected to last until next summer and will help with both habitat and stream restoration.

There are multiple issues. Sulpher dioxide emanating from the smelters killed off the vegetation on Sugarloaf Mountain, Marques said. In addition, miners logged the mountain for decades in order to feed the smelter. The topsoil is completely gone, and all that is left is volcanic ash, in which nothing can grow, Marques said.

Marques said the restoration workers have put in hundreds of plugs in 4 miles worth of gullies to slow sediment and water down as it rushes down the side of the mountain.

In order to try to revegetate the mountain side, state and watershed committee workers and volunteers laid 8,000 pounds of organic fertilizer on the side of the mountain over 3 acres, dug trenches and filled them with fertilizer and seed and covered it with coconut matting to protect from runoff. Starting in 2013, it was a 3 year project.

At the bottom of the mountain along 2  miles of stream, conservation workers have put in 300 beaver mimicry structures to help turn California Creek into more of a wetland area. That, too, will create a sponge that will hold the water in the ground longer and that, in turn, will keep it cooler.

Marques said these small scale restoration projects can, in the long term, help with the creek exceeding state water quality standards for metal contamination. As water spills up on the banks, the metals wash up on the banks and will get buried and absorbed into willows, which grow on a healthy streams banks.

While the metal is a concern, it was so widespread across the landscape, were not going to dig up entire watersheds and haul it off, Marques said. Were really focusing on habitat issues for fish and stream function. That will also start dealing with metals because then the stream starts depositing on the floodplain, grasses and willows grow, and hold metals and sediment in place instead of it going downstream.

The big picture

The Big Hole Watershed Committee wanted to build an earthen dam at Twin Lakes, south and west of Wisdom, years ago to help with low flows and high water temperatures that plague the Big Hole by late summer, said Smith.

Smith said the committee spent years working on the idea in the 1990s. They sent representatives to Washington, DC to meet with congressional delegates in order to seek money for such a project.

They also met with various state agencies. But they ran into so many issues  water rights, liability, hazards and money  that the committee gave up.

Smith said snowpack is the most important element to the Big Hole. Thats why the committee would like to see some sort of river storage built, to hold water and keep it from running downstream too fast.

With the past three summers breaking heat records globally, snowpack is melting earlier, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Smith said that members of the committee would still like to see a larger water storage diversion built on the Big Hole, but unless government gets involved, he doesnt see a bigger project like that happening.

I dont think its impossible, but we need somebody bigger than us behind it, Smith said. We need government. Thats what it takes to get that sort of support. Maybe itll take the river drying up.
In recent remarks , Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada reiterated the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces (MSDF) intention to continue cooperation with the United States in the South China Sea. In a speech delivered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC-based think tank, earlier this week, Inada also expressed concerned about Chinas behavior in the East and South China Seas.

Inada outlined three particular areas where Japan will continue to deepen its involvement in the South China Sea:

Japan on its part will increase its engagement in the South China Sea through, for example, Maritime Self Defense Force joint training cruises with the U.S. Navy, bilateral and multi-lateral exercises with regional navies, as well as providing capacity building assistance to coastal nations.

I would like to underline my governments resolve to protect our territorial integrity and sovereignty, said Inada. To this end, we will continue our own defense efforts and also maintain and enhance the Japan-U.S. alliance.

Inada, newly appointed as defense minister and the second woman to hold that post in Japan, has been described as a potential candidate to succeed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Japans involvement in the South China Sea has drawn Chinas attention. Beijing recently warned Tokyo that it would risk Chinas wrath by engaging in freedom of navigation patrols (FONOPs) in the region. Ambassador Cheng Yonghua, Chinas envoy to Japan, reportedly told Japanese officials that Japanese participation in U.S. Navy-led FONOPs would cross a red line.

China has reiterated its operation to Japanese involvement in the South China Sea on other occasions. We are firmly opposed to Japanese attempts to send its self defense forces to join the so-called Freedom of Navigation operations by the U.S. in the South China Sea, Colonel Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, remarked at an August press conference.

Inada, rebuking Chinas warnings, declared her support for the U.S. Navys ongoing patrols: In this context, I strongly support the U.S. Navys freedom-of-navigation operations, which go a long way to upholding the rules-based international maritime order. Inada stressed the importance of upholding international law in the South China Sea, saying that if rule-bending is permitted to go unchallenged, the consequences could become global.

Japan held its first-ever bilateral drill in the South China Sea with the United States Navy last October. Incidentally, this drill took place just days after the United States carried out its first FONOP within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef and other disputed features in the Spratly Islands. (Subi Reef is the site of one of seven artificial islands constructed by China since 2013.)

Tokyos resolve to intensify its maritime involvement in the South China Sea demonstrates the continuing salience of the region for Japanese strategy despite Japans lack of geographic proximity to the area. Not only does Tokyo benefit from the preservation of free navigation in the South China Sea, but Japan, as a net importer of fossil fuels, is dependent on open sea lanes across the Asia-Pacific for its energy needs.
Rodrigo Duterte. Some see him as the Donald Trump of Southeast Asia. Others dismiss him as a man of bark and no bite. Some consider him to be a necessary strongman, while others call him a violator of human rights.

Dutertes ascendancy to the presidency of the Philippines has many nations on edge; few more so than America. The United States is understandably anxious because Duterte is rewriting the Philippine-U.S. playbook.

Sticks and Stones

Dutertes expletive-laden speeches are a key aspect of his brash persona. During a speech before the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Laos, Duterte called U.S. President Barack Obama the son of a whore. He once used the same expression to describe the pope. Andrew Browne, contributor for the Wall Street Journal wrote, Only the timing came as a surprise. It might seem foolhardy to offend your No. 1 protector and arms supplier when, as an archipelagic nation with a barely credible navy, Chinese armadas are pressing in.

The firebrand speeches reveal the direction Duterte is taking his country. The newly elected president is looking to put U.S. relations on hold while invigorating ties with China. He wants to see a more independent Philippinesone that is free from, as he sees it, its vassal state or lapdog relationship with America.

The alarming fact is, Dutertes insults are not just hot air. The president has taken steps to root out Americas military presence, and in some cases replace it with China.

As one commentator for CNN wrote, Its not just a runaway tongue that worries the United States about the volatile new president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. Its what else hes thinking.

Military Out

Signaling an even more worrying trend, Duterte has called on the U.S. to withdraw from the southern island of Mindanao. Mindanao is a Muslim-majority region and the home of a number of terrorist groups. Duterte considers the U.S. special forces stationed in Mindanao to be a prime target who must be removed for their own safety and the stability of the island. As Duterte said, For as long as we stay with America, we will never have peace in that land.

Some, however, see Dutertes demand as an attempt to remove any witnesses before a heavy-handed crackdown on the island. Earlier this month, the Philippine president declared that the military would now aid the police in anticrime efforts . Dutertes anticrime policies have drawn significant international criticism as a violation of human rights. A bombing in Dutertes home city of Davao in Mindanao earlier this month means the island could be the next target in the presidents crackdown.

Regardless of the reasoning, the removal of U.S. troops is devastating for President Obamas region-wide attempt to draw closer to Asia. The Philippines should be the linchpin in Obamas strategynot the one reversing it.

Since World War II , the Philippines has been home to a large U.S. military contingent. Clark Air Base on Luzon Island was once the largest U.S. base outside America. The ruins of Corregidor Island are a testimony to American Gen. Douglas MacArthurs fight alongside Filipinos against overwhelming Japanese forces.

The legacy lives on to some degree; Americans still train alongside Philippine forces throughout the nation.

The decision to kick out the U.S. troops jeopardizes a strategic deal signed earlier this year by then-President Benigno Aquino to allow the U.S. to operate out of five bases. One of these was Lumbia Air Base in Mindanao. If American troops are removed from the base, it will cast doubt on the longevity of the March deal. If the U.S. presence at Lumbia Air Base was so casually dismissed by Duterte, its presence on the remaining four bases could be too.

The purpose of the deal was to provide America the opportunity to maintain a rotational presence and allow for extended engagement and long-term missions in the region. Scrapping the deal limits Americas presence, shortening Washingtons reach and weakening the U.S. military arm extending into Asia.

As a recent Wall Street Journal article title read, Rodrigo Duterte Throws a Grenade in Washingtons China Strategy.

What South China Sea Dispute?

Hedging Chinese aggression in the South China Sea is key to Mr. Obamas interests in the Philippines. However, Duterte is proving to be an unreliable ally in the fight.

The Philippine president promised not to mention the South China Sea at the ASEAN summitleaning more toward Chinas stance that any negotiations should be conducted without Washington present.

Duterte has also promised to halt all maritime patrols with foreign nations in an effort to deescalate tensions. This too is in Beijings favor. China would prefer not to see cooperation between the U.S. and its allies in the South China Sea.

When it comes to confronting China, Dutertes language lacks the usual brash tone. While comfortable calling President Obama the son of a whore, the Philippine president was much more pleasant to China: I hope the Chinese may find a place in their hearts for the Filipinos. I hope you treat us [as] your brothers and not enemies and take note of our plight. Bear in mind, he said this to Chinathe nation illegally (per the recent ruling at The Hague) occupying Philippine territory and denying Philippine fishermen access to fishing waters.

This soft approach shows that Duterte is looking to reset relations with China, even if it means giving up the major political victory he inherited from The Hague when he took office.

Arms From Asia

The latest and perhaps most troubling of Dutertes actions have been his military dealings with Russia and China.

The president has hinted that the Philippines will no longer be so reliant on America for weaponry. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 75 percent of Philippine weapons have come from America since the 1950s. But that looks set to change: Duterte said that Russia and China have agreed to a 25-year soft loan that will allow the Philippines to purchase their weapons.

After decades of being on the outside, Russia and China will now have a foothold in the Philippines arms market.

Just as the new market is opening up, the Philippines defense procurement budget leaped to $526 milliona 25 percent increase over last year. The country clearly has plans on buying more, but not from America.

Announcing the decision, Duterte said he wants to buy arms where they are cheap and where there are no strings attached and it is transparent. I dont need jets, he continued, F-16s, thats no use to us. We dont intend to fight any country.

The sale of U.S. arms to allies in Southeast Asia has been a cornerstone in maintaining relations through the regionthe use of military bases, another. Washington has had near-exclusive access to the Philippines market for decadesthe Philippine-U.S. defense treaty was signed in 1951. That era is coming to a close.

The purchase of Chinese arms gives Beijing more opportunity to get involved in the Philippines. Training on Chinese operating systems, joint exercises and military cooperation are the next steps after sales are finalized. But Beijings plans are undoubtedly more than just military cooperation.

The problem is whats the quid pro quo? asked Eduardo Tadem, a lecturer of Asian Studies at the University of the Philippines. What will the Chinese especially get in exchange ?

Russia and China must be overjoyed at the prospect of taking Philippine business from the U.S. Both nations have worked feverishly to replace America as the go-to world power: Russia in the Middle East; China in Southeast Asia. Now both have the chance to elbow out America in the Philippines.

The Trumpet has written extensively on this shift by Americas traditional Asian alliances away from the U.S. American weakness is as much a facilitator of this change as the rise of China. Many consider Duterte to be irrational and erratic, but could it be that he sees the writing on the wall? China isnt interested in appeasing America, nor is Russia. Washingtons pivot to Asia has lost all momentum with the Middle East still sapping Americas strength. Chinas belligerence shows that there is a new top dog in Asiaand it isnt America.

An Alliance in the Making

The budding friendship between China and the Philippines has been in the making for years. The April 1968 Plain Truth (forerunner to the Trumpet magazine) stated:

Despite its many national, religious and political differences, Asia will ultimately be welded together into a common power bloc. It will ultimately send its military muscle into the Middle East at the return of Jesus Christ. This prophecy is recorded in Revelation 16:12 and 16.

Few in 1968, or even a year ago, would have considered the Philippines to be a friend of China. But that is the alliance we see forming today.

The Philippines tiny military means that if Duterte is determined to remove U.S. influence, he must look elsewhere for security. If his recent speeches and actions (and the words written in the Bible itself) are to be taken at face value, then the Philippines is destined for a relationship with China!

Trumpet forecast in 2011, As As theforecast in 2011,As Americas influence in the Philippines and all of Asia wanes, Chinas twin forces of soft-power diplomacy and hard-power buildup will fill the void and steadily congeal the Asian nations into a colossal global power.

But that rising power bloc in Asia will be short-lived. Asias unification points to the approach of the most hope-filled event in history! That hope-filled event is, of course, the return of Jesus Christ. The Asian power bloc plays a pivotal role on the world scene, and it comes about right at the end of the age of man. Right before Christs return!
The Guardian publishes detailed investigation into Saudi aggression crimes against Yemen





LONDON, Sept. 17 (SABA)  The most comprehensive investigative report released by London-based the Guardian daily found out that more than one-third of all Saudi-led air attacks against Yemen since March 2015 have hit civilian sites, such as school buildings, hospitals, markets, mosques and economic infrastructure.



The report, published by the Guardian on Friday, based on a survey conducted by the Yemen Data Project, a group of academics, human rights organizers and activists, detailing all-Saudi-led air strikes that deliberately targeted civilians and residential areas, as well as economic and cultural sites in Yemen.



The findings revealed that the Saudi aggression intensifies air attacks to coincide with its military and political setbacks. The escalations mainly aims at civilian targets.



The report records more than 8,600 air attacks between March 2015 and the end of August this year. Of these, 3,158 were listed as having hit civilian sites, including 942 struck residential quarters, 114 hit public markets, 34 mosques, 147 destroyed schools and 26 raided universities.



Based on the findings, the newspaper noted that the aggression countries concentrated their air attacks on some particular civilian sites, such as air striking a public market in Serwah district of Marib governorate with 24 strikes and a school in Dhubab town of Taiz governorate has been hit nine times.



In Saada, the Saudi-led aggression declared the whole governorate a military target but data shows air raids hit mostly non-military sites.



It said the most heavily-bombed region is Saada since the Saudi aggression in May 2015 dropped leaflets declaring all of Saada a military target and advising residents to leave.



Incidents involving non-military sites in Saada outnumber hits on military targets three to one in the database.



Findings of some air strikes against civilian targets in Saada indicates to the killing of 10 children in a school in Haidan area in August 2016, and a public market in Sihar district with five strikes and a mosque in the same area with 10 air attacks.



Taiz, the most densely populated governorate according to the Guardian, was the second highest percentage of air attacks involving non-military sites.



In September 2015, 135 people died in Taiz governorate when a wedding party was struck in the village of Wahija, near al-Mukha, and more than 30 died in June this year when airstrikes hit a market in Hayfan during the supposed ceasefire.



Taiz has also seen the largest number of school buildings struck in a single governorate with one site in al-Omary, Dhubab being hit nine times. Taiz airport and the docks in al-Mukha have been hit 16 and 18 times respectively.



In comments to the survey findings, the UKs shadow defense secretary, Clive Lewis, said: Its sickening to think of British-built weapons being used against civilians and the government has an absolute responsibility to do everything in its power to stop that from happening. But as ministers turn a blind eye to the conflict in Yemen, evidence that humanitarian law has been violated is becoming harder to ignore by the day.



The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, Tom Brake, said the data added more weight to calls for the suspension of arms sales. Despite consistent evidence showing targeting of civilians, first Cameron and now Mays governments have continued their hypocritical defense of Saudi Arabias brutal campaign in Yemen, he said.



The investigation into Saudi brutal air aggression also included a number of charts and graphics showing precise figures about civilian death tolls, the size of the destruction in civilian infrastructure, historical cities and civilian targets.



MA



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[17/September/2016]
Saudi-led aggression continues raids on provinces

PROVINCES , Sep. 17 (Saba)  The Saudi-led aggression continued to wage raids on several provinces during the past 24 hours, a military official said.



The Saudi warplanes targeted a car in al-Watada in Khawlan of Sana'a province, killing 10 in an initial toll, the official added.



The warplanes also targeted four raids on Naqel Yasleh area in Sana'a, he said.



The Saudi warplanes waged each of Amran Cement plant and Bait Badi area in Amran province with an air raid, the official said.



He added the Saudi-led aggression launched two raids on Serwah district in Mareb province, killing five people in Wadi al-Zagan area in the district.



Two people were killed in a Saudi air raid in Gawl Gamer area in Sa'ada province, the official said, adding that the Saudi aggression waged raids on al-Omar area in Munabah district in Sa'ada.



The official added the Saudi warplanes targeted al-Menzalah area in al-Dhaher district with an air raid and al-Dhaher and al-Malahedh areas in the same district with four raids.



He said that the Saudi warplanes pounded a house in al-Maqrani area in Haidan district in Sa'ada province.



The official added the warplanes launched an air raid on al-Salem and two raids on the downtown of Sa'ada city and two air raids on Mudaidedah area in Baqem district in Sa'ada.



In Hajjah province, the Saudi-led aggression waged an air raid on al-Mazraq area and Haradh city with two raids, he said.



The Saudi warplanes waged four raids on 16 KM area in Hodeida province and al-Masloub district in Jawf province with two raids, he added.



The hostile warplanes waged two raids on Wadi Jarah area and al-Ma'arosa village in al-Dukhan Mount in Jizan region, the official said



HA







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HINTON, Iowa  Alan Fagan sets up shop in a soybean field as he prepares to survey a section near here in Plymouth County.

Really perfect weather  no wind, no rain and its not hot, he says as he removes the tools of his trade from his truck.

Fagan, who lives in Merrill, has been surveying Plymouth and Woodbury counties for many years. He also serves as president of the Society of Land Surveyors of Iowa.

He says much of his work involves farms, ranging from establishing boundaries to helping divide a farm as part of an estate.

I would say 99 percent of what we do is for a positive purpose, Fagan says. People around here get along pretty well.

He says most folks do not think of hiring a licensed surveyor when buying property, adding the lack of an updated survey could create a problem down the line.

If you are dividing the farm or other property, you need to have a survey done. Its going to be a requirement in that county, Fagan says. We work a lot with folks who want to keep the farm ground and buildings, but want to sell the house.

The parents are gone and the kids want to sell the home, and in that case you will need a survey.

HE ALSO works with livestock producers who are looking to put up a new building.

We do a lot with hog confinement buildings, Fagan says. Plymouth and Woodbury (counties) both have zoning requirements, so we work with producers to make sure the buildings are in the proper place.

Boundary disputes often occur when surveys are not available, says Kristine Tidgren, an attorney and assistant director of Iowa State Universitys Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation.

We have cases of boundary by acquiescence, where a boundary has been acknowledged for 10 years and by law becomes the new boundary, she says. Most landowners wait until its too late to have a survey done. If you have any questions, you need to get a survey done.

Tidgren says landowners who are planning to put up a fence also need to consider a survey.

If there are any questions whatsoever about the boundary, you need to get a survey done, she says.

Folks looking to purchase farm ground are also advised to request a survey.

You need to do your due diligence, Tidgren says. Are you willing to take the land as you found it? I think I would want a survey done to make sure everything was correct.

FAGAN SAYS his business grows each year. One of his most common tasks involves surveying parcels of ground as part of the subdividing process.

You might see someone breaking some land down into two lots, he says. Maybe its the parents giving a child some land to build a house, or it could be the process of dividing the farm up among siblings.

We typically do a lot of these smaller subdivisions in this area.

Fagan says he started learning the surveying trade from his father, who worked for many years as a licensed surveyor.

I was probably eight years old when I started tagging along with my dad, he says. Its a job I really love. People around here are so easy to work with. I cant imagine doing anything else.
SIOUX CITY | The Sioux City Journal and NIE Siouxland received two awards in the 2016 National Newspaper Association Newspaper and Education Contest.

NIE (Newspapers in Education) is a cooperative effort of newspapers working with local schools to encourage use of the newspaper as an educational tool.

The Journal and NIE Siouxland were given first place honors in the Division B Category: Newspapers Supporting Education and Civic Literacy, for their commitment and support of literacy in the classroom through the NIE-sponsored Kid Scoop News Siouxland monthly tabloid.

They also received third place in the Division A Category: Educational Support, for their Farm to Table monthly section.

Kid Scoop News Siouxland has games, puzzles and brain teasers and showcases student writing, artwork and projects. It features work of local students, produced in cooperation with their schools.
The 365 days of 1944 would seem to have been the busiest of Franklin Roosevelts life.

The climactic decisions and meetings of WWII demanded his complete attention, as it related to winning the war and a peace he hoped would live on for generations, all of which required the president of the United States to walk deftly among the egotists (Douglas MacArthur) and the bullish (Joseph Stalin) while carrying a big stick.

And then there was re-election. Having already won an unprecedented third term, there was unfinished business that validated running for another four years.

Yet, the president was under orders to sleep half the day and reduce his workload to what author Joseph Lelyveld aptly describes to that of a bank teller, two hours in the morning, a nap, lunch, two hours of work in the afternoon and another nap before taking dinner.

Dinner, by the way, was almost certainly taken in bed. And he needed 10 hours of sleep a night.

At one point during the year, no one outside his family and staff, even knew the whereabouts of the president as he spent a month in convalescence at the home of a donor and friend in the South.

FDR was dying, albeit in compete secrecy. His doctors knew it, his family knew it, and he knew it or should have, though there is no way to fully understand the denial of a dying man.

Though fate ultimately smiled on the peace-loving nations of the world, in Lelyvelds His Final Battle: The Last Months of Franklin Roosevelt, it is clear that the president should not have run for a fourth term in 1944.

As I see my duty as a physician, I cannot violate my professional position nor possible professional confidence, but I do wish to be on record concerning possible later criticism, wrote Dr. Frank Lahey, who examined the president, though he was not his chief physician, and left a note that was revealed 62 years after FDRs death in April 1945.

I did not believe that, if Mr. Roosevelt were elected president again, he had the physical capacity to complete a term.  Over the four years of another term, he would again have heart failure and be unable to complete it.

The president had been in heart failure, or at least on the verge of it as a result of alarmingly high blood pressure that he had suffered for a long time that had undoubtedly over the years caused immense coronary damage.

The presidents physician had a duty to inform him concerning his capacity. It was noted in Laheys memo that the presidents personal physician, Admiral Ross McIntire, agrees with this and has, he states, so informed Mr. Roosevelt.

The next morning, Franklin Roosevelt announced he would accept his partys nomination for a fourth term. There wasnt a delegate or voter, not an ally  not Churchill or Stalin  or either of two vice presidents (Henry Wallace and Harry Truman) who was aware that FDR had been under constant care of a cardiologist for the last few months.

Theres probably a reason FDRs medical records disappeared, never to be found.

Roosevelt was far from convinced he should run, even considering the possibility of dropping out at the 11th hour and handpicking shipbuilder Henry Kaiser as his replacement at the convention. The discernment apparently went so far as to trigger an FBI field report to check whether there were any skeletons in the industrialists closet.

Nothing unfavorable was found.

All of us knew Franklin was far from well, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote later, but none of us ever said anything about it  I suppose it was because we felt that, if he believed it was his duty to continue in office, there was nothing for us to do but make it as easy as possible for him.

This included a number of surreptitious visits  unbeknownst to the first lady  from his onetime lover, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, most facilitated by Anna, the daughter of the president and Eleanor. History tells us this would cause rancor between mother and daughter, but for the moment, after all, there was nothing for us to do but make it as easy as possible for the most powerful man in the world.

In spite of it all, he had lots of work to do.

The Normandy invasion awaited. (That was a day he did not follow doctors orders, up at 3 a.m. when told of the landings for a full day that included a press briefing.)

He was playing both sides of the Polish-Russian territorial problem, acquiescing to Stalins insistence on keeping more than 69,000 miles of Polish territory seized in the war, including 12 million people, while also helping cover up the massacre of Polish officers in Katyn. (Stalin denied any Soviet participation. Mikhail Gorbachev 42 years later would acknowledge that it was the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, who was responsible.)

He needed Stalin to stay true to his commitment to join the war in the Pacific. That, of course, required a trip to Hawaii for a much-ado visit with his top commanders, Douglas MacArthur and Chester Nimitz, and the decision to allow MacArthur to see through his famed promise to return to the Philippines. (The president is a man of great vision, MacArthur said, once things are explained to him.)

And he needed Stalin to embrace the United Nations and its vision of a police arm that would include the U.S., Britain, Russia and China.

And finally, FDR wanted to be re-elected, a chore that first required softly dumping Henry Wallace and choosing among the ambitious Jimmy Byrnes and others on a list that included William O. Douglas, Alben Barkley, Sam Rayburn and Truman, all the while not disrupting his electoral coalition.

It was difficult work to keep the president from excessive activity and emotional trauma, both mandates of cardiologist Howard Bruenn, who years later said he found the presidents condition shocking.

In his first meeting with FDR, the doctor had found a diseased, enlarged heart (enormous) that had shifted away from its normal location in the chest. His face was very gray, suggesting an oxygen deficiency in the blood. Moving about caused breathlessness and puffing.

Blood pressure was 186/108 on a day when nothing but rest could hope to control high blood pressure. Cardiology, in fact, was in its infancy. There were no statins or beta blockers, no plaque-clearing procedures, ACE inhibitors, effective blood thinners, echocardiograms or stents.

Bruenns diagnosis: Acute congestive heart failure.

In addition to rest, scaling back his work schedule and avoiding excessive activity (which required sedatives), the president was also forbidden his pack and a half of Camel cigarettes.

That was turned down.

Doctors instead settled for moderation in the presidents smoking habits.
SIOUX CITY | If art has the power to sway public opinion, it also has the capacity to strike fear or bring a country together.

This was never more apparent than during the height of World War II, according to Morningside College associate art professor Terri McGaffin.

"Artists were asked to use their power of persuasion as a way to shore up support on the home front," she said.

Nearly 30 original World War II era posters will be exhibited at the Helen Levitt Art Gallery, inside Morningside Eppley Auditorium, until Oct. 6.

The art pieces -- on loan from Des Moines' State Historical Museum of Iowa -- feature work by then-prominent illustrators, photographers and graphic designers who created propaganda in a highly visual manner.

The posters -- commissioned by the U.S. Office of War Information, other branches of government or, even, by private businesses like the Seagram Whiskey Distillery -- were originally displayed at schools, post offices and other public spaces.

"Early on, many of the posters were in your face when it came to intent," McGaffin said, pointing to a Jean Carlu illustration comparing a machine gun-packing soldier to a rivet gun-wielding factory worker with the slogan "Give Em Both Barrels."

"As the war continued, messages became more subtle."

In addition to subtlety, imagery became much more specific.

For instance, a photo of a shirtless young man was shown under the words "Put your muscle on a war basis!" as an encouragement to sign up for suddenly plentiful farm jobs, while other posters were geared towards women.

"This was certainly during the 'Rosie the Riveter' era," McGaffin noted. "Women were needed in the workforce while the men were off to war."

Featuring a wrench-bearing woman recalling her G.I. husband, artist Adolph Treidler's poster bore the legend "'The Girl He Left Behind' Is Still Behind Him: She's a W.O.W (Woman Ordinance Worker)!"

Other posters proved surprisingly progressive for the era. At a time when the U.S. Armed Services was still segregated, photographer Alexander Liberman showed a Caucasian riveter and an African-American riveter working together in a piece entitled "United We Win."

Yet war was also a dangerous time, both overseas and at home.

Artist Glenn Grohe's famous "He's Watching You" depicts the enemy as being almost a Darth Vader-like presence while a poster showing a glamorous shot of a young woman can be a head-scratcher for modern audiences.

"The poster said 'Wanted for Murder: Her Careless Talk Cost Lives,' yet the female model doesn't look all that careless," McGaffin remarked of the well-coiffed female. "Her little smile seems to suggest she knows what she's doing."

Artistically, the assembled posters run the gamut in style from European Expressionism to some that have an almost cartoon-y looseness one would associate with Dr. Seuss.

However, the exhibit's most easily recognizable pieces were created by famed American illustrator Norman Rockwell.

Ironically, Rockwell's "Four Freedom" posters were met with skepticism, McGaffin said.

"They weren't scary enough for propaganda," she said of the artworks celebrating freedom of speech and worship. "But since they represented an idealized slice of Americana, they had the power to show what was worth fighting for."

Which, McGaffin noted, was the key to propaganda.

"The posters were geared towards the people on the home front," she said. "It showed that everybody could make a difference in their own way."

Taken collectively, the posters offer a richly-illustrated history lesson.

"They invite us -- that is, artists and designers and every American whose birthright is freedom of expression -- to think about the past, present and future of visual communications," McGaffin said.

Walking past posters that were illustrated more than 70 years ago, McGaffin said she is struck by how contemporary they all seem.

"The posters in this exhibit are as colorful as they are compelling," she said.

But are they also relevant today? McGaffin said they might be.

"During an election year where nationalism seems to have stirred up a lot of emotions, it will be interesting to see how students responded to these posters," she said. "The art may continue to strike a chord."
BRIDGEVILLE, Pa.  The death of a loved one is never easy and, in fact, can be quite overwhelming. And its not just the people in our lives we grieve when theyre gone.

Coping with the loss of a dog, cat or other family pet youve lived with and loved for years can be extremely hard, too, especially since theres usually no public way for bereaved pet owners to share their pain.

Society doesnt really give us ways to grieve our pets, said animal artist and writer Bernadette Kazmarski of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, who has rescued and served as a foster mom to cats for 25 years. But sharing grief is one of the best ways to ease it.

Last Sunday, she and her good friend Deb Chebatoris aimed to remedy that, with a pet memorial service at Melrose Cemetery in Bridgeville. With the sun shining, more than 40 pet owners gathered under a large white tent decorated with a garland of fall leaves and vases of marigolds on the cemetery grounds to remember and celebrate pets that have passed on.

The service, which included written tributes, a picture display and a dove release under clear blue skies, was one of many such gatherings held across the U.S. in honor of National Pet Memorial Day.

Celebrated each year on the second Sunday in September, the event was established more than 40 years ago by the International Association of Pet Cemeteries and Crematories in recognition of the important role that pets have played, and continue to play, in peoples lives.

Sundays ceremony marked the 12th year in a row that Chebatoris, who owns Chartiers Custom Pet Cremation in Bridgeville, has held the memorial service. Speakers included veterinarian Mike Pensenstadler of Pleasant Valley Veterinary Hospital in McMurray, Pennsylvania, who talked about how to make euthanasia decisions, and Elizabeth Babcock, a licensed clinical social worker who discussed the grieving process.

Acknowledge this is a process that takes time, Babcock said, and will have its ups and downs. But at the same time, she cautioned, it shouldnt be all-consuming.

Dont make your pets death more important than their life, she said. You have to remember all the good times.

Grief, she added, is the price of admission for having a loving relationship.

In opening the event to anyone dealing with grief over the loss of a pet,. Chebatoris said she wanted to give people a ritual that would help them to alleviate their heartbreak, as well as a place where pet owners could share their pain without fear of being scorned, gain insights and find companionship. Or, as she told the largely female crowd, This is a safe place to cry in the company of other families who feel loss as deeply as you do.

And cry they did, with more than a few attendees tearing up when Chebatoris and Kazmarski took turns reading aloud the heartwarming short stories they had written about their pets.

There were additional tears after a candle-lighting ceremony and a dove release, with Celine Dions Fly playing on loudspeakers, to represent the release of deceased pets spirits.

I just loved my dog so much, and knew Id be in good company, Jenny Buranovsky of Carnegie said of the ceremony.

Her Welsh corgi-beagle mix Gracie, an Animal Friends rescue, died on June 27.

To honor the day on which so many across the country gathered to mark the 15th anniversary of 9/11, Buranovsky wore a T-shirt naming all of the dogs who helped rescue workers scour ground zero in New York City for survivors.

Sam Poness of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, who lost his Shetland sheepdog Zoe a year ago, agreed that the service helped ease the grieving process.

We got to remember the departure of our four-legged members of our family with others, he said.

He attended the event with his sister Tracie Poness of Strabane, Pennsylvania, who was there to celebrate the life of Buckley, a Humane Society rescue who died at age 16.

There was a lot of good information, and others who care, Poness said.

Pets, she said, provide so much unconditional love. The memorial service allows us to appreciate them.
SIOUX CITY | Eight years after the Sioux City Council enacted a controversial ordinance banning pit bulls from city limits, the number of dog bites reported in Woodbury County is showing a slight increase.

Siouxland District Health statistics show that countywide, 137 dog bites were reported in 2015, up from 110 in 2007, the year before the ban was passed.

During the same time period, the number of pit bull bites has dropped significantly. Siouxland District Health reported 24 bites by pit bull and pit bull mixes in 2007, a number that decreased to four in 2015. The number of reported pit bull bites has not risen above the single digits since 2011.

Sioux City stats show vicious and high-risk dog designations are also down, dropping from 46 in the city's 2010 fiscal year to five in fiscal year 2016.

City officials are split on whether the numbers show the ban has been a success. However, they agree a council reconsideration of the polarizing ordinance is unlikely.

"It's absorbed a lot of council time," Mayor Bob Scott said of the ban.

Under lawsuit

Sioux City's oft-debated ban has surfaced once again in the headlines after two local dog owners filed suit in August, saying the city's ban is unconstitutional.

The owners say the law bans animals that are not harmful and does not ban animals that do pose a risk to harm other animals or humans. They also say the law is enforced in an arbitrary, inconsistent and discriminatory manner.

Enacted in July 2008, Sioux Citys pit bull ban prohibits residents from having dogs that are 51 percent or more pit bull. The ban grandfathers in pit bulls that were registered by residents prior to April 25, 2009, provided the animals are registered each year. No new pit bulls are allowed.

Sioux City's ordinance describes a pit bull as an American pit bull terrier, American Staffordshire terrier, Staffordshire bull terrier or any dog that looks like or has characteristics of being one of those breeds.

At the time of the bans passage, a high number of dogs that had been declared vicious or at risk in the city were pit bulls or mixes. The ordinance was updated in 2009. In 2010, the council voted 3-2 to retain it.

Breed, or owner?

Jennifer Frost, one of the parties mentioned in the suit, moved to Sioux City in October with her husband, four children, and their two dogs, Jake and Reba.

Jake, a purebred American Staffordshire Terrier, was impounded by Animal Control in May after he had gotten loose. The Frosts ended up giving Jake to friends and family back in New York City.

Frost approached the council earlier in the summer about the ban and said she believes socialization plays a large role in how a dog acts. Education for better dog owners is the key, she said.

The lawsuit cites the American Veterinary Medical Association as saying national statistics on fatalities and injuries caused by dogs do not prove any breed is more dangerous than another.

The fact that dog bites have not gone down just shows it, Frost said. Prove to me that people in this community are safer because of this law. The only thing that makes people safer is education to be better pet owners.

Frost said Sioux City's Animal Control was professional in handling Jake, and the city was gracious in granting her family extra days to drop Jake off with family. However, she said she would be in favor of an amended rule that addresses ownership issues rather than a specific breed.

According to city dog licensing information, Sioux City residents registered 93 pit bulls in 2016, about one-sixth as many as were registered in 2009. Pit bulls currently account for 2 percent of the city's registered dogs.

Councilwoman Rhonda Capron said with fewer pit bulls in Sioux City, the lower reports of pit bull bites make sense.

"When you eliminate a breed out of your ordinance, of course it's going to go down," she said. "What about all the other dog bites?"

Capron, who owns a 6-year-old pit bull mix named Chief, said she believes owner behavior, rather than breed, affects how a dog acts.

"I think its how the dogs are raised. I dont think its one specific breed," she said.

Councilman Keith Radig, who voted for the council's decision in 2010 to uphold the ban, said he does not believe the ban should be revisited.

Radig cited numbers from DogsBite.org, a nonprofit organization that advocates for dog mauling victims, that show pit bulls are responsible for the most fatal dog bites this year.

"You have to look at fatalities from dog bites," he said.

Mayor Bob Scott also said he believes data support the ban.

"I am sensitive to how important a pet is to a person, but there's still a lot of data out there that shows that particular breed is somewhat of a problem," he said.

Due to the lawsuit, a representative of Sioux City's Animal Control declined to offer comment on the ban or statistics. Councilmen Pete Groetken and Dan Moore also declined to comment on the ban because of the suit.

Statistical challenges

City authorities acknowledge that pinning down accurate dog bite data within the city and county can be a challenge.

Capt. Mel Williams with the Sioux City Police Department said police department numbers may show year-to-year fluctuations, but they likely dont tell the whole story.

No one should assume that the police department has received a recording of all dog bites, Williams said. As in all reporting to the police department, its highly dependent upon citizens making a report.

According to city statistics, Animal Control responded to 168 bite calls in FY2010. Since then, the number has dropped as low as 128 in FY2013 and rose as high as 172 in FY2015. The agency reported 154 calls in FY2016.

Within Sioux City itself, agencies do not report dog bite statistics by breed. The city separately reports the number of dog bite calls handled by Animal Control within Sioux City limits, which are counted by fiscal year.

Williams said Sioux City Police Department is another agency that responds to dog bite calls, typically when a dog is still on the loose.

Siouxland District Health, receives reports from the city agencies, as well as the Woodbury County Sheriff and other entities and follows up when the bite causes a break in the skin. In the agency's reports, a large percentage of the bites reported each year are listed as coming from "unknown" breeds. Breed designations are listed as they are reported to the agency.

Animal Control does not break down euthanization statistics by breed or by reason for euthanization.
SIOUX CITY | The presence of two independent candidates among the eight people seeking three Woodbury County Supervisors seat is making the Nov. 8 election quite intriguing for voters.

There are various theories on whether the independents will pull away voters from the Republican and Democratic candidates. Each of the two independents had been on the ballot early in the year as a partisan candidate.

Once the two -- Democrat Mark Monson in District 3 and Republican Gary Niles in District 5 -- did not become the party nominees after June events, they switched to run as independents. Iowa has no so-called sore loser law to prevent people from running again by switching parties in the same year after a primary loss.

"It is going to be interesting, having the independents thrown in there," Woodbury County Democratic Party Chairwoman Penny Rosfjord said. "These are extremely tough to guess."

The sole two-candidate race is in the Woodbury County Supervisors District 1 contest, where incumbent Jackie Smith, a two-term Democrat, faces Keith Radig, a Republican city councilman.

In District 3, the field includes incumbent Monson, Republican Brian Miller and Democrat Marty Pottebaum, a former city councilman who defeated Monson in the party's June primary.

The only race with no incumbent is in District 5. The candidates include Bruce Garbe, a Democrat, Rocky De Witt, a Republican, and Niles, the independent who got the most votes in the close June primary voting outcome, but didn't receive the party's nomination in a subsequent special convention.

The candidates have been raising and spending money. They continue to speak at forums, such as the Rotary Club of Sioux City event Monday, when they discussed the possibility of the county moving to increase the hourly minimum wage from $7.25. (On that issue, independents Monson and Niles took the typical Republican response, saying increasing the minimum wage was not a topic county supervisors should be addressing.)

Woodbury County Auditor Pat Gill, who heads the election division, said it appears no independent candidate has ever won a county supervisors seat.

The county chairpersons for the Republican and Democratic parties said they presume the independents won't siphon a large number of votes from the nominee of the party they used to be part of.

"It is hard to gauge exactly, because there is no polling," Woodbury County Republican Party Chairman Kevin Alons said.

Early voting in Iowa begins on Sept. 29. While the three positions are to represent districts within Woodbury County, people from the county can vote for all three positions.

As of Sept. 1, there are 20,210 Woodbury County residents with active Republican voter registrations, 17,807 Democrats and 18,111 with no party affiliation on their registrations. How many people vote a straight-party ticket will factor into the outcomes.

One option is for people to check a box to completely vote for either the Republican or Democratic candidates on all offices on the ballot. Gill said 6,625 Republicans and 9,298 Democrats voted a straight-party ballot in the 2012 presidential race. The numbers of straight-party ballots cast in 2008 were 9,271 for Democrats and 6,822 for Republicans.

Gill said he doubts the number of independent voters will much reduce the number of straight-ticket voters in Woodbury County. Rosfjord agreed with that assessment.

"I do not think the three-person races will have that much of an impact on these numbers. I believe the voting patterns of this universe of voters does not change much," Gill said.

Monson is reminding residents that even if they normally vote a straight-party ballot, they can do that for all other contests and still vote differently for him as an independent in that one race.

"Turn the ballot over," Monson said on Monday during the Rotary Club forum.

Gill confirmed that while people can vote a straight-party ballot, it can be overridden if they want to pick some candidates in some of the contests. Those that get marked will be counted aside from the other straight-party contests, and all the others will be counted for the political party initially marked.

One factor at play in the election is how Monson, first elected 12 years ago as a Democrat, over the last two years has voted in concert with the two Republicans, Jeremy Taylor and Matthew Ung. That rankled Pottebaum, who said he was encouraged to run against Monson, contending he wasn't acting like a Democrat.

Alons said some Republicans who have liked Monson's recent county stances could cast ballots for him. But Alons said he believes Monson will pull more Democratic votes from Pottebaum than he would take Republican votes from Miller. Rosfjord said she wasn't sure how much Monson will impact Pottebaum's take of Democratic votes.

Alons predicted former-Republican-now-independent Niles would not cut much into the Republican votes going to DeWitt.

"It is going to be tough for (Niles) to get much headway. Rocky is running a good campaign," Alons said.

Alons said he looks forward to electing more Republicans, and with the addition of one or more Republicans, there would be a majority on the county board.

"The odds of us taking one more seat, and possibly more, are good,"Alons said.

Rosfjord said she likes the chances of Democrats in the county races in November.

"I am really behind our Democratic ticket," Rosfjord said.
DES MOINES | Overdose deaths in Iowa from heroin and other opioid drugs more than doubled in the decade from 2005 to 2015, and treatment admissions more than quadrupled, according to state public health department data.

The dramatic increases are attributed largely to an increase in prescribed opioid painkillers such as hydrocodone and oxycodone; in 2012, health care providers prescribed enough opioid painkillers to put one bottle in the hands of every American adult, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Iowa lawmakers and Gov. Terry Branstad in 2016 took a small step toward addressing the opioid epidemic  one that has gripped the entire nation  by making it legal for first responders and family members to possess and administer life-saving drugs called antagonists to people overdosing on opioids.

But other measures, such as requiring doctors and pharmacists to check registries before prescribing opioid painkillers or requiring insurance companies to cover antagonists, have stalled in the Iowa Legislature.

I think it is a good step forward to help saving lives, Rep. John Forbes, a Democrat in the Iowa House and a Des Moines pharmacist, said of the new Iowa law. But it still doesnt fix the national problem where we have people abusing these medications and causing themselves a lot of harm, and of course, their families, too.

According to an Associated Press report from an investigation in conjunction with the Center for Public Integrity, the makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids.

Collectively, the AP and the Center for Public Integrity found, the drugmakers and allied advocacy groups employed an annual average of 1,350 lobbyists in legislative hubs from 2006 through 2015, when opioids addictive nature came under increasing scrutiny.

The opioid lobby has been doing everything it can to preserve the status quo of aggressive prescribing, Dr. Andrew Kolodny, founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and an outspoken advocate for opioid reform, told the AP. They are reaping enormous profits from aggressive prescribing.

Drugmakers that devoted significant resources lobbying and donating to Iowa lawmakers include California-based Merck and Co. and Pfizer Inc.

Pfizer donated $197,000 to lawmakers and candidates  mostly at the state level but some federal  between 2006 and 2014, according to the AP and Center for Public Integrity report, and spent almost $380,000 on lobbying from 2010 to 2016, according to state records.

Merck donated more than $76,000 to lawmakers and candidates and spent more than $550,000 on lobbying.

There is no way to discern how much of those resources were dedicated specifically to lobbying on opioid-related issues.

These are other measures designed to address the opioid epidemic in Iowa, but they have not garnered sufficient support for passage:

 A bill that would require insurance companies to cover opioid antagonists for individuals deemed by his or her health-care provider as at-risk for an overdose passed the Senate on a 44-2 vote and passed multiple House committees, but it was not brought to the floor by House leadership. The bill also provided immunity for any person who sought medical help for an individual experiencing an opioid overdose. Insurance companies objected to the requirement.

 A bill that would require physicians and pharmacists to check state drug registries before prescribing or dispensing a controlled substance, including opioids, received no hearing in the Legislature. Hospitals objected, saying it would put undue stress on physicians workloads. Seventeen states have such a law, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

 Another bill that didn't get a hearing was a sweeping opioid bill introduced by Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, that included the immunity provision; would permit pharmacists to dispense naloxone hydrochloride, an opioid overdose antagonist; would require the state health department to publish an annual report on unintended drug overdose fatalities; and would establish grants for drug overdose treatment projects.

Merck did not register as a lobbyist on any of the bills. Pfizer did not register on two, and on the others, it registered only as undecided.

Iowa is just below the national average in terms of opioid prescriptions per capita and has one of the nations lowest rates of drug deaths.

Nonetheless, Forbes thinks the opioid epidemic remains worthy of lawmakers attention.

I think theres (prescriptions) being written by physicians here in Iowa and across the country that are being diverted for other, illegal purposes, Forbes said. We could cut down on this opioid epidemic.
WAYNE, Neb. | In nearly 50 years as a trial lawyer in Nebraska, Lyle Koenig has practiced in cities and small towns, trying cases in counties from the Missouri River all the way west to the Wyoming border.

During that time, he has watched the number of lawyers in rural areas decline. In the Panhandle city of Alliance alone, Koenig said, the number of lawyers has shrunk from 18 to three.

That's not enough, he said, to serve people needing help with legal tasks such as property deed transfers, contracts and estate planning. For them and other Nebraskans in rural areas, they have a choice: travel longer distances to meet with a lawyer, or just don't get those legal matters taken care of.

"Every citizen, because they have legal needs from time to time needs access to justice, which means access to lawyers," Koenig said.

A new program involving three Nebraska colleges and the University of Nebraska College of Law in Lincoln aims to increase the number of lawyers in rural areas. The Rural Law Opportunities Program, or RLOP, guarantees chosen high school students from rural Nebraska -- basically anywhere outside Lincoln, Omaha and its suburbs -- entrance into law school. In return, it's hoped that when graduating from law school, the new lawyers will practice in a rural area.

"I think this is something that could be very successful. I really hope that this will serve the people of Nebraska," said Tammy Evetovich, dean of the School of Natural and Social Sciences at Wayne State College. Her school, Chadron State College and the University of Nebraska-Kearney are involved in the program.

According to Nebraska State Bar Association statistics, 31 of Nebraska's 93 counties -- one-third -- had three or fewer lawyers in 2015. Of those 31 counties, most of them in the western two-thirds of the state, 11 had no lawyers.

"I am acutely aware of the need. I know this can go a long way toward helping it," said Koenig, a 1966 Wayne State graduate and Wisner native who recently relocated to West Point.

He met with Evetovich, other Wayne State administrators and Nebraska College of Law interim dean Richard Moberly earlier this year to see what could be done in addition to other Bar Association programs already encouraging lawyers to work in rural areas.

"We realized how mutually beneficial it would be and how good it would be for the state," Moberly said.

They came up with RLOP, which is similar to the Rural Health Opportunities Program that for more than 25 years has guaranteed a select number of rural students enrolled at Wayne State and other state colleges admission into the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Moberly said that about 60 percent of that program's graduates go to rural Nebraska communities to practice, helping to ease rural health care provider shortages.

"We'd love it if we could get that," Moberly said.

Wayne State, Chadron State College and Nebraska-Kearney each will select five high school seniors every year, beginning with the class of 2017. Once selected, students are guaranteed a spot in the Nebraska law school if they maintain good grades in college, complete their undergraduate requirements and score well on the Law School Admission Test, or LSAT.

Moberly said that 17-20 graduates -- about 15 percent -- in each of the past three Nebraska law school graduating classes have gone to practice in rural Nebraska. He hopes that RLOP will send an additional 10 new lawyers into those areas.

It's generally accepted that rural natives are the ones most likely to return to a rural area after graduation. RLOP takes advantage of the fact that Wayne State and the other participating colleges attract a majority of their students from rural Nebraska.

"Our whole point is we want to serve the students where we're at," Evetovich said. "I'm hoping we'll get some high-quality students as a result."

Local high school guidance counselors already see the potential benefits.

Ponca High School counselor Fran Hassler said that upon hearing about RLOP, she immediately thought about a current Ponca senior who would be perfect for the program. Each Ponca graduating class usually has two or three students considering a career in law, Hassler said. If they're not already considering attending Wayne State, RLOP now gives them another college option, plus a scholarship.

"I am so excited that they're offering this program," Hassler said. "The nice part about it is the automatic acceptance into law school. That's a big deal."

Wayne State has already notified counselors of RLOP, Evetovich said. Admissions representatives will soon be touting it as they recruit the next batch of freshmen.

"I couldn't be more excited," she said.

Koenig, too, is excited. As a small-town native, he hopes RLOP will improve access to legal services in rural Nebraska.

"It seems to me that because a Nebraska citizen elects to live in the country, he or she shouldn't have to accept second-hand status," Koenig said. "If 15 (students) a year go on to graduate and (RLOP) puts 10 in the country each year, in 10 years that's 100 lawyers. That would make a big difference."
PONCA, Neb. | An estimated 20,000 people attended the Missouri River Outdoor Expo to get away from electronics at the Ponca State Park Saturday.

"Good crowd, good weather, no major issues," Park Superintendent Jeff Fields said about the event that runs Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the park along the Missouri River, north of Ponca.

The expo is a hands-on, outdoor, family affair that is designed to introduce interest in outdoor recreation and natural resources that has been going on for over a decade.

"When we started this twelve years ago our intent was to get people outdoors again, and get them away from all the electronics and everything else that is distracting," Fields said Saturday. "We wanted an event that could showcase all of these different things you can do outdoors and give a sampling so to speak."

There are over 100 different hands-on and educational activities that took place Saturday and will keeping on going Sunday. Kids could learn how to shoot a gun and bow or throw a tomahawk. There is kayaking, fishing, biking, a climbing wall and a dock dog show. The schedule also includes boat tours and camping, cooking, animal processing, trapping, wood carving and snowshoe making classes.

"After the expo, we hope people will go down to Scheels and buy a bow or dutch oven or whatever. And I think that's happening," Fields said. "It's hard to show numbers on that sort of stuff, but I have had a lot of people come up to me and say, 'I got my first gun here, I'm shooting for a trap team now.' It's great."

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission is the leading force behind the event, but an advisory board fundraisers and plans the event year round. The event was also fuel by dozens of community sponsors. The event was free to the public and the only required cost is $5 for parking.

"We came to give the boys experiences to things that they don't normally do," Angie Hall said who came to the event with a group of Boy Scouts out of Laurel, Neb. "This is a great free way for a lot of the families to come out and do the same."

"This is really fun," Grant Dorcey, 13, said with a grin fresh after shooting at a clay pigeon at a shotgun range.

With an estimated 45,000 people to attend the event in the two days, Fields said Sunday is going to be packed.

"It is going to be a huge day," Fields said. "Theres a lot of people that kind of get a feel of whats here and then they come back, and come both days. That is pretty much what you have to do since we have so much going on."

According to the National Weather Service out of Sioux Falls, Sunday is projected to be clear with temperatures in the 80s.
One of the benefits of living in a three-state area is the ability to observe the impact of various legislation enacted in other states when weighing a decision to enact in ones own. This incubator of ideas allows for an analysis of policies, at least for those who care to base decisions on reality in what often seems to be a fact-irrelevant world.

This fall, Nebraskans will vote on whether to support or oppose the Unicamerals decision to eliminate capital punishment. Having served in the Iowa General Assembly the last time the topic was debated in Iowa, I have some understanding of the considerations Nebraskas Senators weighed when they voted to end capital punishment.

One of the intents behind legislation is to provide an incentive or disincentive for behavior. If the intent of capital punishment is to deter murder, it has demonstrably failed. Iowas murder rate has consistently been among the lowest in the country  nearly half the murders per hundred thousand than occurs in Nebraska, despite similar socioeconomic factors. South Dakotas murder rate is approximately fifty percent higher than Iowas.

In state after state, capital punishment has been demonstrated to cost significantly more than life imprisonment without parole. There are many reasons for this, some of it associated with additional screening of potential jurors, other court time and personnel costs, and built-in reviews. When Iowa debated the topic 20 years ago, the estimated increase was $1.1 million per case. Much of the additional costs come from the inevitable appeals.

Nationally, appeals add 10 years to cases, consuming time and money. Many advocates wish to minimize appeals, but there is a reason why they take place. First and foremost, upon further review, many penalties and even convictions are overturned. In Nebraska, a majority of those originally sentenced to execution have had that sentence overturned. Nationally, there have been numerous cases where DNA evidence has not been available, or even falsified.

When we debated the issue in Iowa, a similar situation existed in Illinois. The majority of people sentenced to execution were later found innocent or had their penalties overturned. By limiting appeals, society increases the potential to execute an innocent person. As Nebraska Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty have noted, It is difficult to imagine a greater abuse of government power than it executing one of its own citizens who is innocent.

Aside from these issues is the impact on judicial system. Because so much time and resources are invested in trying and re-trying capital cases, judicial systems become strained. The Iowa Supreme Court noted more than 20 years ago that California and Floridas Supreme Courts spent more than half their time reviewing death cases. A former chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court said, Capital punishment is destroying the system. Ultimately, other cases will be pushed to the back burner, the court noted.

A justice system that drags out resolution is unjust to all involved. It prolongs the situation for the families of victims, consumes time and resources for law enforcement and judges, is applied in a very uneven manner, and undermines confidence in the system. Criminal research seems to back up Ecclesiastes 8:11, Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

In short, capital punishment ends up being an expensive policy that encourages litigation, increases the power of government and may have the unintended consequence of increasing the problem it purports to solve. No wonder some Nebraska critics have described it as a costly government program prone to error and abuse.

Next week: Charese Yanney

A Sioux City resident, Steve Warnstadt is government affairs coordinator for Western Iowa Tech Community College and a former Democratic state senator. He and his wife, Mary, are the parents of one son and one daughter.
Credit and debit cards have modern flair, but cold, hard cash is still an international travelers best friend.

But how do you even get foreign currency these days? How much cash should you take? And whatever happened to travelers checks? We talked with currency expert Bruce Beattie, owner of Foreign Currency Exchange in Birmingham, Michigan, who keeps close watch on travel money issues around the world.

Question: Why would an international traveler need cash at all? Isnt cash old-fashioned?

Answer: Cash is still critical for emergencies and for smaller purchases where you cant use a debit or credit card, he says. Have some foreign currency so if you arrive at an airport and cant find an ATM, you have enough money for a taxi, train or a bottle of water at least.

Q: Cant I just use my debit or credit card abroad? I have one with no foreign transaction fees.

A: U.S. credit cards still do not work everywhere in the world or work in strange ways, he says. For instance, Germany is still largely a cash country even though it is the biggest euro zone, he says. You cant charge a cup of coffee there. They want cash for anything under $30, basically.

Sometimes, even a no-fee credit card will register overseas as a cash advance, incurring fees. Sometimes, your credit card simply wont work, even if it has chip and pin technology. Always take backup cards. And, of course, cash.

Q: Whatever happened to travelers checks?

A: They still exist, but almost no one uses them. It got to the point that counterfeiters figured out how to make them, says Beattie. In one famous case in Milan, $40,000 of fake travelers checks were passed. Then nobody wanted to take them anymore. We stopped selling them in 2007. People would tell us they couldnt cash them anywhere.

If you still have them, deposit them into your bank account. They are still good.

Q: If you dont bring enough foreign currency, where can you get it abroad?

A: Currency exchange windows at airports, railway stations and hotels have the worst rates, and cruise ships, too, because you are a captive audience, he says. Instead, use a bank or bank-owned ATM, preferably one inside of a bank for the best rates and safest transaction. If you use an independent ATM you are at risk of skimming machines (that criminals install to commit fraud). Also, privately owned ATMs can charge as much as 10 percent in fees, plus the regular exchange fee.

Q: What about changing money on the street?

A: Not a great idea. You might pay a bit more at a bank, but it is worth it. We had a travel agent take a group to Tanzania. They bought old Tanzania dollars on the street that turned out to be worthless, he says. They got taken.

Q: Why is the exchange rate I get never as good as what I see on currency information sites such as www.xe.com?

A: Those are rates for large currency market transactions and midpoint between buy/sell rates, he says. Still, published rates give you a rough idea of the true retail exchange rate. With the euro, we are (selling it) about 3 to 4 percent above the XE rate, says Beattie. The rates on some more exotic (unusual) currency can be different.

Q: What if you find yourself without any cash or credit cards?

A: Someone can wire you money via Moneygram or Western Union. In our experience, transit time, depending on where you are, is 10 minutes to a week. Sometimes someone takes a cut of it along the way, he says.

Q: What about a prepaid credit card where you can add value to it?

A: Be careful. Some prepaid cards you buy are actually like gift cards and can only be used in the United States, he says. However, a card such as the prepaid VISA Travel Money card or Travelex Cash Passport prepaid Mastercard is reloadable and usable in other countries, making it good for students studying abroad.

Q: If you buy too much foreign currency, can you change it back into U.S. dollars when you get home?

A: Yes. But you will get less for it than you paid for it.

Q: What about old foreign currency? Can I still use it when I travel or trade it in?

A: It depends on the currency itself. Some have a window in which you can turn it in. For instance, Germany uses the euro. But the old German mark has not closed the window for exchange; it still has value. But the Italian lira and French franc, those countries stopped honoring that currency a few years ago.

Q: So if I have old French francs are they worthless?

A: Pretty much, except to the secondary market of collectors. Some people collect old foreign currency. It has to be in pristine shape, he says. But a lot of currency has the same problem. In Switzerland, any currency prior to the past two issues have been de-monetized. It has no value. Sometimes I have people come in, maybe their father has passed away and they open a safe deposit box and find this old currency, maybe 4 grand worth of old Swiss francs, and I have to tell them it has no value.

Q: Some places in the world accept tips in U.S. dollars but they ask for crisp new bills. Why?
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Granite Construction Incorporated operates as an infrastructure contractor and a construction materials producer in the United States. It operates through two segments, Construction and Materials segments. The Construction segment engages in the construction and rehabilitation of roads, pavement preservation, bridges, rail lines, airports, marine ports, dams, reservoirs, aqueducts, infrastructure, and site development for use by the public. It also focuses on water-related construction for municipal agencies, commercial water suppliers, industrial facilities, and energy companies. The company also constructs various complex projects, including infrastructure/site development, mining, public safety, tunnel, solar, and power projects. The Materials segment is involved in the production of aggregates and asphalt for internal use, as well as for sale to third parties. In addition, it offers site preparation, mining, and infrastructure services for residential development, energy development, commercial and industrial sites, and other facilities; and provides construction management professional services. The company serves federal agencies, state departments of transportation, local transit authorities, county and city public works departments, school districts and developers, utilities, contractors, landscapers, manufacturers of products requiring aggregate materials, retailers, homeowners, farmers, brokers, and private owners of industrial, commercial, and residential sites. Granite Construction Incorporated was founded in 1922 and is headquartered in Watsonville, California.
Small business owners wear many hats and make many decisions each day. Most of these decisions are small and they have minor impacts. Some, however, are common to most small businesses and can have major impacts. Thats what this post is all about.

The First Big Challenge Facing Most Small Business Owners is Finances

As the CEO of one startup frequently says, Cash is king. Businesses exist to make money and most small business owners run their finances without adequate planning or oversight. They monitor bank balances, accounts receivables, and expenses, but most dont have a basic financial forecasting and reporting/monitoring structure in place. Many dont have the luxury of a line of credit or other source of funding to help them remain solvent when inevitable financial speed bumps occur.

If your business needs some help in the financial area, here is a short best practices checklist to consider:

Get help to create a basic financial reporting structure, such as within QuickBooks or your choice of accounting software.

Document financial reporting guidelines to assure timely reporting and item entries that you, your employees, 1099s, etc., will follow.

Create a forecast of all important financial data, such as revenues, accounts receivable, and key expense types.

Commit to a regular schedule to review the reports, comparing your results to forecasts and previous time periods.

Investigate short-term financial options such as a line of credit, credit card, silent investors, or other personal funds.

The Second Big Challenge Facing Most Small Business Owners is People

Every person is critical to the operation. One poor performer can have major negative impacts. A sudden resignation by a key contributor can slow production of goods or services. Finding new talent for growth or to backfill openings can drag out for months because the owner is distracted by other activities or simply doesnt have the skill to find good talent. Motivating the current team members can be overlooked or not be an innate talent of the owner.

If your business needs some help in the people area, here are a few ideas to consider:

Block off a few hours to consider carefully the performance of each member of your current team.

Determine those who are critical to your success and what you can do to motivate and retain them, then do so.

Determine those who are not performing successfully and what action you will take to address this, then do so.

The Third Big Challenge Facing Most Small Business Owners is Time

Few seem to have enough of it, even if they are working 60 hours a week or more. After working long hours for years, they begin to feel they have become a slave to their business  that it is running them rather than they running it.

If you are working more hours than you want and not feeling like it is getting any better, then consider these suggestions:

Jot down the action items you are doing for a day or two, then review them with an eye toward those that could be eliminated.

Take a good long look in the mirror and ask yourself Am I failing to delegate work that others could be doing? Then delegate appropriately.

If not in place, establish more organizational structure in your daily activities, such as a daily to do list and time scheduling for key activities on your calendar.

Make a commitment to yourself to reasonable work hours and hold yourself to them, which will cause you to avoid low-value work.

If you are a business owner who doesnt have any of these big challenges, its possible you are not paying attention to one or more of them. Think again. Dont miss this opportunity to improve your business and your work/life balance!

Republished by permission. Original here.
The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
Shaheed El Hafed, September 18, 2016 (SPS) President of the National Council (Parliament), Khatri Addouh, received Saturday Hungarian Member of European Parliament, Lajos Kapli, on a visit to the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

The audience was attended by Suelma Beiruk, Vice President of the African Parliament, Hamdi Boueha, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The meeting focused on the latest developments of the question of Western Sahara and the means to strengthen Sahrawi, Hungarian and European parliamentary relations.

In a press statement, the President of the National Council stressed the importance of this visit for raising European public opinion on the Moroccan violations of human rights committed against the Saharawi people in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, and the suffering experienced by Sahrawi refugees as a result of the intransigence of Morocco and its refusal to comply with international legitimacy.

For her part, Suelma Beiruk took the opportunity to affirm the will of the Pan-African Parliament to strengthen relations with the parliament of Hungary.

She also urged Mr. Kopli to make every effort to face the blind support of France to the Moroccan occupier in EP and UN Security Council.

Mr. Kopli, for his part, stressed the will to strengthen the Hungarian-Saharawi parliamentary relations and defend the just cause of the Saharawi people in the European institutions. (SPS)

062/090/TRA




Two-year-old pacing fillies Lil Bit O Jingle, Wedding Dance and Outlaw Fireball were all repeat winners in the second leg of the Alberta Sires Stakes at Century Downs Racetrack and Casino on Saturday afternoon (September 17).

Following up their victories in the Alberta Starlet on August 7, the opening leg winners delivered as the odds-on favourites winning Saturday's $19,067 Alberta Starburst second leg splits in dominant fashion.

Kurt and Kathy Schmidt's homebred filly Lil Bit O Jingle ($3.20) retook the lead from Shesamysterytome after the :28.3 opening quarter and carved out middle splits of :58.3 and 1:27 en route to the fastest victory of the day's three Sires Stakes in 1:57.4. Trained and driven by Travis Cullen, the daughter of Blue Burner-Rain Drop Hanover won by four an a quarter lengths over the re-rallying Shesamysterytome, who was interfered with by first over So Long Sugar as they hooked up in the backstretch and backed through the field. Keep On Burning finished third. Lil Bit O Jingle is now four-for-seven in her young career and has banked $26,141 in purses.

Owned by Donald Richardson and trained by Harold Haining, divisional track record holder Wedding Dance ($3.60) worked her way to the lead from the outside post eight through a :29.1 first quarter under the guidance of Gerry Hudon and never looked back. She cruised through middle fractions of :59.3 and 1:29.4 and then began to draw away to secure the victory in 1:59.1. The Mystery Chase-Westart Love filly also has four wins from seven starts, with $32,401 banked in purses. Pickles On Top followed three lengths behind in second off a pocket trip while Perfect Mystery came on for third.

Driver J.F. Gagne had Outlaw Fireball ($2.80) up in the mix early on and swept from third to first after a contested :28.2 quarter. The Marjorie Dumont-trained filly reached the half in 1:00.1 then rebuffed first over challenger Outlaw Imahotvixen to three-quarters in 1:29 and was home free from there for the four and a half length victory in 1:58.2. Steady Breeze and Triple Thick Shake came on for second and third. Outlaw Fireball, a daughter of Blue Burner and Watchasgirlsgoby, has now won half of her six starts while banking $29,181 for Gagne and co-owners Peter Van Seggelen, Carl Warnaar and Tapron Holdings Ltd.

The two-year-old pacing fillies will meet again in their third and final leg of the Alberta Sires Stakes on Saturday, October 15 prior to the Super Finals, which are set for Saturday, October 29.

To view Saturday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Saturday Results - Century Downs.
Even after receiving money from Cowlitz County, the Community House on Broadway homeless shelter in Longview is still in dire financial straits and is once again turning to the community for help, shelter officials said Friday.

Cowlitz County has provided the organization with $7,500 in emergency funds from document recording fees. It will provide another $7,500 contingent on receiving more financial information from the shelter. But Executive Director Frank Morrison said the $15,000 total will only pay for 10 days of shelter operations.

Community House Treasurer Dave Spurgeon said the shelter is still at risk of closing. The next step, he said, is educating the public about the organizations methods and services.

While were very thankful for (the county money), its not the answer to our problems, Spurgeon said in a meeting with The Daily News. Unfortunately its terrible to live the way we live, needing money all the time. It seems when the community knows theres a need, they step up and keep this going.

Spurgeon estimated the shelter will receive about $30,000 from community members and local companies this month  that includes a $10,000 donation from Weyerhaueser, $5,000 from KapStone and $6,000 from an anonymous donor.

The shelter has reduced its monthly operating expenses over the last two years, from $53,000 in 2014 to $33,000 last month, employees said. In the past, the budgets typical annual budge was about $600,000. Community House workers said they are reaching their limits on what they can cut.

The last call to community donors through the organizations annual Cares Campaign brought in $152,000 over four months, closing in late April.

Thats not safe or healthy with 40 kids housed in the shelter, Morrison said.

The shelter houses about 90 families. It employs eight full-time workers  seven who cover shifts at the 24/7 homeless operation  and three part-time workers. The shelter also heavily relies on volunteers to cook dinner, operations manager Jim Murphy said.

County funding has decreased from $150,000 two years ago to $15,000 this year at least in part due to policy disagreements on the federally mandated coordinated entry program.

Spurgeon said he maintains that there needs to be a balance between the housing first approach, which provides housing as quickly as possible before addressing the roots of the homelessness, and Community Houses approach, which requires sobriety as a condition of housing. He said he doesnt want the organization compromise its beliefs in the best method to ease homelessness just to get funding. Community House officials have said they are willing to participate in a modified coordinated entry program.

I personally think that too many nonprofits change their mission and what they want to do in order to get the available money, Spurgeon said. You could come up with all sorts of descriptions for that, but Id like to think that were true to our mission and were going to stick to it.

Eventually Community House officials said they hope to return to the original county funding amount of $150,000 a year.

County Commissioner Dennis Weber said Community House has not been in compliance with the regulations and rejected coordinated entry before it could work through options together.

Other agencies were able to comply with the rules and regulations except for Community House, Weber said. They walked away from coordinated entry before they could get to those suggestions.

Scott Vydra, Longview city councilman who attends the Housing First Coalition as a representative, said he believes the coalition has overlooked available resources for Community House because the members are more concerned about their agency and how they can grow their pie than they are in helping the people who need it.

Were letting the best practice get in the way of best results, Vydra said. It doesnt work here. It doesnt work any longer.
Longview police arrested a suspect for the robbery at the Freedom Market marijuana store on Tuesday.

Paul Fredrick Neth, 36, of Kelso was booked into the Cowlitz County Jail shortly before 9:30 p.m. on Friday, on suspicion of first-degree robbery just three days after the incident.

At about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, a suspect described as a white male with curly brown hair entered the store and pointed an implied handgun, covered by a black plastic bag, at employees and robbed the business of more than $500.

Longview police on Facebook credited citizen tips for the arrest and said the suspect will face a judge for the charge Monday.

The Longview PD Criminal Investigation Unit detectives would like to thank the public for providing tips for the case, the department wrote on its Facebook page Saturday morning.
The Longview School Board on Monday will begin wrestling with a financial and political gorilla: how to deal with building needs that could exceed $200 million over the next three decades  and how to get taxpayers to finance them.

No decisions will be made at Mondays school board meeting, when the board will review seven options to address the deteriorating condition of district buildings and accommodate voter-approved mandates for smaller class sizes.

Its the first time the board as a whole will review the options, which have been developed by the district facilities advisory committee over the past year.

Although the plans all envision spreading the costs over several decades, even the near-term costs could cause sticker shock. The least expensive option would call for $75 million in spending over the next decade. Thats nearly twice as much as the $39 million bond voters passed in 2001 to build Mount Solo Middle School and remodel Cascade and Monticello Middle schools.

For the owner of a house worth $200,000, a $75 million bond to finance the work would increase school property taxes from $768 currently to about $873 a year.

District officials want to include the public in the discussion and have a plan to submit to voters in the spring.

The district has been struggling to assess and plot its facilities needs for about five years. The 2012-13 plan to merge the high school was widely unpopular and led to the defeat of two school board incumbents, so officials have been moving cautiously this time around.

Were trying not to rush this, but the danger is dragging it on and on, Superintendent Dan Zorn said Friday.

The Daily News last reported earlier this summer that the facilities committee had three different plans, which it dubbed a conservative plan, a mid-range plan, and an all-needs-met plan. That is still the case. However, each plan now also has several additional options attached, bringing the true total up to seven.

There are vast differences in the plans, some of which call for reconfiguring grades by adding intermediate schools and changing R.A. Long into a middle school.

The cheapest, least costly plan calls for upgrades or replacements for half of the elementary schools over a five- to 10-year period, while the second half would be addressed during phase 2. Concept 1 also puts off major decisions about the high schools for at least 10 years.

The plans are split into phases over a 30-year period since the districts legal debt limit is $225 million. And the district still has about $25 million in outstanding debt from both the middle school upgrades as well as the 1998 renovation of Robert Gray and St. Helens elementary schools. This wont be paid off for another five years, Zorn said.

Figures presented at Mondays board meeting will not include any state school construction matching money. Officials believe that the district would qualify for about $30 to $35 million in state funds.

District officials emphasize that they are still in the preliminary planning phase and that Mondays meeting will provide an opportunity to explore what ideas stick and which ones do not.

While the three concepts are still very different from one another, they do have some common threads. For one, the district aims to eliminate the use of its 23 portable buildings in all plans. Mint Valley would be replaced in all scenarios and lunchrooms would be added to most or all elementary schools.

The decision about what to do with the two high schools is still up in the air.

As to whether Zorn prefers them to be merged or maintained separately (the plans account for both), Zorn said there are benefits both ways.

The bussing were doing back and forth, were kind of acting like one high school on two different campuses, Zorn said. If we stay two, Id like us to embrace that a little more completely.

Theres good reason to move to one high school too, he said, such as the economy of scale in which the district would be able to do more for less.

The public will also be able to provide comment at Mondays meeting as well: after each concept is presented, the board will have an opportunity to ask questions, followed by community members. The meeting is expected to be long.

The entire presentation for Mondays meeting is available on the school district website.
Its been nearly 50 years since Dennis Thompson was captured by North Vietnamese forces as a prisoner of war.

But he still sees the black enclosed room with no light where they kept him. For five years  he counted 1,864 days  the Vietnamese imprisoned him, 850 days of which were in continuous solitary confinement.

Ill always be there, the 74-year-old veteran said.

Thompson, who now lives in Olympia, was one of more than 15 veterans who attended an event to honor POWs at a home on Bunker Hill west of Longview on Saturday. Jeanette Brusco, whose deceased husband was Thompsons uncle, organized the event to mark national POW Recognition Day on Friday.

For Thompson, being a POW was no romantic notion. It was permanent damage.

It aint like in the movies, he said. When somebody really stomps your a, you dont run off with a heroine to the sunset.

February 1968 was when the North Vietnamese captured Thompson, along with a handful of other American soldiers, at the Lang Vei Special Forces camp in South Vietnam near the border of Laos.

Thompson, then a staff sergeant on the Mobile Strike Force, was 5-foot-6, 165 pounds before his imprisonment. Five years later, he was 90 pounds.

It began with interrogations and torture. His captors beat him, broke three of the fingers on his right hand, cut his bicep with wire, tied his elbows together and wound them tighter until his collarbone broke out of his chest.

Thompson said he never stopped trying to escape. Any brief slip from the guards  a sneeze, a glance in the other direction  and he would bolt.

And then the war ended. In February 1973, the International Control Commission gathered the remaining POWs onto its aircraft. Thompson flew out of Vietnam and into the Clark Air Base in the Philippines, where he requested a Coke chilled to 33 degrees. The cooks used a CO2 fire extinguisher to do it.

I slammed that thing down, and it was heaven, he said.

He spent half that day in the shower. He ate steak and eggs for breakfast. He had filet mignon, eggs and toast, then threw up outside.

And then they took him to San Francisco. There was his country, his wife, his two children who didnt know him.

They might as well have beamed me to a new planet. I didnt recognize a damn thing, he said. Nobody knew I was alive until two weeks before I got home. You think itd be, Oh thank God hes alive. It was more like, Oh s-.

About a year later he was divorced and a few years later remarried. Eventually he transferred to Fort Lewis in Tacoma as a first sergeant  the high point of my existence  near his hometown of Portland, Ore.

But Thompson will never fully move on, he said. He wears a silver bracelet on which Daniel Phillips is engraved, the name of the last POW missing in action in Thompsons 5th Special Forces Group and never found.

And Thompson still has nightmares about his time imprisoned.

They seem to come in bursts, four or five nights in a row, he said.

During his time in solitary confinement, Thompson found solace in his memories of a book he read as a child. The story was about a mountain climber who found himself in a whiteout and couldnt see the world around him. Instead the man put his entire focus on the one item there, a chair  what it felt like, what tools were used to make it, the pieces of the wood.

Thompson said he focused on himself and his boundaries  how high he could jump, how fast he could run, what kind of education he received. Its how he kept his sanity.

So these dates are going by and I said, Looks like Im going to be here indefinitely. I gotta bring things in perspective here, I gotta find reality.

The veteran, who enlisted at the age of 17, retired as a sergeant major after 23 years of service. He said hes content with his decisions, both as a POW and in his career, but hes no hero.

Im OK with myself, how I handled it, he said, my whole career in the Army.
Enough is enough

Clinton was right: Trump has lifted up the deplorable. It is deplorable that a sizable percentage of his supporters love him because of the awful things he has said. Deplorable because now they feel it is OK to express those views in public.

But whats most deplorable is the knee-jerk pushback against anyone who dares point those things out. He tweets and re-tweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. There is a reason Duke and the American Nazi Party are so giddy about the prospect of a President Trump. No one who has followed this campaign in any serious way can dispute the realities: He attacked a federal judge based on his heritage, demeaned a Gold Star family, mocked a disabled person, was sued twice by the justice department for racial discrimination, bankruptcy and fraud charges are still outstanding, praises supporters who beat a homeless Hispanic man in Boston. He cheats small businesses that deal with him; has followers who punched a 69-year-old woman on oxygen and pepper sprayed a 15-year-old girl in the face at his rallies; and hung a presidential candidate in effigy.

Enough is enough, Trump supporters. In case you have forgotten: Trump recently wanted socialist universal health care, used to support gun control, supported Hillary Clinton, changed his last name from Drumpf to Trump, speaks in the vocabulary of a child in fourth grade, lies constantly and says he will pay legal bills for those supporters who commit acts of violence at his rallies.

Robert Geissler

Castle Rock

Reasonable response

It was heartening to read in your Sept. 8 front page story that the state attorney general is seeking legislation that would ban the sale of assault weapons and to limit the capacity of magazines for such weapons in this state. I especially appreciated his comment that .such weapons are designed for killing people and have no place in civilian use.

In contrast to this rational view you quote state Sen. Dean Takko in opposition arguing that hes a Second Amendment-kind-of-guy and Cowlitz County Sheriff Mark Nelson who opposes saying, banning assault weapons wouldnt prevent violence. Of course it wont prevent violence, but what it would do is limit the number and availability of these people-killers. Anyone that cannot see that fewer automatic weapons and magazines is a solid move against the carnage weve experienced doesnt deserve to be in office any longer. The only reasonable response to these two people that weve trusted with positions of power and influence is to vote them out of office as soon as possible.

LeRoy Gmazel

Vader

Refugee reality

Recently there was a story in the news regarding predominantly Shia Muslim Irans charge that the predominantly Sunni Muslim Saudi government had murdered their wounded from last years Mecca pilgrimage bridge collapse by putting them in boxes with the dead Iranian victims of the tragedy. Saudi Arabia claims that Shia Muslims are not of the true Islamic tradition, thus they refuse to give quarter to the desperate Shia Muslims fleeing Syrias civil strife. Howbeit, the Iranians have taken in exactly zero of Syrias Shia refugees. Our Mexican neighbors have not performed very much better in that department; nor have the wealthy Gulf States of Arabia. I dont think that Africa is helping a great deal, either. Thus the Christians of Europe and of the $1 trillion-in-debt United States are expected to accommodate and support them. Will the descendants of the Persians finally defeat the Greeks through infiltration? Does Iran have an island that can give haven to its suffering Shia brethren from Syria? Should we send them any more dollars?

David Doerr

Rainier
Scientists at the US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have detected first ever X-rays using the Chandra X-rays observatory. The new observations have given new insight into the environment and atmosphere of the dwarf planet.

While NASAs New Horizons spacecraft was speeding toward and beyond Pluto, Chandra was aimed several times on the dwarf planet and its moons, gathering data on Pluto that the missions could compare after the flyby. Each time Chandra pointed at Pluto  four times in all, from February 2014 through August 2015  it detected low-energy X-rays from the small planet.

Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, a ring or belt containing a vast population of small bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. The Kuiper belt extends from the orbit of Neptune, at 30 times the distance of Earth from the Sun, to about 50 times the Earth-Sun distance. Plutos orbit ranges over the same span as the overall Kupier Belt.

Weve just detected, for the first time, X-rays coming from an object in our Kuiper Belt, and learned that Pluto is interacting with the solar wind in an unexpected and energetic fashion, said Carey Lisse, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, who led the Chandra observation team with APL colleague and New Horizons Co-Investigator Ralph McNutt. We can expect other large Kuiper Belt objects to be doing the same.

The team recently published its findings online in the journal Icarus. The report details what Lisse says was a somewhat surprising detection given that Pluto  being cold, rocky and without a magnetic field  has no natural mechanism for emitting X-rays. But Lisse, having also led the team that made the first X-ray detections from a comet two decades ago, knew the interaction between the gases surrounding such planetary bodies and the solar wind  the constant streams of charged particles from the sun that speed throughout the solar system  can create X-rays.

New Horizons scientists were particularly interested in learning more about the interaction between the gases in Plutos atmosphere and the solar wind. The spacecraft itself carries an instrument designed to measure that activity up-close  the aptly named Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP)  and scientists are using that data to craft a picture of Pluto that contains a very mild, close-in bowshock, where the solar wind first meets Pluto (similar to a shock wave that forms ahead of a supersonic aircraft) and a small wake or tail behind the planet.

The immediate mystery is that Chandras readings on the brightness of the X-rays are much higher than expected from the solar wind interacting with Plutos atmosphere.

Before our observations, scientists thought it was highly unlikely that wed detect X-rays from Pluto, causing a strong debate as to whether Chandra should observe it at all, said co-author Scott Wolk, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. Prior to Pluto, the most distant solar system body with detected X-ray emission was Saturns rings and disk.

The Chandra detection is especially surprising since New Horizons discovered Plutos atmosphere was much more stable than the rapidly escaping, comet-like atmosphere that many scientists expected before the spacecraft flew past in July 2015. In fact, New Horizons found that Plutos interaction with the solar wind is much more like the interaction of the solar wind with Mars, than with a comet. However, although Pluto is releasing enough gas from its atmosphere to make the observed X-rays, in simple models for the intensity of the solar wind at the distance of Pluto, there isnt enough solar wind flowing directly at Pluto to make them.

Lisse and his colleagues  who also include SWAP co-investigators David McComas from Princeton University and Heather Elliott from Southwest Research Institute  suggest several possibilities for the enhanced X-ray emission from Pluto. These include a much wider and longer tail of gases trailing Pluto than New Horizons detected using its SWAP instrument. Other possibilities are that interplanetary magnetic fields are focusing more particles than expected from the solar wind into the region around Pluto, or the low density of the solar wind in the outer solar system at the distance of Pluto could allow for the formation of a doughnut, or torus, of neutral gas centered around Plutos orbit.

That the Chandra measurements dont quite match up with New Horizons up-close observations is the benefit  and beauty  of an opportunity like the New Horizons flyby. When you have a chance at a once in a lifetime flyby like New Horizons at Pluto, you want to point every piece of glass  every telescope on and around Earth  at the target, McNutt says. The measurements come together and give you a much more complete picture you couldnt get at any other time, from anywhere else.

New Horizons has an opportunity to test these findings and shed even more light on this distant region  billions of miles from Earth  as part of its recently approved extended mission to survey the Kuiper Belt and encounter another smaller Kuiper Belt object, 2014 MU69, on Jan. 1, 2019. It is unlikely to be feasible to detect X-rays from MU69, but Chandra might detect X-rays from other larger and closer objects that New Horizons will observe as it flies through the Kuiper Belt towards MU69.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASAs Science Mission Directorate. NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASAs Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandras science and flight operations.
tech2 News Staff

After Microsoft announced that it would be laying off around 2,850 employees worlwide in its annual report in August, things are now starting to show and Skype's headquarters in London is the first one to go as a part of the company's large-scale terminations.

Microsoft told the Financial Times that Skype's London headquarters which hosts around 400 employees will lose their jobs. Microsoft said that it made the same decision to unify some engineering positions that were potentially putting at risk a number of globally focused financial roles. The same report also confirmed that all those employees affected by the lay off would go through a consultation process to get placements elsewhere. So by no means is the software giant leaving any of its ex-employees stranded.

Skype was originally founded in London, so it is indeed a shame to see the office go as a part of now owner Microsoft's termination plans. Even worse, the same arrives at a time when Britain is continuously making efforts to show world that it can survive independently after recently voting to separate from the European Union. Microsoft had purchased Skype back in 2011 for $8.5 billion.

Surprisingly, the Financial Times also reported an insider working in the Skype HQ stating that the move was not a surprise. Many in the office anticipated the same and had been leaving the company since the past few years. The layoffs so far have been attributed to the Microsoft's struggling smartphones business.
A Chattanooga man who was a champion high school and UTC wrestler was shot and killed by a homeowner in Marion County on Friday night.

The victim was identified as 32-year-old Matthew Keller.

The resident of Mullins Cove Road said Keller and a woman, who had been camping nearby, came up to his house. He said the couple was arguing, then Keller got into it with him.

He said he shot Keller when he rushed toward him.



The incident happened around 10:30 p.m.

The woman, Ashley Boss, was arrested for trespassing, resisting arrest, and public intoxication.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is handling the case.

An autopsy was to be performed in Nashville.



No charges have been filed against the homeowner.

Matt Keller was a four-time state champion at Bradley Central High School, losing only two matches during his high school career while compiling a career record of 140-2.

He transferred to UTC in 2005 after starting his collegiate career at Nebraska.

The native of Louisville, Ky. was the son of David and Margie Keller.


About me I'm Avi Green

From Jerusalem, Israel

I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and moved to Israel in 1983. I also enjoyed reading a lot of comics when I was young, the first being Fantastic Four. I maintain a strong belief in the public's right to knowledge and accuracy in facts. I like to think of myself as a conservative-style version of Clark Kent. I don't expect to be perfect at the job, but I do my best. My profile

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The group of leaders have rallied against the plan to dismantle the Calais migrant camp amid growing concerns the French government want to "secretly" replace the squalid makeshift camp with 'mini-Jungles' all over France.



Dozens of refugee camps will be set up across the country after the French Interior Minister insisted that he will shut down the notorious Jungle camp, holding at least 9,000 migrants.



A leaked government report announced plans to send 12,000 migrants throughout France as the solution to clear out Calais.

The plan will see 12,000 migrants, evacuated from Calais and Paris, moved all across France.



The only region exempt from the plan is Corsica, following high-profile attacks on migrants on the island.



Robert Menard, the far-right mayor of the town of Beziers, warned that he does not want his city to be turned into "a small Calais".



He rejected the government's "offer to distribute the problem across France".



He said: "I do not want to grapple with this problem because I have already enough migrants and don't need to take in more of them.



"Earlier I opposed the arrival of Syrian refugees in Beziers, and now I do not want Calais migrants to come to my city which is poor enough and has other problems to deal with."



The controversial mayor said that the migrants already in the city added to crime and terrorism, after they "received some number of jihadists who proved to be terrorists".

The French government wants to distribute migrants from the Calais camp to other parts of France , which has various cities rightly angry, and opposed to the plan:All that'll do is set up the same problem elsewhere across the country, and they know it. All they're doing is hinting they're not sorry about the terrorist attacks and other acts of violence already caused by the Islamofascists in the country.And that's why no sane community should be forced to take them in. Hollande's government is just continuing to be deceptive and contemptible of the public they've harmed with their dhimmmitude. The migrants should be thrown out of the country, and if they wanted to, I think they could do that.

Labels: dhimmitude, France, immigration, islam, jihad, Moonbattery, political corruption, terrorism
Militants attack Indian army base in Kashmir `killing 17`

The attack comes amid high tensions in the disputed region

Militants have attacked an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing at least 17 soldiers, the army says.

Four of the attackers were killed, an army officer told the BBC. Carrying guns and grenades they stormed a base in Uri, close to the Line of Control with Pakistan in a pre-dawn ambush.

The incident is the most deadly in the disputed region in recent years.

It comes as violent protests against Indian rule in Kashmir continue, with a strict curfew now in place.

More than 80 people, nearly all anti-government protesters, have died in more than two months of violence.

A search is under way for other militants believed to be hiding in the area, according to the army.

"We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," a statement said.

Kashmir profile

The militants infiltrated across the Line of Control from Pakistan before attacking the base, west of Srinagar, the army officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Gunfire and explosions were heard for several hours.

Many tents and temporary shelters caught fire during the attack, according to the army's Northern Command.

Disputed Kashmir is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan and has been a flashpoint for more than 60 years, causing two wars between the neighbours. Source : bbc.com
Miscreant killed by crossfire



A veteran robber was killed at cross fire by the police at Gazirchar in Bajitpur Police Station on Wednesday midnight.

It person was identified as Fudar Ali Ripon,35, son of late Murshed Ali of village Darighagotia under Bajitpur upazila at Kishoreganj.

Officer In-charge Bajipur Police Station Md. Mukbul Hossain Mollah informed that he was arrested by Belabo Police of Narsingdi. Later Belabo Police handed over Ripon to Bajitpur Police. Sensing presence of the law enforcers, Ripon's associates started firing at police promoting them to retaliate and triggering a gunfight.

At one stage, Ripon was caught in the line of the fire and died on the spot.




Trump is `unfit`, `beyond repair`: Ex-Pentagon chief



Former US defense secretary Robert Gates issued a sharp critique of both presidential candidates in the Wall Street Journal, but blasted Donald Trump as being "unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief."

Gates - a Republican who was Pentagon chief under Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama - has worked with eight presidents and is among the most widely respected US voices on national security matters.

"I believe Mr. Trump is beyond repair. He is stubbornly uninformed" and "temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform," Gates wrote in an op-ed piece posted late Friday on the Journal's website. "He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief."

Gates worked closely with Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state, and did not hold back on his criticism of her tenure.

A former CIA director, Gates said Clinton's failure to predict the chaos that would follow Western intervention in Libya had raised credibility questions, as had her shifting position on the Iraq war.

Gates assailed Clinton's opposition to a pending Asian trade agreement she once supported, said she had been vague on dealing with Vladimir Putin's Russia, said she offered few specifics about North Korea, and had no clear strategy toward "a Middle East in flames."

But on credibility, Gates added, "Trump is in a league of his own."

"He has expressed support for building a wall between the US and Mexico; for torturing suspected terrorists and killing their families (and) for Mr. Putin's dictatorial leadership."

Trump had expressed support "for withdrawing US troops from Europe, South Korea and Japan," while being "cavalier about the use of nuclear weapons." He had insulted servicemen, their families and military leaders, Gates wrote.

Trump is "willfully ignorant" about the world, the US military and "about government itself," Gates said.

While not saying he would vote for Clinton, Gates said he would be listening for reassurances from her ahead of the November 8 election.




Walker County Sole Commissioner Bebe Heiskell, at one of a series of town hall meetings on Saturday morning, said she is studying several options for settling a huge debt to Erlanger Health system.

The Erlanger bill was the topic that generated the most participation from the nearly dozen residents of Lookout Mountain, Ga., at the Lookout Mountain, Ga., City Hall.

Erlanger was hired to manage Hutcheson Medical Center in order to keep the Fort Oglethorpe hospital open.

After her attempted negotiations with Erlanger offering $1.2 million and then $4 million were refused, the options that she is left with, she said, are to pay $8.7 million in increments, issue a bond, buy a mil or to take the matter to the Georgia Supreme Court. The residents participating in the meeting favored solving the problem any way except for raising property taxes and debated which option would be the cheapest. One comment was that it would cost money to take it to court, and you dont want to throw good money after bad. The county has already spent $65,000 on appeals. Commissioner Heiskell, who is running for re-election as an Independent, said she believes it would be cheaper to pay it off in increments, but also that she thinks the county would have a good chance if it goes to court with a jury trial.

Youd be a hero to resolve the Erlanger issue without raising the millage rate, said Brian Joyce, former state legislator. Ill never be a hero, replied Ms. Heiskell. I wish I hadnt signed that agreement. Then she added, If theyd done what they said, Id pay them in a minute.

Reappraisal of property was another topic of concern for those at the meeting. The commissioner said the county was under a consent order from the Georgia Department of Revenue to do the re-evaluations because the assessments were too low. Walker County would have been fined had they not been done. Questioned about why the appraisals seem to be haphazard for homes in the same area, Ms. Hesikell said that a formula was followed to assure the same standards were applied everywhere.

The roll-back of taxes for education because of budget issues was another concern. As it is now, three out of the 14 classes at Fairyland Elementary are over the class size limit, said Caroline Williams, the council member in charge of education in the town. She worries that if individuals appeal their appraisal increases and are successful at having them lowered, it would mean less money for the school. Fairyland Elementary is ranked seventh in the state, largely due to the PTO contributing $150,000 yearly for additional teachers. At the end of the day, if you want to raise property values, you have to invest in the schools, said Ms. Williams. The school is one of the main reasons people move to the city, she said.

People do not mind paying for taxes if they are getting something for it, said Ms. Williams. That was the complaint heard from another resident at the meeting, who said his mothers house had been revalued at an increase of 38 percent. Increases like that are causing people to move to Dade County, which has lower property taxes, he said, and many houses in Walker County are up for sale for that reason. He said that Lookout Mountain, Ga., pays a large percentage of the total property tax collected by the county, but does not get it back with services. The city needs help with making improvements to city hall, repaving roads, repairing culverts and building parks. Those things are now being done with help from the community, not the county, he told Ms. Heiskell.

The countys economic future has been improved; she began, because of the establishment of an industrial park. It consists of 500 acres that Walker County paid $4.5 million for as an investment in the future. The site had utilities and rail in place and is planned to be a place to locate new industries. As of now just one company is in operation at the site. Audia, a plastics manufacturer, has one building and is in the planning stages for a second. The county provided incentives for the company including giving them 25 acres and negotiating with the power company to provide electricity at four cents per kWh. It also built roads inside the park. The commissioner said that money from SPLOST can be pulled to replace money needed for other roads. Because of the new people the company has lured and the high wages they pay, she said more houses are now being constructed.

The county is in need of more, however, and future goals that Ms. Heiskell outlined include finding more prospects for the industrial park, the increase of building houses, the need for more commercial development, and to raise the median income of county residents who she said are now mostly lower to middle income. Higher incomes would encourage more business.

Finding a location to build a commercial district in the county is a challenge, she said. Now the majority of businesses are flocking to Battlefield Parkway in Catoosa County. A possible site is 11 miles along Highway 27, but it presently has no utilities and Ms. Heiskell said it would be too costly to put them in until there are definite prospects.

Walker Countys debt balance is now $22,115,000, down from the $33 million that originally came from a referendum in 2013 for a SPLOST bond. Capital leases for the purchase of items such as equipment for fire, police and sheriffs departments are all budgeted items. An empty bank building that Ms. Heiskell purchased on behalf of the county to use for an expanded assessors office as well as to house the tax office and planning and zoning departments was bought for $800,000. A short term loan that will be paid back by the last day in December 2016 is $5 million for expanding the landfill. She said it would be worth selling if she could get $7 million for it, but as of now a sale is off the table. There is also a line of credit for $390,000. In total, the countys debt is $32,555,000. Less the SPLOST funds, leaves the net balance of $10,440,000.

Unfunded liabilities are debts that do not have to be repaid such as pension plans and vacation time. This type of debt is reduced once it has been used. The commissioner said that that people on the citys pension plan are encouraged to retire early and newer employees are on 401K plans, which save the county money. Monitoring the landfill that was closed in 2002 has resulted in actual losses of $275,000. Mountain Cove Farms, she said, has made $35,000 due to depreciation and because the county has not spent money on it this year. This property was purchased to increase tourism in the county, she said, and that would in turn bring in retail business.

Another issue facing the county said Ms. Heiskell is the large increase in the number in juvenile offenders and the cost of their legal representation and housing, which is doubling.
US air strikes kill at least 80 Syrian soldiers

Syrian forces have been on the offensive against jihadist groups in Aleppo and Deir Ezzor.



The US-led coalition has admitted its planes carried out an attack in eastern Syria that the Russian army says killed at least 80 Syrian troops fighting IS.

The US said its planes had halted the attack in Deir al-Zour when informed of the Syrian presence.

A spokesman for the US administration expressed "regret" for the "unintentional loss of life".

The attack caused a bitter row between the US and Russia at the United Nations Security Council.

US envoy Samantha Power accused Russia of "pulling a stunt" by calling an emergency meeting of the council.

Her opposite number, Vitaliy Churkin, said he had never seen "such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness" as shown by Ms Power.

The Russians earlier said the current ceasefire in Syria was in danger of collapse and the US would be to blame.

The cessation of hostilities does not include attacks by the US on IS or other jihadist groups.

The US Central Command statement said the coalition believed it was attacking positions of so-called Islamic State and the raids were "halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military". It said the "Combined Air Operations Center had earlier informed Russian counterparts of the upcoming strike".

It added: "Syria is a complex situation with various military forces and militias in close proximity, but coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit. The coalition will review this strike and the circumstances surrounding it to see if any lessons can be learned."

Russia's defence ministry earlier said that if the US air strikes did turn out to be an error, it would be because of Washington's refusal to co-ordinate military action with Moscow.Only if the current ceasefire - which began on Monday - holds for seven days, will the US and Russia begin co-ordinated action against the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group, which was previously known as the al-Nusra Front, and IS.

The Russian defence ministry quoted a statement by Syrian army general command as saying that the four coalition air strikes on Syrian troops had allowed IS to advance.

The Russian foreign ministry said the attack had jeopardised the US-Russia agreement on Syria.

The Syrian statement said that the air strikes were "conclusive evidence" that the US and its allies supported the jihadist group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the death toll at at least 80.

There have been no confirmed cases of US air strikes targeting Syrian troops. Last December, Syria accused the coalition of attacking a government army camp in Deir al-Zour but the US denied it.




2 BN frigates leave for India, Sri Lanka





Two frigates of Bangladesh Navy BNS Samudra Avizan and BNS Samudra Joy leave Chittagong Naval base for onward training tour to India and Sri Lanka on 22 days journey . 511 officers and sailors on board left Chittagong on Sunday afternoon . BN sources said these frigates will stay in Indian Port Blair from September 21 to 25 and Sri Lankan Colomboo port from septemeber 29 to October 4 . After end of 22 days journey, these frigates will back Chittagong naval base on October 9 next. The 511 sailors on board include 33 officers, 28 trainees, 97 cadets, 344 sailors and 9 officials of the concerned ministry .

Before sailing the voyage of these naval ships at Chittagong naval base, Area Commander of Chittagong Naval base Rear Admiral M Akhtar Habib, Assistant Naval Chief Rear Admiral M Shahin Iqbal and other senior naval officials were present, sources said.


Ctg Port experiences container congestions during Eid holidays

Area Commander of Chittagong Naval base Rear Admiral M Akhtar Habib, Assistant Naval Chief Rear Admiral M Shahin Iqbal and other senior naval officials waving hands before sailing the voyage of 2 BN frigates leave for India, Sri Lanka yesterday. ISPR p





Chittagong Port facing container congestions during the six day long Eid-ul-Azha holidays , a port users sources said. All types of activities of the port except container handing was suspended during the holidays.

As a result the container congestions in the port shed witnessed seriously. Lack of container storing in the sheds, the unloading of containers from vessels remained suspended . Despite ending of holidays, the port activities are going in snail pace , a beneficiary sources said.

Port users sources said on average 3000 TEUs containers used to release per day but during the eid holidays only 1,725 containers were delivered from the port sheds.

A number of container vessels are waiting in the outer berth, sources said. Port sources said there are space for storing 26 000 TEUs containers in the port sheds but about 32000 containers were stored.

While contacted Member(admin) of Chittagong port Jafar Alam told that only on eid day, the port activities was suspended but after that all activities were running.

But the non-delivery of containers by the ICDs , the congestions of containers created and he hoped the congestions will be resolved very shortly.


BNP to observe Khaleda's 'Jail Release Day' tomorrow



BNP and its associate bodies will observe the 9th 'Jail Release Day' of party Chairperson Khaleda Zia tomorrow (Tuesday).

To mark the day, the party will hold a discussion at the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh on Tuesday afternoon, said a press release on Sunday.

Party senior leaders and pro-BNP intellectuals will speak at the programme.

Arrested on September 3, 2007 after the 1/11 political changeover, Khaleda was released from prison on bail on September 11, 2008, after nearly a year in prison on alleged graft charges.




Schoolgirl hacked dead by stalker in Madaripur

Madaripur, Sept 18 (UNB) - A schoolgirl was hacked to death by a

stalker at Aisar Kandi village in Kalkini upazila on Sunday.



Quoting local people, police said Milon Mandal, son of Biren Mandal,

used to stalk Nitu Mandal, daughter of Nirmal Mandal on her way home

from school.



On Sunday morning, Milon waylaid Nitu and hit the girl with a sharp

weapon in her abdomen, leaving her critically injured.



Later she died on way to hospital.



Local people caught Milon and handed him over to police.



Police sent the body to Madaripur Sadar Hospital morgue for autopsy.



Additional superintendent of Madaripur Police visited the spot.
Shraddha makes her fans day memorable

The actress who has been shooting international for Half Girlfriend recently made her fan Saminas day!

Shraddha who has been in touch with the fan through social media and messages had made her a promise to meet when she would visit New York. When Shraddha was shooting in Brooklyn, she met Samina who resides in Brooklyn. Shraddha decided to make Saminas day very special and so she took her out for a meal.

In fact post that, Samina also visited Shraddha's hotel room wherein she witnessed on how the actress got ready for the shoot that day. This was yet half day through, Shraddha later took Samina along with her on the sets of Half Girlfriend wherein she also met Arjun Kapoor and director Mohit Suri.


Making South-South cooperation more beneficial

Jakkie Cilliers :

One of the less celebrated international days, the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation - a notion of solidarity, where countries forgo some aspects of national interest in the pursuit of a higher or common good - took place on Monday September 12.

South-South co-operation has a long history, generally traced back to the solidarity politics of the Bandung Conference of 1955 and the subsequent UN Conference on Trade and Development in 1964.

A fuzzy concept, the South African department of international relations and co-operation (Dirco) describes South-South co-operation as "co-operation amongst countries and/or groupings in the Global South aimed at addressing and developing a common stance on political, economic, social and human rights issues  in order to overcome the historical legacy of marginalisation "

The ANC readily points to the military support Cuba first provided in 1975-1976, and again in 1987-1988, to halt apartheid South Africa's incursions into Angola as a prime example of South-South solidarity in action. Cuban support raised the costs of South Africa's military intervention in Angola and played an important role in the subsequent independence for Namibia, which in turn contributed to change in South Africa. It was no surprise then that Raul Castro was one of only six foreign leaders - of the 91 in attendance - to speak at the memorial ceremony of Nelson Mandela in 2013.

Under successive presidents Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma since 1994, South Africa has gone to exceptional lengths to repay that debt, pouring vast amounts of funding into scholarships and support in Cuba. At a recent meeting of the international relations committee in Parliament, Dirco reported yet another disbursement of R27-million (out of R110-million) for the "Cuban Economic Package Project", although it provided little additional information.

In its description, the UN Office for South-South Co-operation highlights noninterference, equality, nonconditionality and national sovereignty as principles of South-South co-operation. Beyond the largesse provided to Cuba, South Africa's development partnership with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is often quoted as an example of South-South co-operation. Over the past 20 years, the DRC has been the biggest recipient of South African foreign assistance.

According to a recent report by the South African Institute of International Affairs, South Africa contributed more than $1-billion in official development assistance co-operation activities in the DRC between 2001 and 2015, peaking at $181-million in 2008. These are large amounts for a small, middle-income economy and made South Africa the third-largest provider of aid to the DRC.

South Africa says it better understands and appreciates the local political, economic and cultural context, and is thus able to conduct peace-making and governance reform in complex environments such as the DRC more effectively. The modus operandi of the Congolese public system, however, does pose practical challenges to South Africa's intervention - as does the unstable political situation and lack of capacity of the DRC civil service.

Although the supposedly horizontal relationship has brought numerous benefits to the DRC, it is unclear what South Africa gains from its large investments. But in the same way Cuba supported Angola in its proxy war with the United States, the country has strategic interests given the extent to which the DRC lies at the heart of instability in Central Africa and the Great Lakes Region.

Large projects such as the Grand Inga hydropower scheme hold immense potential benefit for South Africa, in this case for the provision of electricity. In this sense, South-South solidarity is no different to acting in one's enlightened self-interest.

Is South-South co-operation more effective than North-South co-operation in fragile environments? The answer is inconclusive given the limited data available and lack of systemic outcome evaluations of South Africa's efforts.

At the global level, the most practical manifestation of South-South solidarity and co-operation is likely seen in Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), an ideological alliance that sees itself as a counterweight to the G7 group of industrialised countries. The Brics grouping intends to reshape global power relationships away from a Western, neoliberal and free-market dominated framework. Informed by the requirement for individual rights, free trade, democracy and the like, the focus is shifted to national sovereignty, the importance of a strong, developmental state, nonintervention in the domestic affairs of states, and democratisation at a state's own pace etcetera.

For Africa, the Brics New Development Bank (NDB) is potentially extremely important. Africa's infrastructure-financing deficit is estimated at $100-billion a year and there is a perceived lack of ambition by developed countries to invest in Africa.

On the one hand, the lack of investment in energy, transport and water infrastructure presents a significant barrier to economic growth and development. On the other hand, there was a huge global savings glut estimated at $17-trillion in 2012 that could be accessed to invest in Africa.

The NDB could therefore complement the existing multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank. The NDB differs in five important aspects:

The first is speed. Instead of the slow pace of the other banks, the NDB has extended loans to four of its members (Russia being the exception) during the first six months of its operation, providing nearly $1-billion worth of loans to fund infrastructure projects. This is in comparison with the standard time of more than 18 months from application to the loan being awarded.

Second: Capital and voting rights are currently shared equally among the five founding members. The NDB is likely to decide to open its membership to all members of the UN, but the Brics countries will retain a 55% shareholding.

Third: The NDB intends to provide greater leverage of domestic private capital within developing countries. This is particularly important in South Africa, where substantial financial resources in the private sector are not being meaningfully channelled towards infrastructure development.

Fourth: The NDB has started extending loans in domestic currencies (in the case of the loan extended to China). This will assist countries in mitigating exchange-rate risks when borrowing, which typically occurs in dollars.

Finally: The bank will rely on existing country systems rather than impose new systems that create overly bureaucratic processes. This will speed up operations and secure greater involvement from domestic players but, given the lack of capacity in some countries, may also be a huge risk.

Time will tell what the future of the Brics grouping will be, but the NDB will certainly survive and it has the potential to contribute significantly to Africa's development.

In the meanwhile, some practical aspects of South-South co-operation - such as that between South Africa and the DRC - are substantial and will likely continue. A stable DRC is crucial for the Southern African Development Community and for the region, but other aspects - such as the current level of support provided to Cuba - are more questionable.

South-South co-operation has emerged as an important framework for economic, political and other co-operation, but as taxpayer monies are used in the process, much more work needs to be done to cohere data and quantify impact. Until then, the benefits and drawbacks of solidarity funding remain vague and unclear. - ISS

(Jakkie Cilliers is head of African Futures and Innovation at the Institute for Security Studies).
Babu killed over establishing supremacy

Staff Reporter :

Awami Juba League activist Rizvi Hasan Babu was the victim of rival political feud over establishing supremacy in the city's Motijheel area, locals said.

Babu succumbed to his injuries in a city's private hospital on Saturday. He received several bullet rounds allegedly by some rival activists at the Juba League office at AGB

Colony on Friday night, they said. Deceased Babu and injured Emon were reportedly known to be followers of Juba League Ward-10 unit President Maruf Reza Sagar.

Sagar blamed Milon and local Swechchasebak League leader Anwarul Azim Tushar for carrying out the attack.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Additional Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Tarek Bin Rashid said that the deceased Babu was named in at least five cases relating to murder, attack on police and possession of illegal arms.

"Police had been searching him for a long time as he was absconding to avoid the arrest," the police official said.

He said Sagar and Milon also have a number of cases listed against them with the police.

The two factions had also filed cases against each other over the clashes that took place several days before Eid-ul-Azha, the ADC said.

"The latest incident was political but could not identify those who carried out the killing. No case has been filed over the attack until Sunday evening," he said.

The murder was preplanned and that it took place over a political feud, said Golam Rabbani, Inspector (Investigation) of Motijheel Police Station.

"We are trying to arrest the attackers," he said.

President of Ward 10 Dhaka city (south) unit Jubo League Maruf Reza Sagar alleged that Anwar Hossain Milon, Anwarul Azim Tushar, Hirok and some others led the attack over previous enmity.

Milon is the general secretary of the newly-announced ward committee while Tushar is a Swechchasebok League leader.

Sagar claims himself the nephew of former Jubo League leader Reazul Hasan Khan Milki, who was shot dead in Gulshan by a rival group on July 29, 2013, also to establish supremacy in the area.

He claimed that Milon and his associates were freed recently on bail in a case filed with Motijheel police for vandalising their party office few days back. The party office was previously used by Milki.

Milon blamed Sagar for carrying out the attack on Babu and Emon. "The attack was made so that Sagar does not need to face a political competitor in the area. He has been patronising criminals since the death of Milki," Milon alleged.

Tushar also refuted the allegation and claimed that Sagar had long been trying to spoil the political environment.

Milon also said that the attack was part of a plan to drive him and his supporters out of the neighbourhood.

Some miscreants attacked Rizvi Hasan Babu, 34, locally known as Bocha Babu, and Ahsanul Haque Emon, 32, at a club room inside the colony around 11:20pm on Friday leaving them critically injured.
Price of green chili sky-high

Anisul Islam Noor :

The price of almost all the vegetables rose by Tk 20 to 30 per kilogram, but green chili abnormally ascended three times higher during the Eid holidays in the city's kitchen markets despite fall in demand.

This is unusual. When about one-third of the city's total population had gone to their urban and rural homes to celebrate Eid, how could the price rise? Questioned a retired college teacher on Sunday afternoon.

On the other hand, both the wholesale and the retail traders said that the volume of transaction in the kitchen markets dramatically fell though it was supposed to increase in view of Eid on last Tuesday.

Visiting different kitchen markets in the capital, the reporter saw thin presence of both customers and sellers. But none could say as to why the green chili and the bean price rose three times higher above the usual price.

The green chili was selling at Tk 160 to Tk 220 per kg on Sunday. It was Tk 100-120 per kg at retail markets two days ago, selling at Tk 250-250 in different markets on Saturday.

Shahidul Islam, a vegetable vendor of Hatirpool market told the reporter that he bought chili at Tk 80 per kg from Karwan Bazar wholesale market on Thursday morning, which traders charged him Tk 180 per kg on Friday. The price shot up to Tk 220-240 per kg at Karwan Bazar on Saturday.

He said that green chili output of summer season was coming to an end. The new production will reach the markets from last week of October.

Of other vegetables, bean was selling at Tk 120 to 140 per kg (based on quality), tomato at Tk 100, brnjal at Tk 60, cucumber at Tk 60 to 70, french, pointed gourd, ridge gourd, sponge gourd and bitter gourd were selling between Tk 40 to 60 per kg. Ash gourd was selling at Tk 30 to 40 per piece, gourd at Tk 50 to 60, cabbage at Tk 30 cauliflower at 25 to 30 per piece, coriander leaves at Tk 400 per kg, capsicum (red) at Tk 550 kg and capsicum (green) at Tk 400 to 450 per kg.

The price of Hilsha decreased slightly after Eid. Two pieces of Hilsha weighing about 700 grams were selling at Tk 700 to 800, small size at Tk 400 per kg, while big size two pieces were selling at Tk 1600 to Tk 1800.

Emran Master, President of Bangladesh Kanchamal Babosayee Samity, an association of vegetables wholesalers, said more than 80 per cent people of Dhaka left the city during Eid vacation.

He said nearly 200 to 250 vegetables-laden trucks use to enter Karwan Bazar on normal days, but the number of trucks came down to 30-40 after Eid.

Most of the truck drivers and workers had gone on Eid vacation, which also resulted in a supply crunch, he added.

However, both imported and local garlic were selling at Tk 170-Tk 180 a kg, while ginger at Tk 100-Tk 130 a kg on the day, down by Tk 10-Tk 15 in a week.

Prices of local variety of lentil declined to Tk 130-Tk 135 a kg from Tk 130-Tk 145 of seven days ago while Nepalese variety eased to Tk 140-145 from Tk 145-150 per kg of a week ago.
Final probe report Sept 22, says Muhith

The final probe report on the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist submitted by a government-commissioned investigation committee will be published on Thursday, Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith has said.

"I will go abroad on Sept 24. The report will be published on Sept 22," he told reporters on Sunday at the Secretariat. After the investigation team, headed by former Bangladesh bank governor Mohammed Farashuddin, handed it to Muhith on May 30, the minister had said that it would be made public after he finished 'going through it'.

The probe committee had hinted at the involvement of bank insiders in its report. Later, the minister had several times said the report would be published soon. Muhith is set to leave for Saudi Arabia on Sep 24, beginning a three-week visit during which he will attend the annual conference of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC.

He will also visit the Netherlands before returning home on Oct 12. In an audacious bank heist using information technology, hackers tried to swindle $1 billion belonging to Bangladesh from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York by using forged commands through SWIFT Messaging system in February.

The hackers had siphoned off $81 million to an account in the Philippines using five messages. Another $20 million were moved to Sri Lanka through another command. Though the Sri Lankan transfer was stopped, the Philippines transfer was successful and after conversion into the local currency, the money made its way to gambling dens, making it impossible to be recovered. However, people in Bangladesh learned about the largest cyber heist in the world through reports published in a Filipino newspaper a month after the incident.

Atiur Rahman had to quit the position of governor of Bangladesh Bank after drawing flak for keeping the theft under wraps. It was followed by a major overhaul of the top brass of Bangladesh Bank.

The central bank also initiated a case with Motijheel police over the heist; and on Mar 15, the government appointed a three-member probe team headed by Mohammed Farashuddin. The committee was entrusted to look into various angles related to the theft, including tracing those at whose behest the forged messages to transfer the funds were sent, to ascertain the logic behind keeping the incident under wraps for up to a month by the Bangladesh Bank authorities, to see if the personnel of the bank were negligent in their duty and other vital areas. The probe committee submitted the interim report to the finance minister on Apr 20 and the final report on May 30. After submitting the report, Farashuddin had said that the team had "deviated slightly" from their initial stand, declaring that no bank employee was involved in the incident. Neither the finance minister nor Farashuddin divulged details as to who was involved in the theft or what punitive actions would be taken.

Replying to queries from journalists, the probe team chief had only said, "SWIFT cannot evade responsibility. Whether SWIFT is mainly responsible or not is mentioned in the report. However, our future problems can be solved only in collaboration with Swift."

He also said that the report contained an assessment on how much money could be recovered from the theft. "We have given a much optimistic picture."

The central bank had initially said it was considering suing the SWIFT money transfer network over the hacking. But in July its spokesperson Shubhankar Saha told Reuters that the central bank had reversed its plans and instead intended to seek help from the New York Fed and SWIFT in recovering the stolen $81 million.
Two drones are being used to help monitor traffic flow and violators on highways in southwest China's Sichuan Province, according to the provincial public security department Sunday.

The drones, which can travel up to 100 km per hour, were first used, which is usually when roads are crowded with returning travelers.

The drones flew over two highways, one connecting the cities of Chengdu and Zigong, and the other connecting Chengdu with Mianyang. More than 90 traffic incidents were caught on camera by the drones.

The drones can recognize license plates from 100 meters away. The pictures and videos are sent back to ground staff, so the police can take efficient measures to direct traffic flow.

With a flight radius of 15 km, the drones can fly for up to one hour at a time, and can complete a 30 km round trip in 40 minutes.

The drones' activity was broadcasted live through the provincial traffic police's official Weibo account.

The traffic police will now use drones more regularly.
Slain militant's son put on remand

Court Correspondent :

Judge Ruhul Amin of the Juvenile Court and also the First Additional Metropolitan Session's Court of Dhaka on Sunday placed Tahrim Qadri alias Russell, 14, son of slain militant Jamshed on a three-day remand in the case filed under the Anti-Terror Act.

Earlier, Ahsanul Haque, Assistant Commissioner of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit, produced the juvenile to the court with a 10-day remand prayer.

Russell is a son of Tanvir Qadri, 39, a militant suspect, who allegedly killed himself on September 10 during the police raid at a flat of multi-storied building of Lalbagh Road, near Pilkhana Gate No-2 of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).

Delwar Hossain, SI of CTTC unit, filed the case with Lalbagh Police Station against several militant suspects, including three detained women. The law enforcers arrested three women--Khadiza, Sharmin and Shaheda Afrin on the spot for assaulting police and recovered and the body of slain Jamshed and also rescued three children, including Russel.


Tanvir planned suicide attacks, bank robberies

Staff Reporter :

The Neo-JMB militant Tanvir Qadri alias Abdul Karim, who was recently killed in the city's Azimpur raid, was planning to form a new suicide squad to carry out major terror attacks.

On the other hand, he was also planning to commit robberies in different banks to get more fund to run their activities, investigators said.

According to them, Tanvir was planning to form cells to continue suicide attacks to contain the organizational motive in the future.

He took the decision as about 14 suicide squad members were killed in city's Gulshan attack and in Kalyanpur raid recently. Besides, five other suicide squad members have also been arrested from capital in the last one month.

After death of Neo-JMB coordinator Tamim Chowdhury on September 3, Tanvir, the interim coordinator, was planning a major attack with a suicide squad. Tanvir got training from Tamim in the capital and other parts of the country.

"Tanvir had begun carrying out targeted killings before going for a major attack. The attempted killing of a Hindu priest in Narsingdi was his first such crime since the Gulshan attack, said Counter Terrorism unit's ADC Sanwar Hossain.

Tanvir Qadri took charge as the interim coordinator of the group after several Neo-JMB leaders were killed in some recent police drives, the detective official said.

"Police have already received information on a training camp for suicide squads in the city. We are trying to locate the camp," he said.

"We have recovered four laptops, a pen drive and a diary of Major Zahid from the Azimpur den and all these contained important information about the group's plans," the detective official said.

Also the three female militants, all wives of major leaders of the group arrested during the Azimpur raid, have also provided important clues, he further said.

"All nine members came to Dhaka from the northern region. We managed to arrest five of them, but the other four -- Nannu, Sajib, Imran and Gypsy -- fled from the scene," said the investigator. Police are now trying to arrest those four, said ADC Sanwar Hossain.
WLSC student`s hands chopped by fellows

Staff Reporter :

A student of Willes Little School and College (WLSC) was injured in an attack near Malibagh level crossing on Sunday.

The injured has been identified as Alvi Hasan, a student of Class XI and son of Rezaul Karim.

He was first sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) just after the incident, but the doctor of the DMCH referred him to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR) for better treatment.

Alvi Hasan went to the Malibagh level crossing to meet his friends at 2pm on the day. Kamrul Hasan and Tipu allegedly stopped him and chopped his hands with knife indiscriminately.

On information the friends of Alvi rescued him from the spot and took to the DMCH. They admitted him at NITOR upon the DMCH doctors' recommendation.

Inspector of Ramna Model Police Station Ali Hossain told The New Nation that the incident occurred over internal feud. The police are looking into the matter and a team has been working in the hospital, he said.

No case has been filed so far in this regard, the inspector said.

It may be mentioned that Suraiya Akter Risha, a student of WLSC, who was stabbed by Obaidul on August 24, succumbed to her injuries at Dhaka Medical College Hospital on August 28.


US-Russian relation and post-Nov scenario

Abu Hena :

In what year did World War II end? The answer is 1990. Although hostilities came to an end with the Japanese surrender signed on September 2, 1945, the Cold War got in the way of a formal settlement. All the Allies except the U.S.S.R. signed a treaty with Japan in 1951. Germany was divided between the Western powers and U.S.S.R. and no peace treaty was signed with what emerged as the German Democratic Republic in 1949. So the celebration of German reunification on October 3, 1990 marks the official end to World War II. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, the Russian Revolution was flung 'on to the dust-heap of history' in a spirit of vehement national rejection. It amounted to a wish to forget the Revolution as well as the Soviet era. Through the Revolution Russia became an international leader. Now overnight all that was gone. It fell out of 'the vanguard of history' into its old posture of recumbent backwardness.



The Cold War was part of the legacy of the Russian Revolution, as well as a back-handed tribute to its continuing symbolic power. It was an arms race between the Eastern and Western blocs. While both the blocs never fought directly, high tensions erupted in crises and proxy wars in Cuba, Korea and Indo-China. Cuba's receipt of military and economic support from the U.S.S.R. led to the serious situation in 1962 when Soviet Russia made a stock pile of nuclear missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy demanded the immediate removal of the missiles which was refused by the Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev on the basis of the American missile base in Turkey, which was within the reach of the Soviet cities. The U.S. imposed a naval blockade around Cuba. The situation grew intense and the world was on the brink of a nuclear war. At the last moment the U.S.S.R. withdrew their missiles and the United States dismantled their weapons in Turkey.



Today, though the Putin regime and the Russian society are no longer revolutionary, the Russian politics and bargaining tactics still remains as the keystone in Russian national tradition. Putin thrives on that design and strives to fill the strange emptiness in Russia's historical consciousness. Russia's attempt to divide the world into socialist and capitalist has failed. But the age old design of "grand bargain" still works. Convinced that Hillary Clinton incited protests against him in Moscow in 2011, Vladimir Putin is using cyber-weapons to help Donald Trump beat Hillary. Trump's Russia connection is not without basis. His wife Melania Trump was born in Slovenia , a principality which remained under Russian control since 1944. She entered the United states as a visitor and did not have to go out to apply for citizenship. All his campaign chiefs seem to have undergone a Russian vetting. Trump himself had to pass the fidelity test by Putin to prove himself worthy of his blessings. Even Rudy Juliani, a trump supporter, traces his origin from Italy which has common border with Slovenia. Russian athletes were ostracized by the Olympic Committee in the 2016 Rio Games for doping. Russia retaliated by hacking the medical records of the Para-Olympians. In Syria, Bashar al-Assad became a Russian ally because Washington wanted him out. Putin has won the bargain and the Obama Administration has had to give serious concession to Putin on Syria's civil war, legalizing Russia's role in the Middle East.



Putin waged the second war in Chechnya in 1999 with savage brutality, committing war crimes such as the use of concentration camps. He invaded Georgia in 2008. But he is frustrated by the ongoing sanctions that were imposed following his invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Fuel accounts for more than two thirds of Russian exports. For few years since 1999 oil prices tripled . Then they plunged, and so did Russia's economy. Putin now seeks a 'grand bargain' with the West. On offer is a mutually accepted end-game in Syria, creating an international accommodation on Ukraine, recognizing Russian sovereignty in Crimea, freezing the expansion of NATO, and, lifting economic sanctions on Russia. To this, the West's strategic approach may be: First, solidify the bonds with NATO allies, engaging with Eastern partners; Second, maintain the sanctions regime; Third, Condemn Russia's cyber -attacks, doping and incursions in Ukraine. The United States, the leader of the free world, will have to steer through this Russian puzzle and find a modus- vi-ven-di with Putin. Settling issues with Russia is not a matter of appeasement or hero worshipping as Trump fondly imagines. It is a practical question which needs to be answered by ripe political sense and wisdom. Hillary Clinton has the capability to handle it competently . Donald Trump can not be trusted with this job because "this is no time for a novice". Putin mania and the strange intimacy and chemistry of politics and business are not enough to lead America at this crucial juncture when China's Xi Jinping has launched "One Belt, One Road", a 2400 km network of roads, rail and pipeline from Xinjiang to Gwadar port on Arabian Sea, and the United States has signed a defense deal with India allowing both countries to use each other's military bases . China insists on exclusive domination over the South China Sea and North Korea has carried out its 5th and largest nuclear test.



There are a host of other reasons for which Hillary Clinton is most qualified to be the President of the United States. She is calm under pressure and is astutely diplomatic and statesman like. Donald Trump loses control on himself at the slightest provocation. Clinton is a decent orator and skillful negotiator. Trump is an apprentice demagogue. Clinton pledges to unite America-working together. Trump revels on disunity and divisions, chaos and confusion. Clinton has constructed a public identity from scratch. Trump has no public identity. Their political projects are radically dissimilar. Clinton shares the same 'progressive values' as President Obama and has the same faith in government initiative such as fiscal stimuli. Trump wants to bring down taxes from 35 percent to 15 percent to benefit the rich like him. Clinton synthesizes charisma, optimism, and gushy rhetoric. Trump is depressingly unimpressive, most unscrupulous, unpredictable, "dangerous and irresponsible". He has stooped so low as to demand that Hillary Clinton's body guards be disarmed. "Let's see what happens to her," Trump said, in a feat of insanit and wild frenzy. He has been openly inciting violence for some time provoking assassination of Hillary Clinton, which is a shame. Russian leader Putin, Trump's idol, also uses similar technique. He routinely murders his opponents. Collin Powell has described him as a 'national disgrace' and an 'international pariah'. The 'evil mind' like Trump and the great 'universal nation' like the United States go ill-together. Clinton's omnipresent visage will bolster America's international reputation and make America safe. Trump, if elected, will install Vladimir Putin in the White House, instead of himself, offering him the greatest prize in his 'grand design'-defeating Hillary Clinton .



[Writer was an MP in the 7th and 8th Parliaments of Bangladesh]


Highways turn hell

Kazi Zahidul Hasan :

Although reckless driving on the highways is claiming lives almost every day, the authorities concerned are yet to come out with stringent measures to stop the chaos.



More than 90 road accidents were recorded in the last two weeks leaving at least 160 people dead and nearly 400 injured.



"Over speeding and reckless driving are mainly responsible for accidents on the national highways. Mixed traffic flow and jaywalkers are also contributing to the accidents," Illias Kanchan, Chairman of Nirapad Sarak Chai, told The New Nation on Sunday.



He said heavy vehicles often plying on highways without fitness also major causes of road accident.



"Drivers seem to be desperate on the wheels during the said period to maintain their Eid trips pushing up the number of accidents and death tolls. But no action has been taken by the authorities against the errant drivers. Even, no penalty is being imposed on any violator," he added.



Illias Kanchan also said that the increasing number of accidents highlighted the risk being posed to hundreds of passengers at the highways. "All accidents could not be registered in police stations because of the poor vigilance of the highway police," he added. "Accident has increased alarmingly over the last few weeks making the highways into a death trap," Prof Md. Shamsul Hoque, a transport and road safety expert, told The New Nation yesterday.



Analyzing the recent rise in accidents, he said, profiteering mentality of the transport owners and greed to additional income by the drivers have contributed to the alarming rise in mishaps.



"Drivers have reportedly been flouted speed limits to make up additional trips leading them to dangerous driving, increasing the number of accidents during Eid," said Prof Shamsul Hoque. He further said the drivers are using their mobile phones at the wheel sometimes leading to accidents.



"But in general, poor knowledge and skill of drivers about driving and road safety, plying of unfit vehicles and absence of vigilance are being identified as the main reasons for road accidents," he added. Prof Shamsul Hoque mentioned that the drivers have always the tendency to overtake and speeding. It is the task of the concerned agencies to prevent the drivers from such unlawful practices.



"No stringent measure is yet to be taken to bring back the drivers into discipline as well the roads. The government seems to be reluctant to ensure road safety because of various pressure groups. We cannot expect such a role from the government. It should have a strong commitment to prevent chaos on highways to ensure safe journey for the commuters," he said.


17 soldiers killed as militants attack Indian army base in Kashmir

Militants have attacked an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing at least 17 soldiers, the army says.



Four of the attackers were killed, an army officer told the BBC. Carrying guns and grenades they stormed a base in Uri, close to the Line of Control with Pakistan in a pre-dawn ambush.



Indian Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh reacted by calling Pakistan a "terrorist state".



It is the deadliest attack on security forces in Kashmir in two decades. It comes as violent protests against Indian rule in the disputed region continue, with a strict curfew imposed. More than 80 people, nearly all anti-government protesters, have died in more than two months of violence.



No group has claimed responsibility for the attack and Pakistan denied any role.



"This is an old tactic of India. They immediately put the blame on Pakistan without investigation," foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria told the BBC.



But Mr Singh said on Twitter that "there are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped". "I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups," he said.



Both India and Pakistan claim all of Muslim-majority Kashmir but only control parts of it.



A search is under way for other militants believed to be hiding in the area, according to the army.



"We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," a statement said.



The militants infiltrated across the Line of Control from Pakistan before attacking the base, west of Srinagar, the army officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Gunfire and explosions were heard for several hours.



Many tents and temporary shelters caught fire during the attack, according to the army's Northern Command.

Twelve soldiers were killed by fires and the others died in gun battles, the Hindustan Times reports, citing army sources. Disputed Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for more than 60 years, causing two wars between the neighbours.



A militant attack on an army camp in Uri in December 2014 saw at least nine members of the security forces killed.



The last attack of this scale on the Indian army was in June 2015 in Manipur, north-east India, when at least 20 soldiers were killed in an attack on a troop convoy.



Dangerous impasse - Justin Rowlatt, South Asia correspondent With the Indian Home Ministry talking about a "cross-border terror attack", there is no doubt the raid will make the already fraught relations between India and Pakistan even frostier.



But the truth is this latest upsurge in violence has a distinctly home-grown flavour.



The huge wave of protests against Indian rule that were prompted by the killing of a popular young militant on 8 July have been overwhelmingly by people from Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir.



The attack is likely to mean normal life in the province will continue to be paralysed by the curfew imposed by the security forces for some time to come.



The Indian government says it wants to discuss how to end the violence with local leaders, but so far its overtures have been rejected by separatists who insist that the issue of Kashmiri independence must be on the table.


Unruly young party cadres are problem for the government

How unruly our society is becoming is now beyond one's apprehension. A class IX student of a Madaripur High School has been killed by miscreants on Sunday as she had turned down their proposal for a relation.



The lawlessness is everywhere. Factional clash and gunfights among young ruling party cadres are spiralling unchecked making the society unprotected every day. There is none who can stop them and often killing the rivals. Awami League front organizations such as Jubo League, Shechhwa Sebak League and Chhatra League are all powerful at local levels.



How they are terrorizing the society is not far from our sight. On Saturday night as media report said, a Jubo League activist Rizvi Hasan Babu was shot and killed in the city's Motijheel area and one of his fellow activists injured as a group of unidentified assailants fired on them.



It resulted from quarrel over which group will hold control over the locality and that also includes toll collection and other trade in giving party favour to vested groups such as grabbing others property in exchange of cash.



On Saturday a Jubo League leader opened fire on a rickshaw puller in the Banani area of the capital city when the poor man demanded Tk 40 as rickshaw fare.



Police lodged a case when the man went to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment. But on the next day the rickshaw puller left the hospital 'voluntarily' and went to Dhaka Court to say he has no objection to bail for the man who fired on him.



Police said since the complaint has no objection, the state is also not opposed to the bail. The judge released the Jubo League leader Yusul Sardar Sohel on a bond for Tk 5,000. This is how our lower judiciary and police are acting together with ruling party men to silence the cry for justice.



Most ruling party cadres are known now in their area as dangerous elements busy in grabbing and extorting. They don't bother law enforcers and even senior officials in public administration. Only few months back, a local Jubo League leader had beaten the Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) of Feni as he was busy to give protocol to a Minister and the Jubo League leader felt his presence was not properly recognized. The news about unruly behaviour of the young party workers of the ruling party is a serious indication of our future leadership.



Media report said on August 8 a group of Jubo League and Chhatra League activists had beaten the Headmaster of a High School in Kushtia for proposing names of Hasanbag High School's managing committee members without consulting them.



The victim, Shamsul Alam had submitted the names to Kushtia Sadar Upazila Education Office to form the committee. Following this, a group of local party activists stormed into his office and law enforcers had to come to the scene to rescue the Headmaster.



UNO of Kushtia Sadar Upazila Khodeza Khatun said she would take necessary action but many fear that the Headmaster will have to suffer. Meanwhile, report of the killing of a BLC leader on the other hand by unidentified miscreants on September 1 in Khulna appears to be sequel of factional quarrel.

In another case involving Afsana murder who was a student of Architecture and Bangladesh Chhatra Union leader by Chhatra League leader Habibur Rahman Robin is most talked murder case that took place in the city in August.



Not only police, but even the elected leaders of the government party are helpless. The young turks of the party dominated everywhere. Such examples are signs of a government not in control.






About killings in border India must give Bangladesh due importance

THE relation between Bangladesh and India at government level is at its peak and warmest now in recent years. Yet border killing of unarmed Bangladeshis by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) did not stop to show that the people to people relation is equally marred with blood of unarmed people living in the border belt. It is quite unacceptable and sad how the government-to-government relation can ignore safety of the local people and yet it can claim to be the best relations at work. We are always unable why Indian BSF kills Bangladesh nationals on the border even if they may be indulging in cattle trade or such other trade. Illegal trade does not justify killing and particularly when Indian nationals are equally engaged in it on their side. It is a simple case of trespassing in which persons can be detained and put to imprisonment. Why Indian soldiers kill our people just on sight is not understood here and all over the world.



Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith has duly raised the issue at a dialogue on India-Bangladesh relations in the city on Saturday where he has proposed effective joint patrol of the border by security forces of both the countries to avoid unnecessary killing. He said that China and Pakistan get due importance in India as neighbouring countries; but unfortunately it is not so in the case of Bangladesh. Even the discussions occur in various part of the world on socio-economic gains of Bangladesh but it is avoided in Indian capital. His remarks reflect frustration amidst warmest of our relations. Other participants from India and Bangladesh shared Muhith's view on the sensitive issue. Many wonder why the trigger-happy BSF is not changing its attitudes despite promises from the Indian leadership to end the spate of killing. We must say again it does not show the best kind of relationship between the two counties.



We believe it is time India should be practical and accept the reality if we want to make relationship between the two neighbours really warming. Only between May and the middle of September 14 unarmed Bangladeshi nationals were killed by Indian BSF in the border and it is just inhuman. Not only during this period there is not a single case of killing of unarmed Indian by Border Guard Bangladesh in past few years. We must say Bangladesh is lending all support to India on cross border filtering of Indian insurgents to make India's northeast safe. We have also given connectivity to India to win the heart of our big neighbour.



But border killing remains the source of widespread irritant in our relations creating wrong impression about India among our people. We believe it is in India's interest to make its record straight.




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Zhang Zhijun, the Chinese mainland's Taiwan affairs chief, on Sunday met in Beijing with a delegation of county and city officials from Taiwan.

The delegation includes officials for New Taipei City and the seven counties of Hsinchu, Miaoli, Nantou, Hualien, Taitung, Kinmen and Lienchiang.

Zhang, head of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, extended a warm welcome to the eight visiting county and city officials and applauded their adherence to the 1992 Consensus and efforts to promote cross-Strait cooperation and exchange at the county and city-levels.

Taiwan's current leader, Tsai Ing-wen, and her administration have refused to recognize the 1992 Consensus since she and the Democratic Progressive Party took office in May, Zhang said. The 1992 Consensus affirms that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China.

The refusal has shaken the political foundation for the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and dealt a heavy blow to the good momentum of peaceful cross-Strait ties that had been achieved through eight years of efforts, Zhang said, adding communication across the Strait has been affected and the interests of people on the two sides have been severely damaged.

Zhang stressed adherence to the 1992 Consensus under the new situation, vowed to firmly oppose and curb "Taiwan independence" and promote cross-Strait exchange in various fields to boost economic and social integration.

The eight officials from Taiwan voiced their concerns about cross-Strait relations and pledged to continue to stick to the 1992 Consensus and maintain peaceful development of cross-Strait ties along with the mainland.

Mainland officials with the Ministry of Commerce, National Tourism Administration, General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives also attended the meeting.
Sunday, September 18, 2016 at 9:00AM

Nathaniel R reporting from TIFF. The festival ends today (I expect La La Land to win the coveted People's Choice in this non-juried festival) so I'm about to hit the airport. I'll be scrambling to finish telling you about the cinematic adventures screened from all over the world in the next couple of days -- and yes update the Oscar charts with all this new information -- so we can wrap up. And then NYFF begins!

Here are three films that go completely off the rails and one film that stays perfectly on track though the protagonist goes off it. Each have as many cons as pros so they're mixed experiences, presented in preference order. So click on for Argentinian nudist comedies (NSFW), Anne Heche and Sandra Oh fist-fighting, Greek paraonia, and the latest from A Girl Walks Home At Night's director who has graduated to bigger budgets and famous actors.

A Decent Woman

(Dir. Lukas Valenta Rinner, Argentina)

This very strange picture begins as a domestic deadpan comedy of a well worn foreign genre, the socioeconomic dramedy about lowly sad maids in houses of wealth. Things get stranger and stranger and less easily categorized as the picture progresses and the maid becomes fascinated by a nudist colony on the other side of the gated community's electric fence. Anecdote time: The nudist colony setting of the picture was well advertised in the festival program. Before the movie began I was talking to an interesting older woman at the screening who sat beside me. She told me all about her annual TIFF journeys and she seemed quite the sophisticated cinephile with a wide range of film genres and interests. But at the very first shot of a nude body she began sighing and huffing with public displeasure and squirming in her seat. What possessed her to choose that movie?! She couldn't get out of the theater fast enough when it ended!

Pros: Quite memorable. I still remember particular shots despite the flurry of pictures screened, particularly when our protagonist first disrobes and poses adorably like a shy Venus, covering her bits. And another non-linear moment when all the nudists are suddenly painted like animals and growling and snorting at the camera. (no, really)

Cons: It's unclear if the picture got away from the director or if he intended it to go so far off the rails transforming into a totally different kind of violent genre picture (satire?) by film's end. But the snail-paced first two thirds doesn't speak all that coherently to the cartoonish final act. C+

Blind Sun

(Dir. Joyce A Nashawati, Greece/France)

This film, which has apparently been making the festival rounds for a year, was presented in the Vanguard section of TIFF which describes itself as "Provocative, sexy possibly dangerous. This is what's next." In other words not quite avante garde but weirder than mainstream. In this feature debut from a woman who grew up as an immigrant in Greece, we spend the entire 87 minutes with an immigrant in Greece whose papers are stolen by a policeman when he drives to his latest house-sitting job. Isolated in a gated house of the "haves" in the scorching heat with xenophobic "have not" neighbors he goes a little mad.

Pros: Of these four films this is the one with the surest directorial hand, lead actor Ziad Bakri (The Time That Remains) is a great camera subject and the cinematography is compelling. It could have been an ace short.

Con: ...but its goals are modest and, despite glancing at sociopolitical themes, it doesn't add up too all that much either besides being a strong portrait of paranoia and uncomfortable heat. It's vagueness works on a visual level but leaves a lot to be desired as a narrative. Also an adorable cat dies and that just aint right. C+

Catfight

(Dir. Onur Tikel, US)

Whoa. An indie comedy that doesn't feel like every other indie comedy. Nobody goes to a dysfunctional family gathering ever and its a screenplay fascinated by political stances rather than navel-lint. Two college friends Veronica and Ashley (Sandra Oh and Anne Heche) who were never close coincidentally meet again as adults. The setting is a party for rich Republicans, one of whom Veronica is married to, and Ashley is there to make a little extra money as a cater waiter with her girlfriend (since she's a struggling artist) but hates the job and everyone there. The two women are shocked to see each other and their world views immediately clash leading to very uncomfortable but terrifically performed conversation and a drunken brawl with dire consequences. Years later US warmongering has changed their respective socioeconomic statuses and history begins to repeat itself.

Sandra Oh and Anne Heche talking to The Hollywood Reporter

Pros: It's a rare treat to see a movie where four terrific actresses who aren't constantly cast in everything get big juicy movie parts: Anne Heche, Sandra Oh, Amy Hill (as Sandra's aunt), and Alicia Silverstone (as Heche's girlfriend). Thank you for employing them in roles that are sized to their gifts. It's also a joy to see a movie with so many political thoughts.

Cons: ... but this many of them? It's not unlike a brainstorming session in which none of the ideas were ever whittled down on a second pass. The picture is only 96 minutes long but really needs trimming and focusing. All three of its title-inspiring scenes, for example, extend way past their comic welcome and feel like pure sadism by the unsatisfying end. C

Ana Lily ArmipourThe Bad Batch

(Dir. Ana Lily Armipour, US)

Screen Gems will release in 2017 TBA



Armipour's sensational debut A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was always going to be a tough act to follow. Bad timing also made this sophomore feature the first desert wasteland post-apocalyptic movie to feature pregnant brides of the patriachy and a one armed heroine to emerge in the wake of last summer's masterpiece Mad Max Fury Road. So, honestly speaking, it had no chance of being satisfying even it were better than it is. "The Bad Batch" refers to the unwanted who are kicked out of a future harsh United States (which we never see) and dumped into a man-eat-man wasteland to the South (Mexico?) where all the other undesirables have been banished. Some are criminals but illegal immigrants have also been jettisoned. Political satire alert! With Suki Waterhouse as the scrappy but dim Texan heroine, Jason Momoa as a Cuban cannibal, Jim Carrey and Giovanni Ribisi as crazy people, and Keanu Reeves as the seductive patriarch of a town called "Comfort"

Pros: Armipour's visual and sonic gifts are considerable (as we already knew) which elevate most of the scenes into something far more special than the acting and screenplay would otherwise dictate, even though they can't make a good movie out of this.

Cons: Extremely distasteful from the first Horror movie reel to the last Romantic Drama implications. The scenes of cannibalism are gross enough but add to those retch-worthy scenes a disturbingly mixed political message and ever moving targets. At first the film reads like a diatribe against merciless capitalism and every man for himself ethos until it seems to condemn a more peaceful society as worse than that purely due to its patriarchy (?) in favor of that same every man for himself cannibalistic culture? It's a very strange confused picture with uneven performances (Momoa struggles with a Cuban accent and "spot the celebrity" is never a good idea for casting in this type of picture even though Carrey does solid work). Even on a simpler action movie level the heroine is impossible to root for. Suki plays her as perpetually stoned and dumb though where is she getting the drugs from before and after the movie's one memorable drug scene? Her incoherent motives are also a huge problem. If the satire is about our lack of empathy and willful self-destruction as a nation than her behavior in the last act makes sense but her behavior in the first does not. And vice versa. Perhaps the only way The Bad Batch is even remotely coherent is if you believe that humanity is fucked no matter what options we choose for the future. In short, I did not like it though I'll still line up for Armipour's third feature. C-

Previous TIFF articles
Chinese prosecutors have filed separate lawsuits against three former senior officials -- Ling Zhengce, Chen Chuanping and Sun Hongzhi.

All are accused of accepting bribes and other graft-related crimes, the Supreme People's Procuratorate said Sunday.

Ling, former vice chairman of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, is indicted for seeking benefits for others and illegally accepting large amounts of money and other goods by taking advantage of official posts during his time in Shanxi, according Changzhou City People's Procuratorate in east China's Jiangsu Province.

Chen, former Party chief of Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi, took advantage of official posts to seek benefits for others and illegally accept money and other goods, and he abused his power and caused especially great losses to the country when he served as head of a state-owned steel group in Taiyuan, the Xuzhou City People's Procuratorate, also in Jiangsu, said in the indictment.

Sun, former vice minister of the State Administration for Industry & Commerce, took advantage of his official posts to seek benefits for others and illegally accept huge amount of money and other goods, Tai'an city People's Procuratorate in Shandong Province said in a statement.

Sun is also charged with embezzling public assets, and his family's wealth and expenditure far exceed his legitimate income, and he can not explain the source of the money, according to the statement.
Pre-purchase property inspection is a relatively new thing in the United Kingdom. Its not something that most people have heard about, but it has become increasingly popular over the last few years with the rise in property prices and increased demand for high quality homes.

What are the benefits of pre-purchase building inspection? What can you expect to find out when you pay someone else to inspect your home before you buy it? And what should you look for during an inspection?

Many people want to know if theyre buying a house thats been well maintained or if its had any serious problems. If youve found a place on the market that seems attractive, but then discover some issues after moving in, you may not be as excited about buying it as you thought you were.

Its important to do your due diligence when looking at properties. A lot goes into making a property appealing to potential buyers, from the landscaping to the flooring to the kitchen appliances. The same applies when inspecting a property  there are many things that need checking over to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Here are some of the benefits of performing a pre-purchase inspection:

You get to see exactly what will happen to your money

When you go shopping for a new car, youll probably be shown several different models. You might even be shown one that looks like a great value, but doesnt fit around all of the extra features that you want. When it comes time to actually buy the vehicle, however, you wont have seen how your money will be spent on it once you drive it off the showroom floor.

Likewise, when you shop for a new home, you dont really know what youre getting yourself into until you move in. In order to get a feel for whether the home youre considering is what you want, you normally have to spend quite a bit of time inside it. This allows you to learn more about everything that youre going to be spending your hard-earned cash on.

A pre-purchase building inspection gives you much the same kind of experience without having to spend thousands of dollars. Since youre paying for the service, you can expect to see exactly what youre paying for, instead of just seeing a vague idea of what you might end up with.

You find out about potential major repairs

Some buildings are very expensive to maintain, which means that owners often neglect them for the sake of saving money. While youre paying for a building inspection, youre also paying for a professional who knows how to spot signs of trouble and repair work that needs doing.

If you notice that a particular area of your new home needs fixing right away, you can call in an expert to take care of it quickly. If you find that theres something wrong with your boiler, you wont have to wait weeks for a plumber to come over and fix it. Instead, youll have access to a solution immediately.

You can save hundreds of pounds by finding out about potential problems early on

One of the biggest expenses when you first buy a home is the cost of moving in. Many people dont realize this until its too late. Buying a home involves not only paying for the actual house, but also for moving costs, furniture, and other items that have to be moved along with the home.

Having a good idea ahead of time of what youre likely to encounter can help you avoid these kinds of costs. If you know youll need to replace the plumbing system, for example, youll be able to put together a budget for the expense and plan accordingly.

You can protect your investment by finding out if the homes been well cared for

While there are plenty of people who think that houses always look better when theyre newly built, youd be surprised at how well maintained older residences can still look nice. Sometimes, though, those homes need some additional maintenance to keep them looking their best.

This could involve repairs that arent so noticeable or small improvements that you wouldnt consider otherwise. Even worse, some houses have fallen into disrepair without anyone noticing. This is why having a professional perform a building inspection prior to purchasing a home is such a big benefit.

Not only will it give you insight into the state of the property, but it will also give you peace of mind knowing youre not getting taken advantage of. As long as youre aware of the potential pitfalls, youll have less reason to worry about the state of your new home.

You can use information gathered during a building inspection to negotiate a lower price

If youre worried about buying a home because you suspect that it may need extensive renovation work, you may already have a rough idea of how much work youll need to do to bring it up to scratch. That knowledge can come in handy if you decide to buy the home.

You can use all of the details that you gather during a building inspection to present a realistic picture of what the home is worth to prospective buyers. If a potential buyer thinks that the home is worth more than what you paid for it, you can try negotiating a lower price.

You can sell your home faster and for more money

If you decide to list your home on the market soon after buying it, youll need to price it accurately in order to attract buyers. But if youve already done a thorough building inspection, youll know exactly what work is needed and what the current market conditions are.

In other words, youll be able to make a more accurate estimate of the amount of money youve invested in the home and how much its worth. If you find that youre selling your house for close to its full market value, you can use this information to convince the potential buyer that your home is worth the asking price.

Even if youre planning to stay in the home for a while before you decide to sell, the fact that you did a thorough building inspection will give you more confidence when listing it. Prospective buyers will know exactly what theyre paying for.

Your home will hold its value longer

As mentioned earlier, the value of a home depends heavily upon the condition of the building itself. If your home is in bad shape, potential buyers wont be interested in buying it. On the other hand, if youve performed a thorough building inspection and know what sort of repairs are necessary, you can offer your prospective buyer a compelling reason to invest in your property.

When you buy a home, youre essentially agreeing to have it inspected periodically to ensure that it stays in top shape. Not only does this allow you to avoid expensive repairs down the road, but it can also increase the value of your home.

You can make smart decisions about property investments

Buying real estate isnt as simple as just driving a couple of minutes to pick up a house. There are lots of considerations involved, ranging from location to cost. The same is true when youre investing in property.

If you find a house that meets all of your requirements, youll want to make sure that you have a solid understanding of where it stands with regards to the rest of the market. If you havent spent enough time researching the area, you could inadvertently end up with a bad deal.

There are lots of resources available online that can help you determine the overall level of competition in your area. They can also help you figure out if there are any properties that meet your requirements that you didnt know about.

If you own rental property, you can use the information to identify tenants who might cause damage

If you own rental property and youve noticed that certain tenants consistently cause damage, you can use the results of a building inspection to identify them. You can then contact them directly to let them know that youre watching them closely and that you dont appreciate the problem theyre causing.

They might start taking better care of their homes, which would be good news for everyone. It could also be the case that youll find out that theyre responsible for previous damages that werent caught during a previous visit.

You can make smarter decisions about hiring contractors

If youve hired contractors to build or repair your home, you might want to ask them for references. However, unless you perform a thorough building inspection, you might not know exactly what to look for.

For instance, maybe you only checked the roof for leaks or the walls for cracks. You might not have looked underneath the foundation for anything that could cause a future issue. By performing a building inspection, you can ensure that you hire reputable contractors who will be trustworthy with your money.

You can avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition

Of course, the main benefit of structural inspections perth is that it helps you avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition. Before you make the decision to buy a home, you should do whatever you can to find out about the state of the building.

You can also ask your realtor about what sorts of inspections are typically recommended. Some agents say that its standard practice to check the heating system, the roof, the electrical wiring, and the floors. Others will tell you that they recommend that you check the entire structure.

Either way, if you choose to hire an inspector, youll find out exactly what needs to be fixed and how much it will cost to do so.

As a result, it can be concluded that a pre-purchase building inspection is highly important for the buyers because it provides transparency regarding the current conditions of the structure. Additionally, the building owner is made aware of any upgrades or repairs that are required, which could lead to a fair deal throughout the purchasing and selling process.
British Prime Minister Theresa May attends a press conference during the G20 summit held in the Chinese city of Hangzhou on Monday. [Photo by Zhang Lulu/China.org.cn]

The U.K. government has finally given the go-ahead for the project to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Southwest England with French utility Electricite de France SA. This will be the U.K.'s first new nuclear project in a generation.

The decision follows intense debate and months of delay to the 18 billion ($23.82 billion) project due to controversy over its funding by China General Nuclear Power Corp., drawing fierce criticism from EDF officials and French labor unions, as well as the Chinese government.

Beijing's ambassador to London put it in context when he said, "The China-U.K. relationship is at a crucial historical juncture," underlining the importance of this relationship to China right now. Hence, one can understand why Hinkley Point is so highly symbolic.

Ever since Prime Minister Theresa May assumed office and ordered a review of the project, there has been much debate whether the apparently "special relationship" would hit rock bottom. This even led to a common nickname reportedly given to Mayby Conservative Party members: Theresa Maybe, based on her highly cautious approach to various issues, including Brexit.

There is much more to the review, than just security and foreign policy, however.

May came to power, after the rocky Brexit episodes when the country's faith in the political process had been thoroughly shaken. She had a difficult job: to find out what other great powers thought of Brexit, to chart the U.K.'s future course and figure out the economic impact; even more importantly, she had to win the trust of the public and her fellow conservatives.

In ordering the review, she solidified her image of someone who is stable and cautious, unlike her predecessor David Cameron and his Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who for all their good qualities, were considered too posh, arrogant, and brash. It also highlighted her naturally reflective nature when taking decisions.

In the meantime, she toured European capitals and met other state heads at the G20 in China. In the process, the U.K. government received trade partnership offers from Australia, New Zealand, India and China, while Japan and U.S. were more ambivalent. This seems to have given her confidence to plunge ahead with important policy decisions.

May is not exactly a charismatic politician, like David Cameron or Boris Johnson (now her Foreign Secretary). She is not known to favor off-the-cuff deals. Over the last few months, that has been painfully prominent.

Firstly, she has consistently refused to clarify her strategy on the Brexit negotiations. This might look like she is not aware of anything; however, on more careful reflection, it seems she is using ambiguity as a weapon. Similarly, her parliamentary exchanges with Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour opposition, has none of the spark of her predecessor David Cameron who was much more witty and able to dodge the issue.

May, in contrast, is repetitive to the point of being boring. However that doesn't mean she is not knowledgeable. On the contrary, she has said: "This is the way I operate, I don't just come in and say I just made a decision, I actually look at the evidence, take the advice and then consider that and come to my decision. That's exactly the process I'm going through."

The treasury department quite rightly understood that, given the circumstances, U.K. needs FDI and any negative decision on Hinkley, for example, would be seen as a sign to other powers of the U.K. reneging on investment and trade. The treasury department's warning certainly paid off.

The reactions proved to be good as well. Shen Dingli, a professor and expert from Shanghai's Fudan University was quoted by the Guardian newspaper as praising the decision, as did the French government, calling it "a major milestone in Franco-British industrial and energy co-operation." French Economy Minister Michel Sapin called it "good news" for the French nuclear industry.

Ultimately, it seems to be a case of economics and geopolitics trumping ideology, once again. May realized that U.K. cannot afford to become isolated and needs foreign investment and geopolitical friends after Brexit. No matter what personal misgivings she might have, she valued the evidence in a way that might be a boon for the British economy, and might further stimulate the "golden relationship" with China.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn
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The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Saturday evening on Syria after the U.S.-led coalition staged airstrikes on Syrian military positions, diplomatic sources told Xinhua.

The meeting is scheduled to start at 19:30 EDT (2330 GMT) at the request of the Russian Federation, one of the five permanent members of the 15-nation UN council, the sources said.

"The meeting will take place behind closed doors," the sources said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier Saturday the U.S.-led coalition killed 62 Syrian government troops and injured some 100 others in a round of airstrikes in eastern Syria's province of Deir al-Zour.

"Today, in areas close to the Deir al-Zour Airport, the aircraft from the international anti-Islamic State coalition carried out four airstrikes against units of the Syrian government troops surrounded by terrorists," the ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

The warplanes entered the airspace of Syria from the Iraqi border, the spokesman said.

The U.S. Defense Ministry said on Saturday that a U.S.-led coalition airstrike against the Islamic State may have unintentionally targeted Syrian government forces.

"Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh fighting position," said a Pentagon statement, referring to the extremist group in its Arabic acronym.

The general command of the Syrian army accused the U.S. of supporting the IS in the attack in Deir al-Zour.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the U.S.-led air raids enabled the IS to capture al-Tharda Mountain.

The incident marks the first U.S.-led attack on a government forces' positions since the coalition started striking IS positions in Syria in 2014.
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Somalia's government troops on Saturday retook the southern El-Wak town, situated along the border with Kenya, from Al-Shabaab militants that briefly controlled it.

The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said the Somali forces pushed back the militants who seized the town on Friday after an attack on the Somali army base there.

AMISOM troops are helping the Somali government battle Al-Shabaab militants.

AMISOM force spokesperson, Joe Kibet, confirmed to Xinhua that the Somali National Army (SNA) recaptured El-Wak early Saturday.

Kibet said the militants seized several weapons, including machine guns, but suffered heavy casualties in the Friday attack.

At least four Somali soldiers were killed and another injured in the attack, an army spokesperson in Gedo region, where the town is located, earlier said.

Al-Shabaab said it captured the town and claimed to have killed senior government officials and recovered vehicles and weapons.

The Islamist group carries out frequent attacks in Somalia in its bid to topple the government.

Sources said the militants hoisted their black flag at El-Wak's administrative headquarters and spoke to residents after they took the town.
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?

You voted:
The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ...

[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

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Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
Mitchell was awarded the Rear Admiral Hugh H. Howell Jr. Award of Excellence (Senior Officer). The Rear Admiral Hugh H. Howell Jr. Award of Excellence is the highest individual award presented yearly to two Reserve Judge Advocates who demonstrated the most outstanding support of the navy and Naval Reserve. The Navy Reserve JAG Corps has more than 400 lawyers worldwide practicing in fields of military justice, international law, operational law, legal assistance, admiralty and other specialized areas. Along with his many contributions, Mitchell served in Iraq in 2007 and in Afghanistan in 2013.
Editor's note: This is the third in the "SIU at the Crossroads" occasional series of stories examining the future of SIU through a variety of different lenses.

CARBONDALE  Southern Illinois Universitys enrollment is down 7.6 percent. There is nothing the SIU leadership can do about this year. But, Interim Chancellor Brad Colwell believes there are some positives looking forward.

The university did lose 1,305 students from this past fall semester, which translates into about $6.5 million in lost revenue, but officials said earlier that dip was expected, and accounted for in its $21 million budget reduction.

One of the positives Colwell took away from examining the numbers a bit closer was the percentage of minority students didnt drop too much from the previous year.

Colwell pointed out that the percent of the minority students  not the overall headcount  were not down more than 1.5 percent in any category.

The head count went down because the total population went down, but the percentages compared to the total class wasnt down more than 1.5 percent in any class, he said. Latina students actually saw an increase.

Another bright spot in the current class, the number of juniors and seniors where up a modest 1 percent each from the previous year. Colwell said this is an effort of recruiting students from junior colleges and the retention efforts that have been occurring for several years at SIU.

We used to expect those (junior college) students to come here, and we cant do that anymore, he said. We are actively recruiting those students.

He said the retention efforts are working, but it was nothing that was created this year.

You dont turn retention around overnight, he said. Advising has been huge as well making sure students are headed on the right path and taking the right classes.

Colwell also give credit to the University College program at SIU. The program helps entering SIU students be prepared for college and understand the challenge in front of them.

Increased standards

Obtaining admission to SIU isnt as easy as it once was in the past. Colwell said the university needed to be sure that the students who were admitted, were students the school could serve. He said admitting students who werent ready for college yet, take manpower and money.

This was in no attempt to get rid of any demographic, Colwell said. That is just silly talk.

He said the school has to be sure it is bringing in students who will stay in school for four years, citing the fact SIU invests a lot of money in students and not just in scholarships.

We have to get them degreed and get them out in the world and be successful, he said.

One reason the enrollment numbers may have been a couple hundred students down is because SIU held firm on the May 1 deadline for admission. Colwell said the university didnt open the floodgates on July 1 this past year when it didnt have the desired enrollment. He said there is data that shows students who come after May 1 are more likely to not be retained.

Along the lines of increased academic standards is the fact the average ACT increased, according to Colwell. He said the average for the university went from 22.3 to 22.7.

Which is statistically a huge jump, he said.

He said SIU typically admitted a bit higher than the national average of about 21 on the test, but the jump could be attributed to the school didnt admit students scoring in the 11-16 ACT score range.

Sweet Spot

There has been talk about a sweet spot at SIU. Basically, Colwell calls it the number of students the university can serve based upon knowing there will not be an influx of associate degrees.

The days of 25,000 students are over. When the campus accommodated that many students, Colwell said about 5,000 to 6,000 students were obtaining associate degrees. There were about 50 associate degree programs, and now there are three.

Colwell said he doesnt know what that sweet spot number is yet, and it hasnt been discussed, but the leadership at SIU knows that number exists.

When asked if this enrollment total is rock bottom for SIU, he said he thinks so.
CARBONDALE  Making beer is and always has been a fairly straightforward process. Create a solution of sugars from grain, add yeast and hops, maybe other flavorings, and let it do its thing.

But the proliferation of American craft brewers in recent decades is also leading to more experimentation, creativity and variations on this theme. Researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, in cooperation with several craft brewers, recently looked at a brewing trend to help understand the science behind the process, and ultimately the all-important flavor.

Matt McCarroll, professor of chemistry and biochemistry and director of the Fermentation Science Institute at SIU, said researchers examined whether the relative bitterness of hops in beer can be used to fine-tune flavor in certain types of beers that use wild yeast and bacteria for fermentation. The experiments they ran with the help of three commercial breweries, including one in Southern Illinois, found that higher bitterness affects flavor by inhibiting such strains of bacteria.

The studys findings, presented in August at the World Brewing Congress in Denver, are the first major research from the FSI, which officially came online earlier this year. SIU researchers collaborated with Scratch Brewing Co. of Ava; Fonta Flora Brewery of Morganton, North Carolina; and Jester King Brewery of Austin, Texas.

The trend that researchers from the institute looked into involves using mixed cultures of bacteria and yeast that occur in the wild. Many breweries have begun using such mixed cultures in the fermentation of beers they are producing, McCarroll said, collecting them from their own, unique geographic area and bringing a sense of place to such brews.

This generally implies fermenting with a culture that is a mixture of yeast, wild yeast and/or bacteria that produce beers with complex and often sour flavors, he said. In many cases, both the yeast and the bacteria are wild, meaning they were recently collected from the environment. The basic idea of the research project was to gain additional information about how brewing conditions can affect the fermentation behavior and beer flavor in mixed fermentations.

Hops are technically flowers, and when added to the sugary brews they act as a counterpoint, bringing a bite and bitter flavor. There is a wide variety of hops for brewers to choose from, and the amount of bitterness they bring to a brew is measured in International Bittering Units, or IBUs. Brewers have used them for 400 to 500 years because of their ability to prevent spoilage of beer, as well.

Bacteria, such as lactobacillus, are known to produce sour beers through the production of lactic and other organic acids, but they are inhibited during fermentation by the bittering compounds in hops. Yeast is more resistant to the presence of hops during fermentation.

The researchers specifically tried to determine the effect that the amount of bittering hops had on the fermentation. McCarroll said collaborator and co-author of the study, Marika Josephson, of Scratch Brewing Co., had noted this behavior in brewing beer.

Working with mixed cultures from the three breweries, researchers collected genetic material for each culture, using it to identify the various yeast and bacteria in the culture before and after fermentation. They then fermented the beer at three different IBU levels.

The researchers found the IBU level can effectively tune the evolution of the bacteria and yeast, and thereby the flavor of the finished beer.

The study provided a controlled look at the effect, including collection of the genetic data and sensory evaluation of the finished beers, McCarroll said. Although it confirmed why brewers have used hops in the production of beer, it also will help take the guess work out just how much of an impact IBUs have on the finished taste of sour and Belgian-type beers, which are growing in popularity.

While many brewers are finding great success, they have largely relied on anecdotal and empirical experience to guide their process, McCarroll said. We believe our research has the potential to provide brewers and barrelhouse managers with new tools to better understand how to control production quality and flavor profile in beers produced with mixed cultures.

McCarroll said the results of the study and the collaboration with commercial brewers is an important milepost for the newly created FSI, which uses an interdisciplinary approach on campus, as well. Other SIU research collaborators on the project include: Kelly Bender, associate professor of microbiology; Katie Strain, laboratory operations coordinator at the FSI; and Lucas Rose, a senior in fermentation science and one of the first majors in the new program.

The project is an exciting representation of the FSIs mission of fostering fermentation research on campus and supporting the fermentation industry at regional and national levels, McCarroll said. The research represents something of a maiden voyage for the FSI facilities in the McLafferty Annex. It would have been difficult to carry out the project without our pilot brewery, which required the production of 12 controlled batches of beer that differed only in the IBU level and fermentation culture.
EDWARDSVILLE  Police are searching for two juveniles who they say went missing from the Metro East St. Louis city of Edwardsville early Sunday.

A statement from Illinois State Police Sunday afternoon says Katherine Elizabeth Derleth, 13, and her son, Christopher Ray Derleth, 17 days old, went missing early Sunday. Police say they are believed to be with Christopher M. Derleth, a 39-year-old white male, 6 feet 1 inch tall, 160 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. Police say they may be in a green 1997 Mercury Villager minivan with Illinois license plate E833210. They may be heading to West Virginia.

Katherine Derleth is 13 years old, 4 feet 8 inches tall, 95 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes, and three birthmarks on her right knee. Christopher Ray Derleth is 21 inches long and weighs 8 pounds 3 ounces, and has brown hair and dark eyes.

Anyone with information about the missing juveniles is asked to call the Madison County Sheriff's Office at 618-692-4433, or 911.
The rumor mill had been churning for months.

How much will enrollment be down at SIU? How bad will it be? Will it spell doom for the university?

When it all shook out last week, SIU officials announced that enrollment for the fall 2016 semester was down 7.55 percent.

While the number isn't what university officials would like, the news isnt all bad. In fact, Interim Chancellor Brad Colwell said the university was prepared for the numbers.

The decline was budgeted for, Colwell said in a story from last week. This is absolutely not a surprise to us.

And, thats good to hear. In fact, its music to our ears. Remember, it could have been worse. Eastern Illinois University in Charleston has seen its enrollment dip nearly 14 percent.

At SIU, the official fall enrollment is 15,987 students, down from 17,292 last year.

A look inside the numbers show that the number of juniors and seniors at SIU are up (both at about 3 percent). That shows retention efforts are working, something that SIU has worked very hard to do the past few years.

We used to expect those students to come here, and we cant do that anymore. We are actively recruiting those students, Colwell said this past week in an interview with The Southerns Dustin Duncan. The retention efforts are working. You dont turn retention around overnight.

And, it is important to remember that the university is increasing its academic standards.

Gone are the days when SIU had a reputation  right or wrong  that anyone capable of filling out an admission form would be accepted.

Colwell said the university has to bring in students prepared for a college curriculum. He said attracting the right kind of student is important because the university is investing tons of money in the students with scholarships and grants.

To that end, Colwell said the university is admitting students with much higher ACT scores, and fewer scoring in the 11-16 ACT range.

Another thing that was nice to hear: Colwell and SIU arent putting the blame on the states budgetary issues.

We need to do better, and we will. That, I promise you, Colwell said. Just because we are down, doesnt mean we are out by any stretch.

Yes, the states budget is a mess  thats actually putting it nicely. And, its not quite breaking news.

Its a positive that SIU is making retention progress in spite of the states budget mess.

After all, it's a safe bet the budget issues arent going to magically disappear anytime soon. That seems self-evident.

Another reason for optimism is the City of Carbondale is making efforts to make the town more enticing. More specifically, city officials have been working on a downtown revitalization plan.

Carbondale City Manager Gary Williams said that the drop in enrollment is not the end of the world in a story last week.

He has a good feeling about it, too.

This news presents a lot of opportunity, he said. We are sensitive to the role we play to help (SIU) be more successful.

And the actions are backing up Williams words.

Ground has already been broken on a new downtown hotel, which is much needed, and other businesses are coming in as well.

Thats a boon for SIU.

The more attractive Carbondale is for students, the better things can be.

The bottom line is this: Carbondale needs SIU and SIU needs Carbondale. And, both are making efforts to improve.

Carbondales plan to improve the downtown area go can only mean good things for SIU. The universitys efforts to become a better institution means a better Carbondale.

If the city and university stay on this positive path, there will be brighter days ahead for SIU and Carbondale.
The governors of both Carolinas have issued executive orders designed to ease the impact on gasoline supplies and prices following a pipeline spill earlier this month in Alabama.

The pipeline has been shut down for more than a week after a spill on Sept. 9 released 250,000 gallons of fuel. News outlets report that gasoline prices in some areas of the Carolinas have increased in recent days.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley issued an order that will allow an increase in the number of fuel truck deliveries.

An order issued by Gov. Pat McCrory in North Carolina waives some of the size and weight restrictions on gasoline tank trucks. McCrory says that should help protect consumers from excessive gas prices and ensure an uninterrupted supply of fuel.

The pipeline shutdown affects five states. Governors in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee previously took action similar to Haleys.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has ordered the company responsible to take corrective action before the fuel starts flowing again.

Colonial Pipeline Co. must conduct testing and analysis on the failed section of the pipeline, according to the department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Agency, which is investigating the spill in rural Alabama.

The company has acknowledged that between 252,000 gallons and 336,000 gallons of gasoline leaked from a pipeline near Helena, Alabama, since the spill was first detected Sept. 9. It's unclear when the spill actually started. The pipeline section that failed runs from Mississippi to Atlanta.

The agency said the spill is "within an unusually sensitive ecological area" and it ordered Colonial to take action "to protect the public, property and the environment from potential hazards."

"The department will remain on site to carry out its investigation, and make sure the operator is taking the necessary steps to prevent any future incidents," agency administrator Marie Therese Dominguez said in a statement.

In a statement Saturday, the Alpharetta, Georgia-based company said repair work had begun in an effort to return the pipeline to service "as rapidly and safely as possible."

The company said it is shipping as much gasoline as possible on its distillate mainline, Line 2, in order to mitigate the impact of the pipeline that has been shut down. Colonial earlier said most of the leaked gasoline is contained in a retention pond near the city of Helena and there's no public safety concern.

Motorists could pay more for gasoline in coming days, although experts say that any spike in service-station prices should only be temporary. Colonial said that supply disruptions would be felt first in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. If prices rise, the effect could be felt the hardest in Tennessee, which is supplied by a spur off the leaky pipeline.
BRANCHVILLE -- The 48th annual week-long Raylrode Daze Festivul begins Sunday in Branchville as community members and visitors come together to celebrate the town's rich history.

The first festival began in 1969 as a way to keep Branchville on the map.

During the heyday of travel by rail, Branchville was the hub, said Tom Jennings, festival chairman. We were booming.

Townspeople would see travelers going to and from Georgia, Charleston and Columbia meeting at the Branchville railroad junction -- the world's oldest.

Boarding houses were available, and different businesses were able to make good profits off of the visitors.

Any given Saturday night in Branchville was like Raylrode Daze all the time, Jennings said. It was that many people.

He said there were so many people, in fact, the town would blow a siren at night as a signal that it was time to go home.

When travel by rail declined and passenger trains were stopped ... Branchville began to wither, Jennings said. Without those people there, we started to dry up.

The people of the town thought of starting the Raylrode Daze Festivul originally to help out the merchants.

Nine businessmen agreed to pitch in $100, with one contributing $200, for a total of $1,000 to spend on the first festival.

They planned this festival and didnt have any idea what it was going to do, Jennings said. They were completely, 100 percent overwhelmed with the crowd.

The Churn, a restaurant on the towns main road, saw so many customers that it ran out of food.

The main attraction was a staged bank robbery and gunfight that took place at an actual bank in Branchville.

When it was all over, the person that was doing the announcing said, You have just seen a performance by the Branchville Street Players, and thats how it got started, Jennings said.

In a short amount of time, several people got together to turn a vacant lot in Branchville into what is now known as "Branch Junction," a sort of town within a town built with an Old West feel.

Boone Walters was instrumental in the designs for Branch Junction.

Boone was a very dedicated festival worker and gunfighter for years, and Branch Junction was his baby, Jennings said. He took great pride in the presentation of Branch Junction, how it was to look each year to resemble a Western town.

Through the years, buildings were added on and a stage was built.

The gunfights continued to be an annual feature at the festival.

The junction has also seen its share of difficulties, however.

In 2007, the Red Dog Saloon caught fire.

We were able to salvage the train cars and a few of our barrels, Jennings said.

Many festival pictures were stored in the building as well and were lost in the fire.

The following year, in March 2008, a tornado went through the town, demolishing buildings. The twister ripped off the roof of The Churn and, as Jennings described, left Branch Junction "in toothpicks."

Probably, thats one of the best things thats ever happened to Branch Junction, he said.

Jennings said they rebuilt the Western town replica and it was in better condition than the previous set-up.

It seemed like every year we were rebuilding or patching or doing something with the buildings, he said. Since weve had the tornado, we havent had to have a whole lot of maintenance on the buildings done.

They were able to add porches, sidewalks and rebuild the Red Dog Saloon with additional donated money, Jennings said.

In the months following the tornado, the town was still able to hold its Raylrode Daze Festivul on schedule.

I feel like the groups that have taken on the festival throughout the years have done their best to keep to the traditions that the early pioneers of the festival set forth, Jennings said.

Jennings has served as the festivals chairman since 2001, as treasurer a few years prior to that and has worked with the festival off and on since high school.

He said he is concerned for future generations because the time will come when he and the present board member will have to take a back seat. He said there doesnt seem to be much interest among younger people in the town to learn about the festival and take the helm.

Theres so many things going on in the world, and everybodys byline is, 'Im too busy,' Jennings said. I would hate to see it stop, but if we dont get some people interested, its just inevitable that its going to have to stop.

Those involved in the festival have to love it because it involves long hours and hard work, he said.

You just cant come in here and say youre going to run the festival. We have a set of bylaws that we go by, and you need to learn it, Jennings said. You need to know how things work and what you can and cannot do.

This years celebration will kick off at 2 p.m. this Sunday, Sept. 18.

We have something planned each night, Jennings said.

Some of the biggest draws this year will be the spike driving contests, corn hole team tournaments and the new Howl at the Moon 5K Run/Walk.

The 5K will get underway at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Orangeburg County Broadband Office, 140 Bridge St.

All proceeds will benefit the Friends of the Orangeburg County Animal Shelter.
WASHINGTON -- Why does Donald Trump say such nice things about Vladimir Putin and Russia? What is Trump hiding in the tax returns he refuses to release? And are those two questions related?

Voters should demand answers. Until we get them, we can only speculate about Trump's weird admiration for a strongman who presides over a system of autocratic cronyism, flouts international law with his territorial ambitions, works against U.S. interests in hotspots around the globe, and apparently might have even deployed computer hackers to meddle in our election.

There may be nothing nefarious here; perhaps Trump just admires Putin's swaggering style. But there are reasons to wonder whether Trump's warm-and-fuzzy feelings are prompted by financial motives.

"Reasons to wonder" normally do not qualify as legitimate fodder for journalism, but these are not normal circumstances. Trump has broken with four decades of precedent and adamantly refused to let voters see his tax returns. His excuse -- that he is under audit -- is bogus. Given his history as a swashbuckling wheeler-dealer, including four corporate bankruptcies, there are legitimate questions about his finances. Yet he stonewalls, knowing that speculation does not qualify as proof.

Here's what we know. In July, Trump said in a tweet that he has "ZERO investments in Russia." If this is true, the more relevant question may be the extent to which Russian oligarchs, by definition beholden to Putin, have investments in Trump and his empire.

In 2008, Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., said at a New York real estate conference that "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets." Referring to the Trump Organization, where he works with his father, he added that "we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."

That boast would make perfect sense. Following the bankruptcy of Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts in 2004 -- which involved three casinos in Atlantic City and one in Indiana, and allowed Trump to get out from under an estimated $1.8 billion in debt -- banks became wary of lending to Trump, according to widespread reports.

A 2010 federal lawsuit alleged that much of the money that financed the Trump SoHo luxury hotel development in Manhattan, which broke ground in 2006, came from a shadowy Iceland-based corporate entity. The suit alleges that "the money behind" the firm was "mostly Russian," and that the Russians involved "were in favor with Putin."

Trump was not charged with any wrongdoing in the suit, but the suit does strongly suggest that if traditional lenders were reluctant to get involved with Trump, Russian money had no such compunctions.

Which raises an obvious question: To what extent are Trump and the Trump Organization dependent on Russian investment? We have no way of knowing. Examination of Trump's tax returns might provide the answer.

We do know that Trump considered Russian oligarchs prime customers for high-end properties. In 2008, he sold a Palm Beach mansion to billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million. Less than four years earlier, Trump had picked up the property at a bankruptcy auction for $41 million -- meaning he made quite a tidy profit. Rybolovlev, who was then worth nearly $13 billion, is not believed to be as close to Putin as some of the other oligarchs, but neither is he in any sense an opponent of the regime.

Despite earlier claims to the contrary, Trump now says he has never actually met Putin. He tried his best to do so in 2013, when he took his Miss Universe pageant to Moscow, but Putin canceled a planned meeting and sent a lacquered box as a present instead, along with what was described as a warm note.

In his campaign, Trump has been consistent in calling for better relations with Russia. He has accepted Russia's annexation of Crimea as a fait accompli and suggested he might not come to the aid of the Baltic states if Russia invaded. Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort did extensive work on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych, the thuggish Putin-backed Ukrainian president who was ousted in 2014 and now lives in exile in Russia.

As a general rule, I don't believe in conspiracy theories and I do believe in coincidences. But Trump's chest-thumping "America First" attitude toward the rest of the world seems to make an exception for Russia, and we need to know why.

Trump supporters will say I'm speculating without the relevant facts. I say provide them: Release the taxes, now.

Orangeburg native and Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com<mailto:eugenerobinson@washpost.com>
Although I have been a so-called black American and a social conservative all my life  and found the two aspects of my identity to be remarkably congruent  I am always surprised when confronted with the vitriol that black conservatives face when addressing the black community.

I have often wondered why it is OK for other groups to maintain a diversity of political viewpoints  whether they are Asians, Latinos or Jewish Americans  but black Americans seem to believe that anyone who does not vote the party line is a traitor to his or her race.

Why is it that among African-Americans anyone who does not support the Democrats or liberal causes is labeled a sell-out, or a self-loathing black person? Are we not as diverse in our thinking as other groups? We should really avoid chastising each other for thinking differently. Instead we should appreciate and celebrate our wonderfully diverse community. We should welcome diverse perspectives as an asset, not a liability. The more we do this, the faster we will grow as a community and attain mainstream success in America.

Case in point: Many were quick to chastise the pastors who opened the door for Donald Trumps message to the black community, but where are those same people when it comes time to chastising the murderers in Chicago who are killing people?

When it comes to Trump though, it seems there is a special kind of disrespect. People hate Trump so much  and by default some of his black surrogates  that the discussion gets overheated before we even get a chance to discuss the issues.

Now Im not going to pretend that Trump hasnt been a magnate for controversy, whether intentionally or not, but surely we dont all have to lose our heads just because something outrageous that might have been said by a candidate on the campaign trail.

Since when has merely having a conversation become a prohibited act? The attitude in some parts of the black community seems to be, I can't even talk to you because I can't understand how you can support Trump. But for business people and others within the black community, we look at a guy like Trump and we see an opportunity. Perhaps Trumps not a perfect guy  who is?  but surely we can have a conversation about the things we have in common.

For example, what about Obamacare? I own businesses with more than 100 employees. Obamacare has increased the overhead costs for health coverage significantly in my company. It has reduced the number of people (including African-Americans) I can afford to hire  and taken away more opportunities from blacks than it has provided. I feel that I have a legitimate grievance about the excess costs imposed on my business and its employees.

But even more fundamentally, what are we really arguing about? How much of a difference does politicians of either party actually make in the everyday lives of most people? What is the most impactful factor in our lives  who we elect as president or the choices we make every day? I would argue that the freedom to change ones life is far more valuable than any benefit the government can possibly provide (usually at the expense of freedom).

But perhaps the most fundamental reason to celebrate these differences is that we should not put all of our eggs in one basket. What if Trump wins the election? We need people on the inside who are trusted by the new administration, who actually care about the black community and can negotiate on our behalf.

That is a major reason why I have come to support Dr. Ben Carsons efforts to bring Trump to the black and a wider community. Whatever you may think about Trump, Carson is not out of touch and he has demonstrated his connection with the black community time and time again.

As a candidate he was the only one of the 16 Republicans to visit inner city Baltimore in the wake of the riots there. And he is an ally and trusted adviser to Trump, having personally introduced Trump to inner city Detroit, where Carson grew up.

The bottom line is that the mission of black conservatism is not antithetical to the interests of the black community. We are not as far apart as some would have you believe. We are in fact one nation and one community  with a thousand different points of light.

While each individual may have different aims  Carson is a neurosurgeon and I am an entrepreneur  we all want what is best for our families and our communities.

I urge African-Americans to consider the ultimate price for limiting diversity of opinion within the community. The very person you are alienating today with harsh words and closed minds may in fact be the very person you may need tomorrow to negotiate on your behalf. Keep an open mind and an open heart. Even though there are matters over which we may disagree, we should all agree that we are Gods children and equal in his sight.

-----

Armstrong Williams is owner of Howard Stirk Holdings, which owns TV stations in Alabama, Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Flint, Michigan. He is the editor-in-chief of American Current See Magazine published by the Washington Times newspaper and was the Student Government Association president from 1979 to 1981 at South Carolina State University.
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By Trend





Today, we witnessed another shameful, illegal rally of the National Council, Siyavush Novruzov, deputy executive secretary of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, told Trend.

Novruzov noted that in fact the rally was illegal.

"The organizers of the rally violated the requirements of the Electoral Code and the law "On freedom of assembly".

The law says that you can not tolerate religious, national, racial discrimination and can not insult a person. But this happened during the rally and I believe that such cases should be prevented ", - he said.

He stressed that the rally brought together people without beliefs, positions in society.

"In one of the slogans there were written that "We have to sign an association agreement with the EU", on the other hand - the organizers and the crowd chanted "Allahu Akbar".

The MP said that all the speeches at the rally were built on lies and slander.
Armenian armed forces have eight times violated the ceasefire on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops over the past 24 hours, using large caliber machine guns,Azerbaijans Defense Ministry reported on September 18.

Armenian armed forces, stationed in the hills in Noyemberian and Krasnoselsk district opened fire at Azerbaijani positions located in the village Kamarli in Gazakh region and nameless hills in Gadabay districts.

Positions of the Azerbaijani army also underwent fire from the Armenian positions located near to the occupied villages Bash Garvand village of Aghdam district, as well as, nameless hills in Goygol, Goranboy, Fuzuli and Jebrail districts.

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.
By Trend





Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov met with Mevlut Cavu?o?lu, Ramtane Lamamra, Retno Marsudi, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and Riad Al-Malki, Foreign Ministers of Turkey, Algeria, Indonesia, Republic of South Africa and Palestine respectively in the margins of the 17th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) taking place in Isla de Margarita, Venezuela.

At the meetings the development of bilateral cooperation in the political, economic and humanitarian fields, as well as the issues on the agenda of the NAM and the 71th Session of the UN General Assembly were discussed. The importance of enhancement of relations between our countries within the international organizations was also noted.

Minister Elmar Mammadyarov briefed his counterparts on the current negotiation process over the settlement of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and highly appreciated consistent just position within the NAM on the settlement of the conflict based on territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan.

Minister Elmar Mammadyarov noting expected decision on the Chairmanship of Azerbaijan to the NAM for the years of 2019-2022 to be made within the Summit held in Venezuela stated that Azerbaijan will spare no efforts to promote and enhance the purposes and goals of the Movement during its chairmanship.








By Trend





Turkish warplanes destroyed three targets belonging to Daesh terrorists in northern Syria, the military said on Saturday, Daily Sabah reported.

According to military sources, an air operation was conducted Saturday between 11.53 a.m. and 12.26 p.m., which resulted in the destruction of three Daesh targets in Tatimus and Kunah Tira regions.

The Turkish warplanes safely returned to their base at the end of the operation.

The moderate opposition's Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces also managed to take control of the Tatimus and Kunah Tira regions, which lies west of al Rai, a town heavily contested between the FSA and Daesh since March.

The operation in the region has been underway since 1.00 p.m.

Meanwhile, military sources noted that five opposition fighters have been killed and six were injured as a result of improvised explosives in Tatimus region on Friday.

Moreover, the Turkish military hit 67 Daesh targets by 59 t-122 CNRA rocket launchers and 260 howitzers, adding to the 652 targets and 2,728 shells in total since the start of the operation.

Also on Friday, coalition forces killed five Daesh terrorists in three airstrikes, which destroyed five buildings and mortar positions belonging to the terrorists.

The Turkish military launched Operation Euphrates Shield on Aug. 24 to improve security, support coalition forces and eliminate the terror threat along Turkey's border using Free Syrian Army fighters backed by Turkish armor, artillery and jets.
By Trend

Russia convened an emergency UN Security Council Session on US-Led coalition airstrikes against the Syrian Army which Moscow fears will undermine the breakthrough ceasefire agreement that just went into effect earlier this week, Sputnik ?nternational reported .

On Saturday, Russia convened an emergency session of the UN Security Council to discuss the US-led coalition airstrikes that the Syrian Army Command says killed at least 62 Assad regime soldiers. The US admits that they inadvertently targeted the Syrian forces, but claim that in a statement by the US Central Command claim that they warned Russia prior to the bombing.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the United States and the coalition failed to provide any warning to Russia prior to the bombing attack at Deir Ez-Zor carried out by two American F-16s and two American A10 ground attack aircraft.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry joined in the calls to the United Nations saying calling on the Security Council to officially condemn airstrikes by the US-led coalition of Syrian Army positions. Syria has long argued that American airstrikes in the country's airspace are illegal because the Assad government has not invited the United States to intervene.

The attacks come only five days into the breakthrough ceasefire agreement orchestrated by the United States and Russia with Moscow saying in a statement that they believe that the US is responsible for the imminent breakdown of the agreement. Nonetheless, the failure by US forces to appropriately target highlights the necessity of the ceasefire arrangement which called for the US and Russia to ultimately coordinate their strikes.
By Trend





The US Democratic Senator Jim Dabakis has made a secret trip to Iran, Iranian MP Mohammad Javad Karimi Ghoddousi said.

Karimi Ghoddousi, who is a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the parliament, said that the intelligence minister will be questioned in this regard, Tasnim news agency reported Sept. 18.

The MP added that he will raise the issue in the upcoming meeting of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission which will be held next week.

A scientific conference was held in Mashahd citys Ferdowsi University in recent days, Karimi Ghoddousi said, adding that some foreign invitees, who attended at the conference, are close to Israeli and Jewish circles.

He did not unveil further details on the issue.

James "Jim" Dabakis is a Democratic member of the Utah State Senate, representing District 2. He was first appointed to the chamber in December 2012.

He previously served as the chairman of the Utah Democratic Party.
JLL, one of the world's leading real estate investment and advisory firms, has appointed Christian Ulbrich as its new chief executive officer from next month.



He will replace Colin Dyer who steps down from his main role on September 30.



As president and CEO, Ulbrich will have overall leadership responsibility for JLLs strategic direction and growth, said a statement from JLL.



He will report to the board of directors, on which he serves as an executive member, and will also chair the companys global executive board on which he has served for eight years.



Ulbrich will continue to guide the companys data, information and analytics priorities till he retires from JLL at the end of 2016, remaining on the board and serving as an adviser through 2017.



Working closely with Ulbrich since he joined JLL, I know first-hand his deep understanding of global real estate dynamics and ability to lead across wide and diverse geographies, said Dyer.



With his guidance and our strong management team, JLL will continue to grow and prosper, he added.



Since 2004 under Dyers leadership, JLLs revenues have grown more than five times - to $6 billion - through organic growth, over 80 strategic acquisitions across the globe, and the addition of more than 100 offices and 30 new countries to its geographic footprint.-TradeArabia News Service
Grundfos, a world leader in advanced pump solutions, has decided to brand its company cars with the slogan Grundfos, Build on Sustainability to promote one of its core values.



The initiative is in line with the company's continuous efforts to promote sustainability and energy savings, it said.



Vehicle signage is great as it never turns off. Everywhere the vehicle may go, even when it is parked, it will still be visible to public, promoting our brand and telling our story to more customers, and more importantly to the communities where we work and live in, commented Henning Sandager, area managing director, Middle East and Turkey.



We have a great responsibility to emphasise the water and energy challenges faced by the world. As Grundfos employees, we take great pride in making people aware that we contribute and are committed to global sustainability by pioneering technologies that improve quality of life for people and care for the planet," he added.



"With the right graphic design and installation, your vehicle can be a form of effective advertising for your message anywhere your vehicle is driven. Our employees are a main element in the success of this endeavour as they are proud to convey the message that we are sustainable by driving our branded cars in the streets of Dubai and the UAE, concluded Sandager.



Grundfos was able to fund this transformation with money saved on energy-efficient solutions in Grundfos regional headquarters in Dubai, the company said.



"This demonstrates the deep commitment of the company towards sustainability and energy savings which are central issues on the global agenda nowadays," it added.



Founded in 1945 in Bjerringbro, a small town in Denmark, Grundfos has expanded its production to more than 40 countries. Today Grundfos is represented by 19,000 employees in over 50 countries worldwide with revenue above 3 billion ($3.35 billion). - TradeArabia News Service


Militants attacked an Indian army brigade headquarters near the de facto border with Pakistan on Sunday, killing 17 soldiers in one of the most deadly attacks in the northern region of Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency.



Four "fidayeen" - or commando-style gunmen willing to fight to the death - were confirmed killed after penetrating the base in Uri near the Line of Control with Pakistan, an Indian army spokesman said.



Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned what he called the "cowardly terror attack".



"I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi said in a series of Twitter posts.



Television reporters at the scene said the dawn raid had surprised soldiers in their sleep. The attackers set fire to a building before the four were killed in a gunfight that lasted several hours.



An army spokesman confirmed that the number of soldiers killed in the attack had risen to 17, making the toll far worse than a similar raid on an army base in Punjab state in January that India blamed on Pakistan-based militants.



Television footage showed helicopters flying to evacuate the injured as an operation continued to secure the area. Smoke rose from the compound, set in mountainous terrain. The Defence Ministry put the number of wounded at 35.



The raid comes amid heightened tension in India's only Muslim-majority region, which has faced more than two months of protests following the July 8 killing of a popular separatist commander.



At least 78 civilians have been killed and thousands injured in street clashes with the Indian security forces, who have been criticised by human rights groups for using excessive force including shotguns that fire pellets that have blinded people.



Indian-ruled Kashmir is one of the world's most militarised regions, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, paramilitaries and police deployed to guard the frontier with Pakistan and contain a restive people with strong leanings towards greater autonomy and even independence.



FORCE ACTIVATION



Home Minister Rajnath Singh chaired a crisis meeting in New Delhi and cancelled trips to Russia and the United States. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will travel to Uri to oversee the operation to secure the area and investigate the attack.



"It is clearly a case of cross-border terror attack. We don't know which militant group is involved," a senior Home Ministry official told Reuters.



Pakistan rejected allegations that it was involved. "India immediately puts blame on Pakistan without doing any investigation. We reject this," foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria told Reuters.



There has been no claim of responsibility.



The military death toll was the worst in Indian-ruled Kashmir since a raid in December 2014, also near Uri which is to the west of the region's main city of Srinagar, in which eight soldiers and three police were killed.



Before this attack, 102 people had been killed in militant attacks in India's part of the Himalayan region this year. Among them were 30 security personnel, 71 militants and one civilian, according to a tally by the New Delhi-based South Asia Terrorism Portal.



Modi recently raised the stakes in the nuclear-armed neighbours' decades-old feud by expressing support for separatists in Pakistan's resource-rich Baluchistan province.



Pakistan has, meanwhile, called on the United Nations and the international community to investigate atrocities it alleges have been committed by Indian security forces in Kashmir.



The United Nations is holding its annual general assembly in New York, where Kashmir is likely to come onto the agenda.



Separately, a prominent Kashmiri rights activist has been held in Srinagar after being prevented from catching a flight to a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.



Relations between India and Pakistan have been on edge since the New-Year attack on an Indian air force base in Punjab, near the border with Pakistan, that killed seven uniformed men.



India has blamed a Pakistan-based militant group for that attack but, after initial progress, an attempt to conduct a joint investigation has lost momentum. The two sides have frozen a tentative peace dialogue. - Reuters
The upcoming Salon des Grandes Complications, a fine watchmaking exhibition, will showcase a plethora of specialities, featuring traditional heritage brands, niche independents and modern-day innovators.



The third edition of the event will be held at DIFC from November 7 to 10.



At the 2016 edition, A. Lange & Sohne, Armin Strom, Arnold & Son, Champs Elysees, CVSTOS, DeWitt, Erwin Sattler, Kerbedanz, Louis Moinet, Montegrappa, Parmigiani Fleurier, Perrelet, Rebellion, Roger Dubuis, Vacheron Constantin, Vianney Halter, Visconti, Voutilainen and William Wagner Geneva will be present, amongst others.



Salon des Grandes Complications 2016 is supported by the Embassy of Switzerland, in partnership with Maserati and Visa.



The exhibition offers a unique experience and platform for industry professionals, enthusiasts and the general public to engage with experts and learn about the endlessly inspiring world of watchmaking and mechanical excellence.



Over the four days, the latest collections of timepieces and writing instruments will be displayed, as well as special limited editions and one-off masterpieces. From timeless creations to pioneering new movements, cutting-edge material and painstaking craftsmanship, the speciality of each company within the realm of mechanics and artisanship will be highlighted.



Master craftsmen from several companies will be present, offering incredible insights into their distinguishing art forms and extraordinary creations.



The 12th annual Watch of the Year Awards gala will mark the end of the exhibition on the final day.  TradeArabia News Service
Al Fares, an international equine trade fair considered the oldest in Asia and Africa, has shifted the venue for its upcoming event from the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre (DICEC) into Meydan in Dubai, UAE.



The 11th edition of Al Fares, which will feature elite names of international players in the equine industry, will run from October 5 to 7.



Al Fares 2016 will powerfully kick off being the only fair that comes very prior to the kick off of the horseracing season in Dubai. We have moved to Meydan because we consider it the ideal destination for the equestrian business, sport and lifestyle not only in the UAE but also regionally, said Satish Khanna, general manager of Al Fajer Information and Service that organizes this show every two years.



It is delighting that we have added these three countries into our participants list as this shows the continuous interest in Dubai as a springboard to serve the entire Middle East market, added Khanna. Capitalizing on the booming regional market for equestrian products, Al Fares is one of the most prominent equestrian shows worldwide that offer a leading trade platform to do business.



Shifting venue of Al Fares to Meydan is in line with the efforts of Meydan Group to link the world with Dubai through international horseracing and equestrian events. Meydan will let us serve the equestrian business at a closer proximity as it is not just a venue for horseracing, but an integrated city that is sustainable, environmentally responsible positioning Dubai at the center of the competitive global business stage, Khanna added.



Huge number of visitors is expected to visit the exhibition that allows direct retail shopping prior to the racing season and holding it in Meydan will further strengthen the position of the show, said Rasheed Mbayed, exhibition manager, Al Fares 2016.



The UAE tops the list among Mena countries in the equine industry due to the many world-class races held, including endurance, flat races and show jumping. Also, there are a variety of private and public clubs in the UAE that highly contribute in the development of this industry in the country.



More than 200 racing stables listed from the Gulf look into Al Fares as a retail shop for three days. The show is well positioned to cater to the needs of the series of horse races happening in the UAE as a time the average flat race in the UAE is among the highest internationally, according to the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities, added Mbayed.



The exhibition offers a platform for traders to showcase equine food, medicines and infrastructure for the establishment of racing centers plus any other maintenance services associated with the horses and the equestrian sector. It also displays the latest new products and services for horses and riders.



This years Al Fares will host a series of exciting discussion panels and sessions about the equine industry and horses. These sessions will throw light on the latest technologies and scientific researches. They represent an ideal opportunity for horse owners, veterinarians and equine industry professionals and fans to benefit from the international expertise and the latest findings in this domain.



The exhibition reflects the remarkable development witnessed by UAE equestrian sector and highlights the latest new products and services for horses and riders. It also attracts horse owners, trainers, equine industry experts and renowned horsemen as well as professional polo players from all over the world.



The exhibition also showcases the latest equipment and equestrian products bringing together horse owners, trainers and industry leaders.



The organizers of Al Fares 2016 say that there is an ambiance of competition among exhibitors at this edition which comes as an additional value for both individual buyers as well as companies.  TradeArabia News Service
The upcoming GOV HR Summit in Abu Dhabi, UAE, the biggest HR event for the government and public sector in the Mena region, will host the GCC GOV HR Awards honouring individual and organisation level contributions.



Hosted by QNA International, the event will take place at the Emirates Palace Hotel on October 26.



The awards are to recognize, celebrate and honour the outstanding contributions and achievements of governments, business organizations and individuals in the GCC who have raised the benchmark of people performance across the region.



The GCC GOV HR Awards will be presented in the following organizational and individual level categories:



1) Organization of the Year for Women Empowerment



2) Organization of the Year for Youth Empowerment



3) Excellence in Talent Management Award



4) GCC GOV HR Team of the Year



5) Innovation in Employee Engagement



6) Most Distinctive Learning and Development Strategy



7) Outstanding Change Management Strategy



8) Innovative Recruitment and Retention Strategy



9) Best Nationalization Initiative in the GCC



10) Digital HR Award of the Year



11) Nationalization Initiative in the Private Sector



12) GOV HR Leader of the Year



13) People First Leader Award



The main highlight of this years award categories is the Best Nationalization Initiative in the GCC applicable to both the public and private sector. The award felicitates organizations that have undertaken initiatives that provide support for nationals to reach key leadership positions at both corporate and technical levels, and empower them to become highly qualified and committed leaders of tomorrow.



The individual set of awards includes the GOV HR Leader of the Year and the People First Leader, both of which honours leaders who have pioneered HR strategies and have exemplified the increasingly strategic role of HR in business.



Ackash Jain, Organizer, GOV HR Summit and Awards 2016, said: "The GOV HR Awards brings many benefits to governments and businesses, including providing an opportunity to develop HR practices in lines with the economic vision of the region. We encourage companies to be part of the awards and to enable winners to share their best practices. Our journey towards excellence will continue and through our initiatives we strive to put the GCC at the forefront of human capital growth and economic development internationally."  TradeArabia News Service
The process industry has a lot in common with the construction sector in terms of ways of reducing energy consumption and CO2 emission. In both cases a key to sustainability lies in viable solutions that lower the operating costs by minimising heat transfer and therefore  the final energy demand. How much can a single factory save with proper insulation?



According to Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) regulations, organisations that qualify as large undertakings must choose one or more routes to compliance that cover all areas of significant energy consumption and are bound to carry out ESOS assessments every four years. These assessments are audits of the energy used by their buildings, industrial processes and transport to identify cost-effective energy saving measures. Unfortunately, the savings potential is not always recognised.



The level of insulation applied may be based on a minimum investment decision following requirements regarding the maximum surface temperature to avoid personal injuries, minimum process needs or based on generic maximum heat loss rates only, said Craig Treanor, technical support manager at Paroc Ltd and certified TIPCHECK engineer.



There is a recognised gap between current and cost-effective insulation levels. He added.



Recognising the potential



How much could we save? The answer to that question can be found in the European Industrial Insulation Foundation report "Climate Protection with rapid payback  Energy and CO2 savings potential of industrial insulation in EU-27.



According to the non-profit organisation, the share of equipment without insulation or with damaged insulation in EU is conservatively estimated to be 10 per cent, 6 per cent and 2 per cent for low- middle- and high temperature surfaces respectively. There is a significant energy saving and CO2 mitigation potential related to improved thermal insulation in industry. This potential is currently untapped, despite being cost-effective to implement.



The report covers several case studies where TIPCHECK energy audits were performed. In a chemical plant in France, 30 valves and 35 storage tanks rooftops were uninsulated, generating a total of 12.600 Mwh of unnecessary heat loss per year.



An investment of 100,000 ($112,000) which covered audit, insulation instalment and material costs, allowed to achieve approximately 405,000 of energy cost savings in the first year and 505,000 in the following years. Payback? Merely two and a half months, explained Treanor.



Benefits for European industry



The study goes the extra mile to describe the potential of energy and emission savings for all European Trading System members, including the UK. EIIF estimates that if the plant managers in EU-27 would consider economically viable solutions such as insulating bare surfaces to cost-effective levels and repairing damaged insulation in industry, we could save approximately 620 PJ of energy and cut the emission of CO2 by 49 Mt yearly.



This energy savings potential is equivalent to the energy consumption of all Dutch industry, while the annual CO2 reductions potential is equivalent to 18 million medium-sized cars each running 12,500 kilometres per year.



In order to tap into this potential, the assessors at EIIF estimate a one-time investment of 900 million is required. At current prices, it would help reduce industry production costs Europe-wide by 3.5 billion every year and diminish the gas import from Russia by up to 12.5 per cent.



The average payback period of industrial insulation improvements is 1-2 years and it is easy to achieve compared to other Best Available Techniques. It can be even shorter depending on energy prices, energy losses and insulation costs.  TradeArabia News Service
Opec members may call an extraordinary meeting to discuss oil prices if they reach consensus during an informal gathering in Algiers this month, Opec Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said during a visit to Algeria, the country's state news agency APS said on Sunday.



Barkindo said he was optimistic about the meeting in Algeria on September 26-28. He has previously said discussions in Algiers will be consultations and no major decisions will be made.



"The informal gathering was proposed as a move to having an extraordinary meeting with the aim of taking decisions to stabilise the market," Barkindo said.



The Opec chief has said the organisation is not seeking a definite price range for oil but stability for the market.



Russia, Iran and other major oil producers are due to take part in the Algiers meeting.



Several Opec producers have called for an output freeze to rein an oil glut that triggered a price collapse in the last two years, hitting the revenues of major producers.



Saudi Arabia and non-Opec member Russia agreed this month to cooperate in oil markets, saying they could limit future output. - Reuters
The discounter segment in Egypt is growing rapidly as the industry steadily shifts away from traditional retail towards modern trade and will see up to 47 per cent annual growth in the coming three years, a report said.



Largely recovered from the political and economic instability of 2011 and 2012, Egypt is back to enjoying a fast-growing economy, added the report titled Egypts retail market (cautiously) Back in Business from A T Kearney, a global management consulting group.



Egypt is an emerging market with an expanding population predicted to reach 100 million by 2020, with nearly half located in urban areas and highly sensitive customer price points. This has created a demand for discount offerings catering for the demand for retail products in the low to medium price bandwidth, the report said.



Shamail Siddiqi, principal, A T Kearney said: Overall the Egyptian retail sector has always been a key facet of the economy. By meeting the demands of a growing population it has remained largely intact despite several adversities in the macro landscape. Egypts retail market is set to further transform over the next decade. First and foremost we see the discount segment at the forefront of this transformation driven by the current socio-economic situation.



Earlier this year Egypt re-entered the A.T. Kearney Global Retail Development Index (GRDI - a report used to guide global investments since 2002) for the first time since 2011. Its rank on the GRDI indicates an attractive medium-to-long term value proposition, as the modern retail segment in Egypt is much less saturated than other markets. Retail spend in Egypt is expected to rise from around $1,500 per capita in 2015 to more than $1,800 by end of 2017.



Forward-thinking investors are investing in Egyptian retail, revealing growing confidence in the sector. said Mirko Warschun, lead partner Consumer and Retail Practice EMEA, A T Kearney. This year in particular, we can see the return of investors appetite and a surge for the first time since 2010. The country has a strong growth potential and is creating an investment-friendly climate to encourage both domestic and foreign investment.



The majority of the investments are taking place near the attractive high-growth Greater Cairo residential areas - one of the fastest growing areas with double-digit growth in yearly population rates until 2020.



According to the report, aside from the discounter segment, other areas of Egypts retail landscape also offer growth prospects. The countrys grocery retail market grew by 12 per cent nominally and two per cent in real terms between 2009 and 2015. Supermarkets are the largest modern  trade segment with 12 per cent of sales, while hypermarkets make up a small but fast-growing portion of overall retail with three per cent of sales. This segment is expected to double sales from 2015 to 2019.



An array of stakeholders is already confident in Egypts economic recovery and rapid growth. As the middle class expands and private consumption continues to rise, forward-thinking investors can overcome the challenges and find their mark in a country that is back on the rise, concluded Siddiqi.  TradeArabia News Service
The Gulf Hotel Bahrain Convention and Spa in Bahrain has appointed Lisa Mascoll as spa manager for the hotels newly opened Gulf Spa.



Mascoll has been in the spa and wellness industry for over 20 years, where she began her career in the wellness field as a yoga and fitness instructor. She then went on to receive degrees in both Massage Therapy and Esthetics.



Originally from California, Mascoll has worked both in the US and internationally. Prior to her position with The Gulf Hotel, she was director of spa at the prestigious Leela Palace, New Delhi. During her tenure in America, Lisa was spa director at Essentials Spa in Colorado, spa manager at Snake River Lodge and Spa in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and at The Peninsula Chicago.



General manager Rahim Abu Omar said: This is an exciting time for the hotel! The Gulf Spa is another great addition to the Gulf Hotels leisure facilities. I am delighted to welcome Lisa, who has been responsible for establishing and launching our new spa. The Gulf Hotel is dedicated to consistently providing better value for our guests, which now includes a unique luxury wellness concept exclusively for Bahrain."



The concept behind the Gulf Spa lies in marrying tradition with modernity, Mascoll explained. She adds that the latest treatments and therapies are no longer sufficient for spa-goers today. "Our vision for the Gulf Spa is to present to our guests a sense of place as they are being pampered."



The Gulf Spa is inspired by the rich wellness heritage of the Middle East, incorporating the interior designs and artistic materials inspired by the region. Local ingredients such as pearls, Palm water, herbs and gold will also be included in several treatments.



The Spa includes separate mens and ladies treatment rooms, hammams, hydro & relaxation pools, experience showers, ice fountains and relaxation rooms. In addition it offers a ladies fitness centre, a rooftop relaxation terrace complete with a juice bar, and ladies hair & beauty salon. - TradeArabia News Service
Guests attending Dubais Hotel and Leisure Shows can now have their three-day experience propelled to new heights after the co-located events formed a partnership with two of the citys top hotels.



Dmg events  organisers of The Hotel Show and The Leisure Show Dubai, taking place at the Dubai World Trade Centre from September 17 to 19  have teamed up with the JW Marriott Marquis Dubai and Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates to provide their global visitors unrivalled accommodation during their time in the UAE.



The landmark Dubai properties  announced today as the exhibitions Official Hotel Partners  will provide special room rates and discounts at selected F&B outlets across the three days of the events for the 30,000+ guests expected to attend; a deal which amounts to exceptional value for a stay in two of the regions most famous hotels.



The twin-towered JW Marriott Marquis Dubai is the worlds tallest hotel. It is set in the citys central business district and has been a partner of the Hotel and Leisure Shows for several years.



Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates offers its services for the first time this year, following the completion of the propertys $100 million renovation in December. Directly connected to the award-winning Mall of the Emirates, the hotel is a leading luxury destination for business, dining and leisure in the UAE.



Gary Williams, event director of The Hotel Show and The Leisure Show, explained that the expanded partnership was in response to both events surging international appeal. He said: More than 30 per cent of our visitors arrived from outside Dubai in 2015, and we are expecting more global attendees than ever before this year. The Hotel Shows International Village now takes up a record 46 per cent of the show floor, whilst The Leisure Show will be co-located with Piscine Middle East for the first time. Its organisers, Lyon-based GL events, have attracted exhibitors from all over the world including Canada and Australia. Global companies want to do business here, and we are providing hotel options for them at key points across Dubai including Business Bay, Al Barsha, and Mall of the Emirates.



Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates underwent a $100 million renovation program, re-launching in December to critical acclaim. The luxury five-star hotel, which, has wowed local and international guests, won both the Best Hotel Suite and Best Hotel Renovation/Refurbishment prizes at the Middle East Hotel Awards 2016.



Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the hotels opening, Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates unveiled its luxury Aspen Chalets in April this year, providing guests with a unique, authentic experience of a ski lodge in the heart of Dubai. Michael R. Payne, the hotels general manager, said: Our hotel, with its unrivalled hospitality and F&B outlets, unique themed suites, and unrivalled access to some of the best leisure options in Dubai, is undoubtedly an excellent option for the attendees to the Middle Easts leading events for its hospitality and leisure industry. We look forward to participating in many more editions to come.



The breathtaking JW Marriott Marquis Dubai opened in 2012. As the world's tallest hotel, the five-star accommodation boasts more than 1,600 guest rooms and suites spread out across two towers over 72 spectacular floors, providing panoramic city, canal, and sea views from 1,165ft up.



Valerie Barrie, director of Sales and Marketing at the hotel, said: We have partnered with dmg events for three years now and have seen significantly increased occupancy rates over the dates of the Hotel and Leisure Show, with its visitors looking for unparalleled access to the citys business district, and a short five minute drive to the Dubai World Trade Centre. - TradeArabia News Service
Nesma Airlines, an Egyptian airline company with a Saudi Arabian joint venture, will become the latest carrier to launch domestic flights in the kingdom this November, said a report.



The airline, which currently flies between Saudi and Egypt with three Airbus A320s and one A319, plans to connect the city of Hail with 12 points around the kingdom. It plans to operate with two 68-seater ATR 72-600 turboprops and will initially fly to Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam, said a report in Gulf Business.



We will build our business model at Hail in two directions  first one, direct flights to Hail; and the other one, feeder flights, Lamloum told Al Arabiya. We are trying to use Hail as a hub by feeding some passengers to other destinations.
Dubai-based Seven Tides Hospitality has signed a partnership with Preferred Hotels & Resorts, a leading independent hotel brand, to showcase its new luxury hotel- which is set to open in Q4 2016 - through the global provider's online booking platform.



As part of an impressive roster of high profile international brands, Dukes Dubai will have the opportunity to capitalise on Preferreds 48-year tourism industry pedigree, with access to its innovative sales and marketing expertise and network of sales professionals located in 35 offices worldwide.



Our new partnership with Preferred Hotels & Resorts is further endorsement of the huge potential of Dukes Dubai as we count down to our launch later this year. The Middle East market is fast becoming a strong financial contributor to the companys overall growth and the addition of DUKES Dubai to their portfolio is a win-win situation for both parties, with Preferred Hotels & Resorts generating more than $1 billion in revenues for its 650 plus partners in 2015, a notable increase of 15 per cent on 2014 figures, said Debrah Dhugga, managing director of Dukes Collection.



Located on the west trunk of Palm Jumeirah, the citys most desirable island community, Dukes Dubai will deliver an upscale blend of cosmopolitan luxury twinned with British charm and tradition across 279 guestrooms including 64 stylish suites and the women-only Duchess Floor plus 227 fully furnished hotel apartments, along with six distinctive dining experiences and extensive landscaped leisure facilities including a private beach club and spa.



Bringing Dukes Dubai into the Preferred family ahead of its opening and allowing us to play such a strategic marketing role, speaks volumes for the strength of our brand, both globally and regionally. We are certainly looking forward to a rewarding partnership with Dukes Dubai, said Saurabh Rai, executive vice president, Preferred Hotels & Resorts.



Preferred has a proven track record, marketing a diverse range of independent hotels, brought together under five distinct collections. We felt that Preferred understood our brand, its values and its aspirations and would make an ideal partner to reach out to our mix of discerning corporate and leisure guests, realising the potential of our unique British hospitality brand, said, Abdulla Bin Sulayem, CEO, Seven Tides, the developer of Dukes Dubai.



Dukes Dubai is the latest addition to Preferred Hotels & Resorts burgeoning Middle East portfolio, which has grown through a variety of new partnerships with top-end luxury properties over the past several months, including hotels under the Katara Hospitality umbrella. A total of 91 new properties joined forces with Preferred Hotels & Resorts in 2015. - TradeArabia News Service
Sharyle Sherry Good is president of the volunteer group Friends of the Library, which, among other things, conducts quarterly used book sales at the library.

She retired from the Natrona County School District five years ago, having worked in the libraries at both Midwest School and Natrona County High School. When she retired, she was eager to stay involved with literacy as well as provide volunteer service, and the Friends work fits both.

How has the Friends group evolved? After the long-term people stopped doing the book sales, it was pretty much a group from Casper College that took the reins so the sales could continue. Then those people became very busy, so now its many of the same people but many different ones too. The majority are retired; maybe half were in education. We dont have a membership with dues. Its just a volunteer organization. People do not have to pay dues. We eliminated that. Part of the problem was the paperwork involved for a minimal return of money. We have retired educators, retired public librarians  I think literacy remains a big issue with education people.

How many book sales are there a year? We do four book sales a year. We have full sales in the spring and fall. In June, in conjunction with Nic Fest, we have a bag sale, and in the winter, either the end of November or the first part of December, depending on when Thanksgiving is, we have a bag sale as well with wonderful gift-giving in mind.

What about the Early Bird Sale? There are just a few $10 tickets left for the Early Bird Sale from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. We did that because some people were really bothered by the line and we found that the first people in line at a sale were the real shoppers and so theyd be there for hours and the line wouldnt move. Initially, we thought the Early Bird Sale would give people who really wanted the best choices a chance to do that. What we discovered was they are not necessarily who buy the tickets, but also people who choose to avoid the line. The fire marshal says we can have no more than 65 in that room, so we sell 50 tickets, and when the door opens on Thursday, all 50 get in, along with the 15 volunteers. This is the third time weve done an Early Bird Sale, and it has been very well received. People really like that option.

And about the regular weekend sale? Hours are 9:30 to 4:30 on Saturday and 1 to 4:30 on Sunday. Hardbacks will be $2 and paperbacks sell for 50 cents. Childrens hardbacks are only $1. At the end of the last sale, there literally were no DVDs left, and now we have 10 shelves full. We have over one entire shelf of books published in 2015 or 2016. And last week, our reference librarian took some yearbooks for the collection upstairs, so we help in that way also. Both at the Early Bird Sale and on Sunday in the Crawford Room, there will be two sections of really fantastic books priced at $5 or $1. We have a big overstock of old stuff. For years, people equated old with valuable, and thats not always the case. We have a space issue in the library, and so this is a way to offer wonderful things for essentially bargain prices. Weve checked all of the prices on the internet, and we have one Blacks Law Dictionary that sells for $87 online that we are selling for $5.

How do folks volunteer for your Friends group? Email folncpl307@gmail.com right now. Well start a list. The public library is going to initiate some kind of background check for volunteers fairly soon, so at this point, we would put people on a list and once that process is underway, we would contact them.

What do you do beyond the sales? In addition to the sales, we do a lot of outreach. Its interesting that if an item goes into a hospital room, it cant come back. (Retired NCHS math teacher) Evelyn McDaniel takes items to the hospital, nursing homes, assisted living. We also supply items for childrens events. We donate to Wyoming Reads annually. We gave $5,000 this year. We also pay for all food at library events so that public funds arent used. And in July, we wrote a check for $25,000 to the public library from proceeds from our sales, and we re-initiated the Edible Book Fest. Our goal is to benefit literacy in the community by doing these things, as well as donations to the library.
Editor:

The Guild charter would set bad precedent and hurt kids. It would siphon resources from non-charter schools when the statehouse may cut school funding another 2-3 percent on top of the redundant 3 percent cuts passed last year (school funding has built-in cuts as people move away).

Common sense dictates class sizes shouldn't grow for most of our kids to benefit the few. Supporters should work to improve existing schools so that theyre better for all of our kids, not just some of them.

Bureaucratic charter costs are redundant and wasteful. Millions spent in frequent litigation over state audits historically refused by charters further rob student and taxpayer alike. Charters will become the negative responsibility of district staff and the public and cost more in the long run. If the school board approves their application, well find it harder to offer competitive salaries as current woes mean theyll stagnate. Little more than a decade ago due to similar times, Wyoming ranked 47th in the nation for teacher salaries and spent almost two decades at the bottom. The Guild will make it harder to continue gains recent investment in education have just started to pay locally and make it harder to make sure our kids have the best teachers.

Separating gifted students is educational malpractice. It harms gifted and challenged learners by depriving them of each other in order to develop social competence to live in the real world.

In the end, charters further a two-tiered system that breeds inequality. John Dewey admonished us over a century ago: "What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy."

Standard's CREDO study found public schools outperform 75 percent of charters. Integrity in Educations 2015 study found poor oversight of charters hurts kids and taxpayers in $203 million in fraud and abuse in just 15 of the 42 charter states.

We shouldn't gamble with our kids future. Charters are an unaccountable, opaque fraud and public schools are consistently proven to provide the best bang for the buck.
Members of Wyoming Equality celebrated as the courts ruled same-sex marriage was a right. But shortly after wedding bells began ringing, grant funding to the states largest gay advocacy and social organization began to dry up.

Everybody thinks the LGBT community has equal rights, which we dont, said John King of Laramie, who is taking the helm of Wyoming Equality. We have to rely on a donor base more than ever so. Basically, were counting on donors. Were counting on membership, and were counting on events.

King, a corporate pilot, is the new chairman of Wyoming Equality, which has 300 members, as previous chairman Jeran Artery is stepping down after six years.

As many as 11,600 Wyomingites are LGBTQ, and one of Kings goals as the new chairman is to persuade many of those people to join Wyoming Equality, he said.

The main thing I hope to do at Wyoming Equality is focus on the infrastructure, just to make sure everythings running as efficient as possible, he said. I hope we can make the organization grow and become more powerful.

King said his strengths are business, organization and behind-the-scenes work. Other board members  including Artery, who will stay on at least through the 2017 legislative session --will focus on advocacy.

Board members will also lobby the Wyoming Legislature against bills they deem discriminatory and in favor of a non-discrimination law. They are also working on non-discrimination ordinances throughout Wyoming cities and towns.

While gays and lesbians can legally marry, they can also still be fired for their sexual orientation.

Artery said hes stepping down because its time for new leaders.

One of my things is I never want an organization to get stale because someone stays on as chairman too long, he said.

Wyoming Equality is 24 years old. During most of that time, it has been a social organization  gathering the gay community for events such as drag queen bingo games and Rendezvous, the yearly five-day campout in the Medicine Bow National Forest.

Artery started lobbying as the Wyoming Legislature increasingly debated bills that were affecting the everyday lives of the LGBT community.

Under Artery, Wyoming Equality was a plaintiff in a court case that ultimately resulted in a federal judge striking down the states ban on gay marriage in 2014.

I feel like that cemented Wyoming Equalitys name into the history books, and Im very proud of that, he said.
Wyoming voters will have one chance to see U.S. House candidates debate one another before the general election.

Unless candidates can agree to another event, the only debate will be held Oct. 20 in Casper.

Republican Liz Cheney, Democrat Ryan Greene, Libertarian Lawrence Struempf and Constitution Party candidate Daniel Cummings are all scheduled to participate.

The Star-Tribune and Wyoming PBS will host the debate.

Both the state Republican Party and the Greene campaign said there are no plans to add more debates at this time.

Last month, Greene issued a call to have five debates among the candidates in order to give people across the state the opportunity to attend a debate in their region.

The idea was that we wanted one in every corner of the state and one in Casper, he said Friday.

Greene criticized the Cheney campaign for not agreeing to more debates.

I think shes shutting the door on the people, he said.

The Cheney campaign forwarded a request for comment to the state Republican Party, which has been handling the debate planning for the campaign.

Matt Micheli, the state GOP chairman, said having one debate for the general election is not unusual in Wyoming.

Historically in the general elections  theres only been one debate, he said, noting that there have been exceptions.

I think that serves Wyoming well, he said.

Micheli said Wyoming voters prefer to meet candidates in person as they travel around the state.

Still, Micheli said the party is looking forward to the event.

Were happy to have the debate, he said.

Micheli said he wanted Greene to discuss at the debate how electing a Democrat to Congress would be beneficial to Wyoming. He also wanted Greene to explain how political figures like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Hillary Clinton represent Wyoming values.

Greene has said he is running as a Wyoming Democrat.

The debate is set for 7 p.m. Oct. 20 at the Casper College Music Buildings Wheeler Hall.

The event is free and will be broadcast on Wyoming PBS and streamed online at www.trib.com.
A federal court ruling expected later this month could upend the relationship between the two tribes on the Wind River Reservation.

The Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes share the reservation in central Wyoming, and since 1987 had used a Joint Business Council to work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to contract services. The Northern Arapaho withdrew from the joint council in 2014 intending to negotiate directly with the BIA. But in a federal lawsuit filed in February, the tribe claims the BIA has continued to contract reservation-wide services with the joint council, despite it now being composed solely of Eastern Shoshone members.

The BIA now assert that the JBC continues to exist as a joint council with one only participate: the (Shoshone Business Council), the tribes attorneys wrote in a court filing. Federal Defendants unlawfully attempt to consolidate the two Tribes into one, without the consent of either.

The tribal court, reservation game and fish department and other entities have been run by the JBC under what are known as 638 contracts. While the federal government is legally required to provide certain services to recognized tribes, 638 contracts allow tribes to operate such services independently while using

federal funds.

With the existing contracts set to expire at the end of September, Northern Arapaho attorneys have asked the court to block the federal government from reasserting control over services currently managed under 638 agreements.

Specifically, the Northern Arapaho want to be able to operate their own tribal court while the BIA is preparing to set up a Court of Indian Offenses in the absence of an agreement between the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone to continue operating the existing tribal court.

A judge heard arguments in a Great Falls, Montana, courtroom Wednesday and is expected to issue a ruling on Sept. 26 addressing the Northern Arapahos request to run its own court and on a federal motion to dismiss the case.

But stretching beyond the tribal court, the Northern Arapaho argue they should not be required to jointly operate any reservation services with the Eastern Shoshone. That could lead to a bumpy transition as two court systems, two sets of hunting and fishing regulations and other administrative structures would be duplicated in the same geographic area.

Despite working to contract government services through the Joint Business Council for nearly 30 years, there has long been tension between the two tribes. While the Northern Arapaho make up roughly 70 percent of the Native American population on the reservation, they have complained that the federal government has historically favored the Eastern Shoshone.

The Northern Arapaho said the joint council was squandering their time and creating barriers to the tribes economic development when they withdrew from it in 2014. But the Eastern Shoshone have insisted the Northern Arapahos withdrawal did not dissolve the joint body.

In minutes of a Joint Business Council meeting included in court documents, Eastern Shoshone Business Council member Clint Wagon tells an oil company representative that the Northern Arapaho do not need to be consulted independently.

At this time, the Eastern Shoshone Tribe will be managing business transactions through Joint until the Northern Arapaho come back to the table, Wagon said.

So are you saying we dont need the Arapahos to sign off on this lease? the company representative asked.

Not at this time, Wagon replied.

The tribes unsuccessfully attempted to mediate the dispute in June. Mediator Robert Blaeser noted in a July email the deep roots of the dispute.

We cannot change the past, Blaeser wrote. The question is whether the parties are willing to look forward for the good of their people.Follow local government reporter Arno Rosenfeld on Twitter @arnorosenfeld
As Wyoming turns over financial rocks looking to ease its budgetary shortfall, the Legislature and state Treasurers office have focused their attention on the crown jewel of the states revenue system: the Permanent Wyoming Mineral Trust Fund.

Created in 1975, the fund receives 2.5 percent of all severance taxes collected from minerals in Wyoming.

The permanent fund has a current market value of $7.3 billion.

For over 40 years, Wyoming has grown to depend on revenue generated from the permanent fund. Interest from the fund is the second-largest contributor to the states general fund (sales and use tax is first). In 2015, permanent fund interest to the general fund was $494 million.

But the drop in mineral prices has caused a plummet in such contributions. In 2016, the Legislative Service Office estimates that permanent fund interest will add only $149 million to the general fund.

Within the last year, state Treasurer Mark Gordon and members of the Legislature have explored ways to streamline the permanent fund, hoping for greater efficiency and earnings. The stakes are high. A study found Wyomings return on investments trailed the average by nearly 2 percent  a significant difference when billions of dollars are in play.

In August, Gordons office co-hosted, in conjunction with the University of Wyomings School of Energy Resources, the Stroock Public Forum on Sovereign Wealth. The Jackson-based event featured international economists and sovereign wealth fund managers from around the globe.

A sovereign wealth fund is generally defined as a state-owned investment fund that often  but not always  gains funding through natural resource development.

There are dozens of sovereign funds established worldwide. The largest is Norways Government Pension Fund Global with a current balance of $882 billion or over 10 times the corpus of the Wyomings permanent fund.

Within the U.S., only the Alaska Permanent Fund (market value: $54 billion) and the Permanent University Fund of Texas (market value: $17.3 billion) exceed Wyomings.

I know its kind of a fairly dry topic, Jason Shogren, the Stroock Professor of Natural Resource Conservation and Management at UW, told the audience at the conference, but its probably the future of Wyoming and the West to understand how it is we are going to transform our stock of minerals, and any other resources, and be able to turn that into cash that we can figure out what to do with.

While presenters commended Wyoming for its foresight in establishing the fund, they also took the state to task for not keeping up with changes in sovereign wealth fund management.

Adrian Orr, CEO of New Zealands $22.1 billion Superannuation Fund, said Id give Wyoming a B- in how the state currently thinks about the fund. To set up a permanent fund that turns mineral wealth into perpetual, ongoing wealth for current and future generations, you dont take the earnings out of it every year. That means youre consuming the earnings; you might as well drink the oil and eat the coal.

Samuel Wills, an expert in natural resource funded sovereign funds and an economist at Oxford, cautioned Wyoming about being too bullish on coal, despite leading the nation in production of the mineral.

Discovering coal is like winning the lottery, he said. What Wyoming is doing is transferring this short-term boom into a longer-term prosperity.

Why should you worry? You might say, look, Sam, weve got over 400 million tons of coal in the ground  why should be we be thinking about future generations when theyve got just as much (assets in) coal.

Well, its the old adage: The stone age didnt end due to the lack of stones. And it could well be the same with Wyomings coal, he said.

There are other considerations besides quantity, Wills said, like a recent British study that showed if the world is going to keep even modest goals in global warming, than 60 to 80 percent of all the coal and oil that are on the books of publicly listed companies can never be pulled out of the ground.

Instead, panelists said Wyoming should concentrate on restructuring the permanent fund, including minimizing outside consultant and management fees.

Wyoming is in the big leagues now of asset management, said Malan Rietveld, a fellow at Harvards Center for International Development and director at Kalytix Partners.

There is no reason why you cant identify and cultivate homegrown talent, Rietveld said. But Ill be frank about it: Youve got a very long way to go.

Legislators who attended the conference gave it high praise.

It was the most intensive two days I have since Ive been in the Legislature, said Sen. Fred Emerich, R-Laramie. Weve got to figure out what to do when we grow up.

Emerich also realized that Wyoming has a made a lot of good decisions. There are many things we are doing correctly, he said.

On Sept. 14, the Select Committee on Capital Financing and Investments met in Buffalo to hear Gordon and his staff offer suggestions on how to improve the permanent fund.

Patrick Fleming, chief investment officer for the treasurers office, quoted a National Association of College and University study that showed institutions with assets over $1 billion averaged a 7.7 percent return over the last 10 years.

The state of Wyomings return, including investments in the permanent fund, averaged 5.93 percent return during the same period.

If the state had not been hampered by certain investment restrictions, Fleming said, this would have resulted in an increase of $2.1 billion over the last 10 years.

I believe the majority of this underperformance is due to very low staffing levels and asset allocation differences, said Fleming.

While Wyoming farms out management of most of its investments to outside firms, the treasurers office does do some of its own own investing.

It takes a tremendous amount of due diligence, said Fleming. Due to lack of staff, it took us three months for us to approve our last investment.

Members of the committee told Gordon and Fleming they were interested in considering bills that would reform Wyomings investments strategy, such as more adequate staff and lifting the restriction on the percentage of the portfolios can be invested in common stock, currently at 55 percent.
The boy was shot once in the upper chest and neck area. Deputies have not taken anyone into custody.

The Laramie County Sheriff's Department is searching for a second teenage boy in relation to the shooting, but could not confirm if he is the same age as the victim or if he is armed. It's not known if the shooting was intentional or accidental.
The Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, a group charged with making recommendations to the Bureau of Land Management regarding its Wild Horse and Burro program, recently agreed to potentially euthanize tens of thousands of equines in BLM holding facilities.

Their recommendation, a nuclear option, undoubtedly hit horse lovers like a bomb. Social media ballooned with immediate rancor.

Its sad enough that the mustang crisis has devolved to this.

Its also sad that only a tiny fraction of the public has invested time and thought to understanding this complicated cultural and environmental crisis in the American West.

The boards dramatic recommendation is not unlike the prospective Superfund designation of Silverton, Colorado, site of last years disastrous Gold King mine spill. Both address a long history of civilian and governmental irresponsibility. Both propose a solution thats as hard to swallow as it is necessary. Few of the many fractured parties find it palatable, but none offer better solutions.

As horrid as it may seem, its the best decision the advisory group could offer after many, many bad wild horse decisions dating back generations, not unlike the malfeasance in the mining world.

Who and what has led us to this point?

Our forefathers, who thought it was acceptable to turn out unwanted horses to open country. Those domestic-turned-wild horses have done too well in the wilderness. The number of offspring of former Army horses, frontier horses and ranch horses doubles every five years. Feral horses may have irreversibly degraded millions of acres of rangeland, as the Advisory Board members discovered on a recent field trip to Antelope Valley, Nevada. They viewed miles of high desert land, ungrazed by cattle yet devastated by wild horses intense grazing.

If they werent so pretty, we would call them invasive, and we would have sought more effective, less emotion-driven, less politicized ways to manage them a long time ago. Do we have a romantic term for feral cats? Does the average taxpayer recognize how much damage both feral cats and feral horses do to their environment?

Our government, which for decades has rounded up the horses and burros, creating more space and available resources for the equines left behind. The BLM strategy, in fact, has had exactly the opposite effect as it intended. The wild populations have grown even more. The National Academy of Sciences said as much in their critical review of BLMs program in 2013.

Our government has also dragged its feet on pursuing humane population control options, like darting mares with PZP (porcine zona pellucida), a fertility control vaccine. Instead, it invested in risky, inhumane sterilization procedures (which produced horrible results and subjected the agency to several lawsuits) and continued those counterproductive roundups (which produced more protesters and more lawsuits).

Activists. Certain activist groups say the feral horses and burros have more claim to the land than any other animals. They believe the equines should live untainted and untethered lives, all other considerations be damned. They leverage romance, Old West lore, and widespread ignorance to fan the flames of public outrage. They like to use the word mustang, but do they really know what that word means? It comes from old Spanish and means stray.

We can also blame ourselves: for failing to get educated on the crisis, for failing to support wild horse trainers (who gentle the animals for more successful adoptions), for failing to adopt a mustang or burro, for letting the extremists dictate the conversation and inform policy.

The wild horses and burros are in a fight for their lives, be it on the range (on land which itself is facing a rapid influx of invasive species like Cheat and mustard grasses due in some part to horse overpopulation) or in the holding pens (where their squandered lives cost taxpayers about $50,000 each over the course of their penned lifetimes).

Upset at this current, catastrophic state? Pause for a moment if you need to cry over the damage done. Then get educated and help work toward a solution. Just like the mining mess, we will need to take drastic steps to get back to whats right.
Editor:

Thanks for the opportunity to respond to Fred Browns letter to the editor published Sept. 10, wherein Brown said someone should be asking some tough questions (of Sen. Eli Bebout) and it doesnt appear to be the ethics committee.

This remark discredits the thorough investigation conducted by the Wyoming Legislative Subcommittee of Senate Management Council members. The tough questions were asked and answered, Mr. Brown, it just wasnt adequately reported. The Casper Star Tribune gave headline, front-page coverage to the ethics allegations yet neglected to provide equal treatment regarding the outcome of the complaint.

In the 22-page subcommittee decision, they reviewed the facts, history, Wyoming and other case law, procedural rules and legal precedents related to these allegations, and all allegations were dismissed. By legislative rules and Wyoming constitutional law, they found that this Subcommittee has the authority and duty to hear the complaint and that, by law, this duty cannot be delegated to anyone. The decision also found that Bebout had no conflict of interest in voting on Senate File 40, which only authorized the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality to apply for federal AML funding. Also, that Bebouts company (Nucor) had no advantage over any other entity to receive AML funds because all bidders had to compete for those contracts in accordance with state law. The DEQ must follow procurement statutes required by all state agenciesthat all contracts must be awarded to the lowest, qualified bidder.

As to Browns other tough questions  did any other companies bid on the DEQ contracts? Yes they did, and Nucor did not receive every bid, only those where they were the qualified low bidder. The only preference received by Nucor is the 5 percent preference given all instate contractors. Browns other question: Was Nucor a sole source vendor? No, Nucor was not.

Finally, Browns comments regarding collusion between Sen. Phil Nicholas and Bebout are totally without merit -- the Subcommittee hearing the complaint was comprised of 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats, and they issued a unanimous decision indicating no ethics violations were committed.
Editor:

I find it fascinating that winning Wyomings lone congressional seat is, in a way, more difficult than becoming one of Wyomings two senators. In light of the challenges facing Wyomings economy, this years race makes that seat more important.

Given that seats importance, Wyoming residents deserve honest dialogue spurred from questions posed by their future constituents. Wyomings Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives, Ryan Greene, has issued a statement asserting that his Republican challenger, Liz Cheney, has refused his offer to debate him prior to the general election.

Wyomingites live by cowboy ethics, which insist, Be tough but fair. We need our next congressperson to be tough. We also need them to be fair. If Greenes assertion is true, refusing to debate Greene demonstrates Cheneys toughness, but it also displays her lack of fairness.

No matter who the candidates may be, the public deserves that they present and defend their positions in a debate. The public will, as they should, decide their votes on the basis of each performance. This is the least that the candidates can do. Greene has offered to debate Cheney, but Cheney has refused to provide Wyoming with that courtesy. If Cheney cannot provide Wyoming with that courtesy while vying for its favor, how can Wyomingites expect her courtesies in the future should she be elected?

When the public is denied any debates between the candidates, the public is left to make their decision on less information: isolated speeches, passing comments and the candidates character. In any case, I would prefer a to disagree with a congressperson of impressive character than agree with a congressperson of subpar character. On the basis of this alone, Cheneys lack of willingness to engage in a traditional format for the publics benefit reflects character less than what the decent people of Wyoming deserve.

I hope that Cheneys refusal to debate Greene is false. However, if it is true, I hope that you consider Cheneys character and vote for Greene this November for Wyomings seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Almost before we know it, the holidays will be upon us. Do you have a plan in place for a fast start in 2017? SCORE offers free business consulting services to thousands of local business owners. Here are some of the things SCORE recommends .
National United Way council adds Merrill

University of Arizona optical scientist Catherine D. Merrill has been named to the United Way National Womens Leadership Council.

Merrill, a member of the United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona board, will be Arizonas only representative on the council, a formal advisory board of volunteers who provide strategic recommendations to United Way worldwide and support the work of local United Ways in womens philanthropy, advocacy, volunteerism, mentoring and leadership.

Merrill was lead systems engineer and deputy program manager for the OSIRISREx camera system, OCAMS. She is now project manager for the UAs Giant Magellan Telescope Primary Mirror Segments.

SARSEF promotes Baker to dep. director

Liz A. Baker has been named deputy director of SARSEF, the Southern Arizona Research, Science and Engineering Foundation. Baker was most recently the foundations director of research and directed the annual SARSEF fair held at the Tucson Convention Center.

A cum laude graduate of the University of Arizona, Baker obtained a masters of science degree from St. Andrews University, Scotland, and served in a research position with the Gorilla Foundation. She was an intern for the Jane Goodall Institute, after participating in primate research through SARSEF.

Planning Center adds office and principal

The Planning Center, a multi-disciplinary planning and landscape architecture firm operating in Southern Arizona for more than 30 years, has opened an office in Tempe.

Jessica Sarkissian has joined The Planning Center as a principal to lead the new office.

Sarkissian sits on the Mesa Planning and Zoning Board and the Arizona Planning Association Board. Previously she was a Mesa Board of Adjustment member as well as a Gilbert planning commissioner and zoning hearing officer.

Clinical director Holt joins Sabino Recovery

Peggy A. Holt has joined Sabino Recovery as clinical director.

She most recently facilitated development of a mood disorder program at a major treatment center and also served as a primary therapist there.

Holt co-authored The Everest Principle, a book on peak performance for all populations. She is a licensed professional counselor trained in hypnosis, equine therapy, therapeutic recreation, biofeedback and EMDR.

Casteel, Little open real estate group

Raena Casteel and Danny Little have created the Casteel Little Real Estate Group.

Members of the National Association of Realtors, Casteel and Little have teamed up through real estate broker Tierra Antigua to serve multiple client types.

Casteel is the founder of La Paloma Academy, serves as the charter holder of seven charter schools throughout Arizona and is experienced in the financial sector of education. Little ran a large rescue mission which created more than 100 jobs through outreach.

Moussa returns to Tucson as an exec chef

Issa Moussa has joined The Lodge at Ventana Canyon as executive chef after a brief time away from Tucson at Hammock Dunes Country Club in Florida.

Moussa previously spent 35 years at Skyline Country Club. He is a two-time winner of a chef of the year award, is certified by the American Culinary Federation and has been inducted into the Southern Arizona Chefs Association Hall of Fame, and is an active volunteer in the community .

Riggs joins sales team at Contents Interiors

Contents Interiors, 3401 E Fort Lowell Road, announces the addition of Julie Riggs to its sales team. Riggs has 15 years of experience in the home furnishings industry and is a longtime resident of Tucson.
Tucsons Fed by Threads wants to become the Target of organic clothing, its owners say, servicing a growing segment of mainstream customers interested in fashion made in America out of sustainable materials.

Initial plans call for five stores in the next two years, with two locations  in Seattle and San Diego  already scheduled to open by September 2017. Other targeted cities include Portland, Atlanta, Austin, Boulder and New York.

This company has more potential than any Ive ever worked for, said co-owner Skya Nelson, who has decades of experience in the apparel industry and is a former creative director at Raytheon. The market is poised and no one is out there competing like we want to compete.

With growth comes change for the local retailer  putting in a new supply chain, point-of-sale systems and basically devising processes for everything. As it prepares to go from virtually a one-man operation into having a national presence, there have been some growing pains, Nelson said.

But while theres an adjustment to how things are done on the business side, the companys values remain the same, said Alok Appadurai, Fed by Threads co-founder and until recently a common sight behind the counter for longtime customers.

When Nelson joined as a business partner earlier this year, Appadurai had his non-negotiables, he said.

Im open to a lot of change. It may be bumpy, as change is. But the core ethos of sweatshop-free labor, sustainable materials and a commitment of feeding people through food banks stays as part of what we do.

Business matters

Fed by Threads opened its doors inside a dance studio on East Ninth Street in 2012, the brainchild of Appadurai and photographer Jade Beall. Then as now, the store donated part of its profits to the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona and a national hunger relief organization.

The business grew quickly  from one rack of clothes to a working store to chafing at the studios limited space. Manish Shah, owner of Maya Tea, came on as a partner and the store found a new location at 345 E. Congress St.

We wanted to have a replicable store that we could open in cities across the country, Appadurai said. The interest here was a main street that was coming back to life, so we decided to plant our flag right here on Congress.

There was always that drive to expand, but he needed help to get to the next phase, he said.

In January, Nelson walked in the door to shop with his wife. He had left corporate life looking to do something a little more fun, he said, and was impressed by what he saw.

I just stood at the counter with him for about two hours, just asking questions, and he answered every one the way I would hope he would answer, Nelson said. He wanted to grow, he didnt know how to grow and he was looking for people to come in.

After three months of research and going over finances, he saw the company was in trouble but full of potential. He signed up and worked with Appadurai to rework the business side of Fed by Threads.

The process has been very hard but the results are amazing. We went from a $75,000 loss last year to a $15,000 profit last month, he said. Thats just a huge turnaround in a little tiny company in a short amount of time.

Conservative projections have them hitting $3.7 million in sales next year and $9 million by 2018, Nelson said.

We have 500 corporate customers and 5,000 regular customers that we consider Tucsonan patrons. That was one guy here by himself (accomplishing that), he said.

New marketing efforts  including an increased social-media presence and commercials  and having Appadurai get out into the world and push Fed by Threads among tastemakers, will help increase that customer base, Nelson said.

We want 20,000, 30,000 shoppers here in Tucson alone and every store we open were looking for a (potential) customer base of 30,000 people before we even walk in the door, he said.

Sustainable fashion

One of the goals of Fed by Threads is to bring more transparency into production and be able to talk about the supply chain that goes into creating every garment it carries, Appadurai said.

This is a move in the right direction, said Charlette Padilla, a professor of retailing and consumer sciences at the University of Arizona.

I love the idea that they have a story behind their products, she said. What a wonderful thing to have if you buy something, to know the story.

Unfortunately, with many of the clothes we buy now, that can be a horror story, she said.

People are shocked when they realize how much of our resources we use when we make apparel. Water is the worst, because you use so much of it in the dying process and creating the fibers, Padilla said.

Along with the environmental costs there is also the toll on the people  sometimes children  who work in unsafe conditions for a meager wage, just so a consumer half a world away can buy a cheap piece of clothing.

Unfortunately, for most of us, the driver is the price. We really want a clean Earth, but God, its on sale! she said. As long as you continue to purchase, the cycle will continue.

Still, the fashion industry is trying to do better, Padilla said, and there are ongoing efforts to create a more sustainable, environment- and worker-friendly supply chain.

Theres been a lot of changes, just in education alone, she said. I know that my classes here at the U of A theres a component in every one of them about sustainability.

Fed by Threads is betting on that change at the consumer level, as well.

Four years ago, we were the evangelists, we were the ones having to educate, and now more and more people are coming in already with that sense, Appadurai said.

The store is seeing a customer who wants the opposite of the fast-fashion that gets worn once and then discarded, owners said  people who are committed to buying a few select, high-quality pieces that are bought to be used.

The company wants to offer the mix of a cool, ethical corporate background while at the same time delivering products on time and in the best way possible, owners said, calling it a mix of Ben and Jerrys and Zappos.

Its also the whole package, they said, unlike some brands that may be organic but use the cheapest labor they can find, or brands that respect labor but arent that sensitive to the environment. Their products offer both, they say.

We have the producers lined up, we have factories, the design houses, so were poised to bring all of that together, Appadurai said.

The moment is right for a national brand to fill the gap, and Fed by Threads is the brand that we want people knowing about.
It isnt easy being king.

Its fraught with empty ceremonies, repressed emotions, betrayals, powerlessness and heavy loneliness.

And it all comes beautifully, painfully alive in Arizona Theatre Companys production of Mike Bartletts King Charles III.

This production, this play, underscores why it was so necessary for Arizonans to rally around ATC, infusing it with the funds it needed to launch its 50th season.

And what a launch.

King Charles III opens with the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Punks with tattoos, spiked hair and snarly tudes are gathered around a picture of the queen, her coffin in the background. A mournful, graceful recording of the Beatles Because (The World is Round) fills the theater.

Next, we see Camilla and Charles, who is at long last king.

She praises him for his stiff upper lip during the funeral service.

Please dont, he says. Its simply what I had to do. Well find no dignity in covring up the way we feel.

This is a king we rarely see: pained with the loss of his parents, and the weight of what is now on his shoulders carved into his face.

The play takes off when the prime minister presents Charles with a bill restricting freedom of the press. Its passed the house and only needs the kings signature  a formality, as the signature really carries no power.

But Charles knows that while the press can be mighty pesky, too intrusive, it is essential to democracy. He wont sign it.

Thus begins the tragic downfall of a king who longs to be a ruler who is wise and good, but has no idea how to do that.

The play takes us on a journey that is rich with comedy, and even richer with human frailties, corruption, manipulations. Its an homage to Shakespeare not just in the way it was written  in blank verse  but in the way it forces us to reflect on what it says about human nature.

Peter Van Norden gives us a Charles that we can easily embrace, cheer, and feel deeply saddened by. He makes palpable the turmoil that his refusal to sign that bill causes him. And as we see him follow that refusal with a single-minded focus to bend the governments will to his way of thinking, we are horrified and disturbed by what he is willing to do to achieve a noble end: preserving a basic tenet of democracy.

This play vibrates with moral conundrums. Its packed with surprises. And the likelihood is high that you will walk out of the theater and mull it over, discuss it, and relish the memory of seeing it.

Matt August directs with wit and a sense of urgency. While we may not care about the royal family, August makes it impossible not to care about these people, or the very real human emotions and important ideas this play shines a light on.

Van Norden is riveting in his Lear-like portrayal, but he does not bring this piece to such vibrant life on his own. The whole cast makes music of the language and breathes full, complex life into the characters.

Particularly striking are Kate Maher Hyland as Princess Kate, a Lady Macbeth character who at first charms and ultimately destroys; Adam Haas Hunter as the conflicted William, who is pulled between loyalty to his father and his nation; Dylan Saunders, who gives us a Prince Harry who longs for a life free of royal trappings, and Jeanne Syquia, who plays Harrys love interest, Jess, with a toughness mixed with a touching vulnerability.

ATCs King Charles III is a play worth seeing. And then seeing again

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A crowd gathered around the Glockenspiel stage at Chippewa Falls Oktoberfest Saturday afternoon to see, for the second time ever, a group of Chippewa Falls men pay homage to their German heritage through music.

Those men, Darryle Matott on the accordion and dancers Jeff Newton, Mike Tznaskis, Ian Kopp, Tom Cushman and Mike Stoffel, came up with the idea of creating their own glockenspiel show for the fall festival.

While Oktoberfest has had a glockenspiel group in the past, Newton said they really wanted to localize it and include things that make Chippewa Falls unique, such as the Leinenkugel brewery, woodcutting and shoe manufacturing.

Every year it was a popular thing, but we kept thinking this would be nice if we made our own, had our own things, said Newton, a member of the Oktoberfest committee. When you look at the original Oktoberfest that we designed, a big part of it was our local heritage. We wanted to focus on the community and you can see that in what we built.

It was popular among Saturday afternoons crowd. Cheers, laughter and applause were in abundance as the group danced and joked around across the stage.

Because so many people were asking about it, and the men enjoyed it so much, they added a second Saturday show in the evening. They will also perform again at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Our nerves were pretty high (Friday) night when we did our first show, Newton said. I know for myself I got off on the dance rhythm so I was nervous about that, but today I could hear everything and it was great.

Newton estimated the group, plus their choreographer Peg Leinenkugel, put in hundreds of hours learning the dance routine as well as creating the stage they performed on. The idea formed in February, and has added and changed several things since then.

One of those was the Leinenkugel beer flute, which is basically six beer bottles filled with varying amounts of water that the dancers blow into to create music.

Mike (Tznaskis) is an incredible wood worker and said he thought he could make something like that, and the next practice he showed up and had one, Newton said. And Tom Cushman went through and filled them all, tuned every bottle to a piano to get the (notes) right.

Leinenkugel said working with the group to come up with a dance routine was a treat in itself  she only wishes she had recorded their first ever practice in the spring.

Since then, theyve changed several things and continue to change as the performances go on, but she thinks what theyve created is a great representation of the Chippewa Falls community.

We have a lot of special people in this city and its obvious, it doesnt matter whether its Oktoberfest or any project, Leinenkugel said. So many people are so willing to give so much of their time. Here, people really belong to each other and the community, and just being together is what this festival is all about.
Liz Martinez couldnt contain her frustration during a public forum hosted by behavioral health insurer Cenpatico Integrated Care last week.

As CEO Terry Stevens described, to a crowd of about 40 people, Cenpaticos success in stabilizing members who are in crisis, Martinez raised her hand.

I dont believe that to be true, she said. The victims advocate described months of struggling to get help for her then-fiance as he descended into a full-blown manic crisis this spring.

The man, who has bipolar disorder, began saying in March that his medications werent working anymore. He went days without sleeping and couldnt sit still. He once tried to open the car door as she was driving 55 mph. But the agency treating him said he had to wait for his May appointment to get a medication review, Martinez said.

In the meantime, he deteriorated mentally and physically. He lost 30 pounds. At one point he approached police officers on the street and asked to be arrested. Yet Martinez couldnt convince crisis responders or behavioral health providers that he was a danger to himself and needed to be hospitalized.

He was eventually hospitalized and put on new medications, but hes not the same, Martinez said in an interview. He lost his full-time job as a cook during the breakdown and is still trying to get back to a place of stability. After nearly having a breakdown herself, Martinez ended their engagement; she said she didnt feel she could marry him, knowing he was completely at the mercy of a broken system.

I still feel like hes my best friend. I just cant trust what would happen if he had another episode, she said.

Mental health advocates say vulnerable patients are bearing the brunt of upheaval in the public behavioral health system since Cenpatico, the for-profit subsidiary of publicly traded insurance giant Centene Corp., became Southern Arizonas regional behavioral health authority last October.

In Arizona, RBHAs contract with the state Medicaid agency, AHCCCS, and administer Medicaid dollars to contracted behavioral health providers who treat low-income patients. This is Cenpaticos first foray into Pima County after 10 years in rural parts of the state.

Some patients are in turmoil after the closure of Pasadera Behavioral Health Network, a provider that shut down this month in the face of mounting financial strain. The pressures included Cenpaticos recruitment of other providers whose services would replace Pasaderas, along with reduced reimbursements.

For Johnny Hostetlers 27-year-old daughter  a Pasadera patient who didnt want her name used  the agencys closure meant a transition to CODAC Behavioral Health Services and another round of intake interviews and psychiatric evaluations.

But Hostetler said her daughters transition was beset by confusion and delays. That was likely worsened by an increase in volume at CODAC, as it received patients moving from the shuttered Pasadera, a CODAC spokeswoman said.

It took weeks for Pasadera to transfer medical records to CODAC and more time to get an appointment with CODAC. In the meantime, Hostetler said her daughter ran out of the medication that keeps her stable. Her former Pasadera psychiatrist couldnt write her another prescription because she was no longer his patient, but she wasnt yet a CODAC patient, Hostetler said. Her daughter has bipolar disorder and severe anxiety.

She was holding on without the Zoloft, but I could see her spiraling, Hostetler said. She resorted to buying Zoloft for $9 a pill on the black market after her daughter had a breakdown. They cut the pills in half to make them last longer.

Ive never done anything like that in my life, but you get desperate, she said.

Once the Pasadera records were transferred, CODAC told Hostletlers daughter to show up in the early morning for the chance to get a same-day appointment  if there was an opening and she is at the front of the line. She showed up between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. for three days in a row before she was seen by an intake specialist.

Hostetler said her daughter still hasnt had an appointment with a psychiatrist, which was scheduled for 90 days after her initial visit last month.

Early-morning waits for patients desperate for treatment arent unusual these days, providers say. Overburdened intake agencies commonly tell patients to show up early for a chance at getting seen that day  for some, thats the only way to initiate treatment for specialty services that require a referral, said Deb Seng of Our Family Services. The agencys therapists often end up providing their services unbilled, because it can take six to 10 weeks to get the referral that allows them to bill Cenpatico, she said.

Seng said caseworkers are spending hours, day after day, waiting alongside their clients, hoping for an appointment with an intake specialist. In the meantime, patients are nearing the point of crisis, she said.

Not only are they breaking into psychosis, theyre devolving into suicidal and homicidal thoughts, she said at the public forum. Our therapists are sitting in the homes of members who are saying, I am going to kill someone if I dont get help today.

CENPATICO OUTREACH

After Martinez spoke up at the forum last week, Cenpaticos CEO listened and said the insurer would investigate her then-fiances treatment, reviewing records and conducting interviews with the providers involved.

CEO Stevens acknowledged that Cenpatico hasnt managed a smooth changeover from Pima Countys last RBHA, the nonprofit Community Partnership for Southern Arizona. She said she takes to heart the criticisms aired last week during the forum.

Im not unfamiliar or unwilling to look at the challenges, she told the crowd. The transition wasnt as smooth as I would have anticipated or I wanted, but its not for lack of trying and we continue to do that.

Martinez concerns were among many raised at the event, the first of three public forums to be hosted by Cenpatico this month. Attendees painted a picture of an underfunded and chaotic public mental health care system, with deep-seated problems exacerbated by a tumultuous transition to Cenpatico.

One mental health provider described case managers impossibly high caseloads of more than 200 patients. Constant turnover due to burn-out means patients rarely have the same case manager for long, contributing to fractured care, patient stress and delays. Behavioral health agencies are facing high demand for services, while dealing with new stringent reporting requirements and contract cuts from Cenpatico.

Another provider spoke up in support of Cenpaticos ambitious goals and efforts to reform the public mental health system.

I think youve bitten off a lot, but it needed to be tackled and attempted, said Margaret Higgins, executive director of The Haven, a residential treatment facility. Well come out at the other end stronger and better.

One woman questioned when the public could see the mortality and morbidity patient data that RBHAs collect, which could illuminate how patients are faring under Cenpatico. Cenpaticos Stevens said that data would be posted on Cenpaticos website after its calculated, following the end of the first contract year.

This is the second year Cenpatico has hosted community forums in Pima County. Those sessions are a crucial way for the insurer to engage with the community and provide updates on services, Stevens said in a emailed statement.

PATIENTS IN CHAOS

To serve their patients in a reasonable time frame, local behavioral health agencies need more funding and more staffing, said Stephania ONeill, the former CEO of behavioral health agency Compass, which merged with another agency in 2013 to become Pasadera.

Its not like the provider doesnt want to do the job, she said at the forum. Its a workforce issue. Its a resource issue.  Im tired of people telling me, Its just the way it is, theres nothing you can do. I wont accept it.

In an interview, Seng said Our Familys clients are some of the communitys most vulnerable, and barriers to getting them treatment must be torn down for everyones sake.

If we dont find solutions to get timely services for these folks, they will disengage completely and are likely to live out their lives on the streets, she said.

After the forum, Stevens said shed heard about patients having to wait in the morning for appointments even before Cenpatico entered Pima County. But she acknowledged that access issues for patients may have been compounded by the transition.

ONeill suggested establishing an independent community task force comprised of experts without a financial stake in the system to help address fundamental problems. Stevens said that was a good idea.

I truly cant express how thankful I am that youre being honest, she told the crowd. The only way we can fix things is if we know that theyre happening.

INTEGRATED CARE

Other Pima County patients are frustrated with the limitations of Cenpaticos network for medical providers.

Cenpaticos medical coverage is part of AHCCCSs broader plan to integrate behavioral and medical coverage for people on Medicaid with serious mental illness. The goal is to better coordinate care for people in that group whose life expectancy is, on average, nearly three decades shorter than that of the general public.

But that means patients in the behavioral health care system no longer have a choice about which AHCCCS plan they enroll in for their medical care  they are automatically enrolled in Cenpaticos plan, which might not contract with their long-time doctors.

Megan Gregory, 25, has bipolar disorder, OCD and anxiety, as well as a rare heart condition that causes an abnormally high resting heart rate. Her cardiologist of seven years isnt in Cenpaticos network.

Gregory said she wanted to opt out of Cenpaticos medical plan to stay with her doctor, but Cenpatico told her since other cardiologists were in their network, she couldnt opt out.

Opting out is reserved for occasions where there may only be one specialist that provides the service that the member needs and that provider has elected not to contract with the RBHA, AHCCCS spokeswoman Monica Coury said in an email.

Gregory is now planning to disenroll from Cenpatico behavioral health care coverage and pay for her mental health needs out of pocket so she can stay with the doctor who knows her heartbeat so well that he can hear the slightest anomaly, she said.

Shes having to choose between her medical and behavioral health care, said her mother, Angela Lane, a social worker.

Coury said patients in active treatment with an out-of-network doctor  such as for cancer treatments or pregnancy  can stay with the doctor for the duration of their treatment. For patients who arent in active treatment but have an established relationship with the doctor, AHCCCS requires the RBHA to reach out to the doctor and offer a contract. If the doctor declines, thats his or her choice, she said.

This is common in any type of insurance, Coury said in an email. Your commercial carrier will not pay out of network for care you can receive from one of their contracted providers.

Cenpatico has more than 6,500 specialty and behavioral health providers in its Southern Arizona network, and plans to continue adding doctors, Stevens said.

Our provider network is robust and continues to expand as our membership grows, she said.

Theres only so much Cenpatico can do in the face of a chronically underfunded public mental health system, Clarke Romans, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Southern Arizona, said at the forum.

Real change will require the political will to devote more resources to mental health, he said. More than 650,000 people in Arizona have serious mental illness, he said. Thats a large constituency and they  and their loved ones  must exercise their right to vote, he said.

This is a political problem, he said. When it comes to mental health in the U.S., he said, Were big, were rich, and were doing a terrible job.
A free forum later this month will focus on life along the U.S.Mexico border.

The Sept. 29 event, sponsored by Arizona Public Media and the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, is designed to be a live, interactive event and will feature four journalists who work along the border.

Organizers aim to take the discussion beyond the often-debated topics of drug violence and illegal immigration. For example, panelists will discuss such issues as U.S.-Mexico trade relations and initiatives, as well as the ways political and cultural perceptions vary north and south of the border.

The journalists also will discuss Donald Trumps and Hillary Clintons positions on border and immigration issues  and how those positions could impact business, trade and life along the border.

Panelists include:

Javier Garza: The longtime Mexican journalist has worked extensively to protect reporters working in Mexico, who are often targeted by drug cartels. Garza is a Knight International Journalism Fellow in Mexico.

Nancy Montoya: Arizona Public Medias border reporter has 35 years experience in broadcast news in the United States and Latin America. With the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, her familys ranch went from being in Mexico to being in the United States almost overnight.

Curt Prendergast: The Arizona Daily Stars border reporter has lived in South America and covered the border for the residents of Santa Cruz County from 2012 to 2015 as a reporter for the Nogales International.

Fernanda Santos: The Phoenix bureau chief for The New York Times hails from Brazil and contributed to Latinos in the United States: A Resource Guide for Journalists. She is the author of "The Fire Line" about the Granite Mountain Hotshots killed in the Yarnell Hill Fire.

Moderating the panel will be Maria Hinojosa, anchor and executive producer of the long-running weekly NPR show, Latino USA.

The event is free, but tickets must be reserved in advance. (See accompanying box.)
The news felt good, like we should be cheering it.

But was it?

Uber, the ride-sharing company, announced Sept. 10 a plan to sign up another 1,500 drivers in the Tucson area by the end of the year. Actually, they phrased it this way in a press release: Uber will be ... on-boarding 1,500 new driver-partners by the end of the year in Tucson.

On-boarding is the keyword there, but predictably people dont use that phrase  they say Uber is hiring. Which is not what Uber does. Drivers are independent contractors who typically make 80 percent of the fares they charge, with Uber taking the other 20 percent.

Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, who attended the announcement at Randolph Community Center, described Ubers effort as reflecting something good about Tucson.

Uber looking at this market means theyre looking at a changing community, he told me days later.

Uber spokeswoman Maui Cheska Orozco elaborated on that idea in an email, explaining the companys so-called Work on Demand initiative here: Ridesharing in Tucson is growing rapidly, and there is skyrocketing demand. Demand continues to grow for Uber, and that means more opportunities and more business for more driver-partners. Aside from ridesharing, Tucson as a city has tremendous growth potential.

However, interviews with Uber drivers and a review of the companys latest news suggest that, while this local effort might be a short-term win for some people, over the long-term its not great news. Thats because Tucson is already a borderline city for ride-share and taxi drivers trying to make a living, and drivers represent a problem for the company to erase, not an asset.

Consider this: Bloomberg News reported Aug. 25 that Uber lost $1.2 billion  yes, billion with a B  in the first six months of the year. The primary cause of the loss: subsidizing drivers. That loss came after a year, 2015, in which it lost more than $2 billion.

Now consider this: Last week Uber put customers in autonomous cars for the first time, in Pittsburgh. The company plans to expand the use of these cars, so that the Uber riders of the distant future will be in a mix of driverless and human-operated vehicles.

The long-term trend is clear: Uber must cut its spending on drivers if its ever going to turn a profit, and driverless cars offer a way to do that.

But over the short term? The impact is mixed, unless youre a taxi driver losing your way of life.

I spoke with three Tucson-area Uber drivers last week, and their feelings about the work ranged from enthusiastic to grim. The newer they were to driving, and the less they drove, the happier they were.

Take Rose Quiroga, of Sahuarita. She retired early as a nurse this year but started using Uber as a passenger during a trip to Houston in the spring. Some of the drivers were women, which convinced Quiroga to make some money as an Uber driver herself when she got home.

Its my travel money, she said. I make enough and then I leave town.

Quiroga, 63, often waits until she has errands to do in Tucson to turn on the app that shows she is available to give rides as an Uber driver. Overall, she drives three or four days a week, up to six hours per day, she said.

The gig has been good to Quiroga, who only drives during the day for safety reasons, and has had very few unpleasant customers. Usually its busy enough, she said, but not always.

In the slow times, she said, Ill find myself a shady spot off of Glenn and Campbell and wait as much as a half hour for a call.

Of the planned additional drivers, Quiroga said: I dont know if we really need that many, unless theyre planning on expanding.

Quiroga talked with me by phone, but Gabriel Hill, 51, drove me Thursday from the Stars downtown office to the main plant at 4850 S. Park Ave. Last week, for the first time, he was trying to drive Uber full time because, he said, he had been laid off from his job as an aircraft mechanic in Marana.

It was a quiet summer for Uber drivers, he said, except for occasional special events and the nightlife shifts, from Wednesday nights through Saturday nights. But he added, Now that the college students are back theres plenty of activity within Tucson.

Its not a way to make a living for Hill, but his wife has a good job, he said, and hes on her medical insurance. Hes also protected himself by forming a limited liability company under which he drives for Uber. That move gives drivers some protection from liability for incidents that occur while theyre driving.

Hill is not afraid of the eventual arrival of driverless cars.

People like conversations, he said. It would be a very dull drive  unless they put artificial intelligence in it.

Driverless cars were also a distant concern for Matthew Steiner, the Uber driver who took me from the Stars main plant back downtown. Steiner, 25, has been driving for three years, full time recently, and has had a hard time of it in Tucson.

Hes actually spent a couple of months in Phoenix just to find enough customers.

You cant make a living off of it here, he said. No benefits. They dont pay for your gas. They dont pay for your car insurance.

His first car broke down, and he asked Uber for help to no avail, he said. Now hes on his second Uber car.

Its a good thing for the rider, he said. Drivers are expendable.

That is true, and a problem with the recent announcement: Uber riders have it great, really, but drivers, not so much.

Only people who can afford to be expendable  those who arent counting on the gig to support themselves or their families  are likely to get an adequate return from driving.

But it goes further: Uber may need them now, but eventually it must be rid of the glut of drivers in order to turn a profit.

By the time it does, Uber may have cleared out the entire taxi industry and made drivers practically irrelevant.
The CEO of Pima Community College violated the civil rights of a chemistry instructor who was let go under questionable circumstances in 2014, a federal judge has found.

Chancellor Lee Lambert, an attorney with a civil-rights background, may be personally liable for damages in the case of David A. Katz, a former faculty senator who was suspended and eventually lost his job without having an opportunity to defend himself, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment, the judge said.

Taxpayers also could be on the hook for damages because PCCs Governing Board voted to deny Katz a new contract for the 2015 school year on Lamberts say-so without regard for whether Katz had received the due process required by federal law, U.S. District Court Judge Cindy K. Jorgenson said in an order dated July 25.

Lambert, asked for comment on the judges finding after a fundraiser at a hotel Thursday, said he cant talk about the case while its still before the court.

A few days after the judges order, both sides agreed to settlement talks set to begin next month. Katz filed the federal suit in late 2014.

Katz, an internationally renowned chemist who worked at the college for 11 years, wants his old job back. He also is seeking back pay for his $65,000-a-year position, as well a legal costs and unspecified general and punitive damages.

The judges order is not only a vindication for me, Katz said in an email interview Friday. Its a win for all employees who now may be spared similar mistreatment, he said.

He estimated he has spent around $40,000 on legal fees so far.

Lamberts culpability for the civil-rights violation was established during the pretrial phase when Jorgenson granted Katz summary judgment on part of his lawsuit.

The judges finding also applies to Lamberts co-defendants Mary Kay Gilliland, a former dean at PCCs west campus and her then-boss, campus President Lou Albert. They, too, face liability for damages, as does the college district as a whole.

The Fourteenth Amendment provides extensive due-process protections to state employees, including the right to an impartial hearing, the right to a detailed account of alleged wrongdoing and the right to refute the allegations before disciplinary action occurs. PCC didnt follow any of those practices in the Katz case, the judge said

Instead, Jorgenson said, college officials repeatedly overlooked Katzs right to due process over a six-month period that began in September 2013, about three months after Lambert arrived at PCC.

Katzs complaint says his troubles began a few months after he emailed his supervisor, Gilliland, to complain about numerous broken laboratory instruments gathering dust because there was no money in the budget to repair them.

PCCs lawyers said Katzs suspension wasnt tied to his complaint. They characterized the chemist, who started at the college in 2002, as a longtime problem employee prone to swearing, door-slamming, and angry interactions with co-workers and bosses.

Faculty senators who served with Katz disputed that portrayal in interviews last week with the Arizona Daily Star.

Former senate president Joe Labuda, who still works at the college, described Katz as thoughtful and opinionated, someone who was known as a good colleague.

Labuda, who reviewed PCCs communications with Katz and contacted the chancellor on Katzs behalf, said as far as he could tell, there wasnt any formal documentation to support the adminstrations claim that Katz was a chronic troublemaker.

David is very passionate about his field and at times he could get upset about things, but not to the level that would justify the actions the college took, Labuda said. I thought the whole thing was mishandled from start to finish.

Former senator Barbara Benjamin said Katz was a victim of a petty, subjective system that takes umbrage at constructive criticism.

Katzs suspension letter cited a laundry list of alleged misconduct, including lack of collegiality, disrespect, bullying or harassing, insubordination, use of profane language and an inappropriate display of anger, court records show.

Jorgenson said the letter broke the law because it had no specifics, making it impossible for Katz to know the particulars of what he was accused of and how he should respond, the judge said.

After a month on paid suspension, Albert, the campus president, switched Katz to unpaid leave and recommended to Lambert that he be terminated  again without offering concrete details, the judge said.

Lambert pledged to investigate the case before making a termination decision but didnt do either one of those things, court records show.

Instead, the chancellor put Katz back on paid leave and took no further action before the chemists annual contract expired six months later.

Lamberts failure to make a formal termination decision denied Katz his legal right to a termination hearing, the judge said.

PCCs lawyers sought to have Lambert exempted from personal liability for damages, saying he shouldnt have to pay if he reasonably believed his conduct was lawful when he denied Katz a new contract.

Jorgenson said the chancellors action may have amounted to a breach of contract and rejected the idea that Lambert didnt know any better.

The court cannot find as a matter of law that Chancellor Lambert acted reasonably when he provided no due process, including notice, to Katz, the judge wrote, noting that the chancellor is an attorney.

Lambert has a decade of experience in civil-rights and employment law, his LinkedIn profile shows. From 1994 to 1999, he worked at the Evergreen State College in Washington state as special assistant to the president for civil rights and legal affairs. After that, he spent five years as vice president for human resources and legal affairs at Centralia College in Washington.

Lambert wouldnt say whose legal advice he relied on when deciding how to handle the Katz case, again citing the ongoing nature of the case. Court records show Jeff Silvyn, PCCs general counsel, was heavily involved in handling the matter.

Katzs lawsuit made several other constitutional claims the judge rejected, such as a claim that his First Amendment right to free speech was violated when he was disciplined after complaining about lab conditions.

On Wednesday, PCCs Governing Board was slated to discuss the Katz case in a closed-door executive session. A few hours later, the board voted unanimously to add another year to the chancellors $299,000-a-year employment contract, extending it to 2019.

The decision was based on Lamberts latest performance review, in which he met or exceeded all the boards expectations, according to a board report on the performance review results.

The report noted Lamberts extensive efforts to modernize the college and resolve its accreditation problems and praised him for having a strong moral compass.

The board is very pleased with the chancellors vision for the college. The board is encouraged by the movement and direction of the institution, it said.
The first railroad in Jerome, a premier Arizona copper mining town with billion dollar views, was the United Verde and Pacific Railway chartered on March 20, 1894.

The premise behind its inception was a drop in copper prices three years earlier.

High transportation costs by wagon proved challenging to the local mines (most notably the United Verde Mine) in the Black Hills comprising Cleopatra Hill, Mingus and Woodchute Mountains.

The benefits of rail transport proved enticing as a means of heightening greater production at the mines, increasing employment and bolstering the local economy through supplying Jeromes residents with provisions along with supplies for the local mines and smelter.

The UV&P railroad was built and owned by copper magnate William Andrews Clark, who operated major copper producing mines in Butte, Montana and the United Verde Mine at Jerome. Clark was also president of the United Verde Copper Co.

The railroad that traveled around 7,834-foot Woodchute Mountain had 186 curves cut through extensive limestone beds and shaly mudstone and was known as the crookedness line in the world.

It was built higher to avoid steep canyons, with the exception of Horseshoe Canyon, by a trestle bridge.

The line was built to accommodate twenty-six miles from the connection with the standard gauge Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railroad at Jerome Junction at 4,616 feet in Chino Valley to the United Verde smelter at 5,600 feet on the slope of Mingus Mountain and on to Cleopatra Hill above the town of Jerome with a maximum gradient of three percent in both directions from the summit on Woodchute Mountain.

The maximum height of the track reached 5,939 feet called First View since this was the first view of the Verde Valley and river below for eastbound passengers to Jerome on the railroad.

It was built to a gauge of three feet. The narrow gauge railroad was an attractive less-expensive railroad to build in contrast to the larger standard gauge railroad whose rails are spaced 4-feet, 8-and-a-half inches apart. This was especially the case in rugged and remote terrain.

The smaller distance between rails enabled less dirt and rock to be moved during construction. The size of cuts and tunnels were necessarily reduced for additional cost savings. Less steel and wood were needed for both rails and ties along with its optimal usage of smaller locomotives and cars.

The only additional costs were incurred at Jerome Junction, where freight was transferred between narrow gauge and standard gauge. Copper Matte from the Jerome smelter was transferred from the UV&P for shipment by the S.F.P.& P while in exchange coke and coal were transferred to the narrow gauge cars by bin on route to fuel the smelter.

Notable events during its 25 years of operation included participating in the deportation of Jeromes striking miners in 1917 and several derailments due to heavy rains, a broken wheel flange and a missing role stabilizer.

Challenges from a 20-year fire burning underground since 1894 and issues involving cave-ins and lack of adequate timber support, coupled with new processing techniques to process low grade ore, supported the implementation of open-pit mining operations.

A new smelter was erected in 1915 five miles northeast of Jerome at Clarkdale in the Verde Valley, with the new Verde Valley Railroad of the Santa Fe serving its needs.

A redundant UV&P railroad was no longer necessary or cost effective.

The standard-gauge Verde Tunnel and Smelter Railroad did its part of transferring ore from the mine site through the 7,200 foot long Hopewell Tunnel to the Clarkdale smelter. Postwar economic conditions negatively affected the copper market.

These combined situations necessitated the closure and dismantlement of the Jerome smelter. The UV&P continued to operate until 1920.

Jerome Junction was renamed Chino Valley in 1923 and the Santa Fe continued service at the stop until the 1970s.

Last vestiges of the UV&P that remain visible today are found in an automobile road around Woodchute Mountain through Horseshoe Canyon.

An aerial view of its route also exits as a barren scar cutting along the alluvial slopes in Chino Valley.
A couple of weeks ago, at a party on the edge of Mission San Xavier del Bac, I saw a rock star. The tall man, with a slight, crooked stoop, strapped his button accordion around his chest and his fingers began to punch in the musical rhythm of the desert people.

It was Daniel Joaquin and the music he played is called waila.

Joaquin is not glamorous and never appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone. He is miles outside of the mainstream of pop culture.

But, simply put, Joaquin is an authentic musical astro, a cultural treasure, an ambassador of the Tohono Oodham and their joyful music. Together with his siblings and nephews, Joaquin took the music of the desert people, who live in the sprawling land from Southern Arizona to northern Mexico, and spread it to places and venues reserved only for a select few artists.

The Joaquin Brothers exposed the emblematic and energetic music of the Tohono Oodham to a wide audience. With their saxophones, accordion, bajo sexto, guitar, bass and drums, this legendary waila band showcased the innovative convergence of Tohono Oodham, Mexican and European music.

To some the music is called chicken scratch with its bouncy polkas, schottisches and cumbias. To Joaquin, a self-taught musician who plays at least six instruments, waila is happy music.

It makes me feel great, said Joaquin while I visited him and his wife, Pat, at their south-side home Friday.

Hes 73 now and plays infrequently outside of his home. He admits to being a bit rusty and out of rhythm, but hes still a towering musical figure from our borderlands.

The Joaquin Brothers have performed at Tucson Meet Yourself and other area festivals, including the annual Waila Festival sponsored by the Tucson Historical Society. The group has showcased the instrumental social dance music in various American cities and in Toronto.

But the bands apex arrived on June 11, 1992, when the Joaquin Brothers performed in New York Citys Carnegie Hall, one of this countrys highest musical temples. It was the first time and probably the last time that Tohono Oodham artists graced that stage.

Joaquin gets teary-eyed still when he recalls the day when the band was performing in Tucson and a man, dressed in a tie, walked up to Joaquin and asked if the Joaquin Brothers would be interested in traveling to New York City.

I was very happy when I turned around and told the boys, Joaquin said.

He and his wife last year published a brief, soft-bound book about his life, aptly called, The Joaquin Brothers: In My Own Words, From Covered Wells to Carnegie Hall.

Joaquins older brother, Angelo Joaquin Sr., started the band in 1957 in Los Angeles. Angelo, who died in 1995, had left Arizona to work in California, as did other Oodham, who back then were known as the Papago, the name given to them when the Spanish colonizers arrived in the 16th century.

At the time the band was formed, Daniel was in a Phoenix-area boarding school for Native Americans. There he learned to play the saxophone for the schools marching band.

Music was an integral part of life for the Joaquin brothers, who were born in Covered Wells, about 20 miles northwest of Sells, on the Tohono Oodham Reservation. They listened to the musicians play guitars and violins. They watched the people dance and dance and dance. Waila, the word, is derived from the Spanish word baile.

After Joaquin finished school, his brother asked him to join the band, which had returned to Arizona. Joaquin brought his saxophone to the ensemble, replacing the violin. He later learned the accordion. The other band members included a third brother, Fernando, and nephews Ron, Jerome and Leonard Joaquin.

The band performed throughout the Tohono Oodham nation and outside as well. Often the band would play from sunset to sunrise in tribal ceremonies. They often performed for little money or none at all.

Throughout the bands existence, the Joaquin Brothers made only one record, The Joaquin Brothers  Play Polkas & Chotis. Not even the Carnegie Hall performance was recorded. Joaquin said hes not sure why the band did not record more.

They simply wanted to make people feel happy, he said.

Or just maybe, like a poet who recites words only to hear them float away, the Joaquin Brothers played their music for the pleasure of it, to give the dancers and listeners the joy of feeling the music in the moment, and letting the notes dissipate.

Apparently some musicians were born not to record but to play for the pure joy.
What does it say about the state of the Department of Veterans Affairs when the agency cant even be trusted to tell the truth to the president of the United States?

Thats precisely the situation at the Little Rock, Ark., VA medical center. There, VA employees lied about patient wait times, then lied to federal investigators about doing so, and Little Rock VA leaders refused to fire those responsible.

But apparently VA officials were too ashamed to admit no one would lose their job over the hospitals fraudulent wait times. Instead, they tried to hide the truth from veterans, the public and even the president of the United States, falsely telling federal Office of Special Counsel investigators, who were preparing a report for President Obama, they planned to fire one of the responsible employees.

Similar instances of dishonesty and incompetence continue to play out at VA health care facilities across the nation, with little to no consequences for the responsible employees. Thats because dysfunctional federal personnel rules are forcing the VA to keep bad workers on the payroll, doing a disservice to the many hardworking and honest VA employees, the taxpayers that fund the department, and the veterans VA is charged with serving.

Indeed, nearly every day the VA is engulfed in a new crisis or scandal, yet the department is unable to discipline the employees responsible.

At the San Diego VA medical center, an inspector general investigation found that a veteran attempted suicide after the facility repeatedly canceled his mental health appointments. The same investigation revealed employees had instructed hospital schedulers to falsify wait times, potentially affecting hundreds of veterans mental health appointments. Still, no one was fired.

The tragic human toll of this broken status quo is evident in the stories of delayed and bungled health care procedures that routinely emanate from the VA. But this grim reality is also costing taxpayers. In fact, VAs incompetence has cost taxpayers $848 million in legal settlements  many of which were associated with medical malpractice  in the last five years alone.

Enough is enough. If the VA is ever going to change its culture, we have to give its leaders the ability to hold their worst employees accountable. Thats exactly what the VA Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act of 2016 would do. It would provide VA leaders with the tools they need finally to reform the department into an organization truly responsive to the veterans it is charged with serving.

That includes delivering swift responses to disability claim appeals. For years disability claim appeals have languished in the VA because of an antiquated appeals process. This backlog has been greatly exacerbated by mismanagement.

In the words of VAs former top benefits executive, a complex maze of bureaucratic red tape makes it almost impossible to discipline problematic employees. Thats why the VA is forced to keep sex offenders and armed-robbery participants on the departments payroll, no matter how egregious their behavior. And on the off chance the VA is able successfully to discipline an employee, the process can take years to complete because the standard of evidence the VA must meet is similar to whats required to convict a criminal in a court of law.

The VA Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act of 2016 would replace this madness with common sense, while protecting the due-process rights of employees. The bill would shorten the firing/demotion/appeals process for rank-and-file VA employees from more than a year on average to no more than 77 days. It would provide VA whistleblowers with a means to solve problems at the lowest level possible, while offering them protection from reprisals and mandating strict accountability for those who reprise against them. It would give the VA secretary the authority to recoup bonuses and relocation expenses from misbehaving employees and reduce the pensions of senior executives convicted of felonies that influenced their job performance.

For too long, VA bureaucrats who cant or wont do their jobs have used every trick in the book to keep themselves firmly entrenched in the agencys bureaucracy. The VA measure gets rid of these loopholes, which have been unfairly forcing veterans and the many good VA workers to deal with deadwood employees for years.

Its a common-sense solution to an obvious problem that provides a better way of doing business at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Americas veterans and taxpayers deserve no less.

If the VA is ever going to change its culture, we have to give its leaders the ability to hold their worst employees accountable.
As we near the Nov. 8 elections, we are being bombarded with messaging in traditional and social media proclaiming abortion is among our most pressing issues. We are being told that if we believe in a womans right to choose and in womens health, then we must vote a certain way. Abortion has been a hot social and political topic for more than 20 years.
Arizona has been named the least attractive state in the country for educators, according to a national study on the teacher shortage crisis.

With one of the highest turnover rates of any state, and 24 percent of the teacher workforce eligible to retire by the end of 2018, the outlook for Arizonas future points to continued shortages, research released Wednesday by the Learning Policy Institute found.

As the end of the first quarter of the school year approaches, Tucson-area school districts report having nearly 170 vacant teaching positions.

Those findings, combined with the fact that fewer people are going into the teaching profession, is terrifying the leader of Tucsons largest school district said.

Thats a real wake up call, said TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez, who feels that many of Arizonas problems stem from an overly-involved legislature. If thats not shocking people right now and encouraging people to get out of teachers way and let them do a good job, then I dont know whats going to wake folks up.

Sanchez came to Tucson three years ago from Texas where per pupil funding was higher, as were teacher salaries. Legislative involvement in daily classroom instruction was also not as confining as it is here, he said.

It seems we have people at the legislative level that want to do the teachers job instead of the legislature doing its job, which is setting policy that creates economic strength and vitality, and making decisions based on research instead of doing the kind of things that are done now.

Sanchez pointed specifically to efforts in Arizona to cut funding for career and technical education programs and eliminating funding for full-day kindergarten despite studies showing the benefits not only for children, but the community as a whole.

Another example: the states involvement in determining whether third-graders are promoted to the next level, Sanchez said.

Thats the teachers job  the teacher knows which kids should move on to fourth grade and which shouldnt. It shouldnt be driven by the legislature. There has to be a focus on policy making at the legislative level as opposed to micromanaging.

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In developing the state attractiveness rating, the Learning Policy institute looked at compensation, teacher turnover, teacher qualifications and working conditions, which took into account the percentage of teachers who feel they have control over their classrooms and those who were worried about job security because of testing.

A higher percentage of Arizona teachers reported being concerned about job security because of testing and a lower percent of Arizona teachers reported feeling that they had control over their classrooms when compared to the national averages.

Arizona also had a higher percentage  11.9  of teachers planning to leave as soon as possible compared to the national average of 6.6 percent.

Though Arizona earned the lowest attractiveness rating, it is by no means alone in the struggle to staff schools.

The research found more than 40 states reporting that they are facing serious shortages of teachers in math, science and special education, and more than 30 states reporting serious shortages for teachers of English-language learners.

What's the answer?

More equitable compensation packages would be an important start, while forgivable loans and service scholarships also could help attract and retain teachers for high-need fields and locations, according to the Learning Policy Institute. Improved support for beginning teachers and career development, coupled with better working conditions in local schools, would reverse the turnover problem.

The Flowing Wells School District, which serves more than 5,700 students, is a strong believer in professional development, competitive compensation and supportive working conditions, all of which may contribute to the fact that there is only one teaching position that is currently unfilled, Superintendent David Baker said.

Despite serving a high percentage of low-income families, Flowing Wells has been recognized for excellence in academic achievement, but that all ties back to who is in front of the classroom, Baker said.

As an organization, we believe hiring and retaining staff  both teachers and support personnel  is central to all our efforts in focusing on teaching and learning, he said.
Help India!

By Soroor Ahmed for TwoCircles.net

There is a unique short-cut route to sainthood in Bihar. Vatican must learn from it.

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There is no need to wait for five years or so after death for a person to be declared as saint.

Just join the Rashtriya Janata Dal and after a few unlawful and criminal acts leave it. You would automatically become saint: instead of any Pope, it will be the media persons who will formally declare the said person as a saint.

Now, no question would be asked for any illegal act committed in the past. You would be provided Y-category security by none else but the Union home ministry. You would roam about in helicopter and sermonise people about the misdeeds of chief minister Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad.

The prime minister of the country would give you time, not worrying about the fact that the gentleman in question has spent years behind bars on the charge of murdering the then CPI (M) MLA and a very popular figure of Purnea district, Ajit Sarkar, in 1998. After all, what is wrong in according welcome to him as the court has acquitted him?

Pappu Yadav realised saintliness within himself days after leaving RJD in 2015. In fact, he had joined the party after his release from jail in 2013 following his acquittal.

Pappu suddenly started feeling that Sushil Modi (SuMo) is no more pouring venom against him, nor is the media after him for, among other misdeeds, terrorising the doctors of Kosi belt.

Now he is blue-eyed boy of the Bihars opposition parties and after SuMo of BJP, gets highest coverage in the media. Poor Prem Kumar, the leader of opposition in the state Assembly and MLA for 26 years stand nowhere.

Pappu has often been an Independent MLA or MP. But he has now realised that whenever he had joined RJDbe it in 2004 or 2014he and Shahabuddin used to be called as the two sides of the same coin. So get elected on RJD ticket and then leave it. It is another thing that his wife, Ranjit Ranjan, has her feet firmly planted in the Congress.

Sadhu Yadav is not so lucky. Yet he has also become a saint as he had left the Lalu Parivar and have come close to the Sangh Parivar via a brief stay in the Gandhi Parivar, that is, Congress party.

Narendra Modi, as the prime ministerial candidate in 2013, threw the door wide open to greet him in Ahmedabad. All the news that he had once used his muscle- and gun-power against a bureaucrat is wrong. No, he was never close to the Siwan don, Mohammad Shahabuddin. Lalu Yadav is not at all his relative. See, he has not invited the latter or Rabri Devi, to his daughters marriage. He is a saint.

To err is human. So he might have committed some minor mistakes in the past. One should forgive and forget them.

Then there is Anant Singh, Anand Mohan, Munna Shukla, Rajan Tiwari, Rama Singh, Suraj Bhan and Sunil Pandey; the last name on this list is the alleged mastermind of killing of his own mentor, Ranvir Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh alias Mukhiyaji. Goons took Patna and Ara to hostage looting and destroying properties after his killing on June 1, 2012. No follow up, no action, no probe for these saintly acts even when the loss run into crores of rupees.

The name of some other saints-in-the-making, for example, Anand Mohan and Munna Shukla, figured prominently in the lynching of the then Dalit district magistrate of Gopalganj, G Krishnaiah in December 1994. The poor and dedicated officer was attacked by a mob allegedly led by these two strongmen. They were protesting with the body of dreaded Chotan Shukla, who was killed by a rival gang in Vaishali district on the same day. Seeing an official coming from Gopalganj and on way to Patna the mob attacked and brutally killed him.

Others like Suraj Bhan, Rajan Tiwari etc got acquitted after years in jail in the former minister Brij Bihari Prasad murder case. No one would raise their name even though Brij Biharis wife, Rama Devi, is now a BJP MP.

And then comes Anant Singh, who has the distinction of publicly calling the then chief minister, Jitan Ram Manjhi, a pagal (mad). He once even threatened the Dalit CM of dire consequences. The poor chap now does not raise the issue.

All these guys are saint-in-the-making and not saint. They may remain so for ever. If they want to become full-fledged saint they must jump on to the Lalu bandwagon and then abandon it. The next day they would be declared saints.

Another gentleman, who missed this historic opportunity of becoming saint on September 10, 2016, six days after Mother Teresa was declared so, is Shahabuddin. He came out with a blazing colour from jail and issued an immortal statement: Nitish Kumar is the chief minister of circumstances. He followed it later by equating Nitish with Madhu Koda, former Jharkhand CM. But one sentence spoiled his whole prospect of becoming a saint. Lalu Prasad has always been my leader.

Imagine what would have happened had he taken the name of Narendra Modi instead of Lalu.

St Shahabuddin on line with St Pappu.
Help India!

By Kouser Fathima for Twocircles.net

As if we dont have enough reasons to fight.

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Food wars seem to be the new trend especially during the time of festivals. Come Bakrid, and suddenly the love for animals seems to be at its peak , many conveniently seem to forget that animals are consumed as food throughout the year, Bakrid or no Bakrid. Even as you are reading this ,millions of chicken are used to make chicken burgers and chicken pops by food giants like McDonalds and KFC. So, this special concern for animals on a specific day can only be to target people celebrating Eid.

Let us be clear that people all over the world,follow different food habits ranging from vegans ,eggetarians ,vegetarians & non vegetarians . It is individual choice followed based on their religious and cultural preferences. We should realise that people across all faiths ,religions and nationalities are both vegetarians & non vegetarians.while many people are turning vegans & vegetarians due to various reasons but fact is Non-vegetarianism is a choice followed by millions of people worldwide. People are not ready to give up either of the choices , both claim their food preference is better than the others while the reality is both have their advantages & disadvantages . Better is to learn to respect each others food choices without being judgemental . Ideas that one is more peaceful or not cant be judged based on food habits . Hitler was a vegetarian but killed millions of people while most countries practising Buddhism are non vegetarians.

While year around many who dont blink an eye when non-veg food is consumed suddenly turn into animal activist on Bakrid. How stupid and funny can one get, especially those who are fine with KFC and McDonalds serving non-veg but have a problem when people celebrate their festival. This is nothing but capitalist attitude where you are ok if with food giants serving non veg but not when ordinary folks consume non veg.

Many dont know or dont bother to know that when Muslims slaughter goat on Eid , most of the meat is distributed among the poor and needy. So it is a way of sharing food and privileges with the poor and needy. Yes, one can share veg food also but why dictate others how to do charity ,why should poor be deprived of non vegetarian food if they want to eat ?

Its like telling the poor that you are poor so you shouldnt be given free meat but its ok if food Giants can earn millions selling non veg food.

If there is concern it should be about hygiene , the people slaughtering should make efforts to do it without causing inconvenience to others.

Cleanliness & hygiene aspects should be strictly followed , slaughtering on roads should be strictly avoided. Almost all Muslim countries have designated areas or approved arbitrators for slaughter. The same model should be encouraged and followed in India to avoid inconvenience to all. If we want to enjoy our rights we simply cant ignore our responsibilities.

All said & done Food wars will continue for years but let us maintain some dignity without targeting specific communities.

The author is a Bengaluru-based writer
Wisconsins roads need more than engineering and concrete.

They need leadership and courage.

They dont need delays. They dont need answers that only pretend to suit the political whims of today instead of the needs of today and tomorrow.

We need leadership  the type that requires difficult, potentially unpopular decisions if were truly going to serve the future of our states roads and bridges.

If Wisconsin is open for business and tourism, we need to make sure our roads are, too.

Gov. Scott Walker announced plans last week to delay road projects in Wisconsin. Sadly, thats not what our road system needs.

The states Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates the state needs $939 million to pay for projects that have already been approved.

The governor wants to give more money to local governments for road work, but it barely will patch the pothole.

A bandage and a lollipop wont help.

Lets look at an opportunity weve already lost  and a possible solution going forward.

For 20 years beginning in 1986, Wisconsin raised revenue by automatically indexing its fuel tax each year by a small amount per gallon.

Yes, that raised the tax. It also raised millions of dollars to improve our roads.

In 2005, the Legislature and then-Gov. Jim Doyle agreed to repeal that automatic annual increase. It was an easy, popular quick fix  and even some conservative Republicans said it was short-sighted.

How much did that cost our transportation fund in revenue?

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported in March 2015 that the transportation fund had lost more than $1 billion because of the change, which took effect after April 2006.

So, you do the math: The state needs $939 million to complete approved projects, and weve lost out on $1 billion because we lacked the leadership and courage to continue the adjustment on a tax that is paid by all who use the roads, including tourists and many other non-Wisconsin residents.

Our state has a heritage of appointing bipartisan, blue-ribbon committees to improve operations, such as the Kettl Commission, charged more than 15 years ago with studying ways of restructuring government in our state.

Since Walker has been governor, we havent seen that type of collaborative problem-solving, only divide and conquer.

Now would be an excellent time to pull together businesses and transportation executives to help policy-makers make sound decisions on funding and fixing Wisconsin roads.

Were encouraged that members of both the Republican and Democratic caucuses are unhappy with the governors approach to fixing our road problem.

But will they have the leadership and the courage to do something about it? Will they be able to override a veto from the governor? Will they be able to work together on a solution?

Were not optimistic.

The Transportation Development Authority will convene constituents throughout the state Sept. 29 to call attention to the problem. Its an excellent opportunity to speak out.

TDA Executive Director Craig Thompson said the governors proposal does not provide a coherent plan or vision for the state. It would provide, for the next two years, needed investment at the local level, but at the expense of important economic corridors. Crucial safety improvements called for by WisDOT on some of the busiest stretches of interstate in Wisconsin would not proceed. The question is: If we are not going to rebuild 60-year-old segments of the interstate system now, when are we?

Thats exactly the question: If not now, when?

The safety of our residents and the vibrancy of commerce and tourism are at stake.

Its time to find a long-term solution  even if it hurts.

We need leadership  the type that requires difficult, potentially unpopular decisions if were truly going to serve the future of our states roads and bridges.
On Saturday, September 17th, penobscot nation representatives Kathy Paul and June Sapiel joined representatives from350 Maine, The Sierra Club, Maine Peoples Alliance, Food and Water Watch, Community Water Justice, Environment Maine, the Southern Maine Workers Center, and Protect South Portland. The event was organized as a response to the ongoing protests taking place in North Dakota.

Those events are connected to a dispute over land use. Organized as "Standing in Solidarity,"attendees at the event in Maine were asked to wear blue items of clothing.

Blue, a universally recognized symbol of water, was chosen to symbolize the idea that "water is life." The standing rock sioux are protesting the creation of an oil pipeline which would transport shale oil reserves from the Bakkan Oil Fields in North Dakota to consumers in Illinois.

Standing in solidarity

They assert that the process of building this pipeline will endanger their community. The Standing Rock Sioux believe that their sacred ancestral burial lands and community drinking water access will be threatened as a result of this pipeline. Following news of a catastrophic oil pipeline failure in Alabamajust a day ago, the Standing Rock Sioux have been joined by representatives from Native American groups from across the nation.

Native justice

Setting up make-shift camps, the Standing Rock Sioux protest has swelled to as many as 5,000 people at various times. This number is notable considering only 25 of North Dakota's 357 towns count more then 2,000 residents. Native American Tribal Associations from across the country are unifying in support of the Standing Rock Sioux.

This event is becoming a rallying point and many are seeking to align their own regional concerns with this on-goingnational story.

Ecological justice

Humanitarian aid groups are keeping close watch on the protests in North Dakota. As temperatures dip, the makeshift encampments and shelters which have been housing the protesters are being pushed to their very limits. All compassionate people across the United States and Planet Earth are urged to stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux.
State Council announces reshuffle of senior officials Updated: 2016-09-14 13:14 (Xinhua)

BEIJING -- The State Council, China's cabinet, announced a reshuffle of several senior government officials Wednesday.

Wang Hesheng was appointed vice minister of National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Liu Zhengrong and Zhang Sutang were both appointed vice presidents of Xinhua News Agency.

The State Council appointed Xue Xiaofeng as deputy director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Macao Special Administrative Region, and Yu Zaiqing as vice president of Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralymic Winter Games.

Xu Dazhe will no longer serve as vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, chief of China National Space Administration, director of China Atomic Energy Authority, or head of State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

The cabinet removed Long Xinnan from the post of vice president of Xinhua News Agency, and Guo Ligen from the post of vice chairman of China Banking Regulatory Commission.

The State Council also decided Zhou Yanli will no longer hold the post of vice chairman of China Insurance Regulatory Commission and relieved Luo Han of the post of chairman of Supervisory Board for Key Large State-Owned Enterprises.
SAR chief: Most back 'one country Updated: 2016-09-16 01:51 By JOSEPH LI

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said the majority of Hong Kong people support the "One Country, Two Systems" principle  and only a small minority are advocating "independence" for the special administrative region.

He also dismissed the suggestion by some young people that Hong Kong should prepare for a "second negotiation" for the SARs future beyond 2047. "As far as the 'One Country aspect is concerned, 2047 is a non-event, he said.

In an exclusive interview with China Daily, Leung noted that Article 1 of the Basic Law states that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China. Therefore, he said, calling for Hong Kong to be detached from the rest of the country is totally unacceptable.

To help people better understand the Basic Law, the government will do more to educate the public to make sure people understand not just one or two articles of the Basic Law, but all its articles, he said.

The SARs chief executive said that although Hong Kong cherishes freedom of expression, there is no room for "pro-independence" discussions. If students want to discuss this aspect of the Basic Law, teachers should guide such discussions within the context of the law, he added.

"We shouldnt be complacent. If we do not tackle this well, this (separatist idea) could spread, he said.

As to whether the Education Bureau should issue guidelines to schools, he said these are not necessary regarding this simple, clear provision of the Basic Law.

He also commented on a readers letter to a local newspaper on Sept 15. The reader suggested the possibility of amendments to the Basic Law and changes to Hong Kongs status under a mechanism provided in Article 159 of the Basic Law.

"Paragraph 4 of Article 159 says that no amendment to the Basic Law shall contravene the basic policy of the Peoples Republic of China regarding Hong Kong. And the basic policy is Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China, Leung added.

Leung also said he was not worried about Hong Kong after 2047. "My view is that we dont have to change that (capitalist system and way of life), because this 'One Country, Two Systems serves Hong Kong well today, and in 2047 and thereafter, he said.

Leung noted that the Lands Department is granting leases for 50 years, referring to a land lease granted for a site in Sha Tin. The lease will expire in 2066.
Li's visit to Western Hemisphere historic Updated: 2016-09-17 02:04 By ZHAO HUANXIN(China Daily)

Premier to demonstrate China's increased diplomatic clout at UN, speak with executives in New York, start a new chapter in relations with Canada, and make a first of its kind visit to Cuba

China Daily

More details have emerged on Premier Li Keqiang's upcoming debut at the UN General Assembly, a trip that will including Li meeting his Canadian counterpart and become the first Chinese premier to visit Cuba in more than half a century.

The whirlwind of activities will take place in an 11-day journey that starts on Sunday.

The premier is expected to expound on Beijing's viewpoints regarding the international order, development and global governance at the annual general debate of the UN session, kick off a meeting between Chinese and Canadian premiers that is set to become a regular event, and most likely meet with legendary Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro, according to diplomats and analysts.

While attending the 71st session of the UN General Assembly between Sunday and Wednesday, Li is expected to tell the world how China has delivered on the promises President Xi Jinping made at last year's session, Yang Xiyu, a researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, said on Friday.

At the UN Sustainable Development Summit last September, Xi said China would establish an assistance fund for South-South cooperation, with an initial pledge of $2 billion to support developing countries. Xi also announced China's decision to establish a 10-year, $1 billion China-UN peace and development fund to support the UN's work at last year's UN session.

During the annual UN session this year, China will release a country report on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  the first country to release such a report. It follows the action plan formulated at the recent G20 meeting in Hangzhou for implementing the agenda, which is a blueprint for ending poverty and hunger, promoting equality and protecting environment for the years leading up to 2030, according to Yang.

"The presence of Chinese president and premier at the consecutive UN sessions indicate China attaches great importance to the UN and supports the organization in playing its role," Yang said.

During his stay in New York, the premier is expected to attend the general debate, and chair a symposium on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and China's ways of doing that.

He is expected to announce "pragmatic moves" in support of the work of the UN and in addressing global challenges such as terrorism, refugee crises and infectious diseases, Vice-Foreign Minister Li Baodong said this week.

Also on the agenda is a meeting to be hosted by the Economic Club of New York, a nonprofit membership organization with members drawn from the top executive levels of business, industry and finance.

"This public diplomacy arrangement indicates the premier wants to have close contact and direct conversations with people in business, finance and industry circles," Yang said.

The premier will then fly to Canada for a flurry of activities, including meeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, and attending an economic and trade forum in Montreal, according to sources with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In their meeting in Beijing around half a month ago, the two premiers announced the two countries would launch an annual dialogue between both heads of government to boost bilateral relations and exchanges of views on international affairs.

"Li's visit will mark the official start of the dialogue mechanism, which indicates the two countries are well on the way to a more mature and stable relationship," Yang said.

While Li's visit to Canada was the first by a Chinese premier in 13 years, he would be the first Chinese premier ever to visit Cuba since Beijing and Havana established formal relations in 1960.

Liu Xiuqin, Chinese ambassador to the Caribbean country between 2010 and 2012, said Chinese presidents have all visited Cuba since 1993, each at least once, but none of its premiers has visited the island nation.

Premier Li's historic visit would result in enhanced political relations, and ramped-up cooperation in trade, she said.

Asked if Fidel Castro would meet Li, Liu said she believed that the former Cuban leader would surely meet the Chinese premier as long as his health permits.

Xu Shicheng, a senior researcher of Latin American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also predicted the meeting would happen.

Xu said that building on the traditional relations of the two countries, Premier Li's visit would lend a strong boost to bilateral trade.

The two-way trade between the two countries has remained about $2 billion in recent years, which Xu said doesn't match the momentum of their good relations.
Macao's twin panda cubs named 'Jianjian', 'Kangkang' Updated: 2016-09-17 18:39 (Xinhua)

Photo taken on Sept 5, 2016 shows twin panda cubs "Jianjian" (front) and "Kangkang" at a park in Macao, south China. [Photo/Xinhua]

MACAO -- Macao's twin panda cubs were officially named "Jianjian" and "Kangkang" by the government out of 1,718 names recommended by Macao citizens, the special administrative region(SAR)'s civil affair authorities said on Saturday.

The names for the twin brothers represent good wishes from the Macao people, as Jian Kang in Chinese means "being healthy". They are chosen by the government out of 1,718 names proposed by 3,587 citizens according to their meaning, pronunciation, and previous panda names, Macao's Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (CMAB) said.

"Jianjian" and "Kangkang" were the most favored choices as they were proposed by 1,117 citizens, some of which said they chose them to wish the panda cubs good health and wish Macao people good health and happy life.

CMAB said another reason for making the choice is their parents' names "Kaikai" and "Xinxin" are frequently used with "Jianjian" and "Kangkang" in Chinese. The combination of this family's names are Kaixin Jiankang, meaning being happy and healthy.

According to the panda care team, the twin cubs now weigh 4,115 grams and 3,335 grams respectively from 135 grams and 53.8 grams at birth. They have their parents' black-and-white appearance, with their eyes open but only can see things in a short distance.

Female panda Xinxin has given birth to the pair of male twin cubs on June 26, 2016. Xinxin and a male panda named Kaikai were chosen from Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in southwest China's Sichuan Province as a gift of the central government to Macao SAR.
Primary students say goodbye to napping on desks Updated: 2016-09-18 11:27 By Wu Yan(chinadaily.com.cn)

Students raising their hands in class. [File photo/Xinhua]

Many parents of lower-grade primary school students are concerned about whether their children will adapt to study, as their noon nap habits can hardly be carried out in a classroom, affecting their afternoon performance.

But the Hangzhou Danfeng Experimental Primary School in East China's Zhejiang province has reassured parents as it innovatively prepares 12 "sleeping rooms" for each first and second-grade class, as well as pillows and blankets for each student, the Qianjiang Evening News reports.

The sleeping rooms, which are as big as a classroom, are covered with foam pads. Children can enjoy a 50-minute noon nap until 1:05 pm after laying down on their pillows and blankets.

Every sleeping room has a teacher attending. Teachers will pacify naughty children or tuck sleeping students in quilts. If some students are unwilling to sleep, they are allowed to read books on the condition that they do not bother others.

Cao Xiaohong, Principal of the primary school, said school teachers disagreed with students napping on desks, as many do in other schools, because it was unhealthy.

Two years ago, a first grade primary student in Zhejiang reportedly went to hospital complaining of cervical vertebra aches. The diagnosis revealed a dislocation of her cervical spine and the doctor thought it was related to her long-term napping on desks.

"The school moved to a new building this year and there are enough spare classrooms," Cao said.

Since sleeping on the ground would likely lead to students catching a cold during cooler weather, the sleeping rooms will only open in May, June, September and October.
Lyle Goldstein, China scholar at the US Naval War College, says he tries to play a role in US-China relations by calming tensions. Weihua Chen / China Daily

Lyle Goldstein was a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 1996 when the Taiwan Strait crisis broke out. China conducted missile tests in the waters there to send a signal to the then-Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui who tried to move away from the One China Policy. The US, under then-President Bill Clinton, sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region to show its support for Taiwan.

Goldstein, then 25, told himself, "Gosh, this is such an important issue, the rise of China, and how it (United States) will get along with China."

The young man, who had studied Russian and lived in Russia, was attracted by China but felt unsure if he could start China studies at such a "late" age.

Mentors

Literally the first day he started his PhD at Princeton University in the fall of 1997, he talked to students and faculty about beginning Chinese.

"Looking around the world; I thought the biggest question facing international politics was going to be between the US and China. It was obvious in 1996 and 1997," said Goldstein, now an established China scholar and an associate professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute in the US Naval War College based in Newport, Rhode Island.

He spent the summers of 1997 and 1998 in Beijing, studying the language and China, and returned in the summer of 1999 for his PhD research at Tsinghua University.

At Princeton, Goldstein studied with several China scholars such as Lynn White III and Gilbert Rozman. His Chinese progressed by studying with Perry Link, who specializes in modern Chinese literature and language.

Goldstein still remembers clearly that White always looked closely at how Chinese were thinking about issues and brought Chinese into the classroom for discussion. "That was great, and I feel I learned a lot," he said.

He described Rozman as being very interested in cooperation and how to get different countries to work together.

Another of Goldstein's professors was Aaron Friedberg, whose books, especially the one A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia often spread a pessimistic view of China's rise. They contrast sharply with Goldstein's 2015 book Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry, in which he proposes that China and the US should both compromise to reduce their tensions.

Goldstein thought Friedberg, who served from 2003 to 2005 as deputy assistant for national security affairs in the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, was useful to him because he was good at asking the big and fundamental questions.

"I don't agree with him. I think China's approach to the world is quite reasonable," he said, citing the fact that China has not used force for more than 30 years and doesn't have major foreign bases, and even in the maritime domain, China is not such a challenge.

At Princeton, he worked on a dissertation examining nuclear strategy and found that while people like Chinese leader Mao Zedong talked big and bombastic and threatening, they became more moderate after they developed the bomb. That, according to Goldstein, could offer some insights into today's North Korea.
4 US police officers shot in separate incidents Updated: 2016-09-18 09:11 (Xinhua)

A Fort Worth Police SWAT member works in the Wedgwood neighborhood of Fort Worth, Texas, USA, September 16, 2016. [Photo/IC]

WASHINGTON - Four US police officers and four civilians were shot on Friday night in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Fort Worth, Texas, authorities said.

In Philadelphia, sergeant Sylvia Young, 19, was ambushed late Friday night and shot a number of times in her left arm and protective vest, said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross.

The suspect later wounded Ed Miller, a former police officer who is now a member of the security force at the University of Pennsylvania, Ross said.

During the police chase, a woman was killed and three other civilians were injured by the suspect, before he was cornered in an alley and fatally shot by the police.

Young and Miller were rushed to hospital and were in stable condition early Saturday, Ross said.

In another incident in Fort Worth, two police officers were responding to a suicide call at a house Friday night.

When they entered the house, a suspect inside the backyard shed began shooting, local media reported.

One officer was shot several times and in critical condition, while the suspect was later found dead by the police.
New York explosion was terrorism, Cuomo says Updated: 2016-09-18 23:07 (Agencies)

NEW YORK  An explosion rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood and injured 29 people, and a suspicious device discovered blocks away was safely removed early Sunday.

In a Sunday morning news conference, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the incident was terrorism, although there was no evidence that it was international terrorism.

"Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "We have no credible and specific threat at this moment."

De Blasio tried to calm any fears among nervous New Yorkers, saying preliminary information found "there is no evidence at this point of a terror connection" and the explosion wasn't related to a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey that forced the cancellation of a charity run.

"Now, I want to be clear: Whatever the cause, whatever the intention here, New Yorkers will not be intimidated," the Democratic mayor said. "We are not going to let anyone change who we are or how we go about our lives."

The explosion happened in Chelsea, a primarily residential neighborhood on Manhattan's west side that's known for its art galleries and large gay population.

It was unclear who was behind the blast and what motivated it.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that a second device that officers investigated four blocks from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone. The official, who was not authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street. The device was removed with a robot and taken to a department firing range in the Bronx.

The law enforcement official also said that the explosion that rocked a bustling Chelsea neighborhood appeared to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. Photos from the scene show a twisted and crumpled black metal box.

The blast happened on West 23rd Street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe's supermarket. Witnesses said the explosion at about 8:30 p.m. blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris.

The Fire Department of New York said 29 people were injured, and 24 people were taken to hospitals. One person received a puncture wound that was considered serious. The other injuries were described as scrapes and bruises.

New York City subway routes were affected by the explosion, which rattled some New Yorkers and visitors on the heels of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.

"We felt it. We heard it," Gonzalez said. "It wasn't like jolting or anything. Everyone just went quiet."

Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said he, at first, thought something large had fallen.

"It was an extremely loud noise. Everything was shaking, the windows were shaking," he said. "It was extremely loud, almost like thunder but louder."

The FBI and Homeland Security officials, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arson and explosive task force, were at the scene. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo toured the site Sunday.

The White House said President Barack Obama was apprised of the explosion.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said the nation needs to support its first responders and "pray for the victims."

"We have to let this investigation unfold," she said.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump moved ahead of New York City officials when he declared a "bomb went off" before officials had released details. He made the announcement minutes after stepping off his plane in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

"I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows what's going on," Trump said.

He continued, "But boy we are living in a time  we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant."

A spokeswoman for Trump didn't respond to an email asking whether he was briefed about it before taking the stage.

The Manhattan blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners were due to participate in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. The run was canceled, and no injuries were reported.

Also Saturday, at least eight people were injured at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in a stabbing attack. The suspect was shot dead by an off-duty police officer. The police chief said the suspect asked at least one victim if he or she was Muslim.

The investigation into the Manhattan explosion came as world leaders descend on the United Nations for a meeting Monday to address the refugee crisis and the Syrian conflict. The blast site is about 2 miles away.
All 29 people injured in NY blast released from hospitals: mayor Updated: 2016-09-19 02:17 (Xinhua)

NEW YORK -- All 29 people wounded in Saturday's blast in New York City were released from hospitals, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday at a news conference on the explosion.

The mayor called the blast which occurred around 8:30 p.m. Saturday EDT (0030 GMT Sunday)) in the popular Chelsea district in west 23rd street, Manhattan, "a very serious incident", saying lot more work needs to be done to find out the motivation behind the blast.

The motivation behind the explosion remains unknow, Mayor Blasio said.

He termed the blast which wounded 29 people an "intentional" and "criminal" act. However, he declined to call the blast a terrorist attack.

New York City Police Commissioner James O'neil said at the press conference that no one has claimed responsibility for the explosion.

New York police are beefing up extra security at bus terminals, airports and on subways in the city as nearly 200 VIPs and diplomats descended on New York for a Climate Summit and the annual General Debate in the UN General Assembly on Sunday.
Snowden in spotlight again three years after revelation Updated: 2016-09-19 03:41 By CHEN WEIHUA(China Daily USA)

Edward Snowden speaks via video link during a news conference in New York City, U.S. September 14, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

When President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama were about to meet in the California desert resort of Sunnylands in June 2013, the US government had worked hard to paint China as a villain in cyberspace.

The revelation made by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden just days before the shirt-sleeves meeting, however, shocked the world. It showed that whatever other countries had done in cyber-surveillance and spying was really nothing compared to the massive scale of operations by the NSA, often labeled as No Such Agency.

To the rest of the world, Snowden is undoubtedly a whistleblower and a great hero because he revealed the US government secret scheme to spy on people all over the world, including foreign leaders who are US allies.

Such spying, which violates peoples privacy and civil rights, often involves willing and unwilling collaboration with several major US tech companies.

In the US, debate about whether Snowden is a hero, patriot or traitor is still a divisive issue, despite that his revelation has resulted in the US government and Congress correcting many mistakes.

For example, the panel appointed by Obama to review NSA surveillance programs made dozens of reform recommendations. A federal appeals court has found NSAs call-tracking program revealed by Snowden illegal. The USA Freedom Act passed by the US Congress ended the bulk collection of phone data by the government.

In the past week, Snowden has again been in the spotlight. The German-American movie, Snowden, directed and written by Oliver Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald, hit US theaters on Sept 16.

Meanwhile, Snowden has pleaded for a pardon from Obama, arguing that his massive leak of NSA surveillance programs was not only morally right but also left citizens better off.

On Sept 14, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Executive Director Anthony Romero called Obama to pardon Snowden by launching the Pardon Snowden campaign that will last untll the end of the Obama administration.

Thanks to Edward Snowdens act of conscience, weve made historic strides in our fight for surveillance reform and improved cybersecurity, he said.

The ACLU campaign was joined by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a list of more than 100 legal scholars, former national security officials, business leaders, human rights activists and artists.

Romero believes the Espionage Act, which the US government used to charge Snowden, is a World War I era law that doesnt distinguish between selling secrets to foreign governments and giving them to journalists working in the public interest.

Most of the people who believe that Snowden is a traitor and should spend the rest of his life in prison argue, as I heard in the latest C-SPAN Journal on Sept 16, that he broke an oath and put the US national security in danger.

It is true that Snowden broke trust, but it occurred in a situation where he found serious wrongdoing by the US government, which is a much more serious crime that people should care about.

Even former US attorney general Eric Holder said that we can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made.

However, the US House Intelligence Committee unanimously signed a letter to Obama on Sept 15 not to pardon Snowden, describing his action as causing huge damage to the US intelligence community.

While Obama has commented that the debate triggered by Snowden will make us stronger, it does not look likely that he will have the guts to pardon Snowden.

Both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are clearly against a pardon. Trump has repeatedly called for execution of Snowden although he said back in 2013 that he might become a major fan if he could reveal Obamas records.

Clinton has said that Snowden stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands while some of her fundraisers are calling for pardoning Snowden.

The only 2016 presidential candidate who supported Snowden did not become a party nominee. Bernie Sanders said the information disclosed by Snowden has allowed Congress and the American people to understand the degree to which the NSA has abused its authority and violated our constitutional rights.

Contact the writer at chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
home Entertainment Google Nexus 7 2016 release date, specs latest news: New device features Snapdragon 820, Android 7.0 Nougat

The Google Nexus 7 2016 model is said to be on its way for the public to see. Fans are constantly looking out for updates regarding the device and so far, rumors about its specs and other details have circulated across the internet.

According to a report, apparent changes are going to be made with the series. It is said that there is a high chance that the upcoming generation of the Google Nexus 7 will no longer be called as such. Its moniker may be changed from Nexus to Pixel. Considering the latest HTC-made smartphones for Google are expected to be called the Pixel and Pixel XL, this is not far from happening.

With regards to the specs, a German site reported that the rumored Nexus 7 is said to sport a 7-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels. It also mentioned that it will be equipped with a Snapdragon 820 processor paired with an Adreno 530 graphics processing unit.

Its expected RAM count is 4 GB, as suggested by famous tipster Evan Blass via his Twitter account. He also tweeted that the device is expected to launch before the year ends. There was no mention of a specific date or month.

Moreover, other rumors suggested that the device will be coming with a 13-megapixel rear camera and will have a native storage of 64 GB. It may also be shipping with the latest operating system of Google, the Android 7.0 Nougat. Aside from that, sources also reported that it will be packed with several new features such as a faster navigating system, virtual reality support, improved doze and multi-window functions.

As for the price, the purported device will most likely cost a lot if it is going to be based on the 10.2-inch Pixel C which costs $500. But there is still a possibility that Google will maintain the price range of the Nexus line.

Fans who are looking forward for the Google Nexus 7 2016 model will have to stay tuned for more information. As of now, details are not official yet so it is best to take them with a pinch of salt.
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Releases from NASA, NASA's Galex, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, HubbleSite, Spitzer, Cassini, ESO, ESA, NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory, Royal Astronomical Society, NRAO, Astronomy Picture of the Day, Harvard-Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Gemini Observatory, Subaru Telescope, W. M. Keck Observatory, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, JPL-Caltech, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, ICRAR, etc
Across the globe, most people would say that Viet Nams greatest scenic wonder is the UNESCO Natural Heritage site of Ha Long Bay. However, some experts are saying that there are even more beautiful geological creations worth travelling to - the caves in Viet Nam.

Individuals who have travelled through the caves swear by them.

If you have seen inside [the caves I have explored], you will know that the world beneath us is even more breathtaking than the one we are living in, says Ha Noi-born Ta Nam Long, who currently leads the first Vietnamese cave exploration group.

It is easy to spot which mountain is the tallest because mountains are visible to the eye, but nobody can say for sure how deep the world is under the ground, says Long. That in itself is already very exciting to me.

British cave expert and explorer Howard Limbert, a member of the British Caving Association for 25 years and discoverer of Son oong Cave, agrees, saying that the caves are the best, most amazing things it is possible to do in Viet Nam.

Limbert has mapped 300km of caves across the country including 10 per cent of the caves in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park.

Limbert is certainly not exaggerating. According to National Geographic, Viet Nams Son oong Cave currently stands as the largest cave in the world and is estimated to be between two and five million years old.

Lonely Planet says that Oxalis Adventure Tours, the official tour operator that guides travellers into Son oong, sold out their 2017 tours in only 20 hours.

Frozen in time: To Ta Nam Long (in the photo), there is something magical about exploring caves. The soft echoes of water and the absolute darkness make him feel like time has stopped. Photo courtesy of Ta Nam Long

Today, there are various professional groups exploring the hundreds of caves in Viet Nam. One famed cave enthusiast is Ta Nam Long (Long Icon), 31, who has conquered over 20 large caves across the country.

My passion for cave exploration began unintentionally around two years ago. A friend of mine from Thanh Hoa Province invited me to explore a cave near his hometown, Long recalls.

When I had finished exploring the cave and reached the surface, Long continues, I felt such a sensation of satisfaction, pride, and happiness. That is when I realised that I wanted to explore caves for the rest of my life.

I returned to Ha Noi, and seeing the lack of discussion about cave exploration in Viet Nam, I created a Facebook page to bring together people who shared my passion, says Long.

At the time, there were no official and independent cave exploration groups in Viet Nam. There were only local groups who offered services to assist foreigners during their cave expeditions.

My exploration group was one of the first Vietnamese groups at the time. Looking back, we were still amateurs. We were still using handheld flashlights, and other very basic equipment.

When our group began to do research online, we started to discover better techniques and equipment for cave exploration. Now I have thousands of dollars worth of professional equipment to assist me through my travels.

That is when Tran Tan Van, head of the Viet Nam Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources, reached out to me. He has been researching caves in Viet Nam and assisting many foreign and local cave explorers since 1996.

He was impressed with our efforts, and encouraged us by supplementing the information we might need during our trips. He provided me with a thick book filled with all the maps, measurements and dimensions of caves in Viet Nam  collected since the beginning of his career.

Van asserts, Currently, there are more than 400 caves that have been discovered in Viet Nam  and we are sure there are more to be found. The deepest one to date is Cong Nuoc Cave at 602 metres in Lai Chau Province.

Self worth: I feel such a sensation of satisfaction and happiness when I finish conquering my goal," Long says. Photo courtesy of Ta Nam Long

Furthermore, to pursue his passion for cave exploration more seriously, Long even went so far as to quit his studies towards becoming a doctor.

Initially, my family was not supportive of my decision because cave exploring is extremely dangerous. They kept telling me to stop  until they realised I wouldnt give it up.

Their worries were certainly justified. Longs recent trip to Cong Nuoc Cave left him hospitalised for several months needing treatment for his spine, arms and legs.

I fell 40 metres into complete darkness. My helmet was cracked, but thankfully my head was fine. I still retained my knowledge from medical school, so I treated myself as best I could. I lay in the dark for almost a day before the rescue team arrived.

Im currently doing physio therapy. The fall left me with multiple, critical injuries, and Im incredibly lucky I can still walk.

Longs expedition to Cong Nuoc Cave took six months to prepare for because he needed to order the necessary equipment and map out his path.

Van says, We visited Long at the hospital and we are very happy to find hes recovering fast. I hope hell get back on his feet soon so he can continue his journey, and I wish him all the best in the future!

When asked if he will continue, despite his injuries, Long smiles and replies, Of course! I am already preparing to go back to Cong Nuoc Cave again!

Le Thanh Loi, director of the Phong Nha-Ke Bang Tourism Centre (under the management board of the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park) says, It is thanks to these courageous cave enthusiasts that we can discover such ancient gems. It is also amazing because these caves have boosted the tourism industry in the region  because it never fails to provide an unforgettable experience.

Indeed, people may now safely enjoy the beauty of these caves thanks to those who have bravely ventured into them before.

Long asserts, Ive taken many people on their first time exploring caves, and its interesting to see how people react. It is life changing in a way, because the experience stays with you for a very long time.

He continues, Additionally, as cave exploring becomes more prominent, it is important to educate visitors to be mindful about these sacred spaces.

For example, from the smallest thing like touching the caves with our hands, to manners regarding waste disposal, its very important that we do not carry bacteria from the outside world into the cave.

My hope is to attract more people to try out cave exploration, and to encourage those who are interested by providing the necessary support and information when needed. In my group, I try to capture the beauty of our travels through photographs to allure people to join us, he continues.

Referring to the 2,000 members of his Facebook group, Long says, Members of the group vary. There are people of all ages, genders and occupations.

Hai Nguyen, a student studying engineering says, I go exploring every two weeks, and the last time my friends and I went to Quang Ninh. I have so much respect for what Long does. When I become better and stronger, I must go explore Cong Nuoc too.

Kitted out: Ta Nam Long has thousands of dollars worth of professional equipment to assist him through his journey. Photo courtesy of Ta Nam Long

Mai Anh Vu, a start-up entrepreneur, says, Pictures dont do the caves justice. You have to be there to smell, touch and feel the surroundings. I love it when it is night time, because the moonlight creates these wonderful shadows in the cave.

Long also agrees that there is something magical about exploring caves.

Its beautiful because it feels like a different universe down there. The soft echoes of water and the absolute darkness makes me feel like time has stopped - even if it is just for a very short moment, he says.

There are around 50 people in the group who go regularly. The rest, I hope, will slowly make the time to go more often.

Cave expert Limbert stresses, I have something to tell the youth in Viet Nam. Turn off the TV and take trips to explore your country Your country is beautiful, [and] TV and couches can never give you the true feeling of that beauty.

Long remarks, Around the world, deep caves like the ones in Viet Nam are extremely rare. I simply hope that people recognise that our country holds something extremely unique for the rest of the world. VNS
At the age of 75, artist Duong Van Hoc, who is well known as a pioneer in contemporary solo puppetry in Viet Nam, is still busy performing, teaching and writing about puppetry and managing a small puppetry museum in the coastal city of Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa Province.

Early this year, his private Contemporary Solo Puppetry Museum, the first of its kind in the country, was opened at his house on 92B Duong Hien Quyen Street, Nha Trang City.

The museum is said to be a long-nurtured dream of Hoc who has identified himself with puppetry for over 30 years.

During the early stage of his career, Hoc used to work as a dance scriptwriter and stage director. In 1984, he began working at the Viet Nam Puppetry Theater where his passion for the art blossomed.

He pioneered and introduced contemporary solo puppetry in 1992, and so far is the only local pursuer of the art.

His newly-established museum has a modest area of 50sq.m, where he is displaying more than 120 puppets.

Most of the puppets are shaped after Vietnamese heroes and animals that the artist has crafted and performed with across Viet Nam and in tens of other countries over the past two dozen years.

The puppets of various sizes and types, in different colours and patterns reflect multiple characteristics or points of view.

Hoc said that like life, puppetry contained the good, the bad and the combination of good and bad.

Each of my puppet shows must deliver a message relating to a certain view of humanity, the world and life, Hoc said, adding that this was the key to attracting audiences and gaining their hearts.

Audiences, both local and foreign, have been impressed by Hocs shows, including The Boat on a River, The Death of a Swan, The Clown, Girl or Spider and Behind the Eyes.

Diverse collection: Puppets are displayed at Hocs museum. He considers them as friends and want to introduce them to more people.

When recalling past performances, Hoc remembers 20 years ago when a Korean viewer was moved to tears after watching the show The Boat on a River.

The puppet show presents two rival crews fighting on the same boat. The boat staggers, fails to dock and is almost stricken by big waves.

Some audience members told him that they saw themselves and their situation in the puppet show, Hoc said.

I want to bring reality into puppet shows as I see many similarities between them, Hoc said.

He revealed that occasionally he spent sleepless nights making puppets and writing scripts. Sometimes, it took him a few months to complete the puppets and script for a new show, he said.

Modern life develops to become more and more complicated, which forces puppetry and puppet performers to change to be able to catch up with it, he said.

In 1998, Hoc performed The Death of a Swan in Paris. A viewer met with Hoc and said he would pay US$500 for one of Hocs puppets.

Hoc refused and said, If you like, I will make another puppet for you. This puppet is a friend of mine. I cannot sell my friend.

Vietnamese puppetry

Hoc said that it was a great happiness for him when visitors to the museum felt it interesting.

A group of Russian tourists on their trip to Nha Trang happened to know about the museum and visited it.

During their visit, they looked at the puppets and listened to Hoc carefully and with interest when he told them about each puppet as well as its message or the point of view the puppet maker wanted to deliver.

Puppet museum: Artist Duong Van Hoc introduces a puppet to visitors to his The Contemporary Solo Puppetry Museum, the first of its kind in the country. -- Photo provided by Duong Van Hoc

When they said the tour helped them understand more about Viet Nam, its culture and art, I was so happy and proud, Hoc said.

One special guest to the museum has been poet Bang Viet who is president of the Ha Noi Writers and Artists Association. After a visit, Viet wrote to Hoc that he was impressed by the way the museum was organised.

The museum presents a typical type of culture from northern Viet Nam and Van Hoc possesses the typical characteristics of northern feudal intellectuals, Viet wrote.

Hoc was born in Ha Noi, but left for Khanh Hoa to work with the Phu Khanh Artistic Group. In 1984, he returned to Ha Noi and found his real passion with puppetry.

Keeping his love of beautiful Nha Trang City in his heart, Hoc returned there to spend his retirement and realise his dream of puppetry preservation.

Besides opening the museum, Hoc writes books on puppetry and teaches the art to pre-school teachers so they can help spread the love of puppetry to more people, particularly children.

The museums modest area once hosted almost 30 pre-school kids at once. The narrow space couldnt prevent them from enjoying stories illustrated with small hand puppets such as Clever goat, Two goats crossing a bridge, and Smart bunny.

The happy eyes and laughter inspired me a lot, he said. The museum also highlights collections of photos and newspaper articles about Hocs solo puppetry, and books on the countrys time-honoured art of puppetry which he has written over the years.

The museum is open free on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Those interested can phone Hoc at (+84) 986 071 420 before paying a visit to the museum so that the artist can prepare and possibly offer a special surprise.

I do it as I want more people to know about Vietnamese puppetry, he said. VNS
As part of their social initiatives, Family Medical Practice Vietnam and the Embassy of Israel in Viet Nam have co-organised free medical checkups and treatment camps for needy residents of nine communes in Kon Plong from September 11-18. Lots of effort has been made to help improve the health and life of Viet Nams most disadvantaged communities living in one of poorest districts of the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum. Vuong Bach Lien reports.

Wearing a thin overcoat, Y Hui trembles in the cold as she holds her child in her arms and waits for her turn to get a health checkup at a medical centre in Kon Plong District.

Despite the heavy rain, the young mother has ridden her motorbike since early in the morning to take her four-year-old daughter to the medical centre of the districts Hieu Commune where she lives.

Normally, she hardly ever goes to the medical centre. Like for most residents of Kon Plong District in the Central Highlands Kon Tum Province, it takes hours on a motorbike to reach the medical centre in Kon Plong District, the closest medical facility.

But today is different. Doctors and nurses from Family Medical Practice (FMP) Vietnam have come directly to her commune and eight other remote communes of Kon Plong District to offer local people free medical checkups.

As part of their social initiatives, Family Medical Practice Vietnam and the Embassy of Israel in Viet Nam have co-organised free medical checkups and treatment camps for needy residents of nine communes in Kon Plong from September 11-18.

A medical team of 20 doctors, 30 nurses, and up to 70 other support staff have travelled to the region for a week-long, multi-site health treatment mission. Patients undergo health checkups by the doctors team, and are then given consultations, vaccinations and medicines free of cost. Doctors also instruct local people in basic hygienic practices, from hand washing to brushing teeth.

An expected 16,000 residents from 3,500 households in Kon Plong will benefit from the medical checkups during the week.

Keeping children healthy: A mother holds her child after a free medical examination at the Mang Canh Communes medical centre.  VNS Photo Vuong Bach Lien

For a better life

Despite heavy rains and floods due to a storm that recently hit the region, early in the morning every day the medical team has travelled to remote communes. After finishing their work in the afternoon, they spend time visiting local families to better understand how they live.

Big cars charged with basic necessities such as food, books, clothes, shoes and blankets also went across flooded roads and landslides to get to remote communes. Those goods, donated by the embassy and FMP, have been offered to needy locals from 3,500 households in the district.

I am glad to have an occasion to take part in this humanitarian camp. Witnessing their difficult life, we really want to help them, said Philippe Collin, FMPs pediatrician.

The programme also aims to provide capacity building for Kon Tum Hospital staff to better serve local people. A US$27,000 modern ultrasound machine was also to be handed over to the district hospital.

"Residents of Kon Plong are more than 50km from their nearest medical facility," said FMP founder and General Director, Dr. Rafi Kot. "The people of Kon Plong have effectively no access to any health care, and with this in mind, we made the decision to take our team there to address the urgent needs of people who have been left behind by Viet Nams recent development surge."

The Embassy of Israel in Viet Nam also provided Hieu Communes people with two wells in order to help local people access clean water in the commune. The embassy also refurbished Mang But Communes Junior Ethnic High School and handed textbooks and stationery to all of its students.

The Embassy of Israel in Viet Nam is always attuned to the needs of Vietnamese people, and as such, we wanted to join hands with FMP to assist and support the people of Kon Plong with heath care, water accessibility and education. Israel and Viet Nam enjoy close cooperation between their countries and people, and this project is a part of the embassys ongoing social initiatives," Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israels Ambassador to Viet Nam, commented on these activities.

The ambassador also said that some severe cases that were detected during this medical checkup will be transferred to HCM City for free treatment by FMPs doctors.

We are touched by the caring support of the medical team with industrious doctors who have come to help the region, said ao Duy Khanh, director of Kon Tum Provinces Health Department.

This programme is very useful. It helps residents discover and treat diseases early. In the coming time, we hope to develop the family doctor model for the remote communes of the province, he said.

Better awareness

Kon Plong is home to some of Viet Nams most disadvantaged communities including the Xe ang, Mo Nam, Ka Dong and HRe minority tribes. People in these regions experience some of the highest mortality rates and lowest life expectancies in the region - often from preventable causes. This includes a tragically high level of prenatal mortality from home deliveries without midwives.

In some places there are concrete roads, but other roads are still just pathways. Many residents living in the most remote communes need to walk 15km for three or four hours and pass over hills and mountains to get to the communes medical centre, said ang Van ien, director of the Kon Plong District Medical Centre.

Here many people only come to the hospital when they feel that they are very sick and think they may die. Many also believe in making ceremonial offerings to treat their diseases, he adds.

However, over the last few years, we are glad to see that more and more people are aware of the importance of medical health checks and going to the hospital more often, he added.

For Y Hui, this medical checkup marks an important event in her life.

The doctor said that my child had problems with her skin. I didnt know about that. Now I know how to take better care of her, she said smiling, while watching her daughter joyfully running around the lobby of the medical centre, with red balloons in her little hands.  VNS

The idea of this humanitarian camp came from Dr. Rafi Kot, FMPs founder, who originally came to Viet Nam to work for a Non Government Organisation in rural Viet Nam 25 years ago. He fell in love with Kon Tum Province the first time he came here and promised he would return to help its inhabitants.

Many foreigners that I meet do not know about Kon Tum Province. So I want to take them here, so that they can see with their own eyes the beautiful natural landscapes of the region and also the daily life of the local inhabitants, he said.

Having travelled throughout Viet Nam, he has met and sympathised with many different ethnic groups, and has organised different humanitarian camps to help the countrys needy communities.

Previously, Dr. Kot has organised two other humanitarian missions, offering medical care to local people in Kon Tums Kon Ray District in 2006, and central Quang Binh Province in 2007.
Vietnamese designer Vo Viet Chung recently received two awards, Designer of the Year and Best International Designer, from the Fashion Forward programme in the US for his contribution to world fashion. He speaks with Vo Le Hong after returning from New York.

Vo Viet Chung studied in Australia, Italy and Denmark. Since 1997, he has received numerous awards, such as outstanding stylist in Japan; UNESCO award for the restoration and development of the US consulate and preservation of Vietnamese cultural traditions; Entrepreneur Award from the development community; Top 100 business style; and five-time winner of the Golden Apricot award. Every year, Chung attends New York Fashion Week as well as other fashion events around the world.

Inner Sanctum: How do you feel about your success?

I didnt think it was a contest. So, I was very surprised when I received the awards! I thought I was lucky. But I deserve encouragement for my 20 years in fashion. In the international arena, I am not only representing myself but also my country. I feel honoured to have fulfilled my mission. Through the collections, especially the Dynasty collection, everyone can see that Viet Nam still faces economic difficulties, but the country has had a fashion background marked by a tradition of more than 4,000 years but now with a modern touch.

Inner Sanctum: Can you talk about the awards ceremony?

The event took place on August 13 this year at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel, with the top five designers of the participating countries. I was one of them. The event attracted 1,000 guests, including VIPs, supermodels, top models, designers and film stars. The event will air on major TV channels such as Fashion TV and CNN, and be seen in the worlds top fashion magazines such as Vogue, Harpers Bazaar and Elle.

It is the programmes 50th anniversary at St Madeleine Sophies Center. The 39th show of the event was titled Haute with Heart Fashion Show. It was intended to contribute to children with disabilities, as well as those with Down syndrome and autism.

I have participated in many international fashion events. In each event, I have brought new colours. The Haute with Heart Fashion Show is a professional programme honouring those who have influence in fashion. Each person can make a contribution to charity for children.

Inner Sanctum: Could you describe the Dynasty collection?

Joining the fashion show were 25 supermodels and international models. Before the show, we had a working session to help the models capture the designers ideas communicated through costumes.

A 3D design was used for lotus and chrysanthemum motifs and for motifs representing royal architecture.

"Royal" refers to elegance and something regal, but also dreams of a royal garden. The mysterious and beautiful garden appears with white flowers on the path. The garden is not imposing but is very peaceful.

The collection consists of 20 designs with red, yellow and metallic black as the main colours. The colours reflect the characteristic nuances of the royal style, while the materials of silk, brocade, velvet and lace clearly express the spirit of the collection, the "Royal" haute couture line of fashion. The motifs on the clothes are shaped like Italian baroque motifs with stones, metals and pearls. The accompanying accessories such as jewelry, shoes, hats and scarves are handmade.

This is the first time I have combined hair, dresses and flowers to tell a poetic royal story. All form a path throughout Asias dynasties.

Inner Sanctum: How do you feel about the award?

The value is not much in terms of money, but it has given me better conditions for my business. Some companies have asked me to set up a joint venture with them, even in New York. I cant tell much about the future, but I just quietly work, and what will be will be. Of course, I have to prepare a lot to develop an international market for my work.

Inner Sanctum: Are you the designer of the ao dai for Vietnam National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan ?

Well, I have designed the ao dai for Madame Ngan for many years. Im touched when I see works designed by myself, presented by a beautiful and dynamic woman during important events, like her inauguration ceremony as Chairwoman of the National Assembly and the reception for US President Barack Obama.

Honouring beauty while trying to cover flaws is the function of a designer. So, I always try to picture the character of this southern Vietnamese woman: simple but beautiful, energetic but solemn. VNS
by Nguyen Thi Minh Tham

My maternal grandson was learning singing in school. After he heard his female teacher singing the song Siboney, he tried mumbling the tune all the way home from school. At home he begged me:

Please, teach me that song, grandma!

All right. Let me find the CD.

I had first heard the song 45 years ago, in the winter of 1971 when I was 13 years old.

**********

My house lay in a desolate street in a port city. On the other side of the road was a market where food was available early in the morning. The US had temporarily halted its bombing raids against the North, but the city was still fearful. The city had been a US bombing target for years. So, all market activities happened early in the morning. When the sun rose, all gatherings had to be dispersed. Mother often asked me to go and buy vegetables at the market.

To my surprise, a guitar could often be heard coming from a dark house amid the noisy market. The music was like magic that spellbound me each morning. Day in and day out, I sneaked near that house and looked through the dark window. A young man of 17 years of age was playing the Song of Hope. As I was about to leave, he started playing Siboney. I was enchanted by the music.

One morning, I approached close to the music with a bunch of vegetables in one hand. I looked through the window as usual, but this time I was caught red-handed. The young man walked to the window, smiling:

You like music, dont you? Do you want to learn how to play?

Yes!  I replied quickly, a bit confused  But I havent learnt the notes yet

It doesnt matter. I havent learnt them either. I was taught manually. If you like, I could teach you manually.

I was a bit shy. But from then on, every day after school, I went to learn the guitar in his house. The first piece of music I wanted to learn was Siboney. He said it was too difficult, but I insisted on learning it. At the end of the day, he had to please me, an obstinate girl.

He patiently taught me bit by bit. First I had to learn how to hold the guitar. Then he taught me to play bit by bit. The prelude of the music was very difficult to play. My small hand got swollen.

After finding out I was learning guitar, my father went to Ha Noi and borrowed an old guitar from his friend. I got obsessed with playing that guitar. But soon after that, a string broke. How could I find a new string during this time of war? My teacher proposed exchanged his guitar for mine. But I did not dare to do it because it was not my guitar. After a moment, he removed the string from his guitar to replace the broken string on my guitar. Yet, we were unlucky. The string broke again.

My guitar had hung on the wall for a few days. Day in and day out, I went to hear his playing the guitar with the remaining strings. To my great surprise, the melodies were still enchanting. I wondered how he did it. I could see sadness on his face. He sometimes snuck a glance at me. I still did not understand the concept of a relationship, but I could feel my heart skip a beat. I did not know why yet and he didnt explain it to me. Sometimes, he told me to go home early and as I left he stood by the gate watching me.

One month later, he had found a guitar string and told me to come get it. As I approached his house, I found it was crowded with people. He received me on the veranda.

Come in, please. Im going tomorrow. Ill fetch you the guitar string!

He wanted me to come so that he could say good-bye to me. I thought he would go abroad, returning to his homeland of New Caledonia. But I was wrong. He volunteered to join the army. I felt sick to my stomach with butterflies. Summoning up all my courage, I had tea with his family and friends. He sat by my side, trying to console me.

Ill go away for a few years and return. Then Ill get married and my children will be pretty with big eyes and dimples on their cheeks like you!

What? I thought. Did I have such beauty? My father often said that I was dark and skinny as a twig. I took after my father. So my music teacher was probably the first man to call me beautiful. His words gave me confidence in my beauty for decades after.

I left his house and hoped I would learn to play Siboney when he returned. He followed me in silence to the other side of the street. I turned and saw him standing still by the gate as if he had turned to stone.

Time passed. My family moved to live in Ha Noi. I almost forgot about Siboney and my first music teacher until I entered music school. I rummaged in the schools library for the song. And I started practicing it. Memories rushed back to me. Now I could play the prelude quite well. But to my surprise, I could not play the entire song. When I finished the prelude, his image appeared before me standing there by the gate, gazing at me. My hand went numb. Where was he now? The South had been liberated for over a year now. Had he returned home? I had heard no news from him. I remembered what he had said to me before he left to join the army.

Years later, I went to study abroad. I got married and gave birth to my children, but none had dimples like me. I still hadnt heard anything from him until a day at the end of winter, ten years after the liberation of the South, a woman in rags came to knock at my door. It took a moment before I recognised her as his sister. I invited her in and felt a sense of foreboding. She sat down with a bunch of old envelopes in her hand.

My brother sent these letters to your old address, they were transferred to me.

I took the letters from her, tears rolling down my cheeks.

I read the letters breathlessly for half an hour. The letters whispered to me about his battles, about his struggles with his comrades-in-arms crossing Truong Son Mountain Range, and his great joy when peace was restored. The last letter had a string rolled around inside. He wrote: I bought a guitar string for you when we took over Saigon. My eyes welled up with tears.

His sister told me that he had died when his unit went through a mine field. The letters with the guitar string inside had yet to be sent home. His unit had come to his house and handed his knapsack with all his memorabilia inside to his family. Now the guitar string was mine. It had been in my memory for good together with the half-finished Siboney./.

Translated by Manh Chuong
In the spirit of Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech employees have been asked to help others in the community by increasing their giving to the statewide Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign.

In 2015, more than 1,575 employees donated $319,644, increasing the previous years total by more than $1,000. This year's goal is $325,000. The 2016 campaign kicked off on Sept. 15 and continues through Dec. 12.

Giving to the CVC is an excellent way for us all to embody the Virginia Tech motto by serving others, said Kevin L. Foust, chief of police and director of security. Foust is the honorary chair of the 2016 campaign.

Employees may make a tax-deductible gift online through payroll deduction or via paper pledge form and may choose to designate their gift to any of the more than 1,000 participating charities. Types of charities include health and human services, animal welfare, environmental conservation, and medical research. Employees can make individual gifts or come together in departments and offices across the university to host events and activities to raise funds for the campaign.

Signs will be placed on West Campus Drive, Southgate Drive, Alumni Mall, and Perry Street on the university's Blacksburg, Virginia, campus to mark the campaigns progress. The signs and the Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign website will be updated regularly to show the total dollars raised to date.

Since 2010, Virginia Tech employees have donated more than $1.7 million to hundreds of local organizations through the Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign.

The organizations receiving the most support from Virginia Tech employees in 2015 included the Free Clinic of the New River Valley, the Montgomery County Emergency Assistance Program, and the United Way of Montgomery, Radford, and Floyd. Hundreds of other organizations received donations as well.

The Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign at Virginia Tech is administered by the universitys Department of Human Resources with the help of a steering team of employees from across the university.

Written by Katie Huger, employee communications manager.
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Australian killed in South Korea stampede 00:12 It has been confirmed an Australian citizen has been killed in the Halloween stampede in South Korea.

Federal government warned to act quickly on power prices 02:54 The federal government has been warned it must act before the end of November to stop power prices from climbing another 50 per cent next year....
WATERLOO  The Diversity & Inclusion Partnership of the Alliance & Chamber is presenting the 2016 Executive Diversity & Inclusion Summit from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 14 at Allen College, 1990 Heath St.

The summit is designed to strengthen the Cedar Valley economic region by providing tools and information to implement effective inclusive practices. The summit provides attendees a concentrated and focused experience with multiple activities including a keynote speaker and a dramatic presentation.

Additionally, two workshops will be offered: Generations in the Workplace, and Employing Immigrants  What Every HR Professional Should Know. Lunch, provided by Cedar Valley Society of Human Resource Managers, will be served during the workshops.Attendees will include CEOs, human resource directors and upper management of businesses and organizations.

Two keynote presentations will be given. James Wright, diversity and inclusion strategist, will present Moving the Race Conversation Forward. He will explore the changing face of America and how this will affect our workforce and political climate; how to interpret U.S. Census data and begin discussing racial differences openly, honestly and respectfully; and will provide keys to introducing inclusive concepts that are usable by all leaders, managers and employees.

Theater instructor and director Andy Paris of the Tectonic Theater Project will introduce Uncommon Sense: An Exploration of Autism Using Theatrical Form. The project is rooted in stories about Iowa families and communities affected by life on the autism spectrum.

The play will premier Jan. 21-22 at Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center in Cedar Falls.

Also, the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance & Chamber will announce the call for nominations for the Diversity & Inclusion Awards to be presented at the 2017 annual celebration March 30.

Continuing education credits for human resources professionals are available for summit attendees. There is no cost to attend, but registration is requested no later than Sept. 30. Workshops details, event agenda, speaker bios and registration can be found at cedarvalleyalliance.com, by contacting Danny Laudick, director of talent solutions at dlaudick@cedarvalleyallaince.com, or by calling 232-1156.

Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare-Iowa is the premier sponsor for the event.
DECORAH -- A missing college student in Decorah has been found dead.

Bjorn Norderhaug, 21, a student at Luther College from Eden Prairie, Minn., had been missing since early Saturday, after last being seen at the Corner Bar, 121 E. Water St., 1:50 a.m.

Decorah police began an active search for the computer science major Saturday night, aided by Luther College staff.

About 7:30 a.m. Sunday, Decorah Police, Decorah Fire Department and Luther College staff conducted an area search along the Upper Iowa River.

At approximately 9:32 a.m., the Winneshiek County Sheriff's Office received a report of a body located in the Upper Iowa River near Clay Hill Road outside of Decorah. Rescue crews with the Decorah Fire Department and the Winneshiek Medical Center Ambulance crew were able to recover the body from the river. The Sheriffs Office with the assistance of the Winneshiek County Medcal Examiner's Office was able to determine the identity as Norderhaug.

The incident remains under investigation.

"The Luther community is devastated by this loss and continues to pray for Bjorn's family. We ask that the community come together and support one another in this difficult time," said Luther College President Paula Carlson.

There was to be a prayer gathering Sunday evening on campus.

The school encouraged students to "reach out for social, spiritual and emotional support" and had its College Ministries and Counseling Service available for students.
DECORAH  Businesses in downtown Decorah may soon begin to use more sidewalk space for tables and displays.

Currently, businesses can use a 3-foot-wide section next to their building where the sidewalk is 10 feet wide, and 2 feet on 8-foot-wide sidewalks. At its meeting last week the council, on a 5-2 vote, OKd the first reading of an ordinance that increases that allowance from 3 to 5 feet, or from 2 feet to 3 feet. Council members Gary Rustad, Kirk Johnson, Andy Carlson, Dan Bellrichard and Chuck Lore voted in favor of the change, while Steve Luse and Randy Schissel voted against it.

Schissel said hes heard concerns about sidewalk tables and displays from citizens who use strollers and wheelchairs. He said businesses should keep their tables close to the building as Oneota Co-op and Java Johns Coffee House do.

Rustad said hes heard comments about T-Bocks already using 5 feet of sidewalk for tables and fencing, and Luse said with the table umbrellas, its closer to 6 feet.

Our living example of 5 feet isnt working, Schissel said. Luse said hes aware of a woman using a walker who couldnt make it around the T-Bocks obstacle.

I do support outdoor dining, but I do feel the thoroughfares arent restaurant space, they are thoroughfares, Luse said.

City Manager Chad Bird said the sidewalks do need to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires a 4-foot wide, clear pathway. Rustad said that might require the benches in front of the Hotel Winneshiek to be removed.
DES MOINES  A leader for Iowas renewable fuels producers said Friday he is not concerned with the haggling between the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton over Trumps support for the federal ethanol mandate.

A policy piece published Thursday by the Trump campaign said he would repeal a piece of the ethanol mandate popular in Iowa because of the mandates reliance on corn.

An updated version of the policy does not list the ethanol mandate as a program Trump would cut. The Trump campaign said the original piece was published in error.

Democrats pounced, claiming it showed the Republican candidate is wavering in his support for the ethanol mandate and said Clinton is an ardent supporter.

Donald Trump showed Iowans his true colors with his secret plan to destroy the Renewable Fuel Standard, Pam Johnson, a past president of the National Corn Growers Association from Floyd, said in a statement released by the Clinton campaign. Iowans are proud of our states renewable fuel economy, and Donald Trumps dangerous policy proposal would damage Iowas economic security and our rural communities.

Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement the campaigns commitment to the Renewable Fuel Standard is unshakeable and unchanging.

Eric Branstad, the son of Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, led an advocacy organization that pressed candidates to support the mandate during the Iowa caucuses and now serves as Trumps state director in Iowa.

Mr. Trumps position has not changed; the fact sheet on the website accurately reflects his positions, Branstad said in a statement.

Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association and a former Republican candidate for Congress, said he is not concerned Trump may not support of the ethanol mandate. Shaw said the policy publication incident is typical of campaigns.

Somebody apparently inadvertently put up an unapproved fact sheet, they took it down and said, Hey, that wasnt right. That stuff happens in campaigns, Shaw said. I think Iowans always pay more attention to what comes out of the lips of the candidates themselves.

Shaw noted Trump has repeatedly expressed his support for the ethanol mandate in public speeches.

To be honest with you, Im not any more worked up over this than I was when some Clinton staffer went out to California and floated the (idea) of replacing the RFS with their low-carbon fuel standard, Shaw said.

The Clinton campaign in August confirmed a campaign aide discussed Californias low-carbon fuel standard and the ethanol mandate with a state official but said Clinton does not wish to replace the ethanol mandate with Californias fuel standard.

I guess Im not too excited about it, Shaw said of the campaigns disagreements over the ethanol mandate.
OSAGE  Six Mitchell County organizations have pledged support for enhanced natural gas pipeline infrastructure in the county.

Phase one of the proposed natural gas line project would extend an additional pipeline to Mitchell County across Worth County. A joint partnership with Worth County, the pipeline would adequately serve both areas and reduce project costs.

Mitchell County could use tax increment finance revenues to support the project, which is supported by the Osage Development Corp., Riceville Area Development Corp., Stacyville Economic Development, St. Ansgar Economic Development, Heartland Power Cooperative and Mitchell County Economic Development Commission.

During a recent board of supervisors meeting, Ivan Wold said the lack of infrastructure has hampered economic development.

Mitchell County has natural gas pipeline restraints which are impacting our efforts to attract business and industry, said Wold, president of St. Ansgar Development. We have lost economic development projects due to the lack of pipeline capacity.

Although the first phase would bring additional natural gas to the St. Ansgar area, all agreed supervisors should not wait three to five years to bring natural gas to the east side of the county  McIntire, Riceville, Stacyville and Osage.

Iowa is home to 10 percent of the countrys ag-bioscience jobs, according to a report from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. Employment in that sector grew by 5 percent from 2012-2014, according to Brenda Dryer, the fastest growth rate of any state.

Mitchell County is home to a number of outstanding ag-bioscience companies, said Dryer, MCEDC executive director. We have an opportunity to continue to grow this industry sector, but to do so, we need a key infrastructure component, natural gas.

She said the commission would like to see an ag industrial park outside Riceville.

The eastern population of Mitchell County lacks access to any natural gas pipelines, said Christopher Smith, Riceville Area Development board of directors. We want to grow and expand and need this opportunity.

Harlan Bisbee, director for Stacyville Economic Development and MCEDC, encouraged supervisors to pursue a whole-county phased solution to enhancing access to natural gas as they move through the design and engineering phase.

The Mitchell and Worth County supervisors and economic development staff will meet in the next few weeks. They plan to set a plan to move into the design and engineering phase for the proposed project.
The presidential race and the contests for the United States House and Senate dominate the news as we move through September.

But there are important races locally, too. There are l00 state representatives and 25 state senators to be selected to serve for the next two years in the Iowa Legislature. Too little attention is being paid to those contests.

Some would say, Well, the governor isnt on the ballot this time (Iowa governors are elected at the two-year interval between presidential races) and so there isnt as much at stake. While that normally might be true, it sure isnt this year.

Gov. Terry Branstad has moved the state, many times unilaterally, toward supply-side economics. That issue was seemingly resolved by his re-election two years ago. But since that re-election, the governor has gone further.

He has taken significant action to reframe how Iowans receive public services. This isnt a column to say the governors policies are bad or ill-advised, but rather to frame the issues that should be dominating this years legislative contests. There are four, and they are all important.

First, the decision to privatize Medicaid by removing the state from the administration of services and contracting with private companies, called managed care organizations. This directly impacts the health care provided to 560,000 Iowans and the hundreds of health care providers (read doctors and hospitals).

The governor argues, and the Republicans in the Iowa Legislature agree, this will save money. In fact the states chief executives expects the move will generate $50 million in additional revenue. Early reports provided by his legislative supporters say the transition has gone remarkably well.

Families of those receiving medical care as well as the patients themselves tell a different story, a story of needed care denied and related services cut simply to save money. These half-million Iowans have now lost access to the Mayo Clinic. Bringing the topic up with health-care providers is unwise; it is never comfortable to see grown people cry.

Secondly, of course, is public funding for schools. But be careful here because this is not just about money, but rather the whole concept of public education. Lower funding levels foster the need for private schools for those who can afford them.

These so-called charter schools, particularly those religiously based, are an almost adopted child of the governor and the Republicans in the Iowa Legislature. When choosing between two candidates for a legislative seat, Republicans generally support the governors policy while Democrats have history of wanting greater revenues for public schools.

Third, there is the issue of water quality. The Branstad administration has pursued, with legislative support, a policy of conservation practices based on voluntary compliance by Iowa farmers. Democrats would move more aggressively with state-mandated practices to be put in place.

Finally, as well documented by The Courier, is the issue of mental health care availability. The governor closed two state mental institutions, cut services at MHI in Independence and refused to re-open the Iowa Juvenile Home at Toledo. Republicans in the Legislature argue this is better because care should be done at the local level and there are adequate psychiatric beds that arent even being used.

Critics, and here there are many, say we should recognize Iowa has the lowest level of psychiatric beds of any state in the nation and 99 county sheriffs cant be wrong because our jails are becoming mental health care wards

Sure the governors not on the ballot, but his policies are. If you like them, vote for the Republican candidates for the House and Senate. If your decision is change, you belong in the Democratic column.
Money wasted

MERLE WILSON

JESUP  The Republicans have spent close to $8 million of taxpayer money on a witch hunt against Hillary Clinton. They claim to be so indignant over her having a private email server and the death of four people in Benghazi. In 2007, according to Washington Week, Congress asked the Bush administration for all of its emails regarding the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. The attorney general informed Congress he could not produce them because they were sent on a private, illegal nongovernment server run by none other than the Republican National Committee, and many of them had been deleted.

Two years later, it was revealed as many as 22 million emails had been erased from that server. Apparently, the Republicans consider themselves above the law, and its not a crime for them but it is for Hillary Clinton.

In 2014, more than 7,400 veterans took their own lives. A report in 2011 says the war in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the American taxpayers as much as $6 trillion. All the lives lost and ruined and all the money spent over nothing more than lies by a power-hungry Republican administration.

A tough decision

DAVE KAISER

WATERLOO  To my Republican friends, I am sorry, but you have to take ownership of Donald Trump. You can no longer make excuses for his childish name calling, conspiracy fantasies, limited and dangerous geopolitical views, questionable business practices, racist and misogynistic comments. He has shown a degree of hubris, arrogance and egocentrism that should give you pause. If you endorse Trump, you have to accept his views, beliefs and positions are labels you will wear. You will have to look at yourselves and convince yourselves Trump is qualified to be the leader of the free world. If you endorse Trump, you will have to live with your decision and your conscience.

Trump is not going to magically change. He is who you have heard and seen during the campaign. If you endorse him, you must obviously agree with him. Will your choice be party over country? This is an important moment in our shared history. Choose wisely, my friends.

Transgender rights

DAVE SMITH

WATERLOO  Rejecting the Christian concept of what it means to be human beings created in the image of God, the Obama administration has committed itself to the transgender movement. This, at heart, represents a view of the human being so extreme as to go against observable and scientific reality. Transgenderism has devoted itself to a concept of equality so dangerously reductionist it threatens the very foundations (see Psalm 11:3) of Western civilization.

President Obama is wholly committed to the transgender movement. In fact, one could term him a proselytizer in chief for the transgender cause. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton is from the same cut of cloth as Barack Obama.

Do we need another example of what direction the Obama administration is coming from? Activist Masha Gessen, who has decreed marriage should not exist, was recently honored by the U.S. Department of State.

Homeless vets

BERYL RICHARDS

NASHUA  Homeless veteran. It is implicit in the phrase the person is homeless because they are a veteran. I served 22 years in the U.S. Navy, am a Vietnam vet and can tell you being a veteran has little to do with being homeless. The notion more concern should be given simply because that person is a veteran is mistaken.

Many of the folks I served with were not planning on a career in the military and willingly said so, but they were responsible and could be counted on to do their jobs without direct constant supervision. Then there were others who lacked responsibility, needed constant supervision and had a habit of blaming every problem on someone or something else. It was easy to predict which person would succeed in the civilian world even if they were unhappy in the military and showed that unhappiness.

I have heard stories of homeless veterans being given preference over others, even other veterans, and I think one should look at the circumstances surrounding the homelessness. Maybe even drop the veteran category and treat all homeless in need of help the same.

Grassleys oath

JACK DARLAND JR.

CEDAR FALLS  With all the vitriol between supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the fact Sen. Charles Grassley is violating his oath of office gets lost. His oath, to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution is clearly being ignored.

If you dont believe it, then ask yourself this question: If there was a Republican in the White House, would Grassley be letting the people decide? The Republican Party stated from the beginning of President Obamas first term in office they would do everything possible to thwart him. Sadly, Grassley, who I always considered to be an honest man, has become one of them; a mealy mouthed politician who says one thing, I do solemnly swear ... to protect and defend the US Constitution, then does another.

I am ashamed to say I have voted for Grassley in the past, but no more. Sen. Grassley: You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cant fool all of the people all of the time. Youre not fooling me any more.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 16, 2016 | 10:10 AM | DRAFFENVILLE, KY

A Mayfield man faces charges, including assault, after an incident at a Marshall County restaurant.

According to the Marshall County Sheriff's Office, a deputy was dispatched to a Draffenville restaurant Thursday night in reference to a fight. When the deputy arrived, he reportedly observed 41-year-old Micah Keeling trying to fight all the patrons in the restaurant.

The deputy took Keeling by the arm and tried to take him away but Keeling resisted and was taken to the ground. Police said Keeling continued to yell obscenities and threaten people at the business.

The deputy was eventually able to place Keeling into handcuffs and transport him to the emergency room at Marshall County Hospital. At the emergency room, Keeling reportedly knocked over a bedside tray and created a disturbance.

Keeling reportedly found a piece of wire and tried to pick the handcuffs, which were in front, so he could more easily treated by hospital staff. Upon seeing this, the deputy attempted to move the handcuffs behind Keeling's back. Keeling resisted, grabbed the deputy by the hand and attempted to twist it. The deputy deployed his taser and regained control.

Keeling is charged with alcohol intoxication, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, criminal mischief and escape. He was lodged in the Marshall County Detention Center.
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US-coalition forces struck the Syrian airbase at Deir el-Zour: The US Administration Defends ISIS (No not a question, just the truth.)

TASS News Agency: According to the Syrian government forces command, 62 servicemen were killed and 100 more injured in an airstrike by the US-led coalition near the city of Deir ez-Zor:



Russia comes to conclusion that the US defends IS  Foreign Ministry

If this is the case, then maybe this is exactly why the US side does not agree on publishing the Russian-US agreements on Syria, Russian Foreign Ministrys official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said More: http://tass.com/world/900514

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/. US airstrikes at the Syrian army lead to the conclusion that Washington defends the Islamic State (terrorist organization banned in Russia), Russian Foreign Ministrys official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Rossiya 24 TV channel on Sunday. If we had suspicions earlier that this is in defense of Jebhat al-Nusra (terrorist organization banned in Russia), then now, after todays airstrikes at the Syrian army, we come to a scary conclusion  the White House defends IS, Zakharova said. If this is the case, then maybe this is exactly why the US side does not agree on publishing the Russian-US agreements on Syria, she continued. We demand explanations from Washington  whether this is a deliberate policy to support IS or a mistake, she noted. According to the Syrian government forces command, 62 servicemen were killed and 100 more injured in an airstrike near the city of Deir ez-Zor. Russian Defense Ministrys official spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that on Saturday, from 5pm to 5:50pm near an aerodrome of the Deir ez-Zor city (Syria), the aircraft of anti-IS coalition (two F-16 and two A10) delivered four airstrikes at units of Syrian government forces which were surrounded by Islamic State terrorist groupings, Konashenkov noted. More:

http://tass.com/world/900514

* * * * * * * * *

The US sudden attempt to help the Syrian army fighting ISIS in the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor, which resulted in a strike that killed and injured dozens of soldiers, does not look like an honest mistake, Russias UN envoy told journalists at the UNSC meeting. It is highly suspicious that the United States chose to conduct this particular air strike at this time, Russias ambassador Vitaly Churkin said. Churkin questioned why the US suddenly chose to help the Syrian army defend Deir ez-Zor after all these years, recalling how American forces just observed terrorists movements and did nothing when ISIS advanced on Palmyra. More: https://www.rt.com/news/359691-us-strike-syria-unsc-churkin/

It is now clear, we (United States) supports the ISIS and therefore; since we admit that we did this and we is the USA, that makes it all good!

* * * * * * * * * *

Samantha Power the Queen of the Neocons and a person who has more power than Obama in America; speaks out her ass, as always

During the emergency UN Security Council meeting on Saturday called by Russia only hours after a US-led airstrike degraded Syrian Army positions leading to the death of some 80 soldiers and paving the way for a major Daesh offensive, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations refused to offer remorse but instead laid the blame for the crisis in Syria directly at the feet of the Russian Aerospace Forces who she says is bombing civilians and the Assad regime who she claims gave rise to Daesh. Why are we having this meeting tonight? It is a diversion from what is happening on the ground. If you dont like what is happening on the ground then you distract. It is a magicians trick we encourage the Russian Federation to have emergency meetings with the Assad regime and deliver them to this deal, said an aggressive Samantha Power. What Russia is alleging tonight is that somehow the United States is undermining the fighting against ISIL. The Russian spokesperson even said that the United States might be complicit in this attack This is not a game, said the diplomat before going into details on the United States fight against the terror group. The Syrian regime that bills itself as the fighter against ISIL let the group grow and grow. ISIL took root and prospered right next to the Assad regime, said Power. The best way to fight ISIL and al-Nusra Front is to stop bombing civilians and deliver the Assad regime. Assads tactics have been a gift to terrorists. There is a better way forward, but Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and grandstanding and focus on what matters. The implementation of something that we have negotiated in good faith with them. We regret the loss of life, but since 2011 Assads regime have been striking Syrian civilians relentlessly, exclaimed the American diplomat in an attempt apparently to justify the violation of the ceasefire or to downplay the urgency of the meeting at hand. Some who watched the statements by Samantha Power described it as the US Ambassador to the United Nations blaming Assad for US warplanes bombing his forces. Read more: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160918/1045422315/samantha-power-obama-russia-syria.html

* * * * * * * * * *

An Obama administration official offered an official statement of regret for the loss of life caused by a US-led airstrike against Syrian Army positions in violation of a ceasefire  an attack that led the Russian Foreign Ministry to wonder whether the White House is aiding Daesh. Read more: https://sputniknews.com/news/20160918/1045421812/obama-regrets-airstrike-syrian-army.html

Sorry we made a mistake! says the USA (It was only an airbase for Syria!)

Thy name is, Chaos!

WtR
Jennie Dear in The Atlantic:

For many dying people, the brain does the same thing that the body does in that it starts to sacrifice areas which are less critical to survival, says David Hovda, director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center. He compares the breakdown to what happens in aging: People tend to lose their abilities for complex or executive planning, learning motor skillsand, in what turns out to be a very important function, inhibition. As the brain begins to change and start to die, different parts become excited, and one of the parts that becomes excited is the visual system, Hovda explains. And so thats where people begin to see light.

Recent research points to evidence that the sharpening of the senses some people report also seems to match what we know about the brains response to dying. Jimo Borjigin, a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan, first became intrigued by this subject when she noticed something strange in the brains of animals in another experiment: Just before the animals died, neurochemicals in the brain suddenly surged. While scientists had known that brain neurons continued to fire after a person died, this was different. The neurons were secreting new chemicals, and in large amounts. A lot of cardiac-arrest survivors describe that during their unconscious period, they have this amazing experience in their brain, she says. They see lights and then they describe the experience as realer than real. She realized the sudden release of neurochemicals might help to explain this feeling.Borjigin and her research team tried an experiment. They anesthetized eight rats, and then stopped their hearts. Suddenly, all the different regions of the brain became synchronized, she says. The rats brains showed higher power in different frequency waves, and also what is known as coherencethe electrical activity from different parts of the brain working together.

More here.
Laws crafted by those elected should do most good for most people

columns
KnightsAD Digital Media Associates, India's fastest growing performance based AD network & global affiliate partners, has recently announced their foray into Sri Lanka and the Middle Eastern markets of UAE, Kuwait and Qatar. The company has seen close to 20% month-on-month growth since its launch in January 2016 across India markets.

With Sri Lanka featuring among the top 10 countries in the world for mobile advertising growth (source ExchangeWire) and the Middle East showing a growing mobile e-commerce trend (source Adotas), the markets are ripe for content players to leverage this growth by extending their mobile and WAP advertising reach.

In lieu of the need to expand its reach KnightsAD has partnered with leading telecoms and content companies in Sri Lanka and the Middle East; telecom partners include Oreedoo in Kuwait and Qatar, DU in UAE as well as dialog in Sri Lanka. With a conversion rate of up to 75000 a month, KnightsAD has quickly become one of the networks with the highest success rates and now widest reach.

The company that has always aimed to deliver a high performance-based enhanced experience for its partners and affiliates has implied augmented techniques in its endeavor to do so. With this international expansion, the company hopes to replicate the success they have seen in India for content partners like Hungama, Nazara, Mauj and Saregama to name a few.

Speaking about the expansion of the company, Malik Gilani, CEO of KnightsAD said, We are ecstatic to announce our global expansion, it has been a roller coaster ride, as is with all startups. We are glad to announce our foray into the Sri Lankan territory and Middle Eastern regions, with this growth and expansion we hope to provide our partners a global platform and extended reach.
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UANI's Iran Risk Summit Being Held in New York on Monday, Sept. 19

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Ranking Member of House Foreign Affairs Committee, to Speak

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) has released an updated agenda for its 2016 Iran Risk Summit, a full-day, public event with a complimentary lunch, featuring a distinguished lineup of current and former foreign leaders, lawmakers, and Iran experts to be held on Monday, September 19 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York.

The day-long public event of interviews and discussions will examine the political and economic environment since the signing of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Comprised of former diplomats and lawmakers, UANI is spearheading a global education campaign focused on the risks of doing business with Iran, warning hundreds of international companies that may be contemplating Tehran as a new investment opportunity.

To RSVP, please follow this link.

Media interested in covering this event should email Steven Cohen at press@uani.com.

Iran Risk Summit 2016 Monday, September 19, 2016 Roosevelt Hotel, New York City 45 East 45th Street

8:00 - 9:00 AM Coffee & Registration 9:00 - 10:00 AM The Iran Nuclear Deal After One Year: The View from the United Arab Emirates

Speaker:



His Excellency Yousef Al Otaiba

United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the United States Moderator: Ambassador Mark D. Wallace UANI CEO and Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform 10:30 - 11:30 AM The Iranian Market: A New Gold Rush? Speakers: Governor Bill Richardson UANI Advisory Board Member; Former U.S. Secretary of Energy; Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; and Former Governor of New Mexico Dr. August Hanning UANI Advisory Board Member; Former Director of the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany Dr. Matthew Levitt Fromer-Wexler Fellow and Director, Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence The Washington Institute for Near East Policy Moderator: Nicolle Wallace Political Analyst, MSNBC Former White House Director of Communications 11:50 AM - 1:00 PM The Future of the Iranian Nuclear Deal Speakers: The Honorable Eliot Engel (D-NY) Ranking Member, House Foreign Affairs Committee U.S. Representative for the 16th Congressional District Dr. Gary Samore UANI Advisory Board Member Former UANI President Former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction under President Obama 1:00 - 2:30 PM Iran's Destabilizing Role in the Middle East* Speakers: Dr. Ray Takeyh UANI Advisory Board Member Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations Former Senior Advisor on Iran, U.S. Department of State Tony Badran Research Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Mohammed Khalid Alyahya Research Fellow, Gulf Research Center Non-Resident Fellow, The Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East Moderator: Dr. Michael Makovsky CEO, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs *A complimentary buffet lunch will be provided to Summit attendees during this session. 2:30 - 3:30 PM The Iran Nuclear Deal After One Year: Has Iran's Behavior Changed? Speakers: MK Tzipi Livni Co-Head, Zionist Union Party, State of Israel Former Israeli Foreign Minister and Justice Minister Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa Legal Advisor in the Kingdom of Bahrain Former President of the United Nations General Assembly and Former Bahraini Ambassador to France, Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland Radosaw Sikorski UANI Advisory Board Member Former Polish Foreign Minister; Defense Minister; and Marshal of the Sejm Moderator: The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman UANI Chairman and Former U.S. Senator (I-CT) 3:30 - 5:00 PM TBA

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160918005045/en/

UANI

Steven Cohen, 212-922-0063

press@uani.com
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Terror struck an Army camp in North Kashmirs Uri town when militants stormed a battalion headquarters in the wee hours on Sunday.

The Army camp is located barely few metres away from the Armys Brigade Headquarters in Uri town.

The attack comes two years after militants had carried out a similar type of attack at Mohra in the same area. Ten security personnel were killed in the attack that took place on December 5, 2014.

The terrorists, said to be fidayeen or a suicide squad, sneaked into the base around 5 am, threw grenades and started firing indiscriminately, causing the highest deaths the army has suffered in a single attack in years.

Most of the soldiers were killed when their tents caught fire in the grenade attack. Visuals showed thick smoke rising from the base on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway.

Four fidayeen were confirmed killed after sneaking into the base near the Line of Control with Pakistan, the worst single attack on the army in 26 years.

More than 30 soldiers were injured, many of them critically, stoking fears that the death toll will rise.

Strongly condemn Uri attack. Attack seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region. Heartfelt condolences to bereaved families and also pray for early recovery of those injured in the attack, says J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti.

J&K has always been worst victim of Indo-Pak hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for same for past over six, J&K CM adds.

Strongly reacting on the attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.

Home minister Rajnath Singh hit out at Pakistan, calling it a terror state that needed to be identified and isolated.

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups, he tweeted.

Soon after Singh pointed a finger at Pakistan, its foreign office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria dismissed the accusation. India immediately puts blame on Pakistan without doing any investigation. We reject this, Zakaria said.
He is out of danger and is undergoing treatment in the Medical Intensive Care Unit said Dr TP Lahane.





Even though NCP leader and former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal had shown symptoms of dengue but Dr TP Lahane dean of JJ hospital has confirmed that he is not suffering from the disease and only diagnosed with viral fever. Mr Lahane said that Bhujbal had fever and his blood platelet count was low. He added that Bhujbal complained of headache and body pain. The NCP leader was unable to walk properly without support. A delegation of doctors had gone to prison for examining Bhujbal. Since Bhujbals condition was deteriorating he was admitted to JJ hospital for undergoing treatment. However the hospital authorities were unable to answer how many days Bhujbal will have to be kept under medical observation.

When AV spoke to Dr T P Lahane he said, We had diagnosed him with high viral fever. The dengue test is found to be negative. His blood platelet count was down and he had complained of bodyache. He is out of danger. Right now Bhujbal is undergoing treatment in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU).

Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay said, We called a team of doctors from JJ Hospital to examine Bhujbal on Saturday and further decisions were taken based on their recommendations.

In April Bhujbal was admitted to St George hospital on account of various health issues as his condition had worsened in jail. The NCP leader is known to have a history of asthama, hypertension and blood pressure. Therefore he will be kept under medical observation for more days.

Bhujbal has been lodged in Arthur Road jail in the city since March this year after the ED arrested him in Maharashtra Sadan scam and other cases. He had earlier approached the Bombay High Court seeking bail on medical grounds. Bhujbal mentioned that he had multiple problems, including diabetes, blood pressure, chronic asthma and blockages in heart. However, High Court rejected his bail petition after ED objected saying investigations were still on and he was getting proper treatment in government hospitals.

Bhujbal was arrested on March 14 by the ED on charge of money laundering in the Maharashtra Sadan scam. The Anti-Corruption Bureau had filed an FIR against Bhujbal after it found irregularities in construction of Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi which was built at a cost of Rs 100 crore. It is alleged that the contractor had given kickbacks to Bhujbal.
The strategic Chabahar port, which will give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, will be recalled as a turning point in Indo-Iran ties, Vice President Hamid Ansari told Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday as the two leaders held talks here.

Ansari and Rouhani discussed bilateral ties and ways to boost economic cooperation during talks held on the sidelines of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit.

Asked if Chabahar came up for discussion, Secretary (West) Sujata Mehta, while briefing reporters on the meeting, said, certainly the subject of Chabahar came up and in fact, our Vice President said in the years to come this will certainly be recalled as a turning point in the bilateral relationship as a matter of great significance.

The Vice President said India and Iran were like two young friends who grew up together and then got busy with their own affairs, and now after some time they are coming together and discovering how close they are.

It was a very warm meeting. They discussed the potential for economic cooperation  Chabahar figured largely. They also discussed regional issues, Mehta said.

A milestone pact on the strategic Chabahar port in southern Iran which will give India access to Afghanistan and Europe bypassing Pakistan was signed in May this year.

Besides the bilateral pact to develop the Chabahar port for which India will invest USD 500 million, a trilateral Agreement on Transport and Transit Corridor was also signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran.
The death toll from a Taliban suicide bomb attack on a mosque in northwest tribal Pakistan has risen to 36, including eight children, officials said on Sunday.

The Friday attack targeted a mosque in the Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan where the army has been fighting against Taliban militants.

We have now compiled a list of victims of the blast which includes 36 dead and 27 injured. At least eight children below the age of 10 years are among the dead, said Naveed Akbar, deputy chief of the Mohmand tribal district administration to a news agency.

Many children were hit in the blast because they were praying in the last rows in the mosque where the bomber struck, Akbar said.

The bomber came in as Friday prayers were in progress and blew himself up in the main hall. A curfew has been imposed in the area since the bombing.

Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out to avenge the deaths of 13 of its members and arrests of others by a local vigilante force in 2009.

Since 2007 the government has encouraged vigilante forces comprising tribesmen  locally known as peace committees  to defend their villages against the Taliban.

Pakistans deadliest ever attack occurred in Peshawar in December 2014, when Taliban militants stormed a school killing more than 150 people, mostly children.

The army launched an operation in June 2014 in a bid to wipe out militant bases in the northwestern tribal areas and so bring an end to the bloody insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives since 2004.

Last year, the country recorded its lowest number of killings since 2007, when the Pakistani Taliban was formed.


President Barack Obama urged the African-American community to help stop Donald Trump, saying he would consider it a personal insult to his legacy if black voters did not back Hillary Clinton.

If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesnt matter who we elect  read up on your history. It matters. Weve got to get people to vote, Obama said.

I will consider it a personal insult  an insult to my legacy  if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote.

The President warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in the November 8 elections, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line, CNN reported.

According to analysts, Obamas Saturday night speech marked some of his harshest words yet about Republican presidential candidate Trump, as well as his most forceful call on the African-American community to support Democrat nominee Clinton.

Obama referred to the businessman as somebody who has fought against civil rights and fought against equality and who has shown no regard for working people most of his life.

During his address, he also made fun of the so-called birther (if Obama was born in the US) controversy, saying Theres an extra spring in my step tonight. I dont know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole birther thing is over.

IS (Islamic State), North Korea, poverty, climate change  none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate, Obama added.

Speaking before the President, Clinton lauded Obama and also took on the birther controversy, CNN noted.

Mr President, not only do we know you are an American, you are a great American, Clinton, who served as Obamas secretary of state (2009-2013), added.
The Congress on Sunday said that poor co-ordination between various departments of the Maharashtra government is responsible for the huge number of children dying in the state due to malnutrition.

There is a Tribal Welfare Minister, Child Welfare Ministry, Health Department and Education ministry in Maharashtra which should have come together and worked, but there is no coordination between these departments. Due to this lack of coordination such incidents take place, said Husain Dalwai, Rajya Sabha MP from Congress.

As per reports, in Palghar district more than 4000 children are suffering from malnutrition and around 600 have already died because of it.

In a recent incident, a child named Sagar Wagh died due to malnutrition, and when the Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the Tribal Development Minister for the Government of Maharashtra, Vishnu Sawra, finally took notice and went to visit the home of the deceased after 15 days, he had to face the anger of the tribe.

The opposition Nationalist Congress Party also protested against Sawra by burning his dummy.

Former MLA Vivek Pandit said, These tribals belong to a primitive tribe which normally dont express their feelings, but the way they ventilated their anger towards Vishnu Sawra shows how angry they were not only towards him, but to the state of Maharashtra. She lost her son who was sick for more than a year and almost 600 tribal kids have lost their lives in the last one year.

He added that the Government of India has stopped the funding for the VCDC program for supplying food to the malnourished children and since last year. I have reminded the chief minister as well as the guardian minister every now and then, but nothing has happened and these lives are lost.
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]t least 17 soldiers were killed and 20 others injured in a terrorist attacks at Uri town in Kashmir. Even, four militants have been neutralized. However, the entire incidence was brutal. Terrorists set tents on fire in the Uri Army Base, and as soldiers ran out, they shot them. They are combing through the base carefully, with the presumption that at least two more terrorists are holed up inside the station. The attack took place just six kms away from the Line of Control (LoC). Most of the soldiers killed belonged to 6 Bihar regiment who were in the process of replacing 10 Dogra regiment. Initial reports indicate that the attackers belong to Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). We have lost seventeen precious lives because of cross border terrorism. Surprisingly, world leaders are apathetic about Indias pain on account of Pakistan sponsored cross border terrorism. The additional tents located in the complex were to house additional troops inducted. In the past too, attacks had taken place during such troops shifts which are generally kept under wraps.

This kind of heavy loss of lives of our brave soldiers by intolerable sneaky militants invariably calls for a war with Pakistan and in case of such a war China will try to derive maximum gain by siding Pakistan. And if, India is supported by any western superpowers, then the world will be plunged into a terrible nuclear war. Either UN or world leaders should intervene to protect the globe and humanity.

As a nation, we are becoming flippant to some of the issues related to the national security and driven by party politics. People and the parliament should speak up about the accountability of the present government and its policy. How our surveillance and proactive intelligence are failing which we had accepted that they are well planned and effective. We cannot ignore that Kashmir unrest and this attack are interconnected issues. The Jammu and Kashmir issue is largely created by separatists, who are traitors. These traitors should be thrown out of the country as they have publicly disowned Indian citizenship. Attack on military camp is done by Pakistan sponsored terrorists. Without wasting time on rubbish talk we should bombard Pakistan based terror camps in PoK.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to visit Kashmir. We need to also ask ourselves the hard question of justifying spending billions in arms and training whilst paying scant regard to protecting our assets and safety of our own forces. A message posted by the Home Ministers Twitter handle said, Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA.

A loss of a single life, whether it is of a soldier or a civilian, is painful. However, what is the solution for whatever incidents is happening in Kashmir? Our PM Modis Security Advisor Ajit Doval holds a fearsome reputation against Pakistan, but what if he is failing in unfolding the conspiracy. Surely, we want to end this soon. Are we really on the brink of a war as Mehbooba Mufti said?

India should be more careful when there is any agitation going on in Kashmir from last 75 days. There is no need to show any leniency in attacking the terrorists and settle score with them. They are cowards and take pleasure in calling themselves cowards. Now, they would be laughing in their camps. Indian military should attack them. Unless the sponsors of these attacks are not subject to counter-attacks, the carnage will continue with impunity as they try to slow-bleed India. Take a page out of the Israeli handbook. Overtly and covertly hit these terrorists, their homes, and their sponsors, a hundred-fold in their own neighbourhoods.

After all, India knows where those terror training camps are  short flight away in PoK. Long suffering, in the wake of relentless attacks, may be a noble human trait, but it merely emboldens the enemy who see weakness to be exploited. Take the gloves off India, play offense and show some spine against a clear and present danger. Just rendering a warning is not enough. Government needs to be pro-active.

Its high time, our leaders need to address poor accommodation, lighting and security of our soldiers. Biometric verification is to be made compulsory at the gate of the camps. Inspite of the intelligence reports on attack, it seems that we are lacking co-ordination. Government must exert them and formulate security preparedness. Since 1948, the attitude of India in UN was to fight with Pakistan for Kashmir. Undoubtedly, India will take Uri attack also in UN and story ends there for the time being. When India says no third party intervention is required then it should not expect third party support. As long as India relies on world, it will never find a solution to address terrorism. This is clear cut case of failed diplomacy of Indian government. Pakistan has created a lobby to support them against India on Kashmir issue. The 56 inch chest has failed economically, politically, and on its foreign policies leaving our innocent people and brave soldiers to die.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
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Yisrael Kristal is turning 113 years old. Mazel tov!

Most boys celebrate their bar mitzvah when they turn 13. Yisrael Kristal, the worlds oldest man, plans to celebrate the day he became a bar mitzvah a century late, when he turns 113. Over a hundred friends and relatives plan to visit him at his home in Haifa and celebrate with him.

Born on September 15, 1903, in the town of Zarnow, Poland, Yisrael grew up in a religious family. His father was a Torah scholar, and Yisrael attended Jewish school as a child. Hes happy is how Yisraels daughter, Shulamit Kuperstoch of Haifa described her father. (Click here to read Aish.coms interview.) This is the most important thing to be in every situation. Throughout his long life, Yisraels overriding faith and trust have sustained him, even in the most terrible times.

Yisraels idyllic childhood was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, when he was eleven years old. Yisraels father was drafted into the Russian army to fight, and died soon after. Yisraels mother had passed away when Yisrael was eight and Yisrael was raised by his uncle.

In 1920, Yisrael moved to the town of Lodz to work in his familys candy business, and in 1928 he married a Chaja Feige Frucht. The couple had two children.

Their lives were upended by the outbreak of World War II. The Kirstals were forced to live in Lodzs infamous overcrowded, unsanitary Jewish ghetto. There, both their children perished. In 1944, Yisrael and Chaja were deported to Auschwitz, where Chaja was murdered. Liberated the following year, Yisrael weighed only 81 pounds.

Somehow he found the strength to rebuild. I believe that everything is determined from Above and we shall never know the reasons why, he told reporters soon after being named the worlds oldest man in 2015. There have been smarter, stronger and better-looking men than me who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.

Yisrael never lost his faith. He married a fellow Holocaust survivor, Batsheva, and together they made aliyah, settling in Haifa, where they raised their two children. Yisrael revived his candy business, making confections and selling them from a kiosk. Today, in addition to his children and grandchildren, Yisrael has, thank God, over 20 great-grandchildren.

In the coming weeks, as Yisrael celebrates his 113th birthday, they will be among the hundred-plus family and friends coming to Haifa to celebrate with him. They will bless him and sing with him and dance with him and give out candies. We are excited, we're happy, it is a great honor to celebrate his bar mitzvah. He has children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and cousins and everyone is coming, explained his daughter Shulamit.

Yisrael has said that he plans to have an aliyah on a Torah reading during a weekday morning service to mark the occasion. Although he has been a bar mitzvah for a century, he will finally enjoy the party that so many bar mitzvah boys receive.

His daughter describes Yisrael as an optimist who enjoys making others happy. The Holocaust did not affect his beliefs. He believes was saved because thats what God wanted. He is not an angry person, he is not someone who seeks an accounting. He believes everything has a reason in the world.
A powerful exercise everyone should do to prepare for the High Holidays.

Dr. VJ Periyakoil has been a geriatrics and palliative care doctor for the last 15 years. She has had numerous conversations with her patients at the end of their lives, and the most common emotion that they express is regret. Regret that they never told the people that they loved how much they cared about them. Regret that they never fixed broken friendships. Regret that they didnt have the courage to forgive others or ask for forgiveness.

One of Dr. Periyakoils patients was a Marine veteran who had lived a quiet, proud life mostly devoid of emotion. As he was dying, his wife would sit beside him for hours watching him watch television. She told the doctor that in their over-50 years of marriage, her husband had never been much of a talker. But as this Marine combat veteran began to face his own death, he started to speak to Dr. Periyakoil.

He talked about how much he regretted not spending more time with his wife whom he loved dearly. He spoke about how proud he was of his son who had followed in his fathers footsteps. But when the doctor mentioned these sentiments to his wife and son, they looked at her with obvious disbelief. They thanked her for her kindness but they insisted that the patient would never say anything like that.

He couldnt tell his wife directly how much he loved her, but he was able to record it.

One day Dr. Periyakoil asked the veteran if she could record him when he spoke about his family and then play it back for his wife and son. He agreed and the doctor gave his wife and son the taped letter, which brought tears to their eyes. This man had never been able to tell his wife directly how much he loved her, but he was able to record it.

This moving experience gave Dr. Periyakoil the idea to begin the Stanford Friends and Family Letter Project. Its a free template that is available in eight languages at med.stanford.edu/letter that allows writers to express forgiveness, regret and gratitude.

The letter helps writers complete seven life review tasks: acknowledging important people in our lives, remembering treasured moments, apologizing to those we have hurt, forgiving those who have hurt us and saying thank you, I love you and good-bye.

One letter-writer wrote to his wife: Lily, I wish I had loved you more. Others wrote things to their children that they hadnt been able to express to them before. Some participants apologize, like one father who told his daughter, Im sorry that I wasnt there for you growing up. Others forgave people in their lives for both unpaid loans and past insults.

There is also a template for those who are healthy. The letter does not have to be shared, and some people use it as a living legacy document which they continue to update as time goes on. This letter reminds me of the work that we are supposed to be doing in this month of Elul:

Reviewing our lives and our relationships.

Forgiving others and asking for forgiveness.

Acknowledging important people in our lives and thanking them.

Thinking about treasured moments that have brought us to where we are today.

Having the courage to say thank you.

Having the courage to say I love you.

And finally, coming to terms with something that many of us dont want to think about: goodbye. Who wants to think about death while they are still healthy? Who wants to accept that our time is limited, and that none of us know how much longer we each have to live? Most of us dont want to think about, much less write about, how we would say goodbye to those that we love.

In many ways it is too painful to think about how we would say goodbye to this life, to our chance to make a difference here, to the loved ones left behind. But perhaps this last part of the letter is the most important life review task for any of us to complete. Because when we can express what we want to be remembered for, we remind ourselves what we are living for. When we accept that we too will one day have to give an accounting for our lives, we dont take todays opportunities for granted. We can take an honest look at ourselves, at what we did, who we became, and the connections we made or failed to make.

The words of one of the letter writers keep echoing in my mind: I wish that I had loved you more. I cannot imagine how painful that must have been to write in the days before he died. Because dont we all wish that sometimes? That we had loved more and criticized less? That we had followed our dreams? That we had forgiven and been forgiven? That we had said thank you and learned how to say goodbye?

Writing a life review letter will probably be the most important letter that any of us will ever write. The hardest part is having the courage to begin.
September 16, 2016

For more than two years, Sabah, an Egyptian woman in her 40s, has been trying to obtain proof of her ex-husbands monthly income so the Family Court in Giza governorate will require him to provide her a monthly payment that ensures a decent standard of living for their three daughters. Sabah, who didnt want her last name published, said that her ex-husband divorced her several years ago and married another woman because he wanted to have sons.

She told Al-Monitor her husband is a state employee with the Ministry of Education for which he receives a monthly salary of 1,700 Egyptian pounds ($191), but he also has been involved in trade ventures for 16 years that bring in more than 20,000 pounds ($2,252) a month. Sabah told Al-Monitor that she cant obtain proof of his full monthly income, because he never registered his trade activities with the commercial registry. She fears that, if the courts rely only on his state salary, her monthly alimony will only amount to around 850 pounds ($96)  an amount she says is much too low to provide a decent life for her girls.

Sabah, like thousands of other divorced women in Egypt, faces significant difficulties due to the Personal Status Law, which requires divorced women wait at least one year from the date of filing for alimony to receive payment. In addition, the courts procedures to determine the husbands income often take a long time, and women frequently complain that the court relies on an income less than the actual amount due to efforts by the husband to hide his true earnings.

According to Article 76 of Egypts Personal Status Law, a divorced woman shall receive 25% of her husbands monthly income in alimony if they have no children. If they have one or two children, this rises to 40%, and if they have more than two, it is 50%.

Earlier this year, the Center for Egyptian Womens Legal Assistance (CEWLA) proposed an amendment to the Personal Status Law that involved a husband and wife splitting assets after the divorce, defining their holdings as joint wealth. As part of this proposal, a divorced woman could choose to either receive a monthly payment from her husband or take part of his share of the split assets.

CEWLA Director Azza Soliman told Al-Monitor that Egyptian family matters are still regulated by laws from 1920 that, in her view, are unfair to all, including men. She stressed that adopting the principle of joint wealth is necessary, after woman have been faced with no source of income when yearslong marriages come to an end.

Soliman said that the proposal involves wealth acquired by the husband or wife during the marriage and not assets held by either prior. She noted that in the case of homemakers, it allows for the wife to be compensated for housework that allowed her husband to work and make money. However, if the proposal is ratified, a divorced woman will be able to request division of death or her standard rights under Islamic law, not both.

Soliman noted that she has dealt with cases where women are enduring difficult marriages and fear filing for divorce, since they know it could take years to receive a ruling for alimony.

Amina Naseer, a professor of religion at Al-Azhar University and a member of parliament, said that a housewife could be entitled to a share of wealth acquired by the husband over many years, since her role at home allowed the spouse to work and kept him from being occupied with family matters.

The [proposal] does not violate Islamic law, Nasser told Al-Monitor, noting that if a divorced woman is not compensated for unpaid housework this would violate the Islamic law principle of there should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm. Nasser pointed to a Quranic verse on divorce  either keep [her] in an acceptable manner or release [her] with good treatment  as evidence that splitting joint wealth was the fair thing to do. She said that the proposal ensures divorced women will not become homeless after leaving the marital home.

Naseer said the proposal would only apply in cases where the wife is a homemaker, not if she is employed elsewhere and receiving a salary. She said she supports the proposal and will defend it if brought before parliament.

On the other hand, Ahmed Karima, a professor of Islamic jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, said the law is blindly imitating Western societies. Speaking to Al-Monitor, he said that a proper marriage contract in Islam specifies the womans rights, including the right to have custody of the children and obliging the father to support them. Karima said that, in an Islamic marriage contract, the husband must provide for his ex-wife throughout the iddah  a period of waiting a woman must observe before remarrying after divorce  and he must provide for the children until they are adults.

Karima said Islamic law is clear in this regard and there is no room for interpretation or adjustment. According to him, the current Personal Status Law safeguards family bonds.

He expressed his view that demands to divide assets between the husband and wife reflect a lack of awareness of Islamic law on the part of those making the proposal. Karima claimed the law would eliminate the family-friendly nature of Middle Eastern society, transforming Egyptian family life into a materialistic replica of Western families. He predicted that many men will resort to informal urfi marriage if the proposed change becomes law.

While Soliman stressed that she has respect for all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, she said they do not fully align with the numerous changes witnessed recently in Egyptian society. When these schools were formulated, women didnt suffer as much as they do today, she said.

Those who oppose the proposed changes, claiming they violate Islamic law, have their heads lost in [religious books], Soliman added, stressing that religious men must realize society has changed, pointing out that there are now women who work outside the home and serve as breadwinners for the family, men who abandon their families without providing support and women who face ongoing domestic violence because they have nowhere to go if they leave their husbands. She called on the religious institutions in Egypt to develop solutions to these pressing social problems before they start talking about violations of Islamic law.

Soliman stressed that a family based on clear rights and obligations for both husband and wife is the basis for a stable society, adding that the marriage system in Egypt not only needs a modification of laws but also a modification of societal understandings. In her view, this proposal is merely a step to treat diseases afflicting family life in Egypt.
September 15, 2016

RAMALLAH, West Bank  By the end of August, international financial aid to the Palestinian government registered an unprecedented decline, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said during an interview Aug. 27 on Maan TV. He said financial aid dropped by 70% over the last four years, and had fallen to $350 million between January and August of this year. On Sept. 7, Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara said that the overall foreign financial aid this year had risen to $400 million.

After the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established in 1994 following the 1993 Oslo Accord, the international community pledged to provide financial support worth $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion a year. Hamdallah said the donor countries generally met their pledges until 2012, after which the budget support started declining until it fell to $750 million in 2015, according to Palestinian Ministry of Finance figures.

The Palestinian general and development budget for 2016 amounted to $4.251 billion, of which $750 million was to be received through foreign financial assistance and dedicated to the operating budget and $245 million for the development budget, which mainly focuses on the development of centers for education, health and social affairs. The budget expenses are stated in the General Budget Control and Financial Affairs Law No. 7 of 1998. However, only $400 million was received as part of the 2016 budget.

The financing gap  expenses without financial cover  in the budget, which was approved by President Mahmoud Abbas on Jan. 9, has reached $387 million, but it is expected to widen should foreign aid remain lower than in the budget.

In the same interview, Hamdallah said, There is a financial blockade on Palestine because of its political stance. The United States was paying $1 billion per year when the PA was first established. It only paid $250 million in 2015 for projects and institutions, not in cash to the public treasury, while we did not receive a single dollar from the US government this year. The United States could still decide to give the PA financial aid before the year ends.

Hamdallah added, The United Arab Emirates did not pay a single dirham between 2013 and 2016. It did not fulfill its obligation, when it pledged during the Cairo donor conference held on Oct. 12, 2014, to pay $200 million for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. For its part, Qatar paid $150 million to the Palestinian treasury in 2013 in three installments, but not a single dirham between 2014 and 2016. However, Qatar is also directly carrying out projects in Gaza, such as the housing project named Hamad Town, infrastructure development projects and most recently the paying of one month of salaries to Gazas government employees.

He further noted that Saudi Arabia and Algeria fund the PAs budget regularly; Saudi Arabia pays $20 million per month, while the aid granted by Algeria amounted to $52.8 million last year, or $4.4 million per month.

On Sept. 7, Bishara presided over a meeting in Ramallah for the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) donor coordination group for the Palestinian people, with the participation of International Monetary Fund (IMF) representative Ragnar Gudmundsson, World Bank representative Marina Wes, Norway's envoy for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland and representatives of the US, Swedish and Belgian consulates. During the meeting, Bishara said, Should donor countries and regional countries fail to fulfill their obligations in terms of budget support, the financing gap will rise to more than $650 million by the end of 2016.

Mohammad Shtayyeh, the head of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction, told Al-Monitor that the AHLC is scheduled to hold meetings in New York on Sept. 18-19, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings. During the meetings, the World Bank, the IMF and the Palestinian Finance Ministry are expected to submit a report on the Palestinian economic situation, the accumulated deficit in the treasury and the PAs financial needs.

The main reason behind the decline in financial aid is the stalled Israeli-Palestinian political process, since the aim of that money is to help reach a political agreement, Shtayyeh said. The donor funds are allocated to secure the government employees' salaries; thus the decline of external support would negatively affect the PA as it is struggling every month to cover their salaries. The government would also be unable to spend on some sectors and development projects, and settle its debts to the private sector, which will suffer a decline, consequently affecting investments.

Back in 2010, the Arab states had approved at the Arab summit held in Kuwait a financial safety net worth $100 million to assist the PA financially, but that decision remained on paper and was not implemented.

In this regard, Shtayyeh said, The Arab safety net has never been implemented on the ground and it seems to be a mere political slogan that did not come into effect and was not actually implemented into something reliable.

Although the Palestinian government has increased its shares in clearance revenues from Israel from 350 million shekels to 600 million shekels per month ($93 million to $160 million), this does not seem enough to counterbalance the declining international support.

Nasr Abdul Kareem, a professor of economics at Birzeit University, told Al-Monitor that the decline in international support will cause an increase in the financing gap that will eventually turn into public debt, private sector arrears or bank debt.

Abdul Kareem said, The government has very limited options. The easiest and least expensive option is expenditure rationalization and government austerity, according to a programmed policy. The government could work to improve tax collection and fight tax evasion, while the PA could pressure Arab countries to activate the Arab safety net.

Palestinian government spokesman Youssef Mahmoud told Al-Monitor, The Palestinian government is keeping communication channels open with Arab and friendly countries to overcome the declining international aid, noting that Palestine is being financially pressured by certain countries for its political positions, in reference to stalling negotiations with Israel and joining international treaties.

The political stalemate and the failed settlement process have caused a sense of foreboding about the Palestinian economy, which has been affected by the decline in international support. This was confirmed by the IMF on Sept. 7 as it said: The uncertainties on the economic and political levels cast a dark shadow on the prospects for economic growth in the Palestinian territories, and the Palestinian economy is still facing severe disorders.
September 16, 2016

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  Every morning, Said al-Arr, a Gazan of Bedouin origin, roams the streets of the Gaza Strip to find stray cats and dogs and provide them with food and health care. He then takes the animals that need constant care to his own association, which specializes in the care of stray animals, a first of its kind in Gaza.

There are no official associations or nongovernmental organizations  local or international  dedicated to the care of stray animals in Gaza, as raising pets is not a popular hobby among citizens. Taking care of animals is costly, and Gazans cant afford it in light of their harsh living and economic conditions.

Arr established his association, Sulala Association for Animals Care, in May in the town of al-Zahra in central Gaza. He told Al-Monitor, The aim of this association is to protect stray animals from being run over in the streets or getting killed. We also offer care for injured animals and raise awareness among Gazas citizens about animal care.

The Sulala building, which occupies a space of 2,500 square meters (27,000 square feet), includes a smaller building to provide veterinary care for the animals and an open area planted with trees where the animals are put in cages.

Arr has personal experience dealing with animals. As he was feeding a dog at his center, he said, When I was a child, I loved to take care of animals because I considered them weak creatures that need care. In 2006, I had the opportunity to join training sessions in Russia that lasted nine consecutive months. The sessions [provided me] with basic knowledge about animal training, diagnosing and treating some diseases. This is how I gained my experience in the [animal] field.

The association houses 65 dogs and four cats. About the low number of cats, Arr said, People treat stray cats better than dogs, as there is a popular belief that killing or injuring a cat brings bad luck  dogs do not have this reputation.

Arr opens the Sulala Association to the public to watch the cats and dogs being trained. Anyone can also adopt any animal found in the center on the condition that they provide the animal with care and protect it from abuse. Arr said, About 25 citizens already adopted animals from the association. To ensure that these animals receive complete care, we formed a committee made up of workers from the association to visit those citizens and make sure the animals are taken good care of.

Arr said 25 people, including four women, work as volunteers at the center.

Maram Abu Jabara, who regularly visits the Sulala Association to look at the animals, told Al-Monitor the association made her reconsider why she refused to own a pet at home.

Abu Jabara said Gazans are not familiar with animal associations, adding, Citizens in Gaza consider that owning a pet at home is a luxury in light of the increasing poverty and unemployment rates and the deteriorating economic situation. This is why the establishment of the association was unexpected in Gaza.

Data for the second quarter of 2016 published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics showed that unemployment rates in Gaza reached 41.7%, compared with 18.3% in the West Bank.

Abu Jabara said she has heard many people joke about the opening of this association that offers care and refuge for animals, while people in Gaza lack sufficient care and attention, they claimed. She said, It is true that thousands of people were left homeless as a result of the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza, and many cant travel outside the Gaza Strip for medical treatment because of the closing of the Rafah border crossing by Egypt. But all this should not stop us from treating stray animals in a more humane way.

For his part, Arr also launched a Facebook page to show the public the work his association is doing and to encourage Gazans to follow suit. Some citizens have interacted with the page and posted pictures of stray animals they found in the streets, while others have asked to adopt animals that have completed their training at the center.

Since the launching of the Sulala Association, Arr has spent $20,000 of his own money for dog care, noting the association has yet to receive any government support or local and international donations. This lack of money led to the death of 15 severely ill dogs Arr had picked up from the streets.

Zakaria al-Kafarna, the director general of the Veterinary Department at the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the ongoing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is one of the reasons behind the government's lack of support for animal welfare associations. He told Al-Monitor, The Israeli occupation is in control of all sectors in Palestine, which prevents the successive Palestinian governments from providing security, food, shelter and work for people, let alone animals.

Kafarna said his ministry may support private projects that breed animals for consumption, such as livestock, but "supporting projects for the care of cats and dogs is considered a luxury that we cannot afford because of the lack of resources."

Despite this sad reality, Arr hopes to develop his association to become a big natural reserve that includes more animals, such as rabbits and horses. The association would also include a veterinary clinic specializing in stray animal care, a center for breeding rare dogs and an animal food factory. But to achieve his dream, he hopes he will receive some assistance from world animal care associations.
September 18, 2016

Kurdish separatism likely to escalate

Kadri Gursel writes that the Turkish governments purge following the attempted July 15 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expanded beyond presumed supporters of Fethullah Gulen to include alleged followers and sympathizers of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The Interior Ministry this month replaced 24 mayors for supporting the PKK, which is a designated terrorist organization in Turkey, as well as its affiliate, the Kurdistan Communities Union. Half of those removed from office are already in jail awaiting trial. Gursel explains that the mayors were elected in the March 2014 local elections on the ticket of the Peace and Democracy Party, which soon became the Democratic Regions Party (DBP). The same year, the Kurdish movement, teaming up with some elements of the Turkish left, created the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), which aspired for a nationwide outreach. While the DBP focused on local administrations, the HDP won parliamentary representation in the two general elections last year to become the voice of the Kurds in national politics.

The Ministry of Education then suspended 11,825 teachers for supporting the PKK by disrupting curfews and participating in demonstrations that obstructed the right to education, Gursel writes.

When asked about the Kurdish question earlier this month, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim indicated that no compromise is planned. Therell be no settlement schmettlement, he said.

Gursel concludes, With no settlement schmettlement in the cards and emergency-rule powers used to oust a legal Kurdish party from local administrations and teachers from schools, the repercussions in the southeast are not hard to predict. In the highly politicized Kurdish grassroots, the governments excesses are likely to erode faith in democratic processes and stoke the propensity to violence. The perception that Kurds are purged from the public sector just for being Kurds could spread far and wide, ossifying a sense of inequality that would be difficult to mend. Finally, the governments hard-line measures should be expected to strengthen the Kurdish separatist current that upholds violence and terrorism.

Turkish military may need two years to recover from purge

Metin Gurcan provides the most detailed analysis to date of the impact of the purges on the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Many of those dismissed or arrested were brigadier generals, rear admirals and air force combat pilots.

Although the TSK appears to be coping with the effects of the dismissals, no one can deny that the special forces units, underwater assault teams and TAF [Turkish Air Force] search and rescue teams will need at least a year  for the TAF, a minimum of two  to restore their personnel numbers to pre-July 15 levels, Gurcan writes.



Gurcan concludes, In short, the depletion of air combat and helicopter pilots and special forces personnel has adversely affected the combat strength of the TSK, but it is generally felt that the high motivation of the remaining personnel can make up for the numerical decline. It is fortunate that the second army, which is fighting the PKK, maintaining border security with Syria and participating in Operation Euphrates Shield, has been the least affected command. But at the end of the day, the TSK will need at least two years to recover from the losses inflicted by the coup attempt and the consequent purges.

40,000 Turks in "gray area" regarding crackdown

Metin Cetingulec reports that 51,000 public sector employees have been dismissed from the Turkish public service because alleged ties with what the Turkish government calls the Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization (FETO).

The names of the people who were dismissed were published in the Official Gazette, exposing them for all to see and crushing their chances of employment in the private sector. Those who asked for retirement saw their applications rejected, Cetingulec writes.

There is a sense of fear and anxiety throughout Turkish society, as the purges affect all walks of life. The hunt for FETO supporters in the public sector is also continuing, reports Cetingulec. According to the daily Sabah, another 40,000 people have been put in a "gray" category, risking expulsion if their suspected bonds with the group are "clearly established."

Sukru Kucuksahin adds, The frenzy and severity of the purge seems to have irked even its standard-bearer, Erdogan, who last week grumbled that irrelevant people were being targeted. Then, addressing governors, he said, I dont want you to compete with each other on who gets more public servants dismissed. I want you to be fair.

Turkish crackdown "unsustainable"

Cengiz Candar reports that the detention of prominent novelist and independent journalist Ahmet Altan and his brother, Mehmet Altan, a distinguished academic and columnist, has created an enormous backlash across the world, with hundreds of international intellectuals signing a letter of protest against the Turkish government. At the time of this writing, the number of international intellectual celebrities had reached 217, and the number continues to soar.

Among the accusation against the brothers is their participating in a coup plot by giving subliminal or subconscious messages in a television talk show a day before the coup attempt.



Candar concludes that it is getting to be more and more unsustainable. The growing reaction of the international intelligentsia is a glimpse of hope not only for the freedom of Ahmet Altan and Mehmet Altan  who are spending the long holiday in an Istanbul jail  but also for other jailed intellectuals and journalists and for Turkey itself.



Pinar Tremblay reports on how Turkish millennials have turned to alternative, light-fare print magazines, which have offered a respite from the brutal crackdown on independent media.

These magazines are popular because they tell people they can make them smile again, even if for a little while. They ridicule authoritarian language with a shrewd riddle. Most importantly, they are keeping the pulse of young people in Turkey. Because they are seen as light and goofy, they have so far managed to escape the wrath of governmental censorship, but just like the nursery rhymes that have survived for centuries, some of these magazines slogans, images and poems have infiltrated the minds and mobile devices of the younger generations in Turkey. We cannot calculate precisely how strong their political effect will be, but they are likely to outlast the existing ruling elite, writes Tremblay.
September 16, 2016

By law, candidates for the US presidency have to meet three requirements: be at least 35 years old, have resided in the country for at least 14 years and be a "natural-born" citizen. Nowhere does the US Constitution mention anything about having to be healthy, and yet that's all anyone seemed to be talking about all week.

As the election enters its final stretch, the candidates physical constitutions have become a top trending topic as their age becomes an issue. Donald Trump is 70, Hillary Clinton a comparatively sprightly 68, making them both some of the oldest candidates for president ever. (Ronald Reagan was the oldest president when he was elected in 1980 at 69 years old.)

So far, the issue has only hurt Clinton. Her once considerable lead over Trump has withered to just 1.5 percentage points (45.7% to 44.2%, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average), undercut by her greatest ailment: an uncontrollable, self-destructive weakness for secrecy.

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After days of downplaying her coughing fits and attacking journalists who drew attention to them, Clinton had to make an early exit from a memorial event for the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks a week ago. Video of her nearly stumbling to the ground and being rushed into a waiting SUV by her security detail immediately went viral, fueling the already swirling conspiracy theories that shes hiding something worse.

The campaign waited an hour and a half to issue a statement, first saying that she was overheated and dehydrated before admitting that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia two days earlier. The incident only raised new questions about Clintons health  and, more harmfully, her truthfulness.

Trump handled the controversy masterfully. He offered Clinton his best wishes for a speedy recovery, instead focusing his attacks on her depiction of his supporters as a bigoted basket of deplorables. Days later, he went on the TV personality Dr. Ozs show to assure Americans that he himself is very healthy, save for a penchant for fast food.

This fixation on candidates health is far different from the practice in many other countries, where reporting on such matters would be viewed as unethical  or even illegal. In reality, its a relatively new phenomenon in the United States as well, made possible by the rise of social media and the 24-hour news cycle. For decades, even centuries, American politicians had been able to hide their ill health from prying eyes, to avoid triggering any public concern about their ability to get the job done.

World War I-era President Woodrow Wilson suffered several strokes while he was serving as president of Princeton University, years before he ran for office, but never revealed his medical history to voters. In October 1919, while campaigning for the Treaty of Versailles, he suffered a massive stroke, which was effectively kept under wraps. From then on his wife, Edith, was effectively in charge behind the scenes, leaving some observers to quip that if Clinton wins, shed only be the second female US president.

History repeated itself a couple of decades later, when another wartime president was physically incapacitated  this time dying in office. The public had known that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was wheelchair-bound due to polio. But when he ran for a fourth term in 1944, they did not know he had advanced heart disease and hypertension, which are believed to have contributed to the cerebral hemorrhage that killed him just months later.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy was the youngest elected president (at age 43) and viewed as healthy and vibrant during his campaign. In reality, he took office suffering from hypothyroidism, back pain and Addison's disease. He was also taking a daily dose of steroids and a host of other drugs.

And while Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's only after his presidency, its effect on his ability to function while in office remains a subject of debate. Today, doctors know Alzheimer's begins in the brain 20-30 years before symptoms begin.

Finally, let's not forget Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who released thousands of carefully selected medical records to the media for a few hours during his bid for the 2000 and 2008 nominations amid concerns about his age (he was 72 when he last ran), his history of skin cancer and his traumatic injuries suffered during the Vietnam War. The disclosures werent enough for him to win, but eight years  the equivalent of two presidential terms  after his last presidential run, hes still going strong.

Indeed, much of the frenzy over candidates health is just media-fueled hype. A 2006 study by Duke psychiatrists applied today's diagnostic criteria to the historical records of the first 37 presidents (between 1776 and 1974) and found that 18 of them met the criteria for psychiatric disorders  mostly depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or alcohol abuse and dependence. The study also found that both Teddy Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson had signs of bipolar disorder.

At the end of the day, its not Clinton's coughing spells that are dragging down her poll numbers. Its her secrecy and her instinct to power through controversies instead of being upfront from the get-go. Transparency remains the main area where voters have yet to give her a clean bill of health.
A four-vehicle crash early Sunday morning left a Pell City man dead.

The crash happened on Interstate 20 westbound, one mile east of Pell City, at 1:05 a.m.

Christopher Stephen Masters was killed when the 2003 Jeep Cherokee he was driving collided with a 2000 Infinity I30, Senior Trooper Chuck Daniel said.

Masters, 42, was ejected from the car and pronounced dead at the scene.

According to Daniel, the victim was not wearing a seatbelt.

The driver of the Infinity I30 was not injured.

A 2013 Hyundai Sonata and a 2013 Freightliner tractor trailer were also involved in the accident, but neither driver was injured.

Alabama State Troopers are investigating the crash.
On the morning of Sept. 9, an inspector with the Alabama Surface Mining Commission was performing a routine monthly check of an old coal mine in Shelby County when he noticed "a strong odor of gasoline" as well as a sheen on the surface of one of the retention ponds.

The gasoline he was smelling came from Colonial Pipeline's Line 1, an underground pipeline three feet in diameter that normally pushes 1.3 million barrels of gasoline per day from refineries in Houston to distribution centers across the Southeast and along the eastern seaboard.

That 36-inch line, built in 1963, has been estimated to supply the east coast of the United States with up to 40 percent of its gasoline supply. Colonial Pipeline initiated a shutdown of Line 1 within 20 minutes of receiving the report about a potential leak.

That section of pipeline remains closed. Eight days later, official estimates climbed to 336,000 gallons of lost gasoline. More than 700 people were working around the clock to dig up the pipe, plug the leak, clean up the old mining property south of Birmingham and restore supply.

With the flow of gasoline interrupted, the governors of six states have declared a state of emergency to allow truck drivers to work longer shifts to head off shortages at the pumps.

Gasoline is now being shipped by alternate routes throughout the southeast. Alternate pipelines are being used, and gasoline is even being shipped by tanker ship from Houston to New York.

Colonial announced Saturday the company will construct a temporary pipeline to bypass the spill site in hopes of restoring gasoline flows more quickly. No timetable was given for completing the bypass line."

Gas stations in Alabama and Tennessee have reported outages of some or all grades of gasoline, and fears of outages sparked long lines at the pump in Nashville and other locations.

A Minit Man Shell station in West Huntsville had already run out of the least expensive gasoline by Thursday afternoon. And shortages were spreading in North Alabama.

A Raceway gas station on South Broad Street in Scottsboro ran out of gas around 2 p.m. on Friday, and the Wavaho gas station in Lacey's Springs in Morgan County ran out of gas around 6 p.m. Prices have begun creeping up throughout the region, although Alabama law limits how much gas stations can increase prices during declared states of emergency.

And Gov. Robert Bentley earlier this week had already issued a warning against price gouging. He warned on Thursday "it is unlawful for any person within the State of Alabama to impose unconscionable prices for the sale of any commodity during the period of a declared State of Emergency."

Hub and spoke system

Colonial Pipeline spokesman Bill Berry said it is hard for the company to get a clear picture of the supply chain since it only distributes petroleum products for its customers and does not own the fuel. The company does not know how much its customers have in reserve or whether they can access alternate sources to keep gas pumps operating.

Because of the footprint of its distribution system, Berry said Colonial expects the worst of the gasoline shortages to be felt in Tennessee, Georgia, parts of Alabama and the Carolinas.

Colonial operates two parallel pipelines through Alabama: Line 1, normally used for gasoline; and Line 2, normally used for distillate products like diesel fuel, jet fuel, and home heating oil.

Both lines are operating in west Alabama, meaning that part of the state could have easier access to gasoline than places north and east of the leak. Line 1 is taking limited shipments of gasoline from Houston to west Alabama, but stopping before the leak site in Shelby County.

Line 2 is now alternating between its usual distillate products and regular gasoline from Houston to Atlanta. Colonial would not say how much gasoline is making it through the detour system to points in Atlanta and beyond.

From Atlanta, Colonial operates seven "stublines," or shorter pipelines that transport gasoline to places like south Georgia, Nashville and Knoxville. Those appear to be areas experiencing the most outages.

The dig begins

Crews began excavating the leaking pipeline at around 3:30 p.m. on Friday, but the cause and status of the leak is still unknown.

Colonial Pipeline and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency personnel on the scene say most of the gasoline from the spill is believed to be contained in a mining retention pond and does not pose a risk to the nearby Cahaba River or to local residents in nearby towns, including Helena and Alabaster.

For more than three days after the leak was discovered, pipeline workers were unable to access the site due to high levels of hazardous benzene and gasoline vapors that exceeded safe working conditions standards set by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Crews finally received clearance on Tuesday to begin removing gasoline and water from the retention ponds and transporting it back to Colonial's Pelham tank farm facility for treatment.

Local authorities, including the Pelham Fire Department, continue to monitor air quality conditions at the site to protect response workers. Pelham Fire Chief Danny Ray said the vapors do not constitute a threat to nearby residents, with the nearest dwelling about 2.5 miles away.

Temporary blockages were installed on either side of the leaking section on Thursday, and crews began siphoning gasoline from the leaking pipeline itself.

According to a preliminary report released by federal regulators from the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the suspected leak site is about 460 feet south of the pond.

PHMSA will have to approve the restart of the pipeline and has personnel on scene to investigate the cause of the leak. Also on the scene are representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is enforcing the Clean Water Act, and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, which will supervise the remediation of the site after the leak is stopped.

Environmental catastrophe likely averted

If the leak had developed in a slightly different location, the concern for Alabamians may have nothing to do with long lines at the pump.

The leak is located in the William R. Ireland Sr. Cahaba River Wildlife Management Area, near the intersection of Coalmont Road and Lindsey Road. It's a relatively remote section of Shelby County, about 30 miles south of Birmingham.

The Cahaba River is home to 135 known species of fish, according to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, as well as 35 snail species, 10 of which are not found anywhere else in the world. Ten species of fish and freshwater mussel in the Cahaba are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

A few miles downstream from the leak location lies the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge, which is known nationally as a viewing spot for the Cahaba Lily in the spring. A major drinking water intake for the Birmingham Water Works is upstream.

"It's really pretty fortunate where it is," said Cahaba Riverkeeper David Butler, who has been actively working with Colonial and government agencies during the spill response. "It's in pretty contained area, and it's been so dry here that most of the little perennial streams are pretty dry right now so there's not really a lot of potential at this point for it to migrate towards the river."

Cahaba Riverkeeper is a clean water advocacy group that is part of the larger Waterkeeper Alliance, whose members frequently file law suits against large corporations who are involved in spills.

The Riverkeepers are often left out of emergency response situations and treated as adversaries by the companies involved, but Butler said that has not been the case in this incident.

"They've been very open in terms of keeping us updated and allowing us access and taking suggestions and all those sorts of things," Butler said. "In terms of protecting the river, they certainly seem genuine in their desire to do as much as they can to prevent it from reaching the river."

Butler worked with Colonial employees to point out potential sources of infiltration, and where to monitor to ensure that gasoline does not reach stream beds that could carry it to the Cahaba. It's a level of cooperation he's not used to.

"I keep shaking my head and thinking 'Am I still in Alabama?'" Butler said. "It's certainly unusual in this type of situation to have that kind of cooperation."

Some residents concerned

Despite the assurances of Colonial Pipeline and state and local officials, people living near the site of the spill are concerned about possible impacts to their drinking water, or to wildlife in the Cahaba.

Billy McDanal lives less than 500 yards from the edge of the Wildlife Management Area in the small community of Maylene. He and his son have hunted, hiked and ridden four-wheelers throughout the management area and its surroundings for over a decade.

McDanal says he is nervous leaked gas could enter the water table and end up in his basement, where water often collects when it rains.

"What's got me worried with the gas is that it's going to go ... underneath my house and am I going to get gas coming under my house?" he said.

Colonial began distributing fliers to local residents explaining that residents can expect to see more trucks and equipment than usual on County Road 91 (Coalmont Road), and that there might be "higher than normal" noise levels due to clean-up and repair operations.

The flier goes on to say: "There are no public safety concerns at this time and the situation has been contained to the strip mining area where the release occurred."

AL.com reporters Connor Sheets, Leada Gore and Jonece Starr Dunigan contributed to this report.
Irondale police are asking the public to be on the lookout for a man who is a suspect in a recent burglary.

Police said on the department's Facebook page Saturday night that the suspect was last seen in a grey SUV in the Belmont Road area of Irondale.

According to Irondale residents, the burglary occurred earlier in the day on Alexandria Drive.

The suspect is described as a black male in his 20s. The description lists him as 6 feet and 4 inches tall and weighing 200 pounds.

Police said he might be armed with a gun.

If you have any information on this person or see someone matching his description, call the Irondale Police Department at 205-956-5990.
Manhattan Explosion

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks from the scene of an explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday a blast that injured 29 people in Manhattan was caused by some kind of bomb, but the attack didn't appear to be linked to international terrorism.

Cuomo, speaking near the scene of the Saturday night blast, told reporters a second device found blocks away from the first explosion appeared "similar in design" to the first, though investigators are still testing its remnants after it was removed by a bomb squad robot and blown up at a police facility in the Bronx.

, a mostly residential part of Manhattan's west side known for its art galleries and large gay population. Witnesses described hearing a deafening blast, and surveillance video footage captured images of nearby windows being blown out by the explosion as people sprinted away from the scene.

"We will find whoever planted these explosives and they will be punished," said Cuomo, a Democrat. He said all 29 people who were injured have been treated and released from a hospital.

along with New York Police Department detectives, fire marshals and other federal investigators. As a precaution, Cuomo said he was deploying an additional 1,000 state troopers and members of the National Guard throughout New York City.

The first device, which exploded on West 23rd Street at about 8:30 p.m., appeared to have been caused by an improvised explosive device placed inside a toolbox in front of a building undergoing construction, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The second device, found later inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street, appeared to be a pressure cooker with wiring and a cellphone attached to it, the official said. A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in New York said investigators are examining the remnants of the device to determine how it was comprised, including whether it was real or fake.

Investigators were also probing whether the Manhattan blast was in any way related to

to benefit Marines and sailors earlier Saturday. The race was canceled and no one was injured.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking at the scene of the explosion Saturday night, said that there didn't appear to be a connection between the two incidents.

but said there was no known "specific and credible threat against New York City."

"Now, I want to be clear: Whatever the cause, whatever the intention here, New Yorkers will not be intimidated," he said.

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.

"We felt it. We heard it," Gonzalez said. "It wasn't like jolting or anything. Everyone just went quiet."

Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said he, at first, thought something large had fallen.

"It was an extremely loud noise. Everything was shaking, the windows were shaking," he said. "It was extremely loud, almost like thunder but louder."
Alabamians receive more prescription opioids per person than residents of any other state in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, yet little effort has been made to restrict powerful painkillers that often lead to addiction and overdose death.

One reason for this lack of effort is a political lobbying effort that has donated more than $1 million to Alabama politicians, including almost $100,000 to Gov. Robert Bentley and more than $50,000 to Attorney General Luther Strange.

A new analysis by the Associated Press and Center for Public Integrity shows that physician groups and pharmaceutical companies often opposed to opioid regulations have sent dozens of lobbyists to Montgomery and donated more than $1 million to Alabama politicians since 2006. Political groups that typically advocate for tougher regulations on opioids have virtually no presence in the state, and have contributed nothing to Alabama politicians, according to the data.

Sandor Cheka, executive director of the Addiction Prevention Coalition in Birmingham, said his organization cannot lobby for or against legislation, but does support regulations on how physicians prescribe opioids.

"There is not any concerted effort for those types of changes in Alabama," he said.

In some states, physicians are required to check a prescription drug database that tracks opioids dispensed to patients every time they prescribe a controlled substance. In Alabama, doctors are required to register for the database, but are not required to use it.

Requiring physicians to use the database could cut down on the flow of opioids, especially to addicts who doctor shop to accumulate more pills, Cheka said.

The Medical Association of the State of Alabama opposes efforts to require use of the database. Mark Jackson, executive director of the medical association, said those requirements have not reduced doctor shopping or opioid prescriptions in the states that have them.

"The states where those mandates are in place, you don't necessarily see a positive result," Jackson said. "There is a disconnect there between the mandate and the number of prescriptions. We're trying to work through that and figure out the best approach."

Alabama politicians last tackled the issue of prescription painkillers in 2013, when the legislature passed three bills to regulate pain clinics and crack down on doctor shopping. Spending by the pain treatment lobby increased that year in Alabama to levels not seen since the statewide election in 2010. Those bills won the support of the medical association - but didn't go as far as efforts in other states to limit the prescription of powerful painkillers. In Massachusetts, for instance, a first-time prescription for opioids is now limited by law to seven days, with exceptions for cancer patients and others experiencing chronic pain.

The 2013 bills required clinics that advertise pain medicine or prescribe a large number of controlled substances to register with the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, which keeps track of more than 400 pain clinics in Alabama. Jackson said the medical association is studying the Massachusetts approach.

"We recognize that we've got a problem," Jackson said. "I don't want to downplay any state that is trying to address that problem. But we are a little concerned that the Massachusetts legislation would go too far here in Alabama."

Pharmaceutical and physician groups have gotten behind an effort to curb abuse in several states by requiring the use of abuse-deterrent opioid formulations that cannot be easily crushed and snorted. No such legislation has been proposed in Alabama, but the effort has earned the support of Attorney General Luther Strange, who wrote a letter to the FDA in 2013 urging generic drug makers to develop abuse-deterrent drugs.

Strange landed near the top of the list of Alabama politicians who received money from pain care groups, but in a written response, he said that those donations accounted for less than 1 percent of the $5.7 million he received for his campaigns. He received more from pain-affiliated groups than any other attorney general in the country. Most of Strange's donations from pharmaceutical and physician groups came from Pfizer, Inc. and the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

In his 2013 letter, Strange cited OxyContin as an example of abuse-deterrence. More than 40 attorney generals across the country signed it.

"Name-brand versions of painkillers such as OxyContin have taken steps to make it more difficult to abuse their drugs, for example by making it harder to crush pills which abusers do in order to inject or snort the drug," Strange wrote.

Strange received $4,000 from Purdue Pharma, the company that makes OxyContin, a blockbuster pain drug that has generated more than $30 billion in revenue for the company since the 1990s. Purdue and Pfizer are among several pharmaceutical companies that manufacture abuse-deterrent prescription opioids. Those companies benefit when states require the use of abuse-deterrent formulations.

"The focus of our advocacy efforts in the pain therapeutic area has been on reducing the non-clinical barriers to the use of non-opioid treatments and the importance of abuse-deterrent pain management options," according to a statement from Pfizer.

Strange said it was common sense to push for abuse-deterrent drugs.

"It is frankly hard to understand why anyone would oppose such an effort," he wrote.

Governor Robert Bentley, who was a practicing dermatologist before he became governor, received more from pain care groups than any other politician in Alabama - almost $100,000 since 2010. The bulk of that came from the American Society of Anesthesiologists. Jackson said that organization lobbies state government on a number of different issues, and doesn't limit its political activity to issues involving opioid painkillers.

Bentley's spokeswoman, Yasamie August, referred all questions about campaign donations to Bentley's attorney, Joe Espy, who did not respond to emailed questions. August said in an email the governor has taken steps to curb prescription drug abuse, including organizing an upcoming conference with leaders in Rhode Island to discuss deterrence strategies.

"Regarding the governor's position on the opioid epidemic, this is something the governor is committed to addressing," she wrote.

Strange supports efforts to increase physician use of the prescription drug database and drafted a law in 2015 to require it. Medical providers opposed the bill but agreed to work on a compromise, Strange wrote.

"I am advocating that the law be changed to mandate that doctors writing opioids must check before prescribing them to help reduce over prescribing, doctor shopping and drug diversion," he wrote.

Jackson said the number of opioid prescriptions has dropped in Alabama over the last couple of years. But the state still leads the nation in the number of opioids dispensed per capita, an average of more than one prescription per Alabamian per year.

Cheka said many of those prescriptions fall into the hands of teens, who then become hooked. The state needs to take stronger steps to reduce unnecessary prescriptions, and to determine whether all of those pills are really necessary, Cheka said.

"It's a frustration on our end because we do a lot of prevention," Cheka said. "And most kids start with prescription opiates or mood enhancers. Whatever we can do as a state to reduce the number of controlled substances, we should be doing that."
An explosion was reported about 8:30 pm. tonight in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. (Contributed photo/Twittter)
We set out to catch a modern day unicorn, the dwarf seahorse, as dainty and secretive a creature as you can find anywhere on land or under the sea.

Measuring an inch long when full grown, they are the smallest of the four seahorse species native to the Gulf of Mexico, and one of the smallest vertebrates on the planet. They are also thought to be slowly disappearing.

In fact, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition in 2011 to list the dwarf seahorse under the Endangered Species Act. Federal officials are still considering that petition.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of our smallest and rarest seahorses are captured every year for sale in pet stores, seashell curio shops, or exported to China where they are believed to be a remedy for a failing libido. It appears the large majority of the harvested seahorses end up in this traditional medicine market.

A pair of dwarf seahorses are entombed in this acrylic paperweight bought in a seashell curio shop. Thousands of seahorses meet a similar fate every year.

That's a shame, for these creatures are far too magical to be sold as an alternative to Viagra.

Our day-long search proved they still exist in our waters, but it also highlighted just how rare they have become in the northern Gulf of Mexico. In a day spent seining, snorkeling and dip netting with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Estuarium's head aquarist, Brian Jones, we encountered just two. With licensed collectors in Florida allowed to vacuum up 400 per day per boat, one wonders how much longer the diminutive fish can hang on.

They make their homes in the seagrass meadows that dot our inshore bays and coastal flats. Nestling in these undersea fields of gently swaying green grasses, and able to transform their body color to match their surroundings, the tiny creatures are so small, so well camouflaged, as to be essentially invisible.

Unfortunately, that is not enough to protect them from their other major threat: the continuing destruction and loss of the only habitat they can survive in. In Alabama, as in Florida and each of the other Gulf states, we have already lost half of our native grass beds. Most of those losses have occurred in the last few decades. That means that since the Eisenhower era, we have destroyed more than half of the available habitat for the dwarves.

Overall, humans are considered the primary predator of the seahorse, more so than any of the toothy creatures they share their underwater home with. The twin issues of collection for aquariums and libido-fixing lie at the heart of the petition to name them endangered species. The Center for Biological Diversity also cites the damage to grass beds from the BP oil spill, for seahorses are known to be susceptible to damage from oil.

Most of the harvest occurs in the grass beds of south Florida, which appear to be the dwarf seahorse's last remaining stronghold. The state of Florida recently rejected recommendations from a state panel that sought to beef up the rules governing the harvest. The rule change would have cut the number that could be harvested in a day from 400 to 200 per boat, set a limit of 25,000 per year for the annual harvest, and prohibited collecting dwarf seahorses anywhere but within this stronghold area. Some scientists believe the seahorse populations in other parts of the state have been affected by years of heavy collection and shrimp trawling, nearly wiping them out from some areas.

Jessica McCawley, head of marine fisheries management for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said the rule change died in a February 2016 meeting after commission members decided the seahorses did not need additional protection. The bulk of the harvest, she said, occurs in Florida Bay, a grass rich area between the Florida Keys and the edge of the Everglades.

As it stands, dwarf seahorses are the second most popular fish exported from the state for the aquarium trade, with reports of tens of thousands sold live each year. Still, collection for the Chinese market takes the lion's share of all seahorse species internationally. A Guide to the Identification of Seahorses, a 2004 scientific paper about the status of global seahorse populations, states that the Asian trade exceeds 50 tons of dried seahorses a year, a stunning amount considering how small even the largest seahorse species are. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which publishes the IUCN Red List of threatened species, considers all 30-plus known seahorse species to be in danger of extinction due to exploitation and habitat loss.

The seed to go on a seahorse hunt was planted during a recent conversation with Brian Jones of the Sea Lab, who mentioned that the lab had acquired some dwarf seahorses from another facility and would be putting them on display.

"Do we have those around here?" I asked.

"We should. We are in their range, but they are really rare," Jones said.

Staring at a picture of a dwarf, I thought, What a thing, to catch one of these tiny and magical creatures and hold it in your hand. In a lifetime spent prowling ocean waters, I had previously encountered only one live seahorse, which my cousin Mike and I caught in a seine in Panama City in the 1970s. It was the more common and much larger lined seahorse.

I prevailed upon Brian to do some prospecting, just to see if we could turn one up, and then turn it loose. Personally, I just wanted to see such a tiny creature in the flesh, to share a moment with one of the inspirations for the water horses the Greeks envisioned pulling Poseidon's chariot.

Our search began around Orange Beach, on the grass flats surrounding Robinson Island. We snorkeled. We seined. We scooped with dip nets. We landed all manner of tiny creatures, from shrimp the size of a grain of rice to ugly blennies and mangrove snapper less than two inches long. But hours later, no sign of a sea horse.

So we decamped to another beach with grass beds, farther east. And then another. Each time, our search yielded fascinating creatures, but no seahorses. Among the haul where some startlingly green pipefish, including a whopper of a chain pipefish, about 12 inches long.

For those who have never seen a pipefish, it is the closest swimming relative of the seahorse. In fact, pipefish look just as a seahorse would look if you straightened its body out and bent the seahorse head to be in line with the rest of the body. But they share a much more fascinating trait than just appearance.

Seahorses and pipefish are the only animals where the male carries the fertilized eggs and ultimately gives birth to live young. The mechanics are fairly simple. The female transmits her eggs into the male's brood pouch, where he fertilizes them. There, they incubate and grow for about ten days, until one day the male gives birth to dozens of tiny seahorses or pipefish, perfect replicas of their parents.

Brian captured a pregnant male pipefish. Its was belly clearly swollen, with dozens of tiny dark shapes inside, which were, of course, soon to be born baby pipefish. But after catching about a dozen pipefish between us, still no seahorses. We were at the last beach on our list, the one that Brian had said from the start represented our best bet for catching a seahorse, but still no luck.

And then, in the late afternoon, I came up with a strangely segmented worm in my net. I touched its slender body with my finger and rolled it over. And up popped a tiny horse head, a head smaller than the end of a kitchen match. The moment I realized I was holding this slip of a magical creature in my hands stands out like glitter against the rest of the day. It was so small, and so perfectly formed it almost took my breath away.

I clutched my hand closed on the net and waded to the boat, where I had a small aquarium. I plopped the catch in the aquarium and carried it and my camera to shore.

After assembling the tripod and getting set up, I focused on this tiny seahorse, no more than an inch long, and to my surprise, discovered that there were two. Not only were there two, but they were holding each other's tails and a piece of seaweed.

A mated pair! Dwarf seahorses are known to be monogamous, and to mate for life. Their elaborate courtship rituals are well documented. And here was a mated pair basically holding hands.

"The dwarf seahorse's mating ritual is fascinating," said McCawley, with the Florida FWC. It is "marked by distinct behavior changes and intensity and occurs over 3-4 days. The phases include side-by-side vibrating or quivering, showing bright and/or rapid color changes, head pointing, and repeatedly rising together in the water column."

The ritual also includes a lot of petting. All during their lifelong courtship, when the seahorses wake up in the morning, they come together and nuzzle each other, and perform a sort of dance that can last for minutes or up to an hour. It's a way of saying, 'Hello. You're my guy, and you're my gal. Glad we made it through the night. Let's eat breakfast.'

As I photographed the pair, they began nuzzling each other on their necks, and rubbing their heads together. Mostly, it was the larger female rubbing the small male, almost as if to say everything would be ok even though they had been pulled from their home. They stared at each other with the oversized eyes they rely on for hunting, and slowly changed from the deep dark green of the shoal grass where they were captured to a lighter and more drab shade that stood out less in the small aquarium.

After a few minutes in one spot, they would both release their grip on their seaweed perch and slowly glide to a new spot. Seahorses swim upright, standing in the water with their head straight above their tails. The only means of locomotion comes from a small fin on their back. While Jacque Cousteau writes in his book The Ocean World that this fin can move seventy times a second, it is so ineffective that the dwarf seahorse is considered to be the slowest of all fish, capable of traveling about five feet an hour. Indeed, it took the pair several minutes to transit the length of the small aquarium I placed them in. Despite that shortcoming, they have been around for along time. The earliest known example of a seahorse from the fossil record is 13 million years old.

I am seldom as captivated by the animals I photograph as I was by this pair. Their bodies were so small and yet so intricately detailed that they looked more like finely jeweled sculptures than living creatures. Tiny, feathery protrusions sprouted from all over their bodies, a sort of camouflage filigree. Brian said they lose those in captivity.

As I photographed them, Brian, ever the aquarist, shaded them from the sun and changed out their water a few times to ensure they didn't overheat. At 15 minutes, he said it was probably time to turn them loose.

After a short debate, we agreed that the best way to ensure they stayed together on release would be use a small water bottle and let them swim their way out of it together. Brian walked them to where we'd caught them and let them swim off.

Then I asked him how these tiny fish, barely able to swim, managed to find each other in this vast grass bed. After all, in an entire day, we'd never seen another seahorse. And given their size, finding a mate would be the equivalent of my finding a partner while wandering around in a national park.

After explaining that they are known to produce clicks and various other noises when feeding and mating, he allowed this: "Really, that's a big mystery, like so much about their behavior in the wild. They are so small, and so cryptic, we really don't know a whole lot about them."

Driving home, this thought occurred to me regarding the fact that they mate for life: If I were only able to move five feet an hour and I managed to find another of my species in a huge forest of grass, and that one I found was the opposite sex, I'd probably never let her out of my sight either. Especially so if she looked as lovely and delicate as a dwarf seahorse.

Follow Ben Raines on Facebook, Twitter @BenHRaines, or Instagram at brraines as he explores Alabama's natural wonders. Shoot him an email with questions or story ideas at braines@al.com.
Missile Central, USA Defense system: Alabama has a key role in the system designed to protect the U.S. against attack.

A test of a ground-based interceptor at The Missile Defense Agency. (Archive photo)

(Leada Gore)

U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (Joe Songer/jsonger@al.com).

By Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. He also serves on the Appropriations Committee and the Committee on Rules and Administration.

Last week North Korea tested a nuclear weapon for the second time this year - the fifth overall and its largest one to date. Alabamians and all Americans were reminded of the growing threat to our homeland that is posed by this rouge nation. Alongside nuclear tests, North Korea is also improving its launch capabilities that increase the threat to the U.S. homeland, deployed Americans living abroad and our allies.

North Korea's continued expansion of its nuclear and missile programs underscores the critical need for the United States to fully fund and expand our missile defense systems, which are developed and improved in Alabama.

North Korea is currently working to create a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile while simultaneously testing the missiles that would carry those weapons. Specifically, they are working to advance long-range missiles to reach the United States, in addition to road-mobile launch systems and submarine-launch capabilities, which are both much more difficult to detect and require more resources to monitor. Launches from a trailer are uniquely concerning because they enable North Korea to launch a missile from their eastern coast on short notice, shortening the range to the U.S. by hundreds of miles.

In light of the clear signal that North Korea does not plan to back down from its nuclear weapons program, the United States must continue to make missile defenses a national priority.

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, a capability of the Huntsville-based Missile Defense Agency, is essential to the ballistic missile defense system that defends our country. Without it, the United States would be completely vulnerable to missile attack.

Despite its critically important role in protecting our nation, GMD funding has been severely cut by the Obama administration. The president's first budget slashed funding for the system roughly in half. Fortunately, under the leadership of MDA Director Vice Admiral James Syring, and with the expertise of the impressive workforce of the Huntsville-based Boeing team, the system is performing well in spite of the funding cuts and conducted a successful flight test earlier this year. However, full support for GMD must be restored if we expect it to fulfill its technical potential.

In order to meet the evolving threat, GMD must continually improve in accuracy and reliability with a better kill vehicle. In order to reach this vital goal, GMD must get the support it needs to be successful from Congress and the Administration.

Troy, Alabama, is also home to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile production facility, which is another valuable system that can protect Americans and our allies from a North Korean nuclear weapon. THAAD missiles would help protect Americans citizens currently living in South Korea, including deployed military.

Unfortunately, one of President Obama's senior advisors indicated last week that the United States may not utilize THAAD if North Korea "changed its behavior." In light of North Korea's recent nuclear tests, mobilizing THAAD - a proven, reliable, and invaluable component to defense of the Korean Peninsula - is clearly more responsible and wise than merely relying upon the administration's wishful thinking. This administration has treated THAAD like GMD, subjecting them both to budget levels that too often prioritize politics and messaging over building defensive capabilities and meeting emerging threats.

As North Korea continues to expand its nuclear weapon program, Alabama plays an important role in protecting the United States' interests at home and abroad. With a firm commitment to systems like GMD and THAAD, the United States and our allies have the opportunity to rely upon Alabama-based defense systems to keep us safe from North Korea's increased threats.
What was that sound?

It was a gasp, a panicky inhale from politicians and thieves across the Birmingham area. And it was a sigh of relief, an exhale from citizens trying not to choke on all the smoke billowing from their government agencies.

The head of the Alabama Attorney General's special corruption unit came to Jefferson County last week, signing documents confirming he is "considering certain matters that will require investigation" of a serious and lengthy nature.

Whew.

The unit will kick open a special grand jury in October. Which - just to be clear - is not an everyday or every-year occurrence.

The circuit clerk's office didn't know how to file the order to empanel the grand jury, at first. Workers in the office of the judge who signed it didn't know where to send it. It was special, and it landed in the county with a special reverberating thud.

Because everybody who has followed Alabama politics and corruption -- which is often but not always the same thing - knows it's just the beginning.

Of a correction.

Of a reckoning.

This is the same unit that stepped into Lee County and brought down former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, not only the most powerful guy in that county, but in the state. It's a unit led by Matt Hart, a guy who earned his stripes putting public officials in stripes.

Think Jefferson County sewer scam. Think two-year-college carnage. Think all those corrupt county commissioners and double-dipping legislators who went from the penthouse to the pokey. That's the guy who rumbled into the county courthouse last week and signed papers saying the testimony he expects to take "will be extensive."

Of course there was a gasp. And a sigh. Because everything is about to change.

Attorney General Luther Strange

Not that it's a sure thing anyone will be convicted. Or even indicted. That's not what's important here. What's important is knowing someone with subpoena power and zero tolerance for ethical shenanigans will turn over rocks to see what's there.

This town needs it. There are too many questions. There is too much smoke.

It is believed the investigation will look at issues surrounding the Birmingham Water Works Board, but there's no reason to believe it will be limited to that.

Fights over control of the water works have spawned anonymous internet videos with broad and unsubstantiated allegations about contractors and their links to city council members. Those were followed up by more videos, from the opposing side, offering a reward for information leading to the makers of the original videos.

It is madness.

The constant clashes between Mayor William Bell's office and members of the council turn into charges and rumors and claims of misconduct - many of which are almost impossible to confirm or refute without the ability to follow money through bank accounts and records that are simply not available without a subpoena.

Of course there was a gasp. Of course there was a sigh of relief. All this has been simmering and stinking and stymieing Birmingham for months.

For a while it seemed as if Birmingham and Jefferson County had learned from their mistakes. After six former county commissioners were convicted, after more than 20 other people and businesses were implicated in crimes that helped bankrupt the county, there was a brief and shining moment in which the politicians in this county seemed scared straight.

Scared straight.

But those days are gone. These days many officials seem more interested in their own pay, in their own travel, in their own aggrandizement than they have since Larry Langford went to prison.

Is it criminal, or just reprehensible?

That's what this grand jury will find out.
While Philippines kills drug dealers en masse, Thailand takes a step back from its own bruising war on drugs.

A few months ago, Harpers Magazine published a long piece by Dan Baum titled Legalise it All.

Even with the momentum of the rapid decriminalisation of marijuana taking place now in the United States, the articles call for full legalisation of all drugs is clearly going to be too extreme for mainstream North America.

Yet in recent days, a proposal just as radical in the context of traditionalist Asia has been making the rounds in Thailand  legalisation of medical marijuana, and even decriminalisation of methamphetamines  perhaps something similar to Portugal, where users are not punished but rather sent to rehab.

What is remarkable is that these suggestions are not coming from rights activists or progressive civil society  instead they are being floated by the countrys military government.

General Paiboon Koomchaya, Thailands justice minister, has becoming increasingly vocal in his view that the countrys drug policy has been wrong the whole time, and has been calling for drug abuse to be treated as a health issue, instead of a crime.

To get a sense of how unusual this is, compare this with nearby Philippines, where most estimates of the death toll from Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs have now passed 3,000.

At least 1,500 people have been killed in the Philippines by the police themselves  the rest by vigilantes inspired by Dutertes hard-talking, no-quarter stance on drugs.

The stories of victims that have emerged are already heart-wrenching, frustrating and maddening. As the drug war there expands and the full scale of suffering comes into sharper view, it will only get worse.

READ MORE: Executing drug dealers in Southeast Asia

Thailand knows. When it comes to wars on drugs, its been there, done that. Now, 13 years later, it is still counting the costs. The parallels to the Philippines are strong, and Manila would do well to pay attention.

In February 2003, when then Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched his war on drugs, it was criticised by human rights groups, yet was wildly popular among a public who shared his view that drug dealers and abusers were a social menace.

Soon, newspapers were tallying up body counts in the thousands  an independent inquiry eventually put the toll at more than 2,800 killed.

Worse, an official investigation raised questions as to whether half of those killed even had any connections to drugs.

Prison populations shot up, and have stayed up, Thailand is now struggling to house its 321,347 prisoners, 70 percent of whom are there on drug-related charges.

Many of them were jailed as teenagers, and are still serving out decades-long sentences for relatively petty offences.

Thailand now has 40 percent of ASEANs prison population, even though it has only 10 percent of its overall population.

The ends also did not justify the means.

In 2003, Thaksin was confounded by the rise of yaba, the madness drug  a regional form of methamphetamine.

Despite the killings and the incarcerations, yaba users grow in numbers in Thailand and in neighbouring countries.

READ MORE: Philippines  inside Dutertes killer drug war

The United Nations drug agency estimates that heroin and methamphetamine trade in the Golden Triangle, an area at the borders of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand where opium production thrives, is worth $30bn annually  more than the official gross national products of Laos and Cambodia combined.

All this has led to an awakening among senior officials in Thailand, who are now holding serious high-level discussions on how to rethink the problem.

Full legalisation brings the lucrative prospect of taxing the drugs, and would also move production of meth out of labs hidden in the jungle into cleaner, better-regulated facilities.

But few here think such a move is realistic.

For one thing, many Thais are still all for the war on drugs, leading to a strange dynamic where a military government is mulling over proposals it worries are too progressive for its public.
Upholding a childs basic right to education is more important when children are displaced and exiled from their homes.

WHO Ambassador for Global Health Financing and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In the 1960s, the struggle was for black civil rights. The 1970s saw the stepping up of the fight to free the world from apartheid. And in recent years, we have seen the battle for LGBT equality.

The freedom struggle of the coming decade is the battle for the rights of children  rights too often neglected or ignored. By fulfilling our promise to a deliver a quality education to the worlds young, we can be the first generation in history where every child goes to school.

More effective mechanisms

For years, global leaders repeated the mantra that education is the most important  and the most cost-effective, anti-poverty investment we can make and the greatest anti-poverty instrument we have.

And yet, we have failed to deliver. Today, there are more out-of-school primary-age children than five years ago: 61 million children between the ages of five and 11 have yet to be enrolled in school. In total, there are more than 263 million school-age children who are outside the classroom.

Indeed, we have enshrined our promise for a universal right of schooling in both the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and now, the Sustainable Development Goals. Our pressure has been ineffective even in countries where millions of children are condemned to child labour, child marriage and child trafficking when they should be at school.

The Third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a mechanism through which children and their families can petition the Committee on the Rights of the Child if denied the right to education.

For decades the plight of the displaced and refugee child has been neglected. In fact, we do the least for the children of the world who are most vulnerable and most in need. by

Now, the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, convened by the governments of Norway, Malawi, Indonesia and Chile, proposes to entrench in our global system of rules and responsibilities a new right that will hold countries to account where the human rights of children continue to be systematically violated.

Every year in the future, the UN Security Council, Human Rights Council and General Assembly will be obliged to scrutinise countries educational progress to our goal of universal educational provision, and every year, they will have a duty to draw attention to human rights violations which prevent the realisation of our goal.

Learning from what the UN Security Council has done under Graca Machels leadership to expose the denial of the rights of children caught in conflicts, the UN Security Council will have a duty to shine an international spotlight on those countries where girls are subjected to early marriage and their educations are cut short  or when nine, 10, 11, and 12-year-olds are taken out of school and forced into child labour in factories and fields and mines and workshops.

Neglecting millions of children

Upholding a childs basic right to education is even more important where children are displaced and exiled from their homes.

Today, there are 30 million children  20 million of whom are displaced from their homes, schools and communities in their own countries, and another 10 million wandering the world as refugees  exiled from their country.

If history is a guide, these children will be prevented from returning to their home country for 10 years or more. Many refugee boys and girls will go through their whole school-age years without ever entering a classroom.

For decades, the plight of the displaced and refugee child has been neglected. In fact, we do the least for the children of the world who are most vulnerable and most in need.

Under provision for the education of refugee boys and girls is not an accident: They fall through the net  caught between a system of humanitarian aid that understandably focuses on food, shelter and ill-health and thus basic survival, and a development aid system that works long term and is slow to react to emergencies when they arise.

Only 1.5 percent of humanitarian aid goes to education, denying us the $400m in extra funds we urgently need to respond to the 21 emergency appeals for education aid.

Without schools, society will fall

In the last few weeks, far-sighted development agencies and international institutions have come together to create the new Education Cannot Wait fund destined to make good the gaps in educational opportunities for refugee children.

But we have yet to raise the funding even for the largest group of refugee children  the two million Syrian boys and girls now in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

OPINION: Girls  Silent majority for how much longer?

So, in a few days time, the school year starts in Lebanon. Fortunately, over 200,000 refugee children are being taught in what are called double-shift schools in Lebanon. Syrian children learn in Arabic in the afternoons in the same classrooms where their Lebanese counterparts are instructed in French and English in the mornings.

But 100,000 more children who could be enrolled, and for whom teachers are available, thanks to the Lebanese Minister for Education Elias Bou Saab, will be shut out of school this academic year unless new funding becomes available to pay salaries. Yet, it costs a mere $10 per week to educate one refugee.

With no school places for their children, parents will feel under pressure to take the long and dangerous death voyages to Europe.

With no school places, young people will fall prey to extremist factions determined to exploit their discontents and assert that coexistence between the religions of the world is impossible.

Without school places, the hope that exists in children, when they can prepare and plan for their future, will be destroyed.

For centuries, children have had to suffer silently as their rights are violated and neglected. In this decade, we have it in our power to be the first generation in history where every child can go to school.

As our global commission recommends, we should accept responsibility to provide for every child and give every boy and girl a childhood.

Gordon Brown is the UN Secretary-Generals Special Envoy for Global Education and the former Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
As the battle of Mosul looms, it may be wise to place on the back burner the debate on regional formation initiatives.

Michael Knights is the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He specialises in the politics and security of Iraq. He has worked in every Iraqi province and most of the country's hundred districts, including periods embedded with Iraq's security forces.

The decentralisation of security, spending and administrative power is regularly cited as a means of reducing tension in a post-Islamic State Iraq. The logic is commendable: If Sunnis and Kurds are freer to manage their own affairs, then they will have more stake in cooperation with Baghdad, and there will be less room for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) to operate along the tense, dividing lines between central Iraq and the northern and western peripheries.

Easy to say, harder to do. In decentralisation, the devil is in the detail. How much input should Baghdad versus local actors have in the recruitment of local security forces? Which spending should ministries versus provincial councils control? How much money will be sent to the local level? And who controls the oil?

These issues are being actively debated across Iraq, and strong emotions are the result. In disputed Kirkuk  claimed by Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs  the provinces dynamic governor, Najmaldin Karim, has welcomed an open debate on the issue of how the province should be governed in future.

Three options There are three options. Depending on a referendum result Kirkuk could join the multi-province Kurdistan region of northern Iraq (KRI), or it could choose to stay as one of the 15 provinces administered directly by Baghdad. A third option, touted by Karim as an interim step , would be for Kirkuk to take the legal steps to become a region like the KRI for a few years. READ MORE: Analysis: The Kurds take Kirkuk, now what? What would change if Kirkuk became a region? A contentious final status decision on Kirkuks long-term relationship with Baghdad or the KRI might be postponed, while in the interim, Kirkuk would gain some advantages. Baghdad would probably not welcome a further loss of control over Kirkuk crude and a general reduction of its role in Kirkuk. by It would enjoy strengthened revenue management, potentially exporting its own crude as the KRI does. Kirkuk could legally form its own Regional Guard Brigades and receive international training and assistance as the KRIs Peshmerga does. Kirkuk would gain much more administrative control over service provision in its territory. And outlying parts of Kirkuk, like Arab-populated Hawija, could petition to become a province itself, much as the KRI contains four subordinate provinces (Erbil, Sulaimania, Dohuk and Halabja ).

But many Iraqi factions also fear such an outcome. Baghdad would probably not welcome a further loss of control over Kirkuk crude and a general reduction of its role in Kirkuk. The Kurdish factions seem to fear that regional formation in Kirkuk could permanently separate this area from the KRI, or strengthen local Kirkuki leaders in relation to the political parties of the KRI. As a result, Governor Karim has found himself under attack from all sides.

Now, the battle of Mosul is nearing, and the city might even be liberated before years end. Already, there is an open debate on whether Nineveh province, centred on Mosul, should become a KRI-style region encompassing multiple new provinces. Theres some value to this idea. Urban Mosul and rural Arab Nineveh are led and populated by very distinct social and tribal groups, respectively. Sinjar district to the west is heavily Yezidi; Tall Afar district next door is Turkmen-dominated, including many Shia Turkmen. The Nineveh Plains to the east of Mosul are populated by Christians, Shabaks and Yezidis. State of shock

One day, this might be a reality, but it is arguably too early  and too dangerous  to seriously debate this issue today. Moslawis will be in a state of shock when they are liberated, and they will be keenly watching to see if the return of outside forces is in their interest or not. This is a time for reassuring small steps in the right direction, not for the earth-shattering redrawing of the map. READ MORE: The US, the Peshmerga and Mosul Though every group might ultimately benefit from a new regional government in Nineveh, in the short-term, all would fear what the changes mean and how they would be implemented. Its arguable that Nineveh and Mosul cannot afford this kind of uncertainty in the post-liberation months. The Baghdad factions might not react well either: In 2011, the provinces of Salah al-Din and Diyala began the legal steps needed to form their own regions, and the federal governments reaction was to enact martial law in these governorates .

As advocates of devolution say: There is probably never a right time to start this touchy process. But today is arguably one of the least promising moments due to the extraordinary fragility of the country and the political discord in Baghdad and the KRI. Most international partners are unlikely to back regional formation efforts in Mosul or Kirkuk now because of their potential to derail Baghdad-KRI cooperation or exacerbate local-level tensions in liberated areas.
For now, these summits risk being but a half-hearted beginning to help those millions of people forced to flee.

I cried my eyes out when I arrived in the UK, a refugee.

I remember the policeman at immigration control looking down at me, a lost and distraught young African girl. Hed caught me with a forged $100 bill. I tried to explain, I didnt know it was fake.

The Idi Amin dictatorship in Uganda meant we were forced to buy black-market money.

I thought my luck had run out, and I was going to prison.

My journey had already been perilous. My mother and I had to leave suddenly, fleeing into Kenya by night. We were scared because many people had died before us, but we were desperate. People helped us along the way to get to a country that welcomed refugees: The United Kingdom.

But my luck had not run out. The policeman said words I would never forget: Im forgiving you because I can see youre coming from a very difficult situation. I was safe. I would soon be able to grab the chance of a first-class education with a refugee scholarship.

That policeman, that day, that country  all changed my life, leading me eventually to Oxfam where I can continue to make a contribution to fight for the social justice issues that energise me.

My experience does not compare with what I have heard from other people forced to flee their homes all over the world. But it does help me understand why we urgently need fair and effective ways to support these millions of vulnerable and often traumatised people.

We need humanity

Today, the world is facing the most serious displacement crisis since records began. Sixty-five million people have been forced to flee their homes because of conflict, violence or persecution. This months first United Nations summit for Refugees and Migrants in New York could not have come a minute too soon.

I am proud as someone who was once a refugee to attend this event. It is a chance for the world to pull together and come up with a united approach.

Ultimately, of course, people forced to flee are only a symptom of root causes such as war, violence, persecution, climate change and poverty. The world needs to do more to solve these.

Entire generations of refugee children are missing out on education, and this diminishes their chances of getting work and making money and paying taxes. Governments must ensure that girls and boys are given equal access to schools. by

And we need an ambitious response to support refugees and ensure they can live in peace and safety. This is not someone elses problem; it is our own.

If we all can imagine for a minute  What if that was me?  then we can begin to understand that resilience and luck can never be enough. We need humanity, not just from ordinary people, but from our governments who are meant to protect us with good law, too.

Everyone who is forced to flee from conflict, violence, disaster or poverty or is in search for a better life has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

Refugees also need opportunities for work and education and everything else that enables people to lead a dignified and productive life. How else can new arrivals make their contribution to the country that has welcomed them?

Entire generations of refugee children are missing out on education, and this diminishes their chances of getting work and making money and paying taxes. Governments must ensure that girls and boys are given equal access to schools.

The outlook, however, for these crucial twin summits is poor before they have even started. Instead of coming up with practical solutions on better protecting refugees and migrants, negotiations in the run-up to the summit have been evasive and laced with conditions (PDF).

Turning a blind eye

I am most outraged by rich governments stubborn resistance to welcome refugees. On the other hand, many developing countries cannot be accused of turning their backs to the millions of people who are risking their lives and their childrens lives for safety.

What little value, crushingly, have leaders of rich countries placed on the lives of those desperately unfortunate girls and boys trying to find a safe home?

Around 86 percent of refugees and asylum seekers are, in fact, being hosted in low and middle-income countries, countries in which citizens have become used to sharing their classrooms and their clinics. In Lebanon, one in five inhabitants is a Syrian refugee. In Jordan, the fourth largest city is a refugee camp.

OPINION: Resist betraying the Refugee Convention 65 years on

Many African countries, on a huge scale, have long known their duty to protect people forced to flee. This continues: Oxfams analysis shows that the countries within the African Union host over a quarter of the worlds 24.5 million refugees and asylum seekers  despite making up just 2.9 percent of the worlds economy.

My own country, Uganda, is hosting over half-a-million refugees and asylum seekers. Refugees are guaranteed rights  as any country should do  to work, establish businesses, attend school, freely move and own property; land, too, is given for agricultural use.

Larger still is the number of internally displaced people forced to flee within their countries borders  it is scandalous they will be largely ignored at the summits.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to almost 30 percent of all the people who are now internally displaced by conflict and violence, including in Nigeria, where a violent seven-year conflict has spread into Niger, Chad and Cameroon, creating a regional humanitarian crisis.

So we must temper our expectations: As it stands we expect no commitments from rich governments to welcome and support more refugees, nor do we expect refugees being offered better chances for schooling and work.

There is time yet for governments to rectify this  there always is.

For now, these summits risk being but a half-hearted beginning to help those millions of people forced to flee.

They must instead mark a turning point for this crisis. Governments  the people within them  must recall their humanity, the kind I encountered when I was welcomed not long ago.

Winnie Byanyima is a grassroots activist, human rights advocate, senior international public servant, world-recognised expert on womens rights, and currently the executive director of Oxfam International.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
India blames Pakistan for deadly attack that comes after region gripped by over two months of often violent protests.

Seventeen Indian soldiers and four suspected rebel fighters have been killed in an attack on an army headquarters in Indian-administered Kashmir, according to a statement by the armys northern command.

Four terrorists killed in counterterrorist operation at Uri. 17 soldiers make the supreme sacrifice, the command said on Twitter on Sunday, referring to the Uri area, about 100km west of the troubled northern regions main city of Srinagar.

The fighters first attacked a frontline base close to the border known as the Line of Control before moving on to the headquarters, army spokesman Colonel SD Goswami said.

#JKOps Please find a statement attached on the operation at Uri in J&K @adgpi pic.twitter.com/9I90qRiEWT  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) September 18, 2016

Most of the fatalities happened in a tent that caught fire, Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, the Indian armys director general of military operations, told the briefing in New Delhi.

Reuters television footage showed helicopters flying in to evacuate the injured as an operation continued to secure the area. Smoke rose from the compound, set in mountainous terrain. The Defence Ministry earlier put the number of wounded at 35.

India accuses Pakistan

India has accused Pakistan of being behind one of the most deadly attacks in Kashmir in a quarter-century-old armed rebellion.

Lieutenant General Singh said that Sundays attack bore the hallmarks of Pakistan-based armed group Jaish-e-Mohammed. Evidence gathered at the scene indicated the attackers were foreign and their equipment bore Pakistani markings, he told Reuters news agency.

Our men are ready to give a befitting response, Singh said in response to a reporters question. He did not elaborate.

Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned what he called the cowardly terror attack.

I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished, Modi said in a series of Twitter posts.

In an even stronger response, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted: Pakistan is a terrorist state and should be identified and isolated as such.

Singh chaired a crisis meeting in New Delhi and cancelled planned trips to Russia and the United States.

Pakistan rejected allegations that it was involved. India immediately puts blame on Pakistan without doing any investigation. We reject this, foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria told Reuters.

Tens of thousands killed

Army Chief Dalbir Singh Suhag and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar are to visit Kashmir after the attack, the Indian media said.

The Himalayan region has been in the grip of deadly unrest for more than two months, with protesting residents clashing almost daily with security forces, in the worst violence to hit the region since 2010.

At least 87 civilians have been killed and thousands injured in the protests against Indian rule, sparked by the killing of a popular rebel leader in a gun battle with soldiers on July 8.

READ MORE: Two centuries of oppression in Kashmir

Kashmir is divided into two parts, one administered by India and the other by Pakistan.

India claims Pakistan has been supporting a violent secessionist movement in Kashmir. Islamabad has consistently denied this charge. It calls Kashmiri rebels freedom fighters.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting.
The new military aid deal formalised by the United States and Israel on September 14 could serve to boost an intransigent, right-wing Israeli government that has already shown little appetite for substantial concessions to the Palestinians, analysts say.

The primary lesson that the increasingly extremist Israeli right will draw from this agreement is that there are no significant international consequences, but rather, significant rewards for their behaviour, Mouin Rabbani, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, told Al Jazeera.

This behaviour, Rabbani added, has included not just exponentially accelerating colonial expansion in the West Bank, but also brazen interference in domestic American politics, citing Netanyahus open alignment for Mitt Romney in the 2012 elections, and the more recent efforts to mobilise the US Congress against the White House in the matter of the Iranian nuclear agreement.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in Washington DC by Israels Acting National Security Adviser Jacob Nagel and US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon, Jr, in the presence of the countries respective ambassadors.

READ MORE: Five reasons why US-Israel military deal stinks

Obama has clearly washed his hands of the Palestinians for some years now. Even if he makes a last-ditch attempt to save the vanishing two-state solution, this is likely to weaken - not strengthen - the Palestinians by eroding international law. by Nadia Hijab, executive director of Al Shabaka

The new military aid deal is worth a total of $38bn over 10 years, beginning in budget year 2019. The $3.8bn-a-year agreement is an increase from the current $30bn package; however, the new MoU includes funds for missile defence that have previously been added as top-ups.

The deal also phases out Israels right to spend 26.3 percent of the aid money on its domestic arms companies, instead obliging Israel to only buy from US defence manufacturers.

Though US and Israeli officials cite regional threats by way of justifying the huge aid package, the most frequent victims of Israeli military offensives are the Palestinians. Munitions on Israels shopping list, say analysts, may very well be used in future assaults on the Gaza Strip.

Nadia Hijab, executive director of Al Shabaka, the Palestinian policy network, notes that the US government has managed to claw back some of its own  or rather some of its taxpayers  money by phasing out the portion of aid Israel can spend on its own defence industry.

None of this, of course, makes life any better for Palestinians living under nearly 50 years of Israels military occupation, says Hijab.

These caveats, and the fact that the increase of aid in real terms is not as significant as some Israeli politicians had hoped it would be, have led some  including former Israeli premier Ehud Barak  to accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to secure the best deal possible.

OPINION: How impunity defines Israel and victimises Palestinians

According to analysts, it is difficult to claim with any degree of certainty whether the public animosity between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama  exemplified by the formers unsuccessful attempts to derail the deal with Iran  have had any material impact on the new MoU.

This debate is mainly a function of internal Israeli politics, Khaled Elgindy, Fellow at the Brookings Institutions Centre for Middle East Policy, told Al Jazeera. Ehud Barak seems to be suggesting that since Netanyahu had a bad relationship with the Obama administration, this somehow jeopardised the overall aid package. I dont see any evidence of that.

There is another angle to consider, however: whether the conclusion of the deal provides Obama  in the small window between Novembers elections and his formal departure from the White House  some extra wriggle-room for a final diplomatic initiative unlikely to be welcomed by Netanyahu.





Obama, himself, in his press statement on the signing of the aid deal, seemed to be making such a connection between the MoU and the need for a two-state solution to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite the deeply troubling trends on the ground that undermine this goal.

At a press briefing, Israels Nagel blatantly rejected the idea of any link between the MoU and the Palestinian track. As far as the [US and Israeli] negotiating teams were concerned, he said, there was a wall of fire between the two issues.

Hijab isnt holding her breath: Obama has clearly washed his hands of the Palestinians for some years now, she told Al Jazeera. Even if he makes a last-ditch attempt to save the vanishing two-state solution, this is likely to weaken  not strengthen  the Palestinians by eroding international law.

For Rabbani, even if Obama does indeed launch some kind of diplomatic initiative before January 2017, to the extent that it may contain elements that call upon Israel to relinquish significant control over the Palestinians, Israel will feel confident that such pressures can be safely ignored.

WATCH: How will US-Israel military aid deal affect the Middle East?

There are good grounds for such confidence. During Obamas time in office, Israel undermined US-led peace talks through continued settlement construction and reneging on a prisoner release deal and killed 2,200 Palestinians in an unprecedented 50-day assault on Gaza.

None of which  not the legalisation of settlement outposts nor the escalated demolition of Palestinian homes nor the explicit rejection of Palestinian statehood by high-ranking Israeli ministers  has prompted anything close to meaningful US pressure or sanction.

Rabbani points out that this has for decades been the tenor of US-Israeli relations. Israel, on the whole, acts as it pleases, and even when such actions openly defy Washingtons stated policies and positions, any negative American response is limited and transient.

For Elgindy, There seems little doubt that Netanyahus government will persist in its current trajectory, not only because of the MoU but because there is nothing [certainly nothing coming out of Washington] that is preventing  or even hindering  it from doing so.

Thus, while the enormity of the aid package does give Obama leverage. Elgindy added, there is little evidence from the past seven years to suggest he will be willing to use it.
The incident that took place in a village in the central part of the CAR marks the worst bloodshed in recent months.

Rebels have killed dozens of villagers close to a town in the centre of the Central African Republic (CAR), according to a presidential spokesman.

The incident marks the worst bloodshed in recent months in a country trying to draw a line under years of religious violence and political turmoil.

READ MORE: Interview  CAR president Touadera speaks to Al Jazeera

Albert Mokpeme, the spokesman, said the killings took place in the village of Ndomete, not far from the town of Kaga-Bandoro located in the centre of the country, about 350km north of the capital Bangui. He blamed fighters from the former Seleka rebel coalition.

There were 26 victims. The Seleka [rebels] went door to door  The village chief was among the victims, said Mokpeme. It was a massacre.

Violence pitting the mainly Muslim Seleka fighters against rival Christian anti-Balaka members started on Friday in Ndomete, before spreading to Kaga-Bandoro.

Peacekeepers dispatched

CARs UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, dispatched troops to the area and separated the two groups.

MINUSCA said in a statement that it was reinforcing its positions in and around Kaga-Bandoro and stepping up patrols to protect civilians and prevent further violence, according to the Reuters news agency. The mission declined to say how many had died.

READ MORE: Healing Central African Republics traumatised children

MINUSCA regrets the loss of human life and the wounded that were recorded and also denounces attacks against the humanitarian community and United Nations personnel, it said, without elaborating further.

CAR, which holds reserves of uranium, gold and diamonds, suffered the biggest crisis in its half-century of independence in early 2013 when Seleka toppled Francois Bozize, the president at the time.

Christian fighters responded by attacking Muslims. A fifth of the population fled their homes to escape the violence, leaving the impoverished nation even more divided along ethnic and religious lines.

Former prime minister Faustin-Archange Touadera won a presidential election in February that was meant to help the country emerge from its bloody past. However, rebels and fighters still stalk much of the country outside the capital.
Goal is to raise international awareness about the plight of Palestinians in the impoverished Gaza Strip, crew says.

Barcelona, Spain  As the two boats pulled out of the harbour, a large crowd of people chanted: Gaza, dont you cry; we will never let you die.

The Zaytouna and the Amal  meaning olive and hope  set sail last week from Barcelona, Spain, en route to the besieged Gaza Strip.

Led by an all-female crew, the flotilla will spend three weeks making its way across the Mediterranean Sea before reaching Gaza, where the boats will attempt to nonviolently push through a naval blockade that has been strictly enforced by Israel for a decade. A previous Turkish flotilla in 2010 ended in tragedy after Israeli forces stormed aboard, killing 10 people. Since then, three more aid flotillas have attempted to navigate Gazas waters  all without success.

This time, Captain Madeleine Habib says she is determined to break the siege on Gaza.

Its preventing freedom of access to the people of Palestine, Habib, a skipper with more than 30 years of experience, told Al Jazeera. Its creating a jail in their own country and denying them access to the  basic rights that they deserve.

Tasmanian-born with Egyptian roots, Habib has travelled extensively around the Middle East, during which time she says she developed an avid interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The current journey is more about provocation than aid, she said; although the boats are stocked with a few small items, the broader goal is to raise awareness about Gazas plight and the fact that without a political solution, aid alone is not the answer.

We are trying to provoke a reaction [through] a very positive and symbolic action in a peaceful way, Habib said.

Asked about the all-female aspect of the flotilla, Habib said this was for pragmatic reasons: Some women would be less likely to participate if they had to stay in cramped conditions with men. Khaldiya Abu Bakra, one of the only Gaza-born activists on board the Amal, said the goal was also to honour Palestinian women.

The Palestinian woman has been participating in the cause for years just like men  if not more  but there is no recognition of her role, Abu Bakra told Al Jazeera. Palestinian women suffer from the occupation and siege the most, so women from all over the world wish to honour and recognise the role of the Palestinian woman.

The boats each set off carrying a crew of 11, with flotilla members planning to eat and sleep in shifts. More people are expected to join at different ports, including peace activist and Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire, playwright and screenwriter Naomi Wallace and Turkish athlete Cigdem Topcuoglu, whose husband was killed in the 2010 Mavi Marmara raid.

Flotilla member Ann Wright, a former US army colonel and state department diplomat, was also on board the Mavi Marmara six years ago.

I saw the helicopters coming down and shooting, killing people on the deck, Wright told Al Jazeera. Our boat was boarded; we were kidnapped and taken to Israel.

Wright, who resigned her state department position in protest against the 2003 Iraq war, has also questioned her countrys pro-Israel stance, becoming deeply involved in pro-Palestinian activism. In 2009, Wright organised the Gaza Freedom March, a group of more than 1,000 people from around the world who planned to enter Gaza through Egypt. When Egyptian authorities stopped them, they instead marched to Tahrir Square. Wright has since become a member of the organising body sending flotillas to the impoverished territory.

In June 2015, one of those flotillas, which set sail from Sweden but was ultimately intercepted by the Israeli military, prompted Israeli Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Hotovely to comment: Flotillas like the one making its way to Israel are the handiwork of provocateurs who only want to make Israel look bad.

The siege on Gaza has crippled the Palestinian territory, severely impeding the movement of goods and people. A 2015 World Bank report found that Gazas economy was on the verge of collapse, while a subsequent report by Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics noted that the unemployment rate in Gaza surpassed 40 percent.

Back on the flotilla, Habib said she was excited about the trip ahead  despite the inherent difficulties, including cramped conditions, little sleep, potential seasickness and the possibility of arrest upon arrival in Gaza.

In the meantime, she is going to enjoy the journey.

When were looking for shooting stars, phosphorescence in the water, dolphins, being at sea  I still find it completely enchanting and magical, she said.

Follow Laura on Twitter: @Laura_BM1
ISIL downs plane as government forces push to retake territory lost to group in wake of botched US-led coalition strike.

ISIL fighters shot down a Syrian military plane in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Az Zor, the groups Amaq news agency reported on Sunday.

A Syrian warplane belonging to the Syrian regime was brought down when targeted by fighters from the Islamic State in the city of Deir al-Zor, Amaq said in an online statement.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, said the pilot of the MiG Syrian warplane was killed.

US air raid on Syrian army post sparks Russia tension

Earlier in the day, Syrian state news agency SANA reported that government troops had regained territory in the eastern province lost to fighters affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) as a result of the American aircraft aggression.

The US military said it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against ISIL in Deir Az Zor on Saturday.

Russias military said it was told by the Syrian army that at least 62 soldiers were killed and more than 100 wounded in the raid in the Jabal Tharda area of Deir Az Zor.

The Observatory said on Sunday the plane came down in the same area, which overlooks the governments Deir Az Zor military airport.

The citys airport and some government-held districts have been entirely surrounded by ISIL since last year, with the airport providing the only external access.

Heavy air strikes over the past 24 hours have hit ISIL-controlled areas near Deir Az Zor city, according to the Observatory and Syrian state media.
An alleged attacker shot in the head after stabbing an Israeli soldier near in the occupied West Bank, Israelis say.

A Palestinian man was shot on Sunday morning after allegedly stabbing an Israeli army officer in a settlement in the occupied West Bank.

A terrorist carried out a stabbing attack in Efrat and wounded an officer, the Israeli armys Twitter account said.

The alleged assailant, identified by the army as Palestinian, was shot by soldiers at the scene shortly after stabbing a reserves company commander in the settlement of Efrat, between Bethlehem and Hebron, in the southern West Bank, the army said.

Both were evacuated to the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, which said the alleged attacker suffered a gunshot wound to his head. The soldier was stabbed in the armpit.

It was the fifth attack on Israeli security forces or civilians since Friday after a three-week lull in a nearly year-long wave of violence.

The Efrat settlement is a short distance from the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, where on Saturday a Palestinian allegedly stabbed a soldier before being shot dead.

On Friday, two Palestinians in a car allegedly tried to run over Israeli settlers at a bus stop adjacent to the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron before nearby soldiers shot and killed one of the assailants.

The same day, a Jordanian allegedly stabbed a police officer in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem before he was shot dead.

The Israeli army announced on Saturday that it was sending an additional battalion to reinforce the Hebron area following the increase in violence around the city.

A wave of violence since last October has killed 227 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, one Eritrean and a Sudanese, according to an AFP news agency count.

Israeli forces say most of the Palestinians killed were allegedly carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks. Others were shot dead during protests or killed in Israeli air raids on Gaza.
The Abu Sayyaf armed group has released three Indonesian hostages in the southern Philippines a day after freeing a Norwegian captive held for a year and repeatedly threatened with beheading.

Sundays release  negotiated by the Moro National Liberation Front rebels  took place on the island of Jolo in Sulu province.

Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, who was let go on Saturday, described the ordeal as devastating, carrying a backpack with a bullet hole as a reminder of a near-death experience, which included the decapitations of two Canadians kidnapped with him.

The three Indonesian hostages were identified as Lorence Koten, Theorus Kopong, and Emanuel Arakain. They were abducted from the Sabah state of Malaysia in July.

READ MORE: Abu Sayyaf frees Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad

Sekkingstad, 56, said after his release he was treated like a slave by the group, which is linked to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

[I was] always kept in the dark and given misinformation, like, not reliable information, psychological pressure like: You gonna be beheaded [on] such and such a date  always threats hanging over your head, he said.

Sekkingstad, newly shaved but looking gaunt in a loose polo shirt, thanked all those who worked for his freedom.

I am very happy to be alive and free, he said. Its a beautiful feeling.

Abu Ramie, a spokesman for Abu Sayyaf, said the group received a $638,000 ransom for Sekkingstads release. The government of the Philippines said it did not pay the group and was unaware of any payment made by other parties.

Inside Abu Sayyaf: Blood, drugs and conspiracies

Sekkingstad was abducted from a luxury tourist resort in September 2015 alongside a Filipina woman, who has already been freed, and the two Canadian men.

Abu Sayyaf demanded a huge ransom for the release of the foreigners, and released videos in which they threatened the captives in a jungle clearing where they displayed ISIL-style black flags.

In April and June, the Canadians  John Ridsdel , 68, and Robert Hall , 67  were beheaded after ransoms were not paid, while the Filipina, Marites Flor, was released.

After they decapitated Ridsdel, Sekkingstad was threatened by the fighters, who repeatedly told him, Youre next.

Duterte has deployed 7,000 troops to Sulu to go after Abu Sayyaf.

The United States and the Philippines have separately blacklisted the group as a terrorist organisation for bombings, extortion, kidnappings for ransom, and beheadings of locals and foreigners.
Offensive launched by UN-backed Tripoli government against rival administrations fighters who seized ports last week.

Eastern Libyan forces loyal to military leader Khalifa Haftar said they had re-established control over two oil ports where an ousted faction launched a counterattack on Sunday, briefly seizing one of the terminals.

The Petroleum Facilities Guard  an armed group led by Ibrahim Jathran and loyal to the Tripoli-based government  said it staged an attack on Sunday on two of the oil ports captured by Haftars forces last week.

Haftars troops had seized the ports of Ras Lanuf, Al-Sidra, Zuwaytina, and Brega in the so-called oil crescent along the coast, which were then handed to the National Oil Corporation.



Analysis: A proxy struggle being waged in Libya

Muftah al-Muqarief, who heads oil guards loyal to Haftar, said Sundays counterattack was launched from the west by militias backed by outlaws.

We repelled the attack and we are chasing them in the region, he said, adding that some assailants had been captured.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) has struggled to assert its authority over the country since it was formed in December last year.

Oil is Libyas key asset, and revenue from crude exports is vital if the GNA is to rebuild the economy and infrastructure of the North African nation, ravaged by violence and conflict between factions since the 2011 uprising that led to the toppling of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The loss of the ports was a blow to the GNA, which set up base in the capital in March, months after it was created as the result of a UN-backed power-sharing agreement.

The fighting came as the state-run National Oil Corporation (NOC) prepared to restart oil exports from the ports, blockaded for several years.

This situation highlights the contradiction and complication of the NOC, reported Al Jazeeras Mahmoud Abdel Wahed from Tripoli.

NOC is supposed to be loyal to the Government of National Accord, but it recently welcomed Haftars control of the oil terminals.



READ MORE: Libyan forces make gains against ISIL in Sirte

Haftar  who sees himself as Libyas saviour after driving out armed groups from most of the countrys second city Benghazi  is the most powerful backer of the rival administration in the east.

Days after the ports fell under his control, the east-based parliament promoted Haftar to field marshal from his previous rank of general.

The GNA is the centrepiece of UN efforts to restore stability and forge a central authority capable of tackling the twin scourges of a significant Islamic State group presence and rampant people trafficking across the Mediterranean to Europe.
Voting has begun in Russias parliamentary election where President Putins party is widely expected to win.

Russians headed to parliamentary polls on Sunday, with parties loyal to President Vladimir Putin expected to maintain their dominance as the Kremlin sought to make a show of eliminating voter fraud after mass opposition protests.

The nationwide elections follow several years of chaos that have seen the country annex Crimea from Ukraine, lurch into its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War, plunge into economic crisis and launch a military campaign in Syria.

Putins ratings remain high at around 80 percent, however, and, with the Kremlin in tight control of the media and public discourse, authorities appear to be banking on a trouble-free vote paving the way for him to cruise to a fourth term as president in 2018 elections.

But sentiments on the ground at the moment come across as apathetic and outright cynical rather than enthusiastic, said Al Jazeeras Rory Challands, reporting from Yalta.





Yesterday we spoke to a woman and she said, You know, Crimea used to be Ukrainian when we voted. Now Crimea is Russian and it will be exactly the same, and that they dont have any expectations that these elections will change anything, our correspondent said.

So the broad view here is that nothing really is going to change despite the economic problems. But the Kremlin will be watching elections, judging the public mood and [determining] what other changes they might have to make when bigger elections come in 2018  the next presidential election in Russia.

In Russias second city, Saint Petersburg, 47-year-old Dmitry Pribytkov called the vote absolutely predictable, but said that its my country and I must express my opinion. At least they ask for it  at least formally.

Cruise voting

In a bid to bolster the votes legitimacy, the scandal-tainted former election chief was replaced by a human rights camapigner, Ella Pamfilova, who has tried to eliminate the most blatant cases of electoral fraud.

On Sunday morning, she said that she had received reports of so-called cruise voting  organisers driving voters with specially marked documents around multiple polling stations  in the city of Barnaul, in Siberias Altai region. If confirmed, the commission would call for criminal prosecution and consider annulling the elections.

In most regions, everything is going normally, she added.

READ MORE: Ukraine  Moscow failed to bring Kiev to its knees

The ruling party United Russia looks set to scoop the largest chunk of the vote ahead of others loyal to the Kremlin such as the Communists and the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party.

On Saturday, Putin endorsed United Russia, telling journalists: I created United Russia as a party, so there is no commentary needed here.

Looming large for the authorities is the memory of mass protests that followed the last legislative vote in 2011, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets over evidence of ballot stuffing in the biggest challenge to Putins dominance since he took charge in 2000.

The ingredients for discontent are there again now, with the country mired in the longest recession of Putins 16-year rule due to low oil prices and western sanctions over Ukraine.





But the Kremlin has cracked down on the right to demonstrate and stoked the nationalism unleashed by the seizure of Crimea and subsequent standoff with the West to boost its popularity.

In a sign of official confidence, far more genuine opposition candidates have been permitted to take part than before, including some 20 funded by Putins arch-foe, former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

But Putins opponents are weak and divided and, despite being given some TV airtime, they insist that the Kremlins near-total dominance means the vote can never be fair.

Polling stations for the vote, which also elects regional leaders in some areas, opened at 8am across the countrys 11 time zones and will close in Russias European exclave Kaliningrad at 1800 GMT Sunday.

For the first time residents of the Russia-annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea are among the roughly 110 million voters eligible to cast their ballots for the 450-seat Duma, in polls condemned as illegal by Ukraine.
Russia and Syria say 62 Syrian soldiers killed by coalition aircraft near ISIL-held city of Deir Az Zor.

US-led coalition air raids reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency UN Security Council meeting as tensions between Washington and Moscow escalated.

The US military said that the coalition stopped its strikes against what it believed to be Islamic States of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group positions in the eastern city of Deir Az Zor on Saturday after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

We are investigating the incident, Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told journalists as the emergency Security Council meeting, called by Russia, got under way in New York.

If we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention. And we of course regret the loss of life.

If confirmed, it would mark the first known direct American strike on forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

READ MORE: Syria ceasefire deal explained

Russia said that 62 Syrian soldiers were killed and at least 100 more wounded in strikes by warplanes from the international anti-jihadist coalition.

The Russian military said two F-16 and two A-10 jets flew into Syrian airspace from neighbouring Iraq to carry out the raids.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group gave a toll of 83 soldiers killed, as it confirmed the strikes were US-led coalition raids.

A US military official speaking to the AFP news agency appeared to confirm the attack, saying we believe about a half-dozen vehicles, including what we think was a tank, were struck as well as personnel who were out in the open.

The Australian Department of Defence said on Sunday that its planes had participated in the strikes and offered condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded in the incident.

Russian stunt

Power accused Russia of pulling a stunt by calling for an emergency Security Council meeting to demand an explanation from the US. She said Moscow should instead demand a meeting with the Syrian government to press for peace.

Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them, Power told reporters before the meeting.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin responded by accusing the US of violating agreements that it would not target Syrian positions and said the action was a bad omen for a US-Russian deal on halting the fighting in Syria.

Washington and Moscow reached an agreement in September that calls for a ceasefire, the delivery of aid and the joint targeting of the ISIL, also known and ISIS, and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

The ceasefire came into effect on Monday and has largely held, despite dozens of alleged violations.

OPINION: Inside Bashar al-Assads mind

Al Jazeeras senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Moscow used the incident to underline the importance of communication between Russia and the US in military operations in Syria.

What the Russians are saying today is you  the Americans  because you dont want to coordinate on the ground these sorts of mistakes are going to happen more often. Its quite foggy in terms of coordination on the ground. With the various violations of the ceasefire, youre going to see more friendly type fire going on, Bishara said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are due on Wednesday to attend a special Security Council meeting on Syria, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting.




Syria calls US-led air strikes on its troops a dangerous and blatant aggression as ceasefire looks close to collapse.

Syrias fragile ceasefire continued to unravel on Sunday with the first aerial attacks on rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo and a southern village in the deadliest day since the truce began.

The violations came as tensions between American and Russian brokers of the deal worsened following a deadly US air raid on Syrian government forces.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said evening air strikes on Aleppo killed one woman and wounded others, though it could not identify who carried them out.

Ten people, including a child, were killed on Sunday when a pair of barrel bombs hit an opposition-held town in the southern province of Deraa, it said.

Today was the highest death toll since the truce began, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The air raid by the US-led coalition allegedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and led to a harsh verbal attack on Washington by Damascus and Moscow. The US military says it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in eastern Syria on Saturday.

The seven-day ceasefire is supposed to end at midnight Sunday, according to a Syrian army statement issued last week. The US and Russia have said if it holds for seven days, it should be followed by the establishment of a centre for both countries to coordinate the identification of targets against ISIL and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.



Syrian rebels sceptical of Aleppo ceasefire

The ceasefire has been repeatedly violated by both sides, and aid convoys have not reached besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo, Syrias largest city and one-time commercial centre.

Moscow laid the blame for Sundays violence squarely on the opposition.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in an emailed statement to the AP news agency that both terrorists and the opposition are using the truce to boost their forces and prepare for renewed hostilities.

Dangerous and blatant aggression

Konashenkov said Moscow still has not been able to contact the US-backed opposition to coordinate ceasefire efforts, despite Washingtons assurances. He said the US has not even tried to get the opposition to hold its fire.

Syria called Saturdays US-led strikes on the outskirts of the eastern city of Deir Az Zor a dangerous and blatant aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic and its army.

The foreign ministrys statement, sent to the UN Security Council, said American warplanes repeatedly attacked Syrian army positions. It said the air strikes were on purpose and planned in advance, and killed dozens of Syrian soldiers.

READ MORE: Syria ceasefire deal explained

Russias military said it was told by the Syrian army that at least 62 Syrian soldiers were killed in the air raid and more than 100 wounded.

The Russian air force has been carrying out strikes across Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assads forces for nearly a year, and the two militaries work in close coordination.

Russia said the United States was being obstructive and deceptive regarding the air strike. A foreign ministry statement on Sunday said in an emergency UN Security Council session the US took an unconstructive and indistinct position.

The Americans not only turned out to be unable to give an adequate explanation of what happened, but also tried, as is their custom, to turn everything upside down, the statement said.
Students enrolled in the course demand that university administrators lift the suspension, calling it discriminatory.

Seattle  Tensions between University of California Berkeley students and administrators came to a head this week over the suspension of a student-taught course Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis, sparking concerns that the university is violating academic freedoms.

Students and academics charged university administrators with buckling under external political pressures from Israel advocacy groups when they suspended the course on Tuesday, allegations the administration denied.

Paul Hadweh, a senior undergraduate, had already started teaching the course through the universitys DeCal programme, which allows students to teach courses on material of their choice under faculty supervision.

Hadweh released a public statement saying that he learned the course was under scrutiny from a report in the Israeli media that describes the involvement of an Israeli government minister in efforts to cancel the course.

Two hours later, I received an email from the university notifying us of the suspension, Hadweh said.

READ MORE: Palestinian activism grows at US universities

Hadwehs supervising professor, Dr Hatem Bazian, a lecturer in Near Eastern Studies and Ethnic Studies, said he was notified by Carla Hesse, the executive dean of the College of Letters and Science, one week into the academic term that the course did not undergo required academic review and would be formally suspended until a review of the course material was completed.

Hadweh and Bazian said the course was approved in July through all processes required by the university, including full approval from a faculty adviser, the chairman of the Department of Ethnic Studies, and the Academic Senates Committee on Courses of Instruction.

Negative media reports on the course began circulating earlier this month. The AMCHA Initiative, a nonprofit organisation, released a statement to the UC Berkeley chancellor saying that the course met the US governments criteria for what constitutes anti-Semitism and was intended to indoctrinate students to hate the Jewish state and take action to eliminate it.

Staff lawyer Liz Jackson of Palestine Legal said that there was a long history of Israel advocacy organisations aiming to intervene in University of California policy and position.

Jackson told Al Jazeera that in 2010 the Israeli government was involved in an attempt to influence the universitys PR response to student debates surrounding divestment from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation, and that over the past year, Israel pressure groups launched a campaign to equate anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism in University of California policy.

No university administrator attended the class. No discussion took place with the faculty sponsor or the department, so how would they reach such conclusions... by Dr Hatem Bazian, lecturer in Near Eastern Studies and Ethnic Studies

As a result, the university amended its Principles of Intolerance in March to state that both anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic forms of Zionism had no place at the university.

Jackson said that AMCHA, the group that spearheaded the campaign, views any rigorous critique of Israeli policy as anti-Semitism, and she feared that the universitys move in March may lead to a violation of the First Amendment and academic freedom.

Jackson, calling the university decision anti-intellectual and McCarthyist said that the purpose of the amendment was to create a chilling effect against the press, to scare people from engaging in discussions about anti-Zionism for fear of being called anti-Semitic.

Groups involved in the campaign have since tried to enforce the universitys new amendment, with Hadwehs course as the most recent target, Jackson said.

Dean Hesse, noting that several groups raised concerns about the courses aims and content, wrote to Al Jazeera that there has been no pressure, direct or indirect, on [her] office from outside groups to suspend the course.

OPINION: Harder times for Palestine if Clinton wins US election

Dan Mugolof, an assistant vice chancellor at UC Berkeley, said the suspension came after a breakdown in communication with the Department of Ethnic Studies, whose acting chairman approved the course over the summer but did not have the authority to do so. Mugolof told Al Jazeera that the acting chairman also failed to provide a copy of the course proposal to the dean for review, as stipulated in university policy.

The vice chancellor added that the decision to suspend the course was motivated by the deans concerns that the course espoused a single political viewpoint and appeared to offer a forum for political organising.

Bazian rejected the UC Berkeley line and charged Mugolof with spin doctoring the reason for suspension.

Its shocking to see this behaviour, where the student is being blamed for an administration that buckled under political pressure, Bazian told Al Jazeera.

Bazian said the administration did not investigate the course materials before suspending the course, and criticised the deans concerns that the course may be one-sided or a platform for political organisation.

No university administrator attended the class. No discussion took place with the faculty sponsor or the department, so how would they reach such conclusions  besides taking the accusations from external groups that have ideological bias and are advocating the interest of a foreign country? Bazian asked.





Bazian and Hadweh said that when they and the chairman of the Ethnic Studies Department met the dean following the suspension, the dean did not show support, according to Hadweh.

It was like the meeting was over before it even started, Hadweh told Al Jazeera, adding that it was apparent that the administrators had not familiarised themselves with the course material before making the suspension, despite official claims otherwise.

The accusation is particularly damaging for UC Berkeley, a top US university where activists launched major campaigns during the Civil Rights Movement, and that has a long record of campaigning for free speech.

On Thursday, the 26 students officially enrolled in the course demanded that the university administrators lift the suspension, calling it discriminatory and a violation of their academic freedom.

OPINION: Peace is war  Israeli settler-colonialism and the Palestinians

The students, identified as a diverse group from a range of ethnic and educational backgrounds, said they established collaborative community agreements on the first day of class in order to ensure respectful classroom engagement, and rejected claims that the course would only tolerate a single or particular view.

The course examines the connection between Zionism and settler colonialism, and Bazian said the portion of the course analysing decolonisation methods was misinterpreted by critics.

While critics viewed a decolonised Palestine as the expulsion of Jews, Hadwehs course syllabus said examination of literature on decolonisation would be carried out to explore the possibilities of a decolonised Palestine, one in which justice is realised for all its peoples and equality is not only espoused, but practised.

Bazian said studying decolonisation was a process of understanding historical frameworks that dictate how relations in present conflict will be thought about, in order to rethink these frameworks and pose new questions.

Theres no set of clear answers when we think about and talk about decolonial thought, because we first have to emerge out of the contexts of nationalist, colonial and post-colonial thinking, Bazian told Al Jazeera.

He added that those who are interested in making a static engagement with the present status quo historically and continuously are not comfortable in posing questions that complicate things.

A decision on the course is expected next week.
Bill De Blasio says blast that injured 29 people was intentional but there is no evidence of terror connection.

At least 29 people suffered minor injuries in an explosion in a busy part of New York that the citys mayor said appeared to be intentional, adding there was no evidence of a terror connection.

There is no specific and credible threat against New York City at this point in time from any terror organisation, Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference.

De Blasio said that, though injuries were significant, none of those hurt was likely to die.

It is too early to determine what the incident was caused by. We believe it was intentional. A full investigation is under way, the mayor said.

A police official said on Twitter that a second potential device was being investigated.

W. 27th Street is closed as we are investigating a second potential device. Please stay clear. @NYPDnews  J. Peter Donald (@JPeterDonald) September 18, 2016

Al Jazeeras John Terrett, reporting from New York, said police had found some kind of pressure cooker  wrapped in silver duct tape. It has wires protruding from the centre of it, and on the side of it is some kind of device thought to either be a timer or a cellphone.

A bomb disposal team was on the scene early on Sunday morning and alert notifications were sent out to cellphones across Manhattan, cautioning those in the vicinity of Manhattans 27th Street to move away from the windows, said Terret.

The disposal unit later removed the device from Manhattan for analysis at a specialised facility.

Terret said police had ruled out gas or faulty construction equipment being the cause of the blast.

Theyre saying its not linked to terrorism at the moment but that doesnt mean that it isnt, Terrett said. It means that they have no evidence and that the investigation continues.

Police spokesman J Peter Donald said on Twitter earlier that the explosion happened at about 8:30pm on Saturday on West 23rd Street in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

The Chelsea neighbourhood is a residential area popular for its nightlife, and is not near any major tourist sites or government buildings.

Theres a massive emergency response taking place in downtown Manhattan, Al Jazeeras Kristen Saloomey reported from New York. The street is blocked off and people are being stopped.

Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang.
Move is expected to cause further economic deterioration in the rebel-held north amid relentless Saudi-led air strikes.

Yemens exiled president has sacked the head of the central bank and ordered that it be relocated to the southern city of Aden, a move that would ramp up pressure on Houthi rebels who control the capital  but also bring increased hardship to millions of Yemenis living under their rule.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi announced the move from Saudi Arabia late on Sunday. Hadis forces control Aden, while the Shia Houthis rule the capital, Sanaa, in the north. Most of Yemens 26 million people are concentrated in the rebel-held north.



Who are the Houthis?

Yemens limited oil revenues flow to the central bank. Sundays move would therefore deprive the Houthis of a potential source of cash. The rebels opponents have long accused them of plundering the Treasury.

Yemens conflict pits Hadis government, which is allied with a Saudi-led military coalition, against the Houthis and security forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Saudi-led coalition has been waging an air campaign against the Houthis and their allies since March 2015, and the war has left some 10,000 people dead or wounded.

The relocation of the bank is expected to cause further economic deterioration in the north, where Saudi-led air strikes have caused widespread destruction. Government employees have not been paid in months, and the capital, like most Yemeni cities, suffers shortages of fuel, water, electricity and basic goods.

Hadi announced the move as part of a limited cabinet reshuffle. The current head of the central bank, Mohammed bin Hammam, will be replaced by Mansar al-Kaiti, an independent technocrat who has served as Hadis finance minister.

Hadi has been based in Saudi Arabia since the Houthis seized the capital in 2014.
In 2015, more than 500,000 refugees arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos in Europes biggest immigration crisis since World War II. For many of them, their final destination is Germany.

Despite the risks, Abdulrahman Osman and his wife, Kraiz, decided that they should attempt the dangerous journey together with their four children  joining the masses of refugees entering Europe.

We meet them at the end of their sea crossing from Turkey to Greece.

They wash up on the beach, exhausted and slightly disoriented. But anything is better than remaining in Syria, they say.

Crossing Europe on foot, in buses and on trains, their journey takes 10 days of almost non-stop moving.

Finally, they arrive in Germany. It is here they face an equally daunting challenge, starting from scratch in an unfamiliar country.

This is the end of the beginning for refugees arriving in Western Europe, exiting the camps and establishing a new home, building security for their future, schools for the children and eventually new work  all in a language they dont speak and in a society that may not always be that welcoming.

FILMMAKERS VIEW

By Adam Pletts

It was difficult to make sense of what was happening in the eastern Mediterranean in the summer of 2015. Daily, thousands of people who were fleeing war, poverty and persecution, set off in hopelessly overcrowded and unsuitable vessels to make the crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands and then onwards to mainland Europe.

Its the largest refugee crisis Europe has seen since World War II; in all, over a million migrants entered the continent by that route. The sheer volume of people often made it difficult to empathise with the refugees and migrants on their perilous journey. They came from many countries, but more arrived from war-torn Syria than from any other nation.

In this film, we follow the story of one family who left Syria in the hope of finding safety and a brighter future in Europe. By the time we meet them, the Osmans had already travelled from Damascus via Beirut and Istanbul to the western coast of Turkey near Izmir, from where they crossed the Aegean Sea to land on the island of Lesbos.

We follow their journey from the beach in Lesbos, across Europe, until they eventually settle in a small village in southern Germany.

Although most of the refugees who made the journey were young, single men, there were nonetheless thousands of families among them. And in many ways, the Osmans are a typical example of those who chose to make the journey: A family that had never wanted to leave their home and their friends and loved ones, but like so many others felt they simply didnt have a choice.

What they probably had not realised was that the journey itself would only be a small part of their struggle. A different set of challenges was laying ahead, which  although not as dangerous as the actual journey  often turned out to be just as challenging, not the least of which were adapting to a new culture and learning a new language.

A year has passed since the Osmans decided to attempt the dangerous, exhausting and extortionately costly journey to Europe.

Arriving in Germany with nothing, they spent three months in crowded camps before being settled in a small town near Frankfurt. The children now attend local schools and are quickly learning German, while their parents, Abdulrahman (who is also known as Abu Hassan) and Kraiz, although slower to learn the new language, have quickly navigated their unfamiliar surroundings.

At the time of writing, Abu Hassan was confident they made the right decision to move their family, I have no regrets, he said. None at all because when I see what is happening in Syria, there is still no peace. I want to live in peace.

But there is a hint of reticence in the fondness with which he still speaks of his home country. Of course, I still miss Syria, even its soil, it was beautiful  but how could we ever return to war?

Coincidentally, while we spoke on the phone, talks were simultaneously taking place between the US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, who announced  on the day after our conversation  an ambitious plan for a ceasefire in Syria.

Sadly, few believe that it will succeed and eventually lead to a lasting peace. But for many of the Syrians who left for Europe, even if it did, it would be too little, too late. They are establishing new roots, and many would not return  even if they were given the opportunity to return to a peaceful Syria.
           2005     ..        










English News Op-ed: Japans attempts to instigate conflict undermine regional stability

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 18 Septembre 2016





Zhong Sheng, Peoples Daily



During a recent visit to Washington DC, Japans Defense Minister Tomomi Inada once again described China as a rule-breaker on the issues of the East China Sea and South China Sea. Inada proposed that Japan hold more joint patrols and military exercises with the US and countries in the region with the aim to enhance its involvement in the contested South China Sea.

These statements from a senior Japanese official not only run contrary to fact, but also have the potential to undermine regional stability by instigating conflict.

Frustrated at being only regarded as an economic power, Japan set a goal for itself in the 1990s to become a political power as well. While Japans ambitions ended up going up in smoke, after the US introduced its Asia-Pacific Rebalance strategy, Japan rekindled its hope of growing into a global political or even military power.

In other words, it was the US Asia-Pacific strategy that resurrected Japans military and political ambitions, at the same time granting the once vanquished country the green light to challenge the post-World War II order. Future historians are sure to see this as a disgrace for Washington.

The so-called China threat that Inada has been pushing does not stand up to the light of truth. The Diaoyu Islands have been an integral part of Chinese territory since ancient times. This is an indisputable fact that is backed up by a series of international legal documents.

For this reason China is obliged to safeguard its own territorial sovereignty. Looking at international regulations, this right and Inadas depiction of China as a rule-breaker are worlds apart. As to the so-called broken status quo in the East China Sea, Japan should not be hypocritical. The world knows that the first to break the status quo when it comes to the Diaoyu Islands is none other than Japan itself.

When it comes to the South China Sea issue, the arbitration case unilaterally filed by the Philippines violated international law and the general practices of international arbitration, and thus was invalid and unlawful from the very beginning.

Amid such a backdrop, Chinas non-acceptance, non-participation and non-recognition of the "verdict" actually safeguards the integrity of international law as it is ridiculous to recognize the legitimacy of an arbitration carried out by a makeshift organization without any connection with the UN.

Tensions involving this political farce have cooled down recently, but Japan, instead of reflecting on its disgraceful role in this farce, has decided to repeatedly attempt to instigate conflict by cooking up stories in the international arena.

During the 11th East Asia Summit held in Vientiane not long ago, some US media, such as the Wall Street Journal, noticed the sharp differences that exist between ASEAN countries and some countries outside the region. According to their reports, ASEAN members have realized that instead of unnecessarily escalating regional tension, disputes should be met with practical solutions.

So what is hidden behind Japans petty tricks? Is the country once again being motivated by the desire to control the security of Asia and undermine the relationships between Asian countries?

Japan, a country notorious for breaking international laws, is in no position to prate about rules and the rule of law in front of the international community.

At its most basic, the Diaoyu Islands and their historical recognition are closely related to the post-World War II order, which has been clearly laid out in major international legal documents such as the Potsdam Proclamation and the Cairo Declaration .

However, even though 70-plus years have passed since the end of WWII, Japan has still not given up on instigating conflict, confronting world order and challenging the international rule of law.

For instance, some of Japans senior officials have gone so far as to rail against the Potsdam Proclamation, exculpate the countrys invasion of other sovereign states and deny the Nanjing Massacre and the existence of comfort women. These irresponsible behaviors indicate that Japan is turning a blind eye to the rules and the rule of law.

In reality, Japan is well versed in the history of the South China Sea. Once occupied by Japan during WWII, the islands were recovered by China based on the Potsdam Proclamation and the Cairo Declaration after the war.

If Japan is a country that respects the rules and the rule of law as it claims, it should not neglect the legal and historical facts concerning the South China Sea.

Even if we consider the China threat mentioned in Inada's speech an old rhetoric, military intervention in the South China Sea will without a doubt put regional stability at risk. The action plans detailed by Inada reveal not only Japans Cold War mentality, but also its intention to instigate group-confrontation.

Another dangerous sign is that after Japan adopted its new security bill lifting the ban on collective self-defense, the country has begun striding towards a military rise by instigating conflict.

However, todays Asia-Pacific arena and the will of the people will not permit the reemergence of Japan's over-confident strategic restlessness and intentions to instigate group-confrontation. This is because, in this new era that focuses on win-win cooperation, no country wants to join Japans ambitious fantasy. And if Japan continues to play this game thinking its allies will stand by it, it will find the price to play is too high.





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Barack Obamas life story is back in the news after Donald Trump played rope-a-dope with the dopey media once again. Brilliantly he duped the major networks into giving him 30 minutes of free airtime culminating in a few sentences ending his involvement in the birther controversy. The only thing Trump could have added is a fourth sentence quoting previous birther Hillary Clinton, What difference, at this point, does it make?

Big media is howling after being played once again by the master showman. And the birther issue is back in the news at a point where it really doesnt matter anyway given only a few months left in Obamas presidency. Since the subject has been resurrected, it would be instructive to look back and see who started all of this.

Long ago in 1991 when Bill Clinton, to borrow Colin Powells description, was D---ing bimbos in Arkansas, Barack Obama was a Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. During his fellowship he began writing his first book, Dreams From My Father. The aspiring author had a literary agency, Acton and Dystel, which prepared a promotional booklet including a brief Obama biography. They printed similar bios for the other 89 authors they represented. Standard practice in the publishing world.

In the bio, Obama is described as Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. This booklet was first published in Brietbart and verified by Snopes. The excuse for the birthplace discrepancy is that the bio was written by some editor at the literary agency, not by Obama himself. Which may very well be true. But where did the editor get this information?

Remember that in 1991, the internet was just in process of being invented by Al Gore. One couldnt run a web search for Barack Obama and his background and education. As president of the Harvard Law Review, he published nothing. As he was a recent law school graduate, there would be little in the public library about his background. The New York Times published a short article in 1990 announcing Obamas election to the Harvard Law Review, but with no mention of his being born in Kenya. In fact, the article in the Times stated that he was born in Hawaii.

The logical conclusion is that what the literary editor wrote for the Obama bio, particularly the part of him being born in Kenya, had to come from Obama himself. Why would an editor cherry pick some information from the New York Times article and manufacture something else about his place of birth?

This is the Times bio. His late father, Barack Obama, was a finance minister in Kenya and his mother, Ann Dunham, is an American anthropologist now doing fieldwork in Indonesia. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii. The literary bio said essentially the same thing, except changing the birthplace to Kenya. This bio was written by a literary agency, not a politicians press office. Literary publishing is about accuracy and its a stretch to believe the agent made this change without first running it by Obama.

The Born in Kenya certainly spices up the bio and that may have been the sole reason for Obama to alter his birthplace. After all, his goal at this point was to sell books. Whats a little stretch or exaggeration compared to the greater good of launching his writing career? Much like, If you like your insurance or If you like your doctor. Other tall tales used to promote a lofty agenda.

As Obamas school records are sealed, there is no way of knowing if he promoted himself as foreign born earlier in his educational career. Perhaps for admission preference or financial aid, but pure speculation in the absence of his actual school records. Meaning that his literary bio represents the first promotion of his being born in Kenya.

If this was a mere oversight, it would have quickly been corrected. Instead 16 years went by with the bio neither revised nor updated. It was finally corrected in 2007 when Obama announced his Presidential candidacy. During that Presidential campaign, the birth issue was not raised by Obamas opponent John McCain. McCain actually went so far as to chastise anyone for even mentioning Obamas middle name of Hussein.

Instead it was Obamas Democrat primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, who picked up on the birth issue. Not Donald Trump who was busy building hotels and hosting reality shows at the time. Mrs. Clintons surrogate Sid Blumental was pushing the Obama birth story so hard that McClatchy sent a reporter to Kenya to investigate. And dont forget the now famous photo of Obama in Muslim garb distributed by the Clinton campaign in 2008 as, A last-ditch battle to keep her hopes of the White House alive.

Back to Trump and his recent major announcement on the birther issue. He was incorrect in his first of three sentences, "Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. It was actually Barack Obama himself, who willingly, or negligently by not correcting the error, allowed the Kenyan birth narrative to live for 16 years before saying otherwise. But Mrs. Clinton and her campaign resurrected the issue, which now continues to smolder.

Trump, after a 30-minute infomercial donated by the big media networks, wisely took the issue off the table. I finished it, he told the cameras. Leaving the real birther coughing and collapsing after Trumps masterful manipulation of the dopey media. As the Washington Post concluded, It was peak Trump.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based retina surgeon, radio personality, and writer. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
The massive ten-year U.S. military aid package successfully negotiated between the White House and Israel, proves Americas continued commitment to Israels security. It ensures Israels QME (Qualitative Military Edge) over its enemies. And, provides U.S President Barack Obama with an incentive that Israeli leaders are worried about a way of leveling the Middle East playing field.

The Israelis are concerned that in Obamas last days as president, after U.S. elections in November, and before the next American president enters the White House, he will align himself with those pushing the French Initiative -- a peace plan proposed this week that would require Israel to retreat to its pre-1967 borders. Another possibility is that Obama could decide to formulate an American paper, or come alongside a European country formulating such a paper, that would be presented to the UN Security Council setting definitive borders for a two-state solution. Adding a specific demand that Israel cease settlement expansion, in line with UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moons rebuke of Israel recently, could result in limited maneuverability for the Jewish State within diplomatic circles.

Weighing options of how to move the peace process forward, without having to submit to American or European expectations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently agreed, in principle, to meet with Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow. If it actually happens, it will be the first direct meeting between the two leaders in six years.

Netanyahu has spent the past year developing a relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, mainly because of his military intervention in Syria, but also because of Russias overall increased presence and influence in the Middle East. Russia has filled a void resulting from Americas diminished authority in the region. Many observers have already noticed that Putin has sought to replace Americas superpower status, taking up the position of the new Middle East powerbroker. He seems more interested in that role than the results of future peace negotiations.

According to Dan Diker, a Project Director and Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Netanyahu would prefer to have Putin as a mediating host because the vital issues for Israel may be easier to secure with the Russians.

I think that Moscow provides a more comfortable address for Netanyahu because the Russians appear to be less concerned with the issue of final borders between Israel and the Palestinian Authority than the current U.S. Administration.

Putin may not insist that Israel provide refuge to thousands, perhaps millions, of Palestinians that want to live in Israel as part of their right of return. He may not expect Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 line as the Palestinians have demanded. And, he may not try and pressure Israel into dividing its capital city, Jerusalem. It seems that Putins greater interest is in playing a strong and active role in Syria, as well as along the Lebanese border.

Furthermore, Diker sees Israels diplomatic ties with Moscow as a way of countering whatever plans may emanate from the White House.

It can create leverage for Israel because Russia sits as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. They could influence other permanent and non-permanent members away from an American paper that would recognize the Palestinian pre-state authority as a member state. Perhaps, the U.S. would lay out American parameters for some sort of final status. There are indications that this could happen in the next few months, beginning this month when the UN General Assembly meets. It would not be good for Israel or the Palestinian Authority.

Diker explains that Obama has indicated by his statements and actions on the Palestinian-Israeli issue over the past eight years that he believes he can establish a viable Palestinian state. And, he has in that context, favored Palestinian sovereignty, even at a time when the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian leadership are in complete chaos and disarray.

All this points to a strategic decision by Israel to accept a new principle, the idea of talking to Abbas under Russian stewardship and mediation. We already had the America mediation two years ago with Kerry, and it fell flat on its face, says Diker.

He adds that the French approach is dangerous and unworkable. The French want a place of leadership in the Middle East. Europe has been shunned by both sides, recently, and they want to play a lead role. It is completely outside Israels interest.

Netanyahu had to find another way forward.

He has several options: perhaps, an Egyptian-sponsored initiative, or a Jordanian-sponsored initiative. Or, he can go to Russia because Russia would place much less pressure on Israel to accept indefensible borders.

At this point, the idea of a Moscow summit between Israel and the Palestinians is only speculative. It is not clear that either side really wants to meet. Dikers perception is that, This is only to create other options aside from the American approach. Or, perhaps deter the Americans from bringing their own peace initiative to the UN.

This writer asked Diker how meeting face-to-face with Netanyahu benefits Abbas or the Palestinians.

I dont think that entering into negotiations with Netanyahu will benefit Abbas. He is at the end of his career, and well into his 80s. He wants to leave a legacy as a Palestinian leader who gave up nothing. However, there is so much pressure on him from the West, he is going to have to accept something.

There are still conditions being placed on the Israelis, apparently coming from the Palestinian side, about a settlement freeze, as well as demands for releasing Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. But, Netanyahu has only agreed to meet Abbas if there are no preconditions.

I would be unsurprised if these are conditions that were supported by the American side; including the cessation of settlement building, which basically has happened anyway. Diker is referring to what has seemed to be Netanyahus placid willingness to sidestep construction approval for new settlement building in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).

Meanwhile, the process of inviting Russia in, as a possible new Middle East powerbroker to replace the role of the U.S., is significant. This advancement comes on the heels of a meeting between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Putin. Egypt and Russia have been forging closer ties, while Israel is also improving ties with Egypt.

Diker cited reasons for these new alliances, one of which is that, The Egyptians are profoundly concerned and unhappy with the Obama administration. It seems clear to the Egyptians that Obama actively encouraged Mubaraks ouster, and then supported the term and the rule of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

When the Egyptian military helped overthrow Morsi, the U.S. government held up military assistance to Egypt. So, in a time of uncertainty, Egypt looked to Russia to fill in the gap.

Putin is making other significant advances in the Middle East, militarily and diplomatically. Americas failure to go through with a no-fly zone in Syria hurt its credibility, especially with neighboring Arab states. Today, Americas freedom of action in Syria is constrained, and its influence over the Assad government minimal. Instead, U.S. forces have to pay attention to Russias advanced weapons capabilities in Syria, and avoid confrontation.

Due to a major military intervention in Syria on President Assads behalf, Russia secured a military footprint in the country. This advantageous move by Putin has forced America to reckon with his demand that Assad stay in power in a transitional government under a future peace agreement between Assad and Syrian opposition groups. While Americas influence wanes in the region, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are looking to Russia as a new formidable regional power.

Netanyahu recognizes the shift, and it is in Israels current strategic interest to maintain a relationship with Putin, even though Russia has the capability of striking military targets in Israel at some future time. For now, however, Netanyahu has been looking for a new peace path.

Diker recognizes that, currently, Russia is the winning horse. Putin has a warm feeling for Israel because of the over 1.2 million Russians in Israel, which is the largest ex-pat community outside of Russia.

A main interest for Israel is keeping the Iranians and their Shiite proxy forces away from Israels northern border, and Russia has influence there.

This is an Israeli attempt to reshuffle the cards; and, to continue maintaining a much closer relationship with Russia, because of its interest in the north. Remember Russia will affect, in a very serious way, what happens with Hezbollah, and what happens on the Israel-Syrian border, all of which is connected to Iran.

Diker says that Russian mediation would give breathing space to Israel in the context of diplomatic conversations with the Palestinian Authority.

But, there are obstacles in the road for any kind of progress in peace between the two sides, such as: Palestinian infighting in Gaza and the West Bank over future Palestinian elections; Abbas cast as a servant of Israel and the West by radical elements in Palestinian circles; and, a peace process that has wide gaps which have not been resolved over the years, causing cynicism on both sides.

Diker, himself, thinks it is unlikely that Russia will successfully do what past U.S. administrations could not. He does not believe that there will be serious progress with Russian mediation. This is all pyrotechnics. It has nothing to do with serious peace making. It has nothing to do with real Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy. It all has to do with smoke and mirrors.

In the meantime, all eyes are on Russia in the region, as Putin looks to assert himself as a major Middle East power player and negotiator. He will continue to find opportunities to advance Russias interests, while reaching out his hand to Israel and Arab states. At the same time, he will not hesitate to use Russian military and political power on terrorist organizations or state entities that get in the way of his strategic plans.
Last week Hillary attacked Trump supporters as deplorables, accusing half of them of them of being racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic. In this she was following Obamas disparaging of millions of voters.

As Victor Davis Hanson observed:

On his recent Asian tour, President Obama characterized his fellow Americans (the most productive workers in the world) as lazy. In fact, he went on to deride Americans for a list of supposed transgressions ranging from the Vietnam War to environmental desecration to the 19th century treatment of Native Americans. If youre in the United States, the president said, sometimes you can feel lazy and think were so big we dont have to really know anything about other people. The attack on supposedly insular Americans was somewhat bizarre, given that Obama himself knows no foreign languages. He often seems confused about even basic world geography. (His birthplace of Hawaii is not Asia, Austrians do not speak Austrian, and the Falkland Islands are not the Maldives). Obamas sense of history is equally weak. Contrary to his past remarks, the Islamic world did not spark either the Western Renaissance or the Enlightenment. Cordoba was not, as he once suggested, an Islamic center of tolerance during the Spanish Inquisition; in fact, its Muslim population had been expelled during the early Reconquista over two centuries earlier. In another eerie ditto of his infamous 2008 attack on the supposedly intolerant Pennsylvania clingers, Obama returned to his theme that ignorant Americans typically become xenophobic and racist: Typically, when people feel stressed, they turn on others who dont look like them. (Typically is not a good Obama word to use in the context of racial relations, since he once dubbed his own grandmother a typical white person.)

Daniel Henninger has noted this sort of attack by Democratic pols on fellow citizen voters is typical of the political elites:

Hillary Clintons comment that half of Donald Trumps supporters are 'racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic -- a heck of a lot of phobia for anyone to lug around all day -- puts back in play what will be seen as one of the 2016 campaigns defining forces: the revolt of the politically incorrect.

Responding for the rest of us deplorables, Dr. Ben Carson scored a rim shot at her slander:

In a very telling moment, Hillary Clinton maligned me and millions of other Americans as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic deplorables. Im so tired of this line of attack that normally taunts conservatives. Well, let me be very specific in my response. I believe in expanding opportunity, not welfare; thats not racist. I believe every life is worth protecting, particularly the unborn; that doesnt make me sexist. I believe marriage is between one man and one woman; thats not homophobic. I believe in borders, the rule of law and our sovereign right to decide who to let into our country; thats not xenophobic. I believe radical Islam is a mortal threat to America and Western civilization; that is common sense, not Islamophobia.

He posted his remarks on Facebook -- a great way to get through the Maginot line that the media has to date constructed around Hillary.

Another citizen, Zdenek Gazda, showed Hillary exactly what deplorables can do, using a videophone. While she kept her press entourage totally in the dark about her medical episode on 9/11, he filmed her seizing up and being carried into the van which sped away from the commemorative ceremony in New York. He posted it online and eventually Fox and others published it. Everyone could see she had some sort of seizure, and was not simply faint.

The only notice the lassoed press corps had that she had left the ceremony was when 90 minutes later they were alerted that shed left early because she had become overheated (or in some conflicting accounts had become dehydrated or had flu), and was available for a brief photo op hugging a little girl outside her daughters apartment. Before iPhones, shed have pulled off this gambit and her heavily spackled visage and skillfully photo edited picture of health that appears in the latest issue of Womens Health would have fooled the voters whod not seen the ghastly picture of her with strange seizure-reducing blue glasses unable to lift an arm or leg or even stand alone.

As Beasts of England posted: Four years to the day after she let four people get killed in Benghazi - and blamed it on a YouTube video -- an unknown guy with a YouTube video has ended her political career. Booyah.

When it was apparent that the lightheaded claim was unsustainable she produced a letter from her physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack.

The letter was written in Clintonspeak and requires careful reading. Thus, she fails to list all of the medications Hillary is receiving (only the new ones) nor does she detail all of Hillarys existing conditions. She describes Hillarys latest incident as the result of non contagious bacterial pneumonia But there is no such thing.

Dr. Milton Wolf quotes from the letter: On Friday, September 9th, she was seen and evaluated in my office, A non-contrast CT scan including a CTA calcium score was performed. Dr. Wolf -- hardly the only physician who has tweeted criticisms of the Bardack letter, responds: A "CTA" is a CT (or cat scan) angiogram. It always requires contrast. Always. It cannot be included in a "non-contrast CT scan."

Dr. Wolf, Obamas cousin by the way, added these observations to an online publication, Gateway Pundit:

 Hillary Clinton suffered a dural sinus thrombosis (blood clots in the brain). Very serious. Significant risk of stroke, intracranial hemorrhage and death.  they blamed the clots on a concussion. Not a chance. Concussions dont cause blood clots. It would take a skull fracture with tearing of the dural sinus.  She suffered/suffers residual/recurrent neurological deficits (visual disturbance, balance, memory, mental status). Bad prognostic indicator.  She is on lifelong Coumadin. This is highly significant. Dangerous drug. Blood thinner. Its clear she has a hypercoagulable disorder despite their denials. Coumadin carries a substantial risk for patients, particularly those with fall risk. Spontaneous hemorrhage common, intracranial and elsewhere. I see it commonly, including life-threatening brain bleeds. Normal, healthy patients are NEVER, NEVER prescribed Coumadin. My conclusions (and Im right about these):  HC clearly has an underlying hypercoagulable blood disorder. Thats the only reason to give Coumadin (other than chronic atrial fibrillation and prosthetic heart valves, which are actually themselves causes of hypercoagulable disorders).  Her hypercoagulable is likely severe. There are safer blood thinners than Coumadin. Theyve tried them on her (Lovenox) and it failed. Coumadin is typically given to those who cant afford the newer drugs or reserved for cases that are refractory to the safer drugs. Coumadin is a powerful and dangerous drug; originally developed as a rat poison (Warfarin). And the big one:  Its more likely than not that Hillary suffered a stroke in 2012 that they called a concussion. Stroke is extremely common following sinus thrombosis (of patients with clot in SSS: 75% stroke and 60% have intracranial hemorrhage). Overall about half the cases of sinus thrombosis resolve completely but thats obviously not her since she exhibits and confesses to lasting neurological deficits. This is med school 101 stuff.

Another breach of the Media Maginot Line -- which was more than willing to take Dr. Bardacks letter as definitive proof that Hillary, whose motorcade now includes an ambulance, is just in the pink of health -- occurred this week and involves Colin Powell.

Colin Powell, another heretofore untouchable, was also felled this week by the leaks of his hacked emails which showed him to be a backbiting gossip. This was not a great secret for those of us who followed the Libby case or even his political career

Among the leaked emails, which have to prove embarrassing to General Powell, are these:

"I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect," Powell wrote to Leeds on July 26, 2014. "A 70-year person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still dicking bimbos at home

His friend, megadonor Jeffrey Leeds, wrote to him: "I think Hillary can't believe she might not make it. It's the one prize she wants. She has everything else," "And she HATES that the President ("that man," as the Clintons call him) kicked her ass in 2008. She can't believe it or accept it."

All these attempts and her dissembling [about the emails] has just made it Worse [sic]. She now is apologizing," before writing that "suddenly you surface to throw another log on the fire."

On Benghazi, "a stupid witch hunt" and the "basic fault" for the attack "falls on a courageous ambassador who thought Libyans now love me and I am ok in this very vulnerable place." He added, blame also rested on Clinton (blame also rests on his leaders and supporters back here.)

I seem to recall but cannot find a link that when the leaks were disclosed in which Powell indicated that he hoped the press wouldnt stoop to publishing material that had been hacked. Maybe once upon a time such a high-minded sounding -- though self-serving -- admonishment might have been respected, but how many times does the mainstream media expect to be scooped by amateurs with iPhones and internet connections before they recognize that they can no longer protect the high priests from the deplorables?

At the moment shes faltering in the polls and Trump is rising. Not many are showing up for her brief appearances or those of her surrogates as Trump fills large stadiums with fans. Even her book, oddly titled Stronger Together in light of her deplorables charge, the advance for which is surely another (unreported) campaign contribution, has had a terrible time selling. Ordinarily the campaign would buy them up to keep the numbers up, but no one has, and the deplorables reviewing it on Amazon are merciless.
A 17 year veteran of the Dallas Police force and president of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation has filed suit in federal court against Black Lives Matter and several individuals including George Soros and Barack Obama. Sergeant Demetrick Pennie, who is black, is seeking $500 million in damages for incitement to riot and violence against police officers.

Dallas Morning News:

The listed defendants include not only those associated with the Black Lives Matter movement but public figures such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, Louis Farrahkan, George Soros, the New Black Panthers Party and even President Barack Obama and presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. According to the suit, the defendants "have repeatedly incited their supporters and others to engage in threats of and attacks to cause serious bodily injury or death upon police officers and other law enforcement persons of all races and ethnicities." The suit accuses the defendants of inciting supporters and others "to engage in threats and attacks" against law enforcement officers around the country, including the July 7 murders of five Dallas officers by Micah Johnson after a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Pennie is being represented by Larry Klayman of lobbying organization FreedomWatch. "Sergeant Pennie and I feel duty-bound to put ourselves forward to seek an end to the incitement of violence against law enforcement which has already resulted in the death of five police officers in Dallas and the wounding of seven more, just in Texas alone," Breitbart quoted Klayman as saying in a release. The 66-page complaint seeks damages of more than $500 million.

Even in civil court where the standards of evidence are much looser, it will be difficult if not impossible for this suit to go forward. Pennie must prove there was deliberate intent to incite people to violence - something like what Michael Brown's stepfather said at a demonstration; "Burn this bitch down." The intent there is clear.

"Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" could be construed as intentionally inciting a mob to violence, but that chant is not attributed to BLM leadership. Making them responsible for the chant would be tough to do legally.

Black Lives Matter's threats and intimidation are more subtle, as is President Obama's and others enabling the violence by agreeing with BLM's thesis of policemen targeting black people for death. It remains to be seen whether Pennie's legal team can convince a judge that the suit has merit.

Even if it doesn't meet the legal standard, an objective observer would agree with the suit's premise.
Planes from the US-led coalition in Syria mistakenly bombed Syrian army units who were engaged with ISIS fighters near the Deir Ezzor Airport. Up to 83 soldiers were killed and more than 100 wounded, according to the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights.

Russia angrily called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting, saying that the bombing "proves" America sympathizes with ISIS.

CNN:

"I have never seen such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness," he said, after abruptly leaving an UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria. Churkin was upset with US ambassador Samantha Power, who lambasted Russia's support of the Syrian regime to the media outside the meeting while he was speaking. Power angrily denounced the Russian call for the UN meeting as a stunt. Power said "even by Russia's standards, tonight's stunt -- a stunt replete with moralism and grandstanding -- is uniquely cynical and hypocritical." If US-led coalition airstrikes did hit Syrian forces Saturday, it was unintentional and Washington regrets any loss of life, she said before proceeding to list atrocities she said the Syrian regime has perpetuated during the five-year civil war. "Since 2011, the Assad regime has been intentionally striking civilian targets with horrifying, predictable regularity. They have besieged civilian areas, prevented life-saving aid from reaching people who are starving to death, and dying of illnesses that could be treated with basic medicine." Whether the diplomatic squabbling will cause the ceasefire to fall apart is unclear. The US military said the coalition thought it was hitting ISIS militants, but hours later said the airstrike may have struck Syrian soldiers. Although the US hasn't officially said Syrian troops were killed, a senior administration official told CNN late Saturday the US relayed its regret through Russia for the "unintentional loss of life." A statement from US Central Command said the coalition conferred with the Russian military before the strike. "The coalition airstrike was halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military," US Central Command said. A US official told CNN they broadly described the geographic area to the Russians -- as is customary -- before the strike but did not give a precise location. The coalition thought it was going after an ISIS tank position.

This may be just the excuse President Assad needs to ditch the ceasefire. As a major part of the agreement, Assad was supposed to open the road leading into the starving city of Aleppo. But Syria says once they pulled back their forces from the road, rebels took advantage and began to fire on them. Convoys of food and medicine are stacked up for miles outside of the beseiged city waiting for Assad to allow them in.

But Assad has no incentive to do so. He is on the verge of a spectacular victory in Aleppo, which is important to the rebels as a symbol of their cause. In fact, neither Putin or Assad have much need for a ceasefire. They believe they are winning a military victory over the rebels which would allow Assad to stay in office indefinitely.

There have been hundreds of ceasefire violations on both sides, so its not like ending the agreement would matter much to the starving people in beseiged cities and towns. If this "friendly fire" incident blows up the agreement, very little will be changed as a result.
I am happy that this birther movement has finally passed away. I never bought into it, and I felt that it gave Democrat-friendly reporters something else to ask the GOP about.

After all, it's better to ask about birthers and about David Duke  a man, by the way, whose name I've never heard mentioned in countless of GOP meetings. This is certainly a lot better than to ask about black youth unemployment, the lousy inner-city public schools that a lot of Democrat leaders like the Obamas and Clintons do not send their kids to, the total and complete mess in the Middle East, and a GDP that has not been anywhere near 3% since President Obama came into office.

So goodbye, birthers! At the same time, let's remember a couple of things about this birther movement that are not often mentioned in the media in the tank for Hillary Clinton.

First, it was actually Mr. Obama who told us he was Kenyan. It happened when his literary agent said so. Later it was corrected, as I understand. Did Mr. Obama know that? Was it a mistake? Maybe so.

Let me add this: I am not a famous author like Mr. Obama, but I would have lost a lot of credibility if someone had mentioned in a press release that I was born in Sweden and then wrote a story about a Cuban kid going to Wisconsin. I would have gone out of my way to correct the mistake. Obama didn't, and that's weird. Maybe he was just too busy being a community organizer in Chicago!

Second, it was the Clinton '08 team that put this whole issue on the front pages. Patti Doyle of Clinton '08 admitted that it was the work of a "rogue" staffer. I guess someone in the Clinton '08 staff wanted to start a rumor that Mr. Obama is not American. Imagine that! How deplorable! Then Sid Blumenthal got into the act, as he always does when the Clintons need an assassin.

So goodbye, birther movement. Now maybe the media will finally start talking about issues and stop asking about David Duke!

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
OK, I get it. Police dont want to jump to conclusions in high profile cases. But can police authorities please stop insulting the public when a Muslim starts attacking random strangers while yelling about Allah? The latest example of studied ignorance comes from St. Cloud, Minnesota, the thriving metropolis of Central Minnesota. From the St. Cloud Times:

Eight people were injured and the suspect died at Crossroads Center on Saturday after an attack reported about 8:15 p.m.

St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said the victims were stabbed by a man dressed in a private security uniform.

An off-duty police officer from another jurisdiction shot and killed the attacker, Anderson said. Anderson did not say where that officer serves during the news conference that started after midnight.

According to St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis, the shooting happened inside Macy's.

Just before 11 p.m., St. Cloud Hospital Communications Specialist Chris Nelson told the Times that eight patients were taken to the hospital. Seven had injuries that were not life-threatening; one was admitted.

Anderson said the attacker, who was armed with a knife, reportedly made references to Allah during the attack and asked at least one person whether they were Muslim. But Anderson pointedly declined to call the attacks an act of terrorism, saying the motive isn't yet known. [emphasis added]
Vladimir Putin expressed puzzlement over why the Obama administration is refusing to release details of the ceasefire agreement ironed out with Russia last week. A UN Security Council meeting scheduled for Friday to discuss the deal was cancelled when the US refused to share documents with other SC members.

The Hill:





He said the U.S. confused by the complexity of the crisis and is supporting the wrong side.



"This comes from the problems the U.S. is facing on the Syrian track  they still cannot separate the so-called the healthy part of the opposition from the half-criminal and terrorist elements," Putin said.



"In my opinion, this comes from the desire to keep the combat potential in fighting the legitimate government of Bashar Assad. But this is a very dangerous route," he added.



A Security Council meeting scheduled to address the peace deal was cancelled Friday due to strong disagreements between Washington and Moscow, according to the



"Most likely we are not going to have a resolution at the Security Council because the United States does not want to share those documents with the members of the Security Council," Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said. "I don't really understand why we have to keep such an agreement closed," Putin said on a trip to Kyrgyzstan.He said the U.S. confused by the complexity of the crisis and is supporting the wrong side."This comes from the problems the U.S. is facing on the Syrian track  they still cannot separate the so-called the healthy part of the opposition from the half-criminal and terrorist elements," Putin said."In my opinion, this comes from the desire to keep the combat potential in fighting the legitimate government of Bashar Assad. But this is a very dangerous route," he added.A Security Council meeting scheduled to address the peace deal was cancelled Friday due to strong disagreements between Washington and Moscow, according to the Telegraph "Most likely we are not going to have a resolution at the Security Council because the United States does not want to share those documents with the members of the Security Council," Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said.

The reason Obama won't release details of the ceasefire agreement because it is embarrassingly one sided. Just about everything that Russia wanted, they got, including the shift in US policy from working for President Assad's ouster to tacitly supporting him. The man that President Obama has been insisting for 5 years "must go," is now a US ally.

The Pentagon is refusing to share information with Russia until they're sure that Putin will hold up his end of the bargain. This includes allowing aid convoys in the beseiged city of Aleppo - something that President Assad is refusing to do. And why not? Syria is on the verge of a huge strategic victory by kicking the rebels out of their most important city. Why give the rebels breathing room when his starvation strategy is working?

Just from what we know about the details of this ceasefire, it is clear that Kerry, in his eagerness to get Russia on board, gave away the store. The secretary of state did not consult the Pentagon about details of the US-Russian military cooperation, which speaks volumes about whose side it favors. Putin's allusions to the US unable to separate the "healthy part of the opposition from the half-criminal and terrorist elements," is a smokescreen. The Pentagon believes - not without cause - that President Assad will target all rebels, believing them all to be "half criminal and terrorists." Any information we give about the positions of US backed rebels will probably be used to destroy them.

Putin would like nothing better than have the administration release details of the agreement. It would show that President Obama's humiliation at the hands of the Russian president was complete.
To honor Constitution Day last Friday, Campus Reform went to Georgetown University in Washington to get their views on the document.

Here are the chilling results.

Washington Times:

Campus Reform asked Georgetown students, who have an average SAT score of 1460 and a high school GPA of 4.01, what they thought of the document George Washington said he would never abandon. They overwhelmingly disagreed with the nations first president and Revolutionary War hero. Some of the responses by young Hoyas, include: People definitely take [the Constitution] too seriously, its not 250 years ago.

When it was written, we were considering things that absolutely dont apply today.

I feel like sometimes people use the Constitution as an excuse to not think and to not work towards progress.

I come from North Carolina. There are a lot of people in that area who I think take the Constitution too seriously.

The Constitution itself and a lot of the amendments are probably taken a little bit too seriously.

Sometimes were afraid to think, I dont know, in more utopian ways.

We have to keep updating like we would anything after, you know, like, the dictionary is updated once a week. Ironically, the nonprofit groups video brings to mind a famous story about Ben Franklin being asked what form of government the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia agreed upon in 1787. His answer: A republic, if you can keep it. Georgetown students were not shown giving specifics as to which limits on federal power are taken too seriously, if they knew the proper amendment process, or which aspects of the Bill of Rights dont apply today.

For several decades, we've watched as America's youth appeared to get dumber and dumber about our history. This is the deliberate result of a liberal education system that spent more and more class time on the "injustices" of the US and less time on the miraculous story of our founding.

I once interviewed a prominent liberal for my now defunct radio show and asked him what limits on federal power would he support. He answered, in the cause of "social justice," none. That appears to be an attitude that has filtered down to this generation.

There are young people out there who revere the Constitution and devoutly wish the US would return to constitutional government. I met them at Tea Party events for the most part - intelligent and passionate kids who really wanted to understand our founding document and make it relevant to America today.

We saw how they were demonized by liberals and the media, targeted by government, and literally thrown off campus - all because they believe that the ideas espoused 239 years ago in our founding document should hold meaning to all Americans today.

Thank God for them - even though they be few and fighting an uphill battle.
During a preview of an interview on Meet the Press scheduled to air on Sunday, Ohio Governor John Kasich made it clear he would not vote for Hillary Clinton. Well, duh.

So is he planning to vote for Trump?

At this point in time hes not shutting the door entirely, but said the chances of him voting for Trump are miniscule and that he very, very likely will not.

And why is that?

Well, he cant vote for Hillary because hes a Republican. Party loyalty and all of that.

Yet, despite his party loyalty, oh, and his professed concern for the fate of our nation, stating country first, this man who is the governor of a swing state no less, persists in childish, irrational, non-thinking: Hes a Republican who in all likelihood will not vote for the Republican presidential nominee for president.

He fashions himself a patriot, what with country first, yet cant bring himself to vote for Trump, ensure Clinton is beaten, and give this nation a shot at reclaiming so much of what were losing. (Or perhaps instead of not voting for anyone, hes planning to vote for a third party candidate or write someone in which is what rebellious ignorant 20-year-olds do and which is as good as not voting when the stakes could not be higher.)

So Im going to use the d word. Ill even use a bunch of them. He is deplorable, despicable, dreadful, and quite frankly dangerous. What does it say to young people when a relatively major figure in a major political party dishes out such nonsense at a time when things could not be more critical in this country?

Heck, Ill even use the f word. Hes a fool. A foolish fool-hearty fool who, like the rest of those in the GOP who refuse to vote for Trump, are abdicating one of our most primary rights and responsibilities, which is to vote. He has no business holding public office.

Hat tip: The Blaze
PHILADELPHIA  Hillary Clintons campaign is aggressively outworking Donald Trump in battleground Pennsylvania, a state the billionaire businessman can scarcely afford to lose and still hope to become president.

Despite polling well in Pennsylvania throughout the summer, Clintons team is nevertheless bearing down in a state her party has carried in six straight elections. They are ratcheting up advertising and dispatching their top supporters to Pennsylvania, from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden to last weeks visit from President Barack Obama.

Weve got to fight for this thing, Obama thundered at a rally in Philadelphia last Tuesday. I need you to work as hard for Hillary as you did for me. I need you to knock on doors. I need you to make phone calls. Youve got to talk to your friends, including your Republican friends.

At a minimum, an energized Pennsylvania campaign is a balm for Clinton as she weathers a dip in national polls and dips in the swing states of Florida and Ohio. But with roughly seven weeks until Election Day, Trumps scattershot approach to the state also puts his White House prospects in jeopardy.

There is no Trump turnout organization, and you cant construct one in the time remaining, said former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell.

For Trump, nearly any route to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House includes Pennsylvanias 20 votes. With Clintons edge in Colorado and Virginia, and her competitive standing in North Carolina, Trump could potentially win vote-rich Florida and Ohio, as well as competitive Iowa and New Hampshire, and still fall short of the White House unless he can capture Pennsylvania, too.

Clintons strategy is focused firmly on the eastern part of the state. Obama won 85 percent of the vote in Philadelphia in 2012, and Clinton has her sights set on coming as close as she can to his performance there while also outperforming Obama in the four suburban counties bordering the city.

Almost 2 million votes, or fully one-third of the 5.67 million presidential votes cast in the state in 2012, came from Philadelphia plus Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties. Its a region replete with moderate Republicans struggling with the decision about whether to support Trump.

Obama sought them out last week as he contrasted Trumps criticism of the nations path with Ronald Reagans vision of freedom. The message echoes a Clinton television spot airing in the Philadelphia area featuring Romney and Republican U.S. senators blasting Trump as unqualified for the Oval Office.

That ad is part of Clintons deep edge over Trump on television in the state. Her campaign and outside groups helping her have spent about $14 million on general election TV and radio ads through this week, according to Kantar Medias political ad tracker.

Thats more than triple the advertising investment Trump and his allies made in the same time period.

One possible result of the advertising gulf is stalled support for Trump among college-educated Republicans who live in the four counties around Philadelphia. In Montgomery County, for example, nearly half of adults have college degrees compared to 26 percent statewide.

Part of the problem he faces is he has built this wall with the college-educated voters, Republican pollster Ed Goeas said. As much as hes doing better in other parts of Pennsylvania, when you talk about the suburbs, hes struggling to reach normal Republican levels.

That leaves Trump needing to overperform in Pennsylvanias rural areas and working-class cities in the western part of the state. But while Trumps running mate Mike Pence was in Scranton on Wednesday, the same day Trumps son Donald Jr. was in Pittsburgh, each of Trumps own three visits in the past month have been to Philadelphia or nearby.

Those visits were all small-scale campaign events, not one of the signature blockbuster rallies that make for Trumps chief organizing tool. And as he has in other states, the New Yorker has ceded the vast majority of his get-out-the-vote efforts to the Republican National Committee.

The committee touts, as it does in all the targeted presidential states, a statewide staff dedicated to registering new voters and swaying undecided ones. But even they admit Trump faces a challenge putting Pennsylvania into the GOP column.

We have always known it would be a battle in Pennsylvania, said RNC spokesman Rick Gorka.
India, Nepal sign three agreements

Published: September 17, 2016

India and Nepal have signed three Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) for post-earthquake reconstruction, Road infrastructure in Tarai and Line of Credit.

These agreements were inked during the four days (from 15 to 18 September 2016) official state visit of Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda to India.

MoUs signed are

Dollar Credit line agreement: India will provide new LoC agreement for US 750 million dollars for post-earthquake reconstruction projects in Nepal.

India will provide new LoC agreement for US 750 million dollars for post-earthquake reconstruction projects in Nepal. First Amendatory Dollar credit line agreement: It was signed between Government of Nepal and EXIM Bank to US 1 billion dollar Line of Credit (LoC) agreement signed in November 2014 for enabling reapportioning of unutilised funds for post-earthquake reconstruction projects in Nepal.

It was signed between Government of Nepal and EXIM Bank to US 1 billion dollar Line of Credit (LoC) agreement signed in November 2014 for enabling reapportioning of unutilised funds for post-earthquake reconstruction projects in Nepal. MoU for Upgradation and Improvement of Road Infrastructure in Terai Area of Nepal: It was signed between Department of Roads, Postal Highway Project of Nepal and National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) for Project Management Consultancy Services.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2016

Topics: India-Nepal  infrastructure  National  Nepal earthquake

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Ministry of Ganga Rejuvenation and Ministry of Agriculture sign MoU for speedy implementation of Namami Gange programme

Published: September 17, 2016

The Union Water Resources Ministry has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Union Agriculture Ministry for speedy implementation of Namami Gange programme.

The MoU will encourage farmers of over 5,000 villages along the Ganga River to take up organic farming to curb pollution caused by chemical fertiliser-laden runoff in the river.

As per the MoU

The Union Agriculture Ministry will develop organic farming in over 5,000 villages along the Ganga River under Paramaparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana.

Each Gram Panchayat along the Ganga River will represent a single cluster and it will promote organic farming through awareness programmes, self-help groups, mobile apps etc.

Government will provide training on Integrated Nutrient Management and micro-irrigation techniques.

It will also encourage livelihood opportunities and natural farming, based on animal husbandry.

The achievement and progress of implementation will be monitored by a steering committee consisting of the nodal officers from each ministry which will meet once in three months or whenever necessary.

Comment

Namami Gange is a multi-disciplinary programme and its success depends largely on the participation of other ministries, state governments and local communities.

The MoU will remain in effect for three years and thereafter can be extended on mutual agreement between the two parties.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2016

Category: Agriculture Current Affairs

Topics: Namami Gange Programme  National  Organic Farming

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Writer Meghna Pant wins FON South Asia Short Story Award

Published: September 17, 2016

Writer Meghna Pant has won the Fellows of Nature (FON) South Asia Short Story Award in Nature writing.

The award will be presented to her for her short story People of the Sun at Kumaon Literary Festival in October 2016. Her story was shortlisted from over 165 entries received from across South Asia

Meghna Pant is Mumbai-based writer. She has penned a novel, One & A Half Wife and a collection of short stories called, Happy Birthday!.

About FON South Asia Short Story Award

The award revives nature writing and brings the spotlight on critical environment issues like climate change through this form of literature.

The annual Kumaon Literary Festival gives this award in partnership with the French Institute of India and Wildlife Trust of India (WTI).

The award was founded to build a community of writers who can become instrumental in reviving interest in nature writing.

Besides, it seeks to build awareness among public in order to facilitate the conservation of our surroundings.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2016

Topics: Awards  Environment  Meghna Pant  National  Persons in News

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YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Head of the press service of Etchmiadzin Municipality Vardan Vardanyan presents details over the incident of the firearm attack on the Mayor of Edchmiadzin Karen Grigoryan on September 16, at 23:30.

The incident occurred at 23:30. Karen Grigoryan was returning from Yerevan to Etchmiadzin with his brother. A car of Vaz 2106 model came from the opposite side. They lowered the windows of the car and started shooting. It turned out that the car belongs to Stepan Abgaryan, the nephew of former Etchmiadzin Mayor Hrachik Abgaryan, who was in the car. Candidate Artur Tumanyan was also in the car, and one or two more people. The shooter was either the candidate or Stepan Abgaryan, but I will not confirm any name as I may be mistaken. Then with the help of the citizens the weapon was taken away from them. The incident occurred at the beginning of Etchmiadzin in the vicinity of Vagharshapat restaurant. The culprits received bodily injuries when being neutralized by the citizens. Karen and his brother are not injured, Vardanyan told Armenpress.

Advisor to the Chairmen of Investigative Committees of Armenia Sona Truzyan informed that in connection with the shooting incident in Edchmiadzin city of Armenia urgent investigative actions are performed.
When the great Victorian actor Ellen Terry was preparing to play Ophelia, she visited a London asylum to observe young women who might unlock the character. However, the madwomen were, she wrote, useless for research: too theatrical.

The interplay between playhouse and madhouse is a theme running unobtrusively through much of Bedlam, a fascinating exhibition at the invaluable Wellcome Collection, on the history of British asylums through Londons notorious Bethlem Royal Hospital, which in various incarnations during the past 350 years has moved from confinement to therapy, from display to sanctuary.

The exhibition also reminds you of theatres lost centrality to British culture. Writers, professionals, inmates could all conceive of themselves in theatrical terms, because theatre was a readily available metaphor for everything. Madness cavorted happily onto the stage during the 17th century, when it seemed less a medical condition than a state of moral or passionate imbalance. Original playtexts by Ford (The Lovers Melancholy) and Dekker (The Honest Whore), are juxtaposed with a modern poster for The Changeling showing a bifurcated heroine. Lover might shade into lunatic; the jittering madhouse was a barely distorted reflection of the claustrophobic Jacobean court.

A permanent stage

The Restorations Bedlam built in Moorfields looked as handsomely baroque as the new theatres in Drury Lane and Haymarket. A poem marking its opening in 1676 compared it favourably to the pyramids and praised its ascent from the funeral ashes of Londons Great Fire. Set in genteel grounds, its paths lined with sedately uniform trees, the building slotted into the capitals new culture of leisure, where the rapidly expanding city was a permanent stage. Inmates were confined rather than cured, and their distress was put on display for a paying audience. Hogarths rake ends in the madhouse, where fashionable ladies pass smilingly through the unhappy inhabitants.

Bedlams elegant exterior contained chaos  and as maintenance was neglected, the institutions facade came to figure its misery. An engraving from 1812 shows crumbling brickwork, overgrown vegetation, while unseen inmates dandle a sheet or crucifix from the windows. Three years later, a House of Commons report exposed an abusive regime, including one inmate, James Norris, who for 10 years was chained to a wall by his neck: more from feelings of revenge than for purposes of medical cure.

This report, which prompted a move to a new building in Southwark, marked a shift in fictional depictions of insanity  from the public behaviours of the theatre to the interior spaces of the novel. Charlotte Bronte, Dickins and Wilkie Collins all described institutions inadequate to the needs of the vulnerable (young, poor, insane). But theatre was still current in the way people thought of themselves. The exhibition includes an incredible series of petitions stitched like samplers in a Wakefield asylum by Mary Frances Heaton. The lucid needlework  underlinings done in neat red thread  describes tangled conspiracy theories, and foregrounds her early exposure to Racine. His tragedy Esther, she argues, has a curious resemblance to several remarkable events of my life.

Drama might form part of a therapeutic regime  an 1843 poster from the Crichton Royal institution announces that the farce Monsieur Tonson by WT Moncrieff will be performed by the Corpus Dramatique of the above Establishment!!!! But if earlier playwrights had drawn on the distracted for dramatic effect, their characters formed a frame for thinking about the insane. Sweetly distracted Ophelia provided a model for maddened Victorian femininity: one doctor wrote every mental physician of moderately extensive experience must have seen many Ophelias. Hugh Welch Diamond, a superintendent at the Surrey County Asylum in the 1850s, was also a photographic pioneer who used his patients as subjects. One inmate (pictured above) is styled as Ophelia  wrapped in a picturesque shawl, her hair garlanded with leaves. Ellen Terry might have found her too theatrical  or, at least, too conventionally theatrical.

The exhibition includes arrange of works produced by patients  portraits by Richard Dadd and Van Gogh that turn their gaze on their doctors, or an elegant proposal for the Southwark Bedlam by an inmate in the hospital. A century on, there is one of Nijinskys paintings (above)  the unmatched dancer creating an anguished face, swirled in blue and red pastels.

If the Wellcome exhibition is any guide, performance as mask or mirror no longer seems a helpful model to todays mad doctors. Theatre as metaphor may have lost its cultural currency. Those of us for whom distress feels like being miscast in a role, shoved into a play we dont quite comprehend without a script, or stumbling before the public without a safety net, may disagree.

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays
        :         ,     FIR    
At the end of the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis urges people to take part in the Assisi meeting on September 20 as "a day of prayer for peace". In life we choose "between two roads: between honesty and dishonesty, between fidelity and infidelity, between selfishness and selflessness, between good and evil." A greeting to the participants in the National Eucharistic Congress of Genova. The beatification of Elizabeth Sanna.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Today we need peace in this war that has spread all over the world. We must pray for peace", reflected Pope Francis announcing that September 20, he will travel to Assisi "for the meeting of prayers for peace, 30 years after the historic one convened by St. John Paul II".

Greeting pilgrims gathered in St Peter's Square to pray the Angelus, after the Marian prayer and announcing the meeting in Assisi, the Pope said: "I invite parishes, church associations and individual believers from around the world take part in that day as a day of prayer for peace. Today we need peace in this war that has spread all over the world. We need to pray for peace. Following the example of St. Francis, of brotherhood and meekness, we are all called to offer to the world a strong testimony of our common commitment to peace and reconciliation among peoples. Tuesday we should all unite in prayer; each person choosing a particular time. "

The Assisi meeting will be attended by some 400 religious leaders from around the world, but not the Dalai Lama, present 30 years ago, but who according to his secretarys response to AsiaNews, has not received "any invitation".

Earlier, the Pope paused to comment on today's Gospel (Luke 16: 1-13), which presents "the parable of the unfaithful and corrupt, who is praised by Jesus despite his dishonesty". Jesus explained the pontiff, praises his craftiness used for "currying the favor of debtors, condoning their part of the debt to secure the future.

He continued, we are called to respond to this worldly cunning with Christian cunning, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. This means leaving aside the spirit and values of the world, which please the devil greatly, to live according to the Gospel. Worldliness is manifested by attitudes of corruption, deception, abuse of power, and is the most wrong road, the road of sin, even if it is more convenient to take. Instead the spirit of the Gospel requires a serious - but joyful - and challenging lifestyle, marked by honesty, fairness, respect for others and their dignity, the sense of duty. This is Christian cunning!

The path of life necessarily involves a choice between two roads: between honesty and dishonesty, between fidelity and infidelity, between selfishness and selflessness, between good and evil. You can not oscillate between one and the other, because they move according to a different and conflicting logic".

Recalling the Gospel phrase that "no servant can serve two masters", Francis concluded: "Jesus now urges us to make a clear choice between Him and the spirit of the world, including the logic of corruption, abuse of power and greed and that of righteousness, meekness and sharing. Some treat corruption like a drug: They think they can use it and stop when they want. They begin gradually: a tip here, a tip there and gradually this generates corruption. Instead, even corruption produces addiction, and generates poverty, exploitation, suffering ... In gratitude and in the gift of ourselves to our brothers, we serve the right master, God. "

After the Marian prayer, the Pope recalled that yesterday in Codrongianos (Sassari) Elisabetta Sanna, mother of a family with seven children was beatified. A widow, she devoted herself entirely to prayer and to the service of the sick and the poor. "Her testimony - said Francis - is a model of evangelical charity animated by faith".

The pontiff then addressed a greeting to the participants in the National Eucharistic Congress which ended today in Genoa. "I address a special greeting - the Pope said - to all the faithful gathered there, and I hope that this event of grace revive the Italian people's faith in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which we worship Christ, the source of life and hope for all man".
Hello



My partner and I have been living and working in NZ for two years this coming February. We are British citizens with NZ residency. I am an electrician (with/ NZ Practising Licence) and my partner is due to be admitted to the NZ law council in February 2017, after transferring her British qualifications. We are aware that our qualifications are transferable to Australia and have made enquires on how to do this. Seeking a subclass 189 visa I would like to clarify the following:-



1. For the purposes of our EOI application, I assume we do not need to have our British qualification assessed as we now have NZ qualifications (once my partner is admitted) that transfer to Australia. We know how to transfer these qualifications but not how to present this in a EOI application.



2. To gain more points in a bid to hopefully be selected under this class of visa, is it just the principle applicant that has to complete the language test or do all people named on the visa need to complete the test?



3. As a guild line a rough indication on processing times.
Jeep Compass will rival the Hyundai Tucson, Toyota Fortuner and Ford Endeavour in India; to be locally assembled and is set to be launched next year.

After a series of leaked images, the India-bound Jeep Compass SUV has finally been revealed. The Compass is Jeeps smaller and affordable take on the larger and more expensive Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is already on sale in India.

The Jeep Compass gets more traditional styling like its larger sibling, but does get a few angular bits like the Renegade, making it look more rugged. Key design elements include a wide-shouldered look, a shallow Jeep grille and tapering headlights. As seen on other Jeep SUVs, the Compass too, gets squared-off wheel arches and large alloy wheels. The rear gets horizontally aligned tail-lamps with LED units.

Higher-spec variants are said to come with dual-tone exteriors and plenty of chrome highlights, and are expected to be brought to India as well.

The cars features are most likely to be similar to those on the more expensive Grand Cherokee. The Compass will be equipped with the U-Connect infotainment system and an 8.0-inch screen, and one can expect features like climate control and push-button start as well. The SUV could get the option of a seven-seat layout for India.

During the unveiling, Jeep had announced that the Compass will be produced with, 17 fuel-efficient powertrain options for consumers in more than 100 countries around the world. Production for the left-hand-drive Compass has commenced at FCAs Jeep Assembly Plant in Goiana, Brazil.

For India, the SUV will be fitted with a 172hp 2.0-litre Fiat Multijet II diesel engine that will be localised. The engine will also be seen in Tata's Q501 SUV in the future. Internationally, the SUV will also be offered with a petrol engine alongside the Fiat-sourced 1.6 Multijet II unit. The SUV will also offer a choice of two or four-wheel drive with the latter also featuring low range and a locking differential.

The Compass will be offered in four trims in international markets  Sport, Longitude, Limited and Trailhawk. The Trailhawk will be the serious off-roader of the lot, with 20mm raised ride height, different tyres and additional underbody protection. We had reported long ago that the Jeep Compass Trailhawk will be on offer right from the models global unveil.

The Jeep brand officially entered India last month with two models, the Wrangler and the Grand Cherokee and its high-performance SRT variant. While these two mainstream models are completely built units and command steep price-tags, the Jeep Compass is likely to be priced competitively as it will be locally assembled in India at Fiats Ranjangaon facility near Pune.

Sources in the company have updated us that prices for this SUV will start around Rs 20 lakh mark for the fairly well-equipped version, which of course, would mean plenty of SUV for your money, after all, the Compass is a full-sized SUV that is larger than the Creta.

Jeep Compass photo gallery
The problem came after Uber riders were charged 20% of their fares for this  gratuity , which was supposed to go to drivers as tips Unfortunately, drivers only received approximately half of the  gratuity , while Uber pocketed the rest. Consumer lawyers filed a lawsuit against Uber Technologies Inc., which was settled in front of a District Court in San Francisco this week.The settlement deal will involve Uber paying approximately $384,000 to the riders that have been charged the misleading fee. Meanwhile, the drivers will not receive the full tips they were expecting.There is no news about drivers having to pay back the sums they received as tips, so we hope they will not be taken for a ride on the matter.As Bloomberg notes, Uber has been rejected a settlement deal last month, which was a lawsuit filed by drivers that wanted to be treated as employees, and not independent contractors.The difference between employee and IC would have brought significant expenses for the tech giant, which would have had to compensate drivers for expenditures and tips.The representatives of the Uber drivers and the company have told a Federal Appeals Court that they have resumed settlement negotiations after the U.S. District Court refused the $100 million deal proposed by the business for the Northern District of California (San Francisco).These two lawsuits are not the first, and probably not the last for Uber. The American corporation that has become a ride-sharing giant has had some of its services banned in some countries and cities, while other parts of its business are permitted under certain conditions.All of the problems above are caused by its business model , which considers drivers as partners instead of employees, but this does not suit legislative norms in all of the countries where the service is available.The problem is that some countries have strict laws regarding who is allowed to transport people, and that the whole partner thing does not entirely comply with existing legislation, which has enraged taxi drivers and traditional transporters (i.e. hired car service companies).Meanwhile, Uber insists it is a tech company, which only focuses on the meeting between a rider and a driver. However, it does not work that way everywhere, so the service was banned in some cities and countries because the drivers did not have the appropriate government approvals to be authorized transporters.
18 September 2016 09:57 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Armenian armed forces have eight times violated the ceasefire on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops over the past 24 hours, using large caliber machine guns, Azerbaijans Defense Ministry reported on September 18.

Armenian armed forces, stationed in the hills in Noyemberian and Krasnoselsk district opened fire at Azerbaijani positions located in the village Kamarli in Gazakh region and nameless hills in Gadabay districts.

Positions of the Azerbaijani army also underwent fire from the Armenian positions located near to the occupied villages Bash Garvand village of Aghdam district, as well as, nameless hills in Goygol, Goranboy, Fuzuli and Jebrail districts.

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 us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
18 September 2016 10:20 (UTC+04:00)

Spokesman of Azerbaijans Ministry of Foreign Affairs Hikmat Hajiyev has said a visit of a Euronews reporter and cameraman to Azerbaijan`s occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region was authorized by official Baku. In a fresh edition of Insiders programme, Euronews international affairs reporter Valerie Gauriat and cameraman Bruno Lapierre traveled to Nagorno-Karabakh, which has remained under Armenian occupation for more than 20 years.

In a letter addressed to the Ministry, Ms Gauriat and Mr Lapierre requested permission to visit Nagorno-Karabakh to produce a film for their program. They said they recognize territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan within its internationally recognized borders, and expressed their respect for the laws of the country. They also said that in no way will their visit propagandize the illegal regime in Nagorno-Karabakh or recognize its legitimacy. Hajiyev said that in view of this the Euronews crew was granted permission to visit Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The spokesman also commented on the film made by Euronews, headlined Nagorno-Karabakh: a deadly conflict that threatens to spread.

Despite several distortions and mistakes, the porogramme featured views of Azerbaijani civilians living on the contact line of troops and Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh. The film crew met with Khojaly genocide survivors, but, unfortunately, this was not included in the programme, Hajiyev added.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
18 September 2016 10:40 (UTC+04:00)

Foreign Affairs Officer at U.S. Department of State Haley Sands Wright has commended Azerbaijan`s accomplishments in the fight against human trafficking, Azertac reported.

Speaking at an event organized by the U.S. Embassy in Baku, she expressed hope that cooperation with Azerbaijan in this area would continue developing.

Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy William Gil stressed the importance of fight against human trafficking. He said the Embassy and the Ministry of Internal Affairs co-organized a conference on the fight against trafficking in human beings in Baku this March. Gil said the U.S. carried out a program on fight against human trafficking in Azerbaijan.

Chief of the Department for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings of the Ministry of Interior highlighted Azerbaijan`s law on fight against human trafficking. He said Azerbaijan attached great importance to cooperation with the U.S. in this area.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
18 September 2016 12:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Turkish warplanes destroyed three targets belonging to Daesh terrorists in northern Syria, the military said on Saturday, Daily Sabah reported.

According to military sources, an air operation was conducted Saturday between 11.53 a.m. and 12.26 p.m., which resulted in the destruction of three Daesh targets in Tatimus and Kunah Tira regions.

The Turkish warplanes safely returned to their base at the end of the operation.

The moderate opposition's Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces also managed to take control of the Tatimus and Kunah Tira regions, which lies west of al Rai, a town heavily contested between the FSA and Daesh since March.

The operation in the region has been underway since 1.00 p.m.

Meanwhile, military sources noted that five opposition fighters have been killed and six were injured as a result of improvised explosives in Tatimus region on Friday.

Moreover, the Turkish military hit 67 Daesh targets by 59 t-122 CNRA rocket launchers and 260 howitzers, adding to the 652 targets and 2,728 shells in total since the start of the operation.

Also on Friday, coalition forces killed five Daesh terrorists in three airstrikes, which destroyed five buildings and mortar positions belonging to the terrorists.

The Turkish military launched Operation Euphrates Shield on August 24 to improve security, support coalition forces and eliminate the terror threat along Turkey's border using Free Syrian Army fighters backed by Turkish armor, artillery and jets.

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18 September 2016 12:47 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Russia has started electing the 7th State Duma (lower house of parliament), as the first polling stations opened in the easternmost Kamchatka and Chukchi peninsulas at 08:00 on Sunday, when it was still late Saturday evening in the countrys western areas, TASS reported.

A new State Duma, in contrast to the outgoing one that was formed entirely on party tickets, will be shaped under a mixed pattern: 225 of its members will be elected on the proportionate basis (on party tickets), and another 225 in single-member constituencies.

Eleven political parties will participate with their lists of candidates: alongside the four ones having a representation in the current State Duma (United Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and A Just Russia) there are ten others - Yabloko, Party of Growth, Parnas, Rodina (Motherland), Patriots of Russia, Communists of Russia, Civic Platform, Civic Force, Russian Party of Pensioners for Justice, and the Greens. Alongside party candidates there are 23 self-nominees in single-member constituencies. A total of 6,500 candidates will be contesting seats in the State Duma (14+ contenders per one seat).

The right to vote belongs to 111.6 million Russians residing within the countrys territory or feature on the lists of Russian consular offices abroad. On the polling day more than 94,000 polling stations will open, including those in closed territories - military garrisons, prisons, hospitals, etc. The people of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, which joined Russia in March 2014 after a referendum, will be voting in the Russian parliamentary election for the first time. A total of 371 polling stations have been formed outside Russia in 145 countries.

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18 September 2016 14:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The US Democratic Senator Jim Dabakis has made a secret trip to Iran, Iranian MP Mohammad Javad Karimi Ghoddousi said.

Karimi Ghoddousi, who is a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the parliament, said that the intelligence minister will be questioned in this regard, Tasnim news agency reported on September 18.

The MP added that he will raise the issue in the upcoming meeting of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission which will be held next week.

A scientific conference was held in Mashahd citys Ferdowsi University in recent days, Karimi Ghoddousi said, adding that some foreign invitees, who attended at the conference, are close to Israeli and Jewish circles.

He did not unveil further details on the issue.

James "Jim" Dabakis is a Democratic member of the Utah State Senate, representing District 2. He was first appointed to the chamber in December 2012.

He previously served as the chairman of the Utah Democratic Party.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry. Her column runs Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at http://www.bakersfield.com, call her at 395-7373 or email to henry@bakersfield.com
Who better to talk about The Californian through the years than the people who have worked here? So we asked them to tell us their best stories.
FARMINGTON - Mary A. Keay, 90, passed away Friday, September 16, 2016, at the Farmington Presbyterian Manor in Farmington. Before moving to Farmington she had been a long-time resident of rural Elvins.

Mary was born on August 11, 1926, in French Mills, Missouri. She was the daughter of Harry and Louvinia Chapman. She later moved to Leadwood and graduated from high school there. She married W. Henry Keay of Elvins on September 21, 1947. He preceded her in death after more than 60 years of marriage.

Mary worked at Missouri State Bank in Flat River before going to work at the Missouri State Employment Office in Flat River. She worked there until retirement. Mary was an active member of the Elvins First Baptist Church where she taught junior high girls Sunday school class for many years. She was also a 4-H leader and served on the St. Francois County Extension Council. The Keays were honored as the St. Francois County Farm Family. She was a member of the fraternal order of the Gamma Tau Mu.

Mary was preceded in death by her parents, two sisters, Alice Birner and Ruby Chapman and a brother, Guy Chapman. She is survived by her son, David W. Keay of rural Park Hills, her daughter Lou Ellen (Jeff) Harr of Jeromesville, Ohio and one granddaughter, Keayla Harr. She is also survived by numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.

Visitation will be Tuesday, September 20, 2016, from 5-8 p.m. at Horton and Wampler Funeral Home, Park Hills. Services will be Wednesday, September 21, 2016, at 11 am at the funeral home with Rev. Ardel Polk officiating.

The family requests in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to Elvins Baptist Church of Park Hills, Missouri or the American Heart Association.
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State of the Oregon Coast Conference, Citizen Science Events



Published 09/17/2016 at 5:41 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Oregon Coast)  Fall is shaping up to be crammed with fascinating events centered around the politics, management and science of the Oregon coast. The State of the Coast conference happens at the end of October near Lincoln City, while two other events are coming up that look at a variety of natural aspects of these beaches.

The State of the Coast conference takes place at the Salishan resort in Gleneden Beach on October 29. The annual event is a gathering where all manner of people get together  including business and community leaders, fishermen, scientists, resource managers, planners, teachers, students, recreationists and conservationists. Here, they can learn, network, and engage in the current and future state of Oregons marine environment.

The keynote speaker is Michael Bendixen, Emmy award winning videographer with Oregon Field Guide. He will take the audience behind the scenes where he combines the science, the extreme environments, and the art needed to craft educational and inspiring stories for OPB's TV news magazine.

Morning plenary session provides quick updates on coastal issues including: 50th Anniversary of the Beach Bill; A Glimpse into Blue Carbon; Ocean Changes and Squid; Marine Renewable Energy; Waves Up Close and Personal; OSUs New Marine Studies Initiative; Effects of The Blob; and more.

There are afternoon break-out sessions, which provide the opportunity to choose a topic to explore more in depth and in a smaller, more hands-on environment. Subjects include coastal and marine ecosystem services, harmful algal blooms, monitoring ocean change from a local to global scale, and Seafood: From the Boat to the Throat, among others.

Students are invited to submit an application to be included in the Student Poster Session. Deadline for submission is October 7. This session provides an opportunity to interact with students and learn about their current ocean and coastal research at Oregons universities.

To register for the conference, go to www.stateofthecoast.com. Lincoln City Hotels/Lodgings for this event

On Thursday, September 22 in Yachats, it's The Discover the Wonderful World of Lichen BioBlitz. This citizen science project is open to everyone, from novice to advanced naturalist. No special skills are required. Forest Service botanists Marty Stein and Doug Glavich will be on hand to provide volunteers with training on how to identify local lichens.

The bioblitz runs 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center just south of the cape (and about three miles south of Yachats). Be prepared for hiking on and off trails and dress for the weather. Digital cameras are useful but not required. For more information, contact Brian Hoeh, manager at the Visitor Center, (541) 547-3289, [email protected]

The Nestucca, Neskowin & Sand Lake Watersheds Council is holding a science pub on October 24 at the Pelican Pub in Pacific City that is focusing on salmon management.

Dan Bottom will be speaking. His talk will draw from his book's 11 peer-reviewed articles and the results of a decades-long habitat restoration effort in the Salmon River estuary.

Bottom served as a fisheries research biologist in state and federal government for 38 years. His research interests include the life histories and ecology of Pacific salmon species, salmon population responses to wetland restoration, and the history of ideas in fisheries management. In 2011 he co-authored an Oregon Sea Grant book examining the conservation future of Pacific salmon species, "Pathways to Resilience: Sustaining Salmon Ecosystems in a Changing World." Pelican Pub is at 33180 Cape Kiwanda Drive. Pacific City, Oregon. 503-965-7007. Oregon Coast Hotels for these events - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours





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Kit Harington attending the world premiere of the fifth series of Game Of Thrones at the Tower of London

Game Of Thrones could make television history at the Emmy Awards, where a host of British stars have been recognised with nominations.

The Sky Atlantic fantasy, which won 12 awards in 2015, needs just three more wins to become the most-awarded narrative show in Emmy history - beating Frasier's record of 37.

The series based on George RR Martin's novels has already won nine Creative Emmys this year for technical achievement and will compete with Downton Abbey for outstanding drama series.

Britons Idris Elba, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston are all nominated for best lead actor in a limited series or movie, while James Corden's Late, Late Show is up for the outstanding variety talk series prize.

Hiddleston is nominated for his role in the popular BBC series The Night Manager, while his co-stars Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman have earned nods in the supporting role categories.

The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, which aired on BBC Two in the UK, dominates nominations in the acting categories this year.

Cuba Gooding Jr, who played OJ Simpson, and Courtney B Vance, who portrayed Simpson's lawyer Johnnie Cochran, are both up for best lead actor in a limited series. Sarah Paulson is nominated for best lead actress in a limited series for her role as prosecutor Marcia Clark.

David Schwimmer, who played Simpson's lawyer and friend Robert Kardashian, John Travolta, who portrayed defence lawyer Robert Shapiro, and Sterling K Brown (prosecutor Christopher Darden) are also nominated for best supporting actor in a limited series.

A host of stars from Game Of Thrones are also up for acting awards.

Kit Harington and Peter Dinklage are nominated for best supporting actor in a drama series, while Maisie Williams, Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke are nominated for best supporting actress in a drama series.

Welsh actor Matthew Rhys is in contention for the best drama actor award for his role as a KGB spy in The Americans. Meanwhile, Dame Maggie Smith is up for best supporting actress in a drama series for her performance in Downton Abbey.

Corden's Late Late Show will take on Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Real Time with Bill Maher, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Jerry Seinfield's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee for outstanding talk series.

Hiddleston will compete for the best lead actor in a limited series award against Elba, who is nominated for Luther, and Cumberbatch, who has been recognised for Sherlock. Bryan Cranston is also nominated for his role as former US president Lyndon B Johnson in Sky Atlantic's film All The Way.

Game Of Thrones and Downton Abbey are nominated for the outstanding drama series award along with Better Call Saul, Homeland, House Of Cards, Mr Robot and The Americans.

The Night Manager is up for best limited television series against Fargo, The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, Roots and American Crime.

Kevin Spacey is nominated for best actor in a drama series for his role as Frank Underwood in House Of Cards, while Claire Danes (Homeland), Viola Davis (How To Get Away With Murder) and Robin Wright (House Of Cards) are among the nominations for best actress in a drama series.

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (Masterpiece) and Luther are nominated for outstanding television movie.

Veep, the US version of The Thick Of It, has earned a string of nominations including best comedy series, best lead actress in a comedy series for its star Julia-Louis Dreyfuss and and outstanding direction in a comedy series for British comedian Chris Addison.

US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel will present the 68th Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles at 5pm local time (1am Monday BST).
The Sound Of Music star Charmian Carr has died at the age of 73.

The actress's spokesman said she died on Saturday in Los Angeles, of complications from a rare form of dementia.

Carr was best known for portraying Liesl von Trapp in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1965 film, in which she performed the song Sixteen Going On Seventeen.

She was a college student when she auditioned for the film, which also starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.

Carr later wrote a pair of books about her experiences, Forever Liesl and Letters To Liesl.

The actress went on to star with Anthony Perkins in the Stephen Sondheim television musical Evening Primrose.

Kym Karath, who played Gretl, the youngest of the von Trapp children, wrote on Twitter: " It is with infinite sadness that I share the tragic news that the precious & exquisite Charmian Carr, beautiful Liesl, has passed away."

Twentieth Century Fox paid tribute to Carr on Twitter, writing: "The Sound of Music lost a beloved member of the family w/ the passing of Charmian Carr. She will be forever missed."

Actor and director Seth MacFarlane wrote: "So very saddened to hear of the death of Charmian Carr. She leaves behind one of the most memorable performances in movie history."

Carr fully embraced audiences' reverence for the musical, frequently appearing at sing-along performances at the Hollywood Bowl.

"I tell people that they should consider sing-along Sound Of Music like going to a therapist," she told the Associated Press before a 2005 appearance.

"It's just a kind of therapy. They can move around. They can dance and talk back to the screen. They can skip their appointment with the shrink that week."

Carr went on to become an interior designer in southern California. Her clients included Michael Jackson and Sound Of Music screenwriter Ernest Lehman.

She was born in Chicago in 1942. Her mother was a vaudeville actress, and her father was a musician and orchestra leader. Her family moved to the San Fernando Valley when she was a child.

Carr is survived by her four siblings, her two children and four grandchildren.
The trailer for the forthcoming Netflix movie The Siege of Jadotville is a masterclass in old-fashioned Hollywood shock and awe. Machine-guns roar, soldiers weave between explosions, a helicopter and fighter jet tangle in mid-air combat. You expect Bruce Willis and/or Arnold Schwarzenegger to turn up halfway through, pithy one-liners locked and loaded.

The slick and stylish promo has certainly had the desired impact, with nearly a quarter of a million views online thus far. Yet far from another Tinseltown destruction derby, Jadotville sets out to tell a complicated story.

The movie recounts the true-life tale of Irish UN peacekeepers, ambushed by mercenaries during the Congo's brutal civil war 55 years ago, and how they fought off 5,000 guerrillas before running out of supplies.

A relatively obscure nugget of military history, generally forgotten and unheard of anywhere else, may appear an unlikely recipe for success.

Yet Netflix, masters of making people care about shows they initially know very little about, has somehow turned Jadotville, which debuts on Netflix on October 7, into a very big deal, one that has grabbed the imaginations of many of its 80 million subscribers around the world.

Given the particulars of the story, Jadotville was always going to be a draw here. Yet, when the promo reel was released last week, it made headlines internationally.

Without question that was in large part due to the casting of Fifty Shades of Grey actor Jamie Dornan, from Holywood, Co Down, as Commandant Pat Quinlan, who led the 157 troops in their shootout against the Congolese, and the Belgian and French mercenaries assisting them.

Dornan has always seemed quietly embarrassed by Fifty Shades (the second sequel to which, Fifty Shades Darker, is released in February).

Nonetheless, the S&M sauce-fest has won him a global fanbase - more than enough to draw the spotlight to a theoretically minority-interest movie about soldiers caught up a post-colonial power-grab.

However, Jadotville also benefits from the decision to make an arresting film, rather than 100% accurate docudrama.

The scene at the end of the trailer, in which thousands of mercenaries surround the soldiers' compound, for instance, is largely an invention, with most of the real fighting consisting of ambushes and skirmishes. Jadotville looks like a thrilling romp because that is what it wants to be.

"How to you take this historical stuff and make a piece of cinema out of it?" ponders director Richie Smyth.

"It's not a documentary. I spoke to a lot of soldiers, a lot of historians. Everyone has a different story. You start to find a path through it.

"To engage that audience you take certain aspects - the original battle was more skirmishes. To help the audiences understand we brought it all to one place. That's the cinema aspect of it. I would like to think we kept to the historic truth."

As for Dornan, it has unquestionably added to his likeability. In his public appearances, he comes across as humble, self-deprecating, at pains to play down his success and his status as an object of lust (he is married with two young daughters).

He has also, counter-intuitively, built a career from playing cold, unpleasant men - first as a charming serial killer in The Fall, then as the whips and chains-happy romantic interest in Fifty Shades. Thus Jadotville offers his many fans a rare opportunity to see him as the straightforward good guy.

"I'm delighted. They probably landed on the ideal guy," says Declan Power, author of the book on which The Siege of Jadotville is based.

"One thing that struck me is that he (Dornan) doesn't look unlike Quinlan when he has facial hair. There is about 10 years between them."

In addition to confirming Dornan's star power, the excitement around Jadotville speaks to the enormous reach and influence of Netflix.

While the movie is to have a limited cinematic release in the UK from Monday, internationally it will premiere on the streaming service on October 7 - the most high-profile feature to do so since last year's Beasts of No Nation, from True Detective director Cary Fukunaga.

Though Netflix usually declines to release audience figures and ratings, it is believed that over three million people saw Beasts within the first two weeks. And that was a dark drama about child soldiers - lacking Jadotville's gung-ho set-pieces, or Dornan's star wattage.

"I think it's a bigger audience than any specialty film could ever hope for in its first two weeks of release, and maybe for its entire run. And we're just starting," says Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos.

"This was No 1 in really diverse countries - Japan, Brazil, Mexico - places where these kinds of films typically never open. It's been incredibly gratifying to see these audiences respond to this film."

If Jadotville receives anything like the same reception, it will give the movie a previously unthinkable platform.

For Dornan, director Smyth and everyone else involved, it promises to be an explosive few weeks ahead.
The man at the centre of allegations surrounding the sale of the Northern Ireland Nama portfolio has denied he financially benefited from it.

Frank Cushnahan broke his silence in today's Sunday Independent, revealing the onslaught of allegations following two BBC Spotlight programmes has had a devastating effect on both his and his wife's life and health.

In a statement to the paper through his lawyers, Frank Cushnahan has responded to sensational claims made about him.

Read More

They say he has "consistently denied any wrongdoing and has now been released from police bail".

The Irish Government has ordered an inquiry into the controversial 1.2 billion sale of Northern Ireland property assets by bad bank Nama.

Mr Cushnahan was appointed to Nama's Northern Ireland advisory committee in 2010 and served until November 2013.

He later worked with the Pimco fund which was interested in buying Nama's Northern Ireland property portfolio.

The National Assets Management Agency (Nama) was set up to deal with impaired loans that were damaging Irish banks after the 2008 financial crash.

The sale of the Northern Ireland property loan portfolio has been the subject of allegations.

Mr Cushnahan has said he would welcome a proper inquiry in relation to the sale of the NI loan book.

"It was a sale that was essential for the Northern Ireland economy. I have no doubt that the sale achieved by Nama was the best price properly achievable and has allowed the Northern Ireland economy to regain some momentum following its virtual destruction with the collapse of the property market in 2008," he writes in today's Sunday Independent..

He has also revealed the stress the allegations have had on the lives of him and his wife.

"Words cannot describe the devastating impact this controversy has had on my own and my wife's life and health," he said.

"The consequential and ongoing needs to ensure that appropriate remedial and palliative care is provided for Yvonne at this difficult time adds significantly to the stressful situation for us both.

"I have been treated like a criminal by sections of the media, although few criminals would have been subject to the same onslaught I have had to endure over the past year."

Sunday Independent
David Gordon has been appointed as press secretary to the Executive by the First and Deputy First ministers under powers known as the Royal Prerogative.

The appointment of the editor of the BBC Nolan Show as Stormont Press Secretary has sparked an increasingly bitter row of words between the Executive and Opposition.

Leader of the Opposition Mike Nesbitt (UUP) has accused the First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of a "North Korean disregard for democracy".

In a statement issued on Sunday morning the Executive Office hit back saying, "using rhetoric about Stalin or North Korea is not just hysterical but an insult to victims of oppression".

It was announced last week that David Gordon  editor of The Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster for the past three years  is to become the most senior spokesman for First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

However, his appointment has drawn criticism after it emerged the post - which commands a 75,000-a-year salary - was not advertised and the First and Deputy First ministers used powers under what is known as the Royal Prerogative to create the role for former BBC journalist.

Mr Nesbitt said the matter will be discussed at the Committee of the Executive Office which he chairs next week.

"The Committee will form its own view of what has happened but in my opinion this was done without the courtesy of informing, never mind consulting the Committee, which is in stark contrast to the First Minister's words when she last appeared before the Committee on the 8th of June," he said.

"At that time, she said: 'I look forward to a positive and ongoing relationship with you, Chair, and the Committee'.

"Three calendar months later, with North Korean disregard for democracy, the Committee has been disrespected."

He added: "I have been in contact with the Civil Service Commissioners for Northern Ireland and it is absolutely clear that they were not informed of the appointment of the Executive's new Press Secretary or the appointment process used."

On Sunday morning the Executive Office released a statement which claimed the matter is simply "Ministers use Ministerial powers to make Ministerial appointment".

"The Executive Office has supplied the relevant Order to any media outlet that requested it and has provided media with details of the legislation under which the appointment was made since it was announced," a spokesperson said.

"To suggest there was any 'secret' is stretching credibility to breaking point.

"It is normal practice in politics in London and Dublin as well as other devolved governments for Ministers to select a certain number of people who provide them specialist political and communications advice."

The spokesperson accused political parties who have expressed concern of "trying to muddy the waters".

They said talk of Assembly or outside scrutiny of the appointment is "nonsensical".

"The appointment of David Gordon is a political decision  thats what Ministers do," the spokesperson said.

"His job will involve politics  thats what Governments are about.

"While this manufactured storm runs its course, Executive Ministers are getting on with the job of Government, determined to pursue policies that make a real difference.

"In a few weeks, David Gordon will be at his new desk helping us in that task. It is extremely useful that he has been given an early insight into the vacuousness and double standards on Opposition benches."

On Saturday the Alliance Party and TUV also expressed concern about the appointment of Mr Gordon.

Alliance MLA Namoi Long said the way in which Mr Gordon was appointed to the role was "scandalous".

"The revelations that The First and Deputy First Ministers secretly changed the law, to avoid any scrutiny of the appointment of their new Executive Press Secretary, simply reinforces my call for all public and ministerial appointments to be brought within the remit of the Commissioner for Public Appointments," she said.

"It is nothing short of scandalous the lengths to which they are willing to go to avoid scrutiny and transparency."

TUV leader Jim Allister last night accused the Executive of behaving like the Russian dictator, Joseph Stalin, after the department released a statement yesterday afternoon accusing critics of the way Mr Gordon, pictured, was appointed of trying to throw dirt.

The North Antrim MLA said: It is laughable they are criticising people who dare to say that due process should be followed.

Laws should be changed by the Assembly, not by Prerogative powers.

Its farcical for the Executive to act like that. Stalin would have been proud of them.

The Executive statement issued on Saturday said the decision to appoint Mr Gordon is not subject to scrutiny by the Assembly.

It continued: It is normal practice in politics in London and Dublin as well as other devolved governments for Ministers to select the people who provide them specialist communications advice.

Those trying to throw dirt know that very well. It is interesting to note the panic and hysteria of opposition MLAs following the appointment of the Executive Press Secretary.

Their reaction, though not surprising, was expected from parties who are struggling to cope with the new political framework at Stormont.
Frank Cushnahan, the man behind allegations surround the sale of the Northern Ireland Nama portfolio has broken his silence.

Statement given to the Sunday Independent in full

"On the 3rd September 2015, I wrote to Mr [Daithi] McKay seeking an explanation as to why the offices of the Finance Committee were being used as a platform for certain people to speculate in a sensational and wholly inaccurate way about my conduct. I also questioned expressly the reason why Mr McKay was permitting Jamie Bryson to give evidence to the Committee. That letter was never answered and it is now obvious why Mr McKay did not answer it.

"One of the more sensational allegations made against me relates to an apparent conflict of interests that I had during the period that I was a member of the Nama Advisory Committee. I would respond to those allegations as follows: Those responsible for appointing me to the Nama Advisory Committee and those in charge of Nama were fully aware at the time of my appointment of the fact that I was an advisor to a number of Nama debtors.

"I am pleased that the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General acknowledges that fact. In other words, to the extent that there was ever a conflict between my role as an advisor and my other roles within Northern Ireland at that time, it was always disclosed and known.

"Further, it has been suggested in some outlets that I was in some way through my membership of the Advisory Committee a public servant in the Republic of Ireland. I was asked by the Northern Ireland Executive to sit as a member of the Nama Advisory Committee, not its Executive Committee. I had no role whatsoever in any Executive Committee decisions concerning individual debtors.

"I had no access to confidential information through my Nama position relating to any debtor. The Advisory Committee did not discuss individual debtor cases. In the discharge of my role as an advisor I was paid the sum of 5,000 per annum as an honorarium.

"The reality is that I was not and never was and was never considered to be a public servant in the Republic of Ireland while a member of the Advisory Committee.

"Indeed, the only reason why the Northern Ireland Executive insisted on having some representation on Nama was because, without the representation from myself and one other person, Northern Ireland would have been bereft of any representation of any sort in any decision made by Nama, even though Nama controlled all of the debts owed by Northern Irish developers in relation to Northern Irish property that lay outside the jurisdiction of the Republic of Ireland.

"I would also like to correct some other misconceptions relating to my involvement in the sale of the Northern Ireland loan book, repeated as recently as this Saturday in the press: At no time did I benefit financially from the sale of the loan book. I have not made one penny from the transaction.

"At an earlier stage of the sale process Pimco expressed an interest in the purchase of the loan book. That did not proceed. At no time was I ever a paid advisor to Pimco. Had Pimco proceeded to purchase the loan book, my understanding was that there was the possibility that I could be appointed by them to an executive role with appropriate remuneration. It has been suggested that, in the event of the purchase of the loan book by Pimco I was to receive 5m. I was never a party to any such agreement.

"As the public has seen, I have been the subject of covert recordings. My privacy has been infringed by others, including John Miskelly and the BBC in a manner about which I continue to receive legal advice with a view to instituting legal proceedings.

"In those circumstances it would be inappropriate for me to comment any further publicly at this time except to state the following: I was asked to assist Mr Miskelly at a time when I was informed that Mr Miskelly was terminally ill. All dealings that I had with Mr Miskelly were entirely lawful, a fact that has subsequently been conceded in a further public statement by Mr Miskelly. I have been interviewed extensively by the NCA [the National Crime Agency] in relation to the 'sensational' revelations made by the BBC in its Spotlight programme. No accusation has been made that I have done anything wrong in my dealings with Mr Miskelly or with Nama.

"I believe the BBC broadcast its programme in a sensational way, designed to influence its viewers to conclude that I was guilty of criminal or improper conduct, in circumstances where it knew, or must have known, that I had been released from all bail terms a number of weeks earlier. I have consistently sought access from the BBC to the full covert recording and footage. To date this footage has not been given to me by the BBC.

"I welcome the institution of any proper inquiry in relation to the sale of the NI loan book and I would state: It was a sale that was essential for the Northern Ireland economy. I have no doubt that the sale achieved by Nama was the best price properly achievable and has allowed the Northern Ireland economy to regain some momentum following its virtual destruction with the collapse of the property market in 20008.

"Words cannot describe the devastating impact this controversy has had on my own and my wife's life and health.

"The consequential and ongoing needs to ensure that appropriate remedial and palliative care is provided for Yvonne at this difficult time adds significantly to the stressful situation for us both.

"I have been treated like a criminal by sections of the media, although few criminals would have been subject to the same onslaught I have had to endure over the past year."

Sunday Independent
A teenager has been arrested after a man was stabbed in the face in north Belfast.

It happened in the Harcourt Drive area shortly before 7pm on Saturday.

The victim, a 19-year-old man, is in a stable condition in hospital where he is being treated for a serious laceration to his cheek.

The male suspect, aged 17, is being held on suspicion of attempted murder.

Detective Sergeant Keith Wilson, from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), has appealed for any witnesses to contact officers at Musgrave station on 101 quoting reference number 1285 of 17/09/16.

Sinn Fein councillor JJ Magee said the stabbing had shocked the community.

He said: "I hope that the victim can make a full recovery from his injuries.

"It highlights once again the dangers of knife crime on our streets.

"I would call on anyone with information on this incident to come forward and assist the police investigation."
A 20-year-old man has been tied up and threatened at knifepoint during a robbery in west Belfast.

It happened at a house in the Cloona Manor area during the early hours of Sunday morning.

The victim was not injured but was left shocked by the ordeal, police said.

The robbers stole a wallet and car keys before fleeing in a silver Vauxhall Vectra.

The car was later recovered by police after being involved in a crash on the Crossgar Road in Saintfield shortly after 3am.

Two men aged 18 and 19 arrested on suspicion of robbery and a number of other offences remain in police custody.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has appealed for any witnesses to contact detectives at Musgrave Street on 101.
Diane James was the new leader of Ukip

Ukip's new leader has revealed her political heroes are Vladimir Putin, Margaret Thatcher and Sir Winston Churchill.

Diane James was asked on BBC One's Sunday Politics who, "other than Vladimir Putin", were her political heroes, and she named the two former British prime ministers .

When asked to confirm whether her heroes were "Putin, Churchill and Thatcher", she replied in the affirmative.

The questioning stemmed from a 2015 interview in which Ms James described the Russian president as "a strong leader" who stands up for his country.

Mr Putin has attracted international criticism after the Russian annexation of Crimea, incursion into Ukraine and his support for the brutal Bashar Assad regime in Syria.

But Ms James said in the 2015 interview: "Nigel (Farage) went on record saying if you provoke the Russian bear you get a reaction.

"I admire him from the point of view that he's standing up for his country. He is very nationalist.

"He is a very strong leader. He is putting Russia first, and he has issues with the way the EU encouraged a change of government in the Ukraine which he felt put at risk a Russian population in that country."

Ms James won the race to succeed Mr Farage as Ukip leader on Friday, taking the top job with 8,451 votes.
TOPSHOT - Police and first responders walk down a blocked off road near the site of an alleged bomb explosion on West 23rd Street on September 17, 2016, in New York. An explosion in New York's upscale and bustling Chelsea neighborhood injured at least 25 people, none of them in a life-threatening condition, late Saturday, the fire department said. / AFP PHOTO / Bryan R. SmithBRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images

TOPSHOT - People look on as the police, fire department and other first responders work near an alleged explosion on West 23rd Street on September 17, 2016, in New York. An explosion in New York's upscale and bustling Chelsea neighborhood injured at least 25 people, none of them in a life-threatening condition, late Saturday, the fire department said. / AFP PHOTO / Bryan R. SmithBRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images

Twenty-nine people were injured in an explosion in Manhattan on Saturday night, with authorities removing a second suspicious device that was discovered just streets away.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called the blast in the Chelsea area an "intentional act" but said there was no terrorist connection.

He said: "Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident. We have no credible and specific threat at this moment. "

Mr De Blasio tried to calm any fears among New Yorkers, saying the explosion had no terrorist connection and was not related to a pipe bomb explosion earlier on Saturday in New Jersey at a charity run.

It was unclear who was behind the blast and what motivated it.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that a second device officers investigated four streets from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone.

The source said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street.

The device was removed with a robot and taken to the department firing range in the Bronx, officials said.

The law enforcement official also said the explosion appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. Photos from the scene show a twisted and crumpled black metal box.

The blast happened on West 23rd street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe's supermarket.

Witnesses say the explosion at about 8.30pm blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris in the area. Officials said no evacuations were necessary.

Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said several people were taken to hospitals with injuries. One of the injured suffered a puncture wound that was considered serious. He said the other injuries were minor, described as scrapes and bruises.

When officers were investigating the second site, police spokesman J Peter Donald tweeted a warning to residents to stay away from windows facing 27th Street.

A number of New York City subway routes were affected by the explosion, which rattled some New Yorkers just weeks after the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.

"We felt it, we heard it, the restaurant went real quiet," the 26-year-old said. "It wasn't like jolting or anything, everyone just went quiet."

The White House said President Barack Obama has been apprised of the explosion and will be updated as additional information becomes available.

Hillary Clinton says she has been briefed "about the bombings in New York and New Jersey".

Donald Trump moved ahead of New York City officials when he declared a "bomb went off" in the city before officials had released details.

The report of the blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners were to participate in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. The race was cancelled and no injuries were reported.
The blast was reported on West 23rd Street in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, New York City

An explosion that rocked a crowded Manhattan neighbourhood, injuring 29 people, does not appear to be linked to international terrorism, New York governor Andrew Cuomo has said.

Mr Cuomo said 1,000 additional law enforcement officers were being deployed after the Saturday night blast in Chelsea, a primarily residential neighbourhood on Manhattan's west side that is known for its art galleries and large gay population.

He encouraged New Yorkers to go about their day as usual.

"We're not going to let them win," Mr Cuomo said at the scene. "We're not going to let them instil fear."

The Democratic governor said the preliminary investigation did not appear to show a link to international terror, and he noted that no terror group had taken credit for it.

Authorities said the Manhattan blast did not appear to be connected to a pipe bomb explosion earlier on Saturday in New Jersey that forced the cancellation of a charity run. He noted that the bombs included different materials.

A law enforcement official said a second device that officers investigated four streets from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a mobile phone. The official said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street. The device was removed with a robot and taken to a department firing range in the Bronx.

The law enforcement official also said that the explosion appeared to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. Photos from the scene show a twisted and crumpled black metal box.

The blast happened on West 23rd Street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe's supermarket. Witnesses said the explosion at about 8.30pm local time blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris.

Mr Cuomo said on Sunday that all the injured who were taken to hospital after the blast had been released. He said most had been hit with glass or debris.

Some New York City subway routes were affected by the explosion, which rattled some New Yorkers and visitors on the heels of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.

"We felt it. We heard it," Mr Gonzalez said. "It wasn't like jolting or anything. Everyone just went quiet."

Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said at first he thought something large had fallen.

"It was an extremely loud noise. Everything was shaking, the windows were shaking," he said. "It was extremely loud, almost like thunder but louder."

The FBI and Homeland Security officials, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arson and explosive task force, were at the scene.

Mr Cuomo toured the site on Sunday.

The White House said President Barack Obama was made aware of the explosion.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said the nation needs to support its emergency services staff and "pray for the victims".

"We have to let this investigation unfold," she said.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump moved ahead of New York City officials when he declared a "bomb went off" before officials had released details. He made the announcement minutes after stepping off his plane in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

"I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows what's going on," Mr Trump said.

He continued: "But boy we are living in a time - we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant."

The Manhattan blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners were due to participate in a charity 5km race to benefit marines and sailors. The run was cancelled and no injuries were reported.

Also on Saturday, at least eight people were injured at a shopping centre in St Cloud, Minnesota, in a stabbing attack. The suspect was shot dead by an off-duty police officer. The police chief said the suspect asked at least one victim if he or she was Muslim.

The investigation into the Manhattan explosion came as world leaders descend on the United Nations for a meeting on Monday to address the refugee crisis and the Syrian conflict. The blast site is about two miles away.

AP
Russia said there were scores of deaths after the air strike hit Syrian government forces fighting the Islamic State group

Syria's fragile cease-fire started to unravel on Sunday with the first aerial attacks on rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo and a southern village that killed at least eight people.

The violations that came as tensions between the American and Russian brokers of the deal worsened following a deadly US strike on Syrian government forces.

The air raid by the US-led coalition killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and led to a harsh verbal attack on Washington by Damascus and Moscow.

The US military says it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against the Islamic State group in eastern Syria on Saturday.

The seven-day cease-fire is supposed to end at midnight on Sunday, according to a Syrian army statement issued last week.

The US and Russia have said that if it holds for seven days, it should be followed by the establishment of a Joint Implementation Centre for both countries to co-ordinate the identification of targets against the Islamic State and al Qaida-linked militants.

Despite largely holding, the ceasefire has been repeatedly violated by both sides, and aid convoys have not reached besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo, Syria's largest city and one-time commercial centre that has been the centre of violence in recent months.

The arrival of aid convoys to Aleppo is part of the US-Russia ceasefire deal.

Earlier this month, Syrian government forces and their allies captured areas they lost south of the city, re-imposing a siege on its opposition-held eastern neighbourhoods.

More than 2,000 people were killed in 40 days of fighting in the city, including 700 civilians, among them 160 children, according to a Syrian activist group.

Syrian state TV reported Sunday that dozens of residents had left rebel-held areas in Aleppo and were taken to shelters in the government-controlled part of the city.

Also Sunday, Aleppo's governor, Hussein Diab, called on insurgents in the eastern neighbourhoods to turn themselves in, hand over their weapons and take advantage of an amnesty decree issued recently by Syrian president Bashar Assad.

He urged insurgents to halt what he called the bloodshed and destruction and affirmed that all who turned themselves in and surrendered their weapons would be treated well and allowed to return to normal life.

Moscow laid the blame for Sunday's violence squarely on the opposition.

Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement that both "terrorists and the opposition" are using the truce to "boost their forces and prepare for renewed hostilities".

Konashenkov says Moscow still has not been able to contact the US-backed opposition to co-ordinate ceasefire efforts despite Washington's assurances. He said the US has not even tried to get the opposition to hold its fire.

Earlier Sunday, Islamic State militants shot down a Syrian warplane as Syrian forces regained ground lost to the extremists following a US-led airstrike that hit government forces the day before, state media said.

Syria called Saturday's US-led strikes on the outskirts of the eastern city of Deir el-Zour a "dangerous and blatant aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic and its army".

AP
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/09/2016 (2235 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

International students are sometimes pointed out as ideal immigrants for Canadian communities.

The idea is that it should be easy for them to integrate to Canadian society because they have the language, they are immersed in a dynamic community, they are job ready and learned their profession in a Canadian institution, and they develop community relationships faster than any other immigrant from a different stream. They might have also worked during school years so they would have Canadian work experience.

Immigration Minister John McCallum recognized this when he said last June that, I have not had one person disagree with me when I say international students are a very fertile recruiting stream for us. Theyre young, educated, they speak English or French. They know something about our country. Theyre exactly what we need for the future.

According to a 2015 survey by the Canadian Bureau for International Education, more than half of international students are willing to stay and make Canada their home once they graduate.

Unfortunately, after an immigration overhaul by the Stephen Harper government in January 2015, it is very difficult for international students to become permanent residents. Specifically, it is the controversial Bill C-24 that is making the life of international students in Canada harder.

The changes forced international students  who were previously in the Canadian Experience Class category  to compete in a pool in the Express Entry system alongside other immigrants with more advanced degrees and better work experience who are applying from abroad. Why should a student who has paid international tuition fees and has more Canadian experience be put in the same pool than someone applying from abroad?

What would make sense is to recognize the advantages an international student would have in successfully joining the workforce because they have passed a few filters. They have passed strict language tests and they dont have to go through a long process of credential recognition.

Instead, the new system makes it really hard for international students to find work. Students have now a harder time under Express Entry because they usually lack a Labour Market Impact Assessment filed by an employer to show whether a foreign worker is needed to fill a job. While not required to apply for permanent residency, having an LMIA automatically gave a substantial boost to the number of points the applicant received under the Express Entry system. International students must also find work before their post-graduate work permit expires. International students can no longer give prospective employers clear answers about their immigration status when the Express Entry system picks only a limited number of applicants per period. The old system guaranteed an international student eligibility if they could find a full-time job in their field. Now there is a risk for the employer in hiring someone who might face immigration challenges.

The physical presence requirements also became more difficult when the government decided to make the time lived in Canada while studying and working as an International student not valid towards the 1,460 days needed before being eligible to apply for permanent residency. Under the older system, some of the time a student lived in Canada would count. It just made sense that a students who is renting a place, developing community ties, paying taxes, paying double the amount of tuition, working and spending money in the country was able to count all those years toward the physical presence requirement, but not for Harpers government immigration policy-makers.

Political change seems to be the answer to these issues because Justin Trudeaus government is changing immigration policies once again. John McCallum noted last March that Canada has been excluding the cream of the crop in terms of potential future Canadians under the Express Entry program. He then promised immigration policy that would be friendlier to international graduates of Canadian post-secondary institutions.

The Liberal government is actually working on fixing the issues, but bureaucratic hiccups have delayed changes from becoming a reality.

Meanwhile, more than 100,000 international students enrol in Canadian universities every year without a clear picture of their future if they wish to stay in Canada.

The current situation is not fair for international students, but its also against the federal governments own Advisory Panel on Canadas International Education Strategy. The panels 2012 final report recommended that Canada double the 239,000 international students it receives within a decade to build the countrys future prosperity. As of 2014, Canada had 336,000 international students, nearly 80 per cent of them at the post-secondary level.

International student tuition can reach beyond $40,000 a year for some programs. Many students are happy to invest that money in exchange for an opportunity to stay in a country that is self-promoted as a welcoming land in search of the right immigrants.

 Jaime Chinchilla is part of Brandons Latin American community and a member of the popular Son Latino Band. His column appears monthly.
Let Me Tell You is a new bespoke podcast series from



Hosts Daniel McConnell and Paul Hosford take a look back at some of the most dramatic moments in recent Irish political history from the unique perspective of one of the key players involved.


One of Irelands leading maternity experts has said that we should not be discussing a repeal of the 8th Amendment without talking about what would replace it.

Dr Keelin ODonoghue - the lead clinician for obstetric ultrasound and foetal medicine at Cork University Maternity Hospital - said we also must discuss the lack of ultrasound screening for foetal abnormalities.
Rebels sneaked into an army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir early Sunday and killed at least 17 soldiers in the deadliest attack on a military base in the disputed Himalayan region in recent years, the army said.

Four rebels were killed as the soldiers returned gunfire after the surprise assault before dawn on the base, near the highly militarised Line of Control dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Loud explosions were heard and several barracks caught fire in the initial hours of the attack.

Afterwards, military helicopters hovered over the base as the army conducted what it described as "mopping up" operations.

Officials said at least 30 soldiers were wounded in the attack, including about a dozen who were in a critical condition.

The casualties were high because a large number of soldiers were turning over the base to new units and were stationed in tents and temporary shelters that caught fire in the attack, the army said in a statement.

The base, in the town of Uri, west of the region's main city of Srinagar, houses the Indian army's regional brigade headquarters along the de facto border separating Indian and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Soldiers were conducting searches in the area, but army officials said it appeared that they had killed all four rebels involved in the attack.

Army officials said the rebels had infiltrated into the Indian side of Kashmir from the Pakistan-controlled part.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, the army's director general of military operations, said all four gunmen killed were "foreign terrorists" and that initial investigations suggested they belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a militant group that has been active in Kashmir for more than 15 years.

India blames the outlawed group, which is based in Pakistan, for a series of attacks in the Himalayan region and Indian cities, including the attack on India's parliament in 2001 that brought nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

Lt Gen Singh said the gunmen were carrying "some items that had Pakistani markings". He said he had spoken to his Pakistani counterpart and conveyed India's "serious concerns".

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi condemned the attack and tweeted: "I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished."

Pakistan's army said in a statement that the allegations were "unfounded and premature", reiterating Islamabad's stance that no infiltration is allowed from Pakistani soil.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, but is claimed by both in its entirety.
A Norwegian man freed by militants after a year of jungle captivity in the southern Philippines has described the ordeal as "devastating".

Kjartan Sekkingstad was freed by his Abu Sayyaf captors on Saturday to rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which has signed a peace deal with the Philippine government and helped negotiate his release.

He was handed over to Philippine authorities today, along with three Indonesian fishermen freed separately by Abu Sayyaf.

Mr Sekkingstad was freed carrying a backpack with a bullet hole as a reminder of a near-death experience that included the beheadings of the two Canadians kidnapped with him.

The Norwegian said he survived more than a dozen clashes between Philippine forces and his captors in the lush jungles of Sulu province.

In one intense battle, in which the forces opened fire from assault helicopters and from the ground, he said he felt a thud in his back and thought he was hit by gunfire.

After the fighting eased, he discovered he was not hit and that his green, army-style backpack had been pierced by the gunfire instead.

Heavily-bearded Mr Sekkingstad, clad in a rebel camouflage uniform and muddy combat boots, was asked how he would describe his horrific experience.

"Devastating, devastating," he said.

Philippine presidential adviser Jesus Dureza, who received Mr Sekkingstad and the three freed Indonesians from MNLF rebel chief Nur Misuari in Mr Misuaris rural stronghold near Sulus Indanan town, accompanied the Norwegian on a flight to the southern city of Davao, where the ex-hostage was to meet President Rodrigo Duterte.

Mr Sekkingstad was kidnapped from a yacht club he helped managed on southern Samal Island in September 2015 along with Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, and Mr Halls Filipino girlfriend, Marites Flor.

Abu Sayyaf demanded a huge ransom for the release of the foreigners and released videos in which they threatened the captives in a jungle clearing where they displayed Islamic State group-style black flags.

Mr Ridsdel was beheaded in April and Mr Hall was decapitated in June after ransom deadlines lapsed. When Ms Flor was freed in June, she recounted in horror how the militants rejoiced while watching the beheadings.

Mr Sekkingstad said he and his fellow captives were forced to carry the militants belongings and were kept in the dark on what was happening around them. At one point, he said, their heavily armed captors numbered more than 300.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr Sekkingstad had been ransomed off.

Mr Duterte suggested at a news conference last month that money had been paid to the militants but that they continued to hold on to him. The military said Saturday that relentless assaults forced the extremists to release the hostage.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, police and diplomats "have done a great deal of work" to have Mr Sekkingstad released, and thanked Mr Duterte and Mr Dureza.

The three Indonesian fishermen freed by Abu Sayyaf were kidnapped in July off Lahad Datu district in Malaysias Sabah state, according to officials.
Early results on Sunday showed Russia's ruling United Russia party winning in the parliamentary election, amid reports of election violations and visible voter apathy in the country's two largest cities.

Less than 7% of the ballots were counted by the evening, showing United Russia getting about 44% of the vote, with the Liberal Democrat Party trailing with 18% of the vote. The results are likely to change as votes in the west of Russia are counted.

Russian Election Commission chief Ella Pamfilova said as the polls closed that she had no reason to nullify the vote in any location, conceding, however, that the election "wasn't sterile".

The voting for the 450-seat State Duma, the lower house of parliament, is unlikely to substantially change the distribution of power, in which the pro-Kremlin United Russia party holds an absolute majority.

But the perceived honesty of the election could be a critical factor in whether protests arise following the voting.

Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence.

Voter turnout in Russia's largest cities appeared to be much lower than five years ago, indicating that the widespread practice of coercing state employees to vote in previous elections was not as prevalent this time around.

The turnout by 6pm in Moscow was at a record low of 29% compared with more than 50% five years earlier, and less than 20% in St Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city.

Previous elections have shown that the regions with the highest turnout were where voters, mostly state employees, were pressured to cast ballots.

Grigory Melkonyants, co-chairman of the election monitoring group Golos, attributed the weak showing on Sunday to voter apathy aided by almost invisible campaigning by the ruling party and the opposition alike.

Melkonyants said on the Dozhd online television station that it also reflected less anxiety among local authorities to produce a high turnout.

Golos had received more than 2,000 complaints of suspected vote rigging from all over the country by early afternoon.

Among the potential violations he cited were long lines of soldiers voting at stations where they were not registered, and voters casting their ballots on tables instead of curtained-off voting booths

A video posted on YouTube appeared to show a poll worker in the southern Rostov region dropping multiple sheets of paper into a ballot box.

On Sunday morning, Pamfilova said results from voting in a Siberian region could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud there were confirmed.

A candidate from the liberal Yabloko party in the Altai region of Siberia told state news agency Tass that young people were voting in the name of elderly people unlikely to go to polling stations.

Independent election observers and opposition candidates on Sunday reported busloads of people arriving at their polling stations in Moscow to vote, fuelling speculations of multiple voting with the help of absentee ballots.

Deputy interior minister Alexander Gorovoy said in televised comments that police are looking into the potential of fraud in both Altai and in Rostov, but said he had not seen "the actual facts of the so-called cruise voting".
Syria's fragile cease-fire started to unravel on Sunday with the first aerial attacks on rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo and a southern village that killed at least eight people.

The violations that came as tensions between the American and Russian brokers of the deal worsened following a deadly US strike on Syrian government forces.

The air raid by the US-led coalition killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and led to a harsh verbal attack on Washington by Damascus and Moscow.

The US military says it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against the Islamic State group in eastern Syria on Saturday.

The seven-day cease-fire is supposed to end at midnight on Sunday, according to a Syrian army statement issued last week.

The US and Russia have said that if it holds for seven days, it should be followed by the establishment of a Joint Implementation Centre for both countries to co-ordinate the identification of targets against the Islamic State and al Qaida-linked militants.

Despite largely holding, the ceasefire has been repeatedly violated by both sides, and aid convoys have not reached besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo, Syria's largest city and one-time commercial centre that has been the centre of violence in recent months.

The arrival of aid convoys to Aleppo is part of the US-Russia ceasefire deal.

Earlier this month, Syrian government forces and their allies captured areas they lost south of the city, re-imposing a siege on its opposition-held eastern neighbourhoods.

More than 2,000 people were killed in 40 days of fighting in the city, including 700 civilians, among them 160 children, according to a Syrian activist group.

President Assad adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, is questioned by @cathynewman about chlorine gas attacks in Syria pic.twitter.com/IUUodSBZFg  Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 18, 2016

Syrian state TV reported Sunday that dozens of residents had left rebel-held areas in Aleppo and were taken to shelters in the government-controlled part of the city.

Also Sunday, Aleppo's governor, Hussein Diab, called on insurgents in the eastern neighbourhoods to turn themselves in, hand over their weapons and take advantage of an amnesty decree issued recently by Syrian president Bashar Assad.

He urged insurgents to halt what he called the bloodshed and destruction and affirmed that all who turned themselves in and surrendered their weapons would be treated well and allowed to return to normal life.

Moscow laid the blame for Sunday's violence squarely on the opposition.

Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement that both "terrorists and the opposition" are using the truce to "boost their forces and prepare for renewed hostilities".

Konashenkov says Moscow still has not been able to contact the US-backed opposition to co-ordinate ceasefire efforts despite Washington's assurances. He said the US has not even tried to get the opposition to hold its fire.

Earlier Sunday, Islamic State militants shot down a Syrian warplane as Syrian forces regained ground lost to the extremists following a US-led airstrike that hit government forces the day before, state media said.

Syria called Saturday's US-led strikes on the outskirts of the eastern city of Deir el-Zour a "dangerous and blatant aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic and its army".
PERTH: Indias batting coach said on Saturday that his side is not fazed by fast bowling as it prepared to face...
Sometimes I'm tempted by the thought that a major economic reform would be for the Business Council of Australia to disband, so the nation's big business chiefs had to spend more time doing their knitting.

For them to spend less time attending committee meetings to decide what the government should be doing to make life easier for them and their business, and more time working on ways to improve their company's performance.

Business Council of Australia president Catherine Livingstone. Credit:Peter Rae

It always surprises me that economist upholders of free markets and business defenders of private enterprise so easily fall into the view that the fate of our largely private-sector economy rests on the actions of politicians.

Econocrats are susceptible to that misconception because their model's assumption that business decisions are always rational leads them to conclude any inadequacy in businesses performance must arise from perverse incentives created by misguided government intervention.
About 150 conference-goers arrived at the Trump International Hotel, Washington, the day after it opened for an annual meeting of the National Confectioners Association.

But nobody wanted to talk about it.

The Trump International Hotel in Washington DC opened last week. Credit:Andrew Harrer

"Nope," said three representatives at the CandyPAC table when approached by a reporter. "Not interested," added two women sitting outside the hotel's presidential ballroom.

More than a dozen attendees turned down requests for an interview. The only one who agreed, a man from Montana, declined to give his name.
The Port of Melbourne will be sold to a consortium led by QIC Ltd for $9.7 billion.

The Victorian government announced the decision on Monday, calling the 50-year lease a "vote of confidence" in the state's economy.

The Victorian government announced the decision on Monday, calling the 50-year lease a "vote of confidence" in the state's economy. Credit:Craig Abraham

The consortium, led by QIC, Australia's second-largest wholesale funds manager, and including The Future Fund and Global Infrastructure Partners, out-bid another group led by IFM Investors.

Sources involved in the sale said the contest was "very close", with QIC's Lonsdale Consortium's operational plan for the port, rather than a significantly higher bid, the decisive factor.
A former Aldi executive says supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles need to spruik their huge product range and services such as delicatessens to battle Aldi's cheaper but utilitarian offer.

Paul Foley, who spent 23 years at Aldi and helped the German discount supermarket set up in Australia, said: "What I think the incumbents have to do is market the choice that they're offering, and they have to be first to market with new concepts."

Aldi can make better profit margins by stocking more private-label products and a smaller range overall. Credit:David Mariuz

"Discounters can't offer labour-intensive areas of food retailing so these are the areas in which full-line supermarkets [such as Woolworths and Coles] need to pitch."

Mr Foley ran Aldi's UK and Ireland business for 10 years until 2009. He now runs a retail consultancy in Austria.
An Australian man with criminal convictions both here and in London for passing himself off as a psychiatrist has been given a tongue-lashing by a NSW Supreme Court judge for his "scandalous waste of public resources".

For a decade, Sarajevo-born Vito Zepinic, 63, has waged what Justice Michael Pembroke described as a "farrago of unnecessary and wasteful litigation".

Vito Mir Zepinic walks out the front yard of his Turramurra home. Credit:Kate Geraghty

In 2006 Zepinic was ordered to pay his builders Chateau Constructions for work done on his Turramurra mansion. Since then Zepinic has refused to accept a string of court decisions, all of which have gone against him, including the forced sale of his home with part of the proceedings being awarded to the builders.

Zepinic fled to Australia from his war-torn homeland during the Balkans crisis in 1993. Despite having no medical or psychiatric qualifications, Zepinic worked as a psychiatrist at Toowoomba Hospital for almost two years from April 2000 to March 2002 before he was unmasked.
John and Lani Balzan exam the burnt mess of their Figtree home. Credit:Adam McLean The Balzan family is now homeless and facing an uncertain future. They did not have contents insurance and have lost almost everything they owned, including furniture, electrical items, clothing and even their 4, 6 and 11-year-old sons' school bags. Fire and Rescue NSW Illawarra duty commander Inspector John Hawes said a faulty air-conditioner located outside the back door was believed to have caused the fire. Lani Balzan with her painting that won the 2016 National NAIDOC poster competition. Her original work was destroyed in the fire. Credit:Adam McLean Flames coming from the air-conditioning unit are thought to have melted the plastic roof of a pergola, which then fell onto a gas bottle from the barbecue, burning through the rubber seal and resulting in the gas bottle acting like a blow torch.

As a result of the fire, the Balzan's lease has been terminated and they have been left to sift through the remains of the burnt-out house in search of anything salvageable. Adding to the dilemma, Mr Balzan needs to live close to Unanderra Fire Station to keep his job as a retained fire fighter. "Where do we start?" All we can do is try to find another place close to Unanderra Fire Station so I can keep my job." For Lani Balzan, an accomplished Aboriginal artist whose work was chosen for the 2016 national NAIDOC poster competition and who designed this year's St George Illawarra Dragons indigenous guernseys, the emotion of losing her original artwork, family photos and sentimental family items has left her heartbroken. "When we arrived, they said 'your house is gone'. I was just hysterical," Mrs Balzan said. "We know it's good that the kids are safe and we are safe, but this house was our life and now everything is gone."

"All our wedding photos, and things I made for our wedding are all gone. All our photos of our great-grandparents are gone, our clock that was given to us by John's grandfather when he passed. These are sentimental items we can never get back. "My original national NAIDOC painting and the painting I did for the Dragons' indigenous guernseys are gone, a surfboard I was painting for charity is gone, the kitchen stools I painted for each of my three sons and for John are gone. There were six paintings in the hallway  this is stuff that can never be done again. I've lost thousands of dollars worth of paint and materials as well." Mr and Mrs Balzan said they were thankful to neighbours who contacted emergency services and kicked in the back door to see if anyone was home and rescued their cat from inside the house. "I can now sympathise better with people who go through this and the devastating effect it has," Mr Balzan said. "We see people when they are upset and different levels of anger and frustration, but then we pack up and go. You don't realise how much there is to pack up and rebuild afterwards.

"That's the hardest thing. We are back to square one." Unanderra fire station captain Paul Dawson said his crew were rallying behind the Balzans and would be setting up an IMB benefit account for the family on Monday. "The irony is that we don't have many days off and the day we do have off, this happens to one of our members," Mr Dawson said. He, along with other crew members from Unanderra station spent the weekend helping the Balzan's sift through the charred mess for anything salvageable. "It's very disappointing that this has happened but we are really pleased that crews got here quickly and did a good job putting it out."
The 2016 Royal Melbourne Show has been a splendid outing for the Badcock family, of Tasmania.

Breeder Chris Badcock's decision to bring six animals over on the Spirit of Tasmania to compete in the sheep competition paid off on Saturday when one of them won champion Southdown breed ram. On Sunday, he came third in the all-breed ram contest.

Hannah Badcock, 7, of Tasmania in the Livestock Pavilion at the Royal Melbourne Show on Sunday, with a champion Southdown ram owned by her father Chris Badcock, right rear, and grandfather Frank Badcock, left. Credit:Jason South

In some ways the 2016 Royal Melbourne Show is very 21st century, with stalls selling body piercings, electric bikes, and $4.50 barista-made lattes.

But it's still important for farmers, with competitors from as far as outback NSW gathering to show off their rams and ewes.
That's all for today's blog. Have a great day.

Did you work out today's Mystery Melbourne photo (it's at the top of the blog)?

Here's the zoomed out version, which makes the location very clear.

Ah, so that's where the photo was taken. Credit:Leigh Henningham

Yes, that's the view of the MCG from Princes Bridge.

@clovertouchaus was first to tweet me the answer, while Simon B was first to email me.

The most out-of-the-box answer was this one from @angryexile
Berlin Chancellor Angela Merkel's party suffered the latest in a string of defeats in German state elections on Sunday, when her Christian Democratic Union was ousted from power in Berlin after its worst showing in the capital since World War II, according to exit polls.

Voters in Berlin turned out in higher numbers than in previous years, many responding to voter mobilisation calls from the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

The anti-immigrant party is now poised to enter the city-state's legislature for the first time, although its share of the vote, about 12 per cent, was less than it was two weeks ago in Merkel's home state, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where it placed second, ahead of the chancellor's conservative party.

Merkel's party won about 18 per cent of the vote in Berlin, not enough to allow it to continue as the junior partner in a governing coalition with the Social Democrats.
New York: Dozens of people were injured in a powerful explosion in the Manhattan neighbourhood of Chelsea on Saturday evening which the New York Mayor labelled "an intentional act" but one that had no credible link to terrorism at this stage.

Several hours later a second suspicious device - what appeared to be pressure cooker with wiring connected to it - was found four blocks from the site of the first explosion.

Residents who lived on the block where the second device was found were told to stay away from windows until it had been cleared. By around 2am local time (4pm AEST) an NYPD spokesman told Fairfax Media the device had been removed from that site and was being moved to a police firing range in the Bronx.

"The status of its viability or capability has not been determined," he said. He confirmed an image being circulated by CNN of the pressure cooker device was credible.
North Carolina's death chamber

Dixie Lowry Davis, whose husband was shot to death on Interstate 95 in 1997, has no expectation that Tilmon Golphin will be executed for the murder.





"No, I don't. I really don't," Davis said on Wednesday. She thinks that Golphin - sentenced to die for killing her husband, a state trooper, along with a deputy sheriff - is more likely to die in prison of natural causes.





Criminal justice lawyers share Davis' assessment that it will be a long time before North Carolina carries out an execution again, if it ever happens. North Carolina's last execution was in August 2006 and its unofficial moratorium on the death penalty started in January 2007.





Legal challenges to North Carolina's capital punishment laws pending in state and federal courts have forced executions to grind to a halt. And most death row inmates filed claims under the now-repealed Racial Justice Act, which allowed them to claim discrimination in their sentencing.





These legal actions are keeping the state's 150 condemned inmates away from the death chamber.





"Nobody is going to be executed as long as there is a motion pending in state or federal court that has not been heard," said Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt.





"Nobody can tell you how long it's going to be, but I would expect, given all these different levels of litigation, it's probably going to be years before we would have any executions," said retired University of North Carolina law professor Richard Rosen.





Defense lawyer Ken Rose with the North Carolina Center for Death Penalty Litigation is deeply involved in the issues that have stopped executions. There are 3 broad matters that the courts need to address, he said.





First, Rose said, are the continuing legal challenges to North Carolina's execution protocols. These are in North Carolina and federal courts.





The protocol questions triggered North Carolina's execution hiatus in 2007, but the matters had been in court well before then.





The issues in 2007 included the role of a doctor in executions, whether the drugs used in executions by lethal injection were causing intense pain as they killed the inmates and whether North Carolina prison officials illegally modified the execution protocols by not first getting approval from the state's top elected officials.





Over the years, the courts resolved some of the legal questions and North Carolina eliminated the use of the pain-causing drugs that were being challenged. Also, the legislature, upset that executions have been stopped for so long, changed death penalty laws to try to circumvent the legal challenges and resume carrying out death sentences.





The new laws fueled new legal motions by inmates.





"What is the current method of execution in North Carolina? What is the protocol?" asks Rose, who represents death row inmates. "...Where is the drug coming from? What is the drug?"





The Restoring Proper Justice Act of 2015, one of the laws aimed at restarting executions, has a provision to keep the company that produces the lethal drug a secret. Rose sees constitutional problems with that.





"In order to determine whether or not the use of a particular drug is cruel and unusual punishment, does the defendant have a right to know what that drug is? Know the source of the drug?" Rose said.





"You have a right to know enough detail to know if it's going to be unnecessarily torturous," Rose said.





Lethal injection executions in other states have gone wrong. According to media reports, Oklahoma this past week halted all of its executions because an execution in 2014 was badly botched and in 2015 the state was sent the wrong drug for use in lethal injection. Oklahoma now has plans to use nitrogen gas to kill its condemned inmates instead of lethal injection.





In North Carolina, Rose wants to know what North Carolina does to ensure the competency of the drug manufacturer or compounding pharmacy that produces the drug for lethal injection. He wants to know the qualifications of the people carrying out the execution.





"If the execution's botched and the drug doesn't kill the defendant in minutes, or even hours, what (are) the procedures that the state will use to revive the person - to prevent that person from just suffering without killing him?" Rose said. There appears to be no procedures in place for that contingency, he said.





A second factor postponing executions is the North Carolina Racial Justice Act of 2009. Out of the state's 150 death row inmates, approximately 140 have made Racial Justice Act claims.





The law gave death row inmates a chance to have their sentences commuted to life in prison without parole. They had to prove to a judge that racial bias tainted their trials and led to them receiving the death sentence.





The law was repealed in 2013 - and that repeal gave the inmates more legal fodder postpone their execution dates.





The issue is whether the repeal unconstitutionally snatched away a vested right when it repealed the Racial Justice Act, Rose said.





Four inmates, all defendants in Cumberland County homicides, had Racial Justice Act hearings. In 2012, their sentences were commuted to life without parole, but the state Supreme Court said a procedural error by the judge tainted their hearings. They have been sent back to death row and new hearings are scheduled.





The rest of the roughly 140 defendants who asked for Racial Justice Act hearings did not get them before the law was repealed.





Lawyers for the state argue that the law that did away with the Racial Justice Act prevents the inmates from pursuing the claims they filed before it was repealed.





The death row defendants may be able to beat that argument, said Rich Rosen, the retired UNC law professor.





"The federal constitution says that once you give a right you can't willy-nilly deprive people of that right," he said.





The 4 Racial Justice Act cases from Cumberland County are scheduled for a hearing Nov. 29 in Charlotte. A judge is to hear arguments that day on the state's motions to dismiss the cases.





Separately, the North Carolina Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether to the rest of the Racial Justice Act defendants can have hearings on their allegations that racism was a factor in their death sentences.





2 of the Cumberland County defendants have additional cases pending in federal courts alleging that the state violated the double jeopardy clause in the U.S. constitution that when it returned the inmates to death row. The double jeopardy clause says that once a defendant is acquitted, he can't be tried again. Their claim attempts to apply the clause to the ruling overturning their death sentences, saying they can't be imposed again once they've been lifted by a judge.





One of these inmates is Tilmon Golphin, who killed state Trooper Ed Lowry and Deputy David Hathcock in 1997. Lowry was Dixie Lowry Davis' husband. The other is Marcus Reymond Robinson, who killed a Fayetteville teenager in a robbery in 1991. Robinson was hours away from execution in January 2007 when North Carolina executions were halted.





The third major factor delaying executions, Rose said, is a new angle of attack that defense lawyers are using to try to overturn death sentences handed down in North Carolina prior to July 1, 2001.





That's when North Carolina implemented a major change to its death penalty laws, one that has drastically reduced the number of death penalty cases in this state.





Prior to July 1, 2001, state law required local prosecutors to seek the death penalty if the facts surrounding the crime were sufficient. If a murder was especially heinous, for example, or committed to obtain something of value.





Requiring that prosecutors seek the death penalty when certain elements were present resulted in dozens more death penalty trial and sentences. Prosecutors had no choice but to seek the maximum penalty.





"North Carolina as a result was one of the top death-sentencing states in the country," Rose said. "And that changed dramatically after July 1, 2001."





The law change in 2001 gave prosecutors discretion - freeing them to accept plea bargains that gave defendants sentences of life in prison without parole.





In the 1990s, North Carolina sometimes sentenced 20 to 30 people to death annually, according to a chart by the Death Penalty Information Center. In the past 10 years, juries have issued 5 or fewer death sentences per year, its chart says.





The old law that required prosecutors to seek death was unconstitutional, Rose argues.





Dixie Lowry Davis, Trooper Ed Lowry's widow, thinks Tilmon Golphin and his brother, Kevin Golphin, should have been executed shortly after they were sentenced in 1998 for Lowry's murder.





Now she worries whether they will be released from prison.





While Tilmon Golphin is on death row, Kevin Golphin, previously sentenced to death, is now serving life in prison and could become eligible for parole. Kevin Golphin was only 17 when he and Tilmon killed Lowry and Hathcock. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that defendants who were under 18 when they committed their crimes can't be sentenced to death and may not be automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole.





"It's been so long, we're just all so frustrated," Davis said of her family. "We would like to see the end to it. But we don't want the end to be that they get out of jail. So we want them to stay right where they are."

 | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; send a submission; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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Source: Fayetteville Observer, September 19, 2016
Srinagar: India accused Pakistan of being behind a separatist attack on an army base near their disputed frontier on Sunday that killed 17 soldiers.

In one of the deadliest attacks in Kashmir in a 25-year-old insurgency, four commando-style gunmen, armed with AK-47 assault rifles and grenade launchers, burst into the brigade headquarters in Uri at 5.30am local time. They were killed three hours later after a gunfight, a senior Indian army officer said.

Kashmir continues to be a flashpoint. Here, Kashmiri Muslims are engulfed in tear gas smoke as they clash with Indian security personnel during a protest after Eid al-Adha prayers in Srinagar last week. Credit:Dar Yasi

The incident sharply increased tensions between the bitter, nuclear-armed rivals and will raise fears of a potential military escalation. Indian and Pakistani troops are in close proximity in many places along one of the world's most heavily militarised frontiers, and exchanges of fire are not uncommon.

Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh told reporters in New Delhi that Sunday's attack bore the hallmarks of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed. Evidence gathered at the scene indicated the attackers were foreign and their equipment bore Pakistani markings, he added.
New York: A saxophone somewhere far off is playing, wrote Bob Dylan in his atmospheric epic of chance and choice first recorded in New York in 1975.

For a busload of carefree Saturday night revellers, the sax is laid on right there on Seventh when their party bus pulls curbside for a pre-arranged tune, photos bringing the obligatory chorus of whoops signalling they are officially having fun.

Some climb down to dance and pose for NY-busker-selfie snaps. Moments later they "throw a coin into the cup" before rolling on to the glary allure of the world-famous Times Square. They are too far away and too self-absorbed to hear the blast that rips through a street several blocks away even as they party.

This is New York on a warm Saturday night fully 15 years since the Big Apple became the bloody starting point for an endless and impossibly indefinable war on terror. The moment when this city ushered in a new era where mass civilian casualties became an end in itself rendering the notion of "ground zero" a geographical permanence.
Latest News Lendi Group settles $33.6 billion in FY22 Ambitious target of a deal a day for brokers

APRA announces new appointments The prudential regulator has a new chair, deputy chair, and members

The Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia ( MFAA ) is aiming to help inexperienced brokers via a new partnership with real estate data provider CoreLogic Through the partnership, all MFAA member brokers with two years or less experience are now eligible for a free three-month subscription to CoreLogics RP Data Professional platform.The partnership is part of the MFAAs efforts to help new to industry brokers better establish their presence in the industry and is aimed at helping them with aspects such as lead generation and client retention.It is important that new brokers have the right tools and support network to lay the foundations of a great business. This programme, which is part of the MFAAs Business Builders series, allows new brokers to build relationships more effectively and be confident in their property conversations, MFAA head of marketing and communications Stephen Hale said.We really encourage new to industry brokers to take advantage of this exclusive offer, Hale said.Along with helping brokers gain a better understanding of the property market, the RP Data Professional platform also contains features such as allowing brokers to receive alerts when a client lists their property for sale.Frank Knez, CoreLogic general manager marketing, said the partnership would hopefully lead to key processes becoming everyday actions for inexperienced brokers.This is a great initiative to support and add value to newer brokers in the mortgage industry; helping them to embed effective acquisition and retention strategies as part of their everyday processes, Knez said.
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A recent New York Times description of LaGuardia Airport bore a certain resemblance to the End Times. As Patrick McGeehan reported on one particularly terrible, very bad, no good day last month:

Harried travelers abandoned cars and navigated the clogged Grand Central Parkway  the main highway serving La Guardia  on foot with suitcases in tow. Such traffic debacles have become so common that seasoned fliers and travel bloggers have recommended avoiding La Guardia altogether, perhaps for years to come.

This called to mind the evening Id flown home earlier in the summer to find a line of perhaps 200300 people waiting for a taxi. I whipped out my phone and videotaped it the way youd video a funnel cloud, or mud slide.

And those were people who werent going to miss a plane! Anyone trying to depart has been advised by the Transportation Security Administration to arrive at LaGuardia a minimum of 2 hours before takeoff. So, last week, I did.

For a 1 pm fight on American I got to the airport at 10:30 via the amazingly efficient bus from the 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue Station. To my shock, everything seemed efficient when I arrived, too. The check-in lines were vanishingly short, the lady at the bookstore delightfully chatty, and the security line, pleasantly swift and groping-free. I felt I could almost hold onto a bottle of water, it was that sane. Cheerfully I entered Terminal C to look for gate C37 and saw the sign:

Gates C114.

Hmm.

I just walked all the way to the end, a lady told me as we meandered around before discovering a little desk where a harried employee was explaining that Terminal C is now in two different buildings at once, physics be damned.

To get to the parallel universe C requires a shuttle bus, something that must throw off any travelers who allotted themselves just a few minutes to walk to their gate. And to get to the shuttle bus requires schlepping down a bunch of sad, service-entrance steps with your luggage or, in the case of one family I was watching, your luggage, your two babies, and your double stroller. No elevator, no offer of help. Welcome American Airlines passengers!

The shuttle bus winds its way past the New York of 1977: Piles of traffic barriers looming next to loading docks protected by the dingy plastic strips you see at the car wash. All its missing is a blackout.

Ive never seen an airport so messy, Sravya Bandi, an I.T. analyst down from Montreal, told me.

But then you get off the bus, drag your luggage (and kids and double stroller) up three flights of stairs, and suddenly: Oz!

This terminal is gleaming! Its more than respectable, it elegantly refutes the famous Joe Biden quote, If I blindfolded you and took you to LaGuardia Airport, you [would] think, I must be in some third world country. 

Why, none of the seats here are ripped. No weird brown stains are spreading across the ceiling. And theres nary an Auntie Annes Pretzel to be gnawed.

Okay, the parking is impossible and There is clearly not enough room to drop people off, said Marie DeParis, a television marketing exec on her way to Florida. But once you walk inside and get past security, its beautiful!

The travelers I spoke to from Ghana, Ukraine, and even New Jersey marveled at the futuristic decor, including a restaurant so sleek one man wasnt sure how to order.

I kept trying to signal a waiter, he said, until someone explained, No, you order using the iPad. 

Bo Miller, a 42-year-old veteran from Charlotte, NC, said he found the prices futuristic, too.

I just had a burger and the smallest ginger ale I ever had, for $21.

But, he added, the burger was good.

Yes, there will be years of construction along with untold parking woes. There may still be those days like the one a traveler named Will recalled from his most recent LaGuardia trip; We were 44th in line for takeoff.

But for those of us traumatized by the old LaGuardia, the Airport of Despair, the new terminal hints of brighter days to come.

After some delays.

Read Lenore Skenazys column every Sunday morning on Brook lynPa per.com
Astros strike back to win Game 2 vs. Phillies, evening up World Series

The Houston Astros won Game 2 on Saturday night to send the World Series back to Philadelphia at 1-1.
Blog Hinangai

While there is much discussion in Guam about the economic benefits of increasing the islands military presence, the damages/dangers that they represent are rarely mentioned. This blog, a supplement to the Peace and Justice for Guam Petition, is meant to counter that by providing information about the US military in Guam, with the hopes of steering policy away from a dangerous unilateralist course to more sustainable notions of regional development and a strengthening international solidarity.
The consumer products arm of the nearly $3.5-billion (or Rs 24,000 crore) Adi Godrej Group is stepping up its cluster management of markets as it seeks to grow aggressively in the next few years. Godrej Consumer (GCPL), whose consolidated net sales for the financial year ended 2015-16 was nearly Rs 9,000 crore, is at the forefront of the Godrej group's effort to grow tenfold in ten years. The other areas identified as growth drivers by the group include agri products and real estate.


Life Insurance Company is the countrys leading privately owned entity in the segment. It has strong parentage, a record of consistent premium growth, healthy profitability and high return ratios. It is in an under-penetrated sector, with high growth potential.
City-gas distribution company Ltd (MGL) is now betting on a new market beyond Mumbai with its Raigad gas distribution project, where it plans to invest Rs 50 to 100 crore annually in five years time.
For online marketplace Shopclues, Sundays have been marked for fumigation. Men in white overalls and facemasks enter the sprawling office of the Gurgaon- based company every Sunday with a single mandate--to find and kill every possible dengue and chikungunya spreading mosquito.
ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), is seeking $537 million worth of crude oil in lieu of cash due for its share of sales from a Venezuelan oilfield.

owns 40 per cent of the San Cristobal field and had invested about $190 million in the project in 2008.

State-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, holds the remaining stake.

We have not been paid for our share of oil from the field for last few years, a company official said.

San Cristobal project covers an area of 160 sq km in the Zuata subdivision of proliferous Orinoco Heavy Oil belt in Venezuela. The field currently produces about 28,000 barrels a day, down from a peak of 38,000 bpd. The official said had received its dividend from sale of crude oil produced from the field totaling $56.2 million for 2008.

But dividends for 2009 to 2013 totalling $537.631 million remained unpaid due to cash flow difficulties being faced by PDVSA.

During 2015-16, OVLs share of crude oil production was 0.57 mt as compared to 0.65 mt during the previous financial year. Its share of investment in the project was Rs 2,600 crore ($486.69 mn) till March 31, 2016.

Since PdVSA is facing a cash crunch, wants its share of revenue from the field be paid in form of crude oil. We want to be given physical oil which we can sell in international market to recover our dues, he said. Venezuela, the cash-strapped OPEC member and holder of the worlds biggest oil reserves, has been unable to pay foreign partners on some of its projects as revenues slumped along with crude prices and as funds were diverted to social programmes and fuel subsidies.

The Latin American nation earns almost all of its export revenue from oil.

It is already repaying loans outstanding to China with crude and OVL is keen a similar deal.

Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had discussed the past dues with visiting Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez and Oil Minister Eulogio del Pino last month.

Another option was to deduct the outstanding from the money Indian firms like Reliance Industries and Essar Oil pay to import crude oil from Venezuela.

But since all of the revenue from oil sales is budgeted by Venezuelan government, that option is ruled out, the official said.

Venezuela is Indias fourth largest source of crude oil, supplying some 23.6 mn tonnes or 12 per cent of the countrys annual import in 2015-16.

OVL, along with Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Oil India Ltd, also holds 18 per cent stake in Venezuelas Carabobo-1 project, which currently produces about 16,000 bpd of oil and is expected to reach 90,000 bpd by end of 2017.
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Beleaguered businessman remains in "full control" even after relocating to UK, his UB group's holding firm United Breweries Holdings Ltd has said while disclosing remuneration totalling Rs 1.6 crore.

Group company United Breweries Ltd, in which co-promoter Heineken has been hiking stake, has also disclosed total remuneration of about Rs 2.86 crore to Mallya, who moved to the UK earlier this year amid a furore over various cases involving erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines including about huge loan defaults. However, this payment had to be withheld pursuant to the orders of the Income Tax Department.

In its latest annual report, released to shareholders ahead of their Annual General Meeting on September 29, the group holding firm UBHL said it has been without a Managing Director since April 17, 2014.

"In the interregnum, the Chairman of the Board, is acting as the Principal Officer of the company and reviewed the performance of the Company at the Board Meetings held during the year.

"Even after his relocating to London, he has full control over the affairs of the company through appropriate delegation of duties to various operating executives who report to him on a regular basis," it said.

Giving details of the remuneration paid to the directors, UBHL has disclosed fees totalling Rs 3.2 lakh to Mallya for attending board or committee meetings. Out of this, payment of sitting fees totalling Rs 1.6 lakh has been restrained by Order of the Tax Recovery Officer dated November 24, 2015, UBHL said.

However, Mallya received remuneration totalling about Rs 1.6 crore from two overseas subsidiaries of UBHL.

"The Chairman of the company has received remuneration from two subsidiaries, amounting to $120,000 (previous year $120,000) and British Pound 89,600 (previous year GBP 89,600) during the year 2015-16," it said.

UBHL also said Vijay Mallya's son Sidhartha ceased to be a director of the company with effect from March 31, 2016.

The company's operations comprise primarily of holding of strategic investments and other securities, international trade, development of real estate, sale and rental of constructed premises including residential property of Kingfisher Towers, licensing of trademarks, advancing of loans and provision of guarantees.

Interestingly, it also disclosed having been given "the Export Excellence award" by a Karnataka business chamber.

UBHL said it "is constrained by various restraint orders of the High Court of Karnataka as a result of which revenue yielding business proposals like franchising out the Kingfisher brand owned by the Company and renting out vacant space at UB City, Bangalore, could not be implemented."
P K Singh, chairman and managing director at Steel Authority of India (SAIL), talks to Megha Manchanda & Jyoti Mukul on the steel giants performance in the past four quarters, the challenges and the plans. Edited excerpts:



When do you see coming out of losses?



The steel industry in India, like other countries, has been affected by the global oversupply created by China, which led to cheap imports replacing domestic steel. This impacted the margins of all steel makers. However, the governments intervention by bringing in protective trade measures of various forms provided some respite.
In a jarring challenge to the army in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), armed militants attacked a camp near the border town of Uri on Sunday morning, killing 17 soldiers and wounding another 23. This is the heaviest blow the army has suffered in a single attack since armed insurgency broke out in J&K in 1990.



Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, the armys Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), described the events in a media statement. He said a group of Pakistani terrorists attacked the camp at 5.30 am and four were killed by 8.30 am. It remains unclear whether there were more. Explaining the heavy army casualties, the DGMO said: The terrorists fired incendiary ammunition, along with automatic fire of small arms that led to army tents [and] temporary shelters catching fire There have been a total of 17 army fatal casualties. Of these, 13-14 casualties have been due to these tents/shelters having caught fire.



The administrative echelons of two infantry battalions  10 DOGRA and 6 BIHAR  were in the camp. Their combat echelons had deployed in forward posts along the line of control (LoC), leaving the camp lightly guarded.



Even so, the attack raises serious questions of operational culpability. An infantry battalions administrative echelons should also consist of armed and trained soldiers, who should not have been caught napping by a militant fidayeen (suicide) squad.



Further, Business Standard learns the Uri brigade was given pinpoint intelligence warnings about an impending attack. Last week, intelligence agencies sent a written warning that a Pakistani border action team (BAT), including trained jihadi militants, was readying to launch an attack across the LoC in Uri.



According to the armys standard operating procedures, such a warning should have triggered a heightened alert, and extra sentries to guard all camps. Yet, the Uri camp was taken by surprise, with the fidayeen succeeding in setting tents alight with soldiers still asleep in these.





Army personnel in action inside the Army Brigade camp during a terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir.
Hollywood said: Of course I'm right. Was there ever any question of that? Click to expand...

Something that Hollywood should behold. August 18th next year there is going to be a total solar eclipse in Missouri just a little south of St. Louis. I have seen partials before but not the totality. You can look at the corona of the Sun during totality with your naked eye. During partiality if you look at it with your naked eye could blind you. I know how to make a pin hole camera using two sheets of paper to see the partial eclipse without looking at it and when things go dark I can just look at it. I am a science nut and have to go to Kentucky that it also transverses near the Mississippi River to see the totality that I put on my bucket list.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Sunday described as "cowardly" the terrorist attack on an army camp near Uri in Jammu and Kashmir which left 17 soldiers dead.

Gandhi deplored "the affront on our conscience" and hoped that "the forces behind (the attackers) will be severely dealt with and brought to book".

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi also condemned the attack on the Uri army camp.

"Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack," he said in a tweet.

Heavily-armed militants attacked the camp at Uri early in the morning, killing 17 soldiers and wounding several others. Security forces shot dead all four heavily-armed attackers.
The terrorist attack at an army administrative base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, which killed 17 soldiers, has reduced the political space for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to travel to Islamabad in November to attend the Saarc Summit. But, in recent months, New Delhi has shown uncharacteristic efficiency to reach out to Saarc members, other than Pakistan.
Many of India's premier institutes have slipped in ranking in the latest Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) global league table of top universities. In the first of a four-part series, Business Standard looks at what went wrong and how these institutes could beat global peers



It has been as bumpy a ride for the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) in getting internationally recognised as when reaching its campus on the Grand Trunk Road, about 100 km from Lucknow.
Blaming "security lapse" for the Uri terror attack, former defence minister on Sunday said that the government has not learnt any lesson from the Pathankot strike in January.

"It is a serious security lapse. The central government has not learnt any lesson from the Pathankot attack," the Congress leader said on the attack on an army camp in Uri and suggested that army should be given more freedom to carry out tactical operations.

In January, seven military personnel were killed when six terrorists who had sneaked in from Pakistan attacked the Pathankot air base.

"In recent months, violence in Kashmir with the help of Pakistani army is increasing," Antony said.

Efforts should be made to increase the confidence of the people of Kashmir in the army, he said.

At least 17 soldiers were killed when heavily armed terrorists, who were suspected to have sneaked in from across the Line of Control, attacked an Army Brigade Headquarters in Uri early this morning.
17 Indian Army soldiers were killed on Sunday in an encounter with terrorists, who were all gunned down, at the Army Brigade headquarters in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir.

In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement added.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will visit the Valley to take stock of the situation.

After postponing his forthcoming visits to the United States and Russia in the wake of the encounter in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the situation in the Valley.

Later in the day, a high level security meet is to take place at Rajnath's residence at 12:15pm, in which senior MHA and MoD officials are set to attend.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA . Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," Rajnath said in a series of tweets.

Around four terrorists attacked the Army Brigade's headquarters in Uri to which the security forces gave a fitting reply.

The entire town has been sealed and security on the vital roads connecting Line of Control (LOC) has been beefed up.

The Army sent three choppers from army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla to Uri.

Reportedly six soldiers have been injured out of which three have been airlifted to the nearest hospital.

Para Commando troops were airdropped into the conflict zone to fortify the response by the defence.

Intense firing and explosions were heard in the area and the encounter site is nearly 90 kilometres north of Srinagar.
The government is considering giving a one-year extension to State Bank of India chief amid the lenders consolidation with its associate .

There is a need for continuity at a time when the process of consolidation is going on, sources said.

In this regard, the government is looking at the proposal of granting extension to the current chairperson, whose three-year term comes to an end this month, sources added.

The government has also received views of the Board Bureau on the extension issue and an order in this regard is expected in the next few days, according to sources.

Earlier this year, the Cabinet gave its nod for the merger of State Bank of India (SBI) and its associate lenders and Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) that would make the state-owned lender a global-sized bank.

SBI has five associate lenders  State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Hyderabad.

Among the associate banks, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Travancore are listed.

The merged entity will become a banking behemoth, which could compete with the largest in the world, with an asset base of Rs 37 lakh crore or $555 billion, 22,500 branches and 58,000 ATMs. It will have over 50 crore customers.

SBI had said that all its associate and BMB will be merged into it that will add an additional Rs 8 lakh crore to its assets.

Presently, SBI has close to 16,500 branches, including 191 foreign offices across 36 countries.

SBI first merged State Bank of Saurashtra with itself in 2008. Two years later, State Bank of Indore was merged with it.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is soon set to bring out final operational guidelines for payments banks, more than a year after the regulator granted in-principle approval to 11 players for setting up such .
Gilts on Sunday said its shareholders have approved a special resolution to enable the board to raise up to Rs 7,000 crore against earlier borrowing limit of Rs 5,000 crore.

The proposal was approved by the shareholders through voting in favour of it in the annual general meeting of the company held on Saturday, the company, which is an arm Punjab National Bank, stated in a BSE filing.

According to statement the it is proposed that the borrowing powers of the Board be raised to Rs 7,000 crore in excess of the aggregate of paid-up share capital and free reserves of the company, apart from temporary loans obtained in ordinary course of business.

Earlier on September 12, 2013, shareholder of the Company at their 18th Annual General Meeting passed the special resolution enabling the Board of Directors to borrow money up to Rs 5,000 crore in excess of the aggregate of paidup share capital and free reserves of the Company, apart from temporary loans obtained in ordinary course of business.

Thus the borrowing limit was not changed since then.

In 1996 Reserve Bank had introduced the system of Primary Dealers with a view to strengthen the institutional infrastructure of government securities market.

Six entities were granted licenses of which Gilts was one. The company was established as a wholly owned subsidiary of Punjab National Bank with an initial paid up capital of Rs 50 crore.

The net-worth of the company has increased from Rs 50 crore to Rs 731.22 crore. It is the only listed primary dealer in India and the public share holding in company is 25.93 per cent, according to the information provided on its website.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is facing fresh rebellion from within her own party as a group of anti-European Union lawmakers join business people to launch a new 'Leave Means Leave' group to push for "hard Brexit".

The new group aims for a so-called "hard Brexit" to get the UK out of the EU's single market after the country voted to leave the European Union in a historic referendum in June.

The Eurosceptic Tory lawmakers want an end to the influence of Brussels on British laws and scrapping "free movement" migration across Europe, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The group, to be launched today, is being led by businessman Richard Tice, one of the leading figures behind the 'Leave EU' campaign in the referendum, with the backing of other business figures, lawmakers and economists.

In the group's launch report, it argues that Britain must pull out of the EU's single market, even if no alternative trade deal has been struck with Brussels.

"Let's be clear: No deal is better than a bad deal," Tice said.

He told the newspaper: "The British people made it clear that they wanted to leave the EU. There should be no compromise on this. The sooner we leave the more certainty and confidence for everyone."

The new group, which has the support of at least six Conservative lawmakers so far, will add to the impression that concerns are growing among May's colleagues over whether she will deliver full or some kind of compromise.

May has said she will wait until next year before triggering Article 50 of the European treaties, which would launch the formal two-year process for negotiating the terms of .

The group believes she should aim to complete the talks sooner. This would set Britain free to sign trade deals with countries outside Europe and would be a signal to the EU that the UK is serious.

The group warned that single market is "the world's least successful economic zone", which ties businesses up in regulations regardless of whether they trade with other European countries.

It argued that remaining in the single market would be a mistake after leaving the EU because this would mean the UK would still be bound to accept unlimited numbers of migrants, while British firms would all have to abide by Brussels law.

The group's supporters include the Tory MPs Peter Bone, Adam Holloway and Peter Lilley; UK economists Ruth Lea and Ewen Stewart; and business figures Richard Smith and Patrick Barbour.

The Labour donor and businessman John Mills is also a supporter, with the Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman.

A No 10 Downing Street spokesperson said: "The Prime Minister has been clear that she is going to get the best deal for Britain and deliver on the clear verdict of the British public."
yep. But my Wife can stop a man with a knife with a 45 round,



You might be able to stop a man with a knife with your nothing. You are a one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children..



you see this is why people need the same rights as our politicians, to defend themselves when they cannot outrun an attacker.



if you had taken the TN Firearms Training for CCL



you would learn



First you flee, if you cannot flee then you hide.



if you cannot flee or hide you then fight..
Irans President said Tehran supports any move to stabilise the global oil market and lift prices, the Iranian oil ministry news agency SHANA quoted him as saying on Sunday.

Instability and falling oil prices are harmful to all countries, especially oil producers, Rouhani was quoted as saying by SHANA.

THE ISSUE Iran has been boosting its oil output after the lifting of Western sanctions in January

Tehran refused to join a previous attempt this year by Opec and non-members such as Russia to stabilise production, and talks collapsed in April

Opec will probably revive talks on freezing oil production levels when it meets non-Opec nations in Algeria

Tehran welcomes any move aimed at market stability and improvement of oil prices based on justice, fairness and fair quota of all the oil producers, the president said, referring to a meeting between Opec and non-Opec producers in Algeria next week, SHANA said.

Rouhani was speaking to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Venezuela on Saturday, SHANA reported.

Iran, Opecs third-largest producer, has been boosting its oil output after the lifting of Western sanctions in January.

Tehran refused to join a previous attempt this year by Opec and non-members such as Russia to stabilise production, and talks collapsed in April.

Opec members will meet on the sidelines of the Energy Forum (IEF), which groups producers and consumers, in Algeria on September 26-28. Non-Opec producer Russia is also attending the forum.

Opec will probably revive talks on freezing oil production levels when it meets non-Opec nations in Algeria, sources have told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed this month to cooperate in oil markets, saying they could limit future output.

However, on Saturday, Opec Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo appeared to play down suggestions of a major agreement by saying the Algiers meeting would be an informal meeting for consultations and not for decision making, Algerian state news agency APS reported.
A local court has ordered the confiscation of properties owned by former Pakistan president General (Retd) over his continued failure to attend the trial proceedings in the murder case of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Pervaizul Qadir Memon during the hearing yesterday also dismissed Musharraf's applications seeking quashment of the FIR in the murder case and permanent exemption from personal appearance and immunity under Article 248 of the Constitution, reports the Dawn.

Article 248 reads: "The president, governor, prime minister, federal minister, minister of state, chief minister and provincial minister shall not be answerable to any court for the exercise of powers and performance of the functions of their respective offices."

While dismissing the applications, the court observed that the applications had become infructuous after the abscondence of the former military ruler.

The court also confiscated the bonds submitted when Musharraf was granted bail in the case earlier in November 2013.

The judge adjourned further proceedings in the case till his arrest.

The former president had fled abroad soon after his name was removed from the Exit Control List in March this year.

Earlier on May 21, the same court declared Musharraf a proclaimed offender in the murder case. On May 11, the special court seized with a high treason case also declared him a proclaimed offender for his continuous absence during the trial.
on Friday called for disarming the bodyguards who protect his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, and mused about the consequences of such a move by saying "Let's see what happens to her."



The Republican presidential nominee was speaking at a rally in Miami, where he contrasted his supporters, who he said back police and want crime reduced, to Clinton, who he derided as someone who "lives behind walls and raises money from hedge funds."



"I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm. I think they should disarm immediately, what do you think, yes?," he said.
Starting next month, the periodic statements provided to mutual fund investors will have to disclose commission paid to distributors or financial planners. Fund houses are lobbying with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to dilute this requirement. They fear it would spark an insurance-industry-like practice where investors ask for kickbacks from agents. Sources say Sebi will soon take a call on this issue

Chandan Kishore Kant

Recently, Rana Kapoor, managing director and chief executive officer of YES Bank, said its $1-billion qualified institutional placement (QIP) failed to sail through due to the Securities and Exchange Board of India's norms. His comment seems to have not gone down well with the market regulator. According to sources, Sebi called YES Bank's investment bankers, Goldman Sachs and Motilal Oswal to understand the issue. Kapoor in an interview to a TV channel had said Sebi's two-day notice requirement acted as a hurdle.

Samie Modak

Online brokerages such as ICICI Direct and HDFC Securities are trying to cash in on the initial public offering (IPO) boom. Besides trying to attract new investors, they are also trying to get the existing investors in the IPO investing fold, citing superior returns in some of the recent IPOs such as RBL Bank and Quess Corporation. After Sebi has made the so-called Applications Supported by Blocked Amount facility compulsory for IPO investing, online brokerages have gained over the mom and pop rivals, say industry players.

Samie Modak
Hinting at Jaish-e-Mohammad's role behind the Uri terror attack, Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh on Sunday asserted that the evil designs would get a befitting reply.

"The killed terrorists were all foreign terrorists and as per the initial reports, they belong to Jaish-e-Mohammad. Along with the terrorists, we recovered four AK-47 rifles, four under barrel grenade launchers, a large number of grenades and other war-like stores," Lt. Gen. Singh said.

Divulging details of the terror attack, he said, "A group of heavily armed terrorists opened fire on an administrative base of one of the units of the Indian Army located at Uri in Kashmir at 5:30 early this morning. The firefight between the terrorists and Indian Army continued till approximately 8:30 in the morning. During this firefight, all four terrorists have been killed by the Indian Army."

Lt. Gen. Singh said the terrorists opened fire with incendiary ammunition along with the automatic fire of small arms which led to the tents and some temporary shelters located inside the army camp catching fire.

"There were additional troops located in the administrative base at Uri which was because of the routine turnover of units as a part of the normal relief programme. There have been a total of 17 army fatal casualties. However of these 13 to 14 casualties have been primarily because of the tents and the temporary shelters having caught fire," he added.

Lt. Gen. Singh said the operation for the clearance of the entire complex is still in progress, adding the Indian Army is carrying out a very deliberate and a methodical search of the entire area in and around the military complex at Uri.

"As such complete details of the operation are not yet available. However, suffice to mention that in the time so far the Indian Army has conducted this operation in an extremely professional and deliberate manner wherein the troops have acted displaying exceptional courage and gallantry in neutralizing the terrorists," he added.

Lt. Gen. Singh said the items recovered from the slain terrorists had Pakistani markings, adding he has conveyed India's serious concerns about the same with Pakistan Director General of Military operation General Raheel Sharif.

"I would also like to mention that the intelligence agencies and security forces are working in close synergy with each other and regular intelligent inputs are received from intelligence organisations and agencies and necessary action is being taken accordingly," he added.

Lt. Gen. Singh said Chief of Army Staff Dalbir Singh has visited the site of the operation to take an on the ground assessment and he was briefed by all unit and formation commanders there.

"The Defence Minister has also just landed at Srinagar and is being briefed by the chief of army staff on the ground situation. We salute the supreme sacrifice made by the brave soldiers of Indian Army in the highest traditions of the organisation. I would like to assure you that the Indian Army remains prepared to thwart any nefarious designs of the adversary. Any evil design of the adversary shall be given a befitting response by us," he added.

At least 17 soldiers were martyred and 19 others injured post the terror strike on an army camp close to the headquarters of the 12th Brigade at Uri in Baramulla district.

All four terrorists have been killed in what has emerged as worse than the attack on the Pathankot air base earlier in January this year, in which seven army men were killed.

In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Baloch Republican Students Organization (BRSO) activists held a protest here with an objective to highlight state atrocities on Baloch civilians across .

The protestors were seen raising 'Baloch wants freedom', 'Pakistan Murdabad', 'Thankyou Modi' and 'We want freedom' slogans.

BRSO spokesperson told ANI, "Post (Indian) Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks on genocide in Balochistan, Pakistan has stepped up its operation there. In the last 10 days they have killed around 90 people, but no one is raising voice against it or reporting it. They are forcibly shutting down our book shops where people go to read our literature and are raiding houses and kidnapping the family members of our activists."

He said that for now neither the Pakistani media nor the international human rights organisations are taking up these violations seriously.

"The aim of this protest is to highlight the atrocities and call upon international attention to pressurize Pakistan to respect international human rights laws," he added.

The spokesperson further said that the United States providing military aid and support to Pakistan is further strengthening Islamabad's confidence.

"Even after so many of our people have died, the United States is providing strategic and military support to Pakistan, which it uses for conducting genocide against its own people," he said.

"We request Prime Minister Modi to form a committee that could represent the issue of in the United Nations and want to thank him and the Indian media for highlighting the issue," said BRSO spokesperson.

.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised that the people behind the Uri attack, in which 17 soldiers were killed, will not be spared as days of so-called "strategic restraint" are over.

BJP leader Ram Madhav told ANI that terrorism is the instrument of the weak and coward and India should prove otherwise because those who restraint it, face repeated terror attacks.

"The Prime Minister has promised that those behind the Uri terror attack will not go unpunished. That should be the way forward. For one tooth, the complete jaw," Madhav said.

"Days of so-called strategic restraint are over. If terrorism is the instrument of the weak and coward, restraint in the face of repeated terror attacks betrays inefficiency and incompetence," he added.

At least 17 soldiers were killed in the gun battle at the base, which is around 100 km from state capital Srinagar.

Combing operations are currently underway to ensure no untoward element still persists in the Army perimeters.

Meanwhile, Army Chief General Dalbir Singh has reached Srinagar where he will meet the injured soldiers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid the ongoing protests in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the cauvery water dispute, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to end the deadlock.

"The PM should interfere in this matter on suo motu basis because Karnataka's CM has written letter that when there is a dispute between two states then there has to be a mediator to solve it. So, the PM can be the mediator," Kharge told ANI.

"If the judgment is impractical and it is difficult to implement then to solve this deadlock the PM should intervene," he added.

The Congress leader further said the Prime Minister should hold meetings with the representatives of both states and find the solution on the basis of ground reality.

Kharge, however, played safe on the Supreme Court's order in this regard and said that one cannot criticize the same.

"But just to obey the order of the apex court, the Karnataka High Court had to release the water. But the biggest problem is that there is no water for drinking purpose. Unfortunately, the decision came like this and we have to implement," Kharge said, adding had the judgement been made on the basis of inspection by the supervisory committee then it would have definitely benefitted Karnataka.

The Supreme Court had earlier on September 5 asked the Karnataka Government to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu on a daily basis for the following 10 days.

However, protests intensified in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu post the apex court's order.

The Karnataka Government later on September 17 filed a plea asking the Supreme Court to modify the order.

In response, the apex court pulled up both states, asking the people "to behave", and turned down the plea.

The apex court later on September 12 reduced the quantity of water to be released from 15,000 cusecs to 12,000 cusecs till September 20.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actress Esha Gupta, who recently walked the ramp at the India Runway Week, season seven Winter/Festive edition, spoke about the progress of her upcoming flick Vidyut Jamwal starrer flick 'Commando 2' and informed that the shoot is almost done.

"We are on our last league of our schedule. Tomorrow onwards, I will again start shooting for it and it has turned out really well. It is going really well and will be releasing on January 6," she told ANI.

With this, the 30-year-old actress added that she has "Baadshaho in the pipeline."

The actress, who turned showstopper for debut designer Yoshita Yadav's pre-bridal lehnga collection, even spoke about the responses she got for playing Priti Makhija in Akshay Kumar's recently released film 'Rustom.'

"I got a lot of positive responses for 'Rustom' but I think it is the look people are appreciating more," she said.

Further during the interview, while discussing about a recent much discussed-topic 'body shaming,' Esha said, "I think staying healthy is more important than being thin. All you need to do is be comfortable. If you are comfortable, you will look confident, if you are not then do something about it. But don't let others tell you what's right or wrong."

Yoshita showcased her collection on the second day of the fashion-event, inspired by the royalty of Lucknow, which remains the fashion capital of Northern India.

While talking about the collection, the young designer said in a statement, "In this season's collection, we at Yoshita Couture have used 100 per cent. Indian woven Raw Silks, woven in Varanasi and Bengaluru, depending on colour specifications In this collection, one can see a vivid representation of motifs taken from most famous Mughal monuments of Bara Imambara, ChhotaImambara, and the Rumi Darwaza."

The second day started with the designs of the students from Appejay Design Institute.

The other designers, who graced the ramp on the day two were Disha Doshi Gandhi, Payal and Zinal, Stuti Shah, Shruti and Rohan, Manika Sureka, Mithi Kalra, Ravneet Toor, Foram Rambhia, Ashfaque Ahmed, Yasmeen Mehra, Radhika Jindal, Shalini.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
English reality television judge and entrepreneur, Simon Cowell, recently signed 25 million pound deal with ITV to keep American reality shows, 'X Factor' and 'Britain's Got Talent' on the channel until 2019.

Cowell has signed a three-year contract extension with Independent Television (ITV) for which the two hit shows will remain on the channel until at least 2019, reports the Daily Mail.

In a statement, the 56-year-old music mogul thanked ITV for continuing to be "fantastic partners."

"I'm delighted for the shows and, in particular, for all the talented people who work on them with us," he said.

ITV's Director of Television, Kevin Lygo, expressed his praise and appreciation for the channel's "defining shows" saying, "Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor are both big, brilliant, wonderful shows and I am delighted that they will continue to take up their place as an important part of our schedule for the next three years.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Against deployment of US ground troops overseas



Reportedly, the US department of defense improperly and unwisely suggested deployment of US ground troops in a number of foreign states, the strategy that if adopted will lead to US engagement in many foreign wars, loss of trillions of US dollars and millions of US lives, defeat and disorderly withdrawal of the US armed forces to the territory of the United States of America, bankruptcy of the United States of America and adoption of the constitutional amendments to the US constitution, prohibiting deployment of US armed forces outside the territory of the United States of America in times of peace and establishing that the US constitution and US laws apply exclusively in the territory of the United States of America.



In Afghanistan, a brave American general falsely claims that he needs 5,000 more US troops to defeat Taleban freedom fighters. In fact, presently there are hundreds of thousands of Taleban freedom fighters in Afghanistan, supported by 5/6 of the Afghan population, who do not desire the presence of US and NATO armed forces in Afghanistan. In the territory of Afghanistan no weapon formed against Taleban will prosper, and every tongue that raises in judgment against Taleban, Taleban will condemn, for Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit has loved Taleban with everlasting and unchangeable love: all Taleban freedom fighters are blessed by the Holy Name of Lord God Jehovah and Lord Jesus Christ with all blessings of Leviticus 26:3-13, all Afghan and foreign enemies of Taleban are accursed unto destruction by the Holy Name of Lord God Jehovah and Lord Jesus Christ with all curses of Leviticus 26:14-39, and will be overcome, killed and robbed whoever they are. In the territory of Afghanistan Taleban freedom fighters will overcome, defeat, kill and rob all of Afghan and foreign enemies of Taleban freedom fighters whoever they are. Taleban freedom fighters will fight to Victory or death, to the last man, woman and child, leaving the enemy scorched earth instead of plunder, and will overcome, defeat and kill all US and NATO armed forces in the territory of Afghanistan, drowning them in the rivers of US and NATO blood, for Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit will fight in the territory of Afghanistan for Taleban and against all Afghani and foreign enemies of Taleban whoever they are, so that Taleban freedom fighters may live in peace in their own Afghan land, under their tradition of islamic faith and sharia law, autonomy, self-government, the rights and authority of Afghani provinces, districts and tribes, customs and traditions of Pashtun Afghani tribes, natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights and traditional rights of Afghani citizens and residents.



There is a reasonable settlement in Afghanistan: re-establishment of the legitimate government of Afghanistan, the islamic emirate of Afghanistan, in which Taleban freedom fighters and Pashtun tribes to which they belong will serve as defenders of all Afghani tribes, while non-Pashtun Afghani tribes will be allowed to reside under their tradition of islamic faith and sharia law, autonomy, self-government, the rights and authority of Afghani provinces, districts and tribes, customs and traditions of non-Pashtun Afghani tribes, natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights and traditional rights of Afghani citizens and residents in non-Pashtun Afghani provinces. The everlasting and unchangeable condition for this reasonable settlement in Afghanistan, as well as for any ceasefire talks or any peace talks in Afghanistan, established by Taleban, is complete withdrawal of all US and NATO armed forces from the territory of Afghanistan. Therefore, if the United States of America desires peace in Afghanistan, the United States of America will swiftly and unconditionally withdraw all US and NATO armed forces from the territory of Afghanistan, and if the United States of America desires war in Afghanistan, all US and NATO armed forces will be overcome, defeated, killed to the last man and woman, and expelled from the territory of Afghanistan, drowned in the rivers of US and NATO blood by victorious Taleban freedom fighters



Reportedly, US and NATO soldiers and officers raped, tortured and killed tens of thousands of Afghani civilians, some of whom for sports. The same will be done unto US and NATO men, women and children, according to the everlasting and unchangeable principle, in force as long as the earth exists: thou shalt give earthly life for earthly life, burning for burning, stripe for stripe, hand for hand, foot for foot, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, wound for wound (Exodus 21:23-25).



It is important for US soldiers and officers not to deploy to Afghanistan, in order not to come back in body bags.



In Iraq, reportedly thousands of US ground forces are improperly and unwisely deployed to fight against the islamic state of Iraq and Syria. Presently, there are millions of Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians, Babylonians and Chaldeans of the islamic state of Itaq and Syria, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Syrians and islamic volunteers, supported by large majority of Iraqis still faithful to the baath party of Iraq, and tens of millions of Arabs and muslims in Arab and islamic states, nations and peoples of the world. As the result of improper and unwise US bombings in Iraq and deployment of US ground forces in Iraq, convergence between forces of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria and the baath party of Iraq took place, and the holy urban and rural war of national liberation of Iraq is waged by the Iraqi people against US and NATO forces and Iraqi democratic collaborators.



Historically established international law is clear: Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria have blood-based settlement rights, being a part of the indigenous Assyrian people of Iraq and Syria, that traditionally resides in the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq and Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqah provinces of Syria. In fact, most of the warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, Assyria, are Assyrians and descendants of Assyrians forced to leave their land in the past and presently returning to reside in the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq and Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqah provinces of Syria under protection of God, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, following the Assyrian tradition of islamic faith and sharia law, customs and traditions of Assyrians and Babylonians, natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights and traditional rights of citizens and residents of Iraq and Syria. Therefore, international law prohibits expulsion and eradication of Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, a part of the indigenous Assyrian people of Iraq and Syria, that traditionally resides in the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq and Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqah provinces of Syria.



In his infinite wisdom Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit established the glorious future for Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, making Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria invincible in the territory of the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq and Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqah Assyrian provinces of Syria.



Of Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit said:



Joel 2:1-10

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain of Sinai: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand;

A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong, the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.

A fire devoureth before the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria; and behind the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria.

The appearance of the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria run.

Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.

Before the face of the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.

The Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall run like mighty men; the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall climb the wall like men of war; and the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall march every one on his ways, and the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall not break their ranks:

Neither shall one thrust another; the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall walk every one in his path: and when the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria fall upon the sword, the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall not be wounded.

The Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall run to and fro in the city; the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall run upon the wall, the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall climb up upon the houses; the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall enter in at the windows like a thief.

The earth shall quake before the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining



Jeremiah 37:7-10

Behold, the army of any and all states and all nations of earth, which is come forth to help Iraqis, shall return into their own land.

And the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall come again, and fight against the city of Baghdad, and take the city of Baghdad, and burn the city of Baghdad with fire.

Thus saith the Lord; Deceive not yourselves, saying, the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart.

For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city of Baghdad with fire.









Revelation 14:8

And there followed another angel saying Babylon [Baghdad] is fallen is fallen that great city of Baghdad because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication



Revelation 16:19

And the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nations fell and great Babylon [Baghdad] came in remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness [furiousness] of his wrath



The Word of God is clear: the islamic state of Iraq and Syria will not be defeated and will not be degraded in Iraq and Syria, but will go from strength to greater strength in Iraq and Syria, eventually taking the city of Baghdad (Babylon) and burning it with fire in one hour (Revelation 17-18 ) in awful punishment of God for heinous historical war crimes of Babylonians and Chaldeans against the state of Israel and the city of Jerusalem described in Jeremiah 50-51 and in awful punishment of God for heinous war crimes of US and NATO aggressors and Iraqi democratic collaborators against Iraqi muslims, initiating partition of Iraq into the free, sovereign and independent state of Kurdistan consisting of the autonomous region of Kurdistan and the province of Kirkuk of Iraq, the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq that will reunify with their Assyrian and Syrian brothers in the free Syrian state, the Syrian Arab federative islamic republic (SAFIR) after the fall of the bloody and blasphemous assad regime, and the rest of Iraqi territory (without the autonomous region of Kurdistan, the province of Kirkuk of Iraq, the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq), that will reunify with the islamic republic of Iran, thereby fulfilling the eternal and unchangeable decree of Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, finishing the history of Iraq and the city of Baghdad - mene, mene, tekel, upharsin (Daniel 5:25-28, Jeremiah 50-51, Revelation 14:8, 16:17-21, 17-18 ). And in vain do US and NATO armed forces fight against the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, for Creator God, God, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit will never change, as it is written:







Numbers 23:19

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?



Daniel 4:35

And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and God doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?



All Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria are blessed by the Holy Name of Lord God Jehovah and Lord Jesus Christ with all blessings of Leviticus 26:3-13, all Iraqi, Syrian and foreign enemies of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria are accursed unto destruction by the Holy Name of Lord God Jehovah and Lord Jesus Christ with all curses of Leviticus 26:14-39, and will be overcome, killed and robbed whoever they are. Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria in the territory of Iraq and Syria will overcome, defeat, kill and rob all of Iraqi, Syrian and foreign enemies of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria whoever they are. Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria will fight to Victory or death, to the last man, woman and child, leaving the enemy scorched earth instead of plunder, and will overcome, defeat and kill all US and NATO armed forces in the territory of Iraq and Syria, drowning them in the rivers of US and NATO blood, for Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit will fight in the territory of Iraq and Syria for the islamic state of Iraq and Syria and against all Iraqi, Syrian and foreign enemies of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria whoever they are, so that Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria may live in peace in their own Syrian and Iraqi land, under the Assyrian tradition of islamic faith and sharia law, customs and traditions of Assyrians and Babylonians, natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights and traditional rights of citizens and residents of Iraq and Syria.



After the terrorist attack in the United States of America in 2001 an emotional decision was made by boastful lying US and NATO generals to wage an aggressive war against Iraq and Afghanistan, the decision that was proven by subsequent events to be wrong. Against this decision a few reasonable men, including my humble person, spoke out at that time, only to be ignored by boastful lying US and NATO generals deceiving the American people with their false promises of victory in Iraq and Afghanistan and causing the American people thousands of lost precious lives of American soldiers and officers and trillions in wasted US federal government expenditures: in fact the civil war in Iraq and the civil war in Afghanistan is continuing to this day.



Therefore, if the United States of America does not desire to lose in vain the lives of US and NATO soldiers and officers and US federal government expenditure, the United States of America will swiftly and unconditionally withdraw all US and NATO ground forces from the territory of Iraq, and if the United States of America desires war in Iraq, all US and NATO armed forces will be overcome, defeated, killed to the last man and woman and expelled from the territory of Iraq, drowned in the rivers of US and NATO blood, by victorious Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, and victorious forces of the baath party of Iraq.



Reportedly, US and NATO soldiers and officers raped, tortured and killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, some of whom for sports. The same will be done unto US and NATO men, women and children, according to the everlasting and unchangeable principle, in force as long as the earth exists: thou shalt give earthly life for earthly life, burning for burning, stripe for stripe, hand for hand, foot for foot, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, wound for wound (Exodus 21:23-25).



It is important for US soldiers and officers not to deploy to Iraq in order not to come back in body bags.



In Syria, reportedly hundreds of US ground forces are unlawfully and groundlessly deployed to fight against the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, in violation of the sacred and inalienable national sovereignty of Syria.



After the terrorist attack in the United States of America in 2001 an emotional decision war made by boastful lying US and NATO generals to wage aggressive was made against Iraq and Afghanistan, the decision that was proven by subsequent events to be wrong. Against this decision a few reasonable men, including my humble person, spoke out at that time, only to be ignored by boastful lying US and NATO generals deceiving the American people with their false promises of victory in Iraq and Afghanistan and causing the American people thousands of lost precious lives of American soldiers and officers and trillions in wasted US federal government expenditures: in fact the civil war in Iraq and the civil war in Afghanistan are continuing to this day. In fact, the fall of the bloody baathist regime of saddam hussein in Iraq made the Syrian civil war and the fall of the bloody and blasphemous bashar assad regime in Syria inevitable.



Presently, there are millions of Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians, Babylonians and Chaldeans of the islamic state of Itaq and Syria, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Syrians and islamic volunteers, supported by the majority of Syrian freedom fighters and tens of millions of Arabs and muslims in Arab and islamic states, nations and peoples of the world. As a result of unlawful and groundless US bombings in Syria and deployment of US ground forces in Syria convergence between Syrian freedom fighters and Assyrians, descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria took place, and the holy urban and rural war of national liberation of Syria is waged by the Syrian people against US and NATO invaders, Russian, Iranian and Turkish invaders, and assadites, in which Syrian freedom fighters will overcome, defeat and kill to the last man and woman US and NATO invaders, Russian, Iranian and Turkish invaders, drowning US and NATO invaders, Russian, Iranian and Turkish invaders in the rivers of US, NATO, Russian, Iranian and Turkish blood and expelling US and NATO invaders, Russian, Iranian and Turkish invaders from the territory of Syria.



It is lawful, feasible and reasonable for the United States of America to supply personal weapons and appropriate munitions to all brigades of Syrian freedom fighters, to provide military training to all brigades of Syrian freedom fighters and not to interfere with islamic volunteers who travel to Syria to join all brigades of Syrian freedom fighters. It is feasible and reasonable for Turkey, jointly with Syrian freedom fighters, to establish a no-flight zone in the Syrian province of Aleppo, wherein Syrian refugees can return and settle in refugee camps guarded by Syrian freedom fighters. In contrast, deployment of US and NATO ground troops to Syria will turn the whole Syrian people against US and NATO: all US and NATO armed forces will be overcome, defeated and killed to the last man and woman by victorious Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians, islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, by victorious islamic warriors of Jabhat Fatah Al Sham and islamic warriors of Ahrar Al Sham, by victorious Syrian freedom fighters, for Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit will fight in the territory of Syria for the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, for Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, for Syrian freedom fighters, and against US and NATO, against all Syrian and foreign enemies of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, Syrian freedom fighters, whoever they are, so that Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria and Jabhat Fatah Al Sham may live in peace in their own Syrian land, under the Assyrian tradition of islamic faith and sharia law, customs and traditions of Assyrians and Syrians, natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights and traditional rights of citizens and residents of Syria.



Some still advocate, improperly and unwisely, foreign military intervention and international military intervention in Syria. Indeed, there was time in 2012 when humanitarian international military intervention in Syria by 50,000 Egyptian peacekeepers and 50.000 Turkish peacekeepers, authorized by UN and the League of Arab states, advocated by reasonable men and women, including my humble person, would have removed the bloody and blasphemous assad regime from power in Syria, would have destroyed Syrian chemical weapons of mass destruction, would have saved hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilian lives and would have allowed millions of Syrians not to become refugees, yet the Egyptian army refused to undertake humanitarian international military intervention in Syria and the decision of the Egyptian army shall be respected. Furthermore, foreign military intervention and international military intervention in Syria is prohibited under the agreement with Syria with regard to destruction of chemical weapons of mass destruction.



Others improperly and unwisely disapprove of arming and training brigades of Syrian freedom fighters. The unchangeable principle of international law commands to provide personal weapons to the people against which genocide is committed if such a people desires to take up personal weapons to defend life, freedom from enslavement, dignity from rape and physical assault, movable property, land up to 100 hectares per citizen of the state/family and kin of the citizens of the state and real estate situated upon such land: there are no exceptions whatsoever from this unchangeable principle of international law, confirmed inter alias in the laws of Persians and the Iranians and Persian and Iranian kings, which are unchangeable and in force as long as the Persian and Iranian peoples and the earth exists, and all nations of the world, great and small, including superpowers, and all international organizations, including the UN, must comply with this unchangeable principle of international law.



The selfsame unchangeable principle of international law compels any state, neighboring a state that committed genocide, that is, within last seven years murdered more than 10,000 (wo)men who did not commit the abominable deeds of sexual perversions (homosexuality, lesbianism, bestiality, incest, ********** (sexual relations with girls below 12 years of age)), abominations (child murders (abortions), change of gender, cannibalism, human cloning), intentional murder, enslavement of men/women or selling of men/women to slavery, is forcefully abolished, and a new state established, respectful of the commandments of God and Lord Jesus Christ, customs and traditions of the state-forming people, and natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights, traditional rights of the citizens and residents of the state (Exodus 17:14,16, I Samuel 15:3), to let pass through its territory volunteers armed with personal weapons: military knives, handguns, semi-automatic and automatic rifles, machine guns, grenades, portable grenade launchers, portable missile launchers, portable anti-aircraft missiles, portable anti-tank missiles, portable naval missiles and appropriate munitions, or unarmed, joining the lawful holy war on behalf of the people against which genocide or an aggressive war is committed. The state that refuses under any pretext whatsoever, including concerns of national sovereignty or national security, any international law and any law of mankind, to let pass through its territory volunteers armed with personal weapons: military knives, handguns, semi-automatic and automatic rifles, machine guns, grenades, portable grenade launchers, portable missile launchers, portable anti-aircraft missiles, portable anti-tank missiles, portable naval missiles and appropriate munitions, or unarmed, joining the lawful holy war on behalf of the people against which genocide or an aggressive war is committed, becomes co-responsible for genocide and an aggressive war committed against another people, thereby bringing destruction and desolation upon the state and the state-forming people that refuses under any pretext whatsoever, including concerns of national sovereignty or national security, to let pass through its territory volunteers armed with personal weapons: military knives, handguns, semi-automatic and automatic rifles, machine guns, grenades, portable grenade launchers, portable missile launchers, portable anti-aircraft missiles, portable anti-tank missiles, portable naval missiles and appropriate munitions, or unarmed, joining the lawful holy war on behalf of the people against which genocide or an aggressive war is committed.



Therefore, those who improperly and unwisely disapprove of arming and training brigades of Syrian freedom fighters must respect the above-mentioned unchangeable principle of international law, whether they like it or whether they dislike it, against their will, and shall address their complaints about words and deeds of any and all brigades of Syrian freedom fighters to the bloody and blasphemous assad regime that forced Alawites to worship bashar assad as a god and instead of God, that committed genocide against the Syrian people, murdering in cold blood tens of thousands of Syrian civilian men, women and children, used chemical weapons of mass destruction repeatedly against Syrian civilian men, women and children, and for more than one year after the beginning of the Syrian civil war refused the repeated proposals of Syrian freedom fighters and Syrian opposition for negotiated settlement.



Historically established international laws is clear: Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria have blood-based settlement rights, being a part of the indigenous Assyrian people of Iraq and Syria, that traditionally resides in the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq and Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqah provinces of Syria. In fact, most of the warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, Assyria, are Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians forced to leave their land in the past and presently returning to reside in the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq and Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqah provinces of Syria under protection of God, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, following the Assyrian tradition of islamic faith and sharia law, customs and traditions of Assyrians and Babylonians, natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights and traditional rights of citizens and residents of Iraq and Syria. Therefore, international law prohibits expulsion and eradication of the Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, a part of the indigenous Assyrian people of Iraq and Syria, that traditionally resides in the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq and Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqah provinces of Syria.



Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit in his infinite wisdom established the glorious future for Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, making Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria invincible in the territory of the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq and Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqah Assyrian provinces of Syria.



Of Assyrians and the descendants of Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit said:



Joel 2:1-10

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain of Sinai: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand;

A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong, the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.

A fire devoureth before the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria; and behind the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria.

The appearance of the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria run.

Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.

Before the face of the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.

The Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall run like mighty men; the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall climb the wall like men of war; and the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall march every one on his ways, and the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall not break their ranks:

Neither shall one thrust another; the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall walk every one in his path: and when the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria fall upon the sword, the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall not be wounded.

The Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall run to and fro in the city; the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall run upon the wall, the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall climb up upon the houses; the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall enter in at the windows like a thief.

The earth shall quake before the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining



Jeremiah 37:7-10

Behold, the army of any and all states and all nations of earth, which is come forth to help Iraqis, shall return into their own land.

And the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall come again, and fight against the city of Baghdad, and take the city of Baghdad, and burn the city of Baghdad with fire.

Thus saith the Lord; Deceive not yourselves, saying, the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart.

For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Assyrians and the descendants of the Assyrians of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city of Baghdad with fire.



Revelation 14:8

And there followed another angel saying Babylon [Baghdad] is fallen is fallen that great city of Baghdad because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication



Revelation 16:19

And the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nations fell and great Babylon [Baghdad] came in remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness [furiousness] of his wrath



The Word of God is clear: the islamic state of Iraq and Syria will not be defeated and will not be degraded in Iraq and Syria, but will go from strength to greater strength in Iraq and Syria, eventually taking the city of Baghdad (Babylon) and burning it with fire in one hour (Revelation 17-18 ) in awful punishment of God for heinous historical war crimes of Babylonians and Chaldeans against the state of Israel and the city of Jerusalem described in Jeremiah 50-51 and in awful punishment of God for heinous war crimes of US and NATO aggressors and Iraqi democratic collaborators against Iraqi muslims, initiating partition of Iraq into the free, sovereign and independent state of Kurdistan consisting of the autonomous region of Kurdistan and the province of Kirkuk of Iraq, the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq, which will reunify with their Assyrian and Syrian brothers in the free Syrian state, the Syrian Arab federative islamic republic (SAFIR) after the fall of the bloody and blasphemous assad regime, and the rest of Iraqi territory (without the autonomous region of Kurdistan, the province of Kirkuk of Iraq, the Assyrian provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Dulaim (Al-Anbar) of Iraq), which will reunify with the islamic republic of Iran, thereby fulfilling eternal and unchangeable decree of Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, finishing the history of Iraq and the city of Baghdad - mene, mene, tekel, upharsin (Daniel 5:25-28, Jeremiah 50-51, Revelation 14:8, 16:17-21, 17-18 ). And in vain do US and NATO armed forces fight against the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, for Creator God, God, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit will never change, as it is written:



Numbers 23:19

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?



Daniel 4:35

And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and God doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?



All Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria are blessed by the Holy Name of Lord God Jehovah and Lord Jesus Christ with all blessings of Leviticus 26:3-13, all Iraqi, Syrian and foreign enemies of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria are accursed unto destruction by the Holy Name of Lord God Jehovah and Lord Jesus Christ with all curses of Leviticus 26:14-39, and will be overcome, killed and robbed whoever they are. Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria in the territory of Iraq and Syria will overcome, defeat, kill and rob all of Iraqi, Syrian and foreign enemies of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, whoever they are. Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria will fight to Victory or death, to the last man, woman and child, leaving the enemy scorched earth instead of plunder, and will overcome, defeat and kill all US and NATO armed forces in the territory of Iraq and Syria, drowning them in the rivers of US and NATO blood, for Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit will fight in the territory of Iraq and Syria for the islamic state of Iraq and Syria and against all Iraqi, Syrian and foreign enemies of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria whoever they are, so that Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria may live in peace in their own Syrian and Iraqi land, under the Assyrian tradition of islamic faith and sharia law, customs and traditions of Assyrians and Babylonians, natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights and traditional rights of citizens and residents of Iraq and Syria.



In fact, in the territory of the Syrian province of Idlib no weapon formed against Jabhat Fatah Al Sham will prosper, and every tongue that raises in judgment against Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, Jabhat Fatah Al Sham will condemn, for Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit has loved Jabhat Fatah Al Sham with everlasting and unchangeable love: all islamic warriors of Jabhat Fatah Al Sham are blessed by the Holy Name of Lord God Jehovah and Lord Jesus Christ with all blessings of Leviticus 26:3-13, all Syrian and foreign enemies of Jabhat Fatah Al Sham are accursed unto destruction by the Holy Name of Lord God Jehovah and Lord Jesus Christ with all curses of Leviticus 26:14-39, and will be overcome, killed and robbed whoever they are. Islamic warriors of Jabhat Fatah Al Sham in the territory of the Syrian province of Idlib will overcome, defeat, kill and rob all of Afghan and foreign enemies of islamic warriors of Jabhat Fatah Al Sham whoever they are. Islamic warriors of Jabhat Fatah Al Sham will fight to Victory or death, to the last man, woman and child, leaving the enemy scorched earth instead of plunder, and will overcome, defeat and kill to the last man and woman all US and NATO armed forces in the territory of Syria, drowning them in the rivers of US and NATO blood, for Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit will fight in the territory of Syria for Jabhat Fatah Al Sham and against all Syrian and foreign enemies of Jabhat Fatah Al Sham whoever they are, so that islamic warriors of Jabhat Fatah Al Sham may live in peace in their own Syrian land, under their Syrian tradition of islamic faith and sharia law, customs and traditions of Assyrians and Syrians, natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights and traditional rights of citizens and residents of Syria.



Some have improperly, unwisely and falsely claimed that the islamic state of Iraq and Syria is a greater problem for the United States of America than the bloody and blasphemous assad regime. In fact, the islamic state of Iraq and Syria is one of hundreds of brigades of Syrian freedom fighters that, despite its boastful Assyrian rhetoric, does not pose any threat to the United States of America or western countries outside Syria and Iraq, and since its establishment in 2011 the islamic state of Iraq and Syria has killed no more than two and a half thousand Syrian and Iraqi civilians without objective reason, while the bloody and blasphemous assad regime has killed in cold blood tens of thousands of Syrian civil men, women and children just since 2011. Therefore, it is the genocide of the Syrian people by the bloody and blasphemous assad regime that led to the establishment and strengthening of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, and those who reject the islamic state of Iraq and Syria should support the struggle of all brigades of Syrian freedom fighters against the bloody and blasphemous assad regime, as the free Syrian state will be able to establish true and lasting peace with the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, allowing Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians and islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria to live in peace in their own Assyrian provinces of Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqah, under the Assyrian tradition of islamic faith and sharia law, customs and traditions of Assyrians and Syrians, natural rights, derivative-natural rights, civil rights and traditional rights of citizens and residents of Syria



Creator God, Lord God Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit  burning fire - clearly said: there is no peace to the bloody and blasphemous assad regime that committed the genocide of the Syrian people and the abominable deeds of intentional murder and enslavement of Syrian men and women, as there was no, there is no and there will be no peace to the wicked, to those who committed aggressive war (Exodus 17:14,16, I Samuel 15:3), genocide (Exodus 17:14,16, I Samuel 15:3), abominable deeds of the abominable deeds of sexual perversions (homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13), lesbianism (Leviticus 20:13), bestiality (Leviticus 20:15), incest (Leviticus 20:11-17), ********** (sexual relations with girls below 12 years of age) (Leviticus 20:2-3, Matthew 18:6)), abominations (child murders (abortions) (Leviticus 20:2-3, Exodus 21:22-25), change of gender (Book of Enoch, section XVII, chapter 86; section II, chapter 10), cannibalism (Book of Enoch, section II, chapter 7,10), human cloning (Book of Enoch, section XVII, chapter 86; section II, chapter 10)), intentional murder (Exodus 21:14), enslavement of men/women (Exodus 21:16) and selling men/women to slavery (Exodus 21:16) (Isaiah 48:22). And despite any statements of any and all states, nations and peoples, including all member-states of the UN Security Council, the whole humanity, Creator God, God, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit will never change, as it is written:



Numbers 23:19

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?



Daniel 4:35

And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and God doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?



Thus, no peace and no ceasefire with the bloody and blasphemous assad regime is possible, and all peace negotiations and all ceasefire negotiations with the assad regime will fall: the future of Syria will be settled in the battlefields of the Syrian civil war.



Therefore, if the United States of America does not desire to lose in vain lives of US and NATO soldiers and officers and US federal government expenditure, the United States of America will swiftly and unconditionally withdraw all US and NATO ground forces from the territory of Syria, and if the United States of America desires war in Syria, all US and NATO armed forces will be overcome, defeated, killed to the last man and woman and expelled from the territory of Syria, drowned in the rivers of US and NATO blood, by victorious Assyrians, the descendants of Assyrians, islamic warriors of the islamic state of Iraq and Syria, by victorious islamic warriors of Jabhat Fatah Al Sham and islamic warriors of Ahrar Al Sham, by victorious Syrian freedom fighters.



Reportedly, US and NATO soldiers and officers raped, tortured and killed thousands of Syrian civilians, some of whom for sports. The same will be done unto US and NATO men, women and children, according to the everlasting and unchangeable principle, in force as long as the earth exists: thou shalt give earthly life for earthly life, burning for burning, stripe for stripe, hand for hand, foot for foot, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, wound for wound (Exodus 21:23-25).



It is important for US soldiers and officers not to deploy to Syria, in order not to come back in body bags.
After undergoing one of the ugliest spat in B-town with Hrithik Roshan and facing serious legal battle, Kangana Ranaut apparently targeted the actor yet again, however, this time without taking his name.

As per a Bollywood Life report, the 30-year-old actress in a recent media interaction said, "This incident is very different from the incident I faced in the past. There were no legal proceedings ever initiated against me. There was a lot of media drama, there were a lot of threats and there was a lot slut-shaming."

Adding, "There was no case filed against me. There was no question of fighting a legal battle."

Sharing the pressure that she went through, the 'Gangster' actress said, "There were media trials and there was a lot of pressure. There was a certain feminist pressure on me to fight and tell the world the sob story that I have. But, I didn't have any."

She said, "I was in a consensual equation with an individual and I felt perfectly capable of dealing with the stuff that was coming my way as an adult. I was pressurized to a point where I felt questioning what exactly is feminism."

Adding, "Is it fighting for an individual's acceptance? Or begging for his acknowledgment publicly? Then I'm not a feminist. Is it feminism that we as woman, it's essential for us to save the memories of our love affairs. Whether it is sperm panties or a gift bag that is given to us by a lover for potential evidence for the future when he is trying to escape or say no."

She further asserted, "If that is feminism, then I'm not a feminist. If it is feminism to not allow a prerogative to say no to a man and making it just a prerogative of a woman, then I'm not a feminist. No means no. If anybody, any individual wants nothing to do with me and feels ashamed of me, to get rid of me, the only thing I will say to that individual is goodbye".

The tiff between the duo began when Kangana called the 'Krrish' actor her silly ex. Following the statement, he slapped a legal notice on her and demanded an apology.

Ever since then there has been an array of heated arguments and counter-arguments between them amid a lot of media attention.

On the professional front while Kangana will next be seen in Vishal Bhardwaj directorial 'Rangoon' along with Shahid Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan, the 'Mohenjo Daro' actor has 'Kaabil' and 'Fighter' in his kitty.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Expressing grief over the loss of lives of 17 soldiers in the Uri terror attack, the Dogra Front Jammu workers staged a protest here today during which they raised slogans against Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaaz Sharif and the neighbouring nation for encouraging terror activities in India.

The protesters, who gathered in large numbers to vent their ire against Islamabad, also burnt Pakistani flags during the protest.

"It is clear that 18 people have died. There is sorrow everywhere and (some people) are making fool out of India. There is shutdown everywhere in Kashmir against India," Dogra Front president Ashok Gupta said.

"If the people want to go Pakistan then open the border gates and whoever wants to go let them go there. No Pakistani should be seen in Jammu and Kashmir be it Hurriyat. I want to make it clear that now it's time for Modi ji to show his 56-inch chest," he added.

The Indian Army has gunned down all four terrorists, who had attacked the Army Brigade's headquarters in Uri this morning. At least 17 soldiers have been killed in the gun battle at the base, which is around 100 km from state capital Srinagar.

Combing operations are currently underway to ensure no untoward element still persists in the Army perimeters.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will visit Kashmir today in wake of the attack, while Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will visit Srinagar to take stock of the situation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the attack and assured the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.

"We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.

"Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation," he said in a series of tweets.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has expressed his heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers and said those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice.

"Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," he said in a series of tweets.

The Home Minister also apprised Prime Minister Modi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting held at his official residence this afternoon.

Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials to closely monitor the situation in the valley.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Following the massive gun battle which broke out early on Sunday morning in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress came down heavily on the Centre and the state government for being unable to contain the tense situation in the Valley with over two months past.

Speaking to ANI here, Congress leader Manish Tewari stated that the conditions in Jammu and Kashmir remain sensitive and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the PDP-BJP state government have not been able to make any headway into the unrest there.

"Today it has been more than two months and the situation remains tense. It feels as if PM Modi and the PDP want the situation to remain tense," he said.

Meanwhile the five-hour long gun battle in Uri came to an end as the Army neutralised all four terrorists who attacked the Army base in the wee hours today.

After postponing his forthcoming visits to the United States and Russia in the wake of the encounter in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the situation in the Valley.

Later in the day, a high level security meet is to take place at Rajnath's residence at 12:15pm, in which senior MHA and MoD officials are set to attend.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA . Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," Rajnath said in a series of tweets.

Around four to five terrorists attacked the Army Brigade's headquarters in Uri to which the security forces gave a fitting reply.

The entire town has been sealed and security on the vital roads connecting Line of Control (LOC) has been beefed up.

The Army sent three choppers from army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla to Uri.

Reportedly six soldiers have been injured out of which three have been airlifted to the nearest hospital.

Para Commando troops were airdropped into the conflict zone to fortify the response by the defence.

Intense firing and explosions were heard in the area and the encounter site is nearly 90 kilometres north of Srinagar.
Dubbing the Uri attack as unfortunate, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Sunday said the Centre has to be more offensive in dealing with such terror attacks.

"I condemn it. I think the government of India has to be little more offensive in this regard now. Uri attack shouldn't have happened. The government should see that adequate measures are adopted so that such things do not happen," Parsekar told ANI.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh earlier today chaired a high-level security meeting in Delhi in wake of the terror attack.

After postponing his forthcoming visits to the United States and Russia in the wake of the attack, Rajnath instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the situation in the Valley.

Besides Mehrishi, Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Intelligence Bureau chief Dineshwar Sharma, Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, Defence secretary G. Mohan Kumar, CRPF Director General K. Durga Prasad are among those present in the meeting.

In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

At least 17 soldiers have been killed in the gun battle at the base, which is around 100 km from state capital Srinagar.

Combing operations are currently underway to ensure no untoward element still persists in the Army perimeters.

Meanwhile, Army Chief General Dalbir Singh has reached Srinagar where he will meet the injured soldiers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Majeed Memon on Sunday urged all political parties to stand united against state sponsored terrorism and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make a very strong condemnatory statement exposing Islamabad before the world as to how the neighbouring nation has misused India's liberal and flexible approach.

Memon condemned the Uri attack and questioned the BJP-led NDA regime's future course of action while dealing with the hostile neighbour.

"This would just mean nothing short of external aggression. And I am sure that at this time of grief and test, all political parties and all leaders would stand together side by side along with the Prime Minister and the Home Minister," he said.

"We would give a befitting reply to Pakistan and to the whole world would sure that how our liberal and flexible approach has been misused by our neighbour," he added.

The NCP leader further said it is high time that India must show its strength.

"And we expect that the Prime Minister without the loss of even an hour must come forward and make a very strong condemnatory statement and tell the world that how we have suffered at the hands of our neighbours," he added.

India has blamed Pakistan for the terrorist attack at an army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, that claimed the lives of 17 soldiers.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has expressed his heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers and said those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice.

"Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," he said in a series of tweets.

The Home Minister also spoke to Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and was apprised of the overall situation.

Earlier, he held a high-level meeting in New Delhi and reviewed the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home and Defence Secretaries and top army, paramilitary officials attended the meeting.

Uri has been under the attack for past couple of years as earlier in December 2014, six terrorists attacked the Indian Army camp at Mohura in Uri in which eight soldiers and three police were martyred.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Defence Expert Major General (Retd.) S.R. Sinho on Sunday blamed Pakistan for launching proxy war against India and said Islamabad is irritated because of the Balochistan issue.

Major General (Retd.) Sinho told ANI it is time that India should take an absolutely practical approach.

"This indicates that the proxy war has been launched by the Pakistanis because now they are getting irritated due to the Balochistan issue. Pakistan Prime Minister is facing a corruption attack from his government on Panama leak. So, Pakistan is indulging in these activities. Pakistan is not going to stop these kinds of activities. They have done it earlier also," he added.

Major General (Retd.) Sinho said the government of India has to now react and not prolong this proxy war as far as Pakistan is concerned.

"The security forces can only act on their own limits at this side of the border and they have got no other option except using the maximum force. But the time has come because the Pakistan is sending the terrorists across the border in our territory. The government has to now react and I think we should not prolong this proxy war as far the Pakistanis are concerned," he added.

With 17 Army soldiers being killed in a major encounter with terrorists in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh has blamed Pakistan for the terror attack, saying that this was a massive controversy against India, adding the Centre is looking into Islamabad's role in the matter.

Speaking to ANI in Katra, Singh stated that the current situation of unrest in the Valley is the result of the proxy war in which Pakistan has been indulging since ages.

In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement added.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will visit the Valley to take stock of the situation.

After postponing his forthcoming visits to the United States and Russia in the wake of the encounter in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the situation in the Valley.

A high level security meet is presently underway at Rajnath's residence in which senior MHA and MoD officials are present.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh on Sunday described the Uri attack as 'disturbing' and assured that action would be taken against those involved in the terror act.

"I think simply saying or describing this as an act of cowardice suffices because not responding to it would also be cowardice. I am sure the call would be taken effectively so that it has adherent influence for the times to come. The government is seriously seized of this. We have to vindicate the sacrifices made by our brave Jawans," said Singh.

Talking about the perpetrator of this attack, Singh without naming Pakistan said it is well-known to all as to who is involved in spreading terror in India, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir, adding the time has now come to introspect and devise strategy to deter terror strikes.

"We have known this since long who are behind perpetrating, promoting, sponsoring terrorism on the Indian soil, particularly in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Time has come to call this bluff and to disrobe those who are playing this mischief," he said.

At least 17 soldiers lost their lives and 19 others injured post the terror strike on an army camp close to the headquarters of the 12th Brigade at Uri in Baramulla district.

All four terrorists have been killed in what has emerged as worse than the attack on the Pathankot air base earlier in January this year, in which seven army men were killed.

In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An attacker wearing a private security company uniform stabbed eight people at a Minnesota mall before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer.

Seven of the wounded were treated and released, while one victim remains hospitalized, reports CNN.

The police said in a statement that according to witnesses, the man entered Crossroads Mall on Saturday night, made a reference to Allah and asked at least one person if they were Muslims before he attacked.

The stabbings occurred in multiple locations inside the mall, including in the common area and several stores.

Shortly after, an officer confronted the attacker.

While the attacker was not identified, the authorities said he'd had three previous encounters with police mainly for minor traffic violations.

None resulted in an arrest.

St. Cloud Police chief William B. Anderson declined to provide further details and said that he is not ready to describe the stabbings as a terrorist attack until details are established.

"What we know is it is a lone suspect who attacked at least eight people ... whether that was a terrorist attack or not, I'm not willing to say that right now because we just don't know," said Anderson.

While the mall will be closed until further notice, he said there's no imminent threat to the city.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Holding Pakistan responsible for the Uri encounter, the Panthers Party (NPP) on Sunday held the BJP-PDP coalition government responsible for not being able to tackle the situation and called for imposition of the Governor's rule.

NPP chief Harsh Dev Singh told ANI that Pakistan has initiated the attack, adding that things are worsening day by day.

"We strongly condemn the suicide squad attack at the army headquarters in Uri and this is we believe is highly condemnable and of course initiated by Pakistan. The things are worsening day by day, the situation is deteriorating with every passing day.this is highly worrisome. This is extremely alarming," Singh said.

Singh said the anti- elements would be tackled at large if Governor's rule is imposed in the state.

"The government has failed to control the situation which has literally gone out of the control of the state government as well as the Central Government. We have been repeatedly asking for imposition of Governor's rule in the state because we feel there is no political will to control the present crisis in Jammu and Kashmir," he added.

As many as 17 soldiers and four terrorists were killed in the terrorist attack that started at around 5:30 a.m. today.

Combing operations are currently underway to ensure no untoward element still persists in the Army perimeters.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will visit Kashmir today in wake of the attack, while Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will visit Srinagar to take stock of the situation.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials to closely monitor the situation in the valley.

The Home Minister is scheduled to chair a high-level security meeting at his official residence in the capital this afternoon to take stock of the present situation in the valley in wake of the attack.

Senior MHA and Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials are expected to be present in the meeting.

The entire town has been sealed and security on the vital roads connecting the Line of Control has been beefed up.

The Army sent three choppers from army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla to Uri.

Six soldiers have reportedly been injured, out of which three have been airlifted to the nearest hospital.

Para Commando troops have been deployed in the conflict zone to fortify the response by the defence.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United States President delivered an emotional plea to the African-American community to stop Donald Trump and said that he would consider it a "personal insult" to his legacy if the black voters didn't turn out to vote apparently for Hillary Clinton.

Obama warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in November, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line, reports the CNN.

"If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn't matter who we elect. Read up on your history, it matters. We've got to get people to vote," Obama said while addressing the Congressional Black Caucus gala for the last time as the President last night.

"I will consider it a personal insult  an insult to my legacy  if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote," he added.

Referring to Trump's remark that Obama was born in the United States after claiming otherwise, the US President said, "There's an extra spring in my step tonight. I don't know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole 'birther' thing is over."

"I mean: ISIL, North Korea, poverty, climate change - none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate. And to think that with just a 124 days to go, under the wire, we got that resolved," he added.

Trump has long supported the birther theory, raising questions about Obama's birthplace and demanding that the President present his birth certificate as proof of his origin.

Further in his address, Obama said, "You may have heard Hillary's opponent in this election say that there's never been a worse time to be a black person. I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery or Jim Crow. But we've got a museum for him to visit, so he can tune in. We will educate him."

In harsh rebuke of Trump, Obama referred to him as "somebody who has fought against civil rights and fought against equality and who has shown no regard for working people most of his life."

On Trump's quest to win over African-American voters, Obama quipped, "Well, we do have challenges, but we're not stupid.
A few years ago, the staff and board members of the Oregon Arts Commission came to a shocking realization: There was art in the state outside of the Portland metro area.

OK, that's exaggeration  and it's unfair, to boot.

But this much is true: Just a couple of years ago, the Arts Commission decided it might be a good idea to at least occasionally hold its annual Oregon Arts Summit in areas outside of Portland.

Since then, the Arts Summit has been held in Bend and Ashland  and this Oct. 7, it will settle down in the mid-valley: The annual summit, billed as a forum for arts organizations, arts associations, elected officials, artists and arts professionals, will be held at the LaSells Stewart Center in Corvallis.

"We're all about recognizing the entire state," said Brian Rogers, the executive director of the Arts Commission.

Well, that, and this not-so-hidden agenda: Making the case throughout the entire state about how the arts are not just a nice thing to have, but an essential part of the fabric that helps make successful communities.

So it makes sense that the theme of this year's summit is "Arts in Action," and at least part of the idea, Rogers said, is to show how the arts can help to solve some of the most pressing issues facing the state. In addition, one of the themes of the summit is how the arts can reach out to groups and demographics who have been marginalized.

In that spirit, at least two of the speakers at the summit will be familiar local faces: Julie Manning of Samaritan Health Services is scheduled to speak about how her organization has worked to integrate the arts with its goals of healing and wellness. Artist Bruce Burris, who has worked in the fields of arts and disability culture for more than 35 years and is the driver behind Collaborative Employment Innovations' ArtWorks project, also is scheduled to speak.

The keynote speaker will be Tim Carpenter of EngAGE, a Portland organization that is working to turn senior apartment communities into centers for learning, wellness and creativity. His remarks will focus on how artistic pursuits can make what he charmingly calls "our later lives" more powerful and fulfilling. It's a project of such promise that we're willing to ignore, at least for now, the Portland connection.

One of the themes that's certain to get aired at the summit is the idea that the arts is just as important to rural areas and smaller towns as it is in bigger cities; in fact, that's part of the reason why the annual summit is on the move throughout the state. Rogers talked about projects such as the commission's Arts Build Communities, in which grants help support efforts such as The Arts Center's Arts in Rural Storefronts, which has placed art installations in small towns throughout the mid-valley; that program also has helped to spotlight the artists who live there. (One of the intriguing ideas behind Arts Build Communities is the idea that art can help to focus attention on community issues and also, in Rogers' words, "is a big part of the solution.")

One of the ideas underlying the entire summit, Rogers said, is to move beyond this common misconception of culture: that it is mostly the province of "the woman in the big coat going to the opera," although he means no disrespect to either opera or the woman in the big coat.

But it is vital for artists to make broader connections, Rogers said.

"The whole goal of it is to change the perception of the arts and culture from a nicety to a necessity in everyday life," he said.

No argument here. But it will be nice to see the conversation take on a mid-valley flavor in October. And it will be great to showcase the mid-valley's increasingly vibrant arts scene. (mm)
The list released by the magazine consists of 399 Indian businessmen in which Balkrishna is ranked 25th with an estimated property worth Rs. 25,000 crore.

Balkrishna has managed to secure his position among India's rich and famous within five years of establishing the FMCG firm Patanjali.

"This is an unlisted company and if it has been placed in world's richest company, then it is a big thing. This has been possible because of the immense love and support that we received from the people of the country. Very soon Patanjali will be at number one position," said Balkrishna.

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani is ranked number 1 and Sun Pharmaceuticals owner Dilip Shanghvi is ranked number 2.

As per the report of Hurun, Patanjali is one of the fastest growing FMCG brands in India with an estimated yearly turnover of Rs. 5000 crore which is expected to be doubled by 2017.

Balkrishna holds a 96 percent stake in Patanjali Ayurved, while yoga guru Baba Ramdev is the face of the Haridwar-based consumer products firm.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh postponed his forthcoming visit to the United States and Russia following the terrorist attack on an Army camp near the Line of Control in Uri area of Baramullah district early this morning.

The encounter is underway between the unknown number of terrorists and the Armed Forces in the area, in which reportedly six soldiers have been injured out of which three have been airlifted to the nearest hospital.

Meanwhile, Para Commando troops have been airdropped into the conflict zone to fortify the response by the defence.

Intense firing and explosions were heard in the area and the encounter site is nearly 90 kilometres north of Srinagar.

More details followed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
August 22, 2022, Monday

Chief Minister Basavaraja Bommai said that there will be pro and anti-beliefs and arguments on noted personalities, but it must ...
Soha Ali Khan, who was recently spotted at the India Runway Week, season seven Winter/Festive edition, spoke about her wander lust, adding she liked to explore places, almost untouched by man.

"I live in a crowded city. So I like to be in places that are natural, which are almost untouched by man. So I like the Maldives because I like the ocean, I like marine life, snorkeling, deep sea diving and kayaking," she told ANI.

Further speaking about her love for exploring the world, the actress, who was wearing a pastel-coloured lehnga by a designer from Hyderabad Shweta Sarda, said, "I would like to go on a trip like 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara,' but without a director or any co-star."

Shweta, through her designs, presented the glory of womanhood on the ramp on the first day of India Runway Week and titled them 'Wander Lust.'

According to her, she wanted to depict the brave step took by women in redesigning her own map to explore the World.

Speaking about the collection, Soha said, "Her Collection is about women like me who love to travel around the world."

On a related note, the India Runway Week, in association with Big Boy Toyz, season seven Winter/Festive edition commenced on September 16, at Thyagraj Stadium in the national capital.

The event opened with the designs of International designer Bibi Russell under the name of 'Rajasthali.'

The other designers who graced the ramp on the first day were Daniel Sayiem, Miku Kumar, Shreeya Somaiya, Ishithaa Design House, Preet Jhaver, IGT ByIsha Gupta Tayal, Varija Bajaj and Satomi, Aditya Khandelwal and Studio AV by Gaurav and Nitesh.

On the work front, the 37-year-old actress is all set to release her upcoming flick 31st October, which focuses on the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination.

The movie, also starring Vir Das will hit the theatres on October 7.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Expressing his solidarity with the armed forces in wake of the attack on an army camp in North Kashmir's Uri town, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad today said this might be a revenge for killing Pakistan based infiltrators and terrorists in Kashmir.

"Many terrorists have been killed at the border by our soldiers. May be they were angry because of this. This year, a record of sorts has been created by the soldiers of the Indian Army by killing all the infiltrators from Pakistan in Kashmir," Azad told ANI.

"I don't think there were so many numbers killed in one year. Maybe they took revenge because of this," he added.

The Congress leader said he was glad that the terrorists have been killed, but added it is a very sad occasion that 17 soldiers have laid down their lives for the unity and integrity of the country.

"It is a supreme sacrifice which a soldier can make for their country. We are very sad about this entire incident and entire country stands behind the Army of our country. We show total solidarity with the forces of our country," Azad said.

"There should not be any sign of demoralization irrespective of which political party we belong to. We are with the forces," he added while asserting that the nation and its people are with the forces and support them.

The Indian Army has gunned down all four terrorists, who had attacked the Army Brigade's headquarters in Uri this morning. At least 17 soldiers have been killed in the gun battle at the base, which is around 100 km from state capital Srinagar.

Combing operations are currently underway to ensure no untoward element still persists in the Army perimeters.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will visit Kashmir today in wake of the attack, while Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will visit Srinagar to take stock of the situation.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials to closely monitor the situation in the valley.

The Home Minister is presently chairing a high-level security meeting at his official residence in the capital to take stock of the present situation in the valley in wake of the attack.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA . Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," he said in a series of tweets.

The Home Minister has postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States.

The entire town has been sealed and security on the vital roads connecting the Line of Control has been beefed up.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With 17 Army soldiers being killed in a major encounter with terrorists in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Sunday blamed Pakistan for the terror attack, saying that this was a massive controversy against India, adding that the Centre is looking into Islamabad's role in the matter.

Speaking to ANI here, Singh stated that the current situation of unrest in the Valley is the result of the proxy war, in which Pakistan has been indulging since ages.

"They [Pakistan] are doing everything in their power to create havoc in Kashmir. The Centre is serious over Pakistan directly sending militants into Kashmir, and is taking this very seriously. This is a very big conspiracy against India, in which terrorists and separatists are active," he said.

In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement added.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will visit the Valley to take stock of the situation.

After postponing his forthcoming visits to the United States and Russia in the wake of the encounter in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the situation in the Valley.

A high level security meet was held at Rajnath's residence, in which senior MHA and MoD officials were present.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA . Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," Rajnath said in a series of tweets.

Around four terrorists attacked the Army Brigade's headquarters in Uri to which the security forces gave a fitting reply.

The entire town has been sealed and security on the vital roads connecting Line of Control (LOC) has been beefed up.

The Army sent three choppers from army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla to Uri.

Reportedly six soldiers have been injured out of which three have been airlifted to the nearest hospital.

Para Commando troops were airdropped into the conflict zone to fortify the response by the defence.

Intense firing and explosions were heard in the area and the encounter site is nearly 90 kilometres north of Srinagar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Condemning the terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, where 17 soldiers of the Indian Army were killed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday assured the nation that those behind the 'despicable' attack will not go unpunished.

"We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families," the Prime Minister said in a series of tweets.

Stating that he has spoken to Home Minister Rajnath Singh and the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on the situation, he added that the latter will go to the Valley himself to take stock of the situation.

In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri today early morning, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement added.

Meanwhile, Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will also visit the Valley to take stock of the situation.

After postponing his forthcoming visits to the United States and Russia in the wake of the encounter in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajnath has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the situation in the Valley.

A high level security meet is presently underway at Rajnath's residence in which senior MHA and MoD officials are present.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Accusing the Samajwadi Party of letting the people of Uttar Pradesh suffer by turning a deaf ear to their problems and focusing solely on 'family politics', the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday asserted that in next year's assembly polls, the people of the state would vote decisively against the Yadav family.

"In Uttar Pradesh, it is becoming clear that the ruling family there is getting together consistently for the sake of power, and in this entire circumstance, the people of the state are suffering," BJP leader Nalin Kohli told ANI here.

Hitting out at Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for being least concerned about the common man in UP, Kohli added that law and order, and development, had gone for a toss in the state.

"I'm sure in the forthcoming elections, the people of UP will vote in a very decisive manner and specifically against the SP Govt," Kohli stated.

Echoing similar sentiments, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said that Akhilesh Yadav's 'cycle', which is the Samajwadi Party's symbol, will not run in the state anymore as it is stuck.

Speaking to the media during his Kisan Yatra, Rahul said that Akhilesh was chosen by the electorate of the state and mostly young people, as they had lots of hope and expectations from him.

"But when Akhilesh sat on the cycle, people starting pulling the brakes and pushing the handles, eventually puncturing the tyres and the cycle got stuck. Now, six months are left and it has been stuck for almost four years. I don't think the cycle will run anymore," he stated.

Meanwhile, the ongoing rift within the Yadav family appears to have ended with Akhilesh Yadav restoring two of the three portfolios to his uncle Shivpal Yadav, except the PWD department.

Shivpal will also continue as the Samajwadi Party state unit chief.

Akhilesh has kept the PWD department with himself and returned Shivpal his previous departments and a few others including medical, education and minor irrigation. In total, Shivpal would be looking after 13 departments, two more than what he used to look after earlier.

The announcements can be seen as per the compromise formula worked out by party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who asserted that "There can be no division in the party, till I am alive."

In a move signalling attempts to bring some calm in the recent turbulence in the Samajwadi Party, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister had last night announced that his uncle would get back all his previous ministerial portfolios.

Gayatri Prajapat, who was sacked as mines minister, would also be re-inducted into the cabinet and would soon be taking oath.

Shivpal had resigned on Friday night as a minister and as state party unit head.

"Netaji (Mulayam) has heard all of us. He will talk to some others if he wants and will take decision by tomorrow," Shivpal yesterday.

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said at a function that he has rejected the resignation of Shivpal and he will comply with whatever his father directs.

"Netaji (Mulayam) will find a solution (to the current crisis) and everyone will accept it," he said.

Mulayam met Akhilesh and Shivpal at his Lucknow residence and reportedly brokered a peace deal between the two.

Akhilesh had earlier divested Shivpal of all important ministerial portfolios including PWD, irrigation, cooperative, flood control and revenue and handed him the social welfare department.

Prior to it, Shivpal had replaced him as the new chief of the state unit of the Samajwadi Party.

Disagreements between Akhilesh and his uncle have been reported on several occasions, including on the choice of official to be appointed as the state's chief secretary after Alok Ranjan's term ended and the postponement of Quami Ekta Dal's merger with the Samajwadi Party.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Jamaat-ud-Dawa's tweet clearly hints that the terror attack at an army administrative base in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri near the Line of Control this morning was a suicide bid and an attempt to shift India's attention from the present state of affairs in Balochistan.

"Pakistan Army ensuring that Modi can only focus on Kashmir in days ahead, instead of Baluchistan, Sindh, GB, AJK or Karachi," reads a post on the Twitter handle of the terrorist outfit on August 22.

Moreover, the JuD has pinned this tweet on their official Twitter page under the handle @SalaarOfficial.

The tweet clearly hints that the Pakistan Army sponsors terrorism in the Kashmir valley to carry on its propaganda of crying over Kashmir while worse situations and human rights violations persist in Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and other regions of their country.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks on Balochistan in his Independence Day address on August 15, a wave of protest has started as Baloch activists across the globe are extending their support and highlighting the gross human rights violations in the region.

And with acts like the Uri incident, Pakistan wants to create a distraction and ensure that it disrupts peace process in the valley.

17 Indian Army soldiers were killed today in an encounter with the terrorists at the Army Brigade headquarters in Uri. This is the highest casualty the army has suffered in a single attack in years.

All four terrorists have been killed in what has emerged as worse than the attack on the Pathankot air base earlier in January this year, in which seven army men were killed.

In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

Combing operations are currently underway to ensure no untoward element still persists in the Army perimeters.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will visit Kashmir today in wake of the attack, while Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will visit Srinagar to take stock of the situation.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials to closely monitor the situation in the valley.

The Home Minister is scheduled to chair a high-level security meeting at his official residence in the capital this afternoon to take stock of the present situation in the valley in wake of the attack.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA . Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," he said in a series of tweets.

Senior MHA and Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials are expected to be present in the meeting.

The Home Minister has postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States.

The entire town has been sealed and security on the vital roads connecting the Line of Control has been beefed up.

The Army sent three choppers from army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla to Uri.

Para Commando troops have been deployed in the conflict zone to fortify the response by the defence.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Condemning the Uri terrorist attack, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday said that the fresh attack in Uri on the army base was aimed at triggering fresh violence in the state and create a war like situation.

Mehbooba, while paying tributes to the slain soldiers, extended condolences to their families and prayed for early recovery of those who are injured in the attack.

She said that the increased tension between the two states after this attack will vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid increasing Indo-Pak hostility.

She added that the state has always been the worst victim of India-Pakistan hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for the same for the past over six decades.

"Unfortunately, people in Jammu and Kashmir, who are already mired in an agonizing situation shall have to bear the maximum brunt of the fresh attempts being made to step up violence and trigger fresh bloodshed in the state," she said.

At least 17 soldiers were killed in the gun battle at the base, which is around 100 km from state capital Srinagar.

Combing operations are currently underway to ensure no untoward element still persists in the Army perimeters.

Meanwhile, Army Chief General Dalbir Singh has reached Srinagar where he will meet the injured soldiers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Defense expert Brigadier (Retd.) Anil Gupta today said that Pakistan despite all criticism is hell bent upon encouraging terrorism inside Kashmir, adding the attack on 12th brigade headquarters at in Baramulla by the fidayeens clearly depicts Islamabad's desperate attempt to ensure that the current turmoil in the valley is not over.

Brigadier (Retd.) Gupta also wondered as to how the terrorists managed to infiltrate despite the high alert and counter infiltration grid being strengthened by the Army.

"The fidayeens have been able to enter the army camp, which is not good. But, however, the details are not yet available. I am not going to comment as to how it has happened. But one thing is very sure that Pakistan has not changed its mind," Brigadier (Retd.) Gupta said.

"Despite all problems which Pakistan is having and all the criticism it is facing from the world, it is hell bent upon encouraging terrorism inside Kashmir. And this latest act of the fidayeens is the desperate attempt by Pakistan to ensure that the current turmoil in Kashmir does not end and security forces are tied down in the respective camps," he added while asserting that Pakistan is making desperate attempts to ensure that this turmoil in Kashmir continues.

Meanwhile, another defence expert Major General (Retd.) P.K. Sehgal on his part expressed hope that the terrorists would be liquidated within few hours.

"There has been definitely a fore power and some casualness in some security elements somewhere, which has been taken advantage of by the fidayeens," Major General (Retd.) Sehgal said.

"I wish one of them is caught alive so that we get to know the modus operandi from where exactly they came," he added.

The Indian Army has gunned down all four terrorists, who had attacked the Army Brigade's headquarters in this morning. At least 17 soldiers have been killed in the gun battle at the base, which is around 100 km from state capital Srinagar.

Combing operations are currently underway to ensure no untoward element still persists in the Army perimeters.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will visit Kashmir today in wake of the attack, while Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will visit Srinagar to take stock of the situation.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials to closely monitor the situation in the valley.

The Home Minister is scheduled to chair a high-level security meeting at his official residence in the capital this afternoon to take stock of the present situation in the valley in wake of the attack.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA . Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in . They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," he said in a series of tweets.

Senior MHA and Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials are expected to be present in the meeting.

The Home Minister has postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States.

The entire town has been sealed and security on the vital roads connecting the Line of Control has been beefed up.

The Army sent three choppers from army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla to Uri.

Para Commando troops have been deployed in the conflict zone to fortify the response by the defence.
Senior advocate Ujjwal Nikam on Sunday condemned the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri where 17 soldiers were martyred and asked India to expose Pakistan before the United Nations Security Council for indulging in such kind of proxy wars since long.

"It's nothing but a proxy war. Pakistan is indulging in such kind of proxy wars since long. The terrorist attack of 26/11 was a starting point and thereafter Pakistan is continuously indulging in such types of attacks on us," he said.

"Now, it is high time to put very strong restriction and sanction on Pakistan. We must raise this issue before the United Nation Security Council and America should take a very leading part in putting such sanctions on Pakistan," he added.

The senior advocate further said that India must see how it can destabilize terrorist camps in PoK.

At least 17 soldiers were martyred and 19 others injured post the terror strike on an army camp close to the headquarters of the 12th Brigade at Uri in Baramulla district.

All four terrorists have been killed in what has emerged as worse than the attack on the Pathankot air base earlier in January this year, in which seven army men were killed.

In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Asserting that he was deeply distressed at the terror attack in Uri, where 17 Indian Army soldiers were killed, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday hit out at Pakistan branding it as a 'terrorist state', adding that he was disappointed by Islamabad's continued support to terrorism and terrorist groups.

Rajnath, who chaired a high-level meeting at his residence over the terror attack, stated that he has apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting this afternoon.

Praying for the speedy recovery of the injured, Rajnath expressed his condolences to the families of the slain soldiers, assuring that those behind the terror incident would be brought to justice.

Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Branding Pakistan as a 'terrorist state' and stating that it should be identified and isolated as such, the Home Minister added that there are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.

"I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups," he said in a series of tweets.

Meanwhile, condemning the terror attack as well, Prime Minister Modi assured the nation that those behind the 'despicable' attack will not go unpunished.

"We salute all those martyred in . Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families," the Prime Minister said in a series of tweets.

Stating that he has spoken to Rajnath and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on the situation, he added that the latter will go to the Valley himself to take stock of the situation.

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Earlier today, the Army said in a statement, that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at today early morning, and in the counter action, four terrorists were eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement added.

Later in the day, Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will also visit the Valley to take stock of the situation.

After postponing his forthcoming visits to the United States and Russia in the wake of the encounter in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajnath has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the situation in the Valley.
U.S. Ambassador to India, Richard Verma on Sunday condemned the terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, where 17 soldiers of the Indian Army were killed and extended condolence to the family members of those killed.

"We strongly condemn the terror attack in Uri, J&K. Our thoughts are with the families of the brave soldiers who lost their lives #UriAttack," tweeted Verma.

The Army in a statement said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri earlier today, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh has reached the Valley to take stock of the situation.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has also postponed his forthcoming visits to the United States and Russia in the wake of terrorist attack.

He has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the situation in the Valley.

Rajnath, who chaired a high-level meeting at his residence over the terror attack, stated that he has apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting this afternoon.

Branding Pakistan as a 'terrorist state' and stating that it should be identified and isolated as such, the Home Minister added that there are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Seventeen soldiers were killed in an audacious militant attack on army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir early on Sunday that also left four terrorists dead, military officials said.

Over two dozen soldiers were also injured in the attack which began at 5.30 a.m. when a group of heavily-armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of the army unit, the officials said.

The sneak attack triggered a massive gun battle that lasted well over two-and-a-half-hours, sending huge columns of black smoke rising into the sky.

Unofficial sources said most of the dead soldiers were from the Bihar Regiment. It was reportedly the biggest terror attack on any army camp in Jammu and Kashmir in about a decade.

After the fighting died down, soldiers continued to comb the camp for other militants who may be hiding as well as explosives they may have planted, the officials said.

No guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the bloodbath. But some reports said the guerrillas had recently infiltrated into the Indian side of the Line of Control from Pakistan.

The Northern Command of the Army issued a terse statement: "In the early hours of September 18, a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, Kashmir.

"In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

"The administrative base had a large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire and resulted in heavy casualties.

"We salute the sacrifices of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation."

Helicopters flew the injured soldiers from Uri to the army's base hospital in Srinagar, about 70 km away.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army chief General Dalbir Singh immediately prepared to fly to Uri.

In a related development, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh cancelled his visit to the US and Russia. He called a high-level meeting later on Sunday to discuss the attack.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of the terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US," Rajnath Singh tweeted.

He said he spoken to Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.

"They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," he said.

--IANS

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Two soldiers and four militants were killed on Sunday during an attack in an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town, said defence sources.

Colonel S D Goswami, spokesman of the army's Udhampur headquartered Northern Command told IANS, "Four terrorists who had entered the rear base camp of an infantry battalion in Uri town were killed," adding "search operation was continuing inside the camp".

The fidayeen (suicide) militants had entered the camp around 5.30 am.

Defence sources told IANS that six soldiers were also injured in the attack who were airlifted to an army hospital in Srinagar.

"Terrorists attacked the rear base camp of an infantry battalion and not the headquarters of 12 Brigade in Uri today (Sunday) morning which is posted on the Line of Control (LoC)," the sources added.

In New Delhi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is reported to have cancelled his visit to Russia and the US. He has called for a high-level meeting on Sunday to discuss the situation is Kashmir.




Seventeen soldiers and four militants were killed on Sunday during an attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town, defence officials said.

According to the officials, the gunfight has stopped and now search operations were on to scour the area for more possible militants.

The attack took place at around 5.30 a.m., when fidayeen (suicide) militants attacked the rear base camp of an infantry battalion in the border town.

Colonel S.D. Goswami, spokesman of the army's Udhampur headquartered Northern Command told IANS, "Four terrorists who had entered the rear base camp of the infantry battalion were killed."

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Chief of the Army Staff General Dalbir Singh Suhag are slated to arrive in Srinagar on Sunday evening, the officials added.

The attack left over two dozen soldiers injured who were airlifted to Srinagar to an army hospital.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has cancelled his five-day visit to the US and Russia. He has called for a high-level meeting later on Sunday to discuss the attack.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Army on Sunday said the four terrorists killed after they slaughtered 17 soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir were foreigners and belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit.

The Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, told reporters here the army had recovered some articles with "Pakistan markings" from the slain terrorists.

"They were all foreigners and belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammed," Gen Ranbir Singh said.

Jaish-e-Mohammed was also blamed for the January attack on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot.

The DGMO said he spoke to his Pakistani counterpart and expressed concern over the attack, one of the deadliest in Jammu and Kashmir in nearly three decades of insurgency.

Ranbir Singh said four AK-47 rifles and four under barrel grenade launchers and some other ammunition was recovered after the early morning attack.

He said 14 of the 17 deaths occurred due to a fire after militants hurled grenades at temporary structures.
Former soldiers and defence experts on Sunday unanimously called for a tough action against Pakistan, whom they blamed for the terrorist attacks such as the one on an army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir where 17 soldiers were killed.

"It is a clear attack on India by Pakistan. We can no longer afford to just not do anything. The Indian response should be tough...the retribution should be quick and tough," Lt. Gen. (retd) Raj Kadyan said.

Major (retd) Gaurav Arya, who has expertise in Jammu and Kashmir security situation, echoed the sentiments.

"Unless we understand that the problem in Jammu and Kashmir is not a problem just there, but it is being artificially manufactured in the General Headquarters (GHQ) Rawalpindi, we would not be able to respond," he said.

"The solution to the problem lies across the border, not here," Kadyan said.

He also warned that there could be a spike in such strikes on India soil as a power struggle is going on in Pakistan between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif, who is due to retire in November.

Former diplomat Rajiv Dogra said the attack on Uri army camp was such that it could not have been perpetrated by Jaish-e-Mohammed or Lashkar-e-Taiba alone, hinting at the Pakistan Army's involvement in the incident.

"Since 1947, barring 1971, we have not been able to devise a response to Pakistan's mischief," Dogra said.

He also called for downgrading ties with the "western neighbour", including suspension of trade with it.

"Who knows what is coming in those trucks from across the border...there could be terrorists hiding in those trucks," he added.

Heavily-armed militants attacked the army camp at Uri early on Sunday morning, killing 17 soldiers and wounding many others. Security forces shot dead all four attackers.
The campaign for Ann Roe, who is running for Congress against Lyin' Bryan Steil has come out with the best one-liner of this cycle so far: I can't argue...

11 months ago
The attack on the military camp in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday that left 17 soldiers dead is "a serious security lapse", former Defence Minister A.K. Antony said.

"This incident comes close on the heels of what happened in Pathankot. At both these places militants managed to enter the military camps and this is a huge security lapse," Antony told the media here.

"The Kashmir issue is drifting and reaching dangerous propositions. All this is happening with the knowledge of Pakistan," he added.

Terrorists shot dead seven military personnel at an Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in Punjab in January.

--IANS

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One of India's foremost couturiers, Suneet Varma says being a fashion designer doesn't mean he has to participate in every fashion event, as he believes creativity needs a lot of nurturing.

Apart from his own widely popular brand, Varma has multiple tie-ups with brands like BMW, Swarovski, Judith Leiber, arttd'inox and more.

"For me, even if we have fantastic tales to tell, brilliant reviews and best of shows in the country to offer, I will never be happy doing shows after shows. For me, my personal growth is more important than the commercial," Varma told IANS in an interaction here.

With a spurt in the number of fashion weeks and events, designers are often running from pillar to post trying to complete their lines within deadlines. But Varma prefers to do things at his own pace and in his own way.

"That can only happen when I do shows selectively, twice or thrice a year. Not when you want to do every fashion event -- whether it is bridal, couture, exhibition or trunk show. We are one person and creativity needs a lot of nurturing," he said.

Varma's brand exudes fantasy, sophistication and feminity for the woman of today. Associations with some of the strongest global brands make him a designer whose forte goes beyond a uni-dimensional profile.

The only international designer with Judith Leiber, the world's most renowned luxury brand for bejeweled handbags, he has garnered appreciation worldwide.

His signature bags are carried by the "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker and Hollywood divas Mariah Carey and Jenifer Lopez. His designs are also very popular amongst the leading ladies of Bollywood like Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut and Preity Zinta.

For the past decade, Varma has worked with international designers at Swarovski on clothing and interior projects. He is also associated with arttd'inox for a luxury home interior and table top accessories line.

Clearly, he has a busy schedule.

"I like to divide my time very carefully. I have a lot of commitments with my brands. The reason they remain with me is because I do things well, and also I do it with great dedication. Brands don't want to see any old rubbish and they don't want to repeat the line.

"I like to do things on my own time, very nicely, politely and quietly," said Varma, who feels one needs to build respect in the market with one's work, and not demand it.

"There is mutual respect between us (brands and me) and that only comes through a certain amount of time. We have to build respect as nobody can demand that. We have to earn it."

The designer recently showcased a line of beautiful couture outfits through a fashion show at DLF Emporio in the capital. He said there is a huge shift in the Indian market for couture ensembles.

"I find that the bridal market is very specific. It's not necessarily seasonal, but couture is seasonal and people watch everything today, thanks to social media and that has made it become so huge," he said.

(Nivedita can be contacted at Nivedita.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said on Sunday that his administration needs another six months to win the war against drug-related crimes in the country.

"I never realised the (illegal drug) problem is this big," Duterte said when he presented a freed Norwegian hostage who had been released a day ago from captivity by the Abu Sayyaf bandits.

"Just give me a little extension of maybe another six months," Xinhua news agency quoted the Philippines President as saying.

Duterte, who assumed presidency on June 30, has vowed to solve the problem of rampant criminality and illegal drug trade in the country in six months.

But he admitted for the first time on Sunday that in spite of his administration's relentless and sustained war against drug-related crimes, the six-month deadline he imposed on himself was not enough.

The initial self-imposed deadline to curb illegal drugs will end in December.

According to Philippines police, nearly 3,000 people have been killed in police anti-drug operations and extrajudicial killings in the past more than two months.

Philippines police have so far carried out 18,500 operations to arrest suspected drug users and pushers, which have resulted in the arrest of 17,528 suspects.

More than 700,000 users and pushers have already "surrendered", including local officials, rogue policemen, military Generals whom Duterte included in his long list of drug users, pushers and protectors.

--IANS

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Easy accessibility of political information through the internet medium has affected voter turnout, a study has found.

The internet has allowed politicians to directly communicate their message to voters, circumventing the mainstream media which would traditionally filter information.

The researchers have presented studies from a number of countries, comparing voter behaviour of municipalities with internet access to the ones without.

It showed that municipalities with internet access faced a decrease in voter turnout, due to voters suddenly facing an overwhelmingly large pool of information and not knowing how to filter relevant knowledge efficiently.

"Similarly, the internet seemed to have reduced the importance of other media. However, the introduction of interactive social media helped voters to collect information more efficiently," said Stephan Heblich, researcher at the University of Bristol in a statement.

But the researcher stated there is a downside as voters can now be personally identified and strategically influenced by targeted information.

The research showed that there is a thin line between desirable benefits of more efficient information dissemination and undesirable possibilities of voter manipulation.

Therefore, policymakers need to consider introducing measures to educate voters to become more discriminating in their use of the internet.

"To the extent that online consumption replaces the consumption of other media (newspapers, radio, or television) with a higher information content, there may be no information gains for the average voter and, in the worst case, even a crowding-out of information," Heblich added.

--IANS

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The fall of the PDP-BJP government led by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti can bring calm on the streets of the Valley, says Tariq Karra, a prominent Kashmiri politician who resigned in anger from Parliament and from the regional party of which he was one of the founders.

In an exclusive interview with IANS, Karra said the PDP-led government's policies in Jammu and have wiped out the middle ground that existed between separatism and pro-India ideology, rendering all mainstream politicians irrelevant in the restive state.

He said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was founded in 1998 to fill the gap where the people "were caught between the two extremes" of being either pro- or anti-India. "It played the role of the buffer between the two extremes. I had built this party brick by brick. But today, all mainstream politicians have been rendered irrelevant," Karra, one of the closest aides of PDP founder, the late Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, told IANS in a telephonic interview from Srinagar.

"And blame this unholy, unethical and unacceptable alliance between the PDP and BJP for that. The PDP betrayed the electorate because the votes were sought to keep the BJP out of power. This alliance laid the ground for the discontent and anger that you see on the streets of the Valley today."

Karra resigned from the party and quit his Lok Sabha seat on Thursday. Elected from Srinagar, he was the urban face of the PDP, a party that has its bastions in the rural areas, particularly in south Kashmir.

"The seeds were sown on that very particular day when the alliance was cobbled together. Later on, misgovernance and the irresponsible, egoistic and arrogant attitude of the people at the helm fuelled the anger. The Burhan Wani episode was only a trigger," he said, referring to the July 8 killing of the Hizbul Mujahideen commander.

The militant's death triggered an unprecedented and seemingly unending crisis in the Kashmir Valley that has resulted in nearly 90 deaths and over 12,000 injured in almost two-and-a-half months of unrest.

Karra said the "daily killings and unabated bloodshed" were like "an undeclared war against the Kashmiris by the government of India" and that it was being facilitated by the government of Jammu and Kashmir.

So how could the situation be controlled and the violence stopped?

"Stop this mayhem. The perception on the ground today is that the government in Jammu and Kashmir is anti-people. It is facilitating the fascist designs of the BJP-led government of India. The anger may possibly be doused if the state government doesn't remain there. That is a popular view," Karra said.

But he quickly added that the issue of Jammu and Kashmir needed a permanent solution to stop recurring bouts of violence in the state. "I have been vociferously speaking for a permanent settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue. Separatist leaders also advocate this. The goal is resolving the Kashmir issue."

Asked if he was toeing a separatist line, Karra said he still was "a mainstream politician" but "speaking the truth".

"Do I have to be a separatist to speak the truth within the Constitution? One can speak the truth within the Constitution also. And the truth is that the solution to the Kashmir issue is imperative.

"I will look for a solution within the ambit of the Constitution. Even if I say within the ambit of the Constitution that doesn't mean the Constitution cannot be attuned to the wishes of the people. It is not a divine book which cannot be amended. It has been amended hundreds of times. In order to bring peace and save the lives of the people, if the Constitution has to be amended I don't think that would be anti-national."

He said he would carry this message to the people and intelligentsia of India who would put pressure on the government to accept "the fact that the issue is political and needs a political resolution".

"It is not a real estate problem."

He said it was foolish to think that the separatist Hurriyat Conference can be sidelined even if it is true that the present situation in the state is not entirely in its control.

"Not that they don't represent the people. They do. Please understand that they could have played a positive role to turn the things around had you been sincere with them. Thanks to the misdoings of the two governments (in Delhi and Srinagar), today we are in a situation where the Indian face for the Kashmiris is brutally inhuman."

(Sarwar Kashani can be contacted at sarwar.k@ians.in)

--IANS

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Warplanes struck several neighbourhoods of Aleppo on Sunday, the first in the city since a nationwide ceasefire went into effect on last Monday, a monitor group reported.

At least one woman was killed in the air strikes that targeted the rebel-held areas of Sakhour, Karm al-Jabal and Karm al-Baik, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The air strikes were the first in Aleppo, since the city enjoyed a relative calm following the implementation of a US-Russian brokered truce in Syria, Xinhua news agency reported.

Earlier in the day, Syria's national TV said tens of civilians evacuated the rebel-held areas in Aleppo city, as part of a renewed government call on civilians and armed men to leave the besieged rebel-held areas in Aleppo.

The US-Russian ceasefire deal is threatened with a recent escalation between Washington and Moscow, after the US-led air strikes killed 90 Syrian soldiers in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, the first US strike to target government forces since the coalition started operations in Syria in late 2014.

--IANS

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Former French President Jacques Chirac has been hospitalised for a lung infection, his family said on Sunday.

President of France between 1995 and 2007, Chirac was admitted to the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital here early on Sunday, and was expected to be there for a few days for medical treatment, Efe news agency reported.

Chirac had earlier returned to France on-board an airplane belonging to the royal family of Morocco, where he was spending his summer vacation in the city of Agadir.

The 83-year-old left the political scene due to health issues after he suffered a stroke in 2005 during his second term.

--IANS

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Four persons have been arrested for vandalising several cars in a housing complex in south Kolkata on Sunday, police said.

Shakti Singh, 36, Rajesh Chawdhury, 40, Amritlal Yadav, 19 and Prakash Roy, 43, were arrested in the case reported from the Fort Oasis society, police said.

Locals alleged that a luxury car on Saturday night killed Abhijit Pandey, 22, who was riding a scooter and took shelter at the housing complex. In a protest against reckless driving, a mob vandalised cars parked in the complex.

Denying the allegations, dwellers of the housing complex voiced their security concerns.

Police said that further raids are on to apprehend the others responsible.

--IANS

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Four persons were killed on Sunday when two small planes collided mid-air, authorities said.

The planes, a four-seat Cessna-182 and a six-seat Piper-28, collided in mid-air and crashed near the town of Godollo, about 30 km northeast of Budapest, Pest County Directorate for Disaster Management said on its website.

Three persons, including one child, aboard the Cessna died while four in the Piper jumped to safety before the collision using parachutes, leaving only the pilot who died in the crash, Xinhua news agency reported.

Rescue helicopter found the Piper in a heavily wooded region while the Cessna went down in a plains area.

--IANS

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The Environment Ministry on Sunday asserted that its panel was competent in subjects relevant to safety evaluation of Genetically Engineered (GE) crops.

The government's assertion came in the backdrop of comments in a section of the media alleging that the sub-committee constituted by the Ministry's Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) for the approval of environmental release of GE Mustard for the development of new generation hybrids has "no health expert".

"The GEAC in its 126th Meeting held in January, constituted a sub-committee with expert scientists in specific subjects relevant to safety evaluation of GE Crops," said the Ministry in a statement released here.

According to the Ministry, the Sub-Committee consists of the health expert B. Sesikeran, who is an MD in pathology and is currently serving as Chairman of the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM).

"The Assessment of Food and Environmental Safety (AFES) for Environmental release of GE Mustard (Brassica juncea) hybrid DMH-11 and use of parental events for development of new generation hybrids was placed on the website on September 5 for comments by stakeholders and general public for a period of 30 days," said the Ministry.

"The full biosafety dossier is also available in the GEAC Secretariat," it added.

--IANS

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Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Sunday condemned the terror attack on an army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 17 soldiers were killed.

He also asked the central government to respond to the attack.

"What has happened is most unfortunate. It should not have happened and I condemn it. I think the government of India needs to be little more offensive in this regard... Government should see that adequate measures are adopted to see that such things don't happen in the future," Parsekar told reporters in Panaji.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who had to cut short his Goa visit, is expected to arrive in Uri later Sunday.

--IANS

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Vice President Hamid Ansari held a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Venezuela.

"Time for an important partner. V P Ansari meets President Rouhani of Iran on sidelines of NAM Summit," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted along with a picture of the two leaders meeting on Friday.



Time for an important partner. VP Ansari meets President Rouhani of Iran on sidelines of pic.twitter.com/CrgxPzyznm  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) September 18, 2016

This is yet another sign of New Delhi's increased engagements with Iran in recent times.

In May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Tehran during the course of which he along with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and Rouhani signed a trilateral agreement for the development of Chabahar port in Iran for enhanced connectivity with Central Asia via Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar also visited Iran.

The two-day 17th began in the Venezuelan island of Margarita on Friday.

NAM comprises 53 countries from Africa, 39 from Asia, 26 from Latin America and the Caribbean and two from Europe.

There are 17 countries and 10 international organisations that are observers at NAM, which came into being 55 years ago when leaders of 25 developing countries met at the 1961 Belgrade Conference.

India, one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement, hosted the 7th in 1983 in New Delhi.

The last NAM Summit was hosted by Iran in 2012.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Sunday condemned the terrorist attack on an army base in the Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir.

"It's an attack on national conscience. India would not be cowed down by such attacks and befitting reply would be given to those involved in this cowardly act," he said in a statement.

The Chief Minister paid tributes to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the attack and prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured.

Four terrorists attacked the army base near the Line of Control killing 17 soldiers and injuring 24 others early on Sunday morning.

--IANS

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She took a five-year gap between "Shabd" and "Teen Patti", and now she is ready to show the Indian audience her new project "Parched". Director Leena Yadav says she takes long breaks after each film as she finds it difficult to fit into the typical Bollywood formula films.

"I don't take breaks. It's just very difficult for me to make films because I don't fit into the typical Bollywood formula films," Yadav told IANS.

"It was later, after I made 'Shabd' (2005) and 'Teen Patti' (2010) when people told me that the films were brilliant. Initially, my films were criticised and I was told that I had made shit," she added.

She found it weird.

"It was weird for me because by the time I was making 'Teen Patti', people were calling 'Shabd' a cult film. I was trying to find my audience and I think I've found them with 'Parched'," she said.

"Shabd", starring Aishwarya Rai and Sanjay Dutt, was about a writer who becomes schizophrenic, while the Amitabh Bachchan and Ben Kingsley starrer "Teen Patti" was about an eccentric math-magician's adventures.

Her newest offering "Parched" traces the life of four women in a village which grapples with age-old traditions. Key roles have been essayed by a cast as talented as Tannishtha Chatterjee, Radhika Apte, Surveen Chawla, Adil Hussain, Lehar Khan and Sayani Gupta.

Yadav, who premiered the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last year, says it is for the universal audience.

"I don't think 'Parched' is for a niche audience at all. It's for the universal audience and everyone can relate to the film. I have seen the film with a diverse audience and yet it's so much rooted in India," she said.

The Ajay Devgn produced film, releasing in theatres on September 23, highlights the way society sees a widow and a sex worker, and also touches upon marital rape.

Yadav said her focus is to make films which make her feel proud as a director.

"This is the only profession that I know. I take a lot of time to write my films. I do not want to make 100 films in a lifetime, but I wish to make films that will make me proud."

"So far, I am proud of the films I have made. I usually take one to six years to make a film as it's a doting task that has to be worthwhile," said Yadav, who does not want to decode the "formula" in Bollywood.

"I don't want to get into that formula because that's not who I am. I didn't try to understand it. I have done three different films and I wish to go by the same pace," said Yadav, for whom showcasing "Parched" at TIFF was a high point.

"We have had a very crazy and beautiful journey. It started with TIFF and that was the show I was so stressed out about. We had such a mix of international audience and that's the highest point of my life because we got a standing ovation."

(Uma Ramasubramanian can be contacted at uma.r@ians.in)

--IANS

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President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday condemned the terror attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir and said India will never be cowed down by such attacks.

"India will not be cowed down by such attacks. We will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers," the President tweeted.

Mukherjee strongly condemned the "outrageous terrorist attack" at Uri which left 17 soldiers dead and many others injured.

Paying tributes "to the brave soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice", the President said: "Heartfelt condolences to families of those bereaved in Uri. Prayers for speedy recovery of the injured."

He also wrote to Chief of the Army Staff, General Dalbir Singh, conveying condolences on the loss of lives of soldiers in the terrorist attack.

In his message to the Army Chief, the President said: "It is with deep shock and outrage that I learned of the terrorist attack in Uri in which many soldiers were killed and others injured."

"I salute and pay tributes to the martyrs who made the supreme sacrifice protecting our nation," he added.

--IANS

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The Islamic State (IS) militant group downed a Syrian warplane in the Deir al-Zour province on Sunday, a media report said.

The warplane was engaged in striking IS positions in the al-Tharda mountain when it was shot down, the Syrian national TV said.

On Saturday, the US-led anti-terror coalition struck Syrian military positions in al-Tharda, killing 90 soldiers and injuring 110 others, which enabled the IS terrorists to take over the mountain but the Syrian army, under Russian air cover, succeeded in recapturing the positions later in the evening.

The Syrian government accused the US of supporting the IS and urged the international community to condemn the attack, Xinhua news agency reported.

The US strike marked its first attack on Syrian army positions since the coalition started its operations in 2014.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the US-led airstrikes targeted government positions and added that the Russian counter-offensive against the IS militants in al-Tharda killed 38 IS militants.

--IANS

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The son of a respected Bangladeshi imam, murdered by Islamic State (IS) supporters, fears that terrorist sympathisers were radicalising youngsters in Rochdale area of Britain while posing as charity workers, a media report said.

Saleh Al Arif spoke out after Mohammed Syeedy, 21, was jailed for 24 years over the murder of Jalal Uddin, 71, who was bludgeoned to death in a children's playground in February, The Guardian reported on Sunday.

He said: "I spoke to some members of the community. They are really worried about the IS supporters. They believe there are a lot of supporters in the Bengali community. From the outside, it's like they are doing something good, charitable work and other things."

"They believe they are just trying to make a good impression and they are radicalising the young people in the community and they simply don't want to see that. They are very scared and they believe they have some kind of link with the IS. They just want to get rid of it and they want help from the police," Arif added.

Jalal Uddin was murdered by Syeedy and Mohammed Abdul Kadir, 24, because the elderly scholar practised a form of Islamic healing in which he gave away amulets, called taweez, to the sick -- a practice denounced as black magic by the IS.

The trial at Manchester crown court heard that Syeedy, Kadir and their friends surveiled Jalal Uddin for 18 months before he was murdered on February 18. Kadir was being sought by police after he flew to Istanbul, Turkey, three days after the killing.

In an interview with Sky News, Arif said he believes others were also involved in his father's murder who "knew what's going to happen", although they did not participate in the attack.

"Someone should be keeping an eye on these people. It should be investigated properly," he said, while also praising the police investigation.

"He was very religious, very peaceful and very knowledgeable. He had no political views but he had strong religious views and what he believed he tried to practise it to the death," he added.

In a victim impact statement read to court on Friday, Arif said his father told him two days before he was killed that he planned to return to Bangladesh later this year for the first time in 15 years.

Jalal Uddin had not seen his wife, children or grandchildren since he left Bangladesh for Britain in 2002.

--IANS

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Technology giant Microsoft is planning to close its London office of Skype and to lay off most of the nearly 400 people employed there, a media report here said.

"Microsoft made the decision to unify some engineering positions, potentially putting at risk a number of globally focused Skype and Yammer roles," the Financial Times quoted Microsoft as saying.

Skype will still maintain offices throughout the world, including in Redmond, Palo Alto, Vancouver, and several locations in Europe.

But the layoffs indicate a shift in priorities, with anonymous former employees telling media that Microsoft has increasingly been taking control of Skype, replacing Skype's employees with its own.

Skype was one of the first big voice chatting apps, but it's increasingly come under threat from basically all sides.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, among others, offer the same features and have enormous user bases. Meanwhile, business tools like Slack are beginning to build in the features, like video chatting, that people have traditionally gone to Skype for.

--IANS

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Militants attacked army's brigade headquarters in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town on Sunday morning.

Police said militants, whom number and identity was yet unknown, attacked the headquarters of the 12 Brigade around 5.30 a.m.

"Militants seem to have entered the camp where intense firing and explosions were going on", a senior police officer said.

The brigade headquarters is situated in Uri town of north Kashmir Baramulla district close to the Line of Control.

"If the militants responsible for the attack have recently infiltrated into the Indian side of the LoC from Pakistan or have been part of an existing group here is being established", the officer added.

--IANS

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Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Sunday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said his failure to tackle the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was responsible for the attack on an army camp near Uri.

"Modi ki laparwahi aur nakaami se jawan marae ja rahein hain. Kahan gaya Modi ka 56-inch ka seena? (Soldiers are dying due to the failure and negligence of Modi; where is his 56-inch chest now?)," Lalu told the media here.

Terrorists attacked the army camp near Uri early Sunday morning, leading to the death of 17 soldiers. Over two dozen soldiers were also injured in the audacious attack. All the four heavily-armed militants involved in the strike were killed during a two-and-half-hour gun battle, military officials said.

Lalu said the terror act is "highly condemnable", but a mere condemnation will not suffice.

"The Centre has to take tough action to give a befitting reply to terrorists."

The former Bihar Chief Minister flayed Modi for what he said was "deteriorating" condition in Jammu and Kashmir.

He said the state is an integral part of India but the situation there is going out of control, thanks to "only big talk and no action" on the ground.

--IANS

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Israeli Prime Minister's Office confirmed on Sunday that Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.

A statement released by Netanyahu's office said the two are likely to discuss "the challenges and opportunities in the Middle East and the way to promote peace and security together," Xinhua reported.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the meeting will be an opportunity to discuss "the need for genuine advancement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground".

The meeting will allow "an opportunity to discuss the stalwart ties between the US and Israel, as recently underscored by the finalization of our new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding with Israel, the single largest pledge of military assistance in US history," he said.

"Additionally, the leaders are likely to discuss continued implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and other regional security issues," Earnest added.

Last Wednesday, the two allies signed a military aid agreement, which is expected to give Israel as much as $38 billion a year over 10 years.

--IANS

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Several eminent citizens came together to focus attention on an often ignored area - the problems faced by children of jail inmates.

At a seminar titled "Unseen, Unheard -- Innocent Prisoners of Conscience", they discussed the plight of children of prisoners and sought ways to improve their lot through the collaborative efforts of individuals, governments and civil society.

Organised by the Siddhartha Vashishta Charitable Trust (SVCT), the seminar highlighted its "Prisoners' Child Education Programme" which provides tuition fees, books, stationery, uniforms, etc., to these children, as also counselling, mentoring and motivational sessions where required.

Those who attended the seminar were poet-politician Kumar Vishwas, filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar, former Director-General of Prisons and Delhi Police Commissioner B.K. Gupta, and former Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court Justice K.K. Lahoti, among others.

The seminar touched upon issues such as the psychological and socio-economic condition of these children; the role education can play in improving their lives; and the steps required to support them.

Participants also urged the private sector to come forward and provide employment to released prisoners and said civil society needs to help in re-absorbing them into mainstream society.

Said SVCT President Shakti Rani Sharma: "While working with children of Tihar jail inmates, we observed that because either one or both the parents are incarcerated in jail, the lives of these children is turned completely upside down. These children are deprived of basic necessities of life and also education which is a fundamental right of every child.

"Because they suffer societal indifference and ridicule coupled with extreme poverty, these children are financially and mentally very vulnerable and require our help."

Vishwas noted that Mahatma Gandhi once said that children cannot be illegitimate, relationships can be. "Why should children be isolated for crimes committed by their parents," he asked.

--IANS

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Rebel RSS leader Subhash Velingkar said making Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar a star campaigner for the upcoming assembly polls in Goa will not help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

According to Velingkar, the saffron party's cadre is convinced that, Parrikar, a former Goa Chief Minister, has betrayed his voters and cheated the people on the issue of medium of instruction.

Velingkar, who is mentoring the process of forming a new political party -- with a specific purpose of defeating the BJP in Goa, also said that there was no question of supporting the Aam Aadmi Party.

However, he did not rule out an alliance with the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), which is currently an alliance partner in the incumbent BJP-led coalition state government.

"Even if Manohar Parrikar or an even bigger leader than him campaigns (in Goa), it will not work with the people. The people have already gone against the BJP. Committed workers of BJP are now against BJP because of the sins they have done in Goa. They have polluted the culture of Goa," Velingkar told IANS.

Earlier this month, Velingkar had accused Parrikar of using his influence with the Sangh top brass and getting him sacked as the state RSS chief.

Velingkar has now formed a parallel unit of the RSS in Goa, which has nominated him as the sangha chalak.

The rebel RSS leader, who is the co-convenor of the Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch, has also consistently criticised the state BJP government's malgovernance and failure to keep promises, especially vis-a-vis doing away with government financial grants to primary schools, most of them run by Goa's Catholic Church, where the medium of instruction is English.

The Manch on October 2, will announce its new political outfit, Velingkar said, with the specific purpose of defeating the BJP in the upcoming elections.

"I can say the party will take up issues which have cropped up due to BJP's malgovernance. We will take up those issues other than medium of instruction (MoI)," Velingkar said.

While the party was on the lookout for alliance partners, the new political outfit will have no truck with the AAP in Goa, Velingkar said.

"AAP has its own principles and is against our stand on MoI. So, there is no question of supporting Aam Aadmi Party," he said, while also elaborating on other alliance options, including the Shiv Sena.

"We met Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, but no details were worked out. Our party is still being formed and the decision will be taken by BBSM central committee... Our first proposal is with the MGP."

"MGP should break the alliance with the BJP and, therefore, we are willing to wait till September 30, for them to take the decision. BBSM will give all support to MGP. If MGP does not join us, then we will try to unite smaller parties and groups across Goa," he said.

Velingkar, however, ruled out his direct involvement in electoral politics, citing RSS principles, which he continues to adhere to.

"RSS does not dictate which party you should join, as long as you are dedicated to the Sangh principles. I do not want to come into active . There is no chance. Other people will be asked to take up the political responsibilities," he said.

"RSS does not support any party. But RSS swayamsevaks stand by principle. Any party which crushes principles, RSS swayamsevaks cannot tolerate it."

--IANS

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Paul Walker's mother shared a heartfelt message with the late actor's fans during a charity event, saying that her son lives on in "all of you".

Actor Vin Diesel headed to Facebook Live on Saturday evening to show his support for Walker's charity Reach Out Worldwide, reports eonline.com.

"Paul was very, very instrumental in my segue into fatherhood. He was the one that told me to go to the hospital. He's the one that told me to cut the umbilical cord," Diesel shared while hanging out with Walker's father.

"He was the only person that knew, in California, that I was about to have a child."

"He must've been Godsend because he put me on the right path," the actor continued.

And while the duo was able to star together in several of the franchise's movies, it was the original "Fast & Furious" where the good advice first began.

"When we did the first 'Fast & Furious', I was already 30 years old or something, but he was a father. When we were in the cars in between takes, he would tell me, 'Hey, Vin, it's not a scary thing to become a father', (and) give me all the good advice," he shared.

"Next thing you know, I am a dad, which is why I named my daughter Pauline because of the credit that Paul Walker deserves in my personal life."

Reach Out Worldwide is a non-profit rapid response team committed to providing critical aid to those affected by natural disasters and humanitarian crises.

"My son lives on in all of you. It makes his work continue here on Earth and I know he's watching over us as we do this," Paul's mom Cheryl shared on Diesel's Facebook.

"I'm grateful for all my children but especially Cody working on this to keep ROWW going. It just makes my heart sing. I miss Paul, but he keeps working."

Walker died in a car crash on November 30, 2013.

--IANS

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President Barack Obama urged the African-American community to help stop Donald Trump, saying he would consider it a "personal insult" to his legacy if black voters did not back Hillary Clinton.

"If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn't matter who we elect -- read up on your history. It matters. We've got to get people to vote," Obama said on Saturday night while addressing the Congressional Black Caucus gala for the last time as president.

"I will consider it a personal insult -- an insult to my legacy -- if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote."

The President warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in the November 8 elections, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line, CNN reported.

According to analysts, Obama's Saturday night speech marked some of his harshest words yet about Republican presidential candidate Trump, as well as his most forceful call on the African-American community to support Democrat nominee Clinton.

Obama referred to the businessman as "somebody who has fought against civil rights and fought against equality and who has shown no regard for working people most of his life."

During his address, he also made fun of the so-called "birther" (if Obama was born in the US) controversy, saying "There's an extra spring in my step tonight. I don't know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole 'birther' thing is over."

"IS (Islamic State), North Korea, poverty, climate change -- none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate," Obama added.

Speaking before the President, Clinton lauded Obama and also took on the birther controversy, CNN noted.

"Mr. President, not only do we know you are an American, you are a great American," Clinton, who served as Obama's secretary of state (2009-2013), added.

--IANS

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A Norwegian man held captive for almost a year by a militant Islamist group in the Philippines has been freed Saturday, according to authorities.

Abu Sayyaf released Kjartan Sekkingstad on Saturday evening, Western Mindanao Command spokesman Major Filemon Tan. said.

Sekkingstad's release was an offshoot of ongoing military operations against the Abu Sayyaf group, Tan told CNN Philippines.

The Moro National Liberation Front, which is in peace talks with the government, assisted authorities in the operation, he said.

It was unclear whether a ransom was paid to secure Sekkingstad's release.

Sekkingstad was abducted from a resort on Samal island, which lies off the coast of Mindanao, on September 21, 2015.

Three people were kidnapped with him: Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, and Filipina Tess Flor.

Hall, Ridsdel and Flor were visiting the resort's marina on their yacht and Sekkingstad was the manager of the property.

Abu Sayyaf initially demanded a $6.3 million ransom for each of the victims to be paid by April 25, according to Philippine state media.

In March a jarring video surfaced, showing the four pleading for their lives.

In April, after murdering Canadian hostage Ridsdel, the group reset the deadline to June 13 for the remaining three hostages.

A video obtained in May by SITE, a group that monitors extremist and terrorist groups, showed three hostages surrounded by six armed militants.

Abu Sayyaf beheaded Hall in June.

Flor was released June 24, less than a week before Rodrigo Duterte officially assumed the presidency. He presented Flor to the public during a police turnover ceremony in Davao.

CNN Philippines reported that Sekkingstad spoke by telephone with Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza after his release and in his first words thanked Duterte.

Dureza said he would present Sekkingstad to Duterte Sunday.

--IANS

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Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra is likely to join Hollywood actor Tom Hiddleston to present a trophy at the forthcoming 68th Emmy Awards.

In a photograph that has surfaced online, Priyanka can be seen sharing a light moment with the "Thor" star outside the Microsoft Theater here.

Priyanka can be seen wearing an off-shoulder white top and blue denims in the image, while Hiddleston is sporting a dark blue T-shirt and a pair of black jeans.

Priyanka, who found fame in the West after starring in the popular American TV series "Quantico", took to Instagram to share a blurry image from the rehearsals of the award ceremony, which will take place on Sunday evening here.

"Rehearsals. Emmys with PC. Keep guessing. By the way, the blur is the point," she wrote alongside the image.

Apart from the image, a lot of fans commented on the post guessing that the person standing next to the "Bajirao Mastani" star is none other than Hiddleston.

Priyanka had earlier given a sneak peek into the dress that she will be sporting at the Emmys.

The photograph, she shared on the image sharing site, shows a red costume.

"What am I gonna wear tomorrow. Emmys with PC. Decisions," she wrote alongside the photograph.

Apart from Priyanka, other presenters include Aziz Ansari, Anthony Anderson, Larry David, James Corden, Kristen Bell, Michael Weatherly and Taraji P. Henson.

Earlier this year, Priyanka made her debut at Oscars by presenting the award for Best Film Editing.

She will also make her Hollywood debut in a negative role in "Baywatch" -- the big screen version of the globally popular TV series -- also featuring Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron.

--IANS

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The BJP on Sunday alleged some 400 cases of assault on its activists in Kerala since the Left took power and demanded a probe either by the CBI or a high court judge.

"Ever since the Pinarayi Vijayan government assumed office four months ago, 400 cases of assault against our cadres by CPI-M supporters have taken place," BJP General Secretary Bhupendra Yadav said.

"We demand a probe either by the Central Bureau of Investigation or by a high court judge since justice from the state government is impossible," the MP said.

Yadav led a delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders who visited Kannur and other areas in Kerala for two days.

The team included Meenakshi Lekhi, N.K. Hegde and Nalinkumar Katteel as well as H. Raja, the party secretary in charge of Kerala.

Yadav claimed that violence against BJP cadres had happened in the Chief Minister's village as well.

The team members on Sunday called on Kerala Governor P. Sathasivam and Home Secretary Nalini Netto and submitted an account of what it said was violence unleashed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist cadres.

"Three of our councillors have been killed in road accidents, 200 houses of our party members have been attacked... We do not expect to get justice under Vijayan," said Lekhi.

Lekhi gave a clean chit to BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh cadres for violence in Kannur.

Kerala Industries Minister E.P. Jayarajan told reporters in New Delhi that the BJP team's visit to the state was meant to please the RSS leaders and there was nothing else to it.

--IANS

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Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence's campaign on Saturday released a letter from his doctor that declared his health as excellent.

While Pence's father died of a heart attack, the letter noted that Pence, unlike his father who smoked cigarettes, neither smokes nor drinks alcohol and appears to have a "very good and strong heart", Xinhua news agency reported

"You are medically able to maintain your high level of professional work and your physical activity programs without limitations," said the letter written by Michael Busk of the St. Vincent Health, Wellness and Preventative care Institute in Indianapolis.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign also released a new brief note from the real estate magnate's doctor earlier this week, claiming that the candidate was "in excellent physical health".

According to the five-paragraph note written by Trump's doctor Harold Bornstein, Trump, 70, is six feet two inches tall and weighs 107 kg.

"Trump was hospitalised only once, as a child of 11 years old for an appendectomy," said the note, adding that there is no family history of premature cardiac or neoplastic disease.

Trump has annual physical exam in the spring of every year, and his last colonoscopy, chest X-ray and cardiac evaluation were results. Trump also takes a low dose aspirin and a statin, rosuvastatin, used for lowering cholesterol.

It was the second time since last December that the Trump campaign had released public documentation about Trump's health.

In his last note about Trump's health in December 2015, Bornstein declared "unequivocally" that Trump would be the "healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."

It was later disclosed that Bornstein spent five minutes writing the note.

The physical fitness of presidential candidates was put in the limelight early this month after Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was videotaped being helped into a van while her feet appeared to be dragging on the ground during a 9/11 memorial in New York.

The Clinton campaign later acknowledged that the 68-year-old former US secretary of state had been diagnosed with non-contagious, bacterial pneumonia.

--IANS

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Strongly condemning the terror attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri that left 17 soldiers dead on Sunday, the RSS demanded that the "terrorists, their masters and supporters" should be dealt with firmly.

In a statement, senior Rashtriya Sawemsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi expressed "heartfelt condolences for the martyred brave soldiers" who sacrificed their lives for the country.

"The terrorists, their masters and their supporters should be dealt with firmly and conclusively," the statement said without any reference to Pakistan.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- who strongly condemned the "cowardly terror attack" and assured the nation that "those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished" -- refrained from saying who was to blame for the bloodbath, Home Minister Rajnath Singh held Pakistan responsible.

--IANS

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After the initial euphoria over the Supreme Court judgment, Singur residents now seem uncertain about what the future holds for them after the land acquired earlier for Tata Motors' Nano project is returned to them.

Dwellers of this rural hamlet in Hooghly district of West Bengal are experiencing both jubilation and despondency over the judicial verdict that struck down the acquisition of land effected by the erstwhile Left Front government for the project and ordered its return to the cultivators.

At the same time there is hectic activity centred on the return of land records to farmers.

A little over eight years back too, the area had seen hectic activities, but of a different kind.

Then, as the auto major geared up to roll out the world's lowest priced car Nano from its blue-and-white factory shed here, the stretch buzzed with anticipation and bustled with enthusiasm.

Engineers were flown in from Pune to groom professionals at the plant, while the company also brought around four-five model cars for demonstration and training of local technicians.

The engine and paint shops, assembly unit and press shop were nearing completion, as the company eyed an October 2008 Nano rollout.

But ironically, the same month signalled the 'death' of the plant, as the then Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata announced shifting of the project out of Singur following an intense and often violent peasant movement led by the Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee.

Months later, Nano got its home in Gujarat's Sanand. But the factory here has since stood forlorn, enveloped in darkness, and the epicentre of political and legal battles over the years that changed the course of Bengal's history.

On September 14, as Banerjee -- now the state Chief Minister -- presided over the 'Singur Divas' celebrations attended by over eight lakh people, the factory colours were surrounded by a long stretch of green paddy dotted with 'kash' flowers, a grass species that heralds the autumnal Durga Puja festival.

But the prim periphery of the plant, as seen in early 2008, has now given way to an unwieldy growth of shrubs, slush and filth, inhabited by venomous snakes. In fact, a snake catcher was kept at the site to tackle any exigency.

The mood, however, is sanguine in villages like Beraberi, Bajemelia, Khaserberi, Ghaserberi and Gopalnagar, from where the anti-land acquisition movement had started.

Durga Puja is set to return to Singur after 10 years, with some villagers having earlier declared they would take part in the festival only after getting back their land.

"It was a hard-fought victory and the judgment is a vindication. Now, we are gearing up for the pujas," Mahadeb Das, a local Trinamool activist whose 1.3 acres were acquired despite his unwillingness, told IANS, proudly showing his land record and compensation cheque.

Interestingly, many of the songs sung at the programme were those which one would associate with the leftists.

A major gainer on the issue is Banerjee, her popularity now seemingly at an all-time high. She had staked her all during the Singur movement, spearheading the protests from 2006-08 as the main opposition leader in Bengal.

Banerjee had undertaken a 26-day hunger strike and a 16-day sit-in to demand return of 400 of the 997.11 acres acquired for the project.

Interestingly, the September 14 celebrations were held at the same spot on the Durgapur Expressway where she held the sit-in eight years ago.

The Chief Minister was, however, careful not to sound anti-industry in a state that is high on unemployment and short on investment.

Reiterating her government's hands-off policy on land acquisition, Banerjee reached out to the Tatas and invited them to set up an auto hub in Goaltore in West Midnapore district on a 1,000 acre plot owned by the state.

In villages, there are still many of those who feel the Tatas' exit has badly hit Singur.

Small businessmen are hoping against hope that industries in some form would eventually be set up here and, in turn, improve their fortunes.

"Cultivation will neither be profitable nor feasible. Had there been industries, people's purchasing power would have increased. With the return of Singur land, we'll have to cater to a market where these farmers will come with a paltry budget," said jewellery shop owner Sukumar Bhar.

Grocery shop owner Tarapada Hazra -- whose family had accepted compensation cheques earlier -- echoed Bhar.

Tapan Das of Bajemelia village agreed. "Many youths who joined the training programme under the Tatas in 2006 have moved to nearby cities like Kolkata and Durgapur for jobs and some are working in showrooms and authorised car service centres."

Similarly, many farmers are uncertain about the land yield, as agricultural scientists have voiced concerns over economic and ecological viability of restoring the Singur land, that Banerjee has promised.

"We are happy for getting back our land, but we do not know how much we can earn from small holdings even though the administration has promised to make the land cultivable," farmer Dwijen Kharar of Gopalnagar area told IANS.

(Bappaditya Chatterjee can be contacted at bappaditya.c@ians.in)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Computer-assisted smart power grids help reduce power generation shortfall, and result in improved delivery and more efficient billing, a study in Britain has concluded.

"A smart grid is a complex modern electricity system which utilises sensors, monitoring, communications and automation, to improve the electricity system," the researchers wrote in the study.

"Smart grids fundamentally change the way in which we generate, distribute and monitor our electricity. They dramatically improve the efficiency, flexibility and reliability of the existing electricity infrastructure," the researchers said.

Carl Chalmers, Michael Mackay and Aine MacDermott of Liverpool John Moores University, in England, explained in their research, published in the International Journal of Smart Grid and Green Communications, the advantages of a smart grid over the traditional energy grid.

They said smart grids use a vast interconnected infrastructure that allows two-way communication and automation throughout the entire grid -- from generator to consumer and back -- striking out the possibility of a malicious manipulation into the metering system for the sake of sabotage, criminal or online military/terrorist action.

The researchers, however, suggested that after knowing the possible worst-case scenario with regard to the smart grid and smart meters, countries must put in place security measures to protect the infrastructure.

The research team noted that critical infrastructures present a tempting target for terrorists, military strikes and hackers wanting to cause disruption, steal information or incapacitate a country remotely.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The CPI-M on Sunday condemned the killing of 17 soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir and told Pakistan to stop aiding and abetting extremist forces.

"The CPI-M has been consistently maintaining that terrorism is not the solution to the Kashmir issue," the Communist Party of India-Marxist said after militants killed the soldiers at an army camp in Uri.

"Such acts only compound the situation further. Pakistan must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces. Such activities are a big impediment to the peace process in the region.

"Despite the deployment of a large number of security personnel, the government has failed to stop the continuing infiltration of militants," it added.

The CPI-M reiterated that for a long-standing solution of the Kashmir problem, a political dialogue needed to be initiated without any further delay with all stakeholders.

--IANS

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Terrorists of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) outfit attacked an army camp near a brigade headquarters here in Jammu and Kashmir early on Friday in the worst attack on any military base in the state in a decade that left 17 soldiers dead, officials said.

Over two dozen soldiers were also injured in the audacious sneak attack, which Home Minister Rajnath Singh blamed on "terrorist state" Pakistan and called for its isolation. The death toll may rise as some of the wounded soldiers were critical and hospitalized in Srinagar, about 70 km away.

All four heavily-armed fidayeen or suicide attackers, who barged into the camp near Uri town at 5.30 a.m., were killed in a battle that raged for two-and-a-half hours, military officials said.

Echoing the nation's anguish, Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned the "cowardly terror attack" and assured "the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished".

Modi refrained from saying who was to blame for the bloodbath but Rajnath Singh did not mince words.

"I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," the minister tweeted.

The Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, said in Delhi that the army found some articles with "Pakistan markings" from the slain terrorists.

"They were all foreigners and belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammed," he said.

Uri is near the Line of Control (LoC), which divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The camp attacked on Sunday is close to the headquarters of the army's 12 Brigade.

According to military sources, the terrorists entered the camp from the rear after cutting the barbed wire fencing -- without the sentries getting alerted.

The gunmen then resorted to indiscriminate gunfire from AK-47 rifles after quickly spreading in different directions inside the camp.

They also hurled grenades at tents where soldiers were asleep, catching them unawares.

At least 14 of the 17 casualties, according to Gen Ranbir Singh, occurred due to a fire after militants hurled grenades at temporary structures in a mountainous terrain of Uri.

The exact number of troops inside the camp was not known but a source estimated there must have been around 200. Most of the infantry battalion is deployed on the LoC.

The attack sent huge columns of black smoke rising into the sky.

A statement from the Northern Command said "heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base at Uri" and that four terrorists died in the counter action.

"The base had a large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifices of 17 soldiers who were martyred."

Unofficial sources said most dead soldiers were from the Bihar Regiment. Two soldiers of the Dogra Regiment also died.

No guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The attack came amid an ongoing civilian unrest in the Kashmir Valley that has left nearly 90 persons dead in the last two and half months.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said the "attack was aimed at triggering fresh violence in Kashmir and creating a war-like situation in the region.

"The heightened tension in the wake of the Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid increasing India-Pakistan hostility," she warned.

Within hours, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh flew to Srinagar.

In a sign that Sunday's attack would further worsen the India-Pakistan relations, Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, said: "Not responding to such terror attacks will be cowardice."

A military expert, retired Lt. Gen. Raj Kadyan, said it was time to teach Pakistan a lesson.

Calling the attack the "most serious in the last decade", he said: "The response required is a tough one. The army should launch a strike at a place and time of its choosing. Retribution should be quick and severe."

--IANS

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Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Sunday that the killing of 17 soldiers by terrorists was aimed at creating a war-like situation between India and Pakistan.

"The attack was aimed at triggering fresh violence in Kashmir and creating a war-like situation in the region," Mufti said in a statement on her Facebook page.

She said those responsible for sponsoring and aiding violence must understand the futility of their exercise as it would yield nothing but misery for the people.

The Chief Minister condemned the sneak attack on an army camp in Uri in which over two dozen soldiers were also injured.

"The heightened tension in the wake of the Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid increasing India-Pakistan hostility," she warned.

The Chief Minister paid rich tributes to the martyred soldiers and expressed condolences with the bereaved families.

"Jammu and Kashmir has always been the worst victim of India-Pakistan hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for the same for the past over six decades," she said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US on strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir that left 17 soldiers dead.

"We strongly condemn the terror attack in Uri. Our thoughts are with the families of the brave soldiers who lost their lives," US Ambassador to India Richard Verma said in a tweet.

Terrorists sneaked into an army camp at Uri early on Friday and killed 17 soldiers in the worst attack on a military centre in the state in a decade.

--IANS

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Actor Naga Chaitanya, son of Telugu superstar Akkineni Nagarjuna, has confirmed that he will tie the knot next year.

"It (marriage) should happen next year. My father will announce the date once it's finalised. At the moment, I can't divulge more information," Chaitanya told IANS.

Rumoured to be in a relationship with actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu, he refused to comment when asked about it.

Chaitanya is currently busy wrapping up Telugu action-thriller "Saahasam Swasaga Sagipo", and also awaits the release of "Premam", the eponymous remake of Malayalam blockbuster.

He has also signed a yet-untitled project with director Kalyan Krishna, and it is slated to go on the floors later this year.

--IANS

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The world's largest Viking ship docked on Saturday in New York, the latest destination in a voyage that began in Norway and has included port stops in Iceland, Greenland, Canada and US cities of the Great Lakes region.

The aim of Expedition America 2016 was to reenact the voyage the Vikings carried out 1,000 years ago and see if it was possible to sail an open 115-foot wooden ship across the North Atlantic Ocean to Newfoundland and into the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes, EFE news reported.

The Norwegian Draken Harald Harfagre sailed past the Statue of Liberty and then received a grand welcoming ceremony shortly afterward at North Cove Marina in southern Manhattan.

The crew has managed to navigate the ship through storms, icebergs and unforeseen weather conditions since they set sail from Haugesund, Norway, in April, the expedition's Web site said.

The ship arrived from the Great Lakes via the New York Canal System and the Hudson river.

"The main goal when we started this voyage, was to cross the North Atlantic Ocean in a safe manner, following the historic route of the Norse Vikings. Next goal was to visit the Great Lakes. We managed that too," Captain Bjorn Ahlander was quoted as saying on the expedition's Web site prior to arrival in New York.

"I am extremely satisfied with the seaworthiness of the ship. This old construction has fulfilled all expectations. I am also tremendously proud of the crew that has endured five months in very cold, as well as hot, environments," he added.

The Draken Harald Harfagre will dock in New York until September 26 and then make its last port stop at Connecticut's Mystic Seaport, the US' largest maritime museum, in October.

--IANS

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A day after started on-road testing for its first fleet of driverless cabs in the United States, the cab-hailing app's India president, Amit Jain, faced a bouncer. Addressing an industry meet where his company unveiled plans to hire a million drivers in India, he was asked if it had plans to offer a driverless cab service in India as well. After a moment's awkward silence, Jain brushed aside the question -the priorities for India, he reiterated, were different. As proof of its commitment to creating jobs, had, a few minutes before that exchange, paraded aspiring women cabbies in front of a cheering audience and handed over the keys to brand new vehicles to two drivers.
The Constitution (122) Amendment Bill enabling the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) has recently been enacted. It is a landmark reform considering the sweeping changes it brings about in the indirect tax regime in India as well as in distribution of powers between the Centre and states vis-a-vis such taxes. Unfortunately, upon minute review of the amendments read with the provisions of the draft Model law, several constitutional issues emerge.
The Indian foreign policy establishment may view with complacency the fact that another new Nepalese prime minister has chosen India rather than China for his first official visit. But that could be a mistake. It's an encouraging sign that Pushpa Kamal Dahal, popularly known as Prachanda, chose to travel to India first, in contrast to the China-first orientation during his first term in 2008. It takes place, however, against the background of China's unhappiness with Nepal over the latter's perceived lack of commitment to the former's ambitious One Belt One Road project along Central Asia. As a result, there is uncertainty over a scheduled visit in October to Kathmandu by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
With reference to T N Ninan's piece, "The minimum wage temptation" (September 17), perhaps by coincidence, N Sundaresha Subramanian's report, "Proxy advisory company finds Sun's pay cheque for Kavery Kalanithi 'excessive'" appeared in the paper on the same day.
INDELIBLE INK

The Trials of John Peter Zenger and the Birth of America's Free Press

Richard Kluger

W W Norton & Company

346 pages; $27.95



More than half a century after A J Liebling declared that freedom of the press "is guaranteed only to those who own one," the quip seems doubly out of date. For one thing, anyone with access to the internet can now be said to "own one" and to enjoy the freedoms of the First Amendment with abandon. At the same time, the people Liebling had in mind, owners of the press in the more institutional sense, find their guarantee of freedom less than ironclad.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday launched a scathing attack on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi describing it as the "worst government since Independence" to rule Delhi and cautioned the people of poll- bound Punjab to be "wary" of the party. "That party's (AAP) example of running the government is before us in Delhi. This example, showing what kind of government they are running, is before the country. Anybody who looks at the rule of Delhi, will come to know the quality of their governance," the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader told reporters here.
Delhi Chief Minister today returned to the national capital from Bengaluru after having undergone a throat surgery for persistent cough.

He had had gone to Bengaluru on September 13 and the surgery took place the next day to correct an anatomical abnormality of hisoral-pharyngeal and palatal area.

Before leaving for Delhi, Kejriwal thanked doctors of the hospital where he underwent the surgery.

"Discharged today after surgery. Thank u so much Kiranji, Dr Shetty n Dr Paul. Can't express my gratitude in words (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted.

BJP and Congress have criticised Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia for "being away" from the national capital at a time when Delhi is grappling with the outbreak of dengue and chikungunya.

Sisodia is also scheduled to return today to Delhi from Finland where he had gone to understand its education system.

Earlier this week, Congress had observed 'Bhagoda Diwas', saying Kejriwal and half of his cabinet were "absent" from Delhi.

"He is doing well, there is no problem. He is able to talk, but we are restricting him," officials at the Narayana Health City had said after the surgery.
The Trinamool Congress' equation with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been a roller-coaster ride. It was all hunky-dory in the winter of 2016, when four central ministers graced the Bengal Global Business Summit; in the run-up to the Assembly elections in May, it soured. It improved immediately after the polls in which swept through Bengal and now, once more, it's turned bitter. What has made it obvious is Banerjee's decision to drop a discussion in the state Assembly on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) constitutional amendment as passed by Parliament, to thereafter ratify it. The discussion was scheduled on August 29 but the day before, the government decided to drop it. For the record, top TMC leaders disagree that it had anything to do with the state's relations with the Centre but observers believe otherwise. "We have supported GST since 2009 and Centre-state relations have nothing to do it. It had to be dropped for paucity of time because the change of name of Bengal was being discussed," insisted a senior from the party.
Ever since the release on bail of former Rashtriya Janata Dal strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin, ex-Member of Parliament, bickering and blame games within the Janata Dal (U)-RJD alliance show no sign of abating. Right after the four-term MP from Siwan walked out of jail on September 10 to a hero's welcome, he described Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as being a "CM due to circumstances". The next morning he again questioned Kumar's credentials for the job and said the CM could not have got more than 20 seats for the party on his own.
To help commuters in the national capital, 100 new buses (Orange) were today inducted in the cluster fleet operated by Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS).

Transport Minister Satyendar Jain and Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas flagged off 100 GPS-enabled cluster buses that will run in North, East and West Delhi.

A senior government official said that like other cluster buses, fares will be charged through e-ticketing machines (ETM) in new buses.

"With these new age features and introduction of new bus routes, the government aims to provide a better travel experience to the residents of the national capital," government said in a statement.

In the next phase, the Delhi government will soon be introducing an additional fleet of 800 buses, of which 431 buses will be air conditioned. This move will be in sync with the capacity building of new depots, it stated.

The 100 new buses were flagged off at a special function held at the Delhi Vidhan Sabha today.

On the occasion, Jain said,"We aim to ramp up the connectivity and frequency of bus services by integrating metro and bus services, to retain the faith of the people in public transport. Therefore, trunk bus services-on major routes - and feeder bus services on metro routes will be provided by these buses."



"I congratulate the Delhi Government for this endeavour which will make transport easier for the common man," said Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel said.

Besides conforming to the urban bus specifications and safety tests, the buses are fitted with 41 'anti-vandalism' seats and have a better seating arrangement, to ensure the comfort of passengers, government statement said.

With the induction of these 100 buses, the cluster fleet strength has risen to 1,590 buses.

They will be largely catering to North, East and West Delhi on 8 additional cluster routes. These routes terminate at Mori Gate Terminal, Kamla Market, Ambedkar Nagar Terminal, Old Delhi Railway Station, Mayur Vihar Phase III Terminal, Inderpuri JJ Colony, Mori Gate Terminal and Shivaji Stadium Terminal.

These buses will provide crucial connectivity to well-known hospitals, metro stations and traffic interchange hubs at ISBTs like Kashmere Gate, Anand Vihar and Sarai Kale Khan terminals.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Over 15,000 Unitarian faithfuls celebrated the 129th anniversary of the Unitarian Church in Meghalaya and Assam's Karbi Anglong district today pledging for peace, love and brotherhood among fellow humans.

The Church draws its theology largely from the indigenous Khasi religion even as it has its presence in Assam's Karbi Anglong district.

As with traditional Khasi faith, the major emphasis of Khasi Unitarianism is to carry out one's duty towards God and fellow humans, Rev D Pariat, the President of the Unitarian Church of North East India said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured as heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.

Explosions and gunfire erupted as the militants attacked the camp, which is located barely few metres away from the Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town, 102 kms from here, around 4 AM, official sources said.

The jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks, the sources said.

It is believed that the attack was the handiwork of a group of freshly infiltrated militants who could have entered from an area along the Salamabad Nallah, the sources said.

17 jawans were killed in the terror attack, the Northern Command of the Army said.

Nineteen other personnel were injured in the strike in which four militants were killed.

Defence sources said that this is one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years.

In January, seven military personnel were killed when six terrorists attacked the Pathankot air base.

The attack comes two years after militants had carried out a similar type of attack at Mohra in the same area. Ten security personnel were killed in the attack that took place on December 5, 2014.

Giving details of the attack, the Army said in a statement, "A group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, Kashmir. In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress"



"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement said.

Helicopters from the Army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla have been pressed into service and the injured Army personnel have been evacuated from the encounter site, the sources said.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag are rushing to Kashmir in the wake of terror attack in Uri.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has also called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the terror attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
About 250 kg of sea cucumber, an endangered coral reef species, which was meant to be smuggled into Sri Lanka from Mandapam coast near here was seized today and one arrested in this connection, marine police said.

The sea cucumber worth Rs 15 lakh was being loaded onto a boat, when the Mandapam Marine Police on routine patrol duty checked and confiscated it this morning, they said.

One Suresh of Mandapam has been arrested in connection with this, they added.

Sea cucumbers, which play an important role in maintaining the marine ecological system, have been classified as endangered species and their harvest banned under the Wildlife Protection Act.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As many as 29 people were today injured in an explosion that rocked New York's busy and upscale neighbourhood also frequented by tourists, authorities said about the "intentional act", hours before world leaders arrive here for the high-level UN General Assembly session.

The explosion - which came hours after a pipe bomb went off in a garbage can in New Jersey - occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood at 23rd St. And 6th Avenue around 8:30 pm (local time) yesterday.

The spot of the explosion is a busy residential and commercial area frequented by tourists and city residents.

President Barack Obama has been appraised of the explosion, a White House official said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the number of people injured is now 29 but none is life threatening except for one who is in "serious" condition.

A second Manhattan site is under investigation, Blasio said while addressing a press conference at the scene.

The Mayor described the explosion as an "intentional act" but said there is no evidence at this point of a terror link.

He said the city "experienced a very serious incident" and injuries are significant but added that there is "no evidence at this point of a terror connection" even as early indications suggest "this was an intentional act".

"There is no specific and credible threat at this time from any terror organisation", he said, adding that he does not see a link to terrorism.

New York City new Police Commissioner James O Neill, who had his first day at the city's police chief yesterday, that the "exact cause of the explosion has not yet been determined" and personnel from the police department, FBI, bomb squad and counter-terrorism departments are on the scene.

The Police Commissioner added that a "second site" is being treated at 27th street between 6th and 7th avenues by the police but did not provide more details.

The Mayor also added that at this point there is "no specific connection" to the incident in New Jersey earlier in the day in which an explosion occurred in a garbage can.

"We are not going to let anyone change us, intimidate us," the mayor said.

Authorities said "extensive search" is being conducted in the area and the neighbourhood and ruled out gas as the reason for the explosion.

Security is already tight in the city as nearly 190 world leaders, including Obama, will arrive in the city for the about week-long high-level annual UN General Assembly session, beginning tomorrow.

"The president has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation. The president will be updated as additional information becomes available," a White House official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A powerful today rocked New York's upscale neighbourhood injuring 29 people, in what the mayor described was an "intentional act", hours before world leaders arrive here for the UN General Assembly session even as police also found a pressure cooker with wires nearby.

The - which came hours after a pipe bomb went off in a garbage can in New Jersey - occurred in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood at 23rd St. And 6th Avenue, a busy residential and commercial area frequented by tourists and city residents, around 8:30 pm (local time) yesterday.

President Barack Obama, who is set to visit the city for the UNGA session beginning tomorrow, has been apprised of the explosion, a White House official said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the number of people injured is now 29 but none is life threatening except one who is in "serious" condition.

The Mayor described the as an "intentional act" but said there is no evidence at this point of a terror link.

He said the city "experienced a very serious incident" and injuries are significant but added that there is "no evidence at this point of a terror connection" even as early indications suggest "this was an intentional act".

"There is no specific and credible threat at this time from any terror organisation", he said.

A second Manhattan site is under investigation, Blasio said while addressing a press conference at the scene.

Local officials said the device at a second location few blocks away in Chelsea appears to be a pressure cooker, with dark coloured wiring coming out of the top centre of the device. The device is connected by silver duct tape to a small device attached to the outside of the pressure cooker.

New York City new Police Commissioner James O Neill, who had his first day at the city's police chief yesterday, that the "exact cause of the explosion has not yet been determined" and personnel from the police department, FBI, bomb squad and counter-terrorism departments are on the scene.

The Police Commissioner added that a "second site" is being treated at 27th street between 6th and 7th avenues by the police but did not provide more details.

Police said investigations are ongoing and advised people to avoid the area.

As a "precautionary measure" residents living in the 27th street between 6th and 7th avenues to "stay away" from windows facing 27th street "until we clear the area of a suspicious package", they said, adding this is a precautionary measure only and they are not evacuating the area.

The Mayor also added that at this point there is "no specific connection" to the incident in New Jersey earlier in the day in which an explosion occurred in a garbage can.

"We are not going to let anyone change us, intimidate us," the mayor said.

Authorities said "extensive search" is being conducted in the area and the neighbourhood and ruled out gas as the reason for the explosion.

Security is already tight in the city as nearly 190 world leaders will arrive in the city for the about week-long annual UN General Assembly session.
At least three policemen were today killed by two Taliban gunmen in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in what appeared to be a targeted attack, police said.

"Three policemen have been shot dead in Landy Sarak in Khazana area," a police official said, adding "The men were travelling in a van when they were targeted by armed motorcyclists who fired 12 bullets from a rifle."



"It seems like a case of a targeted attack. The attackers were on motorbikes who intercepted the vehicle," the official said.

The Afghanistan-based Jamaatul Ahrar militant group, a splinter faction of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack, The Express Tribune reported.

The group's spokesperson, Ehsaanullah Ehsan, said in a statement that the TTP JA gunmen carried out the attack.

Islamic militants have been involved in multiple such attacks in and around the provincial capital surrounded by lawless tribal regions.

Earlier last week, a doctor associated with an anti-polio campaign was also gunned down in the same area.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least three policemen were killed today in Pakistan by unidentified gunmen in an ambush here, police said.

The police van was targetted by three armed assailants in Khazana area on the outskirts of Peshawar district.

The gunmen fired 12 bullets from a rifle, killing three cops, police said, adding that the killers escaped from scene after the incident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nearly 40 per cent of Indians in a new study said that they would be too apprehensive to do any productive activities while travelling in self-driving vehicles.

Safety and mobility are cited as the chief advantages of self-driving vehicles, but productivity may be another.

Researchers from University of Michigan in the US asked 3,255 people what they would do with an extra hour if they did not have to sit behind the wheel in 2014.

Particpants of the study were from India, the US, China, Japan, Australia and the UK.

According to the data, nearly 40 per cent of Indians said they would be so apprehensive that they would not attempt any activities in such vehicles.

Nearly 50 per cent of Indians said they will be involved in activities that increase the frequency and severity of motion sickness.

"Currently, in the US, the average occupant of a light-duty vehicle spends about an hour a day travelling - time that could potentially be put to more productive use," said Michael Sivak, research professor at the Transportation Research Institute.

"Indeed, increased productivity is one of the expected benefits of self-driving vehicles," said Sivak.

Among those who would take advantage of the extra time, about 11 per cent would read, 10 per cent would text or talk with family and friends, seven per cent would sleep, six per cent would watch movies or TV, five per cent would work and two per cent would play games.

Researchers said that the performance of current restraint systems for nontraditional positions and postures being considered for occupants of self-driving vehicles (eg facing backward or sideways or lying down) and the potential of untethered objects (eg, laptops) becoming projectiles are cause for additional concern.

They also note that the average vehicle trip is short (about 19 minutes) - a rather short duration for sustained productive activity or invigoration sleep.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Air India plans to reverse poach senior pilots and commanders, who had switched to other Indian and foreign airlines earlier and on whom the state-run carrier had spent a lot of money to train them.

As part of the strategy to hire over 500 pilots, the public sector carrier would also focus on hiring those who had left it in the past for various reasons and moved to other carriers, sources said.

The move, which has the "consent" of Air India Chairman and managing Director Ashwani Lohani, is aimed at saving both money and time as these already trained pilots can be deployed for operations immediately, they said.

Air India has already offered jobs to 13 pilots it had sacked for participating in a two-month strike in 2012, sources said, adding most of them were "considering" the proposal though three pilots are not willing.

As many as 173 Air India pilots have resigned from the national carrier since 2012 till last year, with most of them being those operating the narrow-body Airbus A320 family of aircraft, as per official figures early this year.

A recruitment drive to hire 534 A320 pilots is currently on. Air India also needs around 150 wide-body pilots to expand its international operations further, including planned flights to Washington and several European destinations.

"We have immediate requirement of around 150 wide-body pilots, besides the over 500 pilots being hired for the A320s, for medium and long haul operations. If we take back those pilots who have left us in the past, we will not only be saving huge cost on training them but also save a lot of time which goes down in the induction process," sources said.

At present, the cost of training a pilot for an Airbus A320 family of planes stands a little over at Rs four lakh per pilot while the type rating cost per pilot comes to nearly Rs 23 lakh.

While those who join the Dreamliner fleet from B-777 wide-body planes are imparted a 4-5 week training costing around Rs 25 lakh per pilot, pilots coming from the narrow- body planes (A320 family) are given a three-month training at a whopping cost of Rs 80 lakh per pilot, according to sources.

"We have not been able to finalise the Washington and other proposed international flights because of shortage of B-777 and B-787 pilots only. If the plan to hire such pilots materialises, we can commence these destinations in a short time," they said.

Madrid, Barcelona, Copenhagen and Stockholm, besides Washington, are the destinations that Air India is looking at as part of its international expansion plans, Air India Director for Commercial Pankaj Shrivastava had said sometime back.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The number of "air rage" incidents on UK airlines has quadrupled over a three-year period, according to official figures.

Quoting Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data, the BBC reported that there were 386 dangerous incidents in 2015 - compared with just 85 in 2013.

It is an offence to be drunk on a plane or to refuse to obey instructions given by the captain.

Examples of incidents quoted by the CAA include disruptive passengers fighting each other and one who had to be restrained during the flight after "progressively disruptive behaviour" before attempting to open the plane door.

It took four policemen to remove one passenger, who was described as "uncontrollable and verbally abusive", in another incident.

"People a lot of the time don't actually realise they're on board an aircraft. I think a lot of the time people think that they're in a club or in a bar. They behave like animals. You can't believe your eyes some of the things that you're seeing," says a veteran crew member of a British airliner.

"Now we're getting to the point where we're having to be bouncers," he said.

According to him, the problems are worst on short-haul destinations to European cities popular with stag and hen parties, although flights to Las Vegas in the US can also be problematic.

In July, the aviation minister Lord Ahmad said he was looking at the way alcohol was sold in airports, but has yet to announce his findings.

British carrier Jet 2 has banned 22 troublemakers for life already this year. Managing Director of Jet 2 Phil Ward said he would like to see the creation of a centralised database so that anyone who has been punished by a single airline could be barred across the industry.

More than 250 million passengers pass through UK airports every year, with close to two million flights, so the number of untoward incidents is still relatively small.

But figures from the Civil Aviation Authority leave no room for doubt that the problem of passenger misbehaviour is getting worse.

They are sent mandatory occurrence reports from every UK airline, identifying occasions where a plane, its crew or passengers are put at risk.

Internationally, too, the problem seems to be growing.

The International Air Transport Association has seen a growth in the number of reports of unruly passenger incidents every year since 2007, with more than 10,000 reported last year.

A quarter of them mention drugs or alcohol as a trigger, the report said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Targeting Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Union minister Smriti Irani today alleged that the "elected representative" from the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency has failed to address the issues of its people, and promised that she will look into their grievances.

"The elected representative may not resolve people's issue but I, as a central minister, will look into them," she said.

The minister was on a visit to Pipri village in the constituency, where an embankment on Gomti river will be built to prevent it from overflowing.

"The project has been sanctioned by the Union Water Resources Ministry. The villagers boycotted the 2014 Lok Sabha polls... The Union government is undertaking the project to save people from floods," she said.

Irani also inaugurated a health camp in Haliapur village in the Jagdishpur assembly segment.
In a set back to the ruling PDP, party leader Nisar Ahmad Mandoo on Sunday resigned from the party saying he cannot side with "bloodbath" of Kashmiris, the second prominent leader to resign in the wake of the ongoing unrest in Kashmir.

"I am resigning from the basic membership of the as I cannot side with the bloodbath of Kashmiris," Mandoo, who was senior vice president of the party's Srinagar unit, told reporters here.

Mandoo also cited "anti-people" policies of BJP- coalition in the state as a reason for his resignation.

"I have been associated with for the past 16 years. The party was formed to protect the lives and political dignity of people but today the party has deviated from these principles," he said.

Mandoo is the second prominent leader of the ruling party to resign in the wake of the ongoing unrest in Kashmir that has left 81 persons dead and thousands of others injured.

Tariq Hameed Karra, founding member of the PDP and Lok Sabha member from Srinagar constituency, resigned from the party as well as the Parliament seat on September 15 over civilians' killings.
Cab hailing app is betting big on its enterprise offering -- for Business (U4B) -- to drive its growth in the country.

In the nine months of operations, for Business has seen a 50 per cent month-on-month growth and the company is looking at scaling the offering further.

Using U4B, companies can enable travel for employees through Uber. They can monitor the trip activity and employees can use a central payment account or request reimbursement for trips related to business.

"U4B was developed to provide an enhanced experience to companies, and employees, wanting to use Uber's global network for work travel. The U4B platform also includes a versatile and powerful travel dashboard that business administrators can use to manage budgets, enforce ride policies, and monitor usage and spends," Uber Asia Pacific Head (Uber for Business) Arjun Nohwar told PTI.

He added that U4B is up to 60 per cent cheaper than traditional options.

'Uber for Business' also allows corporates to automate uploading of employee lists and information that ensures only authorised employees have access to the company's U4B account.

The US-based company, which is locked in an intense battle in the Indian market with domestic player Ola, has been aggressively ramping up its operations in the country.

It has committed multi-million dollars in investments towards India, which is its second largest market in terms of number of trips taken, after its home market.

Uber for Business was launched in the US, the UK, France and Canada in July 2014. It was launched in India in December last after a three-month pilot that started in October last year.

"Uber for Business as a product has been growing at an incredible pace worldwide. In India, some of the largest Indian corporates have adopted it for their employee travel. We have over 50,000 companies across the world using Uber for Business," he said.

Nohwar added that Uber for Business has seen a 50 per cent month-on-month growth in the last nine months since its launch in India.

Some of its clients in India include Cognizant, Bain & Company, Airtel, AT Kearney, Dr Reddy's Group, Godrej Group, NDTV, Reliance ADA Group, Tata Steel, Welspun, Quikr, Mindtree, Stayglad and Treebo.

Uber's rival, Ola has a similar offering for the enterprise segment -- Ola Corporate.

(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.)
Harshvardhan Kapoor has begun filming director Vikramaditya Motwane's "Bhavesh Joshi" and the actor says it is a hardcore action film but contrary to media reports he does not play a superhero in the movie.

"Bhavesh Joshi" is the second movie of Harshvardhan, who is awaiting the release of his debut film "Mirzya".

Talking about the Phantom Film's project, Harshvardhan told PTI, "We will start shooting for action now. We did till now the non action scenes. The first schedule was performance and the second schedule is action. I will start my training for action now."



When asked if the film will have Hollywood style action or something more rooted, he said, "It's Vikramaditya Motwane so you can trust him to do something original. I can't reveal things it's too early. All I can say is expect action like never before it is going to be a different world."



There were reports that Harshvardhan will play a Gujarati boy with special powers in "Bhavesh Joshi".

He, however, clarified that it is not a superhero film. "I don't know where that Gujarati part has come from. I don't want to comment on the plot and story of the film. But it's not that."



Before the 25-year-old actor came on board for the movie, "Bhavesh Joshi" was in for its casting as actors like Imran Khan, Sidharth Malhotra had rejected the film.

When asked about it, Harshvardhan said, "I don't think when you will watch it, you will think of Imran Khan or Sidharth Malhotra. You will only think of Harshvardhan Kapoor as Bhavesh Joshi. Vikramaditya Motwane is a brilliant director. I don't know why Imran and Sidharth did not do it. I thank God I got the chance to do it," he said.

The debutante enrolled into workshop for the film.

"We started workshop on July 1 and did it till July 14 then I panicked and said, 'I need two more weeks to prep'.

"I even left my house and started staying with the guy who is playing my roommate in the film and then I moved in alone."



Harshvardhan revealed that he and Motwane had discussed "Bhavesh Joshi" in 2012 but it could only happen now.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BJP today slammed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the LDF government for "increasing" number of political attacks in Kannur district and sought a probe by CBI or a Supreme Court or High Court judge on the "red terror" unleashed against its workers.

A five-member delegation of BJP MPs, led by party national general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Bhupendra Yadav, today met Kerala Governor P Sathasivam at Raj Bhavan here and apprised him of the "complex situation" in north Kerala's Kannur.

"We explained the complex situation and handed over a list of crimes committed by left volunteers against BJP and Sangh workers in Kerala," Yadav later told a press conference.

The MPs also visited the state BJP office which was attacked a few days ago.

"We appreciate positive attitude of the governor," he said adding that a list of "atrocities" against BJP workers has been submitted to Sathasivam and the state Home Secretary.

"We require an independent inquiry, independent from Kerala government... An independent SIT may be under CBI, or under a sitting judge of High Court or Supreme Court so things will come very clear," Yadav said.

Alleging that incidents of political violence were high in the native villages of Vijayan and party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan in Kannur, he said it was the job of the state government to tackle all kinds of violence.

"If people in Chief Minister's village are not safe, then who is safe in the state? Is the CM ready to take the moral responsibility (of these attacks)," he asked.

Asked if the delegation would meet the chief minister, Nandakumar Hegde, MP, asked "why should we?"



When it was pointed out by a scribe that the BJP's complaints were mainly against the chief minister, he retorted "he (CM) should be aware of that."



Attacking the chief minister, BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi claimed Vijayan had in 2008, when he was the party secretary, stated that the "Bengal line needs to be followed i.E the political opposition needs to be done away with without bleeding."



"That is the mindset state is engaging in when he has become the chief minister," she alleged.

"The person who is the chief minister has forgotten the fact that he is no longer a marxist leader, which he used to be, but that he is the chief minister of the state and when law and order is failing, he is failing in his administrative capacity," she said.

"Red terror and its peak is what we are seeing under



Vijayan's governance and that is the model which India under its democratic regime refuses to accept," Lekhi said.

She alleged that the chief minister had failed to stop atrocities against BJP workers.

About 400 cases of violence have been registered in four months after the LDF government came to power, she claimed, adding that 200 BJP workers have been assaulted, maimed or killed, and 200 homes burnt.

"There have been three unnatural deaths, including that of Kokila Suresh, a BJP councillor who died in a road accident in Kollam a couple of days ago," she said.

Meanwhile, Industries minister E P Jayarajan said in Delhi that BJP was levelling allegations against the CPI(M) to cover up their own attacks against Marxist party workers.
BJP will launch four 'parivartan yatra' next month in and it will stretch over 100 days and conclude with a likely rally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the party works to take on the might of ruling SP and Mayawati-led BSP in the poll-bound state.

Party sources said the four yatras will start from Saharanpur, Lalitpur, Sonbhadra and either Gorakhpur or Balia and converge at one place, which could be Lucknow, after the inauspicious 'Shradh' period ends.

Top party leaders, including president Amit Shah and several Union ministers, will be addressing public meetings as the yatras move on.

Giving details of the campaign, they said the party has decided to hold a youth and woman meeting in each of the 91 districts of the state.

It hopes to connect with each of the estimated 52,000 panchayats in the state and also hold a meeting at the booth level.

Faced with tough competition from SP and BSP, both of which also led by formidable personalities, BJP is banking on its organisational machinery and its central leadership's might as the party is unlikely to name a chief ministerial face like its rivals.

"Our developmental agenda, the good work of the Modi government and the mal-governance of SP and the previous Mayawati dispensation are at the centre of our campaign. So far the prevailing view is that we won't have a chief ministerial face," a party leader said.

With a strong section of Dalits strongly behind Mayawati and numerically strong Yadavs and a large chunk of Muslims supporting SP, BJP is working to make a social coalition of upper castes and other backward castes to pull off a victory in a state where it has been out of power for over 14 years.
Reiterating the government's commitment to deliver health services to each and every person, Union Minister J P Nadda has said the Centre intends to tie up with the private sector for it and a blueprint in this regard will be framed soon.

"The Centre is working on an elaborate plan to roll out a blueprint for health services with the participation of the private sector in next two months and is committed to provide it to the last man of the society," Nadda said, delivering a lecture on 'Universal Healthcare: Forging Partnerships with the Private Sector' here last evening.

The programme was organised by Y N Singh Memorial Foundation as a part of its second edition of the national lecture series on contemporary issues.

Referring to the availability of health infrastructure in the country, the Health and Family Welfare Minister said the major problem is not availability of resources but its poor implementation.

Citing an example, he said Uttar Pradesh was unable to spend Rs 7,500 crore and Bihar Rs 3,500 crore allocated to them under different schemes.

"Finance is not a problem, but their rightful implementation is a major issue," Nadda said.

He said that in order to bring uniformity in health services across the country, the government has established the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in many states including Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Assam, West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir.

Besides, to improve health services, the government has identified 187 districts in the country where extension of existing services and capacity building will be done. Also, 58 districts hospitals were shortlisted for upgrading as medical colleges to deal with the problem of shortage of doctors and paramedical staff.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious National Health Protection Scheme and National Dialysis Programme, Nadda said the government is launching dialysis programme in 400 select districts in the country under PPP model and would offer it free of cost to BPL (below poverty line) families and on a restricted amount to those above poverty line.

He said the introduction of ambulance services across the country was even praised by the Sri Lanka government and it has urged India to implement it in the island nation also.

Responding to a demand of clearing Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) payments on a fast pace, he said it will be done soon so that hospitals associated with it will not have to wait for long to get their dues.

Addressing the programme, noted heart surgeon Naresh



Trehan said the management of communicable diseases among others is a major challenge before the nation.

"If serious efforts are being made for eradication of communicable diseases, then number of patients visiting hospitals would automatically come down and we can work in a more focused way in dealing with dreaded problems like heart ailments and cancer and also on research and innovation," he said.

The Medanta Medicity Chairman and Managing Director also said that his institute is working on the fusion of modern and ayurvedic medicines as both are effective systems, and would publish its research paper on the issue in next 2-4 years.

Earlier, highlighting the purpose of the Foundation, Aman Singh, Principal Secretary to the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and son of Late Y N Singh, said it was constituted with a mandate to raise and find solutions to the contemporary issues.

Madhya Pradesh Health Minister Rustam Singh, his Chhattisgarh counterpart Ajay Chandrakar and Leader of Opposition in Chhattisgarh Assembly T S Singh Deo among others were present on the occasion.
Lorry and bus services to Karnataka from Sathyamangalam, about 60 km from here, remained suspended for the 12th consecutive day in the wake of the Cauvery row.

Buses, including private and state-run, were not operated, while lorries with Tamil Nadu registration were also not allowed, as a result of which the Bannari-Thimbam ghat near Sathyamangalam wore a deserted look.

Officials of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation and Police department said, to avert any untoward incident, operation of buses and lorries had been stopped.

It may resume only after September 20, they added.

Meanwhile, some Karnataka State Transport buses are being operated from Mysuru to Sathyamangalam, police said, adding, lorries bearing Karnataka registration were provided police escort upto Pulinjure checkpost at Karnataka border.

Suspension of services has affected transportation of turmeric, textiles, Eggs, Oil, Vegetables, and other essential commodities to Karnataka.

Protests by Kannada groups against the Supreme Court order to Karnataka to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, had turned violent on September 12, with two persons getting killed in police action, in Bengaluru.

Vehicles bearing Tamil Nadu registration were also torched and damaged even as commercial establishments owned by Tamils were targeted in Karnataka.

In Tamil Nadu, restaurants owned by Kannadigas and vehicles bearing Karnataka registration were attacked by fringe outfits in some places on September 12.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Cauvery Supervisory Committee, which is to meet here on Monday to decide on the quantum of water to be released, is analysing the data given by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and may defer its decision if the information provided is found to be "inadequate".

A source said Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have submitted to the committee data about withdrawal of water, its utilisation, variation in rainfall and its impact on the actual run-off over a period of 29 years in their respective Cauvery basin areas.

The panel, which has to take a decision on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu and other states, had sought the information from them in its last meeting on September 12.

The source said the data is being analysed by officials from the Union Water Resources Ministry and Central Water Commission.

"The states have made available information which the panel had sought during its last meeting and the same is being studied now.

"The panel will not pass an order in haste. The committee will have to defer its order, if the data turns out to be inadequate to arrive at a fact-based and right decision," the source said.

The panel had failed to arrive at a decision on the quantum of water to be released by Karnataka after September 20 during its last meeting for want of adequate information.

Therefore, it had asked them to provide the information by September 15.

In an interim order on September 5, Supreme Court had asked Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily for next 10 days to Tamil Nadu, leading to protests in parts of Karnataka.

The apex court had also asked Tamil Nadu government to approach the committee, headed by Union Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekhar, to decide on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states after the period of 10 days was over.

However, under pressure following the protests, the Karnataka government approached the Supreme Court on September 11 seeking modification of the interim order.

Hearing the plea, the SC then amended its order, directing Karnataka to release a reduced quantum of 12,000 cusecs of water daily to Tamil Nadu till September 20.

"We will take decision on the matter as directed by the Supreme Court on September 5 when it had asked us to stick to the language of Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal while deciding on the quantum of the water," the source added.
The strategic Chabahar port, which will give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, will be recalled as a "turning point" in Indo-Iran ties, Vice President Hamid Ansari told Iranian President Hassan Rouhani today as the two leaders held talks here.

Ansari and Rouhani discussed bilateral ties and ways to boost economic cooperation during talks held on the sidelines of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit.

Asked if Chabahar came up for discussion, Secretary (West) Sujata Mehta, while briefing reporters on the meeting, said, "certainly the subject of Chabahar came up and in fact, our Vice President said in the years to come this will certainly be recalled as a turning point in the bilateral relationship as a matter of great significance".

The Vice President said India and Iran were like two young friends who grew up together and then got busy with their own affairs, and now after some time they are coming together and discovering how close they are.

"It was a very warm meeting. They discussed the potential for economic cooperation - Chabahar figured largely. They also discussed regional issues," Mehta said.

A "milestone" pact on the strategic Chabahar port in southern Iran which will give India access to Afghanistan and Europe bypassing Pakistan was signed in May this year.

Besides the bilateral pact to develop the Chabahar port for which India will invest USD 500 million, a trilateral Agreement on Transport and Transit Corridor was also signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran.

Vice President Ansari, who is here to attend the 17th NAM Summit leading the Indian delegation in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also called on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after arriving here yesterday.

"President Maduro and the Vice President had an 'excellent'" and a very warm conversation. "President Maduro is personally influenced by India and he is attached to India and that came through in the conversation itself," Mehta told reporters.

There was some discussion yesterday evening on the importance of the Non-Aligned groups speaking on the issue of terrorism and that found reflection in President Maduro's statement this morning, she said.

"Other than the agenda of the conference that they discussed last evening, they also spoke about bilateral relations. They spoke about the extent of economic cooperation which has grown dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years.

"There was some discussion on the economic cooperation side. There was also discussion about the need to arrange an early meeting of the joint commission between the two countries which would then lead to other things," she said.

The two important areas of bilateral cooperation at this time are - India buys a lot of oil from Venezuela and it is India's fourth largest supplier, Mehta noted.

"There was some discussion on this and some additional supplies being purchased... There was also some discussion on India's export of drugs and pharmaceuticals products to benefit Venezuela. This has been a substantial growth area for us for the last several years," Mehta said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi police today said they have rescued seven children, aged between 10 to 16 years, working as child labourers in a bangle factory in the national capital's Jahangir Puri area.

Police said the children, hailing from Bihar's Gaya and Nawada districts, were rescued yesterday with the help of an NGO, Paryas.

"We found seven children working under pathetic working conditions and they were forced to work upto 15 hours a day under hazardous working environments... All these children were provided medical aid at a hospital here," police said, adding that all the rescued children have been sent to the NGO.

"All rescued children were brought from their respective native village by their relatives. These children have been working here for the last about 1 year to 2 months. Efforts for their rehabilitation are on," they said.

Police added that the factory owner is absconding and a case has been registered in this regard.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Transcription

1 VOX PRO AUCTORITATE LOCORU Box 2721 Windhoek Namibia Borgward Street Khomasdal Municipal Building, First Floor /5 Fax: Website: Reg #: : A Company not having a share Capital (Section 54(1); Regulation 17(3)- Companies Act, 1973) Inquiries: Jennifer Kauapirura: CEO 25 July 2008 Mission Report: Namibia /Sweden Local Authorities Partnership: Namibia, June Introduction/Background: The Association of Local Authorities (ALAN) and the subsidiary to the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALA IDA), with the financial support of SIDA and Swedish Embassy under the auspices of the North South Cooperation, facilitated the twinning/cooperation between Namibia and Swedish Local Authorities. In April 2008, the ALAN President and the CEO, Ms Jennifer Kauapirura visited SALAIDA - Stockholm, Sweden to cement the cooperation with its counterpart SALAIDA. The 6 Swedish Local Authorities who pledged to twin with the Namibian local authorities convened here and shared/presented their profiles. The meeting terminated in an agreement in which the Swedish Las will meet their counterparts in Namibia in June to meet their counterparts in their localities, agree on areas of co operations and sign the letters of intent/cooperation. The delegates from the 6 Swedish local authorities were accompanied by two officials from SALA IDA, Mr. Paul Dixelius - the Strategic Development Director and Mr. Bjorn Kullander, the Programme Manager, Municipal Partnerships. Upon arrival in Namibia on 01 June 2008, the delegates were welcomed in Windhoek by the Head of Mission of the Swedish Embassy, Ms Lena Johansson Blomstrand and the Deputy Minister of Local, Regional Government Housing and Rural Development at a meeting the following morning, the 02 June The meeting took place at the Safari Hotel and Conference Centre where the delegates were hosted together with their local counterparts. The groups left Windhoek to their respective destinations to visits the local municipalities in Namibia. Following below are the brief reports on the various visits: 1. Swakopmund Municipality and the City of Malmo Delegates from the City of Malmo: Ms Victoria Ahlberg, Member of the Environmental committee Ms Johanna Ekne, Project manager, Environmental department From Swakopmund Municipality: Clr. Germina Shitaleni, Mayor Mr. Eckart Demasius, CEO Mr. Clive Lawrence, General Manager, Environment & Health department & other general managers and councillors

2 2 The group was led by Clr. Rosina //Hoabes, the President of ALAN. The Swakopmund Council presented an overview of the city and the way that it is organised, followed by a sightseeing trip around the city. The intent was to give a true picture of the city, both good and bad. The City of Malmo has expressed interest in cooperating in areas of environmental issues. A technical visit to the landfill to study how the waste is taken care of was hence a key issue on the agenda. Similarly the issue of energy supply and the use of renewable energy also came up. The possibilities of using both solar and wind energy are very good in the area of Swakopmund. City of Malmo also made a presentation about their work with sustainable city development and renewable energy. Way Forward/Commitment: Both groups were very positive and agreed on there being interest on both sides to continue the contact between the two cities. The cities will proceed with an application to start an inception phase and the focus area will be environmental issues. 2. Tsumeb Municipality and the City of Falun Delegates from Sweden, City of Falun From Tsumeb Municipality - Mr. Dan Westerberg,Dep Mayor Falun - Mr. Anders Lundgren - International Coordinator - Mayor Mr E Nawatiseb - Cllr. L Shetekela, - CEO Mr A Benjamin, - Mrs S Imalwa - Special Assistant to the Mayor - Chairperson of the Tsumeb Chamber of Commerce Mr. N Kaiyamo The delegation was accompanied and led by Clr. Angel Nawatiseb, Mayor of Tsumeb and ALAN Management Committee member. Several meetings were had and these discussed partnerships between Tsumeb and Falun as both towns has a history in copper mining. The group visited: - The Old Mine, the "Grand Old Lady" of Namibian mining for more than 50 years which stopped production in 1996 due to depletion of economical ore. - The Tsumeb Museum housing excellent displays of the area's rare minerals and mining history, as well as Bushmen and the history of the German colonial forces in the area. - Tsumeb Cultural Village, an open-air museum that gives visitors an insight into the rural life of Namibian tribes, depicting their history and culture, showcasing their work and skills in arts and crafts. - Etosha National Park - the largest game reserve in the world and one of the greatest wildlife viewing parks in Africa is only one hour by car from Tsumeb Way Forward/Commitment: The City of Falun is of the opinion that Tsumeb has a great future in tourism and hence meeting resulted in the signing of a Letter of Intent.

3 3 Meeting identified and agreed on several fields of cooperation such as: Education, Information Technology and Communication, Training in Democracy and Good Governance, Tourism and Environmental issues. 3. Mariental Municipality and the Municipality of Staffanstorp Delegates from the Municipality of Staffanstorp, Sweden, - Helene Ohman, Councillor - Bo Gertsson, Chief Executive Officer Delegates from Mariental Municipality Clr. Priscilla Mirjam Beukes, Mayor, Clr. Willem Josef Mensah, Deputy Mayor, Clr. Anna Marie Gorases, Chairperson of the Management Committee, Clr. Lukas Katuanene, Member of the Management Committee, Clr. Abel Kaifauna, Member of the Management Committee, Clr. Marthinus C. Kotze, Additional Member of the Management Committee Clr. Josef Swartbooi, Ordinary Councillor Mr. Paul Nghiwilepo, Chief Executive Officer Mr. Alec Boois, Head of Corporate Communications and Human Resources. Mrs. Maureen Kambala, the Programme Officer of ALAN accompanied the group to Mariental. The delegates were welcomed with warmth and received an introduction and presentation of the municipality, the city centre, the countryside and the shanty towns. Some primary schools were also visited. A future co-operation we was sealed with a signed letter of intent with an agreement to go into an inception phase of a municipal partnership. The partnership will be based on the policy for Global Development from the Swedish Association for Local Authorities, SALA IDA. During the inception phase the following will be discussed: Local Governance and local government administration Urban planning and environment Social issues, for example Pre School. 4. Luderitz Town Council and the Hoors kommun/municipaity The delegation from Hoors Municipality: Mr. Pehr-Ove Pehrson, Mayor, Mr. Jan Sohlmer, Chief Executive Officer. Representatives from Luderitz Town Council: Councillors

4 4 Cllr. Emilia Amupewa- Mayor of Luderitz Cllr. Pescha Mafale - Deputy Mayor of Luderitz Cllr. Johannes Valombola - Deputy Chairperson of Management Committee Cllr. Welhmina Sylvester - Member of Management Committee Cllr. Silas Antonius - Additional Member of Management Committee Cllr. Jennifer Van Den Heever- Ordinary Member of Council Officials Ms. Inge Ipinge CEO Mr. Thomas Shipepe - Strategic Executive: Finance Mr. Justus Veii - Strategic Executive: Corporate Affairs & HR Shali Usia Akwaanyenga - Special Assistant to the Mayor and Public Relations Practitioner Mr Bjorn Kullander, Programme Manager Municipal Partnerships, SALA-IDA accompanied/drove the two visiters to Luderitz. The visit started with a welcome dinner on the evening of 2 June followed by an official meeting in the Town Hall the following day. A presentation of the Luderitz Municipality was preceded by the discussions around the potential areas of cooperation. The delegation visited the following: A newly built sewage plant, A coastal piece of land of potential interest for developing tourism etc, and A few settlements/ housing areas. Way Forward/Commitment The visit ended with a mutual lunch and an agreement to develop future co operations with an application for an inception phase, preliminary within any of the following areas: How to stimulate youth to meaningful activities, for instance in sports, culture or entrepreneurship. Methods to reach children in their early childhood, health development etc. Routines and handling of a modern sewage plant. 5. City of Walvis Bay and Stenungsunds Municipality The delegation from Stenungsunds: Eva Ohlin, teacher at Nosnasgymnasiet (an upper secondary school) and Peter Backlund, principal at Nosnasgymnasiet. Representatives from Walvia Bay:

5 Councillors - Clr. Uilika Nambahu, Mayor - Clr. D Klazen - Clr. A Kandjala - Clr. H Mandean - Clr. M Muatunga - Clr. U Nambahu - Clr. J Uushona - Clr. B Uakumbua - Clr. A Maass - Clr. M Likooa Officials: - Mr Muronga Haingura, CEO - Mr. Kevin Adams, Public Relations manager - Mr. Jan Kruger, Manager of Corporate Services and - Mr. A. Victor, GM Community & Economic development - Mr. Muller, GM Roads & Building Control - Mr. A. Brummer, GM Water, Waste & Environmental Management The delegates were accompanied and driven by Mr. Paul Dixelius, the Strategic Development Director of SALA IDA. This particular group had an ongoing academic partnership through an exchange programme between schools; the Nosnasgymnasiet with Kuisebmond Secondary School. Having to cement the cooperation on the municipal level was an added bonus and the opportunity was well received. The Walvis Bay council showed great hospitality and interest in the possibilities of cooperation between the Cities. Meeting commenced with an informative and productive presentation by Mr. Kevin Adams on Walvis Bay. This was followed by a slide show of Stenungsund which pathed a way for exploring the areas of cooperation. Walvis Bay expressed their wishes to get support from within two areas; education/youth development projects and capacity development for councillors and a letter of intent from the municipality of Walvis Bay was handed over to Stenungsund at the farewell dinner. Jan Kruger, Manager of Corporate Services and Kevin Adams, Public Relations Manager, organized the days in was seen as most efficient way having provided the visitors with as much information as possible. The group visited many different parts of the city including; the fishing industry, the different dwelling areas including the township, the Multi-purpose Centre (HIV/AIDS counselling). The impressive work done by Council at the Sunshine Centre, a training school for disabled children left a lasting impact on the visitors. Way Forward/Commitment: The group departed from Walvis Bay and Namibia with a lot of hope that a partnership between Walvis Bay and Stenungsund can be negotiated in the fall of 2008.

6 6 6. Municipality of Karasburg and the Municipality of Horby Delegates from the Municipality of Staffanstorp Mr. Lars Ahlkvist, Mayor Mr. Arne Bertilsson Chief Executive Officer Delegates from the Karasburg Municipality Councillors: - Clr. Julius Kalopa, Mayor - Clr. Matheus Mumbala, Deputy Mayor - Clr. Alloysius Amunyela, Chairperson, management comittee - Clr. Fransiskus Gertze, Deputy chairperson, management comittee - Clr. Hermina Brand, member without portfolio - Clr. Vicky Noble, member without portfolio Officials - Ms Eva-liza Nailenge, Chief Executive Officer - Mr Gerhard Jacobus Mostert, company treasurer - The Junior Town Council members also joined the meetinheld at the council hall. Ms Jennifer Kauapirura, CEO of ALAN drove the group to Karasburg. The following sites were visited: The Hospital in Karasburg, A School (800 pupils), The Sewage treatment plant, The refuse damp and the public works department where all the council employees were introduced. Way forward/commitment Further cooperation in the area of municipal services and local economic development were discussed. The Karasburg Council drafted a short letter of intend in which the Council expressed their interest to form a biletaral/twinning agreement with the City of Horby. And this will be discussed further at the Horby local board on the 18th of June. Only after that will the Coincil o Horby probably apply for the inception phase. Horby expressed to Karasburg and informed that they intend to coorparate with their neighbour-municipality Hoor in coming projects and need to liase in terms of practical matters such as planning of the visits from their Namibian partners. The intent is for all the partners from Karasburg and Luderitz to travel together if this can be Coordinated by the CEO of ALAN, who should lead the group during the month of September or October 2008 to Sweden JENNIFER T. KAUAPIRURA

7 Chief Executive Officer ALAN Richardine Kloppers Street Khomasdal Municipal Building Windhoek Namibia Tel: /5 Fax: Cell: Web page: 7

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China and Russia have carried out joint naval exercises in the resource-rich South China Sea off China's southern Guangdong province away from the disputed areas, nearly two months after an international tribunal dismissed Beijing's claims to most of the waters.

Vessels including a missile destroyer, anti-submarine vessels, missile frigates, ship-based helicopters and conventional submarines among others took part in the exercise, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

The vessels were divided into two fleets and "confrontations" were staged off the eastern waters of Zhanjiang in Guangdong which is close to Chinese coast, away from the Beijing's nine-dashline claim over almost all of the South China Sea which was struck down by an arbitration tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in The Hague in July.

A senior officer of the joint drill said yesterday's exercise was carried out under "a background of actual combat", the report said.

Chinese and Russian navies are currently holding the "Joint Sea-2016" drill from September 13 to 19.

These are the fifth Sino-Russian "Joint Sea" drills since 2012. They are part of China and Russia's efforts to strengthen military and security cooperation in recent years, according to the South China Morning Post.

Last year, the joint drills were held in the Sea of Japan and the Mediterranean, and involved the People's Liberation Army's North and East sea fleets, it added.

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Buoyed by the Centre's increased focus on renewable energy sector, solar solutions provider CleanMax Solar is looking to enhance its rooftop installed capacity by nearly eight-fold to about 400 MW in the next two years, a top company official said.

"With a current installed rooftop solar capacity of 55 MW across the major metros in the country, we are looking at increasing it to up to 400 MW in the next two years," company's Managing Director Kuldeep Singh told PTI here.

He said the government's vision of 40,000 MW of installed rooftop solar capacity by 2022 gives the company a huge opportunity to grow.

"Along with this, a number of private and government entities are also coming forward where we provide bespoke rooftop solar solutions," he said.

The company, which enjoys nearly 28 per cent share in the total rooftop solar market, has presence in six metros including Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Jaipur, Chennai and Hyderabad.

When asked whether the government's ambitious target of 40,000 MW was achievable, Jain said, "The target is massive and we should not go much into the numbers. But the positive side to it is that there is improved activity and acceptability in this space."



CleanMax caters to clients across sectors like automotive/auto components, food and beverages, government establishments, academic institutions, IT/ ITeS and other manufacturing industries.

Founded in 2011, the company develops solar projects on a turnkey basis, providing power on a per-kWh basis, under long-term power purchase agreements, typically at rates cheaper than grid tariffs.

It also installs solar power plants on a capex basis, and can supply off-site solar power through open access in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

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A US-led coalition fighting jihadists in Syria admitted it may have hit an army position in the east , in strikes that Russia and a monitor said killed at least 62 soldiers.

The strikes came less than a week into a fragile ceasefire aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria's five-year civil war, as Russia accused what it termed "moderate rebels" of causing the truce to fail.

American officials said on yesterday the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria may have hit Syrian military positions.

"Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh fighting position," a Pentagon statement said, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group.

"The coalition air strike was halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military."



Russia has requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting, which diplomats said was set to start at 2330 GMT yesterday.

"We demand Washington's full and detailed explanation, and that must be made before the UN Security Council," said Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group gave a toll of 83 soldiers killed, as it confirmed the strikes were US-led coalition raids.

The situation in Syria is deteriorating, the Russian military said earlier, adding that the United States would be responsible if a fragile ceasefire in force since Monday collapses.

"Warplanes from the international anti-jihadist coalition carried out four air strikes today against Syrian forces surrounded by IS in the Deir Ezzor air base," a Russian army statement said.

"Sixty-two Syrian soldiers were killed and a hundred others were injured in these strikes."



The Russian military said two F-16 and two A-10 jets that flew into Syrian airspace from neighbouring Iraq carried out the 1400 GMT attack.

"Straight after the coalition's strikes, IS militants launched an offensive," said the statement, adding that "fierce fighting against the terrorists" ensued nearby.

"If these strikes were due to an error in the target coordinates, that would be a direct consequence of the US' refusal to coordinate with Russia its fight against the terrorist groups in Syria," it said.

The IS-linked Amaq agency said coalition strikes hit IS positions, but that the jihadist group was able to "seize full control of Jabal Therdeh, which overlooks the Deir Ezzor airport".

The Observatory also reported that "20 members of IS were killed and dozens more wounded in heavy Russian strikes on Jabal Therdeh".

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A special court has summoned the Director General of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) while expressing unhappiness over ASI officials "not cooperating" with it in a 35-year-old case of theft of an antique idol from an ancient temple of Takashakeshwar Mahadev in Allahabad.

The court said it was duty of every citizen of the country to preserve the antique idols which are national treasure and yet the ASI officials, who are witnesses in the case, are not cooperating with it.

"It is observed that this case is of year 1981 vintage, instituted almost 35 years back and pertains to theft of antique idol from an ancient temple of Takashakeshwar Mahadev in Allahabad which was being allegedly smuggled to New York.

"It is a national treasure, preserving which is the duty of every Indian citizen, yet the said witnesses from ASI are not cooperating with the court. It is their public duty to cooperate with the court in furtherance of fair trial," it said.

"Let the summons of DG, Archaeological Survey of India, be served through Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Culture...," Special CBI Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal said.

A case was registered by CBI in August 1981 on a letter from the ASI's director after the idol was stolen.

The idol of Goddess Durga was allegedly recovered from accused international consultant Shree Kant Jain when he was trying to board a flight to the US with 14 other antique items. He and accused Kashi Nath are facing trial and are out on bail.

The court, which is recording evidence, was irked over the conduct of witnesses as either they were not conversant with handwriting of an ASI official to prove a document or they were not interested in deposing before it.

The court had earlier sent summons to the DG, ASI with the direction to send any official from the department to prove a report of July 1981 of Shankar Nath, then Superintending Archaeologist, but it was stated by one of the ASI official that he was not conversant with the handwriting and signature of Nath.

It had asked one of the official of the department to trace the person who could identify the handwriting of Nath.

"This process is going on for the last so many dates. The witnesses who are being deputed by the DG, ASI, are either not interested in giving their deposition in the court or they do not tell the name of the person who could be acquainted with the handwriting and signatures of Shankar Nath.

"In these circumstances, the court cannot go on summoning one witness after another just to find out who is acquainted with the handwriting and signature of Nath. This is the job of DG, ASI," the court said and directed the ASI DG to appear before it in person on September 29.

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Asking Pakistan to stop aiding and abetting extremist forces, CPI(M) today condemned the deadly terror attack at the headquarters of an army battalion in Uri in Kashmir, in which 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured.

The party's Central Committee, now in session here, also called for initiating political dialogue with all stakeholders for a long-standing solution to the Kashmir problem without any further delay.

CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters that Pakistan must refrain from indulging in cross border terrorism and demanded that the issue of these attacks "should be taken up seriously."



A party statement said "the Central Committee of the CPI(M) condemns the killing of 17 Indian army personnel in a terrorist attack in Uri in Jammu & Kashmir this morning."



Pakistan must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces as such activities are a big impediment to the peace process in region, it said.

The party also charged the government with failing to stop continued infiltration of militants despite deployment of a large number of security personnel across the state.

Pointing out that CPI(M) has been consistently maintaining that terrorism is not the solution to the Kashmir issue, it said "such acts only compound the situation further."



"The CPI(M) would like to reiterate that for a long- standing solution of the Kashmir problem, the political dialogue with all stakeholders as advocated by the all Party delegation should be initiated without any further delay," the statement added.

Yechury had earlier suggested that the government should hold talks with Pakistan as well to have a final solution to the problem.

Meanwhile, party's J&K MLA and central committee member Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami today hit out at the Centre over the death of an 11-year-old reportedly hit by pellet gun in Srinagar.

He accused the Centre of continuing to use the weapon despite the unanimous demand by all-party parliamentary delegation for a complete ban on its use and the government's assurance on the issue.

Reports said that protests had erupted in Srinagar yesterday after the body of the 11-year-old-boy, hit by pellets, was found at Dachigam National Park near his home in Harwan on Friday. The boy, identified as Nasir Shafi Qazi had reportedly gone missing from Friday evening.

"Despite assurances from the government, it (pellet) is being used leading to death of an 11-year-old. This amounts to inflaming the situation," Tarigami said.

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A community panchayat at Lacheda village in the district today asked villagers to boycott the families of two youths who allegedly sexually harassed a 14-year-old Dalit girl, forcing her to commit suicide.

A member of the community panchayat said the families of Mohan Kumar and Sonu Singh, who have been arrested for sexually harassing the girl and abetting her suicide, will be boycotted.

The two youths had on Friday allegedly molested the girl when she had gone to the fields. Hearing her cries, the villagers rushed to help her and nabbed the two youths who were handed over to the police.

The victim yesterday committed suicide by setting herself ablaze. She died on spot.

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Talking tough, BJP leader Ram Madhav on Sunday asserted that days of strategic restraint are over and suggested that "for one tooth, the complete jaw" should be the policy after the Uri terror attack.

"The Prime Minister has promised that those behind the Uri terror attack will not go unpunished. That should be the way forward. For one tooth, the complete jaw," said Madhav, who is BJP's pointsman for Jammu and Kashmir.

"The days of so-called strategic restraint are over. If terrorism is the instrument of the weak and coward, restraint in the face of repeated terror attacks betrays inefficiency and incompetence. India should prove otherwise," he said.

Strongly condemning the attack by militants on Army Headquarters in Uri in which 17 soldiers were killed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said those behind the despicable act won't go unpunished.

Targeting Pakistan, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such.
Delhi police has arrested four persons in two separate incidents and seized over 500 kg of ganja, worth more than Rs one crore, from their possession.

In the first incident on September 12, Daleep Kumar Yadav and Sanjay Kumar were arrested from the Pragati Maidan area and 43 kg of ganja, worth Rs six lakh, seized from their possession, police said.

The duo used to procure the contraband from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh and bring it to Delhi by train, they added.

In another incident on September 14, acting on a tip-off, Crime Branch sleuths arrested Amrik Singh and Ram Kumar from Rohini and seized 500 kg of ganja, worth Rs one crore, from their possession, police said.

Two vehicles were also seized from the accused, they added.

Two cases under the NDPS Act have been registered in connection with the incidents, police said.

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Demanding inclusion of Meitei in the list of Scheduled tribes list of India, the 'Co-ordinating Body on Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee' today took part in a rally in Imphal West district.

Co-Convenor of the Committee, Ratankumar said there had been influx of foreigners - particularly those from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal - triggering a fear among the Meeteis/ Meitei that their identity will be extinct.

He harped on social equality and equal respect for all indigenous ethnic communities of Manipur.

Noted social activist Yambem Laba mooted that the Centre is unlikely to grant Inner Line Permit System (ILPS) in the state and that demand for ST status is the only way to preserve the identity of the Meeteis/ Meiteis.

A voluntary signature campaign was also carried out.

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Authorities in Egypt are pulling out all the stops to ensure that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's visit to New York for the UN General Assembly is a diplomatic success despite growing criticism of the country's human rights record under his rule.

El-Sissi flew to New York today to attend the General Assembly along with some two dozen loyal lawmakers and media figures who will seek to improve the country's image during the four-day visit.

Parliamentarian Nashwa el-Deeb told reporters she and others would be meeting with US officials and congressmen to redress the "wrong perceptions and positions" about Egypt. Another lawmaker, Tareq Radwan, said they would support the president as a "symbol of Egypt."



Some of the president's previous visits in the West have been marred by protests or assaults on accompanying journalists by supporters of Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist president whose 2013 military ouster was led by el-Sissi.

Egypt's Orthodox Coptic Church, a staunch ally of el-Sissi, has dispatched senior clerics to exhort followers there to rally in support of him upon his arrival today and at the UN headquarters when he addresses the General Assembly later this week.

"Let us welcome Egypt as represented by its loved president ... Before every nation, as a manifestation of appreciation, dignity and love," Pope Tawadros II, the church's spiritual leader, told Cairo's Al-Masry Al-Youm daily.

Coptic leaders in the United States have distributed leaflets urging their community to rally in support of el-Sissi. They are lining up buses to ferry people from churches in New Jersey to New York City.

Tawadros has dispatched one of his closest aides, Bishop Biemen, to the United States ahead of el-Sissi, also to persuade Copts there to show their support.

El-Sissi supporters in the Egyptian media have also sought to rally support. "The world listens to Egypt, on Tuesday," the state-owned Al-Gomhuria declared on its front page today.

Western nations and rights groups have strongly criticized Egypt's human rights record in the three years since Morsi's overthrow. Authorities have jailed thousands of people, mainly Islamists but also leading secular and liberal activists behind the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Yesterday, a Cairo court upheld a decision to freeze the assets of five prominent human rights campaigners in what critics described as the latest blow to a once-vibrant activist community.

The ruling is part of a case against rights groups and campaigners accused of illegally receiving funds and using them to harm national security. If convicted, the five could face up to 25 years in prison.

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Transcription

1 CalFresh Partnership Group: Key Achievements from the First Two Years Background In 2013, Contra Costa County s Employment & Human Services Department (EHSD) embarked on an innovative, proactive approach to increasing CalFresh participation for county residents. CalFresh is California s version of the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. EHSD knew that many Contra Costa residents were eligible for CalFresh but not receiving it, and decided to do something about it. Not only did EHSD want to improve the food security and lives of Contra Costa County residents, EHSD also saw CalFresh participation increases as a way to strengthen the local economy as CalFresh is a known revenue generator, adding up to $1.79 for every $1 in benefits spent. Not only were eligible residents failing to access these critical nutrition benefits, the County was losing millions of dollars in guaranteed state and federal funding allocated to help eligible residents. EHSD realized the best way to attack this program was through partnerships. EHSD ultimately partnered with the Food Bank of Contra Costa & Solano, First 5/Family Economic Security Partnership (FESP), the Multi-Faith Action Coalition, the Ensuring Opportunity Campaign, and other community organizations to figure out why eligible residents weren t applying and ways to remove those barriers. The group set a goal of having at least 75% of eligible residents receiving CalFresh by May Over the last two years, the CalFresh Partner Group (CPG) identified three key challenges: Community Challenges EHSD Resource Limitations Policy Roadblocks and the National Conversation on SNAP 1

2 Community Challenges The Partner Group investigated why people who were eligible and food insecure would rather not apply for benefits and discovered the stigma people associated with receiving CalFresh (formerly known as Food Stamps) was a significant barrier. And then, there were the people who did not know they were eligible for CalFresh or were too proud to take a handout. Many CalFresh participants are the working poor and applying for benefits often resulted in lost wages as applicants had to take time off to complete the application process at local offices. The Partner Group needed to make accessing CalFresh benefits easier and more efficient to encourage people to apply while addressing stigma and notifying potential participants about their eligibility. The CalFresh Partner Group approached these Community Challenges in a number of ways, through education and outreach, improved program access, and strengthening community partners. 1. Referral Form EHSD has expanded partnerships with community agencies to conduct outreach and assist residents in applying for CalFresh. This includes training agency personnel on basic CalFresh eligibility and how they can assist residents in applying. While the training provided by EHSD and the Food Bank is comprehensive, it was discovered that agency representatives rarely felt confident enough to be responsible for the intensive work of providing application assistance. For this reason, the Food Bank created a CalFresh referral form. Using this form, the agency staff member can conduct a brief pre-screening for potential eligibility and collect the client s basic information. The agency can then pass on this information to the Food Bank who contacts the client to help them complete an application. The referral form is available in hard copy as well as online. The Food Bank has completed 82 of applications as a result of the new referral form. 2. CalFresh Express To increase outreach and access to CalFresh to local residents, EHSD held a one day enrollment event at Davis Park Community Center in San Pablo. Residents could be interviewed and even granted CalFresh benefits that day. In June of 2015, EHSD sent 30 staff to process applications and conduct eligibility interviews. EHSD s Information Technology (IT) personnel created a temporary office at the community center including laptop computers, printers, and copiers allowing staff to assist residents on site. The event was in conjunction with the Food Bank (FB) and other community organizations. The FB had their Community Produce Program truck there, handing out fresh fruits and vegetables to families while they waited. Volunteers from the MultiFaith ACTION Coalition reviewed the program s rights and responsibilities with applicants with oversight from EHSD personnel. The UC Cooperative Extension gave out tastings and promoted healthy eating through various games and activities. West Contra Costa Unified School District passed out lunches to children playing in the park. Overall, 74 new applications were taken and 48 families were approved for benefits. 2

3 3. Medi-Cal and School Lunch Mailings The John Muir/Mt. Diablo Community Health Fund awarded a grant to the Food Bank for CalFresh Outreach. Partnering with EHSD, the Food Bank mailed postcards to households currently receiving Medi-Cal but not CalFresh. The Food Bank also partnered with local school districts to mail to families with children on free/reduced lunch. To date, 939 families have filled out CalFresh applications based on these mailings. Funds were also used to print posters advertising the CalFresh program that are posted in health clinics, food pantries, and other locations where low-income families are likely to visit. 4. CLEAN/Get CalFresh Pilot Project In an effort to expedite the application process, the Food Bank and EHSD piloted a new application called CLEAN. CLEAN is a simplified version of the online CalFresh application that can be used on a tablet, smartphone or laptop. It was designed by Code for America for use by community based organizations. The application takes only about 5-10 minutes to complete and is much simpler for outreach workers in the field. Clients documents can also be uploaded for submission with the application. The Food Bank continues to use CLEAN (now called Get CalFresh ). It has greatly streamlined the application process and makes filling out an online application while in line at a food distribution event more feasible. 5. Funding for a Public Perception Media Campaign In July 2015, the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano was awarded a two year grant that enabled the hiring of two bilingual CalFresh workers to conduct outreach to the Latino community. The funding also will cover a large public-perception campaign, airing on television, radio and the internet. The main aim of the ads will be to dispel myths and negative perceptions about the CalFresh program and encourage participation. Pre- and post-surveys will be conducted to gauge changes in public perception. 6. CalFresh Outreach at VITA Sites Food Bank volunteers have conducted CalFresh outreach at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites throughout Contra Costa. Clients receiving tax assistance often have their necessary paperwork with them, so it is a perfect opportunity to apply for CalFresh while having the necessary verifications. Food Bank staff has also provided VITA workers with referral forms so they can refer a client they think may be eligible for CalFresh to the Food Bank for follow-up. 7. AB 402 Pilot with Pittsburg Unified Working with Pittsburg Unified School District s Food and Nutrition Services department, EHSD has begun a pilot to implement AB 402. AB 402 states that school districts can share information from families who opt-in on their school meal application with the local CalFresh office. Families who opt-in are sent applications to apply for CalFresh, shortening the application process and allowing families to apply without coming in to the office. 3

4 Pittsburg has been working with EHSD and the Food Bank and added a question to their school meal application in 2015 to easily identify families that desire to also apply for CalFresh. The families information could then be sent to EHSD to begin the CalFresh application process. In addition, the CalFresh group made a presentation to all of the Superintendents at a County Office of Education meeting encouraging them to consider implementing AB Mayoral and Board of Supervisors Outreach EHSD, Multi-Faith ACTION volunteers, FESP and Ensuring Opportunity conducted an outreach campaign with local mayors to raise awareness of the CalFresh program and to highlight the program s economic benefit. During May 2015, local Mayors and Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors issued CalFresh Awareness Proclamations, posted links to the CalFresh application on their websites, and advertised the health benefits of the CalFresh program. To engage the Mayors, the CalFresh Partner Group members highlighted the economic benefit the program brings to the local economy. For every dollar in CalFresh benefits issued, $1.79 is generated in local economic activity. EHSD Resource Limitations The CalFresh Partner Group also recognized that EHSD faced resource limitations as funding cuts, layoffs, and slow recovery from the Great Recession had impeded efforts to increase participation. EHSD hired a consultant to evaluate existing business practices and recommend improvements. In addition to the Business Process Evaluation, EHSD is partnering with the Food Bank and giving them Read-Only Access to case information so they can help Food Bank clients complete the CalFresh application process. 4

5 The CalFresh Partner Group has also witnessed the changing culture at EHSD which can be a difficult task for large bureaucratic organizations. Over the past few years, EHSD has undergone a considerable shift in how it engages the community in increasing CalFresh participation. This has included deeper partnerships like the CalFresh Partner Group which includes members from community organizations. EHSD has focused attention on how residents apply for CalFresh, why people cycle on and off CalFresh (churn), and how it can increase CalFresh participation overall in Contra Costa. This shift in attitude has led to strong community partnerships that allow EHSD to try innovative projects and secure private funding to test out more experimental ideas. 9. Business Process Evaluation Continuous improvement and streamlined access to benefits are part of EHSD s mission and to this end; EHSD hired a consultant to map current CalFresh business processes and analyze data and identify areas for improvement. It was determined that missed appointments are a large barrier for many applicants. EHSD is evaluating options to reduce missed appointments, including providing same day appointments, text appointment reminders, and expanding alternatives to face-to-face interviews such as phone and video conferencing. EHSD is also planning to conduct a pilot in the Antioch office, testing whether extra hands on help in the initial stages of the process increases the success rate among new clients. EHSD is also working to identify and reduce churn, which is when clients cycle on and off the program in a short amount of time; specifically, applicants who reapply within three months of their semi-annual report being due. If those clients were able to maintain continuous enrollment, it would greatly reduce the workload of EHSD staff without an interruption in service for clients. EHSD has begun work in this area, with a first step being the implementation of text reminders to clients when their reports are due. 10. Read-Only Access To further support Food Bank efforts to assist clients more directly, EHSD will be working to start a pilot to give the Food Bank read-only access to CalWIN, EHSD s CalFresh computer operating system. This will enable Food Bank staff to look up clients case status in real time, remind clients of their appointments, let them know what paperwork they are missing, etc. This should improve timely processing while also saving EHSD staff time. Currently the Food Bank has to contact EHSD staff to get case updates, so this will significantly streamline access to data. Policy Roadblocks and the National Conversation on SNAP As the CalFresh Partner Group worked at increasing access to increase participation, it was clear that changes at the local, State, and National level would be helpful, or even sometimes necessary, to improve access to CalFresh. Current CalFresh policies limit accessibility, including an application process that can be arduous for residents with young children, those who work 5

6 traditional hours, those who are disabled, and the elderly. Policy changes that allow residents to apply over the phone, through the mail, or on-line are recent additions, but work is still needed to make CalFresh as accessible as possible. In 2016, the CalFresh Partner Group is looking to CalFresh advocacy to increase participation. Several partner organizations including the Food Bank, California Welfare Directors Association (CWDA), EHSD, Ensuring Opportunities, and First 5, have legislative platforms that include CalFresh concerns. There is legislative activity seeking to address college student food insecurity, providing supplemental benefits in the summer to families with school-age children, and simplifying the application process by using electronic employment databases to verify income. Next Steps The CalFresh Partner Group started with a goal of increasing CalFresh participation in Contra Costa to 75% of all eligible households. How are we doing on that goal? Unfortunately, because key data will not be available for another 6 to 12 months, we will need to wait a bit longer before we can provide a full response. However, we can point to several promising trends indicating some level of success, even if the challenging goal of 75% is not met. From 2012 to 2014 (the most recent year for which there are available data), the percentage of eligible residents receiving CalFresh in Contra Costa County improved from 50% to 57%. Furthermore, several trends support the notion that the pool of eligible county residents is shrinking (likely in large part due to the improving economy). Thus, we are proud that CalFresh enrollment has not declined, as it has for other means-tested programs, like CalWORKs. In the next year, the CalFresh Partner Group will continue to address the three identified challenge areas; Community Challenges, EHSD Resource limitations, and Policy Roadblocks and the National Conversation on SNAP. What is already clear is that the CalFresh Partner Group has been a success. CPG will continue forging a path to partner with community organizations on a shared goal; strengthening its ability to evaluate and modify processes and procedures; and fostering a mindset that working together is always better. 6
FDC Ltd, a fully integrated pharmaceutical company, plans to develop cost-effective processes to manufacture bulk drugs for export markets and produce clinical grade material in the R&D biotech process area.

FDC is engaged in manufacturing and marketing of APIs and various types of finished formulations like tablets, capsules, granules, oral powders, oral liquids, external powders, creams, ophthalmics, and specialised infant foods.

In the formulation segment, the company designs and develops products for various global markets, including the US and Europe.

"The company aims to develop cost-effective processes to manufacture bulk drugs for export markets and for local consumption.

"The R&D centers at Jogeshwari in Mumbai and Roha in Maharashtra will carry out research and development in reducing the cycle time of processes, thus making the processes more efficient and cost-effective.

"In addition, constant evaluation of cheaper alternative raw materials meeting regulatory requirements for improving productivity and cost-effectiveness is also studied," FDC Chairman and Managing Director Mohan A Chandavarkar said in the company's annual report.

He added that the company's R&D center stays up-to-date with quality systems and cGMP processes. Some of these changes in processes have resulted in launching of new products, improvement in yield and cost efficiency, he said.

The company is also in the process of having the area inspected by CDSCO and state FDA in order to manufacture clinical grade material in the new R&D biotech process area, he added.

The primary focus is to create a basket of products which will generate high value and revenues for sustainable growth.

During 2015-16, it launched 'Enerzal' in PET bottle in orange and apple flavours.

It is also looking at developing other products in the nutraceutical space.

The domestic formulations business recorded a growth of 10.37 per cent at Rs 863.35 crore in 2015-16.

FDC's annual export turnover registered a growth of 15.76 per cent at Rs 130.96 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2016.

The company has built a visible presence across markets in Europe, US, Asia, Africa, Latin America and Confederation of Independent States (CIS).

"We have made significant investments to build capabilities in API manufacturing and R&D services.

"With approvals by the US-FDA, MCC-South Africa, UK-MHRA and PIC/S Malaysia, FDC has emerged as a preferred partner for APIs and formulations in many developed and developing pharmaceutical markets," he added.

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A first-of-its-kind Indian music and dance festival aimed to showcase the country's rich and diverse culture was kicked off in iconic Sydney Opera House here.

The 10-week festival "Confluence: Festival of India" was inaugurated by Union Tourism and Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma last night with spectacular joint performances by Indian and Australian artists.

Almost 2000 people attended the two-hour long show which showcased the rich and diverse culture of Indian music and dance along with Australian performers.

The festival, an initiative of Indian government supported by the Australian side, will run across seven cities including Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide.

Launching the festival at a gala reception organised by NSW government, Sharma said, "it is the first of its kind festival and it is the matter of pride for all of us today."



"From the glimpses you can make out what could be the strengths of this festival. It includes some of the finest elements on the tapestry of the rich Indian culture and civilisation," he said while asserting that it was high time that the two countries celebrated their relationship together.

He said that the two nations enjoyed strong relationship today which has strengthened and diversified over the years.

"It's our hope this festival will promote better understanding of Indian culture among different communities living here," Sharma added.

Present on the occasion NSW minister for ageing and disability John Ajaka said the initiative, announced in 2014 by visiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi here, is expected to bring people of both sides closer.

"The event is expected to be an event of quality which will surpass the expectations of the Prime Minister as well," Ajaka said, adding that the economic relations with India will grow further as it emerges as one of the world's largest economies.

Others who attended the event were Indian high commissioner Navdeep Suri, Indian consul generals of Sydney and Melbourne.

The concert which marked the launch of the festival included the famous Manipuri drummers, Sufi singing artist Sonam Kalra, odissi, Kathak and Bharatnatyam dancers, Australian musicians and aboriginal dancers who received a standing ovation from the jam-packed audience.

Sharma will now go to Canberra to be handed over two more antiquities bought by National Gallery of Australia from allegedly illegal art dealer Subhash Kapoor.

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Five people, including four women, have been charged after a laser pen was shone at an aircraft in Edinburgh on Friday, police said today.

Officers on patrol in the Drylaw area observed a green light coming from Marine Drive just before midnight.

Edinburgh Airport later confirmed that a pilot had reported a laser pen incident during the plane's descent.

A 16-year-old boy and four females, aged 16, 17, 19 and 22, who were in two vehicles in Marine Drive, were arrested.

They will all appear in court at a later date, the BBC reported.

Chief Inspector Mark Rennie, of Police Scotland, said: "The use of laser pens to distract or obscure the vision of a pilot is an extremely serious offence, which can have very serious consequences.

"We regularly patrol roads below approach routes to deter offenders and respond quickly to any notifications from pilots.

"Anyone found committing this offence will be arrested and charged'.

Lasers cause a dazzling light in the cockpit and their high-powered beams can cause serious eye damage.

There are strict legal limits on laser sales in the UK and for general use they must be 1 milliwatt or less.

CAA figures show there were 1,439 laser attacks on aircraft in the UK last year - equivalent to almost four a day.

Heathrow airport was the most common location with 121 incidents, followed by Birmingham airport (94) and Manchester airport (93), The Independent reported last month.

September was the worst month for attacks with 91, narrowly ahead of August when there were 88 incidents, it said.

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called former Defence Secretary Robert Gates "an absolute clown", who helped in creating a "mess" in the Middle East.

The 70-year-old reality TV star told his supporters in North Carolina that he "does not like critics" after Gates - who served under two successive presidents of both the parties - attacked him in an op-ed, saying Trump is "beyond repair" when it comes to national security and is not fit to be the president of the country.

"We're dealing with incompetent people, we're dealing with stupid people, we're dealing with people like Robert Gates that don't have a clue, and who when they leave office criticise everybody. I don't like critics. I don't like critics. I like people that get it done and get it done right," he said.

Trump also called the former secretary of defence "a nasty guy" and "an absolute clown."



The real estate tycoon said he has never met Gates and has only seen him on television.

Gates had called Trump "stubbornly uninformed" about the world in his article.

Trump reiterated that Gates is a "mess".

"Never met the guy, saw him on television, didn't like him. He's a mess, okay, he's a mess. So he goes out and he says negative things about me. I never met him, I never talked to him. Believe me, I am so much better at what he's doing than he is, you won't even believe it," Trump said at an election rally in North Carolina.

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The bodies of two adults and two children were discovered, hacked into pieces in a house outside Madrid today, police and the local mayor said.

The child victims were aged "around four and one", a police spokeswoman said, adding that the gruesome discovery was made at a house just outside the village of Pioz, around 60 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of the Spanish capital.

All four victims were members of the same family, local mayor Ricardo Garcia Lopez told AFP.

The mayor added that, according to neighbours, the family were renting the house and were not Spanish nationals, but Latin Americans.

Police said the family living at the house were of "Brazilian origin" but added that the autopsy results would be required to confirm whether the bodies found were those of the occupants.

The alert was sounded in the morning by one neighbour who smelt a strange odour emanating from the house, police said.

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Actress Gemma Whelan, who plays Yara Greyjoy on "Game of Thrones", had to go to the hospital reportedly after hurting her back.

The 35-year-old actress hinted at her hospital stay as she posted on Thursday, September 15 a picture of her hospital undergarment, reported Aceshowbiz.

It appears that her injury isn't too serious as she still managed to find good humor out of the situation.

It was reported earlier this month that Whelan and Alfie Allen had been filming scenes in which their characters Yara and Theon are "engaging in battle at sea," possibly against their uncle Euron.

It's also said that Euron would team up with Queen Cersei and he will capture either Theon or Yara. Euron would reportedly kill at least one of the Sand Snakes.

Other actors who have been spotted around Belfast, where the show's seventh season is being filmed, include Kit Harington, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, John Bradley and Rory McCann.

"Game of Thrones" season seven will air in summer 2017 and will only consist of seven episodes. Jim Broadbent has been added to the cast to tackle a "significant" role.

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Amid growing ethnic and politico- religious conflicts across the globe, several world leaders gathered here today to seek peace as they called upon governments to back a UN treaty on cessation of wars.

The gathering of religious, political, social and cultural leaders marks the commemoration of the second anniversary of the World Alliance of Religions' Peace (WARP) summit which aims to promote global cooperation for enactment of an international law for world peace.

Meeting under the aegis of Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), an international body engaged in global peace building, the leaders discussed ways to strengthen legislative activities by NGOs, governments and international organisations for bringing world peace by putting an end to ongoing wars.

The assembly was marked by a grand cultural festival of peace organised at the Jamsil Olympic Stadium in south Seoul, where thousands of youth, women, elderly and children joined hands to send a message of peace to the world.

The event assumes significance as it comes close on the heels of a nuclear test by North Korea which is attracting fresh UN sanctions.

The event saw several religious leaders debate the cause of conflicts and ways to address differences arising from these conflicts including from the ones rooted in religion.

They also dwelt on the oneness of religions and the peace seeking elements that bind together all faiths.

Former President of Croatia Ivo Josipovic, former Prime Minister of Armenia Hrant Bagrotyten, Great Supreme Patriarch of the Kingdom of Cambodia Tep Vong and many other religious heads also spoke and pledged their support for world peace and a treaty to stop wars.

On the occasion, children and youth carrying placards mounted an impressive show that brought out the history of the Korean war, Vietnam war as well as World Wars and their consequences for the mankind.

The event sought to bring different religions together by highlighting the high points of scriptures of each and calls upon faith leaders to use their influence to foster peace.

The International Women's Peace Group (IWPG) and the International Peace Youth Group (IPYG), woman and youth specific organisations working in the area are also part of the event.

In his commemorative address, HWPL Chairman Man Hee Lee said, "people of the earth are gathered, as well as the eyes, ears, and hearts of the global community. Let us urge them (heads of state and religious leaders) to sign their support for the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War and let us sign our support as well".

(Reopens FGN 38)



"This is the way to love the world and all the people, like the light, rain, and air of the heavens. This is true politics and true religion; this is true love and peace," Man Hee Lee said.

The event saw thousands including former presidents, international law experts, religious leaders, youth and women's group leaders from 130 countries in attendance at the stadium which was filled to capacity, indicating interest for the cause of world peace.

The occasion also saw a parade, reminiscent of the Rio Olympics closing ceremony which showcased various themes, countries' national flowers, world traditional dances, royal procession, language masks among others.

Each performer dressed in a variety of costumes and colors according to their theme, and performed various acts like going around the tracks, while the spectators stood up from their seats and danced.

IWPG Chairwoman Nam Hee Kim said, "To speed up the advancement towards an era of peace, I propose a code of conduct to the global community. First, heads of state around the world should become one for peace and support the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War. Second, all the religions of the world should transcend denominations and doctrines to become one for peace".

The highlight of the event was the card section performance by 11,440 IPYG youth members. The performance was the outcome of roughly five months of sweat-stained efforts in scorching weather combined with a genuine longing for peace that resulted in all the spectators being moved to tears.

The performance was split into three scenes: the history and pain of world wars I and II, the peace activities of HWPL for the cessation of war, and the peaceful unification of the two Koreas, all seeking for peace.

The IPYG card section, even from an artistic perspective, received much interest and became a trademark of the WARP summit. At the 2014 WARP summit, HWPL signed on the Agreement to Propose the Enactment of International Law for the Cessation of Wars and World Peace.

In September 2015, HWPL launched the HWPL International Law Peace Committee, which consists of international law scholars, professors and chief justices.

In March of 2016, HWPL proclaimed the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War, along with international law experts from various countries.

Following the Declaration, the Legislate Peace Campaign - a global advocacy movement aimed at establishing international law consistent with the DPCW - has been conducted worldwide.

Since its beginning in March, 535,493 people from 167 different countries have signed their support for the DPCW.

The event has drawn criticism from some in Korea due to the involvement of Lee, the leader of the Shinchonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (SCJ), one of Korea's controversial religious groups and also described as a cult.
Godrej Appliances is eyeing Rs 4,000 crore turnover in the current fiscal, a growth of over 20 per cent year-on-year, in the hope that good monsoons across the country and salary hikes following the implementation of 7th Pay Commission recommendations will boost demand.

"This year we are expecting a topline of Rs 4,000 crore. We ended last year at around Rs 3,250 crore. With a good monsoon and 7th Pay Commission, I am sure the discretionary spend and the disposable income in the hands of the consumer will be much higher," Godrej Appliances Business Head and Executive Vice President Kamal Nandi told PTI.

The company is also expecting a 15-18 per cent growth in sales during the current festival season.

"Festive demand will be better this year than last year. Last year, we experienced festive demand of 7-8 per cent and this year we are expecting it to be anywhere between 15-18 per cent. That is the kind of growth we are expecting, double of last year," he said.

The company, which spends 5 per cent of its turnover on marketing, enjoys a market share of 14 per cent in the overall Rs 13,500 crore refrigerator industry, 10 per cent share in the estimated Rs 5,100 crore washing machine industry.

It has 6 per cent market share each in ACs and microwaves. The AC industry is estimated to be at Rs 10,500 crore, while the microwave market size is estimated to be Rs 900 crore.

With consumers becoming aspirational, the company is focusing on premiumisation across all segments.

"Premiumisation is something that people are seeking and that is happening across segments. We are seeing that people are seeking premium products...Because the affordability is going up. Even at entry level, people don't want to go to the basics but want something aspirational. Premiumisation is the strategy that we have adopted across segments," Nandi said.

Godrej Appliances, which forayed into premium home appliances segment with the launch of NXW brand last fiscal, is planning to launch washing machines and microwave ovens under the new brand and expects NXW to contribute 20 per cent to the turnover in the next three years.

"NXW is targeted to the premium-most segment and there the potential is growing faster than any other segment. Today, the segment is about 10-12 per cent of the Rs 30,000 crore appliances industry and it should grow to 20 per cent plus by 2020," he said.

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Delhi government has ordered registration of diesel-run ambulance cars with engine capacity of 2000 cc in the capital on payment of one per cent of the ex-showroom price of such vehicles as green cess.

The move comes after the Supreme Court had last month allowed registration of diesel ambulance cars with engine capacity of 2000 cc.

The order issued by the transport department says, "The concerned registering authority i.E MLO (HQ) is hereby directed to register diesel ambulance cars with engine capacity of 2000 cc, after the vehicle is certified by the fitness unit at Burari and upon production of the proof of the deposit of 1 per cent of the ex-showroom price towards environment protection charge with Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)."



A senior government official said the buyer has to give one per cent of the cost of the vehicle as Environment Protection Charge to dealers who will be required to deposit this amount with CPCB for pollution mitigation efforts.

The Supreme Court had on August 12 lifted its order banning registration of diesel cars and sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) of 2000 cc capacity and above upon one per cent of the cost of the vehicle deposited with CPCB by the vehicle manufacturers, dealers or sub-dealers.

Earlier this month, the city's transport department had also ordered registration of diesel cars and SUVs with engine capacity of 2000 cc and above.

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The Goods and Services Tax (GST) will have few tax rate slabs beside a standard rate but only for a transition period before India gradually moves to a pure single tax rate regime, Union Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said.

Slabs are necessary to protect manufacturing sector in the very low tax brackets, Meghwal said.

"There will be slabs in the tax rate beside a standard rate. Some sectors like Bikaneri Papad where tax is just one per cent... These industries will die if a single standard rate is applied," the minister said here highlighting benefits of at an event here.

"At the time when we are pushing for 'Make In India', we cannot afford to impact any manufacturing sector. Manufacturers should 'not' fear that indirect taxes will go up in a major way," he asserted.

"There will be a standard rate and slabs. We will not allow rates to increase from present rate. I can assure it will be not more than present tax," he said.

Adding further, he pointed there will also be exemptions.

According to reports, government was working on four slabs.

However, Meghwal emphasised that the slabs will be for only transition period till country matures to move to a single tax rate what aims to attain.

Meghwal, however, did not elaborate what could be the transition period.

The minister said government will review after a year for bringing liquor and petro products under net to achieve real potential of the tax reform.

Product-based and location-based exemptions will be examined by the GST council, Meghwal said.

GST will help us to get on double digit GDP growth.

He hoped West Bengal will pass GST bill and asked the chambers to exert pressure towards that.

Meghwal also asked business houses to give their feedback and inputs on Companies Act amendments to the standing committee.
The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad has nabbed an accused in the 1993 Gosabara RDX and arms landing case, in which fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim has been named as a key conspirator, from Mumbai.

Based on a tip-off, the ATS team arrested Abdulsattar Batliwala in suburban Khar in Mumbai yesterday and brought him here today, it said in a release.

Batliwala was a part of the conspiracy whereby Dawood Ibrahim sent a huge cache of RDX and arms, including AK-47 rifles to Gujarat from Karachi via sea route in 1993, ATS said. The objective was to take revenge for the Babri masjid demolition.

The contraband landed on Gosabara coast in Porbandar district of Gujarat in 1993, and was distributed to Dawood's associates and other conspirators in Mumbai, Surat and Uttar Pradesh, it said.

According to the ATS, Batliwala was present at a meeting called by Dawood in Dubai to plan out the landing at Gosabara.

Police had recovered five AK-47 rifles, an AK-56 rifle, 43 hand grenades and 3,011 cartridges during the probe.

Till now, around 40 persons have been arrested while 16 accused are still at large, including Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Anis Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel.

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Filmmaker Guy Ritchie has reportedly been shortlisted to directed the next instalment of the James Bond film series.

After Ritchie's ex-wife Madonna flew into London this week for the start of son Rocco's school term, the director was slammed for leaving for LA.

It is reported now that Ritchie was meeting film execs to discuss the new James Bond movie.

The director behind "Snatch" and "Sherlock Holmes" is set to meet with 007 producer Michael G Wilson out there, reported Daily Mirror.

"Guy has moved up the shortlist and is now the front runner. He's meeting Michael this week to try to do a deal and see if they can agree on a shared vision for the film," a source said.

Following on from the success of last year's "The Man From U.N.C.L.E", Ritchie, 48, caught the attention of the Bond team who are looking for a replacement after Sam Mendes, who directed the last two Bonds, stepped down.

"Guy is under serious consideration for Bond 25 and this LA trip should help take this further. He doesn't have Sam's artistry, but Guy is a fast-paced, stunt-based director, who knows his stuff," the source added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hardcastle Restaurants, the franchisee of McDonald's for West and South India operations, plans to invest Rs 750 crore in next 5-7 years to double the outlets of the fast food chain to 500 in the two regions.

While the company will focus on expanding in existing key markets, it has also drawn up plans to open McDonald's in two to three new smaller cities every year as part of the strategy.

"We are going to double the base of our restaurants taking it from 240 above to 500 in next five to seven years and the investment planned is around Rs 750 crore," Hardcastle Restaurants Vice Chairman Amit Jatia told PTI.

The company's average investment is around Rs 2 crore to Rs 2.5 crore on opening a new McDonald's store.

He said the planned expansion will entail large scale hiring.

"We will also double the employment from 7,500 people to 15,000," Jatia said.

On places where the company plans to set up new outlets, he said: "My strategy would be to focus on key cities in my region as Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune, Surat and Baroda... 60 to 70 per cent of the new openings would continue in these cities."



For expansion in smaller cities, the company would focus on sustainability rather than going for "wild aggression". Besides, Hardcastle Restaurants is also building several drive-through formats of McDonald's.

"Every year, we would have two to three new cities. It would be a step by step approach... As the logistic management is still very quite complex in these places," Jatia said.

Over funding of the expansion, he said the company has enough cash reserve for the next two years and only after that the company would consider other options.

"We are a cash rich company with zero debt. Our internal accrual is going to help us a lot and we have additional room to take debt," he said.

Stating that the company does not have an immediate fund raising plans, he said the cash flow would get better and better.

"In the next two years we would re-evaluate whether we need to raise any equity. For next 12 to 24 months," Jatia said.

The company would also double the number of outlets of McCafe in two years from its present tally of around 100.

"We would double it in next 18 months to 2 years time. We would have the largest number of coffee shops in India after Cafe Coffee day," Jatia added.

McCafe was introduced here in October 2013.

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Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh condemned the terrorist attack on an Army base in Uri town of Jammu and Kashmir early this morning and termed it as a strike on the national conscience.

"It was an attack on national conscience and India will not be cowed down by such attacks. Befitting reply should be given to those involved in this cowardly act," he said.

Singh paid tributes to soldiers who died in the attack and prayed for speedy recovery of those injured.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town, killing at least 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

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Union Steel Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh today claimed that the country will be ranked after Japan and America in steel production in December this year as a result of the Prime Minister's various initiatives like Skill India, Startup India and Make in India.

"The country will be at the top in the word in industrial production on low cost due to these initiatives," he claimed.

Speaking at a seminar on power and environment during Industrial Fair here, the Union Steel Minister said, these initiatives will not only generate employment opportunities, but will also strengthen the economy.

Small industrial units should be promoted so that a large number of job opportunities are created and production cost can be brought down, Singh said.

Rajasthan Energy Minister Pushpendra Singh said the state government is trying to improve the conditions of power DISCOMs and the state will have surplus power by 2018.

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Virtually blaming Pakistan for the Uri terrorist attack, BJP President Amit Shah today said India's fight against terrorism has reached a decisive stage and the Modi government is moving in the right direction to ensure that the sacrifices of soldiers does not go waste.

"Pakistan is trying to cause instability in India by constantly trying to lend support to terrorism and terrorist outfits. India has been constantly fighting against terrorism and this fight is now in a decisive stage," he said in a statement.

Shah added, "The martyrdom of the brave sons of India would not be allowed to go waste and the Central government is moving in the right direction."



He made these remarks while expressing deep sorrow at the death of 17 soldiers in the attack. He paid his tributes to them and prayed for their soul to rest in peace.

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India will soon move a detailed concept note at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to start discussions on trade facilitation agreement in services.

The note would seek suggestions and views of the WTO members countries.

"We will soon put the concept note in the multi-lateral body and it will be discussed in the working group of services in Geneva," a senior commerce ministry official said.

India is pushing for a trade facilitation agreement (TFA) on services to promote trade in this sector along with goods. The WTO has already concluded a similar pact for merchandise.

The TFA in goods will come into force once two-thirds of members have completed their ratification process. It contains provisions for expediting the movement, release and clearance of goods, including goods in transit.

It also sets out measures for effective cooperation between customs and other appropriate authorities on trade facilitation and compliance issues.

On similar lines, India has asked for an agreement to promote services trade as the sector contributes about 60 per cent in India's economy and 28 per cent in the total employment.

Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had raised the issue during an informal meeting with key members of WTO on the sidelines of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ministerial council meeting in Paris.

WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo had welcomed it and asked India to submit the proposal for discussion.

The official said that unlike goods, there is a total absence of collective recognition of services sector as part of trade in the WTO.

"Trade is no longer just in finished goods. In fact, world economy today depends more on trade in services. There is a need to recognise that services is a tradeable item," another official said.

TFA in services means liberalised visa regime such as multiple entry visas, visa-free travel for foreign tourists and long term visas for business community among other things.

The move also assumes significance as about a dozen countries are already negotiating Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) in the WTO. India is not part of TISA.

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Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda today said his first overseas visit to India was successful and focused on creating an "environment of trust" and effectively implement bilateral projects for Nepal's benefit.

After returning to Kathmandu following the four-day visit, Prachanda said the visit helped the nations strengthen ties.

He said the visit was "successful" and has taken India- Nepal ties to "a new height".

"The visit was more focused on creating an environment of trust with a good intention and effectively implementing the projects for Nepal's benefits at the earliest as agreed earlier rather than raising many issues," he told reporters at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport.

He, however, said closeness with India would not hamper Nepal's relationship with China.

"Nepal's relationships with the two neighbours had distinct dimensions," he said.

During Prachanda's visit to India, the two countries signed a 25-point joint communique.

He had also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In New Delhi yesterday, he had said "dil se baat hui, khul ke baat Hui (we talked with an open heart) and both the countries found new grounds to move forward."



Earlier today, he was welcomed at the airport by Speaker Onsari Gharti, and Deputy Prime Ministers Bimalendra Nidhi and Krishna Bahadur Mahara.

Prachanda's visit came in the backdrop of a previously strained India-Nepal ties following the months-long blockade of border trade points by Madhesis - who share strong cultural and family bonds with Indians - over the new Constitution.

The Madhesi people allege that the Constitution is discriminatory to their interest and marginalise them politically.

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From Tandoori chicken to Mutton Barra, Paneer Malai kofta to Sarso da saag, Indian restaurants in Russia are a huge hit among Russians and foreigners, and owners of the joints are confident that the spicy cuisine will tickle more palates in the days to come.

There are around 10 restaurants in Moscow which serve Indian cuisine ranging from North Indian to South Indian dishes.

Restaurants like Dzhey Hind, Darbars, Khajurao, Devi Cafe, Jagannath are some of the most popular Indian cuisine restaurants in the city.

"The Indian cuisine is very popular not only in Moscow but also in other cities of Russia. The spicy Indian food is very popular among all age groups of Russians," Rameshwar Singh, President of Disha - a Russian-Indian friendship society in Moscow, told PTI.

"We attract people of all nationalities. Although we serve both Indian and Chinese food, the Indian food is the most popular among all the dishes. Most of the items in our menu can be served mild or spicy to suit the different taste buds of our multi-national clientele," said an official of Devi Cafe restaurant.

"People in Russia like Indian cuisine. Around 60-70 per cent of guests, who come to our restaurant are Russians. Only 25-30 per cent are foreigners and Indians," said a staff of another Indian restaurant.

According to various restaurant officials, the ambience of the joints too is created in a way that the customers get a feel of India.

While some of the eateries have a feel of fine dining, some provide an atmosphere of the Indian-style 'dhaba'.

Most of the restaurants have bright interiors to go down well with the theme of India, which is usually symbolised with vibrant colours.

"I have been to Indian restaurants on quite a few occasions. Although the food is bit spicy, the taste is really good, especially of the fish and tandoori items. I generally visit with my family," said Dmitri, a Russian who is a regular at Indian restaurants.

The most popular dishes in non-veg items are Mutton Hyderabadi (boneless pieces of lamb with green chatni cooked in Hyderabadi style), Mutton Jalfrezi (boneless pieces of lamb cooked in onion-cashew nut gravy with saffron), Murg Masala (chicken pieces cooked with onion-tomato gravy and served with boiled eggs).

The combo of Mutton Biryani, Chicken curry and raita also



remain popular, and so do the tandoori dishes of fish, chicken and Mutton as starters, while among the vegetarian dishes, Haryali Shorba, Dal Amritsari, Sarso da saag are the favourites.

Some of the restaurants also have veg and non-veg thali on their menus.

The cost of lunch or dinner for two persons ranges from 1,000-1,500 Rubles (approx. Rs 1,027-1,541).

"Both my wife and I are great fan of Indian food, especially North Indian cuisines which are more spicy. Twice a month we visit Indian restaurants," said Reznov, a foodie.

The waiters and the restaurant staff help the foreign guests in choosing from the menu.

"We tell the people how to eat and what to order. Such as we tell them that if you are ordering rice then curry goes with it or something which has gravy," said an official of another Indian restaurant in central Moscow.
An Indian-origin South African has become the first person from the African continent to head a global organisation of medicine professionals working for the safety of blood transfusion worldwide.

Ravi Reddy, currently the Chief Operations Officer of the South African National Blood Service (SANBS), will head the International Society for Blood Transfusion (ISBT), headquartered in Amsterdam.

Although Reddy has been credited with transforming the safety of blood donation and transfer in South Africa with its very high incidence of HIV/AIDS, he has insisted that this was a team effort by the staff of SANBS.

He he has served in various capacities for more than three decades after starting out as a volunteer at the age of 16 at SANBS. He subsequently qualified as a medical technologist with an MBA from the University of Natal in South Africa.

SANBS lauded Reddy's appointment as a particularly significant one.

"Mr Reddy has played a key role in South Africa's high level of blood safety," said Raju from SANBS, who earlier this year said in a TV interview that there had been only one confirmed case of HIV caused by blood transfusion out of nine million units of blood donated in the past decade.

In 2004, there was a huge outcry when it emerged that blood donated by the majority Black community in South Africa was being discarded due to the risk associated with the high incidence of HIV/AIDS in that community.

Reddy had spearheaded a campaign to ensure stringent testing and also education among donors to turn this around.

He cited the highly-respected international status of SANBS as having contributed largely to his appointment.

"I would not have been considered for this position if it were not for SANBS' professionalism and reputation for excellence," Reddy said, adding that receiving this vote of confidence from his peers internationally was humbling.

He represented the African region on the board of the ISBT between 2006 and 2012, and is also a member of the Working Party on Transfusion and Transmissible Infections. He has presented and published a large number of scientific papers.

The ISBT, now with 100 member countries, was established in 1935 as a platform for exchanging knowledge and advancing the blood-transfusion practice.

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I am a retired newspaperman. I am 69 and live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 45 years, Lou Ann. We grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather.

More on who I am is here.

Report all errors to DonSurber@GMail.com
A powerful explosion today rocked New York's busy and upscale neighbourhood injuring 29 people, authorities said about the "intentional act", hours before world leaders arrive here for the high-level UN General Assembly session.

The explosion - which came hours after a pipe bomb went off in a garbage can in New Jersey - occurred in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood at 23rd St. And 6th Avenue, a busy residential and commercial area frequented by tourists and city residents, around 8:30 pm (local time) yesterday.

President Barack Obama has been apprised of the explosion, a White House official said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the number of people injured is now 29 but none is life threatening except for one who is in "serious" condition.

A second Manhattan site is under investigation, Blasio said while addressing a press conference at the scene.

The Mayor described the explosion as an "intentional act" but said there is no evidence at this point of a terror link.

He said the city "experienced a very serious incident" and injuries are significant but added that there is "no evidence at this point of a terror connection" even as early indications suggest "this was an intentional act".

"There is no specific and credible threat at this time from any terror organisation", he said.

New York City new Police Commissioner James O Neill, who had his first day at the city's police chief yesterday, that the "exact cause of the explosion has not yet been determined" and personnel from the police department, FBI, bomb squad and counter-terrorism departments are on the scene.

The Police Commissioner added that a "second site" is being treated at 27th street between 6th and 7th avenues by the police but did not provide more details.

The New York Police Department said a "possible secondary device" has been located at 27th Street, 6th-7th Avenues.

Citing local and federal law enforcement officials, CNN reported that the device found at the second spot appears to be a pressure cooker with wires hanging out.

Police said investigations are ongoing and advised people to avoid the area.

As a "precautionary measure" residents living in the 27th street between 6th and 7th avenues to "stay away" from windows facing 27th street "until we clear the area of a suspicious package", they said, adding this is a precautionary measure only and they are not evacuating the area.

The Mayor also added that at this point there is "no specific connection" to the incident in New Jersey earlier in the day in which an explosion occurred in a garbage can.

"We are not going to let anyone change us, intimidate us," the mayor said.

Authorities said "extensive search" is being conducted in the area and the neighbourhood and ruled out gas as the reason for the explosion.

Security is already tight in the city as nearly 190 world leaders, including Obama, will arrive in the city for the about week-long high-level annual UN General Assembly session, beginning tomorrow.

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The son of a respected Bangladeshi- origin imam murdered by supporters of the dreaded Islamic State group fears terrorist sympathisers are radicalising youngsters in Britain by posing as charitable workers.

Saleh al-Arif spoke out after Mohammed Syeedy, 21, was jailed for 24 years for the murder of his father, 71-year-old Jalal Uddin, who was bludgeoned to death in a children's playground in February.

"I spoke to some members of the community. They are really worried about ISIS supporters. They believe there are a lot of supporters in the Bengali community. From the outside, it's like they are doing something good, charitable work and other things," Arif told 'Sky News'.

"They believe they are just trying to make a good impression and they are radicalising the young people in the community and they simply don't want to see that. They are very scared and they believe they have some kind of link with ISIS. They just want to get rid of it and they want help from the police," he said.

Uddin was murdered by Syeedy and Mohammed Abdul Kadir, 24, because the elderly scholar practised a form of Islamic healing called Ruqya, which is denounced as black magic by ISIS and some hardline Salafi Muslims.

The murder trial at Manchester Crown Court heard that Syeedy, Kadir and their friends surveilled Uddin for 18 months before he was murdered on February 18.

Kadir is being sought by police after flying to Istanbul, Turkey, three days after the killing.

"He was very religious, very peaceful and very knowledgable. He had no political views but he had strong religious views and what he believed he tried to practise it to the death," Uddin's son said.

In a victim impact statement read to court on Friday, Arif said his father told him two days before he was killed that he planned to return to Bangladesh later this year for the first time in 15 years.

Uddin had not seen his wife, children or grandchildren since he left Bangladesh for Britain in 2002.

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Months after he called the Prime Minister an "ISI agent", Delhi Culture Minister Kapil Mishra today wondered if there is a "secret deal" between Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif due to which the nation was suffering.

In a blog written after the Uri terrorist attack, which has left 17 soldiers dead, Mishra said it's clear now nothing is working out between India and Pakistan and no back channel diplomacy is of any use.

"Time has come, India should know is there a secret deal between Modi and Nawaz Sharif? Time has come to make public what has been discussed and decided between the two during various secret and not-so-secret meetings," he said.

He said Indians have right to know the "secret of cosy, brotherly and loving friendship between Modi andSharif".

"As we pay homage to our 17 brave soldiers, the real question is...Is India paying price of a secret deal between Modi and Sharif???" Mishra asked.

The AAP minister said despite the Pathankot terror attack inJanuary, the "friendship" between the two prime ministers continued and "ISI (Pakistani spy agency) was invited" to probe the Pathankot attack.

After a Joint Investigation Team from Pakistan visited the Pathankot terror attack site in April, Mishra had called Modi an "ISI agent".

"Do we have a ISI agent as PM now? It's very serious the way PM is surrendering to anti-India forces?" Mishra had then tweeted.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today defended a new USD 38 billion US defence aid package against criticism Israel could have negotiated a larger sum had he not angered the White House.

Speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the deal was the "largest assistance agreement that the United States has ever provided to any country in its history".

He said it "proves the depth of the relationship, and the strength of relations, between Israel and the United States."



Netanyahu hit back at political opponents who argue the country should have received a larger package in compensation for the new threats Israel says it faces due to the nuclear accord with its arch-foe Iran.

The Israeli premier was a strong opponent of the deal between Tehran and major powers led by Washington, and his campaign against it included an address to the US Congress in March last year.

President Barack Obama's administration was angered by the address, which it saw as interference in the country's internal affairs by a foreign leader.

For Netanyahu's critics, he should have moved on from his campaign against the accord sooner and quickly begun negotiations on the new decade-long defence aid package.

Former prime minister Ehud Barak was among those criticising Netanyahu, saying his "reckless conduct has... undermined Israel's security."



"Israel will receive USD 3.8 billion a year -- an important contribution to our security but far less than what could have been obtained before the prime minister chose to blatantly interfere with US politics," Barak wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece.

Labour opposition lawmaker Shelly Yachimovich said that "Netanyahu himself told heads of the security establishment to count on USD 5-6 billion a year, of which USD 3.8 (billion) are left."



"This is a result of arrogant conduct, failing to read the map, and campaign considerations," she wrote on Twitter.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said "I would like to make it clear: we were never offered more.

"We were not offered more money, not even one dollar, and we were never offered special technologies. These are distortions and fabrications of interested parties."



He said such comments also showed "ingratitude to our greatest and best friend, the United States."



The United States and Israel signed the deal in Washington on Wednesday.

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Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das today condemned the terror strike in Uri town of north Kashmir in which 17 Army jawans were killed and 19 others were injured.

He expressed deep grief at the loss of martyrs, an official release said here.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, heavily armed militants stormed battalion headquarters of the force in Uri town in the wee hours today.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.

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Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu has praised the functioning of Vinobha Bhave University (VBU) and making all round progress despite facing shortage of teachers.

Inaugurating the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the VBU in Hazaribag yesterday, Murmu, who is also the Chancellor of Universities in Jharkhand, said VBU is the only University in the state offering choice-based education system (CBES) and quality education to its students.

She said this university should be termed as role model of the universities and colleges not only in Jharkhand but in Eastern India inspiring the youth.

Praising the University for providing quality education with limited staff, she said the teachers are dedicated and committed and this was the reason why this institution achieved so many laurels which other universities could not.

She said VBU have proper infrastructure for quality education and is having a modern and well developed Central Library and modern laboratory.

The governor said as an Chancellor of the Universities in the state, she is taking special care for improvement of quality education in the state by reviewing working of the universities in the state at regular interval.

The silver jubilee celebrations started with a two-day cultural programme in which several universities from the country including Vanasthali Vidyapeeth, Rajasthan and Mysore University, Mysore have taken part.

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Blaming Pakistan for the terror attack in Uri, Union Minister Jitendra Singh today said those trying to test India's security and confidence would be given a befitting response.

"We have known long enough who are behind sponsoring terrorism against India particularly in Jammu and Kashmir. I think time has come to call their bluff and give them a befitting reply," the Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office told reporters here.

Singh, who is also a Lok Sabha member from Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur constituency, said an effective strategy has to be devised to deter such attacks in future.

"I think that simply calling it an act of cowardice does not suffice, because not responding would also be cowardice," Singh said.

The Minister said "those who tend to put India's security or India's confidence to test would be given a befitting response."



"I don't have to spell out that in public. I am sure the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Home Affairs would come out with an effective strategy," he said.

"It is a disturbing moment and a moment of introspection. I shudder to think how can the nation ever and ever repay for such supreme and ultimate sacrifice of our jawans," he said.

The Minister said those behind the "despicable" terror attack have to be punished.

"I feel shattered over the loss of 17 precious lives of our brave soldiers. There is no other option but to punish those behind this dastardly act," he said.

Singh asked Opposition parties to forget their political differences and respond to the "call of the nation".

Criticising the human rights activists "who try to ignore the killing of soldiers by terrorists", the Minister said an Indian soldier is as much entitled to human rights as anybody else.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

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Lt Governor Najeeb Jung today visited several hospitals across the city to take stock of their preparedness in dealing with the rising number of chikungunya and dengue cases in the national capital, and stressed on "special attention" to the elderly.

His visit came a day after the AAP government accused him of adopting a "casual approach" in dealing with the health crisis in the city.

Delhi is reeling under the viral onslaught of chikungunya and dengue, which have claimed at least 33 lives and affected over 2,800 people.

Jung, accompanied by Delhi Secretary Chandrakar Bharti and other top officials, visited fever clinics, laboratories at Lok Nayak Jaiprakash Hospital, Bara Hindu Rao Hospital and GTB Hospital. The team interacted with patients, doctors, medical superintendents, staff and other visitors to assess the situation.

"He instructed the medical superintendents and doctors to ensure that patients with complications, particularly those who are elderly, should be attended to with greater care," a statement from the Raj Niwas said.

Jung also directed Delhi health secretary to help provide additional doctors, if required, seeing the surge of patients today.

The AAP government and the Lt Governor had a standoff yesterday after Health Minister Satyendar Jain and Water Minister Kapil Mishra went to meet the LG at his office to discuss the health crisis, but could not meet him as he was not present in his office.

While Jain questioned why Jung did not cut short his US visit "even by one hour", the LG's office accused the AAP government of "politicising the issue" when the city was grappling with the health crisis.

Among the 15 fatalities reported this season due to



chikungunya complications, most of the victims were elderly with comorbid conditions like hypertension, kidney or other health problems.

Medical Superintendent of LNJP Hospital, J C Passey informed the Lt Governor that out of 200 beds dedicated for dengue and chikungunya patients, 76 were occupied.

"Most patients come to Lok Nayak from central Delhi with 10 per cent of the patients being from adjacent states such as Uttar Pradesh," he said.

"He also told the Lt Governor that apart from one death last month, there have been no fatality and that chikungunya patients do not always require hospitalisation. The MS also said as per the data collected by them, the ratio of chikungunya and dengue patients this year was 4:1," the statement said.

Ajit Goel, the Medical Superintendent of Bara Hindu Rao, informed Jung that the fever clinics were operational 24 hrs and approximately 1,000 patients visited them every day.

So far we have had 163 chikungunya, 72 malaria and 50 dengue cases in the hospital, he said.

A 22-year-old girl had died of cardiac arrest triggered by chikungunya complications at the hospital, run by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, on September 1.
Enraged over the terror attack on an army battalion in Uri, former army officials today sought urgent action against Pakistan, including keeping the "military option open" to deal with terror from its soil.

"We must have our military option open, if required to strike at certain places," Lt Gen (Retd) B S Jaswal said here.

"Bring pickets, which have launch pad to the ground, raze them to the ground. The reason is that till the time it does not hurt Pakistan physically, they would not our decency," Jaswal, who was GOC-in-C of the Northern Command, said.

"Pakistan keeps doing it (terror strikes) again and again knowing that we would not take any action," Major (Retd) Gaurav Arya, who has expertise in Jammu and Kashmir security situation, said.

The problems in Kashmir are "systematically manufactured" at the GHQ in Rawalpindi, he alleged, adding "We must take immediate action. Stop trade with Pakistan, downgrade (its) Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status. The world must know we are serious."



Questioning the absence of two service chiefs at the meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh to take stock of the situation after the attack, former army chief Gen Gen Shankar Roy Chowdhury said these actions were coming from Pakistan.

"We have this meeting chaired by No 2 in the Government, that is the Home Minister, where the RAW chief and CRPF chief are present. Who is doing these actions (terror attacks)? It is coming from across the border, from Pakistan," he said.

"Is the CRPF chief going to look at Pakistan? Where are the Chief of Army and Chief of Naval Staff? Why they were not available to give (advice on) strategic action to the Government," he asked.

Retired Brig Anil Gupta accused Pakistan of causing



instability in the Valley.

He said the attack was "a matter of serious concern for India and is a desperate attempt by Pakistan to ensure the current turmoil in Kashmir doesn't end."



"Pakistan, despite all the criticism and the problems its facing, is hell bent on encouraging terrorism inside Kashmir," Gupta said.

Commenting on the attack, Lt Gen (Retd) Syed Ata Hasnain said "preventing suicide attack is difficult, but damage control is always possible."



In a series of tweets, the former GOC 15 and 21 Corps said such attacks were "a different type of warfare. Understand its nuances. (There is) No fool proof guarantee anywhere. The main danger is of suicide bombing not witnessed since 2004."



Hasnain said "Be clear, warnings do not matter in this. A determined small group can get through. Never 100 per cent proofing against it."



In the same vein, Lt Gen (Retd) K J Singh, who retired in July as Western Army Commander, said "No defences are fool proof", though we aim to make it so but the essence is reaction.
The ninth edition of the largest gathering of tourism stakeholders in the state -- Kerala Travel Mart -- will be aiming to project the state as a sustainable and modern destination.

Jointly organized by the Kerala Travel Mart Society and the State Department of Tourism, the event is to be held on September 27 and focus on Responsible Tourism in Muziri and Spice Route.

"Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the event at Hotel Le Meridien on September 27, on World Tourism Day,"Kerala Travel Mart (KTM) Society president, Abraham George told the reporters here yesterday.

Launching the initiative, a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project of the KTM society, George said, the effort to maintain Kerala as a sustainable destination offering better service to customers is laudable.

"The society has representation from tourism stakeholders across the state. Hence, the collective effort to adopt and implement the charter points aims to project Kerala as a sustainable modern destination and improve the visitors' experience in the state," George said.

The society has adopted a comprehensive 9-point charter to address major concerns at tourism hotspots as it gears up to host the ninth edition of India's biggest travel event focused on a single destination.

The 9-point agenda for action calls for measures to tackle waste management, promote organic farming, efficient use of energy and extensive use of local produce and products.

"As we gear up to host the ninth edition of KTM, the members have identified nine key issues that need to be addressed.

The charter was unanimously accepted and we are committed to implementing it. Many of the members have already started working towards the implementation," George said.

The three-day event will be held at Samudrika and Sagara Convention Centre, Willingdon Island, from September 28 to 30, 2016.

Fifty-seven foreign countries will be represented at the trade event this year, including 10 first time participants.

"We will see the biggest-ever delegate contingents from 10 traditional markets," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
has a Senate race this year because they are so freaked out that a ultra-progressive, working class, transgendered woman, Misty Snow, beat their preferred conservative Blue Dog candidate in the primary 59.4-40.6%. So they've given GOP radical Mike Lee a free re-election pass. Neither Misty nor the state of Utah is even mentioned on the As we've mentioned before , a homophobic and hypocritical DSCC refuses to acknowledge that Utah evena Senate race this year because they are so freaked out that a ultra-progressive, working class, transgendered woman, Misty Snow, beat their preferred conservative Blue Dog candidate in the primary 59.4-40.6%. So they've given GOP radical Mike Lee a free re-election pass. Neither Misty nor the state of Utah is even mentioned on the DSCC website . On the other hand, the site does acknowledge that Alaska has a Senate race this cycle. On the page touting the candidates, they have this statement about Alaska: "Lisa Murkowski faces a tough reelection fight in Alaska-- earlier this cycle, Alaskas other Senator, Dan Sullivan, refused to back her for reelection despite her support for him last cycle. Democrats won the Senate race in Alaska in 2008 and despite the GOP wave in 2014, came within a few points of winning again in this traditionally red state. Democrats are poised to run another strong race this time with a candidate who will put Alaska first."





What the DSCC doesn't mention is that the populist Democratic Party in the state-- which gave Bernie a 81.6% to 18.4% landslide over Hillary and massive victories in every single electoral district ( numbers that beat Trump too )-- also nominated Ray Metcalfe, a former Anchorage state Rep who was one of the state's original Bernie for President organizers. Although he won the party nomination, 15,198 to 10,074, Metcalfe is not a Schumer kind of candidate. To start with, he's Alaska's best-known anti-corruption crusader, something that upsets the business model of the political establishment in both Alaska, where corruption is a way of life, and in DC, where politicians like Schumer would never/could never rise to the top without it. "When I was in the legislature," Metcalfe told me yesterday, "people around me were taking bribes." He worked with the FBI to expose the biggest political corruption case in contemporary America. This is the front page of Metcalfe's Senate website (you can easily see why it would freak out an establishment hack like Schumer):

If elected, Ray Metcalfe will be Bernie Sanders closest ally in the US Senate. Rays platform is Bernies platform. Following four years of service in the Alaska Legislature, Ray Metcalfe made a career of exposing political bribery. Ignoring the threats of Alaskas rich and powerful, Metcalfe spent years helping Federal Investigators and Prosecutors connect the dots between dirty money and political favors.



Corruption exposed by Ray Metcalfe lead to the conviction of six Alaskan legislators, two oil lobbyists, (VECO owner Bill Allen and VECO manager Rich Smith) two lobbyists for the private prison industry, and the indictment of former Alaska Governor Murkowskis Chief of staff.



Americas political machine has deteriorated into a system of mutual dependency between elected officials and large donors seeking financial rewards. After contributing, large donors send paid lobbyists to remind the beneficiaries of their contributions and what financial rewards they are expecting in return, creating an endless cycle of trading campaign contributions for appropriations and other financial benefits from Congress. Bernies climate agenda would get more attention from Congress if it did not have to compete with the fossil fuel industrys ability to trade campaign contributions for profit protections and subsidies. Ray Metcalfe has an established track record of ending such vote buying schemes. If you want open, honest, ethical government, please contribute to his campaign.

The DSCC continues to throw away money on the loathsome conservative candidates with no chance of winning that it foisted on Democratic primary voters in Florida and Ohio. Forget Patrick Murphy and Ted Strickland. Please consider contributing what you can to progressives like Russ Feingold, Misty Snow and Ray Metcalfe by tapping on the thermometer on the right. The DSCC (and Alaska's grotesquely corrupt Democratic Party establishment) are worried that-- with teabagger and Trumpist Joe Miller in the race as a Libertarian and tearing Murkowski apart from the right-- Metcalfe could actually win. Worried that a progressive Democrat could beat a conservative Republican! That's how Schumer's reptilian mind works. So he's encouraging a proven corruptionist buddy of his, Mark Begich, to mount a last minute write-in campaign to draw votes away from Metcalfe and throw the election to Murkowski! (Before the Begich chatter got going, the violently anti-Bernie Alaska Democratic Party establishment decided to back independent candidate Margaret Stock as a way to derail Metcalfe.)





Rollcall reported last week that Begich beat Senator Ted Stevens in 2008, eight days after Stevens was convicted on 7 felony corruption counts. Six years later Begich, who supports drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and who has been tied to myriad corruption scandals from his time as mayor of Anchorage, was defeated in his reelection bid by GOP crackpot Dan Sullivan.reported last week that if Begich does run-- and he has to decide this week-- he'll have some big challenges to overcome.

For one, the Democratic Party has a nominee, former state legislator and good-government activist Ray Metcalfe.



Metcalfe, who won his August primary with 50 percent of the vote, made it clear in an interview that he would not step aside for Begich, whom he considers corrupt.



I tried to get Mark Begich indicted, Metcalfe said.



In addition to the logistical difficulty of persuading voters to back a candidate whose name isnt on the ballot, Begich would also face fierce resistance from the entrenched Murkowski.

We're hoping to get Metcalfe to tell us in his own words why he tried getting Begich indicted and what happened with that. This is an old ad from 8 years ago... stay tuned.
Kerala government will file a review petition this week against the recent Supreme Court verdict commuting the death sentence of the convict Govindachami in the controversial Soumya case, State Law Minister A K Balan today said.

"Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi will appear for the state government and would request for an open court hearing in the case," the minister said in a press meet here.

"We are trying to bring the case under the purview of section 302 of IPC," Balan said, adding that he had today met the Attorney General in Delhi who had expressed his readiness to conduct the case.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also spoke to Rohatgi over phone, he said.

The 23-year-old Soumya was attacked, pushed out of a moving train and brutally raped on February 1, 2011. She succumbed to injuries at the Government Medical College Hospital, Thrissur, on February 6, 2011.

The apex court had dropped the murder charge against Govindachami and commuted his death penalty to seven years of jail while upholding the life imprisonment awarded by a trial court on charges of rape.

Balan said the AG would contend in the court to review the case under the ambit of section 302 of the IPC, as section 325 (voluntarily causing grevious hurt) had been invoked by the apex court which itself had recognised one among two major injuries on Soumya's body as a reason for her death.

"The injury number two in the post-mortem report and invoking of section 325 in the case itself can be used to rope in murder charges in the case," Balan said.

There was widespread criticism in the state over the apex court's decision with the victim's mother, Sumathy, stating that it was a "heart breaking" judgment.

Meanwhile, Sumathy said she had received an anonymous telephone call threatening that she would have to face dire consequences if she went ahead with the case.

Police said they have recorded her statement which would be filed in court.

The state Law Minister also lashed out at the United



Democratic Front (UDF) leaders for criticising the government's "failure" in handling the case.

"It was the Oommen Chandy government that appointed the senior advocate Thomas P Joseph as the counsel for the case," Balan alleged, pointing out the Government Order issued in 2015 by the then UDF government in this regard.

"Prosecution erred in identifying the mystery man who played a major role in influencing the verdict of the case," the minister said pointing out the prosecution's reference to an unidentified man who allegedly told the witnesses in the case that Soumya jumped out of the moving train and escaped.

The minister also said he would write to the Chief Minister to initiate a probe into the financial sources of advocate B A Aloor, the counsel for Govindachami.

The apex court had discharged Govindachami under section 302 (murder) of IPC, in which the maximum sentence is capital punishment, saying there was no intention on his part to kill the victim but only to sexually assault her by keeping her in a supine position.

While dropping section 302 of IPC, a bench comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi, P C Pant and U U Lalit held him guilty for the offence of causing grievous hurt under section 325 of the IPC and awarded seven years rigorous imprisonment which will run concurrently with the life sentence awarded to him.

A Thrissur fast-track court had awarded the lone accused, Govindachami death sentence, considering him a habitual offender. The decision was upheld by the Kerala High Court. However, the apex court, on a petition by the accused, commuted his death sentence.
A doctor and his compounder, kidnapped last week for ransom, have been rescued from Uttar Pradesh's Etah district today, police said.

Vinod Verma and his compounder Ajay had gone missing on September 12 from southeast Delhi's Jaitpur area.

After a ransom call demanding Rs 25 crore was received, a team comprising officers from the special cell and southeast district was made tolook for the doctor, a senior police officer said.

The team conducted a raid today at a location at Etah district in UP and rescued the doctor and his compounder,he said.

An inter-state gang of kidnappers was involved in the incident and few of them have been arrested, the officer said, adding, efforts are on to nab the remaining abductors.

Verma, who stays in Faridabad with his family, has a clinic in Jaitpur area.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Touted to be the largest of its kind in South Asia, the third edition of the Kochi Muziris Biennale will question the "tradition of traditions" with a brand new perspective, organizers announced, as eminent artist Sudarshan Shetty revealed his curatorial vision for the 108-days long event.

Titled "Forming in the pupil of an eye", the biennale is scheduled to be held from December 12, 2016 to March 29, 2017.

Shetty's core curatorial question will explore what tradition means and aim to explore it not as a stagnant thought but as something that is dynamic.

"I want to explore tradition as a motif in this edition of the Biennale. We often talk about 'tradition' or 'traditions', and through my curation, I have aimed to address it from a fresh perspective - not as a stagnant or historical thought, but as an active concept integrated within contemporary reality.

"Traditions develop over time within the context of a changing yet continuous community. The idea of community and social engagement is deeply embedded within the curation," Shetty said.

KMB will also "question and blur the boundaries that categorise the various disciplines of artistic expression" through display and performance of selected artworks.

According to the artist, the event will produce works that will exist not only during the event but also beyond it.

"My curatorial approach started as a conversation between different forms and approaches to art practice. I see the Biennale as existing in process, something which flows, and I wanted to engage artists whose practices will create works that exist not only for the duration of the Biennale, but on into the time beyond," he said.

The main exhibition will be supported by ancillary programme of talks, seminars, the Students' Biennale, the Art By Children exhibition, workshops, film screenings and music sessions.

It will also feature works by visual artists, poets, musicians and performance professionals from across India and abroad including France, Russia, Turkey, Germany, Poland Slovenia, Australia, Mexico, USA, Japan, Argentina, Pakistan, Spain, Hungary among others.

The biennale will be held across heritage properties, public spaces, and galleries. While the primary setting in Fort Kochi will be Aspinwall House, other venues will include Pepper House, David Hall, and Durbar Hall, in Fort Kochi and Ernakulam.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Labour and Employment ministry yesterday celebrated 'Vishwakarma Dinotsav', where 28 workers from the construction, service industries and contract workers were felicitated by K V Sarweswaran, Additional Central P F Commissioner, Maharashtra.

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation, under the Central PF Commissioner has adopted a resolution on service delivery ethics to create awareness among the workers, employers on benefits of social security and rights and obligations of each stakeholder by continuous engagement with stakeholders to anticipate and meet expectations, a release issued by the EPFO stated.

Pankaj Raman, Regional PF Commissioner informed workers and employers about the enhancement of maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeks; the basic minimum wages for central sphere at Rs 350 per day for unskilled non-agricultural workers for 'C' category areas and enhancement of eligibility limit from Rs 10,000 to Rs 21,000 per month for bonus.

Raman said that mow to attract deduction of tax at source at time of final payment of PF in case of membership being less than 5 years, the limit has been increased to Rs 50,000 from Rs 30,000.

"From July 2015, time limit of settlement of all types of claims from reduced from 30 to 20 days," he added.

He also said that those eligible to receive pension on attaining 58 years, can opt to defer for a period of two years and get enhanced pension at a rate of 4 per cent per year restricted to wage ceiling of Rs 15,000 or if total increase amounts to 8.16 per cent.

"In the event of death of member during period of deferment family is entitled to pension as if member pension commenced on date of death EPS pensioners are no longer required to travel to EPF Offices or bank as they can file Jeevan Praman Certificate online," Raman added.

He further said employers who wish to register for PF compliance have to just file basic details of establishment online with digital signature with no need for physical submission of documents.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Labour Ministry is likely to move a Cabinet note on the Labour Code on Industrial Relations (IR) for its approval this week.

The ministry has completed all the formalities on the Code including the opinion of the Law ministry as well as tripartite discussions with trade unions and employers, a source said.

"Now it will be sent for the Cabinet approval as soon as this week. After approval, the Code will be put before Parliament for passage," the source added.

Code on Industrial Relations is one of the initiatives of the NDA government to subsume 44 labour laws into four broad codes -- Industrial Relations, Wages, Social Security and Industrial Safety and Welfare.

IR Code proposes to make retrenchment easier for firms employing up to 300 workers as well as make it tougher to form a trade union.

The bill seeks to combine Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, Trade Unions Act, 1926, and Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 into a single code.

At present, companies employing 100 or more workers are required to seek government's permission for retrenchment under the Industrial Dispute Act.

Also, any seven or more members of a trade union can apply for registration of the Trade Union.

The draft bill proposes that 10 per cent of workers shall apply (be applicant) for registering a trade union.

The provision relating to easing retrenchment, lay off and closure norms and tougher rules for forming unions in the proposed bill has led to uproar by the central trade unions.

They went on a nationwide strike on September 2 last year as well as this year to protest proposed amendments to the labour laws, which the government says will improve ease of doing business.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Linking terrorist acts with mental illness unfairly stigmatises the millions of people with mental health problems and impedes prevention efforts, scientists including one of Indian origin have warned.

Researchers said that terrorist groups and networks seem to avoid recruiting people with mental health problems, "probably because they share some of the same stigmatised views as the rest of society and see people with mental health conditions as unreliable, difficult to train, and a security threat."



Recent attention has shifted to "lone actor" terrorism, in which mental illnesses are more common, they said.

However, they point out that no single diagnosis is associated with "lone actor" terrorism, and that a psychiatric diagnosis where appropriate does not explain motivation.

According to Kamaldeep Bhui from London School of Medicine and Dentistry in the UK and colleagues call for careful media reporting of terrorist events, similar to the reporting of suicides, to reduce copycat episodes.

Researchers said that many health practitioners are concerned about the government's counterterrorism strategy, which outlines a public duty to assess, report and prevent radicalisation if this may lead to extremist violence.

They point to a lack of transparency which means there is a "paucity of published evidence" for the effectiveness of the programme.

This undermines trust and has alarmed many health practitioners, "who are concerned about acting as agents of the state."



Wessely said that the single best thing we can do to improve services, is make it easier for people to be referred, improve treatments that they get - that will improve mental health - and may also reduce risk to the public of these extremest acts.

He added that psychiatrists are not in the role to deal with extremism, but are there to help those with mental health problems.

"An effective counterterrorism strategy, which is in all our interests, will be more successful if it engages fully with mental health professionals, public health agencies, and communities, making the research evidence and recommended actions as transparent as possible without undermining genuine security concerns," researchers said.

The study was published in The BMJ journal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Action film "Mad Max: Fury Road", which received Academy Awards in multiple categories, is reportedly set to get a prequel instead of a sequel.

The fifth installment of George Miller's "Mad Max" saga will explore the story before Tom Hardy's lone hero meets Charlize Theron's Furiosa, repoirted Aceshowbiz.

The prequel is reportedly in pre-production. It is expected to start shooting Down Under later this year.

It's unclear whether or not Miller will return for this prequel if the rumor is true.

He previously said that he would take a break from the "Mad Max" saga although it didn't necessarily mean that he wouldn't return for another movie because he still had "two more stories" to tell.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to allot 10-acre land to smartphone manufacturer Micromax at Pithampur industrial area in neighbouring Dhar district, an official said.

Micromax was allotted 16 acre of land at IT Park situated in Barwai, Bhopal in October 2015. But now following a change in the company's plan, the state government instead has decided to allot 10 acre land at Pithampur industrial area, some 40 km from here, he said.

Micromax has to deposit Rs 2.5 crore with the government for the purpose, said the official.

The firm will get the concessions and sops from the government provided it start commercial production at Pithampur in three years, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today embarked on a two-day tour to the United States.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Oracle will be signed during the tour. Under the MoU, the IT giant will assist the state in the 'Smart Cities' Mission.

Fadnavis has undertaken this tour on an invitation from Oracle and it is the first the time that the company would be signing an MoU with an Indian state, a release issued by the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said.

"The Chief Minister will address a global audience in 'Open World', a programme organised by Oracle. This is the first time a Chief Minister would get the opportunity to address a gathering at an event of this magnitude," an official from the CMO said.

"The company will play an important role in the government's 'Smart Cities' mission. The Kalyan Dombivili Municipal Corporation, Mira Bhayander and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporations will get the benefit from Oracle in terms of technology, thereby helping them in the Smart Cities mission," said the official.

Oracle will also develop a Centre of Excellence (CoE) that will help in the 'Smart Cities' mission, he added.

According to the official, Fadnavis is scheduled to meet California Governor Jerry Brown along with several officials from different IT companies and apprise them of the initiatives taken by the Maharashtra government under the 'Ease of Doing' business programme.

Principal Secretary of IT department Vijay Kumar Gautam and Kaustubh Dhawse, an officer on special duty in the CMO, have also gone with the Chief Minister.

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Amid debate over whether chikungunya can lead to death, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken today said Health Minister Satyendar Jain's statement that people cannot die of chikungunya "shows his insensitivity and ignorance".

Jain has been reiterating that "as per medical literature chikungunya cannot cause death, and has accused media of spreading panic."



"At a time when people are dying of chikungunya, the statement by the health minister that people cannot die of chikungunya shows his insensitivity and ignorance," Maken said while launching a fogging drive by Delhi Pradesh Traders Congress here.

At least 15 fatalities have been reported at various hospitals due to chikungunya complications, including a 22-year-old girl who died of a cardiac arrest triggered by chikungunya complications at Hindu Rao Hospital.

"According to the 2015 report of WHO (World Health Organisation), 191 people in North America and South America had died of chikungunya," Maken said, and asked, "whether people should reject the report of one of the key members of the UNO (United Nations Organisation) like the WHO, which said that people have died of chikungunya in America."



Doctors say that chikungunya is not a life-threatening disease in general, but in rare cases leads to complications that prove fatal, especially in children and elderly persons.

The committee set up by the Delhi government to review cases of death attributed to dengue and chikungunya complications has "ruled out" chikungunya as the primary cause of fatality and said it was "co-morbid conditions" in its patients which led to their deaths.

Taking pot-shots at the Kejriwal government, Maken said over 30 lives have already been claimed by chikungunya and dengue, and crowded hospitals in Delhi are "putting 3-4 people on one bed".

He alleged that the condition of the mohalla clinics was "equally bad" as these clinics open only for four hours daily, and doctors and medicines have become "scarce" there.

Hitting out at the AAP government, Maken said the Delhi government has "woefully failed" to provide health care to the people at this critical time, which is a "violation of the Right to Life", guaranteed in the Constitution.

Delhi government, however, has asserted that adequate measures were in place, and "people should not panic".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)




NY Times Nick Kristof asked his readers In today'sNick Kristof asked his readers whether they would have hidden a Jew from the Nazis . In the 1970s I lived in Amsterdam for nearly 4 years and passed the Anne Frank Huis-- now a museum-- on the Prinsegracht a few times a week. It was vaguely, a little circuitously, between my apartment on the Overtoom and my job at the meditation center on Prins Hendrikkade. It was built in 1635. I thought about the question Kristof asked today very frequently back then. More recently though, I sometimes try to imagine what I would do if President Trumpf was having Latinos rounded up by his special deportation politzei. I have plenty of room in my for a family. But it might be really dangerous. Even if President Trumpf didn't order people who hid Latinos arrested, I bet they'd confiscate the houses immediately. And those people next door... would they snitch?





Kristof wrote of torture and death. But it would be 2017 before the round-ups begin; didn't he say his first week in office or something like that? And torture? This is a civilized country. Would Trumpf torture people ? Would I be brave enough? Well, obviously if it was someone I knew... one of my friends, or even my housekeeper and her family, I would ask them if they needed a hiding place.





Down at the bottom is the trailer for Defying the Nazis, a new Ken Burns documentary that will air on PBS Tuesday evening. The grandson of the protagonists, a couple who saved Jews from Nazis, noted the parallels between what his grandparents, Martha and Waitstill Sharp, faced and what we're facing today with the Syrian refugee crisis. "The vitriol in public speech, the xenophobia, the accusing of Muslims of all of our problems-- these are similar to the anti-Semitism of the 1930s and 40s." I live in L.A.; there are Muslims around, even a few I know. But it's not like the Latino population. I think Latinos are the biggest population group in L.A.

The Sharps story is a reminder that in the last great refugee crisis, in the 1930s and 40s, the United States denied visas to most Jews. We feared the economic burden and worried that their ranks might include spies. It was the Nazis who committed genocide, but the U.S. and other countries also bear moral responsibility for refusing to help desperate people.



Thats a thought world leaders should reflect on as they gather in New York to discuss todays refugee crisis-- and they might find inspiration from those like the Sharps who saw the humanity in refugees and are today honored because of it.



Take Poland, where some Poles responded to Nazi occupation by murdering Jews, while the Polish resistance (including, Im proud to say, my fathers family) fought back and tried to wake the worlds conscience. One Pole, Witold Pilecki, sneaked into Auschwitz to gather intelligence and alert the world to what was happening.



Likewise, a Polish farmer named Jozef Ulma and his wife, Wiktoria, sheltered desperate members of two Jewish families in their house. The Ulmas had six small children and every reason to be cautious, but they instead showed compassion.



Someone reported them, and the Gestapo raided the Ulmas farmhouse. The Nazis first shot the Jews dead, and then took retribution by executing not just Jozef and Wiktoria (who was seven months pregnant) but also all their children. The entire family was massacred.

Trump and his special deportation politzei would never do that, right? This is America. We don't have that kind of thing here. Right?





This afternoon, Digby penned a letter to Blue America members that you may not have seen if you're not a member. She warned that it's just about 50 days from November... when we as a country decide our fate. "There is," she warned, "a very real possibility that this country is going to elect a white supremacist, nationalist demagogue as president of the United States. Yes, it makes no sense. One would think it's impossible. But after watching the media shit show unfold daily, its quite obvious that it can happen here. The polls right now are very, very tight."
Mauritian companies have invested around USD 300 million in the country during January 2003 and July 2016, a Mauritian Minister said today.

Mauritius is the largest single investor in India.

"Indigenous Mauritian companies have invested close to USD 300 million during January 2003 and July 2016 - a truly amazing figure," CII quoted Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mauritius, as saying.

He said smart cities and port development are the current focus areas in Mauritius.

The minister also invited Indian companies to take advantage of new industrial parks in his country.

India has also made significant investments in Mauritius with eight Indian public sector enterprises currently functioning in the country, CII said.

(Reopens MDS20)



She said: "In the villages in Uttar Pradesh, where my forebears lived, I learned of my ancestors and the life of my grandfather, the dreams of my father, the bonds of family and culture that connect us all as Indians and Mauritians."



Referring to the climate talks in Marrakech (Conference of Parties-CoP22), she hoped it would lay the groundwork for collective actions that could keep warming below the accepted 2C mark.

Stating that SIDS are mostly developing nations, she said they are technologically and economically challenged. Hence to be sustainable, climate change diplomacy must address the technological, financial and policy needs of SIDS in pragmatic ways, she said.
Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul M Sangma has encouraged the cultivation of spices in Garo Hills as an alternative means of cultivation and livelihood.

The cultivation of spices will enhance livelihood opportunities in the rural areas, he said while attending the Promotion of Black Pepper Cultivation at Rongjeng Government-aided Higher Secondary School, East Garo Hills, organized by District Horticulture Officer, East Garo Hills Williamnagar.

Pointing out that spices like pepper, cinnamon and cardamom are used for cooking and medicinal purposes all over the world, the CM said resilient means of livelihood infused with scientific approach will bring in higher returns to cultivators and also reverse the ill effects of climatic change as planting of certain condiments like pepper also increases the vegetative cover.

Urging the villagers to start the cultivation of spices he said the cultivation of pepper known to be king of spices, is highly profitable with India being the largest exporter of black pepper.

He also said that black pepper cultivation is inter-cropping with the focus being the tree of the crop like coconut and areca nut tree both of which are grown extensively in Garo Hills.

Saplings of high yielding varieties of black pepper were distributed to 84 villages.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
German voters went to the polls in Berlin today in a regional election where the anti-migrant AfD party hoped to capitalise on anger against Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcome to refugees.

The rightwing populist Alternative for Germany has mobilised xenophobic and anti-Islam sentiment to win opposition seats in nine out of 16 states in Germany and is especially strong in the ex-communist east.

Fresh gains for the AfD -- especially in hip and multicultural Berlin, where it has been polling up to 14 percent -- would spell another setback for Merkel, a year ahead of national elections.

Germany took in one million asylum seekers last year, and over 70,000 came to Berlin, with many housed in the cavernous hangars of the Nazi-built former Tempelhof airport, once the hub for the Cold War-era Berlin airlift.

Merkel -- who was booed this week by rightwing activists shouting "get lost" -- later conceded it was hard to reach "protest voters" who have turned their backs on mainstream parties.

Polls opened at 0600 GMT under clear blue skies and were to close at 1600 GMT, with some 2.5 million people to chose both a new city-state parliament and 12 local district assemblies.

Merkel's centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) has a national majority but in Berlin serves as junior coalition partner to Mayor Michael Mueller's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), traditionally the strongest party in this city of 3.5 million.

As Mueller has rejected a new coalition with the CDU, Merkel's party may be cast out of the Berlin government altogether with the SPD likely to team up with the ecologist Greens and the far-left Die Linke party.

In a city famously dubbed "poor but sexy" by its previous mayor, the openly-gay bon vivant Klaus Wowereit, the election campaign has been dominated not just by migrant policies but also widespread frustration over poor public services.

With little industry and an above-national average jobless rate of 10 percent, Europe's techno party capital is chronically broke and known for its crumbling schools, late trains and shambolic city offices.

Often seen as an amusingly chaotic exception in otherwise orderly and punctual Germany, Berlin became a national laughing stock for a grand BER airport project that is now five years behind schedule and three times over budget.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 15-year-old- girl has been apprehended by police for allegedly trying to sell an infant here.

According to police, Child Welfare Committee, Faridabad, President H S Mallik informed that the minor was found with a one-and-half-month old baby boy in a suspicious condition on a state transport bus.

Yesterday, the minor was presented before the Child Welfare Committee during which the girl said she hailed from Delhi and the baby was of her sister's sister-in-law. She said her sister promised to give her Rs 200 if she sold the baby, police said, adding she admitted to have sold babies before.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A four-year-old girl was allegedly molested in the washroom of a prominent school in west Delhi's Vikaspuri area, police said today.

After the child got back home from school on September 16, she told her parents that a mustachioed man allegedly took her inside the washroom of the institute around afternoon and molested her, said a police officer.

Her parents then lodged a complaint in Vikaspuri police station and a case under the relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) has been registered, he said.

The police has begun investigating the matter by questioning the employees of the school and teachers, the officer said.

CCTV footage is also being scanned to gain clues about the culprit, but no suspicious activity has been detected in it.

Police has not ruled out the possibility of an outsider's entry in the school premises, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two unidentified miscreants looted Rs 4.56 lakh today from a businessman at gun point in this district, police said.

The incident took place in Basedi area of the district when Ashok Agrawal was returning from Jagner village after money collection, SP, Rajesh Singh said.

The miscreants came on a motorcycle and hit Agrawal, the SP said, adding, efforts are on to nab them.

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A senior official of Doordarshan, who was reportedly missing from New Delhi area, today returned home from a shrine in Rajasthan where he had gone without informing his family, police said.

Jayant Kharche, posted as DDG (Deputy Director General) in the engineering department of Doordarshan, returned home today at 5 PM after paying obeisance at Khichripur Balaji shrine in Rajasthan, a senior police officer said.

"Kharche is a loner and is slightly eccentric. He left for the shrine without informing his family or office colleagues and returned today," he said.

Kharche, who was missing since September 16, had left for a meeting from his office around noon and had decided to walk to the venue since it was nearby, the officer said.

But he didn't reach there and his phone was found to be switched off following which his family had filed a missing complaint, he added.

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Russia today called on Washington to thoroughly investigate a coalition strike that killed at least 62 Syrian troops, but stopped short of burying the ceasefire agreement struck in Geneva.

"Moscow is deeply concerned about what happened," said a foreign ministry statement.

"We call on the American partners to conduct the most thorough investigation and take measures to exclude such incidents in the future."



"The actions of the pilots -- if they, as we hope, were not taken on orders from Washington -- fall between criminal negligence and direct pandering to IS terrorists," it said.

The US admitted the coalition strike on regime positions near Deir Ezzor expressing "regret" over the loss of life that it said was a mistake.

Moscow, however, said it suspected foul play aimed at disrupting the next stage of the ceasefire agreement which would see the US and Russia establishing closer operational coordination in Syria.

The ceasefire came into effect on Monday, and if it lasts seven days, Russia and the United States are to work together to target the extremist Islamic State and Al-Nusra front.

"They could wait two more days" and consult with Russia, to "make sure they are striking the right people," UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told journalists late yesterday, after walking out of the Security Council in protest over remarks made by US delegate Samantha Power.

He called the strike "suspicious", saying it was perhaps "not accidental" that it happened shortly before the establishment of the Joint Implementation Centre agreed by the two countries in Geneva.

Russia's foreign ministry again called on Washington to force Syrian rebels to join the truce.

"Otherwise, the realisation of Russia-US agreements... could be put in danger.

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Young Sumit Nagal showed spark in his game on Davis Cup debut before 'breathing problem' scuttled his victory march as India suffered a 5-0 whitewash at the hands of mighty Spain in the World Group Play-off tie, here tonight.

Up against the reigning Olympic and French Open doubles champion Marc Lopez, who does not play singles anymore, the 19-year-old Nagal dominated the proceedings under muggy conditions before losing 3-6 6-1 3-6 in the dead fourth rubber, that lasted more than two hours.

It was a mountainous task for Ramkumar Ramanathan to prevent a clean sweep since he had world number 13 David Ferrer as his opponent. The Spaniard cruised to a 6-2 6-2 win to complete a dominating 5-0 win for his side even as Ramkumar fought his heart out, giving his all.

The last time India suffered a whitewash was in 2003 against the Netherlands in the away World Group Play-off tie. It is the 21st time that India has been whitewash.

The tie already in the pocket of five-time Davis Cup champions, they chose to field Marc in place of Feliciano Lopez while India handed debut to Nagal.

Lopez was playing only his second singles match in a Davis Cup tie. The last time he played a singles rubber was in 2013 World Group Play-off tie against Ukraine. Then also, he had played fourth rubber and won 6-3 6-3 against Denys Molchanov.

The last time Lopez played a singles match on the Tour was in 2014 at Barcelona and that was only singles he played on the Tour that year.

After overcoming initial nerves, Nagal opened up and played smartly. He packed a lot of power in his forehand and also used the drop shots smartly. He impressed with his style of play, court coverage and selection of shots.

His backhand is still work in progress and Lopez attacked him there in the later part of the match. Had it not been for his breathing problem, Nagal was well on course for a memorable win, albeit against a player who is used to covering only the half-court in the recent years.

Someone who is still finding feet in the ITF Futures circuit, the inspiring performance against world number 15 in the doubles will surely serve a huge confidence booster for the Delhi lad.

Nagal received a medical time out for breathing issues in the second game of the third set after breaking Lopez in the first. This happened when the match was in his grip.

He had saved three break chances before the trainer was called. He saved three more after receiving the treatment, held the serve and broke Lopez for one more time to take a 3-0 lead in the decisive set.

(REOPENS DEL 96)



However, momentum switched and he was not the player who was earlier dictating terms. Nagal lost five straight games after that to trail 3-5 and Lopez served out the match.

Nagal was coming into the tie after wining a USD 25,000 ITF Futures title on clay at Poland and making the semifinal in another event.

He was broken at love in the second game and had chances to make it even in the next game but could convert none of the three chances he got, often making errors with his backhand.

Trailing 0-3, the young Indian came up firing and got on board by serving the fourth at love.

Nagal earned another chance to get break when Lopez netted a forehand but could not put the ball in open court after setting up the point nicely.

The missed chances cost Nagal as Lopez served out the set with a backhand volley winner.

The Jhajjar boy though rushed to a 3-1 lead in the second set after breaking Lopez in the fourth game. He had more control over the strokes. He was striking clean backhand which Lopez could not pick.

A flurry of unforced errors came from a rattled Lopez as he dropped serve at love in the sixth, allowing Nagal to serve out the set in the next.

The momentum was with Nagal and he again broke Lopez in the first game of the third set. Up a break, he was favourite to win but the unknown medical issue deprived him the win.
The Gioi Di Dong has had to close 22 stores at Big C shopping malls following the supermarket chain's recent acquisition by a Thai firm.

The Gioi Di Dong (Mobile World Group-MWG), Vietnam's biggest retailer of mobile devices, has had to close 22 stores at Big C shopping malls following the supermarket chain's recent acquisition by a Thai firm.

As these stores accounts for just a small proportion of MWGs revenue, the change did not cause any significant impact on revenue growth of MWG in August, MWG said in a January-August business report sent to shareholders on September 16.

Central Group announced last April that it had bought Big Cs operations in Vietnam from France's Casino Group for 1 billion euros ($1.14 billion).

In early 2015, Power Buy, a unit of Central Groups Central Retail Corporation, purchased a 49 percent of stake in Nguyen Kim electronics shopping center operator, a competitor of MWG in Vietnam.

MWG had 1,017 stores across Vietnam as of the end of August. It posted revenue of VND27.028 trillion ($1.18 billion) in the first eight months, jumping 78 percent on-year. Net profit reached VND1.12 trillion, 74 percent higher than the same period last year, the company report showed.

The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers also complained in May that Big C, following the acquisition deal with Central Group, has asked for higher discounts as part of new contracts for 2016.

The new rates would increase by up to five percent to about 17 to 20 percent, and even 25 percent for some products.

Related news:

> Thai Central Group denies rumors that Chinese own Big C Vietnam

> Vietnamese dragon fruit finds their way onto Big C Thailand's shelves

> Vietnamese suppliers cry out after Big C turns the screw
A Naxal commander carrying a reward of Rs two lakh on his head was arrested while three other rebels surrendered before Gadchiroli police in Maharashtra.

Ranu Pandu Usendi, the commander of Kasansur dalam and member of Local Operating Squad (LoS), was arrested two days ago when police got a tip-off that he had come to his native Jawali village in Gadchiroli to attend a function.

Ranu, who was actively involved in many Naxal incidents, was later produced in a local court which sent him to police remand for five days.

The rebel had joined the Naxal movement in 2005. He was involved in an encounter with police in 2009, murder, burning public property, attack on police, setting afire gram panchayat office and other incidents.

Meanwhile, three Naxals -- Kanhu alias Mahu Suklu Usendi (25), Surya alias Ankush alias Samuram Ghasen Narote (21) and Ramji Pandu Kawdo (24) -- surrendered before police to join the mainstream.

Kanhu, a member of LoS at Kasansur, had joined the Naxal movement in 2005. In 2010, he was promoted as the member of technical committee. In 2013, he was promoted as section deputy commander.

Surya had joined the rebels in 2009 and was an active member till 2013, Gadchiroli police said in a release.

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At least six Naxalites were suspected to be injured in a clash with police in Hardiya Padariya jungles under Anandpur police outpost of Bihar's Banka district today, a senior police officer said.

The injured Naxalites managed to escape but bloodstains found at several places indicated that they were injured during the encounter, Superintendent of Police Rajiv Ranjan said.

Around a hundred rounds were fired from both sides during the encounter, the SP said, adding that police destroyed a bunker of the rebels.

The police seized half a dozen detonators, 100 cartridges, 12 mobile phone sets and Naxal literature from the site.

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Hitting out at Pakistan over the Uri terror strike that left 17 soldiers dear, Union minister M Venkiah Naidu today said "our neighbour" as usual aiding, abetting, training and funding terrorists and India can't take it lying down and the country needs to be isolated.

"We will have to respond and punish the perpetrators of Uri terrorist attack," the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister said.

Naidu said he felt "very sad" about the loss of 17 precious lives and that he strongly condemns this terrorist attack, an act of cowardice.

"Our neighbour as usual is Aiding Abetting Training Funding terrorists. They need to be isolated. We can no more take it lying down," he tweeted.

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Nepal today began three-day celebrations on the first anniversary of the promulgation of its new Constitution, a year marred by crippling protests by Madhesis demanding key amendments to the statute.

The main celebrations will be organised tomorrow for which the government has declared a public holiday.

President Bidya Bhandari in her message to the nation today said that the occasion would bring joy, peace, progress and prosperity for all Nepalese people.

Nepal's Parliament had promulgated the first constitution of the country written by the people's representatives on September 20, 2015, which falls on Asoj 3, 2072 B.S. As per the Bikram Era (Hindu) calendar.

However, the Madhesi parties, the ethnic group representing southern Nepal, had walked out of the Parliament while then President Rambaran Yadav promulgated the statuette last year.

Since then, over 50 people have died in the months-long agitation by the Madhesis, who are protesting the seven- province federal model enshrined in the Constitution which, they say, will marginalise them politically.

The Federal Democratic Alliance, that includes the Madhesis, has decided to organise a black flag demonstration tomorrow in Maitighar Mandala near the Singhdurbar secretariat, the main administrative building of the government that also houses Prime Minister's office.

The government held a few rounds of talks to resolve the issue and Prime Minister Prachanda had assured that he would address the Madhesi demands through constitutional amendments after he returns from India.

Prachanda returned home earlier today concluding his four day official visit to India.

In a joint statement issued by both the governments on conclusion of the visit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has welcomed the efforts made by Nepal government to take all sections of the society on board for effective implementation of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the US President Barack Obama also congratulated Nepal on the occasion of the first Constitution Day of Nepal.

Obama wrote to his Nepali counterpart President Bhandari on the eve of Constitution day extending his wishes, according to a statement issued by the US Embassy here.

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Main opposition party CPN-UML today opposed the 25 point agreement Nepal and India reached during the official visit of Prime Minister Prachanda, saying it "undermined" the independence of the country.

CPN-UML Chairman and former prime minister KP Sharma Oli said his party would not accept the 25 point joint communiqueissued by Nepali and Indian governments on Friday.

Oli said: "The statement undermined theindependence of Nepal as it just reflected India's views and the Nepal government's submission to the southern neighbour."



Oli was addressing his cadres in Pokhara of Kaski district in western Nepal today after inaugurating the first meeting of UML Province Organisational Committee.

During the Prime Minister's state visit to India, the two neighbours had issued the joint communique.

"Nepal (in the statement) has agreed with the Indian view that imperfections of the Constitution should be redressed through an amendment," Oli said.

Oli said that his party was committed to implementing the new Constitution.

"It is UML's responsibility to implement and protect the Constitution," he said.

Therefore, the party would also launch anti-government protests if the government did not introduce timely plans to ensure elections at local, provincial and federal level by January 2018, he warned.

Oli reiterated that his government was toppled as the CPN Maoist Centre was envious of its popularity.

Similarly, resistance to directives issued by foreign forces also contributed to it, he said without naming any country.

Oli's year-long premiership was marred by the months-long Madhesi protests that crippled the land-locked country's economy already under strain owing to the post-earthquake reconstruction work.

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Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today conducted an aerial survey to take stock of the scale of erosion caused by floods in Gopalganj district.

Later, Kumar reviewed the flood situation, erosion and drought at a high-level meeting in Gopalganj, an official release said here.

The meeting was attended by state Water Resources Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, Art and Culture Minister Shivchandra Ram, Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and other senior officials.

During the meeting, the CM said water was receding and this may lead to erosion. He also reviewed the steps and preparedness to deal with erosion.

Meanwhile, flood situation has eased in Bihar with almost all major rivers except four flowing below danger-level, further mitigating the chance of threat of floods, the release said.

The four rivers which are still flowing above the danger mark are Punpun, Baghmati, Kamlabalan and Kosi.

Flood waters had entered a few villages of Punpun block of Patna district after seepage at its sluice gate on September 13 following heavy rains.

But the seepage was blocked the same night, and flood waters stopped entering the villages, the release said, adding Punpun is witnessing a receding trend.

As per the Central Water Commission report, water level of Punpun was flowing 96 cm above the danger mark of 50.6 meters.

Baghmati is flowing 46 cm above danger mark in Benibad area of Muzaffarpur district, Kamlabalan is 63 cm above danger mark in Jhanjharpur and Kosi is flowing 85 cm above danger mark at Baltara in Khagaria district.

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US President Barack Obama was today apprised of the explosion in New York in which at least 25 people were injured, hours before his arrival in the city for the high-level UN General Assembly session.

An explosion rocked New York's Chelsea neighbourhood, a busy residential and commercial area in the city. More than two dozen people have been injured as a result of the explosion.

"The President has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation. The president will be updated as additional information becomes available," a White House official said.

Obama is scheduled to travel to New York today and stay in the city for the next several days to attend the United Nations General Assembly session beginning tomorrow.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, was also briefed about the New York explosion.

She was in the Washington DC addressing the Congressional Black Caucus dinner.

Referring to the explosion, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said tough measures needs to be taken.

"We better get very tough. We'll find out. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world and in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant. We'll see what it is," Trump said.

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The Syria and ISIS policy of President Barack Obama is working as the terrorist outfit is shrinking in its occupied space, Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Tim Kaine said today.

"We have dramatically improved in the last year. And the proof is in how much ground ISIS has lost," Kaine, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN.

A year ago, Kaine was highly critical of Obama's Syria policy and described it as a joke. It's no longer the case, he said.

"A year ago, I think you remember, we had a small force that we were trying to put into Syria. And the opening of that was a dismal failure. But now we're taking the fight to ISIS to defeat and destroy them," he told CNN.

"If you look at what's happened in the last year, ISIS' territory has dramatically shrunk because of a significant uptick in cooperation between the US, the Iraqi military, the Kurdish fighters in Northern Iraq, the Kurds in Northern Syria and the Syrian opposition," Kaine said.

Russia can demand that Syria stop its atrocities against its civilians. Russia has always had the ability to mandate a ceasefire, because they're there in Syria. They're Syria's chief backer, he said.

At the same time, he hoped that Moscow will stick to the table, stick to the ceasefire agreement, because that's what's necessary to solve this humanitarian crisis.

Responding to questions, Kaine acknowledged that situation has deteriorated in .

"In Iraq, it spiraled downward. And then, in Syria, where we didn't have troops, it spiraled downward because of the atrocities of Bashar al-Assad. We can't make governments govern wisely," he said.

"But what we need to do is, when terrorists pose a threat to allies or to the United States, we need to engage in punishing activity to destroy them. We are now on track to defeat ISIS on the battlefield. But we have got to be sharing intelligence with our allies, so that we can keep America and our allies safe," Kaine said.
US President Barack Obama will meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to discuss a wide range of issues including North Korean provocative actions, the White House said today.

Obama would discuss North Korean provocative actions with Keqiang tomorrow, while Israeli security would top the agenda of his talks with Netanyahu, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said before the US President was scheduled to leave the White House for New York.

"President Obama will have a pull-aside with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, September 19. The two leaders will discuss steps to deepen the US-China relationship, while addressing issues of bilateral and regional concern, including North Korea's provocations," Earnest said.

North Korea fired three ballistic missiles on September 5 towards the Sea of Japan, drawing widespread criticism with the UN security council strongly threatening "further significant measures" if the Pyongyang regime continued its missile and nuclear weapons development work.

On Wednesday, September 21 - also on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York City - Obama will take part in a bilateral meeting with Netanyahu, he said.

"The meeting between the President and Prime Minister will afford them an opportunity to discuss the strong ties between the US and Israel, as recently underscored by the finalisation of a new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding with Israel, the single largest pledge of military assistance in US history.

"The meeting also will be an opportunity to discuss the need for genuine advancement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground. Additionally, the leaders are likely to discuss continued implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and other regional security issues," Earnest added.

The meeting between Obama and Netanyahu will take about a week after the US and Israel signed an unprecedented new security agreement that will give the Israeli military USD 38 billion over 10 years, the largest such agreement America has ever had with any country.

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Unhappy over Chhattisgarh's refusal to halt construction activities in the upper catchment of Mahanadi river, the Odisha government today decided to explore all options including legal steps for equitable share of water to safeguard the interest of the state.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet here this evening, a day after a tripartite meet convened by Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti in Delhi in a bid to resolve Mahanadi river water issue failed to yield any concrete result.

At the meeting, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik emphasised that construction of barrages and other projects in the upper reaches of Mahanadi river in Chhattisgarh should be stopped and the whole matter be scrutinised, Chief Secretary A P Padhi told reporters.

As the Chhattisgarh government declined to stop work, the Odisha cabinet felt there is no option but to explore other means to protect the interest of the state, the livelihood and well being of people, he said.

"After deliberations, the cabinet unequivocally endorsed the stand taken by the state government and resolved to explore all possible options for protecting the interests of the people of Odisha," Padhi said.

"We are now exploring all options. The government will do whatever is necessary. The step to be taken will be decided in the next few days...Very soon," the Chief Secretary said.

Asked about legal option, Padhi said "all options -- legal or other steps -- are being considered. It will not be proper to spell out any definite option now."



An official statement issued separately said, "We will explore all options...That would certainly include the legal options."



Earlier in the day, soon after his return from Delhi, the Chief Minister said that while Chhattisgarh has refused to stop the construction work on the river, unfortunately the Centre too was reluctant to intervene strongly.

Padhi said the Chief Minister stressed at the tripartite meeting that the Odisha government and people are concerned over Chhattisgarh's construction activities in the upper catchment of the river basin without sharing the critical data with us or without our consent wherever necessary.

The CM pointed out that he had also apprised the Prime Minister of Odisha's concern in this regard, sought his intervention and hoped that the Centre and the Chhattisgarh government will treat the Mahanadi water issue in right spirit of federalism, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A white female rhino named Kuda is dehorned by the Animal and Wildlife Area Research and Rehabilitation (AWARE) at Lake Chivero Recreational Park in Norton, Zimbabwe August 25, 2016. Photo by Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo

The Prime Minister steps in, urging agencies concerned at all levels to combat the trafficking of wild animals.

In what appears to be a response to the threat of trade sanctions for failing to clamp down on the illegal trade in rhino horns, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has called for prioritizing enforcement at all levels to combat the trafficking of wild animals in Vietnam.

The directive was released on Saturday, two days after the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) urged the Southeast Asian nation to resolutely act on the illegal trade of rhino horns.

Despite recent efforts by the government, wildlife specimens, such as elephant ivory and rhino horns, are still traded across the country, according to the directive.

The Prime Minister has asked the Ministry of Public Security, in collaboration with other government agencies, to coordinate investigations into trafficking syndicates and to prosecute those convicted of the sale and transport of rhino horns, ivory and other wildlife specimens. The crackdown will also look into online trading.

Local authorities have been directed to increase efforts to detect the illegal trade of wildlife. Checks should focus on traditional craft villages, souvenir shops located in tourist sites, airports and seaports and traditional medicine stores.

The Vietnam CITES Management Authority has been asked to increase information sharing and coordinate with investigations into illegal trafficking cases, while local media has been told to promote public awareness about wildlife protection.

CITES is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

In a statement released on September 15, the WWF urged Vietnam to crank up its efforts to crack down on the illegal trade of rhino horns, adding that failure to do so could result in trade sanctions.

Vietnams failure to shut down illegal markets, disrupt trafficking networks and prosecute traffickers will top the agenda of the 17th Conference of the Parties (CoP17) to the CITES, which will open next week in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Despite widespread evidence of rhino horns openly for sale in Vietnam, authorities have made no significant rhino horn seizures within their borders and have reported no successful prosecutions, the WWF said.

International conservation groups have identified Vietnam and China as the world's two main consumers of rhino horns, a charge the two countries have bristled at.

Related news:

> WWF chides Vietnam on rhino horn trade, threatens sanctions
Hitting out at Pakistan, India today said "one country" in its neighbourhood scuttled its proposal ofsetting up a working group on counter-terrorism within the NAM even as the final draft declaration of the bloc's summit strongly condemned terrorism and vowed to combat the scourge.

The final draft declaration of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement summit here in Venezuela also strongly pitched for decisive and coordinated action to prevent and combat the financing and illicit transfer of weapons.

The NAM Summit draft declaration reiterated that terrorism constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.

Hence, the 120 NAM countries reaffirmed their firm condemnation of terrorist acts in all forms and manifestations, whatever their motivations, whenever and by whomsoever they are committed.

"They further condemned the destruction of cultural heritage and religious sites, as well as the commission of crimes against humanity by terrorist groups, among others, on the basis of their religion or beliefs," the draft that will be adopted as the 'Margarita Declaration' said.

"The way the NAM works is on consensus so we have to have consensus among all countries but that said we have been able to get references to terrorism (put in the declaration) which are purely and largely language suggested by India," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin, who is in this city of Margarita Island to take part in the deliberations of NAM, told reporters at a briefing.

Asked about the working group on terrorism within NAM that India had proposed, Akbaruddin, without naming Pakistan, said there was "one country in our neighbourhood who did not allow consensus to be reached on this matter".

However, he said this was an issue Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has now put further on the agenda, saying that he will in his presidency outline this as one of his priorities.

"At this stage that (working group) is not reflected (in the draft declaration) as it could not gain consensus despite having support of the overwhelming majority but NAM rules provide for certain ways in arriving at decisions and it is regrettable that it did nothappen because of issues you are well aware of," he told reporters.

According to the draft declaration, the NAM countries recognised the threat posed nowadays by this "despicable scourge", particularly the activities carried out by terrorist groups such the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and its affiliated entities, Jabhat Al Nusra, Boko Haram and Al Shabbaab, and other entities designated by the UN.

Earlier, sources had said that Pakistani representative



Tasneem Aslam alone spoke against the working group proposal and opposed the consensus that had built around the proposal which had the support of a large number of NAM delegations.

"Despite being isolated, Pakistan continued with its objections to stall the proposal emphasising that there could not be a consensus on terrorism," the sources said.

The draft declaration also noted that the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters and the spread of violent extremism can be conductive to terrorism, making it necessary for states to prevent and combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including its financing and the illicit transfer of weapons, in a decisive and coordinated manner, with strict adherence to the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as other obligations under international law.

In this regard, the NAM countries also considered that the adoption of a future Comprehensive Convention for Combating International Terrorism could complement the set of existing international legal instruments, including the implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

In addition, they reaffirmed that terrorism and violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilisation or ethnic group, and that these attributions should not be used to justify terrorism or Contreras measures that include, inter alia, profiling of terror suspects and intrusion on individual privacy.

Significantly, Vice President Hamid Ansari, also made a strong anti-terror pitch at the NAM Summit here.

Ansari, who is leading the Indian delegation at the NAM Summit in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said terrorism is one of the "most egregious sources of human right violations today" and its use as an instrument of state policy is to be unequivocally condemned.

The time has come "for our movement to recognise the need for concrete action in the fight against terrorism", Ansari said while addressing the plenary meeting of the bloc.

"We need to establish a mechanism within our movement that will ensure effective cooperation in combating terrorism, that is the main threat to security, sovereignty and development," he said.

Akbaruddin, in the briefing, pointed out that even President Maduro in his opening statementacknowledged the need for combating terror.

He said another area of interest to be reflected in the draft declaration was the reform in the UN.

"This reform is (not only) reform of the various structures of the UN but also (of) its working methods and all. Again there is some language which reflects that the UN should reform itself as well as the Security Council should reflect the realities of today because many of us think it is not reflective of the global realities at present today," Akbaruddin said.

(REOPENS FGN17)



A third issue to be reflected in the draft, he said was sustainable development that follows from the Sustainable Development Goals that were adopted last year.

"Our idea was to highlight terrorism as a growing and important challenge to the whole world and NAM countries because most of the victims of terrorism are members of NAM countries and NAM is usually been associated with trying to address new challenges," Akbaruddin said.

"Therefore we felt that it will be useful to have a platform where NAM members can coordinate and cooperate and take this forward in terms of what is a major threat to all of us and therefore our suggestion was to have a platform, that platform could perhaps be a working group," he said.

"We did suggest this and we must say that we were extremely satisfied with the sort of response we got because there were countries from not only Asia - all our neighbouring countries bar a few exceptions - were in full support who spoke out. Several African countries spoke out saying that they see this as a major threat and the suggestion was very good. Latin American countries also did speak out," Akbaruddin said.

In fact this was the theme on which largest number of countries supported and articulated their views that they would want this as a suggestion to be reflected, he added.
More than 50 youths, suspected to be involved in stone pelting incidents during the ongoing unrest in Kashmir, have been arrested since yesterday as part of the police's effort to restore normalcy in the Valley.

"Continuing its drive against the trouble mongers involved in damaging civilian vehicles, shops, houses and placing obstructions on roads, police arrested 56 miscreants during the last 24 hours," a police spokesman said today.

More than 1500 youths were arrested by police for their alleged involvement in disruptive activities in the first couple of weeks of the unrest, which erupted after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces on July 8.

The police spokesman also said overall situation in the Valley is under control today.

"Apart from few stone pelting incidents in Kulgam, Kupwara and Awantipora, overall situation remained under control across the Valley. There was increased vehicular movement on city roads as well as between various districts and towns," he said.

The spokesman said restriction under section 144 of CrPC remained in force in the valley.

"However, curfew was imposed under the areas of some police stations in Srinagar city and in Shopian town," he said.

Minor incidents of stone pelting were reported from Sadoora in Kulgam, Padgampora in Awantipora and Panzgam in Kupwara, he said.

"At these places miscreants assembled on roads and pelted stones on police and security force deployments. They were dispersed by using mild force," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan today refuted as "unfounded and premature" India's charge that it was behind the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri that killed 17 soldiers, with its army demanding "actionable intelligence" to support New Delhi's accusation.

Following the dawn attack, India blamed Pakistan for the latest attack on the Indian Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh directly attacked Pakistan saying it was a "terrorist state" and should be isolated.

Pakistan army spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said that following the attack Director General of Military Operation (DGMO) of the two countries discussed the situation along the Line of Control through hotline.

"Refuting the unfounded and pre-mature Indian allegation, Pakistani DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence," Radio Pakistan reported citing an ISPR release.

Bajwa reiterated that no infiltration was allowed from the Pakistani soil because of "water-tight arrangements" in place on both sides of LoC and the Working Boundary.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan Railways has been hit by a Rs 16-billion scam relating to replacement of its colonial-era signalling system with a modern system, according to an internal audit report that has forced the government to probe a consortium of Bombardier Transport and Chinese company.

Despite investing heavily, Pakistan still rely on a sinalling system from the colonial era. Two recent accidents in Punjab province, in which nine people were killed and over 150 injured, were reportedly caused by "out-dated signalling systems".

According to the Internal Audit Report, two projects to update the signalling systems were awarded to a consortium of Bombardier Transport and China Railways Signal and Communication Corporation (BT-CRSC) in 2008-09.

"The project cost had swelled to Rs 16 billion till 2014. The incumbent administration under Khawaja Saad Rafique, Railways Minister, allocated additional Rs 7 billion but the projects could not be completed," the report said.

The report has recommended sending the matter to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for criminal proceedings against the contractor and officials responsible for the fraud.

Interestingly, the minister completely ignored the 98-page audit report and allocated the additional Rs 7 billion for the projects in violation of prescribed rules.

"We are looking into the matter and refer it to the NAB for investigation," a government official told PTI.

"All those responsible for fraud in the signalling system projects will be taken to task," he added.

More than 400 train accidents has happened since Rafique took over in mid 2013, according to the railways record.

In most cases the railways' chief has blamed drivers for the tragedies.

The driver involved with last week's collision between a passenger and a freight train claimed that the signal was green and hence the confusion led to the accident.

"Critical infrastructure - especially tracks and the signalling system - cannot be left unattended and must be constantly monitored and maintained to avoid such accidents. Some of the infrastructure damaged in Sindh in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto's 2007 assassination still awaits repair," an official said.

An editorial in the Dawn newspaper on the issue has suggested to the Nawaz Sharif government to learn from India.

"We can learn from India with whom we share a common colonial Railways' heritage. The authorities there have managed to install an automated signalling system on most of the main lines. Considering the commonalities, perhaps our Railways' authorities can study our eastern neighbour's model," the editorial said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After decades of delay and inaction, Pakistan government is expected to table the much- debated Hindu Marriage Bill at the next session of Parliament later this month, a media report said today.

The landmark legislation, which seeks to give a legal framework to the marriages in minority community, is expected to address key issues of the Hindu community, including matters relating to the registration of marriages, divorce and forced conversions, Human Rights Minister Kamran Michael said.

Michael is likely to table the bill at the next session of Parliament, Express Tribune reported.

"It will be a historic day... And the credit goes to (both the) opposition and ruling parties which are on the same page on the draft (bill)," Michael said.

He had tried to move the bill on September 9, but a few minority lawmakers were not present in the house and the matter was deferred to the next session which will be held in the last week of September.

On August 17, the National Assembly's standing committee on law and justice tabled its report on bill which had been pending with the panel since March last year.

The draft law was originally moved by two minority lawmakers - Ramesh Lal of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Asiya Nasir of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) JUI-F. The draft bill was later supported by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) party which is headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

A large number of Hindu community members, especially women, do not have basic documentation to prove their marital status. They are also deprived of legal rights, such as inheritance, remarriage, separation, adoption of children and annulment of marriage; they also face problems while travelling abroad.

The bill is expected to put an end to the practice of abduction of married Hindu women.

The legislation is expected to institutionalise all legal rights relating to marriage. All Hindu marriages will be registered in accordance with the provisions of this act. Such registration shall take place within 15 days of a marriage.

Similarly, Hindu widows will now have the right to remarry of their own free will six months after the death of her husband, according to the provisions of the bill.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today got a "tongue lashing" from AAP over his comments on Arvind Kejriwal's throat surgery with the party saying he should concentrate on managing security affairs or make way for someone else in the key post.

The outfit, which has set its sight on taking on BJP in the next year's Assembly elections in Goa, demanded Parrikar be removed as Defence Minister as he is "not concentrating" on looking after security issues.

"We urge Prime Minister Modiji to either ask Parrikar to concentrate on security of the nation or give this responsibility to someone else so that Parrikar could continue making comments on health issues of other individuals," Goa AAP Secretary Walmiki Naik said at a press conference here after 17 soldiers were martyred in a terrorist attack in Uri.

Yesterday, Parrikar had said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's tongue had to be trimmed as it had grown long due to speaking much against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and him.

Kejriwal recently underwent a tongue surgery.

"On one hand the defence of our nation is continuously being challenged by forces working against the country, and on the other we have our Defence Minister sarcastically commenting on personal health issues of Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal. This is unbecoming of a Defence Minister," he said.

Naik said his party is deeply pained and shocked by the death of 17 soldiers in the Uri terror attack.

"AAP salutes the jawans for their supreme sacrifice and expresses solidarity with their families," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Major parties and leaders today strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Uri, with the Congress expressing hope that the perpetrators and "the forces behind them" will be severely dealt with.

"Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian soldiers in the dastardly terrorist attack in Uri," a party statement said.

Terming the "cowardly" terror attack as a "deplorable affront on our national conscience", Gandhi expressed hope that "the perpetrators of this dastardly attack as also the forces behind them will be severely dealt with and brought to book."



Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also condemned the attack. "Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack," he said in a tweet.

The CPI(M) Central Committee, now in session here, asked Pakistan to stop aiding and abetting extremist forces, while strongly condemning the attack.

Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters that Pakistan must refrain from indulging in cross border terrorism and demanded that the matter "should be taken up seriously."



In a statement, CPI(M) said Pakistan must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces as such activities are a big impediment to the peace process in the region. It also charged the government with failing to stop continued infiltration of militants despite deploying a large number of security personnel across the state.

Pointing out that it has been consistently maintaining that terrorism is not the solution to the Kashmir issue, it said "the CPI(M) would like to reiterate that for a long- standing solution of the Kashmir problem, the political dialogue with all stakeholders as advocated by the all Party delegation should be initiated without any further delay.

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters in Bengaluru: "It is absolutely condemnable ... They can continuously keep threatening us with these activities, but India is strong enough to take care of its internal security and no such threat is going to deter us from restoring peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir."



In a tweet, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani said "Pained by the mindless terror attack in Uri. I salute our brave soldiers for their supreme sacrifice & extend condolences to their families."



In Ranchi, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das also condemned the terror strike and expressed deep grief at the loss of martrys.

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Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the PMO, said in a tweet: "Extremely disturbed by loss of precious lives of Indian Jawans in Uri attack. Can nation ever repay for such supreme sacrifices?"



Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju offered "deepest condolences to families of #UriAttack martyrs who sacrificed their lives for motherland" and said "the perpetrators will be made to pay for it."



Congress leader Manish Tewari said "the Indian government needs to rethink their strategy of isolating Pakistan. What happened in Uri is wrong and condemnable; Indian govt should sit back and think about various options being used."



In a similar vein, his senior party colleague Ahmed Patel said "We condemn the brutal & cowardly attack on our Jawans in Uri. Our deepest condolences to their families. The Government must deal strongly with terrorist activities, and act fast to bring situation under control."



Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also condemned the terror attack and said "India cannot be cowed down by such attacks".

"I strongly condemn the cowardly attack at Uri in which 17 soldiers lost lives. My heartfelt condolences to the families of those martyred in Uri," Kejriwal said.

Congress leader Jitendra Singh, a Minister of State for Home in the erstwhile UPA government, attacked the NDA government for "failing to tackle the situation in Kashmir", saying this "has been the largest and the biggest attack since 2002.
Asserting that those behind the attack on the Army base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir will face the consequences, Union Minister Arun Jaitley today said India will intensify diplomatic efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally.

Holding Pakistan responsible for the attack, in which 17 armymen were killed and 19 injured, he said "since independence, Pakistan has not accepted Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of India and this is the reason that terror attacks happen in the country with its support."



Jaitley described the terror strike as "a highly condemnable act of cowardice" and a "major challenge" for the forces.

"The perpetrators of the Uri terror attack will face consequences. Diplomatic efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally will be intensified," he said.

In a series of tweets on microblogging site, the Finance Minister said, "Perpetrators of Uri terror attack shall be punished. My thoughts & prayers are with families of our soldiers injured & martyred."



"Uri terror attack is a highly condemnable act of cowardice. Salute to our soldiers who gave supreme sacrifice to protect the motherland." he said in a tweet.

Earlier, he had said that security forces will have to work on their strategy to deal with 'fidayeen attacks' by terrorists which have emerged as a "major challenge".

"These are challenges to our security," the Finance Minister had said, condemning the terrorist attack on a camp at Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town.

".. Pathankot and Uri (terror attacks) appear to indicate that these (fidayeen attacks) have restarted again. And I think this is a major challenge which I am sure our security forces will gear up to respond," Jaitley told reporters.

He said that in recent years there had been an increasing reliance "on activities like stone throwing agitations" which were instigated from across the border.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

In January, seven military personnel were killed when six terrorists attacked the Pathankot air base.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Lufthansa flight, carrying 223 passengers, was forced to declare mid-air emergency causing a U-turn due to smoke from a coffee maker that had overheated and could not be turned off.

The Airbus A330-300, which had taken off from Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, was heading for Munich.

The plane LH-415 was 70 miles south-west of Sydney when the crew alerted ground control after a passenger reported there was a burning smell, aviation information website AeroInside said.

The crew diverted to Boston and landed 70 minutes after the diversion at 2:06 AM local time on Setember 8, but details have just come to light.

A spokesperson for the Germany-based airline said the malfunction produced a "strong electrical smell".

"The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground in Boston for 16 hours, then continued the flight and reached Munich with a delay of 18 hours," it said.

According to a Lufthansa spokesperson, once the flight was on the ground, technicians inspected the aircraft and confirmed the source of the smell to be an overheated coffee machine.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sex workers wait for customers on the street in Hanoi. Photo by Nguyen Le/VnExpress

Sex workers have to deal with regular police raids and persistent fears.

Sex workers, possibly the most vulnerable in Vietnam, have to deal with regular police raids and persistent fear of theft and violence, a new study has found.

As part of the research, the International Labor Organization interviewed male, female and transgender sex workers as well as pimps and local authorities in Vietnam, and strongly suggested that the country do something about the occupational safety and health risks that come with the industry.

Most workers had casual jobs before they chose to enter the sex industry, after considering it a better option.

Out of the 73 workers surveyed, only one reported to having been deceived into selling sex, but many workers had their movements controlled by employers and some had their identity papers held, the study found.

According to the workers, conditions would be better in well-maintained, expensive bars, discotheques, spas, massage parlors and restaurants, while brothels and cheap cafes, restaurants, karaoke bars and parlors are dirty and do not guarantee security and safety.

However, no matter where they work, there is always the threat of violence and police raids, especially for women working on the streets.

A full-time worker usually works ten to 12 hours each day, and women provide sexual services to between six to ten clients on average, and up to 30 per day. Male workers serve between three and ten clients each day, a workload considered heavy by many pimps interviewed by the ILO.

Many employers provide condoms but regular use of contraception is low.

These factors do not only expose sex workers to high risks of sexually transmitted diseases and drug use, but many also have stress and mental issues, the study found.



They do not enjoy their work, Pham Thi Thanh Huyen, national coordinator for the ILO in Vietnam, said in a statement. Many were also forced by employers, clients or themselves to drink alcohol, which resulted in permanent stomachaches. Others suffered from trauma due to too much sex or injuries from gang rapes."

Vietnam outlaws sex work, but there seems to be no way to stop the business. Latest figures indicate there are nearly 101,300 sex workers, including 72,000 female sex workers, in Vietnam.

Chang-Hee Lee, director of ILO Vietnam, said in the statement that the government and relevant agencies need to make employers protect the safety and health of their employees.

He also said local health and labor inspectors should be trained on the matter.

Related news:

>Legalize brothels, stop punishing sex workers who solicit: U.K. parliamentary watchdog

>Prostitution in Saigon: sex trade finds a new face
The assertion by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that those behind the terror attack at an Army base in Uri in Kashmir "will not go unpunished" today triggered considerable speculation about the options that India could exercise in the current situation.

A swift, surgical strike on terror camps in Pakistan- occupied Kashmir(PoK) was among the options that figured in the speculation but experts also cautioned against consequences and the damages that an escalation could pose if it goes out of hand.

How, when and where perpetrators of the Uri attack which was attributed to Pakistan-based terror outfit JeM could be "punished" was a call for the country's political leadership to be taken very carefully, experts felt, although BJP's pointsman for Jammu and Kashmir Ram Madhav asserted that days of strategic restraint are over and suggested that "for one tooth, the complete jaw" should be the policy after the strike.

"Perpetrators of Uri terror attack shall be punished...," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

Some retired army generals also favoured a tough response from India.

Expressing outrage over the attack on an army battalion in Uri, the former generals sought urgent action against Pakistan, including keeping the "military option open" to deal with terror from its soil.

"We must have our military option open, if required to strike at certain places," Lt Gen (Retd) B S Jaswal said.

"Bring pickets, which have launch pad to the ground, raze them to the ground. The reason is that till the time it does not hurt Pakistan physically, they would not respect our decency," Jaswal, who was GOC-in-C of the Northern Command, said.

"Pakistan keeps doing it (terror strikes) again and again knowing that we would not take any action," Major (Retd) Gaurav Arya, who has expertise in Jammu and Kashmir security situation, said.

The problems in Kashmir are "systematically manufactured" at the GHQ in Rawalpindi, he alleged, adding "We must take immediate action. Stop trade with Pakistan, downgrade (its) Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status. The world must know we are serious."



Questioning the absence of two service chiefs at the meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh to take stock of the situation after the attack, former army chief Gen Shankar Roy Chowdhury said these actions were coming from Pakistan.

Retired Brigadiar Anil Gupta accused Pakistan of causing instability in the Valley.

He said the attack was "a matter of serious concern for India and is a desperate attempt by Pakistan to ensure the current turmoil in Kashmir doesn't end."



Lt Gen (Retd) Syed Ata Hasnain said "preventing suicide attack is difficult, but damage control is always possible.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Crimea went to the polls today to elect deputies to Russia's parliament for the first time since the region was annexed by Moscow -- stirring pride in some, but pushing others to protest.

A total of 1,164 polling stations opened across the region, according to its electoral commission, two-and-a-half years after the strategic Black Sea peninsula was seized from Ukraine by the Kremlin.

In the regional capital Simferopol, mainly elderly residents flocked to busy polling stations in the city centre.

"I went to vote, and all my relatives and neighbours are going," said pensioner Valentina. "We are for Russia."



She said she cast her ballot for Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov because he is backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"If Putin likes him, then we all like him. We are for Putin, God give him health."



The new elite that has taken over the peninsula since Russian rule has called for a high turnout in polls to confirm loyalty to the Kremlin as they look to cement their own grip over the region.

But even some of those who welcomed Moscow's annexation of Crimea said they felt let down by those who subsequently took control.

"Look what they've done to Crimea -- food is dearer than in Moscow," said pensioner Ivan, calling the new leaders "bandits".

"Medicines are like gold and pensions and wages aren't enough even for food."



In the port city of Sevastopol -- the home of Russia's Black Sea fleet -- while some backed the ruling United Russia party, many complained about daily life in the city where the economy has been hit hard by punishing Western sanctions.

"I'm not happy with the prices in the city and the bureaucracy," said Vladimir, a retired nuclear physicist, adding that he had voted Communist.

But elsewhere in Simferopol, polling stations in areas with more minority Crimean Tatars were emptier. Tatars have largely opposed Russia's takeover, with community leaders calling for a boycott of the polls after Russian authorities closed their governing body and television channel while detaining, searching and prosecuting activists.

Refat Chubarov, the head of the banned Tatars' Mejlis assembly who lives in exile in Kiev, wrote on Facebook that the polls "held by the occupiers in Crimea are illegal and criminal".

He urged the Tatars -- who make up around 14 percent of the population -- to "find the strength and courage not to give into scare tactics and blackmail".

At Simferopol's Kuibyshevsky market, Crimean Tatar traders said the management had threatened to fire them if they did not vote.

"I'm afraid they'll take away my work, but how can I go to vote? My children will stop respecting me, my neighbours won't say hello to me," said one trader, Muniver.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today said detailed project reports (DPRs) for metro rail in Kalyan, Bhiwandi and Thane were ready and they would be approved soon.

He made the announcement after performing 'bhoomi pooja' for two proposed bridges on the Ulhas river between Durgadi Fort and Motagaon in Kalyan.

Speaking at the function, Fadnavis made a reference to traffic woes in Kalyan and said he also faced them when he came to the city for electioneering in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

He indirectly referred to the Shiv Sena performing the 'bhoomi pooja' for the two bridges yesterday and said today's programme was official one.

Such small things should be ignored, he stated.

He said the Government has made preparations to extend metro rail up to Kalyan, Bhiwandi and Dombivili.

The Chief Minister said funds have been made available for infrastructure development in Thane, Kalyan, Dombivili and Ambernath.

The task to development Kalyan-Dombivili as a Smart City is to be undertaken by Oracle, a US-based computer technology firm, he said.

He said his Government will give all funds for the required projects.

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The Chief Minister said an MoU would be signed with Oracle for smart and safe development of Kalyan-Dombivili soon. For this, he would be visiting the US soon, the Chief Minister said.

Fadnavis took a dig at Shiv Sena activists who performed the 'bhoomi pooja' of the bridges ahead of the official function, saying "by making speech on the Red Fort everyone cannot become Prime Minister.
Union Commerce and Industry Minister on Sunday said her ministry has recommended the finance ministry to raise tax holiday for start-ups from three years to seven with a sense of constructive and positive approach, and was awaiting a response.

"They (Finance Ministry) have received the recommendations of commerce and industry ministry to raise tax holiday to seven years from the current three years with sense of constructive and positive approach. That's where it is. We certainly like to hear from them," Sitharaman told Press Trust of India here after addressing the Karnataka BJP Women's Executive meeting here.

On May 30, Sitharaman had said lots of recommendations were made to the finance ministry for extending the three-year tax holiday to seven, after several start-ups pitched for increasing the same, as it would provide certainty on taxation matter.

Replying to a query on Apple setting up a manufacturing unit in India, Sitharaman said that there is no proposal as yet with the Centre from Apple to set up a manufacturing unit in the country. "They have not approached us and therefore we are silent," she said.

Apple have reportedly been in talks with Foxconn on the possibility of manufacturing iPhone models at their facilities in India.

After meeting senior officials from manufacturing giant Foxconn, partner of Apple, the then Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in May had said the Cupertino-based technology major was coming to manufacture iPhones in India.

Apple has been lobbying hard for exemption from the mandatory 30% local sourcing on the ground that its products have such high-end technology that these cannot be sourced locally here.

The government in June relaxed FDI norms by giving a three-year exemption from local sourcing to foreign players in single-brand retail and a further five-year relaxation for 'state-of-the-art' and 'cutting-edge' technology.

Asked about a letter written to Xiaomi, Chinese mobile phone maker, seeking waiver of 30% sourcing norms, Sitharaman said: "I have no idea. If there is something I will let know."

She also denied having any information on 'LeEco's' request to waive 30% sourcing norms.
Continuing their war of words, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio today accused Bharti Airtel of providing less than one-fourth of the necessary interconnect points to complete calls between the two networks, a charge vehemently denied by the Sunil Mittal-led firm which said it is a ploy to cover up technical issues in its own network.

Reliance Jio, the newest player in telecom arena, alleged that Airtel was abusing its market dominance and was indulging in "anti-competitive behaviour", as it put the blame for over two crore call failures everyday squarely on the older rival.

"It is apparent that Airtel continues to abuse its market dominance by imposing onerous conditions which will imminently hinder RJIL's ability to efficiently utilise the additional E1s," it said in a statement.

"It appears that the QoS (Quality of Service) will continue to suffer and Indian customers will be denied the benefits of superior and free voice services as a result of such anti-competitive behaviour," it added.

The comments come a day after Airtel said it will work towards releasing the points of interconnect or PoIs "well ahead" of the contractual obligation.

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL) said the PoIs provided to enable its users to complete calls on existing operators' network were "substantially less".

It said two crore calls fail daily as the largest telecom operator dilly dallies on adequate PoIs.

"Based on the current traffic flow between the two networks, the proposed augmentation by Airtel would still only suffice for less than one-fourth of the required interconnection capacity," it said.

Responding to the charge, Bharti Airtel categorically denied what it called was "the rhetorical statements made by Reliance Jio with regard to the release of additional PoIs from Airtel to Jio and mobile number portability (MNP) requests."



"Following the bilateral discussions on September 13, 2016, Airtel agreed to release the additional PoIs to Jio on the same day itself and raised the demand notes on September 14, 2016.

"With the latest augmentation, the total number of PoIs provided will become three times the present number of PoIs. This capacity will be sufficient to serve over 15 million customers, which is much more than their present subscriber base and their demand for 10 million projected customers," Airtel said.

Airtel said the "constant rhetoric" may be a "ploy" by Jio to cover up some technical issues in their own network, which is causing call failures.

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Stating that it has ensured that there are no capacity constraints from its end, Airtel said it is providing PoIs to Jio well ahead of the commencement of its commercial operations.

"The additional PoIs now need to be physically connected and tested by both parties. We have already requested Jio's cooperation in this regard. Airtel's network teams across circles are ready and waiting for Jio to commence the testing.

"However, it is Jio that seems to be dilly-dallying on the issue and not cooperating deliberately," it said.

Airtel said the "constant rhetoric" may be a "ploy" by Jio to cover up some technical issues in their own network, which is causing call failures.

"In addition, call drops or the lack of VoLTE stabilisation should not be hidden behind the issue of PoIs, which are being augmented at regular and quick intervals," it said.

In its statement, RJIL said it has been consistently highlighted the urgency of the requirement and impact on Quality of Service.

"More than two crore calls are failing everyday between the two networks, which is far in excess of QoS parameters and of alarming proportions," it said.

Stating that urgent steps are required to be taken in the interest of customers of both operators, the company said it was "unfortunate that TRAI's intervention was required for Airtel to resume augmentation of POIs, which it ought to have done by itself in compliance with its license terms."



It said TRAI regulation does not provide for 90 days to adhere to QOS parameters. "TRAI in fact instructed the incumbent operators to urgently provide requisite interconnection capacities to maintain QoS parameters and not to make this subject to any contingencies or restrictions."



RJIL said Airtel has also insisted on certain unilateral deviations from the Interconnection Agreement between the parties with respect to installation of one-way E1s as against both-way E1s.

One-way E1s are typically installed between similar sized networks.

Despite the "anti-competitive behaviour", RJIL said it will continue to work with Airtel and all the other incumbent operators to resolve this issue at the earliest and ensure that Indian customers get best-in-class services.

"Furthermore, Airtel has also been blocking the mobile number portability (MNP) facility for its subscribers who wish to subscribe to Jio services on baseless and unsubstantiated grounds," the statement alleged.
The rise of internet may have led to a decreased voter turn out, due to people facing an overwhelmingly large pool of political information and not knowing how to efficiently filter relevant knowledge, a new study has claimed.

The internet has transformed the way in which voters access and receive political information, researchers said.

It has allowed politicians to directly communicate their message to voters, circumventing the mainstream media which would traditionally filter information.

Stephan Heblich from the University of Bristol in the UK studied data from a number of countries, comparing voter behaviour of municipalities with internet access to the ones without in the early 2000s.

The study showed municipalities with broadband internet access faced a decrease in voter turnout, due to voters suddenly facing a large pool of information and not knowing how to filter relevant knowledge efficiently.

Similarly, the internet seemed to have crowded out other media at the expense of information quality.

However, the introduction of interactive social media and "user-defined" content appears to have reversed this. It helped voters to collect information more efficiently.

US President Barack Obama's successful election campaign in 2008 set the path for this development. Obama successfully employed Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder, to lead his highly effective election campaign.

Using a combination of social networks, podcasts, and mobile messages, Obama connected directly with young American voters.

In doing so, he gained nearly 70 per cent of the votes among Americans under the age of 25.

However, voters can now be personally identified and strategically influenced by targeted information, researchers said.

Politicians may use this information in election campaigns to target voters that are easy to mobilise.

The research shows there is a thin line between desirable benefits of more efficient information dissemination and undesirable possibilities of voter manipulation.

Therefore, policymakers need to consider introducing measures to educate voters to become more discriminating in their use of the internet, researchers said.

"To the extent that online consumption replaces the consumption of other media (newspapers, radio, or television) with a higher information content, there may be no information gains for the average voter and, in the worst case, even a crowding-out of information," said Heblich.

"One potential risk relates to the increasing possibilities to collect personal information known as 'big data'," he said.

"This development could result in situations in which individual rights are violated, since the personal information could be used, for example, to selectively disseminate information in election campaigns and in influence voters strategically," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Moscow has accused what it termed Syrian "moderate rebels" of causing a ceasefire to fail, saying opposition fighters had launched some 55 attacks in the past 24 hours.

In a statement yesterday, the Russian defence ministry said "moderate rebels have caused the ceasefire to fail". The ceasefire, in force since Monday, was a last-ditch effort to stop the bloodshed in the war-torn country.

Russia has informed the United States of a "significant regrouping by armed rebels in the north of Hama province (in central Syria) and of their likely bid to launch an offensive", the ministry said.

"Russia has asked its American colleagues to put pressure on opposition leaders to stop them from acting carelessly, and it has informed them that the Syrian command will have to take proportional retaliatory measures should an offensive be launched," it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Describing the Central government's performance since coming to power in 2014 as "very good", Union minister Arun Jaitley today said the SAD-BJP alliance will contest the 2017 Punjab Assembly polls "on the basis of performance and achievements of both the Narendra Modi and the Parkash Singh Badal-led governments".

"The Centre's performance during its over-two-years rule has been very good. An honest government has been doing its job. Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys a tall image.

"Therefore, the SAD-BJP combine will fight the Punjab polls on the basis of the performance and achievements of both the governments (Centre and Punjab)," he told reporters here.

Asked to comment on former BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu floating the 'Awaaz-e-Punjab' front, Jaitley said, "What that forum does is still to be seen. So far, you only have an announcement of a forum. You are yet to see any of its activities."



Prodded further on the 'fourth front', he said, "I do not think there is any need to comment on this. He (Sidhu) has chosen his path, good luck to him. When someone chalks out his own course, it is a conscious decision. The party (BJP) is very strong in its pockets of influence."



Asked why the party was not taking any action against Amritsar East MLA and Sidhu's wife Navjot Kaur, who continues to be critical of (BJP's alliance partner) the Akalis in Punjab, Jaitley said, "She has to decide her own line of action which now seems quite obvious. This is a transitional phase. She will decide what course she has to follow."



To another question on why the party had not taken any action against the Sidhu couple, he replied, "Why should we? He (Sidhu) has left the party and formed his own front."



The Union Finance Minister rubbished allegations that "political persons" were being shielded in the multi-crore drug racket issue in Punjab as "baseless".

Asked about Union minister Nitin Gadkari's recent remarks in the context of 'achhe din', he said, "I am of the belief that the country's situation is much better on every front than what was witnessed during the previous Congress rule. Our economic situation is better, governance is better and because of this, Modi and the government have been popular."



Jaitley was in Jalandhar to take part in a BJP meeting to take stock of the situation ahead of the 2017 Punjab polls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Terming the Supreme Court's directive to the Centre to do away with within three years as a "landmark" judgement, a policy advocacy body has said that it will help in strengthening the implementation and monitoring of the family planning programme.

"PFI welcomes the SC judgement which we consider a landmark one. Providing quality services to and upholding the dignity of women will now be placed strongly on the agenda.

"This judgement will help in ensuring that at the state and district levels as well, the judgement is taken seriously. This will also help to strengthen the implementation and monitoring of the family planning programme," said Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India (PFI).

The apex court had recently directed the Centre to do away with within three years and strengthen the primary healthcare centre system, saying, "It is time that women and men are treated with respect and dignity and not as mere statistics in the sterilisation programme."



Referring to the Bilaspur sterilisation camp incident in 2014 where 16 women lost their lives, Muttreja said that a PFI report had demonstrated evidence on why the camps' approach should be ended and instead fixed date services instituted as the norm for sterilisation services.

"Since Bilaspur, we have seen a very collaborative and supportive government at the Centre.

"In December 2014, the Health Ministry issued a directive to all principal secretaries for health at the state level to adhere to the guidelines and protocols to deliver quality family planning services in a spirit of voluntarism and within a rights and accountability framework," Muttreja said.

She noted that there were several positives as a result of the judgement and the Ministry has been encouraged to promote gender equity in the family planning programmes.

"It has made clear that family planning is not just about women but also about men and the need for their increased involvement in family planning, that the sterilisation programme cannot be primarily targeted towards women but must also actively include men as well.

"Looking at the bigger picture, the judgement makes a strong case for India to address itself to gender equity, directing it to ensure strict adherence to the guidelines and standard operating procedures that it has issued in various manuals," Muttreja said.

She said the best part of the judgement is that it fosters collaboration between the Centre and the states to find remedies to problems and improve the well being of its people and has the potential to to shape India's family planning program into a program of significance.
Shiv Sena today warned the BJP-led central government that it would have to face the anger of the people if it did not take urgent steps against Pakistan for stopping terror attacks.

"We don't believe that it (today's attack on Army's battalion headquarters in Uri, north Kashmir) is a terrorist attack. It was a planned attack by Pakistan," Sena MP Sanjay Raut told reporters here.

"There is no need to talk now. It is time for urgent and rigid action against Pakistan. If these attacks do not stop now, people will turn against the government," Raut, a Rajya Sabha member, said.

Heavily armed militants, suspected to belong to the terror group JeM, stormed battalion headquarters of the Army in Uri town in the wee hours today.

Seventeen jawans were killed in the attack and 19 others sustained injuries. Four militants involved in the strike were killed by the Army.

Shiv Sena is a partner in the BJP-led governments both in Maharashtra and at the Centre.

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Indian shuttler Sourabh Varma fell at the final hurdle as he lost to Lucas Corvee of France in straight sets in the summit clash of the Belgian International badminton tournament here.

Unseeded Sourabh lost 19-21 19-21 in a 43-minute contest against his fifth seeded rival from France last night.

Sourabh blew away a strong start and an 11-4 lead to lose the first set. Corvee played a catch-up game and the Indian allowed him to level the scores at 17-17 and then 19-19 before the Frenchman took the first set 21-19.

The second set was a neck-and-contest and the scores were tied at 9-9. But from there, Corvee did not look back and he led the Indian till the end to grab the match and the trophy.

Earlier, Sourabh had beaten qualifier Fabian Roth of Germany in the semifinals.

In the men's doubles, the Indian duo of M R Arjun and Ramchandran Shlok had lost in the semifinals.

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Sindh police department has issued new guidelines to its officers on how to deal with suspected suicide bombers, advising them not to use live bullets and instead use electric stun guns to neutralise the bombers.

The advisory further said that policemen should always try to apprehend the suicide bomber from behind and grip him in such a manner that the palms of his hands remain open and he can not use them.

It also lays out methods to spot a suicide bomber.

Suicide bombers are generally young men and women between the ages of 12 and 24 and the men are clean shaven and usually carry a prayer bead on their hands, it said.

The suicide bomber will always have an unusually inflated look around his stomach area and his shoulders will be dropping under the weight of the explosives, it added.

The guidelines came after Sindh police was successful in foiling the attacks planned by four suicide bombers on Eid day.

Police were able to identify the suicide bombers and stop them at the entrance of a Shia mosque in Shikarpur district's Khanpur tehsil, 470 kilometres north of Karachi.

Though two suicide bombers were able to detonate explosives, but it resulted only in minor injuries, while one suicide bomber was caught by the public and one another managed to flee.

Earlier this week, 23 people were killed and 29 others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque packed with worshippers for Friday prayers in Mohmand Agency in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region.

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Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today condemned the terrorist attack on an Army battalion headquarters in Uri town and said no such threat is going to deter the country from restoring peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir.

"It is absolutely condemnable...They can continuously keep threatening us with these activities, but India is strong enough to take care of its internal security and no such threat is going to deter us from restoring peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir," she told reporters at the BJP's State Women's Executive Meeting here.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured as heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.

Asked about the recent demand of J&K BJP MLAs for "bombing" and destroying terror camps in Pakistan after an attack on a CRPF convoy in the valley that left eight personnel dead in June, Sitharaman said, "Both the Centre and the state government would work towards bringing normalcy and peace in the state."



"As regards the way in which (it) is going to be done, the central and state governments will strategise to work towards it," she said.

On the Cauvery water-sharing issue, Sitharaman said it would not be proper to seek Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention as the matter is under adjudication.

"I think our position was made very clear by our Karnataka BJP President B S Yedyurappaji that the matter is in the court and it is under adjudication. So, it may not be proper to ask the Prime Minister to intervene," she said.

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The environment ministry said on Sunday the sub-committee constituted by the country's biotech regulator Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to examine the bio-safety data on genetically-modified (GM) mustard had in it experts on subjects relevant to safety evaluation of the hybrid, including a health expert.

The statement came days after an anti-GM group alleged that sub-committee formed by GEAC did not have any health expert and three of its members have conflict of interest.

The ministry in its clarification said that B Sesikeran was in the sub-committee as a health expert. He is an MD in pathology and former director, National Institute of Nutrition, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Activists opposed to the had alleged that Sesikeran had serious conflict of interest. "The GEAC in its 126th meeting held on January 4 this year constituted a sub-committee with expert scientists in specific subjects relevant to safety evaluation of Genetically Engineered (GE) Crops.

"The sub-committee also consists of a health expert,B Sesikeran, who is an MD in pathology and former director, National Institute of Nutrition Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and is currently serving as chairman, Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation," an official statement said. Reacting to the clarification, anti-GM group, Coalition for a GM-Free India, which had levelled the accusations, said it repeats what it had said in its recent report on the matter of this sub-committee and the "lack of reliability" on its assessment processes.

"Sesikeran was missing from GEAC including in the crucial meeting of the sub-committee in which the sub-committee created its report in February 2016, which was submitted to GEAC in its 127th meeting," Kavitha Kuruganti from the Coalition told PTI.

The Coalition had alleged that Sesikeran, was a board member of International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) which has Bayer, BASF, Monsanto and others as members. "It is important to note that he (Sesikeran) was a member of the expert committee headed by Anupam Verma for the CGMCP project, advising on what studies to take up for health safety assessment of .

"...also he conducted the studies as former director of NIN, he also gave a green signal as chairperson of RCGM in DBT and now sits in GEAC as a member and was included in the sub-committee! He however did not attend the February 2 meeting. From all information available, he did not take part in the sub-committee processes," the Coalition had alleged.
Swaraj Abhiyan has said it will set up district level legal bodies across the country to bridge the gaps and address citizen's problems at the hand.

"These bodies will constitute of a citizen, a lawyer, a doctor and workers to help people voice their concerns and find solutions. It was decided that no corporate funding will be utilised for the setting up of these bodies. It has also been affirmed that the prospective of having such a body in every court will be utilised.

"While the body has been constituted in Bihar, the work for the same has begun in eight states of the country, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand. Sumit, who is the co-ordinator and in-charge for the Delhi body has stated that the Delhi body will soon be declared," a statement issued by the organisation said.

The decision was taken at a symposium organised yesterday in the Capital to discuss need for justice at the grassroot and in the higher judiciary, it's efficacy, constraints and possibilities and the pro bono role of lawyers in justice delivery system.

"In the program, farmers from Rajasthan voiced their hardships and frustrations with the authorities for drought relief and re-scheduling of loan repayments, a sentiment echoed by farmers from other drought effected states. Residents of Uttar Pradesh reported complete apathy of the police and their struggle with getting justice.

"The citizens' feedback overwhelmingly pointed to the immense gap that exists and needs to be bridged to ensure deliverance of justice," a statement issued by the organisation said.

The one-day symposium on "Law and Citizen" was attended by lawyers, farmers and others from Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal and Madhya Pradesh, which included advocate Prashant Bushan, Prof Anand Kumar and Yogendra Yadav, it said.

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Taking a dig at the family feud in the ruling Samajwadi Party, Union Minister Smriti Irani today said the system in Uttar Pradesh has derailed due to the infighting between the two.

"Chacha-bhatije ki ladai me state me sab kuchh disturb ho gaya hai" (following the infighting between uncle (Shivpal Yadav) and nephew (Akhilesh Yadav), system in UP has been derailed). It is not good," she said.

Irani, Minister of Textiles, was addressing a public meeting after inaugurating a medical camp during her one day visit here.

She targeted Congress vice president Rahul for maintaining silence over the malpractices of the state government for last four and half years.

"Notably, Rahul Gandhi, in some of his meetings in the state repeatedly said 'pahle cycle ka pahiya puncture tha magar ab pura tyre hi fat gaya hai' (earlier, the tyre of the cycle was puncture, but now it has burst)," Irani said.

Earlier, she paid obeisance at the historical temple of Ahorwa Bhavani under Tiloi assembly and addressed a meeting in Haliyapur under Jagdishpur assembly.

This was her first visit to Amethi after the cabinet reshuffle where she was scraped off the Human Resource and Development Ministry.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Board of India is looking to double exports to Australia in the next five years, from the present 3 million kg, considering the high demand for specialist teas, a top official has said.

Indian exports to Australia stood at 3 million kg and considering the demand for more specialist and premium teas, the Board is eyeing to double it in the next five years, Executive Director of Tea Board, Coonoor, C Paulrasu, told reporters here on Saturday.

Paulrasu, who was on a visit to Australia with a 15-member delegation recently, said, with 15 million kg market, Australia was looking only for speciality teas, like green teas, organic teas and premium teas with value addition.

Stating that tea exports had gone up by 10 per cent year-on-year in 2015-16 to touch 221 million kg, he said, Indian exporters were fully geared to cater to the International market.

As far as tea production in South India is concerned, Paulrasu, here to attend the annual general meeting of Tea Traders Association of Coimbatore, said the production has witnessed a dip of 21 million kgs to 121 million kg, during the first seven months, compared to 142 mn kg during corresponding period last year.

This was mainly due to erratic rainfall followed by extended periods of drought in major producing pockets, he noted.
The accused in the sensational murder of 24-year-old IT professional Swathi on a railway platform allegedly committed suicide at the Puzhal Central prison here today, police said.

"He (Ram Kumar) committed suicide and the body is now in Royapettah Government Hospital," a top police official told PTI today.

Swathi was hacked to death, allegedly by Kumar, an engineering graduate, on June 24 while she was waiting to board a train at a platform of Nungambakkam suburban railway station to her work place on the city outskirts, an incident which was caught on CCTV. When police traced him days later and came to arrest him, he had allegedly attempted to commit suicide.

On how he committed suicide in jail, Kumar said, "It is in the domain of prison authorities...It is said that he had bitten an electric wire in the jail dispensary," and had died subsequently.

Prison authorities declined to speak on Ram Kumar's death.

(REOPENS MDS 6)



Government Royapettah Hospital authorities said Ram Kumar was brought dead, adding that an autopsy will be conducted.

Meanwhile, the alleged suicide of Ram Kumar has sparked a controversy with the opposition parties demanding a judicial inquiry.

Leader of Opposition and DMK treasurer MK Stalin reacted to the information that Ram Kumar committed suicide "by biting an electric wire", saying it was "shocking and mysterious".

Extending his condolences to the kin of Ram Kumar, he said it was "not acceptable and believable" that he committed suicide in a high-security prison.

Slamming the prison authorities for being "unable to provide security" to the prisoner, Stalin said the death had led to several doubts.

"I urge for a judicial inquiry into the incident by a High Court judge," he said.

CPI(M) state secretary G Ramakrishnan too demanded a judicial inquiry by a sitting High Court judge. Recalling that Ram Kumar had attempted suicide even at the time of his arrest, he said, "How can a person commit suicide in a prison? what were the prison authorities doing?"



He said the incident had also led to a doubt regarding "proper security" being provided by the prison administration to the prisoner.

VCK chief Thol Thirumavalavan said the Tamil Nadu government should own up responsibility for Ram Kumar's death and demanded a proper inquiry into the incident.
Terrorists as well as their masters and supporters should be dealt with firmly and conclusively, RSS on Sunday said as it condemned the terrorist attack on an army base in Uri in Kashmir.

"Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh strongly condemns the dastardly terrorist attack on the Indian army base at Uri. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country.

"The terrorists, their masters and supporters should be dealt with firmly and conclusively," said RSS General Secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi, who is the Hinduvta organisation's second-in-command.
In the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir, heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 20 other personnel.

Here is a timeline of the major attacks that have taken place in Jammu and Kashmir since 1999 till date.

3 November, 1999: Ten army personnel killed in fidayeen attack on 15 Corps Headquarters at Srinagar's Badami Bagh.

14 May, 2002: 36 persons are killed and 48 others injured in a fidayeen attack on an army cantonment in Kaluchak, Jammu. Most of the killed were family members.

22 July, 2003: A three-member team storms an army camp killing eight security force personnel, including a Brigadier, and injuring 12 others in Akhnoor.

6 April, 2005: A day before the bus from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir is to be flagged off, two suicide squad terrorists attack the Tourist Reception Centre



5 October, 2006: Terrorists attack at Budshah Chowk, in heart of Srinagar, killing five JKP personnel, two CRPF soldiers and one civilian.

31 March, 2013: Attack on CRPF camp in Srinagar kills five.

24 June, 2013: Eight soldiers killed in attack on military convoy at Hyderpora, Srinagar.

September 26, 2013: At least 13 killed in twin suicide attacks Jammu and Kashmir. A total of 10 people, apart from three militants, were killed during the attacks.

The dead include four policemen and two civilians in Kathua District and four Army personnel, including Lieutenant Colonel Bikramjeet Singh in Samba District.

November 27, 2014: 10 persons, including four civilians, three Army soldiers and three militants were killed in day-long encounter at border village of Kathaar in Arnia sector, close to the International Border, of Jammu District.

December 5, 2014: A group of heavily armed militants stormed into an Army's 31 Field Regiment Ordinance Camp located at Mohra in Uri Sector of Baramulla District near the LoC.

One Lieutenant Colonel and seven soldiers of the Army, one ASI and two constables of Jammu and Kashmir Police were killed. Six militants were also killed in the operation.

March 20, 2015: A fidayeen squad of militants in Army



fatigues stormed a Police Station in Kathua District killing seven persons, including three SF personnel, two civilian and two militants while 12 persons, including eight CRPF personnel, three Policemen and a civilian were also injured in the incident.

March 21, 2015: Two terrorists were killed during a fidayeen attack at the Army camp on Jammu-Pathankot National Highway in Samba District. Three persons including one civilian, a Major and an Army jawan were also injured during the attack.

May 31, 2015: Army foils attack on its Brigade headquarters in Tanghdar sector of Kupwara District by killing four members of six heavily armed militants.

November 18, 2015: A Colonel with the Army's elite Para Commando unit was killed in an encounter with militants in the forests of Kupwara.

November 25, 2015: Three JeM militants and a generator operator of MES were killed when a group of militants attacked an Army camp near LoC at Tanghdar in North Kashmir's Kupwara District.

December 7, 2015: Six CRPF personnel were injured when militants opened firing on their convoy near Green Tunnel at Samthan in Bijbehara in South Kashmir's Anantnag District.

February 21, 2016: Three army commandos, including two Captains and a militant, were killed in a fierce gunfight with a group of terrorists holed up inside a government building on the outskirts of Srinagar, raising the toll to seven in the encounter that began a day earlier.

June 25, 2016: Eight CRPF personnel were killed and 20 others injured when militants attacked their convoy at Frestbal near Pampore in Srinagar on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway.
In a severe jolt to Congress, the TMC today took over the effective control of Behrampore Municipality as several councillors including the municipality Chairman switched over to the Mamata Bannerjee-led party.

The municipality was known to be a stronghold of state Congress President and Murshidabad strongman Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Nilroton Adhya, along with 17 Councillors today joined TMC in the 28-member strong Behrampore municipality.

The TMC's strength now stands at 18 from the earlier 1.

"The Congress' decision to align with the CPI-M during the last Assembly poll had proved to be a "political harakiri" as the rank and file of the Congress did not accept the alliance. By the end of this year there would be no sign of political presence of Congress and CPI(M) in Bengal, senior TMC leader and MP Abhishek Banerjee told reporters.

"While people have rejected this unholy alliance, those who are joining TMC want to be part of the development process started by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee," he said.

Malda and Murshidabad are considered strongholds of Congress, with the latter described as the backyard of state Congress President Adhir Chowdhury.

Recently, in a blow to Congress and Left Front, the TMC took control of Malda and Jalpaiguri Zilla Parishads after several of its members switched over to TMC.

Plagued by defections and infighting, the beleaguered Congress and CPI(M) are finding it difficult to keep their flock together in the face of the Trinamool Congress juggernaut in West Bengal.

During the last few months since the Assembly poll results were out delivering a thumping majority to the Trinamool Congress, the party managed to take over various opposition-controlled municipalities and panchayats in the state, with Councillors and Panchayat members shifting to the TMC fold from either Congress or Left Front constituents.

Even three MLAs, two from Congress and one from Left Front, have switched over to the TMC last month, bringing down the opposition tally in the state Assembly from 76 to 73 in the 294-member house.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Turkish police have detained an assailant on charges of kicking and injuring a young woman for wearing shorts on an Istanbul bus, local media reported today.

Police detained the suspect yesterday in Uskudar, a district on the Asian side of the city, the private Dogan agency reported.

Shouting "Those wearing shorts must die!", the suspect attacked the woman, who works as a nurse, kicking her in the face, reports said.

He later told police he had been angered by her clothing.

"The shorts she was wearing were not appropriate. That's why I was angry and behaved so," he was quoted as saying by Dogan.

The man, who handles security for a company, had previously been diagnosed as suffering from "manic depression", the agency said.

Many feminists in Turkey have expressed growing concern over the extent of violence against women, with hundreds killed every year, often by their husbands.

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Two persons were killed and six police personnel injured when a police vehicle transporting a wanted man collided with a van near Baria, 5 km from Jhargram town in West Midnapore district.

The accident occurred when the police vehicle returning to Jhargram police station after nabbing criminal Gaya Ram Mullick hit a van coming from the opposite direction in the early hours today.

The driver of the police vehicle and the criminal were among the dead, a police official said.

A sub-inspector of police was among the injured, he said.

Considering the nature of injury, Constable Santosh Murmu was referred to a Kolkata facility, the official said.

In a separate mishap, a pick-up van hit a four-wheeler injuring four persons in the heart of the town.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The UK stands "shoulder to shoulder" with India in the fight against terrorism and in bringing the perpetrators to justice, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said today.

Condemning the terror attack on an Indian army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town that killed 17 soldiers, he said: "The UK strongly condemns this morning's terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. I offer my deepest condolences to the victims and their families and friends."



"The UK condemns all forms of terrorism, and stands shoulder to shoulder with India in the fight against terrorism, and in bringing the perpetrators to justice," he said.

The UK statement comes in the aftermath of the terror attack at a army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town that killed 17 army soldiers and wounded 19 others, many of them critically. Four heavily armed militants were also killed in the ensuing encounter.

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Realty firm Ltd's sales bookings doubled to Rs 362 crore during the quarter ended June 30, compared with the year-ago period, on higher volumes in the commercial segment.

According to a latest operational update, sold 2 million sq ft of area for Rs 362 crore during the first quarter of the current financial year.

The company had sold 0.23 million sq ft area for Rs 178 crore in the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

Of the total bookings for the June quarter, the commercial segment, comprising institutional plots and office space, contributed Rs 281 crore, while the housing sales stood at Rs 81 crore.

The bulk of the sales bookings were achieved in Gurgaon at Rs 306 crore.

launched 1.75 million sq ft of area, all in Gurgaon, during the first quarter of this financial year, according to a presentation. "2.35 million sq ft area delivered during first quarter of FY 2016-17," it added.

Home buyers have filed cases in courts against Unitech for significant delay in execution of housing projects.

"Company's focus is firmly on completing and delivering the ongoing projects in an expeditious manner," Unitech Managing Director Ajay Chandra had said in a recent statement.

"Towards this end, company has been continuously engaging with its customers, bankers and local administration to create project specific escrow mechanisms to ensure that the balance payments received from the customers of a project are utilised only for completion of that project," he had said.

Recently, the Delhi High Court directed the company to create escrow mechanisms for all its projects wherein 100% of the collections from the customers are to be retained in the escrow and utilised exclusively for that project, Chandra had said.

Unitech plans to raise about Rs 300 crore from financial institutions and sale of land parcels to complete 41 pending housing projects comprising 13,000 flats within the next two years.

The company said it needs Rs 2,700 crore to complete these projects while the receivables from the customers is about Rs 4,000 crore.

Last week, Unitech reported that consolidated net loss narrowed to Rs 43.18 crore for the June quarter. It had posted a net loss of Rs 279.45 crore in the corresponding quarter of previous financial year.

Total income rose to Rs 487.88 crore in the first quarter as compared to Rs 381.43 crore in the same period previous year. As of 30th June, the consolidated net debt was Rs 5,265 crore.
Terming the terrorist strike in Uri as a "deplorable affront" on national conscience, Congress President Sonia Gandhi today hoped that the perpetrators of the attack will be brought to book.

She also expressed distress over the death of 17 soldiers in the attack.

"Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian soldiers in the dastardly terrorist attack in Uri," the party said in a statement.

Describing the cowardly terror attack as a deplorable affront on our national conscience, Gandhi expressed the hope that the perpetrators of this dastardly attack as also the forces behind them will be severely dealt with and brought to book.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also condemned the attack. "Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack," he said in a tweet.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured as heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Anti-Pakistan protests rocked Jammu and Udhampur districts today against the killing of 17 jawans in a terror attack on an army base in Uri in Kashmir.

Condemning the loss of lives of 17 soldiers in the attack, the local Shiv Sena and Dogra Front workers here staged a protest during which they raised slogans against Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the neighbouring nation for "encouraging terror activities" in India.

Led by its President Ashok Gupta, the protesters gathered in large numbers and raised anti-Pakistan slogans and also burnt Pakistani flags during the protest.

Heavily armed militants suspected to be from Pakistan-based JeM stormed an army base in Uri in Kashmir killing 17 jawans, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to assert that those responsible "will not go unpunished".

Speaking to reporters, Gupta said, "We condemn it. We are angry over it. It is clear that 17 people have died. There is sorrow everywhere and (some people) are making fool out of India. There is shutdown everywhere in Kashmir against India."



"Pakistan should be nailed. Time has come to teach them a lesson. Centre should act now," he said.

"If the people want to go Pakistan then open the border gates and whoever wants to go let them go there. No Pakistani should be seen in Jammu and Kashmir be it Hurriyat. I want to make it clear that now it's time for Modi to show his 56-inch chest," Gupta said.

The activists of Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers party (JKNPP) led by President Balwant Singh Mankotia today held a protest against Pakistan.

They blocked National Highway at Slathia Chowk and torched the effigy of Pakistan for "sponsoring militancy in India territory and waging war against India" amid raising of anti-Pakistan slogans.

While addressing the gathering, Mankotia urged the Central government to take direct action against Pakistan for "repeatedly interfering in India territory and targeting army camps as well as civilians" for the last more than thirty years.

Mankotia demanded that militants' training camp running in PoK should be destroyed without further delay so that the "Pakistan-sponsored militancy can be rooted out from Indian soil".

He claimed that the root cause of infiltration in Indian territory are training camps running in PoK in which the militants are trained by Pakistan and sent to India territory for disturbance.

"If these camps are destroyed, the infiltration will be controlled automatically. Centre should take a call on it," he said.

A large number of Shiv Sena workers also held protests at a function in Bari Brahamana area here against Pakistan.

State President Dimpy Kohli condemned the attack and said that the condition of the whole state, particularly Kashmir Valley was becoming "worse" with each passing day and Central Government was "sitting as a mute spectator" to all this.

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Jammu Mahanagar held a protest at Central University of Jammu.

The activists of ABVP burnt an effigy of Sharif and raised Slogans like "Pakistan Murdabaad", "Indian Army Zindabaad" and "Bharat Mata Ki Jai".

Speaking to the media persons, Rajinder Kumar, President Central University of Jammu, demanded stern action against those responsible for the terror attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday cut short his Goa visit and rushed to New Delhi following a terror attack in Uri town of Kashmir in which 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured.

"Parrikar has rushed to Delhi to oversee the situation after the terror attack. He has cancelled all his Goa appointments scheduled for today," BJP Goa chief Vinay Tendulkar told reporters here.

The Defence Minister was supposed to chair a meeting of BJP Mahila Morcha this morning followed by another meeting of Yuva morcha in the evening, which are being held in the run-up to state Assembly polls due next year.

Later, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar chaired the Mahila Morcha meeting.

Parsekar condemned the terror attack and said the government should be more "offensive" in such incidents.

"The incident is most unfortunate. It should not have happened. I condemn it," the chief minister said on the sidelines of a function organised by the Mahila Morcha here.

"Government of India needs to be little more offensive towards such incidents. The Centre should ensure that adequate measures are adopted to avoid such incidents in future," he said.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.
The Uri attack suspected to have been carried out by Pakistan-based terror outfit JeM today drew fierce condemnation across political spectrum with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing that those behind the "despicable and cowardly" act will not go unpunished.

The outrage sparked by the strike on an Army base in Uri in which 17 jawans were killed was also reflected in President President Pranab Mukherjee's statement in which he declared that India will not be cowed down by such "outrageous" attacks and that it will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers.

Talking tough, BJP leader Ram Madhav asserted that days of strategic restraint are over and suggested that "for one tooth, the complete jaw" should be the policy after the terror attack.

"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi tweeted.

Terming the attack as a "deplorable affront" on national conscience, Congress President Sonia Gandhi hoped that the perpetrators will be brought to book while her party colleague Capt Amarinder Singh said the "provocative" act by Pakistan must be taken up seriously and reciprocated in the same measure.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh pointed a finger directly at Pakistan, saying it is a "terrorist state" and should be isolated.

"Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," Singh said in a strongly worded statement after a hour-long review meeting here,



"There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped," Singh said, vowing to identify those behind it.

Echoing the views of Modi and Singh, Union Minister Arun Jaitley asserted that the perepetrators of the Uri attack would be punished and that India will intensify diplomatic efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally.

The CPI(M) Central Committee, now in session here, asked Pakistan to stop aiding and abetting extremist forces.

Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said Pakistan must refrain from indulging in cross-border terrorism and demanded that the matter be taken up "seriously."



The Uri terror strike is aimed at triggering fresh violence in Jammu and Kashmir and creating a "war-like" situation in the region, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said, adding Jammu and Kashmir has always been the worst victim of Indo-Pak hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for the same for the past over six decades.

Virtually blaming Pakistan for the Uri attack, BJP President Amit Shah said India's fight against terrorism has reached a decisive stage and the Modi government is moving in the right direction to ensure that the sacrifices of soldiers does not go waste.

RSS General Secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi said terrorists as well as their masters and supporters should be dealt with firmly and conclusively.

Former J and K chief minister Omar Abdullah while condemning the attack said better facilities including "fire retardant" tents should be given to the soldiers after it came to light that at least 13 jawans died due to the fire in their tents.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US today strongly condemned the dastardly terror attack in Uri in which 17 soldiers were killed even as the State Department asserted it was "committed to our strong partnership" with India to combat terrorism.

"We strongly condemn the terror attack in Uri, J&K. Our thoughts are with the families of the brave soldiers who lost their lives #UriAttack," US Ambassador to India Richard Verma tweeted.

Separately, the US State Department issued a statement in Washington strongly condemning the attack.

"The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir during the early morning of September 18. We extend our condolences to the victims and their families. The United States is committed to our strong partnership with the Indian government to combat terrorism," John Kirby, Assistant Secretary and State Department spokesperson said in the statement released by the US embassy in New Delhi.

Heavily-armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours, one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years.

Explosions and gunfire erupted as the militants attacked the camp, which is located barely few metres away from the Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town, 102 kms from Srinagar, around 4 AM, official sources said.

The jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks, the sources said.

It is believed that the attack was the handiwork of a group of freshly infiltrated militants who could have entered from an area along the Salamabad Nallah, the sources said.

Seventeen jawans were killed in the terror attack, the Northern Command of the Army said while 19 other personnel were injured in the strike.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.

In January, seven military personnel were killed when six terrorists attacked the Pathankot air base.

The attack comes two years after militants had carried out a similar type of attack at Mohra in the same area. Ten security personnel were killed in the attack that took place on December 5, 2014.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The way people walk can give clues to how aggressive they are, according to a new study which found that the exaggerated movement of both the upper and lower body indicates aggression.

Researchers from University of Portsmouth in the UK assessed the personalities of 29 participants before using motion capture technology to record them walking on a treadmill at their natural speed.

"When walking, the body naturally rotates a little. As an individual steps forward with their left foot, the left side of the pelvis will move forward with the leg, the left shoulder will move back and the right shoulder forward to maintain balance," said lead researcher Liam Satchell.

"An aggressive walk is one where this rotation is exaggerated," he added.

The researchers asked participants to complete a questionnaire, which measured their levels of aggression.

They also used a standard personality test called the 'big five' to assess personality traits including openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

Together they can help map the way people think, feel and behave.

Using motion capture technology, which records the action of humans and uses the information to bring to life digital character models in 3D computer animation, the researchers analysed thorax and pelvis movements, as well as speed of gait.

"People are generally aware that there is a relationship between swagger and psychology. Our research provides empirical evidence to confirm that personality is indeed manifest in the way we walk," Satchell said.

"We know of no other examples of research where gait has been shown to correlate with self-reported measures of personality and suggest that more research should be conducted between automatic movement and personality," Satchell added.

Identifying the potential relationship between an individual's biological motion and their intention to engage in aggression could be used to help prevent crime, he said.

"If CCTV observers could be trained to recognise the aggressive walk demonstrated in this research, their ability to recognise impending crimes could be improved further," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia today demanded that the Madhya Pradesh government should conduct an inquiry into the whopping funds being spent to improve the health of malnourished kids.

"Where are funds, running in crores of rupees, being spent to improve the health of malnourished kids going? The state government should conduct an inquiry into it," Congress chief whip in Lok Sabha told reporters here.

"The state government has announced to issue a white paper of malnourishment in Madhya Pradesh. Instead, we demand that the government should prosecute concerned people responsible for this grave problem," he added.

"I am going to raise this issue vehemently in Delhi," said Scindia, after visiting Karahal and Vijaypur areas and meeting the malnourished kids.

"I am saddened by the plight of the malnourished kids. I don't have words to express their plight," the former Union minister added.

Scindia said he has written a letter to Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi and state Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan drawing their attention to the condition of malnourished kids in Madhya Pradesh.

He claimed that several children had died of malnourishment in 2006 in Sheopur but the government did not take a lesson from it.

Sciandia also claimed that recently 18 malnourished kids have died at Vijaypur and Golipur villages in the district.

1,000 children in Sheopur were suffering from problems related to malnourishment, he said, adding 300 of them are being treated.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 33-year-old woman in the UK has been left blind in one eye after two teenagers targeted her in a laser pen attack.

Police are searching for two teenage boys after one of them shone a laser into a woman's eye in Clydebank, leaving her blind in one eye.

The incident happened as the woman walked under a railway bridge on September 10.

Both boys were described as being white, aged about 14 or 15 and wearing dark-coloured sportswear. One of them had brown hair in a quiff, the BBC reported today.

The woman was taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital for treatment and later reported the incident to police.

Detective Sergeant Kevin Mulvenna, of Police Scotland, said: "This was a completely unprovoked and senseless attack on this woman, which has left her blind in one eye. The youths responsible must be caught as soon as possible.

"To point a laser pen at someone is highly irresponsible. Extensive inquiries are ongoing to trace the two boys, with officers carrying out inquiries in the local area and studying CCTV footage to identify them."



He asked anyone with information to contact police.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said her Ministry has recommended the Ministry of Finance to raise tax holiday for start-ups from three years to seven with a sense of constructive and positive approach, and was awaiting a response.

"They (Finance Ministry) have received the recommendations of Commerce and Industry Ministry to raise tax holiday to seven years from the current three years with sense of constructive and positive approach. That's where it is. We certainly like to hear from them," Sitharaman told PTI here after addressing the Karnataka BJP Women's Executive Meeting here.

On May 30, Sitharaman had said lots of recommendations were made to the Finance Ministry for extending the three-year tax holiday to seven, after several startups pitched for increasing the same, as it would provide certainty on taxation matter.

Replying to a query on Apple setting up a manufacturing unit in India, Sitharaman said, there is no proposal as yet with the Centre from Apple to set up a manufacturing unit in the country. "They have not approached us and therefore we are silent," she said.

Apple have reportedly been in talks with Foxconn on the possibility of manufacturing iPhone models at their facilities in India.

After meeting senior officials from manufacturing giant Foxconn, partner of Apple, the then Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in May had said the Cupertino-based technology major was coming to manufacture iPhones in India.

Apple has been lobbying hard for exemption from the mandatory 30 per cent local sourcing on the ground that its products have such high-end technology that these cannot be sourced locally here.

The government in June relaxed FDI norms by giving a three-year exemption from local sourcing to foreign players in single-brand retail and a further five-year relaxation for 'state-of-the-art' and 'cutting-edge' technology.

Asked about a letter written to Xiaomi, Chinese mobile phone maker, seeking waiver of 30 per cent sourcing norms, Sitharaman said, "I have no idea. If there is something I will let know."

She also denied having any information on 'LeEco's' request to waive 30 per cent sourcing norms.
With the announcement by Flavius Killebrew that he will retire as president of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, the question now needs to be asked: what kind of university do we want now?

The selection of the next president of A&M-CC will be crucial. Not only for the future of the university but for Corpus Christi's future growth as well.

A college president determines what a college's priorities are. A president can reach out to the community. A president can signal support of bold ideas from the faculty. The leadership team chosen by the president  provost, vice presidents and deans  can reflect openness to new ideas.

Or they can be passive, or even oppose, all those points.

Or at least this was my thinking when I served on the search committee that led to Killebrew's hiring 12 years ago. I was one of three community members on the committee; local philanthropist Karen Urban and investor Mel Klein were the other two.

In researching and interviewing the applicants for the job of president then, I was aware that the next president would be continuing the dynamic tenure of Bob Furgason.

The legacy of Texas A&M-CC runs back to the period after World War II and the days when it was a private university. But its modern history really begins with its conversion to a public university in 1973.

The first two presidents, D. Whitney Halladay and B. Alan Sugg, really nurtured the public institution out of its infancy. Housed in what were remnants of the military facility that once occupied Ward Island, the university's profile gave no inkling of what it could become.

Furgason and Killebrew made the university what it is now: an educational institution whose enrollment is now more than 12,000 students, with an ever-expanding array of masters and doctoral programs and research work that is enlarging the pool of knowledge in many fields.

Every president has his or her time that, if all goes well, fits the university at that point in history.

But no institution, no less a university, can afford to stand pat. As the change in leadership nears with Killebrew's departure at the end of the year, it's a good time to think about where the university is going and where it can go.

The university has, for some time, been designated a Hispanic serving institution. That denotes its commitment to educating Hispanic students who are the first in their families to get a college degree.

That role in serving the South Texas area should never be forgotten or lessened. Other universities in other parts of the state can claim other priorities, but no other priority should be higher for Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. That holds true for Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

Without that commitment to South Texas, to educating Hispanic students and to raising the education level of the region, both universities would just be interchangeable with any other state university.

There should be a recommitment to what was once called the South Texas/Border Initiative. Technically, this grew out of a lawsuit by the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund that charged that the region had been short changed for decades in higher education resources.

In operation, this put the fire to the feet of legislators to give the area's universities big boosts in funding and in new degrees. But I would argue that the job of bringing the region to parity with other parts of the state is still to be completed.

If some believe it is, then where is the school of architecture, the law school and the school of dentistry?

The Corpus Christi region needs growing higher education institutions if it is to grow itself. That means a healthy Del Mar College keeping the door open for students who aspire to be college graduates.

We all need dynamic campuses at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Texas A&M University-Kingsville because they are wedded to the same goals: raising the educational levels and intellectual resources upon which region's future depends.

Killebrew is leaving a rich legacy as he nears retirement. He grew the university with 19 new academic programs, including new doctoral programs. He oversaw $350 million in new capital expenditures. The school's enrollment grew by 36 percent since he took over in 2005.

There is, however, still much to be done to distinguish and grow the university resources of this area.

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.
Thursday, September 15, 2016 at 1:32PM

Early reading skills are extremely important, naturally; but research shows that older children who struggle with reading with middle school and later are at risk of giving up entirely. Further, in old age, reading can go by the wayside as eyesight and hand strength fail or as older adults downsize into smaller housing and leave their books behind. As a company created by and for booklovers, supporting literacy and reading accessibility seems like a natural fit for Rakuten Kobo to step in and hlep make a difference.

The company recently announced its multi-faceted corporate social responsibility programdesigned to promote the importance of reading for all stages of lifethrough partnerships providing thousands of books and eReaders to encourage and enable people of all ages to read more.

Early and middle school readers

First Book Canada: Kobo and First Book Canada have partnered to bring new books to students at elementary and high schools across Canadathe majority of whom do not have a single book in their own homes. The access to a book of ones own is key to the advancement of literacy among children, especially those from low-income families; studies show that high interest in reading triples among children who received new books from First Book, with reports of a 70% increase of reading in the home. More on the programs:

Stop Summer Slide: An initiative that took place in May and June, with the goal of preventing the loss of academic skills over the summer break. Each of three elementary schools took part in reading celebrations led by prominent childrens authors talking about the importance of reading and its effect on learning; each school also received 1,500 new books for students to own and keep at home.

This fall, Kobo and First Book Canada will work with high schools across the country on a program created to inspire young adults to embrace and sustain reading.

Frontier College: To capture attention and support literacy among children who may have missed the important foundation years, Kobo is working with Frontier Colleges Homework Clubs. The Clubs are designed to improve educational outcomes for children in high-needs communitiesgaining the skills and confidence they need to reach their potential as contributors in Canadian society. Over the past year, volunteers have provided 19,336 hours of tutoring to 2,695 learners across Canada. Starting this fall, Kobo eReaders will be incorporated into select Homework Clubs to encourage students to read more while learning. Benefits of digital reading for Homework Clubs include:

Customizable font styles and sizesstruggling students often find it easier to read and understand books with larger fonts.

With eReaders, learners can read any book they choose without anyone knowing what they are readingwhich many find more comfortable, especially if they choose to read titles that are considered below their grade level.

Readers can learn new words by pressing and holding the word theyd like to look up to retrieve its definition instantly while theyre reading.

Older Adult Readers

Family Councils Ontario: With the goal of supporting families in improving quality of life in long-term care homes, Kobo and Family Councils Ontario are working together to create a digital reading program for select homes in the Greater Toronto Area. ETAG, a leader in adult education that helps people understand technology, will offer training on the use of eReaders as well as eReaders themselveswhich will be used by residents or family members and friends who choose to read to a loved one. Thin, lightweight eReaders are often times easier to hold compared to traditional books, and the ability to set font sizes makes reading easier for people with deteriorating eyesight. Reading is associated with an increase in quality of life as well as a decrease in dementia-related behaviours.

Reading is incredibly important as a tool in working with dementia. Further, we believe we are among the very first organizations to recognize a need to support reading and literacy among older adults living in Long-Term Care homes, said Samantha Peck, Director, Communications & Education, Family Councils Ontario. Even the most avid booklover may lose access to reading in old age. It is a problem that digital is uniquely positioned to solve.

We are pleased to be able to offer support at a number of critical points in the life of a reader, and to help create and support generations of booklovers, said Michael Tamblyn, CEO, Rakuten Kobo. If simply allowing a child to choose his or her own book can spark a love of reading at an early age, lets give children books. Lets support struggling older readers before they give up entirely. And lets ensure reading doesnt disappear at a time when it may be difficult to see, to get out to buy or borrow a book, or when being read to creates connection and a better quality of life. It is our mission to support reading from a persons first words to their last chapters.








"We have moved to being a very visual culture and we are instinctively ready for a visual adventure in the form of a film or video game, we don't have the same lust for auditory adventure that would have been the case in Shakespeare's era," she said.
Johan Dennelind, who was appointed CEO to help clear up the scandal, admitted wrongdoings and unethical behaviour in a conference call this morning.

Telia Companys board learned of the scale of the proposed fine last night and reacted this morning after an overnight board meeting.

The proposal covers  as far as we understand  all existing investigations. It is a very high amount.

The companys chairman, Marie Ehrling, shared Dennelinds view of the scale of the fine. Our initial reaction to the proposal is that the amount is very high. We will now have to analyse the information and decide on how to proceed with the ongoing discussions with the authorities, she said in a prepared statement.

But she also admitted that the company  previously called TeliaSonera  had been wrong. I have said on many occasions in the past that Telia Companys entry into Uzbekistan was done in an unethical and wrongful way and we are prepared to take full responsibility. We are cooperating fully with the authorities to bring clarity to the matter.

General counsel Jonas Bengtsson said that Telia has been cooperating with Swedish, Dutch and US authorities. The new board, appointed at the 2013 annual general meeting, determined to change the company fundamentally, he said, and decided to cooperate with all investigating authorities.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Department of Justice started investigating in early 2014, followed by the Dutch authorities. Telia was not questioning their jurisdiction over the matter, said Bengtsson. Telia has cooperated with these authorities. It is an extensive cooperation.

Telia is hoping that the proposed fine will be an end to the matter. The proposal as far as we understand it covers all interests the authorities have in Telia Companys activities, he said.

Dennelind was unclear on how the level of the fine was set. We have just received the information and have to analyse it, he said. But he added that the company hasnt had an expectation of the level in advance. We simply state it is a big number.

Telia Company announced earlier in 2016 that it intends to dispose of all its central Asian interests, though Dennelind said he understands that there is no investigation into investments outside Uzbekistan.

Earlier this month Telia sold its 60% stake in Tajikistan operator Tcell for $39 million to the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, which owns the other 40%.

The Uzbekistan scandal dates back to what was then TeliaSoneras acquisition of Uzbekistan operator Coscom  later rebranded as Ucell  in July 2007. TeliaSonera did not conduct a sufficiently in-depth analysis into the identity of our local partner in Uzbekistan before we invested in the country or into how this partner came to own the assets that were later obtained by TeliaSonera, said then CEO Lars Nyberg in his 2013 resignation statement.

A report by Swedish Television in September 2012 alleged that TeliaSonera paid $320 million for its Uzbekistan licences through Gayane Avakyan, an Uzbek woman in her late 20s described as having close ties to Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Islam Karimov, who had been president of Uzbekistan since 1991. Karimov died on 2 September 2016.

After the allegations emerged, TeliaSonera commissioned a Swedish law firm, Mannheimer Swartling, to investigate. The company also fired Per-Arne Blomquist, the CFO, and three other senior executives after it received Mannheimer Swartlings report.

Uzbekistan has not been a good investment for other foreign telecoms companies. In February 2016 VimpelCom agreed to pay $835 million in settlement fees to US and Dutch authorities after admitting it paid huge bribes to enter the Uzbekistan telecoms market. Telenor this week started to sell its stake in VimpelCom.

In August 2016 Russias MTS left the Uzbekistan market after selling its 50.1% stake in Universal Mobile Systems to the state for an undisclosed amount. Four years earlier the Uzbekistan government confiscated MTSs assets in the country and arrested executives.

This morning Dennelind told financial analysts that the fine would not affect Telia Companys dividend policy.
Prime minister Andrew Holness made the announcement in a statement to Jamaicas House of Representatives this week, following complaints that the identity of the people behind Caricel was a mystery.

Caricel plans to build a 4G-only network. It is believed to be planning to spend $50 million to build the network in the capital, Jamaica.

Caricel, owned by Symbiote Investments, calls itself Jamaicas first pure data service company. It adds: Caricel will this year launch an IP multi-service, multimedia communications network, providing products and services to residential, business and government entities.

The company says it is owned by a consortium of Jamaican businessmen with a passion for telecommunications and a genuine interest in empowering their fellow countrymen. But it does not name the people involved.

The award of the licence has met with some controversy in Jamaica, as Symbiote Investments has an existing carrier and service provider licence and was accused of using unauthorised spectrum. A government department, the Office of the Contractor General, had recommended that the mobile licence should not be issued and that the licences previously granted be revoked.

But Prime Minister Holness disagreed. He told the house: Non-issuance of the spectrum licence, in the circumstances, would be tantamount to a revocation of the grant of said licence and would be in violation of the principles of natural justice.

The previous government approved the 15-year mobile licence in February 2016, on payment of about $20 million.

The main work for my Cabinet was to determine whether the conditions set by the former Cabinet were met, but we did more than that. We carefully considered the matter and took into account the legal advice of the attorney general, Holness said.

However he added that the attorney general has recommended a number of areas for legislative and other actions. These, he said, include placing a duty on non-natural persons (that is, companies) applying for telecommunications licences should provide all required and relevant information about their shareholders, directors and other officers.

Caricel does not list its directors and senior staff on its website, simply listing that it has a board chairman, board of directors, chief executive officer, senior vice president marketing and commercial operations, company secretary, chief technical officer and chief financial officer, without giving names.

However, according to LinkedIn, the CEO of Symbiote Investments/Caricel is Lowell Lawrence. Three years ago he was director of a company called Newgen Technologies, which accused the incumbent fixed and mobile operator, Lime  the then trading name for what is now Flow, and then owned by Cable & Wireless Communications  of abusing its dominant position.

Lime and Newgen settled the $13 million lawsuit without disclosing details.

Based on the nature of the thing, I am not at liberty to get into any detail. The most I can say to you is that the matter was settled in a mutually beneficial way, Lawrence told the Caribbean Business Report at the time.

Newgen was offering wholesale international termination services, according to the Jamaica Observer. According to another Jamaica publication, the Gleaner, Newgen merged with Index Communications Network, trading as Gotel, to operate under the Symbiote Investments brand.
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.
You could have the missing piece of the puzzle that will help the RCMP put someone behind bars. Here are some recent crimes that Central Okanagan Crime Stoppers hope you can help solve by calling our anonymous tips line at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), visit our website at www.crimestoppers.net or text to CRIMES (274637), keyword Ktown.

CRIME: THEFT OF BIKE

DATE: September 1, 2016

RCMP FILE: 2016-52433

A green and black 2014 HKS DJ50 Dirt Jumper mountain bike was taken from the underground parking compound located at 2551 Shoreline Drive in Lake Country on August 9, 2016. Surveillance video captured a male taking the bicycle from the compound. The bikes serial number is V14A00195 and is worth $1500.00.

Photo: Crime Stoppers

If you know anything about this crime, or any other crime, call the Central Okanagan Crime Stoppers anonymous tips line at 1-800-222-TIPS or visit our website at www.crimestoppers.net. Your information will be kept confidential and could lead to a reward of up to $2000.00.

CRIME: THEFTS FROM VEHICLES

DATE: September 9, 2016

RCMP FILE: 2016-54436

Several more thefts from unlocked vehicles were reported in the Lake Country area on the morning of September 9th. Vehicles parked on Kel Win Road, Commonage Road and Wilson Road were rifled through. A wallet was taken from one of the vehicles and a credit card from the wallet was later used at a gas station on Highway 33 in Kelowna. Later that same night a neighbour foiled a theft from a car parked on the 9700 block of Crofton Road. The suspect was chased but was able to leave in a large burgundy Dodge pickup truck with a black box and large silver Tidy Tank with a DC sticker in the rear. The suspect is a tall (64) slim Caucasian male with a chin beard and a ball cap.

You can help catch these suspects and qualify for a reward by calling Crime Stoppers anonymous tips line at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), visit our website at www.crimestoppers.net or text to CRIMES (274637), keyword Ktown.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: The Canadian Press

UPDATE: 7:35 p.m.

A police officer was severely injured after a struggle with a man at a Calgary shopping mall on Saturday and used his service firearm to defend himself.

Calgary police say a suspect attacked the officer with a "large bladed weapon" after police received reports of a fight at a nearby light rapid transit station.

A suspect fled before police arrived but an officer spotted the man hiding behind a dumpster.

The suspect initially ran into the Marlborough shopping mall in the city's northeast, but turned to confront the officer with the weapon.

The officer first used his Taser, but it was ineffective so he discharged his service firearm, police said.

A police news release was unclear as to whether the suspect was wounded by a bullet only saying he was taken to hospital and is in stable condition.

The officer suffered severe injuries but is in stable condition, police said. Earlier Saturday Calgary EMS spokesman Nate Pike described the wounds as soft-tissue injuries and said they were not life threatening.

ORIGINAL

A police officer suffered injuries during an incident at a Calgary shopping mall Saturday.

Calgary EMS spokesman Nate Pike says first responders were called to the Marlborough Mall in the city's northeast.

Pike says the Calgary police officer was taken to hospital in what is described as stable, non life threatening condition with soft-tissue injuries.

He says a second patient was also taken to hospital in critical, life-threatening condition.

Jason Qian, who works in a store at the mall, said the incident happened at a Sears outlet.

He said normally the most trouble that happens at the mall is shoplifting and a violent incident was totally unexpected.

"It's a total surprise," he said. "There were kids playing around, like 50 yards away."

Eli Kortia came after the incident to do some shopping at Sears and found it blocked off by police.

"It came as a surprise, I've not seen this at Sears ever before."

Police could not immediately be reached for comment.

Pike said he doesn't believe the officer's injuries were the result of a firearm, but he said he didn't know what caused the injuries for the other patient.

Later Saturday afternoon, five police vehicles remained outside Sears. The store was closed off, but shopping continued in the rest of the mall.

A children's play area remained busy not far from the Sears entrance.

About four or so officers were milling about the entrance to Sears into Saturday evening. Other officers were apparently gathering evidence and taking photos outside in the parking lot.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance says the Canadian-led NATO force in Latvia is starting to take shape, with several countries having expressed an interest in contributing troops and equipment.

Speaking to The Canadian Press following a two-day visit to Latvia, Vance said the job now is to match up what other countries are willing to provide with what is actually needed to field the 1,000-strong battle group.

"We're on the right track, and we're on track," Vance said from Croatia on Saturday, where top military officers from across NATO were meeting. "There'll be all sorts of international phone calls made and working groups struck to get to this final state."

Among the countries that have indicated their willingness to participate are Italy, Poland, Slovenia and Spain. Each sent representatives on a Canadian-led reconnaissance mission to Latvia last month to get a feel for the situation on the ground.

Italian Ambassador to NATO Claudio Bisogniero confirmed on Twitter on Friday that his country will make a "significant contribution" to the battle group.

Vance said the more NATO members that contribute to the four battle groups the more likely they are to dissuade Russia from taking any aggressive action in the region.

The Liberal government announced in July that Canada would lead one of four multinational NATO forces in Eastern Europe, where the military alliance has been beefing up its presence in response to recent Russian actions.

Germany, the United States and Britain are leading similar forces in Lithuania, Poland and Estonia, respectively.

Canada will contribute just over 450 troops to the battle group. Vance could not say which specific units would be tapped, but they will include a commander and headquarters staff, military police, logistical and communications support, as well as an infantry company with light armoured vehicles.

The Canadians will form the "nucleus" of the battle group, which will be based at the Adazi military base, about half an hour northeast of the capital Riga. The first troops will arrive in the spring, but the bulk won't touch down until fall. They will stay six months, before another group of Canadians replaces them.
Photo: Contributed

A WestJet flight was grounded in Toronto after customs officers determined there were iguanas loose in the aircraft.

WestJet spokesperson Lauren Stewart says a passenger on a flight from Cuba to Toronto was discovered to be carrying iguanas in his checked luggage.

Stewart says the passenger had hidden four iguanas in his luggage but when they were discovered by customs officers in Toronto, only two of the lizards were in the suitcase.

The flight crews were notified and the plane was stopped in order to have the cargo hold fumigated to prevent the escaped lizards from chewing through wires or damaging the aircraft.

Stewart says the aircraft couldn't fly on to Vancouver due to the delay, but passengers were transferred to another plane that left 50 minutes later.

Stewart says this type of incident is uncommon but reminds customers to always book their pets with the airline ahead of time and bring them in proper carrying cases to ensure they are safe and comfortable.
Photo: Contributed

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is recalling Wild Sockeye Smoked Salmon and Sensations Wild Pacific Smoked Salmon over listeria concerns.

In a release issued Saturday night, officials say the products were sold mainly in Ontario and may have been distributed to other provinces.

The agency says food contaminated with listeria may not look or smell spoiled, but it can make you sick. Symptoms include vomiting, nausea, persistent fever, muscle aches, severe headache and stiff neck.

There have been no reported illnesses connected with the salmon products.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says the recall was triggered by the Toronto company that smokes the salmon, called Central Epicure. It says it is conducting a food safety investigation, which could lead to the recall of other products.

The packaging on the no-name Wild Sockeye Smoked Salmon has the code 2017SE07 and the code for the Sensations Wild Pacific Smoked Salmon is 2017MA30 and 2017JN03.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Surrender never comes easily.

An animal information card at the Calgary Humane Society identifies the temporary resident inside as a grey-and-white kitten named "Marilyn" who has been there since June 26.

"I am an owner surrender," reads a note in a section called "A little about me."

Many Calgarians, already dealing with layoffs, economic uncertainty and the potential loss of their homes, are now having to give up their best friends.

The Calgary Humane Society says it has noticed a jump in the number of pets being reluctantly being turned in by their owners since the economic downturn started in 2015.

There were 1,500 pets surrendered to the society between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, 2014. That number ballooned to 1,673 in the same period last year and sits at 1,635 so far this year, but there's also been a huge jump in the number of strays being picked up.

A humane society official says it's gut-wrenching for those who have to give up a member of the family.

"It's the last thing they want to do. Typically they will go without a lot of things ... without food ... maybe they'll skip rent for a month if they have to," said Sage Pullen McIntosh, senior manager of community relations and communications.

"They really want to keep their animals but they've lost everything. They have drawn on all the savings they have, or every family member they have, and they just don't have anywhere else to go."

McIntosh said the increase in strays is likely to be because some people can't bring themselves to turn the animals in.

"They feel embarrassed ... they feel ashamed."

She said it can be heartbreaking when animals are admitted and owners have to say goodbye.

"It's really tough for people. This is a member of their family."

A senior psychologist at the Calgary Counselling Centre said having pets at home is good for people going through tough times such as job losses or changes in their personal lives.

Joanne Ginter said she had one client who had to turn over the family cats.

"The family was greatly distressed because mom had lost her job, and she was the primary breadwinner, and what are they going to do?" Ginter said.

She suggested that the children write a letter to the shelter talking about their cats and how they would like them to be taken care of.

"People get very, very attached to their pets. Pets serve as a calming technique. They serve as a sense of family. They're just part of who we are and part of our identity."

Ginter worries things are going to get worse for those hurt by Alberta's economic downturn because many soon will no longer be eligible for employment insurance.
Photo: The Canadian Press

While Sir John Franklin's doomed search for the Northwest Passage looms large in the Canadian consciousness, thousands of other shipwrecks lie in obscurity at the bottom of the country's waterways.

The Arctic Research Foundation recently announced the discovery of HMS Terror during the latest in a series of high-profile expeditions that also led to the discovery of Franklin's other ship, HMS Erebus, in 2014.

But as the country celebrates the apparent end to an enduring Arctic mystery, a team in Quebec has been quietly trying to put a name to at least some of the lesser-known shipwrecks in the St. Lawrence River.

The project, which is co-ordinated by the Universite de Montreal and the Archeo-Mamu Cote-Nord archeology association, seeks to document the shipwrecks along the northern coast of the river with the help of local recreational divers.

The project's main archeologist says the provincial government has only a fraction of the river's shipwrecks on record.

"At the level of the (Quebec) Culture Department, there are between 80 and 100 that are documented, but I think there are more than 1,000 left to find," Vincent Delmas said. "There's a lot of work still to do."

He says the St. Lawrence was once an autoroute where ships carrying goods to and from Europe succumbed to ice, storms and the many rocks and reefs lurking just below the surface.

Delmas says parts of the river's north shore were also rich in iron, which could interfere with ship's compasses, creating a "Bermuda Triangle"-like effect.

Recently, the team has been working to identify a wreck believed to be that of the Sainte-Anne, a merchant ship that went down in 1704 while carrying a load of furs destined for the French Antilles.

Although the wreck's location, near a small town now called Pointe-Lebel, has been informally known for decades, the team is analyzing wood samples taken from the ship to verify its age and origin and hopefully confirm its identity.

It also hopes to dive for the remnants of the fleet of Admiral Hovenden Walker, whose mission to attack Quebec on behalf of the British crown failed after eight of his ships sank in 1711 near what is now known as Pointe-aux-Anglais.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A Norwegian man freed by militants after a year of jungle captivity in the southern Philippines described the ordeal Sunday as "devastating," carrying a backpack with a bullet hole as a reminder of a near-death experience that included the beheadings of the two Canadians kidnapped with him.

Kjartan Sekkingstad was freed by his Abu Sayyaf captors on Saturday to rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which has signed a peace deal with the Philippine government and helped negotiate his release. On Sunday, he was handed over to Philippine authorities, along with three Indonesian fishermen freed separately by the Abu Sayyaf.

Aside from the horror of constantly being warned that he would be the next to be beheaded by the brutal extremists, Sekkingstad said he survived more than a dozen clashes between Philippine forces and his captors in the lush jungles of Sulu province.

In one intense battle, in which the forces fired from assault helicopters and from the ground, he said he felt a thud in his back and thought he was hit by gunfire. After the fighting eased, he discovered that he wasn't hit, and that his green, army-style backpack had been pierced by the gunfire instead.

Sekkingstad was carrying the damaged backpack when he walked to freedom Saturday somewhere in the thick jungle off Sulu's mountainous Patikul town.

On Sunday, the heavily bearded Sekkingstad, clad in a rebel camouflage uniform and muddy combat boots, was asked how he would describe his horrific experience.

"Devastating, devastating," he said, still clutching the backpack.

Philippine presidential adviser Jesus Dureza, who received Sekkingstad and the three freed Indonesians from Moro National Liberation Front rebel chief Nur Misuari in Misuari's rural stronghold near Sulu's Indanan town, accompanied the Norwegian on a flight to southern Davao city, where the ex-hostage met President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte told Sekkingstad that his travails were over. Sekkingstad, newly shaved but looking gaunt in a loose polo shirt, thanked all those who worked for his freedom.

"I am very happy to be alive and free," he said. "It's a beautiful feeling."

Sekkingstad was kidnapped from a yacht club he helped managed on southern Samal Island on Sept. 21, 2015, along with Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall and Hall's Filipino girlfriend, Marites Flor, sparking a massive land and sea search by Philippine forces.

The Abu Sayyaf demanded a huge ransom for the release of the foreigners, and released videos in which they threatened the captives in a jungle clearing where they displayed Islamic State group-style black flags.

Ridsdel was beheaded in April and Hall was decapitated in June after ransom deadlines lapsed. When Flor was freed in June, she recounted in horror how the militants rejoiced while watching the beheadings.

Sekkingstad said he and his fellow captives were forced to carry the militants' belongings and were kept in the dark on what was happening around them. At one point, he said, their heavily armed captors numbered more than 300.

"We were treated like slaves," he said.

After the militants decapitated Ridsdel, Sekkingstad was threatened by the militants, who repeatedly told him, "You're next."

When the negotiations for his release began in recent months, Sekkingstad said the rebels began treating him better.

It was not immediately clear whether Sekkingstad had been ransomed off. Duterte suggested at a news conference last month that 50 million pesos ($1 million) had been paid to the militants, but that they continued to hold on to him. The military said Saturday that relentless assaults forced the extremists to release the hostage.

In Norway, Prime Minister Erna Solberg thanked Duterte and Dureza, and said his government supports the Philippines "in their fight against terrorism." Solberg told Norway's NTB national news agency that "Norwegian officials had not participated in any payment of ransom or made any concessions in the matter."
Photo: The Canadian Press

Hillary Clinton's campaign is aggressively outworking Donald Trump in battleground Pennsylvania, a state the billionaire businessman can scarcely afford to lose and still hope to become president.

Despite polling well in Pennsylvania throughout the summer, Clinton's team is nevertheless bearing down in a state her party has carried in six straight elections. They are ratcheting up advertising and dispatching their top supporters to Pennsylvania, from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden to last week's visit from President Barack Obama.

"We've got to fight for this thing," Obama thundered at a rally in Philadelphia last Tuesday. "I need you to work as hard for Hillary as you did for me. I need you to knock on doors. I need you to make phone calls. You've got to talk to your friends, including your Republican friends."

At a minimum, an energized Pennsylvania campaign is a balm for Clinton as she weathers a dip in national polls and dips in the swing states of Florida and Ohio. But with roughly seven weeks until Election Day, Trump's scattershot approach to the state also puts his White House prospects in jeopardy.

"There is no Trump turnout organization, and you can't construct one" in the time remaining, said former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell.

For Trump, nearly any route to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House includes Pennsylvania's 20 votes. With Clinton's edge in Colorado and Virginia, and her competitive standing in North Carolina, Trump could potentially win vote-rich Florida and Ohio, as well as competitive Iowa and New Hampshire, and still fall short of the White House unless he can capture Pennsylvania, too.

Clinton's strategy is focused firmly on the eastern part of the state. Obama won 85 per cent of the vote in Philadelphia in 2012, and Clinton has her sights set on coming as close as she can to his performance there while also outperforming Obama in the four suburban counties bordering the city.

Almost 2 million votes, or fully one-third of the 5.67 million presidential votes cast in the state in 2012, came from Philadelphia plus Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties. It's a region replete with moderate Republicans struggling with the decision about whether to support Trump.

Obama sought them out last week as he contrasted Trump's criticism of the nation's path with Ronald Reagan's "vision of freedom." The message echoes a Clinton television spot airing in the Philadelphia area featuring Romney and Republican U.S. senators blasting Trump as unqualified for the Oval Office.

That ad is part of Clinton's deep edge over Trump on television in the state. Her campaign and outside groups helping her have spent about $14 million on general election TV and radio ads through this week, according to Kantar Media's political ad tracker.

That's more than triple the advertising investment Trump and his allies made in the same time period.

One possible result of the advertising gulf is stalled support for Trump among college-educated Republicans who live in the four counties around Philadelphia. In Montgomery County, for example, nearly half of adults have college degrees compared to 26 per cent statewide.

"Part of the problem he faces is he has built this wall with the college-educated voters," Republican pollster Ed Goeas said. "As much as he's doing better in other parts of Pennsylvania, when you talk about the suburbs, he's struggling to reach normal Republican levels."

That leaves Trump needing to overperform in Pennsylvania's rural areas and working-class cities in the western part of the state. But while Trump's running mate Mike Pence was in Scranton on Wednesday, the same day Trump's son Donald Jr. was in Pittsburgh, each of Trump's own three visits in the past month have been to Philadelphia or nearby.
Photo: Getty Images

A man who got stuck head-first between two rocks on a Rhode Island jetty while trying to retrieve his cellphone has been rescued with the help of olive oil.

WJAR-TV reports it happened Saturday afternoon near a fishing area in Point Judith.

Authorities say the man dropped his phone and got stuck up to his chest when he bent down to retrieve it.

Narragansett firefighters and environmental police spent most of the afternoon trying to free him before the tide came in. After about 2 1/2 hours, they were able to remove him with the help of olive oil.

The man went to a hospital to be treated for hypothermia and a small injury to his foot.
Photo: The Canadian Press - AP

UPDATE 4 P.M.

A man in a private security uniform stabbed nine people at a Minnesota shopping mall, reportedly asking one victim if they were Muslim before an off-duty police officer shot and killed him in an attack the Islamic State group claimed as its own.

None of the nine people who were stabbed in Saturday night's attack received life-threatening wounds, St. Cloud police Chief Blair Anderson said. He said it doesn't appear that anyone else was involved in the attack at the Crossroads Center in St. Cloud, which began at around 8 p.m. and was over within minutes.

At a news conference Sunday, FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Rick Thornton said the attack was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism and that agents were still digging into the attacker's background and possible motives.

An Islamic State-run news agency, Rasd, claimed Sunday that the attacker was a "soldier of the Islamic State" who had heeded the group's calls for attacks in countries that are part of a U.S.-led anti-IS coalition.

It was not immediately clear if the extremist group had planned the attack or even knew about it beforehand. IS has encouraged so-called "lone wolf" attacks. It has also claimed past attacks that are not believed to have been planned by its central leadership.

Authorities didn't identify the attacker, but the Star Tribune of Minneapolis said the man's father identified him as Dahir A. Adan, 22. Speaking to the newspaper through an interpreter, Ahmed Adan, whose family is Somali, said his son was born in Africa and had lived in the U.S. for 15 years.

A man in a private security uniform stabbed eight people at a Minnesota shopping mall, reportedly mentioning Allah and asking at least one victim if they were Muslim before an off-duty police officer shot and killed him, authorities said.

All nine victims were treated at hospitals for wounds that weren't life-threatening, St. Cloud police Chief Blair Anderson said at a news conference Sunday. Three remained hospitalized. The others were released.

The attack happened at around 8 p.m. Saturday at the Crossroads Center in St. Cloud, a city of about 65,000 people 60 miles (95 kilometres) northwest of Minneapolis.

A man in a security uniform and armed with a knife entered the mall and stabbed people in several locations, including corridors, businesses and common areas, the chief said.

Five minutes after authorities received the first 911 call, Jason Falconer, a part-time officer in the city of Avon, shot and killed the attacker, whose name hasn't been released. Anderson said Falconer fired as the attacker was lunging at him with the knife, and continued to engage him as the attacker got up three times.

"He clearly prevented additional injuries and potential loss of life," Anderson said.

"Officer Falconer was there at the right time and right place," he said.

Anderson earlier said the man reportedly made at least one reference to Allah and asked a victim if they were Muslim before attacking them.

FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Rick Thornton said the attack was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism, but that agents were still digging into the attacker's background and possible motives.

An Islamic State-run news agency, Rasd, claimed Sunday that the attacker was a "soldier of the Islamic State" who had heeded the group's calls for attacks in countries that are part of a U.S.-led anti-IS coalition.

It was not immediately clear if the extremist group had planned the attack or even knew about it beforehand. IS has encouraged so-called "lone wolf" attacks. It has also claimed past attacks that are not believed to have been planned by its central leadership.

Authorities didn't identify the attacker, but Anderson earlier said police had had three previous encounters with him, mostly for minor traffic violations. He said authorities have no reason to believe anyone else was involved in the attack. The FBI is helping with the investigation.
Investigators scrambled to find out who planted a bomb that rocked a bustling New York City neighbourhood and why Sunday, scouring shrapnel, forensic traces and surveillance video for any link to an unexploded pressure-cooker device found a few blocks away.

There seemed to be more questions than answers hours after the Saturday night blast that injured 29 people in Manhattan. All of them have since been released from the hospital.

"We just know there was a bombing," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at briefing at New York Police Department's headquarters. "That much we do know."

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who toured the site of the blast in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood, said there didn't appear to be any link to international terrorism. He said a second device found blocks away from the bombing appeared "similar in design" to the first.

That device  described by a law enforcement official as a pressure cooker with wires and a cellphone attached to it  was removed early Sunday morning by a bomb squad robot and is being examined by forensic experts.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation.

A pipe bomb explosion in Seaside Park, New Jersey, before a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors earlier Saturday didn't appear to be connected to the Manhattan bombing, and each bomb contained different materials, officials said, but added that they weren't ruling anything out yet. The race was cancelled and no one was injured.

The New Jersey device contained evidence of a black powder, while the device that exploded in Manhattan had residue from an explosive called Tannerite, said a federal law enforcement official.

The official wasn't authorized to discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.

Tannerite is often used in target shooting to mark a shot with a cloud of smoke and small explosion.

The bombing rocked the city's Chelsea neighbourhood, a mostly residential part of Manhattan's west side known for its art galleries and large gay population.

Witnesses described hearing a deafening blast, and surveillance video footage captured images of nearby windows being blown out by the explosion as people sprinted away from the scene.

"It was extremely loud, almost like thunder but louder," said Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at a nightclub near the blast.

Members of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force are investigating the blast along with New York Police Department detectives, fire marshals and other federal investigators. As a precaution, Cuomo said he was deploying an additional 1,000 state troopers and members of the National Guard throughout New York City.

The first device, which exploded on West 23rd Street at about 8:30 p.m., appeared to have been caused by an improvised explosive device placed inside a toolbox in front of a building undergoing construction, the law enforcement official said.

The second device, found later inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street, appeared to be a pressure cooker with wiring and a cellphone attached to it, the official said.

Federal investigators in Quantico, Virginia, will examine evidence from the explosions in New York and New Jersey.
House prices and real estate concern everyone, from those who own them, to the people who end up renting them. Affordability and cost of living are things that we all have to take into account when were trying to make long-term plans, find new jobs, or deciding where and when to make an investment. Price bubbles come and go, and jobs move from one area to another. And when or if you need to move, finding a house in an area in which you can afford can be difficult.

The intricacies of the housing market caught everyones attention after the real estate bubble and foreclosure crisis in 2007 and 2008. Its what led to the Great Recession, in many ways, as banks were happy to shovel out money to unworthy buyers, and those same buyers were unable to help themselves (or were ignorant to their own situations). These days, people are warier.

For that reason, theyre looking for a deal. And though falling real estate prices may be of concern for some, for others, its an opportunity to get a great price on a house or some land. And you never know when the opportunity may come again.

While some cities are seeing skyrocketing prices for homes and real estate, other areas are seeing prices drop at unprecedented rates. Bankrate, a personal finance website, recently combed through data from the National Association of Realtors to see where, exactly, home prices are declining the fastest.

Home values rose 4.9% nationally for the 2nd quarter of 2016, compared with the same period of 2015, according to data from the National Association of Realtors, Bankrate says, but in some areas, home values are on the decline.

Here are the five cities where house prices are falling the fastest.

5. Bridgeport/Stamford/Norwalk, Connecticut

Just outside of New York City, the real estate scene isnt looking too good. Of course, if you pop onto Zillow or Redfin or any other similar service, youll still see house prices in the seven and sometimes eight-figure ranges  so, this is an affluent area in which plenty of people are faring well economically. But not everyone, mind you. Home prices are down 5.7% in Bridgeport, Stamford, and Norwalk, with median prices hitting $380,500 by the most recent calculations.

4. Wayne, New Jersey/White Plains, New York

White Plains and nearby Wayne, New Jersey are also seeing home prices drop. Both cities are also on the fringes and burbs of New York City, and like the nearby Connecticut suburbs, have seen median home prices drop considerably  5.9%  down to $366,600. If youve been wanting to make the move closer to NYC, it looks like now is the time to start looking.

3. Erie, Pennsylvania

Erie is a city in far western Pennsylvania, situated on Lake Erie at the crossroads of Interstates 90, 86, and 79. Like many other cities in the region (like nearby Cleveland and Buffalo), its a town thats been hit hard by recent economic changes. For that reason, real estate is losing value. Most recently, median home prices are down 7.9% to $115,100.

2. Binghamton, New York

Binghamton is in southern New York, a few hours drive from New York City. Its also home to some seriously cheap real estate and home prices. And those prices have taken a virtual nosedive this year. Median home prices currently sit at $105,500, which is down 10.2%.

1. Atlantic City, New Jersey

Atlantic City has fallen on hard times. Once a destination playland for those who wanted a closer option than Las Vegas in generations past, the city is now suffering considerably. You just need to look at house prices to see how far demand for homes and real estate has fallen. Median home prices are now $186,400  down a whopping 13.1%.

Check out the entire Bankrate brief here.

Follow Sam on Facebook and Twitter @SliceOfGinger

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With director Pam MacKinnon at right, playwright Edward Albee acknowledges the audience after the opening night of a production of his play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at The Booth Theatre in New York City on Oct. 13, 2012. (Brian Harkin / Chicago Tribune)

The death of Edward Albee  at home on Long Island on Friday  surely came as no surprise to Edward Albee.

That may sound like a callous way to begin an appreciation of one of the greatest American writers ever to live. Yet it's neither a reference to the playwright's relatively advanced age of 88 nor the many preceding months of his declining health.

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Even at the opening of the 2012 Broadway revival of his masterwork "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"  a brilliantly staged production that began at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company  Albee, who had been recovering from heart surgery, came out for a bow and looked shockingly frail. He'd looked fine some months earlier when I'd spent time with him in Chicago. It was one of many conversations over the years; only some of them seemed to annoy him.

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No, the reason I imagine Albee rising up  intellectually, at least  to meet his own end on Friday is baked into his plays. Into all of his plays, actually, even those he penned while still a very young man, even if it's hard to imagine Albee ever being young in that term's implied optimism or naivete.

For if ever there was a writer who was born old, Albee was that writer. When "A Delicate Balance" opened on Broadway in 1966, the great (but, at that moment, perplexed) critic Walter Kerr wrote the line, "But in the end, how do you get hold of hollowness?"

How indeed? But given our lives, what choice do you have?

I doubt the Grim Reaper gave Albee the option of remaining at home.

Actually, I think Kerr was wrong about Albee's alleged hollowness  more about that in a moment  but the line surely was a consummate articulation of just how vexing Albee was to the critics of an era when a playwright whom you could not easily hold in the palm of your hand was a playwright to be feared.

Back then, Kerr and his contemporaries could handle Samuel Beckett, because plays like "Waiting for Godot" obviously inhabited a metaphoric landscape. They could even handle young Harold Pinter, because he was a clever Brit who used minimalist setups and sexy pauses. But this irascibly all-American Albee was something else entirely. "A Delicate Balance" seemed to be about a realistic, upper-middle-class couple capable of classic cocktail conversation. But Agnes and Tobias were so cruel. So cold. So despairing. What were they, metaphors for something?

Were they ever. Just like the very similar middle-aged couple in the 1975 drama "Seascape," who chat with a pair of talking lizards and discuss how we evolved from globs of goop to tangerines and string quartets.

Evolved is not the right word, really; things rarely were getting better in an Albee play.

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Of course, a playwright who traffics in metaphors then is obliged to spend the time between the writing of those plays with metaphors insisting that they actually are plays about people who need to be treated as flesh and blood, not symbols.

Arthur Miller got ever more stubborn in this regard. David Mamet signed on early as a prickly dude. So did Albee. Understandably so. He was subjected to decades of questions from academics and their progeny about whether George and Martha ever had a son, and whether that elusive son was America.

Of course he wasn't. Of course he was. You think the man picked the names George and Martha so as to attract Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton?

I've always thought that a certain frustration with the perennial idiocy of those of us who consumed his works  and some of those who created them, being as the theater requires collaborators, alas for Albee  led him to write "The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?," a piece of inspired comedic schadenfreude about a man who becomes sexually and emotionally attracted to the creature of a barnyard.

"Hollowness? I'll give you hollowness," Albee seemed to be saying. He even gave the title to the play complex punctuation (I still have to look it up) just as a smoke screen for the sheer audacity of the metaphor. Just to dangle precision in front of looser writers, which means every writer other than himself.

Or consider "Three Tall Women," a 1994 drama that won Albee's third Pulitzer Prize and is, as I remember once writing, a rendering of personal biography as a treatise on human decay. Exactly the kind that afflicted the writer, it came to pass, as it awaits us all. In that play  more than anywhere else in his astonishing canon  Albee drew from his own experience with his adoptive mother (and her set) to argue that children should be taught about the coming of their own death, as surely and as regularly as they are instructed on how to cross the street.

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I've always felt that this interest in  obsession with  the lousy way that most early- and mid-century American children were raised is what separated Albee from, say, Beckett or Albert Camus.

Albee was, at his core, an evangelical absurdist. Those other writers noted life's absurdity but proffered no solutions for us poor saps. Beyond waiting around, anyway, and trying to laugh.

Yet Albee's eyes and mind burned with ideas for dealing with the imminence of death  starting with the acknowledgment thereof, which for many of us is the hardest thing of all to do. I think you can see his whole body of work as that of a man wondering about the power of love, but, in the end, finding it limited. Which does not mean pointless.

So here departs a writer (and yes, a teacher) who never stopped holding us all to account. Kerr was wrong. He was anything but hollow. As it happens, I met my wife by going to see an Albee play: "Fragments" in Cincinnati in 1993, which was not a very good Albee play, actually, for there were a couple of duds among the glorious explosions. Although I really should read it again, knowing what I now know.

Still, no Albee, no family for me. A lot less for which to live. Less hollowness.

There is one great truth expressed in "Three Tall Women" that stops me cold every time I see that play. It is a crack in the Albee armor, maybe, an acknowledgment of our sentient selves, maybe the clearest of all indications that America's most intimidating playwright knew the limits of the cold light of day and of his Cassandra-like inclinations.

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You know all those family members you are fighting with right now? You'll want to see all them again on your deathbed. Know that for sure.

So I like to think on Friday, Edward Albee would like to have seen all of us who loved his plays.

Remember what Albee's most famous character, George, says to Martha as dawn rises over New Carthage and all their boozy games have come to an end.

"Are you all right?" he asks his wife.

CJones5@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib

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Edward Albee wins Tribune's top award for writing

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
Jolinda Wade, mother of the Chicago Bulls' Dwyane Wade, is the first recipient of the state Rep. Esther Golar "Heart of the Community" Award, presented by St. Bernard Hospital. Wade is being recognized for her fight against gun violence and her commitment to helping the people of Englewood and Chicago's South Side. (Alyssa Pointer / Chicago Tribune)

When Jolinda Wade, mother of Bulls player Dwyane Wade, overdosed on drugs in the early 1990s, she was taken to St. Bernard Hospital and resuscitated.

While she was there, a nurse asked her why she was living the way she was -- in and out of prison, homeless and addicted to drugs -- and urged her to stop.

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"It's like she looked through me and saw that I wasn't supposed to be this person that I was," Wade said Saturday, wiping away tears with a white hand towel.

"She told me, 'Baby, why you doing this to yourself?' She said, 'You seem like a beautiful girl.' She said, 'There's more to life than this.' She said, 'Now go out of here and don't come back in here, get yourself together,' And those words stuck with me. But the addiction I was in was stronger than the words."

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On Saturday, Wade, 61, now a pastor, received an award for helping children and the underserved on the South Side during a benefit for St. Bernard.

"I used to be one that was called 'the problem,' and to get to a space and a place where you are now looked at as 'the solution' is right there humbling in itself," Wade said.

Wade said she heard God's voice in 2001 when she went to church one day, and that he told her to stop denying him and his power to change her. Within three days, she overcame her addiction from drugs and alcohol. She also turned herself back in to prison, after leaving a work-release program without permission.

Since she got clean and changed her life, Wade has opened the Willie Mae Morris Empowerment Center for youth in the community, become the senior pastor of New Creation Binding and Loosing Ministries, International and recently released an anti-violence rap song called, "Raise My Child," that came out just before her niece, Nykea Aldridge, was killed in late August.

The recent tragedy of Aldridge being shot to death as she pushed her newborn in a stroller after registering her children for school, was a "hard hit" for the Wade family, but Wade said it won't keep her from the work she's undertaken.

"I would be lying if I tell you that every day I don't worry about whether a bullet will try to find (my family) as well because of the violence being so overwhelming today and how it's hitting everyone," Wade said in an interview. "I do worry about my family, but I don't allow it to cripple me or anything."

Diahann Sinclair, a hospital vice president, said Wade was chosen to be the first recipient of the late state Rep. Esther Golar "Heart of the Community" Award given because her life "mirrors a lot of our population" and that when the senior team met her in person, they knew immediately that she should receive the award.

"This is a woman who raised her family in Englewood, fell victim to some of the challenges that were prevalent and she has then taken her lifeshe's very open and honest about itand used it as an example to say where you come from and your circumstances does not dictate your future," Sinclair said before the event.

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Wade said Golar fought for people like her and that she was "humbled and honored" to receive the award.

"I read about her life and I was thinking, even while I was yet in that place, she was fighting for me, not knowing that I was that person," Wade said.

This was also the first year of the gala, with proceeds to benefit the hospital's new $33 million Ambulatory Care Center that opened in June in Englewood. Sinclair said the hospital hopes to purchase a digital mammography machine, which the hospital only has one of in the main building.

Twitter @GraceWong630

gwong@chicagotribune.com
Jonathan Lewin, deputy chief of technology for the Chicago Police Department, holds up one of the body cameras purchased by CPD. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

The Chicago Police Department announced Sunday that it will spend about $8 million to buy body cameras for the rest of the force, a rollout officials unveiled though it won't be complete for years and they aren't sure who will get the new equipment next.

Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said all officers on patrol will have the cameras by the end of 2018 but offered no specifics about when exactly they will be purchased or which officers are first in line to get them.

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"Next year they'll get them, we haven't identified the actual districts yet," Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said when reporters pressed Johnson for more information during a news conference in the Austin District police station on the West Side.

Police Supt. Eddie Johnson discusses plan to purchase more police hey cameras at West Side news conference. (Chicago Tribune)

Johnson held the event to talk about the cameras two days before Mayor Rahm Emanuel is set to deliver what he has touted as a key speech on public safety, a chance for him to try to reframe the public discussion about the city's rampant street violence and the public's deep distrust of the CPD since the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video last year.

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Announcing the body cameras purchase Sunday could help the city attempt to set the stage for the address by focusing media attention on ways the department says it is improving officer accountability.

Asked whether Sunday's camera news conference was timed to coincide with Emanuel's Tuesday speech, Johnson said, "We just want you all to know what we plan on doing moving forward."

The announced expansion of the police body camera program comes as the U.S. Justice Department continues an investigation into CPD training and procedures that was initiated during the public outcry after the release of the McDonald video.

Officers Bernadette Serrano, left, and Thomas Zaccone both wear the new body cameras on their bulletproof vests. Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson held a news conference Sept. 18, 2016, to announce an expansion to the body camera program and also answer questions about a Chicago police officer killed in a motorcycle accident earlier in the day. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

The Justice Department has pushed for the use of body cameras by police departments nationwide, and federal officials may eventually require Chicago police to use them. If that's the case, announcing the camera purchases now instead of waiting for the federal report would allow Johnson to appear proactive rather than like he's following Justice Department orders.

Asked Sunday whether the federal report will call for Chicago police to use the cameras, Johnson said: "I would imagine this may be a part of it."

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A recent high-profile incident showed the limits of body camera technology. Officers were wearing body cameras when they fatally shot Paul O'Neal  an unarmed, black 18-year-old  in the South Shore neighborhood the night of July 28. But the camera worn by the officer who fired the apparent fatal shot was not working for unknown reasons when he chased O'Neal into a backyard and shot him.

The body camera of that officer, Jose Diaz, was turned on after the shooting, and it captured him saying he didn't know whether O'Neal was armed.

Johnson was asked about the O'Neal shooting and said it will take time for officers to get accustomed to the cameras.

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"With any new technology you roll out  and that's not just with CPD, but any organization  you have to train people properly, and you have to give them a chance to get acclimated to using the new equipment," he said.

The Police Department started issuing body cameras to officers as part of a pilot program in the Northwest Side Shakespeare District at the beginning of 2015, and about 2,000 cameras are now in use in seven of the city's 22 police districts. Johnson said the department will use "CPD's operating budget, as well as grant funding" totaling about $8 million to buy about 5,000 additional cameras. He said the body cameras will come "bundled" with Tasers for officers as well.

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne
An off-duty Chicago police officer was killed after his motorcycle was struck in Forest View early Sept. 18, 2016. Police vehicles accompanied the ambulance carrying the officer's body to the Cook County medical examiner's office in Chicago. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

An off-duty Chicago police officer was killed in a motorcycle crash in suburban Forest View about 2 a.m. Sunday, sources said.

A motorcyclist, whom law enforcement sources identified as off-duty Chicago police Officer Charles Barango, stopped at a red light at Central Avenue after exiting the Stevenson Expressway, according to Steve Good, Forest View chief of police.

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The light turned green, and Barango drove forward. A northbound vehicle then ran a red light and hit him, officials said.

Barango was taken to Loyola University Medical Center and pronounced dead, Good said.

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The driver of the vehicle that hit Barango's motorcycle is in custody, and charges are pending.

At a Sunday morning news conference, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Barango was a 14-year department veteran who was assigned to the 5th District tactical unit.

When asked whether the driver who struck Barango was drunk, Johnson said it was too early to say definitively, "but that could very well be the issue."

mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com
Chicago police investigate a burglery in the 6600 block of South Rhodes Avenue where the owner of a building shot at two intruders on Sept. 18, 2016. The intruders were two boys, ages 11 and 16. Both were injured in the shooting. (Eric Clark / Chicago Tribune)

A 61-year-old man shot at two intruders, 11 and 16, injuring the older boy during a burglary Sunday morning on the South Side, police said.

The 16-year-old was hit in the lower back and right hand and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where his condition has stabilized. The 11-year-old suffered a laceration to the back of his head, possibly while fleeing, and was taken to Comer Children's Hospital, police said.

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Charges are pending for both boys.

The man, who had a valid concealed carry license, was not injured during the incident, which happened about 8:25 a.m. in the 6600 block of South Rhodes Avenue, in the city's West Woodlawn neighborhood, police said.

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When the 61-year-old arrived at his property, which was being remodeled, he saw the back door was damaged and left ajar, police said.

When he got inside to check, he was confronted by the two boys and fired shots at them, hitting the older boy, police said.

Both boys ran off but were arrested a short time later by responding Grand Crossing District officers, police said.
NEW YORK  An explosion rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood and injured 29 people, and a suspicious device discovered blocks away was safely removed early Sunday. Mayor Bill de Blasio ruled out any terror connections but called the blast an "intentional act."



"Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident," de Blasio said. "We have no credible and specific threat at this moment."



De Blasio tried to calm any fears among nervous New Yorkers, saying the explosion had no terrorist connection and wasn't related to a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey that forced the cancellation of a charity run.



"Now, I want to be clear: Whatever the cause, whatever the intention here, New Yorkers will not be intimidated," the Democratic mayor said. "We are not going to let anyone change who we are or how we go about our lives."



The explosion happened in Chelsea, a primarily residential neighborhood on Manhattan's west side that's known for its art galleries and large gay population.



It was unclear who was behind the blast and what motivated it.



A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that a second device that officers investigated four blocks from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone. The official, who was not authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street. The device was removed with a robot and taken to a department firing range in the Bronx.



The law enforcement official also said that the explosion that rocked a bustling Chelsea neighborhood appeared to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. Photos from the scene show a twisted and crumpled black metal box.

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Police officers and firefighters respond to an explosion on Sept. 17, 2016, at 23rd Street and 7th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)





The blast happened on West 23rd Street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe's supermarket. Witnesses said the explosion at about 8:30 p.m. blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris.



The Fire Department of New York said 29 people were injured, and 24 people were taken to hospitals. One person received a puncture wound that was considered serious. The other injuries were described as scrapes and bruises.



New York City subway routes were affected by the explosion, which rattled some New Yorkers and visitors on the heels of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.



Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.



"We felt it. We heard it," Gonzalez said. "It wasn't like jolting or anything. Everyone just went quiet."

Mayor Bill de Blasio, center, and NYPD Chief of Department James O'Neill, left, react during a press conference near the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, on Sept. 17, 2016. (Andres Kudacki / AP)





Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said he, at first, thought something large had fallen.



"It was an extremely loud noise. Everything was shaking, the windows were shaking," he said. "It was extremely loud, almost like thunder but louder."



The FBI and Homeland Security officials, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arson and explosive task force, were at the scene. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo toured the site Sunday.



The White House said President Barack Obama was apprised of the explosion.



Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said the nation needs to support its first responders and "pray for the victims."



"We have to let this investigation unfold," she said.

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Police and firefighters work near the scene of an explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York on Sept. 17, 2016. (Andres Kudacki / AP)





Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump moved ahead of New York City officials when he declared a "bomb went off" before officials had released details. He made the announcement minutes after stepping off his plane in Colorado Springs, Colorado.



"I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows what's going on," Trump said.



He continued, "But boy we are living in a time  we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant."



A spokeswoman for Trump didn't respond to an email asking whether he was briefed about it before taking the stage.

Police officers and firefighters respond to an explosion on Sept. 17, 2016, at 23rd Street and 7th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)





The Manhattan blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners were due to participate in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. The run was canceled, and no injuries were reported.



Also Saturday, at least eight people were injured at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in a stabbing attack. The suspect was shot dead by an off-duty police officer. The police chief said the suspect asked at least one victim if he or she was Muslim.



The investigation into the Manhattan explosion came as world leaders descend on the United Nations for a meeting Monday to address the refugee crisis and the Syrian conflict. The blast site is about 2 miles away.

Associated Press
After spending several days recovering from pneumonia at home, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, returned to the campaign trail at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, above, on Thursday. (Melina Mara / The Washington Post)

EXETER, N.H.  Tiny New Hampshire has just four votes in the electoral college, but Tim Kaine was back here for his third visit in five weeks. At back-to-back campaign appearances, Hillary Clinton's running mate offered a blunt reason for why.

"This race is close," the senator from Virginia said at a rally Thursday in this picturesque New England town. "I would rather be us right now than them. I think we have a more straightforward path to win and they have a more complicated path. But [there is] nothing to take for granted because, let's be honest, it's been a season of surprises."

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To many Democrats, the biggest surprise is that Donald Trump has mounted a comeback. Despite being battered all summer by his own missteps as well as a barrage of attack ads from Clinton, the Republican nominee has been surging in the battleground states.

Public polls over the past week show Trump leading Clinton in Ohio, Florida and Iowa; moving into a virtual tie with her in Nevada and North Carolina; and cutting into what had been comfortable Clinton leads in New Hampshire as well as Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

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Clinton's return to the campaign trail after her highly publicized bout with pneumonia came at what has turned out to be the low point for her of the general election. She is laboring to regain solid footing before the first of three debates, on Sept. 26.

Clinton said she believes Trump has helped her in recent days by reopening painful wounds with a discussion of his long-held "birther" conspiracy. After five years of peddling lies and innuendo about the circumstances of President Barack Obama's birth, Trump on Friday bowed to the facts and acknowledged for the first time that Obama was born in the United States, though he refused to apologize for his efforts to delegitimize the nation's first black president.

Joel Benenson, chief strategist and pollster for Hillary Clinton, above, calls North Carolina a "roadblock" state. "If we win North Carolina, along with Virginia, where we are in very good shape, we choke off so many paths to 270 that he's threading a needle that has a smaller eye than any previous Republican candidate," he said. (Melina Mara / The Washington Post)

It is too early to know whether the episode will be a turning point that reverses gains for him in many of the battleground states. Clinton has fundamental advantages in an electoral map that is tilted generally in favor of Democrats because of changing demographics, giving her more mathematical permutations than Trump to win.

State by state, Clinton's advisers have a sober assessment of where the race stands. But they say that if they can turn out their votes - especially among young people, a critical Democratic constituency that has registered soft support for Clinton - they have ample ways to block Trump from winning the necessary 270 electoral votes despite clear deterioration in several states.

"We expected this to tighten. We expect it to tighten even further," Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said. "That's why we built a robust campaign in all 50 states, but especially in the battleground states. It's going to come down to small margins. . . . We're spending a lot of time making sure of our vote."

For the first time since Trump secured his party's nomination in May, there is genuine confidence among Republicans that he could win. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said, "We own both the momentum and enthusiasm dynamics right now."

"Everybody loves a winner, so people now see these polls tightening where we're up, tied or within the margin of error in nearly all of the swing states," Conway said. "People are starting to see that Trump can actually pull this off."

Strategists for Clinton and her top allied super PAC, Priorities USA, are intently analyzing the polling shift to understand the forces propelling Trump.

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Nowhere have Trump's gains been more consistent than in Ohio, a swing state that Obama carried twice and where the Clinton campaign has been vastly outworking Trump's on the ground and outspending it on the airwaves. In the RealClearPolitics average of recent Ohio polls, Trump leads Clinton 42.5 percent to 40.8 percent in matchups that include both third-party nominees, Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party.

Geoff Garin, the Priorities USA pollster, said Trump's surge in Ohio and elsewhere is largely due to his consolidation of Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters. He said that at the moment, at least, these voters - the Mitt Romney coalition in 2012 - see Trump as an acceptable alternative to Clinton following several weeks of relatively disciplined campaigning by Trump.

"The phenomenon we are seeing right now primarily is just Donald Trump being normalized among Republican voters," Garin said. But, he cautioned, it "doesn't get him beyond the 2012 map in any form or fashion."

Stuart Stevens, who was Romney's chief strategist and is not backing Trump, agreed: "I don't think the structure of the race has changed. The structure favors any Democrat, and it particularly favors Clinton over Trump because Trump doesn't have a campaign."

At Clinton's New York headquarters, her aides attribute much of the movement to which candidate is under fire and which one is out of the headlines. They have seen erosion in her support among white voters during difficult weeks, though they argue that those voters have shifted to the undecided column rather than moving all the way to supporting Trump.

The Clinton campaign is pessimistic about both Ohio and Iowa, which Obama also won twice. Public polls show Trump ahead in both - and comfortably so in Iowa, an overwhelmingly white state and one of the only battleground states in which the Republican establishment has fully embraced Trump. A Monmouth University survey last week showed Trump ahead of Clinton there, 45 percent to 37 percent, with Johnson running in third, at 8 percent.

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Florida, another state Obama twice carried, remains extremely competitive, according to public and private polls, and probably will be until the end. Clinton advisers, however, note that they can lose all three of those states and still win the presidency.

Their position is strengthened, they argue, by what they say are strong standings in Virginia and Colorado because of the demographics there, though some public polls show a tightening race in the latter.

Clinton advisers are zeroing in on North Carolina as a potential back-breaker for Trump. In 2012, it was the only major swing state that Romney had won, but it is by no means a sure thing for Trump. The RealClearPolitics average of polls there has Clinton hanging to a razor-tight lead, 42.8 percent to Trump's 42.2 percent, with Johnson at 7.2 percent.

Joel Benenson, Clinton's chief strategist and pollster, called North Carolina a "roadblock" state. "If we win North Carolina, along with Virginia, where we are in very good shape, we choke off so many paths to 270 that he's threading a needle that has a smaller eye than any previous Republican candidate."

Trump has demonstrated growing support across much of the Midwest, and Clinton's team is closely watching Pennsylvania and Michigan, two states Republicans haven't won in six straight elections. Clinton's campaign has invested heavily in its ground organization in both states. A campaign official said that if Michigan became truly competitive, "that would create complications" in their electoral college calculations.

New Hampshire's four electoral votes and Nevada's six votes might seem trivial at first glance, but both campaigns recognize that if the election ends up in a photo finish, either or both of those states could play decisive roles.

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Hours after Kaine's appearances here Thursday, Trump punctuated the attention New Hampshire is getting with an evening rally at the middle school in Laconia.

An overall worry for Clinton is the apparent lack of enthusiasm among millennials; polls show her underperforming compared with Obama's results among younger voters. Clinton advisers say that young people are "allergic to Trump," as one put it, but not fully sold on Clinton. The campaign's fear is that young voters either stay home in November or decide to cast ballots for one of the third-party candidates. "We need to get them feeling better about her," one official said.

Benenson said of voters ages 18 to 34, "We are going to continue to galvanize them, organize them and get them out to the polls in November."

To that end, Kaine visited a hip art cafe Thursday in Portsmouth, N.H., where he spotlighted issues for young professionals. He seized on Trump's new child-care policy requiring six weeks of paid maternity leave for mothers, but no benefits for fathers, as a way of stamping Trump as a candidate from "an older era" whose idea does not take into account today's generation of families.

Two liberal Clinton supporters popular with millennials - Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts) - are fanning out to college campuses across Ohio this weekend on Clinton's behalf.

Coming out of the two July conventions, Clinton registered solid and in some cases double-digit leads nationally and in the swing states. The conventional wisdom focused not on whether Clinton would beat Trump but on how big her landslide might be.

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Clinton's aides said one of their biggest concerns then was complacency - that her supporters, believing Clinton's win to be in the bag, would do little to volunteer in the fall or, worse, stay home on Election Day. For a campaign without much to celebrate in the polls, the new atmosphere at least is a welcome antidote.

"I'm not a big landslide guy," Kaine told the Exeter crowd. "Hillary's attitude is, 'I'm an underdog - until I'm the winner.' "
SEATTLE  A day after he learned he would be left out of the first presidential debate, Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson called it "a rigged game" as he campaigned on his platform of social liberalism and fiscal conservatism in downtown Seattle.



Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, held a rally in a packed ballroom at the Seattle Sheraton hotel Saturday afternoon, followed by a fundraiser.



The visit came a day after the Commission on Presidential Debates announced he did not qualify for the first presidential debate  a major blow to his campaign  after he failed to reach the required 15 percent polling threshold. Only Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump will take part in the Sept. 26 nationally televised debate.



"It's a rigged game, man," Johnson said in a news conference before the rally. "Democrats and Republicans make up the presidential debate commission, 15 percent is not the law. It's Democrats and Republicans not wanting a Ross Perot on the stage again."





Johnson is polling at an average 8 percent nationally, the commission said, although he was as high as 16 percent in a Washington Post poll of Washington state conducted in August.



Before the rally, hundreds of supporters in the ballroom chanted "Let Gary Debate."



While Clinton is a heavy favorite in the state in November, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won an overwhelming victory in Washington's Democratic caucuses last spring.



Johnson acknowledged to reporters that he attracts a lot of Sanders supporters, but added, "It's not a strategy."



One of those Sanders supporters is Taylor Gonzales, a student at the University of Puget Sound who attended the Johnson rally. He was disappointed that Sanders had endorsed Clinton.

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"Find the issue that polls the highest and just go there," Gonzales said. "I just feel like that's Hillary's lifetime M.O."



Johnson was joined in Seattle by his running mate, Bill Weld, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, as well as by two celebrities with local ties  former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and Drew Carey, comedian, actor and an owner of the Seattle Sounders.



The odds of a Johnson-Weld victory are long, but Weld had little interest in saying which of the major-party candidates he'd prefer to see in the White House.



"We don't want to argue against ourselves," Weld said at the news conference. "You can tell I've reserved most of my negative comments for Mr. Trump."



Wearing a Seahawks 12th Man jersey for the rally, Weld criticized Clinton for her support of military intervention in Libya and Syria, but had harsher criticism for Trump, calling his false claim that Clinton started the "birther" movement "a complete lie."





"The two major candidates, but chiefly Mr. Trump, have succeeded in getting everyone's teeth on edge," Weld said. "Donald Trump seems to want to go out and make everybody feel bad about being an American."



Johnson took the stage and immediately addressed a recent flub  when he asked "what is Aleppo?" in a recent television interview, in reference to the war-ravaged Syrian city.



"I want to start out with an apology on this Aleppo gaffe," Johnson said. "I care about these issues because I don't want our men and service women maimed or killed."



Johnson favors legalized marijuana, same-sex marriage and abortion rights. But he is fiscally conservative  he doesn't believe there should be a national minimum wage, he wants to replace the income tax with a national sales tax, and says he would submit a balanced federal budget.



"Fiscally conservative, socially inclusive, skeptical of military interventions, regime change, favoring free trade," Johnson said of his agenda. "Always come down on the side of personal choice. Shouldn't you and I be able to decide in our own lives?"

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He opposes the death penalty and spoke about the racial discrepancies in the criminal-justice system.



"All lives matter, but black lives matter and let me tell you why," he told the crowd. "If you are white and they take you out of your car, they don't start shoving you around "



Johnson wants to abolish the federal departments of Education, Homeland Security, Commerce, and Housing and Urban Development.



He touted himself as the candidate most supportive of free trade and the only one who backs the Trans-Pacific Partnership.



He wants an open policy on immigration, saying we should embrace anyone who wants to come here and work. "And building a wall across the border is just nuts," he said.



Johnson said that he would submit a balanced budget within his first 100 days in office, without raising taxes. That would require slashing about 20 percent of federal spending, a massive cut on a scale not seen since just after World War II. Even the most ardent deficit hawks in Congress have proposed plans they say would balance the budget over a span of five to 10 years, not in one fell swoop.



Johnson said he would look to block-grant Medicaid to the states, "devolve Medicare to the states," means-test and raise the retirement age on Social Security, and shut down American military bases across the nation and world.



"Can there be reform and can there still be a health-care safety net? Absolutely," Johnson said.



Pressed by reporters on how he would cut so much, specifically from Medicaid, without taking away health care from people, Johnson was at a loss for specifics.



"Well, if it means not having cellphones," he said. "There's things that can be done that, in my opinion, nobody's without and you can still deliver those essential services."





Unlike many Republicans, he says climate change is real and caused by humans, but is hesitant when asked if government has a role in fighting it. He said he's not sure whether he would continue implementation of the Clean Power Plan, President Obama's flagship environmental rule to cut carbon emissions from power plants.



The finalized Clean Power Plan  on hold pending a court decision  was released more than a year ago, but Johnson said he didn't know the "particulars" and couldn't take a position on it.



Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is presented with a gift during an event with The Remembrance Project on Sept. 17, 2016, in Houston. (Evan Vucci / AP)

HOUSTON  Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton's record on immigration in a speech Saturday, accusing her of "effectively proposing to abolish the borders," even as Clinton has vowed to protect them.

"Hillary Clinton is the person - and I mean the first person - to ever run for the presidency of a country effectively proposing to abolish the borders around the country that she is supposed to be representing," said Trump.

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Clinton's plan, however, calls for the government to "uphold the rule of law" and to "protect our borders." She backs a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, while Trump does not.

The Republican presidential nominee made his remarks at a luncheon hosted by the Remembrance Project, a nonprofit organization that says it "advocates for families whose loved ones were killed by illegal aliens." Many people at the event wore shirts or passed out cards paying tribute to their lost relatives.

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Trump said his debates with his Democratic rival will be "a very interesting period of time."

The Republican brought several people who have lost family members to illegal immigrants to speak on stage, including Laura Wilkerson.

"If we are all deplorables, we are doing something right," said Wilkerson, referencing Clinton's recent remark that half of Trump supporters are a "basket of deplorables." Clinton later said she regretted labeling "half" his backers in that way.

Trump delivered an immigration speech in Arizona last month in which he strongly suggested he would try to deport as many people as possible. He vowed to crack down especially hard on illegal immigrants who have committed crimes aside from being in the country without proper documentation. A Washington Post analysis found that Trump's plan would immediately target 5 million to 6.5 million or more undocumented immigrants for swift removal.

"Our nation should not accept one lost American life because our country failed to enforce its laws," Trump said here Saturday.
A 27-year-old Chicago woman was in critical condition Sunday morning after a head-on collision this weekend on Route 12 in Volo, according to police.

Five people were injured in the crash that occurred at 4 p.m. Saturday, and four people have been treated and released from a hospital, according to reports.

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The crash occurred on Route 12 just south of Route 120, when a Chevrolet Impala driven northbound by the Chicago woman traveled over the center median "for unknown reasons" and crashed into a southbound Kia Sedona van, said Lake County sheriff's office spokesman Detective Christopher Covelli.

Both drivers had to be extricated from their vehicles by the Wauconda Fire Department, and the Chicago woman was transported by rescue helicopter to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, where she remained in critical condition late Sunday morning, Covelli said.

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The 44-year old Round Lake Beach man driving the Kia also was transported to Condell by helicopter with non-life threatening injuries, according to police.

Three passengers in the Kia, a 39 year-old woman, a 5-year-old girl, and a 3-year-old boy, all of Round Lake Beach, were transported by ambulance to Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington with non-life threatening injuries, according to reports.

Covelli said the driver of the van and all three passengers had been released from the hospital by Sunday morning.

An investigation into the crash is being run by the Lake County sheriff's office Technical Crash Investigations Unit.

jrnewton@tribpub.com

Twitter @jimnewton5
Thousands of people lined the streets of downtown Waukegan Sunday for a celebration of Mexico at the city's annual Fiestas Patrias parade and festival.

Organizers estimated 10,000 people might show up based on past attendance, and with the perfect sunny day as a backdrop, it looked Sunday afternoon as if that estimate may have been reached.

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Gabby Lopez, a Waukegan native who moved to Kenosha recently, said she was struck by the number of people at the event.

"We couldn't even find any place to park," said Lopez, who attended the parade and the festival with relatives.

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Translated to English, "fiestas patrias" means patriotic holidays. Lopez said she believes the event, described locally as an Independence Day celebration for Mexico and other countries such as Belize and Honduras, is especially important for the children. Lopez was happy that her 11-year-old niece Ariana Nobles-Guzman was so enthusiastic about going.

Chinelo dancers celebrating their traditions during Waukegan's annual Fiestas Patrias parade on Sunday, September 18, 2016. (Mark Kodiak Ukena / Lake County News-Sun)

"She started calling me at 10:30 this morning asking, 'Are you ready?' It's good for her to see her culture," Lopez said. "That way, growing up, she will continue coming here and bring her own kids."

Ariana said she saw a picture of the event online and told her family she wanted to go.

"I wanted to come here because my family is Mexican," she said.

Rosemary Solis, of Waukegan, said she wanted to expose her children to the cultural aspects of the event as she watched the colorful parade come down Washington Street with her three children, including Yadira Solis, 10.

"We're celebrating our country and cheering," Yadira said. "We'll probably stay for the whole day."

"It's just become an event we all celebrate," said chief organizer Porfirio Garcia, who led the parade on Washington Street from Butrick Street to Sheridan Road, where the festival was held afterward. "I'm proud of the families and kids who come out to celebrate their culture."

Waukegan's annual Fiestas Patrias parade, commemorating the Constitution of 1917, promulgated after the Mexican Revolution, on Sunday, September 18, 2016. (Mark Kodiak Ukena / Lake County News-Sun)

Waukegan spokesman David Motley said it's not just one segment of the community that comes out for the event.

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"One of the things Waukegan residents can do is have fun together. It's not just one culture; we celebrate cultural differences," Motley said.

"There's a prime example," he said, as he pointed to marchers in the parade carrying American and Mexican flags side by side.

As the parade was winding down, the festival was heating up. Kids played in bounce houses as the air filled with the smells of outdoor cooking, and adults sat under tents and sampled a variety of cuisine from Mexico, Honduras and other countries.

Participating for the first year was La Luz del Mundo Church of Waukegan, which served up food booth specialties, including pupusas, a Central American dish that volunteer Flory Cruz described as tortillas stuffed with a variety of fillings.

"Authentic Mexican and Honduran food, we do both," Cruz said. "We're celebrating the independence of Mexico and Honduras. Half of our church is Mexican and half is Honduran."

Clearview Elementary School students showing their pride during Waukegan's annual Fiestas Patrias parade on Sunday, September 18, 2016. (Mark Kodiak Ukena / Lake County News-Sun)

Cruz said her two children were enjoying the event.

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"It's important that they can learn about their culture when they are young," she said.

Mayor Wayne Motley said he fulfilled a longtime wish by riding a horse in the parade, although he is more at home on a Harley-Davidson.

"This brings our community together," the mayor said. "We renew friendships and enjoy the independence of our countries."

jrnewton@tribpub.com

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Yoram Gal, an artist from Israel, said he has shown his work at the Riverwalk Fine Art Fair in Naperville many times and has work in galleries all over the world. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)

When it comes to a love of art and its expression, some people know no bounds.

Take Yoram Gal, 64, who traveled from his native Israel by way of New York to be one of 130 exhibitors taking part in this weekend's 31st annual Riverwalk Fine Art Fair.

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"I've been to this show seven or eight times, and have been touring like this for 14 years and been all over the world," Gal said. "People ask me why I come so far, and I tell them I've found a market here in America. It's the only place where there are open air art fairs."

The two-day juried exhibit draws about 76,000 people annually. Should it rain, numbers could be down a little, but Naperville Art League Executive Director Debbie Venezia, who oversees the fair, said its participants are "art warriors."

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"We've done the show rain or shine, and it doesn't stop us," Venezia said. "I feel that the number of exhibitors we have is just about optimal. There are larger art shows, but I think people just have to hurry through them to see everything. We try to give people more space between the booths, and I think it's a lot more effective for shopping and browsing."

Hilary DElia and her son Joel, 11, both of Naperville, look at artwork together Saturday during the 31st Annual Riverwalk Fine Art Fair in downtown Naperville. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)

This year's show includes a wide range of art mediums, including oil and acrylic, ceramic, glass, 2D mixed media, jewelry, wood, photography and digital. Venezia said exhibitors are not just from Israel but Canada, Mexico and a wide range of states, including Texas, Georgia and Kansas.

"There are often clusters of people that come from a similar area that have 'art' communities," she said. "About half the artists returning here are repeating. The others are new."

Gal said, "America is the only place where a man might see a painting and say to his wife, 'How do you think that would look over the fireplace?' and buy it," he said.

"It's not impulse buying. It's having that open-minded mind set," he said. "In Europe and other places, it can take people months or years. It's always, 'What will my neighbors or colleagues say?' People here think independently."

Buying was very much on the minds of John and Cathy Boll, of Aurora, who came with friend Holly Guzzardi, also from Aurora. Cathy Boll said she recently bought a piece of art at a Geneva exhibit and wanted to see if the artist had more in his Naperville display.

"I got sidetracked today," she said. "I saw some wall art and I'm looking at things made from textile and metal as well as some pottery."

Winfield artist Marge Hall creates floral paintings while others look on Saturday at the 31st Annual Riverwalk Fine Art Fair. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)

John Boll said he and his wife are updating their house and its decorations, and calls his buying "project-oriented."

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"We're remodeling and fixing things up, and we're looking to add something that is new and colorful," he said. "Normally, I wouldn't go to something like this, but now I'm hooked."

Guzzardi said she is a hard core art aficionado.

"I tell people if I won the lottery, I'd buy art," she said. "I've only been to art fairs in Geneva and Oak Brook, but I wind up buying something 75 percent of the time, even though I say I'm only looking."

Local artists like Marge Hall, of Winfield, said she likes to come to the local fair and create paintings in front of customers.

"I've been painting and teaching since 1970, and started doing the flower paintings I do now in 1990," she said. "I like to work while people browse so I can tell them about the process. It feels good to do this in front of them so they can see it."

John Boll, from left, his wife Cathy and their friend Holly Guzzardi, all from Aurora, check out artwork Saturday at the 31st Annual Riverwalk Fine Art Fair in Naperville. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)

Naperville artist Laurie Pollpeter Eskenazi said she creates art "with contemporary sensibilities and a sense of nostalgia."

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"This is a great venue, and I think people in Naperville really appreciate the show," she said.

Hilary D'Elia, of Naperville, who attended the show with husband J.D. and 11-year-old son Joel, said she saw work from Iowa artist Chris Vance when he was at art show at Naper Settlement art show earlier this year and hoped to see more Saturday.

"My husband and I agree on the kind of art Vance does, and we think it's unique with vibrant colors," she said. She added that she wanted her son to be exposed to art and "have an appreciation for creativity."

Joel D'Elia expressed mixed feelings.

"I'm bored," he said, when asked how the show was going. "I did sign up at school for art club, though. I think my favorite stuff is the sculpture."

The Riverwalk Fine Art Fair continues in downtown Naperville continues from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

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David Sharos is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
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FAW Group, a state-owned car manufacturer, will recall 22,817 Mazda cars due to defected dusk seal rings, according to China's top quality supervisor.

The affected vehicles include 3,881 Mazda CX-7 cars manufactured between Jan. 6, 2013 and Aug. 13, 2014, and 18,936 Mazda 8 cars manufactured between April 19, 2010 and July 21, 2014, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement.

The defected dusk seal rings can cause dysfunction of the lower control arms of these vehicles and result in safety problems, said the statement.

FAW will check and replace the defective parts free of charge. The recall will start April 14, 2017.
A customer receives his iPhone 7 at an Apple store in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, Sept. 16, 2016.

Apple fans from Shanghai to Sydney, the first customers worldwide to snap up the new iPhone 7, cheered as they left stores on Friday brandishing their purchases, flanked by applauding sales staff.

But underneath the usual fanfare, the crowds of enthusiasts and overnight campers were smaller than in past years.

In part, online pre-ordering has made queues unnecessary for all but diehard fans, and in Chinese stores only those who had ordered in advance were queuing to collect.

Yet in markets like China online interest in the new phone has also been muted compared to past launches, as cheaper local brands amp up their features, design and marketing.

The iPhone 7, which Apple claims is splash and water resistant, features faster chips and wireless headphones. It costs from 5,388 yuan (US$816) in China while the iPhone 7 Plus, which has two cameras, starts at 6,388 yuan.

Wu Ting, a 28-year-old from Nanjing, was surprised to find herself first in line at a downtown Apple store in Shanghai yesterday.

"I found last year that there were crowds of people, but this year almost no one. I came an hour early thinking I'd have to wait a long time before getting seen," Wu said.

Li Jun, a Shanghai designer, paid online for a jet black iPhone 128GB because it had "the fastest chip, best camera and a nice design."

Sales in China will be the acid test for Apple's year ahead. The success of the iPhone 6 in China drove sales last year, while the slower-burn 6S contributed to Apple's first global revenue drop in over a decade earlier this year.

Chatter about the iPhone 7 launch on Weibo has been far more muted than when the

iPhone 6 debuted in 2014. An index of searches on Baidu Inc, China's most popular search engine, shows the new phone lagging behind both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5.

Apple's China sales dropped by a third in April-June, albeit after more than doubling a year earlier, while its market share has fallen to around 7.8 percent, placing it fifth behind local rivals Huawei, OPPO and Vivo.

Apple has been slower to adapt, consumers and analysts say -- the new iPhone has few major changes to win over fickle shoppers and the firm's marketing has been generic.

"From Steve Jobs to Tim Cook, Apple has never had any marketing strategy tailor-made for China," said Zhou Zhanggui, a strategic consultant. "Apple risks losing out more if it does not better cater to local demands in its marketing as well as product design."

However, Credit Suisse said it expects Apple to sell 215 million iPhones this year and 221 million units in 2017.

In Beijing's fashionable Sanlitun shopping district, several people who had already grabbed new iPhone 7s were hawking them for a markup just outside a flagship store.

Scalpers were out in Shanghai, too, offering the new phones at a premium of 500-2,500 yuan.

There has been much chatter among Apple fans since the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus were unveiled about the decision to eliminate headphone jacks and embrace a wireless future. But yesterday most talk focused on supply issues.

Apple shares finished up 3.4 percent at US$115.56 on Thursday as the firm said the iPhone 7 Plus and jet black version of the iPhone 7 had already sold out in pre-orders.
A model shows the new smartphone P9 of Huawei in Hanoi, Vietnam, July 14, 2016. [Xinhua]

Against the latest launches of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus by Apple Inc., domestic cell phone producers are less peripheral than before in competing with the global tech-giant, thanks to their emphasis on research and development (R&D).

According to China Academy of Information and Telecommunication Research (CAITR), shipments of domestic cell phones hit 44.712 million in August, registering a year-on-year increase of 6.2 percent. Domestic producers released 114 new smart phone series, an increase of 44.3 percent year-on-year.

The good sales momentum of domestic smart phones is absolutely due to technological innovation, the Guangming Daily reported.

Last year, Huawei, one of China's leading smart phone and telecommunication technology providers, gave full play to its R&D center by building up a talent pool of 79,000 people, accounting for 45 percent of its entire employment,accounting for expenditure of 15.1 percent of gross income.

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei said:"The R&D center has contributed a lot to the company's growth. It's required to keep on exploring new technologies and, more importantly, respond to the specific client demands, thus becoming highly sensitive to the needs of customers."

The scandal over the explosive Lithium-ion batteries of Galaxy Note 7 produced by Samsung contrasts with the bullet-proof P8-Lite made by Huawei, which saved the life of a South African citizen when attacked by two robbers, Xiang Ligang, a telecommunications analyst said.

"The incident reestablished the prestige of the 'made-in-China' slogan," Xiang said.

Hu Houkun, rotating CEO of Huawei, said, using cloud computing to search of solutions to capricious market demands reflects Huawei's customer-centered approach.

The stable growth of Chinese smart phones in the domestic market has empowered cell phone makers, such as, OPPO and vivo, in addition to Huawei,to expand into global markets.

Moreover, some experts say that, despite the enormous size of shipments, the domestically-made smart phones in China are still less profitable due to their low prices and are expected to focus more on high-end markets for fat rewards.
More details have emerged on Premier Li Keqiang's upcoming debut at the UN General Assembly, a trip that will include Li meeting his Canadian counterpart and becoming the first Chinese premier to visit Cuba in more than half a century.

The whirlwind of activities will take place in an 11-day journey that starts on Sunday.

The premier is expected to expound on Beijing's viewpoints regarding the international order, development and global governance at the annual general debate of the UN session, kick off a meeting between Chinese and Canadian premiers that is set to become a regular event, and most likely meet with legendary Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro, according to diplomats and analysts.

While attending the 71st session of the UN General Assembly between Sunday and Wednesday, Li is expected to tell the world how China has delivered on the promises President Xi Jinping made at last year's session, Yang Xiyu, a researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, said on Friday.

At the UN Sustainable Development Summit last September, Xi said China would establish an assistance fund for South-South cooperation, with an initial pledge of $2 billion to support developing countries. Xi also announced China's decision to establish a 10-year, $1 billion China-UN peace and development fund to support the UN's work at last year's UN session.

During the annual UN session this year, China will release a country report on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  the first country to release such a report. It follows the action plan formulated at the recent G20 meeting in Hangzhou for implementing the agenda, which is a blueprint for ending poverty and hunger, promoting equality and protecting environment for the years leading up to 2030, according to Yang.

"The presence of Chinese president and premier at the consecutive UN sessions indicate China attaches great importance to the UN and supports the organization in playing its role," Yang said.

During his stay in New York, the premier is expected to attend the general debate, and chair a symposium on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and China's ways of doing that.

He is expected to announce "pragmatic moves" in support of the work of the UN and in addressing global challenges such as terrorism, refugee crises and infectious diseases, Vice-Foreign Minister Li Baodong said this week.

Also on the agenda is a meeting to be hosted by the Economic Club of New York, a nonprofit membership organization with members drawn from the top executive levels of business, industry and finance.

"This public diplomacy arrangement indicates the premier wants to have close contact and direct conversations with people in business, finance and industry circles," Yang said.

The premier will then fly to Canada for a flurry of activities, including meeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, and attending an economic and trade forum in Montreal, according to sources with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In their meeting in Beijing around half a month ago, the two premiers announced the two countries would launch an annual dialogue between both heads of government to boost bilateral relations and exchanges of views on international affairs.

"Li's visit will mark the official start of the dialogue mechanism, which indicates the two countries are well on the way to a more mature and stable relationship," Yang said.

While Li's visit to Canada was the first by a Chinese premier in 13 years, he would be the first Chinese premier ever to visit Cuba since Beijing and Havana established formal relations in 1960.

Liu Xiuqin, Chinese ambassador to the Caribbean country between 2010 and 2012, said Chinese presidents have all visited Cuba since 1993, each at least once, but none of its premiers has visited the island nation.

Premier Li's historic visit would result in enhanced political relations, and ramped-up cooperation in trade, she said.

Asked if Fidel Castro would meet Li, Liu said she believed that the former Cuban leader would surely meet the Chinese premier as long as his health permits.

Xu Shicheng, a senior researcher of Latin American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also predicted the meeting would happen.

Xu said that building on the traditional relations of the two countries, Premier Li's visit would lend a strong boost to bilateral trade.

The two-way trade between the two countries has remained about $2 billion in recent years, which Xu said doesn't match the momentum of their good relations.
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The Egyptian team investigating the crashed EgyptAir flight MS804 did not receive any new evidence related to TNT traces on the flight wreckage from French investigators, an Egyptian official was quoted by state-run Ahram Online website as saying on Saturday.

The remarks came one day after French newspaper Le Figaro reported that French investigators found traces of TNT on the flight wreckage.

"The investigation committee has not received any technical reports on investigation results from the (interior ministry's) criminal lab or the general prosecution on the matter," the Egyptian civil aviation ministry's media department head Bassem Samy told Ahram Online.

The crashed plane went missing from radar screens on May 19 en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people onboard, including 30 Egyptians and 15 French.

Le Figaro also reported that Egyptian judicial authorities prevented investigators from further examination of the wreckage.

"The committee is still working to identify the technical causes of the crash," Samy said, adding that any new results of the probe will be announced once verified.

In July, the investigation committee said the black boxes of the crashed plane suggested a fire on board. The probe is still ongoing with all theories on the table, yet without a strong clue for any.
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The U.S.-led coalition killed 62 Syrian government troops and injured some 100 others in a round of airstrikes in eastern Syria's province of Deir al-Zour, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday.

"Today, in areas close to the Deir ez-Zor Airport, the aircraft from the international anti-Islamic State coalition carried out four air-strikes against units of the Syrian government troops surrounded by terrorists," the ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

The operation left 62 Syrian servicemen dead and about 100 injured, the spokesman said, adding that the warplanes entered the airspace of Syria from the Iraqi border.

Syria's national TV also confirmed the killing of Syrian servicemen by the U.S.-led coalition.
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The Sudanese government on Saturday said it would not negotiate with opposition forces, whether civilian or military, after end of the national dialogue conference, according to a senior Sudanese official.

"Despite the government's attempts to reach permanent peace and achieve security and stability, the opposition forces, which are driven by foreign agenda, are not serious in their endeavors to reach the aspired peace," said Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid, Sudanese Presidential Assistant, when addressing a meeting for the parties' affairs council Saturday.

He noted the opposition forces stick to weak excuses and repeatedly work to abort the negotiations despite the concessions presented by the government during the negotiation rounds to reach peace.

"No party is allowed to reach power by force of arms, save for through the ballot boxes," he added.

In January 2014, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir launched the national dialogue conference which started in October 2015 and concluded in February 2016 with its recommendations to be approved by a general assembly, slated for next October.

Major Sudanese political parties such as the opposition National Umma Party refused to participate in the conference.

The armed groups in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions also refused to participate in the conference.

The opposition insisted that based on the decisions by the AU Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council, a conference should be held to bring together all the Sudanese political forces to initiate an equitable dialogue with the government, a demand that the Sudanese government rejected.

The most recent round of talks between the government and the opposition ended last August in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa without reaching a peace deal.
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The Pentagon said on Saturday a U.S.-led coalition airstrike against the Islamic State may have unintentionally targeted Syrian government forces.

Syrian children slide down rubble of destroyed a building in the rebel-held city of Daraa, in southwestern Syria on September 12, 2016 as Muslims mark the first day of Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) holiday. [Photo/Xinhua]

"Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh fighting position," said a Pentagon statement, referring to the extremist group in its Arabic acronym.

"The coalition air strike was halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military," said the statement.

The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier Saturday the U.S.-led coalition killed 62 Syrian government troops and injured some 100 others in a round of airstrikes in eastern Syria's province of Deir al-Zour.

"Today, in areas close to the Deir al-Zour Airport, the aircraft from the international anti-Islamic State coalition carried out four airstrikes against units of the Syrian government troops surrounded by terrorists," the ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

The warplanes entered the airspace of Syria from the Iraqi border, the spokesman said.

Syria's national TV also confirmed the killing of Syrian servicemen by the U.S.-led coalition.
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The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) on Saturday denied allegations by the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch that the agency and the Kenyan government were harassing and intimidating Somali refugees in Kenya to let them return home.

UNHCR's Representative in Kenya, Raouf Mazou, said in a statement that the agency was working closely with Kenya to ensure that Somali refugees' rights were upheld and that solutions were found to enable them to live in peace and security, including voluntary repatriation in conditions of safety and dignity.

The UNHCR and Kenya are repatriating Somali refugees living in northern Kenya's Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp currently harboring more than 300,000 Somalis, as Kenya said it would close the camp in November, citing mainly security concerns.

Dadaab was set up over 20 years ago to house Somalis fleeing civil conflict.

The Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Kenya was not giving the Somalis a real choice between being repatriated or staying, and that Kenya's repatriation program does not meet international standards for voluntary return of refugees.

The rights group said refugees described intimidation by the Kenyan government, silence over alternative options that would allow them to remain in Kenya, and inadequate information on conditions in Somalia.

It said that many refugees living in Kenya's Dadaab camp say they have agreed to return home because they feared Kenya will force them out if they stay. It also accused the UNHCR of not giving the refugees accurate information about security conditions in Somalia.

In response, the UNHCR said in its statement: "Central to any refugee return process is the principle of voluntariness. In all of our engagements with government officials, refugees and other stakeholders, we have consistently stressed that repatriation must be voluntary and cannot, therefore, be time-bound."

The statement says the UNHCR is committed to ensuring that all Somalia refugees receive adequate information about conditions in their country of origin and are able to make an informed decision regarding return.

"We regularly meet with refugees, and broadcast radio messages in English and Somali, emphasizing that returns must be voluntary and based on an informed decision," the statement said.

"We are also strengthening our Return Help Desks in Dadaab and Kakuma (another refugee camp in Kenya), working closely with colleagues and partners in Somalia to provide the most up-to-date information," it added.

The statement also said the Somalis returning home were receiving the necessary support, including financial assistance and basic relief items to facilitate.

The UNHCR says that prior to Kenya's decision to close the Dadaab camp, several thousand refugees had registered their intention to return, many of whom have since voluntarily gone back to Somalia.

"Over the past five years, the Somali refugee population in Dadaab has reduced by some 160,000 individuals," the statement said.

It also said the UNHCR recognizes the challenges that Kenya has expressed with regard to the Somali refugee situation in the country -- "one of the most protracted in the world".

Kenya, UNHCR and Somalia have laid down plans to repatriate about 150,000 Somali refugees in Dadaab by the end of 2016.
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This cellphone photo taken on Sept. 17, 2016 shows the police blocking a road after an explosion in New York, the United States. [Photo/Xinhua]

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said Saturday that there is "no evidence at this point of a terror connection" to an explosion in New York Saturday evening, in which twenty-nine people were injured.

The mayor made the remarks at a news conference Saturday night, saying the real cause of the explosion is still under investigation.

"Early indications are that this was an intentional act," the mayor said, adding that "There is no specific and credible threat against New York City at this point in time from any terror organization."

Twenty-nine people were injured in the explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York on Saturday evening.

Low Enforcement sources have reportedly said they found a device that appeared to be pressure cooker near the explosion site.

Ma Chao, consular of Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in New York, told Xinhua that there has been no report of injuries of Chinese citizens so far.

The Consulate General made a statement following the blast, saying they have made contact with the New York Police Department and will following the case closely.

"We are ready to provide assistance and protection for Chinese citizens when needed", said the statement.

Meanwhile, Hotel Chinese Association of USA, Inc, a non-profit organization based in New York, said in a statement following the explosion, adding that "every member should obey the city government's well-known saying 'See something say something'.

In order to ensure safety in hotels, anyone who sees a suspicious subject or activity in a hotel should report to supervisors or security guards, according to the statement.

The incident occurred just three days before the opening of 71st Session of the UN General Assembly in the UN Headquarters in New York. The host city of the world body is already on high alert to guarantee the security of visiting heads of state or government.

Right opposite to the UN Headquarters on Manhattan's 1st Avenue, four police officers on duty told Xinhua that they have been in position since 4 p.m. Saturday. But they said that they didn't get any special alert or instructions following the Chelsea blast.

Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee gave a speech in Colorado about 30 minutes after the blast.

"Just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows exactly what's going on," Trump said.

"We've got to get very tough," Trump said. "It's a terrible thing what's going on in our world, what's going on in our country, but we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant and we are going to end it."

Meanwhile, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said she has been briefed "about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attack in Minnesota."

She said the nation needs to support its first responders and "pray for the victims."

"We have to let this investigation unfold," she said.

The White House said President Barack Obama has been briefed on the explosion in New York City and will be updated as additional information becomes available.

Apir Chaudhury, a sales associate working on a night shift at a 7-11 convenience store on 5th avenue, said that he didn't hear the explosion, but around 9 p.m., police closed up the roads and started to check everything. The young man looked undisturbed by the incident at all, saying "Now I just wanna go home and sleep".

After living in this city for six years, you don't get scared by such things", a female cashier in the store added.

Officer Bressack with the NYPD's Strategic Response Group told Xinhua that he and his colleagues were called in for duty shortly after the blast occurred, and rushed all the way from Queensboro to the scene.

There could be all kinds of causes for the explosion, and people have to wait for the investigation results. "I have seen so many of this, and I can only say this was not the first and won't be the last," said the police veteran who had served for 22 years.

New York City Police Department issued an updated statement, saying "As a precautionary measure, we are asking residents who live on West 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan to stay away from windows facing 27th Street until we clear the area of a suspicious package. This is a precautionary measure only, we are not evacuating the area".
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh (Source: VNA)

He was welcomed by Venezuelas first Vice President Aristobulo Isturiz at the airport.



Deputy PM Minh is scheduled to deliver a speech at the event.



Earlier, on September 15th-16th, Deputy Foreign Minister Ha Kim Ngoc participated in the NAM Ministerial Meeting, which aimed to prepare for the summit.



The Non-Aligned Movement is the second largest international organization in the world, after the United Nations (UN). It currently has 120 member states, 17 observer countries, and 10 observer organisations.



According to the organising board, the 17 th summit has to date seen the presence of 128 delegations from 108 official member countries, six observer countries, eight international orgnisations and six honourary guests./.
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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang left on Sunday afternoon for attending the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly and official visits to Canada and Cuba, accompanied by his wife Cheng Hong.

Li's trip, from Sept. 18 to 28, was at the invitation of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and President of the Cuban Council of State and Council of Ministers Raul Castro Ruz, respectively, according to the foreign ministry.
(Photo: dangcongsan.vn)

Chairman of the association Nguyen Van Thuan said Vietnamese people always remember the valuable assistance of the Armenian State and people during the struggle for national independence and territorial integrity, which significantly contributed to the establishment of the friendship between the two countries.



He also thanked Armenia for supporting Vietnamese students in the country.



Armenian Ambassador Raisa Vardanyan expressed his belief that the bilateral ties will thrive in the near future, especially in economy, culture and education. He said his embassy welcomes and supports activities to enhance the Vietnam  Armenia traditional friendship.



Vietnam and Armenia set up diplomatic relations in 1992 and since then the bilateral cooperation has expanded across the fields. The two sides have also coordinated and supported each other at international forums.

The Vietnam  Armenia Friendship Association in particular has helped maintain and strengthen solidarity, amity and mutual understanding between the two nations people./.
Chinese local brands are outperforming western brands, but Chinese women's appetite for South Korean beauty products continues, according to an industry report.

According to a report on Facial Skincare released by Mintel Group Ltd this month, domestic companies including Pehchaolin Daily Chemical Co Ltd and Shanghai Shangmei Cosmetics Ltd saw significant gains in market share. Intensive investment in mass marketing and distribution channels has helped both companies grow rapidly in the short term. Booming e-commerce has also helped both companies to acquire more users without opening physical stores during the last five years.

More importantly, consumers have realized local brands are better value for money than most of the international brands. Mintel has tracked the product usage in 2015 and 2016.

Facial cleanser remains the most used product among both women and men. Facial masks have replaced moisturizers and have become the second most used product after cleanser. Chinese women's appetite for K-beauty continues.

Some 33 percent said South Korean brands are their most often purchased brands, which rank the highest amongst all listed countries of origin. Chinese women are enthusiastic fans of cosmetics endorsed by South Korean celebrities, particularly those popular with young audiences aged 20-24. They are tempted to buy skincare brands used by leading actors in South Korean TV dramas. Chinese women have established a distinctive association of brands from different countries.

As a result, their purchase motivations are driven by these distinctive perceptions. The facial skincare market was worth more than 91 billion yuan ($13.7 billion) by the end of 2015, a year-on-year growth of 11.5 percent. The robust growth of domestic brands as well as brands from South Korea has expanded the market size further.

Looking ahead, the market will continue to see strong growth supported by the demand for the anti-aging and antipollution products.
SOFIA - Chinese and Bulgarian officials have signed a deal on export of Bulgarian dairy products to China.

The Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) signed the protocol here on Friday, officials confirmed Saturday.

"The protocol on veterinary and health requirements for dairy products creates conditions for the export of Bulgarian dairy products," the Bulgarian ministry said in a statement on its website.

Desislava Taneva, Bulgarian Minister of Agriculture and Food, said that currently Bulgaria has 28 approval procedures for the export of certain types of food and feed to China, the statement said.

According to the statement, Taneva expressed hope that the procedures for the export of tobacco and compound feed, as well as those related to animals, would be completed soon.

Zhang Qinrong, Vice Minister of the AQSIQ, said in turn that Bulgaria is an important country in the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and has a significant role in deepening cooperation between China and CEE.

Zhang said that the AQSIQ and its Bulgarian counterparts have achieved good results, and she hoped the two sides would expand cooperation.
BEIJING - China's express delivery sector has grown steadily in the first eight months despite a slowing economy, according to the State Post Bureau.

Revenue for Chinese express delivery businesses hit 234.36 billion yuan (about $35.5 billion) in the first eight months of 2016, up 43 percent year on year, said the bureau in an online statement.

A total of 18.27 billion deliveries were made during the same period, up 55 percent year on year, according to the bureau.

Despite a slowing economy, express delivery services have grown steadily as online shopping gains popularity in China.

China aims to nearly quadruple revenues of its express delivery market by 2020 in a move to boost consumption and services, as the economy slows with softening trade and investment.

The express delivery industry will have a target annual revenue of 800 billion yuan by 2020, according to a policy document released by the State Council last October.

The amount is nearly four times the 2014 revenue, which reached 204 billion yuan.
Chinese youth learn how to cook local food in Takatsuo in Japan. They get to experience the Japanese culture by staying in local bed-and-breakfast facilities.PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

Shortage of hotels creates demand for B&B units; guesthouses mushroom in Japan

The global economic growth has been sluggish, but not the Chinese investors' shopping spree for assets worldwide. They are now eyeing the Japanese property market, especially bed-and-breakfast facilities.

In a sense, it marks the evolution of Chinese shopping in Japan. For long, the Chinese have been loading up on the Japanese consumer goods ranging from electronic toilet seats to rice cookers and cosmetics.

Now, it's Japanese property. Prices surged nearly 30 percent in the last couple of years on the back of demand for hospitality-related realty, particularly B&B units, from Chinese investors.

Property agencies in Japan think Chinese investors are convinced millions of Chinese tourists visiting the Land of the Rising Sun every year present great investment opportunities.

They are pumping in big money into the Japanese property market.

In July alone, a record 2.29 million travelers visited Japan, bulk of them from the Chinese mainland, according to the Japan Tourism Agency.

In the first half of 2016, 11.7 million foreigners visited Japan, up 28 percent year-on-year. Of them, a little over 3 million were from the Chinese mainland.

Every year, about 20 million foreigners visit Japan. The Japanese government is aiming to receive 40 million visitors by 2020, the Tokyo Olympics year. By 2030, it is targeting to receive 60 million visitors.

In some bustling tourist attractions like Tokyo and Osaka, there is a serious shortage of hotels. Last year, the occupancy rate of hotels reached 82.3 percent in Tokyo, and 85.2 percent in Osaka, according to the JTA.

A 21st Century Business Herald report quoted UBS Securities in Japan as saying that if "the occupancy rate of a hotel reaches 80 percent, the hotel is regarded as operating with full load. If visitor numbers rise by 5 million a year, the hotels in Tokyo and Osaka won't be enough".

Inadequate number of hotels have made bed-and-breakfast guesthouses popular. Private family homes offer overnight accommodation and breakfast for travelers, particularly the younger, lot among them who prefer having good experiences on a tight budget.

B&B units allow them to stay in downtown areas among local communities and experience local culture. If such units have Chinese hosts, so much the better for Chinese visitors.

Xin Xin, a young office worker in Beijing, said she stayed at one such unit in Osaka last September as it was the peak travel season, and hotel rooms were expensive and hard to find.

"My friend recommended this option. It was cheaper. I booked one through Airbnb. It is located in downtown Osaka and about 500 meters away from the hotel I intended to book. The room charged about 600 yuan ($90) per night, which is only half of the hotel room rate," she said.

"It was a one-bedroom apartment, very clean and close to the subway station. I always stayed at hotels on my previous trips, and had to check out before noon, which used to inconvenience me as I couldn't store my luggage until my departure time."

It is millions of travelers such as Xin that are creating investment and business opportunities.

For instance, demand, and online searches for B&B accommodation has made the US-based lodging website Airbnb popular among tourists, particularly Chinese, visiting Japan. The app is also hot in the Chinese mainland, its fastest growing market.

Real estate agencies said more than half of Chinese investors interested in Japanese properties mainly focus on private home accommodation.

This trend has become particularly pronounced ever since the stock market rout of mid-2015, which made realty the alternative investment option.

So much so that in the Japanese realty market, mainland investors are now next only to those from the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore, according to data from Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based research firm that tracks commercial real estate pricing.

The trend could deepen going forward as the business of proving private home accommodation to travelers is likely to be made legal by the Japanese government in the near future.

Besides, Tokyo is set to hold the Olympic Games in 2020. The four-year run-up is expected to prove a tonic for the Japanese real estate sector, according to a report by Nikkei Business Daily.

In general, the rate of return on property rentals in major Chinese cities like Shanghai is 3 percent. In Tokyo, it could be up to 5 to 8 percent.
Guenther Steiner says Esteban Gutierrez did nothing wrong during the Singapore Grand Prix following criticism from Toto Wolff.

Wolff blamed the Haas driver for interfering with the lead battle between Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo when he was being lapped late in the race, with the Red Bull closing in rapidly on the lead Mercedes.

"We ran into a little bit of a traffic situation with Felipe [Massa] and Gutierrez, who were fighting for position, and Gutierrez at least makes it the same for everybody, he doesnt care who is trying to overtake," Wolff said. "But honestly, I want to say there is a fight for the race win going on between two guys fighting for every tenth and one guy cruising around interfering with the race and its always the same guy.

"So I think Ron [Meadows] was shouting to Charlie [Whiting] and Felipe went out of the way and Esteban was just cruising out there and enjoying the gap he was making to Felipe."

When Steiner was made aware of Wolff's comments, the Haas team principal defended his driver.

Yeah, and what did Nico say? He wasnt worried in the last laps that the other one could take him at the line So they need to get consistent between them," Steiner said.

"I think hes a little bit of a punching ball at the moment, Esteban, because I think he was pretty good today and he was racing Massa, why should he get out of the way? You get out of the way when he needs to, but I think he was very fair today, I must admit. I dont see a problem with what he did, its easy to say when youre as dominant as Mercedes is, so I would take that comment as a Toto comment.

Asked if criticism of Gutierrez was due to a few drivers previously having already voiced complaints, Steiner replied: Correct.

"I think it all started with Lewis [Hamilton] giving him the finger (in Hungary). It all started with that one, so I dont think thats a correct gesture from a Mercedes driver. So I think it all started with that.

"They didnt have to call us twice, we got out of the way, we got as quickly out of the way as Massa. I would leave it there, Im not going into any more. Totos got his opinion, we have got our opinion, we didnt get a fine, the FIA didnt complain so if he has got a problem he needs to go and see the stewards.

Breakfast with ... Bernd Maylander
Eric Jing said he is a firm believer that the digital technology-powered inclusive finance can change people's lives. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

Eric Jing is leading Ant Financial to corporate glory by marrying fintech with social conscience

For Eric Jing, president of Ant Financial Services Group, finance is a powerful tool that can "help people live a much happier life".

"But using digital technologies, the threshold to get financial services can be lowered," said the 43-year-old, adding his company's mission is to enable entrepreneurs, small and micro businesses and young people to get closer to their dreams via financial services, whether it is a dream to buy a smartphone or bankroll their own businesses.

The Hangzhou-based internet finance major led by Jing is already a big player in terms of changing people's lives in China.

Backed by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Ant Financial has gained 450 million users in China, who use it to pay for purchases online, borrow small loans, invest idle money that can earn yields higher than those offered by traditional banks via its Alipay service and other digital tools.

Earlier this year, the company raised $4.5 billion by offloading a stake to investorsan exercise that reportedly valued the company at $60 billion, making it the most valuable Chinese financial technology company by far. Next, Ant Financial could launch its initial public offering as soon as this year, according to Western media reports.

Jing, who joined Alibaba Group about ten years ago as one of its first professional managers, said that Ant Financial hasn't yet formulated a timetable for an IPO.

"But we will go public someday because as a finance company we want to be more transparent to our investors and users. In addition, we hope people who enjoy using our services will become our shareholders via an IPO," he said.

Going global, which is Ant Financial's top priority now, is another area that requires big funds, something an IPO could probably bankroll, he said.

About two billion people around the world don't have bank accounts. That means they lack the basic credit record to obtain financial services, either for personal shopping or to set up their own businesses, from traditional banks. This represents a great opportunity for Ant Financial, Jing said.

"China has world-leading internet technologies. With our experience of using internet technologies to provide inclusive finance, we can help more countries, especially developing countries, to lower the threshold and enable more disadvantaged groups to enjoy financial services," he told China Daily in a recent interview.

In Hangzhou where the company is based, Jing said he is very comfortable going around without a wallet. "About 80 percent or even 90 percent of the things I need to do can be done via smartphone," he said.

Alipay, China's most popular mobile wallet operated by Ant Financial, offers users a plethora of services in Hangzhou. They range from making appointments at local hospitals, getting subway train tickets to borrowing umbrellas and portable batteries at various locations without paying or keeping a deposit, if their online shopping record and other online footprints suggest a good credit background.

Ant Financial aims to replicate its success in China in other countries. Jing said the company has a goal of attracting 2 billion customers in the next 10 years, about 60 percent of them from outside China.

In India, Ant Financial early last year invested in Paytm, one of India's largest digital transaction platforms. Since then, the Indian company has gone from strength to strength, in terms of customers whose number surged from 22 million to more than 130 million.

That ambitious goal, Jing said, makes him feel as if he is still working for a startup, even though Ant Financial already has 7,000 employees. "The bigger our business becomes, the more responsibility I shoulder. Especially in the financial services industry, we need to accept rising responsibility and risks with care and caution," he said.

An Ant Financial employee said Jing typically puts in 16-hour work-days. Jing's life and dedication to his job, it appears, represent practice of a little theory in his profile on Ant Financial's website: "Life wants 1 thing from us, our best. If we give life our best, it will give us its best."
ROME - The G20 Summit held in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou showed the strength and quality of China's leadership, and proved to be a possible new model in terms of global economic governance, according to Italian experts.

"In the past, it has often been said China was a major economic power, yet unable to play a global leadership commensurate with its new status," Paolo Garonna, professor of political economy with LUISS University in Rome, said.

"Well, all of us in Hangzhou have seen the Chinese leadership in action, in terms of strength and quality, and its ability to deliver results," said Garonna.

The expert made his remarks during a conference on the theme "The G20 in Hangzhou and the Sino-Italian cooperation" held at the Chinese Embassy in Rome earlier this week.

Along with Chinese Ambassador to Italy Li Ruiyu, several Italian economic and political analysts attended the event.

China hosted G20 took place on September 4-5, and closed with the adoption of a final statement expressing a common will of the world's 20 top economies to promote a more efficient global governance.

Great emphasis was given to innovation and cooperation as major drivers of growth, yet on the base of sustainable and inclusive long-term measures.

Furthermore, the Chinese presidency highlighted the G20 could serve as a "new starting point", and it firmly brought the two topics of development and inclusiveness into the focus of the summit.

Such a move could possibly help the G20 in itself, as a relatively young entity still trying to find a role, according to the Italian economist.

"From this point of view, China's emphasis on the 'new starting' was a strong signal," Garonna said.

Whereas other international organizations were born in the 20th century, the G20 was a more a contemporary entity.

"As such, many of these forums of international cooperation reflect a social, economic, and political equilibrium that no longer exists."

"With the new starting evoked by the Chinese presidency, the hope is now for the G20 to give impetus to a global governance more suited to the reality of the 21st century," he explained.

China's hosting of the G20 also proved the country's new confidence in facing the multiple challenges of the globalized world, other analysts noted.

Indeed, the summit in Hangzhou took place at a particular time, according to Antonio Cascio, head of the Office for Relations with Civil Society and Non-Governmental Organizations at the Italian Foreign Ministry.

"The global economy is certainly recovering, but the growth is still slow and unable to meet the needs of the world population," he told the conference.

"In addition, there are global phenomena, such as the terrorism threat, the immigration crisis, and the climate change, which has serious repercussions on the global governance."

"Innovation and inclusiveness were the two 'answers' on which the G20 focused," Cascio said.

Innovation was clearly defined as the essential driver for a stable and sustainable growth. Yet, the summit also showed a clear awareness that growth alone was not enough, since the fruits of economic development have been, more often than not, unequally distributed, according to the official.

"This is a risk we cannot afford: it would not bring a sustainable growth, and would have negative consequences at political level, in terms of a rise in populist movements that are against the very core of the current global economic system," he explained.

The Foreign Ministry councillor agreed with other experts that the G20 in Hangzhou distinguished itself for its approach.

"Even on the most controversial issues, it was possible to find an agreement on the text (of final statements)," Cascio noted.

Finally, Italian analysts also highlighted that official consultations were extended to include several developing countries, and several topics most dear to these economies.

"The attention went well beyond the common topics of a G20 agenda: it focused on inclusiveness, sustainability, and on the urgency of delivering concrete answers to the people's needs," Garonna pointed out.

"Consultations on these issues were not mere talks: the G20 did enter into sensitive issues on which countries have different positions."

Yet, the Chinese presidency made it possible to face them, and "make progress, maybe small but concrete," the economist concluded.
BRUSSELS - China has the power to lead on structural economic reform which is necessary across the globe, an European expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Center for International Political Economy said China and the other G20 members are right to call for much more structural economic reform which is necessary across the globe during the two-day Hangzhou G20 Summit.

The expert said he believed that G20 Summits are "opportunities for world leaders to understand each other and learn how countries react to different events."

"China made the right call to focus this summit on growth and the need to revive innovation, productivity, trade and economic growth, but the lasting effect of the summit will probably be that leaders had an occasion to speak to each other at an extraordinary difficult time for the world economy and world politics," Erixon said.

The world economy is in a structural slow down, driven by falling levels of trade growth and low energy levels in most leading economies, he said.

"Many Western economies are now confronted with a bitter economic reality, which two decades of rapid trade growth had masked -- their economies lack underlying strength and productivity growth has been on a downward trend for 40 years," said Erixon.

In his opinion, the global economy is now being held up by extraordinary support from central banks and governments running fiscal deficits, "but that is not sustainable."

Changing that direction, which requires far more innovation and economic dynamism, is not easy, and "no political leader face opinions and electorates that are desiring structural economic reforms," he told Xinhua.

"If you add to that the risk of forthcoming elections in Europe and America to electing populists, it is easy to see how a perfect storm may hit the world economy in 2017," he added.

The structural reform which is necessary across the globe won't emerge because of summit discussions and communiques, Erixon said. "The challenge is to deliver the reform, especially as they challenge incumbent interests in many countries," he added.

"China has strong power to lead on these issues -- to be an exemplar to other countries, showing that growth can be revitalised," the expert concluded.
Chinese frigate "Huangshan" and Russian Navy's Antisubmarine Ship "Admiral Tributs" sail to a target area during a China-Russia naval joint drill at sea off south China's Guangdong Province, Sept 16, 2016.[Photo/Xinhua]

Guangzhou - Chinese and Russian naval forces on Saturday carried out a joint drill on air defense and anti-submarine in the South China Sea off southern China's Guangdong Province.

Vessels including a missile destroyer, anti-submarine vessels, missile frigates, ship-based helicopters and conventional submarines, among others, took part in the exercise.

The vessels were divided into two fleets and confrontations were staged off the eastern waters of Zhanjiang in Guangdong.

A senior officer of the joint drill said the exercise was carried out under a background of actual combat and expected aim of the exercise had been reached.

Chinese and Russian navies are currently holding the "Joint Sea-2016" drill that runs from Sept. 13 to 19.

It features navy surface ships, submarines, fixed-wing aircraft, ship-borne helicopters, marine corps and amphibious armored equipment from both sides.




Students raising their hands in class. [File photo/Xinhua]

Many parents of lower-grade primary school students are concerned about whether their children will adapt to study, as their noon nap habits can hardly be carried out in a classroom, affecting their afternoon performance.

But the Hangzhou Danfeng Experimental Primary School in East China's Zhejiang province has reassured parents as it innovatively prepares 12 "sleeping rooms" for each first and second-grade class, as well as pillows and blankets for each student, the Qianjiang Evening News reports.

The sleeping rooms, which are as big as a classroom, are covered with foam pads. Children can enjoy a 50-minute noon nap until 1:05 pm after laying down on their pillows and blankets.

Every sleeping room has a teacher attending. Teachers will pacify naughty children or tuck sleeping students in quilts. If some students are unwilling to sleep, they are allowed to read books on the condition that they do not bother others.

Cao Xiaohong, Principal of the primary school, said school teachers disagreed with students napping on desks, as many do in other schools, because it was unhealthy.

Two years ago, a first grade primary student in Zhejiang reportedly went to hospital complaining of cervical vertebra aches. The diagnosis revealed a dislocation of her cervical spine and the doctor thought it was related to her long-term napping on desks.

"The school moved to a new building this year and there are enough spare classrooms," Cao said.

Since sleeping on the ground would likely lead to students catching a cold during cooler weather, the sleeping rooms will only open in May, June, September and October.
Visitors take selfies in front of the 9.18 Historical Museum in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, on Sept 18, 2016. This year marks the 85th anniversary of the September 18th Incident, also known as the "Mukden Incident." The museum is collecting items of interest related to the incident, or that may be symbolically related to that day, from around the world. [Photo/VCG]
BEIJING -- Zhang Zhijun, the Chinese mainland's Taiwan affairs chief, on Sunday met in Beijing with a delegation of county and city officials from Taiwan.

The delegation includes officials for New Taipei City and the seven counties of Hsinchu, Miaoli, Nantou, Hualien, Taitung, Kinmen and Lienchiang.

Zhang, head of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, extended a warm welcome to the eight visiting county and city officials and applauded their adherence to the 1992 Consensus and efforts to promote cross-Strait cooperation and exchange at the county and city-levels.

Taiwan's current leader, Tsai Ing-wen, and her administration have refused to recognize the 1992 Consensus since she and the Democratic Progressive Party took office in May, Zhang said. The 1992 Consensus affirms that both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to one China.

The refusal has shaken the political foundation for the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations and dealt a heavy blow to the good momentum of peaceful cross-Straits ties that had been achieved through eight years of efforts, Zhang said, adding communication across the Straits has been affected and the interests of people on the two sides have been severely damaged.

Zhang stressed adherence to the 1992 Consensus under the new situation, vowed to firmly oppose and curb "Taiwan independence" and promote cross-Straits exchange in various fields to boost economic and social integration.

The eight officials from Taiwan voiced their concerns about cross-Straits relations and pledged to continue to stick to the 1992 Consensus and maintain peaceful development of cross-Straits ties along with the mainland.

Mainland officials with the Ministry of Commerce, National Tourism Administration, General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives also attended the meeting.
A man who vandalized a dozen scenic rocks in suburban Beijing apologized and started to remove the graffiti on Saturday. The apology was accepted by the local area managers.

Chen Zhicheng, 53, left a trail of 13 graffiti signatures during his climb in the scenic hills in Huangshandian village in Beijing's Fangshan District. Using red paint, he scribbled his name, the date, "September 1", and a few sentences praising the natural wonder. Pictures of the graffiti were heavily criticized after they were posted on online platforms, before Chen's nephew finally told him about it.

"I've not been in a good mood recently due to family matters, plus I fear that I might be too old to climb these mountains again," Chen said in an interview with Beijing Legal Evening News. "I wanted to have something to hold on to."

Chen came to the village's managers to apologize on Saturday and offered to clean the graffiti.

"I love the mountains, I should have protected the environment voluntarily, I hope others don't make the same mistake again."

The village managers had been cleaning the paint prior to Chen's apology, yet light red stains remain. Chen came to clean the stains on Saturday and promised to remove all that's remaining.

In an interview with the Beijing News, an unnamed manager from the scenic area said that no further action will be taken against Chen.

"His attitude is sincere and apologetic, and he made promises to clean it all," the manager said. "This matter is solved." According to the manager, the cleaning process is expected to be finished in a week.

Regulators have issued standards for civilizing tourists' behavior. Severe immoral acts could lead to blacklisting, which may trigger restrictions in traveling. A blacklist of 20 tourists was publicized by the China National Tourism Administration in August.

Located in southwest Beijing's Fangshan District, Huangshandian village serves as a tourist attraction for its natural beauty. It made the list of "the most beautiful leisure villages in China" in 2015 by the Ministry of Agriculture.
NEW YORK -- Premier Li Keqiang arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Sept 18 to attend a series of high-level meetings of the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly at the invitation of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Premier Li Keqiang arrives at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Sept 18. [Photo/Xinhua]

Premier Li said that this year is the 45th anniversary of China's resumption of its legitimate seat at the UN. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China actively supports its development and defends the principles and purposes of the UN Charter, the Premier said.

He also said that China is glad to join hands with other participants to make contributions to cope with global challenges and promote peace and development in the world.

Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN; Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to the United States; and Zhang Qiyue, consul general in New York, welcomed the Premier and his wife, Cheng Hong, at the airport.

During his stay in New York, Premier Li, besides attending the General Assembly session, will chair a symposium on sustainable development and take part in the General Assembly high-level meeting on the refugee issue and a leaders' summit on the same topic. He also will meet UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and some state leaders.

The Premier will hold a bilateral meeting with US President Barack Obama and meet American economic, financial, think tank and media representatives. He also will attend events held by some institutions, including the Economic Club of New York.
The 3D version of the ancient masterpiece painting, Riverside Scene At Qingming Festival, is displayed in Chongqing for the first time on Saturday. [Photo/ Chinanews.com]

A 3D version of the ancient masterpiece, Riverside Scene At Qingming Festival, made its debut in Chongqing on Saturday, adding a strong flavor of traditional art to the last day of the Mid-Autumn Festival national vacation.

Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is one of 10 most famous Chinese ancient paintings. It was created by well-known painter Zhang Zeduan of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and long crowned as China's top art classic. The painting is more than 500cm long and over 20cm wide, and features vivid scenes of the lives of people from every walk of life in the dynasty's capital at the time, Bianjing city, in today's Kaifeng city, Henan province.

The 3D version was created based on the ancient artwork. By magnifying an image of the original painting 10 times in size, the high-tech edition brings the Song Dynasty's capital of 900 years ago back to life. The busy ancient waterways, the bustling streets, farmers, merchants, monks and street-storytellers seem alive. Nearly 1,000 different characters are depicted in the 3D painting, and the effect attracted a slew of visitors.

The exhibition is held at the Binjiang Cultural Life Zone in Chongqing.
Onlookers stand behind a police cordon near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, US, September 17, 2016. Photo by Ji Tao/chinadaily.com.cn

* An explosion rocked the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday.

* The blast caused 29 injuries, none life-threatening.

* The cause of the blast is under investigation.

* The blast occurred at about 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Sunday) between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue on 23rd Street.

* Emergency personnel swarmed one of the most bustling areas of the city.

* Hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block.

12:02

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said that there is "no evidence at this point of a terror connection".

The mayor said the real cause of the explosion is still under investigation.

11:35

The explosion appears to have been an "intentional act," but there is no "evidence at this point of a terror connection," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference.

11:30

The blast caused 29 injuries with none of them life threatening, the city's Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said at a news conference.

11:16

New York City Mayor, fire and police departments to hold news conference around 11 pm, Police Department spokesman said on Twitter.

11:13

US President Barack Obama, who was attending a congressional dinner in Washington, "has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation," a White House official said. "The president will be updated as additional information becomes available," the official added.

11:05

The alert about an explosive device with multiple injuries reported by the New York City Fire Department is wrong and withdrawn. The department did not issue such a statement. It said later that it was investigating an explosion, not an explosive device.

Onlookers stand behind a police cordon near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, US, September 17, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

10:57

New York City Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should "expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue" due to police activity there and asking the public to avoid the area.

10:56

"It was really loud, it hurt my eardrums. My 10-year-old boy was sat in the back seat of the car, and the explosion blew the back window out," said Tsi Tsi Mallett, who was in a car driving along 23rd Street when the explosion took place. Her son was not injured.

10:45

Law enforcement authorities considering possibility New York explosion was accidentally caused by construction explosives.
WASHINGTON -- The attack that wounded nine people at a mall in the northern US state of Minnesota Saturday night is being investigated as a potential act of terrorism, a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official said on Sunday.

"We're currently investigating this as a potential act of terrorism, and I do say potential," Rick Thornton, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Minneapolis Division, told reporters at a press conference Sunday afternoon.

"We don't know whether the suspect was in contact, had connections with, or was inspired by a foreign terrorism organization," he said.

Thornton added that the FBI will look at the suspect's social media accounts, his electronic devices and talk to people associated with him.

The suspect, wearing a private security company uniform, stabbed nine people at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, a city about 70 miles northwest of Minneapolis, Saturday night before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer.

Three of the nine victims remain hospitalized, including one person who is in a life-threatening condition, according to local authorities.

While law enforcement has yet to reveal the name of the suspect, the Amaq News Agency of the Islamic State (IS) group claimed Sunday morning that the suspect was "a soldier of the Islamic State" and carried out the operation in response to the group's calls for attacks in countries that are part of a US-led anti-IS coalition.

The attack happened shortly after an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City wounded 29 people. The motivation behind the explosion remains unknown and there's no evidence yet that these incidents were linked.
Every employer in China should have its own set of Rules and Regulations because without one you will have an extremely tough time terminating a China employee.

Many companies doing business in China have learned the hard way that terminating a China employee is not easy. Recognizing this many foreign employers in China now have a Rules and Regulations document and most have even translated this document into Chinese for their China employees. This is a good start but it may not be enough. Here are a few additional basics you should bear in mind if you are going to employ anyone in China.

Your Chinese-language Rules and Regulations need to be a lot more than just a mere translation of the employee manual you use in the United States, Australia and/or Europe. It needs to be tailored for your China employees in your business. And just as is true for any legally important document, literal translations do not work. You need a document that all your employees could understand as the Rules and Regulations usually apply to everyone in the company, not just to your expat employees. This is not just about being culturally conscientious: the Chinese language version of your Rules and Regulations needs to be clear enough to form the basis for your being able to terminate your employees.

You need to make sure your employees actually receive a copy of your Rules and Regulations and that you have prove that they did so. If you ever get into a dispute with one of your Chinese employees, there is a good chance he or she will claim never to have received a copy of your employer Rules and Regulations. Your best counter to this argument will be to provide the arbiter with a Chinese language signed acknowledgement of receipt form, proving that your employee got a copy of your Rules and Regulations.

If we could only name one section that you absolutely must have in the Rules and Regulations, it would be the section on disciplinary actions. What employee misconduct triggers punishment? Make sure your Rules and Regulations make clear the grounds for terminating an employee. Think hard about the misconduct that could be committed by your employees and put those actions in your Rules and Regulations as being subject to discipline or termination. Without this section, your employee can do terrible things that harm your business and yet you will likely find yourself without a basis to discipline or terminate the offending employee.

Far too often foreign employers make the mistake of filling their Rules and Regulations with mission statements and incentives and things they encourage the employees to do. This is all nice to have, but it misses the point of having Rules and Regulations, which should have very different goals from an employee handbook. Your Rules and Regulations should set forth the rules on how you manage and oversee your employees. It is the governing law for your organization. This is why Rules and Regulations are generally negative in tone; it sets forth what you do not want your employees to do so that you can discipline them if they do these things.

But not only do you need a china-focused set of Rules and Regulations, you also need to give your employees opportunities to comment on or question your Rules and Regulations and stay on top of addressing those comments and questions. If you fail to address an employees concerns about your Rules and Regulations, or even if you fail to clarify those Rules and Regulations in response to a question, you can be at risk for your actions being deemed unreasonable and disproportionate. Your action can more easily be called into question, which could lead a court to order you to pay some statutory severance to your terminated employee or, even worse reinstate the employee.

If the time comes where you need to discipline one or more of your employees pursuant to your written Rules and Regulations, you now need to make sure that your discipline is pursuant to your own Rules and Regulations and that your employee knows that he or she has been disciplined. It is not uncommon for China employees to claim that they never received your discipline decision. This is of particular importance when your employee commits a minor wrongdoing and then starts escalating with his or her offenses. If you cannot show that you previously disciplined your employee for his or her past offense(s), you may not be justified in terminating the employee for being a repeat offender? Put it on paper every time you issue a warning. We advice our clients to hand deliver their discipline notices to their employees with a witness there to record it. In addition, use email and require confirmation and/or an outside courier service that requires a signature for the delivery. If you have an internal procedure for appealing disciplinary actions, follow that procedure.
(Photo : Getty images) A view of one of the poverty ridden regions in China.

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Six officials in Gansu province have been put on notice and subjected to severe punishment on Friday for negligence in their line of duty. This comes after a mother killed her four children before killing herself. The husband also killed himself later.



The tragic incident occurred on August 26, in the Northwest region of China. Yang Gailan, 28, murdered her three daughters and one son, then drunk pesticide and killed herself.



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Eight days later, depression got the best of her husband who committed suicide by drinking poison.



Authorities in Gansu issued a statement late on Friday in regards to the incident stating that six officials have been punished for the incident.



Three of them--deputy township head Chen Guangjian, and village-level officials Li Jinjun and Wei Gonghui--risk losing their positions.



The remaining three--Vice Head of the Kangle County Ma Yongzhong, and township officials Bai Zhongming and Lyu Qiang--have been strongly criticized over the incident.



The statement said that the officials had failed to put United Nations Development Programme poverty-relief policies into effect and did not attempt to make the poverty level of the family less severe.



The officials were also reprimanded for not consoling the husband after the loss of his family, thus prompting him to commit suicide days later.



Authorities have promised that the officials would face more severe punishments if new incriminating evidence is found against them in the ongoing investigations.



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Tagschina, Poverty, Murder, Suicide, Poverty-relief policies
(Photo : Getty images) Soldiers salute in respect to China's flag as it is being raised.

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Latin American can benefit greatly by studying the path to China's growth and development, according to Milton Reyes, an Ecuadorian researcher at the Latin America - Asia Pacific Observatory.



During an interview with Xinhua last Thursday, Reyes described China's growth as "interesting." He noted that the world's second-largest economy has maintained its long-term prosperity without being tied to a sole vision for economic growth.



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According to Reyes, Latin American countries have a great vision, but political and cultural matters inhibit their growth.



"These purist visions have not allowed for a very flexible development and have not allowed Latin America economies to adapt easily to the global context," he noted. "This background means that Latin America must be careful when exploring which strategies to follow."



This, Reyes believes, might be an advantage for Latin American countries because rather than immediately diving into new structural reforms, they instead develop gradual structures that go hand-in-hand with their interest.



Reyes welcomed the idea of Latin American countries working closely with China to build an in-depth understanding in certain key areas.



"We could go beyond that and set up a joint production between national companies in order to create strategic alliances and joint industrial policies," he said. "This could generate shared benefits which could be very interesting in the region.



He noted that China is a great source of financing with the most favorable terms of engagement.



"When a country seeks to focus on its internal growth, the main bottleneck can often be finding financing. In this case Chinese financing has been useful for solving these problems and avoiding the trap of enacting policies that benefit neither our interest nor reality," he said.



He ended the interview by acknowledging China's partnership with Latin America countries while allowing the countries to stick to their cultural beliefs and governing system.



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Tagschina, Latin America, LAC-ASIA Observatory
(Photo : Jakob Vinther, University of Bristol and Bob Nicholls) Psittacosaurus is the first dinosaur to show evidence of countershading.

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The almost complete fossilized specimen of a dinosaur found in China has led scientists to surmise this one wore camouflage colors to escape larger predators.



The small but colored "Psittacosaurus" is the first dinosaur that shows evidence of "countershading," a type of camouflage where animals have darker-colored backs and lighter bellies. This particular specimen is believed to have had a brown back and a lighter colored belly.



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Scientists believe this specimen was probably countershaded due to its preferring a habitat in dense forests with little light to create disruptive coloration. Psittacosaurus have stubby spikes on its cheeks and a beaked jaw. A mass of quills sprouted along its tail.



This countershading can be seen in modern species of forest-dwelling deer and antelope whose stripes and spots on their limbs create disruptive coloration. Giraffes are also good examples of countershading.



Psittacosaurus ("parrot lizard") is a genus of extinct ceratopsian dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of what is now Asia, existing between 123.2 and 100 million years ago. It is notable for being the most species-rich dinosaur genus.



Up to 11 species are known from across Mongolia, Siberia, China and possibly Thailand. The species of Psittacosaurus vary in size but its length ranged from less than two to over three meters.



"This one is unique," said paleontologist Jakob Vinther of Britain's University of Bristol, co-author of a study describing the fossil published in the journal Current Biology.



"We can very clearly see that there are color patterns ... stripes, spots."



Psittacosaurus's dark back and lighter belly are visible on the specimen's remaining scales. Scientists said today's predators rely on an object's shading to assess its shape.



When prey is darker on top than on the bottom, a color scheme known as countershading, shadows are minimized and the animals look flatter.



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TagsPsittacosaurus, countershading, parrot lizard, china, Jakob Vinther
(Photo : Getty Images) A state-backed newspaper has called for China to put pressure on Japan once it starts its joint patrols with the US in the disputed South China Sea

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Bilateral relations between China and Japan might deteriorate further should Tokyo send warships to the disputed South China Sea following its announcement that it will join forces with the US in patrolling the strategic waterway.



An editorial published by the Chinese military-backed Global Times newspaper said that China could take countermeasures once Japan and the US start their joint patrols, including staging low altitude flights over Japanese ships to pressure Tokyo.



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"The situation in the South China Sea, which just began to cool down, will be disturbed due to the waves splashed by the joint patrols by the two outside countries. China has no other choice but to take countermeasures," the editorial said.



Hostile act



Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada on Friday announced that Tokyo would join forces with US troops to patrol the disputed South China Sea through freedom of navigation patrols as well as bilateral and multilateral military exercises.



The US has been inviting Australia and the Philippines to partake in its joint patrols in the disputed sea. However, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently announced that Manila would end its joint patrols with the US saying he does not want the country to be involved in a "hostile act" against China.



Sun Jianguo, the deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of China's Central Military Commission, said Beijing would not take the joint patrols sitting down and would take measures to counter Japan's presence in the disputed sea.



'Gunboat policy'



The editorial said that once the US-Japan joint patrols begin, it would be the "gunboat policy of the 21st century against China."



"China should resolutely begin military deployment on its expanded Nansha Islands (Spratly) to balance the situation, and should notify ASEAN countries beforehand to allow the international society to know the cause of the increased tension," the editorial pointed out.



The editorial said if the patrols involve several countries and destabilize peace in the region, China would have no choice but to declare a South China Sea air defense identification zone (ADIZ).



ADIZ



"By then, China will have a system of a cluster of militarized islands and air defense identification zones to counter US and Japanese warships, which could become China's strategic progress," the editorial emphasized.



The newspaper said China should target Japanese ships in its strategic missions. The Chinese Coast Guard should also conduct regular patrols on the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands in China) in the East China Sea which China also claims as its own, the paper said.



"Tokyo is currently the most enthusiastic side in hyping up tension in the South China Sea. It intends to curb China in the South China Sea, hoping to create space for itself in the East China Sea" the editorial added.



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Tagswarships, US-Japan joint patrols, South China Sea, East China Sea, Japan, china, Senkaku Islands, Spratly Island, gunboat policy
(Photo : Getty Images) Alleged Filipino pusher lies dead on a Philippine street. The piece of cardboard around his neck reads, "I am a pusher."

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The European Union (EU) and the United States have urged Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to respect human rights in his incredibly bloody war on drugs that has seen anywhere from 30 to 40 Filipinos being murdered daily from July 1 to Sept. 17.



Most of these killings, now numbering over 3,000, were carried out by Philippine police or "vigilantes" linked to police as part of "Duterte's Drug War."



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The US also called for an impartial investigation of claims Duterte allegedly ordered the murders of over 1,000 persons when he was a city mayor, a "massacre" unprecedented in Philippine history.



In a five-page resolution issued Sept. 15, the European Union (EU) Parliament in Brussels ordered its delegation in the Philippines and embassies of its 27 member states to monitor human rights abuses. It also urged Duterte "to put an end to the current wave of extrajudicial executions and killings" of drug suspects.



EU lawmakers raised concern about the very high numbers of Filipinos being killed during police operations and by vigilante groups.



That number now exceeds 3,000 persons since July 1, said the Philippine National Police (PNP). Some 30 to 40 Filipinos are being killed every day by police and killers the police claim are "vigilantes."



The latest death toll released Sept. 17 by the PNP conflicts with a previous death count it issued on Sept. 11. The PNP's toll of 1,138 drug suspects it said it killed as of Sept. 17 is inexplicably lower than the 1,466 persons it said it killed until Sept. 11.



The discrepancy of 300 deaths has not been explained by the police. These deaths all occurred after the implementation of "Oplan Double Barrel" (the code name for Duterte's Drug War) starting July 1.



PNP Director General Ronald de la Rosa for the first time, however, did not report on the number of deaths blamed on "vigilantes" in his statement on Sept. 17.



But as of Sept. 8, the PNP reported 1,490 drug suspects killed by vigilante groups, deaths which the PNP classifies as "deaths under investigation."



Averaging vigilante killings from July 1 to Sept. 17 will increase the death toll to over 1,600 by Sept. 17. This will bring total deaths in Duterte's Drug War to some 3,200 based on corrected figures for killings attributed to police and vigilantes from July 1 to Sept. 17.



That's the equivalent of some 40 Filipinos killed or murdered daily in Duterte's Drug War. Perhaps only the grisly toll in Syria exceeds this monstrous tally.



Duterte has given the police six months or until Dec. 31 to rid the Philippines of drug peddlers and drug addicts. Hence, the gory death toll as the police and their vigilante allies try to attain this impossible goal.



EU lawmakers believe Duterte's statements on the drug war encourage the mass murders of drug suspects by police and vigilante groups.



"President Duterte repeatedly urged law enforcement agencies and the public to kill suspected drug traffickers who did not surrender, as well as drug users," said the EU resolution.



It added that "President Duterte publicly stated he would not pursue law enforcement officers and citizens who killed drug dealers who resisted arrest."



The EU Parliament adopted the resolution addressing the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines based on Partnership Cooperation Agreement (PCA) signed by EU and the Philippines in 2014 that also commits the Philippines to uphold rule of law, human rights and international human rights conventions.



The United States said it is "taking seriously" allegations revealed in the Philippine Senate that Duterte ordered over 1,000 killings in Davao City when he was mayor from 1993 to 2016.



"These are serious allegations and we take them seriously, we look into them," said US State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner.



The International watchdog Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations for an independent investigation into these claims made by one of Duterte's former hitmen, Edgar Matobato.



"President Duterte can't be expected to investigate himself, so it is crucial that the United Nations is called in to lead such an effort. Otherwise, Filipinos may never know if the president was directly responsible for extrajudicial killings," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.



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TagsRodrigo Duterte, Duterte's Drug War, European Union, Philippine National Police, Director General Ronald de la Rosa
(Photo : Getty Images) The President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte has said he does not want to involve Manila in any "hostile act" against China to avoid jeopardizing the upcoming Sino-Philippine talks on the South China Sea dispute.

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Philippine Foreign Affairs officials are currently making arrangements with their Chinese counterparts to pave the way for the formal start of Sino-Philippine talks on the South China Sea dispute.



The Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay on Friday said that Manila has been in touch with Chinese diplomatic officials to lay the groundwork for the upcoming talks without any pre-conditions.



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"The important thing is that we talk," Yasay told reporters at a meeting in the Philippine Embassy in Washington.



July 12 ruling



Despite China's earlier announcement that it will not accept any actions or future talks with any state within the framework of the July 12 arbitral ruling, Manila said it would continue to work on bilateral talks with Beijing and would push for the ruling as the basis of discussions.



Beijing has said it would only talk to Manila sans the July 12 arbitral ruling which rejected China's claims of ownership over territories in the disputed South China Sea.



The ruling upheld the Philippines' rights over several contested reefs and islands in the South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea.



Bilateral Talks



"Our position has been we will not engage them in talks outside the framework of the tribunal ruling. We are now engaged in the process of making sure these bilateral talks will happen," Yasay said.



Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently ordered top defense officials to end Manila's joint patrols with the US in the South China Sea saying he does not want the country to be involved in a "hostile act" against China. He has highlighted on the Asian giant's large stockpile of weaponry compared to Manila's much smaller military arsenal.



Duterte said that war with China is not an option to resolve the simmering maritime dispute. He noted that Beijing could interpret the joint patrols in the disputed sea as a provocative act, and this might jeopardize plans for Sino-Philippine bilateral talks.



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TagsSouth China Sea, Sino-US formal talks, July 12 ruling, Permanent Court of Arbitration, Philippines, china, Sino-Philippine formal talks
BREAKING: Injuries reported after explosion rocks Manhattan; suspected IED 17 September, 2016 by Staff , |

NEW YORK (Reuters/CE) - At least 25 people were injured when a loud explosion shook the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday night, according to various news reports.

The blast occured about 8:30 p.m. on a major east-west thoroughfare in the fashionable downtown neighborhood, prompting New York City police and fire department personnel to swarm the area, a Reuters witness said.

At least three people were seen initially being taken away from the apparent scene of the blast in ambulances, according to Reuters, but the severity of their injuries was not immediately clear. Later reports indicated 25 were injured. A car seen driving through the area had its rear window blown out.

Police and fire representatives said the preliminary cause of the explosion is an IED in or near a dumpster, according to CNN.

New York City Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should "expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue" due to police activity there and asking the public to avoid the area.

Hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block on a cool early autumn evening, as police cordoned off the area.

Earlier today a pipe bomb was discovered in New Jersey, according to news reports.

(Reporting by Simon Webb; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Mary Milliken and Paul Simao. Additional reporting by Christian Examiner)
UNC excavation crew in Galilee region of Israel uncover first known depictions of biblical heroines An excavation team in Israel has discovered the first known depiction of two biblical heroines from the Old Testament.

World to reach 8 billion people in November, India to unseat China as most populous in 2023: UN By Nov. 15, the worlds population is projected to reach 8 billion, and by 2023, India is projected to surpass China as the worlds most populous country, according to a new report from the United Nations.

Single, non-religious young adults are most unhappy Americans post-COVID-19: report Young adults under 35 who are single and non-religious report the highest levels of unhappiness since the COVID-19 pandemic began and since 1972, when the General Social Survey began measuring levels of happiness among Americans, a new analysis from the Institute of Family Studies suggests.
home World 'You killed my friend but I'm here to feed you' - Christian aid workers fight hate with love by feeding jailed jihadists

A team of aid workers recently went to a detainment center on the outskirts of Fallujah, Iraq to demonstrate God's love for jailed ISIS militants. The non-profit organization Preemptive Love Coalition (PLC) brought food and water to captured ISIS members despite objections from Iraqi leaders.

Matthew Willingham, the senior field editor of PLC, did not join the aid effort but he was able to watch it through a live feed. PLC visited the detention center, going against the advice of Iraqi leaders and friends.

"We believe only light can drive out darkness," Willingham wrote in his blog. "Love is the only real answer to hate. So we went anyway a and gave food, water and clothing to hundreds of high-risk detainees in the compounds outside Fallujah," he added.

Sadiq, one of the aid workers, recognized one of the detainees from an ISIS propaganda video that was posted online.

"You killed my friend," Sadiq said to the man while pouring water into his mouth. "But I've come here to feed you," he continued.

Willingham, a Christian, saw how the love of Christ was demonstrated at the compound that day through Sadiq, a Muslim.

"I see this as the love of God reaching down into the world," he said. "That's a Christ-like love, extended to his [Sadiq's] enemies. Not people he disagrees with, but his enemies. People who murdered his friends. That is the love of God in Christ," Willingham added.

Some of the detainees reportedly wept after receiving their aid packets.

PLC was started 10 years ago when Jeremy Courtney and his wife moved to Iraq. The organization started by providing life-saving surgery to Iraqi children with heart defects. The aid group became began to do much more after the rise of ISIS In 2014.

It is characterized as a "faith-oriented community" but it is not exclusively Christian. Muslims work together with Christians and even with those who do not profess any faith at all. Only Iraqi Muslims were allowed to enter the compound during the group's visit for security reasons.

Apart from actively helping the victims of ISIS, Courtney feels the need to humanize ISIS militants. He believes that some members only joined the terror group to provide for their families. We have to "look at those in ISIS and in similar terror [groups] around the world and see them as individuals," he told Christian Today.
home US Christian author accuses Obama and Hillary Clinton of 'Christophobia'

Christian author Johnnie Moore accused Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of "Christophobia" for not addressing the Christian genocide in the Middle East.

In an interview with Newsmax, Moore stated that Obama and Clinton have "sat on their hands while hundreds of thousands, if not millions and millions, of Christians have been displaced and killed."

At the beginning of the interview, host J.D. Hayworth cited the figures reported by the Refugee Processing Center where it was revealed that only 56 of the 10,000 Syrian refugees accepted into the U.S. were Christians.

Moore, the author of "Defying ISIS: Preserving Christianity in the Place of Its Birth and in Your Own Backyard," asserted that the reason for the low number of Christians is due to the accusations of Islamophobia whenever someone brings up the issue of Christian genocide in the Middle East.

The author argued subsequently that people who are anti-Christian should be labeled as "Christophobes."

"If you're anti-Christian, henceforth, you're guilty of Christophobia. You're a Christophobe, You're exhibiting Christophobic behavior," Moore declared.

When Hayworth asked whether Obama is "Christophobic," Moore instantly replied, "Of course he is!" He continued, "And everyone else that attempts to dismantle the foundation of this country and not speak up for the vulnerable Christians around the world."

Moore clarified that he is not anti-refugee but he insisted that Christians who are facing genocide should get special treatment with regards to the refugee crisis.

Moore worked with Glenn Beck to assist the evacuation of 149 Christian families in Iraq to Slovakia last December. Beck's charity, Mercury One, will be funding a three-year "integration program" for refugees through its agreement with the Slovakian government.

Earlier this week, a senior Obama administration official announced that the U.S. government's new goal is to take in 110,000 refugees in the coming year. The goal for the previous year was 85,000. Obama is planning to address the refugee crisis in a summit next week as world leaders gather for the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
home Faith Christians from multiple denominations to unite and pray at 'The Gathering' in Texas

Christian leaders from different denominations across the U.S. will be coming together at "The Gathering" next week to ask for God's forgiveness and seek spiritual guidance.

Thousands of believers are expected to attend the free event on Sept. 21 at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas. The event will also be available for livestream viewing for those who register.

Pastor Tony Evans of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas will be speaking at the event together with Pastors Greg Laurie, Ronnie Floyd, James Robison, Bishop Harry Jackson, Anne Graham Lots, Dr. Tony Evans, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez and more.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Rodriguez explained why he is attending the event.

"We stand at the precipice of losing our religious liberties via the conduit of judicial activism and legislative initiatives that view our Judeo-Christian values system as a threat to advancing a morally relativistic worldview," he said. "Complacency is captivity, we must pray, preach and vote," he added.

The speakers will be leading the people in praying for issues concerning the nation, communities, family and personal life.

Rt. Rev. Ray R. Sutton, dean of the Province and Ecumenical Affairs of the Anglican Church in North America, will also be among the present leaders. He mentioned that he and Evans were longtime friends and they both have a desire to make disciples out of Christians.

"We have shared common concerns that the Great Commission needs not only to make converts, but disciples by 'teaching them all that Jesus commanded.' This means reaching families, and not just individuals," Sutton told The Christian Post.

"I hope the Christians who watch and participate will be called to the fullness of the disciple-making commitment of the Great Commission," he added.

The FAQ for the website states that the event will be free of political agenda. Additional speakers include the Benham Brothers, Max Lucado, Dr. Richard Land, Kay Arthur and Jonathan Falwell.
home Life Pastor holds night services for Chinese workers on late shift

Attending church at 11 p.m. on Sunday night may be unusual for most Christians but for Chinese restaurant workers whose shifts end late, it is the only time for them to hear the Gospel.

Most employees of Chinese restaurants are not able to attend church in the morning because they have to work until 10:30 p.m. Chinese-American pastor Kewen Dong solved this problem by starting a ministry that holds late-night worship sessions for restaurant crew members.

"There are 1 million Chinese restaurant workers living in the United States," Dong said. "Many of them live in small cities ... and in these cities, they don't have a Chinese community, and also, they don't have any Chinese church. And these people live in very, very isolated conditions," he added.

Dong himself was a restaurant owner who regularly visited his employees to learn about the difficulties they face. He felt that God was calling him to care for them so he started his first late-night ministry in Virgina Beach, Virginia, in 2006. The ministry, now known as Friends of International Restaurant Employees (FIRE), has since expanded to nine different cities in two states.

Miranda Lin, a restaurant operator who came to America 13 years ago, shared how their congregation in North Carolina started.

"Kewen, he started up our Chinese congregation and we did'nt have a space. So, the Sunset Avenue Baptist Church, they allow us to stay in their church," Lin said.

The pastor's efforts are supported by the North Carolina Missions Offering (NCMO). This partership allows Dong to provide Bibles and other resources to his churches in North Carolina.

Dong believes that he still has a mission to share the Gospel with Chinese restaurant crew workers in other states where they rarely get to attend ministry services.

While he was still living in communist China, Dong was forced to leave his family and work as a farmer. He was able to see God's provision despite his difficulties. The government eventually gave him an opportunity to pursue a medical degree at a university.

"As I look back ... I see how God has been with me all along the way," he said.
home US Religion is a $1.2 trillion industry in the U.S., study finds

The findings of a new study investigating the socio-economic impact of faith in American society revealed that religion contributes $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy annually.

The study, led by Brian Grim from Georgetown University, revealed that religious institutions that are facilitating education, healthcare and philanthropic programs across the U.S. contribute $302.9 billion a year.

Faith-based businesses such as religious media and kosher/halal foods are worth $438.4 billion annually. Congregations spend about $413 billion dollars each year.

"In perspective, that would make religion the 15th largest national economy in the world, ahead of 180 other countries in terms of value," said Grim during the presentation of the study. "That would also make American religion larger than the global revenues of the top 10 tech companies, including Apple, Amazon and Google," he continued.

"It would also make it 50 percent larger than the six largest American oil companies' revenue on an annual basis," Grim added.

The summary noted that religious organizations have spent thrice the amount of money on social programs in the last 15 years despite the reported decline of religious affiliations in the U.S.

To conduct his research, Grim looked at the impact of soup kitchens, religiously affiliated schools and addiction recovery programs on local economies. During the course of his study, he learned that churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship mostly spend money locally.

Grim revealed that one of his motivations for conducting the study is to counter the negative perceptions of religion. He also wanted congregations and clergy to acknowledge the generosity of religious institutions involved in charitable works.

Ram Cnaan, director of Program for Religion and Social Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania, hopes that the findings will help religious leaders discover more confidence in their work.

"In my many interactions with clergy and religious leaders," Cnaan said, "they always seem to lack confidence, they always sound apologetic. I wish I could have gone to every [congregation] and tell them 'Be proud, you're part of something very big and very important.'"
Christian leaders to gather in Texas to pray for American families, U.S. as a nation

The United States is facing crucial crossroads as a nation with the impending leadership change this November and with traditional Christian values being challenged.

With so much changes confronting the U.S., American Christian leaders have decided to unite and gather together to pray for their nation next week in a solemn ecumenical assembly that will be called "The Gathering."

Thousands of Christians are expected to troop to the Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas on the night of Sept. 21 to pray in one voice and ask God for forgiveness and His wisdom to lead the U.S. towards spiritual transformation.

According to the event's official website, "The Gathering" will particularly focus on praying for four areas of change in Americans' lives: personal, families, communities and the nation.

"Whenever a solemn assembly or sacred gathering has been called in Scripture, it has usually been called by those in leadership  whether that be a priest, prophet or king  and it has usually been called for leadership first," the website of The Gathering stated.

It also noted that based on America's historical records, spiritual leaders of the past had always called for a gathering for prayer and fasting whenever the country needed national awakening.

Among the Christian leaders expected to join the event are Pastor Tony Evans of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Pastors Greg Laurie and Ronnie Floyd, along with James Robison, Bishop Harry Jackson, Anne Graham Lotz, and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez.

Rodriguez said Christians cannot just sit down and wait for events to unfold during these crucial times.

"We stand at the precipice of losing our religious liberties via the conduit of judicial activism and legislative initiatives that view our Judeo-Christian values system as a threat to advancing a morally relativistic worldview. Complacency is captivity, we must pray, preach and vote," the Christian leader said, as quoted by Fox News.
Emergency UN meeting after US-led forces strike Syrian troops

US-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency UN Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.

The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

The United States relayed its "regret" through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement that Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area.

The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardizing the Syria deal.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move.

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power told reporters.

She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life."

When asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark."

"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin told reporters.

Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the jihadist militants.

"We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.

Power said Zakharova should be embarrassed by that claim. Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the United States colluding with Islamic State militants.

Zakharova said the strikes threatened to undermine the ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, which has been aiding Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, and the United States, which has backed some rebel groups.

The Russian Defence Ministry said US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 90 Syrian soldiers had been killed.

Australia also participated in the strikes and the Australian Department of Defence offered its condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded in the incident.

The ceasefire, which took effect on Monday, is the most significant peacemaking effort in Syria for months, but has been undermined by repeated accusations of violations on both sides and by a failure to bring humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

Apart from the US and Russian involvement, Assad is supported by Iran and Arab Shi'ite militias, while Sunni rebels seeking to unseat him are backed by Turkey and Gulf Arab states.

All the warring parties are also sworn enemies of Islamic State, whose territory extends along the Euphrates valley from the Iraqi border, including around Deir al-Zor, up to land near Syria's frontier with Turkey.

In its sixth year, the conflict has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced half of Syria's pre-war population, prompted a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe and inspired a wave of jihadist attacks across the world.

Syria's army said the US-led strikes, which took place at around 5 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) were "conclusive evidence" of US support for Islamic State, calling them "dangerous and blatant aggression".

The US military said in its statement that Syria was a "complex situation" but that "coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit".

Islamic State said via its Amaq news channel it had taken complete control of Jebel Tharda, where the bombed position was located, which would have allowed it to overlook government-held areas of Deir al-Zor.

The city's airport and some districts have been entirely surrounded by Islamic State since last year, with the airport providing their only external access.

However, Russia and Syrian state media said the Syrian army later recaptured positions it had lost. The Observatory monitoring group said at least 30 Islamic State fighters were killed in heavy Russian air strikes during that fighting.

The incident also threatens to undermine proposed joint targeting by the United States and Russia of Islamic State and some other jihadist groups across Syria.

Shaky truce

Earlier on Saturday, Russia and Syrian rebels cast doubt over the prospects for the increasingly shaky ceasefire, with Moscow saying the situation was worsening and a senior insurgent warning that the truce "will not hold out".

While the ceasefire has reduced fighting, some violence has persisted across Syria. Meanwhile, there has been little movement on promised aid deliveries to besieged areas and both sides have accused the other of bad faith.

The UN told Reuters aid trucks which had been expected to move to Aleppo on Sunday morning, were once again being delayed.

"Obviously the humanitarian community is very frustrated by this. We have hoped to go today with the convoys," David Swanson, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. "We stand ready to begin the response effort as soon as we get the green light."

Russia's Defence Ministry said conditions in Syria were deteriorating, adding that it believed the ceasefire had been breached 199 times by rebels and saying the United States would be responsible if it were to collapse.

After the Deir al-Zor attack, it said Moscow had told the United States to rein in the Syrian opposition and make sure it did not launch a new offensive, adding that it had informed Washington about a concentration of rebels north of Hama.

Insurgents say they only reluctantly accepted the initial deal, which they believe is skewed against them, because it could relieve the dire humanitarian situation in besieged areas they control, and blamed Russia for undermining the truce.

"The truce, as we have warned, and we told the (US) State Department - will not hold out," a senior rebel official in Aleppo said, pointing to the continued presence of a UN aid convoy at the Turkish border awaiting permission to enter.

Rebels have also accused Russia of using the ceasefire to give the Syrian army and allied Shi'ite militias a chance to regroup and deploy forces ready for their own offensives.
Face of Jesus Christ appears on oven door in Slovakia

An oven is usually used for cooking dishes and baking cakes and pastries. But in the central European country of Slovakia, however, one such common kitchen equipment stunned villagers when it reflected an image of Jesus Christ

According to a report from The Daily Mail, the image of Jesus supposedly appeared on the door of an oven in a house in the remote Slovakian village of Batizovce.

The owner of the oven, who was not named in the report, shared that she was just casually baking one day when she spotted what she perceived to be the face of Jesus imprinted on the glass part of the oven's door.

"'I wanted to cook so I put the pot in the stove, but my eyes kept being drawn down to the door. Something was slowly appearing there. So I sat and watched and suddenly the picture of Jesus appeared," the woman said, as quoted by the British newspaper.

The woman, who was astonished to see the image, believes that the imprint is not just a random mixture of mist, dust and fat from the oven. She also revealed that when she tried to clean the oven door, the image of Jesus Christ still remained and could not be wiped off.

News of the purported miracle quickly spread across the community, prompting some Christian pilgrims to visit the house where Jesus' image was seen on the oven door.

The Christian pilgrims, who are coming to Batizovce by the hundreds, offer prayers in front of what they believed to be a miraculous oven door. Some of them expressed belief that the alleged miracle is a manifestation of God's intent to help the poor people of the village.

"People think this miracle came to us to save us from poverty and show us that we need to follow his message of love and peace," one of the pilgrims said.

Residents of the village have declared the place where the oven is housed as a shrine.

There is, however, a downside to this supposed apparation: it is already affecting the everyday life of the oven's owner.

"Whenever I want to do some baking, my kitchen is full of worshippers and I can't even get to the oven," she said.
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Editors for an HBO news program are urging Harris County to drop charges against one of their colleagues who was arrested during an event for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Houston on Saturday.

VICE reporter, 27-year-old Alex Thompson, was released from Houston Jail overnight following his arrest on a trespassing charge behind a west Houston hotel where the event was hosted. Josh Tyrangiel, who oversees news coverage at VICE, urged Harris County to drop the charge in a tweet early Sunday.

RELATED: How a fundraiser brought George H.W. Bush, Donald Trump and Don King together

According to Houston police, hotel management asked Thompson to leave the building and he complied. He then tried to enter the hotel a second time. When he was asked to leave by management, Thompson told management to arrest him because he was not leaving.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the campaign had no knowledge of the arrest.

"The campaign was not involved in this incident or aware of the details surrounding it," he said.

"The event organizers were responsible for today's media presence and requested the campaign limit attendance to the traveling pool. The campaign had no staff presence at check-in for guests or media and therefore has no further knowledge of what occurred."

RELATED: The running list of Donald Trump's feuds with seemingly everyone

Thompson was the former editorial assistant to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who has written critically about Trump during the presidential election.

Trump vowed Saturday to end illegal immigration, as the anti-Trump protest eventually grew to more than two dozen people who used megaphones to lead chants for justice.

Trump's talk was part of a three-day conference held by The Remembrance Project, a non-profit organization that aims to draw attention to people killed by illegal immigrants. Trump kicked off his campaign in 2015 with severe condemnation of illegal immigration and has vaguely promised to deport the estimated 11 million people not authorized to be in the country if elected president.
A Houston woman was covered in blood when police arrested her after she allegedly stabbed her mother to death, authorities said.

Veronica Gonzales, 32, is being charged with the murder of 58-year-old Virginia Gonzales, Houston police said.
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What Houston's Hispanic Donald Trump supporters lack in experience, they make up for in fervor.

Even in Sunday's sweltering 93-degree heat, about a dozen members of the Houston Trump Latino Coalition jumped up and down, blew kisses and ran up to cars to try to win the support of passers-by at the corner of Pansy and Fairmont in Pasadena.

They weren't always successful. "Whenever they flip you the finger, just blow them a kiss," suggested one supporter.

The Pasadena gathering was the first of two roadside demonstrations Sunday for the group that just formed in June.

Co-founder Renee Garza clutched her Trump cut-out as she explained that the candidate's controversial comments about Mexicans have been spun and misconstrued.

"The mainstream media has not done a good job of covering him," she said.

"He said, 'some,'" she added, referencing the billionaire's now infamous comment during his June 2015 candidacy announcement when he said Mexico doesn't send its best people to the U.S.

"They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people," he said last year.

Three generations ago, Garza's family came to the U.S. from Spain, settling in what was then Mexico.

But she's not concerned about the reality star's comments about Mexicans or his plans for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

"If you look at his 10-point plan, by the time he gets to the 11 million, it may be the end of eight years," she said. "But I don't think there's anything wrong with asking people to come in legally. It's just to keep our country safe.

"I think it's important for undocumented people to realize they don't have to live in the shadows anymore."

Wearing a Make America Great Hat and a light-up Trump lanyard, Sylvia Castillo of Cypress shared in her co-founder's sunny support of the Republican nominee.

Castillo is of Mexican descent, though she was quick to point out that her family has been in the U.S. for at least three generations. In addition to her involvement in the Houston Trump Latino Coalition, the mother of four volunteers with The Remembrance Project - a nonprofit that hosted the candidate's Houston visit Saturday.

The 40-something is a relatively recent addition to the Republican Party. "I voted Democratic until eight years ago - because that's what I was taught by my parents," she said.

"I'm pro-life. I'm for our military and law enforcement." She's also not opposed to the use of torture in certain circumstances and doesn't mind temporarily closing the country to Muslim immigrants.

"Right now we need to close everything to figure out who's here and who's not here with good intentions," she said.

The long-time airline industry employee repeatedly paused to hand out miniature flags and Trump/Pence bumper stickers, apologizing with a contagious smile every time she returned to the curb.

A long-time Trump fan, she took a minute off from her roadside rallying to share pictures of the time The Donald touched her 13-year-old daughter's cheek at a campaign event in The Woodlands.

"He was very fatherly," she said, echoing Garza's criticism of media's portrayal of the GOP candidate.

As the avid supporters explained their positions and proselytized to passerby, four jets flew over the demonstration, momentarily drowning out the small crowd's ebullient shouts, which they took as a sign of God's approval.
One firefighter was injured Sunday in an early afternoon two-alarm fire in west Houston.

The apartment building, at the Ashford Creek Apartments at 3803 Synott, suffered heavy fire, smoke and water damage, the Houston Fire Department said Sunday.
On September 2, 2015, Premier Li Keqiang met with Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, First Vice President of the State Council and the Council of Ministers of Cuba, who came to China to attend the commemorative activities marking the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. (Photo/Xinhua)

Chinese Premier Li Keqiangs unprecedented visit to Cuba will spur better Sino-Cuba relations, according to Chinas former ambassador to Cuba, boosting bilateral cooperation in multiple areas. The visit will also set a good example for South-South cooperation worldwide.

Following his participation in the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, Premier Li will visit Cuba later this month. The tour will be the first official visit to Cuba by a Chinese premier since the two countries established diplomatic ties 56 years ago, Xinhua reported.

Though China and Cuba share close ties, such a high-level visit is quite rare. Lis historic visit to Cuba will elevate Sino-Cuba ties to a new high and inject impetus into bilateral collaboration both in politics and the economy, said Liu Yuqin, former Chinese ambassador to Cuba and a research fellow with the China Foundation for International Studies, in an interview with Peoples Daily online.

Coming after the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCP), Lis visit also shows Chinas strong support for the development path chosen by Cuba and its people, Liu added.

The 7th Congress of the PCP was held in April, charting the course of Cubas social and economic development for the next five years. The core value of the congress is Cubas adherence to its socialist road and economic reforms that suit the countrys national condition.

As a country that has chosen its own development path and achieved great success, China can impart its own experiences to Cuba. Meanwhile, China can also learn from Cuba, especially in the field of healthcare, Liu said.

Chinese companies are expected to benefit from Lis historic visit to Cuba as part of Chinas effort to open up the countrys market. During Lis visit, the two sides will sign cooperation deals in areas such as technology, renewable energy, industry and environmental protection, Xinhua reported on Sept. 15.

A thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations was accomplished during Obamas visit to Cuba in March, creating a more favorable investment environment. It leads to both opportunities and challenges for Chinese investors and companies in Cuba. Lis visit will attract more Chinese investors to come to Cuba and strengthen the two countries economic ties, Liu said.

According to Liu, industrial capacity cooperation might be a highlight of the upcoming visit, as Cuba has a strong demand for infrastructure construction, which is a strength of Chinas.

China is currently Cubas second largest trading partner. Bilateral trade between the two nations grew 57 percent year on year in the first nine months of 2015, reaching about $1.6 billion, according to the official website of the Chinese Embassy in Cuba.
Three young adults were hospitalized Saturday night after their pickup truck crashed into an 18-wheeler stopped in the middle of traffic, authorities said.

Around 9:30 p.m., an 18-wheeler was stopped in the eastbound lane of an unlit section of Beaumont Highway in Houston while the driver got out to open a gate at a business where he was slated to drop his load.
A deteriorating hope that he could rekindle a relationship with the mother of his child allegedly led a father to fatally shoot his 4-year-old daughter then kill himself, authorities revealed Friday.

Tarel Felder, 26, and his little girl this week had been visiting his mother's west Harris County home.

As the weekend grew closer, the father realized that returning the preschooler to her mother in Louisiana would not mean a reunion for him.

According to authorities, the 24-year-old mother repeatedly told him she was firmly set on co-parenting and had moved on to another relationship.

On Thursday night when Felder's mother left her north Katy home to run an errand, a tragedy unfolded in an upstairs bedroom.

She returned to find her son shot to death. The girl, then wounded, was airlifted to a local hospital where she died.

The deceased child is Amari Felder, according to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.

"Who is it?" asked an apprehensive female voice from behind the front door of the white, two-story house with gray trim on Friday morning.

Media satellite trucks were camped outside the residence in the 5400 block of Plantation Forest Drive. Television news cameras were trained on the home as reporters roamed the street and approached anyone whose garage popped up or whose door opened.

The hope was that someone  anyone  could make sense of the tragedy that unfolded late Thursday around 9 p.m. at that white house.

Local authorities, including the Harris County Sheriff's Office, released information that offered some details about Felder's actions.

"At some time during the week, he had learned that she was essentially seeing someone else," sheriff's office spokesman Thomas Gilliland said of the child's mother. "He had tried to reconcile with her to no avail and it's been an ongoing thing."

On Friday morning, neighbors expressed disbelief that a father killed his little girl and then himself inside a house on their street.

Urkia Lock, who lives two doors down, walked outside Thursday night when a friend trying to visit couldn't get through because of emergency vehicles, law enforcement cruisers and police tape blocking the street.

Lock, who shot video of the scene of flashing lights, said she had seen the man and his daughter outside earlier in the day and remembered thinking the girl "was so cute because of her hair."

That's why she recognized the braids and pink barrettes as the child was whisked on a stretcher from the home to an ambulance while paramedics pumped on the girl's chest.

An older woman who lives at the house also emerged with her "hands full of blood," Lock said.

The shooting remained under investigation Friday.

According to public records, both parents have been recent residents of both Texas and Louisiana, but did not live together.

CPS spokeswoman Tejal Patel said the family had no abuse or neglect history in Texas.

"We have nothing in our system about either parent ... until Thursday night's case," she said.

Louisiana CPS authorities did not respond on Friday to a request for information.

Efforts by multiple reporters to speak to someone in the home were rebuffed, though several women did gain entry into the house on Friday  including a child protective services case worker and two plain-clothes law enforcement officers.

The residence is part of a rental community of single-family homes in an area near the border of the Katy and Cypress-Fairbanks school districts.

Learning of violence in the neighborhood didn't frighten Alisa Ford, but did lead her to a sleepless night on Thursday.

"I'm a nurse and see people die everyday," the 40-year-old said. "It would be scary to me if it was somebody shooting randomly. This is an isolated issue. Every last one of these houses has issues. That's why  when I pray  I pray for everybody."

Dale Lezon and Mike Glenn contributed to this report.
After explosions in New York City and New Jersey and a mass stabbing in Minnesota on Saturday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said the Houston area is not under any credible terror threat.

Shauna Dunlap, special agent and media coordinator for the FBI's Houston office, provided a statement:

"While we are monitoring the events across the country and communicating closely with our counterparts in New York City and Minnesota, there is no specific or credible threat to the Houston territory at this time. However, events like this are a reminder to remain vigilant and always report any suspicious activity to law enforcement."

The three separate incidents occurred throughout the day. On Saturday night, an explosion in a dumpster in Chelsea caused minor injuries to 29 people. A second device several blocks away was recovered, undetonated. Authorities said Sunday that the incident does not appear to be associated with international terrorism.

Earlier in the day, a man was killed by police after he stabbed nine people at a mall in St. Cloud, Minn. An offshoot of ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack. The FBI is calling the mass stabbing a "potential act of terrorism."

And at 9:30 a.m., a pipe bomb exploded in a trash can along the route for a charity race for military veterans in Seaside Park, N.J. No one was injured by the blast, which the FBI is treating as a potential terrorist act.
A Houston Police officer was injured early Sunday when an allegedly intoxicated driver struck the back of a patrol vehicle that was blocking a road hazard.

At 2:45 a.m., two officers were sitting parked with their vehicle's lights on in one of the main eastbound lanes on the 100 block of 610 North Loop West, near Shepherd. The officers were blocking traffic from a couch sitting in the middle of the freeway, said John Cannon, spokesman for the Houston Police Department.
Historical documents released by the Shenyang Municipal Archives. (Photo/Liaoning Satellite Television)

An archive in Shenyang, Liaoning province has released 14 volumes of historical documents related to the Mukden Incident in recognition of the incident's 85th anniversary. Such a release is unprecedented in its scale and subject matter.

On Sept. 18, 1931, Japanese troops detonated a bomb on a section of railway in Shenyang, and used this as an excuse to then attack a garrison in the Beidaying area of the city on the same night. The incident was the start of the Japanese military occupation of Northeast China, which was also known as Manchuria.

The newly released documents were generated between 1911 and 1932. The documents offer readers historical facts about the political and economic situation before the Sept. 18 incident, and are an important part of Chinas Anti-Japanese War archives, said Ma Fengyun, vice director of the Shenyang Municipal Archives, during an interview with Guangming Daily on Sept. 18.

According to the documents, Japan established policing agencies along the railways in Shenyang despite the Chinese governments opposition. Japanese police officers arrested and executed Chinese citizens, trampling Chinas sovereignty in the process. By the end of 1930, Japan had established 14 illegal policing agencies and stationed 17 police officers in Shenyang.

The documents also indicate that Japan had been gathering social, economic, military and political intelligence in the area between 1911 to 1932 in an effort to initiate the Sept. 18 incident.

According to Guangming Daily, more documents will be released once they are digitalized.
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.
Yang Yuanwu, a newly elected platoon leader of an automobile regiment stationed in the Tibet Autonomous Region, hugs and talks with his grand uncle in his hometown in Sichuan province on Sept. 12. Yang's platoon passed through the city during a patrol along the Sichuan-Tibet highway. Yang's grand uncle, who is of Tibetan ethnicity, said he is proud to see his grand nephew after witnessing decades of automobile patrols along the Sichuan-Tibet highway. (Photo/81.cn)
Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong (C) attends a ceremony to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the "Sept. 18 Incident", in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, Sept. 18, 2016. On Sept. 18, 1931, Japanese troops blew up a section of the railway under their control near Shenyang, and then accused Chinese troops of sabotage as a pretext for attack. They bombarded barracks near Shenyang the same evening, beginning a large-scale armed invasion of northeast China. The incident was followed by Japan's full-scale invasion of China and the rest of Asia, triggering the war against Japanese aggression. (Xinhua/Yao Jianfeng)

Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong on Sunday struck a bell to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the "September 18 Incident" in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, northeast China.

In the presence of the gathered officials and public representatives, Liu struck the bell 14 times, representing the 14 years of Chinese people's fighting against Japanese aggressors. Air raid sirens rang across the city of Shenyang, and trains, ships and cars whistled.

After the bell ceremony, Liu said in a speech that the Chinese nation is a nation who loves peace and has the courage to safeguard peace.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese people understand the value of peace and development, and take it as their duty to promote world peace and development, said Liu.

Liu called on the Chinese people to uphold patriotism and to use the spirit of those that fought the Japanese aggressors to realize the "two centenary goals" and the Chinese dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Liu joined other officials and public representatives to visit the "9.18 History Museum."

About 1,000 people, including senior CPC officials, World War II veterans, as well as officials from local Party, government and army units, attended the ceremony.

On Sept. 18, 1931, Japanese aggressor troops blew up a section of railway under its control near Shenyang, then accused Chinese troops of sabotage as a pretext for attack. They bombarded barracks near Shenyang the same evening, triggering the 14-year bloody invasion of China.
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(Photo of Qiao Renliang in a Chinese TV show)

Chinese actor Qiao Renliang died by suicide on Sept. 16, just one month before his 28th birthday. Qiao suffered from depression prior to his suicide, leading many citizens to reflect on the widespread nature of depression in China.

According to those who were close to Qiao, the Shanghai-born actor was diagnosed with depression in 2015, and was at times heavily reliant on sleeping pills. However, Qiao was offered few treatments and little support for his depression. On the contrary, Qiao was reportedly told by an unnamed director during the shooting of a TV drama that he ought to be banned from acting on television due to his illness, Beijing News reported.

According to a statement from Qiao's agency, Qiao became depressed after suffering under the pressure of a heavy work load as well as public rumors and criticism.

Several high-profile Chinese celebrities, including Hong Kong actor Leslie Cheung, have committed suicide after battling depression. Estimates indicate that there are currently some 90 million people living with depression in China, but less than 10 percent of them get treatment for their illness. Meanwhile, the majority of the 280,000 people that die by suicide in China every year have previously been diagnosed with depression.

Globally, the disease affects about 350 million people every year, and leads - directly or indirectly - to 1 million suicides. The World Health Organization has predicted that depression may become the second most widespread disease in the world by 2020.

China has vowed in a recently issued action plan to strengthen the country's detection and treatment of mental illnesses including depression. China will also work to increase national investment in mental health, which is currently only about 1 percent of total health investment. That ratio is closer to 20 percent in many other countries, according to Beijing News.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 37-year-old man shot his girlfriend multiple times Sunday morning after an argument that started over a cellphone, police said.

The woman, also 37, was rushed to an area hospital and the boyfriend was arrested after he ran from the scene.

The shooting occurred sometime after 10 a.m. inside a house on Ridgeton Drive in Cleveland's Lee-Miles neighborhood.

The couple started arguing over a cellphone, and the woman eventually told the man she wanted to leave him. The man then shot her in the chest and the abdomen.

Several residents on Ridgeton Drive said they heard at least four gunshots, then saw the man run from the house clutching a pistol.

Officers arrested the man on Johnston Parkway near Seville Road, about a mile from the house, police said.

He did not have a gun with him. Investigators, including a police K9, searched the neighborhood, including the parking lot of Family Dollar on Miles Avenue, for the weapon for more than two hours. They had not found a gun as of 1 p.m. Sunday.

To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments section.
medicaid.jpg

In 2013, about 1,000 people from the Greater Cleveland Congregations, turned out at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Cleveland to support Medicaid expansion in Ohio. The measure was eventually approved. But the Healthy Ohio program threatens to undermine benefits for recipients, according to guest columnist Wendy Patton of Policy Matters Ohio.

(Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer/file photo)

Wendy Patton is senior project director for Policy Matters Ohio.

Guest columnist Wendy Patton is senior project director for Policy Matters Ohio.

The Federal government helped preserve health care for hundreds of thousands of struggling Ohioans earlier this month. Human service officials denied the Kasich administration's requests to impose premiums and other costs on Medicaid enrollees - costs that would have stopped patients from getting health care.

Medicaid, the largest insurer serving people in the state, provides health care to those who can't afford health insurance. A quarter of Ohioans have access to health care through the program.

Last week, new census data showed that Ohio has done a phenomenal job of increasing insurance coverage and reducing the share of our people who don't have basic health insurance. Ohio's insurance coverage levels are far better than those in the country as a whole. Ohio did better even than the average among states that have accepted federal Medicaid expansion. And Medicaid expansion states did much better than those who haven't taken the federal funding to add coverage.

Ohio sought changes that would have made patients pay fees and premiums and would have encouraged struggling Ohioans to forego medical spending. The proposal would have configured Medicaid like a "Health Savings Account" program, commonly used by high-income employees of large corporations who garner modest savings by curtailing care and comparison shopping. Modeling Medicaid on insurance plans used by the wealthy makes no sense.

Research shows that the problem of the poor is under utilization of health care, not the opposite. The poor are the most likely to lack resources such as computers and transportation to "comparison shop." Medicaid is supposed to help people get regular, preventative care before illness becomes overwhelming. Discouraging use of care through program rules is counter to the goals of Medicaid.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) agreed the "Healthy Ohio" plan threatened health care access. All adults would have been charged a premium, despite years of research that show a monthly premium of any size keeps poor people from using health care. It would have banned those who couldn't pay from coverage until they paid their arrearages. The state estimated it would shrink enrollment by 125,000.

"We are concerned about the state's request to charge premiums, regardless of income," said the government denial letter. "CMS is concerned that these premiums would undermine access to coverage and the affordability of care, and do not support the objectives of the Medicaid program." Many Ohioans understood that this proposal was not good for Ohio. Of the 956 comments submitted during last spring's hearings on the plan, 99 percent raised concerns.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services noted that Ohio's request to exclude people in arrears from coverage has never been allowed. "We do not believe that this practice would support the objectives of the Medicaid program, because it could lead to a substantial population without access to affordable coverage."

The federal decision underscores that naming the plan "Healthy Ohio" is a gross misrepresentation. Fortunately, the federal government stepped up to protect Ohio and its citizens.

This opinion essay has been updated.

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Readers are invited to submit Opinion page essays on topics of regional or general interest. Send your 500-word essay for consideration to Linda Kinsey at lkinsey@cleveland.com. Essays must also include a brief bio and headshot of the writer. Essays rebutting today's topics are also welcome.
Unemployment Benefits

Guest columnist Doug England, of The Riverside Fund, writes on how investment in small businesses can help produce jobs and protect Ohio's economy.

(Mike Groll/AP Exchange/file photo)

Doug England is with The Riverside Company.

Guest columnist Doug England is a Director of Finance at The Riverside Company, where he is responsible for the management and oversight of all aspects of finance/fund administration for the Riverside Micro-Cap Fund, Riverside Europe Fund and Riverside Asia-Pacific Fund. Within the Micro-Cap funds, England leads the management of Riverside's Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) activities and relationships, and is the firm's resident expert in Small Business Administration regulations and reporting.

All Ohioans want good-paying jobs, but they don't just appear. Wherever you find a thriving economy, you will find thriving small businesses.

The federal Small Business Investment Company ("SBIC") Program has been a major driver of job growth across Ohio. The program partners with proven fund managers like global investment firm The Riverside Company to deliver critical capital into the hands of small business owners across our state. Since 2010, the SBIC program has provided over $500 million in capital to Ohio small businesses. This capital allows companies to add new employees, implement new growth initiatives, and make operational improvements in order to maximize their growth potential.

In my role at The Riverside Company, which operates two SBIC funds, I have seen the power of the SBIC program's investment in small business to create jobs. Riverside has invested in dozens of companies - including many in Ohio - to help them grow bigger and better. Being co-headquartered in Cleveland, we are very enthusiastic about investing in Ohio businesses. Our SBIC funds have helped move the needle on job growth for many companies.

Keeping that momentum going will take the will of our political leaders pursuing pro-growth policies at the state and national level. Small businesses are critical to achieving the growth we need in Ohio. It should not be forgotten or underestimated by state and local officials as they look for ways to generate more job growth.

Earlier this year, we found out that SBICs were unintentionally included as part of the Financial Institutions Tax ("FIT") legislation. This tax on SBICs, which could total tens of thousands of dollars per year, would make it difficult for SBICs to continue to invest in Ohio-based companies. The tax is assessed on Ohio-based assets, meaning that for every dollar an SBIC fund invests in Ohio companies, they would owe this tax. But because no other state in the U.S. has this tax on their books, this will force critical capital to go elsewhere.

We recently organized a trip through our national association called the Small Business Investor Alliance, to discuss this issue in Columbus earlier this summer. We were very happy to learn that several leaders in the State House agreed with our concerns and have acted.

State Representatives Derek Merrin (R-Monclova Township) has introduced legislation, Ohio House Bill 592, to help start repeal the Ohio (FIT) impact on SBICs. It is co-sponsored by Representatives Ron Amstutz (R-Wooster), Tim Schaffer (R-Lancaster), Scott Ryan (R-Granville Twp.), and Ryan Smith (R-Bidwell). It now awaits a committee designation.

We are glad Ohio legislators understand the ramifications of this unintended and unfair tax on small businesses. We are hoping others in the state legislature will join them this year to resolve this issue.

Please consider contacting your representatives to express your support of H.B. 592. It will deliver a stronger and more prosperous Ohio for all of us.

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WFL train approaches South Harbor Station.JPG

A 23-year-old man was hurt about 2 p.m. Sunday on or near the Greater Cleveland RTA tracks by the South Harbor Station and rushed from the scene to MetroHealth, RTA said in a statement released Sunday.

(RTA)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Greater Cleveland RTA safety investigators are investigating after a 23-year-old man was injured Sunday afternoon near the Waterfront Line tracks by the station that services the Municipal Lot, according to authorities.

The man, who was not an RTA passenger, was hurt about 2 p.m. on or near the tracks by the South Harbor Station and rushed from the scene to MetroHealth, RTA spokesman Jerry Masek said in a statement.

Masek said how the man was injured and what he was doing near the tracks remains under investigation. The investigation is not a criminal one, Masek said.

RTA shut down service on the Waterfront Line for about an hour after the injury.

Service was restored about 3:20 p.m., Masek said.

The injury came near the Municipal Lot where Cleveland Browns fans tailgate on game days, but officials have not said if the man was tailgating.
Politics Of Pain Domino Effect

In this Aug. 5, 2010 file photo, a pharmacy technician poses for a picture with hydrocodone and acetaminophen tablets, also known as Vicodin, at the Oklahoma Hospital Discount Pharmacy in Edmond, Oklahoma.

(Associated Press file photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- As drug and opioid deaths in Ohio rose 81 percent between 2006 and 2014, prescription painkiller manufacturers and pain-management advocates contributed more than $3 million to the campaigns and political parties of many of the state's politicians.

A cleveland.com analysis of data provided by The Associated Press and The Center for Public Integrity also found that many of the top recipients of campaign donations in Ohio have been increasingly vocal about the opioid crisis in the past few years.

The data shows that while drug deaths -- the majority of which were from heroin and opioids -- spiked nationwide, so did lobbying efforts and campaign contributions from the Pain Care Forum, a coalition of drug makers, trade groups and opioid-friendly nonprofits. The forum's mission was to ensure painkillers remained easy to obtain, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to deliver its message.

Some of Ohio's senators and U.S. House members and candidates received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Pain Care Forum, which includes companies such as Abbott Laboratories, Pfizer, Merck and Johnson & Johnson. Abbott spun off its U.S. pharmaceutical operation in 2013 and no longer lobbies on related issues.

Some state officeholders also saw tens of thousands of dollars in contributions.

And while Ohio's state lawmakers have introduced and pushed measures in recent years designed to address opioid abuse, the money can appear to create a conflict of interest with politicians who accept money from pro-pain management groups and then espouse the problems with said painkillers.

"The concern is that it's awfully difficult to trace any particular dollar given or spent to a particular vote," said Dan Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University who studies campaign finance. "The way that money influences politics can be much subtler and insidious than that."

Who got the most?

In Ohio, the most Pain Care Forum money went to former Rep. John Boehner, who served as speaker of the House between 2011 and 2015. The Cincinnati-area Republican received $875,470 between 2006 and midway through 2015, when the last available campaign-finance records were available.

Boehner's total is only exceeded by campaign contributions to President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who mounted presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

Below Boehner is Rep. Pat Tiberi, a Columbus-area Republican who chairs the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. The subcommittee deals with many of the issues of interest to the pain-management industry. He received nearly $300,000 in contributions from the Pain Care Forum.

Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Cincinnati, comes in third with $211,865 between 2009 and mid-2015.

Rounding out the top five are U.S. Reps. Steve Stivers and Marcia Fudge. The Columbus-area Republican received $173,950 between 2007 and mid-2015, while the Warrensville Heights Democrat got $78,750 from 2009 to mid-2015.

Where does Ohio rank?

In the data provided to cleveland.com, members of the Pain Care Forum gave more than $2.3 million in donations, the seventh highest amount in the country, to politicians running for federal office from Ohio. Ohio's state office candidates received more than $885,000 between 2006 through the middle of 2015, the 10th highest amount in the country.

An additional $178,000 went to the state parties, with the majority going to the Republicans, which have controlled the Ohio legislature for most of the past decade.

In all, between 2006 and mid-2015, the Pain Care Forum donated Ohio's political candidates more than $3.4 million, the ninth highest of any state. Forum members also employed, on average, 37 lobbyists a year in the state.

Between 2006 and 2014, Ohio saw 17,152 drug deaths, with the number going up 81 percent during that time period. Most of these were from heroin and opioid overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Per capita, Ohio had the fifth-highest rate of drug deaths in the country, trailing West Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Kentucky.

At the same time, the number of prescriptions dropped more than 10 percent between 2013 and 2015, faster than the national rate, according to data from IMS Health.

State action on opioid abuse

The amount of campaign contributions that flowed to Ohio politicians is a bit unique, because lawmakers here were fairly proactive early on in trying to address the opioid epidemic.

Much of that was spearheaded by Republican Gov. John Kasich when he took office in 2011. That year, he signed the "Pill Mill Bill," designed to crack down on pain management clinics that doled out prescription painkillers without merit.

In Ohio, that pushed those who got their drugs from doctors to buying drugs on the street. Law enforcement, recovery experts and medical officials attribute the increased popularity of black market drugs, such as heroin and fentanyl, to the fight against pill mills.

Kasich also created the Cabinet Opiate Action Team within days of his inauguration and has worked with state leaders to expand access to treatments and increase availability of the overdose drug naloxone.

Members of the Pain Care Forum donated nearly $46,000 to Kasich and Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor's election campaign, though a Kasich spokeswoman said the governor does not allow campaigns contributions to affect his work in office.

"Anyone who suggests that's not aggressive isn't paying attention or just wants to play politics," Kasich spokeswoman Emmalee Kalmbach said in an emailed statement. "There's no room for division here, however, Ohio must come together to save lives."

Cheri Walter, head of the Ohio Association of Behavioral Health Authorities, said if the pain-management industry had made a large push in Ohio, it wasn't coming to her mind. She said Kasich and others' actions were proactive as opioid deaths began to spike.

Federal lawmakers

While perhaps not as early as the state politicians, federal politicians have begun to take notice of the opioid scourge.

Portman has been especially visible on this issue. He authored and helped shepherd the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act through the Senate.

The bill, signed by Obama in July, calls for $181 million a year in new spending for addiction and recovery programs.

The junior senator has also put forth other measures aimed at fighting the opioid scourge.

Advocates say Portman's treatment bill is not perfect, though.

It does not guarantee money for programs and there are no restrictions on painkillers or mandatory training for doctors who prescribe medication.

Portman spokesman Emily Benavides said the senator "supports reducing the amount of opioids that are prescribed and increasing physician education about the risks of overprescribing to ensure that happens." She said the bill requires that studies be conducted on how to cut down on the prescribing of painkillers.

William Denihan, the CEO of Cuyahoga County's Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services board, said the bill is a start.

"It's not everything I wanted," he said. "I think at least we have their attention."

Tiberi, who received the second-highest amount from the Pain Care Forum of any Ohio politician, has also taken stances against heroin and opioids in recent years.

His spokeswoman, Olivia Hnat, said in an emailed statement that Tiberi "supports efforts to prevent addiction, stop opioids from being over prescribed and increase education on the risks of opioid medication and drugs."

Still, Tokaji said it can be difficult to show how a campaign donation affects a politician's actions. It rarely is as simple as encouraging a "yes" or "no" vote, he said.

"It's inevitably hard to say how much this money influences legislative decisions, not only the decisions to vote for a particular bill but the decision not to act in the face of a serious and growing problem like opioid abuse," he added.

This story was updated to note that Abbott Laboratories spun off its pharmaceutical wing in 2013.

Cleveland.com reporter Rich Exner, The Associated Press and The Center for Public Integrity contributed to this story.
Photos published by the transportation department of southwestern China's Guizhou province show how difficult transporation used to be in the region, with wooden bridges and narrow roads the only infrastructure available to guide the Red Army along its arduous journey through the province 80 years ago.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Long March, which is recognized as a turning point in China's revolution. The photos also highlight the province's modern conveniences, such as its high-speed rail lines and grand suspension bridge. (Photo/81.cn)
The U.S. and China are the forefront of A.I. development.

Americans spent $814 billion on domestic travel last year, according to the U.S. Travel Association. As it happens, they're also spending a lot of time online planning that tripwith a little help from automated friends.

Nowadays, there are no shortages of options to find good vacation deals. Since moving away from travel agents, planning a trip has meant multiple searches on desktop sites, in addition to mobile and through apps.



A study found in the six weeks before actually booking a vacation, prospective travelers visit up to 38 sites. That search can include online travel engines like Kayak, Expedia , Orbitz , and Priceline , plus airline, hotel and review sites.



However, Kayak CEO Steve Hafner says new technologies are now starting to change how travelers plan and book their trips.



"It will be less point-and-click websites," Hafner told CNBC's "On the Money" in an interview. More and more, potential vacationers will now be helped by "spoken work and chat bots."



Disruptive technology shifts have broad implications for the travel industry, Hafner explained. "What we're seeing is there's a whole generation of people who are more familiar with text messaging and voice via Siri who are looking for a different interaction with an online travel agency," he said, speaking of Apple's automated helpmate.
Da-Kuk | Getty Images

Forget health insurance or a 401(k) plan, more employees prefer their company's stock purchase plans. Sixteen percent of workers said their employee stock purchase plan is their most important benefit, up from 10 percent in 2014, according to a new survey by Fidelity Investments, which administers employee stock purchase plans for 177 employers with 678,000 participants. Employees may be feeling optimistic about their company's stock because of the second longest bull market in history. One in 5 workers expects his or her company stock to increase substantially over the next three years, the survey found. Fidelity polled more than 2,100 stock plan participants in March and April. Investing in company stock is not without risk. "Having worked with lots of Lucent, Avaya, HP, United, and other employees in the 2001 recession who lost their shirts by being over-invested in company stock, I'm leery of the employee stock purchase plans," said Kristin Sullivan, a certified financial planner in Denver. But tell that to employees at Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others who became millionaires from company stock purchases.

Know your plan

More than half of public companies that provide equity compensation to workers offer an employee stock purchase plan, according to the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals. Workers often can purchase company stock through their employee stock purchase plan at a discount. Qualified ESPPs offer discounts up to 15 percent below the current market price. Nonqualified plans, which are harder to find, can provide even greater discounts. A qualified ESPP limits the amount of company stock that you are allowed to purchase to less than $25,000 per year. "I view it as free money as long as people maintain their discipline in the plan," said Monica Sipes, a certified financial planner with Exencial Wealth Advisors in Frisco, Texas. Keep in mind that you also may have an allocation of company stock in your 401(k) plan. Unlike ESPPs, buying employer shares in a 401(k) does not come with a discount. Only 7 percent of 401(k) assets were invested in company stock as of 2014, the most recent data available, according to the Employee Benefits Research Institute. That figure has dropped by 63 percent since 1999 when company stock accounted for 19 percent of retirement plan assets. Tougher rules and huge losses by workers who invested in employer shares at Enron, Lehman Brothers and RadioShack have pushed plan sponsors to limit company stock in their 401(k)s. Sipes recommends that people hold no more than 15 percent of their net worth in company stock. Yet misplaced loyalty and familiarity bias can keep employees attached to their company shares. "The emotional aspect can be a hindrance. You're not being disloyal to the company by selling your stock," Sipes said.

Consider your taxes

You do not owe any taxes when you purchase company stock through a qualified employee purchase plan. Taxes get trickier when you sell shares. The discount that you received when you bought the stock is generally considered additional compensation to you, so you have to pay taxes on it as regular income. If you hold the stock for less than a year before you sell it, any gains are considered compensation and taxed at ordinary income tax rates. Take this example: You are in the 25 percent federal income tax bracket and you bought shares of your company for $85 in an employee purchase plan, discounted by 15 percent from $100 per share. You sell immediately. Your gain of 15 percent would be taxed at a 25 percent rate, so you only pocket an 11.25 percent return.

If you hold the shares for more than one year, any profit will be taxed at capital-gains rates, which are usually lower than income-tax rates for most taxpayers.

"I advise selling as soon as possible to realize the gain from the discount," Sullivan said. "It's not the best tax-wise, but you never know what tomorrow holds for your company's stock price." Participants in Fidelity's ESPPs appear to agree with Sullivan's advice. Of the employees who sold the company stock they bought in a plan, 1 in 4 liquidated their shares almost immediately. Nearly two-thirds sold all their shares within 90 days, and about 90 percent sold all of their shares by the end of the first year.

Employees are less likely to hold all their shares as the value of payout increases, according to Fidelity. Half of workers held their stock when the payout value is less than $2,500 while only one-third kept their shares when their payouts were $50,000 to $100,000. Younger workers are more likely to sell than older employees. Among workers in their 30s and 40s, roughly 40 percent held onto their shares in an employee purchase plan versus 48 percent of employees in their 50s and 55 percent of workers who were 60 and older, Fidelity found. "Most people I know contribute, then forget about them like 401(k)s," said Hui-chin Chen, a certified financial planner with Pavlov Financial Planning in Arlington, Virginia. "An ESPP is not a good vehicle for such a management style."

ESPPs and retirement
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An explosion that injured 29 people when it rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood Saturday night has been determined to be an "intentional act," and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said it was clearly "an act of terrorism." The explosion, on West 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood, was reported around 8:30 p.m. Twenty-nine people were hospitalized with injuries, but they had all been released by Sunday afternoon, authorities said. "A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism," Cuomo said Sunday morning. Latest developments:

Surveillance video mayshow the same man at both locations where devices werefound

New suspicious package discovered in New Jersey

"Vehicle of interest" stopped in New York late Sunday

Governor orders 1,000 state troopers and National Guard soldiers to New York City

Authorities investigating 911 call claiming responsibility

Both NYC "bomb" and explosive device in New Jersey used flip-phones Less than three hours after the blast, an object police described as a "possible secondary device" was found just a few blocks away from the original explosion on 27th Street while officers were combing the area. Cuomo said the device was "similar in design" to the one that detonated just blocks away. Authorities studying surveillance video on Sunday from both areas may have identified the same man at each location, law enforcement sources told NBC New York. Tweet 1 The device from the second location was later sent to an NYPD range in the Bronx aboard a special containment vessel, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's office said. The device was "rendered safe" and was being sent to a special FBI facility in Quantico, Va., for examination, police said Sunday night. Meanwhile, the FBI confirmed that a "vehicle of interest in the investigation" was stopped near the Verrazano Bridge in New York late Sunday. No one had been charged, and "the investigation is ongoing," said a spokesperson who gave no further details. More from NBC News:

Authorities Probing Possible Similarities Between Explosive Devices in N.Y. and N.J.: Sources

Rigged Pressure Cookers Have Long History Among Bombers Worldwide

Nine Hurt in Minnesota Mall Knife Attack, Suspect Killed

And police and the FBI responded late Sunday night to a suspicious package near the Elizabeth transit station at 11 West Street. Authorities didn't say whether they believed the package might be related. New Jersey Transit suspended service between Newark Airport and the Elizabeth station. De Blasio said Saturday night that the blast hadn't been linked to terrorism, but Cuomo clarified that the explosion hadn't been linked to an international terrorist group. "A bomb going off is generically a terrorist activity," Cuomo said. De Blasio and other city officials stressed that the investigation was in its early stages and that while investigators had been able to determine that the blast was "criminal" and "intentional," they hadn't nailed down a suspect or a motive.

Members of the New York City Police Department and other law enforcement officials work at the scene of Saturday night's explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Drew Angerer | Getty Images

No arrests have been made, but NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill said, "New York City residents can rest assured that we'll get to the bottom of this." Still, O'Neill, who was sworn in just a day before the blast, said the situation worried him. "We did have a bomb detonated on 23rd Street, and we have no one apprehended, so of course I'm concerned." Security had already been tightened in the city for the ongoing United Nations General Assembly, but the presence of officers throughout New York City after the blast will be "bigger than ever," De Blasio said. Cuomo ordered 1,000 New York State police and National Guard members across the city. Police had said the blast in the Chelsea neighborhood appeared to come from inside a large trash bin, and law enforcement sources said they have video of a man dropping something into or next to a dumpster on 23rd Street. Another video from 27th Street shows a man leaving behind a piece of luggage before two other people come along, take a device out of the bag and walk away with just the suitcase, officials familiar with the investigation said. Tweet 2 Videos like that  from nearby businesses  are what detectives want to get their hands on from both 23rd and 27th streets to see who was there before the explosions, New York Police Chief Carlos Gomez said. He said the investigation would take time. "There's a lot of people out on the street on a warm Saturday evening in Manhattan," he said. A 911 call, in which the person on the line claimed responsibility, is also being looked at, but officials don't know whether the call was legitimate or a hoax. New Yorkers were encouraged to remain vigilant Sunday and to call police with any information they may have about either device. The explosion sent a dumpster flying more than 150 feet down the sidewalk and shattered windows more than a block away, a senior law enforcement official said. After viewing the extensive destruction, Cuomo said it was "fortunate" that no one had been killed. "When you see the damage, it's amazing that no one was killed, to tell you the truth. We're lucky that only 29 were injured," Cuomo said Sunday on MSNBC.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (L) and New York Police Department Commissioner James O'Neill at the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighbourhood of Manhattan, New York. Valery Sharifulin | TASS | Getty Images

President Barack Obama was apprised of the situation, a White House official said. "The initial indication is this was an intentional act," de Blasio told reporters at the Saturday night news conference. There was also "no specific and credible threat against New York City at this point in time from any terror organization," the mayor added. Cuomo reiterated Sunday morning that there was no further credible threat, and he urged New Yorkers to "err on the side of caution" but feel comfortable to go about their daily business. "We will not allow these type of people and these type of threats to disrupt our life in New York. That's what they want to do, and we're not going to let them do it," Cuomo said. "They want to make you worry about going into New York City or New York state. We're not going to let them instill fear, because then they would win," he added. "Bottom line on this is ... whoever placed these bombs we will find, and they will be brought to justice," Cuomo said. "Period." 'Entire apartment shook' "There was a loud boom and our entire apartment shook," said Neha Jain, 24, who lives on West 23rd and Sixth Avenue. "All the pictures fell to the floor, and then I heard people screaming." Jain said the explosion shattered the glass in her building's lobby. "My first thought was it's a bomb," Jain said. "It's quite terrifying." A large police presence, including officers of the New York Office of Emergency Management and the NYPD's counterterrorism unit, responded to the scene. There is a construction site near the scene of the Chelsea explosion. Police searched cars and trash cans in the area. Facebook activated its "Safety Check" feature so that users can easily notify friends and family members of their status. De Blasio also said the investigation has so far found no link to an explosive device that blew up in a New Jersey Shore community earlier Saturday, near a planned race route.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials walk past evidence markers near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, U.S. September 18, 2016. Rashid Umar Abbasi | Reuters
That means while the hours are shorter, the workload is the same.

"I'm giving them this sort of lifestyle where their work week is better than most people's vacation week, but the ask is, 'You need to figure out how to be productive,'" said Stephan Aarstol, founder and CEO of Tower Paddle Boards.

That's exactly what one entrepreneur is doing for his employees, and he said it's making his workers happy and helping his business grow.

Imagine only working five hours a day, and still receiving the same pay as if you had worked an eight-hour day.

He instituted the five-hour workday about a year and a half ago. Employees work from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m., without a lunch break, for a total of 25 hours a week.

The average American works about 44 hours in a typical week, according to a Gallup poll conducted in August.

But a longer day doesn't necessarily mean more work will get done, Aarstol said in a recent interview with CNBC's "Power Lunch." He theorized that most Americans get about two to three hours of work done in an eight- to 10-hour day.

"There's no time constraints on people so we've become a lazy workforce," he added.

While his employees have greater pressure to get their work done, they are not only happier but more productive, said Aarstol, who has also written a book on the subject called "The Five Hour Workday."

He also isn't micromanaging that productivity.

"We measure productivity in really broad strokes, like how much money did we make this year," he said.

Aarstol founded Tower Paddle Boards in 2010, but things really took off in 2012. That's when he appeared on "Shark Tank," and Mark Cuban invested $150,000 for a 30 percent stake in the company.

At the time, the beach and lifestyle retailer had $100,000 in lifetime sales.

"I'm known infamously as the worst pitch in the history of 'Shark Thank,' and I still got a deal.  I froze up, I couldn't talk," Aarstol said.

Cuban's bet has paid off. Since his investment, the company has done over $20 million in sales. Aarstol said Cuban has probably made a 500 percent return on his investment in cash dividends alone over the past four years.

Ellen Galinksy, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute applauded Aarstol's creativity.

"It is really important to be creative and to respond to the needs of workers and to say the industrial era models we've had in our heads just don't work," she told CNBC. "There should be more experiments like that."

Over the past 11 years, there has been an increase in flexibility around full-time work  like being able to change starting and ending times and working from home, Galinsky pointed out.

However, when it comes to time away from work  like working reduced hours  there has been a decrease in flexibility by employers, she added.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank."


United States president Barack Obama Alex Wong | Getty Images

President Barack Obama, in one of his final presidential addresses to a predominately black audience of Capitol Hill lawmakers and guests, made a plea to his Democratic base: African-Americans must vote en masse in November's presidential contest to help his legacy or he will be personally insulted.

"There's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter. It all matters," Obama told the crowd at the Phoenix Awards dinner, hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. "I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy, if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election," the president said. While Obama touted advances in the economy, healthcare and criminal justice reform under his administration  declaring the country is "stronger and more prosperous than it was eight years ago"  he noted that "none of it's been quick, none of it's been easy. None of it has come without a fight. And so much of our work remains unfinished." Though he didn't mention GOP nominee Donald Trump by name, Obama asserted that one candidate will advance his policies, while "there's another candidate whose defining principle, the central theme of his candidacy is opposition to all that we've done."

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Obama then directly criticized Trump's pitch to African-American voters.

"He says we got nothing left to lose, so we might as well support somebody who has fought against Civil Rights, and fought against equality, and who has shown no regard for working people for most of his life," Obama said to cheers. "Well, we do have challenges, but we're not stupid." "We know the progress we've made, despite the forces of opposition, despite the forces of discrimination, despite the politics of backlash. And we intend to keep fighting against those forces," he said. America's first black president, along with first lady Michelle Obama, drew cheers, a standing ovation and frenzied cell phone snaps when they took the stage at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The Congressional Black Caucus' foundation has sponsored the confab for nearly 50 years; this year, the event drew upwards of 10,000 attendees featured some 70 public policy forums that tackled everything from police brutality, to voting rights. Among the honorees last night was retiring Harlem Congressman, Charles Rangel, Rep. Marcia Fudge and a posthumous tribute to the nine men and women slain inside a Charleston, South Carolina church. Hillary Clinton, who received a Trailblazer award for the historic nature of her candidacy, praised Obama as "one of the best presidents this country has ever had," saying that he, his wife and two daughters have represented America with "class, grace and integrity."



Surrounded by military veterans, US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says US President Barack Obama was born in the United States, during a campaign event at the Trump International Hotel, September 16, 2016 in Washington, DC Mark Wilson | Getty Images
Last week, Chinas National Development and Reform Commission unveiled guidelines for the construction of the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor. These are the first multilateral cooperation guidelines under the Belt and Road Initiative.

China, Mongolia and Russia have always emphasized the commonalities and connections between their strategies. The guidelines state that these connections of the Silk Road economic belt, the Eurasian Economic Union and the Prairie Road program are the ultimate goal of the project.

"There is a clear need for a connection of the three countries strategies. Mongolia is striving to develop an export-oriented economy, but it lacks a development channel in the East and West; Russia wants to integrate into Eurasian economic development with the help of the Belt and Road Initiative; for China, development of the economic corridor is conducive to opening up the market to the north. Therefore, effective syncing of the three countries strategies is a good thing for all," said Lin Guijun, vice president of the University of International Business and Economics.

The tripartite collaboration also has a solid foundation in economics and trade. Data from the Development and Reform Commission shows that in 2015, trade volume between China and Mongolia reached $7.3 billion, and that trade volume between China and Russia amounted to $64.2 billion. China has become Mongolias largest trade partner and investor for the 10th consecutive year. China is also Russia's fifth largest export market and largest source of imports.

The guidelines propose seven concrete areas for cooperation, including the improvement of transport facilities through the expansion of land, air and sea connections; the renovation of ports of entry; and an overhaul of customs procedures for easier clearance.

Indeed, the three countries are complementary in a variety of areas. In infrastructure, for example, Mongolias Prairie Road program proposes the construction of highways, railways and oil pipelines, but the country lacks adequate technical and financial resources. Meanwhile, Russia faces a high demand for high-speed rails and other transportation facilities. China has accumulated abundant experience in these areas. Thus, cooperation in these fields not only promotes infrastructure development but also expand trade and investment between the nations.

The three countries have already begun cooperation across seven fields. At the China-Mongolia-Russia Cooperation Fair, held in China, agreements worth $6.4 billion were signed. The highway for New Ulaanbaatar International Airport, a project between China and Mongolia, and the Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway, jointly undertaken by China and Russia, have all injected vigor into the local economy.
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Family starts over after losing home, pets in Wooldridge fire

The McComb family called Wooldridge home before losing everything material to wildfire. What hurt the most was the loss of their pet dog Olaf.
While Korean mobile payment systems Samsung Pay and Kakao Pay have failed to gain traction in most brick and mortar stores, Chinese mobile payment systems including WeChat Wallet and Alipay are gaining fans in the country, where Chinese mobile payments are accepted in many stores.

Payment via WeChat Wallet accounted for about 20 percent of total sales at Shinsegae Duty-Free (Myeong-dong), Thepaper.cn reported, quoting the director of the sales department. Besides duty-free shops, businesses like barbecue restaurants, cafes and high-end cosmetics stores including Innisfree offer tourists the option of paying via WeChat or Alipay.

Whats more, Alipay is currently seeking to increase its presence in European countries.

Beginning in October 2016, German jeweler Wempe will offer Chinese customers the opportunity to pay with the Alipay app at three of its outlets in the German cities of Frankfurt, Hamburg and Cologne, according to a joint press release by Alipay and Wempe on Sept. 16.

The press release also promised that, pending the successful implementation of Alipay in these three pilot stores, other German outlets of Wempe will also offer Alipay payment starting in early 2017.

According to the German National Tourist Board, overnight stays by Chinese guests increased more than twofold between 2004 and 2014, reaching over two million stays in 2014. And this trend is set to continue. The Financial Times calculated that Chinese tourists spend an average of $5,200, or around 4,650 euros, during their stays.

Rita Liu, head of Alipays Europe, Middle East and Africa divisions, welcomes the partnership: "For Alipay, the cooperation with Wempe is a vital step in our expansion [into] the German market and for gaining a foothold in the major metropolitan regions," Liu said. Since June of this year, the Chinese company has been working with Concardis to approach German retailers, the press release added.

Although tourists can get tax refunds via Alipay in the majority of European countries, it is still uncommon to be able to pay directly via Alipay in Europe, China News Service reported. Tourists can pay via Alipay in only one of the duty-free shops in Frankfurt International Airport, but they cannot pay by scanning QR codes in other stores.
SHARE Marlon Boyd

By Kayleigh Skinner of The Commercial Appeal

A Memphis man found guilty of murder for the second time last month was sentenced to life in prison for the shooting death of his acquaintance, according to the Shelby County District Attorney's General's Office.

Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee Friday sentenced Marlon Boyd, 46, to life in prison without parole plus 30 years, District Attorney General Amy Weirich said in a statement Saturday.

Boyd was convicted of first-degree murder, aggravated assault and possession of a handgun as a felon last month for the 2014 death of 47-year-old Michael Richard. He was also recently sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on federal gun charges.

Testimony from Boyd's trial stated that on May 23, 2014, Boyd was walking with the victim before shooting him in the chest outside Richard's home in the 1700 block of Preston street, the statement said. After shooting Richard, he turned to a witness and threatened to kill him if he told anyone, the statement said. There was no known motive, the statement said.

Boyd has already served nearly 20 years for a separate case in which he was found guilty in 1991 of second-degree murder and aggravated robbery charges.
China's Tencent Pictures, the film arm of online giant Tencent, unveiled 21 new TV and film projects on Sept. 17, all adapted from copyrighted content in cooperation with famous Chinese directors. This is the company's latest move to tap into valuable IPs in gaming, film and TV.

The list of new projects contains film adaptations of several Chinese best-sellers, including "The Tibet Code," ten fantasy Tibetan adventure novels written by author He Ma, which have sold a combined 10 million copies. There will also be an adaptation of a series by history writer Ma Boyong about Chinese antiques.

A scientific adventure series first published on Tencents comics channel is another of the adaptations-to-be. Its scriptwriter will be Zhang Xiaobei, one of the best Chinese science fiction screenwriters and critics.

Chinese filmmaker Lu Chuan, who directed the 2016 nature documentary "Born in China" and won a Golden Rooster for 2004's "Kekexili: Mountain Patrol," also revealed plans to work with Tencent. Although Lu didn't reveal any details, he said his ambition goes beyond IP-adapted films, crossing over into comic books, animated series and video games.

Along with the list of new projects, Tencent also released a trailer of its film adaptation of "Kong: Skull Island," which is now being produced in partnership with Hollywood production company Legendary Pictures, scheduled to be released on March 10, 2017. This is the second time Tencent has partnered with Legendary Pictures, after the two invested in "Warcraft," the videogame adaptation of popular online game World Of Warcraft in September 2015.
SHARE Shaughn Walker (Commercial Appeal File)

By Jody Callahan of The Commercial Appeal

Memphis police have arrested a man accused of trying to carjack a woman and her young child Saturday.

Shaughn Walker, 50, has been charged with aggravated robbery, two counts of attempted aggravated kidnapping and resisting arrest. He is being held on $100,000 bond.

According to police, the victim was putting her daughter in her Nissan Pathfinder when the suspect jumped into the passenger seat, pointed a gun at the woman and told her to drive. Instead, the mother told her daughter in Spanish to get out of the car. Once the child was out of harm's way, the mother did the same and the suspect drove off with the car, police said.

Earlier that morning, the suspect had caused a disturbance in a convenience store at 1470 Wells Station, police said. Police were on the scene reviewing that video when Walker allegedly returned to the scene. Store employees identified him and, when officers tried to arrest him, Walker resisted, police said. An officer used a Taser on Walker and he was taken into custody.
June 29, 2016 - Shelby County Commission Chairman Melvin Burgess (left) confers with former chairman Terry Roland (right) during a commission meeting earlier this year. (Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal)

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By Linda A. Moore of The Commercial Appeal

Melvin Burgess, the newest chairman of the Shelby County Commission, conducted his first meeting last week, guiding his colleagues through the multilayered process of nominations and votes to appoint two new judicial commissioners.

It's a process that can easily get confusing. But there were few stumbles for Burgess, the District 7 representative, who is in his last term in office.

Burgess, 53, was elected to the chairmanship in a unanimous vote while running unopposed. That's unprecedented in recent years, when electing a chairman has been an annual and contentious battle.

"I have a tremendous amount of faith in his leadership," said fellow commissioner Walter Bailey. "He's going to be a sterling asset to advocate, through his leadership as chairperson, to steer us in an aggressive manner in meeting some of the challenges we face  crime, poverty, unemployment, racial division and strife. He's going to have to depend on the rest of us to provide the support that he needs in order for him to accomplish some of his goals as a leader. And I think he's got the confidence of the commissioners."

Burgess, the son of former Memphis police director Melvin Burgess Sr., said he looks to Bailey for guidance.

"I used to have an issue with people who served for a long time, but praise God we had him during that (school) merger to fight for what's right," Burgess said. "Walter, my father, when they made that model, that mold is gone. They were fighters."

Burgess has three priorities for his year in leadership, beginning with the next stage of the $310,000 disparity study, which found that minority- and women-owned firms are largely being left out of county contracts. An ad hoc committee is now crafting new purchasing policies.

"My number one goal is to see through that disparity study to make sure there is something in place so that purchasing with minorities and women is equitable," Burgess said.

His second goal is to follow up on the memorandum of agreement between Juvenile Court, the county and the U.S. Department of Justice, which found that the rights of African-American children were being violated. Recent progress reports have, however, found problems with the takeover of juvenile detention by the sheriff's office.

And third, Burgess said, he will continue his efforts to increase education funding and improve the educational opportunities and outcomes for all of Shelby County's children, many of whom are poor, have unemployed parents and need intervention at many levels.

"These kids are coming from some very hard circumstances," he said. "Some people say it's the parents. We get that. But what do we do as a community, the churches, the businesses, what do we do to get it back on track? Because you know what? If you continue to turn your back on it, the same kid who's not getting those chances, they're going to take it from you or they're going to break in your house."

Burgess, a graduate of Grambling State University, is now the manager of quality control in business operations at Shelby County Schools. Last year he was demoted from director of internal audit after an outside auditor found thousands of items were missing.

At the time, he did not comment to the media, he now says, under the direction of the school system.

Burgess said the situation was "bigger than me" and that long before he took over internal audit with Memphis City Schools, the district had dismantled its inventory control department.

"There was no system to account for it, so what do you do? It was scattered all over the place," Burgess said. "There was no adequate system to keep track of equipment."

SCS has since moved in a different direction, he said, and he likes his current job.

Burgess ran for County Commission, he said, to make a difference, especially for the county's poor.

His district includes areas of Midtown and extends into the much poorer North Memphis, where one of his biggest fans is Quincey Morris, executive director of the Klondike/Smokey City Community Development Corp.  although she didn't vote for him.

"All my neighbors and friends were talking about Melvin Burgess, but I did not know him from Adam's house cat," Morris said.

Burgess is a fixture in the community now and has helped strengthen the CDC, spent his own money to help with events, awarded county grants for computers that residents use to write resumes and find jobs, and established the District 7 Collaborative, a network of nonprofit agencies that works together to create programs, share resources and finances.

"He is out there helping others like a county representative or any elected official should. I'm very proud to be called his friend," Morris said. "Because he is a good friend."
An ordinance proposed by three Nashville Metro Council members seeks to decriminalize possession and the casual exchange of marijuana of one-half ounce or less. (Photo: Getty Images / iStockphoto)

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By Joey Garrison, USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee

A Republican lawmaker from Middle Tennessee is threatening to introduce legislation that would withhold state highway funds from Nashville or Memphis if those cities adopt what he calls "pretend marijuana decriminalization" measures.

State Rep. William Lamberth, R-Cottontown, said he is "strongly considering" filing a state bill next session that would penalize either city approving pending ordinances seeking to give people caught with small amounts of marijuana a chance to avoid a criminal record.

Lamberth, chairman of the House Criminal Justice Committee, said his potential bill would seek to halt state highway funds from cities that do not enforce criminal penalties outlined in state law. Funding would continue again if a violating city overturns their policy. This past year, the state set aside $129.1 million in highway funds for Shelby County and $119.5 million for Davidson County.

"That's not a bill that I would want to file, but it's a bill that I'm certainly willing to file if Nashville and Memphis continue down this extraordinarily reckless and unjust path," he said.

Lamberth's threat comes as the Metro Council on Tuesday will consider giving final approval of legislation that would give Nashville police the option of reducing the penalty for people who are found in knowing possession of a half-ounce of marijuana or less to a $50 fine or 10 hours of community service.

The bill was originally drafted in a way that would have moved toward true decriminalization because it would have made a civil penalty automatic. But following concerns of the Metro Nashville Police Department, the council amended the bill's language to simply give police the option of handing out a civil penalty instead of misdemeanor charge.

A similar ordinance is making its way through the Memphis City Council with a possible vote early next month.

Lamberth said he favors criminal justice reform  noting the legislature recently eliminated a requirement that third-time simple marijuana possession be an automatic felony  but he said giving police two options of penalties would create a "miscarriage of justice" and "a Russian roulette situation."

Moreover, he argued Tennessee's two biggest cities would ignore state law that he contends make the local ordinances pointless in the first place.

"It will create two standards of justice where at the whim of an officer, one person may face a $50 fine, the next person found with a small amount of marijuana could face up to 11 months and 29 days in jail.

"Not to mention the fact that they're calling it decriminalization and they're not erasing the state statute at all," he said. "I mean literally this smells and looks like a political stunt to curry favor with certain constituencies in my opinion."

Lamberth, an attorney who faces re-election in November, is no stranger to funding threats. He was the House sponsor of legislation this year changing the state's DUI law, a move federal transportation officials said put Tennessee in jeopardy of losing $60 million in federal highway funding. It prompted Gov. Bill Haslam to call a special legislative session last week to undo the measure.

Lamberth, who hinted at his possible bill on the House floor during last week's session and says he's discussed the measure with colleagues, said the experience with the federal government gave him the idea for the measure.

Under Tennessee law, violators of this offense face a Class A misdemeanor charge that is punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Council sponsors of Nashville's marijuana legislation have argued their proposal would work within the confines of state law. They've likened the measure to Metro's law for litter or wearing seat belts, both of which have penalties not as severe as those outlined in state law.

"All counties have different laws," said Councilman Dave Rosenberg, the lead sponsor of Nashville's proposal. "Every legislative body in the country passes laws for its own jurisdictions. This sort of thing already exists when it comes to littering and careless-driving laws.

"We'll be voting (Tuesday)," he said. "If we backed away from doing our jobs every time there was a possibility that the state Legislature would step in we'd really have nothing to do."

In a legal analysis, council attorney Mike Jameson cited several cities that have adopted marijuana ordinances where corresponding state law applies a more severe penalty. He said they include Philadelphia, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Tampa, Fla., and St. Louis. Jameson agreed that there are already instances in which Metro grants citations for actions deemed criminal offenses in state law.

"Municipalities in Tennessee may not adopt ordinances that contravene state law," Jameson's analysis reads. "However, proponents of this ordinance may reasonably contend that it does not contravene Tennessee's current prohibition against marijuana possession."

When the marijuana decriminalization effort cleared the council on Sept. 6 on a second of three readings, state Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, was in attendance and watching from the front row of the council's gallery. Kelsey, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not return messages from The Tennessean seeking comment.

Republican Gov. Bill Haslam has said he's "not a fan" of marijuana decriminalization efforts, pointing to substance abuse problems with the drug in society.
Memphis Zoo officials traveled to Tbilisi, Georgia to help rebuild the city's flood-damaged zoo. (Photo courtesy of Farshid Mehrdadfar, Memphis Zoo)

SHARE Farshid Mehrdadfar feeds Beglar at the Tbilisi Zoo in Georgia. Mehrdadfar is animal curator at the Memphis Zoo and is in Georgia, along with director of research and conservation Kimberly Terrell, helping officials rebuild their facility. (Photo courtesy of Farshid Mehrdadfar, Memphis Zoo)

By Kayleigh Skinner of The Commercial Appeal

Two Memphis Zoo officials are half a world away helping salvage a zoo ravaged by floods last summer.

Animal curator Farshid Mehrdadfar and director of research and conservation Kimberly Terrell traveled to Tbilisi, Georgia, on Sept. 12 to work with Tbilisi Zoo officials to rebuild the facility after a flood in June 2015 severely damaged the city.

"I knew from following what happened on the news that the flooding was tragic, but until I landed in Tbilisi, my mind struggled to grasp the enormity of the situation," Mehrdadfar said in the statement. "The lower section of the zoo was gone."

On June 13 and 14, 2015, heavy rainfall caused severe flooding in the Vere River Valley. The disaster killed at least 12 people and damaged infrastructure across the city. The zoo was hit particularly hard because of its proximity to the Vere River. According to a statement from the Memphis Zoo, the Tbilisi Zoo suffered major damage to 39 animal exhibits and nearly 300 animals died. Three zoo staff members were also killed.

Zoo animals roamed the city in the aftermath of the floods and citizens were warned to stay inside until the wolves, bears, hippopotamuses and other animals were brought under control.

Shortly after the flooding, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service's Office of International Programs selected the Memphis Zoo to travel to Georgia to "help get the ball rolling," said zoo spokeswoman Laura Doty. Memphis was chosen "because of its expertise in animal care, public education, research, facilities management and the ability to leverage additional resources through partnerships with other zoos," she said.

Mehrdadfar, whose grandmother is from the area, visited Tbilisi to assess the damage as the first part of a rehabilitation plan. He gathered information about the scope of the damage and animal collection needs in order to make recommendations for the zoo's eventual recuperation.

Almost a year after the floods, Tbilisi Zoo officials visited the United States to tour American zoos. Between June 10 and July 3, the Georgian zookeepers, curators, education staff and others visited the Memphis Zoo, Saint Louis Zoo in Missouri, and Audubon Zoo in New Orleans to learn about emergency response planning, public education and biodiversity conservation, Doty said.

Now Mehrdadfar and Terrell are in Tbilisi providing intensive training and recommendations on animal care and exhibit design. The two zoos are working to create a master plan for recovery and the eventual institution of education and conservation programs.

"The Tbilisi Zoo has access to endangered animals in that part of the world that are not found in the U.S.," Terrell said in the statement. "Likewise, we can share the latest techniques from our side of the world to conduct new research on these species."

Mehrdadfar and Terrell are scheduled to return next week, Doty said.
SHARE Sen. Lamar Alexander

By Michael Collins of The Commercial Appeal

WASHINGTON  Concerned by skyrocketing premiums and fewer coverage options, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander and other Senate Republicans are pushing to give more choices to Americans who buy health insurance through one of the marketplaces set up under the Affordable Care Act.

Their legislation wouldn't permanently fix what's ailing the 2010 law, informally known as Obamacare, Alexander said. But it could provide temporary relief for millions of Americans who in November will begin buying their insurance for next year.

"If the market is collapsing in our face, we need a solution for the year 2017," said Alexander, a Maryville Republican and chairman of the Senate committee that oversees health care issues. "This is a solution for that."

The bill, introduced last Wednesday by Alexander and seven other Republicans, would give states authority to temporarily let residents use their Obamacare subsidies to buy a health plan of their choice for 2017, even if it's available outside an Affordable Care Act marketplace.

States exercising that authority would receive a one-year exemption from an Obamacare provision requiring people to buy a specific plan or pay a fine of up to $2,000 per year.

Alexander says such steps are necessary given the turbulence in the health-insurance market.

Just last month, insurance giant Aetna announced that next year it will withdraw from the federal online marketplace  HealthCare.gov  in most states where the exchange operates.

Around the same time, Tennessee Insurance Commissioner Julie Mix McPeak declared the federal exchange in the state "very near collapse" and signed off on large premium increases she said were necessary to keep it in business.

Cigna was given permission to boost its rates an average 46.3 percent. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Tennessee was granted an average 62 percent increase.

The problem stretches far beyond Tennessee, Alexander said. Come November, nearly one-third of the nation's counties will have only one insurer to choose from on state-based exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act, he said.

"This is an immediate problem in our state and the whole country," Alexander said. "Premiums are skyrocketing. Insurance companies are leaving, and families are being left with one choice for insurance."

President Barack Obama's administration argues that Tennesseans are actually benefiting from the Affordable Care Act.

New census data shows just 10.3 percent of Tennesseans went uninsured in 2015, down from 14.4 percent in 2010. That means that 266,000 more Tennesseans had health coverage in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The average family premium in Tennessee was $2,100 lower in 2015 than if premiums grew at the same rate they did in the decade before the Affordable Care Act, the White House Council of Economic Advisers says.

What's more, hospital readmissions for Tennessee Medicare beneficiaries dropped 8.7 percent between 2010 and 2015, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That drop translates into 2,905 times Tennessee Medicare beneficiaries avoided an unnecessary return to the hospital, the agency said.

"Affordability, access and quality are how we measure success in our health care system," Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in a recent news release. "Tennessee is making progress on all three under the Affordable Care Act."

Making the case that Obamacare is working requires "a vivid imagination," Alexander said.

But getting his legislation passed in time to help Americans buying next year's health insurance will take some ingenuity.

Congress will be in recess all through October and won't be back in session until after the November election, right around the time most Americans will begin shopping for insurance for 2017.

Passing the bill in that time frame "will be hard to do," Alexander said. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try."
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By Ron Maxey of The Commercial Appeal

It's an old saw among journalists that one of the reasons you go into journalism is to avoid learning math.

So anytime a budget story comes along, we take a deep breath, make sure the calculator on our phones is working and hope for the best. It can be a challenge crafting a numbers story that is correct, fair and understandable, all in one package.

Never have I been more reminded of that truth than in dealing with the current DeSoto County school system budget. It's no one's fault, but explaining this budget has been a task that would tax a tax specialist.

In June, school board members approved a budget that included a tax increase touted as not really an increase since it was only restoring a tax that had been levied in recent years except for a one-year break last year.

After resistance from a segment of the community to rising education spending and an efficiency study that school officials said preceded any criticism, board members last week revised the budget by trimming $2.2 million. But, despite the cuts, the requested tax rate didn't drop from last year. That's because the cuts were offset by that tax increase in another area of the budget that wasn't really an increase, the one that was restored in the June budget.

Further complicating matters, an error that was corrected at the county level made it appear the restored tax had not been lowered for a year as advertised by the school system, anyway.

When the dust settled, everyone seemed basically satisfied that the growing school district  challenged like other Mississippi districts by chronic state underfunding  was able to get what it needed without raising taxes, even though taxes also didn't decrease.

It was enough to make heads ache and knees buckle. And that was just for the reporters covering it.

"If MAEP were fully funded every year, we wouldn't be having this discussion." -- DeSoto County Schools Supt. Cory Uselton on the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, considered the real culprit in school financial woes.

TUNICA SHOOTING

The details surrounding newsworthy events often don't come to light until well after the fact, often as the result of a lawsuit.

Such was the case with the January 2015 shooting death of John Gorman, a Mississippi Gaming Commission officer killed during a training accident in Tunica.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Northern Mississippi by Gorman's widow, the scenario leading to Gorman's death was laid out in much greater detail than initially provided by officials, who simply called the incident a "tragic, freak accident."

According to the suit, the instructor leading the training course failed to remove his weapon and replace it with a dummy as other participants had done. The instructor, identified as Robert Sharp, pulled his firearm and shot Gorman in the chest during a role-playing exercise, according to the suit.

A lawsuit, of course, only presents one side of a story. Defendants haven't filed their response.

But as details begin to emerge, as one caller noted, it provides a sense of closure to what all agree was a tragic situation.

SOUTHAVEN DEJA VU

Southaven's Board of Aldermen regained a face, and voice, from the past in last week's special election to fill the Ward 2 seat.

Ronnie Hale, who held the seat before losing it to Shirley Kite in 2013, defeated Brandon Henley to rejoin the board after Kite was forced to resign. She had to step down because of changes in state pension rules that wouldn't allow her to serve on the board while drawing a pension.

Hale said he's been keeping up with city business since leaving the board and is ready to hit the ground running.

It was unclear whether Hale's ties to the time of former Mayor Greg Davis  Hale was never accused of wrongdoing, but is associated with that era  would hurt his bid to rejoin the board, but voters answered by handing Hale the seat easily, 271 votes to 155.

Expected back in action shortly, Hale said cleaning up blight in his aging ward and making sure codes are enforced will be top priorities.

BRIEFLY

Let's vote, y'all: A new online site allows Mississippi voters to change existing voter registration information without leaving home. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said voters can go to the "Y'all Vote" site, yallvote.sos.ms.gov, to make changes. Hosemann said it's important to note that address changes must be made by Oct. 8 for anyone planning to vote in the Nov. 8 general election. After the deadline, changes can only be made through the circuit clerk's office in the voter's home county.

Presidential qualifiers: Speaking of the Nov. 8 general election, Hosemann announced that eight candidates qualified for the top race on the ballot in Mississippi. Presidential contenders appearing in the state will include: Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party; Donald Trump, Republican Party; Darrell Castle, Constitution Party; Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente, American Delta Party; Jim Hedges, Prohibition Party; Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party; Jill Stein, Green Party; and Barbara Dale Washer, Reform Party.

MDOT update: The Mississippi Department of Transportation says it's moving forward with a project to improve the Interstate 55 southbound exit ramp onto Commerce Street in Hernando.

"There is always a high volume of traffic exiting the interstate onto Commerce Street in Hernando," Transportation Commissioner Mike Tagert said. "This project will help reduce the stress of the exit ramp, while increasing safety for the traveling public."

Construction of an additional southbound lane will begin Monday and should be complete in early summer of next year. During construction, lane widths will be reduced from two 12-foot lanes to two 11-foot lanes. The public will be notified of any lane closures during construction.
Syrian boys are treated in a field hospital after an airstrike against the rebel-held city of Douma, Syria, outside Damasus, last week. MOHAMMED BADRA EPA

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By John Kahler, Special to The Washington Post

One evening in June, I found myself on the roof of a bombed-out hospital in Aleppo. It was pitch black because the city's east side is without electricity. My colleagues and I watched jets fly by, dropping bombs on the outskirts of the besieged region. Exploding rockets could be heard throughout the night.

I'm a pediatrician in Chicago. This summer I traveled with two colleagues from the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) to Aleppo. There, I saw firsthand the way this war is maiming children emotionally as well as physically. The kids I encountered often struggled with debilitating trauma. Some had stopped eating; others could barely communicate.

My experience echoes across the country. In one town, CNN reported a rash of child suicide attempts.

"The children are psychologically crushed and tired. When we do activities like singing with them, they don't react at all; they don't laugh like they would normally," a teacher in the western town of Madaya told Save the Children. "They draw images of children being butchered in the war, or tanks, or the siege and lack of food."

In a report, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has said that "the most prevalent and most significant clinical problems among Syrians are emotional disorders, such as: depression, prolonged grief disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and various forms of anxiety disorders." According to Save the Children, "the repercussions for the future mental health of an entire generation could be catastrophic."

I spent some of my time in Syria at the SAMS-supported underground hospital M10, the main trauma facility in east Aleppo. When we arrived, the orthopedic surgeon changed into his scrubs and went to work in the emergency room. I headed to intensive care, where two children were being treated for head and chest wounds. A barrel bomb struck them as they played outdoors. One of the boys, about 10, died three days later.

Later, I moved to a different hospital, M2, which had a pediatric ward and clinic. Each day children would be brought by their families or ambulance. They suffered from the physical injuries you would expect in a war zone: head injuries, lost limbs and myriad cuts and bruises.

Many also suffered from the trauma of living in a war zone. I remember an 8-year-old, Zaira, brought in by her parents because she had stopped eating and had begun to wet her bed nightly. Zaira would get hysterical if her parents left the room. When I talked to the child with a female interpreter, she would not make eye contact with me. Instead, she looked blankly into the distance, what psychologists call "the thousand-yard stare."

I saw another family with three children, ages 3, 5 and 7. A barrel bomb destroyed their apartment; they now lived with cousins. The two older children were too afraid to sleep indoors at night, so their father set up a makeshift tent in the alley and slept with them each night. They could not be persuaded that sleeping indoors was safer.

In many ways, this isn't surprising. Children need safety, predictability and security to thrive. Syria's civil war has made that impossible, especially in places like east Aleppo, where 300,000 people have been under siege, 40 percent of them children, and traditional bombs have been used alongside chemical weapons like chlorine gas.

The beleaguered citizens have been denied even the most basic humanitarian relief. Scores of children and even more adults have been killed and gassed.

This environment has led to epidemics of anxiety and depression among Syria's children. These mental health challenges can have long-term consequences on the child's ability to learn and to form meaningful relationships. Once this war is over, we'll need to conduct a major mental health assessment and treatment for these children. Physical safety and rebuilding will be the easy part. Healing the spirit and soul is much harder.

The U.S. and Russia have brokered a truce in Syria. Given the failure of earlier agreements, the people of Aleppo wait cautiously but hopefully for some sunlight in the pervasive darkness.
September 7, 2016- A cyclist crosses the Walnut Grove as rush hour traffic backs up on Walnut Grove at Farm Road. (Nikki Boertman/The Commercial Appeal)

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The multimillion-dollar improvements to Shelby Farms Park are a marvel when it comes to aesthetics, functionality, and government and private collaboration.

But the $70 million in improvements to the park eventually could be eroded if something is not done about the incessant traffic problem along Walnut Grove and Farm roads, deterring visitors from taking advantage of the park and its new amenities.

That is why, as we have said before in this space, not doing something about the traffic is not an option. There is a viable solution on the table that bodes well for solving the problem: a low-speed parkway that would swing traffic north and along a western sliver of the park, taking heavy traffic off Farm Road, a north-south roadway through the park.

Some time around the end of the year, the Federal Highway Administration could issue a record of decision on the proposed Shelby Farms Parkway, ending the environmental review process and clearing the way for design work to begin. Allowing for design, right-of-way acquisition and other steps, construction could start by fall of 2022.

Although the parkway project has existed in one form or another for some 30 years, our support for the parkway only came after numerous improvements to initial road plans to relieve the chronic traffic congestion along Farm and Walnut Grove, that mainly can be tied to the explosive residential, commercial and office growth in Cordova and other points east.

More recently, motorists trying to avoid the traffic backups resulting from the improvements being made to the Interstate 40 and I-240 interchange have added to the traffic woes.

Because of the park's importance to Memphis and Shelby County as a recreational amenity, we understand why the proposed parkway has critics.

Dennis Lynch, transportation chair for the Sierra Club's Tennessee chapter, opposes the parkway on several grounds, including environmental impacts and the estimated $35.9 million cost. The federal government would fund 80 percent of the work, with the city of Memphis covering the rest.

In a story published in The Commercial Appeal last Sunday, Lynch told reporter Tom Charlier that the parkway has never been justified and "there are many other projects that deserve higher priority than that one." Besides eating up too much park acreage, Lynch maintains the current traffic situation "is not that bad," that it is a problem only during rush hours, which could be alleviated with modest steps such as the eastbound turn-lane extension on Walnut Grove at Farm Road planned by the city.

But those who regularly travel the route said the traffic issue is broader than what happens during the rush hours, especially regarding Farm being a busy traffic cut-through. And it should not be overlooked that the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy, the organization that has been chiefly responsible for the park's enhancements, raising $60 million in private funds for the $70 million in improvements, supports the parkway.

Jen Andrews, executive director of the conservancy, said the parkway could provide the best long-term solution to the congestion. The conservancy, which manages the park for the county, signed off on the parkway project  certifying, as required under federal law, that it will not significantly harm the park.

The parkway is the best solution for ending the congestion and for pulling commuter traffic out of the heart of the park. This is not an Overton Park situation in which transportation officials had wanted to run an expressway through the middle of the park.

The proposed parkway will divert traffic around and out of the park while also relieving the traffic congestion. That makes the parkway a viable solution. Doing nothing is not an option.
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Dave Russell

Oakland, Tenn.

David Waters mostly brings positive good news, although occasionally too sweet and sappy. He is obviously very liberal. He made a very large mistake 9/11 (Post-9/11 fears fade with food, fellowship, Sept. 11 column).

Im sure fun was had by all, and it is a good thing to get together for Muslims and Christians, but they do not believe in God as stated by Waters. Their god is Allah. The Christians God is the Lord of the Bible. Any simple study of Islam will reveal that Allah is described very differently from God of the Bible.

For example, God is Triune, and Allah is only one. God has described access to heaven. Heaven is not assured for Muslims except to die as a martyr. Be informed and read any trustworthy source book on Islam.
SHARE Dr. Andrea D. Willis

By Andrea D. Willis, Special to Viewpoint

"What's wrong, Mama?" That's the question Olivia asked her mother, Beth, who was wrestling with her own question, "Will Olivia make it?"

For years, Olivia had struggled with pain-pill addiction and all that comes with it  disappearances, arrests and an overdose. But Olivia fought to be drug-free, seeking counseling and detoxing on her own three times. Through the ups and downs, Beth always held on to hope for her beautiful, blue-eyed, mischievous girl. She knew her daughter didn't want this to be who she was, but she had a disease  addiction.

On April 2, Beth received the devastating 4 a.m. call that Olivia was never coming back. An overdose of heroin and other prescription drugs took the life of her 25-year-old daughter.

This is just one of the real and tragic stories behind the statistics of our state's opioid crisis. And it's one that brings the heartache to our doorsteps at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

Beth is a BlueCross employee, just one of many who have had loved ones impacted by or lost to prescription pain medication abuse.

Being "of" Tennessee and "for" Tennessee, we experience all the things our members and fellow Tennesseans do. When there's a health crisis in our state, we feel and deal with it in all the same ways.

That's why, as the state's largest health insurer, we are moved to help address the opioid emergency, which in 2015 claimed 1,263 lives in Tennessee. We know pain medication is necessary to treat many conditions, but there is a clear need to take action and work in a collaborative way with all parties to help prevent what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls an epidemic.

Earlier this year, BlueCross enacted new quantity limits on opioids. And in July, we implemented a prior authorization requirement for new long-acting opioid prescriptions. We've also started outreach to educate our network doctors on their prescribing patterns and evidence-based best practices.

Along the way, we've worked with an independent clinical advisory panel that has guided our efforts. The goal is to set policies that don't throw anyone into chaos, avoid disruptions in care, and ensure BlueCross members and eventually all Tennesseans receive only the appropriate amount of opioids for their medical conditions, while limiting the potential for misuse and abuse.

Over the next year, Tennesseans will hear about Count it! Lock it! Drop it!, a grass-roots effort of the Coffee County Anti-Drug Coalition, which aims to help people understand the dangers of misusing prescription drugs and encourage them to safely dispose of their medications in one of the drop boxes across the state.

The BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Health Foundation is funding the program's statewide expansion with a $1.3 million grant for training and media-based public education, which is being backed by additional BlueCross resources to inform all of our citizens about safe medication storage and disposal.

By working with our network providers to ensure safe prescribing behaviors and directing our foundation's ongoing efforts to support those organizations dedicated to the opioid epidemic, we hope that fewer people will know Beth's heartache  and more will avoid or win this fight.

Dr. Andrea D. Willis is chief medical officer of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
An explosion has ripped through Manhattan leaving more than a dozen people injured on Saturday night.

The blast at 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue in Chelsea around 8.30pm is thought to have come from a dumpster and could have come from an explosive device.

The Fire Department reported that there were at least 25 people injured in the blast, but their injuries don't appear life-threatening.

It comes hours after a pipe bomb in a trashcan blew up near a fun-run for the military in New Jersey - but no one was injured.

At least two people were seen being taken away from the scene of the blast in ambulances, but the severity of their injuries was not immediately clear.The victims have been taken to several different hospitals.

The FBI and NYPD Counterterrorism Unit are investigating but there is no confirmation on what caused the blast yet.

A police source told CNN that an IED near or in the dumpster may have caused the explosion.

First responders fear there could be a secondary device, but none have been found.

Police responded to an explosion in Chelsea on Saturday night. The fire department was deployed to a building (pictured) at 135 West 23rd Street near Sixth Avenue around 8.30pm

The blast at 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue in Chelsea around 8.30pm is thought to have come from a dumpster (pictured) and could have come from an explosive device

The FBI and NYPD Counterterrorism Unit are investigating but there is no confirmation on what caused the blast yet. A police source told CNN that an IED near or in the dumpster may have caused the explosion

Authorities have ruled out gas as a cause for the explosion.

The blast, according to a witness, occurred on 23rd Street, a major east to west thoroughfare in the fashionable downtown neighborhood of Chelsea.

A car seen driving through the area had its rear window blown out.

Officers with police dogs are searching the premises for any remnants of a bomb or explosive device, if there is one, authorities reported.

New York City Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should 'expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue' due to police activity there and asking the public to avoid the area.

Hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block, as police cordoned off the area.

Multiple social media users posted photos of the aftermath and injured victims.

The cause of the explosion is still unknown, but the explosion occurred in a dumpster.

The explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood comes just hours after the deadly pipe bomb that exploded along a route where thousands of runners were due to take part in a charity run in New Jersey.

More than one thousand spectators, including war veterans and small children, had gathered just a few blocks from the blast in Jersey Shore town on Saturday afternoon.

Two more pipe bombs, that hadn't exploded, were found in a garbage can near the event which sought to raise money for marines and sailors.

The pipe bomb near D Street exploded about 9.30am - the exact time runners were due to pass that location.

No injuries were reported but bomb-sniffing dogs have continued to look for more bombs in the area.
Last week, as James Forsyth reported yesterday in the Sun, the new Cabinet sub-committe on Economic and Industrial Strategy met, and discussed foreign takeovers of British companies, executive pay and worker representation on boards. Theresa Mays interventionist instincts on these matters have been evident ever since her speech to ConservativeHome in 2013.

According to Forsyth, Philip Hammond made the case for a conventional Conservative free market approach to all three, arguing that protectionism, or anything that looks like it, would be perilous for a post-Brexit Britain that must continue to attract investment from abroad.

ConservativeHome is told that the Chancellor was backed up by others, including Sajid Javid and Michael Fallon. Javid said last year, while Business Secretary: I dont particularly like the word strategy coupled with industrial. Last week, he offered up a quote for the media in support of the new Northern Powerhouse project launched by his old mentor, George Osborne  who was unceremoniously fired as Chancellor by May. This was certainly loyal and arguably brave.

Then again, it was perhaps less bold than it looks. For the plain fact is that the Prime Minister, with her small working majority, cannot easily discipline or sack Ministers without consequences  not now that she has fired or demoted so many who flourished under the Cameron and Osborne regime: Michael Gove, Nicky Morgan, John Whittingdale, Theresa Villiers, Matthew Hancock, Greg Hands.

Furthermore, there is a knock-on effect from promoting so many experienced and older Ministers. Since some are nearer the end of their careers in Government than the start, these are not particularly frightened of being dismissed, and so will speak their minds.

The Chancellor is plainly going to tell it as he sees it. Fallon is 64, and could reasonably conclude that he is holding his last post in Government. David Davis is 67  which leads to the next point. May cannot easily afford to lose from Cabinet any of the Three Brexiteers: Davis, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson. To be fair to her (and why would we not seek to be?), she seems to welcome a revival of traditional Cabinet Government. May, to her credit, allowed the discussion to run. She did not try and shut down debate, Forsyth wrote of last weeks meeting.

Is this development a strength or a weakness? If Prime Ministers seek to by-pass Cabinet  like Margaret Thatcher in her latter days, or Tony Blair for much of his administration  they are accused of arrogance: of contemptuously flouting the proper norms of government. If they use Cabinet or its committees as a sounding-board, they are charged with weakness, as John Major was after his pre-1992 election honeymoon.

Either way, constitutional theory is one thing, political practice another. It is too early to know whether or not this more collegiate style of government will work for May. But there are two points about the context in which it is being exercised that are worth noting.

First, the flow of power to senior Cabinet members is taking place at the same time as a counter-flow to senior Downing Street advisers. The Mail on Sunday and the Sun on Sunday are among todays vehicles for complaints about centralisation under the Prime Ministers two Chiefs of Staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, our former columnist (Hammond is apparently unhappy). Second, May is not matching the slimness of her majority to caution. During and after her leadership campaign, she distanced herself from her predecessor on key matters of style and substance.

Her opening message to her first Cabinet Minister was that politics isnt a game. She will have known well that Cameron and especially Osborne were critcised for allegedly taking that view, and have known exactly how those words were bound to be reported. She complained in her membership stage leadership launch speech of a lack of deep economic reform. These are but two examples of each.

Last week, we set out ten ways in which she has parted from the policies of her predecessor. Todays Observer lists two more: bold plans for tackling obesity have been watered down. Tory housing policy, so long focused on home ownership, is to be recast with more emphasis on helping those in the rented sector.

As we say, it is too early to know whether this combination of bold policy changes, a slender majority, plain-speaking senior Cabinet Ministers and a new concentration of power in Downing Street is going to work. Towards the end of her time in office, Thatcher became unable to make government work for her. She had come to rely heavily on a duo of Charles Powell and Bernard Ingham.

Blair, by contrast, had a larger political staff. He was prone to deploy fixers. Unlike her predecessor, May has never regarded herself as an heir to Blair. But if she intends to finish as boldly as she has started, the Prime Minister should have a look at how he made government work for him. And he had a majority of 179 when he first won in 1997. May has a formal one of 16, a Lords that is suspicious of her government at best and hostile at worst, and no manifesto mandate for the most distinctive plan she was produced to date (the grammar school expansion proposal).
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Chinese frigate "Huangshan" and Russian Navy's Antisubmarine Ship "Admiral Tributs" sail to a target area during a China-Russia naval joint drill at sea off south China's Guangdong Province, Sept. 16, 2016. Chinese and Russian fleets conducted joint operation exercise off Guangdong Province in the South China Sea during the "Joint Sea 2016" drill on Friday. The drill, starting on Sept. 12, will run until Sept. 19, consisting of three phases: preparation at port, exercise at sea and summary. (Xinhua/Zha Chunming)

ABOARD WARSHIP GUANGZHOU, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Russian naval forces on Saturday carried out a joint drill on air defense and anti-submarine in the South China Sea off southern China's Guangdong Province.

Vessels including a missile destroyer, anti-submarine vessels, missile frigates, ship-based helicopters and conventional submarines, among others, took part in the exercise.

The vessels were divided into two fleets and confrontations were staged off the eastern waters of Zhanjiang in Guangdong.

A senior officer of the joint drill said the exercise was carried out under a background of actual combat and expected aim of the exercise had been reached.

Chinese and Russian navies are currently holding the "Joint Sea-2016" drill that runs from Sept. 13 to 19.

It features navy surface ships, submarines, fixed-wing aircraft, ship-borne helicopters, marine corps and amphibious armored equipment from both sides.
By NS Venkataraman* When the announcement was made that Indian origin Rishi Sunak has been elected as the next Prime Minister of Britain, an euphoria was seen in India with Indian media and several Indians hailing the event, as if an Indian citizen has achieved this feat. Ridiculous comments have been heard such as India was ruled by the British earlier and Britain will now be ruled by Indian." Similarly, when Indian origin Kamala Harris was elected as Vice President of USA, many celebrations happened in India and residents of the village in Tamil Nadu, which was supposed to be native village of the family of Kamala Harris, even organised thanks giving offerings in the local temple. One is not sure whether Kamala Harris has visited this village at all at any time in her life. There are so many other Indian families and individual Indians who have migrated to USA, Canada and European and other countries in the last several decades and have surrendered their Indi
Photo taken on Sept. 1, 2016 shows twin panda cubs "Jianjian" (up) and "Kangkang" at a park in Macao, south China. Macao's twin panda cubs were officially named "Jianjian" and "Kangkang" by the government out of 1,718 names recommended by Macao citizens, the special administrative region(SAR)'s civil affair authorities said on Saturday. (Xinhua)

MACAO, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Macao's twin panda cubs were officially named "Jianjian" and "Kangkang" by the government out of 1,718 names recommended by Macao citizens, the special administrative region(SAR)'s civil affair authorities said on Saturday.

The names for the twin brothers represent good wishes from the Macao people, as Jian Kang in Chinese means "being healthy". They are chosen by the government out of 1,718 names proposed by 3,587 citizens according to their meaning, pronunciation, and previous panda names, Macao's Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (CMAB) said.

"Jianjian" and "Kangkang" were the most favored choices as they were proposed by 1,117 citizens, some of which said they chose them to wish the panda cubs good health and wish Macao people good health and happy life.

CMAB said another reason for making the choice is their parents' names "Kaikai" and "Xinxin" are frequently used with "Jianjian" and "Kangkang" in Chinese. The combination of this family's names are Kaixin Jiankang, meaning being happy and healthy.

According to the panda care team, the twin cubs now weigh 4,115 grams and 3,335 grams respectively from 135 grams and 53.8 grams at birth. They have their parents' black-and-white appearance, with their eyes open but only can see things in a short distance.

Female panda Xinxin has given birth to the pair of male twin cubs on June 26, 2016. Xinxin and a male panda named Kaikai were chosen from Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in southwest China's Sichuan Province as a gift of the central government to Macao SAR.
(Xinhua) 10:55, September 18, 2016

BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will attend the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly and pay official visits to Canada and Cuba, during a trip on Sept.18-28.

The visit will mark several "firsts," namely Li's first appearance at the UN General Assembly, the initial trip under the annual dialogue mechanism between Chinese premier and Canadian prime minister, and the first official visit to Cuba by a Chinese premier in 56 years since the two countries established diplomatic ties.

It is expected that Li will present Chinese solutions to various global challenges, and bolster ties with both Canada and Cuba during the upcoming trip.

UN APPEARANCE: CHINESE SOLUTIONS IN SPOTLIGHT

The 71st session of the UN General Assembly was kicked off on Sept.13, involving representatives from 193 UN members, to discuss a wide range of global issues including sustainable development, the implementation of the Paris Climate Pact, terrorism and the anti-globalization trend, among others.

Against such a backdrop and in a year which marks the 45th anniversary of transferring China's seat in the UN to the government of the People's Republic of China, Li's first appearance at the General Assembly has drawn intensive global attention.

His packed itinerary in the UN includes addressing the general debate of the UN General Assembly session, attending a symposium on2030 sustainable development agenda, two meetings on refugee issues and several bilateral meetings.

"President Xi Jinping, while attending activities commemorating the 70th anniversary of the UN last year, presented a raft of measures and promises in support of the multilateral organization, and Premier Li is expected to give an update on the implementation of these measures and promises," said Yang Xiyu, a researcher from the China Institute of International Studies.

Apart from being a follow-up on Xi's UN pledges last year, Li's UN tour is also expected to shed light on China's diplomatic policies and its stance on various issues, said Yang, adding that this part will allow the world to know China better.

The Chinese premier will also meet with representatives from the finance sector, think tanks, and media organizations in the United States.

"The arrangement showcases the innovation and strategic thinking by a new generation of Chinese leaders in conducting public diplomacy," commented Yang.

DEBUT OF CHINA-CANADA PM DIALOGUE: NEW ERA FOR BILATERAL TIES

Li's tour is the first visit by a Chinese premier to "the country of maple leaf" in 13 years. Moreover, it is the one to start an annual PM dialogue between the two countries.

The annual dialogue is a mechanism established in the end of August when Li met with his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau in Beijing.

Their exchange of visits in less than a month is a sign of "fast warming" bilateral relations, according to a number of analysts. The dialogue to be unveiled, from its topics to results, is drawing an intensive attention as what Li's Canada trip is about.

Li is scheduled to attend more than 20 events during his stay in cities from Ottawa to Montreal, ranging from political talks, economic and trade forums to people-to-people or cultural exchanges, which are expected to enhance China-Canada political mutual trust and practical cooperation.

Participation in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is"clearly Canada's best choice," Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau has commented. In fact, it is in the best interests of both countries to jointly make bigger the cake of win-win cooperation between them.

China is Canada's second largest trading partner, source of imports and market of exports. Their economies are highly complemented, with huge potential to be tapped in sectors particularly of high-tech, agriculture, energy resources as well as third party cooperation.

Trudeau has expressed the belief that a strengthened bilateral relationship will bring new opportunities for Canadian enterprises and for Chinese companies to expand business in Canada.

"Overall, China is doing clever work in building a multipole economic and diplomatic framework featuring positive interaction, mutual benefit and win-win result, through cooperation in different fields and with different focuses with such developed powers as Germany, France and Canada," Yang said.

CUBA-CHINA FRIENDSHIP DEEPENED

Premier Li's trip to Cuba is the first official visit by a Chinese premier since the two countries established diplomatic relations 56 years ago.

Ruben Zardoya, a professor at the University of Havana, described the visit as a "major event" in the relationship between Cuba and China.

He also expressed his hopes that Li's visit could bring "new investment, technology and closer ties with the outside world" to Cuba.

China and Cuba are "good friends, brothers and comrades," and their relationship has become sound and mature after having been developing for over half a century.

Bilateral relationship is now facing new development opportunities at a time when Cuba, which is striving to update its economic growth mode and seeking a diversified diplomatic strategy, places more value on its ties with China.

During his visit, Li is expected to attend the welcome ceremony held by President of the Cuban Council of State and Council of Ministers Raul Castro Ruz and exchange views with him on issues of common concern.

The two countries are also expected to sign more than 30 cooperation documents in such fields as economy, technology, financing, industrial capacity, quality control and environmental protection.

China is Cuba's second largest trading partner, while Cuba is China's largest trading partner in the Caribbean region.

Xu Shicheng, a researcher with the Latin America Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that trade and economic ties between China and Cuba have been growing rapidly, but the total volume of bilateral trade is not very large.

"The people and government of Cuba hope that Premier Li's visit could give a strong boost to the development of Cuba-China trade and economic ties," Xu said.

Cuba's manufacturing sector and infrastructure, which are relatively under-developed, are in need of China's machines, equipment and technical staff, the researcher said. "Industrial capacity cooperation between the two countries enjoys big potential."
China on Spet.15 launches space lab Tiangong-2 into space, paving the way for a permanent space station the country plans to build around 2022.(Photo/Xinhua)

Tiangong-2, Chinas first space lab in a real sense, was successfully launched into space on Sept. 15. A brain-computer interaction test system, developed by Tianjin University and installed in the lab, will conduct a series of experiments in space.

Ming Dong, the leader of the research team in charge of the brain-computer test system, said that brain-computer interaction will eventually be the highest form of human-machine communication. China will conduct the first ever space brain-machine interaction experiments, ahead even of developed countries.

The brain-computer interaction test system in Tiangong-2 boasts 64 national patents. The research team has long been devoted to the research of brain-computer interactions, previously developing two idiodynamic artificial neuron robotic systems that can help with the rehabilitation of stroke patients.

The brain-computer interaction technology will also help Tiangong-2 astronauts to more easily accomplish their assigned tasks.

For instance, Ming explained that brain-computer interaction can transfer the astronauts' thoughts into operations, while at the same time monitoring their neurological function.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.18

Trend:

Armenian armed forces have eight times violated the ceasefire on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops over the past 24 hours, using large caliber machine guns, said Azerbaijans Defense Ministry Sept. 18.

Armenian armed forces, stationed in the hills in Noyemberian and Krasnoselsk district opened fire at Azerbaijani positions located in the village Kamarli in Gazakh region and nameless hills in Gadabay districts.

Positions of the Azerbaijani army also underwent fire from the Armenian positions located near to the occupied villages Bash Garvand village of Aghdam district, as well as, nameless hills in Goygol, Goranboy, Fuzuli and Jebrail districts.

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, Sept.18

Trend:

Murder in the Mountains: War Crime in Khojaly and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict a novel centered on a little known, yet significant massacre, has just been awarded the influential Latino Book Award in the United States, in the category of best political and current affairs book.

This major award given to author Raoul Lowery Contreras has helped draw public attention to the history of the Khojaly Massacre, the hundreds of victims, and the nearly 1 million Azerbaijani refugees who were expelled from their homes and lands as a result of invasion of Azerbaijan's territory by Armenia in the early 1990's, and who still remain displaced today. Murder in the Mountainsis the very first United States based publication that sheds light on the war crimes committed against Azerbaijan.

A profound story of modern-day atrocity, Murder in the Mountains is especially interesting against the backdrop of current media, regional tensions, and sectarian divisiveness. It helps draw light to questions and issues of global awareness, criminal accountability, and how those two factors interrelate. Azerbaijan, a major U.S. ally, is a place where invasions, occupation and genocide should be considered practically impossible, and yet they have happened and continue to happen while much of the world has looked the other way.

I feel really honored to win this award, its exciting for me as a Latino author to be receiving a prestigious award about such an important issue. stated Contreras. Coming from a poor minority background, I understand the hardship and pain that the Azerbaijanis feel when they were ripped from their homeland and marginalized. This has been an exciting and proud moment, not just for myself, but for a Latinos and Azerbaijanis everywhere.

The author of the award winning novel, Raoul Lowery Contreras, is driven by a passion for finding untold stories, those that are capable of fostering change, for readers and the world. As a former United States Marine, Mr. Contreras provides a unique perspective on the reality and offensive nature of criminal war; through this story of terror and inhumanity. Murder in the Mountains accompanies Contrerass earlier novel, A Hispanic View: The 2008 Presidential Campaign & Candidate Barack Obama, Cinco De Mayo, An American Holiday?, and the upcoming, The Mexican Border. Mr. Contreras is currently on a book tour around the U.S and has recently presented the book at a bookstore in San Diego, California.

Since 1997, the International Latino Book Awards has been the largest awards in the United States, centered on Latino achievements in literature and culture. The Awards celebrates books in English, Spanish and Portuguese and finalists come from all over the United States as well as 17 other countries across the globe.

On the night of April 2, 2016, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire from the Armenian side, which used large-caliber weapons, mortars and grenade launchers. The armed clashes resulted in deaths and injuries among the Azerbaijani population. Azerbaijan responded with a counter-attack, which led to liberation of several strategic heights and settlements.

Military operations were stopped on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian armies on Apr. 5 at 12:00 (UTC/GMT + 4 hours) with the consent of the sides, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry earlier said. Ignoring the agreement, the Armenian side again started violating the ceasefire.

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, Sept.18

Trend:

Throughout its history, the Non-Alignment Movement has played a fundamental role in the strengthening international peace and security, said Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov in his speech at the XVII Summit of the Heads of State or Government of the Non-Alignment Movement in Isla de Margarita, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

"During almost 50 years of its existence, the member states of our Movement have upheld the shared principles and values, and have shown ability to find a common ground for action that leads to mutual cooperation.

Our movement has been able to shape the concept of non-alignment as a positive and engaging endeavor. Some of the most important achievements of the twentieth century such as decolonization and the emergence of a global social development agenda are among the Movements impressive contributions to the world so far"- minister said.

Acoording to Mammadyarov, yet, there is still a way to go until the long-standing goals of the Movement such as peace, development, economic cooperation and the democratization of international relations are ultimately realized.

"We are all well aware that the recent global turbulences and political crises have been hitting mostly the developing world hindering their economic and social progress and thus, lowering human development indexes in these countries.

The Republic of Azerbaijan adheres itself to the spirit and principles of the Non-Alignment Movement. Located on the crossroads of the two major international transportation corridors  from North to South and from East to West, Azerbaijan always promotes development through political independence and economic cooperation, including South-South cooperation"-minister said.

During the last decade, Azerbaijan has turned into one of the important players on the world market of energy and transport infrastructure development projects. Back in 2015, the leadership of the Republic of Azerbaijan was awarded with the 2015 South-South Award for the improvement of the welfare of the population, diminishing the illiteracy and poverty as well as the actions taken in the successful implementation of the Millennium Development Goals.

Rapid economic development enabled Azerbaijan to evolve into a donor country. Through the Azerbaijan International Development Agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Haydar Aliyev Foundation, the leading non-governmental charity organization in Azerbaijan, my country supported and implemented numerous social, humanitarian and development projects in a number of NAM countries.

"We also attach a primary importance to developing intercultural dialogue, tolerance and mutual understanding between the nations. On April 25-27, 2016, Azerbaijan hosted 7th global forum of United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. Moreover, we intend to host the Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017, all of which we believe, will consequently serve the promotion of mutual harmony among cultures and religions within and beyond the borders of NAM"- he said.

"Unfortunately, violence and conflicts still impede development and prosperity. It has been more than 20 years that Armenia has been persistently and blatantly violating the fundamental norms and principles of international law and using force against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan. It has occupied about 20 per cent of the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan and ethnically cleansed almost one million Azerbaijanis, as a result of which no single Azerbaijani is left in Armenia or in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The four UNSC resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884 of 1993), which condemn Armenias aggressive policy and demand immediate, unconditional and full withdrawal of Armenian occupation forces from Azerbaijan, have not been fulfilled yet"- Mammadyarov said.

The unequivocal position by the international community is essential for removing such grave threats to the international peace. In that respect, Azerbaijan is grateful for the reiteration of the solid support by the NAM member states articulated in the Final Document for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. This is a clear manifestation of the Member States strong adherence to the Bandung principles and represents their firm stand against notorious practices of aggression, occupation, ethnic cleansing and blunt violation of human rights of the refugees and IDPs, minister added.

"Today, I am honored to deliver a speech here on behalf of my President His Excellency Mr. Ilham Aliyev and the state of Azerbaijan who is going to take up the next Chairmanship of the Movement in three years from now. The XVIII summit to be held in Baku in 2019 will be quite symbolic as the European continent will be honored again with the opportunity to host Heads of State and Government of NAM Member States 30 years past the 1989 Belgrade Summit. I avail myself of this opportunity to extend our cordial invitation to all Heads of State and Government of NAM Member States to attend the next summit"- he said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.18

Trend:

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov met with Mevlut Cavusoglu, Ramtane Lamamra, Retno Marsudi, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and Riad Al-Malki, Foreign Ministers of Turkey, Algeria, Indonesia, Republic of South Africa and Palestine respectively in the margins of the 17th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) taking place in Isla de Margarita, Venezuela.

At the meetings the development of bilateral cooperation in the political, economic and humanitarian fields, as well as the issues on the agenda of the NAM and the 71th Session of the UN General Assembly were discussed. The importance of enhancement of relations between our countries within the international organizations was also noted.

Minister Elmar Mammadyarov briefed his counterparts on the current negotiation process over the settlement of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and highly appreciated consistent just position within the NAM on the settlement of the conflict based on territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan.

Minister Elmar Mammadyarov noting expected decision on the Chairmanship of Azerbaijan to the NAM for the years of 2019-2022 to be made within the Summit held in Venezuela stated that Azerbaijan will spare no efforts to promote and enhance the purposes and goals of the Movement during its chairmanship.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 18

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

The Russian nationals residing in Azerbaijan are today casting their votes at the election of members of the State Duma of the Russias Federal Assembly.

Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Azerbaijan Vladimir Dorokhin has cast his vote at the polling station in the Russian Embassy.

The citizens of Russia permanently or temporarily residing in Azerbaijan can take part in the voting at the polling station #8017 at: 17, Bakikhanov Street, Baku, Azerbaijan.

The polling station will be open from 08:00 until 20:00 (GMT +4).
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 18

Trend:

Violation of Azerbaijans law was observed during the Sept. 18 rally of the Musavat party in Baku, says Siyavush Novruzov, deputy executive secretary of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party.

Speaking to Trend Sept. 18, Novruzov said the Musavat rally did not comply with the Electoral Code and the Law on Freedom of Assembly, and there were violations of the law.

Those who spoke at the rally touched upon the referendum, as well as violated the rights and freedoms of specific individuals. Very few people took part in the rally, and those participating were close to the rallys organizers, Novruzov said.

He added that the claims not reflecting the reality were voiced during the rally and there was an attempt to discredit the current development in Azerbaijan.

Today everybody is witnessing that the country pursues a domestic and foreign policy that corresponds to the interests of the Azerbaijani people, said Novruzov.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 18

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

The International Oil and Gas Conference (OGT) will be held in Ashgabat on Nov. 15-17, 2016, the Turkmen Oil and Gas Complex said in a message Sept. 16.

The Energy Exchange of the UK is a co-organizer of the forum.

The conference is important for those who work or want to work in the field of oil, gas and oil processing in Turkmenistan.

The events agenda will include the discussion of such issues as development in hydrocarbon transportation and infrastructure distribution, investment opportunities in the oil and gas industry, understanding the current legal framework, development of potential of onshore and offshore sites, new gas processing technologies, modernization of oil and gas processing facilities.

Turkmenistan ranks the second in terms of natural gas reserve in the CIS after Russia.

Turkmenistan supplies its gas to Iran and China.

According to a program of development of the oil and gas industry, Turkmenistan plans to increase annual natural gas production to 250 billion cubic meters and oil production to 110 million tons in 2030.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 18

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

Japans Sumitomo Corporation is constructing a gas turbine power plant in the Turkmen Lebap province, Shiro Nishioka, spokesman for Sumitomo Corporation, said in an interview with Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper.

According to the message, the gas turbine power plant will be situated on an area of more than four hectares.

The plant is planned to be commissioned in 2018 and all generated electricity will be exported to Afghanistan, the message said.

"This is our first contract on the construction of a large-scale power plant in Turkmenistan, Nishioka added. So, we are dealing with this project with great responsibility."

According to the message, Turkish Ronesans construction company and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, which will supply three gas turbine power units, became subcontractors of the project.
President Hassan Rouhani urged unity among independent states as a necessary tool to attain their common goals, IRNA reported.

He made the remarks Saturday evening in a meeting with the Bolivian President Evo Morales on the sidelines of the 17th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) held here in northern Venezuela.

President Rouhani said Iran welcomed expansion of ties with the Latin American countries especially Bolivia, in all areas.

Stressing Tehran's will to establish friendship and cooperation with the Latin American states, the President said he saw no restrictions on growing cooperation between Iran and Bolivia as stronger relations would benefit both nations.

He went on to voice Tehrans readiness to help La Paz with its development programs noting that private sectors and state-owned companies in both countries should be encouraged to take joint investment projects and cooperate especially in banking areas.

Meanwhile, President Morales praised the successful performance of the Iranian companies involved in economic projects in his country and called for further contribution of Iranian firms in Bolivian construction and economic fields.

He also invited his Iranians counterpart to take part in the upcoming summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) to be held in Bolivia in 2018.

The two presidents also underlined the need for collective efforts to create stability in the oil market.
President Hassan Rouhani described ties with Algeria as warm and brotherly during a meeting with the Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra here on Saturday evening, IRNA reported.

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the 17th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

President Rouhani said that Tehran and Algiers should further develop their friendly relations because of their close positions on regional and international developments.

Noting that Iran and Algeria stayed together in hard times, he said that in the post-sanctions era, the situation is ripe for both countries to accelerate their cooperation.

President Rouhani further hoped for new trend of collaborations in economic fields between the two capitals.

Stressing the need for a stable oil market with fair prices, the Iranian President said all should work to make the coming meeting of oil producing countries in Algeria a success.

OPEC members are to meet in the Algerian capital during an energy conference slated for Sept. 26-28.

Meanwhile, the Algerian official conveyed the message of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika for his Iranian counterpart and voiced his countrys determination to further promote relations with Iran.

President Rouhani arrived in Margarita Island, in northern Venezuela, on September 16, to attend the NAM Summit.

He handed over NAM presidency to the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for a period of four years on Saturday when the 17th Summit of the organization opened here for two days.

Iran held the rotating presidency of NAM 2012-2016.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 18

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

The US Democratic Senator Jim Dabakis has made a secret trip to Iran, Iranian MP Mohammad Javad Karimi Ghoddousi said.

Karimi Ghoddousi, who is a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the parliament, said that the intelligence minister will be questioned in this regard, Tasnim news agency reported Sept. 18.

The MP added that he will raise the issue in the upcoming meeting of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission which will be held next week.

A scientific conference was held in Mashahd citys Ferdowsi University in recent days, Karimi Ghoddousi said, adding that some foreign invitees, who attended at the conference, are close to Israeli and Jewish circles.

He did not unveil further details on the issue.

James "Jim" Dabakis is a Democratic member of the Utah State Senate, representing District 2. He was first appointed to the chamber in December 2012.

He previously served as the chairman of the Utah Democratic Party.
These real PA creatures could become cryptids if we don't save them
Boo! What are the scariest spots in Lake County?

The old courthouse. A tea room in Mount Dora. Lake County has several places that are thought to be haunted.
So, Mr Slippery has finally slipped away, just before he was found out. I wish David Cameron lots of money in his future life, so much of it that he at last begins to wonder if that is what he really wanted.

But can we pause for a moment and ask how it was that this charming but pointless person rose to such prominence in our country?

His single most important action was to lend Western air forces and other assistance to Islamist fanatics in Libya. Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee last week explained just how clueless and irresponsible this was, though it is a pity that so many of the MPs on this committee supported the Libya folly at the time.

The same goes for much of the media, which reported the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi more or less as if it was a sporting event, and the fanatical rebels were our team. They also gullibly repeated the most ridiculous atrocity propaganda, something any knowledgeable journalist is trained to treat with suspicion.

David Cameron (pictured) was prime minister for six years before he resigned on July 13

I have checked my own writing and broadcasting at the time and find I warned clearly against it, for example this from March 2011: 'Who are the Libyan rebels? What do they want? Why do we love them so? I've no idea, and nor has Mr Cameron Some of the longest wars in history started with small-scale intervention, for a purpose that looked good and achievable, and ended up ruining millions of lives.

'The Soviet takeover of Afghanistan in 1979 ended with countless innocents driven into refugee camps, and the collapse of the Soviet state itself. It also left Afghanistan as a worse snake pit than before.'

I did not know the half of it. David Cameron's war created the appalling, unstoppable crisis of mass migration across the Mediterranean from Africa, a gigantic movement of people unknown in previous history, which will in the long run transform the economic and political fortunes of our continent.

This catastrophe was his most notable act. He ought to be remembered for it. Many of you will be able to think of others, some deliberate (such as his daft energy, education, migration, economic and aid policies), others exploding cigars, such as his incompetent and contemptuous handling of the European Union issue.

He was one of the worst prime ministers we have ever had, but have we  have you  learned from this experience? Will you continue to turn to the smooth, the well-spun, the expensively suited and rehearsed, the ones endorsed by the same media who gushed over the Blair creature?

Already the forces that put David Cameron in power are uniting in a dishonest spasm of hatred against Theresa May's grammar school policy and the referendum result.

Will you be fooled by them again? Or will you learn that there is no such thing as 'the centre' and that those who claim to stand there are driven by nothing but personal ambition and vanity? And that they do not offer safety, but danger?

A blow to real justice... from The Archers

Late last year a strange new law came into force in this country, making it a crime, punishable by prison, to use repeated 'controlling or coercive behaviour' in the home.

You might think there's nothing wrong with that.

But what if it becomes one of the many offences in family law where social workers, police and courts assume that the accused is guilty, and he or she has to prove his innocence?

The growing numbers who have fallen into this pit simply do not get fair trials.

No doubt some of them are guilty. But in many cases this is not proved beyond reasonable doubt. They lose homes, families, children, livelihoods, reputations and  sometimes  liberty. And if we stop caring whether they've been properly tried, we forge a weapon that may one day be used against us.

That's why I really dislike the great fuss recently made about the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers.

In this programme  which I have many times explained is openly intended as propaganda for 'progressive' ideas  two actors pretended to be a married couple. This long drama got under way as the new law came into force.

For months, the male actor pretended to be a perfect example of the 'coercive control' which extreme feminists claim is so common. Again and again he bullied and belittled the female actor, as if he were a Victorian squire who had her imprisoned in a cottage miles from civilisation.

She submitted to it meekly for months in a way I doubt any modern woman would do for more than about five minutes. Then, in a bizarre and incredible scene, the male actor pretended to goad the female actor into pretending to stab him.

There was then a pretend arrest, and a pretend trial. There was even a pretend jury, made up of celebrity actors. And the nation was supposed to be terribly engaged, anxiously hoping that the fictional jury would pretend to acquit the female actor, so she could pretend to go back to her fictional home.

This rubbish had two propaganda aims. The first was to make more people willing to believe that this kind of thing is common, when we have no way of knowing. The second was to give the audience information it never normally has, in any proper courtroom drama. Listeners thought they already 'knew' what had 'really happened'. They 'knew' the male actor was 'guilty'. Actually, they didn't. They just knew what the scriptwriters had decided to portray, a fictional wicked man, fictionally coercing and controlling, and fictionally trying to get away with it.

But in any real trial on this charge, without solid evidence, and where the only two witnesses disagree, I am sure that some real jurors' minds will be influenced by this programme towards convicting. As a result, an innocent defendant might go to prison for years. I think the BBC has done a wrong and shameful thing.

Incredible heroism - and an awful error?

The story of the Prague assassination of the SS monster Reinhard Heydrich is a thrilling and bitter one and has now been made into a major film, for the second time.

The new version, Anthropoid, which stars Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy, gets closer than before to the savage horror of the Nazi reprisals and made me wonder, yet again, if this sort of assassination was justified.

The evil of the Third Reich continued all too efficiently without Heydrich.

But the torture and collective punishment visited on the Czechs (whose subjugation we couldn't and didn't prevent) were frightful. Was any good really achieved? I grow less sure year by year.

Anthropoid, which stars Jamie Dornan (pictured) and Cillian Murphy, gets closer than before to the savage horror of the Nazi reprisals and made me wonder

Why do suckers always fall for the claims of 'medical cannabis'? Its advocates are invariably mixed up with the lobby for general legalisation. America's leading campaigner for legal dope, Keith Stroup, said in a candid moment in 1979 that he was using medical cannabis as 'a red herring to give marijuana a good name'. Cannabis may make some people feel better, but so did Thalidomide. A drug correlated with severe mental illness may just not be the ideal miracle cure.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.18

Trend:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei strongly dismissed talks with Washington on the current crises in the region, and said negotiation with such an untrustworthy state as the US is "harmful".

"The Americans are insisting that we hold talks with them on the West Asian issues, specially Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen; what is their real objective behind these demands for talks? They have no goal but preventing the Islamic Republic of Iran's presence in the region as the main cause of the US failures," Khamenei said in a meeting with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders and officials in Tehran on Sept. 18, Fars news agency reported.

Stressing that negotiations with the US bear no fruit, but harm for Iran, Khamenei said such talks are only meant to open the path for the US influence in Iran.

"Wisdom requires that we mistrust completely those who have clearly displayed their animosity," he added.

Khamenei underlined that "one of the most important parts of the Islamic Republic's soft power is its complete distrust of the hegemonic powers, headed by the US", and said this mistrust should increase day by day.

He further rejected claims that nuclear talks helped defuse threats against Iran, stressing that the enemies have given up threats against Iran because of its "defensive and military power" and their fear of the outcome of any belligerent act against the Islamic Republic.

Owing to the same fact, he said, Iran's defense and military power should be promoted in future.

Khamenei also underscored the necessity for the Iranian officials' vigilance against enemies' plots to influence and impose their hegemony on the country.
Next week, Labour MPs arrive for their annual conference in Liverpool. And for the majority of them it will be like walking into a nightmarish British version of The Gulag Archipelago.

The dogs of war will be unleashed, one Labour MP explained to me, there will be retribution, punishment beatings and threats of de-selection. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell will be walking around preaching the politics of unity.

And while theyre doing it the Momentum activists will be roaming around, looking for vengeance.

Next week, Labour MPs arrive for their annual conference in Liverpool. And for the majority of them it will be like walking into a nightmarish British version of The Gulag Archipelago. (Above, prisoners on the way to one of Siberia's notorious prison camps)

The catalyst for this political bloodletting will be Jeremy Corbyns successful re-election as Labour leader. No one in the Labour Party  with the possible exception of Owen Smith  is even bothering to pretend any other result is feasible.

Some are still holding out the faint hope Smith may break the 40 per cent threshold of support, leaving Corbyn vulnerable to a fresh challenge next year. But even that straw is slipping from their grasp.

How we react depends a lot on the scale of the result, says one leading rebel, but we have to be realistic.

If Owen had attacked from the soft-Left, he might have exposed Corbyn. But hes pretended to be on the hard-Left, and thats just played into Corbyns hands.

Corbyn, well aware that victory is his, is already planning his response. As his opponents point out, on the surface he will be a model of magnanimity. We must unite to fight the Tories will become the unofficial conference slogan.

But behind the scenes he and his commissars have already been plotting their retribution against those they deem guilty of crimes against his leadership.

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell plan to use their activist base to set MPs against one another, in a sort of Momentum-sponsored Hunger Games

Two weeks ago, Corbyn, McDonnell and senior aides decamped to the Unite unions training centre in Esher, where I am told they drew up a political hit list.

First target is party General Secretary Iain McNicol, who dared take a stand against hard-Left infiltration of the leadership contest. Next will be senior national and regional party officials, who are viewed as insufficiently ideologically pure.

And, finally, Corbyns assassins plan to plunge an ice pick into the back of the man now regarded as enemy of the people No 1  deputy leader Tom Watson. A challenge to Tom over the next 12 months is inevitable, a Watson ally confirmed to me.

Against this backdrop, the process of purging rebellious MPs will commence. This will be conducted under cover of the boundary review, which will see the number of winnable Labour seats significantly reduced.

Corbyn and McDonnell plan to use their activist base to set MPs against one another, in a sort of Momentum-sponsored Hunger Games.

The first move from the Corbynites will come on Saturday morning, as soon as his victory is confirmed. Labour MPs will be invited to issue loyalty statements, with Corbynite delegates on hand to offer a re-education course to those who decline.

All those lunatics who used to stand outside conference screaming and trying to shove leaflets into people hands will be on the inside now, said one former Labour Minister. In fact, theyre the ones wholl be running the conference.

Another predicts things could spiral beyond political confrontation. Mark my words, its going to come to actual fisticuffs. Itll be 3am, people will be tired and drunk, and then someones going to get chinned.

Adding to the concerns of moderate MPs is the fact the conference is being held in Liverpool for the first time in five years. Many have noted that a significant quantity of the aggressive pro-Corbyn messaging they receive comes from Merseyside. Were going to the old heartland of Militant, one said. This is bedrock Corbynite territory.

Not everyone is going. A number of MPs are ducking the show-trials all together. Others are planning to skip the leaders speech on the final day. Its going to be like that scene from The Great Escape, one said, when all the prisoners arrive at the station at the same time.

Youll see all the moderates standing there, trying not to get recognised. All it needs is some Corbynite activist to say, Good luck to Chuka Umunna, and itll end in a massacre.

But there is no escape. Corbyn and his commissars have the Labour Party by the throat. Next week the Great Terror begins.

'No public inquiry' into Orgreave

Reports the Government is on the verge of a major public inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave have been rubbished by Downing Street.

There will be no public inquiry. Amber Rudd met campaigners and will report back on the options, was the terse response I received from a spokesman.

Good. Its time to draw a line under the obsession with raking over the past. Comparisons with Hillsborough are as fatuous as they are offensive.

At Orgreave there were no fatalities, and the legal system worked  attempts to prosecute striking miners collapsed, and half a million pounds in compensation was paid out

That inquiry was in response to a perverse inquest into the deaths of 96 people.

At Orgreave there were no fatalities, and the legal system worked  attempts to prosecute striking miners collapsed, and half a million pounds in compensation was paid out.

When it comes to broader excesses by South Yorkshire police, there is no need for further scrutiny. That force was institutionally corrupt and incompetent. We dont need to spend millions more pounds of taxpayers cash to confirm that.

Nor do we need a taxpayer-funded political exhumation of Arthur Scargill. He and his cronies destroyed their union and consigned the Labour movement to decades in the wilderness.

Orgreave is a blight on history. And thats where it should remain.
British families who struggled back from their holidays through stern-faced security checks and severe passport controls may have comforted themselves by thinking that these procedures at least made them safer.

And yet Bashar Habib, a Syrian citizen, was recently able to travel to Stansted airport from Athens on Ryanair, using someone else's passport.

Mr Habib should have attracted attention. He had little luggage. He paid for a one-way ticket in cash. And he did not look like the person whose passport he was using (he was younger, his hair was shorter and his eyes were the wrong colour).

And yet he made it without difficulty on to a London-bound plane. Electronic facial scanners at Stansted finally noticed what no humans had done  that he was, beyond doubt, using someone else's travel document.

British families may have felt safer due to stern-faced security checks and severe passport controls at airports

It is what took place next that will astonish most people.

Mr Habib was questioned sympathetically, then asked specifically if he wished to claim asylum as a refugee. Why? Stansted does not host flights from war zones, and he had, demonstrably, arrived on a flight from Athens, a safe EU capital. He himself was amazed by how generously he was welcomed  transported, housed and fed at the taxpayers' expense.

The anarchists who allegedly helped him were simply following their mistaken principles. It is up to the authorities to frustrate such people.

But were Greek passport controllers, Ryanair staff and UK Border Force officers doing what they are supposed to do? Such people endlessly lecture us about security. They repeatedly promise to restore control of our frontiers. But they might as well have been anarchists themselves for all the use they were.

Rather than advising other nations on how to boost their security, and how to scan travellers' toothpaste and shampoo more diligently, the Prime Minister should study this case in detail, and act upon it.

Just plane mean...

Once there was a special delight in eating on the move. Evelyn Waugh wrote lyrically about the jingle of knives and forks in the railway dining car, and the dry martini lapping in the glass with the sway of the carriage.

Imperial Airways used to serve its passengers with stately meals as its seaplanes soared around the globe.

But nowadays, the best most of us can expect is an unappetising choice of 'beef or chicken?', and plastic cutlery to eat it with. No wonder the airlines have found it so easy first to fob us off on shorter journeys with sandwiches and then  in the case of budget airlines  to make us pay extra for them. British Airways are threatening to take this route, and even though the sandwiches may be from M&S, or some other lonely defender of older British standards, it will be a sad, mean end to something that was once good.

Nothing to smile about

This country has long been famous for its terrible teeth. In the US, the phrase 'British teeth' is not a compliment. But can it really be true that one in five of us does not clean his yellowing fangs at weekends, and that people rinse out their mouths with whisky after feebly employing an ancient brush?
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London Fashion Week has so far resisted overwhelming pressure to ban dangerously underweight models from the catwalk.

But the debate over the issue was reignited on Saturday after skeletal women with sunken cheeks and stick-thin legs were seen walking the runway at the Versace show.

The gaunt models paraded their worryingly slender limbs in revealing creations from the Italian fashion house's Versus label - which has Donatella at the helm.

Model-of-the-moment Bella Hadid took centre stage on the runway as her older sister Gigi and Zayn Malik cheered her on from the front row.

Scroll down for video

Dangerous trend: Skeletal models were seen walking the runway at Versace's London Fashion Week show on Saturday

But the attention was taken away from Bella when the emaciated models started walking down the catwalk, many showing extreme 'thigh gaps' and prominent collarbones.

It is not the first time Donatella has come under intense scrutiny for its views on underweight models.

In 2011, Versace reportedly refused to allow designs from her Versace for H&M line to be modelled by 'real women' instead of professional models.

According to the New York Daily News, the designer refused to 'approve' two of the women chosen for its photo shoot last Friday.

Worryingly thin: Many of the models showcased their extreme 'thigh gaps' and prominent collarbones as they walked down the runway

Biker chic: Model-of-the-moment Bella Hadid took centre stage on the runway as her older sister Gigi and Zayn Malik cheered her on from the front row

The paper was initially told by a PR for H&M that 'Donatella will likely not approve shooting the collection on real women.'

Later, the publicist refused to loan garments on the grounds that the chosen models did not 'fit [Versace's] branding.'

Donatella flaunted her gym-honed body in a tight-fitting metallic top and ripped jeans when she took to the runway on Saturday.

The latest controversy comes just days after Victoria Beckham was slammed for using super-skinny models in her New York Fashion Week show.

Slender: The debate over whether dangerously underweight models should be banned from catwalk was reignited on Saturday after super-thin women were seen on the catwalk

Controversy: Donatella flaunted her gym-honed body in a tight-fitting metallic top and ripped jeans

The girls hit back by posing pictures of themselves eating food - including pizza.

One Australian model has helped launch a #nosizefitsall campaign with Britain's Women's Equality Party in time for London Fashion Week.

Rosie Nelson, 24, who refused to accept a modelling agency's demand to 'get down to the bone', is now calling for a law to protect young people from being put under pressure to be dangerously thin.

Debate: It is not the first time Versace has come under intense scrutiny for its views on underweight models

Tiny: One model drew attention to her slim waist with a statement leather belt

The leader of the Women's Equality Party, Sophie Walker, joined forces with Rosie to change attitudes about weight in the fashion industry.

'We aim with this campaign to bring an end at last to the idea that there is only one kind of body and one size of fashion for all,' Ms Walker said.

They reject the suggestion that this is impractical, pointing to the trend towards 'see-now buy-now' collections.
A Brisbane woman has spoken of her 'very big shock' at discovering she was expecting a second set of twins.

Beating odds of 100,000 to one, Simone Burstow, 32, welcomed identical twin girls on 4 September. She already has identical twin boys Oliver and Harrison, four.

'It was unexpected,' Ms Burstow told Daily Mail Australia. Previously there had been no family history of twins.

Simone Burstow, 32, (pictured with husband John) welcomed identical twin girls on 4 September

She said she and her husband had shared 'a bit of a joke' about what they'd do if they had twins again

Ms Burstow discovered the incredible news during her 12 week scan and revealed that she and her husband John had shared 'a bit of a joke' about what they'd do if they had twins again - never expecting it to actually happen.

'I could not believe it,' Ms Burstow said. 'His face was hilarious'.

She said that this pregnancy was riskier than that she experienced with her twin boys, partly because she had previously suffered an ectopic pregnancy and partly because the girls shared a placenta, while her boys did not.

She said that this pregnancy was riskier than that she experienced with her twin boys

'It was harder. I was sicker and a lot more uncomfortable,' she said of the pregnancy.

'It was harder. I was sicker and a lot more uncomfortable,' she said of the pregnancy.

'Towards the end, one of the girls' growth started to slow down. We ended up having them at 35 weeks.'

Ms Burstow gave birth naturally but was induced and the labour lasted less than four hours.

The labour lasted less than four hours - with Evie born first weighing 2 kilos

'I was quite anxious because I knew they were going to be really small,' Ms Burstow said, explaining she was worried about what that meant.

'With the boys they were really good sizes but with the girls I knew it was going to be different. But they were so healthy. They were crying and doing all the right things, she said.

The girls were in separate amniotic sacs and Evie was born first, weighing 2 kilos, while Georgia came out second, weighing 2.2 kilos.

Ms Burstow said that while the boys were a little unsure at first, they were 'really fascinated' by the girls.

'As they've spent more time together they've been really beautiful with them,' she said of her boys' reaction to their siblings.

Ms Burstow said her first thought was 'Oh my goodness they look so perfect'.

'I got a cuddle straight away,' she said. 'I had Evie on my chest as I delivered Georgie so it was a really lovely experience.'

She said that while the girls were taken away for monitoring, they fed straight away and there was enough time for the boys to meet their new siblings.

'I was quite anxious because I knew they were going to be really small,' Ms Burstow said of her thoughts before the birth.

She said that while the boys were a little unsure at first, they were 'really fascinated' by the girls.

'As they've spent more time together they've been really beautiful with them,' she said. 'The other day, I was up early and Harry wanted to read a story to the girls. It's been really nice to see their reaction'.

With two sets of identical twins now in the family, Ms Burstow said there was an art to telling them apart.

With two sets of identical twins now in the family, Ms Burstow said there was an art to telling them apart.

'We're finding the girls more identical than the boys,' Ms Burstow said.

'We're finding the girls more identical than the boys. We've kept their hospital bands on at the moment because we're nervous,' she said. 'Their head shapes are a little bit different and that's what I'm using, but my husband is like "who have I got?"'

Obstetrician Dr Rob Butler told the Courier Mail, 'I did suggest that Simone and John try again next year to see how many twin sets are possible, but I am not sure they are on board just yet.'

Ms Burstow shares her journey as a mum of two sets of twins on Instagram and Facebook.


An Australian mum has revealed what really happens after childbirth, by writing a candid blog post on the subject.

Zoe George who writes as The Subtle Mummy said that people had told her having a baby naturally was 'life changing' and it appears it was - in more ways than one.

'Let me tell you something: my first child broke my vagina and you don't want to know what else, but I'm going to tell you anyway,' she wrote in a blog post.

Zoe George (pictured) has written a candid blog post about life post childbirth

'Yup, it's broken and I need a mechanic trained as a gynaecologist to fix it. Heads up to anyone reading this who is male or hasn't had children yet, you may want to continue living in blissful ignorance and stop reading now.'

Ms George, who is now mum to Ari, two, and Ambrosia, eight months, went on to say that before she had children she didn't pay much attention to people talking about pregnancy or childbirth, but that all changed when she fell pregnant.

'People seem to think, and it's not only women, that when you are pregnant you want to hear stories about sh*tting during labour and mucous plugs etc. Seriously, let me have a surprise,' she wrote.

Ms George, who is now mum to Ari, two, and Ambrosia, eight months, said that before she had children she didn't pay much attention to people talking about pregnancy or childbirth

Ms George's blog post touches on the mystery of a woman's pelvic floor

'I remember being pregnant at a wedding and chatting to a friend who was due around the same time as me. Then a man, whose wife I had met five minutes earlier, came up and started rambling on about pooing during labour. MATE, seriously? How about you tell me I'm glowing first. I walked off, not because I was offended, but because I was just over it and in my last trimester.'

She went on to describe her first experience of that mystery known as the pelvic floor.

'Most people think that the pelvic floor is just your 'love hole' (honestly, that's the nicest word I could think to call it). When you see your midwife or OB (if you're fancy like that), they will run you through the exercises you should be doing to strengthen your pelvic floor,' she wrote.

'What they don't tell you is that there are three pelvic floors,' Ms George writes

'It basically feels like when you need to pee and you have to hold it while you run through the club and wait in line at the ladies...

'What they don't tell you is that there are three pelvic floors. Your 'pee hole', your 'love hole' and your 'exit only hole' (let's call it EOH). Thankfully (kinda), my first two were fine after the birth, but I had no idea of the surprise that was to come.'

Ms George went on to talk about an embarrassing incident that befell her the morning after she gave birth to her son.

'My brother in law and his girlfriend were sitting on the seat next to my bed, husband's friend was at the foot of the bed and a few other people were randomly scattered around my quarter of the shared room I was in,' she said.

Ms George talked about an embarrassing incident that befell her the morning after she gave birth to her son

'Everyone was happily chatting away and I was feeling thirsty so I poured myself a glass of water and slowly raised the glass to my mouth to have a sip. As the glass was nearing my lips, my EOH took it upon itself to start farting! I'm not talking a little brrrrt. This fart went for at least five seconds. I want you to count five seconds out now and realise how long that is.

'I had no idea what was happening, but I was 100 percent sure it was coming out of me. I was mortified.'

'I was walking down that corridor like someone had shoved a trumpet up my butt,' Ms George writes

She went on to say that 'children are such a blessing and what we go through is nothing when you have the cutest little face making you smile every day'

Ms George said it took her 'many butt clenches' to return to normal post birth

She said that the issue didn't resolve itself even after she left the room in a rush.

'Lordy meeeee! I was walking down that corridor like someone had shoved a trumpet up my butt, let me tell you. I think I almost cried,' she wrote.

'I made my way to the midwife and asked her why my EOH was broken and what I could do to fix it. This poor girl was trying, with her best serious face, to tell me it was my pelvic floor and it happens when you push a small melon out of you, seeing as you push as though you are taking the biggest crap of your life.

Ms George said she had 'no idea what was happening' the day after she gave birth

Ms George ends her post with the words: 'Thanks for reading. I hope you found it very educational.'

'Thankfully, it can be fixed, but it took me many butt clenches to return to my normal self.'

Ms George ends her post with the words: 'Thanks for reading. I hope you found it very educational. Seriously though, children are such a blessing and what we go through is nothing when you have the cutest little face making you smile every day.'
The Kylie Jenner superfan known for getting tattoos in tribute to the reality star has added a new inking to his collection.

Over the past year, Johnny Cyrus, 19, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been going under the needle time after time to honor his favorite celebrity and her products - having previously had her lip kit logo and swatches tattooed on his arms, as well as a 'King Kylie' inking and more.

Now, the superfan has gone and got his seventh Kylie-related tattoo, this time paying tribute to the 19-year-old star's appearance in sister Kim Kardashian's line of emojis.

Dedication: Kylie Jenner superfan has debuted his seventh tattoo tribute to the reality star on social media

Facing up: The tattoo is taken from the Kylie eye roll emoji and is the first actual representation of the star Johnny has had inked

Not his first rodeo: In December, Johnny got the brand's lip logo tattooed on his arm and later added Kylie's signature to it

In particular, Johnny chose to go for Kylie's so-called 'eyeroll' emoji, which shows her with light green locks and with her long-lashed eyes rolling skyward.

Despite the young man's clear dedication to his favorite star, this is the first of his tattoos that is actually a representation of Kylie herself.

After sharing an image of the new tattoo on Instagram on Thursday, Johnny became the target of online trolls, an issue he later addressed on the account.

'Thank you to everyone who has been super supportive. I'm so grateful for everything,' he wrote on Friday. 'People say some REALLY f***ed up shit about me everyday and the support I get keeps me so strong.

Roll up: The photo is inspired by an eye roll Kylie was snapped making at the Grand Opening of the Sugar Factory American Brasserie in New York last year

The biggest fan: Johnny often shows off T-shirts, phone cases and more bearing the likeness of his idol

Addict: Johnny regularly models the different shades of Kylie's Lip Kit on social media

'[Kylie] has had such a positive impact on my life, and people who judge me for getting tattoos for somebody who changed my life shouldn't be seen as something negative.'

The tattoo is just the latest of many Johnny has received and shared with his social media followers. The first, a simple 'King Kylie' logo with a letter K and a crown, seemed harmless enough.

But since then, he's added a dripping-mouth Lip Kit logo, the star's signature, the names of her first three lip glosses, and a line of Lip Kit color swatches.

Quality time: Johnny has over 121,000 Instagram followers including Kylie Jenner herself

On to the next: In May he had the names of Kylie's first three lip glosses inked on his arm

Totally permanent: Earlier this year he had her Lip Kit swatches inked on his arm, which he has added to as she released more shades

No hesitation: He got the new ink just a day after Kylie announced the Kyshadow palette

And he continually adds to the color swatches, too, as Kylie introduces new colors to her line. Recently, he tacked on her new blue and black hues.

He also had the logo of Kylie's eyeshadow palette, Kyshadow, complete two heavily-made-up eyes with colors dripping in the form of tears, inked just days after she announced it in July.

In May, Johnny celebrated his nineteenth birthday by getting the names of Kylie's three lip glosses on his arm.
Its been gleefully reported that Theresa May is rubbish at jokes.

Her attempts at scripted humour at Prime Ministers Questions fall embarrassingly flat. One male commentator even suggested that asking Mrs May to tell jokes is like getting a walrus to dance the tango.

Leaving aside whether the PM needs to tango, Id argue that being good at jokes is vastly over-rated. Its a skill, like map-reading or jam-making, no more.

Its been gleefully reported that Theresa May is rubbish at jokes. Her attempts at scripted humour at Prime Ministers Questions fall embarrassingly flat. One male commentator even suggested that asking Mrs May to tell jokes is like getting a walrus to dance the tango

I am hopelessly, woefully bad at jokes. When people go round the dinner table trading punchlines, I blush, stutter, mangle the delivery. Or my mind freezes and I cant think of a single one.

Its like that moment in The Good Life where Margot says wistfully: It isnt that I dont want to join in. I just dont know how to.

Surely a love of puns and silly wordplay is a peculiarly male obsession?

Im often puzzled when the smartest men go a bit Carry On (Ooh er, missus!) in tense situations. Surely relentless punning is a weird mental tic?

Earlier this year, a report in a neuroscience journal claimed that people who compulsively tell jokes can suffer from a medical condition called Witzelsucht (addiction to wisecracking), brought on by a stroke or brain damage.

Male stand-up is often about one-upmanship, holding the floor. Id argue female humour is far more nuanced, based on anecdote and slow-burn comedy, sharing the joke rather than dominating the conversation.

Some of our finest TV comedy recently, from Channel 4s Catastrophe to BBCs Fleabag, has been based on extended sketches, rather than boom-boom jokes.

Women listen and respond  then deliver the best lines. They dont automatically find themselves hilarious.

Having said that, if anyone can give me one killer joke  suitable for weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals  Ill be truly grateful.
The Congress on Saturday asked the Prime Minister and Home Minister to ban gau rakshaks or cow protection vigilantes just as Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) which was banned in 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11 attacks.

The Congress said that the cow vigilantes pose a threat to law and order, and in case the Centre refuses to act, it would be compelled to seek the intervention of Supreme Court.

In a letter to Narendra Modi, Maharashtra Congress secretary Shehzad Poonawalla cited his caustic remarks on gau rakshaks.

Poonawall wants cow vigilantes to be banned

The PM himself had said that most gau rakshaks are anti-socials, and since cow vigilantism is a challenge to rule of law , law and order, and Constitution, he must impose a nation-wide ban on all cow vigilante groups just like a ban was imposed on terror groups like SIMI"

"Failing this I shall be constrained to approach the Supreme Court, Poonawalla said.

In a letter to Narendra Modi, Maharashtra Congress secretary Shehzad Poonawalla cited the his caustic remarks on gau rakshaks

Poonawalla raised the recent incident in Ahmedabad, where cow vigilantes beat up two people for transporting cows, one of whom succumbed on Friday.

In this instance, even if any law was violated by the victim, did gau rakshaks have the right to take law into their hands? Should the Gujarat police not have intervened? Should the Gujarat police not nab the accused rather than protect them and file cases against the victims? Poonawalla said in the letter.

Poonawalla raised the recent incident in Ahmedabad, where cow vigilantes beat up two people for transporting cows, one of whom succumbed
Dalit activist Bezwada Wilson says that at the end of every Swacch Bharat programme is a septic tank. A septic tank is a crime against humanity.

The French poet and litterateur Charles Baudelaire, one of the great aestheticians of modernity, once observed that the newspaper virtually recreates the landscape of the city.

Subtly put what Baudelaire was emphasising was the intellectual reciprocity between news and the city.

Indian media, however, gives a strange twist to this idea. Our newspapers have a lot of news about the city but rarely is the city itself news.

The city as an idea, a utopia, an imagination, a way of life is hardly a topic for discussion.

The only discussions, if one can call it that, are about smart cities which amputate the idea of the city into a grid of IT technologies.

As a wag said: A smart city unfortunately is not an intelligent city. A smart city is a set of gimmicks and gadgets, an intelligent city is a way of life which combines the formal and informal economy.

Crisis

Often one hears of the crisis of the city. Every rainy season one hears the scandal of blocked drains and yet once the rains are over the scandal of drainage is no longer news.

Every season one hears of a new epidemic. Delhi is rampant with Chikungunya, but a few months later epidemic and problem are forgotten.

It is almost as if the urban imagination mimics the short-term memory of news.

I find this ironic. It is almost as if a Brahminic idea of the city finds pollution difficult to discuss.

A smart city unfortunately is not an intelligent city

Any perusal of a Dalit writing would show them how sewage is central to the architecture of the city.

The city smells and stinks throughout the year and yet the planners still write their antiseptic prose.

This problem was highlighted in a hard-hitting way when I heard the Dalit activist Bezwada Wilson talk about the governments Swacch Bharat programme.

Beginning in a gently acerbic way, Wilson admitted the programme was well-intentioned.

He then added sadly that at the end of every Swacch Bharat programme is a septic tank. A septic tank is a crime against humanity.

It is appalling to clean and it is unfair to ask any community to clean it. Yet Dalits are forced to clean it and no one thinks of the conditions under which the city is kept clean.

Wilson dismissed the Swacch Bharat programme contending it was neither an innovation in hygiene nor a project to bring justice.

The septic tank mentality runs through most of our city projects. City planning in India had no sense of the informal economy as a domain of marginal, migrants, waste and rubbish.

In fact, city planners do not see waste disposal as a human act. They are blind to scavengers and foragers as citizens of the city.

I wonder if any urban planner can differentiate between filth, waste, garbage, junk and rubbish and groups and communities that deal with each concept.

City planners do not see waste disposal as a human act. They are blind to scavengers and foragers as citizens of the city.

Oddly, it almost seems as if the very idea of flows is restricted to information flow, while the variety of other critical flows of sewage, water, money, people seems to be ignored.

The manner in which the notion of IT has damaged the organic or even material concept of the city dismisses detailed examination.

Sometimes I wish I could gift every urban planner, a set of copies of the Oxford anthology of Dalit writing.

Literature could open their imagination to subaltern views of the city and also reveal that the city is not an abstract space but a sensorium of smells, tastes, sounds, a community of touch.

Debate

Watching the city and the erratic debates around the city, one wishes people who talk of planning would read Indias first sociologist and town planner carefully.

Our illiteracy about our own past achievements is amazing.

Patrick Geddes was a Scottish biologist who was the first professor of sociology at Bombay University. He wrote about 30 major town plans, some major manographs, some scraps of thought but each was fascinating.

Geddes emphasising that the one way to understand the city was to walk through it.

Walking captures the body time of the city, it creates an ethnographic style where one senses the city as a sensorium.

Walking and the surprises, the encounters that walking brings challenges the mechanical idea of a city.

The straight line and the grid are abandoned as linear and mechanical notions of the city.

Every season one hears of a new epidemic. Delhi is rampant with Chikungunya, but a few months later epidemic and problem are forgotten

The city becomes a form of life and a way of life. Geddes was against unnecessary demolitions, an idea our planners dont seem to understand.

He advocated an idea of conservative surgery as a therapeutic idea of planning. One wishes the planners had read Geddes because then the Emergency with its fetish for demolitions may not have been so brutal.

Future

I keep wondering why the city seems to have no sense of the future.

Recently, the architect Gautam Bhatia advocated a department of the future to be attached to our government departments.

This is critical and creative because an idea of the future, the demands of the future, the rights of the future is critical to the idea of a sustainable city.

Our cities as communities have to think a hundred years from now. In fact the reader should try and imagine how a Calcutta, a Mumbai or a Delhi would look five decades from now.

Oddly, no one in India takes the future as a life world, or a worldview seriously.

In fact thinking about the future can no longer be an act of state.

Civil Society has to participate in it. This has to be experimental and playful act of citizenship and not be left to idiot architects and the land mafia.

Rather than inanely suppressing the NGO movement, the government has to recognise that it does not have the dreamers to think of a future city.

Only the poets of citizenship in a civil society may come up with interesting answers.

Oddly, the absence of the city as news contrasts with insights of literature.

In the 20th century literature the city has often been the hero of major stories.

Paris, Berlin, Lahore, New York are literally collective personalities around which a range of storytelling has occurred.

It is time citizens become storytellers of the city. Only then can news of the city be actually city news.
Its like an oasis in the middle of a disease desert, though for the common man it might as well be a mirage.

While the Capital grapples with outbreaks of dengue and chikungunya and patients are forced to either share beds or endure endless waits at the medical centres, a room at the government- run Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital lies unused for five years with doctors monitoring it at all times.

The chamber has been dedicated to the treatment of former prime ministers.

A doctor from RML hospital said they are hugely understaffed with chikungunya and dengue patients demanding urgent attention

Doctors from the RML and Safdarjung hospitals as well as Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) are assigned duties to look after the room round-the-clock.

This is a time when all the hospitals are overloaded with the patients and even doctors are falling ill due to surge in viral infections, a senior doctor from the hospital told Mail Today.

"Wasting doctors on this VIP room is not a smart move.

Chikungunya and dengue are running riot in the Capital, which has claimed at least 33 lives and have affected nearly 3,000 people, after heavier-than-usual monsoon rains caused flooding in some areas and created stagnant pools of water for mosquitoes to breed.

Meena Pathak came to RML hospital with her 4- year-old son for immediate dialysis

RML has a dedicated nursing home for VIP patients. The clinic includes rooms for Members of Parliament (MPs), beneficiaries of the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) and other important people.

On Friday, the Centre decided to allot 1,000 more beds for dengue and chikungunya patients in all its hospitals where a large number of patients from outside Delhi visits daily.

We are trying our level best to manage the patient load, said Dr VK Sinha, spokesperson of RML.

Dengue fever patient at Sardar Vallabhai Patel Hospital

The room is in the nursing home and does not affect the functioning of the hospital, said Sinha.

Delhi reported two more chikungunya-related deaths on Saturday, taking the toll to 15.

Mail Today examined the preparedness of the hospital and found that patients in critical condition from other diseases are made to wait endlessly for beds.

Meena Pathak from Agra, brought her four-year-old son Anubhav to the hospital at 5.30am, for dialysis.

They were carrying a referral card from a private hospital, which read emergency patient.

Yet, they had to wait till 11 am at the entrance of RML before being turned away.
US-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency UN Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated, Reuters reported.

The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

The United States relayed its "regret" through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement.

The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardizing the Syria deal.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move.

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power told reporters before the meeting.

She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life."

When asked if the incident ended the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark."

"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin told reporters.

Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the jihadist militants.
After Vidya Balan was diagnosed with dengue, her neighbours including co-actor Shahid Kapoor were served notice by the BMC.

Shahid Kapoor has been served notice by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) after the health team found mosquito-breeding site at his unused swimming pool at his sea-facing Pranita Apartment.

Shahid was the lead opposite Vidya in the movie Kismet Connection and is also a resident of the same building where Vidya resides.

Shahid Kapoor (right) has been served a notice as mosquito larvae were found in his unused swimming pool. A still from movie Kismet Connection starring Vidya and Shahid.

Even though, the officials could not find any mosquito larvae breeding ground in Vidya Balans residence, some of it were found in Shahids residence on the ground floor of the same building.

It was found that Shahid Kapoors swimming pool which was left unused with clear stagnant rain water is a breeding ground for mosquito larvae.

BMC also served notice to Meera Patel, who is Vidyas other neighbour, after the team consisting of health workers, found stale water in the flower pots in her apartment.

Both Kapoor and Patel have been served legal notice under section 381 (B) of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act.

Vidya Balan was diagnosed with dengue and is on a bed rest

Rajan Naringrekar, BMCs insecticide inspector, said: We are surprised that in spite of repeated awareness programmes people are negligent towards controlling the breeding spots for mosquitoes.

Naringrekar also said, the least the actor could have done was to keep the pool covered, or kept it unclogged and dry.

As per Section 381 (B) of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, a person can be prosecuted for creating a situation that will create trouble for others by not taking preventive measures.

Meanwhile, Shahid Kapoor, whose wife, Meera Kapoor recently delivered a baby, has expressed concern over dengue larvae being found at his house.

Kapoors spokesperson said, "Shahid is concerned about the findings of BMC in his building and the locality, especially so, with the presence of a new born baby in the house."

"He is also thankful to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials for the check up conducted in the locality, which becomes vulnerable during the rainy season due to its proximity to the beach."

Shahid will be summoned by the Mumbai court soon and he will either be present himself or will be represented by his lawyers.

A person can be prosecuted before a metropolitan magistrate, that shall impose a penalty of Rs 2,000 - Rs 5,000.

BMC has also conducted searches in residences of other Bollywood stars such as Salman Khan, Wahida Rehman and Amitabh Bachchan but nothing was found.

In 2012, ace film maker Yash chopra had died due to dengue and it was only when he was hospitalised that BMC had carried out a strict search to find out that dengue larvae were breeding inside Chopras own office.
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan, laid the smack down on patriarchy and sexism at the Mind Rocks Youth Summit 2016, held by India Today Group at Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Saturday.

The Pink actors Amitabh and his co-star Taapsee Pannu had some choice words for Indian women and men.

Amitabhs larger-than-life, famed affable persona was on full display at the summit.

The Pink actors Amitabh and his co-star Taapsee Pannu (right) spoke of how men and women are treated in the society

Getting the crowd to eat out of his hand, he broke into chaste Hindi to demonstrate feigned surprise in his trademark style.

Producer Shoojit Sircar and actor Taapsee Pannu were in their element too, with impassioned arguments on why, when a woman categorically says no, its important to respect it.

The notion of consent is not negotiable, they argued.

In a post-Nirbhaya India, despite an underlying reluctance to change, the spectrum of outdated sexual mores is diminishing.

Amitabh Bachchan clicking a selfie at Mind Rocks 2016

Unfortunately, the excuse of log kya kahenge (what will people say) is still used to good effect, effectively cutting off womens agency to decide for themselves.

Taapsee said, No is not a word, it is a sentence.

Pink draws upon real events to present an account of how influence and prestige are routinely used against women within the larger scheme of patriarchy.

It speaks of a doctor who said all his acid attack patients, in his 22- year-long career, were women.

Through Pink, he seeks to convey a semblance of the perpetual sense of insecurity that women live with.

FIGHTING BACK

On a happy note, women still call and message Shoojit to thank him for a scene in Vicky Donor which has the lead actress chilling with her mother-in-law over a drink.

Shoojit Sircar's Pink starring Taapsee Pannu (centre) addresses the security issues related to modern women

Its a lovely scene that saas-bahu serials should take note of. Its the little things that make a lasting impression  he got the idea for the scene from an incident at home. He succeeded in convincing his mother to try a little whiskey when she was stressed out and she insisted on having it in a steel glass.

Taapsee added that her role in Pink was satisfying because she appreciates roles that have the capacity to trigger emotions in people.

Women need to know that they too can kick ass.

For Amitabh Bachchan, his mother taught him to never take anything lying down.

Speaking on Amitabhs discipline as an actor, Taapsee said: Even after all these years of being an icon, this man doesnt take anything for granted.

On a grave note, Shoojit said: While Vicky Donor deals with light moments in the seemingly friendly neighbourhood of Lajpat Nagar, lets not deny the reality of Delhi - a woman walking on the streets after 8pm will inevitably face some harassment.
Internet services in UPs Bijnor district have been suspended till September 19 after communal tension gripped parts of western UP on Saturday.

This has been done to control the spread of rumours inciting communal tension in the area.

Four people have been killed and over a dozen injured in clashes between members of two communities after a schoolgirl was harassed on Friday.

Four people have been killed in communal clashes after an eve-teasing incident

According to police, the violence erupted after a schoolgirl was allegedly harassed by some youths in Bijnors Pedda village.

The girl and the accused are from different communities, which led to communal tension in the area.

As the news of harassment spread, people from girl's side gathered to stage protest.

Soon, there were groups taking positions on both sides. The incident boiled into a communal clash.

People on both sides started pelting stones and the situation soon took an uglier turn.

CM Akhilesh Yadav has announced a compensation of Rs 20 lakh

Guns were pulled out and shots were fired at one another. One youth died on the spot while two others, including a child, succumbed to their injuries while getting treatment in the hospital.

Later, one more person died, which increased the toll to four. Three of the four people killed are from the girls family.

More than a dozen were also injured in the clash. They were admitted to a nearby hospital.

CM Akhilesh Yadav rushed the state home secretary Mani Prasad Mishra and additional director general (law and order) Daljeet Singh Chaudhary to the spot, as they announced Rs 20 lakh compensation to each victims family members.

Seven companies of the PAC and additional police forces have been deployed in the area.

A group of sleuths in Lucknow are monitoring the communal content circulated on the social.
Many holidaymakers see duty free shopping as a big part of their trip, whether it is buying souvenirs or spending on spirits and perfume at the airport.

A third of us browse and buy at the duty free store when we travel, according to recent figures from Nationwide Building Society, while many also take advantage of tax free shopping at popular holiday destinations worldwide.

However, we may not be getting the bargain we think we are, recent studies have shown, and in some cases we may end up paying more than at home.

Frustrating: Paul Bigmore was owed 20 in tax from the goods he bought  but gave up trying to claim it back

WE SHOULD HAVE SAVED ON TAX BUT PROCESS WAS TOO COMPLEX At the end of a long trip, charity worker Paul Bigmore, from South-East London, flew back from Ecuador with his family  and was delighted to discover that the local store offered tax free shopping. He says: We bought a large number of gifts for friends and family, and the store said that we would save more than 20 with the VAT refund. The process involved filling in several forms, but it seemed worthwhile. Once at the airport, Paul, 40, was given inaccurate information about how to reclaim the tax. He says: I knew I needed a stamp, but when I went to the information desk, the lady behind it told me this needed to happen after security. However, when we went through we were told that this was incorrect and it was too late to go back. Paul never got his tax refund. He adds: I wonder how many other people give up as well. The process seems unnecessarily complex. Airport staff should be better informed if these services are to work well.

Global price gap

Travellers will find discounts vary a lot by country and product, according to website Dutyfreeaddict.

Drinkers of spirits save a fortune in Canada where a litre of Absolut vodka costs just 12, compared with 22 in the US. Similarly, Bombay Sapphire costs 15 compared with 20 in pricey Germany.

Champagne lovers can pick up a bottle of Moet et Chandon for 25 while those buying in an airport in Brazil pay 62.

Photographers can save 179 on a Coolpix camera priced at 213 in the duty free in South Korea, compared with 392 in Hong Kong.

Australia is best for the fragrance Eternity Aqua Men, as a 50ml bottle costs just 28 against 59 in the US.

But the rules surrounding duty and tax free shopping are complex, meaning many of us do not get a bargain at all. How much you save depends on where you are going, the type of product you buy, and which store you buy it in.

UK shoppers

Some airport stores operate a dual-pricing policy according to destination, while others spread the tax savings across all shoppers saying this gives everyone a better price.

The UK Travel Retail Federation says there is confusion among travellers about tax and duty free shopping, much of it stemming from the abolition of duty free within the European Union in 1999. A spokesman says: Most travellers passing through British airports dont know which the 28 EU member states are, and therefore whether they can buy duty and tax free.

Recent research suggests fewer of us believe we are getting a bargain. The number of travellers who believe that duty free is cheaper than on the high street fell two percentage points to 29 per cent last year, according to the Duty Free World Council.

The catch

Duty free is the best known shopping perk and means goods are free of Excise Duty, the tax included on the price of alcohol and tobacco. For example, on cigarettes, 16.5 per cent of the price is duty, plus 3.93 for a packet of 20. On a 28 bottle of vodka, duty makes up 11 of the price.

The savings on such products should be considerable but the catch is that the duty free allowance is limited. Only those who travel outside the EU can claim it, and it includes just 200 cigarettes, a litre of spirits and two litres of wine, or fortified wine. Exceed the allowance and duty will be charged.

No VAT

While duty free applies only to spirits, wine and cigarettes, many other products can be offered VAT free to travellers and this explains why so many other products  including watches, sunglasses and jewellery  are also available in tax free stores.

VAT is charged at 20 per cent on many of these goods, but is waived for those travelling outside the EU  so products subject to VAT should be cheaper for long-haul travellers.

But it is not always the case. Some airport shops have been accused of pocketing VAT refunds rather than passing them on. A Treasury review into this practice was due to report this month, but has been delayed.

While some companies, including WH Smith, have pledged to refund passengers who are travelling outside the EU on eligible products worth over 6, others may have different policies. World Duty Free, which runs most of the duty free stores in UK airports, says that though it can claim back VAT only for those travelling outside the EU, it pays the equivalent of VAT for other travellers, which should in theory make products 20 per cent cheaper for everyone.

Shopping trip: Abu Dhabi airport

A spokesman says: For the vast majority of British passengers flying to EU destinations, this is a huge advantage. Typical categories which are sold at equivalent VAT free prices include fragrance, skincare, cosmetics, sunglasses, watches, jewellery and handbags.

Price confusion

Comparison of prices between airport shops and supermarkets reveals a mixed picture with savings available on some products but not on others.

For example, a litre of Pimms is currently available for 12 through Ocado and 14 at Gatwicks duty free store. However, 700ml of Bombay Sapphire Distilled Gin is 21 at Ocado and 20 at Gatwick.

Similarly, 50ml of CK Be Eau de Toilette is 31 at Heathrows duty free store and 23 at Boots. However, 150ml of Dolce Eau de Parfum from Dolce & Gabbana is 105 in Boots and 84 at Heathrow.

A spokeswoman for World Duty Free says these price differences are often due to high street offers, saying: There will always be here today, gone tomorrow offers on the high street which sharply drop the price of one or two things, but we aim to offer year-round savings.

The firm pledges to refund the difference if undiscounted products are cheaper on the high street.

Tax free abroad

Some holiday destinations offer tax free shopping opportunities, enabling British travellers to claim a VAT refund before they leave the country or after they return. But this can be lengthy and complicated.

Smell a bargain: But some perfume works out to be better value in stores like Boots

Global Blue, which provides tax free shopping for UK citizens in 13 countries, says that shoppers can save up to 19 per cent. But customers must follow a series of steps in order to claim successfully.

When paying for purchases, ask the staff for a Tax Free Form; then go to the Customs Authorities desk at the airport or point of departure and present your completed form, passport, receipts and purchases to get a stamp on your form. The Customs stamp is vital, as without it, the form will not be processed and the refund claim will be rejected.

The next step is to present the form at a tax refund desk for a repayment in cash or to a credit card. Destinations where UK citizens can shop tax free include Morocco, Norway, Japan and Switzerland, but you will need to search for specific stores in order to get the refund.

Compare costs

You can check the prices of products in duty free stores on most airport websites, and even phone or email ahead to reserve purchases. Websites such as Easydutyfree let you view the prices in tax free shops in airports worldwide and you can compare them with prices in the UK using website MySupermarket.
Some of the biggest airlines that use Gatwick for key international routes said last night they did not support the airports proposal for a second runway.

In all, 75 per cent of carriers contacted by the Daily Mail did not think expansion at Gatwick was the answer to Britains limited airport capacity.

The research will be a major blow for Britains second largest airport.

Major blow: Some of the biggest airlines that use Gatwick do not support plans for a second runway

One main airline said it would even reconsider whether it should stay at Gatwick at all if the airport expanded.

In particular, it was concerned that a second runway would mean passengers having to pay extra. Airlines would be asked to pick up part of the bill for the project, and would pass the costs on to their customers.

Only two out of the eight major airlines contacted on condition of anonymity said they supported the runway expansion.

Another airline said: The expansion needs to deliver a hub airport that will enable passengers to connect to flights all around the world, and Gatwick is not that airport.

EasyJet, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are some of the major carriers with operations at Gatwick.

The findings could not come at a worse time for the airport, with the Government just weeks away from making a crucial decision about runway expansion.

In July last year, the Davies Commission recommended the building of a third runway at Heathrow instead of a second one at Gatwick, but the Department for Transport announced that further investigation into noise, pollution and compensation was needed before a decision could be made.

However, not all airlines object to Gatwicks expansion.

One said: Gatwicks proposal is a cost-effective and deliverable way to ensure Londons pre-eminent position as a well-connected world city.

Government sources said last week that planning laws could be ripped up to allow one of the new runways to be finished within three years.

A spokesman for Gatwick said: With record passenger growth and over 50 airlines now flying from Gatwick, the business case for a second runway has never been stronger, which is why airlines such as Norwegian, Emirates and Monarch have all backed the urgent need for Gatwick to get a second runway. In comparison, Heathrow is already the most expensive airport in the world and would have to raise its passenger charges to 40 to fund their extravagant and costly expansion plans.

Gatwicks third largest airline, Norwegian, has announced it will base a fleet of 50 long-haul and 100 short-haul aircraft at Gatwick if it gets a second runway.
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When David Fox paid $7.5 million for a property in 2009, he expected to have arguably the best view in Australia.

Overlooking Sydney Harbour and with an uninterrupted view of the world famous Sydney Harbour Bridge, it seemed that every cent would be worth it.

But seven years on, what could be a harbourside mansion remains a harbourside eyesore, with Mr Fox unable to gain planning permission to start building the McMahons Point property.

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Is this the best view in Australia? David Fox paid $7.5 million for this property in 2009 overlooking Sydney Harbour

But more than seven years on a dilapidated and rundown boat shed still stands on the land at McMahons point, Sydney. Mr Fox has been unable to build on the property after his planning permit was blocked by North Sydney Council

Architect Tony Owen has designed a possible plan for the site (pictured) - a luxury mansion which is inspired by 'ocean liners and nautical geometry'

Mr Fox has been involved in the planning stoush with North Sydney Council since 2010 because the land allegedly sits within Henry Lawson Reserve - a public park.

As a result he is unable to revamp the current dilapidated old building and turn it into the ultra modern three-storey family home which he had envisaged.

Architect Tony Owen has designed a possible plan for the site - a luxury mansion inspired by 'ocean liners and nautical geometry'.

The large white home comes complete with a private jetty, swimming pool and a family living area that overlooks the Harbour.

But after his appeal to the Land and Environment Court was recently rejected, Mr Fox's potential multi-million dollar view is quickly disappearing from sight.

The multi-million dollar property is unable to be built on because it is technically part of a neighbouring park (pictured left)

Mr Fox plans to turn the old boatshed into a family home for he and his wife complete with a swimming pool

The land has uninterrupted views over the world famous Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House and the city skyline

However, he is determined not to give up on one day enjoying the incredible view.

'I respect the current decision and I am aware there are many approaches to this matter,' Mr Fox told the Daily Telegraph.

'We would like to work cooperatively with the council in the future.

'The active pursuit of the redevelopment of this site will continue.'

The property sits right alongside Sydney Harbour and is clearly visible from many popular viewing platforms in the city

The old green property features boarded up windows and rusting bits of sheet metal and is surrounded by lush trees

A local community group hopes the New South Wales state government will compulsory acquire the land and once again make it part of the park.

The community group and local residents have raised concerns over maintaining the history of the site.

However connections of the former boatshed to the Shark Arm murder case of the 1930s have been rejected.
President Barack Obama delivered his final keynote address as commander-in-chief on Saturday night to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

But he started his speech with some not-so-subtle jabs at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Just a day earlier Trump admitted Obama was born in the U.S. ending his 'birther' movement.

President Barack Obama delivered his final keynote address as commander-in-chief on Saturday night to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation

Both president Obama and Hillary Clinton quoted Michelle Obama (right) several times during their speeches

Obama began his speech saying: 'I've got an extra spring in my step tonight. I don't know about you guys, but I am so relieved the whole birther thing is over.

'I mean, ISIL, North Korea, poverty, climate change - none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate.

'With just 120 days to go we got that thing resolved.

'In other breaking news the world is round and not flat.'

Obama's speech was also a call to arms against the pessimism of the Trump campaign.

After thanking the Caucus and talking about his accomplishments as president, he turned his attention to Donald Trump

Obama highlighted areas of progress during his two terms as president. After thanking the Caucus and talking about his accomplishments as president, he turned his attention back on Trump.

'You might have heard Hillarys opponent say theres never been a worse time to be a black person,' Obama said.

'I mean, I think he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery and Jim Crow but we got a museum for him to visit.

'We will educate him. He says we got nothing left to lose so we might as well vote for someone who fought against civil right and equality.'

'I am so relieved the whole birther thing is over': President Barack Obama addressed Donald Trump's 'birther' movement on Saturday night at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation

Just a day earlier Trump admitted Obama was born in the U.S. ending his 'birther' movement

He called Trump a 'force of opposition' and said that while black Americans might have challenges, they're not stupid.

Obama then said Republicans are still making it harder to vote and care more about restricting minority voters than creating stricter gun laws.

He told the caucus if they wanted to protect his legacy and give him a good send off, they would vote this November.

'Theres one candidate who will advance those things and another whose central theme is opposition to all that weve done.

'Theres no such thing as a vote that doesnt matter. It all matters.

'I will consider it a personal insult to my legacy if this community fails to vote,' he said.

He told them although his name isn't on the ballot, his legacy is because Clinton's name is.

'Hope is on the ballot. And fear is on the ballot, too,' he said.

He told the caucus if they wanted to protect his legacy and give him a good send off, they would vote this November

Hillary Clinton was honored earlier in the evening for becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major party with the Trailblazer award

Clinton, who kept her remarks brief, did not address Trump directly during her acceptance speech but made subtle jabs at the Republican candidate

Clinton was honored earlier in the evening for becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major party with the Trailblazer award.

Clinton, who kept her remarks brief, did not address Trump directly during her acceptance speech but made subtle jabs at the Republican candidate.

After a video showing her work over the years, Clinton appeared on stage wearing a long white top and black pants.

Clinton thanked the caucus and representatives for the awards and then turned her attention to praising Obama.

'I, for one, dont think he gets the credit he deserves for doing what he's done on behalf of our country and the world.

'Even when hateful nonsense is throw their way Barack, Michelle and their two beautiful daughters represent our country with class, grace and integrity.

Clinton thanked the caucus and representatives for the awards and then turned her attention to praising Obama

'As Michelle says, when others go low, we go high,' Clinton said, referring the Trump's birther comments.

In a tight presidential race, Clinton is hoping that African-Americans turn out like they did for Obama's victories when they comprised 13 per cent of the electorate.

The awards dinner raises money for the foundation's efforts funding scholarships and research.

Before the dinner, several representatives told the media the believed Donald Trump is a 'two-bit racist' and a bigot.
The wife of Gold Logie winner Waleed Aly has revealed how she initially objected against marrying him and opened up about the topics she discusses with her husband over brunch.

Dr Susan Carland said the pair - who met through a friend during their teenage years - started dating shortly after she converted from Christianity to Islam at the age of 19.

But when The Project star said he was head over heels for her, the long-time Muslim convert slammed her better-half as the last person she'd tie the knot with.

'He just really annoyed me,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

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Dr Susan Carland has revealed how she initially rejected Gold Logie winner Waleed Aly

'I think maybe it was that I'd become Muslim so I was dealing with all those changes in my life, and I needed everyone to give me some space.'

However, Carland previously admitted she then mustered the courage to ask Aly out after realising 12 months later she had made a mistake.

In turn, Aly accepted her apology and they married in 2002 in an al fresco ceremony - and today share a daughter Aisha, 12, and nine year-old son Zayd.

And more than 14 years of marriage, the 37-year-old revealed the deep conversations she would engaged in with her husband at the table.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (right) enjoying an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan at Kirribilli House in Sydney in June with Aly (left) and his wife Susan (centre)

The couple had dated shortly after she converted from Christianity to Islam at the age of 19

'We'll just sit there and talk about politics or terrorism or feminism or whatever, and thrash out these ideas,' she said.

She also opened up about her decision to convert to Islam - and wondered what her life might have been life if she did not change religion.

However, she believed she made the right choice.
Authorities in a north Florida county are investigating the suspicious death of a naked man who allegedly broke into a house and attacked three people, biting one.

Deputies were called to a home in Ocala, about 80 miles northwest of Orlando, at about 4.30am on Saturday and found 40-year-old James Raines being held down in a bedroom by a man at the house.

Raines was naked and unresponsive when deputies arrived and later died at a local hospital, The Marion County Sheriff's Office said.

Deputies were called to a home in Ocala at about 4.30am on Saturday and found 40-year-old James Raines being held down in a bedroom by a man at the house (scene pictured above)

Raines was naked and unresponsive when deputies arrived at the home (pictured) and later died at a local hospital, The Marion County Sheriff's Office said

Deputies have not said what caused Raines' death.

Deputies were told by two women and one man at the home that Raines came inside the residence while naked without permission and attacked them.

They told deputies Raines was 'out of control' and believed he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The trio also said they were defending themselves and were able to pin Raines down until deputies arrived.

A man and two women at the home told deputies Raines was 'out of control' and believed he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol

Deputies said they also observed a bite mark on one of the women who was in the house.

'The individuals within the home advised they defended themselves against Raines and deputies observed a bite mark on one of the females,' deputies said.

Deputies identified Raines, who lived nearby, and found a woman who appeared to be under the influence of a substance and needed medical treatment when they responded to his home.
A former Penthouse Pet model and prostitute allegedly had sex with a prison guard in an effort to get more privileges after being put behind bars for drug dealing.

Simone Farrow was jailed for 11 years on Friday for her role in running a drug smuggling ring that brought ice into Australia.

However it has now been revealed that the 41-year-old secretly 'engaged in sex' with a guard in exchange for phone calls after being arrested in 2009, the Daily Telegraph reports.

It's alleged the model formed a relationship with the guard while on remand, with Farrow exchanging the sexual favours for calls that weren't recorded.

Convicted drug dealer and former Penthouse Pet model Simone Farrow (pictured) allegedly swapped sexual favours for unrecorded phone calls while in prison

The 41-year-old was arrested in 2009 for her role in running a drug syndicate that brought ice into Australia. On Friday after a drawn out court process she was jailed for 11 years

The phone calls would have allowed Farrow to communicate with those outside prison walls and helped her to organise a defence to the charges against her.

The incident was uncovered in late 2010 after an investigation by the Australian Federal Police.

It was revealed during the investigation that Farrow had told an accomplice about having sex with the guard.

After the investigation the prison officer was given a warning, but later resigned.

Farrow appeared in advertisements for leading brands including Ed Hardy during her time as a model.

She told the court heard she also worked as an escort after being told by her mother that the profession was OK as a teenager.

She later moved to the United States where she allegedly ran the drug syndicate from her Hollywood apartment.

Operating under the name of Simone Starr, she and her associates allegedly hid the methamphetamine in bath products.

Farrow allegedly had sex with the guard while she was on remand. An Australian Federal Police investigation uncovered the activity between her and the prison guard

Farrow was arrested on the Gold Coast in October 2009 and was then extradited to Sydney.

However her case moved slowly through the courts, with more than seven years passing before she was convicted last week.

In April 2015, Farrow broke down in court while detailing her former drug addiction and suicide attempt.
The Syrian military on Sunday said one of its war planes had been downed in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor during an operation against Islamic state, where the militant group has been under intense air strikes in the past 24 hours, Reuters reported.

The jet came down in the Jebel Tharda area which overlooks the government's Deir al Zor military airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, said.

On Saturday U.S.-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers in Jebel Tharda, endangering a U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.

A Syrian military statement said the plane had come down during an operation against Islamic State in Deir al-Zor and the pilot had died.

Islamic State-affiliated media said it had shot the jet down.

"A Syrian warplane belonging to the Syrian regime was brought down when targeted by fighters from the Islamic State in the city of Deir al-Zor," Amaq said in an online statement.

The city's military airport and some government-held districts have been entirely surrounded by Islamic State since last year, with the airport providing the only external access.

Intense air strikes over the past 24 hours have hit Islamic State controlled areas near Deir al Zor city, the Observatory and Syrian state media said.
Two boys have gone missing from the same town in southern Queensland in what police believe are separate incidents.

A 14-year-old boy, described as Aboriginal with dyed blonde hair and approximately 165cm tall, was last seen on Friday around 1pm on Neil Street in Toowoomba.

A 14-year-old (left) and an 11-year-old boy (right( have gone missing from Toowoomba in southern Queensland

Meanwhile an 11-year-old boy went missing near a chicken fast food restaurant.

Police say the 11-year-old, described as having black hair, a fair complexion and 140cm tall, was last seen with another boy and girl near the fast foot outlet on Griffin Street at Harlaxton around 2pm on Friday.
Chris Jones, 24, was five years old when he nearly lost his life in a Columbus, Ohio, swimming pool

In 1997, then-five-year-old Christopher Jones nearly drowned in a local swimming pool in Columbus, Ohio.

Were it not for the actions of a heroic police officer, he would have died that day.

On Friday, Jones got a chance to say thank you in person.

The now-24-year-old adult walked into the Columbus Police Academy and provided a teary-eyed, heartfelt surprise to his savior, Officer James Poole, greeting him for the first time since that fateful day.

The story was first reported by The Columbus Dispatch.

'About 1997, you pulled a 5-year-old out of a swimming pool, saved his life,' Jones said to a stunned Poole on Friday.

'Wow,' a clearly moved Poole said. 'I never thought that something I would do 19, 20 years later would come back, and somebody would thank me.'

Jones, right, paid a surprise visit to Officer James Poole (left), the man who saved his life

Jones embraced Poole and, with tears in his eyes, told him that were it not for his actions 19 years ago, he would not have been able to have a daughter.

Although all of the details of the incident are unclear, what is known is that Jones' heart stopped beating after he had been in the water for nearly 20 minutes.

Poole, who was a rookie officer at the time, pulled Jones from the bottom of the pool and saved his life.

The idea for a reunion came when Jones saw a picture of Poole on the Columbus police department's Facebook page.

While Jones knew that the name of the officer who rescued him was Poole, he wasn't certain that this was the one who saved him.

When he asked on Facebook whether this was the same Poole, he was contacted by another officer who confirmed that it was indeed him and that a reunion was in order.

Jones (right) knew Poole's name, but wasn't sure it was the same officer who rescued him until he was contacted by the Columbus police department, which arranged the teary reunion

Poole's colleagues organized an event on Friday in which the officer was supposedly going to speak to the press about his function as a community liaison.

At the 'press conference,' Jones strolled in to the lobby of the Police Academy, where Poole was holding court with the media on a couch.

When Jones tapped him on the shoulder and told him who he was, Poole realized that the event was set up.

'Because of you, I'm still here,' Jones told Poole. 'Because of you, this 5-year-old little girl right here is here.'

Jones and Poole both had tears in their eyes as they embraced at the Columbus Police Academy

'Law enforcement is definitely a rewarding job,' Poole said to Jones. 'You are a perfect example of the reward that we get out of it.'

Jones said that Poole was so inspirational that it is making him consider a career in law enforcement.
For 76 years it has been the resting place of scores of RAF heroes who gave their lives defending the nation in the Battle of Britain.

Now their remains face destruction  as giant dredgers prepare to move on to the Channel sandbank where they crashed to dig out cheap building material.

More than 10,000 people have signed a petition to stop the Dover Harbour Board dredging Goodwin Sands for gravel to expand cargo facilities and build a marina at Dover port.

Ghostly: Sonar image of the Dornier on the sandbank. This is the only surviving German Second World War Dornier Do 17 bomber in the sands

Actor Mark Rylance, star of hit film Big Friendly Giant and Wolf Hall, is among those behind the SOS (Save Our Sands) campaign.

Last night he urged developers to respect the graves and asked: Would they dredge an ancient graveyard or battlefield?

The wreck of the German World War II Dornier Do-17 plane being raised to the surface of a ship at Goodwin Sands, Kent, at the mouth of the English Channel, on June 10, 2013

The beach and seafront in Deal, Kent. Campaigners include Mark Rylance and Miriam Margoyles

Rylance is joined by Miriam Margolyes, whose home on top of the white cliffs of Dover overlooks the Goodwins.

The Harry Potter actress said: Battle of Britain planes and pilots could be disturbed and war graves desecrated. I am profoundly disgusted at this plan.

The Goodwin Sands is a notorious ten-mile stretch of shifting sandbanks off the Kent coast, near Deal. During the bitter aerial combat of 1940, at least 60 British and German aircraft plummeted into the sandbank from the skies.

The Goodwins has also seen more than 2,000 shipwrecks  in the Great Storm of 1703, on one night alone 1,200 men were lost on its banks.

SOS campaigners warn that the plan to remove 2.5 million cubic metres of sand and gravel will not only disturb the wrecks but will cause coastal erosion, endanger delicate ecosystems and wildlife, including a large seal colony.

But it is the threat to the graves of RAF pilots that has caused most anger. David Brocklehurst MBE, curator of the Kent Battle of Britain Museum at Hawkinge, spent two months searching war records to identify the locations of aircraft that came down over the Goodwins.

He said: I can tell you with my hand on my heart that there are missing airmen out on the Goodwins. We must commemorate and protect the last resting place of our heroes.

His list of 60 lost planes and their crews includes Spitfires and Hurricanes, as well as German Messerschmitts, Dornier Do 17s and Junkers Ju 88s, all shot down and never recovered between May 29 and November 14, 1940.

Supermarine Spitfire Mk Vb AB910 Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight

SOS director Laura Evers Johns said yesterday: The Goodwins contain a staggering number of wrecks and the graves of many thousands of servicemen, mariners and fishermen. The plan to dredge them is immoral and unscrupulous and would result in the desecration of countless graves. Its displaying a total disregard for the law and lack of respect for the servicemen who gave their lives for this country.

The petition will be presented in Parliament by Dover MP Charlie Elphicke, who says: It is critical to ensure that no war graves are disturbed and that no ecology is damaged.

The body deciding the fate of the Goodwins graveyard is the Marine Management Organisation, which has until October 13 to make up its mind whether to grant a dredging licence. SOS is hoping that the Ministry of Defences department responsible for human remains, the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre, will back its campaign.

THE PICTURE POST HERO LOST OVER THE SANDS AGED JUST 19 This Picture Post magazine, published at the height of the Battle of Britain, features Pilot Officer Keith Gillman of 32 Squadron One of the most famous Battle of Britain pilots lost over Goodwin Sands was 19-year-old Keith Gillman. His portrait appeared on the cover of Picture Post magazine, left, in 1940. But unknown to readers at the time, his Hurricane of 32 Squadron had been shot down on August 25  the week before the magazine was published  within sight of his Dover home, plummeting on to the sandbank. Neither he nor his aircraft were recovered. His great-niece Amanda Lomas, 47, of River, near Dover, said: Our family has always been immensely proud of Keith and kept his memory alive over the years. Ive been out to the Goodwin Sands by boat at low tide and its a magical place. It makes me very uncomfortable to think that war graves there could be disturbed. Those pilots, like my great-uncle, were heroes. They deserve to be treated with respect. Advertisement

The Goodwin Sands is owned by the Crown Estates, which in 2013 produced an environmental report which stated: Military air crash sites are automatically subject to legal protection through the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

It added: No [dredging] licence will be allowed if there are human remains present, the intention being that such remains be left in peace where they lie.

Dover Harbour Board denies its plans could cause problems, saying that no known military wrecks or aircraft crash sites are within the proposed dredge area.

Port of Dover spokesman Chris Talbot said: Experts have surveyed the dredge areas and identified exclusion zones for known archaeological sites.

In 2013 a German Dornier Do 17 emerged from the sands for the first time since it was shot down with its three crew on August 26, 1940.
NASA has released a stunning new video of a booster for its Space Launch System (SLS) being tested.

The footage of the June 28 test which took place in Utah was posted to YouTube on Friday by NASA's Marshall Center.

Pieces of the booster's nozzle plug are captured flying in the air in incredible detail.

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NASA has released a stunning new video of a booster for its Space Launch System (SLS) being tested. Pictured is the booster's nozzle plug breaking apart

The footage of the June 28 test which took place in Utah was posted to YouTube on Friday by NASA's Marshall Center

Another view shows pieces from the nozzle in the air

NASA's Marshall Center wrote on YouTube: 'On June 28, a test version of the booster that will help power NASA's new rocket, the Space Launch System, fired up at nearly 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit for a successful, two-minute qualification test at Orbital ATK's test facilities in Promontory, Utah.

'This video shows the booster's nozzle plug intentionally breaking apart.

'The smoky ring coming off the booster is condensed water vapor created by a pressure difference between the motor gas and normal air.

'The nozzle plug is an environmental barrier to prevent heat, dust and moisture from getting inside the booster before it ignites.

NASA's Marshall Center says: 'The smoky ring coming off the booster is condensed water vapor created by a pressure difference between the motor gas and normal air'

It says that: 'The nozzle plug is an environmental barrier to prevent heat, dust and moisture from getting inside the booster before it ignites'

NASA says that nozzle pieces were discovered as many as 2,000ft from the booster

According to the agency, 'Along with video, collecting the pieces helps determine the size and speed of them when they break apart'

THE SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM Eventually, SLS will stand 322ft (98 metres) tall, provide 8.4 million pounds of thrust at lift-off, and weigh 5.5 million pounds. It will also carry 70 metric tons or 154,000 lbs of payload - equivalent to approximately 77 one-ton pickup trucks' worth of cargo. To get off the ground, it requires twin solid rocket boosters, powerful engines, flight computers, avionics and the core stage. The core stage, towering more than 200ft (61 metres) tall with a diameter of 27.6 feet (8.4 metres), will carry cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that will feed the vehicle's four RS-25 engines. Advertisement

'The plug isn't always part of a static test but was included on this one due to changes made to the hardware.'

According to the agency, 'Along with video, collecting the pieces helps determine the size and speed of them when they break apart.

'Nozzle plug pieces were found as far as 1,500 to 2,000 feet away from the booster.

'This is the last full-scale qualification test for the booster before the first, uncrewed flight of SLS with the Orion spacecraft in 2018.'

DailyMail.com previously reported on other footage of the booster, and how NASA's new High Dynamic Range Stereo X (HiDyRS-X) camera shows rocket motor plumes in brilliant detail.

In June, Nasa recorded its Space Launch System booster test using a revolutionary new camera. Footage captured by Nasas new High Dynamic Range Stereo X (HiDyRS-X) shows rocket motor plumes in brilliant detail

The plumes created are extremely loud, as well as very bright, making them difficult to record without drastically cutting down the exposure settings on the camera. This image shows what the test would have appear like without the use of the HiDyRS-X camera

The camera was created to overcome the problem that exists when trying to film rocket motor tests.

The plumes created are extremely loud, as well as bright, making them difficult to record without drastically cutting down the exposure settings on the camera.

Unlike most cameras, which only use one exposure at a time, the HiDyRS-X records multiple, slow motion video exposures simultaneously.

Testing at the thermal extremes experienced by the booster on the launch pad is important to understand the effect of temperature on how the propellant burns

The camera was monitored from a safe distance, set up on an automatic timer to start recording as soon as the booster ignited

The camera was used during the massive booster test, called QM-2, at Orbital ATKs test facility in Utah.

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) is a powerful, advanced launch vehicle for a new era of human exploration beyond Earths orbit.

SLS will launch crews of up to four astronauts in the agencys Orion spacecraft on missions to explore multiple, deep-space destinations.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is targeting millions of Australians who still haven't completed their census forms.

An estimated two million households are yet to complete the census, compared to the 96 per cent completion rate in 2011, reported Yahoo 7.

The census website will stop accepting submissions on September 23.

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The Australian Bureau of Statistics is targeting millions of Australians who still haven't completed their census forms

The ABS is expected to send out Census Field Officers this week to doorknock and hand out hard copy forms to households, particularly in areas with significant non-compliance problems.

If you fail to submit your census by the cut-off date, you could be fined up $180 per day until the form is returned to the ABS.

In some cases, penalties for not completing the census can also include a criminal conviction.

It's also an offence to provide false or misleading statements or information, with a fine of up to $1,800.

This year's census was plagued with issues after the website crashed on September 9, leaving millions of Australians unable to submit their forms.

It took two days for the website to be up and running again, after the ABS it took down as a precaution when they claim it came under attack from foreign hackers.

An estimated two million households are yet to complete the census, compared to the 96 per cent completion rate in 2011. The cut-off date for completion is September 23

The hackers apparently launched four denial of service attempts to block the millions of Australians who wanted to access the site.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has admitted there were 'serious failures' with the national survey, which was conducted on an opt-out online basis for the first time by the ABS, costing taxpayers $272 million in operational costs.

Despite the issues surrounding this year's census, the Federal Government is refusing to waive penalties for forms that are incomplete or handed in late.
Senior civil servants have complained they feel sidelined by the Prime Ministers joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill

Theresa May is facing a revolt by mandarins over the power wielded by her longstanding political enforcers, The Mail on Sunday understands.

Senior civil servants have complained they feel sidelined by the Prime Ministers joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill  with Mrs Mays red boxes at the centre of the power struggle.

At the end of every working day and before weekends, civil servants fill the scarlet leather cases with documents for Mrs May to review.

But a Government source has claimed officials are being rebuked if they put papers directly into her boxes, or send email files into an electronic red box on her computer or phone  as they did with David Cameron  without first going through Mr Timothy and Ms Hill.

A source told this newspaper: Mrs May doesnt want their advice. She only seems to want to hear what her advisers think.

The claims are denied by No.10, which is trying to quell disquiet over the influence of Mr Timothy  a policy expert known as the Brummie Rasputin  and media specialist Ms Hill, who have been Mrs Mays Praetorian Guard for the past decade.

Another flashpoint has been access to key 8.30am strategy meetings held every weekday at No 10 to set out the days agenda for the Prime Minister.

A senior Government source claimed the advisers had tried to bar Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, the all-powerful head of the Civil Service, from the 8.30.

Officials also complain Downing Street is micro-managing Government departments by becoming involved in every cough and spit. One said: It hasnt been this bad since Gordon Brown was in there.

Mr Timothy exerts particular influence over policy. He helped to drive Mrs Mays plans to bring back grammar schools, announce an inquiry into the policing of the Battle of Orgreave during the 1980s miners strike and launch an industrial strategy.

Ministers have privately expressed surprise at the way Mr Timothy has demanded a big say in all key Government decisions, likening the Birmingham-born steel workers son to Rasputin, the Russian peasant and mystic who ruled the Royal court before the Russian Revolution.

Theresa May's red boxes are at the centre of the power struggle. A Government source has claimed officials are being rebuked if they put papers directly into her boxes

He makes a formidable double act with Ms Hill, a former Sky producer with news management skills, who has been credited with helping to fashion Mrs Mays distinctive wardrobe. Their joint influence has put noses out of joint in Whitehall.

A separate source said sharing the chief of staff position was causing logistical problems.

When Mrs May flew to the G20 summit in China earlier this month, an extra place had to be found on the plane so both could attend. They were then pictured sitting next to the Prime Minister during the summit at high-level bilateral meetings.

The Government source said: It is ridiculous everything has to pass through Nick and Fiona first. It means they have an overwhelming volume of work  so much so that they are talking about giving them their own private secretary, which is batty.

Meanwhile some very experienced civil servants feel sidelined.

It creates huge confusion. Do you clear something with one of them or both? One official said they were told by Fiona, If Nick clears something, that means I have cleared it. If I have cleared it, that means Nick has also cleared it. 
A second senior military figure has warned that Britain is ill-prepared to defend itself from Russian aggression and has lost its ability to fight a conventional war.

Former Chief of the General Staff Sir Mike Jackson last night tore into the Government's lack of strategic thinking and mocked Ministry of Defence claims that military budgets were rising.

His intervention follows a leaked memo that highlighted glaring shortcomings in Britain's military capabilities and branded the Armed Forces 'withered' as a result of repeated defence cuts.

In a private letter to Defence Secretary Michael Fallon before he retired in April as head of Joint Forces Command, General Sir Richard Barrons said key capabilities had been stripped out to save money.

Former Chief of the General Staff Sir Mike Jackson (pictured) last night tore into the Government's lack of strategic thinking

He said the Armed Forces had been 'withered by design' and there was no plan to defend the UK in a conventional conflict. Gen Sir Richard also said a Russian air campaign would quickly overwhelm Britain, and Royal Navy ships and RAF planes lacked sufficient ammunition, missiles, radars and fire-control systems.

Small numbers of hugely expensive equipment pieces, such as the 2 billion aircraft carriers, also made the UK's military capabilities 'very fragile', he said, adding: 'We operate platforms that we cannot afford to use fully, damage or lose  industry would take years to repair or produce more.'

Gen Sir Mike, 72, the former head of the Army, told The Mail on Sunday last night: 'I am absolutely in agreement with Sir Richard. He is a four-star officer who is right at the top of the MoD. That tells me that what he is saying should be taken very seriously.

'The MoD says the defence budget is rising well, marginally. It also claims it will soon have more troops, ships and planes 'at readiness'. We need more troops, ships and planes full stop.

General Sir Richard Barrons aid a Russian air campaign would quickly overwhelm Britain (pictured, Vladimir Putin)

'There is some new equipment coming into the RAF and the Royal Navy but the quantity really is very small, while the Army is 20 per cent smaller than when I left it ten years ago. The outsourcing of recruitment doesn't seem to have been a huge success. And this comes at a time when we are facing a more strident Russia. I would also emphasise the lack of strategic thinking. Whitehall does not do military planning.'

The MoD said last night: 'Our defence review last year put in place a plan for more ships, planes and troops at readiness, alongside greater spending on cyber and Special Forces.
Camp Cope would like safe places for women to enjoy music at concerts

The increasing number of disgusting acts at Australian music gigs has led to one indie band trailblaze the call to action to stamp out the harassment of females at music concerts.

The music community has banded behind the #ItTakesOne campaign spearheaded by Camp Cope to shame violent behaviour at shows after watching one man aggressively plough his way through groups of women to get to the front at a Brisbane show.

Other reported incidents include a woman being urinated on during a Spiderbait concert in Melbourne and a man ejaculating on the back of a woman at festival last year, according to News Corp.

#ItTakesOne campaign spearheaded by Camp Cope to shame violent behaviour at shows

Women have been assaulted, groped, urinated and even ejaculated on in recent music events (Stock image)

The campaign came to fruition when the Camp Cope trio enlisted the help of Courtney Barnett, Jen Cloher and members of Luca Brasi, Frenzal Rhomb and The Jezabels to take part in a video to help build awareness around safety at shows.

'We started this campaign to bring together artists to create a clear message about our stance on the abuse and assaults that continually arise at shows,' Camp Cope explain in the video introducing the #ItTakesOne movement.

'It takes one person's behaviour to ruin an entire show but it also takes one person to stand up, say something, and make a difference.'

Camp Cope often call for women only to come to the front of their concerts to help them feel safe (Stock Image)

Having felt the untoward behaviour at gigs themselves, Camp Cope's Georgia Arq, Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich and Sarah Thompson call out, 'Girls To The Front', at their concert to encourage a safe place for women in the audience to enjoy music.

'Because we are an all-woman band, we have experienced going to shows and being pushed, not being able to see from the front so this is personal for us,' Mrs Hellmrich told News Corp.

'It can be complicated because a lot of fans want to be able to watch up front but we are talking about tiny, little girls and it is amazing to see the women coming together, working together so they don't get crushed and feel safe.'

The call to action has already started to make waves in the community with music writer Kathy McCabe explaining she has to stand at the back of the room to watch artists now after the torrid abuse she has experienced during countless live gigs.

'I tend to watch gigs from the back or side of the room now. I am over being pushed, having a guys shoulder blades thrust into my nose because they decided to ignore my presence and stand right in front of me. Or accidentally fall into me and grope me,' she said in Rednezview.

'I stand where there is some space and I can minimise the potential for my enjoyment of the gig to be ruined by someone elses bad behaviour.'

The campaign #ItTakesOne aims to knock out violent behaviour at live music aimed at men (Stock Image)

Australian indie rock band Camp Cope have spearheaded the campaign #ItTakesOne within the music community (Stock Image)

The video has a deliberate strong male presence claiming, 'don't be dickhead,' to men who ruin a concert for both the fans and artists - who feel responsible for their disrespectful behaviour.

Advocates from the music industry to get behind the campaign so far include Poison City Records, Chris Farren, Courtney Barnett & Jen Cloher, triple j's Dom Alessio, Totally Unicorn, Frenzal Rhomb, The Hard Aches, Redgum, The Sugarcanes, Jeff Rosenstock, Cable Ties, The Old Bar, The Bennies, The Jezebels, Immigrant Union, Harmony, King Parrot, Clowns and Luca Brasi.

Bands around the globe are aiming to build awareness with Mumford and Sons boycotting a Swedish music festival over what they call its disgustingly high rate of sexual violence.




Boris Johnson will make his latest attempt to upstage Theresa May tomorrow when he appears on a platform with film star George Clooneys glamorous wife Amal

Boris Johnson will make his latest attempt to upstage Theresa May tomorrow when he appears on a platform with film star George Clooneys glamorous wife Amal.

The Foreign Secretary will link up with the human rights lawyer when he hosts a UK-led campaign to bring members of Islamic State to justice for the crimes they have committed during their murderous rampage across the Middle East.

Mrs Clooney will join Mr Johnson in calling for the UN to gather evidence against members of IS  also known as Daesh  to bring them to trial.

It is the latest example of apparent limelight-stealing by Mr Johnson, who last week lent his name to a campaign to pressure Mrs May into delivering a hard Brexit and tried to pre-empt her decision on airport capacity by arguing that the option of expanding Heathrow was a fantasy that should be consigned to the dustbin.

British-Lebanese Mrs Clooney, was thrust to global fame by her marriage to Mr Clooney in 2014.

She met David Cameron earlier this year when she visited the former Prime Minister as part of her campaign to free the jailed former president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed.

Mr Johnson said last night: We have united to defeat Daesh, now we must unite to bring them to justice.

'That needs to include looking at ways for the UN to support the vital task of gathering evidence about their abhorrent crimes.

The Foreign Secretary will link up with the human rights lawyer when he hosts a UK-led campaign to bring members of Islamic State to justice for the crimes they have committed during their murderous rampage across the Middle East

'The global campaign will seek justice for all Daeshs victims, bringing the international community together in defiance of Daeshs efforts to stoke division and hate.

Boris will be travelling without International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, who has lobbied Mrs May to give him, rather than Boris, responsibility for trade diplomacy.
The Oakland police department is being sued for $66 million on behalf of a teenage prostitute at the center of a massive sex scandal.

Attorney's for Jasmine Abuslin, formerly known as Celeste Guap, took the first steps in bringing the lawsuit against the department on Friday.

Absulin claims to have had sex with about 30 law enforcement officials throughout the San Francisco Bay Area over the last two years - during some which she was a minor.

Attorney's for Jasmine Abuslin (pictured) have filed a $66 million lawsuit on behalf of the teen caught in the center of the Oakland Police Department sex scandal

Absulin (pictured) claims to have had sex with about 30 law enforcement officials throughout the San Francisco Bay Area over the last two years - during some which she was a minor

The suit was filed in conjunction with the criminal case brought by Alameda County District Attorney's Office in a case of sexual misconduct involving Abuslin.

The multi-million dollar suit is considered the 'first step' in bringing forth a lawsuit and the city has 45 days to respond, according the NBC Bay Area.

The lawsuit claims that Oakland Police Department officers, 'either directly engaged in, stood by with a blind eye, or acted to cover up this modern-day slavery of (Jasmine).

'These acts constitute unlawful forced labor, trafficking into servitude and sex trafficking of a child by force, fraud and coercion and have caused (Jasmine) to suffer unimaginable abuse, paid, and suffering that she and her family will endure for the rest of her life.'

The multi-million dollar suit is considered the 'first step' in bringing forth a lawsuit and the city has 45 days to respond

The lawsuit claims that Oakland Police Department officers, 'either directly engaged in, stood by with a blind eye, or acted to cover up this modern-day slavery of Jasmine'

Meanwhile, the first formal charges were filed on Friday against retired officers Dan Black and Leroy Johnson.

Black is charged with multiple counts, including engaging in prostitution, lewd public behavior and giving alcohol to a minor, NBC Bay Area reported.

Court documents show last April, Black picked Absulin up in a motor home and took her out to eat.

The documents show Black told Absulin 'just to be clear, I'm not paying you, but I will buy you dinner'.

The two later engaged in oral copulation and sex in the motor home, the document states.

Johnson is facing charges for failing to report that his colleagues were engaging in sex with a prostitute who was also a minor.

Absulin told Johnson over social media that she engaged in sex with officers.

Formal charges were filed on Friday against retired officer Dan Black who allegedly engaged in sex with Absulin after buying her dinner

City councilman Noel Galleo (pictured) admitted officials knew these lawsuits and charges were coming

'Tell me you were an adult,' Johnson wrote to Absulin.

'I'd be lying,' Absulin responded.

Attorney's believe social media and Absulin's age will play critical roles in the lawsuit and criminal charges.

City leaders admitted to NBC Bay Area they knew these lawsuits and charges were coming.

'All I can think about is there will be other women that are going to come forth with similar stories or actions claiming lawsuits,' city councilman Noel Galleo said.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says the city's police department started dismissal proceedings against four officers in early September, but noted some may have previously left the department.

The department earlier announced that two officers implicated in the scandal previously resigned. A third killed himself last year.

An investigation into Absulin began after Officer Brendan O'Brien, one of those she allegedly slept with, killed himself

In addition, seven officers will serve a range of unpaid suspensions before being allowed to return to duty. Another officer will be required to attend training classes.

'I am deeply sorry for the harm this scandal has caused,' Schaaf said.

Schaaf declined to identify the officers being disciplined. It's unclear if any of the officers were represented by lawyers. The officers' union said previously it wasn't representing most of the implicated officers because the alleged misconduct occurred while they were off duty.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley has also launched a criminal investigation. Her office didn't respond to requests for comment late Wednesday.

'We are being very sensitive to the young woman who has been exploited and been hurt,' O'Malley said on August 9 when activists arrived unannounced at her office and demanded officers be charged criminally. 'We are working diligently.'

Most of the implicated officers work in Oakland, which has placed three other officers on leave. In June, the department cycled through three chiefs in 10 days after the teen's allegations were first reported in the media.

Police chief Paul Figueroa stepped down in June after only two days on the job, following predecessor Ben Fairow, who had been fired after just six days.

Sean Whent (left), Ben Fairow (center) and Paul Figueroa (right) all quit as Oakland Police chiefs in the space of eight days in the wake of the scandal

Fairow himself had been chosen to replace former police chief Sean Whent, who had resigned the week prior. Whent had quit after multiple officer misconduct cases.

He said at the time that the investigation into possible sexual misconduct with a minor stemmed from the suicide of an officer.

Officer Brendan O'Brien killed himself just hours after Abuslin started revealing details of the relationships with members of law enforcement on Facebook last September, reports suggest.

Abuslin, whose mother works as a dispatcher at the Oakland Police Department, hasn't named the officers she claims to have slept with.

She claims that only three officers paid her after their encounters, and recalls having up to ten trysts with a single cop.

Abuslin, who claims to have had sex with more than 30 officers starting at age 16, allegedly flashed motorists, bit a guard and then tried to solicit sex from police during the incident in Florida on August 29

The teen had been sent to the voluntary rehab facility in Florida by officers in California in order to receive treatment for heroin and sex addiction

Absulin's claims are still being investigated and detectives have not ruled out statutory rape charges.

Six Richmond police officers and several others working for other law enforcement agencies have also been implicated.

On August 29 Abuslin was arrested at Treasure Coast Recovery Center, a voluntary treatment center in Florida.

Police say the teen, who joined the center on August 26 to be treated for heroin and sex addiction, ran into the street, pulled up her shirt and exposed herself to motorists.

After a security officer convinced her to come back inside she was taken to a small room, but quickly became upset, police said.

As more security officers came into the room, sheriff's deputies say Absulin became violent and balled her fists.

When the guards tried to restrain her she lashed out, attempting to flip over a safe before hitting them and biting one on the arm, police say.

Martin County Sheriff's Office was called and Absulin was arrested on a felony charge of aggravated battery.

Staff at the center told police that she has been extremely hostile toward them since arriving three days prior.

Absulin says officers from seven different law enforcement agencies slept with her, some while she was underage, and exchanged nude messages with her (pictured)

After being arrested police say Absulin managed to slip out of regular sized handcuffs and so they had to use a smaller pair.

When she was put into a police car she began hitting her head on the window and then tried to solicit sex, police say

She was later pictured smiling in her police mugshot while wearing a protective police vest.

According to ABC 7, which spoke to Absulin before her treatment, she was told to go to the center by California police who told her to 'treat it like paid vacation.'
The Russian prime minister announced the victory of the United Russia party in the 2016 parliamentary elections, Sputnik reported.

Leader of the United Russia party, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced on Sunday the victory of his party in the 2016 parliamentary elections.

"I would like to thank all the citizens of our country who came to ballot stations today, demonstrated their civil position and voted. Moreover, a significant portion of them voted for United Russia," Medvedev said at a meeting with the partys activists. "It is safe to say that our party has won," Medvedev announced.
Flight plan: Meals will still be free on long haul

British Airways is facing a backlash from passengers after teaming up with Marks & Spencer to charge passengers for food on short-haul flights for the first time.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the countrys flag carrier has struck a deal with the supermarket giant loved by Middle England to provide travellers with an upmarket range of sandwiches and snacks.

Experts predicted last night that the move by the UKs biggest airline would anger loyal customers who are used to complimentary food and drink on all of its flights.

BA has always distinguished itself from its budget rivals by including meals in ticket prices, and passengers may complain the quality airline is going downmarket.

But the deal would allow it to cut fares, making it look better value in comparison to Ryanair and easyJet, which have been taking a growing share of the market.

While some travellers say they prefer BA because they do not have to buy snacks, executives believe holidaymakers are increasingly prepared to pay for extras if ticket prices are lower.

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Nik Loukas, who runs the Inflight Feed website, said: I think it is going to be very difficult for passengers to swallow the fact that they are going to have to pay for food after it has been free for so long.

There will probably be a big backlash. British Airways has always had a tradition summed up in their slogan "To fly, to serve". I think they will have a battle on their hands.

The deal, which is expected to be announced within weeks after final details are hammered out, will bring two of Britains biggest brands together for the first time. It is understood that BA was keen to team up with a high-quality food supplier and had also approached Waitrose, but industry insiders said the tie-up with M&S was a perfect match.

While passengers on longer BA flights will still be treated to a free three-course meal, the airline could cash in by selling snacks at premium prices on short journeys.

The deal would allow BA to cut fares, making it look better value in comparison to Ryanair and easyJet, which have been taking a growing share of the market (stock image)

Industry analysts believe low-cost airlines typically make just under 2 per passenger from in-flight sales, so an airline like easyJet  whose menu includes warmed focaccia sandwiches for 4.50  would be expected to make about 120 million annually from selling food to its 70 million passengers.

A senior executive at an established low-cost airline said: I think BAs move is an acceptance that the old legacy airline model just does not work.

It is simply no longer popular with passengers because you are giving them something they do not necessarily want and which they take for granted and no longer appreciate anyway. We, on the other hand, offer a range of food and drinks that they actually want to buy.

I think BAs offer on its short-haul flights has been pretty ropey for years  on some it seems to be an offer of a health bar or a biscuit.

The new initiative is believed to have the backing of British Airways chief executive Alex Cruz, who previously ran the groups partner Vueling, a Spanish-based budget carrier.

Neither Marks & Spencer nor BA would comment directly on the talks. But a BA spokesman said: We are constantly reviewing every element of the experience our customers receive, including the in-flight catering, to ensure were delivering what they want.
A former adviser to Tony Blair has told of his shock at witnessing an anti-Semitic rant at a Proms reception.

Martin Bright, a former Observer journalist who once worked for the former Prime Ministers Faith Foundation, was horrified when BBC journalist Henrietta Foster was told by a fellow guest to get back in the oven  a reference to the gas chambers used by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The fellow guest, who has been identified by The Mail on Sunday as Dr Leslie Jones, the editor of the Quarterly Review magazine, made the comment in reference to an appearance Ms Foster made in My Nazi Legacy, a documentary about the children of Hitlers officers.

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Martin Bright (pictured), a former Observer journalist who once worked for the former Prime Ministers Faith Foundation, was horrified when BBC journalist Henrietta Foster was told by a fellow guest to get back in the oven

Mr Bright was targeted by anti-Semitic supporters of Jeremy Corbyn last week when he criticised the Labour Party for suspending Jewish donor Michael Foster for likening Mr Corbyns leadership cabal to the Sturmabteilung, or Nazi stormtroopers, in this newspaper.

One Corbynite told him on Twitter: Foster is the epitome of the negative caracature [sic] of Jews. He ENCOURAGES anti-Semitism by his own actions.

Another said: Removal of the vile Michael Foster from Labour was superb. Corbyn should remove the rest of the Zionist 5th column.

Mr Bright said the incidents taken together made him worry that something has happened over the past months in this country to give a licence to the open expression of anti-Semitic views.

Last night Ms Foster (unrelated to Michael Foster), who is writing a history of Hungarian Jews, said she thought Dr Jones had made the remark at the reception on the Friday before the last night of the proms, because he incorrectly thought she was Jewish.

Mr Bright was targeted by anti-Semitic supporters of Jeremy Corbyn last week when he criticised the Labour Party for suspending Jewish donor Michael Foster

She said: We had fallen out at a previous reception over Brexit  I told him to **** off because he had voted out. Then he came over to me last Thursday and said, You were in that film, werent you?, and told me I was cruel in my filmed question to the son of a Nazi officer.

Then he just said: Get back in the oven. Do you understand me? Just get back in the oven. 
Balcony murderer Simon Gittany was once a cashed-up corporate high flyer living in a $1,000-a-week luxury Sydney apartment.

Now he earns just $17.76 a week sweeping and mopping floors, emptying bins and cleaning toilets in Lithgow jail where he is serving his 18-year sentence.

The 43-year-old was jailed in November 2013 for throwing his ballerina fiancee Lisa Harnum, 30, over the 15th-floor balcony of their two-bedroom flat in July 2011.

Convicted murderer Simon Gittany now earns $18 a week cleaning his prison

His new digs are not quite as flash, sleeping in a four by three metre cell in the prison's protective wing where he is kept because of high profile.

'Sweepers undertake the cleaning of the shower blocks, toilets and common areas of a correctional centre, including sweeping, mopping and vacuuming,' a Corrective Services spokeswoman told the Sunday Telegraph.

Gittany's violent past has come out once since he was put away when he got in a fight and was confined to his cell for several days.

He was jailed in November 2013 for 18 years prison for throwing his fiancee Lisa Harnum (pictured) off a 15th-floor balcony in Sydney in July 2011

Lithgow jail where Gittany is serving his 18-year sentence and sleeping in a four by three metre cell in the prison's protective wing

But prison sources told the newspaper 'overall his behaviour has been pretty good' and he has also been participating in rehabilitation programs.

Rachelle Louise, who was his girlfriend at the time of his trial, was seen visiting Gittany earlier this year, but it is understood they broke up before his appeal last month.

After that appeal against his minimum sentence was denied, Gittany will be 57 when he is eligible for parole in December 2031.

He killed Ms Harnum in a jealous rage when he discovered she had packed her bags to leave him after his controlling behaviour left her with just two friends.

Gittany used CCTV cameras to monitor her movements in their apartment and the scrutiny she was subjected to was intrusive and overbearing', the judge said at his sentencing.

CCTV footage showing Gittany holding a hand over Ms Harnum's mouth moments before he pushed her off the balcony

He killed Ms Harnum in a jealous rage when he discovered she had packed her bags to leave him after his controlling behaviour left her with just two friends

Judge McCallum said the relationship reached the point when Miss Harnum changed her Facebook status to single and had signed a contract to store her belongings in Bondi as she prepared to leave him.

After his conviction it was revealed Gittany had been under investigation by the NSW drugs squad over suspicious payments between him and two men who have pleaded guilty to producing ice.

Earlier in life he was jailed for biting off part of a policemans ear, punching a man while others were already holding him down, and receiving stolen property and selling drugs.

His vast wealth was never explained.
The ex-partner of troubled NRL star Kieran Foran has launched a scathing attack on punter Eddie Hayson, calling him 'absolute scum' for comments he made about her former boyfriend.

Rebecca Pope took to Instagram on Friday to attack Hayson after the former brothel owner claimed he saved Foran's life following a drug overdose earlier in 2016.

At a press conference on Friday, Hayson claimed he provided crucial support to Foran after he overdosed on pain killers in April while on personal leave from the Parramatta Eels.

'If I wasn't in his life this year, he probably wouldn't be alive,' Hayson claimed.

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Rebecca Pope (pictured), the ex-partner of NRL star Kieran Foran, has taken to Instagram to attack controversial gambler Eddie Hayson over claims he made about her former boyfriend

Hayson held a press conference on Thursday where he claimed that without his friendship Foran would have died from a drug overdose in April 2016. Ms Pope disputed the claims and described Hayson as 'absolute scum' in a video she shared of the press conference

However Ms Pope used her social media account to stand by her former partner and rubbish Hayson's claims about the incident.

'How dare you! You are absolute scum of the earth Eddy Hayson,' she wrote.

The mother-of-two received much support on the post from some of her 2,000 Instagram followers.

'What a complete idiot! Are you serious that makes my blood boil!' one woman wrote.

'We know the truth Bec. We got ya back,' another follower commented.

'How dare you! You are absolute scum of the earth Eddie Hayson (pictured),' Ms Pope wrote alongside a video she posted to Instagram

Foran and Ms Pope's long-term relationship broke down earlier in 2016

Foran and Ms Pope's long-term relationship broke down in early 2016, reportedly a contributing factor to the New Zealand star's need to take indefinite leave.

The couple share two young children and reportedly split when their youngest was just three weeks old.

Foran has been out of rugby league since walking away from his $1.2 million-a-year deal with the Parramatta Eels in July.

Ms Pope received much support after making the post on her Instagram page

The couple have two young children and reportedly split just three weeks after their youngest was born

However the 26-year-old reportedly has plans to return to the NRL next year.

The Daily Telegraph reports that in the meantime he has been working a retail job.

Foran is said to have taken up the role in an attempt to improve his head space and to ensure he is right to return to leagues top ranks in 2017.
The NHS paid out a record 17 million in compensation last year to patients who claimed they suffered in hospital because of poor nursing care.

Among the complainants were people who said they endured needless pain, cosmetic disfigurement, broken bones and heart attacks.

In all, 414 claims were settled last year with payments totalling 16.8 million being made  a record sum and a third higher than for the previous 12 months.

The NHS paid out a record 17 million in compensation last year to patients who claimed they suffered in hospital because of poor nursing care. Pictured is Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt

The average payout was about 40,000, with around 650,000 given to someone with brain damage and 16,000 a typical sum for patient who suffered a broken bone.

The news comes a few months after a survey suggested that nurses are under so much pressure they cannot guarantee safe care for their patients.

Julie Bailey, who set up the campaign group Cure the NHS after the death of her mother Bella at Stafford Hospital in 2007, said: A key finding from the Mid Staffs public inquiry was the shortage of staff.

'When will the NHS learn that leaving wards short of staff harms patients and costs us money?

Anna Crossley, of the Royal College of Nursing, said poor care was inexcusable but added: Without the right number of nurses, it is simply not possible to deliver the best care to patients.
Labour MP John Woodcock writes the decision by the Jeremy Corbyn campaign to publish a hit list of 'abusive' MPs is shocking

Just when you think the state of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's regime cannot get any bleaker, his team does something so nasty it surprises you all over again.

The decision by the Corbyn campaign to publish a hit list of so-called 'abusive' MPs is shocking even by the standards of a team which has knowingly enabled a culture in which intolerance and abuse of fellow members has become the depressing norm.

Their attempts to intimidate critics and suppress dissent owe more to Russia than Britain, so much so that I am half expecting Mr Corbyn's communications chief Seumas Milne to hove into view as I type this in the lobby of a Moscow hotel. (I am here as part of an official visit to observe today's parliamentary elections, rather than consigning myself to some early Soviet-style re-education for my thought crimes against Corbynism.)

It was deeply malicious to release the names of 13 supposed miscreants (including mine) to the 'MSM'  as Corbyn fans disparagingly badge the 'mainstream media'.

I was singled out for expressing dismay in colourful language after the Labour leader was humiliated yet again at Prime Minister's Questions.

Ironically, that particular disaster was caused by the now infamous 'core group-negative' list that grouped MPs according to the level of loyalty they showed to the leader. It was also, surprise surprise, apparently revealed by mistake.

My response was inappropriately sweary, being intended as a private message to a colleague rather than a public tweet, but it voiced despair at Labour's sorry plight  not abuse of Mr Corbyn.

Ignore the guff about the press release being a mistake, this was calculated to divide our party further by fingering individuals as the 'enemy within'.

Why bother singling people out rather than let the Parliamentary Labour Party as a whole carry the can for this summer's leadership election?

Well, the sheer number of resignations from the Labour front bench has presented Team Corbyn with a problem  172 Labour MPs is too large and unwieldy a bloc to ostracise.

Better to create a small band of scapegoats for Corbyn fans to vilify in earnest.

The message to MPs is clear: want to avoid being thrown to the angry mob like these guys? Then get your head down and come back into the fold.

It is an age-old tactic practised by authoritarian regimes the world over: in fractious times, attempt to unite people in common hatred of an 'enemy within'.

For French revolutionaries and, later, the Marxists, the bourgeoisie were to blame for society's ills; in modern Russia, President Putin's state-led media repeatedly drills home the message that 'the oligarchs' and agents of foreign powers are trying to ruin the country.

Similarly, in Corbyn's Labour Party, those pesky 'Blairites' are behind every reverse. It is not required to have any affinity to Tony Blair to be a Blairite: in fact increasingly, often quite the opposite is true. You just need to be named as such by any number of pumped up anonymous internet trolls sporting Corbyn ribbons on social media.

John Woodcock (pictured) wrote that he was singled out for expressing dismay in colourful language after the Labour leader was humiliated yet again at Prime Minister's Questions

Up until now, Mr Corbyn has left it to the trolls, his Momentum groups, and occasionally his Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, to dole out the abuse while he smiles serenely and gives out the odd platitude about things not being in his name.

Having one of his official mouthpieces fanning the flames of hatred towards named individuals  as was the case with the list of 'abusive' MPs  takes things to another level entirely. The swivel-eyed nature of the list of 13 and the fatuous and, in many cases, inaccurate examples it cites has prompted a number of my colleagues to consider suing Mr Corbyn for defamation.

But aside from the folly of libelling colleagues you are supposed to be leading, it is irresponsible to put out what will inevitably be interpreted as a roll call of 'traitors' by idiots who need only the slightest encouragement to turn up the hate towards people, most of whom have been loyal, decent Labour members far longer than they have.

It is worth reminding ourselves of some of the things that have happened since everyone pledged themselves to a kinder, gentler politics after the brutal killing of our friend and dearly missed colleague, Jo Cox.

Two MPs have had bricks thrown through their office windows, others have had death threats and scores have been subjected to a barrage of vile online abuse.

If harm comes to any of those on the list as a result of it being published, Mr Corbyn will rightly be held responsible for what is done in his name.

The excuse that this was an unauthorised act by a 'junior member of the campaign team' will not wash. If they insist on insulting the intelligence of members with this garbage, then we need to know exactly who was aware of and condoned the existence of the list, even if they did not personally sign it off.

A friend who is a Labour member contacted me earlier in the week, before the list was published, saying he had been telephone canvassed by a member of Corbyn's campaign team who claimed that John McDonnell was keeping a list of the MPs who they wanted to finger as responsible for the challenge. I ask Mr McDonnell here and now: is this true?

The leaking of the list of 'abusive' MPs highlights another depressing aspect of the failure of Corbyn's leadership, namely the huge gulf between the lofty culture he preaches and the base tactics his regime deploys.

Messrs Corbyn and McDonnell have set themselves up as the high priests of an 'honest, straight-talking politics', yet as soon as they are challenged their operation squirms, spins and distorts like the very worst of anything that came before.

They talk about transforming campaigning while relying on speaking to the converted at placard-heavy rallies which the hard-Left has been organising for decades while losing election after election to Right-wing Tory governments.

Mr Corbyn plays Jeremy the endearing old man, urging people to be kinder and gentler while his operation fans the flames of division and hate to sap the morale of many decent Labour members in the hope they will lie low or leave the party.

Mr Corbyn and his team may already be starting their victory lap before the result of the leadership contest is announced on Saturday, and planning their revenge on those they want to isolate and denigrate, but this election is not over yet.

There is still time to save our party and turn the page on this deeply divisive period if the members and affiliates who have not yet voted choose the alternative that Mr Corbyn's hard-working and decent opponent Owen Smith has slogged tirelessly over the summer to promote.

The Labour Party and the country deserve better than a man who tells his followers he is full of love while creating a party in which many do not feel welcome or even safe.
And the public are waiting with baited breath to greet the little princess

The Canadian media are already describing Charlotte as a superstar

This will be the first foreign trip for the Cambridges' one-year-old daughter

They are two of the most glamorous couples on the diplomatic circuit. But when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie on the Royal tour next week, there will only be one star of the show.

Canada is braced for Charlotte fever, as the Cambridges one-year-old daughter steps out on her first foreign trip.

No effort has been spared to accommodate the little Princess, with a specially created nursery installed in Canadas Government House, complete with toys and soft playroom.

Royal wave: Charlotte on a rare outing with Kate in June at Buckingham Palace

The Canadian media are already describing her as a superstar ahead of the Royals arrival on Saturday on a Canadian air force jet.

And the public are waiting with baited breath to greet Charlotte, who turned one in May and has only been seen twice in public since her birth  at her christening and Trooping the Colour in June.

William and Kate will squeeze 32 engagements into their eight-day visit, but there will also be occasions for Charlotte and her three-year-old brother Prince George to enjoy.

They will meet the Trudeaus three children, Xavier, eight, Ella-Grace, seven, and two-year-old Hadrien and are expected to attend a childrens party in Victoria.

The Canadian media are already describing Charlotte as a superstar ahead of the Royals arrival on Saturday on a Canadian air force jet

The Royals and their 12-strong entourage will stay at Government House, a 13-bedroom stately home in Victoria, official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.

It is reported that the Trudeaus have added their own touches to ensure the youngsters feel at home.

Special meal plans have been submitted to the in-house chef  including a recipe for Prince Georges favourite, spaghetti bolognese.

P.S. How can Kate top this? The duchess is known for her stunning outfits but would she ever dare to turn out in a creation like this... worn by Sophie Trudeau at a Toronto Fashion Week event

William and Kate are privately paying for their nanny Maria Barrallo to accompany them, as well as Kates hairdresser Amanda Cook Tucker, who charges 300 a day.

Kate will take around 50 outfits on the trip, but the Royal wardrobe is likely to be more casual than on previous tours.

There may well be a hint of fashion competition however, as Mrs Trudeau, a former TV presenter, dresses head-to-toe in Canadian couture to boost the industry.

The Duchess of Cambridge has upped the stakes by commissioning custom-made frocks and coat dresses from Canadian-based designers Erdem and Bojana Sentaler Nikolic.

A Palace source said: There will be no tiaras or show-stopping jewels. Its comfortable day dresses and some belted coats for cooler days. The visit will no doubt revive memories of the tour by Charles and Diana to Canada in 1983, when they were the guests of Mr Trudeaus father, Pierre, the then Canadian Prime Minister.
Jimmy Barnes has opened up about his harrowing childhood after suffering an emotionally violent upbringing at the hands of his abusive, alcoholic father.

In a shocking admission published in his new book Working Class Boy, the 60-year-old musician details the brutal domestic incidents he endured in his family home.

The legendary rocker recalled how he and his three siblings would take refuge in a small cupboard for hours to block out the horrific arguments between their parents.

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Jimmy Barnes (pictured left in his younger years and right) opens up about his harrowing childhood after suffering an emotionally violent upbringing at the hands of his alcoholic father

Family flashback: The singer pictured in an old black-and-white image in his earlier years

'We spent a lot of time in there. I remember it was dark and with the door shut it was hard to hear a lot of what was going on outside,' he said in an extract published in the Sunday Herald Sun.

'Some nights we were in the cupboard for hours waiting for the battle to subside, other nights we couldnt leave the cupboard at all.'

Opening up about his tough childhood, Barnes said despite the alcohol-fuelled violence, he never saw his father attack his mother - but would find her in tears with a black eye and his old man passed out in their bedroom.

And the bitter fights didn't stop there as Barnes remembered the heated arguments would get 'more intense, more extreme, and we were in more danger'.

The legendary rocker recalled how he and his siblings would take refuge in a small cupboard for hours to block out the horrific arguments between their parents

The 60-year-old singer-songwriter detailed the brutal reality he faced in his family home

After the shouting had stopped, the terrified children would slowly creep out from their hiding spot to see 'what damage had been done this time'.

'Broken glass and smashed furniture was all that was left of our lives. That and the sound of Mum crying in the bedroom again,' Barnes said.

Working Class Boy will go on sale on Monday

In a recent interview with his son David Campbell for Stellar magazine, Barnes revealed his troubled father's battle with alcoholism.

'I remembered the kids, my sisters hiding my mum under a bed, battered and bruised,' he said.

'My dad was a quiet assassin. He was really charming and smiley and softly spoken, but he could knock you out in a second and he did when I was near her, in her arms.'

Despite how often the fights broke out, Barnes admitted he thought the domestic violence 'behaviour' was a normal part of marriage until his mother left his father.

But Barnes said he didn't dwell on it too much at the time, but the childhood nightmare all came flooding back to him as he sat down to work on his memoir.
A year ago, David Cameron was being hailed as a political colossus after pulling off a shock Election victory. Now he is slinking from Parliament, his achievements dismissed and his reputation in ruins. There is no doubt Brexit was a disaster that will tarnish his place in history. And the sorry style of his departure, spraying honours around pals and breaking promises to stay in Westminster, has done him no favours.

Yet as his successor seeks to airbrush away his successes in office, cheered by backbenchers who once crawled to Cameron for favours and commentators hastily changing their tunes, the demeaning of his legacy has already gone too far.

I remember when I first met him when he was a fresh new MP, and being struck by his smart brain, his self-deprecating humour, his natural optimism and, above all, his ease in the modern world, a trait shared by few Tory contemporaries.

The Camerons leave 10 Downing Street after David Cameron decided to stand down as Prime Minister when Britain voted to leave the European Referendum

When he told me he was standing for leader in 2005, I was not surprised. And I was impressed by his determination to reshape a party that seemed stale and stuck in the past, on the ropes after three successive defeats by Tony Blair.

He was admirably open to fresh ideas over how to attract new voters. But when I once raised public perceptions over the plethora of old Etonians in his inner circle, he brushed aside my concerns.

We discussed the lessons learned from having disabled children and he was defensive of the NHS thanks to his experiences. Cameron espoused a clear vision of compassionate Conservatism that planted the Tory flag in the centre ground, rejecting the tired obsession over Europe that had previously caused such divisions in the party.

Yet 11 years later it is that same fractious old issue  which wrecked the tenures of two previous Tory Prime Ministers and already overshadows his successor  that has caused the rapid dissolution of such a stellar political career.

Now he is leaving Parliament under a cloud, and few will remember the remarkable statistic that 11 of his 15 years in Westminster were spent as party leader.

He might have been a brilliant Prime Minister in boom times. Instead his leadership and liberal modernisation project was knocked off course first by a financial crisis, then by the rise of a populist force on his right flank.

Ultimately, his pragmatism proved his undoing, too many concessions to the Right leading to that dreadful referendum defeat. Yet it is wrong to write him off as a dismal failure, as suddenly seems fashionable.

Although a former aide, I never shied away from fair criticism, such as attacking his absurd aid giveaway and flawed immigration targets. But he also banked big achievements.

Cameron oversaw an economy that cut taxes for the lowest-paid, created millions of jobs, opened up and outgunned international rivals  which is, after all, why so many Europeans flocked here to work. He speeded up successful education reforms, defeated Scottish nationalism, devolved power from Westminster, led a stable coalition during a fiscal crisis and drove through gay marriage despite fierce criticism from traditionalists. And just look at the political landscape he left, gifting Theresa May dominance at Westminster.

Contrast this to Camerons own inheritance, the fourth leader in as many years of a party shattered by three defeats.

The Conservative Party in 2005 was an outmoded institution that had lost touch with a fast-changing nation. Bereft of fresh ideas and seen as the nasty party, it had just 17 female MPs and two from ethnic minorities. Now the party reflects modern Britain. There are four times more women MPs and 17 from ethnic minorities.

Ian Birrell says despite what happened after the EU vote, David Cameron did a lot of decent things in a difficult time as Prime Minister

Cameron departs having driven Labour down a hard-Left blind alley and devastated the Lib Dems. Party finances were transformed by his friend Lord Feldman, who raised an astonishing 250 million and cleared 28 million debts while serving as main fundraiser. Yet May, who courageously coined the nasty party tag in 2002, seems to have gone out of her way to wipe all trace of Cameron from the party.

First she banished his supporters from front benches, which, given her slim majority in the Commons, may have serious repercussions. Now she seems set on laying waste to his legacy.

Already she has weakened sugar tax proposals, watered down plans for city mayors, revived state protectionism and shied away from crucial prison reforms. These are all regressive moves. Even worse is her idea to expand grammar schools, a concept so flawed that even hopeless Jeremy Corbyn managed to run rings around her at Prime Ministers Questions.

Instead of turning back the clock, she should have examined the unlikely success story of non-selective London schools, triumphing thanks to academic freedom, investment and, yes, immigration with an influx of motivated families.

Cameron felt strongly about his school reforms. After all, he made his name as education spokesman and repeatedly faced down Right-wingers by ruling out such a grammar school revival.

Hopefully the grammar school plan will be defeated and May can instead start to flesh out her laudable desire to spread social justice. So far, sadly, she seems only interested in protecting her right flank from Ukip rather than appealing to the centre.

Theresa May has already moved away from Cameron's style of leadership despite being Home Secretary in his government for many years

May is not alone in trashing Camerons tenure. Last week the Foreign Affairs Select Committee savaged his intervention in Libya.

Yet this was a poor report, reliant on shoddy research and shockingly ignorant of realities I saw before and during the revolution when reporting from the ground for this newspaper.

Libya was very different from Iraq. It was not a foreign invasion ripping apart a nation, but air strikes backed by the Arab League in support of a popular revolt against a savage dictatorship, one already guilty of atrocities.

After Gaddafis overthrow, there were fair elections. The West, scarred by Iraq, was too reluctant to become involved, while those in charge resisted help and made mistakes, such as not disarming militias.

Yet now Cameron is singled out for blame over the subsequent calamity. Is it just coincidence the Tory-dominated committee behind this inept report is chaired by a man he once sacked as Minister? Our political system is diminished when people who once professed undying loyalty to their leader start kicking him the second he loses power. Little wonder so many voters have lost faith in tribal party politics.

Cameron did not turn out to be a great Prime Minister who transformed his nation, as I hoped. Ultimately he tried to be too tactical, spooked into jettisoning his core strategy and enabling Nigel Farage to become the most influential politician of our age.

Yet despite the tumult of Brexit and cacophony of critics dismissing his premiership, Cameron did a decent job in difficult times.
A small Australian town is in the grips of a suicide crisis, with 32 deaths since June 2015 and two more attempted suicides in the past month.

Grafton, a New South Wales town north of Sydney has lost an estimated 12 young people and 20 adults since June 2015, reported The Daily Telegraph.

There has reportedly been two suicide attempts recently - one involving a 14-year-old boy five weeks ago and another involving a 15-year-old boy early this month.

New South Wales town Grafton is in the grips of a suicide crisis, with an estimated 12 young people and 20 adults taking their lives since June 2015. This includes Courtney Telfer (far left) and Chloe-Ann Wilson (right)

Anna Skinner, mother of teenager Clinton Skinner who took his own life in June year aged 18, has called on the government to upgrade mental health services in the area.

'We want to see upgrades in the services available to help people who have been suffering,' she said.

Other teenagers that have died as a result of suicide include Chloe-Ann Wilson who died last August, Darcy Marshall who committed suicide this year, Courtney Telfer, who died aged 16 and Sam White, who passed away in his early teens.

Northern NSW Local Health District director of mental health Dr Richard Buss commended families for speaking out and said the events highlight the need to have a coordinated response to be diligent about communities.

A further $1.5 million in federal government funding has been allocated to youth mental health in the region.

Dr Vahid Saberi, the chief executive of the federal governments North Coast Primary Health Network, said there needs to be a collective approach and more youth mental health services in Grafton.

The mother of Clinton Skinner (left) who took his life in June last year, has called on the government to do more in mental health for young people in the area. Sam White (right) also took his own life just after he started high school

More work on youth mental health has already begun in the area, with the hospital's mental health assessment service given a 24-hour capability via a video link, with 12 assessments done since the service began three weeks ago.

It comes as Liberal MP Julian Leeser shared personal details of his father's suicide during his maiden speech to parliament this week.

'In these past 20 years, we have spent millions on mental health and suicide prevention. Every government has tried - but despite all the good will, it is a fight we are losing,' he said.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing difficulties you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800.
Typhoon Meranti makes landfall in East China. (Photo : Getty Images)

Typhoon Meranti lashed on the southeastern part of China with strong winds and rains on Thursday, leaving more than 1 million houses in a blackout.



This year's strongest typhoon with international name "Meranti" slammed on the Chinese coast early on Thursday after lashing on Taiwan before weakening, TIME reported.



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According to the outlet, Typhoon Meranti which was downgraded from being a Super Typhoon weakened while treading its way to mainland China from Taiwan and is expected to cross the Middle Kingdom swiftly.



Meranti is now equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane after recording maximum sustained winds of 145 miles per hour or about 227 kilometers per hour.



According to China Daily, the typhoon left one fatality and 51 other injured casualties during its onslaught in southern Taiwan on Wednesday per an official report from the Central Emergency Operation Center in the island nation.



"It is the strongest typhoon to hit Taiwan in 21 years in terms of maximum sustained wind near the center," explained forecaster Hsieh Pei-yun as quoted by AFP (via BBC News).



After the onslaught, a total of 650,000 Taiwanese were left without electricity because electric poles were blown off and trees were uprooted by Meranti's strong winds.



After that, it lost its Super Typhoon status because it weakened before making a landfall at dawn near the Fujian capital of Xiamen.



In China, flights and scheduled train services were canceled due to the inclement weather, interrupting the country's celebration of the annual Mid-Autumn Festival.



It also prompted the Chinese government to release a red alert in Fujian where about 1.65 million homes had no electricity across the entire province. Around 320,000 these households were in Xiamen.



Typhoon Meranti is the strongest typhoon that hit China's Fujian Province ever recorded since 1949.



"The winds and rain got extremely loud after 3 a.m. The cracking sound of windows and tree branches were also scary. The power went out in the shop for several times," said Xiamen resident Su Binglin who works the night shift at a 24-hour convenience store in the area.


George Washington's adopted son was a bit of a ne'er-do-well by most accounts, including those of Washington himself, who wrote about his frustrations with the boy they called 'Wash.'

'From his infancy, I have discovered an almost unconquerable disposition to indolence in everything that did not tend to his amusements,' the founding father wrote.

At the time, George Washington Parke Custis was 16 and attending Princeton, one of several schools he bounced in and out of.

Before long, he was back home at Mount Vernon, where he would be accused of fathering children with slaves.

Two centuries later, the National Park Service and the nonprofit that runs Washington's Mount Vernon estate are concluding that the rumors were true: In separate exhibits, they show that the first family's family tree has been biracial from its earliest branches.

George Washington's adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis (right), was accused of fathering children with slaves (portrait of the first president, left). Two centuries later, historians are concluding those rumors were true

'There is no more pushing this history to the side,' said Matthew Penrod, a National Park Service ranger and programs manager at Arlington House, where the lives of the Washingtons, their slaves and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee all converged.

President George Washington had no direct descendants, and his wife Martha Custis was a widow when they married, but he adopted Martha's grandchildren  'Wash' and his sister 'Nellie'  and raised them on his Mount Vernon estate.

Parke Custis married Mary Fitzhugh in 1804, and they had one daughter who survived into adulthood, Mary Anna Randolph Custis.

In 1831, she married her third cousin  Lee, who then served as a U.S. Army lieutenant.

Outside the marriage, Parke Custis likely fathered children with two of his stepfather's slaves: Arianna Carter, and Caroline Branham, according to the exhibits at Arlington House and Mount Vernon.

The first official acknowledgment came in June when the Park Service re-enacted the 1821 wedding of Maria Carter to Charles Syphax at Arlington House, the hilltop mansion overlooking the capital that Custis built (and Lee later managed) as a shrine to his adoptive stepfather.

A new family tree, unveiled at the re-enactment, lists the bride's parents as Parke Custis and Arianna Carter.

Craig Syphax, of Arlington, Virginia, and Donna Kunkel of Los Angeles, portray their ancestors at a re-enactment of the 1821 wedding of slaves Charles Syphax and Maria Carter at Arlington House, the estate once owned by Parke Custis. The re-enactment included an acknowledgement by the National Park Service that Carter was the daughter of Custis and a Mount Vernon slave, Arianna Carter

ZSun-nee Miller-Matema pictured at Mount Vernon, the plantation home of former President George Washington, in Alexandria, Virginia. Miller-Matema is a descendant of Caroline Branham, one of Washington's slaves who served as former first lady Martha Washington's personal maid.

'We fully recognize that the first family of this country was much more than what it appeared on the surface,' Penrod said at the ceremony.

The privately run Mount Vernon estate explores this slave history in 'Lives Bound Together,' an exhibition opening this year that acknowledges that Parke Custis also likely fathered a girl named Lucy with slave Caroline Branham.

Tour guides were hardly this frank when Penrod started at Arlington House 26 years ago.

Staffers were told to describe slave dwellings as 'servants' quarters,' and 'the focus was on Lee, to honor him and show him in the most positive light,' Penrod said.

He said no new, definitive evidence has surfaced to prove Parke Custis fathered girls with slaves; rather, the recognition reflects a growing sense that African-American history cannot be disregarded and that Arlington House represents more than Lee's legacy, he said.

Scientific proof would require matching the DNA of Carter and Branham descendants to the progeny of his daughter and the Confederate general, because the Parke Custis line runs exclusively through the offspring of his daughter and Robert E. Lee.

Stephen Hammond of Reston, a Syphax descendant, has researched his family tree extensively.

He said the Park Service's recognition of the Custis' paternity is gratifying.

The Washington family is shown in portrait as they overlook the Potomac River in Washington, studying an architectural plan for the future grand construction of the capitol city

'It's become a passion of mine, figuring out where we fit in American history,' Hammond said.

Hammond said he and his cousins have yet to approach the Lee descendants to gauge their interest in genetic tests, and it's not clear how they feel about the official recognition  several didn't respond to Associated Press requests for comment.

Some family records are kept at Robert E. Lee's birthplace, Stratford Hall, but research director Judy Hynson said she knows of none that acknowledge Parke Custis fathered slaves.

'That's not something you would write down in your family Bible,' Hynson said.

The circumstantial evidence includes the Carter-Syphax wedding in Arlington House  an unusual honor for slaves  and the fact that Parke Custis not only freed Maria Syphax and her sons before the Civil War, but set aside 17 acres on the estate for her.

Indeed, after Mount Vernon was seized by Union forces, an act of Congress ensured that land was returned to Maria Syphax's family.

New York Sen. Ira Harris said then that Washington's adopted son had a special interest in her - 'something perhaps akin to a paternal instinct.'

Oral histories also argue for shared bloodlines.

Maria Carter's descendants know, for example, that her name was pronounced 'Ma-RYE-eh,' not 'Ma-REE-uh,' said Donna Kunkel of Los Angeles, who portrayed her ancestor at the re-enactment.

'As a kid I would always tell people I was related to George Washington, but no one would believe me,' she said.

Branham descendants include ZSun-nee Miller-Matema of Hagerstown, Md., who said 'my aunt old me that if the truth of our family was known, it would topple the first families of Virginia.'

She said she discovered her truth by happenstance in the 1990s, when she spotted a portrait with a family resemblance while researching at the Alexandria Black History Museum for a stage production.

A museum staffer soon sat her down with records.

Eventually, she traced her ancestry to Caroline Branham, who appears in documents written in the first president's own hand.

'I just couldn't believe it,' she said.

'Gen. Washington was taking notes on my Caroline?'

As slaves, the women could not consent to the sexual advances of the plantation owner's adopted son, but Kunkel said she tries not to think of the acts as rape.

'I try to focus on the outcome. He treated Maria with respect after the fact,' she said.

Incorporating these family histories into the nation's shared story is particularly important at a time of renewed racial tension, Miller-Matema said.

'We're all so much a part of each other,' she said.
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An explosion from a suspected bomb in a trashcan ripped through Manhattan on Saturday night leaving at least 29 people injured - and police are investigating a second suspected bomb in a pressure cooker.

Terrifying CCTV footage shows the blast ripping through New York's affluent Chelsea neighborhood at around 8.30pm on Saturday night.

The Office of the Deputy Commissioner Public Information (DCPI) exclusively told DailyMail.com the video was 'confirmed amateur video footage from incident location'.

The blast on 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue is believed to have come from a dumpster and was the result of 'an intentional act', according to the NYPD.

Although Mayor Bill de Blasio has claimed there's no connection to terrorism, the incident follows the pipe bombing of a military fun-run in New Jersey hours earlier. No one was injured in that attack.

De Blasio also admitted the explosion was 'intentionally' set off, suggesting the intent was to injure people in an attack on Manhattan. All the victims including an eight-year-old boy have minor injuries, except one who is in critical condition.

Terrifying CCTV footage shows the blast ripping through New York's affluent Chelsea neighborhood at around 8.30pm on Saturday night. The Office of the Deputy Commissioner Public Information (DCPI) exclusively confirmed to DailyMail.com the video was 'confirmed amateur video footage from incident location'

The 45 second clip shows people walking past a construction site when the tremendous explosion occurred. Panicked passersby (right) on the other side of begin running from the scene seconds after the blast

It's been reported that the second device found at West 27th Street, the pressure cooker (pictured), has different colored wires sticking out of it and is wrapped in a plastic bag with what appears to be a cell phone or timer connected to it

The 45 second clip shows people walking past a construction site when the tremendous explosion occurred.

Panicked passersby on the other side begin running from the scene seconds after the blast.

The second device at 27th Street and Sixth Avenue, which was removed by the NYPD early on Sunday morning, is in a pressure cooker - raising chilling memories of the Boston bombings in 2013.

The pressure cooker has different colored wires sticking out of it and is wrapped in a plastic bag with what appears to be a cell phone or timer connected to it.

The pressure cooker was also reported to be wrapped in duct tape with a note attached to it.

Investigators have now said they are reviewing surveillance footage that shows a person standing near the site of the first explosion shortly before the blast.

Hundreds of people fled the scene after the blast, and witnesses described the harrowing incident as they were enjoying a night out in the city.

'I was eating at the restaurant Mira with my family and we heard a huge noise and the entire restaurant shook,' Emily Brookstein, 30, of New York told Daily Mail Online.

The blast at 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue in Chelsea around 8.30pm is thought to have come from a dumpster and was the result of 'an intentional act', according to the NYPD. First responders are pictured working near the scene of the explosion

Jose Vasquez (pictured) was a victim of the explosion. He was being treated in an ambulance on the scene

Debris is seen in the street in front of St Vincent de Paul church where the explosion occurred. The FBI and NYPD Counterterrorism Unit are investigating but there is no confirmation on what caused the blast yet

Witness Chris Duffy tweeted this photo of a destroyed dumpster and said it was the source of the blast

This map depicts the area in which the explosion took place, which is four blocks from where the second suspected device was found

'My dad thought it was thunder but we obviously realized later that wasn't the case. We came out of the restaurant and could see smoke. Some say it was a subway bomb, but it was definitely an explosion.'

'It was really loud, it hurt my eardrums. My 10-year-old boy was sat in the back seat of the car, and the explosion blew the back window out,' said Tsi Tsi Mallett, who was in a car driving along 23rd Street when the explosion took place.

Her son was not injured.

Simitrio Ramirez, 53, who lives nearby in the area said he was home when he felt the explosion.

'With construction in the area, I thought something big fell,' he told Daily Mail Online.

He said he could feel his apartment shake when the explosion happened. A witness who did not want to be identified was with friends in an apartment nearby when he said they could feel the windows cave in.

An officer told Daily Mail Online that they blocked off the area two blocks north and two blocks south of Sixth Avenue and 23rd Street.

Police believe the blast was a homemade bomb placed in the trashcan.

A DailyMail.com photographer reported hearing a 'bang' at the second site where the pressure cooker was found, suggesting authorities may have conducted a controlled explosion.

By 2.30am the NYPD tweeted that the second device had been safely removed from the area by the Bomb Squad.

Police believe the blast was a homemade bomb placed in the trashcan. A DailyMail.com photographer reported hearing a bang at the second site where the pressure cooker was found, suggesting authorities may have conducted a controlled explosion

The Fire Department (right) reported that there were at least 29 people injured, including an eight-year-old, in the blast

The Fire Department reported that there were at least 29 people injured, including an eight-year-old, in the blast.

The victims of the explosion were taken to several different hospitals.

De Blasio said during a press conference that injuries 'are significant but at this point we can confirm that none of those injured are likely to die'.

'There is no evidence at this point of a terror connection.' De Blasio also said it is 'too early to determine' if the incident in New York is connected to the explosion in New Jersey.

However, the mayor said: 'We believe that it was an intentional act.'

He added that investigators are tracing every lead but it's still too early to give any details of the investigation.

De Blasio urged witnesses who took video of the blast to send them to the NYPD.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a press conference that injuries 'are significant but at this point we can confirm that none of those injured are likely to die'. 'There is no evidence at this point of a terror connection.' De Blasio also said it is 'too early to determine' if the incident in New York is connected to the explosion in New Jersey

However, the mayor said: 'We believe that it was an intentional act.' He added that investigators are tracing every lead but it's still too early to give any details of the investigation. De Blasio urged witnesses who took video of the blast to send them to the NYPD

NYPD Police Commissioner James O'Neill said the 'area is being treated like a crime scene'.

O'Neill said that the fire department is assessing structural damage from the explosion.

Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said that '24 victims have been transported to hospitals with abrasions' from the explosion but all injuries are not life-threatening.

He did say there was one patient with a puncture wound, which is more serious than the others.

The seriously injured victim was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where dozens of officers are patrolling, sources said.

It comes just hours after a pipe bomb in a trashcan blew up near a fun-run for the military in New Jersey - but no one was injured.

The NYPD Bomb Squad safely removed the suspicious device on West 27 Street in Chelsea has been safely removed around 2.30am Sunday

Officers patrolled out in front of the Shirley Goodman Resource Center late Saturday night

The FBI and NYPD Counterterrorism Unit are investigating but there is no confirmation on what caused the blast yet.

Witness Chris Duffy originally tweeted the photo of a destroyed dumpster and said it was the source of the blast.

The NYPD has taken precautions by increasing security across the city following the blast Saturday night.

President Barack Obama was briefed on the situation following his remarks at the Black Congressional Caucus Gala.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was also briefed on the incident.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was also briefed on the incident. She said: 'We need to do everything we can to support our first responders. We have to pray for the victims'

Donald Trump had a very different response when asked about the incident in Chelsea. He took the stage in Colorado and declared the incident to be the work of a 'bomb'. 'A bomb went off in New York and no one knows what's going on. We've got to get very tough folks,' he said

She said: 'We need to do everything we can to support our first responders. We have to pray for the victims

'We have been in touch with authorities in New York City. And I will have more to say about it when we have more information, Clinton said.

Donald Trump had a very different response when asked about the incident in Chelsea.

He took the stage in Colorado and declared the incident to be the work of a 'bomb'.

'A bomb went off in New York and no one knows what's going on. We've got to get very tough folks,' he said.

New York State Gov Andrew Cuomo released a statement saying 'state officials are coordinating our response with federal and New York City authorities, and full State resources have been made available for this investigation'.

'We are closely monitoring the situation and urge New Yorkers to, as always, remain calm and vigilant.'

Hundreds of people were out and about in the neighborhood when the explosion occurred. The Chelsea neighborhood is known for its nightlife fun, with its many bars and clubs that are heavily populated on the weekends. Authorities (pictured) have said they don't believe there have been any fatalities

At least 29 victims (pictured) were being treated for their injuries and dozens of them were taken to local hospitals in the area

The NYPD has taken precautions by increasing security across the city following the blast Saturday night. Authorities have ruled out gas as a cause for the explosion. Pictured is glass on the sidewalk from a busted out window

Authorities have ruled out gas as a cause for the explosion.

The blast, according to a witness, occurred on 23rd Street, a major east to west thoroughfare in the fashionable downtown neighborhood of Chelsea.

Hundreds of people were out and about in the neighborhood when the explosion occurred.

The Chelsea neighborhood is known for its nightlife fun, with its many bars and clubs that are heavily populated on the weekends.

Late Saturday night, the NYPD tweeted a warning to those near the second area where the 'suspicious package' was found.

'We are asking residents who live on West 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan to stay away windows facing 27th Street until we clear the area.'

Law enforcement found the pressure cooker on the street, and bomb squad members worked to determine if it was an explosive device or just a hoax.

A car seen driving through the area had its rear window blown out.

Officers with police dogs are still searching the premises for any remnants of a bomb or explosive device, authorities reported.

The NYPD tweeted a warning to those near the second area where the 'suspicious package' was found asking that people stay away from the windows facing West 27th Street. Authorities have ruled out gas as a cause for the explosion

Officers with police dogs are searching the premises for any remnants of a bomb or explosive device, authorities reported

The NYPD Special Ops tweeted earlier that they were investigating a possible second device that was found at 27th Street and Sixth Avenue. It turned out to be a pressure cooker, according to investigators

Helicopters flew over the second scene at 27th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue. Pictured is an aerial view of the street as authorities investigate the area

New York City Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should 'expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue' due to police activity there and asking the public to avoid the area.

When the blast first occurred, hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block, as police cordoned off the area.

The MTA announced that the F, M, PATH train to New Jersey, the 1 and N trains have been shut down because of the explosion.

Multiple social media users posted photos of the aftermath and injured victims.

The dumpsters pictured are thought to be where the explosion happened

Windows were busted out at a building after the explosion. The area still has a heavy police presence and several emergency responders

The explosion blasted out the windows of several cars in the area. Pictured is glass in the seat of a car

'I was here alone during the explosion. I heard a big explosion and we ran and police arrived immediately,' Carolina Magnani, 28, who is visiting from Italy told Daily Mail Online.

At the time, she was walking to the Michael Kors store and was near the 23rd Street Station on 5th Ave when the explosion occurred.

She said it sounded like a bomb.

'A lady told me to "run its a bomb it's an explosion", so I started running in the wrong direction and then I ran to get my boyfriend and we ran towards 6th Avenue.

'The explosion was near a church or a temple on the corner of 23rd street and 6th Ave,' she said.

'I saw a man on the roof with a church with a light looking for someone and police came and cleared the area. We saw three people being taken away on a stretcher.'

The explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood comes just hours after the deadly pipe bomb that exploded along a route where thousands of runners were due to take part in a charity run in New Jersey

Magnani said she is in New York on holiday and is staying at the Heritage Hotel.

'I was really scared I immediately called my family,' she said.

Magnani said she is too scared to go back to her hotel because it is near the explosion. She is set to leave tomorrow.

A police officer speaking to a concerned woman who said she knows someone in the building who had their windows blown out said they were doing a room-to-room search of the building and a search of the area.

At the scene crowds of people were seen standing around and taking photos of the chaos.

The explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood comes just hours after the deadly pipe bomb that exploded along a route where thousands of runners were due to take part in a charity run in New Jersey.

Hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block, as police cordoned off the area. An officer and his police dog search for possible explosive devices

New York City Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should 'expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue' due to police activity there and asking the public to avoid the area

More than one thousand spectators, including war veterans and small children, had gathered just a few blocks from the blast in Jersey Shore town on Saturday afternoon.

Two more pipe bombs, that hadn't exploded, were found in a garbage can near the event which sought to raise money for marines and sailors.

The pipe bomb near D Street exploded about 9.30am - the exact time runners were due to pass that location.

No injuries were reported but bomb-sniffing dogs have continued to look for more bombs in the area.

Explosive experts in New York will be comparing the Manhattan explosion to the New Jersey incident to see if the two have anything in common.

People look on as the police, fire department and other first responders work near an explosion

Witness Deborah Griffiths described the scene near the explosion

Bystanders and people who live in the area look on as authorities investigate the Saturday night explosion
A bloodstain found under the carpet of the Sydney apartment where Lynette White was stabbed to death may be the key to solving her 43-year-old murder.

The 26-year-old mother was stabbed 11 times before her throat was slit on June 8, 1973, by an intruder who was never caught, while her newborn baby Shane lay in his cot a metre away.

Her sadistic killer forced her to undress in front of him and fold her clothes in a neat pile, but before he could rape her a woman delivering nappies knocked at the door.

Ms White ran naked to the door seeking help but was knocked down and killed in a frenzied attack in the narrow front doorway of the second-storey flat on Beach Street, Coogee.

A bloodstain found under the carpet of the Sydney apartment where Lynette White (pictured) was stabbed to death may be the key to solving her 43-year-old murder

It was there that police discovered the bloodstain, still soaked into the cement floor, when they pulled back the carpet, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Because of the frenzied nature of the attack, investigators believed the killer injured himself in the process. The nappies that were left at the door and brought inside were also covered in blood.

They hoped at least a tiny amount of his blood would be left at the scene and could be forensically tested with technology not available at time time of the murder.

'The theory was because of those nappies he brought back in that he may have injured himself, potentially badly,' Detective Senior Constable Deon Kelly, the officer in charge, said.

'Because it was such a frenzied attack, it is possible the knife slipped.

'Even if there is a minute amount of his blood that we can somehow get, then that is reason enough to go back [to the crime scene].'

Beach Street in Coogee where Ms White was murdered in her second-storey apartment in 1973

Preliminary results from the blood found under the carpet showed a male DNA profile mixed with Ms White's DNA profile.

Police were running the profile through a national DNA database for potential matches.

It was hoped the DNA could make up for semen swabs and strands of hair found in Ms White's grasp that were lost over the past four decades.

The cold case was revived in 2012 with the aim of using modern techniques to solve her murder, a similar one a year later, and six rapes in the area around the same time.

Police believe the strikingly similar 1974 murder of Maria Smith in Randwick, less than three kilometres away, was committed by the same person.

The 20-year-old was bound, gagged and raped before being strangled with her own stockings by an intruder.

They may also have been killed by the same man who in 1972 raped another woman in Coogee but let her live.

Her description of the attacker matched a red-bearded, thin-legged man in his 20s wearing long socks and shorts who was spotted leaving Ms White's unit block.

A red-bearded, thin-legged man in his 20s wearing long socks and shorts who was spotted leaving Ms White's unit block - matching the description given by a nearby rape victim

It was believed in both cases the man forced his way in after asking for a drink of water, as shattered mugs and glasses were found in the same position near the door.

Even though 43 years have passed since Ms White's murder and the killer may not even still be alive, her widower Paul White said knowing who did it would help him move on.

'I will never give up until I know where he is. No way will I forget but that will give me a chance to move on,' he said.

Shane, now 43, said after four decades his dad deserved closure.
He found fame at the tender age of 14 with his bad boy role on Home & Away.

But Daniel Amalm's acting career was far from easy as he revealed his struggles under pressure as a child star when he was thrown into the spotlight.

The 90s heartthrob made his television debut in 1994 as Jack Wilson - a rebellious foster child bouncing from home to home until he arrived in Summer Bay.

And more than two decades on, the 37-year-old Australian has opened up about how he was treated by one of the senior cast members after forgetting his lines on set.

Former Home & Away star Daniel Amalm has opened up about his struggles as a child actor

Amalm made his television appearance in 1994 as Jack Wilson - a rebellious foster child

The 37-year-old actor and musician admits he still gets nightmares about forgetting his lines

'It really p****d off one of the actors - he actually uttered: "Where do they find these kids?"' Amalm told News Corp.

Working intense 12-hour days, five days a week, Amalm claimed he was once threatened he would eat through a straw if he didn't get the scene right.

'[I remember a crew member] grabbing my folder of scripts from my hands and throwing it apart on set because I just couldn't get my lines right. I think we had gone for over 20 takes on this damn scene, and I just couldn't get it right,' he said.

'He was mad as hell, everyone was waiting for lunch break. Camera guys' faces were seriously grim and someone in the crew said I'll be "eating my lunch through a straw". That was too much and I went totally blank and almost paralysed.'

Amalm attending the premiere of Kung Fu Panda at State Theatre on June 9, 2008 in Sydney

The young actor had moved to Sydney, leaving behind his life in Brisbane to pursue his dream

The star said the pressure was 'pretty tough back then, compared to today' with kids on set

The terrifying ordeal led to his first panic attack - and till this day, Amalm admits he still gets nightmares about forgetting his lines.

The young actor had moved to Sydney, leaving behind his family and friends in Brisbane to pursue his dream at a very young age.

He also revealed how he found himself struggling to handle the fame, causing him to hide from the public, avoid fans and the media storm.

But despite the stress from the demanding job, Amalm admitted the pressure was 'pretty tough back then, compared to today [in] dealing with kids on set'.

Amalm - who now lives in Norway with his wife and daughter - has since put his acting behind him as he focuses on his career as a professional musician.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted representatives of Home & Away for comment.

Amalm has since put his acting career behind him as he focuses on his career as a musician

His acting career was far from easy as he revealed his struggles under pressure as a child star
Heavily armed militants killed 17 soldiers in a raid today on an army base in Kashmir, the worst such attack for years in the disputed Himalayan region.

The rebels sneaked into the base near the town of Uri before lobbing grenades and opening fire with automatic rifles on the fleeing soldiers, an army officer said on condition of anonymity.

Tents and other temporary shelters for the hundreds of soldiers stationed at the base near the de facto border with Pakistan caught fire in the raid, the army and the senior officer said.

Heavily armed militants killed 17 soldiers in a raid today on an army base in Kashmir (pictured after the attack), the worst such attack for years in the disputed Himalayan region

The rebels sneaked into the base near the town of Uri before lobbing grenades and opening fire with automatic rifles on the fleeing soldiers. Pictured, an Indian solider at the base after the attack

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to punish those behind the 'cowardly' and 'despicable' attack that also left four militants dead and scores of soldiers injured.

In an even stronger response, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted: 'Pakistan is a terrorist state and should be identified and isolated as such.'

Pakistan rejected allegations that it was involved.

'India immediately puts blame on Pakistan without doing any investigation. We reject this,' foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said.

No one has claimed responsibility, but India regularly accuses rebels based in Pakistan of moving across the heavily militarised border known as the Line of Control to launch attacks on its forces.

'We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished,' Modi said in a series of tweets.

Tents and other temporary shelters for the hundreds of soldiers stationed at the base near the de facto border with Pakistan caught fire in the raid

Activists from Hindu hardline origination Shiv Sena burn a Pakistani flag during a protest after the attack

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to punish those behind the 'cowardly' and 'despicable' attack that also left four militants dead and scores of soldiers injured

The encounter resulted in 'heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation,' the army said in a statement.

The raid which started just before dawn was the worst such attack for many years in the territory, where an armed rebellion against Indian rule erupted in 1989.

Rebels stormed an army camp in the Uri area in December 2014, killing 11 soldiers and police officers.

Soldiers are now searching the base, 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of the region's main city of Srinagar, for any more militants, the statement said.

Twenty-eight injured soldiers have been airlifted to a military hospital in Srinagar, four of them in a critical condition, according to an army officer.

Large numbers of soldiers are stationed at Uri after finishing their tour of duty in the disputed Muslim-majority region.

In an even stronger response, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted: 'Pakistan is a terrorist state and should be identified and isolated as such'

No one has claimed responsibility, but India regularly accuses rebels based in Pakistan of moving across the heavily militarised border

Pakistan rejected allegations that it was involved. 'India immediately puts blame on Pakistan without doing any investigation. We reject this,' foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said

Indian Kashmir is in the grip of deadly unrest that has lasted for more than two months. Protesting residents are clashing almost daily with security forces in the worst such violence since 2010.

At least 87 civilians have been killed and thousands injured in the protests against Indian rule, sparked by the killing of a popular rebel leader in a gunbattle with soldiers on July 8.

The government has been coming under growing pressure over the level of casualties during the protests and over the security forces' use of shotguns loaded with pellets which can blind demonstrators.

Thousands of angry demonstrators defied a curfew on Saturday in Kashmir to attend the funeral of a schoolboy whose body was found riddled with pellets, sparking fresh clashes.

Kashmir has been divided between India and its arch-rival Pakistan since the two gained independence from British rule in 1947. Both claim the territory in full and have fought two of their three wars over the region.

In January militants launched an audacious attack on an Indian air force base in the northern state of Punjab that left seven soldiers dead.

India blamed that attack on a Pakistani-based militant group. It came days after Modi embarked on a landmark visit to Pakistan, raising hopes of improved ties.

Several rebel groups have since 1989 been fighting Indian troops in Kashmir, seeking independence for the region or its merger with Pakistan.

Soldiers have been deployed in Kashmir for decades and currently number around 500,000. Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting.

Indian Kashmir is in the grip of deadly unrest that has lasted for more than two months. Pictured, Kashmiri civilians gather outside the army base

Several rebel groups have since 1989 been fighting Indian troops in Kashmir, seeking independence for the region or its merger with Pakistan
Two explosions in the tri-state area have left residents fearing the blasts could be related.

At 9.30am on Saturday, a pipe bomb exploded shortly before the Semper Five Run at Seaside Park, New Jersey.

Around 8.30pm, a suspected IED detonated in the popular neighborhood of Chelsea in Manhattan.

No one was injured in the New Jersey explosion and approximately 29 people were hurt after the explosion in Manhattan.

A pipe bomb set in a garbage can (pictured) exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, before thousands of runners were due to take part in a charity 5K race to benefit marines and sailors

At 9.30am on Saturday, a pipe bomb exploded shortly before the Semper Five Run at Seaside Park, New Jersey (pictured)

Seaside Park is approximately an hour and a half south of Chelsea in Manhattan.

The detonations appeared eerily similar after occurring just hours apart.

Two additional unexploded pipe bombs were also found in a garbage can near the event 5km run in New Jersey, and it is unclear what actually caused the explosion in Manhattan, but the device was also believed to be planted in a garbage container.

Witness Chris Duffy tweeted a photo of a destroyed dumpster and said it was the source of the blast.

Around 8.30pm, a suspected IED detonated in the popular neighborhood of Chelsea in Manhattan

Witness Chris Duffy tweeted a photo of a destroyed dumpster and said it was the source of the blast

No one was injured in the New Jersey explosion and approximately 25 people were hurt after the explosion in Manhattan

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said at 11.21pm that there was no credible terrorist threat

Bomb-sniffing dogs were on scene in both New Jersey and Manhattan following the explosions

Police are frantically searching for clues and information to see if the explosions were connected, coincidence or if one was possibly a 'copycat'.

Bomb-sniffing dogs were on scene in both New Jersey and Manhattan following the explosions.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said at 11.21pm that there was no credible terrorist threat and that there was no apparent connection to the explosion in New Jersey.

He did say, however, the explosion appeared to be intentional.

That didn't stop people on Twitter from speculating that the blasts could be connected.

On Twitter, people began speculating that the blasts could be connected and said they didn't think the explosions were just 'coincidences'

'There's no way the bomb(s) in New Jersey earlier today and the explosion just now in New York are coincidences,' one person tweeted.

Another person wrote: 'Who else thinks the explosion and new Jersey and now New York are related?????'

'A large explosion reported in the Chelsea District of Manhattan a bomb had been set off earlier today at a 5K race in New Jersey. Connected?' one person posted.

It is still unclear if there is any connection between the explosions.

Governor Andrew Cuomo released a statement following the blast.

Governor Andrew Cuomo released a statement following the blast. 'At this time there are at least 26 injuries, none of which have reported to be life-threatening,' he said

'We are in close contact with health providers to monitor the extent of the injuries and will provide information as it becomes available,' the statement said

'This evening at approximately 8.30pm, an explosion was reported near 135 West 23rd Street in Manhattan.

'At this time there are at least 26 injuries, none of which have reported to be life-threatening.

'State officials are coordinating our response with federal and New York City authorities, and full State resources have been made available for this investigation.

'We are closely monitoring the situation and urge New Yorkers to, as always, remain calm and vigilant.

'We are in close contact with health providers to monitor the extent of the injuries and will provide information as it becomes available,' the statement said.
It's one of the weirdest, wackiest and wildest music festivals in Australia.

And partygoers at Sydney's annual Defqon1 party didn't disappoint on Saturday.

The hardstyle and dance music rave attracted a crowd of more than 25,000 to the International Regatta Centre in Penrith, Sydney.

And in keeping with the trend of years gone by, revelers dressed up in everything from bikinis and bondage outfits to fantasy characters.

Revellers at the Defqon1 music festival wore a range of outfits as they partied at the hard style and dance rave in Sydney on Saturday

Girls seemingly made the most of the balmy weather by wearing bikinis and crop tops, while one man went for more of a fantasy style outift

And hundreds took to Instagram to share their snaps from a huge day of partying.

Some girls made the most of the balmy Sydney weather by wearing short shorts and bikini tops.

Others got into the spirit of the theme for the 2016 festival by dressing up in dragon-related outfits.

While some played it smart, opting to don their active wear to ensure they were both comfortable and fashionable for a day of dancing.

These four girls not only dressed fashionably, but also made sure they were comfortable for a day of dancing in their active wear

These two friends went with the unique mix of active wear and bondage-inspired ribbons wrapped around their legs

After seemingly spending countless hours in the gym, these four men made the most of the opportunity to show off their bodies at the festival

Hundreds of men who have spent countless hours working out in gyms for such an occasion also embraced the weather.

Tucking shirts into shorts and showing off tattoos was a common theme of the day.

More unusual was the decision of one pair of friends to wrap ribbons all the way up their legs in somewhat of a bondage-inspired dress up.

Three men also proved that American-Indian head wear isn't just for women.

One looked like he'd fit in better at the races than a rave, while another showed off his tattoos as he sucked on a lollipop.

However the festival was marred by more than 100 drug and alcohol related arrests.

Two men from this group showed that American-Indian head wear isn't just for women, while the man in the middle looked better dressed for a day at the races than a music festival

Thousands took to Instagram to share their photos from the rave, whether they were shirtless and eating lollipops or dressed up with an American-Indian head piece
An 18-year-old woman passenger was taken to hospital with minor injuries

A 16-year-old from Marangaroo was picked up nearby and is in custody

After the crash on Warwick Road the driver of

A man and woman in their 60s have been tragically killed and a 25-year-old man is fighting for his life in hospital after a Ford Falcon allegedly fleeing police at high speeds crashed into their family Nissan.

The incident occurred on Saturday night in Perth when police gave pursuit to a car on Warwick Road that was driving erratically, but abandoned the chase when the white Ford Falcon was allegedly driving at extremely high speeds that endangered the public, police said.

The Ford then slammed into a red Nissan Pulsar near Warwick and Ballantine road shortly after 7.30pm killing the two passengers and leaving the driver with critical injuries.

The red family Nissan that was crushed killing a husband and wife and leaving a son fighting for his life in Royal Perth Hospital, according to police

The man and woman are believed to be husband and wife, and the 25-year-old driver their son, according to WA police.

The 25-year-old man was rushed to Royal Perth Hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The driver of the Ford Falcon fled the scene, but police picked up a 16-year-old boy from Marangaroo nearby who was taken into custody.

A Ford slammed into a red Nissan Pulsar near Warwick and Ballantine road just after 7.30pm

An 18-year-old woman passenger from the Ford Falcon was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

The police said the events all happened in a short period of time and the Internal Affairs Unit and Major Crash are investigating.
Nicholas Glenn, 25, identified as the gunman who injured two Philadelphia police officers and killed woman, 25, during Friday ambush

Dramatic closed circuit footage has emerged showing the frightening moments when a Philadelphia police officer was shot and wounded by a gunman late Friday night.

The footage, which was obtained by NBC10, shows how an officer who sustained a gunshot wound tried to flee and take cover while limping, collapsing on the sidewalk in the process.

The officer is then aided by other cops who appear in the frame and engage the gunman, who is not clearly seen in the clip.

The gunman, Nicholas Glenn, was shot dead after he ambushed and shot two cops and four civilians, killing one of the bystanders, in a 'targeted attack on police'.

Glenn, 25, has been identified as the lone gunman, according to Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross.

One 25-year-old woman was killed in the attack and two officers were hospitalized.

Three civilians were also wounded, including one who remains in critical condition.

A note believed to be written Glenn that allegedly contained rambling anti-police rhetoric and named a specific parole officer as a target was recovered near the scene.

Ross said Glenn first ambushed Sgt Sylvia Young, 46, late Friday night just a few blocks from the University of Pennsylvania campus.

Young said Glenn didn't say a word when he began to fire into her marked police cruiser around 11.19pm.

CCTV footage shows the scene of one of the shootings during Friday's rampage

An officer believed to be Ed Miller of the University of Pennsylvania police force stumbles to the ground after he is shot by the gunman

After Miller is shot, other officers come into the scene and engage the gunman

The officers eventually shoot dead the gunman, ending a deadly rampage

The 19-year veteran was trapped in her vehicle when Glenn fired 18 times at close range with a 9mm Ruger, Ross said at a press conference on Saturday.

Young was struck multiple times in her left arm and protective vest as she leaned into the passenger side to shield herself.

Ross said Dunn also struck Young's service weapon twice, disabling the weapon.

'I don't even know if she would've been able to return fire if she had to,' he said.

Sgt. Sylvia Young of the Philadelphia Police Department was the other member of law enforcement who was shot in the rampage

She was shot up to eight times directly into her vest, according to sources.

Nearby officers saw that Young had been shot and began to chase Glenn.

As he fled Glenn fired five rounds into a bar called the Maximum Level Lounge on 51st and Sansom, wounding a security guard.

He then grabbed a woman and 'used her as a shield' before shooting her in the leg, according to Ross.

Glenn ran two blocks before he fired 14 shots into a random white vehicle.

The 25-year-old woman inside was killed after she was shot seven times in the torso.

Ross said police are not yet releasing her name because it has not been confirmed that all her family has been notified.

A man who was also inside the car is currently in critical condition and is expected to survive, Ross said.

Glenn was then confronted by University of Pennsylvania police officer Ed Miller and two Philadelphia officers. They opened fire and killed Glenn, Ross said.

Miller, a former sergeant who served for 33 years with the Philadelphia Police Department before retiring, was shot in the hip and leg area during the ambush, according to NBC10.

Philadelphia's police chief, Richard Ross, said that evidence shows the gunman was motivated by hatred for cops

It is believed that the officer seen in the CCTV footage is Miller. He was taken to a hospital and listed in stable condition.

Glenn has a number of drug-possession convictions in Philadelphia and was also charged in connection with a gang rape case in November 2009, court records show.

The rape case was withdrawn by prosecutors in December 2011 for reasons that are currently unknown. 'Right now we have a lot of questions,' Ross said on Saturday.

'This is completely a bizarre situation.'

Ross said that some of Dunn's letter found at the scene alluded to issues he had with a probation officer and 'not being particularly fond of the police department', but revealed most of it focused on himself.

'A lot of talk in the first person about himself and what he does and doesnt do, and issues he has with a whole bunch of other things,' Ross said.

The envelope was entitled 'Doomed'.

'I guess he was referring to anyone who was going to be in his path last night,' Ross said.

Ross added that there is no indication that Dunn had been radicalized or that he has 'ties to anything else'.

Other than the rantings in the letter, there has also been scarce indication of what Dunn was motivated by.

Ross said he believes it will be 'very difficult' to learn much from the rambling letter, as it was more about Dunn himself than anyone he wanted to harm.

'Clearly there were some issues going on there,' Ross said.

The commissioner also confirmed that Dunn had a 'significant criminal past' and was 'well-known to the police department'.

Authorities do not yet know how the convict was able to obtain a weapon, as the gun's serial number had been obliterated.

Ross said Young and the security guard, both of whom he visited at the hospital, are in 'good spirits'.

The commissioner also praised the Philadelphia officers who followed Dunn on foot.

'The restraint they used...is nothing short of miraculous,' he said. 'This guy is firing at everybody on the street that he sees but theres so many people out there that they probably elected not to discharge their weapons for fear of hitting innocent civilians.

Ross added that Dunn had 'carried out one of the most violent acts' seen in Philadelphia for some time, and said he was 'absolutely astounded' by the fact Young had survived.

Philadelphia police officers are currently patrolling in pairs following the incident.

Mayor Jim Kenney praised the officers and pleaded with police to follow Young's example and wear their protective vests.

'Thank you for what you do for us every day, and please, please, please, every shift, please wear your vest,' he said.

'They will save your life, as we saw tonight.'
Malcolm Turnbull has barely had the top job for a year but George Brandis already thinks he 'has it in him' to be one of Australia's best prime ministers.

The Attorney General even compared the Liberal Party leader to Sir Robert Menzies and John Howard, the country's longest-serving PMs.

Senator Brandis attributed this to Mr Turnbull's years in the 'political wilderness' after he was dumped as opposition leader in 2009, saying it had given him 'wisdom'.

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Malcolm Turnbull (L) has barely had the top job for a year but George Brandis (R) already thinks 'has it in him' to be one of Australia's best prime ministers

'Menzies and Howard were, in my view, the two greatest prime ministers Australia has ever had,' he said on Sky News on Sunday morning.

'But they had this in common with Mr Turnbull  both of them... had an initial period in the leadership of their party which was not regarded as successful.'

Sir Menzies was PM in 1939-41 when Australia entered World War 2 but was forced to resign due to unpopularity at home. He then regained power in 1949-66.

Mr Howard had an ineffective stint as opposition leader in 1985-89 and lost the 1987 election before he was ousted by Andrew Peacock.

Senator Brandis attributed this to Mr Turnbull's years in the 'political wilderness' after he was dumped as opposition leader in 2009, saying it had given him 'wisdom'

He made a 'Lazarus with a triple bypass' comeback to replace Alexander Downer in 1995 after his disastrous few months as leader, and beat Paul Keating to become PM in 1996, serving until he was defeated by Kevin Rudd in 2007.

Senator Brandis said both of them gained wisdom from the experience that only years in the wilderness can bring to senior politicians.

'I would argue in terms of achievement, [Menzies] was the greatest prime ministership that Australia ever saw,' he said.

'Howard's period, the second longest serving prime minister, almost 12 years, was another very great prime ministership which saw enormous achievement.

The Attorney General even compared the Liberal Party leader to Sir Robert Menzies (L) and John Howard (right in 1987), the country's longest-serving PMs

Howard made a comeback in 1995 and beat Paul Keating to become PM in 1996, serving until he was defeated by Kevin Rudd in 2007

'I believe Malcolm Turnbull has it in him to do that.'

Senator Brandis said Mr Turnbull had 'learned a lot of lessons from the very, very bruising experience of politics' and his performance since the July 7 election proved it.

'I think the government and Mr Turnbull have been very surefooted in this parliament,' he said.

'Of course the election was a disappointment but we did win the election.'

He singled out getting a recent budget bill through and successful party room compromises on superannuation and the gay marriage plebiscite.
Up, up and away: Massive clouds of smoke form as the Tiangong-2 space laboratory blasts off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Sept. 15, 2016, in Jiuquan, Gansu Province. (Photo : Getty Images)

When it comes to pursuing greater heights, it seems that for China, the skys not the limit.



As the country progressively endeavors to complete a fully operational manned space station by sometime around 2022, it launched Tiangong-2--its second space laboratory--at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, Gansu Province, on Thursday, reported China Daily.



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The 10.4-meter high space lab weighs 8.6 metric tons and measures 3.35 meters in diameter. A Long March 7 rocket carried it into space.



Equipped with two cabins, one serves as the living quarters of the astronauts. The other one keeps the engines, propellant, storage batteries and solar panels.



Wu Ping, the deputy director of China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), underscored the significance of Tiangong-2 during a press conference held at the said spaceport on the eve of its launch.



Launching Tiangong-2 is a key battle in comprehensively completing the space laboratory stage mission, said Wu, as quoted by Reuters.



She added that it will establish a firm foundation for that mission.



This second space lab--China launched Tiangong-1 on Sept. 2011--seeks to gather new findings relating to space science, life support technologies and space medicines through experiments, according to China Daily.



It will likewise conduct an in-orbit refueling test.



Tiangong-2 carries 14 pieces of equipment to be used for the tests and experiments, including a high-sensitive gamma-ray burst detector.



A first of its kind, according to Wu, some of the countrys engineers developed it together with other engineers from the Paris-based European Space Agency.



According to a document titled China Manned Space Programme: Its Achievements and Future Developments, prepared by Wu for the 59th Session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) held in Vienna, Austria, in June, the Chinese government employs a three-step strategy for its space station project.



The first step: To launch manned spaceships to master basic human space technologies.



The second one: To launch Space Labs to make technological breakthrough in EVA [extravehicular activity], R&D [research and technology], and accommodation of long-term man-tended utilization on a modest scale.



Third: To construct Chinas Space Station to accommodate long-term man-tended utilization on a large scale.



The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs posted on its website in June that it would join forces with CMSA to develop the space capabilities of United Nations Member States via opportunities on-board Chinas future space station.



Italian astrophysicist Simonetta Di Pippo, the director of UNOOSA, said that she and her office are looking forward to working with CMSA.






New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told residents 'we will not be intimidated' following the explosion that rocked the city on Saturday night.

Speaking during a press conference near the scene, he said: 'Now I want to be clear, whatever the cause whatever the intention here, New Yorkers will not be intimidated and we are not going to let anyone change who we are or how we go about our lives.'

The mayor said following the explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood that preliminary information indicates 'this was an intentional act.'

He tried to calm any fears among nervous New Yorkers, saying the explosion had no terrorist connection and was not related to a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey at a charity run.

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Mayor Bill de Blasio, center, and NYPD Chief of Department James O'Neill, center right, speak during a press conference near the scene of an apparent explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York on Saturday

Bill de Blasio (left) and New York Police Department Commissioner James O'Neill give a news conference near the site of an explosion

He also reassured residents that New York has 'the best police force in the country,' and noted at this time there is no credible or specific threat to the city.

'Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident,' de Blasio said at the news conference.

'We have no credible and specific threat at this moment.

'All hands are on deck, injuries are significant,' he continued, following the blast during which a total of 29 people were injured.

However he noted of those injured, none are likely to die.

At this time, there is 'no evidence at this point of a terror connection' and authorities will be investigating 'very carefully,' de Blasio said.

'I want to say more broadly there is no specific or credible threat against new York city at this point in time from any terror organization so as we are analyzing what happened here we have no credible threat at this moment,' he said.

'We do want to be very clear that initial indications is this was an intentional act.'

The mayor stressed that the city has 'the most advanced anti-terror capacity of any city in this country.'

At this time, there is 'no evidence at this point of a terror connection' and authorities will be investigating 'very carefully,' de Blasio said

The mayor stressed that the city has 'the most advanced anti-terror capacity of any city in this country'

He went on to say officials will have more information in the coming hours when they have a more detailed analysis.

'We are at this point tracing every lead and its too early to give any details of the investigation,' he said before urging witnesses to come forward with any information or video of the explosion.

Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said that '24 victims have been transported to hospitals with abrasions' from the explosion but all injuries are not life-threatening.

He did say there was one patient with a puncture wound, which is more serious than the others.

The 'area is being treated like a crime scene,' according to Police Commissioner James O'Neill also said.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the explosion appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation.

Police and first responders work near the site of a bomb explosion on West 23rd Street, injuring at least 29 people, none of them life-threatening

Firefighters arrive at the scene of the explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. The appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building, sources say

New York City Police and Fire Department are on the scene of an explosion on 23rd street between 6th and 7th Avenue in Manhattan

The blast happened in front of a residence for the blind and near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants.

Witnesses said the explosion blew out the windows of businesses in the area.

Witnesses also said FBI and Homeland Security officials, along with the ATF arson and explosive task force are at the scene.

Police spokesman J. Peter Donald said several people were taken to hospitals with injuries.

One of the injured suffered a puncture wound and was considered serious.

Officials said the other injuries were minor, described as scrapes and bruises.

A number of New York City subway routes have been affected by the earlier explosion.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the FBI's joint terrorism task force was responding and that investigators did not believe the incident was due to a gas leak.

The 'area is being treated like a crime scene,' Police Commissioner James O'Neill said

People look on as the police, fire department and other first responders work near an alleged explosion on West 23rd Street

The official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and requested anonymity.

The mayor said at this time there is no specific connection to a pipe bomb explosion in the New Jersey shore town of Seaside Park earlier Saturday at a charity run.

There were no injuries in that incident and the event was canceled.

The New Jersey explosion was set for the moment that thousands of runners would be passing the can - but there were no casualties because the race was delayed, said Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the Ocean County prosecutor.

Officers are also investigating a possible second explosive device a few blocks away from the Chelsea explosion, O'Neill said.

Donald tweeted a warning to residents near the second site that officials are investigating, saying: 'As a precautionary measure, we are asking residents who live on West 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan to stay away from windows facing 27th Street until we clear the suspicious.'

The White House said President Barack Obama, who is set to arrive in the city on Sunday and stay for several days, has been apprised of the explosion in New York City and will be updated as additional information becomes available

The White House said President Barack Obama, who head to the city on Sunday and will stay for several days, has been apprised of the explosion in New York City and will be updated as additional information becomes available.

Obama, along with world leaders, is set to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly this week that opens on Monday, which will be his eighth and final as president.

On the sidelines of the session, Obama has scheduled meetings with the leaders of Iraq, Nigeria and Colombia and plans to promote trade between the U.S. and Africa.
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have spoken out in the wake of an explosion in New York City which left 29 people hurt.

Both Clinton and Trump are referring to the explosion in New York City as a bombing, a description authorities didn't use publicly in the early hours of the investigation.

Trump, the Republican nominee, had just arrived in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for a rally Saturday night when he said 'a bomb' had gone off in New York City and that 'nobody knows what's going on'.

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Trump, the Republican nominee, had just arrived in Colorado Springs for a rally Saturday night when he said 'a bomb' had gone off in New York City and that 'nobody knows what's going on'

He was filmed saying at the event: 'I must tell you that just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows exactly what's going on.

'But boy, we are living in a time - we better get very tough folks, we better get very, very tough.

'Just happened, so we'll find out, but it's a terrible thing that's going on in our world and in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant and we're gonna end it. We're gonna end it.'

Clinton, the Democratic nominee, said she has been briefed about explosions in New York and New Jersey and a mall attack in Minnesota and is calling on the nation to support first responders and to pray for victims.

Clinton told reporters traveling with her: 'Obviously we need to do everything we can to support our first responders - also, to pray for the victims'

She told reporters traveling with her: 'I've been briefed about the bombings in New York and New Jersey, the attack in Minnesota. Obviously we need to do everything we can to support our first responders - also, to pray for the victims.

'We have to let this investigation unfold. We've been in touch with various officials including the mayor's office in New York to learn what they are discovering as they conduct this investigation.

'And I'll have more to say about when we actually know some facts.'

The blast in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood is thought to have come from a dumpster (pictured) and could have come from an explosive device. Witness Chris Duffy tweeted this photo of a destroyed dumpster and said it was the source of the blast

Police in New York City are investigating an explosion that injured twenty-nine people.

In New Jersey, a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park shortly before a 5k run but caused no injuries.

At least eight people were taken to a hospital with injuries after a stabbing attack at a St. Cloud, Minnesota, shopping mall on Saturday evening which ended with the suspected attacker dead inside the mall.
The young mother who raised 330,000 for a disabled mugging victim has spoken out after she was threatened with legal action over alleged unpaid debts.

Katie Cutler, 23, campaigned in support of Alan Barnes who was viciously assaulted in Gateshead and was left with a broken collarbone in January last year.

The beautician appealed for donations for 68-year-old Mr Barnes who at one time wanted to move to the Shetland Islands.

Katie Cutler (left) raised 330,000 for Alan Barnes (right). She is now being chased over a 7,000 PR bill

Claire Barber, who runs the firm hired by Ms Cutler for publicity, claims the 23-year-old beautician 'just wanted to raise her own profile'

But Claire Barber, who ran the beautician's publicity during the fundraising, claims she owes her 6,687 in pay.

Miss Cutler has until Tuesday to find the money to pay Ms Barber who said her contract for the work was 550-a-day.

Well-wishers have now set up another Go Fund Me page titled, 'Pay off Katie Cutlers PR Bill' so far raising almost 2,000 towards her fees.

Miss Cutler, a mother-of-one, admits she has 'dark days' is now going through a 'terrible ordeal'.

The legal row has meant she struggles to sleep and devote time to her four-year-old daughter Gracie.

'Of course there are times when I wish I never got involved,' she told the Mirror.

'But then I think of the people I helped and I cannot regret it for long.

'The court wrangle has been such an ordeal as I have had to think about what the bailiffs could take away.

Miss Cutler set up an internet appeal to help Mr Barnes, who is just 4ft 6in, and registered blind, after he suffered a broken collarbone when he was attacked

'And the worst part is that my little girl has just started school and I don't feel like I have been there for her.'

Mr Barnes, who is just 4ft 6in, and registered blind, was pushed over and assaulted while putting his bins out.

Ms Barber, who runs Claire Barber PR, said: 'At that point Katie had a very busy beauty salon to run and wanted to maximise her profile. There was no charity.'

However Miss Cutler denied the allegations and said the situation had 'become a mess', adding she never wanted to become famous and could not afford to pay PR fees out of her own pocket.

Miss Cutler received a British Empire Medal for her charity work in last year's Queen's Birthday Honours.

Miss Cutler told MailOnline: 'I'm just really upset about everything, it's a big mess.'

Ms Barber, CEO of Claire Barber PR, claims she commissioned after the fundraising efforts for Mr Barnes

The 23-year-old who has refuted the allegations, said the situation had 'become a mess', adding she could not afford to pay PR fees out of her own pocket

She said she had hopes of setting up her own charitable foundation - but 'never got that far'.

Miss Cutler, who has so far paid Ms Barber 1,500, said: 'The majority of things in the bill had nothing to do with me or were given for free.

'When Alan's attacker was sentenced, the PR arranged a press conference with tea and coffee and she has charged me for that.

'I was invited to go to This Morning in London and Claire charged me for her trip to London. Things like that - I could go on.

Alan Barnes (pictured) moved into a new home with the money raised for him by Katie Cutler after he was mugged

'My website and Facebook page were built up by a company free of charge. They got nothing out of it but she has charged me for it.

'That is what I am disputing. It's not a case of not wanting to pay, it's a lot of money and I don't have it. The agreement was she would get paid when a charitable foundation was set up.

'At no point did we agree that I would have to pay out of my own pocket. There was no way in a million years I would have that sort of money.

'I was put under pressure. 7,700 doesn't seem that much but it was over 14 days.'

But Ms Barber told The Sun: 'She mentioned getting her on Celebrity Big Brother and making her a celebrity.'

She added she has since received threats from people calling her a 'greedy rat', and hoping she would 'break both legs'.

She said: 'Katie Cutler employed Claire Barber PR to handle her PR in March 2015.

Well wishers have now set up another Go Fund Me page titled, 'Pay off Katie Cutlers PR Bill' so far raising some 900 towards her fees

'Katie made two payments in June 2015, then proceeded to write all over social media her shock at getting our bill (which was agreed prior to any work undertaken).

'At this point we offered her a payment plan, but she wouldn't respond to anything.

Claire Barber claims she was commissioned at 550-a-day

'As a small family business with an impeccable reputation and after over a year and still no payment, we had no choice but to go to the small claims court.

'Katie didn't respond with any defence to the small claims court either other than acknowledgement of papers. We are a small, hard working company and we are simply not able to carry this debt.

'We are incredibly shocked with the way Katie has belittled our hard work and devotion to the four-month project that Katie commissioned us for.'

In the months after the mugging, Mr Barnes - who offered 10 towards Miss Cutler's fees - got a 'calling from God' to move to the Shetland Islands.

But he decided to stay put and is now looking for another home in the Gateshead area.
A dead digger driver at the centre of speculation over the fate of toddler Ben Needham was a 'good man' who had nothing to do with the boy's disappearance, his widow has said.

Konstantinos Barkas, also known as Dino, was clearing land with an excavator close to where the 21-month-old was playing on the day he vanished in 1991 and may be responsible for his death, a friend of the builder has reportedly told police.

There are fears the youngster may have been crushed to death in an accident and his mother, Kerry Needham, said police have told her to 'fear the worst'.

Valantis Barkas said his father Konstantinos, known as Dino, was only being connected the child's disappearance now because he was dead and could not defend himself

The Greek digger driver Mr Barkas (pictured), who died of cancer last year, has been linked to Ben's Needham's death. A friend told police Mr Barkas may have killed him accidentally

Mr Barkas's widow Varvara strongly dismissed any suggestions her late husband had killed Ben in an accident when asked by the Sunday Mirror.

She said: 'My husband was a good man and I know he had nothing to do with Ben's disappearance.'

She admitted they had never spoken about what happened on the day Ben disappeared.

Mrs Barkas said: 'My husband never talked about what actually happened on that day. He never talked to me about what he was doing. It was never discussed.

'He never once spoke to me about Ben. The only thing he ever said was that he saw a car that day. Even when he was dying, he never mentioned Ben.'

Detectives from South Yorkshire Police said they will carry out investigations at two 'areas of interest' on the Greek island of Kos in the coming weeks, although they are keeping an open mind about what happened to the toddler.

Mr Barkas' son also dismissed the claims, telling MailOnline: 'My father wouldn't hurt an ant, let alone a child.'

Valantis Barkas said his father Konstantinos, known as Dino, was only being connected the child's disappearance now because he was dead and could not defend himself.

A new witness has claimed that Ben was accidentally killed by Mr Barkas when the boy strayed onto a building site where the digger driver was working.

Ben's mother Kerry said she now truly fears her son is dead after 25 years believing he was still alive.

Today Ben's mother Kerry said she now truly fears her son is dead after 25 years believing he was still alive

South Yorkshire Police - who have not ruled out murder - have spoken to the new witness and are taking his account seriously. They are now preparing to carry out a fresh dig

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Valantis Barkas said his father had done all he could to help police with their inquiries when the 21-month-old went missing in 1991.

An unnamed 'friend' of Mr Barkas has recently came forward to police to say the Greek Digger driver, who died of stomach cancer last year, may have killed the boy accidentally.

South Yorkshire Police - who have not ruled out murder - have spoken to the witness and are taking his account seriously.

They are now preparing to carry out a fresh dig in the hope of recovering Ben's body and have told his mother Kerry to prepare for the worst.

Mr Barkas' son told MailOnline: 'My father wouldn't harm an ant, let alone a little child.

'My father has testified at the police about what he was doing at the time Ben went missing.

'He stayed there until late at night when the investigations started in order to help out if needed.

'He even gave DNA sample when asked by the authorities. He helped out the police authorities all those years, even though he was not well.

Miss Needham said she could not forgive the witness who could have saved her decades of hell: 'I'm living this nightmare - but it could have been ended 25 years ago'

Ben vanished on July 24, 1991, when Miss Needham, who was 19 at the time, left him with her parents Eddie and Christine Needham while she worked at a local hotel

Ben wandered off at around 2.30pm but police were not contacted for at least three hours because the grandparents thought he must be with Kerry's 17-year-old brother Stephen

'They shouldn't accuse him of anything, especially now that he can not defend himself.'

'I cannot understand why they bring up something that has been cleared so many years ago.'

Valantis, who was a young boy at the time, said he also recalled his father telling the police that he noticed a car full of gypsies passing from the area at a high speed around the time Ben went missing.

As detectives prepare for the dig 'within weeks', Miss Needham said she could not forgive the witness who could have saved her decades of hell.

She said: 'He could have ended this 25 years ago. I could have grieved, had my daughter. You never forget your child but at least I would have known where he was. I could have done something with my life.

'Instead I've had a life on hold without being able to do anything or focus on anything. I'm living this nightmare - but it could have been ended 25 years ago. Perhaps I could have forgiven that person back then. But now, no'.

South Yorkshire Police, who are carrying out a new 1 million inquiry to solve the mystery, say they think Ben is dead

Ben vanished when Miss Needham, who was 19 at the time, left him with her parents Eddie and Christine Needham  who had emigrated to Kos  while she worked at a local hotel

South Yorkshire Police carried out extensive searches on the island in 2012 but found nothing

She added: 'This new witness that's come forward. It is obviously a man from Kos. He's known our family. He's seen me on the TV. He's seen my family on the TV for 25 years. Of course I'm angry. He could have ended this 25 years ago'.

South Yorkshire Police, who are carrying out a new 1 million inquiry to solve the mystery, carried out extensive searches on the island in 2012 but found nothing.

Another Kos resident, Giannis Pampos, said he had offered to help police find bones four years ago.

Mr Pampos, a dowser, said he was looking for the Italian's WW2 mass graves on the island in October 2012 when he accidentally ran into the British Police.

He offered to help but got no response, so searched the area after they had left and got an indication of bones.

'Why did the British Police not ask me to point out the exact spot where I found the indication about the bones, so they could dig using all those sophisticated machines they have available?

'What would it harm if they dug in one more place apart from those they had already dug?'

Giannis Pampos, a dowser, said he had offered to help police find bones four years ago, and had searched the area and found 'indication of bones'

Detectives are planning the new excavations on the island 'within weeks' to find Ben's remains

'I'm petrified,' said Miss Needham. 'I think the police believe they will find Ben's bones. I think he's dead. They will be bringing specialist people from the UK to search for his remains.'

Mr Barkas previously came forward in 2012 to tell police he may have accidentally covered the child in rubble while digging near a farmhouse on the island. But the new witness allegedly claims that Mr Barkas hit him first.

Miss Needham, 43, said she was scared of dying 'from shock and heartbreak' should she receive news of the worst possible outcome.

She said: 'They [police] said a new witness had come forward and told them there were two areas of land that building waste had been dumped at by Mr Barkas which had not been searched.'

But a detailed examination of land near the farmhouse by a specialist police search team found nothing.

'I was absolutely shell-shocked and just sat there numb,' Miss Needham told the Daily Mirror. 'The last dig found nothing so we were convinced Ben was still out there somewhere.'

Miss Needham added: 'What they had to tell me was the last thing they would have ever wanted to. They think my Ben could be dead and buried. They are no longer looking for a missing person. How do I cope with that?

'My mother's instinct has always told me he was alive. What if I've been wrong all this time?

'I'm petrified. I think the police believe they will find Ben's bones. I think he's dead. They will be bringing specialist people from the UK to search for his remains.'

The youngster vanished on July 24, 1991, when Miss Needham, who was 19 at the time, left him with her parents Eddie and Christine Needham who had emigrated to Kos  while she worked at a local hotel.

Detectives are understood to be investigating whether Mr Barkas knew he had killed the boy and whether there was a 'conspiracy' among his friends to protect him

Miss Needham, who also has a daughter, Leighanna, 22, praised the officers involved in the search for her son, describing their efforts to find Ben as 'heroic' and 'truly incredible'

Ben wandered off at around 2.30pm but police were not contacted for at least three hours because the grandparents thought he must have gone with Kerry's 17-year-old brother Stephen.

Miss Needham, who also has a daughter, Leighanna, 22, praised the officers involved in the search for her son, describing their efforts to find Ben as 'heroic' and 'truly incredible'.

Detectives are understood to be investigating whether Mr Barkas knew he had killed the boy and whether there was a 'conspiracy' among his friends to protect him.

Officers have previously excavated land on the island near the farmhouse after the Home Office backed a search that included sniffer dogs and bone specialists.

The operation was prompted on information from Greek Police that Ben may be dead, but no trace of him was ever found.

Officers are not ruling out suspicious circumstances and it is understood soil samples have been taken and drones have been used to photograph the site.

The unnamed witness is believed to have told police he saw Mr Barkas 'sweating and shaking' after coming back from a police station the day after the disappearance.

As previously reported, officers received more than 100 calls regarding the investigation earlier this year after Ben's case appeared on a Greek missing person television programme.

And in May last year, Ben's mother, sister and grandmother travelled to Greece with South Yorkshire Police detectives to make a direct appeal on a Greek television show about missing people.

South Yorkshire Police said officers would be travelling back to Kos in the coming weeks 'to follow up new lines of inquiry' which have emerged following a direct Greek media appeal in May.

Detective Superintendent Matt Fenwick leading the investigation said there would be planned operational activity at two locations on the island identified 'as areas of interest'

Detective Superintendent Matt Fenwick leading the investigation said: 'There will be planned operational activity at two locations on the island that have been identified as areas of interest to the investigation.

'We continue to keep an open mind and have updated Ben's family about certain lines of inquiry we're currently exploring.

'A dedicated policing team continues to work extremely hard to find answers for his family and keep them fully informed and supported throughout the investigation.'




A group of five male teenagers allegedly broke into a south-east Melbourne home early on Sunday morning and stole a wallet and car keys from a nightstand table as a couple and their two children slept.

Tenielle Ibbotson and her husband, Nathan, were asleep at their Cranbourne East home when the teens allegedly broke in through a bathroom window around 1.20am and crept into their bedroom, according to Channel 10.

The group, which are aged between 13 and 17, grabbed two sets of car keys that were next to Mr Ibbotson before taking the family's Volkswagen and BMW and leading five K9 police units on a chase across the city, Victoria police claim.

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Tenielle Ibbotson and her husband, Nathan, (pictured) were asleep on Sunday when a group of five male teenagers allegedly broke into their Cranbourne East home in south-east Melbourne

The boys crept into the Ibbotson's bedroom around 1.20am and took a wallet and two sets of car keys from Mr Ibbotson's nightstand table as the couple slept (pictured is the couple's home)

The Volkswagen was stopped by officers on the Monash Highway near Richmond and the two boys inside were arrested, police said.

The BMW was seen 70k away from the Ibbotson's home around 3am.

The driver allegedly slammed the stolen car into a police car before the three boys inside fled on foot and ran through several backyards, officers said.

They were also arrested after police threatened to unleash K9 dogs on them, a witness told Channel 10.

A 13-year-old boy has been charged with theft of a motor vehicle and will appear a Children's Court at a later date, police said.

A 15-year-old, 16-year-old and two 17-year-olds have been charged with aggravated burglary, theft of a motor vehicle and other offences, police said.

They will also appear at a Children's Court at a later date.

The group then allegedly led police on a chase across the city before the Volkswagen was stopped on Monash Highway (pictured) and the BMW slammed into a police car 70km from the Ibbotson's home

A fifth teenager claims he was picked up by the others while they were driving one of the stolen cars, police said.

Ms Ibbotson said the alleged break-in had 'terrified' her family.

'Knowing that they obviously looked at us as we were lying there asleep and were brazen enough to come in our bedroom and not really even care if we woke up is really scary,' she said.

Mr Ibbotson said he has had to assure the couple's kids that the 'bag guys' won't be coming back.
This is the moment a suspected homemade bomb blew up in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday night, injuring at least 29 people.

The devastating blast, thought to have come from a dumpster, was captured on surveillance video on 23rd Street, a major thoroughfare in one of the most bustling areas of New York City.

The Office of the Deputy Commissioner Public Information (DCPI) exclusively told Daily Mail Online the video was 'confirmed amateur video footage from incident location.'

In video capturing Saturday's blast in New York, crowds of people can be seen walking along the sidewalk in front of the Associated Blind Housing facility on 135 W 23rd Street

Then suddenly a massive blast is seen and heard as it rocks the bustling area

In the video, crowds of people can be seen walking along the sidewalk in front of the Associated Blind Housing facility on 135 W 23rd Street, the site of the explosion, and on the sidewalk across the street.

For several minutes, the area seems to be mostly calm before suddenly a massive blast is seen hurling debris across sidewalks and the street.

People frantically start running from the area and taking cover as the terrifying scene unfolds.

Authorities said they are investigating the blast as a criminal act not immediately linked to any terror organization.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials said investigators had ruled out a natural gas leak as the origin of the blast but they stopped short of calling it a bombing and declined to specify precisely what they believed may have triggered the explosion.

He added that the site of the explosion, outside on a major thoroughfare in one of the most bustling areas of New York City, was being treated as a crime scene.

People were seen immediately running from the area and taking cover as the terrifying scene unfolded and as smoked filled the area and debris was strewn across the street

Authorities said they are investigating the blast (shown above) as a criminal act not immediately linked to any terror organization

'There is no evidence at this point of a terror connection,' the mayor said at a news conference about three hours after the blast.

He added, 'There is no specific and credible threat against New York City at this point in time from any terror organization.'

The mayor said investigators did not believe there was any link to a pipe bomb that exploded earlier on Saturday in the New Jersey beach town of Seaside Park.

No injuries were reported in that blast, in a plastic trash can along the route of a charity foot race.

Authorities said they believed it to be a deliberate act.

But a U.S. official said that Joint Terrorism Task Force, an interagency group of federal, state and local officials, was called to investigate the Chelsea blast, suggesting authorities have not ruled out the possibility of a terror connection.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials said investigators had ruled out a natural gas leak as the origin of the blast but they stopped short of calling it a bombing

A joint task force also took the lead in investigating the New Jersey incident.

The head of the New York Police Department's special operations division said on Twitter that a 'possible secondary device has been located' in the same general area.

President Barack Obama, who was attending a congressional dinner in Washington, 'has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation,' a White House official said.
George Brandis says he is 'very confident' the yes vote would win a plebiscite on gay marriage, but still insists parliament go through with the $160 million poll.

The Attorney General said the government may be willing to compromise on some of the vote's mechanics if Labor agreed to back it.

He was not willing to say what the government may give ground on - like funding for the 'yes' and the 'no' cases - but said it had delivered a 'package' to the opposition.

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George Brandis says he is 'very confident' the yes vote would win a plebiscite on gay marriage, but still insists parliament go through with the $160 million poll

'I don't think we should regard it as a done deal, this is still an argument that has to be made during the plebiscite campaign,' he said on Sky News on Sunday.

'With that said, I'm very confident the yes vote will pass but I don't think that for that reason one can treat it as if it's a matter the public have finally already made up their minds on.'

Senator Brandis said while the plebiscite was not his or Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's 'preferred option', the public gave it a mandate at the election.

The government may be willing to compromise on some of the vote's mechanics if Labor agreed to back it

'That position was endorsed by the Australian public and there is plenty of opinion poll evidence to show that thats the way the Australian people want this matter to be dealt with,' he said.

'So in those circumstances, it is up to the Labor Party now to enable this plebiscite to happen because if they dont, then they will be saying no to marriage equality.'

Senator Brandis also insisted the vast majority of Coalition MPs, with the exception of far-right MPs like Cory Bernardi and Eric Abetz, would respect the result.

'There is no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that were there to be a yes vote in the plebiscite the amendments would pass (Parliament),' he said.

'For heavens sake, even Tony Abbott has said that he would vote yes in the parliament if theres a yes vote in the plebiscite.'

Senator Brandis said while the plebiscite was not his or Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's 'preferred option', the public gave it a mandate at the election

Labor would not decide its final position on the vote until a meeting in October when parliament sits again, but has stepped up its rhetoric in recent months.

Mr Shorten last month said he was worried Mr Turnbull would 'stuff it up' and called the poll 'unnecessary, expensive and divisive'.

The Greens have already pledged to oppose a plebiscite, meaning if Labor blocked the poll the government would need the support of minor parties in the Senate.

'For heavens sake, even Tony Abbott has said that he would vote yes in the parliament if theres a yes vote in the plebiscite,' Senator Brandis said

Senator Brandis insisted the vast majority of Coalition MPs, with the exception of far-right MPs like Cory Bernardi (L) and Eric Abetz (R), would respect the result

One Nation has signalled it's support but Nick Xenophon and others want Parliament to decide, leaving Mr Turnbull without enough votes.

Opposition leader in the Senate Penny Wong on Sunday said there was a good compromise available: 'Have a free vote'.

'Let's not have lots of taxpayers' dollars spent on what would be a divisive campaign,' she told the ABC.

Shadow Attorney General Mark Dreyfus jumped on Senator Brandis' admission a plebiscite had not been his 'preferred option', saying he had finally injected some honesty into the government's position.

The Greens have already pledged to oppose a plebiscite, meaning if Labor blocked the poll the government would need the support of minor parties in the Senate

'He could admit that the only reason this plebiscite is being proposed is because supporters of marriage equality like him and Mr Turnbull do not have the backbone to stand up to their backbench,' he said.

Former Liberal leader John Hewson said Senator Brandis has put up a 'strong defence of the indefensible', calling it an unnecessary process.

'They are claiming a mandate, everyone is claiming a mandate from the election - I think the electorate would just love the issue to be put to a vote in the parliament and just get on with it,' he said.

'It will be a distraction for the next five or six months or beyond.'

Former Liberal leader John Hewson (pictured) said Senator Brandis has put up a 'strong defence of the indefensible', calling it an unnecessary process

Mr Shorten last month reportedly hoped Labor's opposition to a plebiscite would pressure him to defy conservative Liberals.

'He's only doing it because he is too weak to stand up to the radicals in his own party. Why should everyone else have to pay for his weakness?' he said.

'The plebiscite is unnecessary, expensive and divisive. There's a better, faster way to make much marriage equality a reality. The Parliament should do its job and deal with a marriage equality bill, with all parties afforded a free vote.'
Angela Merkel's party has made historic losses in elections for the Berlin state parliament after a mayor warned of a resurgence of Nazis in Germany.

Many voters turned to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which with 13 per cent of the vote will enter the German capital's assembly for the first time, according to initial projections.

Before the election, mayor Michael Muller had warned that a double-digit total for the AfD would' be seen around the world as a sign of the return of the rightwing and the Nazis in Germany'.

Mrs Merkel's Christian Democratic Union polled at 18 per cent - a drop of 5 points.

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPU) dropped 6 per cent to 22, but remain the largest party, and are expected to ditch the CDU from their current coalition.

It comes as Mrs Merkel admitted she wished she could 'turn back time' to prepare herself over the refugee crisis that unfolded in 2015.

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Angela Merkel's party has made historic losses in elections for the Berlin state parliament after a mayor warned of a resurgence of Nazis in Germany. She is pictured today with the top candidate for the Berlin city-state elections Frank Henkel

Mrs Merkel's Christian Democratic Union polled at 18 per cent - a drop of five points

On Saturday Merkel announced plans to jettison her 'we can do this' mantra about accommodating refugees as her poll ratings continued to slump.

'It's become a simple slogan, an almost meaningless formula,' she told a German newspaper, adding: 'Some feel provoked by the expression which of course was not the idea.'

The vote comes two weeks after the CDU was beaten into third place in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania by the anti-immigrant AfD.

A year before a national election, the result in Berlin is set to raise pressure on Merkel and deepen rifts in her conservative camp, with more sniping expected from her Christian Social Union (CSU) allies in Bavaria.

A year before a national election, the result in Berlin is set to raise pressure on Merkel and deepen rifts in her conservative camp, with more sniping expected from her Christian Social Union (CSU) allies in Bavaria

The CSU's finance minister Markus Soeder was quick to call it the 'second massive wake-up call' in two weeks.

'A long-term and massive loss in trust among traditional voters threatens the conservative bloc,' he told Bild.

He called on the Chancellor's right-left national coalition to win back support by changing course on its immigration policy.

In particular, they want a cap of 200,000 refugees per year, which Merkel rejects.

The secretary general of Merkel's CDU, Peter Tauber, partly blamed the CSU for the losses in Berlin, which only 27 years ago was the front line of the Cold War.

Many voters turned to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which with 13 per cent of the vote will enter the German capital's parliament for the first time. Picture is AfD leader Frauke Petry

Demonstrators gather in front of Hauptbahnhof in Berlin to protest against Chancellor Merkel's refugee policy on July 30

'If there is a dispute within the conservative bloc, it doesn't help us on the ground - especially if this dispute is carried out in the way it is being done from Munich,' he said.

A backlash against her migrant policy has raised questions about whether Merkel, Europe's most powerful leader, will stand for a fourth term next year.

Given a dearth of options in her party, however, she is still the most likely candidate.

Today, she pledged that there would be no repeat of last year's 'chaotic' border opening to refugees, after the latest stinging defeat for her party.

Even as she defended the 'political and ethical' decision to let in one million asylum seekers in 2015 in the face of a potential humanitarian catastrophe, Merkel reached out to critics.

'If I could, I would turn back time many, many years to better prepare myself, the federal government and all those in positions of responsibility for the situation we were rather unprepared for in the late summer of 2015,' Merkel said.

In an unusually frank opening statement, Merkel said the errors of the past included a long-standing refusal to accept Germany's transformation into a multicultural society.

'We weren't exactly the world champions in integration before the refugee influx,' she wryly admitted, noting that the infrastructure for getting newcomers into language and job training had to be ramped up overnight.

At a rally on Wednesday, Mrs Merkel hit out at critics of her immigration policy. She said: 'It is not just enough to know what you're against... we need good solutions'

Merkel acknowledged that her 'We can do it' rallying cry during the refugee crisis had become a provocation to many who felt it expressed a glibness about the challenges ahead and said she would now refrain from using it.

But she continued to resist calls from within her conservative bloc to set a formal upper limit for the number of asylum seekers admitted to Germany.

And she struck an optimistic note about the ability of Europe's top economic power to eventually integrate tens of thousands of refugees who will remain in Germany, including many from war-ravaged Syria.

'I am absolutely certain that we will emerge from this admittedly complicated phase better than we went into it,' she said.

Mrs Merkel has defended her immigration policy against her critics.

She said at a rally on Wednesday: 'It is not enough ... to know who is to blame, it is not enough just to know what you're against.

'We need good solutions that hold our society together.'

The AfD, founded in 2013 as an anti-euro party, currently polls nationally at between 11 and 14 per cent.

It has in the last year played to voters' fears about the integration of the roughly one million migrants who entered Germany last year.

Demonstrators wear masks of US Republican White House nominee Donald Trump and Ms Petry at a protest against the transatlantic trade deals CETA and TTIP yesterday

'From zero to double digits, that's unique for Berlin. The grand coalition has been voted out - not yet at the national level, but that will happen next year,' said AfD candidate Georg Pazderski to cheering supporters after the results.

Commentators said the result indicated that the party looked poised to enter the lower house of parliament in 2017.
Australian Defence aircraft were part of a bombing raid in Syria that killed up to 83 Syrian soldiers rather than Islamic State targets.

Officials have offered condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers who may have been killed during a bombing raid on what was believed to be Islamic State targets.

Two Australian F18 super hornets were among a group of international planes taking part in an operation near Dayr Az Zawr when Russian officials advised the targets may have been Syrian military personnel, a statement said on Sunday.

Australian aircraft were part of an international operation near Dayr Az Zawr (pictured)

'While Syria remains a dynamic and complex operating environment, Australia would never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support Daesh (also known as ISIL),' a defence spokesperson said.

The Syrian military said the airstrike hit a base in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour that is surrounded by ISIS, allowing the extremists to advance.

The apparently errant strike could deal a blow to a fragile US and Russian-brokered cease-fire that has largely held for five days despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides.

The Syrian military said the airstrikes enabled an ISIS advance on a hill overlooking the air base.

A Russian Defense Ministry official said Syria informed them that between 62 and 83 soldiers were killed in the airstrike.

The Syrian military said the airstrike hit a base in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour that is surrounded by ISIS, allowing the extremists to advance

Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said the airstrike near Deir el-Zour airport was conducted by two F-16s and two A-10s.

He did not identify the planes' country affiliation, but said they were part of the international coalition.

Konashenkov said Syrian authorities reported another 100 wounded. The planes came from the direction of the Iraqi border.
On our wedding night in Paris, Colin had a tantrum that left him exhausted, so that was a non-starter, and the consummation, when it happened, was awkward, painful and not particularly enjoyable or romantic. Apparently this was my fault. When he took me to a brothel a night or two later to watch a private sex show, I felt he was saying: 'You're hopeless at it, but you'll get some good tips from watching this.' It was so humiliating. He'd had numerous affairs before we met but that didn't mean he regarded it as his role to teach me how to explore this side of life with gentleness or generosity. As long as Colin and I were sleeping together, our sex life was marked by criticism and disappointment. He used to get very cross with me, which of course made things worse and I used to dread going to bed with him. I tried to be enthusiastic but it never worked between us. For a very long time, I felt I must be to blame. The one time he seemed pleased with me was years later in the Grenadines. I think he arranged for my drink to be spiked and, from what I know now, I suspect it was LSD. I had the most terrifying experience, with visions and hallucinations, but we ended up making passionate love despite my feeling so scared. It was extremely energetic and uninhibited. The next day, Colin said: 'That was amazing and that's the way I want you to behave all the time.' 'Well, I felt awful and I still do,' I replied. He didn't lace my drink again but how strange and somehow typical of Colin that, rather than being tender, he decided he could just drug me into doing what he liked.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang shakes hand with Peter Thomson, president of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly, during their meeting in Beijing in August. (Photo : Getty Images)

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang attended the 71st session of the U.N. General Assembly to present several "pragmatic moves" in confronting global issues in support of the United Nations, according to a senior diplomat in Beijing on Wednesday, Sept. 14, China Daily reported.



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Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong said in a news conference that Li will stay in New York from Sunday, Sept. 11, to Wednesday, Sept. 14, where he will meet with representatives of various U.S. organizations to exchange views on enhancing the relations between the two countries.



According to the vice foreign minister, the premier is likely to discuss China's view on global governance, world order and peace and development. He will also present several measures to support U.N. efforts in resolving global challenges.



Based on the U.N. General Assembly agenda, Li is expected to participate in the annual general debate and the high-level meeting on migrants and refugees.



The report said that the premier is also scheduled to fly to Canada and Cuba after the U.N. annual meeting. His trip will extend until Sept. 28.



The 71st session of the U.N. General Assembly opened on Tuesday, Sept. 13, to discuss global efforts on Sustainable Development Goals, an outline that aims to eliminate hunger and poverty, promote equality and protect the environment, which will be implemented through the years until 2030.



The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development's first action plan was formulated during the G20 Summit in Hangzhou early this month.



China, an avid supporter of U.N. causes, expects that the annual session would bring together efforts to fight challenges confronting the world such as terrorism, cyberspace security, the refugee and immigration crises, and spread of infectious diseases.



Peter Thomson, president of the General Assembly, expressed appreciation at the sincerity shown by governments and national planning agencies which have started integrating the 2030 Agenda into their national programs.


Embattled WA Premier Colin Barnett thinks a challenge to his leadership is unlikely despite two ministers quitting in as many days.

Dean Nalder and Tony Simpson quit cabinet this weekend, just six months out from the March state election, saying they had no confidence in their leader.

Mr Barnett said he was extremely disappointed neither had the 'courage or integrity' to tell him face-to-face before they resigned, but insisted his job was safe.

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Embattled WA Premier Colin Barnett thinks a challenge to his leadership is unlikely despite two ministers quitting in as many days

'There is no challenger to my knowledge and there has been no challenger to my leadership in over eight years,' he said on Sunday.

'I am the leader, I am the premier of Western Australia and I intend to stay there.'

If Mr Barnett were to be toppled in a party room coup it would mirror his rise to power just a month before the 2008 state election when he took over from scandal-plagued then-Opposition Leader Troy Buswell.

Both ex-ministers made pointed parting shots at their boss, saying they had to find out about policy positions through speeches or talkback radio appearances.

'Colin is making irrational decisions without consultation with respect to ministers or cabinet,' Mr Nalder, who is considered a leadership aspirant, told The Sunday Times.

Dean Nalder (pictured) and Tony Simpson quit cabinet this weekend, just six months out from the March state election, saying they had no confidence in their leader

Mr Simpson said he no longer supported the premier, adding the WA Government had 'lost its way'.

Mr Barnett said he only received a text message from Mr Nalder about his decision at 10.30pm on Saturday and that he never mentioned leadership issues in correspondence.

'I am extremely disappointed in both Tony Simpson and Dean Nalder that they did not have the courage or integrity to tell me of their decision face-to-face or even on the telephone,' Mr Barnett said.

'Why would you suddenly resign over a weekend? There is something orchestrated about this. I don't know what the plan or plot is.'

Mr Simpson said he no longer supported the premier, adding the WA Government had 'lost its way'

The premier said he had given Mr Nalder, who had only been a minister for a little more than two years, a great opportunity with the important portfolios of agriculture and transport.

'Dean's walked away from it. I really don't know why he would give up that opportunity,' he said.

'I had shown great faith and confidence in Dean and he let me down.'

Mr Barnett defended his leadership style, saying while people labelled him arrogant and 'the emperor' he thought of himself as decisive.

Mr Barnett said he was extremely disappointed neither had the 'courage or integrity' to tell him face-to-face before they resigned, but insisted his job was safe

He said there were regular cabinet meetings but he sometimes made a call if a minister was not progressing issues quickly enough.

'Maybe I'm a little bit impatient but that's been my history as a member of parliament and as a premier, that's why so much has happened in this state,' he said.

'I do become a little bit intolerant when issues are allowed to drift.'

The criticisms against the premier come as a ReachTel poll of 1724 people was published in The West Australian putting Labor ahead 51-49 on a two-party preferred basis, which was closer than previous polls.

Mr Barnett said that indicated it was a 50-50 bet on which party would win the election.

The August 24 poll was privately funded by prominent business leaders who for years have been highly critical of Barnett's policies affecting their commercial operations and ventures.

The criticisms against the premier come as a put Labor, led by Mark McGowan (pictured) ahead 51-49 on a two-party preferred basis, which was closer than previous polls

They were thought to favour Mr Nalder for the premiership, according to the ABC, and at least one of them admitted the former minister was show the results in advance.

Perth property developer Nigel Satterley has been a prominent critic this year, questioning his leadership and policies, but it was not known if he supported the poll.

Mr Barnett said Mr Nalder had assured him he was not involved in the poll that was 'clearly designed to topple' the premier, but said he now had some doubts about that.

Deputy Premier Liza Harvey has long been considered a possible replacement for Mr Barnett, but again voiced support for him.

'I absolutely would not be supporting a spill motion and I think it's highly unlikely a spill motion would be put forward,' she said.

Ms Harvey said there was only a small number of disaffected and disgruntled agitators, but the majority of the parliamentary team still backed the premier.

She also disagreed that Mr Barnett lacked consultation with his ministers.
The daughter of a playboy baron who allegedly supplied narcotics to celebrities has been shot dead in the Philippines amid a savage war on drugs.

Aurora Moynihan, the daughter of the 3rd Baron Moynihan, was found lying by the side of a road with multiple gunshot wounds in Manila in the early hours of last Saturday.

The 45-year-old was carrying four sachets of shabu, or methamphetamine, and 'other drug paraphernalia', according to police.

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Aurora Moynihan, 45, was found dead by the side of a road in Manila, Philippines, last weekend. A cardboard sign left next to her read: 'Pusher to the celebrities, you are next'

Ms Moynihan was the daughter of the 3rd Baron Moynihan, a notorious playboy and trickster who died of a heart attack at the age of 55. He is pictured right dancing with showgirl Monica Scott in 1956

CCTV footage released by police appears to show that Ms Moynihan was shot after getting out of a Toyota SUV by one of the other passengers, ABS-CBN reported.

Witnesses reported hearing five gunshots before the car sped away.

A cardboard sign left next to her read: 'Pusher to the celebrities, you are next.'

More than 3,000 people have been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power at the end of June.

Duterte ordered police to carry out summary executions and also urged citizens to kill drug users and dealers after coming into power.

Ms Moynihan, who went to a private school in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, was the daughter of Antony Moynihan, a notorious playboy and trickster who died of a heart attack at the age of 55.

Ms Moynihan's sister Maritoni Fernandez (left), a well known-actress in the Philippines paid tribute to an 'exceptional human being'

Officers confirmed that Ms Moynihan (far right) had been on a police drug watch list

In the 1970s, Lord Moynihan fled to the Philippines to escape charges of fraud. It was there that he met belly-dancer Luthgarda Fernandez, his third wife and Ms Moynihan's mother.

The couple, who had three daughters together, divorced in 1979 and Ms Moynihan decided to live with her father.

Following his death, an obituary in the Telegraph described him as a 'brothel-keeper, drug-smuggler and police informer'.

Lord Moynihan, who was married five times in total, was forbidden from leaving the Philippines in 1986 due to investigations into his links with drugs and prostitution.

The 45-year-old was carrying four sachets of shabu, or methamphetamine, and 'other drug paraphernalia', according to police

CCTV footage shows a Toyota SUV pulling up beside the road where Ms Moynihan was found

It appears to show her and another passenger getting out of the car. The surveillance footage suggests Ms Moynihan was shot by the other passenger

Officers confirmed that Ms Moynihan had been on a police drug watch list. She was allegedly part of a syndicate.

She was arrested in 2013 during a raid on a drugs den along with seven others.

Her sister Maritoni Fernandez, a well-known actress in the Philippines, described Ms Moynihan as an 'exceptional human being'.

She said in a statement: 'We as a family have one priority...at this point in time and that is to protect her children from further pain and suffering so that they, and we as a family, may take this time to grieve, mourn but most of all celebrate the life of this exceptional human being I will forever have the privilege of calling my sister.'

In the 1970s, Lord Moynihan fled to the Philippines to escape charges of fraud. It was here that he met belly-dancer Luthgarda Fernandez (pictured left), his third wife and Ms Moynihan's mother

Ms Moynihan's killer has not yet been found.

President Duterte threatened to leave the UN at the end of August after he criticised the organisation when it called for an end for the killings of drug traffickers.

Police raids of suspected drug dealers' hideouts have led to near-nightly deaths.

Most of the dead suspects - often found face-down in pools of blood - had pistols lying next to them in the act of resisting arrest, according to authorities.

More than 3,000 people have been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte began a war on drugs in June

Duterte ordered police to carry out summary executions and also urged citizens to kill drug users and dealers after coming into power

Mr Duterte won elections in May and immediately promised a law-and-order crackdown on drugs.

During a speech in Manila, the president said: 'These sons of w****s are destroying our children. I warn you, don't go into that, even if you're a policeman, because I will really kill you.

Duterte has warned of widespread bloodshed as part of the government's war on drugs.

He made it clear he would pardon police if they were charged with human rights violations for carrying out his merciless orders.
A divorced mother-of-four turned to people smuggling to raise urgent funds for her son's wedding.

Shabnam Zeeshan, 52, was jailed for a year after officials caught her hiding with two people in a car boot at the Calais side of the Channel Tunnel.

A gang from North-West England approached her with the offer of cash to help smuggle migrants into the country.

Shabnam Zeeshan, 52, was jailed for a year after officials caught her hiding with two people in a car boot at the Calais side of the Channel Tunnel

A court heard how the migrants she carried had paid gang masters 2,500 each to be taken to England. Zeeshan herself was only set to pocket 500 per migrant from the deal.

Her lawyer Orsane Broisin told The Sun on Sunday: 'She had debts of around 14,000 and wanted to pay something towards her son's wedding.

'She was contacted by people who knew she was desperate. They told her it would be easy and she accepted.

Zeeshan is thought to have four children, including an 11-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl (photo from 2013)

'The gang paid for the rental of the car, she drove to France met them and was offered 500 per migrant.'

He added she regretted her actions but was desperate for the money.

Zeeshan, from Bury, is now serving time in Chemin de la Plaine women's prison near Lille.

Courts in northern France have hired extra staff to cope with the number of migrant smuggling cases.

Neighbours said Zeeshan was an 'everyday', 'friendly' mother who lived with her children in a rented 150,000 home.

She is thought to have a couple of adult sons as well as two younger offspring: an 11-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl.

Zeeshan's landlord Mohammed Iqbal said he was shocked at her jail sentence as she had been a good tenant.

Alongside Zeeshan, two other British citizens were caught smuggling migrants.

Marin Florin Apopei, 24, from Queensbury, North London, and Cihan Tas from Chingford, Essex were held.

Tas's wife Vecide, 31, said she thinks he will serve four months behind bars.

Apopei's family, who has lived in the UK for two years but is originally from Romania, said they were distraught at his prison sentence.
Paul and Caroline King have been travelling with their sons Winston and Henry around the globe for the last 19 months and don't have any plans to stop or send them to school

A couple chose to travel the world instead of put their children into a school because they felt they couldn't find one that was good enough.

Paul and Caroline King, who met whilst travelling, have spent the last 19 months taking their children Winston, 6, and four-year-old Henry around 15 countries.

The couple claim their sons are more advanced than other children their age and after looking at around 20 schools for their eldest Winston they made the life changing decision.

After selling their 280,000 house and its contents they have now educated the boys themselves and currently have no plans to stop.

Speaking to The Sunday Mirror Mr King, 39, from Cambridge, said: 'Well never force the boys to go to school or take an exam. We dont raise our voices to the boys, so why should a teacher be allowed to?'

Well never force the boys to go to school or take an exam. Paul and Caroline King

The couple met whilst travelling in Kashmir in 2003 and settled in Gothenburg, in Sweden, the country Mrs King 35, is from.

According to the interview with The Sunday Mirror, Mrs King considered the idea when Winston was claiming to be bored at nursery at was learning to read at the age of one.

After starting their travels in Romania, then Dubai the family have gone on to visit India, the Maldives, Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, Thailand, Laos, the US, Colombia, Spain, Egypt, Italy and the Czech Republic.

The couple claim their sons are more advanced than other children their age and after looking at around 20 schools for their eldest Winston (centre) they made the life changing decision and sold their house and possessions to go globe spotting

Henry and Winston King under a pergola in Bali: The children are taught by their parents whilst travelling

Henry King holding up a squid on the beach in the Maldives: The Kings dont believe in government interference in education

Mr King has a business called Hammock Heaven, which makes hammocks in a warehouse in Cambridgeshire, but he runs remotely to fund their chosen lifestyle.

He added: 'Sometimes, it feels like they arent taking anything in. They werent bowled over by the pyramids and when we saw a Roman amphitheatre they said it was boring.

Left to right: Caroline King cross country skiing with son Winston on her back in Sweden, Winston King exploring Mount Vesuvius in Italy, and Paul, Caroline, Winston and Henry King in Dubai

Caroline, Henry, Paul and Winston King sat on a scooter in Ubud, India

Caroline and Winston King on boat looking towards Volcano Solfatara, Italy

Henry King sat in hammock in Maly Brevnov, Prague

'But later, they will talk about what theyve seen so we know it made an impression. One morning, they woke up and asked to go back to Egypt. Why read about history and cultures in a book when you can experience them first-hand?'

We dont raise our voices to the boys, so why should a teacher be allowed to? Paul and Caroline King

The parents do projects based on their visits and don't believe in shouting at their children.

They are spending the summer in Prague but have plans to go to Iceland and Australia next.

The King family on a boat trip in Kerala, India: The parents claim they can learn more from travelling to places and learning than just reading it in a book

Paul and Caroline King work remotely on their hammock business based in a warehouse in Cambridgeshire whilst on a beach in Koh Samui, Thailand while Winston and Henry play with toys on the sand
A worker who called in sick the morning after drunkenly posing for pictures was caught out by his boss who called him a 'lying c***'.

Danny Anderson sent a message to his boss, Craig, informing him he would not make it into work as he had a '24 hour bug'.

But his excuse backfired horribly as the blonde woman he had been photographed with the previous evening was friends with his boss.

She had posted the image of them linking arms and grinning for the camera on Snapchat with the caption 'Danny'.

Danny Anderson was caught out by his boss - who sent him a screen grab of his antics the previous evening

When Danny messaged in with his sick note, his boss replied with a screen grab of the photograph.

He told him bluntly: 'Caught right out on Snapchat. Lying c***!'

In a final, desperate attempt to cover his tracks Danny tried to tell his boss he was not the man in the picture.

However he has since admitted to pulling the sickie and said his boss had come to see the funny side of the incident.
A fisherman and his young son spotted five hammerhead sharks lurking in the water while a boat towed a water skier nearby.

Aron Martin and his four-year-old son Banx were circled by five hammerhead sharks - two larger than his 4.3 metre boat - while fishing at Mannering Park, in Lake Macquarie, north of Sydney, on Saturday morning, the Express Advocate reported.

The 27-year-old, from San Reno, spent 40 minutes following the school of sharks, much to the delight of his son, and captured footage of the moment a single fin cut through the water and a dark figure approached the boat.

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Aron Martin and his young son spotted five hammerhead sharks lurking in Lake Macquarie while a boat towed a water skier nearby

'We were just drifting with our lines in when we saw the two fins and then, all of a sudden, five hammerheads were around our boat,' Mr Martin told the Express Advocate.

In the video, which has been viewed on Facebook more than 31,000 times, the shark can be seen slowly cruising by, only metres from the anglers, before it disappeared into the lake.

During the up close encounter Mr Martin said he had concerns for a water skier who was being towed behind a boat nearby, where 'lots of people swim'.

'It's pretty concerning because a lot of people wakeboard and ski around here,' Mr Martin said.

The 27-year-old spent 40 minutes following the school of sharks and captured footage of the moment a single fin cut through the water and a dark figure approached the boat

In the video, which has been viewed on Facebook more than 31,000 times, the shark can be seen slowly cruising by, only metres from the anglers, before it disappeared into the lake

During the up close encounter Mr Martin (pictured) said he had concerns for a water skier who was being towed behind a boat nearby, where 'lots of people swim'

'I'm going to think twice about going in now,' he added.

He said bull sharks were known to swim in the area, while great white sharks have been sighted in the lake at the nearby headland off Gwandalan.

Smooth, scalloped and great hammerheads can be found in New South Wales, with the latter growing up to six metres in length, according to the Department of Primary Industries.

The migratory predator - which eats fish, squid, octopus, crustaceans and stingrays - swims in schools during the day but separate to hunt alone at night.

According to National Geographic, most species are quite small and are not a threat to humans however the great hammer head, which can weigh up to 450 kilograms, are considered dangerous due to their 'size and fierceness'.
Tim Farron has demanded a second referendum on the Brexit deal negotiated by the Government rule but warned the Labour civil war leaves the country open to unopposed Tory rule.

The Liberal Democrat leader has gathered his party in Brighton for its annual conference and told them they are crucial to fight for Britain's continued role in Europe.

Mr Farron said he believed Prime Minister Theresa May was 'pragmatic' and would concede to his demands for a second referendum if the Brexit deal was obviously unpopular in the country.

Tim Farron (right) demanded a second referendum on the Brexit deal on the Andrew Marr programme today but was accused of ignoring the result by Nigel Farage (left)

Mrs May's mantra since entering No 10 in July has been 'Brexit is Brexit' and vowed to follow through on the instructions from the British people.

Ex Ukip leader Nigel Farage today slammed Mr Farron for ignoring the democratic will of the country, which backed Brexit by more than a million votes.

Mr Farron made his latest intervention in an interview on the BBC One Andrew Marr programme.

Asked if he would back a pledge by Labour leadership contender Owen Smith to re-apply for EU membership after 2020, Mr Farron said: 'I have to say that might be too late.

'We would have left the European Union. My sense is what we need to be focussing on is that we trusted the British people on departure in June.

'We should now trust them with destination. The deal that will be settled for the future of the United Kingdom's relationship with Europe - the single market, free movement and everything else - is utterly unclear.

'I doubt even Theresa May knows. There needs to be a referendum on that deal.

'That's the best option for staying in, it's also the best option for the whole of our society.'

Liberal Democrat leader Mr Farron made his demand in an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr today as his party gathered in Brighton for party conference

Mr Farron revealed his fears that Jeremy Corbyn, assuming he is re-elected as Labour leader as expected next week, would refuse to work with the opponents to the Tories.

He said: 'I genuinely think what is happening in the Labour Party is a tragedy for British democracy. I think even Conservative voters out there think it is terrible there is no decent, proper opposition in this country.

'So my job is to build the Liberal Democrats, make it very clear that we are the positive, progressive, moderate opposition to the Tories and hope that people come and join us - there is every sign that is going to happen.'

He added: 'We could have a Tory government for the rest of our life times, for many of us, unless the Liberal Democrats can step up and fill the space the Labour Party has now deserted.'

Mr Farron has gathered his party in Brighton for the annual party conference, pictured, and is campaigning for Britain's continued place in Europe

Speaking on the same programme, Mr Farage dismissed Mr Farron's calls for a second referendum.

He said: 'The idea people who voted for Brexit voted for a blank sheet of paper is nonsense.

'They voted for us to take back control of our lives, they voted for us to come out of the single market, they voted for us to make our own laws and control our own borders.

'Everybody from Boris Johnson to Kate Hoey and Frank Field to the Ukippers, we all put that message out. We want out of the single market.'
He had been staying at Royal Palace of Agadir at the

hospital in Paris this morning with a lung infection

Chirac was taken to

Chirac led France from 1995 to 2007

Former French president Jacques Chirac, 83, was flown to hospital on a private jet after contracting pneumonia.

Chirac, who led France from 1995 to 2007, was 'hospitalised this morning at Pitie-Salpetriere (hospital in Paris) to be treated for a lung infection,' his son-in-law Frederic Salat-Baroux said.

He added that he would remain there 'in the coming days.'

A source close to the former president confirmed that he was conscious.

Chirac had been staying at Royal Palace of Agadir in Morocco, located near a military hospital, at the invitation of King Mohammed VI.

He and his family were rushed back to Paris on two of the king's private jets.

Leading politicians, including the mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppe, have sent their thoughts to Chirac and his family.

Chirac, who served two terms as head of state, is best remembered internationally for his opposition to the US-led Iraq War in 2003.

A small stroke while in office in 2005 weakened him, and he is now rarely seen in public.

In December 2015, he spent two weeks in hospital, suffering from what his family described as fatigue.

In recent weeks, his team said his health had improved.

France's former president Jacques Chirac arriving at a European Union summit in 2006

Leading politicians, including the mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppe, have sent their thoughts to Chirac and his family

Chirac has reportedly suffered from a degenerative neurological disorder in recent years, leading prosecutors to spare him the embarrassment of having to appear in court during his 2011 corruption trial.

He was handed a two-year suspended prison term for colluding in the creation of 28 fake jobs for party workers when he served as Paris mayor.

He avoided prison not only because of his age and status as a former head of state, but because of his frailty.

Mr Chirac was at one stage a heavy smoker, who also had a reputation as a bon viveur in every aspect of his life.

The former president retains close ties to Morocco, where he has a holiday home near Marrakesh.

He was the face of modern France at the beginning of this century, when he influenced a generation of younger politicians, including Nicolas Sarkozy.

Chirac, who served as an officer in the French Army in the 1950s, was also the country's prime minster between 197476 and 198688.
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Seven endangered pygmy elephants have died from starvation and dehydration after being stuck in a pool of mud a week in the jungle.

Wildlife rangers were alerted to the distressing scene by passers-by near the town of Tawau, on the island of Borneo, Malaysia.

The rangers were only able to rescue two elephants from the herd of nine who had been stuck in mud for about a week.

Malaysian wildlife rangers were only able to save two out of nine elephants who were found stuck in a mud pool in the Borneo rainforest

Five were dead on the rescue team's arrival and two had to be put down, according to a report by The Star.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga said: 'When our team managed to reach the area, five - two adults, a juvenile and two newborns - of the nine trapped elephants were already dead as evidently they were stuck in that pool for at least a week prior.'

'Unfortunately the other two elephants were too weak, dehydrated and blind that they had to be euthanised to put them out of their misery,' he said.

Mr Tuuga said the elephants were likely to have gone into the mud pool to cool down and bathe.

'They probably underestimated the depth and the quicksand-like consistency of the mud and could not come out,' he added.

These deaths are a devastating loss to conserving the 1,500 pygmy elephant population in Malaysia's state forests.

It is believed the elephants were likely to have gone into the mud pool to cool themselves and bathe but underestimated its depth. The deaths are a devastating loss in the conservation of the endangered pygmy elephant population

Mr Tuuga ruled out foul play with this incident based on the investigation and post-mortem reports.

Activist and politician Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said this was the largest incident of endangered elephants killed in Sabah since 2013 when 14 were found dead because of poisoning.

'Let this latest tragedy be a wake-up call to all humans to exercise their conscience and do more to protect wildlife sharing our planet and assist in conservation efforts,' Mr Thye said.

'Do not allow more wildlife tragedies because of human neglect and callousness,' he added.
Liberal Democrat grandees hit the dancefloor alongside their much younger activists last night for the third annual party disco.

Veteran Sir Simon Hughes kicked off proceedings at the Brighton Hilton - the main hotel for the party conference - with Tiny Turner's Simply the Best.

He was joined on the dance floor by Julian Huppert, the ex-Cambridge MP who organises the annual booze-fuelled event under the moniker MC J.Hupz.

Ex-MPs Julian Huppert (left) and Sir Simon Hughes (right) were on hand throughout the night to ensure nobody felt left out of the dancing

Hundreds of Liberal Democrat delegates turned out for the late night party which eventually broke up in the early hours of Sunday morning

Senior party figures - almost all now ex-politicians after the wipe out of the general election - then take it in turns to come up with the best disco playlist.

Sir Simon got off to a faltering start after inviting the still mostly sober activists to guess Fat Boy Slim - a task in which he failed.

The Killers' Mr Brightside was offered up by Welsh Education Secretary Kirsty Williams was then an early favourite.

Bu ex-business minister Jo Swinson won the dubious honour of the Lib Dem Disco crown for the second year running with a set including the Spice Girls Spice up Your Life.

Welsh Education Secretary Kirsty Williams (left) made a strong start in the Lib Dem Disco competition but was eventually overhauled by Jo Swinson (right) who retained her title

Paddy Ashdown starred at the event last year but made only the briefest of appearances for the 2016 edition.

Party sources revealed leader Tim Farron got an early night and was in bed before the party even started at 10.30pm.

The party broke up in the early hours after a dreadful performance of the Macarena - while S Club 7 brought proceedings to a close.
GAC to Raise Production to 1 Million Cars by 2020 to Meet Demand for High-end Cars

A worker checks a car in the GAC assembly plant in Guangzhou, Guandong Province. (Photo : Getty Images)

GAC Motor Ltd, a Guangzhou-based car manufacturer that develops home-grown vehicles, is set to raise its annual production capacity from the current 400,000 to one million vehicles by 2020, in the face of a growing demand for high-end cars in China, Wu Song, the company president said.



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"We will launch more high-end varieties in the years ahead, based on our C-Class research and development platform," Wu was quoted as saying at the sidelines of the annual China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.



China Daily reported that GAC Motor continues to make sales despite the slow growth of the domestic car industry. In the first eight months of the year, the company has sold about 226,000 vehicles, up 148 percent year-on-year.



According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, vehicle sales growth in the country increased only by 11.4 percent year-on-year from January to August.



"The big sales increase was based on our principle for yearsto develop high quality and safe cars," said Wu, who is also vice general manger of Guangzhou Automobile Group Co, the parent company of GAC Motor. He was a speaker in the annual China-ASEAN Expo.



Guests of the annual expo used GAC's newly-launched sedan, the GA8, which is developed under its high-end and luxury C-Class development platform.



"We are considering building production lines in Southeast Asia, an important market for the future growth of Chinese self-developed cars," Wu added.



Founded in 2008, GAC Motor started construction of its assembly line in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, which focused on making medium and high-end SUV and new energy vehicles.



"Establishment of the Xijiang facility will allow us to tap the far northwest China market and help meet the growing demand for Chinese domestically-made vehicles from countries and regions along the Silk Road Economic Belt," Wu said.



The company said that their plant in the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone is planning to make an initial 50,000 cars at the 1.6 billion yuan ($244 million). It will eventually aim to make 200,000 cars annually under the brand of Trumpchi.



In March, the company acquired GAC Gonow, a joint venture between Guangzhou Automobile Group Co and Zhejiang Gonow Holdings Group Co. and it is now planning to improve its assembly facilities in Hangzhou.


At the trial he was sentenced to 14 months in prison

The 36-year-old he sped off down the M62 and was

A man has been jailed following a high-speed police chase that a judge said was the longest he had ever heard of.

Mohammed Azad took police on a 30-mile chase around motorways in Merseyside.

A court heard how on August 19 police saw Azad driving erratically and attempted to pull him over.

Mohammed Azad has been jailed following a high-speed police chase that a judge at Bolton Crown Court (pictured) said was the longest he had ever heard of

The 36-year-old pulled over in the green Audi but as the officer went to get out of his car he sped off down the M62 heading towards Manchester.

What followed was a high-speed chase that saw Azad reach speeds of 125mph.

At the hearing at Bolton Crown Court on Friday, the court heard how he undertook vehicles, driving on the hard shoulder and causing several near misses during the 15-minute pursuit.

Azad of Bolton, Greater Manchester, then abandoned his car in a cul-de-sac where he was arrested by police.

Azad pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking, driving without insurance or a licence and failing to stop when required to by an officer.

The court heard Azad had a lengthy criminal record for similar offences including vehicle taking and driving while disqualified.

In 2010 he was sent to prison for dangerous driving and again in 2012.

The length of the pursuit was the greatest length that I have encountered. How every other motorist avoided a collision with you I don't know Judge Timothy Stead

Judge Timothy Stead said: 'To calculate the number of ordinary people whose lives were put in danger by this is very large indeed.

'The skill the police officer showed in the pursuit was quite remarkable. You have one of the worst records for criminal driving that I have ever come across.

'The length of the pursuit was the greatest length that I have encountered. How every other motorist avoided a collision with you I don't know.

'It's a mercy that you didn't hit any children as they are often walking on these streets.'

David Toal, defending, said: 'Following his release from prison he has been on track to take a different direction in life, taking an active part in the lives of his children living with his wife and contributing towards their life.

'He was due to start in full time employment for the first time in a long time.'
The HS2 rail project has already cost taxpayers more than 2billion and not an inch of the track has been laid yet.

The estimated bill for the ambitious project has already almost doubled from 30bn to 55.7bn since 2010 and critics have said spending is getting 'out of control'.

HS2 is spending 35million a month buying up house in places where the line won't open for 17 years and sending people to monitor bats, owls, reptiles and trees.

Ministers claim that HS2, running between London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, will revolutionise rail travel and shrink the North-South divide

Phase one between London and the West Midlands is due to begin next year, if [as expected] it is approved by Parliament.

It will not be finished until 2027, with further extensions to Crewe expected to open a year later and Manchester to Leeds in 2033.

Opponents of the project have accused the government of 'deliberately wasting money' to make it harder to cancel.

The long-delayed announcement on the exact route of the HS2 scheme (pictured) is now due in the autumn

Hilary Wharf, director of the HS2 Alliance, said: 'The view seems to be that the more they spend now, the more difficult it is to stop.'

New figures obtained by the Sunday Times revealed how HS2 Ltd, the holding company for the project, had spent 1.4bn by the end of March.

However a further 442m was spent buying up properties, which were paid for by the Department for Transport.

The most expensive was the former National Temperance Hospital, near Euston, purchased for 28.5m. The costliest residential property was Springfield Farm, near Great Missenden, which cost 5.5m.

Simon Kirby (pictured) has been poached by Rolls-Royce

The newspaper also reported how HS2 had splashed out on a 'ridiculous' number of ecology and wildlife surveys.

One farmer, Robert Brown, said he had been visited 46 times since January - at a cost of 200-300 each time.

HS2 also spent millions of pounds moving to a swanky new office in Birmingham from London - at a rent of at least 2.8m a year.

The project was thrown into turmoil last week when its chief executive Simon Kirby quit weeks before a crucial decision by MPs.

Mr Kirby, whose 750,000 salary made him Britain's most highly-paid civil servant, was poached by Rolls-Royce.

It leaves Europe's largest infrastructure project without a leader shortly before it is expected to be given the go-ahead by the Commons.

Last week a hard-hitting report the Adam Smith Institute described the high speed link as 'economically irresponsible' and said 'the numbers simply do not stack up'.

The thinktank said the 56billion earmarked for the project would be better spent on building quicker train links between Manchester and other Northern cities like Leeds to boost the economy in the North of England.

MPs on the public accounts committee last week warned that ministers had failed to set out realistic estimates of the likely cost and construction timetable for rail link.

They said the Department for Transport's timetable was 'overly ambitious'.

They also raised doubts over the DfT's claim that it had found savings of up to 9billion in the 28.5billion budget for phase two, questioning if they could be made 'without adversely affecting the benefits of the programme'.

Tory MP Michael Fabricant said: 'The costs of HS2 are getting out of hand. I accept we need an additional rail line. But alternative routes are both cheaper and less damaging to the environment. I hope Theresa May puts the brakes on HS2 and calls for a rethink.'
The cruelty of factory farming has once more been exposed with disturbing footage revealing the horrific conditions in which rabbits are kept.

Animal Liberation released footage of a rabbit farm in Baldivis, 46km south of Perth in Western Australia, which showed rabbits left for dead in tiny, filthy cages above mountains of manure.

'I think it's one of those industries that the public is just completely aware that it even exists,' the animal welfare group's campaign director Emma Hurst told 7News.

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Rabbits are kept in tiny, filthy cages at farms which breed them for their meat

Some of Australia's largest rabbit farms in NSW and Victoria produce about 30,000 rabbits a year

The female rabbits, which are bred for their meat, can be farmed for up to 56 weeks, producing nine litters.

The animal welfare organisation similarly discovered rabbits with bald patches and cage floors made out of wire at another rabbit farm in Tasmania.

Some of Australia's largest rabbit farms in NSW and Victoria produce about 30,000 rabbits a year.

RSPCA NSW chief David O'Shannessy encourages the industry to consider non-caged alternatives.

Animal Liberation released footage of a rabbit farm in Baldivis, 46km south of Perth in Western Australia

The female rabbits, which are bred for their meat, can be farmed for up to 56 weeks, producing nine litters

'Particularly with rabbits, there might be opportunities for the animals to housed in small compatible social groups, on the ground, in litter with tunnels for behavioural enrichment,' he said.

Independent MP Alex Greenwich is looking to ban the practice.

'We hope to engage in public awareness about this cruel form of factory farming and introduce legislation this year into parliament, and work with our colleagues across the political spectrum to get this through,' he told 7News.

Supermarket giant Woolworths is considering a ban on the sale of caged rabbit meat.

The video showed rabbits left for dead in tiny, filthy cages above mountains of manure

The female rabbits, which are bred for their meat, can be farmed for up to 56 weeks, producing nine litters

Rabbit meat stored in freezers: animal welfare groups are calling for the end of this cruel practice
A woman has publicly shamed a western Sydney hairdressing after she was reduced to tears and berated by staff for forgetting to bring her wallet.

Kerrie Davies was at Blondes & Brunettes hair salon in Mount Druitt getting her hair blow dried when she realised she had left her wallet at home in a different bag.

Coming up $15 short on the $30 payment, she claims to have been berated by staff members and then the store manager - who refused to let her leave the store.

According to Ms Davies, offers to leave behind her bag and mobile and race home to get her wallet or transfer the funds using online banking were flat-out rejected.

Eventually the hair salon called security on Ms Davies, but when he arrived he simply paid the remaining $15 and asked her to pay back the concierge if she had a chance.

Sydney woman Kerrie Davies (right, with husband Greg) left a scathing review of a hair salon after she was reduced to tears for forgetting to bring her wallet to a blow dry appointment

Ms Davies claims the manager at Blondes & Brunettes hair salon in Mount Druitt refused to let her leave her mobile and bag behind while she raced home to pick up the $15 bill

Her scathing review of the uncomfortable store experience was posted online in detail, racking up over 16,000 shares and 34,000 likes on Facebook in just a few hours.

'Went to have my hair blow dried today and when I got to the counter to pay the $30 I discovered I'd left my wallet in my other bag!,' Ms Davies wrote.

'I had $15 tucked in a zipper of my bag but no wallet so no cards or cash. Mortified, I explain the situation. Hairdresser tells me I have to get someone to bring the $15 and I'm not to leave the store.'

'I explain that I have our car so I can't get Greg (husband) to bring it to me. Can I leave my bag, phone and race home and get it? "No." (staff reply)'

'Since I have my phone can I transfer it to you? "No." (staff reply).

Ms Davies claims that when she relayed her situation to the manager, she was met with: 'We gave you a service and you are not to leave here until we are paid in full.'

Her scathing review of the uncomfortable store experience was posted online in detail

The Facebook post racked up thousands of comments overnight

Becoming flustered and feeling humiliated in front of the crowded store, her saving grace came in the form of a security guard named Drew.

'Security guard arrives and rude Manager is barking "She's not leaving here" over the top of me while I'm trying to explain the situation to the security guard,' she wrote.

'He looks at the Manager as if she has three heads, reaches into his wallet and pulls out $15, gives it to her and says to me "Just drop it in to concierge when you can. Sorry, I can see how embarrassed you are."'

'I drove home and got my wallet and gave him back the $15 and a $10 scratchie. Hope he wins a fortune!'

Since posting the review online, the hair salon's business page on Facebook has been flooded with 413 negative one-star reviews.

Blonde & Brunettes is a chain with five shops placed throughout western Sydney.

Ms Davies later wrote that the owner of the chain had called her up to apologise for the incident, promising her he would be introducing customer service training.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Blonde & Brunettes for comment.

Since posting the review online, the hair salon's business page on Facebook has been flooded with 413 negative one-star reviews
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After a balmy Indian summer made way for sudden storms which lashed parts of the country, it would appear autumn has finally arrived.

Temperatures for the rest of the week are expected to range from 18 to 20C, with lows of around 14C - typical for late September.

This comes after Met Office figures revealed the first half of September was warmer on average than June, July and August - with temperatures hitting up to 34C at the start of the month.

But this weekend some sun-seekers appear to be clinging desperately to what remains of summer as they enjoyed a skinny-dipping session in Brighton.

Police were today called to deal with a group of people that were sunbathing naked on the beach in Brighton

Keen hikers and photographers out early this morning took in the mist covering over Castleton in the Peak District

After a week of blistering summer sunshine, the impending arrival of the autumn equinox in four days time was illustrated on the banks of the River Conwy in North Wales

People enjoy an afternoon in the grounds of Mottisfont House, Hampshire, as Britain experiences the last few days of sun

A series of warm weather records melted away last week as Britain basked in the warmest September temperatures in more than a century

Many parts of the UK - including London and Manchester - suffered a deluge of rain at the start of the weekend as a record heatwave and blistering sunshine made way for stormy conditions.

According to forecasters, autumn is here, with temperatures gradually getting cooler over the next few weeks, making way for 'unsettled' conditions into October.

A series of warm weather records melted away last week as Britain basked in the warmest September temperatures in more than a century.

The hottest spot of all was Gravesend in Kent where the mercury soared to 34.4C (93.9F) on Tuesday afternoon.

That shattered a series of weather records, including:

The hottest September temperature recorded in Britain since 1911

The hottest day of the year, beating the 93.3F (34.1C) reached at Faversham, also in Kent, on August 25

And it was not just one surprisingly hot day - the whole first half of September was unusually warm, latest figures from the Met Office have confirmed.

The group sunbathing naked on the beach in Brighton were stopped by police because they were away from the designated nudist beach

The naked sunseekers were clearly trying to cling onto the last bit of summer - despite scores of families nearby on the beach in Brighton, East Sussex

A man enjoys the warm weather as he cruises past the former West Pier in Brighton, East Sussex on his paddle board

A chimney from a mine rises from the mist laying over Castleton in the Peak District this morning

Many parts of the UK - including London and Manchester - suffered a deluge of rain at the start of the weekend as a record heatwave and blistering sunshine made way for stormy conditions

Revellers were pictured enjoying sunrise on the beach after a long Saturday night out in Brighton

Families and tourists enjoy a sunny afternoon in the grounds of the stunning Mottisfont House in Hampshire

Fishing boats sitting in the harbour at Padstow in Cornwall under a dramatic and breathtaking sky at sunrise

Low hanging mist shrouds the landscape around Great Longstone in the Derbyshire Dales

Met Office spokesman Grahame Madge said: 'The average temperature over the first two weeks of September has been warmer than the average temperature of the whole months of June, July and August.'

But people should not put all their autumn clothes back in the cupboard just yet.

Mr Madge said forecasters expect the rest of September to cool down considerably.

He added: 'We are not expecting the average temperature of the whole of September to be higher than those of June, July and August.

'The second half of September is expected to be cooler.'

As summer finally comes to a close, Mottisfont House in Hampshire was still bathed in sunlight this morning

Derbyshire Dales: Autumn has arrived and temperatures are set to begin to drop over the forthcoming weeks

Dog walkers enjoyed took a leisurely stroll around the National Trust's Mottisfont House in Hampshire

Great Longstone: After a balmy Indian summer made way for sudden storms which lashed parts of the country, it would appear autumn has finally arrived

Mist on the Derbyshire Dales: Met Officer forecaster Charlie Powell said most parts of the UK can expect a couple of weeks of 'benign' weather to come, before conditions gradually get colder into October

Met Officer forecaster Charlie Powell said most parts of the UK can expect a couple of weeks of 'benign' weather to come, before conditions gradually get colder into October.

Providing the outlook for the next week, he said: 'We can expect autumnal, dry weather, perhaps with bursts of rain at times through the coming week and with temperatures closer to normal - in the high teens.

'We certainly had a more interesting week last week, with high temperatures and storms. But we will have a quiet week to come as we move towards the end of September.'

He said the start of next week will remain dry but from September 24 the north west of the UK could see wet and windy conditions.

Temperatures throughout the rest of September are likely to remain in the mid-high teens.

However in October, conditions could become more unsettled.

Mr Powell added: 'It will generally be dry over the next few weeks but in the middle of October it will become more unsettled.'

Mist lays over Castleton in the Peak District: A record heatwave and blistering sunshine has made way for autumnal conditions

Brighton Pier at sunrise: This weekend some sun-seekers appeared to be clinging desperately to what remains of summer as they enjoyed a skinny-dipping session in Brighton
The suspect allegedly attacked 23-year-old Aysegul Terzi (pictured), who works as a nurse, and kicked her in the face

A Turkish court on Sunday released a man who confessed to kicking a young woman in the face on an Istanbul bus because she was wearing shorts.

The 35-year-old had confessed during his interrogation to attacking the woman but was released by the court after it decided that no crime had been committed.

Turkish police had arrested the man on charges of kicking a woman for wearing shorts on a bus in Istanbul.

Police detained the suspect on Saturday in Turkey's largest city, the private Dogan news agency reported.

He was heard shouting: 'Those wearing shorts must die!'

The suspect allegedly attacked 23-year-old Aysegul Terzi, who works as a nurse, and kicked her in the face, reports said.

Ms Terzi was left with severe bruising after the attack.

She went on to describe how three men stepped in to try to put an end to the beating.

The man later told police he had been angered by her clothing.

He said: 'The shorts she was wearing were not appropriate. That's why I was angry and behaved so.'

The attack was caught on CCTV and apparently shows the beating incident.

The man, who handles security for a company, had previously been diagnosed as suffering from 'manic depression', the agency said.

Many feminists in Turkey have expressed growing concern over the extent of violence against women, with hundreds killed every year, often by their husbands.

Outraged Twitter users took to social media to protest the attack and to declare that the victim was entitled to dress as she chooses.

Roberto Sandano asked: '"Those who wear shorts must die!.." a good pair of legs is devil? What's God then?'
The former right hand woman of Lord Alan Sugar is warning that tattoos will affect young people's chances of a good job.

Margaret Mountford, lawyer and businesswoman, argues tattoos seriously decrease youngsters chances of finding and holding down a job.

Margaret Mountford (left) is best known as the lawyer and businesswoman who supported Lord Alan Sugar during for five series of The Apprentice

Speaking to The Sunday Times she said; 'They are a real problem for young people because there are swathes of the workplace where it is simply not appropriate to be greeted by a young person with a tattoo.

'Some people seem to think tattoos are like jewellery but not to me and not to many others.'

Margaret Mountford believes tattoos affect young people's chances in the working world

But as the MailOnline reported on Friday a researchers of a recent study found that having tattoos can actually increase a candidates chance at employment, as body art can help to convey an organizations image, especially for those geared toward younger customers.

In the study, led by the University of St. Andrews, 192 people with managerial experience were recruited to rate images of people both with and without tattoos. The research, presented on Wednesday at the British Sociological Association, was carried out in the US and UK, and used photos from a public image database.

It is estimated about one in five of the UK population have a tattoo, but this has risen to around one in three in young adults.

Many celebrities are often showing off their body inks including Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, David Beckham, Lady Gaga and even Dame Judi Dench who marked her 81st birthday with a new tattoo.

David Beckham: But in spite of her views and a recent study, many celebrity role models who have had success continue to show off their tattoos

Footballer David Beckham has at least 40 tattoos and sleeves on his arms

Lady Gaga who has recently come back to the music scene with her new album also has a few tattoos

Cheryl Fernandez-Versini made headlines with her large rose tattoo on her back, bum and leg (pictured)

Police forces across the UK, including London Metropolitan Police and Thames Valley Police, do not like new recruits to have visible tattoos even if they are volunteers.

Margaret Mounteford, who worked with Lord Alan Sugar for 20 years and appeared with him on The Apprentice, added: 'When I talk to people my age who have had tattoos, and they are usually men, they always regret it.

She claimed parents should have given them better advice and warned of other shortcomings of young people at work, including a lack of social skills, from team work to shaking hands, and bad literacy levels.

Her opinions came to light when she was launching a new qualification at Benenden girl's boarding school, in Kent.
Douglas Carswell, pictured at this weekend's Ukip conference, claimed Nigel Farage cost the party up to 11 seats at the General Election

Douglas Carswell today claimed Nigel Farage cost the party up to 11 seats in the Commons, renewing infighting just hours after making a show of loyalty to the new leader.

The Ukip MP said Mr Farage's 'shock and awful' tactics at the General Election had left him sitting alone in the Commons when they could have won more seats.

The Eurosceptic party under performed in a string of constituencies at the 2015 election meaning that while they scored many votes across the country they only racked up a winning score in Mr Carswell's Clacton seat.

That election was followed by a split on the tactics for this year's June referendum and Mr Carswell has claimed the Brexit vote would never have happened if Vote Leave had allowed Mr Farage the leading role in the campaign he wanted.

Ms James hit the airwaves herself today in a bid to establish herself with the public as Ukip leader despite the on-going rows and the frequent continued appearances of Mr Farage.

Mr Carswell delivered his latest salvo in an appearance on the Sky News Murnaghan programme.

He said: 'The outcome of both the general election and the referendum rather vindicates my idea that you need to be upbeat, optimistic and inclusive in order to win over swing voters.

'Once we had people's attention, we were unable to persuade them to vote for us in sufficient numbers where it mattered.

Just yesterday the Ukip MP, left, was putting on a show of loyalty with new leader Diane James at the party's autumn conference which was blighted by continued Ukip infighting

'There was, if you remember, the shock and awful strategy in the run-up to the general election. I think that cost us something like one in three votes after the high watermark after the end of the Rochester by-election.

'We could have had half a dozen to a dozen members of Parliament if we had got the six-month strategy in the run-up to the general election right.'

Ms James, seen arriving at the BBC today, is trying to raise her profile as Ukip leader and named Putin, Churchill and Thatcher as her political heroes

In her first major interview as Ukip leader today, Ms James named her political heroes are Vladimir Putin, Margaret Thatcher and Sir Winston Churchill.

Diane James was asked on BBC One's Sunday Politics who, 'other than Vladimir Putin', were her political heroes, and she named the two former British prime ministers.

When asked to confirm whether her heroes were 'Putin, Churchill and Thatcher', she replied in the affirmative.

The questioning stemmed from a 2015 interview in which Ms James described the Russian president as 'a strong leader' who stands up for his country.

Mr Putin has attracted international criticism after the Russian annexation of Crimea, incursion into Ukraine and his support for the brutal Bashar Assad regime in Syria.

But Ms James said in the 2015 interview: 'Nigel (Farage) went on record saying if you provoke the Russian bear you get a reaction.

'I admire him from the point of view that he's standing up for his country. He is very nationalist.
A boat carrying 150 passengers has crashed into a bridge in Thailand with reports of at least 13 people dead, including a child.

The boat full of tourists returning from a new mosque in the city of Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok, according to a report by The Independent.

The double storey boat is believed to have crashed into a pillar on the Chao Praya River at 4pm local time, in a report by The Sun.

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Thai rescue teams are searching for missing passengers from a capsized boat in Thailand

Dozens of rescuers wait along the banks of the Chao Praya River, after a boat crashed into a bridge pillar

At least 10 people are dead, including one child. There are fears that up to a dozen people are missing

Video of the crash shows people in yellow shirts frantically trying to get off the sinking boat as people on the banks try to help by throwing a safety rope and life jackets to them.

There are fears that up to a dozen people are missing.

Rescuers are currently at the scene.

The boat was returning from a new mosque in the city of Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok

A rescue operation is currently underway

Passengers wearing the yellow shirts watch at the boat they were on sinks

In the footage, dozen of people who escaped the sinking boat waiting on the banks of the river
Donald Trump is striking back at the former defense secretary who slammed him for being 'beyond repair' when it comes to protecting national security.

The Republican presidential nominee took jabs at Robert Gates during a rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in response to a Wall Street Journal column in which Gates said Trump is unqualified to be commander-in-chief.

'We had a clown today, an absolute clown, Robert Gates  he's supposed to be an expert, he's been there forever,' Trump told supporters at the JetCenters Saturday.

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Donald Trump is hitting back at a former defense secretary who said he's unfit to be president

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that when it comes to national security, he believes Donald Trump 'is beyond repair'

'He speaks badly about everything. Never met the guy, never saw him. I saw him on television, didn't like him. The end result is look where we are. He's a mess, OK? He's a mess, so he goes out and he says negative things about me.'

On Saturday, Gates said Trump is 'stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform.'

Gates concluded: 'He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief.'

Trump said Gates is 'a nasty guy, probably has a problem that we don't know about.'

'I never met him, I never talked to him,' he added. 'Believe me, I am so much better at what he's doing than he is, you won't even believe it.'

But Trump admitted: 'I don't like critics. I like the people that get it done and get it done right.

Gates says Trump is 'stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform'

Trump replied with this response on Twitter, saying nothing about the accusations against him

Gates, a registered Republican, has served under presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

He ran the CIA under the elder Bush and was appointed secretary of defense by the younger Bush, a post that he continued well into Obama's first term.

Gates blasted Trump for being clueless to America's foreign policy goals.

'Mr. Trump is also willfully ignorant about the rest of the world, about our military and its capabilities, and about government itself,' Gates wrote.

'He disdains expertise and experience while touting his ownsuch as his claim that he knows more about ISIS than America's generals.

'He has no clue about the difference between negotiating a business deal and negotiating with sovereign nations.'

Robert Gates (pictured), a registered Republican, served under presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Barack Obama

Gates said all the presidents he's served for have been keen to listen to their advisers  even if they eventually went against their advice. The former defense secretary said he worried Trump wouldn't listen.

'The world we confront is too perilous and too complex to have as president a man who believes he, and he alone, has all the answers and has no need to listen to anyone,' Gates wrote. 'In domestic affairs, there are many checks on what a president can do; in national security there are few constraints.

'A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander-in-chief is too great a risk for America.'

Trump has posted a response on his Twitter account saying he's never met Gates, and Gates 'knows nothing about me.'

Trump then says of Gates: 'Look at the results under his guidance - a total disaster!'
Protestors Rally Outside UN General Assembly (Photo : Getty Images)

Given Chinas bad record of human rights violations, it is not surprising to hear from detainees of stories of barbaric forms of torture to humiliate and inflict maximum pain on prisoners. A Falun Gong follower detained in Beijing detention centers and labor camps between 2006 and 2009 gave examples of the inhumane methods he and other prisoners suffered over the years.



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Jintao Liu recalled going through electric shocks, medical tests, forced feedings, beatings and violent assaults in the hands of prison guards. However, what he considered the one punishment that caused the deepest psychological wound was the anal rape in the toilet, reported New York Post.



He said four prison guards took off his clothes and used the toilet brush to penetrate his anus. The guards told him they would continue piercing his rectum until Jintao turned homosexual. They also pulled his pubic hair and played with his genitals.



Besides individual tortures, a lot of the prisoners were also forced to give up their body organs through forced surgeries, which explains why China has a very high rate of organ transplant procedures despite official organ donations at a much lower rate.



Particular target of these torture practices were members of the Falun Gong who are estimated to have reached 100 million members in the 1990s that authorities banned the practice in 1999. Many Falun Gong members were jailed with no legal proceedings, said Dr. Sophia Bryskine, Australia spokeswoman of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting.



According to the spokeswoman of Falun Gong, more than 65,000 Falun Gong disciples were allegedly killed for their organ, while across China, the number reached 1.5 million, reported Edsonleader.






Took one of them on date to Chinese restaurant and Empire State building

Valle, who has divorced, now says about 50 women have contacted him

Former NYPD officer spent 21 months in jail before being cleared in 2014

New York City's 'Cannibal Cop' claims dozens of women have contacted him on social media - months after he was cleared of planning to abduct, kill and eat 100 women including his wife.

Gilberto Valle, 32, spent 21 months in jail before his conviction was overturned in 2014. A judge ruled he was only role-playing on a cannibalism forum and posed no real danger.

The FBI had found a 'target list' of names, addresses and photographs of women on Valle's computer - and he had searched online for abduction methods, prosecutors said at the time.

But Valle, who is now divorced and says he hasn't since his four-year-old daughter since his wife first went to the police, has received messages from at least 50 women on social media.

Former NYPD cop Gilberto Valle (pictured outside of court in 2014) claims dozens of potential dates reached out to him online after he was cleared of planning to eat and kill women

The former cop, who was fired after his arrest in 2012 and now works at a friend's construction company, told the New York Post he started receiving attention shortly after getting out of prison in July 2014.

'They would say things like, "I'm really happy you prevailed" and "Hope you're doing well,"' Valle said in an interview published Sunday.

'Many reached out because they are interested in my case. I started chatting more with a few of them and eventually asked some on dates.'

He took one of them on a romantic evening that included dinner at a Chinese restaurant near Wall Street, then to the top of the Empire State building.

Valle and his date, who is not from New York City and has a passion for law, had met on Facebook and he asked her out after the two chatted 'a while'.

The pair ended the night at a comedy show and Valle believes they 'definitely hit it off'.

Valle (pictured in his police officer uniform) spent 21 months in jail before his conviction was overturned in 2014. He was fired from the NYPD after his arrest in 2012

His then-wife, Kathleen Mangan (pictured with him in an archive shot) told authorities in 2012 that Valle was planning to kill and eat more than 100 women, including herself

Having his cannibalistic fantasies revealed hasn't kept Valle from getting dates. He told the Post one woman 'brought up what happened once and said she thought the whole thing was nonsense and everyone has their own things they're into'.

Valle was jailed in 2012 for kidnapping conspiracy after his then wife, Kathleen Mangan, told the authorities that he was planning to kill and eat more than 100 women, including herself.

She had grown suspicious of his late-night computer sessions and installed spyware on the PC, leading her to make the horrific discovery.

However, he insisted that his role as 'The Chef' on the fetish website was to create role-play scenarios for people interested in cannibalism, and his use of pictures and research on ways to kidnap people was purely to help his writing.

The twisted fantasies he wrote about included 'letting her bleed out then butcher her while she hangs'.

Valle (pictured with his mother Elizabeth leaving court in 2014) later defended his use of the fetish websites. He is now writing a tell-all to 'set the record straight'

The former cop (pictured center outside of court in 2014) is now in therapy and works for a friend's construction company. He wants to earn visitations rights to see his daughter

Valle later defended his use of the fetish websites.

'I'm not so much into the whole cannibal part per se. It's more about, like, the bondage stuff,' he said after his conviction was overturned following his successful appeal.

The former police officer, who was fired after his arrest, told the Post he is working on getting visitation privileges to see his daughter.

Valle has also written a third of what he believes will be a 'brutal tell-all' going back to his childhood and teenage years.

He says he is working with ghost writer Brian Whitney, who previously worked with porn actress Porsche Lynn's memoir, The Girl With the Million-Dollar Legs.

Valle, who is in therapy, said he is not ashamed of his fetishes and insisted he would never bring any of them to life.
A Muslim woman from Australia travelled to France to wear her burkini on the beach, only to be confronted and forced off the sand by angry locals within minutes.

Zeynab Alshelh, a 23-year-old medical student from Sydney, decided to fly to Europe a few weeks ago after becoming upset when 30 French cities banned women from wearing the full-length swimsuits at public beaches after the Nice terror attack in July, according to Channel Seven's program Sunday Night.

In an attempt to show solidarity with local Muslims, Ms Alshelh and her mother wore their blue burkinis as they enjoyed a day out on the French Riviera with her father.

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Zeynab Alshelh (right), a 23-year-old medical student from Sydney, wore a burkini on the French Riviera after becoming upset when several cities banned the full-length swimsuits from beaches

In an attempt to show solidarity with local Muslims, Ms Alshelh (left) and her family (pictured) wore burkinis as they enjoyed a day out

Within minutes they were confronted and forced off of the sand by angry locals (pictured)

Despite the fact the ban on burkinis had since been overturned by France's highest administrative court, Ms Alshelh and her family were met with harsh reactions from fellow beachgoers.

'We were threatened by locals to leave the beach and if we didn't they were going to call the police. They weren't happy with us being there, even though it was on the beach that the burkini ban was overturned but the locals were not happy,' she said.

A man confronted Ms Alshelh and told her he would call the police if she and her family didn't leave, while others made hand gestures or muttered disapproving comments.

Despite the fact that the ban on burkinis had since been overturned by France's highest administrative court, Ms Alshelh and her family (pictured left with her mother and father) were met with harsh reactions

One man (pictured) threatened to call the police if she didn't leave the beach immediately

Ms Alshelh (pictured left with her mother) began wearing a burka when she was 10-years-old and said the ban on burkinis was 'ridiculous'

'There shouldn't be a connection between terrorism and the burkini and there shouldn't be a connection between terrorism and Islam altogether,' Ms Alshelh said.

'I have a nose, you have a nose you have two eyes, I have two eyes - everything is the same just slight difference in your believe systems.'

Frustrated by the reception she was met with at the beach, Ms Alshelh teamed up with a local Muslim woman to answer any questions the locals might have about the burkini.

'There shouldn't be a connection between terrorism and the burkini and there shouldn't be a connection between terrorism and Islam altogether,' Ms Alshelh (pictured) said

Ms Alshelh (third from the right) has been studying karate since she was 11 and has competed on a national level

The burkini helps combine her love of sports and her religion, she said (pictured)

Ms Alshelh (pictured) is seen wandering along North Cronulla beach, south of Sydney

But the pair were once again met with a less than friendly response.

'I just wanted to see it for myself, I wanted to see what is going on here  why is this happening  I want to speak to the girls who have gone through this kind of stuff,' she said.

Although the French court ruled that the Bastille Day terrorist attack in Nice was insufficient grounds to justify the ban on Islamic swimwear, Nice and several other towns have ignored the ruling and still enforce the ban.

Women have been forced by police to remove garments that cover their head or majority of their body and others have also been given fines.

Women have been forced by police to remove garments that cover their head or majority of their body and others have also been given fines (pictured)

Australian Aheda Zanetti (centre), the creator of the burkini, says that's she's confused by the controversy surrounding the swimsuit

Ms Alshelh has undergone fittings with Ms Zanetti in Sydney (pictured)

Ms Alshelh, who began wearing a burka at the age of 10, said she has always been active in sports and was excited when she met Australian Aheda Zanetti, the creator of the burkini.

Ms Zanetti's garment allowed her to combine her love of sports with her religion, she said.

Ms Alshelh has been studying karate since she was 11 and has competed on a national level.

The controversy surrounding the burkini is confusing and shocking, Ms Zanetti said.

'Have they misunderstood?' she asked. 'I introduced the burkini for integration, for freedom, and they've used it in a negative way,' she previously told Daily Mail Australia.

The burkini isn't just for Muslim women - around 40 per cent of the women who buy the swimsuit are non-Muslim, Ms Zanetti said.
A Somali general and at least seven of his bodyguards have been killed by a suicide car bomber.

The attacker rammed a car carrying explosives into General Mohamed Jimale Goobale's convoy near the defence ministry headquarters in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital.

Al-Shabab, an Al Qaeda aligned jihadist group, claimed responsibility for the attack and accused the general of plotting against them.

He had survived several previous assassination attempts.

The Islamist militant group Al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for a car bomb in Mogadishu that killed a Somali general

The general was wounded in the attack this afternoon and died later in hospital

The Islamist al-Shabab group, which is affiliated to al-Qaeda, said it was behind the attack

The terror group staged the attack in the build-up to a vote for a new parliament and president, part of efforts to build a nation that has been ripped apart by two decades of war and chaos.

Security official Abdiaziz Mohamed said: 'There was a heavy blast caused by a car loaded with explosives alongside the industrial road, several members of the military were killed in the incident including a senior commander.'

Witness Abdi Hassan added: 'The blast was very huge, I saw smoke and fire overshadowing the whole area. General Gobale was killed in the suicide attack.'

The attacker rammed a car carrying explosives into General Mohamed Jimale Goobale's convoy near the defence ministry headquarters in Mogadishu

Al Shabab, which frequently launches attacks on officials in Mogadishu, staged the attack in the build-up to a vote for a new parliament and president

Somalia's Andalus radio, which is linked to Al-Shabab, said 'a mujahid (fighter) was martyred as his suicide car bomb killed General Goobaanle.'

Last month, an Al-Shabab truck bomb exploded outside the Somali presidential palace and a popular hotel in Mogadishu, killing at least 15 people.

Less than two weeks earlier, a pair of suicide car bombings struck a government building, killing 23 people.

Last year, Al-Shabab gunmen killed nearly 150 people at Kenya's Garissa University College. At least 67 people were killed at a Nairobi shopping mall in 2013.

Somali government soldiers gather at the scene of the car bombing in the Somalian capital

Al Shabab wants to turn the country into a fundamentalist Islamic state and is trying to topple the Western-backed government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who is seeking re-election in the upcoming vote.

Voting for the 275-seat parliament is scheduled to start on September 25 and end on October 10, with new lawmakers sworn in on October 30.

Those lawmakers will, in turn, pick a president on October 30.

Due to security concerns, including the continuing Al-Shabab insurgency, voting will not be based on one-person-one-vote but instead about 14,000 people representing federal states across the nation will choose members of the legislative assembly.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie argued with CNN's Jake Tapper this morning on the role Donald Trump played in peddling the 'birther' conspiracy, suggesting the GOP nominee had already given it up.

'That's just not true he kept it up for five years,' Christie said after Tapper maintained that Trump did not accept the validity of President Obama's long form birth certificate, which the White House released in 2011, and continued making it a political issue.

'It wasn't like he was talking about it on a regular basis,' Christie said.

ABC News, however, counted 67 times where Trump tweeted or retweeted messages questioning Obama's birthplace over the past five years, a fact that Martha Raddatz brought up when asking Indiana Gov. Mike Pence why his running mate took so long to acknowledge the president was an American.

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (right) tussled with CNN's Jake Tapper (left) this morning over whether Donald Trump fueled the 'birther' fire for five years

On Friday, Trump announced that 'President Obama was born in the United States, period.'

The Republican nominee pointed to Hillary Clinton's allies and blamed them for starting the 'birther' controversy when the two Democrats ran against each other in 2007 into 2008.

'I finished it. I finished it,' Trump said of his own role.

On today's Sunday shows a number of Trump's surrogates were asked why the billionaire just now made the announcement and kept bringing the 'birther' issue up.

'The birther issue is a done issue,' Christie said on CNN's 'State of the Union.' I've said it's a done issue for a long time and Donald Trump has said it's a done issue now.'

The New Jersey governor, who is running Trump's transition team, also downplayed the effect believing in birtherism might have on voters.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, talking to ABC News' Martha Raddatz, suggested that voters weren't so interested in the 'birther' story

'I've got to tell you the truth, if you think that anyone is going to vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton or against either one of them based upon this issue, then I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concerns of the American people,' Christie told Tapper. 'Let's move on to the real issues.'

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's Democratic running mate, expressed why the 'birther' issue was painful to watch for many supporters of the president, especially those of African descent.

'An African-American was not allowed to be a citizen, whether slave or free, born here or born elsewhere, until we fought a civil war and enacted the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution,' Kaine said.

So Trump's embrace of birtherism, Kaine explained, 'reminds people of the most painful part of the history of this country.'

'And I hope that someone will ask Donald Trump, when you were doing that, did you believe it?' Kaine said on ABC's 'This Week.' 'And if you believed it, how could you have been so gullible or conspiratorial or, if you didn't believe it, what were you doing dragging us back to the most painful chapter in American life?'

When Raddatz sat down with Pence she asked the vice presidential hopeful why his running mate took so long to acknowledge that the president was born in the United States.

'Martha, it's a fact. And Donald Trump and I both acknowledge that without hesitation,' Pence answered.

When pressed again, and presented with the 67 times that Trump pushed birtherism on Twitter, Pence  like Trump pointed fingers at Clinton.

'Well, and I know there's news reports that trace this birther movement all the way back to Hillary Clinton's campaign back in 2008,' he replied.

'You believe that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement?' Raddatz followed up.

'Look, I'll let the facts speak for themselves,' Pence answered.

When asked to provide solid footing pointing Clinton to the birther movement, Pence pivoted and made a similar point to Christie  that the 'birther' issue is not something American voters care about.

'Our campaign just really isn't focused on the past,' Pence said.

Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway appeared on both 'Meet the Press' and 'Face the Nation,' and said that Trump would need to be the one to answer the question when asked why he waited so long to declare Obama an American.

'And so just on this question of trust, Donald Trump advocated something for five years that was a lie. Why did he do that?' asked 'Face the Nation' host John Dickerson.

'Well, you're going to have to ask him,' Conway answered.

'But, again, I think that this is a sideshow now that the media seem obsessed with, John, respectfully. And, again, he put everything out on the table on Friday.'

'Those are his words,' she added. 'He does things on his terms, on his timeline.'




An 'organised gang' of beggars are reportedly encouraging their children to target shoppers and commuters in wealthy London neighbourhoods.

Police officers were called to Paddington Railway Station after the large group were spotted harassing members of the public.

The gang of women were also using their children to approach shoppers outside the luxury department store Harrods in Knightsbridge on Thursday evening, begging for money.

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It is claimed the 'organised gang' target wealthy shoppers in wealthy London neighbourhoods, with children aged as young as three holding their hands out for money

The group was stopped by British Transport Police inside Paddington station having spent some three hours begging

One witness claimed three women were stopped by officers before another fled the station with the children

The group was made up of five women and four children, begging on the streets late into the evening

Later in the evening, they were stopped by British Transport Police inside Paddington station having spent some three hours begging.

An onlooker, who asked not to be named, claimed three women - believed to be Romanian - were stopped by officers before another fled the station with the children.

He said the 'organised gang' targeted wealthy shoppers in Knightsbridge and Edgware Road, with children thought to be as young as three holding their hands out for money.

The witness said one group was made up of five women and four children, and 'knew their demographic', while other groups were operating around other areas in London on the same evening.

He said: 'They are professionals who make a lot of money. I have been watching them for a while now.

'They take the children out late at night and encourage them to beg, targeting wealthy male Muslim shoppers coming out of Harrods.

'It is disgusting, these children should be in bed at that time of night.'

The women approached shoppers and drivers outside the luxury department store Harrods in Brampton Road, Knightsbridge

According to a witness, three women - believed to be Romanian - were stopped by officers in Paddington station

One of the women was said to have fled the railway station with children after police arrived

One commuter took to social media earlier in the week, calling for action to be taken after groups of beggars were asking commuters for money

It is claimed the 'organised gang' target wealthy shoppers in Knightsbridge and Edgware Road, with children aged as young as three holding their hands out for money

The witness said the group 'knew their demographic' targeting specific people

One commuter took to social media earlier in the week, calling for action to be taken.

Addressing the British Transport Police and Great Western Railway, Mark Skelton tweeted: '[on the] 16.25 Slough to Paddington (left 16.29) you have a large group of east Europeans begging and harassing passengers.'

British Transport Police and the Metropolitan Police have been approached for comment.

The witness who has been watching the gang said: 'They are professionals who make a lot of money'

The group is said to take the children out late at night and 'encourage them to beg'

An onlooker said the women encouraged children to approach 'wealthy' shoppers

Members of the public were being stopped in Knightsbridge and asked for money

This comes after wealthy Knightsbridge residents voiced fears over plans for Harrods to serve late suppers, because they fear their area will be overrun by 'drunks, beggars and prostitutes'.

The luxury central London department store wants to extend the opening hours of its elegant Georgian Restaurant until after midnight - causing consternation among locals.
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Australian businessman and former senator Clive Palmer has put his luxurious waterside property on the market just as he is being questioned in the Federal Court over the collapse of his billion dollar mining company.

Mr Palmer bought the Sovereign Islands, north of the Gold Coast, Queensland in August 2011, paying $1.75 million.

CoreLogic estimates the value of his palatial property at $2.9 million to $3.8 million, according to a report by The Courier Mail.

Australian businessman and former senator Clive Palmer is selling his luxurious Sovereign Islands home

The property is expected to sell between $2.9 million to $3.8 million, he first bought the property in 2011 for $1.75 million

The five bedroom, five bathroom home was privately listed on the market on Wednesday.

The spacious open-plan living property has a kitchen fitted with top-of-the-line appliances.

It also has a theatre room, wine cellar and a garage that can hold up to six cars.

There is also a riverside swimming pool and access to the river where one can dock their yacht.

The home has spacious open-plan living, five bedrooms, five bathrooms and a riverside swimming pool (pictured)

The palatial property also comes with a theatre room (pictured) and a wine cellar. There is also access to the river where a yacht can be kept

The kitchen has beautiful marble bench tops and is fitted with top-of-the- range appliances

He is also believed to be selling his yacht named Maximus for $6.3 million.

During his time as a senator, Mr Palmer kept coy about the details of his properties only listing: 'houses/units/land' in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Jandowae, Port Douglas and Bora Bora, French Polynesia.'

Mr Palmer is still one of Australia's richest people, despite the controversy surrounding his company Queensland Nickel.

The garage has enough room to fit six cars (pictured). Mr Palmer is reported to be selling his yacht named Maximus for $6.3 million.
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ISIS is not connected to the explosive device that ripped through a Manhattan street Saturday night, New York Governor Cuomo announced Sunday morning - but it was still an act of terror.

No-one has come forward to admit to planting the device, which exploded in a dumpster, Cuomo said, but citizens should make no mistake: 'a bomb exploding in New York is an act of terrorism.'

However, while he admitted the bomb was his 'worst nightmare,' he added that New Yorkers must remain resolute. 'We're not going to let them win,' he said. 'They want to make you afraid. We're not going to let them instill fear.'

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Terrorism: NY Governor Andrew Cuomo (left, and right, at the scene) said Sunday that the bomb that detonated in Manhattan on Saturday was not linked to ISIS or any specific group - but that it was still 'an act of terrorism'

Explosion: Police investigate the explosion on the corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday night. Mayor Bill de Blasio later said whether it was terrorism was yet to be determined, contradicting Cuomo

Injuries: In total, 29 people - including an eight-year-old child - were injured by the blast. Although one was more seriously injured than the others, all were released from hospital by Sunday morning

Search: Police launched a search of the area after the first explosion, and eventually turned up a second, unexploded device

Feds: The FBI are now investigating the explosion, with experts from Quantico looking at the available evidence

The bomb detonated in New York's affluent Chelsea neighborhood at around 8.30pm on Saturday night, injuring 29 people just hours before a second device was discovered in the area, and after after the pipe-bombing of a New Jersey fun run.

Both Chelsea devices were identical, being contained in pressure cookers, Cuomo added.

But in a noon press conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio refused to be drawn on whether the attack constituted terrorism. 'It was intentional, it was a violent act, it was a bomb. That's what we know,' he said.

He added that 'any political motivations, personal motivations, we don't know.' That message was echoed by James O'Neill, who was on his first day as NYPD commissioner.

The mayor also commended not just the authorities that dealt with the bombs, but also the people of New York, who 'deal with challenges with incredible resiliency' and 'are not intimidated by anything,' he said.

Speaking to MSNBC shortly after the conference, Cuomo responded, saying he and de Blasio were 'in total agreement' about the observations and that their differences were 'semantics.'

'Semantics': Cuomo later said that his disagreement with de Blasio (talking to Cuomo) on whether the explosion was terrorism was just 'semantics'

Remnants: FBI agents sift through the remnants of the explosion on Sunday. No organizations have come forward to claim the bomb

Mangled: Cuomo and de Blasio look at a metal construction toolbox that was mangled by Saturday's explosion

Also at the noon conference, NYC FBI assistant director William Sweeney Jr added that evidence was being sent to Quantico for FBI analysis, and that 50 agencies were involved in the investigation.

He said that evidence collection would continue until at least 5pm, and that residences on 23rd St had yet to be entered.

It was also noted that many stores with CCTV cameras pointing at the area are now closed, so it may be two days before investigators have all of the existing footage before, during and after the blast.

He also emphasized that there was no connection to the explosion that occurred in Central Park in July, when a tourist stood on an IED. No connection has been drawn to the UN General Assembly occurring in New York this week.

NYPD Chief of Department Carlos Gomez also emphasized that there would be an increased NYPD presence in the city over the coming days, with heavy weapons teams and other specialized groups attending major events planned across across all five boroughs.

He added that there would be more dog units, and police on subways and at rail and bus stations, and that bag checks would be held at random subway stops around the city, not just in the major areas.

Evidence: The FBI is working not just with the New York governor's office, but also the New Jersey governor's office, as a pipe bombs detonated there just hours before the Manhattan explosion. It's not known yet if they were connected

Investigation: This was the view Saturday night as investigators looked through the debris left after the Saturday explosion

The second device was still being dismantled and examined by bomb experts as of noon Saturday, having been taken to the NYPD's location at Rodmans Neck, in The Bronx.

Neither the West 23rd Street location where the first bomb went off, nor West 27th Street where the second device was found, are believed to have any particular significance by authorities at this time.

The West 27th Street bomb was found by a pair of former State Troopers who answered the call for aid and searched the street on foot, authorities said.

The pressure cooker design distinguishes the Chelsea bombs from the pipe bombs that were detonated at a military fun-run in New Jersey hours earlier. No-one was injured in the New Jersey attack.

Dumpster: The bomb was left in a dumpster, authorities said. A second device was found in Chelsea afterward, on West 27th St. It was described as being a pressure cooker with wires coming out of it

IED: This is the second device, a pressure cooker with different-colored wires sticking out of it, wrapped in a plastic bag with what appears to be a cell phone or timer connected to it. It was, Cuomo said, identical to the first

Cuomo said in his speech that it's too early to tell whether the attacks were connected, but that he and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie are coordinating a joint investigation, and that the FBI is examining both attacks.

All agencies were coordinating in the investigation, Cuomo said, and that the possibility of a lone wolf bomber has not been discounted yet.

Although 29 people were injured in the Chelsea blast - one seriously - all were released from hospital by Sunday morning, FDNY commissioner Daniel Nigro said at noon. Most were injured by flying debris, glass and metal.

He added that the buildings on 23rd Street had been inspected by the Fire Department and Building Department and were found not to have any structural damage.

The 23 Street Subway Station close to where the first bomb detonated is also undamaged and would reopen 'soon,' it was announced.

Cuomo and de Blasio had inspected the scene together around 11.15am and spoken to people in local businesses before going into into Starbucks.

Pressure cooker: The second IED was taken away in this NYPD bomb unit

Unknown: Earlier in the day pipe bombs were detonated in New Jersey. It's not yet known if they were connected to the Manhattan devices

The Chelsea blast, which occurred on 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, was the result of 'an intentional act', according to the NYPD.

Franco La Costa, 45, and his nine-year-old daughter Carmen Rose were home watching a movie at their apartment on 19th street and 7th avenue when they felt the blast shake the entire building.

'It was like thunder, I felt the vibrations,' she said. 'We felt it on the top floor.'

Mr La Costa said: 'We are very worried, very scared. She goes to school nearby and her friends all live in the area. 'It's a great community, a diverse neighborhood and people are very trusting.'

They said they began texting friends to make sure people were okay and had yet to hear back from some people.

AND Phyllis Hershkowitz, who lives on the corner of 23rd street and 6th avenue, told DailyMail.com, the blast 'felt like an explosion.'

'My dog freaked out,' she said. 'There's shrapnel all over my steps.'

Mrs Hershkowitz, has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years.

Shrapnel: Everyone who was hospitalized Saturday has been released; most injuries were due to flying glass, metal and debris. No one was injured in the New Jersey blast
Baldev Kainth, 53, from Birmingham, was reportedly struck on the head with an iron bar during a row in Italy

A father-of-three was allegedly bludgeoned to death while on a family holiday in Italy.

Baldev Kainth, 53, from Birmingham, was reportedly struck on the head with an iron bar during a row and later died in hospital.

His nephew Gaurav Kainth, 20, has been arrested on suspicion of the murder, which took place in the town of Sessa Aurunca, north of Naples.

Italian media reported that there had been a dispute over family-owned property in India.

Mr Kainth died in the early hours of August 2.

Gaurav reportedly fled from the scene was later arrested in the city of Fondi, an hour's drive from Sessa Aurunca. He remains in police custody.

Friends paid tribute to the father-of-three, who worked for Sevacare as a carer for the disabled.

A friend of the family, who did not wish to be named, described Mr Kainth as 'a kind family man' who would be 'sorely missed'.

She told the Great Barr Observer: 'It is devastating news for the family. He would always go out of his way to help people, especially his family

'Baldev is a kind family man who is going to be sorely missed by those who knew him. He was such a lovely man.'

Melissa Reynolds, 49, whose father Leonard was cared for by Mr Kainth, said: 'He was absolutely amazing. He was the kindest, jolliest man. A lot of people say that when people die but Bal really was.

His nephew Gaurav Kainth, 20, has been arrested on suspicion of the murder, which took place in the town of Sessa Aurunca, north of Naples (file photo)

'My dad's absolutely devastated. We had to sit down and tell him as a family. Bal was like his rock. He wasn't just a carer, he was a friend.'

'He was such a pleasant man. He did more than he had to do as a carer. He put the bins out, he cleared away litter. Little things that he didn't have to do but he did them because he was so passionate about his job and he cared about people.

'He worked seven days a week. He never had a day off sick. He even worked Christmas Day. He brought us sweets on Diwali. He was so kind.'

Ms Reynolds added Mr Kainth had been excited about going on holiday to Southern Italy.

She said: 'He was saying, "think about me, I'll be on the beach". It was supposed to be a friendly, family holiday. We can't believe it. It's so sad. It just wasn't his time.'

Ravi Bains, CEO of Sevacare, said: 'Baldev was a dedicated, hard-working and compassionate carer and much-loved colleague.
Terrifying CCTV footage has emerged of the moment a man was repeatedly stabbed in the head, hand and chest in a brazen daylight attack at a cafe in Sydney's west.

Police allege Mehdi Rahimi, 36, a former cage fighter, was ambushed by 27-year-old Reza Hosseini and violently slashed in front of shocked customers and his girlfriend.

Security footage from the cafe on McFarlane Street, Merrylands, shows Mr Rahimi stumble outside and collapse while clutching a bleeding stab wound on his chest.

Emergency services were called at about 1.30pm on Saturday afternoon and Mr Rahimi was taken to Westmead hospital where he remains in a stable condition.

CCTV footage has captured the moment a man was repeatedly stabbed during a brazen daylight attack at a cafe in Sydney's west

Mehdi Rahimi, 36, a former cage fighter, collapsed outside the Merrylands cafe and was tended to by his girlfriend after taking stabs to the chest, head and hand (pictured)

Mr Hosseini allegedly fled on foot but later handed himself into Merrylands Police Station, where he was arrested and then charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Just moments before the alleged stabbing attack, Mr Rahimi posted a photo of himself sitting next to his girlfriend online, captioning it: 'Kikin back with my girl x.'

Mr Rahimi posted an update from inside hospital on Sunday night, writing: 'Thank you everyone for the well wishes and for caring I really appreciate it, I am recovering from surgery and will get in contact soon. Love you all.'

Reza Hosseini, 27, allegedly fled the scene of the stabbing but later handed himself in to police and was charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm

Moments before the violent stabbing, Mr Rahimi posted a photo alongside his girlfriend, captioning it: 'Kikin back with my girl x'

Mr Hosseini was refused bail and appeared via video link in Parramatta Court on Sunday, with the assistance of a Fazi interpreter.

The court was told Mr Rahimi and Hosseini both attended Crunch Fitness Gym at Parramatta and knew each other, 7 News reported.

'There was an invitation days earlier for a fight which the victim declined. He then found the victim and stabbed him from behind to the back of the head,' Magistrate John Bailey said.

Mr Hosseini was denied bail and will face court again later this month.
One stalker left her traumatised after sending naked photos to her home

Sian Lloyd reveals for the first time how a mystery stalker has left her on edge since after he sent nude photos to her home address

Television presenter Sian Lloyd has revealed for the first time how she was targeted by a mystery stalker.

The weather presenter said she was no longer comfortable alone in her own home following a terrifying incident last year.

Speaking with S4C's current affairs programme Y Byd ar Bedwar, the Maesteg-born TV celebrity said: 'Sadly I think it's completely changed my life.

'I've gone from someone hyper-confident, carefree, going from one thing to another, never looking over my shoulder. Now I look over my shoulder mentally and physically.'

Ms Lloyd, 58, spoke of how she had been targeted by stalkers on several occasions during her lengthy career in showbusiness.

But she said in the show, to be aired this week, she had been left traumatised by one incident in particular last year.

The stalker was present at a rally event where Ms Lloyd had been presenting awards.

After returning to her Mid Wales home she was appalled by what she found.

'Having driven up from London with my husband there were loads of letters and right on top was a handwritten letter,' she said.

'I opened it and a picture fell out of the most revolting close-up of what we shall say was a man in a state of excitement, a man's private parts, and it could not have been a bigger close-up.

'And there was an accompanying letter that said: '"This is for you and there's plenty more where that came from" and he even gave his phone number.'

Despite leaving the phone number, police were unable to trace the culprit.

She added: 'I resent his intrusion enormously. You could say he's done me a favour as I'm incredibly alert because of what could go wrong, and it might sound as if I'm a scaredy-cat or paranoid, but better that than the possibility of a tragic outcome.'

Stalking remains an under-reported crime, which has prompted a leading charity to appeal for victims to tell them their experiences.

For some victims the ordeal reaches the worst possible conclusion.

Recently staring on Celebrity First Dates: Ms Lloyd admitted the stalker may have done her a favour as now she is 'more alert'

Mother-of-four Assia Newton, from Pencoed, was strangled to death by her estranged husband Kelvin Newton in July 2013 after being abused throughout most of their 25-year-relationship.

Her sister, Nadia Salaman, spoke of the continuous abuse her sister had to withstand.

Nadia said: 'He first tried to drown her in the bath before they were married.

'One time he poured petrol all throughout my mum's house.

'Another time he smashed up her car and once he threw a microwave through the window.

'He controlled her in every aspect, including financially.

'She wanted to work and she did get jobs but they would never last very long.

'He would hide her keys or her shoes whenever she tried to go to work.

'One time he even threw 1,000 into a fire right in front of her just because she'd asked for some money.'

Assia, who was 44 when she died, did end the relationship with Newton two years before her death but he continued to stalk her.

Nadia added: 'He would go to her house almost every day, letting himself in and making her cups of tea in the morning.

'He was constantly going back there throughout the day.

'This was all unwanted attention. For him my sister was just an object, he always liked to know where she was.'

On July 14, 2013, Newton went to the family home near Bridgend and killed his estranged wife in her bedroom, strangling her with a dog lead.

Ms Lloyd admitted she still doesn't know why her husband of eight years Jonathan Ashman left her and filed for divorce

'One of her last texts to her niece was to say that she was happy but that she wished he'd stay away,' said Nadia.

'I think the reason he killed her was because during the last six months of her life I could feel that she was growing stronger.

'I don't think he liked it - that's my theory anyway.'

Newton was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 18 years for her murder after being convicted following a two-week trial at Cardiff Crown Court.

Another victim of stalking, who asked to remain anonymous, described the terrifying nature of the crime at the hands of her ex and how it slowly became more and more pervasive.

Newton was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 18 years for his enstranged-wife's murder after being convicted for stalking her then strangling her after years of abuse

Jenna - not her real name - said: 'In the beginning when I first left him and I moved out it was just constant nice messages - he was sorry, things were going to change, and please come back, and he played love songs to me down the phone.

'It got more and more aggressive then but it was just one text after another - from nice to nasty constantly. One minute it was fine - then when he couldn't get the reaction he wanted he'd try a different tactic and it would be vile.'

Stalkers are most likely to target someone they know, with the majority of stalkers being ex-partners, who account for 45 per cent of all cases, according to data from the National Stalking Helpline.

'It was like living on eggshells all the time because you didn't know what was around the corner,' added Jenna. 'I was scared when I got the texts because he is very unpredictable and I was frightened.

'I knew that whatever I did - either try to be nice or not answer - things were going to get nasty.

'I pray to God it won't happen but I do think he could kill me if he wanted to.

'You can see in his eyes - the shutters come down and he is a completely different person.'

A report released this year by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust said only around 26 per cent of stalking is reported to the police, while 43 per cent of those who did make a report found the response not very helpful or not helpful at all.

Assia, Newton, from Pencoed, who was 44 when she died, and had three daughters Sophia, Sameera and Charmaine, did end the relationship with Newton two years before her death but he continued to stalk her

Leading stalking charity Network For Surviving Stalking is aiming to better understand the complex crime with data from a recently launched survey aimed at victims.

The survey will cover all aspects of stalking, with the data being used to educate organisations across the UK.

Charity communications director Jane Harvey, 45, from Pembroke-shire, said: 'Being stalked is very isolating - a lot of people who are victims of stalking suffer in silence.

'Nothing like this survey has ever been done before. We really want to understand as much as we can about what it's like to be a victim of stalking.'

Twin daughter Sofia with her father Newton who she wants to see in prison but has meant she has been shunned by her other sisters

The Violence Against Women and Girls report by the Crown Prosecution Service found the highest-ever number of prosecutions were brought in 2015-16, totalling almost 13,000.

Mrs Harvey added: 'Your life can be destroyed if you're the victim of stalking. We're hopeful that once the data is collected we can start to change things.'

'We need to educate people who deal with stalking to help improve the services available,' added Nadia, 'And to anyone in a similar situation to my sister I would say just get help sooner rather than later.'

Although the majority of stalking victims are female, 15 per cent of men who were abused by their partners had experienced stalking.
Tourists walk on the Chinese side of the Broken Bridge, which once connected China and North Korea, at the Chinese border city of Dandong. (Photo : Getty Images)

A Canadian citizen who has been accused of espionage and detained in China for two years has been freed and has returned to Canada, the Washington Post reported.



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On Thursday, Sept. 15, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed appreciation that Kevin Garratt has returned and reunited with his family in Canada. Garratt's return came a week after Trudeau visited China in an effort to improve relations.



Garrett managed a popular coffee shop and conducted Christian aid work for North Koreans in Dandong, a city on the North Korean border. After he was indicted by prosecutors in Dandong, the state security bureau arrested Garratt and his wife in Aug. 2014. His wife was later released after posting bail.



A Xinhua News Agency report said that authorities have found evidence implicating Garratt, whom they claimed is helping Canadian espionage agencies gather intelligence in China.



The case has been made a priority of the Canadian government, Trudeau said. The release also came a week before the scheduled visit of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to Canada.



According to Simeon Garratt, the couple's son, there must have been a mistake as his parents ran a coffee shop and work for a Christian group North Star Aid, a charity organization registered in British-Columbia that provides humanitarian aid to North Koreans. Garratt's son said his parents did not conceal their faith nor made a public display of their religion as preaching is prohibited by law. He added that his parents only help bring school supplies, food and cooking oil into North Korea.



The coffee shop owned by the couple, Peter's Coffee House, which is located near the Friendship Bridge that links China to North Korea, is popular to tourists and students for its North American cuisine.



The couple were charged a week after Canada claimed that a China-sponsored hacker had infiltrated Canada's National Research Council, the country's top research and development organization.



The Chinese foreign ministry, however, denied the allegations and asked Canada to withdraw its accusation, which China said was baseless.


Ronnie Barogiannis, 44, stole the identity of a genuine Greek dentist and spent a year treating 600 patients who believed he was fully qualified

A rogue dentist who illegally practised under a false name and caused permanent damage to patients' teeth has been jailed for five-and-a-half years.

Ronnie Barogiannis, 44, stole the identity of a genuine Greek dentist and spent a year treating 600 patients who believed he was fully qualified.

But although Barogiannis had a dentistry degree, he was not registered with dental authorities and botched procedures left patients with severe problems.

Police said eight patients suffered serious damage due to his actions.

At Hull Crown Court, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC described him as being a 'disgrace' to the profession.

He had obtained his dentistry degree in Sweden in 2003 but was never registered to practice in the UK, despite applying several times.

After he was prosecuted for working illegally in Aberdeen, he stole the name and registration of a Greek colleague and worked at the former Hallgate House Dental Practice in Cottingham, East Yorkshire in 2013 and 2014.

During that time he earned almost 50,000 and was responsible for about 600 patients.

He was caught when the clinic he worked for was sold and he accidentally sent his new bosses an email under his real name.

He was arrested in October 2014 and released on bail. His Greek passport had been confiscated but he fled the country four days later using a Swedish passport.

Barogiannis was caught working in Sweden in March and extradited to the UK.

Officers spoke to about 700 patients during the investigation.

Outside court, pregnant patient Lisa Eccles, 31, from Hull said: 'He didn't seem to be knowledgeable in the work he was doing on me.

'On one occasion when he was trying to fit a new crown he kept going out of the room and asking other people.

'It was also a very painful experience. I was in agony.

'He was trying to get it to fit for around an hour-and-a-half. It was very painful. He kept going out of the surgery and coming back in and starting again.'

Elsewhere, a 39-year-old patient had the wrong tooth taken out and a 37-year-old woman developed a severe infection after he performed a sub-standard root canal treatment.

He now faces being sued by a number of his patients.

David Godfrey, mitigating, said he had acted 'out of desperation' because of the difficulties he had registering with the General Dental Council.

He said: 'He made an utterly foolish decision and will feel the full ramifications of his actions.'

Passing sentence, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC said: 'This sort of case  although an isolated example of serious criminal conduct by a devious, profoundly dishonest, and utterly incompetent dentist  inevitably affects the confidence of the public in dental surgeons.

'You have damaged the standing of your profession, but I doubt it will be your profession for much longer.

'You have caused significant harm to your victims by the crimes you committed. You are a disgrace to your profession.'

Detective Constable Lucy Khan, of Humberside Police, said: 'I hope that the jail sentence will prevent others from operating as bogus medical professionals.'

A spokesman for the practice, now called Oasis Dental Care, said: 'Having identified and dismissed Barogiannis, Oasis wrote to all patients seen by Barogiannis and offered either an examination plus any necessary remedial work at no cost to the patient, or a refund of any fees paid to Barogiannis if patients preferred to seek dental care elsewhere.'
Others argue it is unethical and prisoners will expect a reduced sentence

Flinner said it will give condemned prisoners a greater purpose in life

The 49-year-old is campaigning for inmates to be able to donate organs

Michael Flinner was sentenced to death for ordering a hit on his

A convicted rapist who was sentenced to death after ordering a hit on his 18-year-old girlfriend is campaigning for prisoners to be able to donate their organs.

Michael Flinner was sentenced to death after taking out a $500,000 life insurance policy on his girlfriend Tamra Keck, 18, before hiring a hit man to shoot her in the back of the head in June 2000.

The 49-year-old is on death row inside California's notorious San Quentin State Prison where he has devised a plan to help inmates find a purpose, while also giving millions of innocent people waiting for an organ transplant a second chance at life.

Michael Flinner who was sentenced to death after ordering a hit on his 18-year-old girlfriend is campaigning for prisoners to be able to donate their organs

Flinner is petitioning the government with his son Jonathan to allow inmates to donate tissues, bone marrow and vital organs, including kidneys or a section of the liver.

The convicted rapist, who has spent more than two decades behind bars, argues the initiative could give prisoners the opportunity to make the 'ultimate restitution'.

'There is a lot of evil that lurks beyond prison walls but I think and even greater evil is standing idly by outside the fish bowl when we have an opportunity to fix something,' Flinner told 60 Minutes.

No applications from prisoners wanting to donate organs have been approved by the Department of Corrections due to a combination of costs, regulations and need for proper transplant facilities.

Flinner was sentenced to death after taking out a $500,000 life insurance policy on his girlfriend Tamra Keck, 18, before hiring a hit man to shoot her in the back of the head in 2000

The convicted rapist, who has spent more than two decades behind bars, argues the initiative could give prisoners the opportunity to make the 'ultimate restitution'

Flinner blames 'apathy and bureaucratic red tape amongst prison administrators' for the resistance to change but others have argued it is ethically questionable to allow condemned prisoners to donate their organs before or after death.

It has been suggested prisoners be offered a reduced sentence for trading a kidney or part of their liver which has raised questions about whether inmates would be acting of their own volition, or feel obligated to donate to save their own lives.

Death row inmate Clifton Perry, who was convicted of murder in 2011, said the program would give prisoners a chance to help save a life, but did not think it would gain him reprieve.

'I believe the Department of Corrections have systems set up where they don't want the inmates to use it as an opportunity to redeem themselves,' he told 60 Minutes.

'I wouldn't expect [to be given a stay of execution] but it would be nice,' he added.

'I wouldn't expect [to be given a stay of execution] but it would be nice,' death row inmate Clifton Perry said

Flinner is petitioning the government with his son Jonathan (right) to allow inmates to donate tissues, bone marrow and vital organs, including kidneys or a section of the liver

Jimmy Kelly, a violent criminal who shot three people and beat his cell mate to death, said his incarceration has left him searching for a purpose and that giving back to the community in a positive way could give him some absolution.

'I am standing this cell all day and so I am searching for some kind of meaning, some kind fo purpose in life,' the 48-year-old told 60 Minutes.

'[Donating an organ] would really help give me some sense of meaning that I could actually do something good after I've done some pretty bad things,' he added.

Firefighter Matt Price is one of 121,678 Americans waiting for a life-saving organ transplant, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

Jimmy Kelly, a violent criminal who shot three people and beat his cell mate to death, said his incarceration has left him searching for a purpose and that giving back to the community in a positive way could give him some absolution

Firefighter Matt Price is one of 121,678 Americans waiting for a life-saving organ transplant

His kidneys are only operating at 10 per cent and he is forced to undergo daily dialysis to stay alive, according to 60 Minutes.

Mr Price said he would willingly accept a kidney from a death row inmate and argues it is not about what they did, but about what he will do with the organ that really matters.

'I would take that persons kidney if they were willing to give it to me - I don't care what their past is or what they did previously in their life.

'At the end of the day it doesn't matter. I'm alive and this murderer, or rapist or whoever this person was gave me life.'
The bodies of four family members - including a one-year-old child - were today discovered hacked into pieces inside a house near Madrid.

All of the victims were members of the same family and police confirmed they found two dead children aged 'around one and four'.

Their dismembered bodies were only discovered after a neighbour smelt a strange odour emanating from the house near the village of Pioz, 40 miles northeast of the Spanish capital.

Local mayor Ricardo Garcia Lopez said that, according to neighbours, the family were Latin Americans - believed to be Brazilians - and were renting the property.

Spanish Civil Guard officers were spotted inspecting the property 40 miles from Madrid

Spanish Civil Guard officers inspected the house, which has a pool, where the bodies were found.

The police authorities added that the crime could be a settling of scores.
Chandana Keerthi Bandara, 57, lost his job as a producer on a BBC Sri Lankan news service, but sued the corporation for unfair dismissal and race discrimination

A BBC journalist sacked after he refused to publish a report on Prince George's birth has won a 50,000 payout.

Chandana Keerthi Bandara, 57, lost his job as a producer on a BBC Sri Lankan news service, and sued the corporation for unfair dismissal and race discrimination.

Mr Bandara was in charge of publishing stories on July 23, 2013, the day after Prince George was born.

But he decided not to prioritise the royal birth story, partly, he said, because it was the 30th anniversary of Black July, a brutal period which saw thousands of Tamil people killed in Sri Lanka.

A tribunal heard how Mr Bandara resisted management pressure to cover the story, but eventually relented.

The article was published online at 12.08pm, a tribunal was told.

Mr Bandara had worked for the BBC for 18 years and had been a senior producer on the Sinhala service since 2000.

Despite a clean record, after disciplinary proceedings, Mr Bandara was found to have been guilty of gross misconduct and given a final written warning.

He was sacked just over a year later on 15 August 2014 after further allegations against his behaviour were made.

Amongst several other allegations of misconduct, he was accused of making a derogatory reference to a colleague and shouting at others.

The vast majority of these allegations were either proved or partially proved, but the tribunal ruled that the unfair final written warning played a large part in the dismissal decision.

Mr Bandara claimed he was unfairly targeted because of his views on the Tamil people being persecuted by the Sinhalese-dominated government of Sri Lanka.

A tribunal heard how Chandana, who has a Sinhalese father and Tamil mother, worked with a team who were mainly of Sinhalese heritage.

Mr Bandara was unsuccessful in his claims for race discrimination, but a tribunal found the final written warning was too severe a punishment, for an employee with such a good record, describing it as 'manifestly inappropriate'.

Mr Bandara was in charge of publishing stories on July 23, 2013, the day after Prince George was born

The tribunal said: 'On July 22nd the Duchess of Cambridge was admitted to hospital.

'Prince George was born later that evening, but news of the birth was broken after the Sinhala Service had departed for the evening.

'On the morning of July 23rd the claimant, still in charge, decided that he would not prioritise the royal birth story.

'He told us that was because the date was the 30th anniversary of Black July, a sombre time in Sri Lankan history.

'When Mr Dejan Radojevic (his boss) attended soon after that, he felt that failing to prioritise the royal birth was absolutely the wrong course of action.'

He did not prioritise the royal birth story because it was the 30th anniversary of Black July, which saw thousands of Tamil people killed in Sri Lanka

Rejecting Bandara's race claim that he was targeted because of his support for Sri Lankan Tamils, the tribunal said: 'Our conclusion is that we are not persuaded that the views expressed by the complainant constitute a philosophical belief attracting the status of a protected characteristic within the Equality Act.'

In a hearing to determine whether he was unfairly dismissed at the Central London Employment Tribunal, Jude Shepherd, representing Mr Bandara, argued that the allegations which followed the producer's warning, were not enough to constitute a dismissal.

The 'manifestly inappropriate' final warning therefore, had resulted in an unfair dismissal.

Representing the BBC, Tom Brown said evidence from Kerry Gonis, a manger, suggested: 'The second series of allegations as significantly serious to warrant dismissal in themselves.'

He added: 'It's believable that the final written warning was not significant.'

But the panel was left unconvinced that the written warning over the Prince George incident had not swayed the producer's dismissal.

Employment Judge Vivienne Gay said: 'We are satisfied that Mr Gonis was significantly influenced by the fact that Mr Bandara did not have a clean disciplinary record.

'That is the final written warning.

'So the dismissal from that dismissal was unfair. An inappropriate warning played a part in that.

The tribunal said: 'On the morning of July 23rd the claimant, still in charge, decided that he would not prioritise the royal birth story'

'But we are satisfied that there was culpable conduct which contributed to the dismissal.'

For that reason, Mr Bandara's award and compensation was cut by 50 per cent.

Judge Gay added: 'We add to this that the claimant had been found internally and at tribunal to have shouted at and bullied employees junior to him and at least on one occasion senior to him.'

Judge Gay also stated that Mr Bandara had 'not accepted he had done anything wrong' and continued to see himself 'as a victim'.

She did not order re-employment and a sum for compensation was decided.

Judge Gay said: '51,428 that is the amount awarded to the claimant.'
Sick Islamic State sympathizers in New York have been celebrating the Saturday night explosion that injured at least 29 people in New York.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast in Chelsea, which appeared to have been set off from a Dumpster at 8.30pm Saturday - just a few hours after an unrelated pipe-bomb went off at a New Jersey race to support military and their families.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the blast in Chelsea 'was an act of terrorism' but would not offer a link to international groups.

On Twitter, some self-described ISIS supporters were joyous.

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Sick ISIS supporters have been posting messages celebrating a Saturday explosion that left 29 people injured in Chelsea, New York

One poster has been 'taunting' others on Twitter by posting pictured of the explosion scene with smiley faces

Police are still investigating who was behind the explosion, as no groups have claimed responsibility yet

'The lions of the Caliphate roar in New York, we cause you pain inside your house, the carrier of the Cross,' wrote one user on Twitter, whose account has since been suspended.

Another, offered this sick taunt: 'Oh God burn America, take revenge in the name of your oppressed slaves and believers' blood.'

Some supporters blamed President Barack Obama for the attacks.

'This is all your doing Mister Obama, you are the reason for the spread of ISIS in the region,' one sick supporter said.

'I wish you would listen to the words of King Abdallah and his warning for the Arabs from ISIS.'

Gordon and his three friends were taken to Mount Sinai West, on 58th Street and 10th Avenue, around 10:30 pm. Pictured, firefighters arrive at the scene of the explosion

Gordon heard a loud bang than saw flames, smoke and glass falling down. Pictured is the scene of the explosion on Sunday

Another added: 'ISIS is an American product, their goods come back to them.'

Some of the tweets seemed to refer to other incidents on Saturday - particularly the stabbing rampage at a Minnesota shopping mall, for which ISIS has claimed responsibility.

'Oh God go against America, the head of infidels,' on Twitter user wrote, also referring to 'good tidings that keep coming' from the US.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (center) said the blast in Chelsea 'was an act of terrorism' but would not offer a link to international groups

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast in Chelsea, which appeared to have been set off from a Dumpster

'Oh God, count them and kill them one by one, and do not spare anyone of them,' one person said.

Other posts seemed concerned that this bombing could be 'another pretext for America to intervene in another country.'
Meanwhile Schreibman and her friend passed time by playing Scrabble

Went to friend's house on the next block; wasn't allowed back until 3 am

Three minutes later, a bomb squad told Schreibman to run off her street

Thought it looked suspicious and called 911, who said it was a 'priority'

Saw 'a strange contraption' near a mailbox after going 10 or 15 feet

Walked out after hearing about blast in Chelsea on Saturday evening

A photographer has told how she found the second explosive device after a blast left 29 injure in New York City Saturday night.

Jane Schreibman, 66, lives on 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. A friend called her around 10 pm Saturday to tell her that an explosion had rocked the Chelsea neighborhood and Schreibman out of her house to see what was happening.

'I walked 10 or 15 feet on the block and I saw a strange contraption - a pot with wires coming out of it,' Schreibman told the DailyMail.com.

'My first thought was it was a kids' science experiment that they were throwing out.'

Photographer Jane Schreibman, 66, found the second explosive device in New York City Saturday night after a blast in the Chelsea neighborhood

The device (pictured), which Schreibman described as a large pot with wires coming out of it, had been left on 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues

The police department's bomb squad came to retrieve the pressure cooker. A robot is pictured picking it up from the street

The pressure cooker had duct tape on it and was connected to an object, which Schreibman couldn't see because it was taped over. Pictured is a robot retrieving the device

When Schreibman got out of her house, the bomb squad told her to run away from the street. The police department loaded the device in a containment van (pictured)

Schreibman continued walking but the road was closed, forcing her to turn back. She thought she should take another look.

The pot, she said, had wires coming out of it and had been left near a mailbox. It had duct tape around the lid, to hold the lid down and to keep the wires in place.

The wires were connected to an object, which she couldn't identify because it had been taped over, and to a white bag.

'I wasnt sure if it was a pressure cooker,' she said. 'But I know they make bombs out of pressure cookers and that made me suspicious.'

Schreibman thought the installation looked suspicious so she called 911 from her home phone.

The dispatcher said the device was the responders' priority. She told Schreibman that someone had already called and that a team was on its way.

About three minutes later, the bomb squad arrived.

Schreibman (left) thought the device looked suspicious and called 911. The bomb squad arrived minutes later and told her to run away

Detectives told Schreibman on Sunday that the device was a bomb but that they were unsure if it was functional. Pictured is the robot that loaded the device in the containment van

Evidence will be sent to a lab in Quantico, Virginia for further analysis. Pictured is the robot that retrieved the pressure cooker and loaded it into a containment van Saturday night

While the bomb squad removed the device (pictured), Schreibman went to a friend's house a block away and played Scrabble until she was able to go home at 3 am

The police department's bomb squad removed the device and took it to a firing range at Rodman's Neck in the Bronx. A bomb squad truck is pictured during transport

They told Schreibman to run off the block , which she did immediately. She didn't have time to grab anything and left with just her house keys.

Schreibman couldn't go back home until 3 am. She went to a friend's house one block away and the two played Scrabble until the early hours of Sunday.

A detective eventually came, interviewed Schreibman and escorted her back to her house.

Meanwhile the police department's bomb squad removed the device and took it to a firing range at Rodman's Neck in the Bronx.

Detectives told Schreibman on Sunday morning that the device was a bomb but they didn't know whether it was functional or not.
America is currently undergoing the biggest prison strike in history, with prisoners in 40-50 prisons across 25 states participating in the organized action, it has been reported.

Using secret cell phones, social media and people on the outside, 'at least' 20,000 prisoners have downed tools in protest against free prison labor, The Intercept said.

'This is a call to action against slavery in America,' organizers on the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) said in a statement. 'Forty-five years after Attica, the waves of change are returning to Americas prisons.'

Strike: On September 9, the 45th anniversary of the Attica riot (pictured), prisoners across the US went on strike, saying their free or low-paid labor was a modern form of slavery

'This September we hope to coordinate and generalize these protests,' the statement continued, 'to build them into a single tidal shift that the American prison system cannot ignore or withstand.'

The strike began on September 9, the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison riot, in which prisoners demanded political rights and better living conditions.That riot saw 43 dead, 33 of whom were inmates.

'There are probably 20,000 prisoners on strike right now, at least, which is the biggest prison strike in history, but the information is really sketchy and spotty,' said Ben Turk of IWOC.

The current strike has seen prisoners complaining about various issues, including three-strike rules and lack of educational services.

But all are unified in their contempt for prison labor, which sees inmates working for as little as a few cents an hour - or even nothing, depending on the state.

Made legal under the 13th Amendment, which prohibits involuntary servitude 'except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,' convict leasing allows private companies to hire prisoners for a pittance.

It's been used in businesses as diverse as military weapon production, mining and even - for a period in the 1990s - Victoria's Secret underwear.

Protest: Some 20,000 people are estimated to have joined in the strikes, which are said to be ongoing in various prisons (pictured: state police after riading the Attica prison)

Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, a former prisoner, said: 'People on the outside are not understanding they are being bamboozled.

'A lot of people are not realizing the value in whats going on, they dont realize that its slavery, that slavery still exists.'

Four facilities in Florida were affected when 'several hundred inmates' went on strike, according to the Florida Department of Corrections - but it added that the situation had been dealt with.

Michigan's Kinross Correctional Facility saw 400 prisoners staging a peaceful protest and 150 'ringleaders' being punished or transferred.

The IWOC Facebook page also quoted a number of sources saying strikes had occurred in North Carolina, South Carolina and Kansas.

Walk out: A strike at Holman prison in Alabama was reported - but a prisoner support group claims it led to staff walking out, leaving fewer than 15 officers to deal with 1,000 inmates

A strike of 45 people downing tools was also reported William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama by Al.com.

The Free Alabama Movement, a prisoner-led organization that called for the mass strike, claimed that there had been a mass walk out by prison guards, leaving fewer than 15 officers to guard 1,000 inmates.

'Many areas of the prison, incl death row, are unattended,' it tweeted.
Millions of pounds of public money intended to help war veterans has been 'wasted' after it disappeared into unknown charities.

A number of organisations were given the cash after former chancellor, George Osborne, set up the 35million Libor fund in 2012.

Mr Osborne - who was sacked in July - launched the fund to support veterans by using money from fines imposed on bankers involved in the Libor scandal.

But leading charity figures have called for an inquiry after some firms failed to deliver services by using the cash to promote unproven therapies, reports The Sunday Times.

The Libor fund was set up in 2012 to provide support for war veterans but it has disappeared into unknown charities

The sums of cash given to the charities varied and the largest single amount was a staggering 2.56million, which was handed to Veterans First Point (V1P).

Meanwhile, a charity called Veterans Outreach Support was given 414,000 to help provide craniosacral therapy.

But the treatment was judged to be worthless by medical experts and the charity itself described it as being 'inconclusive'.

A Sunday Times investigation found that 933,000 from the Libor fund was given to another charity, the Warrior Programme.

The charity claimed it was able to 'completely remove' post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 'less than three days'.

A spokeswoman for the Warrior Programme said the charity is currently not aimed at treating PTSD, but added that the organisation had claimed this previously.

Meanwhile, V1P intended to use its funding to create a network of mental health centres in Scotland - but only opened one in three years.

A smaller charity based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, known as Veterans Council, received 500,000 from the Libor fund.

But after getting the cash, it moved from a community centre to a stately home called Rainford Hall in Lancashire.

The charity also reportedly splashed out 30,000 on furniture, while a further 100,000 a year was spent on salaries.

George Osborne launched the fund to support veterans by using money from fines imposed on bankers involved in the Libor scandal

The newspaper contacted the charity's former chairman Des White and asked what Veterans Council had delivered, but he put the phone down.

Hugh Milroy, chief executive of Veterans Aid, said the public would be shocked to find that the money had been 'wasted'.

He told the newspaper: 'The public will be genuinely stunned to find out how much money has been wasted.

'Vast sums have been paid with an almost total lack of checks and balances.'

Neil Greenberg, a professor of defence mental health at King's College London, was involved in a clinical trial which looked at time-line therapy.

The therapy was reportedly used by the Warrior Programme but Mr Greenberg told the newspaper: 'We just don't know whether it works at all.
'Disappointed': Strictly judge Bruno Tonioli fears Bake Off's move to Channel 4 could 'damage' the show

A host of celebrities have lined up to blast the decision to move The Great British Bake Off away from the BBC, and now Strictly judge Bruno Tonioli has joined the fray.

Bruno, who has been a judge on BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing for 14 series, said he was 'disappointed' and the channel switch could 'damage' the show.

He said he disagreed that the hit programme needed to move to Channel 4 in a 75 million deal, according to The Sun.

The charismatic dance choreographer felt ad-breaks and sponsorships could certainly have an impact.

And added that his friends and show presenters Mel Giedroyc, 48, and Sue Perkins, 46, were right to stick with the corporation rather than head for a big money deal.

'I think Mel and Sue quite rightly, they are great girls, decided to stay with the BBC,' he said.

It is still not known whether Bake Off judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry will follow suit, after they are reportedly being offered a huge 1 million each to join Channel 4.

On whether the popular judging duo should or would stay, Bruno said: 'I don't know, that is their decision.'

Talking at the BBC America BAFTA Los Angeles TV Tea Party, the dancing judge added he was saddened because the corporation had built the show up from the ground.

He said: 'The Bake Off started quite a few years ago and as much as the production company created the format the BBC nurtured and worked on it for many years to make it the hit the hit that it has become.'

The GBBO's makers, Love Productions, have been criticised for doing the deal without confirming the appointment of its stars.

Bruno said that presenters Mel and Sue (right) were correct in staying put with the BBC, adding that it is now up to judges Paul and Mary (left) whether to stay or go

Speaking to The Sun about the takeover, Bruno added: 'I think it could damage them a little bit. Good luck to them.

'I am disappointed and I think most of Britain is.'

The flamboyant Italian returns to Strictly with Craig Revel Horwood, Darcey Bussell and Len Goodman, who is appearing on his last series as head judge.

His comments follow a string of disapproving remarks from fellow celebrities, MPs and broadcasters over the Bake Off change-up.

Bruno (right) returns to Strictly with Craig Revel Horwood (centre right), Darcey Bussell (centre left) and Len Goodman (left), who is appearing on his last series as head judge

Broadcaster Jeremy Vine said: 'Sorry Channel 4 but Bake Off without Mel and Sue, and without the BBC platform, is just a piece of burnt toast.'

While Lord Alan Sugar said: 'I feel sorry for BBC One they invested years in making Bake Off popular and the greedy disloyal format owner has sold it to Ch4.'
Gov. Chris Christie says the Saturday explosions that went off in New York and New Jersey are 'terrorism'  but don't appear to be linked.

The first blast happened in Seaside Park, New Jersey, near the route of a race that supports Marines and sailors, as well as their families. Hours later, an explosion injured 29 people when it went off in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.

Neither was claimed by leading terrorist outpost Islamic State  which declared itself responsible for an armed rampage at a Minnesota mall the same day.

Gov. Chris Christie says the Saturday explosions that went off in New York and New Jersey are 'terrorism'  but don't appear to be linked

The New York explosion (pictured) injured 29 people in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood

'We don't believe at this time that there's any evidence connecting this to the attacks in New York or Minnesota,' Christie told CNN on 'State of the Union.'

'Obviously, if you look at a number of these incidents, you can call them whatever you want  they are terrorism, though,' the New Jersey governor added.

But Christie added: 'You don't want to jump to conclusions and you don't want to put information out there that you don't know is absolutely true.'

There were no deaths in either bombing.

In New Jersey, a suspicious backpack had caused the Semper Five race to be delayed  and no participants were near the explosion site when it happened.

In New York, 29 people were injured, one in critical condition.

In New Jersey, a suspicious backpack had caused the Semper Five race to be delayed  and no participants were near the explosion (pictured) site when it happened

Christie told CNN's Jake Tapper (left): 'You don't want to jump to conclusions and you don't want to put information out there that you don't know is absolutely true'

'There is no evidence that this explosion was connected to any international terrorism,' New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday.

'A bomb going off is generically a terrorist activity and  that's how they are going to prosecute it,' Cuomo said.

Christie also defended Donald Trump, who was criticized for saying the New York explosion was a ' bomb' before law-enforcement officials officially broadcasting.

In New York, 29 people were injured, including one in critical condition, after the blast in Chelsea (pictured)

'Well, listen, I don't think you have to defer when saying that there was an explosion and a bomb in New York,' Christie told CNN's Jake Tapper.

'I mean, everybody knew that. It was being reported on television, Jake, so there's a difference.
Android 7.0 Nougat release news for Sony Xperia X Performance, Xperia XA, Xperia X, Z5 Premium, Z5 Compact, Xperia Z5, Z4 Tablet, Xperia Z3+ (Photo : YouTube/ Sony Xperia)

Here is the Android 7.0 Nougat release news for Sony Xperia X Performance, Xperia XA, Xperia X, Z5 Premium, Z5 Compact, Xperia Z5, Z4 Tablet and Xperia Z3+.



The software giant Google has seeded Android 7.0 N update to devices such as Android One, Pixel C, Nexus Player, Nexus 9, Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X and Nexus 6. However, the firmware is yet to come to other Nexus devices.



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According to reports, the tech company Sony is yet to disclose Android 7.0 update schedule for its devices; however, it is likely to occur before the end of 2016.



The tech giant had earlier said that the Xperia X Performance, Xperia XA, Ultra, Xperia X, Xperia Z5 Premium, Xperia Z5 Compact, Xperia Z5, Xperia Z4 Tablet and Xperia Z3+ will get the new Android 7.0 Nougat update.



Various reports suggest that Sony will roll out the firmware to the X Series before rolling out to other devices.



Unfortunately, Z3 Tablet, Z3 Compact and Xperia Z3 will not get the latest Android 7.0 Nougat update.



Android 7.0 N comes with features such as new emojis, improved Java 8 language support, bundled notifications, clear all, screen zoom, seamless updates, VR interface, Google Assistant, extra power efficiency, direct reply notifications and multi-window.



Meanwhile, according to recent reports, Sony Xperia C4 and C4 Dual are presently receiving the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update.



On September 16, the company said in a blog post that the Android 6.0 M update for the Xperia C4 Dual and Xperia C4 is being rolled out.



Sony further said that owners of Xperia C4 Dual and Xperia C4 will be happy to know that they are beginning to roll out Android Marshmallow for these devices.



A notification on a user's smartphone will prompt them to download the update, unlocking UI changes and exciting new features.



The firmware version for the Sony Xperia C4 is 27.3.A.0.122 and for the C4 Dual is 27.3.B.0.122.



Sony Xperia C4 has a 5.5-inch full HD IPS display with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, CNET reported. Furthermore, the Sony device houses 2 GB of RAM and an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor. It offers owners 16 GB of on-board storage that can be expanded to 200 GB.


ISIS are trying to use floating plastic bag bombs to down jets and create no-fly zones above parts of Iraq and Syria under the terror group's control.

The group have launched a how to guide for fellow terrorists, explaining how flying mines can be made from the bags, hydrogen and bullets.

If hit by an allied fighter jet, the bullets could be sucked into the engine and explode, downing the aircraft - which have been used to bomb ISIS-held areas - it claims.

ISIS are trying to use floating plastic bag bombs (pictured) to down jets and create no-fly zones above parts of Iraq and Syria under the terror group's control

Last year, ISIS fighters were filmed using condoms to create anti-aircraft weapons - similar to the plastic bag bombs - to imitate barrage balloons used by the allies in World War One

Today it emerged that militants shot down a Syrian warplane as government forces regained ground lost to the extremists when US-led air strike accidentally struck them.

The guide - called Dropping Fighter Jets in the Lands of the Islamic State - also explains how to make 300litres of hydrogen from household chemicals.

Once the bags are filled, they can be weighted to float at different levels, and ISIS intends to use them to create no-fly zones in the area, it is believed.

The video, created by Abu Ayyub al-Baghdadi, has been handed to other ISIS fighters as they try to counter the more advanced technology of opposition fighters.

ISIS is infamous for using home-made weapons and explosives, including DIY rockets made from gas canisters found when Iraqi forces recaptured the town of Ramadi in December.

Last year, ISIS fighters were filmed using condoms to create anti-aircraft weapons - similar to the plastic bag bombs - to imitate barrage balloons used by the allies in World War One.

The video shows terrorists launching dozens of the bombs, made from condoms, into the air in the hope of damaging fighter planes and bombers

The explosion lights up the sky when it explodes in the air, in a similar way to what would be expected from the plastic bag bombs if they are sucked into engines of jets

It is also feared that ISIS fighters may use drones to launch attacks on Britain after it was found that they had used them to launch explosives and spy cameras in Iraq.

In August, ISIS fighters in Afghanistan released photos they claim proved they had captured weapons and equipment that belonged to US soldiers.

The photos, published on social media, showed an American portable rocket launcher, radio, grenades and other gear not commonly used by Afghan troops, as well as close-up views of identification cards for US army soldier Ryan Larson.

The US military command in Kabul denied any suggestion the soldier had been captured, saying he 'has been accounted for and remains in a duty status within his unit'.

But last month, allied fighters tried out some new weapons of their own, unleashing the Punisher to flush out ISIS militants in busy streets in Lybia.

As they closed in on the terrorists, they used the precision grenade launcher to shoot behind enemy lines, which rains down shrapnel on the enemies.
Malcolm Turnbull says Australia regrets the loss of life and injuries to Syrian soldiers as the result of a bombing raid on what were believed to be Islamic State targets.

The Prime Minister confirmed Australian aircraft were involved in the coalition exercise and pulled out when Russian officials advised the targets may have been Syrian military personnel.

The number of Syrian soldiers that were killed was between 62 and 83, the ABC reported.

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Australian aircraft were part of an international operation near Dayr Az Zawr (pictured)

'We regret the loss of life and injury to any Syrian personnel affected,' Mr Turnbull told reporters on Sunday in New York, where he is for the annual United Nations General Assembly.

He said Australia's rules of engagement are to target IS but it is a very complex environment.

'You'll find over the next little while no doubt arguments or issues about why there wasn't more co-ordination or who was meant to be advising who,' Mr Turnbull said.

Mr Turnbull admitted it remains to be seen whether the Syrian ceasefire would be put in jeopardy.

Australian aircraft were among a group of international planes taking part in the operation near Dayr Az Zawr.

'While Syria remains a dynamic and complex operating environment, Australia would never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support [Islamic State],' the Department of Defence said earlier in a statement.

The Syrian military said the airstrike hit a base that was surrounded by ISIS, allowing the extremists to advance

Syrian army soldiers patrol the area around the entrance of Bani Zeid after taking control of the previously rebel-held district of Leramun, on the north-west outskirts of Aleppo in July

Officials have offered condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers who may have been killed during a bombing raid on what was believed to be Islamic State targets.

The Syrian military said the air-strike hit a base that was surrounded by ISIS, allowing the extremists to advance.

The strike could deal a blow to a fragile US and Russian-brokered cease-fire that has largely held for five days despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides.

The Syrian military said the airstrikes enabled an ISIS advance on a hill overlooking the air base.

A Russian Defense Ministry official said Syria informed them that 62 of its soldiers were killed in the airstrike.

Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said the airstrike was conducted by two F-16s and two A-10s.

He did not identify the planes' country affiliation, but said they were part of the international coalition.
Police had three prior encounters with suspect, mainly for traffic violations

Falconer opened fire at Adan, who lunged at him and got up three times

Shots broke out inside Macy's and the assailant was killed by an off duty cop Jason Falconer, who works part time in nearby Avon

Nine were injured with one hospitalized for life-threatening injuries

This is the hero cop who shot dead a man after he injured nine people during a knife attack in a Minnesota mall on Saturday night.

Off-duty policeman Jason Falconer opened fire at the suspect, identified by his father as a 22-year-old college student named Dahir Adan.

The assailant, who reportedly made references to Allah, asked people if they were Muslim before stabbing those who did not align themselves with the religion, CBS reported.

While police have not confirmed the alleged attacker, his father Ahmed Adan told the Star Tribune his son was born in Africa and moved to the US 15 years ago.

Isis released a statement today claiming responsibility for the rampage at Crossroads Center Mall in St Cloud, which left seven men, a woman and a 15-year-old girl injured.

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Nine people were injured at the Crossroads Mall in St Cloud, Minnesota, before the assailant was shot dead by an off-duty Avon officer Jason Falconer (pictured left and right)

The suspect who went on a stabbing spree in a Minnesota mall on Saturday night was identified by his father as Dahir Adan, a 22-year-old college student

Dahir reportedly asked people whether they were Muslim before stabbing those who didn't align themselves with the religion, a law enforcement source told CBS

Isis released a statement today claiming responsibility for the rampage, which left seven men, a woman and a 15-year-old girl injured

Ahmed, whose family is Somali, said police notified him around 9pm on Saturday that his son had died at the mall.

The police raided the family's apartment, seizing photos and other materials but said nothing to him about the mall attack, he told the Star Tribune.

While Ahmed said he has 'no suspicion' his son was involved in terrorist activity, Isis released a statement on Sunday calling Dahir a 'soldier of the Islamic State'.

It remains unclear whether Dahir, who was not named in the Isis statement, had any contact with the terror group, which encourages 'lone wolf' attacks.

At a news conference on Sunday, Rick Thornton of the FBI said the attack was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism.

Dahir had three previous encounters with the police, but they were mostly for minor traffic violations.

Leaders in St Cloud's Somali community gathered for a press conference on Sunday, naming Dahir Adan and expressing their condolences for the victims and their families.

Abdul Kulane credited Dahir with being a good student who worked part time as a security guard, the St Cloud Times reported.

Kulane also told the newspaper Dahir was last seen around 6pm before he said he was going to buy an iPhone from the mall.

He added: 'The entire community are shocked by this incident...We would like to offer our sympathies to those affected, their families and the entire St. Cloud community.

'He was helpful to his family and as far as we know, he never had a violent history, as far as his family and the community can remember. He was a friendly and active community member.

'As far as the incident goes, we dont know what happened. All the information circulating in the media are speculations. It could involve a fight that led to this incident. It could be anything,' he said.

Falconer (pictured) opened fire, but the attacker, who lunged at him with a knife, got up three more times, the police chief said

St Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said the lone assailant, who was dressed in a 'private security uniform', entered Crossroads mall around 8pm last night.

'That individual made some references to Allah and we confirmed that he asked at least one person if they were Muslim before assaulting them,' he added.

Authorities have no reason to believe anyone else was involved in the attack.

Anderson said Falconer, a part-time officer in the nearby city of Avon who also owns a firearms training company, shot and killed the attacker five minutes after authorities received the first 911 call.

Falconer opened fire, but the attacker, who lunged at him with a knife, got up three more times, the police chief said.

'He clearly prevented additional injuries and potential loss of life,' Anderson said.

Falconer, who was praised for being 'at the right time and place,' specializes in training law enforcement and personal security guards, according to his company website Tactical Advantage.

The number of victims has been updated from eight to nine; three people remain in the hospital, with one victim suffering from life-threatening injuries, Mayor Dave Kleis said.

Employees and shoppers were released after the mall was put on lockdown. It will remain closed on Sunday while the investigation continues with the help of the FBI.

Authorities said the attack was not related to two separate explosions reported in New York City and the Jersey Shore on Saturday.

St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson declined to call the attacks an act of terrorism on Saturday night, saying the motive for the attacks is unclear

Sydney Weires told the St Cloud Times she saw a security guard sprinting and yelling, 'Call the cops! Call the cops!,' after a loud scream broke out in the mall.

She later saw one man with the back of his shirt drenched in blood, while another man who was bleeding from the face screamed: 'Get the f*** out!', Weires told the local paper.

Danny Carranza grabbed his kids from the play area near Macy's when he saw others running, the St Cloud Times reported.

He made it out of the mall right after gunshots broke out, but his wife remained inside for several hours while the mall was on lockdown.

Harley Exsted, who was traveling from Isle, Minnesota with Tama Exted, said: 'All of a sudden I heard pop pop pop.

'I thought someone tipped over a shelf. All of a sudden these people started running. I just saw everybody running our way,' Harley added.

The couple were unharmed and said they helped another woman who was running from the scene to her car.

Sydney Weires saw one man with the back of his shirt drenched in blood, while another man who was bleeding from the face screamed: 'Get the f*** out!', she told the St Cloud Times

St. Cloud Hospital spokeswoman, Chris Nelson, said five victims were released and three remain hospitalized. All had non-life threatening injuries

Ashley Bayne was in the mall and told WCCO: 'I went closer to the mall entrance by J.C. Penney's and I was looking at some jeans and all the sudden people were just running in chaos.

'They were screaming, 'Someone's stabbing people in the mall,' and people were just really frantic and were running.'

She recalled to the news outlet: 'When I got in my car to get out people were speeding out of there.

'By the time I left my coworker had texted me saying they had all gone into lockdown in the mall.
No charges were brought against Clinton over the server scandal

Hillary's Clinton's server has been the target of hackers in Russia and China at least four times, a new report claims.

Computers in China tried to break into Clinton's private server three times in 2014  while a computer in Russia attempted to gain access once in 2013, the New York Post reported.

'They were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,' FBI authorities said in July.

Hillary's Clinton's server has been the target of hackers in Russia and China at least four times, a new report claims

FBI officials highlighted that there were a number of hacking attempts both while Clinton was secretary of state and afterward.

In 2015, the company in charge of Clinton's servers, Platte River Networks, tightened up on security, The Post reported.

'I spent some time in their firewall just now locking everything down,' said Bill Thornton, an IT consultant at Platte River, according to the newspaper.

The company didn't conduct what is called 'penetration testing,' or asking a hacker to try to break into your server to see if it is protected enough.

Executives at Platte River are also believed to have tried to distance themselves from Clinton as it came to light that she had been using a private email server to conduct official government business, The Post reported.

FBI officials highlighted that there were a number of hacking attempts both while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and afterward

In one message, IT executives called their work  purging Clinton emails  to be 'Hillary's cover-up operation.'

Platte River used to retain emails for Clinton for 60 days, the FBI said in its report.

Now the company can only purge emails after 30 days, The Post reported.

The company and its executives have been subpoenaed by Congress to testify about Clinton's server probe.

Both Bill Thornton and colleague Paul Combetta refused to answer questions last week.
Junior doctors across England are defying their union by helping NHS managers introduce the new contracts.

Many have been helping to interview candidates for a new post that is meant to ensure they only work a safe number of hours.

But the British Medical Association is preparing to stage a wave of five-day strikes before Christmas, the worst such action in the NHSs history.

Junior doctors across England are defying their union by helping NHS managers introduce the new contracts

And later today a group of junior doctors called Justice for Health is taking the Health Secretary to court arguing that he is imposing the contract illegally.

They will seek to overthrow the deal in the Court of Appeal by claiming that Jeremy Hunt has no power to force the terms on 55,000 doctors without seeking consultation.

But NHS Improvement, the organisation which oversees all hospitals, claims many junior doctors are quietly helping introduce the contract.

It is due to be introduced gradually from next month but hospitals have already had to make preparations for the new terms.

But the British Medical Association is preparing to stage a wave of five-day strikes before Christmas. Pictured is Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt

These include the appointment of Guardians of Safe Working  a full-time role set out in the contract to oversee junior doctors wellbeing and working hours.

Kathy McLean, executive medical director of NHS Improvement, said junior doctors had been helping to interview candidates for the role  usually senior doctors or managers.

She added: At some places they definitely are having that collaboration. That will be a bit variable across the country.

'However, sufficient junior doctors are involved to help make this as good as possible.

She could not specify how many doctors had been helping but it is further evidence of a mutiny against the strikes.

Thousands of junior doctors are expected to boycott the walkouts because they believe the action is a step too far  and they cannot afford to lose so much money.

The first five- day stoppage is due to start on October 5.
Mrs Leadsom had made the pledge of a Commons vote on fox hunting a key plank of her election campaign in the summer

A new push to repeal the ban on fox hunting is set to be announced by the Environment Secretary.

Former Tory leadersh ip contender Andrea Leadsom said she wants to hold a free vote on the issue before the next election.

Mrs Leadsom had made the pledge of a Commons vote on fox hunting a key plank of her election campaign in the summer.

Aides say that even though she lost to Theresa May, she is still in a position to fulfil her pledge as she now heads up the department in charge of the issue.

However, campaigners say it is unlikely that a free vote will be won, saying the current odds are about 100 to 1.

The ban on hunting foxes and other wild mammals with dogs was implemented in the Hunting Act 2004.

The Tory election manifesto last year pledged to offer a free vote on repealing the law, meaning MPs would not be whipped on party lines, in a promise to support countryside pursuits.

There had been concerns however that the new administration would ditch the vow.

But a source at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: We stand by our manifesto commitment to give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the Hunting Act on a free vote, with a government bill in government time.

Mr Camerons attempts to secure the change were thwarted after winning a slim Tory majority last year.

With Labour and Liberal Democrats against the move and a handful of Tory rebels, Mr Cameron argued the SNP should not vote as the change would only impact England and Wales.

The ban on hunting foxes and other wild mammals with dogs was implemented in the Hunting Act 2004

But the SNP vowed to block the move  forcing him to pull the vote. Campaigners hope Theresa May will strengthen the Governments English votes for English laws changes to bar Scottish MPs from voting.

Their second hope is an SNP change of heart. It vowed to review the law in Scotland last summer and a backroom deal remains possible.
When all the swing state polls are averaged together, the race for the White House is dead even between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

Clinton and Trump both stand at 42 percent support, according to a newly-released CBS News Battleground Tracker Poll.

Last week, Clinton was leading her Republican rival by 1 point. And over Labor Day weekend she was besting Trump by 2.

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TIED: Donald Trump (left) and Hillary Clinton (right) are tied according to a CBS poll that surveyed voters from 13 battleground states

The 13 states included rust belt favorites like Pennsylvania and Ohio, along with the western trio of Arizona, Nevada and Colorado

Pollsters looked at surveys from New Hampshire, and then Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, along with Florida and Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina and the Western trio of Arizona, Nevada and Colorado  13 states total.

The race looks pretty well baked, according to the likely with voters surveyed, with 73 percent saying they felt very strongly about their choice and another 19 percent saying they probably wouldn't change candidates. Just 7 percent said they felt 'somewhat strong,' and thus could still change their minds.

More than half, 55 percent, of voters surveyed in those states want to see 'big changes' in the economy and politics in coming years, while another 43 percent would like to see some changes.

Just 2 percent were OK with there not being much change.

So while a huge majority would like to see change, voters were split on many other issues.

For example, 39 percent said the economy was fairly good, while another 37 percent said the economy was fairly bad.

Among those who thought the economy was good, the biggest chunk, 48 percent, gave credit to President Obama for giving it a boost, with very few, 5 percent, saying Congress was a 'big reason' for its improvement.

Those who thought the economy was bad blamed Obama the most, 67 percent, followed by Americans' inability to find jobs, 60 percent. Fifty-four percent said Congress was a big reason too.

When respondents were asked their opinion of what they thought when they hear the economy has improved, 42 percent responded that maybe that's the case for some, but 'it's not for people like me.'

Another 53 percent said they don't hear people saying the economy has improved.

All survey respondents were asked who gained the most in recent years. Sixty-four percent said banks and financial firms, 60 percent said large businesses and another 41 percent said recent immigrants to the United States.

The biggest economic losers were blue-collar and service industry workers said 70 percent, followed by 'people like you,' said 52 percent.

Overall, 60 percent of survey respondents from the 13 states said the economy was unfairly 'rigged.'

Tying the voters' thoughts on the economy to their candidate choices, 53 percent of Clinton voters said they were choosing the Democrat because they thought she would make the economy better.

Another 47 percent of Clinton voters were worried that Trump would make the economy better for them.

On the flip side, 59 percent of Trump voters were choosing the Republican because they thought the economy would improve under the billionaire businessman.

Forty-one percent were selecting Trump as a vote against what Clinton would do to the economy.

Even more dramatically, 46 percent of all respondents said they feared the country 'might be damaged beyond repair' if Clinton were elected, while 49 percent said the same of Trump.

Thirty-five percent said Trump would make the country 'better than ever,' while a smaller percentage, 22 percent, said the same of Clinton.

Further adding fuel to the idea that The Donald is considered a bigger changemaker by his voters, 49 percent said a vote for the Republican was a vote to change politics-as-usual, while 9 percent said a vote for Trump was for Trump himself.

As for the recent headlines plaguing the presidential candidates, voters were split on their views of Clinton's recent health problems and Trump's refusal to release his tax returns.

While 51 percent said they agreed with the statement that Clinton's pneumonia was a a problem because of disclosure, not with her health, another 49 percent disagreed.

Fifty-four percent said the pneumonia health scare raises bigger issues about her health, while 46 percent disagreed.

And then 53 percent said they didn't care and it was blown out of proportion, 47 percent said they disagreed with that statement.

When it comes to Trump's finances and taxes, 60 percent agreed that it was an issue of disclosure and not finance, while 40 percent disagreed.

Fifty-three percent said his refusal to release his tax returns raised larger questions about his management ability, while 47 percent said they disagreed with that statement.
'It was an intentional, violent, criminal act,' De Blasio said of the

New York City has been placed on high alert after a bomb ripped through a busy street in the Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday night.

Mayor Bill De Blasio and New York police commissioner James O'Neill said at a press conference on Sunday afternoon that there would be an added police presence around the city after the bombing - but stopped short of calling it terrorism.

'It was an intentional, violent, criminal act,' De Blasio said, adding that it was 'organized'.

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Mayor Bill De Blasio and New York police commissioner James O'Neill said at a press conference on Sunday afternoon that there would be an added police presence around the city after the bombing

New York City has been placed on high alert after a bomb ripped through a busy street in the Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday night. Pictured is the scene of the explosion on Sunday

After the initial blast at 8.30pm, an undetonated device was found two hours later by state troopers on West 27th Street.

The NYPD said that a controlled explosion of this device was taking place on Sunday between 4.30pm and 6.30pm near Rodman's Neck in the Bronx.

O'Neill said that more officers would be circulating on the city's transit system, more police dogs would be used in patrols and random bag searches were being conducted.

Gordon and his three friends were taken to Mount Sinai West, on 58th Street and 10th Avenue, around 10.30pm. Pictured, firefighters arrive at the scene of the explosion

Gordon said he didn't notice anything suspicious and it was just 'a normal night walking through the streets'. Pictured, police officers look for suspicious packages on Fifth Avenue

The National Guard were out in force at Penn Station on Sunday and heavily-armed members of the NYPD's Hercules team, a Special Forces-like counter-terrorism unit, were seen at the entrance to subway stations.

At one event going on in the city on Sunday, Little Italy's Feast of San Gennaro celebration, police officers manned crash barriers set up around trash cans. A mobile command unit and a number of police vans were also on the scene.
A pair of private school boys have performed a lewd sex act in front of a group of students during their lunch break.

Police confirmed they are investigating an incident involving two 14-year-old boys at an elite Catholic boys' school in Melbourne's northeast on August 23, The Herald Sun reported.

The school principal said he has spoken with the boys' families and believes 'adolescents sometimes experience challenges with choices when it comes to relationships with each other'.

A pair of school boys from an elite Catholic school in Melbourne have performed a lewd sex act in front of a group of students during their lunch break (stock image)

'This happened between a boy and another boy in a group during lunchtime and we have a hands-off policy,' he said.

After a youth officer came to talk to the year 9 students about respect the incident was reported to the police.

A Victoria police spokesperson confirmed to Daily Mail Australia officers received a report of an alleged incident at the educational facility in Bulleen.

'As the matter is under investigation it would be inappropriate to comment further,' the spokesperson said.

The principal said both teenagers were disciplined and also received counselling.
Two people have been hospitalised after a bus crashed into an excavator during rush hour in Sydney's west.

A bus with 22 passengers onboard clipped an excavator shortly before 7am on Monday at Macquarie Street near Smith Street in Parramatta.

A man with knee injuries and a man with minor head injuries were taken to Westmead Hospital in a stable condition, NSW Ambulance said.

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A bus with 22 passengers onboard clipped an excavator shortly before 7am on Monday at Macquarie Street near Smith Street in Parramatta

Three others were assessed by paramedics at the scene.

The excavator was sitting near the edge of the road and fell when it was struck by the bus, NSW Police told Daily Mail Australia.

Inquiries were continuing, the spokeswoman said.

Traffic in both directions were affected, according to Transport Accident Report.

Buses had returned to their normal route by about 9am but minor delays were continuing, Buses West said.

Five people have been assessed by paramedics and two people have been hospitalised

A man with knee injuries and a man with minor head injuries have been taken to Westmead Hospital in stable conditions
Smoke rises from Indian Army camp at Uri attacked by Kashmiri Muslim militants. (Photo : Ministry of Defence)

Operation Calm Down, the Indian Army's ongoing campaign to clamp down on Muslim terrorists in Kashmir, was dealt a massive blow when a suicide squad of four Kashmiri "fedayeen" penetrated an army base at the town of Uri and launched a gun and grenade attack that killed 17 soldiers.



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It was the largest loss of life suffered by the Indian Army in a single attack in two years in Muslim-majority Kashmir. It occurred despite the Army being on its toes with the activation of Calm Down last week.



Muslim Kashmiris are fighting for an independent Muslim state allied with Pakistan. Kashmir is over 80 percent Muslim.



An investigation into the security lapses that led to this large death toll is forthcoming. At least 35 other Indian soldiers were injured. All four fedayeen were killed after a firefight lasting six hours.



An unidentified high-level government official was quoted by media as saying the attack was "part of Pakistan's larger game plan to spread unrest in Jammu and Kashmir."



Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to punish those responsible for the "despicable" and "cowardly" attack.



Army reports said the Kashmiris cut open the wire fence as the base slept and attacked soldiers sleeping in their tents at about 4:00 a.m. Most of the soldiers were killed as fire engulfed their tents.



The base at Uri n North Kashmir is an army administrative base in Jammu near the Line of Control with Pakistan. It was crammed with soldiers following a change of command ceremony that welcomed the arrival of a new brigade to reinforce the XV Corps based in Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.



"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," said the army in a statement.



The army camp attacked by militants is located few meters away from the army's brigade headquarters at Uri, 102 km from Srinagar.



General Dalbir Singh Suhag, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) of the Indian Army, only last week inspected army units stationed at Jammu and Kashmir, after which the army launched Calm Down.



Gen. Singh's inspection also took him to Srinagar where was briefed about the prevailing security situation in the valley by General Officer Commanding XV Corps Lt. Gen. Satish Dua. Gen. Singh reviewed the security situation in Kashmir, especially in the four worst-affected districts in south Kashmir. He also toured forward positions along the Line of Control in Kupwara district to review the preparedness of the anti-infiltration grid.


A jury will now hear the case and decide on the damages owed by Gordon to the estate, who had been asking for $50million

Judge planned to make a judgment after hearing motions from the estate's attorney and Gordon

Gordon had skipped a mandatory court appearance on Friday in the wrongful death suit filed

Public sighting comes two days after he was found legally responsible for death of his ex Bobbi Kristina Brown

Nick Gordon was pictured on Sunday as he returned to his Sanford, Florida home after driving back from Atlanta, Georgia

Nick Gordon was seen in public for the first time on Sunday since being found legally responsible for the death of his ex Bobbi Kristina Brown after failing to show up for court.

Exclusive pictures by Daily Mail Online captured Gordon as he returned to his Sanford, Florida home after driving back from Atlanta, Georgia.

A somber-looking Gordon was seen stopping at a local station before heading to his duplex.

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Nick Gordon was seen in public for the first time on Sunday since being found legally responsible for the death of his ex Bobbi Kristina Brown after failing to show up for court

Gordon was seen as he returned to his Sanford, Florida home after driving back from Atlanta, Georgia

Wearing a white Nike gym shirt, black gym shorts and black sneakers, Gordon was seen carrying a small black suitcase as he headed inside his duplex

Wearing a white Nike gym shirt, black gym shorts and black sneakers, Gordon was seen pulling into the gas station.

He then drove to his residence where he was seen carrying a small suitcase inside.

The public sighting comes only two days after a judge ruled on the wrongful death suit filed last August by the estate of Bobbi Kristina against Gordon.

On Friday, a hearing had been scheduled for 9.30am at Atlantas Fulton County Superior Court to hear motions pertaining to the wrongful death suit and for a judgment to be entered in the case.

Gordon, who had elected to represent himself in the trial, was not in attendance, which led the judge to declare that all allegations made by Bobbi Kristina's estate in the case would be admitted through omission.

A jury will now hear the case and decide on the damages owed by Gordon to the estate, who had been seeking $50million in their lawsuit.

A somber-looking Gordon was seen first stopping at a local station before heading to his duplex

Gordon is seen here carrying a plastic shopping bag as he gets inside his car after stopping at the gas station on Sunday

Gordon got inside his car before driving to his residence located in Sanford

The public sighting comes only two days after a judge ruled on the wrongful death suit filed last August by the estate of Bobbi Kristina against Gordon

Bobbi Kristina, the daughter of Bobby Brown and the late Whitney Houston, passed away at the age of 22 on July 26, 2015.

She spent the final six months of her life in a medically induced coma after being found unresponsive in a bathtub at her Georgia home.

The news that Gordon failed to appear for court was first reported by 11 Alive. No criminal charges have been filed against Gordon at this time.

'In court today, we finally finished a long journey for justice for Bobbi Kristina Brown,' R. David Ware, a lawyer for Browns conservator, said outside of court on Friday.

'He is legally responsible for her death, and the only thing left for us to prove is the value of her life.

'And we intend to do that.'

Judge T. Jackson Bedford, who was presiding over the case, said of Gordon on Friday: 'I do not like people thumbing their nose at the court.'

Legal troubles: Nick Gordon skipped a mandatory court appearance on Friday in the wrongful death suit filed against him by Bobbi Kristina's estate (Gordon and Bobbi Kristina above in 2012)

Happy days: Bobbi Kristina was found unresponsive in a tub at her home almost three years to the date that her mother Whitney Houston died (Bobbi Kristina, Whitney and Bobby brown above in 1994)

Not shy: Gordon voiced his disregard for the estate's wrongful death lawsuit while appearing on Dr. Phil this April (above), admitting he had 'ignored this lawsuit and its consequences.'

Gordon previously voiced his disregard for the estate's wrongful death lawsuit while appearing on Dr. Phil in April.

In that interview - which took place one year after Dr. Phil staged an intervention for the troubled young man on his show - Gordon admitted to the television host that he had 'ignored this lawsuit and its consequences.'

That comment enraged Bedelia Hargrove, the executor of Bobbi Kristina's estate, who filed a motion asking that the judge impose monetary sanctions against Gordon, who she said in court documents had 'totally disregarded and ignored his obligation.'

Hargrove also took Gordon to task for not responding to the suit or any of her filings but 'freely discussing his role in the incidents which led to the horrific injuries to Bobbi Kristina Brown on public television.'

Bobby Brown also joined his daughter's estate in the wrongful death suit just two weeks after Gordon's interview.

His sister Leolah was in court on Friday and took some time to speak with reporters on her way out of the building, saying: 'Its been a long time. They should have been gotten him. He should have been arrested. Im angry. Im angry because I want to see some justice. Something has to happen and it has to happen soon.'

Bobbi Kristina's body was found in her bathtub almost three years to the date that her mother Whitney was pronounced dead after suffering a similar fate while staying at the Beverly Hilton prior to the 2012 Grammy Awards.

Like a son: Bobbi Kristina announced she was engaged to Gordon, who was raised at times during his childhood by Houston, in 2012 (Bobbi Kristina, Houston and Gordon in 2010 above)

Allegation: The estate claims in court papers that Gordon 'gave Bobbi Kristina a toxic cocktail rendering her unconscious and then put her face down in a tub'

Grief: Bobby Brown (above at Bobbi Kristina's funeral) also joined his daughter's estate in the wrongful death suit just two weeks after Gordon's interview on Dr. Phil

It was Gordon who found and tried to resuscitate Houston in that incident as well, after he discovered her unresponsive in her bathtub just hours before she was due to attend Clive Davis' annual Grammy party.

Eight months after her mother's tragic passing, Bobbi Kristina announced she was engaged to Gordon, who was raised at times during his childhood by Houston and who many considered to be a brother-like figure to Bobbi Kristina.

The pair later claimed they had been married in early 2014, but Bobby Brown shot down those statements, saying the two had yet to wed.

Houston was pronounced dead on the scene after being discovered in the bathtub of her suite at the hotel, with accidental drowning, heart disease and cocaine use later cited as the causes of death.

The estate claims in their lawsuit that Bobbi Kristina's death happened after Gordon had been 'out all-night on a cocaine and drinking binge.'

Bedelia Hargrove (above), the executor of Bobbi Kristina's estate, filed her first suit against Gordon in June 2015

Bobbi Kristina and Gordon argued after he returned home at around 6am on January 31 according to the lawsuit, with the two having it out for approximately 30 minutes while two other individuals - Danyela Bradley and Max Lomas - were at the home.

The estate claims in court papers that Gordon then 'gave Bobbi Kristina a toxic cocktail rendering her unconscious and then put her face down in a tub of cold water causing her to suffer brain damage.'

Bobbi Kristina's autopsy report showed that her face being immersed in water, along with drug intoxication, led to her death.

She was found to have morphine, cocaine, alcohol and prescription drugs in her body at the time her body was found in the tub.

The medical examiner could not determine whether her death was an accident, suicide or murder however, and ruled it 'undetermined.'

In an interview with DailyMail.com after the release of Bobbi Kristina's autopsy, a happy and smiling Gordon said, 'I'm glad that s*** is all over.'

He then added: 'I just want to wish my girl a Happy Birthday. I can't say any more but it's good.'

Hargrove first filed a lawsuit against Gordon in June of 2015, while Bobbi Kristina was still in a coma.

In that initial filing, which would later become the wrongful death suit, Hargrove claimed Gordon was physically abusive on multiple occasions and stole money from Bobbi Kristina's bank accounts while she was in a coma.

It was also alleged that his actions on the day Bobbi Kristina was found unresponsive in the tub were the result of him learning that she was leaving him.

Scene: Bobbi Kristina's autopsy report showed that her face being immersed in water, along with drug intoxication, led to her death (Bobbi Kristina's home where she was found above)

Hargrove's initial lawsuit on behalf of the estate stated; 'Just prior to January 31, 2015, Brown had confided to someone that [Gordon] was not the man she thought he was and set up a time on January 31, 2015 to meet with this person to further discuss this revelation.'

It went on to say; 'Brown, however, never made it to the meeting. Instead, on the morning of January 31, 2015, Brown became embroiled in a loud argument with [Gordon] at her townhome.

'The loud argument ended and Brown was later found unresponsive and unconscious, face down in a bathtub, with her mouth swollen and another tooth knocked out.'

Gordon was also accused of physically assaulting Bobbi Kristina multiple times in the suit, including 'punching her in the face, knocking out a front tooth, and dragging her upstairs by the hair.'

The lawsuit said that Gordon 'engaged in and caused unwanted, harmful and offensive bodily contact to Brown.'

It gets more specific after that, claiming that the harm caused by Gordon included 'loss of teeth, pain and suffering, and trauma that has required medical treatment as a direct consequence of [Gordon's] physical abuse.'

Hargrove also claimed that Gordon stole in excess of $11,000 from Brown's bank account(s)' in the weeks after she was found unresponsive and that he falsely represented himself as Bobbi's husband, gaining access to her accounts and trust, something she began to question in the months prior to the day she was found in the tub.
A sycamore which starred in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, has been shortlisted for the 'tree of the year'

A sycamore that starred in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, the original Bramley apple and a tree that has swallowed a bicycle are among those shortlisted for tree of the year.

Shortlists featuring 28 of the UKs finest trees have been unveiled by the Woodland Trust, from almost 200 nominations, as it seeks to find a tree of the year for England, Wales, Scotland and North Ireland.

A winner for each country will be selected by a public vote and they will go on to compete in the European tree of the year contest.

Other shortlisted trees in England include a mulberry bush at a prison in Yorkshire, which is thought to have been the origin of the nursery rhyme Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, played by female prisoners with their children.

There are also rare elms, the famous tree on Hadrians Wall that featured in Kevin Costners 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and the dying Bramley apple tree from which all other Bramley trees come.

Scotlands shortlist includes the last remaining tree from the ancient Birnam oakwood, whose advance  it is foretold  will vanquish Macbeth in Shakespeares play, and a sycamore that has eaten various objects including a bicycle after growing through the scrap of a blacksmiths workshop.
Sergeant Alexander Blackman is enduring an 'unjustifiable' delay in his fight for justice

The Royal Marine jailed for killing a Taliban fighter is enduring an 'unjustifiable' delay in his fight for justice.

A year ago generous Daily Mail readers donated 800,000 to help Sergeant Alexander Blackman challenge his life sentence.

His lawyers lodged crucial new evidence with the Criminal Cases Review Commission last December. But, nine months on, bureaucrats have still not decided whether to refer his case to the Court of Appeal.

At the same time British troops are being hounded by ambulance-chasing lawyers over other incidents in the line of duty. Yesterday, it emerged that three more soldiers  including a decorated major  face the prospect of manslaughter charges over the death of an Iraqi teenager 13 years ago.

Sergeant Blackman, 42, became the first British serviceman to be jailed for murder on a foreign battlefield. Yet vital evidence was withheld from his 2013 court martial and his original legal team was criticised for not pursuing a manslaughter option. The insurgent he shot had already been mortally wounded attacking a British outpost.

The Mail understands that:

Two barristers who represented the Marine at his court martial have refused to be interviewed by CCRC investigators;

The CCRC officer in the case was promoted and handed the file to a colleague;

A psychiatrist has yet to meet Sgt Blackman to assess his claim to have been suffering combat stress.

Frederick Forsyth, the thriller writer who is spearheading the campaign, said: 'British justice has long prided itself on the adage that justice delayed is justice denied.

'A devastating dossier was submitted on the sergeant's behalf last December which was so minutely prepared by his eminent lawyers that it offered every single thing they needed on a plate, in my opinion.

Former Royal Marine Commandos show their support for Marine A - Sgt Blackman

'It is now nine months on, and the delay is inexplicable and surely unjustifiable.

'One can only imagine the exasperation of Sgt Blackman as he whiles away the days in his cell and wonders when he will be a free man again. We are talking about a man who was convicted, in my view, of a crime he did not commit. He and his men were abandoned in an Afghan hell on earth until they were dangerously exhausted. Now the sergeant has been left to rot in jail.'

8 REASONS SGT BLACKMAN MUST BE GRANTED APPEAL The application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission focuses on the following compelling new evidence and powerful legal arguments: 1 Pathology report by Dr Ashley Fegan-Earl supporting Sgt Blackmans belief the insurgent was dead when he shot him. 2 Psychiatric report by Professor Neil Greenberg concluding Blackman was suffering abnormality of mental functioning and had diminished responsibility. 3 New evidence from Col Oliver Lee, RSM Steph Moran and the Marines internal Telemeter Report supporting the case for a verdict of loss of control manslaughter, where he snapped and lost his self control. Wedding day: Sgt Blackman with his wife Claire in December 2009 4 Evidence already heard at Sgt Blackmans court martial should have resulted in loss of control manslaughter option but this was overlooked by all parties and notably the learned Judge Advocate General. 5 Original defence team was incompetent. 6 Murder conviction unsafe because it relied on improper cross-examination of Sgt Blackman on inadmissible diary of another Marine. 7 Evidence already heard should have resulted in option of unlawful act manslaughter verdict (he admitted firing at a dead body but denied murder) 8 Evidence already heard should have resulted in option of gross negligence manslaughter verdict (he admitted negligence in desecrating a believed dead body, but denied murder) Advertisement

The CCRC was expected to have completed the case by June. Sgt Blackman's wife Claire, 44, said: 'We do understand that the CCRC has a difficult job to do. This is a complex case and we absolutely recognise they need time to thoroughly review all of the evidence and court proceedings in detail.

Sergeant Blackman, 42, became the first British serviceman to be jailed for murder on a foreign battlefield

'In the meantime though, we are no closer to getting Al home and it is difficult to understand just how long the process might take.'

Mrs Blackman, who speaks to her husband every day at HM Prison Erlestoke in Wiltshire, added: 'Al is doing well, keeping busy and keeping his spirits up. He is studying for an Open University degree, working in the library and spending as much time as he can in the gym. He is just focused on getting through each day in a positive way.'

Sgt Blackman's prosecution for murder under the name Marine A was one of the most contentious episodes of the Afghan war.

A veteran of five tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, he said he thought the armed insurgent was already dead when he shot him. He was captured on another Marine's helmet camera quoting from Hamlet as he declared: 'Shuffle off this mortal coil.'

He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of ten years, later reduced at appeal to a minimum of eight. His supporters believe he was made a scapegoat for failings by top brass.

A Daily Mail investigation uncovered vital evidence that was 'deliberately withheld' from the court martial. We revealed that a high-flying officer, Colonel Oliver Lee, quit his commission in disgust at the way mitigating evidence was blocked from being heard. His troop had been left at breaking point, manning a remote outpost in Helmand province during a prolonged 'tour from hell' in which seven Marines were killed and 45 maimed.

Mrs Blackman, left, speaks to her husband every day at HM Prison Erlestoke in Wiltshire

A damning internal Ministry of Defence report, leaked to the Mail, revealed that undermanning and equipment shortages had put them under unimaginable pressure. The dossier contained crucial evidence not seen by the court martial.

Sgt Blackman's former defence lawyers, led by Anthony Berry QC and his junior Peter Glenser, are accused of blundering by failing to pursue a lesser manslaughter conviction at his trial. And their client was not examined by a psychiatrist to explore the issue of combat stress. A manslaughter sentence could have been no more than three to four years in prison  time which he has already now served with remission for good behaviour.

The Mail also discovered the jury trying Sgt Blackman for murder was split 5-2, with the panel allegedly put under 'considerable pressure' to convict.

Blackman's supporters believe he was made a scapegoat for failings by top brass

Mr Berry has since given written explanations to the CCRC but has refused, on legal advice, to meet its investigators. He and Mr Glenser both said yesterday they had given the commission written explanations for their conduct. On December 16 last year, Sgt Blackman's wife presented the CCRC with eight compelling new grounds  researched by the fresh legal team led by QC Jonathan Goldberg  as to why her husband deserved a fresh appeal.

They included psychiatric evidence from two experts suggesting he was suffering from combat stress disorder and had momentary 'loss of control'.

There has been no explanation as to why the CCRC has so far failed to send its own psychiatrist to verify the finding. The commission's slow progress on a case granted 'top priority' has baffled fellow servicemen.

John Davies, a former Royal Marine coordinating the campaign for justice, said: 'Supporters are fuming at the delay. People want to know why the wheels of justice are turning so slowly for a man who served his country and put his life on the line out there.'

A commission spokesman said: 'The CCRC has a duty to conduct an objective and independent assessment of the arguments which have been raised. We cannot reach a decision in a case until we have tested and given proper scrutiny to the arguments.'

He confirmed that one of three members of staff conducting the review had been promoted, but insisted: 'The CCRC has established procedures to ensure that no time is lost as a result of this kind of staff change.'

Last night Mr Berry, speaking also for Mr Glenser, said: 'I received legal advice that I should not agree to be interviewed by the CCRC but that I should supply a detailed written statement instead (in addition to the extensive replies to Mr Blackman's lawyers' written questions). I have taken that advice and will be making no further comment.'
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A pilot and four skydivers miraculously survived a fiery plane crash into a suburban Phoenix home on Saturday evening.

The four passengers bailed out of the plane safely after it began suffering difficulties midair. They were swiftly followed by the pilot, also a skydiver, who leaped out and landed in a field about a mile from the crash site.

The abandoned aircraft crashed into the home which burst into flames. A man and woman had been inside the home at the time were able to escape the blaze without injury, police said.

A pilot and four skydivers aboard a plane survived a fiery crash in a Phoenix suburb Saturday night, authorities said

The five individuals were able to successfully eject from the small plane before it crashed into a house which erupted into flames

Fire crews arrived at the scene of the crash where they were finally able to extinguish the blaze

A man and woman had been inside the home at the time of the fiery smash but were able to escape the blaze without injury, police said

Fire crews were called out to tackle the fire at the one story home which was gutted by the blaze. The next day, the mangled plane remnants were removed from the roof.

The small plane had been carrying skydivers for the annual Constitution Fair on Saturday evening, according to police.

It appeared to get into trouble and crashed at around 7.30pm near Ray Road, Phoenix.

The pilot was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was treated for burns.

An investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing.

Police have not yet released the names of the pilot or skydivers in the crash.

The small plane had been carrying skydivers for the annual Constitution Fair on Saturday evening, according to police

The one story home had been gutted by the blaze and damaged by the plane crash - although the occupants escaped unharmed

The small plane had appeared to get into trouble and crashed at around 7.30pm near Ray Road, Phoenix

The pilot was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was treated for burns after the small plane crashed into the home

The following day, the mangled remains of the plane was removed from the roof of the building
A Russian billionaire had to leave his giant superyacht moored off the British coast  because it was too big to fit inside the marina he was visiting.

The 390ft 200million vessel belongs to Andrey Melnichenko, 44, who has been visiting the country with his Serbian model wife Aleksandra, 39.

Having spent the last few days in London, the wealthy oligarch and his wife travelled to visit Brighton Marina in East Sussex on Friday.

Andrey Melnichenko's yacht moared off the coast of East Sussex after it was too big to be moored in Brighton marina

But the superyacht, boasting three swimming pools, a rotating bed and helipad, was too big to moor inside the marina wall, so was anchored off the coast. Onlookers spotted the huge white boat, called Motor Yacht A, near Saltdean, East Sussex.

Colin Page, of Saltdean, said: I saw it from my balcony and went to the seafront to get a better look. Several other people were speculating as to what it was. Several suggested a submarine.

The Russian billionaire had to leave the 200m yacht anchored off Saltdean, which attracted plenty of attention from residents

Brighton Marinas office confirmed the superyacht was too big to moor. Melnichenko, reportedly worth 8.5billion, is the 139th richest man in the world according to the Forbes billionaires list.

He made his fortune in the fertiliser, coal, power, and banking industries. Motor Yacht A reportedly accommodates 14 guests and 37 crew, has bomb-proof windows and an unusual upside-down hull that makes it resemble a huge submarine.

Quite a sight: Three spa pools with current-generating technology are spread throughout the yacht, and one has a glass floor that passengers can look into from the lower deck. Motor Yacht A launched eight years ago
Telling my slightly snobby, super-discerning lawyer husband, Dan, that I was taking him away for his birthday went down really very well indeed.

Without being too immodest about my talents, I think it's fair to say I am extremely good at planning exceptional, luxurious-yet-fun breaks that totally hit the mark. He didnt even mind when I said our daughters were coming too.

However, he wasnt quite so keen (to put it mildly) when I let on that we were going to be spending his special weekend up north in a mobile home.

Anne, Dan and their two daughters outside their Airstream caravan at Skelwith Fold campsite, in Ambleside in the Lake District

Dont worry, I assured him. It would be fine.

I would drive up to the campsite and get everything ready, he could come up on the train (first class, obvs) with the girls and I would pick him up from the station.

His response? A very grumpy: I hate caravans.

What he didnt know until he and the girls arrived was that this was no ordinary caravan.

The weekend I had planned involved a stunning, brand new, extremely cool Airstream.

The Airstream International 684 is retro yet super-modern and kitted out with everything a family could need for a weekend away

You know, those American-style silver trailers that immediately make you think of JFK (he used one as a mobile office), James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.

And the second he and the girls laid eyes on it there were big smiles (him) and squeals of delight (the girls, who at 10 and 12 think there is nothing more thrilling than sleeping on a table that turns into a bed) and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

It helped that the campsite we were staying at was Skelwith Fold, in Ambleside in the Lake District  not only because that area has particularly romantic memories: it was when I was studying nearby at Lancaster University that Dan and I met, and we spent many a weekend hiking and picnicking in the area.

The Airstream is an extremely cool American-style silver trailer that immediately makes you think of JFK (he used one as a mobile office), James Dean and Marilyn Monroe

The diner-style table and red leather sofas at one end of the Airstream convert into a second double bed

Back to the Airstream. We were in the International 684, and it was truly fabulous.

Retro yet super-modern, kitted out with everything a family could need for a weekend away, from a fridge to a cooker and sink, Corian surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom, tinted windows, microwave, two televisions with DVD players, plenty of storage.

This included a full wardrobe and endless cupboards - and everything opened, closed and clicked into place in an enormously satisfying just so kind of way.

Dan and I had a proper, beautifully comfortable double bed in a bedroom at one end of the Airstream, while the diner-style table and red leather sofas at the other end converted into another double for the girls.

It was literally like a boutique hotel on wheels. On a campsite. That would cost about 54,900 if you wanted to keep one in your driveway permanently.

The trailer is fitted with a comfortable double bed and a full bathroom

Airstream's European fleet, which launched in 2006, are lighter, narrower and shorter than their American cousins

Airstream launched in 1931 with an ambition to create lightweight travel trailers that slipped cleanly through the wind.

They are still built by hand in a process that takes 240 hours, and the European fleet  which has won a stack of awards  launched in 2006.

These versions are lighter, narrower and shorter than their American cousins, since we dont generally have such huge cars to tow them around, or such massive roads to move them on, I guess.

Myriad Hollywood stars own the beautiful beasts, including Matthew McConaughey (who actually left his Malibu home for a full year to live in his wheeled house), Colin Farrell (who prefers one to a hotel when filming in the US), and Lenny Kravitz. The Airstream's cool, classy creds cannot be argued with.

Matthew McConaughey is just one Hollywood A-lister who is very attached to his Airstream

Matthew McConaughey actually left his Malibu home for a full year to live in his wheeled house

That said, Chris Evans stays in one during Carfest - classy - and apparently Pamela Anderson has one fitted with a circular bed and a dancing pole. Less classy.

Back on British soil, our weekend could not have been more fun  and our daughters loved seeing all the places where their mum and dad had courted.

We had a brilliant morning climbing and zip-lining through the trees with Go Ape at Grizedale Forest  three hours of exhilarating rope bridges, ladders, tunnels and walkways made of wood, hidden among the branches in the most stunning setting.

Although it's not recommended if you dont like heights. But is definitely recommended if you love the idea of a brilliant tree-top adventure that will exhaust even the most active of kids... and adults.

Anne and her family had a brilliant morning climbing and zip-lining through the trees with Go Ape at Grizedale Forest

Dan and the girls prepare to go zip-lining through the trees at Go Ape

Skelwith Fold campsite in the Lake District, left, has a footpath that leads almost directly to the most fantastic pub and restaurant, The Drunken Duck Inn, right

Then there was our rather more sedate, but equally beautiful, boat trip across the lake with Windermere Lake Cruises, the utterly enchanting World of Beatrix Potter Attraction in Bowness-on-Windermere (my girls are now huge fans of Peter Rabbit) and a steam train ride on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway.

It was all very gentle and a little bit like being on an episode of Blind Date, we decided.

The other advantage of Skelwith Fold is that it has a footpath that leads almost directly to the most fantastic pub and restaurant, The Drunken Duck Inn, where we celebrated Dans birthday again.

We had a fabulous time but I knew the weekend had been a real success when he made me promise that the next evening we wouldnt be going out, but would be spending the night back at the Airstream, with another barbecue supper.
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Not much is more alluring when it comes to travel than the prospect of slithering into a crystal-clear ocean.

And while sadly so much of world's waters suffer the effects of junk and pollution, there do remain places which remain unscathed.

New Zealand's Blue Spring, for example, where water takes up to 100 years to filter through the ground and emerges as some of the purest on earth.

Or the incredible Sua Ocean Trench on the volcanic Upolu island in Samoa, a 98-foot deep hole with steps leading down to a platform from which swimmers can leap into the crystal clear grotto.

And it's not only the paradisiacal sunny spots. Places like Iceland and Antarctica boast some of the purest water in the world.

Here, MailOnline Travel has compiled some of the most breathtaking examples of H2O found from every corner of the globe.

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New Zealand's Putaruru Blue Spring, where water takes up to 100 years to filter through the ground and thus emerges among the purest on earth - as of this year, the council has banned swimming in it but you can still observe it from above

The incredible Sua Ocean Trench on the volcanic Upolu island in Samoa, a 98-foot deep hole with steps leading down to a platform from which swimmers can leap into the crystal clear grotto

An elephant swimming at Havelock Island, located in India's Bay of Bengal, in waters so clean the detail seen is astounding

Icebergs melt on a midsummer night at Jokulsarlon in Iceland, looming over glassy water which reveals every single pebble

Pictured (left) an underwater shot of Switzerland's legendary Verzasca River and (right) a diver reaches 18-feet underwater in Australia's Piccaninnie Chasm

The luxury Azura resort on Mozambique's private Benguerra island, world-renowned for its high-visibility turquoise ocean

Cocos Island, an uninhabited island located off the shore of Costa Rica, is famed for its scuba-diving, and you can see why

Star Beach, located in the Philippines' El Nido, is rated on Trip Advisor as one of the most pristine snorkelling spots worldwide

The Cayman Islands' most famous attraction, Stingray City and the nearby shallows know as the Sandbar, provide the only natural opportunity to swim with Atlantic Southern Stingrays

The Baths National park on the British Virgin Island of Gorda, in the Caribbean, with rocks visible from far above the surface

A long-tail boat on Thailand's Ko Kradan island in the pristine Trang Archipelago, surrounded by the beautiful Andaman Sea

The mouthwash-blue Peyto Lake at Canada's Banff National Park, an exceptionally pure body of water which gets its colour from the glacier rock flour that flows into it during the summer months

The dreamy Moorea Lagoon Resort in French Polynesia, in which stones on the seabed can be seen from a great distance

The sublime waters surrounding the San Blas Islands of Panama - an archipelago comprising of around 365 islands and cays

This aerial photograph shows the lush islands and reefs of Indonesia's Wakatobi archipelago, a thriving marine paradise

Taken from a seaplane, a photo of the wanderlust-inspring clear waters at Maya Bay in Thailand's idyllic Phi Phi Islands

Lampedusa, the largest of the Italian Pelagie Islands, beloved by swimmers for its ultra-clean and notably calm blue ocean

Agiofili Beach near Vassiliki on Lefkada Island, Greece - which attracts swarms of tourists each year, for obvious reasons

Emerald Bay on the Greek Anti-Paxos Island is particularly popular with sailing enthusiasts, and well-known for the vibrant colour of its ocean

Pianosa, an abandoned island in Tuscany which used to be a jail colony and is now a place to gawp at its untouched sea
Reese Witherspoon does not skip a workout.

The dedicated 40-year-old actress was back in her stylish fitness gear yet again as she stopped by the Beverly Hills hot spot, Kreation, for an organic meal on Saturday.

After donning a business casual look earlier in the day, she jumped into her leggings and sneakers for the later half of the day.

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Smiling in style: Reese Witherspoon jumped into her athletic gear on Saturday as she stopped by Beverly Hills for an organic meal

The mom-of-three opted for a pullover back sweater, which she paired with cropped leggings and colorful neon sneakers.

Reese paired the look with a cap, peach colored reflective sunglasses and two bags that slung over her shoulders, which hooked to her white iPhone.

Carrying a green water bottle, the Legally Blonde star held the brown paper Kreation bag in her hand.

Prep princess: The 40-year-old actress was seen earlier in the day donning a blue blouse, high-waisted pencil skirt and leapord-printed moccasins

On-the-go: The mom-of-three accessorized with a burgundy cross-body purse, stylish sunglasses and jewelry

Strong: The blonde bombshell had no trouble carrying her large tote bag as she multi-tasked on the phone

Great mood: Reese was all smiles as she carried out her errands of the day

Before slipping into her workout gear, Reese started her day off with her signature preppy look.

The blonde beauty had a light blue buttoned shirt, which was adorned with floral patterns, and tucked it into a darker blue pencil skirt, showcasing her hourglass figure.

The Wild actress added leopard print moccasin shoes, a burgundy cross body purse, and a large white tote bag that was almost as big as her 5ft1in figure.

Talking with a wide grin on the phone, the entrepreneur was nothing but smiles as she carried out her errands in Brentwood, California.

Back at it: The Wild actress recently returned from premiering her animated film, Sing, at Toronto International Film Festival and was back with her busy schedule

On Friday, Reese was seen shooting a holiday special for her clothing and lifestyle brand, Drames Japer.

She took to Snapchat and captioned her photos: 'BTS Draper James Holiday Shoot' with a cartoon of a yellow gift box tied with red ribbon.

The actress launched the brand online in May 2015 before opening the first bricks and mortar store in fall in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.

And the busy star also has other projects on the go: TV series My Little Lies and movies A Wrinkle In Time, Home Again, Tinker Bell and Wish List.
They're set to mentor a string of rising stars on the next season of Australia's Next Top Model.

And both Megan Gale and Jennifer Hawkins admit that the young contestants, including many teenagers, have a tough journey ahead of them.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph's TV Guide, 41-year-old Megan confessed she would have struggled to forge such a successful modelling career at those girls' age, and that the industry is much more competitive now for the next generation of runway stars.

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Reflecting: Both Jennifer Hawkins and Megan Gale admit that the young contestants on Australia's Next Top Model, including many teenagers, have a tough journey ahead of them

'I couldn't have done this when I was their age,' she told the publication.

'But then I think being 15 and 16 these days compared to when I was, back in the 1990s, is very different.'

This season's pool of Australia's Next Top Model contestants, features 13 girls aged between 16 and 25 years of age.

In another interview with News Corp, Megan said: 'The difference with these girls is they have an amazing platform but also huge pressure. The industry watches this show  theyre immediately on the radar'.

Back in the day: Jennifer (L) pictured in 2003 and Megan (R) pictured in 1999 at the early stages of their modelling careers

New generation: Some of the Australia's Next Top Model 2016 contestants pictured

'Compare my first experience to these girls  theyre 16 and shooting for Elle magazine!'

Megan won a modelling competition when she was 18, while fellow ANTM judge Jennifer was crowned Miss Universe back in 2004 at the age of 20.

Mother-of-one Megan has previously opened up about her teenage years, saying she felt 'shy and vulnerable' and admitting modelling was the last thing anyone would have expected for her future.

Speaking to OK! Australia last year, the brunette beauty confessed: 'There's still a little bit of that girl left'.

Intense: Megan says she would have struggled to forge such a successful modelling career at those girls' age, and that the industry is much more competitive now for the next generation of runway stars - pictured in Rome for Gai Mattiolo in 1999)

'I had to force myself when I was first in the industry to grow confidence and to push past the feelings of being shy and vulnerable,' Megan says now.

The Mad Max: Fury Road actress was first spotted by an agent at an etiquette class she took to gain some confidence.

When the then 16-year-old Perth girl was asked to begin modelling, she thought it would be a good part-time job and never expected it to turn into a career.

Pageant queen: Jennifer, who was a legal secretary and cheerleader in her teenager years, was crowned Miss Universe in 2004

Although, the model mum admits the first few years were a tough slog, establishing herself in the industry, telling the publication: 'In those first five years I got rejected a lot'.

But after much perseverance and developing a thick skin, the L'Oreal Paris ambassador is a worldwide success.

Megan and Jennifer will be appearing as judges on Australia's Next Top Model alongside Alex Perry.
Kanye West is well known for his ravings and rants, and those morose expressions, so this gentler behavior was an eye opener.

The 39-year-old rapper showed a rarely seen softer side as he laughed and played with his three-year-old daughter North on Saturday during a family day by the pool in Miami, Florida.

Kanye and North were having their own little cuddle session that was witnessed with adoring looks by Kim, Kourtney, and Kourtney's brood as well.

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That's my baby: Kanye West showed a rarely seen gentler side as he played with daughter North during a family day at the pool in Miami, Florida on Saturday

The Famous hitmaker might have caused a few double takes as he was seen cradling his giggling girl who was wrapped up tight in a white towel.

North had just been splashing around in the pool and her hair was still a mass of wet curls as nannies brought her over to her father.

Kanye had been hanging out in the dappled sunlight, looking a little subdued, but his face lit up when North approached.

All wrapped up: North had just been swimming and was all wrapped up in a cosy white towel

Come to daddy: A nanny brought the little girl over to the family reclining on lounge chairs beneath the umbrella

There's a smile: Kanye cracked a rare smile as the nanny handed the child over to him

He gathered up his little girl in his arms and made her laugh out loud while cooing into her face and lowering her down upon the cushioned lounge chair.

At one point, Kourtney, 37, strolled over to give North a little pinch to the nose, beaming adoration as she did so.

Kourtney sported wet hair that was pulled back down her back, along with a white shirt over her bathing suit.

Talk to me: The father and daughter were having what looked like a lively chat

Hugs: There was nothing more comforting than a hug at this moment

Rock-a-bye baby: Kanye appeared to be swaying North back and forth in his arms

Tickles: North squealed with delight as Kanye cooed into her face

Penelope, four, and Mason, six, stood by their mom watching Kanye and North at their daddy-daughter game.

Kim, 35, reigned like the sun goddess that she is, wearing a clingy flesh-toned top and black track trousers.

She seemed to get a kick too out of the cute display Kanye and North judging by the slight smile widening her face.

Pinch: Kourtney came by to pinch North's little nose

Is it nap time yet? Kanye yawned wide no doubt from the late night he had performing at the AmericanAirlines Arena on Friday

He's a charmer: The Famous rapper chatted with Kourtney's little girl Penelope, four

Her phone lay close by amidst the white robes and towels flung against the lounge chair.

A tidy lunch with glasses of lemon water scattered here and there, a green-rimmed sippy cup among them, lay on the cushion.

A white bowl of half-eaten pasta sat waiting to be either finished or carried away.

On with the show: Kanye was fairly eclipsed by Kim and her scantily clad cleavage on the way to the concert on Friday night

The Kardashian-West clan flew to Florida for Kanye's concert dates on Friday and Saturday nights.

Kanye's performance on Friday at the AmericanAirlines Arena may have been eclipsed, however, by Kim's shimmery appearance in a plunging silver dress.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7, not Galaxy Note 8 vs Galaxy S7 Edge: Specs, features and price comparison (Photo : Facebook / Galaxy Note 7)

Samsung is now recalling all Galaxy Note 7 units across the world since there have been multiple instances of its battery explosion throughout the world. The South Korean giant is ready to replace Galaxy Note 7 with newer handsets that feature new batteries, Phone Arena reported.



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However, it will take few weeks for the new Galaxy Note 7 units to arrive. Hence, the company is ready to replace Galaxy Note 7 units with Galaxy S7 Edge and since the latter carries lower price tag, Samsung will also reimburse the price difference. Here is a comparison between Galaxy Note 7 and Galaxy S7 Edge on the basis of their specifications and features.



Design and Display

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge sport premium design as both are beautifully crafted out of glass and metal. Both the smartphones are IP68 certified devices which comes with dust proof and water resistant body.



The Galaxy Note 7 measures 153.5 x 73.9 x 7.9 mm having a weight of 169 grams. On the other side, the Galaxy S7 Edge measures 150.9 x 72.6 x 7.7 mm in dimension and weighs only 157 grams.



The Galaxy Note 7 has a 5.7-inch dual-edge curved S-AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection, whereas the Galaxy S7 Edge also features a dual-edge curved S-AMOLED display that measures 5.5 inches. The S7 Edge's screen is protected Corning Gorilla Glass 4.



Both the smartphones support QHD resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels, but Galaxy Note 7 produces 518 ppi pixel density because of its larger screen, whereas Galaxy S7 Edge has a pixel density 534 ppi.



Chipset, RAM and Storage

In the U.S., both the Samsung phablets are powered by Snapdragon 820 chipset and 4GB RAM. The Note 7 has a native storage of 64 GB whereas S7 Edge features an internal storage of 32 GB.



In other markets, both the phones are also available in another CPU variant of Exynos 8890. The Galaxy S7 Edge also comes in another storage version of 64 GB outside the U.S. The storage capacity of both the models can be expanded up to 256GB via microSD card by using SIM 2 slot.



Camera, Software

The Galaxy S7 Edge has a 12-megapixel rear facing camera enabled with features like optical image stabilization, phase detection autofocus and LED flash.There is a 5-megapixel front facing camera on its front side. The Galaxy Note 7



Both the smartphones come preloaded with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow OS and TouchWiz UI. Both are expected to get Android 7.0 Nougat upgrade by the end of this year, Vine Report reported.



Other Features and Battery

The Galaxy Note 7 and Galaxy S7 Edge are both equipped fingerprint sensors. However, the Note 7 also comes with some unique features such as iris scanner and S-Pen stylus that are not present with S7 Edge.



The Galaxy Note 7 is packed with 3,500 mAh battery whereas the Galaxy S7 Edge houses a slightly larger battery of 3,600 mAh capacity. Both the batteries support fast charging and wireless charging.



Here is a video on Samsung Galaxy Note 7 vs. Galaxy S7 Edge:






She is often seen parading her killer body in tiny bikinis on the beach.

But Kimberley Garner was not afraid to show off her figure on her home turf too, as she headed to the Zeynep Kartal SS17 show at London Fashion Week on Saturday.

The former Made in Chelsea, 26, headed to the event at the Houses of Parliament in a suit-style mini dress, flaunting her unbelievably slender legs - which seemed to catch the attention of her male companion on the FROW.

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Kimber-leggy: Kimbeley Garner, 26, launted her unbelievably slender legs in a suit-style mini dress at the Zeynep Kartal SS17 show at London Fashion Week on Saturday

The blonde beauty elongated her enviably leggy frame in the navy suit dress, featuring smart satin lapels and a collar.

With a longer panel at the hem only just covering her modesty, the frock displayed her lithe pins and glowing golden tan, picked up from recent St Tropez holiday, for all to see.

Shaped like a blazer, the lapels plunged into a deep V neckline, sexily alluring at her chest.

Thigh-raising: With a longer panel at the hem only just covering her modesty, the frock displayed her lithe pins and glowing golden tan

The blonde beauty added pointed stiletto boots and a leather shoulder bag to add to the classy but chic look.

Kimberley fiercely worked her angles as she posed outside the landmark venue, before heading in to the show - where she cosied up to her male companion.

Perched happily on the front row, Kimberley positioned herself next to her handsome male, who rested his hand tenderley on her upper thigh.

Romance on the cards? Kimberley positioned herself next to a handsome male, who rested his hand tenderley on her upper thigh

While the reality star beamed for the camera, the brown-haired beau only had eyes for Kimberley, gazing at her in adoration.

The coy pair then chatted and giggled together before the show kicked off.

Kimberley has enjoyed brief flings with her Made in Chelsea co-stars Spencer Matthews and Richard Dinan in the past.

However she admitted recently that she was unhappy with the way she and her relationships were edited, and accused producers of persuading her to say certain things.

Cosy: While the reality star beamed for the camera, the brown-haired friend only had eyes for his blonde companion, gazing at her in adoration

She explained: 'They definitely edit a lot - I was shocked when I watched it back. They get you to say certain phrases, and suddenly create scenes that happened completely differently to reality.

'You'd watch it back thinking, "That didn't even happen!" and the storyline would be completely different. That was one of the reasons why I left.'

While the designer cosied up to her companion, TOWIE star Lydia Bright arrived at the same catwalk show in a knockout green suit.

Taking the plunge: Former TOWIE star Pacal Craymer showcased her cleavage in a black embellished midi dress

Preened to perfection: She wore her raven tresses in polished waves and added a slick of lipstick

Killer footwear: The fitness fanatic added a pair of black cross-strap heels

Dream in green: Lydia Bright attended the same event, in a full green two-piece suit and bright floral heels

Best friends: Lydia upped the glamour in the tailored green suit as she headed to the show with her glamorous best pal - her mum Debbie

The mottled linen two-piece was a very trendy ensemble for the Essex lass, featuring defined shoulders and perfectly tailored trousers.

Plunging to the jacket buttons in a deep V like Kimberley's outfit, the blonde flashed a hint of her racy black lace bra underneath.

Adding a monochrome handbag and giving the look a splash of colour with floral court shoes, the blonde seriously upped the glamour as she headed to the Zeynep Kartal showcase with her equally glamorous best pal - her mum Debbie.

The designer, who describes her style on her website as a 'distinctive sense of elegance and femininity', wowed with a dramatic but simultaneously delicate collection of floor-length lace and florals.
They play two of the most popular characters on Game Of Thrones.

And Emilia Clarke and Maisie Williams were certainly the belles of the ball on their latest red carpet.

The two talented actresses certainly turned heads as they arrived at the BBC America BAFTA Los Angeles TV Tea Party on Saturday night hosted by Ruffino Wines..

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Dames of thrones: Emilia Clarke (left) and Maisie Williams looked great as they arrived at the BBC America BAFTA Los Angeles TV Tea Party on Saturday night

They both rocked pink looks as they attended the event held at The London Hotel in West Hollywood, California.

Emilia, 29, looked stunning in an off-the-shoulder lace number from designer Elie Saab featuring sheer panelling all over it.

The British beauty, who plays Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO series, teamed the long frock with a pair of brown, python leather heels.

Stunner: The 29-year-old actress looked gorgeous as she attended the event held at The London Hotel in West Hollywood, California

Pretty: Emilia looked stunning in an off-the-shoulder lace number from designer Elie Saab featuring sheer panelling all over it

Man with the plan: She posed for a picture with Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin

Taking the plunge: Maisie, 19, wore a low cut mini silk mini dress featuring emblazoned patterns including stars and spaceships

What an entrance: The actress, who plays Arya Stark, also sported metallic heels and matched with a triangular-shaped clutch

Excited: She also posed for a snap with the creator

She accessorised with a few rings on her fingers and a small bracelet as she held onto a neat metallic gold Chanel clutch which resembled a cigar box.

Her ombre blonde locks were worn down in a middle part as she let her natural beauty show with make-up including a swipe of shiny pink lip.

Maisie, 19, wore a low cut mini silk mini dress featuring emblazoned patterns including stars and spaceships.

Big night: Also at the event was young stranger things actress Millie Bobby Brown

Dynamic duo: The 12-year-old actress joined Emilia at the event

Shimmering: Kate Walsh looked good in silver and black

Curvaceous: Niecy Nash looked stylish as always

The actress, who plays Arya Stark, also sported metallic heels and matched with a triangular-shaped clutch.

Her raven-coloured locks were pulled back and tucked behind her ear as she had complimentary make-up on her face including pink blush and lip.

Also at the event was young stranger things actress Millie Bobby Brown.

Pretty in patterns: Hannah Murray wore a floral patterned navy and white suit

Back in black: Zelda Williams and Jillian Rose Reed matched in black

Comfortable cool: Allison Janney sported a white blouse and black trousers

Beautiful in blue: Sela Ward looked great in a navy maxi dress

The 12-year-old talent wore a black sequined dress at the event.

Millie, who stars as Eleven in the hit Netflix series, posed for photos with co-star David Harbour and even Emilia at the star-studded gala.

TV personality and host Diana Madison looked sensational at the bash in which she wore a chic white dress with a one shoulder detail and a pretty feather print by Gauri and Nainika.

The annual TV Tea Party event brings together nominees, members and guests as they celebrate the year in television.

Handsome: Cuba Gooding looked smart in a waistcoat

Legend: Jeffrey Tambor was joined by wife Kasia
Like any busy working mother, Jennifer Garner can often use the pick-me-up effects of a caffeine fix.

And on Saturday, the actress was spotted at West Hollywood's Verve Coffee Roasters.

The 44-year-old wore a pair of black leggings that indicated her enviably toned legs.

Morning sustenance: On Saturday, Jennifer Garner was spotted stopping by Verve Coffee Roasters in West Hollywood

Over a purple top, the Juno actress had thrown on a bulky purple jumper.

The word 'SHINE' was splashed across it, the 'E' appearing knocked aside so that it sat askew, separate from the rest of the word.

Her hair pulled back and tightly braided, she completed the outfit with pink-fringed white socks and a pair of baby blue trainers.

The mother of three's platinum blonde companion for the morning wore her hair in a ponytail, combining black leggings of her own with a zaffre workout top.

When you got it: The 44 year old wore a pair of black leggings that emphasised her admirably toned legs

As they left Verve, Garner took charge, carrying both of the iced beverages down Melrose Avenue.

The woman currently separated from Ben Affleck only recently returned to Los Angeles.

On Tuesday night, she'd appeared on the red carpet for the Toronto International Film Festival screening of her latest film Wakefield.

Showing off her svelte figure in an exquisite black dress with a multicoloured pattern, she posed beside her co-star, Bryan Cranston, who wore a rumpled grey suit with a pale blue shirt and sapphire tie.

In comes company: A friend joined the Juno star to pick up a pair of iced beverages

Having celebrated its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival earlier this month, Wakefield was adapted from an EL Doctorow short story that ran in The New Yorker in 2008.

The Doctorow version is itself an adaptation of a short story by the 19th century American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Cranston stars as a man who deserts his family unannounced, watching the fallout as it unfolds. Garner plays his wife.
She broke down in tears just days earlier after claiming a suicide attempt was due to 'so much hatred' from online commentators.

But on Saturday Paris Jackson found her inner 'peace' as she decided to get another tattoo, this time in honor of John Lennon's hit Imagine.

'Imagine all the people living life in peace,' the 18-year-old beauty's new ink read with a sketch of the former Beatles member.

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'Living life in peace': Paris Jackson got a tattoo in honor of John Lennon's hit Imagine on Saturday

It's possible the daughter of the late Michael Jackson decided to inscribe the uplifting message after an emotional series of videos she posted on Wednesday.

The blue-eyed teen sobbed in several Instagram clips, which she deleted a short time later, and poured her heart out to fans and followers.

'When I was 14 I got so much hatred that I tried to kill myself,' she sobbed.

'We've got hearts': After a tearful breakdown days earlier, it seemed the 18-year-old had found her inner 'peace'

Inspirational: 'Imagine all the people living life in peace,' her new ink read along with a sketch of the late Beatle

'I don't understand how there can be so much hatred in the world right now,' she began.

'I've tried sticking up for myself, I've tried the whole, blocking the haters thing, not reading the comments,' she cried. 'I've tried, I've tried a lot of things, ignoring it, but it's hard. It is, when there's so much of it.'

Paris continued: 'And I don't get why I'm such an easy target. I try to be nice to everybody that I meet. I give everyone a chance. I'm usually a very trusting person.'

She spoke directly to her social media fans and followers.

'I tried to kill myself': MKichael jackson's daughter sobbed during several Instagram videos on Wednesday as she pleaded with online haters to stop bullying

'I try to be open with you guys about what I do on a daily basis, I share my life with you, I don't hide a lot, I'm very public.'

'So I'm sorry if there's something that I'm doing that you guys don't like. Maybe I'm too public? I don't know,' she conceded.

'I'm just tired of it, I'm just really, really tired.'

And although Paris seemed devastatingly upset, comments on her recent social media posts expressed overwhelming support and love for the star.

Candid confessions: A few days ago Paris broke down in tears in a series of raw videos she posted after claiming a suicide attempt was due to 'so much hatred' from online trolls

One Instagram follower with the username m_unapazza_97_j wrote: 'I want you to remember every moment that we will always love and support you, and that we don't search you and appreciate just because you're Michael Jackson's daughter but especially because we love the real you.'

'I envy you and so do countless of other people in this world. Dude you're soooo awesome. There is a lot of hate but there is a lot of love!!!!!' __shawtayy commented.

She concluded her clips with a few messages to those who targeted her and others victimized.

'I mean, we're human beings man, we've got hearts, and brains, and feelings, and when you say damaging things like that to people, it f***s them up.'

'I f***ing love you': Paris paid tribute to her late father Michael Jackson in June with a red ink hand tattoo of 'Bad', the single from his seventh studio album of the same name

She added: 'It really f***s people up when you do that and I don't know if that's what people want, but it's exhausting, really and truly, its really exhausting.'

This past June marked the seven-year anniversary since the passing of Paris' father, so she paid tribute to the King of Pop with a tattoo that she showed off on Instagram.

'I f***ing love you,' she captioned the image of her right hand with 'Bad' inked in red; the single from his seventh studio album of the same name.

The platinum blonde beauty also got a tattoo of the iconic lightning bolt to represent the late David Bowie who passed away at the age of 69 in January.

Prince's purple 'Love Symbol' was also newly inked on the top of her hand, along with the band Van Halen's logo.
It was back in June 2015 that girl band G.R.L. decided to split, just nine months after band member Simone Battle committed suicide in September 2014.

But now the group has reformed, with Lauren Bennett and Natasha Slayton returning, along with a new member Jazzy Mejia.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia ahead of their appearance at Nickelodeon Slimefest later this month, the girls said they were keeping Simone's legacy alive through their newest musical venture.

They're back: US girl band G.R.L. have reformed with Lauren Bennett (L) and Natasha Slayton (R) returning, along with new member Jazzy Mejia

'It was a huge shock,' Lauren initially confessed, referring to hearing the news back in September 2014 that Simone had passed away.

'It really changed our lives. We were able to get positive things out of it in the end but to be honest it's been hard. It's not easy.'

For Lauren, taking some time out away from friends and family was essential for her personal grieving process.

'I went to Joshua Tree which is like off the grid in California and I spent three months there away from everything and everyone,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Tragedy: The group has reformed after band member Simone Battle committed suicide in September 2014

Flashback: Original band members Natasha Slayton, Simone Battle, Lauren Bennett, Paula van Oppen and Emmalyn Estrada posed as a group of five in July 2014

'I just needed to escape the real world for a second, which was really good. I feel like I came back with more of a purpose.'

Meanwhile fellow band member Natasha, who has also been a part of the group since it formed in 2013, admitted: 'I kind of did the same thing'.

While she didn't embark on a distant retreat, she chose to 'delve into singing and dancing more and more' as a 'creative outlet' to help her cope with the loss.

Unfortunately band members Emmalyn Estrada and Paula van Oppen chose not to return to the group this year.

Disbanded: Lauren, Natasha, Emmalyn and Paula of G.R.L., split in June last year, nine months after the death of Simone

'Last time we spoke to Emmalyn, we were deciding whether we were going to move forward and I think she's just kind of doing her own music now,' Lauren said.

And in reference to Paula, Lauren told Daily Mail Australia: 'I think she had a [hard] time moving forward given the situation and that's understandable.

'She definitely had a hard time dealing with what happened and we're sympathetic.'

Natasha added: 'We all had a really hard time of course but we have to respect each person's healing process. But there's no hard feelings whatsoever between any of us.

You go girl! Simone performed on the X-Factor USA in August 2011, rising to fame as one of the finalists before taking her own life in September 2014

'We'll always be sisters and we'll always be connected by our everlasting bond.'

This of course left room for the girls to find another band member, which is where Jazzy's involvement came into play.

The 22-year-old is stoked to be a part of the group, and understands the expectations are high for her to fill Simone's shoes.

'I really admired Simone so so much. And I don't feel in any way I'm taking her place,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Moving forward: Both Natasha (L) and Lauren (R) admitted to Daily Mail Australia that Simone's death was a 'huge shock' and that they took a lot of time to grieve before returning to music

'I feel like everyday she's supporting us, she's here with us and I feel so honoured to be in the place that she was.'

The girls are confident that Simone would be proud of their musical efforts, with Natasha saying: 'We're doing what she loves to do and putting our hearts and souls into it and that's what she always did'. '

'We're keeping her legacy alive. In everything we do, she will always be honoured. She's a part of this forever,' Lauren added.

Lauren, Natasha and Jazzy will be in Australia later this month, to perform at the Slimefest events being held in Sydney and Melbourne.

New girl: Jazzy is stoked to be a part of the group, and understands the expectations are high for her to fill Simone's shoes

'We want to get slimed real bad,' Lauren confessed, when asked about the popular Nickelodeon event.

Natasha added: 'I've always wanted to get slimed and wondered what does that feel like?''.

The family-friendly music festivals will be hosted by Australian songstress Delta Goodrem, with the likes of Havana Brown, Omi, Mashd N Kutcher and In Stereo also taking to the stage.

Nickelodeon Slimefest will be held in Melbourne on Sunday September 25 and in Sydney on Friday September 30, with tickets available for purchase via slimefest.com.au.

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.
Katie Holmes was in full-on incognito mode, hiding under her sunglasses and black floppy hat, while at the ICM Partners pre-Emmy Awards brunch in Santa Monica on Saturday.

However, the 37-year-old actress - whose stylist is unknown - did bare her legs in nautical shorts, which she paired with loafers, a blazer, and a silk scarf.

The Touched with Fire star sat with Oscar nominee Jeff Goldblum, who welcomed his first child Charlie with much younger wife Emilie Livingston a year ago.

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Incognito mode: Katie Holmes hid under her sunglasses and black floppy hat while at the ICM Partners pre-Emmy Awards brunch in Santa Monica on Saturday

Leggy lady: However, the 37-year-old actress did bare her legs in nautical shorts, which she paired with loafers, a blazer, a silk scarf and a pair of Sunday Somewhere shades

Chit chat: The Touched with Fire star sat with Oscar nominee Jeff Goldblum, who welcomed his first child Charlie with much younger wife Emilie Livingston a year ago

Meanwhile, Holmes' perpetually rumoured boyfriend Jamie Foxx was readying himself to perform Saturday night at Las Vegas hotspot Jewel Nightclub.

On Wednesday, OK! Magazine reported that the Ohio-born brunette and the 48-year-old Oscar winner plan on marrying this November at his Westlake Village mansion.

Katie - born Kate - has been single for over four years since divorcing her husband of six years, Tom Cruise, who co-starred with Foxx in the 2004 thriller Collateral.

'Come kick it wit us!' Meanwhile, Holmes' perpetually rumoured boyfriend Jamie Foxx was readying himself to perform Saturday night at Las Vegas hotspot Jewel Nightclub

Divorced mother: Katie - born Kate - pulled from her experience raising 10-year-old daughter Suri for her upcoming feature directorial debut, All We Had

Hits US theaters December 9! Holmes also stars as poor single mother Rita Carmichael in the drama, which features Stefania LaVie Owen (R), Luke Wilson, Judy Greer, and Mark Consuelos

The Ray Donovan stunner pulled from her experience raising 10-year-old daughter Suri for her upcoming feature directorial debut, All We Had.

Holmes also stars as poor single mother Rita Carmichael in the drama - hitting US theaters December 9 - which features Stefania LaVie Owen, Luke Wilson, Judy Greer, and Mark Consuelos.

Back at the brunch, Cruise's Jerry Maguire co-stars Regina King and Cuba Gooding Jr. enjoyed an affectionate reunion at the estate.

Big bear hug: Back at the brunch, her ex-husband Tom Cruise's Jerry Maguire co-stars Regina King and Cuba Gooding Jr. enjoyed an affectionate reunion at the estate

'It was so great meeting @cubagoodingjr #awesome!' The 48-year-old Oscar winner got to meet Stranger Things scene stealer Millie Bobby Brown on Friday

The 48-year-old Oscar winner - currently heading up FX's AHS: Roanoke - got to meet Stranger Things scene stealer Millie Bobby Brown on Friday.

The British 12-year-old - whose shaved head is growing out - looked cute in a trench coat-inspired sleeveless dress and Burberry-tartan ballet flats.

The precocious tween was also brunching alongside her 42-year-old co-star David Harbour, whose torn Achilles tendon forced him to drop out of the Public Theater's Troilus and Cressida.

It girl! The British 12-year-old - whose shaved head is growing out - looked cute in a trench coat-inspired sleeveless dress and Burberry-tartan ballet flats
Kris Jenner showed just where her famous reality star daughters get their genes from as she hit up a red carpet in Beverly Hills on Saturday night.

The Kardashian momager belied her 60 years in a plunging black dress with sheer sleeves as she attended a benefit for the Brent Shapiro Foundation.

With her raven hair gelled up and away from her forehead and her line-free face, Kris could clearly give her girls a run for their money in the glamour stakes.

Holding back time: Kris Jenner, 60, gave off a youthful appearance at a charity fundraiser in Beverly Hills on Saturday night

The stunning brunette added a pair of trendy, cage shoes and a '90s-inspired choker to complete her look.

The mom-of-six also added evening drama with her smokey eye and brown lip.

Kris was at the event to support Robert Shapiro, who like her late husband Robert Kardashian was a member of O.J. Simpson's 'dream team' of lawyers at his double murder trial.

He established the foundation that supports those with substance abuse issues in the name of his son who passed away from alcoholism.

The Kardashian look: The momager gave her famous reality star daughters a run for their money in the sexy black dress with a plunging neckline and sheer sleeves

Date night! Kris, whose face appeared remarkably wrinkle-free, was accompanied by her younger boyfriend, Cory Gamble

In his honour: Robert Shapiro, 74, and his wife Linell created The Brent Shapiro Foundation in memory of their son who passed away after a battle with alcoholism

Songstress Katharine McPhee, 32, wore a patterned, A-line dress, which she paired with a set of sparkling, strappy heels

Songstress Katharine McPhee, 32, also came out to support the event.

She wore a patterned, A-line dress, which she paired with a set of sparkling, strappy heels.

La Toya Jackson, 60, modeled a winter white pantsuit, complete with a fabric overlay cape around her waist.

Kathy Hilton, 57, bared her midriff in a cropped top and skirt ensemble, while Kym Johnson, 40, was styled in a black, spaghetti strap dress with a draped bottom.

Artistic ensemble: La Toya Jackson, 60, modeled a winter white pantsuit, complete with a fabric overlay cape around her waist

Their styles: Kathy Hilton, 57, bared her midriff in a cropped top and skirt ensemble, while Kym Johnson, 40, was styled in a black, spaghetti strap dress with a draped bottom

Companion: The Dancing With the Star pro's husband Robert Herjavec, 54, came out with his leading lady

Risk-taker: Adrienne Maloof, 55, wore a metallic, V-neck gown, which was the backdrop against her blonde and brown loose waves

Adrienne Maloof, 55, wore a metallic, V-neck gown, which was the backdrop against her blonde and brown loose waves.

Former Access Hollywood host, Shaun Robinson, 54, was a vision in a red, strapless gown paired with a matching scarf.

Terri Seymour was feminine in a maroon, floral-patterned frock, while Golnesa 'GG' Gharachedaghi chose a fitted bodycon dress and animal-print heels.

Colourful beauties: Shaun Robinson, 54, was a vision in a red, strapless gown while Extra correspondent Terri Seymour was feminine in a maroon, floral-patterned frock
She's the five-year-old fashionista, who likes to keep her 112,000 Instagram fans up-to-date with her day-to-day activities.

And now Roxy Jacenko's daughter Pixie Curtis has showcased her love for music, in two videos uploaded to social media by the PR maven, showing the five-year-old dancing and singing during a family outing across the weekend.

Captioned, 'Sunday's call for dancing' the adorable red-head is is seen dancing in the back of the car, while singing along next to her two-year-old brother Hunter Curtis.

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Superstar: Pixie Curtis has showcased her love for music in two video's posted to social media on Sunday, showing the Instagram star dancing and singing on a day out with the family

In the second video, posted to Roxy's Instagram, Pixie is seen singing and dancing while Hunter smiles in the back seat of the family car.

The follow up video is captioned, 'Hurrrrry Up Dors,' alluding that the family were waiting on Roxy's mother Doreen to join them.

Another picture uploaded on Hunter's Instagram page (by his mother), saw the blonde beauty sipping on a juice while her son pretended to sip on a beverage in a takeaway coffee cup.

The snap was comically captioned: 'Knocking them back with a professional'.

Family unit: Another video posted to Roxy's Instagram sees Pixie singing and dancing while Hunter smiles in the back seat of the family car

Meanwhile, this isn't the first time Pixie has been filmed captivated by music.

The young Instagram star, who has garnered more than 112,000 followers, was shown belting out the lyrics to The Chainsmokers - Don't Let Me Down ft. Daya in the back of her family car.

Singing, 'don't let me down', the five-year-old struggled to remember the lyrics but made up for her adorable dance moves as the song continued to play.

Doting mother: Another picture uploaded on Hunter's Instagram page (by his mother), saw the Roxy sipping on a juice while her son pretended to sip on a beverage in a takeaway coffee cup

Roxy has been seen doting on both Hunter and Pixie recently after a tumultuous year, which saw her diagnosed with breast cancer and her husband sent to jail.

The mother-of-two often canvasses her family outings and pictures of her children across social media appearing to be stronger than ever during these tough times.

After grilling the PR queen for a story on 60 Minutes recently, reporter Allison Langdon toldThe Daily Telegraph Roxy's young daughter is 'really struggling' since her father was jailed for insider trading.

'Military is a thing this season you know': Five-year-old Instagram star Pixie Curtis poses in a red blazer, white sneakers and red bow before going out for dinner on Sunday night

Oliver was sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison in June - and even his wife Roxy predicted his absence would take a toll on their children.

In a character reference presented to the court during Oliver's trial, the PR maven claimed children Pixie and Hunter were dependent on their father.

'Pixie and Hunter adore their dad. He's fun, tolerant, uncomplaining and loving,' she wrote.

Struggling: The five-year-old is reported to be 'really struggling' with her father Oliver Curtis' imprisonment, according to 60 Minutes reporter Allison Langdon

All smiles? Oliver's imprisonment is apparently taking its toll on Pixie - as Roxy confirmed neither Hunter (R) or Pixie will be allowed to see their father behind bars

'They screech with excitement as soon as they see him and no one else matters to them  not even me.'

Roxy told friends in July that she will never take her young children to see their father while he remains in prison, reported the Daily Telegraph.

Both Hunter and Pixie feature in commercial Instagram accounts ran by their mother. Pixie's is often used to market her accessory business.

Back in business: Despite her father's incarceration and her mother's breast cancer scare, five-year-old is still 'promoting' her bow business through Instagram
Claire Danes never takes a fashion misstep.

And Saturday was no different for the 37-year-old actress who was pretty as a petal in a colourful floral dress at the Showtime Emmy Eve Party in Los Angeles with SVEDKA Vodka.

The blonde beauty - who is up for Best Actress in the political thriller Homeland - made sure to stand out from the crowd in her vibrant yet feminine frock.

Pretty as a petal! Claire Danes looked radiant in a colourful floral dress at the Showtime Emmy Eve Party in Los Angeles on Saturday

The four-time Golden Globe winner showcased her enviable figure in the midi number which included a ruffled hemline.

Her sleeveless garb - which pleated across the neckline and cinched at the waist - included shades of lavender, coral, rose, tangerine and cream.

She styled her signature golden locks in loose waves as they hit just past her shoulders.

Success! The Homeland star geared up the night before the Emmys as she's up for Best Actress in the Showtime hit, a role that's already nabbed her two wins

No stranger to Emmy success, Claire - who first shot to fame in 1994's critically-acclaimed My So-Called Life - has been nominated four times for Best Actress for her role in Homeland, and won twice, in 2012 and 2013.

This year she is up against Viola Davis in How To Get Away With Murder, Taraji P. Henson in Empire, Tatiana Maslany in Orphan Black, Keri Russell in The Americans and Robin Wright in House Of Cards.

She will return as Carrie Mathison for a sixth season of her Showtime hit series in 2017.

Magnificent in black! Emmy Rossum, 30, was ever the classic beauty in a strapless black dress with fringed hemline

Flashed some skin: The Shameless star wore her silky chestnut tresses were styled straight for a dramatic look and she added a bold red lip for a pop of colour

Also in attendance at the network's pre-Emmy bash was loved-up couple Felicity Huffman, 53, and William H. Macy, 66.

The Hollywood power couple - who just celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary earlier this month - are both nominated for Emmys this time around.

Felicity is up for Best Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her role as Leslie Graham in American Crime.

Nominated: Felicity Huffman, 53, is up for Best Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her role as Leslie Graham in American Crime

Powerful performance: William H. Macy, 66, is up for his role as the drug-addled Frank Gallagher in Showtime's own Shameless

Loved up! The Hollywood power couple - who just celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary earlier this month - are both nominated for Emmys this time around

William is up for his role as the drug-addled Frank Gallagher in Showtime's own Shameless with co-star Emmy Rossum, who also attended the affair.

The 30-year-old was ever the classic beauty in a strapless black dress with fringed hemline.

Her silky chestnut tresses were styled straight for a dramatic look and she added a bold red lip for a pop of colour.

ABC will air the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on September 18, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.
She credits her toned figure to professional dancing.

And on Saturday, Dancing With The Stars' Kym Johnson showed off her frame as she attended the Annual Brent Shapiro Foundation For Alcohol And Drug Prevention Summer Spectacular in California.

While stepping out at the function, the Australian beauty flashed her cleavage and toned legs as she slipped into a black ensemble that featured a plunging neckline and a thigh-high split.

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On show: Kym Johnson flashed her cleavage and legs on Saturday as she dressed in a black ensemble that had a plunging neckline and a thigh-high split for a charity event in California

The thin-strapped garment featured lace around the chest as it hugged tightly around her body while two separate panels dropped loosely from her waistline.

Kym accessorised her elegant choice of attire with black peep-toed heels and diamond stud earrings.

For the evening, she parted her blonde locks down the middle and slicked them back tightly while styling them in a low bun.

Flattering: The thin-strapped garment featured lace around the chest as it hugged tightly around her body while two separate panels dropped loosely from her waistline

The TV star flaunted her naturally flawless complexion as she defined her cheekbones with a light pink blush while highlighting her lips with a pale pink lipstick.

She also outlined her pierce blue eyes with a thick black eyeliner and mascara.

While posing on the black carpet, the professional dancer flashed her large diamond engagement and wedding band as she rested her hands firmly on her hips.

She was also joined by her husband Robert at the event, who dressed in a black suit and white button-up shirt.

True beauty: The TV star flaunted her naturally flawless complexion as she defined her cheekbones with a light pink blush while highlighting her lips with a pale pink lipstick

Kym first met Robert when she was chosen as his professional partner on Dancing with the Stars in March 2015.

At the time, the Shark Tank judge was separated from his former wife of 24 years, Diane Plese.

They married in late July at the Four Seasons hotel in California after she was proposed to with a 6.5 carat ring in February - just five months after the couple went public with their relationship.
Mob Psycho 100 Episode 12 Preview (Photo : Mob Psycho poster)

Mob Psycho 100 episode 11: Just when bad luck strikes hard, the Claw's most powerful esper arrives in the 7th division facility to make things worse for Hanazawa, Dimple and the Kageyama brothers (Ritsu and Shigeo).



Episode 11 synopsis: Claw's Leader



The leader of the Claw, an underground organization of espers whose aim is to dethrone the world government using psychic powers, arrives at the 7th division awakening facility a lot earlier than branch leader Ishiguro has expected.



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That person turned out to be only Reigen, who easily get into the secret facility without facing resistance by pretending to be the leader of the Claw. Using his cunning skills to deceive people, he's able to manipulate the small fries of the organization to track down the Kageyama brother's location.



However, just when they are about to leave, Reigen's disguise is foiled by Ishiguro, by far the strongest esper of the Scar. The next sequence will be another all-out battle pitting Reigen and his apprentice Mob against the masked psychic and his 7th division subordinates.



What to expect in the next episode - Spoilers:



-Reigen is going to prove the word bad-ass does not only belong to people with immense psychic powers. Reigen once again overcomes his lack of psychic ability to look good in front of his student, throwing karate kicks here and there.



-Mob will be forced to restrain his power because of Reigen's presence. If you are following the series, it was Reigen who told him not to use psychic powers against people, thus preventing him from fully harnessing his immense capability.



-Ishiguru, Muraki, Matsuo and Sakurai will finally show their true powers without holding back. With Mob being restrained by Reigen not to use his psychic powers, the four Scars easily overwhelmed them. Unknowingly to him, Mob unintentionally transferred his power to Reigen when he was about to explode, turning his master into a powerful esper at that moment.



Broadcast Details:



Mob Psycho 100 episode 11 will be aired on Tokyo MX Tuesday at 1:30 a.m Japanese time. Crunchy Roll will start streaming the latest episode at 12:30 p.m (US EST). You can also watch it on MobPsycho 100 stream






She's the statuesque model who found fame in Italy and her native Australia.

But in a preview for the upcoming season of Australia's Next Top Model, Megan Gale breaks down as she confesses that she couldn't work in the industry after being told she was 'too big.'

According to the Daily Telegraph, the emotional outburst takes place as the 41-year-old is delivering some encouraging advice to a contestant about body positivity.

Now and then: Megan Gale claims that she was told that she was 'too big,' leaving her unable to work for years (pictured right in 2000)

'I couldn't work for like five or six years because everyone told me, the industry here said to me 'you're too big',' says the tearful stunner.

The brunette beauty then calls herself 'living proof' that larger models can succeed, before telling the contestant: 'Dont starve yourself, dont start doing crazy things to conform.'

Megan made her modelling debut at age 18 after winning a competition at age 18.

'Dont starve yourself, dont start doing crazy things to conform:' The 41-year-old says she is 'living proof' that models her size can make it in the industry (pictured above in 2001)

She went on to land the coveted covers of prestigious magazines such as Marie Claire, Italian Maxim, and GQ.

She also worked as an ambassador for David Jones.

Gale has since moved into acting, featuring in the Oscar-winning sensation Mad Max: Fury Road.

Comeback: The bombshell will make her return to TV on Tuesday's Australia's Next Top Model alongside Jennifer Hawkins and Alex Perry

'I've loved working on the show in a guest capacity over the years and to now join the series as a permanent judge is both an honour and a privilege,' she said

The bombshell will make her return to TV on Tuesday's Australia's Next Top Model alongside Jennifer Hawkins, Alex Perry and guest judges Cheyenne Tozzi and the Stenmark twins on on the highly popular Fox 8 show, now in its tenth season.

Confirming her position months earlier, Megan said: 'I've loved working on the show in a guest capacity over the years and to now join the series as a permanent judge is both an honour and a privilege.

'I look forward to working with the girls and sharing some of my own experiences about what it takes to be a successful working model.'
Australian supermodel Shanina Shaik has been enjoying time in her native Australia with her fiance DJ Ruckus.

And on Sunday, the Victoria's Secret model showed off her shorter locks, posting a sultry selfie to Instagram.

Appearing to be wearing very little make-up, the brunette beauty flaunted her clear complexion as she teased her hair, which fell in loose tousled curls over her shoulders.

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'Feelin (sic) that short haiirrr (sic)': Australian supermodel Shanina Shaik showed off her shorter locks in a sultry selfie posted to Instagram on Sunday

The 25-year-old a captioned the shot: 'Feelin (sic) that short haiirrr (sic),' adding emoticons including scissors and a brush.

Shanina - who is of Lithuanian, Pakistani and Saudi Arabian heritage - showed off a golden glow as she stood in front of a black and white mosaic background.

She also a blush-coloured spaghetti strap cami as she pouted for the camera.

Down Under: Shanina has been in Australia the past week with her fiance DJ Ruckus, with the pair helping to celebrate her mother Kim's birthday (seen in September last year)

Shanina has been in Australia the past week with her fiance DJ Ruckus, with the pair helping to celebrate her mother Kim's birthday.

While in Australia the DJ - whose real name is Gregory Andrews - will be meeting her father for the first time.

About the meeting, DJ Ruckus said he both excited and nervous.

He told The Daily Telegraph: 'I haven't met her father yet, which is a very big ordeal. I'm not too concerned though as he's a very nice guy. And I'm not a bad dude. I'm excited.'

Celebrations: Shanina is helping her mother mark her birthday, with Kim being based in Australia

She and Ruckus became engaged in January, with the DJ popping the question while they were on holidays in the Bahamas.

Shanina - who has modelled for the likes of Seafolly and Chanel - opened up about their wedding to Who Magazine recently.

She told the publication about her wedding dress, saying it will be 'simple and sleek and a bit bohemian'.

Wedding details: The stunner recently opened up about her wedding dress, saying she wants something 'simple and sleek and a bit bohemian'

'For me the most glamorous day of my life will be my wedding day. I just want to look beautiful and feel like a goddess,' Shanina said.

Earlier this year she said the pair will have a 'location wedding,' telling Daily Mail Australia it will most likely be on a beach.

The pair are currently based in the US, with Shanina in New York.
She may have had her heart broken on The Bachelor after being dumped by Richie Strahan in Bali and reliving it all as the nation watched on, on Thursday.

But it seems runner-up Nikki Gogan was back in the mood to celebrate love, this time playing bridesmaid for her best friend.

The 28-year-old blonde shared a shot on Instagram of the bridal shower, just hours after returning to social media with a post gushing about Richie and her former love-rival Alex Nation.

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Surrounded by friends: The Bachelor's Nikki Gogan (R) was back in the mood to celebrate love at the weekend after being dumped on the TV show, this time playing bridesmaid for her friend

Looking pretty in a pink summer dress with a lace hem, she captioned part of the post: 'Friends, sunshine, smiles, laughter, champagne and cupcakes.'

'Today we showered my beautiful bestie (sic) with love at her bridal afternoon tea. Now, bring on the wedding #bestie #bridesmaidduties. Thank you to my sissy for the last minute outfits,' she continued, as she stood next to her friend, presumably the bride who was wearing all-white.

The Perth-based reality TV star had her blonde locks out in loose tousled curls.

Sweet: The post came after she returned to social media - and to Instagram - after seven weeks, sharing a Winnie-the-Pooh quote and gushing about Richie Strahan and love rival Alex

She showed off a soft golden tan and wore make-up including a light skim of foundation and a smokey eye.

The post came just after she returned to social media - and to Instagram - after the show.

She shared a shot of a quote of A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh before having nothing but kind words to say about her Bachelor experience.

The quote read: 'As soon as I saw you I knew a grand adventure was about to happen.'

Wild ride: Nikki is seen here with Richie Strahan and former love-rival Alex Nation

She described her time on the show as an 'ultimate adventure' and said she wouldn't change anything about it.

Part of her post read: 'Thank you for taking me on the ride of my life Richie.'

'I am so thankful for the unconditional love and support of my family, my friends and my little Northam town.'

'The outpouring of well wishes I've received from complete strangers has been truly heart warming, thank you.'

'To Richie and Alex - may your love be modern enough to survive the times and old fashioned enough to last for forever, I adore you both,' she wrote, adding the hash-tag 'Richie loves Alex'.

They found love: Nikki was left heartbroken during the finale, which aired on Thursday after Richie told her he had chosen mother-of-one Alex (pictured)

Nikki was left heartbroken on the finale on Thursday when Richie told her he had chosen mother-of-one Alex.

She told The Daily Telegraph recently that she knew he had chose Alex as soon as she and Richie held hands at the final rose ceremony.

'The moment I got down the stairs... I knew he wasn't my Richie,' Nikki told the publication.

'It was a different energy. He wasn't holding my hand as tightly and his eyes were sad eyes, not excited, happy eyes that I was used to. He was just different.'

During the elimination, Richie gushed to Nikki about the bond they had created on the show, before admitting his 'heart is with Alex'.

Richie meanwhile after the finale, shared a shot of himself with Alex, gushing about her online.

In part of his post, he wrote: 'I found her, my love, my co-pilot, my partner in crime, my everything. I followed my heart and I've never been this happy.'
Katie Price sent shockwaves through the Xtra Factor studios on Saturday night when she proposed a threesome with 17-year-old X Factor hopefuls The Brooks.

The incident occurred whilst appearing on the show alongside TOWIE star Megan McKenna and MIC's Ollie Locke.

Speaking about the teen contestants, presenter Rylan Clark asked the panel whether they would be a hit with the ladies when things turned X-rated.

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She's not holding back: Katie Price shocked on Xtra Factor when she proposes a THREESOME with 17-year-old X Factor stars The Brooks

Hopefuls: 17-year-old hopefuls were propositioned by the glamour puss on live TV but it's unclear what they made of her playful suggestion

The mum-of-five said: 'Would you fancy them? I told them tonight, I said they're so gorgeous, I'm backing them all the way. I guarantee they'll be in the top ten.'

As the former glamour model delivered the comment, host Matt questioned the duo if they liked Katie by putting their thumbs up or down.

Raising their thumbs in the air, Katie shouted: 'Threesome!'. Before Rylan and Matt quickly fired back: 'For drinks! For drinks!'

Cheeky: Katie seemed pretty pleased with herself after making the playful comment

Damage limitation: Presenters Rylan and Matt quickly fired back: 'For drinks! For drinks!' after Katie's quip

Fellow guests: Megan McKenna (left) and Ollie Locke (centre) seemed pretty shocked at her outburst

Leaving the audience and show's presenters in shock over the inappropriate comment, Katie flashed her toned pins in a thigh grazing dusty pink silk skirt dress as she left the ITV studios.

The blonde bombshell slipped into the daring buttoned number that highlighted her surgically enhanced buxom bust as she headed out for a night on the tiles following her appearance.

Stylishly rolling up her sleeves, the TV personality donned the minuscule shirt-dress which highlighted her hourglass figure with a matching small waist belt that amplified her curves.

Leggy display: Katie was later pictured leaving the studios, where she flashed her toned pins in a thigh grazing dusty pink silk number

Protecting her peepers: Keeping her accessories minimal, Katie slipped on a miniature cross-body bag with gold chain and leopard print detail as she worked a pair of visor inspired sunnies greeting awaiting photographers

Racy: Hugging her toned legs, the saucy footwear was sure to tease at her golden flash - highlighting racy garter tattoo on her upper thigh as she strutted out of the London based studio

Elongating her petite frame, Katie rocked a pair of sultry thigh-high glitter speckled boots with ramp up the sex factor as they injected added height into her racy look.

Hugging her toned legs, the saucy footwear was sure to tease at her golden flash - highlighting racy garter tattoo on her upper thigh as she strutted out of the London based studio.

Keeping her accessories minimal, Katie slipped on a miniature cross-body bag with gold chain and leopard print detail as she worked a pair of visor inspired sunnies greeting awaiting photographers.

Glory moment: As the stepped into her awaiting car, the former glamour model was greeted by a loyal fan who couldn't resist a cuddle

Delight: Holding on tight to her idol, the fan, who has been previously spotted hugging Simon Cowell in the past, looked delighted as she caught up with her

Warm embrace: Graciously taking time to chat to her fan, the entrepreneur beamed as she held her close before continuing on with her night

Loyal: Katie made time to share a moment with a loyal fan before she headed to the club following her appearance on Xtra Factor

Sweeping her blonde locks into a high ponytail, the beauty was sure to enhance her full pout with a slick of nude lipstick.

As the stepped into her awaiting car, the former glamour model was greeted by a loyal fan.

Holding on tight to her idol, the fan, who has been previously spotted hugging Simon Cowell in the past, looked delighted as she nestled her head into Katie's ample cleavage.

Graciously taking time to chat to her fan, the entrepreneur beamed as she held her close before continuing on with her night.

PDA: Enjoying a night out on the tiles, Katie was sure to put on a loving display with her beau Kieran as she packed on the PDA

Later arriving at the club with husband Kieran Hayler and TOWIE star Megan Mckenna, Katie flaunted her full on beauty look.

Going for a glam look, Katie accentuated her peepers with a dramatic smokey eye as she contoured her features to perfection.

Enjoying a night out on the tiles, Katie was sure to put on a loving display with her beau Kieran as she packed on the PDA.

Arriving in style: Katie arrived at the club without her show-stopping sunglasses

Night on the tiles: Later arriving at the club with husband Kieran Hayler and TOWIE star Megan Mckenna, Katie flaunted her full on beauty look

Glam: Going for a glam look, Katie accentuated her peepers with a dramatic smokey eye as she contoured her features to perfection

Katie's loving appearance with Kieran comes just a week after she revealed plans to expand her brood of five children by adopting a child for the first time.

But the TV personality also revealed that not only does she want to adopt, she also wants to continue giving birth, as she has a large house that needs filling.

However, one stumbling block in the whole process might be her husband Kieran Hayler, who she admitted isn't too keen on the idea of the couple adopting.

During an appearance on ITV's Loose Women on Monday, the surgically-enhanced star said: 'Ive had five of my own and Im still going to continue having my own. But I want to adopt a child and want to adopt from abroad.'

Leggy display: Katie flashed her toned pins in a thigh grazing dusty pink silk number in London on Saturday night

However, Katie revealed that her husband of three years Kieran isn't yet completely on board - but she joked that he 'hasn't got a say' in the adoption.

'He doesnt understand,' she told the daytime show's panellists. 'He says, "Why do you adopt when you can have your own?" 'Ive got 11 rooms I need to fill, and I dont mean that jokingly!'

Meanwhile, TOWIE star Megan looked incredible in a tan thigh-skimming mini and chic black top as she left the ITV studio with the Loose Women panellist.

Looking glam, the brunette beauty draped a studded leather jacket over her ensemble as she teetered to the waiting car in a black sandal.
There could be some serious trouble in store in EastEnders when Pam (Lin Blakley) takes it upon herself to try and make contact with Paul's killers.

There is some serious tension between Pam and Les when they discuss the plea hearing, with Les suggesting that the killers could plead not guilty.

Despite her husband Les begging her not to get involved, she enlists the help of Honey to help her go behind bars to get some answers.

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Heartache: Pam desperately tries to make contact with Paul's killers and enlists Honey to help in EastEnders... but are they making a big mistake?

But the plan they come up with is bound to cause problems and viewers will be left wondering if Pam has made a huge mistake.

Set to air on Thursday September 29, the drama will unfold as Pam struggles to come to terms with her grief.

Earlier this month, Les led Paul's funeral procession through the Square.

Trouble ahead? Despite her husband Les begging her not to get involved, she enlists the help of Honey to help her go behind bars to get some answers

BBC One viewers will know that the character Paul was brutally murdered in a homophobic attack outside a London nightclub, the month before.

Pam was forced to accept that Les wanted to walk the coffin out rather than travel in the hearse with her.

It's fair to say that Les has been stern with the way that he has dealt with his loss in recent weeks.

He was previously seen at loggerheads with his son's boyfriend Ben Mitchell, as he pleaded with the young mechanic to leave the death's investigation to the police.

The Mitchells were informed that Ben was dead, only to be led in to see Paul Coker's body.

Speculation began to circle among fans on social media that Ben may have had something to do with the attack due to his conflicted sexuality, having also embarked on relationships with girls in the past.
Australia watched on as Sam Wood wooed brunette beauty Snezana Markoski on The Bachelor last year, in a fairy tale romance.

And the pair seem loved up as ever, canvassing social media with snaps as they spend quality time together with Snezana's daughter Eve.

On Sunday, Sam posted a picture of himself in front of a picturesque view being given a kiss by his now fiance, captioning the shot: 'On the farm with Pocahontas. So much love.'

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Sam's Disney princess! Former Australian Bachelor Sam Wood shared a shot to Instagram on Sunday as he got a peck on the cheek from Snezana Markoski, who he dubbed 'Pocahontas' in the caption

Happily living out their dream romance the pair were seen by spending a day with family at a farm, the pair appeared to be in good spirits after some time apart while Sam was on a work trip to the US.

The personal trainer wore a simple white T-Shirt, paired with dark sunglasses and had his hair flicked to one side, while Snezana closed her eyes to plant a kiss on her beaus cheek.

The brunette beauty wore a crown of flowers on her head, while her hair was tied half up into a messy top knot, with the remaining long locks hanging over her shoulders.

Sam's Disney princess also posted a snap shot from the family fun day, which also included her sister and nieces.

Sam's Disney princess also posted a snap shot from the family fun day, showing the most likely jet lagged Sam asleep in the back of a car, next to one of Snezana's nieces

'Exciting things': The entrepreneur was on a whirlwind trip State-side, which included stops in LA and New York for meetings and promised 'exciting things' were to come

The photo shows the most likely jet lagged Sam asleep in the back of a car, next to one of Snezana's nieces.

'Sooo the kids all fell asleep on the way home, including the big kid,' she captioned the photo with a laughing and cheeky monkey emoji.

The entrepreneur was on a whirlwind trip State-side, which included stops in LA and New York for meetings and promised 'exciting things' were to come.

Sam appears to be adjusting 'really well' to having not one, but two women in the house after his engagement to his fiance.

Loved up! Sam is often seen sharing happy snaps of his new family on social media and recently posted a heart-warming picture of Snezana and Eve sleeping on the couch together

'Family time': Sam posted a selfie with his fiancee Snezana and her daughter Eve as they headed to the zoo

The celebrity trainer is often seen posting heart-warming pictures on Instagram of his new family keeping his 202,000 fans up-to-date with his new family life.

Just one month ago Sam posted a snap of Snezana sleeping on the couch with her daughter Eve and wrote: 'It's been a long week', adding the hash-tag 'love'.

Instagram followers were quick to send their praises to the 35-year-old commenting on how 'things have changed in the last 12 months'.

Another user wrote: 'You are the most gorgeous little family.'

Love-nest: Sam and Snezana purchased their new Melbourne home in January for a whopping $1.4million after announcing the news of their engagement a month earlier

Sam also recently uploaded another snap with Snezana and Eve as they headed to the zoo for a family outing.

The trio sported matching sunglasses and all flashed peace signs in the snap, which was captioned with the hash-tags 'zoo life' and 'family time'.

Snezana was recently announced as the OzSale Australia, a discount shopping website, guest editor for September.

And also recently launched her lifestyle blog - which explores fashion and beauty among other things.

Not just a pretty face: The talented mother has a degree in molecular genetics and earlier this year launched her lifestyle blog - which explores fashion and beauty among other things

Sam and Snezana purchased their new Melbourne home in January for a whopping $1.4million after announcing the news of their engagement a month earlier.

The handsome personal trainer announced the news that Snezana and Eve were moving to the house at the start of July.

He posted on Facebook: 'When you've spent all night cleaning the house as your fiance and her beautiful little girl are finally coming to live and you know it still isn't clean enough (sic)'.

Sam and Snezana found love on 2015's series of The Bachelor and although they lived in different cities made things work dating long distance.
She's expressed her interest in presenting next year's GBBO.

And Katie Piper proved her talents reach beyond presenting as she stepped out with husband Richard Sutton during London Fashion Week on Saturday.

The 32-year-old blond bombshell worked understated glamour in a navy ensemble, while her husband looked dapper in double denim as they sat FROW at the Jasper Conran SS17 show.

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Power couple! Katie Piper proved her talents reach beyond presenting as she stepped out with husband Richard Sutton during London Fashion Week on Saturday

Wearing her glossy hair in a razor-sharp cut she combined a loose navy T-shirt with matching wide-leg trousers.

The palazzo pants featured a cream border, making the most of her long legs.

Carrying a matching cream quilted bag, the mother-of-one put on a pretty appearance.

Turning heads! The 32-year-old blond bombshell worked understated glamour in a navy ensemble, while her husband looked dapper in double denim as they sat FROW at the Jasper Conran SS17 show

Chic! Wearing her glossy hair in a razor-sharp cut she combined a loose navy T-shirt with matching wide-leg trousers

Meanwhile her husband of ten months looked dapper in matching grey double denim.

Sporting ripped jeans and an open shirt, he held his wife protectively as they posed for pictures.

And later they were spotted sitting in the front row alongside The Saturdays star Frankie Bridge.

Suave: Meanwhile her husband of ten months looked dapper in matching grey double denim

Accessorizing: Carrying a matching cream quilted bag, the mother-of-one put on a pretty appearance

Frankie looked chic in a white dress, draping a mustard swing jacket as they admired Jasper Conran's latest designs.

Katie Piper has reportedly set her sights on hosting The Great British Bake Off when it moves to Channel 4 next year.

The philanthropist has just signed a two-year deal with the broadcaster and also has a longstanding relationship with Love Productions - who produces the baking show.

Mellow yellow! Frankie Bridge looked chic in a white dress, draping a mustard swing jacket as they admired Jasper Conran's latest designs.

FROW: The lovebirds looked chic as they admired Jasper Conran's latest designs

Speaking to The Mirror, she revealed: 'I would do it - and I can bake. Though I might end up with a soggy bottom.'

The mum-of-one has previously hosted Bodyshockers, Never Seen A Doctor and a series of on-off specialson the channel, as well as giving their Alternative Christmas Message in 2009 - a year after her ex-boyfriend left her with life long scarring by throwing acid in her face.

MailOnline have contacted a spokesperson for Channel 4 for comment.

Star-studded: They were joined in the front row by Frankie Bridge

Katie has joined the likes of Anna Richardson, Jimmy Carr and Jennifer Saunders in the pool of stars rumoured to be the next host of the popular show after current presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins quit.

They chose to step down after it was revealed Love Productions had sold the format of the show to Channel 4, after airing the first six seasons on BBC.

Judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry have yet to announce if they will leave the show.
She's never been shy of flaunting her incredibly toned figure.

And Imogen Anthony was at it again on Sunday as she rocked out at the Sundown Music Festival in California with her shock jock beau Kyle Sandilands.

The Maxim model looked stunning as she shook her pert derriere on stage at the beach party festival, sporting tiny hotpants and a revealing crop top.

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Shake it! Imogen Anthony rocked out at the Sundown Music Festival in California with her shock jock beau Kyle Sandilands, shaking her pert derriere on stage

The 25-year-old glamour let her denim jacket flutter in the breeze as she gazed suggestively at the camera.

The blonde bombshell let her pink-tinted tresses fall over her slender shoulders as she danced in front of masses of festival goers.

'My Lion King moment in front of thousands of people finally came #Simba,' the fashion designer wrote alongside the video.

'My Lion King moment': The 25-year-old glamour let her denim jacket flutter in the breeze as she gazed suggestively at the camera

In another snap, the 25-year-old glamour model left little to the imagination as she revealed the skimpy outfit she was frolicking in earlier was rock-n'-roll-inspired.

She showed off her toned midriff in an AC/DC printed crop top and flaunted her enviable pins in Johnny Cash hotpants.

The glamazon completed her look with a pitch black cowboy hat and lightly tinted shades.

Rock chick: Imogen showed off her toned midriff in an AC/DC printed crop top and flaunted her enviable pins in Johnny Cash hotpants

With a golden tan, Imogen stunned in the rock ensemble, as she posed in front of her long-term beau.

Her KIIS FM radio host boyfriend appears ready to light up a cigarette as she strikes a pose for the camera.

In another snap taken at the two-day festival, Imogen sparks a smoke of her own as she and Kyle pose with Dutch DJ and record producer R3hab.

Smoko: Imogen lights up a cigarette as she and Kyle pose with Dutch DJ and record producer R3hab

The two lovebirds, who have been together for five years, were rumoured to have split last month.

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, a rep for the radio host slammed the reports as 'fabricated' and 'rubbish.'

They met at the radio personality's 40th birthday party in 2011.
They were at opposite ends of the social spectrum in Downton Abbey, with only one enjoying the society life.

But Laura Carmichael and Joanne Froggatt both managed to stun in the style stakes as they arrived at the BAFTA TV Tea Party in Los Angeles on Saturday.

The actresses, 30 and 36 respectively, enjoyed a reunion at the BBC and BAFTA pre-Emmies bash whilst also showcasing their contrasting yet chic fashion sense.

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Downton does LA: Laura Carmichael and Joanne Froggatt both managed to stun in the style stakes as they arrived at the BAFTA TV Tea Party in Los Angeles on Saturday

Channeling a slightly retro look, perhaps in a nod to her old role of Lady Edith, Laura opted for a retro long-sleeved white dress.

Featuring intricate detailing and a floral monochrome pattern, the A-Line dress allowed Laura to retain her chic style credentials whilst showing a hint of skin.

The demure but striking number featured a high collar to offset the racy vibe of the sheer sleeves and shoulders.

She teamed the frock with a pair of towering silver stilettos that accentuated the Burn Burn Burn star's slender frame.

Wowing in white: Channeling a slightly retro look, perhaps in a nod to her old role of Lady Edith, Laura opted for a retro long-sleeved white dress

Featuring intricate detailing and a floral monochrome pattern, the A-Line dress allowed Laura to retain her chic style credentials whilst showing a hint of skin.

Wearing her blonde locks in an elegant bun, the Southampton-born star let her hair frame her pretty alabaster features.

Joanne, who played maid Anna Bates in the global period hit, opted for a contrasting look to Laura's.

Teaming a funky black sleeveless top, which featured panel detailing, the with a monochrome stripy maxi skirt, the Yorkshire actress channelled a more modern look.

Adding a pair of open-toed heels to the mix, Joanne oozed a care-free yet chic vibe.

Joanne (pictured with husband James Cannon), who played maid Anna Bates in the global period hit, opted for a contrasting look to Laura's

Happy to see you: Joanne made her arrival alongside her husband James Cannon, but the actress was soon enjoying a catch-up with her former co-star and friend

Joanne made her arrival alongside her husband James Cannon, but the actress was soon enjoying a catch-up with her former co-star and friend.

Also making a star-turn on the red carpet was Millie Bobby Brown, the breakout star of Netflix's hit Stranger Things.

The young actress also proved she's still just a regular 12-year-old as she hammed it up at the party with her co-star David Harbour.

Millie looked adorable in a pretty patterned dress with an empire waist and thin straps.

Mugging for the camera: On Saturday, Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown posed adorably with her co-star David Harbour at the BAFTA LA pre-Emmys party in Hollywood

Her hair, which is growing out after having to be kept close-cropped for her role as Eleven on the streaming series, was slickly styled.

Clearly enjoying herself during her first big award show weekend, she completed her ensemble with a pair of pale pink shoes complete with black bows.

At the bash held at a West Hollywood hotel, Millie pouted and flashed peace signs as she posed at a photo booth with Harbour, who played Hawkins Police Chief Jim Hopper.

Young glamour queen: The 12-year-old actress wore an elegant dress with a grapes-and-leaves pattern and an empire waist to walk the red carpet

Stars unite: Millie also got to hang out with English actress and Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke at the event

She also posed alongside Emilia Clarke of Game Of Thrones. Her 29-year-old fellow Briton let her dirty blonde hair fall over her lacy pink dress, which she matched with a pair of pink stilettos.

Earlier in the day, the Intruders star had worn an equally chic outfit when she attended the ICM Partners Pre-Emmy Brunch in Santa Monica.

Accessorising with a watch, she wore a pale grey dress scattered with dark grey buttons and topped off with a small collar.

Her black shoes ended in a Burberry pattern over the toes, and a beaded ankle bracelet augmented the look.

Buttoned-up chic: Earlier, she'd been a guest at the ICM Partners Pre-Emmy Brunch in Santa Monica where she showcased her style in a sleeveless uniform dress studded with buttons

You again! Her Stranger Things co-star Harbour was also there to keep an eye on her. He's wearing a walking brace on his left foot after tearing his Achilles tendon

Doing the classic sorority girl pose, she stood by a grinning Harbour, who put a hand on her shoulder.

The Quantum Of Solace actor, who'd let a goatee grow in, wore black slacks and an olive green blazer over a white dress shirt. His tie was striped in navy and Prussian blue.

During a less ceremonial part of her day, the girl who rose to fame as Eleven on Stranger Things showed her fashion sense doesn't fail her even when she's going casual.

Gal on the go: The Marbella-born actress was also spotted answering her phone during the day as she stood outside The London Hotel in workout gear

Colour-coordinator: Her coral workout top matched not only her coral trainers but the coral 'UNDER ARMOUR' company name winding around the hems of her capris

In fact, she showed quite a gift for colour-coordination. The grey jumper tied about her waist matched her grey capris.

Meanwhile, her coral workout top matched not only the 'UNDER ARMOUR' company name scrawled in coral across the trousers' hems, but also her coral trainers.

In the final flourish, blue sunglasses matched her blue checked Louis Vuitton purse as the busy lady answered her phone, standing outside the London Hotel.

A large gold bracelet flashed in the sun on her left arm, and a slender headband helped hold her hairdo in place.

Keeping it high-end: A blue checked Louis Vuitton cross-body purse was slung over her left shoulder
Being one of the most recognised faces in film in the 21st century, Leonardo DiCaprio is use to being hounded for selfies.

But despite winning an Oscar and appearing in huge blockbusters, it appears the critically acclaimed actor can still manage to go under the radar as he helped out an unknowing elderly couple in NYC on Friday.

In a rare moment for the film star, the 41-year-old happily stopped by the Hudson River to offer the unsuspecting tourists, who didn't recognised the A lister, help with directions.

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Clearly they haven't seen Titanic: Leonardo DiCaprio kindly gives directions to an elderly couple on Friday, but they failed to recognise the Oscar-winning megastar

Holding his phone in his hand, The Revenant actor focused on the task at hand as he pointed at a map on the device's screen.

Not seeking an autograph or photo, Leo appeared to revel in proving how much of a helpful New Yorker he is as he showed them how to get to their next destination.

Dressed casually while out and about in the city, Leo donned a newsboy flat cap and oversized shades which no doubt helped him go incognito whilst chatting to the oblivious couple.

Unrecognisable: The 41-year-old happily stopped by the Hudson River to offer the unsuspecting tourists help with directions

Walking his dog in the Big Apple, the movie star slipped into a pair of knee-length beige shorts teaming his look with a grey marl tee which offset his deep golden tan.

In downtown NYC, the actor was joined by the owner of 1Oak and Up and Down Nightclubs, Richie Akiva as he walked with his pet pooch before he came to the couple's aid.

Speaking to People, an onlooker said: 'He was walking along with a friend and his dog, just strolling and right before sunset and an old couple was looking around and he walked up to them. It looked like they needed help.

Helping hand: Not seeking an autograph or photo, Leo appeared to revel in proving how much of a helpful New Yorker he is as he showed them how to get to their next destination

'Then he pulled out his phone and showed them something on his phone. Then he reached out and pointed them in the direction to go and they went on their way.

Before adding: 'People had been asking him for selfies but this couple didnt seem to know who he was.'

Helping fellow citizens aside, The Wolf Of Wall Street actor produced and stars in Fisher Stevens' globetrotting climate change documentary Before the Flood, which airs October 30 on the National Geographic Channel.

Meanwhile, Leo's love life is going from strength to strength.

Cute: The Oscar winner has been dating model Nina Agdal, 24 for four months now, with the pair almost inseparable

The Oscar winner has been dating model Nina Agdal, 24 for four months now, with the pair almost inseparable.

Nina's grandmother Lona told the Daily Mail DiCaprio 'will get me to deal with' if he breaks her heart, the IMG Model confirmed as much.

'She's very protective,' Denmark-born Agdal told New York Post of her 'mormor' at last month's W Dubai bash.

'She follows me on Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. She's on everything. She is definitely a modern grandma. It has its downsides, but it's cool.'

The SI Swimsuit stunner previously romanced Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine and The Wanted boybander Max George.
She's been busy filming her hit BBC drama Our Girl.

But Michelle Keegan managed to find time in her relentless schedule to help ring in her sister-in-law Jessica Wright's 31st birthday at London's 100 Wardour club on Saturday night.

The former Coronation Street actress, 28, had heads turning as she stunned in a mini leather skirt and blouse combo.

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It's al-Wright on the night! Michelle Keegan helped her sister-in-law Jessica Wright celebrate her 31st birthday at London's 100 Wardour club on Saturday night

It's her special day: Jess also looked stunning in a peach coloured dress which had ruched fabric, worn with pretty gold shoes

The brunette beauty flaunted her tanned and toned pins in the thigh-skimming ensemble, paired with a laced white top.

Keeping warm in the unpredictable British weather Michelle added a chic blazer to complete the look, while she teetered out of the hotspot in sky-high gold ankle boots.

The star toted her belongings in a black clutch emblazoned with quirky red lips, while completing her stylish look with a gold choker and watch.

Michelle's sister-in-law and TOWIE babe Jess Wright ensured all eyes were on her as she wowed in a figure-hugging midi dress.

There for the family: Michelle did not appear to be with husband Mark on the night but seemed in high spirits all the same

Girls, girls, girls! Jess held hands with a glam pal as she headed to the venue looking upbeat

The slightly-sheer nude ensemble accentuated the brunette's curves, featuring a low cut neckline which teased a slight glimpse of her ample assets.

The reality star wore her long chestnut tresses in loosely curled waves sprawled down her shoulder.

Contouring her features with a sweep of bronzer, the ITVBe star was sure to make her eyes pop with lashings of mascara as she applied a warm pink lipgloss to her pout.

The birthday girl was also joined by her fellow TOWIE alumni Danielle Armstrong, but brother Mark Wright was no where to be seen.

Look over your shoulder: She looked perfectly styled as she gave photographers one final glance

Arm candy: She carried a chic nude YSL bag in her hand as she posed outside

Danielle gave a very busty display in a plunging black gown which gave full view of her lacy bra and jaw-dropping cleavage.

Showing what her former flame Lockie is missing, the 28-year-old reality star brought yet more attention to herself with a thigh-high slit, showcasing her tanned pins.

In true diva style Jess kept the celebrations going all week with a girls night out on Wednesday.

The now 31-year-old headed to Sheesh restaurant in Chigwell, Essex, with her lookalike sister Natalya, 15, while sporting a deeply plunging floral maxi-dress.

Glam: Jess' fellow TOWIE alumni Danielle Armstrong gave a very busty display in a plunging black gown which gave full view of her lacy bra and jaw-dropping cleavage

Fan favourite: The TV personality pouted up a storm as she posed for pictures with her fans

Jess was recently forced to defend herself after social media trolls criticised her bikini body during her sunshine break in Los Angeles.

The reality star hit back by sharing a stunning video of herself as she modelled a beautiful white bikini.

She wrote: 'I have an extra couple of lbs I'd like to shift but I'm a normal girl and just like anyone my weight fluctuates especially during certain times of the month.

'I've been on holidays, I've had tonnes of cheat meals, I've had more vinos than normal, met amazing people & I wouldn't change a thing.

Happy: Jess took to her Instagram account to gush over having 'so much to smile about'
Her husband James has been thrown into a whirlwind since the news broke that his business got raided by police.

And now socialite Petra Stunt has been seen on Sunday for the first time since the devastating chaos became public knowledge earlier this week.

The 27-year-old beauty, who married to the wealthy businessman for five years ago, was spotted in London alongside her three-year-old daughter Lavinia, sister Tamara, 32, and the brunette's two-year-old tot Sophia.

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Spotted: Petra Stunt has been seen for the first time since since the news broke out the her husband James' business got raided by police

Despite going through a stressful time, the blonde beauty still managed to work a low-key look for the outing with her family as she slipped into a pair of form-fitting black leggings.

Petra teamed her relaxed attire with a complementing black jumper with stripe and floral pattern down the the arm to ease the autumn chill - carrying her little one's pink jacket.

Wrapping a black and white flannel shirt around her waist, the daughter of Bernie Ecclestone styled her ash blonde chin-length tresses straight - loosely clipping a section of her locks away from her face.

Also using her reflective sunnies to keep her hair in place, the busy mum looked fresh faced as she simply contoured her complexion with bronzer and lashings of mascara as she tried to get on with her day.

Tough time: Petra's appearance comes after her husband James' company offices were raided by police investigating a multi-million pound fraud earlier this week

Petra's appearance comes after her husband James' company offices were raided by police investigating a multi-million pound fraud earlier this week.

The 34-year-old claimed he is the victim of a substantial theft from his international gold bullion firm Stunt and Co and was preparing to return from Los Angeles to deal with the crisis.

He suspected he has been betrayed by people who took advantage of his 'hands off' approach. The police operation began on Thursday afternoon when officers raided historic jewellery wholesaler Fowler Oldfield.

Neighbours described dozens of officers streaming inside its nondescript headquarters in an industrial area of Bradford, West Yorkshire.

Shocking: James, 34, claims he is the victim of a substantial theft from his international gold bullion firm Stunt and Co. (Pictured, the businessman with wife Petra Ecclestone)

A total of 12 people, including two women, aged between 23 and 56 were arrested for money laundering offences.

At the same time, police also entered the luxury offices of Stunt and Co in Curzon Street, Mayfair. The building was once the headquarters of MI5.

Officers from West Yorkshire Police led the searches, supported by the National Crime Agency, often dubbed Britains answer to the FBI. Fowler Oldfield, which claims to have an annual turnover of more than 100million, and the Stunt family of businesses are intricately linked.

Its owner Gregory Frankel, 38, the great-grandson of its founder, is also vice-president of Stunt and Co, where Mr Stunt remains chairman. The two firms also have a joint venture, Fort Bullion, which sells gold and silver bullion on the UK and international markets.

Speaking last night, a spokesman for Mr Stunt said he has been left reeling by the scale of the suspected theft from his business.

Mr Stunt is in his Los Angeles home and was shocked to learn of the raid on Fowler Oldfield and the accompanying arrests, he said.

Police raided Fowler Oldfields offices in Bradford and the offices of Stunt and Co in Mayfair

He was also shocked by the simultaneous exercise of a search warrant at the companys London offices...The company was already conducting an internal investigation into the disappearance of very significant sums of money... which appear to have been misappropriated.

Although no assistance has been sought from Mr Stunt, he intends to cooperate fully with the authorities if requested. He is due to return to London in the next few days.

Mr Stunts flamboyant business empire has interests in fine art, financial investments and gold.

Mr Stunt's brother Lee was found dead at his parents home in Surrey

The entrepreneur wed 27-year-old Petra in a lavish 12million wedding in 2011. He is best known for his gleaming motorcade of prestige cars with personal number plates.

It also comes at an extremely traumatic time for the Stunt family as they mourn the sudden death of his 37-year-old brother Lee.

Mr Stunt, the chief operating officer of Stunt and Co, was found dead at their parents 3.5million Surrey mansion on Wednesday afternoon. His brother has furiously denied claims he committed suicide, saying he was taking medication for anxiety and died in his sleep.

Lee Stunts wife Elizabeth, 34, an equestrian eventer, is being comforted by friends at the couples 1million home in Binfield, Berkshire. Friends said Mr Stunt had been suffering from depression but his brother furiously denied this in a video message posted online.

I will never get over losing him. My brother was not depressed, my brother did not commit suicide, he said.

My brother died in his sleep. He took a prescription drug sometimes for occasional anxiety attacks. He did not take illegal drugs. We just dont know what caused his death.

Surrey Police are treating the death as unexplained. A spokesman said: Formal identification and a post-mortem examination will take place in due course.

Mr Ecclestone, 85, sold Formula One for 3.3billion last week.

A few weeks earlier his mother-in-law Aparecida Schunck was kidnapped in Brazil for a 28million ransom and was later rescued in a dramatic police operation. In May, Petra, who has three children, hired more bodyguards for their 70million Chelsea mansion after a petrol bomb attack.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said all 12 suspects have been released on bail, adding: The investigation is ongoing.
Her boyfriend Sasha Mielczarek flew solo at the races on Saturday.

And it seems it was all because former Bachelorette star Sam Frost is enjoying a girl's trip to Monaco.

The 27-year-old could be seen in the idyllic destination wearing a plunging dress and giving a glimpse of her bra while posing with a blonde pal in a shot shared to Instagram on Sunday.

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Girls trip: Former Bachelorette Sam Frost (R) has jetted off to Monaco during the radio break, sharing a shot of herself and her female friend to Instagram on Sunday

Sam captioned the shot with Rachel Smith: 'MONACO with my lady love,' adding emoticons including an plane and a drink.

In the image, Sam appears to have a fresh spray tan and appears to be wearing a light make-up base, including foundation and mascara.

She is seen wearing a plunging striped navy and white top, showing a peek of a black cut-out bra, with her hair tied off her face to show her dangling earrings.

And that's why! Her boyfriend Sasha Mielczarek flew solo at the races at the weekend with many asking where Sam was

It comes after Rachael shared a shot of herself with Sam and some of their friends three days ago on Instagram.

It appears her friend was already there and eagerly counting down until Sam jetted out to join them in Europe.

'Missing my babes! Lucky it's only 2 sleeps (one for you @fro01) until we dance on the couch to the Spice Girls again,' the black and white image was captioned with the hash-tags 'little bit excited' and 'fro does eur'.

Fun times: It comes after her pal shared a shot of herself with Sam and some of their friends three days ago on Instagram, as they counted down to Sam joining them in Europe

Last week, Sam took to Twitter and announced she was on a well-earned break.

'I'm now officially on holidays!!! Seeeee-yaaaaaa,' she wrote online.

It remains unclear when Sam left Sydney to head overseas, but her boyfriend Sasha Mielczarek flew solo at the races on Saturday at Randwick Racecourse.

Holiday escape: Last week, Sam took to Twitter and wrote that she was on her break

In July, the pair returned from overseas together where they enjoyed a short trip to Bali.

That same month she sent out a worrying tweet to her online trolls after another bullying incident.

She wrote online: 'To the fake accounts heavily trolling me online & into my personal life. If you wanted to break me.. Congratulations you have won. #broken.'

It came after she read an open letter to her bullies live on her radio show, saying she gets bullied 'on a daily basis' online.

She said in part of her letter: 'Those empty words you write behind your keyboard have an eternal effect on the person theyre directed at.'
Despite over 15 years of experience in the modelling world, Megan Gale admits that having a heel snap can be 'terrifying'.

The Australia's Next Top Model host's comments came while sympathising with the young models being sent up the catwalk for Kanye West's recent New York Fashion Week show.

Speaking on behalf of runway veterans across the industry, Megan revealed that models are often given a pair of shoes that don't fit resulting in many trying to 'cram' their feet into them.

Veteran: Australian supermodel Megan Gale sympathised with models from New York Fashion Week who fell over on the catwalk in teetering heels, admitting it's a 'terrifying' experience

'Quite often ... you are given a pair of shoes and it is not your size,' she told The Daily Telegraph's Confidential.

'Sometimes they're a size 8 and you are a size 10 and you've got to just cram your foot in and you're expected to walk perfectly.

'Sometimes there is a wardrobe malfunction or the surface of the catwalk doesn't agree with the shoes and there is a slip up.'

'Dropping like flies': Models at the Kanye NYFW show were said to be falling to the ground after having to stand in the heat for over two hours while others fell over on stage because of their shoes

Models at the Kanye NYFW show were said to be 'dropping like flies' according to The Telegraph as they attempted to stand completely still during a performance art piece during the event.

It was also heard that some models experienced falls during the show and wardrobe malfunctions resulting in them falling on the runway.

Megan told Channel Ten's The Project during the week, that she once experienced a fall and it was a 'terrifying' experience calling the NYFW blunders absolutely 'awful'.

Now and then: Megan Gale claims that she was told that she was 'too big' leaving her unable to work for years (pictured right in 2000)

The brunette beauty also admitted that the fashion industry can be often unforgiving, which comes just days after revealing that she couldn't work for five to six years because everyone told her she was 'too big'.

The admission came in a preview of the model mentoring contestants on Australia's Next Top Model.

She went on to advise models not to 'starve themselves' or to do 'crazy things to conform'.

Megan made her modelling debut at age 18 after winning a competition at age 18.

'Don't starve yourself, don't start doing crazy things to conform:' The 41-year-old says she is 'living proof' that models her size can make it in the industry (pictured above in 1999)

She went on to land the coveted covers of prestigious magazines such as Marie Claire, Italian Maxim, and GQ.

She also worked as an ambassador for David Jones.

Gale has since moved into acting, featuring in the Oscar-winning sensation Mad Max: Fury Road.

Role model: Megan admits to looking forward to working with the girls on Australia's Next Top Model to share some of her own experiences about what it takes to be successful in the industry

The bombshell will make her return to TV on Tuesday's Australia's Next Top Model alongside Jennifer Hawkins, Alex Perry and guest judges Cheyenne Tozzi and the Stenmark twins on on the highly popular Fox 8 show, now in its tenth season.

Confirming her position months earlier, Megan said: 'I've loved working on the show in a guest capacity over the years and to now join the series as a permanent judge is both an honour and a privilege.

'I look forward to working with the girls and sharing some of my own experiences about what it takes to be a successful working model.'
They recently unveiled their joint fashion campaign with Sisley.

And Amber Le Bon, 26, and her mother Yasmin, 51, are joined at the hip when it comes to London Fashion Week too.

The stylish mother and daughter rocked colourful looks as they took their seats front row at Preen By Thornton Bregazzi's SS17 showcase on Sunday afternoon.

Stylish pair: Amber Le Bon, 26, and her mother Yasmin, 51, took their seats front row at Preen By Thornton Bregazzi's SS17 showcase during London Fashion Week on Sunday afternoon

Amber drew the focus to her bright pink locks, which were elegantly styled into a slick top knot.

She showed a hint of skin in a black shirt undone to her chest and featuring a sparkly statement collar.

The model showed off her trim waist by tucking her shirt into a chic striped skirt, while she finished off her front row look with dark eye makeup and pretty pink blusher and lips.

Colourful: Amber drew the focus to her bright pink locks while her mother stood out in her yellow dress and red platform heels

Yasmin meanwhile looked as youthful as ever, standing out in her pretty yellow number teamed with red platform heels.

The dress featured lace detail on the chest and cuffs, while Yasmin kept her accessories simple with a pair of dark shades.

Yasmin and Amber looked in great spirits, sharing a cosy chat before the show began.

Front Row friends: Amber was also spotted posing for pics with her pal Zara Martin

Flower power: Zara looked summery in a gorgeous floral dress with a plunging neckline

Pink hair don't care: Later on Amber who was exhibiting her typically kooky style at the Temperley show

Busy day: Louise Redknapp was also at the Preen showcase, having hotfooted it from the Malone Souliers show

Amber was also spotted posing for pics with her pal Zara Martin who looked summery in a gorgeous floral dress with a plunging neckline.

Louise Redknapp was also at the Preen showcase, having hotfooted it from the Malone Souliers show.

Yasmin and Amber unveiled their campaign for Sisley last month, posing together in a series of stunning shots.

Yasmin, the wife of Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon, famously made a name for herself as a style icon in the 1980s, gracing the covers of both Vogue and Elle while shooting to the top of the fashion industry.

Sitting pretty: The Strictly Come Dancing star looked gorgeous in her black leather jacket

And pose: Aussie star Jessica Hart kept things simple in a black dress teamed with lace up boots
Fans of The Good Wife have a reason to rejoice Sunday.

New details have been uncovered on the plot of the a digital-only spinoff of the original series, which includes Sarah Steele, who played Marissa Gold in 22 episodes of the long-running show.

The 28-year-old Philadelphia native is the latest addition to the spinoff, which will be executive produced by Robert and Michelle King, the creators of the initial program. They told Deadline they're 'absolutely thrilled' to have Steele on board for the new show.

Key player: Sarah Steele, 28, is the latest addition to the cast of The Good Wife spinoff that will begin airing on the network in February before being taken to CBS All Access

Fan favorite: Steele (second from right) culled a strong following in her 22 episodes of the long-running program

Making it work: Producers had to work around a busy schedule for Steele (second from left), who is currently appearing on Broadway in The Humans

'Shes a magnificent comedian with the dramatic skill to keep every scene real,' the Kings told the outlet.

The 10-episode season on the spinoff is slated to begin airing in February on the network, before it begins its exclusive run on CBS All Access.

In addition to Steele, the network has already confirmed that Christine Baranski (Diane Lockhart) and Cush Jumbo (Lucca Quinn) will also be involved in the online series, in the wake of the show's final episode after seven seasons last May.

Comeback: Christine Baranski (left) and Cush Jumbo (third from left) have been confirmed for the spinoff

The spinoff, Deadline reports, takes place exactly a year after the initial show ended, with a huge scam having taken a toll on Lockhart's savings and killed another attorney's reputation.

Lockhart - exiled from Lockhart & Lee - goes to work with Quinn at a Windy City firm in the fallout.

Faithful viewers of The Good Wife will see how Marissa Gold has evolved on the spinoff, as the talented enigma works as Lockharts secretary while developing her skills as an investigator.

New beginnings: On the spinoff, Baranski's character Diane Lockhart goes to work with and Cush Jumbo's Lucca Quinn at a Chicago firm

Steele's stint on the show was hard-fought, as producers contended with scheduling issues toiled to her current run on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning The Humans.

The production was subsequently relocated and extended as the negotiation process played out, but producers were able to coordinate shooting times with Steele's swamped schedule, Deadline reported.

The actress has also been seen on many of TV's foremost shows, including Girls, Blue Bloods and Nurse Jackie.
While the Primetime Emmy Awards are an exhilarating time for Hollywood stars, the evening can run long.

William H. Macy is one of the many celebrities who finds that carrying certain essentials better prepares you for the night ahead.

'Food, bring a power bar, something like that. Flask, bring a little alcohol. Pharmaceuticals,' the 66-year-old actor joked to People Magazine on Saturday at Showtime's Emmy Eve Party at Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles.

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His necessities: William H. Macy, pictured on Saturday at Showtime's Emmy Eve Party, told People Magazine that food, flask and pharmaceuticals help him get through Emmys

The Shameless actor, who is up for a lead actor nomination third year in a row for the Showtime series, also told reporters that attending the eve bash is considered another one of his rituals.

'This party is always the night before, and I've been at this party a bunch, and this is my ritual,' William told The Huffington Post.

His wife - four-time nominee and 2005 winner for Desperate Housewives Felicity Huffman - is also nominated this year for Outstanding Lead Actress in ABC's American Crime.

The 53-year-old actress added: 'My husband and I, if were not staying at a hotel, which is fun, I go for a run in the morning.'

Emmy nominees: The 66-year-old actor and this year's Lead Actor Emmy nominee posed with his wife and actress Felicity Huffman at Sunset Tower Hotel

Kiss on the cheek! The American Crime actress is also up for a nominee for Outstanding Lead Actress In Limited Series

When asked what they'll do if the night goes well, William told People: 'Oh we're going to party!'

'We get all dressed up. We'll applaud Jeffrey Tambor and sometimes we like to go out to dinner just the two of us. We're dressed to the nines so we go to Mozza or some place like that and have a lovely dinner, sometimes we invite some people - and she might win it, which case we'll be out all night dancing.'

The Fargo actor is certainly not a newbie when it comes to the Emmys. After 12 nominations overall and two back-to-back wins in 2003 for TNT's Door to Door, he's earned his title as veteran.

Telling the outlet: 'I find when I go into those rooms for these award shows, I know a lot of the people. They're the best and the brightest.'

Adding humbly: 'I have to pinch myself that I'm even invited to the party. It's a dream come true.'

Winner! The father-of-three has won two back-to-back Emmys in 2003 for TNT's Door to Door

Been there, done that! Pictured in 2003, husband and wife are true veterans to the Emmys

William's portrayal of deadbeat drunk Frank Gallagher will return for a season seven.

Shameless also stars Emmy Rossum and Steve Howey.

The hit series will premiere on Showtime October 2nd.
She is a red carpet regular and a dedicated follower of fashion.

And so Keira Knightley was the perfect choice to co-host a prestigious event laid on by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in London on Sunday night.

The actress led the glam arrivals at A Night To Remember which sees Colin Firth's designer wife Livia continue her Green Carpet Challenge sustainable fashion drive with a bash during the star-studded London Fashion Week.

Pretty as a picture: Fashion fan and red carpet regular Keira Knightley was the perfect choice to co-host a prestigious event laid on by BAFTA in London on Sunday night

Keira, who was among the event's cohosts, dressed to impress for the event.

The actress looked gorgeous in a pretty white lace dress with bird embellishments on the chest.

The fashion-forward star added metallic heels and a statement clutch, while her dark locks were left loose around her shoulders.

Party time: The actress led the glam arrivals at A Night To Remember which sees Colin Firth's designer wife Livia continue her Green Carpet Challenge sustainable fashion drive

Twit twoo! The actress looked gorgeous in a pretty white lace dress with bird embellishments on the chest

Keira was joined by Victoria Beckham at the star-studded evening, who made her grand entrance in a satin suit.

Victoria matched a shimmering navy satin jacket with tails to tapered trousers which featured edgy buckle detail.

A pair of pristine white heels added a pop to the dark outfit.

Looking sharp! Victoria Beckham suited up in a stunning satin ensemble for an evening at the A Night to Remember event hosted by The Green Carpet Challenge at BAFTA on Sunday

Shimmering: The super stylish mum of four ditched the dress in favour of some sharp tailoring for the sustainable fashion bash

Suits you! Victoria matched a shimmering navy satin jacket with tails to tapered trousers which featured edgy buckle detail

Finishing touch: A pair of pristine white heels added a pop to the dark outfit

The event's host Livia Firth meanwhile stunned in a vibrant pink halter-neck dress and glittering heels.

With her actor husband Colin by her side, Livia welcomed the likes of US Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour who shimmered in a gold brocade coat and her signature shades.

Pixie Lott meanwhile turned heads in daring sheer lace number which flaunted her toned figure.

Stylish pair: The night's host Livia was joined by her actor husband Colin

Standing out: Livia stunned in a vibrant pink halter-neck dress and glittering heels

VIP: Livia welcomed the likes of Vogue Editor In Chief Anna Wintour who shimmered in a gold brocade coat and her signature shades

Va va voom: Pixie Lott meanwhile turned heads in daring sheer lace number which flaunted her toned figure

Strike a pose: Pixie looked incredible in the intricate number, while her blonde locks were styled into a artfully messy up do

Trademark look: Helena Bonham Carter went for her classic gothic glamour

Having a laugh: Helena grabbed Colin Firth for a picture

Legs eleven: Mollie King looked stunning in a barely there mini dress

Hunky actor Luke Evans also made an appearance on the special green carpet, looking dapper in a white double breasted jacket.

A Night To Remember saw Livia and the Green Carpet Challenge join forces with BAFTA and the British Fashion Council at the BAFTA headquarters in London.

There Livia and her co-hosts unveiled an exhibition of vintage couture gowns unearthed by William Vintage founder William Banks-Blaney, including work by designers from Hubert de Givenchy to John Galliano and Alexander McQueen.

The worlds first eco-friendly mannequins were also launched at the event, while a screening of The First Monday in May, the documentary about the Met Ball, was shown to the VIP crowd.

Suited up: Daisy Lowe ditched the dress for a sharp black tux, flashing a hint of cleavage

Leggy: Mollie King showed off her tanned and toned pins in a statement print mini

It's fashion darling: The silver wraparound number featured a jazzy print

Suave: Hunky actor Luke Evans also made an appearance on the special green carpet, looking dapper in a white double breasted jacket

Flower power: Arizona Muse stood out in her head to toe floral co-ord

Stunning: Laura Bailey chose a gorgeous metallic weave dress and platform boots for the big night

Style queen: Fashion writer and presenter Laura Jackson showed some leg in her racy number

Livia campaigns for ethical fashion and is the self-styled queen of the green carpet challenge, which promotes sustainable clothing choices for celebrities.

The creative director of Eco-Age - which aims raise the profile of sustainability, ethics and social welfare - has been promoting the idea of sustainable fashion for some time and Livia regularly wears recycled outfits for high profiles events.

She told the Telegraph earlier this year: 'The biggest message is every time you buy something, always think, Will I wear it a minimum of 30 times?.

'If the answer is yes, then buy it. But youd be surprised how many times you say no. That should tell you something about how the current model in fashion is unsustainable - and needs urgent change.'

Wow factor: Russian-Swiss model Xenia Tchoumitcheva stood out in her rainbow metallic dress

Fashion fans: Blogger Tanya Burr chose a vintage style black and white number and sparkly heels while stylist Caroline Sieber stood out in her salmon pink frock

Celeb crowd: Will.i.am matched the green carpet in his jacket and wide brimmed hat

Stylish line up: Amanda Berry, Livia Firth, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Anna Wintour, James Righton, William Banks-Blaney and Andrew Bolton were the night's hosts

Three's a crowd? Designer Christopher Bailey joined Keira and her husband and James Righton for a photo

Fashionable crowd: Fashion entrepenur Natalie Massenet cosied ip with top photographer Mario Testino and Livia and Anna
She had a busy day enjoying the hottest tickets at London Fashion Week.

And Pixie Lott rounded up her stylish Sunday with a trip down the green carpet at London's BAFTA HQ for Livia Firth's sustainable fashion event.

Pixie stood out among the VIP crowd with her very daring choice of dress, showing some skin in a racy black lace number.

Va va voom: Pixie Lott rounded up her stylish Sunday with a trip down the green carpet at London's BAFTA HQ for Liv Firth's sustainable fashion event

Pixie hit The Green Carpet Challenge event in her figure-hugging dress.

The black lace number showed off her toned curves and flashes of skin, while the high neckline and frilled sleeves added a vintage vibe.

The dedicated follower of fashion styled her blonde locks into an artfully messy up do and completed her look with glossy lips and dark eye makeup.

Racy: Pixie stood out among the VIP crowd with her very daring choice of dress, showing some skin in a black lace number

Pixie joined a star-studded crowd at BAFTA for A Night To Remember, which sees Colin Firth's designer wife Livia continue her Green Carpet Challenge sustainable fashion drive with a bash during the star-studded London Fashion Week.

Green Carpet Challenge joined forces with BAFTA and the British Fashion Council at the BAFTA headquarters in London for the event.

Livia and her actor husband Colin welcomed Pixie along with Keira Knightley and Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

Finishing touches: The dedicated follower of fashion styled her blonde locks into an artfully messy up do and completed her look with glossy lips and dark eye makeup

There Livia and her co-hosts unveiled an exhibition of vintage couture gowns unearthed by William Vintage founder William Banks-Blaney, including work by designers from Hubert de Givenchy to John Galliano and Alexander McQueen.

The worlds first eco-friendly mannequins were also launched at the event, while a screening of The First Monday in May, the documentary about the Met Ball, was shown to the VIP crowd.

Pixie had hot-footed it from Temperley's LFW show across town for the event, making a speedy change on the way out of her gorgeous embellished gown into the black lace party number.

Another winning look: Pixie had hot-footed it from Temperley's LFW show across town for the event, making a speedy change on the way out of her gorgeous embellished gown
She's known as Chris Hemsworth's better half.

And Elsa Pataky certainly knows how to work the camera.

Taking to Instagram on Sunday, the 40-year-old beauty posted a snap of a recent photo shoot of her posing on a classic dark navy Mustang car.

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Racy! Taking to Instagram on Sunday, the 40-year-old beauty posted a snap of a recent photo shoot of her posing on a classic dark navy Mustang

Wearing tight dark denim jeans and a black leather jacket, Elsa leaned seductively on the car showcasing her pert derriere.

The blonde beauty kept her hair out in loose waves and wore 50's inspired makeup with a dark red lip and winged eyeliner.

As she channelled the perfect vintage pinup girl she told her 982,000 followers in her native Spanish, 'A photoshoot with my favourite team.'

Free spirit: Elsa Pataky revealed the secluded hair salon behind her silky blonde mane in an Instagram post which she said is located 'in the middle of the forest' at Byron Bay

Meanwhile last week she headed out to secluded hair salon in her home town Byron Bay.

'Arriving to my hairstylist to do my Color, best salon in the world just in the middle of the forest, me and breezycosmicavalon,' she wrote, tagging the stylist in her post.

The Fast & Furious star, who shares three children with Chris, 33, is often spotted around Byron Bay where she lives with her actor husband and their three children.

Stunning: The Spanish actress is rarely seen without a hair in place on the red carpet

Earlier this year, Chris explained why he and Elsa left Hollywood to raise daughter India, four, and 18-month-old twin sons Tristan and Sasha in Australia.

'It's no longer all about me, which is quite refreshing,' he told Modern Luxury magazine.

'Acting is the most self-absorbed world, where you are thinking about your feelings. Once the kids arrived, I was like, 'Wow, this is what life is about.''

Adapting: A keen beach-goer, Elsa recently shared this cheeky snap of herself before a surfing session

Love birds: Elsa and Chris are often pictured bonding in Byron Bay

He continued: 'L.A. is a tough place to get around with kids. There's not a whole lot of foot traffic. It was all about loading up the car and car seats,' he explained.

'We were living shoulder to shoulder in the suburbs and thought that's not how we want our kids to grow up.'

Elsa, who was born in Madrid, wed Australian actor Chris in a private ceremony in 2010.

Content: Elsa and Chris Hemsworth previously left Hollywood to raise their three children in Australia

In a blog post for Spain's Glamour magazine, Elsa said their new home on the east coast of Australia is 'special' and that her style has been influenced by her new surroundings.

'As there is a tropical climate and a hippie lifestyle, you often see people walking barefoot on the street,' she said.

'I was quite surprised at first, but now even I walk barefoot sometimes!'
China pushes Tibetan tourism while critics fear impact

China has unveiled a sparkling new hotel as part of its drive to get tens of millions more tourists to visit Tibet, even as critics say the push is slowly eroding the local culture.

With a presidential suite that costs $1,000 a night and views over the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas, the luxury Artel hotel is a potent symbol of Chinese plans for the autonomous territory.

Tourism officials are hoping to see visitor numbers increase by nearly 50 percent in the next four years, said Wang Songping, deputy director of the Tibet Tourism Development Commission.

Tourists visit the iconic Potala Palace in Lhasa in China's Tibet Autonomous Region Johannes Eisele (AFP)

"Tibet attracted four million Chinese tourists in 2005. We hope we'll get 24 million this year and 35 million by 2020," he said.

Critics say the influx will lead to more of China's dominant Han ethnic group settling in Tibet and eroding native Tibetan ways of life, and argue the majority of economic benefits of mass tourism will not go to locals.

Official figures say that Tibetans currently make up 90 percent of the local population, but groups opposed to Chinese rule say the real figure is significantly lower.

Beijing says it "peacefully liberated" Tibet in 1951 and insists it has brought development to a previously backward region where serfs were exploited.

But many Tibetans accuse Beijing of repressing their religion, diluting their culture and exploiting natural resources to benefit the Han at the expense of locals and the environment.

- Switzerland of the East -

The 103-room Artel opened in mid-August in Lulang, a picturesque village situated at 3,700 metres (12,100 feet) in a southeastern forested area in the autonomous region of Tibet.

It is part of a tourist complex built in an old part of town previously occupied mostly by government buildings and restaurants, that now boasts its own shopping street, a lake and an arts centre.

Nicknamed the "Switzerland of the East", the village is seen by authorities as a flagship project for its ambitious plans for Tibet's tourist sector.

Transport links are being developed to cater for the influx, including a motorway opening next year, and a high-speed rail line from the capital Lhasa, expected to open in 2021.

Another high-speed rail line to Chengdu, capital of neighbouring Sichuan province, home to more than 80 million people, should be completed in 2022.

Wang said the number of Chinese tourists, who currently make up 95 percent of visitors to Tibet, has increased by an average of 20 percent each year since the 2006 opening of the first railway linking Tibet to the rest of China.

But while outside visitors can boost the local economy, mass tourism has down sides, said Tibet expert Francoise Robin.

"Cultural performances shown to visitors are either favourable reinterpretations of Chinese history or Chinese versions of songs or dances," she said.

"Tibetans themselves end up picking up these distorted versions."

And while some Tibetans were developing responsible tourism initiatives and eco-tourism, such businesses could often not be developed on a large scale, she said.

- 'Last in line to benefit' -

The influx of tourists is expected to bring in billions of dollars but many are concerned that not everyone will benefit from the windfall.

"Travel agents and other people who work in the tourism industry are mostly Han Chinese", said Robin. "The Tibetans... are among the last in line to benefit."

At the Artel hotel, Baima Cicuo, a 17-year-old local trainee who works as a housekeeper, said she was happy in her job -- at least in front of her boss.

"Before, I depended on my farmer parents. But now I earn 1,000 yuan a month and I learn a lot of things," she said in fluent Mandarin.

The hotel, owned by Poly, a Chinese state-owned group, has invested 280 million yuan ($42 million) in the project, says commercial director Ray Peng.

It currently has 40 employees, 15 of whom are Tibetan.

Its guests are likely to be overwhelmingly Chinese. Less than five percent of visitors to Tibet are foreign tourists, who need to obtain an "entry letter" as well as a Chinese visa when travelling to the region, where they must join an authorised tour group.

Despite the widespread perception that the restrictions are meant to stop the outside world from learning too much about the tensions between ethnic Tibetans and Han, officials insist that is not the case.

"These restrictions are in place because we can't yet provide world class services for tourists", said Bianba Zhaxi, deputy governor of Tibet.

"We will be open to tourists from across the world in a few years," he added.

But Acharya Yeshi Phuntsok, deputy speaker of Tibet's parliament in exile, said the restrictions serve to hide the truth about Tibet from the outside world.

"If foreign tourists and media are able to travel freely in Tibet, without organised tours, and can collect the views of people, then I think tourism can have a good impact.

"Otherwise, nobody will speak and share the problems of the Tibetan people."

Pilgrims pray outside the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, in China's Tibet Autonomous Region Johannes Eisele (AFP)

Monks pray in the Buddhist Sera monastery in Lhasa, in China's Tibet Autonomous Region Johannes Eisele (AFP)

China has unveiled the new Artel hotel in Lulang as part of its drive to get tens of millions more tourists to visit Tibet, even as critics say the push is slowly eroding the local culture Johannes Eisele (AFP)

A young boy dressed as a Chinese policeman sits on a scooter with his family as they exit the Buddhist Sera monastery in Lhasa, in China's Tibet Autonomous Region Johannes Eisele (AFP)
Two years ago, the city of Adelanto, a crumbling outpost in California's Mojave desert, was facing a bleak future as it teetered on the brink of bankruptcy and struggled with double-digit unemployment.

'We were about to vanish, to be incorporated into another city,' says councilman John 'Bug' Woodard Jr. 'The place was dying and in total despair.'

Today, however, the once-desolate town is firmly back on the map, having joined a handful of communities in California in embracing large-scale commercial cannabis cultivation -- a move that smells of success as the state prepares to vote in November on legalizing the use of recreational marijuana.

Adelanto councilman John 'Bug' Woodard, Jr. stands on undeveloped desert land in the 'green zone', an area designated by the city for industrial scale marijuana cultivation

Though California already allows the use of medical marijuana, the initiative to fully legalize the drug -- seen as likely to succeed -- is expected to transform the most populous state in the US and one of the world's largest economies into a new epicenter for cannabis, bringing in billions in revenue.

According to the Arcview Group, a cannabis investment and research firm based in California, medical and recreational marijuana sales are expected to more than double to $6.5billion in the Golden State by 2020 if the drug becomes fully legal after November.

Nationwide, the legal cannabis market -- which stood at about $5.7billion in 2015 -- is projected to reach more than $23billion by 2020, according to Arcview.

Apart from California, several other states including Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada will also vote on legalizing recreational marijuana on November 8, at the same time as casting ballots in the presidential race.

A similar ballot measure in California failed in 2010 but support has grown since, with Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker among backers of the latest initiative, which has the support of 58 per cent of voters according to a recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.

Red paint markings will guide preparations for the greatly increased electricity demands of a future marijuana farm in the 'green zone'

The High Desert Detention Center sits across from a future marijuana farm in the 'green zone'

Celebrities join scramble

For Adelanto, the signs pointed to an opportunity too good to pass up.

Last November, the town became among the first in California to permit medical marijuana cultivation.

The decision to welcome marijuana growers led to a flood of high-end investors rushing to the town of 32,000 residents to buy up warehouses and plots of land in two so-called 'green zones' earmarked for cannabis cultivation, local officials say.

'All of a sudden, we have people driving over here in Bentleys to look at property,' said Woodard, 57, a real-estate agent with wispy shoulder-length hair who organizes an annual jazz festival in the desert.

'Here you have a building that was bought for $725,000 a couple years ago and now it's worth four million,' he added, pointing to an expanse of land dotted with warehouses surrounded by Joshua trees and brush.

'When you say Adelanto now, everybody knows where it is.'

Among the celebrities who have reportedly joined the mad scramble to snag a producer license in the city, Woodard says, are rapper Snoop Dogg, one of reggae legend Bob Marley's sons, Ky-Mani Marley, and actor Tommy Chong, of cult comedy duo Cheech & Chong.

The decision by Adelanto city officials to allow marijuana cultivation led to a flood of high-end investors rushing to buy up warehouses and plots of land in 'green zones' earmarked for cultivation

City officials said they expect cannabis production to easily reach 100 tons annually once farming gets fully underway, bringing in much-needed tax revenue to the decrepit town until now known more for its three prisons than for being pot-friendly.

Blossoming industry

'We are on the precipice of taking over the industry,' Jermaine Wright, a former pastor and member of the city council, said assuredly. 'We're doing what no other city has done when it comes to marijuana and this is going to bring in other businesses and manufacturing.'

The city's cannabis ordinance stipulates that 40 to 50 per cent of the workforce must be drawn from the local population, a measure that should significantly reduce unemployment, local officials say.

So far Adelanto, which means progress in English, has issued 35 licenses to grow cannabis and expects to hand out more in coming months, Woodard said.

Dan Olson, who owns a company that manufactures air filtration equipment in one of the 'green zones', said he has seen the town transform as it prepares for the expected windfall from cannabis farming.

'I go out for a walk in the desert every morning and I can see the change,' said Olson, whose company has been in the city for 12 years.

'You now see all these cars with black tinted windows driving around and you see all these warehouses where the weeds have been pulled and you know it's going cultivation.'

Christopher Goodman, 59, who is in the process of purchasing several warehouses in the city, said he expects to reap millions from his investment.

'The demand is here and the more people get educated about cannabis the more people will use it,' said Goodman, who was in the auto business before turning to cannabis farming several years ago.
NY bomb is 'terror,' no claim and motive unclear

A bomb that tore through an upscale New York neighborhood injuring 29 people was an act of terror, the state governor said Sunday, but the motive is unknown and there has been no claim of responsibility.

Heavily armed police and National Guard soldiers deployed throughout New York as the city of 8.4 million prepared to welcome world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Monday.

The attack happened late Saturday in Chelsea, one of Manhattan's most fashionable districts packed with bars, restaurants and luxury residential buildings.

Security forces invesitgate at the scene the day after an explosion on New York's West 23rd Street, on September, 18, 2016 Bryan R. Smith (AFP)

Police discovered a second bomb planted four blocks away, which was safely defused and is currently being analyzed, officers said.

The bombing came as a jihadist-linked news agency claimed that an Islamic State group "soldier" carried out a stabbing attack in a US mall that left eight people injured late Saturday in the state of Minnesota.

Local police said the attacker "made some references to Allah," but the motive was unclear. The attacker was shot dead by an off-duty police officer. There was no suggestion it was linked to the New York bombing.

"A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it's not linked to international terrorism," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters on Sunday as he visited the crime scene.

"In other words, we find no ISIS connection, etcetera," said Cuomo in reference to IS, which is based in Iraq and Syria.

- Motive unknown -

New York police chief James O'Neill said no individual or group had yet claimed responsibility.

O'Neill said he could not say with a "100 percent degree of certainty" where the blast originated. US media reported that it was planted in a dumpster on 23rd Street where major construction work is taking place.

A hot line has been set up for tips. Police have a video of the bombing and were searching for anyone seen in the area before the explosion.

"We know it's a very serious incident, but we have a lot more work to do to be able to say what kind of motivation was behind this," Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters.

"Was it a political motivation, a personal motivation. What was it? We do not know that yet," he added, calling on residents to be vigilant.

FBI official William Sweeney said federal investigators would be pouring through online traffic, individuals and organizations.

"We will look at everything," he told the news conference. "We'll look at social networks, at all the incoming tips and leads. Everything that comes in gets a look. We don't discard anything."

New York will see a stepped up security presence, with an additional nearly 1,000 state police and National Guard deployed to airports, bus terminals and subway stations, officials said.

The explosion on 23rd Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, caused "significant" damage, shattering glass and shrapnel across the street, but there is no structural damage to any buildings.

- Extra police -

While the two devices planted in Manhattan appear to be similar, they seem to be different than a pipe bomb that exploded in the neighboring state of New Jersey on Saturday causing no injuries, officials said.

Of the 29 people who sustained injuries in New York, 24 were taken to hospital with various degrees of scrapes and abrasions from glass and metal. All have since been released, officials confirmed Sunday.

New York lauds itself as the safest big city in America. Violent crime is rare in Manhattan and police say they have foiled 20 terror plots since the 2001 Al-Qaeda hijackings destroyed the Twin Towers.

New York Congressman Peter King said the fact that officials had not yet determined a known terrorist link was not necessarily conclusive.

"In many of these cases we don't know until two, three or four days later whether or not there is a terrorist link," he told CBS. "The fact there is no evidence right now doesn't mean much," he added.

Police have sealed off northern Chelsea around the crime scene and dozens of officers were out in force Sunday. An AFP photographer said there was lots of debris, including rubble and glass on 23rd Street.

"Today there special events occurring throughout the city. Actually in all five boroughs. We've increased our police presence in each of these events," said senior New York police officer Carlos Gomez.

"We've also added more counter-terrorism officers as well as heavy weapons teams at some of these events. Teams from the strategic response group as well as the critical response command," he said.

Explosions in New York and New Jersey

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo(L) and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio(R) arrive at the scene of an explosion on West 23rd Street September, 18, 2016 in New York Bryan R. Smith (AFP)
Turbulence at S.African airline reveals government woes

Spiralling debt, massive losses and a widely-criticised boss.

For many, the problems besetting South African Airways (SAA), the state-owned national airline, are emblematic of issues roiling President Jacob Zuma's government and fuelling unease among foreign investors.

SAA is "on the brink of disaster", Mmusi Maimane, head of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party, said in a blunt summary of the situation this week.

Financial reports for South African Airways presented to parliament last week -- some of them two years late -- painted a grim picture: in 2014-2015, the airline made a 4.7-billion rand ($330 million) loss Gianluigi Guercia (AFP/File)

The airline was going through "serious challenges, including governance and financial difficulties," agreed Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, who says that without government support SAA is technically insolvent.

Financial reports presented to parliament on Thursday -- some of them two years late -- paint a grim picture: in 2014-2015, the airline made a 4.7-billion rand ($330 million) loss.

While the scale of the problem is beyond question, the cause of the rot is subject to fierce political debate.

Gordhan this month approved an application for a loan guarantee worth 4.7 billion rand -- bringing the total in state guarantees to the airline up to 19 billion rand -- with a strict list of requirements.

"It will not be business as usual," said Gordhan, who is seen as engaged in a battle with Zuma over the treasury's control of economic policy.

SAA has been compelled to publish its overdue annual reports, name a chief financial officer as the position was vacant since November, close unprofitable routes and aggressively cut costs.

- Misuse of public funds? -

"The primary focus of the board must be to return the airline to financial sustainability," Gordhan said.

The required measures are considerable, but some doubt they will be enough to turn the floundering company around.

The opposition alleges that SAA suffers from an ailment, which it claims, afflicts many of the country's state-owned enterprises: the misuse of public funds by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

It accuses the airline's chairwoman Dudu Myeni of alleged incompetence.

Critics allege she has a close personal relationship with Zuma -- a claim the president was forced to deny last year -- but that did not stop Myeni being recently reappointed to her post despite fierce objections.

"Dudu Myeni has wrecked SAA and the cabinet decision to reappoint her as chairperson was irrational," the DA claimed.

The decision was also seen as a snub to Gordhan, who opposed Myeni's reappointment and who has clashed with a long list of Zuma loyalists after vowing to battle poor governance and graft.

Without naming Myeni directly, Gordhan fired back earlier this year, denouncing "individuals" who abuse state entities "as if it's their personal toy from which you can extract money when you feel like it".

The president, for his part, has in public tried to stay above the fray.

In parliament this week, he reaffirmed his confidence in Myeni, saying "I have seen her working", while also saying "there is no war between the presidency and the treasury".

- 'Symptom of broad problem' -

The threat of an investment downgrade by ratings agencies has loomed ominously on the horizon throughout the year, and the battle for control of South Africa's public enterprises has investors worried.

A recent cabinet decision to entrust the president with oversight of state-owned companies -- a task which has previously fallen to ministers -- has done little to calm their fears.

Shortly afterwards, South African asset manager Futuregrowth announced that it would stop lending to six of the largest "parastatals", including state power provider Eskom.

Futuregrowth said it was concerned with how the companies were being run, as well as with "government infighting and threats to the independence of the finance ministry".

The fate of SAA "is a symptom of a broad problem across state-owned enterprises," Nick Binedell, a professor at the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria told AFP.
Israel boosting security for Jewish holidays: Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday Israel was boosting security ahead of the upcoming Jewish high holidays after the past few days saw a surge in violence.

Netanyahu's comments came after what Israeli authorities said was the fifth attack on security forces or civilians since Friday following a three-week lull.

The violence over the past few days came as Palestinians wrapped up the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

A stabbing attack in the West Bank settlement of Efrat was the fifth incident of Palestinians attacking Israeli security forces and civilians in just a few days Hazem Bader (AFP/File)

Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting Sunday that the army and police "are boosting their forces" ahead of the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah, or Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur in October.

"The security forces are on heightened alert and I will meet with them today in order to ensure that we will be ready to defend our people during this sensitive period," he said.

Earlier Sunday, an assailant believed to be Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli officer in a West Bank settlement before being shot by forces at the scene, the army said.

It said a "terrorist carried out a stabbing attack in Efrat and wounded an officer".

Both were evacuated to the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, which said the perpetrator was in moderate condition after suffering a gunshot to his head, while the soldier, also in moderate condition, had been stabbed in the armpit.

Efrat is a short distance from the flashpoint city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, where a Palestinian stabbed a soldier on Saturday before being shot dead, Israeli authorities say.

On Friday, two Palestinians rammed a car into a bus stop used by Israelis near the adjacent Kiryat Arba settlement, causing injuries before troops killed one of the assailants, Israeli authorities said.

The same day, a Jordanian tried to stab a police officer in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem before being shot dead, according to Israeli authorities.

Jordan called the shooting a "barbaric act" and alleged that the man killed was part of a group of tourists.

The Israeli army announced on Saturday it was deploying an additional battalion to reinforce the Hebron area following the uptick in violence around the city.

Violence since last October has killed 227 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, one Eritrean and a Sudanese, according to an AFP count.

Israeli forces say most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks. Others were shot dead during protests and clashes or killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Many analysts say Palestinian frustration with the Israeli occupation and settlement-building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have fed the unrest.

Israel says incitement by Palestinian leaders and media is a leading cause of the violence.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since capturing it in the Six-Day War of 1967.
In North Dakota, hints of US oil industry comeback

In the chilly air before dawn, a handful of men and women huddle in front of a small, one-story building on the outskirts of Williston.

They are waiting for Central Command, a temporary work agency, to open.

Workers in this oil town in the US state of North Dakota, just an hour from the Canada border, once had their pick of jobs. Many are now looking for any work they can find.

Heather Scallion waits for a job at the Command Center temporary employment agency in Williston, North Dakota, a once booming oil town Robyn Beck (AFP)

"They don't have very many jobs for us right now," said Heather Scallion, who traveled some 1,300 miles (2,100 km) from Arkansas, thinking there was still low-skilled work here.

"Hurting for money, honestly," she explained.

Nearby, a ragged man in his 30s slept on a couch. Scallion was fairly certain he was homeless, because he slept on the same spot every day, wearing the same clothes.

Just minutes from this temporary work site, at the state-run employment agency Job Service North Dakota, it is a far different world. There is a shortage of workers for highly skilled positions in drilling and oil pump maintenance, among others.

"There were layoffs when oil really tanked," said Cindy Sanford, who heads the agency's Williston branch. "Now what's happening is those companies are bringing people back."

North Dakota is now seeing hints of a recovery from the bust. As crude prices have rebounded to the $40 range after a stunning crash, there are signs that the industry is slowly regaining its footing.

But the recovery has been uneven, a distinct case of the haves and the have-nots, as skilled laborers see their prospects improving, while the less desirable workforce feels little optimism.

- Oil boomtown -

The Command Center offices are just across from the train tracks that used to ferry coal, livestock and grains, but now shoulder trains loaded with crude from the vast oil and gas deposits that lie deep underfoot, known as the Bakken and Three Forks formations.

When hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling techniques made those deposits easier to reach, Williston became the epicenter of North Dakota's oil production.

The industry turned the sparsely populated state into a buzzing hub of investment and hiring starting in 2010, while the rest of the US economy was still stuck in low gear.

At the height of the boom in 2014, Sanford said that they could be so desperate to recruit workers they just had to make sure candidates were alive.

"We'd laugh and we'd say, 'Breathe into the mirror. Oh, it didn't fog up. Try again,'" said Sanford.

In those heady days, low-skilled workers could easily earn $18 an hour. Williston doubled in size in about four years, to roughly 30,000 people.

Then, the price of oil plummeted, from highs above $100 a barrel to below $30, forcing many drillers to shut down their operations and lay off tens of thousands. Booming Williston went bust.

- Hints of recovery -

From his truck, Monty Besler points to so-called "man camps," make-shift mobile housing developments once buzzing with out-of-town workers. They now sit empty.

"We've lost a lot of companies," said Besler, an oil industry consultant, whose license plate reads "Fracn8r" - as in "frackenator," a nickname given to him by colleagues.

Besler has seen boom and bust cycles before.

"We'll have a winnowing, and in the process the stronger companies will survive," he said.

He has reason for such optimism.

While oil production still continues to decline, analysts expect it to stabilize next year. Meanwhile, the number of active oil rigs is rising again and they have become more efficient and productive, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

"The industry is going to resume a very modest, but positive, growth in supply in 2017," said Raoul LeBlanc, a US energy analyst at IHS.

He cautioned that even though jobs are starting to return, salaries are generally lower than in boom times. "We may never get back to the levels of employment that we had," LeBlanc said.

But Besler believes the industry can rise again. If prices can be sustained in the $50-60 per barrel range, Besler said, "that starts to bring the outside money back in, the investment groups that were pouring money into the Bakken before."

The city of Williston is anticipating that Bakken will power the local economy for decades to come, budgeting $1 billion on roads, bridges, and a new airport.

Companies are once again competing for workers. A recent job fair had 56 companies planning to fill 300 positions.

This is all cold comfort at the Command Center, where few of those jobs are expected to reach low-skilled workers any time soon. Kyle Tennessen, the center's manager, is certain he will continue to have more people lining up for work every morning than the number of jobs he can offer them.

"There's going to be another boom. When is the giant question mark," Tennessen said.

Workers from across the US once flooded into the oil town of Williston, North Dakota, expecting to easily find well-paid jobs, but now they take any work they can find Robyn Beck (AFP)

Kyle Tennessen, manager of the Command Center temporary employment agency in Williston, is certain he will continue to have more people lining up than jobs to offer Robyn Beck (AFP)
A Norwegian former hostage on Sunday described his psychological torture as he heard his friends being beheaded by Islamic militants during a year-long captivity in the southern Philippines.

A heavily bearded and gaunt Kjartan Sekkingstad, who was released on Saturday by the feared Abu Sayyaf group, also said he narrowly survived military attacks against his captors, with a bullet piercing his backpack.

"Basically, I've been treated like a slave, carrying their stuff around, time to time abused," a frail-looking Sekkingstad said as he was received by a government envoy in the town of Indanan on the forested island of Jolo.

Freed Norwegian national Kjartan Sekkingstad boards a plane at Jolo airport on September 18, 2016 Nickee Butlangan (AFP)

Also released were three Indonesians held by the group, who were also turned over to envoy Jesus Dureza.

Sekkingstad told reporters he endured "psychological pressure", with the Abu Sayyaf threatening several times to behead him.

Sekkingstad, then aged 56, was abducted in September 2015 from the high-end Philippine tourist resort which he managed and was taken to Jolo by the Abu Sayyaf.

Two Canadian resort guests captured with him, John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, were later beheaded by the group after a ransom demand of about 300 million pesos ($6.5 million) was not met.

Sekkingstad said that during the separate killings in April and June, the two handcuffed Canadians were escorted out of sight, "but still close enough that you could hear their cries when it happened."

"It was devastating," the visibly shaken Norwegian said.

Sekkingstad said he also survived numerous military attacks on his captors and even saved as a souvenir a bullet that went through his backpack.

The Abu Sayyaf handed the Norwegian over to another Muslim rebel leader Nur Misuari, whose group assisted in the release and at whose camp he spent the night, according to the government.

- Ransom mystery -

Escorted by a small contingent of Jolo police on Sunday, Misuari handed him and the Indonesians over to Dureza at a meeting guarded by hundreds of Misuari's fighters from the Moro National Liberation Front.

Sekkingstad and Dureza then flew to the southern city of Davao to meet Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The three Indonesians were taken to the nearby city of Zamboanga where a retired Indonesian general was waiting to pick them up.

The Indonesians were kidnapped off Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysia in July, a regional military spokesman said.

At a press forum with Duterte later, a now-clean shaven Sekkingstad thanked the president and all those who helped obtain his freedom.

It was unclear if any ransom was paid and, if so, by whom.

A spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf was quoted in a local newspaper on Sunday as saying the group received 30 million pesos (about $625,000) for the Norwegian.

Norwegian foreign affairs communications chief Frode Andersen told AFP by phone that "the Norwegian government does not pay ransom in this case or any other case".

And Duterte's spokesman Martin Andanar also said in Manila that "the (Philippine) government maintains the no-ransom policy".

"Now, if there is a third party like family that paid, we do not know anything about that," he told reporters.

The Abu Sayyaf was formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

Based in remote Muslim-populated southern islands of the mainly Catholic Philippines, its kidnappings for ransom -- often of foreigners -- have earned it millions.

While its leaders have in recent years pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, analysts say the Abu Sayyaf is mainly focused on crime rather than religious ideology.

The group is blamed for the worst terror attacks in Philippine history and is listed by the United States as a terrorist organisation.

Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Chairman Nur Misuari (C right) escorts freed Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad (C left) at a handover ceremony in Indanan on September 18, 2016 Nickee Butlangan (AFP)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte greeted Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad in Davao following his release Ted Aljibe (AFP/File)
Borneo loggers swap chainsaws for cheap healthcare

The forest around Manjau in Borneo once reverberated with the scream of chainsaws, as gangs of illegal loggers felled ancient hardwood trees for sale to timber merchants downstream.

But many loggers in the remote Indonesian village are hanging up their chainsaws in return for affordable healthcare, through a community incentive scheme that aims to save lives and protect Borneo's fragile rainforests.

This strategy is set to be rolled out elsewhere in Indonesia, where impoverished communities often reliant on illegal industries for survival are putting enormous strain on the environment.

Logs are stacked along the river on the outskirts of Pontianak city, in West Kalimantan province, Borneo Bay Ismoyo (AFP)

In western Borneo, where the approach was first pioneered, logging had long been the lifeblood of many communities, providing quick cash whenever it was desperately needed for weddings or health emergencies

A single Bornean ironwood -- a rare, slow-growing giant prized for its durable timber -- could fetch hundreds of dollars at a lumber mill, a small fortune for local villagers.

But for Juliansyah, a father-of-two from Manjau, the income was unreliable and the work -- often involving days-long missions alone in the forest -- was tiring and dangerous.

The cash was gone as soon as it had been earned, spent on medicine, school books or other essential items, he told AFP on the edge of Gunung Palung National Park.

One day youre rewarded, the next theres nothing. You cannot save anything, explained Juliansyah, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

It is illegal to cut down trees inside the park, a critical habitat for endangered orangutans, sun bears and hornbills in southwestern Borneo, a biodiverse island shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

His village was eventually approached by Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), a non-profit organisation based in nearby Sukadana and made an unusual offer.

If they agreed to cease logging, the entire village would be granted discounts on medical bills at the local health clinic, and free training for new careers as forest custodians and farmers.

- Villages onside -

The incentives have worked, says American physician Kinari Webb, who co-founded ASRI and established Oregon-based charity Health in Harmony, its key financial backer.

Of the 24 villages surrounding Gunung Palung, all but one have agreed to put down their chainsaws, Webb said. Since 2007, when ASRI started working with villages, the number of logging households has plunged from nearly 1,400 to 180.

The rampant destruction of the old-growth forest Webb encountered when she first arrived in western Borneo 22 years ago has slowed to a trickle, with degraded areas slowly regrowing.

"There was pretty much never a day standing right here that you couldn't hear a chainsaw in that forest, Webb told AFP, gesturing to the lush greenery behind the clinic.

Now, occasionally you will still hear a chainsaw... But its a completely different scene.

The clinic, where patients watch videos on forest conservation while waiting to see a doctor, has evolved into the primary healthcare provider for around 60,000 people living alongside Gunung Palung.

Nearly 7,300 villagers received medical treatment at the clinic in 2015. But that caseload is set to balloon when a modern hospital -- equipped with operating theatres, a blood bank and vaccine fridges -- opens in October.

Green villages, or those that stop logging entirely, are granted 70 percent reductions on treatment. Yellow and red villages -- which are on track to stopping logging -- receive 50 and 30 percent discounts respectively.

But anyone who cannot afford healthcare can offset the cost by collecting seeds for replanting in degraded forest, said Farida, who manages a nursery of native saplings outside Sukadana.

- Challenges ahead -

In April, ASRI co-founder doctor Hotlin Ompusunggu won a 50,000 pound ($65,700) grant from the Whitley Fund for Nature at an award ceremony attended by legendary naturalist David Attenborough.

The prize money -- the second significant endowment gifted to ASRI by the Britain-based charity -- will help fund the scale-up of the project.

Communities on the islands of Sulawesi and Sumatra, and in the eastern region of Papua, who are dependent on industries like mining and blast fishing have been canvassed, with a second launch site expected to be announced in January.

Webb said one possible location is Raja Ampat, a string of idyllic islands in Papua famed for marine biodiversity. Villagers there have been dynamiting the pristine reef to make ends meet, jeapordizing their future livelihood, she said.

There are always setbacks. Satellite imaging, observed by forest guardians who keep a close watch on communities, revealed in June that Juliansyahs village had cleared protected land inside park boundaries.

The village will be downgraded to yellow but can always redeem itself, said Fransiscus Xaverius, who oversees reforestation projects around Gunung Palung.

On a dirt road separating the protected park from a massive palm oil plantation -- another source of pressure on Borneos forests -- a motorcyclist drives past with a load of ironwood slats, likely carved from a felled stump, said Xaverius.

"It's very challenging if you want to do conservation work in Borneo," he told AFP, as tankers carrying crude palm oil thundered by.

"On the one hand there's people who want to save the forest, and on the other there's people who want to survive."

A doctor performs an ultrasound on an pregnant woman from a former logging family at a non-profit health clinic in Sukadana, West Kalimantan province, Borneo Bay Ismoyo (AFP)

A worker takes care of seedlings given by former loggers as payment for health treatment and to be replanted in reforestation efforts in Manjau, West Kalimantan province Bay Ismoyo (AFP)

The remains of burned-down forest near Pontianak, in West Kalimantan, Borneo Bay Ismoyo (AFP)
Death toll in Pakistan suicide bombing rises to 36

The death toll from a Taliban suicide bomb attack on a mosque in northwest tribal Pakistan has risen to 36, including eight children, officials said Sunday.

The Friday attack targeted a mosque in the Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan where the army has been fighting Taliban militants.

"We have now compiled a list of victims of the blast which includes 36 dead and 27 injured. At least eight children below the age of 10 are among the dead," Naveed Akbar, deputy chief of the Mohmand tribal district administration, told AFP.

Pakistani mourners gather for the funeral of victims of a sucide bombing in Bajaur Agency near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on September 17, 2016

"Many children were hit in the blast because they were praying in the last rows in the mosque where the bomber struck," Akbar said.

The bomber came in as Friday prayers were in progress and blew himself up in the main hall. A curfew has been imposed in the area since the bombing.

Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out to avenge the deaths of 13 of its members and arrests of others by a local vigilante force in 2009.

Meanwhile three people were killed in the outskirts of Peshawar city on Sunday when four motorbike gunmen sprayed a van with bullets.

JuA also claimed responsibility for this attack, telling journalists in an email they had killed three soldiers. But officials said they were still checking the identity of the deceased.

Since 2007 the government has encouraged vigilante forces comprising tribesmen -- locally known as peace committees -- to defend their villages against the Taliban.

Pakistan's deadliest ever attack occurred in Peshawar in December 2014, when Taliban militants stormed a school killing more than 150 people, mostly children.

The army launched an operation in June 2014 to wipe out militant bases in the northwestern tribal areas and end the bloody insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives.
El-Sisi also reiterated his call for the international community to assume responsibility for backing the Palestinian people so that they could establish their own state

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Sunday called on the international community to work towards curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction as well as combating terrorism during a meeting of a large Cold War-era bloc in Venezuela.

During his speech to the attendees of the 17th meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, El-Sisi urged for a global battle against terrorism that should not be "restricted to Islamic and developing communities."

He called in his address  that was delivered by Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on his behalf -- for a concerted international effort to confront the phenomenon and identify "political solutions for the ongoing conflicts exploited by terrorists to seize lands and control nations."

El-Sisi described the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction as an "imminent danger to humanity" that cannot be condoned, saying Egypt won't accept the "fait accompli policy that some are trying to entrench."

He stressed on the right of non-nuclear states to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, saying that Cairo "is taking steps toward building its first nuclear plant to generate electricity."

Set up in 1961, the Non-Aligned Movement offered an alternative power bloc for nations who did not support either the United States or Soviet Union during the Cold War. But the strength of the 120-nation bloc has weakened since the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.

El-Sisi slammed what he called attempts by some countries to interfere in political, economic and social affairs of other countries.

"Some [countries] have used human rights as a pretext to exert pressureand interfere in internal affairs of states," he was quoted as saying in the speech published by the foreign ministry.

He also renewed his appeal to the international community to rise from "inaction and procrastination" and assume responsibility for backing the Palestinian people so that they can regain their "legitimate rights to establish an independent state," whose capital would be East Jerusalem.

The foreign ministry said in a separate statement that Egypt endorsed the movement's "Palestine declaration" that stressed on its full, steadfast support for the Palestinian issue and the right of its people.

The declaration condemned the "Israeli violations and illegal, provocative practices in the occupied territories" and the illegal expansion in settlement-building in the West Bank.

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Central Africa militia kills at least 20, several wounded

Militia fighters in the Central African Republic have killed at least 20 people and wounded several more in attacks in the centre of the country, a police source said Sunday.

"At least 20 people were killed and several others wounded in attacks launched Friday by elements of the ex-Seleka" in the central Kaga Bandoro region, the source said.

"Ex-Seleka" is the term used for remnants of the supposedly disbanded alliance of mainly-Muslim armed groups which seized power in CAR in late 2013 before being chased from the capital the following year.

At least 20 people were killed in attacks by ex-Seleka fighters, a police source says Pacome Pa Pabandji (AFP/File)

The police source said the attacks, which continued Saturday, claimed 19 lives in several villages in the Kaga Bandoro region and several more in the regional capital of the same name.

"The heavily armed assailants burned dozens of houses that they looted in these villages," the police source said.

MONUSCO, the UN mission in CAR, said the attacks followed clashes between ex-Seleka and their longtime foes in militias collectively known as anti-Balaka.

In a statement, MONUSCO said it had sent troop reinforcements to Kaga Bandoro and the village of Ndomete, which was particularly affected by the violence, "to prevent any deterioration of the situation."

It said it had "already intervened in Ndomete to separate the warring parties in order to avoid reprisals against the civilian population."

Kaga Bandoro is the fiefdom Popular Front for the Renaissance of the Central African Republic (FPRC), an ex-Seleka splinter group.

It is led by Noureddine Adam, who faces international sanctions for his alleged role in intercommunal killings in 2013 and 2014.

Violence in CAR over recent years has claimed thousands of lives and prompted hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, even if the presence of French and UN troops has gone some way to improving security.
Rival Libya forces battle for oil ports

Forces loyal to Libya's UN-backed unity government launched an offensive on Sunday aimed at retaking key eastern oil ports seized last week by fighters from a rival administration.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord has struggled to assert its authority over the country since the GNA was formed in December last year.

Oil is Libya's key asset, and revenue from crude exports is vital if the GNA is to rebuild the economy and infrastructure of the North African nation, ravaged by violence since the 2011 uprising.

Libya's two key oil export terminals are Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra -- which are together capable of handling 700,000 bpd Leon Neal (AFP/File)

The revolt that ousted and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi plunged Libya into chaos, with militias, jihadists and rival administrations vying for control of its oil wealth and territory.

Last week, forces led by controversial military strongman Khalifa Haftar seized the ports of Ras Lanuf, Al-Sidra, Zuwaytina and Brega in the so-called "oil crescent" along the coast.

They later handed them over to the National Oil Corporation.

The NOC says it is loyal to the GNA, but also to the internationally recognised parliament based in the east which supports Haftar's forces and has refused to give the GNA a vote of confidence.

"The Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) launched an offensive this morning and (our forces) are fighting them in Ras Lanuf," said Mohamad Ibset, a spokesman for Haftar's forces.

The PFG, which is loyal to the government in Tripoli, said it had launched counterattacks on two of the oil ports.

- 'Unite to rebuild' -

"We attacked Al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf, and Haftar's forces are trying to hit us with their warplanes," spokesman Ali al-Hassi told AFP.

Muftah al-Muqarief, who heads oil guards loyal to Haftar, said the assault on the ports was launched from the west by "militias backed by outlaws".

"We repelled the attack and we are chasing them in the region," he said, adding that "some" assailants had been captured.

There was no independent confirmation from the oil crescent region of the fighting and the situation on the ground.

The British ambassador to Libya, Peter Millet, took to Twitter to urge restraint.

"Further fighting around oil crescent installations is bad for future of Libya's economy. Better to resolve differences by dialogue," he wrote.

"Libyans should unite to rebuild their country not destroy it," he added.

The loss of the ports was a blow to the GNA which set up base in the capital in March, months after it was created as the result of a UN-backed power-sharing agreement.

Haftar, who sees himself as Libya's saviour after driving jihadists out of most of the country's second city Benghazi, is the most powerful backer of the rival administration in the east.

Days after the ports fell under his control, the east-based parliament promoted Haftar to field marshal from his previous rank of general.

The administration that backs him announced on Wednesday that it would hand control of exports from the four ports to the NOC, albeit under the supervision of Haftar's forces.

NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla said on Thursday that exports would resume immediately from two of the ports, including Ras Lanuf.

The US special envoy for Libya, Jonathan Winer, warned that resumed oil exports would be acceptable only if the proceeds were paid into the Libyan central bank in Tripoli.

"If oil were to be diverted... the US will seek to enforce UN Security Council resolutions," Winer told AFP in an interview on Wednesday.

The fighting between the forces of the rival administrations is the latest escalation of the turmoil that has gripped Libya since Kadhafi was toppled.

The GNA is the centrepiece of UN efforts to restore stability and forge a central authority capable of tackling the twin scourges of a significant Islamic State group presence and rampant people trafficking across the Mediterranean to Europe.

Libya's oil and gas facilities

The Al-Sidra oil terminal is situated near Ras Lanuf, along Libya's northern coast
Israel PM defends US aid package in face of criticism

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday defended a new $38 billion US defence aid package against criticism Israel could have negotiated a larger sum had he not angered the White House.

Speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the deal was the "largest assistance agreement that the United States has ever provided to any country in its history".

He said it "proves the depth of the relationship, and the strength of relations, between Israel and the United States."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a new defence aid package shows the "depth of relationship" with the US

Netanyahu hit back at political opponents who argue the country should have received a larger package in compensation for the new threats Israel says it faces due to the nuclear accord with its arch-foe Iran.

The Israeli premier was a strong opponent of the deal between Tehran and major powers led by Washington, and his campaign against it included an address to the US Congress in March last year.

President Barack Obama's administration was angered by the address, which it saw as interference in the country's internal affairs by a foreign leader.

For Netanyahu's critics, he should have moved on from his campaign against the accord sooner and quickly begun negotiations on the new decade-long defence aid package.

Former prime minister Ehud Barak was among those criticising Netanyahu, saying his "reckless conduct has... undermined Israel's security."

"Israel will receive $3.8 billion a year -- an important contribution to our security but far less than what could have been obtained before the prime minister chose to blatantly interfere with US politics," Barak wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece.

Labour opposition lawmaker Shelly Yachimovich said that "Netanyahu himself told heads of the security establishment to count on $5-6 billion a year, of which $3.8 (billion) are left."

"This is a result of arrogant conduct, failing to read the map, and campaign considerations," she wrote on Twitter.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said "I would like to make it clear: we were never offered more.

"We were not offered more money, not even one dollar, and we were never offered special technologies. These are distortions and fabrications of interested parties."

He said such comments also showed "ingratitude to our greatest and best friend, the United States."

The United States and Israel signed the deal in Washington on Wednesday.

It covers the period from 2019 to 2028 and will see Israel receive $3.3 billion per year in foreign military financing -- up from $3.1 billion currently -- and $500,000 in funding for missile defence.

Officials from both sides have been keen to stress the enduring bond between the two countries and the central role the military alliance plays in securing the Israeli people in an unstable Middle East region.

Obama and Netanyahu have had tense relations, but the two men were determined to put their differences aside and finalise the aid package.
Buhari under fire over Obama speech plagiarism

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has come under fire from critics after admitting part of his recent "Change Begins With Me" speech was copied from US President Barack Obama's 2008 victory speech.

Buhari announced the social initiative earlier this month urging Nigerians to stop bribing and littering in a programme that continues his "war against indiscipline" launched while serving as military ruler in the 1980's.

"We must resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country for so long," Buhari said at a ceremony held in the nation's capital of Abuja.

US President Barack Obama speaks with his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari during a 2015 meeting at the White House Saul Loeb (AFP)

The presidency was forced to issue a statement late Friday night acknowledging that the line was lifted from Obama.

"It was observed that the similarities between a paragraph in President Obamas 2008 victory speech...are too close to be passed as coincidence," presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said in a statement, adding that an "overzealous" speech writer will face "appropriate sanction".

Critics questioned whether Buhari was reading his speeches before delivering them, and worried that the flub was tarnishing Nigeria's image abroad as international leaders prepare to meet in New York this week for the UN General Assembly.

"The president and his aides just have to do better," opposition party member Adeyanju Deji said in a Twitter post. "We plead guys, stop embarrassing our great nation."

This isn't the first time that Buhari's team has borrowed from American campaigns.
India blames Pakistan militants for Kashmir attack which killed 17

Gunmen hurling grenades killed 17 soldiers in a raid on an army base in Indian Kashmir Sunday, with India blaming Pakistan-based militants for the worst such attack in the disputed region for over a decade.

The militants broke into the base near the de facto border with Pakistan before dawn and lobbed grenades at tents and barracks housing soldiers, before opening fire with automatic weapons, the army said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to punish those behind the "cowardly" and "despicable" hours-long attack near the town of Uri that also left four militants dead and scores of soldiers injured.

An Indian soldier takes up a position near the site of a gunbattle inside an army brigade headquarters in Uri, near the border with Pakistan, on September 18, 2016 Tauseef Mustafa (AFP)

"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi said in a series of tweets.

No one has so far claimed responsibility, but Home Minister Rajnath Singh said he was disappointed with "Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups".

"Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," Singh said on Twitter, adding that the militants "were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped".

The raid is likely to further sour ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours given the high death toll and heightened tensions in the Indian-administered region following weeks of deadly clashes between residents and security forces.

India regularly accuses its arch-rival Pakistan of arming and sending rebels across the heavily militarised border that divides Kashmir between the two countries, to launch attacks on its forces. Islamabad denies the claims.

Sunday's attack was one of the bloodiest on soldiers since an armed rebellion against Indian rule erupted in 1989. Militants killed 30 soldiers and their families in a suicide attack in Kaluchak in the Himalayan region in 2002.

Most of the soldiers died Sunday after their tents and other housing caught fire during the raid on the brigade headquarters near the border known as the Line of Control (LoC), said Ranbir Singh, the army's director-general of military operations.

Lieutenant-General Singh blamed Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, saying he had already expressed "serious concerns" to his Pakistani counterpart.

"The killed terrorists, they were all foreign terrorists and as per the initial reports, they belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammad," Singh told a briefing.

India blamed the same group for an audacious attack in January on an Indian air force base in the northern state of Punjab that left seven soldiers dead.

- Deadly civilian unrest -

Washington condemned the attack, adding it was committed to the "strong partnership with the Indian government to combat terrorism," US State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the two gained independence from British rule in 1947. Both claim the territory in full and have fought two wars over the region.

The Muslim-majority region is currently in the grip of deadly civilian unrest that has lasted for more than two months. Protesting residents are clashing almost daily with security forces in the worst crowd violence since 2010.

At least 87 civilians have been killed and thousands injured in the protests against Indian rule, sparked by the killing of a popular rebel leader in a gunbattle with soldiers on July 8.

The government has been coming under growing pressure over the level of casualties and over the security forces' use of shotguns loaded with pellets which can blind demonstrators.

Thousands of angry demonstrators defied a curfew on Saturday in Kashmir to attend the funeral of a schoolboy whose body was found riddled with pellets, sparking fresh clashes.

The Indian government accuses Pakistan of stoking the unrest in the region.

On Sunday residents of Uri town saw smoke billowing from the nearby base and heard continuous rounds of heavy gunfire that lasted several hours, while army helicopters circled overhead.

Twenty-eight injured soldiers were airlifted to a military hospital in the region's main city of Srinagar, four of them in critical condition, an army officer said.

Rebel groups which have been fighting Indian troops in Kashmir since 1989 seek either independence for the region or its merger with Pakistan.

Soldiers have been deployed in Kashmir for decades and currently number around 500,000. Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting.

Attack in Indian Kashmir

An Indian helicopter flies over the site of a gunbattle between army soldiers and rebels in Uri, on September 18, 2016 Tauseef Mustafa (AFP)

The entrance to the Indian military headquarters in Uri, which is situated near the border with Pakistan, known as the Line of Control (LoC) Tauseef Mustafa (AFP)

An Indian army soldier looks into a building during a gunbattle with rebels in Uri, near the border with Pakistan, on September 18, 2016 Tauseef Mustafa (AFP)
Obama, Netanyahu to meet in New York: White House

President Barack Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the White House said Sunday.

The two leaders will have a bilateral meeting Wednesday, with discussion topics likely to include the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

Earnest said the meeting would afford Obama and Netanyahu an opportunity to discuss "the strong ties between the United States and Israel."

US President Barack Obama (right) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands during a 2015 meeting in the White House Saul Loeb (AFP/File)

The two allies signed a new 10-year agreement last Wednesday in Washington. It calls for the United States to provide Israel $38 billion of defense aid, beginning in 2019, the single-largest pledge of military assistance in US history.

Netanyahu "will personally thank President Obama for the military aid agreement signed last week," the Israeli leader's office said in a statement.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu will discuss with President Obama the challenges in the Middle East and the ways to advance progress in peace and security," it said.

Obama and Netanyahu, who both took office in 2009, have had a notoriously difficult relationship, underscored by a series of incidents reflecting their strains.

The latest was Netanyahu's last-minute cancellation of a White House visit in March. The US president, who learned of the cancellation through the media, did not hide his annoyance.

Obama is expected to arrive late Sunday in New York for his final attendance at the UN General Assembly before he leaves office in January.
I. Coast suspect in disappearance of western journalist dies

The brother-in-law of Ivory Coast's former first lady Simone Gbagbo who was a leading suspect in the disappearance of a French-Canadian journalist died Sunday, a source close to the country's former president told AFP.

Michel Legre was arrested in May 2004 over the kidnapping and killing of Guy-Andre Kieffer, a specialist in the cocoa industry who was writing about corruption and was last seen in a car park in Abidjan in April 2004 along with Legre. He was subsequently released without charge.

"(Legre) unfortunately died this morning. I don't know anything more," said Franck Anderson Kouassi, an ally of former president Laurent Gbagbo and representative of Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party.

French-Canadian journalist Guy-Andre Kieffer pictured on the billboard was last seen in a car park in Abidjan in April 2004 with Michel Legre Issouf Sanogo (AFP/File)

"He died at his home," added a journalist close to the FPI, citing acquaintances of Legre.

Legre was also put under investigation by a French judge in October 2004 over Kieffer's disappearance.

A witness in the trial of Simone Gbagbo, who has been on trial since May 31 for alleged crimes against humanity committed during a post-electoral crisis in 2010-11, recently claimed that Kieffer was "executed and his body burnt" on the orders of the former first lady.
Libyan loyalist bid to retake oil ports fails

A counter-attack by fighters loyal to Libya's UN-backed unity government aimed at retaking key eastern oil ports was repelled on Sunday by forces from a rival administration.

The operation came as three members of forces loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord were killed further west in a resumed offensive against Islamic State group holdouts in Sirte.

The GNA is the centrepiece of UN efforts to restore stability in Libya and forge a central authority capable of tackling the twin scourges of IS and rampant people trafficking across the Mediterranean to Europe.

A man waves a Libyan flag as fighter jet flies by at the Zueitina oil terminal Abdullah Doma (AFP/File)

But it has struggled to impose its authority amid opposition from a rival administration based in Libya's remote east.

Oil is Libya's key asset, and revenue from crude exports is vital if the GNA is to rebuild an economy and infrastructure ravaged by violence since the 2011 uprising that killed veteran dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

Last week, forces led by controversial military strongman Khalifa Haftar seized Ras Lanuf, Al-Sidra, Zuwaytina and Brega in the so-called "oil crescent" along the coast.

They later handed the ports over to the National Oil Corporation, which said on Thursday that crude exports would resume "immediately" from Zuwaytina and Ras Lanuf.

The NOC says it is loyal to the GNA, but also to the internationally recognised parliament based in the east which supports Haftar's forces and has refused to give the GNA its vote of confidence.

Early Sunday, pro-GNA forces launched an offensive aimed at retaking Al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf, but after several hours of fighting Haftar's forces said they launched a counter-attack and repelled the loyalists.

"We repelled the attack and we are chasing them in the region," said Muftah al-Muqarief, who heads oil guards loyal to Haftar, adding some assailants had been captured.

There was no independent confirmation from the oil crescent region of the fighting and the situation on the ground.

A Haftar spokesman, Mohamad Ibset, said earlier that guards loyal to the GNA had attacked.

And Ali al-Hassi, a spokesman for the loyalist oil guards, said: "We attacked Al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf, and Haftar's forces are trying to hit us with their warplanes."

- Tanker withdrawn for safety -

The counter-attack was a new blow to the unity government and NOC efforts to resume exports.

"We ask the combatants to avoid taking actions that could damage our vital national infrastructure," NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla said.

"Our national recovery depends on these ports being open and our oil flowing freely."

The NOC said Maltese-flagged tanker the Seadelta, which was due to load crude oil at Ras Lanuf for Italy, had to be "withdrawn to a safe distance offshore" because of the fighting.

Meanwhile firefighters were trying to extinguish a blaze at Al-Sidra, where another storage tank already damaged in January fighting was set alight during Sunday's clashes.

Libya, with Africa's largest oil reserves estimated at 48 billion barrels, has exported only a few tankers of crude in recent months.

The GNA, created last year as a UN-brokered power-sharing government, still needs a vote of confidence from the rival parliament based in the east.

Haftar, who sees himself as Libya's saviour after driving jihadists out of most of second city Benghazi, is the most powerful backer of the rival administration in the east.

Days after the ports fell under his control, the east-based parliament promoted him to field marshal from his previous rank of general.

Also on Sunday, pro-GNA forces renewed attacks on IS holdouts in Sirte after a two-week lull.

"Our forces are using heavy artillery to target the positions where Daesh (IS) holdouts are cowering," they said.

A field hospital on the outskirts of Sirte said three members of the loyalist forces were killed Sunday, while the pro-GNA fighters said they seized several buildings, including a school transformed by IS into a car-bomb assembly centre.

More than 450 members of the loyalist forces have been killed and around 2,500 wounded since the operation began in May.

Pro-government forces have said the situation at Misrata Central Hospital where doctors have been overwhelmed by casualties is also delaying the final push in Sirte.

Italy has said it will set up a military field hospital in Misrata, following a request from the GNA.

Rival forces battle for key oil ports Paz Pizarro (AFP)

Children hold a banner reading "petrol belongs to all Libyans" at the Zueitina oil terminal Abdullah Doma (AFP/File)
No evidence of New York blast-Minnesota stabbing link: police chief

There is no evidence at this point of a link between the New York bombing that injured 29 people and a Minnesota stabbing spree, claimed by the Islamic State group, that wounded at least eight, police said Sunday.

"Right now we don't have any evidence to suggest that they were connected," Chief William Blair Anderson of the St. Cloud police force in Minnesota told CNN.

Anderson confirmed that the attacker at a shopping mall in his city had asked people if they were Muslim before stabbing them, but added that his motive remained unclear.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (2-R) and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (3-R) stand in front of a mangled dumpster while touring the site of an explosion that occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York on September 18, 2016 Justin Lane (POOL/AFP)

"Whether that was a terrorist attack or not, I'm not willing to say that right now because we just don't know," he said.

A report on jihad-linked news site Amaq on Sunday said that the attacker was "a soldier of the Islamic State."

Police said earlier that the man made "some references to Allah" before stabbing several people in a shopping mall late Saturday.

The assailant, who has not been identified, was shot dead by an off-duty officer.

Early reports said that eight people had been stabbed, and all but one was treated and released at a hospital. Anderson said Sunday, however, that a possible ninth victim might have left the scene on his own.

Media reports said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had joined the investigation.

Speaking shortly after midnight, the St. Cloud police chief said the armed suspect had entered the Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud -- a city of about 67,000 people some 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Minneapolis -- and attacked at least eight people.

The lone suspect was wearing a private security uniform and had at least one knife, and "made some references to Allah," Anderson said.

"That suspect was confronted by an off-duty police officer and summarily shot and killed," he said.

The suspect had a history of minor traffic violations, Anderson said, but "wasn't under any surveillance by our agency."

The Minnesota attack came as 29 people were injured in a bomb blast in a busy New York neighborhood late Saturday. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was an act of terror but there was currently no known link to international terror.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she had been briefed about the Minnesota stabbing as well as Saturday's explosions in New York, as well as a pipe bomb blast hours earlier in a trash can in New Jersey in which no one was injured.

The St. Cloud mall will remain closed as police continue their investigation.
US urges North Korea to begin 'serious negotiation'

US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday urged North Korea to freeze its nuclear program as a first step toward starting serious negotiations with the United States and the world about its future.

Speaking at a meeting with the Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers, Kerry said the United States remains "deeply committed" to mutual defense and to "rolling back the provocative, reckless behavior" of North Korea.

The United States is ready to hold talks with Pyongyang to discuss peace on the Korean peninsula, ending North Korea's isolation and economic development if it agrees to denuclearization, he said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry listens during a trilateral meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se of South Korea and Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida of Japan, September 18, 2016, in New York Kevin Hagen (Pool/AFP)

"The immediate need is for them to freeze where they are, to agree to freeze and not to engage in any more provocative actions, not engage in more testing, particularly in order to bring countries together and to begin a serious negotiation about the future," said Kerry.

North Korea this month carried out its fifth and biggest nuclear test, which followed a series of missile launches in violation of UN resolutions barring Pyongyang from developing nuclear and missile technology.
On the sidelines of the summit El-Sisi will chair an African Union summit and is due to meet US presidential candidates Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump

Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi left to New York on Sunday to take part in the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, state news agency MENA reported.

El-Sisi is due to deliver a speech on Tuesday on the economic and political developments in Egypt as well as Cairo's stance on regional issues.

On Wednesday, it is planned that El-Sisi will take part in a UN Security Council summit addressing developments in the Middle East that will be attended by US President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande and British PM Theresa May.

The summit, which will be chaired by New Zealands Prime Minister John Key, will lend special focus to the crises in war-torn Syria and Libya, MENA said.

The president will also participate in a high-level meeting that will discuss means to confront the refugee crisis and the influx of migrants as a result of ongoing turmoil in their countries.

El-Sisi will chair an African Union Peace and Security Council summit on the sidelines of the assembly to discuss the latest developments in South Sudan in the wake of heavy fighting in capital Juba in July.

The president will also head a climate change committee meeting with African leaders to look at the outcome of the December Paris agreement on climate change and preparations for next February's UN climate summit in Marrakech.

El-Sisi is due to hold talks with top world leaders on the sidelines of the session including the French President, the British PM, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as well as US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

He will also sit with top US business executives to discuss US investment in Egypt.

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Three attacks carried out in the United States on a single day - a New York bombing, a Minnesota mass stabbing and a New Jersey pipe bomb blast - are under investigation for potential terror links.

Authorities said there is no evidence the attacks were coordinated but their timing within 12 hours raises fears about security.

While officials described all three as deliberate, criminal acts and were investigating them as potential 'acts of terrorism,' they stopped short of characterizing the motivation behind any of them until more evidence is uncovered.

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The FBI and other security officials mark evidence near the site of an explosion which took place on Saturday night in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York

A mangled dumpster at the site of an explosion that occurred overnight in Chelsea

A similar device that did not explode was found a few blocks away from the Chelsea explsion, and was defused safely before being sent to the FBI in Virginia for forensic examination

In Saturday frame from video provided by Orangetheory Fitness Chelsea, a door shatters afte the explosion in Chelsea. Investigators scrambled onSunday to find out who planted the bomb

A deafening roar and powerful shock rocked Manhattan's popular Chelsea neighborhood late on Saturday after a pressure-cooker bomb packed with shrapnel exploded.

Twenty-nine people were injured when the bomb exploded, damaging buildings, shattering glass and sending shrapnel flying across the street.

A similar device that did not explode was found a few blocks away later that night, and was defused safely before being sent to the FBI in Virginia for forensic examination.

Both bombs were filled with shrapnel and made with pressure cookers, flip phones, Christmas lights and explosive compound, The New York Times reported late Sunday, citing law enforcement officials.

CNN reported that officials had obtained surveillance videos showing the same man near the site of the explosion and where the undetonated device was found, according to 'multiple' local and federal law enforcement sources.

Hours earlier, less than 100 miles south in New Jersey, a pipe bomb exploded in a trash can on the route of a Marine Corps run before the start of the race, causing no injuries but forcing its cancellation.

Police officers monitor activity near the scene of an 'pipe bomb-style device' explosion on Saturday in Seaside Park, New Jersey

Judith Hummer, 54, points to the site of the 'pipe bomb-style device' explosion on Saturday in Seaside Park, New Jersey. The explosive device detonated in a trash can along the route of the Seaside Semper Five Marine Corps Charity 5K run to benefit military soldiers

Police officers monitor activity near the scene of the 'pipe bomb-style device' explosion in Seaside Park

No suspects were immediately identified in the New York or New Jersey attacks.

Federal Bureau of Investigation experts were examining remnants of the two devices that went off in Chelsea and Seaside Park, New Jersey, as well as the undetonated pressure-cooker bomb, the same sort of improvised explosive device that killed three people and wounded more than 260 in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

'The crudity of the devices in all three cases certainly doesn't point to any group that's been developing (improvised explosive devices) for years,' a U.S. official involved in the investigation who requested anonymity to discuss the inquiry said.

The official added that the crude nature of the devices and the apparent low level of planning had some investigators concerned the blasts were just a test of New York's security.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie pictured above said of the three attacks: 'If you look at a number of these incidents, you can call them whatever you want: they are terrorism though'

'That's what worries us: Was this some kind of test run, not just of the devices, but also of the surveillance in New York and the response?' the official said.

New York went on full alert, deploying nearly 1,000 extra state police and National Guardsmen to airports, bus terminals and subway stations as President Barack Obama arrived in the city ahead of Tuesday's opening of the UN General Assembly.

In the Midwest, an assailant reported to be a 22-year-old Somali-American went on a stabbing spree in a shopping mall in St Cloud, Minnesota on Saturday, injuring nine people before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer.

In that attack, a man who made references to Allah asked at least one person if he or she was Muslim before he assaulted the individual.

People stand outside the scene of a stabbing at the Crossroads Center mall in St Cloud, Minnesota on Saturday

An assailant went on a stabbing spree in a shopping mall in St Cloud, Minnesota on Saturday, injuring nine people before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer. Scene shown above

FBI agent Rick Thornton confirmed that federal agents were investigating the Minnesota stabbing as a potential act of terrorism'

Police did not immediately identify the Minnesota attacker, citing an ongoing investigation, although some local media reports gave his name and said he was an African-born junior college student.

The FBI considers the Minnesota episode a 'potential act of terrorism,' Richard Thornton, FBI special agent in charge of the agency's Minneapolis division, told a news conference on Sunday.

U.S. authorities said the motive of all three attacks was unclear, but elected officials quickly identified them as terror-related.

'If you look at a number of these incidents, you can call them whatever you want: they are terrorism though,' New Jersey's Republican Governor Chris Christie, a member of the Trump campaign, told CNN.

'A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it's not linked to international terrorism,' Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday after touring the scene of the explosion in Chelsea.

'In other words, we find no ISIS connection, et cetera,' said Cuomo in reference to the Islamic State group.

But he also stressed the lack of an international terror link was preliminary.

While there was no claim for the bombings in Manhattan or New Jersey, a jihadist-linked news agency, Amaq, claimed that an IS 'soldier' carried out the Minnesota stabbings.

IS has repeatedly called for attacks on countries in the US-led coalition bombing the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

Over the past year, the U.S. has experienced a series of deadly attacks by gunmen inspired by Islamic State, which has been fighting a long civil war in Syria.

A man who claimed allegiance to the group fatally shot 50 people at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub in June, six months after a married couple massacred 14 in San Bernardino, California.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (right) and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (second to right) look over a mangled dumpster on Sunday while touring the site of an explosion that occurred overnight

'This should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups,' Clinton said, using another acronym for IS.

The Democratic nominee, whose lead in the polls has taken a dip, condemned what she called 'apparent terrorist attacks.'

Trump, who described the blast in New York a bombing more than 12 hours before officials or police, tweeted his 'best wishes and condolences to all of the families and victims of the horrible bombing.'

While all 29 people who were injured in the New York bombing have been released from the hospital, three of those hurt in Minnesota remain hospitalized, officials said.

'Was it a political motivation, a personal motivation? What was it?' New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference.

'We do not know,' he added, calling on residents to be vigilant.

Investigators at the FBI's lab in Quantico, Virginia, were set to look to see if the three devices in the New York area had a common design.

Explosions in New York and New Jersey

Although a U.S. official familiar with the inquiry said that would not be proof in itself the attacks were linked.

'Almost anybody could have fabricated these bombs and used cellphones as timed detonators,' said the official.

'There are instructions all over the internet, and the crudity, positioning, and relative ineffectiveness of these does not suggest that a more sophisticated group played any role in this.'

The bombs used in the Boston Marathon bombing were built using instructions that the pair of brothers behind the attack found in al Qaeda's 'Inspire' online magazine.

Fifteen years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, officials stress the U.S. is safer from terror plots that originate from overseas, but more at risk from the lone-wolf attack perpetrated by individuals who may be inspired by IS or Al-Qaeda propaganda.

'In many of these cases we don't know until two, three or four days later whether or not there is a terrorist link,' warned New York Congressman Peter King in a CBS television interview.
Trump campaign again blames Clinton for Obama 'birther' theory

Donald Trump's campaign team on Sunday stood firm on his claim that rival Hillary Clinton spread the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, two days after the Republican conceded the president was an American.

"This started with Hillary Clinton's campaign, number one," his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said in an interview aired on CBS's "Face the Nation" talk show.

"Number two, it was Donald Trump who put the issue to rest when he got President Obama to release his birth certificate years later. And, number three, he said that, 'President Obama was born in this country, period.'"

Donald Trump has pulled even with Hillary Clinton in many recent polls, but continues to fare poorly among black voters, many of whom resent his questioning of Obama's birthplace Mandel Ngan (AFP/File)

Mike Pence, Trump's running mate, also said the billionaire's acknowledgment on Friday that "Obama was born in the United States, period" should have put an end to the matter.

"Donald Trump's been focusing on issues the American people really care about," he told ABC's "This Week."

"He brought that issue to an end this week."

When asked if Clinton started the so-called "birther" movement, an idea rejected by fact-checkers, Pence only said, "I'll let the facts speak for themselves."

Trump spent years promoting the theory that Obama might have been born in Kenya before Friday's reversal at a much-hyped televised event at his new hotel in Washington, just blocks from the White House, when he laid into Clinton.

"Her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean," Trump said.

Senator Tim Kaine, Clinton's running mate, blasted Trump's insistent questioning of Obama's birthplace, saying it had raised painful echoes for many Americans of a time when blacks could not be citizens.

The fact that Trump clung to the "birther" idea for so long, Kaine added, meant that "he's either incredibly gullible or... he was trying to prey upon people's darkest emotions."

"That's why Donald Trump's statement isn't sufficient. He owes the public an apology," he said.

Trump has pulled even with Clinton in many recent polls, but continues to fare poorly among black voters, many of whom resent his questioning of Obama's birthplace.

As for Obama, he made light of the matter in an appearance late Saturday at a Congressional Black Caucus dinner.

He said he was relieved that in the waning days of his presidency, "we got that resolved. I mean, that's a boost for me in the home stretch."
Drugmakers fought state opioid limits amid crisis

The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids, the drugs at the heart of a crisis that has cost 165,000 Americans their lives and pushed countless more to crippling addiction.

The drugmakers vow they're combating the addiction epidemic, but The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found that they often employ a statehouse playbook of delay and defend that includes funding advocacy groups that use the veneer of independence to fight limits on the drugs, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl, the narcotic linked to Prince's death.

The mother of Cameron Weiss was no match for the industry's high-powered lobbyists when she plunged into the corridors of New Mexico's Legislature, crusading for a measure she fervently believed would have saved her son's life.

Jennifer Weiss-Burke, executive director of a youth recovery center in Albuquerque, N.M., speaks about her son on Aug. 9, 2016. She says Cameron's descent into drug addiction started with a painkiller prescription from his doctor and ended with a fatal heroin overdose nearly three years later. (AP Photo/Mary Hudetz)

It was a heroin overdose that eventually killed Cameron, not long before he would have turned 19. But his slippery descent to death started a few years earlier, when a hospital sent him home with a bottle of Percocet after he broke his collarbone in wrestling practice.

Jennifer Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure.

They didn't speak up in legislative hearings. "They were going individually talking to senators and representatives one-on-one," Weiss-Burke said.

Unknowingly, she had taken on a political powerhouse that spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2006 through 2015  more than 200 times what those advocating for stricter policies spent and more than eight times what the formidable gun lobby recorded for similar activities during that same period.

The pharmaceutical companies and allied groups have a number of legislative interests in addition to opioids that account for a portion of their political activity, but their steady presence in state capitals means they're poised to jump in quickly on any debate that affects them.

Collectively, the AP and the Center for Public Integrity found, the drugmakers and allied advocacy groups employed an annual average of 1,350 lobbyists in legislative hubs from 2006 through 2015, when opioids' addictive nature came under increasing scrutiny.

"The opioid lobby has been doing everything it can to preserve the status quo of aggressive prescribing," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and an outspoken advocate for opioid reform. "They are reaping enormous profits from aggressive prescribing."

The drug companies say they are committed to solving the problems linked to their painkillers. Major opioid-makers have launched initiatives to, among other things, encourage more cautious prescribing, allow states to share databases of prescriptions and help stop drug dealers from obtaining pills.

And the industry and its allies have not been alone in fighting restrictions on opioids. Powerful doctors' groups are part of the fight in several states, arguing that lawmakers should not tell them how to practice medicine.

While drug regulation is usually handled at the federal level  where the makers of painkillers also have pushed back against attempts to impose restrictions  ordinary citizens struggling with the opioid crisis in their neighborhoods have looked to their state capitals for solutions.

Hundreds of opioid-related bills have been introduced at the state level just in the last several years. The few groups pleading for tighter prescription restrictions are mostly fledgling mom-and-pop organizations formed by families of young people killed by opioids. Together, they spent about $4 million nationwide at the state and federal level on political contributions and lobbying from 2006 through 2015 and employed an average of eight state lobbyists each year.

Prescription opioids are the synthetic cousins of heroin and morphine, prescribed to relieve pain. Sales of the drugs have boomed quadrupling from 1999 to 2010  and overdose deaths rose just as fast, totaling 165,000 this millennium. Last year, 227 million opioid prescriptions were doled out in the U.S., enough to hand a bottle of pills to nine out of every 10 American adults.

The drugmakers' revenues are robust, too: Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin and one of the largest opioid producers by sales, pulled in an estimated $2.4 billion from opioids last year alone, according to estimates from health care information company IMS Health.

That's even after executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about OxyContin's risk of addiction in 2007 and the company agreed to pay more than $600 million in fines.

Opioids can be dangerous even for people who follow doctors' orders, though they also help millions of people manage pain associated with cancer, injuries, surgeries and end-of-life care.

The industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America issued a statement saying, "We and our members stand with patients, providers, law enforcement, policymakers and others in calling for and supporting national policies and action to address opioid abuse."

And Purdue said: "Purdue does not oppose  either directly or indirectly  policies that improve the way opioids are prescribed, including when those policies may result in decreased opioid use."

One of the chief solutions the drugmakers actively promote now are new formulations that make their products harder to crush or dissolve, thwarting abusers who want to snort or inject painkillers. But the new versions also extend the life of their profits with fresh patents, and some experts question their overall effectiveness.

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A FOCUS ON PAIN TREATMENT

An analysis of state records collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics provides a snapshot of the drugmakers' battles to limit opioids. For instance, they show that pharmaceutical companies and their allies ramped up their lobbying and campaign contributions in New Mexico in 2012 as lawmakers considered  and ultimately killed  the bill backed by Cameron Weiss' mother.

But one of the drug companies' most powerful engines of political might isn't part of the public record  a largely unknown network of opioid-friendly nonprofits they help fund and meet with monthly known as the Pain Care Forum, formed more than a decade ago.

Combined, its participants contributed more than $24 million to 7,100 candidates for state-level offices from 2006 through 2015, with the largest amounts going to governors and the lawmakers who control legislative agendas, such as house speakers, senate presidents and health committee chairs.

They've gotten involved in nitty-gritty fights even beyond legislatures. After Washington state leaders drafted the nation's first set of medical guidelines urging doctors not to prescribe high doses of opioids in 2007, the Pain Care Forum hired a public relations firm to convince the state medical board that the guidelines would hurt patients with chronic pain.

A sizable slice of the drugmakers' battles are carried out by pharma-funded advocates spreading opioid-friendly narratives  with their links to drug companies going unmentioned  or by persuading pharma-friendly lawmakers to introduce legislation drafted by the industry.

Two years ago, it was a major patient organization receiving grants from the opioid industry, the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network, that led the fight against a measure in Tennessee aimed at reducing the number of babies born addicted to narcotics.

And in Maine last year, drugmakers persuaded a state representative to successfully push a bill  drafted by the industry  requiring insurers to cover so-called abuse-deterrent painkillers, the new forms of opioids that are harder to abuse.

Legislatures have begun considering limits on the length of first-time opioid prescriptions. But the new laws and proposals in states including Connecticut and Massachusetts carve out a common exception: They do not apply to chronic pain patients. Drugmaker-funded pain groups, which can mobilize patients to appear at legislative hearings, advocate for the exceptions.

Many patients vouch that opioids have given them a better quality of life.

"There's such a hysteria going on" about those who have died from overdoses, said Barby Ingle, president of the International Pain Foundation, which receives pharmaceutical company funding. "There are millions who are living a better life who are on the medications long term."

That's contrary to what researchers are increasingly saying, however. Studies have shown weak or no evidence that opioids are effective ways to treat routine chronic pain. And one 2015 study from a hospital system in Pennsylvania found about 40 percent of chronic non-cancer pain patients receiving opioids had some signs of addiction and 4 percent had serious problems.

"You can create an awful lot of harm with seven days of opioid therapy," said Dr. David Juurlink, a toxicology expert at the University of Toronto. "You can send people down the pathway to addiction . when they never would have been sent there otherwise."

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A SURPRISING OPPONENT

Letting advocacy groups do the talking can be an especially effective tactic in state legislatures, where many lawmakers serve only part time and juggle complicated issues.

Lawmakers in Massachusetts, for example, said they didn't hear directly from pharmaceutical lobbyists when they took up opioid prescribing issues this year. But they did hear from a patient advocate with ongoing back pain who works with and volunteers for groups that receive some of their funding from pharmaceutical companies. She also brought in patients to meet with them.

"A lot of times those legislators, they don't have the ability to really thoroughly look into who these organizations are and who's funding them," said Edward Walker of the University of California Los Angeles, who studies grassroots groups.

Nonprofit advocacy groups led the countercharge in Tennessee in 2014 when Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams began work to stanch the flow of prescription painkillers, alarmed by a rapidly rising number of drug-addicted babies, who suffer from withdrawal in their first weeks of life and complications long after they leave the hospital.

More than 900 babies had been born addicted in Tennessee the year before, many of them hooked on the prescription opioids their mothers had taken. That number had climbed steadily since 2001, when there were fewer than 100.

Whitney Moore and her husband adopted two girls born addicted to prescription opioids and other drugs in eastern Tennessee, and she still remembers her older daughter's cries in the hospital, "the most high-pitched scream you've ever heard in your life"__ a common symptom in babies in the throes of withdrawal.

Doctors gave Moore's infant daughter morphine to ease her seizures, vomiting and diarrhea, and she stayed in a neonatal intensive care unit more than a month. Now 3 years old, she still suffers from gastrointestinal problems and remains sensitive to loud noises.

When Williams was mulling potential legislation, doctors told him that part of Tennessee's problem was a 2001 law  similar to measures on the books in more than a dozen states  that made it difficult to discipline doctors for dispensing opioids and allowed clinicians to refuse to prescribe powerful narcotics only if they steered patients to an opioid-friendly doctor.

The result, according to the experts Williams worked with, was a rash of prescribing, even for pregnant women. In 2014, Tennessee ranked third in the country for per-capita opioid prescriptions, with roughly 1.3 prescriptions doled out for every person in the state, according to an analysis of prescription data from IMS Health.

Williams' mission to repeal the law failed that year, and he was shocked by the group that came out in opposition __ the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the advocacy arm of one of the country's biggest and best-known charities.

Two Cancer Society lobbyists worked against the bill, even though prescribing painkillers for cancer patients is a widely accepted medical practice that would have remained legal.

"We injected ourselves into the debate because we did not want cancer patients to not be able to have access to their medication," said Theodore Morrison, a lobbyist working for the network that year.

The society's annual ranks of about 200 lobbyists around the country have taken similar positions elsewhere, defending rules that some argue encourage extensive prescriptions and opposing opioid measures even if the proposed legislation specifically exempted cancer patients.

The Cancer Action Network listed four major opioid makers that provided funding of at least $100,000 in 2015, in addition to five that contributed at least $25,000. Companies that donate such sums get one-on-one meetings with the group's leaders and other chances to discuss policy.

The network said only 6 percent of its funding last year came from drugmakers and that its ties to drug companies do not influence the positions it takes. "ACS CAN's only constituents are cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones nationwide," spokesman Dave Woodmansee said.

The network said it advocates for certain measures despite exemptions for cancer because some patients continue to experience pain even after their cancer is gone.

ACS CAN teamed up with another group to defend the Tennessee painkiller law  the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, an association of doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists and others who treat pain, until recently known as the American Academy of Pain Management. The group promotes access to pain drugs as well as non-pharmaceutical treatments such as acupuncture.

Seven of the academy's nine corporate council members listed online are opioid makers. The other two are AstraZeneca, which has invested heavily in a drug to treat opioid-induced constipation, and Medtronic, which makes implantable devices that deliver pain medicine.

The academy's executive director, Bob Twillman, said his organization receives 15 percent of its funding from pharmaceutical companies, not including revenue from advertisements in its publications. Its state advocacy project is 100 percent funded by drugmakers and their allies, but he said that does not mean it is beholden to pharmaceutical interests.

"We don't always do the things they want us to do," he said. "Most of the time we're saying, 'Gosh, yes, there should be some limits on opioid prescribing, reasonable limits,' but I don't think they would be in favor of that."

Both the academy and the cancer group have been active across the country, making the case that lawmakers should balance efforts to address the opioid crisis with the needs of chronic pain patients. Between them, they have contacted legislators and other officials about opioid-related measures in at least 18 states.

In Massachusetts this year, they helped persuade lawmakers to soften strict proposals that would have limited first-time opioid prescriptions to three days' worth. They also have weighed in on how often doctors should be required to check prescription-monitoring databases, which can help crack down on prescription-shopping with multiple doctors.

The academy reported on its website that, since 2013, its state advocacy network had provided "extensive comments" on clinician guidelines in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Indiana and elsewhere; issued action alerts resulting in more than 300 emails and phone calls to more than 80 legislators in 2014 alone; and held teleconferences with more than 100 advocates.

Purdue, which gives to both the academy and the cancer network, said it contributes to a range of advocacy groups, including some with differing views on opioid policy. "It is imperative that we have legitimate policy debates without trying to silence those with whom we disagree. That's the American political system at work," the company said in a statement.

As for Williams, he tried again last year to repeal Tennessee's intractable pain law  and won unanimous approval in both houses. The extra year had given Williams and his co-sponsor time to help educate their fellow lawmakers, he said, even though the Cancer Society still opposed the repeal.

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LOBBYISTS 'WERE KILLING IT'

The tried-and-true tactics of lobbying and campaign contributions remain a major plank of the pharmaceutical playbook. In 2014 alone, for instance, participants in the Pain Care Forum spent at least $14 million nationwide on state-level lobbying.

Two years earlier facing the threat of limits on opioid-prescribing  forum members had upped their number of lobbyists in New Mexico, which is second only to West Virginia in per-capita deaths primarily due to prescription and illegal opioid drugs, according to the most recent federal data available.

The aim of the bill Jennifer Weiss-Burke backed was to limit initial prescriptions of opioids for acute pain to seven days to make addictions less likely and produce fewer leftover pills that could be peddled illegally.

After her son had left the hospital with his first bottle of Percocet in 2009 at the age of 16, the Albuquerque teen had suffered two more injuries and gotten two more prescriptions. He also took pills he found at his grandparents' house. Less than a year later, he started smoking heroin, which costs less than black-market prescription drugs.

He repeatedly went into rehab, and just as repeatedly relapsed. In August 2011, his mother found him at home, dead.

Weiss-Burke said she didn't realize how dangerous prescription pills could be until her son already had moved on to heroin, a tortuous progression mirrored by the downward spirals of tens of thousands of other people across the country.

Heeding concerns from the state medical society, the bill's sponsors amended it to allow the boards overseeing doctors and other prescribers to set their own limits. Still, the bill died in the House Judiciary Committee.

"The lobbyists behind the scenes were killing it," said Bernadette Sanchez, the Democratic state senator who sponsored the measure.

Lobbyists for three Pain Care Forum members declined to comment, saying they were not authorized to speak about their clients' work.

Forum participants had 15 lobbyists registered in New Mexico that year, up from nine the previous year. One was reported to be working out of the office of a high-ranking lawmaker; another was a former lawmaker himself.

Pfizer said that its two lobbyists in Santa Fe  up from one  reflected a change in firms, not an addition, and that the company did not lobby on opioid restrictions.

Still, the majority of the judiciary committee received drug industry contributions in 2012. Overall that year, drug companies and their employees contributed nearly $40,000 to New Mexico campaigns  roughly 70 percent more than in previous years with no governor's race on the ballot.

In New Mexico alone, opioid makers spent $32,000 lobbying in 2012  more than double their outlay the year before.

Restrictions like the ones considered in New Mexico did not become law anywhere until this year, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for even tighter restrictions. In 2016, they have been adopted in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, all with exceptions for patients with chronic pain.

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THE NEXT FRONTIER

Now, pharmaceutical companies are directing their lobbying efforts to their new legislative frontier in the states  medicines known as abuse-deterrent formulations. These drugs ultimately are more lucrative, since they're protected by patent and do not yet have generic competitors. They cost insurers more than generic opioids without the tamper-resistant technology.

Skeptics warn that they carry the same risks of addiction as other opioid versions, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration noted that they don't prevent the most common form of abuse  swallowing pills whole.

"This is a way that the pharmaceutical industry can evade responsibility, get new patents and continue to pump pills into the system," said Dr. Anna Lembke, chief of addiction medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and author of a book on the opioid epidemic.

Opioid-makers have especially courted attorneys general, who have helped spread tamper-resistant opioid talking points.

Since 2006, Pain Care Forum participants have given more than $600,000 in campaign contributions to attorneys general candidates, and another $1.6 million to the Republican and Democratic attorneys general associations. Purdue, with $100,000 in 2015 alone, tied with four other entities for top contributor to the Democratic Attorneys General Association; it was among the top 10 donors to the Republican group, giving more than $200,000.

In 2013, Alabama's Republican attorney general, Luther Strange, helped spearhead a letter to the FDA recommending the agency not approve new generic versions of opioids without tamper-resistant technology, which effectively would give the market to brand-name drug companies such as Purdue and Pfizer for several years. In all, 48 attorneys general, including Strange, signed the letter.

Strange has received $50,000 in campaign contributions from Pain Care Forum members, more than any other attorney general from 2006 through 2015, with more than $20,000 of that coming from Pfizer.

"As Attorney General, I will not apologize for my efforts to protect Alabamians from a drug abuse epidemic that is claiming more lives than automobile accidents in my state," Strange said.

More than 100 bills related to abuse-deterrent opioids have been introduced in various states thus far, at least 81 of them since January 2015, according to the legislative tracking service Quorum. At least 21 of the recent bills featured nearly identical language, and several of their sponsors said they received the wording from pharmaceutical lobbyists.

In Maine last year, a measure that required insurers to cover abuse-deterrent opioids at more favorable rates was introduced at the request of a lobbyist and sailed through the Legislature, after overdose deaths in the state hit a record peak.

Insurance lobbyists argued in vain against the measure, saying it would allow drug companies to raise prices and push up insurance premiums.

The bill's sponsor, Democratic Rep. Barry Hobbins, has a family member struggling with opioid addiction and said he was asked to introduce the bill by a longtime acquaintance who also lobbies for Pfizer.

"Everyone was trying to figure out a way to do anything they could to address this major health crisis," Hobbins said. "I was asked to sponsor that bill because of my personal family issues."

Pushing for the legislation was a team effort: Pfizer's director of U.S. policy testified in favor of the bill, citing a study that showed it would help curb abuse. But he neglected to say the study was co-authored by employees of Purdue, which also sent a lobbyist to push for the bill.

The drugmakers tried similar tactics in New Mexico earlier this year, with less success.

Randy Marshall, director of the New Mexico Medical Society, which represents doctors, said he turned down a request from a Purdue lobbyist that he introduce a measure calling for tamper-resistant drugs to be covered by insurers. He said he was told that if he testified, the company would lobby behind the scenes.

But the New Mexico Osteopathic Medical Association did help at the request of a Pfizer lobbyist, said the group's executive director, Ralph McClish.

In response to a question about its role in that legislation, Pfizer issued a statement that it "works with many different stakeholders on areas of mutual interest."

A Purdue statement acknowledged that the abuse-deterrent pills won't stop all misuse, but added, "They are an important part of the comprehensive approach needed to address this public health issue."

The New Mexico measure failed, and McClish said that the perceived self-interest of the drug companies was key to its defeat.

"People were sitting there going, 'Pharma is going to make a lot of money off of these drugs,'" he said.

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Associated Press health writer Matthew Perrone contributed to this article.

___

Follow Mulvihill at http://www.twitter.com/geoffmulvihill , Essley Whyte at http://www.twitter.com/l-e-whyte and Wieder at http://twitter.com/benbwieder

This undated photo provided by Jennifer Weiss-Burke on Sept. 12, 2016 shows her son, Cameron Weiss. Weiss-Burke said her teenage son's descent into drug addiction started with an opioid prescription a doctor wrote for him for a wrestling injury. After his death from a heroin overdose in 2011, Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure. (Jennifer Weiss-Burke via AP)

This undated photo provided by Jennifer Weiss-Burke on Sept. 12, 2016 shows her and her son, Cameron Weiss. Weiss-Burke said his descent into drug addiction started with an opioid prescription a doctor wrote for him for a wrestling injury. After his death from a heroin overdose in 2011, Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure. (Courtesy Jennifer Weiss-Burke via AP)

In this Aug. 9, 2016 photo, Jennifer Weiss-Burke, executive director of a youth recovery center in Albuquerque, N.M., stands by one of the rooms at the recovery center named after her son, Cameron Weiss. He died of a heroin overdose in 2011. Weiss-Burke said her teenage son's descent into drug addiction started with an opioid prescription a doctor wrote for him for a wrestling injury. (AP Photo/Mary Hudetz)

FILE - In this Aug. 5, 2010 file photo, a pharmacy technician poses for a picture with hydrocodone and acetaminophen tablets, also known as Vicodin, at the Oklahoma Hospital Discount Pharmacy in Edmond, Okla. For more than a decade, members of a little-known group called the Pain Care Forum have blanketed Washington with messages touting prescription painkillers' vital role in the lives of millions of Americans, creating an echo chamber that has quietly derailed efforts to curb U.S. consumption of the drugs, which accounts for two-thirds of the worlds usage. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

State Rep. Ryan Williams stands for a photo in Cookeville, Tenn., on Aug. 7, 2016. In 2014, the Republican lawmaker introduced a bill to put limits on opioid prescriptions in Tennessee, concerned about pregnant mothers getting hooked on opioids and passing the addiction on to their babies. Williams' mission failed that year, but his bill succeeded the next year. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski)
Pharma lobbying held deep influence over policies on opioids

The Associated Press and The Center for Public Integrity teamed up to investigate the influence of pharmaceutical companies on state and federal policies regarding opioids, the powerful painkillers that have claimed the lives of 165,000 people in the U.S. since 2000.

The news agencies tracked proposed laws on the subject and analyzed data on how the companies and their allies deployed lobbyists and contributed to political campaigns.

Key findings from the reporting:

 Drug companies and allied advocates spent more than $880 million on lobbying and political contributions at the state and federal level over the past decade; by comparison, a handful of groups advocating for opioid limits spent $4 million. The money covered a range of political activities important to the drug industry, including legislation and regulations related to opioids.

The opioid industry and its allies contributed to roughly 7,100 candidates for state-level offices, with the largest amounts going to governors and the lawmakers who control legislative agendas, such as house speakers, senate presidents and health committee chairs.

 The drug companies and allied groups have an army of lobbyists averaging 1,350 per year, covering all 50 state capitals.

 The opioid lobby's political spending adds up to more than eight times what the formidable gun lobby recorded for political activities during the same period.

 For over a decade, a group called the Pain Care Forum has met with some of the highest-ranking health officials in the federal government, while quietly working to influence proposed regulations on opioids and promote legislation and reports on the problem of untreated pain. The group consists of drugmakers and opioid-friendly nonprofits they help fund, and is coordinated by the chief lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.

 Two of the drug industry's most active allies, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, have contacted legislators and other officials about opioid measures in at least 18 states, even in some cases when cancer patients were specifically exempted from drug restrictions. State lawmakers often don't know that these groups receive part of their funding from drugmakers.
At least 15 protesters arrested at Iowa pipeline work site

SANDUSKY, Iowa (AP)  At least 15 people were arrested Saturday during a protest intended to block the construction of a major oil pipeline through southeast Iowa.

More than 150 protesters gathered at the work site entrance of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline in Sandusky, a Mississippi River town across the river from Illinois and five miles north of Missouri.

Protesters were arrested after walking through a line of private security and Lee County sheriff's deputies who were standing in front of the driveway to the work site, according to the Burlington Hawk Eye newspaper.

Last month, 30 protesters were arrested at different pipeline construction site in Iowa on trespassing charges. All but one of them took responsibility for the action and were ordered to pay just over $270 in fines and fees. One pleaded not guilty and faces a trial.

The pipeline would stretch 1,172 miles over four states once complete, transporting oil from North Dakota's Bakken formations to Illinois. It also would cross 18 Iowa counties and 1,300 parcels of land.

Saturday's peaceful protest was organized by a 35-year-old Des Moines woman, Jessica Reznicek, who has been camped just outside the work site after getting arrested twice for blocking its entrance last month.

"We have a great influx of folks who come in on the weekends and support us when they can," Reznicek said.

Protester Carolyn Scherf of Dubuque said she's concerned the finished pipe could leak or break and contaminate rivers. Scherf says protesters successfully stopped work on the pipeline on Saturday.

"There's precedent for oil pipelines leaking or breaking," Scherf told the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. "If that were to occur under the Mississippi River, we would be in trouble."

Brenda Knox of Donnellson said she fears the pipeline would harm Iowa's soil if it leaked.

Two phone messages left Saturday with the Lee County sheriff's office weren't immediately returned.

On Friday, a federal appeals court ordered a halt to construction of another section of the pipeline in North Dakota.
Man in custody after armed standoff aboard Amtrak train

LOS ANGELES (AP)  An hourslong standoff with an armed man who barricaded himself aboard an Amtrak train ended early Saturday after police used tear gas.

The man was taken into custody without incident and police recovered a handgun, Amtrak spokeswoman Christina Leeds said.

The train carrying 187 passengers and five crew members was evacuated Friday night after several reported seeing a man with a weapon acting erratically. The train bound for San Diego was stopped in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles as police conducted a search.

This photo provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department shows a suspect taken into custody after an hours-long standoff after an armed man barricaded himself aboard an Amtrak train at the Metrolink station in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles in the early morning hours of Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016. Nearly 200 passengers and crew on the train bound for San Diego were evacuated Friday night after several reported seeing a man with a weapon. (AP Photo/Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department via AP)

"Someone reported that he dropped a gun  likely was then reported to the train folks  and that's when things escalated," passenger Allison Bird told KABC-TV in Los Angeles.

The standoff ended nearly eight hours later after tear gas was deployed, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

The department tweeted a photo of a man in handcuffs wearing a cap, green shirt and shorts.

Amtrak identified the man as 46-year-old Oxnard resident Darius Palmer. He was charged in Los Angeles Superior Court with making terroristic threats and felony possession of a firearm, Leeds said.

It was not immediately known if Palmer has a lawyer.

Firearms are prohibited in carry-on bags, according to Amtrak policy. Passengers can check rifles, shotguns and handguns if they meet certain requirements, including notifying the rail agency beforehand, unloading the weapons and storing them in locked containers.

The standoff forced temporary delays of commuter trains that share the same tracks. Buses shuttled the evacuated passengers to other train stations.

Amtrak canceled two trains Saturday as the investigation continued.

This photo provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department shows Special Enforcement Bureau deputies outside an Amtrak train after a suspect was taken into custody after an hourslong standoff when an armed man barricaded himself aboard the train at the Metrolink station in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles, in the early morning hours of Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016. Nearly 200 passengers and crew on the train bound for San Diego were evacuated Friday night after several reported seeing a man with a weapon. (Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department via AP)

This photo provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department shows deputy outside an Amtrak train after a suspect was taken into custody after an hours-long standoff when an armed man barricaded himself aboard the train at the Metrolink station in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles in the early morning hours of Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016. Nearly 200 passengers and crew on the train bound for San Diego were evacuated Friday night after several reported seeing a man with a weapon. (Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department via AP)
St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson says the attacker made references to Allah during the attack and asked at least one person whether they were Muslim

Eight people were taken to St. Cloud hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and one person was admitted

At least eight people were taken to a hospital with injuries after a stabbing attack at a Minnesota shopping mall that ended with the suspected attacker, who reportedly made references to Allah, shot dead by an off-duty police officer, authorities said.

The attack took place at Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud.

St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said during a news conference shortly after midnight that eight people were taken to St. Cloud Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries following the attack first reported about 8.15pm Saturday.

One person was admitted. No further details were released.

During the news conference, Anderson said the attacker who was armed with a knife made references to Allah during the attack and asked at least one person whether they were Muslim.

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Eight people were taken to a hospital with injuries after a stabbing attack at a Minnesota shopping mall on Saturday evening which ended with the suspected attacker dead inside the mall

People stand near the entrance on the north side of Crossroads Center mall between Macy's and Target as officials investigate a reported multiple stabbing incident

Anderson said, according to KSTP: 'At approximately 8pm, an armed suspect entered the Crossroads Mall.

'That individual made some references to Allah and we confirmed that he asked at least one person if they were Muslim before assaulting them.'

Anderson revealed the suspect was wearing a 'private security uniform'.

Anderson said it was a lone suspect, telling reporters: 'We've got eight victims that were assaulted here.'

He declined to call the attacks an act of terrorism, saying the motive for the attacks isn't known yet. 'We will be diligent and get to the bottom of this,' Anderson said.

Anderson also said police had at least three prior contacts with the suspect for 'minor traffic violations'.

Anderson said an off-duty police officer from another jurisdiction shot and killed the unidentified suspect. He did not say where that officer serves.

The mall remained on lockdown following the incident, but authorities expected those remaining inside to be released early Sunday.

Crossroads Center 'will remain closed through Sunday as investigators continue to process multiple crime scenes within the building', KSTP wrote.

St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson declined to call the attacks an act of terrorism, saying the motive for the attacks isn't known yet

Harley and Tama Exsted of Isle, Minnesota, who were in St. Cloud to watch their son play in a college golf tournament, were in the mall when the incident occurred.

'All of a sudden I heard pop pop pop,' Harley Exsted said. 'I thought someone tipped over a shelf. All of a sudden these people started running. I just saw everybody running our way.'

There also were reports of some shots fired during the attack.

The couple were unharmed and said they helped another woman who was running from the scene to her car.

Officers responded to a report of a stabbing at Crossroads Center mall

The suspect is dead, according to St. Cloud police

Ashley Bayne was in the mall and told WCCO: 'I went closer to the mall entrance by J.C. Penney's and I was looking at some jeans and all the sudden people were just running in chaos.

'They were screaming, "Someone's stabbing people in the mall," and people were just really frantic and were running.'

She recalled to the news outlet: 'When I got in my car to get out people were speeding out of there.

'By the time I left my coworker had texted me saying they had all gone into lockdown in the mall.

'There were no notifications in the mall at all, it was just people running and screaming.'
Trump, Clinton respond to New York City explosion

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP)  Donald Trump appeared to pre-empt New York City officials when he declared Saturday evening that a "bomb went off" in New York City before officials had released details.

"I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows what's going on," Trump said, minutes after stepping off his plane during a rally at an airport hangar in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

He continued: "But boy we are living in a time -- we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant."

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

The Republican presidential nominee made the comments around 9:10 p.m., shortly after the explosion in Manhattan's crowded Chelsea neighborhood and as emergency officials were responding to the blast.

Local authorities have said they believed the explosion, which injured 29, was an "intentional act," but declined to answer questions about the cause at a news conference that began about two hours after Trump spoke.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said then that it was "too early to determine specifically what the incident was caused by" and that the investigation was still underway.

A spokeswoman for Trump did not respond to an email asking whether Trump was briefed about the incident before taking the stage.

Trump's rival Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, sought to present a more cautious response, underscoring the difference between the two candidates' styles.

Clinton was briefed on the incidents shortly after her speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner in Washington.

After landing in suburban New York City, Clinton told reporters she had been briefed "about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attacks in Minnesota." She said, "we need to do everything we can to support our first responders  also to pray for the victims. We have to let this investigation unfold."

Clinton was referring to a pipe bomb that exploded in a New Jersey shore town and reports of a shooting and the stabbings of eight people at a Minnesota mall.

Clinton, asked about Trump's saying that a "bomb" had gone off in New York, said it was "important to know the facts about any incident like this," adding, "I think it's always wiser to wait until you have information before making conclusions, because we are just in the beginning stages of trying to determine what happened."

___

Thomas reported from White Plains, New York. Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report from Washington.
Palestinian stabs Israeli officer amid new surge in violence

JERUSALEM (AP)  A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli army officer in the chest near a West Bank settlement on Sunday, moderately wounding him before Israeli soldiers shot the attacker and apprehended him, the military said.

The incident followed a weekend surge in Palestinian attacks that shattered weeks of relative calm.

Four Palestinians, one of whom held Jordanian citizenship, were shot dead over the weekend during assaults on Israelis, according to Israeli authorities. The spike in violence has spurred the Israeli military to send troop reinforcements to the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty, Pool)

The violence began a year ago and for months included near-daily Palestinian stabbing attacks. They have killed 34 Israelis and two American visitors, with about 214 Palestinians killed during that same period. Israel says the vast majority were attackers, though Palestinians have accused Israeli forces of using excessive force or killing people who were not assailants.

In recent months, the violence had slowed to a trickle. After a series of stabbing and vehicular attacks, the military sent additional troops Saturday to a flashpoint West Bank area.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the potential for violence could rise as the Jewish high holidays approach.

On Sunday he instructed police to beef up forces in Jerusalem and its holy sites and said "determined action" should be taken against those who breach the peace.

He said that action will be "increased" against Palestinian incitement to violence on social network sites, and that security will also be stepped up along roads in the West Bank.

Israel has blamed the violence on incitement by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The Palestinians say it is rooted in nearly 50 years of military occupation and dwindling hopes for independence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty, Pool)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty, Pool)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, arrives to attend a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty, Pool)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty, Pool)
Amid hefty tourism drop, Turkey hopes to weather storm

ISTANBUL (AP)  With summer drawing to a close, Turkey is counting the cost of a tough year that saw a string of terrorist bombings and the fallout from a diplomatic spat with Moscow that cut deep into the country's crucial tourist trade.

And then right bang in the middle of summer, the economic backdrop got more precarious after an attempted military coup that saw more than 270 people killed, the imposition of a state of emergency and the subsequent arrest and dismissal of thousands of supposed sympathizers.

Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek conceded the failed coup on July 15 and its aftermath have "weakened" the economy even as he praised its resilience in the face of such adversity.

FILE - In this Tuesday, July 26, 2016 file photo, tourists take a selfie at the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia, in the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul. With summer drawing to a close, Turkey is counting the cost of a tough year that saw a string of terrorist bombings and a diplomatic spat with Moscow that cut deep into the countrys crucial tourist trade. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)

Tourism, a crucial foreign-currency earner for a country in constant need of foreign currency to plug a yawning current account deficit, has borne the brunt of the economic fallout.

That's mainly due to a precipitous 89 percent drop in Russian tourist arrivals after a diplomatic fallout between the two countries brought on by Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane last year. Russia was Turkey's second-largest tourist market with 4.5 million people visiting places like Turkey's tourism capital Antalya in 2014.

With many Russians holidaying elsewhere, Turkey stands to lose between $8 and $10 billion in tourism revenue by the end of the year, according to Cetin Gurcun, Secretary General Turkey's travel agency association TURSAB. No amount of deals could fully plug that gap.

"If we consider the volume of the Russian market, it's not easy to fill the void," Gurcun told The Associated Press.

Turkey-Russia relations are now back on track, but Gurcun doesn't expect the Russian market to rebound before next year.

It wasn't just Russians who have stayed away from Turkey's beaches and the cultural delights of places like Istanbul.

Thomas Cook, the British-based holiday company, said recently that demand for Turkish holidays was "significantly below last year's level" and that its overall bookings for the summer 2016 season were down by 5 percent largely because of this particular "geopolitical disruption."

Official Turkish figures for the whole of the summer tourist season have yet to be released. But it's clear there's been a hit. June and July alone saw tourism arrivals plunge an annual 40 and 36 percent, respectively.

And with fewer tourists, retail sales have suffered. Sami Kariyo, head of the United Brands Association, an umbrella group representing 150 member companies and 500 brands, said lower tourism numbers have translated into a five percent drop in revenues.

Industry too. The most recent figures showed that industrial production in July fell by almost 5 percent year-on-year in July, the sharpest fall since the start of the current data series in 2005.

"The coup attempt in July seems to have a very marked negative impact on economic activity," said William Jackson, senior emerging markets economist with Capital Economics.

All in all, the Turkish economy has suffered a shock  or series of shocks  and growth forecasts have been revised down. Turkey is expected to post what  at first glance  looks like reasonable growth this year of a little more than 3 percent. But before the attempted coup, most independent economic forecasters had penciled in Turkish economic growth of around 4 percent this year.

That's a big change, especially for a developing economy that's been used to way-more over much of the past 25 years or so. Living standards could face a squeeze, further exacerbating the uncertainty many feel within the country.

Erhan Aslanoglu, professor of economics at Istanbul's Piri Reis University, said Turkey's economy is tough enough to weather the worst of the storm, but needs more than 4 percent growth to continue pushing down on unemployment.

"It's better than many European countries, but not enough for Turkey," he said.

Another concern is that foreign investors will look elsewhere if Turkey turns increasingly authoritarian Turkey. Foreign investors are badly needed for the financing of Turkey's sizeable current account deficit, which stood at around 4.5 percent of the country's annual GDP in 2015.

The great fear for many is that Turkey is moving toward a more authoritarian model of governance  a trend that could further dent any hopes that the country has of joining the European Union.

Since the coup was seen off, tens of thousands of civil servants and government bureaucrats have been dismissed while scores of businesses have been shut down over suspicion of being linked to Pennsylvania-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen whom Turkey blames for the attempted coup, a charge Gulen rejects.
Egypt's FM spokesman said that the meeting reflected a will to trespass disagreements between the two countries

A meeting was held between Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Venezuela, the official Twitter account of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said on Saturday.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the non-aligned summit which the two FMs are currently attending.

"The meeting reflected a will to trespass the disagreements with Egypt" the spokesmans statement said.

Last month, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that Turkey is looking to improve relations with Egypt.

Relations between Turkey and Egypt have been strained since the 2013 ouster of Egypts Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, a close ally of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP government.

Erdogan made several statements in support of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood branch, which Egypt condemned as provocative.

Cairo has repeatedly accused Ankara of "interference" in its domestic affairs and providing a safe haven for leading members of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood group, while Erdogan's government has remained an outspoken critic of Morsi's ouster and of El-Sisis presidency.

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Pump problem? Ga. gov says he's received no complaints

ATLANTA (AP)  The governor of Georgia said Sunday his office hasn't received any complaints of gas shortages within the state after a pipeline spill in central Alabama, but some gas station employees have said they've had to close because they're out.

"As of now ... we've not received any complaints. If that changes on Monday or at any time in the coming days, the governor's office will act accordingly," Gov. Nathan Deal's spokeswoman Jen Ryan said in a statement Sunday.

Fuel supplies in at least five states  Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas  were threatened by the spill, and the U.S. Department of Transportation ordered the company responsible, Colonial Pipeline, to take corrective action before the fuel starts flowing again.

A bag covers a pump handle at a gas station that has no fuel to sell Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. Fuel supplies in at least five states are threatened by a gasoline pipeline spill in Alabama, and the U.S. Department of Transportation has ordered the company responsible to take corrective action before the fuel starts flowing again. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Drivers in Atlanta found some pumps completely dry or they had to pay 20 cents more because, according to a sign on the pump, the gas had to be pulled from Savannah.

An employee at a QuickTrip in Alpharetta, gasless since Saturday, said Sunday they don't expect to refill until Wednesday or Thursday.

Ingles Gas Express in Hiawassee turned off their price sign lights in an area where gas is becoming scarce, an employee said.

"We just blanked out our sign," said the Ingles employee, who did not want to disclose her name. "Other places are getting small shipments. We might get ours by Tuesday, but it's still up in the air."

A Shell station in Carrollton is only carrying premium grade, a worker said.

Colonial Pipeline announced Saturday it was beginning construction of a temporary pipeline that will bypass a leaking section of its main gasoline pipeline in Shelby County, Alabama. It said Saturday that the line was projected to restart the following week.

The company has acknowledged that between 252,000 gallons and 336,000 gallons of gasoline leaked from a pipeline near Helena, Alabama, since the spill was first detected Sept. 9. It's unclear when the spill actually started.

Deal issued an executive order last week to suspend limitations on trucking hours, allowing drivers to stay on the road longer to bring fuel into the state. The order said, however, that no motor carrier "shall require or allow an ill or fatigued driver to operate a motor vehicle."

Deal believes his plan will be an effective one if people maintain normal consumption levels and travel routines.

"We are confident these measures will help ensure Georgians' uninterrupted access to motor fuel until Alabama's pipeline is fixed," Deal said in a statement on his website on Friday.

Tanker trucks line up at a Colonial Pipeline Co. facility in Pelham, Ala., near the scene of a 250,000-gallon gasoline spill on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. The company says spilled gasoline is being taken to the storage facility for storage. Some motorists could pay a little more for gasoline in coming days because of delivery delays. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

Tanker trucks line up at a Colonial Pipeline Co. facility in Pelham, Ala., near the scene of a 250,000-gallon gasoline spill on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. The company says spilled gasoline is being taken to the storage facility for storage. Some motorists could pay a little more for gasoline in coming days because of delivery delays. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)
Obama urges black voters to rally for Hillary Clinton

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Barack Obama is making it clear that if the African-American community fails to turn out for the presidential election and support Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, he's taking it personally.

Obama delivered his final keynote address to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Saturday night and said his name may not be on the ballot, but issues of importance to the black community were.

And he realizes that a victory for Republican Donald Trump could undo much of what he has done. Clinton also made a pitch at the same dinner for African-Americans' support.

President Barack Obama speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual Legislative Conference Phoenix Awards Dinner, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016 in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The Republican nominee campaigned in Houston, where he talked to a gathering of the Remembrance Project, a group founded to remember those killed by people living illegally in the U.S. and to press for tougher laws.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
FBI questions car's occupants in NYC blast probe

NEW YORK (AP)  Agents with the FBI pulled over a car on a highway in Brooklyn on Sunday night and were questioning the vehicle's occupants in connection with the investigation into the New York City bombing that injured 29 people, authorities said.

Agents stopped "a vehicle of interest in the investigation" at 8:45 p.m. Sunday, according to FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser

She wouldn't provide further details, but a government official and a law enforcement official who were briefed on the investigation said five people in the car were being questioned at an FBI building in lower Manhattan.

Crime scene investigators work at the scene of Saturday's explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the ongoing investigation.

No one has been charged with any crime and the investigation is continuing, Langmesser said.

The bomb that rocked a bustling Manhattan neighborhood contained residue of an explosive often used for target practice that can be picked up in many sporting goods stores, a federal law enforcement official said Sunday, as authorities tried to unravel who planted the device and why.

The discovery of Tannerite in materials recovered from the Saturday night explosion may be important as authorities probe whether the blast was connected to an unexploded pressure-cooker device found by state troopers just blocks away, as well as a pipe bomb blast in a New Jersey shore town earlier in the day.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, touring the site of the blast in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, known for its vibrant arts scene and large gay community, said there didn't appear to be any link to international terrorism. He said the second device appeared "similar in design" to the first, but did not provide details.

"We're going to be very careful and patient to get to the full truth here," Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday. "We have more work to do to be able to say what kind of motivation was behind this. Was it a political motivation? A personal motivation? What was it? We do not know that yet."

Cell phones were discovered at the site of both bombings, but no Tannerite residue was identified in the New Jersey bomb remnants, in which a black powder was detected, said the official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to comment on an ongoing investigation.

Authorities said the Manhattan bombing and the blast 11 hours earlier at the site of a 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors in Seaside Park, New Jersey, didn't appear to be connected, though they weren't ruling anything out. The New Jersey race was cancelled and no one was injured.

Officials haven't revealed any details about the makeup of the pressure-cooker device, except to say it had wires and a cellphone attached to it.

Technicians in Quantico, Virginia, were examining evidence from the Manhattan bombing, described by witnesses as a deafening blast that shattered storefront windows and injured bystanders with shrapnel in the mostly residential neighborhood on the city's west side. All 29 of the injured people were released from the hospital by Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday night, investigators examined a suspicious device found in a trash can near a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey, that forced the suspension of service on the busy Northeast Corridor line.

Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage said two men called police and reported seeing wires and a pipe coming out of the package after finding it at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

Earlier Sunday, a team of five FBI agents searched an Uber driver's vehicle that had been damaged in the Manhattan blast, ripping off the door panels inside as they examined it for evidence.

The driver, MD Alam, of Brooklyn, had just picked up three passengers and was driving along 23rd Street when the explosion occurred, shattering the car's windows and leaving gaping holes in the rear passenger-side door.

"It was so loud," the 32-year-old Alam said. "I was so scared. There was a loud boom and then smoke and I just drove away."

Alam said he hit the gas and tried to take his passengers to their destination in Queens, but pulled over along Madison Avenue and 39th Street. He went to a local police precinct to file a report for his insurance company and police contacted the FBI.

The explosion left many rattled in a city that had marked the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks only a week earlier and where a United Nations meeting to address the refugee crisis in Syria was scheduled on Monday.

"People didn't know what was going on, and that's what was scary," said Anthony Zayas, an actor who was in the Chelsea neighborhood Saturday night when the bomb went off. "You didn't know if was coming from the subway beneath you, you didn't know if there were other bombs, you didn't know where to go."

Tannerite, which is often used in target practice to mark a shot with a cloud of smoke and small explosion, is legal to purchase and can be found in many sporting goods stores. Experts said a large amount would be required to create a blast like the one Saturday night, as well as an accelerant or other ignitor.

Police and federal spokespeople wouldn't comment on the presence of explosive material recovered at the scene.

The bomb in Manhattan appeared to have been placed near a large dumpster in front of a building undergoing construction, another law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, told the AP. The second device, described by the same official as a pressure cooker with wires and a cellphone attached to it, was removed early Sunday by a bomb squad robot and New York City police blew it up in a controlled explosion Sunday evening, authorities said.

Homemade pressure cooker bombs were used in the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013 that killed three people and injured more than 260.

Officials solicited tips from the public, telling reporters at a news conference in the New York Police Department's headquarters that they didn't know who set off the bomb or why.

An additional 1,000 state troopers and members of the National Guard were placed at transit hubs and other points throughout New York City and extra police officials were patrolling Manhattan, officials said. Members of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force were investigating the blast along with New York Police Department detectives, fire marshals and other federal investigators.

Meanwhile, a law enforcement official said federal investigators had discounted a claim of responsibility on the social blogging service Tumblr. Investigators looked into it and didn't consider it relevant to the case, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

___

Caldwell reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Karen Matthews, Maria Sanminiatelli, Michael Balsamo and Dake Kang in New York, and Eric Tucker and Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report.

In this Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016 frame from video provided by Orangetheory Fitness Chelsea, a door shatters after an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York. Investigators scrambled Sunday to find out who planted a bomb that rocked Chelsea, scouring shrapnel, forensic traces and surveillance video. (Orangetheory Fitness Chelsea via AP)

Crime scene investigators work at the scene of Saturday's explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Crime scene investigators work Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the scene of Saturday's explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Crime scene investigators work Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the scene of Saturday's explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks from the scene of an explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Crime scene investigators work at the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks from the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Police arrive on the scene of an explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016. A law enforcement official tells The Associated Press that an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation. Police say 26 people have sustained minor injuries in the explosion on West 23rd Street. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Police officers look for suspicious packages along Fifth Avenue near the scene of an explosion on West 23rd Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, early Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. An explosion rocked the block of West 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues at 8:30 p.m. Saturday. Officials said more than two dozen people were injured. Most of the injuries were minor. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, left, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo talk with area residents Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, while touring the site of an explosion that occurred on Saturday night in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York. Numerous people were injured in blast, and the motive, while reportedly not international terrorism, is still being investigated. (Justin Lane/EPA via AP, Pool)

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, second left, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, second right, talk with area residents Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, while touring the site of an explosion that occurred on Saturday night in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York. Numerous people were injured in blast, and the motive, while reportedly not international terrorism, is still being investigated. (Justin Lane/EPA via AP, Pool)

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, second right,) and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, third right, tour the site of an explosion Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016 that occurred on Saturday night in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York. Numerous people were injured in blast, and the motive, while reportedly not international terrorism, is still being investigated. (Justin Lane/EPA via AP, Pool)
Merkel's party loses support in Berlin state election

BERLIN (AP)  Chancellor Angela Merkel's party endured a second setback in a state election in two weeks on Sunday, as many voters turned to the left and right in Berlin, according to projections based on exit polls.

The Social Democrats (SPD) and Merkel's Christian Democratic Party (CDU) emerged from the Berlin state election as the strongest two parties, but both lost enough support that they won't be able to continue a coalition government, the projections show.

The SPD won 21.6 percent of the vote, dropping 6.7 percent, while the CDU won 17.5 percent, down 5.8 percent, ARD public television reported.

Alternative for Germany party chairman Joerg Meuthen, left, and Georg Pazderski, AfD's State Chairman and top candidate for Alternative for Germany for the state elections in Berlin, celebrate after the first exit polls were published in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016 (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)

At the same time, the anti-capitalist Left Party, a descendant of the former East German communists, gained 4 percent to 15.7 percent overall and new nationalist anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, known as the AfD, easily entered its 10th state parliament with 14.1 percent of the vote.

Voter participation was up to 66.6 percent from 60.2 percent in the last election, and the AfD drew a lot of its support from new voters, though it was also able to attract supporters from both the SPD and CDU and other parties.

The vote comes two weeks after Merkel's CDU was beaten into third place in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania by the AfD, in which the chancellor's decision to open Germany's borders to migrants last year featured prominently. Sunday's showing  her party's worst ever in the capital  will keep up the pressure on the chancellor a year ahead of national elections.

However, it was largely local issues that drove the vote in the city of 3.5 million. Among other things, disillusionment is high over the capital's notoriously inefficient bureaucracy and issues such as years of delays in opening its new airport.

Peter Tauber, the Christian Democrats' general secretary, blamed Social Democratic Mayor Michael Mueller for turning voters against the two governing parties, saying "the fish stinks from the head."

Mueller, however, said after the results that "We have achieved our goal."

"We are the strongest political party and we have a mandate to form a government," he said.

With the AfD's strong showing, national party co-chairman Joerg Meuthen said his party was strongly positioned for next year's national elections.

"We are firmly convinced that we will end next year with a double-digit result," he said.

Sigmar Gabriel, the national head of the Social Democrats, which govern in a coalition with Merkel's Christian Democrats, said "we don't find it good" that the AfD will now be represented in the city-state of Berlin's parliament.

"But almost 90 percent of voters did not vote for them, and that's also important," he said.

Without enough support for the governing SPD-CDU "grand coalition" to continue and with five parties with very similar strengths, a three-way coalition will almost certainly form the next government. The most likely is a combination of the SPD, Greens, which won 15.1 percent, and Left party.

Such a configuration "is not a good perspective for Berlin," Tauber said on Twitter.

The vote saw the Pirate party voted out of state parliament, and the pro-business Free Democratic Party winning 6.7 percent of the vote  enough to bring it back in to parliament.

Top candidate for the Social Democrats and governing Mayor of Berlin Michael Mueller, right, and his wife Claudia cast their votes in a polling station for the German federal state Berlin elections in Berlin, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Voters in Berlin are casting ballots in a state election predicted to result in a fresh setback for Chancellor Angela Merkel's party. (Rainer Jensen/dpa via AP)

Top candidate for the Social Democrats and governing Mayor of Berlin Michael Mueller reacts at the party's main election event after first results were announced in Berlin, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Exit polls show the Social Democrats and Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party emerged from Berlin state elections as the strongest two parties, but lost enough support they won't be able to continue a coalition government together. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Top candidate for the Social Democrats and governing Mayor of Berlin Michael Mueller arrives at the party's main election event after first results announced in Berlin, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Exit polls show the Social Democrats and Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party emerged from Berlin state elections as the strongest two parties, but lost enough support they won't be able to continue a coalition government together. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Norwegian says his Philippine kidnapping was 'devastating'

INDANAN, Philippines (AP)  A Norwegian man freed by militants after a year of jungle captivity in the southern Philippines described the ordeal Sunday as "devastating," carrying a backpack with a bullet hole as a reminder of a near-death experience that included the beheadings of the two Canadians kidnapped with him.

Kjartan Sekkingstad was freed by his Abu Sayyaf captors on Saturday to rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which has signed a peace deal with the Philippine government and helped negotiate his release. On Sunday, he was handed over to Philippine authorities, along with three Indonesian fishermen freed separately by the Abu Sayyaf.

Aside from the horror of constantly being warned that he would be the next to be beheaded by the brutal extremists, Sekkingstad said he survived more than a dozen clashes between Philippine forces and his captors in the lush jungles of Sulu province.

Released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad, right, briefly delivers his statement after meeting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in Davao city in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) Chairman Nur Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza (left). Three other Indonesian captives were released with Sekkingstad.(AP Photo/Manman Dejeto)

In one intense battle, in which the forces fired from assault helicopters and from the ground, he said he felt a thud in his back and thought he was hit by gunfire. After the fighting eased, he discovered that he wasn't hit, and that his green, army-style backpack had been pierced by the gunfire instead.

Sekkingstad was carrying the damaged backpack when he walked to freedom Saturday somewhere in the thick jungle off Sulu's mountainous Patikul town.

On Sunday, the heavily bearded Sekkingstad, clad in a rebel camouflage uniform and muddy combat boots, was asked how he would describe his horrific experience.

"Devastating, devastating," he said, still clutching the backpack.

Philippine presidential adviser Jesus Dureza, who received Sekkingstad and the three freed Indonesians from Moro National Liberation Front rebel chief Nur Misuari in Misuari's rural stronghold near Sulu's Indanan town, accompanied the Norwegian on a flight to southern Davao city, where the ex-hostage met President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte told Sekkingstad that his travails were over. Sekkingstad, newly shaved but looking gaunt in a loose polo shirt, thanked all those who worked for his freedom.

"I am very happy to be alive and free," he said. "It's a beautiful feeling."

Sekkingstad was kidnapped from a yacht club he helped managed on southern Samal Island on Sept. 21, 2015, along with Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall and Hall's Filipino girlfriend, Marites Flor, sparking a massive land and sea search by Philippine forces.

The Abu Sayyaf demanded a huge ransom for the release of the foreigners, and released videos in which they threatened the captives in a jungle clearing where they displayed Islamic State group-style black flags.

Ridsdel was beheaded in April and Hall was decapitated in June after ransom deadlines lapsed. When Flor was freed in June, she recounted in horror how the militants rejoiced while watching the beheadings.

Sekkingstad said he and his fellow captives were forced to carry the militants' belongings and were kept in the dark on what was happening around them. At one point, he said, their heavily armed captors numbered more than 300.

"We were treated like slaves," he said.

After the militants decapitated Ridsdel, Sekkingstad was threatened by the militants, who repeatedly told him, "You're next."

When the negotiations for his release began in recent months, Sekkingstad said the rebels began treating him better.

It was not immediately clear whether Sekkingstad had been ransomed off. Duterte suggested at a news conference last month that 50 million pesos ($1 million) had been paid to the militants, but that they continued to hold on to him. The military said Saturday that relentless assaults forced the extremists to release the hostage.

In Norway, Prime Minister Erna Solberg thanked Duterte and Dureza, and said his government supports the Philippines "in their fight against terrorism." Solberg told Norway's NTB national news agency that "Norwegian officials had not participated in any payment of ransom or made any concessions in the matter."

Philippine forces launched a major offensive against the Abu Sayyaf after the beheadings of the Canadians sparked condemnations from then-Philippine President Benigno Aquino III and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called on other nations not to pay ransoms if their citizens are abducted to discourage the militants from carrying out more kidnappings.

The three Indonesian fishermen freed by the Abu Sayyaf were kidnapped in July off Lahad Datu district in Malaysia's Sabah state, according to regional Philippine military spokesman Maj. Filemon Tan. Their release came as Indonesian Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu was visiting the Philippines.

Five Indonesians, five Malaysians and a Dutch bird watcher, along with five Filipinos, remain in Abu Sayyaf custody, the Philippine military said.

The Abu Sayyaf has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the Philippines for deadly bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. Without any known foreign funding, the extremists have relied on ransom kidnappings, extortion and other acts of banditry, and some commanders have pledged loyalty to the Islamic State group partly in the hope of obtaining funds.

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Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, Matti Huuhtanen in Helsinki and Ali Kotarumalos in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

Released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad carries a backpack as he boards a plane to take him to Davao city for an audience with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016 on Jolo island, Sulu province in southern Philippines. Carrying a backpack with a bullet hole in a reminder of his near-death ordeal, Sekkingstad, freed by Abu Sayyaf extremists from a year of jungle captivity, described the nightmarish ordeal Sunday as "devastating," including the beheadings of his two fellow Canadian hostages. Sekkingstad was turned over Sunday to MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) Chairman Nur Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza. (AP Photo/Nickee Butlangan)

Released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad, right, briefly delivers his statement after meeting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in Davao city in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) Chairman Nur Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza (left). Three other Indonesian captives were released with Sekkingstad.(AP Photo/Manman Dejeto)

Released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad, second right, stands next to Moro National Liberation Front Chairman Nur Misuari, right, after being turned over by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists in Indanan township on Jolo island in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza. (AP Photo/Nickee Butlangan)

Released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad listens to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte during his audience with the Philippine leader in Davao city in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) Chairman Nur Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza. Three other Indonesian captives were released with Sekkingstad.(AP Photo/Manman Dejeto)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, right, greets released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad, after being flown from the volatile island of Jolo to Davao city in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) Chairman Nur Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza. Three other Indonesian captives were released with Sekkingstad.(AP Photo/Manman Dejeto)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, right, presents to the media released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad, after being flown from the volatile island of Jolo to Davao city in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) Chairman Nur Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza (center). Three other Indonesian captives were released with Sekkingstad.(AP Photo/Manman Dejeto)

Released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad, left, briefly delivers his statement after meeting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, right, in Davao city in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) Chairman Nur Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza (left). Three other Indonesian captives were released with Sekkingstad. In the center is Norwegian Ambassador to the Philippines Erik Forner.(AP Photo/Manman Dejeto)

Released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad, second right, stands next to Moro National Liberation Front Chairman Nur Misuari, right, after being turned over by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists in Indanan township on Jolo island in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza. (AP Photo/Nickee Butlangan)

Released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad, front row left, poses with Moro National Liberation Front Chairman Nur Misuari, front row second right, after being turned over by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists in Indanan township on Jolo island in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza. (AP Photo/Nickee Butlangan)

Released Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad, second from right, links arms with Moro National Liberation Front Chairman Nur Misuari, left, Presidential Adviser Jesus Dureza, second left, and Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan, right, during a formal turnover of Sekkingstad in Indanan township on Jolo island, Sulu province, in southern Philippines Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Sekkingstad, who was kidnapped last year by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists along with two Canadians and a Filipino, was released Saturday and was turned over Sunday to Misuari, who in turn turned him over to Dureza. (AP Photo/Nickee Butlangan)
Activists blocked voters from reaching Russian national election ballot boxes amid corruption claims as Vladimir Putin hit the polling station

Activists blocked voters from reaching Russian national election ballot boxes amid corruption claims as Vladimir Putin hit the polling station.

The demonstrators stood at the entrance of Russia's embassy in the Ukrainian capital, where a polling station has been set up for Russian citizens who wish to vote in their country's parliamentary elections.

One man was arrested this morning and claims of fraudulent voting such as young men registering multiple names at the ballot boxes have materialised.

A leader of the nationalist Svoboda party, Igor Miroshnichenko was among the demonstrators Sunday.

He said Ukraine should 'not allow the enemy and state aggressor that stole Crimea to conduct illegal elections in Ukraine'.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 following the months of unrest that drove out Ukraine's Russia-friendly president.

The demonstrators stood at the entrance of Russia's embassy in the Ukrainian capital, where a polling station has been set up for Russian citizens who wish to vote in their country's parliamentary elections

One man was arrested this morning and claims of fraudulent voting such as young men registering multiple names at the ballot boxes have materialised

The voting for the 450 seats in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, was not expected to substantially change the distribution of power, in which the pro-Kremlin United Russia party holds an absolute majority

A leader of the nationalist Svoboda party, Igor Miroshnichenko was among the demonstrators Sunday

Russians are called to the polls on Sundayto vote for a new State Duma - the 450-seat lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia

An activist holds a mock figure of Putin during a protest in front of the Russian Embassy, as Ukrainian servicemen and policemen stand guard in Kiev, Ukraine

A Russian citizen lays on the ground after he was pushed down during an anti-Russian protest in front of the Russian Embassy, in Kiev

Complaints of election violations were increasing Sunday as Russians voted for a new national parliament.

The voting for the 450 seats in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, is not expected to substantially change the distribution of power, in which the pro-Kremlin United Russia party holds an absolute majority.

But the perceived honesty of the election could be a critical factor in whether protests arise following the voting.

Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence.

'Information about violations is coming constantly from various regions,' the Interfax news agency quoted Ilya Shablinsky, a coordinator of observers for the presidential Council on Human Rights, as saying.

Among the potential violations he cited were long lines of soldiers voting at stations where they were not registered and voters casting their ballots on tables instead of curtained-off voting booths.

The election monitoring group Golos also said it was receiving violation complaints.

A video posted on YouTube appeared to show a poll worker in the southern Rostov region dropping multiple sheets of paper into a ballot box.

On Sunday morning, Russia's election commission head said results from voting in a Siberian region could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud are confirmed.

A candidate from the liberal Yabloko party in the Altai region of Siberia told state news agency Tass that young people were voting in the name of elderly people unlikely to come to polling stations.

A Russian army officer holding a ballot walks through military cadets lining up to get their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia

A Russian army officer with his child, foreground, and military cadets line up to get their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections

Among the potential violations he cited were long lines of soldiers voting at stations where they were not registered and voters casting their ballots on tables instead of curtained-off voting booths

A Russian military cadet casts his ballot at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow

Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence

On Sunday morning, Russia's election commission head said results from voting in a Siberian region could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud are confirmed

Elections commission head Ella Pamfilova was later quoted by Russian news agencies as saying complaints had not been received from other regions.

Pamfilova is a well-known human rights activist whose appointment five months ago to head the election commission brought expectations that this year's vote would see fewer controversies about violations than in previous elections.

There are 450 seats at stake in the Duma, but unlike the last two sessions, only half the seats are chosen by national party-list - the other 225 are contested in specific districts.

Independent candidates were also allowed, although only 23 met the requirements to get on the ballot, according to the elections-monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Pre-election polling by the independent Levada Center indicated that only the four parties now in parliament - United Russia, the Communists, the nationalist Liberal Democrats and A Just Russia - would get enough nationwide votes to be allotted seats.

Prospects for the single-district races were unclear.

In Moscow, a man claiming to have a bomb threatened to blow up a polling station.

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Twitter that the man was quickly arrested and Russian news agencies said no bomb was found.

A man talks to election commission officials at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia

A man holds his child as he casts his ballot at a polling station during the parliamentary elections

A woman walks to cast her ballot at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia

Leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky poses for journalists as he casts his ballots at a polling station during the parliamentary election in the Russian capital

People line up to get their ballots at a polling station ready to cast their votes

Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions

Navy cadets line up to get their ballots at a polling station during parliamentary elections in St.Petersburg, Russia

Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions.

Voting for the State Duma began Sunday morning in the Far East, nine hours ahead of Moscow and won't conclude until 22 hours later when polls close in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.
The Latest: Clinton condemns 'apparent terrorist attacks'

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on Campaign 2016 (all times EDT):

4:15 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is condemning what she calls "apparent terrorist attacks" in Minnesota, New Jersey and New York.

Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence speaks at a campaign rally at The Villages, Fla., on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Officials in New York said Sunday they were still trying to determine who was behind an explosion that rocked the Chelsea neighborhood and what the motivation was. New Jersey law enforcement would not say if a pipe bomb that exploded at a seaside community was terror-related. Officials said an attack at a Minnesota mall in which a man stabbed nine people was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism; an Islamic State-run news agency called the attacker a "soldier of the Islamic State."

In a statement Sunday, the Democratic presidential candidate said law enforcement officials in New York and New Jersey need support as they investigate.

Clinton said of the Minnesota attack, "this should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS."

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11:15 a.m.

Republican running mate Mike Pence says "we're all troubled in our hearts" about explosions Saturday in New Jersey and New York and a knife attack in Minnesota.

Pence spoke Sunday during a service at the 7,700-seat First Baptist Church of Jacksonville. Pence did not say if he has been briefed on the two explosions or the mall stabbing where eight people were injured before the attacker was shot and killed by police. No one was killed in either of the explosions Saturday.

Pence is giving thanks that no one else died "as a result of these horrific attacks." Pence says he is praying for those who are recovering from their injuries as well as the first responders and those investigating the incidents. Pence says that whether the incidents were acts of terrorism or inspired by terrorists, "prayer and vigilance is the order of the day."

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11:00 a.m.

Hillary Clinton's vice presidential running mate has split with her over Clinton's description of some Donald Trump supporters as "irredeemable."

Tim Kaine said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that irredeemable "is not a word I would use." But he suggested that it's not likely the Democrats would be able to change the minds of hardcore Trump supporters on such issues as where President Barack Obama was born.

Kaine says Clinton was right to call out "dark emotions."

Clinton earlier this month said she considers "half" of Trump's supporters to be "deplorables" who are "irredeemable." She later apologized for saying "half" and acknowledged that many of his supporters are hardworking, but disillusioned.

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10:45 a.m.

Republican vice presidential running mate Mike Pence is dismissing as "absolute nonsense" any suggestion that Donald Trump is suggesting violence against Hillary Clinton.

Trump on Friday told a crowd in Miami that since Clinton is for gun control, her Secret Service detail should disarm and, "let's see what happens to her."

Pence said on ABC's "This Week" that Trump was suggesting Clinton has been protected by gun-toting security guards for decades. Pence said Trump's point was that "she'd change her attitude about the right to keep and bear arms " if she didn't have a security detail.

Pence said he'd "bet that's probably true."

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9:35 a.m.

Donald Trump's most visible supporters are insisting that "birtherism" is no longer an issue for the Republican presidential nominee.

That's what vice presidential running mate Mike Pence, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and others are saying on Sunday news shows. They said Trump's comments Friday acknowledging that President Barack Obama was born in the United States cancels out Trump's five years of suggesting otherwise. The surrogates also insisted that a confidant of Hillary Clinton's started peddling the theory that Obama was born in Kenya, that Trump has been a victim of unfair media coverage over the issue and that Americans don't care about the issue, anyway.

Trump on Friday falsely claimed that Clinton had started the birther discussion.

Pence declared on ABC's "This Week" that "it's over." Host Martha Raddatz replied: "It's not over."

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9:20 a.m.

Democrat Tim Kaine is offering five "litmus test" issues that show millennials are more closely aligned with Hillary Clinton, even if they don't like or trust her.

Clinton's running mate appeared on all four Sunday shows in pursuit of young voters who polls show have cooled on Clinton in recent weeks.

His main argument is that she stands with young voters on issues they care about, including climate science, women's health, LGBT equality, immigration reform and making college more affordable.

Kaine said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "it's on our shoulders" to make the case to millennials that Clinton stands with them on those issues.

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9:15 a.m.

Donald Trump's running mate says if elected he would model his vice presidency after Dick Cheney.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence told ABC's "This Week" in an interview that aired Sunday that he holds Cheney "in really high regard." Cheney served two terms as Vice President under George W. Bush and was known for playing an active role in the Bush White House.

Pence is a former 12-year congressman and says he envisions emulating Cheney in working closely with the House and Senate to implement Trump's agenda.

Pence says he has talked with Trump about what his role would be, but declined to talk more about "our private conversations."

Pence is campaigning in Florida this weekend and was scheduled to be interviewed about his faith by a minister in Jacksonville at a church service Sunday.

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2:57 a.m.

President Barack Obama is making it clear that he'll take it personally if the African-American community fails to turn out for the presidential election and support Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Obama delivered his final keynote address to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Saturday night and said his name may not be on the ballot, but issues of importance to the black community are.

And he realizes that a victory for Republican Donald Trump could undo much of what he has done. Clinton also made a pitch at the same dinner for African-Americans' support.

The Republican nominee campaigned in Houston, where he talked to a gathering of the Remembrance Project, a group founded to remember those killed by people living illegally in the U.S. and to press for tougher laws.

Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. holds up books to show the difference between the two campaigns for president, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

President Barack Obama speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual Legislative Conference Phoenix Awards Dinner, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016 in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
The Latest: Emmy winners wined, dined at Governor's Ball

LOS ANGELES (AP)  The latest on Sunday's 68th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. All times local.

9:45 p.m.

The first post-show stop for most Emmy guests is the Governors Ball across the street from the Microsoft Theater, an event that transforms a normally drab Los Angeles Convention Center meeting hall into a fairy-tale-like garden.

Host Jimmy Kimmel distributes sandwiches at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Surrounded by ferns and delicate flowers dangling from the ceiling, actors Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele of "Key and Peele" fame shared their table at the black-tie event with their Emmy statuettes.

Other winners made their way to the trophy engraving bar, where they had their Emmys personalized.

Sarah Paulson and Sterling K. Brown, who played prosecutors in the multi-Emmy winning "The People v. OJ Simpson," showed off their newly engraved trophies as they posed with real-life Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark.

Other Emmy winners at the party included "Transparent" creator Jill Soloway and Patton Oswalt, who won for writing for a variety special.

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8:45 p.m.

The Emmys are over, as is Jimmy Kimmel's joke-filled stretch as host in which he poked fun at television royalty and presidential politics.

The Associated Press' Frazier Moore writes (http://apne.ws/2cj8Esq ) in his review of the three-hour ceremony  which Kimmel managed to end on time  that the host did a capable and often breezy job of moving the show along.

Moore writes that Kimmel had many winning quips, whether he was poking fun at producer Mark Burnett for giving rise to Donald Trump through "Celebrity Apprentice," or passing out PB&J sandwiches he said his mom made.

Moore writes that the result was that Kimmel actively engaged with the ceremony and never left the stage for too long as is often the case during Hollywood awards shows

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8 p.m.

"Game of Thrones" is the winner of the best television drama series Emmy Award.

The HBO fantasy series follows characters as they vie for power in a fictional world rife with brutality, magic, and dragons.

The show also won the best drama award last year.

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7:55 p.m.

"Veep" is the winner of the Emmy Award for best comedy series.

It is a repeat win for the HBO series, which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a fictional U.S. politician who ascends to the presidency.

Earlier Sunday, Louis-Dreyfus won the Emmy for best comedy actress.

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7:50 p.m.

Tatiana Maslany is the Emmy Award winner for best actress in a drama series for her role in "Orphan Black."

It is the first Emmy win for Maslany, who plays multiple characters in the BBC America series. All of her characters are clones with distinct personalities and lives.

Maslany has drawn praise for her versatility in playing the roles, which range from suburban mom to ruthless assassin, during the show's four seasons.

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7:45 p.m.

Rami Malek is the Emmy Award winner for best actor in a drama series for his role in "Mr. Robot."

Malek plays a hacker recruited by an anarchist into a conspiracy to wipe out all consumer debt in the USA Network series.

The second season of "Mr. Robot" is currently airing and the critically acclaimed series has been a springboard for Malek's career. This is his first Emmy win.

The show's season finale airs later this week.

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7:30 p.m.

Ben Mendelsohn is the winner of the Emmy Award for best drama supporting actor for his "Bloodline" role.

Mendelsohn won for his portrayal of the black sheep of a prominent Florida Keys family who manages to complicate the lives of his mother and siblings, even from beyond-the-grave.

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7:25 p.m.

Maggie Smith is the winner of the best drama supporting actress Emmy Award for her role on "Downton Abbey"

It is Smith's fourth Emmy win and her third for playing the Dowager Countess of Grantham on the series, which aired for six seasons on PBS.

She did not appear at Sunday's ceremony, and host Jimmy Kimmel had joked early in the show that all winners would have to be present to receive their awards.

After Smith's win Kimmel said her Emmy would not be mailed to her but would be kept in the Microsoft Theater's Lost and Found until she shows up to claim it.

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7:10 p.m.

"Transparent" creator Jill Soloway says Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is "one of the most dangerous monsters," comparing him to Hitler.

Soloway made the comment speaking to reporters backstage at the Emmys after winning the best director prize. She said, "Any moment that I have to call Trump out for being an heir to Hitler, I will."

During its second season "Transparent" related the current state of transgender people to the situation facing Jews in Nazi Germany before the Holocaust.

Soloway said Sunday that Trump, like Hitler, has "otherized" people to gain political power, including, disabled people, Muslims, Mexican-Americans and women who don't "look like beauty pageant contestants."

Lindsey Bahr (@ldbahr)

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7 p.m.

"The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story" has won the Emmy Award for best limited TV series.

The FX series recreates moments from Simpson's double-murder trial in Los Angeles focusing on prosecutors and a "Dream Team" of defense lawyers handling a case dubbed "The Trial of the Century."

The series, which starred Courtney B. Vance as defense attorney Johnny Cochran, Sarah Paulson as prosecutor Marcia Clark and Cuba Gooding Jr. as Simpson, received the second most Emmy nominations this year.

Vance, Paulson and co-star Sterling K. Brown, who played prosecutor Christopher Darden, won acting Emmys for the series.

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6:50: p.m.

Courtney B. Vance is the winner of Emmy for best actor in a limited series for the show "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story."

Vance won for his portrayal of late defense attorney Johnny Cochran, who led a legal "Dream Team" in the successful defense of NFL great O.J. Simpson on double murder charges.

The series won three Emmy acting awards on Sunday, including for Sterling K. Brown and Sarah Paulson for their portrayals of prosecutors Christopher Darden and Marcia Clark.

Both Vance and Brown gave prominent shout-outs to their wives.

Vance ended his acceptance speech with a political message, shouting, "Obama out! Hillary in!"

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6:40 p.m.

Sarah Paulson is the winner of the Emmy Award for best actress in a limited series for her role in "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story."

It is Paulson's first Emmy win and comes for her portrayal of prosecutor Marcia Clark, who endured widespread criticism as she tried to convict NFL legend O.J. Simpson of double murder under the glaring spotlight of the so-called "Trial of the Century."

Paulson's co-star Sterling K. Brown, who played prosecutor Christopher Darden in the series, won the best supporting actor award and she thanked him in her acceptance speech.

Paulson also thanked Clark, who she brought to the Emmys, and apologized to her for having a two-dimensional view of the prosecutor before signing on to play her onscreen.

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6:30 p.m.

It wasn't a gag, Jimmy Kimmel, the kids from "Stranger Things" and dozens of volunteers really did pass out lunch bags with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches  to some people at Sunday's Emmy Awards.

The free snacks were just for those seated in the Microsoft Theater's orchestra section. The folks in the loge and balcony areas were out of luck.

Taraji P. Henson and Kate McKinnon were among the stars who grabbed a bag.

During a commercial break, a female announcer warned attendees with peanut and gluten allergies that the sacks were filled with nuts and bread.

Kimmel repeated that warning during the show, joking that those with allergies should be careful because he had only one EpiPen.

 Derrik J. Lang (@derrikjlang)

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6:15 p.m.

The Emmy Awards, as fans know, is more than just an awards competition but a fashion show as well.

One of those who might have won an Emmy for red-carpet attire, if it was a category, was Kristen Bell, who wore a low-cut champagne chiffon ball gown with just enough sparkle running through its floral print.

Angela Bassett stood out in lemon yellow with cape sleeves and a full train, while Shiri Appleby wore an optimistic sky blue sparkler.

A roundup of fashion choices by The Associated Press (http://apne.ws/2cB8WMO ) noted that several attendees, including singer-songwriter Tori Kelly and actress Kathryn Hahn, opted for velvet, a trendy fabric used by several designers at this year's New York Fashion Week.

Kerry Washington, who is pregnant with her second child, wore a strapless gown that had a front cutout for her baby bump.

While women's fashion is most scrutinized on the red carpet, a few actors gained attention.

Terrence Howard of "Empire" wore a black-and-white check tuxedo jacket with a patterned bow tie.

Fred Armisen opted for a black tuxedo with some unorthodox accessories  Frankenstein bolts on his neck.

 Leanne Italie.

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6:05 p.m.

"The Voice" is getting the chance to sing the same tune again, winning the best reality competition Emmy Award for the second year in a row.

The NBC singing competition pairs would-be stars with some of the top talents in the music industry, including judges Blake Shelton and Adam Levine.

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6 p.m.

Jeffrey Tambor is the winner of the Emmy Award for best comedy actor for his role in "Transparent."

Tambor plays a retired professor who becomes a transgender woman as the Amazon show looks at how the transition impacts her grown children.

This is the second year in a row Tambor has won the best comedy actor Emmy.

Earlier in Sunday's Emmy show Tambor introduced a tribute to the late Garry Shandling whose "Larry Sanders Show" he co-starred in.

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5:50 p.m.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the winner of the Emmy Award for best comedy actress for her role in "Veep"

It's a five-peat for Louis-Dreyfus, who has won the category the four previous years for her role as politician Selina Meyer in the HBO comedy.

In accepting the award, Louis-Dreyfus said she'd like to apologize for the current state of American politics, joking that her show seems to have morphed from comedy to documentary during the current contentious election season.

Turning serious a moment later, she fought back tears as she dedicated the award to her father, who died Friday.

Louis-Dreyfus has been an Emmy favorite for years, winning comedy acting awards for "Seinfeld" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine" before dominating the category with her work on "Veep."

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5:30 p.m.

Kate McKinnon has won the Emmy for best supporting actress on a comedy series for her role on "Saturday Night Live."

It is McKinnon's first Emmy win for her work on the NBC comedy show, in which she plays a variety of roles.

Those roles include impersonations of public figures such as Hillary Clinton, Justin Bieber and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Clinton was among those she thanked in her acceptance speech.

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5:20 p.m.

Louie Anderson is the winner of the Emmy Award for best supporting actor in a comedy series.

Anderson won for his role on the FX comedy, in which he plays the mother of a man trying to achieve his dream of becoming a professional clown.

The night's first award winner, Anderson thanked his mother, adding he stole many aspects of her personality for his Emmy-winning role.

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5:15 p.m.

Sarah Paulson and her real-life doppelganger, O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark, joined forces at Sunday's Emmy Awards.

Paulson is nominated for her portrayal of Clark in the FX series: "The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story." She had promised to bring the former prosecutor to Sunday's Emmys.

The two sat next to each other at the awards show, leading Emmy host Jimmy Kimmel to quip, "''Are you rooting for O.J. to win this time?"

Simpson was acquitted.

The FX series was a retelling of Simpson's double murder trial and included several behind-the-scenes moments that focused on Clark and her personal life while dealing with the so-called "Trial of the Century."

___

4:55 p.m.

It's nearly showtime and several Emmy Awards show attendees are seeking respite from the 90-degree weather outside, lining up inside the Microsoft Theater lobby to purchase $9 glasses of bubbly from a concession stand.

"Transparent" actress Kathryn Hahn, "The Simpsons" actor Hank Azaria and YouTube star "Burnie" Burns are among the celebs lined up at the concession stand, where hot dogs are also selling for $5.50 apiece.

For nominees still waiting to get inside the theater a red-carpet fast lane that leads directly to the front of the theater's orchestra section has been opened up.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats in the theater, our pre-show will begin in just a few minutes," an announcer is cooing as people scramble to find their seats.

 Derrik J. Lang (@derrikjlang)

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4:45 p.m.

The kids from the Netflix sci-fi phenomenon "Stranger Things" are making the most of their newly anointed popularity, hamming it up on Sunday's Emmys red carpet and chatting up bleacher fans.

Thirteen-year-old Gaten Matarazzo flashed his signature grin, while Caleb McLaughlin posed for photos and shook hands with several excited onlookers. Meanwhile, fans cooed over 13-year-old Millie Bobby Brown's sleek black dress.

"Game of Thrones" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" actress Gwendoline Christie also stopped to pose for a few selfies while "Key and Peele" nominee Keegan-Michael Key and "UnReal" star Shiri Appleby walked by and waved.

Lindsey Bahr (@ldbahr on Twitter)

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4 p.m.

Judith Light is being fully transparent when she tells bleacher fans how difficult it is to walk a red carpet in heels.

"I can't walk, but thanks," the actress, nominated for her role in a comedy series for the Amazon Instant Video show "Transparent," said as she responded to shouts and cheers from fans in the red-carpet bleachers.

Light was one of the first stars to walk the carpe Sunday, along with fellow nominees Felicity Huffman and her husband, William H. Macy.

Lindsey Bahr (@ldbahr on Twitter)

___

3:45 p.m.

It's another hot, hot, hot year on the Emmys red carpet.

With temperatures in the 90s in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, one woman in the fan bleachers outside the Microsoft Theater was wheeled out on a stretcher by paramedics.

She was alert, sipping water and smiling but had become dehydrated. Her condition prompted event staff to remind everyone present to remember to keep drinking water.

Staffers also fetched little Emmy-branded water bottles for anyone who asked.

Others in the bleachers came prepared with umbrellas, books and snacks while waiting for things to get going.

Only a few nominees had arrived 90 minutes before show time but the red carpet was bustling with security checks and other pre-show activity.

Lindsey Bahr (@ldbahr on Twitter)

___

3:15 p.m.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck is asking Emmys attendees to remain vigilant in the wake of explosions in New York City and New Jersey.

Beck says there are no known credible threats to security in Los Angeles, but those attending Sunday's Emmys in downtown Los Angeles should report any suspicious activity.

Downtown LA is an especially busy place Sunday, with the Rams playing their first home football game in 22 years at the nearby Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Beck says Los Angeles police are constantly assessing security threat levels in the wake Saturday's two explosions.

Officials in New York are trying to determine who was responsible for an explosion that injured 29 in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. New Jersey law enforcement is trying to determine if a pipe bomb that exploded at a seaside community was related to terrorism.

Anthony McCartney (@mccartneyap)

Jill Soloway winner of the award for outstanding directing for a comedy series for Transparent poses in the press room at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Gaten Matarazzo, from left, Caleb McLaughlin, and Millie Bobby Brown arrive at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Felicity Huffman, left, and William H. Macy arrive at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Sarah Paulson, left, and Marcia Clark arrive at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Hank Azaria arrives at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
Egypt looks to burnish image with el-Sissi's UN visit

CAIRO (AP)  Authorities in Egypt are pulling out all the stops to ensure that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly is a diplomatic success despite growing criticism of the country's human rights record under his rule.

El-Sissi flew to New York on Sunday to attend the General Assembly along with some two dozen loyal lawmakers and media figures who will seek to improve the country's image during the four-day visit.

Parliamentarian Nashwa el-Deeb told reporters she and others would be meeting with U.S. officials and congressmen to redress the "wrong perceptions and positions" about Egypt. Another lawmaker, Tareq Radwan, said they would support the president as a "symbol of Egypt."

FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2015 file photo, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, center, reviews honor guards, as he takes part in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of Unknown Soldier outside of Kremlin wall in Moscow, Russia. Seeking to improve the country's image, authorities in Egypt are pulling out all the stops to ensure that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly is a diplomatic success. El-Sissi flew to New York Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, with some two dozen loyal lawmakers and media figures who will be on hand to express support for the general-turned-president during his four-day stay in New York. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, Pool, File)

Some of the president's previous visits in the West have been marred by protests or assaults on accompanying journalists by supporters of Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist president whose 2013 military ouster was led by el-Sissi.

Egypt's Orthodox Coptic Church, a staunch ally of el-Sissi, has dispatched senior clerics to exhort followers there to rally in support of him upon his arrival later Sunday and at the U.N. headquarters when he addresses the General Assembly later this week.

"Let us welcome Egypt as represented by its loved president ... before every nation, as a manifestation of appreciation, dignity and love," Pope Tawadros II, the church's spiritual leader, told Cairo's Al-Masry Al-Youm daily.

Coptic leaders in the United States have distributed leaflets urging their community to rally in support of el-Sissi. They are lining up buses to ferry people from churches in New Jersey to New York City. Tawadros has dispatched one of his closest aides, Bishop Biemen, to the United States ahead of el-Sissi, also to persuade Copts there to show their support.

El-Sissi supporters in the Egyptian media have also sought to rally support. "The world listens to Egypt, on Tuesday," the state-owned Al-Gomhuria declared on its front page Sunday.

Western nations and rights groups have strongly criticized Egypt's human rights record in the three years since Morsi's overthrow. Authorities have jailed thousands of people, mainly Islamists but also leading secular and liberal activists behind the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

On Saturday, a Cairo court upheld a decision to freeze the assets of five prominent human rights campaigners in what critics described as the latest blow to a once-vibrant activist community. The ruling is part of a case against rights groups and campaigners accused of illegally receiving funds and using them to harm national security. If convicted, the five could face up to 25 years in prison.

"If they are trying to deter us from working in the future, then they are simply delusionary," Hossam Bahgat, an investigative journalist and one of the five, wrote on Facebook following the verdict. "For sure, fellow workers in the human rights movement will not, after 30 years of struggle, retire during the worst time for human rights in the nation's history."

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United States was "troubled" by the court's decision.

"These human rights organizations are documenting violations and abuses and defending the freedoms enshrined in Egypt's constitution, and this decision comes against a wider backdrop of closing space for Egyptian civil society," he said in a statement Sunday.

"Such restrictions on the space for civil society activity will produce neither stability nor security," he added.

The Egyptian media, which is largely dominated by el-Sissi supporters, frequently airs conspiracy theories in which foreign nations plot to weaken Egypt by sowing political unrest. Such media portray el-Sissi and the military as a bulwark against chaos and human rights activists as traitors or foreign agents.

The flagship state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram on Sunday cited "informed sources" as saying unidentified powers were plotting to besiege and isolate Egypt in collusion with the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Morsi hails.
75 years of Mount Rushmore, a boon for tourism, creativity

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP)  It was a historian's idea: carve gigantic sculptures into the granite pinnacles of the Black Hills of South Dakota, significant Western figures like Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill Cody, Fremont, Red Cloud and Sacagawea.

"In the vicinity of Harney Peak ... are opportunities for heroic sculpture of unusual character," South Dakota Department of History Superintendent Doane Robinson wrote to a sculptor in Georgia in 1924.

The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, redefined the project entirely. Using jackhammers and dynamite, he began in 1927, first sculpting President George Washington, then Thomas Jefferson, followed by Abraham Lincoln and finally Theodore Roosevelt.

FILE - In this July, 22, 1929, file photo, sculptor Gutzon Borglum, at left, directs drillers suspended by cables from the top of the mountain as they work on the head of President George Washington at the Mount Rushmore Memorial in the Black Hills area near Keystone, S.D. In October 2016, the memorial that through the years has become the state's most famous attraction and draws about 3 million visitors a year will mark 75 years since it was completed. (AP Photo/File)

Next month, Mount Rushmore National Memorial marks 75 years of public pervasiveness, ending up in movies and comics and on quarter-dollar coins.

"Burglum told Robinson 'You are not thinking big enough. Western figures? That's not going to attract enough people. You need to think bigger,'" said Maureen McGee-Ballinger, the memorial's chief of interpretation and education.

Robinson was looking for ways to promote the state, particularly the Black Hills, McGee-Ballinger said. Plan B surely has served that purpose, with about 3 million people visiting every year.

"For the state, and the nation, Mount Rushmore is quite iconic," South Dakota State Historical Society Director Jay Vogt said. "It definitely put South Dakota on the map as a destination ... Because these are elected individuals on the mountain, who worked hard to preserve a nation whose creation was unique in and of itself, it really speaks to the idea that we are a country of free people."

Along the way, it has also found a place in pop culture. A chase scene in "North by Northwest," Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 classic starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, included a death-defying scramble over the presidents' faces.

"Alfred Hitchcock says he expects to realize his long ambition  filming a chase over the Mt. Rushmore Monument," The Associated Press reported in 1958. "He may be spoofing, but you never can tell with Hitchcock." Some scenes were filmed at the memorial, but the climbing of the faces were studio shots that used models of the mountain.

A 1983 special anniversary issue of the comic "Wonder Woman" features her face next to the stone Lincoln. T-shirts with the faces of superheroes instead of the presidents are available at Target and elsewhere. The memorial is a never-ending muse for political cartoonists, and in 2016, there's been no shortage of memes.

The memorial has also been featured in multiple coins, including a quarter issued by the U.S. Mint in 2013 that shows men adding the finishing details to Jefferson's face. The four faces have also been highlighted in postage stamps, and they are  of course  in the background of South Dakota's license plates.

To celebrate the milestone, the National Park Service held events during the summer in connection with its own 100th birthday.

The memorial should be lauded for several reasons, according to Debbie Ketel Speas, communications director for the nonprofit Mount Rushmore Society, especially its impact on the state's tourism industry and economic development, as well as the efforts of those who worked to make it a reality.

"When you look at what they achieved over 75 years ago, it's quite spectacular," she said.

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Follow Regina Garcia Cano on Twitter at https://twitter.com/reginagarciakNO
Fourteen of the 27 defendants are jailed over accusations of 'inciting strike'

A military court in the coastal city of Alexandria postponed on Sunday to 18 October its verdict against 27 workers of a state-owned ship building company over protests for better work conditions in May.

The defendants face charges of "inciting strike and sit-in and refraining from work."

In May, most of the nearly 2,500 employees at the Alexandria Shipyard Company staged a sit-in at the Port of Alexandria to demand a pay raise, overdue profit-shares, better health insurance and safety measures.

Two days later, security forces imposed a lockout on the shipyard, bringing all production and services to a halt.

Defence lawyer Mohamed Awad, from the Egyptian Centre for Social and Economic Rights, has slammed the charges as "baseless," saying the workers did not engage in any strike action and that the company's operation was halted at the time by a management decision.

Fourteen of the defendants are in detention while the rest are fugitives, a judicial source said. The court said on Sunday that those in custody will remain in jail pending the verdict.

Awad says that the reason the defendants are being tried in military court, as opposed to the regular court system, is that the 66-year-old shipping company was acquired by the defence ministry in 2007.

The company is one of the largest ship-building companies in the Middle East.

Under the Egyptian constitution, civilians can only be tried before military courts in case of assaults on military installations or personnel or buildings belonging to the army.

Critics argue the company is not considered a military installation and that the defendants did not commit any military crime, but rather asked for their basic labour rights

The military trial, which began in June, has sparked outrage within the industry and among rights campaigners. The case provoked a flurry of condemnation from international trade unions in a global solidarity campaign.

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The Latest: Suspicious device checked at NJ train station

NEW YORK (AP)  The Latest on an explosion hitting a crowded Manhattan neighborhood (all times local):

12:30 a.m.

Investigators are examining a suspicious device found in a trash can near a New Jersey train station, and service on the busy Northeast Corridor line has been suspended.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks from the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage says two men called police and reported seeing wires and a pipe coming out of the package after finding it at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

Bollwage says the Union County bomb squad's robotic device indicated the package the men left under a train trestle could be a live bomb. He says the FBI and state police will decide how to remove the device.

New Jersey Transit says service has been suspended between Newark Liberty Airport and Elizabeth. New York's emergency management department says that New Jersey-bound Amtrak trains are being held at New York Penn Station.

By Josh Cornfield

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11:30 p.m.

Authorities say FBI agents pulled over a car on a highway in Brooklyn and are questioning the vehicle's occupants in connection with the investigation of the bombing in Manhattan.

FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser says agents stopped "a vehicle of interest in the investigation" at 8:45 p.m. Sunday.

She wouldn't provide further details, but a government official and a law enforcement official who were briefed on the investigation said five people in the car were being questioned at an FBI building in lower Manhattan.

The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about an ongoing investigation.

Langmesser said no one has been charged with any crime and the investigation is continuing.

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9 p.m.

A team of five FBI agents have searched an Uber driver's vehicle that had been damaged in the Manhattan blast, ripping off the door panels inside as they examined it for evidence.

The driver, MD Alam, had just picked up three passengers and was driving along 23rd Street when the explosion occurred, shattering the car's windows and leaving gaping holes in the rear passenger-side door.

Alam said Sunday he hit the gas and tried to take his passengers to their destination in Queens, but pulled over along Madison Avenue and 39th Street. He went to a local police precinct to file a report for his insurance company and police contacted the FBI.

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8 p.m.

New York City police say they've blown up the second device found blocks away from where a bomb exploded in Manhattan.

The New York Police Department says the controlled detonation took place at a police facility in the Bronx on Sunday evening. They said the device has been rendered safe and that a forensic examination of the device will be conducted at the FBI Laboratory at Quantico, Virginia.

The second device was discovered Saturday night by state troopers after a bomb exploded in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. Twenty-nine people were injured in that blast. They've all since been released from hospitals.

The second device was described by a law enforcement official as a pressure-cooker with wires and a cellphone attached to it. It was taken from the scene by a bomb removal robot.

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6:15 p.m.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck is asking Emmys attendees to remain vigilant in the wake of explosions in New York City and New Jersey.

Beck says there are no known credible threats to security in Los Angeles, but those attending Sunday's Emmys in downtown Los Angeles should report any suspicious activity.

Downtown LA is an especially busy place Sunday, with the Rams playing their first home football game in 22 years at the nearby Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Beck says Los Angeles police are constantly assessing security threat levels in the wake Saturday's two explosions.

Officials in New York are trying to determine who was responsible for an explosion that injured 29 in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. New Jersey law enforcement is trying to determine if a pipe bomb that exploded at a seaside community was related to terrorism.

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5:30 p.m.

A law enforcement official says federal investigators have discounted a claim of responsibility for the New York City bombing on the social blogging service Tumblr.

The official says investigators looked into it and don't consider it relevant to the case. The official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity

Earlier in the day, another official said that the FBI was aware of the posting and evaluating its authenticity.

The Saturday night blast in Manhattan injured 29 people. Authorities have not yet determined who is behind the blast or a motive. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said it didn't appear to be linked to international terrorism.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

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5:20 p.m.

New York City police say they're going to blow up the second device found blocks away from where a bomb exploded in Manhattan on Saturday night.

The New York Police Department says the controlled detonation will take place at a police facility in the Bronx on Sunday evening.

The second device was discovered by state troopers after a bomb exploded in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday night. Twenty-nine people were injured in that blast. They've all since been released from hospitals.

The second device was described by a law enforcement official as a pressure-cooker with wires and a cellphone attached to it. It was taken from the scene by a bomb removal robot.

Police have not said what, if any, forensic evidence they've collected from that device.

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4:15 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is condemning what she calls "apparent terrorist attacks" in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota.

Officials in New York said Sunday they were still trying to determine who was behind an explosion that rocked the Chelsea neighborhood and what the motivation was. New Jersey law enforcement would not say if a pipe bomb that exploded at a seaside community was terror-related.

Officials said an attack at a Minnesota mall in which a man stabbed nine people was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism; an Islamic State-run news agency called the attacker a "soldier of the Islamic State."

In a statement Sunday, the Democratic presidential candidate said law enforcement officials in New York and New Jersey need support as they investigate.

Clinton said of the Minnesota attack, "this should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS."

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2:30 p.m.

A spokesman says the United Nations is assessing security in the wake of an explosion in New York's Chelsea district as the organization prepares to host world leaders arriving for the General Assembly.

U.N. Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Sunday that security inside the complex "is being assessed on a constant basis."

He pointed out that security outside the U.N. is the responsibility of the host country.

"We receive great cooperation and appreciate the support from the federal authorities and the NYPD throughout the year, and especially during the General Assembly to keep staff, delegates and visitors safe," Dujarric said.

Twenty-nine people were injured in the Saturday night blast. They have been treated and released from a hospital.

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2:05 p.m.

The FBI is evaluating a claim of responsibility for the New York City bombing on the social blogging service Tumblr.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Sunday that the FBI is aware of the posting and was working to determine its authenticity. The official wasn't authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The bomb went off Saturday night in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, injuring 29 people. All of them have been released from the hospital.

A second device was later found inside a plastic bag blocks away, and it appeared to be a pressure cooker with wiring and a cellphone attached to it. A robot removed the device safely.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

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1:45 p.m.

Federal investigators in Quantico, Virginia, are examining evidence from Saturday's explosions in New Jersey and New York.

According to one federal law enforcement official, devices in both explosions included cellphones, but the New Jersey device contained evidence of a black powder explosive. The official says in the New York incident, the device that exploded had residue from an explosive called Tannerite.

The official wasn't authorized to discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Tannerite is often used in target shooting to mark a shot with a cloud of smoke and small explosion.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says there's no evidence that the two incidents are related, but a connection hasn't been ruled out.

___

Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

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12:35 p.m.

New York City's mayor says an explosion that rocked a Manhattan neighborhood Saturday night was caused by a bomb.

But Bill de Blasio said Sunday that authorities don't yet know who made it, who set it off or the motivation behind it.

An explosion on a residential street in the Chelsea neighborhood injured 29 people. All of the injured have been released from the hospital.

Earlier Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the bombing didn't appear to have any link to international terrorism.

A second device was discovered blocks away, removed by a bomb squad robot and is being examined at a police facility.

Investigators want to determine how it was made and whether it is similar to the device that caused the first blast.

Authorities say there was no structural damage from the blast.

___

10:35 a.m.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says there's no evidence that an explosion that rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood, injuring 29 people, had any link to international terrorism.

Cuomo spoke Sunday morning near the site of the Saturday night blast on West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood. He noted that the device in Manhattan appeared to be different than a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey and said he didn't believe the two were connected.

Authorities found a second device in Manhattan a few blocks away from the one that exploded and removed it.

Cuomo says the injured have been released from the hospital. Most of the injuries were minor.

The Democratic governor also said that 1,000 additional law enforcement officers were being deployed as a precaution.

___

3:45 a.m.

An explosion rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood and injured 29 people, and a suspicious device discovered blocks away from the scene was safely removed. Mayor Bill de Blasio ruled out any terror connections, but called the blast an "intentional act."

Early Sunday, police said an investigation into a third suspicious package turned up a bag of trash.

An explosion rocked the block of West 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday. Officials said 29 people were injured. Most of the injuries were minor.

The blast is under investigation. A law enforcement official tells The Associated Press that the second device discovered a few blocks from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, and Mayor Bill de Blasio walk towards the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday evening. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks from the scene of an explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Crime scene investigators work Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the scene of Saturday's explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Crime scene investigators work at the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Crime scene investigators work Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the scene of Saturday's explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Suicide car bomber kills Somali general in capital

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP)  A powerful car bomb killed a Somali military general and five of his bodyguards in the capital Sunday, according to a Somali police officer.

Gen. Mohamed Roble Jimale Gobanle and his bodyguards were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle next to the general's car near Somalia's defense ministry compound in Mogadishu, said Capt. Ali Nur.

Gobanle was the commander of the Somali army's 3rd Brigade, a combat team fighting the al-Shabab Islamic extremists in southern Somalia.

In this Friday, May, 27, 2011 photo, Gen. Mohamed Roble Jimale Gobanle, center, speaks to reporters at an army camp in Mogadishu, Somalia. Gen. Mohamed Roble Jimale Gobanle was killed after a suicide car bomber detonated explosives-laden vehicle next to his car near Somalia's defense ministry compound in Mogadishu, Sunday, Sept.18, 2016. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

Al-Shabab, claimed the responsibility for the attack, according the group's Andalus radio station. Al-Shabab, which is allied to al-Qaida, has been waging a deadly insurgency across large parts of Somalia and often uses suicide car bomb attacks.

Al-Shabab is fighting to impose a strict version of Islam in this Horn of Africa nation. Despite losing a lot of ground in recent years, the extremist group continues to carry out lethal attacks in many parts of the country, and many recent attacks have targeted military bases.

Last week, heavily armed al-Shabab fighters briefly seized El Wak, a town near the Kenyan border, killing four soldiers before troops recaptured it one day later early Saturday.

Somali soldiers stand near a destroyed building after a suicide attack that targeted a convoy escorting a senior military general in Mogadishu, Somalia, Sunday Sept, 18, 2016. A Somali police officer says a powerful suicide car bomb killed a senior Somali military general and five of his body guards near Somalia's defense ministry Sunday. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Philippine president seeks extension of bloody war on drugs

MANILA, Philippines (AP)  The Philippine president said Sunday that he may need to extend a bloody government anti-drug campaign that has left more than 3,000 people dead and been slammed by the United States and others.

Acknowledging for the first time that he may not be able to keep his campaign promise to eradicate illegal drugs in no more than six months, President Rodrigo Duterte said in jest that with the huge number of people involved, "even if I wanted to, I cannot kill them all."

Duterte said at a news conference in the southern city of Davao that he was overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem and may need to extend his self-imposed deadline by another six months to end the scourge. He won the May 9 election on an ambitious promise to end corruption and crime, especially illegal drugs, in three to six months.

More than 3,000 suspected drug dealers and traffickers have been killed in Duterte's campaign against drugs since he assumed the presidency in June, and 600,000 others, mostly drug users, have surrendered to authorities for fear they may be killed.

A law enforcement investigation, however, has turned up more names of people who are involved in the illegal drug trade, including many village leaders and mayors, Duterte said at the news conference. Duterte first built a name for his deadly crime-fighting style while serving as Davao's longtime mayor before becoming president.

"I didn't realize how severe and how serious the problem of drug menace in this republic (was) until I became president," Duterte said.

"Even if I wanted to, I cannot kill them all because the last report would be this thick," Duterte said, laughing.

President Barack Obama, U.N. officials and human rights watchdogs have raised concerns over the widespread killings, but Duterte has lashed back at them and other critics. He said that critics were impeding his battle against a problem that has worsened into a national security threat.

A former Filipino militiaman recently testified before a Senate committee hearing that Duterte, while he was still Davao's mayor, ordered him and other members of a liquidation squad to kill criminals and opponents in gangland-style assaults that left about 1,000 dead starting in the late 1980s.

While his key officials have played down the allegations and questioned the credibility of the witness, Duterte himself has not directly reacted to the statements made by Edgar Matobato in the nationally televised Senate inquiry.

Matobato testified that he heard Duterte order some of the killings, and acknowledged that he himself carried out about 50 deadly assaults as an assassin, including a suspected kidnapper fed to a crocodile in 2007 in the southern province of Davao del Sur.
Latest: Officer who stopped mall stabbing deflects praise

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP)  The Latest on the stabbing of nine people at a central Minnesota shopping mall (all times local):

6:10 p.m.

The off-duty police officer who shot and killed a man suspected of stabbing nine people in a Minnesota mall is deflecting praise from people who call him a hero.

People stand near the entrance on the north side of Crossroads Center mall between Macy's and Target as officials investigate a reported multiple stabbing incident, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, in St. Cloud, Minn. Police said multiple people were injured at the St. Cloud shopping mall on Saturday evening in an attack possibly involving both shooting and stabbing. The suspect is believed to be dead, St. Cloud Police Sgt. Jason Burke told the St. Cloud Times. (Dave Schwarz/St. Cloud Times via AP)

Jason Falconer is being hailed by authorities, Gov. Mark Dayton and others for stopping a man suspected of carrying out the attack Saturday night in a St. Cloud mall. Federal authorities say they are treating it as a potential act of terrorism.

Falconer told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he's "been trying to stay away from it all, for the time being." He told the newspaper he wasn't hurt and declined to talk further, citing the ongoing investigation for not saying more.

No one answered the door late Sunday at a home address listed for Falconer, and a voicemail box for a telephone listing was full and not accepting new messages.

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4:10 p.m.

Leaders of the Somali community in central Minnesota are condemning the stabbing of nine people at a mall.

Community leaders held a news conference Sunday and said the suspect in Saturday night's attack at a St. Cloud mall does not represent the larger Somali community.

They urged the broader community to unite, and said they feared backlash against Somalis living in the area.

The man's father identified the suspect as Dahir Adan in an interview with the Star Tribune. Authorities haven't confirmed that name and say they are still investigating. Adan was shot dead by an off-duty police officer.

All nine victims suffered injuries that were not life-threatening.

Meanwhile, St. Cloud Technical and Community College says Adan was never a student there, as has been reported. St. Cloud University confirms he attended school there, but has not been enrolled since spring 2016.

___

3:30 p.m.

The father of the man who stabbed nine people at a central Minnesota mall has identified him as a 22-year-old college student.

Ahmed Adan told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that police told him Saturday night that his son, Dahir A. Adan, died at Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud.

He says police didn't mention the attack on the mall, but they seized photos and other materials from the family's apartment.

Authorities haven't publicly identified the attacker. They say the attacker stabbed nine people Saturday night before an off-duty police officer shot and killed him. None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

Ahmed Adan, who is Somali, says his son came to the U.S. 15 years ago and was a student at St. Cloud Technical and Community College. He told the Star Tribune he had "no suspicion" that his son might have been involved in terrorist activity.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

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1:10 p.m.

An FBI official says investigators are viewing an attack at a Minnesota mall in which a man stabbed nine people as a possible act of terrorism.

FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Rick Thornton said Sunday that authorities are digging into the suspect's background to determine his possible motivation for Saturday night's attack at the Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud.

St. Cloud's mayor and police chief praised the swift actions of an off-duty, part-time Avon police officer for shooting and killing the attacker. They identified him as Officer Jason Falconer.

Mayor David Kleis says there were nine people who were hurt, not eight, as authorities previously reported. He says the ninth person took themselves to a hospital and was treated and released. Three of the victims remain hospitalized with injuries that aren't considered life-threatening.

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11:50 a.m.

Three college freshmen who were shopping at a Minnesota mall when a man stabbed eight people say they saw two bloodied men stumble from a hallway.

Sydney Weires (weerz) says she was at Crossroads Center mall with two friends Saturday night when they heard a scream. She says she saw a man who looked like a security guard sprint down a hallway, and then two men stumbled out.

She says one had blood on his face, and the other had blood on his back. The men screamed to get out of the mall because someone had a knife.

Weires says she and her friends ran out of the mall.

Authorities say all of the injured are expected to survive. They say the suspect was dressed in a private security uniform and reportedly made references to Allah.

An off-duty police officer shot and killed him.

___

11:10 a.m.

A Minnesota hospital official says three of the eight people who were attacked at a mall remain hospitalized.

St. Cloud Hospital spokeswoman Chris Nelson said Sunday that the other five people were released and that none of the three still at the hospital has injuries that are considered life-threatening.

St. Cloud's police chief, Blair Anderson, earlier said that of the eight people who were stabbed in Saturday night's attack, only one remained hospitalized.

Authorities say a man dressed in a private security uniform started stabbing people and reportedly made references to Allah. An off-duty police officer shot and killed him.

___

10:20 a.m.

The FBI says it is assisting local police in the investigation into a man who stabbed and wounded eight people at a Minnesota mall.

Like the police, Minnesota FBI spokesman Kyle Loven declined to say Sunday if investigators believe Saturday night's attack at the Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud was a terrorist act.

Authorities say a man dressed as a security guard stabbed eight people and reportedly mentioned Allah and asked a victim if they were Muslim before attacking them.

The Islamic State group has claimed the attacker was one of its own, though it's unclear if the group planned or even knew of the attack ahead of time.

An off-duty police officer shot and killed the attacker.

None of the victims had life-threatening wounds.

10 a.m.

An Islamic State-run news agency claims the man who stabbed and wounded eight people at a mall in Minnesota before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer was a "soldier of the Islamic State."

The IS-run Rasd news agency reported the claim on Sunday, saying the attacker had heeded calls from the extremist group for attacks in countries that are part of a U.S.-led anti-IS coalition.

It was not immediately clear if the extremist group had planned the attack or even knew about it beforehand. IS has encouraged so-called "lone wolf" attacks. It has also claimed past attacks that are not believed to have been planned by its central leadership.

All eight victims from Saturday's attack were treated at a hospital for wounds that weren't life-threatening and all but one of them were later released.

2:40 a.m.

Eight people were injured during a stabbing attack at a Minnesota shopping mall that ended with the suspected attacker  who was dressed in a private security uniform and made references to Allah  shot dead by an off-duty police officer, authorities said.

St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson says eight people were taken to St. Cloud Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries following the attack first reported about 8:15 p.m. Saturday at the Crossroads Center. One person was admitted. No further details were released.

Anderson said an off-duty police officer from another jurisdiction shot and killed the unidentified suspect, who was armed with a knife and wearing a private security firm uniform at the time of the attack.
Philadelphia officers fired upon 2nd night in a row

PHILADELPHIA (AP)  For a second night in a row, Philadelphia police officers came under fire, although this time no one was injured.

Officers patrolling a central city district packed with restaurants, shops and clubs shortly before midnight Saturday said they detected a strong odor of marijuana from a passing group. When they called out to the group, a man fled.

Officers pursued him to a nearby street, where authorities say he opened fire, discharging at least three shots. The officers didn't return fire.

The 19-year-old suspect later was found hiding behind a building and was taken into custody. He was taken to a hospital "for treatment for a severe sprain to his right ankle that was the result of jumping over fences of the rear yards of homes," police said.

The shooting came almost exactly 24 hours after a police sergeant was shot and wounded in her car in west Philadelphia and a University of Pennsylvania police officer and four other people were shot and wounded before the gunman was killed. A 25-year-old woman among those shot later died.

In other violence around the city, a 22-year-old man was critically injured when he was shot in the back 10 times and three women were also hit by gunfire in a parking lot shared by two nightclubs in northeast Philadelphia around 3:30 a.m. Sunday. About an hour later, in north Philadelphia, a man was shot in the head and critically injured and another man was hit in the arm and shoulder area during an alleged drug sale outside a fast-food establishment. Police said they don't know who the target was of those shootings.

On Saturday, also in north Philadelphia, a 23-year-old man was critically injured by gunshot wounds to his chest, back and arms fired by a man whose face was covered by black "woman's Muslim garb," police said.

Aside from the 19-year-old man who was arrested, no arrests have been made in the shootings, police said.

___
In Florida, a shifting Cuban vote could be the difference

MIAMI (AP)  Francis Suarez comes from a long line of civic and political leaders who have formed the Republican bedrock in south Florida's Cuban community for a half-century. Yet the 38-year-old Miami city commissioner hasn't decided whether he will vote for his party's presidential nominee.

And he's not alone. Many Cuban-Americans express solidarity with other Latin-Americans who see Donald Trump as anti-Hispanic. Still others hear in Trump's nationalistic populism echoes of the government strongmen they once fled.

"There are aspects of Trump that appeal to parts of the Cuban-American culture: strong leadership, the ability and willingness to say bold things," says Suarez, the son of a former Miami mayor and a potential chief executive himself. The concern, Suarez says, comes when Trump's boorishness, bullying and slapdash policy pronouncements "cross the line from bold to wild, unpredictable."

In this Sept. 16, 2016, photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the James L. Knight Center in Miami. Republicans are still counting on strong support from the Cuban-American community in south Florida as they try to win back the White House. But the GOP-Cuban alliance is softening, and Trump could speed the process. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

How those misgivings influence the votes of hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans could tilt the nation's most populous presidential battleground state and, depending on circumstances elsewhere, determine whether Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton wins the election.

Roberto Rodriguez Tejera, a well-known Spanish-language radio and television host in Miami, says he won't endorse Trump or Clinton, arguing neither has engaged in genuine, personal outreach to average Cuban and other Hispanic voters. But Tejera asks his audiences to compare Trump's assertions that "I am your voice" and "I alone can solve" societal ills to the initial appeals of authoritarian rulers like Cuba's Fidel Castro and the late Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

"It goes well beyond immigration to the very nature of our Latin-American problem," Tejera said in an interview. "Many of us remember how it starts. It starts with questioning institutions. Then you destroy institutions  you being the only person in the world who can save the nation from collapse."

Fernand Amandi, a Democratic south Florida pollster, estimates the Cuban-American vote could approach 8 percent of the 8 million-plus ballots cast in Florida in November. Amandi said Cuban-Americans are "the only Hispanic group in the country" to support Trump over Clinton in preference polling, but not by a margin victorious Republican nominees have managed.

Trump aides note support from some elected officials and volunteers within the Cuban-American community, but Trump adviser Karen Giorno said his strategy ultimately considers Cuban-Americans as it does anyone else: "They are worried about safety and security. They are worried about the economy. They are worried about drugs on the street. They are worried about the same things other Americans are worried about."

Suarez, the Miami commissioner, applauds that approach, but he says it doesn't account for some Cubans-Americans who are thinking of themselves, for the first time in presidential politics, as aligned with immigrants from Mexico and the nations of Central and South America  a collective class of people who have never enjoyed Cubans' favored immigration status.

"Some Cubans don't consider themselves Hispanic," says Amandi, the Democratic pollster. But now, says Republican pollster Dario Moreno, Trump has made immigration a "symbolic issue" that penetrates the Cuban psyche. "Anti-immigration rhetoric is taken as anti-Hispanic," Moreno said, "and you see that even among the old Cubans" who were the first to arrive in Florida as refugees after Castro came to power in 1959.

Clinton certainly sees an opening. In the last week, she launched an advertising blitz featuring the endorsement of Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban-American Republican and commerce secretary for President George W. Bush. Speaking in Spanish, Gutierrez calls Trump dangerous and says: "For me, it's country first, and then party."

One of the GOP's top financiers, health-care billionaire Mike Fernandez, recently called Trump an "abysmally unfit candidate" and endorsed Clinton.

Other prominent Republicans  Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and U.S. Reps. Carlos Curbelo and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen  have said they will not support Trump, though they've stopped short of endorsing Clinton.

Tejera, the broadcaster, says heavyweights like Gutierrez and Fernandez "won't move one vote," but their public backing of a Democratic nominee is a striking development in Cuban-American politics.

For decades, the equation was simple: U.S. politicians of all persuasions blasted the Castro government and supported the trade embargo first imposed under President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat. Despite mostly bipartisan agreement, initial Cuban arrivals to the U.S. aligned overwhelmingly with Republicans, largely out of anger at Kennedy's handling of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion intended to topple Castro in 1961. Yet many in that generation have died or are old, and their children and grandchildren, along with more recent Cuban immigrants, aren't as hard line or simply don't vote exclusively on "the Cuba question."

"We're starting to see them think and vote like everybody else, not be driven by a single issue," says Moreno, the Republican pollster and a professor at Miami's Florida International University.

Exit polls in the 2012 election found Cuban-Americans essentially split between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, less than a decade after George W. Bush won the Cuban vote overwhelmingly. Obama has since normalized diplomatic relations with Havana, traveled to the island for a state visit and called on Congress to lift the trade embargo.

Clinton has forcefully ratified Obama's stance. Until last week, Trump effectively endorsed it, as well, with vague qualifiers that he'd get "a better deal" than Obama. Yet on Friday in Miami, he reversed himself, embracing the hard-liners' longstanding views and promising to roll back Obama's actions unless the Castro government expanded political freedoms on the island.

Rudy Fernandez, 43, who spent almost a decade working at the Republican National Committee and in the White House under George W. Bush, doesn't mention Cuba when explaining why he will choose between Clinton and Libertarian Gary Johnson. Rather, he argues that Trump has been "deeply divisive" and adds a common GOP establishment critique that the billionaire "is not a Republican ... not a conservative" and "lacks the temperament required for the job."

To be clear, Clinton doesn't have a lock on Cuban-American votes Trump may lose. Amandi notes that Clinton's Spanish-language media presence began months later than Obama's general election efforts.

Tejera dismissed Clinton's south Florida outreach as "meeting with the usual Democratic officials and donors" and perhaps the highest-profile Republicans who can't abide Trump.

Then there's Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's re-election campaign. Moreno described Rubio, the son of Cuban refugees, as a "role model in the Cuban-American community the way Barack Obama is in the African-American community." Rubio trounced Trump in Miami-Dade County in the March presidential primary, despite Trump's easy statewide win.

Brian Ballard, a top Florida lobbyist in Tallahassee and a Trump fundraiser, predicted Rubio will attract Cuban-Americans who will then vote for Trump, even though he mocked the senator earlier this year as "Little Marco."

Back at Miami City Hall, Suarez says that's possible, but he argued Cuban-American Republicans are just as likely to see Rubio as an easy out: They can abandon Trump and still call themselves party loyalists, like always.

"A presidential election of this magnitude," Suarez said, "the electorate is going to make up its mind all on its own."

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Obama, Netanyahu to meet Wednesday on sidelines of UN summit

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Barack Obama plans to meet this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while both are in New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

The leaders will hold talks Wednesday, about a week after the U.S. and Israel signed an unprecedented new security agreement that will give the Israeli military $38 billion over 10 years. It's the largest such agreement the U.S. has ever had with any country.

The White House says the leaders will discuss advancing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iran nuclear deal and other regional security issues. Netanyahu vehemently opposed the Iran agreement.

On Monday, Obama will hold a brief meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (lee kuh-TYAHNG') to discuss U.S.-China relations and North Korea.
Senate's odd couple: Boxer, Inhofe forge unlikely alliance

WASHINGTON (AP)  The oddest of Senate odd couples  California Democrat Barbara Boxer and Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe  have accomplished something highly unusual in this bitter election year: significant, bipartisan legislation on the environment that has become law.

Boxer, a staunch liberal, calls climate change the "greatest challenge to hit the planet," battles against offshore drilling, rails about the dangers of nuclear power and has pushed to restrict greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Inhofe proudly calls himself an unabashed conservative who dismisses global warming as a hoax and famously tossed a snowball on the Senate floor to prove his point. "It's very, very cold out," he said last February as he lobbed the ball toward the Senate president, an incident that makes Boxer cringe.

FILE - In this May 19, 2016, file photo, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., embraces the committee's ranking member Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. One is a Brooklyn-born, northern California liberal who carved out time in a two-decade Senate career to write a politics-sex-and-power thriller or two. The other is an unabashed conservative from Oklahoma who flies planes and famously challenged the hoax of climate change by tossing a snowball on the Senate floor. The oddest of Senate odd couples, Boxer and Inhofe, has accomplished something highly unusual in an election-year, real bipartisan environmental legislation that has become law. Working closely together, and frequently gushing about the other, the two have succeeded where few have. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Yet somehow, the two have managed to become friends and political partners, working closely together to find common ground and frequently gushing about the other. Earlier this year, Inhofe and Boxer shepherded a sweeping bill to impose new regulations on tens of thousands of toxic chemicals in everyday products, from household cleaners to clothing and furniture. It was the first update of the law in 40 years.

The unlikely alliance played key roles on a 5-year, $305 billion bill to address the nation's aging and congested transportation systems that President Barack Obama signed into law in December. And last week, the pair secured overwhelming support for a $10 billion water projects bill that includes more than $200 million in emergency funds to address a lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and other cities.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., compares Boxer and Inhofe to "an old married couple who've sort of learned to live with each other's idiosyncrasies. They raise their eyebrows, but get past it for the sake of the entire partnership."

The senators have known each other since their days in the House in the 1980s.

"I've worked with Barbara a long time. And we like each other personally," says the 81-year-old Inhofe.

Boxer, 75, says their friendship has its limits, but is real: "One is Venus and one is Mars, let's be clear," she said on the Senate floor.

"People wonder how can we possibly bridge the divide," she mused as the Senate debated the water bill. "And it is a fact that on certain issues we can't. There is a lesson there. ... We have never, ever taken those differences and made them personal. We respect each other and we don't waste a lot of time arguing."

Or as Inhofe put it in an interview, "She has every right to be wrong."

The alliance's success stands in stark contrast to the fierce partisanship that has consumed Capitol Hill and grown increasingly worse as the Nov. 8 election approaches. Republicans and Democrats who once had high hopes for criminal justice reform, for instance, and even the basic business of individual spending bills have accepted the reality that little will be done.

Meantime, Inhofe and Boxer plow ahead  together.

"We both like to finish what we started and get things done," said Inhofe, a former real estate developer and Tulsa mayor who still pilots a small plane.

The pairing "sends an important signal to everybody that you don't have to make differences personal and attack someone personally," the Brooklyn-born Boxer said in an interview.

Boxer, who carved out time in a two-decade-plus Senate career to write politics-and-power novels, said lawmakers "need to, while holding your ground and not compromising your core beliefs, find ways to get things done."

Inhofe's status as the Senate's top climate-change doubter has made him the environmental movement's archenemy, but his fondness for political give-and-take has won him another unlikely Senate ally: Vermont's Bernie Sanders.

Sanders, like Boxer a passionate advocate for action to slow climate change, lost a hotly contested race for the Democratic presidential nomination this year. He shocked many supporters when he announced at a town hall this spring that the Republican he likes the most is Inhofe. The revelation might ruin Inhofe's political career, Sanders joked.

"There'll be a 30-second ad: 'Sanders said he likes this person!'" Sanders said, calling Inhofe "a decent guy" and a friend.

Inhofe returns the compliment and said the men became friends after arguing for hours on the Senate floor over a bill on oil drilling.

"I won. He lost," Inhofe said. But he said Sanders later told him: "This is what we should be doing in the Senate  debating issues."

Boxer, who is retiring after a 34-year congressional career, said colleagues from both parties have noticed her partnership with Inhofe and called it a model.

One of those admirers is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican not known as overly sentimental. "I hate to see the Boxer-Inhofe team come to an end," he said last week.

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Follow Matthew Daly: https://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC
Village police chief in spotlight of Ohio's heroin battle

NEWTOWN, Ohio (AP)  The veteran police chief in a bucolic Ohio village, where the last murder was two decades ago and he can just about count the number of drug cases on both hands, finds himself in the spotlight on the front lines against heroin overdoses in one of the nation's hardest-hit states.

Thomas Synan Jr., of Newtown, with some 2,700 people tucked among suburban cities and townships just east of Cincinnati, has led the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition task force during a stunning spike of overdoses that saw 174 reported in one six-day period last month. He has also publicly challenged Ohio's governor to do more to help an area that's "bleeding profusely."

"We need action, and we need it now," Synan declared at the Hamilton County coroner's office Sept. 6 after the coroner announced lab tests confirmed the extremely powerful animal tranquilizer carfentanil was present in some recent overdose casualties.

The office of John Kasich, the popular second-term Republican governor who ran for president, has responded that he lacks specific authority under Ohio law to declare a "public health emergency," as Synan and others call for. Kasich initiatives have included making it tougher for drug abusers to obtain prescription painkillers, expanding access to the overdose antidote naloxone and promoting discussion about drug dangers in schools and homes.

"The governor is fully committed to working with locals to fight this battle, and that means working together on proven solutions and proven tools," Kasich spokeswoman Emmalee Kalmbach said. "It also means focusing on tools that actually exist instead of hoping for the equivalent of magic spells that doesn't exist. That's just a distraction that hurts those in need."

In an interview, Synan insisted Kasich can free up state funds for more resources and push through new legislation to help police and to facilitate getting more users into treatment.

"I don't really care what you call it," Synan said. "Just come down here and say we're going to help ... with tangible money and appropriate legislation to get things done."

In an office that includes a Batman painting, his framed Marine discharge and him in a photo with Kasich, Synan, 49, discussed the battle that touched him personally two years with the overdose death of a young man he'd known throughout a police career that began in 1993.

Synan was head of the county police chiefs' association when the heroin coalition was formed last year to respond to the spreading deadly epidemic. Federal statistics ranked Ohio second in overdose deaths in 2014, and the state last month reported another record toll in 2015: 3,050 people. There are 47 local, state and federal agencies working together in the task force.

Investigators had intelligence in July that heroin with carfentanil  federal authorities think the drug that is thousands of times stronger than morphine is being shipped from makers in China to Mexico for trafficking  was going to be hitting the streets in Cincinnati.

It was like waiting for a massive hurricane to strike.

"We put out a public warning ... we anticipated it, and when it happened, we were all like, 'Here it is,' and now let's see how bad it is."

Police on Cincinnati's streets texted Synan with new cases as the number climbed to 40 the first day.

"We kept asking: 'How many dead?' The answer kept coming back: 'Zero ... zero... zero.'"

On the second day, three deaths were reported among 50 overdoses.

A month after the spike began, overdoses are still at 20 to 25 a day in the county, compared with the previous 20 to 25 a week. Synan credits the heroic, tireless work of firefighters and other first responders, who in some cases needed to administer multiple doses of naloxone to save people. Otherwise, a death toll that appears to have been in low double digits, pending lab results, would have been in the hundreds, Synan said.

There is worry about what comes next.

"We've never seen anything like this. This is different from crack; this is not like acid, this is not like marijuana. They (earlier drug sellers) weren't putting in drugs used to sedate people in hospitals like fentanyl; no one ever thought of putting in a drug that can knock out an elephant like carfentanil. This is such a powerful addiction; it physically takes over their body and their thought process. It defies traditional responses."

Synan two years ago wrote a column for The Cincinnati Enquirer after the overdose death of the young village resident who he said cried as police promised they'd help him get treatment if he wanted it.

The next morning, he injected a fatal heroin dose.

"The empathy I give him now is not for the loss of a drug addict, but for the loss of a kid," Synan wrote.

"If it can happen here in quiet Newtown, it can happen anywhere," said Synan, whose forearms are tattooed with the Marine motto "Semper Fi" and with "Sheepdog," for protector. "When you try to protect someone and it doesn't work, there is a helpless feeling."

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Follow Dan Sewell at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell
Saudis accuse Iran of supplying weapons to rebels in Yemen

UNITED NATIONS (AP)  Saudi Arabia accused Iran of supplying weapons to Shiite rebels in Yemen and urged the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Tehran for violating an arms embargo.

Saudi Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi said in a letter to the council obtained late Saturday by The Associated Press that the smuggling of arms to Houthi rebels violates council resolutions and constitutes "a direct and tangible threat" to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the region and international peace.

Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran are regional rivals and back opposing sides in Yemen and Syria.

In Yemen, a Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognized government launched a bombing campaign in March 2015 against Iranian-backed rebels known as Houthis who are allied with army units loyal to a former president. Bombing by the U.S.-backed coalition, comprising nine Arab nations, has pushed the Houthis out of southern Yemen but they still control the capital, Sanaa, which they seized in 2014.

Al-Mouallimi cited several examples of the seizure of Iranian weapons shipments at sea by the U.S., Australia and France. He said the Houthis and forces loyal to Yemen's former president "must be held accountable for their continued irresponsible and criminal behavior."

He urged the council "to take all necessary measures"  diplomatic language for sanctions  to demand that Iran complies with U.N. resolutions.

Iran's U.N. Mission "categorically" rejected the allegations, saying the claims have not been independently verified.

The Iranian mission accused Saudi Arabia of waging an "irrational war against the people of Yemen" and cited "numerous confirmed reports documenting Saudi Arabia's war crimes and violation of international law and international humanitarian law."

"It is surprising that Saudi Arabia would complain to the United Nations about the use of weapons in Yemen even while Saudi Arabia itself has purchased tens of billions in arms that it is using against the Yemeni people," the mission said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia and Iran severed diplomatic relations in January after Riyadh executed a prominent Shiite cleric and angry Iranian crowds overran Saudi diplomatic missions.

This latest dispute comes as the U.N. special envoy to Yemen, Ismael Ould Cheikh Ahmed, is trying again to halt the fighting which has killed more than 9,000 people and displaced 2.4 million, and negotiate a political solution. He has stressed that a new cessation of hostilities is key to restarting talks to end the civil war in the Arab world's poorest country.

In the letter dated Sept. 14, Al-Mouallimi reiterated Saudi Arabia's support for Cheikh Ahmed's efforts to end the conflict.

The statement from Iran's U.N. Mission said, "Iran does not believe in a military solution in Yemen and has always urged for cessation of hostilities, dialogue and resort to legal and peaceful mechanisms to achieve a peaceful resolution to this conflict."
Egypt's foreign ministry denounced on Sunday a White House statement calling for the release from prison of Egyptian-US activist Aya Hegazy, who is jailed over accusations of "exploiting street children."

In an official statement, Egypt's foreign ministry spokesman criticised the "insistence of American official circles to undermine the rule of law and deal with it selectively, to the point where it is explicitly demanding the release of a defendant and the dropping of all charges merely because the defendant holds an American nationality."

The spokesman also called for the release of Egyptian defendants serving sentences in US prisons, as well as dropping charges against them.

Hegazy, 29, and her husband Mohamed Hassanein have been in detention since May 2014 over accusations that her NGO Belady Initiative  a foundation aiming to help street children in Cairo  was involved in human trafficking, kidnapping, and sexual exploitation and torture of children her care. They also face charges of running an unlicensed organisation.

A court hearing for Hegazy and other defendants in the case is set for November.

The statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry comes two days after the White House said that US deputy national security advisor Avril Haines met with Hegazy's family, where he reiterated US President Barack Obama's "deep concern for the welfare of all American citizens held abroad, and assured Hegazy's family that the United States will continue to offer her all possible consular support."

"The United States calls on the government of Egypt to drop all charges against Hegazy and release her from prison," the statement read.

On Thursday, Hegazy's family and two northern Virginia congressmen called for her release at a Capitol Hill press conference, with the family describing the charges against their daughter as "absolutely absurd and unfounded."

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Home favorite Molinari claims historic 2nd Italian Open win

MONZA, Italy (AP)  Home favorite Francesco Molinari withstood the pressure in a final-day struggle with Danny Willett to claim a second victory at the Italian Open on Sunday.

Molinari posted a final round of 65 to reach 22 under and become the first Italian to win a European Tour event twice.

The 2006 winner began round four with an eagle-birdie and held a four-shot lead with six holes to play but Masters winner Willett went birdie-eagle on the 13th and 14th to cut the gap to one.

Italy's Francesco Molinari kisses the trophy after winning the Golf Italian Open, in Monza, Italy, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Home favorite Francesco Molinari withstood the pressure in a final-day struggle with Danny Willett to claim a second victory at the Italian Open on Sunday. Molinari posted a final round of 65 to reach 22 under and become the first Italian to win a European Tour event twice. (Matteo Bazzi/ANSA via AP)

Molinari bogeyed the 13th but birdied the holes either side and held his nerve to wrap up the 1-shot win.

"It's been a roller coaster," he said. "It's amazing to see this amount of people out here supporting me. I had the ideal start, I couldn't start any better. When I birdied 12 I got four shots (clear) and thought maybe I could relax a bit and I got punished straight away.

"Coming in I had nothing left, I was just playing with my soul. I was hitting horrible shots but somehow I managed to bring it in."

Spaniard Nacho Elvira and England's Chris Paisley, who had led after the second round, shared third at 18 under.

Molinari and Willett had shared the lead as round three was completed on Sunday morning, following bad weather in the first two days.

More than half of Darren Clarke's Europe team, including Willett, was competing in Monza ahead of the Ryder Cup at the end of the month.

Willett believes coming up against such a ferocious home crowd will hold him in good stead.

"I'm sure it's going to be 100 times worse when we get to the Ryder Cup in America, but it's been a little bit of a taster," he said. "It's been good to play under that pressure and be under the gun and be in contention.

"If you finish a golf tournament 21 under par and you lose, I don't think you can be too disheartened about it."

Italy's Francesco Molinari, left, is congratulated by president of the Italian Golf federation Franco Chimenti, after winning the Golf Italian Open, in Monza, Italy, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Home favorite Francesco Molinari withstood the pressure in a final-day struggle with Danny Willett to claim a second victory at the Italian Open on Sunday. Molinari posted a final round of 65 to reach 22 under and become the first Italian to win a European Tour event twice. (Matteo Bazzi/ANSA via AP)

Italy's Francesco Molinari hits the ball on his way to win the Golf Italian Open, in Monza, Italy, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Home favorite Francesco Molinari withstood the pressure in a final-day struggle with Danny Willett to claim a second victory at the Italian Open on Sunday. Molinari posted a final round of 65 to reach 22 under and become the first Italian to win a European Tour event twice. (Matteo Bazzi/ANSA via AP)

Italy's Francesco Molinari celebrates after winning the Golf Italian Open, in Monza, Italy, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Home favorite Francesco Molinari withstood the pressure in a final-day struggle with Danny Willett to claim a second victory at the Italian Open on Sunday. Molinari posted a final round of 65 to reach 22 under and become the first Italian to win a European Tour event twice. (Matteo Bazzi/ANSA via AP)
Fake gun, real crime: Police notice uptick in replicas

Whether they shoot BBs, pellets, paintballs or nothing at all, imitation guns can be indistinguishable from the real thing  it's one reason why some criminals gravitate toward them. Plus they're cheap and easy to get.

As Ohio authorities investigate the fatal police shooting of a 13-year-old boy who officers said pulled a realistic-looking BB gun from his waistband, law enforcement agencies are grappling with the use of fake guns to commit very real crimes.

"If I can't go get a real gun, it's easier for me to waltz into Wal-Mart or whatever store sells these things and go get a replica. Because if I go to a store to hold it up, the guy behind the counter isn't going to know it's not real," said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminal justice professor at the University of South Carolina.

FILE - This April 28, 2016, file photo shows a semi-automatic handgun, left, next to a Powerline 340 BB gun, right, similar to a BB gun authorities say a teenager carried when he was shot and wounded by a Baltimore police officer, displayed during a news conference in Baltimore. As Ohio authorities investigate the fatal police shooting Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016, of Tyre King, who officers said pulled a realistic-looking BB gun from his waistband, law enforcement agencies are grappling with toy or replica firearms used in real crimes. (AP Photo/Juliet Linderman, File)

While the federal government does not track criminals' use of toy or replica guns, some individual police departments say they've noticed an uptick.

In Edmonton, Canada, police said imitation guns were involved in 1,598 incidents in 2015  up 38 percent from a year earlier.

In Arlington, Texas, suspects are increasingly using lookalike guns, including an incident earlier this year in which a man carjacked a woman using an air gun that resembled a real pistol, and another case involving a teen who threatened an officer with a replica gun. The officer managed to knock it out of the teen's hand and tackle him.

Arlington police Lt. Christopher Cook said that between March and August, nearly 20 percent of the weapons seized by police after they were used in crimes turned out to be lookalikes.

So far, police haven't had to use deadly force. But Cook said that could change in an instant.

"There's no training in the world that we know of where an officer can readily distinguish a real gun from a fake gun," he said. "That's not realistic, because officers have to make split-second decisions to ascertain whether it's a firearm or not."

A lookalike weapon is at the center of last week's fatal police shooting of Tyre King in Columbus, Ohio.

An officer responding to a report of a $10 armed robbery shot the teen after he pulled out a BB gun that looked "practically identical" to the weapon that police officers use, Columbus police said.

A 19-year-old who said he was the boy's friend told a newspaper that Tyre had a real-looking BB gun, was out to rob someone and ran from police. But an attorney for Tyre's family has called for an independent investigation, saying the family believes the boy's involvement in an armed robbery would be "out of character" and the police version of events "might not be true."

However the facts shake loose in Columbus, the use of replica guns in crime has long vexed law enforcement.

In the late 1980s, after a rash of high-profile police shootings of suspects carrying toy or lookalike guns, Congress authorized a study that found thousands of robberies and assaults to have been committed with imitation weapons between 1985 and 1989. The study also identified more than 250 cases in which an officer used force  deadly or otherwise  on a suspect brandishing an imitation gun.

More recently, Associated Press research found at least 25 deaths involving lookalike guns mistaken by police for actual firearms across the country in the last two decades, dating to the 1994 slaying by a housing police officer of a 13-year-old New York City boy.

"It's horrible, it's horrible, when these kids are displaying these firearms and a life is lost, and after the fact it turns out it's not real," said Allentown, Pennsylvania, police Capt. Richard London.

But he added it can be nearly impossible to tell an imitation gun from a firearm that shoots real bullets.

"It's human nature to defend yourself in the face of that," he said.

At least 12 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have laws restricting the sale or use of imitation firearms, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, while many cities and towns have their own ordinances on lookalike guns.

Federal law requires imitation guns to have orange plugs in the barrel to distinguish them from real firearms, but the tips are easily removed and experts question their effectiveness.

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Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this story.

FILE - In this Nov. 26, 2014, file photo, a fake handgun resembling a Colt 1911 pistol, taken from Tamir Rice after he was fatally shot by Cleveland police, is displayed after a news conference in Cleveland. As Ohio authorities investigate the fatal police shooting Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016, of Tyre King, who officers said pulled a realistic-looking BB gun from his waistband, law enforcement agencies are grappling with toy or replica firearms used in real crimes. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan, File)
Early results: Ruling party winning Russian parliament vote

MOSCOW (AP)  Early results on Sunday showed Russia's ruling United Russia party winning in the parliamentary election amid reports of election violations and visible voter apathy in the country's two largest cities.

With more than 22 percent of the ballots counted, United Russia was recording 50.3 percent of the vote for party-list seats and was far ahead in single-district contests.

The Liberal Democrats and Communists were both recording about 15 percent and A Just Russia had 6 percent. Neither of the two parties which openly oppose President Vladimir Putin was seen making it into the parliament.

Ludmila Ezhova, 80, left, casts her ballot in a ballot box brought by election officials to residents unable to travel to the polling station during a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

The results are likely to change as votes are counted from the western parts of Russia that are more urbanized and where opposition sentiment is stronger. But the election for the 450-seat State Duma, the lower house of parliament, is unlikely to substantially change the distribution of power, in which the United Russia party has held an absolute majority for more than a decade.

Perceived honesty of the election could be a critical factor in whether protests arise following the voting.

Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence.

Russian Election Commission chief Ella Pamfilova, who pledged to clean up the notoriously rigged system when she assumed the post earlier this year, said as the polls closed that she saw no reason to nullify the vote in any location, conceding, however, that the election "wasn't sterile."

Putin, who formally is not a United Russia member, turned up at its election headquarters shortly after the first results were announced and congratulated the would-be lawmakers.

"Things are tough but people still voted for United Russia," he said. "It means that people see that United Russia members are really working hard for people even though it doesn't always work."

Putin referred to the unusually low turnout as "not the highest," but said it was good enough for the Kremlin party to win an absolute majority.

Voter turnout in Russia's largest cities appeared to be much lower than five years ago, indicating that the widespread practice of coercing state employees to vote in previous elections wasn't as prevalent this time around.

The turnout by 6 p.m. (1500 GMT; 11 a.m. EDT) was at a record low of 29 percent in Moscow, compared to over 50 percent five years earlier, and under 20 percent in St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city.

Previous elections have shown that the regions with the highest turnout were where voters, mostly state employees, were pressured to cast ballots.

Independent political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, in remarks on the online television channel Dozhd, described the low turnout as the urbanite's "sofa sit-in."

"It's a form of protest, it's escapism," Oreshkin said. "People want to stay away from politics."

Grigory Melkonyants, co-chairman of the election monitoring group Golos, said the lower voter turnout reflected less anxiety among local authorities to produce a high turnout.

Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister and leader of the Parnas party, said after the first votes were counted that he was concerned about the low turnout: "Citizens had no faith in elections as an institution. This is the result of government policies. It's their fault."

Golos had received more than 2,000 complaints of suspected vote rigging from all over the country by early afternoon. Among the reported violations were long lines of soldiers voting at stations where they weren't registered, and voters casting their ballots on tables instead of curtained-off voting booths

Videos posted on YouTube appeared to show poll workers in several regions in southern Russia dropping multiple sheets of paper into a ballot box.

In the Siberian region of Altai, a candidate from the liberal Yabloko party claimed that young people were voting in the name of elderly people unlikely to come to polling stations. Pamfilova said the results from Altai could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud there were confirmed.

In Moscow, independent election observers and opposition candidates on Sunday reported busloads of people arriving at their polling stations to vote, fueling speculations of multiple voting with the help of absentee ballots.

Melkonyants of Golos said most of the complaints the organization received from Moscow were about those groups of voters although he said he "couldn't categorically say that this is a violation."

"But observers perceive it as a trick which local officials could be using in order to boost the turnout in their districts," Melkonyants said, adding that the bus passengers also may have been coerced to vote in violation of Russian law.

Pamfilova conceded that boosting the turnout in the areas where it was expected to be low might explain the voters traveling by bus and denied suggestions of multiple voting.

"It makes no difference where a person votes for the party of their choice," she said.

This election is a departure from the two previous votes for the Duma, in which seats were distributed on a national party-list basis. This year, half the seats are being contested in single districts. Independent candidates were also allowed, although only 23 met the requirements to get on the ballot, according to the elections-monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Many voters at a polling station in southwest Moscow said the only reason to cast a ballot was to take votes away from United Russia, which has dominated the parliament for more than a decade.

Alexei Krugly, 63, said he voted for Yabloko because he "feels even more distaste for others."

"They're just as bad as everyone, but I stand for diversity," he said. "This time I came (to vote) because Yabloko got its act together and I think it has chances to make it to the Duma."

In the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, dozens of right-wing protesters gathered around the Russian Embassy, where a voting station was set up. At least one demonstrator was detained in a scuffle with police. Another demonstration took place outside the Russian consulate in Odessa, where four protesters were arrested.

Lawmaker and Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov speaks in the party election headquarters after the parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Early results on Sunday showed Russia's ruling United Russia party winning in the parliamentary election amid reports of election violations and visible voter apathy in the country's two largest cities. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Russian citizens read their ballot papersat a polling station during parliamentary elections in the Russian embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

People register to get ballot papers at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A man talks to election commission officials at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A Russian army officer holding a ballot walks through military cadets lining up to get their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets wait to cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A man holds his child as he casts his ballot at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A Russian army officer with his child, foreground, and military cadets line up to get their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A woman walks to cast her ballot at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

A woman walks to cast her ballot at a polling station during parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky poses for journalists as he casts his ballots at a polling station during the parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

People line up to get their ballots at a polling station during parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

People cast their ballots at a polling station during parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A Russian military cadet casts his ballot at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets prepare to cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions.(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov, center, and his mother Aymani, left, dance outside at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Chechen town of Tzentoroi, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules although Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are widely expected to retain their positions in the national parliament. (AP Photo/ Musa Sadulayev)

A woman and Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions.(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A man fills his ballot at a polling station in the village of Vysoki Holm, outside Smolensk, western Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Voting for the State Duma began Sunday morning in the Far East, nine hours ahead of Moscow and won't conclude until 22 hours later when polls close in the Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Navy cadets line up to get their ballots at a polling station during parliamentary elections in St.Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Voting for the State Duma began Sunday morning in the Far East, nine hours ahead of Moscow and won't conclude until 22 hours later when polls close in the Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
FBI: Beaches reopened after pipe bomb blast, probe ongoing

SEASIDE PARK, N.J. (AP)  Jersey Shore beaches were reopened Sunday as an investigation continued into a pipe bomb explosion at a seaside community before thousands of runners were to participate in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors.

Officials would not say if they believe the Saturday afternoon blast in Seaside Park was terror-related, but said it didn't appear to be connected to an explosion that rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood Saturday night, injuring 29 people.

They said each bomb contained different materials, but added that they weren't ruling anything out yet. The New Jersey device contained evidence of a black powder.

Law enforcement officers stand on D Street in Seaside Park, N.J. on Sept. 17, 2016, during the investigation of an explosive device that detonated in a garbage pail before a charity race to benefit military soldiers. (Robert Sciarrino/NJ Advance Media for NJ.com via AP)

Special Agent Michael Whitaker, a spokesman for the FBI office in Newark, said state and federal investigators were still canvassing the Seaside Park area Sunday and conducting interviews. He said travel restrictions imposed after the blast had been lifted.

He declined further comment, citing the ongoing investigation. New Jersey state police also wouldn't comment and referred questions about the blast to the FBI.

Appearing Sunday on CNN's "Inside Politics" with Jake Tapper, Gov. Chris Christie said state police had "some promising leads" but no suspects. The Republican governor said people should not jump to conclusions about who may be responsible for the blast or what the motive was.

Christie said that by his own definition, he personally considered the blasts "terrorism" as well as a knife attack at a Minnesota mall.

No injuries were reported in the seaside explosion. The race had been scheduled to start shortly before the blast occurred, but was delayed due to the large numbers of people registering for the race and reports of an unattended backpack being found.

Officials noted that if the race had started on time, a "good number of people" would have been running past the area where the explosion occurred.

"The fortunate thing here in New Jersey is that no one was injured," Christie said. "We pray for those people who were injured in those other attacks."

Meanwhile, residents in Seaside Park hoped things would return to normal soon.

Joggers, walkers and bikers were out and about Sunday on the boardwalk and nearby streets. Some stopped to take pictures of the site where the blast occurred and of television trucks that remained in the area.

"It's the first time I'm leery of walking around and everything," borough resident Don Bernabe told the Asbury Park Press. "I walked by the first set of garbage cans back there coming this way, and it was weird, but that feeling went away. You never get that feeling around here. Ever."

Another resident, Maggie Powell, voiced similar concerns.

"I have to admit, yes, this whole thing is pretty disconcerting. You don't think these types of things can happen around here, but something like this reminds you it can happen anywhere. It's sad, actually," she said.

Francis Larkin, left, chief of the Seaside Park Police Department joins Brad Cohen, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI's field office in Newark, N.J., at a news conference in front of the Seaside Park Police Department, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016 in Seaside Park, N.J. Authorities said a pipe bomb exploded in the New Jersey shore town Saturday, shortly before thousands of runners were to participate in a charity race to benefit Marines and sailors. (AP Photo/Michael Blasamo)

Police gather at a command center in Seaside Park, N.J., on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, during an investigation of a pipe bomb which exploded before a charity race to benefit Marines and sailors. No injuries were reported. (Peter Ackerman/The Asbury Park Press via AP)
Belhanda again makes an impression as Nice earns 1-1 draw

PARIS (AP)  Midfielder Younes Belhanda again made an impression for Nice as he scored a late equalizer in a 1-1 draw at his former club Montpellier on Sunday.

Last weekend, Belhanda came off the bench to set up a late winner against Marseille in a 3-2 home win with a brilliant back heel.

This time, after going close in the first half, the lively Belhanda struck in the 85th minute, giving Nice an important point that moves it into second place in the French league behind local rival Monaco.

Lyon's French midfielder Steed Malbranque, left, challenges for the ball with Marseille's midfielder Saif-Eddine Khaoui, during the League One soccer match between Marseille and Lyon, in Marseille, southern France, Sunday, Sep. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)

Formerly one of the most highly-rated young players in the French league, Belhanda helped unheralded Montpellier win the title against all odds four years ago, with big-spending Paris Saint-Germain finishing second.

The Morocco international is currently on loan from Ukrainian side Dynamo Kiev, where he has been in and out of the side over the past three years, having also had a spell with German side Schalke last season.

Also Sunday, winger Romain Hamouma scored a penalty in the third minute of injury time as Saint-Etienne beat Corsican side Bastia 1-0.

Elsewhere, Marseille drew 0-0 at home to bitter rival Lyon.

There were no away fans allowed following violent clashes between rival supporters last season before the match.
The Latest: Putin: Pro-Kremlin party produces good result

MOSCOW (AP)  The Latest on Russia's parliamentary election (all times local):

9:35 p.m.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says that the ruling United Russia party, which early results show is winning in the parliamentary election, has produced a good result.

Russian President Vladimir Putin casts his ballot at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (Grigory Dukor/ pool photo via AP)

Putin, who was speaking at United Russia's election headquarters shortly after the polls closed, told party members that he views the early results as a vote of confidence.

Putin admitted that "things are tough" in the Russian economy, but said people see that United Russia lawmakers "are really working hard even though it does not always work."

The popularity ratings of United Russia are far lower than those that Putin enjoys. Putin isn't a member of the party nor has he formally campaigned for it.

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9:20 p.m.

Exit polling by a state-run survey agency suggests the pro-Kremlin United Russia party will win a strong majority of the nationally chosen seats in the lower house of parliament.

The poll by the VTsIOM agency was shown on state television Sunday evening as the final voting stations closed in western Russia.

It showed United Russia receiving 44.5 percent of the vote for the State Duma seats chosen by part-list. Half the 450 seats are being chosen that way. The other 225 were contested in specific districts.

The Communists and the nationalist Liberal Democrats were shown with about 15 percent of the vote each and the A Just Russia Party with 8 percent  roughly the same proportion as in the old parliament.

No other party cleared the 5-percent mark need to win party-list seats.

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9:15 p.m.

The chief of the Russian Election Commission says that she sees no reason to nullify results in any location in the country's parliamentary election.

Ella Pamfilova said in a televised briefing as the polls closed in Russia that she saw no reason to invalidate the vote in any district despite the reports of election fraud.

Pamfilova conceded, however, that the election "wasn't sterile" and added that reports of ballot stuffing were confirmed in three polling stations.

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9:05 p.m.

Russia's Central Election Commission says the very first results show the ruling United Russia party winning in the parliamentary election.

Polls closed at 9 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) in Russia's westernmost region while Russia's regions in the Far East and Siberia have been counting the ballots for several hours now.

Less than 7 percent of the ballots counted show United Russia getting about 44 percent of the vote, with the Liberal Democrat Party trailing behind with 18 percent of the vote. The results are likely to change as votes in the west of Russia are counted.

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3:30 p.m.

Complaints of election violations have been increasing as Russians vote for a new national parliament.

The voting for the 450 seats in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, wasn't expected to substantially change the distribution of power, in which the pro-Kremlin United Russia party holds an absolute majority. But the perceived honesty of the election could be a critical factor in whether protests arise following the voting.

Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence.

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11:20 a.m.

Russia's elections commission head says results from voting for parliament in a Siberian region could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud there are confirmed.

Ella Pamfilova's statement came Sunday as Russians cast ballots for the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

The pro-Kremlin United Russia party is expected to retain its dominance and the three other largely cooperative parties in the current parliament are also expected to win seats.

Russian officials are concerned that widespread allegations of vote fraud could spark protests similar to the massive demonstrations after elections in 2011.

A candidate from the liberal Yabloko party in the Altai region of Siberia told state news agency Tass that young people were voting in the name of elderly people unlikely to come to polling stations.

A woman reads pre-election leaflets at a polling station in Smolensk, western Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

An election commission official talks with voters, outside their home in the village of Gusino, outside Smolensk, western Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

People register to get ballot papers at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A man talks to election commission officials at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A Russian army officer holding a ballot walks through military cadets lining up to get their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets wait to cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A man holds his child as he casts his ballot at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A Russian army officer with his child, foreground, and military cadets line up to get their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's weekend parliament elections take place under new rules that in principle could bring genuine opposition into the national legislature. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A woman walks to cast her ballot at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

A woman walks to cast her ballot at a polling station during parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky poses for journalists as he casts his ballots at a polling station during the parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

People line up to get their ballots at a polling station during parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

People cast their ballots at a polling station during parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A Russian military cadet casts his ballot at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets prepare to cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions.(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A woman and Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian military cadets cast their ballots at a polling station during parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Russia's governing party and its three largely cooperative opponents are expected to retain their positions in the national parliament, but new procedures for choosing the seats could affect their proportions.(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A man fills his ballot at a polling station in the village of Vysoki Holm, outside Smolensk, western Russia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Voting for the State Duma began Sunday morning in the Far East, nine hours ahead of Moscow and won't conclude until 22 hours later when polls close in the Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
Trump supporters struggle to sideline 'birther' issue

WASHINGTON (AP)  Donald Trump's most prominent supporters insisted Sunday that he's put the burden of "birtherism" behind him with his concession that President Barack Obama was born in the United States. But like their candidate, they tried to blame Hillary Clinton's campaign and rejected any notion that Trump's political identity is founded on five years of peddling the false rumor that Obama was born elsewhere.

"It's over," said Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.

But saying Trump's admission of the error was behind him  as two sitting governors and several other Trump supporters did across the Sunday talks shows doesn't necessarily make it true. The issue is nearly certain to come up during Trump and Clinton's first debate, Sept. 26.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

The episode reflects Trump's penchant for spreading unsubstantiated claims when he stands to gain from them and his refusal to apologize or take responsibility when he's been wrong. That operating style did not stop the billionaire developer from vanquishing 16 Republican challengers and capturing the GOP nomination. But in a one-on-one battle with Clinton, it can add up to a character questions with three debates and mere weeks to go before the Nov. 8 elections.

Recent polls suggest Trump may have benefited in recent weeks by his own newfound discipline and Clinton's missteps. She called half of Trump's supporters "deplorables"  then apologized for saying "half"  only to fall ill with pneumonia and wobble during an abrupt exit from this year's 9/11 memorial ceremony. For hours, Clinton's campaign obfuscated about what was wrong with her. It was the worst stretch of her campaign, and during it, a newly confident Trump for the first time in several weeks began to veer off his written remarks.

After scripted well wishes for her recovery, he returned to questioning her stamina as she prepared to resume campaigning last week. "You think Hillary would be able to stand up here for an hour and do this?" he asked at a rally. "I don't think so."

And on Friday, he made his usual sarcastic call for Hillary Clinton's Secret Service agents to be stripped of their firearms, then added an aside to his rally remarks: "Let's see what happens to her."

An uproar ensued over what Clinton supporters said was Trump's newest suggestion of violence against her. On Sunday, Pence called that interpretation "absolute nonsense," adding on ABC that Trump was only suggesting Clinton has been protected by gun-toting security guards for decades. Pence said Trump's point was that "she'd change her attitude about the right to keep and bear arms" if she didn't have a security detail. In fact, Clinton has not challenged the constitutional right to bear arms, despite calling for some stronger gun control measures.

Clinton's campaign on Sunday largely let Trump's stands-ins on TV splash around in the morass of "birtherism" while it grappled with her critical challenge: winning young voters who don't trust her and whose support has waned in recent weeks. Running mate Tim Kaine argued there are five "litmus test" issues that show the former secretary of state, not Trump, stands with millennials. The issues, he said, are climate science, women's health, LGBT equality, immigration and college affordability.

But Trump's high-profile supporters weren't focused on issues. One by one, they argued Trump didn't start the birther fable, that he's the victim of a biased media and that people don't care about the birther issue, anyway.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who's heading up Trump's transition team and has long said Obama was born in the U.S., insisted on CNN that "the birther issue is a done issue."

He blamed a Clinton aide for saying that Clinton herself pushed questions about Obama's birthplace during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. But that aide, Clinton's 2008 campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, told CNN that a volunteer county coordinator in Iowa forwarded an email that promoted the debunked theory. She said she apologized to Obama's campaign chief, made clear "this is not coming from us" and Clinton dismissed the coordinator when she learned about the matter.

Meantime there's plenty of evidence that Trump, beginning in 2011, became the chief promoter of "birtherism" as he considered running for president in 2012.

Christie asserted Trump had not pushed the issue: "It wasn't like he was talking about it on a regular basis."

But in August 2012, in just one example of Trump bringing the subject up, he tweeted: "An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud."

As recently as January, Trump sounded skeptical on whether he now believed the president was a natural-born citizen eligible under the Constitution to be president.

"Who knows? Who cares right now? We're talking about something else, OK?" Trump said in a CNN interview. "I mean, I have my own theory on Obama." On Friday, he finally acknowledged: "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period."

___

Follow Laurie Kellman on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Phoenix Awards Dinner at the Washington Convention center, in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, after receiving a Phoenix award. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

In this Sept. 16, 2016, photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the James L. Knight Center in Miami. Republicans are still counting on strong support from the Cuban-American community in south Florida as they try to win back the White House. But the GOP-Cuban alliance is softening, and Trump could speed the process. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Yemeni leader relocates central bank in blow to rebels

SANAA, Yemen (AP)  Yemen's exiled president sacked the head of the central bank on Sunday and ordered it relocated to the southern city of Aden, a move that would ramp up pressure on the Shiite Houthi rebels who control the capital but also bring increased hardship to millions of Yemenis living under their rule.

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi announced the move from Saudi Arabia late Sunday. Hadi's forces control Aden, while the Shiite Houthis rule the capital, Sanaa, in the north. Most of Yemen's 26 million people are concentrated in the rebel-held north.

Yemen's limited oil revenues flow to the central bank. Sunday's move would therefore deprive the Houthis of a potential source of cash. The rebels' opponents have long accused them of plundering the Treasury.

Yemen's conflict pits Hadi's government, which is allied with a Saudi-led military coalition, against the Houthis and security forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Saudi-led coalition has been waging an air campaign against the Houthis and their allies since March 2015, and the war has left some 10,000 people dead or wounded.

The relocation of the bank will likely cause further economic deterioration in the north, where Saudi-led airstrikes have caused widespread destruction. Government employees have not been paid in months, and the capital, like most Yemeni cities, suffers shortages of fuel, water, electricity and basic goods.
Mining town emerging from Superfund cleanup with optimism

IDAHO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP)  For decades, a creek in the mountains west of Denver sometimes ran yellow from toxic waste gurgling out of abandoned mines  a painfully familiar story in the picturesque wreckage of Colorado's 1859 gold rush.

But after a three-decade, $62 million Superfund cleanup, Clear Creek now lives up to its pristine-sounding name, at least most of the time. In the historic mining town of Idaho Springs, the creek attracts anglers, rafters and even real estate investors.

"The actual designation of the Superfund site on Idaho Springs I would say has been, in my view, nothing but positive," said Bob Bowland, a longtime resident and City Council member.

In this 1941 photo provided by the Denver Public Library Western History Collection, a Colorado & Southern narrow-gauge freight train stands outside the Argo Mill and Tunnel complex in Idaho Springs, Colo. The mill and tunnel complex are part of an extensive Superfund cleanup. (Otto Perry/Denver Public Library via AP)

That offers hope for the town of Silverton, 165 miles (265.53 kilometers) to the southwest, where the federal government is embarking on another big cleanup after a massive spill from the Gold King Mine last year.

But other Idaho Springs residents warned that getting through their cleanup was wrenching, especially in the early years.

When the Environmental Protection Agency launched the project in 1983, the outside world wrongly thought the entire town was contaminated, and the community's reputation and economy suffered, they said.

The cleanup also brought down the enormous power of the EPA on Idaho Springs, a town that even now has just 1,700 residents, and some people felt steamrolled.

"To my knowledge, not a single concern we had made a single difference in any of the analysis or outcomes," former Clear Creek County Commissioner Nelson Fugate said.

But even these critics said the overall results were, for the most part, good.

"In hindsight, everything came out fine," Fugate said.

Arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, manganese and zinc were washing into Clear Creek from abandoned mining sites when the EPA created the Superfund project.

"The name of Clear Creek was a joke," Bowland said. "The creek was never clear, ever. It was just yellow."

The EPA built one treatment plant for wastewater flowing from the mines, and a second is under construction. A concrete-and-steel bulkhead was installed inside a mine tunnel to control the flow of wastewater. Rain and snowmelt were diverted away from piles of mineral-rich waste rock so contaminants wouldn't drain into the creek.

The results were striking, residents said.

"Nobody is saying, 'Oh, that damn Superfund site,'" County Commissioner Tim Mauck said. "It's almost, if anything, a source of pride and achievement."

Mauck and others hope an influx of rafters, anglers and other outdoor enthusiast made possible by the cleanup will help stabilize a local economy still dependent on mining. A molybdenum mine may close, and officials are looking for ways to diversify.

Earlier this year, Bowland and partners bought one of the Superfund hotspots, the historic Argo gold mill in Idaho Springs. Like the previous owner, they still offer tours, but they also plan a hotel, conference center, housing and restaurants.

Mary Jane Loevlie, a partner in the project, had harsh words for the way the EPA carried out the cleanup, but she and her partners are betting that the spruced-up community will flourish.

"I'm very optimistic or I wouldn't be investing in the Argo," she said.

Silverton and surrounding San Juan County were reluctant to accept a Superfund cleanup in their backyard, even though nearby mines have been belching wastewater for decades.

Some worried about the stigma of a toxic-waste cleanup in a town whose economy depends on tourism. They also feared the EPA would wield outsized power over local affairs.

But the 2015 blowout at the Gold King  inadvertently triggered by an EPA-led cleanup crew  convinced residents that something had to be done, and that only the federal government could afford to do it.

San Juan County and Silverton officials toured Idaho Springs and other Colorado towns late last year and took note of Superfund pitfalls. They pressed EPA to limit the area covered by their Superfund designation.

EPA spokeswoman Nancy Graham said the agency worked hard to involve residents in the Silverton-area Superfund planning, holding public meetings, explaining technical information and listening.

"Providing early and meaningful community involvement is a cornerstone of every Superfund cleanup," she said.

It's too soon to know whether Silverton tourism will benefit from a cleanup the way Idaho Springs has.

Idaho Springs can tap into the 3 million people in the Denver metropolitan area just 30 miles away, while Silverton is more than six hours from Denver, in the southwest corner of the state.

Still, Silverton officials liked what they saw in Idaho Springs.

"Absolutely encouraged," Town Administrator Bill Gardner said.

___

Follow Dan Elliott at http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/dan-elliott.

This 1915 photo from the Denver Public Library Western History Collection shows miners on electric railroad cars and an electric locomotive pulling ore cars outside the Argo Mill and Tunnel complex in Idaho Springs, Colo. The mill and tunnel complex are part of an extensive Superfund cleanup. (Denver Public Library via AP)

This undated photo from the Denver Public Library Western History Collection shows the Argo Mill and Tunnel complex in Idaho Springs, Colo. The mill and tunnel complex are part of an extensive Superfund cleanup. (Denver Public Library via AP)
20th anniversary of Utah monument stirs strong emotions

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  As Utah waits to see if President Barack Obama will designate a new national monument in the state, this weekend's 20th anniversary of another national monument rekindled memories of an event that ignited simmering western frustrations about federal ownership of public land.

President Bill Clinton created the Grand Staircase Escalante-National Monument on Sept. 18, 1996, by signing a declaration at the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It was lauded by environmentalists, with actor and Utah resident Robert Redford appearing at the ceremony with Clinton.

But in heavily Republican Utah, he move was viewed as a sneaky, stab-in-the back example of federal overreach.

FILE - In this Sept. 18, 1996, file photo, Vice President Al Gore applauds after President Bill Clinton signs a bill designating about 1.7 million acres of land in southern Utah's red-rock cliff as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, at the Grand Canyon National Park, in Arizona. As Utah waits to see if President Barack Obama will designate a new national monument in the state, the 20th anniversary of the Grand Staircase Escalante-National Monument rekindled memories of an event that ignited simmering western frustrations about federal ownership of public land. (AP Photo/Doug Mills, File)

About 70 miles (112.65 kilometers) north of Clinton's ceremony in the Utah town of Kanab, just outside the new monument, flags flew at half-staff, residents wore black ribbons of mourning and high school students released 50 black balloons as a sign of protest. More black balloons were hung around town, along with signs that said "Shame on you Clinton."

The monument and the way it was created remain a sore spot for many Utah Republicans and local residents, who say it closed off too many areas to development  including one of the country's largest known coal reserves  that could have helped pay for local schools.

They also argued it was too large  enveloping about 1.9 million acres  the largest national monument in the contiguous United States and an area about the size of Delaware.

Many of those same people who now oppose the proposed Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah cite Grand Staircase as proof of why monuments are bad news for rural residents.

In 2015, Garfield County declared a state of emergency for falling school enrollment, and county commissioners laid some of the blame on Grand Staircase.

"That is the worst thing that has ever happened to this county," Garfield County Commissioner Leland Pollock said Friday. Pollock said the monument put the kibosh on a planned coal mine that would have brought 1,100 jobs to the area.

Tourism to the monument has only created seasonal, low-paying jobs and families have moved away, Pollock said. "You can't do anything on a monument," he said.

State tourism officials and conservation groups tout the monument's natural wonders, and a record number of 900,000 people visited its scenic cliffs, canyons, waterfalls and arches last year, according to the monument's federal managers.

The monument deserves to be hailed as a high-water mark in conservation, said Steve Bloch of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Past presidents who created monuments that later became Zion and Arches National Parks were commended for their actions, Bloch said.

"These are federal lands, and this was a step made on behalf of all Americans," Bloch said.

A poll conducted this summer by Benenson Strategy Group, a Democratic firm, and Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican firm, found Utah voters believe the monument has been good for the state by a two-to-one margin. More than half view it positively compared with less one quarter who think it has been bad.

The poll was commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts, an organization that supports the designation of the Grand Staircase monument and the Bears Ears proposal.

The proposed monument at Bears Ears would be about the same size as Grand Staircase, spanning wide expanses dotted with ancient ruins, petroglyphs and stunning vistas.

A coalition of tribes and environmental groups say the monument is needed to protect from looting and damage from off-road vehicles.

Obama has not said if he will designate a monument around Bears Ears, a pair of twin buttes that sits on land considered sacred. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell toured the area this summer and held a public meeting, an indication that the administration is exploring the idea.
Egypt's irrigation minister arrived Sunday evening to the Sudanese capital Khartoum to participate in the tripartite meeting between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan that will witness the signing of contracts with two foreign consultancy firms hired to study the impact of Ethiopias Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) on downriver countries, state-owned MENA news agency reported.

Irrigation minister Mohamed Abdel-Ati and an accompanying delegation were received by Sudanese irrigation minister Moataz Mousa and Egypt's envoy to Khartoum Osama Shaltoot. The meeting will take place on 19-20 September.

The anticipated signing of the contracts comes following a series of delays over "outstanding issues between the French consultancy firms [BRL and Artelia] conducting the technical studies and the legal firm wording the contracts."

In March 2015, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan signed a trilateral declaration of principles guaranteeing that the three countries would take steps to ensure that the building of the dam would not harm the interests of any of the parties involved.

Cairo previously expressed concerns that Ethiopias $4.2 billion dam could affect its historical share of Nile water, though it has recently said it does not believe the construction of the dam will negatively impact Egypt.

Addis Ababa has maintained that the dam project, which Ethiopia says is needed to generate electricity, would not harm downstream countries.

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Barack Obama has dismissed Donald Trump's campaign as being like a 'reality show' as he again said the brash billionaire was 'not qualified' to be president.

In New York for this week's UN General Assembly, Obama spoke to supporters at a fundraiser at the home of restaurateur Danny Meyer and his wife Audrey.

Rejecting Trump as the 'other guy' in the contest, he said the controversial candidate had 'no curiosity, no desire to get up to speed'.

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Barack Obama again dismissed Donald Trump as being 'not fit' to become president. He is seen arriving in New York on Sunday

Obama said Clinton had been disciplined and effective in every position she has held. they are pictured together in July at the Democratic National Convention

The president reiterated his belief that Trump is 'not fit' to become Commander-in-Chief - with the election less than two months away.

He told the audience: 'It's a infomercial. It's a reality show. It's tapping into some of our worst impulses... ones that divide us rather then bring us together. One's that seek to put down people who have been historically vulnerable opposed to lifting them up.'

He has previously criticized Trump for his 'outright wacky ideas'.

Referring to Clinton, who served as his Secretary of State, he said: 'This is somebody who is smart, who is tough and, most importantly, who cares deeply about making sure that this country works for everybody and not just a few.

'And she's displayed it again and again and again. And when I said that I think she is somebody who is as qualified as any individual who has ever run for this office, I meant it.'

Obama referred to Trump s the 'other guy' in the contest, and said the controversial candidate had 'no curiosity, no desire to get up to speed'

Obama has vowed 'to work as hard as I can' to help elect Clinton, in large measure to ensure the longevity of key parts of his legacy. Obama is pictured arriving in New York on Sunday ahead of the UN General Assembly this week where he was greeted by eight-month-old Desmond Hatfield-Rudin

Obama said Clinton had been disciplined and extraordinarily effective in every position she has held.

'And then there's the other guy,' he said, drawing laughter. 'You all know him because he's from New York. Some of you may have done business with him... If you have, it doesn't sound like it's been a pleasant experience.'

Obama went on to dismiss Trump.

He said: 'He shows no interest in even gaining the rudimentary knowledge required to make really hard decisions on a day-to-day basis.'

The president also suggested sexism in society could be hurting Clinton's White House bid.

He said: 'There's a reason why we haven't had a woman president; that we as a society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women.

'And it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly, and that expresses itself in all sorts of ways.'

Obama said the November election shouldn't be close but predicted 'it will be.'

The president suggested sexism in society could be hurting Clinton's White House bid

Clinton has lost ground to Trump in some state and national polls in recent weeks and is looking to their first one-on-one debate a week from Monday as a chance to swing some momentum behind her.

Obama has vowed 'to work as hard as I can' to help elect Clinton, in large measure to ensure the longevity of key parts of his legacy.

The Meyers live less than a mile from the site of a bomb blast Saturday night that injured 29 people. Obama did not mention the explosion.

The president campaigned for his former secretary of state last week in Philadelphia in his first solo appearance on her behalf. He is expected to spend much of October campaigning for her.

The UN General Assembly in New York will be the president's eighth and final meeting and one of his last major appearances on the world stage before he leaves office in January.
Police rescue 15 kidnapped Nigerian oil workers

WARRI, Nigeria (AP)  Police rescued 14 kidnapped Nigerian oil workers and their driver after a gun battle that wounded several of their abductors in the oil-rich Niger Delta, a spokesman said Sunday.

Gunmen abducted the employees of oil industry service company Nestoil on Sept. 2 near the southern oil capital, Port Harcourt.

Police Deputy Superintendent Nnamdi Omoni said police acted on intelligence to attack the kidnappers "den" in an operation that began Saturday and ended Sunday evening. The kidnappers escaped and none were arrested although several were wounded by police gunfire, Omoni told The Associated Press.

One of the kidnap victims was in a state of shock and was taken to a hospital for treatment, Omoni said.

The kidnappers had demanded a ransom of 100 million naira, which is about $322,600. It was unclear if any money was paid.

Kidnappings of Nigerians and foreigners are common all over this West African country. In the southern Niger Delta, kidnappings are carried out by common criminals as well as militants demanding a greater share of oil riches for locals residents.
La Supreme Court considers teen robber's 99-year sentence

NEW ORLEANS (AP)  Louisiana's Supreme Court is considering whether recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings about juveniles convicted of murder mean a juvenile robber's 99-year sentence is unconstitutional.

Alden Morgan, 35, was 17-years-old when he used a gun to hold up a couple with their baby daughter and took their car. The gun went off but no one was injured. He was sentenced to 99 years without parole.

Several justices noted that his punishment is much higher than the nation's highest court would have allowed for second-degree murder, The New Orleans Advocate (http://bit.ly/2cZLyUz ) reported.

"What's the difference between 99 years and mandatory life? Can we discuss that?" Chief Justice Bernette Johnson asked Sept. 8.

Justice John Weiner said such a sentence "essentially and perversely" provides incentive "to actually pull the trigger and commit the homicide, because then he's entitled to parole eligibility, but if he doesn't kill anybody, he's not."

The U.S. Supreme Court has found it unconstitutional to execute juveniles, to give them life sentences for most crimes, and  except in rare cases  to deny them a chance at parole for most killings.

Morgan's case appears to be the first time that Louisiana's high court has considered how those rulings may affect sentences for lesser offenses.

A few of the justices also noted that prosecutors offered only one argument: that Morgan is legally out of luck in seeking a reprieve from the sentence that former Criminal District Court Judge Julian Parker handed him in 1999.

Morgan was tracked by one of the victim's cellphones and arrested shortly after the holdup. He confessed, saying the gun went off accidentally as he bent to pick the man's wallet from the ground.

The couple testified that Morgan had kept the gun pointed to the ground as the mother unstrapped the baby from the car seat, and they heard it go off as they retreated.

Judge Julian Parker gave the maximum sentence, saying Morgan showed no remorse and had planned to kill either the baby or father.

All of Morgan's appeals were rejected. But he filed a new challenge from prison based on the recent U.S. Supreme Court cases, including the retroactive ban on mandatory life sentences for juveniles. The state Supreme Court took up his case last year, assigning the Loyola Law Clinic to represent him.

___
Administrator urges Vatican to remove Guam's archbishop

HAGATNA, Guam (AP)  A Roman Catholic administrator is urging the Vatican to remove Guam's archbishop, who has refused to resign amid accusations of sexual abuse against altar boys.

The move comes after a letter delivered in July from leaders in the Archdiocese of Agana did not move Archbishop Anthony Apuron to leave his post.

Archbishop Savio Hon, a temporary apostolic administrator for Guam who was appointed by the Vatican after the allegations surfaced, also is urging parishioners to sign a petition upholding the statute of limitation on civil lawsuits for child sex abuse. He said the archdiocese "will be exposed to unlimited financial liability" forcing the sale of church property. Guam's population is about 80 percent Catholic.

Rev. Fr. Jeffrey C. San Nicolas, apostolic delegate, delivers a homily on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica in Hagatna, Guam. During the same Mass he read a letter from Archbishop Savio Tai Fai Hon, Apostolic Adminstrator, who called for the Holy See to remove Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron from his position. Apruon, 70, was appointed as archbishop in 1986 by then-Pope John Paul II and has been beset by recent allegations from former altar boys that he sexually abused them in the 1970s. (AP Photo/Grace Garces Bordallo)

A bill that lifts the current statute of limitation passed the Guam Legislature and is expected to be delivered to the governor's desk on Sept. 21. The Guam church has not submitted any substitute bill for consideration.

"Right now we hope any legislation would not damage the social service agencies and the schools that are not a part of these accusations," said Father Jeff San Nicolas, who is Guam's apostolic delegate.

Priests of the island's 26 Catholic churches were asked to read a two-page letter during Sunday masses, which Hon sent from Rome, in which he addressed these matters and also stated that Apuron would undergo a canonical trial.

Parishioner Roland C. Flores, 40, who heard the letter being read at a Sunday mass, said he signed the petition "so they won't shut down Catholic schools." He attended Catholic schools and does not want to see them turned into government facilities.

Hon in the letter also announced the creation of a trust fund to provide compensation for Guam's survivors of clergy sex abuse.

"We are already in the process of assessing certain assets to create this fund. We will address this financial obligation--financial settlements through this fund that we create," said San Nicolas.

Catholics make up about 80 percent of Guam's population. Apruon, 70, was appointed as archbishop in 1986 by then-Pope John Paul II and has been beset by recent allegations from former altar boys that he sexually abused them in the 1970's.

Hon is expected to return to Guam on Wednesday.
Rio de Janeiro hosts Brazil's first Dog Olympics

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  Man's best friends and their owners have embraced the Olympic spirit by taking part in Brazil's first Dog Olympic Games.

Dogs of all breeds, ages and sizes competed for medals in diving, jumping, swimming and running at Toto's Park Club in the Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Barra da Tijuca.

A 9-month-old beagle named Mima took home the gold medal in aquatic jumping. Mima's owner, Aura Stella, said, "I didn't even know she had all this talent."

Dog "Bacana" retrieves a ball during the Dog Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Owner of the dog park and organizer of the animal event Marco Antonio Toto says his goal is to socialize humans and their pets while celebrating sports. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Sunday's event coincided with the final day of the Paralympic Games in Rio.

Dog "Zaia" participates in the jumping competition during the Dog Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Owner of the dog park and organizer of the animal event Marco Antonio Toto says his goal is to socialize humans and their pets while celebrating sports. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

"Mima," center, jumps after winning the gold medal in the jumping competition during the Dog Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Owner of the dog park and organizer of the animal event Marco Antonio Toto says his goal is to socialize humans and their pets while celebrating sports. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Dogs compete in the jumping competition during the Dog Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Owner of the dog park and organizer of the animal event Marco Antonio Toto says his goal is to socialize humans and their pets while celebrating sports. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Dog "Shimbalaie" and its owner compete in the synchronized swimming competition during the Dog Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Owner of the dog park and organizer of the animal event Marco Antonio Toto says his goal is to socialize humans and their pets while celebrating sports. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
'Game of Thrones,' 'Veep' take top honors at Emmys

LOS ANGELES (AP)  "Game of Thrones" conquered the Emmy kingdom Sunday, honored as top drama for the second consecutive year and becoming the most honored prime-time TV series ever on a night of surprises and sharp political jabs.

"Veep" repeated as best comedy series and its star, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, won a record-breaking sixth Emmy as best comedy actress. Jeffrey Tambor's trophy as top comedy actor for "Transparent" also was his second.

But the top drama acting trophies were far from predictable: Rami Malek of "Mr. Robot" and Tatiana Maslany of "Orphan Black" were the winners, both overcoming heavyweight competition.

Jimmy Smits, left, and Dennis Franz pose in the press room at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

"Oh, my God. Please tell me you're seeing this too," said a stunned Malek, who plays an emotionally troubled engineer caught up in a dangerous hacking conspiracy.

"Games of Thrones," the fantasy saga based on George R.R. Martin's novels, received a total of 12 awards Sunday and at last weekend's technical arts ceremony for a cumulative 38, besting "Frasier" by one to claim most prime-time series awards ever.

The Emmys proved more adroit than the Oscars at recognizing and honoring diversity in Hollywood's top ranks, with trophies going to minority actors and behind-the-scenes artists including writers Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang of "Master of None."

But Viola Davis of "How to Get Away with Murder" failed to repeat her 2015 best drama actress win, the first for a woman of color.

Tambor, who plays a transgender character on "Transparent," called on Hollywood to make him the last non-transgender actor to get such a role.

A shaking Louis-Dreyfus ended her speech by dedicating the trophy to her father, who she said died Friday. Before that, she honed in on GOP contender Donald Trump's campaign.

"I'd also like to take this opportunity to personally apologize for the current political climate," she said. "I think that 'Veep' has torn down the wall between comedy and politics. Our show started out as a political satire but it now feels more like a sobering documentary."

She promised to "rebuild that wall and make Mexico pay for it."

Her victory gave her six best comedy wins  five for "Veep," one for "The New Adventures of Old Christine"  and broke her tie with Candice Bergen and Mary Tyler Moore.

Maggie Smith was honored as best supporting actress in a drama series for the final season of "Downton Abbey." It was her third win for playing the formidable dowager. As has become her custom, she didn't attend the ceremony. After Smith's win, Kimmel said her Emmy would not be mailed to her but would be kept in the Microsoft Theater's Lost and Found until she shows up to claim it.

Ben Mendelsohn of "Bloodline" won as best supporting drama actor and also was a no-show.

John Oliver captured the top variety talk series award for "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver," besting competitors including Jerry Seinfeld and host Jimmy Kimmel  who received barbed consolation on stage from Matt Damon, his longtime faux nemesis. The loss "makes a lot of sense," Damon said.

"The People v. O.J. Simpson," which earned the second-highest number of nominations, converted five to trophies Sunday.

The dramatic retelling of the football star's murder trial was honored as best limited series and writing, and earned awards for stars Courtney B. Vance, Sterling K. Brown and Sarah Paulson.

Paulson, who played prosecutor Marcia Clark, brought her as a guest and singled her out from the stage.

Clark was not the "the two-dimensional cardboard cutout that I saw on the news" but a "whip-smart" woman dedicated to justice for the case's victims, Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman.

Regina King claimed the award for supporting actress in a limited series for "American Crime," her second trophy for the program.

Louie Anderson was honored as best supporting actor in a comedy series for his portrayal of a loving but tough mom in "Baskets."

"Mom, we did it!," Anderson shouted, hoisting his trophy and dedicating the award to his late mother, Ora Zella Anderson. "I have not always been a good man but I play one hell of a woman."

"Saturday Night Live" cast member Kate McKinnon won the trophy for best supporting actress in a comedy for, officially, playing various characters. But she knew who to credit.

"Thank you, Ellen DeGeneres, thank you, Hillary Clinton," she said, naming two of the famous people she's caricatured on the show.

The Democratic presidential contender responded quickly with a tweet: "Congratulations on your Emmy, Kate! Big fan of yours, too."

The ceremony started out with a political edge. In a video bit, Jimmy Kimmel was shown trying to get to the ceremony and encountering former GOP presidential contender Jeb Bush as a limo driver.

"Did you know you could make $12 an hour working for Uber?" a game Bush said, smiling. He advised Kimmel that "if you run a positive campaign, the voters will ultimately make the right choice" then told Kimmel curtly it was a joke.

In his opening monologue, the host said he was holding "Celebrity Apprentice" producer Mark Burnett responsible for the "Donald Trump phenomenon."

In an attempt at comedy that fell flat, the ceremony announcer indicated that Bill Cosby would be taking the stage. After an awkward silence, Kimmel said it was a joke  the TV star embroiled in decades-old accusations of sexual assault wasn't invited.

A pair of key changes made by the TV academy may have affected the outcomes in Sunday's 27 categories. It revised how votes are cast and counted, switching from a ranking and points system to letting voters simply check off their top choice. That sharpened the selection process and might have affected past winners who managed to collect enough second-place votes to overcome the competition.

In another revision, this one implemented last year, voting was expanded from blue-ribbon panels to  depending on the award  giving substantially more or all of the academy's 20,000-plus members the chance to vote for finalists.

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Online:

http://www.emmys.org

James Corden, left, and Jeffrey Tambor, the winner of the award for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series for Transparent, walk off the stage at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Damon Wayans, left, presents the award for outstanding variety sketch series to Keegan-Michael Key for Key & Peele at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

David Benioff, left, and D.B Weiss accept the award for outstanding writing for a drama series for Game of Thrones at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

David Benioff, left, and D.B Weiss accept the award for outstanding writing for a drama series for Game of Thrones at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Rami Malek accepts the award for outstanding lead actor in a drama series for Mr. Robot at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Allison Janney looks on from stage left. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Bruce Rosenblum, chairman and CEO, the Television Academy, speaks at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Taraji P. Henson presents an award at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Henry Winkler pays tribute to Garry Marshall, pictured on screen, at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Boris Johnson and human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to launch anti-IS campaign

Boris Johnson will join Amal Clooney at a high-level event at the United Nations on Monday to launch a British-led campaign to bring Islamic State (IS) to justice.

The Foreign Secretary and human rights lawyer will help introduce an initiative to begin gathering evidence about the terror group's "abhorrent crimes" so its members can be held to account internationally.

At the UN General Assembly in New York, they will urge world governments, NGOs and other organisations to join the campaign for justice for the victims of IS, also known as Daesh.

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney will join Boris Johnson at the UN to launch a campaign aimed at bringing Islamic State to justice

Ahead of the event, Mr Johnson said: "We have united to defeat Daesh, now we must unite to bring them to justice. That needs to include looking at ways for the UN to support the vital task of gathering evidence about their abhorrent crimes.

"The global campaign will seek justice for all Daesh's victims, bringing the international community together in defiance of Daesh's efforts to stoke division and hate."

The pair will be joined by the Iraqi foreign minister, the Belgian foreign minister, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and IS survivor and human rights activist Nadia Murad Basee Taha.
Theresa May will urge UN to act against terrorism targeted at air travel

International action is needed to protect passenger jets and airports from terrorism, Theresa May will tell world leaders at the United Nations.

The Prime Minister will push for a Security Council resolution calling for standards to be raised worldwide amid concerns that airports could be targeted as a weak link by groups such as Islamic State.

She will join leaders in New York on Monday for a summit which will also focus on the migration crisis, with US president Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon keen to secure progress before they leave their posts.

Theresa May will join fellow leaders in New York

Mrs May's drive for action on aviation security follows the downing of a Russian Metrojet flight from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt in October 2015 and the attacks at airports in Brussels and Istanbul this year.

As heads of state and leaders of government gather for the UN General Assembly (UNGA), UK officials said Mrs May wanted to ensure that security measures were fully implemented in airports around the world.

At her first UNGA as Prime Minister, Mrs May will be joined by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and International Development Secretary Priti Patel.

The UK has been calling for action at a UN level on aviation security and hopes to achieve a "landmark" Security Council resolution later this week.

"In the wake of the Metrojet disaster last year, the attacks on Brussels and Istanbul airports, we have been doing work in the UK to look at the threat worldwide to aviation and what more could be done on it," a source said.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao) has a series of security standards but the UK believes more can be done to implement them fully.

The UK already has a network of aviation security liaison officers helping countries around the world to help improve protection against terrorism.

The push for a UN Security Council resolution, expected to be considered after Mrs May has left New York, comes ahead of Icao's assembly later in September.

A UK official said: "Part of this is about looking at how, if you bring together a broad number of countries, you can use the expertise of some to help others where we would like to see more being done - either because they are less developed countries that maybe don't have the financing and resourcing to put into it, or maybe they could just benefit from some of the practical expertise that others have built up."

The source added the approach was about making sure that "every element" of the process, from arriving at the airport to taking off, is as safe as possible.

"We have been doing work with the Egyptians following the Metrojet disaster to look at the arrangements that they have there, along with other countries," the official said.

There have been suggestions following the attacks on passengers that security screening could be moved to airport entrances rather than at the point travellers move through to the departure lounge, but the official stressed that operational matters were for Icao to decide.

"This is more about saying there are already international standards set by Icao that we accept are at broadly the right level at the moment, the problem is they are not being implemented in practice."

Mrs May will make her formal address to the UNGA on Tuesday, at an earlier slot in the proceedings than the UK Prime Minister normally gets, reflecting the interest in her as a new leader.

She will also take part in a summit on refugees and migration on Monday as well as an event on the issue hosted by Mr Obama.

The talks will focus on a "more co-ordinated approach to managing migration, to better protecting refugees and being able to help them and also deal with some of the challenges that countries face from the scale of migration we have seen", UK officials said.

Mrs May will also use the New York gathering to meet US business leaders and have a series of talks with counterparts from around the world as she attempts to show the the UK remains a global player following the Brexit vote.

She will also push for international action to tackle modern-day slavery, drawing on her experience as home secretary.

The UN meeting takes place as the candidates to replace Mr Ban jockey for position ahead of the appointment of a new secretary general after his second five-year term expires at the end of the year.
Rail passengers warned of further disruption after Watford Junction landslip

Disruption to rail services is set to continue after a train came off the track when it hit a landslip caused by torrential rain.

The 6.19am London Midland service from Milton Keynes to London Euston partially derailed in a tunnel near Watford Junction at around 7am on Friday.

Another train travelling in the opposite direction "gave a glancing blow" to the derailed train, Network Rail (NR) said.

Workers inspect the northbound train which collided into a derailed train near to a landslip near Watford Junction station.

Two of the four lines of the West Coast mainline have been out of action since the incident.

A spokesman from NR said the trains have now been removed from the tunnel and safety check and repairs to the landslip and infrastructure are being carried out.

"We hope to have normal service through the area in time for the Monday morning peak. Passengers are advised to check nationalrail.co.uk before they travel for the latest information," he added.

Francis Thomas from London Midland said they have been "running a reduced service" across Saturday owing to the two lines still being blocked.

"The plan is to get the two tracks clear and repaired for a full service on Monday morning, but that is subject to Network Rail doing all the work that they now need to do," he added.

"We are very much in the hands of their engineers to repair the tracks."

Rail provider, Virgin Trains, which also operates on the line, advised customers on their website that trains running through Watford Junction and Milton Keynes Central may be cancelled or delayed by up to 20 minutes.
Jeremy Corbyn accused of leaving colleagues 'hanging out to dry'

Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of leaving colleagues "hanging out to dry" after refusing to intervene in alleged attempts by Momentum activists to deselect disloyal MPs so they cannot fight the next general election.

His leadership rival Owen Smith claimed the pro-Corbyn pressure group is actively attempting to take over local parties and force mandatory re-selections for critics, citing the example of Hove MP Peter Kyle.

A Channel 4 Dispatches documentary to air on Monday secretly filmed Mark Sandell, suspended chairman of Brighton and Hove Labour, saying Mr Kyle had "every good reason to feel nervous" and discussing handing out redundancy notices to MPs.

Jeremy Corbyn told MPs they had nothing to fear

Asked by Mr Smith at a Jewish community leadership hustings if he would be "sanguine" about the allegations if they were proven, Mr Corbyn replied : "I don't think it's the job of the leader of the party, be it you or me or anybody else, to decide who the candidate is at a local level."

Hitting back, Mr Smith said: "I think that is hanging out to dry decent Labour MPs."

Aping Mr Corbyn, Mr Smith added: "It's got nothing to do with me, my hands are clean, if Momentum want to do that...'."

Mr Corbyn's efforts at reconciliation with disaffected Labour MPs have been overshadowed by threats of deselection and suggestions members could be involved in picking the shadow cabinet.

The Labour leader said many MPs will face selection battles in their seats due to proposed boundary changes, as some of his allies indicated support for deselecting disloyal colleagues.

Mr Corbyn told MPs they had nothing to fear because he has a "big heart" and is "very friendly" as he continued his efforts to hold an olive branch out to his critics.

Speaking at the north London hustings, Mr Corbyn reiterated his argument that the boundary changes will lead to selection battles.

"I think the boundary changes will unfortunately probably go through, in which case there has to be a new selection process in every constituency," he said.

"Every MP that has a geographical claim on the new constituency is automatically shortlisted, it's up to the local party to decide whether to have a trigger ballot or not, on that basis there will be a selection or non-selection."

Asked if disloyal MPs should be worried, he added: " No, the disloyal MPs should remember that I've got a big heart, I'm very friendly and want to talk to them."

As part of his reconciliation efforts, the Labour leader has said he is willing to restore elections to the shadow cabinet.

But as well as votes from MPs, the top team may have to garner the support of members and the leader in a potential three-way split of the electorate in plans to be discussed at a meeting of the party's ruling committee on Tuesday.

Mr Smith dismissed the idea of involving members, who overwhelmingly support Mr Corbyn, as an attempt to shore up the leader's position, while former frontbenchers such as Chris Bryant and Liz Kendall have expressed concerns.

Tom Watson is due to present alternative plans to reintroduce shadow cabinet elections by MPs, which were scrapped by Ed Miliband in 2011, but the deputy leader and other senior colleagues remain open to Mr Corbyn's idea.

Mr Smith told Sky News' Murnaghan programme: "It's an attempt to further cement his position and use the membership as a means of driving a wedge between the MPs and his leadership."

Labour MPs are beginning to accept that Mr Corbyn is highly likely to remain in post once the leadership contest concludes at a special conference on Saturday, and several have expressed a willingness to return to the shadow cabinet.

The leader has admitted to "mistakes" in his first year, and close ally John McDonnell has told a BBC Panorama documentary to air on Monday that the pair are willing to take lessons in leadership from senior MPs.

But the attempts at forging unity were undermined as Mr Corbyn failed to deny claims that he and his inner circle were plotting to oust Mr Watson from his elected position as deputy leader.

The Labour leader told ITV's Peston On Sunday that Mr Watson and Labour general secretary Iain McNicol were "obviously part" of the discussion the group were having about the future of the party, but insisted "we're going to carry on winning together".

Former deputy Labour leader Margaret Beckett described the situation as alarming and said Mr Corbyn was calling for unity in public but his team were saying and doing things to cause greater disunity.

"And Jeremy doesn't seem to be very good at disassociating himself from it," she added.

Mr Corbyn's comments at the hustings came after his ally Clive Lewis, the shadow defence secretary, backed deselection as a "democratic choice".

Len McCluskey, leader of the country's biggest trade union Unite, said critical MPs were "asking" to be de-selected with their behaviour.

He told Panorama: "I think anybody who behaves in a way that is totally disrespectful and outwith the culture of the Labour Party is basically asking to be held to account."

James Schneider, of Momentum, denied allegations the group was pressing for mandatory re-selections.
More than 60 Syrian government soldiers were killed and dozens of others injured Saturday in US-led coalition air strikes on an air base in the east of the war-torn country, the Russian army said.

"Warplanes from the international anti-jihadist coalition carried out four air strikes today against Syrian forces surrounded by the Islamic State group in the Deir Ezzor air base," the army said in a statement.

"Sixty-two Syrian soldiers were killed and a hundred others were injured in these strikes."

The Russian military said two F-16 and two A-10 jets flew into Syrian air space from neighbouring Iraq to carry out the strikes.

"Straight after the coalition's strikes, IS militants launched an offensive," said the statement, adding that "fierce fighting against the terrorists" ensued nearby.

"If these strikes were due to an error in the target coordinates, that would be a direct consequence of the US' refusal to coordinate with Russia its fight against the terrorist groups in Syria," it said.

While Russian jets deployed in Syria were not operating in the area at the time of the coalition strikes, they later intervened "in support of the Syrian army by targeting IS", Russian General Vladimir Savchenko said.

"A total of 10 strikes were carried out" starting from 1600 GMT, he said in a television briefing.

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Police fear shot mother of nine and nephew were victims of mistaken identity

The murder of a mother of nine and her nephew is feared to have been a case of mistaken identity, police said as their family paid emotional tributes to the victims.

Annie Besala Ekofo, 53, and Bervil Kalikaka-Ekofo, 21, a university student who "never looked for trouble", were gunned down at a flat in north London, on Thursday morning.

At the time of the killings four other people, including a child, were also at the property but were not harmed.

Annie Besala Ekofo has been named by police as one of the two victims found shot dead in East Finchley (Metropolitan Police/PA)

Three days after the double murder Scotland Yard said there was "no evidence to suggest Mrs Besala or Mr Kalikaka-Ekofo were the intended targets of the shooting".

Detectives appealed for information and said they are keeping an open mind as to the motive for the attack - as well as investigating whether anyone else associated with the address was the target.

Police were called by the London Ambulance Service to reports of two people injured at an address in Elmshurst Crescent, East Finchley at around 6.25am on Thursday.

On arrival officers found Mrs Besala and her nephew suffering from gunshot injuries. Both of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

Mr Kalikaka-Ekofo was studying psychology at the University of West London and was "in love with music, photography and art".

Mr Kalikaka-Ekofo's father, Patrick Ekofo, said his son "never looked for trouble".

He said: "He was always the peaceful one.

"Bervil my best friend, my pride, my everything. You have gone too soon, my first son, the person I confided in, we never had any secrets between us. We told each other everything. You were the key to my heart and soul. Bervil always loved his family more than anything."

His mother, Maymie Botamba, said her son "tried hard to achieve everything he believed he was destined for".

"Bervil was a bright, intelligent young man; he was always making people laugh," she added.

Mrs Besala was described as a "wonderful and loving mother and wife" who was "glue that kept everyone together" in a statement from her relatives.

"A daughter, a wife, a sister, a grandma, an aunty, a cousin, a best friend, a voice that was always a comfort even in the hardest situations, she has been taken away from us so suddenly and brutally. A void has been left in so many lives that will never be filled."

Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Partridge from the Homicide and Major Crime Command said their relatives had been left "devastated by the loss of not one, but two members of their family".

He said: "The investigation continues at a fast pace and we have already spoken to a number of people who have come forward and provided useful information to the investigation.

"I would like to thank those witnesses, and reiterate my previous appeal for anyone who is yet to speak to us to do so as soon as possible.

"Whilst the murders took place early in the morning, I am confident that there would have been people up and about, getting ready for work and school.

"It is possible that someone may have noticed a stranger on the estate, or a vehicle that is not usually there. It may have seemed unimportant at the time, but could be vital in leading us to the person or persons who committed these brutal murders."

Anyone with information is asked to contact the incident room on 020 8358 0300, or to remain anonymous, call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
UK should take on more refugees, David Miliband says

David Miliband has joined calls for the UK to take more refugees - suggesting Britain should be committing to help up to 25,000 a year - four times the original pledge.

Last year ministers agreed to take in 20,000 people driven from the war-torn country by 2020 following a public outcry over the fate of those attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

The former Foreign Secretary said this equates to just six refugees per parliamentary constituency over the five-year period - a figure which would not overwhelm his former seat of South Shields.

David Miliband said there "needs to be a clear commitment" from the richer countries to tackle the issue

Ahead of the UN Summit on refugees and migrants in New York beginning on Monday, Mr Miliband said there "needs to be a clear commitment" from the richer countries to tackle the issue.

Speaking on Sky News's Murnaghan programme he said: "I think there is quite a lot of scope for Theresa May to come to the UN and to the Obama summit on Tuesday and say 'look, the UK has a really good record on international overseas aid'.

"We are a leader, the UK is a leader, through the Department for International Development, on global humanitarian help. But we can also make a greater contribution beyond the six refugees per parliamentary constituency.

"Frankly, the UK should be saying we will take 20,000 or 25,000 a year, so four times the current level, 25 refugees per parliamentary constituency rather than just six because countries like Canada are already doing that."

The current president of the International Rescue Committee added: "I think the UK could do more on the refugee resettlement side to match the, frankly, exemplary performance the UK has on international humanitarian aid."

He also said there is a need to deal with the "symptoms of the problem, that is the fleeing refugees", but also the "humanitarian conditions in countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan" which is "driving" people to seek refuge in Europe.

Labour's refugee taskforce chair Yvette Cooper has also urged Mrs May to meet the Government's pledge to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees two years early, and then help more.

The former cabinet minister also called for the Prime Minister to resettle 500 lone child refugees before Christmas - ensuring no youngster is left in Calais' "Jungle" camp over the festive period.

"She must go to this summit to galvanise international support for refugees and show that Britain can and will meet our commitments.

"Right now the decisions Parliament and our country have taken are being mired in red tape and Government foot-dragging.

"Yet all the while lives are at risk. Britain has always done its bit to help those fleeing persecution - we have to live up to those values again now.

"It is shameful that we still haven't welcomed any lone child refugees under the Dubs amendment.

"It is appalling that so many children and teenagers with family in Britain are still stuck in miserable and dangerous conditions in the Calais camp because of bureaucratic delays.

"Surely it is not beyond the wit of two great nations, Britain and France, to end the scandal of Calais."

On Saturday, Solidarity with Refugees who organised the Refugees Welcome march, estimated 10,000 people had taken to the streets of London in a bid to urge the Government to do more to tackle the issue.

Religious leaders, refugees, actors such as Vanessa Redgrave, Douglas Booth and Juliet Stevenson, as well as figures including MP Caroline Lucas, Labour's Lord Alf Dubs and Liberal Democrat campaigner Baroness Sheehan, addressed the crowd.

Solidarity with Refugees director Ros Ereira told the Press Association she hopes the Prime Minister "sets the tone" for what kind of country the UK can be at the summit.

She added: "Hopefully she will want to portray us as an open, tolerant, welcoming society that wants to play an important role on the global stage and lead an appropriate global humanitarian response."

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "The Government has committed to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees under our Syrian Vulnerable Persons Scheme (VPR) and more than 2,800 have been granted humanitarian protection since the scheme began.

"We have secured all the local authority pledges required to meet this commitment and the hard work across Government involving the devolved administrations and local authorities will continue until we have turned all of these pledges into places and resettled 20,000 people.
City banks may lose EU rights after Brexit, Bundesbank boss warns

City banks would lose their automatic right to conduct business in the European Union unless Britain accepts it cannot fully control immigration, Germany's top banker has warned.

Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann said the UK would have to remain part of the European single market or at least the European Economic Area (EEA) if its banks are to retain so-called "passporting rights" to provide services across the continent.

EU leaders maintain that Britain cannot remain in the single market without accepting the free movement of people while the rules of the EEA bind its countries to free movement.

Jens Weidmann said passporting rights for City banks are tied to the single market

But Prime Minister Theresa May sees gaining full control over immigration as crucial to properly implementing the will of the British people expressed in the Brexit vote.

Mr Weidmann told the Guardian: "Passporting rights are tied to the single market and would automatically cease to apply if Great Britain is no longer at least part of the European Economic Area."

Pro-EU Tory MP Anna Soubry said Mr Weidmann's comments undermined the view of a new "hard Brexit" group set up with the support of Tory former ministers.

Leave Means Leave has the backing of Tory former frontbenchers, including Owen Paterson, Dominic Raab and Sir Gerald Howarth, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

The group reportedly wants to pull Britain out of the single market even if no alternative trade deal has been struck.

Commenting for the Open Britain campaign, former minister Ms Soubry said: "On the day Leave campaigners say they want to leave the single market, Germany's top banker says this will severely damage our vital financial services sector.

"Cold, hard reality is setting in for those who want a hard Brexit. The consequences will be felt in peoples' jobs.

"All the evidence shows that outside the single market, the UK's services and manufacturing sectors would be under threat. This must be the priority for the Government's renegotiation."

Her comments come after another Tory former minister, ex-education secretary Nicky Morgan, urged Mrs May to set out more details about her Brexit strategy or face giving hardline Eurosceptics the space to dominate the Brexit debate.

Mrs Morgan told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "I do think that it's time to flesh out some of the issues, particularly around Brexit.

"You are seeing today that there are people in the Conservative parliamentary party now saying they are going to set up a sort of hard Brexit group.

"If you leave a vacuum other people will fill it and therefore I think the time is now to say - 'this is what we would like to get out of Brexit'."

Meanwhile, the Government has been urged to publish its economic analysis of leaving the EU.

Brexit Secretary David Davis has revealed he is conducting a "quantitative" and "scientific" sector-by-sector analysis of the potential impact on the economy and potential policy solutions to harness the opportunities and mitigate the risks.

But he has also stressed that the Government is unlikely to reveal much about its negotiating strategy and plans in public before triggering Article 50 - the formal process of leaving the EU.

Tory former attorney general Dominic Grieve, who also supports the Open Britain campaign, said: "The Government must make public all its internal analysis so Parliament and the country have a chance to scrutinise its decision-making.

"As they have the information, it should be made public in the interests of transparency and so people can make their own judgments."
Lib Dem leader Farron dismisses Clegg and Ashdown's talk of electoral pacts

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has clashed with predecessors Nick Clegg and Lord Ashdown over whether the party needs to form electoral pacts with others to take on the Tories.

Mr Farron pointedly dismissed such talk as a "parlour" discussion of no interest to voters after Mr Clegg suggested a realignment of the centre-left, and Lord Ashdown called for a single pro-EU candidate to fight the Tories in the looming Witney by-election caused by David Cameron standing down as an MP.

"I think the danger in all of this is that it's all kind of political parlour discussions about coalitions and pacts and all the rest of it.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron at the party's autumn conference in Brighton

"I don't think most people out there are interested in that. What they want is a clear voice that will hold the Conservative Government to account," Mr Farron told the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show.

The remarks came after Lord Ashdown tweeted: "Naughty thought Witney by-election. One non-Tory candidate with one cause: the people must have a say on Brexit deal."

Mr Clegg predicted internal divisions within the Cabinet would force Theresa May into a "Panic Brexit" that would open up opportunities for the Lib Dems to work with others.

"I think at that point, particularly if investors start taking fright, and it starts dawning on people that the Government does not have a road map, I think that then the public appetite for other parties to provide an alternative will grow.

"It does not necessarily need to be a new amalgam party overnight. It could be. If that gridlock were to lead to a real sense of drift and malaise, it could be a government of national unity of some description, where parties of different persuasions say they will act together for a period of time, in order to get the country out of the corner the Tories have got it into," he told The Guardian.

Mr Clegg told Sky News that voters would expect like-minded pro-European politicians to work together.

Mr Farron insisted it would be extremely hard for the Lib Dems to work with Labour if Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected as leader this week.

"The problem with Jeremy Corbyn is I don't think he will work with anybody else, and he didn't in the referendum, and that makes it very hard," he said.

Mr Farron again insisted the UK must have a second referendum on any Brexit deal. "There needs to be a referendum on that deal. That is the best option for staying in.

"We trusted the British people on departure in the referendum last June, we should now trust them with destination."

Mr Farron said Leave voters should not be belittled by Lib Dem members as he set out his plans to overturn the EU referendum vote.

The party leader told members not to patronise the 52% who voted to leave and accept the result with grace.

He said: "The real danger (is) that those who voted Remain are so angry with those who voted Leave that they patronise them, demonise them and choose not to understand.

"If we're not on the side of those people, the people who are most cut out and disadvantaged by the unfairness in our society, then shame on us.

"There were appalling lies told but we must be careful tactically and morally not to pat people on the head and say 'you were lied to'."

He added: "I think for democratic reasons and for just wise tactical reasons that we must not stick two fingers up to the 52% who voted to leave.

"You have got to respect the result and take it with good grace."

But he said his party will continue to push for a "democratic" second referendum on the Brexit deal, which the party would reject.

He said: "What an absolute outrage that a deal of any sort should be imposed on the British people without the British people choosing.

"There needs to be a referendum on the deal.
Putin, Churchill and Thatcher are new Ukip leader's political heroes

Ukip's new leader has revealed her political heroes are Vladimir Putin, Margaret Thatcher and Sir Winston Churchill.

Diane James was asked on BBC One's Sunday Politics who, "other than Vladimir Putin", were her political heroes, and she named the two former British prime ministers .

When asked to confirm whether her heroes were "Putin, Churchill and Thatcher", she replied in the affirmative.

Diane James is the new leader of Ukip

The questioning stemmed from a 2015 interview in which Ms James described the Russian president as "a strong leader" who stands up for his country.

Mr Putin has attracted international criticism after the Russian annexation of Crimea, incursion into Ukraine and his support for the brutal Bashar Assad regime in Syria.

But Ms James said in the 2015 interview: "Nigel (Farage) went on record saying if you provoke the Russian bear you get a reaction.

"I admire him from the point of view that he's standing up for his country. He is very nationalist.

"He is a very strong leader. He is putting Russia first, and he has issues with the way the EU encouraged a change of government in the Ukraine which he felt put at risk a Russian population in that country."
'Car attack' policeman now on restricted duties, Met says

A policeman who was filmed attacking a car has been put on "restricted duties" and his use of force will be examined, Scotland Yard has said.

Dramatic footage, filmed by the driver and viewed thousands of times online, features a policeman smashing the windscreen after repeatedly telling the driver to "get out of the car", adding: "You're not allowed to drive it."

The Metropolitan Police said officers stopped the car thinking the driver was a man who is of interest to them but realised he was someone else and he was not arrested.

The car windscreen smashed after the incident

The officer can be seen hitting the side window with what looks like a baton, before the driver says: "I've got a licence. I've got a licence. I've got insurance. You're smashing this for no reason."

The policeman strikes the windscreen, resulting in the glass shattering, and then starts slicing around the damaged area with what appears to be a penknife.

Scotland Yard said a formal complaint has been made to the Metropolitan Police after the footage was circulated of the incident which involves two uniformed officers in the Camden area of north London.

The police force said: "On Saturday September 17, a formal complaint was received in relation to an incident where officers stopped a vehicle in Weedington Road, NW5, on Friday September 16.

"The footage continues to be subject to an investigation by officers from the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) and the driver of the car has been spoken to by these officers.

"The officers involved in the incident have been identified and have been placed on restricted duties.

"Although the investigation is in its early stages, it has been established that the officers stopped the vehicle based on information relating to a man who is of interest to police. On conclusion of the incident the officers identified that the driver was not the man in question and he was not arrested.

"The investigation will examine the officer's use of force during the incident."

Leon Fontana, a 25-year-old mechanic, told the Press Association he was the driver and the person who filmed the footage.

He said the incident took place on Friday evening when he had gone out on an errand for his mother.

He said it was a case of "mistaken identity", describing what happened as "a completely unlawful act".

Mr Fontana, who said he spent the evening in hospital due to getting glass in his eyes, said it was "complete madness" and that he is "still in shock".

He said: "Every time he smashed the glass, fragments of glass were just ricocheting in my face."

Mr Fontana said he is not sure when his car will be fixed and described the whole incident as "very stressful", adding: "I can't believe it to be honest. I can't believe it. I'm still in shock."
PM to address migrant crisis at UN summit in New York as blast probe continues

Theresa May will set out plans at a major United Nations summit in New York to tackle the migrant crisis, as authorities continue to probe an explosion in a crowded Manhattan neighbourhood.

The Prime Minister is among world leaders gathering in the city days after the blast, the discovery of an unexploded pressure-cooker device a few streets away and a suspicious object in the neighbouring state of New Jersey.

Officials are questioning a number of people in relation to the Manhattan explosion, which injured 29 people.

Parliament Square was transformed into a 'graveyard of lifejackets' using 2,500 lifejackets worn by refugees crossing from Turkey

At the summit later, Mrs May will tell fellow politicians there should be a better distinction between refugees and people attempting to enter a country for economic reasons.

She will say that refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach and stress that nations have a right to control their borders and a responsibility to prevent illegal and uncontrolled migration.

She will put forward her plan to address the "unprecedented levels of population movement" around the world.

At the UN summit for refugees and migrants, Mrs May will say that urgent measures are needed to address the issue and maintain "public confidence in the economic benefits of legal and controlled migration".

Mrs May will argue that refugees should seek asylum in the first safe country they arrive in because the current trend of onward movement exposes them to increased danger and benefits criminal gangs.

She will warn that the large-scale movements being seen around the world are not in the interests of migrants or the countries they are leaving, travelling through or seeking to reach.

The crisis also risks undermining popular support and resources for refugees.

Ahead of the summit, Mrs May said: "Across the world today, we are seeing unprecedented levels of population movement and we need to work together to find a better response, which focuses our humanitarian efforts on those refugees in desperate need of protection and maintains public confidence in the economic benefits of legal and controlled migration.

"This is an urgent matter - more people are displaced than at any point in modern history and it is vital that we provide ongoing support for those people most in need of protection."

The three principles at the centre of her plan are that refugees should seek asylum when they reach a safe country rather than travelling onwards, that a better distinction should be drawn between refugees and migrants, and that countries have a right to control their own borders and a duty to reduce illegal migration.

The Prime Minister said: "As the world's second-largest bilateral humanitarian donor, the UK is already playing its part and we will step up our efforts with further financial assistance and concrete action in partnership with the countries most affected.

"But we cannot simply focus on treating the symptoms of this crisis, we need to address its root causes too.

"While we must continue our efforts to end conflict, stop persecution and the abuse of human rights, I believe we also need a new, more effective global approach to manage migration.

"This should be based around three principles which will better serve the interests of migrants, who are exposed to danger; the interests of the countries they are leaving, travelling through or seeking to reach; and, most importantly, the interests of refugees, for whom we all share a responsibility to help."

As well as speaking at the UN event, chaired by secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, Mrs May will also take part in a summit on refugees hosted by US president Barack Obama on Tuesday.

By setting out her plan, Mrs May is laying down an early marker as the UN begins two years of negotiations on politically binding compacts on refugees and migrants.

Refugee Council chief executive Maurice Wren said the UK must lead by example in helping the world's refugees.

He said: "These proposals indicate that the Prime Minister is intent on attempting to reinforce the untenable status quo; blocking off people's escape routes and leaving poor countries looking after nearly nine out of 10 of the world's refugees.

"What we really need to see instead is the UK leading by example, adopting sustainable solutions aimed at saving refugees' lives and implementing a more equitable system for sharing responsibility for protecting them."

Downing Street said there had been "no changes" to the Prime Minister's itinerary as a result of the bomb blast.
Number of VW vehicles fixed in UK after emissions scandal 'simply unacceptable'

Only around one in 10 UK Volkswagen vehicles fitted with software to cheat emissions tests were fixed in the year since the scandal broke, figures released by the manufacturer show.

The controversy began on September 18 last year when US regulators told VW to recall 482,000 diesel cars after discovering they contained illegal defeat devices.

The Environmental Protection Agency said the software allowed cars to release fewer smog-causing pollutants during tests than in real-world driving conditions.

The controversy began on September 18 last year when US regulators told VW to recall 482,000 diesel cars

Volkswagen said 1.2 million vehicles were affected by the issue in the UK, which was equivalent to nearly one in 10 of the country's diesel cars.

This includes the VW brand, Audi, Skoda, Seat and VW commercial vehicles.

Volkswagen told the Pre ss Association that "over 110,000 vehicles in the UK" have undergone remedial action - a figure which Louise Ellman, Labour MP and chair of the Transport Select Committee, described as "simply unacceptable".

She said: " One year on from the Volkswagen emissions scandal, nine out of 10 drivers are still waiting for their car to be recalled. Time and time again, VW's schedule has slipped.

"This is simply unacceptable when Paul Willis, VW UK's managing director, promised the Transport Committee that VW drivers could expect to have their cars fixed by the end of this year.

"People deserve to know when they can expect their vehicles to be corrected and returned to them. It's time VW came clean with its customers. If it refuses to do so, the Government must act."

Volkswagen said the process of having the fixes approved for different models by regulators in various countries is complex.

It added that it has written to more than 300,000 UK customers requesting them to have the modification work carried out.

Jim Holder, editorial director of magazines Autocar and What Car?, said the fixes were taking " far longer to be approved than VW's bosses anticipated".

He went on: " We know from the emails we've received from angry owners that this has left many of them frustrated - not just because there is no end to the saga in sight, but also because they don't feel VW has communicated well with them."

Sales of Volkswagen cars in the UK have fallen following the scandal.

Figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders show that registrations in the first eight months of the year were down by 10% compared to the same period in 2015.

As a result of the scandal Martin Winterkorn resigned as VW's chief executive . He was replaced by former Porsche boss Matthias Mueller.

In June Volkswagen agreed to settle consumer lawsuits and government allegations in the US by taking steps that could cost the manufacturer 14.7 billion US dollars (11.2 billion).

The company has been criticised over its decision to compensate customers in the US with up to 10,000 US dollars (7,600) but not give anything to UK owners.

Alex Neill, director of policy and campaigns at consumer group Which?, said: " One year on and VW customers in the UK will be questioning why US consumers are getting compensation while nothing is on the table for the 1.2 million owners affected in this country.

"The Government has had a year to address this issue, they now need to urgently ensure that UK customers are treated fairly."

Law firm Leigh Day represents around 10,000 Volkswagen owners and is preparing a group legal action against the manufacturer.

Shazia Yamin, a lawyer at the firm, said: " One of the reasons given by Volkswagen in refusing to compensate UK owners is that these vehicles will be repaired with no adverse effect on the vehicles' performance.

"However, to date less than 10% of the affected vehicles have been repaired. More worryingly, Volkswagen have released no detailed information on what the repair involves, leaving affected owners in the dark about what is actually being done to their vehicle."

A spokesman for Volkswagen UK said: " At Volkswagen Group UK customers are our priority and every owner has been written to at least three times to keep them up to date.

"We are working hard to apply the approved technical measures to as many cars as swiftly as possible as soon as they are approved.

"The process of applying the technical measures has been under way since January 2016 and we have applied the measures to over 110,000 vehicles in the UK.

" We will continue to work closely with the authorities involved to fulfil our commitments."

A Department for Transport spokesman said: "The Government takes the unacceptable actions of VW extremely seriously. That is why we have taken swift action to protect the UK consumer.

"We were the first country in Europe to complete our own tests (April 2016) to ensure the issue was not industry-wide.

"We continue to push VW to take action to compensate the UK consumer.
Business confidence at four-year low following Brexit vote

Business confidence has been dragged to a four-year low amid rising concerns over economic uncertainty and a slowdown in demand following the EU referendum result.

Expectations that sales, orders and profits will grow over the next six months slipped to 12%, down from 38% in January, according to Lloyds Bank's Business in Britain report.

More than a quarter of companies cited economic uncertainty as the main threat to growth over the next six months, while 18% said the biggest danger came from a drop in demand.

Uncertainty over the EU referendum result has led to business confidence taking a tumble, the report found

The outlook for demand, employment and investment has weakened across all sectors, the report said. However, services saw one of the biggest slides in confidence, falling by an average of 30 points in retail and wholesale, hospitality and leisure, and business and other services.

Tim Hinton, managing director of mid markets and SME banking at Lloyds, said the blow to confidence since January's report should viewed in the context of recent economic and political shocks.

"The EU referendum vote has introduced a level of uncertainty for companies as the UK decides on the best model for its future relationship with the EU, and this is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

"Whilst sentiment has fallen to a four-year low, it remains well above the lows reached during the global financial crisis of 2008/9."

The report, which gathers the views of around 1,500 businesses, said expectations for an exports boost have also waned, with hopes of a total rise in global export sales dropping 15 points to 20%.

The plunge in the value of the pound to 31-year lows following Britain's vote to leave the EU has made UK goods more competitive on the global market, helping exports to grow.

Employment also remained under pressure, with the number of firms expecting to recruit more staff over the next six months dropping for the fourth consecutive survey.
Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith in final push for Labour leadership votes

Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith will make a final push for votes against the backdrop of a crunch party meeting on who decides their shadow cabinet.

Voting in the Labour leadership contest closes at noon on Wednesday, with the two candidates seeking to make the most of the last full day of campaigning .

But distractions from the main event include a meeting of the party's ruling body on Tuesday, with the National Executive Committee expected to decide whether to reintroduce votes for the shadow cabinet and what system to take forward - if any.

Jeremy Corbyn, left, and leadership rival Owen Smith

Labour deputy leader Tom Watson is understood to want full shadow cabinet elections by MPs instead of including members, an idea floated by Mr Corbyn.

It is understood Mr Watson's proposal would also allow the leader to retain the option to sack members of the shadow cabinet.

Leadership front-runner Mr Corbyn has already said he is ready to "reach out" to Labour MPs critical of his leadership if he retains power on Saturday, when the result is announced.

But the system on how to appoint shadow cabinet members will prove key in swaying former shadow cabinet members, who resigned en masse in an attempt to undermine Mr Corbyn, to return to the frontbench.

Separately, Mr Watson has insisted anyone seeking to remove him from his elected position should "bring it on".

He believes such a challenge would not be useful for the party following this summer's bitter contest involving Mr Corbyn and Mr Smith.

Doubts have been cast over Mr Watson's future after Mr Corbyn refused to deny a plot to topple him from his elected position.

Speaking to The House magazine before details of the plot emerged, Mr Watson said: "No-one exists in democratic office forever.

"If there's a move to nominate another candidate and trigger a deputy leadership race, then let's bring it on.

"But I'm not entirely certain it would be a useful expenditure of collective political energy, particularly after the summer we've had."

Elsewhere, Mr Corbyn's campaign team says it wants to make 10,000 phone calls to Labour members and supporters before voting closes, in what they are calling "Super Tuesday".

And Mr Smith described his bid to become Labour leader as more important than his special adviser duties linked to the Northern Ireland peace process.

He told The Guardian: "I always thought this was the most important thing I'd ever do, having previously worked on the peace process and thought that was the most important thing I'd ever do."

Mr Smith also voiced concerns over shadow chancellor John McDonnell, a close ally of Mr Corbyn.

The MP for Pontypridd said: "I think John is someone who is increasingly a divisive force in the Labour Party.

"I think he is a talented politician in many regards, and some of the things he's said about the economy are right.

"But I think he thinks, unlike me, that the Labour Party is just one vehicle. And he can imagine a world in which the Labour Party falls away and something else takes its place."

Tom Watson said moves to oust him would not be useful for Labour given the leadership battle between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith
Unidentified gunmen killed two Saudi policemen in the mainly Shiite eastern city of Dammam late on Saturday, the interior ministry said, describing it as a "terrorist attack".

The two officers were patrolling in a police car when they came under fire at around 11:30 pm (2030 GMT), a ministry spokesman told the official Saudi Press Agency.

They were both pronounced dead on arrival in hospital.

The spokesman did not specify who it held responsible for the shooting but there have been previous attacks on police in mainly Shiite areas of the oil-rich east of the kingdom this year.

In January four police were killed in attacks.

The Shiite minority in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia has long complained of discrimination and there has been sporadic unrest since the suppression of a Shiite-led uprising in neighbouring Bahrain sparked a wave of protests in 2011.

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U.S.-led forces strike Syrian troops, prompting emergency U.N. meeting

By Angus McDowall and Andrew Osborn

BEIRUT/MOSCOW, Sept 17 (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.

The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

The United States relayed its "regret" through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement that Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area.

The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardizing the Syria deal.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move.

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power told reporters.

She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life."

When asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark."

"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin told reporters.

Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the jihadist militants.

"We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.

Power said Zakharova should be embarassed by that claim. Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the United States colluding with Islamic State militants.

Zakharova said the strikes threatened to undermine the ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, which has been aiding Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, and the United States, which has backed some rebel groups.

The Russian Defence Ministry said U.S. jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 90 Syrian soldiers had been killed.

Australia also participated in the strikes and the Australian Department of Defence offered its condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded in the incident.

The ceasefire, which took effect on Monday, is the most significant peacemaking effort in Syria for months, but has been undermined by repeated accusations of violations on both sides and by a failure to bring humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

Apart from the U.S. and Russian involvement, Assad is supported by Iran and Arab Shi'ite militias, while Sunni rebels seeking to unseat him are backed by Turkey and Gulf Arab states.

All the warring parties are also sworn enemies of Islamic State, whose territory extends along the Euphrates valley from the Iraqi border, including around Deir al-Zor, up to land near Syria's frontier with Turkey.

In its sixth year, the conflict has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced half of Syria's pre-war population, prompted a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe and inspired a wave of jihadist attacks across the world.

Syria's army said the U.S.-led strikes, which took place at around 5 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) were "conclusive evidence" of U.S. support for Islamic State, calling them "dangerous and blatant aggression".

The U.S. military said in its statement that Syria was a "complex situation" but that "coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit".

Islamic State said via its Amaq news channel it had taken complete control of Jebel Tharda, where the bombed position was located, which would have allowed it to overlook government-held areas of Deir al-Zor.

The city's airport and some districts have been entirely surrounded by Islamic State since last year, with the airport providing their only external access.

However, Russia and Syrian state media said the Syrian army later recaptured positions it had lost. The Observatory monitoring group said at least 30 Islamic State fighters were killed in heavy Russian air strikes during that fighting.

The incident also threatens to undermine proposed joint targeting by the United States and Russia of Islamic State and some other jihadist groups across Syria.

SHAKY TRUCE

Earlier on Saturday, Russia and Syrian rebels cast doubt over the prospects for the increasingly shaky ceasefire, with Moscow saying the situation was worsening and a senior insurgent warning that the truce "will not hold out".

While the ceasefire has reduced fighting, some violence has persisted across Syria. Meanwhile, there has been little movement on promised aid deliveries to besieged areas and both sides have accused the other of bad faith.

The U.N. told Reuters aid trucks which had been expected to move to Aleppo on Sunday morning, were once again being delayed.

"Obviously the humanitarian community is very frustrated by this. We have hoped to go today with the convoys," David Swanson, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. "We stand ready to begin the response effort as soon as we get the green light."

Russia's Defence Ministry said conditions in Syria were deteriorating, adding that it believed the ceasefire had been breached 199 times by rebels and saying the United States would be responsible if it were to collapse.

After the Deir al-Zor attack, it said Moscow had told the United States to rein in the Syrian opposition and make sure it did not launch a new offensive, adding that it had informed Washington about a concentration of rebels north of Hama.

Insurgents say they only reluctantly accepted the initial deal, which they believe is skewed against them, because it could relieve the dire humanitarian situation in besieged areas they control, and blamed Russia for undermining the truce.

"The truce, as we have warned, and we told the (U.S.) State Department - will not hold out," a senior rebel official in Aleppo said, pointing to the continued presence of a U.N. aid convoy at the Turkish border awaiting permission to enter.
Russia tells U.S. to make sure Syrian opposition does not launch new offensive

MOSCOW, Sept 17 (Reuters) - The Russian Defence Ministry said on Saturday it had told the United States to rein in the Syrian opposition and make sure it did not launch a new offensive which Moscow warned would be met with full force by the Syrian army.

The ministry said in a statement it had told Washington about a concentration of militants in the north of Hama province and about what it said looked like possible attempts to launch an offensive.
U.S. military "pretty sure" Syrian forces hit in strike

WASHINGTON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. military official said he was "pretty sure" the targets hit in a halted coalition-led air strike on Saturday were Syrian forces, and that the attack was carried out using U.S. intelligence after days spent tracking potential targets.
Merkel faces setback in Berlin vote due to migrant fears

By Michael Nienaber

BERLIN, Sept 18 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives look set to suffer a second electoral blow in two weeks in a Berlin city vote on Sunday as a growing number of voters are expected to express their unease with her refugee-friendly policy.

The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) is expected to profit from a popular backlash over Merkel's decision a year ago to keep German borders open for refugees and the party could enter its tenth regional assembly out of Germany's 16 states.

Polls point to heavy losses for Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in the vote for the Berlin city assembly which means the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) may be able to ditch them from their current coalition.

That would likely raise the pressure further on Merkel one year before a federal election and could deepen divisions within her conservative camp.

A drubbing in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern two weeks ago triggered calls from Merkel's conservative allies in Bavaria to toughen up her migrant policy with measures such as introducing a cap of 200,000 refugees per year.

Merkel rejects such a limit and defends her approach to find a European solution to the migration issue by securing the continent's external borders, agreeing migration deals with countries like Turkey and distributing refugees across Europe.

The recent election losses have even raised questions about whether Merkel, Europe's most powerful leader, will stand for a fourth term next year but her party has few good alternatives so she still looks like the most likely candidate.

The latest Berlin poll by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for ZDF public broadcaster put the CDU on 18 percent, down 5 points from the last election in 2011 and far behind the SPD's projected 23 percent. It put the AfD on 14 percent, the environmentalist Greens on 15 percent and the leftist Die Linke at 14.5 percent.

The AfD has campaigned heavily on the migrant issue, playing to voters' fears about the cost of the roughly 1 million migrants who entered Germany last year and about their integration.

Security, especially after two attacks claimed by Islamic State in Bavaria in July that injured 20 people and deadly Islamist militant attacks in neighbouring France and Belgium earlier in the year, are also a concern to voters.

The SPD, Merkel's junior coalition partner at the federal level, wants to form a coalition with the Greens and, if needed, the leftist Die Linke.
Samsung Electronics says sold shares in four companies

SEOUL, Sept 18 (Reuters) - South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Sunday it sold shares in ASML Holding NV, Rambus Inc, Seagate Technology Plc and Sharp Corp.

Samsung said in a statement it sold about half of its shares in ASML while selling its entire 4.2 percent stake in Seagate, its 0.7 percent stake in Sharp and its 4.5 percent stake in Rambus.

The company did not disclose financial terms of the share sales.
India blames Pakistan as Kashmir attack kills 17 soldiers

By Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR, India, Sept 18 (Reuters) - India accused Pakistan of being behind a separatist attack on an army base near their disputed frontier on Sunday that killed 17 soldiers, in one of the most deadly attacks in Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency.

Four commando-style gunmen, armed with AK-47 assault rifles and grenade launchers, burst into the brigade headquarters in Uri at 5:30 a.m. (midnight GMT) and were killed after a three-hour gunfight, a senior Indian army officer said.

The incident sharply increased tensions between the bitter, nuclear-armed rivals and will raise fears of a potential military escalation. Indian and Pakistani troops are in close proximity in many places along one of the world's most heavily militarised frontiers, and exchanges of fire are not uncommon.

Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh told reporters in New Delhi that Sunday's attack bore the hallmarks of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed. Evidence gathered at the scene indicated the attackers were foreign and their equipment bore Pakistani markings, he added.

"Our men are ready to give a befitting response," Singh said in response to a reporter's question. He did not elaborate.

Pakistan denied any involvement.

Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who in recent weeks has signalled a more muscular approach in his country's rivalry with Pakistan, strongly condemned what he called the "cowardly terror attack".

"I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi said in a series of Twitter posts.

The raid came as tensions were already running high in India's only Muslim-majority region, which has faced more than two months of protests after the July 8 killing of a commander of another Pakistan-based separatist group.

At least 78 civilians have been killed and thousands injured in street clashes with Indian security forces, who have been criticised by human rights groups for using excessive force.

In an even stronger response, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted: "Pakistan is a terrorist state and should be identified and isolated as such."

Pakistan rejected allegations that it was involved. "India immediately puts blame on Pakistan without doing any investigation. We reject this," foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria told Reuters.

India has blamed Pakistan-based militant groups for a string of attacks on its territory - including an assault on Mumbai in 2008 that killed 166 people.

The two countries have fought two of their three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 over Kashmir, which is divided between them along a de facto border known as the "Line of Control". Both claim the former princely state in full.

CHOPPERS FLY IN, SMOKE RISES

Most of the fatalities happened in army tents and temporary shelters that caught fire from incendiary ammunition used by the attackers, Singh, the Indian army's director general of military operations, told the briefing in New Delhi.

He informed his Pakistani counterpart of his findings, which linked the attack on Uri to a similar raid in January on an Indian Air Force base in Punjab that India also blames on Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The Pakistani army confirmed in a statement that the Indian side had established contact via a hotline. Its military operations chief "reiterated that no infiltration is allowed from Pakistani soil", it said.

Reuters television footage showed helicopters flying in to evacuate the injured as an operation continued to secure the area. Smoke rose from the compound, set in mountainous terrain. The Defence Ministry earlier put the number of wounded at 35.

Singh, the home minister, chaired a crisis meeting in New Delhi and cancelled trips to Russia and the United States. The army chief of staff headed to Uri, roughly halfway between Indian Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar and Islamabad, to investigate the attack.

"There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped," Singh said in a series of strongly-worded tweets that were confirmed as genuine by his office.

The U.S. State Department "strongly condemned" the Uri attack, which comes weeks after Secretary of State John Kerry visited New Delhi.

After that meeting Kerry urged Pakistan to do more to combat terrorism, while also announcing the resumption of trilateral talks with India and Afghanistan this month in New York, leaving Islamabad looking isolated.

WORST BODY COUNT IN YEARS

The military death toll was one of the worst India has suffered in a single incident during years of conflict in its northernmost territory.

Before this attack, 102 people had been killed in separatist violence in India's part of the Himalayan region this year. Among them were 30 security personnel, 71 militants and one civilian, according to a tally by the New Delhi-based South Asia Terrorism Portal.

Modi recently raised the stakes in the neighbours' decades-old feud by expressing support for separatists in Pakistan's resource-rich Baluchistan province.

Pakistan has, meanwhile, called on the United Nations and the international community to investigate atrocities it alleges have been committed by Indian security forces in Kashmir.

The UN is preparing to hold its annual general assembly in New York, where Kashmir is likely to come on to the agenda amid concerns that India's tough rhetoric could herald a military escalation between the old foes.

Senior Indian journalist and commentator Shekhar Gupta said Pakistan would be "delusional" to think that India would not respond. "This India has moved on from old strategic restraint," he said.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been on edge since the New-Year attack on the Pathankot air force base in Punjab, near the border with Pakistan, that killed seven uniformed men.
In Hungary's migrant vote, only the turnout is in doubt

By Marton Dunai and Krisztina Than

ASOTTHALOM, Hungary, Sept 18 (Reuters) - On a recent evening on Hungary's border with Serbia, a fleet of police trucks raced along the dusty boundary.

A heat sensor trained on the razor wire fence had picked up migrants approaching, officers explained. The migrants, about two dozen in number, quickly split up and went back deep into Serbian territory, police said.

It was a scene that has played out many times in the months since Europe's migrant crisis erupted.

"The human traffickers are never idle. Their night-vision drones watch our patrol system. They take advantage as soon as we redeploy our forces," said police commander Zsolt Gulyas.

Hungary's border with Serbia is relatively calm these days, in contrast to scenes last September when hundreds of thousands of migrants crossed Hungary on the way to western Europe. That was before Hungary erected a razor wire fence.

"We have created a system that works," said Gulyas, referring to the fence and the thousands of police and soldiers who guard the border day and night.

Hungary allows 30 people per day into two transit zones where they can submit an asylum request. Anyone who breaches the border is escorted back through gates in the fence if caught within 8 km.

Rights group Helsinki Committee says the system is unsustainable. "The new Iron Curtain is a slap in the face for human rights and Hungary's European values," said co-chair Marta Pardavi.

With only weeks left until an Oct. 2 referendum on whether Hungary should reject EU migrant quotas, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who opposes immigration into the EU, has largely managed to seal the Serbia-Hungary border to migrants.

This in turn has cemented support for his Fidesz party. A poll by government-friendly think tank Szazadveg earlier this year said 79 percent of Hungarians supported the border fence. The government has started fortifying the fence with a second barrier.

"We lose our European values and identity the way frogs are cooked in slowly heating water. Quite simply, slowly there will be more and more Muslims and we will no longer recognise Europe," Orban told parliament on Monday.

FRONT AND CENTRE

Opposition politicians and some analysts say that by keeping the issue of migration front and centre, Orban is trying to divert attention from problems elsewhere - education, healthcare and corruption.

"Fidesz' support goes up when the debate is about migration, it goes down when it's about other issues. It is vital for Fidesz to keep the migration issue on the agenda," said Csaba Toth, director of the think tank Republikon Institute.

The main challenger to Orban's Fidesz is the nationalist, anti-immigrant Jobbik party. It is far behind Fidesz in the polls - a recent survey put Jobbik's support at 10 percent, versus 28 percent for Fidesz - but Jobbik could benefit from any perceived softening of the government's stance on migrants.

Like Fidesz, Jobbik has asked Hungarians to reject EU quotas. But its leader Gabor Vona has said Orban should resign if participation falls below the minimum required to make the vote valid. By law, the turnout must exceed 50 percent.

At the border, the political antagonism between Jobbik and Orban's Fidesz takes a more muted form.

The mayor of Asotthalom, a village on the Serbian border, is Jobbik vice chairman Laszlo Toroczkai. He said that when the government announced it would build the fence last year it was the "happiest day of my life".

For more than a year Asotthalom was on the route travelled by tens of thousands of migrants on their way to Germany.

"By September 2014 migration had became so massive that I realised nothing but a serious military force and a physical fence could stop this invasion," said Toroczkai.

Standing beneath the razor wire coils, which he says he championed, he told Reuters he was no longer worried for his family, who live on a farm close to the border.

LIBERAL VOICES LARGELY SILENT

Leftist and liberal parties have been wrong-footed by the migrant debate. The Socialists have urged Hungarians to boycott the referendum, which they say serves Fidesz' interests - but Socialist chairman Gyula Molnar said he would support Orban against quotas imposed by the EU.

The latest polls show participation may or may not break the 50-percent mark required by law, but the result seems to be beyond doubt.
Pro-Putin party wins 44.5 pct in parliament vote: exit poll

By Polina Devitt and Gleb Stolyarov

MOSCOW/SARANSK, Russia, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin comfortably won a parliamentary election on Sunday, but early indications were that turnout was low, suggesting a softening of enthusiasm for the ruling elite 18 months away from the next presidential election.

The ruling United Russia party, which Putin founded, won 44.5 percent in Sunday's vote, an exit poll showed, slightly down on the last election. But it was still enough to preserve the dominance of Putin's allies in the Duma, or lower house of parliament.

Putin, speaking to United Russia campaign staff a few minutes after polling stations closed, said the win showed voters still trusted the leadership despite an economic slowdown made worse by Western sanctions over Ukraine.

Putin's aides are likely to use Sunday's result, which leaves United Russia by far the biggest party, as a springboard for his own campaign for re-election in 2018, though he has not yet confirmed that he will seek another term.

"We can say with certainty that the party has achieved a very good result; it's won," Putin said at the United Russia headquarters, where he arrived together with his ally Dmitry Medvedev, who is prime minister and the party's leader.

Alluding to the spluttering economy, which is forecast to shrink this year by at least 0.3 percent, Putin said: "We know that life is hard for people, there are lots of problems, lots of unresolved problems. Nevertheless, we have this result."

In the last election for the Duma, or lower house of parliament, in 2011, United Russia won 49 percent of the vote.

There were some reports of voting irregularities. Reuters reporters at one polling station witnessed several people casting their ballot, then coming back later and voting again. Election chiefs said were was so far no evidence of large-scale cheating.

After the last election, anger at ballot-rigging prompted large protests in Moscow, and the Kremlin will be anxious to avoid a repetition of that.

TURNOUT DOWN

According to the exit poll, by state-run pollster VTsIOM, the populist LDPR party was in second place with 15.3 percent, the Communists were in third on 14.9 percent and the left-of-centre Just Russia party was fourth with 8.1 percent.

All three of those parties tend to vote with United Russia on crunch issues in parliament, and avoid direct criticism of Putin.

With 11 percent of votes counted as of 1930 GMT, the official results were broadly in line with the exit poll.

Election officials said that as of 18:00 Moscow time, two hours before polling stations in the capital closed, turnout was 39.4 percent, substantially down on the 60 percent turnout at the last parliamentary election.

There was some evidence of voter apathy during the day on Sunday as people went to polling stations across Russia's 11 times zones, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea.

A taxi driver in Ufa, just over 1,350 km (840 miles) east of Moscow, told a Reuters reporter that voting "was like urinating into a blocked toilet." "Why bother?," the man, who gave his first name as Ilysh, said.

Yan Gaimaletdinov said he deliberately spoiled his ballot paper when he went to his local polling station in the village of Knyazevo, near Ufa. "I didn't vote for anyone: I don't play with assholes," he said.

Commenting on the turnout, Putin, at the United Russia campaign HQ, said it was "not as high as we saw in previous election campaigns, but it is high."

REFLECTED GLORY

United Russia is routinely depicted in a favourable light by state television. It also benefits from its association with 63-year-old Putin, who after 17 years in power as either president or prime minister, enjoys a personal approval rating of about 80 percent.

Many voters are persuaded by the Kremlin narrative, frequently repeated on state TV, of the West using sanctions to try to wreck the economy in revenge for Moscow's seizure of Crimea, the Ukrainian region it annexed in 2014.

Yevgeny Korsak, a 65-year-old pensioner in the city of Saransk, 600 km (375 miles) south-east of Moscow, said he had voted for United Russia "because it is strong and powerful."

By contrast, liberal opposition politicians, who currently have just one sympathetic member in the Duma, complain they are starved of air time, vilified by state media, and their campaigns systematically disrupted by pro-Kremlin provocateurs. Pro-Kremlin politicians deny that charge.

The liberal opposition failed to get over the five percent threshold needed for party representation in the Duma, the exit poll showed. Some of their candidates could still make it into parliament in constituency races.

Putin has said it is too early to say if he will go for what would be a fourth presidential term in 2018. If he did and won, he would be in power until 2024, longer than Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

The election is the first time that voters in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, are helping decide the makeup of the Duma.
Iran supports any move to stabilise oil market -Rouhani

DUBAI, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran supports any move to stabilise the global oil market and lift prices, the Iranian oil ministry news agency SHANA quoted him as saying on Sunday.

"Instability and falling oil prices are harmful to all countries, especially oil producers," Rouhani was quoted as saying by SHANA.

"Tehran welcomes any move aimed at market stability and improvement of oil prices based on justice, fairness and fair quota of all the oil producers," the president said, referring to a meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Algeria next week, SHANA said.

Rouhani was speaking to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Venezuela on Saturday, SHANA reported.

Iran, OPEC's third-largest producer, has been boosting its oil output after the lifting of Western sanctions in January. Tehran refused to join a previous attempt this year by OPEC and non-members such as Russia to stabilise production, and talks collapsed in April.

OPEC members will meet on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum (IEF), which groups producers and consumers, in Algeria on Sept. 26-28. Non-OPEC producer Russia is also attending the forum.

OPEC will probably revive talks on freezing oil production levels when it meets non-OPEC nations in Algeria, sources have told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed this month to cooperate in oil markets, saying they could limit future output.
'Token' Belarussian MP hopes to give opposition a voice

By Andrei Makhovsky

MINSK, Sept 18 (Reuters) - The election in Belarus of lawmakers critical of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has split pro-democracy activists in the ex-Soviet republic once dubbed Europe's last dictatorship.

Many argue that the appointments are a token gesture to the West from Lukashenko aimed at improving ties at a time of economic crisis and strained relations with main ally, Russia. Others say it offers a small chance for the beleaguered opposition to pull itself out of the shadows.

On Sept. 11, Anna Kanopatskaya, a little-known member of the pro-Western United Civil Party, won a place in parliament - the first time a member of an opposition party has won a seat in 20 years. Independent candidate Alena Anisim, who has links to the opposition, was also elected.

Several senior opposition figures, including Nikolai Statkevich who ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 presidential race, said the pair should turn down the seats in protest at the election process.

Foreign observers said the election was broadly undemocratic, citing falsifications of voter turnout and lack of transparency with early vote counting.

"It's a matter of conscience. They have been appointed, like all the others. We don't have elected MPs," said Statkevich, who was imprisoned for nearly five years for organising opposition protests.

But Kanopatskaya, who has been a member of her party since 1994, said it would be unwise to turn down the opportunity to improve the visibility of the opposition movement.

"We have been in the shadows too long. If this chance has fallen into our laps, we need to use it," she told Reuters, describing her shock when she heard she had won the seat.

The opposition in Belarus is made up of about a dozen parties and groups that have struggled to popularise their cause in the face of government repression. They say they have thousands of supporters, but in recent years rallies have attracted only a few dozen protesters.

Lukashenko has run Belarus along Soviet-style command lines since 1994 and the powers of the Belarussian parliament are limited by the constitution. Its members are government officials, managers of state firms and presidential allies, but as a lawmaker Kanopatskaya will have a legal platform from which to voice dissent.

"For the opposition this is a success. It's clear that they (Kanopatskaya and Anisim) were appointed, but this is a chance to return to the political system," said political analyst Aleksandr Klaskovsky.

"The election showed that the opposition can be a player, but only if it plays."

OVERTURES TO THE WEST

Kanopatskaya, 39, is the director of a law firm and the daughter of Belarus's first millionaire businessman, who was a close friend of former Prime Minister Mikhail Chigir. Chigir resigned in 1996 in protest at Lukashenko's move to consolidate power.

In the intervening years, Lukashenko, a former collective farm manager, kept critics on a tight rein and Belarus in close alliance with Russia, benefiting from cheap gas and oil, loans and a large market for exports.

However, some cracks appeared in the relationship following Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Since then Minsk has made overtures to the West, seeking improved trade ties and foreign loans and investment to shore up its economy, which contracted 3.9 percent in 2015 partly due to contagion from a protracted recession in Russia.

Granting the opposition some political representation is a calculated move from Lukashenko to suggest he is heeding Western calls for democracy, said Vladimir Neklyayev, who also ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 election.

"Two or three opposition lawmakers were the conditions of the West ... Lukashenko has rolled over for the West," he said.

The election results follow the release of political prisoners last August, long-demanded by the West. Lukashenko's role in hosting Ukraine-Russia peace talks also eased international criticism of the veteran leader.

The European Union ended five years of sanctions against Belarus in February. The United States has also relaxed some of its restrictions on Minsk and said the authorities' handling of the lastest election would be a factor in an upcoming review of sanctions.

While foreign observers have welcomed the election of opposition candidates, they made clear Belarus still has a long way to go in democratic terms.

"Citizen's right to a free and fair election continued to be abused in the grip of entrenched repressive laws and institutions," said Miklos Haraszti, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus.
Israeli occupation police have arrested more than 20 officials and activists from a leading Arab political party as part of an investigation into its financing, authorities said on Sunday.

The party, Balad, denounced the move as an attempt to silence Israel's Arab minority, which accounts for 17.5 percent of the country's eight million population and is largely supportive of the Palestinian cause.

Balad is especially critical of Israeli policies and one of its members of parliament, Haneen Zoabi, has frequently angered Israeli officials.

No MPs were among those arrested.

"More than 20 suspects, including officials and activists in the Balad party, among them lawyers and accountants" were detained, police said.

The arrests were "on suspicion of fraud in connection with funds received that were used to finance the party's activities."

The arrests followed a state comptroller investigation.

Members of Balad were accused of creating a mechanism that for years misrepresented "the origin of millions of shekels" obtained from within Israel and abroad, police said.

Authorities did not provide further information on the alleged sources of the financing.

The suspects were to face remand hearings later on Sunday.

Balad called the charges "arbitrary" and a means to intimidate the party, stressing all its political and financial dealings were within the law.

"This is a dangerous escalation and another stage in the political persecution of the Arab minority and political movements," it said in a statement.

It said the arrests were cover for "silencing Balad" and harming its ability to act as "the spearhead in the struggle against repression and discrimination."

Balad, an acronym for National Democratic Assembly, is part of the Joint List, a coalition of Arab Israeli parties in parliament.

The Joint List holds 13 of the 120 seats in parliament, of which three are held by Balad, and is the third largest bloc in the legislature.

Balad's three MPs triggered outrage among Jewish Israelis earlier this year when they met relatives of Palestinians who authorities say were killed while carrying out attacks.

In response, parliament passed a controversial law in July allowing the expulsion of MPs deemed guilty of racial incitement or supporting armed struggle against Israel.

Analysts have said the law will be extremely difficult to put into practice as any expulsion would require the support of 90 of the 120 MPs.

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Arms for Houthis found in Yemen trucks with Oman plates-newspaper

DUBAI, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Allies of Yemen's president found weapons bound for Iran-aligned Houthi forces on trucks with Omani licence plates, although there was no evidence of any link to Omani authorities, who are neutral in Yemen's war, a Saudi-owned daily reported on Sunday.

Al-Hayat newspaper quoted Marib governor Sultan al-Arada as saying the vehicles carrying "explosives and weapons" had been en route from the Yemeni province of Hadramout to the Houthi-held Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

Arada is an ally of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, whose supporters, backed by the Saudi-led Arab coalition have been waging an offensive trying to roll back gains made by the Houthis since 2014.

The fighting, which intensified after U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait ended last month without an agreement, has seen little ground changing hands.

Omani officials were not immediately available for a comment. Arada was also out of the country and could not immediately be reached for a comment.

"Arada did not confirm an external link to that shipment, indicating that the trucks were carrying Omani licence plates but it was not possible to confirm any Omani authorities' connection to that," al-Hayat said.

Oman is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also groups Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, but also maintains good relations with the Gulf Arabs' regional rival Iran, and the Houthi group.

The Gulf Arab state has stayed out of a Saudi-led Arab coalition that has intervened in Yemen since March last year to try to restore Hadi to power after the Houthis forced him to flee the country.

Oman sees itself as a mediator trying to prevent traditional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran from escalating into a confrontation.
Refugee crisis escalates as wars drive record numbers to flee

LONDON, Sept 18 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - World leaders are gathering in New York on Monday for a major U.N. summit on tackling the refugee and migrant crisis.

Conflicts and persecution have driven a record 65.3 million people from their homes. Here are some facts:

- One in every 113 people globally is either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee.

- An average of 24 people worldwide were forced to flee every minute last year.

- At the end of 2015 there were 65.3 million forcibly displaced people. They included 21.3 million refugees, 40.8 million internally displaced and 3.2 million asylum seekers.

- If they were a country they would be the world's 21st largest.

- More than half of refugees come from just three countries: Syria (4.9 mln), Afghanistan (2.7 mln) and Somalia (1.1 mln).

- Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced people (6.9 mln) followed by Syria (6.6 mln) and Iraq (4.4 mln).

- Developing regions host 86 percent of refugees. Turkey has by far the largest number at 2.5 million.

- Lebanon has the highest concentration relative to its own population with nearly one refugee for every five citizens.

- Nearly one in 200 children in the world is a refugee. The number of child refugees has more than doubled in the last decade.

- Growing numbers of children are crossing borders alone. Last year, more than 100,000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in 78 countries - triple the number in 2014.
Libyan force counter attacks at oil ports, claims to retake control of Es Sider

BENGHAZI, Libya, Sept 18 (Reuters) - A Libyan force ousted a week ago from key oil ports counter attacked on Sunday, taking back control of Es Sider terminal and triggering clashes near Ras Lanuf port, spokesman for the force, Ali al-Hassi, and a port worker said.

Es Sider and Ras Lanuf were among four ports seized by forces loyal to eastern commander Khalifa Haftar on Sept. 11-12 from a Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) faction led by Ibrahim Jathran.
South Africa's corruption watchdog interviews finance ministers in Zuma, Gupta inquiry -paper

JOHANNESBURG, Sept 18 (Reuters) - South Africa's anti-corruption watchdog has interviewed Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas as part of an investigation into whether President Jacob Zuma was influenced by the wealthy Gupta family in making government appointments, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The paper said Public Protector Thuli Madonsela had written to Zuma informing him of her investigation into whether he breached the executive code of conduct.

Madonsela has already interviewed Gordhan, his predecessor Nhlanhla Nene and deputy finance minister Jonas and will interview at least 20 other top officials and members of Zuma's cabinet, the paper said.

"Partly the reason we subpoenaed them is because they shouldn't be seen as sell-outs but as law abiding citizens who are complying with the lawful order from an authorised institution," Madonsela told the paper, without elaborating.

Presidency spokesman Bongani Ngqulunga confirmed to the paper that Zuma had received the letter from Madonsela and that it was "being processed."

Madonsela said in June she would investigate "specifically whether or not the government of South Africa and specifically the president unlawfully allowed the Gupta family to choose ministers and other occupants of high office."

The scandal surrounding the Gupta family took a dramatic turn earlier this year after Jonas said the Guptas had offered him his boss's job, an allegation that led to calls for Zuma to resign.

Zuma has denied Jonas' claims, saying only the president appointed ministers, in line with the constitution. The Guptas have denied influencing Zuma, saying they were pawns in a political plot against the president.

The Guptas, who moved to South Africa from India after apartheid fell in 1994, run businesses ranging from uranium and coal mining to media and information technology.

Madonsela, whose term as public protector ends in October, previously received public support in South Africa for taking Zuma to task over the spending of 240 million rand ($16.94 million) of state money on upgrading his private home.
Moscow says strikes on Syria army threaten U.S.-Russia ceasefire plan

By Dmitry Solovyov and Lisa Barrington

MOSCOW/BEIRUT, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Moscow stepped up its war of words with Washington on Sunday, saying air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition on the Syrian army threatened the implementation of a U.S.-Russian ceasefire plan for Syria and bordered on connivance with Islamic State.

The diplomatic dispute heated up on the last day of a seven-day ceasefire marred by a surge of violence as warplanes hit the strategic northern city of Aleppo for the first time since the truce came into effect.

In another blow to hopes for the ceasefire, the governor of Homs said several hundred rebels would be evacuated from the last rebel-held district of the Syrian city on Monday, prompting rebels to warn any such step would amount to the government declaring the end of the truce.

On Saturday, the Russian Defence Ministry said U.S. jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor in four air strikes by two F-16 and two A-10 fighter jets coming from the direction of Iraq.

Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari charged that U.S.-led strikes were aimed at torpedoing the ceasefire but France's foreign minister, speaking in New York, placed the main blame for truce violations on President Bashar al Assad's government.

The Britain-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a military source at Deir al-Zor airport reported at least 90 Syrian soldiers were killed in the strikes.

A U.S. official said the U.S. military believed reports that about 60 Syrian troops were killed but declined to speculate on the number of wounded. Two U.S. officials also confirmed that a tank was among the vehicles hit in the strike, raising more questions about what kind of intelligence led the coalition aircraft to conclude Islamic State militants were operating the military equipment.

"The actions of coalition pilots - if they, as we hope, were not taken on an order from Washington - are on the boundary between criminal negligence and connivance with Islamic State terrorists," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"We strongly urge Washington to exert the needed pressure on the illegal armed groups under its patronage to implement the ceasefire plan unconditionally. Otherwise the implementation of the entire package of the U.S.-Russian accords reached in Geneva on Sept. 9 may be jeopardized."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in turn told CNN that Russia should do more to support the ceasefire and "stop the grandstanding, stop the showboating and get the humanitarian assistance going."

Kerry called Saturday's incident a "terrible thing ... that we all acknowledge and regret."

ACCUSATIONS AGAINST WASHINGTON

Russia, which support's Assad along with Iran, has called on Washington to press the moderate Syrian opposition to separate itself from Islamic State and other "terrorist groups."

Iran also condemned the U.S. military action. "Such moves indicate America supports terrorist groups in Syria," a foreign ministry spokesman said, according to Iranian news agencies.

In Venezuela, Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said the U.S.-led coalition strikes were intended to sink the ceasefire.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that despite the strikes on the Syrians, Syrian government forces were principally behind the truce violations.

The U.S. military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian forces may have been hit.

"The White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in comments aired by state TV.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Zakharova should be embarrassed by that claim. Russia's U.N. representative, Vitaly Churkin, said Russia had no "specific evidence" of U.S. collusion with Islamic State.

The dispute should further complicate humanitarian aid deliveries to Syria, including its largest pre-war city Aleppo, where the fragile truce is under threat.

Aleppo was hit by air strikes for the first time since the truce began. Moscow said militants there were preparing for large-scale military actions against Syria's army.

HEAVY CLASHES

Heavy clashes continued on Sunday east of Damascus in the rebel-held Jobar suburb, the Observatory and a witness said.

The al-Rahman Legion, part of a Free Syrian Army rebel alliance, said its fighters had destroyed a government tank and killed soldiers after government forces tried to storm Jobar for the second time this week.

The Observatory said at least eight people died and many were seriously injured when helicopters dropped barrel bombs in a rebel-held part of the southern Syrian province of Daraa on Sunday.

Insurgents say they only reluctantly accepted the initial deal to relieve the humanitarian situation in besieged areas they control, and blamed Russia for undermining the ceasefire.

"The truce ... will not hold out," a senior rebel official in Aleppo said.

Rebels have also accused Russia of using the ceasefire to give the Syrian army and allied militias a chance to regroup and deploy forces.

ISLAMIC STATE

Islamic State is excluded from the truce. Separate U.S.-led, Damascus-led and Turkey-backed operations against the militants have continued.

One Turkish soldier and six Syrian rebels were wounded on Sunday in clashes with Islamic State near the Syrian border town of al-Rai as Turkey-backed Syrian rebels pushed south towards the IS-held town of al-Bab, Turkey's Dogan News agency reported.

Turkey hit Islamic State targets within Syria with warplanes, according to Dogan, the Observatory and a rebel commander.

On Sunday, Islamic State said it had shot down a warplane in Deir al-Zor with "anti-aircraft" guns, the same area as the coalition strikes hit the Syrian military on Saturday.

The Syrian military confirmed the loss of a warplane it said was carrying out an operation against rebels.
Three Indonesians freed by militant Abu Sayyaf group - Philippine military spokesman

MANILA, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Three Indonesian fishermen held by Islamic State-linked rebels in the Philippines have been released, the Philippine military said on Sunday, just hours after the militias freed a Norwegian man after a year-long ordeal.

The victims - identified as Lorens Koten, Teodurus Kofung and Emmanuel - were released by the Abu Sayyaf on Saturday night at an undisclosed place in Sulu, said Major Filemon Tan, spokesman in the military's Western Mindanao Command. They were taken on July 9 this year from Malaysian state of Sabah, he said.

The Indonesians were set free just hours after the same group notorious for kidnappings, beheadings and extortion released Norwegian captive Kjartan Sekkingstad, who was set to meet President Rodrigo Duterte in Davao City on Sunday evening.

Sekkingstad was taken from an upscale resort on Samal island in Davao del Norte along with a Filipina, who has already been freed, and two Canadians, whom the militants later executed.

While it is widely believed that no captives are released by the Abu Sayyaf without the payment of ransom, the Philippine government said it did not pay the group and was unaware of any payment made by other parties for the release of the victims.

"I would like to reiterate that the government maintains the no-ransom policy," Communications Minister Martin Andanar said. Now if there was a third party who made the payment, if it's the family (of the victim), we are not aware of that."

Tan said Sekkingstad and the three Indonesians were flown separately on Sunday afternoon from Jolo, Sulu. The Indonesians have been turned over to Indonesian authorities, he said without giving further details.

Tan insists the release of the kidnap victims was a result of the ongoing intensified military operations against the Abu Sayyaf, with the assistance of the Moro National Liberation Front, one of the two major Muslim rebel groups based in the south of the mainly Catholic nation.
Clashes at Libyan oil ports as counter-attack repelled - officials

By Ayman al-Warfalli

BENGHAZI, Libya, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Eastern Libyan forces said they had reestablished control over two oil ports where an ousted faction launched a counter-attack on Sunday, briefly seizing one of the terminals.

The ports of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf were among four seized by forces loyal to eastern commander Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) on Sept. 11-12 from a Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) faction led by Ibrahim Jathran.

The fighting came as the state-run National Oil Corporation (NOC) prepared to restart oil exports from the ports, blockaded for several years.

The NOC said the Maltese-flagged Seadelta, which had been loading from storage at Ras Lanuf had withdrawn to a safe distance, but that it hoped normal operations would resume by Monday morning. The Seadelta was the first tanker to dock there for some two years.

LNA spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari said pro-Haftar forces had repelled an attack at Ras Lanuf with the help of air strikes, and were pursuing Jathran forces fleeing from Es Sider, where they had taken control earlier in the day.

A Libyan oil industry source confirmed that the LNA controlled both oil ports.

The clashes raise fears of a new conflict over Libya's oil resources. Jathran's PFG had aligned itself with a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, while Haftar is a divisive figure whose opponents accuse of trying to establish military rule.

Fighting and political disputes have reduced oil output in the North African country to a fraction of the 1.6 million barrels per day the OPEC member produced before a 2011 uprising.

The NOC said Sunday's clashes had set a previously damaged oil storage tank in Es Sider alight, but that firefighters had extinguished the blaze and no other damage to oil facilities had been recorded. Pictures from Ras Lanuf showed black smoke billowing from residential areas.

LNA spokesman Mismari and a pro-Haftar guard spokesman said LNA fighters had seen Jathran in clashes on Sunday and he had been injured in the shoulder. Jathran's spokesman could not immediately be reached to verify the reports.

LNA forces later advanced about 30 km (19 miles) west of Es Sider to take control of the town of Ben Jawad, said Akram Buhaliqa, a second LNA official. At least four LNA fighters were killed, he said.

BLOCKADE

The LNA's seizure of the ports a week ago took place as the Muslim holiday of Eid was starting and faced little resistance.

After moving into Es Sider, Ras Lanuf, Zueitina and Brega, the LNA said it was handing over control of the terminals to the NOC so that exports could resume.

Jathran had long blockaded three of the ports and a recent deal with the U.N.-backed government showed little sign of progressing.

On Thursday, the NOC announced it was lifting "force majeure" contractual clauses at the blockaded ports and that exports would restart immediately at Zueitina and Ras Lanuf.

It said they would start as soon as possible at Es Sider, and would continue at Brega, which had remained open. A tanker left Brega on Sunday loaded with 600,000 barrels of crude, headed for Italy, a port official said.

After the LNA took the ports, NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla had said Libya could raise output to 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) within a month and to 950,000 by the end of the year from about 290,000 currently.
Brexit? What Brexit? EU on cruise control

By Alastair Macdonald

BRATISLAVA, Sept 18 (Reuters) - The "Brexit cruise" didn't get very far. EU leaders drifted down the Danube for an hour, said little about Britain over a leisurely shipboard lunch, then circled back to Bratislava to resume Friday's summit.

Beneath the surface, though, things have been stirring on Brexit. Summit chairman Donald Tusk later stirred them up more by saying Britain's poker-faced prime minister, Theresa May, had let him glimpse her cards, indicating divorce talks prompted by June's referendum may start in four to five months.

Britain's plan to leave the European Union was at the heart of the meeting of the 27 other member states in Slovakia, where May was the notable absentee. But it seemed an empty heart.

Book-ended by talks ashore on repairing the loss of trust in the EU exposed by the British vote, the cruise conversation was minimal, according to Tusk. This left leaders back where they started - waiting for Mrs May and, when the summit ended, bickering with each other over migrants and economics.

Tusk and others repeated their mantra of "no negotiation without notification" - that the EU will not so much as talk to the British until May triggers a two-year countdown to Brexit by formally saying Britain will leave under Article 50 of the EU treaty.

The legal mechanics, written to discourage anyone quitting , mean that triggering it flips negotiating power from London to Brussels by binding Britain to a deadline to strike a deal or lose favoured access to its main export market.

That poses dilemmas for both sides of how much to talk and when. Diplomats speak of a "chicken and egg situation".

Tusk's apparently casual reference to a conversation with May from which he concluded she was "quite likely" to be ready to invoke Article 50 in January or February - a timing she herself is loath to commit to as her government wrestles over strategy - was in line with EU efforts to hurry her along.

PRE-NEGOTIATIONS?

EU officials and governments are keen for Britain be out by early 2019, partly to curb economic uncertainty, partly to avoid a mess if the country is still a reluctant member when the Union chooses a new parliament and executive in mid-2019 and negotiates a seven-year budget to take effect for 2021.

For now, the two sides are entrenched. But there are signs, EU diplomats and officials say, that some discreet talking is getting under way to sound out compromises. Some continental officials told Reuters that they could be open to breaking the current EU embargo on "pre-negotiations" before Article 50.

"We don't mind discussing things informally. We are not dogmatic, we don't feel the need to wait for Article 50," an official dealing with Brexit for an EU government said. "We are friendly towards the Brits and we want to help them along."

For London, an ideal outcome could be to retain free access to EU markets while stopping so many Poles and other EU citizens coming to work in Britain - one of the main demands of the leave side during the referendum campaign. And it would love to reach such a deal before setting the Article 50 clock ticking.

Against this, Brussels is repeating two things: no freedom of access for British goods, services and finance without free movement for EU workers into Britain; and no talks before Article 50 is invoked.

A third mantra is EU unity. If not, as European Parliament speaker Martin Schulz said last week, Britain "would play us off against each other and that would be fatal for the EU".

A mix of fear and admiration for Britain's ability to divide and confuse continentals into webs of shifting alliances appears to be as commonplace in 2016 as it was when French and Germans fumed over "perfidious Albion" two centuries ago: "They have the best diplomats in the world," a senior EU official told Reuters.

"If we don't stick together, they'll eat us alive."

DIFFERENT VIEWS

There are already some differences. Some countries, notably among Britain's northern, free-trading allies, reckon London has to be given some idea of a "landing zone" - what kind of deal it might get - before it hurls itself off the cliff of Article 50.

Others are anxious that Britain would exploit such talks to go on negotiating as much as it could without weakening its hand by starting the two-year clock ticking. They insist on radio silence and hope that demands in Britain itself for faster progress on Brexit will pressure May into action.

Germany is in the former camp for now. The biggest power in the latter is France, which sees pain for Britain as a price worth paying to discourage French voters from taking the Brexit lead and backing Marine Le Pen, leader of the eurosceptic National Front, in April's presidential election.

Paris and Berlin are united, however, in wanting Britain out swiftly, officials say. They accept that May needs time to agree a strategy with a cabinet that includes leading Brexiteers as well as those like herself who campaigned against leaving. But that patience will run out fast after the new year.

"INFORMAL SOUNDINGS"

Some EU diplomats say they have been encouraged by recent contacts. One said British officials had sought "guidelines" on what his country's government might accept, to help London formulate its demands when triggering Article 50. Though "tricky", such informal talks were possible and a fair idea.

British ministers say they are open to informal talks. But a British diplomat denied a campaign of soundings was under way.

A senior official in another major EU country said: "It is still not a coherent, organised attempt to read what would be acceptable. It seems to be rather a lack of ideas in London."

A diplomat from another said: "We are in constant touch with the Brits. But these are not informal negotiations. We just want to help them build a rational negotiating position."

Another, who said he had not been approached, said: "There will have to be informal soundings but it has to be up to the UK first to come up with a sense of what they what they want. Before that it is very difficult to enter into any such conversation. They have to get their own act together first."

As May fills the gaps in her Brexit puzzle, the EU will have to shift gear in response after months of cruising.
Suspected car bomb hits military convoy in Somali capital - police

NAIROBI, Sept 18 (Reuters) - A military convoy transporting an army general in the Somali capital of Mogadishu was hit by a suspected car bomb on Sunday, a police officer said.

Police Major Mohamed Aden told Reuters there were no immediate details about casualties and he did not indicate who might be behind the blast, but it bore the hallmarks of Islamist group al Shabaab which regularly launches attacks in Mogadishu.
Italy's Renzi steps up attack on EU, Merkel

ROME, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi stepped up his attacks against other European Union leaders on Sunday after an EU summit in Bratislava which he said amounted to no more than "a nice cruise on the Danube."

Renzi said at the end of Friday's summit he was dissatisfied with its closing statement, after he was excluded from a joint news conference by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande..

In particular, he criticised the lack of commitments on the economy and immigration in the summit's conclusions, which he himself signed.

In a fiery interview in daily Corriere della Sera on Sunday Renzi - who has staked his career on a referendum this year on his plan for constitutional reform - intensified his criticisms, though he remained vague on what commitments he would have liked the summit to have produced.

"If we want to pass the afternoon writing documents without any soul or any horizon they can do it on their own," Renzi said of his fellow leaders.

"I don't know what Merkel is referring to when she talks about the 'spirit of Bratislava'," he said. "If things go on like this, instead of the spirit of Bratislava we'll be talking about the ghost of Europe."

Renzi has promised to resign if he loses the autumn referendum and is preparing a 2017 budget which he says will cut taxes despite a slowing economy and record high public debt.

"At Bratislava we had a nice cruise on the Danube, but I hoped for answers to the crisis caused by Brexit (Britain's exit from the EU), not just to go on a boat trip," he said.

He was similarly belligerent about the budget to be presented next month, saying there would be "no negotiation" with Brussels, and money he planned to spend on tackling immigration and making Italy safer from earthquakes would be excluded from EU rules on deficit limits.

Other countries were more guilty than Italy of breaking budget rules and Italy had met its commitments on tackling the inflows of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, Renzi said.

"I'm not going to stay silent for the sake of a quiet life ... if someone wants to keep Italy quiet they have picked the wrong place, the wrong method and the wrong subject."

With polls showing the referendum too close to call, Renzi insisted he had "never been so optimistic" about its outcome. The ballot is expected to be held in late November or early December.
The Syrian military on Sunday said one of its war planes had been downed in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor during an operation against Islamic state, where the militant group has been under intense air strikes in the past 24 hours.

The jet came down in the Jebel Tharda area which overlooks the government's Deir Ezzor military airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, said.

On Saturday U.S.-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers in Jebel Tharda, endangering a U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.

A Syrian military statement said the plane had come down during an operation against Islamic State in Deir Ezzor and the pilot had died.

Islamic State-affiliated media said it had shot the jet down.

"A Syrian warplane belonging to the Syrian regime was brought down when targeted by fighters from the Islamic State in the city of Deir Ezzor ," Amaq said in an online statement.

The city's military airport and some government-held districts have been entirely surrounded by Islamic State since last year, with the airport providing the only external access.

Intense air strikes over the past 24 hours have hit Islamic State controlled areas near Deir Ezzor city, the Observatory and Syrian state media said.

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UAE bank NBAD postpones Middle East's first green bond -sources

By Stanley Carvalho

ABU DHABI, Sept 18 (Reuters) - National Bank of Abu Dhabi has postponed the region's first ever green bond after investors considered the pricing unattractive, banking sources told Reuters on Sunday.

Green bonds have become an increasingly popular source of borrowing for banks in emerging markets, including in India and China in view of the growing demand for funds for renewable projects.

The United Arab Emirates-based lender launched investor roadshows in late August to market the benchmark-sized bond, the first green bond ever from a Middle Eastern borrower, with the proceeds due to be used to invest in renewable energy projects.

Benchmark size is traditionally understood to be worth upwards of $500 million.

"Investor appetite was low and the pricing was not attractive," a banker familiar with the matter said.

"It is being re-evaluated," he added.

A spokesman for NBAD declined to comment.

A separate banker said investors were unsure how to price the bond given that NBAD is in the midst of a merger with fellow Abu Dhabi lender First Gulf Bank.

The tie-up, which was recommended by the boards of the two lenders in July, will create one of the largest banks by assets in the Middle East and Africa. It is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2017.

"The market has been tested, it (the bond) may be re-launched after the merger," the second source said.

The planned green bond would have bolstered renewables, a sector that is gaining prominence in the oil-rich Gulf countries as they seek to bolster their energy production and retain hydrocarbons to sell for export.
Libyan forces renew push against Islamic State in Sirte

TRIPOLI, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government on Sunday battled Islamic State militants in their last hideouts in the city of Sirte, in a renewed push after a break in fighting for the Muslim celebrations of Eid.

At least two were killed in clashes after pro-governnment forces shelled neighbourhoods inside the city, targeting militants who have been holding on in a last section of Sirte after months of street-to-street fighting.

U.S. air strikes and helicopter raids along with small teams of Western special forces have helped the Libyan troops advance in Sirte and losing the city would be a major blow for the militant group depriving it of its North African stronghold.

"Our forces targeted on Sunday hideouts of Daesh in Neighbourhood No.3's 600 block area and Geza Bahriya with heavy artillery shelling," said Mohamed Ghasri, a spokesman for the forces, said using an Arabic term for militants.

Akram Gliwan, a spokesman for Misrata central hospital, told Reuters two fighters had been killed and six more were wounded and were brought to the hospital.

Mostly from Misrata city, 230 km (145 miles) to the north west, the government-allied forces say some commanders from Islamic State and fighters may have escaped and fled south or to the Tunisia border before Sirte was encircled.

But Ghasri said two Islamic State commanders, Hassan Karami and Walid Ferjani, had been killed in fighting inside the city, without giving details. Misrata commanders have said in the past Karami had been killed, but they have not indicated whether any body had been positively identified with DNA.

Western governments are supporting the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli as the best option to bring together Libya's rival armed factions to stabilise the country, end Islamist State threats and stop illegal migrant smugglers.
France says Syrian government principally behind truce violations

NEW YORK, Sept 18 (Reuters) - France's foreign minister said on Sunday that despite U.S.-led coalition air strikes on the Syrian army, it was Syrian government forces that were principally behind violations of a fragile ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia.

"We have to hold on to this accord and keep it alive at all costs so we need to get over the events of the last few hours," Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters in New York.
France says Syrian government principally behind truce violations

By John Irish

NEW YORK, Sept 18 (Reuters) - France's foreign minister said on Sunday that despite U.S.-led coalition air strikes on the Syrian army, it was Syrian government forces that were principally behind violations of a fragile ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia.

"We have to hold on to this accord and keep it alive at all costs so we need to get over the events of the last few hours," Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters at a ceremony at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York.

"But while there were these incidents ... we shouldn't forget that what has harmed the American-Russian ceasefire is firstly the regime. It is always the regime of Bashar al-Assad."

Moscow stepped up its war of words with Washington on Sunday, saying the air strikes on the Syrian army, which killed dozens, threatened the implementation of the ceasefire plan and bordered on connivance with Islamic State.

Denouncing "tactics" by some, Ayrault, who has been critical of the United States for not sharing details of the ceasefire deal with its allies, said everything needed to be done during the U.N. General Assembly this week to "recreate the conditions for the ceasefire" and especially ensure aid entered the besieged city of Aleppo.

Under the deal, the United States and Russia are aiming for reduced violence over seven consecutive days before they move to the next stage of coordinating military strikes against the former Nusra Front and Islamic State, which are not party to the truce.

Moscow has said it wants the deal rubberstamped through a U.N. Security Council resolution.

"We can't back a deal if we don't know the main terms," Ayrault said.

France has also been pushing for a separate U.N. Security Council resolution after a joint investigation by the United Nations and the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW found that Syrian government troops were responsible for two toxic gas attacks and Islamic State militants used sulfur mustard gas.

Paris is worried there could be a weak response to the reported chemical weapons attacks or that the issue could be sidelined because of the fragility of a Syria ceasefire deal agreed by Moscow and Washington.
Three Indonesians freed by militant Abu Sayyaf group in Philippines

MANILA, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Three Indonesian fishermen held by Islamic State-linked rebels in the Philippines have been released, a Philippine military spokesman said on Sunday, just hours after the militias freed a Norwegian man after a year-long ordeal.

The Indonesians - identified as Lorence Koten, Teo Doros Kofong, and Emmanuel Arakian - were released by the Abu Sayyaf group on Saturday night at an undisclosed place in Sulu in the Southwest Philippines, said spokesman Major Filemon Tan. They were taken on July 9 this year from the Malaysian state of Sabah, he said.

The Indonesians were set free just hours after the same group notorious for kidnappings, beheadings and extortion released Norwegian captive Kjartan Sekkingstad, who met President Rodrigo Duterte in Davao City on Sunday evening.

Sekkingstad was taken from an upscale resort on Samal island in Davao del Norte along with a Filipina, who has already been freed, and two Canadians, whom the militants later executed.

While it is widely believed that no captives are released by the Abu Sayyaf without the payment of ransom, the Philippine government said it did not pay the group and was unaware of any payment made by other parties for the release of the victims.

"I would like to reiterate that the government maintains the no-ransom policy," Communications Minister Martin Andanar said. Now if there was a third party who made the payment, if it's the family (of those kidnapped), we are not aware of that."

The Philippine military insists the release of the kidnap victims was a result of the ongoing intensified military operations against the Abu Sayyaf, with the assistance of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), one of the two major Muslim rebel groups based in the south of the mainly Catholic nation.

In a media briefing in Davao City, Duterte lauded the efforts of his peace adviser Jesus Dureza, former Sulu Governor Abdusakur Mahail Tan, and MNLF leader Nur Misuari.

Dureza confirmed the release of the Indonesian captives.

Duterte told Sekkingstad and the Norwegian government that justice would be sought for his abduction.

"I am very happy to be alive and free," Sekkingstad said at the briefing.
MEDIA-Sweden has info on heightened threat from Russia-paper

STOCKHOLM, Sept 18 (Reuters) - ** Newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports Sweden has got information on an increased threat from Russia, citing unnamed sources in the cabinet.

** Says that even those in the cabinet do not know exactly what the threat is.

** Last week, Sweden's top military commander decided troops temporarily on the strategic island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea would remain there and that Sweden's military presence on the island would be permanent from now on.

** The government had previously said it would have a permanent military station on Gotland from next summer.

Source (Swedish): http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/nytt-hot-mot-sverige-holls-hemligt/
Turkish police detain 40 over links with Islamic State - Anadolu

ISTANBUL, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Turkish counter-terror police detained 40 foreign nationals in raids in Istanbul over their suspected links with Islamic State, Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Sunday.

Police carried out simultaneous raids to 23 addresses in Istanbul's conservative Fatih district detaining suspects from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan, Anadolu said.

Some suspects are identified as having gone to the conflict areas inside Syria several times, Anadolu said.

Turkey has suffered a series of suicide bombings and attacks by Islamic State and Kurdish militants over the past year. It launched its first major military incursion into Syria last month to push jihadists away from its border and prevent Kurdish fighters from seizing territory as they retreated.

Thousands of foreign fighters from countries including Turkey, Britain, Europe and the United States have joined the Islamist militants in their self-proclaimed caliphate in recent years, many of them passing through Turkey.

Ankara has since launched a crackdown on the networks facilitating their passage.

At least seven suspected suicide bombings across Turkey since July 2015, which have killed more than 250 people, have been blamed on Islamic State.

A network of suspected Turkish Islamic State militants is responsible for at least two of the attacks, Turkish prosecutors have said in legal documents, while foreign members of the group were accused of being behind the suicide bombing at Istanbul Ataturk airport in June.
Pro-Putin party wins Russian parliamentary election

By Polina Devitt and Olga Sichkar

MOSCOW/UFA, Russia, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin comfortably won a parliamentary election, early results showed on Monday, but low turnout suggested a softening of enthusiasm for the ruling elite 18 months before the next presidential election.

The ruling United Russia party won 51 percent in Sunday's election, according to a preliminary central election commission tally after a quarter of the votes had been counted.

That would allow the party, which was founded by Putin and benefits from his popularity, to extend its dominance in the lower house of parliament, or Duma. An exit poll also had United Russia as the overwhelming winner.

Putin, speaking to United Russia campaign staff a few minutes after polling stations closed on Sunday night, said the win showed voters still trusted the leadership despite an economic slowdown made worse by Western sanctions over Ukraine.

Putin's aides are likely to use the result as a springboard for his own campaign for re-election in 2018, though he has not yet confirmed that he will seek another term.

"We can say with certainty that the party has achieved a very good result; it's won," Putin said at the United Russia headquarters, where he arrived together with his ally, Dmitry Medvedev, who is prime minister and the party's leader.

Alluding to the spluttering economy, which is forecast to shrink this year by at least 0.3 percent, Putin said: "We know that life is hard for people, there are lots of problems, lots of unresolved problems. Nevertheless, we have this result."

Other parties trailed far behind United Russia.

According to the incomplete official vote count, the populist LDPR party was in second place with 15.1 percent, the Communists were in third on 14.9 percent and the left-of-centre Just Russia party was fourth with 6.4 percent.

All three of those parties tend to vote with United Russia on crunch issues in parliament, and avoid direct criticism of Putin.

In the last election for the Duma, in 2011, United Russia won 49 percent of the vote.

There were some reports of voting irregularities. Reuters reporters at one polling station in the Mordovia region of central Russia witnessed several people casting their ballot, then coming back later and voting again. Election chiefs said were was so far no evidence of large-scale cheating.

After the last election, anger at ballot-rigging prompted large protests in Moscow, and the Kremlin will be anxious to avoid a repetition of that.

TURNOUT DOWN

Election officials said that as of 6 p.m. Moscow time, two hours before polling stations in the capital closed, turnout was 39.4 percent, substantially down on the 60 percent turnout at the last parliamentary election.

There was some evidence of voter apathy during the day on Sunday as people went to polling stations across Russia's 11 times zones, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea.

A taxi driver in Ufa, just over 1,350 km (840 miles) east of Moscow, told a Reuters reporter that voting "was like urinating into a blocked toilet." "Why bother?," said the man, who gave his first name as Ilysh.

Yan Gaimaletdinov said he deliberately spoiled his ballot paper when he went to his local polling station in the village of Knyazevo, near Ufa. "I didn't vote for anyone: I don't play with assholes," he said.

Commenting on the turnout, Putin, at the United Russia campaign HQ, said it was "not as high as we saw in previous election campaigns, but it is high."

REFLECTED GLORY

United Russia benefits from its association with 63-year-old Putin, who after 17 years in power as either president or prime minister, enjoys a personal approval rating of about 80 percent, opinion polls show.

Most voters do not see any viable alternative to Putin and his allies, and they fear a return to the chaos and instability of the 1990s, the period immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, if his rule ends.

Many voters are persuaded by the Kremlin narrative, frequently repeated on state TV, of the West using sanctions to try to wreck the economy in revenge for Moscow's seizure of Crimea, the Ukrainian region it annexed in 2014.

Yevgeny Korsak, a 65-year-old pensioner in the city of Saransk, 600 km (375 miles) south-east of Moscow, said he had voted for United Russia "because it is strong and powerful."

Putin has said it is too early to say if he will go for what would be a fourth presidential term in 2018. If he did and won, he would be in power until 2024, longer than Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the longest-serving Soviet leader aside from Joseph Stalin.

Liberal opposition politicians, the only group openly critical of Putin, failed to get over the five percent threshold needed for party representation in the Duma, the early results showed. Some of their candidates could still make it into parliament in constituency races.

The election is the first time that voters in Crimea are helping decide the makeup of the Duma.
Sitting inside his post-retirement office along the busy Mumbai-Pune Express Highway, a former marine commando (MARCOS, as the Indian Navy calls its special force personnel) showed me a video.

It consisted of some MARCOS simulations which were, he said, for your eyes only. Watching these men display mind-boggling capabilities, I was filled with awe. But it was short-lived.

We are tools and unless there is a will to use these tools in the nations interest, these efforts are only restricted to drills, he said, with a hint of disappointment.

He made a much larger point.

With todays attack in Uri where we lost 17 army personnel, just about everyone from journalists to retired members of the armed forces to bureaucrats to diplomats and, of course, politicians are talking about "options" to respond with.

While briefing the press corps today (September 18), the Armys Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt-Gen Ranbir Singh revealed the four slain terrorists carried material which had Pakistani markings.

He also identified the group the terrorists were from as Jaesh-e-Mohammed (JeM), created by Maulana Masood Azhar who was released by India in a swap for passengers on board the hijacked IC814 Indian Airlines aircraft in December 1999.

Coming back to the aspect of "options", I have little doubt about the capability and expertise of our armed forces to exploit the same. There, of course, will be a cost to our exercising these options. But then, as some argue, arent we already bearing the costs?

JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar. (Photo credit: India Today)

About one thing there is no ambiguity, however. Away from the public positions and sound bites, runs the Line of Control (LoC), a bitter, cold place with a life of its own.

What happens there is seldom known to anyone except those destined to keep order, i.e the men in olive greens and khakhi. An incident which played out nearly 50 years ago is typical of the phenomenon.

As senior journalist Nitin Gokhale brings out in his book Turning the Tide, the year was 1965. The Indian Army, still smarting under the 1962 defeat, had lost territory in Kutch, Gujarat, to the Pakistanis. There was no declared war, just yet.

Obviously, the morale of the troops was quite low. While the government was deliberating upon its course of action, the then Western Army commander, the legendary Lt-Gen Harbaksh Singh wrote to his brigade commander based in Kargil. One line of his demi official (DO) letter read: Has the martial blood of the Indian Army soldiers dried up?

His deputies got the message.

Within a week, thanks to exceptional bravery and some smart planning, Point 13620 in Kargil, which was being used by the Pakistanis to constantly wreak havoc on India, was taken.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Sunday blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime for undermining the ceasefire deal brokered by Russia and the United States, and said the agreement must be salvaged "at all costs."

"We must not forget that it is first of all the (Syrian) regime, and it is always the regime, which has jeopardized the US-Russian ceasefire," said Ayrault in New York.

The faltering US-Russian deal for Syria is set to dominate the agenda as world leaders gather at the United Nations this week for the annual General Assembly meeting.

"If there is one thing that must emerge from this General Assembly meeting it is hope for peace" in Syria, Ayrault said on the sidelines of a ceremony held to commemorate the September 11 attacks.

World leaders "must latch on to this agreement and keep it alive at all costs", he said.

After months of negotiations, the United States and Russia reached the agreement on September 9 that calls for a ceasefire, the delivery of aid and the joint targeting of Islamist rebels in Syria.

A ceasefire that had been in force for nearly a week was on the brink of collapse on Sunday when rebel-held districts of Aleppo came under a barrage of air strikes.

Russia, Syria's main ally, accused the United States of endangering the deal after a US-led coalition strike that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers in the east, near the Islamic State-controlled town of Deir Ezzor.

A UN Security Council meeting held late Saturday saw the US and Russian envoys trading barbs following the airstrike, for which the United States has expressed regret.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are due on Wednesday to attend a special Security Council meeting on Syria.

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The governor of Homs said hundreds of Syrian rebels would be evacuated from the last rebel-held area of the city on Monday, prompting rebels to warn that would amount to Damascus declaring the end of a truce.

The tension over the district of al-Waer, the opposition's last foothold in Homs city, piled more pressure on the widely violated ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia that has been in effect since last Monday.

The government has been seeking to conclude local agreements with rebels in besieged areas to give them safe passage to the insurgent stronghold of Idlib in northwestern Syria.

The opposition to President Bashar al-Assad says such local agreements are part of a policy of forced displacement imposed on besieged populations after years of blockade and bombardment.

Talal Barazi, the governor of Homs, told Reuters that between 250 to 300 fighters were due to leave Waer on Monday.

He said an agreement now in its third phase would be complete within weeks. "At the end of it, Waer will be empty of weapons and gunmen," he said.

A rebel statement signed by prominent groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner and the powerful Islamist faction Ahrar al-Sham said the opposition would fight on if an evacuation went ahead.

"If any person is evacuated from al-Waer (district) or any other besieged district in Syria ... the regime will have clearly ended its commitment to any proposed truce, and all the revolutionary factions will continue in their legitimate right to fight it," the statement said.

Waer is home to some 60,000 people.

Some 300 insurgents left Waer for Idlib as part of an agreement concluded last December.

The opposition was dealt a major blow last month when a local agreement resulted in the effective surrender of the insurgent-held Damascus suburb of Daraya to the government.

The rebel statement said the opposition would review the entire political process if "international impotence" continued towards areas besieged by the government.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a number of fighters and people needing medical attention were expected to be evacuated from Waer on Monday.

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Alleghany Corporation provides property and casualty reinsurance and insurance products in the United States and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Reinsurance, Insurance, and Alleghany Capital. The Reinsurance segment offers fire, allied lines, auto physical damage, and homeowners multiple peril reinsurance products; and casualty and other reinsurance products, such as medical malpractice, ocean marine and aviation, accident and health, mortgage, surety, and credit reinsurance products, as well as directors' and officers', errors and omissions, general, and auto liability reinsurance. This segment distributes its products and services through brokers, as well as directly to insurance and reinsurance companies. The Insurance segment underwrites specialty insurance coverages in the property, umbrella/excess, general, directors' and officers', and professional liability lines; surety products comprising commercial and contract surety bonds; and workers' compensation insurance products. This segment distributes its products through independent wholesale insurance brokers, and retail and general insurance agents. The Alleghany Capital segment provides precision automated machine tool solutions; manufactures custom trailers and truck bodies for the moving and storage industry, and other markets; design, engineering, procurement, construction management, and validation services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries; products and services for the funeral and cemetery industries, and precast concrete markets; and hotel management and development services, as well as operates as a toy and musical instrument company, and structural steel fabricator and erector. The company also owns and manages improved and unimproved commercial land, and residential lots. As of December 31, 2021, it owned approximately 77 acres of property. The company was founded in 1929 and is based in New York, New York.
Conagra Brands, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a consumer packaged goods food company in North America. The company operates in four segments: Grocery & Snacks, Refrigerated & Frozen, International, and Foodservice. The Grocery & Snacks segment primarily offers shelf stable food products through various retail channels in the United States. The Refrigerated & Frozen segment provides temperature-controlled food products through various retail channels in the United States. The International segment offers food products in various temperature states through retail and foodservice channels outside of the United States. The Foodservice segment offers branded and customized food products, including meals, entrees, sauces, and various custom-manufactured culinary products packaged for restaurants and other foodservice establishments in the United States. The company sells its products under the Birds Eye, Duncan Hines, Healthy Choice, Marie Callender's, Reddi-wip, Slim Jim, Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP, Duke's, Earth Balance, Gardein, and Frontera brands. The company was formerly known as ConAgra Foods, Inc. and changed its name to Conagra Brands, Inc. in November 2016. Conagra Brands, Inc. was founded in 1861 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Hubbell Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and sells electrical and electronic products in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Electrical Solution and Utility Solution. The Electrical Solution segment offers standard and special application wiring device products, rough-in electrical products, connector and grounding products, lighting fixtures, and other electrical equipment for use in industrial, commercial, and institutional facilities by electrical contractors, maintenance personnel, electricians, utilities, and telecommunications companies, as well as components and assemblies for the natural gas distribution market. It also designs and manufactures various industrial controls, and communication systems for use in the non-residential and industrial markets, as well as in the oil and gas, and mining industries. This segment sells its products through electrical and industrial distributors, home centers, retail and hardware outlets, lighting showrooms, and residential product-oriented Internet sites; and special application products primarily through wholesale distributors to contractors, industrial customers, and original equipment manufacturers. The Utility Solution segment designs, manufactures, and sells distribution, transmission, substation, and telecommunications products, such as arresters, insulators, connectors, anchors, bushings, and enclosures; and utility infrastructure products, including smart meters, communications systems, and protection and control devices. This segment sells its products to distributors, as well as directly to users, such as utilities, telecommunication companies, industrial firms, and construction and engineering firms. Its brand portfolio includes Hubbell, Kellems, Bryant, Burndy, CMC, Bell, TayMac, Wiegmann, Killark, Hawke, Aclara, Fargo, Quazite, Hot Box, etc. The company was founded in 1888 and is headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut.
GoDaddy Inc. engages in the design and development of cloud-based technology products in the United States and internationally. The company provides domain name registration product that enables to engage customers at the initial stage of establishing a digital identity. It also offers shared Website hosting products that provide various applications and products, such as web analytics, Secure Sockets Layer certificates, and WordPress; Website hosting on virtual private servers and virtual dedicated servers products, which allows customers to select the server configuration suited for their applications, requirements, and growth; managed hosting products to set up, monitor, maintain, secure, and patch software and servers for customers; and security products, a suite of tools designed to help secure customers' online presence. In addition, the company provides presence products, such as Websites + Marketing, a do-it-yourself mobile-optimized online tool that enables customers to build websites and e-commerce enabled online stores; a range of marketing tools and services designed to help businesses acquire and engage customers, and create content, as well as search engine optimization that helps customers get their websites found on search sites; and social media management services. Further, it offers business application products, such as Microsoft Office 365, email accounts, email marketing, and Internet-based telephony services; online store capabilities that allows customers to transact business directly on their websites; GoDaddy Payments, a payment facilitator; and point-of-sale (POS) devices, as well as software for POS. The company serves small businesses, individuals, organizations, developers, designers, and domain investors. GoDaddy Inc. was incorporated in 2014 and is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona.
Police combing the area around the scene of an explosion on Saturday in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood found a pressure cooker nearby connected to a cell phone with wires attached, CNN reported, citing law enforcement sources.

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Black Diamond Group Limited rents and sells modular space and workforce accommodation solutions. It operates through two segments, Modular Space Solutions and Workforce Solutions. The Modular Space Solutions segment provides modular space rentals to customers in the construction, real estate development, education, manufacturing, health care, financial, government, and defense industries in North America. Its products include office units, lavatories, storage units, large multi-unit office complexes, classroom facilities, banking and health care facilities, custom manufactured modular facilities, and blast resistant structures. This segment also sells new and used space rentals units; and provides delivery, installation, project management, and ancillary products and services. The Workforce Solutions segment provides workforce housing solutions, including rental of accommodations and surface equipment, and provision of turnkey lodging and travel management logistics services in Canada, the United States, and Australia. This segment also provides associated services, such as installation, transportation, dismantlement, and sale of used fleet assets. This segment primarily serves the resource, infrastructure, construction, disaster recovery, and education sectors. company also provides specialized field rentals to oil and gas industries. Black Diamond Group Limited markets its rental assets, custom sales, and ancillary products and services through in-house sales personnel, its website, social media, web campaigns, and its digital marketplace. The company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
The Boeing Company is the worlds largest manufacturer of airplanes and commands more than 50% of the market in some channels and categories. The company and its family of subsidiaries design, develops, manufacture, sell, service, and supports commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense, human space flight, and related services worldwide. The company operates through four segments including Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space & Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital providing products and services to end-users in 150 countries.

Boeing got its start in 1910 when William E. Boeing developed a love for aircraft. Soon after he takes his first plane ride which leads him to build a hangar and begin construction of his first plane. The onset of WWI helped spur the companys growth but business was cut drastically in its wake. The start of WWII was another milestone for the company and one that led to its current position of dominance. The company was incorporated in 1916 and is based in Chicago, Illinois. Boeing employs over 140,000 people in 65 countries making it one of the most diverse employers on the planet.

The Commercial Airplanes segment is built around the iconic 7-series which includes the 737, 747, and 787. The segment provides commercial jet aircraft for passenger and cargo requirements, as well as fleet support services for regional, national, and international air carriers and logistics and freight companies. In terms of global volume, the company estimates about 90% of all air freight is carried aboard one of its jets. This segment also includes the Dreamliner family of planes. The Dreamliner is a game-changing airplane for many carriers as it opens up the potential for new one-stop destinations because of its capacity and range.

The Defense, Space & Security segment develops and manufactures a range of systems including manned and unmanned aircraft, missiles, missile defense systems, satellites, communications equipment, and intelligence systems for governments. Among the many iconic brands within this segment are the AH-64 Apache, Air Force One, B-52, C-17 Globemaster, Chinook, F/A-18, and the V-22 Osprey VTOL aircraft used by the Marines.

The Global Services segment offers a range of products and services that include supply chain and logistics management, engineering, maintenance, upgrades, conversions, spare parts, pilot and maintenance training, technical and maintenance documents, and data analytics to its commercial and defense customers.

Boeing is also a leader in innovation, leveraging its many decades and avenues of experience to further aerospace and defense technology. Among the many innovations is the MQ-25 Stingray which will be the worlds first autonomous aircraft. The Stingray is only one of many areas of research that also include drones and undersea vehicles.
The following companies are subsidiares of Bristol-Myers Squibb: 1096271 B.C. ULC, 345 Park LLC, A.G. Medical Services P.A., AHI Investment LLC, AbVitro LLC, Abraxis BioScience Australia Pty Ltd., Abraxis BioScience Inc., Abraxis BioScience International Holding Company Inc., Abraxis BioScience LLC, Abraxis BioScience Puerto Rico LLC, Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Adnexus, Adnexus a Bristol-Myers Squibb R&D Company, Allard Labs Acquisition G.P., Amira Pharmaceuticals, Amira Pharmaceuticals Inc., Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Apothecon LLC, B-MS Generx Unlimited Company, BMS Benelux Holdings B.V., BMS Bermuda Nominees L.L.C., BMS Data Acquisition Company LLC, BMS Forex Company, BMS Holdings Sarl, BMS Holdings Spain S.L., BMS International Insurance Designated Activity Company, BMS Investco SAS, BMS Korea Holdings L.L.C., BMS Latin American Nominees L.L.C., BMS Luxembourg Partners L.L.C., BMS Omega Bermuda Holdings Finance Ltd., BMS Pharmaceutical Korea Limited, BMS Pharmaceuticals Germany Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals International Holdings Netherlands B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Korea Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Mexico Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Netherlands Holdings B.V., BMS Real Estate LLC, BMS Spain Investments LLC, BMS Strategic Portfolio Investments Holdings Inc., Blisa Acquisition G.P., Bristol (Iran) S.A., Bristol Iran Private Company Limited, Bristol Laboratories Inc., Bristol Laboratories International S.A., Bristol Laboratories Medical Information Systems Inc., Bristol-Myers (Andes) L.L.C., Bristol-Myers (Private) Limited, Bristol-Myers Middle East S.A.L., Bristol-Myers Overseas Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Israel) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (NZ) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Proprietary) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Taiwan) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (West Indies) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb A.E., Bristol-Myers Squibb Aktiebolag, Bristol-Myers Squibb Argentina S. R. L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pty. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Axia Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb B.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Belgium S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Business Services Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada International Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Delta Company Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Denmark Filial of Bristol-Myers Squibb AB, Bristol-Myers Squibb EMEA Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Egypt LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Epsilon Holdings Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Ltda., Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Portuguesa S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb GesmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb GmbH & Co. KGaA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holding Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings 2002 Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Ireland Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Pharma Ltd. Liability Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Ilaclari Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb India Pvt. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Company Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Investco L.L.C., Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K., Bristol-Myers Squibb Kft., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg International S.C.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb MEA GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Manufacturing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Marketing Services S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Middle East & Africa FZ-LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Norway Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Nutricionales de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Peru S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (HK) Ltd, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (Thailand) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Holding Company LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Ventures Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Polska Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Products SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico/Sanofi Pharmaceutical Partnership Puerto Rico, Bristol-Myers Squibb Romania S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.A.U., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Holding Partnership, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Service Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Services Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Spol. s r.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Theta Finance Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Trustees Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Colombia S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Costa Rica Sociedad Anonima, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Guatemala S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb/Astrazeneca EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Pfizer EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership, Bristol-Myers de Venezuela S.C.A., CHT I LLC, CHT II LLC, CHT III LLC, CHT IV LLC, CR Finance Company LLC, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals Inc., Celem LLC, Celem Ltd., Celgene, Celgene A.B., Celgene AS, Celgene Ab (Finland), Celgene Alpine Investment Co. II LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. III LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. LLC, Celgene ApS, Celgene B.V., Celgene BVBA, Celgene Brasil Produtos Farmaceuticos Ltda., Celgene CAR LLC, Celgene CAR Ltd., Celgene Chemicals Sarl, Celgene China Holdings LLC, Celgene Co., Celgene Corporation, Celgene Distribution B.V., Celgene EngMab GmbH, Celgene Europe B.V., Celgene Europe Limited, Celgene European Investment Company LLC, Celgene Financing Company LLC, Celgene Global Holdings Sarl, Celgene GmbH [Austria], Celgene GmbH [Germany], Celgene GmbH [Switzerland], Celgene Holdings East Corporation, Celgene Holdings II Sarl, Celgene Holdings III Sarl, Celgene Ilac Pazarlama ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Celgene Inc., Celgene International Holdings Corporation, Celgene International II Sarl, Celgene International III Sarl, Celgene International Inc., Celgene International Sarl, Celgene K.K., Celgene Kft., Celgene Limited [Hong Kong], Celgene Limited [Ireland], Celgene Limited [New Zealand], Celgene Limited [Taiwan], Celgene Limited [UK], Celgene Logistics Sarl, Celgene Ltd, Celgene Luxembourg Sarl, Celgene Management Sarl, Celgene NJ Investment Co, Celgene Netherlands B.V., Celgene Netherlands Investment B.V., Celgene Pharmaceutical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Celgene Pte. Ltd., Celgene Pty Ltd, Celgene Puerto Rico Distribution LLC, Celgene Quanticel Research Inc, Celgene R&D Sarl, Celgene RIVOT LLC, Celgene RIVOT Ltd., Celgene RIVOT SRL, Celgene Receptos Limited, Celgene Receptos Sarl, Celgene Research Incubator At Summit West LLC, Celgene Research S.L.U., Celgene Research and Development Company LLC, Celgene Research and Development I ULC, Celgene Research and Development II LLC, Celgene Research and Investment Company II LLC, Celgene S. de R.L. de C.V., Celgene S.L.U., Celgene S.R.L., Celgene SAS, Celgene Sarl AU, Celgene Sdn Bhd, Celgene Services Sarl, Celgene Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Celgene Sp. Z.o.o., Celgene Sro [Czech Republic], Celgene Summit Investment Co, Celgene Switzerland Holding Sarl, Celgene Switzerland II LLC, Celgene Switzerland Investment Sarl, Celgene Switzerland LLC, Celgene Switzerland Sarl, Celgene Tri A Holdings Ltd., Celgene Tri Sarl, Celgene UK Distribution Limited, Celgene UK Holdings Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing II Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing III Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing Limited, Celgene d.o.o., Celgene sro [Slovakia], Celmed LLC, Celmed Ltd., ConvaTec Divestiture, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals AB, Crosp Ltd., Delinia Inc., Deuteria Pharmaceuticals Inc., DuPont Pharmaceuticals, E. R. Squibb & Sons Inter-American Corporation, E. R. Squibb & Sons L.L.C., E. R. Squibb & Sons Limited, EWI Corporation, EngMab Sarl, F-star Alpha, FermaVir Pharmaceuticals L.L.C., FermaVir Research L.L.C., Flexus Biosciences, Flexus Biosciences Inc., Forbius, Galecto Biotech, GenPharm International L.L.C., Gloucester Pharmaceuticals LLC, Grove Insurance Company Ltd., Heyden Farmaceutica Portuguesa Limitada, IFM Therapeutics, Impact Biomedicines Inc., Inhibitex, Inhibitex L.L.C., Innate Tumor Immunity Inc., JuMP Holdings LLC, Juno Therapeutics GmbH, Juno Therapeutics Inc., Kosan Biosciences, Kosan Biosciences Incorporated, Linson Investments Limited, Mead Johnson (Manufacturing) Jamaica Limited, Mead Johnson Jamaica Ltd., Medarex, Morris Avenue Investment II LLC, Morris Avenue Investment LLC, MyoKardia, O.o.o. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Oy Bristol-Myers Squibb (Finland) AB, Padlock Therapeutics, Padlock Therapeutics Inc., Pharmion LLC, Princeton Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Receptos LLC, Receptos Services LLC, RedoxTherapies Inc., Route 22 Real Estate Holding Corporation, SPV A Holdings ULC, Seamair Insurance DAC, Signal Pharmaceuticals LLC, Sino-American Shanghai Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Societe Francaise de Complements Alimentaires(S.O.F.C.A.), Squibb Middle East S.A., Summit West Celgene LLC, Swords Laboratories, VentiRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Westwood-Intrafin SA, Westwood-Squibb Pharmaceuticals Inc., X-Body Inc., ZymoGenetics, ZymoGenetics Inc., ZymoGenetics LLC, ZymoGenetics Paymaster LLC, iPierian, and iPierian Inc..

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Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh called arch-rival Pakistan a "terrorist state" after militants attacked an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir on Sunday, killing 17 soldiers.

"Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," Singh said on Twitter, without directly blaming India's nuclear-armed neighbour for the attack.

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Guess?, Inc. designs, markets, distributes, and licenses lifestyle collections of apparel and accessories for men, women, and children. It operates through five segments: Americas Retail, Americas Wholesale, Europe, Asia, and Licensing. The company's clothing collection includes jeans, pants, skirts, dresses, shorts, blouses, shirts, jackets, activewear, knitwear, and intimate apparel. It also grants licenses to design, manufacture, and distribute various products that complement its apparel lines, such as eyewear, watches, handbags, footwear, kids' and infants' apparel, outerwear, fragrance, jewelry, and other fashion accessories, as well as to wholesale partners to operate and sell products through licensed retail stores. The company markets its products under the GUESS, GUESS?, GUESS U.S.A., GUESS Jeans, GUESS? and Triangle Design, MARCIANO, Question Mark and Triangle Design, a stylized G and a stylized M, GUESS Kids, Baby GUESS, YES, G by GUESS, GUESS by MARCIANO, and Gc brand names. It sells its products through direct-to-consumer, wholesale, and licensing distribution channels. As of January 29, 2022, the company directly operated 1,068 retail stores in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Its partner's distributors operated an additional 563 retail stores worldwide. The company also offers its products through its retail websites. Guess?, Inc. was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
MRC Global Inc., through its subsidiaries, distributes pipes, valves, fittings, and other infrastructure products and services to the energy, industrial, and gas utility end-markets in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It offers ball, butterfly, gate, globe, check, diaphragm, needle, and plug valves; and other products, such as lined corrosion resistant piping systems, control valves, valve automation, and top work components, as well as valve modification services; and measurement, steam, and instrumentation products. The company also provides carbon steel fittings and flanges comprising carbon weld fittings, flanges, and piping components; stainless steel, alloy and corrosion resistant pipes, tubing, fittings, and flanges; and carbon line pipes. In addition, it offers natural gas distribution products, including risers, meters, polyethylene pipes and fittings, and various other components and industrial supplies; oilfield and industrial supplies and completion equipment, such as high density polyethylene pipes, fittings, and rods; and specialized production equipment comprising tanks and separators. Further, the company provides various services, such as product testing, manufacturer assessments, multiple daily deliveries, volume purchasing, inventory and zone store management and warehousing, technical support, training, just-in-time delivery, truck stocking, order consolidation, product tagging and system interfaces, and valve inspection and repair services; and various other services under the ValidTorque and FastTrack names. Its products are used in the construction, maintenance, repair, and overhaul of equipment used in extreme operating conditions, including high pressure, high/low temperature, and high corrosive and abrasive environments. The company was formerly known as McJunkin Red Man Holding Corporation and changed its name to MRC Global Inc. in January 2012. MRC Global Inc. was founded in 1921 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Schneider Electric S.E. provides energy and automation digital solutions worldwide. It operates through two segments, Energy Management and Industrial Automation. The company offers busway and cable support products, circuit breakers and switches, contactors and protection relays, electrical protection and control products, energy management software solutions, transfer switches, surge protection and power conditioning products, power monitoring and control products, power quality and power factor correction products, pushbuttons, switches, pilot lights and joysticks, software products, and switchboards and enclosures. It also provides access control, building management, fire detection, sensors and room units, valve and valve actuator, and variable and frequency speed drive. In addition, the company offers feeder automation, grid automation and SCADA software products, medium voltage switchgears and transformers, outdoor equipment, substation automation products, and switchgear components. Further, it provides critical power and cooling services, data center software, IT power distribution products, prefabricated data center modules, racks and accessories, and security and environmental monitoring products; home automation and security, installation materials and systems, light switches and electrical sockets, and uninterruptible power supply products; and human machine interface, industrial automation software, industrial communication, measurement and instrumentation, motion control and robotics, signaling units, programmable logic and automation controllers, power supply and protection, process control and safety, RFID systems, signaling devices, and other industrial automation and control products, as well as solar and energy storage. The company was founded in 1836 and is headquartered in Rueil-Malmaison, France.
Telecom Argentina S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides telecommunications services in Argentina and internationally. The company offers telephone services, including local, domestic, and international long-distance telephone services, as well as public telephone services; and other related supplementary services, such as call waiting, call forwarding, conference calls, caller ID, voice mail, itemized billing, and maintenance services. It also provides interconnection services, such as traffic and interconnection resource, dedicated Internet access, video signals transportation in standard and high definitions, audio and video streaming, dedicated links, backhaul links for mobile operators, data center hosting/housing services, dedicated links, layer 2 and layer 3 transport networks, video links, value-added services, and other services. In addition, the company offers mobile telecommunications services, including voice communications, high-speed mobile Internet content and applications download, online streaming, and other services; and sells mobile communication devices, such as handsets, Modems MiFi and wingles, and smart watches under the Personal brand. Further, it provides internet connectivity products, including virtual private network services, traditional Internet protocol links, and other products; data services; and programming and other cable television services. The company was formerly known as Cablevision S.A. and changed its name to Telecom Argentina S.A. in January 2018. Telecom Argentina S.A. was founded in 1979 and is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets commercial aerostructures worldwide. It operates through three segments: Commercial, Defense & Space, and Aftermarket. The Commercial segment offers forward, mid, and rear fuselage sections and systems, struts/pylons, nacelles, and related engine structural components; and wings and wing components, including flight control surfaces, as well as other structural parts. This segment primarily serves the aircraft original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or engine OEMs of large commercial aircraft and/or business/regional jet programs. The Defense & Space segment provides fuselage, strut, nacelle, and wing aerostructures primarily for U.S. Government defense programs, including Boeing P-8, C40, and KC-46 Tanker. This segment also engages in the fabrication, bonding, assembly, testing, tooling, processing, engineering analysis, and training on fixed wing aircraft aerostructures, missiles, and hypersonics works, such as solid rocket motor throats, nozzles, re-entry vehicle thermal protections systems, forward cockpit and cabin, and fuselage work on rotorcraft aerostructures. The Aftermarket segment offers spare parts and MRO services, repairs for flight control surfaces and nacelles, radome repairs, rotable assets, engineering services, advanced composite repairs, and other repair and overhaul services. Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. has a strategic partnership with Sierra Space to enhance access to commercial space economy of the future. The company was formerly known as Mid-Western Aircraft Systems Holdings, Inc. Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1927 and is headquartered in Wichita, Kansas.
Xylem Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the design, manufacture, and servicing of engineered products and solutions for the water and wastewater applications in the United States, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Water Infrastructure, Applied Water, and Measurement & Control Solutions. The Water Infrastructure segment offers various products, including water, storm water, and wastewater pumps; controls and systems; filtration, disinfection, and biological treatment equipment; and mobile dewatering equipment under the Flygt, Godwin, Wedeco, Sanitaire, Leopold, Wedeco, and Xylem Vue brand names for the transportation and treatment of water. The Applied Water segment provides pumps, valves, heat exchangers, controls, and dispensing equipment systems under the Goulds Water Technology, Bell & Gossett, A-C Fire Pump, Standard Xchange, Lowara, Jabsco, Xylem Vue and Flojet brand names for residential and commercial building services, and industrial water applications. The Measurement & Control Solutions segment provides smart meters, networked communication devices, and measurement and control technologies, as well as critical infrastructure technologies. It also offers software and services, including cloud-based analytics, remote monitoring and data management, leak detection, condition assessment, asset management, and pressure monitoring solutions, as well as testing equipment and managed services. This segment sells its products under the Pure, Sensus, Smith Blair, WTW, Xylem Vue, and YSI brand names. The company markets and sells its products through a network of direct sales force, resellers, distributors, and value-added solution providers. Xylem Inc. was formerly known as ITT WCO, Inc. and changed its name to Xylem Inc. in May 2011. The company. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Rye Brook, New York.
A Somali general and at least seven of his bodyguards were killed on Sunday when their military convoy was hit by a suspected car bomb, a police officer said on Sunday.

"Military General Mohamed Roble Jimale and at least seven of his bodyguards died," police colonel Abdikadir Farah told Reuters. The general was also known by the name Goobaanle. Many Somalis have a nickname often as commonly used as their proper name.

Farah said the suspected car bomb hit the vehicle in which the general was travelling. Another police officer blamed the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab.

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The bodies of two adults and two children were discovered, hacked into pieces in a house outside Madrid on Sunday, police and the local mayor told AFP.

The child victims were aged "around four and one", a police spokeswoman said, adding that the gruesome discovery was made at a house just outside the village of Pioz, around 60 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of the Spanish capital.

All four victims were members of the same family, local mayor Ricardo Garcia Lopez told AFP.

The mayor added that, according to neighbours, the family were renting the house and were not Spanish nationals, but Latin Americans.

The alert was sounded in the morning by one neighbor who smelt a strange odour emanating from the house, police said.

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Related Russia votes in parliamentary polls with Putin secure

President Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party on Sunday cruised to an easy victory at parliamentary elections, exit polls showed, despite the longest economic crisis of his 16-year rule.

The ballot for the 450-seat State Duma appeared to have been smooth sailing for authorities desperate to avoid a repeat of mass protests last time round and could now pave the way for Putin to glide to a fourth term as president at elections set for 2018.

But indications of a low turnout appeared to show that many Russians may be turned off by a system in which the Kremlin wields near-total power and could raise questions over legitimacy.

"We can announce already with certainty that the party secured a good result, that it won," Putin said after the vote.

"The situation is tough and difficult but the people still voted for United Russia."

State pollster VTsIOM put the ruling United Russia on 44.5 percent of the vote, ahead of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party on 15.3 percent, the Communists on 14.9 and A Just Russia on 8.1.

Those four parties -- which made up the last parliament and all back the Kremlin -- were the only ones to clear the five percent threshold needed to claim a share of the one-half of seats up for grabs.

The other half of the deputies are being elected on a constituency basis after a change to the election law. So far United Russia has won 66 out the 76 single candidate seats that have been counted so far, the electoral commission said.

The overall tally for United Russia could be down slightly on the 49 percent they claimed in 2011 but Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that party would still end up with an "absolute majority" in the Duma.

There was no final turnout figure but just a few hours ahead of the polls closing less than 40 percent of voters had cast their ballots.

"It is not the biggest we have seen compared to previous election campaigns but it is high," Putin said.

Sunday's election follows a tumultuous few years that have seen Russia seize the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine, plunge into its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War and start a military campaign in Syria.

But the Kremlin exerts almost complete control over the media and public discourse, and this year's election campaign was dubbed the dullest in recent memory.

Looming large was the spectre of mass protests over vote rigging that followed the last legislative polls five years ago and grew into the biggest challenge to Putin since he took charge in 2000.

Since then the Kremlin has cracked down on the right to protest while making a show of stamping out electoral manipulation.

The former scandal-tainted election chief was removed in favour of a human rights advocate who allowed more genuine opposition candidates to take part.

Despite the authorities pledging to crack down on vote-rigging, observers around the country made claims of violations including "cruise-voting" -- where people are bussed to vote at multiple polling stations -- and ballot stuffing.

Electoral Commission chief Ella Pamfilova admitted that there had been problems in certain regions but officials said the number of violations was way down on last time.

For the first time since Moscow seized the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in 2014, residents there voted for Russia's parliament, in a poll slammed by Ukraine as illegal.

Voters in some areas of the vast country were also electing regional leaders.

In the North Caucasus region of Chechnya, strongman Ramzan Kadyrov looked set to win a crushing victory in the first electoral test of his rule after rights groups said that criticism was ruthlessly silenced during the campaign.

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LONDON  Men with early prostate cancer who choose to closely monitor their disease are just as likely to survive at least 10 years as those who have surgery or radiation, finds a major study that directly tested and compared these options.

Survival from prostate cancer was so high  99 percent, regardless of which approach men had  that the results call into question not only what treatment is best but also whether any treatment at all is needed for early-stage cases. And that in turn adds to concern about screening with PSA blood tests, because screening is worthwhile only if finding cancer earlier saves lives.

Theres been no hard evidence that treating early disease makes a difference, said Dr. Freddie Hamdy of the University of Oxford, the studys leader.

Because we cannot determine very well which is aggressive cancer and which is not, men and clinicians can both be anxious about whether the disease will progress, he said. And that pushes them toward treatment.

Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, welcomed the results but said it would be a struggle to convince men diagnosed with early prostate cancer in the U.S. to skip surgery or radiation. He said he often suggests monitoring but its a challenging process to explain to people that certain cancers just dont need to be treated.

Our aggressive approach to screening and treating has resulted in more than 1 million American men getting needless treatment, said Brawley, who had no role in the study.

The research was published online Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was paid for by Britains National Institute for Health Research.

The study involved more than 82,000 men in the United Kingdom, aged 50 to 69, who had tests for PSA, or prostate specific antigen. High levels can signal prostate cancer but also may signal more harmless conditions, including natural enlargement that occurs with age.

Researchers focused on the men diagnosed with early prostate cancer, where the disease is small and confined to the prostate. Of those men, 1,643 agreed to be randomly assigned to get surgery, radiation or active monitoring. That involves blood tests every three to six months, counseling, and consideration of treatment only if signs suggested worsening disease.

A decade later, researchers found no difference among the groups in rates of death from prostate cancer or other causes. More men being monitored saw their cancers worsen  112 versus 46 given surgery and 46 given radiation. But radiation and surgery brought more side effects, especially urinary, bowel or sexual problems.

PSA testing remains popular in the U.S. even after a government task force recommended against it, saying it does more harm than good by leading to false alarms and overtreatment of many cancers that would never threaten a mans life. In Europe, prostate cancer screening is far less common.

Other experts said scientists should focus on how to figure out which cancers are so slow growing they dont need treatment and those that do.

We need something to allow us to identify men with aggressive disease earlier, said Dr. Malcolm Mason, a prostate cancer expert at the charity Cancer Research U.K. He said the study confirmed that for men in the early stages of the disease, there is no wrong treatment decision.

Some participants who had surgery or radiation said they didnt regret it, despite learning now that they probably could have done just as well without it.

Tony Hancock, 60, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer eight years ago in Newcastle, said he originally wanted to have his disease monitored but the study assigned him to have surgery.

Within about 24 hours, I persuaded myself that it was the best option, he said. I started to think, How could you live like that, knowing theres a cancer growing inside you and youre not doing anything about it? 

Although he suffered side effects, including some incontinence and pain, Hancock was glad he had the surgery.

Psychologically, I know the cancer has been removed because my prostate is gone, and Ive never looked back since then.

Douglas Collett, a retired construction worker from Cromhall, said he was horrified when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

It hit me like a sledgehammer, the 73-year-old said. My initial reaction was to get rid of it.

But after reading up on the risks and benefits of surgery and radiation, Collett said he was relieved to have been assigned to the monitoring group, and he feels more men should be fully informed about the various strategies.

Maybe the first option shouldnt be surgery or radiotherapy, he said. Im quite happy to have avoided any of those side effects. I feel just fine now, so maybe I never needed anything else.
The Russian decision comes after Egypt changed its import regulations to state that the country would no longer accept any amount of ergot, a decision that will hurt Russia, Egypt's number one wheat supplier

Egypt will send a technical delegation to Russia at the end of September from the ministries of trade and agriculture to discuss the temporary ban by Russia on the import of Egyptian agricultural products, Egypt's Minister of Trade and Industry Tarek Kabil announced Saturday night after meeting with the Russian ambassador to Cairo.

Kabil met with Russian ambassador Sergei Kirpichenko to discuss the implications of the ban put in place by Russian state agricultural safety agency Rosselkhoznadzor.

Last week, Rosselkhoznadzor announced that the imports of Egyptian agricultural products would be banned starting Thursday until Egyptian authorities take steps to ensure their safety.

The Russian decision comes after Egypt changed its import regulations to state that the country would no longer accept any amount of ergot  a toxic fungus  in its imported wheat, a decision that will hurt Russia, Egypt's number one wheat supplier. In the past, Egypt accepted imported wheat with a maximum of 0.05 percent ergot fungus.

After the meeting with Kirpichenko, Kabil issued a statement stressing that an increase was recently achieved in the export of Egyptian agricultural products, not only in the Russian market but in other foreign markets.

"It is important to find an urgent solution... as the new export season will start in November, especially for citrus, which reached 400,000 tonnes in the previous season," the Egyptian trade minister said in his statement, adding that citrus makes up 30 percent of Egyptian agricultural products exported to Russia.

According to Kabil, Egyptian agricultural exports to Russian are valued at $350 million annually.

Vegetables and fruits are the number one export to Russia from Egypt, with exports increasing in 2015/2016 following Russian restrictions on Turkish imports.

Egypt is considered the world's largest wheat importer, with wheat imports in 2016/2017 estimated at 11.5 million tonnes, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.

According to an official Egyptian report issued in July, Egypt has imported from Russia 2,152,000 tonnes of wheat in the first six months of 2016.

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In front of the home on the back of the nickel  where enslaved African-Americans once toiled under the shadow of Americas third president  hundreds of people gathered to discuss the legacy of slavery and the conversations that surround race and equality today.

On Saturday, Thomas Jeffersons Monticello hosted Memory, Mourning, Mobilization: Legacies of Slavery and Freedom in America, a public summit in conjunction with Human/Ties, a four-day celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Two panels of cultural leaders, activists and historians discussed the foundations of slavery and how the Founding Fathers may have stunted the modern-day struggle for racial equality.

Over the course of his lifetime, Jefferson owned more than 600 men, women and children.

Gayle Jessup White, a community engagement officer with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, opened Saturdays event by reminding those gathered that Monticello was home to more than just this nations third president  it also was home to the people who provided Jefferson with the means to run a plantation, and after his death, to pay off his debts.

In spite of their bondage, this is where they created the best lives they could, White said. This is where they called home.

In the first panel of the morning, moderator Peter Onuf, a Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia, was joined by Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of history and law at Harvard University; Deborah E. McDowell, director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American Studies at UVa; Edward L. Ayers, a humanities professor at the University of Richmond; and Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Childrens Defense Fund.

Gordon-Reed opened the discussion to talk about Jeffersons contradictions  his creed versus his deeds. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote, All men are created equal.

The messiness is that we have the beauty of the ideal, the beauty of the place with this ugliness: the ugliness of slavery and it should be said, the ugliness of race, said Gordon-Reed. I think we have to have a conception of race, we have to never forget that slavery in the United States was racially based.

We get not only the legacy of slavery, we have a legacy of a particular attitude about whites in relation to blacks, she said. Slavery is not just people working and not getting paid. It was about the creation of families  of biological families and connections. We have the clash of that here and how Jefferson dealt with that and how it was not dealt with.

McDowell also spoke about the need to continue talking about the legacies and scars of slavery, in order to examine current issues of equality for black Americans. She spoke about the need of closing the gap between creed and deed, and the need to face the tragic consequences of slavery and the end of slavery, when families were torn apart and many people did not triumph.

I think when we talk about this history, we really need to perhaps subordinate these triumphant narratives of overcoming, of resistance, of agency to those parts of the narrative that speak to considerable loss, losses that can never be completely mourned, McDowell said. There are certain forms of loss and certain forms of tragedies that do not admit closure.

The first step for grappling with the institute of slavery and looking at how it affected enslaved people is to gather as much information as possible, Gordon-Reed said. Having researched the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one of Jeffersons slaves who some believe bore children by him, Gordon-Reed said the information is out there for people to study.

Edelman added to that statement by talking about the need for updated and correct information to be taught in Americas schools, to ensure younger generations are getting the right information, she said.

The first thing we have to do is teach history to our children that is accurate, Edelman said. We cannot have new generations of children growing up with the myths of the past and acting on the myths of past.

There is an urgency I feel of doing away with the myth of history and really teaching our children the truth about who we are and where we came from, but also how we are changing that gap between creed and deed, and what they can do to change that gap, she said.

Following the panel, Leslie Green Bowman, president and CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, recognized about 40 people in the audience who can trace their ancestry to enslaved people who once lived and worked at Monticello. Dozens of descendants have been sharing family stories and history as part of Monticellos Getting Word oral history project to preserve the stories of Monticellos enslaved people.

They had lives and identities separate from our third president, Bowman said. They have long been obscured, but now we know some of those details.

In the second panel, moderator Henry Louis Gates Jr., an Alphonse Fletcher University professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African American research at Harvard University, was joined by Jamelle Bouie, chief political correspondent for Slate Magazine and a CBS News political analyst; Melody Barnes, former assistant to President Barack Obama and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council; Bree Newsome, a filmmaker, writer and community activist; and Jon Meacham, executive editor of Random House and a contributing editor at Time Magazine.

The discussion focused on current equality and the struggle people of color face in trying to create positive change. Gates opened the panel by speaking about the rise of the black middle and upper classes, but pointed out that the percentage of black children living at or below the poverty line is the same since the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. He spoke about the need to continue making progress to bring equality to the lives of black Americans.

Newsome, who shot to fame in 2015 when she was arrested for removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse grounds, spoke about the importance of movements such as Black Lives Matter. She talked about the idea that traditional slavery has simply evolved into the criminal justice system.

If you read the 13th Amendment, youll notice theres an asterisk  not literally, but its there, Newsome said. I would argue that slavery has not ended because the amendment says slavery is outlawed, except as a form of punishment for a crime.

Meacham brought up the fact that historic sites across the country are trying to get the story straight about slavery, with Monticello being a leader in confronting the past head-on. Speaking about the experience of enslaved women, he raised the topic of using DNA to test whether Hemings descendants are related to Jefferson.

Lets go down and dig up the old boy, Meacham said, making the audience laugh. Because, I know who would love it, and thats the old boy. Jefferson would love that.

I think that often historical debates are in some ways safer than contemporary ones, but because they are safer doesnt mean they arent illuminating, he said. To talk about Jeffersons hypocrisies, in a way, helps us understand our own.

Closing out the days event, Gordon-Reed talked about common threads running through both panels, including the idea that Jefferson thought enslaved black people should be free, but that they would never be able to live near whites.

Jefferson thought that was progressive, Gordon-Reed said. The legacy of white supremacy is what prevents us from moving forward.

Poet Nikki Giovanni gave the closing remarks at the event, speaking about the strength of enslaved black people and the achievements black Americans are making today. She also spoke about the good that came out of slavery  the families.

We are going to do what we have to do to make this a better place, she said.
Six months ago, fervor swept over the community on a cool, early spring morning when dozens of people met in Lee Park for a gathering thats been described by some as one of Charlottesvilles most divisive moments.

But history may not remember that meeting and its ultimate outcome to be so divisive in reality.

The fervor, which was caused by a public call to remove the parks statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, has cooled to some degree since then. But countless people have continued to grumble, groan and grouse at the idea despite a pivot thats not completely buried the thought of removing the statue, but has instead placed the focus on the citys overarching narrative of the last 150 years.

Throughout the summer, the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, created by the City Council in the aftermath of the Lee Park gathering, has been meeting regularly to discuss how the city has presented its history and whether it has equitably represented all of the citys longstanding communities.

Within that scope, the panel is tasked with making recommendations to improve the visibility of and tribute to other aspects of the citys history, e.g. the Vinegar Hill, Starr Hill, Tonsler and Fifeville neighborhoods; the slave auction block in Court Square; the citys African-American newspapers, the Reflector and Charlottesville Messenger; and dozens of cemeteries, churches, restaurants, businesses and other sites.

Since its first meeting in June, explicit calls for the statues removal have nearly vanished from the discourse at public meetings.

When you talk about the statue of Robert E. Lee, black people couldnt care less, said M. Rick Turner, president of the Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP.

Turner aggravated statue supporters when he called it trash during the March gathering at the park. But he said many African-Americans have not been paying much attention to the proposal.

Instead, many people  black and white  speaking at the commissions meetings have asked it to either not recommend removing the statue or to advocate for the erection of new monuments that memorialize peace and unity or represent historically marginalized groups by honoring watershed moments or extraordinary individuals.

Regardless of what the commission does, when all is said and done, the statue will still be there, Turner said, predicting what will happen after the commission submits a report thats due in November to the City Council.

In the weeks following the gathering at Lee Park, Councilor Wes Bellamy expressed exuberant optimism in an interview that the statue would be removed. Months later, hes tempered his expectations, saying it wouldnt be the end of the world for me if the statues were to stay put, referring to the Lee statue, as well as a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas Stonewall Jackson in the citys Jackson Park.

He said theres still some support for removal, suggesting that there might be a generational divide on the issue, as some others, including Commission member Rachel Lloyd, have said publicly. Regardless, those sentiments havent been demonstrated at public meetings lately.

I think we need to discover a way to engage the people who dont come to the meetings for whatever reasons, and couple their input with the people who have been vocal in the media or by email about this topic. It still appears that we have a lot of people who dont trust this process  and think that the people in positions of power will continue with the status quo, Bellamy said.

As for whether or not City Council should remove the statues, he said, noting that the decision ultimately lies with the council, I think we need to go with the recommendations of the commission.

***

Regardless of Turners perception and the lack of demonstrable support for the statues removal in recent months, some have continued to fret that the city intentionally stacked the deck and appointed liberals who are more than sympathetic to the idea.

At a City Council meeting in August, just a few days following the resignation of Gordon Fields from the blue ribbon commission, a member of a group advocating for the preservation of the citys Confederate memorials openly questioned whether one of the commissioners, University of Virginia history professor John Mason, is open-minded.

Id like to see an addition to help counterbalance that, said Will Lyster, a Friends of CVille Monuments trustee and vice president of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society.

Lysters appeal to have the city replace Fields with another UVa professor, Ervin Jordan, came too late, however, as the appointment of Sue Lewis had been completed in a closed meeting an hour beforehand. The council announced the appointment after the meetings public comment period.

Both Lyster and Lewis A. Martin III, a real estate lawyer with ties to the city going back several generations, have alleged that Mason is guilty of thumping the table when it comes to the statues and whether they are symbols of racism and slavery.

In an interview, Martin said the city snubbed Jordan, a Civil War expert, and chose Mason, an expert on modern Africa and photography who has been outward with his feelings against the statue.

Because Mason has said in public meetings and media interviews that the statue hides black history and essentially glorifies those who fought to continue the Southern antebellum period that depended on chattel slavery, Martin believes thats an implicit bias that makes him unfit for the commission.

He says he wants to get away from the monuments, but thats after hes made this blast calling the people connected with the erection and dedication of these monuments a bunch of white supremacists, said Martin, a self-described partisan.

What Im saying is, that doesnt conform to my knowledge of the people of that time  that I knew as a little boy, and a teenager, and as a young man, Martin said.

Mason said interpretations of the wars impetus  whether it was slavery or the Lost Cause for states rights  are irreconcilable.

Believing that the erection of the statue was an embodiment of the Lost Cause mythology, Mason said the statue and others like it effectively obscure the anguish of slavery and the history of newfound freedom.

Theres an erasure of history around those statues. I find them troublesome, but I think the question of what to do with them is quite difficult, said Mason, who said he had ancestors who fought for the Union in the Civil War.

Martins reservations about Mason arent unique, however.

***

In his review of the applications for the panel, Martin alleged that most of the people chosen by the City Council do not have deep, generational ties to the area, which, according to Martin, means the commission is unfit to decide what the city should do with the Confederate statues.

He also suggested the commissions racial composition isnt appropriately reflective of the citys demographics.

According to census.gov, approximately 20 percent of the citys population last year was black. The commission, following Lewis recent appointment, features four blacks and five whites.

When I look at the commission, I dont see anybody who looks like me  and Im not just talking about color, Martin said, alleging that many of the members application statements and listed affiliations with certain churches, organizations and institutions reflect an apparent liberal bias and condemnation of the statues as representations of racism.

Regardless of any political bias and personally held beliefs, many commissioners have said they are keeping an open mind as to how they will put together their report and what it will say the city should do with the statues.

We cant just leave it or tear it down and throw it into a garbage heap, Mason said, referring to the Lee statue. Youve eliminated the two extremes, but there are so many questions to think through  I think thatll be the hardest thing we will do.

I have very mixed feelings about the Lee and Jackson statues, said Lloyd, the citys PLACE Design Task Force representative on the commission.

I can appreciate them as works of art and for what they tell us about the time period when they were built. However, they also signify some pretty awful aspects of our history, Lloyd said.

Trying to boil down the statues meaning to one idea would be simplistic, I think. There is no single story embedded in the statues, she said.

While much negative attention has been placed on Mason for his candidness regarding the statues, Margaret OBryant, the citys Historic Resources Committee representative on the commission, previously has stated in media reports that she supports keeping the statues in place.

OBryant, chief librarian for the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, said she considers the statues part of her heritage.

 I dont want to commit myself too bluntly at this point because the commissions work is ongoing, but certainly my opinion in the past, and up until now, is these works represent an extraordinary public gift from a benefactor to Charlottesville, she said, referring to philanthropist Paul Goodloe McIntire.

Some have argued that McIntires public gift must remain in place, per the original deed of trust, but that issue has yet to be resolved.

My family has been here throughout this whole period, OBryant said. Even people whove had their ancestors live here through that time, theyre likely to have someone who served here in the Civil War. And I did have someone in my family who fought in the war for the Confederacy.

***

Jane Smith, who has lived in the city since 1990 after residing in Albemarle County the previous decade, said one of her great-grandfathers fought for the Confederacy.

I dont have to agree with my great-grandfather to honor and respect him, she said. I dont know what to do about the statue. Im really perplexed. I hadnt given it much thought before.

I want to support Wes, but Im in listening mode right now  not that I dont support his proposal. Im supporting him by paying attention to what hes said.  [and] by looking at the question.

Commissioner Melvin Burruss, who along with Smith is a member of the local NAACP, said he applied to the commission because he feels he has a dual-understanding of the statues, both as a black man and as a Navy veteran.

Having grown up in New England, Burruss now lives in Louisa, where his father grew up.

He said he feels he has ties to the local community because he remembers visiting family in Charlottesville as a child in the 1950s, when many institutions were still segregated.

Ive been thinking about what the purpose of all this is, he said. I dont want to point any fingers. I have my feelings as an African-American, but theres also this other side where I think its important to keep them. Because of my background  I thought I could help make a good decision on what to do.

Regarding the statues, Burruss, also a member of the Charlottesville Albemarle Bar Association, said he hasnt made a decision.

As for the rest of the report, he said: Well get it right  Most folks will feel they had input and that we heard them. And many will agree with the recommendations. Well get some specific recommendations on what to do.

The work of the commission is long from completed, but several city councilors have said theyve been getting a sense of what recommendations theyll receive this fall.

I have been encouraged by how closely they seem to be following their prescribed mission, which is to tell the full story of race in Charlottesville and to change our narrative through race in public spaces by taking a holistic approach to a range of projects, all linked by the common theme of race, said Mayor Mike Signer.

Signer, who called for the creation of the commission, said hes not surprised there hasnt been much support for the statues removal.

Referencing a public forum the commission held in July, Signer said many of the comments made there were consistent with what he heard from long-time African-American residents who told him this spring that they would prefer for the memorials to stay as a teachable moment 

That sentiment, however, hasnt changed how Bellamy and fellow Councilor Kristin Szakos, who herself called for the removal of the Lee statue in 2012, feel about it.

I would prefer the statue be moved to a museum or somewhere else it can be appreciated, but above all else, Bellamy said, I think our community has been forced to deal with something we have not had to deal with for a long time.

Szakos said she appreciates what the commission has accomplished thus far, and that shes looking forward to having a framework that we can use to evaluate our history as a whole.

She predicted that no matter what is decided, the issue could bubble up again one day.

I know so many people who dont go to Lee Park because of their perception of the statue, she said.

I cant imagine the issue will go away  theres various, strong opinions that go in all ways. Whatever is the immediate course of action will probably be revisited at some point.

However, that may be accounted for in the final report, according to Commissioner Frank Dukes.

Dukes said one of the commissions potential recommendations is that there be continued engagement on these issues about ethnic, racial and diverse representation in public memorials and spaces.

To Dukes, that doesnt necessarily mean it has to be about removing the statues.

Many people are saying they want us to do this in a way that brings the community together. I hadnt realized how many people felt that deeply, he said. The people who have spoken most passionately said that.

This isnt the end all be all, but itll be one step toward that.

The commission is expected to provide a progress report on its tasks to the City Council on Monday. It will hold a community-wide forum at Buford Middle School at 6 p.m. Thursday. Forum attendees will be invited to participate in an informal vote on several related questions, including whether the citys Confederate statues should be removed.
Trade does result in very real and serious job losses, while its benefits are spread more broadly over the entire U.S. economy. Yet many job losses are not a result of trade; they are actually driven by productivity gains related to rapid advancements in technology, a powerful force disrupting labor markets globally and affecting numerous countries, including the U.S. and China.

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Compromise isnt a dirty word. Yet for most members of Congress, youd think it was some sort of infectious disease, to be avoided at all costs. Republicans, particularly, fear being primaried  defeated by someone on the extreme right supported by such no-compromise groups as the tea party and the Club for Growth.

To be fair, the Democrats have their issues, too. The New York Times editorial board, The New Republic, The Nation and their favored liberal groups will scold them for deviation from accepted liberal doctrine.

Thats why I will vote for Jane Dittmar for U.S. representative in Virginias 5th District. With her background in mediation and in business, she knows the value of compromise, and is practiced in generating the common ground on which compromise can be built. As a Supreme Court of Virginia-certified mediator, Janes practice areas include workforce and organization conflicts, with an emphasis on team rebuilding and training. If anywhere in our country seriously needs some team rebuilding and help resolving disputes, its Congress.

At the top of the list of things we need done for us in the district:

 Affordable, reliable broadband internet access is crucial for job development. Jane was nominated to the Governors Broadband Advisory Committee to bring people to the table to provide this access.

 Jane spent nine years as president of the Charlottesville Albemarle Chamber of Commerce, where she focused on strategic partnerships between public and private entities to encourage economic development.

In a year when voters reject career politicians, Mrs. Dittmar does not plan to use the House seat merely as a means to move to another office. Im not invested in any paths to power, she said in Charlottesville. I will work for the district and when I come home, I will be proud of what I did.

Its what many of the Founders had in mind  which is fitting, since James Madison once held this House seat. If she is elected, and does what she says, more officeholders should take this as a model.

Henry D. McHenry Jr.

Albemarle County
Mason Insurance turns 125 this year, but for its owners, Chuck Mason and Bryan Hargett, the anniversary is business as usual.

The companys history surrounds them dailypictures of their ancestors who worked at the same company adorn the walls. A photo of Mason as a child hangs in his office. In it, theres a telegram telling his mother that a desk had already been picked out for the youngest family member.

Going through records, they dug up receipts showing what Masons grandfather, Barton Mason, accepted as payment instead of premiums during the Great Depression: hams, corn and chickens.

Mason said the 125-year milestone means Mason Insurance is the oldest business in the town of Orange and Orange County, and one of the oldest family-run insurance agencies in Virginia.

We didnt sell out to a bank and really dont want to do so, he said.

The business was founded in 1891 by V. R. Shackleford and Allen Warren. It was called Shackleford and Warren until Barton Mason, a traveling salesman, bought into the company in 1908. He bought out his partners in the 1920s and renamed it Mason Insurance.

Hargetts father, Ben Hargett, bought into the business in 1969. Bryan Hargett joined the business in 1996.

In 125 years, the company has insured the residents of Orange through some big disastersmost recently the Mineral earthquake of 2011, Snowmagedon in 2009 and the derecho in 2012. The agency helped Orange when a 1909 fire almost burned the entire downtown.

Its why we have a fire department today, said Mason. Barton Mason was a founding member of the department.

But like many kids from a small town, both Mason and Hargett wanted to get as far away from Orange as possible before eventually finding their way back.

After graduating from college, Mason worked for a bank in Baltimore for a few years. Then in 1975, his father called.

Harry Mason, then in his late 50s, said he needed another generation to work for the family business.

He told me, Youre not from Baltimore, and you havent been to graduate school. Youll always be working for someone else there. So I came back.

Hargett followed a similar trajectory, working in Washington as an underwriter before returning.

I wanted to get out, but after a taste of urbanity I didnt mind coming back. Raising a family here and living life in Orange was attractive, he said.

Coming back meant getting involved, which Mason called an essential part of living in a small town.

Both are active in Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce. Mason also has been the mayor of Orange for seven years.

Hargett said that attention to the community by each generation is why the business has succeeded.

Though technology has changed the business, he said they are committed to the community and try to offer traditional service.

We sell commercial, personal and farm insurance, so our clients can get everything they need, and we like to meet face to face, Hargett said.

He said servicing existing customers and paying attention to renewals sets them apart in the modern insurance age.

Mason Insurance is looking ahead to the next generation, as well. Masons daughter, Whitney Mason Gammell, works there. Though Hargetts children are both in college, he thinks they might find their way back to Orange, too.
(Beijing)  A top Communist Party official who headed prestigious Fudan University was removed from his position in early September after anti-graft investigators found he was linked to a vote-buying scandal in Liaoning province, Caixin has learned.

Wei Xiaopeng, secretary of the Shanghai university's party committee, was removed from his position after investigators found that he and over 500 lawmakers from the northeastern province had paid "enormous amounts of money" to peers to get elected to the provincial and national legislature in 2013.

As head of Fudan University's party committee, Wei had the power to overrule the university president and administration.

China's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), expelled 45 lawmakers  or nearly half the number elected from Liaoning last week over bribery and election fraud.

Wei was appointed as party secretary of Fudan, rated one of the top three universities in the country, in March. He had spent much of his career in Liaoning and previously served as party secretary at Dalian University of Technology.

A vice minister of education, Zhu Zhiwen, had announced the decision to sack Wei at a university party committee meeting two weeks ago, a person close to the Fudan administration said. The dismissal was linked to Wei's alleged involvement in the vote-buying scheme, he added.

Wei has resigned from the Liaoning provincial legislature, Liaoning Daily, a state-run regional newspaper, reported on Sunday. Wei was among 452 provincial legislators  out of 619 members  to resign after the scandal came to light in late August. It is unclear when he resigned.

Liaoning Deputy Governor Gang Rui has also stepped down from the provincial legislature, Liaoning Daily said. Jiang was last seen in public when he came with a local art troupe to Beijing on Aug. 28, the newspaper said. According to the provincial government's website, he is still deputy governor.

China's national and provincial lawmakers are chosen through a multitier voting system, with members within the legislative bodies electing candidates mostly nominated by the party.

A temporary panel has been appointed to oversee the operations of the provincial congress in Liaoning until the next round of elections in 2018, the NPC said.

Contact reporter Li Rongde (rongdeli@caixin.com); editor Poornima Weerasekara (poornima@caixin.com)
LONDON - England - An urgent communique from the UK Secure think tank reveals the dangers present from the EU unless Britain acts immediately.

Britains PM is delaying invoking Article 50 but her government can repeal the 1972 European Communities Act immediately.

By doing so, British laws would supersede those of the EU once again.

Magna Carta

For thousands of years Britain has survived without the EU, and by reclaiming some of our own judicial power we can begin to take power back from the parasitical entity of Brussels and the unelected EU Commission.

Regaining some semblance of Britains sovereignty and legal system is a first step away from the totalitarian Marxist EU regime.

We must do this NOW

The Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 must be adhered to in the interests of the safety of Britains interests in Gibraltar which is currently coming under increasing threat by Spain.

Because of the Schengen Free Movement zone, Britain is increasingly coming under attack from elements sneaking into Europe across its porous borders. In the interests of national security, it is imperative that the UK takes back control of its borders. Without doing so immediately will increase terrorism within our shores on a par with what is happening in France.

France is an example of a nation that has been severely compromised by its porous borders, where terrorists move arms freely into the country to commit atrocities on the population. Every part of France now is in a state of emergency where they can be attacked at any time at will by those wishing to commit acts of terror.

Every day Britain does not secure its borders, the closer it gets to becoming France

The threat of terrorism from groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda can only be thwarted by securing borders with proper checks and halting EU free movement, until that time, the attacks will continue exponentially.

For the interests of British sovereignty in parliament and law, the United Kingdom must repeal the 1972 European Communities Act immediately and then invoke Article 50 to conclude the exit from the EU.

Terrorist cells

There is no other way to safeguard the nation from the terroristic threats emanating from the Continent.

The Turkish migrant accord with the EU has failed and this year millions have crossed into the EU from Libya and through Russian territories north of Greece which was the preferred entry point in 2015.

Because of a news blackout ordered by Brussels, these massive incursions are not being reported by the mainstream controlled press. Every day thousands of migrants, who may or may not be legitimate refugees are pouring into the EU interspersed with terrorists who are utilising the cover of refuge to infiltrate the European Union.

The Middle East is in a state of war, and the Schengen zone is an invitation for war to come to Europe. The Schengen zone was designed to work only in peace time, of which we are not in at the moment and for some time.

It is imperative that the United Kingdom leaves the EU immediately. Make Britain Great again by giving it back its own sovereignty and judicial system.
09.18.2016 18:37

Large corporations buck trend, see rebound in PBOC survey Amid an economic slowdown, the overall index of loan demand was at 55.7 in the third quarter, the lowest since the Peoples Bank of

By Coco Feng

The willingness of Chinese companies to borrow reached a 12-year low in the third quarter, according to a survey published by the countrys central bank on Sunday.

Amid an economic slowdown, the overall index of loan demand was at 55.7 in the third quarter, the lowest since the Peoples Bank of China started to compile the data in 2004. The index of loan demand from medium-sized enterprises fell to 52 and for small business to 55.8, both historic lows. However, the figure for large corporations slightly rebounded at 51.4, up 0.1 points from a quarter earlier.
This page may be updated if the event is repeated

Past Event - Thursday, September 29, 2016 This page may be updated if the event is repeated

Following sell-out shows in the Northeast, Rockin Road to Dublin is coming to Dayton Ohio on their first national tour!

Rockin Road to Dublin is revitalizing classic Irish art forms and mixing it with Rock-n-Roll to create a new and exciting show like youve never seen before.

Get ready to experience a new take on Irish music and dance! Rockin Road to Dublin is the new sensation changing the Irish Dance world. A mix of style and mastery, RR2Ds performance is a medley of fun vibes, highly original choreography, and technical mastery!

World Champion Irish Dancer Scott Doherty has teamed up with veteran Celtic rocker Chris Smith to produce this fusion of music, movement, and culture. RR2D is a breathtaking display of classic Irish tunes, jigs, and reels accented by rock riffs, contemporary costumes, and a dynamic light show. Prepare to be amazed as a new generation of performers execute rapid-fire leaps, twirls, and footwork, while fiddlers square off with driving electric guitar chords and pulse-pounding drum beats for a step-dance ceili like no other.

Come see the show that Irish Dancing Magazine calls WORLD CLASS ... a one-two punch of style and mastery ... they made some magic here.

Buy your tickets today and join the crowds raving "there's more than one road to the heart of Ireland"!
This page may be updated if the event is repeated

Past Event - Saturday, September 17, 2022 This page may be updated if the event is repeated

$8 per person FREE Ages 2 and under

AUTUMNFEST is back with lots of Fall fun! Pony rides, hayrides, food trucks and more at Learning Tree Farm!

Autumn Fest At Learning Tree Farm

Learning Tree Farms annual Autumn Fest is our most popular event of the year! We invite you to join us for a day of family fun on the farm while supporting Learning Tree Farms mission of providing hands-on learning in a traditional farm setting!

Autumn Fest offers great activities for the whole family! This years lineup includes:

Farm animals: including goats, cows, pigs, chickens, donkeys, and miniature ponies

Food Trucks (yum!)

Live music

Pony rides

Hay Rides

Historic and nature-based games

Local vendors and artisans

AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!
New Delhi: Beleaguered businessman Vijay Mallya remains in "full control" even after relocating to UK, his UB group's holding firm United Breweries Holdings Ltd has said while disclosing remuneration totalling Rs 1.6 crore.

Group company United Breweries Ltd, in which co-promoter Heineken has been hiking stake, has also disclosed total remuneration of about Rs 2.86 crore to Mallya, who moved to the UK earlier this year amid a furore over various cases involving erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines including about huge loan defaults.

However, this payment had to be withheld pursuant to the orders of the Income Tax Department. In its latest annual report, released to shareholders ahead of their Annual General Meeting on September 29, the group holding firm UBHL said it has been without a Managing Director since April 17, 2014.

"In the interregnum, the Chairman of the Board, Vijay Mallya is acting as the Principal Officer of the company and reviewed the performance of the Company at the Board Meetings held during the year.

"Even after his relocating to London, he has full control over the affairs of the company through appropriate delegation of duties to various operating executives who report to him on a regular basis," it said.

Giving details of the remuneration paid to the directors, UBHL has disclosed fees totalling Rs 3.2 lakh to Mallya for attending board or committee meetings. Out of this, payment of sitting fees totalling Rs 1.6 lakh has been restrained by Order of the Tax Recovery Officer dated November 24, 2015, UBHL said.

However, Mallya received remuneration totalling about Rs 1.6 crore from two overseas subsidiaries of UBHL. "The Chairman of the company has received remuneration from two subsidiaries, amounting to USD 120,000 (previous year USD 120,000) and British Pound 89,600 (previous year GBP 89,600) during the year 2015-16," it said.

UBHL also said Vijay Mallya's son Sidhartha ceased to be a director of the company with effect from March 31, 2016. The company's operations comprise primarily of holding of strategic investments and other securities, international trade, development of real estate, sale and rental of constructed premises including residential property of Kingfisher Towers, licensing of trademarks, advancing of loans and provision of guarantees.

Interestingly, it also disclosed having been given "the Export Excellence award" by a Karnataka business chamber.' UBHL said it "is constrained by various restraint orders

of the High Court of Karnataka as a result of which revenue yielding business proposals like franchising out the Kingfisher brand owned by the Company and renting out vacant space at UB City, Bangalore could not be implemented."

"The operations of the company was further affected due to the provisional attachment of properties and shares by the Directorate of Enforcement consequent upon their investigation in a purported money laundering case of Kingfisher Airlines Limited.

Continuing efforts are being taken to have the temporary embargo lifted which would augment increasing revenue streams." Giving details of various cases, UBHL said the

Enforcement Directorate (ED) had provisionally attached in June the immovable properties of the company based in Bangalore and Mumbai under Prevention of Money Laundering Act for a period of 180 days in connection with investigation against Mallya, Kingfisher and others.

"Pursuant to a Show Cause Notice dated July 11, 2016 received from the Adjudicating Office in this regard, the company is in consultation with its legal counsels for taking appropriate steps that may be required including but not limited to defending the case before the Adjudicating Authority in Delhi.

"As part of the investigations of the affairs of the Kingfisher Airlines Limited, the company has cooperated with all the Investigating Agencies by providing all relevant information, records, data and facts as and when required by the said agencies," it added.

In its annual report, United Breweries Ltd (UBL) has disclosed sitting fees totalling Rs 2.9 lakh and commissions worth Rs 2.83 crore to Mallya, but added that "pursuant to the notice received from the Income Tax department, the company has withheld payments effective March 2016".

At its upcoming AGM, UBHL will interestingly seek approval from the shareholders for a proposal for entering into a a pact for purchase of goods or materials from them (including purchase of beer) from UBL for an estimated amount of up to Rs 150 crore for the current financial year 2016-17.
Fund managers have infused Rs 2.50 lakh crore in the debt markets during the period under review.

New Delhi: Mutual funds have invested over Rs11,600 crore in equity markets in the current financial year so far due to strong participation from retail investors.

This is on top of over Rs 70,000 crore already invested in the entire 2015 and around Rs 24,000 crore in 2014. "Over the last few years, we have seen a shift in investment towards equity class as investment avenues like real estate and gold are not doing well," Bajaj Capital Group CEO and Director Anil Chopra said.

Besides, equity mutual funds have added over 11 lakh investor accounts or folios in the first five months of the current fiscal to cross 3.7 crore by the end of August. Market experts attributed the inflow to investment in systematic investment plans (SIPs) and strong participation from retail investors.

SIP is an investment vehicle that allows investors to invest in small amounts periodically instead of lump sums. The frequency of investment is usually weekly, monthly or quarterly.

As per data released by Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), mutual fund managers invested a net sum of Rs 11,608 crore so far in the calendar year 2016 (January- September).

In addition, fund managers have infused Rs 2.50 lakh crore in the debt markets during the period under review. The inflow is in line with BSE's benchmark Sensex rising 9.5 per cent during the period under review.

A mutual fund is an investment vehicle with a pool of funds collected from various investors to buy stocks, bonds, money market instruments and similar assets.
Since December 2014, exports fell for the straight 18th month till May 2016 due to weak global demand.

Mumbai: The loss of 70,000 jobs during the second quarter of 2015 was mainly contributed by the sharp drop in merchandise exports.

This reinforces a crucial point that the employment generation has to be led by the domestic demand in the wake of subdued global demand, an AssochamThought Arbitrage study noted.

The study said there is a concern because most of the export-oriented units in the economy are dependent on contractual workers. So, massive reduction in contractual jobs in these sectors might as well imply deteriorating conditions in the export units.

Seven sectors saw drastic retrenchment in both regular and contractual employment while textiles was most affected and saw a massive drop in contractual jobs with some new regular jobs.

The leather sector also saw a marginal increase in new jobs. Merchandise exports had dropped by over 17 per cent in the first two quarters of the fiscal 2015-16 and this continues 2016-17.

The cumulative value of exports for the period April-August 2016-17 was $1,08,519.94 million as against $ 1,11,853.88 million registering a negative growth of 2.98 per cent.

The Indian economy has to look internally at the domestic economy to restart the Indian growth story said Assocham secretary general D.S. Rawat.

That is only possible if there is extra demand generation within the economy. Employment generation is the most important factor to generate such extra demand. More employment means extra purchasing power in the hands of the people, and subsequently more demand generated for all kinds of commodities and services, he said.
Mumbai: The actress says she is not religious but has a deep connection with spirituality and the more she reads about it, the more she is baffled by the treatment of women in society.

"I live in this country, I care deeply about the culture. I am not religious but I am spiritual, so I read a lot about it how Durga, Sita are important, how each goddess had a role to play in evolution. And then when I see how people treat women, it is really confusing to me. Religion has become hypocrisy," Richa told PTI in an interview.

The actress hits strongly at people who treat the festival of Ganesh visarjan as an excuse to get drunk and party, with no regards to the culture, something, she says, must be questioned.

Richa says the gender-based discrimination, where men are considered superior to women, is an issue which is integral not only to Indian but all over the world.

"There is the issue of rape in some places, in some countries women can't study too much".

Asked if gender-based biases exist even in Bollywood, the actress said, "Of course they do. Because Bollywood reflects society... we are not a special entity. So whatever prejudices society has for us, we carry into the films. That's the problem."

Richa, however, says she has never faced any discrimination from men, as she is a "different kind of woman" who doesn't let "people look down upon" her.

The actress feels if there should be a change, one should believe that both men and women are equal. "Feminism basically says both men and women are equal. It doesn't say women are better or men are stupid. So, we have to believe that if we want there to be a change."
Mumbai: Jiah Khan was found hanging in her Juhu apartment on June 3, 2013, but three years later, there is still some mystery regarding details of the incident. While the Central Bureau of Investigation recently stated that Jiah committed suicide, her mother Rabia Khan has claimed that it was a case of murder.

Sooraj Pancholi, who was in a relationship with the late actress at the time of her death, has been charged with abetment to suicide in her death and the proceedings related to the case are currently underway.

Now, Rabia Khan has taken some new steps to get justice for her daughter and to get to the bottom of the case. She claims that she has been trying since a substantial amount of time to obtain forensic details of the case from the CBI, but without any success. And so, she has now hired a UK-based forensic expert Jason Payne-James to unearth crucial information related to the case.

"Finally I approached Jason Payne-James, who has found out several discrepancies in the CBI investigations. But since we are yet to submit the findings to the High Court, we cannot reveal the details of the report now," Khan told DNA.

There is some mystery over the object Jiah used to hang herself, whether it was a dupatta or a rope.

I very clearly remember one of the hearings in the High Court. The judge asked the police as to what was used by the deceased to commit suicide. The officer, after looking at the photograph of my daughter, replied: 'I think it is a rope." Her counsel had told the judge that the panchmana states it was a dupatta that was used. She now wants to know where is the dupatta and why are the details related to it not stated anywhere.

"The sad part is that the irresponsible behaviour of the police towards my daughter's case did not end there. When the High Court asked them to show the dupatta, they said that it was with the Forensic Science Laboratory for a dna test. But the FSL makes no mention about it. Also there was no mention about the whereabouts of the track suit used by my daughter," Khan added.

Khan has now questioned the police claim that there was some faecal matter found on the floor that day, as according to experts, this can only be possible when the death is because of trauma or shock.

Khan is hoping that her daughter gets justice just like South African model Reeva Steenkamp who was killed by her boyfriend, famous athlete Oscar Pistorius on Valentine's Day 2014.

"I am not witch-hunting who killed my daughter, I just want the truth. The scientific evidence speaks for itself and it is plain for all to see. I believe the court will not let me down. I want the truth for my daughter, just like Reeva got justice in her country. I believe in my country's judiciary. That is why I am still here, fighting to get the truth out," she was quoted saying.
Mumbai: Ganpati visarjan (immersion) at RK studio in Chembur has been all over the news for execrable reasons. A video, that went viral on social media last week, showed a very infuriated side of Kapoor scions Rishi Kapoor and Randhir Kapoor, misbehaving with overtly enthusiastic fans and media persons.

Rishi Kapoor, who has a history of brawls with the media, has brushed away rumours of bad conduct with the crowd and maintains that all the Kapoor brothers were trying to do, is maintain decorum.

The actor, who was last seen in Kapoor and Sons since 1920, has cleared his son, superstar Ranbir Kapoors name saying that he is no where to be seen in the video.

Kapoor is not the one to shy away. He has tweeted expressing his desire to sue the channel that maligned them.

Rishi Kapoor, who claims to have identified the channel who has maligned the family's name, is in talks with his lawyers.

The yesteryear actor was accused of pushing a senior cameraman in a feat of rage. That accusation, however, has been lifted by one of the journalists who was present during the Kapoor familys 64 years old Ganpati Visarjan tradition. The journalist, who fell down on his own was thanked by senior Kapoor for clearing his and the familys name.

Kapoor thanks the journalist on social media who admits to have fallen down on his own.

While slowly but surely the Kapoor clan is clearing their family name, it is time for the ones who defamed them to worry.
Mumbai: Anushka Sharma is currently shooting for Imtiaz Alis film The Ring opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Amsterdam, after the first schedule in Prague had got completed. The actress has shared several pictures from the shoot, and some from the shoot have also gone viral. She was also spotted being sad is one of the scenes as she was shooting at the Amsterdam airport and that indicates that the film seems to be have some intense and dramatic moments.

But despite the intensity of the film, Anushka knows how to chill out after the shooting. While her funny Snapchat videos are also entertaining, this time she has posted a video of her running around bubbles like kids, and having fun bursting them.

Watch the video here:

A video posted by AnushkaSharma1588 (@anushkasharma) on Sep 16, 2016 at 5:59am PDT

Strangely she is the only adult in the company of kids.

Its good to bring out the child in you sometimes and when a star like Anushka does it, there will be several of her fans who would want to do it too.
Rating:

Director: Vikram Bhatt

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Gaurav Arora and Kriti Kharbanda

The fourth instalment of the Raaz franchise Raaz Reboot is anything but scary. Directed by Vikram Bhatt, this film is a sloppy take on the horror genre. I am still trying to fathom what was going through Vikram Bhatts mind when he penned down this stale love triangle, with a lovesick ghost vying hard for some attention.

The story centres around a banker Rehaan (Gaurav Arora) who bags a well-paying job in Romania and is in love with Shiana (Kriti Kharbanda). Meanwhile, Shiana breaks up with her boyfriend Aditya and settles with her husband in Romania where they hope to live a happy married life in their huge mansion.

Things, however, take an ugly turn when Shiana is possessed by an evil spirit. On seeing the spirit literally suck the life out of Rehaans life, Shiana seeks help from her old love Aditya to investigate the case. What happens next is something youll have to see for yourself. Will Aditya be successful in performing an exorcism and save Shiana from that evil soul?

Directed by Vikram Bhatt, Raaz Reboot makes use of all the cliches to scare the audience and hence falls flat towards the end. The 2001 release Raaz, which was directed by Vikram Bhatt, was a sincere effort at making a horror flick and was able to send a chill down the spine. But like every other sequel, this one also disappoints. Raaz Reboot will make you remember how many of our horror films were made in the past with its black crows, hidden pasts, stale love triangles.

Run-of-the-mill dialogues by Girish Dhamija are woven with boring love scenes. The films chill factor rests on the shoulders of an ugly ghost, who tries hard to scare the audience, but leaves everyone disappointed instead. The facial expressions of the ghost tend to have the opposite effect on the audience and unintentionally bring out more laughs than screams. I guess we can never match the standards of Hollywood demons on screen, be it the background or VFX.

Just one-film-old Gaurav Arora quite literally steals the show. It is commendable how he sweeps away all the attention despite having an established actor like Emraan in the film. Debutante Kriti Kharbanda looks promising throughout and does a fair job as a timid and helpless wife of a rich banker. But Emraan Hashmi? Sigh. Is he still the same actor who gave such fine performances in films like Shanghai and his previous horror flicks? His acting here is so awful that the two exorcists perform better in the film. Emraan should spruce up his acting skills as his long track record of flops could easily chuck him out of the race.

Though the film has a few scary scenes, it ends up being a cliched love story instead of a horror flick. The music by Jeet Ganguly, Sangeet and Sidharthy Haldipur is melodious, especially the title track. However, the movie doesnt really offer you a solid reason for watching it. Raaz Reboot isnt a must watch this week, catch it only if you are an ardent fan of the Raaz franchise.
How does one pay tribute to a city that has culture, tradition and history seeped into every corner? Prshant Lahoti from Kalakriti Art Gallery came up with an answer: Through art. Four artists of different media were brought together to celebrate the 425th anniversary of Hyderabad.

Amit Mehra through photographs, Orijit Sen using digital art, Prathap Modi with prints and Poushali Das who will be creating block painting on silk, will show Hyderabadis a side of the city theyve never seen. Prshant says, Since the artists are not from here, they will be able to pick up things that we dont spot.

Prathap, who studied in Vizag, visited Hyderabad often and says the city always felt like home. Primarily a printmaker, Modi says, I was in Hyderabad for 15 days, sometime back. I went around and shot over 1,000 photos. The idea is to create etchings with all the elements that make the city iconic.

Modis work might sound simple, but it is anything but that. From the 1,000 photos he clicked, he will be using 50-60 to create a photo-etching using Charminar as the establishing image, with various places from the city imposed on it.

When you think of Hyderabad, the first image that pops up in your head is the Charminar and I did not want to change that. So I made sure that the other places and events feature in the work ,too, says Modi. I visited the Salar Jung Museum, Chowmahalla Palace and also places that people have forgotten. Even things that might seem inconsequential, such as an old attar bottle, find a place in my work, he adds.

Then you have works by Orijit, a famous graphic artist and designer. His digital art piece, has been aptly titled The Kite Eating Tree, an idea that fell into place when he was working on a larger project about Hyderabad.

This work is a study on the life of people in the Old City. I did a recce last year for an interactive art piece about the streets of Hyderabad. I came across a solitary banyan tree in Shalibanda, which has kites entangled on it, and my work is centred around that. Im using it as a means to comment on the way the old and new meet in the city, says Sen.

Meanwhile, photographer Amit went across the city to shoot anything and everything significant. I find it fascinating that the city has this blend of old and new; its a living heritage. But my work will not show the differences. I will be finding similarities between the old and the new, says Mehra.

While the three artists are showcasing the city, artist Poushali is working on artworks inspired not just by the city but also art that is quite famous here, explains Dhritabrata, the curator of the show. The challenge for Poushali was to imbibe unique Hyderabadi artwork, which is why she will be creating art on silk cloth using block prints. All the artists works will be made into limited edition prints, he adds.

Poushali says, At the Chowmahalla Palace, I saw how the centuries-old handwritten Quran has been preserved safely. I found that there was a lot of love and warmth behind that. That was something I couldnt forget. Then the block print such as kalamkari was another inspiration that I took from the city to create my work.

For my art piece, I will be doing block printing on silk. There is another surprise element in the artwork. It has to do with a particular art form, she explains.
People have different sexual fantasies which can range from bizarre ideas to thrill seeking sexual escapades, and while people across the world do have sex in cars, some try to take things to another level.

Although having oral sex while driving on a highway may sound like something that can get ones pulse racing, the act went horribly wrong for a man in Austria who did not anticipate certain obstructions he might face on an open road.

In the middle of the act, a deer came out in front of the car, and the man hit the brakes immediately in a bid to save the animal and avoid an accident. But unfortunately for him, the sudden jerk led to his girlfriend biting his penis hard.

What followed was excruciating pain as the man was moved to a hospital nearby, where he underwent a minor operation on his member. While doctors assured him that his penis will soon be back in working condition, they advised against any further adventures on the wheel.
An aggressive walk is one where this rotation is exaggerated (Photo: AFP)

London: The way people walk can give clues to how aggressive they are, according to a new study which found that the exaggerated movement of both the upper and lower body indicates aggression.

Researchers from University of Portsmouth in the UK assessed the personalities of 29 participants before using motion capture technology to record them walking on a treadmill at their natural speed.

"When walking, the body naturally rotates a little. As an individual steps forward with their left foot, the left side of the pelvis will move forward with the leg, the left shoulder will move back and the right shoulder forward to maintain balance," said lead researcher Liam Satchell.

"An aggressive walk is one where this rotation is exaggerated," he added. The researchers asked participants to complete a questionnaire, which measured their levels of aggression.

They also used a standard personality test called the 'big five' to assess personality traits including openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

Together they can help map the way people think, feel and behave. Using motion capture technology, which records the action of humans and uses the information to bring to life digital character models in 3D computer animation, the researchers analysed thorax and pelvis movements, as well as speed of gait.

"People are generally aware that there is a relationship between swagger and psychology. Our research provides empirical evidence to confirm that personality is indeed manifest in the way we walk," Satchell said.

"We know of no other examples of research where gait has been shown to correlate with self-reported measures of personality and suggest that more research should be conducted between automatic movement and personality," Satchell added.

Identifying the potential relationship between an individual's biological motion and their intention to engage in aggression could be used to help prevent crime, he said.

"If CCTV observers could be trained to recognise the aggressive walk demonstrated in this research, their ability to recognise impending crimes could be improved further," he added.
Preliminary probe revealed that the victim was sexually assaulted and murdered, the official said. (Representational image)

Mumbai: A seven-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted and murdered by unidentified persons in suburban Mulund in the city, police said on Sunday.

The girl went missing last night while playing near her residence in Mulund (East), a senior police official said.

Her family approached police, who found the girl in an unconscious state under a truck parked near her house. She was rushed to a hospital where the doctors declared her brought dead, said the official.

Preliminary probe revealed that the victim was sexually assaulted and murdered, the official said.

A case under relevant sections of IPC and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was registered at the Navghar police station, police said, adding based on the CCTV footage a manhunt has been launched to nab the accused.
Bengaluru: Twenty-two year old Bhagyashree, a resident of DSouza Nagar, was lured into taking part in protesting, rioting and arson just for a biryani promised to her by few youths in the area, who knew her, claimed her family members. Bhagyashree had recently joined a pro-Kannada outfit named Kannada Kasthuri Sangatane in West Bengaluru.

Bhagyashree was arrested on Thursday after the west division police accessed CCTV footage where she was seen carrying a can filled with fuel and pouring it on vehicles. The Rajarajeshwari Nagar police had earlier picked up seven youths, four of them from DSouza Nagar, for their involvement in arson at the KPN bus parking yard, who revealed to the police about Bhagyashrees involvement.

She is a native of Raichur and lost her father five years ago. She was living along with her mother close to the KPN bus parking yard and did odd jobs for living.

On Monday evening, few local youths, who knew Bhagyashree, came to her house and asked her to join the protest and offered her biryani. However after taking to streets in protest, Bhagyashree was seen taking petrol from other vehicles and exhorted the youths to set fire to the buses parked at the yard. She had also donning a red and yellow flag around her neck. According to the police, she confessed to setting fire on one bus herself. There were over 40 buses parked at the yard and all of them were torched.

The trend of women getting into rowdism, extortion and other related crimes are not uncommon in the city, but women taking part in the Mondays rioting and arson have clearly taken the police by surprise. According to sources, nine women have been arrested throughout the city in this connection.

Case handed over to CID

The case of the KPN bus yard arson have been handed over to CID for further investigation as the case is getting murkier day by day.

The CCTV footage showed Bhagyashree carrying a can of fuel into the parking yard, followed by few men who assaulted the security guards and other staff on the premises. It also emerges that the woman knew some disgruntled employees and sacked employees of KPN Travels.

While there are also allegations that the arson could have been purposefully carried out to claim insurance, at the behest of owner by his unidentified accomplices, there are also other allegations that sacked employees may have indulged in the arson to settle scores. Another allegation was that the miscreants also allegedly had allegiance to right wing organisations. All these angles will be probed by the CID, said a source.
Chennai: The accused in the murder of 24-year-old IT professional Swathi on a railway platform allegedly committed suicide at the Puzhal Central prison in Chennai on Sunday, police said.

"He (Ram Kumar) committed suicide and the body is now in Royapettah Government Hospital," a top police official told PTI on Sunday.

Swathi was hacked to death, allegedly by Kumar, an engineering graduate, on June 24 while she was waiting to board a train at a platform of Nungambakkam suburban railway station to her work place on the city outskirts, an incident which was caught on CCTV. When police traced him days later and came to arrest him, he had allegedly attempted to commit suicide.

On how he committed suicide in jail, Kumar said, "It is in the domain of prison authorities...it is said that he had bitten an electric wire in the jail dispensary," and had died subsequently.

Prison authorities declined to speak on Ram Kumar's death.
BENGALURU: While the scars of September 12 violence is still fresh in our minds, nine vehicles, including two cars, parked outside houses were set ablaze in Jayanagar second block in Siddapura police station limits late Saturday.

According to the police, the incident took place around 11 pm near Ashoka Pillar. The miscreants came in two wheelers and set fire to vehicles. The alert residents doused the fire, before the fire department personnel reached the spot.

It is suspected that the miscreants were in an inebriated state and committed the offence to create panic. However, the exact motive will be known only after their arrests. Special teams have been formed to nab the accused, the police said. They clarified that none of the torched vehicles had Tamil Nadu registration number plates.

It is said that the miscreants also assaulted a security gurad, who raised an alarm and alerted the residents, before fleeing the scene. Out of the nine vehicles, three two-wheelers were completely charred, while others were partially damaged.

Ashwini Desai, a researcher, who lives in the locality, told Deccan Chronicle that while she was speaking to her friend over the phone, she noticed a car going up in flames. It was around 10.45 pm. First I thought someone had lit fire to dry leaves, but within minutes I realised it was a car. Along with others, I went out and we doused the fire. It was a Ranault Kwid car that was bought only three months ago. Later, we learnt that similar incidents had taken place in 4th, 5th, 8th and 9th crosses. It all happened within a span of some 30 minutes. The police, who reached the spot, assured that they will intensify night patrolling in the locality.
The police has busted many such gangs in the city recently. (Representational image)

Hyderabad:The Nalgonda police busted a fake currency racket and arrested a six- member gang on Sunday.

Police also seized counterfeit notes worth Rs 1.5 lakh and fake certificates of a Karnataka university. The suspects were R. Srinivas, the main accused, K. Vijay, M. Varaprasad, T. Prabhakar, G. Ramakrishna and Narsimhulu.

Suryapet DSP V. Sunita Mohan said that Vijay was moving suspiciously near the bus stand on Saturday evening and was apprehended. Police found fake Rs 500 notes with him. He said Varaprasad had given him the notes to exchange in the market for lesser prices.

Varaparasads friend Srinivas, a resident of Hyderabad, is making fake currency and gave 350 fake Rs 500 notes to Varaprasad to exchange. He exchanged 70 notes and gave 10 notes to Vijay, she said, adding that Varaprasad kept 30 notes with him and burnt the rest of the notes.

Based on clues, police nabbed Srinivas and his other associates from Warangal and seized 100 fake notes, laptops, colour printers, photo copiers and fake certificates of a university in Karnataka. Another member of the gang, Akbar from Hyderabad, is absconding. The arrested persons were remanded. Counterfeiting gangs have been printing currency notes and distributing them all over India.

The police has busted many such gangs in the city recently.
New Delhi: AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan, who is facing allegations of sexual harassment, has said that he will "court arrest" on Sunday due to "police pressure".

The Okhla MLA alleged that he was "being framed by the police" who is under pressure to arrest him.

However, senior police officials rubbished the charges. "Police wants to arrest me in a false case. I requested them to not do so since I am personally involved in the ongoing fogging work in my area but they said that they are under pressure. I will be courting arrest at Jamia Nagar police station at 12 pm tomorrow (Sunday)," he said.

When contacted, a senior police officer said, "We have done nothing to create pressure on him. These charges are his own creations."

A case of sexual harassment was registered against Khan last week in southeast Delhi's Jamia Nagar Police station on a complaint by his sister-in-law.

A case under IPC sections 354(A)(sexual harassment), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) and 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) was registered against Amanatullah and the woman's husband.
Thiruvananthapuram: BJP on Sunday slammed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the LDF government for "increasing" number of political attacks in Kannur district and sought a probe by CBI or a Supreme Court or High Court judge on the "red terror" unleashed against its workers.

A five-member delegation of BJP MPs, led by party national general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Bhupendra Yadav, on Sunday met Kerala Governor P Sathasivam at Raj Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram and apprised him of the "complex situation" in north Kerala's Kannur.

"We explained the complex situation and handed over a list of crimes committed by left volunteers against BJP and Sangh workers in Kerala," Yadav later told a press conference.

The MPs also visited the state BJP office which was attacked a few days ago.

"We appreciate positive attitude of the governor," he said adding that a list of "atrocities" against BJP workers has been submitted to Sathasivam and the state Home Secretary.

"We require an independent inquiry, independent from Kerala government... an independent SIT may be under CBI, or under a sitting judge of High Court or Supreme Court so things will come very clear," Yadav said.

Alleging that incidents of political violence were high in the native villages of Vijayan and party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan in Kannur, he said it was the job of the state government to tackle all kinds of violence.

"If people in Chief Minister's village are not safe, then who is safe in the state? Is the CM ready to take the moral responsibility (of these attacks)," he asked.

Asked if the delegation would meet the chief minister, Nandakumar Hegde, MP, asked "why should we?"

When it was pointed out by a scribe that the BJP's complaints were mainly against the chief minister, he retorted "he (CM) should be aware of that."

Attacking the chief minister, BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi claimed Vijayan had in 2008, when he was the party secretary, stated that the "Bengal line needs to be followed

i.e the political opposition needs to be done away with without bleeding."

"That is the mindset state is engaging in when he has become the chief minister," she alleged.

"The person who is the chief minister has forgotten the fact that he is no longer a marxist leader, which he used to be, but that he is the chief minister of the state and when law and order is failing, he is failing in his administrative capacity," she said.

"Red terror and its peak is what we are seeing under Vijayan's governance and that is the model which India under its democratic regime refuses to accept," Lekhi said.

She alleged that the chief minister had failed to stop atrocities against BJP workers.

About 400 cases of violence have been registered in four months after the LDF government came to power, she claimed, adding that 200 BJP workers have been assaulted, maimed or killed, and 200 homes burnt.

"There have been three unnatural deaths, including that of Kokila Suresh, a BJP councillor who died in a road accident in Kollam a couple of days ago," she said.
The Law Ministry will file a consolidated reply on the Triple Talaq issue in the apex court by the end of this month. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Centre will be opposing in the Supreme Court the triple talaq practice on the grounds of women's rights, terming it as "inalienable" and asserting that the issue should not be seen from the prism of uniform civil code, a highly placed government functionary said on Sunday.

The Law Ministry will file a consolidated reply on the issue in the apex court by the end of this month.

The issue is being deliberated upon at inter-ministerial level which includes ministries of Home, Finance and Women and Child Development apart from the Law ministry.

"We shouldn't approach it from (the prism of) uniform civil code. We need to talk in terms of rights of women. Our reply is going to be only on rights. A woman's rights are inalienable and according to the Constitution she has to have the same rights as men.

"Every court decision has slowly been taking us to these uniform rights. The practice of triple talaq doesn't exist even in Pakistan or Bangladesh. Only we have it," the senior functionary said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi met last week to deliberate on government's possible stand to be taken in the

Supreme Court on the issue of Muslim practices of polygamy, triple talaq (talaq-e-bidat) and 'nikah halala' (a practice where divorced women, in case they want to go back to their husbands, have to consummate a second marriage).

According to this source, there was a consensus among all the senior ministers present to look at the contentious issue through the prism of gender rights.

Early this month the Supreme Court gave the Centre four weeks to submit its reply to a batch of petitions on triple talaq.

The first among these pleas was filed by Shayara Bano from Uttarakhand who challenged the practices like triple talaq, polygamy and "nikah halala" as being unconstitutional.

Two women divorced through triple talaq from Jaipur and Kolkata also approached the court. Their petitions and a number of supportive pleas filed by Muslim women?s organisations have all been bunched together.

Opposing these petitions in court are the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind (JUH) and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB).

AIMPLB had told the apex court earlier this month that personal laws can't be re-written in the name of reforms and that the validity of Muslim personal law "cannot be tested" asit derives from Quran.

Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, which is also one of the petitioners in SC, spearheaded a signature campaign earlierthis year in which over 50,000 Muslim women and men participated and sought a ban on triple talaq.
At least eight armymen have been injured in a suspected fidayeen attack on an army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. (Photo: PTI/Representational)

Srinagar: In a major terror attack, seventeen Army jawans and officers were killed and twenty more wounded in Uri close to the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmirs Baramulla district on Sunday. All the four terrorists involved in the pre-dawn attack at an Army base in the area were also killed in Armys retaliatory fire, ending a 5-hour-long fight at around 8 am, police and Army sources in Srinagar said.

A group of four heavily armed militants attacked a battalion centre close to the Armys 12 Infantry Brigade headquarters on the peripheries of Uri town, 102-km northwest of capital Srinagar, around 3 am. The area falls in close proximity to the LoC from three sides-Hajipir, Kamalkot and Kaman post and the 12 Infantry Brigade is spread over a couple of dozen acres of sloppy land midst pine woods on both sides of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Road.

The firing stopped at 8 am after all the four terrorists were neutralised, said the sources. We were woken up from deep sleep by loud sounds of blasts and gun fire around 3 am. We thought it could be the usual cross-border skirmish but when we peeked through the windows we saw the battalion headquarters of the Army in flames, said Irshad Ahmed a local reporter.

With the first light, the Uri residents also saw a thick cloud of black and grey smoke raising above the Army base. Simultaneously we could hear deafening sounds of firing and mortar shelling and then a huge blast and with that the firing stopped, Ahmed said.

Official sources said it was a fidayeen attack carried out by a freshly infiltrated group of militants who could have entered along the Salamabad Nallah into the town. It came in the dead of the night when the jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks, they said.

A group of heavily armed militants targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, Kashmir. In the counter action, four militants have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress, the Army said in a statement.

The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation, the statement said.

Helicopters from the Army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla were pressed into service and the injured Army jawans were evacuated from the encounter site. Most of them were brought to Srinagar where they have been admitted to the 92-Base Hospital.

While Home Minister, Rajnath Singh has postponed his visit to the US and Russia in the wake of the terror attack, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag will arrive in Srinagar shortly to visit the encounter site and also review the situation with the local Army commanders and other authorities in the Valley, official sources said. The Home Minister has also called an emergency meeting in Delhi to review the situation arising out of the terror attack. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the Union Home Secretary, top Army, paramilitary and Home Ministry officials are attending it, reports said.

The Home Minister said in a series of tweets, Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of the attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US. He also said, I spoke to Governor (N.N. Vohra) and Chief Minister (Mehbooba Mufti) of Jammu and Kashmir regarding the attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state...I have given instructions to the Union Home Secretary (Rajiv Mehrishi) and other senior officers in the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) to closely monitor the situation.

Sundays attack comes two years after militants had struck in a similar way at an Army base at Mohra in the same area. Ten jawans and officers were killed in the attack that took place on December 5, 2014.
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday returned to the national capital from Bengaluru after having undergone a throat surgery for persistent cough.

He had had gone to Bengaluru on September 13 and the surgery took place the next day to correct an anatomical abnormality of his oral-pharyngeal and palatal area.

Before leaving for Delhi, Kejriwal thanked doctors of the hospital where he underwent the surgery.

"Discharged today after surgery. Thank u so much Kiranji, Dr Shetty n Dr Paul. Can't express my gratitude in words (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted.

BJP and Congress have criticised Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia for "being away" from the national capital at a time when Delhi is grappling with the outbreak of dengue and chikungunya.

Sisodia is also scheduled to return today to Delhi from Finland where he had gone to understand its education system.

Earlier this week, Congress had observed 'Bhagoda Diwas', saying Kejriwal and half of his cabinet were "absent" from Delhi.

"He is doing well, there is no problem. He is able to talk, but we are restricting him," officials at the Narayana Health City had said after the surgery.
Jalandhar: Security forces will work on their strategy to deal with 'fidayeen attacks' by terrorists which have emerged as a "major challenge", Union Minister Arun Jaitley said in Jalandhar while citing the Pathankot attack in January and the Uri incident on Sunday.

"These are challenges to our security," the Finance Minister said, condemning the terrorist attack on a camp at Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town, which left 17 security personnel dead.

".. Pathankot and Uri (terror attacks) appear to indicate that these (fidayeen attacks) have restarted again. And I think this is a major challenge which I am sure our security forces will gear up to respond," Jaitley told reporters.

He said that in recent years there had been an increasing reliance "on activities like stone throwing agitations" which were instigated from across the border.

He said the terror attacks "have nothing to do with complexion of the governments in power at the Centre."

Replying to a question, he said, "such (like Uri attack) security situations are handled by security forces... on the basis of political statements, response is not given".

Asked about a recent statement of Pakistan Defence Minister that if the neighbouring country will need to use nuclear weapons for their survival they will, Jaitley said, "This is an irresponsible statement. Such statements are condemnable and the world also does not accept such threats."

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours on Sunday, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

In January, seven military personnel were killed when six terrorists attacked the Pathankot air base.
New Delhi: Kerala government will file a review petition this week against the recent Supreme Court verdict commuting the death sentence of the convict Govindachami in the controversial Soumya case, State Law Minister A K Balan today said.

"Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi will appear for the state government and would request for an open court hearing in the case," the minister said in a press meet here.

"We are trying to bring the case under the purview of section 302 of IPC," Balan said, adding that he had today met the Attorney General in Delhi who had expressed his readiness to conduct the case.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also spoke to Rohatgi over phone, he said.

The 23-year-old Soumya was attacked, pushed out of a moving train and brutally raped on February 1, 2011. She succumbed to injuries at the Government Medical College Hospital, Thrissur, on February 6, 2011.

The apex court had dropped the murder charge against Govindachami and commuted his death penalty to seven years of jail while upholding the life imprisonment awarded by a trial court on charges of rape.

Balan said the AG would contend in the court to review the case under the ambit of section 302 of the IPC, as section 325 (voluntarily causing grevious hurt) had been invoked by the apex court which itself had recognised one among two major injuries on Soumya's body as a reason for her death.

"The injury number two in the post-mortem report and invoking of section 325 in the case itself can be used to rope in murder charges in the case," Balan said.

There was widespread criticism in the state over the apex court's decision with the victim's mother, Sumathy, stating that it was a "heart breaking" judgment.

Meanwhile, Sumathy said she had received an anonymous telephone call threatening that she would have to face dire consequences if she went ahead with the case.

Police said they have recorded her statement which would be filed in court.
At least eight armymen have been injured in a suspected fidayeen attack on an army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. (Photo: PTI)

Srinagar: In the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir, heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours on Sunday, killing 17 jawans and injuring 20 other personnel.

Here is a timeline of the major attacks that have taken place in Jammu and Kashmir since 1999 till date.

3 November, 1999: Ten army personnel killed in fidayeen attack on 15 Corps Headquarters at Srinagar's Badami Bagh.

14 May, 2002: 36 persons are killed and 48 others injured in a fidayeen attack on an army cantonment in Kaluchak, Jammu. Most of the killed were family members.

22 July, 2003: A three-member team storms an army camp killing eight security force personnel, including a Brigadier, and injuring 12 others in Akhnoor.

6 April, 2005: A day before the bus from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir is to be flagged off, two suicide squad terrorists attack the Tourist Reception Centre.

5 October, 2006: Terrorists attack at Budshah Chowk, in heart of Srinagar, killing five JKP personnel, two CRPF soldiers and one civilian.

31 March, 2013: Attack on CRPF camp in Srinagar kills five.

24 June, 2013: Eight soldiers killed in attack on military convoy at Hyderpora, Srinagar.

September 26, 2013: At least 13 killed in twin suicide attacks Jammu and Kashmir. A total of 10 people, apart from three militants, were killed during the attacks.

The dead include four policemen and two civilians in Kathua District and four Army personnel, including Lieutenant Colonel Bikramjeet Singh in Samba District.

November 27, 2014: 10 persons, including four civilians, three Army soldiers and three militants were killed in day-long encounter at border village of Kathaar in Arnia sector, close to the International Border, of Jammu District.

December 5, 2014: A group of heavily armed militants stormed into an Army's 31 Field Regiment Ordinance Camp located at Mohra in Uri Sector of Baramulla District near the LoC.

One Lieutenant Colonel and seven soldiers of the Army, one ASI and two constables of Jammu and Kashmir Police were killed. Six militants were also killed in the operation.
New Delhi: Terming the terrorist strike in Uri as a "deplorable affront" on national conscience, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Sunday hoped that the perpetrators of the attack will be brought to book.

She also expressed distress over the death of 17 soldiers in the attack.

"Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian soldiers in the dastardly terrorist attack in Uri," the party said in a statement.

Describing the cowardly terror attack as a deplorable affront on our national conscience, Gandhi expressed the hope that the perpetrators of this dastardly attack as also the forces behind them will be severely dealt with and brought to book.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also condemned the attack. "Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the

bravehearts martyred in the attack," he said in a tweet.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured as heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, said on Sunday that the militant attack at an Army base near the border town of Uri in which 17 soldiers were killed and 19 others wounded earlier during the day was aimed at creating a war-like situation in the region. It seemingly is also meant to trigger fresh violence within Jammu and Kashmir, she said.

The Chief Minister while expressing anguish over the attack, paid rich tributes to the slain soldiers. She extended heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and also prayed for early recovery of those injured in the attack.

She said that the heightened tension in the wake of the Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid increasing India-Pakistan hostility. Unfortunately, people in Jammu and Kashmir, who are already mired in an agonizing situation shall have to bear the maximum brunt of the fresh attempts being made to step up violence and trigger fresh bloodshed in the State, she said. She added, J&K has always been the worst victim of India-Pakistan hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for the same for over the past six decades.

The Chief Minister said that the perpetrators of violence must understand that violent methods have yielded nothing in the past nor will these give off anything in future except adding to the miseries of the people.
Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday cut short his Goa visit and rushed to New Delhi following a terror attack in Uri town of Kashmir in which 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured.

"Parrikar has rushed to Delhi to oversee the situation after the terror attack. He has cancelled all his Goa appointments scheduled for today," BJP Goa chief Vinay Tendulkar told reporters in Panaji.

The Defence Minister was supposed to chair a meeting of BJP Mahila Morcha this morning followed by another meeting of Yuva Morcha in the evening, which are being held in the run-up to state Assembly polls due next year.

Read: J&K: 17 soldiers, 4 militants killed in Uri Army headquarters attack

Army chief Dalbir Singh Suhag is meanwhile on his way to Srinagar.

Later, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar chaired the Mahila Morcha meeting.

Parsekar condemned the terror attack and said the government should be more "offensive" in such incidents.

"The incident is most unfortunate. It should not have happened. I condemn it," the chief minister said on the sidelines of a function organised by the Mahila Morcha in Panaji.

"Government of India needs to be little more offensive towards such incidents. The Centre should ensure that adequate measures are adopted to avoid such incidents in future," he said.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours on Sunday, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.
Srinagar: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was on Sunday briefed in Srinagar by army officials about the counter-operation in Uri where a deadly terror attack left 17 jawans dead and 20 injured.

The minister also visited the injured jawans at the hospital. Parrikar had rushed to Srinagar to take stock of the situation after four suspected Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists struck the administrative base of the army's 10 Dogra regiment at Uri in Baramulla district.

"The Defence Minister was briefed about the Uri terror attack and the counter-operation in which the terrorists were neutralised," an army official said.

Read: Uri attack: Terrorists from JeM; jawans died due to fire in tent, says army

Parrikar arrived at the Chinar Corps Headquarters of the army at Badami Bagh in the evening where senior army officials briefed him, he added.

The Defence Minister also visited the 92 Base Hospital of the army where he was briefed about the condition of the injured soldiers who were undergoing treatment there.

Four terrorists, believed to have infiltrated from across the Line of Control (LoC), targeted the army base camp in the wee hours in one of the deadliest attacks on the security establishment in recent times.

All four were neutralised in a counter-operation by the army.
DGMO said that 13 to 14 of the army men killed died because of fires in their tent and temporary shelters. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi/ Srinagar: Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt General Ranbir Singh on Sunday said that the terrorists in the Uri attack, which killed 17 soldiers, were foreigners. He added that initial reports suggested that they were from Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).

He said that 13 to 14 of the army men killed died because of fires in their tent and temporary shelters.

We recovered 4 AK 47 rifles, 4 Under Barrel Grenade Launchers and other war like stores from the 4 slain terrorists, Singh added.

Singh said that he had spoken to his Pakistani counterpart and conveyed serious concern over some of the equipment with terrorists having Pakistani marking.

Ranbir Singh assured the media that the Indian army was prepared for any evil designs by terrorists, and would give a befitting response.

The Indian army is carrying out deliberate and methodical search of area in and around military complex in Uri, said the DGMO.

Praising the army, the DGMO asserted that the entire operation had been done in a deliberate and professional manner and said that all intelligence agencies and security forces are working in close synergy, taking action on the inputs received.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh also stated that Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has landed in Srinagar and is being briefed by the Army Chief about the ground situation.

Earlier, in a strongly worded statement, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the terrorists who carried out the attack in the Army Brigade Headquarters in Uri were highly trained and heavily armed and vowed to hunt down those behind it.

Expressing his deep disappointment with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups, he said, "Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such".

After an hour-long reviewed meeting convened in the wake of the Uri incident, Rajnath Singh, who postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States, said that he has briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the deliberations.

The meeting was attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, top officials of Ministries of Home and Defence and Army and paramilitary forces.

"There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped," he said.

The Home Minister said those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice.

Rajnath Singh said he was deeply distressed by the terror incident and the loss of 17 soldiers.

"My heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers. I pray for speedy recovery of the injured," he said.

Condemning the "cowardly" terror attack on an Army camp in Uri, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday assured the nation that those behind the "despicable" strike won't go unpunished.

He saluted the soldiers who were martyred in the attack and said their service to the nation will always be remembered.
Lucknow: After assuming charge as Samajwadi Party Uttar Pradesh unit president, Shivpal Yadav on Sunday expelled a close relative of senior party leader Ram Gopal Yadav and another leader for their alleged involvement in land grabbing, a move that could once again fuel a war in the family.

In his first decision after taking charge as SP UP president, Shivpal expelled party MLC Arvind Pratap Yadav, who is nephew of Ram Gopal Yadav and former village head in Etawah Akhilesh Kumar Yadav for their alleged involvement in land grabbing and other such activities.

According to sources, there were a lot of complaints related to land grabbing and others against these two.

"Arvind has been expelled for making derogatory and indecent comments against party supremo Mulayam and his involvement in anti-party activities," SP state secretary S R S Yadav said.

Earlier, before reaching the office, Shivpal met Mulayam Singh Yadav at the airport before he left for Delhi.

The expulsion could fuel another war in the family as both of them were close to Ram Gopal.

The feud in Uttar Pradesh's first family had ended on Saturday after Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav restored all but one portfolios of Shivpal Yadav and promised to support him as SP's state unit president, a post from which he was himself removed three days back triggering the power tussle with his uncle.

Addressing party workers, Shivpal said that as elections are near, everyone should gear up to strengthen the party to form majority government.

He also warned workers against groupism saying "there is no place of groupism in the party and those indulging in it will be treated strictly".

"If you all want to shout slogans, it should be first in favour of party, then Netaji (Mulayam) and then Chief Minister," he told workers.

On Mayawati's comment against the party, Shvipal said, "She should first take care of her party before commenting on others. Her party is going to be finished in the next elections".
Reviewing on door-to-door garbage collection, the commissioner directed officials to identify the localities which were not interested in paying Rs. 50 per month to tipper drivers and tricycle pullers.

Hyderabad: Almost 56.6 metric tonnes of garbage is being dumped by about 2.83 lakh households in nalas in the 20,000 identified encroachments, according to the GHMC commissioner Dr B. Janardhan Reddy.

He gave this information to urban community development officials on Sunday during a teleconference to identify the offending households and to curb such practices to prevent silting and water overflows causing road damage.

He asked officials to constitute joint working groups at the deputy commissioners level to identify localities and enumerate properties and households. Awareness should be generated among the public from these households by taking up of campaigns especially about not disposing garbage into nalas. Enumeration of Self Help Group women who are dwelling in these encroachments is needed to establish a specialised channel of communication, he said.

Reviewing on door-to-door garbage collection, the commissioner directed officials to identify the localities which were not interested in paying Rs. 50 per month to tipper drivers and tricycle pullers. "Identify the localities which are not convenient to ply auto tippers and arrange tricycles with a coordination of health wing. Convince community to pay Rs. 50 per month to tricycle pullers. Establish Swachh Volunteers for all such pockets and Prepare action plan for coming six months," he said.

The commissioner has also reviewed on loans to Self Help Groups (SHGs) and other issues.
The Telangana government diverted Krishna waters from Jurala foreshore to some new lift irrigation projects and allowed farmers to raise irrigated dry crops with an assurance that water would be provided.

Hyderabad: For the first time, both Telangana and AP governments are successfully managing the area irrigated by various projects though the Srisailam dam is just half full and water at the Nagarjuna sagar is hovering at dead storage level.

Srisailam dam has so far got 214 tmc ft of water of which about 75 tmc ft has been used. It is able to supply water to Srisailam right main canal, Telugu Ganga and Handri Neva projects to irrigate three lakh acres besides supplementing the area under KC canal, normally fed by the Tungabhadra.

The Krishna River Management Board, at its last meeting, directed authorities to release water from Srisailam to Nagarjunasagar till the water level reaches 834 ft and store the remaining as drinking water for both Telangana and AP. The authorities, however, did not comply since the recent rains helped the standing crops.

The Telangana government did not seek releases through the power house as there was no demand for electricity. This helped Srisailam dam authorities to keep storage beyond the 854 ft level ensuring supply to Rayalaseema.

The Telangana government diverted Krishna waters from Jurala foreshore to some new lift irrigation projects and allowed farmers to raise irrigated dry crops with an assurance that water would be provided. This apart, water is being provided from the Jurala project to raise paddy in about two lakh acres.

The Nagarjunasagar dam, lifeline for both Telangana and AP, has water at 510 ft against the full level of 590 ft. Authorities tried to maintain water at the 513 ft level for the last few weeks. The dam has so far received about 60 tmc ft water from Srisailam. That was distributed between the two states for Krishna Pushkaralu and for drinking water needs. Good rain helped farmers raise crops while using water from the dam for seed beds.

The Telangana government has decided to supply water for crop wetting for 3 lakh acres in Zone-1 (Nalgonda district up to Palair reservoir in Khammam). No decision has been taken for 8 lakh acres covering Zones 2 and 3 where farmers have raised crops using rainwater.

The demand to release water is expected later. We hope we can manage as we still have our quota in Srisailam but not for the entire area, Sunil, chief engineer, Nagarjuna sagar Dam, told DC.
New Delhi/Bengaluru: The Cauvery Supervisory Committee, which is meeting here on Monday to decide on the quantum of water to be released, is analysing the data given by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and may defer its decision if the information provided is found to be inadequate.

A source said that the two states have submitted data to the committee on the withdrawal of water, its utilisation, variation in rainfall and its impact on the actual run-off over a period of 29 years in their respective Cauvery basin areas.

The committee will not pass an order in haste. It will have to defer its order if the data turns out to be inadequate to arrive at a fact-based and right decision, the source said.

Meanwhile, Bengaluru police made heavy security arrangements to avoid any law and order situation if the committee order went against the state. With the city yet to recover from wide-spread violence after the Supreme Court order on September 12, the police suspect that anti-social elements would again try to create law and order problem.



The prohibitory orders clamped by the city police last Monday continues to be in force. The central police forces, which are still in the city, will be deployed on the city streets on Monday. The police are also planning to conduct flag marches at several sensitive areas. Apart from the 13 companies of central police forces, KSRP, CAR, Rapid Action Force and Quick Response Teams will be deployed on bandobast duty.

Meanwhile, the Kannada Okkoota has planned a bandh on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border at Attibele on Monday morning, and is also planning to take out a rally. The Bengaluru Rural police have made security arrangements to avoid any untoward incident.
HYDERABAD: Supreme Court judge Justice J. Chelameshwar feels there is no answer to the question whether the states bifurcation was done as per the Constitution. There will always be contradicting views on this issue, he said.

To drive home his point, the judge compared it with different arguments heard in court cases, with the judgement going in favour of one party leaving the other dissatisfied.

He was speaking after launching Vibhajana Katha, a book on bifurcation written by former MP Vundavalli Arun Kumar on the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.

One thing is certain that man has not learnt from history. States and societies staying united or getting divided is common. Take the case of Germany that was united at one point of time, then got divided and united again. The Telugu community came close to being separated on two occasions in the last 60 years, he said.

The judge expressed the hope that Mr Kumars effort would ensure mistakes are not repeated. Rajya Sabha MP K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao refuted allegations that See-mandhra leaders were in favour of a unified state only to continue their hegemony over Telangana state.

I wanted the state to be united only with a sincere wish that Telugus would prosper being united and the state could progress at a faster pace to become a role model for the nation, he said.

On his part, Mr Kumar stated that he was not speaking against Telan-gana. It is a fact that two states have been car-ved and people in Hyder-abad are living without any insecurity thanks to Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao after he became Chief Minister, he said. My intention in writing this book was to make people know how the process of passing the Bill in the Lok Sabha was carried out, he said.
New Delhi: Even as India is expected to raise the Uri terror attack issue in a big way at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) soon to once again prove Pakistans role in masterminding terror attacks from its soil, Pakistan  by supporting a terror attack across the Line of Control (LoC) at an Indian Army base at Uri  may be hoping for a rise in military tension at the LoC which it will then raise at the ongoing UN General Assembly to fuel a spectre of a possible military clash between two nuclear-armed neighbours.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj is leading the Indian delegation and will address the UNGA on September 26. India has been articulating how Pakistan has been planning terror attacks from its soil to destabilise the situation in J&K and raise tensions.

The latest Uri terror attack carried out by Pakistan-sponsored militants is therefore expected to be raised by India in a major way at the UN to highlight how Pakistan continues to export terror to its neighbourhood. Observers feel that Pakistan may have engaged in the latest serious military provocation, hoping for retaliation by the Modi Government.
Unconfirmed reports said 4 Para Commandoes were flown in who stormed the building where the terrorists had positioned themselves and gunned them down but not before a good three-hour gunfight from 5.30 am to 8.30 am. (Photo: AP)

NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR: Just a few kilometers away from the Line of Control (LoC) and close to the border from three sides-Hajipir, Kamalkot and the Kaman post, that Uri as a town lacked strategic locational advantages from the military point of view was never exactly a secret.

About an hours drive to Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmirs Muzaffarabad city, a known launch pad for militants waiting to infiltrate, and 102-km northwest of Srinagar, Uri is not new to terror attacks.

However, what is surprising is that the blatant assault took place in spite of two critical information alerts of such an impending strike.Only on Friday, the Intelligence Bureau had passed on specific information to the Army that a group of terrorists had been sighted near Muzaffarabad and that there was a strong possibility of an attack in Uri and nearby areas where Army bases are obvious targets.

General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), a former corps commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps, tweeted on Sunday: Uri attack, this is my old HQ. Warned the Cdr specifically on 8 Sep. Happened in 10 days. Done to remove pressure from hinterland army move. And true to the warnings, at dawn on Sunday, four terrorists attacked an Army battalion centre in Uri.

Terrorists sneaked in on Saturday night

Unconfirmed reports said 4 Para Commandoes were flown in who stormed the building where the terrorists had positioned themselves and gunned them down but not before a good three-hour gunfight from 5.30 am to 8.30 am.

Multiple sources in the Army and in the intelligence agencies told this newspaper that in all probability the terrorists had sneaked in across the LoC on Saturday night.

This is a classical tactic deployed by terrorists from Pakistan in the past. To sneak in the night before from across the LoC and then to attack early in the morning when the soldiers wake up and attend to their morning ablutions. The soldiers are unprepared, unarmed and at their vulnerable most, sources said.

The meticulously-planned attack took place in the rear of the army administrative base where many of the soldiers were staying in temporary tents.

While Army barracks and houses are suitably fortified, tents are very inflammable. There were many soldiers staying in the tents as the Bihar Regiment was in the process of shifting out from the Uri base as part of the routine changeover and the Dogra Regiment was moving in, the sources added. Earlier in May 2002, terrorists had stormed the family quarters of an Army camp in Kaluchak area, Jammu.
Hyderabad: Potholes have become money-spinners. Civic body teams simply dump bituminous material into potholes instead of filling them scientifically to ensure that they are not damaged by rain and vehicles. As a result, the same potholes are being filled up again and again, and new ones are also coming up.

Lack of quality bituminous mix is also a reason for the material getting washed away or eroding in a day or two. The potholes filled ahead of the Ganesh idol immersion procession were back in a day.

As per GHMC figures, over 53,000 potholes have been filled from June to September 17. The civic body has spent Rs 10 crore on just filling up potholes and on small patchworks this monsoon.

On an average, Rs 2,000 is being spent on each pothole. This is on a much higher side given the fact that the methodology of cleaning the potholes, cutting its edges, spraying liquid bitumen (emulsion) and then filling it up with BT mix at 120C and then steamrolling it are not being done, said a retired contractor of GHMC.

Even the stretches that were scraped with milling technology on the Begumpet-St Anns Road and re-laid have developed potholes. The public outcry over bad roads on social media directed municipal minister K.T. Rama Rao is only helping the GHMC officials to make more money.

Frequent filling of potholes means more money as most officials involved in road construction and maintenance get a cut. Not more than 3 per cent bitumen is being mixed with small pounded-stones against the standard norm of 5 per cent bitumen. Why doesnt the government come out with a system wherein money is recovered from officials or contractors who laid the road in case it is damaged before the assured time-period. I have spent almost 30 years in this field as a contractor. If it is not the poor quality of roads that is the reason for early damages, then let the officials prove me wrong, said GHMC Contractors Association general secretary R. Hanuman Sagar.

Inquiries revealed that even the recarpeting of roads is being limited to 40 mm thickness against the standard norm of at least 70 mm, due to which the roads are getting damaged in one or two spells of rain.

Social activists and citizens said a CBI inquiry or at least a CID inquiry should be conducted into the road repairs and road recarpeting operations of GHMC to unearth the scam and ensure every paisa of tax-payers money is accounted for.

Why doesnt the government order an inquiry into the roads projects and maintenance works taken up by GHMC? The roads are getting damaged even when officials are constructing it and when contractors are doing the job. An inquiry will bring out the reasons for the early damage of roads, said activist and advocate S. Venugopal.

GHMC chief engineer K. Suresh Kumar admitted that roads were re-carpeted at 40 mm thickness and over 70 mm thickness was applied only when a new road was laid. There is no truth in the allegations that bitumen is not being mixed as per norms. The GHMC has its own BT mixing plants at Chudi Bazaar and Krishna Kant Park wherein 5 per cent BT is mixed. There is no time given for the BT mix dumped in the potholes to get compacted as public outcry is more about potholes and they want immediate solutions. If time is given to follow norms, the repairs will stay longer, he said.

GHMC commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy said he was aware of the allegations that money was being made in filling up of potholes. I am closely looking into the issue. No one will be spared if they compromise with quality. what I have found is that quality is not the issue. It is the time factor. There is no time to clean the pot hole, cut the edges, spray the emulsion, put the BT mix and then roll it, he said.

If any life is lost in an incident just because a pothole has not been attended to by GHMC, there is no replacement. Even if more money is being spent, the priority is to keep filling the potholes as many times as is required until we get dry weather to recarpet the stretch so that there is no loss to life, the GHMC commissioner said.
According to agriculture department principal secretary C. Pardhasarathy, more areas are now being sown after the recent rains and due to increased storage levels at irrigation projects. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: There is significant improvement in raising crops across Telangana thanks to the recent heavy rain, which helped increase storage in irrigation projects.

According to the latest report of the Telangana Agriculture Department, all the ten districts are now categorised as having received normal rain as on September 14.

As per norms of computing, normal is plus or minus 19 per cent. Against the norm of 649 mm during the southwest monsoon, the state received 654 mm by September 14. It was 534 mm last year.

The total area sown in the state reached 37.18 lakh hectares, against the norm of 43.43 lakh hectares, under areas covered by assured irrigation sources and those depending on rain.

According to agriculture department principal secretary C. Pardhasarathy, more areas are now being sown after the recent rains and due to increased storage levels at irrigation projects.

Irrigation minister, T. Harish Rao said that due to increased inflows in Singur dam, the government would release water to Singur, Nizamsagar and Ghanpur this year to help farmers raise crops. He said that even under Sriramsagar Project he was hopeful of raising paddy transplantations on six lakh acres.
Hyderabad: The Telangana state government has approached the Central government again with ideas that were rejected earlier for its tableaux at Republic Day celebrations, 2017.

The government proposed a tableaux with themes on Sammakka Saralamma Jatara, the famous tribal festival in Warangal district; the Perini Shivathandavam dance form and Bathukamma, the Telangana state festival.

All these ideas were submitted last year and rejected by the selection committee which termed them sub-standard. Despite this, officials have proposed the same ideas for this year.

The ideas submitted by government were dismissed right from the first year of participation in 2015. As a special case, the Centre had allowed Telangana state to display Bonalu festival in 2015, on the grounds of the state was newly-formed. This was after Chief Minister K. Chandras-ekhar Rao made a special request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defence minister Manohar Parrikar.

All states mark their presence on the Republic Day through their tableaux after the show of military might. Officials justified submitting the same old ideas saying that the earlier rejection was not because the theme wasnt good but because of the presentations.

This time, we have made several improvements on the display contents. 3-D effects will be used in the tableaux for effective presentation with good music background. We are confident of making it to Republic Day parade this year, said an official of the culture department.

He said the preliminary meeting of the selection committee was held recently in which all the three themes were presented. The committee was impressed with Bathukamma theme and asked it to attend the next round of selection process in October.
Army personnel in action inside the Army Brigade camp during a terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday talked tough after the terror strike on an army camp in Uri, promising that those behind the despicable and cowardly attack would not go unpunished.Strongly denouncing the attack, the Prime Minister saluted the soldiers who were martyred and said their service to the nation will always be remembered.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished, Mr Modi tweeted on the incident in which 17 soldiers were killed and 19 injured.

We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families, he said. Mr Modi said he has spoken to home minister Rajnath Singh and defence minister Manohar Parrikar on the situation in the wake of the terror attack.

Heavily-armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmirs Uri town in the wee hours on Sunday, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

Later in the day, defence minister, Manohar Parrikar, who cut short his visit to home state Goa was expected to reach here to take stock of the situation. Meanwhile, in New Delhi, senior officials of Army and paramilitary forces briefed home minister Rajnath Singh on the prevailing situation in the state following the attack.

Union home minister Rajnath Singh after postponing his visit to the US and Russia in the wake of the terror attack held an emergency meeting in Delhi with top officials including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, defence secretary G. Mohan Kumar to review the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, Army Chief Gen. Dalbir Singh Suhag rushed to Uri to visit the encounter site and also review the situation with the local Army commanders and other authorities in the Valley.

The home minister in a statement termed Pakistan as a terrorist state that should be isolated, directed the security forces to mount an all-out offensive against terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir.

He also spoke to state Governor (NN Vohra) and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and issued instructions to the Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior MHA officers to closely monitor the situation.

Earlier, the home minister said in a series of tweets, Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of the attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US.

Uris Army bases have been terror targets in the past. On December 5, 2014, six Pakistan-trained terrorists had attacked the 31 Field Ordinance Regiment base at Uris Mohura killing 8.

Attacks this year

There have been 90 infiltration attempts by terrorists until June 30 this year. In 2015, there were just 29 attempts during the same period.

September 10: A heavily-armed group of four Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists killed three cops, two soldiers and a civilian during a firefight that lasted three days.

September 7: Three soldiers were injured in an attack on an army convoy, in Kupwara district. Forces fought back and the militants fled.

August 18: An Army convoy was hit by Hizbul Mujahideen extremists. Two Army personnel and a policemen were killed - five other soldiers were injured.

June 25: At least eight CRPF personnel were killed in an ambush after militants opened fire at their bus in Pampore, Jammu-Kashmir. Two terrorists also died in the attack.

Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists opened fire at a BSF convoy at Bijbhera. Three security personnel were killed in the attack.

February 21: Three Special Forces members of the Indian Army lost their lives while trying to neutralise two terrorists who were holed up at Pampores Entrepreneurship Development Institute in Kashmir.

On January 2, two security personnel were killed when a group of heavily-armed terrorists attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station - an integral part of the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force. Four attackers were also killed.
Panaji: Taking a jibe at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday said Kejriwal's tongue had to be trimmed as it had grown long as he spoke against the Prime Minister and him. However, the minister also sympathised with the AAP leader for being on "sick leave".

"In Delhi, he speaks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and here (in Goa) he speaks against me. Due to this his tongue has grown big, and now it had to be trimmed," Mr Parrikar told a core group of workers in Goa ahead of the State Legislative Assembly polls.

But, the Defence Minister was quick to add, "I sympathise with him (Kejriwal) as he is on sick leave."

Parrikar took a dig at the AAP leaders for "abandoning" Delhi when the state was reeling under chikungunya and dengue crises.

"If your Mohalla clinics were so much effective then how come 40 people died due to chikungunya. The lies of AAP are getting exposed in Delhi after the incident," Parrikar said.

He said the AAP leaders are currently on a world tour after cheating the people of Delhi, with its deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in Finland.

"From where does AAP get the money? They spent Rs. 26.82 crore merely on advertisement budget," Parrikar added.

Referring to sacked Delhi Minister Sandeep Kumar, who was arrested on charges of rape on a complaint of a woman who figured in an objectionable video with him, Parrikar said, "AAP leaders are found exploiting a woman merely to give a ration card."

The woman had alleged that she was raped by Mr Kumar when she had gone to his office in Outer Delhi's Sultanpuri seeking help to obtain a ration card.

Parrikar also quoted a WhatsApp joke making rounds in Delhi circles, which says that the Tihar superintendent has written to Delhi Governor asking to make him the CM as he has majority of AAP MLAs with him (in jail).

Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, while addressing the workers, said the concept of mohalla clinics introduced by AAP in Goa is "unwarranted" as BJP-led government has already made treatment in the private hospitals and government-run hospitals free of cost by introducing health insurance scheme.
Chennai: Various political leaders including Union minister of state Pon. Radhakrishnan on Saturday demanded compensation from the Karnataka government for the loss of property during the riots in Karnataka against Tamils after the Supreme Court verdict ordering release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.

Pon Radhakrishnan said Tamils were affected since the state government failed to take note and act to prevent the violence. More than 50 buses had been torched and the compensation to the losses should be given immediately, he said.

PMK founder S. Ramadoss said the arson and damage to Tamils property was abetted by the Karnataka government as police watching the events did not try to stop them.

When a gang burnt at least 50 buses, policemen did not take action till they escaped from the scene. Though, the fire service station was nearby, no action was taken till all the buses were gutted, showing the nexus between the rioters and state government. He alleged that 60 rowdies were released from prison before the riots broke out in the state.

The PMK leader said it was the responsibility of the state government to protect the lives and property of people and added that the state government had failed to discharge its duty.

The state government should pay the price by providing relief and compensation to the affected people. A commission should be constituted under a retired SC judge to assess the value of the damaged and robbed valuables of Tamils, he said and demanded that the relief should be based on the recommendations of the commission.

MDMK leader Vaiko also said the Karnataka government should provide relief and compensation to the affected Tamils and VCK leader Thol. Thirumavalavan put the damage at Rs 25,000 crore. He said both the Centre and state government should share the responsibility of giving the compensation.

The demands follow media reports that the arson and damage to belongings of Tamils were planned and it followed a statement from a Kannada leader to asking the people of Karnataka to rob and damage the belongings of Tamils.

Survive and struggle throughout life for principles: Karunanidhi

DMK chief M. Karunanidhi on Saturday condoled the death of Vignesh, who committed self-immolation and died demanding the rights of Tamil Nadu over Cauvery.

However serious the issue may be, one should survive and struggle throughout their life. Killing themselves is tragic and could not be accepted. I hope that todays youth will realise this and formulate their methods of protest,he said, in a statement here.

The youth was cremated at his native village of Moovanallur amid tight protection to avert untoward incidents.

Hundreds of police were lined up on both sides of the funeral procession which was attended by MDMK general secretary Vaiko, leaders of farmers organisations, Naam Thamizhar party cadre and people.

Naam Thamizhar party leader P. Seeman said the youth belonging to his party had been frequently advised against committing self-immolation and insisted that no one should take such decisions. The death of Vignesh at a young age, is regrettable, he added.

Hundreds of youth and women carrying party flags, took part in the funeral rally, shouting slogans stressing on Cauvery rights. It was an emotional farewell with cadre breaking into tears and taking vows to fulfil the objectives of Vignesh.

Among the demands of Vignesh included winning the rights of Tamils over Cauvery, protecting the river from exploitation and stopping the extraction of methane gas from Cauvery bed as it would pollute the delta area and hit agriculture in a big way.
New Delhi: The opposition is still in the dark over the proposal for merging the Railway Budget with the General Budget and advancing Parliament session by about a month to January 24 so as to complete all legislative work before the beginning of the new fiscal from April.

"The government has not held any consultations with us on the issue," was the cryptic comment of the Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad when asked about the proposal.

He replied in similar vein when asked as to how the main opposition viewed the proposal which is likely to be taken up by the Union Cabinet soon.

Reports had it that the government is thinking of early convening of the Budget Session this year to expediate passage of the supporting legislations for GST rollout and it may become a norm in the years to come.

The government is planning to convene the Winter Session of Parliament on November 12 this year to get the supporting legislations for GST rollout approved early.

The Finance Ministry is overhauling the Budget-making exercise which may see scrapping of the present practice of presenting a separate budget for the railways as well as shifting to multi-year outcome-based budgeting, sources said.

Till now the Budget Session was convened in the third or fourth week of February, and the Union Budget presented on last date of the month. This led to the legislative approvals taking place in two phases spread between February and May.

To get all tax proposals as well as expenditure on schemes kicking in from beginning of new fiscal on April 1, the Budget Session of Parliament is likely to be convened on January 24.

The Economic Survey, that presents the state the economy, is likely to be presented on January 30 and the Union Budget on January 31.

Appropriation as well as Finance Bill would thus get approved in the following two months.
Mumbai: Police have filed an FIR against eleven members of a cooperative housing society in neighbouring Vasai, after a Muslim family was allegedly denied a flat there.

The FIR was lodged at the Manikpur police station late this evening.

A majority of the members of Happy Jivan Co-operative Society allegedly opposed sale of a flat by its owner to a Muslim family, a police official said.

A meeting was held on September 4 and a resolution opposing the proposed sale was passed.

The members told K Patel, the flat owner, that he was free to sell the flat to someone within the community but not to a Muslim person.

Following this, Patel approached the police, alleging that the society had refused the No Objection Certificate for the sale.
Congress takes a jibe at the Samajwadi Party pointing out that things have gone out of hands. (Photo: PTI)

Lucknow: The Congress on Sunday took a jibe at the ongoing tussle in the "Samajwadi pariwar", saying that despite giving full attention to the "law and order of the family, instead of the state", things (in the family) have gone out of hands.

"The law and order of the state has remained dismal over the last four-and-a-half years as no attention was given to it. How could they (SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's clan) have taken it seriously when all their concerns were towards their family. But, that too has not been managed well and eventually, the differences have come to the fore." Congress spokesman RPN Singh told a press conference in the presence of another party spokesman Meem Afzal and senior leader Rajiv Shukla.

"The chief minister has said that the tussle is not of the family, but of the government. But, what is the difference? It is the family which is in the government as well," he said.

Referring to the killing of three persons of a particular community at Badaun on Saturday, Meem Afzal accused the SP and the BJP of "being involved in vitiating the communal atmosphere" in the state ahead of the 2017 Assembly election.

"Both (SP, BJP) were responsible for the Muzaffarnagar riots before the last Lok Sabha election and they are again trying to pollute the atmosphere of the state ahead of the Assembly polls," he alleged, adding that the BJP wanted to come to power by "instigating riots", although "the people have already rejected it"

Rajiv Shukla cited the example of Delhi when Sheila Dixit was the chief minister there and claimed that development had taken place wherever the Congress was in power.

Dixit is the Congress' chief ministerial candidate in the Uttar Pradesh polls.

"Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's yatra is gaining the confidence of the people who are supporting it in a big way," Mr Shukla claimed.
Akhilesh became the Chief Minister in 2012 because I agreed to it, Mulayam Singh Yadav said on Saturday. (Photo: PTI)

Lucknow: The controversy surrounding the Samajwadi Party (SP) does not seem to die. Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday said he would have become the Prime Minister if he had made his brother Shivpal Yadav the chief minister in 2012 instead of his son Akhilesh.

According to reports, Singh questioned Akhileshs contribution towards the partys success in Uttar Pradesh and said SP would have won 30-35 seats had he made Shivpal the chief minister.

"What happened despite his being the CM? Only five members from the family won. If I had listened to Shivpal, we would have won 30-35 seats and I would have been the PM."

"If Akhilesh is unhappy with Shivpal because of this (appointment of the latter as the SP state chief), he should remember that people have accepted him as CM because he is my son. He never had any individual standing in politics," Mulayam told SP workers at the party headquarters.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, Singh said Shivpal had in 2012 told him to become the chief minister for the fourth term and that Akhilesh must be crowned only after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Akhilesh has been miffed with Shivpal ever since.

Singh lashed out at his son, saying he was humiliated when the party won just five seats in 2014 when Akhilesh was the CM, adding, Had I not agreed, he would have not become the CM ever.

Although he appreciated Akhilesh for the good work SP did under his leadership, he said most of it just consisted of carrying forward the work his government did. Singh said he and Shivpal had worked very hard, slept in huts, went to jail, faced lathi-charges to bring the party up.
Chandigarh: A video clip of AAP MP Bhagwant Mann was posted on Twitter in which he claimed he was "on leave" for personal engagements and asked the supporters not to believe the rumour that was being spread by other political parties.

With opposition parties taking a swipe at AAP for the "missing" Sangrur MP, Mr Mann, in the video clip said, "Rumours are being spread that I am upset with my party and I have gone missing. After the rally at Baghapuarana in Moga, I took leave for personal work. That is why there is no activity on my Facebook or in other part of Punjab for the last two days."

"It is a complete lie that I am upset or I am seeking something or I may be thrown out (of the party). Do not believe these lies. I will soon be active and will disclose my programme about rallies," the MP said in the video.

Notably, questions are being raised after Mr Mann remained absent from the political conference organised by AAP at Chhapaar Mela in Ludhiana on Friday.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal described AAP as a "bunch of unprincipled leaders" and said the party will "vanish" from the political arena of the state before the assembly polls next year in the wake of the ongoing "tug of war" within the outfit.

Taking a jibe at Mr Mann, he said if the need rises, the government will trace the Lok Sabha MP as it is the duty of every government to trace "missing persons".

Punjab Congress Chief Amarinder Singh on a question about Mr Mann said he had no idea about his (Mr Mann's) intentions and whereabouts.

"However, I must say that there is strong sense of introspection among the Punjabi AAP leaders, who are the sons of the soil, about they being ruled over and exploited by the others and they are duly standing up against it and may be Bhagwant Mann is also feeling the same way," he said.
There are differences in the practice of democracy even among the oldest practitioners in modern times, the United States and Britain. But India, still recognised as a democracy despite its warts, is giving a new definition to the concept.

The Indian version boils down to family rule. We have the pre-eminent example of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, whether Jawaharlal Nehru intended it to be so is a matter of debate. After the Congress leadership, then known as the Syndicate, selected Jawaharlal Nehrus daughter Indira as Lal Bahadur Shastris successor in the vain hope of having a pliant Prime Minister, the family caravan has not stopped.

Indira was consciously nurturing her younger son Sanjay until he died in a rash air accident. Then it was the elder son Rajiv to fill in the vacuum and after her assassination, Rajiv took over. When Rajiv was murdered, his widow Sonia retreated to mourn in solitude.

Not for long. Congressmen beseeched Sonia Gandhi to take to the political stage because they simply could not survive without a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty at the head. After she consented and made a reasonable job of Congress leadership, it was time to get son Rahul to gear up. The problem was that even after party veteran Manmohan Singh kept the Prime Ministers seat warm for the prince, he was reluctant and has now been hurled into the Uttar Pradesh campaign to earn his spurs.

Take Punjab. The Punjab chief minister has made his son Sukhbir his No. 2 in the government while the latters wife is a Union Cabinet minister, thanks to the Bharatiya Janata Party alliance with the Akali Dal in the state. There are, of course, a host of uncles, for and against, crowding the political scene.

Perhaps the most spectacular family empire is represented by the Yadav family in Uttar Pradesh. The leader of the Samajwadi Party, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, nominated his son Akhilesh as chief minister but burdened him with a retinue of a bewildering number of uncles to muddy the waters. Akhileshs shot at seeking room for governance by divesting uncle Shivpal Yadav of important portfolios set the stage for a family war, with UP and the country watching the unedifying show until Mulayam called a ceasefire.

There are few politicians who can hold a candle to Bihars Lalu Prasad Yadav. When legal constraints prevented him from holding the post of chief minister, he catapulted his wife from the kitchen to the chief ministers chair, and given his partys relatively good showing in the last elections, he imposed two of his novice sons on Nitish Kumars council of ministers.

On a broader scale, what does our politicians penchant for promoting family, rather than the nations, interests lead the country to? At one level, politicians assert that as a father it is his duty to secure the future of his children, especially sons, and it is natural for him to be apprenticed to a political career. On the other hand, critics argue that forming ruling family groups is anathema to the practice of democracy and subverts the fairness of the system.

We are probably too far down the road to rescue Indian democracy from different versions of family rule. Prime Minister Narendra Modi can boast of having no family to pass on political favours to, but home minister Rajnath Singh is nurturing a son, and there are others in the ruling party keeping seats warm for their kin.

How then are we to cope with this disregard for democratic norms in running the country? Our leaders offer no apology for promoting their kin although burdening them with a legion of demanding uncles is Mulayam Singhs innovation. It is as if the Samajwadi Party leader were serving a family feat at taxpayers expense. The more family members can join in, the better.

Indian society has been defined by caste and the hierarchical place of each in his or her social standing. Perhaps we should create a new caste of political families who distribute favours to their kin, despite their belonging to low or intermediate castes.

Here, in a sense, is the triumph of political power over caste hierarchy. Take Ms Mayawatis spells in power in UP because of her exploitation of the dalit vote.

Family rule inevitably means family quarrels. We had the classic case of Maneka Gandhi leaving Indiras prime ministerial residence with son Varun, screaming. The rift between one uncle and Akhilesh is part of getting used to nosy ministers taking on more than they should. Coming as it did as parties prepare for campaigning for state Assembly election, it is not a plus mark for the SP.

Since family rule is here to stay, it is time to frame a broad framework of dos and donts. Ones direct progeny may be granted a role in ruling the country, but there must be curbs on uncles and aunts crowding the decision-making process. Lalu Prasads wife showed guts in holding the office of chief minister but it is hardly a precedent to be emulated.

Second, there must be a time limit for the sons to shine. If we fall into the trap of traditional Communist hierarchies or dictators lifetime rule, the dividing line between democracy and dictatorship is crossed. Yet there is no mechanism to end the hereditary ascent of a prince unless the voters take to repudiating him or her in elections.

There is a crisis here between the political class and intellectuals. The former argue that the latter are not conscious of the situation on the ground and how people react to problems.

But surely the skulduggery practised by the political class cannot be justified on the ground of its family connections, even assuming that it has the blessing of the neta.

It is indeed time to put our heads together before the level of family dynasties ruling the country make a mockery of Indian democracy. The time to act is now.
The powder keg that is the Kashmir Valley has exploded once again with the years biggest strike by terrorists on an Army camp in Uri, in J&Ks Baramulla district. If it is firmly established that this was yet another cross-border attack exported by Pakistan, it is bound to lead to a bigger diplomatic blow-up with a neighbour, whose support of terror as state policy is too well-documented to lend merit to its denials. This strike was bigger than the January siege of the Pathankot airbase in which seven military personnel were killed. With 17 soldiers killed in Uri and at least another 20 injured, this was in fact the biggest casualty the Army has suffered in many years. Amid an alert across the country, India needs a major rethink not only on its preparedness to tackle terror by infiltration across the border or Line of Control  there is reason to believe the breach on the LoC was through the Salamabad Nullah from PoK  but also on its policy priorities regarding Pakistan.

This attack on soldiers sleeping between shifts of active vigil in temporary shelters at the camp is suggestive of a well-planned fidayeen attack by terrorists who obviously had intelligence guiding their operation. The Bihar and Dogra Regiment soldiers temporary sleeping tents catching fire made the toll worse; but its also suggestive of what conditions brave Armymen are placed in. By identifying the weapons and clothing of the Uri attackers, it should be possible to clearly establish the Pakistani hand in yet another strike on Kashmir. This will lend weight to what India has been saying at all major global forums recently about Pakistans role in fuelling the insurgency in Kashmir. It is immaterial whether that will change anything in that country, that grandstands its fate as a victim of terror, losing 9,065 lives in 2015.

The strike, which caught our soldiers off guard, is to be seen as retaliation through increased terror operations in the wake of Indias Balochistan policy thrust, by which moral and political support is to be given to the rebels, including the Balochis living in exile. The coming UN General Assembly session is bound to get quite vocal with the latest instance of what is certainly an attack inspired by Pakistan, rather than the lone wolf attacks that crop up in many parts of the world. Indias latest billion-dollar move to bring Afghanistan even closer in diplomatic terms is part of an overall strategy to put the heat on Pakistan. What the Indian Army has lost in so many soldiers dead and injured is a human tragedy we should not lose sight of as we reassess our responses to the naked threat of terror.
Nepal Prime Minister Pushp Kumar Dahal Prachanda was a Maoist revolutionary when he became his countrys first post-monarchy PM in 2008. It was in this avatar that Prachanda, his nom de guerre from revolutionary days, first visited China on becoming PM. In his new avatar, Mr Dahal is attempting to make a transition to democracy and deserves all support. He has chosen to make India his first port of call. India should respect this.

As Mr Dahal himself indicated in New Delhi at the end of his visit Saturday, Nepals ties with China remained undisturbed. This is just as well. A problem in Kathmandus ties with Beijing can also put unpredictable strains on relations with New Delhi.

After their talks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Nepal PM said the two countries hoped to leave the unpleasant aspects of the past behind. This will take a lot of doing on both sides. Nepal expects India to be mindful of its concerns and sensitivities. Mr Modi also made his concerns known in a quiet way when he spoke of injecting energy into the existing defence and security relationship. The Nepal PM was wise when he spoke of the two sides agreeing to implement earlier agreements in infrastructure and major hydro power projects, rather than signing new deals. The Nepal leaders visit promises much. Now, the real test is implementation.
Human rights warrior, Ambedkarite, eminent poet and writer, senior advocate Bojja Tarakam died on Friday night. His work touched every village in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and his words went out to every Dalit home in the two states. His work touched the lives of all activists  be they feminists, ecologists, human rights defenders, those working for the homeless, the factory workers, the urban poor, Muslims, Adivasis, and other marginalised sections.

The first time I met Tarakam at his house, I heard him tell an activist, You haven't gone to jail yet? You haven't been arrested? How can you call yourself an activist? I was wonder-struck. This was in the early eighties when erstwhile revolutionaries were falling over backwards to distance themselves from any movement and running after the pot of gold in the mainstream. He was not a Maoist leader, exhorting people to jump into militancy. He was, by that time itself, noted as a man with a broad understanding and open convictions.

My husband Cyril was close to him, so we visited them often; theirs was an open house, his wife Vijayabharathi a gracious hostess. This was the beginning of a long friendship for me, and theirs was my second home in Hyderabad. Later, we worked together on several issues  on books for HBT (translation of Ramuni Krishnuni Rahasyalu, 1984; Shudrulu Aryulu, 1984; his original works Police Arrest Cheste 1981; Nela Nagali, 2008,; Dali-tudu Rajyam, 2008; Panchatan-tram, 2012, Charitra Marchina Manishi  Rudraandhar Charita, 2016; on my work with agricultural labourers in Ibrahimpatnam where Tarakam was a frequent visitor, and of course, the Dalit magazine Nalupu.

I travelled often with him and Cyril to Karamchedu, observing the activities there with interest and learning much. The long journeys were marked by conversations on many issues, including music. Bojja Tarakam was born in Bojjavaripalem, a hamlet of Kandikuppa, a small village in the Konaseema area of East Godavari district on the coast where the Godavari joins the sea. His father Bojja Appalaswamy was a remarkable independent, Ambedkar-inspired Dalit leader who was a two-time MLA, set up schools for Dalit children, taught his wife to read and write, and had an extraordinary reach. A Brahmo Samajist, he was dedicated to social reform. A revolutionist, he organised militant land struggles of the Dalits in the area to retain control of their assigned lands. He named Tarakam after Kambhampati Tarakam, the social reformer and district education officer who hosted him all through his teacher training course.

It was in the mid-sixties that Tarakam came out of his fathers towering shadow. As an advocate working in Nizama-bad, where his wife Vijaya-bharathi, worked in the local college, he took up cases of the poor, organised fact-finding missions in cases of atrocities against the Dalits and village poor, and helped form the Ambedkar Yuvajana Sangham, campaigning vigorously in the villages of the district. His activity caused him a two-year imprisonment during the Emergency.

He considered himself both Ambedkarite and Marxist, his book Kulam-vargam explaining how he synthesised the two philosophies. Yet, for most of his life, this earned him the opprobrium of both groups  Dalits criticising him for aligning with the Left and the Leftists shunning him for his Ambedkarism. Tarakam never swerved. In 1978, he shifted to Hyderabad after Ms Vijaya-bharathi began work with the Telugu Academy in Hyderabad. He began work in the AP High Court, continuing the ceaseless fact-finding to the hundreds of villages and towns where Dalits and poor people were tortured, harassed, jailed. He was a government pleader in 1984 when the Karamchedu massacre took place and resigned in protest, many people remarking that with this, he had lost his chance of being appointed as a judge to the High Court. It is doubtful whether he would have secured the appointment anyhow, because he steadfastly refused to call on political bigwigs, except when in a delegation to represent peoples' problems. He was the rare man of integrity.

Since the Karamchedu massacre when he led Dalits there to organize themselves, their rehabilitation and their court cases, he went on to found the Dalit Mahasabha and in 1989, he helped found the AP chapter of the Bahujan Samaj Party, resigning from it in 1994, opposing its alliance with the BJP in UP. Later, he joined the RPI, but broke away from it after Ramdas Athawale allied with the BJP.

He was the warrior who fought, both in the courts and outside, the cases which nobody else wanted. Karamchedu, Tsundur, Lakshmipeta  he carried the weight of the massacres on his shoulders. Few would know that the landmark judgement of the Supreme Court ordering compulsory registration of criminal cases in encounter murders, was initiated and fought for by Tarakam. The little book, Police Arrest Cheste which sold lakhs of copies and saved the lives and bodies of countless young men and women by equipping them with foreknowledge, was authored by Tarakam.

Tarakam was extremely neat and dapper, fastidious to a point  white shirt and trousers for work outside, white kurta and pajamas at home. Lean, sharp-eyed, a quick laugh, and even quicker movements. He was used to long walks at dawn, which probably contributed to his relative fitness later when he was fighting brain cancer. He had no vices  save tea, of which he never refused a cup. He ate sparingly and did not relish meat, but loved the Konaseema delicacies  the paper pastry, the khaja, etc.

He was a voracious reader with wide-ranging tastes in books. He bought them wherever he could, and his house was filled with books, not just in the bookcases but in every corner. Tarakam was a poet and more than that, he was musically talented. He would often say that he if wasnt what he was, he would have been a musician or a drama actor.

When illness in the form of a brain tumour struck him in 2013, one could not believe that it could strike such an active man. For some time, he withdrew into himself, and later, probably after coming to terms with his new life, began moving about once again, travelling the length and breadth of the state this time. He was barely able to walk, but continued to attend meetings, fight cases in the courts, and read and write. His last book was written in this phase. He died much as he lived  with dignity, courage and compassion for others.
The weather has been glorious the last few days with temperatures vacillating between the high 80s, low 90s (Fahrenheit). London is swarming with people  local and foreign  who are sitting out on pavement cafes or spilling out of pubs on to the pavements. For a while after the referendum, there were fears about London being hit by a slump. But the danger passed and with the sun shining, we are back to being swinging Londoners. The pound is cheap so tourists are flocking in and the locals cant afford to go abroad! So spaces might be a bit crowded, but we are enjoying our lager by the Thames!

The big shock of the fortnight has been David Camerons resignation as MP just weeks after he gave up his premiership. Most ex-Prime Ministers linger on. Edward Heath sat on the Privy Council benches for many years and became known as The Great Sulk as he disapproved of all that his successor Margaret Thatcher did. Gordon Brown stayed on for five years but the Labour Party was in Opposition so he hardly ever attended. Mr Cameron might not want to be silent or to stay away. He knew he would be watched for any sign of rebellion. So at the young age of 49, he seeks pastures anew. We got to know him during our efforts to raise money for the Gandhi statue. He was friendly and gracious when Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley came to unveil the statue. He was also there when Prime Minister Narendra Modi came and laid petals at the feet of the statue. He was there later at Wembley where Mr Modi was cheered by thousands of Indians in the UK. Samantha Cameron even sportingly wore a sari for the occasion.

Resignations are rare in India. And so former Prime Ministers and ministers carry on in Parliament without making much of a contribution. But in the US and the UK, it is often felt that former Premiers earn many times more when they quit their congressional or parliamentary role. One does not know Mr Camerons future plans, but there might be a book, and then of course, the infamous lecture tours

Meanwhile, top-secret preparations are afoot for the eventual coronation of Prince Charles. The code name for the event is Golden Orb. But before that happens the state funeral of the Queen needs to be planned. This is code named London Bridge. The Queens passing away is expected to take a heavy toll on the economy as many public institutions will shut down and there will be a huge public outpouring of grief. At Princess Dianas death there were more than one million bouquets. For the present queen, there will be many more. Sad thoughts but preparations have to be in place.

Prince Harry is 32 and still unmarried. There are all sorts of speculation about an arranged marriage with a Greek princess. Meanwhile, some wag suggested that Prince Charles should stand aside as should William, and Harry should get the crown to give him a job. Little did they realise that by the rules of succession, if Charles and William stand aside, the crown goes to little George, Prince Williams son! But George has enough to do coping with going to nursery school to reign over the country as well.

There has been a lot of excitement and debate about a trial. It was in the ongoing radio soap opera Archers which has been broadcasting about the lives of rural folk in the fictional village of Ambridge for 60 years on BBC Radio 4. Millions follow the programme. Helen, one of the characters, was on trial for the attempted murder of her husband Rob. But her lawyer argued that she was a victim of physical bullying and domestic violence. The nation waited last week as an extended broadcast was to give the verdict. The jury at the court consisted of famous personalities who came for just one episode. Nigel Havers (Chariots of Fire), Dame Eileen Atkins, famous theatre star, and Doctor Who heroine Catherine Tate sat and declared Helen not guilty. Louisa Patikas, who has played Helen for 16 years, said she felt released as her daily life was affected by everyone asking her about her court case. She was not alone. Couples across the nation had been arguing the case. Now we can move on. Fiction is stranger than lif !

Jatinder Varma has been active in British theatre for more years that one can remember. He runs a multi-racial theatre company where he offers a fusion of Western and Indian theatre. Recently he got a British Arts Council grant to refurbish a theatre in Earlsfield are of London. Sadiq Khan inaugurated the new site early thus month. Jatinder can now display his creative work to a much larger audience from a modern spot.

Talking about donations, we are gearing up for the launch of the worlds first Partition Museum at Town Hall, Amritsar, by the end of October. Media houses from the UK and India are in touch for the historic event. If you are a British Asian with a Partition Story to share, do contact us at www.partitionmuseum.org. And also if you have anything to contribute to the museum  from your private archives to funding  let us know and all contributions will be gratefully acknowledged.
Samsung recently announced a global Galaxy Note 7 recall, following the battery issues the Note 7 suffered with. The company recalled over 2.5 million handsets.

Samsung has now stated that the replacement Note 7 will start arriving on September 21 to Australia. While few European countries will see the first shipment of safe Note 7 on September 19.

A Reddit user posted a picture with an apology letter from Samsung that also contained a list of locations where faulty Note 7 units can be dropped off.

The image of the new retail box comes with a black square box instead of a blue S letter in a white circle, indicating that its a part of the safe Note 7 batch.

Samsung also recently announced that 130,000 Galaxy Note 7 units from all over the world have been replaced. Around 21,953 Galaxy Note 7 units were sold in Canada until September 1, when the company announced the recall.

The company is already working with the CPSC in the US on the exchange program, and Note 7 owners can get a loaner phone until their safe Galaxy Note 7 units arrive or request a full refund.

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The leak was spotted by FoneArena on the micro-blogging website Weibo.

Chinese smartphone giant is allegedly working on the next iteration of its flagship Mi 5. The smartphone dubbed as the Mi 5S has been in the rumour mill for quite some time now. The latest leaks suggest that the smartphone will come with a Qualcomm ultrasonic fingerprint sensor.

The leak was spotted by FoneArena on the micro-blogging website Weibo. Qualcomms fingerprint technology will be called Snapdragon Sense ID, it was unveiled last year in March.

The fingerprint sensor relies on ultrasonic 3D scanning and is capable of working through all kind of surfaces including glass, sapphire, metal, aluminium and plastic.

To recall, the smartphone was earlier tipped to feature a 5.15-inch display with 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution and will be powered by a Snapdragon 821 processor clubbed with 6GB RAM.

The smartphone will also have Adreno 530 GPU and will have 256GB of internal storage capacity. In addition, the Mi 5S will come equipped with 16MP rear camera with F/1.9 aperture and 4-axis optical image stabilisation (OIS). It is also expected to come with a 3490mAh battery with support for Qualcomms Quick Charge 3.0.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
Corpses lie on the ground at Ali Babolo mosque in Bangui. Sixteen people have been killed in two days of clashes between Fulani herdsmen and the mainly Muslim Seleka militia in the Central African Republic. (Photo: AFP)

Bangui: Rebels have killed 26 villagers in Central African Republic, a spokesperson for the presidency said on Saturday, the worst bloodshed in recent months in a country trying to draw a line under years of religious violence and political turmoil.

Albert Mokpeme said the killings took place in the village of Ndomete, not far from the town of Kaga-Bandoro, about 350 km (220 miles) north of the capital Bangui. He blamed fighters from the former Seleka rebel coalition.

There were 26 victims. The Seleka (rebels) went door to door ... The village chief was among the victims, said Albert Mokpeme said. It was a massacre.

Seleka representatives were not available for comment.

Violence pitting the mainly Muslim Seleka fighters against rival Christian anti-Balaka militia members started on Friday in Ndomete before spreading to Kaga-Bandoro.

Central African Republics UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, dispatched troops to the area and separated the two groups. It said in a statement that it was reinforcing its positions in and around Kaga-Bandoro and stepping up patrols in an effort to protect civilians and prevent further violence.

The mission declined to give a death toll.

MINUSCA regrets the loss of human life and the wounded that were recorded and also denounces attacks against the humanitarian community and United Nations personnel, it said, without elaborating further.

Central African Republic, which holds reserves of uranium, gold and diamonds, suffered the biggest crisis in its half-century of independence in early 2013 when Seleka toppled then-president Francois Bozize.

Christian militias responded by attacking Muslims. A fifth of the population fled their homes to escape the violence, leaving the impoverished nation even more divided along ethnic and religious lines.

Former prime minister Faustin-Archange Touadera won a presidential election in February that was meant to help the country emerge from its bloody past. However, rebels and militia fighters still stalk much of the country outside the capital.
"The United States is committed to our strong partnership with the Indian government to combat terrorism," Kirby added. (Representational Image)

Washington: The US is committed to build a "strong partnership" with India to combat terrorism, the White House said on Sunday as it condemned the terror attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town that killed 17 soldiers.

"The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack on an Indian Army base in Kashmir during the early morning of September 18," the State Department Spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

"We extend our condolences to the victims and their families," he said.

"The United States is committed to our strong partnership with the Indian government to combat terrorism," Kirby added. Meanwhile, the US Ambassador to India Richard Verma also condemned the attack.

"We strongly condemn the terror attack in Uri, J&K. Our thoughts are with the families of the brave soldiers who lost their lives #UriAttack," Verma tweeted in New Delhi.

The US statement comes in the aftermath of the terror attack at a army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town that killed 17 army soldiers and wounded 19 others, many of them critically.

Four heavily armed militants were also killed in the ensuing encounter.
Several were reported injured in a bomb blast in in New York's Chelsea neighbourhood. (Photo: AFP/Representational)

New York: An explosion rocked New York's neighbourhood of Chelsea on Saturday wounding 29 people but with no apparent terror connection at this point, officials said.

One of the 29 people injured in the blast, which police are treating as intentional, is in serious condition, officials added. "There is no evidence at this point of a terror connection to this incident, this is preliminary information," Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference.

"It's something we will be investigating very carefully, but there is no evidence at this point of a terror connection," he added.

Of the 29 people wounded in the incident, 24 have been taken to hospitals with various degrees of scrapes and abrasions from glass and metal, said Fire Department commissioner Daniel Nigro.

Police said the specific cause of the explosion, which occurred on the street at around 8:30pm (0030 GMT) was not clear but was not caused by gas.

"We believe it was intentional," de Blasio said.

The mayor said it was not immediately apparent if the blast was connected to an explosion in a trash can in New Jersey earlier Saturday.

Donald said several people were taken to hospitals with injuries. The Fire Department had earlier tweeted that none of the injuries appear to be life-threatening. No detail about the extent of damage was immediately available.

Numerous emergency vehicles are in the area, which is a major thoroughfare with many restaurants.

Witnesses say FBI and Homeland Security officials are also at the scene. A number of New York City subway routes have been affected by the incident.

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area. "We felt it, we heard it, the restaurant went real quiet, the 26-year-old Gonzalez said. "It wasn't like jolting or anything, everyone just went quiet."

The blast comes hours after a pipe bomb exploded in a garbage can in Seaside Park, New Jersey, during a Marine Corps charity run.

Second site under investigation

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says a second Manhattan site is under investigation.

A law enforcement official tells The Associated Press that a second device officers are investigating a few blocks from the scene of a Manhattan explosion appears to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation, says the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street.

Police are advising residents of the block where the device was found to stay away from windows facing 27th Street.

The pressure-cooker device was found four blocks from the location on West 23rd Street where an explosion injured more than two dozen people Saturday night.
Houston: Donald Trump took his campaign to Texas, bashing Hillary Clintons immigration policies as too lax, in a state still up for grabs on Election Day.

With polls showing a tightening race just over seven weeks before the November 8 election, the Republican candidate turned up the vitriol, saying that as president, his Democratic rival would virtually end border enforcement and place the country "in grave peril."

Trump was speaking a day after a much-hyped televised event in which, after years of questioning whether Barack Obama was an American citizen, he finally declared that the president "was born in the United States, period."

But he also made the surprising charge  refuted by fact-checkers  that it was Clinton who originated the "birther" theories about Obama.

On Saturday, speaking before a sympathetic audience that included people who said their friends or family members had been killed by undocumented immigrants, Trump continued his sharp attacks on Clinton.

The immigration issue has been central to Trump's campaign since he said last summer that many Mexican immigrants were drug smugglers and rapists. The candidate made it clear on Saturday that he is not about to give up on the attack line, even at the risk of offending many Hispanic voters.

Continuing attacks

Trump asserted that Clinton would "implement amnesty by executive order, violating our constitution and putting the entire nation in grave peril."

Clinton has called for a softening of immigration practices, saying she would deport only violent criminals and terrorists, a position in stark contrast to Trump's vow to build a border wall and deport huge numbers of the undocumented.

His suggestion that immigrants are disproportionately responsible for serious crime appears unfounded, according to several studies.

However, Trump insisted on Saturday that Americans are being killed on a daily basis by the undocumented.

"Every day our border remains open, innocent Americans are needlessly victimized and killed," he said.

"Every day we fail to enforce our laws... a loving parent is at risk of losing their child."

While he repeated his charge that Clinton would introduce "total amnesty in the first 100 days, which means Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare for illegal immigrants," her website does not mention amnesty.

It does promise to "introduce comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to full and equal citizenship within (the) first 100 days," lifting the threat of deportation in many cases.

Tightening race

Clinton, who returned to the campaign trail Thursday after a bout with pneumonia, has pressed the theme that her Republican rival is unfit to be president.

"His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie" about Obama's birth, she said. "There is no erasing it in history."

"He's feeding into the worst impulses, the bigotry and bias that lurks in our country," she added.

Appearing alongside Clinton at the Congressional Black Caucus gala Saturday, Obama delivered a forceful plea to black voters to stop Trump from becoming president.

"My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot," Obama said. "You want to give me a good sendoff, go vote!"

Democrats are increasingly worried about poll numbers during a week that Clinton lost momentum.

She fell ill last week during a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York, where she was seen stumbling limp-legged into her vehicle, an episode that raised tough questions about her overall health and her campaign's transparency.

Polls show the lead she has held over Trump narrowing quickly. One survey gave her just a two-point margin, down sharply in a matter of weeks, boosting worries she is ceding the stage to Trump as time runs out on the campaign clock.

Two of the Democrats' liberal stars, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, were campaigning for Clinton in Ohio on Saturday to drum up support among the young people whose votes she needs on election day.

Sanders ripped into Trump about the "birther" controversy.

"What they were trying to do," he said at a rally, "is to de-legitimize the presidency of the first African-American president we have ever had."

Employing a different line of attack on Friday, Trump again raised the threat of violence against Clinton, suggesting during a rally in Miami that Clinton's Secret Service guards voluntarily disarm and "see what happens to her."

"I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons," the real estate billionaire told a cheering rally. "Take their guns away. She doesn't want guns. Take them. Lets see what happens to her... It will be very dangerous."

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook condemned Trump's widely criticized remarks, saying they "should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate."
Berlin: German voters went to the polls on Sunday in Berlin regional elections with the anti-immigration AfD party hoping to capitalise on anger against Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcome to refugees.

The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany has mobilised xenophobic and anti-Islam sentiment to win seats in nine of the country's 16 state assemblies and is especially popular in the ex-communist east.

Fresh gains for the AfD -- particularly in hip and multicultural Berlin, where it has been polling up to 14 percent -- would spell another setback for Merkel, a year ahead of national elections.

It would prove that the protest party "doesn't just benefit from discontent in rural areas but can establish itself ... in a city of millions that is known for its open lifestyle," said the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.

Germany took in one million asylum seekers last year, and over 70,000 of them came to Berlin, with many housed in the cavernous hangars of the Nazi-built former Tempelhof airport, once the hub for the Cold War-era Berlin airlift.

Merkel -- who was booed this week by right-wing activists shouting "get lost" -- later conceded it was hard to reach the "protest voters" who have turned their backs on mainstream parties.

The AfD, breaking a taboo in post-war German politics, has an openly anti-immigration platform, similar to France's National Front or far-right populists in Austria and the Netherlands.

Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller of the Social Democrats (SPD) dramatically warned on the eve of the election that a strong AfD result would be "seen throughout the world as a sign of the resurgence of the right and of Nazis in Germany".

'Suicidal'

Polls in Berlin opened at 0600 GMT and were to close at 1600 GMT, with some 2.5 million eligible voters to chose a new assembly. With sunny skies, turnout around noon looked to be higher than in 2011, when it reached 60 percent.

Merkel's centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) have a national majority -- but in the city-state of Berlin they serve as junior coalition partner to Mueller's SPD, traditionally the strongest party in the city of 3.5 million.

As Mueller has rejected a new coalition with the CDU, Merkel's party may be cast out of the Berlin government altogether with the SPD seen likely to team up with the ecologist Greens and the far-left Die Linke party.

This would heap further pressure on Merkel "to explain her political strategy", said Gero Neugebauer of Berlin's Free University.

"The more fearful within her party might be increasingly scared of losing power in 2017," he told the Handelsblatt business daily.

Another analyst, Kai Arzheimer of Mainz University, also predicted tensions would rise between the CDU and its Bavarian sister party the CSU, but he stressed the CDU was unlikely to change its top candidate, Merkel.

"To ask this question one year before federal elections would be suicidal, especially since in the CDU there is no credible successor," he said.

'Poor but sexy'

In Berlin -- a city famously dubbed "poor but sexy" by its previous mayor, bon vivant Klaus Wowereit -- the election campaign was dominated not just by migrant policies but also widespread frustration over poor public services.

With little industry and an above-national average jobless rate of 10 percent, Europe's techno party capital is chronically broke and known for its crumbling schools, late trains and shambolic city offices.

Often seen as an amusingly chaotic exception in otherwise orderly and punctual Germany, Berlin became a national laughing stock for a grand BER airport project that is now five years behind schedule and three times over budget.

In another debacle, thousands of refugees were left waiting for days and weeks last year at Berlin's then hopelessly overwhelmed Lageso central migrant registration centre, with many forced to sleep in the dirt outside.

Casting his ballot early on Sunday, police officer Tobias Ludley, 27, said he worried about Berlin's cash-strapped public services, as well as its "little building site", the BER.

But he also voiced concern about the AfD, a party he labelled "the wolf in sheep's clothing".

"The AfD is appealing to people who otherwise wouldn't vote, the protest voters," he said, worried that the party could gain ground in a city which was normally "a shining example of multiculturalism".

Another voter, Franziska Ersil, 38, who works in advertising, agreed that "many big-city problems just aren't being solved".

"We worry about education, a housing shortage, and the fact that they just can't get a handle on the refugee crisis... that a multicultural city like Berlin can't adequately welcome, house and integrate them."
Fico said in an interview the EU had also shifted from a debate over mandatory quotas to a new principle of "flexible solidarity" over the migrant crisis. (Photo: AP)

Bratislava: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are ready to veto any Brexit deal that would limit their citizens' rights to work in Britain, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Saturday.

EU leaders met in Slovakia's capital Bratislava on Friday at their first summit for decades without Britain after a shock British vote in June to leave the bloc, a subject which Fico said had only been touched on at the meeting.

They are still trying to find common ground on the best way to cope with a higher number of migrants and how to shake off the lingering effects of years of economic crisis.

Fico said in an interview the EU had also shifted from a debate over mandatory quotas to a new principle of "flexible solidarity" over the migrant crisis.

The Visegrad group (V4) of Central European countries have together opposed EU efforts to introduce mandatory quotas for migrants and now, Fico said, also have a common interest in protecting citizens' rights to work in Britain.

"V4 countries will be uncompromising. Unless we feel a guarantee that these people (living and working in Britain) are equal, we will veto any agreement between the EU and Britain," he said. "I think Britain knows this is an issue for us where there's no room for compromise."

EU officials on Friday also underlined that there could be no granting Britain access to the EU's single market unless London accepts the freedom of movement of workers that lies at the heart of European Union accords.

Fico reiterated that he was opposed to any "cherry-picking" in negotiations, saying EU freedoms must remain.

Britain has said it would not initiate the formal proceedings this year but it could do so next year, starting a two-year countdown to its exit.

The Brexit vote has triggered what European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has described as an "existential crisis" for the EU and Friday's informal meeting of the bloc's 27 members was meant to display unity but instead showed divisions remain over migrant policy.

The EU's eastern members have been at odds with older members, mainly Germany, over taking in a share of more than one million migrants who last year fled war and poverty in Middle Eastern and African countries to come to Europe.

On Friday, Hungary criticized Germany for refusing to agree to a ceiling on the number of migrants entering Europe, saying it would continue to draw masses to Europe.

Fico said he wanted more steps on migration issues in the bloc's new road map but that he was happy that border security was getting more attention and that a debate began on "flexible solidarity" allowing countries to offer what they can to tackle the migrant crisis.

"I could have banged on the table yesterday ... but that would get us nowhere. What the EU is about today, is lets talk about things that unite us. There is no time for things that divide us," he said.

Slovakia has been one of the harshest critics of quotas and has sued the bloc over a plan agreed last year to re-distribute migrants, but was outvoted. Hungary has also taken legal action.

Fico said V4 would keep putting forward its common positions, which he said were sometimes more pragmatic given its history of transformation after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

"But the V4 would never go against the EU. We will have our original positions, but we will not push it at the price of damaging the EU," Fico said.
London: British Prime Minister Theresa May is facing fresh rebellion from within her own party as a group of anti-European Union lawmakers join business people to launch a new 'Leave Means Leave' group to push for "hard Brexit".

The new group aims for a so-called "hard Brexit" to get the UK out of the EU's single market after the country voted to leave the European Union in a historic referendum in June.

The Eurosceptic Tory lawmakers want an end to the influence of Brussels on British laws and scrapping "free movement" migration across Europe, the 'Sunday Telegraph' reported.

The group, to be launched on Sunday, is being led by businessman Richard Tice, one of the leading figures behind the 'Leave EU' campaign in the referendum, with the backing of other business figures, lawmakers and economists.

In the group's launch report, it argues that Britain must pull out of the EU's single market, even if no alternative trade deal has been struck with Brussels.

"Let's be clear: No deal is better than a bad deal," Tice said.

He told the newspaper: "The British people made it clear that they wanted to leave the EU. There should be no compromise on this. The sooner we leave the more certainty and confidence for everyone."

The new group, which has the support of at least six Conservative lawmakers so far, will add to the impression that concerns are growing among May's colleagues over whether she will deliver full Brexit or some kind of compromise.

May has said she will wait until next year before triggering Article 50 of the European treaties, which would launch the formal two-year process for negotiating the terms of Brexit.

The group believes she should aim to complete the talks sooner. This would set Britain free to sign trade deals with countries outside Europe and would be a signal to the EU that the UK is serious.

The group warned that single market is "the world's least successful economic zone", which ties businesses up in regulations regardless of whether they trade with other European countries.

It argued that remaining in the single market would be a mistake after leaving the EU because this would mean the UK would still be bound to accept unlimited numbers of migrants, while British firms would all have to abide by Brussels law.

The group's supporters include the Tory MPs Peter Bone, Adam Holloway and Peter Lilley; UK economists Ruth Lea and Ewen Stewart; and business figures Richard Smith and Patrick Barbour.

The Labour donor and businessman John Mills is also a supporter, with the Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman. A No. 10 Downing Street spokesperson said: "The Prime Minister has been clear that she is going to get the best deal for Britain and deliver on the clear verdict of the British public."
Pope Francis was addressing thousands of faithful assembled at Saint Peter's square in Rome.

Vatican City: Corruption is like a drug on which people become dependent, Pope Francis said Sunday, addressing thousands of faithful assembled at Saint Peter's square in Rome.

"Some people behave with corruption as with a drug. They think they can stop if they want to," the Argentinian pontiff told the worshippers gathered for the weekly Angelus prayer.

"They start small, a small amount here, a bribe there," he said, warning that corruption was producing its own "addiction" which generates poverty and suffering.
Right-wing activists blocked the entrance to Russia's embassy to prevent Russian citizens from voting. (Photo: Twitter)

Kiev: Dozens of right-wing activists blocked the entrance to Russia's embassy in the Ukrainian capital, where a polling station has been set up for Russian citizens to vote in their country's parliamentary elections.

One demonstrator has been detained in a scuffle with police.

A leader of the nationalist Svoboda party, Igor Miroshnichenko was among the demonstrators Sunday. He said Ukraine should "not allow the enemy and state aggressor that stole Crimea to conduct illegal elections in Ukraine."

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 following the months of unrest that drove out Ukraine's Russia-friendly president.
US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq, the Russian Defence Ministry said. (Photo: AP)

Moscow: US-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency UN Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.

The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be ISIS positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

The United States relayed its "regret" through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement that Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area.

The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardizing the Syria deal.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move.

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power said.

She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life."

When asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark."

"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin said.

Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed ISIS fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the jihadist militants.

"We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.

Power said Zakharova should be embarassed by that claim. Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the United States colluding with ISIS terrorists.

Zakharova said the strikes threatened to undermine the ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, which has been aiding Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, and the United States, which has backed some rebel groups.

The Russian Defence Ministry said US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 80 Syrian soldiers had been killed.

The ceasefire, which took effect on Monday, is the most significant peacemaking effort in Syria for months, but has been undermined by repeated accusations of violations on both sides and by a failure to bring humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

Apart from the US and Russian involvement, Assad is supported by Iran and Arab Shi'ite militias, while Sunni rebels seeking to unseat him are backed by Turkey and Gulf Arab states.

All the warring parties are also sworn enemies of ISIS, whose territory extends along the Euphrates valley from the Iraqi border, including around Deir al-Zor, up to land near Syria's frontier with Turkey.

In its sixth year, the conflict has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced half of Syria's pre-war population, prompted a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe and inspired a wave of jihadist attacks across the world.

Syria's army said the US-led strikes, which took place at around 5 pm local time (1400 GMT) were "conclusive evidence" of US support for ISIS, calling them "dangerous and blatant aggression".

The US military said in its statement that Syria was a "complex situation" but that "coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit".

ISIS said via its Amaq news channel it had taken complete control of Jebel Tharda, where the bombed position was located, which would have allowed it to overlook government-held areas of Deir al-Zor.

The city's airport and some districts have been entirely surrounded by ISIS since last year, with the airport providing their only external access.

However, Russia and Syrian state media said the Syrian army later recaptured positions it had lost. The Observatory monitoring group said at least 20 ISIS fighters were killed in heavy Russian air strikes during that fighting.

The incident also threatens to undermine proposed joint targeting by the United States and Russia of Islamic State and some other jihadist groups across Syria.

Earlier on Saturday, Russia and Syrian rebels cast doubt over the prospects for the increasingly shaky ceasefire, with Moscow saying the situation was worsening and a senior insurgent warning that the truce "will not hold out".

While the ceasefire has reduced fighting, some violence has persisted across Syria. Meanwhile, there has been little movement on promised aid deliveries to besieged areas and both sides have accused the other of bad faith.

Russia's Defence Ministry said conditions in Syria were deteriorating, adding that it believed the ceasefire had been breached 199 times by rebels and saying the United States would be responsible if it were to collapse.

After the Deir al-Zor attack, it said Moscow had told the United States to rein in the Syrian opposition and make sure it did not launch a new offensive, adding that it had informed Washington about a concentration of rebels north of Hama.

Insurgents say they only reluctantly accepted the initial deal, which they believe is skewed against them, because it could relieve the dire humanitarian situation in besieged areas they control, and blamed Russia for undermining the truce.

"The truce, as we have warned, and we told the (US) State Department - will not hold out," a senior rebel official in Aleppo said, pointing to the continued presence of a UN aid convoy at the Turkish border awaiting permission to enter.

Rebels have also accused Russia of using the ceasefire to give the Syrian army and allied Shi'ite militias a chance to regroup and deploy forces ready for their own offensives.

Both sides have accused the other of being responsible for aid deliveries being stuck far from Aleppo, where army and rebel forces were supposed to pull back from the Castello Road which leads into besieged, insurgent-held eastern districts.

Russia on Friday said the Syrian army had initially withdrawn but returned to its positions after being fired on by rebels, who in turn say they saw no sign of government forces ever leaving their positions.

"There is no change," Zakariya Malahifji, an official for a rebel group in Aleppo, said on Saturday when asked whether there had been any move by the army to withdraw from positions along the road.

Syria's government said it was doing all that was necessary for the arrival of aid to those in need in all parts of the country, particularly eastern Aleppo.

"All the permissions the Syrian government was supposed to give have been given for humanitarian supplies to reach people in need in various parts of Syria and that the humanitarian convoy to eastern Aleppo is supposed to leave tomorrow morning," Churkin said.

Two convoys of aid for Aleppo have been waiting at the Turkish border for days. The UN has said both sides in the war are to blame for the delay of aid to Aleppo, where neither has yet withdrawn from the Castello Road.

The government said the road was being fired on by rebels, so it could not give convoys a guarantee of safety. The rebels deny the accusation.

Senior UN officials have accused the government of failing to provide letters to allow convoys to reach other besieged areas in Syria.
Shouting "Those wearing shorts must die!", the suspect attacked the woman, who works as a nurse, kicking her in the face, reports said. (Photo: YouTube Screengrab)

Istanbul: Turkish police have detained an assailant on charges of kicking and injuring a young woman for wearing shorts on an Istanbul bus, local media reported on Sunday.

Police detained the suspect on Saturday in Uskudar, a district on the Asian side of the city, the private Dogan news agency reported.

Shouting "Those wearing shorts must die!", the suspect attacked the woman, who works as a nurse, kicking her in the face, reports said.

He later told police he had been angered by her clothing.

"The shorts she was wearing were not appropriate. That's why I was angry and behaved so," he was quoted as saying by Dogan.

The man, who handles security for a company, had previously been diagnosed as suffering from "manic depression", the agency said.

Many feminists in Turkey have expressed growing concern over the extent of violence against women, with hundreds killed every year, often by their husbands.
A case has been registered against the accused and police are carrying out further investigation. (Representational Image)

Paris: French police have arrested three Algerian migrants for allegedly luring a woman to a spot near the Eiffel Tower in the French capital via Facebook and gangraping her.

According to a report in The Sun, the victim had been chatting with an unknown man on Facebook for quite sometime and had recently agreed to meet him. She said that she had been invited by the man to 'drink Coca-Cola and eat strawberries and grapes'.

The victim said that she had planned to meet the man in Champ de Mars, a park beneath the Eiffel Tower.

However, when she reached the place, she was dragged into the bushes by the accused and his two accomplices, bound, gagged and raped by them. She told the police that her ordeal came to an end when two joggers heard her screams and went to help her.

She was found by the joggers in a half-naked state. Following her testimony, police used the victim's computer to pull out relevant data from it, trace the accused and get hold of them. They eventually arrested three Algerian immigrants who had sneaked into France illegally.

The migrants had planned to carry out the attack in France and return back to Germany, said police adding that the accused did not have any official papers and claimed that they were seeking asylum in France.

" An inquiry is underway to try and work out exactly who they are, and what they were doing in France," said a source close to police.

Meanwhile, the accused denied rape charges against them and said that they were engaged in a consensual relationship with the victim.

A case has been registered against the accused and police are carrying out further investigation.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, said the pilot of the MiG Syrian warplane was killed. (Photo: Representational Image/AFP)

Beirut: ISIS shot down a Syrian military plane in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor, the terrorist group-affiliated news agency Amaq said on Sunday.

"A Syrian warplane belonging to the Syrian regime was brought down when targeted by militants from the ISIS in the city of Deir al-Zor," Amaq said in an online statement.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, said the pilot of the MiG Syrian warplane was killed.

The Observatory said the plane came down in the Jebel Tharda area which overlooks the government's Deir al Zor military airport.

Jebel Tharda is where on Saturday U.S.-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers, endangering a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency UN Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.

The city's airport and some government-held districts have been entirely surrounded by ISIS since last year, with the airport providing the only external access.

Intense air strikes over the past 24 hours have hit ISIS controlled areas near Deir al Zor city, the Observatory and Syrian state media said.
Syrians sit and look at the rubble following an airstrike on the regime-controlled neighbourdhood of Karm al-Jabal (Photo: AFP)

Beirut: Syrias ceasefire was hanging by a thread on Sunday, after tensions escalated between Moscow and Washington over a US-led coalition air strike that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers battling jihadists.

The truce saw violence drop across Syria for several days after it came into force last Monday, but fighting has since erupted on several fronts and besieged civilians are still waiting desperately for promised aid deliveries.

The ceasefires co-sponsors, Russia and the United States, have traded accusations over the fraying deal, with relations strained even further after the US-led raid killed scores of Syrian soldiers on Saturday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 soldiers were killed in the strike, while Moscow put the death toll at 62.

The Syrian army said the raid had allowed Islamic State group fighters to gain ground around the key eastern airbase of Deir Ezzor, but a military source said government forces were back on the offensive on Sunday. The army has retaken most of its positions on Jabal Therdeh with Russian and Syrian air support, the source said.
A Pakistani child who was injured in a suicide bombing is treated at a local hospital in Khar, Pakistan. (Photo: AP)

Peshawar: The death toll from a Taliban suicide bombing at a packed mosque in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region has risen to 36 after several of those injured in the attack died in hospitals, officials have said.

The attack targeted the weekly Friday prayers in Mohmand agency, bordering Afghanistan. The bomber shouted 'Allahu Akbar' and blew himself up when the prayers were in progress.

The death toll has risen to 36 after more people succumbed to their injuries, said assistant political agent of the agency Haseebur Rehman. Eight children died in the attack.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, who visited the victims at Bajaur Agency's headquarters hospital in Khar, announced a compensation of 50,000 rupees to the injured from his personal funds.

He ordered health department officials to provide better care to the injured and urged tribal people to continue their support to the government in the fight against militancy.

The governor expressed his determination to wipe out terrorists from the region.

A curfew was imposed in the area yesterday and a search was being conducted to arrest other planners of the attack. Nearly 200 worshippers were inside the mosque when the bomber struck. Jamat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out to avenge the deaths of 13 of its members in 2009.

Pakistani Taliban routinely targets courts, schools and mosques in the tribal region, where the military has launched a massive operation to flush out the terrorists since 2014.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a statement expressed grief over the loss of lives and called it a "cowardly attack by terrorists (who) cannot shatter the government's resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country."

The attack came on a day when Sharif vowed to continue the war against militancy till the elimination of the last terrorist.

The formation of Pakistani Taliban was officially announced in December 2007.
No one claimed responsibility, but Islamic militants have been involved in multiple such attacks in and around the provincial capital surrounded by lawless tribal regions. (Representational image)

Peshawar: Two gunmen on a motorcycle killed three soldiers Sunday near the north-western city of Peshawar, police said.

The gunmen struck in Garhi Sohbat Khan on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, attacking a private vehicle carrying the three soldiers.

The attackers used handguns to target the soldiers, who were returning from a military dairy farm after fetching milk for officers, Khan said.

No one claimed responsibility, but Islamic militants have been involved in multiple such attacks in and around the provincial capital surrounded by lawless tribal regions.

Dad Mohammad, another area police officer, said the incident was second of the nature in this area - which is close to Mohmand tribal region. Last week gunmen shot and killed a prominent physician who was instrumental in anti-polio campaigns, he said.

The Mohmand tribal region had been a long-time hotbed for Islamic militants and the Pakistani army has carried out several operations to eliminate militant hideouts.

But the militants have repeatedly struck back. Last Friday, a suicide bomber killed 36 worshippers during Friday prayers in the Ambar area of Mohmand. Jamaatul Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Taliban, claimed responsibility for that attack.
At least eight armymen have been injured in a suspected fidayeen attack on an army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. (Photo: PTI/Representational)

Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday refuted as "unfounded and premature" India's charge that it was behind the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri that killed 17 soldiers, with its army demanding "actionable intelligence" to support New Delhi's accusation.

Following the dawn attack, India blamed Pakistan for the latest attack on the Indian Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh directly attacked Pakistan saying it was a "terrorist state" and should be isolated.

Pakistan army spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said that following the attack Director General of Military Operation (DGMO) of the two countries discussed the situation along the Line of Control through hotline.

"Refuting the unfounded and pre-mature Indian allegation, Pakistani DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence," Radio Pakistan reported citing an ISPR release.

Bajwa reiterated that no infiltration was allowed from the Pakistani soil because of "water-tight arrangements" in place on both sides of LoC and the Working Boundary.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

Meanwhile in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned what he called the "cowardly terror attack". "I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi said in a series of Twitter posts.

Kashmir is one of the world's most militarised regions, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, paramilitaries and police deployed to guard the frontier with Pakistan and contain a restive people with strong leanings towards greater autonomy and even independence.
In the worst attack on the Army in many years, heavily armed militants suspected to be from Pakistan-based JeM stormed an army base in Uri in Kashmir killing 17 jawans early today, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to assert that those responsible "will not go "unpunished.



Located barely a few kilometres from the Line of Control (LoC) and some 70 km from Srinagar, the base was subjected to the brazen attack by four terrorists at around 5.30 AM, causing heavy casualties in the Dogra regiment which lost 17 of its men. 20 more army personnel were injured, some critically, and were airlifted to the army base hospital in Srinagar.



After the three-hour gunbattle, four terrorists were killed and army was combing to ensure there were no other militants. Most of the army casualties resulted from the fire in tents in which jawans were sleeping.



India reacted strongly to the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency that sparked an outrage with Modi strongly condemning it. "We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi tweeted.



Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh pointed a finger directly at Pakistan, saying it is a "terrorist state" and should be isolated while BJP leader Ram Madhav said days of strategic restraint are over and suggested that "for one tooth, the complete jaw" should be the policy after the attack.



Soon after the news of the attack broke, Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag rushed to Uri followed soon by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who cut short his Goa visit. Parrikar was briefed at Army's headqqarters in Srinagar.



Leaders across the political spectrum including Congress President Sonia Gandhi condemned the attack. President Pranab Mukherjee said India will not be cowed down by such attacks and that it will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers.



The attack at the administrative base of the 10 Dogra, which top Army officials described as a "serious setback", was launched at 0530 hours and ended at 0830 hours with the killing of four terrorists and martyrdom of 17 soldiers.



Explosions and gunfire erupted as the militants attacked the camp, which is located barely few metres away from the Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town. The jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks, official sources said.



DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh called up his counterpart in Pakistan expressing "serious concerns" over Pakistani marking found on the equipment used by four "foreign" terrorists.



"All four killed were foreign terrorists and had carried with them items which had Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-E-Mohammed tanzeem," Lt Gen Singh said in a brief statement to the media at South Block in Delhi.



He added that since "some the terrorists had some items with Pakistani markings, I have spoken to Pakistan DGMO and conveyed our serious concern on the same".



He said that the terrorists had fired incendiary ammunition along with automatic fire of small arms that led to army tents and temporary shelters catching fire. "There have been a total of 17 Army fatal casualties. Of these, 13-14 casualties have been due to these tents/shelters having caught fire," he said.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today cut short his Goa visit and rushed to New Delhi following a terror attack in Uri town of Kashmir in which 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured.





"Parrikar has rushed to Delhi to oversee the situation after the terror attack. He has cancelled all his Goa appointments scheduled for today," BJP Goa chief Vinay Tendulkar told reporters here.



The Defence Minister was supposed to chair a meeting of BJP Mahila Morcha this morning followed by another meeting of Yuva morcha in the evening, which are being held in the run-up to state Assembly polls due next year.



Later, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar chaired the Mahila Morcha meeting.Parsekar condemned the terror attack and said the government should be more "offensive" in such incidents.



"The incident is most unfortunate. It should not have happened. I condemn it," the chief minister said on the sidelines of a function organised by the Mahila Morcha here.



"Government of India needs to be little more offensive towards such incidents. The Centre should ensure that adequate measures are adopted to avoid such incidents in future," he said.



Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.
Hitting out at Pakistan, India today said "one country" in its neighbourhood scuttled its proposal of setting up a working group on counter-terrorism within the NAM even as the final draft declaration of the bloc's summit strongly condemned terrorism and vowed to combat the scourge.





The final draft declaration of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement summit here in Venezuela also strongly pitched for decisive and coordinated action to prevent and combat the financing and illicit transfer of weapons.



The NAM Summit draft declaration reiterated that terrorism constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.



Hence, the 120 NAM countries reaffirmed their firm condemnation of terrorist acts in all forms and manifestations, whatever their motivations, whenever and by whomsoever they are committed.



"They further condemned the destruction of cultural heritage and religious sites, as well as the commission of crimes against humanity by terrorist groups, among others, on the basis of their religion or beliefs," the draft that will be adopted as the 'Margarita Declaration' said.



"The way the NAM works is on consensus so we have to have consensus among all countries but that said we have been able to get references to terrorism (put in the declaration) which are purely and largely language suggested by India," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin, who is in this city of Margarita Island to take part in the deliberations of NAM, told reporters at a briefing.



Asked about the working group on terrorism within NAM that India had proposed, Akbaruddin, without naming Pakistan, said there was "one country in our neighbourhood who did not allow consensus to be reached on this matter".



However, he said this was an issue Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has now put further on the agenda, saying that he will in his presidency outline this as one of his priorities.



"At this stage that (working group) is not reflected (in the draft declaration) as it could not gain consensus despite having support of the overwhelming majority but NAM rules provide for certain ways in arriving at decisions and it is regrettable that it did not happen because of issues you are well aware of," he told reporters.



According to the draft declaration, the NAM countries recognised the threat posed nowadays by this "despicable scourge", particularly the activities carried out by terrorist groups such the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and its affiliated entities, Jabhat Al Nusra, Boko Haram and Al Shabbaab, and other entities designated by the UN.



Earlier, sources had said that Pakistani representative Tasneem Aslam alone spoke against the working group proposal and opposed the consensus that had built around the proposal which had the support of a large number of NAM delegations.



"Despite being isolated, Pakistan continued with its objections to stall the proposal emphasising that there could not be a consensus on terrorism," the sources said.



The draft declaration also noted that the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters and the spread of violent extremism can be conductive to terrorism, making it necessary for states to prevent and combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including its financing and the illicit transfer of weapons, in a decisive and coordinated manner, with strict adherence to the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as other obligations under international law.



In this regard, the NAM countries also considered that the adoption of a future Comprehensive Convention for Combating International Terrorism could complement the set of existing international legal instruments, including the implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.



In addition, they reaffirmed that terrorism and violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilisation or ethnic group, and that these attributions should not be used to justify terrorism or Contreras measures that include, inter alia, profiling of terror suspects and intrusion on individual privacy.



Significantly, Vice President Hamid Ansari, also made a strong anti-terror pitch at the NAM Summit here.



Ansari, who is leading the Indian delegation at the NAM Summit in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said terrorism is one of the "most egregious sources of human right violations today" and its use as an instrument of state policy is to be unequivocally condemned.



The time has come "for our movement to recognise the need for concrete action in the fight against terrorism", Ansari said while addressing the plenary meeting of the bloc.

"We need to establish a mechanism within our movement that will ensure effective cooperation in combating terrorism, that is the main threat to security, sovereignty and development," he said.



Akbaruddin, in the briefing, pointed out that even President Maduro in his opening statement acknowledged the need for combating terror.



He said another area of interest to be reflected in the draft declaration was the reform in the UN.



"This reform is (not only) reform of the various structures of the UN but also (of) its working methods and all. Again there is some language which reflects that the UN should reform itself as well as the Security Council should reflect the realities of today because many of us think it is not reflective of the global realities at present today," Akbaruddin said.



A third issue to be reflected in the draft, he said was sustainable development that follows from the Sustainable Development Goals that were adopted last year.



"Our idea was to highlight terrorism as a growing and important challenge to the whole world and NAM countries because most of the victims of terrorism are members of NAM countries and NAM is usually been associated with trying to address new challenges," Akbaruddin said.



"Therefore we felt that it will be useful to have a platform where NAM members can coordinate and cooperate and take this forward in terms of what is a major threat to all of us and therefore our suggestion was to have a platform, that platform could perhaps be a working group," he said.



"We did suggest this and we must say that we were extremely satisfied with the sort of response we got because there were countries from not only Asia  all our neighbouring countries bar a few exceptions  were in full support who spoke out. Several African countries spoke out saying that they see this as a major threat and the suggestion was very good. Latin American countries also did speak out," Akbaruddin said.



In fact this was the theme on which largest number of countries supported and articulated their views that they would want this as a suggestion to be reflected, he added.
A 22-year-old labourer was killed when a wall collapsed on him while he was digging the foundation of a building in southwest Delhis Jaffarpur Kalan area, police said on Saturday.



The incident happened on Friday when Amjad was digging the foundation when a wall collapsed and fell on him, said a senior police officer. The wall was made 10-20 years back and was quite weak, added the officer.



The deceased Mohammad Amjad succumbed at Safdarjung Hospital around 11pm last night, police said. A case under sections 290 (punishment for public nuisance in cases not otherwise provided for), 304(A)(Causing death by negligence) IPC was registered and the owner of the plot Hawa Singh has been arrested, said the officer.



A case of death by negligence has been registered against the building owner Hawa Singh in Jafarpur police station. Amjad hailed from a village in Madhya Pradeshs Sagar district.



He used to live in South West Delhis Kheda Dabur area in a rented house. Police have informed Amjads family members about his death and are waiting for his family members to arrive in Delhi. Only after their arrival the body will be sent for post-mortem, said police.




The AAP government on Saturday has appealed to the people to take out 30 minutes on Sunday to clean their homes and surroundings to fight dengue and chikungunya. Anyway we clean our homes for Diwali. Lets just do it little early this year," said Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain. There are 42 lakh households in Delhi, and if all of you cooperate then we can together root out dengue and chikungunya from the city, he added.



The minister said prevention is better than cure and if people can check for stagnation water in flower pots, utensils, tyres and remove them, then sources of mosquito-breeding would be removed. Beds at the Delhi government hospitals have been lying unoccupied and "everybody is getting treated", said Jain. So far chikungunya has claimed 18 lives in the city, and 13 persons have died of dengue this season.



He agreed that the MCDs fogging helpline numbers have not been working. "I have spoken to the MCDs about it. There is no need to panic," said Jain. "I just went to one of the fever clinic and I have been informed that its beds has never been fully occupied. No patient is being turned away," he added.



Jain said that the Union Health Minister J P Nadda accepted his request and reserved 1,000 beds in Centre-run hospitals like AIIMS, Ram Manohar Lohia, Safdarjung hospitals. "So now there are 1,000 beds more to treat patients suffering from vector borne diseases, Jain said.



He added that some 1,500 beds have been lying unoccupied in Delhi government hospitals. In the meeting on Friday, the city government had directed all hospitals, nursing homes and laboratories to furnish the data of chikungunya patients to the concerned government agency without failure.



The AAP government has also directed all hospitals and nursing homes to remain open throughout the week including Sundays. According to the Centre's Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, the number of cases of Chikungunya so far reported in the capital is 3,358  about three times the figure (1,057) given out by the municipal corporations in their weekly report on Monday.



Similarly, there is a spurt in dengue cases, which stands at 2,926 till September 13 as against the MCD figure of 1,158 cases till September 10.


When a common man is not being heard at the clinics and dispensaries because of the big rush, who has the time to treat us? says Gopal, a homeless man running a temperature from the past couple of days.



I visited a few clinics but they were too crowded, so I left. We fight every disease on our own without the world knowing about it, says the 45-year-old who has been living around Nigam Bodh Ghat near Kasmere Gate for the past 25 years. Its tough for people like Gopal.



Doctors who visit shelter home prescribe the same medicine for every illness, be it a wound, stomach ache or fever, says Sukhbir, who spends the nights at a shelter home at Yamuna Pusta.



These prescribed medicines never help in curing the disease. Also, there is no healthcare centre nearby where people like us can go and get a health check-up done, he adds.



Another destitute, Rajkumar, has been down with fever for the last four days. I have body ache and my joints are hurting like anything. I don't even feel like eating. But we can't even think of taking leave from work. If we do, then we will not have anything to eat, says the 55-year-old daily-wage labourer.



People tell me that I might be suffering from chikungunya. When I ask for leave, my contractor says that my condition will improve with time," he adds. Some people at shelter homes are from middle-class families but circumstance have forced them to take refuge in them.



Twenty six-year-old Anil left his family in Haryana and came to Delhi. He is staying at a shelter home in Chandni Chowk for the past couple of years. I have been feeling sick since the day before yesterday. I have even gone to a nearby clinic but the fee was too high. So I came back, says Anil, who is currently unemployed. There are a lot of mosquitoes here. Nobody has come here to carry out fogging to check the breeding of mosquitoes. I fear what if I catch a disease? he says. Anil ats whatever passers-by give him.



The homeless mostly dont have mosquito nets to protect them from mosquito bites. The NGOs working for the homeless demand that doctors should visit shelter homes on a regular basis as scores of them have been running a temperature. They add that municipal corporations should also conduct fumigation at and around the night shelters on a priority basis.



But the municipal corporations have been slow this year in carrying out fogging to check the breeding of mosquitoes. This season, we got late in conducting fogging, says an East Delhi Municipal Corporation councilor. When asked about fogging machines which are not working, the councillor said, "There were a few non-functional machines, but they have been repaired.



In all, the three municipal corporations have carried out insecticide spraying drives in over 15 lakh houses to check the rise of vector- borne diseases this year, according to a report titled 'Anti-malaria operations' compiled by the South Corporation.



Of the total 15,09,238 houses that were sprayed so far this year, 1,21,524 houses had conditions conducive for the breeding of mosquitoes, it adds. Some 1,05,240 legal notices have been issued to these properties falling under the jurisdiction of the three municipalities.



Officials claim that the municipal corporations have conducted extensive anti-vector borne disease drives this year as compared to the previous years. In 2015, over five lakh houses were sprayed by the three corporations from January to September 12. In 2014, nearly three lakh houses were sprayed from January to September 13.



But there is no denying that the municipalities became too complacent to begin fogging in time this season. Now when the city is grappling with its worst chikungunya crisis, the municipal corporations have intensified fumigation in their areas. Even Delhi Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra has started 'One Delhi Campaign' asking politicians from all parties to join hands to conduct fumigation across the city and spread awareness about vector- borne diseases.



The municipal corporations, however, say their dengue breeding checkers (DBCs) face resistance from households. They are often not allowed to check the surroundings to identify spots conducive for the breeding of mosquitoes, says an official.



As per the preventive measures, a municipal corporation should conduct fumigation at least three times in the surroundings where a patient lives. The hospitals either do not have the addresses of the patients or have incomplete ones. Of the 1,057 confirmed cases of chikungunya reported by MCD till September 10, over 500 patients' addresses are either missing or incomplete.



Asking hospitals, nursing homes and laboratories to report the number of cases to the concerned municipal corporation, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said, It has come to light that hospitals were not providing addresses of the patients to the municipal corporations. Under the law, the MCD has to carry out fogging thrice in the area where the patient lives to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes in the vicinity.



But in the absence of addresses, the MCD was not able to carry out fumigation, Jain added. There is no clarity on the number of patients suffering from vector borne disease in the city. Every week the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, the nodal agency, prepares the list of the cases relating to vector-borne diseases for the entire city. But the latest weekly municipal report that came out on September 11 missed the chikungunya death that took place on September 1 at Hindu Rao Hospital, which is under the North Corporation.



The South Delhi Municipal Corporation claims that hospitals might also be delaying reporting the cases by not informing the civic agency about the deaths in time. But the hospitals say it takes time to verify the cause of death. Another factor contributing to the rise of vector-borne diseases is stagnant water at constriction sites. This invites challans from the MCDs.






Three-year-old Arsalal Khan lies half asleep in the general ward of Al Shifa hospital in Abul Fazal enclave of Jamia Nagar. His father Wasir got him admitted with high fever. He feared it could be dengue.



I didnt want to take him to any clinic in my locality. When I took my dengue infected sister-in-law to some clinic, her platelets went down to 10,000 and the situation went out of control. Arsalals current platelet count is between 64,000 and 65,000 and his condition is thankfully stable till now, says Wasir.



A resident of Shaheen Bagh, Wasir says the building in which he stays is under construction and might be a breeding ground for mosquitoes. His wife Mahida is also suffering from dengue and is currently admitted at the Apollo Hospital.



No one in my family has ever suffered from dengue earlier, he says. Like Wasir, Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan also has a family member suffering from dengue and its aftermath. Among the four dengue deaths in his family, he most recently lost his 14-year-old nephew.



I have been complaining about dengue cases in my area for a very long time. Despite meeting Puneet Kumar Goel, commissioner, South Delhi Municipal Corporation, repeatedly for 15-20 days, not much has been done about sufficient fogging in the area, he says.



Of the Rs 10 lakh that were allocated for fogging, only Rs 3.9 lakh have been released. The area to be covered is huge and there has been very less support from the MCD, complains Khan. Dengue strikes almost every year in Okhla, residents say. According to Khan, most dengue deaths have been reported from Shaheen Bagh and Abu Fazal enclave.



The Al Shifa hospital has been receiving 65 to 70 fever patients daily, mostly males and children, according to a senior official. Around 150 to 200 patients are reported to have been found positive in the NS1 (non-structural protein 1) antigen test, a test for dengue.

The hospital sees patients from the nearby localities, some of which are not aware of bigger hospitals like Holy Family Hosptial on Okhla road.



Irshad Ayyub, 24, stays alone in a room on the second floor of a building in C-block of Abu Fazal enclave. Hailing from Bihar, Ayyub has been a resident of Delhi only for the past 10 months and is now a victim of dengue.



Last Saturday (September 10), around 12 am I had 106 degree fever. It was 2 am and my fever didnt drop a bit. My friends were all out because of Bakrid celebrations. So I walked down to this hospital, where they gave me an injection and some medicines, says Ayyub.



Despite medications, Ayyubs fever didnt go down and he got himself admitted at the hospital on Wednesday night. His current platelet count is 20,000, and he hopes to get well.



The room where he lives, he says is fine and well ventilated. He sometimes cooks for himself and often relies on the nearby dhaba for meals. However, the huge heaps of garbage behind his building and his street which is not regularly cleaned are a matter of concern for him. Fogging, he says, has been done only once in the area so far.



When I heard of dengue spreading in the city, I tried being very cautious and used mosquito repellent and nets every day. A lot of my friends have now left the city after suffering from dengue, because Delhi mei koi kisi se matlab nahi rakhta. Nobody cares for anyone else in this city, says Ayyub, who came to Delhi to prepare for the civil services exam.



The road to Al Shifa hospital is through Shaheen Bagh, a locality which has dumping grounds after every 500 metres. There are vast areas of stagnant water, and under-construction and demolished buildings dot the place.



Batla House

Ten minutes from Shaheen Bagh is the Batla area which has numerous small clinics catering to fever, dengue and chikungunya patients. One such clinic is Mumtaz Clinic. About a dozen patients are on drip, receiving saline fluids, on the benches installed there. Dr Ziaul Abidin attends to visiting patients. Those already admitted there patients lie in pain.



Chikungunya-infected Mohammad Rashid, 22, has been admitted at the clinic for a week now. While his parents caught the fever and recovered, the Jamia Millia Islamia student still suffers.



My father got me here because this clinic is comparatively cleaner. Also, medicines which are prescribed by other clinics in the area have not been very effective on me, says Rashid.



He stays in Batla House in an apartment on the first floor. A factory and a pool of stagnant water behind his house could be the areas of mosquito breeding, he says. To prevent mosquitoes entering our house, we burn egg crates regularly. But it has been unsuccessful.



Struggling with a stomach ache, finds it difficult to eat or drink, but feels better after a week at the clinic. He hopes to be back home soon.






At Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital's fever ward, Devshree's 13-year-old daughter Khushbu has been lying on a bed also occupied by another patient for the last three hours.



She is visibly in pain and is waiting for a doctor to announce if she has caught dengue or chikungunya, the two mosquito-borne diseases which are keeping doctors busy this season in Delhi. Khushbu has high fever and joint pains.



We reached the hospital at 7.30 am and since then we are running around for one thing or the other. It took two hours to make the pass, then again two hours standing in line for blood tests. Now, we are waiting for the doctor to come and check her, says Devshree, a resident of northeast Delhi's Bhajanpura.



With vector-borne diseases breaking out every year, questions arise on the national capital's preparedness and health infrastructure. Patients sharing hospital beds or lying in the corridor, hospitals denying treatment, staff shortages: these are familiar stories almost every year when a disease like dengue  or chikungunya, this year  strikes.



So far, this year 18 people have died of chikungunya, which has struck the national capital the first time as an epidemic after the 1960s. At least 13 people have succumbed to dengue. Even malaria has claimed two lives this season in the city.



According to the Centre's Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, the number of cases of Chikungunya so far reported in the capital is 3,358  about three times the figure of 1,057 given out by the municipal corporations in their weekly report about a week back. Similarly, there is a spurt in dengue cases, which totalled 2,926 till September 13  even if the municipal corporations put the figure at 1,158 cases till September 10.



Surender, waiting for a doctor to examine his wife who is lying on an adjacent bed, says, the doctors dont even reach the patient. Doctor patient tak pahunchta hi nahi hai. I stood for hours in the line for getting her blood test done. There is only one person managing the tests and giving reports, he says.



Lok Nayak Hospital medical superintendent Dr J C Passey says, Even our own staff is down with either dengue or chikungunya. So at times there is a shortage of manpower but we are managing from other departments".



While family members narrate their ordeal, a well-built man deployed as a marshal by the hospital enters the ward and orders them to get off the patients beds. Sab attendant bed se neeche, he shouts.



Devshree, who had managed to squeeze herself into the little space available on the bed already occupied by two patients, quickly stands up. Isn't this wrong? How are we supposed to keep standing for hours, she asks.



Pawan, the marshal, says family members are not allowed to sit on the beds as the patients feel uncomfortable  and also because some other patient in need can be adjusted there.



Dr Vijay Gurjar, senior resident doctor, geriatric medicine at All India Institute of Medical (AIIMS), says in the last few years nothing has been done about increasing the number of beds or space in hospitals across Delhi.



Another reason for overcrowding in Delhi hospitals is that there is a huge rush from NCR areas also. We recently got a case of a 65-year-old woman from Ghazibad who had high fever and severe joint pains. She came to AIIMS on a bus from NCR with the help of two people. We asked her why she didn't go to a nearby hospital, and she said because there is no facility, says Gurjar.



Despite having dealt with the dengue crisis last year, when Delhi saw 15,876 cases and 60 deaths  both figures the highest in two decades  the AAP government's health department has been slack in gearing up for this years vector- borne disease season.



Apart from Delhi government, it is should be a matter of concern for the municipal corporations also that diseases which are preventable are affecting, and killing, so many people.



The corporations were lax in carrying out their mandate of checking mosquito breeding before the outbreak. They had been delaying fogging drives too. There are lots of breeding sites in every area. There was no fogging done even in AIIMS and it was only after employees caught dengue that they conducted the drive last month, Gurjar says.



The drives have intensified now, with Aam Aadmi Party ministers and Municipal Corporation of Delhi councillors spreading awareness on sanitation. The Delhi Health Minister is conducting regular hospital inspections and a plan to increase the number of hospital beds has been announced.



Blame game

But it took 10 chikungunya deaths for the various authorities to consider the vector borne diseases a priority, amid a political blame game. After the first death was reported due to chikungunya, the Delhi government put the onus on Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and Centre for the outbreak even as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his ministers were criticised for missing from the capital. Only the Delhi's Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra was in the city then. Even Jung was abroad.



Kejriwal took to Twitter washing his hands off the crisis. CM and ministers left with no power now, even to buy a pen. LG and PM enjoy all powers with respect to Delhi. LG abroad. Question them for Delhi, he said.



There is no denying that the Delhi administration  be it the Lieutenant Governor or the Chief Minister's Office  was caught off guard by the chikungunya outbreak this season. Before Delhi this year, the last suspected chikungunya death in the country was reported in 2006 in Kerala. But an investigation later by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme into the death revealed that chikungunya was not the cause.



Both chikungunya and dengue have the same source: the aedes aegypti mosquito. Chikungunya, however, is not considered fatal and doesn't have complications like the dengue haemorrhagic fever and internal bleeding, doctors say.



But it gives severe pain in the joints. Most of the patients who have died were old and had other health issues which got aggravated due to the disease, Gurjar says.



Delhi has been seeing chikungunya cases over the years but not in such endemic proportions. The last outbreak in the national capital was in the 1960s. "The nature of the virus is such that it lies low for many years and then strikes as an epidemic. In African countries it comes after every five to six years, he says. Cooperation from the public and awareness on prevention has to be increased if Delhi wants to fight these diseases.



Often we see cases where people don't allow our domestic breeding checkers (DBC) to enter their houses and threaten them. In developed and some of the developing countries, if you don't allow the municipal workers to check breeding, you can be prosecuted, says Dr D K Seth, director, hospital administration at Hindu Rao Hospital, which comes under North Delhi Municipal Corporation.



The other problem is that there are a lot of slums in Delhi which do not have piped water supply round the clock, and they store water. Now, we cannot ask people not to store water and they don't allow us to put any insecticides or pesticides in it," he adds. What do we need to do to win the war against vector-borne diseases? The only solution is: Do not allow mosquitoes to breed, says Dr Seth. Hope the government, the civic agencies, and the public listen.






Beleaguered businessman Vijay Mallya remains in "full control" even after relocating to UK, his UB group's holding firm United Breweries Holdings Ltd has said while disclosing remuneration totalling Rs 1.6 crore.





Group company United Breweries Ltd, in which co-promoter Heineken has been hiking stake, has also disclosed total remuneration of about Rs 2.86 crore to Mallya, who moved to the UK earlier this year amid a furore over various cases involving erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines including about huge loan defaults. However, this payment had to be withheld pursuant to the orders of the Income Tax Department.



In its latest annual report, released to shareholders ahead of their Annual General Meeting on September 29, the group holding firm UBHL said it has been without a Managing Director since April 17, 2014.



"In the interregnum, the Chairman of the Board, Vijay Mallya is acting as the Principal Officer of the company and reviewed the performance of the Company at the Board Meetings held during the year.



"Even after his relocating to London, he has full control over the affairs of the company through appropriate delegation of duties to various operating executives who report to him on a regular basis," it said.



Giving details of the remuneration paid to the directors, UBHL has disclosed fees totalling Rs 3.2 lakh to Mallya for attending board or committee meetings. Out of this, payment of sitting fees totalling Rs 1.6 lakh has been restrained by Order of the Tax Recovery Officer dated November 24, 2015, UBHL said.



However, Mallya received remuneration totalling about Rs 1.6 crore from two overseas subsidiaries of UBHL. "The Chairman of the company has received remuneration from two subsidiaries, amounting to USD 120,000 (previous year USD 120,000) and British Pound 89,600 (previous year GBP 89,600) during the year 2015-16," it said.



UBHL also said Vijay Mallya's son Sidhartha ceased to be a director of the company with effect from March 31, 2016. The company's operations comprise primarily of holding of strategic investments and other securities, international trade, development of real estate, sale and rental of constructed premises including residential property of Kingfisher Towers, licensing of trademarks, advancing of loans and provision of guarantees.



Interestingly, it also disclosed having been given "the Export Excellence award" by a Karnataka business chamber.' UBHL said it "is constrained by various restraint orders of the High Court of Karnataka as a result of which revenue yielding business proposals like franchising out the Kingfisher brand owned by the Company and renting out vacant space at UB City, Bangalore could not be implemented."



"The operations of the company was further affected due to the provisional attachment of properties and shares by the Directorate of Enforcement consequent upon their investigation in a purported money laundering case of Kingfisher Airlines Limited. Continuing efforts are being taken to have the temporary embargo lifted which would augment increasing revenue streams."



Giving details of various cases, UBHL said the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had provisionally attached in June the immovable properties of the company based in Bangalore and Mumbai under Prevention of Money Laundering Act for a period of 180 days in connection with investigation against Mallya, Kingfisher and others.



"Pursuant to a Show Cause Notice dated July 11, 2016 received from the Adjudicating Office in this regard, the company is in consultation with its legal counsels for taking appropriate steps that may be required including but not limited to defending the case before the Adjudicating Authority in Delhi.



"As part of the investigations of the affairs of the Kingfisher Airlines Limited, the company has cooperated with all the Investigating Agencies by providing all relevant information, records, data and facts as and when required by the said agencies," it added.



In its annual report, United Breweries Ltd (UBL) has disclosed sitting fees totalling Rs 2.9 lakh and commissions worth Rs 2.83 crore to Mallya, but added that "pursuant to the notice received from the Income Tax department, the company has withheld payments effective March 2016".



At its upcoming AGM, UBHL will interestingly seek approval from the shareholders for a proposal for entering into a a pact for purchase of goods or materials from them (including purchase of beer) from UBL for an estimated amount of up to Rs 150 crore for the current financial year 2016-17.


Stung by the deadliest ever attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir, DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh today called up his counterpart in Pakistan expressing "serious concerns" over Pakistani markings found on the equipment used by four "foreign" terrorists suspected to be belonging to Pakistan-based terror group JeM.



The attack at the administrative base of the 10 Dogra, which top Army officials described as a "serious setback", was launched at 0530 hours and ended at 0830 hours with the killing of four terrorists and martyrdom of 17 soldiers. At least 20 other soldiers are injured including some very seriously.



"All four killed were foreign terrorists and had carried with them items which had Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-E-Mohammed tanzeem," Lt Gen Singh said in a brief statement to the media at the South Block here.



He added that since "the terrorists had some items with Pakistani markings, I have spoken to Pakistan DGMO and conveyed our serious concern on the same". He said that the terrorists had fired incendiary ammunition along with automatic fire of small arms that led to army tents and temporary shelters catching fire.



"There have been a total of 17 Army fatal casualties. Of these, 13-14 casualties have been due to these tents/shelters having caught fire," he said. The senior Army officer, in charge of the force's operations, asserted that the Indian Army remains prepared to thwart any nefarious designs and any evil designs of the adversary shall be given a befitting reply.



The DGMO said that four AK 47 rifles and four Under Barrel Grenade Launchers along with a large number of other war like stores were recovered from the group of heavily armed terrorists.



He said that the operation for clearance of the area is still in progress and a very deliberate search is being carried out in the entire area around the military complex in Uri.



"As such, complete details of the operation are not yet available. However, the operation is being carried out by the Indian Army in a very professional manner and the Army personnel have displayed exceptionally high standards of courage and gallantry while neutralising the terrorists," Lt Gen Singh said.



Amid reports that intelligence agencies had warned of a possible attack, he said all the intelligence agencies are working in close synergy with the security forces and regular intelligence inputs are received from concerned agencies and necessary action is being taken accordingly.



He said Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag has visited the site of operation and taken an "on the ground" assessment of the situation.



Defence Minister, who too visited Srinagar, will be updated by Suhag on the situation.

"We salute the supreme sacrifice made by our brave soldiers following the highest traditions of Indian Army," he said.




The Uri terror strike is aimed at triggering fresh violence in Jammu and Kashmir and creating a "war-like" situation in the region, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said today while strongly condemning the attack on the Army in which 17 jawans were killed.



"I strongly condemn the attack which seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region," Mehbooba said in a statement here. The Chief Minister said the heightened tension in the wake of the Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid growing strains in Indo-Pak ties.



"Unfortunately, people in Jammu and Kashmir, who are already mired in an agonising situation, shall have to bear the maximum brunt of the fresh attempts being made to step up violence and trigger fresh bloodshed in the state," she said.



She said Jammu and Kashmir has always been the worst victim of Indo-Pak hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for the same for the past over six decades. Mehbooba said the perpetrators of violence must understand that such methods have yielded nothing in the past nor would they yield anything in future except adding to the miseries of the people.



The Chief Minister while expressing anguish over the attack, paid rich tributes to the slain soldiers. She extended heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and also prayed for early recovery of those injured in the attack.



Former chief minister Omar Abdullah also condemned the attack. "Terrible news from Uri, 17 soldiers killed & many injured. May their souls rest in peace. Prayers for their families as also for the injured," Omar wrote on Twitter.



Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.
Lorry and bus services to Karnataka from Sathyamangalam, about 60 km from here, remained suspended for the 12th consecutive day in the wake of the Cauvery row.

Buses, including private and state-run, were not operated, while lorries with Tamil Nadu registration were also not allowed, as a result of which the Bannari-Thimbam ghat near Sathyamangalam wore a deserted look.





Officials of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation and Police department said, to avert any untoward incident, operation of buses and lorries had been stopped.

It may resume only after September 20, they added.



Meanwhile, some Karnataka State Transport buses are being operated from Mysuru to Sathyamangalam, police said, adding, lorries bearing Karnataka registration were provided police escort upto Pulinjure checkpost at Karnataka border.



Suspension of services has affected transportation of turmeric, textiles, Eggs, Oil, Vegetables, and other essential commodities to Karnataka.



Protests by Kannada groups against the Supreme Court order to Karnataka to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, had turned violent on September 12, with two persons getting killed in police action, in Bengaluru.



Vehicles bearing Tamil Nadu registration were also torched and damaged even as commercial establishments owned by Tamils were targeted in Karnataka.



In Tamil Nadu, restaurants owned by Kannadigas and vehicles bearing Karnataka registration were attacked by fringe outfits in some places on September 12.


Pakistan rejected as "totally baseless and irresponsible" allegations by India that it was behind the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri that killed 17 Indian soldiers, saying India has a "history of blaming Pakistan" immediately after a terror strike.



Following the dawn strike, India had criticised Pakistan for the latest attack on the Indian Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh directly blamed Pakistan saying it was a "terrorist state" and should be isolated.



Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria in an interview to a TV channel said the Indian allegations against Pakistan are "totally baseless and irresponsible". "Pakistan always sought concrete evidence from India to prove its accusations, but it failed to do so," he said.



He said "India has a history of blaming Pakistan immediately after a terror attack, which always proved wrong in investigations". Zakaria said "India is using different tactics to divert the world attention from the situation in occupied Kashmir".



The Pakistan Army had earlier demanded "actionable intelligence" to support India's accusation. Pakistan army spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said that following the attack Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two countries discussed the situation along the Line of Control through hotline.



"Refuting the unfounded and premature Indian allegation, Pakistani DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence," Radio Pakistan reported citing an ISPR release.



Pakistani DGMO rejected allegations of cross border infiltration and said that "watertight arrangements" were in place on both sides of the LoC and the Working Boundary. He also asked India to share evidence.



Heavily-armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Indian Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the attack in which all four terrorists were neutralised.
Even as the Cauvery Supervisory Committee is scheduled to meet in New Delhi tomorrow to decide on the quantum of river water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states, anxiety prevails in Karnataka over its outcome.





Security has been beefed up in Mandya, Chamrajnagar, Mysuru, Bengaluru and other parts of the state ahead of the meeting, police said.



"The police, ahead of crucial Cauvery Supervisory Committee meeting tomorrow, have taken necessary security steps to check any untoward incident," IGP (Central Range) Seemanth Kumar told reporters here.



Supreme Court on September 15 had taken Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments to task for failing to check violence following its order on the Cauvery dispute, asserting that its verdict "has to be complied with" and violent agitation would serve no purpose as those aggrieved were free to take legal recourse.



The apex court also had directed both states to ensure that there is no violence, agitation, destruction and damage to property following its order and asked them to maintain peace, calm and dignity for law.



Property worth several crore has been damaged in violence in the two states after the Supreme Court order. Kumar said RAF and BSF platoons will be deployed in Bengaluru Rural and Kolar districts which share borders with Tamil Nadu. Police would be deployed on national highways to check traffic disruptions likely to be made by pro-Kannada outfits in next two days.



Yesterday, Kannada Okkuta Leader Vatal Nagaraj had threatened to disrupt vehicles at Attibele near Hosur, which falls in Tamil Nadu, tomorrow and the day after.



Kumar said police has taken miscreants into preventive custody and is in talks with leaders belonging to political parties and pro-Kannada groups. Meanwhile, the Committee, which is meeting to decide on the quantum of water to be released, is analysing the data given by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.



A source said Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have submitted data to the committee about withdrawal of water, its utilisation, variation in rainfall and its impact on the actual run-off over a period of 29 years in their respective Cauvery basin areas.



The panel, which has to take a decision on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu and other states, had sought the information from them in its last meeting on September 12.



The Committee is headed by the Union Water Resources Secretary with Chief Secretaries of the Cauvery basin states (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Puducherry and Kerala) as members.



The Chairman of the Central Water Commission is also be a member, while the Chief Engineer of the CWC will be the Member-Secretary. In an interim order on September 5, Supreme Court had asked Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily for next 10 days to Tamil Nadu, leading to protests in parts of Karnataka.



The apex court had also asked Tamil Nadu government to approach the committee to decide on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states after the period of 10 days was over.



However, under pressure following the protests, the Karnataka government approached the Supreme Court on September 11 seeking modification of the interim order.



Hearing the plea, the Supreme Court then amended its order, directing the state to release a reduced quantum of 12,000 cusecs of water daily to Tamil Nadu till September 20.
Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahals visit to New Delhi appears to have gone some way in mending frayed relations between the two countries. Three agreements were signed during the visit. These relate to Indias upgrading of highways in the Terai, building new power infrastructure, etc. India also committed to a special assistance package of US$ 750 million towards Nepals post-earthquake reconstruction. The two countries agreed that they would not allow their territory to be used against each other. Importantly, they exchanged views on Nepals new constitution and the need for it to be made more inclusive. This was the issue that triggered a deterioration in bilateral ties last year; the previous government led by prime minister K P Sharma Oli resented Indias observations on the new constitution and accused it of meddling in Nepals domestic affairs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Dahals face-to-face discussion on this sensitive issue is likely to have gone some way in clearing the air.



Clearly, Dahals visit to Delhi was a successful one. When Oli visited India seven months ago, so great was the gap in positions between the two countries that a joint communique was not issued at the end of the visit. In contrast, this time, enough common ground was found by the two sides to merit a 15-point joint statement. This is heartening. Additionally, Dahals approach to India appears to have changed. He is known to have been strongly anti-India in the past, even railing against Delhi for meddling in Nepals affairs. His just-concluded visit to India, his first abroad since becoming prime minister last month, signals the priority he accords Delhi in his countrys foreign affairs. In contrast, he began his first term as prime minister by visiting Beijing first.The Nepal prime ministers positive overture to India will have been noted in Delhi, Beijing and Kathmandu. Dahals political rivals back home are likely to use his tilt to India to weaken his government. They can be expected to stir anti-India sentiment there.



Importantly, China is likely to step up its economic diplomacy in Nepal to woo Kathmandu. Hence, India cannot take Dahals new openness to India for granted. It will have to work hard to retain Nepals confidence. This will require it to act with sensitivity in dealing with Nepal, especially on issues of sovereignty. Dahal can be expected to reach out to China, too, but that must not trigger needless insecurity in Delhi. While Indias concern over Chinas growing influence in Nepal is understandable, it must be sensitive to the latters concerns, too. After all, Nepal is sandwiched between India and China. It cannot afford to antagonise its giant northern neighbour.




The recent death of two children  Sagar Wagh and Ishwar Savara  in Mokhada taluk of Palghar district, nearly 165 km off Mumbai, has opened up a big debate on malnutrition in Maharashtra.



When one drives to Mokhada, a nearly four-hour drive from Mantralaya, the state secretariat, we pass through green forests and lush mountains covered with mist.



With the Vaitarna, Tansa and Ulhas rivers flowing in the district and through the slopes of the Sahyadri ranges, one can never imagine that there could be malnutrition deaths here, that too in the district that adjoins the commercial capital of India.



No one bothers about us, is the common complaint of people, majority of them tribals from the twin taluks of Mokhada and Jawhar, which was worst affected by malnutrition. The adivasi community had been neglected over the years, they told this DH correspondent.



As a matter of fact, over the past one year, nearly 600 malnutrition deaths have been reported here- a fact that had rattled the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP-Shiv Sena saffron alliance government.



Last week, Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao took cognisance of the issue, following which the tribal affairs minister visited Mokhada taluk where he was gheraoed by locals.



When we wanted help, no one helped us and now everyone is coming with assurances, said Namdev Savara and his wife Sunder of Khoch village, whose son Ishwar, aged two years and two months, died. Namdevs views were echoed by Shivram Wagh and Sita of Kalambwadi village. Their son Sagar, aged two, had died of malnutrition. What is the point of coming now whatever was there we have lost, Wagh said.



The problem is complex, pointed out Eknath Pawar, a former sarpanch of Khoch. It stems from poverty. Once the monsoon starts, people have to migrate in search of jobs, he said, adding that the government needs to intensify its efforts to combat the situation.


Life limped back to normal in Tamil Nadu, especially in the border areas with Karnataka after the tension between the two states escalated over the Cauvery issue.



The Cauvery supervisory committee is expected to meet on Monday to decide on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released to Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.



Normal life was affected after the general strike on Friday was called by different organisations representing farmers, traders, and transporters, demanding Cauvery river water and protesting against attacks on Tamilians and their property in Karnataka.



Life came back on track as transport services bound for Karnataka started operating on Sunday morning. However, most of the trucks that were stranded in Hosur and other border areas still wait for normalcy to be returned in the neighbouring state.



People, especially young IT employees working in Bengaluru, who got stuck after they came for vacation, queued up at the railway station to take their respective trains to reach Karnataka.



With the Cauvery Supervisory Committee meeting on Monday, labourers in the border areas of Tamil Nadu, who work in Karnataka, remain cautious.



Meanwhile, various political parties including Opposition DMK and Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) demanded compensation for Tamilians, who lost their properties in the violence in Karnataka.
What is common between the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 and the recent political movement at Singur? The two events will be a few chapters apart in history textbooks of secondary school students in West Bengal.



The inclusion of the movement, still fresh in peoples minds, comes with the approval of the state governments syllabus committee, said state education minister Partha Chatterjee.



Chatterjee told reporters that the chapter will be part of the syllabus for classes IX and X from the 2017-18 academic year. The chapter will include the movement of the unwilling farmers of Singur against parting with their land, along with the 14-day sit-in demonstration of Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee at Singur, and her 26-day hunger strike in Kolkata.



Singur like Tebhaga



The Singur movement will find place alongside the Tebhaga movement and other peasants uprisings in the state. Students should know that the Singur movement is a milestone in the history of India, Chatterjee said. Following the Supreme Court verdict on August 31, which ruled that the acquired land should be returned to peasants, Chatterjee had asked, If incidents like Jallianwala Bagh massacre or Sepoy mutiny can be included in the syllabus, why not the Singur movement?



Soon after the apex courts verdict, the education minister had said, At Singur, farmers fought for their cause and despite all adversities, emerged victorious in the end. Students should know all about this. The movement is historic and we received several proposals from intellectuals and educationists to include this in the school syllabus. A senior government official said that while an initial round of talks have been held with syllabus committee members, details will be finalised soon.
The Andhra Pradesh government, which was inactive till dengue fever spread across Anantapur, declared a medical emergency in the district on Sunday.





The government shut down all Registered Medical Practitioners (RMP) across Anantapur district, fearing wrong diagnosis and treatment of patients by quacks.



The order came after Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu reviewed the situation from the central command centre at Amaravati on Saturday and asked the district administration to take note of the gravity of the situation, following the death of two children from Vinayak Nagar in Anantapur. Siblings Mohammed Idris (12) and



Mohammed Junaid (10) were initially treated by an RMP in Anantapur, but were shifted to a private hospital in Bengaluru, where they died.



As a result, all unregistered clinics in Rayadurgam, Madakasira, Dharmavaram, Kadiri, Guntakal, Gutti, Penukonda and Kalyandurgam have been shut down till further notice.

As of Sunday, 144 dengue and 506 malaria cases have been registered in various government and private hospitals in the district.



The district administration sought to declare a health emergency as its directions were not being taken seriously by private hospitals. All the private hospitals where the affected people go for initial treatment were asked to send blood samples to the

Anantapur Medical College by 10 am daily without fail, but no one cares, a medical officer at the dengue ward said.
Hours after the deadly fidayeen attack on an army camp in Uri, it has come to fore that security agencies ignored the repeated alerts of a major terror attack.



In the last two months, since the civilian protests began in the Valley, the chief of Lashker-e-Toiba Hafiz Sayeed and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salah-ud-Din had repeatedly threatened to carry out major terror attacks on security installations in Kashmir and in other states of the country.



In their threats, they had vowed to train more Kashmiri suicide bombers, who would turn the Valley into a graveyard for Indian forces.



However, sources said Army authorities in New Delhi ignored these threats despite being subsequently substantiated by intelligence agencies.



The army and authorities in New Delhi had been informed about the warnings of terror attacks after the intelligence reports suggested that dozens of Pakistani terrorists had sneaked into this side of Kashmir in August to carry out major attacks, more particularly on the Army, a source revealed to DH.



The sources said the Sunday attack was carried by a group of highly trained and indoctrinated Jaish-e-Mohammad militants of Pakistani origin. The militants managed to sneak into the Brigade headquarters near Gawhalan village which is disconnected with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir by a nallah (stream), they said.



The slain fidayeen militants had chosen to attack the base camp when there was change of unit of the soldiers. This indicates that the terrorists had carried out inspection of this particular brigade headquarters before the attack, sources revealed.
A top Indian Army officer on Sunday called up the Pakistan Army establishment to convey New Delhis serious concerns on Pakistan-sponsored fidyaeen (suicidal) attack.



The arms and ammunition carried by the Uri attackers had Pakistans markings. Since the terrorists had some items with Pakistani markings, I have spoken to Pakistan DGMO and conveyed our serious concerns on the same, director general of military operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said here.



Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh flew to Uri for an on-the-spot assessment and briefed Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in Srinagar.



The DGMO asserted that Indian troops are prepared to thwart any nefarious designs. Any evil designs of the adversary shall be given a befitting reply, he noted.



All four killed were foreign terrorists and had some items with them which had Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-e-Mohammed tanzeem, said Singh, who appraised the political leadership in the national capital after the terror strike.



After returning to the capital, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said he instructed the Army to take firm action against those responsible.



There are reports of the terrorists carrying maps with markings on Pashtun language, though there is no official confirmation.



The extraordinary phone call from Singh to his Pakistan counterpart Maj Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza showed how seriously the government had taken the latest terror strike. As per the standard drill, the two DGMOs speak once in a week, generally on Tuesdays.



Its a serious setback for the Army, said one officer. The terror strike on the brigade headquarters comes at a time when one Army unit (10 Dogra) was vacating the post, which was to be taken over by another unit (6 Bihar), which bore the brunt of the terror strike.
The Supreme Court on Monday will take up the hearing of two petitions for cancellation of bail of former RJD MP Md Shahabuddin.





One of the petitions was filed by the Bihar government and the other by Chandrakeshwar Prasad, whose three sons were brutally murdered allegedly at the instance of Shahabuddin.



While Prasads two sons, Girish and Satish, died in 2004, after they were drenched in acid, the third son Rajiv, who was an eyewitness to the killings, managed to escape. He too was killed on June 16, 2014.



Life imprisonment



In 2015, Shahabuddin was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with the 2004 case in which Girish and Satish were killed.



The case in which Rajiv was killed, just three days before he was to depose in the court against Shahabuddin, is awaiting trial.



The Bihar government, meanwhile, has pleaded before the apex court about three points on the basis of which Shahabuddins bail should be cancelled.



First, only seven months had passed after the Patna High Court set the nine-month deadline for conclusion of the trial. What warranted the high court to grant bail to Shahabuddin two months in advance?



Secondly, it said no mercy is shown to an accused who faces the charge of killing a witness. But the high court has erred by showing mercy which Shahabuddin did not deserve.



Thirdly, it is dangerous to enlarge such a dreaded accused, who is charged with murdering people even from behind bars, on bail.



While the Bihar government will be represented by its standing counsel Gopal Singh, the victims family will be represented by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan.



The petition filed by the aggrieved family has contended before the apex court that: The high court, while granting bail to Shahabuddin, lost sight of the fact that he was a dreaded criminal who had absolutely no regard for law, and granting bail to him in the present case would let him come out of the jail as a free man even though he is still facing trial in many cases lodged against him.



The petition further said: As per the high court rules, it is mandatory for the accused while applying for bail to mention his criminal antecedents which were obviously not considered by the high court in the present case.


A five-member committee has been formed to chalk out a roadmap for the emotional integration of northeastern states with the rest of India, Nagaland Governor

P B Acharya said on Sunday.





The team comprises the representatives of Nitte University, Mangalore University, Manipal University and Alvas Institutions, he said. Although the northeastern states are rich in culture and tradition, the people of the region feel a sense of discomfort, apprehension and lack of connection with the rest of the country. The need of the hour is to develop a sense of belongingness and oneness. The universities should take up a study on the herbal medicines found in the northeastern states, he said.



Stating that insurgency in the Northeast prevailed because the tribals were treated as second-class citizens, the governor said, The tribals want to keep their indigenous identity alive. The northeastern states are rich in natural resources but corruption is equally high while accountability is nil. Its only the Christian missionaries who have been doing humanitarian work in the states, he said.



He said that there were over 200 dialects in the Northeast. If the universities in the rest of the country start certificate courses in these dialects, then it will be of great help in connecting the people of the Northeast.




The registration of diesel ambulances with an engine capacity of 2,000 cc has resumed in Delhi after a ban was imposed on registration of diesel vehicles on the direction of the Supreme Court.



The Transport Department has started collecting 1% of the ex-showroom price of such vehicles as green cess. This comes after the apex court on August 12 allowed registration of diesel ambulance cars with engine capacity of 2,000 cc.



In an order issued on September 9, the Transport Department has asked the motor licensing officer (MLO) to register such ambulance cars.



The concerned registering authority i.e MLO (HQ) is hereby directed to register diesel ambulance cars with engine capacity of 2,000 cc, after the vehicle is certified by the fitness unit at Burari and upon production of the proof of the deposit of 1% of the ex-showroom price towards environment protection charge with Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the order said.



The dealers or sub-dealers, who collect the environment protection charge, will then be required to deposit this amount with CPCB for pollution control efforts.



Earlier this month, the citys Transport Department had also ordered registration of diesel cars and SUVs with engine capacity of 2,000 cc and above.



The Supreme Court had on December 16, last year, banned the registration of diesel cars and Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) of 2,000 cc capacity and above till March 31 this year, in an effort to clean up Delhis toxic air.



However, last month it lifted the ban and asked to implement the polluter pays principal, bringing a sigh of relief to car owners and dealers.
In one of the worst casualties suffered by the army in peacetime operations, 17 troopers were killed when a group of fidayeen (suicide) militants stormed a military base in north Kashmirs Uri on Sunday.



In retaliatory action, four militants, who barged into the camp near the Line of Control (LoC) in Uri town, 102 km from here, around 5.30 am, were killed in the gun battle that raged for two-and-a-half hours, officials said.



Sources said among the 19 injured soldiers, at least nine are critical, and the death toll could rise. They said the injured soldiers have gunshot wounds or severe burn injuries. The fidayeen militants breached the fence of the army installation and attacked the soldiers, mostly believed to have been sleeping in barracks and tents.



They fired incendiary ammunition along with automatic fire that led to temporary shelters catching fire, a source said. The Uri camp, which houses the armys brigade headquarters, has a strength of around 12,000 to 13,000 troops. A defence spokesperson said during the early hours of Sunday, a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri. The strategic base had a large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty. They were stationed in tents/temporary shelters, which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation, he said.



The spokesperson said the slain militants were foreigners and had some articles with them that bore Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the terrorists belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed tanzeem. Four AK-47 rifles and four under barrel grenade launchers along with a large number of other war-like stores were recovered from them, he said.



Immediately after the attack, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag rushed to Kashmir to review the situation.



The Kashmir Valley has been hit by violent protests, sponsored by separatists, for the past 72 days. On his arrival in Srinagar, General Singh rushed to Uri to take stock of the security situation at Army installations and camps near the site of the attack and the alertness of the soldiers along the LoC.



On December 5, 2014, six fidayeen militants had carried out a similar attack, some 20 km away from Sundays spot. While the militants were killed, eight soldiers had lost their lives.
The Centre on Sunday directed security forces to mount an all-out offensive against terrorists operating in the Valley.



The direction was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who had to cancel his visits to Russia and the US, starting Sunday.



Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of the terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits, he said. India did not mince words in calling Pakistan a terrorist state that has to be identified and isolated, with security establishments believing that JeM aided by ISI carried out the attack.



Official sources said the attack was carried out by a group of freshly infiltrated terrorists, who could have entered Kashmir through Salamabad Nallah. They said the strike, eight months after the attack on the Pathankot airbase in January, has come as a shock, but was not unexpected.



New Delhis anger against Islamabad was amplified in no uncertain terms by Singh, who said he was deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terror.



There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of the Uri attack

were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such, he said.



Sources said the Uri attack was part of Islamabads plan to ensure that the fire in Kashmir is not doused. The government had accused Pakistan of fuelling unrest in the Valley, following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in July. Pakistan had supported the protests, likening them to a freedom struggle.



National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar and other senior officials of the army and paramilitary forces briefed Singh on the situation following the terror strike. Singh said he had already instructed the home secretary and other senior officers in the ministry of home affairs to closely monitor the situation. The chiefs of the Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing along with directors general of military operations and military intelligence also attended the meeting.



Singh also spoke to Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. Mehrishi will fly to Srinagar on Monday to take stock of the situation.
Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industries Niramala Sitharaman on Sunday said the Union government was keen on taking up skill mapping of rural women in Karnataka to enhance their economic activity and generate employment.





Speaking at the executive committee meeting of State BJP Mahila Morcha in Bengaluru, Nirmala cited the example of rural women in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts being proficient in jewellery making. I would impress upon my colleague, Union Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajiv Pratap Rudy to take up skill mapping of these two districts and tap the potential of the women there, she said.



The potential of rural women in local skills in other districts could be mapped in a phased manner, the minister said.



Later, replying to a query by reporters, Nirmala said her ministry has recommended the Ministry of Finance to raise tax holiday for startups from three years to seven and, was awaiting a response. The Finance Ministry has received our recommendation with a sense of constructive and positive approach. Thats where it is. We certainly like to hear from them, she said.
Ramkumar, the prime accused in the Swathi murder case, reportedly committed suicide in the Puzhal prison here.



Police sources at the headquarters here said on Sunday evening that Ramkumar bit a power cable near a kitchen inside the prison. Though he was immediately taken to a hospital, doctors declared him brought dead.



This was Ramkumar's second attempt to commit suicide. He had slit his throat at the time of his arrest. Swathi (23), an Infosys employee, was murdered in broad daylight at the Nungambakkam railway station in the city.
The city police has stepped up security on Monday, as the Cauvery Supervisory Committee, which is meeting in New Delhi, will decide on the quantum of river water to be released to Tamil Nadu.





A senior police officer said, The Section 144 of CrPC is being continued and the special forces are still in the city and constant patrolling is being carried out. On Monday, it will be decided as to how much water should be released and as a precautionary measure, the police are on high alert and have asked people not to indulge in violence unlike the previous week.



We do not want to take any chances. Sensitive areas are under watch and warnings have been issued asking people not to indulge in any kind of protests, added the officer.




Cauvery Raitha Hitharakshana Samiti President and former MP G Madegowda on Sunday warned that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will not be allowed to enter Mandya district, if he fails to announce crop loss compensation to the farmers in the next 48 hours.





Addressing reporters, Madegowda said the Samithi has been staging peaceful protests for the past 13 days, but the chief minister has not responded to their demands. If compensation for the affected farmers is not announced immediately, the protests would be intensified, he warned. I have seen many chief ministers but have not come across one as irresponsible as Siddaramaiah, the octogenarian leader said.



Meanwhile, farmers of the Cauvery basin have organised a convention at farmers auditorium here on Monday.



Seer to join protest



Mandya, dhns: Cauvery Raitha Hitharakshana Samiti President and former MP G Madegowda on Sunday warned that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will not be allowed to enter Mandya district, if he fails to announce crop loss compensation to the farmers in the next 48 hours.



Addressing reporters, Madegowda said the Samithi has been staging peaceful protests for the past 13 days, but the chief minister has not responded to their demands. If compensation for the affected farmers is not announced immediately, the protests would be intensified, he warned. I have seen many chief ministers but have not come across one as irresponsible as Siddaramaiah, the octogenarian leader said.



Meanwhile, farmers of the Cauvery basin have organised a convention at farmers auditorium here on Monday.



Seer to join protest



Adichunchanagiri Mutt seer Nirmalanandanatha Swami on Sunday demanded a national water policy to put an end to the existing row over sharing the Cauvery waters between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.



He said the governments were still following an agreement that was reached in 1924 and should have ceased to exist in 1974. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments should sign a new agreement based on the climatic conditions, water availability, storage and other components, he suggested. The seer said that he would participate in the protest proposed to be held in Mandya on September 19 or 20.



With the Cauvery Supervisory Committee meeting scheduled to be held on Monday, the district administration has declared a holiday for high schools and colleges in Mandya, Pandavapura, Srirangapatna and Maddur taluks. However, primary and higher primary schools will function as usual in these taluks, Mandya DC S Ziaulla said. A holiday has been declared only for degree colleges, while schools and PU college will remain open in Nagamangala, Malavalli and KR Pet taluks.



Adichunchanagiri Mutt seer Nirmalanandanatha Swami on Sunday demanded a national water policy to put an end to the existing row over sharing the Cauvery waters between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.



He said the governments were still following an agreement that was reached in 1924 and should have ceased to exist in 1974. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments should sign a new agreement based on the climatic conditions, water availability, storage and other components, he suggested. The seer said that he would participate in the protest proposed to be held in Mandya on September 19 or 20.



With the Cauvery Supervisory Committee meeting scheduled to be held on Monday, the district administration has declared a holiday for high schools and colleges in Mandya, Pandavapura, Srirangapatna and Maddur taluks. However, primary and higher primary schools will function as usual in these taluks, Mandya DC S Ziaulla said. A holiday has been declared only for degree colleges, while schools and PU college will remain open in Nagamangala, Malavalli and KR Pet taluks.
Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industries Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said that it was not proper to seek Prime Minister Narendra Modis intervention in the Cauvery issue as the matter was being adjudicated by the courts.





Speaking to reporters here, Nirmala, a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, said the BJPs position had been made clear by state president B S Yeddyurappa that the matter is in the court and it is under adjudication.



Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has been repeatedly seeking the intervention of Modi in resolving the Cauvery River water sharing dispute with neighbouring Tamil Nadu.



On Home Minister G Parameshwaras statement on the possible involvement of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in stoking violence over the Cauvery issue in Bengaluru, Sitharaman said state government was playing a political game.



Govt bungled Cauvery row



At another event, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers Ananth Kumar said the state would not have faced the present Cauvery water sharing crisis with Tamil Nadu if the state government had done its homework properly.



Speaking to reporters, Kumar said the present government indulging in politics on issues such as Cauvery waters had severely hurt the interests of the state. Instead, the government should have done its homework properly and convinced the Supreme Court of the severe distress situation in the Cauvery basin, he said.




The Cauvery Supervisory Committee headed by Union Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekhar will meet on Monday and discuss the issue of the release of water from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu.



Shekhar and the Central Water Commission are already studying the water-related data submitted by the two states, including storage, withdrawal of water, utilisation, crop pattern, variation in rainfall and impact on the actual run-off over a period of 29 years in their respective Cauvery basin areas, an official from the ministry said.



The panel will discuss the data in Mondays meeting and if required, more information will be sought from the states, the official said. The decision on the release of water from the upper riparian state to lower riparian states will be taken only after the panel is satisfied with the available data.



Before passing the order, the committee will discuss the issue in detail. If more information is required from the states, the meeting will be deferred. The states will be asked to submit additional data. No decision will be taken in a hurry, the official said. The decision will be in accordance with the final order passed by the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal, he added.



The panel had failed to take any decision on September 12 and had sought information related to the water usage and rainfall from the Cauvery basin states by September 15, and deferred the meeting to September 19. The meeting will be attended by the chief secretaries of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala.



The Supreme Court in an interim order on September 5 had asked Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily for 10 days to Tamil Nadu. When Karnataka appealed against the order and sought its modification on September 11, the court asked the state to release a reduced quantum of 12,000 cusecs of water daily to Tamil Nadu till September 20. The apex court will again hear the matter on September 20.



State Water Resources Minister M B Patil and Chief Secretary Arvind Jadhav, who were in Delhi for the past two days, held a series of meetings with officials from the Karnataka Water Resources department as well as the states legal team on the issues to be raised in Mondays meeting.
An ongoing study by a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has indicated that Bengaluru will soon face a huge water crisis. The study that is likely to be out soon says that if no immediate steps are taken, the city will go dry.





Prof T V Ramachandra from the Centre of Energy and Wetlands Research Group at the IISc said that despite floods in July 2016, the city is set to experience water crisis because of improper planning and ineffective implementation of the existing policies.



The Cauvery water dispute with the neighbouring Tamil Nadu will also have a bearing on the citys water needs because of increasing dependence on piped water. This apart, the study points out that wastage due to leakages and indiscriminate use by people is also adding to the growing problem.



Prof Ramachandra said that Bengaluru annually receives 750- 800 mm rainfall while the city lakes can hold only 35 tmcft. At least 98% water bodies in the city are encroached upon, he said. Of the 35 tmcft water stored in the city lakes, 90% is sewage-fed water, the study points.



The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) supplies 1400 mld everyday from Cauvery river. There are 9.15 lakh connections in the city. Their estimate shows that 1.4 lakh consumers should instal rain water harvesting systems, but only 62,000 have it. BWSSB is yet to reach out to 110 villages in the CMC and TMC areas.



The study also pointed out that Bengaluru generates 15 tmcft sewage water daily. Of the water used by Bengalureans, 70% is wasted and joins sewage lines and the rest is lost by various means like evaporation, leakage and others, the ongoing study by the team revealed.



The study also touches upon the water quality of most of lakes, revealing that they are highly polluted. Over 79% of city lakes fall under Class E category (for irrigation, industrial cooling, controlled waste disposal) and 29% lakes fall under Class D and E (can be used for wildlife and fisheries). The research team also showed that there has been an 88% loss in green cover in the city, a 79% loss in water bodies, a 925% increase in concrete land from 1970 to 2006 and over 75% of city land has paved surfaces.



Unless water is used judiciously, rain water harvesting strictly implemented, inter-connectivity of lakes and drains restored, there will be severe water crisis, especially in the backdrop of less rainfall in the Cauvery basin. There is also a need to treat and recycle sewage water, Prof Ramachandra explained.



Studyfindings



City has lost 79% water bodies.

There is 925% increase in concretisation

75% of city land paved

98% lakes encroached upon

90% lakes are sewage-fed




Need a hand? Write to us



Letters of grievances are pouring in and we are doing our best to accommodate as many as possible. Readers may write in to highlight civic problems affecting their locality and we will help address them in an interactive and effective manner.



Grievances and issues related to public utility agencies such as Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (Bescom) would be highlighted in the weekly column.



The writeups, which could be accompanied by photographs highlighting the problems, will be published on Mondays.



Mail your grievances to: peoplesproblems @deccanherald.co.in



Bus route boards not lit



I happened to travel on the BMTC route number 278E (bus number: KA 01F 3856) from Sanjaynagar to the Cantonment railway station recently. First of all, the route board was not lit, making it difficult for the public to read the number and the destination.



Secondly, during my journey which took about 45 minutes, I counted about 15 BMTC buses coming in the opposite direction, without their route board lit. BMTC officials remained ignorant whenever I tried to complaint about the issue.



Francis, No 5, Muniga

Layout MS Nagar



Bus stop with no shelter



The bus stop near 12th main (HAL 2nd Stage) in Indiranagar has neither a shelter nor a board, making it difficult for travellers to identify the bus stop. When it rains, people struggle to wait for buses at this stop. Because of this, most of the buses do not stop and some drivers even skip this bus stop to avoid the traffic signal. Whats more, private vehicles use this space for parking. I request the BMTC officials and the BBMP to look into the matter immediately.



Jagadeesh S

24th cross Jayanagar

3rd Block East



Water stagnates on road



The BBMP had laid concrete roads at Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar, 2nd main, 1st cross, HAL post, without building gutters. But it arranged for rainwater to drain into private gutters. Since the slope is towards our private gutter, all kinds of water from the street along with mud and garbage is getting into our drainpipe and causing blockage. Besides, water stagnates near the gates. I request the BBMP to resolve this problem by increasing the slopes height.



Sharon



A job half done



Sewage flows in open drains behind a park at Srinidhi Layout, Vidyaranyapura. There is an urgent need to close the drains with the slabs. Besides, the park needs better maintenance in terms of more trees, mosquito spray, watering, among others.



K G Shankar



Dangerous fencing



The scaffolding and sheets used to fence off the corner plot in Maruthiseva Nagar near the flyover is falling apart and the site is a breeding ground for mosquitoes. I request the BBMP to take measures to resolve this issue in the interest of the public.



Francis, No. 5

Muniga Layout

MS Nagar



BMTC bus stop needed



The Indian Institute of Science and the BHEL are premier organisations of national importance. Before the construction of an underpass at Prof CNR Rao Circle, there was an official bus stop at this junction. The BMTC buses are now passing through the underpass and hence, this bus stop has been removed. After Malleswaram 18th Cross, the next available bus stop is at Yeshwantpur. The BMTC bus drivers should take the route between 18th Cross and Yeshwantpur without entering the underpass, so that the old bus stop (Opposite to the BHEL and IISc gates, above the underpass) can be restored.



Aggrieved resident



Repairs needed on Pottery Road



Pottery Road, which is an important link road to other parts of the Cantonment area, has become a public urinal. Deep excavation work to upgrade the sewerage system has left the road in a bad shape and it is in dire need of repairs. Will the authorities concerned please do something about this?



Leslie, Cline Road



Leaking pipeline



A leaking pipe line in front of Cline Road near Ambedkar Dental College, Balaji Layout, Cooke Town, is causing a lot of inconvenience to the residents in this area. This busy road is used by the students of the dental college and children from a nursery.

Frequent complaints to the authorities of BWSSB has fallen on deaf ears.

While some areas are suffering without potable water, this avoidable waste of water should be stopped immediately.



Aggrieved resident,

Cline Road



Rachenahalli road full of potholes



Rachenahalli Main Road, near Thanisandra, before Hedge Nagar, is in a pathetic state with innumerable potholes and is a nightmare to motorists.



I hope the concerned authority will get the road tarred and the potholes fixed before someone falls and breaks their spine.



Vikram Anthony No 12,

Arogyappa Layout,

Mestripalya

Rachenahalli Main Road



Vacant plot turns an eyesore

A vacant corner plot on 14th main road, RPC Layout, Vijayanagar, continues to be a dumping yard for residents. Repeated requests to the local BBMP officials and the corporator to get it cleaned have fallen on deaf ears. Equally shocking is the callous attitude of the people who discard waste and debris on this plot, which breeds mosquitoes.



Yathish

RPC Layout
A police inspector fired at a gang of six armed men which was on a robbing spree in northern Bengaluru in the early hours of Sunday. One of the suspected robbers was nabbed but others managed to flee.





The jurisdictional RMC Yard police received information around 2.30 am that six armed men riding on three motorbikes had just robbed a man at knifepoint near Goraguntepalya. Police Inspector Mohammed Mukarram rushed to the spot with five of his men but the gang had sped away. Then came the alert that the gang was moving towards Dr Rajkumar Road. The policemen rushed there but there was no sight of the robbers. They came back to Goraguntepalya and spotted the gang: it was attempting to rob a cab driver.



On seeing the police, the robbers warned them to stay away or else they will kill the driver. The policemen tried to ambush the robbers but they retaliated. Just then, Mukarram fired in the air. The robbers panicked, pushed the driver away and tried to attack the police.



Hot chase



The inspector quickly fired two rounds at the men and they scattered. Police gave a chase and managed to catch one of the robbers who was later identified as Ayub Khan, 30.



We are not sure if anyone was injured in the firing as they all fled the spot. The arrested suspect has not been injured. We are interrogating him and he has given information about his accomplices. We will catch them soon, a senior police officer said.



The gang was targeting people walking alone on the deserted streets of Yeshwantpur, RMC Yard, Peenya and Tumakuru Road. Its modus operandi was to commit a series of robberies in a single night and then go into hiding for at least a week, the officer said.


A 33-year-old stockbroker devised a rather ingenious plan to fund his wedding. He lured a lawyer and two others to invest along with him in stock business. He took Rs 1.69 crore from them but spent the money on his wedding, police said.



The RT Nagar police registered a case against Pavan Kirthi V, 33, (in pic) a stockbroker at Shilpa Stock Broker Private Limited (SSBPL), after the victims filed complaints. Kirthi, who also owns Essveor, an apparel store on Commercial Street, is accused of cheating Muttu P, a lawyer from Kammanahalli, of Rs 1.05 crore, Shashikala K T, a resident of Ganganagar, of Rs 32 lakh, and Yatish from MS Palya of Rs 22 lakh. He has been booked under IPC sections 504 (insult), 506 (criminal intimidation), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating).



According to police, Kirthi didnt have enough money for his wedding three months ago. He decided to dupe gullible people by prodding them into investing in stock business. He first targeted Shashikala, a regular customer at his store. He showed her an SSBPL licence to buy, sell and trade shares. He offered her 7-9% interest per month on her investment. She invested Rs 28 lakh. She also lent him Rs 4 lakh for his wedding, Shashikala stated in the complaint.



Kirthi then took Rs 10 lakh from his friend, Yatish, on the pretext of investment and borrowed Rs 12 lakh for the wedding. He had met Muttu through a common friend. He cooked up a story of attractive profit in the share business. Though Muttu did not have any idea about the share market, he agreed to invest Rs 1.05 crore with Kirthi.



Kirthi created fake statements about the profit and gave them to the victims. But when he delayed the payment of interest, they grew suspicious. Shashikala approached the SSBPL management, checked her account and was shocked to see zero balance, a senior police officer told DH.



Muttu and Yatish also had zero balance in their accounts. They produced the statements given by Pavan. The SSBPL management said that it had neither issued the statements nor did Kirthi invest the money. The trio then confronted Kirthi, but he allegedly refused to return their money. He even abused and threatened to kill them. Police have also booked Kirthis parents Vasudevan and Lakshmi and his elder brother Jaiprakash as they were named in the complaints.
A contractor with the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (Bescom) has been arrested for not taking police permission for digging a busy road near the Marathahalli bridge in eastern Bengaluru.



Around 4 am on Sunday, policemen on night patrol found some people digging the road using hydraulic machines. When questioned, they said they were from Bescom and were laying electrical wires. The police were shocked as they had not received any intimation about the road-digging. Since the stretch sees heavy traffic, police permission is mandatory for digging the road. The police usually check for VIP movements before granting permission. In this case, we were neither intimated nor had we given permission. Whats more, the men spoke to the officers rudely, a senior police officer.



The matter was brought to the attention of the top brass which directed the inspector of the jurisdictional Old Airport traffic police station to register an FIR against the contractor, Hanumantharayappa, arrest him and seize the machinery. The contractor was later released on bail after Bescom officials stood surety. It later emerged that he hadnt taken permission from any civic authority.



The officer said that the incident should serve as a lesson for other contractors and that no agency can dig the road as per its convenience.



Digging even a small patch of a busy road will hamper traffic on the entire stretch and inconvenience the motorists. Several factors need to be considered and necessary arrangements made before the road-digging is taken up, he added.


The Ramanagaram police on Saturday arrested five persons on the charge of chopping the hand of an officer who had refused to clear inflated bills for works executed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS).



According to the police, the arrested are Chennakeshava, 27, Lakshman, 32, Manjunath, 27, Punith, 21 and Sham, 26, all farmers and residents of Kunigal taluk in Tumakuru district. Ramanagaram SP Chandragupta said, The suspects were arrested from Channammanakere Achukattu area in Bengaluru.



They were hiding at one of their friend's house. During the investigation, we questioned several people who gave information about the suspects.



H R Srinivasa, a technical coordinator with TDS Placements and Services Private Limited (TDSPSPL), was attacked on September 12 near Talakere village in Magadi taluk of Ramanagaram district.



The Tumakuru district administration has outsourced implementation of the works under the MNREGS to TDSPSPL.



Chennakeshava and Manjunath had employed labourers for creating two groundwater recharge pits under the MNREGS at Bagenahalli village in Kunigal taluk. They had produced a bill for Rs 69,000 for the work. Srinivasa, however, had reduced amount to Rs 42,000 saying that the bill was inflated and the work was of poor quality.



Enraged by this, the two barged into the Kunigal Taluk Panchayat office around noon on September 12 and abused Srinivas. Later, the gang attacked Srinivasa with a machete near Talakere village when he was riding on his bike to Magadi around 7.30 pm, the police said.




Cleanup continues in China's eastern Fujian and Zhejiang provinces following deadly typhoon Meranti's landfall Thursday, but the region is also on the alert as typhoon Malakas approaches.

At least 13 people in China were killed in the wake of Meranti, the Associated Press reported, and another 14 are missing. Millions of homes also lost electricity.
5 things we learned from Ohio State-Penn State

Ohio State moved to 8-0 with a 44-31 win over Penn State. Here's what we learned about the Buckeyes from their performance Saturday in Happy Valley.
The fragile cease-fire in Syria appeared to be unraveling Sunday as rebel positions in Aleppo came under aerial attack Sunday, killing at least eight people, as world leaders gathered in New York for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

This violation comes amid heightening tensions between the United States and Russia after a raid by the American-led coalition killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday.

The Russian defense ministry said U.S. jets killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor in four air strikes by two F16 and two A10 fighter jets coming from the direction of Iraq. Moscow called for a special meeting of the UN Security Council to address the strikes.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said Moscow's request for the meeting was a "stunt," while her Russian counterpart Vitaly Churkin accused the U.S. of violating agreements that it would not target army positions.

Churkin called the strike a "bad omen" for the U.S.-Russia deal to halt Syria's war, which has killed more than 300,000 people since it erupted in 2011.

But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed Russian accusations Sunday during an interview with CNN. Kerry instead pinned the blame on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Wing flap of missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 270 found

A wing flap that washed ashore on an island off Tanzania has been identified as belonging to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Australian officials said on Thursday.

The flap was found in June by residents on Pemba Island off the coast of Tanzania, and officials had previously said it was highly likely to have come from the missing Boeing 777. An analysis by experts at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is heading the search for the plane, subsequently confirmed the part was from the aircraft, the agency said in a statement.

Several pieces of wreckage suspected to have come from the plane have washed ashore on coastlines around the Indian Ocean since the aircraft vanished with 239 people on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing on 8 March 2014.

The wing flap brings to five the number of pieces of debris the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has determined are almost certainly or definitely from Flight 370. Another piece of wing found a year ago on La Reunion Island, near Madagascar, was positively identified by French officials.

Search officials expect more wreckage to wash up in the months ahead. But so far, none of the debris has helped narrow down the precise location of the main underwater wreckage.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau anticipates search crews will complete their sweep of the 120,000-square kilometre search zone in the Indian Ocean off Australia's west coast by December.

Meanwhile, oceanographers have been analysing the wing flaps from La Reunion and Tanzania in the hope of identifying a possible new search area through drift modelling.

But a new search would require a new funding commitment, with Malaysia, Australia and China agreeing in July that the $160-million hunt would be suspended once the current stretch of ocean is exhausted unless new evidence emerged that would pinpoint a specific location of the aircraft.

Earlier this week, relatives of some of the passengers on board the plane met with officials from the transport bureau and asked that more potential debris found around the Indian Ocean be examined. The families believe those items may help provide clues to the plane's location.
A steady stream of people made their way to Christeph Photographic Studio on Thursday for coffee, tea and treats to benefit Donegal Hospice.

The photographic studio at Lower Main Street in Letterkenny was among venues across Donegal and across the country that took part in National Hospice Coffee Morning day on Sept. 15th.

Photographer Brian McDaid posted to Facebook on Thursday evening that they had raised 930.53, thanking everyone who had taken part.

After Brian posted the total, DJ Tubbsy and TC Promotions from Arranmore Island posted to say he would bring their total up to 1,000, and Peter Blake of Peadar Jim maintenance donated an additional 100, to bring the total to 1,100 euro.

Im very happy with it, Brian said. A good local cause and all the money raised goes to it.

Brian and Eileen McDaid said the response was strong all day. Brian said some supporters had left money through the letterbox earlier that morning because they were unable to attend.

It was a very successful day, Eileen said. She said people were bringing sandwiches and cakes as well as money.

It was lovely, she said.

Brian also set up an old-style studio setting, complete with studio lighting, on the first floor, where supporters of the coffee morning could go to take selfies.

Pictured above at the coffee morning were Georgie Chan and Cllr Gerry McMonagle.
A Dungloe-born sister is one of this years recipients of the Presidential Distinguished Service Awards for the Irish abroad for her role in coordinating a response to the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone.

Sister Mary Dolores Sweeney has lived and worked in the west African nation for 44 years, working with disadvantaged people through the years of civil war and the Ebola epidemic. She founded St. Josephs School for the Hearing Impaired in the Sierra Leonean city of Makeni.

Sister Mary, of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny, said she was very honoured, and was also quick to say that she was part of a team.

She also credited the work of aid organisations Trocaire and Goal, and of Irish Aid.

Calling herself a proud Donegal woman, Sister Mary said she was also proud of our people that have helped me right through 44 years.

I do know that half of Donegal could be standing in for me because they help me all over Donegal, she said.

Currently in Dungloe on a visit home, Sister Mary said she was very happy to have been invited into schools since she's been back.

The schools in Dungloe have been very supportive, and not only the schools in Dungloe but many other places around Dungloe and the Rosses, she said.

She said that during the Ebola crisis, it was what came in from Dungloe, and Donegal, and friends, that kept us giving when there was nothing else. That relationship has been built over the years, she said.

While the all-clear was declared in January, Sierra Leone is still dealing with the aftermath of the terrible disease. The orders schools enrol about 2,000 students, and many, many of those children would have lost their parents to Ebola, Sister Mary said.

The governments announcement of this year's recipients also noted that in establishing St. Josephs school, Sister Mary has given education, skills training and life opportunities to the most vulnerable of people.

The awards will be presented in December.
October is National Bullying Prevention month. We have all heard the phrase bullying, but what does it actually mean? Bullying is defined as unwanted aggressive behavior; observed or perceived power imbalance; repetition of behaviors or high likelihood of repetition.

Bullying is unfortunately a reality for far too many in our communities both young and old. Much like any other form of violence, bullying is not isolated to any particular age group, gender or demography. Just about everyone of us can look back in our lives and recall a time where either we were personally bullied or witnessed one of our friends or schoolmates being bullied. Its hard to believe that with all of the advancements and awareness, this type of behavior still exists, but it does and with the advent of social media, it had actually gotten much worse. This is because unlike in the past, the bully not only impacts your life on the playground or classroom; they now are able to follow you into your personal life due to the constant presence of social media.

There is good news in that we have learned a great deal about what creates these bullies and how to neutralize their ability to isolate and intimidate. The key is for those in authority to respond to reports of bullying immediately to show without question that bullying will not be acceptable. That message needs to follow to our homes with the messages we send our children not only by what we say but by our own actions in how we treat fellow adults. Bullying is without question a learned behavior. It is learned on the playground, in the classroom and follows through to the workplace and social interactions as adults. We need to send a strong message to our own children, a message of empathy and compassion not of ridicule and rumor.

Who are at risk of bullying the most? Typically those who are bullied have one or more of the following risks:

Are perceived as different from their peers, such as being overweight or underweight, wearing glasses or different clothing, being new to a school, or being unable to afford what kids consider cool

Are perceived as weak or unable to defend themselves

Are depressed, anxious, or have low self esteem

Are less popular than others and have few friends

Do not get along well with others, seen as annoying or provoking, or antagonize others for attention

However, even if a child has these risk factors, it doesnt mean that they will be bullied. The important lesson is that we as adults set the tone for how the next generation will interact with each other. Chances are if we show acceptance of others, our children will show acceptance of others. If we engage in demeaning others or spreading rumors, our children will follow suit. So often we as adults underestimate the influence, we have not only on our own children but even those who dont know us but witness our behavior.

While school or workplace policies are an important component, the only way to truly decrease bullying is by denying the bully their victim. We do this by raising strong, confident, resilient children, and speaking out and supporting those who find themselves on the receiving end of this type of behavior. We are all teachers in life lessons and we teach by our actions. Lets all be aware of what we teach.
Ronald Moede was born on December 21, 1934, in Rio Creek, WI. The son of the late Fred and Emily (Hanamann) Moede, he married Bonnie Neinas in Brussels on June 4, 1960, and they were married for 62+ years. He was a life-long resident of Rio Creek and was an innovative dairy farmer. He owned and managed a large dairy operation, Meade Manor Farms, which had been homesteaded by his grandfather, August Moede, in 1895. The log cabin home, barn, and herd grew to become one of the larger dairy farms in Kewaunee County under his guidance. Upon his retirement, it evolved into Meade Manor Pet Clinic, a vet service for small animals, but the land continued to flourish and produce. Ron graduated from Casco High School, Class of 1952 and Graham School for Cattlemen, Kansas. He was a member of the Wisconsin Holstein Breeders, Kewaunee County Holstein Breeders, and the National Holstein

Association. He was a charter member of the Algoma FFA Alumni. His family exhibited champion dairy cattle at local, state, and national dairy cattle shows. In 1984, in Madison, the Wisconsin FFA named him Outstanding Farmer and in 1995, he was named and honored at the Wisconsin State Fair as a Century Farmer. He served as an elder in his church for many years as well as a trustee and various committee appointments. In his younger days, he was active in dartball and also high school sports. He received the Algoma Honorary Chapter Farmer Award, and the Unified Board Business Award. In his retirement, he drove school bus for 15 years for the Algoma School District and was a member of the Great Lakes Sports Fishermen. A hobby later enjoyed was his chicken farming. He raised a small flock of chicken, and he enjoyed passing out extra eggs to friends and relatives when the supply was greater than the family could handle. He was an avid sports fan and he and Bonnie attended both Packers Super Bowl games in 1996 and 1997, and also the Milwaukee World Series in 1983. He enjoyed hunting and fishing, both here and in upper Michigan and Minnesota. He even got Bonnie to go along with him to Lake of the Woods on the Canadian border to do some ice fishing. He held Packers season tickets since 1960 and at the time they bought their tickets they were allowed to pick out where they wanted to sit on the sidelines --there were no end zone seats yet-- and the tickets cost $5.00 a piece! He traveled through most of the U.S. including Alaska and Hawaii as well as traveling to the Caribbean and Europe. He enjoyed a summer place in Door County for 20 years. He told many stories of farming with his dad and the fact that at the age of 12, he had his own team of horses to work with on the farm. Responsibility came early as he was left in charge whenever it was necessary for his parents to be gone for a few days. He learned to drive a truck at an early age and often drove himself to school in 8th grade and parked the vehicle a few doors down at a relatives. This was because chores need to be done before and after school. The first tractor purchased was in 1937. In his retirement, he had it restored and displayed in local fairs and tractor shows. He would tell of shocking grain and threshing crews traveling from neighbor to neighbor and the wonderful table his mother would set full of food. A vivid memory was the day WWII ended. The whole neighborhood and working crew quit in the early afternoon (unheard of) and celebrated With beer and music! Even the clergy arrived and joined in. It was a day to remember! In his lifetime he went from horses and the depression, to the digital age and unimagined luxuries. There was no electricity and no running water in his youth and now he had wireless phones, computer screens in his vehicles, along with heated steering wheels and heated seats. Who would have thought that back then.

Ron is survived by his wife Bonnie; son Robert (Debbie Harms) Moede; grandson Michael and granddaughter Megan; siblings, Terry (Jane) Moede, Paul (Roxie) Moede; sisters-in-law, Diane Fontaine, Sheila (Don) Baudhuin; and brothers in-law, Dan (Mary) Neinas. He was preceded in death by his parents, Fred and Emily Moede; sister, Marilyn (Arno) Schneider; father- and mother-in-law, Herman and Madeline Neinas, and brother-in-law, Gary Fontaine.

Visitation will be held at Kinnard Funeral & Cremation Services  Algoma, on Friday, October 7, 2022, from 4-7:30 pm with a prayer service at 6:30. Visitation will continue on Saturday, October 8th at St. Johns Lutheran Church  Rankin, from 9-11:00 am. Funeral service will be held at 11:00 am with Dr. Rev. Christopher Jackson officiating. Burial to follow in Evergreen Cemetery. Online condolence message may be shared at KinnardFCS.com. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Kewaunee County 4-H Dairy Fund and the Projection Screen Fund at St. Johns- Rankin.
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Monarch launches three new destinations for summer 2017

Monarch has announced the addition of three exciting new destinations to its network. Flights to Stockholm, Porto and Zagreb are all available to book from midday Thursday 15 September at monarch.co.uk for travel from 28 April 2017. To support the new routes an additional aircraft will be based at Manchester airport.

To celebrate the launch of these new routes prices will start at just 33*.

New destinations:

New - Start date - Frequencies per week

Stockholm (Birmingham) 28 April 2017 3x weekly flights (Thurs, Fri, Sun)

Stockholm (Luton) 28 April 2017 2x weekly flights (Mon, Fri)

Stockholm (Manchester) 28 April 2017 3x weekly flights (Thurs, Fri, Sun)

Zagreb (Gatwick) 28 April 2017 3x weekly flights (Mon, Wed, Fri)

Zagreb (Manchester) 29 April 2017 2x weekly flights (Mon, Sat)

Porto (Luton) 29 April 2017 3x weekly flights (Tues, Sat, Sun)

Porto (Manchester) 28 April 2017 3x weekly flights (Thurs, Fri, Sun)

The city of Porto is a year round popular destination and will be the fourth Portuguese destination on the Monarch network. Porto joins Lisbon, which was introduced last summer, Faro and Funchal. Renowned for its port wine and architecture, the coastal city of Porto sits in the northwest of the country.

The Swedish capital of Stockholm is a vibrant city made up of 14 islands all walkable thanks to the extensive network of bridges the city has to offer. Stockholm is a great city for exploring - with a variety or shops, cafes and museums there is something for everyone.

Monarch adds another capital city to its network with Zagreb. Zagreb has been growing in popularity over the last few years and with its gothic themes and colourful architecture, the Croatian city makes an ideal city break.

As well as the three new destinations, Monarch has now put Birmingham - Nice, Luton -Arrecife, Luton - Rome on sale and has added frequencies to popular destinations for summer 2017 including:

London Gatwick - Lisbon

Manchester - Barcelona

Manchester - Lisbon

Manchester  Rhodes

Marjan Schoeke, Monarch's Head of Network Development, comments: We are delighted to be announcing these three new exciting destinations to the Monarch network.

Flights to Stockholm, Zagreb and Porto will operate all year round and we are sure that all three destinations will be a popular choice with our customers.

In addition to these three new destinations Monarch has added frequencies to a number of routes proving to be very popular with our customers for summer 2017.
ScienceDebate.org, a coalition of fifty-six leading U.S. nonpartisan organizations, including the American Chemical Society of which I am a member, recently sent a comprehensive questionnaire to the four major presidential candidates. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson declined to participate. The answers given by the other three candidates give us a very good look at their vision for our country, particularly as it relates to science & technology, and the investments we need to make as a country to harness the benefits science & technology in the best way possible.

You can read their full answers HERE.

As I read through the answers, one thing was immediately obvious. Hillary Clintons answers are invariably longer than the others. I wondered if thats because she simply is better at blathering out politicalspeak with little substance. However, that was not the case. Her answers were nearly always substantive, talking about specific programs  both existing programs as well as programs she is proposing  along with concrete goals and proposals.

While Jill Stein was rarely as comprehensive in her responses, they were significantly more descriptive and useful than those of Donald Trump. Trump more frequently gave one or two sentence responses with little to offer in the way of strategic vision or specific policies and programs. For example, when asked how his administration would balance national interests with global cooperation when tackling threats made clear by science, such as pandemic diseases and climate change, that cross national borders, Trumps non-answer response suggested that we could deal with these things through tax, trade, and immigration reform:

Our best input to helping with global issues is to make sure that the United States is on the proper trajectory economically. For the past decade we have seen Gross Domestic Product growth that has not provided adequate resources to fix our infrastructure, recapitalize our military, invest in our education system or secure energy independence. We cannot take our place as world leader if we are not healthy enough to take care of ourselves. This means we must make sure that we achieve our goals in tax reform, trade reform, immigration reform and energy independence. A prosperous America is a much better partner in tackling global problems that affect this nation achieving its national objectives.

When asked What are your views on climate change, and how would your administration act on those views?, Trumps non-answer response made it crystal clear he is a climate change denier:

There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of climate change. Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria. Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population. Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels. We must decide on how best to proceed so that we can make lives better, safer and more prosperous.

In sharp contrast, Clinton gave a lengthy response that both acknowledged the global threat of climate change and spelled out concrete steps her administration would take, including steps that will deliver on the pledge President Obama made at the Paris climate conference  without relying on climate deniers in Congress to pass new legislation.

In response to the question, How would your administration work to ensure all students including women and minorities are prepared to address 21st century challenges and, further, that the public has an adequate level of STEM literacy in an age dominated by complex science and technology?, Trumps non-answer response was pure corporatist dogma:

There are a host of STEM programs already in existence. What the federal government should do is to make sure that educational opportunities are available for everyone. This means we must allow market influences to bring better, higher quality educational circumstances to more children. Our cities are a case-study in what not to do in that we do not have choice options for those who need access to better educational situations. Our top-down-one-size-fits-all approach to education is failing and is actually damaging educational outcomes for our children. If we are serious about changing the direction of our educational standing, we must change our educational models and allow the greatest possible number of options for educating our children. The management of our public education institutions should be done at the state and local level, not at the Department of Education. Until more choices are provided in our cities, those who tout their concern about educational outcomes cannot be taken seriously.

Trumps non-answer response to a question about providing safe, clean drinking water to every American will provide little solace to the people of Flint, Michigan or the farmers in Iowa or Nebraska. He thinks we should explore all options to include making desalinization more affordable.

Finally, Trumps non-answer response to how he would deal with Americas opioid abuse epidemic appears to be build a wall and make Mexico pay for it:

We first should stop the inflow of opioids into the United States. We can do that and we will in the Trump administration. As this is a national problem that costs America billions of dollars in productivity, we should apply the resources necessary to mitigate this problem. Dollars invested in taking care of this problem will be more than paid for with recovered lives and productivity that adds to the wealth and health of the nation.

Given that much of the opioid abuse in America comes from pharmaceuticals, that wall is likely to have little impact, of course.

Trumps two-dimensional cartoon view of the world isnt an accident. Its a perpetuation of an approach that goes back to at least the candidacy of Ronald Reagan. It is much easier to paint the world in either/or, black/white, right/wrong terms than it is to discuss complex problems and their complicated solutions. Donald Trump knows this and is serving up the pablum in great heaping spoonfuls. And THAT is largely why hes not getting creamed by Hillary Clinton.

Ill leave you with a snippet of lyrics penned by Joe Jackson after watching President Reagan defend his administrations policies in Nicaragua. Reagan told Americans, Ive spoken recently of the freedom fighters of Nicaragua. You know the truth about them. You know who theyre fighting and why. They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong.

Its a perfect representation of the Reagan/Trump approach.

Stop everything

I think I hear the President

The pied piper of the TV screen

Is gonna make it simple

And hes got it all mapped out

And illustrated with cartoons

Too hard for clever folks to understand

Yeah, theyre more used to words like:

Ideology

But they say its not the issue

Ideology

Theyre not talkin bout right or left

Theyre talkin bout Right and wrong
[Click here for the latest news on this story.]

News broke late Thursday that a massive sinkhole below a phosphate strip mine 30 miles east of Tampa has been releasing radioactive waste into the Floridan aquifer for three weeks.

News reports indicate that Mosaic, the owner of the mine, and state officials have known about the problem for three weeks, but failed to notify the public. The sinkhole formed below a phosphogypsum stack, which is a pile of radioactive waste hundreds of feet tall produced by phosphate mining, and in this case may pose a serious threat to drinking water for millions of Floridians.

Florida fertilizer plant sinkhole leaks 215M gallons of radioactive water into aquifer https://t.co/HBWHE0Ymtu pic.twitter.com/9VYF1k7oIZ  ABC News (@ABC) September 17, 2016

Enough is enough. Florida must finally take a stand against this destructive, radioactive phosphate mining that is putting our health and environment at risk, said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Mosaic wants to mine an additional 50,000 acres of Floridas beautiful, biodiverse lands, but this incident makes clear it cant even handle the radioactive waste it currently generates. We must come together and demand that our counties, our state and our federal government reject further expansion of this dangerous industry.

Radioactive phosphogypsum is produced during phosphate mining when sulfuric acid is applied to phosphoric ore, releasing naturally occurring uranium and radium. Besides leaving massive piles of radioactive waste, this process produces radon gas in the air, which is cancer causing.

Florida is home to the world largest phosphate mine, and now Mosaic wants to strip mine an additional 52,000 acres in Manatee, Hardee and De Soto counties.

Forty percent of the phosphate ore thats mined in Florida is shipped overseas, but 100 percent of the radioactive phosphogypsum waste thats generated remains in the United States, the majority of it in Florida, where it stays forever. Thats five tons of radioactive waste for every one ton of usable phosphate.

Phosphate mining creates 60-foot-deep to 80-foot-deep open pits thousands of acres wide. Florida is home to the world largest phosphate mine, and now Mosaic wants to strip mine an additional 52,000 acres in Manatee, Hardee and De Soto counties.

This is not the first time a sinkhole has opened up below a radioactive phosphogypsum stack, nor is it the first time Mosaic has had problems with handling its hazardous waste. In 2009 a sinkhole at the PCS White Springs facility released more than 90 million gallons of hazardous wastewaters into the Floridan aquifer. In October 2015 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Mosaic settled a lawsuit regarding a series of alleged violations of how Mosaic handles and stores its hazardous waste, paying civil penalties to the feds and Florida.
Sharing an equal interest in literature and creative writing , Apoorva Wadhwa was reluctant to give up higher studies on either subject. If literature is life for me, writing is the tool that makes that life come into existence, she says. To pursue her passion, she started researching options overseas for her Masters.

Deakin University is one of the few universities which offers a Masters in writing and literature combined. What also attracted me to the course were the different pathways  literary studies, childrens literature, professional writing and creative writing, and the wide array of subjects to choose from in each strand. I could combine literary units with an equal number of writing units, which was ideal. And the learning methodology was a blend of both research and teaching. It seemed that the course was designed solely for me. The Master of Arts (Writing and Literature) is offered by the universitys School of Communication and Creative Arts.

She describes her academic experience as exhilarating, adding, I could be creating a character for my non-fiction assignment while exploring queer theories in young adult fiction, connecting the absurd as a reaction to teleology and digging out focalisation techniques in a Neil Gaiman book, all at the same time.

Wadhwa completed her Bachelors of Arts in English from Shyama Prasad Mukherji College, University of Delhi (2012-15). On the difference between the two education systems, she replies that it took her some time to get used to the fact that she had to learn on her own time and mostly through cloud in Australia. Although it has been six months, I think more critically and deconstruct the why behind every word in a text and I have also become more careful in constructing my own words. I am reading and writing more diversely than ever before and I am enjoying it.

Elaborating further, says Wadhwa, I hadnt even heard of prose poetry as a form of writing before landing in Melbourne and today I find this as a form I can best express myself in. Being in India, I never got a chance to explore Australian writers and literature, but being here has unravelled a plethora of amazing writers and writing, that I was hitherto unaware of. I have also realised the importance of referencing my work and I feel it is one essential skill that I wish was taught in my undergraduation in India. The Theory Symposiums have made me more confident in addressing the audience and talking about my work to a group of people, and learning from the feedback.

After completing the course, she is keen to pursue a PhD and further her research on ideas relating to time, the absurd and existentialism. She also wants experience in editing in a publishing house and to become a writer herself, and the course, Wadhwa feels, will help her to reach her goals.

The Master of Arts (Writing and Literature) is designed to provide career enhancement for those who wish to be employed in the fields of childrens literature, literary studies, professional writing and creative writing. The course aims to provide graduates with high levels of skill in creative and professional areas of writing and literature, and to enable them to work as practitioners across a range of fields such as teachers, librarians and writers as well as professionals working in associated fields such as publishing and promotion. It offers the potential for cross-disciplinary explorations and access to the more practical and applied areas of journalism, media and communications and public relations. In the second year, students not only specialise but they complete a research project with one-on-one supervision with an expert in their field

-- Course co-ordinator Cassandra Atherton, Harvard Visiting Scholar in English 2015  2016, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies & Professional and Creative Writing
University Industry Demonstration Partnership is a US-based non-profit membership body comprising multinationals and research universities aiming to improve university-industry (U-I) tie-ups. Excerpts from an interview with its president , Anthony Boccanfuso, during his recent visit to India:

What are the common bottlenecks that hinder successful U-I relations?

There are a number of challenges and mismanaged expectations are one of them. Universities want to be given money by companies to explore research interests of their academics without necessarily a tangible goal or deliverable. But companies have a time issue, so when they need a project to be finished in six months, they need it to be finished in that time. There is also an issue about what will actually be done. There is a real challenge around tactical things like contracting, trying to get the research agreements in place. Another mismatch is that universities will have a tendency to value their intellectual property at a higher level than a company.

There is a huge disconnect, universities carry out research but dont make products. The value a university places on its research can be much higher than what an organisation thinks it is worth at that point in development. This is because ultimately it is the organisation that will have to take that idea, conduct field tests, deal with regulatory protocol, etc. So, there are mismatched expectations on time, financial issues and scope. That being said, there are a number of examples where researchers are working with companies and doing good work.

How are the collaborations changing?

Universities and companies are increasingly looking at better ways to collaborate with each other to reduce barriers and improve the value proposition. For example, some universities are setting up business consulting groups within the university to do formal consulting projects for companies. Universities are also changing their contracting models and IP approaches to assure organisations on how to treat foreground IP to remove that barrier. Some universities are changing their tenure and promotion policies based on commercialisation. Universities are also allowing a year of leave of absence to allow faculty to take up start-up projects or projects with companies.

Simultaneously, companies are seeking proposals from universities across the world to take part in research programmes. Samsungs GRO is one such example. On the IP front, some companies like Intel ensure that universities commit to putting the results of the research, conducted as part of a sponsored research agreement with the company, into the public domain. So, approaches are being developed by both universities and companies as a way to expand the opportunities for collaborations.

What kind of interest do you see among member MNCs to set up research facilities in India?

Almost all MNCs that are members of the University Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP), which includes organisations such as Facebook, Cisco, Pfizer, Coca Cola, Toyota and Boeing, etc, have a presence in India. They spend significant time, energy and resources developing and doing the due diligence needed to set up R&D facilities here because regulations related to tax policies require organisations to invest in countries where they sell products and because the country has an educated workforce. Furthermore, India is evolving into a consumer society with a large middle class and companies want to sell products here. Academic research shows that organisations build R&D facilities where they sell products and this is another reason why an increasing number of organisations find it attractive to set up R&D facilities in India.

In India, the focus of most collaborations is on addressing the skill gap for employment purposes. How can shifting the focus on research help?

Many MNCs are evolving their academic engagement model. Instead of undertaking 100 research projects, they look to do 10 with 10 universities building a critical mass as well as rapport with the institutes. Indian institutes must find ways to become strategic partners of MNCs or they may become talent acquisition shops for R&D. Becoming a strategic partner gives institutes the opportunity to sit with a company and evaluate all potential touchpoints and find the ones which make sense for the individual institute. For example, there might be an Indian university which may be great for one kind of activity and one in Israel that may be great for another kind of activity. So, top-tier Indian research universities should find ways to becoming a strategic partner to the MNC because thats the model that they are moving towards.

Theres a lot of talent in this country and the greatest source of technology transfer are students who are hired and faculty providing some type of consulting services and working on research projects. A country of this size and scale does have a number of outstanding institutes. Universities have the potential to become an anchor for an innovation ecosystem and while institutes like IIT-B have an impressive innovation ecosystem, there is a need to expand this beyond a limited number of institutes.


New Products Date: 18/09/2016 Aricent tech combines LTE and Wi-Fi tech to offer unified wireless network Aricent launched LTE Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) and LTE Wi-Fi Aggregation (LWA) solutions for LTE eNodeB leveraging both cellular as well as Wi-Fi networks available in the vicinity.



Aricents LTE eNodeB software running on a SoC platform is being incorporated as the alternative spectrum technology solutions. The Aricent LTE-LAA solution uses one or more 20 MHz carriers in license-exempt spectrum along with Wi-Fi for opportunistic access to increase the traffic capacity of an in-building LTE network by influencing the power of existing carrier aggregation capabilities. Aricent provides unified wireless network to user devices by combining LTE and Wi-Fi technology.



LTE-LAA solution is designed for fair coexistence of LTE and Wi-Fi by using the Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) protocol with back-off approach on the license-exempt secondary carrier currently used mainly for Wi-Fi. The Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) mechanism is built into the solution to address the requirements of operating in specific unlicensed frequency bands. This solution is ideally suited for small-cell deployments where low-power and high-frequency reuse is critical to meet increased capacity requirements and the 5GHz license-exempt band is seen as the right fit for the same.



Jee-wong Chung, Chief Technology Officer, Contela Inc says, We are continuing to collaborate with Aricent in developing our next-generation Wireless Access solutions supporting 4.5G with capabilities such as LTE-LAA. We are confident that Aricent will be able keep pace with the quick evolution of 3GPP standards beyond Release 13 and ensure readiness of its software, which reduces overall time to market for us.



Walid Negm, Chief Technology Officer, Aricent says, We are excited to introduce the LTE-LAA and LWA solutions that quickly and cost-effectively address the high-end throughput needs of enterprise and residential users in the in-building environment. Contela has once again shown its confidence in our eNodeB software. With more than 80 LTE engagements to date with equipment manufacturers, Aricent has developed the expertise and experience to deliver next-generation connectivity capabilities in the LTE RAN space.



LTE traffic is being off loaded onto the Wi-Fi infrastructure by Aricent's LWA solution in a seamless manner for well matched user devices. It provides significant improvement in the end-user experience while watching streaming content.

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To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020.
To reach me for collaborations, sponsorships, and event invitations, I am contactable at

the-ice-angel@hotmail.com


I am british born. I have a french passport obtained from the consular in London as was married to a french national. I was given a french passport and identity card this was in the 1970s. The passport and identity card have long been out of date and I have not bothered to renew them. I am now living in France and have been for over 20 years, although no longer married to the french person from whom I received nationality. My question is can I just renew my out of date passport - if you are once given a passport and have never revoked french nationality do you still retain that nationality even though the passport has not been renewed.
Shropshire

A Full-Time position is available for an assistant herdsperson on a family dairy farm in mid Shropshire. We have a 250 dairy herd rearing own replacements together with a b...
Dairy processors who are failing to improve their returns to farmers could face 'serious backlash' and shortage in supplies.

Wholesale dairy commodity markets have risen sharply over the past four months, and yet some processors remain extremely slow to raise the price they pay to farmers.

"The frustration being felt by milk producers is matched by their concern that milk buyers and processors are focusing on their own bottom lines rather than considering the health of the dairy industry as a whole," said Mike Butler, chairman of the board at Old Mill.

The prolonged period of low prices, caused by global oversupply of milk, has sent many farmers into a loss-making position, but a tightening of supply and the weaker sterling have boosted wholesale returns by almost 68% since April, to the equivalent of 26p/litre in August.

In contrast, the average farmgate price in July was 20.57p/litre, compared to a cost of production of around 28p/litre.

'Onerous milk contracts'

"Global and domestic milk output has dropped and UK dairy farmers have no appetite to keep production levels up while milk is so undervalued," says Mr Butler.

Mike Butler, chairman of the board at Old Mill

"The weaker pound against the euro has also made imported dairy products more expensive, fuelling the increase in the spot price of domestic milk."

UK spot milk prices typically track cream values, which in turn tend to follow currency movements, reflecting the importance of the import/export trade across the channel and the Irish Sea (see graph).

"Generally farmgate prices follow the trend of the spot market albeit with some small time delays."

However, since April, wholesale cream prices have jumped by 84%, to 1,470/t, and yet farmgate prices have failed to respond to this upward trend, showing only a 3% rise between June and July to 20.57p/litre  1p/litre below the April average.

So why is that? "Part of the answer may lie in onerous milk contracts which many producers are bound by," explains Mr Butler.

"Notice periods and penalty clauses are all contributing factors that allow processors to control their farm producers without taking reference to market forces."

Farmers 'extremely resilient'

Processors may feel they have the upper hand in the short term but all producers have the ability to serve notice and move their supply away, he warns.

"Furthermore, all processors require milk to run their plants and they have obligations to customers to fulfil.

"Its vital that they consider the medium to longer term and understand their business strategy and whats best for the industry as a whole."

Fortunately, some processors have recognised the need to address the dairy crisis and have begun to change contracts and move prices up.

"They recognise the value and security of milk supply their producers offer and are engaged in constructive dialogue to improve the situation by linking the prices they can achieve from their own customers with the price they can afford to pay their farmers."

But its vital that other processors follow suit, and fast.

"Farmers have proven extremely resilient in the current downturn, cutting costs to the bone and retaining a significant asset base," says Mr Butler.

"One thing is for sure, a milk processor will go out of business quicker than a farmer if they stop receiving milk from their producers.

"Those processors and milk buyers that ignorantly and perhaps arrogantly carry on taking advantage of the current market may well find that the honey they taste today may soon turn particularly bitter."
As dairy farms are getting larger there is less time for individual animal attention, but new milking technology may change this.

During milking having access to the right information at the right time is essential.

The Swiftflo Commander is the new brain of the milking parlour, controlling everything to do with milking, feeding and animal health.

It offers a new level of intelligence that takes command of each milking unit within the parlour.

This week Dairymaster impressed the judging panel at the Farm Business Cream Awards at the National Birmingham Motor Cycle Museum in Britain for the 2nd year running, this time with its Swiftflo Commander, winning the Overall Product Innovation Award.

The Swiftflo Commander gives the farmer a lot more information when and where its needed - at the milking point.

Putting this information in peoples hands means major impacts on dairy farms.

"We are overjoyed to win an innovation award for the Swiftflo Commander," comments Ted McGrath of Swiftflo.

"This product allows farmers to clearly see how each cow is performing during milking which allows the farmer to make immediate decisions.

"We already have a huge number of farms experiencing the benefits of this product across Britain."

Next generation touchpad technology means it is extremely robust, easy to clean and fully water resistant.

Described as being similar to an iPad for cows the Swiftflo Commander displays important information such as milk yield, milking time, and somatic cell count (SCC) data on each cow and much more.

One touch allows you to control feed effortlessly at each milking unit.

It can also display if the cow is in heat and draft that cow with a single touch for AI or further inspection.

Imagine a system that can identify what each cow is contributing to herd SCC.

The Swiftflo Commander can display a cows percentage SCC of the entire herd.

The advantage of having this information about each individual cow at the right time in the parlour is that you can act on it.

It will also prompt the farmer to do a California Milk Test (CMT) when high SCC information is received so diagnosis and treatment is much sooner.

The farmer can enter information directly from the milking point, for example, treatment dates.

The smart technology then automatically retains milk until the withdrawal period is up and it is then safe for it to enter the milk tank again. You can also divert milk effortlessly.

It also indicates freshly calved cows that enter the parlour and allows colostrum to be diverted.

With more emphasis on hygiene and ever increasing milk quality standards the cleaning performance of each unit is also individually monitored.

The Swiftflo Commander gives the farmer the capability and functionality of doing herd management at every single milking point in a very easy manner.

When a farmer invests in the Swiftflo Commander they are making the right investment for the future.

It uses smart technology that allows all units to be updated within a few minutes.

Dairymaster uses this smart technology to ensure that farmers have the latest features and capability into the future.
Dr Edwards prefaced his comments to the PGA by stating: "I own no shares in any life science company, I own no patents in the biotech sector and I don't stand to make a cent through bio success, but what I do stand for is making sure good technology gets to the field."
"We saw him in the show pens after the sale and knew straight away he was a sire that would really complement our breeding program and we had to try and secure him," Mr Button said.
It was clear some bidders were hoping for the prices to drop towards the end of the line-up but that didn't prove the case as the top price of the day didn't appear until lot 103 with bidding remaining strong until the final fall of the hammer.
That faint gobble, gobble youre hearing in the distance can only mean one thing: Thanksgiving is near! Both ACTS and SERVE are gearing up for their holiday programs, and your help is needed.
What was it like to be an Oath Keeper? John Zimmerman can tell you

John Zimmerman said he was active with the Oath Keepers from September to November 2020, then left after a falling out with founder Stewart Rhodes.
Guy Ritchie is in talks to direct the next James Bond movie.

Guy Ritchie

The 48-year-old star is currently in Los Angeles where he is set to hold talks with producer Michael G Wilson about taking over the franchise from Sam Mendes.

A source told Mirror.co.uk: "Guy has moved up the shortlist and is now the front runner. He's meeting Michael this week to try to do a deal and see if they can agree on a shared vision for the film.

"Guy is under serious consideration for Bond 25 and this LA trip should help take this further. He doesn't have Sam's artistry, but Guy is a fast-paced, stunt-based director who knows his stuff.

"He also has on his side the ability to keep calm and balance a big budget."

Sam has directed 'Skyfall' and 'Spectre' in the long-running spy franchise but revealed in May that he will not return for another movie as he wants to work on something new.

He said: "It was an incredible adventure, I loved every second of it. But I think it's time for somebody else. I'm a storyteller. And at the end of the day, I want to make stories with new characters.

"I can guarantee whatever happens with it, it will not be what you expect. That's what she [producer Barbara Broccoli] has been brilliant at, and that's how it'll survive."

Meanwhile, Ralph Fiennes - who plays Bond's MI6 handler M in the franchise - recently argued that the next director needs to offer a different "tone and argument".

He said: "Well I think if you're the next director of Bond, you're going to not want to go down the tone and argument of what Sam [Mendes] has put into the films.

"Questions of British nationhood, and whether Bond is a dinosaur, all that. So I would guess if you're coming to do the next Bond, you'd want to take it somewhere radically different, I think."
Ian Brown escaped a potential driving ban after telling a court he needed to go shopping for his elderly parents.

Ian Brown

The Stone Roses star - who faced disqualification from driving under the totting up procedure after being spotted doing 37mph in a 30mph zone - successfully fought the case by arguing that a ban would be an "inconvenience" and claiming he needed his Lexus in order to attend music rehearsals.

Of Ian's elderly parents - who live eight miles away from his home in Cheshire, England - his lawyer Paul Reddy told magistrates: "They are both elderly and immobile. It falls to Mr Brown to look after them. He spends the days doing errands, doing their shopping."

He added, according to The Sun on Sunday newspaper: "He is rehearsing in the middle of nowhere and is one of four who need to be there.

"At the very least it would inconvenience these people."

In light of the statements, Ian was handed three driving points, bringing him to 12.

However, he was not banned from the road after the court agreed that the iconic rocker might suffer "exceptional hardship" if that were the case.

Additionally, Ian was told he must pay a 200 fine and 150 following his guilty plea.

The decision has already received strong criticism from road safety campaigners in the UK, who feel Ian ought to have been banned from driving.

Jack Kushner, a spokesman for the group Brake, said: "It makes a mockery of the system if drivers who rack up 12 points aren't banned."
Though the UK hasn't taken too kindly to The Great British Bake Off moving from BBC One to Channel 4 next year and beyond, the broadcaster couldn't be happier with their purchase, and will make over a million pounds during every ad break when the series airs.

Current Bake Off hosts Mel and Sue with Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood / Credit: BBC

Thought to have paid between 25 million and 75 million for the show, Channel 4 will go on to make around 80 million pounds per series thanks to their advertising, according to Digital Spy.

The website spoke to Ben Chesters, who is Managing Partner of Precision Marketing at MediaVest and Starcom, and he explained: "It is comfortably the biggest show on television. It will be bigger than any other commercial television programme per episode.

"The revenue that Channel 4 could glean per episode would be somewhere around 200,000 per advert."

With around five or six adverts per break, Channel 4 would pocket over a million each time the show cut for a few minutes.

"There's only one series per year, however that doesn't stop the fact that they could have a celebrity series, a professional's version, even a child's version or a half-hour spin-off show, so they could make the brand of Bake Off be a lot bigger."

Chesters also said that Channel 4 could make around "5 million for the sponsorship" of their show, with ads included on their streaming catch-up service.

With Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry reportedly in talks with Channel 4 to stick with the show, it's going to be interesting to see just how many of the loyal Bake Off viewers will make the move with the series.

Hosts Mel and Sue have already confirmed that the final series on BBC One - which is currently airing - will be their last.

The Great British Bake Off continues Wednesdays at 8pm on BBC One.

by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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'Great British Bake Off' judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry could reportedly be given a golden handshake of 1million each if they stay on the show.

Paul Hollywood

Their futures have been thrown into doubt ever since it was announced that the popular baking show is to move from the BBC to Channel 4 - but Paul and Mary have both been offered eye-watering sums of money to remain loyal to the programme, while the BBC is prepared to make a similarly attractive counter-offer.

A source told the Sunday Mirror newspaper: "It's turning into a bitter turf war between rival TV stations - but at this rate it's the viewers who'll miss out.

"Fans just want the series to stay the same as much as possible - that obviously means keeping Paul and Mary at the centre of it. It's a shame some at the BBC seem to be looking for a way to sabotage that.

"Many of us feel it's foul play and not the intended function of licence payers' cash."

Recently, it was reported that Paul remains undecided about his future, despite holding extensive talks with TV bosses at the BBC and Channel 4.

An insider previously said: "Paul's definitely not made up his mind yet on what to do and is looking at what's the best deal for him. Channel 4 are desperate to secure him and provide fans with some continuity from the original line-up."

Meanwhile, Jay Hunt - who is Channel 4's chief creative officer - claimed recently that the programme will be in safe hands when it shifts across in 2017.

She said: "'Great British Bake Off' will have a safe home. The show of soggy bottoms and good crumb will be made by exactly the same team who have always made it. We love it just as it is. And for an amateur baker like me, that's a real cause for celebration."
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The day started with an early lunch at a tiny Mexican restaurant called Mi Taco on Queens Street. The Gujarati-American husband was craving tacos and I like a good wife complied.

The lunch experience captured the essence of Toronto and Canada. An Italian lady owns the Mexican restaurant and we were served by a young Bangladeshi student of media studies at the Toronto University. Cultural diversity is the very soul of this city  there are people from all over the world who make this city such a vibrant melting pot.

Afrida even spoke to me in broken Bangladeshi and told me that her mother is a TIFF regular. The tacos here were top class. The owners belief is that food should be the way it is served at home  simple and clean  and her philosophy reflected on the food.

Sagar ordered a black bean taco and I went with the special, the braised pork belly taco with guacamole and mango salsa that really took me by surprise. It was layered in its flavours and packed a load of flavour; the fresh tangy mango just lifted the taco to a whole new level. Normally, Im not a fan of sweet in my savoury dishes, but this one just worked. I wish I had taken a picture, but I was so hungry that I forgot.

Lunch done, we went to Scotia theatre and I watched the Scandinavian film The Giant about a man with a deformity who struggles to find social acceptance and creates a fantasy land where he spends most of his time. Its a beautiful and sad little film.

Then I caught Koji Fukadas Harmonium that has won the jury prize  Un Certain Regard  at Cannes this year. The film was a chilling depiction of how a wrongdoing will always come back and destroy peace in a middle class life, a theme that was repeated in the Spanish film I saw next, The Fury of a Patient Man. Harmonium was a studied film about the middle class while the Spanish film was more of an inside-the-protagonists-head kind of experience.

While, I was watching films, Sagar had an adventure that I was really happy not to be a part of. In an attempt to save a few dollars (12 I think) in parking, he had to rush off the lot he had picked almost 3 kilometres away. In his hurry he ended up locking his keys in the car and spent three hours calling a tow truck and retrieving the key. He had to pay the tow truck $80 to open the car. Moral of the story: Do not try to save money on parking.

While I waited for Sagar to pick me up, I grabbed an ice cream from Sweet Jesus, a shop I had noticed while walking from one theatre to another in the last few days, one which always had a queue outside. I was a bit hesitant as I was feeling quite cold, but I am a glutton for experiences.

I got a campfire Smores flavour and good lord did I not regret it. I shivered on the pavement and ate the most delicious ice cream I have ever eaten. It had a vanilla and chocolate twist soft serve with graham crackers, marshmallow, chocolate sauce and burnt marshmallow cream. Again, I didnt take a picture because I started eating it immediately. Anyone, coming to Canada must try something from Sweet Jesus.

Finally, we went to the industry booth to try and wrangle a ticket to the closing party and that was a big fail. Bumped into Anand Gandhi (Ship of Theseus) at the Centre and he said there was one more screening left of An Insignificant Man. He and his gang were debating where to eat when I bumped into them and so I packed them off to Pai, the Thai restaurant I absolutely loved. The director of An Insignificant Man, Khushboo Ranka, gave me a grateful nod as Anand was planning to take them for sandwiches! Good deed for the day, check.

This is my last post from here. The Toronto International Film Festival that showcased almost 400 movies, has reached its fag end and there are just a few more screenings left. The warm familiar faces have disappeared and the cold has descended. The weather predictions are its going to rain over the weekend. My prediction is Lion will win something at the end of the festival, as the muscle of the Weinstein brothers is backing it and several screenings have been added.

I am going to spend the weekend here before heading home on some touristy things like visiting museums and shopping. TIFF, thanks for a great time.
New Delhi: In a bid to roll out the crucial Goods and Services Tax (GST) from 1 April next year, the Modi government is considering to prepone the Winter session of Parliament to pass the CGST and IGST bills, and pave way for implementation of the new sales tax regime.

The Winter session of Parliament is generally convened in the third or fourth week of November. The government, however, is looking to start the session from first fortnight of

November, just after the festival season.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar is working overtime to repeat the success of the Monsoon session, according to sources.

However, they added that the final call is yet to be taken on the matter, but the work has been started for advancing the session.

The government is keen for early passage of the Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) bills, as it will give enough time to the Finance Ministry for implementation of the GST.

The two bills are supporting legislations to the Constitutional Amendment Bill approved in the Monsoon session of Parliament.

GST, being a constitutional amendment, required a ratification by 50 per cent of state Assemblies, which has been achieved.

Earlier this month, President Pranab Mukherjee had given his assent to the bill.

Last week, the Cabinet had also approved setting up a powerful GST Council, which will decide on the tax rate, exempted goods and the thresholds.

The CGST and IGST bills have been drafted on the basis of the model GST law. The states will draft their respective State GST (SGST) laws with minor variation incorporating state-based exemption. The IGST law would deal with inter-state movement of goods and services.
The Uri attack suspected to have been carried out by Pakistan-based terror outfit JeM on Sunday drew fierce condemnation across political spectrum with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing that those behind the "despicable and cowardly" act will not go unpunished while Congress termed it "deplorable and cowardly."

President Pranab Mukherjee condemned the terrorist attack in Uri saying that India will not be cowed down by such attacks. In an apparent reference to Pakistan, the President stated that Indian Security forces will thwart the evil designs of terrorists & their backers, while he also condoled the loss of life of the 17 jawans killed in the assault.

Strongly condemn outrageous terrorist attack on Army base in Uri; tributes to brave soldiers who made supreme sacrifice #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) September 18, 2016

Reacting to the attacks Jammu Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said that she condemns the attack which appear to be another attempt to destabilise the Valley, adding that it's always the people of the Valley who lose in the hostility between the two nations. The chief minister said that the attack was aimed at creating a war-like situation between India and Pakistan. She said those responsible for sponsoring and aiding violence must understand the futility of their exercise as it would yield nothing but misery for the people.

"The heightened tension in the wake of the Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid increasing India-Pakistan hostility," she warned.

"Strongly condemn UriAttack. Attack seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region, Mehbooba said as she expressed her condolences to bereaved families. "J&K has always been worst victim of Indo-Pak hostility & its ppl have been paying a colossal price for same for past over 6 decades," Mehbooba said.

Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh also slammed Pakistan over the terror attack and said the neighbouring country was working only on disturbing the state. Asked how terrorists could infiltrate India and carry out the attack, Singh said: "The border is long." The minister also blamed the "situation during monsoons". "It is a proxy war. A country that is Pakistan is focusing on how to disturb Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked tough after the terror strike on an army camp in Uri, promising that those behind the "despicable and cowardly" attack would not go unpunished.

Strongly denouncing the attack, the Prime Minister saluted the soldiers who were martyred and said their service to the nation will always be remembered.

"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi tweeted on the incident in which 17 soldiers were killed and 19 injured. "We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families," he said.

The sneak attack on Indian army bastion also evoked condemnation the US Ambassador to India Richard Verma reacted to the incident in a tweet.

We strongly condemn the terror attack in Uri, J&K. Our thoughts are with the families of the brave soldiers who lost their lives #UriAttack  Rich Verma (@USAmbIndia) September 18, 2016

Meanwhile amid reports that 13 out of the 17 soldiers who died at Uri were killed because of the fire in tents and temporary shelters, the Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and National Conference (NC) Chief Omar Abdullah drew attention to the lack of facilities soldiers deal with while manning our borders.

While we work out who is to blame for #Uri & what an appropriate response will be do we not owe our troops flame retardant tents & huts?  Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) September 18, 2016

Major political parties and leaders also strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Uri, with the Congress expressing hope that the perpetrators and "the forces behind them" will be severely dealt with. "Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian soldiers in the dastardly terrorist attack in Uri," a party statement said.

Terming the "cowardly" terror attack as a "deplorable affront on our national conscience", Gandhi expressed hope that "the perpetrators of this dastardly attack as also the forces behind them will be severely dealt with and brought to book." Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also condemned the attack.

Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) September 18, 2016

Former Home Minister P Chidambaram and senior Congress leader also asked the government to mobilise security forces to prevent infiltration of terrorists from across the border in the wake of terror attack in Uri.

In a statement, Chidambaram said it has become necessary to strengthen the border defence to prevent such terrorist attacks.

"Government must mobilise all resources, manpower and material, to strengthen border defence to prevent infiltration of terrorists," the senior Congress leader said. Chidambaram said he was shocked and distressed by terror attack in Uri and expressed his gratitude to the martyred soldiers.

The CPM Central Committee, now in session in Delhi, asked Pakistan to stop aiding and abetting extremist forces, while strongly condemning the attack.

Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters that Pakistan must refrain from indulging in cross border terrorism and demanded that the matter "should be taken up seriously."

In a statement, CPM said Pakistan must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces as such activities are a big impediment to the peace process in the region.

It also charged the government with failing to stop continued infiltration of militants despite deploying a large number of security personnel across the state.

Pointing out that it has been consistently maintaining that terrorism is not the solution to the Kashmir issue, it said "the CPM would like to reiterate that for a long-standing solution of the Kashmir problem, the political dialogue with all stakeholders as advocated by the all Party delegation should be initiated without any further delay.

However, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad blamed Prime Minister Modi for the attacks. Taking a dig at the Prime Minister, Lalu said his failure to tackle the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was responsible for the attack on an army camp near Uri. Taking a swipe at the Narendra Modi government, Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra questioned whether it is the "NDA government or NiNDA (condemnation) government. He was referring to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's statement in which he had condemned the attack

"Modi ki laparwahi aur nakaami se jawan marae ja rahein hain. Kahan gaya Modi ka 56-inch ka seena? (Soldiers are dying due to the failure and negligence of Modi; where is his 56-inch chest now?)," Lalu told the media.

AAP too lashed out at the BJP-led NDA government, terming it a "grave failure. Hitting out at the Centre over the Uri attack that left today 17 soldiers dead, the AAP said the assault was the result of "grave failure" of diplomacy and someone has to take responsibility for it. Taking a swipe at the Narendra Modi government, Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra questioned whether it is the "NDA government or NiNDA (condemnation) government. He was referring to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's statement in which he had condemned the attack.

Attacking the Defence Minister, AAP leader Ashutosh said when the attack took place, Manohar Parrikar was in Goa. "Same was the case when the Pathankot terror attack took place and Ordnance factory got gutted," he said.

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters in Bengaluru: "It is absolutely condemnable ... They can continuously keep threatening us with these activities, but India is strong enough to take care of its internal security and no such threat is going to deter us from restoring peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir."

Minister of State, PMO, Jitendra Singh also took a tough stance stating that there has been enough condemnation on India's part, not taking action against such provocations is also an act of terror. "I think that simply saying this as an act of cowardice does not suffice, because not responding would also be cowardice" Jitendra Singh said according to ANI.

Textile Minister Smriti Irani also took to twitter to condemn the attack and condole the loss of lives.

Pained by the mindless terror attack in Uri. I salute our brave soldiers for their supreme sacrifice & extend condolences to their families.  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) September 18, 2016

Meanwhile, talking tough, BJP leader Ram Madhav asserted that days of strategic restraint are over and suggested that "for one tooth, the complete jaw" should be the policy after the Uri terror attack. "The Prime Minister has promised that those behind the Uri terror attack will not go unpunished. That should be the way forward. For one tooth, the complete jaw," said Madhav, who is BJP's pointsman for Jammu and Kashmir. "The days of so-called strategic restraint are over. If terrorism is the instrument of the weak and coward, restraint in the face of repeated terror attacks betrays inefficiency and incompetence. India should prove otherwise," he said.

Hitting out at Pakistan over the Uri terror strike that left 17 soldiers dear, Union minister M Venkiah Naidu also said "our neighbour" as usual aiding, abetting, training and funding terrorists and India can't take it lying down and the country needs to be isolated. "We will have to respond and punish the perpetrators of Uri terrorist attack," the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister said.

BJP President Amit Shah said India has been fighting against terrorism for long and the fight is in its decisive stages. "Pakistan has been supporting terrorism and terrorist outfits to destabilise India. India has been fighting against terror and this fight is in the decisive stages now. The martyrdom of country's brave soldiers won't be allowed to go waste," Shah said in a statement. Condoling the death of the soldiers he added, "I am deeply pained at the news of the death of our 17 brave soldiers. I bow to their valour and the supreme sacrifice they made in difficult conditions."

In Ranchi, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das also condemned the terror strike and expressed deep grief at the loss of martrys. He expressed deep grief at the loss of martyrs, an official release said.

Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar also strongly condemned the terror attack. "The Chief Minister is deeply saddened by the martyrdom of 17 soldiers in a terror attack at headquarters of 12th Army Brigade near LOC in Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir," an official release said.

Condemning the attack, Kumar hailed the valour and dedication of the soldiers towards service to the nation by laying down their lives in the terror strike, the release said.

"The country will always remember the supreme sacrifice made by those soldiers attaining martyrdom in the Uri terror attack," it said.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, heavily armed militants stormed battalion headquarters of the force in Uri town in the wee hours on Sunday. Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.

With inputs from agencies
P Ramkumar, the prime accused in the murder of 24-year-old Infosys employee in Chennai, S Swathi, on Sunday committed suicide inside Puzhal jail by electrocuting himself.

Ramkumar reportedly bit a live wire that was concealed inside a switchboard and was declared brought dead when he was rushed to the hospital.

"He (Ramkumar) committed suicide and the body is now in Royapettah Government Hospital," a top police official told PTI.

On how he committed suicide in jail, the official said, "It is in the domain of prison authorities... it is said that he had bitten an electric wire in the jail dispensary and had died subsequently."

On 24 June, the murder of a young woman at Nungambakkam railway station amid thousands of horrified onlookers shook Chennai. The killer had approached Swathi from behind and hacked her to death with a sickle that he was carrying in his backpack. According to reports, the killer took only 10 minutes to murder Swathi and flee the spot unstopped.

On 2 July, the Chennai police arrested Ramkumar, a 22-year-old engineering graduate, in southern Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli district. He allegedly tried to slash his throat in order to escape arrest.

Reports claimed that Ramkumar was friends with Swathi on Facebook. The duo got in touch over the social media site and had exchanged numbers, following which the accused became obsessed with Swathi and started stalking her. Miffed over Swathi's rejection, the accused had planned to take her life.

Ramkumar had shifted to Chennai with the dreams of making it big in the film industry and had deliberately chosen to stay in Choolaimedu, as it was close to Swathi's place.
Seventeen soldiers and four militants were killed on Sunday during an attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town.

Militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army, 102 km from Srinagar, in the wee hours on Sunday, with explosions and heavy gunfire heard at the spot.

Colonel SD Goswami, spokesman of the army's Udhampur headquartered Northern Command, told IANS, "Four terrorists who had entered the rear base camp of an infantry battalion in Uri town were killed," adding "search operation was continuing inside the camp".

The fidayeen (suicide) militants had entered the camp around 5.30 am.

Immediately after the militants entered the camp, explosions and exchange of heavy fire were heard from inside, official sources said.

Initially, the attack was understood to be at the Brigade Headquarters but sources in the Army said it was at the rear formation of a battalion that was deployed at the Line of Control (LoC).

Helicopters were pressed into service to deploy Special Forces of the Army and to evacuate the injured, reports News18.

Seventeen soldiers were killed in the attack, while many injured were airlifted to an army hospital in Srinagar. Combing operations is now in progress.

"Terrorists attacked the rear base camp of an infantry battalion and not the headquarters of 12 Brigade in Uri today (Sunday) morning which is posted on the Line of Control (LoC)," the sources added.

In New Delhi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is reported to have cancelled his visit to Russia and the US. He has called for a high-level meeting on Sunday to discuss the situation is Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will visit Srinagar later on Sunday in wake of the attack. Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh will also visit Kashmir.

With inputs from agencies
Srinagar: Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours on Sunday, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

Explosions and gunfire erupted as the militants attacked the camp, which is located barely few metres away from the Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town, 102 kms from Srinagar, around 4 am, official sources said.

The jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due to the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks, the sources said.

17 jawans were killed in the terror attack, the Northern Command of the Army said.

Nineteen other personnel were injured in the strike in which four militants were killed.

"A group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, Kashmir. In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress," the Army said in a statement.

"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement said.

Helicopters from the Army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla have been pressed into service and the injured Army personnel have been evacuated from the encounter site, the sources said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the attack and said that "those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished."

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag are rushing to Kashmir in the wake of the terror attack in Uri.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has also called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the terror attack.

The attack comes two years after militants had carried out a similar type of attack at Mohra in the same area. Ten security personnel were killed in the attack that took place on 5 December, 2014.

It is believed that the attack was the handiwork of a freshly infiltrated group of militants who could have entered along the Salamabad Nallah into the town.

The Home Minister has postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States in the wake of the attack in Uri and the unrest in Jammu and Kashmir.

Singh also spoke to the Jammu and Kashmir Governor and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on the situation arising out of the terror strike in Uri.

The Home Minister was scheduled to leave for Russia on Sunday night for a four-day bilateral visit and later to the US on 26 September for a six-day tour to attend the Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US," he said in a statement.

The Home Minister said he has spoken to Governor N N Vohra and the Chief Minister and discussed with them the situation arising out of the attack on an Army Brigade Headquarters in Uri and both of them apprised him of the overall situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

"I have given instructions to Home Secretary (Rajiv Mehrishi) and other officers in the Home Ministry to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

The Home Minister also called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the attack on the Brigade Headquarters in Uri.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the Union Home Secretary, top Army, paramilitary and Home Ministry officials are attending it.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday refuted as "unfounded and premature" India's charge that it was behind the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri that killed 17 soldiers, with its army demanding "actionable intelligence" to support New Delhi's accusation.

Following the dawn attack, India blamed Pakistan for the latest attack on the Indian Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh directly attacked Pakistan saying it was a "terrorist state" and should be isolated. Pakistan army spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said that following the attack Director General of Military Operation (DGMO) of the two countries discussed the situation along the Line of Control through hotline.

"Refuting the unfounded and pre-mature Indian allegation, Pakistani DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence," Radio Pakistan reported citing an ISPR release. Bajwa reiterated that no infiltration was allowed from the Pakistani soil because of "water-tight arrangements" in place on both sides of LoC and the Working Boundary.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.
Expressing deep disappointment with Pakistans 'continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups', Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a series of tweets said, "Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such."

Rajnath Singh on Sunday reviewed the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir in the wake of the terror attack at an Army Brigade Headquarters in Uri in which 17 soldiers were killed.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar and other senior officials of Army and paramilitary forces briefed Rajnath on the prevailing situation in the state following the terror strike.

The Home Minister directed that security forces should mount an all-out offensive against terrorists operating in the Valley, sources said.

"There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped," Singh added.

Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

I have apprised the PM Shri @narendramodi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting held at my residence this afternoon  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Those who attended the meeting include chiefs of Intelligence Bureau, RA&W, Directors General of Military Operations and Military Intelligence.

The Home Minister has already postponed his visit to Russia and the US in the wake of the deadly terror attack in Uri and the continuing unrest in the Kashmir Valley for more than two months after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on 8 July.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured as heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in the wee hours on Sunday.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.

With inputs from PTI
Jammu: Anti-Pakistan protests rocked Jammu and Udhampur districts on Sunday against the killing of 17 jawans in a terror attack on an army base in Uri in Kashmir.

Condemning the loss of lives of 17 soldiers in the attack, the local Shiv Sena and Dogra Front workers here staged a protest during which they raised slogans against Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the neighbouring nation for "encouraging terror activities" in India.

Led by its President Ashok Gupta, the protesters gathered in large numbers and raised anti-Pakistan slogans and also burnt Pakistani flags during the protest.

Heavily armed militants suspected to be from Pakistan-based JeM stormed an army base in Uri in Kashmir killing 17 jawans, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to assert that those responsible "will not go unpunished".

Speaking to reporters, Gupta said, "We condemn it. We are angry over it. It is clear that 17 people have died. There is sorrow everywhere and (some people) are making fool out of India. There is shut down everywhere in Kashmir against India."

"Pakistan should be nailed. Time has come to teach them a lesson. Centre should act now," he said.

"If the people want to go Pakistan then open the border gates and whoever wants to go let them go there. No Pakistani should be seen in Jammu and Kashmir be it Hurriyat. I want to make it clear that now it's time for Modi to show his 56-inch chest," Gupta said.

The activists of Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers party (JKNPP) led by President Balwant Singh Mankotia on Sunday held a protest against Pakistan. They blocked National Highway at Slathia Chowk and torched the effigy of Pakistan for "sponsoring militancy in India territory and waging war against India" amid raising of anti-Pakistan slogans.

While addressing the gathering, Mankotia urged the Central government to take direct action against Pakistan for "repeatedly interfering in India territory and targeting army camps as well as civilians" for the last more than thirty years.

Mankotia demanded that militants' training camp running in PoK should be destroyed without further delay so that the "Pakistan-sponsored militancy can be rooted out from Indian soil".

He claimed that the root cause of infiltration in Indian territory are training camps running in PoK in which the militants are trained by Pakistan and sent to India territory for the disturbance.

"If these camps are destroyed, the infiltration will be controlled automatically. Centre should take a call on it," he said.

A large number of Shiv Sena workers also held protests at a function in Bari Brahamana area here against Pakistan.

State President Dimpy Kohli condemned the attack and said that the condition of the whole state, particularly Kashmir Valley was becoming "worse" with each passing day and Central Government was "sitting as a mute spectator" to all this.

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Jammu Mahanagar held a protest at the Central University of Jammu.

The activists of ABVP burnt an effigy of Sharif and raised Slogans like "Pakistan Murdabaad", "Indian Army Zindabaad" and "Bharat Mata Ki Jai".

Speaking to the media persons, Rajinder Kumar, President Central University of Jammu, demanded stern action against those responsible for the terror attack.
As provocations go, this is as big as it can get. The attack on the infantry battalion at Uri in Baramulla district, which claimed lives of 17 soldiers, stands out for its brazenness and in-your-face quality. Yes, we have done it. We will do it again, and again. What can you do? This, clearly, is the question and statement as well, from the perpetrators to the Indian authorities. Now, its for the government to respond. If the response is not adequate and proportionate to the damage caused, then it could end up with egg on its face.

While it is being called a terror attack, it almost looks like an act of war. Blaming non-state actors backed by the Pakistani establishment wont suffice anymore. Producing a bulk of literature to indicate Pakistans direct or indirect involvement in the attack wont help either. We have been through this drill before. It has taken us nowhere. It is also obvious that the aggressive posturing of the government towards the country, at least in words, has not changed the ground realities a bit. According to media reports, infiltrations bids have increased  90 till June end this year compared to 29 the corresponding period last year and attacks on security personnel have been more audacious.

The strategy to shame Pakistan before the global community for its support to terrorist groups has its limitations. This is for the simple reason that the global community may not have the same eagerness as earlier in intervening in conflicts in this region. Most countries are caught in their own domestic problems, particularly on the economy front, and are not likely to go beyond lip service. The countries that actually matter  China and the US  have vested interests, geopolitical and economic, in Pakistan and are fully aware of its character. So, by raising Balochistan or human rights violations in PoK repeatedly in international fora, India would not be winning too many tactical points.

After the Uri provocation, the government needs to go beyond the routine response. If it does not, it would end up looking miserable  the mismatch between its rhetoric and reality would come across stark. So whats the response going to be? The war option may look impressive to the governments captive, hungry-for-macho-action audience but its never an easy one. Hot-pursuit could be a consideration. Whatever it is, the response has to be tough, tactically sound and finally, effective. Before the government and security think tanks confabulate on it, heres a piece of advice.

Follow a course of action, by all means, choose your time to strike if strike you must, but dont let media jingoism guide or cloud your line of thinking. The hankering for muscular action and irrational rant on Kashmir appears to have hurt the country badly. By bracketing the Valley with Pakistan persistently and virtually running a hate campaign against the Kashmiri agitationists, a section of the media might actually have brought both into a closer embrace than earlier. It didnt help that this view was endorsed directly or indirectly by a section within the ruling establishment. That the Kashmir situation threatens to go from bad to worse to unmanageable  the direct result of the sense of alienation created by these forces  is difficult to dispute.

To handle the matter, the government requires a policy more than rhetoric. And every policy requires a sense of discretion. Those involved must display it by keeping the bunch of chest-thumping patriots out of the scene. Foreign policy and neighbourhood diplomacy are serious matters. The government must realise this.
Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday cut short his Goa visit and rushed to New Delhi following a terror attack in Uri town of Kashmir in which 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured.

"Parrikar has rushed to Delhi to oversee the situation after the terror attack. He has cancelled all his Goa appointments scheduled for today," BJP Goa chief Vinay Tendulkar told reporters in Panaji.

The Defence Minister was supposed to chair a meeting of BJP Mahila Morcha this morning followed by another meeting of Yuva morcha in the evening, which are being held in the run-up to state Assembly polls due next year.

Later, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar chaired the Mahila Morcha meeting.

Parsekar condemned the terror attack and said the government should be more "offensive" in such incidents.

"The incident is most unfortunate. It should not have happened. I condemn it," the chief minister said on the sidelines of a function organised by the Mahila Morcha in Panaji.

"Government of India needs to be little more offensive towards such incidents. The Centre should ensure that adequate measures are adopted to avoid such incidents in future," he said.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours on Sunday, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.
The visual image of the rusted razor that sliced through my clitoris and the memory of the excruciating pain that ensued continues to traumatise me. How can the act of surreptitiously luring a six-year-old child into removing her innerwear and then cutting off the most intimate part of her body be justified? asks a Bohra woman from India as she recounts how Female Genital Cutting (FGC) or khatna was performed on her, without an anesthetic or her consent.

Many such voices of dissent come to fore as Bohra women, men and the many activists refuse to settle for the inconsistencies in the cultural and religious narratives passed down to them over generations. They are asking profound questions, persistently seeking dialogues, challenging patriarchal power structures, taking control of their bodies and most importantly creating counter narratives about 'khatna', thus empowering the community.

What is FGM?

FGC or Female Genital Mutilation refers to all non-therapeutic procedures that involve the total or partial removal of the external female genitalia. According to UNICEF at least 200 million females today have undergone FGM. After UN General Assembly voted to work for the elimination of FGM by 2030, 23 countries in Africa have banned the practice. Just a few months ago, in a landmark case in the history of Bohras, a Bohra priest in Australia was sentenced to 11months of Jail time for conducting FGM on 2girls thus perpetuating the practice in the community. No law against it exists in India.

WHO classifies Female Genital Mutilation into four major types: 1.Clitoridectomy (partial or total removal of the clitoris), 2.Excision (partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora), 3.Infibulation (narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal), and 4.other forms (pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterising the genital area).

FGC in India

In India 'khatna' is practiced in the Dawoodi Bohra, a sub-sect of the Shia Muslim community from Gujarat that originally migrated from Yemen. Most Bohras practice the FGM Type1 in which the prepuce (tip of the clitoris) is removed though at times the cut gets deeper when the child resists. The procedure is performed by mullanis (women who have a semi-religious standing), by daimas (midwives) and sometimes by doctors when the girl is between 6-9 years old.

Bohras believe that 'khatna is not same as Female Genital Mutilation as they cut the tip of the clitoris (Type1) and therefore similar to male circumcision. Contrary to that belief, research tells us that even Type1 of FGM is anatomically equivalent to penectomy (surgical removal of the penis). The religious clergy claims that FGC is a ritualistic practice that comes from 10th century book of jurisprudence called Daim-al-islam (though there is no mention of it in the Quran). The justification that it is done for hygiene reasons is also untrue as no medical study validates the claim.

Most members of the community will agree that 'khatna' is done to restrain a womans sexual urge so that she wont indulge in so called sexually deviant behaviors; such as masturbation, flirtation, pre-marital or extra marital affairs. In certain countries where FGM is mandated, an uncircumcised woman may even be seen impure, unhygienic, promiscuous, incomplete and thus unacceptable in the community. Tasleem, an activist working to end FGM, narrates an incident to substantiate the patriarchal views of certain community members. A female doctor asked a parent who was reluctant to get FGM done "Do you want your daughter to have multiple lovers?.

Mumbai-based journalist, Aarefa Johari, who has been speaking out against FGC asserts, How can any religious, ethical or moral defense be made for preserving a cultural practice that potentially damages a womans health, alters her anatomy and interferes with her sexuality? and rightly so.

FGC can be a traumatic experience for a child (6-7 years old) who is developing her world view; leading to physical complications, psychological trauma, sexual ill-health. It is likely that many women anxiety, fear of infertility, low self-esteem and the physical manifestations of these include sleeplessness, hyper vigilance generations, loss of appetite, panic attacks, intractable dysmenorrhea et al.

However, there are women who still believe FGC must continue for religious reasons. It seems that they find reasons to approbate the practice, a subconscious effort needed for psychological adjustment.

Tasleem explains how the practice is perpetuated, In many cases, the grandmother forces it down the throat. When parents of the girl child live in a joint family, with a family trade, it is impossible to disobey the elders. Friends congratulate the victims grandmother for the successful completion of 'khatna' without understanding the misogynistic nature of the practice. Many girls that go through type 4 FGM  which is just a ritualistic poke arent aware of the thousands who went through barbaric pain, suffered years of menstrual pain and sexual discomfort. And they feel that even after 'circumcision' if they have such a strong libido, they'd have become nymphomaniacs without it.

Socio-cultural influences have the potential to change the perception of pleasure as 'khatna' refutes the fundamental right of every woman to have healthy sex life which is also essential for psychophysical well-being of the person. In contrast male circumcision doesnt affect mans sexual pleasure, or the sex organ.

In the last few years some people have been arguing that FGC enhances sexual pleasure for women as it exposes the clitoris by cutting off the hood, thus equating 'khatna' to clitoral un-hooding, a surgical procedure that is becoming famous in the West. However, it is unfair to compare the two considering the surgery is chosen by adult women to enhance sexual pleasure only if they happen to have excessive prepuce tissue that interferes with orgasm.

For many years, the angst and trauma the Bohra woman experienced was possibly in conflict with the desire to gain parental and societal acceptance and fear of being ostracised. However today, the female agency is much stronger and they refuse to keep silent.

The many debates and the activism

In the past FGC was hardly a matter of public discourse, in fact lot of men in the community wouldnt know about it till they got married. Gynecologists, urologists, and sexologists dont necessarily know enough about FGM/C and might find it hard to understand the complex interplay of customs and traditions, female agency and the role they play in a womans sexual experience. But things are changing now.

Way back in 1991, Rehana Ghadially a retired professor wrote about FGM in India for the first time breaking the silence around the custom in a paper titled All for Izzat. A decade later Tasleem (quoted above) initiated an online petition addressing the then Syedna (religious leader) to ban FGC among the Bohra Muslim community arguing that it reinforced the stereotype that Islam doesnt give equal rights to women.

More recently, Sahiyo, an NGO advocating against FGM is engaging in education, dialogue and collaboration giving the movement the impetus it needs. Their photo campaign publicised on social media, Im a Bohra, gave voice and a face to those who support the banning of FGM. Speak Out on FGM, another collective launched a signature petition on change.org (garnering 50,000 votes) asking for the government of India to ban FGM.

However, the community was deeply disappointed when Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, the spiritual head of Bohras categorically said that 'khatna' should be continued even if there is opposition to it. It must be done. If it is a man, it can be done openly and if it is a woman it must be discreet. But the act must be done.

The activists hope that this is only a small setback and the many voices of dissent will eventually drive change.

Tasleem asserts, The clergy plays a very important part in how a religion evolves. Such reactionary thinking does no one any good. By changing his stance he will get a chance to save millions of girls from a wicked, patriarchal practice, and to be seen as a truly evolved spiritual guide.

As the activists advocate to legally ban the practice, they understand that a radical culture change from the ground up is imperative, one that promotes zero tolerance to any and all forms of excision. Like most other forms of gender-based violence, only if the social constructs of masculinity and power that justify acts of controlling a womans body and sexuality are broken will FGM end.

To read more of the writer's journalism, log on to www.sindhusarathy.com
New Delhi: BJP will launch four 'parivartan yatras' next month in Uttar Pradesh and it will stretch over 100 days and conclude with a likely rally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the party works to take on the might of ruling SP and Mayawati-led BSP in the poll-bound state.

Party sources said the four yatras will start from Saharanpur, Lalitpur, Sonbhadra and either Gorakhpur or Balia and converge at one place, which could be Lucknow, after the inauspicious 'shradh' period ends.

Top party leaders, including president Amit Shah and several Union ministers, will be addressing public meetings as the yatras move on.

Giving details of the campaign, they said the party has decided to hold a youth and woman meeting in each of the 91 districts of the state.

It hopes to connect with each of the estimated 52,000 panchayats in the state and also hold a meeting at the booth level.

Faced with tough competition from SP and BSP, both of which also led by formidable personalities, BJP is banking on its organisational machinery and its central leadership's might as the party is unlikely to name a chief ministerial face like its rivals.

"Our developmental agenda, the good work of the Modi government and the mal-governance of SP and the previous Mayawati dispensation are at the centre of our campaign. So far the prevailing view is that we won't have a chief ministerial face," a party leader said.

With a strong section of Dalits strongly behind Mayawati and numerically strong Yadavs and a large chunk of Muslims supporting SP, BJP is working to make a social coalition of upper castes and other backward castes to pull off a victory in a state where it has been out of power for over 14 years.
Srinagar: In a set back to the ruling PDP, party leader Nisar Ahmad Mandoo on Sunday resigned from the party saying he cannot side with "bloodbath" of Kashmiris, the second prominent leader to resign in the wake of the ongoing unrest in Kashmir.

"I am resigning from the basic membership of the PDP as I cannot side with the bloodbath of Kashmiris," Mandoo, who was senior vice president of the party's Srinagar unit, told reporters in Srinagar.

Mandoo also cited "anti-people" policies of BJP-PDP coalition in the state as a reason for his resignation. "I have been associated with PDP for the past 16 years. The party was formed to protect the lives and political dignity of people but today the party has deviated from these principles," he said.

Mandoo is the second prominent leader of the ruling party to resign in the wake of the ongoing unrest in Kashmir that has left 81 persons dead and thousands of others injured. Tariq Hameed Karra, founding member of the PDP and Lok Sabha member from Srinagar constituency, resigned from the party as well as the Parliament seat on 15 September over civilians' killings.
Thiruvananthapuram: The BJP on Sunday alleged some 400 cases of assault on its activists in Kerala since the Left took power and demanded a probe either by the CBI or a high court judge.

"Ever since the Pinarayi Vijayan government assumed office four months ago, 400 cases of assault against our cadres by CPM supporters have taken place," BJP General Secretary Bhupendra Yadav said.

"We demand a probe either by the Central Bureau of Investigation or by a high court judge since justice from the state government is impossible," the MP said.

Yadav led a delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders who visited Kannur and other areas in Kerala for two days.

The team included Meenakshi Lekhi, NK Hegde and Nalinkumar Katteel as well as H Raja, the party secretary in charge of Kerala.

Yadav claimed that violence against BJP cadres had happened in the Chief Minister's village as well.

The team members on Sunday called on Kerala Governor P Sathasivam and Home Secretary Nalini Netto and submitted an account of what it said was violence unleashed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist cadres.

"Three of our councillors have been killed in road accidents, 200 houses of our party members have been attacked... We do not expect to get justice under Vijayan," said Lekhi.

Lekhi gave a clean chit to BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh cadres for violence in Kannur.

Kerala Industries Minister E.P. Jayarajan told reporters in New Delhi that the BJP team's visit to the state was meant to please the RSS leaders and there was nothing else to it.
Srinagar: In the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir, heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours on Sunday, killing 17 jawans and injuring 20 other personnel.

Here is a timeline of the major attacks that have taken place in Jammu and Kashmir since 1999 till date.

3 November, 1999: Ten army personnel killed in fidayeen attack on 15 Corps Headquarters at Srinagar's Badami Bagh.

14 May, 2002: 36 persons are killed and 48 others injured in a fidayeen attack on an army cantonment in Kaluchak, Jammu. Most of the killed were family members.

22 July, 2003: A three-member team storms an army camp killing eight security force personnel, including a Brigadier, and injuring 12 others in Akhnoor.

6 April, 2005: A day before the bus from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir is to be flagged off, two suicide squad terrorists attack the Tourist Reception Centre

5 October, 2006: Terrorists attack at Budshah Chowk, in heart of Srinagar, killing five JKP personnel, two CRPF soldiers and one civilian.

31 March, 2013: Attack on CRPF camp in Srinagar kills five.

24 June, 2013: Eight soldiers killed in attack on military convoy at Hyderpora, Srinagar.

26 September, 2013: At least 13 killed in twin suicide attacks Jammu and Kashmir. A total of 10 people, apart from three militants, were killed during the attacks. The dead include four policemen and two civilians in Kathua District and four Army personnel, including Lieutenant Colonel Bikramjeet Singh in Samba District.

27 November, 2014: 10 persons, including four civilians, three Army soldiers and three militants were killed in day-long encounter at border village of Kathaar in Arnia sector, close to the International Border, of Jammu District.

5 December, 2014: A group of heavily armed militants stormed into an Army's 31 Field Regiment Ordinance Camp located at Mohra in Uri Sector of Baramulla District near the LoC.

One Lieutenant Colonel and seven soldiers of the Army, one ASI and two constables of Jammu and Kashmir Police were killed. Six militants were also killed in the operation.

20 March, 2015: A fidayeen squad of militants in Army fatigues stormed a Police Station in Kathua District killing seven persons, including three SF personnel, two civilian and two militants while 12 persons, including eight CRPF personnel, three Policemen and a civilian were also injured in the incident.

21 March, 2015: Two terrorists were killed during a fidayeen attack at the Army camp on Jammu-Pathankot National Highway in Samba District. Three persons including one civilian, a Major and an Army jawan were also injured during the attack.

31 May, 2015: Army foils attack on its Brigade headquarters in Tanghdar sector of Kupwara District by killing four members of six heavily armed militants.

18 November, 2015: A Colonel with the Army's elite Para Commando unit was killed in an encounter with militants in the forests of Kupwara.

25 November, 2015: Three JeM militants and a generator operator of MES were killed when a group of militants attacked an Army camp near LoC at Tanghdar in North Kashmir's Kupwara District.

7 December, 2015: Six CRPF personnel were injured when militants opened firing on their convoy near Green Tunnel at Samthan in Bijbehara in South Kashmir's Anantnag District.

21 February, 2016: Three army commandos, including two Captains and a militant, were killed in a fierce gunfight with a group of terrorists holed up inside a government building on the outskirts of Srinagar, raising the toll to seven in the encounter that began a day earlier.

25 June, 2016: Eight CRPF personnel were killed and 20 others injured when militants attacked their convoy at Frestbal near Pampore in Srinagar on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway.
4 US police officers shot in separate incidents

2016-09-18 09:45

A Fort Worth Police SWAT member works in the Wedgwood neighborhood of Fort Worth, Texas, USA, September 16, 2016. [Photo/IC]

WASHINGTON - Four US police officers and four civilians were shot on Friday night in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Fort Worth, Texas, authorities said.

In Philadelphia, sergeant Sylvia Young, 19, was ambushed late Friday night and shot a number of times in her left arm and protective vest, said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross.

The suspect later wounded Ed Miller, a former police officer who is now a member of the security force at the University of Pennsylvania, Ross said.

During the police chase, a woman was killed and three other civilians were injured by the suspect, before he was cornered in an alley and fatally shot by the police.

Young and Miller were rushed to hospital and were in stable condition early Saturday, Ross said.

In another incident in Fort Worth, two police officers were responding to a suicide call at a house Friday night.

When they entered the house, a suspect inside the backyard shed began shooting, local media reported.

One officer was shot several times and in critical condition, while the suspect was later found dead by the police.
There is a reason why some news reports and section of people believe that Akhilesh Yadav is just a token chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. There is another reason why many believe that true power rests in the hands of his father Mulayam Singh Yadav.

And even though Mulayam has shown people the reason for this strange power equation in the state many times in the past, he was perhaps trying to show who is boss yet again on Saturday when he said that his brother Shivpal Yadav had warned him against making Akhilesh the CM after the 2012 polls.

He also hinted that Shivpal was probably right and it was because Akhilesh was the CM in 2014 that the Samajwadi Party performed poorly in the Lok Sabha polls. "The defeat in the Lok Sabha polls was proof of this. Who was the chief minister when we lost in 2014  getting just five seats? Can you even imagine how humiliated I felt? At one time, when I was the chief minister, we got 27 seats. At another instance, our Lok Sabha tally was 39. But how many seats did we get in 2014? Five seats  just five! We were ruined, Hindustan Times quoted Mulayam as saying.

"If Akhilesh is unhappy with Shivpal because of this (appointment of the latter as the SP state chief), he should remember that people have accepted him as CM because he is my son. He never had any individual standing in politics," The Times of India further quoted Mulayam as saying.

Mulayam has almost never been easy on Akhilesh. Of course, there are rumours that the SP supremo's words against his son were not genuine as they were only meant to placate Shivpal.

But even if some of Mulayam's outbursts against his son were not genuine, one cannot ignore the alarmingly high rate of frequency of all the outbursts. In fact, Mulayam has lashed out at Akhilesh so many times that it almost makes it look like he is the CM's political opponent.

On 15 August, when the ties between Akhilesh and Shivpal had started turning sour over the merger with Mukhtar Ansari's party, QED, Mulayam had made it clear that he was siding with Shivpal and had even warned Akhilesh. "He (Shivpal) is the only one one who listens to me and even he wants to resign, why are they insulting him? If I stand up, this government (UP state government) will feel the heat," an NDTV report had quoted Mulayam as saying.

In December, Mulayam had expelled two of Akhilesh's closest friends, Sunil Singh and Anand Bhadoriya, from the SP, accusing them of anti-party activities. They were, however, reinstated into the party after Shivpal played a role in smoothing over the tension between Mulayam and Akhilesh.

In August last year, Mulayam had admonished his son and others in the government for poor performance and complacency towards preparation for oncoming electoral battles.

The occasion was a huge public meeting in Lucknow to pay homage to veteran socialist leader, the late Janeshwar Mishra, often called as Chhote Lohia (Junior Lohia) by his followers.

Much to the amusement of the gathering and chagrin of the Chief Minister, Mulayam had even snubbed Akhilesh when he found that he was talking to someone else during Mulayam's speech.

Mulayam had not only rebuked Akhilesh for not paying enough attention to what he had been saying, but had remarked repeatedly that ministers, legislators and party workers were losing the plot.

The SP president had also said that he had information about senior leaders and ministers busy in their own work, and that they were not going out among the people. The seniors, he had said, must go out of their "air-conditioned comfort and meet the people. Otherwise, the party was certain to face defeat in the coming 2017 Assembly elections, he had cautioned.

He had also taken a dig at Akhilesh's penchant for shooting off letters to the Centre on various issues. "It is not enough to write letters and then sit back. One has to pursue the matters with the Centre. Things get done only with a lot of efforts, Mulayam had said.

In 2014, a former bureaucrat had observed, "Democracy appears to have been converted into a family affair and the chief minister does not seem to be having a free hand in running his own government."

Mulayam had also warned Akhilesh in October 2013 that the party will face "serious consequences" if its leaders did not mend their ways. "The government has made some mistakes. I keep warning them to mend their ways in time before the elections... I would request you (voters) not to judge the party by the government's mistakes," Daily Mail had quoted him as saying.

He had even said in June 2013 that had he been in Akhilesh's place, he would have changed the perception of poor law and order in the state in 15 days. "Had I been in place of Akhilesh, I would have ensured change (in perception) on law and order front in 15 days," Free Press Journal had quoted himas saying.

Even though Akhilesh has shrugged off the matter of Mulayam's constant nagging as harmless scolding by a father, it will be interesting to see if and how he reacts to Mulayam's latest jibe at a time when the SP is facing a massive internal feud.

With inputs from agencies
Porlamar: Hitting out at Pakistan, India on Sunday said "one country" in its neighbourhood scuttled its proposal of setting up a working group on counter-terrorism within the NAM even as the final draft declaration of the bloc's summit strongly condemned terrorism and vowed to combat the scourge. The final draft declaration of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement summit at Porlamar in Venezuela also strongly pitched for decisive and coordinated action to prevent and combat the financing and illicit transfer of weapons.

The NAM Summit draft declaration reiterated that terrorism constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. Hence, the 120 NAM countries reaffirmed their firm

condemnation of terrorist acts in all forms and manifestations, whatever their motivations, whenever and by whomsoever they are committed.

"They further condemned the destruction of cultural heritage and religious sites, as well as the commission of crimes against humanity by terrorist groups, among others, on the basis of their religion or beliefs," the draft that will be adopted as the 'Margarita Declaration' said. "The way the NAM works is on consensus so we have to have consensus among all countries but that said we have been able to get references to terrorism (put in the declaration) which are purely and largely language suggested by India," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin, who is in this city of Margarita Island to take part in the deliberations of NAM, told reporters at a briefing.

Asked about the working group on terrorism within NAM that India had proposed, Akbaruddin, without naming Pakistan, said there was "one country in our neighbourhood who did not allow consensus to be reached on this matter".

However, he said this was an issue Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has now put further on the agenda, saying that he will in his presidency outline this as one of his priorities. "At this stage that (working group) is not reflected (in the draft declaration) as it could not gain consensus despite having support of the overwhelming majority but NAM rules provide for certain ways in arriving at decisions and it is regrettable that it did not happen because of issues you are well aware of," he told reporters.

According to the draft declaration, the NAM countries recognised the threat posed nowadays by this "despicable scourge", particularly the activities carried out by terrorist groups such the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and its affiliated entities, Jabhat Al Nusra, Boko Haram and Al Shabbaab, and other entities designated by the UN.

Earlier, sources had said that Pakistani representative Tasneem Aslam alone spoke against the working group proposal and opposed the consensus that had built around the proposal which had the support of a large number of NAM delegations. "Despite being isolated, Pakistan continued with its objections to stall the proposal emphasising that there could not be a consensus on terrorism," the sources said.

The draft declaration also noted that the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters and the spread of violent extremism can be conductive to terrorism, making it necessary for states to prevent and combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including its financing and the illicit transfer of weapons, in a decisive and coordinated manner, with strict adherence to the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as other obligations under international law.

In this regard, the NAM countries also considered that the adoption of a future Comprehensive Convention for Combating International Terrorism could complement the set of existing international legal instruments, including the implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. In addition, they reaffirmed that terrorism and violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilisation or ethnic group, and that these attributions should not be used to justify terrorism or Contreras measures that include, inter alia, profiling of terror suspects and intrusion on individual privacy.

Significantly, Vice President Hamid Ansari, also made a strong anti-terror pitch at the NAM Summit in Porlamar. Ansari, who is leading the Indian delegation at the NAM Summit in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said terrorism is one of the "most egregious sources of human right violations today" and its use as an instrument of state policy is to be unequivocally condemned.

The time has come "for our movement to recognise the need for concrete action in the fight against terrorism", Ansari said while addressing the plenary meeting of the bloc. "We need to establish a mechanism within our movement that will ensure effective cooperation in combating terrorism, that is the main threat to security, sovereignty and development," he said.

Akbaruddin, in the briefing, pointed out that even President Maduro in his opening statement acknowledged the need for combating terror. He said another area of interest to be reflected in the

draft declaration was the reform in the UN. "This reform is (not only) reform of the various structures of the UN but also (of) its working methods and all. Again there is some language which reflects that the UN should reform itself as well as the Security Council should reflect the realities of today because many of us think it is not reflective of the global realities at present today," Akbaruddin said.

A third issue to be reflected in the draft, he said was sustainable development that follows from the Sustainable Development Goals that were adopted last year. "Our idea was to highlight terrorism as a growing and important challenge to the whole world and NAM countries because most of the victims of terrorism are members of NAM countries and NAM is usually been associated with trying to address new challenges," Akbaruddin said.

"Therefore we felt that it will be useful to have a platform where NAM members can coordinate and cooperate and take this forward in terms of what is a major threat to all of us and therefore our suggestion was to have a platform, that platform could perhaps be a working group," he said.

"We did suggest this and we must say that we were extremely satisfied with the sort of response we got because there were countries from not only Asia  all our neighbouring countries bar a few exceptions  were in full support who spoke out. Several African countries spoke out saying that they see this as a major threat and the suggestion was very good. Latin American countries also did speak out," Akbaruddin said.

In fact this was the theme on which largest number of countries supported and articulated their views that they would want this as a suggestion to be reflected, he added.
New York: Hillary Clinton's secret weapon could be Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders who are both wildly popular with young voters. Clintons once-commanding lead among millennials has nearly collapsed, several polls show, a factor making the presidential race much closer in recent weeks, forcing the Clinton campaign to bring out Democrat party stars Michelle Obama and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

The Clinton campaign is hoping the first lady can reignite the diverse coalition of voters that propelled President Barack Obama to office by turning out in record numbers  but have been distinctly less enthusiastic about Clinton.

Michelle Obama warned young voters against being tired or turned off in the 2016 election. She urged them to rally behind Clinton, particularly given the alternative. Her campaign trail debut underlines how other Democrats can whip up the base for flagging Clinton. The first lady's real value is her wild popularity with young people and African Americans.

Elections arent just about who votes, but who doesnt vote, Michelle Obama told a crowd of students at George Mason University during her debut as an energetic surrogate for Hillary Clinton.

And that is especially true for young people like all of you.

She sparked a level of enthusiasm among the crowd that Clinton doesn't always manage, even when she rattled off dry stats about President Obamas margin of error in swing states in his re-election and how he would have lost several of them if young voters stayed home.

Loved for her forthright style, the first lady directly confronted the lackluster enthusiasm for Clinton among young people. When I hear folks saying they dont feel inspired in this election, let me tell you: I disagree. I am inspired. For eight years, I have had the privilege to see what it actually takes to do this job.

"We have an opportunity to elect one of the most qualified people who ever endeavored to become president.

Michelle Obama dismissed Republican nominee Donald Trump as unstable and intolerant, and cautioned the 3,000 or so students assembled that they will put her husbands legacy at risk if they stay home on election day.

The Democrats were lifted by the super surge in younger voters who turned out in 2008 to vote for Barack Obama. Their turnout dropped off a bit in 2012, but it was still historically higher than usual.

With about fifty days to go before Election Day, Clinton must ignite the quiet devotion of young supporters to help her fire up more young voters.

We exist! And we are enthusiastic! said Radhika Mathur, 25, a PhD student at Harvard who has been on the ready for Hillary team since 2013.

Meanwhile, Trump's weakness among younger voters is unprecedented, lower even than the 32 percent of the vote that the Gallup Organization calculates Richard Nixon received among 18-to-29-year-old voters in 1972, an era of massive youth protests against the Vietnam War. Trump has made no headway in attracting disaffected Bernie supporters.

"The stark truth is starting to appear in several polls: The latest New York Times/CBS News poll showed that a whopping 36 percent of voters under 30 planned to vote for a third-party candidate such as Gary Johnson or Jill Stein," reported CNBC.

"The implications are very different for Trump and Clinton. For Trump, the lack of support from young people simply signals a missed opportunity. For Clinton, not getting their support or seeing a significant portion of it migrate to Johnson or Stein in crucial states like Michigan and Pennsylvania could be a death blow," it reported.

The message from the polls and the importance of channeling youth power hasn't been lost on the Clinton campaign. It dispatched Bernie Sanders to Ohio where Trump is now edging out Clinton according to multiple polls. According to the latest four-way poll from Real Clear Politics, Trump leads with 42.5 percent of Ohio voters. Clinton is just behind with 40.8 percent. The Libertarian and Green Party candidates each have less than 10 percent of the vote.

Sanders got a warm reception from students at the University of Akron, in Ohio while campaigning on behalf of Clinton. He said voters in Ohio need to stop Trump. He touched on issues like rebuilding infrastructure, stopping billionaires from what he calls buying elections, closing the gender wage gap and raising the minimum wage.

After the University of Akron, Sanders also stopped at Kent State University. Also appearing in Northeast Ohio in support of Clinton is US Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren. Shell be in Cleveland on Sunday morning.
Porlamar: Making a strong anti-terror pitch at the NAM Summit here, India on Sunday asserted that "concrete action" was needed in the fight against terrorism and asked the 120-nation group to set up a mechanism to ensure effective cooperation in combating the menace.

Vice-President Hamid Ansari, who is leading the Indian delegation at the 17th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said terrorism is one of the "most egregious sources of human right violations today" and its use as an instrument of state policy is to be unequivocally condemned.

The time has come "for our movement to recognise the need for concrete action in the fight against terrorism", Ansari said while addressing the plenary meeting of the bloc.

"We need to establish a mechanism within our movement that will ensure effective cooperation in combating terrorism, that is the main threat to security, sovereignty and development," he said.

Ansari's remarks came against the backdrop of India raising its concerns at various international fora over Pakistan's support to cross-border terrorism. Prime Minister Modi had made clear references to Pakistan's support to terrorism without naming it at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, at a BRICS meeting in Hangzhou and at the ASEAN and East Asia summits in Lao PDR.

Describing terrorism as the "biggest threat" to international peace and to the sovereignty of states, Ansari asserted that no cause justifies the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians as a means to achieve a political goal or change of policies.

He stated that terrorism has become a major impediment to development.

"It is therefore imperative for the Non-Aligned Movement to galvanise the international community to strengthen the international legal framework to address this menace, including by adopting the draft Comprehensive UN Convention on Terrorism, to ensure the closest cooperation amongst the international community to counter the scourge of terror," he said.

"We must also ensure that all existing structures that are the building blocks of UN's Global Counter Terrorism Strategy function in a non-partisan and professional manner," Ansari said.

Earlier, during NAM's Foreign Ministers' meeting, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar had also called on NAM to set up a "working group on terrorism" to safeguard world peace, stability and prosperity.

"Governments which think they can pay lip service to sanity at a NAM summit, and continue to arm, shelter and exploit terrorists in a war by other means, when they return home will learn that you cannot sip on poison and hope to live," Akbar had said in an apparent reference to Pakistan. Ansari, in his address, also strongly flagged the issue of UN reforms.

"Today we need to ask whether an organisation designed in 1945 with just 51 member states, is really appropriate to serve the needs of an international community that now comprises 193 independent sovereign states facing 21st century challenges to their citizens' well-being and security," he said.

World leaders at their Summit at the UN in 2005 had called for urgent reform of the Security Council as part of the effort to make the United Nations fit for the 21st century. The Inter-governmental Negotiations process currently underway in the UN General Assembly seeks to fulfil that mandate.

"We must use the forthcoming 71st UNGA to ensure that our discussions in the IGN move forward," Ansari said.

Noting that the global landscape has changed since 1961, when NAM was formed, Ansari stressed that the values and principles on which the foundations of the movement, namely "respect for sovereignty", "peaceful settlement of disputes" and "international cooperation"  are as relevant today as they were at the time of the first summit.

"Our theme for the next three years  Peace, Sovereignty and Solidarity for Development  is in congruence with our founding principles," he said.

Sustainable Development Goals in the Agenda 2030 which, if implemented successfully, will transform the lives of all citizens, the Vice-President said.

He said it would be a reaffirmation of the commitment as a movement to ensure the dignity and development of all humankind.

Noting that NAM has stood steadfastly in the forefront by highlighting global economic issues that affect the developing world, he said the member states must ensure wholehearted and holistic implementation of the SDGs and remain attentive to any effort to modify or distort Agenda 2030 by laying overemphasis on particular SDGs over others, or by trying to create a standard of measurement that could be intrusive and has no relationship to national contexts.

Describing sustainable development as the bedrock and the highest aspiration of NAM countries' efforts, Ansari emphasised on the importance of solidarity that the movement attaches to achieving it.

Ansari asserted that no cause justifies the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians as a means to achieve a political goal or change of policies.

Asserting that peace and sovereignty are a prerequisite for development, the Vice-President said a peaceful global environment is essential for development and for development cooperation.

"Such cooperation must be undertaken in exercise of the sovereign will of each member of the community of nations. The interdependence of the three is thus evident and essential. The impediments to each must also be discerned clearly," he said.

Concluding his address, Ansari said as the largest peace movement of the world, NAM must be in the vanguard of the principal international debates on political, strategic and even economic and social issues.

He hoped that one of the priorities of NAM will be to modernise the manner in which it functions.

"We began a discussion on this at the Cartagena Summit in 1995; this discussion must continue and fructify so that NAM may achieve its full potential," Ansari said.

Earlier on Saturday, crisis-hit Venezuela assumed NAM's presidency as leaders of the 120-nation group, including Ansari, began deliberations on contemporary issues like UN reform and terrorism with the bloc seeking relevance in the post-Cold War world.

Venezuela, an OPEC member and home to one of the world's largest oil reserves, assumed the movement's rotating presidency from Iran which had hosted the bloc's summit in 2012.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, while opening the 17th meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), said the member countries have the opportunity to discuss the concerns and the developments at the bilateral and international level.

During the past four years under Iran's presidency NAM was involved in many activities at the UN. There have been meetings on disarmament, maintaining peace and human rights and several rounds of negotiations were held with the north countries, Rouhani noted.

"This summit is convening at a time when peace is being threatened in all its aspects across the world and the national sovereignty of developing states is being constantly violated in various forms and methods. Members of our movement, more than any other time, are in need of solidarity, unity and coordination," he asserted.

"What unfolds in the contemporary international order, is worrying if we adopt a realistic perspective. In today's global relations, hegemonic and domineering inclinations are incontrovertible reality. Alignment towards military polarisations and blocks is another dominant feature in the mentality and behaviours of some of the players," he said.

Arms race, warmongering, intensification of conflicts and violence and interfering in the domestic affairs of developing nations by the holders of power and wealth, overtly or covertly, are only examples of such behaviour which cannot be interpreted unless with the logic of hegemony-seeking and predominance, the Iranian President said.

Talking about the situation in Iraq and Syria, Rouhani said Iran was the first country which warned against the global danger of "Takfiri terrorism" in Syria.

"While a number of irresponsible groups in the Middle East and the West were busy equipping and training Takfiri terrorists, Iran stood against Iraq and Syria to confront alone with one of the most brutal terrorist organisations of history," he said.

NAM countries should not pin their hopes on big powers to achieve development and growth, he asserted.

The "zionest regime" is trying to exploit the situation in the Middle East, the Iranian President said, adding that Iran supports the cause of the Palestinians.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accepted the presidency and vowed to strengthen the bloc. He said Iran's presidency of the movement had given a "new dynamism" to the movement.

The summit in Venezuela comes amid anti-government protests in the South American country. A number of people were arrested there earlier this month after President Maduro was greeted by pot-banging demonstrators during a visit to the Margarita island.
Washington: US President Barack Obama was on Saturday apprised of the explosion in New York in which at least 25 people were injured, hours before his arrival in the city for the high-level UN General Assembly session.

An explosion rocked New York's Chelsea neighbourhood, a busy residential and commercial area in the city. More than two dozen people have been injured as a result of the explosion.

"The President has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation. The president will be updated as additional information becomes available," a White House official said.

Obama is scheduled to travel to New York on Saturday and stay in the city for the next several days to attend the United Nations General Assembly session beginning on Sunday.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, was also briefed about the New York explosion.

She was in the Washington DC addressing the Congressional Black Caucus dinner.

Referring to the explosion, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said tough measures needs to be taken.

"We better get very tough. We'll find out. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world and in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant. We'll see what it is," Trump said.
Syria: Syrian troops counterattacked against the Islamic State group around a key eastern airbase Sunday after a US-led coalition air strike killed scores of soldiers forcing a retreat, military sources said.

The Pentagon said that coalition pilots had believed they were hitting IS and had halted the raid as soon as Damascus ally Moscow informed commanders that army positions were coming under attack.

But Damascus reacted angrily to the deadly strike, which forced troops to pull back from two strategic hilltops overlooking the besieged airbase on the outskirts of the city of Deir Ezzor.

"The Syrian army has returned to the offensive," a military source told AFP on Sunday.

"After the American raids, it withdrew from several positions but now it has gone back on the attack."

A second military source inside Deir Ezzor airbase said that troops had already regained some of the lost ground.

"The army has retaken most of its positions on Jabal Therdeh with Russian and Syrian air support," the source said, referring to one of the two hills lost on Saturday.

"The two countries' air forces bombed the area around the airbase, neighbourhoods held by the jihadists and the road linking Deir Ezzor to Mayadeen," an IS-held town 45 kilometres (30 miles) to the southeast, the source added.

Retaking the heights around the airbase is vital for the army as control of them would allow IS to fire on all aircraft trying to take off or land.

The airbase and adjacent government-held neighbourhoods of the Deir Ezzor city have been under siege since 2012 and have been dependent on resupply by air.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 30 jihadists were killed in Sunday's counterattack by the army.

The Britain-based monitoring group said 90 soldiers were killed in Saturday's air strike, sharply higher than the death toll of 62 given by Moscow on Saturday.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, voiced regret for the loss of life.

"If we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention. And we of course regret the loss of life," she said.

Australia, which said it was one of several coalition countries whose aircraft took part, offered its "condolences to the families of any Syrian personnel killed or wounded."

"While Syria remains a dynamic and complex operating environment, Australia would never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support Daesh (IS)," a statement from the military said on Sunday.
Business mogul Aliko Dangote believes a wave of asset selling by the government could be the saving grace for Nigeria in the face of the current economic recession.

I think the real challenge for us is now for us to have the political will in terms of selling some assets, he told the Consumer News and Business Channels (CNBC) Africa yesterday.



I think its an easier route than the IMF (International Monetary Fund) or the World Bank to borrow money, because what you need to do is actually to beef up the reserves.

Dangote spoke before Nigerias credit rating was downgraded to B from B+ by S&P Global Ratings yesterday.

He urged the government to sell assets in some of its joint ventures with the private sector in an open tender process.

He said that Africa Finance Corporation  a development finance institution established in 2007  would fetch close to $800 million while government s should also look to sell 100 percent of the countrys stake in Nigeria LNG Limited.

If I had challenges in my company, I would not hesitate to sell assets, to remain afloat, to get to the better times, because it doesnt make any sense for me to keep any assets and then suffocate the whole organization, Dangote said.

S & P branded the economy weakened more than we expected owing to a marked contraction in oil production, a restrictive foreign exchange regime and delayed fiscal stimulus.

The economy is set to contract on an annual basis in 2016 for the first time in 21 years, with its all-important oil industry suffering under weak global prices.

The gross domestic product (GDP) dropped by 2.06 percent in the second quarter of 2016, after falling 0.36 percent in the previous three months.

Dangote said the economy should have been diversified a long time ago, lamenting the overreliance on oil.

But he was optimistic that Nigeria would exit recession by the last quarter of the year and said the country has all the answers to bounce back to health.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, has said that the countrys power generation has increased from 3,810 megawatts recorded on September 8, 2016 to 4,285.90 megawatts on Friday.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the power generation record was reported in the website of Nigerian Electricity System Operator on Friday.



The TCN said that 4,285.90 megawatts was the total output by power generation companies, and had been transferred to the 11 distribution companies across the country.

Electricity generation in the country has been stable in the last two months, rising from about 2, 983 megawatts to over 4, 000 megawatts.

Although power has improved, many parts of the country have remained with poor supply owing to problems with the distribution companies, including provision of pre-payment meters.

The Acting Chairman of Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, Anthony Akah, recently disclosed that no fewer than four million electricity consumers in the country were awaiting supply of the meters.

Mr. Akah said that although the commission had improved on metering system, unavailability of meter manufacturing companies was hindering the maximum provision of the product to Nigerians.

He said the commission would sanction any distribution company which failed to comply with directives relating to the distribution of meters.
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I have good news for those of you who hate checking your portfolio every time the stock market makes an abrupt change: There are plenty of companies in the healthcare sector poised to grow in tandem with rising average life spans across the developed world.

Two of my favorites, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 1.49%) and Medtronic (MDT 1.46%), enjoy strong competitive advantages that have allowed them to steadily increase their dividend payments for decades. Let's look at some reasons you can expect them to continue doing so throughout your lifetime.

Johnson & Johnson: no more tears

If uncertainty makes your eyes sweat, then adding shares of the world's largest healthcare conglomerate to your portfolio might help. In a sense, you can't find a safer company in America. Johnson & Johnson is one of just two U.S. companies with a pristine "AAA" debt rating. The other, Microsoft, recently earned a negative outlook from Moody's after offering LinkedIn $26.2 billion for a buyout.

If an unsullied debt rating doesn't soothe your frayed nerves, then consider its earnings growth and dividend history. Despite some hairy global economic downturns, J&J's adjusted earnings have risen for 32 consecutive years, and its dividend hasn't stalled since JFK was in office.

Past performance doesn't guarantee future success, but J&J's diversified revenue stream reads like a recipe for continued growth. The consumer-goods segment contains iconic brands, some of which date to the 19th century.

In case you're new to biopharma, Tylenol isn't the only J&J drug that brings in over $1 billion in annual sales. Its prescription pharmaceutical segment has grown in recent years, and it accounted for about 47% of J&J's $18.5 billion in total second-quarter revenue. One of several promising drugs in its lineup, Invokana, is a first-in-class tablet for Type 2 diabetics that allows excess blood sugar to exit through the patient's urinary tract. Approved in 2013, Invokana saw second-quarter sales rise 20.4% over the prior-year period, putting the drug at an annual run rate of about $1.5 billion.

It appears Invokana has plenty of room to grow. Last year an estimated $673 billion was spent treating diabetes, and that number is likely to continue growing. The disease affects a staggering 415 million people worldwide, and roughly half are undiagnosed. I haven't asked all of them how they feel about injecting insulin, but I think we can safely assume most would prefer swallowing Invokana tablets.

Medtronic: why bigger is better

As the world's largest medical-device manufacturer, Medtronic enjoys economies of scale that allow it to sell devices at price points that smaller competitors struggle to match, and that's not its only advantage. Last year's $49.9 billion acquisition of Covidien gave Medtronic an industry-leading array of med-tech offerings that make it a one-stop shop for hospitals.

Another advantage is the sticky relationships its salesforce has built up over the years. Trained sales reps are often a busy doctor's most efficient source of information about new devices. Combine this with the time and expense associated with training staff, and switching to a competitor's devices becomes a daunting proposition.

The Covidien acquisition also gave Medtronic an opportunity to redomicile in Ireland just before that door slammed shut. Switching from one of the world's highest corporate tax rates to the lowest will help the company meet its fiscal 2017 guidance. Management expects adjusted earnings per share to grow between 12% and 16% in fiscal 2017 and expects double-digit earnings growth over the long term.

Medtronic also loves returning those profits to shareholders. This June it raised its quarterly dividend by 13% to $0.43 per share, marking 39 consecutive years of increased payments at an 18% annual growth rate.

The company is committed to returning at least half of its free cash flow to shareholders, which forces it to avoid M&A for the sake of looking busy and remain focused on increasing profitability. If this combination of relatively predictable growth and discipline doesn't help you relax about checking your portfolio, then you should probably see a doctor.
The bankruptcy of the world's seventh-largest shipping line, Hanjin Shipping, is creating a crisis for retailers because cargo bound for the U.S. is stuck at sea as the company battles creditors looking to seize its ships. Unless the billions of dollars worth of cargo can make it into U.S. ports and be unloaded, retailers may be plunged into a crisis all their own this Christmas.

That sinking feeling

Hanjin, which filed for bankruptcy in South Korea, carries nearly 8% of the U.S. market's trans-Pacific trade volume. A U.S. federal bankruptcy judge has (temporarily at least) prevented creditors from seizing Hanjin's ships, allowing them to leave U.S. ports -- a ruling he admitted was made for commercial purposes "to get these vessels moving," but one which the creditors' attorneys slammed as contravening both U.S. and international maritime law. However, the disorderly way in which Hanjin declared bankruptcy has still prevented cargo from being unloaded, with little chance of progress being made in the immediate future. More than 100 ships and their cargoes remain stranded at sea.

There are several problems for retailers with Hanjin's bankruptcy, aside from the obvious. August through October are prime shipping months for deep-sea routes, and Hanjin ships stuck at sea and unable to enter ports are beginning to cause traffic jams. Further, some countries that don't abide by U.S. law are seizing ships. China has already seized 10 ships, and other countries are doing the same.

Lost at sea

Moreover, the loss of Hanjin's services in shipping product from overseas is raising costs. Although other shipping lines like Maersk, China Cosco, CMA CGM, and others were offering additional capacity for trans-Pacific importers, because it is peak season, the Journal of Commerce said Hong Kong-to-Los Angeles spot rates spiked 40% last week, to $1,743 per 40-foot container. The cost of shipping goods from China to East Coast ports rose from $1,700 to $2,400.

Hanjin is also reportedly demanding payment in cash to release the goods aboard its ships. Attorneys for consumer electronics giant Yamaha said the situation "could absolutely destroy American businesses."

Some of the largest retailers in the U.S., including Wal-Mart (WMT 1.26%), J.C. Penney (JCPN.Q), and Target (TGT 0.37%), all rely upon Hanjin to ship a good portion of their merchandise. The shipper typically carries consumer electronics, clothing, even car parts. Some $14 billion worth of goods is in limbo. While the retailers often use multiple shippers and have contingency plans in place, it doesn't mean they're not without risk.

J.C. Penney, for example, has made the introduction of furniture a centerpiece of the next phase in its financial turnaround. In its earnings conference call last month, CEO Marvin Ellison noted that, after adding Ashley Furniture to its regular furniture assortment, its comparable sales enjoyed a 1,500-basis-point improvement.

Contingency plans

While J.C. Penney planned ahead when it learned of Hanjin's problems, rerouting much of its merchandise to other shippers, Ashley Furniture was one of those complaining to the bankruptcy judge about the lack of clarity on gaining access to goods on ships that were only leased by Hanjin, not owned by them. This, apparently, is a whole new problem.

Target and Wal-Mart, however, have chosen a wait-and-see approach, which indicates they may encounter problems if the situation doesn't clear up.

Hanjin's troubles aren't expected to be resolved anytime soon, however, as a week-long Asian holiday has put the matter on hold. With goods adrift at sea, ships being seized if they come into ports, and a challenge to the U.S. judge's order filed immediately after his ruling was issued, retailers may end up with a big lump of coal in their stockings this Christmas.
Trusts were once thought to be useful only to the uber-rich, but they are increasingly being used to help middle-class Americans, too. Because a trust spells out the do's and don'ts associated with leaving money and property to beneficiaries, setting up a trust can make a lot of sense, especially in the following scenarios.

Special needs

If you have an adult child with a disability and you're not sure who will care for that child when you're gone, or if an inheritance will jeopardize his or her disability income, then it may be worth discussing a special needs trust with a lawyer.

A special needs trust can provide specific financial support to the child and can shield an inheritance from consideration by government programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income when determining your child's eligibility.

Importantly, a special needs trust can also protect your child with special needs from uncertainty regarding caregivers after you're gone.

Tom Torr, a founding partner of Cocheco Elder Law Associates, PLLC, who specializes in elder law in New Hampshire, says that an advantage of special needs trusts is that they allow children with disabilities to stay on government benefits and still receive money "for supplemental care or special needs not covered by government programs, like extra clothing, trips with other family members, buying a TV or similar appliance."

A special needs trust allows money from it to be used for the child's benefit, without it turning upside down support programs you've already established for your child.

Minor children

If your children are under 18 and you worry about who will care for them after you die, you might want to spell out who you'd like to raise them and how you'd like any inheritance left to them to be managed and spent.

Trusts can be set up to hold assets like IRAs that, if passed on directly to minors, could cause headaches. They can also be designed to trickle out assets to beneficiaries at various ages so that there's less risk that your 401(k) savings, accumulated over many years, are spent all at once on a vacation to Las Vegas.

"Trust funds can be an incredibly useful tool for middle-class families," says Torr. "A trust allows you to state not only who should inherit but when they should inherit those assets."

According to Torr, parents choose staggered distribution dates so their children receive partial distributions when they turn 25, 30, and 35, for example. A trust can also be useful if you worry about infighting among your heirs.

"A trust gives you greater protection than a will against legal action from anyone who is unhappy with the distribution of assets and decides to challenge it," adds Torr.

Medicaid eligibility

Medicare won't pay for a nursing home (it can cover short-term rehabilitation if it follows a hospitalization), but Medicaid will pay for it -- if you qualify.

Financial services company Fidelity estimates that American couples will spend more than a quarter of a million dollars on healthcare during their retirement, and if they end up in a nursing home because of failing health, their savings could quickly disappear, forcing them to rely on Medicaid to foot the bill.

The average nursing home costs $7,700 per month, according to insurance company Genworth, and most Americans haven't set aside nearly enough money to pay that expense for long. In 2013, the Federal Reserve found that the average American's retirement savings totaled less than $60,000.

Clearly, many Americans will need to rely on Medicaid; however, qualifying for Medicaid isn't easy. Medicaid rules vary from state to state, but the program can force you to draw down your savings to as little as $2,000 before it'll begin picking up the tab. Furthermore, if Medicaid does pay for your nursing-home care, it can place a lien on your home to recoup its expenses. Such a lien could quickly erase any gain on the sale of your home that would otherwise go to your heirs.

While a trust won't protect your savings from Medicaid's qualification rules, it may offer some protection to your homestead. If you transfer your home to an irrevocable trust and five years pass before you apply for Medicaid, then your home can escape the risk of a Medicaid lien.

Transferring the home to an irrevocable trust means giving up your control over it, but if you worry that you could be forced to leave your home before you're ready, Torr says, you can include a life-lease agreement that allows you to remain in your home even after you've given control of it to the trust.

According to Torr, a Medicaid asset protection trust may be appropriate in these cases:

You are concerned about preserving assets for your spouse or other family members.

You may require Medicaid benefits for long-term nursing-home care in the future, even if currently health is not an issue.

You do not have long-term-care insurance, or have not taken any other steps to cover long-term nursing-care costs.

You have people you trust, such as adult children, who can serve as trustees.

Tying it together

Trusts are not do-it-yourself projects and can be expensive. They can cost thousands of dollars to set up, and there are ongoing expenses associated with them, including accounting fees. Trusts' high costs mean that they won't be right for everyone, but in situations like the ones outlined here, it may make sense to discuss your options with an attorney who specializes in them.
Donald Trump's war of words with Ford Motor Company (F 2.00%) continued this week, after Ford confirmed on Wednesday what had been widely known for months: It's moving production of two of its small cars from Michigan to Mexico after 2018.

During an appearance on Fox & Friends on Thursday, Trump let fly: "I think maybe they announced it because they think I'm going to win and I'm going to stop them. You know, I have a way of stopping them very, very easily. I can't believe the brazenness."

Trump has railed at Ford for months, citing the Blue Oval as an example of a U.S. company that is shipping jobs to Mexico. But here's what Trump and his supporters are missing: Ford isn't doing this to cut jobs in the U.S., and absolutely no U.S. jobs will be cut as a result of this move. In fact, there might even be some new ones created.

It isn't really news: Ford first told us about this over a year ago

First and foremost, we should dispense with the idea that Ford rushed to make the announcement this past week. Investors and analysts have known about it for over a year.

Here's the background: Ford currently manufactures its compact Focus and C-Max hybrid models at a factory in Wayne, Michigan, just outside of Detroit. In July 2015, Ford announced that production of the next-generation versions of those models will be moved to another country, and that production of the current versions in Michigan will end in 2018.

About a month and a half after that announcement, the Detroit News reported that Ford and the United Auto Workers (UAW) were discussing two new products to be built at the factory in Wayne after the Focus and C-Max depart. Those products are believed to be an all-new version of the midsize Ranger pickup and a new brawny SUV to be called the Bronco, possibly based on the Everest SUV that Ford sells in Asia. Significantly, Ford didn't deny that report.

Then, in April of this year, Ford announced that it would spend $1.6 billion to construct a new factory to build small cars in Mexico. Ford made it clear in that announcement that the new Mexican factory wouldn't affect jobs in the United States.

You didn't need to be a professional analyst to add that up: The next-generation Focus and C-Max will be built in that new Mexican factory, making room to build the new Ranger and Bronco in Michigan. As CEO Mark Fields reiterated in response to Trump on Thursday, no workers in Michigan will lose their jobs over this move. Not one.

Why Ford is moving small-car production to Mexico

Simply put, the move is about making the small cars more profitable for Ford while making room in a U.S. factory to build a pair of highly profitable new products. For the small cars, that's partly about Mexico's lower labor costs, and partly about the fact that Mexico has free-trade agreements with over 40 countries. That will make it easier for Ford to export the cars made at its new Mexican factory to other markets if demand for them in North America should fall. That will keep the Mexican factory running at a higher rate, which in turn will increase its profitability.

It's also about making sure that the Michigan factory is strongly profitable. Ford's latest labor contract with the UAW gave workers a raise. That's a good thing, but it increased Ford's labor costs in the U.S. The way to keep that factory profitable is to give it more profitable products to build -- like, for instance, a new pickup and a new SUV.

So it's true that Ford is making these moves to boost its profits. But contrary to what Donald Trump has been suggesting, no U.S. jobs are moving to Mexico. In fact, if the new Ranger and Bronco are successful, Ford might even add jobs at the factory in Michigan.

Long story short: Donald Trump is off base on this one.
Image source: Flickr user Shankar S.

For those in need of more income in retirement, reverse mortgages can seem like a dream come true. Based on the equity you've built up in your home over many years, a lender starts sending you checks regularly (or in a lump sum or line of credit) -- and you get to stay in your home, too! Reverse mortgages can indeed serve many retirees well, but they're not perfect for everyone, and they have some downsides worth considering.

The basics

A reverse mortgage is essentially a loan, with the amount borrowed not having to be repaid until you die, sell your home, or stop living in it (perhaps because you moved to a nursing home). At that time, the home can be sold to cover the debt, or your heirs can pay it off and keep the home. Reverse mortgage income is often tax-free, which is another big plus.

There's money in your house that a reverse mortgage can tap. Image source: Getty Images

Dangers, pitfalls, and things to know

There are some dangers and pitfalls associated with reverse mortgages, though, and in many cases, what you don't know can cost you. Let's run through some facts.

For starters, many people have been pressured into reverse mortgages by pushy salespeople. Reverse mortgages can be complicated contracts, too, so be sure to review all the terms closely, to ask questions, and perhaps to have a financial professional review the deal.

Reverse mortgages feature closing costs, just as with regular mortgages, and they tend to be costlier. The applicable interest rates tend to be higher, as well.

You may not receive as much income through a reverse mortgage as you might have expected. The amount you can borrow depends on factors such as how much longer you (and your spouse, if you have one) are expected to live, the value of the home, the equity you have in it, and prevailing interest rates. Interest charges are added to the balance of the loan over time.

You'll still be on the hook for home-related expenses such as property taxes, home insurance, home repairs, and maintenance. Those can be substantial. Miss out on some of these payments, such as property taxes, and your lender might be able to closeout the loan, causing you much grief.

Once you leave your home, it will likely need to be sold to pay off the reverse mortgage. If you'd hoped to leave it to your children, you won't be able to do so unless the reverse mortgage loan can be paid off in some other way. Some people have run into troubleif they got sick and were out of their home for an extended time, such as in rehab -- as their lender then moved to close out the loan and take possession of the house. Don't end up surprised by some of the terms in your reverse mortgage. Image source: Getty Images

Receiving income from a reverse mortgage might hurt your eligibility for various benefits, such as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income. So while it can boost your income, it may also reduce it. Yikes!

In the past, when a reverse mortgage holder has died, the surviving spouse often ended up defaulting on the loan and facing foreclosure. Regulations have recently strengthened protections for spouses, but it's worth taking a close look at any fine print and asking pointed questions. It can be especially dangerous if your spouse is not included in the loan.

When some people have tried to refinance their mortgage, they've discovered that their equity is much smallerthan they thought, because holding a reverse mortgage shrinks your equity in part via accrued interest expenses over time.

Some people have complained to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau that their reverse mortgages with variable interest rates raised the rates too quickly, costing them more, and that they were not able to renegotiate terms.

If you're not disciplined, you can spend too much of your reverse mortgage money too soon (especially if you've received it as a lump sum) and can end up in worse financial shape.

Be smart about reverse mortgages

The key to knowing whether a reverse mortgage is right for you is to learn everything you can about them. In some cases, if you need the income and liquidity that they can provide, then reverse mortgages will be a good tool in your retirement financial plan.

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Longtime Fool specialistSelena Maranjian, whom you can follow on Twitter, owns no shares of any company mentioned in this article.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.
A co-founder of the Lyft ride-hailing service predicts that self-driving cars will handle a majority of his company's rides within five years.

Lyft President John Zimmer also says personal car ownership will come to an end as the cost of autonomous rides falls. He made the predictions Sunday in an essay on the future of transportation in urban areas.

Companies are moving quickly toward autonomous cars. Lyft is testing self-driving vehicles in San Francisco and Phoenix in partnership with General Motors. Main competitor Uber is starting to carry passengers around Pittsburgh in autonomous cars with a human backup driver.

Zimmer says autonomous cars will start out giving rides at low speeds in limited areas with restrictions. But as technology improves the cars will handle higher speeds and more area.
Retailers may end up with a sinking feeling come Christmas if the goods aboard the 100 or so Hanjin ships still at sea can't get to port because it filed for bankruptcy. Image source: Hey Paul via Flickr.

The bankruptcy of the world's seventh-largest shipping line, Hanjin Shipping, is creating a crisis for retailers because cargo bound for the U.S. is stuck at sea as the company battles creditors looking to seize its ships. Unless the billions of dollars worth of cargo can make it into U.S. ports and be unloaded, retailers may be plunged into a crisis all their own this Christmas.

That sinking feeling

Hanjin, which filed for bankruptcy in South Korea, carries nearly 8% of the U.S. market's trans-Pacific trade volume. A U.S. federal bankruptcy judge has (temporarily at least) prevented creditors from seizing Hanjin's ships, allowing them to leave U.S. ports -- a ruling he admitted was made for commercial purposes "to get these vessels moving," but one which the creditors' attorneys slammed as contravening both U.S. and international maritime law. However, the disorderly way in which Hanjin declared bankruptcy has still prevented cargo from being unloaded, with little chance of progress being made in the immediate future. More than 100 ships and their cargoes remain stranded at sea.

There are several problems for retailers withHanjin's bankruptcy, aside from the obvious. August through October are prime shipping months for deep-sea routes, and Hanjin ships stuck at sea and unable to enter ports are beginning to cause traffic jams. Further, some countries that don't abide by U.S. law are seizing ships. China has already seized 10 ships, and other countries are doing the same.

Lost at sea

Moreover, the loss of Hanjin's services in shipping product from overseas is raising costs. Although other shipping lines like Maersk, China Cosco, CMA CGM, and others were offering additional capacity for trans-Pacific importers, because it is peak season, the Journal of Commerce said Hong Kong-to-Los Angeles spot rates spiked 40% last week, to $1,743 per 40-foot container. The cost of shipping goods from China to East Coast ports rose from $1,700 to $2,400.

Hanjin is also reportedly demanding payment in cash to release the goods aboard its ships. Attorneys for consumer electronics giant Yamaha said the situation "could absolutely destroy American businesses."

Some of the largest retailers in the U.S., including Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP), and Target (NYSE: TGT), all rely upon Hanjin to ship a good portion of their merchandise. The shipper typically carries consumer electronics, clothing, even car parts. Some $14 billion worth of goods is in limbo. While the retailers often use multiple shippers and have contingency plans in place, it doesn't mean they're not without risk.

J.C. Penney, for example, has made the introduction of furniture a centerpiece of the next phase in its financial turnaround. In its earnings conference call last month, CEO Marvin Ellison noted that, after adding Ashley Furniture to its regular furniture assortment, its comparable sales enjoyed a 1,500-basis-point improvement.

Contingency plans

While J.C. Penney planned ahead when it learned of Hanjin's problems, rerouting much of its merchandise to other shippers, Ashley Furniture was one of those complaining to the bankruptcy judge about the lack of clarity on gaining access to goods on ships that were only leased by Hanjin, not owned by them. This, apparently, is a whole new problem.

Target and Wal-Mart, however, have chosen a wait-and-see approach, which indicates they may encounter problems if the situation doesn't clear up.

Hanjin's troubles aren't expected to be resolved anytime soon, however, as a week-long Asian holiday has put the matter on hold. With goods adrift at sea, ships being seized if they come into ports, and a challenge to the U.S. judge's order filed immediately after his ruling was issued, retailers may end up with a big lump of coal in their stockings this Christmas.

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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Sunday suggested he could say never mind to the Never Trump candidates should they try to make another run for the presidency.

Priebus said the former primary challengers whove refused to support Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump could face consequences if they fail to back Trump in the stretch-run to Election Day.

Those people need to get on board, Priebus told Face the Nation. And if theyre thinking theyre going to run again some day, I think that were going to evaluate the process  of the nomination process and I dont think its going to be that easy for them.

Priebus didnt specifically name the group, but Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are the most prominent ex-GOP primary candidates to refuse to support Trump.

Cruz and Bush were locked in particularly nasty verbal spats during the campaign with Trump, who termed his opponents Lyin Ted and Low-Energy Jeb. Though Kasich and Trump rarely went toe-to-toe, Kasich was the last Trump challenger to drop out of the race, and despite the Republican National Convention being held in Cleveland, the Ohio governor didnt set foot in Quicken Loans Arena. Cruz spoke at the convention, but he was booed off the stage when he told the assembled, largely pro-Trump crowd to vote your conscience.

Despite the intra-party squabbles, however, Priebus made his case by pointing to a pledge that each primary candidate signed vowing to support the eventual Republican nominee.

People in our party are talking about what were going to do about this, Priebus said. I mean theres a ballot access issue in South Carolina. In order to be on the ballot in South Carolina, you actually have to pledge your support to the nominee, no matter who that person is. So whats the penalty for that? Its not a threat, but thats just the question that we have a process in place.

And if a private entity puts forward a process and has agreement with the participants in that process, and those participants dont follow through with the promises that they made in that process, what -- what should a private party do about that if those same people come around in four or eight years?

Cruz addressed the issue of the pledge during a talk to members of the Texas Republican delegation on July 21, the day after he was booed off stage in Cleveland.

That pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack [my wife], that I'm going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father, Cruz said.

Kasich said in June on MSNBC that he was likely to break the pledge.

You know, people even get divorces, Kasich said.
Donald Trump says he wants to end the Obama citizenship controversy so he can return to making America great again," but accusations about bigotry and other personal attacks at his and Democratic rival Hillary Clintons campaigns in recent days appear to be taking precedence over policy with Election Day in just seven weeks.



When African-Americans came here in 1619  they could not be citizens, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine told Fox News Sunday. So for five years when Donald Trump has pushed this bigoted lie that the African American president of the United States is not a U.S. citizen, so many people connect that to the most painful time in American history.

To be sure, Trump, the Republican presidential nominee and first-time candidate, was for years at the forefront of the so-called birther movement, which argued Obama was born in Kenya, therefore not a U.S. citizen.

The debate faded in 2011 when Obama made public a birth certificate document from Hawaii. However, the issue resurfaced last week when Trump stalled for days about whether Obama was indeed a citizen, saying Friday that Obama indeed was but blaming associates of the Clinton campaign for starting the so-called birther issue.

On Sunday, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway seemed to prolong the issue, or at least part of it, when she continued to argue the issue started with people connected to the Clinton campaign, in its hard-fought 2008 Democratic presidential primary with Obama.

It was used as a smear against Senator Obama by Clinton campaign associates, and by the way, not a bunch of summer interns who just got it all wrong and were a little bit too ambitious, Conway told NBCs Meet the Press. These were chief strategists, pollsters, long-term confidants who were pushing this.

The race between Trump and Clinton, the Democrat nominee, has tightened in recent weeks, after a series of Trump missteps in August resulted in a drop in polls numbers that some political analysts suggested were insurmountable.

Trump during that time was critical of a Muslim woman whose son, an Army captain, was killed in Iraq. The woman, Ghazala Khan, stood silently on the Democratic National Convention stage while her husband attacked Trump.

But most polls now show Trump having closed Clintons single-digit lead.

A Fox News poll released Thursday shows him trailing Clinton by just 1 percentage point among likely voters in a four-way ballot. Clinton receives 41 percent and Trump 40 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 8 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3 percent.

In the head-to-head matchup with Clinton, Trump leads up by 1 percentage point.

Clinton, a former first lady and New York senator, has struggled from nearly the start of her 2016 White House bid to gain voters trust, in large part over revelations she used a private server system as secretary of state to send and receive official emails.

And an FBI investigation into the matter found at least parts of several of the emails contained classified information.

Her campaign has also be dragged down by emails that suggest staffers at her familys Clinton Foundation were seeking favors at the Clinton-run State Department for high-dollar donors and Clinton saying in recent days that half of Trump supporters are deplorables.

A poll released in July by the nonpartisan Gallup firm found Trump and Clinton are currently among the worst-rated presidential candidates of the last seven decades.

The poll found Trumps highly unfavorable score was 42 percent, compared to 33 for Clinton. It also noted that 1964 Republican nominee Barry Goldwater previously had the highest negative score -- 26 percent.

We have a candidate who clearly represents the unpopular policies and unpopular themes of the last eight years as well as the old policies from the 1990s, public affair consultant Tony Reiss told FoxNews.com on Sunday. On the other side, we have Donald Trump, a candidate who is tapping into the frustration that most Americans feel toward politicians right now.  As Trump continues to roll out his agenda and rise in the polls  well see further negativity come from the Clinton campaign and it shouldnt surprise anyone that Trump responds in-kind.

Conway also said Sunday that Trump is moving on to all the things he talked about (last) week including tax reform and child care tax credits.

Donald Trump has talked about every policy issue that there is, she continued. We have a few more to go.

Trump indeed gave a significant policy speech last week on improving child care in the United States, in large part through rewriting the tax code, including allowing parents to deduct such expenses. He also proposed six weeks of paid maternity leave to companies and employers that dont offer maternity leave. Clinton laid out her plan earlier in the campaign.

Were in the final weeks of a campaign and both candidates will do whatever they think is going to move the needle in their favor, Reiss said. Personal attacks, policy attacks or harsh contrasting, at this stage in the campaign nothing is off the table.
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine on Sunday made some of his most personal attacks on Donald Trump -- accusing the Republican presidential nominee of perpetuating a bigoted lie about President Obamas citizenship and inciting violence at campaign rallies.

When you look at a series of these comments that hes making, I do believe it is an incite, or at a minimum, an expression of indifference to whether violence would occur, the Virginia senator told Fox News Sunday. This is a pattern that has been repeated over and over again.

Kaine pointed specifically to Trump talking several weeks ago at a rally about how to possibly stop Clinton from picking her favored Supreme Court justices, if she gets elected.

Nothing you can do, folks, Trump said. Although the Second Amendment people -- maybe there is, I dont know.

Trump critics said he was suggesting gun-rights advocates take up arms.

Trump said he was suggesting such advocates vote as a bloc.

There can be no other interpretation, he later told Fox News. Give me a break.

A day before Kaine made the comments on Fox News, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd told CNN that she personally told Trump that it was wrong that there was violence being incited at his rallies.

She said Trump responded by saying he thought the violence added a frisson of excitement.

Trump responded by tweeting: Wacky @NYTimesDowd, who hardly knows me, makes up things that I never said for her boring interviews and column. A neurotic dope!

On the issue of Trump stoking the so-called birther argument, Kaine declined Sunday to characterize him as a racist.

I dont know Donald Trump, he said. So if I dont know somebody, Im just not going to make that claim.

Allegations surfaced during Obamas hard-fought Democratic presidential primary race with Clinton in 2008 that he was born in Kenya, therefore not a U.S. citizen.

Obama in 2011 made public a birth certificate document that showed he was born in Hawaii, which essentially ended the birther argument.

However, it resurfaced again last week when Trump balked for several days at saying Obama was indeed a citizen.

On Sunday, Kaine suggested the argument, at least, had racial overtones.

Donald Trump has perpetrated a bigoted lie, he said.

When African-Americans came here in 1619  they could not be citizens.  So for five years -- when Donald Trump has pushed this bigoted lie that the African American president of the United States is not a U.S. citizen -- so many people connect that to the most painful time in American history.
President Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang while they are in New York this week for the U.N. General Assembly.

Obama and Netanyahu are scheduled to talk Wednesday, about a week after the United States and Israel signed a new, unprecedented security agreement that will give the Israeli military $38 billion over 10 years.

It's the largest such agreement the U.S. has ever had with any country.

The White House says the leaders will discuss advancing the so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iran nuclear deal, which Netanyahu vehemently opposed.

Obama is expected to meet Monday with Keqiang to discuss U.S.-China relations and North Korea. He leaves for New York on Sunday afternoon, amid tightened security after a bomb was detonated Saturday night in midtown Manhattan, wounding 29 people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump each referred to the intentionally set explosion Saturday night in New York City as a bomb, but Trump is taking the brunt of the backlash for failing to wait until police made a determination.

"Just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York, and nobody knows what's going on," Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said during a rally in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Authorities say they suspect the explosion, which injured 29 people, was an "intentional act" but have provided no details about a suspect or motive. The device was put in a large metal trash bin in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.

A second device was purportedly found four blocks from the explosion. It appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone.

Also on Saturday, a pipe bomb explosion in New Jersey forced the cancellation of a morning charity run. And a man in St. Cloud, Minn., stabbed at least eight people in a shopping mall while making references to Allah.

After the Chelsea explosion, Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, told reporters she had been briefed "about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attacks in Minnesota."

However, wire service reports characterized Clintons comments as more cautious.

In addition, CNN.com posted a story with the headline: Trump says 'bomb went off in New York. 

And Katy Tur, the NBC reporter covering the Trump campaign, tweeted: Reported 'explosion' in NY at 8:30. At 9:10 Trump tells CO a bomb went off. Source says Trump was 'briefed' on plane. Who briefed him?

Still, many of the comments on social media, including one journalists, were critical of how the news media covered Trump and Clintons responses.

If you're in the media and your chief worry is that Trump called a bombing a bombing too early for you, please find another line of work, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted.

Another person tweeted: Media slams Trump for calling the New York explosion a bomb even after they KNEW he was right. Incredible.

This story is based in part on wire service reports.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is playing the role of Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine in debate preps for Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence, Fox News confirmed Saturday.

A source for the Trump-Pence campaign said Walker has been and will be portraying Kaine, the senator from Virginia, in upcoming mock debates.

The source also said Pence, the governor of Indiana, has thus far participated in one mock debate.

The lone, vice-presidential debate of the 2016 campaign is scheduled for Oct. 4.

Walker and Pence are political allies. Walker has heaped praise on his fellow governor while being more reluctant to praise Trump.

Walker briefly ran for president but dropped out of the race last year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Facebook has activated its Safety Check service that lets users notify friends and family that they are safe following the explosion that injured at least 29 people in New York City late Saturday.

This is the first time that Safety Check has been activated in New York.

The blast, which happened at around 8.30 p.m. on West 23rd Street in the citys Chelsea neighborhood, appeared to originate from a construction toolbox in front of a building, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press. The explosion appeared to be intentional, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced.

Sources told Fox News a second device -- a pressure cooker -- was found four blocks away.

Designed for times of disaster or crisis, Safety Check lets users in a specific area notify friends and family that they are safe. Users can also check on others in the affected area and mark friends as safe.

The service, which was launched in 2014, has already been used in response to major events such as the Brussels terror attacks, the bombing in Ankara, Turkey and the attacks that rocked Paris last year. In June the service was activated for the first time in the U.S. following the deadly shooting at Orlando gay nightclub Pulse. The following month, Safety Check was activated for the sniper attack on Dallas police officers and the terror attack in Nice, France. It was also used after the recent earthquake in Italy.

Earlier this year Facebook apologized for a Safety Check glitch that sent out misdirected notifications after the Easter Sunday bombing that killed 70 people in Lahore, Pakistan.

Facebook, which has sole control of Safety Check, is reportedly planning for users to trigger the service.

The New York explosion featured prominently in social media early Sunday with #Chelsea trending worldwide on Twitter. News coverage of the blast also appeared in Facebooks Trending Topics section.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

Fox News' Matt Dean and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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A Minnesota man says freedom from prison is "wonderful" after serving a decade behind bars for a 1979 murder he says he did not commit.

Terry Olson, 57, was released from Faribault Correctional Facility on Tuesday. Olson received credit for time served, but did not receive a legal declaration that he did not commit murder, the Star Tribune (http://strib.mn/2ceTXlq reported.

Olson was convicted in 2007 in Wright County of killing Jeff Hammill, whose body was found on a road outside of Buffalo, Minnesota, in August 1979.

Olson's attorneys and the Innocence Project of Minnesota fought for his release. He faced seven more years in prison and said he accepted the deal that freed him so he could help his mother, who lives in a Twin Cities nursing home.

"I'm ecstatic for Terry and his family," said Julie Jonas, legal director of the Innocence Project of Minnesota, who estimated that about 3,000 hours of legal time were spent on the case. "It's been one of the best weeks in my life."

In an interview Friday in his lawyer's Minneapolis office, Olson said that prison "was lonely" and his incarceration "was a nightmare."

"I'm innocent of a crime that in all likelihood never occurred. You feel like you're standing on top of Mount Everest screaming for help, and nobody's listening," Olson said.

But Wright County Attorney Tom Kelly said Friday he continues to believe Olson was guilty of killing Hammill.

"I don't have a hard time sleeping at night," Kelly said.

The prosecutor said his office agreed to Olson's release because he had already served more time than he would have faced under 1980 sentencing guidelines. Hammill's mother agreed to Olson's release, Kelly said.

Hammill was found dead of a head injury on the side of the road around 4 a.m. on Aug. 11, 1979. Olson said Friday that he was at a bar with a friend the night before when they left to go to Olson's sister's house for a party. On the way the two men picked up Hammill, who was hitchhiking, Olson said.

Olson said he had met Hammill three weeks earlier at a fabricating plant where they both worked. Hammill had wanted a ride home and left the party "after about two minutes," Olson said.

"He went walking down the road. That was the last we saw of him," Olson said.

After Hammill's body was found, investigators interviewed people from the party, but no one was charged and the medical examiner listed the cause of death as undetermined.

But the case was reopened in 2003 after an inquiry by Hammill's daughter. The medical examiner changed the cause of death to homicide based on a statement by Olson's friend, who implicated Olson and another man who was at the 1979 party. All three were charged in Hammill's death.

Olson was convicted of second- and third-degree murder and sentenced to 17 years in prison. The friend testified at Olson's trial but later recanted, saying none of the three men were involved in Hammill's death. But the Minnesota Court of Appeals reaffirmed Olson's conviction, and the state Supreme Court declined to review the case.

Hours after being released from prison, Olson said he went to visit his mother, Gladys, in the nursing home.

"To see the look on her face and see her step out of her wheelchair, you can't imagine," Olson said.

___

Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com
Kentucky State Police are investigating the shooting death of a knife-wielding man by two officers in Owensboro.

State police say 29-year-old Lucas Anderson died from gunshot wounds in the incident Friday night.

Police say Owensboro Police Department officers responded to a domestic argument call. Police say the officers saw Anderson grab a woman's hair and put a knife to her throat.

Police say officers negotiated with Anderson to get him to drop the knife and release the woman but that Anderson threw the woman aside and charged two officers with the knife.

The officers, identified as Mike Matthews and Gary Mattingly, fired multiple times, striking Anderson. He died at the scene. The woman was hospitalized with cuts on her head and neck.

The officers have been placed on paid administrative leave.

Owensboro is about 100 miles west of Louisville.
Hillary Clinton on Sunday condemned what she described as "apparent terrorist attacks" in Minnesota, New Jersey and New York.

The Democratic presidential candidate made the statement a day after a bomb rocked the Chelsea district in New York City, a pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey seaside community and a stabbing attack unfolded at a Minnesota mall. Officials in New York and New Jersey said Sunday they were still investigating who was behind the explosions and what the motivation was, while the Minnesota attack was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism.

Clinton stressed that investigations were still underway, saying: "Law enforcement officials are working to identify who was behind the attacks in New York and New Jersey and we should give them the support they need to finish the job and bring those responsible to justice - we will not rest until that happens."

On the attack in St. Cloud, Minnesota, the former Secretary of State noted that the Islamic State group had claimed responsibility and added, "this should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups."

Clinton noted her plans to take on the Islamic State group, which include increased intelligence and efforts to better combat propaganda and recruitment online.

Both presidential candidates have been quick to weigh in on the attacks. On Saturday evening, Republican nominee Donald Trump appeared to pre-empt New York City officials when he declared that a "bomb went off" in New York City before officials had released details. Trump made the comments around 9:10 p.m., shortly after the explosion in Manhattan's crowded Chelsea neighborhood and as emergency officials were responding to the blast.

Clinton was briefed on the incidents Saturday shortly after her speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner in Washington. On Saturday, she stressed that it was important to support first responders and "to let this investigation unfold."
A Dallas Police sergeant filed a lawsuit on Friday against Black Lives Matter and its supporters, alleging the group is inciting a race war.

Sgt. Demetrick Pennie, a 17-year veteran of the force, is seeking between $500 million and $1.5 billion in the complaint filed in federal court, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The defendants in the class-action suit include Black Lives Matter; President Obama; Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton; the Rev. Al Sharpton; Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and billionaire activist George Soros.

Defendants incite people to violence and cause violence by telling those people that they are under attack. Defendants are encouraging disaffected blacks, Black Muslims, Muslims and others allied with them including certain whites to ignore, disrespect, and assault law enforcement officials, and commit violence and lethal force, the lawsuit states, according to the paper.

The lawsuit alleges the defendants "have repeatedly incited their supporters and others to engage in threats of and attacks to cause serious bodily injury or death upon police officers and other law enforcement persons of all races and ethnicities."

The lawsuit was filed hours before two Texas police officers were injured in a shooting while responding to a suicide call.

Pennie, who is black, is being represented by Larry Klayman, founder of the organization Freedom Watch.

The defendants, if not legally reined in, are allegedly responsible, along with others, for igniting a race war that will ultimately totally destroy the freedoms that our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us, Klayman said in a press release.
Authorities on Sunday vowed to bring to justice the person responsible for planting an explosive device in a New York City neighborhood, as officials downplayed the possibility of an international terror connection to the fiery Saturday night blast.

#Explosion outside our apartment at 23rd and 6th in #newyork. Terrified. Hoping everyone is okay. pic.twitter.com/i3q4cG7aWT  NH (@nnehajainn) September 18, 2016

All 29 people injured in the explosion, which happened on West 23rd Street in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood, had been released from area hospitals by Sunday morning, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a news conference. Authorities were now squarely focusing on who placed the explosive device on West 23rd Street, and a second, unexploded device four blocks away.

Click to see video of the explosion.

"Whoever placed these bombs we will find, and they will be brought to justice. Period," Cuomo said. "We will not allow these types of people and these types of threats to disrupt our life in New York."

Officials did not believe the New York blast had any connection to several pipe bombs found earlier Saturday along the route of a charity run in New Jersey, Cuomo said. He added there was no link to an explosive device found in July in Central Park.

"Louder than any thunder I've ever heard in my life. Like the sky exploded. Shook the building" NYC explosion pic.twitter.com/WsY3Ax7PS7  Liz Mandel (@elisabetherapy) September 18, 2016

"No evidence of an international terrorism connection with this incident, but it is very, very early in the investigation, and it's just starting," Cuomo said.

The blast appeared to originate from a construction toolbox in front of a building at around 8:30 p.m., a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. A garbage can was found mangled nearby.

Less than three hours after the explosion, investigators located a pressure cooker inside a plastic bag at West 27th Street that was attached to wiring and a cellphone, a law enforcement source told Fox News. It was not clear what was inside the device. Police advised residents of the block where the pressure cooker was found to stay away from windows facing 27th Street.

Cuomo said the device on 23rd street and the device on 27th street were "both similar in design."

Early Sunday, police said the pressure cooker had been removed from the area and would be taken to the department's firing range in the Bronx for further analysis. Pressure cooker bombs placed inside garbage cans were used by the terrorists who bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013.

"At this point, no individual or group has called to claim responsibility," Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill said on Sunday.

Fox News was told there had been no prior intelligence suggesting Saturday's events may have been imminent.

Witnesses said the explosion blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris in the area. One witness told Fox News the explosion sent a "big cloud of black smoke" into the air as people ran from the scene. Another said a fireball shot into the air as a nearby building shook.

Jon Avidor, who lives near the blast site, said mirrors fell off his walls when the explosion occurred.

"I thought it might be a bomb just because it felt like one," Avidor told "Fox & Friends."

The blast happened in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe's supermarket.

"This is the nightmare scenario, or one of the nightmare scenarios," Cuomo said. "And your mind immediately goes to, 'Was anyone hurt? Was anyone killed?' And luckily, depending how you look at it, 29 injuries -- but no fatalities."

Cuomo said, in light of Saturday's incident, the city would deploy nearly 1,000 additional cops and National Guard troops to police bus terminals, airports and subway stations.

The White House said President Barack Obama has been apprised of the explosion, which came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, N. J. That blast occurred shortly before thousands of runners participated in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. No injuries were reported.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump described the incident as a "bomb" going off and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said she had been briefed on "bombings in New York and New Jersey."

Fox News' Matt Dean, Peter Doocy, Kelly Chernenkoff, Bryan Llenas, Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from The New York Post.
Louisiana's Supreme Court is considering whether recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings about juveniles convicted of murder mean a juvenile robber's 99-year sentence is unconstitutional.

Alden Morgan is now 35. He was 17 years old when he held up a couple with their baby daughter.

The New Orleans Advocate (http://bit.ly/2cZLyUz ) reports that several justices noted that his punishment is much higher than the nation's highest court would have allowed for second-degree murder.

The U.S. Supreme Court has found it unconstitutional to execute juveniles, to give them life sentences for most crimes, and  except in rare cases  to deny them a chance at parole for most killings.

Morgan's case appears to be the first time that Louisiana's high court has considered how those rulings may affect sentences for lesser offenses.

___

Information from: The New Orleans Advocate, http://www.neworleansadvocate.com
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The Latest on Campaign 2016 (all times EDT):

4:15 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is condemning what she calls "apparent terrorist attacks" in Minnesota, New Jersey and New York.

Officials in New York said Sunday they were still trying to determine who was behind an explosion that rocked the Chelsea neighborhood and what the motivation was. New Jersey law enforcement would not say if a pipe bomb that exploded at a seaside community was terror-related. Officials said an attack at a Minnesota mall in which a man stabbed nine people was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism; an Islamic State-run news agency called the attacker a "soldier of the Islamic State."

In a statement Sunday, the Democratic presidential candidate said law enforcement officials in New York and New Jersey need support as they investigate.

Clinton said of the Minnesota attack, "this should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS."

___

11:15 a.m.

Republican running mate Mike Pence says "we're all troubled in our hearts" about explosions Saturday in New Jersey and New York and a knife attack in Minnesota.

Pence spoke Sunday during a service at the 7,700-seat First Baptist Church of Jacksonville. Pence did not say if he has been briefed on the two explosions or the mall stabbing where eight people were injured before the attacker was shot and killed by police. No one was killed in either of the explosions Saturday.

Pence is giving thanks that no one else died "as a result of these horrific attacks." Pence says he is praying for those who are recovering from their injuries as well as the first responders and those investigating the incidents. Pence says that whether the incidents were acts of terrorism or inspired by terrorists, "prayer and vigilance is the order of the day."

___

11:00 a.m.

Hillary Clinton's vice presidential running mate has split with her over Clinton's description of some Donald Trump supporters as "irredeemable."

Tim Kaine said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that irredeemable "is not a word I would use." But he suggested that it's not likely the Democrats would be able to change the minds of hardcore Trump supporters on such issues as where President Barack Obama was born.

Kaine says Clinton was right to call out "dark emotions."

Clinton earlier this month said she considers "half" of Trump's supporters to be "deplorables" who are "irredeemable." She later apologized for saying "half" and acknowledged that many of his supporters are hardworking, but disillusioned.

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10:45 a.m.

Republican vice presidential running mate Mike Pence is dismissing as "absolute nonsense" any suggestion that Donald Trump is suggesting violence against Hillary Clinton.

Trump on Friday told a crowd in Miami that since Clinton is for gun control, her Secret Service detail should disarm and, "let's see what happens to her."

Pence said on ABC's "This Week" that Trump was suggesting Clinton has been protected by gun-toting security guards for decades. Pence said Trump's point was that "she'd change her attitude about the right to keep and bear arms " if she didn't have a security detail.

Pence said he'd "bet that's probably true."

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9:35 a.m.

Donald Trump's most visible supporters are insisting that "birtherism" is no longer an issue for the Republican presidential nominee.

That's what vice presidential running mate Mike Pence, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and others are saying on Sunday news shows. They said Trump's comments Friday acknowledging that President Barack Obama was born in the United States cancels out Trump's five years of suggesting otherwise. The surrogates also insisted that a confidant of Hillary Clinton's started peddling the theory that Obama was born in Kenya, that Trump has been a victim of unfair media coverage over the issue and that Americans don't care about the issue, anyway.

Trump on Friday falsely claimed that Clinton had started the birther discussion.

Pence declared on ABC's "This Week" that "it's over." Host Martha Raddatz replied: "It's not over."

___

9:20 a.m.

Democrat Tim Kaine is offering five "litmus test" issues that show millennials are more closely aligned with Hillary Clinton, even if they don't like or trust her.

Clinton's running mate appeared on all four Sunday shows in pursuit of young voters who polls show have cooled on Clinton in recent weeks.

His main argument is that she stands with young voters on issues they care about, including climate science, women's health, LGBT equality, immigration reform and making college more affordable.

Kaine said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "it's on our shoulders" to make the case to millennials that Clinton stands with them on those issues.

___

9:15 a.m.

Donald Trump's running mate says if elected he would model his vice presidency after Dick Cheney.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence told ABC's "This Week" in an interview that aired Sunday that he holds Cheney "in really high regard." Cheney served two terms as Vice President under George W. Bush and was known for playing an active role in the Bush White House.

Pence is a former 12-year congressman and says he envisions emulating Cheney in working closely with the House and Senate to implement Trump's agenda.

Pence says he has talked with Trump about what his role would be, but declined to talk more about "our private conversations."

Pence is campaigning in Florida this weekend and was scheduled to be interviewed about his faith by a minister in Jacksonville at a church service Sunday.

___

2:57 a.m.

President Barack Obama is making it clear that he'll take it personally if the African-American community fails to turn out for the presidential election and support Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Obama delivered his final keynote address to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Saturday night and said his name may not be on the ballot, but issues of importance to the black community are.

And he realizes that a victory for Republican Donald Trump could undo much of what he has done. Clinton also made a pitch at the same dinner for African-Americans' support.

The Republican nominee campaigned in Houston, where he talked to a gathering of the Remembrance Project, a group founded to remember those killed by people living illegally in the U.S. and to press for tougher laws.
Maine state police are looking for a 34-year-old woman, poring over surveillance video and financial records for clues in the two-week-old disappearance.

The police said Valerie Tieman, of Fairfield, vanished on Aug. 30 after going to a local Walmart in a red pickup truck with her husband. She was reported missing Sept. 9 by her parents, who live in South Carolina.

At this point theres a lot of things that were going to do, Maine State Police spokesman Steve McCausland told WABI-TV. Theres surveillance video from Walmart, financial records. We will talk to friends and family, obviously the husband.

The station reported that Tieman's husband, Luc Tieman, was cooperating with investigators.

What hes telling us is that on Aug. 30, they went to the Walmart parking lot. He went inside the store and left her inside that red truck and when he got back from the store, she was missing, McCausland told the station.

The station asked McCausland why Tieman waited to contact police.

I dont have an explanation as to his inaction, he said.

Tieman told the Kennebec Morning Sentinel that his wife has run off previously, but did not elaborate.

He told the paper they married in 2014.
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Philippine officials say Muslim rebels in talks with the government have turned over a Norwegian man freed by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists, who also released three kidnapped Indonesians in the country's south.

The officials say Kjartan Sekkingstad was turned over by Moro National Liberation Front rebel leader Nur Misuari to presidential adviser Jesus Dureza in Sulu province Sunday. The rebels have signed a peace deal with the government and helped negotiate the hostage's freedom.

Tan says Dureza will accompany Sekkingstad, who was freed Saturday by Abu Sayyaf militants from a year of jungle captivity, to southern Davao city where the Norwegian will meet President Rodrigo Duterte. Two Canadians kidnapped with Sekkingstad were beheaded this year.

Tan says three Indonesian fishermen have also been freed by the Abu Sayyaf militants.
The Latest on the conflict in Syria (all times local):

2:45 p.m.

Russia's Foreign Ministry is sharply criticizing the United States as being obstructive and deceptive regarding the airstrike by coalition warplanes on a Syrian military position that killed more than 60 soldiers.

A ministry statement on Sunday said that in an emergency U.N. Security Council session called following the airstrike, the United States took "an unconstructive and indistinct position."

The Americans "not only turned out to be unable to give an adequate explanation of what happened, but also tried, as is their custom, to turn everything upside down," the statement said.

___

11:45 a.m.

Syria's state news agency is reporting that troops have regained control of areas they lost to the Islamic State group in the east of the country after an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition.

SANA quotes an unnamed military official as saying Sunday that dozens of IS fighters were killed in the offensive under the cover of Syrian airstrikes.

The Syrian military official said government troops had regained control of areas the extremists captured, "as a result of the American aircraft aggression."

The U.S. military said it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against IS on Saturday.

Russia's military said it was told by the Syrian army that at least 62 soldiers were killed in the Deir el-Zour air raid and more than 100 wounded.
British police say officers have arrested a 39-year-old man at London's Heathrow Airport under terrorism laws.

Scotland Yard said the man was nabbed on suspicion of possessing terrorist-related material after he arrived at the airport on Saturday.

He was taken to a London police station where he remained in custody Sunday.

Police say counter-terrorism officers are investigating. No details were immediately available.
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Israel's military says a Palestinian attacker has stabbed an army officer in the chest near a West Bank settlement, moderately wounding him.

The military says soldiers shot the attacker and apprehended him. He too was evacuated to the hospital. Sunday's incident just outside the settlement of Efrat followed a weekend surge in Palestinian attacks that shattered weeks of relative calm.

Four Palestinian attackers were shot dead after carrying out attacks on Israelis over the weekend. The spike in violence has spurred the Israeli military to send troop reinforcements to the West Bank.

The Palestinian assaults began a year ago and have mostly consisted of stabbings. They have killed 34 Israelis and two Americans, with about 214 Palestinians killed during that same period. Israel says the vast majority were attackers.
Police say kidnappers have released 14 Nigerian oil workers and their driver unharmed more than two weeks after they were abducted. They would not say if ransoms were paid.

The employees of oil industry service company Nestoil were abducted by gunmen on Sept. 2 near Nigeria's southern oil capital, Port Harcourt.

Police Deputy Superintendent Nnamdi Omoni said they were rescued in batches starting Saturday and ending Sunday evening.

The kidnappers had demanded a ransom of 100 million naira, which is about $322,600.

Kidnappings of Nigerians and foreigners are common all over the country. In the oil-rich southern Niger Delta, they are carried out by ordinary criminals as well as militants demanding a greater share of oil riches for locals.

Hostages are usually released unharmed after ransom payments.
Clarence James Crigger Jr., 86, of Fredericksburg, passed away Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016 with his family by his side. He was born Nov. 28, 1929 in Princeton, W.Va.

Clarence was a member of the West Virginia and Virginia National Guards, a painter for the federal government and owned Criggers Painting and Decorating for over 40 years.

For many years, from a small boy in West Virginia through his adult life, he was part of the Boy Scouts of America. He held many positions including Assistant Deputy Commissioner for the Prince William District, and founder of Junior Leadership Training. Clarence was an Eagle Scout, a member of the Order of the Arrow, and earned one of scoutings highest honors, Wood Badge. He also sponsored the development of many scout troops in Alexandria and Woodbridge, where he lived for many years before moving to Stafford in the mid 1990s.

Clarence is survived by his wife, Leatrice Crigger, with whom he recently celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary on August 21; daughter Debbie Abel and her husband, Paul; and son Ronnieall of Manassas; sister Evelyn Craft of Princeton, W.Va.; brother Jack Crigger and his wife, Rita, of Pace, Fla.; three grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and three great-great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Clarence and Della Crigger; and a son, Jeff Crigger.

Clarences family will receive friends from 1  2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, at Found and Sons Funeral Chapel, 10719 Courthouse Road, Fredericksburg, where the memorial service will begin at 2 p.m. Interment will take place at a later date in Quantico National Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations be made to a gofundme account the family has set up. To make a donation via the gofundme link or to send his family an online condolence, please visit foundandsons.com.
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The plunge in sterling after the Brexit vote gave an immediate helpful nudge to trade in British meat, latest figures show.

In July, the first full month after the 23 Junes referendum, UK beef imports dropped sharply, at the same time as exports grew.

The HMRC data shows Britain bought 19,500t of foreign beef  17% less on the year. Shipments from the main supplier, Ireland, fell by a fifth.

Beef and veal exports also enjoyed a lift, helped by improved competitiveness after the dramatic weakening of the pound.

Volumes rose 1% on the year to 8,300t but the value of that meat was up 10%.

Figures for other sectors showed less obvious trends.

Pigmeat

UK pork exports dropped 7% to 14,300t in July, though they were worth 11% more, while imports leapt 13% to 36,600t.

AHDB market intelligence manager Stephen Howarth said the pork numbers were surprising, but included some oddities, such as more meat coming from Denmark than going the other way and a big slip in shipments to Germany.

If those were excluded, Mr Howarth said, British pigmeat exports would be up about 10%, which would be in line with the rest of the year.

We would expect to see [pork] exports growing and imports falling away over the medium term, but it seems it is going to take a month or two to reflect that in the figures, he said.

Sheepmeat

On lamb, the picture was muddied again, though there have been issues over the reliability of trade statistics in the past.

According to HMRC, Britain shipped 7% less sheepmeat abroad in July than a year earlier, at 5,745t.

But that meat was worth 24.7m, 9% more than in 2015.

On the import side, 14% less sheepmeat came into the country, largely driven by a drop-off from New Zealand.

In its report, AHDB noted this was unlikely to be linked to the currency movements, as it took a long time for shipments to arrive from the southern hemisphere.

The stronger position of British lamb could be feeding through to the supermarket aisles.

Supermarket shelves

AHDBs August survey of shelf facings found that seven of the top 10 retailers were offering 100% British lamb.

The higher percentage of UK product on some supermarket shelves is a reflection of this, rather than a change in sourcing policy Phil Stocker, National Sheep Association

Sainsburys was offering 96% British, which was down slightly on the same period a year before, while Tesco offered 75% and Asda 70%.

National Sheep Association chief executive Phil Stocker said there was no excuse for supermarkets not to be stocking all UK-grown lamb, which hit its peak production in August.

While it may be perceived as encouraging that figures from these chains are not as low as some times, this should be viewed in the context of difficult import conditions in recent months, Mr Stocker said.

The higher percentage of UK product on some supermarket shelves is a reflection of this, rather than a change in sourcing policy.

A pound was worth 1.30 on 22 June and this week was equivalent to 1.18  just over 9% less.
Angelia Jolie, Brad Pitt Divorce: Why Gwyneth Paltrow Is Linked In?

Fans of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt wants the issue of their alleged divorce settled once and for all. But before the news could finally be put to rest, another question pops up. Why Gwyneth Paltrow is linked in?

We have read from some sources that Brad Pitt do not want to spend the remaining vacation days with Angelina Jolie and their kids. The actor allegedly went to Croatia and had fun with his friends. There were even reports of confrontation, tears and yelling.

A tabloid news reported by Gossip Cop mentioned that when Angelina Jolie tried to wake up Brad Pitt, the actor said, in his half-asleep, half-awake state, Gwyneth Paltrow's name and asking her to let him sleep for a few more minutes. This made the UN ambassador fuming mad according to the report.

According to the report, which the website said was only fabricated, the incident happened after Brad Pitt told his wife to try having hamburgers for snacks in spite of Angelina Jolie's weight gain issues. The tip allegedly came from Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop website.

Different issues have been thrown to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as reasons for their alleged divorce. Some tabloid reported that their marriage was destroyed because of the actress' jealousy, that the actor was neglecting his responsibilities as a family man and was behaving as if he is bachelor, and even that the two couple are quarrelling over career and health issues. And now, with issues that linked in Gwyneth Paltrow, the divorce claims could surface once again.

Should Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's marital issues have some truth to it, their divorce would be one of the most expensive one, worth $400 million according to In Touch magazine. Chateau Miravel, the couple's estate, is worth $60 million alone.

Fortunately, same sources revealed that the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt divorce issue should not be taken seriously as the two are happily married, and not even a mention of Gwyneth Platrow's name, if ever there is a grain of truth to that, could separate them.
Better Call Saul Season 3 Spoilers & News: Bob Odenkirk Hints Jimmy McGill Turn Bad? Lead Actor Prepares For Emmy Awards 2016

"Better Call Saul" Season 3 gets an update as lead actor Bob Odenkirk hints how innocence is stripped away in an unfortunate twist in the upcoming series. In an interview with The Wrap, the veteran actor said that things will explode in the prequel of "Breaking Bad."

In season 2 of "Better Call Saul," we saw Bob Odenkirk plays the role of Jimmy McGill, a naive, wide-eyed character who was betrayed by his brother Charles "Chuck" McGill, portrayed by Michael McKean. Chuck recorded the confessions of Jimmy just so he can continue his law practice. The betrayal will usher the metamorphosis of Jimmy to Saul Goodman which fans think makes the series more interesting.

According to Bob Odenkirk, in "Better Call Saul" Season 3 Jimmy cannot tell the difference between good and bad. In his mind, where the angels and devils are at work, he thinks he is doing the right thing but is actually the wrong one.

As Bob Odenkirk prepares for the release of "Better Call Saul" Season 3 next year, he is also preparing for Primetime Emmy Awards results. Odenkirk is nominated for the Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series 2016 as Jimmy McGill. Odenkirk competes with Kyle Chandler, Kevin Spacey, Rami Malek, Live Schreiber and Matthew Rhys.

Jonathan Banks, who portrayed as Mike Ehrmantraut, a corrupt police official in "Better Call Saul," is also nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor In Drama Series. Other nominees are Ben Mendelsohn, Jim Carter, Peter Dinklage, Michael Kelly and Alan Cumming.

Other nominations that "Better Call Saul" received are Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing For A Drama Series, Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour), Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Supporting Role.

Vying for the Outstanding Drama Series in Emmy Awards are "Downtown Abbey," "Game of Thrones," "Homeland," "House of Cards," "Mr. Robot," "The Americans" and "Better Call Saul."
'Stranger Things' Season 2 Air Date, Spoilers, News & Update: Casts Now Filming? Premiere Will Be Earlier Than Expected? Plot Details Revealed

"Stranger Things" had an incredible first season, with its finale leaving many unanswered questions. Now, fans are looking forward for "Stranger Things" Season 2, which was announced back in August. Recent rumors suggest that the cast are starting to film the sequel of the hit phenomenon Netflix series.

'Stranger Things' Season 2 Officially Begins Filming?

The leaked photos for "Stranger Things" Season 2 were published by a Reddit user named hollygorock, showing all the trailers, cars and equipment parked outside the building used as the Hawkins Lab in the show. Several fans kept wondering why there are a lot of production trailers parked outside the said location. Hence, speculations claiming that "Stranger Things" Season 2 is already in the works have spread like wildfire.

However, The Bigbag reports that Netflix has not given any other official details for "Stranger Things" Season 2 other than the fact that it will premiere next year. But, with the leaked images that have already spread online, it could be that fans can expect an early airing for the upcoming "Stranger Things" Season 2.

'Stranger Things Season 2 Tells More About The Upside Down

According to Hollywood.com, the Duffer Brothers will feature more about the Upside Down in "Stranger Things" season 2 since viewers have limited knowledge about the other dimension. The report added that the show will feature more of the gateway to the Upside Down since the production team is currently in the Hawkins Lab reportdly filming "Stranger Things" Season 2.

Meanwhile, Bloody Disgusting suggests that the kids will be exploring more of the Upside Down in "Stranger Things" Season 2 as Season 1 left many questions about the place. The Duffer Brothers tend to bring the audience to the other side of the portal TO find out whether the Demogorgon was just alone or it had an offspring in the Upside Down. Stay tuned to Gamenguide for more "Stranger Things" Season 2 spoilers, news and updates!
John Wick 2 Release Date, News & Update: Keanu Reeves Facing More Deadly Enemies? Sequel Movie To Follow Darker, Bloodier Plot?

"John Wick 2" is, undoubtedly, one of the most talked about movie that is yet to come. The upcoming movie sequel will be starred by one of the most veteran actors in the industry: Keanu Reeves. Fans are very eager to know what will be the plot of the movie and who will be John's new enemies.

According to a report from Movie News Guide, the rumoured plot is that "John Wick" might forget about his retirement and come back to his job; this is because of a promise he made to an old friend. John Wick's new mission in "John Wick 2" will bring him to Europe. There he will have to fight killers that want to take over the association of the underground assassins.

If we recall, John Wick was already married to his wife for about five years. His wife is one of the reason why he chose to retire to his job and have a normal life. Fans already know that John Wick works in an underground assassin association, but they also wants to know what led him to his assassin job. Also, they want to know more of his past so that they will have an idea what kind of character John Wick is, which could probably be tackled in the upcoming "John Wick 2" movie.

According to TheWrap, the movie "John Wick" has made an income of $14.1 million in its opening weekend and it increased to $43 million domestically and nearly $80 million revenue worldwide. This only shows that fans really love the movie and can't wait to see what's next to come. But, could "John Wick 2" beat box-office records? We'll see.

The upcoming "John Wick 2" movie is said to be released on February 10, 2017. Fans should expect moer tougher enemies in the upcoming sequel movie.

The "John Wick 2" movie will be directed by Chad Stahelski and it will be written by Derek Kolstad. To know the latest news and updates about "John Wick 2," stay tuned to Game & Guide.
Train to Busan 2 Release Date, Cast, News & Update: Sequel Confirmed? Plot To Focus on Zombies Perspective; Gong Yoo To Return?

After "Train to Busan's" successful release, a lot of viewers hope that the zombie thriller will have a sequel. In the movie industry, a sequel will usually follow if the original movie was proven to be a box-office hit. As for the Korean movie, it remains to be seen if "Train To Busan 2" movie will be made, but reports suggest that it might just be the case.

If it were up to actor Gong Yoo, who portrayed protagonist Seok-Woo, there will definitely be a "Train to Busan 2." "And there will be a sequel of Train to Busan. For you all. ," the actor posted on Twitter last week. Although there hasn't been an official word about the fate of a sequel, Gong Yoo expressed his desire to become part of the film. In an interview with Sport Chosun, the 37-year-old actor shared that he would love to be part of a series, where his character will continue living as a zombie.

However, Gong Yoo confirmed that "Train to Busan" director Yeon Sang Ho said Seok Woo is already dead. But it's possible that "Train to Busan 2" might feature Ma Dong Seok's Sang-hwa's story from his perspective. It can be recalled that Sang-hwa sacrificed himself to the zombies to save his wife and Seok-Woo.

Plot theories of "Train to Busan 2" are rampant and this only proves that fans want to have that sequel. One of the suggested theories is that Seok-Woo's daughter, Soo-an, will all be grown-up in the sequel and that she will help in developing a cure for the zombie infection. Soon, she'll be out to search for her father and give him the effective cure.

Although this might be an interesting theory, Seok Woo is dead, as mentioned above and it would be pointless for Soo-an to give the cure to him. As of the moment, fans will just have to continue hoping that the "Train to Busan 2" movie will happen in the future.
Stranger Things Season 2 Air Date, Cast, News & Update: Eleven To Be Replaced With A New Character? More Plot Details Revealed

Ever since the report came out that "Stranger Things" Season 2 has already been confirmed by the people behind the show, fans and critics are excited to know more about what to expect next season. Several reports have already emerged with concrete details regarding the show's sophomore run.

According to a report by TVLine, new characters will be introduced in "Stranger Things" Season 2 including a tough and confident 12 to 14 year old female character named Max. According to the publication, Max possesses some characteristics people don't normally see in a teenage girl.

The first episode of "Stranger Things" Season 2 will be called "Madmax," which is believed to focus on the story of the new interesting character, Max. According to some reports, Max's character is similar to that of Eleven, a young girl with many psychokinetic gifts. There is also a big possibility that Max, just like Eleven, may know something about the Upside Down.

The other characters that are expected to make an appearance on "Stranger Things" Season 2 are Billy, the brother of Max, and Roman, which is believed to be a gender-neutral character. Although there are speculations suggesting that some characters might not come back, many fans are expecting Eleven, which is played by Spanish-born English actress Millie Bobby Brown, to headline the second season. However, the creator of the show, Matt and Ross Duffer, had previously admitted that they have yet to decide on Eleven's involvement in Season 2.

Meanwhile, there are reports saying that the story of "Stranger Things" Season 2 will pick up where it left off. "The plan is to continue with this set of characters while introducing a few critical key new ones next season," says Shawn Levy during an interview with SLASHFILM. "So I'll just say that a lot of the big mysteries get answered at the end of Season 1, but we are very much kind of unearthing new problems and questions that merit future stories and future investigation in the most enjoyable way."

Although there is no specific air date has been confirmed, "Stranger Things" Season 2 is expected to arrive in 2017 on Netflix. Stay tuned to GamenGuide for the latest "Stranger Things" Season 2 spoilers, news and updates!
City centre business : Lazzarin ice cream shop to close

Bonn Its the end of an era as the traditional ice cream parlour in the Marktplatz closes its doors.

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After 70 years in the business, the Lazzarin ice cream parlour in the Marktplatz will close in two weeks. Robertino Lazzarin, who has run the business for years, is throwing in the towel, saying the business is no longer viable. The rent for the next five years is to be renegotiated, the basic costs increase each year and in the coming years the city has notified of a 10 per cent price increase for terrace use. There were many reasons for our decision, explains Lazzarin. It was not an easy one, particularly as he is responsible for eight to 14 employees, depending on the time of year.

He came to the Rhine as a 17-year-old from a north Italian mountain village in the Dolomites to help his father Enzo (who returned to Italy years ago) in the ice cream parlour. I have been making ice cream my whole life, says the 53-year-old. The family came to Bonn in 1931. His grandfather, Ivano Lazzarin, opened cafes in the Wenzelgasse, at the railway station and in Bad Godesberg, which no longer exist today. Besides the business he opened at Marktplatz 29 in 1946, he also established shops on Kaiserplatz and in Sternstrae. His grandfather later divided the shops between his children. The shop in Sternstrae is still owned by the family, but not run by Robertino Lazzarin. The parlour in Kaiserplatz is no longer run by the family.

Robertino Lazzarin can well remember the time when people in Bonn did not say they were going for an ice cream, but rather they were going to Lazzarin. In Bonn and the surrounding area, that was a standard phrase. On behalf of me and my father, I can only thank our customers for their loyalty.

Over the decades, the number of people in the Marktplatz, particularly during the week, has fallen. Competition has also increased. The owner of the shop told the General Anzeiger a new tenant in the same profession had already been found. A ten year contract has been signed for the entire building. A five year sublease to the Lebkuchen (gingerbread) company Schmidt begins two months before Christmas.

After the summer, Robertino Lazzarin normally disappears to the Dolomites for four months. This year he must wind up his business. The 53-year-old feels too young to retire. He is looking for a new, cheaper location. As I said, ice cream is my business.
Accident on the B9 at Hochkreuz : Young BMW driver hits tree near Maritim Hotel

Bonn-Hochkreuz The fire brigade freed a young driver from his car during the night after he careered off the B9.

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A 20-year-old man was badly injured in an accident on Godesberger Allee (B9) in the early hours of Sunday morning. The fire brigade had to free him from his BMW after he veered off the road near the Maritim Hotel and crashed into a tree.

The police officer in charge at the scene told the General Anzeiger that the young man had been driving towards Bad Godesberg. He was driving at an excessive speed and lost control of the car just before the Hochkreuz tram stop. According to the policeman, his BMW spun round before skidding drivers side first into a tree on the edge of the road.

Witnesses to the accident called an ambulance and the fire brigade. The fire brigade had to free the 20-year-old from the badly mangled car using hydraulic equipment. Willi Palm, the fire officer in charge, said the impact had thrown the driver over to the passenger side and had trapped his legs. The fireman said emergency services were able to treat him through a window while some of the 22 service personnel used shears to cut away the body of the car. He was finally freed at around 2.10 am. Police said the seriously injured man had been taken by ambulance to the Uniklinik (University Hospital).

The B9 towards Bad Godesberg was closed until about 4 am. Police diverted traffic via the A562.

The policeman in charge said the 20-year-old had been driving in convoy with a friend, who had been driving his own car. Police were not ruling out that the young men were possibly having a race.
6 Things to Know Before Porting Your Primary Number to Reliance Jio 4G Features oi -Abhinaya Prabhu

Reliance Jio 4G is the most talked topic these days and smartphone users are eager to get their hands on a SIM from the service provider to enjoy the Welcome Offer.

With the overwhelming response to the Jio 4G SIM card, Reliance Jio has started taking port or MNP request from the users of other SIM cards such as Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL and more. Click here to port to Reliance Jio from your existing network.

Also Read: How to Fix Reliance Jio 4G SIM Overheating and Battery Drain Problems

However, the Reliance Jio service is still in the initial phase and there are many glitches with the same. There are speed problems, delay in activation, and many others. If you are thinking of porting your existing number to the Reliance Jio network, you need to wait until the network is stabilized.

Also Read: Get Talktime and Data Loan from Your Network

Take a look at some reasons that you shouldn't port your primary number to Jio right now.

Not enough 4G network coverage Jio 4G coverage is available even in places that have no proper 3G services by the competitors, but the service should fill the blank spots in the busy areas. Several users have started facing issues with the Jio service while traveling to multiple places. You should upgrade to a 4G phone If you are not using a 4G VoLTE enabled smartphone, you need to upgrade to one to enjoy all the benefits of the Reliance Jio SIM. If you are using a 3G or 2G phone, you need to upgrade your phone to enjoy the services such as unlimited access to theJio apps. Migration to the Welcome Offer Before the commercial launch of the Reliance Jio network, the LYF users were enjoying the Preview Offer that included unlimited 4G data, calls and messages for 90 days. Now, Reliance Jio has migrated the users to the Welcome Offer from the Preview Offer. The Welcome Offer is not truly unlimited as it offers only 4 GB of 4G data per day and the speed will plummet to 128 kbps after the limit. Delay in SIM activation Suddenly, there is a huge demand for the Reliance Jio SIM. Of course, the company came up with the eKYC activation, but it didn't implement the scheme in all the Jio Stores. Eventually, there is delay of over 10 days for the Jio SIM to be activated. Drop in 4G speed Once the service provider announced the Preview Offer, there are many complaints about the Reliance Jio speed. The Jio users in crowded areas are facing issues with low speed. There are many apps that provide free and unlimited content to the Jio users, but the speed drops while downloading the same in crowded areas. Free night data is a catch Of course, Reliance Jio is offering free night data to the users. But, go through the terms and conditions of the tariff plans announced by the service provider. The free night data is only a catch. The free night data can be enjoyed only between 2 am and 5 am that is such an odd timing for users.

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Spike in US Intel Ops Against Russia Signals Relations at 'Point of No Return

Sputnik News

18:40 16.09.2016(updated 22:12 16.09.2016)

On Wednesday, US media reported that America's intelligence agencies have expanded the scope and breadth of their operations against Russia to Cold War levels. Commenting on the news, Russian experts have said this is the clearest indication yet that Washington has shifted Russia's status from a 'geopolitical rival' into an outright 'enemy'.

On Wednesday, sources cited by the Washington Post confirmed that US intelligence agencies are in the process of expanding their operations against Russia to the largest levels since the Cold War. The "mobilization," involving the CIA, the NSA, and other intelligence services and assets, is seeing a shift of resources committed to terrorist threats and US war zones back to Russia.

According to the paper's sources, while terror remains a major concern for US intelligence, Russia, for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, has again become a top priority in the eyes of the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. US intelligence agencies are now spending roughly 10% of its total $67.9 billion budget on Russia, that figure jumping substantially in the last two years, but still less than the 40% committed to watching the USSR and its allies at the height of the Cold War. Admittedly, the threat posed by radical Islamist terror was also lower at the time.

According to US analysts speaking to WP, even the present spending amounts are still not enough, since "US spy agencies have struggled to anticipate Moscow's moves."

Asked to comment on the story, Sergei Ermakov, a senior expert at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, suggested that the surging focus on Moscow is yet another indication that Washington is "reviewing Russia's status, and now regards us not just as a geopolitical rival, but an outright enemy."

"It's for this reason that the US is increasing military spending in those regions where a clash with Russia might occur," the expert said, speaking to the Svobodnaya Pressa news website. "The same goes for all kinds of American intelligence operations. And it's necessary to understand that a significant portion of the financing for such operations, especially in the information sphere, goes through channels not directly connected to the financing of the intelligence community."

In other words, Ermakov emphasized, "when the Washington Post says that US intelligence agencies are spending upwards of 10% of their total budget for work against Russia, that is not really the case. Overall, the amounts spentare much greater."

What's at stake, the analyst suggested, is "not only a question of deterring Russia; Washington is looking much further. In effect, they are preparing for a direct armed confrontation, even though a military conflict may not be the end in itself."

"The calculation is simple: if, as during the Cold War, the policy of containment and pressure on Russia bears fruit without an armed intervention, that will be a victory for the US.This is the scenario Washington would be most happy with, since they are not ready for a serious armed confrontation."

Accordingly, Ermakov warned, in the spheres of intelligence and subversion, Washington has not only preserved its resources, but expanded them. "The US has a good network of sleeper agents on Russian territory; typically, such agents are used in the pre-war period to carry out political and military tasks."

"Apart from that, the US has made a great deal of progress in recent years when it comes to informational and psychological subversion, using international structures. It is in this that the power of US intelligence currently lies."

These resources, used in coordination, have helped the US to reach its strategic goals, the analyst emphasized. This includes know-how in so-called color revolutions.

As to the intensification of US intelligence activities against Russia, Ermakov believes that it signals that the deterioration of Russian-US relations have passed a "point of no return. [It] means that restoring relations with the US to normal  to the level of five years ago, will no longer occur. Instead, a tough exchange of some sort is brewing between the two countries, although it's difficult to say at this point what form it will take."

But that doesn't mean that there isn't a struggle going on among the US political establishment regarding what course the next president will have toward Russia, the analyst added.

Asked how Russia might respond to the growing US threat, Ermakov suggested that it's necessary, first and foremost, for some elements of the Russian political elite, particularly its liberal wing, to break with the illusion that Russia has "done something wrong," and that "if we agree to a compromise with the US now, everything will calm down and return to normal."

"This is impossible. Moscow and Washington face a chasm in their positions, as a result of which the two sides have presented each other with a whole list of charges; Western countries have shifted to a serious stance against Russia in all directions, a process which has gained its own momentum."

For example, the analyst noted, "perhaps someone thinks that the anti-Russian doping scandals in the Rio Olympics and Paralympics, or the accusations against Russia for hacking attacks, are just an unfortunate coincidence. This is a profound mistake. These events are links in one chain. They are designed to legitimize a global image of Russia as an enemy whose aggression must be repelled"

Accordingly, Ermakov argued, the Russian response must be constitute "work in all directions, not just in strengthening our military." For instance, he noted, Russia do everything it can to remind Europe that a war with Russia, even a localized one, would be absolutely catastrophic for the continent.

"We must try to convince the Europeans that it's not too late to switch to normal negotiations  to create the conditions for new bilateral agreements  a 'Yalta-2' if you will. And for that we must act more decisively  to increase diplomatic efforts, to seek out new forms of psychological-informational work. Plus, of course, we must demonstrate the growing military potential of our country."

Mikhail Alexandrov, a senior researcher at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, disagreed with his colleague on the extent of the threat posed by US intelligence at the moment. The US intelligence buildup is only logical, the analyst suggested, and has to do with the fact that Washington has lost a professional understanding of the country's polity since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the 1990s, the expert recalled, US officials believed that the Yeltsin government's policies would lead the country to its natural death. Washington allowed Sovietology to become defunct, with its experts failing to "actively engage in the study of the Russian Federation," leading them to fall behind the times, "to stick to old stereotypes, and thus to fail to understand Moscow's current logic."

"In these circumstances," Alexandrov noted, "the escalation of US intelligence activity can only offer a partial result. The US will have more facts on Russia, but they will not be able to interpret and analyze them. Preparing competent analysts on Russia is possible, but it can't happen quickly."

The main question, according to Alexandrov, is whether the US will have enough time left to train these specialists, and to use them, before America effectively loses its campaign for global hegemony.

In this situation, Russia's response is simple, according to the analyst. Russia's counterintelligence services must counter US attempts to obtain sensitive information, and keep an eye on would-be US agents seeking to destabilize the country. Most importantly, Alexandrov noted, Russia must understand "that US intelligence services do not only collect information, but also carry out operations, including political operations, to undermine statehood. Factually, US intelligence is a tool of hybrid warfare; that cannot ever be discounted."

 Sputnik

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Dunford Discusses ISIL With Turkish Counterpart Ahead of NATO Meeting

By Lisa Ferdinando DoD News, Defense Media Activity

SPLIT, Croatia, Sept. 16, 2016  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff met today with his Turkish counterpart on efforts against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ahead of a NATO Military Committee conference here tomorrow.

The aim of Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford's meeting with Turkey's chief of the General Staff, Gen. Hulusi Akar, was to "advance discussions on the way forward in the fight against [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]," said Navy Capt. Greg Hicks, Dunford's spokesman.

Dunford "recommitted to the close military-to-military and strategic relationship the U.S. has with Turkey," Hicks said. U.S. officials have hailed Turkey as an important member in the coalition against ISIL, noting U.S. and coalition forces have used Turkish territory to launch strikes against ISIL targets.

Recently, Turkish and moderate Syrian opposition forces liberated the northern Syrian city of Jarabulus and closed a major ISIL route between Jarabulus and Manbij.

Croatia Proud to Host

Croatia, which joined NATO in 2009, is honored to be hosting its inaugural NATO Military Committee Conference, said Lt. Col. Drazen Jonjic, senior advisor in the public affairs and publishing department for the Croatian armed forces.

"We are very proud ... to organize this type of conference. It's the first time in Croatia," he said, adding he has full confidence the meeting will be successful.

Earlier today, Dunford thanked Croatia's chief of defense, Gen. Mirko Sundov, for the host country's military leadership role in southeast Europe, its contributions to NATO operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo, and its continued efforts abroad, Hicks said.

Speaking to reporters, a U.S. official further commended Croatia for its contributions to global peace and security, describing the military as "very capable" and "very focused."

NATO Military Leaders Looking Forward

The chiefs of defense will discuss the decisions from the NATO heads of state and government summit held in Warsaw, Poland, in July, Lt. Col. Robert Koster of the Netherlands said. The military leaders will be looking for any new advice they can provide that can be brought to NATO ministerial-level talks in October, he added.

The topics of discussion tomorrow are to include Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Russia, mass migration, instability on the alliance's eastern and southern flanks, and the threat of terrorism, Koster said, adding that robust discussions are expected.

"It's not just security in the NATO countries -- it's also security abroad," he said, noting that issues outside the alliance could affect NATO countries.

Czech Gen. Petr Pavel, the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, will chair the meeting. He will be supported by U.S. Army Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the NATO supreme allied commander for Europe, and French Gen. Denis Mercier, NATO's supreme allied commander for transformation.

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Russia to Supply 12 Mi-35M Helicopters to Nigeria by 2018

Sputnik News

15:28 16.09.2016(updated 15:39 16.09.2016)

Russia will deliver 12 multipurpose Mi-35 helicopters to Nigeria by 2018.

JOHANNESBURG (Sputnik)  Russia will deliver 12 multipurpose Mi-35 helicopters to Nigeria by 2018 as the African country is carrying out the modernization program of its armed forces, the deputy head of Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said Friday.

"As for the contract for the delivery of Mi-35M helicopters, signed in October 2015, it is in the process of implementation by 2018. It has been planned to supply two vehicles until the end of 2016," Anatoly Punchuk told RIA Novosti at the Africa Aerospace and Defense-2016 (AAD 2016) exhibition, adding that the contract provides for the supply of 12 helicopters.

He added that Nigeria was one of the most promising Russian partners in the field of military-technical cooperation.

The Mi-35M is a modern multipurpose attack helicopter, equipped with the latest navigation and avionics technology and capable of operating in high temperatures and in mountainous terrain. It can be also used for medical and transportation purposes.

The AAD-2016 expo is taking place in the capital of South Africa, Pretoria, on September 14-18.

 Sputnik

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UN rights expert calls for durable solutions for the displaced in Serbia and Kosovo

16 September 2016  Concluding his five-day visit to Serbia and Kosovo, a United Nations human rights expert called on the Government of Serbia and the authorities in Kosovo to find an urgent and sustainable solution for people who have been displaced for almost 17 years.

"All durable solutions for the internally displaced persons should remain as options open to them, and must be delinked from political processes," said the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Chaloka Beyani in a news release issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

"I urge the authorities to carry out profiling and needs assessment exercises, and survey of the wishes or intentions of internally displaced persons," he added, noting that emphasis should not be on return alone.

The release further noted that according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are still some 88,000 vulnerable internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Serbia and more than 16,000 in Kosovo who remain with displacement related needs and require durable solutions.

The UN human rights expert also expressed concern over the living conditions of many IDPs, especially those belonging to the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities.

"These IDPs have specific protection needs, especially in terms of accessing their rights to housing, employment, health care and education," Mr. Beyani stressed, adding that these should be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Highlighting that durable housing is a key element of sustainable solutions, and it should be linked to livelihood opportunities, the Special Rapporteur noted that a number of other issues, such as rule of law, illegal occupation of properties and effective compensation for properties that cannot be recovered also require attention.

The UN expert further emphasised that the concerns of IDPs in Serbia and Kosovo should remain on the agenda of the international community and that this should be addressed as a key component in the context of the European Union accession framework and in the framework of the Brussels dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.

"I call upon the international community not to turn a blind eye to IDPs [there], and to continue supporting the Government and authorities in Serbia and Kosovo respectively in their efforts to achieve durable solutions to IDPs, and close the internal displacement chapter once and for all," said Mr. Beyani.

During his visit, to assess progress made on his earlier recommendations, the UN Special Rapporteur recognised that some positive steps have been taken by the Serbian Government and the Kosovo authorities, including in terms of housing, land and property issues as well as in terms of institutional arrangements and legal and policy frameworks to respond to the situation of IDPs.

Independent Experts and Special Rapporteurs, are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

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Iran rejects Saudi allegations on Yemen

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New York, Sept 18, IRNA -- Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations in a statement released on Saturday rejected allegations by Saudi Arabia about arms transfers to Yemen and the violations of Security Council Resolution 2216.

Full text of the statement follows:

The Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations categorically rejects the allegations, as contained in Saudi Arabia's letter to the President of the Security Council, dated 14 September 2016, regarding arms transfers to Yemen and violations of Security Council Resolution 2216.

This letter includes unsubstantiated claims that have not been verified by any independent entity. These claims are raised against the numerous confirmed reports, documenting Saudi Arabia's war crimes and violation of international law and international humanitarian law.

Saudi Arabia has engaged in a year and a half long wide ranging, non proportionate and irrational war against the people of Yemen, where they have undeniably committed crimes against defenseless women and children.

Saudi Arabia has also decimated much of Yemen's civilian infrastructure and not hesitated to destroy schools and hospitals.

It is surprising that Saudi Arabia would complain to the United Nations about the use of weapons in Yemen even while Saudi Arabia itself has purchased tens of billions in arms that it is using against the Yemeni people.

The Islamic Republic of Iran does not believe in a military solution in Yemeni and has always urged for cessation of hostilities, dialogue and resort to legal and peaceful mechanisms to achieve a peaceful resolution to this conflict.

9191**2044

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Norwegian hostage in Philippines freed after one year

Iran Press TV

Sat Sep 17, 2016 4:10PM

Members of the notorious Abu Sayyaf militant group have released a Norwegian national, one year after he was taken hostage in a high-end tourist resort.

Officials in Manila said Kjartan Sekkingstad was released Saturday and would soon be handed over to authorities.

An adviser to President Rodrigo Duterte said Sekkingstad was handed over by Abu Sayyaf militants to Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), another militant group based in the province of Sulu.

Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza said Sekkingstad would be staying overnight with the founder of MNLF, Nur Misuari, due to heavy rain, adding that the Norwegian national would be flown to the southern city of Davao on Sunday after the MNLF handed him to authorities.

Other officials said President Duterte would personally go to Davao to receive Sekkingstad.

Norwegian officials reacted to the long-anticipated news of release, calling it a positive development. They said cooperation with Manila would continue until Sekkingstad was brought to safety.

"According to Philippine authorities, Sekkingstad is now in a relatively safe place," Norway's Foreign Minister Borge Brende said, adding, "We refrain from celebrating until Sekkingstad has been safely handed over to Philippine authorities."

Sekkingstad was abducted in September 2015 near Samal island, about 500 kilometers to the west of Sulu. Along him were a Filipino woman, who has already been freed, and two Canadians, namely John Ridsdel and Robert Hall. The militants beheaded Ridsdel and Hall in April, saying the government had failed to respond to their demands, which were reportedly ransoms of some 300 million pesos ($6.5 million) for each.

Sulu, a remote archipelago known as the hideout of Abu Sayyaf and other militants, has long been a hotbed of sectarianism and terror activities in the south of the Philippines. The MNLF has accepted to engage in peace talks with the government and is believed to have played a key role in securing the release of Sekkingstad.

Abu Sayyaf is an old branch of al-Qaeda which recently pledged allegiance to Daesh, a Takfiri terror group based in the Middle East. The group mainly relies on kidnapping for its finances and many say its ideological and religious claims are meant to hide its focus on the lucrative business.

Thousands of troops were deployed last month to southern territories after Duterte ordered a massive military operation against Abu Sayyaf. However, fierce resistance by the militants has made it difficult for the military to make any tangible breakthrough.

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U.S. Pays $1.2m In Landmark Payment To Drone Victim In Pakistan

September 17, 2016

by RFE/RL

The U.S. government has paid $1.2 million to the family of an Italian aid worker killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in a landmark deal.

It is believed to be the first payment of its kind by Washington to the family of a drone strike victim killed outside an official warzone.

Giovanni Lo Porto, 37, was killed while being held hostage by Al-Qaeda in January 2015. American aid worker Warren Weinstein, 73, was also killed in the drone strike.

The U.S. government has offered condolence payments to the families of civilian casualties of air strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the Lo Porto payment is different because he was killed in Pakistan and because there was an official apology and acknowledgement from Washington.

The payment was confirmed by the White House. It was unclear whether the Weinstein family also received payment.

The payment to Lo Porto's family was considered a "donation in the memory of Giovanni Lo Porto."

Last year, U.S. President Barack Obama admitted that Lo Porto and Weinstein were accidentally killed in a secret counterterrorism mission and expressed his regret for the deaths. It was announced that compensation would be paid to the families.

The operation had targeted an Al-Qaeda compound in Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan.

Ahmed Farouq, a U.S. citizen who had become an Al-Qaeda leader, was killed in the same operation. Another U.S. citizen turned Al-Qaeda terrorist, Adam Gadahn, was killed in a separate operation in January.

Weinstein was a business development expert working in Pakistan on a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

He was snatched from his home in Lahore on August 13, 2011, shortly before he was due to return home after seven years working in Pakistan.

Lo Porto disappeared in January 2012 in Pakistan. He had worked for an international aid group called Welthungerhilfe.

With reporting by BBC and The Guardian

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/us-italian- payment-drone-victim/27996968.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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FARC Hosts Group's Final Conference in Colombia

By VOA News September 17, 2016

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - FARC - is scheduled to host a week-long meeting beginning Saturday in the jungle conclave known as Yari Plains.

FARC rebels are gathering for their 10th congress, this time to discuss a peace agreement with the government that is expected to be signed on September 26, ending a half century of civil war in Colombia.

"So much pain and tears. So much pointless mourning and deprivation. So many lives and severed smiles to finally conclude that the way out is not war, but civilized discussion," Rodrigo Londono, also known as Timochenko, FARC leader, said.

Colombia's five decades of conflict led to the deaths of more than 220,000 people and left millions displaced.

In June, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Londono signed a bilateral cease-fire, following nearly four years of negotiations between the two sides in Havana.

Part of the plan to help the FARC fighters includes paying them 90 percent of Colombia's minimum wage as they emerge from their hideouts. The negotiators compared the monthly $200 subsidy to the thousands of dollars spent on each army bombing raid.

Under the agreement, the rebels and government soldiers will receive amnesty for all but the gravest crimes.

Once the deal is approved, FARC will have nonvoting representation in Congress until 2018 and can participate in elections. From then on, the former rebels will have to win votes like candidates in any other political party.

After the agreement is signed, a 180-day countdown begins toward the full demobilization of the fighters, a process that the international community will monitor.

Colombians will then vote on the deal in an October 2 referendum, and the government must win support from many who would prefer to have defeated the guerrillas through military force to avenge years of kidnappings and attacks.

Reports say most opinion polls suggest Colombians will support the deal

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Inherent Resolve Strikes Target ISIL in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Sept. 18, 2016  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

Attack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 12 strikes in Syria:

-- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes destroyed an ISIL oil pump jack and two oil well heads and damaged seven supply routes.

-- Near Raqqah, two strikes destroyed two ISIL tactical vehicles.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, three strikes destroyed seven ISIL oil tanker trucks and damaged eight supply routes.

-- Near Mara, five strikes engaged four ISIL tactical units and destroyed an artillery system and three fighting positions and damaged a fighting position.

Strikes in Iraq

Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted seven strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

-- Near Qaim, three strikes destroyed an ISIL weapons cache and two vehicle-bomb facilities.

-- Near Hit, two strikes destroyed an ISIL headquarters building, a command-and-control node and a weapons facility.

-- Near Mosul, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a vehicle, two mortar systems and an artillery system.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a vehicle.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat it poses to Iraq, Syria, the region and the wider international community. The destruction of targets in Syria and Iraq further limits ISIL's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.

Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

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Scaparrotti: NATO Needs 'Position of Strength' for Russia

By Lisa Ferdinando DoD News, Defense Media Activity

SPLIT, Croatia, Sept. 18, 2016  NATO needs to approach Russia from a "position of strength," while keeping the channels open for discussions and possible collaboration, the alliance's supreme allied commander for Europe said here yesterday.

Army Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, who is dual-hatted as a NATO commander and as commander of U.S. European Command, spoke to reporters after a daylong meeting here of the NATO Military Committee, the alliance's highest military authority.

"In the view of the allies, I can tell you from this conference that they recognize Russia's a challenge in many areas," he said.

However, opportunities to collaborate with Russia do exist, Scaparrotti noted. For example, he said, the United States and Russia brokered a ceasefire in Syria and a joint U.S.-Russian operations center could be established to coordinate information in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

These kinds of efforts seek to reduce the suffering of the population and find an opportunity to bring some peace, Scaparrotti said.

"To find an opportunity for the players in Syria to begin to work together to a common end, I think it's fair to say that all of us think that's a good move, and it's an opportunity that you got to take advantage of," he said.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, led the U.S. delegation at the NATO Military Committee Conference.

Pragmatic, But Firm in Dealing with Russia

Gen. Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic, the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said alliance members must stay "pragmatic," but also "firm," in their principles in dealing with Russia.

"We simply cannot talk about and think about Russia in black-and-white format," he told reporters, echoing that there are areas of opportunity with Moscow. "The fact that we have different foundations with Russia, we have different views on many things, doesn't mean that we can entirely exclude any cooperation with Russia," he said.

Areas of mutual concern include fighting terrorism and ending the suffering in Syria, Pavel said, even though Russian propaganda might seek to explain the ceasefire in Syria as a sign of legitimization.

"But from our side, it is clearly a necessity to facilitate the situation of the civil population in Syria that is desperately in need of humanitarian assistance," he said.

Beyond Alliance's Borders

Alliance military leaders had productive discussions on addressing the instability that is threatening NATO's eastern and southern flanks, Scaparrotti said.

"They pulled it to the strategic level, and I think that's very positive and it helps us to think about not only the region itself, but where the linkages are globally," he said.

The challenges -- Russia, refugees and extremism -- have impacts throughout Europe and beyond, Scaparrotti said, adding that he was encouraged by what he heard at the conference.

Pavel underscored the importance of an outward-looking approach. "To protect our territory and populations, we must also project stability beyond our borders," he said.

Iraq, Afghanistan, NATO Forces

In other topics, alliance members discussed the establishment of a NATO presence in Iraq to focus on institution building at the ministerial level and training at the troop level, Pavel said. Also under discussion was increased NATO troop presence in Eastern Europe.

In addition, the chiefs of defense exchanged views on NATO's Resolute Support mission. There were "no surprises" with regard to the train, advise and assist mission in Afghanistan, a senior NATO official said. "They reaffirmed the approach that we had," the official added.

The NATO Military Committee conference was hosted in this picturesque town on the Dalmatian Coast by the Croatian chief of defense, Gen. Mirko Sundov. A Military Committee conference is hosted each year by an alliance nation. The alliance members examined decisions made at the NATO summit in July in Warsaw, Poland, and are providing military advice in implementing those decisions and addressing those concerns.

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New York Blast 'Was Intentional Act,' Police Say; 29 Injured

By Esha Sarai September 18, 2016

A loud explosion that shook the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan Saturday night was "an intentional act" that injured 29 people, according to New York authorities.

New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio declared the explosion was deliberate during a late-night news conference on the street near the scene of the blast. However, DeBlasio emphasized that there was no known terrorist involvement in the explosion.

He said police and other security officials were not aware of any current terrorist threat to the nation's largest city. World leaders have been descending on New York for days, preparing for the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting that starts during the coming week.

Despite the assurance that no terrorist group was believed to be behind the explosion, police and the mayor confirmed that officers were searching another site four city blocks from the scene of the explosion for "a possible secondary device." No further details were available.

The explosion at 131 West 23rd Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, frightened hundreds of people and blew out windows. The blast was centered in a metal container about two meters square, described variously as a trash container or a large tool-storage container used by workers renovating a nearby building.

None of the injuries were "life-threatening," police said, although one person was reported to be in serious condition.

Subway and bus service passing near 23rd Street was halted, and police closed off a large area of midtown Manhattan to all traffic. Hundreds of police and firefighters were at the scene of the explosion.

Police said they had video of the explosion recorded by surveillance cameras, but they did not discuss details of the images. Senior officials said it was determined that the blast was not caused by a natural-gas leak, or any fault in the underground gas mains that run throughout the largest U.S. city.

The fashionable Chelsea neighborhood that was the center of the intensive police search is just south of midtown Manhattan, including both the United Nations complex and Times Square, and several kilometers north of New York's financial district and the site of the former World Trade Center.

The blast at about 8:30 p.m. (0030 UTC) was heard hundreds of meters away, and it created a chaotic scene and mass confusion. One of the buildings adjacent to the spot where the explosion occurred was a home for the blind. Police urged residents of the building to stay indoors for their own safety.

Police searched cars parked near the mangled metal container, and helicopters flown by officers floated above the area hunting for clues to what happened.

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New York Police Investigate 'Intentional' Blast that Injured 29

By Esha Sarai September 18, 2016

A loud explosion that shook the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan Saturday night was "an intentional act" that injured 29 people, according to New York authorities.

New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio declared the explosion outside 131 West 23rd Street was deliberate, speaking to reporters on the street near the scene of the blast. DeBlasio emphasized, however, there was no known terrorist involvement in the explosion.

He said police and other security officials were not aware of any current terrorist threat to the nation's most populous city. World leaders have been descending on New York for days, preparing for the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting this week.

New York authorities are also investigating an unexploded device found at West 27th Street, blocks from where the explosion occurred. Bomb squad personnel safely removed a device that appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to a cell phone and wires in a plastic bag.

The explosion in Chelsea frightened hundreds of people and blew out windows. The blast was centered in a metal container about two meters square, described variously as a trash container or a tool-storage container used by workers renovating a nearby building.

None of the injuries were "life-threatening," police said, although one person was reported to be in serious condition.

Subway and bus service passing the area was halted, and police closed off a large area of midtown Manhattan to all traffic. Hundreds of police and firefighters were at the scene of the explosion.

Police said they had video of the explosion recorded by surveillance cameras, but they did not discuss details of the images.

The fashionable Chelsea neighborhood that was the center of the intensive police search is just south of midtown Manhattan, including both the U.N. complex and Times Square, and several kilometers north of New York's financial district and the site of the former World Trade Center.

The blast at about 8:30 p.m. (0030 UTC) was heard hundreds of meters away, and it created a chaotic scene and mass confusion. One of the buildings adjacent to the spot where the explosion occurred was a home for the blind. Police urged residents of the building to stay indoors for their own safety.

Police searched cars parked near the mangled metal container, and helicopters flown by officers floated above the area hunting for clues to what happened.

The New York blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in a trash bin in a New Jersey beach town Saturday, forcing the cancellation of a charity foot race involving thousands of runners. DeBlasio said the two incidents were unrelated.

No injuries were reported, but authorities in Seaside Park, New Jersey, called off the "Seaside Semper Five," a five-kilometer race meant to raise money for U.S. military personnel. The event was hosted by members of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Authorities said three pipe-bomb-type devices wired together were found near the boardwalk. Only one of the devices was believed to have detonated.

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Pyongyang Improving Missile Technology, Could Take More Provocative Action Soon

Sputnik News

05:17 16.09.2016(updated 05:38 16.09.2016)

North Korea is improving the precision of its missiles and could launch more provocative tests in the near future, South Korean media report.

TOKYO (Sputnik)  The latest ballistic missile tests carried out by Pyongyang show that the precision of North Korea's missiles is improving, South Korean government sources told the Yonhap news agency on Friday.

Meanwhile North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho warned that Pyongyang is ready to take further action in response to what it considers as provocations from the West.

"North Korea is ready to launch another attack in defiance of the provocations by the United States," Ri Yong-ho stressed on Thursday, as quoted by Yonhap.

Pyongyang confirmed on September 9 that it had carried out a nuclear test, at its northeastern nuclear test site. The nuclear experiment is believed to be the fifth and largest since Pyongyang started pursuing nuclear and ballistic missile programs, drawing condemnation from the international community.

Pyongyang's January nuclear test and a long-range rocket launch in February resulted in the tightening of sanctions against North Korea in a new UN Security Council resolution adopted in March. The United Nations previously imposed sanctions on North Korea for three tests it carried out in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

The new US sanctions against North Korea, unveiled in March, target the country's trade in metal, graphite, coal, software as well as revenue streams from workers abroad. They also block property and interests in property of the North Korean government. Moreover, the sanctions prohibit exports or re-exports of goods, services and technology to North Korea and new investments by US persons regardless of where they are located.

 Sputnik

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DPRK's Nuclear Warhead Explosion Test Did Not Have Any Adverse Impact on Ecological Environment

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

Pyongyang, September 17 (KCNA) -- Relevant organs of Russia, China and Japan officially confirmed that the DPRK's nuclear warhead explosion test did not have any adverse impact on ecological environment of their countries.

The Hydro-meteorological and Environmental Survey Bureau of the Russian Federation said that the DPRK's nuclear warhead explosion test did not have any adverse impact on the environment of Russia as far as radioactivity is concerned. A spokesman for the Hydro-meteorological Bureau of the Maritime Territorial Region said that no radioactive expansion was observed at any observation post of the maritime territorial region, saying that the environmental value of radiation in the territory was normal.

Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that China was not affected by the radiation influence of the DPRK's nuclear warhead explosion test and the Ministry of Environmental Protection noted that there were no abnormal phenomena according to the results of observation made at 25 automatic observatories in the frontier region of the three provinces of Northeast China.

The Ministry of Environment of Japan informed residents that no change in the level of radiation was recorded in the country. -0-

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More Relief Materials Supplied to Flood-hit Areas

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

Pyongyang, September 17 (KCNA) -- Trains and trucks carrying relief goods are arriving in the flood-hit areas of the DPRK one after another.

As of Sept. 12, more than 1 000 tons of food, a great deal of foodstuffs and millions of pieces of daily necessities, including clothes, quilts and utensils, were supplied to inhabitants in the disaster areas of the country's North Hamgyong Province.

Many industrial establishments under the Ministry of Light Industry have turned out a large quantity of garments and shoes for the inhabitants in the flood-hit areas.

Also, a great deal of medicines, thousands of tons of cement and several hundred tons of iron and steel and fuel were provided to propel the flood damage rehabilitation drive. -0-

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Iran's IRGC speedboats send shivers down US spine: Top commander

Iran Press TV

Sat Sep 17, 2016 3:33PM

The chief of staff of Iran's Armed Forces has stressed the role of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in safeguarding the country, saying the forces have "humbled" US warships.

"Through their acts of valor, IRGC naval forces have humbled US warships in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and IRGC speedboats have sent shivers down their spines," Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri said on Saturday.

Pentagon spokesman, Captain Jeff Davis, said on September 6 that seven fast-attack boats of the IRGC had approached the US warship USS Firebolt on September 4 with their machine guns uncovered, though not trained on the Americans.

While dismissing the US harassment claims as "sheer lies and untrue," Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, the commander of the IRGC Navy, said the IRGC Navy has been constantly and pervasively present in all Iran's coastal territories from the northernmost areas of the Persian Gulf to its southernmost regions in the Strait of Hormuz.

"There has been a stable situation in the region for years and we exercise full control over the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz," Fadavi said on September 13.

In January, Iran's Navy arrested the crews of two US patrol boats that had trespassed on Iranian territorial waters. Iran released them after establishing that they had done so by mistake.

Iran has invariably asserted that it only uses its naval might for defensive purposes and to send across the Islamic Republic's message of peace and security to other nations.

Baqeri further underscored the contribution of the IRGC forces to the deterrence prowess of the country and said as in other parts of the country, "sustainable security" prevails in Iran's northwestern regions, where Kurdish militants have occasionally infiltrated to wreak havoc, by courtesy of the sacrifices of the organization's ground forces.

"The might that has been forged thanks to the power of the Armed Forces, particularly the IRGC, has to a large extent deterred the enemy from direct and classic confrontation with the US," Baqeri said.

According to the calculations and estimates of the enemies, he said, "The cost of war outweighs its benefits and this is considered one of the results of the defensive deterrence and might of the Islamic Iran."

Baqeri also enumerated the identifications and recognition of enemies as another crucial responsibility of the IRGC and underlined the importance of having full intelligence of enemy plots and designs and anticipating its moves.

"Today, the US is the biggest enemy of [Iran's 1979 Islamic] Revolution and the occupying Zionist regime [of Israel], the UK and their regional puppets such as Al Saud are also the enemies of the revolution and will spare no effort [in their hostility]."

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Israel to 'Spy on the Middle East, Russia and China' With US-Funded Satellite

Sputnik News

17:02 16.09.2016(updated 17:03 16.09.2016)

On Tuesday, Israel launched into orbit its seventh spy satellite, Ofek 11, which is set to provide the Israeli military with surveillance imagery of the developments in the Middle East; however experts tell Sputnik that the Israeli space program, which is financed by the US, is also aimed at Russia and even China.

On September 13, Israel's Ministry of defense and Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) manufacturer launched Shavit2 rocket from the facility at Palmachim airbase, south of Tel Aviv.

This is the seventh spy satellite launched by Israel and it will allow the country to conduct unlimited surveillance of developments throughout the Middle East, according to reports of the local media.

"Ofek 11 joins Ofek 9 and 10 in space. Ofek 9, which was launched in June 2010, is an imaging and intelligence gathering satellite developed by IAI and costing $300 million. Ofek 9 and 10 have sent back exceptional quality images and it is able to identify objects just dozens of centimeters in size. This is technology possessed by very few countries around the world," Israeli news website Globes reported shortly after the launch.

Meanwhile Iranian political analyst, expert in the Middle East and former editor-in-chief of Iranian agency MehrNews Hassan Hanizadeh told Sputnik Persian that this program of the country's Defense Ministry, which is being financed by the US, is not only aimed at the Middle East.

"Throughout many years Israel has been using the advanced and high technology surveillance satellite systems for espionage on the territories of the Middle East and Central Asia," Hanizadeh told Sputnik.

"It has previously launched ten modifications of the Ofek series. With these provocative actions Israel wanted to thoroughly monitor and collect the secret data, analyze and control developments not only the Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, Syria and Iraq, but also in countries farther afield, such as Russia and China," he said.

The expert noted that such actions contradict international laws and norms which specify that the use of the satellites should be purely for peaceful purposes.

"Israel is using these satellites for espionage and provocative military actions in Middle Eastern states. Israel's actions put the national security of the whole region under threat," the political analyst said.

The expert added that these satellites were constructed and launched with the participation of the US, which supplies Israel with the advanced equipment for the construction of these telecommunication spies.

There are no doubts that Iran and other countries of the region are within direct sight of these spy satellites.

The political analyst noted that there are no restrictions for the Israeli espionage and surveillance activities, all of which are supported by the US.

Hence, he said, Iran and other countries are within their rights to react to these spy activities.

Seyed Mohammad Marandi, professor of North American Studies and dean of the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran, told Sputnik that the recent launch is not an outstanding event for the US as it already has a number of powerful spy satellite systems and high technological equipment operating.

Israel, for its part, does not possess its own technologies which it might use for the construction of unique satellites.

The US is always ready to share with Israel its intelligence on Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Palestinians from Gaza Strip. In other words, Israel gets timely surveillance data it needs from the US. Hence the launch of a satellite does not change much.

"The problem with Israel is in the policy it pursues, the policy of apartheid and racial segregation," the expert said.

"This policy results in ethnical cleansing and land grabs," he added.

These facts, he said, have made the Israeli regime unacceptable to the countries of the region.

Even though some dictatorial regimes have made some agreements with Israel, the regional community denounces Israel's foreign policy.

The Israeli authorities should better study how the apartheid regime in South Africa ended, he finally stated.

Meanwhile Israeli media reported that while the launch and delivery of the Shavit2 rocket was successful, the payload, the Ofek-11 satellite, is malfunctioning.

The Times of Israel quotes Amnon Harari, head of the Defense Ministry's Space Department, as saying that it was "not clear that everything was in order," hours after the launch.

The Ofek-11 is widely believed to be the newest satellite among the world's most advanced satellite recon systems.

It operates at an altitude of 600 km with an orbital path designed to pass over Israel's region six times per day, allowing the Ministry of Defense to focus on targets of interest in the region.

Its enhanced imaging system purportedly collects images at a ground resolution of 0.5 meters from its 600-Kilometer orbit.

However for obvious reasons, the Israeli Defense Ministry is keeping its exact capabilities secret.

 Sputnik

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Japan Court Rules Against Okinawa Governor Attempt to Bloc Relocation of US Base

Sputnik News

10:54 16.09.2016(updated 11:05 16.09.2016)

A Japanese court of Friday ruled against Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga, who had canceled his predecessor's decision to enable relocation of a US air base within the prefecture, local media reported.

TOKYO (Sputnik)  According to the Kyodo news agency, the Naha branch of the Fukuoka High Court made a ruling that Okinawa's former government had legally provided the land for relocation of the US air base from Okinawa's highly-populated district in the city of Ginowan to the Henoko coastal area of Nago city.

The relocation decision has met resistance from Okinawa's local authorities, with many Okinawa residents wishing to see the base gone rather than relocated. Okinawa Prefecture Governor Takeshi Onaga convinced the central government to temporarily halt construction in August 2015. In late October 2015, the Japanese government resumed construction of a US military base in Okinawa, having negated a regional government veto on it.

In November 2015, Japanese Minister of Land Keiichi Ishii filed a lawsuit against Takeshi Onaga after the latter refused to fulfill Tokyo's recommendations to accept the relocation of a US base. Okinawa announced it would launch a retaliatory lawsuit against the Tokyo administration in December.

According to the media outlet, if the opposing sides do not reach a compromise, the Supreme Court of Japan will consider the issue and make the final ruling on this case by the end of March 2017.

Okinawa occupies less than 1 percent of Japanese territory but hosts some 74 percent of the country's total US military presence.

 Sputnik

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OPCW Working With Libya on Clean-Up After Chemicals' Leak at Storage Site

Sputnik News

18:51 16.09.2016

The OPCW Technical Secretariat has been working with Libya and other countries to develop a plan for environmental clean-up at the site where the leakage of components for chemical weapons occurred, according to OPWC's spokeswoman.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been cooperating with war-torn Libya and other nations to remove consequences of the leakage of components for chemical weapons from Libya's storage tanks, the organization's spokeswoman told Sputnik on Friday.

On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry urged the OPCW to clarify the circumstances of disappearance of more than 200 metric tons of precursor materials for chemical weapons at Libya's Ruwagha storage site. According to the OPCW, chemical components did not go missing, but rather leaked or evaporated due to corrosion in storage tanks.

"The OPCW Technical Secretariat has been working with Libya and other countries to develop a plan for environmental clean-up at the site where the leakage occurred," the organization said.

On September 8, the OPCW announced that Libya's remaining 500 metric tons of chemical weapon precursors were delivered to Germany in order to destroy these chemicals under OPCW verification.

The materials are the remains of a stockpile obtained by deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi. The last chemical weapons were removed from the country in 2014.

 Sputnik

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EU Operation Sophia Vessels Start Intercepting Arms Smugglers in Libya

Sputnik News

13:55 16.09.2016(updated 14:36 16.09.2016)

The EU Operation Sophia vessels started to intercept ships in the international waters attempting to import weaponry to Libya in order to enforce UN arms embargo.

BRUSSELS (Sputnik)  The European Union's Operation Sophia (EUNAVFOR Med Sophia) vessels started to intercept ships in the international waters attempting to import weaponry to Libya in order to enforce UN arms embargo, an EU diplomatic source told RIA Novosti on Friday.

"The ships involved in EUNAVFOR Med Sophia started operations under the framework of the UN Security Council Resolution 2292," the source said, adding that smugglers would be towed to the French port of Marseilles.

The UN Security Council imposed arms embargo on Libya in February 2011, after the country became politically unstable. It requires all UN member states to prevent the sale or supply of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment and spare parts, to the country.

Operation Sophia was launched by the European Union in July 2015, and extended on September 6, in a bid to stem the flow of migrants and refugees traveling from the Middle East and North Africa, particularly from Libya, to Italy.

 Sputnik

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Russians Vote In Parliamentary Elections

September 17, 2016

by RFE/RL

Russians are heading to polling stations across the country in parliamentary elections that are expected to see the continued domination of the State Duma by parties that support President Vladimir Putin.

Russia's governing United Russia party and three other parties that rarely defy the Kremlin are widely expected to keep their leading positions in the 450-seat lower chamber.

Voting will last for a total of 22 hours until polls close in the Kaliningrad Oblast which lies on the Baltic Sea.

"I knew who to vote for," Putin told journalists after casting his vote in Moscow, according to Russian news agencies. "Don't you have an idea?"

Voting is also taking place in the forcibly annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, the first time since Moscow's takeover of the territory in 2014.

Unlike the last two parliamentary elections, only half of the seats will be selected by national party-list, with the other 225 being contested in races held in specific districts.

National surveys in recent weeks have shown the pro-Kremlin United Russia with support of around 50 percent of likely voters, which would be enough to maintain its absolute majority.

But opinion surveys are also showing high levels of voter apathy, so turnout in the elections will be carefully watched.

By midday Moscow time, the turnout nationwide was around 23 percent, said the country's deputy election chief Nikolai Bulayev.

A Putin supporter, 63-year-old pensioner Aleftina Lebedeva, explained to RFE/RL correspondent Tom Balmforth outside a polling station in Moscow why she intended to vote for the ruling party.

"What United Russia promises, United Russia does," she said. "I'm a pensioner and I can say that what they promised, they have done."

However, Karina Mishulina, a 35-year-old actress, expressed dissatisfaction with Putin's party.

" All these laws, the education system has been destroyed, medical care too, there's no money, mom gets kopecks for her pension," Mishulina said. "What good is there? They have houses, castles, and so on, and we, excuse me, are starving."

Allegations of vote-rigging in the last parliamentary elections, in 2011, led to large protests against Putin in Moscow and other cities.

The Kremlin has tried to assure voters of a clean vote by allowing the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the elections and appointed a new head of the country's election commission.

Central Election Commission Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said on September 18 that she had received reports of so-called carousel voting -- where voters are bussed around polling stations, voting at each one, after obtaining absentee ballots -- in the city of Barnaul in the southern Siberian region of Altai.

If confirmed, she said, the commission would call for criminal prosecution and consider annulling the results.

"Everything is going normally" in most regions, Pamfilova added.

However, the respected independent election monitor Golos said that by 2:30 p.m. Moscow time, it had received 310 calls alleging electoral violations on election day and recorded 656 allegations on an interactive website.

"I really want people to come vote, to believe in elections," Pamfilova said earlier on live television from Moscow as polls opened in the Far Eastern region of Kamchatka.

"We will be watching the entirety of the voting process in our huge country," added Pamfilova, a former human rights advocate and cabinet minister under President Boris Yeltsin who has pledged to prevent electoral fraud.

"For the authorities it is important to preserve an air of decency," Yekaterina Shulmann of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration told the AFP news agency.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a loyal supporter of Putin, is the head of United Russia, which holds 238 of the 450 seats in the outgoing Duma.

United Russia also has controlling majorities in Russia's regional parliaments.

A total of 14 parties are taking part in the elections.

The Communist Party, the A Just Russia party, and the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia are also considered to be loyal to the Kremlin and its policies.

Golos and the independent Levada Center polling agency have been officially labeled "foreign agents," seriously hampering their work, some of which pointed to a recent decline in the popularity of United Russia.

International observers monitoring the vote are to present their preliminary post-election statement at a news conference in Moscow on September 19.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Tom Balmforth in Moscow, Robert Coalson, AFP, AP, and Interfax

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-duma- elections-voting-putin/27997462.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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Russian Nuclear Doctrine Unchanged Despite Escalation Claims - Official

Sputnik News

02:48 17.09.2016

Russia has stressed to its four Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nuclear state partners that claims of it lowering its threshold for nuclear weapon use and increasing its military doctrine's reliance on nuclear weapons are untrue, a senior official from the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  According to Deputy Director of the Foreign Ministry's Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control Vladimir Leontyev, Russia's military doctrine does not say much on nuclear weapons and the clauses that are there have not been changed in two editions in a row.

Nuclear-armed states party to the NPT gathered for their seventh conference in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday, discussing disarmament, nonproliferation, confidence building measures, transparency and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

The five countries, known as the P5 group, include Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and China. The international NPT treaty took effect in 1970 and has been ratified by 191 governments.

RUSSIAN, US DOCTRINES

"At the conference, where doctrines were also discussed, we talked about the basic theses of the Russian military doctrine, including those related to nuclear weapons We stressed that these theses have not changed for two military doctrine editions in a row. The thesis that our reliance on nuclear weapons is seemingly intensified is incorrect, to say the least," Leontyev said.

The document envisions the hypothetical use of nuclear weapons in two cases, one being an attack against Russia with the use of nuclear weapons and another being large-scale aggression with the use of conventional weapons that would threaten the country's existence, Leontyev explained.

"Therefore, the possibility of any preventive offensive actions with the use of the nuclear weapons threat is not implied," he added.

The comments come as a rebuke to several claims previously made by NATO officials with regard to Russia allegedly modernizing its nuclear forces.

Throughout 2015, a number of NATO diplomats and US military experts drew attention to Russia's alleged nuclear arsenal expansions and modernization as well as claimed that the country is working on combining hybrid war with nuclear weapons deployment.

The nonproliferation official noted the difference between nuclear weapons clauses of the Russian and the US doctrines, describing the US military doctrine as too broad in justifying use of nuclear weapons for almost all purposes.

"We noted that the US nuclear doctrine is practically oversized, envisioning use of nuclear weapons for protection of vital interest, which could include almost all purposes," Leontyev said.

These interests can be anything defined as such by the United States, including the global economy and international laws, he emphasized.

Russia will use the upcoming P5 meeting on October 6 to raise issues including the United States modernizing its tactical warheads and deploying its missile defense systems in Europe as well as developing the Prompt Global Strike conventional airstrike system, according to the official.

On Thursday, US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller announced that the P5 states would discuss their nuclear doctrines at a meeting on October 6 in New York.

"We shall enquire as to why the US tactical weapons in Europe are modernized, and within the framework of which scenarios they are intended to be used For us this is an opportunity to raise issues at P5 of the situation related to the development of US missile defense, Prompt Global Strike, deployment of NATO potentials near our borders, and so on," Leontyev said.

In May, the US Aegis Ashore missile defense system was officially inaugurated at a military base in Romania, and the construction of a similar complex also begun in Poland. The systems are planned to form part of the European missile shield and be armed with land-based Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors. Russia has repeatedly objected to the construction of the shield as it is a threat to its strategic deterrent.

DISARMAMENT

At the conference, P5 group members reaffirmed their stance against any attempts to force nuclear states into getting rid of their stockpiles without taking the global security situation of the day into account, according to Leontyev.

"The most useful is probably the reaffirmation of common understanding of the counterproductivity of attempts to impose on countries that have nuclear weapons some schemes to eliminate them, not taking into the account strategic realities and other aspects of international security," he said.

Such attempts do not promote eliminating nuclear weapons, instead only deepening the rift between nuclear and non-nuclear countries, Leontyev added.

Russia and the United States, which together hold almost 90 percent of the world's operational nuclear arsenals, are bound by the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which lasts until 2021 and stipulates that both sides cut their stockpiles by half.

Russia did not receive any official initiatives from the United States on renewing the treaty, but will consider them should Washington offer them, Leontyev said.

"There were no official initiatives. We shall consider them if we receive them," he said.

BROADER NONPROLIFERATION

Guidelines to include non-P5 nuclear states in talks on reducing nuclear weapon proliferation should be worked out, the official stressed.

Current non-NPT declared nuclear powers are India, Pakistan and North Korea, while Israel, which is suspected of possessing nuclear weapons, has not declared itself a nuclear power. A number of countries, including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey are covered by the NATO nuclear weapons sharing program, while South Africa formerly possessed several nuclear weapons before destroying them in the 1990s.

"We believe that it is necessary to elaborate some guidelines which would allow to include not only countries who are members of the P5, but also all countries with military nuclear potential to this process," Leontyev said.

OCTOBER

The upcoming P5 talks should also be broader and include political as well as military specialists as Russia plans to bring up a lot of issues, Leontyev stated.

According to the official, Russia plans to bring up a number of issues related to US missile defense, nuclear weapons in Europe and NATO deployment in October.

"It is clear that the discussions of these issues require the presence of not only our political specialists, but also the military ones," he said.

SANCTIONS

Sanctions imposed against Russia by the United States in the wake of Crimea's reunification with Russia are harming cooperation in the control of weapons, the official stressed.

Relations between Moscow and Washington soured in 2014 after the overwhelming majority of the Crimean population voted to leave Ukraine for Russia, prompting the United States, the European Union and their allies to impose sanctions on Russia.

"They [Washington] seemingly say that they are ready [to discuss arms control]. But how can defense issues be discussed without military personnel, amid sanctions imposed against the majority of our defense enterprises We can speak to our US vis-a-vis, but neither they nor we are technical experts," Leontyev said.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS

Regarding chemical weapons proliferation, Leontyev reminded of a Russian-proposed convention aimed at preventing the weapons from getting into the hands of terrorists.

In August, Russia presented an updated draft of its convention on the fight against biological and chemical terrorism to the UN Disarmament Conference in Geneva.

"We believe that this convention could be timely and relevant. Especially now when we see real cases of terrorist groups using chemical weapons," Leontyev said.

According to Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, Moscow's updated draft of the convention is vital in the light of chemical attacks by Daesh (IS) militant group in Syria, which is outlawed in Russia, the United States and many other countries.

The UN Security Council's Resolution 1540 of 2004, which bounds member states to refrain from supporting non-state actors in production, proliferation and use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, is "insufficient" as the threat of chemical and biological terrorism is sweeping and crossing borders and the urgent action is needed, according to the diplomat.

On August 24, the International Joint Investigation Mechanism of the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) released the results of a joint probe into chemical weapons attacks in Syria in 2014 and 2015. The authors of the report confirmed that at least one attack had been organized by the IS.

In August, the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation reported that militants from a "moderate opposition" armed group had organized a poisonous gas attack in Syria's besieged city of Aleppo.

 Sputnik

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Russians Voting to Choose New Parliament

By Charles Maynes September 18, 2016

Russian lawmakers under President Vladimir Putin have proven themselves nothing if not efficient.

This last session alone, the lower legislative chamber, the Duma, and the upper chamber, the Federation Council, passed nearly 2,000 laws, including a record 160 pieces of legislation by the upper house in one day last June. Despite the presence of three blocs in nominal opposition to Putin's ruling United Russia party, most of the measures passed nearly unanimously.

Welcome to what the Kremlin calls "managed democracy," a system that simulates democratic institutions, to some extent. Analysts say the tradition is likely to continue when Russians head to the polls Sunday to elect a new parliament.

In 2011, opposition parties were banned from participating, and the results, election observers argued, were marked by widespread fraud. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest the results, and Putin's rule. Analysts say the Kremlin learned from its mistakes.

"It looked like there was no need for competitive elections [five years ago, but] ... now it's changing," said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst based in Moscow. "The Kremlin is not eager to practice large-scale fraud. It's eager to avoid any scandals, to avoid any threat of mass protest."

Russian spring redux?

With that in mind, the Kremlin insists these elections will be different. Raucous televised debates have become the norm.

So, too, have Western-style political ads on television and street canvassing by party volunteers. Most noticeably, more political parties are campaigning; a few are led by some of the opposition leaders who rallied against the Kremlin in 2011.

Yet even the opposition argues a shake-up in Russia's pliant Duma remains unlikely.

Mikhail Kasyanov, a onetime prime minister under Putin who has since joined the opposition, will lead the liberal PARNAS party in Sunday's vote. But despite appearing in televised debates, Kasyanov calls these elections a sham. He says he and other party members have faced routine harassment at rallies and a relentless smear campaign on state television.

"They're letting us participate to show you  the West  that we're a free country," Kasyanov said. "Putin loves imitations of everything  of separation of powers, of independent courts and a free press. And of course, he loves imitations of fair elections."

The limits of these elections have also been on display.

Consider problems the Levada Center has faced as election day approached. Russia's sole independent polling organization, Levada, was labeled a "foreign agent" by authorities under a law that bans foreign funding of Russian nongovernmental organizations involved in loosely defined "political activities." Levada representatives say their troubles began only after opinion polls showed support for Putin's United Russia party ebbing. The "foreign agent" label prevents it from conducting research into Sunday's vote.

Still, most analysts expect United Russia to retain its grip on power. Despite an economy struggling with Western sanctions over the annexation of Crimea and low world oil prices, the party is buoyed by Putin's continued popularity.

Also aiding United Russia's showing: low voter turnout amid repressive measures introduced in the wake of the 2011 protests. There were arrests and sentencing of opposition figures and supporters  an effort that stoked fear in the movement, opposition leaders acknowledge. There was also the conviction of Alexei Navalny, the nominal leader of the opposition movement, preventing his participation in further elections.

And then there was the slaying last year of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Although several arrests have been made, Nemtsov's supporters say police have little interest in finding out who ordered the killing.

With the opposition demoralized and the Kremlin riding high from its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, political analyst Petrov says the government can simply afford more nuanced election results than in 2011.

"I think this is a little more sophisticated approach, to demonstrate that this kind of opposition will get very tiny popular support," he said, "to demonstrate how unpopular they are."

Soapbox politics

On a recent evening in downtown Moscow, Dmitriy Gudkov spoke to a smattering of voters and railed against the powers that be.

Gudkov is the only opposition member of the Duma fighting to retain his seat in parliament. To do so, he's been forced to switch parties and crowdfund his campaign through soapbox meetings with his electorate.

Yet Gudkov rejects the idea that the opposition is weak; it's just deprived of resources to get its message across, he says.

"If you take a champion swimmer like Michael Phelps and you fill up the pool with acid, he won't able to swim," Gudkov said. "But it doesn't mean he's a weak swimmer."

Whatever the results of this election, Gudkov is taking the long view.

"Politics is a marathon," he said.

Yet watching Russia's beleaguered opposition come in last place may be the real point of these elections.

Barring the unforeseen, it's a Kremlin plan most expect to work beautifully.

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US, Russia Disagree on Who's Thwarting Aid for Aleppo

By Steve Herman September 17, 2016

Officials in Washington and Moscow on Friday expressed a desire to extend their week-old cease-fire pact for Syria and confirmed aid deliveries had not yet begun, but agreed on little else concerning the tenuous situation in the war-torn country.

Forty trucks carrying desperately needed relief for the divided city of Aleppo were idling at a special customs checkpoint at the Turkish border, and the U.S. blamed the Syrian government for the holdup.

"Those trucks should be going in and that aid should be getting delivered with or without the arrangement that was arrived at in Geneva," State Department spokesman John Kirby said. "It is the [Syrian] regime that is blocking the movement."

U.N. officials said conditions were not yet safe for the vehicles to cross into Syria.

'Whole world is watching'

"We know that there's at least a quarter of a million people in eastern Aleppo who are ... in need of some kind of aid," said Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office. "We are as ready to go as we can possibly be. ... It's highly frustrating. We know the whole world is watching."

Syrian government troops had withdrawn from Aleppo but were then fired upon by rebels, prompting the soldiers to return to their previous positions, according to Russian officials, who also blamed Washington for not using its influence to quell cease-fire violations by rebel groups.

The Americans have a different view, with Secretary of State John Kerry expressing concern in a Friday phone call to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov "about the repeated and unacceptable delays of humanitarian aid," according to a State Department statement.

Meanwhile, in New York, the U.N. Security Council canceled a meeting on Syria that was scheduled for late Friday. The cancellation came at the request of the U.S. and Russia.

Under the cease-fire agreement Kerry and Lavrov announced in Geneva a week ago, hostilities should have paused Monday (the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha) to clear the way for humanitarian aid to flow unhindered into Syria. Starting next Monday  if those conditions are met  the United States and Russia are to begin joint coordination of airstrikes against the Islamic State and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, which are not parties to the truce.

Delays could threaten agreement

The White House indicated Friday that the next phase of the deal would not move forward until the aid was moving freely.

In a statement, the White House said President Obama emphasized to his National Security Council that "the United States will not proceed with the next steps in the arrangement with Russia until we see seven continuous days of reduced violence and sustained humanitarian access."

If the deal does falter, Kirby told reporters "we're back to regrettably where we have so long been: innocent civilians being barrel-bombed and gassed."

Over the last several days, there have been acts of violence "committed by all sides," according to Kirby.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said U.S. special forces  believed to be only five or six personnel  entered the Syrian town of al-Rai on Friday to coordinate airstrikes against Islamic State militants.

Video posted on the internet purportedly of those forces leaving the town showed fighters of the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army chanting anti-American slogans and hurling insults, adding that they would not fight alongside the Americans.

U.S. officials on Friday would not confirm the authenticity of the video. But if the slurs were uttered by supposed allies in the fight against IS, it is "unacceptable and reprehensible," Kirby told reporters.

The U.S. Defense Department has previously acknowledged its special operations teams are accompanying Turkish and some Syrian opposition armed personnel in the area and further east, near Jarablus.

Meanwhile, Turkish-backed rebels, according to Ankara, have been involved in deadly clashes with IS in northern Syria with the support of Turkish warplanes and tanks.

Political transition

It is hoped that the truce forged by the United States and Russia will clear the way for negotiations about a political transition in Syria. But rebel leaders say they expect the cease-fire to collapse and do not believe Syrian President Bashar al-Assad  or his foreign backers, Russia and Iran  want to negotiate a political settlement.

"The armed groups on the ground are still discussing what they should do about the cease-fire," General Salim Idris, former chief of the staff of the Free Syrian Army, told VOA.

VOA's Jamie Dettmer contributed to this report from Gaziantep, Turkey.

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Only Syrian troops observe truce: Russian Defense Ministry

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 15:50, September 17, 2016

MOSCOW, Sept. 16 (Xinhua)-- The Syrian government troops alone are observing a ceasefire agreement in the war-torn country brokered by Russia and the United States, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday.

"All attempts by our American partners to show the world at least some manageability of the opposition it supports in Syria have so far proved unsuccessful," the ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

Officers of the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria, based near the city of Aleppo and the Castello highway, confirmed the willingness of the Syrian forces to completely withdraw their units and equipment in synchrony with the opposition to agreed distances, it said.

Lt. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir, first deputy head of the main directorate of the Russian General Staff, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying that the Syrian government troops had effectively withdrawn tanks, combat infantry vehicles and artillery to the established distances to create a demilitarized zone.

But no response was observed from the opposition groups, which had breached the ceasefire agreement 144 times since it took effect, including 39 times in the past 24 hours, Poznikhir said.

However, Russia is ready to extend the Syrian ceasefire regime for 72 hours as part of Geneva accords despite numerous violations, he said.

The agency quoted another Russian official, Col. Sergei Kapitsyn, a senior operative of the Aleppo group, as saying during a video conference on Friday that the Syrian government troops had to be "redeployed to the initial positions to prevent the enemy from taking over the demilitarized zone."

In a separate development, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov informed his U.S. counterpart John Kerry in a telephone conversation about the reluctance of the opposition to observe the truce.

Kerry promised to "push forward the solution of the problems involving the necessity to duly formalize humanitarian convoys under UN rules, as well as threats of illegal armed groups in the Aleppo area not to let humanitarian aid into the eastern part of the city," a ministry statement said.

The United States and Russia announced on Saturday a landmark agreement on a week-long nationwide ceasefire in Syria from Monday.

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One killed in Israeli drone attack in Syria's Golan Heights

Iran Press TV

Sat Sep 17, 2016 8:57PM

Syrian military positions have been targeted in an Israeli drone attack in the southwestern Syrian province of Quneitra located in the Golan Heights.

At least one person was killed and five more wounded in the Saturday attack which took place in the province's Khan Arnabah district.

Last week, the Syrian army announced that it had shot down an Israeli warplane and a drone inside Syria following an Israeli attack on Syrian army positions.

Syrian forces are currently engaged in a battle against terrorists in the Golan Heights.

Syria says Israel and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri militant groups operating inside the Arab country. Moreover, the Syrian army has repeatedly seized huge quantities of Israeli-made weapons and advanced military equipment from the foreign-backed militants inside Syria.

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria after the 1967 Six-Day War and later occupied it in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.

The regime has built tens of illegal settlements in the area ever since and has used the region to carry out a number of military operations against the Syrian government.

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Obama Warns U.S. May Walk Away From Syria Deal Unless Aid Flows

September 17, 2016

by RFE/RL

U.S. President Barack Obama warned that the United States may walk away from a Syrian cease-fire deal reached with Russia last week unless Syria allows humanitarian aid to reach needy people.

After Obama met with his national security team on September 16, the White House issued a statement saying Obama "expressed deep concern that, despite decreased violence across the country, the Syrian regime continues to block the flow of critical humanitarian aid." .

Obama "emphasized that the United States will not proceed with the next steps in the arrangement with Russia until we see seven continuous days of reduced violence and sustained humanitarian access," the White House said.

The president's statement came after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that Washington will not agree to begin joint targeting of Islamic militants in Syria, as called for after seven days of cease-fire under the deal, until Syria permits the aid to flow.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Kerry told Lavrov by telephone that the United States expects Moscow to use its influence on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "to allow UN humanitarian convoys to reach Aleppo and other areas in need."

"Repeated" delays in allowing the convoys the aid to enter the country have been "unacceptable," Kerry said.

The ultimatum to Russia and Syria came at the same time the United States and Russia abruptly cancelled a scheduled United Nations Security Council meeting on the Syrian cease-fire deal on September 16 and as signs emerged that the truce that went into effect on September 12 was fraying.

After three days which saw a marked decrease in violence and no deaths, the first civilians since the start of the truce were killed on September 15, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring body. Three more died and 13 were injured in air strikes in rebel-held Idlib province on September 16, the Observatory said.

Shells were also fired by insurgents into two besieged Shi'ite villages and clashes hit areas east of Damascus as well on September 16.

But the biggest problem under the deal has been the Syrian government's refusal to let UN aid into rebel-held areas of Aleppo that are surrounded by pro-government forces and where an estimated 300,000 civilians are trapped without food and other necessities.

The UN has blamed the government for holding up its aid convoys by denying them letters guaranteeing access.

Another provision of the deal faltered on September 16 when Syrian government forces returned to their positions along the Castello Road, where they previously had withdrawn under an agreement to clear the way for civilians and aid to move alongthe key thoroughfare.

Viktor Poznikhir, the first deputy chief of the Russian General Staff's operations directorate, said that Syrian troops returned their tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery to their original positions because they were being shelled by opposition groups.

While he said Russia is ready to extend the cease-fire for another 72 hours if the United States agrees, Poznikhir returned some rhetorical fire at Washington, warning that the situation on the ground "could get out of control" unless the United States forces rebels it backs to comply with the cease-fire and clear the vital roadway.

He said the Syrian army has fully complied with the truce, while opposition forces have violated it 144 times .

"We expect decisive measures from the American side, aimed at influencing the armed groups under their control to rigorously carry out the September 9 agreement," he said.

Sharp disagreements between the United States and Russia also emerged over the decision to cancel the UN meeting on the cease-fire deal on September 16.

Moscow's UN ambassador charged that the meeting was cancelled because the United States was unwilling to provide security council members with documents detailing provisions of the cease-fire deal.

"We believe that we cannot ask them to support documents which they haven't seen," Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said.

The U.S. mission to the UN said it called off the meeting because it could not agree with Russia on a way to brief the council that would "not compromise the operational security of the arrangement."

"We believe the Security Council can play an important role in the resolution of the crisis in Syria," a U.S. spokesman said.

"However, right now we are focused on the implementation of the agreement...particularly the urgent need for humanitarian aid to reach Syrians in need."

Despite the exchange of accusations, Churkin said Kerry and Lavrov will hold several meetings in New York next week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, one of them as co-chairs of the International Syria Support Group.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, TASS, AFP, and dpa

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/obama-warns- us-may-walk-away-syria-cease-fire-deal-unless- humanitarian-aid-flows/27996705.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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Israel Says 'Iron Dome' System Intercepted Projectiles Fired From Syria

By VOA News September 17, 2016

Israel said Saturday that it had used its "Iron Dome" missile defense system to destroy two rockets fired from Syria, marking what officials said was the first time the short-range system had been activated to intercept projectiles fired by combatants in Syria's civil war.

Israeli media quoted military officials as describing the rocket fire into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as "unintentional spillover" from the war. There were no reports of casualties from the shoot-downs.

Israel has sought to avoid direct involvement in the Syrian conflict, but it launched airstrikes on cross-border military targets as recently as Tuesday, after warheads fell in the Israeli-occupied zone. Shortly after those strikes, the Israeli military denied Syrian claims that one Israeli fighter and a drone had been shot down.

There has been no public comment from Syria on the latest incidents.

The military deployed the portable Iron Dome missile batteries early last year to protect its northern flank from rocket and artillery fire from the Golan Heights, a strategic Syrian plateau seized by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

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US Ambassador Rips Russia for Calling UN Session on Syria

By VOA News September 17, 2016

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations blasted Russia for calling the U.N. Security Council into emergency session late Saturday to review an apparently errant U.S. bombing run that may have killed dozens of Syrian government troops.

Samantha Power, speaking to reporters on her way into the closed-door session, said Russia's action was "a stunt replete with moralism and grandstanding," designed to divert public attention from some of the "most systematic atrocities in a generation."

Power said the U.S. government was still gathering facts about the bombing, which some reports said might have killed as many as 80 troops in Deir Ezzor. She said U.S. coalition warplanes thought they were targeting Islamic State extremists, and that it "was not our intention" to violate a cease-fire by hitting Syrian government fighters.

"If we determine we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention, and, we of course, regret the loss of life," she said.

But Power then cited repeated incidents of Syrian government atrocities  airstrikes against hospitals and schools, cordons around cities that caused starvation, and use of chemical weapons against civilian targets. In all those cases, the U.S. envoy said, Moscow never called for Security Council action.

"Imagine how often the council would be meeting if we were to call an emergency meeting each time Russia or Syria bombed a hospital" in the war-ravaged country, Power said. "Russia never calls for Security Council consultations about these practices."

Russia sees US 'demagoguery'

Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said Power's angry words were "demagoguery of the highest order."

Churkin said timing of the U.S. strike was suspicious, coming as the two countries were attempting to forge a lasting cease-fire deal, and questioned whether it was truly a mistake.

"It may well be, one has to conclude, that the airstrike has been conducted in order to disrupt the operation of the Joint Implementation Group and to actually not allow it to be set in motion," Churkin said.

The Russian envoy said the United States was losing control of the moderate Syrian militant factions it backs, and he contended this had empowered extremists like IS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as the al-Nusra Front).

He went on to question who is in charge in Washington. "Is it the White House or Pentagon? Because we have heard statements from the Pentagon which simply fly in face of what we have heard from President [Barack] Obama and Secretary of State John] Kerry," he said.

Both ambassadors stopped short of saying that Saturday's airstrike meant the cease-fire deal had collapsed.

"The United States is extremely serious about making this agreement work," Power said, but she urged Moscow to deliver on its obligations to get the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stop bombing moderate opposition groups that are party to the cessation of hostilities.

Warning to Russia

Security Council members gathered several hours after the reports that U.S. warplanes had struck the Syrian forces near the Deir Ezzor airport. A U.S. statement said coalition commanders had informed Russian authorities about the planned strike in advance.

For its part, Russia's Defense Ministry described the coalition strike as evidence of Washington's "stubborn refusal" to coordinate its actions with Russian forces fighting alongside government forces loyal to Assad.

The truce, aimed at halting military operations by Syrian forces, their Russian allies and U.S.-backed rebels seeking to oust the Assad government, was designed to clear the way for humanitarian aid to besieged areas of the country. Hundreds of thousands of civilians in those areas have been cut off from outside aid for months and are facing critical shortages of food and medicine.

Putin doubts US commitment

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country was holding up its end of the cease-fire agreement, but he cast doubt on the United States' commitment to the deal, saying Washington was deviating from its own call for openness.

"I don't really understand why we have to keep such an agreement closed," Putin said in a televised appearance on a trip to Kyrgyzstan. He also said Moscow would not unilaterally release the terms of the deal.

The Russian leader further criticized U.S. officials for their inability to separate the so-called healthy part of the opposition from what he called "the half-criminal and terrorist elements."

"This is a very dangerous route," he said.

Pact strained

Under the cease-fire agreement announced by Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva a week ago, hostilities should have paused Monday, when the Muslim world marked the beginning of the Eid al-Adha holiday.

U.S. and Russian military leaders were then set to coordinate airstrikes against IS fighters and those of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which are not parties to the truce.

Officials in Washington and Moscow on Friday expressed a desire to extend the cease-fire pact and confirmed aid deliveries had not yet begun. But they agreed on little else concerning the tenuous situation in Syria.

The White House indicated Friday that the next phase of the deal would not move forward until the aid was moving freely.

Clashes delay aid

Ahead of the coalition airstrikes at Deir Ezzor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said intermittent shelling and clashes had resumed overnight on several fronts in Syria. In particular, fighting erupted between rebels and pro-government forces in the opposition-held suburb of Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, and airstrikes hit several towns in the central province of Homs.

Forty trucks carrying desperately needed relief for the divided city of Aleppo waited Friday at a checkpoint at the Turkish border, and the U.S. blamed the Syrian government for the holdup.

"Those trucks should be going in and that aid should be getting delivered with or without the arrangement that was arrived at in Geneva," State Department spokesman John Kirby said. "It is the [Syrian] regime that is blocking the movement."

U.N. relief officials said conditions were not yet safe for the vehicles to cross into Syria. But Churkin said an aid convoy was expected to head to eastern Aleppo Sunday morning.

Steve Herman contributed to this report from the State Department; Jamie Dettmer contributed from Gaziantep, Turkey; Margaret Besheer contributed to this report from the United Nations.

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Russia, U.S. Tensions Spill Over At UN Security Council Meeting

September 18, 2016

by RFE/RL

Tensions between Russian and U.S. diplomats have spilled over at the United Nations Security Council after Russian officials demanded to know whether the United States intentionally supported Islamic State militants with air strikes that hit Syrian government troops.

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, walked out of the emergency meeting on September 17 -- protesting U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power's description of Russia's call for the meeting as "a stunt."

Meanwhile, Power accused Russia of a "cynical and hypocritical' attempt at "cheap point scoring" and "grandstanding" by calling for the emergency session.

She said Moscow should, instead, demand a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in order to push for peace.

Power said Washington was investigating claims by Russia and Damascus that U.S. air strikes killed scores of Syrian government troops in the east of the country.

She said "if we determine that we did, indeed, strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention. And we of course regret the loss of life."

Russia said U.S. air strikes on September 17 killed at least 62 Syrian government soldiers and helped Islamic State militants seize a strategic hilltop overlooking a government-controlled air base near Deir al-Zor.

Churkin said the air strikes left "a very big question mark" over the future of a September 12 cease-fire deal brokered by Russia and the United States that is aimed at restarting Syria's peace process.

The deal includes a fragile nationwide truce, improved humanitarian aid access, and joint military targeting of banned Islamic militant groups by Russia and the United States.

Churkin said U.S. forces could have held off on air strikes near Deir al-Zor for two more days, when Moscow and Washington are meant to start joint military cooperation, instead of carrying out what he called a "reckless" operation.

But a Pentagon spokesman said that Russia had not expressed any concerns when initially informed that coalition forces would be operating in the area.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted by Russia's state-run TASS news agency as saying the Kremlin had "come to the terrible conclusion that the White House is defending the Islamic State."

A statement from the U.S. Central Command on September 17 said "coalition forces would not intentionally strike" Syrian government forces.

It said coalition air strikes were "halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military."

The London-based Syrian Observatory For Human Rights said it was unable to confirm who carried out the air strikes.

It said Russian jets had been carrying out bombing raids at the same time in the area in support of Syrian forces engaged in battle against IS militants at Jebel Tharda, which is near Deir al-Zor.

Sergei Rudskoy, head of the operations directorate of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff, denied the reports from the London-based monitoring group -- telling journalists in Moscow early on September 18 that Russian aircraft "were definitely not used in this region at this time."

Rudskoy said Russian thinks the incident "became possible because the United States does not know the situation and does not want to coordinate with Russia on fighting against terrorist groups in Syrian territory."

Syria called the air strikes a "serious and blatant attack on Syria and its military," and "firm proof" of U.S. support for IS militants "and other terrorist groups."

Russia and the United States have criticized each other for not following through on agreements that are part of the September 12 cease-fire deal.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa, TASS, and Interfax

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-us-syria-unsc-/27997902.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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Russia: Strikes On Syrian Troops Threaten Cease-Fire Plan

September 18, 2016

by RFE/RL

Russia's Foreign Ministry has responded angrily to U.S.-led airstrikes on Syrian Army forces, calling them "on the boundary between criminal negligence and direct connivance" with Islamic State militants.

The incident, which Russia said killed 62 Syrian soldiers, sparked an angry exchange between diplomats at the United Nations.

It also threatened to further unravel a fragile cease-fire that went into effect on September 12 aimed at allowing humanitarian assistance into beseiged areas.

The Pentagon said in a statement that jets may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while attacking Islamic State militants, but gave no further details. The Russian Defense Ministry said on September 17 that 62 Syrian government soldiers had died.

The incident was a result of Washington's "stubborn refusal" to cooperate with Moscow in fighting the Jabhat Fatah al Sham faction, and "other terrorist groups," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on September 18.

"The actions of coalition pilots -- if they, as we hope, were not taken on an order from Washington -- are on the boundary between criminal negligence and connivance with Islamic State terrorists," the ministry said.

A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry suggested that the attack showed Washington was defending Islamic State, a charge that sparked an angry denunciation from the U.S. ambassador at the United Nations.

Later, Russia's U.N. representative Vitaly Churkin also downplayed that accusation, saying Russia had no "specific evidence" of the U.S. colluding with Islamic State militants.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, TASS, and Interfax

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/ russia-u-s-strikes-syria-troops- cease-fire/27998319.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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NATO experts take part in Taipei security meeting for first time

ROC Central News Agency

2016/09/17 22:34:59

Taipei, Sept. 17 (CNA) An ultra low-profile national security conference was held recently in Taipei with more than 10 international experts in the fields of global, international and national security participating, including experts from NATO making their first visit to Taiwan.

A few think tanks and government agencies were also notified before the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Sept. 15 this year, that a group of guests were to visit them, but the visits were to be kept a secret and the meetings held in closed-door form.

Such an arrangement has aroused curiosity about the identity of the visiting guests.

The mystery was solved after the Institute for Global Security and Defense Affairs (IGSDA), an online think tank, recently published on its website to confirm that the National Security Conference in Taiwan: Global and Regional Security Challenges and Threat to NATO & Asia was held in Taipei Sept. 12-13.

The conference was organized and hosted by Taiwan Think Tank (TTT) in cooperation with the IGSDA.

The elite group of international experts in the fields of global, international and national security who spoke at this conference were from Taiwan, Italy, Greece, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Egypt and Japan, as well as experts from NATO.

The conference was chaired by Sayed Ghoneim, a national security expert at Abu Dhabi and IGSDA chairman, it said.

The website also showed the national flag of the Republic of China on Taiwan.

Asked as to why the conference kept such a low profile, a well-informed source said that this was because it was the first time that such high-ranking NATO experts had come to Taiwan, and because of the sensitivity of their status, both sides had reached a tacit understanding to keeping the conference below the radar.

The NATO experts visited Taiwan mainly because they have interest in the new situation in the Asia Pacific and Taiwan's strategy, so that they agreed to accept the invitation after President Tsai Ing-wen () assumed office in May and provide their views, the source said.

(By Tang Pei-chun and Lilian Wu)

Enditem/ke



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Taiwanese passport ranks as 29th most powerful in the world

ROC Central News Agency

2016/09/17 22:19:59

Taipei, Sept. 17 (CNA) Taiwanese passports rank as the 29th most powerful in the latest global passport index, which was recently cited in the World Economic Forum website.

The index assessed which countries have the most powerful travel documents by measuring the number of countries that can be visited without applying for a visa.

At the top of the ranking are Germany and Sweden, with holders of German and Swedish passports being able to visit 158 countries without having to apply for a visa.

Last year, the United States and the United Kingdom shared the top spot, but this year's ranking puts the former at the fourth position and the later at the second spot, said the article on the World Economic Forum website.

Along with the U.K., France, Spain, Switzerland and Finland also come in second place on this year's ranking, with their passport holders enjoying visa-free privileges to 157 countries.

Coming in third are Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Korea and Norway, with passport holders of these countries being able to travel to 156 countries visa-free.

According to this year's ranking, South Korea's passports were found to be the most powerful among all Asian countries, followed by those of Singapore and Japan.

Holders of Singaporean passports enjoy visa-free treatment to 155 countries, while Japanese passport holders are allowed to visit 154 countries without having to apply for a visa.

Taiwan is placed 29th on the ranking, which means Taiwanese passport holders can visit 120 countries without having to apply for a visa, according to the index.

"The least powerful passports are issued by poor countries, often mired in conflict," said the article published on the World Economic Forum website.

At the bottom of the ranking is Afghanistan, with its people being able to visit only 24 countries without having to apply for a visa.

(By Elaine Hou and Kuo Chao-he)

ENDITEM/ke

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Fresh clashes kill 3 Turkish troops, 4 PKK militants in restive southeast

Iran Press TV

Sat Sep 17, 2016 12:34PM

At least three Turkish soldiers and four members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group have been killed during fresh clashes in the restive southeastern part of the country.

Three Turkish soldiers were also wounded in the clashes that erupted in the village of Agacdibi, located around 20 kilometers south of Hakkari province bordering Iraq and Iran, security sources said on Saturday.

Separately in Sirnak province bordering Iraq, several Turkish attack helicopters bombed PKK positions near Cudi and Gabar mountains in support of ground troops carrying out operations in the area.

On Friday, Turkish security forces carried out two separate counter-terrorism operations against PKK militants in Hakkari province, killing five of them.

Late on Thursday, seven paramilitary policemen, a soldier and a sergeant lost their lives when PKK militants launched an assault in the eastern province of Agri. Three soldiers and two civilians were also injured in the attack.

Turkish military forces have been conducting ground operations as well as airstrikes against PKK positions in Turkey's troubled southeastern border region and Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region over the past year.

Turkey's southeastern region has been the scene of violence since the collapse of a ceasefire between the government and PKK militants in July 2015.

The PKK, which has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984, has since carried out several attacks on police and military posts in the largely Kurdish region.

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'British military incapable of defending country against Russia'

Iran Press TV

Sat Sep 17, 2016 1:18PM

The United Kingdom would not be able to confront serious military powers, like Russia, in the event of a conventional conflict, a former senior commander has warned.

General Richard Barrons, who was head of Britain's Joint Forces Command, warned the Defense Ministry before he stepped down in April that the country would quickly be overwhelmed by a concerted Russian air campaign, The Financial Times reported Saturday.

"Neither the UK homeland nor a deployed force  let alone both concurrently  could be protected from a concerted Russian air effort," he wrote in a ten-page private memorandum that was delivered to Defense Secretary Michael Fallon.

"Counter-terrorism is the limit of up-to-date plans and preparations to secure our airspace, waters and territory ... there is no top-to-bottom command and control mechanism, preparation or training in place for the UK armed forces [to defend home territory] ... let alone to do so with NATO, " Barrons added.

The document -- obtained by The Financial Times -- raised concerns that the army has not been trained to conduct full-scale wars and that such an experience could be a disadvantage.

Barrons, who served in the army for nearly 40 years, described that the army is not equipped to fight a major power, adding that it is significantly outgunned by Russia.

He argued that small numbers of hugely expensive pieces of military equipment that make the UK's military capabilities are "extremely fragile."

"Capability that is foundational to all major armed forces has been withered by design," the general wrote.

The Ministry of Defense announced a plan last year to put more ships, planes and troops at readiness, alongside greater spending on cyber and special forces. The government also pledged a military budget rise to meet NATO's spending.

The UK's military approach since 2010, however, has been conditioned by the reality of a dramatically shrinking budget. Since then, the size of the armed forces has also shrunk by around one sixth.

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Illegitimate Russian Duma Elections in Occupied Crimea

Press Statement

John Kirby

Assistant Secretary and Department Spokesperson, Bureau of Public Affairs

Washington, DC

September 16, 2016



The United States does not recognize the legitimacy, and will not recognize the outcome, of the Russian Duma elections planned for Russian-occupied Crimea on September 18th.

Our position on Crimea is clear: the peninsula remains an integral part of Ukraine. Crimea-related sanctions against Russia will remain until Russia returns control of Crimea to Ukraine.

We also continue to be deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Crimea, including the status of the ethnic Tatar community and widespread reports of missing persons and human rights abuses.

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US Condemns Russian Elections in Crimea

By VOA News September 17, 2016

The U.S. says it will not recognize the outcome of Russian parliamentary elections planned for Crimea Sunday, the first since Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.

"The United States does not recognize the legitimacy, and will not recognize the outcome, of the Russian Duma (lower house of parliament) elections planned for Russian-occupied Crimea on September 18th," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

"The peninsula remains an integral part of Ukraine. Crimea-related sanctions against Russia will remain until Russia returns control of Crimea to Ukraine," the statement said.

"We also continue to be deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Crimea, including the status of the ethnic Tatar community and widespread reports of missing persons and human rights abuses," Kirby said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said the elections are "completely illegitimate" and expressed concerned about the "extreme" number of Russian troops in Crimea.

Meanwhile, a group of unidentified anti-Russian protesters attacked Moscow's embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv with fireworks in the early hours of Saturday.

The protesters were holding a banner reading: "Russian pigs, you are not welcome here. Fireworks today, Grads (cluster-fired rockets) tomorrow."

They also chanted, "Freedom to prisoners of the Kremlin," and, "There will be no elections."

Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, following a local referendum the U.N. General Assembly nearly unanimously called illegal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted his soldiers moved into the strategic Black Sea peninsula before the referendum took place, but has repeatedly denied backing the pro-Moscow insurgency in eastern Ukraine that has claimed nearly 10,000 lives since it began in April 2014.

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For the past few weeks, White Rock native and Dan River High School graduate Octavius Pinkard has been continuing a family tradition of political engagement, but in a place thousands of miles from the Dan River Region  working as an election observer in the Belarus town of Mazyr.

Pinkard is an election observer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe  an Austria-based security organization  and works to make sure elections in Europe and Asia are held successfully and fairly.

 In a lot of ways, having external observers come in to monitor the election, it gives voters a certain level of confidence, Pinkard said.

To prepare for his work as an election observer, Pinkard said he began by studying the culture of Belarus and Eastern Europe.

 Its a lot of preparation in background about social and economic dynamics in the country, Pinkard said.

Once arriving in the capital of Minsk, the observers participate in a briefing process before heading off to polling sites. For Pinkard, this meant traveling to the town of Mazyr  a small southern town only about 60 miles from Chernobyl.

Leading up to the election, Pinkard and his translator observed poll workers and oversaw and interviewed voters on the day of the election last Sunday.

 Our role is not to interfere with the process, just to observe, he said.

Pinkard grew up in the White Rock neighborhood in North Danville. He said he gained an interest in politics early on from his grandfather Bennie Pinkard.

 He believed very strongly in the power of the ballot and in civic engagement, Pinkard said. It was fascinating to watch as a kid. I loved spending time with him no matter where we were, and back then I always enjoyed the atmosphere of the political process.

Pinkard said he teachers in Pittsylvania County also helped him think about his future.

 They were as demanding as they were inspiring, and I think that they do a phenomenal job of preparing students for responsible life in adulthood, he said.

From there, Pinkard has studied as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching at William & Mary and working as an analyst and consultant in Europe and the Middle East, among other accomplishments.

Pinkard said he was very impressed with how voters everywhere researched the issues and positions of candidates before taking to the polls.

 In a lot of countries, Ive really been impressed with how informed the voters are, he said.

Pinkard said many voters also knew about and asked several questions related to the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

 Its interesting to see just how knowledgeable they are about our candidates, Pinkard said, adding that some even knew about third party candidates Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.

He also had praise for both his interpreter and his driver during the process.

 Our driver and interpreter were indispensable members of the team, Pinkard said. They provided more than just transport across the area of observation, or services in Russian-to-English and vice versa. They added local context to the dynamics of what we observed and the value of those contributions cannot be overstated.

Pinkard said he ultimately hoped his work would positively contribute to the democratic process in Belarus and other countries.

Metcalfe reports for the Danville Register & Bee.
Less than 50 days remain before Americans decide between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton for president.

When it comes to each candidate's energy policy, there are plenty of differences.

Trump wants to make the U.S. energy independent.

Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources in Oklahoma City, advises Trump regarding energy policy. Hamm also served as energy adviser to Mitt Romney during his presidential campaign four years ago, and he led the successful charge to lift the ban on crude oil exports last year.

Trump has talked about America's "Energy Renaissance", and the many regulatory roadblocks to energy independence that have been set up by the Obama administration since 2008.

When U.S. oil production peaked at 9.7 million barrels per day in April 2015, the nation was within 5 million barrels per day of being entirely self-sufficient in crude oil. Oil production has declined to 8.9 million barrels per day in April 2016 because of low prices, a decline in activity, and burdensome regulation.

At the height of the renaissance, employment in the petroleum industry was rising at a record pace. Net imports of petroleum liquids fell to 25 percent of U.S. consumption; Liquefied Natural Gas facilities that were originally designed to import LNG have been retrofitted to export LNG because America now produces excess natural gas, resulting in a nationwide oversupply. Trump believes each barrel of oil produced in the U.S. creates jobs, pays taxes, builds the economy, and replaces another barrel of oil that must be imported.

Domestic oil production enhances national security, he said.

He points out that building a strong domestic energy industry would "make America great again."

Clinton hasn't talked much about energy, but has said she supports increasing wind and solar power through policies restricting the usage and production of fossil fuels. She emphasizes the importance of expanding the implementation of exotic energy sources, and wants to have 500 million solar panels installed by 2025.

Clinton believes America can and should reduce greenhouse gases by reducing its consumption of coal and oil, but has also acknowledged that natural gas should be a "bridge fuel" to facilitate increased use of wind and solar.

She stated during a town hall meeting that she's "going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."

The Democratic National Committee has formally adopted a proposal calling for an America "run entirely on clean energy by midcentury."

Regarding oil and gas drilling in the U.S., Clinton said in a March debate that if elected president, she "[does] not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place."

Alex Mills is President of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. The opinions expressed are solely of the author.
Ona Armstrong Graef rode the range in a "Horseless Carriage" specially designed to feed the stock and drive over the pastures during the height of her days in the 1970s. Contributed photo

West Texas woman worked for decades

Ona May Armstrong was 13 years old when she helped her family drive cattle on horseback from Fort Stockton to Tulia. In drought years, there was no feed for the cattle, so they had to go where the cattle could find something to eat, she told the Standard-Times in March 1974.

Also during the 1920s, there was no way to truck feed out to livestock, so ranchers in the Trans-Pecos region of Texas would burn prickly pear and break sotol heads for cattle or herd them to greener pastures.

The year was around 1925 when Ona was thrown from her horse twice on the cattle trail. Several other times, a horse fell with her.

In the 1970s, when she operated her own 31-section (19,840 acres) ranch near Balmorhea in the Davis Mountain region of West Texas, Ona decided to give up horseback travel. In turn, she rode the range in a "Horseless Carriage," a red vehicle specially designed for her use to feed the stock and drive over the pastures.

Ona May Armstrong was born Jan. 27, 1912, in Scurry County. Her parents were George L. Armstrong (1879-1941) and Pearl May Martin Armstrong (1890-1979). Her siblings were Etta Ellaway Armstrong Hester (1908-1971) and James Lee Armstrong (1917-1987).

Her father, George Armstrong, was a farmer in both Pecos and Nolan counties.

Ona Armstrong and Oscar Graef were married at Fort Stockton in 1927. They owned and operated the ranch together.

When Oscar died in March 1962, Ona ran the ranch with only one hired man. She said her best teachers were her husband and his brother. She helped them build fences and whatever needed to be done. The ranch was her life and consolation since his death, she told the Standard-Times.

"Whenever I'm depressed I just go out and look at the cattle and feel better. I'm never lonesome because on a ranch there is always something to be done."

The Graef ranch comprised acreage near Balmorhea and a separate ranch 30 miles away in west Pecos County. The ranches were cross-fenced into six pastures.

Early-on she ran sheep, but predators  mainly coyotes  finally drove the ranch to focus on cattle only.

During the 1960s and 1970s before screwworms were eradicated, Ona said the calves had to be watched carefully and doctored every day when a case was discovered.

Ona May Armstrong Graef was 93 when she died Jan. 8, 2006, and burial was in Elm Grove Cemetery in Alpine.

She was a longtime member of the West of the Pecos Cattlewomen Association, Bridge Play, Well Kept Community Club and the Methodist Church.

Ona was survived by two nieces: Leona Trowbridge of Balmorhea and Linda Stewart of San Angelo.

Jerry Lackey is the agriculture editor emeritus. Contact him at jlackey@wcc.net.
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FREDERICKSBURG

Dorper sheep sale sets new record

A record number of registered buyers purchased 175 Dorper and White Dorper sheep for a record average-sales price of $1,246 per animal at the 10th annual show/sale at the Gillespie County Fairgrounds in Fredericksburg recently.

The show featured a record number of pens of three ewes (25), and those 75 ewes brought an average of $1,318 each. Top-selling pen-of-three belonged to the Holman Ranch of Sonora and was purchased by Conrad Matysiak of Stonewall for $12,000.

Top-selling ram was a Dorper fall lamb offered by the Powell Ranch of Eldorado and sold to Jody Lewis for $5,000.

The Powell Holman Ranch of Sonora dominated the judging as its entries included the champion White Dorper ram, the champion White Dorper ewe and the reserve champion White Dorper ewe.

The Bernhard Ranch of Harper had the champion Dorper ram, while the Holman Ranch showed the champion and reserve champion Dorper ewes. The Oak Hill Ranch of Sonora showed the reserve champion White Dorper ram, and the Roeder Ranch of Fredericksburg had the reserve champion Dorper ram.

MENARD

Range workshop slated for Oct. 5

A range workshop conducted by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and the Menard County Soil and Water Conservation District will start at 8:15 a.m. and conclude at 3:20 p.m. Oct. 5 at the Murchison-Whitehead Complex in Menard on U.S. Highway 190.

"We have a lot of information packed into this meeting on topics ranging from horned toad management to managing toxic plants," said Lisa Brown, Menard County agriculture agent. "We'll also have some top speakers, serve lunch and offer continuing education units, so this will be a well-rounded program from several angles."

Registration is $25 per person or $30 per couple. Participants are asked to preregister by 4:30 p.m. Oct. 3 for an accurate lunch count by calling Brown at 325-396-4787.

ROBY

Quail Research Ranch field day set

The 9th annual Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch field day is set from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. Sept. 30.

The ranch is 11-miles west of Roby on U.S. Highway 180, just east of the intersection of Farm-to-Market 611 and U.S. Highway 180.

"Our theme for this year is 'Can We Insulate this Quail Boom?'" said Dale Rollins, wildlife specialist at San Angelo and the ranch's executive director.

Rollins, who is also Texas A&M AgriLife Extension's coordinator for the ongoing Reversing the Decline of Quail state initiative, said this year's quail crop looks to be better than what he calls the "Jubilee Year" experienced in 2015.

"It's pretty incredible to see back-to-back boom years like we've experienced recently," he said. "But our most recent counts are up by 20 percent over last year's bumper crop. Now the question becomes, how long can we 'insulate' the birds and sustain the good times?"

The field day will feature tour stops addressing prescribed burning, prickly pear management for quail, ongoing research efforts and managing for monarch butterflies.

Registration is $10 due upon arrival. The fee includes refreshments and lunch. Participants are encouraged to RSVP for meal planning purposes to Mary Lynn Nelms at 325-653-4576.

SAN ANGELO

Profit with sheep programs this week

Production and Financial Benchmarking Workshops will be conducted in San Angelo on Wednesday (Sept. 21) and Granbury on Sept. 27.

Both workshops will have similar curriculums, running from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with lunch included. The Granbury workshop will also include a discussion and demonstration on parasite management. They are provided through the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension offices in Tom Green and Hood counties and the Let's Grow campaign of the American Sheep Industry Association.

The San Angelo workshop site will be the Texas A&M Research and Extension Center, located north of San Angelo on U.S. Highway 87. The Granbury workshop will be at the Extension office in Hood County, Annex 1, Room 22, 1410 W. Pearl St.

"These workshops are meant to help sheep and wool producers remain profitable," said Reid Redden, state sheep and goat specialist at San Angelo. "They are designed to help producers become better able to calculate and interpret key financial and production measures."

Redden and economist Bill Thompson will conduct the workshops.

Participants are asked to preregister two days in advance of the workshop they choose to attend. For more information or to preregister, call Redden or Thompson at 325-653-4576.

 Compiled by Jerry Lackey
Dear Dave: My husband and I own three commercial buildings in Boise, Idaho, that are leased out long-term. We owe about $500,000 on one and $400,000 on each of the others, and they earn $190,000. The only other debt we have is a small amount left on our mortgage. I know you don't like debt, but is it OK to owe on commercial properties that are making good money?  Dawn

Dear Dawn: I own several commercial buildings, and I don't owe a dime on any of them. So I can't tell you that I think it's OK to have debt on commercial buildings. I believe the best plan for building wealth is to become debt-free.

Now, from the situation you've described, that doesn't necessarily mean you guys should be in panic mode and start selling everything in sight. But I do think that you should systematically work your way out from under these debts over the next few years.

If I were in your shoes, I'd go ahead and get the house paid off first. Then I'd take a look at these commercial properties and begin working the debt snowball on them. Start throwing as much money as you can at the smallest debt, while making minimum payments on the other two. When you get it paid off, roll that amount over  along with every dime you can dig up  and attack the second largest one. Follow these steps until you pay off all of your commercial properties.

It might take up to 10 years in your case, because we're talking about at least $1.3 million in debt. If you have a bunch of equity in one you don't particularly like, you might consider selling it and throwing the cash at the remaining two. But whatever the timeline, I'd develop a hard-core game plan to get rid of this debt.

Wouldn't it be cool to have all that paid for? Talk about cash flow!

Dear Dave: My wife and I are debt-free except for a car and our house. The car is financed through her mom, and her dad agreed to send us half of the payment each month. We owe $7,700 on the car, and we have enough cash right now to pay off the car in full with plenty left over. Should we do this, even though her dad is making $100 of the payment each month?  Dustin

Dear Dustin: If her father had agreed to send you guys $100 each month, ask him to continue doing that for the duration of the agreement. Then, you guys pay off the car now with your cash. There's nothing dishonest about this, as long as you explain the plan to her parents and they're agreeable.

The reason for this approach is twofold: it gets the debt paid off, and then you can get the car put in your name. Plus, a situation like this represents drama just looking for a place to happen, if it hasn't already. Family relationships take on a weird vibe when money has been loaned and borrowed.

If they're not agreeable to the idea, that's OK. All you can do is ask. But one way or another, I'd be out of this situation before the sun goes down!

Dave Ramsey is a money management expert, radio host and best-selling author.
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By Christopher Collins, ccollins@gannett.com

The U.S. government's involvement in almost 20 lawsuits is now in limbo, the result of an injunction placed against it by a federal judge in connection with guidelines the government issued to schools on transgender bathroom rules.

The most notable of those cases is United States v. North Carolina, a lawsuit that has served as a launching point for a nationwide debate on what rights transgender people should have. It also sparked other lawsuits  including one filed by Texas and other conservative states in May  alleging the U.S. government had violated notice and comment rules when it directed school districts to make bathrooms available to transgender students based on their gender identity.

In August, Northern District of Texas Judge Reed O'Connor awarded a temporary injunction to Texas and other states in the case, barring the federal government from enforcing its interpretation of gender identity on schools. Now, because of the injunction, the U.S. government is unsure how to proceed in the North Carolina lawsuit and at least 16 others, court filings show.

"Absent immediate confirmation from this court, there will likely be substantial disruption" to the pending cases, a U.S. attorney wrote in a brief submitted to O'Connor. Those lawsuits include cases in which the federal government is a plaintiff or defendant, along with those in which the government has filed subpoenas.

"In the interim, defendants ask this court to make it clear beyond any doubt that they are free to proceed with all of the pending litigation," the attorney wrote.

The U.S. government pointed to another case, United States v. Southeastern Oklahoma State University, that had been placed in a legal gray area because of the injunction. In that case, the government brought suit against the university on behalf of a transgender professor, who asserted her tenure had been denied because of her gender identity.

"After this court issued its order, the (U.S. Department of Justice) postponed depositions," a court filing reads. "Given other impending deadlines, the department will shortly seek a stay pending confirmation that proceedings in that case are not enjoined by this court's order."

For Texas and other plaintiffs suing the feds, that raises two questions: How broad is O'Connor's injunction against the U.S. government and can it be made broader?

If court filings are any indication, attorneys for the state of Texas think the order is broad enough to keep federal agencies from going forward in at least some of the cases they are currently involved in. And for other cases that fall outside of the order, the judge should broaden the injunction.

"Plaintiffs contend that the injunction generally precludes defendants from involving themselves in private party litigation in any capacity," states wrote in a September brief submitted to O'Connor.

The U.S. government ought to be kept from participating in either the North Carolina case or the Southeastern Oklahoma State University case, the states argued.

O'Connor has not yet ruled on whether the federal government may proceed in its other cases or whether he will extend the temporary injunction against it.
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A massive recall of sleep apnea machines is expected to drag into next year. That's caused frustration for U.S. patients and led federal officials to consider rare legal steps to speed the replacement effort. Dutch manufacturer Philips has recalled more than 5 million machines worldwide due to foam that can deteriorate, releasing potentially harmful byproducts. While customers were supposed to receive new machines within a year, the company says shipments will continue into 2023. That's left many U.S. patients to choose between using a recalled device or trying other risky remedies. U.S. regulators have warned they may take the unprecedented step of ordering Philips to step up its effort.
HARTFORD - The state has seen a 54 percent decline over the last seven years in the number of prison inmates aged 18 to 21 years old, according to statistics released by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

The number of arrests of persons in the same age group decreased by 53 percent over a similar time period, state officials said.

Malloy said the numbers are a positive sign that crime rates will continue to decline over the coming years, and said the decreases can be largely attributed to raising the age of juvenile offenders to 18, which took full effect in July 2012, and school based diversionary programs that have been instituted.

Since taking office, we have been working to reform our criminal justice system - lowering the crime rate, making our communities safer and reducing the number of people caught up in a cycle of repeat offenses, Malloy said.

We know that if we can keep young people from entering our criminal justice system, the odds are in their favor that they will experience better lifelong outcomes, the governor added. It is clear that our recent efforts have been successful, and that is why we are proposing to expand these reforms even further. Our prisons should not serve as crime schools.

Connecticut has 899 inmates aged 18 to 21, down from 2,067 on July 1, 2009. The reduction has been constant each year since 2009, and the result of the dramatic decline in the number of young being people arrested, state officials said.

In 2008, 6,624 17-year-olds were arrested. Last year, the number of 17-year-olds that were arrested was 2,289, a reduction of 66 percent, according to state figures.

Youthful offenders are also experiencing similar declines. Between 2009 and 2016, there has been a 23 percent decline in the number of inmates aged 22 to 29. Inmates under the age of 18 have dropped from 332 in 2009 to 76 in 2016, a decrease of 77 percent.
GREENWICH  Some tidal sea grasses, a picturesque lighthouse and an undisturbed expanse of water. Those are the iconic images of Long Island Sound that have graced more than 150,000 license plates in the state of Connecticut over more than two decades.

But interest in the vanity plates appears to be waning. And with fewer plates being purchased, less money is going to projects that help preserve the ecosystems of Long Island Sound.

Its understandable that over time, people who are committed and concerned would purchase their plates and you reach that audience and saturate it, said Dennis Schain, a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

We love all of our children, but many people would say Long Island Sound is the most important natural resource to Connecticut and it does mean a lot to the state, he said. Having these funds to support the Sound has been very important.

Since 1993, the program has raised more than $8.5 million for projects supporting habitat restoration, education, research and public access on the body of water that makes up the entirety of Connecticuts eastern border, according to data from the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles.

During the fiscal year that began in 1998, 10,494 plates were purchased raising $574,970.

More Information License plate revenues Fiscal year 1996-97 2002-03 2008-09 2014-15 Total Plates sold 10,534 4,276 2,682 2,469 155,020 Funds raised $584,210 $198,700 $151,140 $102,535 $8.54 million See More Collapse

In the one that began in 2014, the latest year for which data is available, only 2,469 plates were purchased, raising $102,535.

And because of the drop in sales, the number and scope of projects has changed.

In its first year, 31 projects received funding ranging from $250 to about $64,000. Recipients included a high school, two businesses, both the Maritime Aquarium and Mystic Seaport and Aquarium, two colleges, seven governmental agencies, an individual, five nonprofits and the DEP. Projects tended to be brochures, signage and education videos.

In 2000, 22 projects received funding ranging from about $2,500 to about $27,500. Recipients included seven nonprofits, a Land Trust, Audubon, the DEP, Yale University, the Maritime Aquarium, an individual and six governmental agencies. Projects included brochures, teacher guides, research and some small construction projects for public access.

There were no projects funded in 2007 or 2009.

In 2010, the most recent data available, 15 projects received funding ranging from $82,200 to $500,000. Recipients included seven governmental agencies, several local Nature Conservancies, Audubon and a Land Trust. Projects included a dam removal, habitat and waterlife restoration, airport land conservation and fish ladders along several dams.

In Greenwich, about $10,000 from the fund went toward completing a 1999 Mianus River water quality monitoring program involving Greenwich High School students.

In Stamford, the funds have been used to complete six projects, the latest in 2000, when $25,000 was dedicated to creating 100 environmental education activities about the Sound to go in the Environmental Learning Lab at Cove Island Park.

The vanity plates cost $50 each with a state-chosen series of letters and numbers, of which $35 goes to the Long Island Sound fund. Special letters or messages cost more, with more money going into the fund.

Protect the Sound is only one of several vanity plate series that funnel money to specific causes, including the University of Connecticut, Conserve Wildlife, Cure Kids Cancer and Animal Population Control.

But its one of the most vital, its supporters said.

Its made an immense contribution to protecting and enhancing Long Island Sound, the resources around it, and the aquatic life, Schain said. The scenic beauty, the chance for people to enjoy the waterfront, the tourism and economic development opportunities it creates  it allows so many efforts to increase public awareness to the importance of the Sound and all that it means to Connecticut.

There are several other vanity plates people can purchase from the state that support other programs, including the University of Connecticut, Conserve Wildlife, Cure Kids Cancer and Animal Population Control.

A customer has to already have Connecticut plates to order Preserve the Sound plates, said Ernie Bertothy, a spokesman for the Connecticut DMV.

A list of the 304 projects the program has funded can be found on the Connecticut DEEP website and searched by municipality, project type and year completed.

pfrissell@hearstmediact.com; @PeregrineFriss
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NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has sent Earthlings a few more photos to look over as it continues to explore the landscape of the Red Planet.

And this batch of photos looks oddly familiar.

The photos are from an area of the planet called the "Murray Buttes," which is a region of lower Mount Sharp. The Martian buttes and mesas rising above the surface are eroded remnants of ancient sandstone that originated when winds deposited sand after lower Mount Sharp had formed.

MORE MARS: 'Skeletal remains' spotted in NASA Mars rover Curiosity photo

"Studying these buttes up close has given us a better understanding of ancient sand dunes that formed and were buried, chemically changed by groundwater, exhumed and eroded to form the landscape that we see today," Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada says in a news release.

These findings could lead to more proof to the theory that Mars once hosted life. Furthermore it comes after the rover successfully found evidence in 2014 on the surrounding plains of Mount Sharp that ancient Martian lakes could have offered conditions that would have been favorable for microbes if Mars ever hosted life.

OTHER WORLD BEAUTY: NASA rover takes interactive 360-degree panorama of Mars

We haven't found any conspiracy theorists claiming they see a Glock, or an alien's skull or anything else, but we'll keep you updated if the theorists' imaginations can form something we can't.

But for the meantime, take a look at the rock formations shared by NASA and the conspiracy theories already created with other photos from Mars in the gallery above.

MORE SIGHTINGS? Pretty sure this skull found on Mars is that of an alien or Bigfoot
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While NASA is hard at work determining if life ever existed on Mars, the internet has already found all the evidence it needs: shoes.

This week, UFO enthusiasts have spotted what they believe is real evidence of a long lost puma-wearing civilization.

"While looking though some Mars rover photos I found a lone shoe on the edge of the crater," said Scott Waring of ufosightingsdaily. "This is probably a shoe of a species that were at war in long ago, the shoe being the lone evidence that the person had ever existed."

READ MORE: Scientists' year-long Mars simulation on Hawaii volcano is about to end

In April, Waring supposedly discovered another shoe. But he's not the only one: a quick Google search will return dozens of different videos and theories from amateur astrologists trying to solve their own version of the mysterious Martian shoe. Never in pairs, some are made of leather, others have laces and some are sandals. The speculation is endless.

The phenomenon is known as pareidolia, or the mind's tendency to spot familiar patterns (like shoes) in randomness.

"The pareidolia phenomenon is actually a deeply rooted one, something that helps infants focus on faces early and also allowed humans in the wild to spot danger easilypicking a potentially menacing human or animal peering out from a backdrop of leaves or scrub," a Time article explained when the public noticed what it thought was a crab monster on Mars. "Yes, more often than not it's a false alarm, but better to overreact fifty times than under-react even once."

It is the same phenomenon behind seeing President Obama on Mars or Jesus on a piece of toast.

READ MORE: NASA rover takes interactive 360-degree panorama of Mars

Holger Isenberg is the creator of areo.info, a website that uploads colorized Mars photos from NASA. He says he receives messages from UFO enthusiasts every couple of weeks, but it doesn't bother him. In fact, he welcomes it.

"The curiosity about Mars' surface keeps the spirit of space flight alive and offers a good opportunity for later manned expeditions," Isenberg explained. "It's like centuries ago, when seafarers were looking if dragons existed on the far coast of the Atlantic Ocean."

While the internet is worried about finding life on Mars, NASA is worried about creating life on the planet by accidentally contaminating it with Earth's microbes. Needless to say, they won't be wearing shoes anytime soon.

Check out the images above of the strange things people have spotted on Mars.
Scott Mullin / Scott Mullin

GREENWICH  Two weeks into September, the brutal summer still burned lawns to a crisp, but the heat did little to get in the way of teaching in Greenwich classrooms.

In each climate-controlled room, when the teacher told her students to take out their school-issued iPads or Chromebooks, a screen glowed in front of each face, allowing every student to proceed through the online math or English program at his or her own pace  the point of the machines being to enable teachers to personalize lessons for every child.
Our 9/11 Mathias Brockers

Gedenken 2004: Tribute in Light. Bild: Derek Jensen, Public Domain

Affirmation replaces criticism: the "Church of Free Fall"

In August this year I received a note requesting advice on a new project. As the project in question was rather unique in scope - dealing as it did with founding a new religious order or church - the signatories of the note requested that I preserve their anonymity should I decide to report on their activities. Doing so would be quite welcome, though, "to gain first insights into the potential reach of such a project." The note continued: "Now that almost 15 years have passed and the crimes of September 11, 2001, have yet to be prosecuted or the true perpetrators and instigators of the crime identified and named, investigations that deserve that name cannot be expected to happen for decades yet.

As understandable and as legitimate as it may be to continue demanding the truth about 9/11 and for a decent crime investigation into the gruesome mass murder that happened on that day, it is unfortunately just as illusory and unrealistic to expect the demands to be met in real life. Given that the official legends promulgated by governments and media alike are thus going to continue to stand as truths, realpolitik tells us that rational arguments are no longer any use against them. Wherever legends have become official "true history" and have been declared state creeds on which governments base their power politics, rational critique has become obsolete.

It is for these reasons that we propose to found a new creed that states clearly its unshakable belief in the official stories of 9/11 and which celebrates the miraculous promotion of these myths to the ranks of solidly governmentally verified truths. As this involves in part violations of the laws of nature and statistics as well as those of logic or common sense, we have decided on a working title of "Church of Free Fall" for our project. We are working to achieve official recognition as a religious order for the "C. o. F. F.".

The C.o.F.F. - despite originating as a secular "knowledge community" -has its very own founding myths and miracles that are in no way inferior to those of established churches, as its Credo as attached below amply demonstrates. The Credo has been adopted officially by the International Section of the preliminary C.o.F.F. Episcopate, to serve as a firm foundation of the religious community. Further extensions of the Credo, including additional fundamental beliefs, dogmas, and rituals, are currently under development. The C.o.F.F. Credo bows to a realpolitik of war, observation, and "security" that has arisen from the dust and ashes of the WTC towers. The C.o.F.F. replaces strength-by-refusal with the joy of affirmation, celebrates the insanity of reality as well as the truly just Great War on Terror. Instead of fighting its enemies, the C.o.F.F. embraces its enemy in a stranglehold.

You are welcome to publish our manifest."

Which I will do forthwith:

We trust in the one suitcase of 200

Which got left at the gate

And which revealed all the proof

We might ever have needed:

Teaching videos on how to fly a Boeing plane,

Instructions for airplane hijackers,

A Hamburg, Germany, registration form,

A diploma granted by the Technical University of Hamburg,

And the Final Will and Testament of Mohammed Atta,

The "Leader" of the hijackers.

We believe

That that man wished to carry his testament

With him onto his suicide mission,

Just in case his deadly flight

Failed to end in an enormous ball of fire.

Or because he figured

His testament naturally indestructible,

Just like the passport of his fellow hijacker Al Sugami

That was discovered unscathed next to the WTC.

We believe

That two airplanes are able to

Bring down three skyscrapers

The first time ever in the history of construction

That steel framed skyscrapers became

Pulverized by burgeoning fires alone,

While a plastic-and-paper passport

Is able to survive the inferno unscathed.

We believe

In the Free Fall

In which burning office furniture

Brought down WTC7 so fast

That the BBC was able to report it

20 minutes beforehand.

We believe

That Hani Hanjour might have been bad at flying small aircraft,

Bad enough for the rental agency to refuse to rent him a Cessna,

But that he did succeed in hitting the Pentagon

From behind at ten feet above the ground

Descending with a jumbo jet at 500 mph

In an ingenious curve around the building.

We believe

That he did not just keep on flying straight

Into the offices of the Pentagon Chiefs

Because he wished to make air navigation history

Through an ingenious maneuver taking him

"Once around the most highly secured building of the world"

Along with aces of the air like the Red Baron before him.

We believe

That the total absence of an air defense

Not just above the Pentagon

But above the entire U.S. air space

Had nothing whatsoever to do

With the "war games" that

Were taking place that morning.

We believe

That "nobody could ever have imagined

That terrorists would ever fly a hijacked plane into a building" (CONDOLEZZA RICE)

Despite the fact that these war games

Were using as a war scenario precisely what was happening that day,

Namely the hijacking of passenger airplanes.

We believe

That Osama Bin Laden masterminded this

"Surprise attack" from a cave in Afghanistan

Even when the FBI announces it has no proof of his complicity in the attack,

And even when he himself refused to take any credit whatsoever for

Taking part in that particular act of terror

In his first interview after, on Sept. 18, 2001.

We believe

That he and his 19 "hijackers", armed with nothing but box cutters,

Were solely responsible for succeeding in this attack,

Despite the fact that due to totally bogus visas

15 of them would never even have reached U.S. soil

Had not the U.S. Consulate in Jidda, Saudi Arabia,

Simply waved through the lot of them.

We believe

That the CIA never had any idea of this

Even if a visa official of that consulate,

Michael Springman, became a whistleblower

Because his office was constantly being used

To funnel suspicious Arab "freedom fighters"

Into the U.S.A.

We believe

That the Saudi security service had no idea either

And that it was purely as an act of charity

That the "terror logistics expert" Al Midhar

And his colleague Al Hazmi received

Monthly stipends from the wife of Royal Ambassador to the U.S.,

Prince Bandar, during their stay in San Diego.

We believe

That the Pakistani secret service had nothing to do with 9/11 either,

Whose chief, General Ahmad, was having breakfast in Washington on 9/11

With the heads of the secret service oversight committees of

House and Senate, Bob Graham and Porter Goss,

And who shortly after resigned without a word

When word got out that his secret agent Omar Saeed Sheikh

Transferred 100,000 U.S. Dollars of funds to Mohammed Atta.

We believe

That neither was Israel's Mossad involved

Even if five of its agents were arrested in New York City

Filming themselves triumphing and showing victory signs

With the WTC towers burning in the background

Only to claim on a TV talk show in their home country,

Where they had quietly been deported to,

They had been in New York City "to document the events".

We believe

That it was simply a hugely unlucky chain of events

That all these ever vigilant secret services "failed" their duties

And a truly unlucky chain of unlucky events that enabled

Osama and his 19 box cutter wielding hijackers

To pulverize three skyscrapers all by themselves

And to murder 3000 people.

We believe

In George W. Bush's warning to the United Nations General Assembly:

"We must speak the truth about terror.

Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories

concerning the attacks of September the 11th;

malicious lies that attempt

to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves,

away from the guilty."

We believe

That only malicious liars, outrageous conspiracy theorists,

Intolerable anti-Semites and notorious anti-Americans,

Enemies of freedom and friends of terrorism

Can deny the truths of the 9/11 Commission's Final Report

After all, it includes the undeniable confessions of an accomplice

By the name of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed.

We believe

In the truth of these confessions

Even if they were extracted in 182 torture sessions

During which the prisoner was subjected to waterboarding

Because only malicious heretics and crazy conspiracy theorists

Who also believe in aliens from outer space or who have been infested by the devil

Would question the investigations into 9/11

Or much less request a completely new re-investigation.

We believe

In our democratic media of repute

Who recognize the divisive poison in these doubts

And pillory those who heinously try to spread it

To strengthen the belief of our Brothers and Sisters

In the Holy Script of the 9/11 Report

And in our governing bodies that proclaim it

In defense of our freedom and security.

Let us therefore pray:

Our 9/11

Thou camest from out of the blue sky

Hallowed be thy name

Thy GWOT* has come

Whose will be done

With drones in the heavens

As it is with wars on Earth.



Give us this day our daily budgets

(the fall of the Soviet Union had put those very much in question, after all)

And never forgive a terrorist

As thy GWOT* just keeps on

Creating new ones daily

And lead us not into temptation

To deliver ourselves from the evils of a war

Without end and without an end.

For thine is the imperial kingdom

And the military power

And "Full Spectrum Dominance"

For ever

Amen.

*Great War On Terror

 C.o.F.F. Church of Free Fall

All rites reversed

Translated from 9/11 Unser by Andreas Strotmann. All rites reversed.

(Mathias Brockers)
WASHINGTON  Theres trouble brewing in appraiserville  and its beginning to cost some unsuspecting home buyers money. If youre planning to buy in the coming months, be aware.

The problem is part work overload, part resentment over fees. In many markets, diminishing numbers of experienced appraisers are available  or willing  to handle requests for their work on tight timetables and at fees that are sometimes lower than they earned a decade or more ago.

The net result: The system is getting gummed up. Scheduled home sale settlements are being delayed because banks and appraisal management companies cant find appraisers wholl do valuations on timetables needed for closing dates in realty contracts. A recent survey of agents by the National Association of Realtors found that appraisal problems were connected with 27 percent of delayed home sale closings, up from 16 percent earlier this year.

In some cases, panicked lenders and management companies are offering appraisers fat bonuses and rush fees just to complete valuations to meet deadlines. The extra charges can range anywhere from $200 to $1,000 or more, turning $500 appraisals into $1,200 or $1,500 expenses that typically get paid by home buyers.

Take this example provided to me by a mortgage broker in the Seattle area. Matt Culp, owner of Bainbridge Lending Group LLC, says clients who urgently needed to close on a newly built house  and to move out of their rented dwelling  were squeezed into paying $2,000 for an appraisal that normally would cost $625.

An appraisal management company had said that the quickest the valuation could be delivered was Oct. 6, weeks after their hoped-for closing date. Waiting that long, however, would have cost the borrowers their favorable rate lock and forced them to pay another months rent. But when Culp inquired about a rush fee, the appraiser agreed to a $2,000 total fee  $1,375 more than the earlier quote. For the extra money, the appraiser would put Culps clients at the top of the to-do list. The buyers agreed. The extra $1,375, charged to the borrowers credit card in advance of any work performed, was extortion, Culp told me. But it was less expensive than the alternatives.

Heres another example, this time from the perspective of an appraisal management company. Brian C. Coester, CEO of Coester Valuation Management Services in Rockville, Maryland, said a lender in Nashville recently was willing to pay appraisers $1,100 for work that normally would have cost less than half of that, but still had difficulty finding takers. Coesters firm, like other management companies, helps lenders link up with appraisers around the country. For its services, it takes a piece of the appraisal fee.

Appraisers have complained for several years that management companies are themselves a big part of the problem because they pay low fees to the appraiser and pocket 25 percent to 30 percent or more of what home buyers are charged. Plus they have unreasonable expectations about how quickly appraisers can churn out reports. Management company executives like Coester deny they underpay appraisers and instead suggest that there is an underlying shortage of appraisers caused in part by the aging of members of the profession, tougher qualifications and regulations, and by fewer new recruits coming in to replace them.

The Appraisal Institute, the professions largest trade group, confirms that there are fewer appraisers active today than in previous years  the ranks are down by 22 percent since 2007 to a total of 76,800 as of last December 31. But J. Scott Robinson, president of the group, told me one of the key reasons for the dwindling numbers is that management companies and lenders arent paying adequate fees to retain experienced appraisers or attract newcomers.

Jonathan Miller, a prominent New York-based appraiser, wrote in a recent blog that there is no shortage of appraisers. There is a shortage of appraisers willing to work for half the market rate  which is what he believes many appraisers get when they work for management companies as opposed to directly dealing with banks.

Whatever the causes  whether there is a true shortage or simply fewer appraisers willing to work for low net compensation  appraisal delays, combined with requests for rush fees, are realities in the marketplace. When setting contract deadlines for your closing, ask your real estate agent about conditions in your area. The more realistic the settlement date, the lower the likelihood youll be charged extra to get the work done.
Tru-Pak Moving Systems has outfitted multiple classrooms in Newton-Conover Schools with like new executive furnishings  with plans to outfit many more  thanks to the contributions of a generous client.

Allyson Siegel, Executive Vice President of Tru-Pak Moving Systems, came into the furniture that she donated from a client of hers who has requested not to be identified.

This client closed their offices across the country and had no way to donate because their offices may be located in different places, such as New York. I said I would take it all and I would donate it because I didnt want to sell it. Talking to Margaret, she mentioned Newton-Conover City Schools because her granddaughter goes there and knew there was a need. Im a licensed Mental Health Counselor who has done work in education, so it really was a perfect fit, said Siegel.

When choosing Newton-Conover City Schools to donate furniture, Siegel learned more about the needs that N-CCS had  specifically at Discovery High School  through her contact with Nichole Sigmon, Discovery Highs Data Manager and Treasurer.

I didnt know what school that I wanted to donate to  I just knew that I wanted to give it to the district. I actually didnt know about DHS until we got into it. I know theres a need there for classroom furniture, said Siegel.

One Discovery High School Teacher, Gene Scronce, has already transformed the dynamic of his classroom thanks to the new desks and chairs that his students are using.

The new furniture has given the kids a great feeling. They have commented on how nice the furniture is and how thankful they are to receive it, said Scronce.

Discovery High School Principal, John Robinson, has expressed his thankfulness for the donation as well, citing how it assisted and helped his teachers and students.

Tru-Paks donation to Discovery High School is timely and appreciated. Weve been looking and wanting to purchase new furniture for our new building since we moved in two years ago, said Robinson.

Tru-Paks mission in giving back to teachers and students in Newton-Conover Schools is to ensure that every teacher and every student has what they need to make learning the priority in their classroom.

I hope that they have the basic needs met that you expect schools to have. I hope that this donation helps them to not worry about, oh, my desk is broken, my chairs are broken, I dont have enough furniture, etc. so that teachers can do what they should be doing  teaching  and not have to go out and find replacements because the school is able to provide, said Siegel.

Siegels intention is to donate all furnishings she receives from this client back to the Newton-Conover district  a charitable effort for which Newton-Conover Schools are very thankful.

This is not the last time  I intend on doing this throughout the year. I hope that this is a continuous thing. As each of these offices close, I plan to bring the items back to Conover. Where it was a matter of finding someone in need, this has become my mission. I didnt want this to go somewhere it would be stuck in a warehouse and not used. As we get it, we will call and have the schools look and each get what they want, said Siegel.
From Atal Bihari Vajpayees Lahore Declaration to Manmohan Singhs peace-at-any-price doctrine and Narendra Modis Lahore visit statement, Indias readiness to trust Pakistans anti-terrorism assurances draws attention to the adage: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. India has been fooled repeatedly.

The bloody attack by Pakistan-backed terrorists on yet another military camp in Jammu and Kashmir, however, represents double shame for India. Coming after the dramatic terrorist storming of the Pathankot air base at the beginning of this year, the attack on the army base at Uri near the line of control with Pakistan highlights defence-related incompetence. If Modi wishes to send a clear message, he must begin at home by firing his bumbling defence minister and fixing the drift in his Pakistan policy.

For more than a quarter-century, India has been gripped by a vacillating leadership and a paralytic sense of indecision and despair over cross-border terrorism. Indias own passivity and indecision have played no small part in fuelling Pakistans proxy war by terror. The rogue Inter-Services Intelligences S branch  tasked specifically with exporting terrorism to India and Afghanistan  operates through terrorist surrogates.

This years series of terrorist attacks on Indian targets  from Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sharif to Pampore and Uri  signals that the ISI terror masterminds, learning from the international outrage over their November 2008 strikes on civilians in Mumbai, are now concentrating their spectacular hits on symbols of the Indian state, including security forces. For example, as New Years gift to India, the four-day terrorist siege of the Pathankot base coincided with a 25-hour gun and bomb attack on the Indian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Read | What next? Heres how India can respond to the Uri terror attack

The Uri attack is similarly intended to make India feel vulnerable and weak while seeking to minimise the risk of Indian retaliation. This attack, however, is likely to represent a turning point for India, especially given the number of soldiers killed. Indeed, the lesson for India from its restraint despite Pathankot is that all talk and no action invites more deadly terrorism, besides encouraging Pakistan to fuel unrest in the Kashmir Valley and internationalise the J&K issue.

For Modi in particular, the Uri attack constitutes a defining moment. He has completed half of his five-year term with his Pakistan policy in a mess.

Indeed, despite terrorists testing Indias resolve from Herat to Gurdaspur and Udhampur after his election victory, Modis response to the Pathankot siege underscored continuing strategic naivete. Even before the siege ended, New Delhi supplied Islamabad communication intercepts and other evidence linking the attackers with their handlers in Pakistan. This was done in the hope that the terror masters will go after their terror proxies, despite Indias bitter experience in the Mumbai case where it presented dossiers of evidence to Pakistan.

Army personnel inside the Army Brigade camp during the terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. (PTI Photo)

India later granted Pakistani investigators access to the Pathankot base. It was like treating arsonists as firefighters. Pakistan set up its investigation team not to bring the Pathankot masterminds to justice but to probe the operational deficiencies of the Pathankot strike and to ensure that the next proxy attack left no similar telltale signs of Pakistani involvement.

Today, India has little choice but to overhaul its strategy as both diplomacy and restraint have failed to stem Pakistans relentless efforts to export terrorism and intermittently engage in border provocations. India must shed is focus on the last terror attack: For example, after Pathankot, India, forgetting Mumbai, asked Pakistan to act in that case. And after Uri, Pathankot could fade into the background. Consequently, Pakistan has still to deliver even in the 1993 Bombay bombings case.

India needs a comprehensive, proactive approach. The choice is not between persisting with a weak-kneed approach and risking an all-out war. This is a false, immoral choice that undermines the credibility of Indias nuclear and conventional deterrence and encourages the enemy to sustain aggression. It is also a false argument that India has no choice but to keep battling Pakistans unconventional war on its own territory. Seeking to combat cross-border terrorism as an internal law-and-order issue is self-injurious and self-defeating.

Read | Uri attackers from Jaish, Pak markings on arms they carried, says India

Make no mistake: Indias response to the Pakistani strategy to inflict death by a thousand cuts should no longer be survival by a thousand bandages. Rather, India must impose calibrated costs to bolster deterrence and stem aggression. Why should India allow itself to be continually gored by a country that is much smaller than it demographically, economically and militarily and on the brink of becoming dysfunctional? Just because India shied away from imposing costs on the terror masters in Pakistan for their past attacks on Indian targets, from Mumbai to Kabul, is no reason for it to stay stuck in a hole.

To deter Pakistans unconventional warfare, Indias response must be spread across a spectrum of unconventional options that no nation will discuss in public. Nuclear weapons have no deterrence value in an unconventional war. If the Pakistani security establishment is to get the message that the benefits of peace outweigh hostilities, it should be made to bear most of the costs that India seeks to impose. India should employ asymmetric instruments to strike hard where the opponent doesnt expect to be hit. New Delhi should also be ready to downgrade diplomatic relations with Pakistan and mount pressure on its three benefactors, China, America and Saudi Arabia.

Indias goal is narrow: to halt cross-border terrorist attacks. In keeping with the United Nations Charter, which recognises self-defence as an inherent right of every nation, India must impose measured and pointed costs on the terror exporters without displaying overt belligerence or brinkmanship.

(The writer is a geostrategist and author.Views expressed are personal)

Click here for full coverage of Uri attack
After the Pathankot attack in January this year, warmongers in both Pakistan and India were dealt a humiliating defeat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite being a right-wing political phenom, eschewed impulsiveness and chose to wait for Pakistans response.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, despite having a record of offering only symbolic resistance to anti-India voices in Pakistan, set up an unprecedented series of moves by the Pakistani government to work to answer post-attack questions.

India and Pakistan cooperated to an unprecedented degree in the Pathankot investigation. This is why, unlike the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing and the Mumbai attacks of 2008, Pathankot was not a defining event in the relationship.

The Uri attack does not seem to be headed for the same destiny as Pathankot. For starters, the duration of the attack was much shorter, the damage done, much worse.

It is also an attack in which Indian authorities will struggle to explain how an army installation in Kashmir, close to the Line of Control, could lose soldiers who were asleep in their tents. What kind of security protocols does the Indian Army follow in Kashmir, already in the grip of the most tension in recent memory, that such an attack could even be conceived?

Read| India puts blame on us without probe, we reject this: Pakistan on Uri attack

Of course, the most significant difference between Pathankot and Uri is the context of Pakistan-India relations. Pathankot was designed to disrupt the momentum that Messrs Sharif and Modi had built up since their embrace at the Paris climate change summit toward the end of 2015. A meeting of their national security advisors in Bangkok was quickly followed by a Christmas Day visit to Lahore by Modi that had even the worst cynics dreaming of a real chance at regional normalisation.

Pathankot disrupted that momentum, but it did not totally destroy it. Non-state actors should never be given that power over the security of a billion and a half people.

Uri is indeed different because it comes at a time when hopes of better relations between Pakistan and India have already derailed. Doubling down repression in Kashmir, and the baiting of Pakistan during Modis August 15 speech means no detente was intended or scheduled.

As the UN General Assembly gets underway this coming week, the world was preparing to be treated to the ungainly spectacle of the two countries trading barbs with each other both inside the General Assembly hall, and outside it.

The Uri attack does not change that  it makes it much worse. Warmongers in both countries want war. They were denied their bloodlust after Pathankot. It may take some very special leadership to deny them again. Can we be sure that Messrs Modi and Sharif will provide it?

(Mosharraf Zaidi is a public policy analyst, columnist and former advisor to Pakistans foreign ministry. He tweets as @mosharrafzaidi)

Full coverage| Uri terror attack
A 14-year-girl in Uttar Pradeshs Bareilly was raped on the pretext of marriage and abandoned after she conceived. The minor appealed to the judiciary to allow an abortion, but by the time her case was heard, her pregnancy had reached an advanced stage and hence her plea was denied.

Now, the girl will unwillingly give birth to a child that has already been shunned by the mother and her family.

A law that was made to check illegal abortions and female foeticide has instead led to a poor family being burdened by an extra mouth to feed, and a girl too young to be a mother.

According to the guidelines of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, the abortion could have been cleared when the teen approached the lower court in July; she was 26 weeks pregnant at the time. The MTP law allows abortions up to 28 weeks, senior gynaecologist Dr Bharti Saran told Hindustan Times.

A delay in hearing the case resulted in the judgment against the girls plea, the girls father has alleged. Given the time frame, why wasnt this case fast tracked to ensure justice?

Perhaps her poverty was a stumbling block? Instances of money gaining legal advantage are more than a few. The more obvious examples are of celebrities: In 2015, actor Salman Khan was granted bail barely three hours after he was convicted in the 2002 hit-and-run case and Sanjay Dutt seemed to get parole whenever he wanted.

As this teen and her family, despite their poverty, were doing all they could to abort the pregnancy, the Supreme Court allowed a 24-year-old in Mumbai abort her foetus in July this year.

She was made to go from court to court, file multiple pleas, all so that she can save herself from the trauma of becoming a mother at 14 years. But nothing helped. By the time her case got to the high court, it was too late.

How does a case this time-sensitive not get the justice it deserves?

Advocate Adnan Shaikh said, From the 13th to the 20th week, if it is a pregnancy resulting out of rape or incest, then the abortion must be carried out, if requested by the woman.

Talking about this case, Shaikh said such cases are black and white. Theres a law that says one thing has to be done and theres a penalty if one does not go ahead and do what the law prescribes. All of this and more is available in the MTP Act, he added.

Advocated Aamir Farooqui agrees about the backlog of cases pending in courts. Due to a huge backlog of cases and inadequate number of judges, any petition filed in court comes in due course according to the computerised date. If the need for urgency is made out when interim relief is needed, the matter can be heard on merits, he said.

The rape survivor is at a risk of several mental health problems now that her plea has been rejected. Dr Archana Sharma, clinical psychologist, said: Teenage pregnancy is usually associated with high levels of postpartum depression as well as clinical depression. In this situation, both social and psychological aspects come into view as the girl will feel abandoned because of the stigma attached to teenage pregnancy, she said.

Dr Arti Anand, consultant and clinical psychologist at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said, This could lead to crying spells, depression, suicidal tendencies, adding that the trauma of rape doubles the stress in the situation.

The delay in justice and lack of knowledge of procedures has led a 14-year-old to live a life she is clearly unprepared for. The backlog, however, takes the backseat when high-profile cases are involved. This highlights the bigger picture of how unbalanced our system is. Responsibility, action, priority, the system lacks it all.

Views expressed are personal.

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Senior Supreme Court advocate and civil rights activist Bojja Tarakam, who fought for Dalit rights and civil liberties all through his life, died after a brief illness at a private hospital in Hyderabad late Friday night. He was 77.

He is survived by a daughter and a son, Rahul Bojja, who is presently the collector of Hyderabad. Tarakam was suffering from brain tumour for which he underwent a surgery in 2013.

Born on June 27, 1939, at Katrenikona in East Godavari district, Tarakam fought the case of fake encounters involving Naxalites in the Andhra Pradesh high court, which gave a landmark judgment in his favour.

On February 9, 2009, a five-member bench of the AP high court delivered a judgment asking the government to prosecute police officials who were involved fake encounters.

More recently, he argued the case of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit scholar who committed suicide in his hostel room at the University of Hyderabad.

Another major case Tarakam argued, and which brought him into national focus, was the infamous massacre of Dalits in Tsundur village of Prasakam district in Andhra Pradesh in August 1992. Similarly, he had taken up the cause of Dalits who were attacked by upper caste people at Karamchedu village of Guntur district in 1984.

Tarakam was also a popular writer, penning several books on rights movement, which includes Police Arrest Cheste, Dalitula Rajyam and Kulam Vargam.

He also founded AP Dalita Maha Sabha, and was the president of the Republican Party of India (RPI). He was active in politics for quite some time, before confining himself to legal practice as a Supreme Court advocate.

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The Madhya Pradesh government will soon prepare a draft to sell Patanjali products at its fair price shops across the state to make such outlets profitable, multi-utility and increase employment. Following the preparation of the draft, the state will hold talks with co-founder Baba Ramdev on the mega proposal.

Minister of state for cooperatives Vishwas Sarang, speaking at a press conference in the city, confirmed the same, adding that the suggestion had been made during a two-day brainstorming workshop organised for strengthening the role of cooperative societies in the state.

Sarang also thanked chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who had made the suggestion on Friday.

The minister also rejected allegations made by the Congress, which had accused the state government of favouring Ramdev as he is close to the RSS. I want to ask Congress leaders  dont they use Ramdev Babas products? Ramdev Babas products are good in quality. So just linking this issue with one particular ideology is objectionable, he said.

At the press conference, Sarang said that the cooperatives department will open up fair price shops for building materials, a first such initiative in the state, to help people buy building materials at cheaper rates. He said the government will talk with cement companies and procure materials in bulk.

He said a detailed report on the two-day brainstorming workshop will be available within three days and an action plan for the same will be prepared. He said a six-month calendar has been prepared by the department for the implementation of the decisions taken during the brainstorming workshop.

After six months there will be another brainstorming workshop, in which we will review what we have achieved. We have also set up an innovation wing in the department, which will make a roadmap for the next two years, he said.

Sarang also denied that the sale of Patanjali products could affect the local herbal industry like Vindhya Herbals (a unit of the MP state minor forest produce cooperative federation) Sarang said that the state government will also sell products of Vindhya Herbals and MPs milk brand Sanchi from the fair price shops. Our aim is to make fair price shops multi-utility and profitable so that they generate more employment, he said.

Under public distribution system, food grains like wheat and rice are delivered to fair price shops run by cooperative societies. There are 21346 fair price shops in the state, according state cooperatives department website.
Even though she is two films old in Bollywood, Kriti Sanon believes she has managed to earn recognition with her work in Heropanti (2014) and Dilwale (2015). While her contemporaries, Alia Bhatt and Shraddha Kapoor, are signing multiple projects, the actor feels that it is only now that she is catching up.

During a telephonic interview, the actor talks about adapting to the ways of the film industry, her thoughts on working with established actors, and more.

Since you are fairly new to Bollywood, has there been an instance when a film-maker has not taken you seriously?

No, not really. I think that the newcomer hai (she is a newcomer) comment flows in when I am confused about a movie. There are times that I am unable to choose a film. That is when people tell me I need more experience.

#lategram @sabbir24x7 with @repostapp.  #valentineday ... Perfect throwback to our labour of love Heropanti playing on Sonymax toady at 8pm Valentine Special A photo posted by Kriti (@kritisanon) on Feb 14, 2016 at 10:04am PST

Most actresses who work with the Khans  Salman, Shah Rukh and Aamir  tend to get lesser attention in the film. Do you fear working with them?

I think that was the case earlier. Now, everybody is working with one another. Katrina Kaif has worked with all the three Khans. At the end of the day, it is about what you are doing in the film. Categorisation of actors has become outdated now.

Watch: Dilwale trailer

Your contemporaries, Alia Bhatt and Shraddha Kapoor, have signed multiple films at one go

When Shraddha and Alia started their careers, people knew who they were. I, on the other hand, had to ensure that people knew my name. I could not make mistakes while choosing films when I started out.

You continue to refute link-up rumours with Sushant Singh Rajput...

Bye bye Budapest!! You've been a lovely home for the last 2.5 months!! You shall be missed!! #sentiwalifeeling @sushantsinghrajput #Raabta A photo posted by Kriti (@kritisanon) on Jun 11, 2016 at 4:44am PDT

Since I come from a non-filmi background, I am not used to all this. It has taken me a while to get accustomed to it. False stories used to affect me initially. But now, Ive come to understand that if false stories are created, they are also forgotten in the long run.
Farah Khan made her directorial debut with the hit film, Main Hoon Naa (MHN; 2004). Even though she has made other movies after that, Farah mainly gets requests, especially over social media, for a sequel to MHN. However, the Happy New Year (2014) director says she isnt really keen on making one. If someone gives me a great idea, I would love to make a sequel to MHN. Among my films, MHN is one of the most loved (by fans). Despite my other movies doing better in terms of money, I, too, love this film the most. But to make a sequel, the story has to be really special. Currently, I dont know how to take the story of MHN forward. Maybe it is because my movies never have loose ends. So, I dont want to create a franchise, just for the sake of it, she says.

It has been 12 years since the release of the film, but even now when Farah meets people, most of them talk to her about the film. Audiences still remember all the characters, including those of Satish Shah and Bindu, she adds.

Farah loves the idea of franchises, but also admits that they are fun, but rarely has a sequel beaten the popularity of the original, even in Hollywood. She says, The only thing the sequel always makes is more money. Maybe Dhoom 2 (2006) was better (story-wise) than the original Dhoom (2004). But I feel, usually, franchises simply cash in on the success of the original.

10 yrs of Main hoon na 2day... pic.twitter.com/OQVDomc0gN  Farah Khan (@TheFarahKhan) April 30, 2014

This episode is a @manishmalhotra05 special! With both me n @karanjohar wearing him on #jhalakdikhlajaa9 A photo posted by @farahkhankunder on Sep 14, 2016 at 3:01am PDT

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The 2016 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) featured a bumper crop of Indian films, giving them a potent platform, but mainstream Bollywood couldnt get any screen time.

Since Priyanka Chopra walked the red carpet for Mary Kom in 2014, the Mumbai masala factory has given way to another menu  from a choice of appetising documentaries to fulfilling features. And this appears to be a trend with North Americas most celebrated event of this nature. The nine films featured in 2016, a volume not seen in many years, fell well into the indie category.

The Indian documentary, in fact, was quite evident at TIFF. While it didnt have a world premiere at the festival, The Cinema Travellers, directed by Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya, came with the cache of having won the special jury prize L'Oeil d'or: Le Prix du documentaire at Cannes.

A still from the documentary, The Cinema Travellers, which played at TIFF after an award-winning outing at Cannes. (Courtesy TIFF)

It follows the mobile theatres of Maharashtra that once brought movies to rural areas, usually pitching their tents at religious fairs. But these cinemas are dying, even though they are trying very hard (to survive) but not being very successful, Abraham said.

TIFF programmer for documentaries Thom Powers described the film as lyrical. Madhesiya saw TIFF as an apt venue for such a film. This is like a travelling cinema, he said, pointing to the bustle around downtown Toronto during the 10-day festival, much like the crowds that gather for a mela.

Also on show was Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shuklas An Insignificant Man, which tracks the formation of the Aam Aadmi Party by Arvind Kejriwal. The documentary ends shortly after Kejriwal first became chief minister of Delhi.

A still from Bengali director Buddhadeb Dasguptas Tope (The Bait), which premiered at the TIFF. (Courtesy TIFF)

For TIFF audiences, Kejriwal was pitched as the Bernie Sanders of India. How matters have changed is evidenced by the fact that two of the three people that facilitated gonzo coverage of the party and its assembly election campaign, Prashant Bhushan and Shazia Ilmi, are no longer part of it.

The filmmakers embedded themselves in the process before many took Kejriwal or his political aspirations seriously. Shukla said, None of us had imagined it getting as big as it did. Thats where we started, we just started on a hunch that this may be interesting. In that sense, this is a pioneering political documentary in India.

Just as significant was Toronto-based Richie Mehtas India In A Day, that catalogues the country from dawn to dusk, capturing moments from across the nation, with the footage crowd-sourced.

A still from the crowd-sourced documentary, India In A Day, which had its world premiere at the TIFF. (Courtesy TIFF)

Ranka, meanwhile, earned the rare privilege of being a director with two films at a major festival as her virtual reality venture, Right To Pray, was also at TIFF.

If Bollywood was missing, one name from the industry, Konkona Sensharma, was present with her debut film as a director, A Death In The Gunj. A moving, often riveting ensemble drama with eerie atmospherics, this film will make its way to open the Mumbai Film Festival next month.

The movie is set in 1979 in the Anglo-Indian enclave of McCluskiegunj, in what is now Jharkhand, and Sensharma pointed out she would visit this town with her parents as a child and had returned now to use it as the setting for a fiction feature for the first time. While the films formal release in Indian theatres is yet to be settled upon, thats likely to occur early next year.

The first-time director was surrounded by a clutch of veterans premiering their films in the Masters section of TIFF. There were Deepa Mehtas Anatomy Of Violence, based on the Nirabhaya episode, Malayalam maestro Adoor Gopalakrishnans Pinneyum (Once Again), Bengali auteur Buddhadeb Dasguptas Tope (The Bait), the Serbian-Indian production Dev Bhoomi (Land Of The Gods) with a celebrated director from that Balkan country, Goran Paskaljevic.

Mehta said the reason she chose the brutal 2012 Delhi gang-rape as the subject was to have the film used as a tool to start a dialogue about social inequities, patriarchy and societys complicity in perpetuating these dark forces.

Big Bollywood did have some representation at TIFF this year, in the form of director Karan Johar appearing in the In Conversation With segment. That, however, was on the margins of the festival, not on the main stage that the industry is used to.

How things have changed:

Four years ago, two of the most celebrated directors of Indian origin, Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta, had their films premiere at the TIFF. In 2012, both their films were based on novels  in Mehtas case on Salman Rushdies Booker of Bookers-winning Midnights Children, while Nair brought Mohsin Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist to screen.

This year, both again had world premieres at TIFF, and both films are based on scripts based on real-life incidents. But thats where the common thread snaps.

Nairs Queen of Katwe is a Disney production, an uplifting tale of 10-year-old Phiona Mutesi, who goes from the streets of rural Uganda to become a chess champion. While this was a gala presentation at TIFF, Mehtas Anatomy Of Violence featured in its Masters section.

Anatomy Of Violence deals with the Nirbhaya gang-rape-murder in New Delhi. I don't believe in message films which I find infinitely boring but rather in cinema that provokes our mindset and makes us question the status quo. The 2012 gang-rape was exactly that incident. It was outrageous in its brutality . I knew I wanted to explore the incident and make it accessible, questioning through the medium of film, Mehta said of her decision to make this film, which is possibly her most unusual yet. Shot over two months, newcomer Janki Bisht plays the central role.

While Queen of Katwe releases on September 23, theres no timeline yet for Anatomy Of Violence.

But another factor that ties the two together is it was a sort of homecoming for both directors  Nair filmed in Uganda, where she spends a lot of time and has established a film school, while Mehtas shot parts of Anatomy Of Violence in her hometown of Delhi.

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Air India plans to reverse poach senior pilots and commanders, who had switched to other Indian and foreign airlines earlier and on whom the state-run carrier had spent a lot of money to train them.

As part of the strategy to hire over 500 pilots, the public sector carrier would also focus on hiring those who had left it in the past for various reasons and moved to other carriers, sources said.

The move, which has the consent of Air India chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani, is aimed at saving both money and time as these already trained pilots can be deployed for operations immediately, they said.

Air India has already offered jobs to 13 pilots it had sacked for participating in a two-month strike in 2012, sources said, adding most of them were considering the proposal though three pilots are not willing.

As many as 173 Air India pilots have resigned from the national carrier since 2012 till last year, with most of them being those operating the narrow-body Airbus A320 family of aircraft, as per official figures early this year.

A recruitment drive to hire 534 A320 pilots is currently on. Air India also needs around 150 wide-body pilots to expand its international operations further, including planned flights to Washington and several European destinations.

We have immediate requirement of around 150 wide-body pilots, besides the over 500 pilots being hired for the A320s, for medium and long haul operations. If we take back those pilots who have left us in the past, we will not only be saving huge cost on training them but also save a lot of time which goes down in the induction process, sources said.

At present, the cost of training a pilot for an Airbus A320 family of planes stands a little over at Rs four lakh per pilot while the type rating cost per pilot comes to nearly Rs 23 lakh.

While those who join the Dreamliner fleet from B-777 wide-body planes are imparted a 4-5 week training costing around Rs 25 lakh per pilot, pilots coming from the narrow- body planes (A320 family) are given a three-month training at a whopping cost of Rs 80 lakh per pilot, according to sources.

We have not been able to finalise the Washington and other proposed international flights because of shortage of B-777 and B-787 pilots only. If the plan to hire such pilots materialises, we can commence these destinations in a short time, they said.

Madrid, Barcelona, Copenhagen and Stockholm, besides Washington, are the destinations that Air India is looking at as part of its international expansion plans, Air India Director for Commercial Pankaj Shrivastava had said sometime back.
The issue of points of interconnection (PoI) between Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel continues to simmer with Jio saying that while it welcomes the latters offer of providing more interconnections, the quantum needs to be increased.

Reliance Jio had issued similar statements on September 15 when it said that an understanding had been reached with Vodafone India, but more needs to be done.

Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio, which had brought up its differences with existing telecom operators when it launched 4G services on September 5, said on Sunday that it welcomes the decision of Bharti Airtel, Indias largest telecom operator by subscribers, to provide more POIs.

However, the quantum of POIs proposed to be released by Airtel is substantially less than the requirement estimated based on transparent workings shared with Airtel, Jio said on Sunday.

PoI is the physical linking of one carriers network with that of other carriers that can enable voice calls to move seamlessly across different telecom operators.

At Jios launch, Ambani said incumbent operatorsBharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellularwere not cooperating and this had led to failure of 5 crore calls in a week.

Reliance said the number had gone up sharply now. More than two crore calls are failing everyday between the two networks (with Airtel), which is far in excess of quality of service parameters and of alarming proportions, Jio said.

Service partnership among Indias cellular operators has been patchy for the more-than-a-billion subscribers the country has, in what is one of the fastest growing telecom market in the world.

Inability to connect, frequent call drops and slow data speeds continue to plague the countrys cellular industry despite strong warnings from the government, including fines for dropped calls.

Existing operators have been citing capacity issues. According to the incumbents, offering more interconnection points to Reliance Jio will not only create a financial burden but also swamp their network and outgoing calls of their existing customers by the huge number of incoming calls from RJio, Rajan Mathews, director general of industry body Cellular Operators Association of India, recently told HT.

But the differences are more due to the negative impact Jio will eventually have on the profitability of existing operators. Jios tariff plans may gradually push the market toward data-only plans, under which customers are charged only for data, not for voice and text messages.

Such a shift could be particularly disruptive, given that most incumbents still derive bulk of their revenue and profit from voice and text messages. The top-four telcos average operating EBITDA (operating profit) margin is likely to narrow by at least 200-250 basis points in the next year, an analysis by ratings firm Fitch has said.

Reliance Jio also said that Airtel has been insisting on deviations from the Interconnection Agreement between the two companies. It is apparent that Airtel continues to abuse its market dominance by imposing onerous conditions which will imminently hinder Reliance Jio It appears that the quality of service will continue to suffer and Indian customers will be denied benefits of superior and free voice services as a result of such anti-competitive behaviour, Jio said.

Reliance also cited that Airtel has been blocking mobile number portability facility, which allows customers to migrate from one operator to another.


Beleaguered businessman Vijay Mallya remains in full control even after relocating to UK, his UB groups holding firm United Breweries Holdings Ltd has said while disclosing remuneration totalling Rs 1.6 crore.

Group company United Breweries Ltd, in which co-promoter Heineken has been hiking stake, has also disclosed total remuneration of about Rs 2.86 crore to Mallya, who moved to the UK earlier this year amid a furore over various cases involving erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines including about huge loan defaults. However, this payment had to be withheld pursuant to the orders of the Income Tax Department.

In its latest annual report, released to shareholders ahead of their Annual General Meeting on September 29, the group holding firm UBHL said it has been without a managing director since April 17, 2014.

In the interregnum, the chairman of the Board, Vijay Mallya is acting as the Principal Officer of the company and reviewed the performance of the Company at the Board Meetings held during the year.

Even after his relocating to London, he has full control over the affairs of the company through appropriate delegation of duties to various operating executives who report to him on a regular basis, it said.

Giving details of the remuneration paid to the directors, UBHL has disclosed fees totalling Rs 3.2 lakh to Mallya for attending board or committee meetings. Out of this, payment of sitting fees totalling Rs 1.6 lakh has been restrained by Order of the Tax Recovery Officer dated November 24, 2015, UBHL said.

However, Mallya received remuneration totalling about Rs 1.6 crore from two overseas subsidiaries of UBHL.

The Chairman of the company has received remuneration from two subsidiaries, amounting to USD 120,000 (previous year USD 120,000) and British Pound 89,600 (previous year GBP 89,600) during the year 2015-16, it said.

UBHL also said Vijay Mallyas son Sidhartha ceased to be a director of the company with effect from March 31, 2016.

The companys operations comprise primarily of holding of strategic investments and other securities, international trade, development of real estate, sale and rental of constructed premises including residential property of Kingfisher Towers, licensing of trademarks, advancing of loans and provision of guarantees.

Interestingly, it also disclosed having been given the Export Excellence award by a Karnataka business chamber.

UBHL said it is constrained by various restraint orders of the High Court of Karnataka as a result of which revenue yielding business proposals like franchising out the Kingfisher brand owned by the Company and renting out vacant space at UB City, Bangalore could not be implemented.

The operations of the company was further affected due to the provisional attachment of properties and shares by the Directorate of Enforcement consequent upon their investigation in a purported money laundering case of Kingfisher Airlines Limited. Continuing efforts are being taken to have the temporary embargo lifted which would augment increasing revenue streams.

Giving details of various cases, UBHL said the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had provisionally attached in June the immovable properties of the company based in Bangalore and Mumbai under Prevention of Money Laundering Act for a period of 180 days in connection with investigation against Mallya, Kingfisher and others.

Pursuant to a Show Cause Notice dated July 11, 2016 received from the Adjudicating Office in this regard, the company is in consultation with its legal counsels for taking appropriate steps that may be required including but not limited to defending the case before the Adjudicating Authority in Delhi.

As part of the investigations of the affairs of the Kingfisher Airlines Limited, the company has cooperated with all the Investigating Agencies by providing all relevant information, records, data and facts as and when required by the said agencies, it added.

In its annual report, United Breweries Ltd (UBL) has disclosed sitting fees totalling Rs 2.9 lakh and commissions worth Rs 2.83 crore to Mallya, but added that pursuant to the notice received from the Income Tax department, the company has withheld payments effective March 2016.

At its upcoming AGM, UBHL will interestingly seek approval from the shareholders for a proposal for entering into a a pact for purchase of goods or materials from them (including purchase of beer) from UBL for an estimated amount of up to Rs 150 crore for the current financial year 2016-17.
In the early 2000s, soon after Infosys Ltd had built an impressive, and expansive, new wing of its campus in Bengalurus Electronics City, I met the companys then chairman NR Narayana Murthy. As we walked around the campus, talking of business and people, and the brightly coloured umbrellas stacked in the reception of almost every building, he pointed to a couple of the companys housekeeping staff in their brown uniforms. They were from nearby slums and low-income neighbourhoods, Murthy said, and it was important that they believed they were sharing in Infosys growth. I worry about what would happen if they didnt, he added.

He and I knew the answer even then, and India and the world, last Monday, when the city burnt for a few hours. By numbers alone (one dead, around 100 buses burnt, 20,000 crore of productivity and business losses to companies), the violence the city saw wasnt significant  a sign of the troubled times in which we live  but it was almost as if, for a few hours, someone had peeled back the motherboard of Indias own Silicon Valley, and shown us the ugliness beneath.

Read | Glimpse into future? India, brace for more Cauvery-like water wars

On the face of it, the protests were targeted at Tamil Nadu, Karnatakas neighbour. The sharing of Cauvery waters has long been a matter of dispute between the two states. Neither political will (of which there hasnt been much, anyway), nor court action, has been able to solve the decades-old problem. Karnataka hasnt had much rain this year, and the state is in the midst of a water crisis. Its farmers, reeling after two seasons of inadequate rains, are the worst hit. Many farmers in the state grow sugarcane, a water-intensive crop, and have been affected by both the poor rains and the usual afflictions of the sugar business (mills that do not pay farmers in time, for instance). Mint reported an alarming increase in the number of farmer suicides in the state last year.

Read | Alarming rise in farmer suicides in Karnataka

These farmers are angry at Tamil Nadu, and with the Karnataka state government, which they believe is not doing enough. They are also angry at Bengaluru in a microcosmic play of the old Bharat-India fault-line. In March, thousands of farmers in tractors brought the city to a halt as they protested the unequal distribution of water between Bengaluru and the rest of the state.

Read | 10,000 farmers protest unequal water distribution in drought-hit state

Water is but the most recent flashpoint between the rest of the state and Bengaluru. For at least a decade-and-a-half now, people in Karnataka have chafed at being left out of the obvious economic benefits of the information technology (IT) boom in Bengaluru. It is a boom that has bettered the lives of everyone from cooks and housekeepers to coders and marketers to real estate developers and taxi fleet operators; only, many of those benefiting from the boom are not from Karnataka. Infosys former chief financial officer and chairman of Manipal Global, Mohandas Pai, said recently that less than half of the 1.5 million people who work in IT companies in Karnataka are from the state. The rest are white-collar migrants. A 2015 study by Mint titled A tale of two Karnatakas showed that the states development was sharply uneven.

Read | A tale of two Karnatakas

The disparity isnt just between the rural and urban parts of the state, but within its cities themselves. Karnataka has the sixth-highest inequality (0.29) in India in rural areas, as measured by the Gini coefficient (a ratio between 0 and 1, where 1 stands for perfect inequality and 0 for perfect equality). It has the third-highest inequality (0.44) in urban areas according to another Mint study, this one from 2016.

Read | What is behind high inequality in Kerala?

In contrast, rural inequality in Tamil Nadu is marginally worse than in Karnataka, at 0.30, but urban inequality is only 0.35%. According to the 2011 census, 48.5% of Tamil Nadus population and 38% of Karnatakas, lives in urban areas. Two factors could explain this. Tamil Nadus growth has been more diversified. The state benefited from both the IT boom of the 1990s and 2000s and the auto, auto parts, and hardware manufacturing boom of the 2000s. And the states affirmative action policies  a reservation of 69% for so-called backward castes in educational institutions, dating back to the 1980s, for instance  may have simply made many people, and from diverse backgrounds, employable.

In an article in The Huffington Post, TS Sudhir profiled the individuals and groups at the forefront of the violent protests Bengaluru witnessed last week. The Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, Jaya Karnataka, Kannada Okkoota and Kannada Sena, all fringe regional groups, have grown both in following and importance over the years. Their emergence is similar to the emergence of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai in the 1960s. The Shiv Sena tapped the disaffection of Maharashtrians worried that migrants, especially Tamils, were taking the best jobs in the city (back then, these were in the mills).

A week on, it is business as usual in Bengaluru, and last Mondays protests will soon be forgotten. Only, what happened that day could happen again  in the city and across any city in India. Inequity and inequality are turning our cities into tinderboxes and all it will take to set them alight is one spark.

R Sukumar is editor, Mint

letters@hindustantimes.com

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Yoga guru Ramdev announced on Sunday that he would set up a food park and an acharyakulam (school based vedic-cum-modern education system) in Nepal.

The announcement came after Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda called on Ramdev in Haridwar and visited Patanjali Ayurveds food park during his official tour to India.

Ramdev said he hoped that Patanjalis food park in Nepal would help create more jobs in the Himalayan nation.

We discussed the scope of expanding yoga and ayurveda education in Nepal. A unit of Patanjali food and herbal park will be opened in Nepal, Ramdev said. We are also planning to open a vedic- and modern education-based school in Nepal.

Lauding the works of Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna, Prachanda said the two had transformed the worlds ancient science of yoga and ayurveda into wealth with the help of modern technology.

It is a landmark achievement, said the Nepalese prime minister, who was accompanied by a delegation.

Talking to media persons, Prachanda said Nepals relations with India were very old and both the countries shared common interests. We will work in a friendly atmosphere to get prosperity. I am very thankful to Baba Ramdev and Achraya Balkrishna as they have expressed confidence in me, he said.
NEW DELHI: In the last seven years, Aman* has worked on farms, in dhabas and tent houses across five cities in the country. A victim of child trafficking, his records show him as a resident of Assam but the 16-year-old is originally from Bangladesh, a fact he never disclosed to anyone until he met Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi at a shelter home in Delhi last month.

Tortured and addicted to drugs during his ordeal, Aman had lost hope of seeing his family again. But thanks to the efforts of Satyarthis NGO, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, he is set to return home next week. This is our Eid gift to him, says Satyarthi.

The NGO rescued Aman and 14 other children from the Old Delhi railway station in July and since then he has been living at Mukti Ashram in north Delhis Burari.

When I visited the ashram in August, Aman noticed me counselling two boys who were brought back after an escape attempt. I told him I can make arrangements if he wanted to leave the home. He told me that he still wont be able to see his parents, says Satyarthi. He was a drug addict. So I thought he didnt want to face his parents. But when I talked to him some more, he admitted he was from Bangladesh.

Satyarthi made a few calls to the Bangladesh High Commission, which helped in tracing Amans family. And for the first time in years, the boy spoke to his family. I had lost hope of meeting my family... I was tortured wherever I went, says Aman. He is eagerly waiting to meet his mother now.

*Name changed to protect identity
NEW DELHI: Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia will return on Sunday as scheduled, notwithstanding lieutenant governor Najeeb Jungs direction to cut short his Finland visit and return immediately in the wake of the chikungunya outbreak.

Sisodia is on an official educational tour with senior education department officials since September 13. Jung s direction to Sisodia on Friday night to return triggered a tussle between the Kejriwal government and the L-G office.

Following Jungs directive, health minister Satyendar Jain and water minister Kapil Mishra went to meet the L-G at his office on Saturday morning to discuss the health crisis. But they could not meet him as he was not present. The ministers stayed put at the L-G office for around 20 minutes before they met his principal secretary.

Mishra later alleged Jung had refused to meet him and the health minister. The L-G office refuted the charges, saying the Delhi government ministers were politicising the issue.

We have been told that the L-G is on leave today. How can he be on leave when Delhi is facing a health crisis. We have come to meet him following his fax to Manish Sisodia, asking him to return to Delhi from Finland immediately, Mishra told reporters outside the L-G office.

Jain referred to Jungs 10-day travel to the US earlier this month when the city was witnessing rising cases of dengue and chikungunya and wondered why he did not cut short his visit even by one hour.

Jung had returned to Delhi from the US earlier this week.

The L-Gs office retorted that it was operational on all seven days of the week and the ministers did not seek an appointment.

Secretary to Lt. Governor met the ministers since the Lt. Governors office is operational on all days of the week. However, they neither submitted any letter nor gave any representation to the Lt. Governor, the L-G office said in a statement.

It is regrettable that at a time when Delhi is facing such a serious public health crisis, the elected government is choosing to politicise the issue instead of providing succour to the public. The Lt. Governors office is keeping a close watch on the health situation in Delhi and is getting regular updates on the situation from the chief secretary and secretary (H & FW), GNCTD, it added.

Mishra countered that since Delhi was grappling with dengue and chikungunya, they did not wait for an appointment to meet Jung.

We thought perhaps Jung Saheb has found some very good idea to fight the diseases that he wanted to share with Sisodia. So we came running to meet him as we are working on Saturday and Sunday also.
NEW DELHI: Police have received a complaint against Rohtas Nagar MLA, Sarita Singh, accusing her of taking money on the pretext of offering a government job and also waving off BSES electricity bills.

The complainant, Shakeel, gave a complaint to Welcome police station alleging that the MLA, took Rs 2 lakh from him, promising him a job in a government department. He alleged that she took several other lakhs from people for waving off their electricity bills. Shakeel alleged that in total, the MLA took Rs 9 lakh from him and two others.

Police said they have ordered an inquiry into the complaint.

Singh told reporters that the allegations are false.

She said she had filed a complaint against Shakeel stealing her seal and forged her signatures to frame her in a false case. She alleged that Shakeel took money from people in her name to tarnish her image. She said that it was her who first approached the police with a formal complaint against Shakeel, following which he filed a counter complaint.

No case has been registered in the matter and the police are verifying both complaints.
NEW DELHI: Chikungunya killed no one in Delhi.

This was the conclusion of the Delhi governments investigation into the death of 13 people across five public and private hospitals in the city over the past three weeks, all attributed to the mosquito-borne disease.

Deaths due to chikungunya: nil, said the death review committee, which also studied seven dengue deaths. It listed two as suspected dengue and rejected one on technical grounds.

The results of three chikungunya-related and four dengue deaths are pending.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain refused to comment. The report has been shared with you (the media).

The findings came on a day when Delhi government ministers and the lieutenant governors office were locked in a war of words after Najeeb Jung directed deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Friday night to cut short his Finland tour in the wake of the sudden spurt in dengue and chikungunya cases.

Experts said chikungunya virus worsens existing conditions, much like other infections, and pointed out that when people with HIV, that causes AIDS, die of pneumonia and tuberculosis, their deaths are universally certified as AIDS deaths.

Any viral fever not managed properly can lead to severe complications. If these complications kill, then the virus is listed as the ultimate cause of death , said Dr Charu Hans, former head of microbiology at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed that chikungunya can lead to death.

All the patients who died had other disorders like diabetes and heart disease, but chikungunya definitely worsened their condition, said Dr SP Byotra, head of medicine, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. Five of the 13 deaths were reported in the hospital. Instead of taking refuge in technicalities to cover up for civic and public health failure, the government should focus on containing the outbreak, the experts said.

Perhaps, the government does not want to scare people, but instead of going into denial, it must educate them that it is a self-limiting infection that can be managed with paracetamol. And preventing mosquito breeding, said Dr Hans.

Earlier in the day, AAP ministers Satyendar Jain and Kapil Mishra went to meet Jung at his office following his message to Sisodia, but the meeting did not materialise as the lieutenant gover nor was not in his office, triggering a fresh spat between the two sides.

While AAP ministers alleged the L-G refused to give them an audience even as they kept waiting outside his office, the LG secretariat swiftly denied their charge.

It appears he is not in a mood to work today, water minister Kapil Mishra said.

The L-G office shot back, saying it was operational on all seven days of the week and the ministers did not seek a prior appointment. It also accused the AAP government of politicising the issue when the city was grappling with a health crisis.
NEW DELHI: Shuvankar Maitra, a painter, is happy he no longer has to be his own marketer and do the rounds of art galleries to sell his work. Four years ago, he created an account on an online art platform  bestcollegeart.com  where he regularly exhibits and sells his work.

Last month, he sold a painting worth Rs 40,000. In March, he sold four paintings in a day through the online platform for Rs 2.75 lakh. The buyer was a collector from the UK who saw my work online. The biggest advantage of online galleries is that an artist can focus on art; he does not have to run from one gallery to another to show his work, he says.

There are many like Maitra who feel the internet may have undermined the publishing and music industry but it has given a new fillip to visual arts. In the past few years, over a dozen online art platforms selling paintings, photographs and sculptures have come up. Some call themselves galleries and others define themselves as marketplaces, where artists can create an account and sell their work directly to the buyer. A fixed commission goes to the gallery. And no one is happier than emerging artists.

After she graduated from College of Art, Delhi, in 2013, Anni Kumari wrote to many brick and mortar art galleries to exhibit and sell her work but the response was not encouraging. In April, she nominated her work for The Emerging Artist of the Year Award organised by Bestcollegeart in association with Glenfiddich and was one of the five finalists. A few days later, she sold her first work online for ` 1.3 lakh. Young artists are mostly turned away by established art galleries but online ventures have ensured emerging artists get alternative avenues to show and sell their work, says Kumari, who has sold four paintings online in the past four months.

But is it not more satisfying to associate with a prestigious brick and mortar gallery? It depends on what stage you are at in your career. An emerging artist should keep earning to keep going, it doesnt matter how he or she sells his or her work, Kumari says.

Photographer Jashan Deep Singh, who recently sold his work for the first time through World Art Community, an online platform, agrees. Earlier you needed contacts to exhibit and sell your work, now the internet has ensured any talented artist can showcase his work to thousands of people online and if it is good, chances are someone will buy it.

Aditi Chakraborty, a painter, also swears by the power of internet and social media to advance the cause of artists. She says she sold about 30 works online in four years  five of them in July through a red hot sale. These days, Aditi gets buyers through Facebook too and has sold about 25 paintings directly to collectors through the social website.

A lot of people send me friend requests and many turn out to be collectors. I have realised that most collectors, given the opportunity, want to deal with artists directly, says Chakraborty. Many collectors, she says, follow artists on Instagram. On Instagram, the focus is only on the visual, not on words, which is good for an artist. But artists should be careful; too much exposure in the virtual world may create fatigue about their work, Chakraborty says.

Virtual art platforms  Fizdi, Artzolo, World Art Community, Eikowa, etc  have thousands of paintings priced between ` 5,000 and ` 2 lakh on sale, offer discount and hold online exhibitions. Many who set up these online art ventures have no background in art. Shobhit Arora, an IITian, worked as a banker and in 2014, he started World Art Community.

I have no art background but I do have basic art appreciation sense. There are about half-a-million freelance artists in the country, including painters, designers, photographers, craftsmen. I realised the art market is driven by intermediaries, where artist is the loser. There we saw an opportunity, and created a platform where artists could decide their own price and directly sell to buyers, says Arora. Our team advises the artists. At times we see a lot of traffic on a particular work but it does not sell. In such a case, we advise the artist to reduce the price, he says.

World Art Community claims to have about 2,700 artists and craftsmen on board  80% of them are painters and 10% photographers. Many sold their work for the first time on our platform, says Arora. His online platform adds 300 artists  aged between 25 and 40 years  every month.

Most online galleries charge commission that ranges from 10 to 40% and vet a work before it goes on sale. We have a team of designers and artists who ensure the art work is above a certain quality threshold, says Arora. A lot of our customers are first-time buyers and their number is only growing.

Nikhil Girdhar, director, marketing, Bestcollegeart, says about 2,500 artists are registered on the website; a majority are at the early stages of their career. The online platform organises an annual The Emerging artist of the Year award and the winner gets a prize of ` 10 lakh and a three-month art residency in Scotland. About 1,000 students pass out of various art colleges but very few carry on because they find it hard to sell their work. We wanted to create an equal opportunity platform for artists to sell their work and for galleries and collectors to spot fresh talent. The work remains with the artist until it is sold, says Girdhar.

Well-known art critic Alka Rag hub ans hi says the internet has democratized art and has given recognition to young artists. Society women who have no understanding of art own most art galleries these days. They never encourage young artists, never experiment with new forms of art and work for years with same set of artists, she says. One needs to understand that art can flourish only when you encourage new artists.

Parul Vadehra, director, Vadehra Art Gallery, says every gallery has a right to decide its curatorial programme and how they should position themselves. A gallery has its own vision and ethos. Some galleries may have tighter curatorial programmes. We have been exhibiting the works of young artists for many years, says Vadehra.

What does she think of online art ventures? Indian art market is at a nascent stage, so any attention art or artists are getting is good, she says.

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NEW DELHI: The maximum number of dengue cases in the north municipal corporations jurisdiction is from the residential complex of Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC).

Thirteen out of the 105 cases reported till September 10 were from the MAMC campus, according to official figures.

The corporations have confirmed 1,158 dengue cases in the Capital so far.

Two more cases were reported from the neighbouring GB Pant hospital staff quarters and one from Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) staff quarters.

The three campuses, built next to one another, have contributed to 16 dengue cases so far.

There is so much open area in the MAMC, which results in water stagnation during rain. Besides, we found (mosquito) breeding in coolers, potted plants and parks in the hotel and staff quarters, said a senior north corporation official.

The MAMC is a government medical college in Delhi spread over 122 acres.

Spiralling number of chikungunya and dengue cases have sent alarm bells ringing for the municipal corporations in the city. To control the menace, the municipality initiated a special fogging drive in this complex.

A team of workers led by a deputy health officer and entomologist visited the institution last week. They fogged the staff quarters, nurses hostel, boys hostel and the rest of the areas in all three hospitals, said the official.

During the visit, 18 challans were issued in MAMC and eight challans were issued in LNJP hospital.

The campus is cleaned regularly. The breeding may have happened because of the ongoing construction work at the Maulana Azad Dental College. Also, a few days back some renovation was carried out in the hostel area. But we are taking all precautionary measures to control the menace on the campus, said MAMC dean, Deepak Tempe.

He said the possibility of hospital staff contracting the infections cannot be ruled out either.

Fourteen people have died of dengue and chikungunya in the Capital so far, according to an MCD report on Monday.

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NEW DELHI: The South Delhi Municipal Corporation identified 200 spots that dont fall under residential or institution areas and werent listed for fogging. It will intensify fogging and spraying in these areas.

The list includes night shelters, slums near railway tracks and areas below the flyovers across south Delhi, mostly inhabited by migrants.

We will cover these places every week. We have already covered 64 spots in the central zone. Rest of the spots in south (50), west (50) and Najafgarh zone (36) will be covered soon, said a senior south corporation official.

Spots covered in the cental zone include areas under the flyovers in Okhla, Jamia Nagar, Nehru Place, Sarai KaleKhan and Sewa Nagar. The south corporation also arranged for fogging in slums near the Nizamuddin railway station.

Earlier, the SDMC constituted a team of senior officials to inspect vacant plots and construction sites for mosquito breeding.

Meanwhile, north corporation commissioner, PK Gupta, issued a circular to all heads of departments, demanding strict compliance.

During a meeting on September 17, he instructed officials to focus on the regular cleaning of garbage dump yards.

The garbage collected should be restricted to the compounds. It will not be allowed to litter around it. And if private concessionaire fails to lift the garbage and keep dhalaos clean, the north DMC will do it at their cost, he said.

He directed the department of environment management services officials to arrange for lifting of garbage twice a day from dump yards.

Deputy commissioners were asked to oversee the work of the department concerned.

According to a north corporation official, water logging near these dump yards appear to be the reason for mosquito breeding.

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NEW DELHI: Delhi governments committee, to review the 13 recent deaths allegedly due to chikungunya, said none of them died due to the infection. Yet, all deaths investigated had tested positive for chikungunya at five city hospitals.

The report verdict on three cases is pending because the Delhi government has not received all the relevant documents from the hospitals concerned.

Till September 10, the municipal corporations of Delhi confirmed 1,057 cases of chikungunya, and no deaths.

Hospitals are supposed to inform the government about chikungunya cases and that is what we did. All patients who died at the hospital were old and had comorbid conditions. Chikungunya worsened these conditions and hence is partially responsible, said Dr SP Byotra, head of the department of medicine at Sir Ganga Ram hospital, where five of the 13 deaths were reported.

This is not the first time that people are dying of chikungunya, why is the government shying away, he said.

Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, where four of the 13 deaths happened, also said the patients suffered from other illnesses as well. Four were elderly with associated pre-existing chronic illnesses. It is difficult to determine as to how much each associated illness contributes towards negative outcome of the patient, despite optimal management, said the hospitals statement.

In case of dengue, the Delhi government listed only two of the seven deaths it investigated as suspected dengue. One was rejected on technical grounds and the verdict on four is pending. The authorities should not get defensive about the deaths, but accept the situation and conduct concrete research to know the cause, Dr DS Rana, Chairman, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain urged Delhiites to spend 30 minutes every day to check their homes and surroundings for stagnant water.

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NEW DELHI: A pilot project for geo-satellite monitoring of road construction has found nearly one-third(31%) of the village roads in 10 districts across India to be shorter than the sanctioned length.

The four-month-long survey  taken up under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in Odisha, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Assam  also found that nearly one in every five rural roads stopped short of the habitations they were meant to connect. The project had concluded late last month.

These findings alarmed the government, prompting the ministry of rural development to undertake monitoring of all such roads in India under the scheme by the end of this year. The pilot project was carried out by the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR) in Hyderabad.

We will universalise the monitoring system now, an official declared, adding that the ministry has decided to enter into an agreement with the National Remote Sensing Agency  which manages Indias satellite data  in this regard. He said the NIRDPR uses a software that can study the images and calculate the exact length of a winding road, leaving little scope for manipulation.

The findings will help us not only in monitoring the ongoing (road building) projects but also planning the next ones, another top official said.

The project studied all the roads under the scheme for their length, optimal alignment and cross- drainage structures such as bridges.

An official said although there is a mismatch between the sanctioned road length and the actual construction in certain cases, the ministry was yet to ascertain the reasons behind it. The report has been shared with the states for their response, which is expected by next month.

The PMGSY, a flagship programme of the government launched in 2000, intends to lay 4.8 lakh km of roads by 2019. The pace of road construction has picked up from 73 km a day in 2011-2014 to 139 km in 2016. The Prime Minister wants all the villages in the country to be connected through these roads by March 2019, a top government functionary said.

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NEW DELHI: She thought it was a perfect murder. First, she made her paramour befriend her husband. He got her husband drunk, took him away from Delhi and crushed the victim with his car, making it look like a hit-and-run incident.

To further strengthen her story, the next day, she went to a south Delhi police station and lodged a missing person complaint. For a week, she went to the police station every day, wailing and urging the police to find her husband. She even said her husband had been abducted and someone called her with a ransom demand.

Barkhas cover was, however, blown on Thursday. She was arrested along with her boyfriend Satbir, 48, for allegedly murdering her husband, Amit Kumar, 35, a driver in a private company in Bahadurgarh.

According to police, Barkha, in her early thirties, planned to eliminate Kumar because he had started suspecting her after reading some messages sent by Satbir on her phone. This had led to altercations between them.

Police said Kumar asked Barkha to sever ties with Satbir and even threatened her after which she decided to kill him. The plan was executed on September 9.

An investigator said after Kumars body was recovered in Bahadurgarh area of Haryana a day later, police had registered an accident case. After lodging a police complaint on September 10, Bark ha had even threatened suicide if her husband was not found. Police unearthed the case after they found CCTV footage from Bahadurgarh which showed Satbirs Hyundai Xcent car running over Kumar. Police traced Satbir to Delhi through the registration number. Haryana police then contacted Delhi Police and Satbir was arrested.

We also accessed Kumars call detail records that showed that he had been in touch with Satbir just an hour before he went missing. It became clear that it was not an accident but murder. When we questioned Satbir, he broke down and revealed that it was Barkha who had planned the murder, the investigator added.

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Lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung on Sunday directed officials to deploy more doctors in city hospitals as per necessity to deal with the spurt in cases of chikungunya and dengue, which have claimed over a dozen lives this season.

Jung took stock of the preparedness of fever clinics, wards and labs in Lok Nayak Hospital, Bara Hindu Rao Hospital and the GTB Hospital, and interacted with doctors and patients.

He directed the administration to deploy more doctors in fever clinics as per necessity, and also asked health secretary to keep him updated on the matter regularly.

The L-Gs visit comes a day after a war of words with the Delhi government over his direction to deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia to cut short his Finland visit in the wake of the spurt in cases of chikungunya and dengue.

Water minister Kapil Mishra had alleged that Jung refused to meet them on Saturday when he and health minister Satyendar Jain went to his office following the directive.

L-G officials said as part of the visit on Sunday, Jung along with his team went to fever clinics, wards, laboratories, emergency, casualty and waiting areas in Lok Nayak Hospital, Bara Hindu Rao Hospital, GTB Hospital.

According to the medical superintendent at Lok Nayak Hospital Dr JC Passey, out of 200 beds dedicated to chikungunya and dengue patients, 76 are occupied. Most patients came to the hospital from central Delhi with 10% of the patients being from neighbouring states, such as UP.

He also informed the L-G that apart from one death last month, there have been no fatalities and that chikungunya patients do not always require hospitalisation. The MS also said that as per their data, the ratio of chikungunya to dengue patients this year is 4:1, a statement from L-G office said.

Read | AAP ministers, L-G office spar after Jung asks Sisodia to return from Finland

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Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal directed the health department on Sunday to buy as many fogging machines as needed to cover all residential neighbourhoods in Delhi.

He also urged all political parties to join hands to control the dengue and chikungunya outbreak in the capital.

The CM returned to the city on Sunday from Bangalore after having undergone a throat surgery for persistent cough.

He had left for Bangalore on September 13, and the surgery took place the next day to correct an anatomical abnormality of his oral-pharyngeal and palatal area.

In a video message released on social media, the CM directed the health minister to come up with a plan and launch a war on mosquito breeding.

I had a meeting with the health minister today. I told him if we could pull off something as big as the odd-even, then we can surely control dengue, Kejriwal said.

I have asked them to purchase as many fogging machines as they need to decontaminate all the residential neighbourhoods every alternate day, Kejriwal said, adding in the next few days lets wage a war against the mosquitoes.

The video message comes at a time when the Delhi government has been attacked by critics and the opposition parties for ministers missing from action as they have been out of the city.

With deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia away in Finland for an educational tour, lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung directed him to cut short his visit and return.

Notwithstanding the LGs instruction, Sisodia was scheduled to reach as per schedule on Sunday night.

In his video message, Kejriwal urged parties not to politicise the health crisis.

The mosquitoes do not know if the person it is biting is affiliated to BJP or Congress, so let us not politicise this.

He also said that he meet all stakeholders, including representatives of Congress and BJP in the coming days to work out a solution.

We all keep saying that this was the work of the municipal corporation and they have not done their job, but now we cannot do anything about it. Let us all do this job now, Kejriwal said.

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With Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahals successful New Delhi visit, the government of India has struck the right balance in its Nepal policy. The visit was notable for its positive vibes and atmospherics, after the dip in ties over the past year. Mr Dahal, also known as Prachanda, stayed in Rashtrapati Bhawan, and he was accorded ceremonial honours. In his one-to-one meeting with PM Narendra Modi, both leaders have been learnt to have candidly shared their views about the relations.

Read: India pins hope on Prachanda to enact Nepal constitution

Going beyond his ideological background, Mr Modi recognised his Nepal counterpart as a force for peace and acknowledged his role in strengthening Nepals democratic institutions  a remarkable change from a few years ago when New Delhi doubted his democratic credentials. For his part, Prachanda made it clear that relations with India were unique and recognised that Nepal needed India for its success, development and stability. He also used the moment to reach across Indias political parties to convey his desire to rebuild trust. What was left unsaid but came through in his approach was the recognition that China could not be a substitute for India in Nepal.

Read: Review: Maoism in India and Nepal by Ranjit Bhushan

But beyond the optics, there were two important achievements. Instead of announcing a range of new schemes and projects, both countries decided to focus on implementing the existing, stalled projects. Nepals absorption capacity has been low, and Indias delivery capabilities have been dismal. The two leaders agreed to jointly monitor projects  roads, rail-links, infrastructure and hydropower. Indias leverage in Nepal and its appeal to Nepalis depend on whether it can, through development interventions, change the lives of citizens for the better. But while getting bilateral relations back on track, India sensibly did not welcome the Constitution or drop the issue altogether  as Nepal had desired. Instead, it expressed the hope that under the current ruling coalition, the Constitution would accommodate all sections of society. This is important because Madhesis still remain dissatisfied and unless they own the Constitution, it cannot be implemented. India too will get dragged in if protests occur again. To his credit, Prachanda himself calls this a priority. In that sense, both sides are on the same page. The challenge now for the Nepal PM is to get an amendment registered and muster the numbers to pass it. He must stay focused, for he has little time, as under a power-sharing arrangement, his term is less than nine months. New Delhi should keep deeply engaged, deliver on bilateral promises, and continue to nudge Nepal on the Constitution.

Read: India visit aimed at building trust and confidence: Prachanda
The Sunday morning terror attack at an army camp in Uri, which inflicted high casualties among the soldiers, has come as a big challenge for New Delhi. No government can ignore the death of 17 soldiers and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has responded by saying that the perpetrators of the attack will not go unpunished. Union home minister Rajnath Singh, while pointing a direct finger at Pakistan, has called it a terrorist state that needs to be isolated. But what exactly can the government do? After losing 18 army jawans in an ambush in Manipur in June 2015, Mr Modi won accolades for sanctioning a cross-border raid into Myanmar to hunt down Naga insurgents. But doing the same against a nuclear neighbour like Pakistan is a different ballgame.

Read: Uri attackers from Jaish, Pak markings on arms they carried, says India

This incident comes at a time when the security apparatus  the army included  has had its hands full. For over two months now, the forces have been trying to contain the stone-throwing youth in the Valley. A deadly attack in the midst of the turmoil that has engulfed Kashmir suggests that this is time for some serious strategic and tactical thought. India will not only have to calibrate its response vis-a-vis Pakistan; it will also have to factor in how it moves forward in regaining control of the Kashmiri street. Last week Mr Singh indicated that he wanted the military to rein in the protestors within a week. But that is easier said than done. Despite additional troops being moved into South Kashmir  the epicentre of the protests  the youth are not showing signs of exhaustion. Reports from the ground indicate that militants are freely mingling with the protestors.

Read: Uri attack: Can India launch a covert operation across the border?

The attack in Uri  just ahead of the UN General Assembly session, where Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to raise the Kashmir issue  is also being interpreted in other ways. Senior officials believe that this is Pakistans way of boosting the civil unrest, keeping the troops tied down and making New Delhi pay for its Balochistan belligerence. The Valleys senior-most army officer has warned that the combination of terrorists and agitators is proving to be a challenge. The killing of the jawans compounds the problem and while the temptation will be to crack down, the government must distinguish between increasing the costs for Pakistan (though the government has not got a handle on its Pakistan policy, cancelling talks one day and the PM dropping in at Sharifs home for tea on another) and offering relief to the Kashmiris, who were kept indoors even on Eid. The attack makes it imperative for New Delhi to be cautious and calibrate its response.
After ruling in favour of a common all-India entrance examination for all undergraduate medical courses in colleges, including private ones, the Supreme Court will now decide whether there should be a centralised counselling session within a state for students for allotment of institutions.

Two states  Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra  have moved the top court seeking a direction to private medical colleges to admit candidates attending state government counselling. Both have said that a centralised admission procedure will benefit students who will not have to attend multiple counselling sessions with often clashing dates.

A five-judge bench headed by Justice AR Dave will commence the hearing on Monday. The final outcome will have a bearing on admissions in other states too.

For the benefit of medical students who were forced to sit for multiple examinations to secure a medical college seat, the SC had on April 29 ordered holding of a single-window test  NEET  in two phases. However, a central government notification later exempted states from NEET.

Maharashtra told SC that on August 9 the Centre sent a communication to the principal secretaries of states and union territories, allowing them to carry out combined counselling for admissions in undergraduate medical courses.

Subsequently the state issued a resolution on August 20, which the Bombay High Court stayed after a deemed university challenged it. The state said the resolution aimed at bringing transparency. It submitted every deemed university charges Rs 5,000 each for counselling session.

There are eight in Maharashtra, meaning a student has to spend Rs 40,000. However, in case of a common counselling the medical aspirant has to pay just Rs 1,000.

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What is the point of failing around 350 students? What are they trying to achieve by this? says Nishant Narwal, a first-year student of Law Centre II. Narwal is one of the four students who have gone on an indefinite hunger strike, protesting against the mass failure of undergraduate law students in Delhi University (DU). He adds, 45% of those who have failed are first year students, the rest are from second and third year.

The students are unhappy with the results because they believe that the university has unnecessarily failed them. Students at the law centre compete against 40,000 students to get a seat in the faculty. Only about 3,000 seats. You really think, so many of us are so dumb as to flunk? You think we cant score even the passing marks?DU has no right to play with our career, says a first-year student, wishing not to be named.

Others who have joined him are Mithillesh Jaiswal (Campus Law Centre), Brajesh Singh (graduate from Law Centre I) and R Sowmyanarayanan (Law Centre II). The quartet has been on the hunger strike since August 14, and is surviving on water. Protesting along with them are other students who have faced the brunt of strict grading system and havent scored well.

Read: Mass failure at law faculty again, 45% 1st year students fail at least 1 subject

Vidushi Bajpai of Law Centre I laments that while she had been the topper till last year, this year her percentage has dropped to 40%. From 60% to 40%, my family and I dont understand how my grades have dropped so much. If the teachers keep grading our papers this way, how will we appear for our LLM exams or any other exams? Career ka toh band baj jayega, she says.

Other demands include reintroduction of re-evaluation, and improvement on the basis of best of two subjects. (Shivam Saxena/HT Photo)

Students are also questioning the role of professors in this. If so many of us deserve to fail, then shouldnt the teachers who are teaching us wonder why arent they teaching us properly? Is their pedagogy so bad?, wonders Jaiswal.

Other concerns that the students are raising slogans for are relaxation in the promotion of students to the next semester, the restoration of supplementary exams, reintroduction of re-evaluation, and improvement on the basis of best of two subjects.

Read: Admission delayed, DU law faculty aspirants go on hunger strike

We received our results on August 8, and have since been asking the University to look into the matter. Our demands are very basic. Which institute does not have re-evaluation scheme? Its a basic facility that all other colleges in Delhi University (DU) provide to their students. Its not like were asking for the moon, adds Jaiswal.

We contacted the acting-dean of the centre, Kamla Sankaran for a comment. Weve spoken to the authorities in DU, and have conveyed to students that the matter will be duly addressed and they should wait till Monday, she said.

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Meet Anil Jain. Anil Jain runs a photocopy shop in Faculty of Arts, Delhi University (DU). Anil Jain is a happy man now that the High Court has ruled in favour of photocopying of books by students. He says, In a day, at least 25 students come to my shop to get their books photocopied. A book that would cost them Rs 100 in the market, costs them Rs 50 if they get it photocopied. Toh iss ban se sirf humari sales pe fark nahi paddta, students ko bhi problem hoti.

After three international publishers, who had filed a case against a photocopier in DU, lost the case recently, students and photocopiers alike are rejoicing. Anil Jains sentiments are echoed by several other students who are regulars at the Patel Chest or Faculty of Arts photocopiers. Tarun Thapar, an MA Philosophy student at DU, says, Ive been getting books photocopied for as long as I can remember. Some of our course books are by international authors and only a billionaires son can afford them. Most of us prefer issuing a copy from the library and getting them photocopied instead of buying them. Thank God the judiciary understands the needs of the students.

Read: Publishers lose copyright case against DUs photocopy shop

The move would have left students in a fix as most books are either expensive or hard to find in the library. (Images Bazaar)

The high cost of course books is not the only reason why students find themselves marching to photocopiers, armed with several books. Supratik Das, a third year B.Com (Hons) student at Ramjas College, shares that often times, it is due to the unavailability of books in the library. He adds, We dont usually buy books as most are prescribed only for one semester, so that expenditure doesnt make sense. And there are 125 students in my class and aisa hi ek section aur hai. How many books do you think the library stocks? Not enough for all of us, for sure. Photocopy hi karayenge phir!

Read: Photocopy ban leaves DU students in quandary

While most students are appreciating the move, some believe that even if the ban on photocopying had been placed, it would not have made a difference. Vaishnavi Saxena, a student of Campus Law Centre, says, Most printers have photocopiers in them these days so students can take prints at home only. And waise bhi shops mein ke kaun check karega ki kis student ne kya photocopy karaya?

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It was only a matter of time till they made a film on Edward Snowden. Even without the real-world debate shadowing the ex-NSA whistleblower like the CIA, his story is a rare combination of all the necessary ingredients that get Hollywood execs hot and bothered: Drama, intrigue, international espionage, a global manhunt, heroism  and even romance.

Snowden, the film, is directed by a man as polarising as Snowden himself. Four decades into a career that has seen its share of ups and downs, Oliver Stone has become a man known more for his liberal politics than his films  which is not surprising, since he doesnt make them as regularly anymore. And the ones he does dont quite seem to connect with audiences like some of his best used to.

But in many ways, Stone is the perfect filmmaker to tell Snowdens tale. The film arrives, surprisingly, while the debate is still fresh  unlike the ill-fated Julian Assange biopic The Fifth Estate starring Benedict Cumberbatch. That film was undone by a lethal combination of apathy and dislike surrounding the central character, and not, as many reviews at the time pointed, because of the quality of the film.

It is 2016, and Edward Snowden is in Russia, living under asylum for leaking thousands of classified documents that revealed the NSAs (National Security Agency, an intelligence outfit whose job is to monitor and collect information for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes) involvement in mass surveillance.

He has been called a hero, a traitor and a spy. He could reasonably be all three. But, according to Slates Fred Kaplan, projecting the various sides to Snowdens story is the last thing on Oliver Stones mind. In a fascinating piece that ran Friday, Kaplan asserts that Stones film is above all, a fairytale.

In a series of arguments, Kaplan says that not only was Snowden not a whistleblower as the phrase is broadly understood, Stones film goes beyond dramatic license to distort, even falsify, the picture.

While arguing the broad understanding of the term whistleblower, or any other word or phrase for that matter, is embarking on a fools errand, the issue of dramatic license is slightly more objective  if only just. While Snowden is hardly the first film (and most definitely not the last) to use dramatic license to embellish certain facts, it cant be compared to, say, a run-of-the-mill biopic that plays around with the chronology of events in its subjects life. Snowdens story is simply too important, and too hot-topic to deviate too drastically from fact.

But according to Kaplan, that is just what it does. One of the harsher declarations he makes is by first clarifying what the term whistleblower means and what Snowden really did. Kaplan says that because intercepting communications of foreign powers is in the NSAs charter, Snowdens act cant be called whistleblowing, but is, in fact, an attempt to blow US intelligence operations.

Two things come to mind: While it is in the NSAs charter to, essentially, spy on other countries (which make no mistake, most countries do), domestic surveillance was the real bone of contention. Snowdens leaks ushered in an age of paranoia. Suddenly, social media transformed into Big Brothers all-seeing eye.

A recent interview conducted by Shane Smith from VICE showed Snowden as quite the tragic character, living a life constantly having to look over his shoulder. He was demonstrating to Smith how easy it is for intelligence agencies to hack into any cellphone, and how he manages to evade them. His famously calm monotone could barely conceal the paranoid frenzy in his voice. All that was missing was a tinfoil hat and a placard with the words The end is nigh written on it.

In what is definitely not a coincidence, a Pardon Edward Snowden petition has been launched with support from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and scores of public figures, to coincide with the films release. President Obama, while acknowledging the debate Snowdens actions have ignited, has thus far refused to grant pardon, full or otherwise. Bernie Sanders however, could not be clearer: The interests of justice would be best served if our government granted @Snowden some form of clemency, he said in a tweet.

The interests of justice would be best served if our government granted @Snowden some form of clemency. https://t.co/BgMZdaRlg1  Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) September 14, 2016

And this is the general trend. Vocal liberals like Sanders and TV host John Oliver  and of course, Oliver Stone - have always sided with Snowden. And we must also bear in mind Slates rather iffy reputation as a contrarian publication.

Most claims Kaplan makes arent backed with credibility. At one point he even concedes that it is quite reasonable to assume that his sources on this story are lying since theyre part of the establishment after all. But hes met one of them, he says. And in his opinion, the man was a straight shooter.

The rest of his allegations range from having proof Snowden cheated a famously brutal test to gaining access to secret documents by persuading 20-25 of his colleagues to share their logins and passwords  for which they were later fired for their careless trust.

After convincing himself that it is probably unlikely that Snowden is Russian spy, Kaplan ponders the possibility of him being under the mercy of the Russians, who admittedly dont have any reason to grant him asylum besides squeezing information out of him. But recently, Snowden has been criticising the Russian government of its own surveillance practices, which even Kaplan agrees is rather brave.

He ends his piece with an attempt at film criticism. After dismissing the chemistry between the leads Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley, he sums up his review with its a bore. But hes bang on about Citizenfour, the documentary that is as intimate a look as you can hope for about this subject as possible. Snowden leaked the documents with the help of journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras in a Hong Kong hotel. Poitras had cameras capture all of it. Citizenfour is the film she made. Its set in the hotel and documents the entire operation almost step by step. And as Kaplan rightly says: Thats the one to watch.

As for Oliver Stones film, there is no reason other than his own lacklustre late-period output to be worried. Fact-based Hollywood biopics are rarely ever fact-based. But if facts are what youre after, here goes.

This FRIDAY, unlock the secret of the greatest intelligence breach in U.S. history. See Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley in#SnowdenMovie, in theaters 9/16. #EdwardSnowden #ShaileneWoodley #JosephGordonLevitt #OliverStone #Snowden A video posted by Snowden The Movie (@snowdenthemovie) on Sep 14, 2016 at 3:15pm PDT

In 2013, just after the Snowdens leaks, President Obama, calling the NSA transparent said, What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a US person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails  and have not.

In January 2014, he gave another speech that a New York Times editorial described in large part an admission that he (Obama) had been wrong. Trust us, we wont abuse the data we collect, he said, calling for major reforms, restrictions and a transition that will end the bulk collection of phone metadata as it currently exists.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the red carpet at the NYC premiere of #SnowdenMovie this evening. #JosephGordonLevitt #Snowden #EdwardSnowden A photo posted by Snowden The Movie (@snowdenthemovie) on Sep 13, 2016 at 8:21pm PDT

In December 2014, a joint statement from the Office of the Director General of National Intelligence provided an update: As a first step in that transition, Obama had directed he Attorney General to work with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to ensure that, absent a true emergency, telephony metadata can only be queried after a judicial finding that there is a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the selection term is associated with an approved international terrorist organization.

He never thanked Snowden.

The writer tweets at @NaaharRohan
-- 17 soldiers killed in one of the deadliest attacks on Indian Army

-- Four militants confirmed killed after penetrating the base in Uri near the Line of Control with Pakistan

-- The dawn raid surprised soldiers in their sleep; militants set fire to one building before being killed

-- Home minister Rajnath Singh has spoken to political and military leadership and instructed senior officials to monitor the situation

Militants attacked a strategic army base in north Kashmirs Uri on Sunday and killed 17 soldiers, squeezing the space for an Indo-Pak dialogue and triggering calls for a fierce retaliation against Islamabad, seen to be behind the strike.

Four fidayeen - or commando-style gunmen willing to fight to the death - were confirmed killed after sneaking into the base near the Line of Control with Pakistan, the worst single attack on the army in 26 years.

More than 30 soldiers were injured, many of them critically, stoking fears that the death toll will rise.

The strike jeopardised hopes of peace returning quickly to the Valley that has been rocked by two months of violent protests that have killed 86 people and injured thousands.

Sources said the attack was part of a fresh wave of infiltration by militants who the government blames for instigating Kashmiris and stirring unrest.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.

Read: Live updates on Uri attack

Home minister Rajnath Singh hit out at Pakistan, calling it a terror state that needed to be identified and isolated.

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups, he tweeted.

Soon after Singh pointed a finger at Pakistan, its foreign office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria dismissed the accusation.India immediately puts blame on Pakistan without doing any investigation. We reject this, Zakaria told Reuters.

Many other army veterans demanded counter-terror operations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The base housed 12,000 troops stationed in temporary tents and shelters that caught fire in the encounter and caused the high number of casualties, a statement released from the armys northern command headquarters of Udhampur said.

The dawn raid surprised soldiers in their sleep as attackers set fire to a building. The blaze killed 12 soldiers and the rest died in the gunfight, sources added.

Television footage showed helicopters flying to evacuate the injured as smoke billowed from the base.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar said he will visit Uri and home minister Rajnath Singh cancelled scheduled trips to Russia and the United States and called an emergency meeting. Army chief Dalbir Singh and northern command head DS Hooda also rushed to Uri.

Read: Uri terror attack: Rajnath postpones Russia, US visits; calls emergency meeting

The attack is likely to further roil Kashmir that army sources say has seen scores of infiltration attempts since protests broke out against insurgent leader Burhan Wanis killing in July.

The extremists sneaked into the camp at 5.30am and used guns and grenades to target soldiers, triggering a fierce gun battle that raged on for hours.

The camp is inhabited by soldiers who mostly guard the LoC. The garrison can be approached from three sides, one of which is just six kilometers away from the de-facto border with Pakistan. Police sources said there were intelligence inputs regarding a possible attack.

Army sources said one battalion was being moved after their tour of duty and another was taking over  with many soldiers staying in transit tents that caught fire in the initial stage of the encounter.

A militant raid in December 2014, also near Uri, had killed eight soldiers and three policemen. In February, the army lost three soldiers in the deadliest suicide bomber attack in Srinagar in many years.

Read | 7 militants, one policeman killed as 3 infiltration bids are foiled in J-K

Deadliest attacks on security forces May 22, 2016

Casualty: Six soldiers of 29 Assam Rifles

Location: Chandel district in Manipur





Six soldiers of 29 Assam Rifles Chandel district in Manipur January 2, 2016

Casualty: Seven security personnel and four attackers killed

Location: Pathankot Air Force Station





Seven security personnel and four attackers killed Pathankot Air Force Station June 4, 2015

Casualty: 18 armymen killed and at least 16 injured

Location: Army convoy ambushed in Manipurs Chandel district





18 armymen killed and at least 16 injured Army convoy ambushed in Manipurs Chandel district December 5, 2014

Casualty: Eight army and three police personnel; eight militants; and two civilians

Location: Separate attacks in Uri, Ahmadnagar, Shopian and Pulwama





Eight army and three police personnel; eight militants; and two civilians Separate attacks in Uri, Ahmadnagar, Shopian and Pulwama June 24, 2013

Casualty: 10 armymen

Location: Hyderpora, outskirts of Srinagar





10 armymen Hyderpora, outskirts of Srinagar July 19, 2008

Casualty: 10 armymen

Location: IED blast at Narbal Crossing, outskirts of Srinagar





10 armymen IED blast at Narbal Crossing, outskirts of Srinagar June 24, 2005

Casualty: Nine soldiers killed, and 21 others injuried

Location: Rashtriya Rifles convoy targeted along the Dal Lake, Srinagar





Nine soldiers killed, and 21 others injuried Rashtriya Rifles convoy targeted along the Dal Lake, Srinagar May 23, 2004

Casualty: At least 30 people, including 19 BSF personnel, killed

Location: IED explosion at Lower Munda, near Qazigund, on the Srinagar-Jammu highway





At least 30 people, including 19 BSF personnel, killed IED explosion at Lower Munda, near Qazigund, on the Srinagar-Jammu highway June 28, 2003

Casualty: 12 soldiers killed

Location: Suicide attack on army installation at the Dogra Regiment camp in Sunjwan, on the outskirts of Jammu city





12 soldiers killed Suicide attack on army installation at the Dogra Regiment camp in Sunjwan, on the outskirts of Jammu city May 14, 2002

Casualty: 34 people, including 22 army men, killed

Location: Militants stormed an army camp and attacked families of soldiers at Kaluchak, about 10 km from Jammu
Five members of a family, including three children, were killed in Puragardeia locality under Shivkuti police station in Allahabad in the wee hours of Sunday.

The incident came to light at around 7.30am when a female member of the family went to the first floor of the house and found the victims with their throats slit.

The deceased included head of the family Moharram (52), his daughters Ballu (6) and Nandini (8), and sons Vishal (15) and Chhotu (10).

Moharrams wife, Didiya (47), who survived the attack, is fighting for her life at SRN Hospital.

The family was involved in rag-picking and used to deal in scrap.

IG, Allahabad zone, SK Pratap said prima facie the killings took place due to a property dispute.

We have detained a suspect in connection with the murders and we are interrogating him, Pratap added.

Commissioner, Allahabad division, Rajan Shukla, SSP Joginder Kumar, SP, city, Rajesh Yadav and other senior police officials visited the spot.
Defence minister Manohar Parrikar got a tongue lashing from AAP on Sunday over his comments on Arvind Kejriwals throat surgery with the party saying he should concentrate on managing security affairs or make way for someone else in the key post.

The outfit, which has set its sight on taking on BJP in the next years Assembly elections in Goa, demanded Parrikar be removed as defence minister as he is not concentrating on looking after security issues.

We urge Prime Minister Modiji to either ask Parrikar to concentrate on security of the nation or give this responsibility to someone else so that Parrikar could continue making comments on health issues of other individuals, Goa AAP secretary Walmiki Naik said at a press conference in Panaji after 17 soldiers were martyred in a terrorist attack in Uri.

On Saturday, Parrikar had said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals tongue had to be trimmed as it had grown long due to speaking much against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and him.

Kejriwal recently underwent a tongue surgery.

On one hand the defence of our nation is continuously being challenged by forces working against the country, and on the other we have our Defence Minister sarcastically commenting on personal health issues of Delhi chief minister Kejriwal. This is unbecoming of a defence minister, he said.

Naik said his party is deeply pained and shocked by the death of 17 soldiers in the Uri terror attack.

AAP salutes the jawans for their supreme sacrifice and expresses solidarity with their families, he added.
The Uri attack, in which 17 Indian soldiers were killed, is a grim reminder of the armys vulnerability to terror strikes when new units are moving in to replace stationed ones.

Fifteen of the soldiers killed in the pre-dawn attack formed a part of an advance party of 6 Bihar that had come in to relieve 10 Dogra that was deployed along the line of control (LoC). Two Dogra soldiers were also killed.

The army said on Sunday that the four terrorists, who were killed, targeted a rear administrative base where a large number of soldiers were stationed in tents and temporary shelters as a rotation of units was underway.

Chandel attack

Last years Chandel ambush, in which 18 soldiers were killed, also took place when the Dogra unit deployed in Manipur was on its way out to a peace location. An advance part of the unit had already moved to Chandigarh to set up base there.

The Chandel ambush bears the infamy of having the highest number of army casualties in a single incident in nearly two decades. The Dogra soldiers were part of an administrative convoy. India responded with a cross-border raid, targeting and destroying two insurgent camps in Myanmar. Indias Special Forces killed more than 50 insurgents.

Also, four soldiers from 21 Bihar and one from 14 Maratha Light Infantry (MLI) were shot at close range in an ambush along the LoC in Poonch sector in August 2013. The strike came when 21 Bihar was moving out and 14 MLI was coming in.

A senior army officer said, Attacks are often timed when rotation of units is taking place as theres a perception that the guard may have been lowered. It can be a dangerous window as sometimes complacency may set in.

However, former northern army commander Lieutenant General BS Jaswal told HT that there was a misconception that the guard is down when rotation is taking place.

Read | Kashmirs Uri attacked: Why the key Indian Army base is on militants radar

Its true that new units take time to settle down as they are not seized of the ground reality. When a unit moves in the guard is at a high pitch because they know they are vulnerable. No one wants to get killed, said Jaswal.

Geographical disadvantage

The Uri sector has a geographical disadvantage as it is under direct observation of enemy posts at greater heights, army officers said.

No matter how high intensity the guard is, the attackers have the tool of surprise, said Jaswal. Whoever takes the initiative first will get favourable results, he said.

Jaswal said the army had not been used effectively in Jammu and Kashmir and its posture was mostly defensive. You have to hit Pakistan where it hurts. They know nothing will happen.

Read | Those behind Uri terror attack wont go unpunished, says PM Modi

It remains to be seen how the army will re-work its strategy and posture to be more effective.

After the January 2013 beheading of a soldier in Mendhar sector, then army chief General Bikram Singh said the force reserved its right to retaliate against Pakistan at a time and place of its choosing. After the August 2013 strike in which five soldiers were killed, Bikram Singh reprimanded his top commanders in Jammu and Kashmir for not launching a massive retaliatory strike against the Pakistani army along the LoC.

In January 2014, he declared the army avenged the murders of its soldiers along the LoC by the Pakistani by inflicting casualties on the neighbouring army.

Quoting Pakistani news reports that 10 of their soldiers were killed and another 11 injured in recent clashes along the LoC, Singh said, Our boys have done a stupendous job.

Full coverage| Uri terror attack

Deadliest attacks on Indian security forces May 22, 2016

Casualty: Six soldiers of 29 Assam Rifles

Location: Chandel district in Manipur





Six soldiers of 29 Assam Rifles Chandel district in Manipur January 2, 2016

Casualty: Seven security personnel and four attackers killed

Location: Pathankot Air Force Station





Seven security personnel and four attackers killed Pathankot Air Force Station June 4, 2015

Casualty: 17 armymen killed and at least 16 injured

Location: Army convoy ambushed in Manipurs Chandel district





17 armymen killed and at least 16 injured Army convoy ambushed in Manipurs Chandel district December 5, 2014

Casualty: Eight army and three police personnel; eight militants; and two civilians

Location: Separate attacks in Uri, Ahmadnagar, Shopian and Pulwama





Eight army and three police personnel; eight militants; and two civilians Separate attacks in Uri, Ahmadnagar, Shopian and Pulwama June 24, 2013

Casualty: 10 armymen

Location: Hyderpora, outskirts of Srinagar





10 armymen Hyderpora, outskirts of Srinagar July 19, 2008

Casualty: 10 armymen

Location: IED blast at Narbal Crossing, outskirts of Srinagar





10 armymen IED blast at Narbal Crossing, outskirts of Srinagar June 24, 2005

Casualty: Nine soldiers killed, and 21 others injuried

Location: Rashtriya Rifles convoy targeted along the Dal Lake, Srinagar





Nine soldiers killed, and 21 others injuried Rashtriya Rifles convoy targeted along the Dal Lake, Srinagar May 23, 2004

Casualty: At least 30 people, including 19 BSF personnel, killed

Location: IED explosion at Lower Munda, near Qazigund, on the Srinagar-Jammu highway





At least 30 people, including 19 BSF personnel, killed IED explosion at Lower Munda, near Qazigund, on the Srinagar-Jammu highway June 28, 2003

Casualty: 12 soldiers killed

Location: Suicide attack on army installation at the Dogra Regiment camp in Sunjwan, on the outskirts of Jammu city





12 soldiers killed Suicide attack on army installation at the Dogra Regiment camp in Sunjwan, on the outskirts of Jammu city May 14, 2002

Casualty: 34 people, including 22 army men, killed

Location: Militants attacked a bus and stormed an army camp at Kaluchak, about 10 km from Jammu
Curfew remained in force in parts of Kashmir, including in some areas of Srinagar, on Sunday in view of the separatists call for a march to the three districts of Bandipora, Ganderbal and Shopian, even as normal life in the Valley remained disrupted for the 72nd day.

Curfew has been imposed in Shopian district, while it remains in force in five police station areas of downtown (interior city) and Batamaloo in Srinagar, a police official said.

He said curfew-like restrictions on the movement of people have been imposed in the towns of Bandipora and Ganderbal, while the restrictions on the assembly of people continued to remain in force in the rest of the Valley.

The official said curbs have been imposed to maintain law and order in view of the separatists call for a march to the three districts.

The separatists have called for a march to the three districts Bandipora (in north Kashmir), Ganderbal (in central Kashmir) and Shopian (in south Kashmir) on Sunday.

Meanwhile, normal life continued to remain paralysed in Kashmir for the 72nd consecutive day due to restrictions and the separatist-sponsored strike. The separatists have extended the protest programme till September 22.

They have not announced any relaxation in the strike even in the evening hours for the week.

Shops, business establishments and petrol pumps continued to remain shut, while public transport was off the roads.

Mobile telephone, except the postpaid connections of BSNL, and mobile internet services continued to suspended across the Valley.

The broadband services were restored late last night after working journalists protested on Saturday against the communication gag. These services had remained snapped across the Valley for five days.

As many as 81 people, including two cops, have been killed in the unrest that broke out a day after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces in South Kashmir on July 8.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ram Madhav said on Sunday that days of strategic restraint are over and suggested that for one tooth, the complete jaw should be the policy after an attack on a militant base in Uri.

The Prime Minister has promised that those behind the Uri terror attack will not go unpunished. That should be the way forward. For one tooth, the complete jaw, said Madhav, who is the BJPs pointsman for Jammu and Kashmir.

The days of so-called strategic restraint are over. If terrorism is the instrument of the weak and coward, restraint in the face of repeated terror attacks betrays inefficiency and incompetence. India should prove otherwise, he said.

Strongly condemning the attack by militants on army headquarters in Uri in which 17 soldiers were killed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said those behind the despicable act wont go unpunished.

Targeting Pakistan, home minister Rajnath Singh said Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday pledged to punish those behind the despicable attack at the garrison town of Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that drew condemnation from across the political spectrum.

The pre-dawn attack killed 17 soldiers, many of them in the fire started by the militants.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished, Modi tweeted on the attack.

Modis promise to punish the perpetrators came hours after the four militants were killed and could indicate a hardening of stance by New Delhi.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi too joined Modi to condemn the attack, and expressed hope that not only the perpetrators, but the forces behind them be severely dealt with and brought to book.

She called the cowardly attack as a deplorable affront on our national conscience.

Neither the PM nor Gandhi have named Pakistan, for now.

CPM leader Sitaram Yechury did, asking Pakistan stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces. Such acts only compound the situation further... are a big impediment to the peace process in the region, the CPM said.

But the party also hit out at the Modi government for its failure to stop the continuing infiltration of militants despite deployment of a large number of security personnel.

The govts failure to prevent terror attacks, and inability to resolve the ongoing crisis is taking its toll: precious lives lost, Yechury added in a tweet.

Former home minister P Chidambaram expressed shock and distress at the terror attack in Uri. Salute the jawans. The government must mobilise all resources, manpower and material to strengthen border defence to prevent infiltration of terrorists, he said.

In his tweets, Modi said he saluted the soldiers who were martyred in the attack and said their service to the nation will always be remembered.

The Prime Minister also said defence minister Manohar Parrikar would go to J-K to take stock of the situation. Home minister Rajnath Singh cancelled his visit to Russia and the US and reviewed the situation in Delhi.

It is a proxy war. A country that is Pakistan is focusing on how to disturb Jammu and Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh said.

The attack on the military camp in Jammu and Kashmir is a serious security lapse, former defence minister AK Antony said.

This incident comes close on the heels of what happened in Pathankot. At both these places militants managed to enter the military camps and this is a huge security lapse, Antony told the media. The Kashmir issue is drifting and reaching dangerous propositions. All this is happening with the knowledge of Pakistan.

Former soldiers and defence experts too unanimously called for a tough action against Pakistan, whom they blamed for the terrorist attack.

It is a clear attack on India by Pakistan. We can no longer afford to just not do anything. The Indian response should be tough...the retribution should be quick and tough, Lt. Gen. (retd) Raj Kadyan said.

Major (retd) Gaurav Arya, who has expertise in Jammu and Kashmir security situation, echoed the sentiments.

Unless we understand that the problem in Jammu and Kashmir is not a problem just there, but it is being artificially manufactured in the General Headquarters (GHQ) Rawalpindi, we would not be able to respond, he said.

The solution to the problem lies across the border, not here, Kadyan said.

Heres what they said on Twitter:

Politicians

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) September 18, 2016

There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Terrible news from Uri, 17 soldiers killed & many injured. May their souls rest in peace. Prayers for their families as also for the injured  Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) September 18, 2016

Strongly condemn cowardly #terrorist attack on army base in #Uri. My deepest condolences on martyrdom of our 17 brave soldiers.#UriAttack  Ashok Gehlot (@ashokgehlot51) September 18, 2016

The Government must deal strongly with terrorist activities, and act fast to bring situation under control 2/2 #UriAttack  Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) September 18, 2016

condemn the brutal & cowardly attack on our Jawans #UriAttack My deepest condolences to their families. It's time to unite and fight back .  Sadananda Gowda (@DVSBJP) September 18, 2016

Mourning the loss of 17 jawans in the terror attack today. Our preparedness, defences &firepower need urgent review.https://t.co/wrog11zbBf  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) September 18, 2016

Extremely disturbed by loss of precious lives of Indian Jawans in Uri attack.Can nation ever repay for such supreme sacrifices? @ANI_news  Dr Jitendra Singh (@DrJitendraSingh) September 18, 2016

Totally condemn #UriAttack on our brave soldiers.Thr must not be any compromise on our national security on name of peace & foreign policy.  Tejashwi Yadav (@yadavtejashwi) September 18, 2016

Journalists

Dear @narendramodi, entire nation is looking at you. They elected you for your promises. When will you walk the talk. #UriAttack  Manak Gupta (@manakgupta) September 18, 2016

Def Min or others, this is no time for VVIPs parachuting in Kashmir. Let local unit clean up & sanitise 1st. This is no photo-op #UriAttack  Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) September 18, 2016

17Jawans killed in #UriAttack .Its their supreme sacrifice but for how long?Hightime to stopQuestioning&give Army freehand to destroy terror  Sudhir Chaudhary (@sudhirchaudhary) September 18, 2016

Uri terror attack: prayers for families of 17 martyred soldiers. What will it take to end this madness? #UriAttack  Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) September 18, 2016

17 jawans killed in #UriAttack. Retaliation ought to be slow, cold, long-drawn and impossible for the enemy to forget. There's no hurry  Abhijit Majumder (@abhijitmajumder) September 18, 2016

When Pathankot airbase attacked,Parrikar was in Goa, Ordinance factory burnt He was in Goa,Uri Army base attacked he is in Goa.Wl TV debate?  ashutosh (@ashutosh83B) September 18, 2016

With inputs from agencies

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The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad has nabbed an accused in the 1993 Gosabara RDX and arms landing case, in which fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim has been named as a key conspirator, from Mumbai.

Based on a tip-off, the ATS team arrested Abdulsattar Batliwala in suburban Khar in Mumbai yesterday and brought him here today, it said in a release.

Batliwala was a part of the conspiracy whereby Dawood Ibrahim sent a huge cache of RDX and arms, including AK-47 rifles to Gujarat from Karachi via sea route in 1993, ATS said. The objective was to take revenge for the Babri masjid demolition.

The contraband landed on Gosabara coast in Porbandar district of Gujarat in 1993, and was distributed to Dawoods associates and other conspirators in Mumbai, Surat and Uttar Pradesh, it said.

According to the ATS, Batliwala was present at a meeting called by Dawood in Dubai to plan out the landing at Gosabara.

Police had recovered five AK-47 rifles, an AK-56 rifle, 43 hand grenades and 3,011 cartridges during the probe.

Till now, around 40 persons have been arrested while 16 accused are still at large, including Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Anis Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel.
The Uri military base attacked by militants on Sunday morning is one of the most important Army garrisons in Kashmir and guards the Line of Control, which is Indias de-facto border with Pakistan.

The base is strategically important from two perspectives: To thwart aggression from Pakistan and to guard against infiltration attempts by militants since armed insurgency erupted in Kashmir in 1989.

The base is close to the border and it is from here that men and materials are supplied to guard the LoC in the region, strategically important since the landing of Indian troops in Kashmir in 1947.

The base acts as the brigade headquarters and houses 12,000-13,000 soldiers at any given point, many of them in transit from their line of duty.

The important base is vulnerable to attack from across the border as it can be approached from the LoC on three sides, one of them as close as six kilometers away from the LoC.

The extremists may have taken advantage of this, sneaking into the camp at 5.30am and using guns and grenades to target soldiers, triggering a fierce gunbattle that raged on for hours.

The base is also located in the plains and is under constant observation from Pakistani army posts higher in the mountains.

A project of the National Hydro Power Corporation also been constructed in the area, mostly underground to prevent damage in case a war breaks out.

Uri  a garrison town with little anti-India sentiment  has been targeted by militants before. A raid in December 2014, also near Uri, had killed eight soldiers and three policemen.

An army official said that the attack was not on the 12 Brigade headquarters but on a rear administrative base close to the brigade.

Rear administrative base is a place where the army units deployed on the LoC leave their non-operational and other administrative stores behind.

The official said the Army deploys some personnel on guard to look after the stores. In effect, it means that minimum troops are kept in the rear.

Former GOC 15 Corps in Kashmir, Lt Gen (Retd) Syed Ata Hasnain tweeted that the rear forms part of the garrison as maximum troops remain ahead. Such places very vulnerable (sic), he said.

What caused more damage in the attack was the fact the base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty. They were stationed in tents and temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. Some reports suggested that the troops were moving to peaceful areas after two-and-a-half years of posting on LoC.

(With inputs from Dhrubo Jyoti in Delhi)
The Uri suicide attack that left 17 soldiers dead deals a body blow to the already frayed India-Pakistan ties, with the government under pressure for a robust response to one of the deadliest strike on an army base in Kashmir.

I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after Sundays early morning raid that is being blamed on Pakistan.

In the run-up to the 2014 election, Modis BJP had promised an aggressive stance against Pakistan. With five state elections due early next year, the government cant appear to be passive against the neighbour.

The immediate impact could be on three events  this weeks UN general assembly (UNGA), Novembers Saarc meet and the Heart of Asia conference in December, former foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh said.

This incident should lead to greater isolation of Pakistan as a sponsor of terrorism At the UNGA, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wouldnt get away with blaming India on Kashmir, he said.

At the UN, the two countries are expected to raise the alleged rights violations in Kashmir and Balochistan.

The government will not be found wanting in its response to show Pakistan as a sponsor of terrorism, a source said.

India hasnt confirmed if Modi will travel to Pakistan for the South Asian Association for Regional Conference summit. There is no clarity on who Islamabad will send to the Heart of Asia ministerial meeting in Amritsar during which peace effort and reconstruction of Afghanistan would be discussed.

India and Afghanistan coming together to blame Pakistan for terrorism didnt augur well for Islamabad, Mansingh said.

The attack on the army camp close to the Line of Control comes at a time when India is using every global forum to expose Pakistan for pursuing terrorism as an instrument of state policy and fomenting trouble in Kashmir, where street protests are in their third month.

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups, home minister Rajnath Singh said in a tweet, signaling further hardening of stand. He then called for isolating the terrorist state Pakistan.

But, Indias choices are limited.

If India retaliates across LOC it gets internationalised if not exposes GOIs hollow rhetoric, former diplomat KC Singh tweeted.

Inept domestic handling of Kashmir situation and the domestic dynamics in Pakistan made the situation complex, he told HT.

The Uri assault, one in a series of strikes under Modis watch, raised uncomfortable questions about Modis leadership and vision to combat the scourge of Pakistan-orchestrated terrorism, strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney said. Modis response to the Uri attack could help shape his political legacy.

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Pakistan on Sunday rejected Indias assertion that it had a hand in the terror attack on an army camp at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 17 soldiers, saying New Delhi should share actionable intelligence on the incident with Islamabad.

Soon after Indian home minister Rajnath Singh pointed a finger at Pakistan for its continued and direct support to terror groups, Pakistans Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria dismissed the accusation.

India immediately puts blame on Pakistan without doing any investigation. We reject this, Zakaria told Reuters.

A statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations, the Pakistan Armys media wing, later in the day referred to the hotline contact between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) and sought intelligence on the terror attack.

Refuting the unfounded and premature Indian allegations, the Pakistan DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence, the statement said.

Read | Uri attack: Can India launch a covert operation across the border?

PM Modi assured the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished while Singh called for the isolation of Pakistan as a terrorist state. (PTI Photo)

The latest situation on the Line of Control was discussed and the Pakistan DGMO reiterated that no infiltration is allowed from Pakistans soil because water tight arrangements were in place on both sides of LoC/working boundary all along, the statement added.

In a late night tweet, defence minister Khawaja Asif said blaming Pak for Uri & any attempt to escalate tension to deflect attention frm state terrorism in Kashmir will prove expensive for Indians.

The Uri attack was extensively covered by Pakistani news channels and Foreign Office officials privately said that Pakistan condemns the attack. We condemn terrorist actions in all forms, said an official.

The brazen attack at Uri, which resulted in one of the highest casualties for the Indian Army in a single day during peace time, added to tensions that were triggered by the assault on Pathankot airbase in January. That attack was blamed by India on the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished while Singh called for the isolation of Pakistan as a terrorist state.

Read | Kashmirs Uri attacked: Why the key Indian Army base is on militants radar

Smoke rises from the army brigade camp during a terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. (PTI Photo)

Bilateral tensions have been exacerbated by the unrest in Kashmir triggered by the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani and Modis raising of rights violations by Pakistani security forces in Balochistan.

The two countries have been engaged in a war of words for several weeks and are expected to clash on the Kashmir issue at the UN General Assembly. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who left for New York on Saturday, has outlined his plans to focus on rights violations in Kashmir, and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj is expected to give a befitting response.

Adding to the uncertainty in bilateral relations were remarks by defence minister Asif that Pakistan would not hesitate to use its tactical nuclear weapons in the event of an attack by India. However, Asif made the comments in an interview with Geo News channel that was recorded before the Uri attack and aired on Saturday night.

Read | In pics: 17 soldiers killed in attack at military base in J-Ks Uri

Asifs remarks were aired again after the Uri attack by Geo News and picked up by the Indian media.

In response to a question about the possibility of hostilities with India, Asif said: I dont think there is any immediate threat (of a war with India) but as Allah has said in the Quran, the horses should be ready. Our readiness should be complete at all timesThe price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Asif added, We are always pressurised time and again that our tactical (nuclear) weapons, in which we have a superiority, that we have more tactical weapons than we need. It is internationally recognised that we have a superiority and if there is a threat to our security or if anyone steps on our soil and if someones designs are a threat to our security, we will not hesitate to use those weapons for our defence.

Asked if tactical nuclear weapons could be used against India, he replied: This depends on the situationbut if our defence and survival is in danger, then we should use everything, what is there to fear?

Pakistan says it developed tactical nuclear weapons and special short-range missiles to deliver them to counter Indias Cold Start war doctrine which reportedly envisages lightning thrusts into enemy territory by small mobile military units.

Pakistani analysts condemned the Uri attack but at the same time drew parallels to the situation in Kashmir. A pro-army Twitter handle posted: Indian media conveniently ignored the blatant murder of the #Kashmiri people by the Indian Military, where was the outrage?

Read | Timeline: Deadliest attacks on security forces in India

Indian media conveniently ignored the blatant murder of the #Kashmiri people by the Indian Military, where was the outrage? #UriAttack  Pakistan Defence (@defencepk) September 18, 2016

Follow our coverage of the Uri attack here
India should form its own fidayeen (suicide) squad, former army chief Shankar Roy Choudhary told news channel NDTV on Sunday, reflecting the rage in the military brass over an extremist attack in north Kashmirs Uri that killed 17 soldiers.

The militant strike was the worst single attack on the army in 26 years and sources said security forces hadnt experienced so many casualties since militancy first broke out in the Valley in the 1990s.

Former Army Chief General Shankar Roy Choudhary on NDTV says "Time For India to raise our own Fidayeen" reflecting depth of rage #UriAttack  barkha dutt (@BDUTT) September 18, 2016

The attack sparked anger from former army personnel with many calling for retaliatory action on extremists.

Roy Choudhary is one of Indias best-known army generals and highly decorated war hero who fought the 1965 India-Pakistan war and the 1971 Bangladesh independence war.

Former home secretary RK Singh told news agency ANI that the attack was planned by the Pakistani army and state-sponsored elements.

If you term it as terror attack, you're misleading yourself.Only way to handle these attacks is to hit back:RK Singh pic.twitter.com/IL5aGezW73  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

On television channel Times Now, former army major Gaurav Arya called for stringent action against Pakistan, who he held responsible for the attack.

Pakistan keeps doing it again and again. We must take immediate action. Downgrade relation with Pakistan. Stop trade. Show the world we are serious, he said.

Another army veteran, lieutenant general Raj Kadyan, told the news channel that it was a clear attack by Pakistan on India. All soft options are closed. They are not going to act. Strongest retaliatory strike by Indian army. We must raise issue at UN general assembly, ask for sanctions.

#Uri attack-2 early 4 post-mortem. No defences fool proof. Aim 2 make it so but essence in reaction. Hum honge KAMYAAB! Can v hold comments.  Lt Gen K J Singh (@kayjay34350) September 18, 2016

Lt Gen K J Singh ?@kayjay34350 4h4 hours ago#Uri attack-2 early 4 post-mortem. No defences fool proof. Aim 2 make it so but essence in reaction. Hum honge KAMYAAB! Can v hold comments.

Read | Rajnath postpones Russia, US visits after Uri attack; calls emergency meeting

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The gunning down of four Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists who attacked Uri in a deadly suicide attack has refocused attention on increasing infiltration from across the line of control.

Sources indicate that the four terrorists killed in Uri were part of a fresh batch of militants to have crossed over the LoC.

Since the death of Hizbul militant Burhan Wani on July 8 and the beginning of a civilian unrest in Kashmir, there has been a spike in infiltration bids. Sources in the army say that although many of the attempts have been foiled and the militants killed or repulsed, there have still been successes. As compared to 2015, when 30 terrorists are suspected to have crossed over from Pakistan, the figure for 2016 has already spiked to 70.

On September 11, the army had foiled three infiltration bids in a single day, in the Naugam, Tangdhar and Gurez sectors. They were the latest in a series of more than 10 foiled infiltration bids in Kashmir since Wanis death.

Inspector General BSF, Kashmir Frontier, Vikash Chandra had told the media on Saturday that, There has been an increase in the number of encounters along the LoC this year, and seeing that there is no denial that infiltration has taken place...Around 150-200 militants are waiting on the other side of LoC to infiltrate.

On Friday, the home minister Rajnath Singh had told reporters in Panaji that infiltration along the border in J-K has increased in 2016 compared to 2015.

The security establishment is worried that Pakistan is pushing in terrorists before the snow fall and that the oncoming winter might be a bloody one too.

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What we know so far:

-- 17 soldiers killed in one of the deadliest attacks on Indian Army

-- Four militants confirmed killed after penetrating the base in Uri near the Line of Control with Pakistan

-- The dawn raid surprised soldiers in their sleep; militants set fire to one building before the four were killed in a gunfight

-- Home minister Rajnath Singh has spoken to political and military leadership and instructed senior officials to monitor the situation after cancelling planned trips to Russia and the United States

Militants attacked an Indian Army brigade headquarters in Jammu and Kashmirs Uri on Sunday, killing 17 soldiers in the most deadly such attack in the northern region of Kashmir in recent years.

Four militants were confirmed killed after penetrating the base in Uri near the Lin e of Control with Pakistan, an army spokesperson said.

The attack began at 5.30am in the morning and militants breached the perimeter fence to enter the camp.

As it happened:

10:00pm: Jammu and Kashmir governor NN Vohra and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti chaired a high-level meeting at Raj Bhavan in Srinagar to review the security situation.The governor observed that in the background of the Poonch and Uri terror attacks, it was of crucial importance to enhance surveillance on the security of all vital civil and military establishments in the state.

9:50pm: Security has been beefed up in Himachal Pradesh and an alert sounded following the terrorist attack.

9:20pm: BJPs Ram Madhav says Western countries have recognized the fact that most of the global terror has been emerged for Pak

Visited the injured Soldiers in Hospital. Given necessary instruction to provide best of medical support to them. pic.twitter.com/ZF3Al3xTnJ  Manohar Parrikar (@manoharparrikar) September 18, 2016

9pm: Defence minister Manohar Parrikar said he reviewed the situation in Kashmir following the Uri attack. Instructed to take firm action against those responsible, he tweeted.

8:30pm: An alert has been sounded in Punjabs border districts of Pathankot and Gurdaspur. Tight vigil is being maintained near key installations including the Pathankot airforce base, which came under attack by militants earlier this year, and near India-Pakistan border areas.

An alert has been sounded in border districts of Pathankot and Gurdaspur in light of the terror attack in Uri, Pathankot SSP Rakesh Kaushal said.

7:20pm: Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi will visit Srinagar on Monday to review the security situation.

Following a directive of home minister Rajnath Singh, Mehrishi will visit Srinagar and attend a series of meetings with officials of the state government, army, police and paramilitary force and take stock of the situation in the state, official sources said. He is also expected to meet governor NN Vohra and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

7:00pm: Anti-Pakistan protests rocked Jammu and Udhampur districts against the killing of 17 jawans.

5:59pm: Defence minister briefed at Badami Bagh cantonment, will now visit the Army Hospital.

5:36pm: J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and governor to meet the heads of security forces and intelligence agencies at Raj Bhavan today to review security situation: ANI

5:03pm: Defence Minister has landed in Srinagar & is being briefed by Army Chief about the ground situation: DGMO

5:02pm: All intelligence agencies&security forces are working in close synergy & necessary action is being taken agnst various inputs received: DGMO

Indian army has conducted the entire operation in a deliberate and professional manner: DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh pic.twitter.com/VRUQICV738  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

4:56pm: I assure u that Indian army is prepared for any evil design by the adversary, & will give a befitting response: DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh

4:52pm: We recovered 4 AK 47 rifles, 4 Under Barrel Grenade Launchers and other war like stores from the 4 slain terrorists: DGMO

4:39pm: Since terrorists had some items which had Pak marking on that,Ive spoken to Pak DGMO on same raising concern: DGMO

4:37pm: All killed terrorists in Uri attack were foreign terrorists and initial reports suggest they were from JeM: DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh

13 to 14 men killed because of fire in the tent. DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh spoke to Pak DGMO regarding the #UriAttack  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

4:25pm: Army chief General Dalbir Singh back in Srinagar after visiting Uri: HT reporter

4:09pm: We dont believe that it is a terrorist attack, it is planned attack by Pak: Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena

4:08pm: Strongly condemn outrageous terrorist attack on Army base in Uri; tributes to brave soldiers who made supreme sacrifice: PresidentMukherjee

India will not be cowed down by such attacks, we will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) September 18, 2016

Heartfelt condolences to families of those bereaved in Uri terrorist attack; prayers for speedy recovery of injured #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) September 18, 2016

3:37pm: Strongly condemn UriAttack. Attack seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region, says J-K CM: ANI

J&K has always been worst victim of Indo-Pak hostility & its ppl have been paying a colossal price for same for past over 6 decades: J&K CM  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

3pm: Army chief Gen Dalbir Suhag on his way to Uri: HT reporter

2: 45pm: US strongly condemns UriAttack. Our thoughts are with families of soldiers who lost their lives, says US ambassador to India Richard Verma: ANI

I have apprised the PM Shri @narendramodi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting held at my residence this afternoon  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

2:25pm: Home minister Rajnath Singh calls Pakistan a terrorist state and says it should be identified and isolated as such.

There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Gen Dalbir Singh #COAS reaches Srinagar. Recd by Army Cdr NC & Chinar Corps Cdr. Will review situation & plans. pic.twitter.com/fw3Hma4pYe  ADG PI - INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) September 18, 2016

2:15pm: Terrorist groups are just front;these attacks are planned by ISI&Pak army.Its state-sponsored attack:Former home secretary RKSingh.

If you term it as terror attack, you're misleading yourself.Only way to handle these attacks is to hit back:RK Singh pic.twitter.com/IL5aGezW73  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Heard heavy gunfire in early morning hours, and then I saw black smoke outside: Resident of Uri (J&K) #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/8UCx7lye9n  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

1:50pm: Home ministry and defence ministry officials leave home ministers residence after the high level meeting: ANI

Delhi: MHA & MoD officials leave HM's residence after attending high level security meet chaired by HM Rajnath Singh pic.twitter.com/W6ri71ykVd  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Strongly condemn cowardly attack at Uri in which 17 soldiers lost lives. India cannot be cowed down by such attacks.  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) September 18, 2016

1:38pm: Army chief reaches Srinagar, likely to go to Uri in sometime: HT reporter.

1:33pm: CPM leader Sitaram Yechury condemns Uri attack, says Pakistan must refrain from indulging in cross border terrorism and the matter should be taken up seriously: ANI

Terrorism is not the solution to Kashmir issue.Can only be solved through pol dialogue with all stakeholders-Yechury pic.twitter.com/8VRtdG1XXJ  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

1:30pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemns Uri attack, says he has spoken to the home minister and defence minister to take stock of the situation.

Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

1:19pm: Army chief General Dalbir Singh reaches Srinagar, will meet soldiers injured in Uri attack.

12:57pm: At least nine injured soldiers are critical, says HT reporter from Srinagar quoting sources. Death toll might rise.

Alert sounded in Punjab after terrorist attack in J&K's Uri, extra vigil along the international border. #UriAttack  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

12:52pm: Home minister Rajnath Singh chairs high level security meet. NSA, Home Secy,IB Chief present.

Delhi: HM Rajnath Singh chairs high level security meet. NSA, Home Secy,IB Chief present (Inside Visuals) #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/MYUAiqa9ro  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

12:49pm: Bodies of all four militants have been recovered, reports HT correspondent.

12:48pm: Congress President Sonia Gandhi expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian soldiers in the dastardly terrorist attack in Uri. Describing the cowardly terror attack as a deplorable affront on our national conscience, Gandhi expressed hope that the perpetrators of this dastardly attack as also the forces behind them would be severely dealt with and brought to book.

Delhi: NSA Ajit Doval arrives at HM Rajnath Singh's residence to attend High level security meet pic.twitter.com/4sgGaEsLLa  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

12:28pm: Northern and western Commands of the Army and the BSF sound high alert along 744 km long LoC and 198 km International Border in Jammu and Kashmir: HT reporter

While army and BSF have upped security on the borders, army formations and bases wil be further fortified following todays attack, said an army officer in Jammu.

This attack has obviously compelled us to have a thorough re-look at all the army formations and bases and a detailed security audit will be conducted shortly, he added.

Terrible news from Uri, 17 soldiers killed & many injured. May their souls rest in peace. Prayers for their families as also for the injured  Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) September 18, 2016

12:10pm: Defence minister and the Army chief will be reaching Srinagar in sometime. Initial meeting will be held in Srinagar after which they will fly to Uri: HT reporter.

12:08pm: Around 30 soldiers have been injured in the attack, many ot them seriously, says HT reporter. The injured have been brought to army base hospital in Srinagar.

12:04pm: Home Minister Rajnath Singh has briefed PM Narendra Modi on Uri encounter, reports ANI.

11.54am: Ministry of home affairs issues alert for all airports across the country in wake of the terrorist attack in Uri.

11:40am: Northern Command chief Lt Gen DS Hooda has rushed to Srinagar following the attack Uri army base.

Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh is also reaching Srinagar and from 15 Corps headquarters he along with Gen Hooda will be flying to Uri, said defence spokesperson Col SD Goswami.

11:36am: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi condemns Uri attack.

Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) September 18, 2016

11:35am: One battalion was being moved and another was taking over, most soldiers in transit were staying in tents. The tents caught fire in the initial stages of the attack. Sources say 12 casualties occurred due to fire and others lost life in gunfight with militants.

11:20am: Indian Army statement: On the early hours of 18 September 2016, a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, Kashmir. In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress. The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation.

11:01am: Defence Minister Parrikar to visit Srinagar today in wake of the terror attack in Uri (J&K), reports ANI.

11am: 17 soldiers killed in Uri terror attack: Armys Northern Command, reports PTI. The army death toll is the worst in Kashmir since a raid in December 2014, also near Uri, in which eight soldiers and three police were killed.

10:59am: Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh to visit Kashmir in the wake of terror attack in Uri, PTI reports.

10:15am: All four terrorists gunned down by Army, who attacked Rear Base of one of the unit deployed at Uri (J&K). Search operation on, army sources said.

10:10am: An army spokesperson said four militants have been killed in the Uri terror attack, reports PTI.

9:57am: High level security meet to take place at HM Rajnath Singhs residence at 12:15pm, senior MHA and MoD officials to attend the meet, reports ANI.

9:25am: Security forces have strengthened security in Uri and on roads connecting the Line of Control (LoC).

9am: Jammu and Kashmir governor NN Vohra and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti apprise Rajnath Singh regarding the situation in Uri.

Singh also instructed home secretary and other senior officers in Ministry of home affairs to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, ANI reported.

8:50am: Rajnath Singh calls an emergency meeting as the encounter in Kashmir army camp continues.

8:25am: Two army personnel killed in Uri attack, senior Jammu and Kashmir police official confirms. Of the 6 injured, one is in a critical condition.

8:10am: Home minister Rajnath Singh postpones his visit to Russia and US because of Kashmir encounter.

Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

8:00am: Armys special forces had airdropped in Uri where the encounter was on.

The Army has sent three choppers from armys 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla to Uri, ANI reported.

#Firstvisuals: Terrorist attack at army's Brigade Headquarter in Uri (J&K). Presence of 3-4 terrorists suspected. pic.twitter.com/4iRX0Rceff  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

7:50am: 6 army personnel were reported to be injured in the attack.

7:30am: News agency ANI said 3-4 militants were suspected to be involved in the attack.

7:15am: A police officer said militants sneaked into the army camp in Uri town before dawn and used guns and grenades to target the soldiers.

7:00am: Police sources said some barracks caught fire in the encounter. The number of militants involved in the attack is not known yet.

Police sources told HT that reports of increased infiltration since the summer unrest have been coming from the area, which is close to the Line of Control (LoC).

Uri, a town west of Srinagar, houses the Indian Armys brigade headquarters in the region along the de facto border.

Kashmir has witnessed violent protests since the July 8 killing of a popular rebel commander by security forces.

Read | Despite injuries, Kashmir pellet victims stay defiant, yearn for azadi

(With inputs from agencies)

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Suspected militants on Saturday evening made away with four rifles from guards at the residence of a PDP leader in Jammu and Kashmirs Anantnag district, police said.

Police said militants snatched four service rifles from guards of Javaid Ahmad, district Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president at his residence in Dialgam village of Anantnag.

An FIR has been registered in the incident and investigations have been started by detaining the guards from whose possession the weapons were snatched, a police official said.
The Army on Sunday said the four terrorists killed after an attack in Jammu and Kashmir left 17 soldiers dead were foreigners and belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit.

All four killed were foreign terrorists and had some items with them which had Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, told reporters here.

Jaish-e-Mohammed was also blamed for the January attack on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot in Punjab.

Gen Ranbir Singh said he had spoken to his Pakistan counterpart and conveyed our serious concerns over cross border terrorism and the Uri attack -- one of the deadliest in nearly three decades of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.

He said four AK-47 rifles and four under barrel grenade launchers along with a large number of other war like stores were recovered from the slain terrorists.

The DGMO also said 13 or 14 of the 17 deaths occurred due to a fire after militants hurled grenades at temporary structures erected near the 12 Brigade headquarters in the mountainous terrain of Uri -- close to the Line of Control, a de facto border that divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

The terrorists fired incendiary ammunition along with automatic fire of small arms that led to army tents, temporary shelters catching fire. The tents located in the complex were to house additional troops inducted due to routine turnover of units.

We salute the supreme sacrifice made by our brave soldiers following the highest traditions of Indian Army.

He said army remained prepared to thwart any nefarious designs and any evil designs of the adversary shall be given a befitting reply.

Gen Ranbir Singh said intelligence agencies were working in close synergy with the security forces and regular intelligence inputs were received from concerned agencies and necessary action was being taken accordingly.

He said the operation for clearance of the area was still on and as such, complete details of the operation are not yet available.
Under fire over the bail to former RJD MP from Siwan, Shahabuddin, the Janata Dal (United ) tried to deflect the criticism when its spokesperson Pawan Verma said the state government had moved the Supreme Court against it.

Verma said the Bihar government did not have any role in the release of the ex-MP, as the case was in court and the courts verdict was based on technicalities.

"That the state has moved the Supreme Court in the case exemplifies the state's intentions, he said on Friday.

He stoutly defended the track record of grand alliance in maintaining law and order in the state. "The Nitish administration has sent 95,000 criminals to jail. Even in cases involving JD(U) members, the administration has not flinched from taking decisions, or interfered with the legal process," Verma said.

It is the same administration, which sent its own legislator Anant Singh to jail for crime. In the Gaya road rage case case, accused Rocky Yadavs family members, including his JD (U) MLC mother, were arrested. The Nitish administration has not worked with any bias in any case and has always held that the due process of law should apply, irrespective of the importance of the person involved," Verma said.

BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, on the other hand, said: "In a face-saving move, the state government has been forced to approach the Supreme Court after the public outcry over bail to the ex-MP."

The government has been cornered. It should first explain why the trial against the ex-MP in various cases was delayed. There was a well-planned conspiracy to bring him out of jail and allow him to resume his role in the political process, Modi said.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad has said that the controversy over Shahabuddin getting bail was created by the BJP and the media, and that the matter should be decided only by the court.

On his part, Shahabuddin had also downplayed the NDA's demand for his re-arrest and put the ball in Nitish Kumar's court while asserting that if the process is initiated, then it would be an administrative decision.

"Those who are prone to stress over such matters, may take the developments seriously. I do not. These things keep happening. I am not concerned", he told the media.

"I will do what I have to do. I have always been the way I want. Whatever the government wants to do...can do...what can I comment on that?. I have received no notice till now," he added.
The Uri military base attacked by militants on Sunday morning is one of the armys most important garrisons in Kashmir and guards the Line of Control, which is Indias de-factor border with Pakistan.

The base acts as the brigade headquarters and houses 12,000-13,000 soldiers at any given point, many of them in transit from their line of duty.

The important base is vulnerable to attack from across the border as it can be approached from the LoC on three sides, one of them as close as six kilometers away from the LoC.

Read | Live updates on Uri attack

The extremists may have taken advantage of this, sneaking into the camp at 5.30am and using guns and grenades to target soldiers, triggering a fierce gunbattle that raged on for hours.

The base is also located in the plains and is under constant observation from Pakistani army posts higher in the mountains.

Uri  a garrison town with little anti-India sentiment  has been targeted by militants before. A raid in December 2014, also near Uri, had killed eight soldiers and three policemen.

They killed 17 soldiers and injured more than 30 in the worst single attack on the army in 26 years. All four militants were killed and their bodies recovered.

Many of the soldiers were killed in their sleep in a blaze that broke out shortly after the encounter began in makeshift tents used by personnel in transit.

Read | Rajnath postpones Russia, US visits after Uri attack; holds emergency meeting
Defence minister Manohar Parrikar said on Saturday that Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals tongue had to be trimmed as it had grown long due to speaking much against the Prime Minister and him.

In Delhi, he speaks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and here (in Goa) he speaks against me. Due to this his tongue has grown big, and now it had to be trimmed, Parrikar said addressing core group of workers in Goa ahead of the state legislative assembly polls.

But, Parrikar was quick enough to add, I sympathise with him (Kejriwal) as he is on sick leave.

#WATCH Defence minister Manohar Parrikar comments on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's surgery, in Goa (September 17) pic.twitter.com/8H1g234gUl  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

The defence minister also took a dig at the AAP leaders for abandoning Delhi when the state was reeling under chikungunya and dengue attack killing 40 people.

If your Mohalla clinics were so much effective, then how come 40 people died due to chikungunya. The lies of AAP are getting exposed in Delhi after the incident, he said.

He said the AAP leaders are currently on world tour after cheating the people of Delhi, with its deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in Finland.

From where does AAP get the money? They spent Rs 26.82 crore merely on advertisement budget, Parrikar added.

Referring to the sacked Delhi minister Sandeep Kumar, who was arrested on charges of rape on a complaint of a woman who figured in an objectionable video with him, Parrikar said, AAP leaders are found exploiting a woman merely to give a ration card.

The woman had alleged that she was raped by Kumar when she had gone to his office in outer Delhis Sultanpuri, seeking help to obtain a ration card.

Parrikar also quoted a joke circulated widely on the Whatsapp messenger, which says that Tihar superintendent has written to Delhi governor, asking to make him the CM as he has majority of AAP MLAs with him (in jail).

Goa chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar, while addressing the workers, said the concept of mohalla clinics introduced by AAP in Goa is unwarranted as BJP-led government has already made treatment in the private hospitals and government-run hospitals free of cost by introducing health insurance scheme.
Kozhikode in north Kerala is all decked up to host the three-day national council meeting of the BJP which begins on September 23. At least 2500 delegates including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team of ministers are scheduled to attend the meet.

The national council meeting will be dedicated to its ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya who became the president of the Jan Sangh, the BJPs forerunner. Upadhyaya was elected president of the Jan Sangh in 1937 at the party conclave in Kozhikode then known as Calicut. He was assassinated 41 days later in Mugalsari railway station in Uttar Pradesh. This is also Upadhyayas centenary year.

A huge air-conditioned tent spread across 1.50 lakh sq feet is being readied at the venue named as Swapna Nagari. A German technique, sans pillars and poles, has been used to erect it. It will be handed over to the special protection group (SPG) in a couple of days.

Arrangements are in final stages. Last week we conducted a door-to-door meet to invite people for the meet, said party state chief Kummanam Rajsekharan.

The PM will arrive in the city on September 24. He is scheduled to participate in a public meeting at Kozikokde beach while BJP president Amit Shah will address the delegates the next day when Modi will also give his concluding address.

Ahead of the meeting the city is getting a makeover. Pot holes are being filled up, government buildings are getting a fresh coat of paint and the ever-flickering street lights are coming to life in the ancient city where Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama landed in 1498.

The BJP is also planning a gala bash and arrangements are almost like former PM A B Vajpayees Kumarakom year-end retreat in 2000 that gave a major fillip to the states tourism sector.

On the final day a typical Onam sadya (feast) with 100-odd dishes is being planned. Well known chef Pazayidam Mohanan Namboodri has been roped in for the exercise. Many well-known personalities have also been lined up , including former sprint queen P T Ushawho has been made the chairperson of the organizing committee.

BJP leaders feel that the meet will boost the partys prospects in south India. In the recent assembly election in Kerala, the BJP had managed to open its account and more than double its vote share from 7 to 15 per cent. It is also planning to take up the issue of violent clashes between Marxist cadres and RSS in Kannur in a big way. A delegation of party MPs led by Bhoopendra Yadav is presently visiting the violence-hit areas.
Pakistan is a terrorist state and should be identified and isolated, home minister Rajnath Singh said on Sunday, blaming Islamabad for Sundays militant attack in north Kashmirs Uri that left 17 soldiers dead.

In a series of strongly worded tweets, the home minister said there was conclusive evidence that the group of four heavily armed attackers were highly trained.

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups, he wrote on the microblogging site.

Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

The attack in the Kashmiri garrison town was the worst on the Indian army in 26 years, since militancy broke out in the Valley in the 1990s. Uri is a strategic army base where 12,000 soldiers are stationed and guard the Line of Control.

Singh chaired a meeting to review the situation after the attack earlier in the day and later said he had briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi about it. I have apprised the PM regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting held at my residence this afternoon, he tweeted.

There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

National security adviser Ajit Doval, home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Intelligence Bureau special director Rajiv Jain and other senior officials from ministries of home and defence participated in the meeting chaired by Singh.

I have apprised the PM Shri @narendramodi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting held at my residence this afternoon  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Singhs comments came hours after the bodies of the militants were recovered and combing operations began.

Modi earlier vowed to punish those behind the cowardly and despicable attack that also left four militants dead and scores of soldiers injured.

Singh was scheduled to leave for trips to Russia and the US which he postponed following the attack.

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Pakistan on Sunday refuted as unfounded and premature Indias charge that it was behind the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmirs Uri that killed 17 soldiers, with its army demanding actionable intelligence to support New Delhis accusation.

Following the dawn attack, India blamed Pakistan for the latest attack on the Indian Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh directly attacked Pakistan saying it was a terrorist state and should be isolated.

Pakistan army spokesperson Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said that following the attack Director General of Military Operation (DGMO) of the two countries discussed the situation along the Line of Control through hotline.

Refuting the unfounded and pre-mature Indian allegation, Pakistani DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence, Radio Pakistan reported citing an ISPR release.

Bajwa reiterated that no infiltration was allowed from the Pakistani soil because of water-tight arrangements in place on both sides of LoC and the Working Boundary.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmirs Uri town in the wee hours, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.
Asserting that those behind the attack on the Army base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir will face the consequences, union minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said India will intensify diplomatic efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally.

Holding Pakistan responsible for the attack, in which 17 armymen were killed and 19 injured, he said since independence, Pakistan has not accepted Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of India and this is the reason that terror attacks happen in the country with its support.

Jaitley described the terror strike as a highly condemnable act of cowardice and a major challenge for the forces.

The perpetrators of the Uri terror attack will face consequences. Diplomatic efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally will be intensified, he said.

In a series of tweets on microblogging site, the Finance Minister said, Perpetrators of Uri terror attack shall be punished. My thoughts & prayers are with families of our soldiers injured & martyred.

Uri terror attack is a highly condemnable act of cowardice. Salute to our soldiers who gave supreme sacrifice to protect the motherland. he said in a tweet.

Earlier, he had said that security forces will have to work on their strategy to deal with fidayeen attacks by terrorists which have emerged as a major challenge.

These are challenges to our security, the Finance Minister had said, condemning the terrorist attack on a camp at Armys Brigade Headquarters in Uri town.

.. Pathankot and Uri (terror attacks) appear to indicate that these (fidayeen attacks) have restarted again. And I think this is a major challenge which I am sure our security forces will gear up to respond, Jaitley told reporters.

He said that in recent years there had been an increasing reliance on activities like stone throwing agitations which were instigated from across the border.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmirs Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

In January, seven military personnel were killed when six terrorists attacked the Pathankot air base.
In one of the deadliest attacks on the Indian Army, heavily armed militants attacked a strategically important military base in north Kashmirs Uri on Sunday morning and killed 17 soldiers.

Read | Kashmirs Uri attacked: Why the key Indian Army base is on militants radar

Weve compiled here a timeline of some of the biggest militant attacks on security forces going back over a decade:

 May 22, 2016

Casualty: Six soldiers of 29 Assam Rifles

Location: Chandel district in Manipur

 January 2, 2016

Casualty: Seven security personnel and four attackers killed

Location: Pathankot Air Force Station

 June 4, 2015

Casualty: 17 armymen killed and at least 16 injured

Location: Army convoy ambushed in Manipurs Chandel district

 December 5, 2014

Casualty: Eight army and three police personnel; eight militants; and two civilians

Location: Separate attacks in Uri, Ahmadnagar, Shopian and Pulwama

 June 24, 2013

Casualty: 10 armymen

Location: Hyderpora, outskirts of Srinagar

 July 19, 2008

Casualty: 10 armymen

Location: IED blast at Narbal Crossing, outskirts of Srinagar

 June 24, 2005

Casualty: Nine soldiers killed, and 21 others injuried

Location: Rashtriya Rifles convoy targeted along the Dal Lake, Srinagar

 May 23, 2004

Casualty: At least 30 people, including 19 BSF personnel, killed

Location: IED explosion at Lower Munda, near Qazigund, on the Srinagar-Jammu highway

 June 28, 2003

Casualty: 12 soldiers killed

Location: Suicide attack on army installation at the Dogra Regiment camp in Sunjwan, on the outskirts of Jammu city

 May 14, 2002

Casualty: 34 people, including 22 army men, killed

Location: Militants stormed an army camp and attacked families of soldiers at Kaluchak, about 10 km from Jammu
The death of 17 soldiers and four militants during an attack on army camp in Jammu and Kashmirs Uri town led to a rather unusual start on Sunday for Indians across the country and beyond.

The incident brought forth innumerous indignant and furious comments on social media. While many vilified the Indian government for not taking a firm stand, others chose to condemn the attack as inexcusable and cowardly. Many expressed strong discontent at the governments impotent attitude of dealing with such attacks.

Following are some of the reactions on Twitter:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished. He further said,

We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi tweeted,

Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) September 18, 2016

Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah tweeted, Terrible news from Uri, 17 soldiers killed & many injured. May their souls rest in peace. Prayers for the families as also for the injured.

While we work out who is to blame for #Uri & what an appropriate response will be do we not owe our troops flame retardant tents & huts?  Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) September 18, 2016

We owe it to our jawans to give them the best that we can because they are the 1st to lay down their lives & sacrifice everything for us.  Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) September 18, 2016

Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav tweeted,

Totally condemn #UriAttack on our brave soldiers.Thr must not be any compromise on our national security on name of peace & foreign policy.  Tejashwi Yadav (@yadavtejashwi) September 18, 2016

Congress leader Ahmed Patel tweeted,

The Government must deal strongly with terrorist activities, and act fast to bring situation under control 2/2 #UriAttack  Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) September 18, 2016

Former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot tweeted,

Strongly condemn cowardly #terrorist attack on army base in #Uri. My deepest condolences on martyrdom of our 17 brave soldiers.#UriAttack  Ashok Gehlot (@ashokgehlot51) September 18, 2016

Others, including army generals, ex-servicemen, actors, sportspersons, journalist and even the general public urged the government to retaliate:

Sudhir Chaudhary, journalist

17Jawans killed in #UriAttack .Its their supreme sacrifice but for how long?Hightime to stopQuestioning&give Army freehand to destroy terror  Sudhir Chaudhary (@sudhirchaudhary) September 18, 2016

Shah Rukh Khan, actor

Saddened to hear of the cowardly attack in Uri. Prayers for the families of our martyred soldiers. & may the terrorists b punished soon!  Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) September 18, 2016

Navdeep Singh

So easy calling out for War from the drawingroom when you do not wear uniform or have no relative serving in uniform. Is War entertainment?  Navdeep Singh (@SinghNavdeep) August 23, 2014

.

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An Indian Army brigade headquarters in Jammu and Kashmirs Uri was attacked by armed militants on Sunday. Four militants were confirmed killed after the hours-long battle, which also claimed the lives of 17 soldiers  making it the most deadly attack in the northern region of the state in recent years.

Though the nationality of the assailants was yet to be confirmed, many were quick to point fingers at Pakistan on Twitter, also calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take retaliatory action. Others attempted to justify the attack as a reaction to alleged rights violations in Kashmir and the PMs overtures about Balochistan.

India's national security has been seriously compromised on account of failed foreign policy and a weak, incompetent leadership. #UriAttack  Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) September 18, 2016

Dear @narendramodi, entire nation is looking at you. They elected you for your promises. When will you walk the talk. #UriAttack  Manak Gupta (@manakgupta) September 18, 2016

#UriAttack

Enough @narendramodi sir

17 soldiers martyred.

Retaliate.

Pakistanis have chosen war.

Let them have it. pic.twitter.com/gotWFf0FMm  UTKARSH KUMAR SHAHI (@ukshahi) September 18, 2016

If Pakistan thinks #UriAttack will have usual Indian non-response, it's delusional. This India has moved on from old strategic restraint  Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) September 18, 2016

Can i ask Mr PM @narendramodi . Why are you still sleeping? #UriAttack

. pic.twitter.com/U2xNm4rH14  PhD in Bak***** (@Atheist_Krishna) September 18, 2016

From the other side of the border, some Pakistanis justified the attack as a reaction to Indias attempts to quell protests in Kashmir.

Every action has reaction. #UriAttack  Mehrban Arif Awan (@MaMehrban) September 18, 2016

Kashmiri independence movement would succeed InshaAllah... that said innocent civilians must not be a target #UriAttack  Umar#Freedom4Kashmir (@ufmalik786) September 18, 2016

Indian army is good only in abusing and killing unarmed people. They lack skills to face combatants.. #UriAttack  Aid Khan (@A_KhanX2) September 18, 2016

The timing of the attack  when India planned to raise the issue of state sponsorship of terrorism at the United Nations  was also called into question.

Indians trying to build a case of persecution just before #UNGA . Such low-end tactics won't do any good#UriAttack  usman idrees (@usmanidrees90) September 18, 2016

The #Uri attack comes as Pakistan is ready to raise #Kashmir at UN. Should make some heads roll.   - M Syed (@seenmeme) September 18, 2016

Read | Uri terror attack: Rajnath postpones Russia, US visits; calls emergency meeting
Heavily armed militants attacked an army base in north Kashmir early Sunday and killed 17 soldiers, triggering calls for a swift retaliation that could squeeze the space for any detente between India and Pakistan.

The dawn raid surprised soldiers in their sleep as attackers lobbed grenades and set fire to a building. The blaze killed 12 troopers and the rest died in gunfight, sources added. TV images showed helicopters flying to evacuate the wounded and smoke billowing from the mountainous base at Uri, which houses about 12,000 troops.

Soldiers killed four fidayeen - or commando-style gunmen willing to fight to death  after an hours-long gun battle to end what was the worst single attack on the army in years. More than 20 soldiers were wounded, some of them seriously.

The attack jeopardised hopes of peace returning quickly to Kashmir that has been rocked by two months of violent protests in which 86 people have been killed died and thousands injured.

Sources said the raid was part of a fresh wave of infiltration by militants from across the Line of Control, the heavily militarised de-facto border with Pakistan.

A top army official said the attack pointed to the involvement of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e Mohammad, which was also blamed by India for the Pathankot airbase attack in January. Islamabad denied any involvement.

Sundays attack led to calls for an aggressive response, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing to punish those behind the cowardly and despicable attack.

I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished, Modi said in a series of tweets.

No one has so far claimed responsibility but home minister Rajnath Singh hit out at Pakistan, calling it a terror state that needed to be identified and isolated.

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups, he tweeted.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, director general of military operations, said the militants could be from the JeM as equipment recovered from them had Pakistan markings. He said four AK-47 rifles, four under barrel grenade launchers and ammunition were recovered from the dead militants.

Islamabad rejected the charge with foreign office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria saying that New Delhi always blamed Pakistan for such incidents even before completing a probe.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar visited Srinagar for a meeting with top army commanders and home minister Rajnath Singh cancelled scheduled trips to Russia and the United States. Army chief Dalbir Singh and northern command head DS Hooda also rushed to Uri.

The attack is likely to further roil Kashmir that army sources say has seen scores of infiltration attempts since protests broke out against insurgent leader Burhan Wanis killing in July.

The Uri attack came within hours of the Uttarakhand police chief revealing that the Centre had sent out an alert for possible terrorist strike on defence installations in North India.
The option of India launching covert military strikes inside Pakistani territory is in focus following Sundays militant strike on an army base in Kashmirs Uri town.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured the country that those behind the attack will not go unpunished. Although no group claimed responsibility for the strike that killed 17 soldiers, home minister Rajnath Singh pointed fingers at Pakistan, calling it a terrorist state and condemning its continuing and direct support to terrorism and terrorists.

So, what are Indias options? A swift, covert strike on terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is seen as one of the best ways to send the message across to Islamabad. New Delhi had opted for surgical strikes across the border in Myanmar after 18 soldiers were killed in an ambush in Manipur last June.

Indias special forces rank among the most professional and respected fighting units in the world. They are trained to carry out surgical strike operations and deploy deep behind enemy lines, say military experts. They say the militarys response will depend on the political resolve of the ruling dispensation.

LIVE| 17 soldiers, 4 militants killed in Uri terror attack

The pieces of the jigsaw will fall into place only if there is sufficient consensus within the political system for developing such capability and fixing rules for its use.

Experts, however, also point to pitfalls of military machismo. The consequences of Pakistan being a nuclear-armed state, which advocates first use, have to be weighed in before launching an operation.

Pakistani deterrence revolves around first use. A covert assault by India could have disastrous consequences. Israel, the acknowledged master of targeted ops, has no nuclear armed opponents, partly because it keeps destroying nuclear facilities of its enemies.

As borne out by Operation Geronimo- in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden in a covert operation in Pakistan in 2011- such operations are no instant coffee. Developing capacity and chasing down targets will and can take years on end, experts say.

Why India could carry out targeted ops

1. It has Special Forces and a large military considered among the most professional in the world. Indian Special Forces have beaten their counterparts from other countries in competitions.

2. India lives in a tough neighbourhood. It needs to be able to punish countries or attack non-state actors at a threshold below full-scale war. One reason it gets hit by terrorists is that they know there will never be a military response.

3. India is now close to countries such as Israel who specialise in such attacks. India is the largest buyer of Israeli arms. It should consider importing Israels know-how in this field as well.

Why India cannot carry out targeted ops

1. Indias main two security threats are Pakistan and China. Both are nuclear-armed countries. A targeted operation could lead to military escalation and push the region into an atomic crisis. No country with nuclear weapons has been hit by targeted ops.

2. It would require a complete, decade-long revamp of Indias military, intelligence and political decision-making system to get targeted ops capacity. This is an enormous task and given the countrys many other pressing domestic problems, probably best not undertaken.

3. India is positioning itself as a responsible rising power. Pakistan can afford to support terror strikes because it has no such ambition. The United States is a country that is an established power. India needs to carve out a place for itself before it can afford to take military gambles.

Read| Kashmirs Uri attacked: Why the key Indian Army base is on militants radar

Full Coverage| Uri Terror Attack


Enraged over the terror attack on an army battalion in Uri, former army generals on Sunday sought urgent action against Pakistan, including keeping the military option open to deal with terror from its soil.

We must have our military option open, if required to strike at certain places, Lt Gen (Retd) B S Jaswal said at New delhi.

Bring pickets, which have launch pad to the ground, raze them to the ground. The reason is that till the time it does not hurt Pakistan physically, they would not respect (rpt) respect our decency, Jaswal, who was GOC-in-C of the Northern Command, said.

Pakistan keeps doing it (terror strikes) again and again knowing that we would not take any action, Major (Retd) Gaurav Arya, who has expertise in Jammu and Kashmir security situation, said.

The problems in Kashmir are systematically manufactured at the GHQ in Rawalpindi, he alleged, adding We must take immediate action. Stop trade with Pakistan, downgrade (its) Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status. The world must know we are serious.

Questioning the absence of two service chiefs at the meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh to take stock of the situation after the attack, former army chief Gen Gen Shankar Roy Chowdhury said these actions were coming from Pakistan.

We have this meeting chaired by No 2 in the Government, that is the Home Minister, where the RAW chief and CRPF chief are present. Who is doing these actions (terror attacks)? It is coming from across the border, from Pakistan, he said.

Is the CRPF chief going to look at Pakistan? Where are the Chief of Army and Chief of Naval Staff? Why they were not available to give (advice on) strategic action to the Government, he asked.
India on Sunday said the terrorist attack in Uri in Kashmir has highlighted Pakistans desire to use poison instead of dialogue as it lodged a strong protest against Islamabad at the NAM summit for its mischievous and malignant support to terror.

Minister of state for external affairs MJ Akbar hit out at Pakistan, saying it has reduced itself to pariah status in the international community because of its hypocrisy and its blatant sponsorship of terrorism and of terrorists.

Speaking to reporters after Pakistan prime ministers advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz raised the Kashmir issue here at the 17th Non-Aligned Movement Summit, Akbar slammed Pakistan for giving sanctuary and support, both domestic and international to terrorists and investing in the evil menace of terrorism.

He said India has lodged a strong protest in writing with NAM against Pakistans mischievous, malignant use of terrorism particularly evident even while the summit is taking place in the tragic incident at Uri.

The tragic incident at Uri has highlighted Pakistans desire to use poison instead of dialogue. We will never accept the use of brutality as an instrument in international affairs, he said.

The incident in Uri is a grave incident and not only India but the world is aggrieved by it. Pakistan should understand that it will be given a befitting reply and no one will back Pakistan on this, he asserted.

Seventeen Indian soldiers where killed in a terror attack on an army base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir by suspected Pakistan-based militants early on Sunday.

Aziz, in his address as the Pakistan delegation head, had said peace in South Asia cannot be achieved without the settlement of the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council.

Akbar said that one of the important developments of the NAM summit was the fact that 118 nations out of 120 supported a stand on terrorism and wanted a working group on terrorism.

The incoming president of NAM has assured us that terrorism will be high if not the highest on his objectives. He supports the need for a working group. I think all countries understand that irrespective of what might be attributed as reasons terrorism is now completely unacceptable to the world community, Akbar said.

Pakistans inability to support the idea of a working group is further evidence that it has always been a sponsor. If it was not a sponsor why was it afraid of setting up a working group, Akbar asserted.

Asked about Pakistans continuous campaign of raising Kashmir on global platforms, Akbar said, The world understands that our position in Kashmir is legitimate. It has the backing of history and equally important it has the backing of moral behaviour in international affairs.

And that is why Pakistans continuous invidious attempts to keep raising the issue get no traction. Its a voice crying in the wilderness, he said.
The director general of military operations said on Sunday initial reports showed four militants who attacked a strategic army base in north Kashmirs Uri and killed 17 soldiers were from the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said the equipment carried by the attackers bore Pakistani markings and he had spoken to his counterpart from across the border to convey his serious concern. Singh said the Indian Army was prepared to thwart the adversarys nefarious designs, warning of a befitting response to the attack.

Live updates on Uri attack here

Thirteen to 14 casualties of the 17 killed were primarily because of tents and temporary shelter catching fire, the DGMO said.

The Sunday attack squeezed the space for an India-Pakistan dialogue, triggering calls for a fierce retaliation against Islamabad, seen to be behind the strike.

Four fidayeen - or commando-style gunmen willing to fight to the death - were confirmed killed after sneaking into the base near the Line of Control with Pakistan, the worst single attack on the army in 26 years.

More than 30 soldiers were injured, many of them critically, stoking fears that the death toll will rise.

Read: Uri terror attack blow to already strained India-Pakistan relations

The strike jeopardised hopes of peace returning quickly to the Valley that has been rocked by two months of violent protests that have killed 86 people and injured thousands.

Sources said the attack was part of a fresh wave of infiltration by militants who the government blames for instigating Kashmiris and stirring unrest.

Follow full coverage on Uri attack here

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.

The dawn raid surprised soldiers in their sleep as attackers set fire to a building. The blaze killed 12 soldiers and the rest died in the gunfight, sources added.

Television footage showed helicopters flying to evacuate the injured as smoke billowed from the base. The extremists sneaked into the camp at 5.30am and used guns and grenades to target soldiers, triggering a fierce gun battle that raged on for hours.

Read: Uri attack: India, Pak need special leadership to deny warmongers what they want

The camp is inhabited by soldiers who mostly guard the LoC. The garrison can be approached from three sides, one of which is just six kilometers away from the de-facto border with Pakistan. Police sources said there were intelligence inputs regarding a possible attack.

Army sources said one battalion was being moved after their tour of duty and another was taking over  with many soldiers staying in transit tents that caught fire in the initial stage of the encounter.

A militant raid in December 2014, also near Uri, had killed eight soldiers and three policemen. In February, the army lost three soldiers in the deadliest suicide bomber attack in Srinagar in many years.

Read: India puts blame on us without probe, we reject this: Pakistan on Uri attack

The attack is likely to further roil Kashmir that army sources say has seen scores of infiltration attempts since protests broke out against insurgent leader Burhan Wanis killing in July.

Home minister Rajnath Singh hit out at Pakistan, calling it a terror state that needed to be identified and isolated.

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups, he tweeted.

Many other army veterans demanded counter-terror operations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The base housed 12,000 troops stationed in temporary tents and shelters that caught fire in the encounter and caused the high number of casualties, a statement released from the armys northern command headquarters of Udhampur said.
The Sunday attack on an army camp in Uri that killed 17 Indian soldiers has pushed to the limit already strained India-Pakistan relations, with the risk of spiralling into violence and public recriminations that the two countries are known for in the international community.

There is widespread outrage in India over the deadly attack, and Delhi will likely conclude that a suicide attack with such high military casualties could not have been carried out without the imprimatur of the Pakistan Army and/or the ISI.

Rawalpindi has a number of motivations to sanction this attack  the principal one being to establish a measure of symbolic parity with India. From its vantage, it sees Delhi seizing the initiative and setting the pace of bilateral ties in recent weeks.

The Narendra Modi government has tackled brutally the civilian unrest in Kashmir and blamed the crisis on Islamabad. It has also gone on the offensive on Balochistan, following up on PM Modis Independence Day remarks by raising the issue at the UN human rights council on September 14. More is anticipated at the UN General Assembly soon.

The anti-Pakistan tenor of Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghanis visit to India will also have annoyed the Pakistan establishment. Signing off on such an attack would be to signal to Delhi that as a revisionist power, it too has some cards to play.

It is vital for the Modi government to quickly establish the provenance of this attack  to assess whether it originated in Pakistan or if there was a measure of local involvement in the operation as both will have different meanings and guide future policy.

If it is indeed the elements of the Pakistan establishment that were behind this then it is clear that Islamabad no longer wants to step back while Indias strong-arm tactics towards Kashmiri civilians continue. From Islamabads perspective, the unrest is a spontaneous uprising and it was keeping militancy in relative check to deny India the chance to represent the stone-pelters as being led by Pakistan. Since that has not held back Delhi, Islamabad perhaps feels that a spike in militancy will change Delhis calculations.

It is also possible that notwithstanding its moral support and concern for Kashmiris, Pakistan may have staged the attack to simply aggravate the situation for India. Islamabad has cynically used Kashmir to serve its own purposes in the past.

Indias response to a presumed provocation from across the border will evolve with time. New Delhi needs to urgently rethink its approach to Kashmir though. If the Uri attack had significant involvement of local Kashmiris then it is a sign of an implacable anger in the youth of the Valley, who have seen the killing of civilians in the last two months. That the youth in Kashmir are beginning to jettison pragmatic, self-preserving instincts and are contemplating armed violence again must worry Delhi.

There are calls in social media and in television studios for a strong reaction. The Modi government must ensure that reprisals against the neighbour do not translate into fresh crackdowns on Kashmiri civilians. That will make matters a lot worse and set in train events that may not be easy to control.

(Views expressed are personal. The author tweets as @SushilAaron )

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Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States in the wake of the attack in Uri and the unrest in Jammu and Kashmir and called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the terror strike.

Singh also spoke to the Jammu and Kashmir governor and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on the situation in Uri and both of them apprised him of the overall situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

Delhi: High level security meet to take place at HM Rajnath Singh's residence shortly, MHA & MoD officials to attend pic.twitter.com/QZSTJo3vvL  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

The home minister was scheduled to leave for Russia on Sunday night for a four-day bilateral visit and later to the US on September 26 for a six-day tour to attend the Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue.

Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US, he said in a statement in New Delhi.

I have given instructions to home secretary (Rajiv Mehrishi) and other officers in the home ministry to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, he added.

#WATCH HM Rajnath Singh chairs high level security meet in Delhi. NSA, Home Secy,IB Chief present #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/vjpQPq9QTD  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Terror struck an Army camp in North Kashmirs Uri town when militants stormed a battalion headquarters in the early hours on Sunday, leaving at least 17 soldiers dead. Four militants were also been killed.

The home minister also called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the attack on the Brigade Headquarters in Uri.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the Union home secretary, top Army, paramilitary and Home Ministry officials are attending it.

Delhi: NSA Ajit Doval arrives at HM Rajnath Singh's residence to attend High level security meet pic.twitter.com/4sgGaEsLLa  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

More than 80 people have been killed in the unrest in Kashmir Valley in the last two months ever since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on July 8.

This was for the second time that Singh has cancelled his trip to the US due to violence in Kashmir. Earlier, he was scheduled to leave for the US on July 17 for a week-long visit but it was postponed due to sudden eruption of violence in Kashmir after Wanis killing.
#Seoul mayor Seoul mayor cuts short visit to Europe after Itaewon stampede Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon arrived back home Sunday after cutting short his trip to Europe in the wake of the deadly crush in Seoul's Itaewon district that killed over 150 people. ...

#parties Ruling, opposition parties vow measures to handle aftermath of Itaewon stampede The ruling and opposition parties held emergency response meetings on Sunday to discuss ways to investigate the cause of a deadly stampede in Seoul's Itaewon district and handle th...
The US and Britain on Sunday strongly condemned the terrorist strike that killed 17 Indian soldiers at Uri in Kashmir and said they would work with India to fight terror.

The official reactions from both countries did not name Pakistan or the Jaish-e-Mohammed, which has been blamed by India for the attack. American experts agreed with the Indian assessment of the origin of the attack, if not the reasons for it.

The US statement issued by state department spokesman John Kirby said: The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack on an Indian army base in KashmirWe extend our condolences to the victims and their families. The United States is committed to our strong partnership with the Indian government to combat terrorism.

British foreign secretary Boris Johnson said in a statement that the UK strongly condemns the terrorist attack. I offer my deepest condolences to the victims and their families and friends. The UK condemns all forms of terrorism, and stands shoulder to shoulder with India in the fight against terrorism, and in bringing the perpetrators to justice, he added.

The phrase strong partnership in the US statement was a reiteration of secretary of state John Kerry remarks at a recent news briefing in New Delhi, where he had said, echoing India, that the US cannot and will not make distinction between good and bad terrorism.

The reference was to Pakistan making a distinction between good terrorists  those it uses as an instrument of its state policy such as the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan and Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed against India  and bad terrorists, such as the Pakistani Taliban responsible for many attacks on Pakistani soil.

Though the state department did not name Pakistan in its statement, it was clear to experts who was behind the attacks.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA operative and long-time expert on the region, said it was clearly the work of the Pakistan Army. It has been clear for several months that the Pakistan Army believes the situation in Kashmir is ripe for a re-intensification of the conflict and that India has few credible options to respond.

Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert with the Wilson Center, said while the strike could have been carried out by locals wanting to avenge Indian Army actions, given how well coordinated the attack was, I think its more likely this was planned from across the border.

Kugelman said it could have been caused by Prime Minister Narendra Modis recent comments about rights violations in Balochistan, the restive southwestern province of Pakistan.

(With agency inputs)
Following the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmirs Uri, hardline RSS affiliate, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), wants the Indian government to storm into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) to destroy terror camps and take control of what they assert is Indian territory.

The Uri attack on Sunday has given the Indian government legitimate reason to retaliate by entering PoK, VHPs international joint general secretary Surendra Jain told HT.

Unlike the BJP mentor RSS, which has in the past backed the governments Pakistan policy, the VHP demands India shed its soft approach towards Pakistan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to the 17 soldiers (killed in the Uri attack), but a real tribute would be to hunt down the terrorists who escaped to PoK and finish the terror camps, Jain said.

Urging the government to take a tough position vis-a-vis Pakistan, he said India must mount pressure to reclaim PoK and put an end to the imbroglio.

This is not the first time the Hindutva outfit has asked for a robust response to Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism in India.

After the Pathankot attack in January this year, the VHP had petitioned PM Modi to take strong action against the neighbour. A group of VHP leaders in Uttar Pradesh had even submitted a petition to the PM to declare war against Pakistan.

The shift in Indias policy by announcing that it will raise the issue of human rights violations in Balochistan at various levels has been hailed by the Hindutva outfit.

PM Modi had raised the issue of Balochistan (during this Independence Day speech), now is the time to take it forward, Jain said.

The RSS, which backed PM Modi when he called on his counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Lahore, had earlier called for caution after the Pathankot attack.

Dubbing Pakistan a rogue state, RSS joint general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale in June cautioned the government that it should not overlook the fact that past attempts to broker peace with the neighbour were met with aggression and terror strikes, such as the Kargil war and the Pathankot attack.

Hosable stressed India should be vigilant at all times, since Pakistan is administered by the army generals and not an elected government.

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The Uri attack that left 17 soldiers dead has triggered calls for India to shed strategic restraint and impose costs on Pakistan for engineering such strikes.

High-level security meetings are underway to devise a response. And there is a general air of uncertainty about what will come next in the already strained India-Pakistan ties.

The call for an aggressive response, especially on social media, comes in the backdrop of a perception that India has, for too long, taken Pakistani hostilities lying down.

As the rhetoric gets shriller, it is important to answer three questions.

What is this much-derided strategic restraint that India has been practising? Why has Delhi stuck to strategic restraint despite several provocations, including the 2008 Mumbai strike? And, what has changed now?

Broadly, strategic restraint meant that while India condemned an attack, raised the issue internationally, sought to expose Pakistans use of terror as a state policy and stepped up internal security, it did not launch a military counter-offensive.

Why?

For one, there is no easy option to inflict costs on Pakistan. Crossing the Line of Control -- even in hot pursuit  could mean an all out war. Given the nuclearisation of the subcontinent, it is too risky because unlike India, Pakistan doesnt adhere to the no-first use policy and has flirted with tactical nuclear weapons.

Second, the feeling was that even a surgical strike would drag India into a conflict, adversely hitting economy at home and the India story aboard.

Three, a military offensive is no guarantee of providing a solution to the crisis, which is unique.

If it was just about taking territory, Indian armed forces could well do it.

But the challenge is to force the Pakistani army to give up its policy of exporting terror. India may have the military superiority but a clean, quick victory that would force Pakistan to end the covert war is not certain. In fact, in the short term, terror strikes could well see a rise.

An Indian offensive would go on to strengthen the notorious Pakistani military-ISI-jihadi nexus, which is at the forefront of bleeding India by a thousand cuts.

An Indian response would give credence to their claim  Hindu India has evil designs on Pakistan and all should unite against the challenge.

So, why is there now a push for an aggressive response?

For one, India is changing. Its vast nationalist middle-class respects the armed forces, sees Pakistan as an incorrigible enemy, believes that problems in Kashmir are the creation of Islamabad, and is regularly fed a dose of patriotism by some aggressive television.

This constituency is impatient and asks -- why a rising India, a powerful India, a bigger India, and an India which is on the right side should cave in to Pakistan. And, this is not just a city phenomenon.

In travels across largely rural Uttar Pradesh in recent months, this writer met several young people and many were unhappy with the Modi governments Pakistan policy. We should be more aggressive was the chorus.

There is a second, somewhat paradoxical, reason for this impatience. India has faced a series of terror attacks over the years but the younger generation doesnt seem to have a sense of what a war means and the suffering that comes with it.

Do remember a bulk of the countrys population is below 25. The last full-scale war that India fought was 45 years ago in 1971 against Pakistan. Many have memories of Kargil but its scale and impact was limited.

And finally, the government of the day, which in a sense represents the constituency outlined above, that believes Indias mistake has been its inability to display hard power.

The BJP championed, in the election campaign, a tough stand it would take -- as BJP general secretary Ram Madhav said it in a Twitter post soon after the attack  for one tooth, the complete jaw.

The aggressive response to ceasefire violations along the LoC in 2014 was in keeping with that line. Top officials believe there has to be unpredictability in policy otherwise status quo would prevail and Pakistan will continue to kick India around. It is time not to succumb to Pakistani blackmail

Strategic restraint, a phrase limited to defence or foreign policy experts, is suddenly part of public discourse. Going beyond it may seem desirable, there are political and social pressures pushing India towards it, but it is a difficult unchartered path where risks, so far, appear to outweigh gains.

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KOLKATA: Conservative Bengal is fast coming out of the closet. Demand for sex toys is surging and women are proving to be bolder than men while visiting shops or ordering the contraptions online. And such is the booming market that most condom shops have begun stocking up on vibrators and dildos.

The buyers of these toys cuts through age and social barriers --- college students, housewives and even those past their prime. And if you are shy to buy the goods from a shop on Moti Seal Street or Khidderpore, order them online.

It is safe and adds spice to an individuals life. For a person like me I do not need to take the risk of a relationship or pregnancy. Yet I get the feeling of satisfaction. My friends too use it. Some with their husbands which makes making love interesting after long years of marriage. Sometimes I even buy for my friends, said Neha Acharya (name changed), a middle-aged housewife from Behala.

Most shops selling the adult toys claim they deal in medical equipment or family planning tools. Business is good. I have nothing to complain about but we have a tough competition from online portals. From college-goers to married women, all are our clients. Many of them just walk in and ask for a dildo, said Paramesh Roy (name changed), who runs a shop on Moti Seal Street.

Read:Women want sex as much as men: Some crave it 6 times a week

There is a section of educated women coming from urban pockets who are exploring their sexuality and independence like never before. Women are understanding ways of satisfying themselves without actually being in a sexual relationship, said Ruchira Goswami, sociologist and teacher at National Institute of Juridical Sciences.

Plus there is the urge to know the unknown and experiment. The market is unregulated and undercover and therefore one can buy these toys online and maintain secrecy. Kolkata is getting more and more cosmopolitanWomen who have been in other cities and aboard are more exposed to sex toys and when then come down to Kolkata, they buy it here too, Goswami added.

The cyberspace is teeming with sites selling sex toys online catering to Kolkata. Such is the competition that most of them offer huge discounts. (HT Photo)

Online portals even offer home delivery of sex toys not only in Kolkata, but other small towns like Barasat, Howrah, Siliguri, Burdwan and Durgapur among others. Every month I make close to Rs 40,000 in profits. The demand in other cities like Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai is high, but Kolkata is also not lagging behind. These days, more women call us online than men, said Rajbir Singh, who deals in these adult toys online.

The cyberspace is teeming with sites like kolkatasextoy.com, Artificialsextoys.in, mysextoy.in and adultworldcart.com, all of them catering to Kolkata. Such is the competition that most of them offer huge discounts.

Read: Want to buy sex toys? Heres what to avoid

But now-a-days some sites have come up who dupe customers and we get all get a bad name. One should choose carefully before placing an order. Dildos of different sizes, shapes and make sell the most, even vibrators (battery operated). Anal dildos, vibrators, gels and creams, edible underwear, massagers there are hundreds of varieties for women. Toys for men too are sold. We even sell fancy handcuffs and other stuff, added Singh.

The price range of products vary from Rs 3,000 for a simple dildo made of silicon rubber to more costly battery operated vibrator and rotator dildos ranging around Rs 10,000 to Rs 15000. Sex dolls range from Rs 12000 to Rs 20,000.

Most of these adult toys are imported from the US and China. Domestic manufacturers are highest in Mumbai.

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A day after the suburban revenue department received a report from the state mangrove cell regarding the alleged destruction of mangroves by comedian-actor Kapil Sharma, the Versova police on Saturday night filed a first information report against Sharma on a complaint from the Andheri tehsildar. In the FIR, Sharma is accused of violating the Environment Protection Act, 1986.

This is the second FIR against Sharma since he took to Twitter last week to accuse an unnamed BMC official of demanding a Rs 5 lakh bribe from him. Rather than help his cause, the misjudged tweet has attracted government scrutiny against Sharma and his neighbours.

On September 13, the BMC filed an FIR against Sharma, actor Irrfan Khan and four others, including a builder, under Section 53(7) of the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning (MRTP) Act for allegedly making illegal alterations at Dev Land Housing (DLH) Enclave, a residential building at Oshiwara.

HT had reported on the same day that the mangrove cell had confirmed there had been violations by owners of 50 to 60 bungalows single-storey houses; they had allegedly encroached 10 metres into wetlands over the past three years, violating a Bombay high court order from 2005.

On September 10, activists filed complaints against Sharma and his neighbours for violating environmental laws by dumping debris and destroying mangroves at SV Patel Nagar at Versova, Andheri (West).

After receiving the report, we found that the mangrove cell had highlighted the violation at Sharmas plot. Hence, we instructed the police to file an FIR at 11.30pm on Saturday night, said Shivaji Chaure, acting tehsildar, revenue department, Andheri. There has been a violation of Bombay high court rules, the Environment Protection Act and the Forest Act, and the violator has been booked. Mangroves were destroyed along a 400-metre stretch and debris dumped 10 metres inside wetlands. 

Officials from the district collectorate have asked the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), which owns the land, for a list of residents of the remaining bungalows along the 400m stretch.

The sub-divisional magistrate is investigating individual plots and violations at each of them. After we receive the names of other residents of the area, the case will be investigated further. As of now, an FIR has been filed only against Sharma, said Deependra Singh Kushwa, collector, Mumbai suburban.

Noting a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the Bombay Environment Action Group  a city NGO  in 2005, the high court had banned the destruction of mangroves across the state and barred construction within 50 metres of them. After NGO Vanashakti filed another PIL, the high court banned all reclamation and construction on wetlands in 2014.

Owners of 50 to 60 homes face probe

Citing violations under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, officials from the state mangrove cell, in a report submitted to the revenue department, said the owners of 50 to 60 houses had encroached onto wetlands along a 400m stretch at Versova.

While the owners of some houses have made extensions to existing properties, others have either dumped garbage or treated the area as their backyard, said Makarand Ghotke, assistant conservator of forests, state mangrove cell. He added that the area was surveyed with the help of satellite maps, which showed that mangroves had existed there until a few years ago.

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As the Maratha community continues to flex its muscles against Dalits demanding the repeal of the Prevention of Atrocities Act, the Dalit leadership seems to be divided on how to counter the issue.

While Prakash Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar has urged Dalits not to resort to any counter-protests which could lead to communal friction in Maharashtra, his counterpart Union minister Ramdas Athawale has announced three counter protest marches.

These marches are aimed at protesting the demands made by the Maratha community to repeal the Prevention of Atrocities against Scheduled Caste and Tribes Act framed by the Union government in 1989. The Act was introduced to help the backward classes get a foothold into mainstream society but the Maratha community has been alleging that the Act is being misused for political purpose or to settle personal scores.

They even organised massive street marches recently asserting that the time has come to take note of their demands.

Prakash Ambedkar, who heads BRP-Bahujan Mahasangh appealed to the Dalits to not worry about the Maratha morchas. Initially the morchas by Maratha community was restricted to demanding justice for the Kopardi victim but slowly it has taken the turn demanding the scrapping the Prevention of Atrocities Act. Dalits should not be carried away by this and refrain from any counter morchas, said Ambedkar.

Another prominent Dalit leader Jogendra Kawade, who heads the Peoples Republican Party, also opposed any counter marches. There is no need to panic as this Act falls under the Union government and cannot be repealed so easily. These Maratha morchas have vested interests and political backing, said Kawade.

Athawale, however, is not convinced and said that Dalits are living under a cloud of due to the Maratha morches. The morchas are all aimed at scrapping the Act and like them even we have the right to protest, said Athawale, one of the most influential Dalit leader in the state. He has also announced protest marches at three places across the state.

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Fourteen crew members of the fishing vessel that sank on Saturday have been rescued while two are still missing. Two Navy divers, who were part of the search and rescue operations went adrift on Saturday night but were found on Sunday morning.

The fishing vessel, Datta Sai, suffered damage because of the bad weather and sank about 30 nautical miles from the Mumbai coast on Saturday morning. The vessel had a total of 16 crew members on board at the time of the incident.

Incidentally, two Navy divers, who were part of the search and rescue operations went adrift last night and had to survive the whole night at sea. They were located later on Sunday morning by a fishing boat, Ram Dutta Sai, and rescued. They were brought to Sasoon dock around 2pm on Sunday, said an ICG official

According to Navy officials, a merchant vessel, MV Dependable, was near the site of the incident and rescued the fishermen and alerted concerned agencies. The Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard (ICG) started the rescue operations. ICG ship Samudra Prahari, that was on coastal patrol, was the first to be sent to the spot. A Coast Guard aircraft from Daman was also launched to search for more missing fishermen. The rescued ones were provided with first aid and food and their condition was reported to be stable, said a Navy official.

A search and rescue operation was conducted by units of the Coast Guard, Indian Navy and ONGC. The Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard have pressed eight warships and four aircraft, including Dorniers and Chetak, in the area,said chief public relation officer commander Rahul Sinha (defence).

During the search on Saturday evening, one fisherman was spotted by INS Trishul. The ship lowered a boat and two divers went in for him, added Sinha. But because of the rain, bad weather and darkness, the survivor and divers could not be seen even at a close range by the ship. Search efforts have been stepped up to locate the two others, said Sinha.

Read | Fishing boat sinks off Mumbai, 14 rescued, two still missing
Afghanistan is caught in the hostility of rhetoric between India and Pakistan. India has so far maintained its silence on PM Narendra Modis participation in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit in Islamabad in November.

Pakistan has adopted a similar strategy on the issue of its participation in a regional ministerial meeting on Afghanistan that India will host in December.

Indias external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj attended the Heart of Asia ministerial meeting on Afghanistan in Islamabad last December.

At that time, Pakistans PM Nawaz Sharif was keen on Swarajs participation. But the recent chill in the India-Pakistan ties has now cast a shadow over meetings of regional groupings.

India will host the heart of Asia ministerial conference in December. It was also a point of discussion between Afghanistans President Ashraf Ghani and PM Modi when they met this week. We are hopeful of every country in the grouping attending the meet, said an external affairs ministry official.

I wish to point out that the external affairs minister attending the meet last year showed that every effort for (creating) a stable and peaceful Afghanistan (sic) is a top priority for India, he said.

The ongoing rhetoric of hostility between India and Pakistan has also come in the way of the transit route Afghanistan is seeking through Pakistan and India.

In December, India had placed a transit request with Pakistan, in which it wanted to send 1.75 lakh tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan.

Pakistan has still not given its approval. Ghanis growing disillusionment with Pakistan is becoming evident. Afghanistan has been questioning Pakistans lack of sincerity in talks with the Taliban or reining in terror groups that target Afghanistan.

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Canadian province British Columbias former premier Ujjal Dosanjh said here on Sunday that the NRIs (non-resident Indians) were increasingly becoming disillusioned with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and going back to traditional parties.

Disappointment about AAP has set in among the NRIs, he told reporters on the sidelines of pre-launch ceremony of his new book. I have observed a significant drop in enthusiasm over two months. Earlier, this party was our big hope. Now its no different from others.

Also read | Ujjal Dosanjhs inspirational Journey After Midnight

Dosanjh, who has his roots in Phagwara, said there were blind spots in the politics of AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal. How can you compromise on the ethical front? he said, citing the AAPs controversies such as the fake degree of former Delhi law minister Jitender Singh Tomar.

He said even in February when he had come to India, a big shot in the party told him that Kejriwal might not be looking for money but that didnt mean that he was not corrupt. The other ways being corrupted are equally condemnable, Dosanjh said in reply to a question. Asked to comment on the politics of Punjab, he said dirtiest in India.

Already abuses have replaced political dialogue, he said. For true change, this culture must go.
Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday dismissed the fourth front floated by Navjot Singh Sidhu as inconsequential, alleging it seems to be propped up by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

It is like a tonga party of four people with two sitting in the front and two in the rear. It will hardly have any impact (on the assembly elections), Capt told mediapersons. While asserting four people do not make a political party as it required much more than that, the Congress chief said they were welcome to form it as it was their democratic right.

Hitting out at Sidhu, who has formed the Awaaz-e-Punjab along with MLAs Pargat Singh and Bains brothers, Capt said: Sidhu has also been convicted in a criminal case and he will face problem due to this. Alleging the former BJP MP was facing an enforcement directorate notice for money laundering as well, the PPCC chief questioned: Are people accused of money laundering honest?

AAP, Akalis fighting for second spot

On the Aam Aadmi Partys claim that its competition was with the Akali Dal and not the Congress, Capt said: Of course the two parties are competing for the second spot as we are far ahead of them, adding the AAP will not even win even a single seat.

On Bhagwant Manns absence from political arena, the former chief minister said: I have no idea about his intentions and whereabouts. But there is a strong sense of introspection among Punjabi AAP leaders, who are sons of the soil, about being ruled over and exploited and they are standing up against it. May be Bhagwant Mann is also feeling the same way.

SC welfare benefits for Christians

Addressing the Christian congregation Masih Adhikaar Sammelan, Amarinder said once the Congress comes to power in Punjab, all welfare schemes announced for Dalits and the downtrodden, such as the Shagun scheme and free power, will also be extended to Christian community. Capt promised to include each and every demand made by the community in its memorandum submitted to him in the election manifesto. He said the Congress government will also pass a law to enable nomination of a member of the community to the Vidhan Sabha on the pattern of Chhattisgarh.

Bolaria is in touch with us

Laying to rest speculation over suspended Akali legislator Inderbir Singh Bolaria joining the Congress, Amarinder said: Yes, Bolaria is in touch with the All India Congress Committee, and I am hopeful we will get him. Bolaria who is the MLA from Amritsar south was suspended after he raised a banner of revolt against the SAD over a solid waste management plant proposed in his constituency.
Cabinet minister Bikram Singh Majithia met DAV student Atharva Guptas kin at Dayanand Medical College and Hospital on Saturday, and asked for an enquiry report immediately.

The Class 8 student has been admitted at DMCH since September 8 after he allegedly jumped off the fifth floor of the school building. The 13-year-old was allegedly thrashed and humiliated by school teachers. The principal and four teachers were booked after Atharvas father lodged a complaint.

Majithia asked the officials concerned to probe the case. Police and inquiry members will reach a conclusion based on the medical reports.

SOI president Meetpal Singh Dugri and Atharvas uncle SK Gupta also met the minister. Dugri said, The medical report is expected tomorrow and it can eventually lead to the arrest of the accused.

He added, Atharvas condition is better and he is off the ventilator now. However, some gastrointestinal problem is a matter of concern.A four-hour investigation was held at DAV Public School, on Friday where it recorded the statements of the five accused including pirncipal Satwant Kaur Bhullar, and acquired CCTV footage as well.
Police booked junior engineer (JE) and sub-divisional officer (SDO) on Saturday after members of municipal karamchari dal and kin of sewermen Sonu and Mehar Chand, who were suffocated to death while cleaning a sewerline, protested for five hours on Jagraon Bridge.

After the police lodged an FIR against the concerned junior engineer (JE) and sub-divisional officer (SDO) under Section 304-A (causing death due to negligence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the protesters lifted the road blockage after five hours at around 3:40pm.

Commuters suffered a harrowing time due to road blockage.

The protesters were demanding a first information report (FIR) against municipal corporation officials and police took hours to lodge the same.

The protest started at around 10.30am outside civil hospital. After an hour the protesters marched towards Jagraon Bridge and blocked the traffic.

Jatinder Singh, brother of Sonu, stated that the officers called his brother and Mehar Chand for cleaning sewer line at Nirankari Mohalla. He alleged that the officers concerned did not provide them safety gears and forced them to go down the manhole without any safety kit. He added that Sonu and Chand suffocated to death due to officers negligence.

The protest left the commuters a harried lot, as Jagraon Bridge the only link between the main areas of the city, was blocked. The officers present on the spot conveyed demands of the protesters to their seniors, but they failed to respond in time. The protesters refused to lift the protest until an FIR was lodged

At around 3.30 pm when protesters blocked all roads on Jagraon Bridge, the police swung into action and lodged the FIR.

One of the commuters Amritbir Singh of Millar Ganj said blocking Jagraon Bridge has become a common practice. The protesters never think about the harassment that commuters face.

Aniket Kharbanda, who visited his family in the city and works in Noida, got stuck in the jam and had to walk till railway station to catch the train.

Division number 2 house officer (SHO) inspector Kuldeep Singh said the police have lodged an FIR against the JE and SDO of the municipal corporation following the demand of the deceaseds relatives.

President of the union Laxman Dravid said, getting an FIR registered against the guilty officials was their priority. Now they will hold a meeting with MC commissioner Ghanshyam Thori, demanding a compensation of `15 each and also a government job for family member of the deceased.

In the past on September 12, kin of four youths who drowned in the Sutlej while immersing an idol also blocked Jagraon Bridge for six hours.
Commuters are left with no choice but to book tickets at premium rates that even go past Rs 1,000 after the flexi-fare system for premier trains, including the Shatabdi Express, came into effect from September 9 onwards. The new pricing system is applicable only on chair car category seats in the Shatabdi.

Also read | Flexi fare: Seats available, yet Rs 900 for a Shatabdi Express ticket

In the last one week, from September 10 to September 17, the average price of a one-way ticket for the Kalka Shatabdi (6.53am departure from Chandigarh) was between Rs 750 and Rs 850 and even went up to Rs 900. Before the new system came into effect, the same ticket cost Rs 620. While the tickets for the Chandigarh-New Delhi Shatabdi (departure at noon) sold anywhere between Rs 880 and Rs 1,110, the Kalka-New Delhi Shatabdi (6.23pm departure from Chandigarh) sold between Rs 990 and Rs 1,051 in the last five days.

Be it professionals, students or government employees, the new rates are heavy on all their pockets. A software engineer, Arindam Roy, said, One cannot plan an instant trip as the ticket will be highly-priced. And for a distance such as that between Chandigarh and Delhi, one rarely plans for months.

A government employee, Rashmi Sharma, said, The government should not put everyone in one slab. People who come under low income group should be given concession.

Dont miss | Meals on wheels: You are paying up to Rs 200 for meals on Shatabdi

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A life-support ambulance worth Rs 50 lakh, which the central government gave to Shaheed Babu Labh Singh Civil Hospital here, is hardly in use for highway rescue but regular in VIP service.

The authorities say they are short of money to buy diesel to run this fuel-guzzler round the clock, though they take it to camps and use it to ferry medical officers. Why not! It has an air-conditioner. It also has two electricity generators, three oxygen cylinders, floodlights, stretchers, a ventilator, electric cutters, and first aid kits  a complete life-support system. But who need it?

The Union Ministry of Road Transport gave it to the hospital at the inauguration of its new trauma centre on November 27, 2009. The ambulance doesnt even have any emergency team or a driver. Its generators are idle for want of diesel. Since the state government took over the centre, it has released no money for its maintenance, apart from the monthly budget of Rs 6.5 lakh for the salary of contractual employees, which also is pending for two months.

On Wednesday morning, two people were killed and 10 injured in a bus-tipper collision on the Amritsar highway. His leg stuck in the wreckage, bus driver Ram Singh was crying for help. Save me, he kept pleading for 30 minutes, I have kids at home.

Dr BS Johal, who was called to the spot from Johal Multi-specialty Hospital, said if he had received a call sooner, his team could have amputated the drivers leg and saved him. Electric cutters aboard the government ambulance could have helped bring him out. What good is the ambulance if not used for rescue, said Surinder Saini of Rogi Kalyan Samiti.

Civil hospital medical superintendent Dr Varinder Singh said: This ambulance has very less average (fuel efficiency). Besides, whenever the chief minister or deputy CM visit the city, it is with their convoy. We use it to ferry medical teams to camps, she said. The money to run it comes from user charges.

The logbook shows it was at the last functions of Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari and deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal when they laid the foundation stone of the Barnala highway four-lane project on Wednesday. In the past two months, it gone to the sangat darshan (public contact) programmes of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal in Adampur and Nakodar.

Last month, it also took nine people to Amritsar medical college and the PGI (Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research), Chandigarh. In seven years, it has covered only 81,892 kilometres. Rarely ever for rescue.

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Union food processing minister and Bathinda member of Parliament from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal said Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal was a king cobra and was biting his party leaders to become Punjab chief minister.

The Akali MP, who was in Mansa on Saturday to inaugurate rural sewa kendras, said: Kejriwals next target will be Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann as he is aiming at the CMs chair and will keep suspending Punjab leaders of his party, said she.

Also read | Punjab, polls, crime and its currency: The contest of crores

Harsimrat had earlier termed the AAP seasonal frog that often makes noise after coming out of hibernation. Over reports of Bhagwant Mann being miffed with the AAP, she said the Sangrur MP was already in touch with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and soon truth will be out in the open.

Criticising Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh, she said he would betray voters of Amritsar, who had reposed faith in him in the Lok Sabha elections, as he wants to contest assembly elections from Patiala.

Regarding the alleged derogatory remarks by SAD MLA Virsa Singh Valtoha against the Dalits in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Harsimrat said: The Opposition allegations are baseless and out of frustration as it has nothing to show against the SAD-BJP government. The opposition leaders are running short of public issues to be discussed in the assembly.

Later, addressing a gathering in Bathinda, she said morally and financially corrupt AAP leaders were indulging in malpractices and looting people. The AAP is a pack of liars, who are hell bent to misguide the people of Punjab, she said.

In the hour of crisis, when people of Delhi are facing severe dengue and chikungunya outbreak, not only the CM but also deputy chief minister and other ministers are on foreign jaunts, she said.
A man was allegedly shot dead by another in Malerkotla in broad daylight on Saturday noon.

The deceased was identified as Mohammed Yakub, 30, a resident of Malerkotla.

The official sources said after receiveing bullet injuries, Yakub was rushed to a local hospital from where he was referred to Patiala, but his family took him to DMC Ludhiana, where he died during treatment.

Deceaseds brother Mohammed Shahid said Yakub was coming from Cantonment Road, however, in the midway, Gayia Khan, also Malerkotla resident, asked Yakub to stop and started beating him.

There he shot him and Yakub started running away from there.

Khan chased him for a while and shot two more bullets and Yakub fell on ground after which Khan escaped from the scene.

Following the incident, Superintendent of Police Gurpreet Singh Sikand along with other police officials inspected the scene of crime and also took possession of all the CCTV footages of area.

Sikand said, as per Shahids statement the attacker was identified as Gayia Khan and a murder case was registered against him.

Shahid said Khan and Yakub were involved in a legal case, which is currently underway in Malerkotla court.

He said the latest hearing of the case was on Thursday and on that day too Khan had attacked Yakub and threatened him.
Harvesting of paddy has started in Haryana, but the farmers are worried as there are no takers of their produce at the minimum support price (MSP) yet.

The Centre has fixed the MSP for parmal varieties of paddy, but government agencies have not started paddy procurement in the grain markets of the state.

Private traders are making the most of the helplessness of farmers, who are being forced to sell their produce at Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,250 per quintal against the MSP of Rs 1,510 fixed by the government.

I had to dispose of the produce of my three acres at Rs 1,240 per quintal to private traders as there was no government agency to procure paddy on the MSP, said a visibly upset farmer, Rajesh Kamboj, after selling his produce at Radaur grain market in Yamunanagar district.

He said the produce had earned only Rs 32,000 per acre for which the production cost is around Rs 13,000 per acre.

Agitated over peasants plight, farmer leaders are demanding advancement of paddy procurement by about 10 days, from October 1 to September 20.

Farmers are being looted by private traders as government agencies have not started procurement at the MSP yet, Bhartiya Kisan Union (Mann) state president Ratan Mann said. We have decided to hold protests to force the government to advance paddy procurement by its agencies.

The government has fixed June 15 to start transplantation of paddy, but farmers contend that most of the varieties sown by them take 90 days to mature and are ready for harvest by September 15.

But government agencies start procurement of paddy from October 1. This helps private traders who purchase the produce from the farmers below MSP and sell it on the MSP when the government agencies start procurement.

The problem with the farmers is that they cannot store paddy for 15 to 20 days as they have to prepare fields for the other crops.

Our demand is genuine. As the government agencies are bound to procure paddy, why dont they start it from September 15 and thereby prevent farmers loss, Mann said.

However, officials in the state food and supplies department said paddy procurement will start from October 1 and they cannot advance the process.

INLD slams govt

Meanwhile, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) accused the BJP government in the state of deliberately delaying the procurement of paddy to benefit private traders.

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The Punjab and Haryana high court has imposed a fine of Rs 30,000 on the Punjab government while directing it to give subsistence allowance arrears with 9% interest to an Amritsar woman, whose husband died in 1990 of injuries received in a 1988 terror attack.

The high court bench of justice RS Malik observed that the woman was made to approach the court twice despite there being clear evidence that her husband had died in a terror attack during militancy in Punjab. It becomes crystal clear (upon perusal of evidence) that the authorities of the respondent state have treated the petitioner, widow of the victim of a terrorist attack, in most arbitrary manner, justice Malik said.

The high court was hearing the petition of Surjeet Kaur, who had approached the government initially in 2007, after obtaining a court order, for providing her benefits under schemes for terror-affected families. Her claim was rejected stating that her husband, Santokh Singh, died due to natural causes. She again approached the high court in 2014.

Santokh Singh had fought terrorists and was inflicted with a bullet injury in Lopoke area in Amritsar in March 1988. For his bravery, he was awarded Rs 10,000 by the then Amritsar deputy commissioner. But he died in 1990.

In 2007s representation to the government, Surjeet Kaur had stated that her husband succumbed to injuries caused by terrorists. She said the then superintendent of police (SP) had recommended financial help for the family in 1988.

The high court observed that in rejecting her claim, the Amritsar DC in 2007 proceeded on a wholly misconceived and perverse approach and did not take note of recommendations made by the local police chief.

The petitioner was entitled for much better treatment at the hands of the respondent authorities, who were expected to deal with the case of the petitioner gracefully and sympathetically, the HC bench said, adding that it was a matter of record that her husband was a true patriot who was helping the state agencies to fight terrorism and that was why he was given a bravery award in 1988. He was made the target by the terrorists because he developed an enmity with the terrorists while acting against them with a view to help the state agencies, the HC bench said.
The Border Security Force (BSF) has sounded alert along the Indo-Pak border in Punjab after a terror attack on an army base at Uri in Kashmir on Sunday.

BSF jawans conducting security checking before the retreat ceremony at Attari border on Tuesday. (HT Photo)

The BSF has also heightened security at Attari checkpost, where thousands of tourists come every day to witness the retreat ceremony.

A BSF jawan stands guard during the retreat ceremony at Attari border in Amritsar on Tuesday. (HT Photo)

A BSF official told HT: Troops have been alerted and vigil along the border has been heightened. More troops are being sent to the sensitive areas along the border in the Amritsar sector. The vigil along the riverine border belt in the Ajnala sector has also been beefed up.

Read | Uri terror attack: Security forces in Punjab put on high alert
The pre-dawn terror attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmirs Uri on Sunday morning has put security forces of Punjab on high alert.

Heavily armed militants attacked a strategic military base in Uri and killed 17 soldiers, triggering calls for a fierce Indian retaliation on Pakistan that was seen to be behind the strike.

Must read | Its state-sponsored attack: Former home secy RK Singh on J-K attack

Punjab Police, air force security agencies, Border Security Force (BSF), army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and all intelligence agencies, which have made a common grid to deal with terror threats, remained engaged in discussions after reports poured in about the Uri attack.

Pathankot, which has already been put on the list of sensitive towns after the attack on the countrys premier Air Base on January 2, witnessed movements of security agencies around the air force station and other army establishments throughout Sunday.

Read | BSF beefs up security along Indo-Pak border

The army has large bases surrounding Pathankot, while the air force station is surrounded by many small villages.

Pakistani militants had also attacked the Dinanagar police station in 2015 and had planted explosives on the railway track near Dinanagar, which had failed to detonate.

SSP Rakesh Kaushal told Hindustan Times security agencies were not taking chances and that personnel on duty had been asked to remain extra cautious.

Also read | Uri attack: Twitterati ask PM to shed strategic restraint, let Pak have it

Kaushal further said that he was in touch with the officials of the air force station and the army over the issue of security.

As we are providing outer security cover and the BSF is guarding the borders, we will ask locals, particularly those living near the India-Pakistan border, to help security forces and inform us about any suspicious movement. We have intensified checking along the state borders. We have also started frisking those entering the state by state and private transport, the SSP said.
If you live in a snake-prone area, do heed the counsel of the legendary herpetologist Rom Whitaker. He advises householders and snake-rescue experts not to remove all snakes but allow non-venomous Rat snakes to thrive because they tend to colonise the area and oppose entry of competitors such as venomous cobras. It may be a good idea also to let massive Indian bullfrogs breed around your house if you dont mind their croaks, and if you enjoy a walk after dinner on dark paths. Here is an encounter from Jankipuram Extension, Lucknow, during which a bullfrog gobbled the highly-venomous Russells viper after an epic battle. It was captured for posterity in a series of stunning images clicked by PhD scholar, Durgesh K Singh.

The Indian bullfrog struggling to swallow the Russells viper. (Durgesh K Singh)

Here is Durgeshs narrative: On September 3, at around 9pm, I was on a walk after dinner with my wife along a muddy path when I heard a noise in an otherwise silent location. I used my cell phones flash light and was surprised to see a bullfrog fighting a viper. The viper didnt look an adult but was still nearly two feet. I saw them fighting for about 5-10 minutes and thought it would be a routine encounter, wherein a frog falls prey to an aggressive predator. But to my surprise, the bullfrog attacked with an intensity and swallowed the vipers head. The turn of events prompted me to run to my house and get my digicam and document what I felt could be a once-in-a-lifetime moment. By the time I got back, the bullfrog was halfway through its meal. After the first 10-15 minutes of swallowing, the bullfrogs stomach got full and it was having trouble taking the viper in. Then, suddenly, the bullfrog tried to take it in further and the viper started moving its tail. This lasted for another 10-15 minutes after which the bullfrog managed to engulf it completely.

I requested Rom to lend perspective to the above encounter so that readers could enjoy an understanding beyond the obvious attraction of the pictures. Declaring it a very interesting pix and event, Rom told me: Bullfrogs, like the common Indian toad, grow to large size and are predators of anything they can catch and swallow, including all sorts of insects/arachnids, small snakes, geckos, other frogs/toads, rodents and even birds. Id say that such predation as observed here is quite common, especially when you consider that new-born snakes like cobras and vipers are the size of big earth worms.

Rom discounted theories of abnormality: that the bullfrogs predation of a viper occurred because there was food scarcity or a bullfrogs defensive combat or because the viper was moulting and was weakened/immobilised. No, Id say this is a case of opportunistic predation, a perfectly normal predation event where the predator is larger and more powerful than the prey. What is interesting is why the viper couldnt defend itself by giving the frog a good bite of its toxic venom, or if it did, why didnt the frog react? Of course, the observer (Durgesh) didnt see if the frog was okay after this meal, but it is probable the little viper didnt manage a good bite, added Rom.

Kill to clean

A dead rohu seed at the Sukhna lake; (right) dead minnows in the weeds heaped on the banks. (Vikram Jit Singh )

Under pressure from the UT engineering department to clear weeds from Sukhna lake within 10 days, manual workers from Bijnore under local contractor Shamsheed have also deployed large fishing nets in addition to boats/rakes and removal by wading. The collateral damage is that scores of minnows (small fish) are being netted after they get caught in the weeds that the nets pull out. The minnows die on the banks of the lake amid rotting weeds. The dilemma is that nets are effective for weed removal but end up damaging minnows, which are a key prey species for certain migratory and resident wetland birds such as darters, egrets, herons, etc.

We are under pressure from the department to clear weeds within 10 days. I admit that minnows get caught in the nets. Our workers pull them out and release them into the lake but some may die. Nets are effective as they make a clean sweep of weeds and even remove weed debris that our workers cannot remove through other methods, Shamsheed told this writer.

The importance of minnows for the lakes ecological management can be gauged from the fact that the animal husbandry and fisheries department launched a drive in October 2015 to thin the population of big commercial fish so that surface-feeding minnows could find space to prosper.
A powerful explosion injured 29 people on Saturday evening in a crowded part of Manhattan, New York, and an unexploded device made using a pressure cooker similar to the one used by the Boston bombers in 2013 was discovered from the same area.

Authorities called the explosion an intentional act but based on preliminary investigations ruled out any links to terrorism. They also would not say if they suspected the two explosives were planted by the same person or people.

There were two other incidents that raised the prospects of terrorism the same day: A pipe bomb explosion in New Jersey and a stabbing spree in Minnesota claimed by the Islamic State.

Nobody was injured in the New Jersey blast, which was defined as clearly an act of terrorism by the states governor Chris Christie.
US-led coalition air strikes reportedly hit Syrian military personnel and caused casualties on Saturday after mistaking them for Islamic State targets.

The incident endangers a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency UN Security Council meeting as tensions escalated between Moscow and Washington.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said least 83 soldiers were killed and more than 120 were wounded in the raids, which the US military said, took place south of Dayr Az Zawr in Syria.

The Russian defence ministry has put the number of those killed at 62, with over 100 wounded.

The US central command, which has charge of military operation in the region, said an airstrike against IS targets, which was being tracked for a significant amount of time by the coalition, was cut short after Russian officials said the targets may have belonged to the Syrian military instead.

It is not uncommon for the Coalition Air Operations Center to confer with Russian officials as a professional courtesy and to deconflict coalition and Russian aircraft, although such contact is not required by the current US memorandum of understanding on safety of flight, US said in a statement.

A senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement the US had relayed its regret through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike.

It went on to say that coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit.

The coalition will review this strike and the circumstances surrounding it to see if any lessons can be learned.

The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardising the Syria deal.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move.

Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them, Power told reporters before the meeting.

She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life.

Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the militants.

We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova as saying.

She said the strikes threatened to undermine the ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, which has been aiding Syrias President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, and the United States, which has backed some rebel groups.

The ceasefire, which took effect on Monday, is the most significant peacemaking effort in Syria for months, but has been undermined by repeated accusations of violations on both sides and by a failure to bring humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

Apart from the US and Russian involvement, Assad is supported by Iran and Arab Shia militias, while Sunni rebels seeking to unseat him are backed by Turkey and Gulf Arab states.

In its sixth year, the conflict has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced half of Syrias pre-war population, prompted a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe and inspired a wave of jihadist attacks across the world.

(With inputs from Reuters)
Two gunmen on a motorcycle killed three soldiers on Sunday near the northwestern city of Peshawar, police said.

The gunmen struck in Garhi Sohbat Khan on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, attacking a private vehicle carrying the three soldiers.

The attackers used handguns to target the soldiers, who were returning from a military dairy farm after fetching milk for officers, Khan said.

No one claimed responsibility, but Islamic militants have been involved in multiple such attacks in and around the provincial capital surrounded by lawless tribal regions.

Dad Mohammad, another area police officer, said the incident was second of the kind in this area  which is close to the Mohmand tribal region. Last week gunmen shot dead a prominent physician who was instrumental in anti-polio campaigns, he said.

The Mohmand tribal region is a hotbed for Islamic militants and the Pakistani army has carried out several operations to eliminate militant hideouts. But the militants have repeatedly struck back.

On Friday, a suicide bomber killed 36 worshippers during Friday prayers in the Ambar area of Mohmand. Jamaatul Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Taliban, claimed responsibility for that attack.
An explosion rocked a crowded Manhattan neighbourhood and injured 29 people, and a suspicious device discovered blocks away was safely removed early Sunday. Mayor Bill de Blasio ruled out any terror connections but called the blast an intentional act.

Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident, de Blasio said at a news conference near the scene in Chelsea. We have no credible and specific threat at this moment.

De Blasio tried to calm any fears among nervous New Yorkers, saying the explosion had no terrorist connection and wasnt related to a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey that forced the cancellation of a charity run.

Now, I want to be clear: Whatever the cause, whatever the intention here, New Yorkers will not be intimidated, the mayor said. We are not going to let anyone change who we are or how we go about our lives.

It was unclear who was behind the blast and what motivated it.

New York police commissioner James O'Neill and Mayor Bill de Blasio speak at a press conference as police, firefighters and emergency workers gather at the scene of an explosion in Manhattan, New York City. (AFP)

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that a second device that officers investigated four blocks from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone. The official, who was not authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street. The device was removed with a robot and taken to a department firing range in the Bronx.

The law enforcement official also said that the explosion that rocked a bustling Chelsea neighbourhood appeared to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. Photos from the scene show a twisted and crumpled black metal box.

The blast happened on West 23rd Street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joes supermarket. Witnesses said the explosion at about 8:30 pm blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris in the area. Officials said no evacuations were necessary.

The fire department of New York said 24 people were taken to hospitals with injuries. One person received a puncture wound that was considered serious. The other injuries were described as scrapes and bruises.

New York City subway routes were affected by the explosion, which rattled some New Yorkers and visitors on the heels of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.

We felt it. We heard it, Gonzalez said. It wasnt like jolting or anything. Everyone just went quiet.

Firefighters and emergency workers gather at the scene of an explosion in Manhattan, New York City. (AFP)

Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said he, at first, thought something large had fallen.

It was an extremely loud noise. Everything was shaking, the windows were shaking, he said. It was extremely loud, almost like thunder but louder.

The FBI and homeland security officials, along with the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives arson and explosive task force, were at the scene.

The White House said President Barack Obama was apprised of the explosion.

In St Cloud, Minnesota, police said at least eight people were injured at a shopping mall Saturday evening in a stabbing attack. The suspect was shot dead by an off-duty police officer.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said she had been briefed about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attack in Minnesota.

She says the nation needs to support its first responders and pray for the victims.

We have to let this investigation unfold, she said.

Donald Trump moved ahead of New York City officials when he declared a bomb went off before officials had released details. He made the announcement minutes after stepping off his plane in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows whats going on, Trump said.

He continued, But boy we are living in a time  we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough. Its a terrible thing thats going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant.

The Republican presidential nominee made the comments around 9:10 pm, shortly after the explosion and as emergency officials responded to the blast. A spokeswoman for Trump did not respond to an email asking whether he was briefed about it before taking the stage.

The Manhattan blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners were due to participate in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. The run was cancelled, and no injuries were reported.

Read | Manhattan explosion: Police remove 2nd suspected device, 29 injured
Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in an ambush in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday, militants said, in an attack for which both Islamic State and a Pakistani Taliban faction claimed responsibility.

Militants said they ambushed an unmarked vehicle ferrying soldiers on Sunday morning near the congested Daudzai area of Peshawar. Military sources confirmed the attack but said the killed men were army employees and not soldiers.

The Pakistan army often uses unmarked vehicles for transportation of soldiers and other employees in volatile areas around Peshawar to avoid being identified and attacked.

They were travelling in a civil van when unknown armed men opened fire at them, said a security official who declined to be named. Three of them died on the spot.

Pakistans military this month declared that it had foiled Islamic States attempts to establish operations in the country. But the groups Amaq news agency said Islamic State was behind the ambush, also claimed by Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, an offshoot of the Islamist militant Pakistani Taliban group.

Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, which carried out the Easter Sunday bombing in Lahore in which 70 people were killed, at one time swore fealty to Islamic States Middle East leadership, but later switched back to the Taliban.

The two groups also both claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a hospital in the Pakistani city of Quetta that killed 74 people last month.

Pakistans military said on September 1 it had arrested more than 300 Islamic State militants and sympathizers, thwarting the ultra-hardline groups attempts to expand there.

But concern has been growing that Islamic State - which controls parts of Iraq and Syria and is known for especially brutal treatment of religious minorities - might replicate their model in Pakistan, especially after Islamic State loyalists seized small pieces of territory in neighboring Afghanistan.

On Friday, Pakistani authorities said they arrested four Islamic State militants plotting attacks in the city of Lahore. The four men had 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) of explosives as well as fuses and detonators, officials said.

Most Islamic State recruits in the region are believed to be Pakistani or Afghan defectors from other Islamist movements.

Pakistan is home to several militant groups including the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda and the Haqqani network, giving Islamic State both a rich pool of potential recruits but also fierce competition.

Islamic State last year declared Afghanistan and Pakistan as the state of Khorasan, part of its self-declared global caliphate, and appointed longtime militant Hafiz Saeed Khan as its regional leader.

A US drone strike killed Khan last month in eastern Afghanistan.
An explosion rocked the Chelsea neighbourhood of Manhattan on Saturday night, injuring at least 29 people, authorities said, adding that they are investigating the blast as a criminal act not immediately linked to any terror organisation.

A law enforcement source said an initial investigation suggested the explosion occurred in a dumpster but the cause was still undetermined. The head of the New York Police Departments special operations division said on Twitter that a possible secondary device has been located in the same general area. The second suspected device was safely removed by the bomb squad on Sunday.

Heres how the events panned out:

12:15pm: Police have removed a suspicious device from a Manhattan location four blocks from the site of an explosion that injured more than two dozen people.

The New York Police Department tweeted early on Sunday that the device has been safely removed from West 27th Street by the bomb squad. Police said it was to be taken to the department firing range in the Bronx.

Police had earlier advised residents on the block where the device was found to stay away from windows facing 27th Street.

11:30am: Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she has been briefed about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attack in Minnesota.

She said the nation needs to support its first responders and pray for the victims.

Republican Donald Trump moved ahead of New York City officials when he declared a bomb went off in the city before officials had released details. He made the announcement minutes after stepping off his plane during a rally at an airport hangar in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows whats going on, Trump said.

10:30am: Police combing the area around the scene of an explosion on Saturday in Manhattans Chelsea neighbourhood found a pressure cooker nearby connected to a cell phone with wires attached, CNN reported, citing law enforcement sources.

A piece of paper with writing on it was found nearby, according to CNNs account.

This is the device found at second location, near New York explosion, officials say. https://t.co/cpgJgDr4X5 pic.twitter.com/TZr07KwDra  CNN (@CNN) September 18, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio said early indications were that blast was intentional. He said the site of the explosion, outside on a major thoroughfare of a fashionable enclave in one of the most bustling areas of New York City, was being treated as a crime scene.

But he said there was no evidence of a credible and specific threat to the city. We do not see a link to terrorism, he added.

It is too early to determine what the incident was caused by. We believe it was intentional. A full investigation is under way.

Mayor Bill de Blasio (centre) and NYPD chief of department James O'Neill (centre right) speak during a press conference near the scene of an apparent explosion in New York. (AP Photo)

CNN reported that law enforcement sources believe an improvised explosive device caused the blast.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio: There is no evidence of a "terror connection" to NYC blast https://t.co/bGhuXeGo7i https://t.co/KtBnKfDriu  CNN (@CNN) September 18, 2016

W. 27th Street is closed as we are investigating a second potential device. Please stay clear. @NYPDnews  J. Peter Donald (@JPeterDonald) September 18, 2016

US President Barack Obama, who was attending a congressional dinner in Washington, has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation, a White House official said. The President will be updated as additional information becomes available, the official added.

A US official said the Joint Terrorism Task Force, an inter-agency group of federal, state and local officials, was responding to the blast.

The task force is also investigating a pipe bomb that exploded earlier on Saturday in a plastic trash can along the route of a charity road race in the New Jersey beach town of Seaside Park. No injuries were reported in that blast, which authorities believe was a deliberate act.

Deafening explosion

At least three people were seen being taken away from the scene of the Chelsea blast in ambulances, but the severity of their injuries was not immediately clear. A car seen driving through the area had its rear window blown out.

The blast occurred at about 8:30pm (0030 GMT on Sunday) between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue on 23rd Street, a major east-west thoroughfare in the fashionable downtown neighbourhood of Chelsea, Donald posted on Twitter.

Explosion happened at roughly 8:30pm on 23rd street between 6th and 7th avenues. Several injured transported to area hospitals.  J. Peter Donald (@JPeterDonald) September 18, 2016

The explosion, described by one neighbour as deafening, happened outside the Associated Blind Housing facility at 135 W. 23rd Street. The facility provides housing, training and other services for the blind.

Hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block on a cool early autumn evening, as police cordoned off the area.

It was really loud, it hurt my eardrums. My 10-year-old boy was sat in the back seat of the car, and the explosion blew the back window out, said Tsi Tsi Mallett, who was in a car driving along 23rd Street when the explosion took place. Her son was not injured.

Video shows moment of IED Explosion at W 23 St & 6th Ave in Manhattan pic.twitter.com/O270bZWOzF  New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) September 18, 2016

Neha Jain, 24, who lives in the neighbourhood, said she was sitting in her room watching a movie when she suddenly heard a huge boom and everything shook.

Pictures on my wall fell, the window curtain came flying as if there was a big gush of wind. Then we could smell smoke. Went downstairs to see what happened and firemen immediately told us to go back.

New York City Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue due to police activity there and asking the public to avoid the area.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that an explosion that rocked a crowded Manhattan neighbourhood, injuring 29 people, doesnt appear to be linked to international terrorism, and he vowed that authorities would find and prosecute whoever was responsible.

He noted that 1,000 additional law enforcement officers were being deployed after the Saturday night blast in Chelsea, a primarily residential neighbourhood on Manhattans west side thats known for its art galleries and large gay population. He encouraged New Yorkers to go about their day as usual.

Were not going to let them win, Cuomo said at the scene. Were not going to let them instill fear.

The Democratic governor said the preliminary investigation didnt appear to show a link to international terror, and he noted that no terror group had taken credit for it.

Authorities said the Manhattan blast didnt appear to be connected to a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey that forced the cancellation of a charity run. He noted that the bombs included different materials.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that a second device that officers investigated four blocks from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone. The official, who was not authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street. The device was removed with a robot and taken to a department firing range in the Bronx.

The law enforcement official also said that the explosion appeared to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. Photos from the scene show a twisted and crumpled black metal box.

The blast happened on West 23rd Street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joes supermarket. Witnesses said the explosion at about 8:30 p.m. blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris.

A New York City Police Department (NYPD) truck tows a spherical chamber carrying a second explosive device from near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. (REUTERS)

Cuomo said Sunday that all the injured who were taken to a hospital after the blast had been released. He said most had been hit with glass or debris.

Some New York City subway routes were affected by the explosion, which rattled some New Yorkers and visitors on the heels of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.

We felt it. We heard it, Gonzalez said. It wasnt like jolting or anything. Everyone just went quiet.

Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said he, at first, thought something large had fallen.

It was an extremely loud noise. Everything was shaking, the windows were shaking, he said. It was extremely loud, almost like thunder but louder.

The FBI and Homeland Security officials, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arson and explosive task force, were at the scene. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo toured the site Sunday.

The White House said President Barack Obama was apprised of the explosion.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said the nation needs to support its first responders and pray for the victims.

We have to let this investigation unfold, she said.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump moved ahead of New York City officials when he declared a bomb went off before officials had released details. He made the announcement minutes after stepping off his plane in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows whats going on, Trump said.

He continued, But boy we are living in a time  we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough. Its a terrible thing thats going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant.

A spokeswoman for Trump didnt respond to an email asking whether he was briefed about it before taking the stage.

The Manhattan blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners were due to participate in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. The run was canceled, and no injuries were reported.

Also Saturday, at least eight people were injured at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in a stabbing attack. The suspect was shot dead by an off-duty police officer. The police chief said the suspect asked at least one victim if he or she was Muslim.

The investigation into the Manhattan explosion came as world leaders descend on the United Nations for a meeting Monday to address the refugee crisis and the Syrian conflict. The blast site is about 2 miles away.
Continuing with its efforts to internationalise the Kashmir issue, Pakistan today raised the matter at the NAM summit, saying the 120-nation group should be outraged by the situation there.

Pakistan prime ministers advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz, in his address as the Pakistan delegation head, said peace in South Asia cannot be achieved without the settlement of the issue of Jammu and Kahmir in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council.

It is tragic that 60 years after being promised, the people of Jammu and Kashmir are still waiting to exercise their inalienable right to self determination and Kashmir along with Palestine has become one of the longstanding items on the UN agenda, Aziz said.

We should also be outraged by the horrific images of innocent Kashmiris being killed, maimed and blinded by the use of boot force in Kashmir in the last two months, he said.

Aziz also stated that Pakistan strongly endorses the agreement of heads of state and government in Venezuela to undertake measures to oppose attempts to equate legitimate struggle for self-determination and national liberation with terrorism.

Aziz asserted that Pakistan fully endorses the NAM position on terrorism and violent extremism.

We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. ..Pakistan has lost tens of thousands of lives in this fight yet are resolve is firm, our commitment unflinching and our actions tougher and more wide-ranging than ever, Aziz said.

Pakistan has acquired valuable experience in successfully tackling the menace of terrorism in the past three years and therefore is ready to share this experience with other members of NAM, he said.

My governments focus has been on building a peaceful neighbourhood and regional connectivity and ensuring an environment that fosters cooperation and development. However, in our view peace in South Asia cannot be achieved without the settlement of the issue of Jammu and Kahmir in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council, he said.

His comments came on a day when 17 Indian soldiers where killed in a terror attack on an army base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir by suspected Pakistan-based militants.
A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli army officer in the chest near a West Bank settlement on Sunday, moderately wounding him before Israeli soldiers shot the attacker and apprehended him, the military said.

The incident followed a weekend surge in Palestinian attacks that shattered weeks of relative calm.

Four Palestinians, one of whom held Jordanian citizenship, were shot dead over the weekend during assaults on Israelis, according to Israeli authorities. The spike in violence has spurred the Israeli military to send troop reinforcements to the West Bank.

The violence began a year ago and for months included near-daily Palestinian stabbing attacks. They have killed 34 Israelis and two American visitors, with about 214 Palestinians killed during that same period. Israel says the vast majority were attackers, though Palestinians have accused Israeli forces of using excessive force or killing people who were not assailants.

In recent months, the violence had slowed to a trickle. After a series of stabbing and vehicular attacks, the military sent additional troops Saturday to a flashpoint West Bank area.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the potential for violence could rise as the Jewish high holidays approach.

On Sunday he instructed police to beef up forces in Jerusalem and its holy sites and said determined action should be taken against those who breach the peace.

He said that action will be increased against Palestinian incitement to violence on social network sites, and that security will also be stepped up along roads in the West Bank.

Israel has blamed the violence on incitement by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The Palestinians say it is rooted in nearly 50 years of military occupation and dwindling hopes for independence.
Nepals Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal  Prachanda, who returned from a visit to India on Sunday, said the signing of agreements with India will not affect bilateral ties with China.

We have maintained balanced relations with both of our neighbours, he told reporters at Tribhuvan International Airport here upon arrival from India, adding that his visit was highly successful.

Our ties and partnership with India will not affect our bilateral ties with China, he said.The dynamics of our relations with India and China are different so our ties with India would not create distance with China.

Prachandas remarks came amid criticism in some quarters that his government has a Delhi tilt and acrimonious relations with China.

Pachanda said that Nepal has maintained balanced and nuanced relations with both neighbours.

The aim of my visit was to create an environment for sub-regional cooperation which India is also pursuing, he said.

India has given special attention to issues of mutual interest and concern, Prachanda said, adding that work related to common interests and welfare would be carried out together.

He said the Indian government was ready to support Nepal in hydropower, physical infrastructure and tourism sectors.

Prachanda is facing flak for the joint communique issued during his visit, particularly the reference to Nepal supporting Indias candidature for permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

Some experts of international relations and political parties opposed this, saying it undermines Nepals independent foreign policy.

The way the joint communique was issued and its content has made us bow our head, said former prime minister and Chairman of CPN-UML, K P Sharma Oli.

UML also opposed Indias position on Nepals constitution and joint monitoring of India-funded projects by Indian embassy officials and Nepal government. Indian embassy officials and Nepal government cannot be put into equal footing, it argued.
Russias foreign ministry said on Sunday the air strikes by a US-led coalition on Syrian army forces threatened the implementation of a US ceasefire plan for Syria and urged Washington to thoroughly investigate the accident.

The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday that US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 90 Syrian soldiers had been killed.

It said in a strongly worded statement that the strikes were on the boundary between criminal negligence and direct connivance with Islamic State terrorists.

It said the incident was a result of Washingtons stubborn refusal to cooperate with Moscow in fighting the Islamic State, the Nusra Front  now renamed Jabhat Fatah al Sham  and other terrorist groups.
A powerful car bomb killed a Somali military general and five of his bodyguards in the capital Sunday, according to a Somali police officer.

Gen. Mohamed Roble Jimale Gobanle and his bodyguards were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle next to the generals car near Somalias defense ministry compound in Mogadishu, said Capt. Ali Nur.

Gobanle was the commander of the Somali armys 3rd Brigade, a combat team fighting the al-Shabab Islamic extremists in southern Somalia.

Al-Shabab, claimed the responsibility for the attack, according the groups Andalus radio station. Al-Shabab, which is allied to al-Qaida, has been waging a deadly insurgency across large parts of Somalia and often uses suicide car bomb attacks.

Al-Shabab is fighting to impose a strict version of Islam in this Horn of Africa nation. Despite losing a lot of ground in recent years, the extremist group continues to carry out lethal attacks in many parts of the country, and many recent attacks have targeted military bases.

Last week, heavily armed al-Shabab fighters briefly seized El Wak, a town near the Kenyan border, killing four soldiers before troops recaptured it one day later early Saturday.
Syrias ceasefire was hanging by a thread on Sunday, after tensions escalated between Moscow and Washington over a US-led coalition air strike that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers battling jihadists.

The truce saw violence drop across Syria for several days after it came into force Monday, but fighting has since erupted on several fronts and besieged civilians are still waiting desperately for promised aid deliveries.

The ceasefires co-sponsors, Russia and the United States, have traded accusations over the fraying deal, with relations strained even further after the US-led raid killed scores of Syrian soldiers on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 soldiers were killed in the strike. Damascus ally Moscow put the death toll at 62.

The Syrian army said the raid had allowed Islamic State group fighters to gain ground around the key eastern airbase of Deir Ezzor, but a military source said government forces were back on the offensive Sunday.

The army has retaken most of its positions on Jabal Therdeh with Russian and Syrian air support, the source said, referring to a hilltop overlooking the base.

Retaking them is vital to prevent IS using them to fire on army aircraft taking off from or landing there.

On Sunday, IS said it shot down a Syrian warplane near Deir Ezzor. Syrian state news agency SANA confirmed a plane had been shot down there and its pilot killed, but did not say who was responsible.

The base and adjacent government-held neighbourhoods of Deir Ezzor city have been under siege since 2012 and have been dependent on resupply by air.

A rebel fighter walks by damaged buildings near Castello road in Aleppo, Syria. (Reuters)

Bad omen for ceasefire

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said Russian warplanes pounded IS positions around Deir Ezzor late Saturday as fierce clashes broke out between IS and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

At least 38 jihadist fighters were killed and clashes were ongoing, Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Hours after the coalition strike on Saturday, the Pentagon admitted US-led pilots may have hit Assads forces but said that they believed they were striking a Daesh (IS) fighting position.

The statement said coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit.

Australia, which said it was one of several coalition countries whose aircraft took part, offered its condolences to the families of any Syrian personnel killed or wounded.

A statement by Russias foreign ministry on Sunday said it was deeply concerned about the incident.

The actions of the pilots -- if they, as we hope, were not taken on orders from Washington -- fall between criminal negligence and direct pandering to IS terrorists, it said.

It again called on Washington to force Syrian rebels to sign on to the truce, warning that otherwise, the realisation of Russia-US agreements... could be put in danger.

An emergency UN Security Council meeting called by Moscow to discuss the attack ended early on Saturday after an exchange between the US and Russia reminiscent of Cold War-era verbal jousting.

US ambassador Samantha Power said Washington regretted the loss of life, but that Moscows request for the meeting was a stunt.

And Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin accused the US of violating agreements that it would not target Syrian army positions.

He called the strike a bad omen for the US-Russia deal on halting the war in Syria, which has killed more than 300,000 people since it erupted in March 2011.

These strikes endanger everything that has been done so far by the international community to end the war, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Fighting on multiple fronts

The truce agreement came into force September 12, with the Britain-based Observatory reporting a drop in violence across all major fronts in the country where IS was not present.

But fighting began to build up again late last week, including in the central provinces of Homs and Hama, and the rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus.

The front line remained quiet in divided second city Aleppo, but civilians have yet to see any aid deliveries -- a key component of the truce deal.

The head of Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda, said late Saturday that neither we nor rebel groups will allow the siege of Aleppo to continue.

In an interview broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Abu Mohamed al-Jolani said negotiations were under way for anti-regime groups to band together in a single organisation.

Such a merger would throw a major wrench in the US-Russia deal, which foresaw cooperation between the two world powers against jihadist groups, including Fateh al-Sham as well as IS, if the truce holds for a week.
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has once against said his Democratic rival Hillary Clintons security details be removed or unarmed to make her feel the insecurity felt by those who support the right to bear arms for they own safety.

But this time, in remarks on Friday, he went further and talked about consequences. I think her bodyguards should drop all weapons. Disarm immediately. Take their guns away, lets see what happens to her.

Take their guns away, OK? Itll be very dangerous.

Speaking on the issue of gun rights a month ago, Trump had suggested that Second Amendment people (supporters of gun rights) might do something to stop Clinton. Then, as now, Trump was seen inciting violence against her rival.

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said Trumps remarks should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate.
KATHMANDU : A probe ordered by Nepals anti-graft watchdog into the alleged embezzlement of more than Rs 6 billion from funds meant for rehabilitating former Maoist guerrillas has cast a shadow on Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachandas visit to India.

In a surprise move, the powerful Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) decided on Friday to launch an investigation into the alleged financial irregularities and summoned top Maoist leaders held responsible for receiving money from the state.

CIAA spokesperson Ganesh Karki did not name the Maoist leaders who would have to appear before the watchdog, but indicated that leaders who received funds from the state and were in charge of cantonments where the guerrillas were housed would have to record their statements in 30 days.

Sources said top Maoist leaders, including party chairman Prachanda, former Peoples Liberation Army commander Nanda Bahadur Pun, now the vice president, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, now the deputy prime minister, former PLA deputy commander Janardan Sharma, and former PLA deputy commander Chakrapani Khanal, who is the premiers chief political advisor, could be questioned.

There was no formal response from the Maoists or Prachanda, who is set to return to Nepal on Sunday. More than 19,000 former Maoist guerrillas were confined in cantonments as part of the peace process that began in 2006. Some guerrillas joined the army and those considered ineligible were given financial aid as part of a rehabilitation package.

Several complaints were registered with the CIAA about a mismatch in funds released by the state for distribution among the guerrillas and the number of former fighters who actually received the money.

There is a huge mismatch and differences between the numbers of former combatants and money spent by the state, said Karki. So, the constitutional body decided to summon responsible leaders of the Maoist party who received money from the state to take care of the combatants.

The government released more than Rs 15 billion to manage the cantonments and care for guerrillas who fought in the decade-long civil war, and more than Rs 6 billion was allegedly embezzled, officials said.

According to complaints filed with the CIAA, several thousands of former guerrillas left the cantonments but Maoist leaders continued to receive money from the state in their name.

Maoist leaders, however, had a different take on the probe. Hours before the CIAAs announcement, the Supreme Court decided to reopen the file on the appointment of Lokman Singh Karki, the head of the watchdog. Karki, who served as chief secretary under the royal regime until 2006, is considered one of the most powerful bureaucrats in Nepal.
After five years of peddling a lie, stoking a Right-wing conspiracy pushed by a section of Americans uncomfortable with a black man in the Oval Office, Donald Trump took the truth pill on Friday. But there are plenty of other, similar falsehoods he has deployed to further his short career in politics.

Trump was a leading face of the birther movement, which refers to fringe theorists known as birthers who believe that President Barack Obama was not born in the US and is therefore ineligible for presidency,

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and produced both a short-form and long-form certificate to prove that. But Trump continued to fan it.

Until Friday, that is, when he finally accepted the reality.

But there was no word about the another lie the Manhattan builder has flogged about the president, that he was Muslim, like his Kenyan-born father, and not Christian, which he is.

I wonder if President Obama would have attended the funeral of Justice Scalia if it were held in a mosque? Very sad that he did not go! he tweeted in February.

Trump has also tried to link Obama to Muslims who committed acts of terror in the United States.

(Obama) doesnt get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands, he said of Obama after Omar Mateen, an American of Afghan descent, killed 47 people at a gay club in Orlando in June, adding, Its one or the other. And either one is unacceptable.

He has fanned many conspiracy theories about Clintons health, insinuating she may be in worse condition than she or her campaign would let on. He tries to dog-whistle it saying she is low on stamina, while surrogates such as former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani have tried to fan using unsubstantiated claims on the internet. Just Google it, Giuliani said in a TV interview.

The businessman tycoons love of conspiracy theories has not spared even his own party colleagues, and during the Republican nominating contests, he suggested Ted Cruzs father may have had some connection to former president John F Kennedys assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. He repeated it after Cruz refused to endorse the nominee at the party Cleveland convention.

Trump has also claimed Muslims in the US celebrated after the 9/11 attacks; climate change was a hoax; vaccines lead to autism; and he was targeted by the Islamic State.

And he can come up with more between now and November 9, Election Day.
LONDON: A transgender soldier is set to become Britains first female to serve on the frontline, The Sun newspaper reported on Saturday. Chloe Allen joined the army four years ago as Ben. Britain in July announced a lifting of the ban on women serving in combat roles.

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LONDON: It was meant to be a conciliatory dinner at an Indian restaurant at Bournemouth by one of the candidates after the UK Independence Partys leadership contest was decided on Friday, but was hit by an immigration raid that saw one staff flee the scene.

Britains immigration officials often conduct such raids at Indian and other restaurants, which hire temporary staff who may or may not have permission to work. The raids have led to many arrests of illegal immigrants and fines of up to 10,000 per illegal worker hired.

Lisa Duffy, one of the candidates for the post of UKIP leader, was at the Indian Ocean restaurant with her 10-member team when the raid happened. Duffy has been campaigning hard for immigration controls.

Duffy told the Mirror: Its a bit ironic really. When we went in the immigration officers were there, then we were put to our table which was adjacent to the door. The immigration team reportedly told her they were making a spot check and came out of the kitchen with a man.

She said: Then as somebody else came through the door, this particular gentleman who they had managed to flee away from them down the hill. They were walking with him and I think they were going to take him to their van but he managed to run away.

We were the last people admitted in and then they stopped taking guests at one point because obviously they were then under a little bit of pressure being able to serve everybody. Then after that, once it was all over, they started admitting guests back into the restaurant.

It could not immediately be ascertained if any arrests were made during the raid.
George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin have been known to have juggled between their responsibilities in their careers and in keeping time for their relationship. After two years of marriage, sources are now speculating whether the A-list couple is considering having kids soon. The latest reports, however, have not sound promising as what most hoped.

"George Clooney 's personal life is all about his multiple homes in Italy, Los Angeles and Mexico and traveling the world while promoting his brand of tequila with his business partner, Rande Gerber," the source said as if trying to imply that the actor's move to settle down and have kids may be slim for now as he is more focused in soaring in his career.

The source further pointed out Amal's personal limitations to become a mother due to her duties as a UN human rights lawyer and a humanitarian extending aid among refugees.

"Amal Alamuddin might not have time for a baby either, especially with her travel schedule, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to become a mother."

It was also rumored that before the couple got married in that unexpected ceremony in Italy, they made sure they were on the same page and that they have the same goals.

In a previous report, Amal's pregnancy "might cause plenty of friction" in their marriage and the idea of settling down and having kids makes the actor feel he has "no way out."

Meanwhile, the A-list couple is slammed and were called 'hypocrites' for not doing extending any help for a massive makeshift refugee camp set up in Lake Como, a location close to one of the actor's mansions. The couple previously made headlines in their efforts to raise money for the war-torn Darfur in Africa but their apathy towards a nearby refugee camp speak a rather contrasting message from their humanitarian front.

"Yet, the refugee crisis apparently wasn't on George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin's night as they laughed with guests and enjoyed each other's company on a luxury yacht. Amal Alamuddin sipped on champagne while George Clooney charmed guests with his wit and charisma in full view of the paparazzi," a source said.

Previously, Clooney's Lake Como villa is slated to be auctioned last year due to his problem with 'intrusive paparazzi.'

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The nightmare of Brazil's once-dominant Worker's Party continues as charges have been filed against former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. The 70-year old politician, who served as the country's President from 2003 to 2011, has been accused of masterminding a graft scheme to keep the party's grip on political power.

The charges zero in on what is claimed as the root of Lula's involvement in widespread corruption, the New York Times reported. The former President and his wife allegedly connived to receive illegal kickbacks from a large oil company in Brazil, amounting to $1.1 million.

"Lula was the big boss of the Petrobras corruption scheme. Lula was on top of the power pyramid... Lula appointed several senior executives at Petrobras so that they could raise funds for political parties in the governing coalition [through corruption]... Without Lula's decision power, it would be impossible for this scheme to exist," alleged prosecutor Deltan Dalagnol in a report by BBC.

According to the Guardian, the corruption scandal was a key reason why ex-President Dilma Rousseff, who was Lula's Chief of Staff during one of his terms, was ousted from power in August. The impeachment came amid celebrations hed during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro. It was the first time the Olympics was ever held in a South American city.

Despite Lula's touted involvement in corruption, he remains one of the country's most popular politicuans, largely because of his economic and social policies that improved the lives of many Brazilians who have lived under the poverty line. The charges may also stop the former President from seeking another run for Brazil's presidency in 2018. Brazil's laws forbid those with criminal charges to seek the country's highest elective office.

Lula, for his part, called the charges a "deplorable spectacle," saying that there is no evidence proving that he and his wife have ever dabbled in any corrupt activities during his time as President.

Watch the BBC's "Luiz Inacio Lula da Sila: Exclusive interview" here:

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Rumors of a jailbreaking tool for iOS 10 have already circulated across the internet in the wake of Apple's anticipated release of its newest operating system for mobile devices. While nothing has been confirmed so far by hacking groups, the jailbreaking community is looking forward for the mechanism necessary to crack iPhones and iPads.

Along with the release of iPhone 7 and 7 Plus last September 7, the finalized version of iOS 10 has also been made available to registered developers. Currently, the system can be downloaded through Apple's beta program. Meanwhile, the jailbreaking community needs to acquire a tool for the system to get their devices to run Cydia. However, only Apple gadgets with A7 chipsets or higher can support iOS 10.

In July this year, the Chinese hacking unit Pangu has shown a mechanism for the iOS 9.3.2 and the 9.3.3 jailbreaks. However, Apple has been constantly repulsing those hacks with timely iOS updates. In the case of the iOS 10, the tech giant is likely to install a new line up depending on how Pangu will unveil its last card.

It must be considered that along the way, Pangu has already been working on an earlier version of the iOS 10 beta which means that a lot of progress has already been made since then. Since the hackers have been able to crack the operating system, it will just be a matter of time that another tweak will allow a jailbreaking process to proceed.

The current tussle between Apple and Pangu may have resulted in a complication. In order to repel the intrusions of the Chinese group, Tim Cook's team has confused observers with the Golden Master edition. It has been revealed during the iPhone 7 launching that iOS 10 is technically 10.0.1.

In the process of jailbreaking Apple's operating system, it is necessary to install trusted certificates on the iPod, the iPhone or the iPad. The installation of a pre-jailbreak application will be a prelude to accessing the iOS 10 or 10.0.1. All users who installed the app will get an email from TaiG9 or pre-jailbreak teams when the TaiG9 full jailbreak tool is ready for the iOS.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The ever-watchful eyes of netizens turned to Daldykan, a river outside of Russia's Arctic city of Norilsk, after it turned blood red. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources started to receive reports about the issue on September 6, 2016.

Russian authorities prompted to investigate the strange phenomenon because the possible cause is alarming-a pipeline break in one of the city's nickel-producing factories. There has been no declaration of a state of emergency, however, as the river is not a source of the city's water supply.





Denis Koshevoi, a Ph.D. candidate at the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, explains that Norilsk Nickel Plant, one of the world's largest producer of palladium and nickel, supplies chemicals from Nadezhda to tailings dam through pipes, and it also does the same for metal concentrates coming from ore mills back to Nadezhda.

"Periodically there are accidents when these pipes break and the solutions spill and get into the Daldykan - that's why it changes colour," Koshevoi told the Guardian.

Norilsk Nickel, however, denied the allegations in a press release, "As of today, the polar division of the [Norilsk Nickel] company cannot confirm any leakage or accidental discharge of industrial waste into the Daldykan River, which could have affected the river's state."

Others suggest that industrial waste may not be the culprit. It is probably the iron oxide or rust in the ground that turned the water bright red. Locals joked that there might be a filming of a new The Crimson Rivers episode. Others said that the mining plant Nadezhda is just having the time of the month.

NASA's satellite have shown that the change in color is not a new phenomenon. The water's redness was detected by satellites in September 1997, July 1998, August 2013, July 2014, and July 2015.
The suspect, who claimed responsibility in the attack that injured 29 people in Chelsea, said the act was part of a protest in New York's continuous discrimination on the LGBTQ community.

This after investigators are closing in on the owner of a Tumbler page claiming, "I'm the NY bomber" while noting that the page was the suspect's manifesto.

The Tumblr post reads, I cannot live in a world where homosexuals like myself as well as the rest of the LGBTQ+ community are looked down upon by society.

Operatives of the New York Police District are on the hunt of the suspect while urging the community to report to authorities if they have knowledge of the incident.

On the Twitter, the NYPD says:

IMPORTANT: Anyone with information on the explosion in Chelsea is asked to share it by calling #800577TIPS pic.twitter.com/BidZoVB7sA  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) September 18, 2016

Investigators said the explosion along West 23rd Street was due to an improvised explosive device. The NYPD revealed that there are two active crime scenes. The other was along West 27 Street. Various government operatives are now exerting coordinated efforts in conducting further investigation of the incident.

There is currently a complex investigation ongoing involving numerous NYPD units & partner agencies including FBI, ATF, JTTF & NYS Police.  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) September 18, 2016



The NYPD also reported that all 29 people injured in the Chelsea explosion have been released from the hospital.



On a report by CBS New York, the complete controversial Tumblr post reads: You probably have all seen the news by now, the explosives detonated in New York City, that was me. Those were just some tests, I know where I have made errors and I will not make the same mistake next time.

I cannot live in a world where homosexuals like myself as well as the rest of the LGBTQ+ community are looked down upon by society.

It is 2016 and we are still being viewed as mentally ill, sinners, attention seekers, and just plain weirdos in general. I am not going to stand by while under classed and underprivileged people are oppressed. I am not going to stand by while there is inequality in my country such as the racism being seen in white police officers all over the country. I am not going to live in a country where it is OK to have a misogynist, xenophobic, racist Islamophobic, republican candidate running for President of The United States! Thats implying that republicans in general should even be taken seriously as they are all cisgendered privileged white people, the post reads.

This is not the end, this is just the beginning. I will be remembered. I will make a difference. I will eliminate my targets before it is too late.

The Tumbler page has been taken down hours later. Chelsea is among New York's most LGBT-friendly communities.

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Inside the tony Houston Omni Hotel at Westside, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump found a friendly audience Saturday as he promised "help is coming" to an anti-illegal-immigration group gathered to hear him speak on his signature cause.

"The politicians ignore your cries for help, but I never will," Trump vowed to thunderous applause at a luncheon for The Remembrance Project, a grass-roots organization that draws attention to those killed by people in the country without documentation and who see a champion in Trump.

"Not one more American life should be given up in the name of open borders," the candidate said at the event that was at first open to the public and press and then, this week, abruptly closed. His remarks were, however, streamed live on YouTube.

It was outside the hotel, where the lines of contention were quickly drawn in the few feet of concrete driveway that separated 20 or so angry Trump protesters from the equally vocal and enraged Trump supporters. When not taunting each other, they worked for nearly three hours in a scorching midday sun to win the hearts and horns of passing motorists with their chants and signs.

"Racist, Sexist Anti-Gay; Donald Trump Go Away," the protesters called through a bullhorn.

"Mexico, Mexico, How many people have you killed today?" came a response from the Trump supporters, several holding American flags.

They also turned on each other directly at times. But it was only insults that were hurled on Saturday rather than fists, unlike at some Trump events across the nation where physical violence has erupted between protesters and supporters.

"Nazi!" one Trump protester shouted across the hotel driveway.

"Communist" a supporter yelled back.

Police out in force

Houston Police were out in force both inside and outside the Omni. Alex Thompson, a 27-year-old reporter for Vice, an HBO news program, was arrested for trespassing by Houston police and held in jail after asking about press access to the event. The Trump campaign issued a statement late in the afternoon saying it was not aware or involved in detaining the reporter, who once worked for New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

And at one point officers moved in when Marcel McClinton, a 15-year-old wearing a Trump T-shirt, and another Trump supporter crossed over to the protest side.

McClinton, a Stratford High School student, said he simply wanted to ask a protester about his catcall that Trump was a racist. He said he was cursed at and called names by a protestor.

Police said they set up barricades to keep the groups separate.

Meanwhile, Trump told the luncheon crowd he had been moved by the plight of the Remembrance families and that theirs, unlike other causes, were a "lonely fight for justice."

He spoke for 17 minutes, reading from a teleprompter.

Trump was introduced by Maria Espinoza, national director of the Houston-based The Remembrance Project, who said he was the only presidential candidate who responded to the group's request to meet and listen to their stories.

"There is only one candidate who spoke the truth," Espinoza said. "There is only one candidate who reached out to our families, the stolen lives families - Americas most forgotten families."

Some of those gathered at the group's first luncheon wore T-shirts with the pictures of a slain loved one. Most wore large Trump campaign buttons.

"The most fundamental duty of government is to protect American lives," Trump said. "Anyone who fails to understand this is not fit to hold public office."

The most vigorous applause came after he vowed to stop officials in so-called sanctuary cities from declining to cooperate with federal immigration agencies.

"What do you tell the wife who has lost her husband because a sanctuary city released an illegal immigrant from behind bars?" Trump asked the crowd. "It has to end. It will end. If I become president, I promise you, it will end."

'I'm afraid if he wins'

Victor Ibarra, a 47-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico who owns his own carpet-cleaning service and pays taxes, stood in the grass outside the hotel and said Trump does not understand the whole story of America's undocumented.

"I've been living here a long time and I'm not a criminal. He says that people from Mexico are criminals. Americans commit more crimes than undocumented workers," Ibarra said, holding a 3-foot pinata he made in Trump's likeness, including devil's horns. "We're here to tell Donald Trump that we don't want him in Houston."

Ibarra said he came to the United States 22 years ago and has been on a waiting list for a resident visa for 15 years. "I'm afraid if he wins," he said.

A few feet away John Coronado, 54, a teacher at a small technical college, held a sign that read: "Latinos for Trump." A third-generation Mexican-American, he said he is mostly angry with those who come into the country illegally and then demand to stay.

But he said he admires and has "all the respect in the world" for those like Ibarra who are trying to gain legal status through proper channels. He discards the position that Trump occasionally takes to force all undocumented immigrants out of the country.

Texas in general and Houston, a widely diverse city of immigrants, in particular remains torn on the issue. A Texas Lyceum annual poll released Wednesday showed that for the fifth consecutive year, immigration and border security are top issues.

'They need to go back'

A majority of Texas adults, 59 percent, said in the poll they opposed a wall between the United States and Mexico that Trump has famously touted. But that figure dropped to 48 percent when the poll considered likely voters.

Patricia Morlen, of Huffman, and her husband each paid $240 a plate for the Saturday luncheon, and she walked away impressed with Trump even though she had initially been a U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz supporter. In June she was severely injured when her car was hit by an undocumented man from El Salvador, she said.

She suffered a broken clavicle and five broken ribs, she said. She is angry because she believes the man simply got a ticket but was not deported.

"When the illegal aliens commit a crime, they need to go back," she said.

Cindy George contributed to this report.
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Team building is a delicate and time-consuming process. Anyone can put together a group of talented people, but it takes a dedicated team leader to bring everyone together effectively. One of the most important considerations you must make is whether or not an applicant fits into your companys culture. The right person will build upon what youve created, but the wrong person can bring it all down very quickly  and culture can take an awfully long time to rebuild. Learn to Conduct the Orchestra In the following series of lines from Aaron Sorkin's already famous screenplay, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak holds the following dialogue with Jobs: Wozniak: You can't write code, you're not an engineer, you're not a designer, and you can't put a hammer to a nail ... So how come 10 times in a day, I read "Steve Jobs is a genius." What do you do? Jobs:I play the orchestra. Jobs knew he could never have accomplished what he did alone. He needed engineers, marketers, designers ... His skill was in bringing those people together and keeping them in harmony. Similarlyat Amazon, Jeff Bezos skill is bringing talented people together and focusing them on the vision for Amazon. They work in harmony. Each does their part for the success of the team, for the success of the company. Its called a service strategy. He allows employees to assist in creating new a...
The war for talent has never been greater as it is becoming increasingly challenging for companies to attract, retain and engage high performing employees. In addition, the composition and needs of todays workforce continue to rapidly shift. According to the Pew Research Center, adults ages 18 to 34 are already the largest generation in the U.S. labor force. Another study administered by PwC found that Millennials will represent more than 50 percent of the global workforce by 2020. Studies indicate that from a career perspective, Millennials are driven by different things than previous generations. They are mission driven, valuework/life balance, and are much less likely to seek to remain with the same company for 10 years, never mind an entire career. Case and point: The 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey revealed that 44 percent of Millennials intend to quit their current job to join a new organization or do something different in the next two years. That leaves HR managers challenged to find new ways to not just attract Millennial talent, but retain it as well. The financial concerns of Millennials also reflect some significant differences than previous generations. In particular, 71percent of recent graduates enter the work force with student loans averaging more than $37,000 and that number riseeach year. Average monthly payments for these recent grads are around $420 and for many the b...
Companies are having to reinvent themselves as technology driven organizations in this digital age. We all know GE makes our lightbulbs and airplane engines, and is one of the largest capital financing companies in the world. But GE is now betting its future on becoming one of the top 10 software companies by 2020. These shifts offer amazing opportunities for companies to rethink their talent attraction and retainment strategies. But because of the pace of change, if your company drags its feet or thinks about it too long, youll be left behind. If your workforce strategy is in planning and youre not doing, youll be left behind. If you have a workforce re-skilling strategy that has multiple years in the title, youll be left behind. But companies still spend billions every year trying on traditional methods to recruit their way out of the skills gap. Having worked in the software engineering industry around the world for 20 years, Im well aware that this has always been the default solution. But it does not work for startups or agile enterprises. Its simply not enough to expect to hire good young tech talent from the ranks of recent college grads and expect them to transform the tech capacity of your company. There simply arent enough of them and, even if you find them, they wont know anything about what you do. At Galvanize, the learning community for technology, we tea...
Image: Armenia's new Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan. Public Domain

Hundreds of Armenian bigwigs were in a festive mood as they filed into a concert hall in the capital of Yerevan on December 3, 2010, for a concert by opera star Placido Domingo.

The upbeat mood didn't last long for one of the preeners, though.

When the wife of Mayor Gagik Beglaryan tried to sit next to President Serzh Sargsyan, one of Sargsyan's aides told her the seats on either side of the president are reserved for the prime minister and the head of Armenia's Apostolic Church.

The wife, Nouneh Nikolyan, was furious. She complained bitterly about it to her husband, who was not at the concert.

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The next day Beglaryan demanded a meeting with the aide, Aram Kandayan.

The mayor, surrounded by bodyguards, took Kandayan to a factory and beat the hell out of him, according to news accounts.

Armenia has had a history of politicians using their positions to get away with assaulting someone they're angry with, but Sargsyan was unable to ignore this one. By attacking a Sargsyan aide, Beglaryan was mounting a direct challenge to the president's authority.

Sargsyan fired him as mayor.

This sordid chapter led to Karen Karapetyan, the head of Russia's natural-gas operation in Armenia, obtaining his first public-leadership position.

Sargsyan named Karapetyan mayor of Yerevan a few days after firing Beglaryan in December of 2010. Karapetyan kept the post only a year before returning to Gazprom.

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Now Sargsyan has thrown Karapetyan into another emergency situation: The tense aftermath of an armed group's police-station takeover in July that turned into a general uprising against the Sargsyan regime.

This time Karapetyan has stepped into Armenia's second-most-important position, the prime ministership.

He replaces Hovik Abrahamyan, whom Sargsyan made a sacrificial lamb for Armenia's continuing economic problems and for the government's inept handling of the police-station takeover.

Because Karapetyan assumed both the mayor's and prime minister's positions reluctantly -- to bail the government out of jams -- some political analysts are dubbing him the "accidental politician."

Underscoring that designation, his tenure as prime minister is likely to be only seven months longer than his 12 months in the mayor's post.

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That's because Armenia is changing from a strong-president to a parliamentary system in 19 months. Sargsyan changed the constitution in December of 2015 because it would have limited him to two terms in the nation's highest office, the presidency.

The new system makes the prime minister instead of the president the nation's premier leader, and Sargsyan is expected to become prime minister when the new political system goes into effect in 2018.

This means that Karapetyan will stay in the prime minister's post only 19 months.

Will he able to make a difference in that limited time frame, even if he wants to? Probably not.

And his background suggests he won't want to make a difference.

Here are some things to remember about him:

1. Karapetyan is pro-Russian at a time when a growing number of Armenians believe the country's best chance for prosperity is looking toward Europe.

He built his fortune working for Gazprom, first in Armenia and then in Russia.

He was CEO of Gazprom's Armenian subsidiary, ArmRosGazprom, from 2001 to 2010. He left the Yerevan mayor's post in December 2011 to become first vice president of Gazprom Bank in Moscow. He has been deputy general director of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz since November 2012.

With his continued career success tied to Russia, Karapetyan is unlikely to take any steps as prime minister to move Armenia away from its dependence on Moscow.

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2. Karapetyan is unlikely to do anything for Armenia's little guys, the rank-and-file whose lives get worse each year. In fact, if his past performance is a predictor, he's likely to try to make things worse for the little guys.

Although Karapetyan was mayor of Yerevan only a year, many residents remember his attempt to get rid of the city's street vendors.

His justification was that those selling vegetables, fruits, household items and crafts on the street were involved in the shadow economy -- economic activities that were unregistered and thus yielding no tax money for the government.

His crackdown led to hundreds of vendors protesting and to sympathy demonstrations by the public at large.

"Isn't it obvious that if I had another job, I wouldn't be standing in the cold, selling fruits and chocolate to make ends meet?" wailed one of the vendors, pensioner Karen Hakobyan. "Of course, Karen Karapetyan wants to see Yerevan free of street vendors' stalls when he looks at them out of the windows of his luxury limousine. But what am I to do? Is the mayor going to support my family?"

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Although Karapetyan has been in the prime minister's post only a few days, he has already signaled that he plans another attempt to crush the shadow economy -- this time not just in Yerevan but in the nation as a whole. "The Armenian economy has no chance of being reformed without a fight against the shadow economy," he asserted.

3. Karapetyan is likely to be a caretaker rather than a trailblazer in the prime minister's post. In other words, he's likely to talk a good game but do little.

Borrowing a street vendor analogy, Karapetyan won't want to upset the apple cart for Sargsyan before Sargsyan moves into the prime minister's post in 2018.

After the police-station takeover ignited a general uprising against the Sargsyan regime, the shaken president promised economic and political reform, including a government of national unity that includes opposition figures in the cabinet.

He also fired Abrahamyan as prime minister to demonstrate that he's serious about reform -- whether he is or not.

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If he had wanted a reformist prime minister, however, he would have chosen someone besides Karapetyan, who has been a cautious business executive most of his life.

That has prompted many observers to conclude that Karapetyan will simply be trying to keep domestic political turmoil from boiling over during his tenure as prime minister, and not making substantive policy changes.

A fresh face in the prime minister's position will give some Armenians hope that the anemic economy will improve, the gap between rich and poor will shrink, and corruption won't be as pervasive.

I don't have the heart to remind those who are clinging to hope that Armenia has had 18 prime ministers in its 25 years of independence, and is still one of the poorest countries in the former Soviet Union.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton champions wars to effectuate regime change. Their immorality, illegality, and stupidity do not diminish Ms. Clinton's enthusiasm for treating independent nations as serfs of the United States.

As First Lady, she warmly supported the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which made it the policy of the Unites States to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. As United States Senator, she invoked the 1998 policy in voting for the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force Against Iraq. Saddam's successors proved a cure worse than the disease. Shiite dominated governments allied with Iran, oppressed Sunnis, Kurds, and Turkmen, and created a power vacuum that gave birth to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Our national security has been weakened.

As Secretary of State in 2011, Ms. Clinton vocally supported the war against Libya to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi on the heels of his abandonment of weapons of mass destruction. She boasted with the dripping arrogance of Julius Caesar after Gaddafi's death: "We came, we saw, he died." She insisted that regime change in Libya was for humanitarian purposes. She agreed with President Barack Obama that to be faithful to "who we are," we must overthrow governments that are oppressing their citizens by force and violence.

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Libya predictably descended into dystopia after Gaddafi's murder. (It had no democratic cultural, historical, or philosophical credentials). Tribal militias proliferated. Competing governments emerged. ISIS entered into the power vacuum in Sirte, which has required the return of United States military forces to Libya. Terrorists murdered our Ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi. Gaddafi's conventional weapons were looted and spread throughout the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled and are continuing to flee Libyan shores for Europe. North Korea and Iran hardened their nuclear ambitions to avoid Gaddafi's grisly fate. Our national security has been weakened.

Like the French Bourbons who forgot nothing and learned nothing, Ms. Clinton eagerness to initiate wars for regime change was undiminished by the Iraq and Libya debacles. She urged war against Syria to oust President Bashar al-Assad. She confidently insinuated that we could transform Syria into a flourishing democracy sans James Madisons, George Washingtons, or Thomas Jeffersons because of our unique nation-building genius. She forgot South Sudan. We midwifed its independence in 2011. Despite our hopes and prayers, the new nation descended into a gruesome ongoing civil war including child soldiers between the Dinka lead by President Salva Kiir and the Nuer lead by former Vice President Riek Machar. More than 50,000 have died, more than 2.2 million have been displaced, and a harrowing number have been murdered, tortured, or raped. South Sudan epitomizes our nation-building incompetence.

Wars for regime change are immoral. We have not been tasked by a Supreme Being to appraise foreign nations like a schoolmarm and to invade those to whom we have superciliously assigned a failing grade. As Jesus sermonized in Matthew 7: 1-3:

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Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Thus, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President James Monroe in 1823:

The presumption of dictating to an independent nation the form of its government is so arrogant, so atrocious, that indignation as well as moral sentiment enlists all our partialities and prayers in favor of one and our equal execrations against the other.

Wars for regime change also violate international law. Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter generally prohibits "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state..." Article 51 creates a narrow exception for wars in self-defense "if an armed attack occurs..." Regime change wars do not fit that narrow exception.



They are also stupid, like playing Russian roulette. We lack the wisdom necessary to insure that successor regimes will strengthen rather than weaken our national security taking into account, among other things, the staggering military and financial costs of propping up corrupt, incompetent, and unpopular governments.
LONDON, UK - September 17: aA group of refugees seen at the front line of the Refugees Welcome demonstration, as thousands of people march through London to show solidarity with Refugees on 1a7a September 2016. The march from Hyde Park to Parlianet Square follows reports of the many people who have lost their lives including a young boy Aylan Kurdi trying to flee from their war torn countries to safety in Europe.a Last year the government agreed to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees. (Photo by David Mbiyu/Corbis via Getty Images)

Two years ago, I traveled to the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. I met a Syrian refugee family there who had recently fled Raqqa. Unable to find regular work, the family was depending on the labor of their 12-year-old daughter, who was working in the fields. The family and this young girl herself would have preferred her to be in school. The Bekaa Valley is among the areas hardest hit by the refugee crisis. Two years ago, when I was there, some 770 informal tented settlements had sprung up and the valley was home to more than 410,000 refugees. These numbers have largely stayed the same. Today, more people are forcibly displaced from their homes than at any time since the end of the World War II. A recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, estimated that 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared to 59.5 million just a year earlier. Measured against the world's population of 7.4 billion people, one in every 113 people globally is now either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee. This tally is greater than the entire population of the United Kingdom. In some cases, people are fleeing from poverty and lack of opportunity. In others, people are fleeing from conflict and lawlessness. Many millions need international support. The Syria crisis has caused serious displacement -- 4.8 million Syrians have become refugees, and 6.5 million are displaced. This is the largest displacement crisis globally. Many Syrians have fled to neighboring countries that are now hosting large numbers of these refugees. In Lebanon, Syrian refugees number roughly a quarter of the population. In Jordan, the number is estimated at about one in five people. Turkey hosts more than two million Syrians and Iraqis. The host countries and communities need international support too. The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals provide a framework within which to respond to these large movements of people. The U.N. Summit for Refugees and Migrants convening this week in New York provides a unique opportunity for world leaders to come up with a blueprint for a strong international response to their needs. What could be done to prevent displacement crises in future?

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First, the international community should place conflict prevention and mediation at the center of international peace and security efforts. Early warning and response systems are needed for when tensions emerge and to foster reconciliation. Second, international support is needed to strengthen good governance and the rule of law and to address structural inequalities. Promoting inclusive economic growth and sustainable livelihoods is critical for building peaceful and inclusive societies. These are long-term investments that are also critical structural prevention efforts. Third, development actors can assist governments to improve their capacity for data collection and analysis on the root causes of displacement caused by poverty and lack of opportunity, to help design sustainable responses. The organization I head, the United Nations Development Program, will play its part. We provide support for host communities and help countries anticipate and prevent future crises. We promote inclusive and accountable institutions which can improve social cohesion, and drive inclusive development. We work to tackle inequalities and to improve access to justice and to basic services like education and health. Going forward, the UNDP will work to ensure that the inclusion of migration and displacement issues are priorities during the implementation of the SDGs. The UNDP will also support at least 30 program countries over the next five years to analyze and address the drivers of migration and of forced displacement. And we will work with partners to build evidence and gather data around migration and displacement. More needs to be known about the development impact of displacement in countries of origin and in host countries and communities. This week, world leaders have an historic opportunity to address this issue and come together in a spirit of shared responsibility for the world's refugees and migrants. Let's remember those refugee children sent out to work instead of being able to go to school, and resolve to see that their needs are met.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of two critical conferences at the UN on the Refugee and Migrant crisis: the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants (Sept. 19th, a UN conference) and the Leaders Summit on Refugees (Sept. 20th, hosted by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, at the UN). To see all the posts in the series, visit here. To follow the conversation on Twitter, see #UN4RefugeesMigrants.

Also on WorldPost:
Every year, in North Myrtle Beach, a memorial event takes place on main street. It is focused on remembering those who lost their lives and gave their lives on September 11th, 2001. The entire city comes out to show their support for families who were affected, first responders who risked or gave their lives, and those who are still out there protecting us.

There is a parade of support by not only those who mourn the losses that took place on that horrific day, but also by the men and women that are still risking their lives each day in service of their fellow man. A moment of prayer and silence is acknowledged for those who died, and time is afforded to individuals who have words of condolence and comfort for us who are lucky enough to be alive today.

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Would your organization like to hold meetings that are more efficient, more productive, and even more enjoyable?

I've interviewed hundreds of billionaires, famous entrepreneurs, and leaders of the most successful companies in the world. In analyzing the meeting culture in these organizations, a few things began to stand out.

Google Ventures' Secret Weapon

Jake Knapp, design partner at Google Ventures, is an advocate for using a physical clock to count down the time remaining in a meeting. He discovered a specific type of timer, called the Time Timer, while visiting his child's classroom.

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Teachers have been known to call it "The Magic Clock." The Time Timer is battery powered and large enough to be seen by meeting participants from across a room. A red disc silently spins, showing the amount of time remaining. Why not just set a timer on your smartphone? As Knapp wrote on Medium:

"The Time Timer is way better than a timer app on a screen. Because it's physical, it's easier to adjust and set, and absolutely impossible to ignore."

Would your organization like to hold meetings that are more efficient, more productive, and even more enjoyable?

I've interviewed hundreds of billionaires, famous entrepreneurs, and leaders of the most successful companies in the world. In analyzing the meeting culture in these organizations, a few things began to stand out.

Advertisement

Google Ventures' Secret Weapon

Jake Knapp, design partner at Google Ventures, is an advocate for using a physical clock to count down the time remaining in a meeting. He discovered a specific type of timer, called the Time Timer, while visiting his child's classroom.

Teachers have been known to call it "The Magic Clock." The Time Timer is battery powered and large enough to be seen by meeting participants from across a room. A red disc silently spins, showing the amount of time remaining. Why not just set a timer on your smartphone? As Knapp wrote on Medium:

"The Time Timer is way better than a timer app on a screen. Because it's physical, it's easier to adjust and set, and absolutely impossible to ignore."

Walk It Out

In 1999, a team of psychologists conducted research on the difference between sit-down and stand-up meetings across 56 different groups. As reported in the Journal of Applied Psychology: Sit-down meetings were 34% longer than stand-up meetings, but they produced no better decisions than stand-up meetings.

In a different study, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis determined that standing meetings were far better than sit-down meetings in terms of outcomes. They reported in Social Psychological & Personality Science that stand-up meetings led to better collaboration and less possessiveness of ideas, higher levels of engagement, and more problem-solving creativity.

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Famous entrepreneur Richard Branson isn't into traditional meetings either. As he wrote in his blog:

"One of my favourite tricks is to conduct most of my meetings standing up. I find it to be a much quicker way of getting down to business, making a decision and sealing the deal. When given the opportunity I often like to take things a step further--literally, with a walking meeting."

In addition to Branson, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jack Dorsey have all been known to hold an affinity for walking meetings.

10-Minute Meetings

Should your meetings default to 30 minutes or one hour?

In an interview with Bloomberg Business in 2006, Marissa Mayer (who was with Google at the time) told the interviewer that she holds up to 70 meetings a week. The only way she could cram them all in was to break down the "30-minute" block into small meetings, sometimes as few as five or 10 minutes each.

Richard Branson spoke openly on his blog about his aversion to the traditionally timed meeting, saying that "It's very rare that a meeting on a single topic should need to last more than 5-10 minutes."

Is 10 minutes a bit too short for you? Ryan Delk, who leads growth at E-commerce and digital distribution company Gumroad defaults to 20 minutes:

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"The default length of a meeting or call--both internally and externally--should be 20 minutes; anything longer should be an exception... Even if you're just moving from 30-minute meetings to 20-minute meetings, you can fit in 4-6 more meetings, calls, or appointments in a day."

The exact number of minutes isn't important; the principle of shorter meetings is.

Design An Effective Agenda

The most successful people know that effective meetings begin with effective agendas, which are circulated in advance. Secrets to creating effective agendas include the following actions:

Seek input on the agenda from participants before the meeting, so new topics don't crop up and derail the primary goal.

Clearly state the purpose of the meeting.

Clearly state who the facilitator is.

Identify all invited participants: The fewer the better, but you also want to make sure a key person isn't being forgotten. Google tries to limit meeting participants to ten or fewer. Steve Jobs was known to throw people out of the room if they couldn't come up with a good reason for being there.

List agenda topics as questions whenever possible in order to focus the participants on decision-making.

Attach time estimates to each agenda item so participants can monitor the progress and pace of the meeting. (Make sure the estimates are realistic.)
Life on the streets is hard. Far too often people experiencing homeless die on the streets. It's horrible when anyone dies homeless, yet it's even worse that most of the deaths can be avoided. Homeless people are often thought of as being survivors, but what I learned from Dr. Jim O'Connell in an interview I recorded five years ago, the death rate of people experiencing homelessness is higher than any other subgroup in America.

A few months back I was honored to be able to visit Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which is one place I have been trying to visit ever since I first met Dr. Jim O'Connell. Many years ago we were invited to be on the leadership team when 100,000 Homes Campaign was just starting. Although I was once homeless myself, I was just learning about homeless service models, and Dr. Jim, besides being a really nice guy, he quickly rose to my hero list. A tour of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program was on my bucket list.

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Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program's integrated care model unites physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses, case managers and behavioral health professionals to provide healthcare services and support to people experiencing homelessness. At the time of this interview, BHCHP had over 25 physicians, 40 nurse practitioners, and 100 nurses providing services both out on the streets and in over 60 locations including shelters and hospitals.

While touring Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program's facilities, I could not help but notice it was at a whole different level than other homeless health care services I have visited. It was as if I was walking through a real hospital. I turned to Dr. Munson to ask how is this even possible, and he informed me that in Massachusetts people who are chronically homeless are covered by Medicaid. That's simply amazing!

As I travel, there is not a lot of difference between what homelessness looks like except when traveling to countries that provide health care to everyone! In the UK for example, you do not see people with disabilities and mental illness on the streets like you do here. Either heath care engages so a person is never homeless or when someone ends up on the streets health care helps them get the support they need to get out of homelessness.

Yesterday while walking around Boston I met an older homeless man. Jim told me that just last week he had a tumor removed. I asked him if he knew of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. He informed me Dr. Jim O'Connell and Dr. David Munson are his doctors and went on to say he is on a list for housing to get off the streets!

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No one should die out on the streets homeless! Please support the health care for the homeless programs in your community.
Recent elections have turned the Wisconsin Supreme Court from "one of the nation's most respected state tribunals into a disgraceful mess," wrote noted author on the courts Lincoln Caplan in 2015.

The dysfunction is on full display in the documents revealed by the Guardian this week in its expose on the "John Doe" investigation into potentially illegal coodination between Scott Walker and dark money groups that were supposed to operate independently of his campaign.

John Doe Judge Fails on Expenditure Coordination

The Wisconsin John Doe investigation was started by a bipartisan group of district attorneys and Judge Barbara Kluka who saw sufficient evidence of probable cause to authorize search warrants of Walker's top aides and a number of dark money groups. But Kluka stepped down and Judge Gregory A. Peterson was appointed.

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The type of high-dollar, high-donor fundraising discussed in this week's Guardian expose had never happened in Wisconsin before. Yet Peterson quashed the search warrants in 2014 stating in a cursory decision:

"I am persuaded by Friends of Scott Walker that the statutes do not regulate coordinated fundraising. Only coordinated expenditures may be regulated and the state does not argue coordination of expenditures occurred. Therefore, the subpoenas fail to show probable cause."

But the documents released by the Guardian this week are replete with evidence of expenditure coordination.

In concert with federal FEC rules, Wisconsin Government Accountability Board rules at the time stated that there is coordination "where there has been substantial discussion or negotiation between the campaign or the spender over, a communication's: (1) contents; (2) timing; (3) location, mode, or intended audience (e.g., choice between newspaper or radio advertisement); or (4) 'volume' (e.g., number of copies of printed material or frequency of media spots)."

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Stacks of emails show that Walker's top campaign advisor and Wisconsin Club for Growth campaign guru R.J. Johnson approved, placed, and rotated ads in the 2011 Senate recalls, and in the 2011 Supreme Court race on behalf of multiple groups, including WCFG and its offshoot Citizens for Strong America, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), Jobs First Coalition (a shell group controlled by AFC's Scott Jensen, the former Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly who was brought down by his own campaign finance scandal), Wisconsin Family Action and later in 2012, the American Federation for Children. (Ad-Coordination)

Emails show R.J. Johnson juggling disclaimers, pulling one name off and slapping another on, approving ad buys and ad placement. The public would see a series of ads from purportedly different groups, but the reality was that R.J. Johnson was behind the shell game orchestrating the air bombardment.

Scott Walker would boast to Karl Rove on May 4, 2011 "Bottom Line: RJ helps keeps in place a team that is wildly successful in Wisconsin. We are running 9 recall elections and it would be like 9 congressional markets in every market in the state and twin cities." (emphasis added). (Key-Misc-Set-One, p.16)

In 2012 as the Walker recall approached, prosecutors point to two emails that show R.J. Johnson on both sides of the coordination issue, both dated April 30, 2012. One email has R.J. Johnson approving a final Friends of Scott Walker ad, sending the note "this should be final unless someone has an issue" to Friends of Scott Walker's Keith Gilkes, WCFG's Deb Jordahl and others. (2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2, p.49)

CMD is not certain what the second email is that prosecutors are referring to, but there is an email dated April 30, 2012, where R.J. Johnson appears to direct Jordahl to spend the last few thousand dollars of WCFG money left over in a vendor's media account: "we need to get this out, express today if possible," R.J. Johnson says. (2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2, p.47)

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Misleads on Express Advocacy

The conservative majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court was elected with at least $10 million in spending by the groups under investigation. Many outside groups outspent the justices themselves. Two justices, Gableman and Prosser, were asked to recuse by prosecutors, but refused.

In 2015, when it shut down the John Doe, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rewrote Wisconsin law in an attempt to legalize coordination between candidates and third party "independent" groups for "issue advocacy." It is important to note that the court left intact the law's prohibition on coordination around express advocacy or what is called its "functional equivalent."

Express advocacy ads -- those that say "vote for" or "vote against" a candidate -- are increasingly rare. Campaign managers learned more than a decade previously that you didn't need to say the "magic words" to have a devastating impact on an opponent. This is why the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2007 that a communication is the "functional equivalent" of express advocacy "if the ad is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate."

The Wisconsin Supreme Court said in dismissing the John Doe that "the special prosecutor has not alleged any express advocacy." Yet prosecutors raised express advocacy explicitly in their filing with the court under the hard-to-miss header "Express Advocacy." (2014-2-21-Schmitz-Affidavit, p. 29)

They explained to the court how big groups like the Republican State Leadership Conference and the Republican Governors Association were in close contact with the Walker campaign. Both groups registered formally as an independent expenditure/express advocacy group with the Wisconsin elections board, and swore an oath saying they would not coordinate with Walker. RGA would spend a whopping $9.5 million in the Walker recall race on a barrage of ads that were the functional equivalent of express advocacy.

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Yet, the Supreme Court ignored these facts and when the special prosecutor asked to present more evidence, they fired him.

Prosecutors alleged that "far from being independent, evidence shows that Johnson coordinated with RSLC on the content of 'broadcast and cable' advertising in the 2011 recall elections. Johnson coordinated radio advertising to 'complement' the ads RSLC was running in the same 2011 recall races."

Prosecutors alleged that "FOSW and its agents were regularly conducting meetings/conference calls with RGA to discuss campaign strategy including polling. Governor Walker conducted phone calls and attended fundraising events coordinated by RGA."

Indeed one email from RGA's Nick Ayers directly to Scott Walker ccing Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus lays recommends a coordinated battleplan. "Spoke to Gillespie this morning. My sense is that everyone's heart (AFP, WIGOP, RSLC, RGA, CFG) is in the right place but no one is clear on the entire battleplan, and that is leaving very vulnerable gaps in both the planning and execution of a winning strategy." Ayers goes on to layout the battle plan in a key email. (2013-08-29-Schmitz-Affidavit, p 24). Among the groups referenced are the Koch's Americans for Prosperity and Club for Growth. Ed Gillespie is a key GOP strategist with close ties to Rove who ran the Republican State Leadership Committee at the time.

The coordination was evident on the expenditure side in the ads. "Forward--Walker, Backwards--Barrett" was a central theme in Walker campaign ads showing people walking backwards, clocks spinning backwards etc, including this May 7, 2012 ad. Republican Governors Association ads had the same theme, as did adds by WMC-IMC and other smaller groups like Wisconsin Recall Action.

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Many of these ads were the functional equivalent of express advocacy say experts.

Prosecutors believe Walker raised funds for these WMC-IMC ads and that R.J. Johnson may have been paid for placing them. Investigators say in the filings that bank records reflect wire transfers in April and May 2012 from WMC-IMC to Ten Capitol (the ad firm of WCM) totaling $3.7 million. "Coinciding with the wire transfers to Ten Capitol, WMC-IMC received payments from WiCFG" wrote prosecutors. "Consistent with a commission for ad placement, R.J. Johnson and Associates received $50,000 from Ten Capitol on June 22, 2012."

The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that coordination with groups that run express advocacy ads or its function equivalent was barred, yet the court failed to look at the many ads that qualified as express advocacy or its functional equivalent and fired the special prosecutor when he objected.

"The miscalculation I made in this investigation was underestimating the power and influence special interest groups have in Wisconsin politics," said special prosecutor Francis Schmitz at the time, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former counter-terrorism prosecutor.

New Information on Gableman and Prosser Recusal

When prosecutors asked Gableman and Prosser to recuse, some scratched their heads. Why focus on those two when four Justices were elected with massive spending from Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, two of the groups under investigation?

An email in the stack may answer this question.

In the same email from Scott Walker to Karl Rove on May 4, 2011, Walker writes: "RJ was the chief advisor to my campaign. He pulled together the team who flipped the Senate three times and the Assembly two times. He ran the effort that defeat the first incumbent Supreme Court Justice for decade back in 2008 and Club for Growth - Wisconsin was the key to retaining Justice Prosser." (Key-Misc-Set-One, p.16)

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In the 2008 Surpreme Court race Justice Louis Butler was unseated by Michael Gableman in an ugly race that resulted in the state's judicial commisison filing a formal complaint against Gableman that was left unresolved by the ideological split on the Supreme Court. Justice Gableman wrote the 2015 court decision shutting down the John Doe.

These facts are newly relevant as the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to take a look at the prosecutors appeal of the John Doe case this month.
On 23 June, the electorate in the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. This was a very significant decision, the first ever exit vote by a member state, one of the EU's largest. The exit process will take some years to complete and will represent an enormous legal and political challenge for all concerned. It is something we need to get right. The Irish government, like the U.S. administration, was convinced that the best outcome to the referendum would have been a strong UK remaining within a strong EU. But we were as prepared as we could be for a different result. Our goal now is to work together to strengthen the European Union while ensuring as close a relationship as possible between the UK and EU. In Ireland we are very familiar with the challenges and unpredictability of referendums. We always felt a Brexit outcome was possible and for that reason the Irish government engaged in extensive contingency planning right across all sectors of government. As an open, globalised, diversified economy, we were determined to be as ready as possible.

The final settlement will be one agreed between the UK on the one hand and an EU of 27 member states, including Ireland on the other. It was therefore clear to us that it is important that Ireland's unique circumstances are well understood in the capitals of Europe. Since late June I have been engaging closely with all of my foreign minister counterparts around the EU setting out Ireland's particular concerns and our core principles and seeking the viewpoints of our friends and partners. We are, as ever, wholeheartedly committed to our membership of the European Union and of the Eurozone. Ireland will remain at the heart of Europe. My message to US investors is: Ireland will continue to serve as a gateway to the EU -- we offer an English-speaking, business-friendly, competitive environment. We have a track record in innovation, and most of all, a highly-educated and talented workforce. Our economy is growing steadily. We are open for business! Negotiations will begin once the UK government decides to trigger "Article 50". This is expected to happen early next year. In these negotiations, Ireland's focus will be on:

- Our commitment to a strong European Union. While the peace settlement in Northern Ireland is by now well-established, we cannot afford to be complacent. Ongoing work is required to protect and preserve what has been achieved since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which was brokered with invaluable help from the United States. I have been Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade for just over two years. During that time, I have been involved in two sets of talks, along with the UK government and Northern Ireland's political parties, resulting in two political agreements: The Stormont House Agreement of December 2014 and the Fresh Start Agreement of November 2015. These agreements were necessary because from time to time Northern Ireland goes through moments of fragility and concerted political engagement is required to restore stability. I want to acknowledge the valuable role of former US Senator, Gary Hart, in the process. In this environment, Brexit presents a new and substantial challenge for Northern Ireland. In the referendum, 56% of the Northern Ireland electorate voted to remain in the European Union. Many are understandably concerned that leaving the EU would have implications for political stability, reconciliation and prosperity. We must be in the business of solutions as we face these challenges and thus the dialogue is firmly underway -- between Belfast and Dublin, between London and Dublin and with our EU partners. Voices from the U.S., as ever before in relation to Northern Ireland, will be welcome and valuable too in the months and years ahead. Ireland and Britain have long and intertwined histories. As next door neighbours we engage in a great deal of trade together: each week over 1.2 billion of goods and services is exchanged between the two islands. However, Ireland's trade dependence on the UK is very different compared to when both countries joined the then EEC in 1973. Today, the United States is overtaking the UK as Ireland's largest trading partner while the Eurozone economies now account for twice the goods trade we enjoy with the UK. We continue to expand on a global scale, across North America and also in Asia and elsewhere. A diversified Irish economy is better positioned, therefore, to meet the trade challenges around Brexit while seeking to maintain the strong flow of goods and services, both North and South on the island of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain. In terms of keeping the EU strong, last week in Bratislava, Slovakia, the leaders of the 27 states who will remain in the EU -- including Ireland's Taoiseach, Enda Kenny - worked on a broad agenda for the future focused on partnership, peace, and prosperity. Brexit is just one of a number of strategic challenges which the European Union is currently grappling with, and it must be seen in that context. These include the mass migration via the Mediterranean basin, the appalling conflict in Syria, the wider instability across the Middle East and elsewhere, to mention just a few. Make no mistake, then, Brexit is a challenge to all -- not least ourselves in Ireland. But Ireland and its people recovered with determination from the severe setback of the 2008 economic crisis, and we have rebuilt an open, dynamic and competitive economy. 700 U.S. companies have made Ireland their home and employ 140,000 people between them. We will continue to promote Ireland as an attractive location for mobile international investment and for talented people, because those things continue to be constant, regardless of the UK's decision to leave the European Union. By Charles Flanagan T.D., Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland
The Supreme Court's Citizen United decision, giving corporations the right to unlimited political contributions usually kept secret from voters and shareholders, was just the most recent in a series of rulings giving corporations "personhood" rights. In her new book, Corporate Citizen?: An Argument for the Separation of Corporation and State, Stetson law professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy documents corporate efforts to dramatically enlarge their political and commercial speech and religious "rights" through lawsuits, campaign contributions, and lobbying. They also use these "rights" to limit their liability for the damage they do to investors, employees, customers, and the community. In an interview, Torres-Spelliscy discussed the impact corporate money has on preventing progress on issues like climate change and what options there are for reducing the distortion effect of corporate money from government.

How did you first get interested in this issue?

I first ran into the issue of money in politics as a senior at Harvard in a class called "Democracy" which was taught at the Harvard Law School. I had to read Who Will Tell The People by William Greider and that introduced me to the issue of corporate lobbying and campaign finance.

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Can you give some examples of corporate money distorting the legislative process in (1) Obamacare, (2) climate change, and/or (2) post-Enron era/post-financial meltdown reforms?

As I discuss in Corporate Citizen?, corporate money can distort the legislative process by curtailing what is on the agenda of Members of Congress and by narrowing what lawmakers think is even possible. So for example, when the U.S. was revising its health care system, instead of going with a public option where the government provides health care for all, which is basically the approach of most western democracies, instead what American got with Obamacare was essentially a mandate for people of a certain income level to purchase private health insurance from private companies. This served the interests of private companies, but not necessarily the public. But because of years of lobbying--including derailing the efforts of President Bill Clinton to reform health care in the 1990s--the public option wasn't really even seriously considered as a starting point for the Obama Administration.



One of the most troubling conclusions I came to when writing Corporate Citizen? was that the American Congress seems utterly incapable of dealing with climate change. This is a potentially deadly mistake that even the U.S. military recognizes as an existential threat. When I asked environmentalists why Congressional inaction on climate was the case, I got very similar answers from scientist Gretchen Goldman, environmental lawyer Deborah Goldberg and the former head of Greenpeace, Phil Radford. They all described how industries--especially the oil and gas industries--were particularly effective at lobbying to get Congress and regulators to do as little as possible to protect the environment. A common theme each mentioned was the attempt by businesses to manufacture doubt about the underlying climate science by paying scientists to spout the industry position that climate change is not caused by man, even though the scientific consensus is that climate change is caused by human activity. This is very similar to recent revelations that the sugar industry paid scientists to cast doubt on the link between sugar and heart disease. The impact is similar, the public is confused about what the truth is, and meanwhile elected officials are provided cover for failing to act. I find this lack of urgency on the issue of climate change personally troubling as I live in Florida, close to the coast. If nothing is done about climate change federally, my community and my home could be literally under water.

Even after corporate interests like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers lose a legislative fight like with the passage of Dodd-Frank, they don't give up waging the war. After Dodd-Frank became law, these trade associations were active challenging many regulations that were promulgated under Dodd-Frank through litigation. For example, these trade associations were successful in stopping Dodd-Frank's proxy access rule, the conflict mineral rule and a rule on reporting payments to foreign governments by extractive industries. Frequently, the arguments raised in these cases tried to expand corporate First Amendment rights by making elaborate claims about how a given regulation was unconstitutional.

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After the Citizens United decision, what are the options at the state or federal level to limit the amount or increase transparency in corporate political contributions and lobbying expenses?

As I explicate in Corporate Citizen?, because Citizens United was decided on Constitutional First Amendment grounds, it severely curtails the options for state and federal regulators to limit corporate money in politics--especially if the money is spent independently of candidates. But there is some room for Congress and the states to maneuver. For one, because of a case called Beaumont from 2003, states can still ban corporate contributions that are given directly to candidates' political campaigns. And the federal government and states can vastly improve their disclosure of the sources of money in politics--ending the dark money problem. The Supreme Court in Citizens United ruled in favor of disclosure by a margin of 8 to 1. This frees federal agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to all improve transparency of political spending.

Do other countries limit corporate political contributions?

According to Transparency International, Belgium, Estonia, France, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal all ban corporate political contributions, as does the United States at the federal level under the Tillman Act of 1907. The catch is in over half of the 50 states in America, corporations can give money directly to state candidates. And furthermore, as I noted in Corporate Citizen? because of Citizens United, corporations are free to spend an unlimited amount of money on political ads (making the underlying federal contribution ban nearly meaningless).

What is "dark money?" How do litigation and bankruptcy proceedings give us insight into the size and use of "dark money?"

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So-called "dark money" is money that is spent in politics--typically to buy political ads--without revealing to the public who paid for the political expenditure. Dark money can be revealed through bankruptcies if the debtor was a source of dark money. Clever investigative reporters have discovered that when they pull the matrix of creditors in certain bankruptcies like that of Corinthian Colleges and coal company Alpha Natural Resources, they find dark money conduits are listed. This means that these corporations were spending dark money before they went bankrupt. Also on occasion, courts will order a dark money spender who is violating a disclosure law to actually tell the public where their money came from. This happened in Montana with a group called Western Tradition Partnership (which later changed its name to American Tradition Partnership). As I explain in Corporate Citizen? this group had bragged to donors that only they would know who had influenced the election. This promise of anonymity was one Western Tradition Partnership couldn't legally keep.

What is the best hope for solving this problem?
Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o ("12 Years a Slave") has worked in Uganda with director Mira Nair before. When Nair was editing "The Namesake," Nyong'o worked for her as an intern. "It was my 'abroad' term when I was at Hampshire College," Nyong'o said in an interview. "I brought her many cups of tea." Nair than invited her intern to join her in Uganda to help oversee some of the production equipment. "That is not a job I will do again," she laughed. "It is not something I am good at."

Nair found something Nyong'o was very good at on their next project together. In "Queen of Katwe," opening September 30 from Disney, the onetime intern stars as Harriet, a young widow with five children in dire poverty. She is strong and independent and fiercely devoted to keeping her children safe. The story is based on the daughter of the real-life Harriet's Phiona, who, without any education, became an international chess champion.

Nyong'o spoke about spending time in Uganda to observe Harriet and her community. "They do not have the same notions of personal space that we do," she said. "In the market, they sit very close. The women sit with their legs bent to one side and yet their posture is perfectly straight. I had to take yoga to be able to do that pose." She also studied the way they walked and moved. "Part of it is the climate, and part is the culture. They do not rush around like people do in New York." And she listened. "Harriet has a low voice and I wanted to pay tribute to that. The accent is very particular. I worked on speaking with a Ugandan accent, and then I went straight from this film to Broadway, where I had to have a Liberian accent. I had to rework my brain quickly."

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She loved wearing the colorful textiles of the region. "I have never gasped so much, looking out the window. There is such a fierce sense of style in the way they dress, even with so little money. They may combine a designer piece that arrived as a charity donation with a local scarf and it just looks beautiful." In a key scene in the film, Harriet must sell her most precious possession, a dress she inherited from her mother. "You see her wear that dress just once before, at the hospital, after her son's accident, when she has to make them think that she can afford medical treatment. And then she wears it again to sell it, and you see not just her courage but also, because she is with a man she knew before she was married, you see her as something other than a mother. I remember when I got up that morning, I thought, 'This is the day where I get to flirt a little bit, and I get to smile.'"

David Oyelowo plays Robert Katende, who introduced the children of the poorest areas of Uganda to chess. "You could not ask for a better scene partner or a better person to have on the set. He is completely devoted to whatever it takes to tell the story. And he is so great with the kids. It is hard for them to have to sit and stare at a chessboard all day. Between takes, he would dance with them to keep them happy and energized. I can't wait to work with him again." And she loved working with Nair as a director. "She is so committed to telling the story, and so honest."

Nyong'o had not played a mother before and the children she worked with had not acted before. She spent time alone with each of them to make them feel comfortable with her. Madina Nalwanga, who plays Phiona, lives in an area like the one in the film and like the real Phiona, she worked as a young child selling maize in the street. Nyong'o asked Nalwanga to show her how to buy food and prepare a traditional Ugandan meal. As Nalwanga showed her how to bargain in the marketplace and cook the food, they developed the warmth and trust that shows through in their performances. "And then," Nyong'o said proudly, "we invited Mira and our Director of Photography, Sean Bobbitt, to eat the dinner we made."

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The Syrian ceasefire deal concluded by the US and Russia will be present at the UN General Assembly summit attended by world leaders next week. Aleppo will also be present in the deliberations in New York, to test he honesty and determination of the stakeholders. Everyone will exploit the tragedy of the displaced and refugees to feign sympathy, while everyone will deny their involvement in the murder of half a million Syrians and the destruction of their ancient cities and infrastructure, to secure themselves a stake in the reconstruction of the country after finishing their realignments there. The heads of states and their delegations will flock to the UN General Assembly hall to deliver their speeches, while the members of the Security Council will convene their club and consecrate the ceasefire deal, should it last till then. No one dares to challenge a deal concluded by Washington and Moscow to impose a ceasefire and cooperate militarily against ISIS and similar groups, including Jabhet Fateh al-Sham formerly known as Jabhet al-Nusra. But many will be quietly betting on the collapse of the ceasefire, because the deal has some fundamental flaws that makes it all but unsustainable. Some will argue that the Syrian opposition has no choice because Ankara has welcomed the deal and the Gulf states have not vetoed it if for anything then the fact that it deliberately exempted Iran backed militias from accountability and scrutiny, when the rebels by contrast are being demanded to disband. Some will say that the cessation of hostilities has become an important resort as the political transition remains shrouded in ambiguity and humanitarian aid is obstructed. Barack Obama will take the podium at the UN and address the world for the last time as president. He will receive attention but it will not be comparable to the enthusiasm and curiosity he was met with during his first speech there eight years ago. Obama will be judged from the Syrian lens no matter how much he will try to avoid it by convening a summit on refugees ahead of the 71st General Assembly session and no matter how hard he tries to push the attendees to credit him for his nuclear deal with Iran. If the ceasefire survives and Russia's promises pan out, Obama may survive the blame and reproaching. If the deal collapses, the burden will fall on John Kerry, who will be bombarded with criticisms from all sides including the US military. Perhaps everyone is approaching battle fatigue, because continuing open ended wars and quagmires is suicide, regardless of the appearance of having a victor and a vanquished party today. One key new development following the deal between Kerry and Sergei Lavrov is that US planes could now bomb groups designated as terrorist after refusing the US-Russian designations. Iran, her militias, and the regime in Damascus will benefit as the US helps destroy their foes, and this explains why they rushed to welcome the deal that Russia told them is in their interests. For its part, the Syrian opposition's survival is once again on the line, and in the hands of regional and international players. No one wishes for the bloodletting in Syria to continue except for ISIS and similar groups. But the other stakeholders in the Syrian tragedy are in need for an exit strategy from their predicament, and to avoid being dragged to a deeper quagmire, especially Russia and Iran. It will be the political process and its outcome that will determine whether the truce and the deal will collapse or not. If the axis of Russia, Iran, Assad use the temporary truce and deal to seek victory on the basis of victor and vanquished, then the Syrian crisis could last for a long time still and become Even more complicated. Other parties may want to benefit from a humanitarian truce to regroup, and therefore, it is the duty of the US and Russia to plan for contingencies. Some say the truce's collapse Is inevitable because of the multiplicity of the agendas of the factions and their sponsors, and the difficulty of a diplomatic breakthrough as long as the situation on the battlefield does not allow it. thus there are calls to be modest about expectations and be more realistic. Richard Hass, head of the CFR, wrote in the Financial Times that the alternative is to change the facts on the ground by establishing safe zones and humanitarian zones with air cover and troops from the rebels and friendly neighboring countries. This line echoes previous Turkish ideas about safe zones, and no-fly zones. Either way, the implication is that the prospect for ending the Syrian war is not plausible in the near future, according to Hass. Neither a nationwide ceasefire nor a transitional post-Assad government is in the cards, he adds, meaning that the best thing to be done now is to establish safe areas to reduce humanitarian suffering in Syria. One of the key players in Syria's neighborhood is Turkey, which has entered the war for two goals, namely, ISIS and the Kurds. Ankara had no optiom but to welcome the deal, but that does not mean it will approve the designation to come of Syrian rebel forces as either terrorist or moderate. President Erdogan is intent to get the Kurdish factions designated as terrorists, challenging the US position that sees them as allies in the war with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, where the looming battle of Mosul is crucial. Turkey's allies in the rebel ranks are also not satisfied with the US-Russian designations and exemptions of the factions in Syria. But do the Syrian factions have the power to do anything if realpolitik forces their backers to endorse the US-Russian terms? The answer lies with the leaders in the Gulf capitals concerned and the Turkish leadership, in light with what has been agreed upon and declared during the press conference last week of the saudi and Turkish foreign ministers: beginning with reiterating the call for Assad to step down and responding to rumors about Turkish willingness for him to remain during an open-ended transitional period, and not ending with the need to support Syrian Rebels especially n Aleppo. The military equation remains in the heart of the future of the truce, but there is little trust between local, regional, and international players, as well as between the Syrian opposition and the US administration. In reality, the US-Russian deal effectively terminated the momentum for holding the Syrian regime accountable for the use of chemical weapons. Once again, Kerry and Lavrov exempt the regime from accountability. Indeed, the recent agreement protects the Syrian government from accountability, despite damning evidence by the UN inquiry against Damascus, in violation of international resolutions and even US-Russian agreements. Most likely, the truce will remain in place, with the deliberate decision of Damascus, Tehran, and Moscow, meaning to ensure the UN meeting in New York proceeds positively, without Russian raids, regime barrel bombs, and Iranian militias being the center of attention, and without mention of the need to hold the regime accountable for its chemical attacks. There is also a battle of perceptions and public opinion, and Damascus and its allies stand to lose if the public opinion turns against them because of the scenes of shivering children burned by outlawed weapons. Some concessions were thus necessary to buy time, but also for military calculations especially for Aleppo, where Iranian backed militias sustained heavy losses. As usual, John Kerry was ready to shake hands with Lavrov, who gave Kerry a carrot and kept many sticks in both their hands. Lavrov understands Kerry well and knows his weaknesses, whether towards Iran for personal and political reasons, or his hostility to the Syrian Rebels and their backers. The moderate Syrian opposition seriously questions the intentions of and deals made by the Obama administration, and is not willing to fall in line by default. For one thing, this would mean signing its own death warrant. Indeed, the recent deal entails ordering Syrian Rebels to destroy one another, and threatens joint US-Russian operations to finish the mission in case any rebel factions fails to do so. A permanent truce is imperative as is a grand deal to end the war in Syria, as part of the grand deals between the US and Russia and in the region, however, all of this appears unlikely to happen today. http://www.alhayat.com/m/opinion/174027061
The Boston based tenor magician Jerry Bergonzi returns to the organ/tenor/drums format to spin his harmonic sorcery on his latest offering titled Spotlight on Standards. The saxophonist/educator known as the Gonz, while lauded by the insular community of his peers, is not a household name among the general public. He is known for his muscular, hard edged sound, his exquisite fiery technique and his boundless creativity.

Jerry Bergonzi grew up in Boston and started on clarinet at age eight. He credits a musical uncle who used to live upstairs from him with turning him onto jazz early. In youth bands he learned from two of the best instructors, John Laporta and Joe Viola and eventually studied music education at University of Mass in Lowell, MA. Bergonzi spent several years in New York developing his sound, jamming and shedding with other notable musicians of his era before getting a call from pianist Dave Brubeck. With Brubeck, Bergonzi traveled and played some of the largest and most prestigious festivals and venues in the world. It was a liberating experience and a steady paycheck. The first recording on his discography is from 1973 on Brubeck's Two Generations of Brubeck. The now sixty-eight-year-old Bergonzi was the saxophonist with Brubeck's Quartet from 1973-1975 and then again from 1979 to 1982. By the early eighties Bergonzi was back in Boston and began his teaching career, first with private instruction, then publishing books on improvisation and eventually becoming a full time professor at The New England Conservatory of Music where he teaches to this day. Over the years Bergonzi has written upward of one hundred songs and played as a leader or sideman on over thirty records.

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On his latest, Spotlight on Standards, Bergonzi is joined by organist Renato Chicco and drummer Andrea Michelutti. This organ trio format is one the saxophonist last used with organist Dan Wall and drummer Adam Nussbaum back in 1999.

From the opening lines of the Cy Coleman classic "Witchcraft" you can hear Bergonzi's muscular tenor is not about to play this or anything else straight up. It is his resolute willingness to re-harmonize the theme in his own unique way that makes the music so much more than a re-hash of an old standard. This is a re-imagining of the song where the melody is a mere armature upon which to reconstruct something fresh and new. Coupled with his signature saxophone sound the song takes on a new life.

The next four tunes are all Bergonzi originals. His distinctive technique uses creative articulation, a fluidity of thoughts and innovative dynamics to achieve that most precious of commodities- originality. Listen to the elastic logic of his saxophone on his composition "Bi-Polar." The notes gush like a wellspring of exploratory thought from a savant's mind. On "Blue Cube" he creates a memorable repeating motif. Chicco and Michelutti sustain the easy shuffle over which Bergonzi offers a series of deliberate, sometimes searing lines. He often takes no easily readable path, but nonetheless he lead you to his intended destination. Chicco's B3 soloing is subtly but equally probing.

"First Lady" is an interesting composition with an uplifting, almost Bossa feel. Bergonzi's use of the lower register of his instrument never fails to swing. He drifts over the changes with an airy lightness and solid conviction. Michelutti is a master of interjecting timely accents while maintaining a rock-steady rhythm.

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Bergonzi's mournful "Gabriella" is perhaps his most sensitive ballad on this album. The plaintive tenor sound is quite compelling throughout, offering a window into the deepest recesses of the artist's soul. It is a wistful cry that cannot be ignored. Chicco's deft church-like organ brings a pious, religious quality to the whole proceeding. Bergonzi's command of his instrument, using it as an extension of the human voice, is extraordinary.

The program returns to the American Songbook with "Dancing in the Dark," and "Out of Nowhere." At all times the group displays a solid swing and a masterful ability to create surprising iterations of the melody. On Johnny Mercer's "Come Rain or Come Shine" we find Bergonzi's at his best. His punchy sound articulates with authority as the rhythm section grooves along. He seems to draw from an inexhaustible well of ideas that never seem to repeat and never fail to surprise.

Ned Washington and Victor Young's venerable standard "Stella by Starlight" is treated with authority and conviction when Bergonzi and company re-imagine this classic. The solid swing, the aggressive declaration of Bergonzi's saxophone with his rapid fire lines and Chicco's unusual B3 musings that seem to directly descend from Larry Young, make this one special. It's almost an entirely new song. Bergonzi's solo is overflowing, bursting with ideas, Chicco's playing is stellar and Michelutti is so subtly correct as to be transcendent.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump shakes hands with 12 year old student Egunjobi Songofunmi during a campaign visit to Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., September 8, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar

Donald Trump doesn't have any use for public schools -- he never attended them, sent his kids to them or supported civic efforts to strengthen them.

So perhaps it's no surprise that Trump would propose a plan that would decimate public education. But 90 percent of America's children attend public schools. Trump's plan to expand failed voucher programs and destabilize public schools is a grave threat to them and to this essential public good.

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Trump's $20 billion proposal to "voucherize" public education would harm 10 children for every 1 child he purports to help. It appears that Trump would cut all Title I funding for low-income students and an additional $5 billion in federal education funding.

The Title I cuts alone could strip funding from up to 56,000 public schools serving more than 21 million children. His plan would rob 5 million public school students with disabilities of essential services.

An additional 5 million English language learners would be denied educational supports. Eight million students would lose the Pell grants that make it possible to attend college. Students across the country would lose tens of thousands of highly qualified teachers and classroom aides, resulting in unacceptably large class sizes and depriving students of one-on-one attention.

And for what? To expand access to charter schools, which generally perform no better than public schools, and voucher schools, which perform far worse. Not surprisingly, a version of Trump's idea was flatly rejected by bipartisan majorities in Congress just last fall when they passed the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act.

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When Trump unveiled his proposal last week in Cleveland, the venue he chose made the case against his own plan. The for-profit charter school where Trump made his announcement received a D and an F on the annual Ohio Department of Education report card, and Ohio's voucher and charter school sectors have been marred by fraud, mismanagement and achievement that lags far behind traditional public schools.

While charters have their place in public education, they were never intended to displace public schools, defraud taxpayers or be devoid of oversight, as many are in Ohio and elsewhere. In addition to lackluster achievement, the charter sector is rife with corruption, often discriminates against high-needs students, and has undermined public districts in cities like Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia.

The GAO report also found that private school voucher programs in the states it studied (Arizona, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin) take as much as a third of their funding directly from public school budgets. It's a lose-lose situation: Voucher students are poorly served and public school students suffer.

But facts matter, especially when it comes to our children and, particularly, children with the greatest needs.

Trump is not one to let facts get in his way. But facts matter, especially when it comes to our children and, particularly, children with the greatest needs.

Trump could have visited Cincinnati, if he wanted to see an effective public school model that supports the achievement and well-being of disadvantaged students. Cincinnati is well on its way to transforming every public school in the district into a community school. These schools offer a rigorous academic program with the supports students need to succeed. In addition to mentors, tutoring and other academic interventions, children and their families have in-school access to services that help overcome the effects of poverty. The schools have health and dental clinics, social workers and counselors, and numerous social services. Cincinnati is now the top urban district in Ohio.

Or Trump could have gone to another battleground state and stopped at Westinghouse High School in Pittsburgh. Not long ago, Westinghouse was slated for closure. The city, its police and fire departments, families, school staff, and our union came together to launch a public safety career and technical education program this year. The program, with seed money from the AFT Innovation Fund, will prepare students for careers in firefighting, emergency medical services and law enforcement. It will help diversify these workforces to better reflect the communities they serve--a vital step in creating trust and understanding.



Weingarten being "disarmed" by a student in the public safety CTE program at Westinghouse High School in Pittsburgh.

Parents and the public want leaders to strengthen public schools, not destabilize them. We need a president who will focus on investing in universal pre-K, strong public schools with high academic standards, and community schools, and on respecting and supporting educators. Hillary Clinton has specific proposals to do just that.

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Donald Trump doesn't understand or value the role of public education in a democracy. Our public schools are open to all, they advance our individual and collective aspirations, and they unite people from an array of backgrounds in a common experience. Schemes that elevate markets, profits and privatization over our children's needs and the public good not only have failed but are an affront to our democratic principles.
Attention must be paid: our nuclear arsenal may present a clear and present danger. In a new documentary Command and Control, filmmakers Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser make a compelling case about a potential disaster that few are talking about, illustrated by the story of the Titan II near miss in 1980 in Damascus, Arkansas. But rather than incite fear, their documentary based on Eric Schlosser's book, entertains like a thriller. I had a chance to talk to them about bombs, filmmaking, and activism last week, before their Film Forum opening.



Q: The dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima opened a Pandora's Box on nuclear weapons. Your film picks up that post-war legacy. Why should we pay attention to the bomb now? How bad a nightmare is this?

Eric Schlosser: Technology embodies the ethos of the era that created it. That goes for President Truman's decision to use the atom bomb, which seems so remarkable, but that decision was just a continuation of what was routinely done in WWII. We destroyed 90 other Japanese cities, fire bombing them. That was how war was being fought in WWII. Look at Dresden, London: civilian casualties were routine. The use of nuclear weapons was not a change in policy, but a radical and profound change in efficiency. One plane. One bomb. One city. When you look at nuclear weapons, you are looking at a policy of deliberately slaughtering innocent civilians. After we left Nagasaki, revulsion toward nuclear weapons set in. If you look back at the end of WWII, there was a missed opportunity in which the US wanted to abolish nuclear weapons. The UN, at its creation, wanted to abolish nuclear weapons, in the worldwide consensus that man was not equipped to control this technology. When you think about the weapons on submarines right now in 2016, they are a remnant of 1942 ideas of how to wage war.

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Q: The theme of Command and Control is: mistakes can be made. What should we do now?

Robert Kenner: You could say that Nagasaki and Hiroshima were really the beginning of the Cold War. We used to duck under desks when I was a kid. That was the level of fear. But that was not a solution. In the 1980's, nuclear weapons were decreased by a significant amount. The public had a large influence. One thing that drew me to Eric's book was the fact that there is such an amnesia that exists today. We stopped wanting to think about something so terrible. I thought it would be great to do a film, but not do it as an issue film, but a nonfiction thriller that would appeal to people who are not thinking about this threat. Our film is about creating awareness: we might make mistakes; human mistakes occur all the time with low level consequences, but the accident that occurred in Damascus that we show, when a worker accidentally dropped a socket puncturing the missile's fuel tank, had the potential for incredibly high consequences. We don't have the emotional capacity to control something that could end the planet.

Q: Prioritize this terrifying truth among the fears we face right now.

Schlosser: This is the greatest threat we face that we are not talking about. Global warming is an existential threat but maybe over time the worst impacts can be ameliorated. The devastation of a single nuclear weapon will be instantaneous, irreversible, and will change the course of history. 9/11 was horrible: 15 years later we have had two wars that cost us trillions of dollars, restrictions on our civil liberties, the rise of a surveillance state. If a city anywhere in the world is destroyed by a nuclear weapon, the impact on the world will dwarf the impact of 9/11. This is something to avoid. We are not powerless. We got out of the Cold War without any of them being used. What we have now is worse. We have the weapons and lack awareness. Among people under the age of 35 there is no awareness of this issue. It is not that this will go away, but people can put pressure on politicians and reduce the danger. We have to make it clear that nuclear weapons are unacceptable. We used to have 32,000 now we have 7,000. Every nuclear weapon that is eliminated from the world is one less opportunity for something horrible to happen.

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Kenner: The weapons we have are designed to take out a nation state and many of the enemies we confront now are not nation states. It is more complicated to figure out how to use these weapons, how to wage war in the world we live in now. Drones have become the new form. We don't have to get our fingers dirty. Unlike our film, Food Inc., an issue film, this is a techno-thriller. We are looking to appeal to a younger audience to think about a vital issue. In the recent coup in Turkey, NATO's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons was on the Syrian border. To think, that could have gotten into the wrong hands.

Q: What was the single most challenging aspect of making this movie?

Kenner: Being able to shoot in an actual decommissioned Titan II missile silo. There's one 1980 type Titan II silo in the world identical to the Damascus location, and when that became available for filming, that enabled a documentary filmmaker to make an action techno-thriller on this site.

Q: What do you hope Command and Control will accomplish?

Schlosser: The aim of my book and this film is optimistic, to empower people. First step: Open your eyes. The Cold war ended peacefully because of activism. That is the reason apartheid ended. Most dangerous, more than any weapon, are apathy and lack of awareness.
Before they were refugees, they were doctors, lawyers, and professors. They were accountants, mechanics, and IT workers. Now they struggle to obtain work permits and secure employment.

Millions of refugees, even those who have professional skills and years of work experience, are not allowed to work legally in their host countries. Their skills go unused while they are forced to rely on humanitarian aide.

"My father is a medical doctor," explained one Syrian lawyer now living in Lebanon. "Now he's sitting idle. And he's not the only one. Where I live, there's a judge, a pharmacist. Now we're living in what used to be a chicken factory." The talent being wasted in Jordan and Lebanon could instead be used to help strengthen economies around the world where local skill gaps stymie development. A recent survey by the Manpower Group of 41,700 hiring managers in 42 countries found that 38 percent of employers around the world have trouble filling positions. For instance, engineers, medical professionals, and other skilled employees remain in high demand in developing countries across Central Asia, South America, and Africa. These labor market shortages and surpluses are costly; a 2014 Boston Consulting Group study cited a $10 trillion loss in world GDP by 2030 from labor imbalances.

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Many countries readily make labor visas and eventual permanent residency available to skilled workers. Creating an on-ramp to move talented refugees into this labor mobility pathway offers obvious benefits to refugee families, destination countries and the private sector alike. Destination countries and private sector employers can benefit from refugee skills and experience. Refugees, in return, can gain a pathway to stable employment and control over their future. Labor mobility, while a popular topic in academia, has not been used as a tool for refugee assistance since the period following World War I. Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB) believes that labor migration can once again serve this role, helping refugees re-enter the workforce. As world leaders meet in New York tomorrow for the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, TBB offers an innovative solution based on labor mobility and private sector engagement. Talent Beyond Boundaries is undertaking a pilot project in Jordan and Lebanon to link refugees with global employment. As a first step, TBB is working with a large team of partners on the ground to encourage refugees to register their work experience, education, and skills in a first-of-its-kind online Talent Catalog. TBB then will connect corporate partners with qualified candidates for open positions. This system empowers refugees by increasing their self-reliance and promoting a shift in perception to one that recognizes refugees as assets rather than a burden.

The Syrian lawyer who volunteers with TBB explained it this way: "I like this project because it doesn't put us in a box, label us a parasite. It reminds people that we're not here just to live off of other people's work. It's taking us for what we do best, what we can add to society. When refugees have freedom to work, when he feels he is making a difference with his talents, his skills -- this is somewhere he will feel that he belongs... If you go on a work visa, it tells you, you're a doctor. You're a teacher. You have value. Your skills are needed. " TBB's project also allows the private sector to expand its role in responding to refugee crises. Through private sector hiring initiatives, countries that have not yet been involved in responding to the refugee crisis will have a new opportunity and benefit. We have been participating in the Global Forum on Migration and Development's (GFMD) Business Mechanism and applaud the efforts of groups like this which are working to enhance opportunities for workers and companies in a way that contributes to economic development.

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Labor mobility expansion for refugees comes with significant challenges. Refugees may no longer possess proper documentation of their academic records and professional certifications. They may also lack travel documents that are part of routine work visa applications. TBB is committed to working with the UN Refugee Agency, governments, and international organizations to find solutions to these barriers. With more than 65 million people displaced from their homes worldwide, it is imperative that our collaboration yields a new, legal pathway for refugee employment.

Talent Beyond Boundaries will be in New York this week sharing our vision for a global employment solution, and Founder Bruce Cohen will be speaking at the Concordia Summit Private Sector Forum on Migration and Refugees on innovative approaches for skills matching. To learn more and to follow our progress, we encourage you to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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The Place des Vosges, originally known as Place Royale, is one of the oldest and prettiest urban squares in a city full of magnificent buildings and streets, Paris.

A historical landmark since 1954, the prestigious grande-dame is in the heart of the Marais neighborhood of the capital, itself a maze of classic architectural beauty.

In 1800, after the stormy Revolution took place (enough with the kings!), the square was renamed Place des Vosges, by then-ruler Napoleon - to thank the region of the Vosges in Eastern France for having been the first province to dutifully pay taxes to the newly formed French Republique.

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The history of the aristocratic Place des Vosges dates back to 1604 when King Henry IV requested a Royal pavilion to be erected at the southern end of the square - and then an exact replica at the northern end for his queen.

Both the Queen's Pavilion and the King's Pavilion are still kept as such by a private owner, and no visits are permitted.

Praising its architects for the results, the King ordered 35 more buildings bordering the square to follow the same design. The early example of urban planning then became a symmetrical square surrounded by the same facades in the same materials and colors all around.

The square was officially inaugurated in 1612 as the Place Royale - the central part was then barely more than a lawn, a favorite place for daily duels.

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Elegant in one of the most elegant cities of the world, built in a classical XVII century style, the square is lined with three-story (ground floor plus two) residential buildings of red bricks and steep blue slate roofs. Strips of white stones define the walls and vaulted arches are supported by square pillars.

The extra-tall floor-to-ceiling windows indicate the sheer height of the rooms' giant sizes. All the windows have small panes design, what Americans appropriately call "French windows."

The pitched roofs are ornate with restrained small-paned windows hiding what were likely the individual maids' quarters (chambres de bonnes), that are now transformed into lower-ceiling apartments when several are joined.

Victor Hugo lived here from 1832 to 1848 and wrote about a dozen of his masterpieces in his quiet apartment. Now a museum where visitors can see the desk and ink bottles used by the genius writer. A part of his masterpiece novel Les Miserables was created here.

Famous people of the days counted the cardinal of Richelieu, Madame de Sevigne, Alphonse Daudet, and Bossuet. Marguerite Louise d'Orleans, wife of Cosimo III de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany kept a favorite flat there.

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Nowadays, many celebrities (I shall name none), movie stars, politicians, star writers and others reside around the expensive and lovely perimeter. Often photographed as background for photo shoots and movies, the square stays intimist and elitist.



(Bettina posing in 1950.)

Art galleries, cafes, designer shops, perfume stores, couture houses, and many specialty boutiques now lined the arcades, making for a wonderful walking promenade, even in inclement weather.

My very own favorite tea room is under the arcades here, Carette, out of the hundreds of pastries shops in Paris, this one is definitely number one for its location. Divine classic onion soup as an afternoon alternative to tea is a delight and can be served here with Champagne - for a more risque afternoon treat.

The center of the plaza is named Square Louis XIII and is bordered by trees, with four fountains in the middle of well-groomed grass expanses, and an equestrian statue of the said king.

Nothing around really hit the eyes as modern, and it's a wonderful nostalgic feeling to be able to walk in royal steps. And even if, like Lorde sang: "We'll never be royals / It don't run in our blood / That kind of luxe just ain't for us", one can still feel somewhat regal by just walking in the footsteps of royalty.

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INFO: Situated across both the 3rd and the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The entire perimeter's address is named Place des Vosges.

Metro stops: Chemin-Vert, or Bastille, or Saint-Paul.
A florid-faced bully stood on a table in a local bar and raged at my friends and me about some imagined slight. It was 1965. Although we could have prevailed if he got violent, his aggressive tirade made it clear that he was willing to go further toward a confrontation than we wished, so we sat in cowed silence until he stormed off.

I was a young man then and didn't know what I know now. The bully on the table was confident in his ugly anger. He knew human behavior better than we did. Normal people don't challenge a lunatic. Now I know he would have crumbled and slunk away, had anyone stood up to him.

This is Donald Trump. In the recent Commander-in Chief Forum, as in all the Republican primary debates, Trump blustered and intimidated in a similar fashion. The moderators weren't willing to escalate the exchange, so they moved on. It is time for journalists to confront Trump, not back down when he escalates, and either reduce him to a whimper or expose him as the intemperate fraud he is.

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Only 8 days from now the first of the 2016 Presidential debates will take place at Hofstra University, moderated by NBC News anchor Lester Holt. It is predicted to be among the most watched television events in American history. Here is my unsolicited advice for Holt, Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper.

1. Don't allow either candidate to avoid answering your questions.

It has been standard in all recent presidential debates for candidates to either ignore a question entirely or to precede or follow a perfunctory answer with a long "talking point" prepared in advance. You must be strong enough to interrupt, repeat the question and, if necessary, cut off the microphone. It would take only one or two such instances to change the candidates' behavior. The evasive nonsense that has characterized debates would not be tolerated in a middle school class. We have a right to expect more.

2. Be well prepared and immediately challenge statements that are patently false.

Both Trump and Clinton have made many claims that don't pass fact-checking scrutiny. Trump's honesty rating is particularly abysmal. The Pulitzer Prize winning website Politifact rates 87% of Trump's statements to be "false," with 46% "pants on fire." Clinton's comparable numbers are 27% "false," with 6% "pants on fire." Particularly in Trump's case, the blatant lies are uttered with bravado, like the bully on the barroom table. You must be willing to say, "That's simply not true, Mr. Trump. Would you like to retract that statement or can you provide evidence to support it?" Trump also uses innuendo or alludes to vague sources. You should hold him accountable. "Mr. Trump, you are making a serious accusation. Will you please clarify this allegation and provide a specific source?" Perhaps journalists think it's unseemly to confront a candidate directly. I think it's unseemly to permit a presidential candidate to lie with impunity. 10's of millions of citizens will watch the debate. Only a small fraction of viewers will read the fact-checking article the next morning in the New York Times.

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3. Don't allow either candidate to make "I will" claims without further examination as to "how?"

It is common political practice for candidates to boldly declare, "I will . . ." Allowing this to go unchallenged renders the debate meaningless. An obvious example is Trump's trope, "I'll build a wall, believe me, and Mexico will pay for it." You should be prepared to confront Trump with cost estimates for such a wall. You should point out that the Mexican president vigorously denied any intent to pay for the wall. You should ask Trump how he would appropriate the funds with a divided and recalcitrant Congress, likely with a Democrat-controlled Senate. There is no possibility that such a wall will be built and any responsible journalist knows it.

All political candidates say things like, "I'll lower your taxes," "I'll abolish the Affordable Care Act," or I'll get rid of NAFTA." A responsible journalist must insist that "I will" statements be rephrased as "I intend to work toward" assertions. No president can unilaterally change the tax code, repeal legislation, or invalidate United States trade or treaty obligations. Why does a responsible journalist let these declarations go unchallenged?

The discussion must focus on the fiscal and legislative ramifications of the complex issues that face our country. In Trump's case, there is reason to question whether he even knows how these processes work. It is more than reasonable for a journalist to press him to explain how he intends to pursue his vague agenda.

Allowing these kinds of empty promises to go unchallenged has turned presidential elections into trite advertising campaigns. Even advertisers have to provide disclaimers in fine print. It is a sad state of affairs when presidential candidates are held to lower standards than pharmaceutical companies.

Although this decline in journalism has been steady over several decades, the current election is potentially catastrophic for America and the world. If Donald Trump is elected, a great deal of the blame should and will fall on the irresponsible, often fawning and cowardly performance by the major media.

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Gideon Rachman is the chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times.

You recently published Easternisation. Would you tell us a little bit about the book?

Sure. "Easternisation" is a book about international politics, seen through the prism of the rise of Asia. I argue that the 500-year period in which the West dominated global affairs is coming to an end. The root cause of this is a shift in power and wealth to the East. (By 2020, Asia's collective GDP is likely to be larger than that of the US and Europe combined.)

Easternisation examines how this shift in wealth and power is playing out in practice. The first half of the book is about geopolitics in Asia. It looks at rising tensions between the US and China and at the risk this might lead to war. But I also examine the viewpoints of other big players in Asia, with chapters on Japan, India and Southeast Asia. One conclusion is that while power is certainly shifting towards Asia, there is no such thing as a coherent "East" to replace the Western alliance. On the contrary, there are serious divisions and rivalries within Asia.

The second part of the book is about "Easternisation beyond Asia". I look at the West's declining ability to impose order on the global system. So there is a lot about the relative decline of US power, and how this has contributed to rising anarchy in the Middle East. There is also a focus on the crisis within the European Union -- the second pillar of the West. I also examine the "pivots to Asia" of countries such as Russia and Turkey, as well as parts of Latin America and Africa.

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I conclude that Easternisation is currently destabilizing the world. Managing Easternisation will be the great challenge of global politics in the 21st century.

What sort of feedback have you gotten thus far?

Much better than I'd dared hope. The reviews have been very positive. The Sunday Times called it "masterly"; the Daily Telegraph called it "superb". There have also been good reviews in the London Times, the Observer, The Economist, the FT, the New Statesman and the Literary Review. (And the Phnom Penh Post!)

The one that pleased me most came from Paul Kennedy, whose book on "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" in the late 1980s I studied at university. He said that "This really is one of those works where you can say you wished our political leaders would read and ponder upon its great implications."

The UK edition of the book came out in August. It's not out in hardback in the US until next year, although you can buy the Kindle edition.

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How long did it take to write? Do you have a writing routine?

About two years, I think. I both benefited and suffered from the fact that I have a busy day job as the FT's chief foreign affairs commentator. On the plus side, my work for the FT dovetailed very neatly with the book -- and a lot of the field research was done in the course of my FT-related travels. On the minus side, it was hard to carve out long chunks of time to write. So I mostly did it on weekends, or during nights in hotels when I was wide awake because of jet lag! And the FT was generous enough to give me a month's sabbatical, right at the end.

Do you have any literary influences?



Not that I'm aware of. Of course, there are lots of writers I admire. But I think I have learned to write about politics and history, by doing lots of it -- first at university and then in a 30-year career as a journalist. Influences are more likely to be clever teachers, who once wrote a comment in the margin of an essay. ("Don't screech" was a favorite piece of advice from a History teacher at school.)

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Don't screech. Also don't get bogged down. Every now and then take a step back and try to remember the central theme of your book or article. That can help order -- or reorder -- your thoughts.

What do you read for fun?

I usually only get to read novels on holiday -- although a great novel is still more absorbing than any other kind of book. Like lots of people, I go through crazes. I think I'm still formed by reading lots of Wodehouse, Waugh, Anthony Powell and Amis when young. Lately, I've really enjoyed the novels and autobiographical work of Hisham Matar. I also enjoy modern history -- just read Nicholas Stargardt's gripping history of Germany in the Second World War. Books can also sit on my shelves for years, before I finally get around to them. For example, I'm currently reading Bernard Crick's biography of Orwell, which came out in the 1980s.
Notes from Indian Country

By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji - Stands Up For Them)

Eugene Rowland was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation. While serving with the U. S. Army in Korea he made two good friends; Virgil Rutherford and Jesse McCray of Muskogee, Oklahoma.

On November 18, 1950 the three friends were swept under by the waves of Chinese soldiers storming across the 38th Parallel and became prisoners of war.

Rowland was my friend. He died several years ago and I thought about him after buying a ball cap from his son, Eugene Rowland, Jr. at the Black Hills Pow Wow. I also wondered about his friends Rutherford and McCray. Are they still alive?

The three-year nightmare for Eugene, Virgil and Jesse began on that cold day in 1950. They were placed in a compound known as Camp Number Five. For the next 33 months they were silent witnesses to the torture and deaths of many American soldiers.

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Rowland said to me many years ago, "I guess we'll never forget our buddies - black, white, red and brown - who gave their lives during this terrible time. They were buried in shallow graves, dug by us; on a knoll we named 'Yonder Hill.'"

On July 22, 1953, in a village called Panmunjom, an armistice was signed by General William Harrison for the United States and by Nam Il for the North Koreans. On August 8, 1953, Rowland, Rutherford and McCray were set free. They had spent 33 months as POWs.

"We were told to go home and resume a normal life," Rowland said. "Here we were, broken men, beaten mentally and physically. We had shared loneliness, starvation, and torture. When it had become too much to bear, we turned to God together and prayed for freedom and now we were being told to go live a normal life."

Each discovered in their own way that there would never be a so-called, normal life. The things they had considered normal were not that important to them anymore. Their health had been destroyed and the extreme physical and mental abuse had taken a terrible toll upon them. Captured as young, healthy men, their bodies were now diseased and tired.

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It took more than 30 years for these veteran POWs to discover each other again. In August of 1983, a special Prisoner of War Reunion was held in Muskogee and the three friends renewed the joy of their friendship.

To these survivors of Camp Number Five the occasion was more than a hug or a handshake. "There are no words in the English language or in the Lakota language that can describe the things we felt or the things we shared with each other on that special day. The emotions can never be described," Rowland said.

His friend Rutherford recalled, "Over there, 6,000 miles from home, it didn't matter if you were white or Indian. You went through the same kind of hell together every day. You learned to rely on each other. Otherwise we could never have survived. We didn't just become friends; we were closer than brothers, even."

Each man felt the same way about the 33 months spent in captivity. It was as if the world had stood still for three years. There was a daily routine that kept them regimented and before long, the prison camp became a little world of its own to them.

As the days dragged into weeks, the weeks into months and the months into years they watched as many of their companions withered and died. They somehow lost that will to live and to the three friends, it seemed like they just gave up their spirits.

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There were two emotions the friends shared at their reunion 18 years ago. They all felt an eternal sense of gratitude for having survived and yet they all felt a terrible sense of loss. "I know we all thank God we are alive, but the thing that haunts us is that so many of our buddies still lie dead and buried in Korea," Rutherford said.

Rowland shared that sense of grief. "Our fellow GI's were laid to rest in unmarked graves. There were no caskets or crosses to mark the spot where they were buried. It always bothered me that most of our friends were buried without that bugle call of taps or without the beat of a drum to sound retreat. I believe they are still buried up there on 'Yonder Hill' in Korea and Virgil, Jesse and me will never forget them."

The reunion in Muskogee was a time of happiness for the three veterans. It was also a time of sadness. It was a time to celebrate life and to reminisce about the bad and be thankful for the good.

It was a time when two white men from Oklahoma and an Indian from South Dakota realized that the lifelong bond that held them together cuts across all racial barriers. It was a bond forged in battle and later in the horrible conditions of Camp Number Five.

Rowland's friends came to the Pine Ridge Reservation to visit him before his death. He brought them to the office of my newspaper and since I am also a veteran of the Korean War, we shared a few tears over hot cups of coffee that day.

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Rowland was nearly blind by then. And yet, he had the most beautiful smile on his face when he looked at his two friends and said, "We are closer than brothers can ever be and we will never let 30 years pass before we get together again. A lot of tears fell when we had to split up after the reunion but it was good - real good - to see them again. I prayed for that day."

This column is dedicated to those Korean veterans who fought and survived the "Forgotten War." Although he has passed away, Eugene Rowland served with pride and I am blessed to have called him my friend.


The police kicking a young protestor, Paris, France. Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

We arrived at about 2:30 pm at Bastille and just as we got close to the protest, hundreds of anti-riot police were blocking the street. They let my partner into the middle of the street and I was shouldered to the side, a police officer asked for my legal status, I said "I'm an Australian journalist" and within seconds it all went to chaos. The riot police charged against pretty much anyone who was in front of them, they broke the skull of an old guy and they violently beat another protestor right in front of me.

Violeta Ayala #manif15sept



Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

Thousands of protestors that ranged in ages and races and included children in prams walked towards Place de Republique, chanting against labor laws that weaken the power of workers. "The people united, will never be defeated" and "capitalism stinks" were amongst the chants. "It's already our 14th protest, I really hate capitalism" a young blond girl with tattoos told me, "the system is racist and broken" complemented her black friend, both girls were teenagers.

Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

The majority of protest barely entered the plaza taking a hard right while the young protestors remained at the Place de la Republique where confrontations with police grew, in exchanges between tear gas, pepper spray and a sporadic molotov.

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Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

As the tension grew, a protestor began to offer the police flowers, only one police accepted a white rose.

Violeta Ayala #manif15sept

We left as 10 police officers were arresting a young boy, kicking him on the floor and trying to cover their action from the cameras by putting their shield and their feet together.

Liberte, egalite, fraternite? I'm not so sure any longer.
$25K in Gannett Foundation grants go to central Kansas organizations

Four local organizations are receiving a total of $25,000 as the Gannett Foundation invests in community-building initiatives in north-central Kansas.
San Diego Zoo Has Success Breeding Two Rare Reptile Species

San Diego, California - Two rare reptile species native to two delicate island ecosystemsthe black tree monitor, native to the Aru Islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea; and the mossy leaf-tailed gecko, native to Madagascarare now thriving at the San Diego Zoo. The latest milestones in a long history of successful reptile breeding, the new arrivals offer hope for two little-known, yet important species.

The Zoo, previously home to two adult black tree monitors, is now also home to four babies that hatched from eggs laid in January. This is the first time the species has hatched at the San Diego Zoo, kicking off what the Zoo hopes will be a robust breeding program. The young monitors weigh about two-fifths of an ounce (11 grams) each, and are doing well.

Were thrilled to have black tree monitor hatchlings this year, as this is the first time they've successfully reproduced at the San Diego Zoo, said Dave Grubaugh, reptile keeper at the San Diego Zoo. The parents have been with us for three years now, and we've just been patiently waiting for them to reach maturity and bond with each other. They are one part of a larger, fragile ecosystem where every piece is important.

Black tree monitors live in the hot, humid forests and mangrove swamps of the Aru Islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea. They are dependent on the forest canopy to survive, but most of the regional forest on the Aru Islands has already been lost. Other threats to the species include the pet trade and non-native predators, such as foxes and cats. With the threats the black tree monitor faces in the wild, establishing insurance populations in accredited Zoos will help ensure the survival of the species.

Another reptile species that faces similar challenges in the wild, and has also experienced recent breeding success at the Zoo, is the mossy leaf-tailed gecko. The Zoo received a confiscated group of mossy leaf-tailed geckos in 2010. The geckos have since produced eight hatchlings, with several generations now thriving at the Zoo.

All leaf-tailed gecko species are popular in the pet trade, perhaps due to their unique adaptations. Leaf-tailed geckos have evolved to resemble leaves, blending into their forest surroundings to avoid predators and better ambush their insect prey. However, more than 80 percent of Madagascars forests have been decimated by logging, agriculture, housing development and other human activity, threatening the future of the species. With these ongoing threats, keeping healthy satellite populations outside of Madagascar is increasingly important as a safeguard against extinction.

Bringing species back from the brink of extinction is the goal of San Diego Zoo Global. As a leader in conservation, the work of San Diego Zoo Global includes on-site wildlife conservation efforts (representing both plants and animals) at the San Diego Zoo, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, as well as international field programs on six continents. The work of these entities is inspiring children through the San Diego Zoo Kids network, reaching out through the internet and in childrens hospitals nationwide. The work of San Diego Zoo Global is made possible by the San Diego Zoo Global Wildlife Conservancy and is supported in part by the Foundation of San Diego
Assistant Secretary Frank A. Rose to travel to Hawaii and Australia

Washington, DC - Assistant Secretary for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Frank A. Rose will travel to Australia and Hawaii September 17-24 for meetings and to participate in events focused on international security, strategic stability, and space security.

On September 20, A/S Rose will meet with the Lowy Institute and other members of the non-governmental community in Sydney, Australia. On September 21, A/S Rose will participate in a roundtable meeting at the Australia Strategic Policy Institute followed by meetings at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australian Department of Defense.

On September 22, A/S Rose will provide a keynote address on space situational awareness at the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance (AMOS) Conference in Maui, Hawaii. On September 23, he will meet with senior leaders from United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) to discuss strategic issues.
Kohli's Photo With Tricolour During National Anthem Goes Viral, Twitter Calls Him 'Pride of India'
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In Saudi Arabia, close to 2 million pilgrims performed on Monday one of the final rites of the Islamic hajj pilgrimage, the symbolic stoning of the devil, as Muslims worldwide marked the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday.

The rite takes place in the Saudi valley area of Mina, where a crush of crowds and stampede killed more than 2,400 people during last year's hajj, according to an Associated Press count.

On Monday, younger pilgrims helped their parents, some in wheelchairs, make their way toward the massive multi-story Jamarat Complex in Mina where pilgrims cast pebbles at three large columns.

Recommended Read more Hundreds of thousands of Muslims arrive in Mecca ahead of Hajj

It is here where Muslims believe the devil tried to talk the Prophet Ibrahim out of submitting to God's will.

Muslims circle the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia (AP)

Most pilgrims will remain in Mina until Wednesday, performing the stoning ritual for three days and sleeping in tents at night before completing the hajj.

While circling the Kaaba, Muslims try to touch Maqam Ibrahim or The Station of Abraham, the golden glass structure top right, at the Grand Mosque (AP)

The five-day-long hajj is a series of rituals meant to cleanse the soul of sins and instill a sense of equality and brotherhood among Muslims. All able-bodied Muslims are required to perform the hajj once in their lives.

While following a route the Prophet Muhammad once walked, the rites are believed to ultimately trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail  Abraham and Ishmael in the Bible.

The cube-shaped shrine, at the center of Mecca's Grand Mosque, is where the world's 1.6 billion Muslims pray towards five times a day (AP)

Over the years, the Saudi government has spent billions of dollars to improve the safety of the pilgrimage, particularly in Mina where some of the deadliest incidents have occurred, including last year's tragedy.

Families help the less able and elderly to circle the shine, as the religion depicts every Muslim should visit the site at least one in their life (AP)

Since then, Saudi authorities have widened narrow streets in Mina that lead to the large pedestrian paths around the Jamarat Complex. Banners in the street advised the massive crowds to avoid overcrowding and pushing.

Muslims believe Ibrahim's faith was tested when God commanded him to sacrifice his only son Ismail. Ibrahim was prepared to submit to the command, but then God stayed his hand, sparing his son. In the Christian and Jewish version of the story, Abraham is ordered to kill his other son, Isaac.

To reach the shrine, pilgrims must enter through the Grand Mosque (AP)

The final days of hajj coincide with Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, to commemorate Ibrahim's test of faith. For the holiday, which ends on Thursday, Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor.

The golden door, which pilgrims are seen touching, is part of the holi shrine (AP)

During the last three days of hajj, male pilgrims shave their heads and remove the terrycloth white garments worn during the hajj. Women cut off a small lock of hair in a sign of spiritual rebirth and renewal.

Pilgrims also circle the cube-shaped Kaaba in Mecca, Islam's most sacred site. The Kaaba represents the metaphorical house of God and the oneness of God in Islam. Observant Muslims around the world face toward the Kaaba during the five daily prayers.

You realize the mercy of Allah, that we are here to seek his forgiveness and that this hajj, God willing, will make a change in my life where I can change and become a better Muslim, said Canadian pilgrim Assad Yakoub.
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House of Holland

Yesterdays show was a very special one for House of Holland who is celebrating a decade in the business. For the milestone collection hosted in Spitalfields market, Holland stayed true to his signature playful aesthetic: bold gingham opened the show fashioned into ruffles with off the shoulder dresses and tops teamed with larger than life flared trousers. A floor skimming summer dress featured a mashup of florals, lace and gingham which shouldn't work but no doubt will be flawlessly thrown on by the likes of Alexa Chung who incidentally was sat front row. Holland saved his showpiece for the finale when a parade of models headed down the catwalk all decked out in slogan T-shirts, a throwback to his beginnings when back in 2006 he made his mark with T-shirts baring slogans such as: Cause me pain Hedi Slimane. As for the messages this time around, equally as tongue in cheek as a decade ago with shout-outs to his contemporary fashion industry colleagues: Give us a toss Karlie Kloss and I'd be sleazy for abit of Yeezy.

Emma Akbareian

House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 Show all 11 1 /11 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 House of Holland Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty

J.W.Anderson

The cross pollination between menswear and womenswear is something Jonathon Anderson is well versed in, and his spring/summer 2017 offering was no exception. All sorts of things were going on; there were Tudor-esque ballooning sleeves, hessian sack dresses and a cacophony of colourful dip dye, but what tied it all together was the sartorial powwow between overtly masculine pieces and those with a quiet girlishness. Padded muff style hems, Robin Hood lacing and exaggerated silhouettes befell against shredded skirts, ruching and femme volume; typically the ideas came hard and fast but together they worked surprisingly well. The Northern Irish designer is celebrated for his juxtaposition of visuals and this collection felt somewhat more artful than the rest; where monochromatic geometrics met an ombre of sunset hues.

Sarah Young

JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 Show all 8 1 /8 JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty JW Anderson Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty

Emilia Wickstead

Citing mid century art and architecture from Frank Lloyd Wright to Alexander Calder as her inspiration, as well as a fascination with the phenomena of love hotels, Emilia Wickstead created a collection bound by the interplay between romance and modernity. Sure, these hotels are places where illicit lovers meet for a little tete-a-tete but somehow the designer reimagined them as something far more intimate and tender; inspiring a sophisticated palette of soft pink, powder blue and tangerine. This was dreamy, romantic and abounding with the mawkishness of young love. Voluminous springtime silhouettes, frilled high necks and light silk blouses were styled with basket-weave sandals designed by Charlotte Olympia; only adding to the ease and dreamy insouciance of Wicksteads signature aesthetic. The idea of youthful abandon held its own as the collection gathered pace with the introduction of bursts of dotted patterns and retro-inspired clusters of coloured Swarovski crystals proving that while the designers vision is deeply rooted in timeless femininity its also staunchly current.

Sarah Young

Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 Show all 12 1 /12 Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Emilia Wickstead Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty

Simone Rocha

Simone Rocha couldn't have picked a more apt setting for her spring collection shown in the eerie gloominess of Southwark Cathedral. But out of such darkness comes light and on this occasion; it came in the form of deconstructed tulle, patched up with cotton poplin, broderie anglaise and macrame elastic. Romantic, yes but with a darkness. Rocha cited hard working days as her influence and you can see what she was getting at with tailored trench coats and shirting collapsing into tulle, but nevertheless not something ever likely to see a hard-days toil unless you count the work that will inevitably be needed to actually get the clothes on, such was the level of deconstruction in them. Rocha is well known for her love of all things Victoriana and that was again evident here in puff sleeve dresses, grey check gowns with Peter Pan collars and the appropriately ecclesiastical white lace gloves.

Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 Show all 11 1 /11 Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Simone Rocha Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty

Gareth Pugh

Gareth Pugh has been a busy man, aside from pulling together a spring/summer show he debuted a full length opera in Paris on Friday. His collection based on the opera Eliogabalo, tells the story of a tyrannical child emperor. How does this all translate to clothes? With Pughs signature flare for drama, opening and closing with the motif of a sun suspended above the model's head. Following that was an army of models all ready to do battle, warrior princesses trussed up in black overlaid with gold bullion mosaic. As the narrative unfolds, so did the clothes: stiff and structured garments becoming fluid and loose with tails of chiffon trailing like capes. The colour palette loosening with the clothes, fading from black to deep purple then cream all set against a battle appropriate soundtrack of heavy drumming.

Emma Akbareian

Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 Show all 10 1 /10 Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty Gareth Pugh Spring-Summer 2017 AFP/Getty

Versus

The second day of London fashion week ended with Versus, the secondary line of Italian fashion house Versace, who has for the past few seasons made London fashion week its home. Starting with a bang, the show was opened by Insta-model of the moment Bella Hadid, who strutted down the runway past her sister Gigi and boyfriend Zayn Malik, their arrival caused marginally more excitement then the clothes. Speaking of, this was a collection created with the Hadid sisters and their model squad pals in mind. The military themed show read like a tick list for the utilitarian trend: leather biker jackets, pleated skirts, zip detail knitwear, mesh dresses, aviator lenses, bomber jackets all of which felt decidedly heavy for spring. Even the slinky party dresses had chain mail inserts. And the colour palette also did not avoid stereotypes khaki, black, navy with the slightly more springtime appropriate tangerine hue.

Emma Akbareian
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A BBC journalist has secured a 50,000 payout for being sacked after prioritising a story about Sri Lanka over the birth of Prince George.

Chandana Keerthi Bandara, 57, lost his job as a producer on a BBC Sri Lankan news service in August 2014 and subsequently sued the BBC for unfair dismissal and race discrimination.

The employment tribunal found that the dismissal of Mr Bandara, who had been a senior producer on the Sinhala Service since 2000 and worked at the BBC for a total of 18 years, was unfair but in no way discriminatory.

The journalist had been allocated to oversee the publishing of stories on 23 July 2013, the day after Prince George was born, but said he chose not to prioritise the royal birth story partially because it clashed with the 30th anniversary of Black July  a wave of anti-Tamil violence that led to thousands being killed in Sri Lanka.

 7 of Prince George's most astounding privileges and powers

According to The Telegraph, a tribunal was told Mr Bandara fought against management pressure to report on the story but finally gave in and the article was published online at 12.08pm. After disciplinary proceedings, he was found to have been guilty of gross misconduct and was given a final written warning.

He was sacked just over a year later on 15 August, 2014 after other allegations of misconduct were made, including making a derogatory reference to a fellow worker and shouting at others.

According to the paper, although the majority of these allegations were substantiated with evidence or partially proved, the tribunal ruled that the unfair final written warning dished out over the Prince George story played a significant role in the decision to dismiss him. In turn, the tribunal found the final written warning was too stringent a punishment for an employee with such a good record.

However, Mr Bandara did not win his claims of race discrimination. In the proceedings, he claimed he was unjustly targeted because of his strongly held convictions that the Tamil people had been persecuted by the Sinhala-dominant government. The majority of his team were said to be of Sinhalese and not Tamil origin.

A spokesperson for the BBC World Service told The Independent they were disappointed with the outcome of this unfair dismissal claim but could not specify why.

"The BBC takes disciplinary matters very seriously and we are disappointed with the outcome of this unfair dismissal claim," the spokesperson said. "We note that the tribunal reduced the compensation awarded to Mr Bandara by 75 per cent and we will review the full decision of the tribunal carefully when it is available."
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Donald Trump has said his lawyers are keen to sue the New York Times over irresponsible intent.

The Republican presidential candidate explained he had said no for the moment but his lawyers were closely watching the paper, which he described as disgusting, failing and a laughingstock rag.

Litigation is unlikely to succeed as irresponsible intent does not exist in any doctrine or standard found in American law.

My lawyers want to sue the failing @nytimes so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting, Mr Trump tweeted on Saturday night.

The politician did not elaborate on why he could be keen to sue the Times or the details of the pending lawsuit he might have planned.

Donald Trump's childhood home in Queens, New York, up for auction Show all 6 1 /6 Donald Trump's childhood home in Queens, New York, up for auction Donald Trump's childhood home in Queens, New York, up for auction Donald Trump Home exterior Laffey Fine Homes Donald Trump's childhood home in Queens, New York, up for auction Living Room Laffey Fine Homes Donald Trump's childhood home in Queens, New York, up for auction Fireplace Laffey Fine Homes Donald Trump's childhood home in Queens, New York, up for auction Kitchen Laffey Fine Homes Donald Trump's childhood home in Queens, New York, up for auction Office Laffey Fine Homes Donald Trump's childhood home in Queens, New York, up for auction Bedroom Laffey Fine Homes

Earlier in the day, Mr Trump criticised the papers columnist Maureen Dowd, calling her a neurotic dope and arguing that she made things up for her interviews and columns.

Wacky @NYTimesDowd, who hardly knows me, makes up things that I never said for her boring interviews and column. A neurotic dope! he tweeted.

Recommended Read more No one should have expected Jimmy Fallon to go tough on Donald Trump

Crazy Maureen Dowd, the wacky columnist for the failing @nytimes, pretends she knows me wellwrong!

In an interview with CNN on Saturday, Dowd said she had challenged Mr Trump throughout his presidential campaign and alerted him about the violence at his rallies but claimed he had informed her that he thought the violence added a frisson of excitement.

At the beginning of September, Mr Trumps wife, Melania announced she had filed a $150 million (113 million) lawsuit against both the Daily Mail and a US blogger, saying they published false claims about her past.

A representative for Mr Trump, Ms Dowd and the New York Times did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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Marc Jacobs has been accused of cultural appropriation and sparked a social media backlash after defending his decision to cast predominantly white models to wear dreadlocks in his New York fashion show.

The 53-year-old fashion designers show triggered immediate criticism which was then heightened by his reply which stated that he did not see colour or race and just people instead.

After Thursday's show, critics questioned why Jacobs decided not to cast more black models given he was heralding a hairstyle directly associated with black culture. They argued black hair styles were more than a fashion vogue and could not simply be culturally appropriated without an acknowledgement of their origins.

People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015.

Jacobs then fanned the flames of the outrage with his response to the allegations of racial insensitivity.

Replying to two commenters, using the handle @themarcjacobs, on one of a series of images from his show, he said: All who cry cultural appropriation or whatever nonsense about any race or skin colour wearing their hair in any particular style or manner - funny how you dont criticise women of colour for straightening their hair."

"I respect and am inspired by people and how they look. I dont see colour or race - I see people," he added.

Social media users were quick to condemn his response and criticised his comparison to people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds using straighteners on their hair.

Black women who straighten their hair were forced to conform to those standards. A form of assimilation, wrote one Twitter user. Im from Canada but in America if your hair is unkept, in styles such as dreads, Afros, cornrows, black women lose jobs and opportunities, and they also get ridiculed like Zendaya. The user was referring to comments the Fashion Police host Giuliana Rancic made about Zendayas hair at the Oscars in 2015. Rancic said the dreadlocks made Zendaya look like she smells like patchouli oil or weed but later apologised.

Saying I dont see colour is honestly just a way of avoiding the obvious issue at hand," added another user. "Racism and culture appropriation so exist! By avoiding the problem you are the problem. Please remember that. By having these conversations, in a respectful manner of course, we can turn this situation into a positive learning opportunity".

While another said: If you dont see colour then why are your models 95% white?

A Washington Post article titled The uproar over Marc Jacobs and dreadlocks is ridiculous has been shared on Jacobs' Instagram account. For anyone out there who wants to read a well written, fair and intelligent article on the subject, the post is captioned.

Jacobs' Spring 2017 show featured Gigi and Bella Hadid, Karlie Kloss and Jourdan Dunn among others in seven-inch platforms and sparkly doll frocks.

The issue of cultural appropriation has grown increasingly contentious in recent years and prominent figures remain divided about the question of white dreadlocks and cornrows. Justin Bieber, Kylie Jenner and Miley Cyrus have all been accused of cultural appropriation by the public for their hairstyles.

(Getty Images (Getty Images)

The Independent contacted a representative for Jacobs for comment.
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The former Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called for the UK to increase the number of refugees that it takes in to four times the current level planned by the government.

Mr Miliband, who is currently head of the New York-based International Rescue Committee, said that the UKs commitment to taking in more refugees was very small and that the UK could make a greater contribution beyond the six refugees per parliamentary constituency.

There's quite a lot of scope for Theresa May to come to the UN and to the Obama summit on Tuesday and say look, the UK has a really good record on international overseas aid," he told Sky.

Recommended Read more Theresa May to demand action on refugees at UN summit

Frankly, the UK should be saying we'll take 20,000 or 25,000 a year, so four times the current level, 25 refugees per parliamentary constituency rather than just six, because countries like Canada are already doing that.

So I think the UK could do more on the refugee resettlement side to match the frankly exemplary performance that the UK has on international humanitarian aid.

Mr Milibands comments come ahead of the Leaders Summit on the Global Refugee Crisis which President Obama is due to host at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday. Among the attendees of Tuesdays summit will be Prime Minister Theresa May who is facing calls to increase the number of Syrian refugees accepted into the UK after the US State Department announced last month that it had admitted 10,000 Syrian refugees this year alone.

The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Show all 8 1 /8 The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Basheer Basheer, a 3-year-old Syrian boy, lying on his father leg, lives with his family in a rent-free house as part of NRC's shelter programme in the village of Bair-Ras, in Irbid governorate, northern Jordan. Photo 11 October 2015 NRC/Hussein Amri The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Hisham Mustafa has fled from Aleppo, and is currently at Idomeni in Greece. Here he is playing with his nephew Hisham, 3 NRC/Tiril Skarstein The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Ahmaydi Bouchra Little Ahmaydi, 3, and her family of eight fled from fighting in Mali to the Goudebo camp in Burkina Faso in 2013. Neither of her two older sisters went to school in Mali. The whole family lives in a tent that is approx. 7m x 6m. The family bed is stored outside to make space inside the shelter during day time. In the evenings, they carry the bed back in. NRC/Ingrid Prestetun The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Farah Farah, 4, lives with her family in Irbid in a rent-free apartment. She stays home with her mother as her four sisters and three brothers leave for the day to their various schools. Photo 11t October 2015 NRC/Hussein Amri The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Batane Yacouba Batane Yacouba, 4, lives with his two older sisters and his mother in the Goudebo camp in Burkina Faso. A Tuareg family, they were forced to flee Mali fearing for their lives. Their father is dead NRC/Ingrid Prestetun The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Hassan Syrian boy Redor, 12, plays with Hassan, 3, after arriving at the port in Chios, Greece NRC/Tiril Skarstein The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Fatin Fatin, 4, and her family fled Syria to Irbid, northern Jordan. Her father has issued a birth certificate for her, in order for her to have access to health centres. NRC/Hussein Amri The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Born a refugee Alice Digama (24) sits on the tent floor with her two-week-old baby. Her son is one of many children born a refugee. Alice was heavily pregnant when she escaped South Sudan and crossed the border into Uganda, after her husband left her for another wife NRC/Sofi Lundin

The Prime Minister has been urged to meet the Government's pledge to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees two years early in 2018 as well as to offer more help to those fleeing the war.

UK officials have said that: The talks will focus on a more coordinated approach to managing migration, to better protecting refugees and being able to help them and also deal with some of the challenges that countries face from the scale of migration we have seen.
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One of Britain's leading private schools is offering bursaries to children whose parents earn a combined salary of 120,000 because its headteacher deems the fees "unaffordable".

St Paul's School, a boys' school in London whose alumni includes former chancellor George Osborne, charges pupils 7,827 a term and 11,723 for boarding.

But the school has introduced a new bursary scheme this year to offer "more generous support to families with a household income less than 120k".

Headmaster Mark Bailey said the new scheme had been introduced because he acknowledged the school was "drifting" away from its original vision of educating boys "indifferently of their background".

Professor Bailey told The London Magazine: The part-bursaries are being offered in a far more generous way. You will be looking eventually at [families earning] 150,000, 170,000, 190,000 potentially benefiting."

He conceded the fees had become "unaffordable" before adding: It was our founders vision [to educate] boys indifferently of their background and weve drifted away from that."

Other private schools in London have similar bursary schemes.

Alleyn's School in Dulwich offers bursaries of up to 100 per cent of fees where family gross income is below 80,000, while the City of London School offers means-tested bursaries where a family's maximum joint gross income is less than 45,000.

Figures from the Independent Schools Council (ISC) reveal that bursaries and scholarships totalled more than 850m last year, with more than 700m coming directly from schools budgets.

The world's toughest school run Show all 5 1 /5 The world's toughest school run The world's toughest school run Children carry their schoolbags climb on a cliff on their way home in Zhaojue county in southwest China's Sichuan province Chinatopix/AP The world's toughest school run Children carry their schoolbags accompanied by adults climb on a cliff bu using ladder as they on their way home in Zhaojue county in southwest China's Sichuan province Chinatopix/AP The world's toughest school run A child carry her schoolbag looks as she takes a rest on a cliff as she and other children on their way back to home in Zhaojue county in southwest China's Sichuan province Chinatopix/AP The world's toughest school run A village in China's mountainous west where schoolchildren must climb an 800-meter (2,625-foot)-high bamboo ladder secured to a sheer cliff face may get a set of steel stairs to improve safety Chinatopix/AP The world's toughest school run Schoolchildren carry their schoolbags climb on a cliff on their way home in Zhaojue county in southwest China's Sichuan province Chinatopix/AP

But while there has been an increase in discount offered, private school fees have rocketed by an average of 21 per cent in the UK over the last five years, with schools in London having seen fees rise even higher by 25 per cent.

The volume of pupils competing for places in London private schools has continued to soar despite the rise in fees  thought to be due in part to an influx of wealthy international parents in the city.
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The Lib Dem leader Tim Farron says Theresa May could be forced to change her mind and hold a second referendum on leaving the EU, if public opinion shifts against the terms of Britains exit.

Mr Farron said he respected the result of the referendum in June, and said that unlike the Labour leadership contender Owen Smith, he would not support a referendum on re-joining the EU even after Britain has left, saying: I have to say, that might be too late.

But he told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that with the specifics of Brexit still to be determined, the British people deserved to be consulted again when the deal became clear.

We trusted the British people on departure, in the referendum in June, he said. We should now trust them with destination.

The deal that will be settled for the future of the United Kingdoms relationship with Europe, freedom of movement, the single market and everything else is utterly unclear.

You dont know what it is, I dont know, the British people dont know. I doubt even Theresa May knows.

There needs to be a referendum on that deal. That is the best option for us staying in. It is also the best option for the whole of our society gathering around whatever we do next.

Andrew Marr suggested that was entirely up to Theresa May, and that she had said it was not something she would be willing to do.

Mr Farron responded: If public opinion changes, if people see the deal unravelling and it being not what they voted for, then Theresa May is a pragmatic enough person to understand that if the population of this country believe that the deal she is stitching up with Brussels is something that they do not think that they voted for, I think she will shift.

On the Labour leadership election, Mr Farron said Mr Smith seemed like a reasonable, genuine guy who he could work with.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

And he said that while the collapse of Labour and the dissolution of Remain voters in the referendum offered an enormous opportunity to the Lib Dems, if Labour were to split it would be bad news for British democracy.
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Jeremy Corbyn has claimed an overwhelming proportion of media coverage is hostile towards him.

Asked on ITV's Peston on Sunday if he felt some media outlets were against him, the Labour Leader said: "Only 84 per cent of the media reporting of the Labour party in the last year has been hostile, so they could up their game and get it up to 90 per cent  or they could be fairer."

A majority of the British public believe the media is deliberately biased against Mr Corbyn and is seeking to portray him in a negative light.

Just 29 per cent of British adults disagreed that the mainstream media as a whole has been deliberately biasing coverage to portray Jeremy Corbyn in a negative manner when asked by pollsters YouGov.

Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Show all 8 1 /8 Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith clash at a leadership hustings in Gateshead, where Mr Smith was scarcely able to answer a question without being booed by Mr Corbyns supporters PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy himself admitted he was seven out of 10 in terms of his faith in the European Union. He said it, said Mr Smith during his second live debate with Jeremy Corbyn Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Ballot papers are currently due to be sent out on 22 August and returned a month later, with the result being announced at a special Labour conference on 24 September Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn supporters cheer and wave placards as the Labour Leader addresses thousands of supporters in in Liverpool, England Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour Party leadership candidate Owen Smith poses for a picture with supporters during a picnic for young members in London Fields, Hackney in London Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith The Labour leader has a spring in his step at a leadership rally in Sunderland Screenshot Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contender Owen Smith delivers a speech at the Open University in Milton Keynes, where he promised to reverse Conservative cuts set to leave millions of low paid workers thousands of pounds a year worse off PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has urged Owen Smith to distance himself from those saying they want to split the Labour party Getty

Mr Corbyn was speaking ahead of the Labour leadership election, which sees his position as leader challenged by Owen Smith.

Ballots close on Wednesday 21 September and the winner will be announced at the Labour Party Special Conference in Liverpool on Saturday 24 September.

On Friday, Mr Smith warned there were five days left to "save the Labour Party" from Mr Corbyn.

The MP for Pontypridd served in Mr Corbyns shadow cabinet but later resigned from the post of shadow Work and Pensions Secretary.

Mr Corbyn has said he will welcome rebel Labour MPs back to his frontbench if he wins the leadership election.
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Influential union leader and key Jeremy Corbyn ally Len McCluskey has warned that rebellious Labour MPs will be "held to account" after the party's leadership contest.

The Unite union leader hinted that MPs who supported first Angela Eagle's and then Owen Smith's leadership challenge could face deselection from within their local constituency party.

He told a BBC Panorama programme, due to be broadcasted on Monday night, that some MPs had behaved "despicably and disgracefully and they have shown no respect whatsoever to the leader and they should be held to account".

When presenter John Pienaar asked if disloyal MPs would be "asking for it", Mr McCluskey said "I think they would".

Momentum, the grassroots organisation set up to support Mr Corbyn in the wake of his election last year, has denied reports that it plans to systematically deselect MPs - despite the threats of individual members.

James Schneider, the group's national organiser, appeared on both Sky News' Murnaghan programme and the BBC's Sunday Politics to insist that it was not official Momentum policy.

Despite this, Left Unity, a separate political party to Labour which does not support Labour, published the names of 66 party MPs who voted in favour of air strikes in Syria and ordered their supporters to "deselect them now".

Shadow Defence Secretary and Corbyn supporter Clive Lewis suggested that it was up to the party membership to decide whether to deselect MP as it was a "democratic" process.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, he said there was a "legitimate argument" for deselecting MPs who did not reflect the views of the majority of the Labour leadership.

He said: "I think weve had a very robust debate in the party this year. Deselection hasnt come up, as I understand, as an issue.

"If it does, as far as Im concerned thats a democratic choice for our members.

"You call it deselection  the other word for it is actually democratic election for your representatives in Parliament and I think theres a legitimate argument for that."

But he also urged the party membership to "think carefully" before ousting MPs because they did not want to return to "the bloodletting of the 1970s and 1980s when you are basically a party in meltdown".

Mr Corbyn is widely expected to win the party's second leadership contest in a year when the results are announced on 24 September.

Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Show all 8 1 /8 Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith clash at a leadership hustings in Gateshead, where Mr Smith was scarcely able to answer a question without being booed by Mr Corbyns supporters PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy himself admitted he was seven out of 10 in terms of his faith in the European Union. He said it, said Mr Smith during his second live debate with Jeremy Corbyn Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Ballot papers are currently due to be sent out on 22 August and returned a month later, with the result being announced at a special Labour conference on 24 September Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn supporters cheer and wave placards as the Labour Leader addresses thousands of supporters in in Liverpool, England Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour Party leadership candidate Owen Smith poses for a picture with supporters during a picnic for young members in London Fields, Hackney in London Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith The Labour leader has a spring in his step at a leadership rally in Sunderland Screenshot Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contender Owen Smith delivers a speech at the Open University in Milton Keynes, where he promised to reverse Conservative cuts set to leave millions of low paid workers thousands of pounds a year worse off PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has urged Owen Smith to distance himself from those saying they want to split the Labour party Getty

Labour donor Michael Foster, who has since been suspended from the party, attempted to challenge Mr Corbyn's automatic inclusion on the ballot paper in the High Court in July but it ruled that as the incumbent he did not have to gather 50 signatures from MPs.

MPs have complained that Mr Corbyn's supporters have also resorted to other means to threatened them, with Mary Creagh reporting that a brick was thrown through the window of her constituency office in Wakefield on Monday.

Ms Eagle reported a similar incident at her office in Wallasey, Merseyside shortly after she announced her leadership challenge. She also faces a "vote of no confidence" by her party membership.

This article originally stated that the list of 66 Labour MPs who voted in favour of air strikes in Syria (alongside calls for their de-selection) was by published several leftist groups including Momentum. It was in fact published by the group Left Unity, as now stated above.
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Nicky Morgan has revealed how Theresa May struggled to sack her face to face when she lost her job as Education Secretary in the July reshuffle.

Ms May cut loose a whole host of Cameron-supporting colleagues when she formed her Cabinet at the start of the summer, loosing nine ministers in one of the most brutal reshuffles in recent political history. Speaking on ITV's Peston on Sunday, Ms Morgan said she was called to the Prime Minister's office on 14 July and expected the worst.

But while she "knew it was coming", she says the new Prime Minister struggled to come up with the words to dismiss her. "I wasn't offered anything," she said. "I had to help her utter the phrase  so you'd like to 'let me go'?"

Recommended Read more May faces faces revolt over grammar schools

She added that the departing ministers were allowed to come and go by the back entrance, sparing them the indignity of walking out past the amassed journalists outside No 10.

Ms Morgan confirmed it was done face to face, and said: "At least it was done swiftly."

Since leaving the Cabinet, she has wasted no time in letting her opinions about Ms May's performance be known.

After it was revealed that one of the new Prime Minister's first major policies would be to extend the UK's grammar school system, the former Education Secretary took to social media to complain.

Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Show all 27 1 /27 Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Andrea Leadsom Andrea Leadsom has been appointed Secretary for Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Getty Images Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Priti Patel Priti Patel has been appointed International Development Secretary PA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Alun Cairns Alun Cairns will stay on as Welsh Secretary Reuters Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Karen Bradley Karen Bradley is now Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Rex Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Greg Clark Greg Clark has been appointed Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy PA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? James Brokenshire James Brokenshire has been appointed as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland PA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Stephen Crabb Stephen Crabb has resigned as Work and Pensions Secretary PA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Theresa Villiers Theresa Villiers will not return as Northern Ireland Secretary. She was reportedly offered a role by Theresa May, but turned it down, saying it was not one she felt could take on Getty Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Chris Grayling Chris Grayling has been appointed Transport Secretary PA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Damien Green Damien Green has been appointed Work and Pensions Secretary Getty Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Liz Truss Liz Truss has been appointed Justice Secretary Getty Images Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Patrick McLoughlin Patrick McLoughlin who was Transport Secretary has been appointed Tory Party chairman and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Getty Images Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Justine Greening Justine Greening has been appointed as Education Secretary Getty Images Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Gavin Williamson Gavin Williamson is to become the new Government Chief Whip Reuters Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Hunt will continue as Health Secretary Getty Images Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Nicky Morgan Nicky Morgan lost her job as Education Secretary Reuters Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Michael Gove Michael Gove has been sacked as Justice Secretary Reuters Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? John Whittingdale John Whittingdale left his job as Culture Secretary EPA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Oliver Letwin Oliver Letwin, the Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster, has been sacked from his role in the cabinet PA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Philip Hammond The former Foreign Secretary has been made Chancellor EPA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Boris Johnson Leading Brexit campaigner is given the role of Foreign Secretary Getty Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Amber Rudd Leading Remain campaigner takes Theresa May's old job of Home Secretary PA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Michael Fallon Stays as Defence Secretary AP Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? Liam Fox The former Defence Secretary is named as head of new Department for International Trade PA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? David Davis The former shadow Home Secretary and leadership rival to David Cameron is named Secretary of State for Leaving the European Union - aka Brexit minister PA Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? George Osborne Gone as Chancellor - and fails to secure any new role in May's government GETTY Theresa May's Cabinet: Who's in  and who's out? David Mundell The Conservative Party's only Scottish MP retains his role as Scottish Secretary Getty Images

She wrote on Facebook: I believe that an increase in pupil segregation on the basis of academic selection would be at best a distraction from crucial reforms to raise standards and narrow the attainment gap and at worse risk actively undermining six years of progressive education reform.

The evidence is now incontrovertibly clear that a rigorous academic education does not need to be the preserve of the few.

Ms May gave what many analysts regarded as her worst performance so far at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, trying to defend the policy against a barrage of attacks from Jeremy Corbyn.

And Ms Morgan repeated on Peston she felt the grammar schools debate was a distraction from areas of the country where "schooling is not good enough".
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Nigel Farage has said Donald Trump is on course to win the US Elections because he is very, very good with people.

The former leader of Ukip dismissed Mr Trumps ferocious anti-immigration remarks and complimented his social skills.

Hes a reality TV star, hes used to the big, brash statement that gets a whole load of publicity, he said.

Its what he does  and he shocks a few people.

All I can tell you is on a one-on-one I watched him with 50 people, donors from Mississippi.

"I watched him interact with them, talk to them. Hes very, very good with people.

Later he added: I do genuinely believe hes on course to win.

Mr Farage made the statements on the Andrew Marr Show after discussing the news that 65 million people are now displaced and 20 million are fleeing for their lives in a global refugee crisis.

Mr Trump has repeatedly talked about a wall he plans to build along the US border with Mexico to keep immigrants out. He has also said he would impose a blanket ban on Muslims entering the country.

Last week it emerged Mr Farage has secretly been advising the Trump campaign.

 Nigel Farage urges Donald Trump voters to 'stand up to the establishment'

The former Ukip leader appeared alongside the wealthy tycoon on his campaign trail in Mississippi, where he drew parallels between the UKs campaign to leave the EU and Mr Trumps populist movement.

Mr Farage said the Republican nominee's aides had been fascinated by what made Brexit happen.

He said he had advised the Republican campaign about what could be learned from the successful campaign to leave the EU.

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments Show all 12 1 /12 Nigel Farage's most controversial moments Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he unveiled that 'breaking point' poster during the referendum Mr Farage was accused of deploying Nazi-style propaganda when he unveiled a poster showing Syrian refugees travelling to Europe under the next Breaking point. Users on social media were quick to compare the advert to a Nazi propaganda film with similar visuals and featuring Jewish refugees. The poster was particularly controversial because it was unveiled the morning of the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox Rex Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said hed be concerned if his neighbours were Romanian In May 2014 Mr Farage was accused of a racial slur against Romanians after he suggested he would be concerned living next to a house of them. I was asked if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned? And if you lived in London, I think you would be, he told LBC radio during an interview. Asked whether he would also object to living next to German children, he said: You know the difference Bongarts/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the EU campaign was won 'without a bullet being fired' Nigel Farage has said the next Prime Minister has to be a Leave supporter AFP/Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he resigned as Ukip leader and came back days later After failing to win the seat of South Thanet at the general election, Nigel Farage stepped down as Ukip leader  as he had promised to do during the campaign. Days later on 11 May he un-resigned and said he would stay after being convinced by supporters within the party. Well see how long his resignation lasts this time AP/Matt Dunham Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he blamed immigrants for making him late Mr Farage turned up late to a 25-a-head meet the leader style event in Port Talbot, Wales in December 2014. Asked why he was late, he blamed immigrants. It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here - it should have taken three-and-a-half to four, he said. That has nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a country in which the population is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he wanted to ban immigrants with HIV from Britain Mr Farage has used his platform as Ukip leader call for people with HIV to be banned from coming to Britain. Asked in an interview with Newsweek Europe in October 2014 who he thought should be allowed to come to the UK, he said: People who do not have HIV, to be frank. Thats a good start. And people with a skill. He also repeated similar comments in the 2015 general election leadership debates Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he defended the use of a racial slur against Chinese people Defending one of Ukips candidates, who used the word ch**ky to describe a Chinese person, Mr Farage said: If you and your mates were going out for a Chinese, what do you say you're going for?" When he was told by the presented that he honestly would not use the slur, Mr Farage replied: A lot would Lintao Zhang/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said parts of Britain were like a foreign land The Ukip leader used his 2014 conference speech to declare parts of Britain as being like a foreign land. He told his audience in Torquay that parts of the country were unrecognisable because of the number of foreigners there. Mr Farage has also previously said he felt uncomfortable when people spoke other language on a train Screengrab Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the British army should be deployed to France At the height of trouble at Britains Calais border Mr Farage proposed a novel solution. The Ukip leader called for the British army to be sent to France to put down a migrant rebellion. In all civil emergencies like this we have an army, we have a bit of a Territorial Army as well and we have a very, very overburdened police force and border agency, he said. If in a crisis to make sure weve actually got the manpower to check lorries coming in, to stop people illegally coming to Britain, if in those circumstances we can use the army or other forces then why not AFP/Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said breastfeeding women should sit in the corner Mr Farage sparked protests from mothers after he told women to sit on the corner if they wanted to breastfeed their children. I think that given that some people feel very embarrassed by it, it isnt too difficult to breastfeed a baby in a way that's not openly ostentatious, Mr Farage said. He added: "Or perhaps sit in the corner, or whatever it might be AFP/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the gender pay gap exists because women are worth less At a Q&A on the European Union in January 2014 Mr Farage said there was no discrimination against women causing the gender pay gap. Instead, he said, women were paid less because they were simply worth far less than many of their male counterparts. A woman who has a client base, has a child and takes two or three years off - she is worth far less to her employer when she comes back than when she went away because that client base won't be stuck as rigidly to her portfolio, he said Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said he actually couldnt guarantee 350m to the NHS after Brexit During the EU referendum campaign the Leave side pledged to spend 350 million a week on the National Health Service  claiming that this is what the UK sends to Brussels. Nigel Farage didnt speak out against this figure and also pledged to spend EU cash on the health service and other public services himself. Then the day of the election result he suddenly changed his tone, saying he couldnt guarantee the cash for the NHS and that to pledge to do so was a mistake Getty

While revealing that he is advising Mr Trumps campaign for President, Mr Farage also branded him a boor.

Farage was overheard saying 'I would say at worst Trump is a boor, before adding with a grin, actually he's a boor at best too! aacording to the The Mail on Sunday.
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Theresa May has been warned not to give so-called "hard Brexit" supporters the space to dominate the debate over Britain leaving the European Union.

Nicky Morgan, who was sacked from the cabinet by the Prime Minister, urged Mrs May to reveal more details about her Brexit strategy after a hardline Eurosceptic group was set up with the support of Tory former ministers.

Leave Means Leave has the backing of Tory former frontbenchers, including Owen Paterson, Dominic Raab and Sir Gerald Howarth, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Mrs May has been criticised for repeating the slogan "Brexit means Brexit" but failing to set out details of what she wants to gain from negotiations from the EU, but the PM insists she will not offer a "running commentary" on her strategy.

Mrs Morgan told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "I do think that it's time to flesh out some of the issues, particularly around Brexit.

"You are seeing today that there are people in the Conservative parliamentary party now saying they are going to set up a sort of hard Brexit group.

"If you leave a vacuum other people will fill it and therefore I think the time is now to say - 'this is what we would like to get out of Brexit'."

Meanwhile, Cabinet minister David Lidington insisted the status of EU nationals living in Britain remains on the negotiating table despite a warning any Brexit deal which diminishes their rights could be vetoed.

Slovakian PM Robert Fico said the Visegrad Four (V4) - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia - want a guarantee their nationals "are equal" before agreeing to any deal ahead of the UK leaving the EU.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

Mrs May has so far refused to guarantee the status of EU nationals but insisted she wants them to stay after Brexit if the rights of Britons overseas are respected.

Mr Lidington reiterated her position, telling BBC One's Sunday Politics: "Clearly, everything to do with EU citizens already here and prospective inward migration by EU citizens here, or British citizens to other countries, is part of the negotiation and that will be looked at in the round."

Mr Fico had told Reuters: "V4 countries will be uncompromising.

"Unless we feel a guarantee that these people (living and working in Britain) are equal, we will veto any agreement between the EU and Britain.

"I think Britain knows this is an issue for us where there's no room for compromise."

Amid growing calls for more details on the Government's Brexit strategy, Downing Street on Saturday poured cold water on claims Mrs May told one of Brussels' most senior figures that she wants to trigger the formal process to pull Britain out of the EU early next year.

European Council president Donald Tusk said the Prime Minister told him during talks at Number 10 last week it was "quite likely" she would be ready to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty "maybe in January, maybe in February" 2017.

A Downing Street source said Mrs May did not specifically mention January or February at the meeting and that Mr Tusk's comments were an "interpretation" of their conversation.

The PM "recognises the need to deliver on the public verdict without delay", the source added.

Formal negotiations between the UK and the EU cannot begin until she starts the two-year process, which Brexit Secretary David Davis has insisted will be triggered without a parliamentary vote.
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International action is needed to protect passenger jets and airports from terrorism, Theresa May will tell world leaders at the United Nations next week.

The Prime Minister wants the UNs Security Council to pass a resolution pledging further measures to tackle the terrorist threat to air travel and will push for an agreement to strengthen security at airports around the world.

She will join leaders in New York on Monday for a summit which will also focus on the migration crisis, with US president Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon both keen to secure progress before they leave their posts.

It will be Mrs Mays first appearance at the UN and, with interest high over the UKs post-Brexit future, she has been given a slot to address the whole assembly on Tuesday.

Recommended Read more Secrecy blown in UN vote on next Secretary General

The UK resolution would commit nations to implementing higher standards of security in and around airports, following terror attacks like the one in Brussels earlier this year and the downing of a Russian Metrojet flight from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt in October 2015 .

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao) has a series of security standards but the UK believes more can be done to implement them fully.

The UK already has a network of aviation security liaison officers helping countries around the world to help improve protection against terrorism.

The push for a UN Security Council resolution, expected to be considered after Mrs May has left New York, comes ahead of Icao's assembly later in September.

A UK official said: Weve drafted this resolution; weve been working with the New Zealanders, who currently have the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council.

Weve got the four other [permanent] members basically on board and we are now in negotiations with the [states] who currently make up the Security Council.

We hope that we will get it over the line next week.

The Prime Minister is also expected to have a private meeting with business leaders in the States to promote trade with the UK post-Brexit. She will also have a bilateral meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, with global migration and the situation in Syria forming key themes of the gathering.

Mrs May will be joined by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and International Development Secretary Priti Patel.

Additional reporting by Press Association
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Tim Farron has admitetd he was left embarrassed when the expletive-ridden F*** Tha Police by NWA started blasting from his phone in a meeting.

The Liberal Democrat leader said he was talking with the chief executive of of his local NHS trust in Cumbria when the controversial song, which contains multiple swear words and approves violence against law enforcement, began to play.

Revealing the incident at the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton, Mr Farron said his children had been playing with his phone and had set the song as his ringtone.

The track was downloaded to his phone because he had been asked to review NWAs Straight Outta Compton album for the RAM Album Club Website, he claimed. The site asks well-known figures to review albums they have never heard before.

"It is deservedly considered a classic, but it is a bit sweary," he told the conference.

"While I certainly admire Dr Dre, Eazy-E and Ice Cube, their approach to law and order is a little different to ours."

Recounting the event, he said: There I was in my office in Kendal meeting with the chief executive of the local NHS trust, when my phone went off and we were all treated to a quick burst of 'eff the police'  which was lovely."

He said he had narrowly avoided playing the track to a senior policeman: "Almost a pity that I wasn't due to meet Kendal's chief constable until later that day, he added.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA

The Liberal Democrat leader has recently insisted his critics should should respect his Christian beliefs.

He said he did not understand why people were critical of his refusal to say whether he thought gay sex was sinful.

When asked whether he understood his critics' concern, he said: "No, is the honest answer

"I think people look at my liberalism, my desire to support people's rights to make whatever choices they want, and I kind of also expect in the same way people - maybe it's a naive expectation - to respect my beliefs as a Christian.
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The new Ukip leader Diane James has said that Vladamir Putin is one of her political heroes, alongside Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

Ms James was asked: Other than Vladimir Putin, who is your main political hero? She replied that both Mr Churchil and Ms Thatcher were.

She then confirmed the list of the three politicians - including Mr Putin - was an accurate rundown of the figures she most admired.

Ms James's admission follows a 2015 interview where she called the Russian President a strong leader.

She said: I admire [Mr Putin] from the point of view that hes standing up for his country.

When questioned about whether she respected his invasion of other countries, she said: "No, no. He's standing up for his country. He's very nationalistic."

 UKIP leader Diane James tells LBC why she admires Vladimir Putin

Harriet Harman challenged her, pointing out that Idi Amin, a despotic Ugandan leader responsible for mass killings and human rights abuses, could be praised in a similar way.

Ms Jamess first interview as leader of the party came as Russia headed to the polls, in an election expected to grant Mr Putin another five years in office.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA

Other politicians who have announced their respect for the controversial leader include the former leader of the SNP Alex Salmond, former Ukip leader Nigel Farage and US Presidential hopeful, Donald Trump.

In 2014, Mr Farage named Mr Putin as the world leader he most admired. He praised the Russian Presidents brilliant handling of the civil war in Syria, although said he did not admire him as a human being.

Mr Trump has repeatedly praised the Russian ruler, saying he was doing a great job at rebuilding Russia and claiming: I think Id get along very well with Vladimir Putin.
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Barack Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

They will meet in New York on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday to discuss a recently agreed deal on US military aid, the White House said.

"The meeting also will be an opportunity to discuss the need for genuine advancement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Mr Obama will also meet on Monday with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to discuss ways to deepen the US-China relationship and to address "provocations" by North Korea, he said.
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The man who injured eight people during a stabbing attack at a Minnesota shopping mall asked at least one of his victims whether they were Muslim and made reference to Allah, authorities said.

However St Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson declined to call the attack an act of terrorism, saying the motive for the attacks isn't known yet.

"We will be diligent and get to the bottom of this," he said. "Starting tomorrow, things won't be the same here."

The victims were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after the attack at the Crossroads Center was first reported around 8.15pm Saturday.

Isis has since claimed responsibility for the attack.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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Mr Anderson said an off-duty police officer from another jurisdiction shot and killed the unidentified suspect, who was armed with a knife and wearing a private security firm uniform.

Local police had three previous encounters with the suspect, most for minor traffic violations, Mr Anderson said, adding that the FBI had offered to help with the investigation.

He said authorities "have no reason to believe" anyone else was involved in the attack.

The stabbings occured in several places within the mall, including corridors, businesses and common areas.

The mall remained on lockdown following the incident, but authorities expected those remaining inside to be released early Sunday. "The entire mall is an active crime scene," Mr Anderson said.

Photos and video of the mall taken hours after the incident showed groups of shoppers waiting to be released, including some huddled together near a food court entrance.

St Cloud is about 70 miles (112.65 kilometers) northwest of Minneapolis.
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An Isis supporter carried out the stabbing attack that wounded at least eight people at a mall in St Cloud, Minnesota, the group has claimed.

A man wearing a private security uniform and armed with at least one knife stabbed eight people at the Crossroads Center mall before he was shot dead by an off-duty police officer, authorities said.

The group's Amaq news agency released a statement to say: "The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition."

The attacker asked at least one of his victims if they were Muslim and made references to Allah, St Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said.

The victims were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after the attack at the Crossroads Center was first reported around 8.15pm Saturday.

All but one victim was later released.

People stand near the entrance on the north side of Crossroads Center mall between Macy's and Target as officials investigate a reported multiple stabbing incident, Saturday, 17 September, 2016, in St Cloud, Minnesota (AP)

Mr Anderson said an off-duty police officer from another jurisdiction shot and killed the unidentified suspect, who was armed with a knife and wearing a private security firm uniform.

He did not identify the attacker, but said police had had three previous encounters with him, mostly for minor traffic violations.

Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Show all 9 1 /9 Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Policemen outside Rouen's cathedral during the funeral of Jacques Hamel, the priest who was killed in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy on 26 July during a hostage-taking claimed by Islamic State group Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Two jihadists, both 19, slit Hamel's throat while he was celebrating mass in an attack that shocked France as well as the Catholic Church Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Muslims place flowers and hold a minute of silence in front of the church if Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, western France, where French priest Jacques Hamel was killed on 26 July Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Two people hold each other by the new makeshift memorial in Nice, in tribute to the victims of the deadly Bastille Day attack at the Promenade des Anglais Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the truck attack that killed 84 people in Nice on France's national holiday. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, smashed a 19-tonne truck into a packed crowd of people in the Riviera city celebrating Bastille Day Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Police work at a site where a Syrian migrant set off an explosive device in Ansbach, southern Germany, on 25 July, killing himself and wounding a dozen others Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis A Syrian migrant set off an explosion at a bar in southern Germany that killed himself and wounded a dozen others in the third attack to hit Bavaria in a week. The 27-year-old, who had spent a stint in a psychiatric facility, had intended to target a music festival in the city of Ansbach but was turned away because he did not have a ticket Friebe/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Police officers walk along train tracks in Wuerzburg southern Germany on 19 July, a day after a man attacked train passengers with an axe. German authorities said they had found a hand-painted IS flag among the belongings of the man, an asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who seriously injured four members of a family of tourists from Hong Kong in his rampage Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis German police killed a teenage assailant after he attacked passengers on a train in Wuerzburg, southerg Germany with an axe and a knife on 18 July, seriously wounding three people Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP/Getty Images

Authorities "have no reason to believe" anyone else was involved in the attack, Mr Smith added.

The attack began shortly after an explosion in a crowded New York City neighborhood injured 29 people. A suspicious device was found a few blocks away and safely removed.

Hours before that, a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners were due to participate in a charity 5K race.

There was no indication that any of the incidents were linked.
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Witnesses in New York have described hearing an "extremely loud noise" and "everything shaking" when an explosion struck Manhattan, New York, injuring 29 people.

Following the explosion, which New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has described as an "intentional act" but not terror-related, a suspicious device discovered a few blocks away was removed by authorities.

Tsi Tsi Mallett was driving down 23rd street when the explosion took place.

Mr Mallett said: "It was really loud, it hurt my eardrums. My 10-year-old boy was sat in the back seat of the car, and the explosion blew the back window out."

Mayor Bill de Blasio, center, and NYPD Chief of Department James O'Neill, center right, speak during a press conference near the scene (AP)

Chris Gonzalez, from Dallas, was having dinner with friends in the Chelsea area at the time.

The 26-year-old said: "We felt it, we heard it, the restaurant went real quiet. It wasn't like jolting or anything, everyone just went quiet."

Police investigators look through the debris on the street in front of St. Vincent de Paul church where the explosion occurred (EPA)

Emily Brookstein, 30, told Mailonline:"I was eating at the restaurant Mira with my family and we heard a huge noise and the entire restaurant shook.

"My dad thought it was a thunder but we obviously realized later that wasn't the case.

"We came out of the restaurant and could see smoke. Some say it was a subway bomb, but it was definitely an explosion."

A New York City firefighter uses a wheeled stretcher to carry supplies near the site of the explosion (Reuters)

Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, had first thought something large had fallen.

He said:"It was an extremely loud noise, everything was shaking, the windows were shaking, it was crazy.

"It was extremely loud, almost like thunder, but louder."

Simitrio Ramirez, 53, who lives nearby in the area said he felt the explosion while at home. He added:"With construction in the area, I thought something big fell."

A New York City Police emergency services officer and his dog check a bin close to the scene (EPA)

The blast happened on West 23rd street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe's supermarket.

Witnesses say the explosion at about 8:30 p.m. blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris in the area. Officials said no evacuations were necessary.

A law enforcement official told AP the second device that officers investigated four blocks from the scene seemed to be a pressure cooker attached by wiring to a mobile phone.

New York City Police Emergency Services units were deployed on 27th Street and 7th Avenue where police found a second explosive device (EPA)

The source, speaking anonymously, said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street.

The device was removed with a robot and taken to the department firing range in the Bronx, officials said.

A New York City Police emergency service heavy weapons officer guards close to the scene of an explosion on 23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenue (EPA)

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said several people were taken to hospitals with injuries.

One of the injured suffered a puncture wound that was considered serious.

Mr Nigro explained the other injuries were minor, described as scrapes and bruises.

Emergency services responding to reported Manhattan blast (Reuters)

Mayor de Blasio told a press conference near the scene in Chelsea: "Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident. We have no credible and specific threat at this moment."

He said the explosion was not related to a pipe bomb earlier on Saturday in New Jersey at a charity run.
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Authorities are investigating an alleged manifesto posted online which purportedly claims responsibility for an "intentional" bomb which exploded in New York earlier today, injuring 29 people.

A manhunt for the person or persons responsible is underway and the city's governor has stated the attack was an act of terrorism but there are no connections to international terrorist groups. New York Police Department say they are currently vetting a Tumblr post claiming to be written by the person who planted a bomb.

The post titled I Am The NY Bomber has been taken down by Tumblr but sources within the police department told The New York Daily News that they are taking the pages threats seriously and its content is subject to investigation.

 CCTV captures moment of explosion in New York

The explosives detonated in New York City, that was me, the posting reads. Those were just some tests, I know where I have made errors and I will not make the same mistake next time.

I did it because I cannot stand society. I cannot live in a world where homosexuals like myself as well as the rest of the LGBTQ+ community are looked down upon by society, the author continues.

I dont know exactly how I feel about taking human lives. I suppose Im just going to have to move forward knowing that what I am doing had a purpose and will in fact make a difference."

The authenticity of the posting has not been confirmed by authorities.

In pictures: New York bomb explosion Show all 25 1 /25 In pictures: New York bomb explosion In pictures: New York bomb explosion A police robot accidentally detonated one of five explosive devices left outside a train station in New Jersey. Officials said the bomb squad robot cut a wire on the mechanism in a bid to defuse it - but instead set off an explosion. The device had been left in a backpack and placed in a bin outside the train station in Elizabeth Universal News And Sport (Europe In pictures: New York bomb explosion A member of the New York City Police Department stands guard in Herald Square Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (3-R) and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (2-R) tour the site of an explosion that occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tour the site of an explosion that occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York on September 18, 2016. The bomb that exploded in New York AFP/Getty In pictures: New York bomb explosion A genral view down the street near the site of an explosion that occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York AFP/Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (L) and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo hug after touring the site of the bomb blast on 23rd St. in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion A mangled dumpster sits on the sidewalk at the site of an explosion that occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion An explosion in a construction dumpster that injured 29 people is being labeled an "intentional act". A second device, a pressure cooker, was found four blocks away that an early investigation found was likely also a bomb Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (2-R) and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (3-R) stand in front of a mangled dumpster while touring the site of an explosion that occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion A member of the New York City Police Department K-9 Unit patrols on a subway train between Grand Central Terminal and Times Square Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion FBI agents review the crime scene of remnants of bomb debris on 23rd St. in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion Members of the NYPD, FBI, ATF and other agencies investigate the the scene, following a late night explosion on West 23rd Street in New York AFP/Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials mark the ground near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood REUTERS In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks from the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan AP In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers stand near the site of an explosion REUTERS In pictures: New York bomb explosion Evidence markers on the street surround police and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials near the site REUTERS In pictures: New York bomb explosion A fire truck is seen near a blocked off road near the site of an alleged bomb explosion on West 23rd Street AFP/Getty Images In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York City firefighters stand near the site of the explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood REUTERS In pictures: New York bomb explosion A New York City Police emergency services officer and his dog check a bin close to the scene EPA In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York City Police and Fire Department at the scene of the explosion EPA In pictures: New York bomb explosion A New York City firefighter uses a wheeled stretcher to carry supplies near the site of the explosion REUTERS In pictures: New York bomb explosion A New York City Police emergency service heavy weapons officer guards close to the scene of the explosion on 23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenue EPA In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, center, and NYPD Chief of Department James O'Neill, center right, speak during a press conference near the scene AP In pictures: New York bomb explosion New York City Police Emergency Services units are deployed on 27th Street and 7th Avenue where police found a second explosive device EPA In pictures: New York bomb explosion Police investigators look through the debris on the street in front of St. Vincent de Paul church where the explosion occurred EPA

The bomb exploded in the Chelsea area of New York City, a neighourhood characterised by its art galleries and nightlife.

Officials found what they determined to be another explosive device just four blocks away from the blast late Saturday night.

Speaking at the scene, New York City governor Andrew Cuomo said: We really were very lucky that there were no fatalities at the time", adding that all 29 people who were injured have been released from the hospital. Many of the injuries were caused by shrapnel from the explosion. Witnesses said the impact came from inside a dumpster near the Avenue of Americas.

Now, more than 1,000 additional state police officers and national guard officials will patrol the city's bus and subway stations after the blast on Saturday night, Cuomo announced at Sundays press conference. He encouraged New Yorkers to go about their business as normal and reassured them that the city is once again safe.

We're not going to let them win, Mr Cuomo said at the scene. We're not going to let them instill fear.

The powerful bang was reported hours after an explosion let out in Seaside Park, New Jersey. Officials said a charity racethe Seaside Semper Five event for members of the US Marine Corps was scheduled to pass through but thanks to an unexpected delay, no one was injured.

Mr Cuomo said that he believes both incidents are unrelated and that he was coordinating resources with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. As governor of New York, this is my worst nightmare.
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Japan doesn't really believe in dying young.

At least, not according to conventional timelines.

New data from the country's Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare reveal Japan has broken its own record for most centenarians by population for the 46th straight year.

With 32,000 new 100-year-olds, there are now more than 65,000 people in Japan who've lived 100 years or more. Though it trails first-place US by roughly 10,000 centenarians, Japan's population is only a third of America's.

In other words, no country on Earth has a larger percentage of people who have reached their 100th birthday.

 Japan has a worrying number of virgins

The feat sounds positive, especially in a country where longevity is so prized that September 19  Respect for the Aged Day  is a national holiday in which members of the 100-plus club traditionally receive a silver sake dish. But having so many people live that long is actually becoming a burden on the nation's economy.

Seniors, though revered, are eating up resources at a pace younger generations can't match.

In 2014, for instance, awarding 59,000 centenarians the silver dish cost the country approximately $2.1 million. Compare that to 1966, when the country only had to give out a few hundred. By 1998, the number had climbed to 10,000, and today the Ministry puts the total at 65,692.

Since the country only seems to be getting older, the government has decided that 2016 will mark the first year Japan swaps out its pure-silver dish for a cheaper, silver-plated alternative. New inductees will also receive a letter congratulating them on the accomplishment.

And the fall of the sake dish is not the only challenge Japan faces in dealing with its aging population.

Nationwide, an entire generation of Japanese citizens  going on two generations, in fact  are entering retirement age. Of the 127 million people who live there, roughly 25% are over 65. (Baby Boomers, by comparison, only make up 13.5% of the total US population.) By 2060, the proportion of people 65-plus in Japan could rise to 40%.

On top of that, the generations that are supposed to replace the elderly aren't reproducing. Countries need a replacement fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman to keep the population from shrinking. Japan's fertility rate is 1.4  the result of women focusing more on their careers and the long hours workers typically spend at the office.

As a result, the country's economy has been shrinking for decades.

This dangerous mixture has led to what economists call a demographic time bomb  a doomsday-type scenario in which Japan could actually go extinct if it doesn't encourage its young people to start having kids.

In the face of these looming economic threats, spending less on sake dishes starts to seem like a pretty smart idea.

Read more:

 This chart is easy to interpret: It says we're screwed

 How Uber became the world's most valuable startup

 These 4 things could trigger the next crisis in Europe

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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India stepped up patrols along its de facto border with Pakistan on Monday after gunmen killed 17 soldiers at a nearby army base, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration weighed its response to an attack India blames on its neighbour.

The assault, in which four commando-style gunmen burst into the brigade headquarters in Uri at 5.30am on Sunday, was among the deadliest in Kashmir and has sharply ratcheted up tension between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh called Pakistan "a terrorist state" and Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said troops were "ready to give a befitting response", without elaborating.

Loud explosions were heard and several barracks caught fire in the initial hours of the attack. Afterwards, military helicopters hovered over the base as the army conducted what it described as "mopping up" operations.

Officials said at least 30 soldiers were wounded in the attack, including about a dozen who were in a critical condition.

The casualties were high because a large number of soldiers were turning over the base to new units and were stationed in tents and temporary shelters that caught fire in the attack, the army said in a statement.

The base, in the town of Uri, west of the region's main city of Srinagar, houses the Indian army's regional brigade headquarters along the de facto border separating Indian and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Soldiers were conducting searches in the area, but army officials said it appeared that they had killed all four rebels involved in the attack.

Army officials said the rebels had infiltrated into the Indian side of Kashmir from the Pakistan-controlled part.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, the army's director general of military operations, said all four gunmen killed were "foreign terrorists" and that initial investigations suggested they belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a militant group that has been active inKashmir for more than 15 years.

India blames the outlawed group, which is based in Pakistan, for a series of attacks in the Himalayan region and Indian cities, including the attack on India's parliament in 2001 that brought nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Lt Gen Singh said the gunmen were carrying "some items that had Pakistani markings". He said he had spoken to his Pakistani counterpart and conveyed India's "serious concerns".

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi condemned the attack and tweeted: "I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished."

Pakistan's army said in a statement that the allegations were "unfounded and premature", reiterating Islamabad's stance that no infiltration is allowed from Pakistani soil.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, but is claimed by both in its entirety.

Reporting by AP
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At least 10 people are feared dead after a boat carrying around 150 passengers capsized in a river.

Dozens more are thought to still be missing in the Chao Praya River in the southern province of Ayutthaya after the boat reportedly hit the pillar of a bridge.

Reoprts suggest hundreds are trapped under the water.

Video footage posted on Twitter shows the boat half-submerged as people in yellow T-shirts, who appear to be a tourist group on board, struggle to escape the sinking vessel.

Divers and rescue workers are currently searching for those who are missing.

Local media has reported that those killed were Muslim tourists returning from a visit to a new mosque in the city of Ayutthaya.

The group are said to have just boarded the boat to leave when the vessel is said to have hit a bridge pillar before capsizing in front of hundreds of fellow vistors stood on the pier.

One of the dead is said to be a child.

More follows
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At least one person has died and up to 15 others have been injured in a "huge" explosion in a block of flats in Barcelona, Spain.

The explosion ripped through the second floor flat of a residential building in Premia de Mar, a coastal resort which sits north east of the Catalan capital.

An emergency services spokesperson said: The explosion happened at 8.25am and affected 15 people, 14 of whom were injured and one who died.

Barcelona explosion - in pictures Show all 5 1 /5 Barcelona explosion - in pictures Barcelona explosion - in pictures Firemen work at the scene of an explosion in a block of flats in the Premia de Mar area of Barcelona EPA Barcelona explosion - in pictures People inspect a damaged seven-storey building following an explosion in Premia de Mar AFP/Getty Images Barcelona explosion - in pictures A firefighter inspects the balcony of a damaged seven-storey building AFP/Getty Images Barcelona explosion - in pictures One person died and 15 people were injured in an explosion in a block of flats in a Spanish seaside resort near Barcelona AFP/Getty Images Barcelona explosion - in pictures It was not immediately clear what caused the blast which took place in the residential building in Premia de Mar AFP/Getty Images

Other reports said 15 had been injured. Two are believed to be in a serious condition.

Local media says the person who died, believed to be a middle-aged woman, lived on the second floor.

The building and neighbouring blocks have been evacuated.

It is currently unclear what caused the blast but gas technicians have reportedly investigated the site.
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A group of Eastern European countries will veto any Brexit deal that diminishes the rights of their citizens who live and work in Britain, Slovakia's prime minister has said.

Robert Fico said the Visegrad Four (V4) - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia - want a guarantee that their nationals are equal before agreeing to any deal ahead of Britain leaving the European Union.

Prime Minister Theresa May has so far refused to guarantee the status of EU nationals in the UK, but insisted she wants them to stay after Brexit - if the rights of Britons overseas are respected.

Mr Fico told Reuters: V4 countries will be uncompromising.

Recommended Read more Europe is lagging behind the emerging world in terms of growth

Unless we feel a guarantee that these people (living and working in Britain) are equal, we will veto any agreement between the EU and Britain.

I think Britain knows this is an issue for us where there's no room for compromise.

It comes after Downing Street poured cold water on claims that Ms May told one of Brussels' most senior figures that she wants to trigger the formal process to pull Britain out of the EU early next year.

European Council president Donald Tusk said the Prime Minister told him during talks at Number 10 last week it was quite likely she would be ready to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty maybe in January, maybe in February 2017.

But a Downing Street source said Ms May did not specifically mention January or February at the meeting and that Mr Tusk's comments were an interpretation of their conversation.

The PM recognises the need to deliver on the public verdict without delay, the source added.

Formal negotiations between the UK and the EU cannot begin until she starts the two-year process, which Brexit Secretary David Davis has insisted will be triggered without a parliamentary vote.

Meanwhile, Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon vowed to block any proposals for an EU army while Britain remains a member of the union, in a move likely to anger European leaders.

In his state of the union address on Wednesday, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker called for EU countries to pool their defence capabilities in the form of a permanent structured co-operation, and proposed a European Defence Fund by the end of the year.

But Sir Michael said the UK would veto plans for any EU army that may rival Nato, as long as the country remained a member of the union.

That is not going to happen, he told The Times. We are full members of the EU and we will go on resisting any attempt to set up a rival to Nato.

We have always been concerned about unnecessarily duplicating what we already have in Nato.

But former Liberal Democrat leader Lord (Menzies) Campbell said there was nothing the UK can do after Brexit to protect Nato from the potentially damaging effect of an EU army because it will not be able to veto its creation from outside the union.

Brexit reactions  in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Brexit reactions  in pictures Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In campaign look at their phones after hearing results in the EU referendum at London's Royal Festival Hall AP Brexit reactions  in pictures Leave supporters cheer results at a Leave.eu party after polling stations closed in the Referendum on the European Union in London Reuters Brexit reactions  in pictures Mr Cameron announces his resignation to supporters Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Donald Tusk proposes that the 27 remaining EU member states start a wider reflection on the future of our union Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Ukip leader Nigel Farage greets his supporters on College Green in Westminster, after Britain voted to leave the European Union PA Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In Campaign react as referendum results are announced today Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Boris Johnson leaves his home today to discover a crowd of waiting journalists and police officers Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Leave EU supporters celebrate as they watch the British EU Referendum results being televised at Millbank Tower in London Rex Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In Campaign react as results of the EU referendum are announced at the Royal Festival Hall Reuters Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In campaign react after hearing results in the EU referendum at London's Royal Festival Hall PA

The peer, who is a member of the UK parliamentary delegation to the Nato Assembly, said: Even as a fervent European, I regard the creation of a European army as a deeply damaging, long-term threat to Nato.

The cornerstone of European defence is Nato, of which the United States is the most senior partner, contributing 75% of the budget of the alliance.

The creation of a European army will only encourage isolationists in the United States to argue that Europe should be responsible for its own defence.

At a time when few of the Nato countries can meet the minimum requirement of 2 per cent of GDP defence expenditure, parallel headquarters and staff make no sense whatsoever. 



PA
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A Muslim woman has reportedly been verbally abused on a beach in the France Riviera for wearing a burkini  despite a ban on the modesty swimwear being overturned.

Zeynab Alshelh, a medical student from Sydney, decided to fly to the country after she became angry at 30 French towns banning the modesty swimwear in the wake of several terror attacks.

The bans were overturned in most French cities after a court in Paris ruled they infringed on the rights of women to wear what they liked.

In an attempt to show solidarity with the women, one of whom was photographed being forced to undress by armed police, the 23-year-old and her mother wore their burkinis on a beach in the French Riviera while on holiday with her father.

But Ms Alshelh said they were threatened by their fellow beachgoers who said they would call the police if the family didnt leave, while others made rude hand gestures, Australian news channel Seven reported.

Ms Alshelh said: They weren't happy with us being there, even though it was on the beach that the burkini ban was overturned but the locals were not happy,

There shouldn't be a connection between terrorism and the burkini and there shouldn't be a connection between terrorism and Islam altogether.

Following that reaction, Ms Alshelh teamed up with a local Muslim woman to go back to the beach in burkinis to raise awareness about them.

Armed police officers patroled French beaches and ordered women to undress while the ban was still in force

The pair, who held up signs saying What do you think of my burkini? and Ask me about my burkini?, encourage people to ask questions and reduce the stigma around them.

But again, she said, they were told to leave.

She said: I just wanted to see it for myself, I wanted to see what is going on here  why is this happening  I want to speak to the girls who have gone through this kind of stuff.

In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans PA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Jenny Dawkins, a curate from All Saints Church in Peckham, at an anti-burkini ban protest at the French Embassy in London on 25 August Lizzie Dearden In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans PA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Somayia Khan's six-year-old daughter at a protest against burkini bans at the French Embassy in London on 25 August Lizzie Dearden In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Friends Rebecca (L) and Hannah (R) at a protest against burkini bans at the French Embassy in London on 25 August Lizzie Dearden In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans Reuters In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans EPA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London People participate in a 'Wear what you want beach party' protest outside of the French Embassy in London EPA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London A protester holds a sign which reads "Are you Burkini Beach Body Ready?" as she lies on a beach towel outside the French Embassy in London on August 25, 2016, AFP/Getty Images

France has suffered from mounting racial tension following a string of Islamist terror attacks which have hit the country in the past 18 months.

An attack in Nice where a lorry was driven into a Bastille Day crowd killing 84 people in July prompted the first ban by a mayor in Cannes and other tourist towns and cities soon followed.

In Corsica, a judge ruled that the town of Siscos burkini ban was still valid despite the higher courts ruling because the swimsuits presence had disrupted public order.

The ban was introduced on 16 August after a public brawl allegedly broke out between three Moroccan residents and other locals after people had been taking photographs of a woman in the burkini.
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Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) is expected to suffer a further political setback in the Berlin state elections.

The polls predict the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) will make gains for the second time in two weeks profiting from a popular backlash over the Chancellor's refugee policy.

Voting began at 8am with 2.5 million eligible to decide who to represent them in the Berlin city assembly.

The latest Berlin poll by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for ZDF public broadcaster put the CDU on 18 percent, down 5 points and far behind the SPD's projected 23 percent.

It put the AfD on 14 percent, the leftist Die Linke at 14.5 percent and the ecologist Greens on 15 percent.

The heavy losses projected for CDU could lead to the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) dropping them as coalition partners.

The CDU was pushed into third place behind AfD in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with 19 per cent of the vote behind AfD's 20.8 per cent.

The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern election results has caused the Chancellor's conservative allies to call for a cap of 200,000 refugees per year.

 Angela Merkel reduces young girl to tears

Ms Merkel has rejected such a limit and has defended her approach through securing the EU's external borders, agreeing migration deals with the likes of Turkey and distributing refugees across Europe.

The recent election losses has led to speculation that Chancellor Merkel may not stand for a fourth term in next year's federal election.

The AfD has campaigned heavily on the migrant issue, playing to voters' fears about the cost of the roughly 1 million migrants who entered Germany last year and about their integration.
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Jacques Chirac has been rushed to hospital in Paris after falling ill.

The former French president is suffering from a lung infection, his family have said. Mr Chirac was staying at the palace of Mohamed VI of Agadir in Morocco when he fell ill.

Two private jets belonging to the Moroccan royal family returned the 83-year-old and his family to Paris, where he is being treated in the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

He was admitted to hospital in December for an undisclosed illness.

Mr Chirac was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of embezzling public funds to illegally finance his party in 2011.

He was the first French head of state to face prosecution since the Second World War.

The court found Mr Chirac guilty in two related cases involving fake jobs created at the party he led during his 1977-1995 tenure as Paris mayor.

Despite repeatedly denying any wrongdoing, he was convicted of embezzling public funds, abuse of trust and illegal conflict of interest.

In 2002, he survived an assassination attempt by a man described as an emotionally disturbed neo-Nazi.
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Far-right National Front party leader Marine Le Pen has said she is eager for France's presidential election campaign to start, portraying herself as the candidate of the people and mocking her opponents' primaries as cockfights.

Opinion polls consistently show the anti-immigration, anti-EU politican makindg it to the second round of the 2017 election. Her ratings have been boosted by worries over Europe's refugee crisis and concerns over Islamist attacks.

However, the same polls also show Ms Le Pen losing the second-round runoff  to be held in early May  prompting her to make further efforts to polish her and her partys image. Attempts include a campaign poster sporting the slogan France brought to peace, which does not bear the party's name or logo.

I'm very relaxed, keen to start this presidential campaign, Ms Le Pen told reporters. I am eager for the match to start, to debate issues that are essential to the survival of our country as it is now.

She was speaking at her party's annual rally, this year in the Mediterranean town of Frejus, where the mayor, David Rachline, is a rising party star and Ms Le Pen's campaign manager.

Ms Le Pen, who was the sole French major party leader to support Brexit and is also the only one to support US Republican candidate Donald Trump, hopes to benefit from rising anti-establishment sentiments amid voters on both sides of the Atlantic.

I am, and will be, in this presidential election the candidate of the people who have been forgotten and scorned over the 20 past years, she said at the start of the rally.

Ms Le Pen mocked the bitterly fought primaries of France's conservatives and centre-right  which will pit ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy against former Prime Minister Alain Juppe and other candidates  in November and that of the Left, scheduled for January. She said they were battles of egos and described them as cockfights.

Mr Rachline and Ms Le Pens niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, both told Reuters that the party's campaign would only fully start once those two primaries were over.

Brexit racism and the fightback Show all 9 1 /9 Brexit racism and the fightback Brexit racism and the fightback Demonstrators protest against an increase in post-ref racism at London's March for Europe in July 2016 PA Brexit racism and the fightback These cards were found near a school in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, the day after the EU referendum Twitter/@howgilb Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback Romford, Essex, June 25 @diamondgeezer Brexit racism and the fightback A worker at this Romanian food shop was asleep upstairs at the time of this arson attack in Norwich on July 8, but escaped unharmed. Hundreds later participated in a love bombing rally outside the shop to express their opposition to racism and their support of the shop owners. JustGiving/Helen Linehan Brexit racism and the fightback This neo-Nazi sticker was spotted in Glasgow on June 26 Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback But after news emerged of neo-Nazi stickers appearing in Glasgow, some in the city struck back with slogans of their own. Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback More signs began to appear in some parts of the UK, created by people who wanted to show their opposition to post-referendum racism Courtesy of Bernadette Russell

It is very complicated to launch a campaign when you dont know who your opponents are Ms Marechal-Le Pen said, while insisting the National Front believed it could win the presidential election, despite the opinion polls.

Im not saying it will be easy, she said. But a lot of the pieces of the puzzles are falling into place.

She pointed to security concerns among voters after various deadly attacks in France, and at Britain's Brexit vote as possible drivers of support.

Mr Rachline said Ms Le Pen would focus on asking voters whether France should regain its independence and whether it will, or will not, let radical Islam grow.

Reuters
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Claims that Theresa May told one of Brussels' most senior figures she wants to trigger the formal process to pull Britain out of the European Union early next year are an interpretation of their conversation, a Downing Street source has said.

The European Council president Donald Tusk said the Prime Minister had told him during talks at No 10 last week that it was quite likely she would be ready to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty maybe in January, maybe in February 2017.

But a Downing Street source said Mrs May did not specifically mention January or February at the meeting and that Mr Tusk's comments were an interpretation of their conversation.

The PM recognises the need to deliver on the public verdict without delay, the source added.

With Britain's withdrawal clouded in confusion and no clear signal on whether the country intends to stay in the single market or not, Europe's 27 other leaders gathered on Friday for an informal summit in the Slovakian capital, Bratislava, without the PM.

Speaking about his meeting with Mrs May, Mr Tusk told a summit press conference: Prime Minister May was very open and honest with me.

She declared that it's almost impossible to trigger Article 50 this year but it's quite likely that they will be ready maybe in January maybe in February next year.

Formal negotiations between the UK and the EU cannot begin until she starts the two-year process, which Brexit Secretary David Davis has insisted will be triggered without a parliamentary vote.

Meanwhile, Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon vowed to block any proposals for an EU army while Britain remains a member of the union, in a move likely to anger European leaders.

In his state of the union address on Wednesday, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker called for EU countries to pool their defence capabilities in the form of a permanent structured co-operation, and proposed a European Defence Fund by the end of the year.

But Sir Michael said the UK would veto plans for any EU army that may rival Nato, as long as the country remained a member of the union.

That is not going to happen, he told The Times. We are full members of the EU and we will go on resisting any attempt to set up a rival to Nato.

We have always been concerned about unnecessarily duplicating what we already have in Nato.

But former Liberal Democrat leader Lord (Menzies) Campbell said there was nothing the UK can do after Brexit to protect Nato from the potentially damaging effect of an EU army because it will not be able to veto its creation from outside the union.

The peer, who is a member of the UK parliamentary delegation to the Nato Assembly, said: Even as a fervent European, I regard the creation of a European army as a deeply damaging, long-term threat to Nato.

The cornerstone of European defence is Nato, of which the United States is the most senior partner contributing 75% of the budget of the alliance.

The creation of a European army will only encourage isolationists in the United States to argue that Europe should be responsible for its own defence.

At a time when few of the Nato countries can meet the minimum requirement of 2% of GDP defence expenditure, parallel headquarters and staff make no sense whatsoever. 

In Bratislava, Mr Juncker insisted Britain cannot get access to the European single market without accepting the free movement of workers.

The conundrum has become central to the Brexit debate and has caused friction within the Government as ministers weigh up how to maintain the benefits of the trading bloc while regaining full control of the UK's borders - a goal deemed by Mrs May as essential to properly implement the referendum result.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

Mr Juncker said: There's a clear interlink as we made clear since the very beginning between the access to the internal market and the basic principles of the internal market, mainly the one of the freedom of movement of workers.

We are sticking to that position and this is not a game between prime ministers leaving and prime ministers remaining, this is about people in Europe.

It's about the rights of ordinary people and workers, of those living in Europe, and so I can't see any possibility of compromising on that very issue.
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Three British soldiers could be taken to court over the death of an Iraqi teenager who died in military custody 13 years ago despite having been cleared of any wrongdoing in a 2006 inquiry.

Said Shabram,19, drowned in the Shatt al-Arab river after allegedly being forced into the water by British troops in a practice known as wetting.

The soldiers, including a decorated major as well as two current serving personnel, were originally cleared by an internal military investigation in 2006 with the family of Said Shabram later receiving 100,000 in compensation from the Ministry of Defence in 2011 in an out-of-court settlement.

However, The Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) which was set up by the Labour Government in 2010 to investigate allegations of murder, torture and abuse by British servicemen against Iraqi civilians has since reviewed the case and recommended prosecution of the soldiers to the Director of Service Prosecutions.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the Conservative MP and former Army Officer Johnny Mercer branded the decision as a betrayal and a self-inflicted disgrace.

Mr Mercer, who has just started chairing a parliamentary select committee inquiry into the post-operational support given to armed forces personnel said that he was deeply ashamed of the decision and labelled Ihat and the 1,500 cases it is currently investigating as a fatally flawed process that should be shut down.

He added that: These men have been cleared before. How can soldiers keep being put under investigation time and time again? Ihat should be shut down. It is beyond a joke.

The trouble is it is not really funny because it is destroying lives.

While the identity of the soldiers remains secret, Hilary Meredith, a lawyer acting for the Major involved in the case said that he has lost his career; he has lost his sanity; and he is in pain 24 hours a day from his physical injuries.

An Ihat spokesman said: We have referred three individuals to the Service Prosecution Authority (SPA). The referral asks the SPA to consider prosecution in relation to the death of a civilian Iraqi male, who drowned in May 2003. It is now up to the SPA to consider all of the evidence gathered by Ihat investigators and make a decision,

The spokesman confirmed to The Daily Telegraph that two of the individuals were serving soldiers and the third had retired from the forces, adding: We will not be commenting further.
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Isis is using schools to brainwash children and train them with weapons, according to a report by activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.

The terror group has "worked systematically on sabotaging education process in Raqqa province and rebuilt it based on the groups rules and radical methodology," the report states.

Upon taking control of Raqqa in 2014, the group closed all schools, burnt students' books, and forced teachers to take repentance courses and pledge not to teach the old curriculum.

A still of an Isis video called "Al-Farouq Institute for Cubs" claiming to show a children's terror training camp

Although the schools were later reopened, several subjects "such as physics, chemistry, philosophy, biology and Christian religious education" were banned.

The group also began "teaching its own radical and brutal Islamic rules to children" including lessons on Sharia and the Arabic language.

The children are also given weapons training and ideological indoctrination to prepare them to fight in the group's so-called caliphate, the report states.

Parents who have fled Isis territory have said their children were taught how to make bombs or sent home with Caucasian dolls dressed in orange jumpsuits to behead as "homework".

One propaganda video showed boys shooting prisoners dead at close range

Isis has advertised its use of children as fighters and suicide bombers and has featured children as executioners in its gory propaganda videos.

Earlier this year, Europol warned that the children of foreign fighters living in Isis territory and Syria and Iraq are being trained to become the "next generation" of terrorists.

More than 50 children from the UK are living in the caliphate, where there are also an estimated 31,000 pregnant women, an investigation by the Quilliam Foundation found earlier this year.

Timeline: The emergence of Isis Show all 40 1 /40 Timeline: The emergence of Isis Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2000 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (pictured here) forms an al-Qaeda splinter group in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its brutality from the beginning alienates Iraqis and many al-Qaeda leaders. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2006 Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Al-Zarqawis successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, announces the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2009 Still al-Qaeda-linked ISI claims responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 155 in Baghdad, as well as attacks in August and October killing 240, as President Obama announces troop withdrawal from Iraq in March. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2010 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes head of ISI, at lowest ebb of Islamist militancy in Iraq, which sees last U.S. combat brigade depart. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2012 In Syria, protests (pictured here starting in Daree) have morphed into what president Assad labelled a real war with emergence of a coalition of forces opposed to Assads regime. Syria group Jabhat al-Nusra are among rebel groups who refuse to join, denouncing it as a conspiracy. Bombings targeting Shia areas, killing more than 500 people, spark fears of new sectarian conflict. Sunni Muslims stage protests across country against what they see as increasingly marginalisation by Shia-led government. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2013 Al-Baghdadi renames ISI as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as the group absorbs Syrian al-Nusra, gaining a foothold in Syria. In response, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Ladens successor) concerned about Isis expansion orders that Isis be dissolved and ISI operations should be confined to Iraq. This order is rejected by al-Baghdadi. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - January Isis fighters capture the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, giving them base to launch slew of attacks further south. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis declares itself the Caliphate, calling itself Islamic State (IS). The group captures Mosul, Iraqs second largest city; Tal Afar, just 93 miles from Syrian border; and the central Iraqi city of Tikrit. These advances sent shockwaves around the world. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Around the same time Isis releases a video calling for western Muslims to join the Caliphate and fight, prompting new evaluations of extremists groups social media understanding. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis take Baiji oil fields in Iraq - giving them access to huge amounts of possible revenue. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August James Foley is executed by the group as concerns grow for second American prisoner, fellow reporter Steven Sotloff. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August Obama authorises U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, helping to stall Isis along with action by Kurdish forces following the deaths of hundreds of Yazidi people on Mount Sinjar. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release video showing Steven Sotloffs murder prompting Western speculation his executioner is same man who killed Mr Foley. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Obama tells us that America will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release a video appearing to show David Haines, who was captured by militants in Syria in 2013, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling in the desert while he reads a pre-prepared script. It later shows what appears to be the aid worker's body. Rex Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Peshmerga fighters scrabble to hold positions in the Diyala province (a gateway to Baghdad) as Isis fighters continue to advance on Iraqi capital. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Aid worker Alan Henning is killed. Self-imposed media blackout refuses to show images of him in final moments, instead focuses upon humanitarian care. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Isis raise their flag in Kobani, which had been strongly defended by Kurdish troops. The victory goes against hopeful western analysis Isis had overextended itself, while alienating much of the Muslim population through the murder of Henning. Victory causes fresh waves of Kurdish refugees arriving in Turkey. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - November American hostage, who embarced values of Islam, Peter Kassig and 14 Syrian soldiers are shown meeting the same fate as other captives. But intelligence agencies will be poring over the apparently significant discrepancies between this and previous films. Seramedig.org.uk Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis has released a video revealing the murder by burning to death of a Jordanian pilot held by the group since the end of December 2014. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have released videos which appear to show the beheading of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February American aid worker, Kayla Mueller was the last American hostage known to be held by Isis. She died, according to her captors, in an airstrike by the Jordanian air force on the city of Raqqa in Syria, though US authorities disputed this. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have posted a gruesome video online in which they force 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian hostages to kneel on a beach in Libya before beheading them. Egypt vowed to avenge the beheading and launched air strikes on Isis positions. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February The British Isis militant suspected of appearing in videos showing the beheading of Western hostages has been named in reports as Mohammed Emwazi from London. Rex Features Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - March Isis triple suicide attack has killed more than 100 worshippers and hundreds of others were injured after the group members targeted two mosques in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Iraqi forces have claimed victory over Isis in battle for Tikrit and raised the flag in the city. EPA/STR Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan that killed at least 35 people queuing to collect their wages and injured 100 more. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis media arm released a 29-minute video purporting to show militants executing Ethiopian Christians captives. The footage bore the extremist groups al-Furqan media logo and showed the destruction of churches and desecration of religious symbols. A masked fighter made a statement threatening Christians who did not convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis has been "incapacitated" by a spinal injuries sustained in a US air strike in Iraq. He is being treated in a hideout by two doctors from Isis stronghold of Mosul who are said to be "strong ideological supporters of the group". Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis has also claimed responsibility for killing 300 of Yazidi captives, including women, children and elderly people in Iraq AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis attack on Prophet Mohamed cartoon contest in Texas was its first action on US soil. Two gunmen were shot and killed after launching the attack at the exhibition. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi have been named as the attackers at the Curtis Culwell Centre arena in Garland. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isiss deputy leader, Abu Alaa Afri, a former physics teacher who was thought to have taken charge of the deadly terrorist group, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May US special forces have killed a senior Isis leader named as Abu Sayyaf in an operation aiming to capture him and his wife in Syria. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Iran-backed militias are sent to Ramadi by the Iraqi government to fight Isis militants who completed their capture of the city. Government soldiers and civilians were reportedly massacred by extremists as they took control and the army fled. Charred bodies were left littering the city streets as troops clung on to trucks speeding away from the city. Ramadi is the latest government stronghold to fall to the so-called Islamic State, despite air strikes by a US-led international coalition aiming to stop its advance in Iraq and Syria. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis rounded up civilians trapped in Palmyra and forced them to watch 20 people being executed in the historic citys ancient amphitheatre. The Unesco World Heritage site was overrun by militants, threatening the future of 2,000 year-old monuments and ruins. Thousands of Palmyras residents fled but many are still living within the city walls, while the UN human rights office in Geneva said it had received reports of Syrian government forces preventing people from leaving until they retreated from the city. Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May A group of Isis-affiliated fighters have captured a key airport in central Libya. The militants took control of the al-Qardabiya airbase in Sirte after a local militia tasked with defending the facility withdrew from their positions. Affiliates of Isis, already control large parts of Sirte, the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a former stronghold of his supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June The US Air Force has destroyed an Isis stronghold after an extremist let slip their location on social media. According the Air Force Times, General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, said that Airmen at Hulburt Field, Florida, used images shared by jihadists to track the location of their headquarters before destroying it in an airstrike. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Kurdish forces captured a key military base in a significant victory in Raqqa as well as town of Tell Abyad. YPG fighters, backed by US-led airstrikes and other rebels, consolidated their gains, when they seized the key town on the Syria-Turkey border. They are now just 30 miles to the north of Raqqa and have cut off a major supply route deep inside Isis-held territory. Ahmet Silk/Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has released gruesome footage claiming to show the murder of more than a dozen men by drowning, decapitation and using a rocket-propelled grenade as it seeks to boost morale among its fanatical supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has begun carrying out its threat to destroy structures in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, blowing up at least two monuments at the Unesco-protected site as Syrian government troops made advances on the Islamists positions. AFP

There are also concerns the number of young boys forced into Isis' ranks will increase as young children taken to live in its territories or born to "jihadi brides" grow up.

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently has previously described the children as a lost generation.

It raised concerns that even if the terrorist group is defeated, their young recruits could continue to conduct its brutal atrocities.
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A US-coalition led airstrike that hit a Syrian army base has put a "very big question mark" over the current ceasefire, the Russian Ambassador to the UN has said.

American coalition led strikes near Isis territory in the east of Syria accidentally hit Syrian army positions instead, a US official confirmed late on Saturday night. The operation was halted when the mistake was realised.

The US and Russian brokered cessation of hostilities in Syria's civil war, which began last Monday, is mostly holding up, with no civilian deaths reported by rights groups or monitors.

"Syria is a complex situation with various military forces and militias in close proximity, but coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit," a State Department official said.

Russia, a close ally and military backer of the Syrian government, asked for an emergency council meeting at the United Nations, saying that if the bombing was a mistake, it is evidence of the US's stubborn refusal to co-ordinate military action with Moscow in Syria's civil war.

US envoy to the UN Samantha Power criticised the call on Saturday, accusing Russia of hypocrisy and "pulling a stunt". During the heated council meeting Power and her Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin, walked out while the other was speaking.

Calling Ms Power's remarks an "extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness", Mr Churkin implied the American response to the incident could endanger the fragile ceasefire.

"If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," he said.

Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them Show all 13 1 /13 Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office

Moscow said that 62 soldiers were killed in the bombing near Deir-ez-Zour, which the Syrian army called blatant and dangerous aggression. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 80 died, and that Russian jets had been conducting strikes in the area at the same time.

Isis claimed they gained complete control over Jebel Tharda near Deir-ez-Zour airport in the ensuing chaos, but both Russian and Syrian state media have said all lost positions were recaptured in a matter of hours.

The terror group has control of Deir-ez-Zour city and much of the surrounding area.

The US-led coalition has been conducting air strikes against Isis since September 2014, and is also supporting rebel groups against President Bashar al-Assad elsewhere in the country.

Extremist groups Isis and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, the Al-Qaeda affiliate operating in Syria, are not part of the current truce, and the seven-day ceasefire is supposed to lead to unprecedented joint US-Russian airstrikes against them.

Opening humanitarian corridors into the besieged city of Aleppo was also a key part of the ceasefire deal. Six days in, UN trucks are still at the Syrian-Turkey border waiting for permission from the Syrian government. Rebel groups inside the city are also reportedly blocking the route.

The US and Russia have disagreed over who is to blame for the hold up.
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The US military has said it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against Isis on Saturday, which if confirmed would mark the first known direct American strike on President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

US Central Command said the strike was immediately halted when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military.

The Syrian military said the air strike hit a base in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor that is surrounded by Isis, allowing the extremists to advance. Russia's military said it was told by the Syrian army that at least 62 soldiers were killed in the air raid and more than 100 wounded.

The apparently errant strike could deal a crushing blow to a fragile US and Russian-brokered cease-fire that has largely held for five days despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides. The cease-fire, which does not apply to attacks on Isis, has already been the subject of disputes between Moscow and Washington, with each accusing the other of failing to fully implement it.

Coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit, the military statement said.

The Syrian military said the air strikes enabled an Isis advance on a hill overlooking the air base. It called the strike a serious and blatant attack on Syria and its military, and firm proof of the US support of Daesh [Isis] and other terrorist groups. President Assad's government views all those fighting against it as terrorists, and has long accused the U.S. and other rebel supporters of backing extremists.

A Russian Defense Ministry official said Syria has informed them that 62 of its soldiers were killed in the air strike. Russia has been waging a year-old air campaign on behalf of Assad's forces and closely coordinates with them.

 Syria war: Heavy fighting ahead of ceasefire

Defence Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the airstrike near Deir Ezzor airport was conducted by two F-16s and two A-10s. He did not identify the planes' country affiliation, but said they were part of the international coalition. The planes came from the direction of the Iraqi border, he added.

He said Isis fighters surrounding the air base launched an attack on the Syrian army positions after the air strike. He added that if the coalition attack was launched by mistake, the reason for it was a stubborn reluctance by the American side to coordinate its action against terrorist groups in Syria with Russia.

Russia has called for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council over over the US-led raid. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says Moscow is demanding full and detailed explanations about whether this was deliberate support of the Isis or another mistake.

Ms Zakharova was quoted by the state news agency Tass as saying that after today's attack on the Syrian army, we come to the terrible conclusion that the White House is defending the Islamic State [Isis].

In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Show all 19 1 /19 In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Syrian boys cry following Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of the northern embattled Syrian city of Aleppo Getty In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russian defense ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov speaks to the media in Moscow, Russia. Konashenkov strongly warned the United States against striking Syrian government forces and issued a thinly-veiled threat to use Russian air defense assets to protect them AP In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Syrians wait to receive treatment at a hospital following Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of the northern embattled Syrian city of Alepp Getty In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov speaks at a briefing in the Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russia. Antonov said the Russian air strikes in Syria have killed about 35,000 militants, including about 2,700 residents of Russia AP In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Jameel Mustafa Habboush, receives oxygen from civil defence volunteers, known as the white helmets, as they rescue him from under the rubble of a building following Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of the northern embattled Syrian city of Aleppo Getty In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Civil defence members rest amidst rubble in a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria A girl carrying a baby inspects damage in a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Civilians and civil defence members look for survivors at a site damaged after Russian air strikes on the Syrian rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Civilians and civil defence members carry an injured woman on a stretcher at a site damaged after Russian air strikes on the Syrian rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Volunteers from Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, help civilians after Russia carried out its first airstrikes in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria The aftermath of Russian airstrike in Talbiseh, Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Smoke billows from buildings in Talbiseh, in Homs province, western Syria, after airstrikes by Russian warplanes AP In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russian Air Forces carry out an air strike in the ISIS controlled Al-Raqqah Governorate. Russia's KAB-500s bombs completely destroy the Liwa al-Haqq command unit In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Caspian Flotilla of the Russian Navy firing Kalibr cruise missiles against remote Isis targets in Syria A TASS/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russia claimed it hit eight Isis targets, including a "terrorist HQ and co-ordination centre" that was completely destroyed In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria A video grab taken from the footage made available on the Russian Defence Ministry's official website, purporting to show an airstrike in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria A release from the Russian defence ministry purportedly showing targets in Syria being hit In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russia launched air strikes in war-torn Syria, its first military engagement outside the former Soviet Union since the occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. Russian warplanes carried out strikes in three Syrian provinces along with regime aircraft as Putin seeks to steal US President Barack Obama's thunder by pushing a rival plan to defeat Isis militants in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Caspian Flotilla of the Russian Navy firing Kalibr cruise missiles against remote Isis targets in Syria, a thousand kilometres away. The targets include ammunition factories, ammunition and fuel depots, command centres, and training camps A TASS/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis

Isis has repeatedly attacked the government-held air base, which is an isolated enclave deep in extremist-held territory.

The US-led coalition has carried out thousands of airstrikes against Isis in Syria and Iraq over the past two years, allowing allied forces on the ground to liberate several towns and cities from the extremist group. Russia also carries out attacks against IS targets, in Deir el-Zour and other parts of Syria.

The coalition will review this strike and the circumstances surrounding it to see if any lessons can be learned, the U.S Central Command statement said.

The cease-fire took effect on Monday, and despite reports of violations, it has largely held. However, aid convoys have been unable to enter rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo - a key component of the deal.

 UN makes Syria aid passage plea

Earlier on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned the US commitment to cease-fire, suggesting that Washington wasn't prepared to break with terrorist elements battling Assad's forces.

Russia has accused Washington of failing to rein in the rebels, and on Saturday Mr Putin asked why the United States has insisted on not releasing a written copy of the agreement.

This comes from the problems the US is facing on the Syrian track  they still cannot separate the so-called healthy part of the opposition from the half-criminal and terrorist elements, Mr Putin said during a trip to Kyrgyzstan.

In my opinion, this comes from the desire to keep the combat potential in fighting the legitimate government of Bashar Assad. But this is a very dangerous route.

He appeared to be referring to Jabhat al-Nusra a group who recently claimed to have ended their links with al-Qaeda-linked and changed their name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. The group is deeply embedded in rebel-held areas and fights alongside more moderate groups. Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of the group, condemned the ceasefire agreement in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV aired on Saturday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed Mr Putin's remarks during a phone call with US Secretary of State John Kerry. Mr Lavrov noted the refusal by an array of illegal armed groups to join the cease-fire, and Washington's obligation to separate units of the moderate opposition from terrorist groupings, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Under the ceasefire agreement, the US and Russia would work together to target al-Nusra, as well as Isis, while Assad's forces refrain from striking opposition-held areas.

But Washington has warned Russia that unless aid is delivered to Aleppo, it will not move ahead with the formation of the joint coordination center.

The UN has accused Assad's government of obstructing aid access to the contested city. The Russian military says insurgents have held up the delivery by firing on government positions along the main route leading into besieged, rebel-held districts, in violation of the cease-fire.

The Syrian government said it has done all that is necessary to facilitate the entry of aid convoys to Aleppo, but that armed groups have failed to withdraw from the supply routes and are committing dangerous, provocative acts.

Russia's military said on Saturday that Syrian rebels violated the ceasefire dozens of times over the past day, including with strikes on military and civilian targets in Aleppo. Syrian activists said government forces killed five civilians in separate attacks.

Syria's conflict has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced half the country's population since March 2011.

Associated Press
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Two men who are openly gay are standing in the Russian elections in a challenge to Vladimir Putin and the ruling party, United Russia.

Aleksei Korolyov, 29, and 33-year-old Bulat Barantayev are thought to be the first LGBT people ever to stand in the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly.

Both outspoken gay rights activists, the men strongly object to the gay propaganda law.

Passed in 2013, the law makes it illegal to equate straight and gay relationships or to promote gay rights in any way.

Both activists are running for the pro-Europe Peoples Freedom Party (Parnas). Mr Barantayev has called for Putin to be impeached and the government to be rid of corruption.

Although neither Mr Korolyov or Mr Barantayev believe they have any chance of being elected, they hope that by standing they will progress discussion about gay rights.

Mr Barantayev told Radio Free Europe: "For a long time now, I have used all opportunities to cultivate an audience for accepting LGBT people.

"By my example, I show that gays in Russia can create their own successful businesses, can meet with people, can have children, and can even run for the State Duma."

Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban Show all 11 1 /11 Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166383.bin AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166394.bin REUTERS/Thomas Peter Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166382.bin Reuters Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166384.bin REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166386.bin YEKATERINA SAVINA/AFP/Getty Images Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166392.bin FEDOR SAVINTSEV/AFP/Getty Images Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166391.bin FEDOR SAVINTSEV/AFP/Getty Images Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166390.bin ALEXANDER TITORENKO/AFP/Getty Images Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166389.bin MAXIM MARMUR/AFP/Getty Images Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166388.bin NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images Gay rights marchers to defy Eurovision ban 166387.bin ALEXANDER TITORENKO/AFP/Getty Images

Mr Korolyov said: "The LGBT community now is in a desperate situation and we need allies. It is good that we have been able to form an alliance with Parnas.

The LGBT community gets new resources to defend itself and the party should get some new voters

He said he had decided to run because United Russia, the ruling party, had adopted an extreme homophobic position.

The authorities are facilitating a homophobic discourse in society that is inciting hate crimes," he added.

In 2015, the Russian government introduced a "straight" flag in direct opposition to the rainbow flag of the LGBT movement.

For the first time, voting in the Russian elections has taken place in Crimea, which was annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
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Cabin crew have demanded action to curb alcohol- and drug-fuelled air rage, after Civil Aviation Authority figures revealed that serious incidents on UK airlines are running at an average of one a day.

Q Is there such a thing as a "typical" case of air rage?

Every incident is different, but most involve alcohol as a contributory factor. A passenger typically boards an aircraft after having several drinks, and proceeds to consume more on board either provided by the cabin crew or surreptitiously swigged from duty-free bottles. Their behaviour may be exacerbated by drugs. They then become loud and aggressive, and may threaten cabin crew and other passengers.

Cabin crew are trained to deal with disruptive passengers and to warn them of the consequences of their actions, which in many cases helps to calm the situation. But if the behaviour persists, the aircraft may be diverted and the perpetrator arrested.

Drunkenness and disruption in the cabin creates a possible risk for everyone  distracting the crew from their normal safety duties, and causing a hazard in the event of an emergency evacuation when every passenger needs their wits about them.

Q What does the law say  and does it have much effect?

Aviation law forbids anyone boarding an aircraft when drunk, or becoming drunk on an aircraft. Airlines have the right to refuse to carry passengers that they consider to be a potential risk to the safety of the aircraft. But the rule is widely flouted. In February, for example, a brawl broke out aboard a Ryanair flight from Luton to the Slovakian capital, Bratislava. Six men on a stag outing were arrested when the plane diverted to Berlin. Such events cause distress and inconvenience for passengers, and expense for the airline.

Q Are some flights more likely to experience disruption than others?

Flights to and from "party" destinations, such as eastern European capitals, Las Vegas and Ibiza, seem to have more than their fair share of disruptive passengers. This week four drunk and abusive women were removed from a Monarch flight to Ibiza at Manchester airport. But reports of their condition suggests they should not have been allowed on board in the first place. Monarch sends out notices by email ahead of flights to the Spanish island, warning against turning up drunk for a flight, and Ryanair bans Ibiza-bound passengers from taking duty-free alcohol on board.

Q So should alcohol be banned from airports and flights?

Not necessarily. Many passengers enjoy a drink at the airport or on board a plane and cause no problems. Travellers setting off on holiday or returning from a business trip often regard alcohol as an essential part of the experience. And for some passengers who are fearful of flying, or smokers who are denied cigarettes, a drink (or two) is regarded almost as a necessity.

Alcohol is also very lucrative for UK airports  which have no restrictions on when they can serve alcohol. Last time I flew out of Bristol airport at 7am I was invited to "upgrade" my breakfast for an extra 1.50. The upgrade comprised a pint of strong lager.

Budget airlines make money from drink sales, while full-service carriers see offering a range of beer, wine and spirits as an important part of their product.

Q What could and should be done to tackle air rage?

Lord Ahmad, the aviation minister, is looking at ways to reduce the occurrence of alcohol-fuelled air rage. Measures that are being considered include marking boarding passes to limit the number of drinks a passenger can have at the airport  though that would be ineffective for travellers with the boarding pass on a smartphone, or for those who printed out multiple copies. More effective  but also controversial  would be stringent checks at the departure gate, possibly involving breath tests for passengers suspected of being drunk.

There could also be greater controls on airport lounges, where travellers can pay a flat fee and drink an unlimited amount. "Passengers need to be made to understand that tanking yourself up in the terminal isnt going to get your holiday off to a good start," a senior member of cabin crew for a budget airline told The Independent.

Q And in the air?

To stop travellers surreptitiously drinking their own supplies in flight, duty-free drink could be sealed in a "security tamper evident bag" (known in the trade as a "STEB"), making it tougher for passengers to open and consume alcohol. There could even be a check at the end of the flight to identify anyone who has broken the seals.

Alternatively, duty-free drink could be banned completely from "problem" flights. Aviation safety experts believe that duty-free on arrival rather than on departure would be a much safer concept  as well as reducing the amount of weight being unnecessarily flown around the world.

Some aviation security experts say whats needed is more resolve by airlines to recover costs of diversions from the offenders, who could face bills of tens of thousands of pounds, providing a deterrent to others.

At present many perpetrators just get a written warning from the airline.
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Cabin crew have demanded action to curb alcohol- and drug-fuelled air rage, after figures revealed that serious incidents on UK airlines are running at an average of one a day.

Research by the BBC Radio programme 5 Live Investigates shows a four-fold increase in serious incidents involving disruptive passengers between 2013 and 2015.

Any event that can endanger an aircraft, its occupants or any other person must be reported to the Civil Aviation Authority. The organisations data reveals 386 such incidents in 2015, compared with 85 in 2013.

The figures do not include foreign carriers, including Ryanair  which carries around one-fifth of UK airline passengers.

Part of the increase can be explained by rising passenger numbers, but flight crew are also more prepared to report incidents. A senior member of cabin crew for a leading budget airline told The Independent: Cabin crew have had enough. Were having to perform as night-club bouncers, and were not standing for it any more.

While flying has never been safer, aviation professionals are alarmed at the frequency of serious air-rage incidents, and voice fears that lives could be lost.

Most incidents involve alcohol. In many cases, disruptive passengers are already drunk when they board the aircraft.

The managing director of the budget airline Jet2, Phil Ward, told 5 Live that pre-loading was a serious issue: It's not normal to drink a pint at six in the morning and that then manifests itself on board the airplane where the alcohol takes a greater effect. His airline has banned on-board sales of drink before 8am.

The world's 10 worst airlines Show all 10 1 /10 The world's 10 worst airlines The world's 10 worst airlines 10. Jet AirHelp, has assessed more than 30 airlines using scores for quality of service, on-time performance and responses to claims for compensation. Here follows the lowest ranked airlines, starting with Jet Airways, 35% of whose flights were delayed in 2018 Getty The world's 10 worst airlines 9. Aerolineas Argentinas 15% of Aerolineas Argentinas flights were delayed in 2018 Getty The world's 10 worst airlines 8. Iberia 16% of Iberia flights were delayed in 2018 Getty Images The world's 10 worst airlines 7. Korean Air 36% of Korean Air flights were delayed in 2018 Getty The world's 10 worst airlines 6. Ryanair 14% of Ryanair flights were delayed in 2018 EPA The world's 10 worst airlines 5. Air Mauritius 31% of Air Mauritius flights were delayed in 2018 Getty The world's 10 worst airlines 4. easyJet 21% of easyJet flights were delayed in 2018 AFP/Getty Images The world's 10 worst airlines 3. Pakistan International Airlines 39% of Pakistan International Airlines were delayed in 2018 Getty The world's 10 worst airlines 2. Royal Jordanian Airlines 13% of Royal Jordanian Airlines flights were delayed in 2018 Getty The world's 10 worst airlines 1. WOW Air 25% of WOW Air flights were delayed in 2018 Getty

At Gatwick airport, Sussex Police are providing leaflets to bars, warning passengers of the possible consequences of being drunk on board a plane. But not all aviation professionals are convinced of the value of such initiatives.

When people are going on holiday, theyre focused entirely on themselves, and theyve also got all sorts of bits of paper, said the crew member.

Airlines are taking a tougher line on preventing incidents. Jet2 is banning an average of one passenger every two weeks for disruptive behaviour, though at present they can just switch to a different airline.

Adrian Goldberg, the presenter of 5 Live Investigates, said: Airlines are working towards a Banned from one, banned from all policy.

This week a Monarch flight from Manchester to Ibiza took off with four fewer people than expected, after a group of drunk and abusive passengers were ejected before departure. But it raises the question of how they were allowed on board in the first place.

Lord Ahmad, the aviation minister, is considering whether rules allowing airports to serve alcohol at any time of day should be tightened. Among the policies under consideration is marking boarding passes to monitor the number of drinks consumed at the airport, but that will not work for passengers carrying the pass on their smartphones.

Once a flight is airborne, cabin crew are obliged to stop providing alcohol to passengers who appear intoxicated. But many incidents involve passengers surreptitiously drinking their own supplies of spirits bought at the airport. If alcohol was routinely sold in tamper-evident bags, it might be easier for on-board offenders to be detected.

After a number of incidents on flights to Ibiza, Ryanair now bans all passengers on flights to the island from taking duty-free goods into the cabin.

There are calls for airlines to be more prepared to take legal action against disruptive passengers who cause diversions. Earlier this month a British Airways flight from Gatwick to Orlando diverted to Boston after a drunk young man tried to get off the plane while it was over the Atlantic. The unscheduled stop cost the airline tens of thousands of pounds, which could in theory be recovered from the passenger.
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The facts are stark  and shaming. A child, a refugee aged 14 whose brother is already in the UK, is given the right to come here. But getting official passage to take up that permission is mired in the bureaucratic process.

The weeks and months pass. Despairing, he decides to take his luck by climbing onto a lorry bound for Britain, and dies in the attempt. He is the youngest refugee to die trying to cross the UK border from the Jungle and the third young person to die in similar circumstances this year.

Sometimes it seems to need a tragic event to hammer home a wider massage. If there is anything positive to come from this particular story it must surely be that prosperous western nations have an obligation not only to accept refugees, under whatever terms they have agreed and are legally bound to do. They must also provide honourable and competent administration of this process.

On Saturday a number of speakers at a rally in London made these points, and on Monday and Tuesday the United Nations will host a summit for heads of state and government to help develop a global response to the refugee crisis. It will be, as the UN puts it: A historic opportunity to come up with a blueprint for a better international response. It is a watershed moment to strengthen governance of international migration and a unique opportunity for creating a more responsible, predictable system for responding to large movements of refugees and migrants.

Those words  responsible and predictable  define the challenge for the leaders meeting in New York. It would be unfair and unreasonable to single out the UK for its past policies on refugees, and quite counter-productive to bundle concern over this matter into a wider political attack. This is a global issue, not a national one, and a humanitarian issue, not a political one. But the fact that we have in effect a new Government gives an opportunity both to acknowledge that we have not performed very well in the past, and a chance do better. Our Government, indeed any government in a working democracy, has to work with the grain of public opinion, and public opinion is resistant to large-scale settle of refugees in Britain. But public opinion also accepts we have responsibilities, and asks for reasonable competence in carrying out those responsibilities.

Coping with the refugee crisis requires a global response and that is what we should expect from New York. But it also requires huge attention to detail. As we have argued here before there is a specific and shameful failure in the Jungle in Sangatte, where there are an estimated 400 unaccompanied children who are eligible to move to the UK now. The Jungle is one manifestation of the multi-layered issue that we cannot easily tackle. But the fate of one 14-year-old tells us where to start.
The logo of Boeing (BA) is seen in Los Angeles, California, United States, April 22, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/Files

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Boeing formally challenged a decision by the Danish government to pick Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet over its own Super Hornet, saying on Thursday the choice was based on a "flawed evaluation process".

Boeing said it had submitted a request to the country's ministry of defence that would require it to provide all materials related to the procurement evaluation and decision announced in June.

"We believe the ministry's evaluation of the competitors was fundamentally flawed and inaccurately assessed the cost and capability of the F/A-18 Super Hornet," said Boeing vice president Debbie Rub.

In May, Boeing challenged the Danish government's recommendation to buy 27 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, questioning data which suggested its Super Hornet fighter jet was a more expensive option.

Denmark's Defense Minister Peter Christensen confirmed that Boeing would get access to the requested information.

"I note that we had a very thorough and transparent process before the Danish choice of fighter jet. This led to a broad political agreement," Christensen said in an email.

A ministry report in May evaluating each fighter jet candidate was based on data estimating that the Super Hornet would have a service life of 6,000 flying hours, while Boeing thinks the right figure for Denmark is 9,500 hours.

The report also concluded that the total cost of the F-35 jet is 42.2 billion Danish crowns ($6.4 billion) while the Super Hornet would cost 60.6 billion crowns.

($1 = 6.6284 Danish crowns)

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Alexander Smith)
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At about 5pm on Saturday, two US F-16 fighter bombers and two A-10 specialised ground attack aircraft bombed what they believed was a concentration of Isis fighters besieging pro-government forces in the city of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria.

Whoever it was in the US Air Force who had misidentified the target as Isis made a disastrous error; the US planes were attacking Syrian Army soldiers fighting Isis at a position called Jebel Tharda close to Deir Ezzor airport. The city has been besieged by Isis for over a year and 110,000 civilians are trapped inside. By the time the US bombing raid was over it had killed at least 62 Syrian soldiers and injured another 100, enabling Isis to overrun the survivors before being forced to retreat by a counter-attack backed by Russian airstrikes.

The mistake and heavy Syrian Army casualty list symbolises the continuing failure to implement the agreement reached between the US and Russia on 10 September. Its main points are a ceasefire in Syria, the unimpeded entry of UN aid convoys into besieged areas, and a joint US-Russian air campaign against Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra, the former Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria relabelled as the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. Of these requirements only an increasingly shaky ceasefire is in place so far.

Worse, the US and Russia are belabouring each other at the UN Security Council in New York, with the Russians accusing the US of complicity with Isis and the US claiming that Russia is opportunistically taking advantage of a targeting error for which the US has apologised. The Russian Foreign Ministry said today that the whole ceasefire accord, agreed after 10 months of negotiations between the two biggest players in the Syrian conflict, is close to unravelling.

 Syria war: Heavy fighting ahead of ceasefire

The strength of the agreement should be that it was put together by the US, as the worlds sole superpower, and Russia, which aspires to that status. Each should be able to influence allies and proxies into implementing the ceasefire, but so far this is not happening. There are many armed clashes and 40 trucks filled with supplies for the 250,000 to 275,000 people trapped in rebel-held East Aleppo are still stuck on the Turkish border. Supposedly moderate US-backed rebel groups are meant to be separating themselves geographically from al-Nusra, but they remain intermingled with it.

A weakness of the agreement is that it lacks any mechanism for its implementation other than the enforced assent or goodwill of the multitude of parties involved in the Syrian conflict. Goodwill has always been in notably short supply in Syria since many of the players, both regional and local, have an interest in the war continuing, even though they may hypocritically pretend otherwise. It is still unclear how far the US and Russia are able to force their allies into line and how far they are pulling their punches in doing so.

The US can put pressure on the Syrian rebels to abide by a ceasefire by leaning on their outside backers in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but will this pressure be enough? In less than two months the US presidential election will produce a different occupant of the White House, who may have a new Syria policy. Not only is the present administration the lamest of ducks during this period, but it is more or less openly divided on the merits of a deal with Russia.

It is much in the interests of Russia to make this deal work, but it has difficulty in getting President Bashar al-Assad to do what it wants, even if he is militarily reliant on it. In the longer term, nobody quite knows in the present day Middle East the real political and military strength of rival powers. Before the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, there was excessive idea in the region of American omnipotence. Failure of the US to get its way in either war despite prolonged military engagement led to excessive idea of US weakness. Russia was likewise written off by the rulers of Gulf States up to the time it became the main foreign support of Assad and started behaving like a superpower again.

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It is too early to write off the present ceasefire, if only because the conflict in Syria is so long-standing and intractable that it was always going to be extraordinarily difficult to de-escalate. A price has to be paid for the way in which it was misunderstood and mishandled in the years after 2011 so it will take time to put out the fires allowed to blaze out of control for five years. The US-Russian agreement is the first truly serious attempt to reduce the violence and, crucially, it is between the heaviest hitters in the crisis and the only ones capable of bringing it to an end.

Other peculiarities dog the present agreement. It is directed against al-Nusra and asks for the moderate armed opposition to separate themselves from the jihadis. It has always been centrepiece of Western policy in Syria that there is such a powerful group of armed moderates  despite much evidence to the contrary. If they did exist in any force then this agreement would be much in their interests and they  like the Syrian Kurds, Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi Army  would find their firepower vastly increased by the help of the US Air Force. But if the moderates so-called are largely a myth, and the armed opposition is overwhelmingly dominated by Isis and al-Nusra, then the latter have every incentive to make sure that this ceasefire fails.

The outside world has a picture of developments in Syria much distorted by wishful and partisan sources of information. This masks the point forcibly and un-answerably made by US Secretary of State John Kerry that, if this agreement with Russia does not work, the only alternative is more death and destruction engulfing Syria and its neighbours.
Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan is expected to champion Ireland's commitment to the EU during a visit to the United States.

He is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly but will also meet senior US officials as well as Irish community and business leaders for discussions on immigration reform, developments in Northern Ireland and the implications of Brexit.

In a keynote address at Fordham University's School of Law, the Minister is expected to say Ireland is "wholeheartedly committed to our membership of the European Union and of the eurozone".

He will say: "Ireland will continue to serve as a gateway to the EU for foreign investors.

"I know that American companies are particularly attracted by what Ireland can offer them: an English-speaking base, ease of doing business, a competitive offering, a track record in innovation, and most of all, a highly-educated talented workforce which is the cornerstone of industry."

He will also claim the Irish economy is better positioned to tackle the trade challenges resulting from Brexit than at any other time in the past.

The week-long visit kicks off with a breakfast meeting with Enterprise Ireland and a number of its client companies active in the US market.

Mr Flanagan will also address the United Nations General Assembly and meet UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon as well as undertake a series of bilateral meetings with foreign ministers from around the world.

Speaking ahead of his departure for the UN, Mr Flanagan said: "Ireland's commitment to the principles and values enshrined in the United Nations Charter remains at the very heart of our foreign policy and the annual UN General Assembly provides a valuable opportunity to set out Ireland's priorities and to engage with international partners.

"Ireland is particularly active in both UN peacekeeping and in tackling hunger and poverty. In my address to the UN General Assembly, I will highlight the fact that conflict and deprivation are key drivers of the current migration crisis.

"The community of nations needs to work together to address the root causes of migration and the UN has a critical role to play in this regard. Today's migration crisis resonates with Ireland's own sad history of emigration and I will be emphasising the need for the international community to tackle the root causes of the migration crisis, rather than focus on addressing the symptoms of the problem.

"Ireland played a key role in facilitating the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and the holistic multilateral approach offers a model that can be adopted in addressing the challenges posed by migration."
Actors (left-right) Will O'Connell as St. Kevin, Mary Ryan as Lady Lucy Fitzgerald of Carton House and Dave Swift as William Marshall launch Ireland's Ancient East tour

Most hoteliers and guesthouse operators have reported a rise in business this summer when compared with last year.

Figures released by Failte Ireland also recorded increased profits and said the majority of tourism enterprises now had more staff on their books.

Despite the buoyant results, Shaun Quinn, chief executive officer of Failte Ireland, has warned against complacency.

He said: "As expected, tourism businesses across the country had another successful summer, with many recording their best season ever.

"We must keep our eye on the factors underpinning our growth - compelling visitor experiences, increased carrier capacity and a favourable exchange rate with the US dollar - and avoid strategies which, in time, could undermine our current reputation for good value."

Some 600 tourism operators were surveyed for the Failte Ireland autumn tourism barometer.

It found business was better for 84% of hoteliers and 79% of guesthouse operators when compared with the 2015 summer season.

About four out of five hoteliers (79%) and more than two-thirds (69%) of guesthouse operators also experienced increased profitability this year when compared to 2015.

The growth in profitability is reflected by an increase in staffing levels at 63% of hotels and 54% of guesthouses, Failte Ireland said.

Peak levels of confidence within the industry were also recorded, with those who stay open all year most optimistic.

The impact of Brexit was cited as the most common concern, with just about one in four (27%) paid serviced accommodation providers expecting growth from Britain over the next few months despite almost half (47%) receiving more British business this year to date.

Mr Quinn added: "The early indications are that the 2017 season is likely to be one of opportunity in terms of further growth from North America and mainland Europe, but also challenge in terms of holding market share in Britain, our largest single source market.

"Ireland is generally perceived as an extension of the domestic British holiday market and our performance there will critically depend on changes in carrier capacity and exchange rates.

"In that context, we will be intensifying our efforts to support regional and seasonal business expansion in specific growth segments of our core markets, segments where our Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland's Ancient East brands are now performing well."
The Finance Minister is in Asia to promote Ireland as a hub for international financial services.

Eoghan Murphy's seven-day programme will include launching the IFS Ireland brand in Singapore, Shanghai and Tokyo.

A delegation of 12 financial services and technology companies will also accompany him to boost trade links.

Speaking ahead of his departure Mr Murphy said: "Launching the IFS Ireland brand in these target markets is a great opportunity to showcase our unique financial services' offerings - our market access, our educated workforce, and the increasing depth and sophistication of our indigenous financial services' sector.

"My aim is to highlight Ireland's capability, global offering and growing reputation as a hub for specialist international financial services. I look forward to building on the excellent work of our embassies and trade agencies to enhance existing links and open up new opportunities in these markets."

The IFS Ireland brand is a key action of the Government's IFS 2020 international financial services strategy. It aims to promote Ireland as a destination to do business, support companies already operating in key Asian markets and add 10,000 jobs to the sector by the end of 2019.

Enterprise Ireland chief executive Julie Sinnamon said: "There are currently over 20 Irish companies active in the Asia Pacific region, many with multiple presences across the region. These companies exported more than 115 million euro to this region last year and are forecasting significant growth over the next five years."
The Department of Finance has insisted that there will be "no watering down" of emergency legislation drafted to close off a loophole that allowed so-called 'vulture funds' to pay little or no tax on income from their Irish profits.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Michael Noonan announced plans to amend S110 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997. A draft amendment sought to restrict tax deductions to property funds that are not paying tax in Ireland - or are not in an EU double-tax treaty country - on their profits derived from their Irish loan books.

But the funds industry fears that other vehicles, including ICAVs, S110 Special Purpose Vehicles carrying out collateralised loan obligations (CLO) activities and shadow banking funds lending directly into the Irish real estate market, would also be affected by the new legislation.

Finance officials will this week meet with a range of stakeholders to discuss the draft law, which has already impacted on a number of planned acquisitions, according to industry sources.

"There will be no watering down of this amendment," said a spokesperson for Noonan, who has already said he will review ICAVs and other tax-neutral structures, if necessary.

Concerns have been raised that ICAVs, which are fully exempt from tax on income and profits, are being used by foreign and domestic investors to avoid paying tax on rental income in this country.
Property investor Paddy McKillen has heaped pressure on Michael Noonan, claiming the Finance Minister is "too afraid" to take on Nama following a series of controversies that have engulfed the toxic-loans agency.

McKillen, who won a Supreme Court battle to prevent his loans being transferred to Nama, said Noonan must disband Nama or remove its entire senior leadership.

McKillen said the conviction of former Nama official Enda Farrell for leaking confidential information about his and other borrowers' loans, combined with the airing of a secret recording of former Nama advisor Frank Cushnahan accepting a 50,000 payment from a developer in Northern Ireland, was enough to justify the closure of the agency.

"I think it's bizarre that Noonan hasn't dealt with Nama," the normally reclusive investor told the Sunday Independent. "It seems he is either afraid or he believes they are untouchables," said McKillen who, in contrast, added that he felt "treated like a criminal" by the agency.

"I feel very sad for Ireland that Nama hasn't been tackled. Noonan should disband it or remove the top layer of management because they've obviously failed in what they set out to do. Disband it, because it's an absolute disaster".

Nama is reeling from fresh revelations about the activities of Cushnahan, a former member of its Northern Ireland Advisory Committee (Niac) as well as the publication last week of a damning report into the sale of its Northern loan book by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

McKillen said he has "more than enough confirmation evidence" that confidential details of his loans were given to his rivals - billionaire twins Frederick and David Barclay.

Farrell, who received a two-year suspended sentence for disclosing confidential information relating to the agency, told gardai that he learned - while in Nama - of an email sent by a senior colleague to a representative of the Barclay brothers regarding the sale of the Coroin loan.

Coroin was the holding company for the Maybourne Hotel Group which owns the luxury Claridge's, Berkeley and Connaught hotels in London.

"Prefer if all is kept below the radar until we have completed our business together," former senior Nama executive John Mulcahy wrote in the email which emerged in High Court proceedings in London in 2012.

Nama has denied the agency was involved in the unauthorised disclosure of McKillen's information.
Terence Robinson, who has died aged 98, distinguished himself in Coastal Forces in the Mediterranean during the Second World War, and became "Mr Coca-Cola" in Northern Ireland.

The three-volume history of Coastal Forces by Leonard "Rover" Reynolds includes Robinson as the "engaging Irishman" who in August 1943 took command at Bastia of Motor Gunboat 660, one of the Fairmile D motorboats, the "dog boats" of the 57th MTB Flotilla commanded by the fearless Lt Cdr Timothy Bligh.

MGB 660 was detached for special operations with the Long Range Desert Group on the coast of Albania and later to the Aegean, where Robinson was involved in continuous operations again enemy transport lighters, schooners and E-boats, fighting off dreaded Luftwaffe air attacks and supporting Tito's partisans.

Robinson ferried the King of the Hellenes and his staff from the cruiser Ajax into the port of Piraeus soon after Athens was liberated, and in mid-December 1944 he also landed Harold Macmillan, then the British Minister Resident in the Mediterranean.

On the night of February 13/14 1945, the 57th MTB Flotilla off the coast of eastern Istria, northern Croatia, attacked and sank three large German F-lighters and Robinson was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his marked courage, skill and resource.

Arthur Terence Robinson was born in Belfast on April 22, 1918 and educated from a young age at the Quaker school, Stramongate, in Kendal, and then at St George's, Harpenden, where he was victor ludorum in 1936. Robinson started work as an unpaid assistant manager at the George Hotel, Aberdeen.

Moving to London he became a commis chef at the Cumberland Hotel while playing in Saracens' first XV. In 1938, to gain experience as a waiter, he moved to the Hotel Splendide, Lugano's most fashionable hotel, and then the Hotel du Chateau d'Ouchy, Lausanne.

With war imminent he ran down the platform to catch the last train to Paris before the Swiss closed the frontier.

Volunteering for the Royal Navy, as an Ordinary Seaman his first ship was the Tribal-class destroyer Cossack under her famous fighting captain, (later Admiral of the Fleet) Philip Vian.

Robinson was on the bridge when Cossack attacked the battleship Bismarck, and recalled Vian charging his much larger German enemy at high speed at night until he turned sharply at close range to deliver a salvo of torpedoes. Next day Bismarck was brought to bay by the Home Fleet.

After completing officer training, in August 1942 Robinson was appointed first lieutenant of Motor Launch (ML) 147, based in Lowestoft. There, in rough weather, he jumped into the icy North Sea to rescue a man overboard and was awarded a Royal Humane Society's Testimonial on Vellum.

In 1943 he was appointed first lieutenant of MGB 641, under her South African skipper, Lieutenant P Hughes, based in North Africa. Working in close harmony with American PT Boats he was involved in torpedo and gun attacks on enemy shore installations.

On July 14, 1943, in company with two other MGBs in the Straits of Messina, MGB 641 sighted and attacked an enemy U-boat travelling on the surface. The attack alerted the shore batteries and MGB 641 received a direct hit amid ships. Her crew were picked up by the others who, ignoring standing orders not to approach stricken ships when shore batteries had established the exact range for further rounds, laid smoke to affect a rescue.

Post-war, Robinson returned to Northern Ireland, where his father had bought the Coca-Cola franchise. His brother, Denis, had been killed at Caen serving with the Seaforth Highlanders and it fell to him to help his father develop the business. It was while on a tour of Coca-Cola bottlers in North America that he met first his wife Babs Morphy, and they were married in London, Ontario, in 1950. In Northern Ireland, Robinson farmed at Co Down, building up an award-winning herd of Limousin cattle and making frequent trips to France for quality stock. He also established River Valley Snacks, his energy and leadership putting the business on a firm footing and in which he was involved until his death.

His hospitality was well-known and his society much sought after. One friend recalled: "Robinson was the sort of man who had the ability, without arrogance, to command attention. He could command attention by simply being there."

After his wife's death in 1985, he sold the farm and moved to Holywood, Co Down, where he was a popular member of the Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club. In 1996 he married Phyllis Doak (nee Neill) who survives him with a son and two daughters of the first marriage.

Terence Robinson died on August 12.

 Telegraph

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Once upon a long, long time ago, I attended a court case in which a bank sued a businessman. The man hadn't paid off a term loan. Interest had pushed the debt up to 36,000 and the man wasn't happy with the interest he'd been charged.

In those days, 36,000 was big money, even for successful business people.

The case went to the steps of the court. The bank abruptly offered to settle. They offered to write off the whole 36,000 debt.

No, said the man. Let's go to court.

Well on top of the write-off, we'll also pay all legal costs (estimated at up to 80,000), they said.

No, said the man, we'll go to court.

So, they offered him ten grand cash on top, to settle outside court.

No, he said.

They offered him fifteen.

Eighteen, he said.

No, they said.

Fair enough, he said. It's a deal.

This negotiation took about two hours, conducted in nooks and crannies of the courts.

The bank sacrificed a 36,000 debt, paid 80,000 in legal costs and gifted the man what was then more than most of us earned in a year.

Why?

Because there are things we're not supposed to see.

The businessman used a false name to set up an account. The bank knew this and helped him evade tax. If the matter came to court, the common herd would see some of the things we're not supposed to see. Better the bank paid the guy off, kept things quiet.

This was one case, and for years the banks engaged with a wide network of tax evasion. It stretched through the business world - from shiny offices in Dublin to grubby pubs, shops, hotels and cattle markets around the country. A whole layer of society was steeped in tax fraud.

The rest of us knew nothing of this criminal underworld. We just funded the running of the State, without which these businesses couldn't operate.

The network of fraud was widely known among bankers, the wealthy and their lawyers and accountants. It was known in senior business circles, among senior politicians and civil servants, and among the alleged regulators - including the Central Bank and Revenue.

Everyone just went along to get along.

Eventually, a report by the Comptroller & Auditor General, followed by the Dirt inquiry and other scandals, forced the State to tidy up the tax evasion business.

At the same time, the entirely legal tax "avoidance" business has grown. There are reported to be over 5,000 specialists advising people how best to legally arrange their affairs to achieve maximum "tax efficiency".

The politicians, when legislating for these matters, are lobbied by experts employed by the rich. As a result, the laws that oversee the financial business are riddled with holes through which billions can be siphoned away.

These are commonly referred to as "tax loopholes", as though they're accidental gaps through which wily professionals can slip. No, they're "tax-efficient" mechanisms, negotiated and agreed to allow the rich escape paying their fair share. The "loopholes" are not a bug; they're a feature.

In recent days, some of the things we're not supposed to see have spilled out across the public stage. Quite embarrassing.

We were never supposed to see the special arrangements through which Apple legally avoided paying 13bn.

We were never supposed to see the extent to which Nama has been delivering financial blowjobs to the operators of vulture funds.

We were never supposed to hear a recording of a businessman allegedly telling a Nama adviser there's two packets of cash there for ya, Frank, so there is.

The hidden Ireland has its own language, one of "Section 110s", "qifs", "super qifs" and - I kid you not - "orphaned super qifs". Previously, such matters were the concern only of what are called "sophisticated private investors". Today, we're seeing some of those mechanisms being discussed by people who don't have two hedge funds to rub together.

Today, the likes of long-haired Mick Wallace is examining the "tax-efficiency" undergrowth to see what stirs. And Richard Boyd Barrett, who doesn't even tuck his shirt into his pants - much to the distress of a former ceann comhairle.

Today, to our benefit, these matters are investigated even by the likes of Clare Daly, Ruth Coppinger, Joan Collins, Catherine Murphy and Brid Smith - who in more genteel times wouldn't have been allowed stray beyond the world of knitting patterns and Ladies' Days.

We're finding out that you can make your activities "tax-neutral". You can put your business into a "special purpose vehicle". There are over 2,000 SPVs in Ireland.

These are part of what is called a "profit extraction mechanism". I quote from the literature of the people who advise the rich. These mechanisms "utilise various techniques to strip profit out on its underlying investments and can reduce or eliminate the tax it is required to pay".

Not just reduce: eliminate.

This is not a world to which we have access. We pay as we earn.

The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General has done its usual efficient job. The European Commission, offended by an Apple that had become obscenely rich and disturbingly arrogant, chose to challenge the Irish Government's corporate ass-kissing. The BBC has investigated Nama in the North.

The reaction of the Government has been to deny, distract, delay - in the hope that the things we're not supposed to see can be pushed undercover before too many of the mugs notice.

The easy part is just denying there's any Apple tax-dodging. The easy part is to claim it's all an EU conspiracy.

The Nama business is harder to get around.

The Department of Finance had a draft of the C&AG's report since January. Senior government figures knew - or should have known - that it was devastating. Yet, in the vote on Mick Wallace's motion for a Nama inquiry, on June 30, FF, FG and Labour joined forces to kill it.

FF had previously called for an inquiry - but now it was part of the FG/FF set-up so it voted against the inquiry it claimed to want.

Now, the report is out - and the C&AG's office is too highly-regarded to be badmouthed - even though Nama has tried.

The Government now can't escape some kind of inquiry. Together, FF and FG will seek to limit inquiries to Project Eagle. They'll accept there were problems, cloak the whole thing in complex language and move on.

What matters more than anything else is that we move on - move away from the things we're not supposed to see.

Settle up, like that bank did in that court case, long, long ago. Do whatever's necessary, maybe find a scapegoat, move on, quickly.

They ought to halt Nama activities now, but they won't.

There are two Irelands.

In our Ireland there are thousands of homeless. In that other Ireland people get rich from soaring rents.

In our Ireland, children are deprived of crucial surgery, because - well, there's only so much money to go around. Wages in our Ireland have gone up by less than 2pc since 2007 (up 11pc in France, 23pc in Poland). Bus drivers have to strike to make ends meet, after eight years without a pay rise, after tightening their belts to keep the company going.

In that other Ireland, the one we're not supposed to see, they don't travel by bus. In that other Ireland, they have special purpose vehicles.
Sukadana (Indonesia) (AFP) - The forest around Manjau in Borneo once reverberated with the scream of chainsaws, as gangs of illegal loggers felled ancient hardwood trees for sale to timber merchants downstream.

But many loggers in the remote Indonesian village are hanging up their chainsaws in return for affordable healthcare, through a community incentive scheme that aims to save lives and protect Borneo's fragile rainforests.

This strategy is set to be rolled out elsewhere in Indonesia, where impoverished communities often reliant on illegal industries for survival are putting enormous strain on the environment.

In western Borneo, where the approach was first pioneered, logging had long been the lifeblood of many communities, providing quick cash whenever it was desperately needed for weddings or health emergencies

A single Bornean ironwood -- a rare, slow-growing giant prized for its durable timber -- could fetch hundreds of dollars at a lumber mill, a small fortune for local villagers.

But for Juliansyah, a father-of-two from Manjau, the income was unreliable and the work -- often involving days-long missions alone in the forest -- was tiring and dangerous.

The cash was gone as soon as it had been earned, spent on medicine, school books or other essential items, he told AFP on the edge of Gunung Palung National Park.

One day youre rewarded, the next theres nothing. You cannot save anything, explained Juliansyah, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

It is illegal to cut down trees inside the park, a critical habitat for endangered orangutans, sun bears and hornbills in southwestern Borneo, a biodiverse island shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

His village was eventually approached by Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), a non-profit organisation based in nearby Sukadana and made an unusual offer.

If they agreed to cease logging, the entire village would be granted discounts on medical bills at the local health clinic, and free training for new careers as forest custodians and farmers.

Story continues

- Villages onside -

The incentives have worked, says American physician Kinari Webb, who co-founded ASRI and established Oregon-based charity Health in Harmony, its key financial backer.

Of the 24 villages surrounding Gunung Palung, all but one have agreed to put down their chainsaws, Webb said. Since 2007, when ASRI started working with villages, the number of logging households has plunged from nearly 1,400 to 180.

The rampant destruction of the old-growth forest Webb encountered when she first arrived in western Borneo 22 years ago has slowed to a trickle, with degraded areas slowly regrowing.

"There was pretty much never a day standing right here that you couldn't hear a chainsaw in that forest, Webb told AFP, gesturing to the lush greenery behind the clinic.

Now, occasionally you will still hear a chainsaw... But its a completely different scene.

The clinic, where patients watch videos on forest conservation while waiting to see a doctor, has evolved into the primary healthcare provider for around 60,000 people living alongside Gunung Palung.

Nearly 7,300 villagers received medical treatment at the clinic in 2015. But that caseload is set to balloon when a modern hospital -- equipped with operating theatres, a blood bank and vaccine fridges -- opens in October.

Green villages, or those that stop logging entirely, are granted 70 percent reductions on treatment. Yellow and red villages -- which are on track to stopping logging -- receive 50 and 30 percent discounts respectively.

But anyone who cannot afford healthcare can offset the cost by collecting seeds for replanting in degraded forest, said Farida, who manages a nursery of native saplings outside Sukadana.

- Challenges ahead -

In April, ASRI co-founder doctor Hotlin Ompusunggu won a 50,000 pound ($65,700) grant from the Whitley Fund for Nature at an award ceremony attended by legendary naturalist David Attenborough.

The prize money -- the second significant endowment gifted to ASRI by the Britain-based charity -- will help fund the scale-up of the project.

Communities on the islands of Sulawesi and Sumatra, and in the eastern region of Papua, who are dependent on industries like mining and blast fishing have been canvassed, with a second launch site expected to be announced in January.

Webb said one possible location is Raja Ampat, a string of idyllic islands in Papua famed for marine biodiversity. Villagers there have been dynamiting the pristine reef to make ends meet, jeapordizing their future livelihood, she said.

There are always setbacks. Satellite imaging, observed by forest guardians who keep a close watch on communities, revealed in June that Juliansyahs village had cleared protected land inside park boundaries.

The village will be downgraded to yellow but can always redeem itself, said Fransiscus Xaverius, who oversees reforestation projects around Gunung Palung.

On a dirt road separating the protected park from a massive palm oil plantation -- another source of pressure on Borneos forests -- a motorcyclist drives past with a load of ironwood slats, likely carved from a felled stump, said Xaverius.

"It's very challenging if you want to do conservation work in Borneo," he told AFP, as tankers carrying crude palm oil thundered by.

"On the one hand there's people who want to save the forest, and on the other there's people who want to survive."
Phyllis Schlafly, who has died aged 92, was an American conservative activist, lawyer, author and strident anti-feminist who in the 1970s was instrumental in halting the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and helped push the Republican Party further to the right on such issues as the family, religion and abortion.

The Equal Rights Amendment ("Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex") was a guarantee of equal rights for women and had already been passed by Congress in 1972 when Phyllis Schlafly began her campaign to stop its ratification, which at the time seemed very likely.

Thirty of the 38 state legislatures required to pass the amendment had already ratified it. It was widely supported by women's groups and by both major political parties.

But Phyllis Schlafly, already an experienced Republican Party activist with her own monthly newsletter, the Phyllis Schlafly Report, was undaunted. American women, she said, were already "extremely well treated" by society.

The amendment, she argued, would pave the way for same-sex marriage, abortion, mothers being drafted into the army and unisex toilets in public places.

By the spring of 1972 she had set up Stop-ERA, with chapters across the United States, and this later became Eagle Forum (which continues to operate as a conservative interest group).

Initially many dismissed Phyllis Schlafly, but by the middle of 1973 observers were beginning to acknowledge the effect of her campaign.

"Sophisticates are advised not to laugh at Mrs Schlafly, or her views," wrote one commentator in the New York Times magazine.

Indeed, after the US Supreme Court had issued its decision on Roe v Wade, effectively legalising abortion in January 1973, Phyllis Schlafly found growing support among conservative churchgoers.

Focusing her campaign on the threat the amendment would pose to traditional family values, she travelled across the country, speaking to clubs and religious groups, and many state legislatures.

She drew support from evangelicals, Catholics (she retained a strong Catholic faith throughout her life), Mormons and Orthodox Jews.

By the late 1970s the amendment was stalled and, despite an extension to its seven-year deadline, by 1982 15 states had rejected it and five others had withdrawn their ratification.

It fell three states short of passage and in celebration Phyllis Schlafly held a "burial" party in Washington. The ERA, she told journalists, "is dead for now and forever in this century".

Ironically, Phyllis Schlafly herself had benefited hugely from women's rights; she was highly educated and taken seriously both as an author and political activist. She was, commented The Washington Post in 1974, "a walking contradiction".

"Her outward demeanour and dress is one of a feminine, bridge-playing, affluent housewife. She smiles a lot, giggles, worries about her appearance and makes polite conversation Yet on the podium she comes on like a female George Wallace. She is tough and aggressive, totally unlike the role she espouses for most women."

Shortly before her death Phyllis Schlafly expressed her allegiance to Donald Trump. She saw him as representing "everything the grassroots want". "We've been following the losers for so long," she said, "now we've got a guy who's going to lead us to victory."

Phyllis Stewart was born on August 15, 1924, in St Louis, Missouri, the daughter of John Odile Stewart, an and engineer from whom she inherited her conservative views.

Phyllis and her sister Odile were educated at the Academy of the Sacred Heart and Maryville College of the Sacred Heart, St Louis, after which Phyllis moved to Washington University, St Louis.

She funded her student years by working night shifts in a factory supplying small arms for the war, and spent some of her time test-firing rifles and machine guns.

After graduating she attended Radcliffe College, where she was awarded an MA in political science.

Having worked as a researcher for several congressmen, in 1946 she joined the First National Bank of St Louis, where she met her husband, John Schlafly, a lawyer.

They married in 1949, after which she gave up her job and devoted herself to political causes and to her family. "As a nursing mother," she recalled, "I took each of my six children to political meetings across the state."

She also worked for Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s and established with her husband, in 1958, the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation "to combat Communism with knowledge and facts".

Aside from her anti-ERA efforts, Phyllis Schlafly was involved in numerous other campaigns, occasionally incurring even Republican wrath. When the Reagan administration tried to introduce Aids education into American schools in the 1980s, she described it as "the teaching of safe sodomy".

In 2010, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, she announced that no woman, including the former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, was yet ready to be president.

She published numerous books including A Choice not an Echo (1964), which championed the Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, Strike from Space (1965), which "revealed" plans for a nuclear attack by the Russians, and The Power of the Positive Woman (1977), on the reasons for her opposition to the "femlib fanatics". Shortly before her death she published The Conservative Case for Trump (2016).

John Schlafly predeceased Phyllis who died on September 5. She is survived by their four sons and two daughters.

 Telegraph

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
As the ongoing debate over the future of the advertising agency model continues to divide the industry into different camps, Dublin-based agency Oliver is betting the house on a radical shake-out over the coming years.

"The traditional advertising agency model is dead and is no longer fit for purpose. It is also guilty of inertia, has remained unchanged for decades and supports a creative process that is both protractive and costly," says Mark McCann, CEO of Oliver.

Oliver is one of several global agencies that is not hanging around to see what unfolds. Over the past few years it has created a business model that flies in the face of the traditional one embraced by most agencies. Forging much closer links with its clients, the agency embeds or co-locates teams of creative, digital and design professionals into their client's workplace. These teams, or mini-agencies as McCann refers to them, work on-site on a daily basis and are generally the first port of call for most of a company's marketing and advertising requirements.

"We remove the physical and metaphorical barriers between client and agency and in effect, they are an extension of the marketing department. Similar to the traditional model, brilliant creative remains at the core of our offering. However, contrary to convention, we position dedicated creative agencies inside client businesses, creating agile, real-time, on-brand communications," says McCann.

The agency was established in 2011 by McCann and is part of the Oliver Group in the UK which has over 900 staff working in offices in France, Germany, Netherlands, USA, Singapore, Turkey and Malaysia.

Oliver Group itself was set up in 2004 and is the fastest growing independent agency group in the UK. Agency brands within the group include the digital agency Dare; Aylesworth Fleming, a UK activation business; Marketing Matters, a strategic and creative agency, and the content marketing business, Adjust your Set.

With 50 staff in Dublin - and plans to grow this - the model would appear to be working and clients that have embraced it in Ireland include the likes of Bank of Ireland, Davy, Britvic, Ryanair, the IRFU, PepsiCo, BWG, New Ireland and the Irish League of Credit Unions.

Like traditional agencies, McCann says Oliver is capable of providing a full suite of services to clients.

"We provide a full agency service and we draw the best expertise from the wider Oliver group to ensure the most effective team is dedicated to each client's specific needs. We offer strategy, creative execution across all media and production services delivering multi-faceted campaigns comprising television radio, video, press and OOH ads, brochure-ware, in-store activations, POS, digital display, EDMs and websites.

"We also provide content generation, SEO, UX, UI, app development and analytics for customers - the full spectrum of marcoms tools in essence," he adds.

"The beauty of our model is that it's flexible and we can provide clients with a full agency service or segmented services and we don't subscribe to competitive resistance. We regularly bring lead creative to life in online and offline mediums and working with other agencies is par for the course."

While Oliver has been successful in winning clients over the past few years, the often rigid and inflexible pitching regime that operates in Ireland has not been conducive to winning business.

"The pitch process varies," says McCann. "Some clients conduct these themselves, others employ a pitch doctor and I suppose the challenge for us is that we're new to market. Many agencies of record have years of tenure. Also, many large businesses play safe when choosing agencies. They opt for long-standing entities, with bulging trophy cabinets, and forgo new disrupters in the process. I feel our innovative model and our portfolio of work to date should override our lack of enduring experience to warrant inclusion in the pitch process. I'd love them to have the courage take a punt on us," he adds.

The nature of the client/agency relationship in the future will also change, he says.

"Clients will want to be involved in the creative process and they will centralise creative demand to consolidate campaign efficacy and reach. In addition, financial performance and business outcomes will have supplanted vanity metrics and the demand for greater transparency will continue to gather momentum," he says.

"Agencies will become more akin to creative communities, comprising right brain and left brain thinking with creative and strategic brains collaborating to create exceptional communication.

"Large agencies will consume smaller models, acquiring talent and augmenting services in a bid to extend their remit and proposition. But traditional agencies that fail to re-invent themselves face extinction. Those mastering technology like artificial reality, artificial intelligence and audio visual, will outshine their competitors," he concludes.
On May 23, 2016, the Press Ombudsman decided to uphold a complaint made by Mr Kevin Clarke against the Sunday Independent.

On March 20, 2016, the Sunday Independent published an article under the headline "Pharmacies a prescription for prices that are far too high". The thrust of the article was that profits made by retail pharmacies were very high and that consumers were paying too much for medicines. Support for this viewpoint came from comments by an academic expert in a Dublin university.

Mr Kevin Clarke, a pharmacist, wrote to the Editor of the Sunday Independent claiming that a number of statements in the article breached Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) of the Code of Practice of the Press Council of Ireland. In particular he challenged the claim in the article that "Many pharmacists get almost 1m a year from the State for drugs reimbursed through the medical card and other State schemes."

As Mr Clarke did not receive a response from the Sunday Independent he made a formal complaint to the Press Ombudsman's Office.

During conciliation the Managing Editor of Independent News and Media stood over the article, pointing out that it was published as an opinion piece and not as a news article, and offered to resolve the complaint by the publication of a clarification and by publishing a letter from Mr Clarke responding to the column. The text of the proposed clarification read:

"In an article published on March 20, 2016, under the headline "Pharmacies a prescription for prices that are far too high", it was stated that 'many pharmacies get almost 1m a year from the state for drugs reimbursed'. We are happy to clarify that this should have said 'some pharmacists'."

The Editor also offered to clarify that some of the facts complained about were the views of the academic expert and not those of the author.

Mr Clarke did not accept the wording of the proposed clarification and suggested an alternative wording, which was unacceptable to the newspaper.

As the complaint could not be conciliated it was forwarded to the Press Ombudsman for a decision.

Mr Clarke submitted a HSE spreadsheet itemising State expenditure on pharmacists resulting from prescribed drugs costs reimbursement schemes in 2014. This showed the pharmacy on top of the list received 835,910 and the next three pharmacies received between 700,000 and 800,000.

This undermined the accuracy of the published claim that "many pharmacists get almost 1m a year". Therefore I am upholding the complaint. The clarification proposed by the newspaper ("some pharmacists received almost 1m") did not in my view sufficiently address this inaccuracy.

Other parts of the complaint were not upheld. The full decision can be accessed at www.pressombudsman.ie. The newspaper and the complainant each appealed the Press Ombudsman's decision.

The Sunday Independent appealed the decision on the grounds that (1) there had been an error in the application of the Code by the Press Ombudsman and (2) that there was significant new information available. The appeal was heard by the Press Council at its meeting on September 2, 2016. The Press Council decided that the Press Ombudsman did not err in his application of the Code and that there was no significant new information available to the Council that had not been available to the Press Ombudsman.

Mr Clarke also appealed the decision but the Press Council concluded that the appeal did not contain sufficient grounds to overturn the decision of the Press Ombudsman.
While the Government figures out how to hold a Nama inquiry, Cerberus, the US private equity firm that bought the 6bn Nama Northern loan book for 1.6bn, is getting on with working its way through the properties.

Cerberus has been busy doing deals with property developers in the North who now owe Cerberus the money and not Nama. It has been allowing some developers to refinance their debts with other lenders and basically move on with developing the assets. This is good for the Northern property market and the Northern economy - but probably not great news for Southern taxpayers.

For example, Nama sold 6bn worth of loans to Cerberus for 1.6bn. It was a mixed bag of good properties, not-so-good properties and a lot of undeveloped land.

Nama lost money on the deal. It bought these loans from the banks for around 2.3bn. It took an impairment charge after it had bought them of around 600m. It then sold them for 1.6bn.

Let's say a developer owed the banks 100m. Nama might have valued his loans at 30m when it bought them. This was impaired and written down to 25m after it bought them. Cerberus might have paid 24m for those loans - a fraction under Nama's book value, as happened with the portfolio as a whole. The developer was not allowed buy his loans back from Nama, but he can buy them back from Cerberus.

So he borrows 28m from somebody else and pays Cerberus 28m. Cerberus has made a profit of 4m. The developer can carry on with new bankers on his old property - but instead of owing 100m he owes 28m. The Irish taxpayer takes a hit of 76m.

Of course, much of that loss had already happened when the property market collapsed, but could more of it have been clawed back? Nama doesn't think so. The Comptroller and Auditor General does.

Nama still has loans that originally amounted to 39bn on its books. The agency values them at just 6.6bn. These loans will be a lot more difficult to sell. With the closure of the Section 110 loophole, which added a further incentive for vulture funds, we may see fewer overseas buyers for these less attractive assets.

That means we could see more Irish buyers but at even greater knockdown prices. Many developers have been effectively trapped in Nama since 2009. They can't move on and they can't move out. The cleanest, most valuable and easiest-to-sell loans have been flogged off.

Between the investigations and the poorer quality of remaining assets, Nama's final phase could be even more colourful than the story up to now.

Keeping schtum about insurance premiums

Insurance companies look a little friendless after the last week. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) launched an investigation into whether insurers were signalling price increases in an anti-competitive way.

The suspicion is not that insurance company executives sat in a smoke-filled backroom somewhere and agreed insurance premium increases. The question is whether consistent public statements by insurance executives saying they were going to put up premiums in the future were signals for others. One company executive says prices will go up by 10pc this year. Competitors take note of that and decide to do likewise.

CCPC executives told the Oireachtas committee this week that there can be unspoken co-ordination, which it wants to explore. It also means consumers are softened up for price increases and can be discouraged from shopping around because they just assume everybody is putting up prices by the same amount.

Price signalling is a relatively new concept in competition probes, and it has been quite controversial. It is also very difficult to secure a criminal conviction because it can be very hard to prove.

The alternative is for a probe to take place and the CCPC to take a Civil Court action.

The CCPC told the committee that it wrote to Insurance Ireland about the matter last October, but then just kept an eye on public comments by insurance executives in 2016, especially from firms that were back in profit.

Checking newspaper records, I found one executive saying in March how prices would go up again this year, but the rises would be lower on average than in 2015.

In June 2016 another insurance chief executive said he was going to increase prices by another 5pc by the end of the year, bringing it to a 10pc hike for 2016.

Price signalling legislation was introduced in Australia in 2012 and has been controversial. The Italians have been most effective with theirs, resulting in a number of investigations including one into a cartel of pasta producers who were found to have co-ordinated their price increases through press releases, press conferences and media interviews. In order for the CCPC to take a successful case, it would have to show that signals were given, that they were noted by competitors, influenced competitors and prices went up by more than they would have without the signalling taking place.

That would not be easy. But hopefully the existence of the probe and the demands for more transparency will give insurers pause for thought about future premium hikes.

If the CCPC is successful, insurance executives will stay quiet about prices in the future. What will they do instead?

A long way from 'did you get the press release?'

The world of PR is not what it used to be. Former Nenagh Guardian reporter Declan Kelly is scaling the heights of the global PR and corporate advisory world with a possible $1bn flotation of Teneo, the company he co-founded with Galway man Paul Keary and former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band in 2011.

Teneo has been buying up PR firms in the UK and elsewhere in the last 18 months in particular as the corporate advisory world consolidates.

Big global mergers mean big clients want their advisers to have an international presence. This has happened with accountancy, banking and is now happening with PR. These big clients also want lots of different kinds of advice from one provider. Hence Teneo is involved in investment banking, risk, security, restructuring and even sport. It has advised Fifa, BHP Billiton, Novartis and UBS on their battles with US prosecutors, plus a raft of Wall Street firms.

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is heading up Teneo Risk. Advisers to Teneo Risk include General Ray Odierno, former chief of staff of the US Army, and Lon Augustenborg, former chief of operations for CIA's counter- intelligence centre.

Those guys are a long way from asking "did you get the press release?"
RTE believes that up 500 homes could be developed on a portion of its Donnybrook site currently being prepped for sale.

The scale of the development envisaged by the broadcaster is revealed in a masterplan submitted to Dublin City Council.

However, the plan has already run into a planning hurdle, with the National Transport Authority objecting to a new junction on the Stillorgan Road which would facilitate access to both RTE and the proposed residential development.

RTE plans to consolidate its offices on the south east of the campus, freeing up around 10 acres of land to the south west of the property for development.

The site at Donnybrook has long been viewed as the organisation's financial trump card and earlier this year, the board, chaired by Moya Doherty, voted to sell part of the site in early 2017. The sale of the land could net the broadcaster around 50m.

While RTE is currently forecasting a loss of up to 20m for 2016, the windfall would not be used to plug holes in the running costs of the organisation. Instead, the funds would be used for significant investment in digital infrastructure and other capital projects,

While the precise scale of the development has yet to be finalised, the masterplan states that the zone ear-marked for future development "has a capacity for in the region of 500 residential units".

This takes into account Dublin city planning guidelines, including height restrictions and 20pc of the land being set aside for public open space.

The document says that the size of the development is "indicative" at this stage and would be the subject of future planning permission.

The plan is likely to meet significant local opposition and the National Transport Authority (NTA) has already raised concerns about aspects of the plan.

Under the masterplan drawn up by architects Scott Tallon Walker, RTE's main entrance on Nutley Lane would be closed. A new large junction and plaza would be developed which would give access to a newly configured RTE campus, as well as the large-scale residential development. This junction has been described as "essential" by RTE.

The NTA said that the new junction "would have a level of negative impact upon all other road users". It described the Stillorgan Road as an important traffic artery to and from Dublin city centre and concluded that "there is insufficient basis to justify introduction of this junction".

However, the NTA may reconsider its position when RTE gives further detail of its plans for residential development on the site.

RTE was granted access to the site from Stillorgan Road under an RTE plan called Project 2025. However, changes to the technological and economic environment mean that RTE now envisions a scaled back campus, paving for the way for increased development.

Dublin City Council is seeking further information from RTE. Its roads and traffic division has previously signalled to RTE that "strong justification would be required for the proposal supported by detailed information regarding future proposals".

A spokesman for RTE said: "RTE continues to give serious consideration to the best commercial options for the disposal and development of land in Donnybrook. However, no final decisions have been made."

In preparation for development, RTE has already been given permission to move its creche from its current location to the historic Montrose House.

A review of RTE's financial position by NewEra, the state's corporate adviser, suggested that RTE should give serious consideration to the sale of some or all of the site. It found that 20pc of the site is undeveloped, a further 21pc comprises space for cars and offices,

Over the past two years, options were considered for the site including a complete sale and move to a new location. Advisors CBRE and KMPG drew up various options and the RTE board opted for a partial sale earlier this year.

Securing planning permission for the junction and residential development at Montrose will go only part way to solving the organisation's financial problems. New director general Dee Forbes and other senior management are currently drawing up wide-ranging cost-saving plans as RTE's deficit grows.

Forbes told the Medicon media and technology conference last week that advertising was volatile. She said she was taking "an open look" at the organisation and asking if parts of the business were "possible" for the future.
A tumble in Deutsche Bank spread to the banking industry, deepening a selloff that dragged European equities to their biggest weekly declines since before the Brexit vote.

Shares of the German lender sank 8.5pc, the most since the aftermath of the British referendum, after it said it would fight a $14bn fine from the US Justice Department that would settle a probe of the bank's selling of mortgage-backed securities. RBS and Credit Suisse also fell more than 4pc, highlighting the vulnerability of the recent rebound, with a gauge tracking the region's lenders down 5.6pc this week, erasing almost a third of its gain from the past two months.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 0.7pc to hit a six-week low.

"The Deutsche Bank news kind of rattled markets," said Jasper Lawler, an analyst at CMC Markets in London. "It just goes to show that we're still dealing with the same old headwinds: this low-interest- rate environment, which will go on for a while, and the regulatory scrutiny."

While European Central Bank President Mario Draghi downplayed the need for more aid last week, his unprecedented stimulus has raised concerns about lenders' profitability. (Bloomberg)
Benedict Cumberbatch has hinted he knows what happened to Moriarty in Sherlock

Fans of Benedict Cumberbatch are outraged after learning he will not be attending a Sherlock convention.

People had paid up to 3495 (3000) for the VIP tickets, which grants direct access to the show's stars at the Sherlocked convention in London.

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The three-day event at the ExCel centre in London runs from 23 September and fans are annoyed the show's main stars - Benedict and Martin Freeman, who plays Doctor Watson - will not be attending, according to The Telegraph.

The line-up was announced on Thursday, and will include Mark Gatiss, who writes, produces and stars in the show as Sherlock's brother Mycroft, Andrew Scott who plays villain Moriarty, and Amanda Abbington, who is Martin Freeman's on and off-screen wife.

Cumberbatch's parents, actors Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, who played Sherlock and Mycroft's parents in the detective series, will also be attending the convention.

A spokeswoman for Cumberbatch told Mail Online the actor was on holiday with his wife Sophie Hunter and their young son Christopher.

Fans who paid $3495 (2,999) for the top tickets voiced their grievances online after it was announced the show's main stars would not be attending.

"Why on earth did I buy a Gold ticket?" wrote one, while another posted, "I am going to try and get my refund off Sherlocked if I die doing it. I see no reason why they should get to keep my money."

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However, organisers of the event stated that no refunds would be given to disgruntled fans.
Niamh Quirke (Rachel Brennan) with her on-screen parents Tony Tormey (Paul Brennan), and Clelia Murphy (Niamh Brennan) on the set of RTE's Fair City pictured on the set of the show

Fair City's Niamh Quirke has opened up about her departure from the RTE soap, which she quit earlier this summer ahead of a move to New York.

The actress (20), who plays Rachel Brennan on the hit soap, was awarded a scholarship to attend The New York Conservatory of Dramatic Arts and moved to the Big Apple ahead of her first semester.

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Niamh has grown up on the soap opera, after landing the role at age 11 and said her co-stars were reluctant to say goodbye to the young star.

Tony, my on screen dad, and my actual dad have a lot in common: neither want to believe it was happening. Tony may deny this but I know the truth, Niamh told The Sunday World Magazine.

I want to mention everyone but they all know how much they mean to me. So I would hope it is goodbye for now and not goodbye forever. Hopefully you havent seen the last of Rachel, she said.

The actress revealed that she dreaded filming her final scenes on the long-running soap opera but she neednt have worried.

I thought my last scenes would be tough to shoot but surprisingly it was ok. Everyone was so supportive and made it a positive thing. I wont reveal too much about my exit storyline but its one you will definitely want to tune in for, she said.

The young actress is currently living in a student apartment on Manhattans Fifth Avenue and said she dreams of a long career in acting.

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I would love to work alongside Tom Hanks. His work is amazing. For now though, it is strictly college and I am not thinking outside of that.
Nyingchi (China) (AFP) - China has unveiled a sparkling new hotel as part of its drive to get tens of millions more tourists to visit Tibet, even as critics say the push is slowly eroding the local culture.

With a presidential suite that costs $1,000 a night and views over the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas, the luxury Artel hotel is a potent symbol of Chinese plans for the autonomous territory.

Tourism officials are hoping to see visitor numbers increase by nearly 50 percent in the next four years, said Wang Songping, deputy director of the Tibet Tourism Development Commission.

"Tibet attracted four million Chinese tourists in 2005. We hope we'll get 24 million this year and 35 million by 2020," he said.

Critics say the influx will lead to more of China's dominant Han ethnic group settling in Tibet and eroding native Tibetan ways of life, and argue the majority of economic benefits of mass tourism will not go to locals.

Official figures say that Tibetans currently make up 90 percent of the local population, but groups opposed to Chinese rule say the real figure is significantly lower.

Beijing says it "peacefully liberated" Tibet in 1951 and insists it has brought development to a previously backward region where serfs were exploited.

But many Tibetans accuse Beijing of repressing their religion, diluting their culture and exploiting natural resources to benefit the Han at the expense of locals and the environment.

- Switzerland of the East -

The 103-room Artel opened in mid-August in Lulang, a picturesque village situated at 3,700 metres (12,100 feet) in a southeastern forested area in the autonomous region of Tibet.

It is part of a tourist complex built in an old part of town previously occupied mostly by government buildings and restaurants, that now boasts its own shopping street, a lake and an arts centre.

Nicknamed the "Switzerland of the East", the village is seen by authorities as a flagship project for its ambitious plans for Tibet's tourist sector.

Story continues

Transport links are being developed to cater for the influx, including a motorway opening next year, and a high-speed rail line from the capital Lhasa, expected to open in 2021.

Another high-speed rail line to Chengdu, capital of neighbouring Sichuan province, home to more than 80 million people, should be completed in 2022.

Wang said the number of Chinese tourists, who currently make up 95 percent of visitors to Tibet, has increased by an average of 20 percent each year since the 2006 opening of the first railway linking Tibet to the rest of China.

But while outside visitors can boost the local economy, mass tourism has down sides, said Tibet expert Francoise Robin.

"Cultural performances shown to visitors are either favourable reinterpretations of Chinese history or Chinese versions of songs or dances," she said.

"Tibetans themselves end up picking up these distorted versions."

And while some Tibetans were developing responsible tourism initiatives and eco-tourism, such businesses could often not be developed on a large scale, she said.

- 'Last in line to benefit' -

The influx of tourists is expected to bring in billions of dollars but many are concerned that not everyone will benefit from the windfall.

"Travel agents and other people who work in the tourism industry are mostly Han Chinese", said Robin. "The Tibetans... are among the last in line to benefit."

At the Artel hotel, Baima Cicuo, a 17-year-old local trainee who works as a housekeeper, said she was happy in her job -- at least in front of her boss.

"Before, I depended on my farmer parents. But now I earn 1,000 yuan a month and I learn a lot of things," she said in fluent Mandarin.

The hotel, owned by Poly, a Chinese state-owned group, has invested 280 million yuan ($42 million) in the project, says commercial director Ray Peng.

It currently has 40 employees, 15 of whom are Tibetan.

Its guests are likely to be overwhelmingly Chinese. Less than five percent of visitors to Tibet are foreign tourists, who need to obtain an "entry letter" as well as a Chinese visa when travelling to the region, where they must join an authorised tour group.

Despite the widespread perception that the restrictions are meant to stop the outside world from learning too much about the tensions between ethnic Tibetans and Han, officials insist that is not the case.

"These restrictions are in place because we can't yet provide world class services for tourists", said Bianba Zhaxi, deputy governor of Tibet.

"We will be open to tourists from across the world in a few years," he added.

But Acharya Yeshi Phuntsok, deputy speaker of Tibet's parliament in exile, said the restrictions serve to hide the truth about Tibet from the outside world.

"If foreign tourists and media are able to travel freely in Tibet, without organised tours, and can collect the views of people, then I think tourism can have a good impact.

"Otherwise, nobody will speak and share the problems of the Tibetan people."
TRAFFIC chaos is feared in Dublin city centre on the day of the All-Ireland final replay - as Dublin Bus drivers are set to strike.

A gripping final ended in a draw in Croke Park this afternoon - however the replay is slated to take place on October 1st, one of the dates confirmed earlier this week as a strike day.

Dublin Bus plays an important role in keeping traffic flowing on match days at Croke Park as fans are encouraged to travel into the city centre using the service.

However the expected strike is set to force thousands of fans to find an alternative route into the city.

There have already been four strike days in September, with two more to come on September 23 and 24 as well as newly-announced stoppages set for September 27 and 28.

Next month, further strike days are planned for October 1, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 18, 19, 24, 26 and 29.

Bus users with Leap Cards for annual and monthly travel will be issued a refund by Dublin Bus for each day lost due to the strikes.

These can be collected at the company's head office on O'Connell Street while others who missed out on Sightseeing Tours and Airlink services can also seek refunds or ask for their trip to be rescheduled.

Siptu said it sympathised with the public and workers, who have been greatly inconvenienced.

Its members at Dublin Bus repeated calls for the company bosses and Transport Minister Shane Ross' civil servants to immediately open talks.

Senior union representative Owen Reidy said: "There is only one way that this dispute will end, and that is through serious talks aimed at agreement on a long-term funding model for Dublin Bus."

Mr Reidy said the talks should also involve workers."The Minister for Transport cannot stand aloof from talks aimed at securing the future of a public transport company whose main funder, outside of the public's contribution through fares, is the state," he said.

"It is time that everyone in this dispute stood up and accepted their responsibilities to the travelling public and focused on creating a long-term sustainable funding model for Dublin Bus which is based on best international practice."

Siptu leaders also insisted the workers' resolve remained strong, despite four days of strikes.

Union organiser John Murphy said: "The resolve of our members to secure a long-term solution to the problems at Dublin Bus is only growing.

"Although individuals in Government and at management level, who may seldom use the public bus system, would seem intent on attempting to drive a wedge between service users and staff, our members merely remain focused on securing a just resolution to this dispute
The scene on the M20 near Patrcikswell, Limerick where a 3 car pile up happened. Photo Press 22

A three-year old girl has died after sustaining catastrophic injuries in a horrific motorway crash.

The incident occurred on the M20 near Patrickswell, Co Limerick at around 5pm on Saturday evening.

The girl's twin brother who was also traveling in the car, was taken by ambulance from the scene to University Hospital Limerick, where his condition is believed to be stable.

The boy is said to have sustained "minor head and facial injuries".

The twins' mother, who was driving the car, is understood to have swerved to avoid another vehicle, travelling in the opposite direction of the motorway.

This car ended up crashing into the steel pole barriers separating the northbound and southbound lanes of the motorway.

The car carrying the two children and their parents "went into a barrel role" according to sources at the scene before coming to a rest on its roof.

Emergency first responders performed CPR on the toddler in their best efforts to save her, however she was pronounced dead at UHL on Saturday night.

The deceased girl's parents and brother are being treated in hospital for minor injuries and shock.

No one else was seriously injured in the incident.

While it is still unclear where the family were from, local sources indicate they may not live in the area.

Meanwhile, the local community is still reeling from the shock since the news broke on Saturday night.

Fianna Fail councillor Richard ODonoghue called the incident a tragedy and extended his sympathies to those affected.

I cant think of what the family must be going through, he told the Independent.ie

No matter what age you are in an accident, it is always a tragedy.

People are starting to ask how it could happen, he added. It looks like it could have been a case of wrong place, wrong time.

Independent councillor Emmett OBrien told Independent.ie that local residents were united in grief, and that they were willing to support the victims and their extended family.

This morning, we held a cycle in aid of the Alzheimers unit in Adare and we held a minute of silence for the bereaved, he said.

Its a tragedy when theres a death of such a young person on our roads, he said.

Gardai closed the section of the motorway where the crash occurred, for a technical examination of the scene by officers from the Garda collision Investigation unit.

The young girl's death is the 132nd road fatality of the year so far, and the 12th so far in September.
A man in his 20s has died after being struck by a lorry in Co Tyrone.

The accident happened on the Great Northern Road, Omagh, during the early hours of Sunday morning.

Diversions were put place between Dromore Road and Derry Road roundabout while crash investigators examined the scene.

The Great Northern Road in Omagh has now reopened to traffic.

Sinn Fein MLA Declan McAleer has expressed his condolences.

"The death of this young man who was ht by a lorry on the Great Northern Road in Omagh has shocked the local area," he said.

"Any death on our roads is one too many.

"Our thoughts are with the family and friends of this young man at this sad time."

On Friday, 64-year-old William James Walker was knocked down by a lorry close to Belfast city centre and died from his injuries.
The central figure in the Nama controversy has broken his silence to claim he did not "make a penny" from a series of property transactions being investigated on both sides of the Border - and by the FBI.

Former Nama advisor Frank Cushnahan, writing exclusively in today's Sunday Independent, also claims recordings of him allegedly receiving 40,000 cash from a Nama borrower "infringed his privacy".

It is the first time Mr Cushnahan has publicly responded to a series of allegations about his role in the sale of Nama's Northern loan book, known as Project Eagle.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has ordered an inquiry into the sale of that portfolio after an investigation by the Comptroller & Auditor General published last week found that Nama, the State's so-called bad bank, incurred a potential loss to the taxpayer of 223m from the sale.

Yesterday Independents4Change TD Mick Wallace called on Nama chairman Frank Daly and chief executive Brendan McDonagh to resign following the controversy.

"Their positions are not sustainable," he said, adding that any government or party that protects them "may well pay a heavy price".

The Sunday Independent has also learned that a decision on whether or not Finance Minister Michael Noonan will appear before the Dail's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to be quizzed on Project Eagle won't be made until tomorrow at the earliest.

Writing today, Mr Cushnahan claims that he has been treated like a "criminal" and that he is an innocent man.

The BBC Spotlight programme broadcast secret recordings of a meeting between Mr Cushnahan and a Co Down-based Nama borrower, John Miskelly, that allegedly took place in a Jaguar car in 2012.

"There's 40,000 in that and it's in bundles of two, Frank," Mr Miskelly is recorded as saying.

Mr Cushnahan was advising Nama at the time the recording was made and was reappointed to the advisory board the same year.

He claims this weekend that the controversy and media investigation has harmed his health and the health of his wife, Yvonne. She is receiving treatment for cancer.

"The consequential and ongoing needs to ensure that appropriate remedial and palliative care is provided for Yvonne at this difficult time adds significantly to the stressful situation for us both," he writes.

Project Eagle has been dogged by scandal for more than a year. US company Cerberus bought the portfolio in April 2014 for about 1.6bn.

It later emerged that the managing partner of a firm of Belfast solicitors which had worked for Cerberus transferred 6m in fees from the deal to an Isle of Man bank account, without his firm's knowledge. He resigned once it was discovered.

Later, Mr Cushnahan, a former member of Nama's Northern Ireland advisory committee originally appointed by former Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, was recorded claiming that the 6m was meant for him.

Today, Mr Cushnahan does not directly address that recorded claim but reiterates that he did not benefit financially from the Project Eagle sale in any way.

Writing in the Sunday Independent, Mr Cushnahan rejected all claims of wrong-doing: "I have been treated like a criminal by sections of the media, although few criminals would have been subject to the same onslaught I have had to endure over the past year."

Mr Cushnahan fails to address the recordings which appear to show him accepting 40,000 (48,000) cash in a brown paper bag in a hospital car park in 2012 from Mr Miskelly.

He now says he is talking to lawyers about taking legal action against the BBC.

He claims that the meeting occurred when he was asked to assist Mr Miskelly "at a time when I was informed that Mr Miskelly was terminally ill".

In the recording, the men are then heard discussing the payment and Mr Miskelly assures Mr Cushnahan no one else knows about the meeting. The programme claims Mr Cushnahan said he would use his "insider status" to help ease Mr Miskelly's financial problems.

Mr Cushnahan admits that it was his "understanding" that, had the initial sale gone through and Pimco purchased the Project Eagle loan book, there was "a possibility he would have been appointed by [US company] Pimco to an executive role with appropriate remuneration".

Describing the impact of the controversy and the BBC Spotlight investigation, he said: "Words cannot describe the devastating impact this controversy has had on my own and my wife's life and health."

He also stressed that he was not a "public servant in the Republic of Ireland" and, as an adviser to Nama, he was paid the sum of 5,000 per year 'as an honorarium'.

"I had no role whatsoever in any [Nama] executive committee decisions concerning individual debtors. I had no access to confidential information through my Nama position relating to any debtor."

Welcoming "any proper inquiry in relation to the sale of the NI loan book", he claimed the sale of Project Eagle was essential for the Northern Ireland economy. "I have no doubt the sale achieved by Nama was the best price properly achievable and has allowed the Northern Ireland economy to regain some momentum following its virtual destruction with the collapse of the property market in 2008."

In a damning report, C&AG Seamus McCarthy raised questions over how the portfolio, at the time the biggest property sale in Irish history, was valued and marketed. He also criticised Nama's failure to take more action when it learned Mr Cushnahan allegedly stood to be paid 5m by one of the bidders.

Writing today, Mr Cushnahan rejects the claims that in the event of the purchase by Pimco he was to receive 5m. "I was never a party to any such agreement," he says.
Enda Kenny has until next May at the latest, a full year on from his re-election, to resign as Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach or he will face a leadership challenge, the Sunday Independent has learned.

But there is a widespread view in Fine Gael this weekend that Mr Kenny now intends to resist even the extended deadline to resign of May 2017 - a stand that would provoke a direct challenge to his leadership, which he is almost certain to lose.

There is also huge resentment at Cabinet and Minister of State level in Fine Gael after Mr Kenny last week hinted he was planning a reshuffle of ministers next year.

Also this weekend, Housing Minister Simon Coveney, who is tipped as a successor to Mr Kenny, denied that he had any prior knowledge of a newspaper article published last week which led to feverish speculation at the Fine Gael 'think-in' that Mr Kenny's leadership was under immediate threat.

At that meeting, Mr Kenny dismissed speculation on his leadership and emphasised the mandate he had received from the Dail to form and lead a government.

Former Fine Gael Minister of State Tom Hayes had written he had a "firm view" Mr Kenny should be replaced as the party leader and that it may not be possible to pick a time of his own choosing.

Yesterday, Mr Coveney admitted he would be regarded widely to be "close" to Mr Hayes, but said he was "surprised" by the article which, he said, he "had nothing to do with".
Long battle: Paddy McKillen says his war with Nama has cost him several million Photo: PA

The last time I saw property investor Paddy McKillen, I expected him to be on top of the world.

In London in the lead-up to the Brexit vote, I bumped into him in the Connaught, one of three London hotels that he wrested control of back from his "enemies", the billionaire twins David and Frederick Barclay.

Five years ago the near reclusive businessman went to battle with Nama and won a Supreme Court case to prevent some 2.1bn of loans being transferred to the toxic loans agency. But that battle was only the beginning of a long war over the proposed sale of his loans and the acquisition by the Barclays of debt linked to the properties from Nama and other investors.

Last year, after 11 court actions in the UK (all of which McKillen lost) the Barclays caved in when Qatari investors allied to McKillen bought out his rivals. McKillen had won.

When we met last spring, I expected the Belfast-born investor, back in black after paying off 800m in debts owed to the former Anglo Irish Bank with the fresh support of a US hedge fund - and currently managing a 400m refit of Claridge's, The Berkeley and The Connaught - to be elated. Instead I found him to be pensive and almost post- traumatic after his battles with Nama and the Barclays. He felt betrayed that Nama, in his view, had attempted to sell him out to the Barclays. He also harboured fears, now fully realised, that confidential information about his loans had been leaked to outside parties by Nama. He was right.

Last May, Enda Farrell, a former Nama official, was given a suspended sentence for disclosing confidential information. The leak included information connected to McKillen and the O'Flynn group. Farrell, who pleaded guilty, told gardai of an email sent by a colleague to a representative of the Barclays regarding the sale of the Coroin loan.

Coroin was the holding company for the Maybourne Hotel Group, which owns the luxury Claridge's, Berkeley and Connaught hotels. "Prefer if all is kept below the radar until we have completed our business together," former Nama executive John Mulcahy wrote in the email which emerged in court proceedings.

Within days of Farrell's conviction, McKillen launched High Court proceedings for misfeasance in public office against the Minister for Finance, the former secretary general of the Department of Finance John Moran, Nama and its officials Paul Hennigan and Enda Farrell. He also launched separate proceedings over the leaks.

I reached out to McKillen again last weekend following a series of controversies that have engulfed Nama, including last week's damning report into Project Eagle - the sale of its Northern loan book - by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

In truth, Nama has been fighting fires for some time. It has been under pressure since it was revealed that Frank Cushnahan, a former member of its Northern Ireland Advisory Committee had sought a 5m 'success fee' from Pimco, a major US bidder for the Project Eagle portfolio. Nama didn't suspend the sale when Pimco informed the agency of Cushnahan's share of an overall 15m fee that was to be paid had it won the bid.

The portfolio was ultimately sold to Cerberus, another major US fund.

But there are now two criminal investigations under way after it emerged that Ian Coulter, managing partner of Tughans, a firm of Belfast solicitors which had worked for Cerberus, transferred 6m in fees from the deal to an Isle of Man bank account, without his firm's knowledge.

Cushnahan was recorded by the BBC's 'Spotlight' programme claiming that the 6m was meant for him.

'Spotlight' broke extraordinary ground last week again when it aired a recording of Cushnahan allegedly receiving 40,000 from a Nama borrower.

Watching events unfold, McKillen - who says he felt treated "like a criminal" by Nama - says Finance Minister Michael Noonan should disband Nama or remove its entire leadership.

"I think it's bizarre Noonan hasn't dealt with Nama," says McKillen, who has spent 50m to date in legal fees, despite never missing an interest payment.

"It seems he's either afraid or he believes they're untouchable. He should disband it or remove the top, because they've obviously failed in what they were set out to do.

McKillen says he has endured a seven-year "grief" where his business was at a standstill and predicts his war with Nama has cost him several million in costs and lost opportunities.

"It nearly destroyed my life," says McKillen, who hopes his legal action - the first of many launched by borrowers who believe their loan details were leaked - will set a precedent.

"Even in wartime... governments and civil servants should not and cannot do this amount of damage to the interest of tax-paying citizens," he says.

"They had too much power and they've used it in a terrible fashion, which isn't good for the taxpayer."

Whatever the furore over the establishment of a statutory inquiry, what is most troubling is what appears to be the near systemic leaking of information from Nama.

The prospect of third parties securing an advantage to the detriment of the taxpayer is unthinkable.
Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar has warned so-called Fine Gael rebels of engaging in any further displays of disunity over Enda Kennys leadership.

Last week, several Fine Gael backbenchers said they believe the leadership issue needs to be addressed.

There is discussion within the party of a potential motion of no confidence in Mr Kennys leadership before Christmas.

But speaking on RTEs The Week in Politics, Mr Varadkar urged colleagues to get behind the Taoiseach.

Obviously I want to be part of Fine Gaels future. But in the meantime, I think its really important that we support Enda Kenny as Taoiseach. He has to concentrate on government. He has to concentrate on his job as Taoiseach and he cant be distracted by internal party matters. Secondly, there shouldnt be any further public displays of disunity, Mr Varadkar told told broadcaster Aine Lawlor.

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Nobody wants to support a party that is more interested in talking about its own issues than the hopes and fears and problems that people face, he added.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said she is amused by media reports that suggest senior party figures in Belfast dread the prospect of her becoming leader.

We are a single party. We know each other. We have all worked together for a very long period of time. We are not adversaries. We are not opponents. We are all on the same page . We are committed to the same politics, she told the same programme.

The Dublin Central TD said there is an acceptance within the party that nobody goes on forever, referring to Gerry Adamss announcement that he has a plan to step down.

When the time is right the change in leadership will be made, Ms McDonald added.
A SEARCH operation is underway following reports a car has entered the water in Cork city.

A call was made to the emergency services earlier this evening reporting a vehicle entering the river Lee at Kennedy Quay at about 4.30pm.

A garda spokesperson confirmed to Independent.ie that Navy divers are at the scene and a search is underway.

More to follow.
A leading Dublin water charge protester has appeared before the Special Criminal Court charged with membership of the IRA.

Donal O Ceallaigh (32) who appeared in court on Friday with two other men also charged with IRA membership has been at the forefront of water protests in Dublin.

He was fined 250 for throwing an egg at then Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore's car in Dublin in October 2012. Mr Gilmore was attending a children's rights referendum event in Ballyfermot, when O Ceallaigh was arrested after the Tanaiste's car was pelted.

O Ceallaigh, who was charged under his original name Daniel Kelly, was also told "to stay away from public events where Government ministers are in attendance".

O Ceallaigh, of Emmet Road, Inchicore, was also arrested during protests against the installation of water meters in Foxrock last year and was given 60 hours community service

He was arrested in south Dublin on Thursday. It was reported at the time that gardai from the Special Detective Unit also seized a "grey powder substance and a number of mobile phones".

On Friday, Jonathan Hawthorn (44) of Ballintyre Downs in Ballinteer; James Geraghty (60) of Dolphin House in Dolphin's Barn; and O Ceallaigh with an address on Beach Road, Sandymount were brought before the Special Court on IRA membership charges.

The three were remanded in custody pending a bail application on Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of water protesters again brought Dublin city centre to a standstill yesterday afternoon. The marchers formed up at Connolly and Heuston train stations marching to meet on the Quays before heading to a rally at Merrion Square behind the Dail and Government buildings.

The march took nearly an hour to make its way through the city centre to the mid- afternoon rally and passed off peacefully.
Runway success: Irish designer Paul Costelloe celebrates after his SS17 show at the current London Fashion Week. The Dubliners show was dedicated to the rejuvenation of Irish linen, and his new eco-minded range uses a natural, organic flax from Flanders that is then woven in Ireland. Photo:  Debbie Bragg / Paul Costelloe

"One of the advantages of being a tall man is that you can slip your arm around a lady's shoulder and start a conversation with her."

That's exactly what Irish designer Paul Costelloe did with British PM Theresa May when he attended a party at 10 Downing Street on the eve of this London Fashion Week (LFW), which kicked off on Friday.

"You have to jump on these fashion opportunities," explained Paul as he revealed how he sent three drawings of suggested tailoring looks to May the day she was elected PM.

"I just walked up and introduced myself as she was talking to Nicholas Coleridge of Vogue. She said she hadn't seen my drawings yet and I said I would love to dress her and reminded her how I had dressed Cherie Blair."

Chatting at Brewer Street car park, the HQ for LFW, the straight-talking designer was in ebullient form after his SS17 collection, dedicated to the rejuvenation of Irish linen, was showcased.

Paul had two teatime catwalk shows on day one of LFW, with the second one attended by over 400 people.

Expand Close Sheer delight: A model wears a PVC top with wide-legged linen trousers from the latest Paul Costelloe collection. Photo: Debbie Bragg / Paul Costelloe / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sheer delight: A model wears a PVC top with wide-legged linen trousers from the latest Paul Costelloe collection. Photo: Debbie Bragg / Paul Costelloe

Building on that interest in his brand, Paul was at the Soho car park yesterday afternoon to wholesale the collection. This is a new business approach by the Irishman, who sees a place for his fashion brand on the world stage - and he is going after it with gusto.

His SS17 collection featured lots of catwalk eye candy moments, such as a model wearing an off-the-shoulder, frosted PVC top with wide-legged linen trousers with side pockets.

The sheer top has the effect of opaque glass and Paul's use of gathered PVC in puffed sleeves on a navy silk jacquard dress also triggered intrigue with the foreign buyers. "This is a long-awaited rejuvenation of the days when linen reigned supreme," said Dubliner Paul, who worked with John English in Belfast and Emblem Weavers in Wexford on the linens, which he fashioned into longline coats and asymmetric jackets worn with romper shorts.

"I'm a father of seven, I've seen plenty of romper suits," laughed Paul. This eco-minded range, using an organic, natural flax from Flanders that is then woven in Ireland, is sparking interest with visiting buyers.

Watching the Irishman chat with these buyers from the US, Asia and the Middle East, there is no doubt about the twin attractions of modern tailoring and heritage fabrics.
Blackrock House is a landmark 18th century building in Corks Blackrock village, recently beautifully restored to 27 luxury apartments and penthouses which have just come to the market.

Formerly the site of the Ursuline Convent, it is set in a private gated development accessed by a tree-lined avenue. The project includes one-, two- and three-bed apartments. Many of the original Georgian features have been retained in the apartments, which were designed by OMahony Pike Architects, and range in size from approximately 54sqm to 236sqm. There are eight one-bed units, 16 two-beds and three three-bed penthouses. Each apartment has a unique layout and includes high ceilings, sliding sash windows, intricate cornicing and architraves and timber floors. Helen Roden of Merrion Square Interiors, who were involved in the project, says, Everyones getting quite a unique space. Its not a sort of cookie-cutter block. Prices range from 220,000 to 455,000. There is lift access and the common areas retain original stained-glass windows. Interest has been strong, especially from those trading down within the area, says Lisneys residential manager, Trish Stokes. Blackrock village is one of Corks most established suburbs, only 3km from the city centre and beside the marina, offering the potential for riverside walks. It is home to some of Corks finest period, detached properties, exactly the kind of high-maintenance home that can become difficult for the older adult, particularly as mobility decreases. Very little new development has happened here given the constraints on land banks available, says Trish. So Blackrock House certainly offers an opportunity for those looking to trade down within the area.

Viewing: 21 September, 5-7pm

Agent: Lisney (021) 427 5079
A friend of mine said the words 'Toasty Beige' the other day and we all instantly knew what she was talking about.

It was as though she had uttered a code word that unlocked a door to our teenage memories, or the title of a book that we had all read cover-to-cover during our school days.

All of a sudden we were transported back to a time of flesh-eating insecurity and ritualistic self-flagellation. Toasty beige. Who knew two seemingly inconsequential words could mean so much?

For those who are drawing a blank here, Toasty Beige is a shade of sponge-on cream foundation by Elizabeth Arden that was recommended in hushed, reverential tones way back when.

It has a deliciously unctuous consistency, with a colour similar to tan boot polish and coverage comparable to a Kabuki mask.

In other words, it's a foundation for women who want to hide in plain view, so it's hardly surprising that it was considered a cult product among teenagers of my time.

You were bringing out the big guns when you reached into your make-up bag and pulled out this sleek black compact. It was a stamp of sophistication, a sign that you didn't paint your face ochre with just any old product.

This, it should be noted, was pre-Kylie Jenner and pre-BB cream. Back then, beauty salons offered 10 minutes on a sunbed as a treatment option, while a HD brow meant getting depilated by an inexperienced beautician - and berated by your parents when you came home with two pencil lines where your eyebrows used to be.

We assembled our make-up collections by rifling through our mother's make-up bags and surreptitiously flinging lavender eyeshadow into the trolley during the weekly grocery shop. We used Immac hair removal cream because we were told that shaving made hair grow back darker and thicker. We got our belly buttons pierced on the quiet.

Just Seventeen was our bible; the local pharmacy was our Benefit counter and the Body Shop's White Musk, Charlie Red and Exclamation ('Make a statement without saying a word!') were the only scents worth wearing.

As for fashion, we wore Levi's 501s and string vests with tie-dye hearts emblazoned on the front of them. I can't remember high street shops selling anything else.

Teenagers today come across as cultivated by comparison. While we begged our aunties to bring us home Maybelline mascara when they visited the US, this gang knows that Korean beauty products are the best bar none.

As digital natives, they watch beauty tutorials on YouTube and buy their lotions and potions online. It's as though they skipped the trial-and-error phase that we all went through and arrived directly at 'on fleek'.

They'll never know the Toasty Beige years because they can turn to thousands of beauty vloggers for advice.

Speaking of which, I wonder what vlogging star Zoella would have made of Toasty Beige if she was around back then.

"Hi guys! First I'm going to take the Elizabeth Arden foundation in Toasty Beige and I'm going to smear it all over my face like a bricklayer preparing a mortar bed. I'm loving this product right now because it's at least three shades too dark for me and Halloween is just around the corner. Yay!"

At first glance, Zoella and her contemporaries seem so much more sophisticated than my generation. They know how to highlight and contour. They know that you have to exfoliate and moisturise before applying fake tan. They know to avoid products containing sulphates and parabens.

Yet when you peel away the veneer of perfectly-applied foundation, are they any more confident than we were?

Granted, they may never have a Sun-In catastrophe or a tweezing disaster, but proficiency with beauty products does not a woman make.

While we wore layer upon layer of Toasty Beige or Max Factor Pan Stik, this generation apply filter after filter to their photos. The chronic self-loathing is still there - only now it's in Photoshop.

Today's teenage girls could probably teach us all a thing or two about make-up application, but while they may have nailed the perfect eyeliner flick (scotch tape is the secret, according to more than one teen vlogger), many of them still look in the mirror in the morning and dislike what they see.

The beauty industry evolves with every generation. Every month we hear about cutting-edge formulations and products designed to heal and conceal flaws that we didn't even realise we had.

Yet even an arsenal of heavy-duty products can't hide the glaring truth. Underneath all the layers and the filters is the teenage girl who desperately wants to look like someone else.
We can now be kind to our skin and the environment by using safe scrub alternatives

A one-time beauty buzzword, recent legislation passed in the US, Canada and Holland has banned the use of microbeads from cosmetic and beauty products, with the Environmental Audit Committee in the UK calling for a ban there within 18 months.

But what exactly are these microbeads and how are they so damaging to our environment that the American Environmental Protection Agency has officially labelled them a toxic substance?

Microbeads are tiny particles used in numerous cosmetics and personal care products, in particular scrubs and exfoliators, that are non-biodegradable and too microscopic to be filtered out by our sewage system.

These plastic microbeads are streaming into our seas, rivers and lakes adding to the five trillion pieces of plastic already floating in our waters. The microbeads are then ingested by the fish and work their way up the food chain into humans. Studies have shown microbeads to have a damaging effect on sea life and birds' health (particularly damaging for reproductive systems of sea creatures), but the exact effect on human health is as yet unknown.

When a tube of cleanser can contain approximately 300,000 microbeads, and taking a single shower using a product containing plastic beads can result in 100,000 of the particles being flushed straight into our seas, it's not difficult to see the ugly effect of these beauty products. Actress Jennifer Aniston recently came under fire from Nature, the world's leading science journal, for her role in promoting an Aveeno skin product containing microbeads.

The good news is we can be kind to both our skin and our environment by choosing safe scrub alternatives using nutshells, sugar and salt scrubs, oatmeal and fruit acids.

IN FOCUS: MICROBEADS

* Plastic microbeads are present in numerous beauty products including toothpaste, moisturiser, lip balms, make-up, shaving foam, shampoo, shower gels, cleansers and especially exfoliators and scrubs.

* Look out for the following titles on a product's ingredient list: polyethylene, polypropylene, PET, PTFE, PMMA - these are all plastic microbead descriptions.

* The EU is currently developing proposals to ban plastic microbeads in cosmetics use here, due to increasing pressure from member states.

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* For skin exfoliation alternatives, look for the following: glycolic, salicylic, lactic and fruit acids as a kinder but effective option for skin polishing. Groundnut shells and sugar and salt scrubs are wonderful options, too.

6 of the best - microbead-free exfoliators

Best for Body Exfoliation

Expand Close Dead Sea Magik Salt Brushing / Facebook

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Containing dead sea salts, coconut and Vitamin E oils, this is such a gorgeous product. I use it on my face occasionally, too.

Dead Sea Magik Salt Brushing, 14.50. Pharmacies and health food stores nationwide, or buy it here now.

Fruit Enzymes Exfoliation

Expand Close Kiehls Pineapple Papaya Facial Scrub / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kiehls Pineapple Papaya Facial Scrub

Plastic, synthetic microbeads do so much damage needlessly when there are natural options like Kiehl's Pineapple Papaya Facial Scrub, 28.50 available from Arnotts. Fruit enzymes work together in this product to eat away at dead, flaking skin.

Department stores nationwide and Kiehl's stores.

For Sensitive Skin

Expand Close Dermalogica Skin Prep Scrub / Facebook

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Using finely milled corncob meal as an exfoliant and with no artificial colours or fragrances, this is ideal for women with sensitive, red-prone skin. Wait a full skin cycle (4-6 weeks) before seeing a real difference.

Dermalogica Skin Prep Scrub, 36, dermalogica.ie or selected salons nationwide

Hot Cloth Cleanser/Exfoliator

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Whatsapp Liz Earle's Hot Cloth Cleanser

Natural beauty guru Liz Earle has multiple exfoliating skin options that are entirely microbead-free. A best seller in her Cleanse and Polish line is her Hot Cloth Cleanser, 20.75, that uses a mix of natural oils and fruit acids.

Department stores nationwide and lizearle.ie

Budget Beauty

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I only use exfoliators once or twice a fortnight, but when I do use them, I want my skin to feel clean. With this product, my skin feels sparkling and smooth after use. A great budget buy using walnut shell, crushed apricot seeds and natural AHAs.

Botanics All Bright Scrub, 2.99, available at Boots shops nationwide.

2-in-1 Cleanser and Exfoliator

Expand Close REN's Micro Polish / Facebook

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If you suffer from an uneven skin tone, skin discolouration or pigmentation, you need to be consistent with your skin polishing. Using a daily all-in-one cleanser and exfoliator is the best way of doing this. Try REN's Micro Polish, 24, a 2-in-1 cleansing mousse that cleans and exfoliates very gently for a sparkling, more even skin tone. Pharmacies nationwide or at Arnotts here.
Those who know me may be surprised to hear this, but my first thought on entering the Ballymore Inn, and being directed to a table tucked away to the left of the front door, is one of concern. It is the Sunday of the All-Ireland hurling final (how am I even aware of this?), two o'clock in the afternoon, and kick-off (throw in?) is surely imminent. And yet, sitting next to us, calm as you like, studying the menu, is a tanned Marty Morrissey. He hasn't even ordered yet! Surely he should be somewhere else?

A text is deployed from across the table. "Did you see who's sitting next to us?" I confirm that I have.

Once we have made our food decisions, I share my anxiety. "Is there not," I say, feigning nonchalance, "a match on?"

You know where this is going. It isn't Marty, nor his doppelganger, Ken Dodd, he of the famous tickling stick. In fact it is developer, Sean Mulryan, a native of these parts - his company is called Ballymore, after all - who has every right to be enjoying his Sunday lunch in peace without having to be stressing about getting to Croke Park on time.

Anyway, Sean Mulryan appears to be just one of many locals for whom The Ballymore Inn on a Sunday lunchtime is a second home and, after my first visit, it's easy to see why.

First things first, the staff are smiley and helpful, and nothing seems to be too much trouble. The room is buzzing, and there's a happy mix of multi-generational groups, young families and well-dressed pensioners. It's clear that this is where well-got Kildare comes to hang out of a weekend.

Bread comes with a ramekin of salty toasted fennel and herb dip that's so green and flavoursome that we're asking for a second within five minutes.

My daughter, Ellie, has a problem with calamari - the problem being that if it's on the menu, she's incapable of ordering anything else. At Ballymore, the crisp squid with tomato and chilli oil comes in a light, tempura-style batter, with a punchy sauce - it is impeccably executed and reminds us of the version that Johnny Cooke used to serve in Cooke's Cafe all those years ago. A sharing plate of charcuterie features good salami and chorizo, serrano ham, Gubbeen cheese, crunchy cornichons, and thin slivers of a homemade duck and pistachio terrine scented with orange that is more decorous and less gutsy than we would have liked.

Char-grilled West Cork dry-aged roast beef sits atop a mound of finely-grated stir-fried cabbage that's vibrant and full of crunch, and there's a good kick from fresh horseradish and an intense mushroom jus. The meat is cooked rather more than the medium-rare requested, and is less flavoursome than its effusive billing led us to expect. Homemade pizzas, on the other hand, are terrific - thin and rectangular, with fine, generous toppings. One features Clonakilty black pudding, crisp bacon, mushrooms and garlic, another is coming down with copious quantities of Ballyhoura wild mushrooms, Parmesan, smoked mozzarella and baby spinach. The pizzas aren't a cheap sop for children - they are more sophisticated than that - and neither are they priced as such. Nor should they be - quality ingredients such as those that Georgina O'Sullivan uses at Ballymore don't come cheap. We end up bringing half of each one home and there's enough for lunch the next day.

We share a single portion of a luscious and old-fashioned plum and apple crumble that may possibly be the best, butteriest crumble that I've ever eaten. The fruit is not over-sweet and it's served with just the right amount of cream and vanilla ice-cream that we guess to be homemade.

The Sunday lunch offer is priced at 24.95 for two courses and 29.95 for three. We order partly from this and partly from the a la carte menu and, with a couple of glasses of chianti and soft drinks, the bill for three comes to 106.20 before service.

Boring but possibly helpful travel advisory: if you are heading for Ballymoreustace from Dublin, beware of the route that Google maps might send you. We were directed through a housing estate in Drimnagh rather than along the canal, and then cross-country on one winding road after another over from the N7. We would have had a more straightforward journey via Tallaght and Blessington on the N81.

ON A BUDGET

The two-course Sunday lunch is 24.50, but you could just have a margherita pizza for 11.95  one would be ample for two children.

ON A BLOW OUT

If you went for the a la carte dinner, and had prawn tempura with mango salsa and spicy tomato aioli,

char-grilled West Cork sirloin with green peppercorn sauce and dessert, youd be looking at a bill of around 50 per head before wine or service.

THE HIGH POINT

Simple, unpretentious food with integrity that confirms the reputation of The Ballymore Inn as a Kildare gem.

THE LOW POINT

Bad bloody directions.

The rating

8/10 food

8/10 ambience

8/10 value for money

24/30

Whispers from the gastronomicon

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The first half of the year saw such a flurry of new restaurants, most of them in the vicinity of Camden Street in Dublin city centre, that it was hard to keep up. There was a lull over the summer, but now theres a whole slew of autumn openings. The popular La Plancha has moved from Blackrock to a new home on Monkstown Crescent, Paul Behans Brickyard gastro-pub is soon to open its doors beside the Balally Luas stop in Dundrum, and chef Benjamin Patterson (above) promises great things at Benjamins at the Meeting of the Waters in Avoca.
WASHINGTON: Then President-elect Barack Obama pays for his lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl in 2009. Photo by Joshua Roberts-Pool/Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC: President Barack Obama during a phone call in the Oval Office in 2013, in Washington D.C. Photo by Pete Souza/White House via Getty Images

From the US Capitol to President Obama's favourite chilli joint, Jane O'Faherty takes a political tour of DC.

Clambering up the steps to Washington's Lincoln Memorial, it's hard not to feel like I'm part of something big. Gazing over the DC skyline and the bustling crowds below, it seems like I could be in the opening sequence of a great political intrigue...

Maybe I am. With the US facing into one of its most intense Presidential elections in memory, there has never been a better time to travel to Washington, DC.

From real-life corridors of power to gripping dramas like House of Cards and The West Wing, the nation's capital is the epicentre of all things political - a dream visit for a reporter and political junkie like me.

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If this city is a living, breathing political animal, then the 3km-long National Mall is its beating heart. While the better-informed tourist will know what to see here, a cycle through the park with Bike and Roll tours (bikeandroll.com) is a useful way to get your bearings. Speeding through the wide avenue of grassy lawns, fountains and sculptures, I pause for a while by the Vietnam War Memorial (above) - one of the most poignant reminders of a conflict that remains controversial to this day.

The White House (whitehouse.gov), the one building on everybody's list, can only be visited by submitting a tour request though one's Member of Congress. As my invite from Barack Obama (below) had obviously been lost in transit, I choose to go instead to Capitol Hill (visitthecapitol.gov) - the home of America's Congress.

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A working organ of the United States government and public museum, the US Capitol Building offers regular guided tours throughout the day, but I'm happy enough to walk through the building to the Library of Congress, a glittering book lover's haven, containing everything from literary classics to iconic contemporary music.

As a reporter, I'm equally fascinated by politics and the Fourth Estate, so make a beeline for the treasure trove of journalistic triumphs in the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue (newseum.org, pictured below).

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Don't worry, for those who shudder at the idea of another trip to a dusty museum, the Newseum is anything but. With centuries of reporting and investigations documented over its five floors, you could easily spend the day here. Exhibitions are updated daily, with up-to-date front pages from almost every newspaper in the world and real-time analysis of the US Presidential campaigns.

You can declare your allegiance before November by buying 'Hil' and Bill' or 'Trump' T-shirts downstairs. There's also plenty for history buffs - from large-scale exhibits on civil rights and the War on Terror to the actual Unabomber cabin and a real piece of the Berlin Wall.

After covering that much ground in a day, a slap-up meal fit for a high-flying legislator is needed. While DC has hundreds of high-end eateries, locals advised me that the best place to spot the big movers and shakers is somewhere a lot more humble.

Ben's Chili Bowl (benschilibowl.com, below) on U Street North West looks like just another all-American diner, but it also hosts legions of political regulars. It's common knowledge locally that President Obama himself comes in for dinner.

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The hungry should try the restaurant's Chili Half Smokes, a hot dog laced in thick chilli sauce and served with fries. The guilty pleasure has impressed even former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Meanwhile, more hard-nosed hacks should check out the appropriately named Off The Record in the Hay-Adams Hotel on 16th Street (hayadams.com). I opted for a substantial meal at the Rural Society in the Loews Madison Hotel on 15th Street NW, where the lucky clientele can watch their Argentinian steaks being cooked before their eyes.

DC doesn't shut down after business hours, either. A favourite late-night venue of mine is the Round Robin Bar on Pennsylvania Avenue NW (washington.intercontinental.com), which has been a hotspot for the political elite since the days of Abraham Lincoln.

A discreet hideaway nestled inside the opulent Willard InterContinental Hotel, the quiet snug serves some of the best cocktails in town. It's also the place for spotting well-known senators or congressmen, if you'd like to lend an ear to juicy stories from earlier meetings (the legendary bar is reportedly where the term 'lobbying' was first coined).

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However, downtime in DC isn't all about lounging around a glamorous bar in your finest suit. Washington DC has been named America's fittest city by the American Fitness Index (americanfitnessindex.org), so remember to pack your running gear.

In fact, over 93pc of the city's residents live less than a 10-minute walk from a public park, meaning there are plenty of opportunities to take time out from hectic city (and political) life. Plus, you never know who you might spot on your morning jog as DC wakes up.

For anyone with even a passing interest in US affairs, the power and political influence in DC is palpable everywhere - from the National Mall to the museums, from the parks and architecture to the knowing name-checks in restaurants and hotels.

As House of Cards' Frank Underwood said: "Power is a lot like real estate. It's all about location, location, location."

Get there

Jane travelled with United Airlines (united.com, above; from 583 return), which flies daily from Dublin to Washington Dulles. Cheaper fares of 481 are available between November 1 and Dec. 17, or Dec. 25 and March 30. BusinessFirst includes champagne, a three-course meal and Cowshed cosmetics from 2,157. See more at united.com.

Where to stay

Jane stayed at Loews Madison Hotel (loewshotels.com/madison, below), just a short walk from The White House at the centre of DC. The four-star boasts chic suites and The Rural Society, one of the citys finest Argentinian steakhouses. Prices from $199/178 for winter and summer stays, and $399/357 for spring and autumn.

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What to pack

Despite its compact size, visitors will end up walking deceptively long distances in DC. Throw in a pair of your favourite low-heel shoes to save sore feet. Temperatures can soar to 35C in summer, so sunscreen, sunglasses and sun hats are also essential. Pack some glamorous evening wear, too.

Three Must-do's

Eat at Toro Toro's

Want a break from hamburgers? Toro Toro offers unpretentious but delicious Latin American meals think a generous lunch buffet of cheeses, charcuterie and fresh bread, or a Churrasco Skewer (a towering brochette of chargrilled meats that will easily feed two) for dinner. richardsandoval.com/torotorodc

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Rock, Power & Poitics

Rock n Roll has always played a central role in political and social movements  from the Vietnam War to John & Yokos bed-in and artists like Bruce Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine. Louder than Words: Rock, Power & Politics opens at the Newseum on January 13. newseum.org

Go to a baseball game

Check out Nationals Park, the citys baseball stadium, for a real taste of US life  and a crowd of fans that would rival the Irish at the Euros. Between cheerleaders, chilli dogs and catchy sing-alongs, even sports amateurs will be sucked into this all- American night out. washington.nationals.mlb.com

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Brendan OConnor Opinion The jig is up as Feis fixing has former winners like me reeling

As the holder of the Marie Cranny Perpetual cup for Extempore and Public Speaking (Under 15s) in Feis Maitiu in, of all years, 1984, I would like to use this platform to say this feis-fixing scandal has sullied my legacy, and that of all other holders of the cup down the years (you had to give it back at the end of the year).
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Colm McCarthy Opinion Free money is not the way to head off a crisis

Managing the macro economy involves three perspectives. These are the short-term  the next six months or a year; the medium-term  the next four or five years; and the long-term  the issues that demand to be addressed decades in advance. From the perspective of Irish governments in recent times, only the short-term merits attention, with the medium-term left to the civil service and the long-term to sporadic commissions and academic worrywarts.
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Dan O'Brien Opinion While we catastrophise about Covid, we ignore risk of running out of cash

We Irish view the world in an increasingly strange and unhealthy way. We catastrophise about Covid in a way other European countries do not. We focus on how bad the effects of the virus could get, on how many more restrictions might be imposed by Government and how helpless we are in the face of the virus.
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Radio review: The thing about the Wolfe Tones is not that their music is Irish, but that its bad

We have established that nationalism in general is eejitry taken to such extremes it becomes a form of evil. And in the case of our version of nationalism, perhaps the ultimate eejitry is that many of us would broadly agree in theory with a United Ireland if it wasnt for the nationalists themselves  they have contrived somehow to be the main obstacle to their own ambitions.
We often complain that party political events are now so choreographed that they have become boring. Think of your average party conference. There are no fights, no real debates. We don't get the party, we get the mask the party wants us to see.

We could not complain that last week's Fine Gael think-in was pure political choreography. The mask slipped.

Two Fine Gael TDs, Brendan Griffin and Jim Daly, publicly called for Enda Kenny to announce his retirement date. It was reported that Cabinet ministers were privately talking about the 'Kenny problem'. Apparently even his supporters acknowledge that it is too big an issue not to deal with. The time limit appears to be Christmas. Whether that's the time he stands down or announces his plan to stand down is unclear, but there's clearly unease in Fine Gael, and it was on full view last week.

What is 'the Kenny problem'? I don't know the contents of the Fine Gael review of its election campaign, but if it doesn't discuss the Taoiseach's performance in the campaign it won't be of much use. Kenny, we know, is not good on media, but at least he was always ebullient. He normally can't pass a four-year-old without offering a high five.

But in this year's election campaign Kenny was lacklustre. And he wasn't just lacklustre, he was lacklustre and everywhere. In 2011, the Fine Gael strategists carefully managed Kenny's media appearances. Many of the big guns, such as Noonan, Varadkar and Reilly did press conferences in Dublin to discuss policy. Kenny was travelling the constituencies, busy shaking hands. He was seen, but not heard.

In 2016, Kenny took a much more front-and-centre role in the campaign. It didn't work. It was especially damaging because Micheal Martin had a good election. He looked much more convincing in the role of Taoiseach, and this was reflected in the polls. The RTE exit poll showed that voters thought Martin performed better and for some of them it shifted their vote to Fianna Fail.

So 'the Kenny problem' is that Fine Gael can't afford to face another election with Kenny as leader. The mini-crisis on the Apple appeal and John Halligan's ongoing rumblings serve to show how shaky the Government is. Michael Noonan is in poor health and a series of poor performances demonstrate that he can no longer steady the ship when Kenny doesn't perform. Fine Gael TDs are nervous that an election could be sprung on them. But the Fine Gael constitution is designed so that the leadership contest should take about three weeks. They could cut it to about a week if they had to, but if it's the start of an election campaign they don't have a week. They'd have to just take a vote of the parliamentary party to choose a leader for the campaign.

The Taoiseach says it's not a problem. He has his mojo, he has a mandate, and he has a plan. It was Enda Kenny the street-fighter statesman.

He came out fighting, with the obviously self-serving line that with Brexit and the Apple appeal, now is a crucial time in the nation's politics. It isn't a time to change leader, he suggested. It was also put about that he would be hard to replace. His 'sources' say he is widely respected in Europe and to lose him would be to harm Irish interests. It might be true that he's respected, but that hardly precludes a new Taoiseach from gaining respect.

He pointed out that he has a mandate from the Dail, though he must admit it's not a very strong one. The problem is that it could be removed once Fianna Fail or a few Independents tell him his time is up.

He may have a plan for his stepping down, but if his colleagues don't know what it is, rumblings will continue. And when it's mooted that he sees himself in office for another two years, this will panic his TDs.

Does this mean, as everyone seems to think, that Kenny's end is imminent? I don't think so.

Kenny has the advantage of being in office, and unless he wants to go it will be dangerous and messy for anyone to force him out.

The key issue is that Kenny does have a mandate. If Simon Coveney or Leo Varadkar were to replace Kenny, what would happen? There is an assumption that the new Fine Gael leader would be elected Taoiseach.

But why would Micheal Martin want to give his constituency colleague Simon Coveney or anyone else the mantle of Taoiseach - something that brings great prestige and respect. Martin's and Fianna Fail's big advantage is that he has experience - he looks like a Taoiseach. It's a useful electoral weapon to have. Coveney or Varadkar don't have it, but they would if either actually were elected Taoiseach.

Martin could reasonably point out that Fianna Fail abstained on the vote of Taoiseach to facilitate a government being formed, not to facilitate internal Fine Gael wrangling. While its agreement with Fine Gael allows for the reshuffling of ministers, it doesn't mention a change of Taoiseach.

Fianna Fail is under no obligation to allow Coveney or Varadkar's election, and it would not want to oblige either of them.

So a change of leader then could mean an election. Kenny knows this, and will use it to protect his position. But it doesn't rid Fine Gael of 'the Kenny problem'.

The way out is for Kenny to approach the main leadership contenders in Fine Gael. He should offer to step down as leader of Fine Gael immediately, but point out that no one else will be elected Taoiseach without a general election. He can inform them he will remain as Taoiseach for as long as the government can run.

The new leader can then be elected in relative safety, maybe after the budget and before Christmas. This will settle nerves in the party. Kenny, with the new party leader could then think about reshuffling the Cabinet. Michael Noonan has done great service but it is time for him to retire. A reshuffle appointing a new finance minister with Kenny as leader might be seen as picking favourites. A new Fine Gael leader and Kenny as Taoiseach can choose who to put there without it upsetting power within the party.

It might suit Fine Gael to have a strong voice in government, but one that can vary the line from the Government's. He or she could be more direct in criticism of the Opposition or Government colleagues than Kenny can afford to be.

For Kenny it makes him the master of his own destiny. He will be free to concentrate on keeping the Government going for as long as he can. He's shown himself to be a good mediator and might manage better if he doesn't have the pressure of being simultaneously the referee and person responsible for fighting Fine Gael's corner.

When Kenny says he has a "clear plan and process" for his exit, I suspect this is what he has in mind. But he'll have to move soon, or as last week has shown, others might make his decision for him.

Eoin O'Malley is a senior lecturer in political science in the School of Law and Government at DCU
As the Fine Gael parliamentary party has just discovered, the removal of Enda Kenny as leader will be every bit as difficult to achieve as was his recent election as Taoiseach - more so, in fact.

The likelihood now is that Mr Kenny will continue as both Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach for a full year since since he was re-elected in May.

Whether his minority government achieves anything notable in that year, however, remains a moot point: the indications are that it will not.

The other outcome to the Fine Gael 'think-in' last week is that the date of the next general election will be probably around October 2017.

Enda Kenny went to that 'think-in' in the full knowledge that his leadership of Fine Gael would be the only issue on the agenda.

If he was in any doubt, all he had to do was read an article under the name of the former Fine Gael TD, Tom Hayes, in the Irish Independent on Monday.

If ever there was a 'stalking horse' article this was it:

"The position of the leadership of the party will no doubt be up for discussion. Mr Kenny has already signalled that he will not lead the party into the next general election.

"It is my firm view that Fine Gael must now take steps to ensure that it does not allow Fianna Fail the opportunity to pull the plug on the Government with an imminent general election with no new Fine Gael leader in place.

"It is glaringly clear to me and to most observers that this Government does not have a very secure future and its lifetime will be of relatively limited duration. The best time for the party to elect a new leader is during a Dail recess. Ideally, Mr Kenny should be allowed to pick a time of his choosing to hand over the leadership, but that may not be possible due to the current government make-up.

"Accordingly, it is my personal view that the party should now proceed and elect a leader designate who will be ready to step into his shoes, the moment he steps down, or a general election is called, whichever comes first."

You can take it those are not just the personal views of Mr Hayes, or a few discontented Fine Gael TDs, but of one, if not both of the rivals for the Fine Gael leadership, and the entire parliamentary party.

There are only two real leadership contenders: Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar, neither of whom is prepared to show his hand at the moment.

Were the leader-designate idea as expressed in the article under the name of Mr Hayes, to happen (and it might), it would cause its own difficulties.

Ultimately, it would fully drain authority of Enda Kenny as Taoiseach while he remained in office, as much as it would if he were to announce his departure date now.

Enda Kenny knows this: so, all he had to do last week was stare down his rivals, which he did. Now the pathway is relatively clear for him to remain in office until next summer; but it will be a turbulent year in which there will be only one clear winner - Micheal Martin.

The Fianna Fail leader, more so than Enda Kenny himself, had most to be pleased about at the end of last week.

In Fine Gael, the hand-wringing will go on, up to and after the Budget next month; up to, during and after Christmas; up to and after February next, a year on from the election; and up to May, a year on from Mr Kenny's re-election as Taoiseach, and probably up to, during and after next summer and the Budget the following October, when an election can be expected.

If nothing else, the year to come will be a spectacle for political anoraks, but whether anything much good comes out of the 'will he/won't he' pantomime that lies in wait is debatable.

All of this can be avoided if either Simon Coveney or Leo Varadkar shows his hand. As of now, neither will, not because they fear that Enda Kenny will defeat them in a leadership contest, because he would not. He is as lame a duck as they come.

The issue for both, and others who may be minded to throw their hat in the ring, is whether they will actually win; that is, defeat the other candidate or candidates in the contest. Neither can be sure of that at the moment, although Varadkar remains the favourite, according to opinon polls.

Until one or other, or both by mutual agreement, or indeed some other potential candidate steps forward, Fine Gael will be stuck with Enda Kenny and the country stuck with him as Taoiseach and the borderline dysfunctional government he leads.

However, should either Coveney or Varadkar show his hand between now and whenever, let's say at Christmas, or in February, what will Micheal Martin do? That's the question. The consensus view is that the Fianna Fail leader will immediately pull the plug rather than allow a new Fine Gael leader to develop status in the office of Taoiseach.

And nobody, least of all Fine Gael TDs, wants an election. But I do not hold with that view at Micheal Martin will cut and run.

First of all, there is no certainty that either Varadkar (or Coveney), but particularly Varadkar would command the support of Independents to make up the 58 votes required: Leo does not give the impression that he is a fan of this minority administration.

In my view, Varadkar himself would pull the plug first, in the hope that Fine Gael would benefit from a bounce in his relative honeymoon period as leader.

It is also my view that Micheal Martin would be more inclined to continue to underwrite the current administration until such time as the gloss wears off either Varadkar or Coveney, which in the current era should not take too long; or until such time as Fianna Fail hits a consistent 30pc to 35pc in the opinion polls. Mr Martin does not want to be stuck with another borderline dysfunctional government, after all.

It will not be all plain sailing for Fianna Fail, of course: Micheal Martin will have other issues to weigh up, not least that Fianna Fail maintains a distance, or not be seen to be a constituent part of the current administration; or indeed that Fianna Fail would not be seen to be outflanked by the various Independents in negotiations with Fine Gael to pass a Budget or to implement other policies, such as those policies will be.

On the other hand, the Fianna Fail leader received further good news last week: Gerry Adams has just confirmed that he intends to lead Sinn Fein into the next election and will continue as Sinn Fein leader for at least another five, possibly 10 years.
Kit Harington attending the world premiere of the fifth series of Game Of Thrones at the Tower of London

Game Of Thrones could make television history at the Emmy Awards, where a host of British stars have been recognised with nominations.

The Sky Atlantic fantasy, which won 12 awards in 2015, needs just three more wins to become the most-awarded narrative show in Emmy history - beating Frasier's record of 37.

The series based on George RR Martin's novels has already won nine Creative Emmys this year for technical achievement and will compete with Downton Abbey for outstanding drama series.

Britons Idris Elba, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston are all nominated for best lead actor in a limited series or movie, while James Corden's Late, Late Show is up for the outstanding variety talk series prize.

Hiddleston is nominated for his role in the popular BBC series The Night Manager, while his co-stars Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman have earned nods in the supporting role categories.

The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, which aired on BBC Two in the UK, dominates nominations in the acting categories this year.

Cuba Gooding Jr, who played OJ Simpson, and Courtney B Vance, who portrayed Simpson's lawyer Johnnie Cochran, are both up for best lead actor in a limited series. Sarah Paulson is nominated for best lead actress in a limited series for her role as prosecutor Marcia Clark.

David Schwimmer, who played Simpson's lawyer and friend Robert Kardashian, John Travolta, who portrayed defence lawyer Robert Shapiro, and Sterling K Brown (prosecutor Christopher Darden) are also nominated for best supporting actor in a limited series.

A host of stars from Game Of Thrones are also up for acting awards.

Kit Harington and Peter Dinklage are nominated for best supporting actor in a drama series, while Maisie Williams, Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke are nominated for best supporting actress in a drama series.

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Welsh actor Matthew Rhys is in contention for the best drama actor award for his role as a KGB spy in The Americans. Meanwhile, Dame Maggie Smith is up for best supporting actress in a drama series for her performance in Downton Abbey.

Corden's Late Late Show will take on Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Real Time with Bill Maher, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Jerry Seinfield's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee for outstanding talk series.

Hiddleston will compete for the best lead actor in a limited series award against Elba, who is nominated for Luther, and Cumberbatch, who has been recognised for Sherlock. Bryan Cranston is also nominated for his role as former US president Lyndon B Johnson in Sky Atlantic's film All The Way.

Game Of Thrones and Downton Abbey are nominated for the outstanding drama series award along with Better Call Saul, Homeland, House Of Cards, Mr Robot and The Americans.

The Night Manager is up for best limited television series against Fargo, The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, Roots and American Crime.

Kevin Spacey is nominated for best actor in a drama series for his role as Frank Underwood in House Of Cards, while Claire Danes (Homeland), Viola Davis (How To Get Away With Murder) and Robin Wright (House Of Cards) are among the nominations for best actress in a drama series.

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (Masterpiece) and Luther are nominated for outstanding television movie.

Veep, the US version of The Thick Of It, has earned a string of nominations including best comedy series, best lead actress in a comedy series for its star Julia-Louis Dreyfuss and and outstanding direction in a comedy series for British comedian Chris Addison.

US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel will present the 68th Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles at 5pm local time (1am Monday BST).
AA Milne and Christopher Robin Milne playing with a toy teddy bear as a new Winnie-the-Pooh character, inspired by the photograph, has been unveiled (Culture Club/Egmont Publishing/PA)

A new Winnie-the-Pooh character has been unveiled - inspired by a photograph of AA Milne and his son with a toy penguin.

A new adventure, The Best Bear In All The World, is being published in October to mark the 90th anniversary of the publication of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Penguin will feature in the authorised Winnie-the-Pooh sequel, alongside the bear "of very little brain", Christopher Robin and friends, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger.

Author Brian Sibley penned Winter: In Which Penguin Arrives In The Forest, one of four seasonal stories to be featured in the yet-to-be published book.

He came up with the idea for Penguin from a photograph of Milne and his son Christopher (Robin) Milne playing on the nursery floor with the teddy bear which inspired the Winnie-the-Pooh character and a penguin toy.

"For someone who has loved Winnie-the-Pooh and co from his earliest childhood, the idea of visiting Hundred Acre Wood in search of a new story was wildly exciting," he said.

"However, having studied and written about the works of AA Milne, it was also daunting. But, for me, the challenge was more than just attempting to play AA Milne in his own literary game.

"I also wanted to find a way of successfully introducing a brand new character into Pooh's world, whilst being sympathetic to the tone and style of the original books."

Sibley added: "The thought of Pooh encountering a penguin seemed no more outlandish than his meeting a kangaroo and a tiger in a Sussex wood, so I started thinking about what might have happened if, on a rather snowy day, Penguin had found his way to Pooh Corner."

The bear which inspired Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh, as well as characters Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger, were all based on toys which Mrs Milne bought from Harrods.

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The department store's archivist Sebastian Wormell said that the penguin featured in the photograph was also likely to be from Harrods, and called Squeak.

"The toy department where Mrs Milne bought the iconic bear hosted a huge array of stuffed animals. In the early years of the 20th century, toy penguins soared in popularity as the exploits of Antarctic explorers such as Shackleton and Scott fascinated the public," he said.

"We believe that the toy pictured could be Squeak, which originated in our 1922 catalogue and came from Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, a popular cartoon-strip."

The Best Bear in All The World is the second authorised sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House At Pooh Corner (1928), following the publication of Return To The Hundred Acre Wood by David Benedictus in 2009.

Winnie-the-Pooh was an immediate success when it was first published in 1926 but the fictional bear first appeared as Christopher Robin's Teddy Bear in a 1923 poem in Punch.

It was recently named the UK's favourite children's book character and favourite children's book of the past 150 years.

Rupert Hill, trustee at Pooh Properties, said: "The character of Penguin, based on a real toy that Christopher Robin played with in the nursery, is a perfect addition, very much in keeping with the classic books and a fitting homage to AA Milne's deft characterisation.

"We hope that this new anthology, written and illustrated in the style of AA Milne's original books, will bring great joy to readers old and new."
Thanks Mum: Celebrity Mum of the Year Yvonne Connolly is pictured with her own mum Ann, who she says taught her everything. Photo: Tony Gavin

Yvonne Connolly said yesterday that she was "extremely honoured" to be the recipient of the Woman's Way 'Celebrity Mum of the Year Award' 2016.

The mother of three children - Jack, Missy and Ali by her ex-husband, Ronan Keating - thanked the readers of the magazine but also told the Sunday Independent that she wanted to "thank my kids for helping to make me the happy, confident woman I am today."

Yvonne said she hugely "appreciates their facilitating my going back to work and for insisting everything will be okay when I bite off more than I can chew."

The 42-year-old added: "we are a team - and at this stage a well-oiled machine. This award belongs as much to them as to my mother who still runs a business after 30 years yet is still always there for me. She is a great inspiration to my daughters and I," Yvonne said of Ann, whose husband Michael Connolly died of cancer in 2007 aged 63.

Asked what did she learn from her mother? Yvonne answered with one but very true word: "Everything."

Yvonne describes herself as a mother as "firm but fun." She says the challenges of modern motherhood are "social media" and her kids' "cyber-life."

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Yvonne, who was one of Ireland's top models once upon a time, appeared on Celebrity Masterchef on RTE in the summer of 2013 and now is a regular on The Seven O'Clock Show on TV3 showing the nation how to cook.

So, how has she combined motherhood with her career? How has she juggled it all?

"I juggle it all with the help of the kids and the support of friends."

Previous celebrity mum winners include Lisa Duffy, Anna Daly, Sybil Mulcahy and Blathnaid Ni Chofaigh, Lorraine Keane and Mary Kennedy. Leinster lady Anne Aherne was crowned overall winner of Woman's Way & Beko Mum of the Year 2016 and won 2,000 cash courtesy of Woman's Way, a Beko washing machine, six-month's use of a Renault Captur and a hamper full of goodies and discounts. Each finalist walked away with a luxury goodie bag worth at least 500. The judges included Norah Casey, Blathnaid Ni Chofaigh, Nuala Carey, Edward Hayden and Brent Pope.

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"It's been another year of wonderful mums who are a credit to Ireland. I'd like to congratulate all our finalists on their determination, courage, kindness and ability to perservere when the going gets tough," says Woman's Way editor Aine Toner.

Winners: Woman's Way & Beko Mum of the Year: Anne Aherne. Celebrity Mum of the Year: Yvonne Connolly

Woman's Way & Beko Mum of the Year - Dublin: Marie Moffitt; Leinster: Anne Aherne; Connacht: Michelle Leggett; Ulster: Ellen McDaid; Munster: Brid Meehan.
Police at the scene of an explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood in New York (AP)

A police officer escorts an injured man away from the scene of the blast on West 23rd Street in New York (AP)

The scene of an explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood in New York (AP)

Investigators at the scene of Saturday's explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood in New York (AP)

An explosion that rocked a crowded Manhattan neighbourhood, injuring 29 people, does not appear to be linked to international terrorism, New York governor Andrew Cuomo has said.

Mr Cuomo said 1,000 additional law enforcement officers were being deployed after the Saturday night blast in Chelsea, a primarily residential neighbourhood on Manhattan's west side that is known for its art galleries and large gay population.

He encouraged New Yorkers to go about their day as usual.

"We're not going to let them win," Mr Cuomo said at the scene. "We're not going to let them instil fear."

The Democratic governor said the preliminary investigation did not appear to show a link to international terror, and he noted that no terror group had taken credit for it.

Authorities said the Manhattan blast did not appear to be connected to a pipe bomb explosion earlier on Saturday in New Jersey that forced the cancellation of a charity run. He noted that the bombs included different materials.

A law enforcement official said a second device that officers investigated four streets from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a mobile phone. The official said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street. The device was removed with a robot and taken to a department firing range in the Bronx.

The law enforcement official also said that the explosion appeared to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. Photos from the scene show a twisted and crumpled black metal box.

The blast happened on West 23rd Street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe's supermarket. Witnesses said the explosion at about 8.30pm local time blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris.

Mr Cuomo said on Sunday that all the injured who were taken to hospital after the blast had been released. He said most had been hit with glass or debris.

Some New York City subway routes were affected by the explosion, which rattled some New Yorkers and visitors on the heels of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.

"We felt it. We heard it," Mr Gonzalez said. "It wasn't like jolting or anything. Everyone just went quiet."

Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said at first he thought something large had fallen.

"It was an extremely loud noise. Everything was shaking, the windows were shaking," he said. "It was extremely loud, almost like thunder but louder."

The FBI and Homeland Security officials, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arson and explosive task force, were at the scene.

Mr Cuomo toured the site on Sunday.

The White House said President Barack Obama was made aware of the explosion.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said the nation needs to support its emergency services staff and "pray for the victims".

"We have to let this investigation unfold," she said.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump moved ahead of New York City officials when he declared a "bomb went off" before officials had released details. He made the announcement minutes after stepping off his plane in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

"I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows what's going on," Mr Trump said.

He continued: "But boy we are living in a time - we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant."

The Manhattan blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners were due to participate in a charity 5km race to benefit marines and sailors. The run was cancelled and no injuries were reported.

Also on Saturday, at least eight people were injured at a shopping centre in St Cloud, Minnesota, in a stabbing attack. The suspect was shot dead by an off-duty police officer. The police chief said the suspect asked at least one victim if he or she was Muslim.

The investigation into the Manhattan explosion came as world leaders descend on the United Nations for a meeting on Monday to address the refugee crisis and the Syrian conflict. The blast site is about two miles away.

AP
New York City firefighters stand near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, U.S. September 17, 2016. REUTERS/Rashid Umar Abbasi

New York City Police Department officers arrive to keep watch near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, U.S. September 18, 2016. REUTERS/Rashid Umar Abbasi

Police work near the scene of an explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

New York City firefighters stand near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, U.S. September 17, 2016. REUTERS/Rashid Umar Abbasi

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has called an explosion in New York City which left 29 people injured an 'intentional act'.

Here is what we know so far about last night's blast:

1. Injuries

Twenty-nine people were injured in an explosion in the Chelsea neighbourhood in Manhattan. One of those injured is in a serious condition, with most of the other injuries being minor cuts from the blast debris.

2. Explosion device

Initial reports said that explosion was caused by a gas leak, but it was discovered to be an explosive device inside a construction toolbox that was left outside a residence for the blind on West 23rd Street. A second explosive device was found nearby by law enforcement who said it was a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a mobile phone. The device was made safe and removed from the scene.

3. 'Intentional act'

The explosion was called an intentional act by New York mayor Bill de Blasio, but there is no apparent link to terrorism found so far.

Read More

4. Early reports

Theres believed to be no connection between this explosion and one that happened earlier in the day in the New Jersey town of Seaside Park. A pipe-bomb exploded near the site of a charity run for the US Marine Corps. No injuries were reported, and the FBI has begun an investigation.

5. Reaction

The White House said President Barack Obama has been told of the explosion and will be updated as additional information becomes available Hillary Clinton said she has been briefed "about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attack in Minnesota. The Democratic presidential candidate said the nation needs to support its first responders and "pray for the victims". She said: "We have to let this investigation unfold."

Her Republican rival Donald Trump declared a "bomb went off" in New York before officials had released details.
Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev holds his ballot paper at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow (AP)

Early results on Sunday showed Russia's ruling United Russia party winning in the parliamentary election, amid reports of election violations and visible voter apathy in the country's two largest cities.

Less than 7% of the ballots were counted by the evening, showing United Russia getting about 44% of the vote, with the Liberal Democrat Party trailing with 18% of the vote. The results are likely to change as votes in the west of Russia are counted.

Russian Election Commission chief Ella Pamfilova said as the polls closed that she had no reason to nullify the vote in any location, conceding, however, that the election "wasn't sterile".

The voting for the 450-seat State Duma, the lower house of parliament, is unlikely to substantially change the distribution of power, in which the pro-Kremlin United Russia party holds an absolute majority.

But the perceived honesty of the election could be a critical factor in whether protests arise following the voting.

Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence.

Voter turnout in Russia's largest cities appeared to be much lower than five years ago, indicating that the widespread practice of coercing state employees to vote in previous elections was not as prevalent this time around.

The turnout by 6pm in Moscow was at a record low of 29% compared with more than 50% five years earlier, and less than 20% in St Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city.

Previous elections have shown that the regions with the highest turnout were where voters, mostly state employees, were pressured to cast ballots.

Grigory Melkonyants, co-chairman of the election monitoring group Golos, attributed the weak showing on Sunday to voter apathy aided by almost invisible campaigning by the ruling party and the opposition alike.

Melkonyants said on the Dozhd online television station that it also reflected less anxiety among local authorities to produce a high turnout.

Golos had received more than 2,000 complaints of suspected vote rigging from all over the country by early afternoon.

Among the potential violations he cited were long lines of soldiers voting at stations where they were not registered, and voters casting their ballots on tables instead of curtained-off voting booths.

A video posted on YouTube appeared to show a poll worker in the southern Rostov region dropping multiple sheets of paper into a ballot box.

On Sunday morning, Pamfilova said results from voting in a Siberian region could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud there were confirmed.

A candidate from the liberal Yabloko party in the Altai region of Siberia told state news agency Tass that young people were voting in the name of elderly people unlikely to go to polling stations.

Independent election observers and opposition candidates on Sunday reported busloads of people arriving at their polling stations in Moscow to vote, fuelling speculations of multiple voting with the help of absentee ballots.

Deputy interior minister Alexander Gorovoy said in televised comments that police are looking into the potential of fraud in both Altai and in Rostov, but said he had not seen "the actual facts of the so-called cruise voting".

AP
By Bernie Woodall and David Shepardson

(Reuters) - Ford Motor Co Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields said on Wednesday that all of the company's small-car production would be leaving U.S. plants and heading to lower-cost Mexico, drawing another rebuke from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

"We will have migrated all of our small-car production to Mexico and out of the United States," over the next two to three years, Fields told Wall Street analysts at an investor conference hosted by the automaker.

Trump, campaigning in Flint, Michigan, on Wednesday, called Ford's decision "horrible." He has criticized Ford's Mexican investments for more than a year and vowed to pressure the automaker to reverse course if elected.

"We shouldn't allow it to happen," Trump said.

Fields has previously responded to Trump's criticism by saying that as a global company Ford must compete by making solid business decisions.

Earlier this year, Ford said it would invest $1.6 billion in Mexico for small-car production to start in 2018.

During contract talks in 2015, Ford confirmed that it would move Focus and C-Max production out of its Wayne, Michigan, plant in 2018. The United Auto Workers Union said at the time that Ford planned to build the next Focus in Mexico.

A source briefed on the matter said the shift of production to Mexico was expected to take place next year before the start of the 2018 model year.

In April, Ford reiterated that it was planning to build two new vehicles at the Wayne plant beginning in 2018. Analysts have said they expect Ford to build a new Bronco SUV and Ranger pickup there.

Fields said that Ford planned to shift a majority of its small car production around the world to low-cost countries by 2019, which could affect Ford's Western European car production.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said in April that it would realign North American plants to emphasize truck and Jeep production over car output. The changes are expected to be completed by early 2018.

Story continues

Both automakers are making the moves because U.S. consumers have turned away from traditional sedans and hatchbacks to SUVs and pickup trucks.

The United Auto Workers has said the number of auto assembly jobs would not decline because workers would be busy making SUVs and pickup trucks.

However, UAW President Dennis Williams has said there was a risk that if gasoline prices rose again above $4 per gallon as in mid-2008, consumers might once again favor smaller cars.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Detroit and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe)
Somali soldiers stand near the wreckage of the car bomb (AP)

A car bomb killed a Somali military general and five of his bodyguards in the capital Mogadishu on Sunday, Somali police said.

General Mohamed Roble Jimale Gobanle and his bodyguards were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle next to the general's car near Somalia's defence ministry compound, said police captain Ali Nur.

General Gobanle was the commander of the Somali army's 3rd Brigade, a combat team fighting the al-Shabab Islamic extremists in southern Somalia.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the group's Andalus radio station.

Al-Shabab, which is allied to al Qaida, has been waging a deadly insurgency across large parts of Somalia and often uses suicide car bomb attacks.

AP
World leaders meeting at the United Nations on Monday will be trying to make progress on two intractable problems at the top of the global agenda - the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War and the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year.

Against a backdrop of rising ethnic and religious tension, fighting elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa, extremist attacks across the world and a warming planet, there are plenty of other issues for the 135 heads of state and government and more than 50 ministers expected to attend, to try to tackle.

"It's no secret there's a lot of fear out there," US ambassador Samantha Power said on Thursday, citing the uncertainties sparked by Britain's vote to leave the European Union, the threat posed by Islamic State, and attacks in many parts of the world by IS and other terrorist groups.

But Syria, where a tense cease-fire brokered by Moscow and Washington came into effect last Monday, remains at the top of the agenda at the UN General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting.

An apparently errant airstrike on Saturday in which the US military may have unintentionally hit Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against IS could deal a crushing blow to the US and Russia-brokered ceasefire.

The ceasefire, which does not apply to attacks on IS, has largely held for five days despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides.

The UN Security Council held a closed emergency meeting on Saturday night at Russia's request to discuss the airstrike.

The meeting offered a harbinger of the difficulties ahead as the US and Russia remain suspicious of each other's intents in Syria.

Ms Power accused Russia of pulling "a stunt" that is "cynical and hypocritical" in calling for the meeting while not taking similar action in response to atrocities committed by Syrian president Bashar Assad's regime.

Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he had never seen "such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness" as displayed by Ms Power.

The acrimony over the airstrike could spill over into a Security Council ministerial meeting on Syria scheduled for Wednesday .

Russia was pushing for a resolution to endorse the cessation of hostilities and look ahead, but the US refused to make public details of the ceasefire deal, citing "operational security".

Mr Churkin earlier had called the US unco-operative and said most likely "we're not going to have a resolution".

With the truce still fragile, no sign yet of humanitarian aid deliveries, and supporters and opponents of the Syrian government trading accusations, diplomats said there may be a meeting on Tuesday of some 20 key countries on both sides who are part of the International Syria Support Group to chart the next steps.

The spotlight during the week is also certain to shine on three leaders, who are all scheduled to speak at the assembly's opening ministerial session on Tuesday morning.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, who steps down on December 31, and US president Barack Obama, who will leave office in January, will be addressing the 193-member world body for the last time.

Prime Minister Theresa May will be speaking less than three months after the vote to leave the European Union.

AP
Isaipuyal A.R.Rahman who has made India proud in the international music arena by winning the prestigious Oscar, Grammy, BAFTA and Golden Globe has now won yet another International honour from Japan.

Japan has honoured the Indian music wizard with the prestigious Grand Fukuoka Prize for his outstanding contribution to the Asian culture through fusion music.

Recently Rahman visited Japan to receive the award where he was welcomed by Japanese people with a thunderous response. The most interesting part is that he was welcomed a by a girl student in school uniform with Tamil placards that said '  ` (Welcome Mr.Rahman) and his famous quote '  ` (All glory to the Almighty). Rahman has shared the photo of this girl in his social media page.

The Fukuoka Prize is an award established by the city of Fukuoka and the Yokatopia Foundation to honour the outstanding work of individuals or organizations in preserving or creating Asian culture. The awards are given under three categories of Grand and Academic, Arts & Culture.

Last year Indian historian Rama Chandra Guha was honoured with the Fukuoka Award under the Academics category. Rahman has received the award under Arts & Culture category.

IndiaGlitz salutes A.R.Rahman for bringing more and more glory to the country by winning International awards like this.
Ever since Coldplay confirmed they're going to come to India for their first ever India concert, their fans have gone mad. And why not? It's Coldplay after all.

Flying the flag... R42 A photo posted by Coldplay (@coldplay) on Sep 4, 2016 at 7:42pm PDT

However, everyone got pretty confused about how to fetch those tickets! After all the confusion around the whole Global Citizen concept, heres a news that will give a sigh of relief to many Coldplay fans. According to an Indian express report, the Global citizen will give out 10,000 free tickets to each person who has signed up as a Global Citizen on http://www.globalcitizen.in.

Great #ColdplayBarcelona photo from the 27 May show. We've just added lots more to the Coldplay Timeline. Head to the official site to see them. ( @imxavimenos) A photo posted by Coldplay (@coldplay) on Aug 10, 2016 at 6:51am PDT

If the users complete all their actions during their Action Journey for social change and after that, they need to earn a minimum of 16 points to be eligible for the draw.

The first draw of free tickets for the 2016 Global Citizen Festival India will open for entry on Sunday 18 September. If youre someone who wants the free tickets, you will only be able to enter the draw until Thursday, 22 September. If you're already registered as Global citizens you will see a red entry button appear on their accounts today.

Talking about the same, Global Citizen Farhan Akhtar told media,

Ab #aapkiChaal.... #Wazir A photo posted by Farhan Akhtar (@faroutakhtar) on Dec 28, 2015 at 8:52am PST

Global Citizen India is doing something unique. It is offering us a platform wherein our individual efforts and voices can combine together to push for collective action. Offering the Global Goals as a roadmap not only encourages collective action within a country, but also across the world, and it is this collective, merged action that can truly make a difference.

Several thousand free tickets will be released over the coming weeks through five different ticket draws at the end of each Action Journey. Can you contain your excitement? WE CAN NOT!
1. Kangan Ranaut takes a dig at Hrithik Roshan yet again.

A Bollywood Life report claimed that in a recent media interaction, Kangana said, "This incident is very different from the incident I faced in the past. There were no legal proceedings ever initiated against me. There was a lot of media drama, there were a lot of threats and there was a lot slut-shaming."

2. Coldplay is all set to give away 10,000 free tickets for the concert but only to the global citizens.

Holding it down. R42. #ColdplayPhoenix A photo posted by Coldplay (@coldplay) on Aug 23, 2016 at 10:48pm PDT

The first draw of free tickets for the 2016 Global Citizen Festival India will open for entry today. If youre someone who wants the free tickets, you will only be able to enter the draw until Thursday, 22 September. If you're already registered as Global citizens you will see a red entry button appear on their accounts today.

According to an Indian express report, the Global citizen will give out 10,000 free tickets to each person who has signed up as a Global Citizen on http://www.globalcitizen.in.

Bollywood celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Shekhar Kapur, Riteish Deshmukh and Adnan Sami took to Twitter to offer condolences to the families of the Uri attack martyrs. They also tweeted demanding a strong action against the attackers.

4. The journalist involved in the Rishi Kapoor fiasco clears everything in his latest interview.

BCCL

In an interview, he said, "I have no malice against Rishiji, Randhirji or Ranbir. There were a lot of us walk around close to Rishiji and he didnt ask us to move aside or push us I was there during the whole Ganpati procession that day Given all the practical conditions  the heavy rains, the crowd going berserk, the Kapoor family did not target or misbehave with any media persons.

5. Ranveer Singh might star in Zoya Akhtar's film on street rappers, claims several reports

Vintage Charm of the Old Town #VisitZurich #inLOVEwithSWITZERLAND @myswitzerlandlive A photo posted by Ranveer Singh (@ranveersingh) on Aug 17, 2016 at 12:30pm PDT

Zoya Akhtars upcoming project, which is likely to be titled 'Gully Boy', is about the lives of street rappers from Mumbai's chawls and ghettos, including artistes Naezy and Divine. Reports claim that Ranveer will be seen in the role of a rapper.
When you talk about horror, a mixed reaction is expected. The genre has been accused of plaguing an unsuspecting audience and feeding off of negative emotions like fear, anxiety and paranoia. But a genre that has thrilled people for more than a century and has millions of dollars riding on it, it's hard to just dismiss it with a shrug and a frown.

To the half of the world population that shares a symbiotic relationship with horror (yep), it's a spiritual immersion of sorts - we entered eager, we left converted. For many, the genre is a means of giving vent to anxiety, of going beyond that cheap thrill, and of discovering cinematic genius that sticks forever.

via GIPHY

If you're a budding horror addict and need a constant fix, consider this list. If you're a total pro when it comes to the genre, be kind.

This is a list of movies from the 21st century that have added immensely to the genre, and defined the way we approach it. To say that this list is complete would be unfair to other great bodies of work in the genre. But try we must. There are some movies that deserve a mention, but may be that's another list for another day.

"I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey," said someone once, and, so, we begin.

via GIPHY

*Viewer discretion is advised

1. IN MY SKIN (2002)

A seemingly sane person at first glance, the protagonist meets with an accident one day and ends up developing a strange, obsessive relationship with her skin. It starts with her picking gently at her scabs and this small episode eventually snowballs in to what becomes a twisted climax.

2. WOLF CREEK (2005)

The Australian wilderness and a group of backpacking friends - what could go wrong? Except it does. Enter looney old man in a rickety pickup truck who has other plans for this group besides helping them with a flat tyre. Highly immersive and gripping, this one will have you biting your nails down to the finger.

3. MARTYRS (2008)

The list would be lacking without mentioning this French-Canadian masterpiece. There's plenty of shock value here, and the less you know, the better it gets. The opening scene manages to make that happen - two girls enter a house with one seeking revenge from the people who held her captive as a child. The slow pickup gives way to an epic ending. This one's not for the squeamish.

4. SPLINTER (2008)

There's no limit to what a talented team can do, like with this movie, creating a monster out of something as banal as a splinter. This alien splinter reanimates whatever formerly living body it infiltrates, sticks out in all directions and makes a weird clicking with each move. Plenty of 'ick' and 'eww' guaranteed.

5. LAKE MUNGO (2008)

A much loved child of the family drowns in a lake one day. The bereaving family not only has to cope with the loss of a beloved daugher but is finding it hard to explain the strange happenings that seem to be taking place in the house each night. Watch with lights off.

6. GROTESQUE (2009)

A couple on their first date is kidnapped by a middle-aged man and the rest is about what the title suggests. This isn't like an run-of-the-mill kidnapping either. The kidnapper isn't looking for rewards, at least not the green paper kinds. To say he's twisted is putting it mildly. And the man has an entire kill room set up in a basement at his disposal. Not at all for the faint-hearted.

7. THE SILENT HOUSE (2010)

This movie with Argentinian roots follows a girl and her father who move into a dilapidated house. Come night, the girl follows weird noises in the house that have her on edge. A gripping movie that may have over-promised a great ending but one worth watching, nonetheless.

8. A SERBIAN FILM (2010)

The movie doesn't waste time easing the viewer in. There's plenty of gore and mindfuck to last a century. An out-of-work pornstar's earn money for his family and what becomes his final gig leads him in to a warped world where more is less. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

9. THE WOMAN (2011)

A woman literally brought up by wolves and the last of her tribe, is strapped and brought home by a lawyer who was out hunting one day. Locked in the basement like an animal, the woman works her way past the poor family dynamics, manipulates events in her favour and finally escapes. Not for the light-hearted. The movie's OST is amazing, too.

10. THE TUNNEL (2011)

A TV news crew out to cover a story finds itself deep inside one of the longest and most elaborate tunnels that lies beneath the city. They're quickly eliminated one by one by an unseen force. Keep the lights dim and the speakers up. Plenty of sound cues in the movie create jump scares and that's only half the fun.

11. THE ABCS OF DEATH (2012)

The movie is an anthology of shorts by different directors, where each short corresponds to a letter of the English alphabet, and each one is better than the other. What you'll love about this movie is how quick and seamless the transition from each short is. In case you're an aspiring author looking for inspiration, there's plenty here that'll trigger some great ideas. A must-watch.

12. VHS (2012)

A group of men with the intent to steal enter a house to pick up a rare VHS tape. They discover that the tapes have some really dirty secrets. It's shot documentary style and the camera rests at first person view at times but if you look past all that you'll find a collection of stories that move fast and leave you short of breath.

13. THE CORPSE OF ANNA FRITZ (2015)

Three friends find themselves wanting to take selfies and more with the corpse of Anna Fritz, a famous actress. Not believing their luck, the friends linger on longer than initially planned. What follows is an intense few hours of Anna not really being dead, and waking up to find things aren't right. The rest is an endless chase within long corridors where with each move Anna comes closer to her freedom.

14. SOUTHBOUND (2015)

This is another awesome compilation of the likes of films you haven't seen before. With alien bodies suspended mid air in the middle of an open desert, to brutal deaths, this movie doesn't leave much to the imagination.

15. DON'T BREATHE (2016)

Three young people with their own personal agenda agree to rob the house of a retired Army vet who, as they find out later, is also blind. Without saying much, I'd like to only add that this 'mission' turns out to be more than they had bargained for. There's also a Cujo-ish portion in the film that only adds to the movie's charm.
Nothing's bigger proof of fandom than waiting for hours in queues and literally camping outside for your favourite store to open.

But Attapon Tom Thaphaengphan raised the ante after spending $800 to travel from Bangkok to Sydney just to show up for the iPhone launch. He ended up braving a queue of about 200 people, rain, and the general 'ambient' noise of a city for 18 hours straight!

He seemed pretty psyched about it though.

Now if that's dedication then what is?

Tom made a vlog discussing his entire journey with friends and followers on Facebook.

Back home in Bangkok Tom works for Thai iPhone news website iPhoneMod.
Whether it's civil war meets Islamic terror scenario in Syria, failed attempt of coup in Turkey, Britain's exit from European Union, the turmoil in Afghanistan after US withdrawal or other disputes like South China sea, Kashmir and Palestine - the world is once again getting divided into blocs much similar to the pre World War-II and cold war era.

io9.gizmodo.com

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US has been calling the shots for almost two decades now. Be it invasion in Afghanistan, Iraq or now the alleged support to rebels in Syria, US has been in thick and thin of the politics of almost all countries which hold some significance on the global stage. But unlike a decade back when US hardly had a challenger, times are changing now. The rise of China as a rival while the erstwhile mighty Russia getting back on its feet - the world is once again descending into cold war era of different blocks trying to prove their hegemony.



Here are four major disputes which can trigger the third world war:



Syria Issue (US led Nato vs Russian Federation)

The Syrian Civil War started in 2011 when the rebels took up arms against their ruler Bashar- Al- Assad. The conjectures say that it was US support, both in terms of money as well as weapons which provided the much needed pace to the rebellion against Assad. Assad who is considered to be an ally of Russia was seen as a threat to America's plan to have a hold over the region and thus it wanted to remove him. Russia too in order to protect its interests in the region wants Assad to stay and thus supported the Syrian army fighting against the rebels.

AFP

Islamic State (IS),the third party, however, a non entity earlier has occupied large areas especially the oil resources of Syria. The Russians have alleged the IS is the creation of US and President Putin on several occasions have hinted towards a possible American assistance the IS is getting. But US denied all such allegations and entered into Syria in the name of eradicating IS from Syria.

AFP

In response, Russians too sent their fighter jets to attack IS bases. But the Turkish shooting of Russian Plane on December 2015 escalated the tension between US led NATO and The Russian Federation. President Putin looked firm to teach Turkey a lesson, but the weight of NATO led by the US didn't allow the immediate escalation.

Presently both US and Russia are mulling to have a deal over Syria. But if the deal doesn't materialise and the conflict gets prolonged than the possibility of war between these two biggies can't be denied.

East and South China sea (China Vs Japan, Vietnam, Philippines led by US)

Chinese aggressive stand on the various islands in East and South China sea claimed by Japan, Vietnam and Philippines is another blue yet quite murky theatre of possible global conflict. In East, China has been at loggerheads with Japan over the energy-rich islands known as the Senkaku Islands and the Diaoyu Islands that are subjected to territorial and maritime dispute between the two powers.

AFP

In south China sea, China is once again involved in conflict over Island called Scarborough Shaol, an island closer to Philippines than China. Both China and Philippines claim it. But presently China occupies it along with several other man made islands which it has created in the recent years.

AFP

China, recently refused the International Tribunal's decision where Philippines' right over the island was upheld. Till now there is no possibility of these issues turning into global conflicts. But the arrival of US while backing both Japan and Philippines in these disputes raises global concern because the US now believes that China, at present is the biggest rival of US, both militarily as well as economically.

Earlier this month, Beijing once again warned the US to stay away from South China Sea.



Russia-Ukraine over Crimea

The Russian Federation annexed Cremia by military action in 2014 which left a helpless Ukraine crying in despair. But President Putin's move did invite a lot of wrath from global powers, especially the US and the European Union.

The issue died for the time being, but it did divide the world into different blocks with China openly supporting Russia's stand where US and European openly throwing their weight behind Ukraine. On March 6, 2014, President Obama signed an executive order that authorises sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, or for stealing the assets of the Ukrainian people.

President Obama has been clear that we cannot allow Russia or any country to defy international law with impunity, Secretary of State John Kerry was quoted in Bloomberg on March 6 in Rome. Theres no place in the community of nations for the kind of aggression and steps that we have seen taken in Crimea in Ukraine in these last days.

With both Russia and US once again locking horn in Syria, this issue can resurface anytime soon.

India vs Pakistan over Kashmir

The two nuclear powers out of which one is unstable and is struggling to save itself from home grown terrorism are at loggerheads with each other over the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In 1947, Pakistan had attacked the state of Jammu and Kashmir which till then had abstained from joining either of two new countries, India and Pakistan. But an attack forced the ruler of the state to ask India for help. India in response helped the King but after he signed the document of accession to the union of India.

AFP

India army couldn't get the Pakistan forces out completely before the cease fire happened. And ever since a significant area of Kashmir valley is in Pakistani occupation. Pakistan claims its Kashmir and till now four wars have been fought in which Pakistan has got nothing but defeat.

But now since both nations are nuclear power and the present geo-political scenario has made these two countries partially aligned to US and China, the region is bound to global attention. And with Pakistan getting unstable internally, many experts have predicted that possibility of its nuclear assets falling in hands of terrorist which means nothing lesser than the destruction of Indian Sub-continent.
The Army Brigade headquarters in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri came under heavy attack from terrorists on Sunday morning. Four terrorists were gunned down while a search operation was on as of noon.

#Firstvisuals: Terrorist attack at army's Brigade Headquarter in Uri (J&K). Presence of 3-4 terrorists suspected. pic.twitter.com/4iRX0Rceff  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

#JKOps Please find a statement attached on the operation at Uri in J&K @adgpi pic.twitter.com/9I90qRiEWT  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) September 18, 2016

17 of our bravest were killed in the attack too while 19 others were injured. Read more here.

Here are 5 more stories that may interest you:

1. Jet Pilot Travels In Cockpit For Personal Flight, Erases Flight Data To Hide It

Reuters

In the old days, stowaways would travel unnoticed by hiding in obscure corners of ships. But the commander of a leading Indian airline managed to travel in the cockpit twice  even flying the aircraft once  without leaving any trace he was ever on board.

While the mystery of the 'ghost pilot' has left aviation circles baffled, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has grounded the man in question  one of the senior-most commanders of Jet Airways. In the first instance, he allegedly operated a Delhi-Bengaluru-Delhi flight without a valid flying licence and to cover it up, erased the flight records that showed he was flying that plane. The same pilot is alleged to have later flown from Delhi to Bengaluru to appear for an exam to keep his flying licence valid, again without leaving any record anywhere. More details here

2. This Amazing 8-Year-Old Kid Hopes To Buy His Single Mom A Home With His Baking Business!

jalensbakery.com

Meet 8-year-old entrepreneur Jalen Bailey from Fresno, California. He's not like other kids. This kid means business and there's a heart-warming reason behind it.

Bailey wants to eventually move out of their rental home and hopes to one day buy a bigger house for his single mom, Sharhonda Mahan with savings from his bakery business. I wanted to save up a lot of money to get a house, Bailey told ABC News. I just want one that me and my mom can be happy in. Read more here

3. A Bengaluru Pothole Was So Bad A Pregnant Woman Delivered A Baby While Going For A Checkup

TOI

It's a common saying in these parts that the roads are so bad that a pregnant woman may end up delivering if she travels on them. On Saturday, this saying turned true in Hubballi.

Parveenabanu N (26) was pregnant with her third child when she was travelling from Anand Nagar to Government Hospital -- a distance of three km -- in an auto for a check-up. The bumpy road was too much for her and she ended up giving birth to a baby girl at 11.45 am. Read more here

4. In 2015, 47 Security Personnel Were Martyred. But This Year, We Have Already Lost More Than 40

Reuters

With Indian Army losing 17 of its finest soldiers at the hands of four heavily armed terrorists in Uri, Baramulla on Sunday morning, the biggest attack on army in last 14 years has shaken the power corridors of New Delhi.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has postponed his visit to Russia and the US.

All four terrorist have been neutralised, but the loss they caused is irreparable.

Kashmir valley is on a boil post Hizbul Chief Burhan Wani's encounter on July 8 and since then, more than 90 people have lost their lives in clashes with armed forces and police. Read more here

5. Aman Vihar Rape Victims Blame Their Boyfriends For Not Fighting For Their Honour

BCCL/representational image

Two teenage girls who were raped in front of their friends in Delhis Aman Vihar area said that their two male friends didnt attempt to save them from the sexual attack.

We expected them to intervene and save us. We kept shouting for help but they did nothing,

Sitting in a secluded area with their two male friends near the Mundka metro station, they were first eve-teased, and then sexually assaulted by a group of five men. Read the details here.
Two teenage girls who were raped in front of their friends in Delhis Aman Vihar area said that their two male friends didnt attempt to save them from the sexual attack.

We expected them to intervene and save us. We kept shouting for help but they did nothing,

BCCL/representational image

Sitting in a secluded area with their two male friends near the Mundka metro station, they were first eve-teased, and then sexually assaulted by a group of five men.

However, it seems unfair for the boys to be blamed - they were then beaten with sticks and tied up.

BCCL/representational image

We expected them to intervene and save us. We kept shouting for help but they did nothing, the teenagers reportedly told the police. One of the boys has refused to give the police a formal statement.

Aman Vihar rape. Horrible. So what if the rapists are minors? If they are capable of violent crime, they deserve violent punishment.  Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) September 15, 2016

indianexpress

The girls, daughters of construction labourers, were employed at a factory nearby and often visited the empty plot to meet their boyfriends, who worked at a metro construction site nearby. Locals reported that since the place had no illumination, it was frequented by couples seeking privacy.
A quick online check reveals an economy class return ticket to London costs Rs 45,000 for next week. A business class ticket, which gets you flat beds, lounges and exotic wines, costs around Rs 2 lakh.

However, even this mode of travel was not good enough for one AAP minister, going by news reports.

He preferred to travel first class, which is a whopping Rs 4 lakh to London. Of course, ministers dont pay for these tickets themselves. They charge it to the government, so in effect, the taxpayer pays for it. The reason for travel (there have been other trips to Brazil, Finland and more) is often flimsy  random seminars, casual student body invites, anything that gets them out of the worlds most polluted city I guess.

pbs.twimg.com

And, of course, first class is just more comfortable. You get four more inches of seat width and ten more inches of legroom. Most important, the wine selection is better. And theres more exclusivity. Even CEOs travel business class. First class is usually for billionaires, big movie stars and, of course, the great take-metro-to swearing-in-ceremony AAP.

This would all be really funny, if this were not real. This is about a real party that literally arose from the streets. This is about real Indians who gave AAP their trust and hope. We Indians stood up for corruption, threw out a scam-tainted government and backed a new party. A party who we thought would care for Indians. A party who wanted to show simplicity as a virtue.

The same party now plunders a poor nations wealth to buy first-class tickets for fraudulent boondoggles. The leader of the party of course, watches all this, even as he points fingers and throws accusations at anyone else who dares criticise them.

eprahaar.in

No, AAPs shenanigans are no longer funny.

It is one of the saddest moments in Indian politics. For, the AAP dream is shattered. The betrayal hurts. It is also uncomfortable to deal with. It tells us that it wasnt just the fault of the Congress. Perhaps we as a nation are full of cheats, liars, thugs and plunderers. Its just about getting the opportunity to do so. When AAP was on the street, it hated conspicuous consumption and waste of state resources. In power, it wants to travel first-class and sample Bordeaux wines. It shows that looting the nation never bothered these leaders of AAP. What bothered them was that they were not getting a chance to do so. Well, they have it now. Well done.

Already, several AAP ministers are tainted with charges ranging from corruption, rape and faking degrees. This abuse of office for personal luxury is just another example of one thing  AAP has failed. In fact, AAP is likely to become, if not already, worse than the existing political parties.

So what went wrong? Why did the Indian dream break? And what can we learn from it?

twitter.com

First, we created AAP when we were angry about immense corruption. We somehow assumed if there is a face we trust at the top, the party would never be corrupt. We were wrong.

The lesson is this: to fix corruption, you need to make the government more accountable, not merely replace it or create new parties.

Second, the desire to win for AAP cost them everything. In the last Delhi elections, they selected candidates on one factor  winnability. The biggest asset of AAP, that they can make good people from society win, was gone. In fact, the good people were thrown out of the party. Looters, goons, rapists, frauds were invited in, as long as they could get some votes. AAP won, but lost its core  their values of integrity, ethics and honesty. And once the river is polluted, it is very hard to clean it again. Remember how people quit Apple and Google to join AAP? Do you hear of anyone else doing that lately? Never compromise an organizations core values  even if it means slower growth.

Finally, the lesson for all us Indians is to not give up hope. Yes, AAP took us for a first-class ride. It is a bitter truth to face.

It doesnt, however mean, nothing can ever change in this country. We must move on, and work to keep any government accountable.

For AAP, the only lesson is to acknowledge reality and fix itself. Calling Modi names isnt going to make things any better. Taking a hard look within might. Maybe they could do that on their first class flights, as they hover high above Delhi over some nice, Aam Aadmi vintage wine.
Maybe, just maybe, the tide is turning in the way the mainstream broadcast media cover Donald Trump. There were multiple signals on Sunday, but the clearest came when ABCs Martha Raddatz interviewed Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence on This Week Sunday morning.

Pence tried to insist that Trumps years of peddling the racially-charged fiction that Barack Obama was not born in the United States is a non-issue, particularly after Trumps admission Friday that the president was born in the United States.

Related: Deplorable: Trump Uses Vets as Backdrop for Hotel Pitch, Birther Lies

Its over, Pence insisted at one point.

Raddatz, looking directly back at Pence, replied, Its not over.

One of the factors that helped Donald Trumps presidential campaign survive the various scandalous, intemperate, false, and incendiary things that have come out of his mouth since he announced his candidacy in the summer of 2015 is their sheer volume. A sexist attack on a female competitor is pushed out of the news by an attack on another competitors energy. Trumps decision to retweet racist lies on Twitter is obscured by his repeated claim that American Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks by dancing in the streets.

In the 24 hours after Trump promoted his new hotel while exploiting a group of decorated veterans as a backdrop and then invented a new lie by blaming the birther conspiracy he peddled for years on Hillary Clintons, the pattern looked ready to repeat itself.

Related: Trumps Dramatic Birther Flip Is a Big Flop

In an appearance Friday night, Trump attacked Clintons call for stricter gun control, falsely claiming that she proposes doing away with the Second Amendment. He then suggested that her Secret Service detail -- the same type of detail that guards him -- ought to be disarmed.

Take their guns away. Lets see what happens to her, he said.

On Saturday, shortly after an explosion rocked the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, injuring many passersby, Trump immediately declared it a bomb and suggested it validates his get tough approach to dealing with terrorism. Ultimately, he proved to be correct, but at the time, it was only a guess, which opened him to criticism for jumping to conclusions without full information.

Story continues

On Sunday morning, as Trumps surrogates started turning up for interviews on the talk shows, they were asked about Trumps remarks about Clintons bodyguards and his reaction to the bombing. Most of the questioning remained focused on the GOP nominees long history of suggesting that the nations first black president is illegitimate, and his ham-handed attempt to claim that Hillary Clinton was responsible and that Trump finished the controversy.

Related: Is the Race Tied? Why Trump Isnt Really That Close to Winning

The exchanges tended to drag on, with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at one point denying that Trump had made any significant mention of the birther issue since 2011. Its difficult to characterize that as anything other than a lie because Christie himself criticized Trump for failing to admit President Obamas citizenship during the Republican presidential primary.

But interviewers repeatedly pushed back. Raddatz refused to allow Pence to avoid the issue, and forced him to cling to the same thin reed that the Trump campaign hung its claims about Clinton: a statement by a former Clinton campaign official that a low-level Iowa campaign staffer in 2008 -- who was fired immediately -- forwarded an email about the birther claims somehow proves the lie originated with Hillary Clinton.

Christie tried the same tack with Jake Tapper on CNNs State of the Union and was shot down. In an equally unsuccessful appearance on Fox News Sunday, Christie failed to make much headway on the same claim with host Chris Wallace.

If youre going to go there, Wallace fired back, what she said is that some volunteer in Iowa raised the question and was fired immediately. That hardly seems like they were pushing the birther issue.

Related: Trump Has Backtracked on Some of Yesterdays Economy Proposals

Meanwhile, Clintons vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine appeared on four different shows and repeatedly hammered on the fact that repeated attacks on Obamas citizenship over the years were extremely hurtful to the African American community because they evoked the historical period in which people with African ancestry were not allowed to be citizens.

Its far from clear that this marks an end to the way that Trump has repeatedly managed to control the agenda when it comes to broadcast media. This campaign has been full of turning points that werent. But for voters, its at least reason to hope.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
With Indian Army losing 17 of its finest soldiers at the hands of four heavily armed terrorists in Uri, Baramulla on Sunday morning, the biggest attack on army in last 14 years has shaken the power corridors of New Delhi.

Reuters

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has postponed his visit to Russia and the US.

All four terrorist have been neutralised, but the loss they caused is irreparable.

Kashmir valley is on a boil post Hizbul Chief Burhan Wani's encounter on July 8 and since then, more than 90 people have lost their lives in clashes with armed forces and police.

The attack of Uri will worsen the already tense situation in the valley and the ongoing chaos is likely to get prolonged after the Uri attack. Post Wani's encounter, Valley hasn't seen a day without curfew and attacks on armed forces, be it para-military, police and army has seen a stupendous increase.

2015 vs 2016, terrorists neutralized vs jawans martyred

Reuters

In a total of 146 terrorism-related incidents took place between January 15, 2015 to January 15, 2016, in the Valley, 108 terrorists had been neutralised while 47 security personnel which included jawans of all forces (police, para military and army) were martyred.

Whereas in 2016, till June 30, 90 attempts have inflitraton have been made by terrorist in comparison to 29 attempts till June 30 last year. This year till today's strike at Uri, more than 40 security personnel have lost their lives in various confrontations with terrorists in the valley.

This number excludes the seven jawans who had martyred their lives during Pathankot Airbase attack in Punjab in January this year. Post Wani's encounter, around 25 security personnel have lost their lives during different clashes with terrorists.

Major attacks post Wani's encounter

Uri attack

Reuters

17 soldiers died in an early morning strike by four heavily armed terrorists on army's battalion camp in Uri, Baramulla. All four terrorist were killed after a hours long gun fight.

Poonch attack

BCCL

In second week of September, four terrorists attacked Mini Secretariat of Poonch just opposite the office of the district Superintendent of Police. The Lashkar-e-Taiba personnel were neutralised but a police constable, two army men, two police personnel, and a civilian lost their lives during the whole operation.

Pulwama

BCCL

On September 9, militants attacked a CRPF camp in Pulwama district, but after facing retaliation from the security personnel, they fled. In August, a policeman was shot dead outside his home in Pulwama when he was leaving for his duty.

Khawaja Bagh attack

jknewspoint.com

On August 17, the Hizbul Mujahideen group attacked an Army convoy near Srinagar-Baramulla highway killing eight people and injuring 22 others. No army jawans had died in the attack. A day earlier on August 16, militants had lobbed a grenade on the Kakapora police station in Pulwama district that left five policemen injured. The Khawaja Bagh attack was the third by militants since August 15.

Nowhatta attack

BCCL

In an attack at Nowhatta in Srinagar on Independence Day, a CRPF commandant and two militants were killed while nine personnel were injured. Officials informed that after a four-hour gunfight, two militants,were killed. Militants had also attacked a BSF installation on August 19 in Kupwara district leaving three BSF personnel injured.

Kupwara attack

BCCL

Post Wani's death, Indian Army had foiled an infiltration bid on LoC which saw one soldier losing his life. An army official said the infiltrators were forced to flee after an exchange of gunfire between the security forces and the militants.

Major attacks before Wani's encounter

Pampore attack

BCCL

In June, eight CRPF personnel were killed and at least 20 others were left injured when militants attacked their convoy on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway near Pampore. Terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Other attacks

Reuters

On June 4, two militants attacked a police check-post in Anantnag town, killing an assistant sub-inspector and a police constable. Earlier, on June 3, Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists killed three BSF personnel when they targeted a convoy.

In February, two CRPF personnel were killed and 11 others injured in a similar attack on the national highway at Pampore in South Kashmir. The militants later took refuge at a nearby institute and the encounter lasted for three days resulting in the death of the three attackers. Two captains and a special forces soldier of the Indian army were also killed in the gunbattle.
Indian-origin engineer Naveen Rabelli drove 10,000 km on a solar-powered auto-rickshaw from India to London to create awareness about alternative mobility solutions using renewable energy for passenger vehicles in Asian and European countries.

hindustantimes.com

The auto, also known as 'tuk-tuk' in some parts of the world, had set off from Bengaluru in February.

Rabelli, 35, arrived at Dover ferry crossing in the UK on Monday, five days later than expected because he was robbed during a toilet break last week as he approached the ferry crossing from France.

The diesel-powered auto rickshaw cost him $1,500 to buy. He spent an additional $11,500 to get it ready for the zero-emission adventure titled 'Tejas'.

"The purpose of this journey is to create awareness of alternative mobility solutions for passenger vehicles in Asian and European countries using renewable energy - mix of solar and electricity," explains Rabelli, who refused to let the robbery in France get him down.

newsd.in

"My passport and wallet were stolen when I parked to go to the toilet at a fast food restaurant at Sarcelles, about 45 km west of Paris. I reported it to the police, where there were some language issues but after a few hours they found an officer who could speak English. They are very helpful and sorry when they heard that I was about to finish my trip," he said.

India-born Rabelli, who now holds an Australian passport, was able to acquire an emergency travel document and complete his journey.

cloudfront.net

He plans to drive up to Buckingham Palace in London this week and also hopes to attend the Low Carbon Vehicle Event 2016 in Millbrook, Bedfordshire, on Wednesday and Thursday.

"The aim was to highlight an entirely Indian solution to the world and show the benefits of using a prototype that is reliable, feasible and affordable," said Rabelli.

ibtimes.co.uk

The specially-modified autorickshaw, which is equipped with a bed, food cupboard and solar-powered cooker, was shipped from India to Bandar Abbas in Iran from where he kick-started the overland mission to drive through Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and France before arriving in the UK.

His website solartuktuk.com offers people the chance to track his journey and donate to his cause of promoting green transport.
In the old days, stowaways would travel unnoticed by hiding in obscure corners of ships. But the commander of a leading Indian airline managed to travel in the cockpit twice  even flying the aircraft once  without leaving any trace he was ever on board.

Reuters

While the mystery of the 'ghost pilot' has left aviation circles baffled, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has grounded the man in question  one of the senior-most commanders of Jet Airways. In the first instance, he allegedly operated a Delhi-Bengaluru-Delhi flight without a valid flying licence and to cover it up, erased the flight records that showed he was flying that plane. The same pilot is alleged to have later flown from Delhi to Bengaluru to appear for an exam to keep his flying licence valid, again without leaving any record anywhere.

"We are treating it as a serious security lapse as it is a test case to examine how one can manipulate all records to fly without leaving any trace. Our initial probe has shown he was in the cockpit in both instances. The case will be referred to the Bureau for Civil Aviation Security and exemplary action will be taken," a senior aviation official said.

BCCL

The aviation regulator is examining how the pilot managed to fly virtually as a stowaway  not hidden in the landing gear 'wheel well' in the undercarriage but in the cockpit of the Delhi-Bengaluru flight during the second instance.

Pending investigation, the commander, who is also an examiner and trains and certifies other pilots, has been grounded. A Jet Airways spokesperson said: "As this matter is currently under investigation we cannot comment on the details. We are extending full cooperation to DGCA for the investigation. At Jet Airways, the safety of our guests and staff is of paramount importance."

Reuters

The case began unfolding some months ago when the captain allegedly operated a flight with a lapsed pilot proficiency check (PPC) test. The PPC certifies that a pilot's knowledge is up to date, and only those with a valid PPC are allowed to fly passengers. Pilots flying with lapsed PPC is a common occurrence as the test is to be given periodically, and action is taken accordingly. But a cover-up is unprecedented.

"When the pilot realised he has flown with a lapsed PPC, he got the flight records erased completely to remove his name from all places that he had operated that flight. We are trying to find out who erased the records," said a senior official investigating the case. Later, the pilot flew from Delhi to Bengaluru to give his PPC test. "His name does not appear in the passenger manifest of that flight (list of people on board); the additional crew member list (travelling in cockpit but on the two seats behind the controls but does not operate a flight) or even on the crew list. With absolutely no paper, how did this pilot clear airport security, enter the aircraft and fly to Bengaluru? This is unheard of," the official said.
The violence-marred water feud between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu illustrates how water stress is fuelling bitter discord between states over sharing the most vital of all natural resources. The Supreme Court intervened this year too in the Punjab-Haryana dispute in the Indus Basin over the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal.

The growing inter-provincial water wrangles draw attention to India's great water folly.

In 1960, it signed a treaty that allocated to an enemy state, Pakistan, most of the Indus river system waters, without any quid pro quo. The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) reserved for India just 19.48% of the total waters of the six-river Indus system.

Reuters

An emboldened Pakistan, having secured what still ranks as the world's most generous water-sharing treaty, set its sights on capturing the Indian part of Jammu and Kashmir through which the three large rivers reserved for Pakistani use by the IWT flowed.

In more recent years, Pakistan has also found novel ways to turn the IWT into a weapon against India. From waging conventional wars against India from almost the time it was created to sustaining a protracted proxy war by terror against it, Pakistan has for over a decade now been pursuing a "water war" strategy against India.

This strategy centres on repeatedly invoking the IWT's conflict-resolution provisions to "internationalise" any perceived disagreement so as to mount pressure on India.

In its latest move to corner India, Pakistan has initiated steps to haul it before a seven-member international arbitral tribunal in The Hague for pursuing two hydropower projects in J&K. Twice before in the past decade, Pakistan triggered international intercession by similarly invoking the treaty's conflict-resolution provisions.

Pakistan's strategy, coupled with its use of state-reared terrorists, could potentially force India's hand. If India begins to view the IWT as a liability and sees itself as the suffering loser, little can save the treaty.

Reuters

After all, India has the option in international law to dissolve the lopsided but indefinite treaty. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was also of indefinite duration but the US unilaterally withdrew from it after Russia opposed its revision.

The withdrawal option, however, cannot be exercised by a risk-averse nation.

India may be parched today but there is still no national discussion about how Pakistan is repaying India's water largesse with blood by sponsoring cross-border acts of grisly terrorism.

The water card is probably the most potent instrument India has in its arsenal - more powerful than the nuclear option, which essentially is for deterrence.

India's belated moves to address the problem of electricity shortages and underdevelopment in J&K by building modestly sized, run-of-river hydropower plants have rankled Pakistan, although the IWT permits such projects (which use a river's natural flow energy and elevation drop to produce electricity, without the need for any dam reservoir).

energydigital.com

The treaty requires India to provide Pakistan with prior notification, including design information, of any new project. Although prior notification does not mean the other party's prior consent, Pakistan has construed the condition as arming it with a veto power over Indian works.

To keep unrest in J&K simmering, it has objected to virtually every Indian project.

Its obstruction has delayed Indian projects for years, driving up their costs substantially.

Not surprisingly, there have been repeated calls in the J&K assembly for revision or abrogation of the IWT. By gifting the state's river waters to Pakistan, the treaty has hampered development there and fostered popular grievance.

RJ&K's total hydropower-generating capacity in operation or under construction does not equal the size of a single mega-dam that Pakistan is currently pursuing, such as the 7,000 MW Bunji Dam or the 4,500 MW Bhasha Dam. Indeed, while railing against India's run-of-river projects, Pakistan has invited China to build mega-dams in the Pakistani-occupied part of J&K, itself troubled by discontent, including against the growing Chinese footprint there, especially in Gilgit-Baltistan.

thirdpole.n.openearth.net

A 2011 report prepared for the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee called the IWT "the world's most successful water treaty" for having withstood conflicts and wars. The treaty has been a success mainly because of India, which has continued to uphold the pact even when Pakistan has repeatedly waged aggression and fundamentally altered the circumstances of cooperation.

International law recognises that a party may withdraw from a treaty in the event of fundamentally changed circumstances.

Pakistan's continuing use of state-reared terrorist groups against India constitutes reasonable grounds for the injured party to unilaterally withdraw from the IWT. Sustained sponsorship of cross-border terrorism over many years has created fundamentally changed circumstances that undermine the essential basis of India's original consent to the IWT, while significantly altering the balance of obligations.

The Indus is Pakistan's jugular vein. If India wishes to improve Pakistan's behaviour and dissuade it from exporting more terrorists, it should hold out a credible threat of dissolving the IWT, drawing a clear linkage between Pakistan's right to unimpeded water inflows and its responsibility not to cause harm to its upper riparian.

A failure to respect that linkage should free India, for example, to link the Chenab (which has the largest transboundary flow) with the Ravi-Beas-Sutlej system to address water scarcity in its north.
Preliminary investigation in the Scorpene data leak case has found that the leak did not take place in India but at the office of defence company DCNS in France, Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said here on Saturday.

Reuters

He was speaking after the launch of the second ship of Project 15B, guided-missile destroyer Mormugao. "There is a high-level committee which is inquiring into the Scorpene leak on our side," Admiral Lanba said.

"Based on this inquiry, we will see what needs to be done, whether any mitigation measures are required or not," he said.

"Preliminary probe in the case has found that the leak did not take place in India but at DCNS office in France," he Navy chief said.

"In France, DCNS and the French government have launched an inquiry. Based on this inquiry, we will see what needs to be done," he said.

Reuters

Over 22,000 pages of secret data on the capabilities of six highly-advanced Scorpene submarines being built for the Indian Navy in Mumbai in collaboration with DCNS were leaked, raising alarm bells in the security establishment.

The combat capability of the Scorpene submarines, being built at Mazagon Dock in Mumbai at a cost of USD 3.5 billion, went public when an Australian newspaper, The Australian, put the details on the website.

Some of the leaked documents relate to information about operating instructions of underwater warfare system of the submarines which are used to gather intelligence underwater.

Reuters

Earlier, the indigenously built warship, Mormugao, equipped with a range of high-tech missiles was launched, with the Navy chief saying the stealth destroyer can be compared with the best vessels in the world.

The vessel has been built by government-run Mazgaon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd (MDL) and belongs to Visakhapatnam class of ships being constructed under Project 15B.

The vessel will undergo certain testings required by Indian Navy and would be subsequently known as INS Mormugao.
Jayant Parab is only 16, and he's more tuned into what makes a computer tick than many engineers. The class 9 dropout is driven by one vision:

Mid-day

"I want to make affordable computers. The computer I have made is from leftovers from offices, banks and hospitals," he told Mid-Day.



E-waste isn't really waste to the lad

BCCL

With enough practice and a good DIY guide, anyone can 'assemble' a computer from new parts. But Parab has fashioned it from parts salvaged from e-waste, and cut the acrylic body himself. His father, once a scrap dealer today specialises in sourcing old and unusable computers and other hardware from from offices, hospitals and schools. This is where his son scores the nuts and bolts of what will become a computer.

Despite his obvious intelligence, Ravindra chose to drop out of school.

"He had no interest in studies and that pained me," he says. But he was impressed with his son's vision. The kid hasn't given up on education entirely, pursuing Std X via correspondence, while dabbling in ethical hacking and security systems.

One Of The Largest Smartphone Market, India Is Also The Fifth Largest E-Waste Producer!
A transgender soldier in the British Army has become the first woman to serve on the frontline. Guardsman Chloe Allen said she hopes to inspire others to "come out and be themselves".

Chloe Allen was born Ben Allen, and joined the forces in 2012 as a lad. Caught cross dressing while preparing to guard the royal palace, she decided to transition from male to female.

The 1st Battalion, Scots Guards soldier was assigned to guarding royal residences in London during ceremonial duties, when she was discovered dressed in female clothes.

This was, she said, a "blessing in disguise" to "get on and deal with it".

Tomorrow's front page: Chloe Allen becomes British Army's first female frontline soldier - after being born a boy pic.twitter.com/TW6wzW1BFN  The Sun (@TheSun) September 16, 2016

She's won praise from UK's military leadership



General Sir James Everard, Commander of the Field Army said he was "delighted to have our first woman serving in a ground close combat unit." He applauded her courage.

Congratulations Chloe, you've shown real courage! https://t.co/x7WELuITzA  Hannah Winterbourne (@hannahw253) September 17, 2016

She's now begun hormone therapy treatment

Chloe is the first female soldier to serve since 1660, when the Army was established.

"It's a great honour to be able to make history and at the same time do my job. It's just brilliant, I'm just looked at as a normal person," she told British newspaper 'The Sun'.
"I will never live something like that because he is the GOD and and did so many things for Panathinaikos. I wish I would have done even half of them, there is only one diamond: 3D", wrote the 28-year-old Portuguese central midfielder at his Facebook
Democracy Is Not A Spectator Sport. By Ilze Peterson September 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Many years ago, the late Judy Guay, a low-income woman from Bangor, founded the Maine Association of Interdependent Neighborhoods in order to advocate for the neediest in our state. I remember she said democracy is not a spectator sport. But each time I turn on the television, listen to the radio or read the paper, I quickly turn away from the news that focuses mainly on the latest outrageous attack by Donald Trump and counterattack by Hillary Clinton. Is this what democracy looks like? If so, count me out. Writer and blogger Tom Engelhardt got to the core of the inanity and insanity of this seemingly endless election campaign. In an Aug. 7 article on TomDispatch.com, he says, The spectacle of our moment is so overwhelming, dominating every screen of our lives and focused on just two outsized individuals in a country of 300 million plus on a planet of billions, that it blocks our view of reality. He suggests that missing in action is meaningful discussion of endless war, the federal budget that feeds this war with billions of our tax dollars, climate change that threatens the future of the planet and what we as citizens in a democracy can do to help shape a future for our children that is more peaceful, just and sustainable. Amazingly, in the midst of this bread and circus, Bernie Sanders was able to mobilize millions who donated an average of $27 to his campaign. His rallies drew thousands, despite the lack of mainstream coverage. I can understand why many of those who backed him are bitterly disappointed with Clintons nomination as the Democratic Party candidate and why they plan to vote for a third party or sit out the election. But I believe that the Nov. 8 election is important. The outcome will shape the possibilities for working for long-term fundamental change. I will vote to defeat the fear-mongering, racism and hate represented by Trump. This is why I plan to vote for Clinton, not because she will bring about that change but because she has espoused more progressive policies in response to the amazing grass-roots support for Sanders. His campaign addressed income inequality, health care, student debt and climate change, and he was not dependent on wealthy and corporate donors. The nomination of Supreme Court justices also will be in the hands of the next president. But I believe that unless we as individuals commit ourselves to becoming involved with others in creating fundamental change as an ongoing part of our daily lives after Nov. 8, our vote (or abstinence from voting) will only lead to disappointment when the elected leaders respond to the more powerful voices of the wealthy, corporations and the military establishment. We will be left to complain and become even more cynical about the possibility of a more humane future and wait for the next great leader to do the job for us. As Sanders said in an interview, We can elect the best person in the world to be president, but that person will get swallowed up unless there is an unprecedented level of activism at the grass-roots level. How can we as ordinary citizens become involved in meaningful action? Some may choose to run for local or state offices. But electoral politics has limits as we have witnessed, and it needs input and support from those most affected by the enacted policies. In order to ensure positive change, we can support some of the hundreds of grass-roots organizations working for an increase in the minimum wage, alternative energy, local food, Medicare for all, and against the racism and hatred that divides us from each other. We can join others by volunteering, donating, or simply showing up when called. Because we know our individual and single issue efforts wont be enough to create needed long-term changes, we can come together to affirm the power of our united efforts based on the values of caring, compassion and cooperation. By showing up, we can honor those, such as Guay, who, even when wheelchair bound, continued to speak out for justice and equality. We can become part of the process that is democracy. Ilze Petersons was program coordinator for the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine for 20 years before her retirement.  2016 Ilze Peterson
Israel To Get Biggest US Aid Package In History - A Good Idea? By Philip Giraldi and Daniel McAdams September 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " RPI " - US National Security Advisor Susan Rice met with her Israeli counterparts yesterday to sign an historic aid deal that will see $38 billion dollars shipped from US taxpayers to the Israeli military. In a press conference, Rice claimed that, "[t]his MOU is not just good for Israelits good for the United States. Our security is linked..." Today's Liberty Report is joined by former CIA officer Philip Giraldi to discuss how closely "linked" is US national security with Israeli security. Also, we discuss what a huge boon this will be for US defense contractors, who will supply all the military items to Israel:
Russia Has No Partners In The West By Paul Craig Roberts The Russian government is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The Russian government keeps making agreements with Washington, and Washington keeps breaking them. This latest exercise in what Einstein defined as insanity is the latest Syrian cease fire agreement. Washington broke the agreement by sending the US Air Force to bomb Syrian troop positions, killing 62 Syrian soldiers and wounding 100, thus clearing the way for ISIS to renew the attack. Russia caught Washington off guard in September 2015 when the Russian Air Force was sent to bomb ISIS positions in Syria, thus enabling the Syrian Army to regain the initiative. Russia had the war against ISIS won, but pulled out unexpectedly before the job was done. This allowed the US or its agents to resupply ISIS, which renewed the attack. So Russia had to return to Syria. In the interval Washington had inserted itself. Now the Russian air attacks on ISIS are more complicated, as is the sky over Syria. Russia notifies Washington of its planned attacks on ISIS, and Washington warns ISIS and perhaps Turkey which shot down a Russian plane. Nevertheless, the Syrian Army gained ground. But each time victory was stymied by peace talks or a cease fire, during which the US supported forces would regroup. Consequently, a war that Russia and Syria could have already won continues, and with a new element. Now Washington has directly attacked the Syrian army. The US military claims it thought it was striking ISIS. Think about that a minute. The US claims to be a military superpower. It spies on the entire world, even on the personal emails and cell phone calls of its European vassals. Yet, somehow all this spy power failed to differentiate a known Syrian Army position from ISIS. If we believe that, we must conclude that the US is militarily incompetent. This is what has happened: Prior to the current cease fire, the Russians could attack the US-supported jihadists, but the US could not attack Syrian forces directly, only through its jihadist proxies. The US has used the cease fire to create a precedent for US direct attacks on the Syrian Army. The Russians, who almost had the war won, have shifted their focus to peace talks and cease fires that the US has used to introduce Washingtons direct participation into the conflict. It is a mystery that the Russian government believes Washington and Moscow have any common interest in the outcome in Syria. Washingtons interest is to remove Assad and put Syria into the chaos that rules in Libya and Iraq. Russias interest is to stabilize Syria as a bulwark against the spread of jihadism. It is extraordinary that the Russian government is so misinformed that it thinks Moscow and Washington have a common interest in fighting terrorism, when terrorism is Washingtons weapon for destabilizing the Middle East. How can the Russian memory be so short. Washington promised Gorbachev that if he permitted the reunification of Germany, NATO would not move one inch to the East. But the Clinton regime placed NATO on Russias border. The George W. Bush regime violated the ABM Treaty by pulling out of it, and the Obama regime is putting missile bases on Russias border. The neoconservatives deep-sixed no first use of nuclear weapons and elevated them to pre-emptive first strike in US war doctrine. The Obama regime overthrew the Ukrainian government and installed a US puppet government in a former constituent part of Russia. The puppet government launched a war against the Russian populations in Ukraine, causing secession movements that Washington has mischaracterized as Russian invasion and annexation. Yet, the Russian government thinks Washington is a partner with whom it has common interests. Go figure. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West , How America Was Lost , and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order .
Whistleblower Exposes How NATOs Leading Ally Is Arming And Funding ISIS



I am the police chief who was asked to guard ISIS terrorists



By Nafeez Ahmed + Turkeys intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, named as member of terror group linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS + Turkish intelligence directly supplied military aid to ISIS for years + Turkish government siphoned military supplies to ISIS through humanitarian relief agency + ISIS fighters, including al-Baghadis deputy, received free medical treatment in Turkey and protection from Turkish police + Head of ISIS in Turkey received 24/7 protection under the personal order of President Erdogan + Turkish police investigations into ISIS are being systematically quashed + ISIS oil is sold with complicity of authorities in Turkey and Kurdish region of northern Iraq + NATO affirms Turkeys role as ally in war on ISIS September 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Medium" - A former senior counter-terrorism official in Turkey has blown the whistle on President Recep Tayyip Erdogans deliberate sponsorship of the Islamic State (ISIS) as a geopolitical tool to expand Turkeys regional influence and sideline his political opponents at home. Ahmet Sait Yayla was Chief of the Counter-Terrorism and Operations Division of Turkish National Police between 2010 and 2012, before becoming Chief of the Public Order and Crime Prevention Division until 2014. Previously, he had worked in the Counter-Terrorism and Operations Division as a mid-level manager for his entire 20-year police tenure, before becoming Chief of Police in Ankara and Sanliurfa. In interviews with INSURGE intelligence, Yayla exclusively revealed that he had personally witnessed evidence of high-level Turkish state sponsorship of ISIS during his police career, which eventually led him to resign. He decided to become a whistleblower after Erdogans authoritarian crackdown following the failed military coup in July. This is the first time that the former counter-terrorism chief has spoken on the record to reveal what he knows about Turkish government aid to Islamist terror groups. The former Turkish National Police counter-terrorism chief is speaking out at considerable risk to his own family. As part of Erdogans crackdown after the failed military coup in July, Yaylas 19 year old son was prevented from leaving the country, and eventually arrested on terrorism charges. When I first spoke to Yayla, he had just launched his new book in Washington DC, ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate, co-authored with Professor Anne Speckhard, a NATO and Pentagon consultant specialising in the psychology of radicalisation. Turkey is supporting Islamic State and other jihadist groups, said Yayla. I know this firstly as a former chief of Turkish national police and what I experienced there, which is the reason I ended up leaving the police. And secondly, due to former ISIS terrorists whom I have interviewed as part of my research into the jihadist phenomenon  many of whom say that ISIS enjoys official Turkish support. Targeted by Erdogans counter-coup Yayla is the first Turkish counter-terrorism official to claim firsthand knowledge of Erdogans secret support for Islamist terrorist groups. He has intimate knowledge of the governments relationship with ISIS, having worked closely with senior government officials in Ankara  including Erdogan himself  to discuss operations. After my initial interview with Yayla, I had countless further questions about his specific experiences of Turkeys sponsorship of ISIS. But I was having difficulties reaching him. Eventually, I received an email on 30 July clarifying the reason for the silence. I am sorry I could not get back to you, wrote Yayla: I was trying to get my son out of Turkey and he was held at the border without any reasons. He is a college student, 19 year old boy. They do not explain anything and just hold him at the border police. Of course, the reason is me, what I am writing and my stand against Erdogan. We are so stressed up with him being detained. As you know torture and other atrocities that I would not want to think of have become ordinary for the last two weeks in Turkey. Let me handle this crisis and speak to you later if you dont mind. Yaylas son is Yavuz Yayla, a student of international relations at Cukurova University. I could not imagine what Yayla was going through. Then, within days, the situation escalated: Unfortunately, they arrested my son, Yayla wrote in a further email. The charge is having a one dollar bill in his backpack, a sign he is accused of being among the coup supporters. He is 19, first year college student, does not have anything to do with anyone or with any coupists, but it is only to get revenge on me because I am screaming the facts and Erdogan does not like it. Despite his own direct knowledge of the corruption of Turkeys national security system, Yayla was taken aback by the development: I have never thought they would go that low. You just cannot do anything. Literally, in the indictment the prosecutor submitted two evidences to his being a terrorist, trying to leave the country through legal means from a border gate where he was stopped due to the fact that he had officers passport (green passport as he can only go to EU without visa with this passport and I got it from the University) and having a one dollar bill in his backpack which he had taken from me years ago when I came back from a conference in the US. We are at a point that words cannot describe the frustration we are having individually or as the victims of this coup attempt. I first spoke to Yayla at length on 4 August by telephone. His voice was noticeably subdued compared to our initial conversation. The first thing he told me was that he had not been able to stop crying, due to fear of what would happen to his son. The situation was intractable. To get his son released, Yayla needed to find a good and brave lawyer. But lawyers were already being purged by Erdogan  especially lawyers that agreed to take cases of people arrested by authorities for being linked to the coup. So I cant find a lawyer, said Yayla. The lawyers are afraid. All they are saying is We have family too, they will arrest us too. Teams of counter-terrorism officers had been sent to the home of Yaylas father in Ankara. They had searched the house, and asked repeated questions about Ahmet himself. Since then, Yavuz Yayla remains in indefinite detention on terrorism charges, and appeal proceedings have been unsuccessful. For Yayla, the real target of these actions is obvious. They want to silence me, he said regarding the Erdogan administration: I know several internal understandings. How they were helping ISIS directly. In the two months during his sons detention, Yayla has been unable to communicate with his son by phone, although inmates have the right to a ten minute phone call every week. By early September, the Turkish authorities temporarily released Yavuz with all his personal belongings, only to detain him again at the door of the prison. This time he was re-arrested on the grounds that his passport had been canceled by the government. The lawyer whom Ahmet had eventually found for his son pulled out of the case under pressure from Turkish intelligence. In reality, the cancellation of Yavuzs passport was linked to his father. Turkish authorities had cancelled the passports of Ahmet Yayla and his family members in July 2016, after Yayla wrote an article in the World Policy Journal highlighting evidence of Erdogans support for terrorism. But that article barely scratched the surface of what Ahmet Yayla knows firsthand about the Turkish governments incestuous relationship with ISIS. Humanitarian terror Yayla said that controversial allegations in the Turkish press concerning support to militant groups in Syria through a Turkish charitable NGO, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), are entirely accurate reflections of a murky relationship between the Turkish government and jihadist groups. On 3 January 2014, the centrist Turkish daily Hurriyet reported that a significant quantity of ammunition and weapons were found by Turkish police in trucks transporting aid on behalf of the IHH to Islamist rebels in Syria. It soon emerged from prosecutor and witness testimony of the police officers in court proceedings that the trucks were alleged to have been accompanied by officials from the Turkish state National Intelligence Organisation (MIT). The testimony in court documents claimed that rocket parts, ammunition and mortar shells had been found in trucks delivering supplies to areas of Syria under the control of jihadist groups in late 2013 and early 2014. However, Erdogans government banned all Turkish media from further reporting on the court proceedings. The allegations, claimed the government, were part of a conspiracy to undermine Erdogans presidency  organised by the exiled Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who is resident in the United States. According to Ahmet Yayla, however, the allegations against Erdogan and IHH are accurate, and have nothing to do with a Gulenist conspiracy. I was indirectly involved early on in the counter-terrorism investigations into IHH, said Yayla. The leader of the IHH was arrested as a result of these investigations at the time, due to the evidence we had obtained that the group is behind much of the support to ISIS. IHH have provided weapons and ammunition to many jihadist groups in Syria, not just ISIS. Yayla notes that the 2010 Gaza flotilla, where an IHH operated vessel was prevented from carrying humanitarian supplies into Gaza by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), had been arranged with Erdogans approval: Erdogan wanted people to think he was supporting Jerusalem and Palestine, by forcing this ship to Gaza. He expected to become a hero. Instead, people were killed. But Erdogan used the incident to radicalise people in Turkey around himself. Even before the flotilla incident, IHH had become the primary partner of the Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TIKA)  the Turkish governments official aid agency  to distribute humanitarian aid all over the world. Except, it wasnt only humanitarian goods IHH was distributing. Amongst the goods, were weapons, said Yayla. Militant roots IHHs chief benefactor in the Turkish government was Hakan Fidan, who headed up TIKA from 2003 to 2007. A former Turkish military officer, he became deputy undersecretary to the Prime Minister in 2007. Since 2010, he has been head of the Turkish state intelligence agency, MIT. But according to Ahmet Yayla, Fidan was a prime suspect in a series of terrorism attacks in the 1990s  when Yayla worked as a police officer in Ankara. The attacks involved targeted assassinations of leftwing Turkish intellectuals affiliated with the newspaper Cumhuriyet, in the form of car bombings and exploding parcels. The victims included journalist Ugur Mumtu, womens rights activist Bahriye Ucok, and intellectual Ahmet Taner Kislali. Police operations traced the perpetrators of the attacks to a terrorist cell run by the Turkish Hizbollah (TH). Two key individuals now close to Erdogan were identified by police as members of the cell: Hakan Fidan and Faruk Koca, a founding member of the ruling AKP. Turkish Hizbollah is a Sunni Islamist terrorist organisation that emerged in the 1980s, originally run by a Kurdish faction. It is particularly active against the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK), and openly endorses violence as a means to establish an Islamic state in Turkey. The group has no ties with the Lebanese group of the same name. But according to Yayla, Turkish police operations revealed that TH had ties to senior elements of Turkeys security apparatus, as well as strong relationships to post-revolutionary Iranian intelligence officials. A Human Rights Watch background briefing published in 2000 documented an alarming pattern of links between Turkish security forces and TH, including testimony from senior Turkish government officials  such as cabinet minister Fikri Saglar, who claimed that the Turkish Hizbullah was from inception controlled by the Armed Forces and expanded and strengthened on the basis of a decision at the National Security Council in 1985. In April 1995, an official Turkish Parliamentary report concluded that Turkish military units were providing assistance to a secret Turkish Hizbullah camp in the region of Seku, Gonullu and Cicekli villages, in the Gercus district of Batman. TH has since been designated as a terrorist organisation by the State Department. Over the last decade, while TH has not renounced its commitment to violence, it has focused on political activities. Yet its violent legacy lives on. There is a direct line of descent between TH, al-Qaeda and ISIS. Halis Bayancuk, whose nom de guerre is Abu Hanzala, is the emir of ISIS in Turkey. Previously, Turkeys state-run national public broadcaster, TRT, identified Bayancuk as the head of al-Qaedas Turkey branch. But Bayancuk is also the son of Haci Bayancuk, one of the founding members of TH. Police operations in 2007 in Bingol and Koceeli, and in 2008 in Istanbul, Ankara and Diyarbakir, revealed high level cooperation between TH leaders and al-Qaeda. One al-Qaeda network in Turkey led by Muhammed Yasar was found to have operated on behalf of TH. Emrullah Uslu, a former policy analyst in the Turkish National Police Counter-Terrorism Unit, says that most of the members of al-Qaedas network in Turkey have had contact with TH. Today, a splinter faction of TH that has recruited new Salafi-jihadists to its fold is now fighting alongside ISIS and other extremist factions in Syria, reports Turkish journalist Sibel Hurtas. Hundreds of pages of documentation about the Turkish Hizbullah were uncovered in the Ankara police raids that occurred at the time, said Yayla regarding the wave of murders in the 1990s: The files proved direct ties between Iranian intelligence, and two figures who are now extremely close to Erdogan: Hakan Fidan and Faruk Koca. And they showed that both Fidan and Koca were part of the Turkish Hizbullah terrorist cell behind those bombings. Due to the police investigation, Fidan fled Turkey to Germany, then moved to the US where he continued to live in exile. When the AKP took power under Erdogan, however, Fidan returned to Turkey and reprised his role as head of the Turkish aid agency, his wanted status inexplicably disappearing. Daesh: bastard spawn of the Turkish deep state Due to its humanitarian credentials, the IHH, now partnered with the Turkish government under Fidans leadership of TIKA, provided the perfect cover for Erdogan to escalate his covert Syria strategy. The covert strategy continued as Fidan went on to become head of Turkish state intelligence. If Yaylas claims are correct, then the current head of Turkeys powerful MIT under Erdogan is a member of the al-Qaeda affiliated Turkish Hizbullah, responsible for terrorist murders of leftwing dissidents in the 1990s. From around 2012 onwards, Yayla explained, several hundred trucks of supplies were being sent by IHH to Syria. Describing several active police operations against IHH due to the agencys relationships with al-Qaeda, Yayla confirmed that one major operation involving anti-terror raids in Gazientep, Van, Kilis, Istanbul, Adana and Kayseri had uncovered IHHs close working relationship with senior al-Qaeda and ISIS operatives, by supplying arms to jihadist groups across the border. While Erdogan and his ministers condemned the police operation, Yayla, who has briefed Erdogan as Chief of Police in Ankara, confirmed that the operation was the result of an ongoing police investigation into jihadist support within Turkey  not a Gulenist conspiracy. But IHH was only one conduit for these operations in support of Syrian jihadists. The rest of the operations were carried out directly by the MIT, said Yayla. The MIT openly carried weapons and explosives to Syria by truck as well as by actual fighters being transported by busses, several times. Some of them were caught by Turkish police. Thousands of foreign fighters have swarmed into Turkey over the last few years to join groups fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. For the first time, Ahmet Yaylas interviews with INSURGE intelligence provide direct insider confirmation not only that Erdogans government had turned a blind eye to the movement of these fighters across the border into Syria  but that Turkish police had detected the role of Turkeys state intelligence agency in the foreign fighter funnel, which had involved direct assistance to ISIS: The MIT agency transported ISIS terrorists from Hatay to Sanliurfa in buses in 2014 and 2015. Sometimes they would be dropped off at the border, other times they would be transported across the border. When the terrorists would return to Turkey, they were often stopped for routine drug control. In the buses, Turkish border guards found Kalashnikovs and ammunition. The occupants were arrested and questioned, and the drivers openly admitted that MIT had hired them to transport those terrorists and foreign fighters. Yayla was not directly involved in these operations, but became aware of their damning findings during his senior police role, as he had unrestricted access to the relevant records. Bombs for charity IHH has long been suspected of terrorism ties by Western intelligence agencies. A confidential State Department cable from the US embassy in Istanbul obtained by Wikileaks, dated 21 July 2006, confirms that the IHH is suspected by some of international terrorism financing In 1997 local officers at IHHs Istanbul headquarters were arrested after a raid by security forces uncovered firearms, explosives and bomb-making instructions. The cable describes a funeral memorial for the death of al-Qaeda affiliated Chechen military commander Shamil Basayev, co-organised by IHH, and personally attended by IHHs president, Bulent Yildirim. Basayev was designated by the State Department as a terrorist individual in 2003 due to his admitted involvement in several massacres of civilian hostages and suicide bombings, as well as his links to al-Qaeda. In that context, the rest of the secret cable is worth noting: Mourners continued chanting Arabic slogans interspersed with the following phrases in Turkish: Killer Russians  out of Chechnya, Killer Israelis  Out of Palestine, Killer Americans  Out of the Middle East, Shamil Basayev  Your way is our way, and Hamas  Go on Resisting. As a possible reference to the upcoming election season, Yildirim also had a message for the Turkish Government, Dont support these infidels  if you go straight, were ready to follow you. Mid-way through the ceremony, participants burned a flag  which we could not see  to the crowds great delight. As for Basayev, Yildirim praised the fact that he didnt compromise, claiming that he aimed for independence and died for God and the cause. Yayla confirmed that the IHH police raid in 1997 had identified direct ties between the charity and al-Qaeda. IHH personnel, he said, were being prepared for combat operations in Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan. Documents found during the raid revealed that weapons were being secretly supplied to groups connected to Osama bin Laden. ISIS supporters also regularly transport parts to engineer make-shift explosive devices across the Turkish-Syria border with impunity. Photographs provided exclusively to INSURGE by Yayla, which he obtained directly from former ISIS members, depict ISIS members handling so-called hell fireball bombs made from liquid petroleum gas tanks, the parts for which are manufactured in Konya, an inner city in Turkey where hundreds of ISIS supporters reside. The former ISIS member said that these supplies are coming from sources protected by Turkish security forces, said Yayla. Yaylas defector source confirmed that the parts are hauled by truck across the border into Syria to make the bombs. The trucks routinely pass through Turkish customs without problems. They killed hundreds of civilians and kids, said Yayla. They are very effective. The defector was explaining they are at least ten times more powerful and lethal than regular mortars. All the materials to these bombs were hauled to Syria from Turkey and they were purchased from Turkey. The police chief ordered to guard ISIS But it is Ahmet Yaylas personal experience of Turkish official sponsorship of ISIS that is, perhaps, most damning of all. I have several times witnessed with my own eyes and ears the Governor of Sanliurfa [a city next to the Turkey-Syria border] talking to leaders of terrorist groups in Syria, said Yayla. In several high-level security meetings involving the chiefs of police, Yayla and his colleagues would wait while the governor finished his phone calls with rebel leaders. It was really shocking, Yayla recalled. He would openly talk about the situation in Syria, and repeatedly ask over the phone how he could assist in providing whatever they needed, food or medicine, literally whatever they needed. Things came to a head when the governor  who is a political appointee of the Ministry of Interior  began demanding that Yayla oversee the protection of hundreds of ISIS fighters who were being shipped into Turkey to receive medical treatment. I am the police chief who was asked by the governor to guard ISIS terrorists. And I assigned police officers to this task, said Yayla. The official police records of this policy still exist, and can be seen in the assignment programmes. These records cannot be destroyed. I was the officer assigned to have the police guard those terrorists, he repeated, the disbelief palpable in his tone. Fighting close to the Turkish border had become so intense from 2013 onwards that hundreds of jihadist rebels had been injured: ISIS fighters were being brought across the border into Sanliurfa to be treated in Turkish hospitals. As chief of police, I was being asked by the governor to send my officers to provide 24/7 protection for those wounded terrorists. It got to the point that there were so many ISIS members being treated, I couldnt even find enough officers to guard those terrorists. We were suffering from a severe shortage of manpower because of these demands. When it reached that point, I had no choice but to tell the governor, you know, that I really dont care about this anymore, and I told him, look, I dont have the manpower, the city is suffering  I cant do my job. The governor was upset, said Yayla, but due to the sheer volume of ISIS fighters coming into Turkey for medical treatment, his demands could not be met. It was so crazy you could see ambulances coming in with European plates carrying ISIS members, said Yayla. In fact, al-Baghdadis deputy, Fadhil Ahmed al Hayali, was wounded by an American bombardment. He lost his leg, and he was brought into one of the hospitals and treated. After that he went back to Syria. No one charged any money for the treatment. It was completely free. The policy of providing free medical assistance to ISIS fighters lasted for two years until 2015. Pressure from President Obama to close the borders led Erdogan to wind down the policy that year. Stop fighting terrorists Yaylas open misgivings about the compromising of police operations eventually led the governor to force him out of counter-terrorism. I was so keen on fighting against terrorism that I created a system to go after the terrorists before they establish a cell, explained Yayla. If someone was involved in terrorism, I would send police officers to intervene by, for instance, speaking to family members to prevent further radicalisation. So my officers began to intervene with ISIS members as soon as we detected their activities. But the governor did not agree. He didnt like what I was doing, so he took me out of counter-terrorism. Due to my seniority in the Turkish National Police, he couldnt fire me. So instead he put me in charge of the Public Order and Investigations Department. Yayla remained committed to using his authority to crackdown on terrorists. He asked officers in his department to pursue a policy of stopping and arresting suspected terrorists moving around the city, and handing them over to counter-terrorism. Unsurprisingly, he said, The governor did not like that idea either. In fact, Yayla complained: Most of the time the dispatch centre was urged not to send counter-terrorism, and even not to radio in, as radio was being recorded. Instead, Turkish counter terrorism officers would reach out to our officers through direct phone contact and tell them to just release the terrorists. Why are you stopping them? Let them go, they would say. Yayla said that as a consequence of this policy, ISIS was able to ramp up its presence in Turkey with complete impunity: Basically, the police were not allowed to stop ISIS inside the city. Among Yaylas most shocking allegations is that the Turkish government has directly protected the leader of ISIS Turkish operations, Halis Bayancuk, also known as Abu Hanzala, who is the son of one of the founding fathers of the Turkish Hizbullah. My police sources confirm that Erdogan had in 2015 assigned Bayancuk 24/7 police protection, said Yayla. I still communicate with other police sources and chiefs. They routinely complain that the highest Turkish authorities are working with ISIS, and that their efforts to arrest ISIS members in Turkey are obstructed by the counter-terrorism department. Yayla describes several examples when his own officers would investigate suspected ISIS members without any support from their colleagues in counter-terrorism: ISIS members arriving in Turkey often shave their beards and cut their hair so that they can blend into society. Senior detectives would follow their movements from their arrival in Turkey to their activities in the city, collecting and sharing evidence on them with counter-terrorism. But they would receive no support from the counter-terrorism department. Instead, they would be told Dont stop them, its not your job. And to make matters worse, the police would then open investigations into these very officers for investigating the terrorists. Yayla said that the failed coup had provided Erdogan with a perfect opportunity to root out officers critical of these policies, on the pretext of targeting a Gulenist conspiracy: Many of these officers simply cant speak  if they speak they will be arrested. Logistical safe haven  blood for oil Turkey, a key NATO member and purported ally of the West in the fight against ISIS, has now become an open safe haven for jihadists: ISIS has a large logistical support base in Gaziantep. For example, all of its uniforms are tailored in Gaziantep, maybe over 60,000 of them over the last two years. This is not entirely surprising, given that Gazientep was previously the main logistical support base for TH, and later al-Qaeda in Turkey. There are dome like buildings in Gazientep where jihadists are living  both ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra [a former al-Qaeda affiliate rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham], said Ahmet Yayla. These are huge apartments filled with jihadists. Many of these jihadists dont even bother to blend in. They retain their distinctive appearance, with their particular clothing style and long beards. And they go back and forth across the border freely. But Yaylas astonishing revelations about the Turkish governments support for ISIS did not end there. He also referred to firsthand accounts he had obtained from dozens of sensitive interviews with ISIS defectors who were hiding in Turkey. Some of these accounts are examined in Yaylas new book with his academic colleague Speckhard, ISIS Defectors, as well as in their recent paper in the peer-reviewed journal, Perspectives on Terrorism. Allegations that Erdogans son and son-in-law have been directly involved in ISIS oil smuggling operations have appeared in the Turkish press, but are fervently denied by the government. Regardless of these claims, Yaylas own sources among ISIS defectors confirmed the role of both Turkey and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq in facilitating ISIS oil sales. The main route to get the oil out of ISIS territory is through northern Iraq, said Yayla. ISIS oil is transported by truck and mixed in with northern Iraq oil. This is why the KRG and Erdogan are buddies. The ISIS oil network involved a combination of competing interests  including those of Bashar al-Assad, ISIS purported arch-enemy. When the refineries had problems, ISIS would reach out to Bashar, who would dispatch oil engineers to come in and sort out the problems. ISIS fighters would escort and protect Bashars engineers, allow them to fix the problems, then send them back safely to Bashar. Did this mean Bashar al-Assad was, indeed, sponsoring ISIS by buying its oil? Yes and no, said Yayla. Bashar was not directly in control of ISIS, but he needs to maintain a secure supply of oil, and ISIS needs to maintain its oil sales. Its a relationship of convenience. A few defectors told me they were upset about this. ISISs official justification is that they trade with other states even if they are the enemy. ISIS were making so much money from the oil sales overall that they had to stop counting the money by currency, and instead began weighing it in kilos. One former ISIS emir told Yayla: Some of the oil goes directly to Turkey, but mainly it goes to northern Iraq and gets mixed with the Iraqi oil. According to Yayla: He [the ISIS defector] knows that for both Turkey, and in the KRG, the ISIS tankers were being protected, theyre not stopped, theyre untouchable. Not just one tanker  tanker after tanker after tanker. Roads were blocked everywhere to keep out ISIS and other terrorist organisations. Yet, he and a few other ISIS sources told me that those trucks and tankers were able to pass through checkpoints without problems, without even being asked to stop. This proves simply that ISIS was under orders not to mess with the Turkish tankers, and vice versa. The Turkish government has shown no signs it is even marginally interested in investigating these issues. Multiple requests for comment were sent to the Turkish embassy in London regarding Yaylas allegations, and the treatment of his son. No response was received. NATOs alliance with terror I asked Yayla the big question. Why? Why would Turkey finance ISIS, especially when the terror group has in recent years not shied away from hitting targets inside Turkey? Yayla speculates that political corruption at the highest levels of Erdogans government has eroded the national security of Turkish society. I think Erdogan wants to establish a new Turkish state  Salafi, Shia and political Islam, all amalgamated, he said. Dont be mistaken. For Erdogan, political Islam is merely a useful tool to consolidate his support base in Turkey. And it is now his main tool to use against all domestic opposition to his rule  in particular the Kurds, who are a potent fighting force against ISIS. Most perturbing of all is the deafening silence of NATO. In response to allegations of Turkeys state-sponsorship of ISIS, a NATO spokesman was unrepentant about Turkeys continuing role within the US-led security alliance. In a lengthy statement, the NATO official said: Turkey is the NATO ally most immediately exposed to the violence and instability in Syria and Iraq. All other allies help to protect Turkey with a range of measures, including the deployment of Patriot missile defence systems. The fight against ISIL demands a comprehensive and sustained effort, including to cut ISILs illegal funding and end the flow of foreign fighters. All NATO allies are contributing to the US-led Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. Turkey is making a crucial contribution, including by hosting several other NATO Allies at Incirlik airbase, and strengthening the security of its border with Syria. At our recent Summit in Warsaw, NATO decided that our AWACS aircraft will contribute to the Global Coalitions air picture and radar coverage. We also agreed to step up our training of Iraqi officers, including inside Iraq. The Turkish Government has offered to help the training effort at facilities within Turkey. NATO, it seems, has no interest in investigating the systematic sponsorship of ISIS from within the very heart of the alliance. Meanwhile, Ahmet Yayla is paying a high price for speaking out. Having detained his son on unsubstantiated terrorism charges, the Turkish government is now escalating its campaign against the former counter-terrorism chief by publicly labelling him a terrorist through state-controlled media. On Wednesday, Yayla testified before the US Congressional Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats about mounting evidence that the failed coup was staged by elements of Erdogans own government. The following day, the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency accused Yayla of being an alleged member of the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO) purportedly led by Fetullah Gulen. But Yayla, who has personally briefed Erdogan himself in his role as Chief of Police, is not a Gulenist by any stretch of the imagination. Erdogan would label anyone as Gulenist if you are against him, said Yayla. I am not a Gulenist. I am just a regular practicing Muslim. Yaylas real crime is simply his tenacity in continuing to fight terrorism, no matter who is responsible for it. His courage, though, is costing his family. And as NATO continues to protect Erdogans increasingly draconian regime, the so-called war on ISIS grinds on with no end in sight. Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is an award-winning 15-year investigative journalist, international security scholar, bestselling author, and film-maker. Nafeez is the author of A Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It (2010), and the scifi thriller novel ZERO POINT , among other books. His work on the root causes and covert operations linked to international terrorism officially contributed to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroners Inquest. This story is being released for free in the public interest, and was enabled by crowdfunding. Id like to thank my amazing community of patrons for their support, which gave me the opportunity to work on this story. Please support independent, investigative journalism for the global commons via www.patreon.com/nafeez , where you can donate as much or as little as you like.
US Desperately Pumps Humanitarian Smokescreen for Failing Syria Ceasefire By Finian Cunningham September 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " SCF " - Washingtons lie about seeking a genuine ceasefire in Syria is in danger of being exposed for the world to see. So, hilariously, a charade is being hurriedly orchestrated in order to hide this ignominy. As usual, the Syrian government is being scapegoated for the real cause of violence in the country. That real cause is Washingtons state-sponsored terrorist-fueled war for regime change. After four days of continuing deadly breaches by US-backed rebels since the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire deal was implemented last Monday, Washington and the dutiful Western mainstream media are preparing the inevitable excuses. Rather than focusing on ongoing rebel violence in contravention of the truce, US Secretary of State John Kerry fingered the Syrian government for preventing humanitarian access to insurgent-held eastern Aleppo as the reason for why the ceasefire is in danger of collapsing. Kerry accused the Syrian government of causing unacceptable repeated delays in delivery of humanitarian aid convoys to the northern city. Some 300,000 people are estimated to be stuck in dire conditions in the eastern side of Aleppo, which has become a key battleground in the five-year war. Western media reports followed suit with Reuters reporting: Syria ceasefire deal in balance as Aleppo aid plan stalls. Another publication, USA Today, made the more pointed claim: The regime has broken its pledges on the distribution of life-saving supplies. So, in Washingtons artful spin of events, it is the Syrian government of President Bashar al Assad which is reneging on the ceasefire arrangement by blocking food and medical supplies to starving civilians. This, of course, plays handily into the broader Western narrative that the Syrian regime is the ultimate villain of the piece. The vile Assad is mercilessly denying children food and water, goes the spin. Based on that premise, Washington is giving notice that it will not follow through on its ceasefire commitment to join with Russian air forces for targeting terror groups like ISIS (Daesh) and al Nusra Front. Those anticipated joint operations between US and Russian aircraft were supposed to be the highlight of the ceasefire plan worked out last weekend in Geneva by Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. But that supposed breakthrough is now in doubt. McClatchy News reported at the end of the week: US to Russia  Syria military cooperation not guaranteed. US State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters four days into the truce: If, by Monday we have continued to see reduced violence and no humanitarian access, there will be no Joint Implementation Center [with Russian military]. Washington is mendaciously trying to pretend that there have been no breaches of the ceasefire and that the whole problem revolves around no humanitarian access being granted by the Syrian authorities. If the US does indeed backtrack from its stated prior commitment to cooperate with Russian forces for targeting terror groups then it is safe to assume that the entire ceasefire deal will be dead, even as a rhetorical concept. Admittedly, the level of violence in Aleppo and across the country subsided when the US-Russian ceasefire pact came into effect on September 12. Russian and allied Syrian forces halted their campaign of air strikes. Opposition violence appeared to abate too. Nevertheless, the truce was reportedly violated multiple times by anti-government militias, not just in Aleppo, but in other locations, such as Latakia, Hama and Homs. Furthermore, there was no apparent distinction between so-called US-backed moderate rebels and recognized terror groups in carrying out these violations. All insurgents groups were engaging in sporadic attacks  in contravention of the putative ceasefire. Credible Russian military reports confirmed that Syrian army units had observed the truce and had begun demilitarizing a major access road into eastern Aleppo. Syrian troops are being replaced by Russian units to safeguard the route. However, it is the militants who are refusing to withdraw from the Castello Road area, which would provide the humanitarian aid convoys access to the city. Indeed, insurgent factions openly declared that they would continue shelling and sniping in the Castello Road precisely in order to prevent the aid convoys arriving because they opposed the ceasefire accord even being implemented. Russia has correctly criticized the US as using a verbal smokescreen to conceal why the ceasefire is failing. The point is that Washington has negligible control over its declared moderate rebels. In fact, there is no control because in practice there is no distinction between the myriad illegally armed insurgents. Like the ceasefire called earlier this year in February, this latest one is breaking down because all the militants continue to breach any cessation. As Lt General Vladimir Savchenko, chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria, points out, the US-backed opposition is using the ceasefire simply as an opportunity to rearm and regroup. And Washingtons policy is impotent about altering that. The CIA and Washingtons allies in Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey armed the anti-government insurgents, including the known terror groups. The regime-change conspirators created a veritable Frankenstein monster over which they now have little control even to the point of getting it to at least appear to be complying with a ceasefire for tactical reasons. The latest ceasefire is floundering like the previous attempt because Washingtons assertions about moderate rebels dissociating from terror groups is total and utter humbug. Risibly, as one could have predicted, John Kerrys bombastic appeal last weekend for US-backed rebels to separate from the extremists so that American and Russian forces could then get on with the task of eliminating the terrorists has been subsequently shown to be the consummate delusion that it is. Washington and its allies are being caught out spectacularly in their lies over the Syrian conflict. The stone-cold truth is that they have been sponsoring terrorist proxies for the criminal purpose of regime change. So conspicuous and damning is Washingtons nefarious role in Syrias conflict  which has resulted in 400,000 dead and millions turned into desperate refugees  that this crime has to be covered up at all costs. But covering it up is becoming futile because of the increasing glaring reality. Syrias ceasefire is flawed because Washington, the supposed co-architect of the truce along with Moscow, is not motivated by finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The conflict is all about regime change and deploying terrorist agents to achieve that. That is why the ceasefire is failing  yet again. The unbearable truth about Washington and its criminal gang of state-sponsors of terrorism has to be concealed from public view. And that is why Washington and the dutiful Western media lie machine are cranking up the explanation for the ceasefire unravelling as being due to the fault of the Syrian regime and its Russian ally for not delivering on humanitarian commitments. This American smokescreen has been pumped out for nearly six years in Syria. It is really galling to hear the likes of John Kerry and Barack Obama talk about human suffering and the need for humanitarian ceasefires. The suffering and violence in Syria will stop when Washington is seen for the criminal regime that it is. That day is coming. The American smokescreen is dissipating with each passing day because of its absurd contradictions. And the terrorists  state sponsors and proxies alike  are finally being exposed. Finian Cunningham, Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages
Three of the kidnapped 14 Nestoil workers abducted along Omoku/ Elele road on September 2, have recently escaped from their abductors.

According to reports, this bring the total escaped victims to seven as 4 had initially escaped, leaving the number of those still in captivity, at seven.

The constant movement of the kidnappers gave them the opportunity to escape, the escapees said while speaking to reporters.
A former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, has said that as far as governance is concerned, former President Olusegun Obasanjo is the greatest Nigerian alive.

Ali, who was Minister of Education during Obasanjos first stint as military ruler, was PDP chairman between 2005 and 2007.

Speaking when a national daily sought his reaction on the former presidents recent criticism of the PDP and All Progressives Congress, APC, Mr. Ali said Obasanjo is no more interested in partisan politics, he is a 100% statesman and that is why he is chastising both APC and PDP.

It would be recalled that shortly after a factional National Chairman of the PDP, Ali Modu Sheriff, paid Obasanjo a visit at his Abeokuta residence in Ogun State over a week ago, the former president had told the media that: For our democracy to thrive we need strong political party in government and strong political party in opposition. Today, PDP cannot claim to be a strong party in opposition, I dont know if APC can claim, at the national level, to be a strong party in government either. Now that is part of the misfortune of this country today.

That being the case, it must be the concern of all Nigerians that the present democratic dispensation must not be allowed to be derailed and for it not to be derailed, we must have a strong political party in government and a strong political party in opposition.

In his reaction to the comments credited to the former president, Ali, who was the Director-General of the Goodluck Jonathan Presidential Campaign in 2015, said: That man (Obasanjo) is the greatest Nigerian alive today when it comes to the governance of Nigeria and one has to be very careful if you want to analyze his statements because some of them are heavily loaded and you dont know and you are seeing so much that his statement weighs a lot both nationally and internationally.

The former PDP national chairman also stated that the comments credited to Chief Obasanjo is the fact.
The Nigerian Army on Sunday called on commercial banks to deploy Automated Teller Machines (ATM) to the military barracks in Maiduguri for the use of front line soldiers involved in the ongoing counter-insurgency operation in Borno. Brig.Gen. Victor Ezugwu, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 7 Division, made the call while speaking at a Civil-Military Forum organised by the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri. Ezugwu was reacting to criticisms by residents that soldiers often refused to join queues at the ATM points in the town. He said that the army had written several letters to the banks for the deployment of ATM machines to the barracks without much success.

We have been battling with the issue of lack of ATM in the barracks for the use of soldiers in the front line zone. I wrote letters to the banks over seven months ago for them to deploy the ATM at the Maimalari Cantonment for soldiers use, but there is no response yet, he said. Ezugwu said that the military was concerned about the development and urged the residents to intervene. I want to urge everybody here, especially traditional rulers, to help put pressure on the banks so that they can give us ATM at the barracks and allow you to use the ones in town. We are aware of the fact that everybody needs the ATM at one point or another, he said.

A soldier carrying 12 ATM cards at a time must have brought his colleagues cards from the frontline to take money and send to their families all over Nigeria. We have areas where there is no network, it is only through the ATM that the soldiers can send money home to their families he said. Ezugwu appealed for more understanding from the residents pending when the ATM would be provided by the banks at the barracks.

Source: Vanguard
The availability of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) popularly called petrol, in most filling stations across Kano State, has forced majority of black market dealers out of business, a survey by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reveals.

The survey, conducted in Kano and other major towns in the state, showed that most filling stations had the product in stock.

Following this development, several filling stations had reduced the official pump price of petrol from N145 per litre to between N143 and N140 per litre.

Motorists and other commercial vehicle operators, who usually patronise the black marketers, have since stopped, preferring to buy the product at filling stations.

A four-litre gallon of petrol costs between N560 and N570 at filling stations while the same quantity cost between N750 and N800 at the black market.

Hassan Sani, who sells petrol in the black market and operates along the popular Audu Bako Way, told NAN that he would soon switch to another business.

He said before the new price regime, he used to sell up to 75 litres of petrol every day.

But with the availability of the product now, I can hardly sell one (25 litre) jerry can, he said.

Most of my customers have stopped patronising me as the product is available at filling stations, and more so it is cheaper to buy at filling stations, he said.

Abdul, another black market operator who operates near Pyramid Radio along Audu Bako Way, said he had abandoned the sale of petrol and taken to vulcanizing to survive and cater for him family. (NAN)
A cleric, Bishop Abraham Chris Udeh, has blamed the continued incarceration of the Director of Radio Biafra and founder of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, on lack of interest of the international community, especially Britain.

The Bishop also slammed the United Nations (U.N) and America for their non-challant attitude, saying had they shown interest in Kanus case and queried the Nigerian governments continued incarceration of the IPOB leader, he would have been released by now.

Kalu, a dual citizen of Nigeria and Britain, was arrested on October 14, 2015 by the State Security Services and charged with treason. All efforts to secure his release through the courts proved abortive as the Nigerian government feared he could jump bail.

Bishop Udeh, who is General Overseer of Mount Zion Faith Global Ministries Inc, aka (By Fire By Fire), Nnewi, Anambra State, said yesterday that the British government was only trying to protect her economic interests in Nigeria and had to play safe not to do anything that could strain her relationship with the Nigerian government.

According to the bishop, it amounted to an abject neglect of human rights, since the international community had folded their hands with the excuse that Nigeria is a sovereign nation while Nnamdi Kanu, a freedom fighter, continued to remain behind the bars for no just cause.

Udeh, however, called on the U.N and U.S, which is a known policeman of the world, to rise to the occasion and mount pressure on the Nigerian government to release Kanu between now and December, 2016 adding that it would be a very painful thing to the people of South East and South South, if the Radio Biafra director is allowed to remain in prison to celebrate this years Christmas.

He pointed out that Fulani herdsmen had been on rampage killing and maiming people in different parts of the country with reckless abandon and have gone scot-free, while Kanu, who adopted a non-violent approach, was incarcerated.

The Federal Government has not told us how those herdsmen acquired the AK47 and other arms and ammunition they use to attack innocent Nigerians. But only someone who talks about freedom of his people verbally, without weapons, would be thrown into jail and denied his freedom since October, 2015, Bishop Udeh said.
- By Julie Young





Oil prices were volatile during the Sept. 16 week as a number of factors affected the value of the commodity. WTI crude oil ended the week at $43.03 a barrel, down from $46.28 at the beginning of the week. Brent crude ended the week at $45.77 a barrel, down from $47.82 at the beginning of the week.

Wednesday's weekly Petroleum Status Report from the Energy Information Administration showed little change in oil inventories in the U.S. for the week. Oil inventory was down 600,000 barrels to 510.8 million barrels. Globally oil supply has been holding steady at 95.93 mb/d according to the International Energy Agency's second quarter data on oil supply.





Friday's North American oil rig count report provided by Baker Hughes (BHI) showed a decrease of four in the region's total rig count. In both the U.S. and Canada the number of operating rigs decreased by two.

In the U.S., energy stocks traded lower for the week. In the S&P 500 energy sector, the following stocks led the week's losses:

Range Resources (RRC) down by 5.05%.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. (COG) down by 2.96%.

Southwestern Energy (SWN) down by 2.84%.

With U.S. supply and North American rig counts basically unchanged, U.S. data had little impact on prices globally and international factors were more influential. An agreement between Saudi Arabia and Algeria and the upcoming meeting of OPEC officials later this month at the International Energy Forum in Algiers, Algeria, on Sept. 26 are two factors that have been increasing confidence in oil price improvement for the near-term. However, production from OPEC country Iran has been a leading factor keeping prices low. At the last meeting of OPEC officials in Doha, Iran kept OPEC from reaching a final agreement. Reports this week now show Iran nearly doubling production of crude oil on a monthly basis since December. The increase in output for the country follows the release of political sanctions previously imposed on its production levels. Now that the sanctions have been lifted, Iran is taking full advantage of its production capabilities and could likely continue to be uncooperative in OPEC production level discussions.

Story continues

A CNBC report Friday provided more details on how oil prices ended the week. Oil prices overall are predicted to remain volatile leading up to OPEC's unofficial meeting later this month.

Disclosure: I do not own any stocks included in this article.

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A former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lieutenant General Martin-Luther Agwai, has described the death of 13 top military officers in a Nigerian Air Force plane crash on September 17, 2006 in Benue State and their subsequent burial, as the most difficult time in his entire military career.

Agwai, who said their sudden death left a huge vacuum in the army, noted that if they were to be alive today, perhaps most of the challenges facing the military in its counter insurgency operations in the Northeast would not have deteriorated to its present level.

It would be recalled that the deceased officers, comprising eight major-generals, two brigadier-generals, two wing commanders and one lieutenant colonel, were on their way to Obudu cattle ranch in Cross River State, to attend a retreat on how to transform the Nigerian Army when the NAF aircraft they were traveling in, a Dornier 228-212, crashed at Oko village in Vandekiya Local Government Area of Benue State, killing 13 of them.

The deceased officers were members of a committee set up by the federal government to reposition the army.

The 18-seater aircraft had 16 senior officers and two crew members onboard, but five people survived the crash with serious injuries.

Their death at the time shook the entire nation as it evoked a nostalgic feeling of the Ejigbo air disaster of September 26, 1992 in which top Nigerian military officers also lost their lives.

Incidentally, the Chief of Army Staff at the time, Lt.-Gen. Patrick Owoye Azazi, who narrowly missed the ill-fated flight due to its full capacity, also died in a helicopter crash on December 15, 2012.

Reliving the sad experience when he spoke at an inter-faith memorial service organized by widows of the officers in Abuja yesterday, Agwai described the death of the officers as a great blow to the Nigerian Army.

Yesterday, September 17, marked the 10th anniversary of the death of the military officers.

I can make bold to say that if they were around, may be some of the challenges that we are facing today wouldnt have gotten to the level that they reached, the former CDS said.

Agwai, who was the CDS at the time, said the news of the crash came to him as a rude shock because he had a personal relationship with the deceased and hand-picked them to be members of the transformation committee.

Their death up to their burial was one of the most trying, most difficult time I ever had in my career. And if you remember my military career, I have been involved in Sierra-Leone, Dafur, but all what I saw there did not traumatize me like what happened to these people because these were officers that I knew personally.

Some of them I personally picked them and put them in the job because of their knowledge, professionalism and integrity. And then to wake up one day to find that that crop has disappeared is the most difficult thing, he lamented

Agwai, who was also the chairman of the inter-faith memorial service, said their death no doubt created a gap in the military.

I will say a professional gap has been created in the military because our generation was fading out and those were the people that were linking our generation and the upcoming generation and they all disappeared. And it definitely created a missing link in the professionalization of the military, Agwai explained.

He said even though he got the invitation to attend the programme in less than 24, hours, he had to cancel all his other engagements to attend the occasion because of who the late officers were and their sacrifice for the country.

He also commended the widows for keeping strong and extolling the virtues of their husbands and prayed God to continue to protect them.

The 13 army officers and Air Force officers who died in the crash include Major-Generals J.O. Adesunloye, S.O Otubu, J.O Agboola, S.M Lemu, A.N Bamali, P.M Haruna, J.T.U Ahmedu and B. Duniya.

Others were Brigadier-Generals Y.J Braimah, M.B Bawa, Wing Commanders O. Balogun (co-pilot, died en route to the hospital), E.O Adekunle (pilot) and Lieutenant-Colonel N.A Mohammed.

The survivors were Colonels A.L Dusu, N.I Angbazo and O.C Ajunwa as well as two crew members  a technician and air hostess.
September is here. The holidays are over. Its time for the leaders of a tomorrow that never comes, to go back to school.

Parents with one child are having nightmares while those with more than one cant even sleep. As for those with children studying abroad, the Lord is their strength.

Change begins with us, so says our esteemed President. And even though he stole Obamas 2008 speech, what he says is true, we can feel the pains of change.

I dont mean the imaginary pains felt by our Senate President, Bukola Saraki who receives a fat governors pension and also has all his bills paid for by the government.

Nor that of Femi Adesina who now goes hungry after he graciously took a pay cut, so he can serve his beloved nation.

Unlike these martyrs, we can feel the change in every aspect of our lives  the prices of foodstuffs, fuel, rent and now school fees.

Private schools across Nigeria are reporting mass withdrawals of students by parents who can no longer afford to pay the school fees.

While some parents can no longer afford N2m per term, we also have those that can no longer afford N50,000 per term and plenty others who have lost their jobs.

UNICEFs recent ranking of Nigeria as the tenth worst country for access to primary school education is about to get worse.

Students whose parents can no longer pay their school fees will be sent home on a scale never seen before in Nigeria.

Once capable parents who have had their incomes wiped out by the devaluation of the Naira. Yes, not only Dangote lost out.

The recession is biting harder and the effects of rising prices and declining income can be felt deeper now.

They say its darkest just before dawn but I see no silver lining. I am no pessimist, I simply draw my conclusions from the situations on the ground and our governments inept response to them.

And unless you also believe the prayers of our N197 to a Dollar pilgrims will save us, then you better hunker down and brace yourself because this storm is far from over.

As a child, I sang the we are the leaders of tomorrow anthem, and even though Ive had the same leaders since my birth, I also want my child to believe in that dream.

Source: Pulse
Corruption is like a drug on which people become dependent, Pope Francis said Sunday, addressing thousands of faithful assembled at Saint Peters square in Rome.

Some people behave with corruption as with a drug. They think they can stop if they want to, the Argentinian pontiff told the worshippers gathered for the weekly Angelus prayer.

They start small, a small amount here, a bribe there, he said, warning that corruption was producing its own addiction which generates poverty and suffering.

AFP
Ahead of the September 28 governorship election in Edo State, a socio-cultural group, Nedoghama Nedo, has endorsed the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.

The group, which comprises of chiefs from the Oba of Benins palace, traditional priests, business owners and professionals, announced the endorsement after a meeting in Benin, the state capital yesterday.

The Eson of Benin Kingdom and one of the leaders of the group, Chief Amos Osunbor, explained that having assessed Ize-Iyamu and his All Progressives Congress, APC, rival Godwin Obaseki, members of the group were convinced that the PDP candidate has all it takes to take the state to the level desired by its citizens.

We have painstakingly assessed the two candidates (Obaseki and Ize-Iyamu) and we have found that Ize-Iyamu is the man for the job, Chief Osunbor said.

In his response, the PDP candidate promised to live up to the expectations of the citizens, who he said, were committed to effecting a change in government come September 28.
Ex-President Goodluck Jonathans wife, Dame Patience Jonathan may have more explanations to give in the coming days over the discovery of five properties, including a N5billion hotel in Abuja, allegedly traced to her.

The former First Lady, who is currently in court to seek an order mandating the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to unfreeze her bank accounts over suspected money laundering to the tune of over $31million, may have unwittingly, drawn the spotlight of the anti-graft agency on herself.

The EFCC, which is currently studying documents on how the Abuja hotel (names withheld) was built, has also dispatched a crack team of investigators to Yenagoa and Port Harcourt, the capitals of Bayelsa and Rivers State respectively, for the purpose of establishing the ownership of four properties in the two cities.

There is also the likelihood that Mrs. Jonathan may forfeit these properties to the Federal Government once the EFCC is able to prove that they belong to her.

SEE ALSO: EFCC Used Mercenaries To Plead Guilty To Money Laundering Charges  Patience Jonathan

One of the pieces of evidence the anti-graft commission has in its possession in its probe of the ex-First Lady is her cumulative pay and perks as a civil servant in Bayelsa State, where she rose to the post of Permanent Secretary.

It was learnt that the pay details are far below the $31million which Mrs. Jonathan claimed in court documents, as her legitimately and hard-earned money.

However, the EFCC is insisting that the former First Lady must account for how she came about the cash wired into the five accounts to which she is a signatory or forfeit same to the Federal Government.

One of the sources familiar with the probe said the money used in acquiring the properties under investigation appears to be gratification to Mrs. Jonathan when her husband was in power.

The source said: Based on intelligence report, we have isolated five properties allegedly identified with the ex-First Lady. These properties include a N5billion hotel in Abuja and four others in Yenagoa and Port Harcourt.

A special team has gone to verify all these assets in the affected areas including the contractors engaged, the mode of payment to them, relevant land registration documents, and associates used as fronts.

In the next few days, we will start questioning all those involved in the acquisition or building of the assets. We are lucky that this investigation has a lot of e-transaction and computerization components. There is no hiding place for anyone involved.

If at the end of the day the five assets belong to the ex-First Lady, we will approach the court to place all these assets under Interim Assets Forfeiture in line with Sections 28 and 34 of the EFCC (Establishment Act) 2004 and Section 13(1) of the Federal High Court Act, 2004.

Section 28 of the EFCC Act stipulates that: Where a person is arrested for an offence under this Act, the Commission shall immediately trace and attach all the assets and properties of the person acquired as a result of such economic or financial crime and shall thereafter cause to be obtained an interim attachment order from the Court.

Section 13 of the Federal High Court Act reads in part: The Court may grant an injunction or appoint a receiver by an interlocutory order in all cases in which it appears to the Court to be just or convenient so to do.

Any such order may be made either unconditionally or on such terms and conditions as the Court thinks just.

Responding to a question, the source said: If our investigation reveals that the assets are not owned by Mrs. Patience Jonathan, we will return them to their legitimate owners.
A former Military Governor of Old Midwest and Bendel States, Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia, has formally canvassed support for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the September 28, 2016 governorship election of the state, Mr. Godwin Obaseki.

I have always appreciated the need to work with women because at the political field, they are very useful. Once they tell you they are with you, they are with you.

So, I want them to go back home to go and make sure that every one of them here today has a hundred persons queuing behind them to vote for Obaseki, Ogbemudia said.

The retired Brigadier-General spoke at his 84th birthday celebration hosted by Edo state Government on Saturday in Benin, the state capital.

The former military governor expressed optimism that Obaseki will continue with the good works of Governor Adam Oshiomhole, whose tenure comes to an end in November.

According to the respected elder statesman: I want to appeal to the people of Edo state through those who are here on the 28th of September is a date of decision, a date that we will decide our future.

We have two options either to remain as we are and nothing happens and two years from now we will be looking for boats to drive through the roads because they would have been flooded or we work hard, get the right person to carry on where Comrade Oshiomhole left it.

So that option is staring us in the face but for me I took the option to get somebody who understands good governance to carry on from where Comrade Oshiomhole is leaving it.

He said the outgoing governor is bequeathing a legacy that history will not forget.

Ogbemudia explained: This month of September is the last September in a long series of years that Oshiomhole will be a governor.

By the next September, he will be a member of my club of former governors therefore he has done enough.

He has left sufficient evidence for historians to appreciate and many years to come they will be falling over each other to determine what make you do this or that and I think you have had a wonderful wisdom and that wisdom will live with you forever.

The Octogenarian spoke just as the government renamed the New Era College, which he built as a military governor, in his name.

In his remarks, Oshiomhole described Ogbemudia as a great man of wisdom whose advice he never took lightly and which helped him tremendously in the task of governance.

I remember whenever I visit you, you always give me a list of what to do and why I should do them and what not to do and why you think I should not do them.

Whenever I listen to the advice to do those things you advised me to do, I discovered that I always achieved great success.

We celebrate you because we speak for Edo people. When I visited Igbanke, they said the last time anybody remembered them was Ogbemudia.

And when I went to Abudu, the people said the last time they had development was when you were governor.

When I went to Ihievbe, the said the road that linked the community to Auchi was built by you.

When I went to Michael Imoudu College of Physical Education, they said everything in that school was made by Ogbemudia, the governor said.

The celebrants wife, Yetunde Ogbemudia, said she never regretted marrying the retired military officer.

His son, Samuel Ogbemudia Jr said he remained a role model.
The gunmen who abducted four residents of Isheri area of Lagos State, on Sunday contacted the families of the victims demanding N300 million each for them to be released.

The criminals said the captives would be released after the money has been dropped at a designated point.

Reacting to the latest development, the Ogun State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ahmed Iliasu, said the Police had already deployed 30 officials to comb the area for the immediate rescue of the victims.

According to reports, the four victims were said to have been kidnapped at the border town between Lagos and Ogun State in the early hours of Saturday during an aerobic session.
A former Minister of National Guidance, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, has called for a ban on public officers convicted of looting public funds from participating in partisan politics and holding public office.

He told the News Agency of Nigeria in Kano on Sunday that the ban should be backed by law passed by the National Assembly.

This (the ban) will be possible when there is a law to back it and we hope the law will be enacted soon to support the idea, he said.

He explained that the fear of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by public officers was now the beginning of wisdom.

EFCC has done extremely well in the discharge of its responsibilities so far, as there are a lot of recovered looted funds now.

But the biggest challenge for EFCC is that it can investigate but it does not have the power to spend money and utilise it for other purposes.

Maitama Sule, who is also a former Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, also called for a law to enable the government to utilise the recovered looted funds to improve the living standard of Nigerians.

He said there was the need revitalise the education, agriculture and power sectors in order to give the nations moribund industries a new lease of life using the recovered funds.

The elder statesman commended President Muhammadu Buhari for tackling insurgency, especially in the North-East.

We have to thank God Almighty for the peace that has since been restored in the country and we will continue to pray for its sustenance.

No meaningful development can be achieved in any country without peace and even the most diehard cynics know that President Buhari has done well in terms of restoration of peace in the country, he said.

He urged Nigerians to continue to support the government in its determination to restore sanity in the country.

Source: Punch
In what may just be the beginning of a war of words between governors of two South-south states, Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State dealt his Rivers State counterpart, Nyesom Wike, a savage blow, advising him to face governance in his state by paying suffering workers their salaries, instead of squandering the peoples scarce resources on an election the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is bound to lose.

Governor Oshiomholes attack on Wike was in apparent response to the Rivers governors statement last week that the Edo governor does not know when to stop lying.

The duo are engaged in a brickbat over support of their parties in the forthcoming September 28 governorship election in Edo.

Oshiomhole said it was laughable for Governor Wike to have some level of effrontery to talk about governance when he (Wike) has been unable to pay the states workers salaries for several months.

He urged Governor Wike to learn how to talk to him, that is performing and up-to-date with payment of salaries and not one, whose noise alone can cause further pollution in a Rivers environment that was already degraded.

Mr. Oshiomhole also advised Wike to spend the money he planned to spend for the PDP in Edo State to pay the backlog of salaries owed civil servants in River State.

The Edo governor had over a week ago alleged that Wike and Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, contributed the sum of N2billion to the campaign of the PDP candidate in the state, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu  a claim the governors denied.

Speaking through the State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Prince Kassim Afegbua, Oshiomhole stated that there was no reason why Wike would waste the peoples resources on Edo election out of sheer desperation to acquire regional powers.

According to him, In the circle of governance, where men are truly called men, someone like Governor Wike cannot muster any courage to be called a man when he has continuously held Rivers workers in scorn without paying them their due salaries and emoluments.

Even though Edo State is not as economically viable as Rivers State, we do not only pay our workers salaries, we have since increased our workers minimum wages from N18,000 to N25,000.

That this salary increase is happening at a time when Governor Wike is lamenting over paucity of funds should explain in greater details our uncommon creativity and prudent management of resources.

The last time we visited Rivers State, we were appalled by the plights of Rivers workers whose lamentations Governor Wike has consistently ignored. Our piece of advice to him as a younger brother was to properly guide him so he doesnt go astray by the temptations of an election that his party is bound to lose.

Rather than waste Rivers peoples money, keep Rivers peoples money for them. He should be reminded that Edo voters are not gullible like voters elsewhere and their level of sophistication would make the September 28th election a smooth sail for the All Progressives Congress. It is our responsibility to caution Governor Wike before he exports his gangsterism to Edo State.
This years edition of the Ojude Oba festival was celebrated on the third day after Eid-el-Kabir in Ogun state, Nigeria.

The annual festival, which brings Ijebu indigenes together in a carnival-like event was a showcase of the rich traditions of the indigenes of the state.

See colorful pictures from the festival below:
china bubble artist

There are plenty of reasons why the financial crisis occurred.

From subprime mortgages to lax regulation over the financial industry, there are many places to lay blame for the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.

One of the biggest spots was the global imbalance of current accounts, according to HSBC Chief Economist Janet Henry.

The imbalance from a world where some countries were hoarding and others were spending too freely led to malinvestment and ultimately bubbles, according to Henry.

The worrying issue that faces the world now, Henry said in a note to clients, is that these imbalances are growing once again.

"Just under a decade ago, the global savings glut was widely blamed for the misallocation of resources that led to bubbles, busts and ultimately the global financial crisis," wrote Henry. "The fact that global imbalances widened again in 2015 and that in dollar terms they will be close to record highs this year poses risks for both debtor and creditor countries."

That doesn't mean that we are doomed, according to Henry, but things must be done to prevent the disasters of the financial crisis from repeating themselves.

What is a current account?

In essence the current account is the monetary value of the total flow of goods, services, and investments moving into or out of a country. It counts everything from the US importing South Korean-made cars to Chinese investors buying houses in Canada to Japanese people investing in US Treasury bonds.

Add up all of those flows and a country has a deficit or a surplus. Thus, if a country imports more goods than they export and foreign investors are coming into the markets more than the country's investors are putting money to work abroad, that country is running a current-account deficit. The US and UK both run current-account deficits.

On the other hand, if the country is a net exporter and money flows to other countries for investments, the country is running a current-account surplus. The countries running surpluses that Henry is most concerned about are China, Japan, and Germany.

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Screen Shot 2016 09 16 at 1.36.13 PM

These surpluses have built up to nearly historic levels for a few reasons, said Henry. Weak internal demand in countries with current-account surpluses means those countries' citizens are under-consuming and thus saving too much money. Additionally, the savings are being invested outside of the country.

"Running persistent current account surpluses implies that these economies are constantly saving more than they are investing, preferring to invest those savings overseas," said Henry in the note. "In other words, they are building up a large net international investment position: something countries with aging populations (including Japan, Germany, China and South Korea) can argue is necessary to sustain living standards."

What could happen if they are imbalanced?

There is always going to be some level of natural imbalance. Some nations are going to be "debtors," as Henry puts it, while some are "lenders." The issue is when the flows get too far out of balance.

"These savers could not only face low returns and capital losses on their massive investments overseas; they also risk locking in low growth now that the export engine is running slow," said Henry. "If they do not deliver stronger growth in domestic demand then global growth is likely to stay weak and the deflationary influence they exert on the rest of the world will persist."

Henry also identified a few key risks for both "debtors" and "lenders" if the imbalances persist. For "lenders" like China, Japan, and Germany:

Low returns don't earn enough for aging savers: Instead of focusing on internal demand and growing the country's economy and returns, forcing capital elsewhere can hurt savers. "If the return on those overseas investments is low they are not investing wisely for their aging populations," said Henry. Essentially, these countries could face a retirement crisis. Capital loss from overseas bubbles: Forcing assets into fewer and fewer countries with a current-account deficit can hurt investors from the "lenders." "Indeed their outflows can lead to financial bubbles in the recipient countries which the surplus countries then face losses on once the bust happens," said Henry. Maintaining low GDP growth: With surplus countries stuck in a low-investment environment, they aren't consuming enough to fuel their own economy and help support the surplus countries, according to Henry. "Not using high domestic savings to support a higher rate of domestic investment will tend to lock in low growth and inflation in the surplus economies given the weak nominal growth in the global economy," said the note.

For "debtors" like the US:

Persistent deflationary pressures: "If economies with the largest surpluses do not help to take up the running by delivering stronger growth in domestic demand then global growth is likely to stay weak and the deflationary influence from surplus economies will persist," said Henry. Encouraging asset bubbles: Assets could be pushed by foreign demand and easy domestic credit standards into bubble territory (see again Canadian real estate). "Japanese lending contributed to the Asian crisis; both Japan and Germany played a role in funding the imbalances which led to the global financial crisis; and German lending contributed to the euro sovereign crisis," noted Henry. Encouraging economic nationalism: Essentially, in the debtor countries' citizens could get tired of globalism, cutting off trade and capital flows, and hurting the economy long-term. "The key near-term risk from these countries continuing to run such large external surpluses  and in particular such enormous bilateral surpluses with the US  is that the deficit countries adopt a more protectionist stance," said Henry.

Screen Shot 2016 09 16 at 1.37.24 PM

And if that's not enough doom and gloom for you, Henry sums up the dangers to the entire global economy pretty succinctly.

"Housing bubbles, macro-prudential controls, FX appreciation and trade protectionism will also likely feature, and while some countries' large deficits may be financed easily, their indebtedness will grow," said the note.

Not great.

All is not lost

There are ways for the surplus countries to spur internal demand and rebalance the world economy, according to Henry. Germany could start to spend some of its government's massive surplus. Japan could raise wages for its workers, and China could institute rules to quicken the shift to a consumption-driven economy. All of these are steps that could help unwind the current-account distortions, Henry says.

Unfortunately, given the size of the problem, international agreements on action are probably the best way to effectively deal with the issue, and those don't appear to be on the horizon anytime soon.

Despite that, if each country can begin to tackle its issues and rebalance, however, there is opportunity to trigger global growth and prevent a repeat of 2007.

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The Nigerian Army has confirmed the arrest of Victory Benjamin (aka Abuja Daddy and G3), said to be a high ranking militant kingpin in Cross River State.

The Army said the militant kingpin was arrested by troops from 13 Brigade, 82 Division, Enugu.

In a statement issued by its spokesman, Sani Usman on Saturday, the army said that Abuja Daddy was arrested at Saint Joseph Hospital, Ikot Ene junction, Akpabuyo Local Government Area of the state, when he attempted to collect ransom from a relation of one of their kidnap victims.

Cross River has witnessed a spike in violent crimes this year, including kidnapping by suspected militants and cult wars, shattering the serenity and attraction of the state, which prides itself as Nigerias number one tourism destination.

The army spokesman said troops also arrested three other militants while they were robbing their victims around refugee camp at Efut Isigi in Bakassi Local Government Area in the state.

According to Usman, a colonel, a locally made pistol and some cartridges were recovered from the suspects.

He said troops have cordoned off the resident of the most wanted militant kingpin aka G1, in the state, who is said to be at large.

The two arrested militants  G2 and G3  are currently providing useful information that could assist in the tracking down of other criminals in the region, the armys statement said.
The Ekiti State Government yesterday said it will celebrate in grand style, the states emergence as the best performing in the 2016 June/July National Examinations Council (NECO) result.

Addressing a news conference in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital on Saturday shortly after the release of the result by NECO, the Commissioner for Education, Jide Egunjobi, said the feat resulted from some radical measures taken by the Ayo Fayose administration.

He said the steps include the cancellation of free WAEC and NECO registration fees for students.

Besides, Mr. Egunjobi said the introduction of moderate tuition fees in schools for students also played important role.

He said the emergency Education Summit convened by the present administration in the state shortly after inauguration revealed that payment of examination fees by past administrations was part of the indulgences responsible for past failures.

Those who were paying for free registration in public exams without first inculcating discipline and hard work in the students did more harm than good for them.

An unserious student whose parents never suffered to pay either school fees or WAEC and NECO money may not see reason in being serious and dedicated to his studies

We found that it was the belief of such students that neither they nor their parents will lose anything after all, if they failed those exams since it was the government that would eventually bear the brunch.

We backed all these up by fortifying the schools with the right type of books, instructional materials and accorded priority attention to teachers welfare.

We also cancelled manual work such as grass cutting during school hours while our inspectorate division was strengthened to fish out lazy and complacent tutors, he said.

The commissioner, who said the current performance of the state was earned and would be celebrated by the government to serve as impetus to teachers and students, assured that the recent feat would be maintained for a long time.

In the result released by the new Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of NECO, Charles Uwake, Ekiti was declared the best performing state with over 96.31 per cent success.

Edo came second while Abia and Kogi have joint third position. (NAN)
Social Security Administration Social Security Changes, 20102022 Year Maximum Taxable Amount % Increase 2022 $147,000 2.9% 2021 $142,800 3.7% 2020 $137,700 3.6% 2019 $132,900 3.5% 2018 $128,400 1% 2017 $127,200 7% 2016 $118,500 0% 2015 $118,500 1% 2014 $117,000 3% 2013 $113,700 3% 2012 $110,100 3% 2011 $106,800 0% 2010 $106,800 0%

Source: Social Security Administration



Example of the Social Security Cap

A worker earning $160,000 in 2021 would pay Social Security taxes of 6.2% on $142,800 of that income, totaling $8,853.60 ($142,800 * 0.062). The employer would also have paid $8,853 in Social Security taxes for employing the worker. The self-employed are responsible for the employer's as well as the employee's share of payroll taxes on their earned income.

A worker earning the same $160,000 in 2022 could expect to pay Social Security taxes of 6.2% on $147,000 of income, or $9,114 ($147,000 * 0.062), representing an increase of $260.40 over 2021. The employer (or the individual, if self-employed) could expect to have to match that higher amount.

Long-Term Funding Problem

The federal Social Security program pays retirement and disability benefits from two trust funds: the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund.

The trust funds had a combined surplus of $2.85 trillion at the end of 2021 but were projected to spend all of that by 2035 amid projections of mounting annual shortfalls in receipts compared with scheduled benefit payments. The program's long-term solvency has taken a hit amid the aging of the U.S. population as a result of rising life expectancy and falling birth rates, and as a consequence of Baby Boomer retirements.

Social Security (OASI) Retirement Benefits

Social Security's trust fund for retirees and survivors, OASI, is projected to run out of money in 2034, at which point its receipts would cover 77% of the scheduled benefit payments.

The 2022 annual report by Social Security trustees noted economic recovery from the 2020 recession was faster and stronger than the prior year's report assumed, pushing back the projected depletion date by a year. At the same time, economic developments since the report's projections were developed in February 2022 added uncertainty about the path of the economy, the trustees said.

Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund

The 2022 annual report projected that the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund, which pays disability benefits, will have sufficient funds to make scheduled benefit payments over the next 75 years. The prior year's report had predicted depletion in 2057. The number of disabled workers receiving benefit payments has been in decline since 2014, the trustees noted.



Reasons for the Shortfalls

The large number of Baby Boomers entering retirement has increased the proportion of Social Security beneficiaries relative to that of workers paying payroll taxes. In 1975, there were 3.2 workers to support every retired beneficiary. In 2021, there were just 2.8 workers, and the 2022 annual report projects the ratio will continue to decline, to 2.3 workers per retiree by 2040.

In 2021, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated Social Security spending will increase from 5.2% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021 to 6.3% in 2051 as the number of beneficiaries grows from 66 million to 97 million.



What is the Social Security tax cap for 2022? Annual income subject to Social Security tax is capped at $147,000 in 2022, up from $142,800 in 2021.

How much longer will the surplus in the Social Security trust funds last? Based on current projections, Social Security is poised to exhaust the funds in its trusts by 2035. However, that date isn't written in stone, and is subject change with economic developments as well as measures Congress may take to ensure the program's solvency.

Will there be Social Security in the future? Congress has repeatedly raised Social Security tax rates over the program's history to ensure its solvency, from 1% in 1937 to 6.2% in 1990, the last time they were increased. Given the projected growth in the number of constituents receiving Social Security benefits by the time the funds are set to be depleted, it would be unwise to write off another increase shoring up the system's finances.

The Bottom Line

Increasing the annual cap on income subject to Social Security taxes does not address the program's projected long-term funding shortfall. It merely ensures that the cap keeps pace with inflation. The tax cap would have to be eliminated entirely, subjecting all income to Social Security taxes, to seriously shrink the budget gap. Other policy options for ensuring the system's solvency include higher Social Security taxes, lower or means-tested benefits, and indexing the retirement age to life expectancy.
A new survey by Failte Ireland paints a positive picture for the tourism sector.

Failte Ireland's Autumn Tourism Barometer shows 84% of hotels and 76% of guest houses reporting increased business this summer, compared to 2015.

A total of 600 tourism businesses were surveyed for the poll.

It found general sentiment in the industry at the highest levels in years.

Some 72% of businesses were positive about the outlook for the sector.

Speaking about the results, Failte Ireland CEO Shaun Quinn today said: "As expected, tourism businesses across the country had another successful summer and with many recording their best season ever.

"Yet, we must keep our eye on the factors underpinning our growth  compelling visitor experiences, increased carrier capacity and a favourable exchange rate with the US Dollar - and avoid strategies which in time could undermine our current reputation for good value."

There are still some concerns within the sector.

While operating costs (excluding fuel and energy) continue to be mentioned by 39% of enterprises as an issue, the new challenge of Brexit now features as the most common concern for the future within the industry at the moment, mentioned by 44% of businesses.

This concern is reflected in the fact that only about one in four (27%) of paid serviced accommodation providers expect growth from Britain over the next few months despite the fact that almost half (47%) experienced more British business so far this year.

Existing concerns about Brexit centre around uncertainty with regard to the implications of the vote and the current impact of the situation on exchange rates.
caption: Now in transition year, David Rawle says his teachers do not give him special treatment. Picture: Patrick Bolger

TEEN actor David Rawle is Barnardos newest ambassador.

Were sitting at a childrens table on tiny chairs sipping tea and eating biscuits at the charitys family support centre in Mulhuddart, Dublin.

Is it OK if I sip away? he asks.

The star of the hit sitcom Moone Boy is dressed in a Barnardos T-shirt and is enthusing about the work the charity does.

I was extremely excited to get involved, he says.

I hear about all their good work and just to be a small part of that is an amazing thing.

Hes full of chat, talking about the charity, his TY year, his first live action film and the fact that hed jump at a chance to do a film of Moone Boy.

I loved Moone Boy and if they said they were going to do another one, Id leap to do it, says the 15-year-old. But for fans of the series that managed to be charming, magical and clever all at once, as one critic described it, there are no plans for another series or, indeed, the rumoured movie.

Though, Martin Moone still looms large in David Rawles life. Ask him how hes coped with fame and he says nobody believed he was in a sitcom with Chris ODowd until it finally came out on TV.

I invited all my friends over to my house to watch it and tried to fast-forward all the bits I was in. At first, they were just surprised but everyone was really supportive.

He says his life at Carrigallen Vocational School in Leitrim is the same as it is for every other pupil.

The teachers certainly dont treat me differently; I wish they would, he laughs.

However, newer pupils who havent met him before still do a Dont I know you from somewhere? double-take when they first see him. He acts out that jerky head moment with perfect accuracy.

A lot of people would come up to me and go, [switches to deep Leitrim accent] You the lad from Moone Boy?

Rawle: Yeah.

Interlocutor: Sound. [and goes about their business].

You can almost see the interaction the way David Rawle tells it.

When you ask him what he does when hes not filming or acting, he says hes thinking about filming or acting.

I am a huge film buff. I spend all of my time watching films. I am obsessed.

His favourite actor is a tie between Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad and Jack Nicholson.

I would watch anything Jack Nicholson is in. I think he is absolutely fantastic.

When someone jokingly says that, at age 15, theres a lot of Jack Nicholson he wont have seen yet, he does a hilarious riff on The Shining before adding quickly, Of course, I wouldnt know anything about that.

Hes certain now that acting is the career for him.

Recently, Ive decided that this is the thing I love the most and this is the thing for me. I really want to try to get into this business as much as I can.

In his next film, Property of the State, he plays a young Brendan ODonnell  the Clare man who was convicted of shooting dead three people in 1994  which is due out in November.

ODonnell was given three life sentences for killing Imelda Riney, her son Liam and Fr Joe Walsh. He later died in prison.

As David Rawle says, its a horrific story.

Yet he talks about the teenage ODonnell with such insight and maturity that its hard to believe he is still a teenager himself. He turns 16 next month.

He was too young to remember the story that shocked the country in the early 1990s, but he prepared for the role by asking other people about it and tried to understand how a troubled and very disturbed young man became a killer.

When my character comes into it, hes sort of at a stage where things are looking up, Rawle tells Feelgood.

Hes doing well at school and hes doing well on the hurling team and then all these bad choices he makes lead him to the end of the film when, as everyone knows, he killed three people.

The film explores how his childhood led to this. He made some bad choices and was sent down a bad road.

"The story is told from his sisters point of view but it could have been a very different story if only he had a really loving, warm environment where he might have felt safe.

He stops for a moment, and then muses that an organisation such as childrens charity Barnardos could have made a real difference to ODonnell who slipped through all the support networks as a child.

He loved the challenge of playing Brendan ODonnell, but he also wants to try different aspects of the business; directing and producing, for instance, and theatre too.

He marvels at a recent performance by Chris ODowd  theyre still in touch through social media  who played the vulnerable Lenny in a stage version of Of Mice and Men.

They filmed it and showed it in our cinema in Leitrim, his local cinema. He played Lenny. It just blew me away. He was just extraordinary.

Hes also a fan of Daniel Radcliffe who, like Rawle, has been on screen from a young age. Unlike Radcliffe who says he is constantly mortified by his younger self, David Rawle doesnt mind watching old episodes of Moone Boy.

Every time I watch it, I remember that somebody did something funny that day or that was the day Barbara fell over. It brings back really warm memories of the wonderful times we had when shooting it.

When hes not filming, or mixing with the stars, he says he leads a perfectly normal life.

When we meet, he had five days to go before picking up his Junior Cert results, last Wednesday.

I purposely didnt do anything TV or film-related during the Junior Cert because if I did, inevitably, Id have missed something that would come up [in the exams]. I just kept the head down and hopefully it paid off.

Hes delighted to be involved with Barnardos, but apart from that his life is filled with school, friends and family like every other 15-year-old.

And like every other teenager, he has a healthy regard for his older siblings.

When Feelgood enquires about his two older sisters, the shutters comically come down.

He mentioned them once in an interview and got huge abuse, not only from them but from aunts and uncles. So today, hes saying nothing.

Im going to be careful, he says.

Hes careful, too, not to get too caught up in the pressures of daily life, such as social media. Social media is a very scary thing and you hear different stories, but Ive never had a negative experience.

He tweets, mostly about film, and says hes not addicted.

But it is very addictive, isnt it? Looking at all the funny videos and cat pictures, thats what I use it for, he adds with a laugh.

Its hard then to think of this funny-video-watching teenager in a dark drama dominating scenes with rawness and elegance as one reviewer said after Property of the State was shown at the Galway Film Fleadh in July.

But then again, thats what they call acting.

David Rawle is definitely one to watch.

Dig deep for Barnardos today

Today is Buckets for Barnardos Day, the charitys national collection day.

Leitrim star David Rawle has come on board as the charitys newest ambassador and is asking the public to donate what they can to give children across Ireland a brighter future.

Im delighted to be one of their ambassadors, he says.

You see that they put a huge amount of work and a huge amount of love into everything.

Some 900 volunteers around the country will be collecting from 8am this morning until 8pm tonight.

Barnardos spokesperson Mary Gamble says the charity needs to raise 7m a year to keep its doors open for children and families.

We simply couldnt do it without the support and generosity of the public. Every donation is welcome, she says.

Speaking about recent scandals in the charity sector, she says Barnardos is a completely transparent organisation that published its financial accounts annually.

Of every 1 Barnardos spent in 2015, 87% was spent directly on work with children and families, 12% was spent generating funds and 1% was spent on governance.

The money raised today will be invested in early years programmes, helping children who need extra support to prepare for the transition to primary school. Barnardos works with more than 13,000 families in Ireland.

See www.bardnardos.ie
Monday, September 19th, 2016 (12:15 am) - Score 6,818

The co-founder and CEO of Sckipio Technologies, David Baum, has suggested to ISPreview.co.uk that BTs plan to roll-out 300Mbps G.fast broadband technology could save as much as 980 per home vs a pure fibre optic (FTTH/P) network and even faster speeds should be possible in the future.

Israel-based Sckipio knows a thing or two about the new G.fast (ITU G.9700/9701) technology because they helped to create about 20% of the technical standard. On top of that theyve also assisted with Openreachs (BT) trials of the service, which is important because the operator hopes to start rolling out across the United Kingdom in 2017.

BT currently intends to make G.fast available to 10 million premises by 2020, with most of the UK likely to be done by 2025 (we predict around 60% UK coverage). Initially G.fast will only offer top download speeds of up to 300Mbps (50Mbps upload), but there is talk of later increasing this to 500Mbps.

According to David Baum, the strategy is to build a copper technology that feels like [a pure fibre optic connection] to the user, which they say means delivering ultra-fast speeds, very low latency, breakthrough stability, very fast recovery times and very fast training times.

But unlike a pure fibre optic connection, such as FTTH/P, the hybrid-fibre approach adopted by G.fast still depends on reusing a stretch of existing copper cable and so should be significantly cheaper and faster to deploy than pure fibre. Baum suggests a saving of as much as $1,300 (980) per household, but experiences will vary.

However others fear that the bold ambition of G.fasts performance may struggle to deliver in the real-world environment. Naturally ISPreview.co.uk wanted to know more and so we caught up with David Baum to ask him a few additional questions. But before that, heres a simplified explanation of how the new technology works..

What is G.fast?

The technology itself (see our technical summary) works in a roughly similar way to the current up to 80Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) service that is available to most of the UK, where a fibre optic cable is run from an exchange to your local Street Cabinet and then the remaining copper line to your home uses VDSL2 to deliver the service.



Official BT G.fast Diagram (hasnt been updated show the new pod approach) Official BT G.fast Diagram (hasnt been updated show the new pod approach)

However G.fast requires significantly more spectrum (G.fast 106MHz+ vs VDSL2 17MHz+) and thus it can only deliver its best speeds over much shorter copper lines (less than around 300-350 metres for 300Mbps+). Furthermore Openreach now intends to roll-out G.fast via an extension pod on their existing PCP street cabinets (here), but they can also deploy it from smaller nodes.

The smaller nodes could be built either underground (manholes), inside big buildings or placed on top of nearby telegraph poles, usually with a small power supply cabinet sitting nearby. The smaller nodes would most likely deliver even faster speeds because the fibre optic cable would often come closer to homes via a more expensive Fibre-to-the-distribution-point (FTTdp) network .

In theory its possible to pull Gigabit (1000Mbps+) speeds out of a G.fast network, but this is only possible over a few tens of metres (copper cable) and therefore does not reflect most real-world networks where the copper lines from a street cabinet can be hundreds of even several thousand metres long. An aggressive FTTdp roll-out would be needed to deliver such speeds.

The Sckipio G.fast Interview

1. Sckipio is a company in Israel that seems to have come out of almost nowhere in 2012 and has since dedicated itself towards helping to develop specifications and hardware for the ITUs new G.Fast broadband technology (we believe you helped to create about 20% of the technical standard).

Can you tell us a little about the story of how Sckipio came about and what drew it to focus on G.fast so exclusively?

ANSWER: I have been involved in the wired networking space for 20 years. At my last company, we were a leader in wired home networking. I sold that company successfully, and when I left the company, I started to think about doing something new. I realized that there was enough bandwidth in the home. But, bandwidth to the home was now the bottleneck. It was very challenging to receive 1Gbps bandwidth to the home. I wondered, What is the next step for broadband access? What are the telcos asking for? I went and visited the FTTH show in Florida and I started to talk to installers. I realized that fibre wasnt the best solution. It was too expensive to install. The cost of trenching, the scheduling of appointments, the in-home installation would take forever. Its not that the technology is expensive  its the physics, the logistics. Thats never going to change. Doing the math of how much telcos can save using copper instead of fibre, it was clear there was a business case. We realized the opportunity was there, the market was there, the requirement was there and there was little competition. Thats why we made the investment.

2. G.fast appears to deliver most of its performance improvements vs todays loosely similar VDSL broadband technology by harnessing more spectrum frequency, using shorter runs of copper cable, adjusting its power and adopting Vectoring as standard to help reduce cross-talk interference. Can you tell us about any other ways in which G.fast as a technology has improved upon VDSL?

ANSWER: G.fast is not an xDSL technology, but it does leverage best practices and experiences learned in xDSL, G.hn, WiFi, HomePNA, and many other communications technologies. It has several key attributes. Our strategy is to build a copper technology that feels like fibre to the user. This means delivering very low latency, the fewest dead zones, breakthrough stability, very fast recovery times, and very fast training times. Plus, it uses TDD to deliver more flexibility in the upstream and downstream ratio.

3. In the UK, Virgin Media has recently committed to ensure that over 1 million premises are reached by using ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) technology and BT have similarly pledged to cover 2 million premises.

Cost is often highlighted as one of the primary reasons why operators with a lot of copper cable in their network prefer hybrid-fibre approaches like VDSL and DOCSIS.

Considering the full distance of a connection from exchange to the end-users home socket, how do the costs between rolling out FTTP/H vs G.fast compare?

ANSWER: We have found the cost savings of using G.fast instead of fibre can be as much as $1,300 (980) or more per household. That said, each service provider has a different architecture and different costs in terms of labour, methods of bringing fibre closer, etc. So specific rates will vary.

4. Some of Sckipios hardware has been used in BTs G.fast trials. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you assisted in the trials and what you learnt from taking part?

ANSWER: We have performed testing both in the BT labs and in the field. This has given us a broader range of scenarios and experiences  which will make it possible for us to optimize the technology further and handle all kinds of situations in a much quicker way. This knowledge is hard to replicate and enhances Sckipios DPU leadership versus rivals. We learned about different kinds of wires and different cross-talk conditions, how to optimize our performance and handle things we dont have in the lab. This has helped us verify our stability performance and identify ways to make our stability even stronger. We also discovered the real-world Sckipio performance over long distances is outstanding. This is appreciated by all kinds of service providers who are looking to utilize existing infrastructure to improve their business case and improve the penetration rates with minimal incremental investments.

5. Openreach (BT) has hinted that they should be able to deliver G.fast broadband speeds of 300Mbps download and 50Mbps upload over a single (NOT bonded) copper line distance of 350 metres in the United Kingdom. However their recent trials struggled to deliver this at the desired distance (here), although a number of future improvements were suggested that could make it achievable.

BTs Planned G.fast Enhancements

* Enable higher bits per tone (12>14)

* Improve the receiver sensitivity (<-150dBm/Hz)

* Increase the transmit power (4>8dBm)

* Optimise the frequency usage with VDSL

* Increased vectoring group sizes (>96)

Does this sound about right to you and what other changes might be needed in order to deliver upon BTs aspiration of 300Mbps at 350 metres?
Facebook's influence in the world is undeniable with its social media and messenger downloaded by a billion people. The ubiquitous app has become such a basic feature of everyday life that some people use it as their primary form of communication compared to regular phone calls and texts.

Nonetheless, the app is still purely a communication app and lags behind China's WeChat, which millions of Chinese have used from buying goods online to finding a nearby vet for their pets.

Mark Zuckerberg apparently feels that WeChat poses a threat to the dominance of Messenger and may have been taking steps to fend off the challenge. Coders recently may have discovered evidence to this claim.

According to Venture Beat, programmers apparently have discovered a mysterious line of code hidden inside Facebook's Messenger which promises to offer a new group chat feature that might enable users to transact business and pay for online purchases similar to messaging app rival Wechat.

Rooms The Answer To WeChat?

Tech analysts call this possible new feature as "Rooms." They say that Rooms may possess the capacity to create spaces inside Messenger that would allow users to discuss and exchange messages based on common interests. Each room can be shared to anyone with a Messenger app potentially allowing anyone to join the conversation.

Venture Beat speculates that Rooms have the potential to mimic the commerce and transactional functions of WeChat in China.

The website calls WeChat as one of the earliest progenitors of "conversational commerce" -

a function that leading messaging apps like Whatsapp, Kakao Talk and Viber still do not possess.

WeChat is China's most dominant multipurpose app created by TenCent in 2010. The app boasts 700 million users who often utilize the app for QR scan codes to transact goods and services.

Facebook Taking Steps To Fight Off WeChat

Investor.com believes that Facebook has plans to accomplish what Wechat has done in China proven by its recent actions. It has already given its Messenger the ability to be a conduit for money transfers. The app has also been enabled to use chat robots, powered by artificial intelligence, which can give users suggestions from what dinner to eat to what movie is available in the cinemas.

If Facebook succeeds in copying the features of Wechat the dominance of the tech company would be nearly unassailable.
For the countless families that have used the service, hospice care of dying loved ones is an indispensable gift. Trained nurses and social workers step in to support patients in their final months, with an eye towards making them comfortable, alert and relatively pain free rather than attempting a cure.

In 2013, Medicare paid $15.1 billion for hospice care for roughly 1.3 million people who were treated by 3,925 for-profit and non-profit programs throughout the country.

Under federal rules, the patient or a guardian must sign an election statement accepting the hospice care, and the attending physician must certify that the patient is terminally ill and beyond a cure.

Doctors and Nurses Charged in Massive $900 Million Medicare Fraud

Now, a disturbing new report by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services claims some unscrupulous hospice operators, doctors and staff are aggressively recruiting patients for their programs in an effort to maximize profits  even when in some cases the patients shouldnt be in hospice. The improper and fraudulent activities amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

In a third of the cases examined, the hospice election statements lacked required information or failed to adequately state the implications of the withdrawal of most medical care. Moreover, in 14 percent of the cases, the physician did not meet requirements when certifying that the beneficiary was terminally ill. Those doctors appeared to have limited involvement in determining that the beneficiary was appropriate for hospice care.

And in a number of cases, the patients outlived standard hospice care, which usually assumes a patient wont live much longer than six months. That suggests that the patients were inappropriate candidates for the program, and as a consequence may have missed out on needed medical care.

With more than $15 billion of Medicare funds spent on the program every year, the temptation for cheating is great. The Washington Post reported last week that the federal government in recent years has sought to recover more than $1 billion from hospices that illegally billed Medicare patients who were not near death.

Story continues

The Inspector Generals office has investigated a number of recent fraud cases that highlight the need for more vigilance in policing the system.

Related: Billions in Medicare Fraud Still Rampant Despite Federal Crackdown

In one case, the owner of a hospice in Mississippi used patient recruiters and submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare for patients who were not appropriate candidates for hospice. Investigators discovered that the beneficiaries had no idea they were in hospice care. The owner was subsequently convicted and sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution to Medicare.

Another case had to do with a Philadelphia hospice owner who submitted false claims to Medicare and altered patient records to make patients appear to be eligible for hospice services when they were not. In order to boost enrollment, the hospice owner also paid health care professionals for referring patients to the hospice, even though they should have not been in the program. The owner was convicted and sentenced to more than 14 years in prison and ordered to repay Medicare $16.2 million, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the former head of a Pittsburgh-area hospice company pleaded guilty to using patients who werent terminally ill to collect millions of dollars in false Medicare and Medicaid billings, according to the Home Health Care News. Mary Ann Stewart, a 48-year-old from Carrolltown, Pa., and the former chief operating officer of Horizons Hospice, was indicted last year on one count of health care fraud and four counts of lying to a federal grand jury, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Western District of Pennsylvania.

As part of the scheme, she ordered her staff to admit patients who werent terminally ill to the hospice and then billed Medicare and Medicaid. The government said that she defrauded Medicare and Medicaid out of millions of dollars. A physician, Dr. Oliver Herndon, was also charged in the scheme and pleaded guilty in November 2014 to submitting claims for patients who werent terminally ill or for services that werent provided, as Associated Press first reported. The doctor was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison in July, while Stewart is facing as much as 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

Related: Audit Uncovers $124.7 B of Overpayments and Fraud in Medicare and Medicaid

To be eligible for Medicare hospice care, a beneficiary must be entitled to Part A of Medicare and be certified as having a terminal illness with a life expectancy of six months or less if the disease runs its normal course. Patients who choose hospice care are entitled to receive care for two 90-day periods, followed by an unlimited number of 60-day periods. The Washington Post first reported in 2014 that the number of patients who outlived hospice care had increased markedly, in part because hospice companies earn more by recruiting patients who arent actually dying.

The inspector generals office said that it based its latest study on a random-sample review of hospice election statements and certifications of terminal illness for hospice general inpatient stays in 2012.

The findings in this report make clear that hospices should improve their election statements and ensure that physicians meet requirements when certifying beneficiaries for hospice care, the IGs study concluded. In 35 percent of . . . stays, hospices election statements lacked required information or had other vulnerabilities. It is essential that hospices provide beneficiaries and their caregivers with accurate and complete information, especially about the palliative nature of hospice care and the benefits they are waiving.

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I don't know how many young women come to this blog or how many are parents of teenage or young adult women, but here are some safety tips from Kelsey's Army:

T

I

P

S

1. Trust your instincts - If something feels wrong then something probably is wrong.2. Know your surroundings - know who and what is around you.3. Always have a plan for where you would go and what you would do if a situation arises.4. Be willing to make a scene in order to be noticed.5. Let someone know where you are going and when you will be back.Remember the acronym TIPS:ake Chargenform others of your whereaboutsrepare for any situationurvival Mentality (role play situations so you will respond should they happen)For more information, go to Kelsey's Army
Bullish traders

After a long and quiet summer, volatility has returned to the stock market, causing Wall Streets top strategists to warn that stock prices could tumble by as much as 10%.

But veteran strategist Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors believes nows the time to be putting money into the S&P 500 (^GSPC), which is currently down 3% from its Aug. 23 high of 2,193.

We believe this 3% pullback NEEDS TO BE BOUGHT aggressively, Lee wrote on Friday. Emphasis his.

Lee considers the simple history of stock price moves.

Newtons law of motion applies to stocks in mid-September  90% of time, if stocks up between 5% to 20%year-to-date (YTD), gains continue to year-end (YE), Lee observed. Since 1940, to gauge what stocks do between 9/15 and YE is simply look at YTD performance. When stocks are up 5% or better, they rally into YE 87% of the time (90% when between 5% and 20%). When stocks are down YTD (thru Sept), they historically show no further advance until YE.

Tom Lee observes that stocks tend to rally into the end of years. (Image: FundStrat Global Advisors)

This line of reasoning may be a little oversimplified for most investors, especially considering the lineup of market-moving events going into the end of the year. Its worth noting that Lees study found that the pattern he observed also held during election years.

Lee went further to consider fundamental and economic reasons why markets could rally from here.

Why is this law of motion at work? Lee wrote. We believe this law of motion is simply reflecting that whatever forces and factors drive YTD gains, are likely to remain in place into the end of the year. And we see this at work in 2016(i) global search for carry; (ii) US economy remains on strong footing; (iii) underinvested investors (performance chase) and (iv) contrarian sentiment.

Lee has 2,325 target for the S&P 500.



Sam Ro is managing editor at Yahoo Finance.

Read more:

Deutsche Bank: An 8-10% S&P decline looms

Morgan Stanley: We think the US stock market is going higher

Summers over: Markets brace for the fall

Dont be fooled by the calm in the markets

The stage is set for the next 10% plunge in stocks
On Saturday night, a powerful blast has shaken the neighborhood of Chelsea in Manhattan. At least 29 people were severely injured. The explosion came from a "homemade pressure cooker bomb" planted on West 23rd street at around 8:30PM.

According to the New York Times, City Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged the explosion as "an intentional act," which has no direct connection to terrorism and any terrorist group. Hours later after the incident, on early Sunday, another bombing device was discovered in a nearby area.

We believe this was an intentional act. As of now, no connection to an earlier incident in NJ. - @BilldeBlasio  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) September 18, 2016

As of now there are 29 injuries, one considered serious.  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) September 18, 2016

The authorities, lead by the New York Police District, seized a second explosive device on West 27th Street of what seems to be another pressure cooker, reports BBC News. The NYPD calmed and assured the public, through their Twitter account, that the second device was already "safely removed."

UPDATE: The suspicious device on West 27 Street in Chelsea has been safely removed by the NYPD Bomb Squad.  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) September 18, 2016

After the unfortunate incident, the police decided to close parts of Manhattan from the 14th to 32nd Streets for further safety measures. The mayor sadly stated that although there were significant injuries as a result of the bombing, thankfully, they weren't life-threatening.

Meanwhile, as US President Barack Obama was already informed the incident, the two controversial presidential candidates' campaigns were also knowledged about the explosion. The Republican nominee quickly addressed the issue and assumed that the blast was caused by a bomb even before the authorities confirmed what really caused the explosion. Trump advised the people to be "very tough."

However, when Democratic Party standard bearer Hilary Clinton heard of the news and of his close rival's assumption, she indirectly reminded Trump that it would be wise to know the information first before making the conclusions.

As of this moment, there are no details yet of who was responsible for the explosion nor the reason behind it. Although, rest assured that the Manhattan authorities are making its very best to keep the city safe and on investigating further on the incident.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass (Reuters) - The U.S. Comptroller of the Currency on Thursday defended capital requirements and other standards for banks and said they have made the institutions more competitive coming out of the financial crisis. Speaking at an evening event at Harvard University, the comptroller, Thomas Curry, whose agency regulates national banks, said it would be a poor time to relax rules, as some have suggested. "Now is not the time to change course," said Curry, according to his prepared remarks. He cited improvements to bank balance sheets such as that Tier 1 common equity is now about 13 percent of risk-weighted assets, up from 9 percent in late 2008, while the leverage ratio is now at 9.3 percent, about a third higher than in 2008. Against foreign banks, "The high standards here in the U.S. have made our banks stronger in absolute terms and in comparative terms, " Curry said. In August, the Bank of England eased a broad measure of capital adequacy for banks to help avoid crimping the flow of credit after the vote in June to leave the European Union. (http://reut.rs/2alqlXk) (Reporting by Ross Kerber in Cambridge, Mass.; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Religion is big business. Just how big? A new study, published Wednesday by a father-daughter research team, says religion is bigger than Facebook, Google and Apple  combined.

The article in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion said that the annual revenues of faith-based enterprises  not just churches but hospitals, schools, charities and even gospel musicians and halal food makers  is more than $378 billion a year. And thats not counting the annual shopping bonanza motivated by Christmas.

Georgetown Universitys Brian Grim and the Newseums Melissa Grim  in a study sponsored by an organization called Faith Counts, which promotes the value of religion  produced a 31-page breakdown of all the ways religion contributes to the U.S. economy.

The largest chunk of that $378 billion tally comes from faith-based health-care systems. Religious groups run many of the hospitals in the United States; Catholic health systems alone reportedly account for 1 in 6 hospital beds in the country.

Then there are churches and congregations themselves. Based on prior censuses of U.S. bodies of worship, the Grims looked at 344,894 congregations, from 236 different religious denominations (217 of them Christian, and others ranging from Shinto to Tao to Zoroastrian). Collectively, those congregations count about half the American population as members. The average annual income for a congregation, the study said, is $242,910.

Most of that income comes from members donations and dues, meaning Americans give $74.5 billion to their congregations per year, the study said.

Religious charities also contribute to the economy. By far the largest faith-based charity, according to the study, is Lutheran Services of America, with an annual operating revenue of about $21 billion. The study counted 17 more faith-based charities, all among Forbess 50 biggest charities in America, with revenues ranging from $300 million (Cross International) to $6.6 billion (YMCA USA).

Almost all the charities are Christian, except for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, with an annual operating revenue of $400 million.

Religious revenues also include faith-based colleges and universities, where 2 million students pay more than $46.7 billion in tuition annually, the study said. The tally includes tuition revenues for religious elementary through high schools as well, plus the Christian book industry, sales of Christian music, the Christian cable networks EWTN and CBN and the $1.9 billion halal food industry that caters to faithful Muslim consumers. The study counted $12.5 billion in annual sales of traditional kosher foods.
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TeleSur |  

The report can only jeopardize the pursuit of peace and stability, South Sudan representatives said.

A new report claiming that South Sudans leaders have exploited the countrys ongoing civil violence has been criticized by the countrys government. It comes as the worlds youngest nations stands on the brink of a renewed civil war.

The 66 page report, War Crimes Shouldnt Pay was published Saturday by Sentry, a U.S.-based watchdog co-founded by Hollywood actor George Clooney and details how leaders plundered the country and stripped the country of money.

The South Sudan government challenged the report, casting doubt on whether the sources used by the report were legitimate. Spokesperson for President Salva Kiir, Ateny Wek Ateny, said that the report can only jeopardize the pursuit of peace and stability in my country where the distrust and lack of authority are key factors of violence.

We will make sure that each of those allegations are challenged with a counter forensic and legal analysis of the shortcomings of this report, Ateny said.

A local South Sudan newspaper said it was shut down by the government after it ran the report on its front page.

Sentry made special mention of President Kiir and his family as well as former Vice President Riek Machar and other close government associates who partook in corrupt practices such as fraud, insider trading, and suspect transactions.

The money that the South Sudan elites were able to obtain was then hidden in various international ventures including resource companies, banks, real estate and luxury cars, according to Sentry.

South Sudans military and political elites are widely reported to have constructed a kleptocratic regime that has captured and controlled nearly all profit-generating sectors of the economy, the report read. Direct perpetrators of violence, and those acting on their behalf, have benefited from the plunder of South Sudans public wealth.

South Sudan is the worlds youngest nation, having just gained independence from Sudan in 2011. A civil war then erupted in 2013 after Kiir sacked Machar as his vice president for allegedly plotting against him. Instances of violence have recently been rising, and many believe the country is on the edge of returning to civil war.

Tens of thousands have people are estimated to have been killed in the ongoing violence which is largely bases along ethnic associations.

People fleeing the violence has reached one million according to the most recent estimates by the United Nations Refugee Agency. International organizations are also concerned about massive number of child soldiers that have been recruited in the country.

The U.S. has welcomed the Sentry report saying that it supported the South Sudanese people.

The Department of State is pursuing measures it can take to deter corruption by South Sudanese officials, the department said in a press statement Wednesday.

Via TeleSur



related video added by Juan Cole:

AP: Clooney Unveils Report on South Sudan Corruption
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

In a massive intelligence failure, the US Air Force hit a Syrian military installation in Deir al-Zor that it thought was Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). But it turned out to be the Syrian Arab Army position at Deir al-Zor military airport. The strike killed 80 soldiers and wounded another 100. Deir al-Zor is one of two provinces significantly controlled by Daesh in Syria, the other being its home base of al-Raqqa. The mistaken strike wily-nilly strengthened Daesh.

Russia immediately took propaganda advantage of the error, suggesting archly that the United States must covertly be supporting Daesh. Thats pretty low. In fact, Russia had done very little against Daesh itself, while the US has expended a good deal of effort against it.

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, stormed out of a UN session where Russia made these charges and where Russia called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. Power accused the Syrian government of continuing to hold and to deploy chemical weapons.

The error did reflect not on American intentions but on the tactics it is using to intervene in Syria. Air strikes from 30,000 feet are always open to being inexact, and to producing civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure. Moreover, the US is hostage to local informants for information on targets, and sometimes they turn out to be double agents or mentally fragile or have other reasons for delivering false intel to the US military.

The problem with a mistake of this Himalayan proportions is that it will be extremely difficult in the aftermath to convince Syria that the US did not intentionally aid Daesh.



Related video added by Juan Cole:

CBS Evening News: Russia: Coalition airstrike kills dozens of Syrian troops
[JURIST] UK Prime Minister Theresa May [official website] on Saturday denied [Mirror report] EU President Donald Tusks [EU profile] report that May intends to begin Article 50 [text] proceedings by February. Article 50 [Mirror backgrounder] is the portion of the EU Constitution governing procedures for nations seeking to leave the Union, and is the next step in UKs withdrawal. Speaking at a summit in Bratislava, Slovakia, Tusk stated [press release], Prime Minister May was very open and honest with me. She declared that its almost impossible to trigger Article 50 this year but its quite likely that they will be ready maybe in January, maybe in February next year. Mays administration asserts that Tusks statements were an interpretation of the leaders more broad discussion on the topic that contained no dates.

A majority of British citizens voted to leave [JURIST report] the EU in June. Concern over the economic health of Britain [Reuters report] going into the future led to a global market plunge following the vote, as the pound fell as far as ten percent against the US dollar; a low not seen since 1985. While the vote has fallen in favor of departure, no legal changes have taken place yet [Guardian report] as Britain must take further steps to confirm its separation. However, Britains leading public-interest law firm, as well as several experienced litigators, are currently drafting [JURIST report] a legal challenge to trigger a parliamentary debate. Under Article 50, a member country can only be removed from the EU two years after notification. While Britain might bypass this process through repeal of the European Communities Act of 1972, it is believed that this would make coming to a preferential trade agreement with the EU more difficult.
Passengers attempting to hail Uber cars during New York City's explosion on Saturday night hammered the ride sharing service for its pricing policies, accusing the company of gouging customers during a dangerous incident.

As news broke that a device had detonated in the city's Chelsea section, scared passengers attempted to use their Uber apps to hail a ride homeonly to be hit with notifications that demand was "off the charts."

Furious users took to Twitter to vent their frustration, which was first reported by The Sun UK. Shortly after the blast, Uber announced on the social network that it had suspended its "surge pricing," a system that has been criticized in the past by some riders.

Still, some local users were still complaining about surge pricing well after the explosion's implications became clear.

Charging a premium at times when a potential client wants something badly, of course, is a function of basic supply and demand (otherwise known as Economics 101). As a number of Uber boosters note, surge pricing is more of an incentive for drivers to pick up passengers, as they tend to earn more during peak times than they would during normal hours. Most Uber drivers set their own schedule, and moonlight for extra money.

That said, the company has taken its lumps for surging during emergencies, most notably the 2014 hostage crisis in Sydney. At the time, Uber was ripped for surge pricing at a time when frightened would-be riders were attempting to flee a deadly standoff at a local cafe.

A couple of years ago, Uber struck an agreement with New York's attorney general to limit surge pricing during natural disasters and states of emergency. Although there was no formal declaration of emergency during Saturday's explosion, a spokesperson told CNBC that the company curbed its surge pricing nonetheless, because it was appropriate given the nature of the situation in Chelsea.



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* Hong Kong-listed Chinese banks pay comparatively high dividends

* Demand for China banks boosted by cross border flows

* Yuan fall, low bond yields boost popularity of bank shares

By Saikat Chatterjee and Samuel Shen

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Mainland Chinese investors are snapping up the shares of Chinese banks listed in Hong Kong for their high dividend and low valuations, putting aside concerns for now over rising bad debts as China's economy slows.

The rush into China's banks has coincided with a pick-up in flows via a cross border stock link, but analysts and traders say banks are outperforming as mainland investors shift away from volatile growth stocks to dividend plays.

Investors buying Hong Kong-listed shares, or H-shares, of the major commercial banks have narrowed the valuation gap between stocks that trade on both bourses to a 21-month low, as measured by an index that tracks dual-listed stocks .

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's (ICBC) shares have risen more than 4 percent relative to the Hang Seng Index , and Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank) over 8 percent, since end-July.

"In Hong Kong, there are many stocks with relatively higher yields, lower valuations, and relatively sound balance sheets," said Lu Wenjie, a strategist at UBS.

"They're attractive to Chinese investors in terms of allocations due to yuan depreciation pressures and low bond yields at home," Lu said.

Foreign investors have long steered clear of China's biggest banks because of concerns over the broader economy, which means that H-shares have been trading at steep discounts to their mainland counterparts. The Hong Kong-listed banks are thus good value, especially for their dividends of nearly 6 percent.

The Big Four - ICBC, China Construction Bank (CCB) , Bank of China and AgBank have an average price to book of 0.84 compared with 1.2 times for the broader Hong Kong market, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The banks offer an average dividend yield of 5.6 percent compared with 2.1 percent for Shanghai-listed stocks and around 3.4 percent for 5-year China AAA corporate debt.

According to JP Morgan only 18 stocks listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen offer a dividend of more than 5 percent.

And while banks' bad debts have risen, investors say there are signs Beijing is stepping in to help with recapitalisation.

"Investors had been too negative on China's bad debt problem and felt that poor loan quality could lead to systematic failure, however, recent economic data show that there is progress in the underlying economy due to the government's effort on supply side reforms and industry restructuring," said Pauline Dan, head of Greater China equities at Pictet Asset Management.

FLOWS PICK UP

Over the last two months, stock investment flows from the mainland to Hong Kong accelerated sharply, partly on optimism over the upcoming launch of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock scheme.

Southbound flows pushed the daily aggregate quota on the Shanghai-Hong Kong link to its near limit before the ceiling was scrapped last month.

Despite the recent surge in Chinese bank shares not everyone is bullish on the sector.

Sophie Jiang, banking analyst at Nomura, expects NPL ratios may continue to climb from now till 2018 as a slowing economy exerts pressure on margins and loans and weaker lenders need to replenish capital.

Banks' non-performing loan ratio is at an 11-year high, or nearly 2 percent of total loans, according to China's banking regulator, but many analysts believe the problem is far bigger than meets the eye as banks are slow to recognise bad loans or park them off balance sheets. Ratings agency Moody's Investors Service has noted the sector's continued weak performance while more medium-tier banks grapple with volatile market conditions.

"We are cautious on the China banks space because we think the bad debts problem is still a concern especially with the economic slowdown," said Lilian Leung, manager of the JP Morgan China Income Fund.

(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
LUKE WESSON | FOR the KITSAP SUN Rick Steadman (Scott Ventrice, back) keeps (from left) Warnock (Scott Usher), Clelia (Christine Usher), Tansy (Christine Salo), Willum (Carmen Pinto) and Axel (Ashley Hurd) in the dark.

By Michael C. Moore, mmoore@kitsapsun.com

BREMERTON  The problem with Rick Steadman  the title character in Larry Shue's situation comedy "The Nerd"  is not that he's a nerd.

That's just his persona. The horn-rimmed, taped-together glasses, the pocket protector, the high-water slacks and white shirts, the dopey hair-don't ... all those things barely scratch the surface of what's aggravating about Steadman.

For accuracy's sake, the show  which opened Sept. 16 at Bremerton Community Theatre and runs through Oct. 2  might better have been titled "The Boor." The comedy comes not so much from Steadman's nerdy affectations, but from his obnoxious, unrefined, ill-mannered, clueless behavior  his boorishness  and the increasingly ridiculous efforts of his reluctant associates to rid themselves of him, and it.

Steadman could give nerds everywhere a bad name.

BCT's production, directed by David Siskin, plays the tone of Shue's breakthrough slapstick (he scored even bigger with "The Foreigner" before dying tragically in a plane crash on his way to an acting gig) just about right, and appoints things gorgeously. The Terre Haute, Indiana, apartment of Willum Cubbert, where all the folderol takes place, is perfectly nondescript  just like Willum himself  as rendered by set designer Rana Tan. Lighting and sound also are top-notch (special nods in the direction of sound designer Kenny James, whose numerous answering-machine messages, crucial to the storytelling, come off clear as bells and volume-appropriate.

The acting is uniformly good, as well, starting with the good-hearted Willum (Carmen Pinto) and the bombastic Steadman (Scott Ventrice) to the hell-spawn of one of Willum's clients (Julie McMurtrey). The principals all seem a little too mature (middle-aged, as opposed to the thirty-somethings who might be more apt to fall into these sorts of silliness), but Siskin's solid cast of seven never lets that become an issue.

Willum is already conflicted  his platonic friend, tenant and love interest, Tansy (reliable Christine Salo) is about to put gold over love and move to Washington, D.C. for a new job  when Steadman, who he's never actually met but is beholden to for having saved his life in Vietnam, shows up. Tansy and Axel (Ashley Hurd), Willum's other tenant, instantly take a disliking to him, and even Willum's gratitude and patience are quickly stretched. Toss in the trouble Steadman causes with Willum's client, Waldgrave (Scott Usher), his prissy wife (Christine Usher) and their aforementioned brat, and desperate measures to be rid of him soon are being bandied.

And simply telling Rick to shove off just doesn't make the nut. To get through his thick skull is going to be difficult, sophomoric and extremely silly work.

Is that the second time the word "silly" has cropped up? For good reason. Just as the tolerance to boorishness of everyone who comes into contact with Steadman is tested, the tolerance to silliness of every audience member will be, too. Ape suits and splotches of cottage cheese are worn to comic effect; garbanzo beans are set free onstage; footwear is abused; heads are inserted into paper bags, and ritual dancing with household cleaning items is undertaken.

If it weren't also so funny, the silliness might be just too, too much. Shue tempers his goofball with many a genuinely clever joke and observation. Describing Axel (who, by the way, is nowhere near disheveled and uncouth enough to be any kind of believable drama critic)  who has to miss the ends of the plays he reviews in order to meet his deadlines  Tansy says: "As far as Axel knows, Hamlet gets the girl, and Godot shows up." Considering a plan Axel has devised to drive Steadman away, timid Willum earnestly complains, "That sounds really cowardly," to which Axel replies, "I knew you'd like it."

Pinto is the eye of this comic storm, playing Willum's angst  the good guy pushed to his limits  credibly and likably. Hurd and Salo are capable co-conspirators, and Christine Usher, her usual comic treasure, adds a nice counterpoint to the stuffy, impatient Waldgrave.

Ventrice plays Steadman to the hilt, from both the nerd and boor standpoints. There's nothing in the world to endear you to a man of his awkwardness and inappropriateness, but Ventrice somehow finds possibilities for empathy amid all the man's flaws.

It's a lot of laughs, albeit some of them self-conscious and even reluctant ("Did I, an adult person, just laugh at that? I guess I did."). BCT has this "Nerd" under control, right down to the last clot of cottage cheese. Get your silly on and go.

REVIEW

'THE NERD'

Who: Bremerton Community Theatre

What: Comedy by Larry Shue

Where: BCT's Montgomery Auditorium, 599 Lebo Blvd., Bremerton

When: Through Oct. 2; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays

Tickets: $15-$8

Information: 360-373-5152, bremertoncommunitytheatre.org
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By Alan Searle, Special to the Kitsap Sun

The history of human health being affected by fossil fuels goes back to at least 1775 when Percival Pott, a London physician, described a skin cancer, caused by exposure to soot in chimney sweeps.

Chimney sweeps are a rarity now, but the detrimental effects of fossil fuels haven't gone away. In 2014, the World Health Organization estimated that one in eight lives worldwide was shortened, mainly by fossil fuel pollution.

We've become accustomed to the effects of pollution from the burning of fossil fuels  after all, our lifestyle depends on this. But in recent years it looks like climate change, related to our use of coal, oil, and natural gas, is going to challenge us further.

The National Climate Assessment noted that in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon and Idaho) our average temperature has increased by 1.3F since 1895. Depending on what happens with CO2 in the atmosphere, we can expect that the last 30 years of this century will be 3.3F-9.7F hotter than 1970-1999. However, this is an average, and it is likely that east of the Cascades will experience more warming than around Puget Sound.

We won't escape completely from the changes. The assessment also predicts less summer rain, warmer summers and increased acidification of the ocean around us. It also expects snowpack in the Cascades, which has declined 20 percent since 1950, will show further decline.

Medical authorities are concerned, too. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians and multiple other medical authorities have reviewed the evidence, concluded that it is our use of fossil fuels that is threatening us, and called for action on climate change.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has divided the impacts into eight broad categories:

Air Pollution  Heart disease, stroke, chronic lung disease, pneumonia and lung cancer are all associated with air pollution that gets worse with increasing temperatures. In some northern China cities, air pollution has been estimated to reduce life expectancy by over five years.

Changes in Vector Ecology  Vectors, usually insects, carry disease between humans, or humans and animals. The concern here is that mosquitoes, and the diseases they carry, including the viruses that cause Zika and Dengue, will spread to areas where they are not currently found. Increasing temperatures and a predicted increase in heavy rain and flooding such as happened last month in Louisiana, will favor the spread of mosquitoes.

Increasing Allergens  Increased allergy-causing agents (like pollen) from longer growing seasons, combined with air pollution, are expected to cause more problems in those with asthma and other lung conditions.

Water Quality Impacts, Water and Food Supply Impacts, Environmental Degradation  As rain and crop patterns alter, access to food and water will change. Governments that are already struggling to support their populations may fail to provide food, water and medical services. One of the precipitants of the current civil war in Syria was a prolonged drought (from 2006-2009) crop failures, and the subsequent migration of over 1 million people to cities.

Extreme heat  Extremes of heat and cold cause an increase in the risk of death, sometimes by a direct effect, but more commonly making those with chronic disease, like heart and lung problems, more vulnerable.

Severe weather  Floods, severe storms and hot spells can have a direct effect on health, death and injury, but may have a prolonged mental-health effect on survivors.

If you'd like to find out more about the expected health risks in the U.S., you can read an extensive report came out this year at https://health2016.globalchange.gov/downloads.

We can speculate about what is going to happen in Kitsap County.

The presence of the Pacific Ocean will continue to give us more rain and cooler temperatures than inland areas, but the pattern of rain may change.

Our salmon runs are likely to decline as creeks and rivers become warmer and shallower. This may also threaten our orca population.

Ocean acidification will impact our oyster and crab harvests. Smoke from wildfires will affect the quality of the air we breathe.

On the other hand we are likely to be relatively unaffected by climate change, and that may make Puget Sound counties attractive places to move to when life in other states, or countries, becomes difficult.

For more information see University of Washington's 2015 report on Climate Change in Puget Sound at https://cig.uw.edu/resources/special-reports/ps-sok/

Alan Searle is a retired Family Physician living in Port Orchard. He is a member of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility.
For more than a decade, members of a little-known group called the Pain Care Forum have blanketed Washington with messages touting prescription painkillers' vital role in the lives of millions of Americans, creating an echo chamber that has quietly derailed efforts to curb U.S. consumption of the drugs, which accounts for two-thirds of the world's usage.

SHARE ADVANCE FOR USE MONDAY, SEPT. 19, 2016 AND THEREAFTER-State Rep. Ryan Williams stands for a photo in Cookeville, Tenn., on Aug. 7, 2016. In 2014, the Republican lawmaker introduced a bill to put limits on opioid prescriptions in Tennessee, concerned about pregnant mothers getting hooked on opioids and passing the addiction on to their babies. Williams' mission failed that year, but his bill succeeded the next year. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski) ADVANCE FOR USE MONDAY, SEPT. 19, 2016 AND THEREAFTER-Jennifer Weiss-Burke, executive director of a youth recovery center in Albuquerque, N.M., speaks about her son on Aug. 9, 2016. She says Cameron's descent into drug addiction started with a painkiller prescription from his doctor and ended with a fatal heroin overdose nearly three years later. (AP Photo/Mary Hudetz) Associated Press photos Jennifer Weiss-Burke (left) said her son Cameron Weiss began a descent into drug addiction with an opioid prescription a doctor wrote for him for a wrestling injury. After his death from a heroin overdose in 2011, Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure. ADVANCE FOR USE SUNDAY, SEPT. 18, 2016 AND THEREAFTER-Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, poses for a photo in Stanford, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 29, 2016. Regarding the political influence of pharmaceutical companies, the former adviser on drug policy under President Barack Obama says, "You can go a long, long way in getting what you want when you have a lot of money. ... And it's only when things get so disastrous that finally there's enough popular will aroused to push back." (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Related Coverage Politics of Pain: Things to know

Politics of Pain: Pain Care Forum warns of 'domino effect'

By Geoff Mulvihill, Liz Essley Whyte And Ben Wieder, Associated Press and Center for Public Integrity

The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids, the drugs at the heart of a crisis that has cost 165,000 Americans their lives and pushed countless more to crippling addiction.

The drugmakers vow they're combating the addiction epidemic, but The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found that they often employ a statehouse playbook of delay and defend that includes funding advocacy groups that use the veneer of independence to fight limits on the drugs, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl, the narcotic linked to Prince's death.

The mother of Cameron Weiss was no match for the industry's high-powered lobbyists when she plunged into the corridors of New Mexico's Legislature, crusading for a measure she fervently believed would have saved her son's life.

It was a heroin overdose that eventually killed Cameron, not long before he would have turned 19. But his slippery descent to death started a few years earlier, when a hospital sent him home with a bottle of Percocet after he broke his collarbone in wrestling practice.

Jennifer Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure.

They didn't speak up in legislative hearings. "They were going individually talking to senators and representatives one-on-one," Weiss-Burke said.

Unknowingly, she had taken on a political powerhouse that spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2006 through 2015  more than 200 times what those advocating for stricter policies spent and more than eight times what the formidable gun lobby recorded for similar activities during that same period.

The pharmaceutical companies and allied groups have a number of legislative interests in addition to opioids that account for a portion of their political activity, but their steady presence in state capitals means they're poised to jump in quickly on any debate that affects them.

Collectively, the AP and the Center for Public Integrity found, the drugmakers and allied advocacy groups employed an annual average of 1,350 lobbyists in legislative hubs from 2006 through 2015, when opioids' addictive nature came under increasing scrutiny.

"The opioid lobby has been doing everything it can to preserve the status quo of aggressive prescribing," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and an outspoken advocate for opioid reform. "They are reaping enormous profits from aggressive prescribing."

The drug companies say they are committed to solving the problems linked to their painkillers. Major opioid-makers have launched initiatives to, among other things, encourage more cautious prescribing, allow states to share databases of prescriptions and help stop drug dealers from obtaining pills.

And the industry and its allies have not been alone in fighting restrictions on opioids. Powerful doctors' groups are part of the fight in several states, arguing that lawmakers should not tell them how to practice medicine.

While drug regulation is usually handled at the federal level  where the makers of painkillers also have pushed back against attempts to impose restrictions  ordinary citizens struggling with the opioid crisis in their neighborhoods have looked to their state capitals for solutions.

Hundreds of opioid-related bills have been introduced at the state level just in the last several years. The few groups pleading for tighter prescription restrictions are mostly fledgling mom-and-pop organizations formed by families of young people killed by opioids. Together, they spent about $4 million nationwide at the state and federal level on political contributions and lobbying from 2006 through 2015 and employed an average of eight state lobbyists each year.

Prescription opioids are the synthetic cousins of heroin and morphine, prescribed to relieve pain. Sales of the drugs have boomed  quadrupling from 1999 to 2010  and overdose deaths rose just as fast, totaling 165,000 this millennium. Last year, 227 million opioid prescriptions were doled out in the U.S., enough to hand a bottle of pills to nine out of every 10 American adults.

The drugmakers' revenues are robust, too: Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin and one of the largest opioid producers by sales, pulled in an estimated $2.4 billion from opioids last year alone, according to estimates from health care information company IMS Health.

That's even after executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about OxyContin's risk of addiction in 2007 and the company agreed to pay more than $600 million in fines.

Opioids can be dangerous even for people who follow doctors' orders, though they also help millions of people manage pain associated with cancer, injuries, surgeries and end-of-life care.

The industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America issued a statement saying, "We and our members stand with patients, providers, law enforcement, policymakers and others in calling for and supporting national policies and action to address opioid abuse."

And Purdue said: "Purdue does not oppose  either directly or indirectly  policies that improve the way opioids are prescribed, including when those policies may result in decreased opioid use."

One of the chief solutions the drugmakers actively promote now are new formulations that make their products harder to crush or dissolve, thwarting abusers who want to snort or inject painkillers. But the new versions also extend the life of their profits with fresh patents, and some experts question their overall effectiveness.

A FOCUS ON PAIN TREATMENT

An analysis of state records collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics provides a snapshot of the drugmakers' battles to limit opioids. For instance, they show that pharmaceutical companies and their allies ramped up their lobbying and campaign contributions in New Mexico in 2012 as lawmakers considered  and ultimately killed  the bill backed by Cameron Weiss' mother.

But one of the drug companies' most powerful engines of political might isn't part of the public record  a largely unknown network of opioid-friendly nonprofits they help fund and meet with monthly known as the Pain Care Forum, formed more than a decade ago.

Combined, its participants contributed more than $24 million to 7,100 candidates for state-level offices from 2006 through 2015, with the largest amounts going to governors and the lawmakers who control legislative agendas, such as house speakers, senate presidents and health committee chairs.

They've gotten involved in nitty-gritty fights even beyond legislatures. After Washington state leaders drafted the nation's first set of medical guidelines urging doctors not to prescribe high doses of opioids in 2007, the Pain Care Forum hired a public relations firm to convince the state medical board that the guidelines would hurt patients with chronic pain.

A sizable slice of the drugmakers' battles are carried out by pharma-funded advocates spreading opioid-friendly narratives  with their links to drug companies going unmentioned  or by persuading pharma-friendly lawmakers to introduce legislation drafted by the industry.

Two years ago, it was a major patient organization receiving grants from the opioid industry, the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network, that led the fight against a measure in Tennessee aimed at reducing the number of babies born addicted to narcotics.

And in Maine last year, drugmakers persuaded a state representative to successfully push a bill  drafted by the industry  requiring insurers to cover so-called abuse-deterrent painkillers, the new forms of opioids that are harder to abuse.

Legislatures have begun considering limits on the length of first-time opioid prescriptions. But the new laws and proposals in states including Connecticut and Massachusetts carve out a common exception: They do not apply to chronic pain patients. Drugmaker-funded pain groups, which can mobilize patients to appear at legislative hearings, advocate for the exceptions.

A SURPRISING OPPONENT

Letting advocacy groups do the talking can be an especially effective tactic in state legislatures, where many lawmakers serve only part time and juggle complicated issues.

Lawmakers in Massachusetts, for example, said they didn't hear directly from pharmaceutical lobbyists when they took up opioid prescribing issues this year. But they did hear from a patient advocate with ongoing back pain who works with and volunteers for groups that receive some of their funding from pharmaceutical companies. She also brought in patients to meet with them.

"A lot of times those legislators, they don't have the ability to really thoroughly look into who these organizations are and who's funding them," said Edward Walker of the University of California Los Angeles, who studies grass roots groups.

Nonprofit advocacy groups led the countercharge in Tennessee in 2014 when Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams began work to stanch the flow of prescription painkillers, alarmed by a rapidly rising number of drug-addicted babies, who suffer from withdrawal in their first weeks of life and complications long after they leave the hospital.

More than 900 babies had been born addicted in Tennessee the year before, many of them hooked on the prescription opioids their mothers had taken. That number had climbed steadily since 2001, when there were fewer than 100.

When Williams was mulling potential legislation, doctors told him that part of Tennessee's problem was a 2001 law  similar to measures on the books in more than a dozen states  that made it difficult to discipline doctors for dispensing opioids and allowed clinicians to refuse to prescribe powerful narcotics only if they steered patients to an opioid-friendly doctor.

The result, according to the experts Williams worked with, was a rash of prescribing, even for pregnant women. In 2014, Tennessee ranked third in the country for per capita opioid prescriptions, with roughly 1.3 prescriptions doled out for every person in the state, according to an analysis of prescription data from IMS Health.

Williams' mission to repeal the law failed that year, and he was shocked by the group that came out in opposition  the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the advocacy arm of one of the country's biggest and best-known charities.

Two Cancer Society lobbyists worked against the bill, even though prescribing painkillers for cancer patients is a widely accepted medical practice that would have remained legal.

"We injected ourselves into the debate because we did not want cancer patients to not be able to have access to their medication," said Theodore Morrison, a lobbyist working for the network that year.

The society's annual ranks of about 200 lobbyists around the country have taken similar positions elsewhere, defending rules that some argue encourage extensive prescriptions and opposing opioid measures even if the proposed legislation specifically exempted cancer patients.

The Cancer Action Network listed four major opioid makers that provided funding of at least $100,000 in 2015, in addition to five that contributed at least $25,000. Companies that donate such sums get one-on-one meetings with the group's leaders and other chances to discuss policy.

LOBBYISTS 'WERE KILLING IT'

The tried-and-true tactics of lobbying and campaign contributions remain a major plank of the pharmaceutical playbook. In 2014 alone, for instance, participants in the Pain Care Forum spent at least $14 million nationwide on state-level lobbying.

Two years earlier  facing the threat of limits on opioid-prescribing  forum members had upped their number of lobbyists in New Mexico, which is second only to West Virginia in per capita deaths primarily due to prescription and illegal opioid drugs, according to the most recent federal data available.

The aim of the bill Jennifer Weiss-Burke backed was to limit initial prescriptions of opioids for acute pain to seven days to make addictions less likely and produce fewer leftover pills that could be peddled illegally.

After her son had left the hospital with his first bottle of Percocet in 2009 at the age of 16, the Albuquerque teen had suffered two more injuries and gotten two more prescriptions. He also took pills he found at his grandparents' house. Less than a year later, he started smoking heroin, which costs less than black-market prescription drugs.

He repeatedly went into rehab, and just as repeatedly relapsed. In August 2011, his mother found him at home, dead.

Weiss-Burke said she didn't realize how dangerous prescription pills could be until her son already had moved on to heroin, a tortuous progression mirrored by the downward spirals of tens of thousands of other people across the country.

Heeding concerns from the state medical society, the bill's sponsors amended it to allow the boards overseeing doctors and other prescribers to set their own limits. Still, the bill died in the House Judiciary Committee.

"The lobbyists behind the scenes were killing it," said Bernadette Sanchez, the Democratic state senator who sponsored the measure.

THE NEXT FRONTIER

Now, pharmaceutical companies are directing their lobbying efforts to their new legislative frontier in the states  medicines known as abuse-deterrent formulations. These drugs ultimately are more lucrative, since they're protected by patent and do not yet have generic competitors. They cost insurers more than generic opioids without the tamper-resistant technology.

Skeptics warn that they carry the same risks of addiction as other opioid versions, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration noted that they don't prevent the most common form of abuse  swallowing pills whole.

"This is a way that the pharmaceutical industry can evade responsibility, get new patents and continue to pump pills into the system," said Dr. Anna Lembke, chief of addiction medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and author of a book on the opioid epidemic.

Opioid-makers have especially courted attorneys general, who have helped spread tamper-resistant opioid talking points.

Since 2006, Pain Care Forum participants have given more than $600,000 in campaign contributions to attorneys general candidates, and another $1.6 million to the Republican and Democratic attorneys general associations. Purdue, with $100,000 in 2015 alone, tied with four other entities for top contributor to the Democratic Attorneys General Association; it was among the top 10 donors to the Republican group, giving more than $200,000.
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By Kevin Gross

Skipping a lot of the legal activity to the present, Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club has yet to submit the Site Development Activity Permits (SDAP) for the illegal construction and expansion required by Judge Serko's Court. Those permits were due 3 August 2016. The County filed a Contempt of Court motion in August to force the club to comply. That motion was delayed until December 2 because the club's excuse was that they were trying to force a former insurance company to pay for the club's illegal activities.

Meanwhile, the club is operating under a stay order issued by the appellate court that allows essentially the same activities to continue that are at issue. No date has been set for the appellate court hearing on the club appeal of Judge Serko's judgment.

Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Jay Roof found that KRRC was subject to Kitsap County Code 10.25 (the shooting range operational permit ordinance) requirements that all ranges conform to the guidelines of the NRA Range Source Book to provide some assurance that bullets are contained within range boundaries and noise mitigation measures are in effect. KCC 10.25 required the operating permit application be submitted by March 14, 2015. Judge Roof ordered the club to submit the required permit and shut the club down until they complied.

The club submitted a permit application, under protest, in April 2016 and was allowed to resume operations while the permit was processed. County review of the application identified multiple and serious deficiencies in the application and returned it to the club for correction and additional information. County code allows as permit applicant 90 days to provide the additional information. That 90-day limit expired August 1.

KRRC has not submitted the required corrections and information and the County has not taken any action beyond notifying the club that their application has lapsed.

KRRC has filed "notice of appeal" for both Serko's and Roof's judgments. The club is citing the same invalid arguments that have been previously rejected by the various superior and appellate courts. There is little doubt that the appellate court will uphold the superior court findings. The appeals accomplish little except to extend the time that KRRC can continue to operate outside the law for potentially several more years while the cases wend their slow way through the legal system.

Bottom line is that the County is not, for some unexplained reason, enforcing the court orders nor its own county code. County actions have been inadequate in anticipating KRRC's continuing legal nonsense, unprepared to effectively counter that nonsense, and unwilling to enforce existing code requirements as ordered by the court.

The neighbors and communities for several miles around KRRC have the absolute right to safe and peaceful enjoyment of their own homes and properties, and safe use of the Newberry Hill Heritage Park and of Klahowya Secondary School, without the threat of being injured by errant bullets from KRRC.

Please consider contacting the Kitsap County commissioners, the new director of community development, and the county prosecutor and ask them why KRRC is continuing to receive special consideration and exemptions from the laws and ordinances that every other entity in the county are subject to.

Kevin Gross writes on behalf of the group Central Kitsap Safe & Quiet.
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By the Kitsap Sun editorial board

The Olympic Peninsula's restored river continues to demonstrate the resiliency of nature, this week with the news that steelhead trout and sockeye salmon are being seen in the Elwha River in places where they haven't been observed in a century. It's evidence the historic removal of two dams is working as more species adapt and migrate up the free-flowing river.

Providing habitat so that a diversity of species may flourish is something that's been observed at the dam's mouth. In early 2015, scientists found candlefish at the mouth of the river, after 60 years without seeing the threatened species of smelt. That was a great signal for salmon recovery, as candlefish are a source of food for salmon and other marine species. That was coupled with documented increases in Dungeness crab and horse clams in the mouth's estuary, demonstrating that the changes downstream in the post-dam Elwha were as optimistic as what scientists were expecting to see in its headwaters. A few months later, in April 2015, juvenile sockeye were found near the Elwha's mouth, following the discovery of chinook, coho and steelhead trout that had returned after the dam removal was completed in 2014.

At the time, a scientist urged caution on forecasting the success for sockeye, until those species prove they would return to the river's upper reaches. That's what makes the recent news of sockeye and steelhead trout making it up the Elwha to spawn, approximately two years after the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams were removed, the latest encouraging ecological sign that a $329 million project is a smashing success, pun firmly intended.

We can now wonder whether the patience, negotiation, community support, scientific expertise and political courage that brought the project to this stage accomplishes a mythical achievement  discovery of a 100-pound chinook. That's the legendary tale of the Elwha's potential, based on the genes of Elwha chinook and the river's capacity if conditions return to pre-1900 levels that allow longer periods of growth in the now 70 open miles of cold mountain runoff, according to some biologists. What a wonder that would be. But as viral as the image of such a fish could be, a better goal would be to restore the stock. The 4,500 chinook salmon now believed to be spawning in the Elwha could be 30,000 someday, and just think of the impact that has to Puget Sound and the related ecosystem.

Giant chinook or not, and with patience for a quintupling of salmon runs, there's reason to again note the Elwha's success as we mark the two-year anniversary of the final piece of dam removal (it was August 26, for those scoring at home).

Welcome back, sockeye and steelhead trout. Welcome to your part of the ongoing story on the Elwha River that seems to get better with every chapter we read.

Our View opinion columns are the consensus opinion of the Kitsap Sun's editorial board. Members are David Nelson, editor; Jim Campbell, opinion editor emeritus; and community members Martha Burke, Susanne Hughes, Bart Kale, Drayton Jackson and Jim Stark.
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For years, Washington lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have attacked big corporations for avoiding taxes by parking their profits overseas.

A few weeks ago the European Union did something about it. The European Union's executive commission ordered Ireland to collect $14.5 billion in back taxes from Apple.

But rather than congratulate Europe for standing up to Apple, official Washington is outraged.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan calls it an "awful" decision. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer says it's "a cheap money grab by the European Commission."

P-l-e-a-s-e.

These are taxes America should have required Apple to pay to the U.S. Treasury. But we didn't  because Ryan, Schumer and other inhabitants of Capitol Hill haven't been able to agree on how to close the loophole that has allowed Apple and many other global American corporations to avoid paying the corporate income taxes they owe.

Let's be clear: The products Apple sells abroad are designed and developed in the United States. So the foreign royalties Apple collects on them logically should be treated as corporate income to Apple here in America.

But Apple and other Big Tech corporations like Google and Amazon  along with much of Big Pharma and even Starbucks  have avoided paying hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes on their worldwide earnings because they don't mainly sell physical things like cars or refrigerators or television sets that they make here and ship abroad.

Their major assets are designs, software and patented ideas. Although most of this intellectual capital originates here, it can be transferred instantly around the world, finding its way into a vast array of products and services abroad.

Intellectual capital is hard to see, measure, value and track. So it's a perfect vehicle for tax avoidance.

Apple transfers its intellectual capital to an Apple subsidiary in Ireland, which then "sells" Apple products all over Europe. And it keeps most of the money there.

Ireland has been more than happy to oblige by imposing on Apple a tax rate that's laughably low  0.005 percent in 2014, for example. What does Ireland get out of it? Several thousand jobs and a steady flow of global investment.

Apple and other global corporations have perfected the art of playing off one country against another. Even Ireland is appealing the European Commission's ruling out of fear that accepting the $14.5 billion windfall might scare away other global corporations  undermining Ireland's reputation as a tax haven, which has become a cornerstone of the country's economy.

Apple is one of America's biggest tax cheats. It maintains a worldwide network of tax havens to park its global profits, some of which don't even have any employees. Over the last decade alone, Apple has amassed a stunning $231.5 billion cash pile abroad, subjected to little or no taxes.

This hasn't stopped Apple from richly rewarding its American shareholders with fat dividends and stock buybacks that raise share prices. But rather than use its overseas cash to fund these, Apple has taken on billions of dollars of additional debt.

It's a scam, at the expense of American taxpayers.

Add in the worldwide sales of America's Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Franchise operations, and the total scam is sizable. Over $2 trillion of U.S. corporate profits are now parked abroad  all of it escaping the U.S. corporate income tax. To make up the difference, you and I and millions of other Americans have to pay more in income taxes and payroll taxes to finance the U.S. government.

Why can't this loophole be closed? In fact, what's stopping the Internal Revenue Service from doing what the European Commission just did  telling Apple it owes tens of billions of dollars, but to America rather than to Ireland?

The dirty little secret is that the loophole could be closed. The IRS could probably do what Europe just did even under existing law. But that won't happen, because Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Franchise have enough political clout to stop the loophole from being closed and stop the IRS from going after them.

Ironically, the European Commission's ruling is having the opposite effect in Washington  adding fuel to the demand Apple and other giant U.S. global corporations have been making: that the United States slash taxes on corporations that move their overseas earnings back to the United States.

In other words, they want another tax amnesty.

Congress' last tax amnesty occurred in 2004, when global U.S. corporations brought back about $300 billion from overseas and paid a tax rate of just 5.25 percent rather than the regular 35 percent U.S. corporate rate.

Corporate executives argued then, as they argue now, that the amnesty would allow them to reinvest those earnings in America.

The argument was baloney then, and it's baloney now. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 92 percent of the repatriated cash was used to pay for dividends, share buybacks or executive bonuses.

"Repatriations did not lead to an increase in domestic investment, employment or (research and development), even for the firms that lobbied for the tax holiday stating these intentions," the study concluded.

The political establishment in Washington is preparing for another tax amnesty, but what's really needed is a crackdown on corporate tax avoidance.

Instead of criticizing the European Commission for forcing Apple to pay up, American politicians ought to be thanking Europe for standing up to Apple.

At least someone has.

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies.
The Civilian writes:

Despite falling into eighth place in the latest straw poll, former Prime Minister Helen Clark may still be in with a chance to be the next United Nations Secretary General, say knowledgeable UN watchers, if shes able to steady the ship and walk the narrow tight-rope of all the other candidates dying horrifically.

Interviewed on Radio New Zealand this morning about whether Clark should drop out of the race, UN expert Stephen Lewis said there was really no need, and kiwis shouldnt panic about her prospects.

I think the important message to those who are really hoping she gets the job is, dont lose hope yet. Shes still got a chance, and there are a lot of paths to victory.

One is that all the other candidates die horrifically at one time in a fire or something like that.

Another is that maybe all the candidates ahead of her had a massive seven-way orgy, and the press has picture, or maybe even she has the pictures.
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Many Missouri teens and their families can't afford court fines and fees. And that often leads to more problems. (courts.mo.gov)
photos by Ali James/Special to Knoxville News Sentinel Josh Sanderson and Kim Thrasher discuss different cabinetry and countertop options in the recently opened Smithbilt Homes design center. The 3,000-square-foot interior design center offers hundreds of additional options and upgrades for their homebuyers.

SHARE "Giving a comfortable place where people can come and touch and feel things and see things  it's the fun part of shopping for a home," said Josh Sanderson, marketing and sales for Smithbilt Homes. (Ali James/Special to Knoxville News Sentinel) "We definitely see the days of a spec home being one-size-fits-all as having come and gone," said Leslie Mitchell, interior designer at Shae Design Studio. "People are wanting to customize and that can be a really good thing for the client. HGTV has definitely inspired us to be more creative and to put thought into a space and I think that's why design centers are becoming such popular places for people." (Ali James/Special to Knoxville News Sentinel) "Usually the builders will just send their clients here," said Leslie Mitchell, interior designer at Shae Design Studio. "We are trained designers and our role is to guide people through the selection process and make the right choices." The team expedites the client's selection process, helps coordinate finishes, fixtures and cabinetry, leaving the builder freed up to focus on the construction of the home. (Ali James/Special to Knoxville News Sentinel) "We want to show them the whole package and how a paint color for example might look with it," said Leslie Mitchell, interior designer at Shae Design Studio. (Ali James/Special to Knoxville News Sentinel)

By Ali James of the Knoxville News Sentinel

Try a design center

Up until earlier this year, Smithbilt Homes' buyers would tour a model home before huddling over catalogs to select cabinetry, siding, paint colors and other finishes.

"We used to be in the garage of the model home," said Josh Sanderson, who manages marketing and sales for Smithbilt Homes. "It was very uninviting, people just rushed through the selection process to get it done."

In February, Smithbilt Homes opened a 3,000-square-foot interior design center to offer hundreds of additional options and upgrades for their homebuyers. Since their offices at 244 N. Peters Road already were centrally located, the space upstairs seemed to be a logical place for the design center.

"We have communities in Maryville and all the way up to Norris Lake; Cedar Bluff is very centralized for all of our communities," Sanderson said.

"We reach out to them and get them to book an appointment as soon as they purchase one of our properties."

The Smithbilt design team guides homebuyers through all the selections and upgrades that apply to their home.

"Now meetings take up to four to five hours," Sanderson said. "When you are buying your own home you get to put your personal touches on it."

The design center displays samples of exterior vinyl and brick siding; however, they encourage buyers to drive a Smithbilt Homes neighborhood to view larger samples. For buyers, it is an opportunity to pinpoint what they do and don't like. The Smithbilt website offers an interactive map to locate completed homes.

Smithbilt Homes designer Kim Thrasher said she likes to take her time with their customers, while selecting as many of the upgrades or options in one session if possible.

"I had a couple from one of our subdivisions that moved in around December come into the design center," Thrasher said. "Back when we were designing their home, we met in the garage and they were picking things out of books. They were amazed by the choices displayed here. Now we have the fixtures where they can see and touch them. A picture is good, but when you can see the product in front of you, it makes a difference."

While samples are displayed on walls in the design center, the space also features a completed kitchen, dining and living room. "We wanted to make half of it feel like a home," Sanderson said.

Since opening the design center, Sanderson said buyers can almost feel overwhelmed by the myriad choices they offer. "Giving a comfortable place where people can come and touch and feel things and see things  it's the fun part of shopping for a home," he said.

The design center is open by appointment for buyers 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and there also is an open house 1-5 p.m. on Sundays. Sanderson said it is a good idea for buyers to drop by the open house before their first design consultation so they can start brainstorming at home before they sit down to make their selections.

Once samples and colors are selected, the designer pulls everything up on a large screen mounted to the wall.

"They might see a house they like in one of the communities, we can see the color of that house and choose coordinating brick and roof colors and pull it all together on screen," Sanderson said.

"We go through the entire process on the computer," he added. "Then once they have gone over it and checked it, we can submit their selections through the website  sending copies to the superintendent, the agent, the supplier  everyone gets a copy of it. The second they make a choice and sign off on it, it's in production.

"We do things once, instead of multiple people doing the same things. The buyer's choices go to the same people so that everyone is on the same page."

This online system also allows the buyers to change things like their paint color and automatically notify the painter or change out a light fixture months out and arrange for it to be delivered in time for installation.

"We stay in contact, so that instead of calling two days out to check on lighting, everyone already has that information," said Sanderson of their streamlined process.

"We still have a model home where we have everything standard for that community. Then they know what is standard, then when they come here to the design center, the upgrades are limitless."

Because the market is strong, they are now behind on spec inventory, according to Sanderson. "A lot of new buyers are buying homes that are still under construction. They are motivated to buy their own brand new home and design it the way they want.

"I would say around 75 percent of homes are sold at some phase of the construction period," Sanderson said. We currently have only 12 out of 264 houses that are 100 percent spec homes." He added that when the market was slow it was not unusual to be sitting on 30 spec homes.

The new design center also allows them to test trends.

"Some things in California might not sell in East Tennessee; we can try new things here and see if it fits," he said.

Suppliers also are seeing the value of being in a showroom and the additional exposure it gives them to buyers.

"We have 300 buyers coming through with their families and friends  who are also getting remodeling ideas," said Sanderson. "The suppliers are chomping at the bit to get in here, they call us when they have a new flooring or a granite countertop and offer to install it at cost. It's an additional showroom for all of these companies and suppliers."

Many of the Smithbilt Homes are geared toward the first homebuyer, according to Sanderson. "We have more affordable housing geared toward millennials," he added. "They are wanting to customize  it's more about getting on YouTube and doing a tile backsplash on your own.

"We try to keep an open mind when a buyer comes in," said Sanderson of the design consultation. "We try not to be a custom homebuilder, but we try to give them enough samples from suppliers and options for buyers to feel they can personalize it, it's not so cookie cutter."

Shae Design Studio

Leslie Mitchell, an interior designer for Shae Design Studio, said that they have become a valuable resource for local builders and their homebuyers. Currently a third of their clientele are referred by local builders.

"Usually the builders will just send their clients here," Mitchell said. "We are trained designers and our role is to guide people through the selection process and make the right choices." The team expedites the client's selection process, helps coordinate finishes, fixtures and cabinetry, leaving the builder freed up to focus on the construction of the home.

Shae Design Studio has been in business for seven years, but expanded in February to a new 5,000-square-foot retail space at 10420 Kingston Pike in West Knoxville.

"We definitely see the days of a spec home being one-size-fits-all as having come and gone," Mitchell said. "People are wanting to customize and that can be a really good thing for the client. HGTV has definitely inspired us to be more creative and to put thought into a space, and I think that's why design centers are becoming such popular places for people."

The average consultation at Shae Design Studio takes from three to five hours, according to Mitchell, but can vary depending on changes and the individual client's needs.

Consultations cost $85 an hour, but often the builder takes care of that, Mitchell said. "A lot of builders feel that it is better for them to pay that hourly fee," she said. "Usually our relationship with the homebuyers is less financial and more selection oriented. Builders are busy people, they don't have time to guide people. We expedite that process and we have a much better feel for what's out there."

The recent expansion of the showroom has allowed Shae Studios to expand more into furnishings, as well as sell rug and paint collaborations by Joanna Gaines, star of HGTV's Fixer Upper.

"We want to show them the whole package and how a paint color for example might look with it," Mitchell said.

Demonstrating how paint colors, finishes, fixtures and material samples will look together in a 3-D preview of a room is Mitchell's favorite part of the business.

"A lot of people are unable to visualize a new build," she said. "It's one thing to look at a piece of paper and another to look at it in 3-D. A lot of builders use catalogs, but there is nothing like seeing it in person. I'd hate to see them commit without seeing it in real life."

Shae Design Studio offers design consultations 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on weekdays, and also is open Saturdays and available to meet by appointment after hours.
This winter is going to be slightly warmer than normal.

Mangroves thrive in ocean water because they are able to filter out the salt.

Eating an onion and a pineapple at the same time helps hay fever.

People who sleep on their back have more nightmares.

The moon has a crater named Beer.

I could go on and on. In fact, the facts and figures, stories and charts seem never ending in the oxymoronically titled New Old Farmer's Almanac. The 2017 issue is just out, and it's like eating peanuts: start reading and you can't stop.

It begins with an ad for a walk-in tub and ends with "A Panegyric for President's Day." A panegyric is a piece of writing that praises someone or something; in this case, a poem that includes the names of all our presidents to date.

Within its 272 pages, you can learn: how to make a ladybug cake; the history of alcoholic beverages in the United States; detailed instructions for teaching your dog to wash the car; where to get pills that enable your brain to remember everything; and the secret recipe for a "Piggy Dip" that'll have the gang going hog-wild at a tailgate party.

This issue celebrates 225 years, which is 100 years after its Quasquicentennial and halfway between its Bicentennial and its Sestercentennial. (I did not learn that from the new almanac. I looked it up myself. Just don't ask me to pronounce anything past its Bicentennial. Even computer spell-checks cough back those two ennials.)

I tore out "Words of a Feather Maddening Mind-Mangler," a quiz that asks readers to match the names of birds with the calls they make, as sounded out in actual English word combinations. Examples from the almanac bird-sound test: What bird says "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?" (Barred owl) What bird says "Drop it! Drop it! Cover it up! Cover it up! Pull it up! Pull it up!" (I have no clue. Do you?)

What call would be yours if you were a bird? Mine would be, "Read a book! Read a book! Now! Now! Read a book! Read a book! Now! Now!"

I learned than a white-tailed buck can jump higher than the average five-story building. I have to take that on faith. The deer in our backyard don't jump. They eat the tops off of tulips, roses and all manner of tasty biologics. They stand still as a statue. Like the one in a neighbor's yard I assumed was real until I realized she'd been in that very same position for two weeks.

Trends for 2017? Beds with a pet mattress attached so dogs can sleep with their best friends. Buying a car from a coin-operated, glass tower vending machine that holds up to 20 cars. (I don't believe that one) Thirty minutes travel time from New York to London in new high-speed jets with four wings and two rockets.

And waterproof books to read while bathing. I'm gonna get me one of those.

"Read a book! Read a book! Now! Now!"

Freelancer Ina Hughs may be reached at inamackie@yahoo.com.
Scott County General Sessions Judge James Cotton Jr. instructs Public Defender Mark Strange, right, to check with Howard Barnett about an ankle bracelet for his client (at the podium) Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)

SHARE Scott County General Sessions Judge James Cotton Jr. in his courtroom Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) Howard Barnett, owner of D-Trax Home Incarnation Company, sits in the courtroom of Scott County General Sessions Judge James Cotton Jr. on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) Scott County General Sessions Judge James Cotton Jr. in his courtroom Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) Attorney Max Huff talks to his client, Ashlee Strunk, about the ankle bracelet program in Scott County General Sessions court before Judge James Cotton Jr. on Wednesday, Sept.14, 2016. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) Related Coverage Scott County judge: Ankle monitoring firm booted

By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel

HUNTSVILLE, Tenn.  A Scott County judge ordered a 60-year-old poverty-stricken disabled man jailed because he fell short $215 in fees owed a man whose background the judge has never examined and who denies asking the judge to do so.

Ronald Ray Brummitt is not alone. The News Sentinel has documented more than a half-dozen instances in the past few months in which General Sessions Judge James Cotton Jr. has sent poor people to jail solely because they fell behind in paying fees to a private company that a Kentucky man, Howard Barnett, concedes he "runs out of his vehicle."

Interviews with legal authorities, observations of Cotton in court and a review of records and state law over the past few months also found:

Cotton revoked defendants' bonds even though the defendants showed up for court as required. He then offered them freedom through Barnett's electronic monitoring services.

The judge routinely places defendants facing minor charges who are poor and unemployed on electronic monitoring without any findings  as required by law  that the practice is necessary.

At least 73 people were on Barnett's monitoring client list in August in a county with a population of 30,000. By comparison, only five defendants are on ankle monitoring in Knox County (population 451,324)  a murder defendant, three child rape defendants and a domestic assault defendant.

Barnett has no contract with Scott County to provide the services.

The money  $130 for the ankle bracelet and $70 in weekly fees  that the accused pay goes into Barnett's pocket, not county coffers.

Cotton admitted in an interview that he did not vet Barnett or his firm before allowing Barnett to set up shop there. The judge conceded he's not sure that his practices in the use of electronic monitoring are constitutional.

The News Sentinel reviewed more than 30 cases in which ankle monitoring was ordered. In each case, the accused was considered too poor to pay for a lawyer. Many defendants were unemployed. Most faced minor charges, including driving offenses, possession of small quantities of drugs, public intoxication and petty theft.

Among those who suffered extra financial punches was a steel mill worker from Huntsville charged with driving on a suspended license and walking away after wrecking his vehicle in a ditch. He paid $300 to a bondsman to go free. Days later, Cotton revoked the man's bond and put him on electronic monitoring.

An unemployed Oneida, Tenn., woman charged with possession of a handful of pills and a soda can with methamphetamine residue posted a $6,000 bond, which Cotton revoked. He then put her on electronic monitoring.

In nearly every case, the defendants racked up hundreds of dollars in monitoring fees over a period of months while their cases remained pending. In as many as a dozen cases the newspaper reviewed, the defendants wound up receiving probation.

Patrick Frogge, a former public defender who now heads a state conference for attorneys paid to represent the poor, found the goings-on in Scott County disturbing but not surprising.

"I'm not aware of any regulation on those companies," Frogge said. "A lot of our clients find themselves at the mercy of whoever is providing the service."

Two men meet

Cotton is a 63-year-old native of Scott County. He graduated from the University of Memphis Law School in 1980 and returned to his home county to open a law practice. Like most new lawyers, Cotton paid the bills by accepting court-appointed criminal cases but eventually expanded into areas of civil law, including real estate, labor issues, government law and banking.

He was appointed as Scott County's general sessions and juvenile court judge on a part-time basis in 1990. The post later became a full-time one, and Cotton has held the elected position ever since. Interviews with attorneys showed Cotton to be well respected for his personable demeanor.

The way Cotton and Barnett tell it, Barnett showed up one day with a demonstration of his gear. Neither could say when. Records suggest Cotton launched the ankle monitoring program late last year. There is no paperwork associated with the two men's agreement.

"He has no contract with us. He's just sort of a service provider," Cotton said. "He presented himself and talked about what he did. I love the technology.  Basically, all of this got started because I was looking for another tool in my judicial toolbox."

Barnett's firm, D-Trax Home Incarceration Company, was registered as a limited liability corporation in Kentucky two years ago. His wife is the registered agent. The company's address is the couple's home in a subdivision in Stearns, Ky. Barnett's wife would not answer questions or allow entry to the home to view the firm's equipment when a reporter showed up at the address earlier this month.

In a phone interview less than an hour later, Barnett said he was a former police officer.

Asked where he served in law enforcement, Barnett responded, "I worked for four or five agencies in Kentucky."

He would not identify the agencies.

Barnett said he provided electronic monitoring in five counties, specifically identifying Scott and Campbell counties in Tennessee. Records show he briefly offered his services in Campbell County last year but has no client list there now, and no one was ever jailed there for failing to pay his fees. The News Sentinel determined D-Trax does limited business in three Kentucky counties  Cumberland, Monroe and Clinton  through either a contract for which he was required to bid or as one of several competing firms vetted by officials there.

Barnett denied he ever asked the judge to jail someone for not paying him.

"Not paying is not a violation," he said. "If I lose money, it's a business thing. I just lose money."

But when informed the News Sentinel had copies of more than a half-dozen arrest warrants he and Cotton signed that cited delinquent fees as the sole basis for jailing, Barnett responded, "I don't know what's a violation and what's not. If they ask me to sign something in court, I sign it."

Barnett also denied sending a weekly report to the court detailing who owes him money and how much  until a reporter produced a copy of one. He then said a "family member" compiles the report. He could not explain why delinquencies  even in cases in which the accused is no longer on ankle monitoring  were listed, given his insistence he did not seek jailing.

Barnett said he was one of "three or four" private companies offering monitoring in Scott County, and the accused have a choice of which firm to use.

Cotton said Barnett's firm was the only one he used. He said Barnett seeks the jailing of defendants who don't pay, and Cotton acquiesces.

There is no form for such a jailing, so the judge uses a probation violation warrant. Barnett signs the document on a signature line reserved for either a prosecutor or a probation officer. The probation violation language in the documents is scribbled through and replaced with handwritten notes that the defendant has failed to pay monitoring fees, listing the amount. There is no proof of nonpayment attached to the documents.

By Cotton's admission, there is no consultation with prosecutors and no hearing held to either prove a defendant hasn't paid or why. Once jailed, the defendant is returned to electronic monitoring after paying Barnett, records show.

A News Sentinel reporter observed that practice in court three times in two days. None of those three cases involved violence, domestic abuse or any of the other standard uses of electronic monitoring in the law. Those standard uses include aggravated stalking cases and issues in which a defendant has a history of violence or prior failures to show up for court.

Eighth Judicial District Attorney General Jared Effler, whose jurisdiction includes Scott County, said his staff has never sought to jail someone for not paying Barnett and would never do so because the law doesn't allow it.

"We're not going to do anything to revoke someone's bail for not paying monitoring fees," Effler said. "It would not be appropriate to violate someone for not paying a private company. (The company) is assuming that risk. That is purely a civil process. It would be analogous to (jailing someone) for not paying fees owed to a bonding company."

Effler's office does not intervene and, records show, his staff isn't notified when such warrants are filed. He said he has no authority to block a judge from issuing warrants.

Cotton acknowledged the U.S. Supreme Court and the Tennessee Supreme Court bar the jailing of defendants simply because they are too poor to pay fees and court costs, absent proof they "willfully" refused to cough up money. But he defended his actions anyway.

"Honestly, I don't know how I could make it financially work any other way," he wrote in a follow-up email to the News Sentinel. "If the service provider is left only to the remedy of civil collection of unpaid monitoring fees that accrue while bail is pending, he'll pack up and leave."

Cotton initially denied another practice documented by the newspaper in which he revokes  without a hearing, a request or legal justification  bond set by a judicial commissioner and paid by the accused through a bonding company, then orders electronic monitoring.

Presented with records bearing his signature that attest to that practice, Cotton said he could not specifically recall those cases but insisted "there must be something" that justified the action. The News Sentinel's sampling of 30 cases netted six instances of that practice. Not one involved violence or serious felony charges.

In another instance observed by the newspaper, Criminal Court Judge Shayne Sexton ordered the release of two defendants as part of plea agreements in his court in Scott County but was informed Cotton sought to block their freedom because the pair owed Barnett money.

Sexton said Cotton had no authority over cases in his court and told jailers to free the pair. They went free.

Cotton blamed a "misunderstanding" by jailers and insisted he never sought to block the release of defendants in Sexton's court over fees owed to Barnett.

"(Sexton) was absolutely right," Cotton said. "I have no authority over Criminal Court cases."

But Cotton admitted he did not contact Sheriff Ronnie Phillips or any other jail officials to clear up any confusion. Instead, he said he talked to bailiffs in his court about it.

Sexton, who had a full docket that day in Scott County before traveling the next day to another of the five counties he serves, did not discuss the issue with Cotton.

Cotton admitted he did not know where Barnett's firm was based, did not contact any other counties in which Barnett said he operated, did not seek any background information on Barnett or his firm and never sought approval from the Scott County Commission to do business with Barnett. He and Barnett denied ever having met before Cotton began using his firm. Cotton denied reaping any financial benefit from the arrangement.

Cotton insists his foray into the use of ankle monitoring is grounded in a desire to help the poor.

"I don't want poor people sitting in jail," he said.

The judge considers himself a "trailblazer" in the routine use of monitoring and says the newness of his approach is cause for any missteps or constitutionally suspect actions.

"We're just making this out of whole cloth," he said. "Sometimes, we're paving the road as we're driving down it."

Cotton said he "asked for some guidance" on the law but got none. He could not recall from whom he sought legal advice.

The law speaks

Attorneys interviewed by the News Sentinel say there is nothing new about the law on a citizen's right to freedom once accused but not yet convicted of a crime. It's written in the Constitution.

"The only justification for imposing on a person's liberty before trial is some concern, if released, the person won't show up at trial or, if released, there would be some danger to the community," Knox County Assistant Public Defender Jonathan Harwell said. "Ankle monitoring is both a restriction on someone's liberty and it also imposes financial liability on the person. That's not something courts can do as a matter of routine."

Tennessee law  buttressed by appellate court opinions dating back to 1977  offers a clear road map on the process a judge should follow in deciding the matter of pretrial release, according to Frogge, who serves as director of the Tennessee Public Defenders Conference.

"The statute demands an individual decision," Frogge said. "Any kind of policy involving bonds is per se a violation."

Under the law, a judge should first presume a defendant is not only innocent but entitled to go free without paying any money, particularly if charged with nonviolent offenses or petty crimes. If a judge decides to require the accused to pay a bond, the judge must set the lowest amount deemed necessary to make sure the person will show up for court. The law requires a judge to consider a set list of factors, including the seriousness of the charge, the person's prior history, risk of fleeing and danger to either a particular person or the community at large.

To place even more restrictions on a defendant's release on bond, the law requires a judge to again make findings of fact justifying those restrictions. Tennessee's appellate courts have ruled any special conditions, such as electronic monitoring, must be the "least onerous" means of ensuring safety and court appearance and be legally justified.

The U.S. Constitution provides the rule book on jailing a person over money, noted Knoxville attorney Stephen Ross Johnson, a board member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"It violates the 8th Amendment to jail someone based on an inability to pay," he said. "You cannot deny someone the right to bail simply based on an inability to pay a bonding company. What findings is the court making? There's a whole process the court has to go through if they're going to revoke someone's bond."

Cotton made no such findings of either the need for electronic monitoring or justification for jailing someone over fees in any of the 30 cases reviewed by the News Sentinel. He rarely imposed any kind of specific monitoring rules. In all but five cases, all the defendant had to do was list a home address, wear the monitor and pay the fees.

Until the News Sentinel began inquiring about his program, Barnett had never filed a report showing he was actually tracking the movements of the more than 70 people on his client list. He filed one on Sept. 6, the day the News Sentinel interviewed Cotton, with a handwritten note that the accused "went to several different places each day. She is on house arrest and does not have permission to go anywhere."

But the tracking report spanned only two days before Barnett filed it. Cotton did not hold a violation hearing or even ask the woman about her movements when she appeared before him a week later. He instead said she could be freed again under the ankle monitoring program.

Monitoring elsewhere

Knox County Pretrial Release Officer Stoney Gentry contends it would be impossible to monitor as many people as Barnett claims.

"It would drive you nuts," Gentry said.

If a defendant is actually being monitored, Gentry and fellow Pretrial Officer David Whaley said the monitoring firm sends all manner of alerts, ranging from spotty cell service  a rampant problem in Scott County  to a defendant's location in a building or home with a metal roof that blocks the signal to a low battery alert. With each alert, action is required to ensure the defendant is not, in fact, violating any conditions set, the pair said.

Knox County Pretrial Services Director Todd Cook said the county's purchasing department solicited bids for monitoring service, vetted the applying firms and entered a contract with a national provider that offered the best service for the lowest price.

Anderson County Pretrial Services Director Heidi Miller said her county likewise vetted the private firm  PSI Probation  it chose.

In Knox County, the fee for the monitor itself is $50, compared to Barnett's rate of $130. Cook and Miller say judges rarely even order monitoring, and no one goes to jail because they can't pay.

"We don't violate them," Cook said. "We don't do anything without a court order. We notify the court that they're behind. We do our best to collect the fee, but if (the private company) wants its money, they can sue in civil court."

Miller said Anderson County has a fund to pay monitoring fees for the poor. Chad McNabb, whose company provides the monitoring service, says even those with an ability to pay are charged on a sliding scale. If someone doesn't pay, McNabb said he alerts prosecutors but does nothing more to collect.

"I don't think we have the authority to do that," he said. "I don't think it's legal, and I don't think it's the right thing to do."

The county has only a handful of people on electronic monitoring.

"I think right now we have eight," he said.

Lawyers acquiesce

In Scott County, defense attorneys have not questioned Cotton's practices or challenged his decisions. Veteran attorney Max Huff, whose client list includes the poor, was candid in his belief the judge has no legal basis for ordering monitoring in many of his cases. But he admits he doesn't raise a fuss because his clients simply want freedom.

"I sign off on it because most of these people cannot afford bond," he said. "For 130 bucks, they can go free."

But he conceded defendants can wind up paying thousands of dollars in fees awaiting resolution of their cases. A bond would have been cheaper in many cases. Huff also said he does not believe Cotton has legal justification to jail people who fall behind in their fees.

Eighth Judicial District Public Defender Leif Jeffers, whose district includes Scott County, said Cotton relies heavily on private attorneys to represent the poor, so many of the cases reviewed by the News Sentinel were not his staff's clients.

But Jeffers said he and his staff have watched Cotton's practices with growing alarm and noted Cotton recently refused to accept a plea deal in one of the public defender's cases until the defendant paid Barnett's outstanding fees. He said Cotton's overall policy of using ankle monitoring not as a condition of bond as allowed by law but as the default method of freeing defendants is legally wrong in his view.

"Instead of it being an alternative to bail, it would be effective and appropriate as a condition of bail, but not as a stand-alone," Jeffers said.

But, he said, the decision to agree to ankle monitoring rests with the client, and those clients are desperate to get out of jail.

"I don't feel it's a voluntary decision at all if you've got to make whatever arrangements you can to get out of jail," he said. "They make poor decisions. They make impulse decisions. They'll say, 'Yeah, I'll sign that.' "

Since the News Sentinel began its probe, Cotton has tried to shore up his process. He has crafted a new order that gives a defendant the choice between bond and monitoring and specifically says any case sent to Sexton's court is no longer subject to monitoring.

But Jeffers said the order doesn't fix the problem. He said it creates a blanket policy instead of the individual assessment the law says a judge must make. The order also contradicts the law, he noted, by making monitoring an alternative to bail instead of an added condition.

His office is taking a wait-and-see approach before deciding upon further action.

Cotton said he would stop using Barnett's firm and do away with his blanket policy on ankle monitoring if the newspaper could convince him he's wrong.

"I would love to have some authoritative guidance on how I'm approaching the process," he said.

Brummitt still faced that driving on a revoked license charge as of Sept. 7. He paid a $300 fee to a bondsman immediately after arrest to go free, but, two days later, Cotton revoked it and put him on monitoring.

Brummitt paid $130 for the ankle monitor and has been paying $70 each week for more than 20 weeks  five months. The minimum sentence he faces on what would be a third-offense driving on a revoked license charge is 45 days in jail. A note on the back of his warrant says the court is waiting to see whether he gets his license back. That process costs thousands of dollars.

Brummitt's only income is disability.

Follow Jamie Satterfield on Twitter: @jamiescoop
CHURCH STREET UNITED METHODIST CHURCH/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL A rendering shows planned improvements to Church Street United Methodist Church.

SHARE CHURCH STREET UNITED METHODIST CHURCH/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL A rendering shows planned improvements to Church Street United Methodist Church. photos by WADE PAYNE/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL The choir at Church Street United Methodist Church performs during Sunday's bicentennial celebration service. Church Street United Methodist's current building, with its Gothic architecture, has made it a downtown landmark since the 1930s. Members of the primary and youth choir perform during service at Church Street United Methodist Church Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, in Knoxville, Tenn. (WADE PAYNE/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL) Related Photos Photos: Church Street United Methodist celebrates bicentennial

By Tyler Whetstone, tyler.whetstone@knoxnews.com

Walking through the front doors of the Church Street United Methodist Church is a spiritual experience.

The Gothic design teems with spires, vaulted ceilings and a sanctuary bathed in light from stained glass windows that cover the room in a quiet demand for reverence and awe.

The church has stood as a downtown staple for 200 years at various locations, most recently from its perch on the corner of Henley and Main Street, constructed after a fire burnt down the previous Church Street location.

On Sunday, hundreds of guests, along with current and former members, celebrated the church's bicentennial anniversary.

"We have a 200-year history to celebrate," said Bishop Richard Looney, the church's interim senior pastor. "Imagine surviving the Civil War, two world wars, a disastrous fire, a Great Depression, conflicts in Asia and the Middle East  and now worldwide terrorism. Through it all, Church Street has been a beacon of hope and a testimony to the faithfulness of God."

As the church looks back, members continue to look ahead to March, when the church plans to break ground on the first phase of a renovation project years in the making that will expand facilities and bring the building into the current century.

Expansion

The $8 million plans for the first of three phases call for a newly designed entrance that will jut into the current Cumberland Avenue lot and come equipped with a covered drop-off, a welcome center, an updated dining space and new elevators.

When complete, phase one will extend an arm of the church toward downtown, complete with sidewalks for a growing congregation of members who walk to church.

Church Street trustee Nathan Rowell said the construction isn't to make the building larger, but more accessible.

"Except for bathrooms, we really don't need any more square footage," he said. "The building is plenty big enough. This (project) is not in any way to add square footage, it's purely accessibility."

The church had to get every plan and design approved by the Downtown Design Review Board. Rowell said the board appreciated the church's efforts to maintain the structural integrity in its plans.

Amy Cathey, chair of the Church Street building committee, said preserving the sanctity of the building and keeping it of the same quality as what has been in place since the current building's construction in 1931 was an important aspect of planning.

"We're obviously a church first," Cathey said. "The mission of the church is really, really important. The building is not our most important mission  it's the work of the church that is our most important mission.

"But that being said, we are so fortunate to have this really incredible building. It's something we were gifted with, and so we want to respect and honor the church's place in the community with this addition."

Rick Emmett, Knoxville's downtown coordinator, said he was "tickled to death" that the church had expansion in mind because it means the area around it will likely continue to improve.

"I'm always very happy and pleased when those churches (like Church Street) can continue to thrive and expand.  I think that it just shows that our residential population is growing enough to support that kind of activity," he said.

The last time the church went through a major renovation was in 1987, nearly 30 years ago. Cathey said the renovation projects have been a long time coming.

Phase two of the process will improve the overall infrastructure of the building and add another elevator.

With phase three, the church will construct a parking structure that layers parking, like a small garage, on the current lot.

"Phase one doesn't solve every problem. You have to get through the other phases to address some of the issues, but we are hopeful that this is the start of a building program that may take  30 years," Cathey said, laughing.
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An August report from the Cato Institute, "Freedom in the Fifty States," ranked Tennessee the sixth freest state in the country. Although a notable accomplishment, the ranking is a drop of three spots since 2012's report.

What happened? According to the authors of the report, one problem is that Tennessee's criminal justice policies are deteriorating.

From 2000 to 2013, Tennessee's prison population grew by 30 percent, while the total state population increased by only 13 percent, according to the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee.

Moreover, almost half of the nearly 5,000 inmates who leave Tennessee prisons each year are locked up again within three years. For this woeful success rate, taxpayers fund a nearly $1 billion corrections budget.

According to the authors of the Cato report, Tennessee could reverse some of these problems if it altered the way it handles drug abuse.

Drug abuse is a serious issue  especially in Tennessee, which has tragically been one of the states most affected by the heroin crisis.

It may be better for Tennessee, however, to focus its limited law enforcement resources on property crime and violent crime rather than drug abuse. After all, police officers and prosecutors are not drug addiction specialists, and we shouldn't expect them to be. It makes more sense to divert individuals struggling with drug additions into programs where they can get help.

For instance, outside of Columbus, Ohio, local law enforcement has experimented with alternative sentencing, such as prescribing treatment instead of jail time. The success of these efforts has gained the attention of prominent media outlets like CBS's "60 Minutes."

Texas, meanwhile, has expanded its use of specialized "problem-solving courts," like mental health and veterans' courts. Since 2007, the state has avoided spending $2 billion on new prisons. Instead, it has closed three prisons, and it enjoys its lowest crime rate since 1968.

Indeed, many states have managed to reduce both crime and incarceration in recent years by improving the treatment opportunities available to drug offenders.

Reforms of this sort save taxpayer dollars, which is obviously an important marker of freedom. But they also allow law enforcement to focus resources on actions that really threaten public safety and individual liberty. Tennessee could easily improve its ranking by making these sorts of changes.

The Cato report also includes a profound observation from the authors that certain behaviors are "more consistent than others with the preservation and security of a free society." If the Tennessee criminal justice system ignores this important linkage, it will be making a mistake.

The more than 20,000 Tennesseans in prison, and the 70,000 on parole or probation, represent a deficit of social capital. To bring these people back to their families and communities in productive ways is the goal of a broad swath of civil society, including nonprofits, churches, prison ministries, legal associations and community groups.

On this score, the Volunteer State is fortunate to have several strong organizations. One of us heads Men of Valor, a Nashville-based prison ministry, now in its 20th year, that teaches participants not only job skills but life lessons in "self-respect, dignity and purpose."

It gives men who come from broken backgrounds the skills to land and keep steady jobs or even start businesses. While national recidivism rates range from 40 to 70 percent, Men of Valor has a recidivism rate of less than 10 percent.

Tennessee may not be the freest state in the country, but it's amazingly close, and it has the necessary civil society to preserve and enhance its freedom. But getting to that point is going to require some changes to regulatory barriers, licensing rules and spending decisions. Above all, it's going to require strong criminal justice reform.

Tennessee's first state song, "My Homeland, Tennessee," refers to the state's founders as a "free and noble" band. Tennessee's combination of liberty and virtue is what makes it one of the freest and proudest states in the union. With just a dash of criminal justice reform, Tennessee may very well find itself challenging for the top spot in the rankings next time, making its "free and noble" forefathers proud.

Raul Lopez is the executive director of Men of Valor in Nashville. Vikrant Reddy is a Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Koch Institute, an educational non-profit based in Arlington, Virginia.
Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump, from left, take part in the roll call vote putting their father, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, over the top on the second day of the Republican National Convention on July 19 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.

SHARE ASSOCIATED PRESS Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, arrives at the March 23, 2015, launch of ServiceNation's "Serve A Year" campaign in Los Angeles.

By Steven Strauss

Donald Trump interrupted himself during a speech and proudly pointed to a man in the audience. Look at "my African-American," he said. Since some polls show Trump's support among African-Americans at 0 percent, he might have been pointing at his only black supporter.

Not to be outdone on cluelessness, Hillary Clinton told us that victims of sexual assault have the right to be believed. Clinton's husband has been accused of rape and sexual harassment, has paid almost $1 million to settle a sexual harassment claim and was required to surrender his law license because of his lies during a sexual harassment suit. Did Hillary Clinton mean that her husband was a serial sexual predator (since his accusers should be believed), or that different rules apply to people named Clinton?

The Trump and Clinton children have inherited their parents' lack of self-awareness. The Trump children shared a picture of themselves bearing the caption, "This is not a Republican vs. Democrat election. This is about an insider vs. an outsider." But Trump and his family aren't "outsiders"  they are serious insiders.

The Trump children are the third generation of an extremely rich American family. They didn't attend public schools. They went to expensive preparatory schools (tuition $40,000 to $60,000 a year), followed by high-priced private colleges. The Clintons (among many other high-profile, well-connected guests) attended their dad's most recent wedding (where the estimated cost of the bride's dress was $100,000 and her ring $1.5 million).

Chelsea Clinton is also a strong competitor in the clueless category. "I was curious if I could care about (money) on some fundamental level," she once told Fast Company, "and I couldn't." This perhaps explains why: She has a net worth of $15 million, she married a wealthy hedge fund executive, she lives in a $10 million apartment, and she had a $3 million wedding (the flowers alone cost about $250,000). Imagine what her lifestyle would be like if money really mattered to her.

Chelsea has also held a number of lucrative positions. As one example, she serves as a board member of the IAC/InterActiveCorp. (which pays her about $300,000 a year for a part-time job, not including stock awards). It's hard to disagree with the New York Times blogger who said Chelsea got the board position (at the age of 31) "only because she is the daughter of" the Clintons, in an appointment that "defies American conceptions of meritocracy." Similar comments have been made about her other well-paid endeavors. Chelsea says of herself, when explaining her career trajectory, that she "will always work harder than anyone."

Trump tells working-class Americans the system is rigged against them. Nothing demonstrates the sincerity of his fight against a rigged system more than his naming of children Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. as executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization.

Hillary Clinton speaks of the need to create greater opportunities for all Americans. Nothing shows her commitment to equality of opportunity better than naming her daughter to the Clinton Foundation board, making her vice chair of the foundation and at one point even renaming the foundation as the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Both candidates' families are examples of much that is wrong with America, and why we no longer lead the world in equality of opportunity. An academically high-performing child from a poor family stands less chance of graduating college than an academically underperforming child from an affluent family. Stanford (where Chelsea went) and the University of Pennsylvania (where Ivanka went) are fine schools. But children from the bottom economic 50 percent of American society (and I mean smart children who have what it takes) are underrepresented at these elite private universities. And college is key to getting a high-income job as an adult.

Affluent families engage in what's known as "opportunity hoarding"  a fancy way of saying all the special possibilities available to the Trump and Clinton children (and children like them) are possibilities not easily available to ordinary Americans.

The Trumps, the Clintons and most members of our elites (left and right) show a startling lack of self-awareness of the role socioeconomic privilege has played in their success. Both the Trumps and the Clintons surround themselves with members of their own social class, which might explain why both presidential nominees are so clueless.

I'm not suggesting, however, that the two nominees' lack of self-awareness presents a false equivalence between them. Judging by his campaign and career, Trump would be an incompetent, corrupt crony capitalist, racist demagogic president. As Michael Bloomberg remarked: "Trump says he wants to run the nation like he's run his business. God help us."

At worst, Trump could be a real threat to our democracy. Clinton, in the worst case, at least knows the issues, knows how to make things work, and is not an incompetent racist  which in this election makes her the safer and better choice.

Steven Strauss is the John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He wrote this for USA TODAY.
Last week's extraordinary session of the Tennessee Legislature had some ordinary aspects  predictable partisan and bipartisan bickering, for example  but the Jeremy Durham debacle was really something special.

After the 70-2 vote Tuesday to expel the Franklin Republican from his House seat, Durham made the rounds at Nashville television stations declaring that he's likely to file a lawsuit, contending that his removal from office violated the state constitution.

This was somewhat anticipated during the House floor debate. Rep. Andy Holt, R-Dresden, suggested that a lawsuit would cost taxpayers more than paying Durham's pension, which he will lose as result of being booted prior to completion of his term in November. That, and concerns about constitutionality, were among the reasons cited by Holt in boldly pushing the blue light on House voting machines, which means he was present but not voting. Three others did the same, including one bold Democrat, Rep. Antonio Parkinson of Memphis.

It's extraordinary that blue can be deemed bold. It's certainly not as bold as the two members who actually voted no  that's a red light  and not even up there with the 70 who voted the anticipated green yes. But contrasted with the 10 members present but just sitting on their hands, it's an act of courage.

It's seems to be increasingly ordinary for some legislators to dodge being recorded as taking any stance whatsoever on a controversial decision. A dozen other representatives didn't show up for the special session. Some, such as Knoxville's Rep. Harry Brooks, sidelined by surgery, had a valid reason for being absent. But one can wonder whether others were just dodging a decision.

As for a potential Durham lawsuit over the proceedings, informal conversations with several lawyers, legislators and pundits indicate, not surprisingly, conflicting opinions on the prospects for the success of such a proceeding. The guess here is that, no, it's unlikely to succeed.

To get in the courtroom door, Durham has to show legal standing to sue. He's probably got that.

The ouster deprived him of several weeks of legislative pay, the $1,000 per month "legislative office allowance" and his pension, which would pave been about $340 per month once he reached age 55. Legally speaking, that would be a "property right," and to deprive someone of property rights, courts have said "due process" is constitutionally required.

Durham declares he didn't get due process. His critics say he did, or at least was given the opportunity to engage in the hearings and in the investigation of his alleged sleazy sexually-oriented exploits  and instead chose to sit on his hands. The matter is debatable.

And then there's Article III, Section 9, of the state constitution, which gives the governor authority to call the Legislature into special session "on extraordinary occasions." When that happens, the constitution says, the governor "shall state specifically the purposes for which they are to convene; but they shall enter on no legislative business except that for which they were specifically called together."

The governor called this extraordinary session specifically to deal with a bill concerning drunk driving by people ages 18 through 20 that, as things turned out, would have meant loss of $60 million in federal highway funding if allowed to stand past Oct. 1. To Durham and several legislators, it's obvious that his ouster is not "legislative business" related to juvenile drunken driving.

However, House leaders say that dumping Durham was merely "procedural" and thus not legislative business. One astute attorney notes that legislative business requires involvement of both the House and Senate; in this situation, only the House was involved, acting under its own rules and procedures and with the right, otherwise declared in the state constitution, to be the sole judge of whether a legislator can be expelled for "disorderly behavior."

Given that Tennessee's Supreme Court is composed of judges devoted to the principle of deferring to the Legislature, the leadership position and a 70-2 vote seems likely to prevail as a rather ordinary thing  even though the messy procedures leading to Durham's departure are extraordinary.

More from Tom Humphrey at "Humphrey on the Hill,"
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Last week, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton took a shot at not just her opponent, Donald Trump, but also his supporters. "You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," she said. "Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic  you name it."

Trump called on her to apologize, and Clinton later tried to walk back the remarks, but some observers say her comments were similar to Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" gaffe during the 2012 election.

Were Clinton's remarks wrong? What does this mean for the presidential race? Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk, the RedBlue America columnists, debate the issue.

JOEL MATHIS

On the same day Clinton made her "basket of deplorables" comment, three leaders of white nationalist, alt-right groups gave a joint press conference in Washington to do two things.

First, they wanted to praise Trump's presidential candidacy, both for his leadership style and because it has been a vehicle for their newfound prominence. Second, they wanted to explain their vision of America as a homeland to those of European stock. (There was some argument among the three whether Jews could be involved in their movement.)

"I want my grandchildren to look like my grandparents," said Jared Taylor, editor of the white supremacist website American Renaissance, "not like Fu Manchu or Whoopi Goldberg or Anwar Sadat."

Deplorable, right?

On Saturday, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin told the Values Voters Summit that physical violence might be needed to survive the tyranny of a Clinton presidency.

"I do think it would be possible, but at what price? At what price?" he asked. "The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what? The blood of who? The tyrants, to be sure, but who else? The patriots."

Deplorable? Sure. Kind of icky, in any case.

Underlying all this, Trump himself. He launched himself into politics with a racist campaign to suggest that President Barack Obama wasn't really born in the United States  an attack he has never disavowed, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary. Trump made his bones as a politician, then, by embracing the deplorably dark side.

So it's no surprise that polls show, as Vox has reported, that "compared to white people, black people are viewed by Trump supporters as less intelligent, more lazy, more rude, more violent, and more criminal. About 40 to 50 percent of Trump supporters held at least one of these views, while fewer than 35 percent of Clinton supporters did."

Sure seems deplorable.

Should Clinton have said what she said? Well, it was certainly impolitic. But if you don't like being called deplorable, don't be deplorable. Clinton's comment might have been bad politics, but it contained more than a little truth.

BEN BOYCHUK

Question for the reader: Until you read the name nine paragraphs ago, had you ever heard of Jared Taylor? I'm betting the answer is a no. And you are unlikely to hear or read his name again. Because he's not especially important and his ideas appeal to a small slice of aggrieved Americans.

Might some of them vote for Trump? Sure. So what?

Bevin, the Kentucky governor, quoted Thomas Jefferson when he referred to the "tree of liberty." Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, which is good. But he also owned slaves, supported the French Revolution before the Terror and was a forefather of the modern Democratic Party, which surely makes him triply deplorable.

Burn down Monticello!

Think of it this way: The Communist Party of the United States of America recently endorsed Clinton for president. Communist regimes in the 20th century were responsible for the deaths of nearly 100 million people. Americans who subscribe to a genocidal ideology also support Clinton. That's beyond deplorable.

On the other hand, how many bona fide communists are there in the United States today? Excluding university faculty members, you might be able to fill up Yankee Stadium.

Still, if Trump's campaign is supposed to denounce this person or that, then Clinton's campaign must be held to the same standard. Americans have a right to know that the next leader of the free world will not truck with advocates of mass murder.

See how that works?

It's a mug's game. Don't play it.

On its own, Clinton's "basket of deplorables" crack doesn't matter much. In a broader context, it matters quite a bit.

The same day three guys from the alt-right gave a press conference that attracted far more attention than it deserved, the 68-year-old Democratic nominee for president was reportedly diagnosed with pneumonia. But her campaign said nothing about it until Sunday, when Clinton collapsed at a 9/11 memorial event.

Last week, questions about Clinton's health were the stuff of conspiracy theorists  at least according to the Clinton campaign and her enablers in the press.

You know what's deplorable? That's deplorable.

Joel Mathis (joelmmathis@gmail.com) is an award-winning writer in Kansas. Ben Boychuk (bboychuk3@att.net) is managing editor of American Greatness.
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The Tennessee House of Representatives expelled Rep. Jeremy Durham during its special session last week, but the disgraced lawmaker put on a sorry show of defiance on his way out.

Durham, a Franklin Republican, became the first legislator to be expelled since 1980 and only the second since the Civil War. The 70-2 vote was overwhelming and bipartisan. Durham lost his re-election bid in the August primary, but would have qualified for a state pension had he completed his term.

A report issued in July by Attorney General Herbert Slatery III detailed allegations the married Durham sent inappropriate text messages and made unwanted sexual advances to legislative staff members, interns and lobbyists, and conducted a brief affair with a 20-year-old college student that began with an alcohol-fueled tryst in his office. The allegations involved 22 women, who were not identified by name.

House Speaker Beth Harwell had requested the probe. She and other members called on Durham to resign, but he refused to do so, saying he had not had a chance to tell his side of the story. The attorney general's report noted that he declined to cooperate.

Prior to the beginning of the special session, Durham wrote an eight-page letter to House members defending his actions, attacking the process as unconstitutional and threatening to divulge the names of the women involved  a desperate threat that is beneath contempt. He showed up at the session on Tuesday and put on his defense in person.

Durham noted that none of the women had filed a formal sexual harassment complaint. Neither the state constitution nor House rules require a complaint to trigger an expulsion proceeding, however.

Reps. Mike Stewart, the House Democratic Caucus Leader from Nashville, and William Lamberth, a Cottontown Republican, led the questioning. Durham fled the chamber prior to the vote.

The expulsion and Durham's antics overshadowed the primary purpose of the special session  repealing a drunk driving law aimed at underage drivers that put $60 million in federal highway funding at risk. The repeal passed 31-1 in the Senate and 85-2 in the House.

Gov. Bill Haslam called the special session to repeal the law, and House Speaker Beth Harwell seized the opportunity to expel Durham. In a related matter, the House Ethics Committee dismissed three complaints filed against Harwell by Rep. Rick Womick, R-Rockvale, for her handling of the Durham matter.

Durham could have avoided the spectacle and spared the state another embarrassment by resigning, as Knoxville Democratic Rep. Joe Armstrong did days before the session began. Armstrong was convicted last month of filing a false federal tax return in an attempt to conceal his gains from a state tobacco tax scheme.

Durham has not been charged with a crime in connection with the alleged sexual harassment incidents, but is under investigation for possibly using campaign funds for personal use. According to the state Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, the lawmaker invested campaign money in two businesses, and loaned money from his campaign account to himself and another individual. Durham's attorney told The Tennessean that the U.S. attorney issued two subpoenas for records related to campaign finances and a possible tax violation.

Durham remains defiant. He has said in recent interviews he intends to file a lawsuit over the investigation and expulsion. Under the constitution, the Legislature when meeting in special session can conduct business related only to the specific purpose of the session.

Durham failed the constituents he was supposed to serve and brought shame on the House of Representatives. His reputation is in tatters. Durham's situation should serve as a cautionary tale for lawmakers, who must change the culture that enabled his conduct. Similar abuses of power cannot be tolerated.




This is the sixth in a series highlighting industry leaders who struggle to deal with their flaws or mistakes.  ED.



Deloitte Anjin, Samjong KPMG may suffer big losses



By Kim Tae-gyu



Until now, Korean corporations have been able to sign a contract with any accounting firm available for their audits but soon that might not be possible.



Early this month, the Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants (KICPA) held a meeting with journalists to discuss how to grapple with the continued concerns of accounting fraud.



KICPA Chairman Choi Joong-kyung led the talks on introducing a new system of designating a certain accounting outfit for listed companies to prevent them from rigging the books.



"Our companies have yet to benchmark U.S. accounting firms, which are advanced and highly specialized. In this climate, there seems to lurk a conflict of interest in our policy of letting corporations select whatever accounting firms they want," said Choi, a former industrial minister.



"Financial regulators, the accounting profession and the academy have formed a task force to delve into the problem. We will come up with a revision of related laws later this year with the aim of changing accounting rules next year."



Many alternative approaches were raised such as designating a certain accounting firm for listed enterprises once every five or six years or having them audited by multiple accounting firms and agencies.



"Our accounting transparency seems to be very bad by global standards, which is attributable to the system of allowing our companies to ink contracts with whatever accounting firms they want," he said.



"That is why the government is missing this golden time to reconstruct problematic companies and fails to provide financial support to promising ones."



According to a recent survey of the IMD business school located in Switzerland, Korea ranked 60 out of 61 countries in terms of accounting transparency.



The Chairman of the Korean Accounting Association, Sohn Sung-kyu, also a professor at Yonsei University, concurred.



"The financial audit can be regarded as kind of a public good, which is necessary for many unspecified people. There are conflicts of interests when a company chooses an accounting firm for itself while the results are for various stakeholders," he said.





Recent accounting fraud



They did not specify why they talked about such a new format but participants knew what enterprises they had in mind  Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) and STX Offshore and Shipbuilding.



Deloitte Anjin created a controversy over its alleged incompetent audit of DSME  the shipbuilder has been blamed for doctoring the books to make immense losses in recent years look smaller.



Deloitte Anjin has been accused of having turned a blind eye to rigging the accounting of DSME  the total amount is estimated to be more than 5 trillion won between 2012 and 2014.



Watchers point out that the firm, which has been responsible for auditing DSME's financial statements since 2010, partially admitted its mishaps of late by confessing that up to 2 trillion won among DSME's 5.5 trillion won in operating losses in 2015 should have been recognized in 2013 and 2014.



DSME announced that it chalked up 424.2 billion won in operating income in 2013 and 454.3 billion won the following year while its competitors were stuck in the red at the time due to the lingering slump of the industry.



If the 2 trillion won loss at issue had been reflected for the two years, the shipbuilder would have recorded big losses of more than 700 billion won during those respective years.



The Financial Supervisory Service is now investigating the case to check whether Deloitte Anjin accountants teamed up with DSME financial officials to mislead investors.



Regardless of the probes, investors already took DSME and Deloitte Anjin to court.

The National Pension Service said this July that it had filed a 48.9 billion won suit for damage against the two outfits and a few groups of individual investors also lodged similar suits against them.



As the combined amount of damage suits is estimated to be higher than 100 billion won, some doubt whether DSME and Deloitte Anjin have the financial leeway to pay back the money in case they lose.



STX Offshore, once the world's fourth-largest shipbuilder, is no better as it has been suspected of concealing 2 trillion won in losses through inflating its revenues and profits between 2007 and 2014.



Samjong KPMG was in charge of reviewing the STX books but failed to find the irregularities, which also prompted shareholders to make complaints to the court.



The two cases angered not only investors but also ordinary people because a lot of taxpayer money was funneled to revive them  4.2 trillion won to DSME and 6 trillion won to STX Offshore.



Despite such efforts, STX Offshore eventually filed for bankruptcy this year and DSME struggled to find its feet.



"Deloitte Anjin and Samjong KPMG are supposed to be watchdogs, which requires them to keep an eye on companies to monitor if they make any wrongdoing in their financial statements," said an accountant in Seoul.



"However, the watchdogs did not bark when they should have possibly because they got so much money for their services. That is why people are so angry."





How to prevent recurrence



Experts present different opinions on how to prevent the recurrence of similar misconduct.



"Accountants review whatever a specific company provides. Even if we ask for back-up data, we cannot pinpoint frauds should the company manipulate the source data," said a senior accountant in one of the major domestic accounting agencies. "Accordingly, the company should change first, not the accounting firm."



By contrast, a professor at a university in Seoul was critical that the government only gives a slap on the wrist to those who cook the books.



"In foreign countries, accounting fraud is regarded as a serious crime. That's why those who are responsible for the Enron debacle are still behind bars. But we are so lenient with it here. Without changing, foul play will continue," he said.



"In addition, companies are permitted to select accounting firms with few limits and I believe this leads to cozy relations between companies and accounting firms. The system should be overhauled immediately."
Yoon Sung-tae, vice chairman of Huons Global / Courtesy of Huons Globa



Beijing plant to be operational within this year



By Park Si-soo, Lee Han-soo



PANGYO, Gyeonggi Province -- Korean pharmaceutical company Huons Global will open its first overseas plant in China this year, paving the way for the firm to reach its ambitious goal of having plants in three countries by 2025.

The plant, located in Beijing, will initially produce xerophthalmia eye drops and then expand its product lineup to medicines for other ophthalmologic diseases, obesity, enteric diseases, menopausal symptoms and beauty products. The plant will also churn out medicines ordered by Canada's Midbridge, Malaysia's CCM and other non-Chinese pharmaceutical firms seeking a production base in China. The company has formed partnerships with multinational drug companies to ensure smooth distribution of the plant's products.

"The Chinese plant is a big milestone for our company. It's our visible promise and commitment to going global," said Yoon Sung-tae, vice chairman of Huons Global, in a recent interview at his office in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province. He said Huons will strive to become an international healthcare company by 2025 with production facilities in three countries, six self-developed innovative drugs and nine affiliates.

As of 2015, Huons Global is the 15th-largest pharmaceutical company in Korea in sales with six affiliates. It reported 215.1 billion won ($193.69 million) in sales and 34.3 billion won in operating profit last year, up 37.4 percent and 62 percent year-on-year, respectively. The firm's six affiliates have shown impressive performances in their respective segments -- Huons (pharmaceuticals), Humedix (applied biopolymers), Hubena (medical containers), Hiniz (disinfectants), Huonland (eye drop joint venture in China) and Huons Natural (heath functional foods).

The company has spent an average 6.5 percent of its annual sales on R&D activities in recent years with next year's ratio set to more than 7 percent. Its R&D will focus on Xerophthalmia, obesity, inflammatory and ulcerative enteric diseases. Separately, the company is developing advanced xerophthalmia eye drops using 7.5 billion won given by the government last year.

"We have worked with major global pharmaceutical giants for many years under a contract manufacturing deal, which means our technologies are already recognized as creditable and competitive internationally," Yoon said. "We will continue to increase our R&D budget to develop global blockbusters and expand Huons' presence in the U.S. and other trend-leading markets."

The vice chairman aims at increasing the group's combined sales to 1 trillion won by 2020 with 30 percent of the projected sum expected to be generated overseas.

"We made a big bet on China," he said. "I expect that China will contribute to 30 percent of overseas sales, followed by the U.S. with 20 percent and the remaining 50 percent from Japan and other Asian countries."

Yoon said the company would be aggressive in taking over companies -- small and large -- that are considered helpful in bolstering Huons' competitiveness. He said there are "some companies" under his consideration, but didn't elaborate.

Yoon said building trust with employees, business partners and customers is the most important activity for companies going overseas.

"Conflicts caused by cultural differences or misunderstandings are sort of an unavoidable byproduct for companies expanding beyond their borders," he said. "I believe these conflicts would be settled only when we approach our counterparts with a great deal of patience and open-mindedness to understand them. It would be tough and time-consuming, but worth it."
A section of SK Networks' Walkerhill Duty Free Store remains unfinished following its latest interior renovations. The renovations have been suspended since the company failed to renew its license to operate the duty free store late last year. / Korea Times photo



By Jhoo Dong-chan

Lotte and SK Networks' race for the right to operate duty free stores in Seoul is intensifying as the deadline for bid proposals is just around the corner.

According to industry sources, Sunday, the Korea Customs Service will receive bid proposals for duty free store operation rights until Oct. 4. The two companies, which failed to renew their contracts with the government agency last year, are desperate to win back their operation rights.

The Lotte Duty Free Store at Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, southern Seoul, was the nation's third-largest duty free store with annual sales of over 600 billion won ($533 million), stocking major luxury brands, including Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Hermes.

However, it failed to renew its contract last year, and closed its doors in June.

Industry insiders say that the nation's largest duty free business operator is likely to win back the operation rights this time, but possible hurdles include various scandals over Lotte Group's alleged irregularities, such as creating slush funds and lobbying government officials.

SK Networks, which had operated Walkerhill Duty Free for more than 20 years in eastern Seoul, had sales of around 300 billion won and invested 100 billion won on renovations last year.

However, it also failed to renew its contract with the government agency last year, halting operations in May.

In a bid to win back the operation rights, SK Networks Chairman Chey Shin-won promised to provide full support on winning a bid this year.

Other retail giants Hyundai Department Store and Shinsegae's bids are also expected to be a challenge for the two companies.

Hyundai Department Store, which failed at last year's bidding, once again rose to the challenge with its stable capital power. As of the end of last year, Hyundai Department Store's debt ratio is only 52.8 percent, a contrast to its rival Lotte Department Store's 138.1 percent and Shinsegae Department Store's 95 percent.

Its cashable assets marked 64.1 billion won as of the first quarter this year, and are expected to reach 700 billion won by early 2017.

Another strong contender is Shinsegae, which has already won the bid last year, showing intention of trying for another duty free store in Seoul.

Shinsegae Vice Chairman Chung Yong-jin said in June that he is interested in having another duty free store in Seoul, and it has "a strong chance of winning the bid."
INKE chief vows to support startups going overseas

By Kim Jae-kyoung





Kim Chul-soo

INKE Chairman

SINGAPORE  The Korean economy has fallen into a low-growth trap due to structural problems, such as low labor productivity, an aging population and sluggish exports.

With new technologies disrupting businesses, the economic growth model and ecosystem led by conglomerates, or chaebol, have lost their competitive edge, failing to provide the impetus for growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

International Network of Korean Entrepreneurs (INKE) Chairman Kim Chul-soo believes that it is time to create a new business ecosystem to help the economy tackle such challenges and ensure sustainable growth.

"Korea should create a new business ecosystem led by strong small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) and venture startups equipped with world-class technology," Kim said in a recent interview in Singapore.

"The current ecosystem, led by chaebol, focuses on achieving short-term goals. Under the system, SMEs are unable to concentrate on investing in developing core technologies."

The Singapore-based businessman thinks that for a more effective and productive ecosystem, Korea should bring significant changes to three key areas _the mindset of SMEs, the education system and the government's support programs.

"First of all, SMEs should show professionalism and workmanship," he said. "They need to double efforts to develop core raw materials technologies to compete with Japanese and German players."

According to the chairman, Korea still relies heavily on Japan in terms of core raw materials, with Korean firms importing around 30 to 40 percent of these from Japanese players.

"Korea is good at designing and manufacturing end products but what is really important now is securing core raw material technologies," he said. "Otherwise, Korea's dependency on Japan and Europe will intensify further, undermining its competitiveness in global markets."

Secondly, he called on the government to reform the education system to encourage more talent to work for SMEs. He said Korea needs many vocational education programs to address job mismatch issues and develop more world champions in more areas.

Thirdly, he stressed that the government should come up with a more sustainable, systematic support program for SMEs so they can invest more in research and development (R&D).

"The government's support program should not focus too much on pushing assembly sides and generating short-term results just to improve GDP figures," he said.

"In order for Korea to overcome challenges, it is important to set up a more solid ecosystem backed by the development of basic science and SMEs. We can be a real advanced country only when SMEs and venture firms become the backbone of the economy."

Reinventing INKE

Kim, who took the helm of INKE as ninth chairman in November, 2015, said INKE will increase efforts to play an important role in creating a new ecosystem by supporting overseas expansion of promising SMEs and venture startups.

"Most INKE members are local market experts doing business there for several years," he said. "They are young entrepreneurs, scientists, consultants, lawyers and venture capitalists in high-tech industries.

"Our members have rich experience and know-how and they are combining to build an extensive global network. We now seek to become a hub for Korean venture startups abroad."

Established in 2000, INKE has 78 chapters in 47 countries, with over 1,500 members. The sales contract through INKE amounted to $500 million in 2015. INKE is an affiliate of the Korea Venture Business Association.

Kim, 54, who runs Digilogtech, a Singapore-based firm with sales of $200 million, has an ambition to increase the number of chapters to 100 by 2017. He worked for a Samsung subsidiary's branch in Singapore before he started his own business.

Kim said he wants to expand INKE's role by helping Korea's entrepreneurs open businesses abroad and providing mentoring services to young people and SMEs.

"Our original role was to support the export of small venture firms by using our overseas network," he said. "However, we need a new role in the new world of business.

"Supporting the opening of venture startups abroad is now our top priority. I'd like to create a program that can help the youth start their businesses abroad regardless of location."
By Kim Bo-eun

Fifty students from China have transferred to high schools in Seoul, the schools confirmed Thursday.

This is the first time for such a large number of foreign students to enroll in schools here.

Among the students who majored in Korean at New Bridge Foreign Language School in Beijing, 14 will attend Myungduk Foreign Language High School, while five will go to Daewon Foreign Language High School, 15 to Mirim Girls' High School and 16 to Wooshin High School starting in September.

The students decided to come to Korea due to heightened interest in hallyu, or Korean popular culture, as well as a means to enter Korean and foreign universities, according to officials at the schools.

"In China there is a lot of interest in hallyu, and many students wish to enter Korean universities," said a school official at Mirim Girls' High School. "A large number of Chinese students to to Korean universities but have trouble keeping up with classes as they lack proficiency in Korean. Attending high schools here will help solve this problem."












U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, center, poses with National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun, second from left, and the floor leaders of the country's three largest parties during their meeting at Ban's office in New York City, Sept. 15.

/ Courtesy of the National Assembly



By Kim Hyo-jin



U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has given the strongest hint yet about his possible bid for South Korea's presidency.



During a meeting with Korean legislative leaders in New York City, Thursday, Ban said he will return to his home country in January after finishing his U.N. job and meet the leaders of various fields.



The participants interpreted the remarks as suggesting a bid for Cheong Wa Dae.



Ban met National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun and the floor leaders of the country's three largest parties  Chung Jin-suk of the ruling Saenuri Party, Woo Sang-ho of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea and Park Jie-won of the minor opposition People's Party  who were visiting the U.N. headquarters as part of their eight-day trip to the U.S.



"Ban said he is planning to return to South Korea before mid-January, as soon as he finishes his term as the U.N. secretary-general," Woo told reporters after the meeting.



"He also said he will visit the President, the National Assembly Speaker and the Chief Justice and report on his 10-year activities as the U.N. chief."



Woo interpreted that Ban effectively clarified his intention to join the presidential race.



"I think he has already made a firm determination, seeing that he told us his schedule for return and a plan to reach out to the public," he said.



When Ban will return to Korea has been at the center of political attention. He is scheduled to end a decade-long term as U.N. chief by Dec. 31.



Ban earlier said he would "contemplate" what he would do as a South Korean citizen when he returns to his home country, hinting at his potential presidential bid.



Ban, the most favored presidential candidate among potential contenders from rival parties in recent surveys, has been courted by the ruling Saenuri Party faction affiliated with President Park Geun-hye.



If he runs for the presidency with the ruling party, he is expected to compete with the party's former chairman, Kim Moo-sung, and ex-floor leader Yoo Seong-min.



Party officials said Kim is considering officially launching a bid for the presidential election around mid-October when a National Assembly audit session is to wrap up.



Yoo has spoken about the possibility of his presidential candidacy. "As of today, I will actively be a voice on political issues and when I make up my mind on the presidency, I will step up preparing and specifying pledges," he told reporters after a lecture at Hallym University on Sept. 7.



Gyeonggi Province Governor Nam Kyung-pil is also emerging as a potential contender. He recently drew public attention by suggesting a voluntary military system and pledging to push for it if he runs for the presidency in 2017.



Meanwhile, political figures and voters from Chungcheong Province are creating Ban's support base.



Retired veteran politician and former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil made it clear that he will "do his utmost" to back Ban's campaign for the presidency. Ruling party floor leader Chung delivered this message to Ban during their meeting, Thursday.
By Kim Hyo-jin



The border trade between North Korea and China is increasing despite international sanctions on the North, according to media reports, Sunday.



"Customs inspections at the border post used to get tighter right after the North's previous nuclear tests but it didn't last long," a businessman in Dandong, in China's Liaoning Province, told Dong-A Ilbo. "This time, after the fifth nuclear test, is the same as before."



Most of China's trade with North Korea  over 70 percent  passes through the post in Dandong. The businessman said the volume of trade crossing the China-North Korea border had hardly diminished despite the central government's stance against trade with the reclusive country.



Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported Saturday that the "Dandong Customs Office is in chaos due to trucks waiting for customs clearance even after the fifth nuclear test."



Local traders said there was more trade than last year despite the outcry over the fifth nuclear test, the paper noted. Traders said that about 400 trucks loaded with agricultural machinery and cement run from China to North Korea and about 100 trucks run from North Korea to China each day.



Amid international demands for tougher sanctions against Pyongyang, Beijing joined the condemnation of its ally over the latest nuclear test.



But China is yet to implement sanctions effectively from Resolution 2270 adopted by the United Nations Security Council in March in the wake of the North's fourth nuclear test, let alone slap tougher sanctions on North Korea following the fifth test on Sept. 9, insiders said.



A top U.S. envoy said Tuesday China must help the international community close loopholes in sanctions on North Korea.



Sung Kim, the U.S. special envoy on North Korea's nuclear issue, called on China to work with the U.S. in effectively deterring North Korea's nuclear ambitions, saying: "China is as responsible for UNSC Resolution 2270 as us. They have a stake in trying to make sure other resolutions are implemented fully."






Island residents worried about rising crimes by foreigners

By Jung Min-ho

A Korean woman, 61, has died after allegedly being stabbed by a Chinese tourist on the southern resort island of Jeju, police said Sunday.

According to the Jeju Seobu Police Station, the 50-year-old Chinese man allegedly stabbed the woman with a knife four times in a chapel in Jeju City at around 8:45 a.m. Saturday. She was praying at the time of the attack, police said.

While she was still conscious, she made an emergency call. Ambulance crews immediately brought her to a nearby hospital, where she underwent surgery. But she died the next day.

Afterwards, the suspect, identified as having the surname Chen, fled to Seogwipo, a southern city of the island, but was apprehended by police at 3:50 p.m.

Police believe that misogyny was the motive behind the murder.
Hillary Clinton Donald Trump

By Kim Jae-kyoung

South Korea is facing a myriad of challenges both at home and abroad.

Among them, the biggest downside risk to Korea now is associated with the U.S. presidential election in November.

The outcome of the upcoming election will have far-reaching repercussions for Korea in the next decade, both geopolitically and economically, following the end of President Barack Obama's eight-year presidency.

The latest opinion polls show that a series of slips of the tongue by Republican candidate Donald Trump have tipped the balance in favor of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

However, it is still too early to predict who will be the next inhabitant of the White House. Not one expert had predicted that the billionaire from New York would be the Republican presidential nominee.

Now, the simple but tricky question to Koreans is who should become the master of the White House to sustain the solid Korea-U.S. alliance, the foundation not only for diplomacy and security but also for economic development.

Neither President Barack Obama nor Park Geun-hye wants to jeopardize the status quo in two key aspects  cooperation on policy toward North Korea and continuation of free trade deals.

In this regard, experts say that Clinton would be the least-bad choice for Korea. They believe that Clinton will more likely maintain existing policies while seeking to tweak them to her preference.

"There is no doubt in my mind and in the minds of anyone who understands foreign policy and East Asia that Clinton is the safer and more effective candidate for president, not only for Korea but for the rest of the world," Katharine H. S. Moon, a senior fellow at the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution told The Korea Times.

Moon, who also serves as chairwoman of the SK-Korea Foundation in Korea Studies, pointed out that it is very important to look at U.S.-Korea relations as part of the U.S. global agenda and not just single out the Koreas in a vacuum.

"Unlike Trump, Clinton understands geopolitics, has experienced diplomatic successes and failures, and firmly abides by the fact that alliance commitments are above individual presidents," she said. "Brains and experience are on her side."

Tony Michell, managing director of Euro-Asian Business Consultancy, echoed that view, saying, "Undoubtedly Hillary Clinton is the candidate whose strategy toward North and South Korea is likely to be a direct continuation of the present policy."












Wang Shu-bo, right, founder of the startup WE COMMUNITY, poses with five co-founders during an internship fair his company organized on Hanyang University's Seoul campus, March 3. Twenty-two local companies participated in the one-day event which attracted about 100 Chinese students. Wang from China's Jilin Province is majoring in tourism at Hanyang University Graduate School. / Courtesy of WE COMMUNITY



Universities encourage pupils to put ideas into practice



By Chung Hyun-chae



Wang Shu-bo, 25, a master's student studying tourism at the Hanyang University Graduate School, is running his own business, with the support of his school, matching Chinese students and local companies.



"If it had not been for the university's assistance, I could not have initiated my own business because there are many restrictions for foreigners to set up a startup company here," Wang told The Korea Times.



Wang is from China's northeastern Jilin Province. Since its launch in December 2015, Wang's company, We COMMUNITY, has been helping Chinese students get internships at local companies. The company held a job fair for Chinese students last March.



According to him, the company website has 5,000 members.



He said the company has so far helped about 30 Chinese students work as interns at local companies which need talented Chinese students.



"I'm highly satisfied with Hanyang University thanks to its strong support for foreign students to start their own businesses," Wang said.



Hanyang has offered financial support for startup clubs of foreign students since 2014.



Wang's company was created by 16 Chinese students last year. Twenty Chinese students launched six startup clubs this year.



According to a university spokeswoman, Hanyang provides 300,000 won ($271) to 1 million won to each club per year to cover their production costs and marketing expenses.



Hanyang supported one of the six clubs to organize a workshop to tour the Startup Campus, a venue established this year in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province, to nurture local and foreign startups.



The university also launched a new program called Red Lion last September to help foreign students, particularly Chinese students, create their own startups while taking related lectures and gaining work experience as interns at venture companies.













The university selected 30 students to take part in the program.



Other local universities have begun various efforts to encourage both local and foreign students to submit business ideas and put them into practice.



Yonsei University launched the Global Enternship Program in 2013 to link foreign students to promising local venture firms.



"Startup companies put more value on talented students than conglomerates do," said Park So-young, a team leader of the Yonsei University Enterprise Support Foundation.



"For companies trying to make inroads into the global market, hiring foreign manpower is cost effective," she added.



Yonsei had run special lectures on startups for foreign students from 2013 to 2015 to encourage them to start their own businesses. About 160 foreign students took the lectures.



Sungkyunkwan University, which has more than 1,200 Chinese students on campus, plans to begin a startup project for foreign students in September.



"We already have many startup teams consisting of local students, some of whom have business ideas for targeting the Chinese market for cosmetics, studio wedding photos and tour packages," said Song Han-seung, an assistant supervisor of the Research and Business Foundation at Sungkyunkwan.



"We are also thinking about putting startup teams of both local and Chinese students together to help them work together to produce more successful results," Song said.



Universities based in provincial areas are also making similar efforts.



Chonnam National University in Gwangju is considering supporting a Chinese student and a Korea student who graduated from the university to start a marketing business using social networking services.



According to the university, the two already have more than 1 million followers on their Facebook page in which they upload Korean dramas and music programs.



"We plan to provide them with an office on the school campus," said Im Sung-yeol, a coordinator of the international affairs office at the university.



"I expect our support program to contribute to attracting more foreign students," he added.
By Yi Whan-woo





Seppo Toivonen

The commander of the Finnish Army has visited a unit of K-9 self-propelled howitzers, according to military sources, Sunday.

The visit by Lt. Gen. Seppo Toivonen, Sept. 10, came as the Finnish Army is in talks with Hanwha Techwin to buy K-9s to replace the country's aging artillery weapons from 2020 to 2030.

Toivonen came to Korea to attend the Defense Expo Korea 2016 (DX Korea), an arms exhibition, from Sept. 7 to 10 at the KINTEX exhibition hall in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. It was aimed at boosting sales of Korean-made weapons abroad.

The Finnish military has "highly assessed" the K-9 for its range, maneuverability on mountainous terrain and proven capabilities in combat, according to a source.

The K-9 has a 155-millimeter gun that has a maximum range of 40 kilometers. It also has a maximum speed of 67 kilometers per hour and can fire a three-round burst in 15 seconds.

It has been one of the core weapons of the Korean Army since it was developed in 1998. It was used to counter North Korea's attacks, including the artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong Island near the disputed maritime border in the West Sea in November 2010.

Hanwha Techwin, a defense arm of Hanwha Group, has exported K-9s to Turkey and Poland. Some industry insiders said Korea and India are close to striking a sales deal while Denmark and Norway also are considering buying the K-9.

Some 400 defense industry companies from more than 30 countries joined DX Korea.

From the Korean side were Hanwha Corp., Hanwha Techwin, Hanwha Defense Systems and Hanwha Thales.

The Association of the Republic of Korea Army hosted the exhibition and the Ministry of National Defense supported it.
Pierre Rigoulot, the head of Institut d'Histoire Sociale / Yonhap



North Korea will eventually collapse like the Soviet Union even if it has nuclear weapons, a French scholar who has studied the reclusive country for many years said.

Pierre Rigoulot, the head of Institut d'Histoire Sociale, told Yonhap News Agency in Paris on Thursday that the key to handling Pyongyang's nuke standoff is centered on improving the country's human rights conditions.

He also stressed that it is critical for ordinary North Koreans to get more information about the outside world.

"The North will collapse from within just as the Soviet Union did," the historian and author of numerous books predicted. He emphasized that the international community and South Korea needs to pay closer attention to the country's human rights situation.

The reclusive country is frequently cited for its human rights abuses, although its leadership brushes off such allegations as fabrications made up by countries like the United States and South Korea to undermine the regime.

In regards to recent provocations like the detonation of a nuclear device on Sept. 9 and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, Rigoulot said there is no way to be certain that the North and its leader Kim Jong-un will not act irrationally down the road.

He argued that the risks could go up if the country moves forward with its nuclear and missile programs.

The latest nuke test is the fifth of its kind after Pyongyang detonated nuclear devices in 2006, 2009, 2013 and January of this year. The country has made gains in its long-range missile technology having fired off intermediate-range and submarine-launched ballistic missiles this year, despite warnings by other countries to desist.

The scholar said that while the world can condemn the North for its string of provocations and impose sanctions that can hurt ordinary people, it will not affect the regime's overall hold on power.

"The regime will not be affected because the North is a totalitarian state," he pointed out, adding that Pyongyang is using money that needs to go to food, medicine and transportation for the development of nuclear weapons.

He pointed out that workers sent abroad are bankrolling such endeavors.

In regards to sanctions, Rigoulot made clear that success or failure will depend on China's resolve, although he hinted that Beijing does not want North Korea to fail, because that would deprive it of a critical buffer zone with the United States.

The North Korean watcher said that while it may not be easy, he is certain that the North will eventually collapse, especially if more outside information gets into the country.

"Once ordinary North Koreans better understand the outside world, they will be able to make comparisons between their country and others," he said.

On the role of France and Europe in putting pressure on the North to give up its nuclear program, he said due to limited two-way trade, there is a limit to what countries here can do.

He then said France can ask China to do more to get the North to give up its nukes, and if Pyongyang persists, it can move with other European Union states to cut off formal diplomatic ties with the North. (Yonhap)
By Yi Whan-woo



North Korea's nuclear threat is emerging as a key issue for the U.S. presidential election, after its latest nuclear test showed that it is making advances faster than expected to achieve the capability of striking the U.S. mainland.



Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have condemned Pyongyang for carrying out its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9. The candidates have also attempted to discredit each other's ability to prevent North Korean leader Kim Jong-un from continuing to pursue weapons of mass destruction.



Previously, North Korea did not receive much attention in U.S. presidential elections, compared to wars and terrorist attacks linked to ISIS in the Middle East and Europe.



However, the next U.S. administration will have to put more emphasis on Pyongyang's nuclear program in handling international security threats, as Barack Obama's policy of "strategic patience" for North Korea is fading, analysts said.



"This administration is handing over what's shaping up to be the top national security problem for the next administration, whether it's Clinton or Trump," said Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).



Citing CSIS data, Cha said the new U.S. president will be dealing with Pyongyang sooner rather than later.



"You can be certain they will do something when the next president comes in, Cha said. "There's a window before and after U.S. presidential elections where they've done things before, so they'll be putting themselves front and center and neither candidate has really said much about what they'll do."



Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test is estimated to have had the explosive power of 10 kilotons, which is almost double the yield of the previous test on Jan. 6.



Trump said such a test is "just one more massive failure from a failed secretary of state," citing Clinton's term in the post from 2009 to 2013 under the Obama administration.



The Republican nominee also pointed out that all North Korean nuclear tests, except for the first one in 2006, took place since Clinton became secretary of state.



Clinton did not respond. Yet, she said she opposes an increase in nuclear states in what was seen as a criticism of Trump's suggestion for preventing North Korea's nuclear ambitions.



In March, Trump said he may allow nuclear armament of South Korea and Japan for self-defense.



Clinton said that the U.S. needs "a president committed to reducing, not increasing, the number of nuclear weapons and nuclear states in the world."



She said, "More countries with nuclear weapons in Northeast Asia would increase the chances of the unthinkable happening."



The Democratic candidate also said she supports Obama's calls for harsher measures against the Kim regime in addition to the current sanctions.



Experts said Clinton and Trump are likely to underscore contrasting strategies to denuclearize North Korea in their campaign trails.



Clinton has been advocating the Obama administration's support for international alliances to press the Kim regime harder as well as its demand for North Korea's denuclearization as a prerequisite for any dialogues.



Trump said he is willing to meet Kim although he previously suggested assassinating the young dictator.



Meanwhile, a U.S. expert said North Korea could carry out at least three additional nuclear tests "at a moment's notice."



In his New York Times contribution on Sept. 13, Joel Wit, the founder of 38North, said one of those three tests could take place on Oct. 9.



"Since North Koreans often celebrate important dates with spectacular shows, the approaching 10th anniversary of its first nuclear detonation on Oct. 9 might be the perfect occasion," he wrote.



He asked the new presidential administration to "put to rest the misconceptions that have driven the United States' failed North Korea policy," especially the idea that China will settle security concerns on the Korean Peninsula.




By Ishac Diwan

BEIRUT  In Lebanon today, all the symptoms of the Middle East's current turmoil are visible. Newly arrived refugees from Syria and Iraq are joining Palestinian refugees who have long been here. The country hasn't had a president for two years, as rival political factions, reflecting the rising enmity between their Iranian and Saudi Arabian backers, are weakening domestic governance. Political corruption runs rampant. The garbage doesn't always get picked up.

But Lebanon also shows signs of resilience. Investors and entrepreneurs are taking risks to start new businesses. Civil-society groups are proposing and implementing useful initiatives. Refugees are going to school . Political enemies are collaborating to minimize security risks, and religious leaders advocate coexistence and tolerance.

Lebanon's resilience owes much to the memory of its painful civil war (1975-1990). By contrast, the rest of the region's experiences  which involve a long history of autocratic governance and neglect of long-simmering grievances  have fanned the flames of conflict. Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are now riven by war. Meanwhile, the Palestinians' worsening plight is still a perennial grievance on the Arab and Muslim street. In this maelstrom, new radical groups with transnational agendas are blossoming.

In the last two years, conflicts have spilled over national borders, threatening global security. The Islamic State has exploited long-standing Sunni grievances to challenge the territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria, creating a strategic vacuum in which Russia, Iran, the United States, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia now vie for power, sometimes through proxies, but increasingly through direct military intervention.

Each country has its own agenda. Iran seeks to project its influence in support of the region's historically dominant Shia populations, while Saudi Arabia pushes back by arming rebel factions opposing Syria's Iranian-backed president, Bashar al-Assad, and by fighting what it views as an Iranian presence in its own backyard, in Yemen. As for Turkey, it opposes the creation of a Kurdish state, which became possible when Iraq and Syria came undone territorially.

With the region seemingly being sucked deeper into a vortex of permanent conflict, it is easy to believe that only dictators or religious bigots could impose any stability. But to think that is to forget past progressive uprisings, such as in Beirut in 2005, Algiers and Tehran in 2009, and the Arab Spring that began in Tunisia and spread throughout the region in 2011.

To understand where the Middle East is going, we need to look further back to comprehend how the region arrived at this point. Arab nationalism and its modernizing aspirations began to unravel after the Arab defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the 1986 oil-price collapse. National leaders maintained control through repression and used Islamic opposition parties as scarecrows to avoid political reform. National economies, weighed down by cronyism, delivered low growth, and governments lost legitimacy.

It was this strategy's untenability that led in 2011 to the fall of regimes  in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere  that pursued it. With no institutions left to ensure a peaceful political transition in these countries, violent groups had an advantage over ordinary citizens, and a crude fight for power ensued.

Violent revolutions can reach peaceful resolutions, but such an outcome is less likely where deep, unresolved sectarian grievances are in play, as they are in the Middle East. The renewed salience of old, intractable cleavages  reflected in the grievances of Sunnis in Syria and Iraq, of Shias in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, and of Kurds and Palestinians everywhere  makes the current situation especially precarious. These problems were simmering beneath the surface of autocratic repression for decades. Now, Pandora's box has been opened, revealing an incredibly complex geopolitical puzzle.

The West deserves a share of the blame for the current situation. It failed to end the long-standing Palestinian conflict, and it created new problems by dismantling the Iraqi state, funding mujahedeen in Afghanistan, and backing dictators who supported its security agenda in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere.

With the latest great-power interventions by the US and Russia, many are reminded of the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement between Great Britain and France to draw new national borders in the region and divide it into spheres of influence. But, if anything, Sykes-Picot provides a good model for what to avoid in rebuilding the Middle East. The region does not need new borders and new protectorates, but rather better states, built to be resilient against ethnic divisions and less vulnerable to external influence.

Opinion polls indicate that the vast majority of people in the Middle East want to be governed by legitimate states that uphold the rule of law, protect civic rights, and promote coexistence among communities. This is a worthy goal that will require compromise and reconciliation at a global, regional, and national level.

For national actors to have space to find solutions, it is necessary to de-escalate tensions and find compromises  first globally, between the US and Russia, and then regionally, among Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The goal must be to reach a grand bargain that takes into account the major issues dividing the region, including the status of the Palestinians and Kurds, and creates conditions for viable political settlements in Syria and Iraq.

Addressing problems that have remained unsolved for decades is a tall order, but inaction is no longer affordable. And none of the major fault lines of the Middle East can be resolved in isolation anymore.

As Antonio Gramsci argued long ago in his Prison Notebooks , "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born, and in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." That is the Middle East's situation in a nutshell. Helping it build a new regional order will require all actors, great and small, to accept compromise, as the Lebanese have done. A war that leaves one side vanquished is never over.

Ishac Diwan is an affiliate at the Belfer Center's Middle East Initiative at Harvard University and holds the Chaire d'Excellence Monde Arabe at Paris Sciences et Lettres. Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate/Mohammed Bin Rashid Global

Initiatives.
Unrealistic proposals will only complicate security situation



After North Korea's fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9, there have been mounting calls for Korea's independent nuclear development to defend itself against Pyongyang's growing nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.



Some heavyweights from the ruling Saenuri Party are at the forefront of the renewed debate on Korea's nuclear development. Rep. Won Yoo-chul said that we must consider "all possible self-defense measures including nuclear armament" during a meeting urgently arranged on Sept. 12 at the National Assembly with Defense Minister Han Min-koo in attendance. Won, a fifth-term lawmaker and former chairman of the Assembly's National Defense Committee, leads the "Nuclear Forum," a group of 23 Saenuri lawmakers devoted to discussing the pros and cons of Korea's own nuclear program. Saenuri Party Chairman Lee Jung-hyun also said a day earlier that it is high time to start talking about arming Korea with nuclear weapons.



Proponents of the nuclear armament say that a discussion on the issue is particularly timely in this U.S. election season, particularly as the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested the possibility of withdrawing U.S. policy of providing nuclear deterrence to its allies, such as Japan and Korea. They also argue that since sanctions and international pressure have failed, pursuing a nuclear program would be one of the limited options left for dealing with the North.



The confrontational approach of nuclear proponents does not do any good in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue. It is irresponsible for the Saenuri's top leadership to divide the country with such a controversial proposal during a national security crisis. The Saenuri Party should refrain from going further with this short-sighted concept before fully considering the devastating consequences on Korea's security, diplomacy and economy.



Nuclear advocates should ask themselves first whether it is really in our best interest. As outrageous as North Korea's behavior is, there is nothing to be gained from the unrealistic outcry to gain nuclear independence. This will unravel the Korea-U.S. alliance and trigger an arms race in Northeast Asia. It will also mean the beginning of diplomatic isolation, which would be disastrous for our export-driven economy. A nuclear South Korea will lose grounds to persuade North Korea to cease its nuclear program.



The ruling Saenuri Party should be leading a discussion for a bipartisan solution for a sound diplomatic effort to moderate the North Korean nuclear issue. It is not the time for them to be instigating more parliamentary conflict by highlighting the need for nuclear armament. The minor opposition People's Party's interim leader Park Jie-won said nuclear armament will drive the two Koreas into war and that the international community will never allow such a move which goes against the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).



The revival of the debate on nuclear development reflects the deep level of concern many Koreans have about the security situation in light of increasing provocations from North Korea. The U.S. should assuage these concerns by showing its full commitment to protecting South Korea with its missile defense capabilities. This is something that the new U.S. president must place high on the priority list.



The North Korean nuclear issue must be solved diplomatically, not with military confrontation.




By Andrei Lankov

Bridges connect countries  few people would argue with this remark. If a country needs connections with the outside world, it builds a bridge, and if it wants to be left alone, it sees a bridge as a threat. There are few places in the world where this can be seen more clearly than on the banks of the Lower Yalu River, where the North Korean city of Sinuiju and Chinese city of Dandong face one another.

For over a century the link between Dandong and Sinuiju has remained the major connection between North Korea and China.

The cities acquired such a role in 1905 when the Japanese completed the trans-Korean railway line that connected Busan, Seoul and Sinuiju. It was destined to become the major transportation axis of the entire peninsula.

Predictably, the new railway was soon connected to the fast expanding railway network of northeast China. The first bridge was completed in 1911. By the standards of the time, it was a big engineering project, since the Yalu River is some 900 meters wide there.

Soon afterward, the Yalu and Tuman  two rivers that divide Korea and China  were crossed with dozens of bridges. Korea was a Japanese colony, and in 1931 the Japanese established a puppet government in Manchuria that also became a colony in everything but name. Trade and migration were encouraged by the Japanese authorities and paperwork kept at a minimum, so dozens of bridges were built by 1945 to facilitate the exchanges. In 1943, another bridge was built in Dandong, next to the 1911 bridge that could not handle the fast-growing traffic.

The year 1945 brought many changes. Korea regained independence while Manchuria was reintegrated into China. For a brief while, life along the border did not change much, but as both newly independent states were strengthening, the people in the borderland discovered that the old-style exchanges and free movement began to require more and more paperwork.

And then the war came. The Yalu bridges were the major target of United States Air Force raids since they were used to supply the Chinese and North Korean forces. To avoid political complications (China was officially not at war), the Americans had to do precision bombing, so they did what they could to hit only those parts of the bridges that were close to the Korean bank.

The twin bridges of Sinuiju were destroyed by U.S. bombers in late 1950, soon followed by other bridges on the Yalu. However, when the war was over, only a few bridges were repaired. Despite the friendship rhetoric, migration between China and North Korea was now regulated and increasingly discouraged, and the traffic in goods also declined since under the new system only governments had rights to trade.

Thus, if one goes across the Yalu River, one would encounter several old bridges that were damaged during the Korean War, but were not repaired.

Even in Sinuiju, one bridge would be sufficient under post-1953 conditions. Thus, the 1943 bridge was repaired; while the severely damaged 1911 bridge was much later re-developed as an open air museum, complete with a large monument to the Chinese soldiers who fought in Korea in 1950-53.

Meanwhile, the 1943 bridge, now officially bearing the flowery title of "Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge," continues to handle railway and motor vehicle traffic. It has only one lane, so it has to follow a strict schedule: for a few hours it is used by trucks (there are very few cars) moving to North Korea, and then it switches to traffic in the opposite direction. From time to time it closes to motor vehicle traffic so that infrequent trains can pass.

This is not a very convenient system, but the narrow and aging bridge nonetheless handles some 60-70 percent of North Korea's entire inbound traffic. When it needs repair (like now), it becomes a big political issue, since, for the North Koreans, closing the bridge means that their country is completely cut off from the outside world.

In the early 2010s, construction of a massive new bridge began nearby, but, in spite of being nearly completed, it remains closed to traffic. However, the sad story of this white elephant would warrant another article that I hope to contribute soon. At any rate, North Korea is now less well served with cross-border bridges than was the case 75 years ago, and this fact alone speaks volumes about this country's peculiar attitude to the outside world.

Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
By Lee Min-hyung



LG Electronics has filed a lawsuit against German compressor manufacturer, Secob, calling for an Italian court to nullify the latter's patents regarding technology for compressors, the Korean company said Sunday.



The lawsuit, filed in Italy's Torino Court, claims that Secop's two compressor patents in Europe should be nullified, as they are not the firm's exclusive technology, according to LG Electronics.



The legal battle between the two companies erupted in July last year when the German compressor giant filed a patent infringement suit against LG Electronics. At that time, Secop urged the Korean firm to stop its sales of small-sized compressors used for refrigerators and water purifiers.



LG Electronics said it will also prove that it has never infringed on any Secop patents through the lawsuit.



"LG Electronics will maintain a hard-line stance on competitors' absurd claims over patents, and continue to protect our intellectual property," said Kim Kwang-ho, head of the compressor and motor (C&M) division at LG Electronics.



LG stressed that the two Secop patents are widely used within the industry, having little to do with the exclusive technology of the German company. For a similar reason, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected Secob's patent applications twice in 2012 and this year, according to LG Electronics.



The lawsuit came as LG is pushing to expand its market share in the lucrative business-to-business (B2B) sector for which the firm focuses on components  including compressors and motors.



At this year's IFA tech fair, the company's home and appliance (H&A) division unveiled its plan to generate half of its sales from the B2B sector, backed by its competency in manufacturing electronics components.



As of September, the company holds 2,700 compressors patents in Korea and an additional 526 patents in the United States. The company also has 121 compressor-related patents in Europe.



According to the company, more than 40 percent of LG's compressor production goes for its clients, with the rest used for its own appliances.




By Lee Min-hyung

Samsung Electronics has sold shares in four overseas technology companies to realign its portfolio and boost investment in core businesses, the Korean electronics giant said Sunday.

It sold half its shares in Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment maker ASML, reducing its stake to 1.5 percent, or 6.3 million shares.

The company also sold a 0.7 percent stake in Sharp, a 4.2 percent stake in U.S.-based storage company Seagate and its 4.5 percent stake in memory system provider Rambus.

Samsung did not reveal the combined value, but market analysts estimate the total proceeds at more than 1 trillion won ($888 million).

"The recent decision reflects our bid to put a greater focus on core businesses," a Samsung Electronics official said. "This is a regular management activity for business efficiency, having little impact on existing partnerships with those companies." The company declined to elaborate further.

The announcement came about a week after the company's board of directors decided to sell its printing division to Hewlett-Packard.

At a shareholders' meeting scheduled for Oct. 27, Samsung Electronics will confirm the decision to sell the unit's entire stake to the U.S.-based IT giant for $1.05 billion by Nov. 1, 2017.

At the meeting, Samsung will also name Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong as a new board member.

In recent years, Samsung has pushed to realign its focus on emerging businesses. In particular, the company established a vehicle components business division late last year to expand its presence in the lucrative and promising car infotainment market amid the rise of smart vehicles.

Samsung acquired its shares in Sharp in 2013 to diversify supply channels for LCD panels. Taiwan-based Foxconn, best known as the iPhone assembler, acquired the Japanese firm for $3.8 billion earlier this year.

In 2011, Samsung sold its HDD business to Seagate, as part of a group-wide strategy to restructure noncore business.
Five Star Music signee and Reggae Blues exponent, Harrysong, has finally revealed the inspiration behind his 2013 hit-song, Beta Pikin. According to him, the song was inspired by the tears of a beautiful lady he once met in Benin.

What he said; I wrote the song in Benin. I had attended a show, and I noticed that a woman was crying backstage. I was later told she was one of the organizers of the show. She was crying because despite the amount invested in the show, the returns werent coming. I told her time and chance happen to all, and that so far she has sowed, she will definitely reap. I thereafter moved straight to the studio in Lagos and recorded the song.

As a songwriter signed to Five Star Music, I was even planning to sell the song to someone else, but Kcee said that he would release the song in my name.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
A United States District Court, yesterday, dismissed a case by a Nigerian lawyer seeking to stop the repatriation of over $550 million of stolen funds during the regime of late General Sani Abacha (referred to as the Abacha loot) to Nigeria until the payment of his legal fees worth $320 million by the Nigerian Government.

The thrashing of the case by Justice John D. Bates of the U.S District Court automatically clears the final legal hurdle for the return of the loot to Nigeria to help it retool its plummeting economy which has received heavy pummelling from falling oil prices and corruption.

The U.S-based Nigerian lawyer, Godson Nnaka, had laid claim to the fact that the Nigerian Government must pay him the $320 million as legal fee for the forfeiture of the $550 million of the Abacha loot still trapped in the United States.

But the Judge, in dismissing Nnakas case, held the claimant was not entitled to such payment since he was not a party to the forfeiture case filed by the US Department of Justice in conjunction with Nigeria. So the money is coming home now.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary

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Lyft president John Zimmer predicts that his companys ride-hailing fleet of cars will be mostly autonomous within five years, and that private car ownership will all but end in major U.S. cities by 2025.

Zimmer also called out fellow transportation disruptor Elon Musk, saying the Tesla CEO is mistaken in thinking the automotive revolution will hinge upon private ownership.



For the record: An earlier version of this story incorrectly quoted President John Zimmer as saying only 24% of 16- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. have drivers licenses. Zimmer actually said that 24% of 16-year-olds hold those licenses.

Elon is right  but the transition to an autonomous future will not occur primarily through individually owned cars, Zimmer wrote in a letter published early Sunday morning.

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Citing the high monthly cost of private auto ownership, and calling automobiles a $9,000 ball and chain that gets dragged through our daily life, Zimmer said the future of ride-hailing is all about new drivers who dont want the monthly car payments, searching for parking, buying fuel, and dealing with repairs that define the average auto experience.

Ridesharing has already begun to empower many people to live without owning a car, he said, noting that only 24% of 16-year-olds in the U.S. today have drivers licenses -- down from 46% 1983.

Lyft has seen significant growth in its ride-hailing service, claiming that its drivers gave 14.6 rides per month, on average, through August of this year.

But it continues to lag in public perception behind competitor Uber.

Lyft partnered earlier this year with General Motors, signing an agreement under which the automotive giant will invest $500 million in the ride-hailing company with a view to create an autonomous vehicle network.

Lyft has been testing self-driving cars on public roads in Phoenix, and has announced plans to begin autonomous ride-hailing some time next year.

Uber has already begun doing that, with autonomous pickup service already underway in Pittsburgh -- albeit with Uber engineers sharing the ride with their customers.

Lyft has also made a deal that will give its drivers favorable terms to lease electric vehicles from GM  particularly its Chevrolet Volt hybrid and the coming Bolt EV plug-in vehicle  in order to conduct business using less gasoline.

Charles.Fleming@latimes.com

Twitter: @misterfleming
Question: After moving into my condo 15 years ago I attended a board meeting with several fed-up owners complaining of many unresolved problems. I thought things would change; I was wrong, nothing changed. I began a letter-writing campaign to all 75 homeowners to get the board to see the folly of its ways but that didnt work.

I wrote my legislators and no one was interested in helping in any meaningful way. A couple months ago, I wrote to the state attorney general complaining of poor management and misappropriation of association funds. The attorney generals office wrote back stating my complaint did not fall within its jurisdiction. What does that mean?

Answer: Your complaint of poor management and misappropriation of association funds does not fall under the purview of the California attorney generals office. Typically, that office does not handle complaints that have to do with the statutory common interest development act (Civil Code sections 4000 - 6150), or any homeowner associations covenants, conditions and restrictions, as well as any property management companies, dues, assessments and citations.

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If you suspect criminal activity, such as fraud, theft or embezzlement on the part of the board of directors or individual officers, the proper avenue for redress is to file a report with the police or Sheriffs Department in the area where the crime occurred, not with the attorney generals office.

Under Corporations Code section 8216, the office has limited discretionary authority to intervene on behalf of nonprofit, mutual benefit corporation homeowners denied certain specified rights. Standing is limited to a member, director or officer of an association, who can submit complaints that fall under four areas of compliance. They are:

1. Failing to provide notice and hold regular board meetings and comply with special meeting requirements. (Corporations Code sections 7510 - 7512.)

2. Failing to abide by quorum requirements; transacting unauthorized business at meetings; failing to provide ballots and proxies to owners and a means of nominating and electing directors, and failing to recognize bylaws that mandate cumulative voting. (Corporations Code sections 7512 - 7615.)

3. Failing to maintain books, records, minutes, annual reports and a list of members names and addresses  and to allow homeowners to inspect those items. Failing to allow a director his or her absolute right to inspect or copy any association books, records and documents. (Corporations Code sections 8320 - 8334.)

4. And finally, falsifying or tampering with association reports or records. (Corporations Code section 8215.)

Any complaint submitted to the attorney general must specify which Corporations Code the association is alleged to have violated and must include supporting documentation. If the office decides to act on a complaint, it will generate a notice of complaint letter to the homeowner association. The association has 30 days to respond to the attorney generals office and the complainant.

For more information, visit https://oag.ca.gov.

Zachary Levine, a partner at Wolk & Levine, a business and intellectual property law firm, co-wrote this column. Vanitzian is an arbitrator and mediator. Send questions to Donie Vanitzian, JD, P.O. Box 10490, Marina del Rey, CA 90295 or noexit@mindspring.com
For the last five years, top shipping companies pushed forward with fat investments in more and bigger vessels, even as signs of trouble piled up.

The goal was to shore up profits by doing business on a larger scale as global trade bounced back after the recession. But the new business never came. Freight rates dropped and shippers revenues plunged.

Today, the supply of ships and their capacity is completely out of whack with demand. Chinas economy has slowed and consumer goods flooding the U.S. have saturated the market to the point where theres no more room for growth, analysts say.

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And the industry is no longer under the delusion that it can grow its way out of trouble. That became clear with the Aug. 31 bankruptcy of South Koreas Hanjin Shipping Co., the worlds seventh-largest shipper, which temporarily marooned $14 billion of goods as ships were denied access to ports from Shanghai to Los Angeles.

That cozy assumption that carriers cant be killed off has been eroded. We know they have breaking points now, said Simon Heaney, an analyst at London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants.

Hanjin began unloading ships at San Pedro Bay last week, after a court in New Jersey gave the company protection from U.S. creditors, and a South Korean court OKd the release of $10 million to process the cargo.

But the debacle is a sign that the economic failures that have been roiling shipping for years may be reaching a crisis point.

Its as if the airlines went out and bought 20% more aircraft than they had customers to buy tickets, and then wondered what happened.  Paul Bingham, Economic Development Research Group Inc.

Shippers prepared for a bonanza that never materialized, and now they are paying the high cost of sending partly empty vessels around the world.

Global trade never fully recovered from the downturn, and is now growing at below 3% per year, a far cry from the 6% average rate from 1990-2008, according to the World Trade Organization.

The stall is visible at the nations largest ports, in Los Angeles and Long Beach, where combined cargo traffic  imports and exports  is up only 0.9% through August.

Imports alone were down 10.2% at the Port of Long Beach compared with last August, and up less than 1% at the Port of Los Angeles.

The worlds fleet of container ships is likely to grow 2% faster than the demand for them in 2016, the credit rating firm Moodys Investors Service reported in June. Moodys said the supply/demand mismatch would continue at least through next June.

The industry is expected to lose $5 billion this year, according to Drewry.

The problem has been magnified by the launch of several mega-ships, which carry twice as much cargo as the ones that came to U.S. shores five years ago. These vessels can stretch for five city blocks, and accommodate more than 18,000 20-foot containers.

Its as if the airlines went out and bought 20% more aircraft than they had customers to buy tickets, and then wondered what happened, said Paul Bingham, a trade economist with the Economic Development Research Group Inc., in Boston. It was unsustainable.

In April, the cost of shipping a 40-foot container from Hong Kong to Los Angeles fell to $623, the lowest rate in five years, according to Drewry.

In other words, you could have packed your bed, sofa, shelves, dining room table, chest of drawers and all your clothes in a 40-foot container and shipped it across the Pacific Ocean at half the price youd pay to put it all on a truck and send it to New York.

AJ Forsythe, the 28-year-old chief executive of San Francisco-based iCracked, started to notice shipping rates drop two years ago and couldnt quite believe how far down they went.

ICracked  which repairs cellphones and tablets, and sells gadget parts and accessories on its website  was recently paying $800 to ship a 40-foot steel box from one continent, which Forsythe called insane.

Every day, the company has products and parts moving on the sea between China, Japan, South Korea and Oakland, so the savings add up. In the last two years, Forsythe has doubled the size of his staff, which now includes 4,000 technicians.

Every dollar that we save that isnt going into shipping, thats more people we can hire to run our business, Forsythe said.

He just cut the cost of a do-it-yourself repair kit by about $90, partly because of low freight costs. Its coming through as cheaper products and cheaper commodities, Forsythe said.

Ryan Petersen knew that the price drop would wreak havoc on Hanjin, which is minuscule compared with the Danish APM-Maersk line or the Swiss Mediterranean Shipping Co.

Petersen, 36, is the chief executive of Flexport, a San Francisco company that coordinates the shipment of retailers products to and from the U.S., acting like a travel agent for importers and exporters.

Two months ago, Petersen says, he began avoiding Hanjin.

It wasnt that hard to see this coming, Petersen says. You can look and see whose balance sheet is the weakest and who doesnt have the scale.

Its been hard to find many attractive balance sheets in the industry of late. Experts have pointed to the Japanese Nippon Yusen and the South Korean Hyundai Merchant Marine Co as potentially vulnerable. Shares of Nippon are down 37% since last September, and shares of HMM are down 84% over the year.

Shipping giants have begun to contain the damage by pulling vessels out of service  or destroying them.

In August, 4.5% of the total container ship capacity had been sitting idle for at least two weeks, Drewry said. And 124 ships have already been demolished this year, up from 85 in 2015, according to Braemar ACM Shipbroking in London.

Hanjin is trying to sell the majority of its current fleet and offload all of its 61 chartered ships, as part of a rehabilitation proposal during bankruptcy proceedings in South Korea, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Maersk, the worlds biggest shipping line, had been at the forefront of the mega-ship frenzy, ordering 20 of some of the biggest vessels on the market in 2011. But recently the company has reduced the size of its orders relative to its overall fleet, and it has become more likely to give up chartered ships, which it leases for a period of time.

We have been growing our fleet at a more modest pace than we would have in the past, said Soren Egholm, vice president of trade and marketing for Maersk Line North America.

Egholm said the company prefers to relinquish leased vessels than to cancel sailings or leave ships at anchor, which reduces supply but can be costly. Idling vessels is just like buying a car you dont use  its a way to save fuel but its not the best way to save money.

Partly thanks to the capacity moves, rates have started to recover. Drewry, the consulting firm, expects them to rise even more next year, if only because they simply cant go any lower than theyve been.

Even a dead cat bounces, so any bump you might see doesnt meant there is any life in anything, analyst Heaney said.

Natalie.Kitroeff@latimes.com

Follow me @NatalieKitro on Twitter

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Know your American TV: A quick guide to the four Emmy-nominated shows with American in the title

There are a lot of roads you can take to earning an Emmy nomination, but one of the easiest in 2016 seems to be slapping the word American in the title.

Though there are plenty of nonfiction shows that have found success with their American branding, like reality shows American Ninja Warrior and American Idol, as well as historical explorations like American Masters and American Experience, they really cant compare to the sheer dominance displayed by 2016s crop of scripted dramas, all of which look to capture a singularly American experience.

Heres a quick primer to help explain these American tales, which have amassed an astounding 49 Emmy nominations between them:

The Americans

Whats it about?

Two married Russian spies attempt to raise a family and protect the Motherland while posing as an all-American family during the heart of the Cold War.

Was it nominated for an Emmy?

Yes, five.

Is it on FX?

It is!

Does it involve murder?

Often, yes. Spycraft is a messy business.

Is it an ongoing series or anthology series?

Its ongoing and has been renewed for two final seasons.

Does it involve the fundamental decay of American society as we know it?

Absolutely. The 1980s were a difficult time for everyone involved.

American Horror Story: Hotel

Whats it about?

Its complicated. Suffice it to say, it involves a mysterious Los Angeles hotel owned by a fabulous bloodsucking (literally) owner and populated with weirdos and serial killers.

Was it nominated for an Emmy?

Yes, eight.

Is it on FX?

Indeed.

Does it involve murder?

So much murder.

Is it an ongoing series or anthology series?

Its an anthology series featuring recurring cast members, including the often Emmy-nominated Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates. Previous iterations include AHS: Murder House (about a murder house); AHS: Asylum (about an asylum); AHS: Coven (about witches); and AHS: Freak Show (you get it). Last week, American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare premiered. Its about Roanoke.

Does it involve the fundamental decay of American society as we know it?

Its a Ryan Murphy show so... yes.

The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Whats it about?

The slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and the pursuant murder trial of former NFL great and commercial pitchman O.J. Simpson

Was it nominated for an Emmy?

Yes, all of them. OK, not quite, but it did collect 22 nominations.

Is it on FX?

And how!

Does it involve murder?

The double killing at its center serves as the catalyst not only for the show, but for the country watching the aftermath play out.

Is it an ongoing series or anthology series?

Its an anthology series with intentions, like American Horror Story to explore new stories with a repertory of actors. Season 2 will focus on Hurricane Katrina.

Does it involve the fundamental decay of American society as we know it?

It depends how you classify the rise of the 24-hour news cycle and the reign of the Kardashians, but probably yes.

American Crime

Whats it about?

The latest season focused on a sexual assault and the repercussions that developed throughout the school and community where it took place.

Was it nominated for an Emmy?

Yes, a whopping 14.

Is it on FX?

Surprisingly, no. It airs on ABC.

Does it involve murder?

This season did not, though the first season did.

Is it an ongoing series or anthology series?

Its an anthology series that features a recurring cast of players, including Timothy Hutton, Regina King and Felicity Huffman.

Does it involve the fundamental decay of American society as we know it?

Sort of. More accurately, it depicts the common miscommunications that take place when society lets preconceived notions about gender, race and class dictate actions.
Angeles National Forest supervisor Jeffrey Vail and a host of other officials clambered aboard buses Saturday at the Gold Line stop in Arcadia to make the five-mile trek up to Chantry Flat.

It was supposed to be a test run for a shuttle program aimed at reducing congestion at one of the most popular hiking and picnic spots in the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

But the U.S. Forest Service officials were so alarmed by the cars left haphazardly along hairpin turns  and the flood of vehicles heading back down the mountain because there were no more parking spots to be had  that they turned the scheduled dry run into the maiden voyage of the Chantry Flat shuttle.

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Beneficiaries of the move included hundreds of people who had given up hope of being able to spend Saturday on scenic hiking trails like the 1-3/4-mile Chantry Flat to Sturtevant Falls route or the longer, more challenging path to one of the worlds largest telescopes atop Mt. Wilson.

We had already decided to drive back home when a forest ranger at Chantry Flat told us where we could get on board one of their free shuttles down in Arcadia, said 22-year-old Sarah Bubka of Redlands, who was among a group of eight preparing to hike to Mt. Wilson. It was a surprise to learn that the shuttles were experimental. Amazing. We hope they continue them. Why not?

Vail said that decision would depend on the effectiveness of the pilot program that will formally run on three consecutive weekends beginning Sept. 24..

Shortly after sunrise Saturday, Vail and the other officials settled into their seats, enjoying panoramic views during the roughly 16-minute ride to Chantry Flat.

Awaiting them were lush canyons shaded by oaks, alders and maples and wrinkled canyon lands laced with streams  home to rare and endangered species including California condors, Nelsons bighorn sheep and mountain yellow-legged frogs. The areas treasures include native American rock art and the Mt. Wilson Observatory, where Edwin Hubble discovered galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

The success of this project will be determined by the number of people who leave their cars at home and get on board our shuttles, Vail said. Our ultimate goal is to establish public transportation service throughout the monument, which stretches from peaks north of Cucamonga west to rugged areas above Santa Clarita.

It will also hinge on whether the Forest Service and its supporters can persuade major donors to subsidize the shuttle service.

For now, the free buses will run between the Gold Line stop in Arcadia and Chantry Flat, arriving and departing every 30 to 45 minutes between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., officials said.

This program is a good first step toward instituting public transit systems in a national forest adjacent to 17 million people, said Steven Evans, a consultant for the nonprofit California Wilderness Coalition.

It just makes sense. By reducing the rows and rows of parked cars along our mountain roads, were enhancing safety and creating more space for people and wildlife.

Louis.Sahagun@latimes.com

@LouisSahagun
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The knocks started just after 9 a.m. in Willowbrook. Sheriffs deputies moved down the streets of a rough neighborhood known as Corner Pocket, tapping on gates with flashlights and calling through open windows.

Is something wrong, asked residents, some still in pajamas. Are you looking for someone?

Nope, deputies told them, holding out clipboards and pens. We just want your opinion.

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In an effort to gather information about crimes and improve trust in law enforcement, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department dispatched more than a hundred deputies and volunteers to Willowbrook on Saturday to survey residents about safety and policing. Deputies set out to knock on 1,200 doors in the area, long known for gang activity, and collect as many as 600 written surveys.

I think this is great, said Samuel T. Williams, 78, after filling out a survey in a friends yard on Wayside Street. He said he found the no snitching attitude among some younger people tiresome and hoped the deputies show of concern would be a reminder that the police are not our enemies.

The survey asked residents seven questions, including whether they feel safe walking after dark in the neighborhood and what they consider the most pressing criminal issue in their immediate area. Residents had the option of listing the location of a specific crime for sheriffs officials to investigate.

Capt. Jeffrey Perry of the Community Partnerships Bureau, which organized the survey, said similar canvases in different parts of the county have drawn out people with information about drug dealing or other crimes.

Sheriffs Deputy David Brewer conducts a survey in Willowbrook. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times )

Those people, he said, dont call 911 because they think its not going to do any good. But when you knock on their door they are like, hey, [deputies] really do want to know.

Elizabeth Lopez, who has lived in Corner Pocket for 29 years, said she often watches the street from her upstairs window and doesnt hesitate to phone police if she sees suspicious activity.

A lot of people are afraid to call though, she said.

The 61-year-old retired dental assistant said the area had improved over the years, but the violence is still there.

Crime in Willowbrook is down from historic highs, but it remains a dangerous place.

Nearly every home is surrounded by a tall, spiked iron fence. Guard dogs are the norm. There were two homicides in August, and residents surveyed Saturday morning said they often hear gunshots at night.

Capt. Kerry Carter, who took over command of the Century Sheriffs Station six months ago, raised his family in nearby Compton and patrolled the streets of the area as a deputy. He said there was no doubt that the community is safer, but he still wouldnt feel comfortable walking at night by himself because of gang violence.

This is a tough area, he said.

While his deputies chatted with residents, Carter said he hoped the casual conversations might make it easier for deputies and community members to communicate when you have those shootings.

The most common complaints that deputies received Saturday werent about serious crime, but about public nuisances like speeding cars near the elementary school and the perennial L.A. problem of illegal vendors. On one street, deputies conducting surveys were passed by a man hawking ice cream and a woman offering Mexican food from a shopping cart.

Carter called it a supply and demand issue, noting that while some residents complained, others were buying tamales.

Standing at her fence, Mariana Amar, a mother of two, said she was excited to fill out the survey.

Im very pleased that you guys are actually walking around, she told deputies.

She recalled that several years ago, police stopped her and her husband as they drove with their children in East L.A. It was a case of mistaken identity quickly resolved, but her children remained scared of law enforcement for a long time. Her daughter now wants to be a detective, an aim she encourages.

In two to three weeks, sheriffs officials will hold a town hall to share the results of the surveys and their plan for addressing the concerns of the community.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

harriet.ryan@latimes.com

@latimesharriet
A large flame of burning gas erupted over a refinery in Torrance on Sunday, prompting authorities to close a stretch of Del Amo Boulevard for about two hours.

Torrance firefighters were dispatched to the former Exxon Mobil refinery at 7:12 a.m., Captain Bob Millea said. A power outage in the northern part of the city had caused issues for some of the units at the plant, Millea said, prompting what he called an unplanned flaring event.

To stabilize its systems, the plant sent hydrocarbon products to the flare, causing a large flame to burst over the plants metal smoke stacks  similar to the way a giant lighter might function, Millea said.

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Fire officials shut down Del Amo Boulevard between Maple Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard in both directions until systems were declared stable at about 9:20 a.m., Millea said.

The refinery, which was sold this summer to PBF Energy, has experienced some notable problems in the recent past. In June, three workers were injured at the refinery when a 300-ton crane collapsed. Near the same time, a breakdown in some units triggered a flaring event, a company spokesman said at the time.

In February 2015, an explosion injured four workers and destroyed the plants pollution-control system, shutting the refinery for months. Exxon Mobil was fined $566,600 in connection with the explosion.

Sundays incident, however, posed no safety risk to the public, Millea said.

If we thought there was a danger to the public, we would not have left the scene, he said later Saturday morning. Everything is back to normal.

matt.stevens@latimes.com

Twitter: @ByMattStevens
States across the Southeast are experiencing sharp jumps in gas prices after a major gasoline pipeline ruptured in central Alabama, spilling as many as 336,000 gallons of fuel upstream from a national wildlife refuge. But thanks to a few strokes of luck, the environmental damage is minimal.

The pipeline breached near an old coal mine pit, and much of the fuel flowed into a water retention pond.

With local streams dry -- much of central Alabama is suffering from moderate to severe drought -- the gasoline did not find its way down into the Cahaba River, home to 64 rare and endangered plant and animal species, including the Cahaba lily.

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We really did bypass the bullet, said Myra Crawford, executive director at Cahaba Riverkeeper, which has been monitoring the area by canoe and foot.It could have been horrible. If the oil had flowed into the river, where our lilies grow, it would have contaminated one of our state treasures. It could have flowed down through Alabama and into the Mobile Bay.

The leak was discovered Friday when a mining inspector detected a strong odor of gasoline at a mining property in a remote area of Shelby County, about 30 miles south of Birmingham.

It came from Colonial Pipelines Line 1, a 3-foot-wide pipe that typically transports 1.3 million barrels of gasoline a day from Houston refineries to distribution centers across the Southeast and all the way up to Linden, N.J. Built in 1964, the pipeline provides the East Coast with up to 40% of its gasoline supply.

Tanker trucks line up at a Colonial Pipeline Co. facility in Pelham, Ala., near the scene of a gasoline spill on Sept. 16 (Jay Reeves / Associated Press )

The Alpharetta, Ga.-based company immediately shut down the pipeline. Last week, crews began removing gasoline and water from the retention pond to temporary storage tanks. Underflow dams were constructed and a boom was installed to ensure that no fuel traveled into a dry creek bed that runs from the pond to Peel Creek, which flows into the Cahaba River.

More than 700 people are now working at the site, attempting to excavate and repair the damaged section of pipe as well as construct a temporary line to bypass the leaked section.

So far, hardly any wildlife seems to have have perished as a result of fuel exposure: A few very small mammals, one bird, a snake, Crawford said. Most of the damage has been to the pipeline itself and to the people who need gas for their cars.

Over the weekend, drivers in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas faced longer lines at the gas pumps and, in some cases, dry pumps.

In Georgia, the average price of a gallon of regular gas jumped from $2.09 on Tuesday to $2.31 on Sunday, according to GasBuddy.com, a consumer-driven website that helps drivers find cheap gas. Over the weekend, GasBuddy customers reported a Super Express gas station in Evans, Ga., charging $3.49 and an Exxon station in McLean, Va., charging $3.19.

Colonial is still transporting gasoline from Houston to western Alabama. In an effort to minimize gas shortages farther north, the company is moving gasoline through a second pipeline that runs alongside the burst line and usually carries diesel and jet fuel.

Last week, the governors of Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia issued executive orders that temporarily suspended various state and federal regulations to allow truck drivers to work longer shifts to deliver gasoline. The uninterrupted supply of gas is an essential need for the public and any perceived shortage threatens the public welfare, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said in his order.

As consumers in many parts of the Southeast rushed to fill up their tanks, some gas stations ran out of fuel. Emergency management officials in some states urged consumers not to panic.

Tennessees consumers need to maintain their normal driving and fuel buying habits, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency director Patrick Sheehan urged in a statement Saturday. If consumers fill up unnecessarily, top off their tanks when they arent close to empty, and fill multiple containers at the pumps, then our petroleum retailers will not be able to keep up with the demand of the fuel supply.

The spill comes at a crucial time for the oil industry. Thousands of Native American protesters have gathered in North Dakota in recent weeks to block construction of the new Dakota Access pipeline. They argue that the pipeline would pass through sacred sites and burial ground, and that any future spills could be culturally and economically catastrophic.

In Alabama, Cahaba Riverkeeper praised Colonial for its transparency, noting that within an hour of hearing of the leak the company invited the group to monitor the damage.

Thats very unusual, Crawford said, noting that her group had begun to forge a relationship with the oil company in the last year. I keep thinking this is a good time where oil and water mixed.

Jarvie is a special correspondent.

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Trumps birther falsehoods continue to roil the presidential race

Donald Trumps acknowledgment on Friday that President Obama was born in the United States has not made the controversy over Trumps long advocacy of birther falsehoods go away.

The issue continued to ricochet across the campaign debate on Sunday, despite Republican efforts to insist that Trump had now put a close to that chapter. (Obama released his certificate of live birth from Hawaii in 2008 and his long-form birth certificate in 2011, but Trump continued for years to question his origins.)

Obama joked about Trumps admission in a speech Saturday night: In other breaking news, the world is round, not flat, he said.

The Democratic vice presidential nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, characterized Trumps earlier questioning of Obamas citizenship as a bigoted lie.

His Republican counterpart, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, however, followed Trumps lead by pressing a new untrue statement  that the birther debate could be traced to Hillary Clintons 2008 campaign.

Pence maintained on ABC This Week that Trump had accepted Obamas being born in the U.S. without hesitation.

ABCs Martha Raddatz pointed out that as recently as last Wednesday, Trump had not been willing to say Obama was born in the U.S. Overall, ABC counted 67 tweets and retweets from Trump questioning where the president was born, she said.

He has been a leader in this birther movement, she said.

Pence responded by alluding to news reports tying the birther movement to the 2008 Clinton campaign.

You believe that? she asked.

Look, Ill let the facts speak for themselves, Pence said.

Theres no evidence that Clinton ever questioned Obamas birthplace during the 2008 campaign or after. As the Trump campaign recently noted, Clinton fired a staff member in Iowa during the 2008 campaign for circulating an email involving the subject.

A senior advisor, Mark Penn, the campaign pollster, wrote a memo at one point suggesting that Clinton should question Obamas American values, but did not mention any question of his birthplace.

Kaine, speaking on This Week, said the birther allegations recalled a time when no African American, free or slave, could become a U.S. citizen.

This isnt just a semantical thing, Kaine said. This is so painful to so many Americans because they remember our history.

He said he hoped someone would ask Trump whether he had been gullible or conspiratorial when dragging us back to the most painful chapter in American life.

Who were you trying to appease by doing that? he asked.

Asked why it took Trump five years to admit that he had promoted a false story, his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, demurred.

Youre going to have to ask him, she said, on CBSs Face the Nation.

I think this is a side show now the media seems obsessed with, she added. He does things on his terms, on his timeline.

Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and veteran of the civil rights movement, called the matter shameful.

Everybody, every reasonable person knew that he was born in Americain Hawaii, not in Kenya, Lewis said on Face the Nation.

Trump just wouldnt give up on it, he said.

When you make mistakes, when youre wrong, you should admit youre wrong, and ask people to forgive you, Lewis added.

Obama belittled Trump over the issue in his remarks Saturday night at a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner in Washington.

To think that with just 124 days to go, under the wire, we got that resolved, Obama said. I mean, thats a boost for me in the home stretch. In other breaking news, the world is round, not flat.

This post was updated with additional quotes from Conway and Rep. Lewis.
In push for Hillary Clinton, Obama tells black voters, You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)

President Obama delivered a forceful call to black voters on Saturday, saying that both hope and fear are on the ballot this November, and that a vote for Hillary Clinton will continue his legacy.

My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot, a fiery Obama said in remarks before an annual gala hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington.

I will consider it a personal insult -- an insult to my legacy -- if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote, Obama said to thunderous applause.

Obama, who this week campaigned for Clinton in Philadelphia, dismissed Donald Trumps campaign as offering fear to a nation that has made progress over the last eight years.

Hope is on the ballot and fear is on the ballot too, he said, adding that Trump would set the country back by opposing, among other things, the Affordable Care Act, a key pillar to the presidents tenure in office.

A day earlier, Trump, for years a vocal leader in the birther movement questioning Obamas citizenship, sought to end the discussion by delivering a terse statement, affirming the Obama was born in the United States. Many have viewed Trumps birther comments, which date back to 2011, as racist attacks on the nations first African American president.

I am so relieved the whole birther thing is over, Obama quipped at the gala.

Clinton, who in most national and swing state polls, has a commanding lead when it comes to the support of blacks, received an award at the gala Saturday night. In her brief remarks, she did not mention Trump by name, but there was no need, everyone in the auditorium knew whose comments she was subtly denouncing.

Mr. President, not only do we know you are an American, youre a great American, she said.
In 2008, when Hillary Clinton first ran for the Democratic presidential nomination against Barack Obama, I asked one of her oldest allies how she could be losing a race that appeared to be hers to win.

Ive known Hillary for many years, ever since she came to Arkansas, former Sen. Dale Bumpers told me. Shell find a way to screw it up. She always does.

Eight years later, the conventional wisdom is that Clinton is a much better candidate. She learned hard lessons from her failure in 2008; her campaign this year is smarter and less chaotic. And she isnt running against Obama, a once-in-a-century political talent; shes running against an ill-disciplined rookie, Donald Trump.

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And yet, as Clintons poll numbers have sagged, Democrats have started freaking out: What if the Clinton of 2016 is just as error-prone as the Clinton of 2008?

I dont see how Trump can win this election, a Democratic strategist told me last week. But I can see a lot of ways Hillary can lose. (He pleaded for anonymity to avoid becoming persona non grata in Clintonworld.)

Others have piled on with less reticence.

Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia. Whats the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?  Former Obama adviser David Axelrod earlier this week on Twitter

Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia, former Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote, referring to Clintons brief health crisis. Whats the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?

But while Democrats are right to be worried, theyre wrong to be panicked. This presidential race was always going to be close. Clinton is still in the lead, even if her margin has narrowed.

Last week, the average of national polls compiled by the RealClearPolitics website showed Clinton winning 46% of the popular vote to 44% for Trump.

If Democrats and Republicans behave as they do in most campaigns, theyll stick with their respective parties candidates by massive margins  and the outcome should be a close win for Clinton.

In truth, the polls are doing exactly what campaign strategists on both sides expected: narrowing as Election Day nears.

Clinton won a bounce from a successful Democratic convention in July; in August, that average of national polls stood at 48%-40%.

Now, more than a month later, the margin has returned roughly to where it stood before the two conventions.

Besides, Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster who isnt working for Clinton, noted that the fundamentals of this years election  a sluggish economy, a party seeking its third term in office  always made it an uphill climb for Clinton.

Were it not for Donald Trump, this was set up as a good year for Republicans, he said.

I dont mean to suggest that Clinton hasnt screwed up. She has. In the short term, Clintons missteps  her speech calling half of Trumps supporters deplorables, her decision to keep her pneumonia secret until after she appeared to collapse  probably contributed to her swoon in the polls.

But she has also announced a strategy to reboot her campaign: a shift to positive themes instead of negatives about Trump. That shouldnt sound like an innovation  but this year, it is.

Meanwhile, Trump seems to have heard much the same advice from his new campaign advisors  and has improved, too. Hes given a series of policy speeches on topics from the economy to child care, a stark contrast to the freewheeling Trump who won his primary campaign mostly by belittling rivals.

A major test will come in the candidates first debate on Sept. 26. In theory, Clinton should have the advantage. She knows more about policy than Trump, to put it mildly. She has more experience talking about how she would actually govern. Shes less likely to resort to name-calling. The test for Trump, remaining within the chalklines his advisors have sketched out, looks tougher.

Clinton has other advantages in the campaigns final stage. She has more high-level surrogates to argue her case, from Obama and Bill Clinton to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren; Trumps wingmen, Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, dont compare. She has a larger and more professional campaign organization to make sure Democratic voters get to the polls.

The biggest challenge shes going to have is turnout, David Plouffe, Obamas former campaign manager, said last week. I think theyll get there.

To win hes got to get historic republican turnout, get historically bad democratic turnout, and win the center, he added. I dont see any evidence of that.

My bet is that Plouffe is right, and that Clinton is going to prove Dale Bumpers wrong. Shes a better candidate now; shes still likely to win. But shes also going to keep Democrats fighting off panic attacks for the next seven weeks  right up until Election Day.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Twitter: @DoyleMcManus

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
One of the latest people to cross Donald Trump is Pope Francis, who made remarks about the Republican presidential candidates faith and his strong stance on immigration, which includes his calls to deport more immigrants and make Mexico pay for a border wall.

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian, Francis said when a reporter asked about Trump on the papal aircraft, adding that this man is not Christian if he said it this way.

In his statement addressing the popes comments, Trump said, among other strong words: For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another mans religion or faith.

NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in the 818 >>

Q: Was Pope Francis right to give his opinion on Donald Trump and the immigration issue?

Absolutely he was right!

Religious leaders like the pope need to speak out when they see injustice or, in this case, the possibility of an un-Christian act.

Personally, I dont think the pope was trying to say that Donald Trump was not a Christian; I think he meant to say that what the GOP front runner wants to do when he becomes president is an un-Christian act. And he is right!

The pope is also right when he says that Christians should be trying to build bridges, not build walls.

Trump may be your guy, and he may be (oh, I hope not!) exactly what the country needs. But to talk about building walls  what are we, the old Soviet Union?  instead of building bridges is wrong-headed.

Again, the Donald may be your guy, and he may be whom we elect in November (again, Lord have mercy!). But anybody as angry and insulting as he can be is certainly not acting the way a Christian should.

I didnt say he wasnt a Christian, and neither did the pope mean to imply that he was not. What the pope was saying and what I am saying is that a Christian may act in an un-Christian manner, and to talk about building a wall between the USA and Mexico is an un-Christian concept.

Remember Ross Perot? He used to say, Its just that easy  even though its not. Thats who Donald Trump channels when he says or implies, Its just that easy. No, its not, and its also not acting in a Christian manner.

Rev. Skip Lindeman

La Canada Congregational Church

La Canada

Pope Francis speaks to journalists aboard a flight from Mexico to Italy on Feb. 18, 2016. (Alessandro Di Meo / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images)

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It would have been more accurate for the pope to say that in his opinion Donald Trump was not speaking or acting as a Christian should. At its core, a Christian believes that Jesus Christ, the son of God, paid the penalty for our sins by shedding his blood on the cross, that he rose again on the third day, and that by faith alone in him, apart from our works, we are eternally reconciled to God. Christianity is determined by ones confession that Jesus is Lord, and not by the confession that walls are bad.

In his own words Donald Trump says, I am proud to be a Christian. I pray that is true, that he has repented of his sins, that he places his personal faith in Jesus Christ as the only way to be right with God and that his life is subject to the leading of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of the Bible.

Donald Trump states that no religious leader should have the right to question another mans religion or faith. But in fact thats exactly what the Bible calls Christian leaders to do, not to defame the character of others but to ensure the purity of the proclamation of the gospel. Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed  ungodly persons... (Jude 1:3-4).

On several occasions Jesus publicly questioned the religion or faith of Israels religious leaders. He said: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites... He called them blind guides, whitewashed tombs, serpents and the brood of vipers because their beliefs and deeds contradicted the word of God. The apostle Paul warned the Philippian church to Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision (Philippians 3:2).

He warned Timothy: If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing (1 Timothy 6:3-4). The apostle Peter questioned the religion or faith of heretics in the church: They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you (2 Peter 2:13). He called them false prophets and false teachers of destructive heresies. The apostle John called the false teachers of his day antichrists who did not belong to the authentic church (1 John 2:18-19).

Each of these godly men went far beyond questioning the faith of those who departed from biblical truth and publicly condemned them as heretics. These condemnations were not subjective judgment calls, but were rather objective conclusions based on what the Bible teaches. The pope has the responsibility, and is right, to teach his flock the word of God in ways that apply to real life.

But we probably also shouldnt forget that when John the Baptist publicly condemned King Herods adultery he ended up being beheaded. Political leaders dont always respond well to legitimate challenges to their religion or faith.

Pastor Jon Barta

Burbank

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Lets start by rephrasing Mr. Trumps remarks: Only a religious leader has the right and authority, to question a persons faith (so long as they belong to the same faith). Thats what religious leaders do! Thats why they pay us the big money! Were to have a prophetic voice, and the freedom to speak truth to power  very specifically by calling the integrity of a person or peoples faith into question.

In the Episcopal Church, where clergy are hired rather than appointed, its forbidden for a parish to fire a priest, just because of a controversial sermon or a faith-challenging stance. They made that rule because its not only allowed, its fully expected for the preacher to nudge peoples consciences and even let loose with a little pulpit-pounding now and then, as needed to jar people out of their comfortable status quo and into the difficult ways of Jesus.

The pope can be, should be, some would say must be, a prophetic voice in the world; and Donald Trump, vying to be a significant actor on the world stage, claims to be Christian. So its entirely appropriate for the pope to point out that many of Trumps values, words and actions fall far outside the lamplight of what Jesus would  and calls us to  say and do. So long as Trump is using the name of Christianity to recruit thousands of people into the very un-Christian causes of hatred, fear and exclusion, how can any Christian leader stay silent?

So that I too will avoid misspeaking in Jesus name, Ill let him have the final word on the integrity of Donald Trumps Christianity:

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not  do many deeds of power in your name? Then I will declare to them, I never knew you; go away from me (Matthew 7:21-23).

The Rev. Amy Pringle

St. Georges Episcopal Church

La Canada Flintridge

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The Pope may say whatever he wants, but judging another mans faith, based on this, puts him on sketchy ground.

Its not that we shouldnt judge a person by their fruit, thats very biblical, or that we shouldnt judge a book by its content, which everyone accepts, but Pope Francis judged Trump based on personal, not biblical, opinion.

Theres nothing from God that forbids building protective walls. Contrarily, the biblical book of Nehemiah recounts Israels rebuilding of their dilapidated city walls with Gods blessing. They even posted guards to protect them from foreigners. This isnt terribly unlike the pope, who resides within his own walled Vatican City, also patrolled by armed guards, because unwelcome outsiders will likely steal artifacts or do him harm.

In America, our homes have walls and locks, and neighbors should never think themselves entitled to intrude at dark and help themselves to our valuables or space. Likewise, our country has an invisible wall depicted on maps, but neighboring interlopers ignore it and enter at dark unencumbered. This is not their land or culture. Foreigners are fully free to stay in their own foreign places, but if they wish to join us, they need to abide our laws, as we havent the stomach for their obvious lack of any.

Recently, famed Evangelical leader Max Lucado also judged Trumps Christianity, and while he also pontificated regarding certain Trump peccadilloes, it wasnt until he mentioned Trumps own comments about never having asked God for personal forgiveness, that it raised Protestant eyebrows.

This is key. This does say something about either Trumps Christian immaturity or his actual lack of saving faith. Simply declaring himself Christian doesnt make him one any more than it does the pope if the pope doesnt understand the Gospel either, and perhaps he doesnt, as he disparaged Trumps border-wall plan saying this is not the gospel.

Hes right, that isnt the gospel, it has nothing to do with the gospel, so why bring it up? The gospel is about personal repentance before God and personal reception of his salvation. Its actually a dividing wall of faith between those who come to God through Christ, and those who reject that singly divine lawful means. Theres only one way of salvation and it is through Gods offered forgiveness. No forgiveness, no positive relationship with God or heavenly welcome.

This doesnt mean Trump couldnt make a Christianly favorable president, it just means that we probably should take his coarse joking and theological utterances with a grain of salt, pray for him, and revisit the gospel message with him. The pope too.

Jesus said: Truly, I tell all of you emphatically, the person who doesnt enter the sheepfold through the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a bandit (John 10:1 ISV).

Rev. Bryan A. Griem

Tujunga

I cant really comment on what the pope should or shouldnt say about Trump or about illegal immigration. Both men have very strong feelings about the issue, and very different world views. In my opinion, it is unfortunate that their disagreement became personal.

The LDS church supports an approach in which immigrants are allowed to square themselves with the law and continue to work without this necessarily leading to citizenship. Without offering any specifics, the church, in this 2011 statement, called for a balanced and civil approach to a challenging problem, fully consistent with its tradition of compassion, its reverence for family, and its commitment to law.

The statement outlines broad principles that can guide public policy, and our private attitudes, in a way that could help us find a solution to this and related problems. The alternative is to allow emotional and irrational arguments to prevail, increasing the risk that the divisions in our society will become deeper.

Michael White

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

La Crescenta

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Donald Trump has been the gift that keeps on giving to comedians and now to In Theory respondents, but no sooner had our question been received than he declared The Pope is great, and who knows what he will say before this appears.

Pope Francis is more than right  he is obliged  to give his opinion on Trumps immigration stand. Applying his churchs doctrine to political questions is in the job description, so if he cant call out Trumps xenophobic hatred, who can? What part of Francis being the Vicar of Jesus Christ and the Supreme Pontiff is Trump not clear on? Or is it veiled animus toward Catholicism?

Plus commenting on public figures is fair game for anyone, as Trump well knows and does plenty of himself. His phony outrage and swift retractions are a familiar pattern as he skillfully uses the news media yen for the outrageous to generate maximum free publicity.

Perhaps Pope Francis, having encountered the Donald personally, wont judge too harshly those in California who otherwise would have never voted for legal recreational marijuana for adults, but if Trump is the nominee, decide to support it, just in case President Trump happens.

Roberta Medford

Atheist

Montrose

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Congratulations to the high school graduating class of 2016. You deserve praise for your achievement and are no doubt excited about the future that lies before you.

Id like to offer a special congrats to those among you who have made what could turn out to be a very wise choice. A certain percentage of your graduating class will soon be attending a local community college, and while that might not elicit the hoops and hollers of a brand-name, nationally ranked university, if handled responsibly it might just be one of the best decisions these students ever make.

The case for community colleges these days is pretty darn compelling.

First, theres the price tag.

Consider that the average tuition for four-year institutions is more than $31,000 a year. As a result of the high cost of higher education, more than two-thirds of college graduates this year carry student-loan debt, with the average per-student debt load ringing in at about $35,000. Total student loan debt now exceeds $1.2 trillion nationwide.

That makes the more than 40% of this years high school graduates who are bound for community colleges look rather smart. California residents pay just $46 per unit at their local community colleges, meaning that many students pay somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000 a year, depending on the number and types of courses they take.

As Dennis Gordon, director of outreach and recruiting at Irvine Valley College, says, Thats a helluva savings.

But any good shopper knows that a bargain is only worth it in the long run if the product is of sufficient quality. Indeed, many aspiring collegians assume that the rule of you get what you pay for holds true in the academic world, and so are lured in by the pitches of prestige institutions and their expensive degrees.

While there can be a measure of truth to those claims, theres also plenty of evidence that the value of those fancy degrees is oftentimes overrated, while the caliber of community college education can be underestimated. More important, however, is that students need to realize that there isnt just one route to get where theyre going, and that for many the best way forward might include a stop at a community college.

Lets be frank. Many kids simply didnt make the grades in high school that would earn them admission to the four-year colleges to which they might be attracted. That doesnt necessarily mean they arent intelligent or didnt try. Some might have had one bad year that trashed their GPAs, or avoided the more difficult college-oriented classes because they didnt yet have the maturity or academic foundation to handle them.

Other kids might simply feel unready for the four-year college experience and prefer to live at or near home while working toward a more approachable target. Some probably feel too uncertain about their long-term goals and figure that completing their basic requirements at a community college will give them time and additional experience so that they can make more informed decisions when choosing a major.

Still others might know what they want, but see a community college as a good place to meet their needs. Future firefighters, mechanics, computer technicians, healthcare workers, paralegals, fitness professionals, electricians and many others can earn certifications or associate degrees that will prepare them for the next step in their training, education or professional goals.

For those who have their sights set on graduating from a Cal State or UC campus, many community colleges in California can help with that too, through guaranteed transfer programs for students who achieve certain grade levels and other requirements.

Irvine Valley College, for instance, boasts that it has the second-highest transfer rate to four-year universities out of the states 113 community colleges. Many of its students continue with their studies at UC Irvine, for example, or even UCLA, through a special honors program designed for motivated, high-achieving students who meet certain standards.

This is Plan B, said IVCs Gordon. Its another way of getting there.

Right about now some readers might be thinking, Hold on a minute, Patrice. Youre always telling us about your two sons, both of whom chose to attend big four-year universities right after high school, and youre incessantly preaching about the benefits of the college experience. Arent you dissembling a bit now by praising the virtues of community colleges?

To this I would reply that everyone is different. Students absolutely should go straight into a four-year college if that is their ambition, they feel ready for the challenge and they have a viable plan for paying the bills.

But for some, community college is an excellent alternative, and students who choose that option should hold their heads high. Many successful people got their higher-education start at community colleges. They had to work as hard  in some cases harder  as their university counterparts, not get distracted, and set goals that were at once realistic and aspirational.

No matter where theyre headed this fall, all students should realize that it isnt where you go to college that matters most, its what you do when you get there. And its not where you start out but where you end up that will ultimately define you.

Good luck to the Class of 16.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.
The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department is seeking information regarding a July 21 burglary at Palm Crest Elementary School, in which suspects smashed six classroom windows and stole 39 iPad tablets, estimated at $19,500, from one of the rooms.

Deputies responded to a vandalism call at the campus made by an employee the morning after the incident, according to a sheriffs report. They learned someone had smashed large center windows, about 4 feet long and 3 feet high, in five classrooms on the northwest end of the campus, in addition to a smaller 2 feet by 4 feet window in a sixth room.

Maintenance workers had broken out the remaining glass to clear the area of broken glass, but reported most of the holes had been about 3 inches in diameter and appeared to have been made by a blunt object.

A significantly larger oval-shaped hole in Classroom 30, about 2 feet high and 3 feet wide, had been made in one of the classrooms, the worker told deputies. The employee did not know if any of the rooms had been entered, deputies noted in a report taken at the time of the incident.

A few hours later, Palm Crest Principal Karen Hurley called the Crescenta Valley Sheriffs Station to report that 39 iPad tablets, estimated at about $500 each, had been stolen from Classroom 30. Deputies returned to the campus to take notes on the scene.

Someone had removed the devices from a cabinet, and dangling white charging cords were found hanging where the iPads had been plugged in. Motion sensor-activated video surveillance cameras throughout the campus recorded portions of what had taken place.

From the footage, deputies saw a vehicle pulling into the schools parking lot at approximately 1:26 a.m. Shortly after that, three males can be seen walking toward the campus. The first suspect wore a light-colored shirt and shorts. The second wore a light-colored shirt and pants, while the third was in a dark hooded sweatshirt and pants.

Classroom 30 was entered at 1:46 a.m., the report indicated, and one suspect was seen on camera climbing through the window and turning on the light inside before opening the door for the other suspects. At one point in the footage, a fourth suspect was seen waving around a flashlight.

Sgt. Hector Mancinas, a detective with the Crescenta Valley Sheriffs Station said Wednesday the department was investigating the burglary as an active case. The grainy quality of the film made further suspect identification difficult, he added.

The footage wasnt that great, Mancinas said, adding that specific details, such as race, height or weight, could not be determined. You could see blurry things, but you couldnt tell who was walking.

Hurley could be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Mark Evans, La Canada Unified School Districts chief business and operations officer, said Wednesday that while the district provided the sheriffs department with serial numbers for the stolen iPads, he wasnt anticipating they would be found or recovered anytime soon.

We carry property and liability insurance, so well work with the insurance company to replace the devices, he said, estimating the per-unit replacement value at $500.

Its not likely the iPads will be replaced before the first day of school on Aug. 12, Evans added, but in the meantime, other devices on campus should allow for the continuity of technology-based instruction.

The school employee told deputies the iPads were not password protected.

Anyone who may be able to provide information on the suspects or the burglary is asked to call the Crescenta Valley Sheriffs Station at (818) 248-3464.

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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine
Alan Donovan spent decades crisscrossing Africa, collecting the indigenous art and handcrafts that fill his famous house overlooking Nairobi National Park in Kenya. He is now 74, without children, and the African Heritage House is the closest thing he has to a legacy.

In January, he says, three men walked onto his compound. One was a Kenyan government soldier carrying an AK-47. The other two, he learned, represented the China Road and Bridge Corp., which is building a railway from the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa to Nairobi, the capital, as part of Chinas massive investment on the continent.

Donovan says the soldier told him his house stood in the way of the train and would have to be demolished. Possibly because of the ensuing stress, Donovan says, he developed a blood clot and had to be hospitalized for a week. Since then he has been rallying support to save the house and has gathered 3,000 signatures on a petition.

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I think most people found it incredible  they just dont believe it, he says. They just think it cant happen.

There are plausible alternate routes for the train that would leave his house standing, he says, such as through the park on an elevated platform that would allow animals to pass underneath.

He says the Kenyan government is studying the possible routes, but has been slow to respond to his requests for information. There has been a lot of controversy because its so secretive, he says. Nobody really knows whats going on.

After months of fighting for answers and escalating his public-relations campaign, he says, he received a call last weekend from Kenyas foreign minister, with the message that the railway route would be altered. The most promising news I have had for eight months, he called it.

But Donovan is hoping for deeper reassurances from Kenyan officials. Officials with Kenyas Transportation Ministry did not respond to repeated emails from The Times seeking comment.

Donovan, a Colorado native who has lived in Africa since the U.S. State Department sent him to Nigeria as a relief worker in the 1960s, has long been disconsolate about what he sees as the indifference among many modern Africans to their rich cultural heritage, a neglect he attributes in part to Western influences.

In the early 1970s, he ran the African Heritage Gallery in Nairobi with Joseph Murumbi, a former Kenyan vice president. After decades of success, the business collapsed amid ethnic violence, street crime and terrorism warnings that deterred tourists. He went into bankruptcy and was able to salvage only a portion of the collection.

His house contains about 6,000 pieces of rare arts and crafts: Nigerian masquerade costumes, Congolese ceremonial daggers, grave markers from Madagascar. Much of it is no longer being made.

Theres hardly anything in the house that you could buy now, he says. Its all disappeared.

The house itself, which stands a few miles outside Nairobi and has been celebrated in Architectural Digest, features a turreted facade modeled on Mali mosques and the geometric designs of a Nigerian emirs palace.

I think its an international treasure, said Michael Ranneberger, a former U.S. Ambassador to Kenya. It would be a tragedy of untold proportions if it were torn down.

Assuming the house is not demolished, Donovan has arranged for it to remain open for posterity as an African-studies center in connection with American University in Washington.




In the deadliest attack against Indian forces in more than a decade, militants sneaked into an army encampment in the disputed territory of Kashmir early Sunday and opened fire on sleeping soldiers, killing 18 and wounding dozens.

The four assailants, who also threw grenades that caused tents and temporary shelters to catch fire at the army brigade headquarters at Uri, were killed in a gun battle with security forces that lasted six hours, authorities said.

Indian officials blamed the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed for the attack, saying it had recovered weapons from the assailants that carried Pakistani markings. Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, the director of military operations, said he contacted his Pakistani counterpart to convey serious concerns.

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Pakistan is a terrorist state, and it should be identified and isolated as such.  Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh was more pointed, saying on Twitter: Pakistan is a terrorist state, and it should be identified and isolated as such.

Pakistan denied involvement in the attack, which came amid escalating violence in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

Since Indian security forces killed Burhan Wani, a young Kashmiri militant, on July 8, the Himalayan territory  which both countries claim in its entirety  has erupted in protests. More than 80 civilians have been killed in clashes with Indian forces and hundreds more have been grievously wounded with pellet guns.

Ahead of this weeks United Nations General Assembly meeting, the countries have traded accusations, with Pakistan criticizing India for using excessive force in the majority-Muslim territory. The U.N. human rights chief last week requested permission to visit Kashmir to probe the allegations, but India denied the request.

India has stepped up allegations that Pakistan supports terrorism, and it vowed on Sunday to respond to the attack.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.

The attack on Sunday appeared to have been well-timed. The brigade headquarters was in the middle of an operational handover, with one infantry battalion moving in as another was about to leave.

The troops were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties, the Indian army said in a statement.

Injured soldiers were transported about 25 miles away to Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-ruled Kashmir. At least 14 of the wounded had suffered serious burns, officials said.

Indian security experts said the timing and planning of the attack suggested complicity or at least support from elements of the Pakistani security establishment, including the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, the military spy agency. The agency is believed to support anti-India militant groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed, a charge the spy agency denies.

Reconnaissance of the target would have been inevitable, and use of unarmed [drones] for the purpose is most likely, Rahul Bhonsle, a retired Indian general and security analyst, wrote in a commentary. Alternately there could be information supplied from informers in the general area of Uri as well.

Thus complicity of the Pakistan Army and the ISI is apparent.

Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary, said it was unclear how India would respond. Some analysts said New Delhi was wary of launching an aggressive operation with world leaders gathering for the U.N. meeting and civilians still protesting in the Kashmir valley.

The fact is there cannot be such a potent attack by terrorists causing so many casualties unless there is a huge amount of training and guidance and support, Sibal said. And our position is a little more difficult this time because of the uprising in the valley.

India and Pakistan  nuclear-armed rivals that have fought three wars over Kashmir since 1947  have seen relations plummet to their lowest point in years. Just last Christmas, Modi visited Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at his home in Pakistan in what was seen as a confidence-building move ahead of negotiations between the countrys top diplomats.

Those hopes were shattered days later, following a raid by militants against a high-security Indian air base in Pathankot, in Punjab state, in which seven soldiers were killed. Indian officials blamed Jaish-e-Mohammed, but Pakistan said it found no evidence the group was involved.

Since then, six minor cross-border attacks have occurred inside India, showing serious lapses in Indian security, said Sibal.

This camp is in a very exposed area, a vulnerable area, he said. And that this has happened is inexcusable.

Special correspondent Parth M.N. reported from Mumbai and staff writer Bengali from Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

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UPDATES:

Sept. 27, 11:33 a.m.: This article was updated to reflect the most recent death toll.

This article was originally published Sept. 18 at 1:30 p.m.
Hes a 51-year-old high school dropout with the charisma of a cheap can opener  looking and sounding like a shy bookkeeper. Yet Michael Mueller is mayor of Berlin, Germanys biggest and most dynamic metropolis.

To non-Germans, it might look like an odd match, but so far its worked. Dare to be dull.



For the record: An earlier version of this article gave Berlin Mayor Michael Muellers age as 50. He is 51.

Pollsters and political scientists, who note that Germans prefer bland over blazing leaders, are predicting Mueller and his center-left Social Democrats will prevail in a close race against Chancellor Angela Merkels conservative Christian Democrats in Berlin. Candidates from four other parties with chances of winning the mayors office are competing in Sundays elections.

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Germans lean towards somewhat dull leaders.  Thorsten Hasche, political scientist

A trained printer who worked for 14 years in his fathers small shop producing wedding invitations, business cards, beer coasters and pamphlets before jumping into politics, Mueller lives in a rental apartment in the same unfashionable Tempelhof section of Berlin he grew up in  with his wife, who works in a bank, and their two teenage children.

Aside from those details and his passion for the Berlin working-class dish of spicy currywurst sausages, little is known about Muellers private life. The mild-mannered man who rarely smiles insists on keeping that out of the public eye, in sharp contrast to his flamboyant predecessor, Klaus Wowereit.

Mueller, embracing his image as a square, has yet to win an election on his own after being handed the mayors job on a silver platter two years ago by Wowereit, who suddenly got bored with the nitty-gritty of Berlins increasingly complicated politics and quit after 13 years of running Berlin with its piles of debt and mountains of problems.

Many troubles result from the never-ending struggles of trying to merge East and West Berlin after the wall fell in 1989 and Germany reunited in 1990. When Berlin came back together, it had two of everything  two city halls, two police departments and even two zoos. Its once-mighty industrial base had all but disappeared after the war, leaving it as one of Europes poorest and most indebted capital cities at the turn of the millennium.

Enter Wowereit. By labeling Berlin poor but sexy and acquiring the richly deserved moniker as Partymeister instead of Buergermeister (mayor), he helped turn the city-state of 3.5 million into one of the worlds most exciting destinations  a popular spot filled with Internet start-ups, trendy clubs and low rents that attracted countless thousands of artists and others in creative industries from around the world.

The population of Cool Berlin is now growing by 40,000 a year and the jobless rate, once in double digits, has steadily fallen.

Wowereit, Germanys first openly gay political leader, was even once considered a potential candidate for chancellor. But at some point the glamour grew old. Berliners, as if feeling a hangover, yearned for someone new who could fix their roads and bridges, and get their new international airport finally finished after four years of embarrassing delays, for which Wowereit was blamed.

Mueller was long a fiercely loyal lieutenant to Wowereit among the Berlin Social Democrats. Wowereit made Mueller his handpicked successor by promoting him to deputy mayor in 2011 and then turned over the reins in the middle of his term to give Mueller a chance to raise his profile and a running start at election  a common practice in Germany when elected leaders are eager to keep their party in power.

The no-nonsense Mueller seemed like the perfect antidote to the swashbuckling Wowereit.

Maybe things will become a bit duller now! said Mueller in a rare outburst of enthusiasm in his acceptance speech upon taking over.

Wowereit echoed Muellers comments. Im looking forward to being bored, he said.

In a recent interview with the Berlin magazine Zitty, an introspective Mueller revealed that he never loses his temper. He also acknowledged having regrets that he didnt follow his parents advice to stay in school as a teenager: A lot of things in life would have been a lot easier with the high school diploma. I had to fight harder because of that and failed to recognize at the time that I should have done more when I was in school.

But he added: I like to keep my private life private.

Once in the mayors office, Mueller quickly lifted the Social Democrats back over the 30% threshold in opinion polls after they had fallen precariously to the low 20s. The party has since slipped back down in polls and is expected to win about 24% on Sunday, yet still come in first just ahead of the Christian Democrats, the former communist Left Party, the Greens and the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party.

Mueller wants to ditch the Christian Democrats as his junior coalition partner after five years of a frosty partnership and form a three-way, left-leaning coalition with the Greens and Left Party  which could serve as a template for the federal elections next September that could challenge Merkel.

Mueller faced widespread criticism for the city governments inept handling the initial flood of refugees from Syria and elsewhere last year, about 80,000 of whom arrived within a few short weeks in Berlin and were at first poorly sheltered and cared for. He blamed the Christian Democrats for those chaotic scenes and implemented sweeping organizational changes that fixed many of those problems.

Muellers proudest accomplishment as mayor? We added 4,500 jobs in the city bureaucracy since I took office, he said in all sincerity.

Its hard for me to say anything good or bad about Mueller because hes just so incredibly dull and no one knows what he stands for, said Michael Lemke, a Berlin real estate agent. It was all a bit too much with Wowereit. He was a party-gangster. Berlin needed a correction after that.

A campaign poster for Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller, who is running for reelection Sunday. (Odd Anderson / AFP/Getty Images )

Gero Neugebauer, political scientist at Berlins Free University, put Muellers odd appeal this way: He comes across like an undertaker. Hes such an average, ordinary guy. But its exactly what Berliners were craving. They were tired of the parties and limelight.

After their turbulent and belligerent 20th century history, Germans understandably tend to gravitate toward run-of-the-mill politicians and prefer to elect a safe pair of hands rather than rabble-rousers. Theyve had enough of dazzling orators.

Germans lean towards somewhat dull leaders, said Thorsten Hasche, a political scientist at Goettingen University, adding that that has been the secret of Merkels success.

They want those with a sober outlook, a bureaucratic approach, he said. Someone like Donald Trump wouldnt have a chance here.

Kirschbaum is a special correspondent.

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These days, Mikhail Kasyanov hardly looks like the imposing statesman in a bespoke suit who headed Russias government during President Vladimir Putins first term.

In the months leading up to Sundays parliamentary election, the bespectacled 58-year-old prime minister-turned-opposition leader was repeatedly assaulted by Putin supporters and pelted with eggs, tomatoes and a cake.

During a televised debate in August, a pro-Kremlin opponent handed Kasyanov a U.S. flag, calling it the banner whose interests you defend. And in April, the NTV channel aired parts of a grainy, black-and-white tape of the married politician in bed with his scantily clad assistant.

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The smear campaign against Kasyanov, the biggest political heavyweight to oppose Putin since opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was slain last year, underscores the ordeals to which Kremlin critics were subjected during the contest for 450 seats in the State Duma, Russias lower house of parliament.

This is a special operation against the only political force the Kremlin is afraid of, said Kasyanov, who heads the Peoples Freedom Party, known by its Russian acronym, PARNAS.

The last parliamentary vote in 2011 ended with huge urban protests against alleged vote rigging. This time around, the Kremlin made it easier for opposition candidates to take part, but few expected the vote to be free or fair.

Although 14 parties were registered for the poll, United Russia, the pro-Kremlin behemoth that has dominated the Duma for more than a decade, was expected to retain its absolute majority. A recent poll by the independent Levada Center found that about 50% of likely voters planned to cast ballots for the party.

Many Russians credit Putin and United Russia for their nations return to the world stage, steady economic growth during the early 2000s and substantial improvements in living standards.

For my family, they did a lot, said Vadim Kolesov, an office manager in the southwestern city of Rostov.

He bought a discounted apartment with the help of a government program to provide affordable housing to young families, and his children attend a state-run school built nearby.

Those who criticize [Putin] hardly stand a chance to win any Duma seats, Kolesov said.

Opposition parties, meanwhile, failed to mount effective or inspiring campaigns.

If you look at voters complaints about the liberals, both among the average public and disenchanted supporters, the list will be topped by two complaints: They just criticize and dont offer anything instead, and They only show up around elections, said Denis Volkov, a Levada analyst.

Many voters responded to the campaigns of Kasyanov and other Kremlin critics with indifference -- or even hostility.

Kasyanov is a has-been who stole billions and just wants to get back to power to steal more, fumed Valery Koryabin, a 62-year-old engineer from the Volga River city of Samara who voted for Putin three times and planed to cast his ballot Sunday for United Russia. Yes, there is corruption in United Russia, but Putin is rooting it out.

Still, some of Putins staunchest opponents saw the vote as a chance to get a foot in the Dumas door.

They include Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon who was jailed for nearly a decade after challenging Putin. Now living in exile in London, he threw his financial support behind 18 opposition candidates across Russia and did not hide his hope that their participation would lead to a wider revolt.

One cannot play with crooks according to their crooked rules and win, Khodorkovsky told a news conference in London this month. And a way beyond their crooked rules is called a revolution.

Three of the participating parties  the Communist Party, the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and the social-democratic Just Russia  are part of what the Kremlin calls the systemic opposition, with a presence in the Duma and government funding.

Critics describe them as quasi-opposition political extras who quietly vote for most of United Russias bills.

The other parties have no seats in the outgoing Duma, get little or no coverage on television and have just a handful of headliners that most Russians can recognize.

Some even use Putins image to promote their agenda. Maria Katasonova, a candidate for the fiercely anti-Western Motherland party, included photographs of him along with French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump in her election posters.

In its quest for representation in the Duma, Kasyanovs PARNAS has joined forces with diverse and sometimes controversial figures. His running mates Sunday included a nationalist with a huge Internet following who is known for racist and anti-Semitic slurs, and a bow-tie-wearing history professor who advocates the restoration of the monarchy.

Barred from running in 2011, PARNAS members said they were surprised when authorities allowed almost 300 of their candidates to participate this year  only to have their rallies banned or interrupted, their emails and computers hacked, their supporters detained and campaign ads removed or covered with obscenities.

Other Kremlin opponents reported similar problems, but that did not help them overcome chronic infighting. Yabloko, the only other party that openly criticizes the Kremlin, refused to join forces with PARNAS for the election.

Kasyanov maintains that his party should get at least 10% of the vote Sunday, but he did not sound optimistic about the outcome.

This is a political dead end, he said. I dont rule out revolutionary manifestations in various parts of Russia in the coming years.

Mirovalev is a special correspondent.

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For as far as the eye can see, stalks of sugar cane march across the hillsides here like giant praying mantises. This is ground zero for ethanol production in Brazil -- the Saudi Arabia of biofuels, as some have already labeled this vast South American country.

But even as Brazils booming economy is powered by fuel processed from the cane, labor officials are confronting what some call the countrys dirty little ethanol secret: the mostly primitive conditions endured by the multitudes of workers who cut the cane.

Biofuels may help reduce humanitys carbon footprint, but the social footprint is substantial.

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These workers should have a break, a place to eat and access to a proper restroom, Marcus Vinicius Goncalves, a government labor cop in suit and tie, declared in the midst of a snarl of felled stalks and bedraggled cane cutters here. This is degrading treatment.

More than 300,000 farmworkers are seasonal cane cutters in Brazil, the government says. By most accounts, their work and living conditions range from basic to deplorable to outright servitude.

Brazil has a great climate, great land and technology, but a lot of the competitive edge for biofuels is due to worker exploitation -- from slave work to underpayment, said Leonardo Sakamoto, a political scientist who runs a nonprofit labor watchdog group in Sao Paulo.

In the last four years, said a lawyer from the Public Ministry, which acts as the Sao Paulo state district attorney, at least 18 cane cutters have died of dehydration, heart attacks or other ailments linked to exhaustion in this region, where the forests long ago gave way to agriculture.

That does not include an unknown number of others who died in accidents, said the lawyer, Luis Henrique Rafael, part of a two-attorney team from the Public Ministrys office that recently toured the area to investigate abuses of the labor code.

They died from excess work, Rafael said. Even prisoners have a better life. These mens only form of leisure is cachaca, he added, referring to the liquor distilled from sugar cane.

In its annual report, Amnesty International last month highlighted the plight of Brazils biofuel workers, more than 1,000 of whom were rescued in June 2007 after allegedly being held in slave-like conditions at a plantation owned by a major ethanol producer, Pagrisa, in the Amazonian state of Para.

Although slavery cases tend to grab headlines, advocates say laborers typically face more quotidian abuse -- low pay, excessive work hours, inadequate safety gear, an absence of sanitary and health services, and exposure to pesticides and other toxic chemicals.

The cases analogous to slavery seem not to be the norm, said Tim Cahill, Brazil researcher for Amnesty International. But this is very much a case of long work hours, the destruction of workers health through extreme conditions, a lack of access to quality food, problems of accommodation, and the impacts of agro-toxins.

The technological advances that have facilitated the biofuel revolution have not reached the fields. Although mechanized harvesting of cane is on the rise, rough terrain dictates that much of the crop must still be cut manually.

Industry officials acknowledge some abuses, but insist that safety has improved and that the allegations of slavery are greatly exaggerated.

If there is an industry that has bettered the situation of the worker, it is the sugar cane industry, said Rodolfo Tavares of Brazils National Confederation of Agriculture, a trade group. Its an example for the world.

With international scrutiny growing, leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says the government and producers are keen to ameliorate conditions.

Everyone knows that sugar cane labor is tough, Lula said in Rome this month during a food crisis summit at which biofuels were called a major culprit. But its not tougher than labor in coal mines, which was the basis for the development of Europe. Take a big knife to cut cane and then go down in a mine, 90 meters deep, to explode dynamite. Youll see which is better.

Brazilian officials acknowledge that fines and prosecutions have largely failed to improve the workers lot. Cases drag on in court until sanctions are reduced or owners cleared. Few, if any, violators go to jail. Too few inspectors are available to police this giant country and its behemoth agribusiness, which have made it a world leader in exports of soybeans, beef and coffee, among other foodstuffs.

In the last year, Brazil has stepped up cases filed under antislavery statutes, which can land offenders in prison. Authorities say that last year they liberated nearly 6,000 agricultural workers from slave-like conditions, which under Brazilian law can include debt servitude, forced labor and a degrading work environment. More than half toiled in the sugar cane sector.

Brazilians only understand justice when they get arrested, said Goncalves, the labor investigator. These days, slaves arent necessarily chained.

Interviewed workers agreed that conditions were harsh and hours long -- sometimes 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, inevitably beneath an unforgiving sun or drenching rain.

Still, the workers said the pay was relatively good, typically the equivalent of between $420 and $550 a month, or up to double the minimum wage here for a 40-hour week. Like migrant farmworkers in many nations, they displayed a grudging acceptance of their plight and lack of employment alternatives.

Field laborers attack so-called streets of cane using a machete-like tool known as a podao, which has been employed since colonial times, when millions of African slaves were imported for the European sugar trade. They constantly crouch to cut swaths of the cane and must negotiate paths through the thickets and step over the slippery stalks, advancing steadily into forest-like stretches of the stuff.

The job is tough, but thats the way it is, said Roberto Santos Lopes, 25, taking a break from chopping cane here. Some of this cane is broken and twisted and its harder to cut, so we earn less.

A common complaint: Owners cheat them in measuring the amount of cane harvested, which determines earnings.

Some of the cutters come here on their own; others are recruited by intermediaries known as gatos (cats) who provide transport, sometimes taking recruits 1,000 miles or more. Some cutters have moved to this region semipermanently, living in ramshackle company dormitories and commuting to work in grower-supplied buses.

In my town there are no jobs, said Vandailson dos Santos Silva, 22, from Pernambuco, traditionally one of Brazils poorest states. At least here we can find some work.

Dos Santos, the eldest of seven siblings, said he first came to the cane fields here four years ago. A younger brother has since followed in his footsteps.

He lives in a run-down company complex in the nearby town of Dois Corregos, a cane hub, and $50 a month is deducted from his paycheck for housing. The grower charges extra for food and even some cachaca, Dos Santos added. The $370 or so he clears each month allows him to live modestly, send some cash home and even go out some evenings to dance and meet girls.

Its the best I can do with the little education I have, said Dos Santos on a recent balmy evening, standing in the frontyard of the dormitory he shares with other cane cutters.

He said he would like to be able to study, even become a lawyer someday. But he acknowledged that such grandiose notions were unlikely to be fulfilled, saying, We must be content with what we have. He then went back to his stuffy room, needing a good nights sleep before another day of harvesting Brazils biofuel bounty.

patrick.mcdonnell

@latimes.com

Special correspondent Marcelo Soares contributed to this report.
The first presidential debate for the 2016 U.S. General Elections is less than two weeks away taking place on Monday Sept. 26 on the campus of Hofstra University in New York. Before GOP candidate Donald Trump goes head to head with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, take a look at the type of questions asked at first presidential debates in the past that may come up again:

The First Debate  Romney and Obama on the Federal Deficit and Taxes

President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney had their first presidential debate on Oct. 3, 2012 at the University of Denver with Jim Lehrer as the moderator. The former journalist started the first debate with questions regarding the economy including the federal deficit and taxes.

There were three segments on the economy then the debate made its own turn to talk about the Affordable Care Act.

Do you think there is a fundamental difference between the two of you as to how you view the mission of the federal government? Lehrer asked in the following segment. This question took a turn for the candidates to start discussing the improvement of public schools in America.

The First Debate  McCain and Obama on Recovering the American Economy

Obama held his first debate at the University of Mississippi as a U.S. Senator against Sen. John McCain where Lehrer moderated the Sept. 26, 2008 first presidential debate as well. The first two questioned were chosen by the moderator and not cleared with anyone and again, he started the debate with questions about the American economy.

Gentleman, at this very moment tonight, where do you stand on the financial recovery plan? he asked the senators.

Next he asked about foreign relations like the lessons of Iraq in the same way there were lessons of Vietnam. He also asked what the senators thought of sending more troops to Afghanistan, the threat of Iran and the relationship with Russia.

Lehrers last question was about terrorism where he asked the candidates what the likelihood of another 9/11 attack would be.

Trump and Clinton First Debate

Clinton and Trump could be asked very similar questions. In the 2004 first presidential debate, Lehrer asked Sen. John Kerry if he would do a better job at preventing another 9/11 attack than former president George W. Bush.

Although this years moderators may not direct questions toward 9/11, they can talk about domestic terrorism like Sandy Hook, the club shooting in Orlando, FL and the rise of police brutality.

In the first 2016 presidential debate, moderators may ask about the economy since it is always an important topic to the people. They might even ask about Americas relationship with Russia again given the rumors about Trump being best friends with Vladimir Putin.

NBC News anchor Lester Holt will moderate the first presidential debate 2016 in New York. The second presidential debate 2016 moderators are ABC News co-anchor Martha Raddatz and CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper. The town hall-style debate will be held in Missouri on Sunday Oct. 9.

The last presidential debate 2016 moderator is Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, being held on Wednesday Oct. 19.

Watch Presidential Debates 2016

Tune into cable news channels CNN, Fox News and MSNBC for live coverage of the presidential debates 2016. The debates will be broadcast live on C-SPAN, ABC, CBS and FOX as well.

Live Stream Presidential Debates 2016

Certain universities may have a live stream of the debates on their campus. Last debate 2012 was live streamed at a Hofstra theater while select students entered a lottery to watch the debate live in person. The same lottery is available for 2016 presidential debates.

CNN News Live Stream is likely to have the 2016 presidential debates as it did in 2012.

You can also watch the 2016 presidential debates LIVE STREAM here.
When a mysterious mailer blasting a local public school landed in mailboxes this summer, The Morning Call newspaper found itself in a tough position.

This fledgling Catasauqua charter school denies authorizing, paying for or sending out this mailer.

It was covering a controversial riddle that it could, theoretically, solve.

The Innovative Arts Academy Charter School never authorized or paid for the mailer that promoted the charter school and cast Liberty High School students as drug users. And it also didn't sanction tamer promotional ads that ran in the Allentown newspaper, school leaders said.

The fledgling charter school's own board of trustees demanded answers on who was responsible for the materials, as did state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and the Bethlehem Area School District. The school's CEO resigned, teachers quit, students withdrew and the start of school was delayed.

The Morning Call's parent company, Tronc, has refused to divulge who paid for the ads or the mailer, which was distributed by Tronc-owned Tribune Direct.

That has opened the newspaper to public criticism while highlighting the proverbial wall that is supposed to exist between a newspaper's editorial and business operations.

Usually the conflict plays out in the reverse: a news story is published that angers an advertiser, who in turn threatens to pull their advertising dollars.

This time, the newspaper's journalists found themselves investigating a mystery that their employer could solve by simply producing an invoice or contract.

Media and ethics experts are divided on how the Call should have handled the controversy.

"Because they distributed the mailer that is now the subject of a public controversy in the community, they have a responsibility to respond to public questions and criticisms of what they did," said Gene Foreman, a Penn State University visiting professor and retired managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer. "They have the same responsibility the newsroom does to respond when a story is inaccurate or unfair."

Poynter Institute media business analyst Rick Edmonds doesn't think the Call has a clear obligation to be transparent about a customer relationship. The idea of transparency belongs to pieces of journalism, not business transactions, he said.

"For instance, what an individual ad costs is considered proprietary between the buyer and publisher," Edmonds said.

Public companies such as Tronc -- that's the new name of Tribune Publishing -- have to report their financial results and other relevant developments, but not who their customers are, he said.

"Private companies have even fewer legal or ethical reasons to talk about customer relationships," Edmonds said.

And that's basically the stance Tronc has taken.

"As we've stated previously, our advertising department follows corporate policy that we do not provide information on advertisers," said Renee Mutchnik, director of marketing and communications for the Baltimore Sun and Morning Call media groups.

Russ Eshleman, the head of Penn State's journalism department, thinks it was a poor decision for the newspaper to accept the ads.

"I hate to say it, but my initial thought is that if The Morning Call's policy -- and contractual promise to advertisers -- is that it won't reveal who pays for ads, then the source of the ad needs to remain confidential," Eshleman said. "If there is no such contractual policy, then the newspaper should reveal the source of the ad."

Foreman said the controversy puts the media company in an unusual position.

"News organizations, like Tronc and The Morning Call, are unique because they are the only business protected by the Constitution," he said. "A responsible news organization owes an explanation whenever their conduct comes under scrutiny."

Jeremy Littau, an assistant professor at Lehigh University's department of journalism and communication, thinks the newspaper never should have accepted an anonymous advertisement with a message that serves no public purpose.

"To say we have a policy of anonymity doesn't cut it and it is not serving the public interest to play it that way," Littau said. "The content (of the mailer) itself is too incendiary. You have to have names attached to it."

To prevent this from happening again, all three journalism professors agreed the publisher needs to revisit the kinds of ads it will accept -- and from whom it will accept them.

"I think it also must come clean with the public -- explain its policy, why it accepted the ad and what it intends to do in the future," Eshleman said. "The publisher should be the primary source here, as the person in charge of both the business and editorial sides of the paper."

Robert York was recently named the Call's new publisher and editor-in-chief.

Littau and Foreman acknowledged there may be a stipulation in the advertising contract that prevents the Call from divulging who placed the ad. But they all think the newspaper should say that if it's the case.

"The Morning Call might feel that questions raised justify an exception in this case -- but that's at their discretion," said Edmonds, who doesn't think there is an obligation to do so.

There's a big difference between a public government being transparent and a private business, said Poynter's Kelly McBride, an ethics expert.

"Much of what makes businesses successful involves keeping the financials behind closed doors," McBride, who is Poynter's vice president for academic affairs, wrote in an e-mail. " While I see that there is a public good in knowing who paid for the ad, I'm loath to suggest that a private business has any obligation to publicly reveal information about their customers."

That would seem to violate sound business practices, an ethical obligation in itself, McBride said.

The school is located at 330 Howertown Rd. in Catasauqua.

Penn State's Foreman, who has written a textbook on media ethics, thinks that the idea of a wall between news and business is ludicrous. There must be open communication, he said.

"I think the business side has to recognize the kind of business they are in," Foreman said. "They are in the public's eye and they are constitutionally protected. I think that means they have a responsibility to the public that the ordinary business and shoe store on the corner doesn't."

The business end could offer the newsroom some clues without fully disclosing the advertiser, according to Littau.

"There are ways to get the information out there to help satisfy people's curiosity about who this person was and understand the context by which this ad was produced and the purpose," he said.

When you know who placed the ad, you know their motivation, Littau said. It could be someone with a financial stake in the school or someone trying to make charter schools look bad -- or a parent with extra cash who's afraid the school won't hit the enrollment target.

"It is a terrible situation, because The Morning Call should be in the business of enlightening the community, not being complicit in such an ugly and controversial case," Eshleman said.

If newspaper executives reveal who placed the ad but lose advertisers, Littau said, they're "reasserting their role, whose job is to advocate for the community, not a few people who are willing to pull their advertising dollars when they don't get their way."

Overall, Littau said, he sees nothing that justifies anonymity.

He pointed out that New York Times vs. Sullivan, the landmark First Amendment Supreme Court case that set the libel standards for public officials still used today, started with an anonymous newspaper ad.

But he thinks there's a big difference.

"This isn't somebody protesting police brutality through an advertisement and needing anonymity because they fear retaliation," he said. "This is pure commercial speech."

Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.

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Pennsylvania Capitol Building

The Pennsylvania state capitol building in Harrisburg.

(Associated Press file photo)

As we inch closer to the presidential election, some good-government critics will single out the Electoral College as a flaw in the process, neutralizing the cumulative voting weight of millions of voters on the losing sides in both red states and blue states. In most cases, all of a state's electoral votes are cast in favor of the presidential candidate who wins the statewide popular vote.

Unfair? It's debatable.

But if Americans want to do something about the distortion of their collective voice, they'd do better to focus on gerrymandering, the process by which government insiders redraw congressional and state legislative districts to favor one party or the other.

Pennsylvania is one of the worst offenders in assigning voters to strangely shaped, distorted districts to get a predictable outcome at the polls. That's how the once-unified Lehigh Valley was split into dissimilar congressional districts -- a safe Republican enclave for Rep. Charlie Dent, extending all the way to the Susquehanna River, and a Democratic stronghold for Rep. Matt Cartwright, which haphazardly connects the Easton area to Wilkes-Barre and Scranton.

Gerrymandering discourages competition in elections. It contributes to one-sided campaigns in which underfunded challengers are written off by the power of incumbency and deep pockets of special interests.

That lack of choice is one of the driving forces in the polarization of politics at all levels, and it's full display in the Lehigh Valley this year. You might think that the heightened interest in national politics would percolate down to state legislative races, but you'd be wrong. Among the dozen state House districts in the Valley, there are only two contested races in November.

If there's any good news, it's that some voters are taking notice. A recent public forum on redistricting drew a crowd in Bethlehem. State Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton-Lehigh, and state Rep. Dave Parker, R-Monroe, talked about their bills to establish an independent commission to oversee the post-Census formation of legislative districts, to keep partisan meddling at bay.

Voters need to speak up, because the clock is counting down to 2020. Cleaning up this part of election law is time-consuming, requiring a state constitutional amendment. The Legislature must pass identical bill in two consecutive sessions, followed by voter approval in a statewide referendum. Earlier this year the Fair Districts PA Coalition was set up to support this effort, with backing from Common Cause and the League of Women Voters. You can go to the Fair Districts PA website to sign a petition. You also can ask your city or borough council, township supervisors or county to adopt a resolution backing redistricting reform.

The bills proposed by Boscola and Parker are generating bipartisan support. Even though there is a government-reform referendum on the November ballot -- a preliminary step to reduce the size of the state House from 203 to 151 members -- neutralizing gerrymandering is essential to balancing a broken system.

Republicans are the current beneficiary of gerrymandering in Pennsylvania, but this isn't a one-sided issue. Given the opportunity, Democrats have used the same tactic to gain an advantage. It's time to address this form of corruption. Keeping "communities of interest" and geographic regions intact in voting districts will help.
Laois daughter and mother Emma and Pat Fogarty were honoured with national bravery awards this week for their courage and strength in battling Emmas rare and very painful skin condition, with a smile.

Emma, from Ballyroan, has a severe form of the 'butterfly skin' disease epidermolysis bullosa (EB) which leaves 80% of her body covered in open wounds.

The 32-year-old won first place in the Courage Over Adversity Award at the Hidden Heroes Awards Ceremony in Dublin while her mum was acknowledged as an Unsung Hero, for her work caring for Emma.

One of only 300 people in Ireland with EB, Emma has to be bandaged from head to toe to protect her from everyday life.

"If someone walked into me in the street, or bumped off me, the skin would automatically tear off my arm; 80 per cent of my body is covered in bandages," she explains.

Emma has to have her bandages changed every second day, an extremely painful process that takes several hours.

All her life Emma and her mum Pat have endured this excruciating process together.

When she was born, Pat was told Emma would not beyond live two weeks but her mother battled on to ensure Emma attended mainstream school and graduated from university.

Despite her condition and recent ill-health, Emma, a former mortgage advisor, is determined to enjoy life and publishes a life and fashion blog entitled My Fragile Life.

"With any disability, if you have some hardship but you you don't have to sit in a corner. You can live your life," said Emma.

She also campaigns for others with EB as a Patient Ambassador for Debra Ireland - the charity which provides support services for people living with the distressing genetic condition.

"Emma and her mum Pat are the very epitome of Hidden Heroes," said Judith Gilsenan, head of fundraising for Debra Ireland.

"Both are charming and quietly spoken but behind that gentle exterior they are the toughest of all superwomen. Their mother-daughter bond is an example to us all.

"It's hard to fathom but somehow the strength of their relationship seems to be able to set aside all the trauma related to EB and you'd think they hadn't a care in the world, said Ms Gilsenan.

The Hidden Hearing Heroes Awards is an annual ceremony that recognises the achievements of people, young and old, who have made a significant contribution to Irish society, in their community, workplace, family or through sporting excellence.

This year 21 people and organisations were recognised.

Follow Emma's blog at myfragilelife.wordpress.com/
This week I had the chance to talk to Caroline Lucas, newly elected co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, about the book The Alternative. She co-edited the book with Labour MP Lisa Nandy and her erstwhile 2015 Liberal Democrat opponent Chris Bowers. The three will be taking part in a fringe meeting at Conference TODAY at 1pm in the Buckingham suite in the Hilton Metropole. The event is organised by the Social Liberal Forum. Part 1 is available here.

I wondered if the sense of solidarity that exists between women across politics, partly because we all have to put up with a fairly sexist political culture, could be developed to help the process of cross-party working along:

In my experience generally speaking women tend to be more interested in working together and and finding that common ground not in scoring points. But one of the crucial things is to have confidence building measures at a local level so that some of the very real mistrust between parties can be addressed and, as much as possible, neutralised.

Im glad she brought that up because we all have that baggage of bad experiences with members of other parties. Many Lib Dems feel pretty bruised by some of the abuse that came our way during the coalition years, especially when we didnt agree with what was happening. We do have to get past that, but how do we patch that up?

I agree with you that we have to do it cos the logical consequence of the debate that were having is going to end up in some sort of coalition again. If we write off all coalitions because we didnt like some of the aspects of the last one we experienced, we are cutting off our nose to spite our faces.

Shes read some of Nick Cleggs book and finds it refreshingly candid, where he will say that was a misjudgement. There will be lots of Green supporters who feel angry about tuition fees as others do but, she says, people have to be allowed to make mistakes and whats refreshing about the book is that Nick puts it from the perspective of how it seemed to him at the time. She adds that there are judgements that people make in good faith that lead to outcomes not anticipated.

I think we have to give people permission to make mistakes and to think about how we how we move forward together.

The referendum may have delivered a regrettable result, she says, but the process had some beneficial side effects:

It reinforced for a lot of politicians that on something as big as the EU we can agree and that standing side by side to agree on public platforms is more important than trying to keep some kind of party political purity.

On a local level, she was encouraged by what she saw on the ground in her Brighton patch:

Theres no love lost between the Greens and Labour in Brighton. There was a common referendum leaflet between Liberal Democrat, Green and Labour with agreed text, messages and photographs. We split up the constituencies so that the different parties delivered in their strongest areas. That experience of seeing where it is possible to work together and seeing on a lot of issues there is a fair bit of common ground, thats the most important thing to be building on.

If theres anything else you want to ask her, head to the meeting at lunchtime.

The Alternative is published by Biteback Publishing and you can buy it here.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. 741 party members responded  thank you  and were publishing the full results.

So, here are the results of the Brexit jury.

We broke our readers in gently by asking them how they voted in the Referendum. The result will surprise nobody:

Remain: 94.06%

Leave: 5.94%

We wanted to gauge feeling in the party towards the elements of Tim Farrons Plan for Europe:

First of all, we asked if members supported the call for a parliamentary vote on invoking Article 50. A staggering 86.41% were in favour and 13.59% were opposed.

The idea of a referendum on the final Brexit deal has been closely debated on Lib Dem Voice, but party members gave a whopping endorsement to the plan with 77.18% of respondents in favour and 22.82% against.

Finally, we asked what sort of arrangement people would like with the EU and the single market if we did end up leaving. An overwhelming majority, 79.16%, favoured the Norwegian style option with free movement of people and access to the single market.

Norway  EFTA/EEA/Full access to single market/free movement of people with EU  79.16%

Switzerland  EFTA/bilateral agreements with EU to access single market for some of its industries excluding banking/free movement of people with EU  4.75%

Turkey  Customs union with EU, no tariffs on its exports to EU, no free movement of people with EU  4.49%

Canada  Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement  Took seven years, about to come into place. Preferential access to single market. Would not give UK financial sector access to EU markets as now.  1.98%

Singapore/Hong Kong  unilateral free trade approach, does not impose any tarrifs on imports or exports. -5.8%

Default  World Trade Rules  The UK and EU would be obliged to apply to each other the tariffs and other trade restrictions they apply to the rest of the world  3.83%

Conference debates a Europe motion tabled by the Federal Policy Committee tomorrow morning.

Its not the biggest surprise in the world that members of an internationalist, pro-European party should back greater international co-operaton, but it does go to show that we are the only party who are pretty much absolutely united on this point.

2,200+ Lib Dem paid-up party members are registered with LibDemVoice.org. completed the latest survey, which was conducted on 29th and 30th November 2015

Please note: we make no claims that the survey is fully representative of the Lib Dem membership as a whole. The surveys are, though, the largest independent samples of the views of Lib Dem members across the country.

We have been able to test the LibDemVoice surveys against actual results on a handful of occasions. It correctly forecast the special Lib Dem conference would overwhelmingly approve the Coalition Agreement in May 2010. In the 2008 and 2010 elections for Lib Dem party president, it correctly predicted the winner. However, in the 2014 election it didnt; see here for my thoughts on this.

Polling expert Anthony Wells has written about the reliability/validity of LibDemVoice surveys here.

The full archive of our members surveys can be viewed at www.libdemvoice.org/category/ldv-members-poll

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Its two years since the Scottish Independence was held and Scotland chose to stay in the UK. Within hours of the result, David Cameron had trashed the fragile victory by banging on about English Votes for English Laws. Whatever the merits of the case, that really was not the time.

Willie Rennie MSP, speaking to activists at the partys federal conference in Brighton, has said that David Cameron does not deserve our respect or fond memory as he slammed the Tories for entrenching division following the independence referendum in 2014.

Speaking to senior councillors, Willie recalled how the former Prime Minister used the result of the independence referendum to stoke up English nationalism for party advantage. He he is glad that Mr Cameron has gone from Downing Street.

He said:

It is two years since David Cameron made his speech on the steps of Downing St after the result of the independence referendum was clear. Instead of starting to bring the country together, he chose to entrench division. Instead of reaching out to Scotland, he used those minutes in the morning of the Scottish referendum result to stoke up English nationalism by arbitrarily stripping Scottish MPs of voting rights. He put all our work during the referendum at risk. There has been much written about David Cameron since he left office. On equal marriage. On tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes. But the Tories cannot re-write history. The progressive changes we saw under the coalition were the result of Liberal Democrats forcing the Tories to change, not David Cameron leading his party. David Cameron says he loved Scotland, but everything he did after the referendum in 2014 undermined the union. He approved election posters that showed a Scot picking the pocket of the English. And then gambled on our future in Europe to try and keep his party together. Mr Camerons party cannot claim to be the party of the UK when it is his actions that put the future of the union at risk. I am glad he has gone. David Cameron doesnt deserve our respect or fond memory.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
I reckon that Ive been to over 30 Lib Dem conferences in my years as a member, so missing the odd one usually isnt a hardship. But I am absolutely gutted that I am missing this one in Brighton. I really wanted to be there to support the excellent Mending the Safety Net motion that stems from the policy working group I was a member of.

It was a first time for me to make the commitment and apply to join a working group but as someone who has spent my whole professional career working with people in hardship, for the last eight years at Citizens Advice, I felt I could add something to the partys thinking. It was a great experience and I would recommend people to put themselves forward if they think they can add something to these things.

The group, under Jenny Willows great chairmanship, was far more involved than I imagined. We met almost weekly for months, took direct evidence from 22 experts in the field, read through 786 pages of written evidence, ran an amazing consultative session at York with 80 delegates and received over 500 online responses from members. The report is a large, detailed and costed proposal on how practically we could turn around the lives of the most vulnerable in society.

Its a hugely ambitious document, which proposes among other things, bringing back child poverty targets, puts more money into parents pockets, opposes the removal of benefits from young people, ending the benefits freeze, scrapping the hated work capability assessment and freeing up job centre staff from central control and letting them have some humanity about sanctions.

I am particularly proud of the innovation of proposing state regulated Payment Protection Insurance to encourage working people to have money to support themselves if they lose their job. Liberal governments have always been about helping people to help themselves. Like National Insurance did for unemployment and old age in the twentieth century, I see this policy as being as important for helping people cope with the world of short term contracts and the end of the job for life that we see in the 21st century.

So I am absolutely gutted to see people criticising it for not going far enough. The main objection seems to be that we have not proposed ripping up the benefits system and starting again. In the real world, people in poverty need a massive upheaval like that like a hole in the head.

On the frontline people are still helping people come to terms with the Labour governments welfare reforms, let alone the Tories. What people need is not another top down total reorganisation of the benefits system. What they need is to get it to work better and more humanely. Maybe not as sexy but we should do what is right by people not which is theoretically pure.

The working group looked in detail at the concept of a Citizens Income/Negative Income Tax. I believe it would be reckless to propose that the UK adopts a completely untested idea that has merits but to be affordable would end up actually reducing the benefits of the poorest in society while giving hand outs to people who dont need it or deserve it.

I cant be there on Monday but I would urge all who are to back our proposals, which reform the system to introduce humanity for the most vulnerable. The alternative is 18 months plus of us having no practical policies to counter the Conservatives shocking attacks on the most vulnerable in society.

* Neil Bradbury is a councillor and former parliamentary candidate from Blaydon.
THE new president of the Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) has warned the Moylish college will have to start using points as an excuse to turn away students unless the government invests.

Former Shannon Development boss Dr Vincent Cunnane, who took over as the college's leader this week, has called for an extra 1,000 per student, plus a 1bn investment in terms of capital investment across the third level sector.

The father-of-three feels Ireland is unprepared for the influx of students coming down the line - and even less prepared to help pupils with non-mainstream needs.

For me, one of the saddest and most disappointing things is that if we raise the expectations of kids, by bringing them into third level, and we dash them, not by their inability because we have not provided them with the right teaching techniques.They go out not having achieved, that is saddening, a waste of talent and a waste of time, he told the Limerick Leader this week,

If we can get these kids through, it is transformational.

Dr Cunnane wants to see more money on his operational budget so he can do more with the retention of students.

Give me more spend so I can actually build the appropriate facilities. Replace my outdated equipment which is 20 years old and not fit for anything, and I will give you everything this country needs in terms of the skills base, the applied research output, and the access for those kids, he pledged.

He says warnings to government about the numbers of students coming down the line are falling on deaf ears.

If you think we have a problem now, there is 2,000 extra students for the next 15 years coming into the system. We dont have the space for them. We are trying to warn the government about what is happening, but government is not responding, he says.

Asked what the worst case scenario would be, he said: "We will be turning away students, and we will be using the excuse of points."

"We could be dealing with a majority. We will deal with the majority, but we don't want to be dealing with an elitist majority. We want to be dealing with people who want to take advantage of professional training opportunities.

Whether they have achieved or underachieved, we want to give them the opportunity. Third level education should be a right," he concluded.

See page 11
FORMER Senator James Heffernan has indicated he is to seek legal advice after he appeared in court charged with a number of road traffic offences.

Heffernan, aged 36, who has an address at Baile an Lina, Kilfinane appeared before Fermoy District court under his Irish name  Seamus O hEifearnain.

Mr Heffernan, who unsuccessfully contested Februarys general election in the Limerick constituency, faces a total of five charges relating to two separate incidents near Mitchelstown early last month.

He is accused of dangerous driving at Coolnanave, Mitchelstown on August 1 last as well as at Limerick Road, Mitchelstown, on the same date.

Mr Heffernan is also accused of driving without insurance or a valid driving licence at Limerick Road, Mitchelstown as well as driving while over the legal alcohol limit.

All of the offences are alleged to have happened over the August Bank Holiday weekend  the same weekend of the Indiependence music festival.

During a brief court hearing last Friday, Garda Dave Delea gave evidence of arresting and formally charging the defendant.

He told Judge Brian Sheridan that Mr Heffernan, who secured 3,270 first preference votes in Februarys election, made no reply to any of the charges when they were put to him after caution.

Mr Heffernan who faces the possibility of a prison sentence and a disqualification, if convicted, represented himself during the proceedings.

However, he informed the court he was in the process of obtaining a solicitor  given the technical nature of the charges.

The judge granted an application for disclosure  meaning gardai will have to supply details of all potential evidence to the defendant.

Inspector Eoin Healy noted this and he requested an adjournment of the case to allow gardai to comply with the order.

Mr Heffernan, who was previously released on station bail, is due to appear before the court again on October 7, next.

It is expected that an indication will be given to the court on the next date as to whether or not the charges will be contested.

Prior to being elected to the Seanad in 2011, Mr Heffernan served as a Labour Party councillor with Limerick County Council.

He contested this years general election on behalf of the Social Democrats.
The announcement of Uzbek President Islam Karimov's death at the start of this month seems to have touched off a chain reaction in Central Asia. After years of wondering what the succession processes would look like in the region, we are now getting a glimpse of how these things work.

To look at how these succession schemes are playing out, RFE/RL assembled a Majlis, a panel, to discuss the current efforts being made on behalf of a second head of state.

Moderating the discussion was RFE/RL Media Relations Manager Muhammad Tahir. From Scotland, we were joined by our friend Dr. Luca Anceschi, chair of the Central Asian Studies Center at the University of Glasgow. Participating from Washington was Erica Marat, assistant professor and director of the Homeland Defense Fellowship Program at the College of International Security Affairs of the National Defense University and author of numerous articles on Central Asia. And Bakhtiyor Nishanov, deputy director of Eurasia at the International Republican Institute from Washington D.C., also took part from Washington. I've been waiting for these moments in Central Asia for a couple of decades, so I was in on this also.

The focus of the talk was Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. All three countries took steps related to the position of the second leader of their countries.

The first to move was of course Uzbekistan, driven to action by the death of longtime leader Karimov. Authorities stalled on naming an interim leader in the first days after the September 2 announcement of Karimov's death.

Sidestepping The Constitution

Constitutionally, the powers of the president should have transferred to the chairman of the Senate, Nigmatullo [Nigmatillo] Yuldashev. Instead, at a joint session of parliament on September 8, Yuldashev declined the responsibility and urged that the job go to Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyaev.

Nishanov noted, "The constitution was specifically amended to prevent this kind of power grab, to prevent the prime minister coming in and just talking over."

Ignoring the constitution in Uzbekistan is nothing new. Authorities there disregarded the two-term presidential limit when Karimov was elected to a third term in 2007 and a fourth term in 2015. In both those cases the seven-year term also expired well before the elections were held.

Nishanov said Uzbekistan has demonstrated "complete disregard for the constitution" in this transition process, which may bode ill for the country's future.

But it's not just Uzbekistan.

Following the death of Turkmen Saparmurat Niyazov in late December 2006, the constitution of Turkmenistan was similarly overlooked. There, too, the chairman of the Senate was constitutionally next in line to take over as acting president. But that person, Ovezgeldy Ataev, was arrested shortly after the official announcement of Niyazov's death and Health Minister Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov was named acting leader.

Berdymukhammedov won the February 2007 presidential election despite a constitutional prohibition on an acting head of state running in such polls.

Authoritarian Agendas

Parliament passed amendments to Turkmenistan's constitution on September 15 that lifted an age limit (70 years) and extended the presidential term from five to seven years, paving the way for Berdymukhammedov to remain in power until he dies.

Anceschi said the constitutions the Central Asian states approved in the early 1990s were "in most cases highly presidential," and he added, "They've [the constitutions] been amended with authoritarian agendas in mind, and that entrenched even further authoritarian politics."

The amendments to Turkmenistan's constitution were passed less than two weeks after Karimov was officially declared dead. It is true the proposed changes to the constitution were first announced in early January and published, for "public discussion," in February. But the date for parliament to vote on the amendments was never entirely clear, only that it would happen in the second half of the year.

Karimov's death might have spurred Turkmenistan's second president to have the measures passed sooner.

Nazarbaev Shuffles The Deck



The death almost certainly seems to have affected the succession preparations in Kazakhstan.

"Seeing what happened over there in Uzbekistan, considering that [Kazakhstan's President Nursultan] Nazarbaev is only two years younger than Karimov it must have had some impact on his way of seeing the future," Anceschi said. He added, "I think that what we've seen in the last week is the beginning of a transition."

Nazarbaev started to shuffle government officials on September 8. Among the changes, Nazarbaev moved trusted ally Prime Minister Karim Masimov over to head the Committee for National Security [KNB]. Some saw this as a demotion but in Uzbekistan the relatively smooth transition of power has been overseen by the shadowy head the National Security Service, Rustam Inoyatov.

Nazarbaev might be imitating that strategy of a trusted figure being in charge of national security as a guarantee for the president's family after the president is gone. Masimov is additionally well suited to this job since he is part ethnic Uyghur and so cannot aspire to the presidency because that would risk angering neighbor and major trading partner China, as Beijing has been trying to suppress Uyghur nationalist sentiment in the western Xinjiang region [bordering Kazakhstan] for decades.

Grooming A Successor?

Nazarbaev named Deputy Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintaev as prime minister. Sagintaev emerged from relative political obscurity at the end of 2015, appearing ever more frequently in the media, and addressing an increasingly wide range of issues.He appears to have been groomed for something.

Nazarbaev's eldest daughter Darigha was appointed to the Senate on September 13, sparking speculation she might succeed her father. As in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, according to Kazakhstan's constitution the speaker of the Senate takes over in the event a president cannot perform the duties of office. Darigha is only a Senator now, but some feel it is just a matter of time before she rises to become speaker.

However, Marat said it was unlikely Darigha would ever be president. "When you look at Kazakhstan, I think the power transition is going to be different because in Kazakhstan the structure of the state and political elites is different," she said. "There's more competition and there is more bureaucracy, in the good sense of it."

"Tajikistan is the only contender for dynastic rule, power transfer, the son [of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon] is groomed to possibly become the next leader," she added.

It does seem that succession in Kazakhstan will be more complicated than in Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. As Marat and Anceschi said, there are strong political and economic elites in Kazakhstan.

It also appears some of the transition team for the succession is taking shape, raising questions about what Nazarbaev is planning for the near future.

The Majlis discussed these issues in greater detail and looked at questions of popular acceptance for the second leaders, the durability of current policies, differences between an election and a coronation, a bit about the current situation in Kyrgyzstan, and other topics.

An audio recording of the Majlis can be heard here:

The views expressed on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL.
Leukemia is no longer the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths in children, but brain cancer has taken it's place, according to a new report.

All pediatric cancer death rates have been dropping since the mid-1970s, according to the report released today (Sept. 16) from the National Center for Health Statistics. The report details changes in cancer death rates among children and teens ages 1 to 19, from 1999 to 2014.

"The shift from leukemia to brain cancer as the leading site of cancer death is a noteworthy development in the history of childhood cancer as it was always leukemia until quite recently," said lead author Sally Curtin, demographer and statistician at the NCHS, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in an email interview with Live Science. [Top 10 Cancer-Fighting Foods]

There were still 1,785 cancer deaths in children and adolescents in 2014, Curtin said. Brain cancer and leukemia accounted for more than half of those.

In 1999, six out of 20 cancer deaths among children were due to leukemia, and about five in 20 were due to brain cancer, according to the numbers in the report. By 2014, those numbers had reversed.

"Major therapeutic advances" in the treatment of cancers, particularly leukemia, has likely resulted in the increases in survivorship, the researchers wrote in their report.

Overall, the cancer death rate for children and teens dropped 20 percent over the 15 years included in the study. Among females, the overall cancer death rate dropped 22 percent. Among males, it dropped 18 percent.

Throughout the study period, the rate of cancer deaths among males outpaced that of females, according to the report.

"The leukemia specialists have done a really great job of stratifying these patients to give them appropriate therapy based on whether they feel their tumors are more aggressive or not," said Dr. Peter Manley, pediatric neuro-oncologist at the Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, who was not involved in the new report.

But survival of rates among children with brain tumors has not changed much, Manley said.

Still, the survival rates related to certain subtypes of brain tumors, such as low-grade gliomas, are improving and that current research is very promising, he said. "There's some really interesting information that's coming out," Manley said.

New research on brain cancer is focusing on cancer genomics, and on using molecular analysis and genome sequencing to learn what makes the tumors abnormal and what causes them to grow, he said. Researchers have also been developing drugs that target the molecules involved in cancer growth and spread.

"The information coming from this [research] is so impressive that my feeling is that we will continue to see a decline in deaths," Manley told Live Science.

Pediatric cancer doesn't receive nearly as much national funding as adult cancers, he noted.

"Overall, the important thing to take from this [report] is that, across the board, there are significantly [fewer] cancer deaths just in the last 15 years," Manley said. "So the hope is, in the next 15 years, we'll continue to see that decline."

Original article on Live Science.
CLEAR LAKE  Ryan Ruter has been around race cars most of his life, but a chance conversation is leading him into business on the water as well as land.

A California client of Ruter Racing in Kanawha happened to mention that he was rebuilding a home on Clear Lake.

One day, Jay Marks said, I need a dock,  Ruter recalled. And I said, Why dont you let us try? 

With that, a new market was born for his company that builds race cars and sells performance parts. Opening up this product line has led Ruter to re-position the business as Ryco Customs and make plans to move it to Clear Lake in January 2017.

Were broadening our horizons with different fabrication products, Ruter said.

A new 10,000-square-foot facility is going up on Fourth Avenue in Clear Lake across from the south Kum & Go station. It will provide a larger fabrication and welding shop. Ruter has three full-time employees now and plans to add at least three more at the new Ryco Customs location.

The reason were coming to Clear Lake is to grab some interstate traffic, he said. We service local racers or anybody traveling up and down I-35. This is what Ive done practically my whole life.

Once we get up and running at the new facility, we will be in business for not only docks but whatever project people bring to us  sheet metal fabrication, repair work.

Ruter, 32, has been in the racing business about 13 years. He lives part-time in both Clear Lake and Kanawha, with his wife, Holly, and two children, Bentley and Kora. With a large customer base all over the United States, his company services local racing, dirt car racing, modified, stock cars and hobby stock cars.

Ive been racing since I was 14 and really enjoy it, he said. I went to college a year and decided it wasnt for me. If you cant go to work every day and enjoy it, that makes life kind of miserable. I have no problem getting up and going to work, because I enjoy it.

Fabricating a new design for docks fits right into his existing business, according to Ruter.

This is to grab a different group of people. If youre not a racer, you might be a boater, he said. We have all the equipment and materials  why not do this?

He took his time studying how to make a better dock.

Any time you settle on a way of doing things, there is always someone working harder to make the product better. Always somebody trying to come up with the next greatest thing. It might as well be us, he said.

First, the team identified some requirements.

It had to be easy for one person to take out, Ruter said. And it had to be adjustable so you could stand on top to make it lower or higher without getting in the water.

He observed that wooden docks typically used on Clear Lake are time-consuming to put in, usually requiring a barge boat and several men.

You have to pound poles into the lake bed, Ruter said. Other dock systems require someone to get into the water and change the heights of pins to adjust the legs, which can be as much as five feet under water. That means the adjustment mechanism on traditional docks can get rusty or gummed up with algae.

Ruter has learned the most about design and fabrication from trial-and-error.

The best learning tool is going ahead and figuring out how to make it work and doing it, he said. As youre producing something, there are always going to be problems. You figure out how to change and make it better.

Eventually, Ruter came up with the Ryco Dock system and installed it at Marks house on North Shore Drive.

This dock has a sturdy leg with a gripper foot on the bottom, like a serrated plate, to make it dig into the bottom, Ruter said, pointing below the surface of the lake while demonstrating design elements on the dock he built for Marks. Once the leg is in place, the dock sections snap in with spring-loaded clips. No tools, no nails, no hammers, no barge boats involved.

The outside main rails are made of tube-tasered, lightweight steel, according to Ruter. The center planking is extruded aluminum, powder-coated in whatever color the customer wants.

We make a clip that grabs the extrusion plank and side rail tight. So if the wind tries to lift it, they wont shift, he said.

The legs go in first, then the rails and finally the planks. There are 10 planks per 8-foot section. Each plank goes in individually. One person could install and remove the Ryco Dock, according to Ruter.

With ours, you can put in an 80-foot dock and have it leveled in just a couple of hours, he said. There are a couple of little tools that come with the dock kit to adjust it. Otherwise, no tools are needed.

Ruter is looking into getting a patent on the Ryco Dock system.

This dock is really easy to put in and out, he said. All can be popped out in under two minutes, then the planking can be carried in a handful to stack on the seawall. Its also great for people who dont have a lot of room on the shoreline to store dock in winter. This is easy to stack and store.

Someone needs to get into the water initially to set the poles for each section, but Ruter said, The beauty is not having to get in the water again. Over the course of the summer, the docks may settle into the mud or sand. This system doesnt need to be level at all when its first installed. Get it in the water and adjust from the top side of the dock. If it settles later on in the summer, quickly adjust it again and youre done.

Marks called his new dock amazing.

Im always looking for quality, Marks said when contacted for comments about the new product. Ryan and I share that vision. I love the stability. They did an amazing professional job. Keeps the money local. Even the powder coating is done locally and is super cool on our feet on a hot day. You can even adjust the elevation of the dock without getting wet.

Ruter said the starting cost of an 8-foot dock section is around $875. After that, customers can add sections and accessories. The system can be assembled into other shapes besides a straight line.

Ryco Customs will have a booth at the Cedar Falls and Minneapolis boat shows in January to showcase the new product.

For more information, contact Ruter at 641-430-5171.
Over 1,350 people took part in the Longford Darkness into Light (DIL) Walk on May 7 and the organising committee, along with Pieta House, wish to thank everybody for their support.

On behalf of the Longford DIL Team, Lorraine Manicle, said, The generous spirit, goodwill and donations made this years walk an overwhelming success.

The 2015 walk attracted 1,050 participants and Ms Manicle pointed out that the organisers were delighted with the positive support and feedback they received.

It was brilliant to see the energy generated on the night from everyone in The Mall (since renamed the Albert Reynolds Peace Park). We hope that the walk would be symbolic, supportive, enjoyable, and most importantly a memorable occasion for all, she remarked.

Pieta House is a suicide crisis/self harm centre. It provides counselling service for people from all over Ireland free of charge who are affected by suicide. It is a non-profit organisation getting a small proportion (15%) of its funding from the Government but relies heavily on fundraising events and voluntary donations.

All the funding raised from Darkness into Light is allocated to providing therapeutic services to people who are in suicidal distress and also their families. Pieta House can be contacted directly for an appointment in Lucan on 01 601000 or Tuam 093 25586 with no doctor referral necessary. (www.pieta.ie). People from Longford are availing of this service.

Pieta House together with The Darkness into Light Committee, Longford would like to thank the people of Longford for their support, donations, and those who sponsored the event by providing refreshments or services and many of whom also supported the 2015 DIL Walk:

Sharon Tracey, Barry Hall and the Staff of the Mall Complex; McCarrick Brothers, Stonehouse Cash & Carry; Frank Horne, Marie Kenny and Staff of Longford County Council; Longford Civil Defence; The Midlands Motor Rally Club; The Midlands Motorcycle Club; The Community Garda Sgt. Lionel Mullally and Garda Paul Connelly;

Ian Donoghue, Longford Town Centre; Green Apple Restaurant; Dunnes Stores; Tescos Longford; Davis Supervalu Longford; Smyths SuperValu Ballymahon; Joe Byrne, Lough Forbes Service Station; Nallys Service Station Ballymahon; Herterich Artisan Butchers; Barneys Bar & Restaurant; Cahills Champion Milk; McGraths Texaco Station; Jac-O-Bites Restaurant;

Gala (Hanlons) Dublin Road; Centra Tarmonbarry; John McGuire, Bus Hire Granard; Cooneys Hotel, Ballymahon; Daybreak, Ballymahon; Fresh Today, Ballymahon; Ballinamuck Community Enterprise; The Longford Boyscouts; Longford Brownies; Longford Volunteer Centre; Shannonside Radio; The Longford Leader; Longford Tool Hire; Shelly Corcoran Photographer; Spar Dublin Road; Fenelons Engineering; Mulleadys Waste Management Ltd; Ulster Bank, Longford; Longford Rose (2015), Daphne Howard.
Two people came before last week's sitting of Longford District Court charged with theft.

Mademba Samb of Richmond Court, Longford, appeared before Judge Seamus Hughes charged with theft of goods from Lidl, Dublin Road, Longford on August 22 last.

Pleading guilty to the theft, it was revealed that Mr Samb was a native of Senegal, West Africa and has been here for the past eight years. He receives 19 per week.

Solicitor for Mr Samb, Mr Frank Gearty, explained that his client was divorced and had one daughter. He said that on the day in question, he had received a call from his estranged wife, who is still living in Senegal, and in his exasperation, he carried out the theft.

After hearing the facts of the case, Judge Hughes sentenced Mr Samb to one month in prison, which he suspended for two years.

Meanwhile, Lisa Nevin of 67 McKeown Park, Farnagh, Co Longford pleaded guilty to the theft of 20 worth of cosmetics and groceries from Dealz, Market Square, Longford on July 1 this year. The property was not recovered.

On August 9 last, Ms Nevin was arrested in connection with the incident, and when charged, replied; Im very, very sorry.

In mitigation, Solicitor for Ms Nevin, Ms Fiona Baxter told the court; Shes 21 years old, shes living with her parents, shes single and she has limited means.

She attended Longford Garda Station of her own accord.

Ms Nevin was then handed down a fine of 250.
A County Waterford councilllor, who became Ireland's youngest serving county and city mayor earlier this year, has spoken of his deep-rooted ties to north Longford.

Twenty-two-year-old Adam Wyse created history back in June when his fellow political peers elected him to the position of county and city mayor.

It was an occasion of immense personal as well as professional pride for the Business Studies graduate.

Much of that feeling of self-fulfilment was tinged with sadness following the sudden passing of his father, Gary in October 2013.

The emotional upheaval brought about by the loss of his father inadvertently thrust Adam into the spotlight and eventually culminated in his co-option on to the council just two months later.

In June, the young but acutely ambitious Fianna Fail councillor was elevated to the role of county and city mayor, and in so doing became Ireland's youngest first citizen in living memory.

This week, it has emerged Cllr Wyse also carries strong north Longford links that can be found in the rural surrounds of Ballymore, not far from Granard town.

His maternal grandfather, Johnny Higgins, despite being an Orchard County resident, is a born and bred Ballymore man.

My grandfather has always been a huge help to me both inside and outside of politics, Cllr Wyse told the Leader this week.

He is someone I have and continue to look up to and whenever I have a difficult decision to make, he is the first person I would call.

The well spoken charity patron even revealed how the pair had only just been discussing past glories mere minutes before picking up the phone to the Leader.

I have heard plenty of stories from Grandad about Ballymore, he added.

Today he showed me a piece he sent in to the Leader's Readers Forum page five years ago about life in Ballymore.

I now have it up on my wall and I am very proud of it.

The same can also be said of his grandfather's time spent in the UK where he helped found and became president of an Irish community centre.

Like his grandfather, Cllr Wyse spoke glowingly of his grand uncle, the late Paddy Higgins.

The former president of Ballymore GAA Club only passed away in August last year, two years shy of the club's 50th anniversary.

Looking ahead to those celebrations, the recently-elected Waterford mayor didn't rule out making the journey home with his grandfather, saying: I'd love to because I'm so proud to say I have roots to that area.
Longford Craft Butcher Louis Herterich of Herterich Artisan Meats is this week celebrating after his long-standing company scooped an impressive number of awards in the prestigious Regional Sausage & Lifestyle Sausages competition.

The event was hosted by the Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland in Dublin last week.

Herterich Artisan Meats is based on Longford towns Ballymahon Street and the store took top prize for its turkey sausage entry as well as runner up for the beef sausage with fresh sweet peppers, in the regional category.

Our Turkey sausages and dry cure rashers are flying off of the shelves as many people opt for the high protein, low fat products which are particularly popular with weight watching groups and also gym and bodybuilding customers, said Mr Herterich speaking to the Leader this week.

Herterichs also excelled in the Regional Speciality Sausage Awards taking prizes for their Lamb and Mint sausage (the Longford Sausage) and also for their popular Pork with Honey and Mustard flavour.

In both the Regional Black Pudding Awards and White Pudding Awards the local company took the overall prize for the North Region which covers Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, and Longford, while also emerging victorious in the Gluten Free Sausage category as overall winner.

For Louis, though, the most prestigious accolade was winning the Regional Traditional Sausage Awards and Regional Speciality Sausage Awards.

Our best product is the original family recipe breakfast sausage which is the most sought after title and we are Kings of the North, he laughed.

I am delighted and proud to have competed with the best in this prestigious competition and found it a rewarding experience and a great opportunity to showcase the wide range of fresh homemade products available here at Herterichs.

As the Herterich butcher shop approaches its 60th birthday on September 20 next, the family remains hopeful of winning an All-Ireland title when the results are announced at the end of October.
Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases, Seasonal & Current Events

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 18 2016

On Monday, September 12, four members of the U.S. Coast Guard visited Premm Learning Center.

Oakdale, NY - September 16, 2016 - On Monday, September 12, four members of the U.S. Coast Guard visited Premm Learning Center to participate in a ceremony that celebrated their branch of the militarys heroic, and largely unknown, rescue operation of approximately half a million civilians from lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. Premm Learning Center (PLC) is an Eastern Suffolk BOCES school that provides special education services to students between the ages of five and 21.



Most people are not aware that immediately after the attacks on September 11, the Coast Guard put out an All Call to any ship in the area of lower Manhattan to aid in the rescue of the thousands of people trapped downtown. There are a limited number of ways to leave Manhattan, which is an island. Terrified, possibly injured, and not knowing if the area was safe or would be subject to additional attacks, hundreds of thousands of people in the area surrounding the World Trade Complex needed to exit Manhattan. More than 150 boats answered the call and evacuated 500,000 people in nine hours  the largest maritime rescue to this day. (This enormous effort was bigger than the evacuation of Dunkirk, France, where more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were rescued by sea over nine days in 1940.)





During the ceremony, students, staff, and the Coast Guard members watched the eight-minute documentary, Boatlift 9/11. Narrated by Tom Hanks, this movie details the evacuation from the perspective of the participating Coast Guard and civilian ship personnel. The four Coast Guards who attended the event are stationed at Montauk and Coram, but accepted the plaque from the school on behalf of the entire branch.





They met and interacted with many of the students, received homemade personalized cards, and helped the students tape 151 cardboard boats to a wall-sized mural. Each boat featured one name for every vessel that participated in the evacuation. Next, they watched the students sail wooden boats in inflatable pools.





Said Carolynn Hansen, principal of Premm, It was important for us to plan a special ceremony to commemorate the 15th anniversary of September 11th that not only honored the day, but was meaningful for our students. We chose to dedicate the ceremony to the United States Coast Guard who led the call to duty during this maritime evacuation. Their resilience in the face of this tragedy was inspiring and deserving of proper recognition. The students learned firsthand that the Coast Guard works as community helpers along our nations shores.
A new tech company founded by a team of young entrepreneurs at Iowa State University is ready for its first customers.

PollUp, a mobile and Web-based polling platform for employers to gauge employee ideas and satisfaction, will be ready for live testing with actual business clients at the end of October.

The founders are looking for up to 10 companies with between 50 and 2,000 employees to participate in a free pilot program during the last two months of this year.

Developed by ISU students Kenyon Brown and Neil Saigal, PollUp was one of eight projects selected by CYstart, a new 10-week summer accelerator for Iowa State students or recent graduates to focus on their startup or business ideas.

Iowa State has been really trying to delve into entrepreneurship development, Brown says.

This is the first summer ISU has supported selected startup companies with funds, mentors and facilities through its Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship.

Saigal had to pitch their idea in a competition.

They really helped get us going. In this program, they give you $6,000 in funding and a summer of mentoring to help grow your startup, Brown said.

He graduated from Mason City High School and is a sophomore studying management information systems. Saigal, a senior in computer engineering, is from Bettendorf.

Brown says he and Saigal sat up late one night last fall spitballing some ideas about creating a new software system.

One thing led to another and we started working on a social media platform for polling classmates on questions like, Whats the best restaurant in town? or Who is the best professor?,  Brown says.

By February, they decided the student polling idea was too limited. We had built a cool polling platform, but wanted to find a new audience and arrived at this current issue.

Their research found that employee feedback in the workplace is not being accessed as well or as quickly as it could be today. Brown and Saigal interviewed human resources managers about their problems with assessing how employees feel about their jobs and their companies.

What we found was that they all do annual surveys, spending around $10,000 a year on them, Brown says. Thats not frequently enough to gauge how an employee feels.

They looked at Gallup studies about frequent feedback.

They say when you engage employees more often, it tends to feel more like a conversation instead of once a year filling out a long, dry survey, Brown says. With our platform, you get more accurate results and it feels more real and intimate.

Brown says a great example of this is the ride-sharing app Uber, which lets riders give an instant rating on a driver.

The amount of response they get on instant feedback is unreal, he said. Were taking the same concept and applying it to an organization and their employees.

Saigal and Brown brought on another developer, ISU student Dave Leo, to work on content and design. Saigal is in charge of technology and Brown handles customer relations and design.

While developing all their own mobile apps, the team works with Sohrab Daver at Creative Solutions Unlimited in Sheffield for database and online product.

Brown says they see the PollUp platform as a tool for reform.

Management might not understand that the day-to-day employee might have the best answer to a problem, he says. This tool is a way to bring employees to the management table and consult them on executive decisions.

For instance, the app could be used for getting a handle on employee satisfaction, feedback on certain policies or input on scheduling.

One of my favorite ways is the strategy of asking employees three questions a week, Brown says. The first one might be asking if there is something the employee needs. No. 2 might ask for feedback on a brand new idea or trend, something interesting and thought-provoking. A third question might be gauging their current state of mind or their current motivation.

He acknowledges that the big problem with getting all this feedback is what to do with the information.

If management doesnt use it, it will end up hurting the company, Brown says. Were in the process of working with human resources professionals on a guide to what to do with your results and how to use the data to implement strategies.

PollUp is intended as a tool to build a more efficient workplace, a better work culture and a company where employees will brag to their friends about what a great place it is to work, according to Brown.

The PollUp platform will be marketed as a Software As A Service (SAAS) human resources product with companies paying a subscription to get access to the online service. Tentative pricing when the product launches at the start of next year is estimated to be $2 per employee per month.

Companies interested in trying out the new PollUp platform later this fall are invited to contact Brown through the applications website at www.PollUp.net.

This is a great example of how tech companies dont have to start in Silicon Valley; they can start right here in Iowa, Brown says.
Looking to stay up to date about all of the news stories and local headlines that are important to Long Islanders? We've rounded up the top coverage for all of the important topics from multiple sources around Long Island, so you can be sure you've got the most recent update on the top stories for Long Island. Have an idea for a news story? Email us at news@longisland.com

Columnists Press Releases
MASON CITY  The Cerro Gordo County Conservation Board will conduct a lottery for two annual trapping access permits at the Lime Creek Conservation Area.

The permits CCB are strictly access permits allowing two trappers the opportunity to trap within the designated portion of LCCA that allows controlled trapping via the lottery permit system. An Iowa DNR furbearer license is required as well as an access permit for the LCCA property.

Effective Monday, Sept. 26, trapping lottery application forms will be available. Forms will be limited to one entry per individual and must be completed in full prior to being eligible for the lottery.

Lottery application forms may be picked up at the conservation office or printed from our website at www.co.cerro-gordo.ia.us/conservation.

Application forms will be accepted until 3 p.m. Friday Oct. 7. Forms can be returned to the office in person, by email to meremer@co.cerro-gordo.ia.us or faxed to 641-423-1566.

The furbearer trapping lottery will be held at 8 a.m. Wednesday Oct. 12. The public is invited to attend. The successful lottery applicants will receive a non-transferrable access permit and also be required to attend a meeting prior to the trapping season which will outline specific rules and regulations that must be followed. All Iowa DNR Furbearer Trapping Rules & Regulations will apply.

For more information contact the Cerro Gordo County Conservation Board office at 641-423-5309.
JORDAN  Katie Hinman was 12 years old when Jordan hosted its first fall festival in 1946.

The event was much smaller back then, she described. Hosted near the heart of the village, Hinman said the main attraction of the first annual fall festival was an auction of a variety of items, like car parts and household appliances.

Hinman said she managed a popcorn stand back then. And as the festival celebrated its 70th year this weekend, the Jordan native  now 82  was still working a food stand, this time at a pastry booth.

Jordan Fall Festival celebrates 70 years of family fun JORDAN  Continuing its tradition of family fun and, of course, the greased pole race, the J

Jordan's three-day extravaganza concluded on Sunday with some of its festival's most popular events, the greased pole climb contests and an antique and classic car show. As they have in the past, proceeds from the festival will be donated to a variety of agencies, including the Jordan Pool, the local food bank and the Jordan Bramley Library.

Hinman said the event has grown a lot since 1946. The festival is now held along Beaver Street, while the auction from the inaugural event only lasted around 10 to 15 years, having died off when yard sales grew popular, Hinman said.

This year's festival also featured hay rides, a chicken barbecue and performances by several local groups, including the Jordan-Elbridge High School marching band and the Jordan-Elbridge Community Band.

"You can't argue with success," Hinman said.

Shirley Drummond first got involved with the fall festival with her husband in 1964 when they moved into the area from Rhode Island.

She first started as an attendant for a booth called the Treasure Chest, which sold donated pieces of jewelry at very low prices  popular with children looking for a gift for mom, Drummond said. She later served as the festival's chair for 25 years until stepping down after 2011.

On Sunday, Drummond was back at the festival, saying one of her favorite parts about it  other than the food  is catching up with people in the community she does not get to see too often.

"When September comes, it's time for the fall festival," Drummond said. "It's a community fundraiser and it's what you do in Jordan."

Now Drummond, 86, is hoping more volunteers get involved to continue the tradition.

She and Hinman both said the majority of the festival's volunteers are either the elderly or younger teens, and Drummond would like to see more middle-aged individuals get involved.

"Everybody from the community can benefit from this," Drummond said. "It's a wonderful community event and we really need to keep it going. So many organizations benefit from it and we can't lose that."
The Islamic States Amaq News Agency has claimed responsibility for a series of stabbings at the Crossroads Mall in St. Cloud, Minn. yesterday. Initial casualty reports say eight people were wounded. The perpetrator was killed by an off-duty police officer.

The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition, Amaqs claim of responsibility reads. The statement was issued in both Arabic and English on multiple websites.

St. Cloud police chief William Blair Anderson briefed the public during a press conference in the early hours of the morning. Anderson explained that the person responsible for the stabbings was dressed in a security uniform, made some references to Allah, and asked at least one of the victims if he or she was a Muslim.

That last detail is consistent with jihadi operations in the past. A team of Islamic State terrorists reportedly separated Muslims from non-Muslims during an attack at a restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh in early July. Shabaab, al Qaedas branch in East Africa, did the same during the siege of the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya in September 2013.

Amaqs statement does not include any specific details about the terrorist. But it is similar to other Amaq claims. After several attacks in Europe this past summer, Amaq said the terrorists responsible had responded to calls to target countries belonging to the crusader coalition. Similar language was used in the statement concerning the stabbings in Minnesota.

Amaq has repeatedly described terrorists as soldiers of the Islamic State

Amaq and other propaganda outlets frequently describe the terrorists who carry out such deeds as soldiers of the caliphate.

For example, the Islamic State described the May 2015 shooters in Garland, Tex. and the couple who assaulted a holiday party in San Bernardino, Calif. in Dec. 2015 as the groups soldiers. The San Bernardino terrorists were also labeled supporters.

The team of jihadists responsible for the Nov. 2015 assault in Paris was hailed as a group of believers from the soldiers of the Caliphate.

Omar Mateen, who repeatedly pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi the night of his shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida in June, was described as a fighter for the organization.

Amaq said Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who drove a truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, was a soldier of the Islamic State. The same wording was also used to label the slasher in Wurzburg, Germany.

After the Nice, Wurzburg, Ansbach (Germany) and Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray (Normandy, France) attacks, Amaq also emphasized that the men responsible had acted in response to calls to target countries belonging to the crusader coalition.

After the operations in Wurzburg, Ansbach, Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray and Balashikha (Russia), Amaq disseminated videos of the terrorists responsible swearing allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The videos were recorded beforehand, demonstrating that the jihadists had at least one digital tie to the Islamic States operations.

Prior to his demise in August, Abu Muhammad al Adnani repeatedly called on the so-called caliphates members and supporters to strike the coalition of nations targeting its territory in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. Adnani was the Islamic States spokesman and oversaw the groups external operations before he was killed in an American airstrike.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
The French capitals Centre Pompidou will be holding an exhibition of work by Belgian artist Rene Magritte from September 21, 2016, to January 23, 2017. Featuring around 100 pieces, the show offers a fresh look at one of the key figures of modern art, exploring the painters interest in philosophy.

This new monographic exhibition on the surrealist painter, entitled Rene Magritte. The treachery of images, uses drawings, paintings and archive documents to explore the artists interest in philosophy. His taste for the field culminated in 1973 with the publication of Michel Foucaults Ceci nest pas une pipe (This is Not a Pipe), based on the writers discussions with the artist. The books title  like the exhibitions  is inspired by Magrittes famous work La Trahison des images (The Treachery of Images).

Magrittes Les affinites electives (Elective Affinities), painted in 1932 and showing an egg in a cage, plays a pivotal role in the exhibition, marking a turning point in the artists work. This was, in fact, Magrittes first painting intended to solve what he called a problem, as he explained at a 1936 conference. It is with this notion of problems that the exhibition opens.

The show also explores the recurrent motifs in Magrittes work and their underlying meanings. Curtains, for example, refer to the contest for realism between ancient Greek painters Parrhasius and Zeuxis; words evoke the biblical story of the Adoration of the Golden Calf; flames and enclosed spaces hint at Platos Allegory of the Cave, etc.

Rene Magritte. The treachery of images also highlights the differences between Belgian and French surrealism. The Belgian strain owes much to Paul Nouge, a man of scientific background who brought a more rational and materialist approach to the movement.

Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte was born November 21, 1898, in Lessines, Belgium. In the early 1920s, he worked as a poster artist, a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory and an advertisement designer. In 1926, he formed a Belgian surrealist group with Mesens, Lecomte, Nouge, Goemans and the composer Andre Souris. The following year, he held his first personal exhibition at the Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels. He later frequented other surrealist artists like Dali and Breton, before breaking with them and returning to the Belgian capital. In 1954, the city hosted the first retrospective of the artists work at the Fine Arts museum. He died in 1967.

Rene Magritte. La Trahison des images runs September 21, 2016, to January 23, 2017, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France.
Style / Fashion

Seasonal changes are transformative but Paris Fashion Week this September is expected to reveal major creative shifts at some of the biggest names in fashion.

Sep 18, 2016 | By Staff Writer

Seasonal changes are transformative but Paris Fashion Week this September is expected to reveal major creative shifts at some of the biggest names in luxury fashion. With so many new creative directors in place at Frances biggest fashion houses, this seasons Paris Fashion Week is supposed to bring a breath of fresh air to the capital.

These changes at the creative helm, collectively, represents a transformative time for labels, and one gets the sense that if revival and renewal dont make a strong showing in the spring/summer 2017 season, the fashion world will be disappointed. This is likely because many of the wider changes in the fashion business will not be evident in Paris.

Paris Fashion Week is unlikely to see many  if any  of the combined menswear and womenswear collections on the agenda in Milan, New York and London. The same goes for the see now buy now concept. While fashion houses such as Burberry, Tom Ford and Michael Kors are bringing their latest collections to stores straight after their runway shows (globally in some cases), French fashion is resisting this revolution. Most French fashion houses will continue to operate on the traditional industry schedule for the upcoming round of shows.

So, the weight of expectations if fully on the creative directorship changeovers at many big houses, putting the French capital firmly in the spotlight. Some of the incoming designers first collections for their new employers are eagerly awaited in the fashion world.

Dior, Lanvin, Saint Laurent

The upcoming Dior show will be a particular focus of attention, overseen for the first time by Maria Grazia Chiuri. A former co-creative director of Valentino, the Italian fashion designer is the first woman to take the reins of Diors haute couture, ready-to-wear and accessories collections. The new ready-to-wear line is expected to mark a fresh start for the label, with particular emphasis on accessories, a domain in which Maria Grazia Chiuri notably excels.

Since a traumatic parting of ways with its emblematic creative director, Alber Elbaz, almost a year ago, Lanvin is also set to enter a new era in September. The labels Paris show, scheduled September 28, will allow Bouchra Jarrar, now heading womenswear collections, to showcase the full extent of her talent and to bring a feminine, modern touch to Lanvins style.

The fashion world will also have its eyes on Saint Laurent this season, again due to a recent change in creative director. The upcoming show from Anthony Vaccarello, who replaced Hedi Slimane, will be especially eagerly awaited since his predecessors style was so intrinsically linked with the spirit of the brand. Whats more, his arrival has brought a few changes to the Paris schedule. Not only has Saint Laurent chosen to move its show to the first day of Paris Fashion Week, September 27, but Anthony Vaccarello also announced that he was putting work for his own label on hold, with no show in store for the Paris event.

Sonia Rykiel in the spotlight

The Sonia Rykiel show is likely to be emotionally charged at this seasons Fashion Week. Scheduled October 3  barely a month after the death of the brands eponymous founding designer  the show could take the form of a final homage, both in terms of its staging and the pieces in the new collection. The show could prove a fitting farewell for this French designer who revolutionized fashion, liberating women from stuffy bourgeois looks and introducing a hint of relaxed chic that characterizes French style today.
MASON CITY  Candidates Andy OBrien and Paul Adams have raised the most money and spent the most in their quest for an open at-large City Council seat, according to financial disclosure reports filed with the state.

The special election to fill the seat left open by the death of Alex Kuhn is Tuesday.

As of Sept. 15, OBrien had raised $3,195 and spent $2,291.96, leaving cash on hand of $903.04

Adams had raised $1,520 and spent $989.19, leaving cash on hand of $530.81.

Candidates are required to file financial statements if they have raised $1,000 or more. None of the six other candidates filed reports.

OBrien and Adams are running against John Carden, Jeff Christie, Joshua Masson, Jacob Krueger, Scott Peterson and Max Weaver.

OBriens report lists 32 individual contributions, the largest of which was $800. The others ranged from $30 to $250.

Adams report lists 21 individual contributions, ranging from $25 to $230.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Voters can cast their ballots at any one of five centers throughout the city:

Highland Golf Course Clubhouse, 944 17 St. N.E.

First Presbyterian Church, 100 S. Pierce Ave.

First Covenant Church, 411 S. Ohio Ave.

Rolling Acres Christian Reform Church, 340 19th St. S.W.

Cerro Gordo County Courthouse, 220 N. Washington Ave.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Anatomy of India-Pakistan Peace Process

BOOK REVIEW

by Mehrag-Ud-Din Bhat

India-Pakistan Composite Dialogue Process: Issues and Concerns by Sajad Padder; Kalpaz Publications, New Delhi; 2015; pages: 178, Price: Rs 540.

India was partitioned into two independent and sovereign countriesIndia and Pakistanin 1947. After partition several issues remained unsolved between India and Pakistan. Issues like Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek, and Tulbul Navigation etc. became so contentious that both countries fought several wars with each other. Unresolved issues not only resulted in war between these two countries but created several other issues like terrorism, drug trafficking which further escalated the tension between these two countries. To de-escalate the tension between these two countries steps like initiating dialogue, starting the peace process and confidence building measures were taken from time to time by the leaders, non-governmental organisations, diplomats of these two countries. This book under review dwells on the history of the peace process since its inception in 1997 and analyses the achievements made on eight issues, namely, Peace and Security CBMs; Jammu and Kashmir; Siachen; Sir Creek; Tulbul Navigation Project; Terrorism and Drug Trafficking; Economic and Commercial Cooperation; and Promotion of Friendly Exchanges in Various Fields. The book is divided into four chapters followed by a conclusion.

Chapter 1st: Brief Survey of India-Pak Relations in the Context of War and Peace Treaties

The author opens up the book with the Partition of India and subsequently the birth of Pakistan as a new country in South Asia. He highlights that after the partition of India the 562 princely states spread throughout the Indian subcon-tinent were provided option either to join India or Pakistan. He writes that with the strong efforts of Sardar Patel almost all such states within India joined the Indian Union while Jinnah was successful to get accession of the Muslim princes with Pakistan. The author highlights that some princely states like Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh decided to stay independent from both India and Pakistan. While the accession of Hyderabad and Junagadh with India took place through internal revolt and police actions, Jammu and Kashmir emerged as the bone of contention between India and Pakistan given its geographical proximity to Pakistan and majority Muslim population.

The Hindu ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, first chose to remain independent from both India and Pakistan, but due to invasion by the tribal forces from Pakistan he asked for help from India. Subsequently he signed the instrument of accession with India with the help of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. Although Indian forces managed to evict the Pakistan-backed forces, the decision of Pakistan to send its own forces started a conflict between two countries. The author argues that the conflict is now over the territory, national identity and power position in the region. He writes that the political status of Kashmir, from Pakistans perspective, is the unfinished business of partition on the religious basis and from Indias standpoint Kashmir is an integral part of India legally by virtue of the instrument of accession and also being part of Indias secular identity. The author also highlights the wars like the Kutch conflict, Kashmir war in 1965, 1971 war, Siachin clashes, 1989 event In Jammu and Kashmir, Kargil war that escalated the tension between India and Pakistan and also different agreements and peace processes like the Karachi agreement, Delhi agreement, Indus Water Treaty, Tashkent Declaration, Shimla Agreement, Agra Summit, Bus diplomacy between two countries which helped to defuse the tension. He writes that after the Tashkent Declaration and Shimla Agreement there was a decline of external interest in the State and the United Nations left the conflict between these two countries to be settled through bilateral endwavours. He further writes that the declining interest of the UNO and others in the conflict after these agreements forced the political leaders of Jammu and Kashmir to strive for the best deal with India.

Chapter 2nd: Issues and Components in the Composite Dialogue Process

In this chapterthe authorhighlights thelong history of conflicts and wars since the partition of India. He argues that although conflicts related to Indus Water and Rann of Kutch dispute were resolved through negotiations, however, disputes related to Siachen Glacier, Sir Creek, Tulbul-Wullar barrage are still lingering between these two countries. He writes that to resolve such disputes the Prime Minister of India, I.K. Gujral, and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met at Male, Maldives to initiate a structured dialogue called the composite dialogue process to make progress on major issues of bilateral dispute. Eight issues were identified for discussion. These were: Peace and security including CBMs, Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen, Wullar barrage/Tulbul Navigation project, Sir Creek, Terrorism and drug trafficking, economic and commercial cooperation, and promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields. The author writes that it was a compromise approach in the sense that on the one side India agreed to include Kashmir in the agenda for talks and on the other side Pakistan accepted to include terrorism; both of these issues were seen as irritants in bilateral relations. Besides the open diplomacy, which is unknown to the outside world, the two Prime Ministers were also engaged in secret nego-tiations through their trustworthy emissaries. However, the Kargil war, failed Agra summit, attack on Indian Parliament and the mobilisation of troops on the border gave a setback to the bilateral relations.

He further writes that the main conflict between these two countries revolves around the Kashmir dispute. Despite initiating so many CBMs, the normalisation of relations seems somewhat of an elusive pursuit. At the end of this chapter the author highlights that the major roadblock in Indo-Pak relations is the mindset of the people on both sides of the border. He notes that many people in Pakistan think that softening of the border would lead to India dumping goods in Pakistan which would hurt the local Pakistani traders; and in India the biggest threat against expanded trade relations is the security concern.

Chapter 3rd: Mapping the Progress of the Composite Dialogue Process

In this chapter the author traces the origin of the Composite Dialogue Process (CDP) started between India and Pakistan. He states that the CDP was started on January 6, 2004 when Atal Behari Vajpayee and General Musharraf signed the joint statement which prepared the ground for the formulation of an eight-point agenda like peace and security including CBMs, Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen, Wullar barrage/Tulbul navigation project, Sir Creek, Terrorism and drug trafficking. The author highlights that although the CBMs continue to remain in place to maintain peace between India and Pakistan, however, events like the Kargil conflict in 1999, and attack on Indian Parliament, Mumbai attack etc. have acted as roadblocks to the peace process. He writes that General Parvez Musharraf tried his best to restart the peace process. He further writes that it was Musharraf who assured Atal Behari Vajapee that Pakistan will not allow anybody to use its territory aganist India and the leader was ready to think out of the box and made some proposals that were good for the peace process between India and Pakistan. In his view, the Composite Dialogue Process has not been a total failure but has provided dividends to both sides which could not have been achieved otherwise, for example, the bus services and LoC meeting points to bring divided families together.

However, the author also criticises the peace process; he states that the present peace process leads to efforts more towards conflict management rather than conflict resolution relating to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute which is central to India-Pakistan peace and prosperity. He further points out that the issues like Siachen, Wullar barrage/Tulbul navigation project, Sir Creek, Terrorism and drug trafficking, which were included in the composite dialogue process, are still lingering without hope of being resolved in the near future.

Chapter 4th: Challenges to the Composite Dialogue Process

In this chapter the author highlights the challenges to the composite dialogue process. He says the peace process is a time-consuming process based on the mutual desire of the conflicting parties of finding solution to a dispute. He observes that there are some basic requirements like willingness of the parties concerned to start the process of dialogue, patience and clear intentions of the leaders, political will to sustain the process of dialogue and identification of critical issues of a peace process. There are further factors which play a crucial role in the success of the peace process like strong yearning for peace both at the government and public levels; and also the time should be ripe for the dialogue. Further, the peace process must address the concerns of all the parties to the dispute regardless of their strength.

He argues that if one side monopolises the agenda, the issues and concerns of the weaker party to the dispute are ignored and that adversely affects the peace process. The author feels that the composite dialogue process is facing problems like weak and indecisive leadership on both sides, negative perceptions of people with one another across the border, dissemination of hatred through textbooks against each other, trust deficit between the two sides, terrorism. He opines that to remove these hurdles elite meetings like Pugwash, Chaophraya conferences are of little help, because these meetings hardly develop any consensus on important issues; instead of these meetings some concrete steps should be taken to mould the perceptions of the people for peace and goodwill in the region.

Chapter 5th: Conclusion

In the concluding chapter the author underlines that this region is recognised as a high-risk conflict zone because of the history of tense relations due to border clashes etc. He says Sir Creek, Siachen Glacier and Wullar barrage are the thorny issues in the bilateral ties between India and Pakistan. Although a series of confidence building measures and negotiations related to contentious issues were initiated, however, these negotiations had not set any time-table and were held on the need-to-meet basis. He writes that there are limited people-to-people contacts which would have contributed to overcome the negative perception that peoples of both countries have towards each other. The two countries have very little direct trade with each other. He notes that the Indo-Pak composite dialogue process is a desirable approach but is prone to derailment if attempts are made to find instant solutions to old and complex issues.

At the end of the concluding chapter he endorses the words of Mani Shankar Aiyar that there are compelling reasons why India should pro-actively engage with Pakistan. First, a tension-free relationship with Pakistan would help India to consolidate its nationhood, the bonding adhesive of which is secularism. Second, the issue of terrorism can be effectively tackled only in cooperation with Pakistan and not in confrontation with it. Third, India will not be able to play its due role in international affairs so long as it is dragged down by its quarrels with Pakistan. (p. 144)

The book traces the history of the peace process between India and Pakistan and is essential for those who are working on Indo-Pak relations in general and the peace process in particular.

Mehrag-Ud-Din Bhat is pursuing Ph.D at the Department of Political Science, University of Kashmir, Srinagar.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Rajya Sabha abandoning its Role as a Federal Chamber

by S.K. Jain

In recent time, the Rajya Sabha has become the centre of controversy for two reasons. First with the recently held biennial election to fill the vacant seats where cross-voting by MLAs of different parties led to the defeat of the official/supported candidate of the Congress and other regional parties. Charges are being levelled by these parties of using corrupt practices against each other bringing the reputation of the Rajya Sabha to a very low level contrary to the expectations of our Constitution-makers.

The other reasons is the alleged obstructionist role of the Rajaya Sabha in the working of the governments development agenda with many pending Bills in the House. However with great difficulties the GST Bill was passed lately. Since the ruling NDA Government does not have the required majority in the Rajya Sabha, it has to depend on the Congress and other regional parties support to pass important Bills to fulfil its manifesto for better governance or achche din for the common people of the country. A fresh look at the Rajya Sabha in the present context is necessary in its role as the Federal second chamber of the Indian Constitution.

The Indian Parliament is made of the President and the two Houses. While the two Houses continue to be recognised by their names in the Constitution as the House of the People and Council of States respectively, the Speaker of the former, G.V. Mavalankar, announced on May 14, 1954 that the House of People would thereafter be known as the Lok Sabha and Dr S. Radhakrishnan made a similar announcement on August 23, 1954 that the Council of States would be called the Rajya Sabha. Behind the idea of the Rajya Sabha was the federal character of India besides being a revising and reflective chamber. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, a member of Constituent Assembly, described the Rajya Sabha as a sobering house, a reviewing house, a house standing for quality, an impartial chamber of revision of the measures and proposals advanced by the Lok Sabha unswayed by considerations of electoral outcome.

Quite a few who spoke in the Constituent Assembly envisaged the Rajya Sabha as the cultural face of India par excellence enabling the country in general and Parliament in particular to have the larger picture in mind and act in cognisance of it. Accommodating diversity too figured in it prominently. Naziruddin Ahmad, a member of the Constituent Assembly, said: We have to consider the entry of the States into the federation and second chamber would be an absolute necessity without which it would be difficult to fit in the representatives of the States in the scheme of things. The argument saw the Rajya Sabha as the guardian of the interests in a commonwealth of States. Therefore, those who aspired to its membership had to know the interests of the States they represented and possibly see these interests in relation to, and in consonance with, the interests of the Union as a whole. The Rajya Sabha was a representa-tive of the nation like the Lok Sabha but in a different sense. It would represent the nation as a differentiated whole. L.M. Singhvi even agreed that the Rajaya Sabha be named as senate to convey the principle. According to him, the Rajya Sabha should not be merely a revising chamber but represent the federal ethos in India. It should be the grand inquest of the nation, reflecting the diversities of languages, of culture, perception and diversities of interest. It should be the house of wisdom and federal understanding.

The Constitution-makers conceptualised the Council of States as a representative body of States in the federal framework of the Indian Constitution. Hence the Representation of People Act, 1951 stipulated that a person would not be qualified to be chosen as a representative of any State or Union Territory in the Rajya Sabha unless he is an elector for a parliamentary constituency in that State or Territory. The electoral law for registration as voter was based on the criterion of ordinarily a resident in a constituency. However, we find over the years that many members of the Rajya Sabha being elected from States of which they were not residents or have had little ethnic or linguistic affiliation with people ordinarily resident in that State. Quite often such members were important politicians who were either defeated in the Lok Sabha elections or had no capacity to win an election. The domicile issue had become a sensitive one in the 1990s, when T.N. Seshan, the then Chief Election Commissioner, sought to disqualify Dr Manmohan Singh, the then Finance Minister and Rajya Sabha member in the P.V. Narashima Rao Government, on the ground that he did not ordinarily reside in Assam and therefore did not fulfil the legal qualification for the membership of the House. Over the years many politiciansO. Rajagopal, Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitly (BJP), Kapil Sibal, Jayram Ramesh (Congress), Ram Jethmalani (RJD)followed the example. However, finally in August 2003, the domicile requirement was done away with through an amendment of section 3 of the Act that replaced the words in the State or territory in India. The amendment also made the election of the Rajya Sabha members open rather than being a secret as had been the case so far. This amendment was supported by all political parties except the Left parties.

However, this amendment was challenged in the Supreme Court through a PIL by Kuldip Nayar and Indrajit Singh by saying that this amendment violated the basic structure of the Constitution since such a requirement was the basic principle behind the Council of States and that the Parliament in 1951 prescribed the domiciliary qualification in the electoral law. They pleaded that anyone who is not a resident of the State should not be eligible to contest the elections to the Rajya Sabha. The PIL also sought that elections to the Rajya Sabha should not be open but secret. However, the five-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal, passed a unanimous judgment in favour of the amendment. The Court also did not see any problem in the open ballot system for the Rajya Sabha election on the basis of the need to avoid cross-voting and wipe out the evil of corruption as also to maintain what the court termed as the integrity of our democratic set-up.

Now in the light of this when we see the role and function of the Rajya Sabha, we find that the Rajya Sabha has abandoned its role both as the custodian of interests of the States to maintain the sanctity of the federal system besides holding dignified debates on important issues having a sobering effect on the restive Lok sabha. What is now being witnessed by the proceedings of the House is that it has lost its coolness, sobriety, and maturity by members often rushing to the well of House on the slightest pretext for sheer political consideration to please their party bosses. All this has led to disruption and adjournment of the House more often than not denting the image of the House of elder and matured people. The Rajya Sabha was supposed to be the intellectual and theoretical face of Parliament against the mundane and ordinary Lok Sabha. However, this seems to be fading away though it is still a parking lounge of political glitterati and public intellectuals. The Lok Sabha has been the pulse of the vitality of Indian democracy but refuses to acknowledge the Rajya Sabha as its intellectual superior since now it only represent the narrow interests of the political parties, either national or regional.

The political class has over the period changed the character and role of the Rajya Sabha what the Constitution-makers had envisaged for it in its original design keeping the wishes and aspirations of the States. The M.M. Punchi Commission Report on Centre-State Relations (2010) underlined the imperative of a major constitutional restructuring of the Rajya Sabha as a protector of the States rights by the grant of equal representation of States, small and big, in federal second chamber. This will reduce the present federal imbalance in Parliament wherein smaller States are heavily outnumbered in national as well as the federal chamber of the Parliament. Can we hope that the Rajya Sabha will restore its image as the second legislative and federal chamber reflecting the deep diversities of India? Only the political masters can tell us in this regard.

Dr S.K. is an Jain Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, Universty of Delhi. He can be contacted at e-mail: drskjvk@gmail.com
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Its Kashmir again

A few years ago when I persuaded Yasin Malik, the first militant in the Valley of Kashmir, to give up his fast unto death, his demand was that the International Amnesty should visit the Valley to verify the violation of human rights. He broke the fast when I gave an undertaking that I would myself head a team to Srinagar to prepare a report on the violations of human rights.

Today that kind of confidence has gone. The Hurriyat has refused to meet the delegation because the Hurriyat is not sure whether the delegation can deliver. There is yet another reason. The Hurriyat wants to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of Kashmiris, who have gone beyond the stage of talks. They want a separate, sovereign country. And they feel that the Hurriyat failed them in the past because it sought solution within the Indian Union.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headed the dele-gation. The Home Minister was justified in saying that the Hurriyats refusal went against the spirit of Kashmiriyat, which disseminated of love and harmony. The Hurriyat does not seem to recognise that. It gives little importance to the fact that the party came to power through free ballot box, the democratic way of measuring support in the country. The BJP has secured a majority of 543-member in the Lok Sabha on its own, with no alliance before or after the polls. On the other hand, the Hurriyat is only a combination of three factions. One is led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who still wants accession to the Islamic state of Pakistan, the other by Yasin Malik and the third by Shabbir Shah.

Geelani is their leader because he represents anti-India feelings on the one hand and the Islamic content on the other.

My feeling is that at least two of them have become irrelevant in the present situation in the Valley. They still prefer a settlement through a dialogue. The youth have, however, gone back to the gun because they do not find either Yasin Malik or Shabbir Shah delivering what they want, that is aazadi. The gun is no solution either.

Over the years the Organisation of Islamic Countires has lost its importance in India. Even the Muslim population, some 25 million, cares little about what it says. Therefore, it was not surprising that the Indian media did not even report that the OIC had asked for a referendum in Kashmir. The Muslim countries are them-selves to blame for this because they blatantly support Pakistan, just because it is a Muslim country.

Unlike Pakistan, where the last word is with the Army Chief, India is ruled by Parliament. The Hurriyat has insulted it. To insult it is to insult the Indian people. It was the suggestion by the CPI-M that the delegation went. Yechury, the partys General Secretary, was insistent that the talks should begin with the Geelani group. Raising the anti-India slogans when the delegation reached Geelanis residence may be helpful in placating the hardcore. But it does not address the core of the problem. Rajnath Singh has made it clear that Kashmir was an integral part of India and will remain so. This has put an end to the dialogue on Kashmir that Pakistan has been relentlessly demanding. Where do we go from here? There is no option to talks. Even a limited war can become the nuclear one.

What New Delhi has to appreciate is that the Kashmiris desire to distance themselves from India may not be considered in any meaningful transfer of power from New Delhi to Srinagar. Yet the impression that the Kashmiris rule themselves has to be sustained. The National Conference waged a long war to get rid of Maharaja Hari Singh and had an icon like Sheikh Abdullah to provide a secular and democratic rule in the State. But the party suffered defeat in the Assembly polls because it was seen too close to New Delhi.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won because its founder, Mufti Mohammad Sayyed, kept a distance from New Delhi, without alienating it. The Kashmiris voted for him because he gave them a feeling of defiance. Omar Farooq Abdullah had to pay the price of the National Conferences image of being pro-Delhi. Kashmirs links with India is too close to challenge it beyond a point. Still the Opposition, however small, gives the Kashmiris a vicarious satisfaction of defying New Delhi.

Kashmir feels strongly about New Delhis step-motherly treatment meted out to the language. And it is generally believed that it is languishing in neglect because Urdu is considered the language of Muslims. If New Delhi were to own and encourage Urdu, the Kashmiris would have at least one reason less to feel aggrieved.

People are generally poor like the rest of India and they want jobs which they realise will come through only development, including tourism. But they are not themselves picking up the gun or any other weapon to drive the militants out. One, they are afraid of them and, two, there is a feeling that what the militants are trying to do is to give them an identity. Therefore, the criticism that there is no resistance to the militants from within the Valley should be understandable because it is part of the peoples alienation.

I still believe that the 1953 agreement, which gave India the control of defence, foreign affairs and communications, can improve part of the situation in the State. The Kashmiri youth, who are angry over the States status as well, can be won over by the assurance that the entire Indian market is available to them for business or service.

But this alone may not do. New Delhi will have to withdraw all the Acts relating to the fields other than defence, foreign affairs and communications. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, which was promulgated some 25 years ago to meet the extraordinary situation in the State, is still in operation. Were the government to withdraw the Act, it would placate the Kashmirs on the one hand and make the security forces more responsible on the other.

The author is a veteran journalist renowned not only in this country but also in our neighbouring states of Pakistan and Bangladesh where his columns are widely read. His website is www.kuldipnayar.com
A celebration of life gathering will be 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, at the VFW, 1603 S. Monroe Ave. Military honors will be conducted at 2 p.m. by the Mason City Veterans Association.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Indias Modi must visit Kashmir to ease tension in the Valley

by Kadayam Subramanian

Indias intelligence agencies have played a controversial role in reporting on the nature of the current unrest in Kashmir. By blaming Pakistan for instigating trouble in the Valley, they have failed to address the genuine problems of the people on the ground, which the younger generation of Kashmiris are agitated about including the negative role of the security forces. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should reject spurious analysis which encourages confron-tation with Pakistan, visit the Valley urgently and engage the people in concrete and constructive ways about their genuine problems. Failure to do so will only drive the Kashmiri people into irretrievable alienation from the rest of India further fuelling separatist tendencies.

Over the years, Indias Intelligence Bureau (IB) has played a crucial role in sustaining the Central Governments control over Kashmir affairs.

The first comprehensive official analysis of the Kashmir problem was produced by B.N. Mullik, Director of the IB (1950-64) under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1972). A more recent and critical assessment was provided by Dulat (2015).

However, despite such critical analyses, things kept falling apart, the Centre often lost hold and anarchy was loosed upon the Kashmir Valley. The restive region is on the boil again and incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to divert public attention from the current unrest there by highlighting human rights violations in the conflict-torn Balochistan province in Pakistan and Pak-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

What led to the indigenous mass upsurge in Kashmir Valley was the recent killing of a young Kashmiri militant, Burhan Muzaffar Wani, 22, by the security forces on July 8. Instead of examining the causes that led to the new phase of violence, Modi, based on the inputs given by intelligence agencies, is blaming Pakistan for the violence in the Valley.

Police response to the disturbances was appalling. After public outrage and wide media coverage, the Central Armed Paramilitary Force (CAPF) finally confessed to having used 1.3 million pellets in 32 days from the day Wani was killed.

Till August 18, 65 people were killed, several hundred were blinded and many seriously injured by pellet guns.

Pakistan seized the opportunity to discredit India by showing that the violence is Kashmir is a domestic issue and not one created by Islamabad.

Cornered, Modi counter-attacked by high-lighting Pakistans abysmal human rights record in Balochistan province while ignoring Indias human rights abuses in Kashmir.

Though Modi paid lip-service to those killed and injured in Kashmir, he never bothered to visit the Valley to offer sympathies or punish the guilty. His cold response to the incidents was reminiscent of his passive role during the 2002 carnage in Gujarat during his tenure as the States Chief Minister.

But how come Modi grabbed the Balochistan stick to beat Pakistan to cover up his own vulnerability in the Kashmir Valley?

The answer is Ajit Kumar Doval, the National Security Adviser (NSA) to the Prime Minister and former Director of the IB.

In a lecture delivered in 2014, Doval, while referring to hostile bilateral relations between India and Pakistan, stressed the need for India to exploit Pakistans vulnerabilities and render unaffordable any Pakistani effort to mount terrorist attacks on India.

He used the famous phrase you may do one Mumbai; you may lose Balochistan, implying that any Pakistani terrorist attempt on India like the one on Mumbai in 2008 would be met with a counterattack by India which may ultimately lead to the secession of Balochistan from Pakistan like Bangladesh in 1971.

Doval argued that Pakistan should be allowed to bleed with the Taliban and prevented from using terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Further, he said, India should use high technology to carry out intelligence-driven covert ope-rations in Balochistan.

This is precisely what the then Army Chief, V.K. Singh (now a Minister in the Modi Cabinet), did in 2015 when his Technical Services Division undertook several intelligence-driven covert operations in Balochistan.

The Balochistan Liberation Organisation (BLO) was allowed to open its office in New Delhi in 2009. Indian officials felt that both Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) could be easily targeted.

Indian intelligence agencies had worked on these possibilities previously as well. A section of the ruling BJP was aware of this. Pakistan too had come to know of this as revealed by the then Prime Minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, at Sharm-el-Sharif.

In 2016, Kulbhushan Yadav, a suspected agent of the Indias Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), was arrested by Pakistani authorities at the Iran-Balochistan border.

Modis reference to human rights violations in Balochistan and PoK in his Independence Day address on August 15 is thus quite under-standable.

Till the establishment of the institution of the NSA in the 1990s, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau (DIB), B.N. Mullik, was the virtual NSA for Nehru. He was Nehrus confidant from 1950 to 1964.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi set up R&AW for external intelligence collection in 1968. The agency was directed by Ramji Nath Kao, a Kashmiri close to Indira.

Mullik, in his autobiographical work, My Years with Nehru (1971-72), provided insights into his intelligence operations during his years with Nehru.

One of his murky operations in 1953 was the arrest and detention, on charges of sedition of the Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah. Although the Kashmiri leader remained in custody for over 20 years, the charges of sedition against him were never proved as admitted by Mullik himself in his work.

The unfair treatment meted out to Abdullah was perhaps a factor for the alienation of the Kashmiri people that, in a way, contributed to the emergence of insurgency in the Kashmir Valley in the late 1980s.

Dulat (2015) thinks that if Abdullah had not been so badly treated, the separatist mind-set would not have taken roots in Kashmiri politics and the question of retention or deletion of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, protecting the autonomy of Kashmir, would not have become controversial.

The allegation that the current upsurge in Kashmir was instigated by Pakistan is rejected by Omar Abdullah, former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Abdullah thinks that the current struggle in Kashmir is indigenous in origin. According to him, Modis advocacy of development as a solution is not enough.

Two of the five NSAs since 1999 have been senior policemen including the present one. Their mind-set is conditioned by the national security perspective and unaffected by human security considerations.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jamaat-ud-Daawa (JuD), two Pakistan-based Islamist militant organisations, are reportedly inclined to send 2000 fighters to the Kashmir Valley and challenge the might of the Indian state. There is also threat from agencies that recruit Kashmiri youth for the Islamic State. This would lead to further militarisation of the region.

The Pakistani Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) would be pleased if a Palestinian-Intifada type movement develops in Kashmir. Differences between Islamabad and Kabul, the US and Pakistans concern over Afghanistans future and Indias efforts to raise the human rights abuses in Balochistan are likely to raise tension in South Asia.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has warned that Indias refusal to recognise the gravity of the situation in Kashmir would lead to the unimaginable risk of alienating the people of Kashmir in an irrevocable and irreparable manner.

India seems reluctant to note that while Kashmir is an international bilateral dispute between two countries recognised by the United Nations, Balochistan (population 7 million) is a local problem in Pakistan.

(Courtesy: Asia Times)

References

Dulat, Amarjit Singh, 2015, Vajpayee: the Kashmir Years (1998-2004), Harper Collins, New Delhi.

Mullik, B.N., 1972, My Years with Nehru, Volume II on Kashmir, Allied Publishers, New Delhi.

Noorani, 2015, Doval Doctrine, 2016, November 13, Frontline, New Delhi.

Subramanian, K.S., 2007, Political Violence and the Police in India, Sage 2007.

Siddiqa, Ayesha, 2016, Sorry, India, this is not the way to help the people of Balochistan, the wire.in.

The writer was the Director of the Research and Policy Division of the Union Home Ministry in India. He was Director General of Police in North-East India. He is the author of Political Violence and the Police in India, Sage, 2007 and State Policy and Conflicts in North-East India, Routledge, 2016.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Talks about talks in the Kashmir Valley

There is a silver-lining in the dark cloud of uncertainty looming over Jammu and Kashmir. An all-party delegation that recently visited the Kashmir Valley has called for talks with all stakeholders which may include the separatist All Parties Hurriyet Conference as well. Will the Modi Government find such an extraordinary idea agreeable? Anyway, the federal government needs an out-of-the-box approach to resolve the Kashmir tangle.

A high-profile visit by the Indian Army Chief, General Dalbir Singh, to the Kashmir Valley on Friday (September 9), the fourth in a row in seven weeks, highlights the gravity of the security situation in that region. The Kashmir Valley has been in turmoil for two months following the killing by the security forces of a charismatic commander of the separatist militant organisation, Hizbul Mujahideen, in early July.

As many as 73 people have been killed so far in the violence and several thousand injured. Curfew had to be re-imposed in many parts of the capital Srinagar on September 9 as precau-tionary measure in anticipation of violent protests after the Friday prayers. There are severe restrictions on the movement and assembly of people in the rest of the Kashmir Valley as well.

Gen. Singhs tour is being seen as signalling that the Indian Army will no longer remain on the sidelines, as a security analyst, Ajay Shukla, wrote. In reality, though, the government directed the Army to create conditions on the ground that would hopefully enable the return of paramilitary forces and police who have fled their posts and were forced to concede large tracts of territory to protestors.

This is a replay of 2010 when too the writ of the Indian state had ceased to exist following large-scale street protests across the Valley. Traditionally, Delhis modus operandi is to call in the Army when nothing else works, and forcefully establish dominance over disaffected people. The Army generally succeeds.

However, a major difference is that the Pakistan-backed insurgency has been on the wane and cross-border infiltration is also relatively on a much smaller scale. This is despite direct incitement of anger in the Valley from Islamabad. In short, this time around, the Armys task is rather curiousnamely, re-energise the police and paramilitary forces and restore their self-confidence, morale and operational viability.

It is an unpleasant task for any standing Armycontrol unarmed crowds pelting stones and finesse an inchoate civil disobedience movement while also reviving the demoralised police machinery and protecting it from the wrath of the people. But being a disciplined force, the Indian Army will carry out the orders of the civilian leadership in Delhi. Experts anticipate a three-pronged strategy by the Army:

 Making its presence (footprint) more visible by spreading out the deployments with a view to reasserting dominance over the countryside;

 Instilling confidence in the police and para-military by providing them security protection; and,

 Bringing into the Valley more paramilitary forces as reinforcement to handle the heavy workload.

Clearly, the authorities are hard-pressed to re-impose the writ of the state, which has ceased to exist across the Valley. The earlier hopes of sitting out the protests have been dashed. The authorities fear a dangerous momentum towards anarchy, as Shukla put it.

Some Wriggle Room

This is a gambit insofar as it is essentially yet another attempt at cauterisation of a bleeding wound. Indeed, the top Army commander in Kashmir, Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, has gone on record that what is needed is political management rather than treating the situation as a security problem.

However, there could be a silver-lining on the horizon.

On the face of it, an all-party delegation from Delhi comprising mainstream political parties, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which visited the Valley on September 4, failed to achieve anything tangible, but the initiative may turn out to be hugely consequential insofar as the delegation, which was led by Indias Interior Minister Rajnath Singh, has brought to the table an idea that was considered blasphemy up until this weekthe imperative need to talk to all stakeholders (read the seemingly separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference as well).

The suggestion has come from Indias main-stream Opposition parties, but the fact remains that Prime Minister Narendra Modi now gets some wriggle room, if he wishes to create such space, for re-calibrating the BJPs stance that there could be no talks with separatists.

The good part is that the government cannot ignore an all-party consensus. Therefore, the statement issued by the all-party delegation after its return to Delhi on September 7 calling for talks with all stakeholders becomes something of a benchmark to measure the events in the coming weeks.

Suffice it to say, there is reason to hope that talks may begin with the so-called separatists in the Valley. There can be no two opinions that there will be overwhelming support in the Valley for such talks.

Of course, there have been so many false starts over the past six decades and the sense of betrayal in the Valley borders on despair. There have been interlocutors who were unaccountable; there have been back channels which led nowhere; and there have been the ubiquitous Track II. What is needed is an out-of-the-box approach.

Is the Modi Government capable of new thinking? Indeed, faced with a comparable piquant situation exactly ten years ago, to encourage the political forces in Nepal to transition to democracy, the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, had approached the leader of Communist Party of India-Marxist, Sitaram Yechury, to use his influence and persuasive skill to bring the Maoists of Nepal into the mainstream democratic process. That approach went a long way to eventually consolidate the democratic transformation in Nepal.

Interestingly, Yechury, who was a member of the delegation from Delhi which visited the Kashmir Valley, has proposed that a committee of parliamentarians who are answerable to the Indian Parliament and the Modi Government could be constituted, com-prising the ruling and Opposition parties, who could be entrusted with the mission to engage all Kashmiri stakeholders in a concerted effort to find a lasting political solution.

Painted into a Corner

Will the Modi Government find such an extraordinary idea agreeable?

Yet another big question will be as regards Pakistans attitude. To be sure, Islamabad is making robust attempts to insert itself into the upheaval in the Kashmir Valley (although the mass protests are largely indigenous and spontaneous).

This is where India needs to lower the rhetoric and re-engage Pakistan as well. The governments harsh rhetoric against Pakistan has gone down well in the BJPs core constituency of Hindu nationalists. But beyond that, it is unproductiveand even counter-productive.

Within the week of Modi demanding from the forums of the G-20 summit in Hangzhou and the ASEAN summits in Vientiane the isolation of Pakistan by the international community and the sanctioning of that country for fostering terrorism, Washington has pointedly advised India and Pakistan to hold dialogue to lower tensions. The US State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said on September 8:

We strongly encourage in all of our dealings with either India and/or Pakistan stronger relations between the two countries. Its clearly in the security interests of the region that they work to de-escalate tensions and that they have dialogue. And thats something we constantly encourage for just thator out of just that concern, which is that we dont want to see tensions escalate, spiral out of control, and lead to some kind of incident. Again, its important for the two countries, the two governments to maintain strong, cordial, and productive relations.

Washington senses that the Modi Government has painted itself into a corner. No amount of anti-Pakistan rhetoric is helping an improve-ment in the ground situation in the Valley. A military crackdown will damage Indias reputation; it does not solve the problem, either. Political dialogue becomes unavoidable. Pakistans cooperation can help.

(Courtesy: Asia Times)

Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including Indias ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > All-Party Delegation in Srinagar, Hurriyats Position

MUSINGS

The all-party delegation to Srinagar has only ushered in complications. Instead of reaching out to the alienated masses or taking the initial steps towards a solution to the ongoing crisis, whats taken off is sheer politics! You could call this nothing short of Right-wing politics, where instead of focusing on the crux, distractions are brought about along a certain well-crafted agenda.

In the context of todays bleeding-battered Kashmir, the Centre seems hell-bent on targeting the Hurriyatfor not opening their doors when our parliamentarians knocked! Its so deter-mined to promote and circulate this theory together with negative propaganda, its not even ready to hear counter-views from the local Kashmiris who are equally determined to queryWhy are the Hurriyat leaders jailed or under house arrest, forced to sit in a caged condition? Why were no formal invites handed to them from the Centreafter all, it was a well-planned visit? Why did the parliamen-tarians take two months to finally wake up to the killings here? There has been a history of bogus promises by visiting VVIPS from New Delhi, so what miracles could have been expected now, when parliamentarians came knockingwould their salaams or hellos bring back our dead or blinded children and revive our ruined economy which is worsening as clampdowns carry on? Is New Delhi bothered about our daily survival, about the hundreds of freshly-dug graves, about our children stuffed indoors for eight long weeks?

Ironies hit as Never Before!

Ironies hit. Though the Hurriyat was shunned both by the government at the Centre and also the one at the State level, within hours after the killing of Burhan Wani in July 2016 Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and several of her senior colleagues appealed to the Hurriyat leaders to help the government in bringing about peace and calm.

More ironies. On one hand the Government of India (GOI), leaves no opportunity to state that the Hurriyat leadershardliners or separa-tists as are they calledare irrelevant and not to be part of any of the discussions on Kashmir, yet they are placed under house arrest and security restrictions imposed on their movements as any given pretext is enough to relay that the GOI does realise that these local leaders do have a hold on the sentiments of the Kashmiris and with that on the prevailing conditions in the Valley.

Also, former Prime Ministers of India Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh  had invited the Hurriyat leaders for discussions with the Government of India. Then why this halt to those talks with the Hurriyat? Why this Uturn? The Pakistan factor was always there; yet there were talks with the Hurriyat, so what has happened to that season of talks? Or, were the Hurriyat leaders called by the Centre for those talks just for publicity along the strain that the GOI was serious in trying to bring about a political solution of the Kashmir crisis?

Today the ground reality is that though the Hurriyat stands divided to a certain extent (in fact, intelligence agencies have played a major role in bringing about divisions) its leaders do matter. The Hurriyat leaders do hold a strong base in the Valley. Walk in and around the Maisuma locality of Srinagar and see and sense the JKLFs stronghold in that locality. Locals recount that Yasin Mailk has been in the forefront with relief each time a disaster struck, be it the Tsunami of South India or be it the calamities hitting the Kashmir region. And if you were to go towards any of the downtown locales of Srinagar it would get writ large that Mirwaiz is the leader. He is not just a Hurriyat leader but the religious head for the Muslims of the Valley... hundreds of Kashmiris reach Srinagars downtown-situated Jami Masjid each Friday noon to hear Mirwaiz lead the Jumma namaaz and after that address the people... He is a scholar, his talks go beyond religious philosophy and do touch the prevailing ground realities. I had been interviewing the Hurriyat leaders when they were in New Delhi and also in their Srinagar base. Putting together these excerpts from my earlier interviews with the Hurriyats top brass, which relay that these leaders do talk sense and are not a bunch of outdated rebels as the electronic media portrays them.

When Hurriyats the then chairman, Maulana Abbas Ansari, had flown down to New Delhi for the much-publicised January 22, 2004 talks between the Centre and five of the Hurriyat leaders, Maulana Abbas Ansari, Abdul Gani Bhat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Fazul Haq Qureshi, Bilal Lone, he (that is, Maulana Abbas Ansari) had spoken to me during the course of an interview. He gave the interview the day after meeting L.K. Advani and just a couple of hours before meeting Prime Minister Vajpayee... The days schedule seemed tight, what with he giving one interview after another, switching from Hindustani to fluent Persian (hed studied in Iran) for an Iranian channel and in between speaking to friends who had assembled even non-Kashmiris like Pandit N.K. Sharma, who was heading the Universal Association of Spiritual Awareness.

What is your concept of a lasting solution for Kashmir? Id asked Maulana Abbas Ansari and he had detailed, No solution will be possible till the Kashmiris are not heard and not asked what they want... and its in the interest of both the countriesIndia and Pakistanthat a solution is worked on as soon as possible for God forbid if war erupts then the whole of South Asia tabah ho jaega... dont ask me what will happen to us Kashmiris for ham to waise hi mar gae hain, we Kashmiris are almost dead but Im worried about this entire region, Im repeating that if war erupts this entire region tabah ho jaega ... We came to New Delhi for talks for whats wrong with our talking with the Centre, after all, even Mahatma Gandhi had talked to the British, there was Nelson Mandela who did the same.... And we agreed to talk to the Centre after they came round to our basic condition that these talks would be held without any conditions and in total sincerity... Right now, as of now we want the Kashmiri to be heard, to be allowed to live and live in dignity.... Has till now any one bothered to find out what he (the Kashmiri) wants? He has to be heard, as he is the one who is suffering from all possible sides.

And when I had interviewed Lone sahib in Srinagar in 2001, hed stressed: We want peace, every Kashmiri wants peace but they (Govern-ment of India) are not letting us even talk or not even letting us enter into a dialogue, leaving us feeling so frustrated. But as I said earlier there can be no peace with broken promises and the GOIs track record has been full of deceit... we just cant trust them. The Hurriyat is absolutely against any bifurcation talks .. we are all one peoplewe want no division of the state against any lines. This State has to remain intact.

And during my three interviews with Yasin Malik, he was categorical: Ive always believed in a non-violent struggle, right from the age of 17 years when, in 1983, I first jumped into this struggle for self-determi-nation... It is only much later in 1988 that I took up armed struggle under the banner of the JKLF but six years later, in 1994, we again opted for a unilateral ceasefire, gave up the armed struggle and wanted a peaceful settlement of this problem. ... The Government of India has to decide what it wants because it has adopted a different yardstick for the peace process in Nagaland and it is treating us on a different level. I believe that India and Pakistan cant hold any talks without involving representatives of the Kashmiri people... Kashmiris have to be involved in these talks and cannot be bypassed.

Around 2009, during a meet in New Delhi Multi-Party Dialogue on the Political Future of Jammu and Kashmirwhich was organised by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in collaboration with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, I had inter-viewed Hurriyats Professor Abdul Gani Bhat. Hed said: No, there is no change for the common man, for the man on the streets. Im of the opinion that metal detectors cannot detect the anger and alienation of the Kashmiri people. What has to be taken into account are the sentiments of the Kashmiri people and also the dynamics sweeping across the world. Today there seems no escape route available for India and Pakistan but the only way out is to work on actual issues... after all, peace and dispute cannot ever co-exist and the nuclear weaponisation in the subcontinent has added an alarming dimension.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > How Can there be an Indian Lincoln, Mr Udit Raj?

by Ram Puniyani

Dalit activist and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha Udit Raj, in his recent article in The Indian Express titled Where is The Indian Lincoln? highlights some pertinent questions and brings forth the issue of caste-related atrocities. But he goes on to hide things which are more crucial to the process of caste annihilation.

He is on the dot when he says that atrocities against Dalits are due to a mindset which regards them as inferior. While this explains how such acts have been taking place earlier as well as now, he undermines the fact that this mindset is due to a political ideology which upholds the caste system in a subtle way.

What he hides is the fact that such atrocities have gone up during the past two years. What he does not state is that the Jhajjar violence in Haryana was legitimised by the late Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Acharya Giriraj Kishore, who belonged to Udit Rajs political family called the Sangh Parivar.

It is true that many countries in Europe could do away with birth-based hierarchy of class and gender due to the industrial revolution ushering in a journey towards substantive democracy.

India could not achieve such a desirable goal due to the objective restraints imposed by the colonial rule. The industrial revolutions of the West did away with the feudal classes along with their feudal mindset which was justifying the birth-based hierarchies.

In India due to the colonial rule, we have seen the birth of modern institutions along with the foundation of a modern society. The foundation and growth of Indian nationalism did aspire for the formal equality of all irrespective of caste, religion and gender.

The colonial masters in India were least interested in doing away with feudal powers. The feudal-clergy nexus persisted and gave rise to nationalism in the name of religion. Both Muslim nationalism and Hindu nationalism thrived.

The pace of change in colonies is not comparable to the other places where the industrial class along with the workers and women combine overthrows the social and political alliance of the feudal-clergy combine.

So in colonies the process of secularisation remains arrested and in post-colonial societies the feudal mindset persists with the patronage of certain sections of society.

In these societies the meaning of the word revolution has to be restricted to social trans-formation. The-day-to-day efforts for social transformation are the revolutionary steps. In that sense India had its own trajectory.

Starting with Jotirao Phule, the Dalits began a slow and long journey towards equality. The journey for womens equality begins with Savitribai Phule. These streams were totally opposed by the conservative religious elements. These conservatives later crystallised themselves as the Muslim League on one side and the Hindu Mahasabha-RSS on the other.

The march of Indian nationalism accommo-dated Ambedkar in some form. While he struggled for social democracy through means of temple entry (Kalaram Mandir), access to public spaces (Chavdar Talao), he want on to support the burning of Manusmriti and state his resolve for social equality. We cant be mechanistic in understanding revolution in diverse societies.

These steps like those of Jotirao, Savitribai and Ambedkar, Periyar are revolutionary. These are hesitantly supported by Indian nationalism and totally opposed by Hindu nationalism.

Gandhi, a symbol of Indian nationalism, did his best to oppose untouchability, while his stand on reserved constituency can be questioned. Nehru, the architect of modern India, later oversaw Ambedkar formulate a Constitution which not only gave formal equality to all but also affirmative reservations to the Dalits.

Nehrus attempt to bring in reforms like the Hindu Code Bill were sabotaged by conservatives within his party and conservatives and Hindu nationalists outside his party.

The persistence of subordination of Dalits was mainly due to the persistence of the mindset of Hindu nationalism, which had even opposed the Indian Constitution when it was being formulated.

The Hindu nationalists have been strong opponents of reservations all through; this is what led to anti-Dalit riots in Ahmedabad in 1981 and the anti-OBC violence again in Ahmedabad in 1986.

The Hindu nationalist BJP intensified its Ram temple movement in the wake of the Mandal Commission implementation.

Udit Raj is right that those perpetrating crimes have not been punished; but that again is due to the prevalent mindset, which has its roots in Hindutva ideology, which spilled beyond the parties and organisations working for a Hindu Rashtra (nation) directly.

While longing for revolution is good, ignoring the revolutionary changes at slow speed is disastrous and the likes of Udit Raj sitting in the lap of the BJP, which has been the vehicle of counter-revolution as far as social changes are concerned, is a big setback to the process of social change.

Since the BJP is the political arm of the RSS, which aspires for a Hindu nation, Hindutva via Hindu nationalism, Raj is contributing precisely to the processes which are hampering the transition of caste equations towards those of equality.

If he wakes up to understand as to how mindsets are formed, he will realise that among other things his party has been transforming national institutions towards the values which will promote an anti-Dalit mindset.

Just one example from many such incidents: the BJP has appointed one Sudarshan Rao as the head of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR). Rao argues that the caste system had no problems and nobody had complaints against that.

The RSS, the BJPs ideological patron, goes on to say that all castes were equal and problems came in due to the invasion of Muslim kings!

All this is putting wool in the eyes of the society to perpetuate the ideology which is inherently castiest and leads to the strengthening of a mindset which looks down upon Dalits.

So a Rohith Vemula or a Una violence happens.

If the Indian nationalist movement was a mini-revolution, the present politics being unfolded by Hindu nationalism is a counter-revolution, duly supported by the likes of Udit Raj.

And lastly, if one concedes that there has been no Lincoln in India, one can also look forward to the post-Rohith Vemula-Una upsurge of youth, Dalits and non-Dalits, which is going in the direction of caste annihilation!

The author, a retired Professor at the IIT-Bombay, is currently associated with the Centre for the Study of Secularism and Society, Mumbai.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Message From Una

by Binoy Viswam

August 15, our Independence Day, was observed in the national Capital in a routine manner. The Prime Minister, in his customary address, added Balochistan to give it an additional punch. But hundreds of kilometres away from Delhi, in the Gujarat town of Una, the day was marked in a much different way. There, thousands of Dalits, the oppressed, rallied to declare freedom from oppression. They were asking: how can India be free, when Indians are not?

There was anguish, anger and determination filled in the air of Una. It was in that town, on July 11, four Dalit youth were tortured and humiliated in the most inhuman manner. The criminal vandalism was staged by the forces of Chaturvarnya under the garb of Gau Rakshaks. The mistake of the Dalits was that they were skinning a dead cow. For the Gau Rakshaks and Sangh Parivar, the skin of the dead cow is more important than the lives of living men who happened to be Dalits.

This is the deplorable situation in India, that is, Bharat, on the 70th anniversary of her freedom! The mass upsurge in Una was the natural and almost spontaneous outburst of the oppressed men and women against their pathetic plight. To mark their determination to fight for freedom from caste oppression, Radhika Vemula unfurled the national flag in the school ground at the heart of Una town. Balu Sarvaiya, father of one of the Una victims, joined her in the patriotic act with a difference. In fact that flag of freedom was placed in the hearts of millions of Indians who are committed to carry on the fight for social justice. In that way the Una upsurge would be treated as the beginning of a new awakening. When the Una March started from Vejalpur on August 5th, nobody imagined that it is going to initiate a new beginning in the history of Dalit struggles in the country. But covering 380 kilometres when it reached Una on the 10th day, estimations had changed. The March, organised by the Dalit Atyachar Ladai Samiti, could attract support from various sections of society including the Left mass organisations. The JNUSU President and AISF leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, was also there to express solidarity.

The Dalit Asmita Yatra [Dalit Pride March] was undoubtedly a reflection of the irrepressible anger looming large among the downtrodden masses. But throughout its course, the marchers were disciplined, though at some places there were attempts from Gau Rakshaks to provoke them. Though those seemed to be spontaneous, the slogans raised by the Asmita Yatra need to be understood correctly. The most important slogan was: Gaynu Pichade Tume Rakho, Hamne Hamare Jamin aappo [You take the cows tail, give us our land]. It shows the level of awakening that has taken place among the most oppressed sections of our society. They have come to raise the question of paramount importance, the question of land! No doubt, the exploiting classes and their allies in Right-wing politics will take urgent note of this upsurge. And they are sure to work out a strategy to contain the threat.

Narendra Modi, the mastermind of the Indian Right, who was silent on the issue for about four weeks, suddenly jumped into the scene. He minced no words in blaming the Gau Rakshaks. One should recall, when three Dalit youth were killed in Gujarat in 2012, the then CM and present PM, the very same Narenda Modi, did not open his mouth at all. A question can be asked: then why did he open his mouth this time, though bellatedly? Has Narendra Modi changed dramatically in these four years? Has the philosophy of the Sangh Parivar undergone drastic changes? No, Narendra Modi remains one and the same. And there is no change in the Parivar philosophy too. If any, it has become more aggressive after coming to power at the Centre. Then why the change in Modi this time? This change can be explained only by the fact that the elections are coming in States from UP to Gujarat. In all these States, Dalit votes are going to be crucial. In Gujarat, the PM is more worried due to several unfavourable develop-ments. Hence the belated statements are nothing but the Modi-style firefighting measures. The Sangh Parivar is on its course of hunting with the hound and running with the hare!

We can see the double-role played by the RSS in the utterances of the VHP and Bajrang Dal. The army of Gau Rakshaks all along and everywhere draws inspiration from the same philosophy to which Modi swears his allegiance day and night and that philosophy of Hindutva is binding on all those who form part of the Sangh Parivar. It is interlinked so closely with the concept of chaturvarnya which they believe is destined by God! In that strata, only four varnas, brahmins, kshtriyas, vaishyas and shudras are enlisted. All others, considered to be Hindus, find no place in the sacred realm of Hindutva. In fact, for the majority, that is, from the lower depths among the Hindus, Hindutva is something alien. The RSS designed an idea of samasta Hindu only for electoral purposes.

The samasta Hindu, as claimed by the RSS, is nothing but a fake propaganda. Once confronted with socio-economic realities it would burst like a soap bubble. During the period when the Mandal Commission Report came, India witnessed the real face of the RSS. Whenever the Dalits and backward communities have raised the issues of land, jobs and equality, the RSS has always betrayed them by siding with the rich and upper castes. Modi, Amit Shah together invented the theory of social engineering with the sole aim of trapping the poor. That ill-motivated strategy is being questioned by the Dalits and poor in Gujarat and elsewhere.

The message from Una is to intensify the fight against the onslaught on Dalits. The demand for land, which is the cardinal question in the emerging socio-political scenario makes the Una uprising distinct. There is every possibility that such agitations would spread to other parts of the country. Considering the deepening of class and social contradictions, such an awakening among Dalits is quite natural.

The corporate rich alongside the social elite in the neo-liberal era is eyeing on every piece of land in their pursuit for super profits. Dalits, tribals and the poor are longing for soil to make their livelihood. But their cries are never heard by the ruling classes. An unholy nexus bet-ween the ruling classes, bureaucracy and the underworld is growing stronger by the day. With the support of the casteist regime at the Centre they have become more and more ruthless in their attacks on poor. The down- trodden have no other option but to fight this repressive combination. It is a struggle for survival. In Una they gave the clarion call for freedom from caste oppression and exploitation, and that has to to reach every nook and corner of this vast country. Gathering the fighting spirit of the time, Una declared that Dalits will come no more for skinning of cows or cleaning of sewages. They want to live a life of self- respect. This is possible only when they have land and jobs. This demand has heightened the level of the present Dalit uprising and added a new dimension to it.

What is the role of the Left in this new era of Dalit awakening? If we remain as mere inter-preters or spectators of this mass upsurge, history will not forgive us. The Communist Party and the entire Left have to pay attention urgently to this most pressing issue. Millions of Dalits and minorities are facing ruthless oppression even after 70 years of independence. At the same time the Indian working class is faced with unprecedented repression in free India. Corporate capital and forces of Chatur-varnya have joined together in creating conducive conditions for the socio-economic exploitation. Caste and caste-based repression is a specific feature of the Indian society. Communists in India are duty-bound to analyse this feature from the Marxist point of view. When we say about creative development of Marxism and applying it to Indian conditions, caste is the cardinal issue to be addressed. How far are the class relations and caste relations inter-connected, that is, between the econo-mically exploited classes and socially exploited castes? These are the areas where we should concentrate while studying the caste factor in India.

The methodology of Marxism provides the objective analysis of objective conditions. Objective conditions in India speak volumes about caste discrimination and growing caste oppression. Interconnection between the sources of class exploitation and caste oppression is also becoming more expressive. At such a point of time, Communists have no reason to sit idle before the questions of class and caste contradictions. They should understand the socio-political and economic agonies faced by the Dalits, minorities and backward communities in the country. In the fight for genuine rights and social justice, Communists should become their real comrades-in-arms. The ability of the Communists and the Left to intervene in the course of Indian political developments depends much on this preparedness.

The author, a former Minister of Forests and Housing in the erstwhile LDF Government in Kerala, is a member of the National Executive of the CPI.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Face of the Challenge

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK

As complexities mount in governance of States what with the sharing of Cauvery waters between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu causing widespread violence in the two States, the problem of tackling dengue and chikungunia in the Capital has brought out the AAP Governments lack of preparedness to meet such a danger. At the same time the Shahabuddin episode in Bihar has exposed the Nitish-Laloo coalition governments weakness in combating the menace of goondaism once again raising its ugly head whereas the infighting in the Samajwadi Government in UP is causing legitimate concern among all those who are interested in building a united secular-democratic combine to halt the onward march of majoritarian communalism-cum-fascism represented currently by the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah-led BJP.

Precisely at this very juncture the oracle of the A.K. Gopalan Bhavan in New Delhi has spoken out loud and clear. In an article in The Indian Express (September 6, 2016) he has gone hammer and tongs against those who claim that the present set-up is a communal fascist one. Prakash Karat educates us by conveying that though the BJP is a Right-wing party of majoritarian communalism and its ideology is semi-fascist; it has the potential to impose an authoritarian state on the people when it believes that circumstances warrant it. So we know there is no authoritarian rule now. We have more pearls of wisdom: The classic definition of fascism leaves no room for ambiguity. Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. In India today, neither has fascism been established, nor are the conditions presentin political, economic and class termsfor a fascist regime to be established. There is no crisis that threatens a collapse of the capitalist system, the ruling classes of India face no threat to their class rule. Then comes the piece de resistance: No section of the ruling class is currently working for the overthrow of the bourgeois parliamentary system.

Really, Comrade Karat? When Ministers, MPs and MLAs of the ruling party publicly proclaim that their aim is to establish a Hindu Rashtra in India, still there is no threat to the bourgeois parliamentary system? And all this casuistry to differentiate between majoritarian communalism and fascism takes ones breath away. Targeting Jews is fascism but targeting Muslims and Christians is not fascism? The BJP must be chuckling to see Prakash Karat in his new role as an advocatus diaboli to give it the certificate of being a non-fascist party, fiercely loyal to parliamentary democracy! Is this pure ignorance or deliberate deceit to make people believe in the Sangh Parivars democratic credentials? In either case, what Prakash Karat has said will only confuse the people and weaken the fight against the present BJP leaderships communal fascism.

September 15 Analyst
MASON CITY  As a new school year begins, North Iowa districts are looking at a variety of ways to deal with students who miss large amounts of class time each year.

Iowa students attend 180 days of school. A student is considered chronically absent after missing 10 percent of school, or 18 days.

With 93 of the states 338 school districts in 2014-15 seeing 10 percent or more of their students chronically absent, according to state Department of Education figures, Gov. Terry Branstad has created a task force to make recommendations on how to tackle the problem for kindergarten to third-grade students.

Branstads office believes the years leading up to third grade are critical to keep struggling students in school to improve their reading proficiency.

The Family and Child Policy Center of Des Moines says kindergartners who miss 18 or more days are 1 times less likely to be proficient readers by third grade.

In a 2012 study, the Annie E. Casey Foundation of Maryland found students who cant read proficiently by third grade  an educational benchmark  are four times more likely to later drop out of high school.

Composed of state educational leaders, the Chronic Absenteeism Advisory Council has been tasked with developing recommendations and suggestions for the governor and schools.

The council is expected to meet four times. It will announce its recommendations in November.

MASON CITY

Mason City  which had 3,684 enrolled in 2014-15  had the highest percentage of chronically absent students in North Iowa, 15.7 percent in grades K-12.

Interim Superintendent Mike Penca said on any given day, 94 to 97 percent of students are in school. This fall was the first time the district has seen its chronic absenteeism figures calculated on a state level, he said.

We would definitely like to see those numbers decrease, Penca said. We want every kid to be in school every day and receive quality instruction.

He said Mason City believes in starting early on attendance, with its kindergartners. Parents are contacted when their child misses three days.

Penca said the district does its best to provide a welcoming, safe environment for learning and following up when children arent in school, but noted parents are responsible for developing back-up plans, especially for elementary-age students.

The biggest barrier for that age is transportation, Penca said. He encouraged families to contact the school if theyre in a pinch, as staff members are often willing to pick up students.

We want to catch issues early, Penca said. We know when kids are gone theyre missing out on discussions or modeling.

Attendance incentives are offered at Mason City elementary schools, which use Attendance Works resources to promote the importance of being in school. Attendance Works partners with families and community agencies, like United Way, to assist when attendance becomes problematic.

Penca said the district is anxious to see what the state task force does for resources or solutions.

CLEAR LAKE

In North Iowa, Clear Lake had the lowest percentage of students considered chronically absentee  just 1 percent of students in grades K-12. That figure is well below the state average of 6.6 percent.

Middle school Principal Steve Kwikkel said he believes there are a couple of factors that keep kids in class, including parents understanding the importance of school and staff offering a welcoming atmosphere.

Hopefully were offering a pretty darn inviting, supportive, caring environment here at the middle school, and at Clear Creek and the high school as well, Kwikkel said.

All absences at the middle school are excused if a parents calls them in, Kwikkel said, but if a student is struggling academically and continues to miss school, the district takes action.

When a student misses 10 days, a form letter is sent to parents. After 15 absences, counselors set up a meeting with parents and Kwikkel.

After 20 absences, Kwikkel said the district can involve the county attorney for truancy, but he said thats a rare situation.

NORTH IOWA (BUFFALO CENTER)

Thirteen percent of North Iowas 446 K-12 students were chronically absent in 2014-15.

Superintendent Cory Myer noted via email, Percentages are more significantly impacted, both positively and negatively, in smaller districts.

Myer said absenteeism is a real problem for schools, and challenges appear to be increasing.

Children need to be in school if they are going to receive a high-quality education, but as teachers look out over their classrooms, it seems more and more common for them to see empty desks, he said.

We, like all school districts, take this issue very seriously and are continuously working to combat absenteeism.

Myer said the district tries to build and strengthen relationships with families, make students feel more connected to school and create a safe, welcoming environment.

He said it seems every absenteeism situation is different, but they are often due to family dynamics or changing home environments.

Sometimes its due to a delay in enrolling children in another district after moving, something Myer said has happened a few times in recent years.

Our philosophy has been that until they start attending school elsewhere, we should count them as not attending school, he said.

FOREST CITY

In Forest City, 10.4 percent of its 1,091 K-12 students were chronically absent in 2014-15.

Some of that can be how schools track that stuff, said Superintendent Darwin Lehmann. Theres not a uniform piece to measure unexcused and excused absences, he said.

Truly chronically absent students are probably down in the single digits, he said.

The district rarely involved the county attorney to enforce school attendance  usually once per year, he said.

GARNER-HAYFIELD-VENTURA

At GHV, 13.6 percent of its 799 K-12 students were chronically absent in 2014-15. By contrast, only 4.7 percent of its students in grades Kindergarten to eighth-grade were chronically absent that year.

We have noticed increased personal and/or family issues as an upward trend over the years and we fully support our students and families who seek this assistance, Superintendent Tyler Williams said via email.

We make daily communications with families to address students who are absent. Our school has also made several home visits to verify the location of students, he said.

WEST HANCOCK

At West Hancock, 12.5 percent of its 566 K-12 students were chronically absent in 2014-15.

A number of factors should be considered for why a student is missing more than 18 days, said West Hancock High School Principal Dan Peterson in an email.

Small schools have a high percentage of students involved in activities (field trips, academic competitions, etc) that can get a student identified as being chronically absent when combined with other factors such as catching the flu bug, he said.

We do have some students, though, that Id identify as with true chronic absenteeism, Peterson wrote. Usually the factors are not having a connection at school, obstacles and barriers at home, and a lack of support for education and responsibility.

The district typically sends a note or email with each unexcused absence, said Superintendent Wayne Kronemann via email. After 10 days of unexcused absences, administrators contact the county attorney.

Typically there is a remediation meeting with the county attorney, parents, students, and the building principal, he wrote in an email. It is meant to come up with a plan to get the student here more often. Sometimes the plan works and sometimes it doesnt. There is not a whole lot of bite in it if the plan does not work.

Peterson also blamed a lack of enforcement for truancy laws.

The way the law is written the court and legal system are limited in enforcing this issue, he said.

ALGONA

In Algona, 12.7 percent of North Iowas 1,356 K-12 students were chronically absent in 2014-15.

In tackling the problem, Superintendent Marty Fonley said, administrators look at a smaller percentage of students  6.2 percent of students make up 28 percent of the absences, he said.

At Algona High School, 50 percent is made up by 15.9 percent of the kids.

The average attendance is very good, Fonley said. Typically your elementary is going  to have a smaller amount of absences.

Algona looks at a variety of reasons for students to be out of school.

In some situations you have kids that are flat-out sick, he said. If you are dealing with something traumatic as a family, obviously school isnt the first place where you are going to be.

The district also offers a program that helps struggling high school students make up academic credits.

Youve always got the chronic kids that we are always making contact with, Fonley said. We would love to have everybody want to be here every day.

The ultimate goal is to have what they need to either look at a community college or go into a work force or whatever it happens to be.
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So this is why see-now-buy-now is a good thing

Topshop Unique has been associated with a 'shop the runway' strategy since 2012, when the mega-brand first made their collections available to pre-order from a livestream of the show. Today, they joined a growing trend for presenting a 'seasonless' collection that is instantly shoppable.

Like Tom Ford AW16, Ralph Lauren's September Collection and Tommy Hilfiger AW16 in New York, and Burberry's see-now-buy-now show in London, Topshop has eschewed the traditional six month time lag to sell the clothes shown at fashion week. Indeed, as the Topshop models took their finale walk the collection was unveiled  merchandised to perfection  in the window of the Oxford Street flagship and on Topshop.com.

Presented in Spitalfields Market in East London, the clothes befittingly referenced 'the heyday of Londons fashion markets in the Eighties', according to the show notes; think liquidy vinyl skirts, slinky slip dresses slashed to the thighs, oversized stone washed denim jackets and lashings of neon.

Here's everything you need to know about one of LFW's most talked about shows...

The front row

The front row was filled with uber-cool, rising stars Anais Gallagher and Lottie Moss (though big sis Kate was absent for the first time in years), and models Arizona Muse and Erin O'Connor.

The collection If its not fuchsia pink or zebra print forget it  or so appears to be the motto at Topshop HQ this season. The collection was inspired by the montage artwork of Manchester-born punk pin-up artist Linder Sterling (a favourite reference among fashion designers from Richard Nicoll to JCDC). With this in mind, creative director Kate Phelan took the brand back to its rebellious roots with a series of mesh-heavy LBDs made for going out-out; wear them with hot pink pumps and oversized statement earrings. Alternatively, ruffled-blouses, boiler suits slung low and tied at the waist or peg-leg vinyl trousers are the recommended daywear choices.

The models

Current campaign girl Taylor Hill kicked things off, wearing what was later revealed to be one of the 31 items now for sale: a silky, funnel neck blouse in an 80s windbreaker silhouette with a navy and black zebra print and chevron pattern, which at 145 is sure to be a speedy sell-out. Faces-of-the-moment Lineisy Montero and Stella Maxwell were quick to follow in various iterations of the club kids collection.

Now that you've seen it, can you actually buy it all now? Not exactly - some pieces on your wishlist may have to wait a month or two. The collection is a mix of autumn/winter 2016, which is ready to shop now, and pre-spring/summer 2017, which will arrive in stores in November. With most catwalk collections, usually only about 30% of it ends up in stores as designers take their cues on which pieces to make a full run of from the press coverage on particular items and the pieces chosen by the store buyers - this is why the see-and-shop model is so revolutionary.

Scroll on for our top picks of pieces you can buy now:

Highsmith Jacket by Unique (opens in new tab), 595

Perry Blouse by Unique (opens in new tab), 145

Crawford Blouse by Unique (opens in new tab), 135

Wallace Cami by Unique (opens in new tab), 85

Aubrey Jumpsuit by Unique, (opens in new tab) 265

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Although weve been chatting now more than we have in the past two decades, I feel like Ive lost a friend instead of gained one.

When I signed up for Facebook, I started catching up with dozens of high school classmates. None is more friendly than the one who runs a pyramid scheme.

Oh, no, he certainly didnt come right out and tell me thats what he does. However, I started getting suspicious after reading his messages to me about how he has found fulfillment in life, is changing the world and is becoming rich and powerful.

And, of course, he plans to quit his unrelated full-time job as a manager at a textile company one of these days because of the freedom his consulting business gives him.

When it comes to people who have networking products and schemes to sell, its as if the person disappears and is replaced only by a revolving sales pitch. Every person they know is a mark, and every topic of conversation cycles back to the program.

His Facebook posts are mostly nothing but pictures of him, always handsome in a suit, and his glamorous wife, jaw-droppingly sexy in tight dresses and stiletto heels, in front of meetings in conference rooms.

He posts about how and his followers get Entrepreneurs of the Century awards  but I never could figure out what their business was, other than holding business meetings and getting awards.

After a long, boring troll through his wifes posts one day, I found the product at the base of their scheme. I looked up the product and, of course, found out that the health supplements are subjects of controversial claims and a notorious pyramid scheme.

He tried roping me in a few times and I pretended I didnt know what he was talking about and diverted the conversations.

It all came to a head this week, when apparently he decided to go for it. He started a friendly conversation out of the blue, which made me suspicious. There was no reason for it. Then he sent me a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson on getting satisfaction in life, which isnt about money: I found mine in the last two years. It has opened my eyes, a lot! he wrote.

I replied, Good for you. He answered, Yeah. Good for me, better for the world. That makes you sound like Mahatma Gandhi, I replied, and asked him if hes read anything by either Emerson or Gandhi, or a few others.

What I am doing is changing peoples lives. And it is worldwide, he said.

Yeah, sure, I thought: Taking peoples money for nothing but hassle definitely would change their lives  for the worse.

He sent me a video talk from the late Myles Munroe, a preacher in the Bahamas, talking about leaving a legacy.

I happened to be texting my best friend at the same time, so I took screenshots of our former classmates comments to me and sent them to her to chuckle at (which I am finding handy today, to quote from in this column).

Then he and I finally entered into our first and last direct conversation about what hes doing (because after I finish this column, Im blocking him on Facebook).

You should look into Networking, he wrote. You are a natural, and creating long term exponential residual growth is recommended even by the king of real estate, Robert Kiyosaki.

Yeah, I have heard of (your product), I replied. You probably wouldnt want me investigating too much into that stuff. Thats the kind of thing journalists expose through well researched reports.

We ended up in a Google war. We each sent each other screenshots of things we found on Google, his showing how wonderful his program is, and mine showing what a swindle it is.

That exchange fizzled out, but he sent me his final shot the next day. If I wanted to take a look, he wrote, I could learn about recognition from different sources about Transfer Factors. Ministry of Health in Russia, Blohkina Award 2006.

Reaching across the globe 10 years to get endorsement of his product is having to look too far.

So, Martinsville, Im sorry to disappoint you, but Im not going to be knocking on any doors around here trying to get you to get other people to get other people to sell products to make us all rich.

No, I didnt participate in his so-called business, but he participated in mine. I got a column out of him.

So you see, old high school buddy, I sort of did pay attention to your message after all.

Holly Kozelsky writes for the Martinsville Bulletin. She can be reached at holly.kozelsky@martinsvillebulletin.com
MARTINSVILLE  The women get together to knit and pray for strangers, but that doesnt stop them from occasionally admiring the projects each other has made at home for friends and family.

Once a month, the Knitting Ministry Team gathers at First Baptist Church. Though the group started out as a church project, its grown to include women from all over.

Nita Gauldin said, We pray while were knitting.

Pray we dont make a mistake! Franz-Hahr Phillips interjected, as the others chuckled.

Jean Rood pulled out the groups scrapbook. It includes photographs, written prayers, thank you notes, and even a $20 bill.

Sometimes people try to pay the women for their work, but the women always refuse, they said. They only make gifts. However, sometimes people make donations for yarn. The $20 donation was received when they had enough yarn, so they havent had to spend it.

The most recent private project that stole their attention was made by Nita Gauldin. It was a red knitted blanket with a stitched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle character on it for her great-grandson, Breyer Martin, 7.

Gauldin first knitted Jake the Pirate for Martin, the son of Todd and Melody Martin. It was the right size for him then, when he was 5 years old; she traced the design of the character from a coloring book page.

Last December he told me that the blanket had gotten too small and he needed me to make another one and to put Leonardo the Mutant Turtle on it, she said. She told him that she would do it, but it wouldnt be ready in time for Christmas, and he was satisfied with that.

He requested the blanket to be red, and she finished knitting the blanket in two or three weeks. That was the easy part. It was stitching into the blanket the design, which took from January to August, that was the hard part.

I grew up knowing how to stitch and just decided to do the modified satin stitch on both of them, Gauldin said.

When she gave it to him, he had a great big smile. He has a captivating smile. It just that you cant resist doing something when he asks, Gauldin said.

On Tuesday morning at the church, Penny Manning was working on a prayer shawl in Virginia Tech colors for the rest home.

Manning is a regular visitor to Golden Living and Blue Ridge, where she leads Bible studies.

Jean Rood, the knitting group president, and Manning met at in the waiting room of a service station. Manning saw Rood was knitting and asked about it. Rood invited her to the meeting and taught her how to knit.

Shes the fastest knitter weve got, Rood said. She only knits. She doesnt purl, doesnt do anything else, but she produces items at quite a clip.

Rood added, I have taught a couple of hundred people to knit. Some stayed, and some decided knitting wasnt for them.

The group was started in 2001 by Anna Bow Wells, Rood said. It first was for First Baptist Church members, but it didnt stay that way for long.

Also, the first intent was just to make prayer shawls for the bereaved and homebound, and for people in nursing homes. It wasnt long before we broadened to making a variety of items, including the hats, Rood said.

Their mission really ramped up with a major donation from Marilyn Brimmer. She was the first who donated a stock of yarn, Rood said. It came from the estate of Brimmers late aunt, Claudia Young. She was the reason we had to get a room for storage.

Now, shelves along one wall are filled with yard arranged in a rainbow of colors. Furniture in the rest of the room is covered with finished knitted products of every description, ready for delivery.

We have had some people who told us that they wanted to be buried with their prayer shawl, and they have been, Rood said.

Their group has ranged in age from a high-schooler to a woman in her 80s, Rood said.

Sometimes the women of the group teach expectant mothers at the Pregnancy Care Center how to knit and give them yarn. Together, they knit baby items.

They also knit hats for babies born at Memorial Hospital. The hospital staff gave the women guidelines on how to size a hat: like a lemon for premature babies, an orange for an average weight baby and a grapefruit for babies who weight 8 to 10 pounds.

A couple of years, they helped with a church project of knitting hats, gloves and mittens for local kindergarteners. They hats, mittens and gloves decorated Christmas trees until they were distributed.

Their knitted items have been taken on mission trips to people in Peru and Honduras.

Last year, we needed 20 shawls for Hairston Home, so it took a while to make, Rood said.

Since 2001, they have met on the second Monday of each month, even on holidays. With that consistent schedule, they dont have to bother with emailed notices, Rood said.

She added that they always welcome anyone interested to stop in and join them. You dont have to know how to knit, she said: The room is full of willing and cheerful teachers.
Why is Monica Vernon afraid to debate?

Congressman Rod Blum recently announced a proposal for six debates with his opponent, Vernon, before the Nov. 8 election. This election is of fundamental importance to North Iowa families and we deserve to hear from the candidates themselves when it comes to the federal issues that will impact our daily lives.

Vernon insists that only two debates, one in each of the candidates' home cities (Cedar Rapids and Dubuque), will be more than enough. Blum has compromised  he initially asked for 10 debates in more rural, diverse areas.

As a resident of Mitchell County, I am disappointed that Vernon stubbornly refuses to compromise. In effect, she is preventing me and my neighbors from attending one of the debates in person and asking questions.

Why won't Vernon debate in Mitchell County? If she lacks the courage to debate throughout the First District, how will she stand up for us against special interests or her own political party in Washington, D.C.?

Tony Krebsbach, Stacyville
When women first cracked open the corporate door, they were advised to check their emotions, as though they were unwelcome baggage in a mans world.

Intelligence, it was said, would propel them to leadership.

But that will only get you so far. Emotions matter, Carilion Clinic chief medical officer Dr. Patrice Weiss told a banquet room filled mostly with women.

You have to be smart to get in the door, Weiss said. Education, know-how, credentials are a given. Who goes on to be a leader, to shine, is really not about the IQ.

Its all about the EI, or emotional intelligence. Weiss recently spoke about emotional intelligence to a gathering of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Councils Women in Technology group. Though men were invited, only a handful attended.

Tony Segovia of Comcast Spotlight was one of them. His manager, Beth Fisher, often talks about emotional intelligence in staff meetings, so when he caught word of the upcoming event, he thought it might be helpful to go.

After hearing what Weiss had to say, Segovia said, I thought the empathy aspect was very important, especially in sales.

Fisher said she emphasizes awareness of others feelings to her staff because when youre building a relationship with a client, you have to be able to relate to them at that EI level so you understand what their motivations are. What do they need to get out of it?

The talk drew about 100 people to the luncheon at Roanoke College earlier this month, which is nearly twice as many women as usually attend Women in Technology events. Some said afterward that emotional intelligence is universal and that men would benefit from learning about the concept.

Weiss explained, Emotional intelligence is the capacity for recognizing our own feelings, but to not just stop there, but recognizing the feelings of others, then managing emotions well in ourselves and our relationships, and for motivating ourselves and others.

A more poetic way of thinking about it is to recall Maya Angelous words: Ive learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

I think about this a lot, Weiss said. I think about this with patient care. I think about this when Im interacting with my colleagues at work. And I think about this at times when people are interacting with me. I can think of events, 20-plus years ago, and I can still remember how I felt.

Weiss said people are judged on how busy and effective they are, but more so on how they handle others and how they behave.

The term emotional intelligence became part of the business lexicon with the publication of science journalist Daniel Golemans book in 1995. Emotional Intelligence was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year and sold 5 million copies worldwide. Goleman, a psychologist, has written a number of books expanding on the theme of emotional intelligence that involves a set of skills: controlling impulses, self-motivation, empathy and social competence in relationships.

These skills are not linked directly to intelligence, and people with high emotional intelligence are often more successful than those with high intelligence who lack these skills, Weiss said.

Jeff Smith of Voltage Leadership Consulting said his Roanoke-based firm gets calls nearly every day from business leaders looking for information on emotional intelligence.

The concept has been around for nearly 20 years, he said, but in todays business climate, where employers compete for talent, they can no longer tell workers what to do. They need to collaborate.

Emotional intelligence is broken into five components:

Self awareness: Not only can I see myself as you see me, but I can see how my actions, my emotions affect others, Weiss said.

Not only can I see myself as you see me, but I can see how my actions, my emotions affect others, Weiss said. Self regulation: This includes controlling emotions, suspending judgment, being open to change.

This includes controlling emotions, suspending judgment, being open to change. Motivation: Having a passion to do work well for reasons that go beyond rewards of raises or getting the corner office.

Having a passion to do work well for reasons that go beyond rewards of raises or getting the corner office. Empathy: The biggest challenge in the work places is generational difference, Weiss said.

The biggest challenge in the work places is generational difference, Weiss said. Social skills: Being able to find common ground, build rapport and manage relationships.

Weiss said people with low emotional intelligence tend to pull down others and focus on if only thinking. They have difficulty handling change and working with others, and they have poor relationships.

She suggested two ways to build emotional intelligence:

Look at your strengths, what you love to do and what excites you. Then find ways to accentuate that.

Look at your limitations, what you could do better and what frosts or derails you. Then find ways to neutralize or minimize them.

An effective way to do that is to hit the pause button. Weiss said theres a split second before information moves from the brains emotional center to its executive function. Waiting, rather than instantaneous reaction, allows time to plan a response.

As part of the hiring process, some employers assess job candidates emotional intelligence. Carilion asks applicants to take an online module for emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. Spokeswoman Hannah Cline said the results do not eliminate a candidate, but help interviewers tailor their questions.

Some physicians are also encouraged to enroll in emotional intelligence courses as part of Carilions leadership development program, she said.
MARTINSVILLE  Local middle school students are discovering what it takes to succeed in the world of engineering through hands-on learning and conversations with engineers from Eastman.

New College Institute (NCI) hosted groups of students from Carlisle School, Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School, Laurel Park Middle School, and Martinsville Middle School for Engineering Day this past week.

It is important to expose area students to local professionals and engage them in hands-on learning so that they can explore a wide range of career interests including engineering, said Steve Keyser, NCI coordinator of community engagement.

Anne Stultz, coordinator of advanced learning and STEM programs for Martinsville City Public Schools agreed. This trip gave our students a chance to learn about opportunities available for them here in Martinsville. STEM is the future, and we want to be sure our students are aware of all the possibilities open to them.

During Engineering Day, students began by learning about certain aptitudes and interests that make for a successful engineer from John Hatchett, Virginia State University faculty and Academy for Engineering and Technology (AET) professor. AET is a program that allows high school students to earn college credits in engineering. AET is hosted at NCI for students in Martinsville-Henry County and hosted at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research for students in Danville and Pittsylvania County.

Many students enjoy science and math, but students interested in engineering must also be able to think creatively, said Hatchett. Its not as simple as plugging in a formula. Engineers have to be innovative problem solvers.

After reviewing engineering principles in energy conservation, students participated in a hands-on activity called the Lunar Landing in which they simulate the challenge of landing on the moon while maintaining the safety of the astronauts. They faced the challenge of understanding the relationship between gravitational force and shock absorption to make their landing a success while collaborating with their peers. This was an exercise in the Four Cs of education: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

I have enjoyed all the hands-on learning, and one day I would like to be an engineer, said James Li, eighth grade student at Martinsville Middle School. The trick to engineering challenges is to pay attention to what works and keep that in the design.

Students also toured NCIs advanced manufacturing high bay to learn about equipment that engineers may use in the field.

I was surprised to see the academic coater and all the equipment available at NCI, said Cynthia White, eighth grade student at Martinsville Middle School (MMS). According to previous Bulletin reports, the coater is a one-of-a-kind machine used mainly to train people for jobs with Eastman and other performance film manufacturers.

The day concluded with students participating in a question and answer session with various engineers from Eastman. These engineers shared insights from their educational path and work experiences.
MARTINSVILLE  A suspicious substance contained in a letter received at the Martinsville Commonwealths Attorneys Office about 11:20 a.m. Thursday turned out not to be anything harmful, and that office reopened Friday morning.

Martinsville Commonwealths Attorney Clay Gravely said Friday that after going to get the mail Thursday morning, Nancy Sherman, office administrator for the commonwealths attorneys office, started to open a regular, white, business envelope and noticed a small plume of what appeared to be smoke or powder emit from the envelope.

Gravely said the envelope was addressed to the commonwealths attorneys office but not to any person in particular. The envelope did not have a return address.

The envelope contained a hand-written, unsigned letter, which made no threats and appeared to be innocuous, Gravely said. The letter referred to a female defendant in a pending probation violation case. Gravely declined to identify the defendant because he does not believe she was involved with the letter. The letter indicated the defendant is in North Carolina.

Gravely said that after the letter was received, his office contacted the Martinsville Police Department and Gravely directed everyone in the commonwealths attorneys office to leave.

In addition to the Martinsville Police Department, the Martinsville Fire Department and the Martinsville Sheriffs Office were contacted, according to a news release from the Martinsville Police Department Thursday afternoon. The commonwealths attorneys office was sealed, and the Virginia State Police was notified. The state police responded and collected samples to be analyzed.

A Martinsville Police Department update on its Facebook page at 9:40 p.m. Thursday said that according to the Department of Forensic Science state lab and the Virginia State Police, the letter received at the commonwealths attorneys office did not contain anything harmful.

We appreciate their fast response and quick results. Our investigation into the matter will continue, the police department update said.

Gravely said he was happy the incident wasnt more serious.

He praised his staff and the agencies that responded for acting professionally and responsibly.
Cinemark has dropped its request that victims of a 2012 shooting at a Colorado movie theater pay nearly $700,000 in legal fees after they unsuccessfully sued the theater chain.

The Denver Post reports Tuesday that Cinemark withdrew the request after victims agreed not to appeal the verdict against them.

Cinemark's lawyers said in court documents they wanted to resolve the matter without more costs to either side. Colorado courts allow the winning side of a court case to recover legal fees.

Jurors in May ruled in Cinemark's favor over victims who argued the chain should have done more to prevent the attack that killed 12 people.
image.jpeg

The Proclaimers

(Euan Robertson)

If you're a music fan, you might know Scottish twins Charlie and Craig Reid. And there's even a better chance you know their band, The Proclaimers.

But even if you've lived in a cave for the past two decades, you probably know their biggest hit, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)."

The pop anthem reached No. 11 on the U.S. charts in 1988 and it remains the band's calling card throughout the world.

"It takes us around the world. It allows us to go to United States and New Zealand and Canada," said Charlie Reid when asked about the tune. "We're always going to be best-known for that song. The song is, in fact, much bigger than the band."

The band will bring its vast musical repertoire to the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton on Monday at 7 p.m. Charlie talked about working with his twin brother, the latest album, "Let's Hear It for the Dogs," and Scottish politics in a recent telephone interview.

On working with his twin brother:

"I think it's been a big advantage for us, really. Sometimes you have brothers who don't get on, and that can actually be quite good creatively, but it also can be very destructive. We've always got on pretty well. We grew up together went to the same school and so I only made sense to be in a band together. It's hard enough to keep a band together, so I think the fact we're brothers has helped.

On the dynamic between the two of them as far as writing, arranging and making decisions:

We both write and we both write when we're off the road. We don't do any gigs when we're writing. I go round to his apartment about every second day. Craig is definitely more creative and more productive than I am. We both work on the songs and that's why they always end up as co-credits. We take a song apart and try to rebuild a little bit, find the right tempo that suits. And then we rehearse and rehearse and rehearse so that when we walk in the studio, the basis of how we want to do it is in our heads. And when we're off the road, that's how we see each other. We don't socialize, we just get together to work. And that probably makes it a bit more bearable. (Laughs.)

On working with producer Dave Eringa on "Let's Hear It for the Dogs":

He brings massive energy. He's worked with a lot of people we've liked over the years. But he's more of a rock guy. What we do isn't really rock. It's kind of pop music with kind of a political bent to it. But he has tremendous energy and Craig and I and the other guys in the band got on tremendously well with him. So it was a very swift a recording process.

On the failure of the Scottish independence (which the brothers support) during the Brexit vote:

Given the propaganda of the "no" side, the people against it -- and they vastly outspent the nationalist side -- I wasn't that surprised. But it was disappointing. But now I think British politics - U.K. politics -- is in a state of flux. There's possibly another vote for Scottish independence coming up in a few years time. And then there's the leaving of the European community, which I think is going to prove to be a big mistake. So I think you're going to see a lot of flux and Scotland's relationship with the U.K. is never going to be the same again.

On the title of the album, "Let's Hear It for the Dogs":

The title comes from the song that's called "What School?" It's kind of about the way the dogs will sniff each other out. And until very recently, the Catholic/Protestant thing in Scotland was quite strong. It's fading and it's fading very rapidly, thankfully. But there was a way of finding out someone's religious affiliation and that was to ask what school you went to. So if your school was Saint Anne's, they probably think it was a Catholic school. So that was kind of a weaselly way of finding out someone's background and thereby avoiding conflict, or sometime seeking it. What the dog does is a much more honest thing.
Manhattan Explosion

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks from the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

All 29 people injured after an explosive device went off in New York City Saturday have been released from area hospitals and there are no fatalities, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday.

All 29 victims have been confirmed released from the hospital with no fatalities. We give thanks for that.  Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) September 18, 2016

Authorities are still conducting an investigation, but the governor said on Twitter that "at this time" there is no evidence of international terrorism. He did say the investigation is still ongoing however.

Video retrieved from an area surveillance camera in Chelsea shows the impact of the explosive device after it exploded around 8:30 p.m. Saturday. Authorities have called the blast an intentional act.

"Whoever did this, we will find and they will be brought to justice," Cuomo said on Twitter. "Life will go on in NY as normal. We're not going to let them win."

Investigators were called to a second location in New York City later Saturday after a second device was located roughly four blocks away from the explosion in Chelsea.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the other device appeared to be a pressure cooker bomb. It was found on West 27th Street.

Cuomo said his office is working with authorities in New Jersey after there was an explosion in Seaside Park, New Jersey near the Marine Corps race.

Massachusetts State Police said the state's Commonwealth Fusion Center (CFC) is monitoring intelligence collected in connection to the explosions in New York and New Jersey along with the non-fatal stabbings of eight people in a Minnesota mall.

The Massachusetts State Police are also monitoring all information about the violent shooting spree in Philadelphia.

"We will continue to analyze that information to determine if it has any connection to Massachusetts," Massachusetts State Police said. "As of this point, no nexus to Massachusetts has been found."
BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 18, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In the wake of recent flooding, Jefferson Animal Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is encouraging owners to have their pets microchipped.



For many Louisiana residents, adopting a dog or cat is more than just adding an animal to their household. It is bringing a new family member into the fold. That's why Jefferson Animal Hospital is encouraging all pet owners to have their furry companions microchipped.

"Microchipping is especially important here in Baton Rouge," says Dr. Frederick Michaelson, the center's veterinarian. "With the recent flooding and the current hurricane season, we've seen a lot of owners searching for their missing pets. With this technology, the ability to match lost or injured animals with their owners becomes much easier and happens more quickly."

Although there are several companies that offer microchip products, Jefferson Animal Hospital has chosen to work with one of the larger and well-known companiesHomeAgain. Unlike tags and collars, a microchip stays with the pet permanently. It cannot be lost, stolen or removed.

"The cost is relatively minor and an appointment takes only a short period of time," continues the veterinarian. "No anesthesia is required and there is no postoperative care."

During the process, a small microchip is injected between the pet's shoulder blades, where it will remain in place for the remainder of the animal's life. The HomeAgain microchip is specially designed not to move around, keeping it in the same place where the vet places it forever.

Experts also agree that the process is relatively painless for the animal. "It is no more uncomfortable than a routine vaccination," Dr. Frederick Michaelson explains.

If a lost pet is found and taken to a veterinarian, the chip will be scanned and HomeAgain will be contacted. From there, they will give you a call or send an email letting you know that your dog or cat has been found safely and where to reclaim them. Therefore it is very important to keep your contact information updated in the system.

The HomeAgain program is available nationwide, so it doesn't matter if your pet is lost while on vacation or just taken to a different part of the country.

"There have been plenty of stories where a pet gets lost and is gone for several years," Michaelson recalls. "Then a vet in a different state happens to come across the HomeAgain chip and reunites the animal with their original owner. It really is a cool process."

To learn more about the HomeAgain program and pet microchipping, please call Jefferson Animal Hospital at (225) 927-2344.

About Jefferson Animal Hospital

Jefferson Animal Hospital is a full-service veterinary center located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dr. Frederick Michaelson and his team offer an array of preventative and emergency care options for both dogs and cats. For more information on their veterinary services, visit their website at http://jahvet.com/.
Local business leaders and Great Falls Public Schools partnered under the Graduation Matters initiative to survey 2,044 high school students to learn about their employment situations and gather information to better advise businesses on how to support their student workers.

The United Way of Cascade County-led Graduation Matters Initiative constantly works to increase on-time graduation rates and decrease the number of high school drop-outs.

Sarah Dettmer, [email protected]

Full Story: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/09/16/local-businesses-support-high-school-aged-workers/90435442/
Please watch this video to see how the School of Business engages our students, provides real world experiences to deepen learning, and fosters innovation both within the curriculum and across the state and region.

Montana Business Dean Christopher Shook

Jakki Mohr, Regents Professor of Marketing and Gallagher Distinguished Faculty Fellow, talks about what sets the University of Montanas School of Business Administration apart. With opportunities for students to learn from experienced business executives and collaborate with disciplines across campus, UMs business students graduate as empowered and successful professionals.

Private support is critical to the student experience, providing opportunities that allow students to shine as they enter the workforce.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXawHEx7AMs&feature=player_embedded

Great Falls, Montana businesses support high school-aged workers http://www.matr.net/article-73374.html
SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Sept. 18, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

Carando, the artisans of Classic Italian Meats, has partnered with Sedanos Supermarkets to donate $1,000 to Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The contribution will help fund innovative cancer research and patient care. Carando made the donation during a presentation at Sedanos grocery store in Hialeah, Fla on Friday, September 16.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a3537193-3d3d-486b-b613-4dc666e85ce2

Carando and Sedanos representatives presented a check to Yolanda Hernandez from Sylvester. The donation is part of the Carando Cares program, an initiative that supports organizations that are making a positive difference in local communities.

Carando was built on tradition, so its important that Carando continues its commitment to giving back to organizations through Carando Cares, said Michael J. Sargent, Senior Brand Manager, Smithfield Foods. Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center is a leader in the fight against cancer. Its team of physicians and scientists is committed to conducting breakthrough research and we are humbled to be able contribute to their ongoing mission.

Sylvester is South Floridas only university-based cancer center, where physicians and scientists apply breakthrough research, from the laboratory, to the patients bedside. Sylvester is providing precision medicine and new hope for cancer patients and their families in South Florida, the southeastern United States, the Caribbean and South America.

"We are excited about the partnership, said Javier Herran, Chief Marketing Officer for Sedano's Supermarkets. Giving back to the community has always been at the heart and soul of our family and culture, and Sylvester Cancer Center is very near and dear to our hearts.

As part of the event, crowds of shoppers were treated to delicious Carando deli meat samples, coupons and giveaways.

Carando Cares has made more than $250,000 in monetary and in-kind donations since the programs inception in 2013. For more information about Carando and Carando Cares, please visit www.carando.com or www.Facebook.com/CarandoMeats.

Carando is a brand of Smithfield Foods.

About Carando

All of our classic Italian meats stay true to the traditional recipes that our founder, Pietro Carando, brought to America from his boyhood home in Torino, Italy. One taste is all it takes to discover the authentic Italian difference of Carando. For more information, visit www.carando.com.

About Smithfield Foods

Smithfield Foods is a $14 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathan's Famous, Farmland, Armour, John Morrell, Cook's, Kretschmar, Gwaltney, Curly's, Margherita, Carando, Healthy Ones, Krakus, Morliny, and Berlinki. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com.

About Sedanos

Founded in Hialeah, Florida in 1962 by the Herran and Guerra families, Sedanos Supermarkets has grown to become the top Hispanic grocer in the United States. Sedanos Supermarkets caters to Floridas booming Hispanic community with more than 3,000 employees and 34 locations in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange and Osceola counties. As the largest, independently-owned, Hispanic supermarket chain, Sedanos Supermarkets is recognized for its excellent customer service, ethnic product offering and competitive prices. For more information, please visit: www.sedanos.com; @Sedanos on Twitter; or Facebook.com/Sedanos.
Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank.
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Stay away from social gatherings

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Equally common among men and women

36% people with SAD report symptoms for 10 or more years before seeking help or treatment, 2007 ADAA survey.

Challenge the negative thoughts: The first step is to identify the negative thoughts that underlie fear of social situations; next step is to analyze and challenge these negative thoughts.

The first step is to identify the negative thoughts that underlie fear of social situations; next step is to analyze and challenge these negative thoughts. Focus on others and not yourself: When in a social situation that makes you nervous, try to switch from the internal source to the external source; focus your attention on other people and on the present moment

When in a social situation that makes you nervous, try to switch from the internal source to the external source; focus your attention on other people and on the present moment Practice regular deep breathing exercises: Simple breathing exercises can help to stay calm in social situations

Simple breathing exercises can help to stay calm in social situations Face the social situations that you fear: Avoidance keeps social phobia going. Learning to tolerate and address the feelings will help you feel better

Avoidance keeps social phobia going. Learning to tolerate and address the feelings will help you feel better Volunteer doing something you enjoy: Take up a hobby that you enjoy or engage with like-minded people socially.

As lead researcher, Laura Muzzarelli said: "We found that when presented with an angry face the brain of socially anxious adolescents showed increased activity in the amygdala, which is the brain area concerned with emotions, memory and how we respond to threats. Surprisingly, we also found this produced inhibition of some motor areas of the brain, the premotor cortex. This is an area which 'prepares the body for action', and for specific movements. This is the first hard proof that strong emotions produce a response in brain areas concerned with movement. Adolescents who don't show social anxiety tend not to show the inhibition in the movement centers. We don't yet know how this inhibition feeds into movement - it may be that this has something to do with why we sometimes 'freeze' when we are frightened or under strong emotional stress, this still has to be tested.We need to acknowledge that there are some limitations to this work. We started this 6-year study with 150 children, but by the time we reached adolescence we had narrowed down the field to just 5 children with social anxiety, and 5 with less severe (subthreshold) social anxiety, so it's a small sample".The study is presented at thein Vienna.Social anxiety or social phobia is a mental health disorder characterized by excessive fear of social interaction and avoidance of the judgment of others. In early stages, social anxiety can be mistaken for shyness. Social phobia runs in the families.Study published inreveals a possible relationship between social anxiety and disassociation.People with social phobia tend to beSocial anxiety disorder treatment options include psychotherapy and antidepressants.Source: Medindia
Estimados amigos,

Les doy cordialmente la bienvenida a este Blog informativo con articulos, analisis y comentarios de publicaciones especializadas y especialmente seleccionadas, principalmente sobre temas economicos, financieros y politicos de actualidad, que esperamos y deseamos, sean de su maximo interes, utilidad y conveniencia.

Pensamos que solo comprendiendo cabalmente el presente, es que podemos proyectarnos acertadamente hacia el futuro.

Las convicciones son mas peligrosos enemigos de la verdad que las mentiras.

There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen.

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

No soy alguien que sabe, sino alguien que busca.

Only Gold is money. Everything else is debt.

Las grandes almas tienen voluntades; las debiles tan solo deseos.

Quien no lo ha dado todo no ha dado nada.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
Russia's Duma elections take place today. In a September 15 television address, Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Russian citizens to vote, saying: "I count on your responsible and carefully-considered position as citizens. I call on you to come to the polling stations, cast your votes and express your views. I am sure that no matter what our political views, participation in the voting is the civic duty of each and every one of us and an expression of our sincere feelings for our country and concern for its future." He added: "Make your choice and vote for Russia!"[1]

Russians will elect the 450 members of the State Duma (lower house of parliament), whose term in office has been extended to five years according to the 2008 constitutional amendments. The electoral system used in the present elections is mixed: 225 (half) of the Duma members are elected by proportional representation from party lists with a 5% electoral threshold, and the other half are elected in a first-past-the-post system. Russians will also elect other representatives today, at the federal, regional and municipal levels: 38 regional parliaments, six heads of regions, and municipal councilors.

The Democratic Opposition Is Divided

While the ruling United Russia (UR) party, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), and Just Russia party are expected to gain seats in the Duma, the democratic opposition is divided. Ahead of the election, well-known anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, head of the Progress Party (which has been barred from the elections), pointed out that in many single-seat electoral districts, multiple candidates from the democratic opposition are running and thus reducing each other's chances of winning a seat. Writing on his blog, he presented a chart showing that in most such districts there are two democratic opposition candidates - usually one from the Yabloko party and another from the PARNAS party. In the Central Administrative District (CAD) there are also two candidates: Maria Baronova, endorsed by the Open Russia party (founded by oil tycoon-turned-activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky), and Prof. Andrey Zubov, endorsed by the democratic parties Yabloko and PARNAS. Navalny suggested that in all such districts only one candidate should remain, and asked Baronova to withdraw from the race. If those inflexible parties [Yabloko and PARNAS] have reached a compromise [by running a joint candidate], it should be encouraged, not sabotaged," he said.

Baronova responded to Navalny's initiative on the website of the Russian liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta: "I did not mean to stand in the way of other democratic candidates [vying] for a seat in my district, such as Prof. Andrey Borisovich Zubov from the PARNAS party. It just so happened that our democratic partners asked me to run in the CAD and not anywhere else, and then all of a sudden everybody discovered they needed this district. I'm sorry, but the sociologists [at the independent national polling organization] Levada Center[2] indicated that my results would twice as high as those of the Professor's. That's ok, it happens. There is nothing tragic about it. It will not prevent the democrats from being united one day." She added: "My voters and Zubov's voters are different people. Andrey Borisovich is a Christian conservative. I am a liberal Centrist with socialist leanings. Most of my voters would never vote for Zubov, and vice versa."

Baronova emphasized that the Duma elections are a chance for the democratic forces to demonstrate their strength. She stated, however, that today's election "would not be a real election for the real State Duma," because there would be about 20 independent candidates in the parliament at most, "and most of their time will be consumed by crazy new draft laws."[3]

It should be noted that there were several attempts to unite the opposition, none of them successful. In the beginning of the year, Navalny agreed to cooperate with the PARNAS party. Representatives of his unregistered Progress Party were to participate in the PARNAS primaries. However the cooperation ended when the head of the PARNAS party, former minister of finance and prime minister under Vladimir Putin Mikhail Kasyanov, was embroiled in a sex-tape scandal involving his personal political assistant, Natalia Pelevina. In the 40-minute tape, Kosyanov and Pelevina were heard discussing Navalny in humiliating terms.[4] Another factor that contributed to the crisis between Navalny and PARNAS was that Kasyanov proclaimed himself head of PARNAS without participating in the primaries.[5] Navalny also attempted to form a coalition with Yabloko party leader Grigory Yavlinsky, but this initiative failed as well.[6]

It should also be mentioned that Navalny was accused by some liberal journalists of playing into the Kremlin's hands by pursuing personal goals. His call for Maria Baronova and other candidates to withdraw from the electoral race was perceived by some as an attempt to sow dissent among the opposition. [7]



Cartoon in Novaya Gazeta (N ovayagazeta.ru, September 9, 2016)

Communist Party (CPRF): UR Is Waging A "Dirty Provocation Campaign" Against Us

Opposition parties have accused the ruling party United Russia (UR), which is expected to win the majority of votes in the election, of using "dirty tricks" in its campaign in order to secure its victory. Gennady Zyuganov, head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), stated that this electoral campaign was one of dirtiest since the fall of Soviet Union.[8] In a communique published on its website, the CPRF accused UR of hooliganism against its members. The statement read: "...United Russia expresses confidence in its unqualified electoral victory despite the worsening crisis, the appalling corruption and the rapid impoverishment of the people, [and] despite its inability to stem these processes. What makes the authorities so sure of another electoral triumph? First of all, [UR's] conviction that the [Russian] citizens, while experiencing all the negative consequences of the crisis, are still not aware of the true scale of the consequences. They do not see... the direct link between what is happening and the essence of the socioeconomic system - a system that the representatives of the 'ruling party' and the establishment propagandists are once again urging them to preserve with their votes...

"Aware of its helplessness and its inability to win in a fair contest, the ruling party is waging a dirty provocation campaign against the CPRF. [For example, by]... creating spoiler parties [parties created to prevent the opposition from gaining parliamentary seats] and [circulating] a huge number of fake newspapers ostensibly published by the CPRF... Party activists are being pressured... There have been reports of attacks on them, including with the use of firearms. Provocateurs [infiltrate] the meetings of our candidates in their constituencies and commit acts of hooliganism. The list of outrageous facts is growing day by day, and they fail to be properly assessed by the representatives of government bodies. All this shows that the machine of fabrication is ready to do its dirty work and this gives us serious cause for concern.

"[Another] important fact is that, today, at UR's prompting, regulations for journalist access to the elections have been tightened, the number of observers has been dramatically cut, and the procedure of [registering] them as observers has become much more complicated. This creates [convenient] conditions for all forms of abuse."[9]



CPRF election poster: "Power is [Sexually] Arousing"

Khodorkovsky.com: 'UR Members Have Been Caught Destroying 'Unfriendly' Campaign Materials'

According to a report on the English-language website of Open Russia founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, UR activists been destroying campaign materials of rival parties in violation of the election laws. The report said: "August 17 saw the publication in Moscow of a million (!) copies of a newspaper entitled The Capital of United Russia. Even a cursory leaf-through will suffice to confirm that it consists entirely of agitprop in its purest form; the paper, however, is registered as a mass media publication, and the people behind it can therefore claim that legislation regarding campaign materials doesn't apply to it. Having familiarized themselves with United Russia's handiwork, opposition party Yabloko complained in the following terms to the Central Electoral Commission: 'The law states that campaign materials may feature no photographs save for those of election candidates, and yet this newspaper has used images of other individuals (Putin, for one. - Ed.), some of whom are minors... The newspaper also features materials promising benefits to voters exclusively as a result of the actions of United Russia. There is evidence of vote-buying here.' And although the CEC swiftly pledged to investigate, the paper, whose million copies can never be recalled, has already fulfilled its function.

"United Russia's Moscow branch has been very busy making phone calls. Individuals presenting themselves as United Russia campaign HQ personnel call up Muscovites on their landlines and mobiles - and proceed to ask 'leading questions:' 'It's very important to support Russia in this difficult time for our country, do you agree that we should all be voting for United Russia?'... Opposition candidates are meanwhile striving to prove their worth in personal meetings with citizens. In Moscow, the authorities have responded to these activities in a largely calm manner (customary provocateurs notwithstanding); in St Petersburg, however, it's a different matter... The regions are no better. In Samara Region, current governor Nikolai Merkushkin had previously been head of the republic of Mordovia, where he was able to guarantee eye-popping showings for United Russia (93.4% of the vote in 2007, 91.6% four years later). Keen to put on a good show this time round as well, Merkushkin has thrown his full support behind United Russia, mobilizing all his available administrative resources to this end. [Russian daily] Kommersant reports that, on its return from Samara, a Presidential Human Rights Council election monitoring group called attention to the blatantly unbalanced allocation of airtime and column inches in the region's state-controlled media...

"There are far fewer opposition billboards in evidence around Russia today than in the run-up to previous major elections. This isn't merely to do with the fact that these are crisis times, and that expensive outdoor advertising can easily be replaced by web banners. The real explanation is that, in Moscow, many advertising operators are simply refusing to put party posters on street billboards...UR personnel have been caught destroying 'unfriendly' campaign materials on several occasions over the course of the campaign. Back in Samara, for example, the local administration actually recruits special night brigades for this very purpose, with briefing sessions held directly at United Russia's campaign HQ. A resourceful 'recruit' managed to make an audio recording of one such event, where would-be brigade members were told the following: 'Elections sometimes involve breaking the law. We can't be the ones to break it. We need people who'd act independently of us, who'd be unconnected to us in any way - and that's where you lot come in.'"[10]



Defaced election posters (image: Khodorkovsky.com)

Endnotes:
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If your encounters with tapioca have been limited to vanilla pudding and bubble tea pearls, then it's time for a trip to Oca, a bright new cafe on Mott Street in Nolita. Founded by four friends from Rio de Janeiro, the restaurant specializes in Brazilian-style crepes made with tapiocaa gluten-free, sugar-free, vegan, organic superstarch that's surged in popularity throughout the South American nation over the last half-decade.

"Right now, there's a new tapioca movement: if you went to Brazil five years ago, you'd have to look in specific regions," Oca's co-owner Rafael Guerra said. "But the medical community started to recommend tapioca as a replacement for bread, and the ingredient really caught on."

Tapioca is the dense root of the cassava plant, and is used as an alternative to flour across Brazil, particularly in its densely-forested northern region. A longtime staple of indigenous cooking, it's now easily found in trendy crepe cafes in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero. In those kitchens (and at Oca) tapioca is mixed with water and heated over a skillet until it cooks into a flat, hardened shell. Filled with sweet or savory ingredients and folded over, the final product is crispy and delicious with the added plus of being very healthy. Almost aggressively healthy.



Oca's storefront on Mott Street (Scott Heins/Gothamist)



Tapioca powder on its way to becoming an Oca crepe (Scott Heins/Gothamist)

"The first two groups that grabbed the concept was the fashion industry and the fitness industry. One thing led to another," Guerra said over a bowl of Oca Bitescrispy morsels of tapioca, potato, and olive oil. Wellness is a constant theme at Oca. The menu features numerous vegan and vegetarian crepes, salads, acai bowls, and organic juices.

Crepes at Oca range from $9.50 to $14.50 for crepes stuffed with portobello mushrooms and tomato, or grilled bananas with honey and red pepper. Inside, the shop has been decorated like a gorgeous seaside spa with simple blonde wood fixtures and lush plants hung from the ceiling. It's obvious that careful design planning went into the making of Oca, but Guerra and his partners consider it just the beginning.



(Scott Heins/Gothamist)

"The way to introduce the habit of eating tapioca that we selected is to have the experience coming here," he said. "So now we can educate the audience, we can try, they can understand, and then they can take it home and do whatever they want with it." In the coming weeks, Oca will expand its hours and begin offering home delivery. Longer-term plans include multiple storefronts, a catering operation, and a retail business for bulk tapioca powder.

"Having a bag of white edible powder doesn't make a lot of sense. But coming in here and being told, 'You can take this home and do it with Nutella, with turkey, whatever you feel like,' then it's much clearer," Guerra said.

"It was regional, it became national, and now we are documented proof that it's an international movement." Guerra said with a smile.

Oca is located at 250 Mott Street near the corner of Prince Street in NoLita // Open Tuesday-Sunday, 11:30 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. // Website
This past week we held a groundbreaking for Edgewood Vista Senior Living at 3207 Colonial Drive. This will be a large facility -- around 70 units -- with 45 assisted living units and the remaining rooms will be for dementia and Alzheimers patients. What a great company. Their president, who is based out of Grand Forks, N.D., attended along with the regional director who is based in Boise, Idaho. Many company officials from Montana and other locations also attended the event. They treated attendees to lunch at the Montana City Grill after the event.

We have a new company in town that handles leasing and property management. It is called Real Property Management Headwaters and the owner is Brenton Burbank. They are located in the office complex just past Pure Health Clinic at 2001 11th Ave., Suite 5. Contact them at bburbank@rpmheadwaters.com or 406-996-1196.

Weve been wondering what is going to be built in the 1800 Prospect location (where Planet Motors was) next to Taco Treat. According to city commercial permits, it will be a new restaurant called 1889 Cafe. No news on the type of food or who the owners are, but Ill keep watching for more details.

Kudos to Budget Inn located downtown on Last Chance Gulch for the improvements to the exterior of their motel. The new colors are great and certainly make a statement. The owners have been steadily putting in improvements over the past year or so. It is looking good!

Ive mentioned before the new Frotheeze coffee and ice cream business just past the Overland Express. But, I just wanted to give them another shout-out. We recently had a ribbon cutting there and new owners Jan and Matt Tedesco have done an outstanding job of not only redoing the inside of the business, but have added outside seating. They also added a new parking lot with better drive-through access. It is a great spot to take your kids or grandkids for ice cream or get your favorite latte.

Ground is starting to be moved (drainage ponds are in) for the new Hilton Home 2 Suites hotel (95 room hotel with pool) just north of Lowes in the Trinity Center. This hotel is a fairly new model for the Hilton hotel family, and it is similar to the two suites hotels already in Helena. There is a growing market for the amenities that these types of hotels offer. For families, the convenience of family suites is very popular and for extended-stay visitors, it is a must to have the convenience of the cooking facilities and living room areas.

The new owners of the Windbag continue their remodel and hope to reopen this fall. Their Facebook page indicates a new fireplace has been installed. Everyone is excited for it to reopen -- weve even had visitors who planned their lunch or dinner around going there this summer and werent able to partake. They have begun their hiring process  check it out on their Facebook page if you are interested in a position at this iconic downtown Helena restaurant. Stay tuned for more information as they get closer to their open date, which should be in mid-October.

The Little Childrens Home at 4065 N. Montana Ave. is now open and operating. They are having an open house on the 24th of September from 4-6 p.m. It is an opportunity to see the historic mansion and all the improvements theyve done to make the home safer and better able to care for the children. Theyve also added a little childrens mini farm to the property. For more information, call 406-459-2885.

I mentioned in a previous column that Tractor Supply Company is coming to Helena and will be in the Carpet Garage location near Big Lots. I contacted the customer service department recently and was informed that it is set to open in February of 2017. So, they are still coming! Just not as soon as originally planned.

We have not heard any updates on the Pizza Ranch restaurant that was reportedly going in north of Buffalo Wild Wings by the end of the year. It doesnt look like there is progress on that piece of ground. Work continues on the LaPa Grill restaurant that will go in the former location of Touchstone Cafe -- ground just west of the Montana Club building. No projected timeline for when that will open.

Cathy Burwell is the president/CEO of the Helena Area Chamber of Commerce.
The Montana Historical Society is ready to travel along with you as you discover the historical wonders of Montana.

If you are not much of a traveler, you also can visit those wonders virtually from your favorite armchair.

MHS has a new mobile app and website, ExploreBig. The tremendous MHS collections and data set of historical marker text tells you the stories of Montana by guiding you to the fascinating historic buildings and places where Montana history took place.

The new ExploreBig mobile app is available for both Android and iOS devices by searching for Explore Montana History on the Google Play and Apple App Store. ExploreBig is also available on the web at http://explorebig.org.

The new site draws on information from more than 1,500 buildings and sites across Montana that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and have a MHS historical marker sign. The sign text information has been fully researched for the stories they tell by MHS staff members..

We are focusing on broad state themes that link disparate sites across the state, MHS Digital Services Manger Tammy Troup said. We began chronologically and future tours will be thematic or focus on historic districts.

The six tours on the site now are Homesteads, Mining Industry, Early Montana, Railroads, Hamilton Historic District and Great Falls Northside Residential Historic District. Troup said new themes and stories will continue to be added to ExploreBig.

When you open the Early Montana tour, you see a state map with pins denoting locations that tell the story. Below the map is a narrative that begins The earliest historical sites in Montana reflect the period of transition when European building ways and property ownership ideas marked a land long in use by Native Americans.

At the conclusion of the narrative, individual sites are shown explaining their importance to the tour and an historical photograph of the building or site. The app uses GIS technology to help you navigate to the sites. It also hosts audio and video files that allow you to listen to stories about many of the sites.

The idea for the project came about when Gov. Steve Bullock asked state agencies to come up with new ways to use the data and collections they have to benefit the public. MHS staff thought the use of the historical marker information would be a great data set to use, Troup said.

Troup joined the Society about a year ago and moved to Helena from Ohio. The project has given her an appreciation for regional connections to shared history.

If people are real travelers or armchair travelers, this is a great way to see the patterns of history and the movement of people and ideas as Montana developed, she said.

Local museums, historical societies and libraries are encouraged to contribute to the project. They may contact Troup at mhsdigital.gov for more information. It is also hoped that people in the lodging industry and others who deal with the traveling public will share the app with them.

As time goes by the app will have more and more community tours added to it. This is just the start, Troup said
In the framework of the 71st Session and the high-level Week of the UNGA in New York City, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias is meeting today, Sunday September 18, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, Mr. Wang Yi.



The Minister will participate next in the 11th Annual Ministerial Working Dinner on the Middle East, which is hosted by the International Peace Institute.

Tomorrow, Monday September 19, Minister Kotzias will accompany the Prime Minister to the Opening Session of the Plenary of the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, the high-level meeting to address large movements of refugees and migrants.



Thereafter, FM N. Kotzias is going to take part in a quadrilateral meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania. He will also have a meeting with the Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Mr. Iyad Ameen Madani, and a bilateral meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, Mr. Yun Byung-se.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs will, last, be participating in the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers.
Much has changed in the 14 years since John Molineux first visited Kathmandu.

Millions were made homeless and nearly 9,000 killed in a devastating earthquake that struck Nepals capital last April. Almost twice that number were estimated dead at the close of the small South Asian countrys decade-long civil war in 2006.

All the while, Molineux kept up his work to thwart the quieter threat of human trafficking, a crime that sees an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 women and girls smuggled out of the country every year.

Lured with promises of marriage or jobs, many wind up in Indian brothels. Others, separated from their families and shunned from their villages, take to drugs and living on the streets.

Molineuxs goal is to intercept trafficking victims before theyre taken out of the country, and provide homes to those without one.

Tiny Hands International, a Christian nonprofit he founded in 2005, earlier this year announced it had picked up its 10,000th such trafficking target. Tiny Hands transit monitoring program -- now in place at 30 different border crossings and mass transit stations in Nepal, Bangladesh, and India -- dispatches nonprofit staffers to human smuggling hotspots, where they work with police to spot and stop traffickers.

Molineux, a Helena native and Capital High School graduate, said the program has contributed to a yearly average of nearly two dozen criminal convictions against traffickers.

Its a complicated situation, he said. There still is a lot of trafficking but you dont see as many kids on the street as you used to.

Based on what weve seen and what we know, it looks like our work and the work of other organizations has significantly reduced trafficking.

Molineux first visited Nepals capital in 2002, not long after picking up a business degree from Taylor University in Indiana.

Struck by the poverty, prostitution and drug abuse, he returned two years later, this time for good.

Donations from friends helped him build a childrens home that eventually became Tiny Hands.

The nonprofit now runs 10 such homes for orphaned and abandoned children, in addition to its transit monitoring program.

The organization also employs 250 staffers in six countries, with plans to extend its reach to 10 additional nations over the next five years.

Despite the wars, earthquakes and entrenched poverty, Molineux said a lot has changed for the better since he arrived in Nepal.

Some of those improvements can be seen at the street level and many, he said, can be traced directly to work conducted by organizations like his own.

Two of our staff went down to Mumbai about a year ago and got in touch with some people whod been working in the red light districts there for many years, Molineux said.Those activists said the number of trafficking victims had significantly decreased. I think (at) the brothels it had decreased by 90 percent.

We asked them what they thought had caused this change, and they said prayer and border monitoring.

For more information on Molineux and his charity, visit tinyhandsinternational.org.
The state of Montana is blessed with an abundance of energy resources. We have areas of high quality wind and solar opportunities, and we have one of the nations largest reserves of high quality coal, plus new reserves of natural gas. The recent announcement of the complete shutdown of Colstrip units 1 & 2 was met with a few celebrations in some areas of Montana, but a great deal of concern in the community of Colstrip and the surrounding area. One thing is abundantly clear: energy and economic security in our state remains uncertain.

Consider a few of the fallouts from the closure. It will make the operation of units 3 & 4 more expensive because of the economic rule of efficiency in size. The loss of jobs both in the mining and plant operation, plus the loss of income tax, property taxes and reduction in the coal severance taxes will have significant impact to local revenues, school revenues and the many recipients of the coal-tax trust fund.

The effects do not stop there. The main 500kv transmission line that runs from Colstrip to the West Coast population centers could possibly cease operation when Colstrip 1 & 2 close. If a transmission line does not have a full capacity of electricity available, the line will not work at all. If that happens, one of the causalities could very well be the REC plant in Butte that employs 100+ well-paid individuals. REC is the largest consumer of Colstrip power in Montana. They produce the raw material used to make solar panels. The closure of REC could very well increase the cost of solar panels and would make solar energy more expensive.

The loss of tax revenue, a core industry and exports to the state economy is difficult to deal with; however, the devastation to the families, the schools and the community of Colstrip is the greatest travesty. Colstrip and the state of Montana lose the most in this battle. If we discover one day that we have the opportunity to host an industry that would employ Montanans, pay strong wages, contribute to our tax base, but could not locate here because of our lack of base load generation, all of Montana would suffer.

Fortunately, Montana has the comfort of a fleet of hydroelectric facilities, along with the Colstrip thermal generation, that provide the base load required to make the intermittent power supplied by the renewables useable. This is imperative, as Montana ratepayers must have reliable and affordable electricity 24/7.

Montana has the greatest opportunity for energy generation in the nation. All we need to accept is that every source of power must be considered. We have large coal, natural gas and oil reserves, an abundant area of wind and solar potential, and a labor force that is ready to go to work. Given the opportunity, our young people are anxious to stay here in Big Sky Country and contribute to the future of Montana.

The bottom line is, we all need to be objective and honest with ourselves. We need all sources of generation to keep costs under control. Montana is far too special of a place to allow personal bias or ideology to limit any source of energy generation. Lower energy costs help our seniors, our less fortunate, our young families, our schools, public buildings and businesses. Together we can continue to live, work and prosper in this amazing state of ours.

Bob Lake represents District 4 on the Montana Public Service Commission.
GameStop Corp. is a specialty retailer founded in 1999 and headquartered in Grapevine, Texas. The company was originally known as GSC Holdings Corp. but later changed its name following its IPO. Originally a brand of then dominant Babbages, Gamestop altered the way video games were distributed and it is now the world's largest retailer of video games and video game accessories. The company went public in 2004 and operated 4,573 stores at the start of 2022. Brands under the company umbrella include Gamestop, EB Games, and Micromania as well as 50 pop-culture-themed Zing Pop locations.

Gamestop Corp. provides video games and entertainment products through its global network of e-commerce properties and stores. The company sells new and pre-owned gaming platforms and accessories like controllers, headsets, memory cards, and gaming software as well as in-game products like digital currency, downloadable content, and games. The company also sells new and used memorabilia and collectibles. Genres include TV, movie, comic book, and game characters as well as many other items from pop culture. GameStop Corp. also operates Game Informer, a magazine and website dedicated to the gaming industry including reviews, updates, and new developments in technologies.

Game enthusiasts enjoy two primary benefits of using Gamestop. The first is access to the full range of games and gaming accessories. The second is the ability to sell or trade their old equipment and games for fair prices. All old equipment is refurbished to a like-new state before resale.

In 2021 Gamestop announced it was entering the world of cryptocurrency. The company revealed plans to build an NFT (non-fungible token) platform for listing, selling, and holding digital or digitized artwork and collectibles. The beta version launched in 2022 and has so far seen great success with an average daily volume exceeding $1 million. The NFT marketplace also featured Web3.0 games in which characters and in-game items are held forever on the blockchain. As of September 2022, the most successful retailer on the NFT marketplace was Gamestop Presents, a collaboration of cover art from Game Informer Magazine. Sales at the time were just under 168 ETH or about $221,500.00.

GameStop began a slide in 2016 following a series of bad investments that included a foray into the world of mobile phones. The slide came to an end in late 2021 when shareholders using the Reddit thread Wallstreet Bets orchestrated a short-squeeze and brought on the age of meme stocks.
Haemonetics Corporation, a healthcare company, provides medical products and solutions. It operates through three segments: Plasma, Blood Center, and Hospital. The company offers automated plasma collection devices, related disposables, and software, including NexSys PCS and PCS2 plasmapheresis equipment and related disposables and intravenous solutions, as well as integrated information technology platforms for plasma customers to manage their donors, operations, and supply chain; and NexLynk DMS donor management system. It also provides automated blood component and manual whole blood collection systems, such as MCS brand apheresis equipment to collect specific blood components from the donor; disposable whole blood collection and component storage sets; SafeTrace Tx blood bank information system; and BloodTrack blood management software, a suite of blood management and bedside transfusion solutions that combines software with hardware components, as well as an extension of the hospital's blood bank information system. In addition, the company offers hospital products comprising TEG, ClotPro, and HAS hemostasis analyzer systems that provide a comprehensive assessment of a patient's overall hemostasis; TEG Manager software, which connects various TEG analyzers throughout the hospital, providing clinicians remote access to active and historical test results that inform treatment decisions; and Cell Saver Elite +, an autologous blood recovery system for cardiovascular, orthopedic, trauma, transplant, vascular, obstetrical, and gynecological surgeries. It markets and sells its products through direct sales force, independent distributors, and sales representatives. Haemonetics Corporation was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Great Depression resulted in high rates of unemployment, disenfranchisement and anger worldwide. In Germany, Hitler exploited this anger and rallied a segment of the German population against the Jews. He convinced some Germans the Jews were to blame for their economic woes. At the time, Hitler and his supporters most likely were not considered deplorable, at least not until it became known he was exterminating Jews. Today, I bet nearly everyone considers Hitler and his supporters to be deplorable.

Trumps strategy of blaming Muslims and immigrants for Americas economic woes is reminiscent of Hitlers strategy. Trump seems to have found a segment of our population that is so angry they need to find someone to blame, and they agree with Trump that Muslims and immigrants are to blame for Americas problems.

The resulting hostility against Muslims and immigrants is frightening. Hillary recently referred to this segment of Trump supporters as the basket of deplorables. Not all of Trump supporters fall into this basket, but, with our knowledge of Hitler and of the dangers of harnessing hate and prejudice, how can we fault Hillary for using that term? It seems to fit a certain group of voters.

Clare Kearns

Helena
Despite Flipping in Surf 4 Times in a Year, Marines Say New ACV Is the Future of Amphibious Warfare

Some Marine veterans familiar with the vehicle and its operations have worried about the reliability of the ACV.
From revealing the name of the future bomber to new leaders outlining priorities, this year's annual Air, Space & Cyber conference organized by the Air Force Association is sure to make some news.

Leaders will discuss the many challenges facing the service, including modernization in a time of budget constraints, deploying or training more with the smallest force the service has ever seen, increased drone missions, the air war against the Islamic State, and a hostile Russia encroaching on European partners.

Here's a look at what's to come at the conference kicking off Monday and continuing through Wednesday at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center just south of Washington, D.C.

B-21 Name Reveal

Officials are expected to announce the name of the future B-21 stealth bomber, known as the Long-Range Strike Bomber, or LRS-B.

Northrop Grumman Corp. in October beat out Boeing Co., the world's largest aerospace company, and Lockheed Martin Corp., the world's largest defense contractor, for the $21.4 billion initial contract as part of the LRS-B program.

The Air Force plans to buy 100 of the new bombers from Northrop, the same company that manufactured the B-2 Spirit. Not many details have been shared about the B-21. And the Air Force's photos of the mock-up have critics grumbling that the future bomber closely resembles the B-2.

Air Force Global Strike Command in March launched a website asking airmen, their family members and retirees to suggest names for the next-generation aircraft.

The website, dubbed "Name the B-21," offered the winner or winners -- as chosen by Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein (or possibly his predecessor Gen. Mark Welsh) and Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James -- the chance to attend the show.

Among the names submitted to Military.com: Super Spirit, Sky Dragon, Nighthawk II, Marauder II, Vengeance and Ghost Shadow. The wait is almost over to see whether any of the favorites is the winner.

Chief's Debut

Gen. David Goldfein will make his conference debut as Air Force chief of staff after becoming the service's top officer in July.

Goldfein, a seasoned command pilot who flew combat missions in the Persian Gulf War, the Kosovo Campaign and the war in Afghanistan, has already previewed some priorities he hopes to fulfill as chief of staff.

Last week, Goldfein told audience members at the National Guard Association of the United States that he plans to review and revitalize the makeup of "the fundamental unit" of squadrons. He also wants to improve how the Air Force uses joint leaders to better work with sister services, and enhance command and control systems to better network and make faster decisions in any environment, Defense News reported.

Those three goals aside, Goldfein and James are pushing hard to mitigate the fighter pilot shortage -- of as many as 700 pilots -- plaguing the force.

New Faces

Gen. Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe-U.S. Air Forces Africa, plans to discuss NATO and its role in airpower.

Lt. Gen. Maryanne Miller, chief of the Air Force Reserve, will discuss the reserve component and building the modern "citizen airman."

Maj. Gen. Robert McMurry Jr., commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, will participate in a panel discussing innovative technologies for the modern-day warfighter.

Brig. Gen. Scott Pleus, director of the F-35 Integration Office at the Pentagon, will be a new addition to a panel discussing the F-35's initial operational capability. This will likely be complicated after the service on Friday said it ordered a temporary stand-down of 13 out of 104 F-35s in the fleet, "due to the discovery of peeling and crumbling insulation in avionics cooling lines inside the fuel tanks."

And the following generals in new positions will participate in a senior leader panel: Gen. Stephen Wilson, Air Force vice chief of staff; Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, commander of Pacific Air Forces; Lt. Gen. Marshall Webb, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command; Gen. Joseph Lengyel, chief of the National Guard Bureau; and Lt. Gen. Scott Rice, director of the Air National Guard.

New Assignments

Meanwhile, the following senior leaders attending the conference have been tapped by President Barack Obama to take over new assignments.

Lt. Gen. James Holmes, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements at the Pentagon, will be the next Air Combat Command commander.

Lt. Gen. John Raymond, deputy chief of staff for operations, will lead Air Force Space Command.

Gen. John Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command, has been tapped to take over U.S. Strategic Command.

Cyber Emphasis

Cyber warfare has been highlighted before, but not as robustly as this year, as the exposition's organizing committee chose to add cyber to the name of the conference itself: "Air, Space & Cyber Conference."

The conference comes as U.S. officials say Russian hackers are behind multiple high-profile attacks against entities ranging from the Democratic National Committee to the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) athlete database.

Air Force leaders repeatedly have insisted that future scenarios, against adversarial aircraft or even against enemies who hide within intangible domains such as the internet, are what airmen need to prepare for.

"Our military's technological superiority is being challenged in ways that we've never experienced before, and we can't take these developments for granted,"James said at the AFCEA International's TechNet Air 2016 symposium in San Antonio.

"If we do, that could put American lives at risk in the not-too-distant future," she said in March, highlighting that a resurgent Russia and "worrisome activity" from the Chinese, among other nations, gets a little closer to home when addressed in the digital world.

'Airmen First'

The priority is "airmen first," James has said many times. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. James Cody and she have spoken to policymakers on the importance of enhancing the quality of life for airmen, in order to take the mission forward.

In the meantime, improvements are required within the fundamental structure -- the squadron, Goldfein says.

Reinvigorating that lifeline is what's needed to take on whatever's ahead, he said in a letter to service members.

"The squadron is the beating heart of the United States Air Force, our most essential team. We succeed or fail in our missions at the squadron level because that is where we develop, train, and build Airmen," Goldfein wrote in August.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana2014.

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Marine recruits at Parris Island, S.C., were dropped from their platoon this year after they were diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a serious condition in which the muscles are exercised so extensively that they break down, leading to potential kidney damage and other problems.

But the diagnosis is absent on the drop roster for the recruits and, in one case, the reason listed is pneumonia.

The revelation that boot camp staff tried to cover up evidence of excessive physical training used to haze recruits inside of Parris Island's 3rd Recruit Training Battalion is one of many shocking details in a wide-ranging series of investigations discussed with Military.com this week.

The investigations revealed that a drill instructor's verbal and physical abuse provided the "impetus" for 20-year-old recruit Raheel Siddiqui's suicide, just a handful of days into training.

They also showed patterns of abusive behavior throughout the unit and drill instructors who appeared to know they were doing wrong and bragged they'd never get caught.

The most popular form of hazing, detailed in the investigations, is incentive training, or IT -- physical exercise done for the purpose of inflicting pain on recruits and pushing them to their limits.

Recruits in various platoons within the battalion, investigators found, were unevenly pitted against each other by their drill instructors in Marine Corps Martial Arts Program training, occasionally with injuries resulting. Recruits reported being taken to the "dungeon," an empty squad bay covered in a thick layer of yellow dust, where they'd be made to run back and forth and do burpees while the staff posted a lookout. And they would be made to clean floors with small green "scuzz" pads in physically demanding or stressful positions.

One of the two rhabdomyolysis cases was caused by the latter exercise. One night, after a day of intense physical training including MCMAP, a recruit was ordered to clean his squad bay with a towel in a stress position, without touching his knees to the floor.

After cleaning the floor for nearly an hour, the recruit felt a severe pain in his legs, investigations show. The next day, the recruit had trouble walking. He would later be diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis and dropped from the unit.

The drop roster showed only that the recruit suffered from pneumonia. It's not clear from the investigation whether the recruit opted to recycle and attempt training again after recovery, or how severe his case was.

The investigation into the incident is clear: The diagnoses for this recruit and for the other rhabdomyolysis case were hidden to divert attention from drill instructors who were training recruits inappropriately.

"Failure to include the diagnosis of rhabdomyolysis, an indicator of extreme muscle exhaustion, on the drop roster for [two recruits] was done for the purpose of hiding indicators of widespread unauthorized incentive training," it states.

While incentive training has a place in Marine Corps training, investigators say drill instructors within the battalion resorted to it so often that it became meaningless.

"Incentive training was such a frequent occurrence under the current drill instructor team that it lost its purpose and effects on recruits," the most recent of the three investigations states. That investigation, begun in April after a recruit's parent sent a letter to President Barack Obama via Whitehouse.gov, turned up more than a dozen allegations of recruit mistreatment, and troubling accounts of drill instructors flaunting their abuse of power.

"I've been investigated multiple times; I know everyone on this island. They can't touch me," one drill instructor allegedly bragged to recruits during a period of instruction, adding that he believed he'd never get in trouble for his incentive training methods. Recruits also alleged the drill instructor would drink alcohol and discuss women during time set aside for instruction.

Fifteen drill instructors within 3rd Recruit Training Battalion may now face court-martial or administrative punishment for their role in the alleged hazing and mistreatment of recruits between June 2014 and April of this year.

Investigating officers also recommended that a mandatory interview be conducted with all recruits diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis in the future for the purpose of uncovering instances of unauthorized incentive training.

In a brief interview with Military.com on Sept. 15, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller declined to comment directly on the investigations, as personnel actions are ongoing, but said he did not believe hazing was a widespread cultural issue at the Corps' two boot camps.

"Based on what I've seen and observed and my experience, I don't believe that this is endemic across the institution," he said. "But that doesn't mean that we're not going to make the changes we need to make and we're not going to be alert to these issues in the future."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
The Obama administration expressed its "regret" Saturday for an airstrike that mistakenly killed Syrian forces, a senior administration official told Fox News, as the U.S. awaited a response from the Assad regime.

The U.S. military halted its air raid against the Islamic State terror group in eastern Syria after learning it struck the Syrian military, a U.S. Central Command official confirmed. The CENTCOM official said the U.S. military was "certain" about the outcome of the strike. Officials had been watching these forces "for a few days" thinking they were ISIS.

"The United States has relayed our regret through the Russian Federation for the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces," the administration official said. It marked the first known direct American strike on President Bashar Assad's forces.

Still, Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, lashed out at Russia for requesting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Saturday night, calling the request a "stunt." She said the Russians had blood on their hands after their own attacks in Syria, adding, "They're calling this emergency meeting? Really?"

The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Saturday night at Russia's request to discuss the strike.

Syria and Russia said the U.S.-led coalition had struck a Syrian military base in Deir el-Zour that was surrounded by ISIS fighters, enabling them to advance. There were "no objections" from the Russians ahead of the airstrike, according to a senior defense official.

The CENTCOM official described the target as "irregular forces," adding that multiple U.S. aircraft struck six military "troop carrier" vehicles and one tank which were "out in the open." The U.S. military informed Russian counterparts before the strike but "did not share specifics" of the target, just the airspace and general area.

A Russian Defense Ministry official said Syria has informed them that 62 of its soldiers were killed in the airstrike. Russia has been waging a year-old air campaign on behalf of Assad's forces and closely coordinates with them.

In June, the Russians bombed a U.S.-backed rebel camp in southern Syria used by CIA-trained fighters. After the Russians bombed the camp in al-Tanf, American officials called the Russians on a special hotline and told them to stop bombing. But instead of halting their attacks, the Russians sent in another group of attack aircraft to bomb again, ignoring the American request to stop.

The CENTCOM statement read, "the airstrike was halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military."

It added, "coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit."

Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the airstrike was conducted by two F-16s and two A-10s.

Konashenkov said Syrian authorities reported another 100 people wounded. The planes came from the direction of the border with Iraq, he added.

He said ISIS militants surrounding the air base launched an attack on the Syrian army positions after the strike. He added that if the coalition attack was launched by mistake, the reason for it was a "stubborn reluctance by the American side to coordinate its action against terrorist groups in Syria with Russia."

ISIS has repeatedly attacked the government-held air base, which is an isolated enclave deep in extremist-held territory. The Syrian military said the airstrikes enabled an ISIS advance on a hill overlooking the air base.

It called the strike a "serious and blatant attack on Syria and its military," and "firm proof of the U.S. support of Daesh and other terrorist groups," using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. President Bashar Assad's government views all those fighting against it as "terrorists," and has long accused the U.S. and other rebel supporters of backing extremists.

The U.S.-led coalition has carried out thousands of airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq over the past two years, allowing allied forces on the ground to liberate several towns and cities from the extremist group. Russia also carries out attacks against ISIS targets, in Deir el-Zour and other parts of Syria.

The cease-fire took effect on Monday, and despite reports of violations, it has largely held. However, aid convoys have been unable to enter rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo -- a key component of the deal.

Earlier on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned the U.S. commitment to the fragile cease-fire, suggesting that Washington wasn't prepared to break with "terrorist elements" battling Assad's forces.

Russia has accused Washington of failing to rein in the rebels, and on Saturday Putin asked why the United States has insisted on not releasing a written copy of the agreement. Officials have provided details of the agreement in press conferences, but have not released an official document, fueling suspicions on both sides.

"This comes from the problems the U.S. is facing on the Syrian track -- they still cannot separate the so-called healthy part of the opposition from the half-criminal and terrorist elements," Putin said during a trip to Kyrgyzstan.

"In my opinion, this comes from the desire to keep the combat potential in fighting the legitimate government of Bashar Assad. But this is a very dangerous route."

He appeared to be referring to the Fatah al-Sham Front, an Al Qaeda-linked group previously known as the Nusra Front, which is deeply embedded in rebel-held areas and fights alongside more moderate groups.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed Putin's remarks during a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Lavrov noted the "refusal by an array of illegal armed groups to join the cease-fire," and Washington's obligation to "separate units of the moderate opposition from terrorist groupings," according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Under the cease-fire agreement, the U.S. and Russia would work together to target the Fatah al-Sham Front, as well as the Islamic State group, while Assad's forces refrain from striking opposition-held areas.

But Washington has warned Russia that unless aid is delivered to Aleppo, it will not move ahead with the formation of the joint coordination center.

The U.N. has accused Assad's government of obstructing aid access to the contested city. The Russian military says insurgents have held up the delivery by firing on government positions along the main route leading into besieged, rebel-held districts, in violation of the cease-fire.

The Syrian government said it has done all that is necessary to facilitate the entry of aid convoys to Aleppo, but that armed groups have failed to withdraw from the supply routes and are committing "dangerous, provocative acts."

Russia's military said Syrian rebels violated the cease-fire dozens of times over the past day, including with strikes on military and civilian targets in Aleppo.

The Interfax news agency quoted Col. Sergei Kopytsin as saying Saturday that mortar fire and homemade rockets struck Aleppo 26 times. Russian news agencies cited another official, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Savchenko, as saying there had been 55 violations throughout the country. Syria's state news agency SANA said insurgents have violated the cease-fire 12 times in the last 12 hours. No casualties were reported.

Syrian activists said government forces have meanwhile killed five civilians. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a woman and child were killed Saturday in Talbiseh, in the central Homs province. It says two men were killed outside Damascus and a child was killed in Aleppo province.

Syria's conflict has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced half the country's population since March 2011.

Fox News' Kelly Chernenkoff, Lucas Tomlinson, Jonathan Wachtel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related Video:
Mean Streak's last ride

A Cedar Point employee takes a selfie with "Mean Streak Henry" Sievers before the official final run of the amusement park's popular wooden coaster in Sandusky, Ohio, Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. Sievers is famous for riding the coaster more than 16,000 times since it opened in 1991, averaging 30 rides a day. Sievers reached 16,000 rides on Aug. 22 of this year, and ended with a total of 16,182. (Emily Rose Bennett | MLive.com)

(Emily Rose Bennett)

SANDUSKY, OHIO -- Henry Sievers fell in love with roller coasters as a boy growing up in New York.



See 39 photos from Mean Streak Henry's final Mean Streak ride

As an adult, one particular coaster became the object of his affection: Cedar Point's Mean Streak, which was the world's tallest wooden roller coaster when it opened in 1991.



Known as "Mean Streak Henry," he's now famous for riding the coaster more than 16,000 times since it opened, averaging 30 rides a day.

His 25-year run came to an end on Friday when the park held the Mean Streak's final riding session on the opening night of Cedar Point's 20th HalloWeekends.

The park is removing the long-standing ride to make room for the growth of FrontierTown. A memorial service was held, followed by a funeral procession to the "Dead Rides Cemetery" at the front of the park.



"It's progress, you've gotta move on," Sievers said. "A new chapter in my life has to start."



Sievers' favorite memory was his 13,000th ride.



"They all got me a poster and everything," he said about his fans. "The fans have been great."



His most impressive streak was 90 rides in one day.



"I'm just on and off. On and off," Sievers said.



As the crowds faded on Friday, and the last guests exited the platform, one last ride was available for park employees only.



And Henry.



Sievers' final ride count: 16,182.
Dozens of Detroit police officers lined the wall outside the entrance at St. John Hospital in Detroit Saturday evening. Some of them hugged.

They came in support of Detroit Police Sgt. Kenneth Steil, who died unexpectedly from unknown medical complications Saturday, collapsing as medical staff prepared to send him home to his wife and sons days after being shot during the pursuit of a fugitive.

"Ken said it not once but several times, not only to his loving family, but to his men who were with him, that, 'I'm glad that I took the round, because I would not have wanted any of you to take it," Craig said from outside the hospital Saturday. "This man is an American hero, Detroit's finest."

The 20-year Detroit police veteran, who worked on the Special Operations and Underwater Recovery teams and in the historically violent Ninth Precinct on the city's east side, was initially expected to recover.

Detroit Police Media Relations Director Michael Woody said an autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

The sergeant leaves behind a wife, JoAnn Steil, and two sons, 5-year-old William, and 3-year-old Alexander.

"He thought he was going to be going home this week," Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said, referencing a conversation he had with Steil in his hospital room Wednesday. " ... The last thing the sergeant said to me before I left him Wednesday was, he said, 'As I got to the hospital, I go, thank God I'm going to be here for my wife and sons.'

"Now we know he's not going to be there, but I want JoAnn and her children to know that 700,000 people in the city of Detroit will be."

Craig said more than 150 officers visited Steil while he was at St. John Hospital recovering last week. The outpouring of support prompted the sergeant to write a letter to the police chief and department that Detroit Police First Assistant Chief Lashinda Stair read from Saturday.

"All of the support has made a huge difference in keeping my mind off the pain and keeping my spirits up. The doctor said that I can probably go home tomorrow and I should fully recover. I know that I will be taken care of until I'm back on my feet ... I look forward to working with you all again."

Steil wore sergeant badge no. S-54, the same as his uncle, a former Detroit police sergeant who inspired him to enter law enforcement.

Police said Steil, about 11 p.m. Monday, Sept. 12, was chasing 21-year-old Marquise Cromer, who was wanted for allegedly shooting his father and committing a carjacking the day prior. Steil and other officers chased Cromer to the rear of a Sunoco gas station near Seven Mile and Hayes on Detroit's east side where investigators say Cromer fired a sawed-off shotgun, striking Steil in the right shoulder.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy's office on Thursday charged Cromer with assault with intent to murder; resisting and obstructing a police officer causing serious impairment, three counts of resisting and obstructing a police officer; and possession of sawed-off shotgun in connection with the police shooting.

He'll likely face new charges resulting from the officer's shooting.

"Ken is our hero," the chief said. "When you attack a Detroit police officer, you attack all of us.

"You attack the community."

Press conference on death of Sgt. Kenneth Steil:
DEARBORN - Despite a claim from Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad that his department is "committed to transparency," the city's response to an MLive public records request appears to show anything but, according to three legal experts.

At issue is a request for surveillance footage from a Dec. 27, 2014 incident involving Dearborn Police Cpl. James Wade, who along with another officer, was disciplined after injuring a suspected drunken driver they had taken into custody.

More recently, Wade shot and killed a 31-year-old woman at Fairlane Town Center Mall in Dearborn on Jan. 27.

The woman's family is suing the police department, alleging Wade has shown a history of aggressive behavior. The 2014 incident was one of three such cases cited in the suit.

MLive Detroit on July 12 filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all video footage related to the December 2014 incident with the drunken driving suspect.

A city attorney refused to release the video, arguing its release would violate the prisoner's privacy rights.

The city also claimed the record is protected under the state's Freedom of Information Act exclusion for police personnel files.

However, several open records experts dispute the validity of those arguments.

Robin Luce-Herrmann, a Michigan Press Association adviser on Freedom of Information Act issues, said Michigan law looks at two issues in regard to the violation of privacy question.

The first is: Would release of the information potentially embarrass the individual identified in the public record.

"Then the question is: Does the information shed light on the workings of government," Luce-Herrmann said, "and if it does shed light on the working of government, then it should be released."

In response to the denial based on the personnel records exemption, Luce-Herrmann told MLive: "My reaction to that is you cannot simply put something in a police personnel file and say, 'Oh, it's shielded because I put it in a police personnel file.'"

Fatal Fairlane incident

Wade shot Janet Wilson at least four times Jan. 27 as she allegedly drove her vehicle at police, who were trying to stop her following a disturbance she caused at Fairlane Town Center Mall in Dearborn.

Police say Wade opened fire from the passenger side of Wilson's SUV's when she refused to stop. Wilson was unarmed, and according to relatives, had previously suffered from mental illness.

State police conducted a third-party investigation into the homicide and presented their findings to Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who has yet to issue her ruling as to whether the killing was justified.

The state police investigation, about 144 pages of which were previously released in response to an MLive FOIA request, indicate there is dash-cam footage of the shooting, but officials have declined to release the footage.

MLive Detroit filed a separate FOIA request for that video, but was denied because the footage was part of an investigative subpoena issued by the Wayne County Prosecutor's office.

Worthy last week said her office is still investigating the shooting. She wouldn't offer an estimate for when a decision could be reached, but said "sooner than later."

"I've been patient, and we do obviously want the prosecutor to do her job," said Vince Colella, the attorney representing Wilson's family. "We don't want to do anything to interfere, but it's been ... nine months. Hopefully they make a decision soon. The family is waiting."

The lawsuit

Wilson's sister, Lori Wilson, filed a federal lawsuit against Dearborn and Wade on Aug. 4, requesting more than $10 million and claiming excessive use of force and other civil rights violations.

Lori Wilson is also asking a judge to order the release of the dash-cam video that may show her sister's shooting.

The lawsuit claims Wade was suspended as a defensive tactics instructor for six months following an "overly aggressive" interaction at Fairlane Town Center Mall on April 9, 2015.

Internal documents obtained by MLive indicate that Wade and three other officers responded that day to a call about five "disorderly subjects" refusing to leave mall property, one who threatened to get a gun after an argument with mall security.

The officers stopped the suspects in an SUV, and when the driver refused to get out of the vehicle, Wade reached inside through a window in an unsuccessful attempt to remove the keys from the ignition, according to the documents.

Police then smashed the window and four of the five suspects were arrested.

An internal investigation found that Wade's decision to reach into the SUV was ill-advised, put himself at risk, and could have escalated the situation to a point police "may have been compelled to use deadly force if (the driver) had attempted to drive away while Cpl. Wade was reaching into the SUV.

He was reprimanded for improper tactics and decision making after previously receiving a warning for a December 2014 incident that left a detainee injured during booking.

Internal review documents indicate that incident was recorded, which prompted MLive to file its FOIA request.

Wade and another officer were found to have violated department policies on "treatment of persons in custody," according to internal memos.

The two officers took a driver into custody on suspicion of intoxication.

Police reports indicate the man was belligerent, uncooperative and destroyed police property during transport.

There was a subsequent struggle with the detainee inside Dearborn's lockup facility.

Wade "secured" the arrested man's head against a sign that had a protruding screw, which caused the injury, according to a March 26, 2015 internal memo written by a Commander D. Robinson.

Wade received a "notice of written warning" for his involvement."

A third disciplinary incident mentioned in the lawsuit says Wade was deemed to have employed "overly aggressive" chase tactics during an April 1, 2012 stolen vehicle pursuit that reached 85 miles per hour.

Incident memos:

Rejected FOIA request

Dearborn Deputy Corporation Counsel Laurie M. Ellerbrake denied MLive's request for video footage of the detainee booking injury in a letter dated July 26.

In a subsequent phone conversation, Ellerbrake referenced a federal lawsuit filed by the Detroit Free Press against the Department of Justice in support of the denial, on grounds it violated the prisoner's privacy.

The Free Press case argued mugshots taken by the U.S. Department of Justice should be public information, but the U.S. Marshals Office has for years refused to release them.

A full panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year ruled 9-7 in favor of the Justice Department, determining the release of mugshots -- because of technological advancements making them easily available in perpetuity once posted to the Internet -- constitute a violation of personal privacy.

Christopher G. Hastings, a professor at Western Michigan University's Cooley Law School and a 20-year veteran trial lawyer, said the ruling in the Free Press case is based on federal statute and not applicable to MLive's records request with Dearborn, which is under the jurisdiction of state law.

"The opinion interprets federal FOIA law and it's specifically limited to the federal statute," Hastings said.

Furthermore, since the denial of MLive's video request, Dearborn police have released mugshots to media along with press releases in several burglary, robbery and larceny cases.

Jane Briggs-Bunting, president of the Michigan Coalition for Open Government, said the Free Press ruling should have no impact on the release of Dearborn police records.

"This is not a decision on Michigan's (FOIA law)," she said. "Plus, the info you are seeking is a videotape, not a mugshot.

"At this time, Michigan has no law on police video and audio recordings so they, in our opinion, remain subject to Michigan (FOIA) law."

MLive on Aug. 5 filed an appeal to Ellerbrake's denial with Dearborn City Council.

Dearborn City Council held a special meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 23 and voted unanimously to deny MLive's appeal.

Despite numerous attempts to reach City Council members for further explanation, only Councilman Robert Abraham replied, stating he had no comment.

Ellerbrake recommendation to City Council

Dearborn FOIA denial:

Dearborn attorney elaborates on denial

:

Good morning, Mr. Burns - You have asked a question regarding my response to your FOIA request of "a citizen in police custody, who was apparently injured in the custody of public employees at a public facility recorded by public cameras" because I believe it would violate their privacy.

Recently, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion regarding the federal FOIA statute and the release of mug shots (Detroit Free Press Inc. v. United States Department of Justice, No. 14-1670, decided July 14, 2016). In that opinion, the Court found that "individuals enjoy a non-trivial privacy interest in their booking photos." In reaching that conclusion, the Court found that the photograph fits "squarely within the realm of embarrassing and humiliating information."

I do not know if the person in the video you are requesting has made it public that he was arrested. This could potentially be "embarrassing and humiliating information" that he has not agreed to make public. If you have been in contact with him, and he agrees to the release, I am more than happy to provide you with a copy of the video.

Please contact me so that we can discuss this further.
wager.jpg

A fundraiser has been planned from 5 p.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016 at Buffalo Wild Wings in Birch Run for the family of Clio firefighter Michael Wager. Wager died in a two-vehicle crash on July 30, 2016 in Thetford Township.

(Courtesy Photo)

CLIO, MI -- A fundraiser has been planned this week at a Birch Run restaurant for the family of fallen Clio firefighter Michael Wager.

The Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant location in Birch Run, 8811 Birch Run Road, is donating 15 percent of bills to Wager's family between 5 p.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21.

Wager, 49, of Clio died after he was involved in an off-duty, two-vehicle accident July 30 near the intersection of Dort Highway and Dodge Road in Thetford Township, leaving behind a wife and five children.

An eight-year department veteran, Wager was remembered by cousin and Clio Area Fire Chief Kerry Paulson as someone that loved the department and a "friendly guy that would help anybody do anything."

He was a 1985 Mt. Morris High School graduate, attended Mt. Morris Community Church, worked as a mortgage broker, and enjoyed hunting, fishing, bowling, and farming, according to Wager's obituary.

Coupons to be attached to receipts designating them for the fundraiser will be handed out at the restaurant the day of the event or can be picked up between 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20 and Wednesday, Sept. 21 at Clio Fire Station No. 1, 3291 W. Vienna Road.
FLINT, MI -- Hundreds of people flocked to downtown Flint to check out a new event to the area.

Ladyfest Flint is a free two day festival that was held in downtown Flint beginning on Friday, Sept. 16 and wrapping up on Saturday, Sept. 17. Ladyfest Flint Project Director Nadia Alamah said the event brought in around 300 people on Friday and expected a good turnout for Saturday as well.

"We were very happy and grateful to say it was a great success for our first year," Alamah said of Friday night. "We are very thankful. We are thankful and we're very happy to see that people were interested and excited because the whole point of this festival is its for everyone. It is a women's empowerment festival, but it's gender inclusive."

Ladyfest is a worldwide concept, Alamah said. The first was held in 2000 in Olympia, Washington.

Alamah said initially a few people were interested in bringing the event to Flint, so she did some research and started working to make it a reality. She said Flint is a unique city and would be a perfect fit.

"We thought it was really cool, so we wanted to have one here in Flint, because Flint is home to so many amazing and unique things," Alamah said. "We knew for Flint...a Ladyfest is going to be Flint unique and special."

Friday night's festivities included vendors in Buckham Alley, musical performances and art exhibition by emerging Flint women artists at the Local 432, a poet's open mic and workshop on stress reduction via meta awareness at Buckham Gallery.

Alamah said people who came out Friday would have a totally different experience on Saturday with new vendors, movies, and performances.

Saturday's event kicked-off with a film by Flint-native Layla Meillier called "Gloves" followed by a Q&A with Meillier and the cast. Other activities included films, performances, more vendors in the alley, and a workshop on bicycle maintenance.

On the second floor at the Local there was also a room set up for people to have access to resources from the community.

Alamah said with the success of the weekend's event there are plans in the work to bring it back next year.

For more information on Ladyfest Flint, click here.
NORTHERN MICHIGAN -- State police are searching for three people, including a 9-year-old boy, who didn't return after an afternoon of fishing in the Upper Peninsula.

According to the Associated Press, the boy was accompanied by his father and another man in Houghton County. Michigan State police say the trio was headed to Lake Superior in a 16-foot boat Saturday, Sept. 18 but did not return by evening.

Family members called police later in the day.

The search involves state police, the U.S. Coast Guard and local police agencies.
JACKSON, MI - Akive Edwards' son of the same name was born July 25, almost two months after Edwards was shot and killed on S. Milwaukee Street.

The baby, with a full head of curly black hair and wearing a red Nike onsie, was in Jackson on Saturday, Sept. 17, with his 2-year-old sister, Avionna Edwards.

Their mother, Keiara Bryant of Lansing, pushed him in a stroller while she and others distributed flyers with Edwards' picture in their center, hoping to inspire people to come forward with information that will give them an explanation for why a boy and girl will grow up without a father.

"That's the hard part about it, knowing that his son will never get to know him," Edwards' sister Ebony Thomas said while standing on the sidewalk near the home where a bullet hit her brother in the back on May 28. "What reason did you have to shoot him?"

About four months after Akive Edwards died on his mother's birthday, the case remains unsolved. There have been no arrests and Thomas organized a memorial and rally Saturday in honor of her brother.

Thomas, Bryant, Edwards' mother and about a dozen other relatives or friends released 23 blue and white balloons - one for every year Edwards lived - and then watched them rise into the sky and disappear, quickly blowing east.

They stood in front of a tall stump on S. Milwaukee Street. Stuffed animals, wet from morning rain, sat on its top with a candle stick holder and an empty bottle of Patron tequila.

Edwards was shot while at a party a few blocks south of the site. No one would drive him to the hospital, so he tried to drive himself, Thomas said. He crashed the vehicle south of Morrell Street, a spot marked by the stump.

He had gone to Jackson with a friend, who Thomas said has since been arrested in connection with what authorities said was a retaliatory shooting that injured no one at Edwards' funeral, an act Edwards called disrespectful. "It doesn't sit well with me."

Thomas said the friend has said little about what occurred and she hopes he and others will say more. There were about 30 people at the party. There was at least one shot. A crash. "Why live by this code?" Thomas said. "It is OK to say something."

Edwards left Lansing about 1 a.m. and survived only hours after his arrival. "He shouldn't have been here," his sister said of Jackson, a place she now dislikes. "I take it personal that my brother was murdered here."

He had stopped that night or early morning and talked to Thomas, who also lives in Lansing, about their mother's birthday party, planned for later May 28.

The date is now marred. Clearly upset and angry, his mother on Saturday wore a black "Justice for Akive" T-shirt.

There are so many questions, "so much in the air," relatives said.

"Whether it was an accident or purposely did out of some envy. I don't know, but I would like to know," Bryant said.

"We are not there to understand, to know. Only people who are there know."

It would have been "wonderful" to give birth with Edwards, instead of by herself, said Bryant, now juggling motherhood with her job and classes at Lansing Community College.

She called Edwards a happy, generous "family guy." He had "over shopped" before his son was born and he was good with his daughter, Bryant said. He loved his children and always wanted to be with them.

Edwards had gotten into trouble when he was younger, but that was behind him, Bryant and his sister said.

"I want to do right," Edwards told Thomas.

He was into music and working in roofing or construction with a cousin, Thomas said, holding the stack of flyers and waiting for family members to arrive.

She said she texts Jackson police Detective Wes Stanton every morning for any updates and he always gets back with her, to let her know of any progress.

People will tire or her, she said, but she doesn't care.

She plans to return every month to Jackson until there is a resolution.

Even when it is cold and snowy, she will be in her boots on S. Milwaukee Street.

"My brother was something special to me," she said. "I refuse to let his murder go unsolved."
The Howmet Playhouse opened as the Nufer-Adams Playhouse on Sept. 26, 1916, with an original play, "Michigan," written by co-founder Frank Ramsey Adams.

Paying homage to the tradition of original, local plays, the venue will celebrate its 100-year anniversary with a three-night showing of "Playhouse: A Centennial Celebration," written by West Michigan actors Kimberly Harsch and Bill Iddings.

The play will run at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 22-24 at 304 S. Mears Ave. in Whitehall. Tickets are $10 in advance, and $15 at the door. Advance tickets are available at Whitehall City Hall, 405 E. Colby St.

"This is a really nice cross section if our community - actors, musicians, dancers and an amazing group of artistic and technical staff coming together to put on a show," said Beth Beaman, playhouse managing director. "It's what the playhouse has always been about, and this show really honors that."

The play goes back to the roots of the venue with characters such as Maria Staples who was a performer in the first play, "Michigan." Adams is also a character in the play, as well as many other local historic figures, including a ghost that is rumored to haunt the playhouse.

Harsch will direct the play with music, alongside assistant director Andrea Holmes and stage manager Lindsey Huizenga. The choreographer is Samantha Farrar.

The show will feature historic songs such as "Over There," "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries" and "Pretty Baby." It will also include tunes from the popular musicals "Annie," "Gypsy," "Hair," "A Chorus Line," "Rent" and the current hit "Hamilton."

The hour-long show features about 50 actors, ages 11-70, Beaman said.

There will be special appearances by Tommy Foster, Max and Ruth Bloomquist and performers from the Studio France School of Dance.

Adams, a former Chicago journalist, lyricist, playwright and director who made the White Lake-area his home, was best known as one of the writers of the 1909 pop song standard "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now." He and Whitehall businessman James J. Nufer founded the playhouse, which is fashioned after the LaSalle Theatre in Chicago.

The city of Whitehall took ownership of the playhouse in 2006 when it was donated by Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, which had owned it since 1973.

The venue became Howmet Playhouse in 1974, prior to that it had many names, including Whitehall Playhouse, The Playhouse, White Lake Playhouse and White Lake Music Hall.
Kofi Laing

18.09.2016 LISTEN

Joy FMs Kofi Laing says he doesnt dress for recognition but for himself. One thing that the host of the late night Express and Celebrity Fashion presenter stands out for, is his style and panache. Thus a lot of people expected to see his name in the nominees list for the just ended Glitz African Style Awards.

In an interview , the classic man submits about the awards; like Hello Magazine I think. Glitz Style Africa celebrates personalities from different walks of life and their commitment to style and fashionI am the new kid on the block so most people dont know me. I am still just over a year in this business and to be honest . I am sure they had a pool of talent to choose from.But by the way I love it when people love what I wear but I actually do it for myself more and not for recognition 

Glitz Style Awards is an opportunity for the fashion industry to celebrate and promote the extraordinary creative talents in Ghana and Africa as a whole.

When asked what next for him in terms of his career, he discloses hoping to make my late night show the most sought after in Ghana .still continuing with my fashion show on TV which is in its 18th episode, I want to produce another documentary soon.

Kofi, since bursting onto the Ghanaian media scenes has done 6 documentaries for Adom TV and Joy News Channel,all on Multi TV.

He currently runs a production firm Kings Crown media in Accra.
The owners of Satchmos restaurant in Flagstaff are bringing their down-home style food and friendly atmosphere to a new catering and event space called Roux 66.

Satchmos owner-operator Jamie Thousand and general manager Evonne Shirzadegan said the inspiration for Roux 66 came from a desire to move the catering at Satchmos to a new location and create an evolving space that could be rented out by customers or used to host celebration dinners, charity events and more.

The one sector that continued to grow and develop for us was the catering side of things, Thousand said. It was really just an easy transition for us.

Roux 66 is located in Kachina Square on Route 66 at Steves Boulevard, a location that Thousand and Shirzadegan considered perfect for maintaining a close proximity to Satchmos while also preserving their loyalty to the east side of Flagstaff.

Their new space contains a large, open event room and a back kitchen that Shirzadegan describes as twice the size of Satchmos kitchen, and can be customized to fit business meetings, wedding receptions, birthday parties or whatever else customers desire. While not required, customers can choose from a range of catering services for their event, from a simple tea and coffee service to multicourse meals.

Base prices range from about $75 per hour for just the space to $8 or $9 a head for a small catering event, but Thousand said that many packages are available and prices will largely depend on the needs of the customer.

The food of Roux 66 takes its cues from the flavors of Satchmos but often elevates them, with Thousand and the other Satchmos chefs working on new ideas like mini-bites. Shrimp creole is transformed into shot-glass servings, and twice-baked potato bites are stuffed with purple fingerling mashed potatoes and cheese.

They cater to breakfast and brunch as well; a menu for a recent event included a Hatch green chile and egg casserole, along with sausage, smoked salmon and mini biscuits served with lemon vanilla marmalade, whipped chili butter and more.

But if youre a Satchmos regular, dont worry  their catering menu still includes staples like pulled pork and red beans and rice. Their food, like their event space, is largely customizable.

[Were making] just straightforward, simple and fun stuff, Thousand said.

Roux 66s official grand opening was held in July, and after adding a few pieces of audiovisual equipment this week, Roux 66 is ready serve as a hub for both on-site and off-site catering. Eventually Thousand and Shirzadegan would like to add a portable bar and other features to the space, and hope the uses for Roux 66 can continue to evolve, perhaps to include overflow from Satchmos.

[Satchmos and Roux 66] are both living, breathing restaurants and businesses, so they can change as  business changes, as people change, Shirzadegan said.

Like the business itself, the name for Roux 66 came from many hours of team meetings and contemplation. It was derived from their frequent use of roux, a flour and fat mixture that serves as a base to gumbo and other dishes.

Roux has been referred to as the mother sauce before, and Route 66 is the mother road. So the mother sauce meets the mother road, Thousand said. Its all very good for your soul kind of food, just like were doing at Satchmos.

Roux 66 will be holding an open house Oct. 21 and 22.
Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - Militia fighters in the Central African Republic have killed at least 20 people and wounded several more in attacks in the centre of the country, a police source said Sunday.

"At least 20 people were killed and several others wounded in attacks mounted Friday by elements of the ex-Seleka (militia) against Kaga Bandoro and nearby villages," the source said.
Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - Forces loyal to Libya's UN-backed unity government launched an offensive on Sunday aimed at retaking key eastern oil ports seized last week by fighters from a rival administration.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord has struggled to assert its authority over the country since the GNA was formed in December last year.

Oil is Libya's key asset, and revenue from crude exports is vital if the GNA is to rebuild the economy and infrastructure of the North African nation, ravaged by violence since the 2011 uprising.

The revolt that ousted and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi plunged Libya into chaos, with militias, jihadists and rival administrations vying for control of its oil wealth and territory.

Last week, forces led by controversial military strongman Khalifa Haftar seized the ports of Ras Lanuf, Al-Sidra, Zuwaytina and Brega in the so-called "oil crescent" along the coast.

Libya's oil and gas facilities

They later handed them over to the National Oil Corporation.

The NOC says it is loyal to the GNA, but also to the internationally recognised parliament based in the east which supports Haftar's forces and has refused to give the GNA a vote of confidence.

"The Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) launched an offensive this morning and (our forces) are fighting them in Ras Lanuf," said Mohamad Ibset, a spokesman for Haftar's forces.

The PFG, which is loyal to the government in Tripoli, said it had launched counterattacks on two of the oil ports.

'Unite to rebuild'

"We attacked Al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf, and Haftar's forces are trying to hit us with their warplanes," spokesman Ali al-Hassi told AFP.

Muftah al-Muqarief, who heads oil guards loyal to Haftar, said the assault on the ports was launched from the west by "militias backed by outlaws".

The Al-Sidra oil terminal is situated near Ras Lanuf, along Libya's northern coast

"We repelled the attack and we are chasing them in the region," he said, adding that "some" assailants had been captured.

There was no independent confirmation from the oil crescent region of the fighting and the situation on the ground.

The British ambassador to Libya, Peter Millet, took to Twitter to urge restraint.

"Further fighting around oil crescent installations is bad for future of Libya's economy. Better to resolve differences by dialogue," he wrote.

"Libyans should unite to rebuild their country not destroy it," he added.

The loss of the ports was a blow to the GNA which set up base in the capital in March, months after it was created as the result of a UN-backed power-sharing agreement.

A Libyan pro-regime fighter with the Government of National Accord (GNA) fires at Islamic State jihadists during clashes for control of Sirte, on Septmeber 3, 2016

Haftar, who sees himself as Libya's saviour after driving jihadists out of most of the country's second city Benghazi, is the most powerful backer of the rival administration in the east.

Days after the ports fell under his control, the east-based parliament promoted Haftar to field marshal from his previous rank of general.

The administration that backs him announced on Wednesday that it would hand control of exports from the four ports to the NOC, albeit under the supervision of Haftar's forces.

NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla said on Thursday that exports would resume immediately from two of the ports, including Ras Lanuf.

The US special envoy for Libya, Jonathan Winer, warned that resumed oil exports would be acceptable only if the proceeds were paid into the Libyan central bank in Tripoli.

"If oil were to be diverted... the US will seek to enforce UN Security Council resolutions," Winer told AFP in an interview on Wednesday.

The fighting between the forces of the rival administrations is the latest escalation of the turmoil that has gripped Libya since Kadhafi was toppled.

The GNA is the centrepiece of UN efforts to restore stability and forge a central authority capable of tackling the twin scourges of a significant Islamic State group presence and rampant people trafficking across the Mediterranean to Europe.
Activities of illegal miners and other encroachers within the Barekese and Owabi Dam catchment areas are causing the two facilities to produce below capacity.

Current supply shortfall between the two dams stands at 12 million gallons of water daily.

Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr Kwaku Agyemang Mensah describes the situation at the two dams as a looming crisis.

He says swift action is needed to check perpetrators before it degenerates into a national security concern.

Barekese and Owabi Dams have the capacity to supply at least 60 million gallons of water daily to Kumasi and other parts of Ashanti Region.

Human activities such as mining, farming, settlement in the restricted catchment of the dams continue to pose a serious threat to their existence.

Encroachers have constructed residential facilities at the Owabi side of the dam while other people farm and undertake mining activities at the Nkwantakese side of the Barekese Dam.

One of the tributaries of River Offin has been blocked as illegal miners take their activities upstream.

The use of mercury and other chemicals to extract gold contaminates the water, resulting in high-cost treatment to the Ghana Water Company.

Water Resources, Works and Housing Ministry officials led by the Sector Minister, Dr Kwaku Agyemang-Mensah and a police-military team have been assessing the level of destruction.

The Ghana Water Company is undertaking forestation in addition to constant security patrols to protect the catchment but law breakers appear unperturbed.

A middle-aged man believed to have sold the land to private developers was arrested for providing cover for them as they were busily constructing houses.

Dr Agyemang Mensah who is shocked at the rate of devastation foresees a national security crisis as production at the two dams dips.

Its clear that we have a crisis before us; a creeping crisis that if not properly managed, may develop into a national security problem, he warns.

According to him, though government has invested heavily in water infrastructure, those gains are being eroded by unscrupulous persons for their parochial interests.

Water is life, unfortunately, there are certain activities which are impacting negatively to our efforts," he said.

"Owabi facility should be able to give us 12 million gallons [gallons of water] a day but its giving us only 3 million gallons a day. Barekese can give us up to about 48 million but it is only giving us 30 [million gallons]," he said.

"If we are not careful, a day will come that Kumasi and its environs will be seriously affected, Dr. Agyemang Mensah has predicted.

Meanwhile, the Water Resources Commission proposes the deployment of police-military personnel to mount surveillance and prevent further destruction at the two dams.

Executive Secretary, Ben Ampomah says that would be a long-term solution to the menace.

In the long, of course, weve done in Weija is to put in permanent security to ensure that at any time, the level of encroachment goes down," he said.

Asked if the Commission will push for the demolition of structures illegally put up by encroachers, he said that is not the focus of the Commission now but rather first to protect water.
The 2016 elections on December 7, is a choice between unity and divisiveness, progress and retrogression, and arrogance and humility, that's according to Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah.

Mr. Omane Boamah made this comment at the launch of the National Democratic Congress' (NDC) manifesto at the Sunyani Coronation Park on Saturday in the Brong Ahafo Region.

Dr. Omane Boamah, who has been critical of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, said the administration of President Mahama had performed tremendously and deserves a second term.

The NDC has largely touted the NPP as a divisive party particularly following its internal wrangling that saw the suspension of the party chairman, Paul Afoko, General Secretary, Kwabena Agyapong, and 2nd National Vice Chairman, Sammy Crabbe.

In the view of the NDC, the NPP cannot lead the country considering that they are not united, whiles they in the NDC remain intact.

On December 7, you will be called upon to make a choice between unity and divisiveness, Come December 7, you will be called upon to make a choice between progress and retrogression; On December 7, you be called upon to make a choice between humility and arrogance. We and the generality of Ghanaians, have decided to choose to unity, to choose progress and to choose humility, and that is why we are saying JM-Toaso [JM Continue]. We in the NDC, we believe all men are created equal.

Gov't to engage more than nurses from 2017

Touting President Mahama's achievements particularly in the health sector and his vision going forward, the Communications Minister said the next NDC administration, will open up more job opportunities for graduate nurses.

Dr. Omane Boamah said various hospital projects to add some 6,000-beds across the country from 2017, would ensure the above-listed jobs.

He said over the next four years, President Mahama will build 35 Polyclinics across the country, as some of the projects are already ongoing.

Under health, President Mahama is saying that he stands on a solid rock of achievement. And that solid rock of achievement can also be found here in the Brong Ahafo Region. Five polyclinic projects are underway. In the Ashanti Region, by the end of 2017, at least he would have added a 1000 hospital beds to their current stock. I am referring to the Military hospital in Afari, the district hospital in Bekwai, Fomena and Tepa, and other district hospitals all around the country. But that is not all, in the Greater Accra Region you talk about Ridge Hospital, Police Hospital, University of Ghana Teaching Hospital and the District hospitals for Madina and Kwabenya.

But the future is far more important than the past and the present. And that's why President Mahama is saying that over the next four years, he is going to build 35 polyclinics across the country.

And all these Hospital projects will add 6,000 additional hospital beds to our stock and so if you are a nurse, whether private or government trained and you are looking for a job, the opportunities are right here; because assuming two nurses will even be assigned to each of the 6,000 beds, that's 12,000 nurses to be recruited.

In recent times, several graduate nurses have lamented the lacks of jobs in the public health institutions and have demonstrated over government's refusal to post them to various health facilities.



By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @AfanyiDadzie

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President John Dramani Mahama has described the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as the most peaceful political party in Ghana.

Addressing a large crowd at the Sunyani Coronation Park as the party launched its manifesto ahead of December's elections, President Mahama stated that his administration had done enough to merit a second term.

It is our view that what we have put out is the best plan that can move this country forward. I encourage you all to study the manifesto and vote for the NDC in the presidential and parliamentary elections, the President said.

We have been candid and frank with the people of Ghana and we have demonstrated that we take them more seriously even as we come back to them to seek a new mandate to govern this country.

He said that all the successes the party has chalked since he was elected into office in 2012 proved that NDC was the most united and most stable party in the country making them Ghana's best bet in the quest to attain economic stability.

We invite you to assess all the gains we have made since they gave us their last mandate in 2012 and relate them to what we have committed to do for the people of Ghana from 2017. We are confident that such an exercise would lead to the inevitable conclusion that the NDC remains the most prepared, most peaceful and most organized party today and is therefore the one party that can deliver on the aspirations of the Ghanaian people, President Mahama said.

I will continue to count on the dear people to work hard and win a one touch victory come December 7.

Dont vote for divisive Nana Addo

The presidents comments might have a subtle attack on the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) given his recent comments about the party and its flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo Addo.

Speaking at Bimbilla on his four-day campaign tour of the Northern region, President Mahama had said that Nana Addo was a divisive figure who was leading only half of the party  and that the other half are sitting with their hands folded watching him drive the bus down.

The NPP hit back at the President , with the party's acting General Secretary, John Boadu stating that the President might have been 'under the influence' and 'possessed' when he made those comments.

after destroying the legacy the late president John Evans Atta Mills left him in 2012 and watching helplessly, power slipping through his reckless, incompetent, corrupt and insensitive hands, President Mahama is now showing his true colours. Rather than addressing the myriad of problems the country is facing, he has reduced his bid for re-election, to a manifesto of lies and insults against Nana Akufo Addo. The president is talking as if he is possessed. He is using words as if he is seeing things as double, John Boadu, NPP acting General Secretary said.

Follow the hashtag #GhElections on social media for election-related stories



By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana
An independent technical committee that reviewed the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), has presented its report to the Ministry of Health in Accra.

The seven-member committee presented the review report to Mr. Alex Segbefia, the Minister of Health on Friday, September 17.

The document, which contains an assessment of the scheme and key recommendations based upon extensive review, focused on the scheme's sustainability, accountability, transparency, and user satisfaction.

Presenting the community to the Minister, Dr Chris Atim, the Chairman of the Independent Technical Review Committee, said after consultation with various relevant stakeholders, the committee came out with three major recommendations, which among other things, calls for the redesigning and restructuring of the scheme with a focus on the country's primary health care system.

According to him, Ghana needs to prioritize issues of maternal and child health under the scheme to address the high rate of maternal and child mortality.

He called for efforts to ensure the efficiency of the scheme through good governance and feedback from subscribers.

The Committee also called for the institution of a Patient Protection Council, to serve as a coordinating body under the Ministry of Health, to represent patients and also coordinate set priorities, ensure transparency and accountability.

Receiving the report, Mr Segbefia, expressed gratitude to the members of the Committee for availing themselves to serve in their respective capacities to help to address challenges of the scheme.

He noted that government is committed to ensuring the success of the NHIS, adding that the document would be forwarded to the President for onward action.



By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
18.09.2016 LISTEN

The Ashanti Regional Police Command has arrested the suspect who stabbed a young man, Mustapha Osman to death.

Osman was pronounced dead at the Manhyia Government Hospital, after being stabbed by his friend, Abubakar Sadique.

The two, both 19 years, were reported to have had a misunderstanding, triggered by the premiership encounter between, Manchester United and Manchester City.

Narrating the incident, the Regional Police PRO, ASP Mohammed Yusiff Tanko, at a press briefing explained that somewhere in August 2016, a fight ensued between accused person (Abubakar Sadique) and the deceased Mustapha Osman.

The deceased is said to have inflicted cutlass wounds on the head of the accused. The deceased however refused to refund the hospital bills incurred by the accused person on demand. 

Abubukar Sadique harbouring sentiments of defeat, on the 10th of September, ambushed deceased at Goro, a suburb near Aboabo at 12 noon and retaliated by stabbing the left side of the chest of the deceased with a knife.

ASP Tanko says Sadique was subsequently arrested at his hideout.

Sadique, has in his statement admitted and confessed to the offence in the presence of an independent witness, according to the Police.



By: Lauretta Timah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
President John Dramani Mahama has described his first-term in office as one of the most difficult moments in the history of Ghana.

He said this is because of the many complex challenges that confronted the country requiring urgent steps to address them.

It has not been easy, it has been a difficult journey. My presidency has been one of the most difficult presidencies in the history of Ghana because if you look at the challenges we faced, they were very difficult. The economy was crooked, many fire outbreaks in various markets, labour agitations and frequent power interruptions, Mahama said.

President Mahama made the comments while addressing party supporters at a rally in the Okaikoi North Constituency in Accra, as part of his three-day tour of the region.

He said that government had succeeded in addressing the power crisis and is confident the countrys development gains will not be lost.

We have done so well. We are focusing on four main things; constructing more roads, building more hospitals and schools and improving access to potable water, so we will continue with more development projects in our next term I am very confident that in the next four years, Ghana will be a shinning example in West Africa.

He urged party supporters to vote massively for him to continue the next phase of Ghanas development agenda and the NDCs parliamentary candidate, Abdul Razak Issah.

President Mahama also called on Ghanaians to avoid violence before, during and after the upcoming elections.



By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
"....Afrobarometer, Africas largest public-opinion survey is under threat...In Ghana, Ghanas police administration first tried to discredit the findings, then publicly blamed the Ghanaian people for corrupting the police... the police administration has yet to seriously address the problem of corruption...The morale is.. Ghana Police could learn a lot from AfroBarometer and people like yours truly, Prof Lungu, to include, liaison with Afrobarometer to "beef up" their analyses and reporting programs so that actions they take in the future have reliable theoretical and practical foundations that would result in better performance and respect by Ghanaians for Ghana Police and their administration...", (Afrobarometer, with commentary by Prof Lungu, 10 Sep 16).

We've had occasions to rely on the objective and non-partisan public opinion and African governance surveys of Afrobarometer. In one case, we showed that the Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia's unfinished project and wolf-cry cry for a "New Electoral Register" for Ghana for the 2016 election had more gas for evidence considering the record filed by election watchers and objective analysts (including Afrobarometer), with respect to past election administration and performance, and opinions of Ghanaians garnered from scientific surveys.

Relatedly, recently, we published a piece on the Ghana Police about their bizarrely faulty approach to reporting crime statistic and surveys. In that essay , we argued that a professional police agency must first normalize crime statistics and related performance data before they can arrive at valid, reliable, and repeatable findings that can inform enforcement, training, and accountability programs. (As we write, the Ghana Police is on a mission to hiring singularly people with college degrees. That could solve some of the data problem, if the Ghana Police hires the right people with the right education, experience, and backgrounds).

The morale of this secondary post is that Ghana Police could learn a lot from AfroBarometer and people like yours truly, Prof Lungu, to include liaison with Afrobarometer to "beef up" their analyses and reporting programs so that actions they take in the future have reliable theoretical and practical foundations, resulting in better performance and respect by Ghanaians for Ghana Police and their administration.

So, we thought it useful to provide this report from Carolyn Logan (Deputy Director of Afrobarometer), and E. Gyimah-Boadi (Co-founder and Executive Director of Afrobarometer) to our readers about challenges Afrobarometer currently faces, and what you can do to assist Afrobaromter.

So, all that said, read on, please.....

"To Africa specialists, the value of public-opinion survey research is clear enough, as recent analyses of Afrobarometer findings on Nigerias elections , presidential term limits , infrastructure and the escape from poverty , and (in)tolerance of homosexuality show.

But how does the data we collect benefit the lives of the people we interview? Tens of thousands of respondents give us an hour or more of their time to answer a long list of questions. Does survey research have any impact on their lives? We think it does, and we need your help to sustain it.

At Afrobarometer, one of our core goals is to give voice to ordinary Africans  to let the people have a say  in the political processes and policy debates simmering across the continent. But making those voices heard requires breaking down barriers. Polls are part of daily  or these days, hourly  existence in the West, but opinion surveys are still a relative newcomer on the African political scene. And African political elites have been slow to embrace them, often because survey results challenge leaders claims to speak for their people.

Grappling with the data revolution

But evidence-based policymaking is a priority for Africa as well. Increasing numbers of people in the media, civil society and even government now champion survey data and polling as a way to bolster public voice in policy and politics  a critical pillar of democracy on the continent.

Heres an example. In one of the most authoritarian countries weve surveyed, briefing the government on our findings looked like a dicey assignment  until the secretary of the cabinet revealed himself to be a true believer in data and evidence. He laid out strict ground rules for the assembled civil service heads: They were welcome to critique the methodology, but if they could not find fault with the methods, then they must accept the findings. After a lively debate that eventually confirmed the validity of the data, the group then grappled with abysmal popular ratings of government performance in improving living conditions for the poor, ensuring that people had enough to eat and creating jobs.

In all probability, this was the first time that these government officials ever had to answer to citizen feedback on the governments performance. For some of these officials, the news they received was distinctly uncomfortable.

Citizens voices fuel debate and (sometimes) action

Another Afrobarometer finding touched a nerve in high places: Most Africans support limiting their presidents to two terms. In Burkina Faso, the finding that 65 percent of citizens favor term limits was widely circulated. When the national effort to prevent his third term succeeded in October 2014 , then-President Compaore left the country.

In Burundi, the debate was less conclusive. Although Afrobarometer reported in January 2015 that 62 percent of Burundians support term limits , President Nkurunziza remains in office, while our national partner who conducted the survey had to join many others who fled the country. Even so, its important that these debates took place at all. Virtually everyone in Burundi now knows that in extending his tenure in office, the president was overruling the wishes of his people. This public knowledge may yet prove a powerful weapon in the struggle for democracy and better governance in Burundi.

Contrast that with Rwanda, where freedom of speech is so constrained that Afrobarometer cannot run a valid survey, leaving us without data to counter the governments claim that national consultations revealed a mere 10(!) very brave souls who opposed the extension of President Kagames term in office.

Opinion polls promote good governance

Peoples voices can be a potent agent of change, as our survey results on corruption in Ghana showed. Like citizens in many countries, Ghanaians regard the police as their most corrupt institution (89 percent said some, most, or all were corrupt). The legal/judicial system fared almost as poorly (85 percent). The public outcry, amplified on the nations many radio and TV chat shows, led to some important changes. Ghanas chief justice introduced reforms to clean up the judiciary, citing the public opinion findings as an impetus.

By contrast, Ghanas police administration first tried to discredit the findings, then publicly blamed the Ghanaian people for corrupting the police. But while the police administration has yet to seriously address the problem of corruption, it is still a noteworthy day when national leaders have to respond publicly to citizens dismal views of their performance.

This ability to expose leaders to popular assessments of their performance represents a sea change in Africa, a stark departure from the past, when public voice was often limited to voting in elections that offered little choice and pre-ordained outcomes. While many countries now hold remarkably competitive elections, the need for public input goes well beyond marking a ballot every four or five years.

If democracy depends on the millions of daily interactions between a state and its citizens, then citizens voices must be heard every day, and no political or policy debate can be considered complete without them.

Afrobarometers surveys are in danger

Unfortunately, resources to promote democracy and good governance in Africa are drying up as other priorities have taken center stage. As a result, a continuation of survey research projects like Afrobarometer is under threat.

Afrobarometer currently faces the prospect of either seriously scaling back its work (from 36 African countries to just 10 or 12) or shuttering entirely. As weve spread the word about these challenges, weve been grateful for the rallying of support from those in academia and international policy and development circles who are frequent users of our data.

You can add your voice by taking a brief survey about Afrobarometers impact. Better still, tell elected representatives, funding agencies, foundations and your networks why survey research is important and what uses and impacts of Afrobarometer data you have seen. Every voice helps. Afrobarometer is also seeking donations, through a Donate link at the top of our homepage .

Together, perhaps we can ensure that millions of ordinary African citizens dont lose an important opportunity to have their voices heard, and with it their ability to push for good policies and better governance."

Report by Afrobarometer

Carolyn Logan is deputy director of Afrobarometer and associate professor of political science at Michigan State University.

E. Gyimah-Boadi is co-founder and executive director of Afrobarometer and a retired professor of politics at the University of Ghana, Legon. He is also executive director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development.

SOURCES

1. Prof Lungu. Free and Fair Election Data at Odds with Bawumia's "Bloated" Case! (http://www.modernghana.com/news/651144/1/free-and-fair-election-data-at-odds-with-bawumias-.html).

2. Prof Lungu. Kwame Nkrumah's Offsprings Now More Illiterate?: The Case of Ghana Police, (https://www.modernghana.com/news/685123/kwame-nkrumahs-offsprings-now-more-illiterate-the-case-of.html).

3. Logan, C. and Gyimah-Boadi, E. AFROBAROMETER. Africas largest public-opinion survey is under threat, but heres what you can do about it, (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/09/09/africas-largest-public-opinion-survey-is-under-threat-but-heres-what-you-can-do-about-it/).

SUBJ: AFROBAROMETER singles out Ghana Police for Blaming Ghanaians for Corruption.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/professorlungu

Support Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana (FTOS-Gh) Campaign/Petition:

https://www.change.org/p/ghana-fair-trade-oil-share-psa-campaign-ftos-gh-psa/

Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com17 September, 2016.
Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - New fighting erupted early Sunday between forces loyal to Libya's UN-backed unity government and those of a rival administration for control of key eastern oil ports.

"The Petroleum Facilities Guard launched an offensive this morning and (our forces) are fighting them in Ras Lanuf," said Mohamad Ibset, spokesman for the rival force commanded by controversial Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar which seized the four oil ports last week.
"...Before that full-throated apology, Lawyer Mr. K. T. "Hybrid" Hammond jabbed that Dr. Kunbuor's statement was "...'...the most disgraceful statement that has ever been made by any member in (Parliament); it is insulting, it is foolish and should never be allowed...I ask for the statement to be withdrawn immediatelyMr. Speaker, I ask for the stupid and useless and foolish statement to be withdrawn immediatelyit is palpable nonsense...'...But, as Ananse will report on the original Web, it was Mr. K. T. 'Hybrid' Hammond who in the end was schooled about etiquette, responsibility, and reflective talk...", ( K. T. "Hybrid" Hammond, as shadowed by Prof Lungu)-rev.

We now know this: It is a fact that even our lawyer, the Adansi Asokwa NPP Member of Parliament, Mr. Kobina Tahir "Hybrid" Hammond, bright as he is, cannot show Ghanaians where in 1990-era P/NDC law a "Ghana Hybrid System" for collection of oil revenues owned to Ghana is codified as law.

Further, as we said in Part 1 of this series, it would not be a surprise to many Ghanaians and Ghana supporters that Mr. "Hybrid" Hammond's tolerance for corruption, and his intolerance of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill, seem unsurpassed by his own marks.

LAWYER K. T. "HYBRID" HAMMOND'S TOLERANCE FOR CORRUPTION SEEMS UNSURPASSED BY HIS OWN RECORDS:

You see, when we initially Googled Mr. H. T. Hammond of Ghana, the first and most noticeable item we found was an apology by Mr. Hammond to members of Ghana's Parliament on 7th December, 2013.

As reported:

"...Mr. Hammond went ballistic when he rained insults on Majority Leader Dr. Ben Kunbuor who addressed the issue of corruption among politicians in the country...as the disease of the political elite...saying it had been confirmed by the 'drill ship and Woyome placards' on the floor of Parliament... However, K.T. Hammond was offended by the comparison with Woyome, saying that there was no corruption in the drill ship case..."

Subsequently, Mr. Hammond, in the halls of the Ghana Parliament and on radio, used those "...platform(s) to express...unqualified apology to the good people of Ghana...showing remorse about his conduct...(to the extent)...his outburst was...not of the best behaviour.

Imagine, before that apology, Mr. Hammond jabbed that Dr. Kunbuor's statement was "... 'the most disgraceful statement that has ever been made by any member in (Parliament); it is insulting, it is foolish and should never be allowed...I ask for the statement to be withdrawn immediatelyMr. Speaker, I ask for the stupid and useless and foolish statement to be withdrawn immediatelyit is palpable nonsense..

But, it was Mr. K. T. "Hybrid" Hammond who in the end was schooled about etiquette, responsibility, reflective pronouncements. And we have not even to speak of constitutionality and Ghana-centeredness.

Kudos to Dr. Ben Kunbuor for responsible Ghana-centered actions!

But, that was all before we read this the Justice Appau White Paper On Judgment Debts this week. We now know that in fact Mr. K.T. Hybrid Hammond, during 2001-2006, while the NPP was in power and Nana Akufo Addo Danquah was the Attorney-General of Ghana, caused a loss of $5.5 million, being "...financial loss to the Corporation (GNPC) and Ghana...(being)....payment of US$19.5m instead of US$14 million..." as agreed earlier by Ghana.

To the point:

"... The Acting Managing Director of the GNPC, Dr. Ofori Quaah, was not given

room to operate and was coerced into signing a Power of Attorney prepared at the Attorney-Generals Office to empower Hon. K. T. Hammond to sell the GNPCs marine asset, the Drillship, Discoverer 511... a going, profit-making concern...(and)...use the proceeds to pay off the debt owed by GNPC..."

According to the Justice Appau White Paper, to date, $3.5 million of those funds have still not been properly accounted for by the "...Minister of Finance and officials of the Controller and Accountant-Generals Department...(and)...the Ghana High Commission in London at the time in question...between 2001 and 2006...".

To be continued...............

NOTE:

1. Our thanks to Andy K for making information and data available to us at www.GHanaHero.com.

SOURCES:

1. Ghanaweb. Im sorry  KT Hammond begs, 7 December, 2013, (www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/I-m-sorry-KT-Hammond-begs-294396).

3. CitiFMOnline. Dont sack any Ghanaian technical staff, Petroleum Ministry warns Tullow, 18th March, 2015, (www.citifmonline.com/2015/03/18/dont-sack-any-ghanaian-technical-staff-petroleum-ministry-warns-tullow/#sthash.9ZM0JBg7.dpuf).

See Mo', Read Mo'

www.GhanaHero.com/Visions .

Subj: K. T. Hybrid Hammond is Scared FOIB Will Lead to Ghana's Lost $6 Billion-plus Oil Cash (1)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/professorlungu

Support Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana Campaign/Petition

https://www.change.org/p/ghana-fair-trade-oil-share-psa-campaign-ftos-gh-psa/

Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com17 Sep 16.
Dr Wilberforce Dzisah

18.09.2016 LISTEN

The Rector of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), Dr Wilberforce Dzisah, is advocating measures to shield the media from corruption.

He said the media had to be shielded from the corruption generated by the political and economic system and facilitated by not only the public, but the private sector.

Speaking at a three-day workshop in Sogakope in the Volta Region on Effective Election Reporting, Dr Dzisah said the unthinking wholesale or what he termed the catechistic subscription to the free market was not the best way to secure a fearless media that serves democracy.

The workshop was organised by the GIJ in collaboration with the United States Embassy.

According to Dr Dzisah, although the critical surveillance of government is an important aspect of the democratic functioning of the media, that role had undergone a significant modification in the 21st century.

He said the media had not only compromised itself by its links to big businesses, but had also become a big business.

The media are assumed to be independent, and to owe allegiance only to the public if they are funded by the public, however, this theory ignores the many other influences that can shape the media, including the political commitments and private interests of media shareholders.

He, therefore, called for a redefinition of the traditional function of the media within the context of attaining balance and journalistic objectivity at all times and, especially, as the country prepares for the presidential and parliamentary elections in two months time.

He added that in spite of the growing conflict between the public and the private sector over the control and ownership of the media, the ethical responsibility imposed on the media by virtue of the professional training of journalists, should be a guiding light without the losing sight of the wider relations of power and the influence exerted through news management.

Dr Dzisah warned that while article 162 of the 1992 constitution insulates the state owned media from governmental control, citizens must be equally worried about the threat presented to the private media by their owners adding that the state was yet to see the benefits of the exercise of the unfettered freedom and independence of the private press by way of a legislation that shields private media from corporate owners.

He also expressed great worry at an emerging trend of individual media companies acquiring most, if not all of a target companys ownership stakes and assuming dominance and the control of the mass media in ways that did not necessarily serve or compliment the national development effort.
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The National Chief Imam, Shaikh Dr. Usman Nuhu Sharubutu, has admonished Ghanaians to refrain from making him a subject of socio-political discussion, while he worships his Lord in the Holy Land of Mecca.

"I am here for worship not for comfort. Any allegation of maltreatment meted out to me is false", adds the Grand Imam.

Speaking in an interview in response to an allegation of maltreating him in Mecca, he says he is rather satisfied with the courtesy accorded him by the Pilgrimage Affairs Office of Ghana (PAOG) and the Ghana Mission in Saudi Arabia.

"Whatever seeming difficulty I have encountered is part of the conventions of Hajj which is not luxury but worship", emphasizes the National Chief Imam.

Substantiating, Shaikh Sharubutu states that in terms of feeding, accommodation and transportation, he has been well treated at all relevant places of Hajj: Mecca, Mina, Arafah, and Muzdalifa.

In Mecca, the Chief Imam lodges at Al - Safwa Towers, one of the best hotels on the compound of Mecca Haram Mosque that houses the Holy Kabah.

He mentions that he was compelled to board a registered taxi from Mina to Mecca because Saudi authorities had banned private cars at Mina as part of measures to maximize the safety and security of pilgrims.

The only decent means of transportation available was the taxi, which I saw as honor not humiliation, continues the Grand Shaikh.

Quoting relevant verses of Quran to buttress his assertion, Imam Sharubutu states that pilgrims are expected to spend two or three days in the Camp City of Mina after Arafah. He had spent two days and wanted to leave for Mecca before sunset as recommended by the Noble Prophet Mohammed.

"This explains the need for the Chairman of PAOG, Alhaji Tanko, to arrange the taxi for me", he reveals.

In the words of the Chief Imam, he appreciates any special treatment offered him by any individual or institution during Hajj. "But if such a treatment is truncated by the dictates of circumstances, it should not be a source of blame game or topic of public discourse", he opines.

Imam Sharubutu observes that Hajj, as one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is emphatic on equality before Allah "in spite of our differences in status."

He prays for unity among Ghanaians and peace in Ghana. He reiterates his call on Muslims, especially the youth, to serve as partners in peaceful conduct of the forthcoming general elections in the country.

Let us appreciate the beauty of democratic pluralism and refrain from the ugliness of irresponsible partisanship, concludes Imam Sharubutu.
President John Dramani Mahama has left Accra for New York to attend the 71st General Assembly of the United Nations. This year's General Debate will open on Tuesday, with President Mahama scheduled to address the world body on Wednesday, September 21.

As Co-Chair of the UN Advocacy Group on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), President Mahama will be co-hosting a number of side events related to the successful implementation and advocacy for the SDGs.

These include a GSM Association- organised event on the role of Mobile Innovation and the Private Sector towards accelerating the implementation of SDGs and achieving the 2030 Agenda.

President Mahama will also co-host with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) a side event on 'Pathways to Zero Hunger', which will showcase concrete transformations in food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture in support of the delivery of the 2030 Agenda.

The President will join other leaders at a US- Africa Business Forum being organised by the US Department of Commerce and Bloomberg Philanthropies, and also attend meetings of the SDG Advocacy Group.

President Mahama will also hold bilateral meetings with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, President David Granger of Guyana, the Chief Executive of the Millenium Challenge Corporation and other Organisations.

President Mahama is accompanied by his wife, Lordina, who will be chairing meetings of the Oraganisation of African First Ladies against HIV & AIDS (OAFLA) and other side events for First Ladies.

Also on the delegation are the Ministers responsible for Foreign Affairs, Interior, Communications and Trade & Industry.


The Speaker of Parliament, Edward Doe-Adjaho has assured the chiefs and people of the Volta region that they will not be taken for granted by the NDC government or any of its functionaries.

According to him, the region is being accorded the needed attention in terms of development by the government and nothing will be done to undermine the people.

Speaking at a grand durbar in Ho to climax this years Asogli Yam festival celebration on Saturday, Mr. Doe-Adjaho pledged the support and commitment of all government appointees from the region towards its development.

I want to pledge in the presence of all the dignitaries and chiefs gathered here that, we, the sons and daughters of this region who are in government wont do anything to deprive this region of its share of development. Whatever we have to do however, to ensure the regions progress we shall do it to the best of our ability, he stated.

The Speaker of parliament who led a high-powered government delegation including the chief of staff, Julius Debrah to represent President John Mahama as a special guest at the festival, said their presence at the event, which coincided with the launch of the NDCs manifesto at Sunyani, was an attestation of their commitment to the people of the region.

As we are aware, the President who was the guest of honour, is in Sunyani and from there, he will travel to the United Nations. Because of that, he asked me to lead a delegation to this festival.

Myself, I was scheduled to be on an official assignment abroad but I have to cancel my trip, to be here with other appointees including the chief of staff, because duty has called. This shows the high level of respect we have for the people of Asogli and for that the entire [Volta] region, Mr. Doe-Adjaho remarked in Ewe, before going ahead to deliver the Presidents address at the durbar.

His remark comes on the back of a recent tongue lashing of the NDC and its appointees in government by Togbe Afede XIV, paramount chief of the Asogli traditional area and President of the Volta region House of Chiefs, for showing gross disrespect to the chiefs and people of the area, because it is their political world bank.

The speaker of parliament therefore called on all stakeholders in the region to put aside personal interest in order to build solid and congenial synergies and collaborations between chiefs and committed government appointees from the region. Because from our different elective and appointive positions, we owe it a sacred duty to the region to serve and help achieve our aspirations.

Other members of the high-powered delegation to the festival included, Ambassador Dan Abodakpi, Health minister, Alex Segbefia, Volta Regional minister, Helen Ntoso, Deputy Minister for Culture and Creative Arts, Dzifa Gomashie and the Deputy General Secretary of NDC, Koku Anyidoho.
18.09.2016 LISTEN

Folks, I have just come across the news report saying what has really made me wonder what is becoming of the Presidential aspect of the 2016 general elections. Just consider this:

"Fifteen presidential hopefuls have so far picked nomination forms to contest in the upcoming general election in December. They are made up of 13 political parties and two independent candidates. The political parties are the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), the All Peoples Party (APP) and the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP).

The others are the United Development System Party (UDSP), the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the National Democratic Party (NDP), the United Love Party (ULP), the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP). The Independent Peoples Party (IPP), the United Progressive Party (UPP), the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP) and the united Front Party (UFP) picked their forms last Tuesday. (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Fifteen-presidential-hopefuls-pick-nomination-forms-470042).

In truth and all honesty, 15 candidates? What sort of madness is that? The bad side of democracy or the deep-seated ambition of all these contestants to create the impression that they matter in national politics? Do we really need all of these candidates? I am baffled. Of course, this is the first time in Ghana's history that so many candidates are lining up to contest the Presidential elections. An improvement in the democratic process? I don't think so!!

Everybody conversant with the intricacies of Ghanaian politics in this 4th Republic will quickly agree that the race for the Presidency is a two-horse one between candidates of the NDC and the NPP. Since the first Presidential elections in November 1992, it has been so.

The participation of candidates from other political parties (most of whom are now defunct, featuring General Erskine (People's Heritage Party), Kwabena Darko (National Independence Party), the late Dan Lartey (GCPP), and many others only added some comic relief to the race.

Neither has any merger helped. When the late former Vice President (Kow Nkensen Arkaah) pushed the pro-Nkrumahist National Convention Party (NCP) into the so-called "Great Alliance" with the NPP to challenge the NDC and its allies in the "Progressive Alliance", the outcome of Election 1996 made a mockery of them.

In our time, we have seen all kinds of faces protruding the scene. Talk about Dr. Edward Mahama/Hassan Ayariga and the PNC, Goosie Tanoh and his National Reform Party, Dr. Obed Asamoah and his Democratic Freedom Party, Dr. (Joseph Yorke) Paa Kwesi Nduom and his PPP, and others. The emphasis is on the mushroom political parties and the independent candidates who have no support base beyond their small circles of friends and hangers-on feeding fat on their handouts. The truth here is that none of those entering the race has any chance of outdoing the NDC and NPP candidates. The CPPs Ivor Greenstreet cant persuade me that he will be favoured. So, why waste resources to compete with the strong NDC and NPP candidates?

What has emerged now to bring in all these 15 contestants can't simply be explained away. It is difficult to know why the contestants cannot simply know what the real issues are, especially regarding their chances or otherwise of losing more than winning the elections. Why will each pay the colossal filing fee of 50,000 Cedis, knowing very well that they don't have the constituency nationwide to outperform the established political fronts (the NDC and the NPP)? Or could they be up to a game of sorts, putting themselves up as bargaining chips in a run-off? What do they hope to gain thereby, though? Sowing seeds of corruption in the hope of a windfall thereafter?

On a more ridiculous note is the desperate move by some of the Presidential candidates to go for citizens of the Volta Region to partner. Dr. Nduom has chosen this Ms. Dzogbenuku beauty pageant (What is beauty in a woman that is lacking in a flower, blooming early in the morning to attract flies seeking its nectar only to wilt in broad daylight when the nectar is all gone before vanishing into scary ugliness at sundown?).

Dr. Edward Mahama has also gone for an Ewe economist Amenuvor who is making his first mistake by opening his mouth too wide to say that corruption is driving investors away from Ghana. When did he get to know about the issue and hasn't spoken about it until now that he has been captured to do someone's bidding?

I can see through this ploy of settling on running mates from the Volta Region: to split the NDC's throat and drain it of its lifeline, its having been favoured by the electorate in this part of Ghana regarded as its "World Bank". Why would they do so? Just to favour the NPP, their ally? (Remember how the PNC "sold" its sole MP (Mallam Issah) to Kufuor's NPP after the collaboration to unseat the NDC at Election 2000 only for him to be set up and sacrificed? He is now in the camp of the NDC).

So, the PNC's search for another sacrificial lamb shouldn't be difficult to know). Both the PNC and PPP are seeking to destroy the NDC in the Volta Region for the sake of their NPP paymasters; but they will fail miserably because those they have settled on as running mates have no constituency to do their bidding by way of votes. They are below zero. A case of political miscalculation to be mocked. Such useless machinations dirty our democracy.

Hindsight from the preparations for 2012 elections may suggest that the APC's Hassan Ayariga and others are also in line to do the NDC's bidding. So far, we haven't gathered anything to that effect; but if it turns out to be so, we will tackle it.

Interestingly, these hangers-on in the Presidential race are even not coming out with anything spectacular about how they will develop Ghana other than what we already know. How to change voter impressions in their favour is difficult to fathom. What parking space do they have at the polls? Yet, they come across as determined to participate in the race. Are they doing so as mere surrogates, knowing very well that they dont have the wherewithal to reach the finish line or to breast the tape?

Without going any further, it is safe to conclude that these candidates outside the NDC and NPP camps, especially the independent ones, are giving us something to ponder. Is it mere blindness to reality? Or a kind of Pavlov's dog influence, forcing them to listen to the bell ringing in their own ears to participate in the Presidential elections, damn the outcome? At least, the noise from some of them expressing their optimism to win the race makes me laugh myself lame. How can they not know that they are not in reckoning?

Clearly, all these candidates outside the NDC and NPP camps must be up to a game of sorts. Those that have already expressed pro-NPP interests are more than poised to push themselves into that political camp in the event of a run-off. Others not exposing their biases now will be expected to do so should there be any need for a run-off. But at the end of the day, what sense does it make for all these marginal candidates to waste resources participating in the Presidential elections when they have no locus at all? Who cares about them to prefer them to the candidates of the well-established NDC and NPP?

Or are they willingly turning themselves into surrogates to be used by the more established NDC and NPP? Why so?

Of course, democracy provides room for this kind of exercise of the individual's right to participate in elections. We wait to see what happens next. In any case, this list of 15 Presidential candidates adds another twist to the comedy that the electioneering process has so far generated. I am laughing myself lame here. How about you?

I shall return
18.09.2016 LISTEN

The Ghana Police Service has called on the public to be wary of the latest brand of scan perpetrated by criminals.

In a statement issued in Accra by the Director of Public Affairs, Cephas Arthur, he said scammers are now operating under the guise of the police where they create accident scenarios to dawr in unsuspecting members of the public.

According to the Statement, victims receive a surprise call to the effect that some supposed relation of theirs has hit the rear of a police vehicle, and that the occupant police officer (s) is/are demanding money instantly through a given mobile money transfer line, to drop the matter.

The punch line is when the scammers add that the failure to do the transfer, the officer will threaten to process the suspect for court. The Statement said when the said money is paid, the case is dropped and the scam would have been completed.

The Service is therefore advising the public to be wary of this recent scam and also desist from the temptation of having to pay money to save ones relations.

It further advised the public to report all such incidents immediately to the Police or call Police hotlines MTN and Vodafone 18555 or 191 on all networks for prompt action.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
18.09.2016 LISTEN

What is Political Marketing

Political marketing is a very new discipline of marketing that was 'formally' created 10-15 years ago. Basically presidents, prime ministers, mayors (in big cities), and all sorts of other politicians and political parties  even running governments (see Brexit) are using it nowadays.

At a 'low-level' politicians use Market Research in designing new policies or deciding what Bill to support. A bit more advanced is voter profiling which helps create new segments to target or developing an attractive political vision or ways to attract political volunteers (never underestimate free workforce), etc.

Basically, Political Marketing is the process by which political candidates promote themselves and their platforms to voters through masterly-crafted communications aimed at gaining public support. It originates on the empirical science of marketing of goods and services.

So, is Political Marketing Mind Control?

Well... as a science, Political Marketing does study how social and psychological mechanisms controlling citizens' behaviour operate. In reality these are the same or similar methodologies that advertisers use to 'force' you buy a product; in this case the product is the political candidate!

By the way, there is a whole basket of golden rules on how to select and implement applied marketing strategies to force the 'consumer' into a choice. In this case the emphasis is on psychological mechanisms of voter behaviour and in creating the right images for politicians or political parties: we are all familiar with political slogans and persuasion advertising messages used in all sorts of political campaigns. The whole idea is to manage to lead the voters' attitudes and preferences on the automatic level, beyond any conscious control from voters. And often we the voters do not realize that our political behaviour and choices are shaped by these sophisticated marketing techniques.

So, is there Political Marketing in Ghana?

While a consumer buying a product or a service always knows its price and can shop around for a better price or a better product or service, for voters there is no price attached to their ability to make a voting decision. Making a voting decision is usually the result of analyzing and predicting the consequences of this decision regarding possible losses and gains in the long-term perspective between elections. Of curse, there is always the corrupt practice of 'buying votes'.

You are most likely familiar or have been in contact with the following:

1. Political Narrative.

This is basically the story behind the candidate or the political proposition. It all starts before even a candidate is nominated and promoted within his/her Party (Internal Political Marketing)

2. Direct Political Marketing.

Lots of money still go to it and its effective in reaching people with minimal media contact. It does not imply that it is a very effective activity. Almost in every road in Accra between an advertisement for a dental product, I also see an advertisement for a politician posted on a tree. (F)Lyers are also an example of it; so are Candidate Pledge Cards or printed Statements..

3. Social Media Marketing.

I will assume that needs no explanation

4. Negative Political Campaigns.

Old news... try to bring down the other candidate instead of promoting yourself.

5. Media Presence.

Basically all TV presence and all PR events in schools, hospitals, Labor Unions, Business Associations etc.

6. 'Community OutReach' activities.

I was stopped on the street to buy discounted phone credit and hear a narrative about the Ghanaian political party who is sponsoring my discount. I know of other similar examples, including food distribution.

7. Sponsors.

The private persons who make donations for the particular candidate and the campaign.

FYI according to an article published in 2010 (Political Marketing Strategies in Africa: Expert Opinions of Recent Political Elections in Ghana), the New Patriotic Party (NPP) lost the 2008 because it did 4 'classic' Political Marketing mistakes.

Does IT play a role in Political Marketing?

Of course it does. You can collect as many data as you like with Political Market Research and other methodologies, but unless you can organize them and build voter profiling models and political market simulations, all these data have minimal value.

Let me give you 2 examples:

Brexit: The people behind the campaign hired a local UK firm to study and recommend which voter segments they (the pro-Brexit politicians) should focus on. You know the result.

The people behind the campaign hired a local UK firm to study and recommend which voter segments they (the pro-Brexit politicians) should focus on. You know the result. Trump campaign: He hired the same UK firm back in May (he got 10 consultants from that firm to the US to help him for a 'announced' cost of 1,2 million dollars) and his campaign now is narrowing the gap he previously had with Clinton's popularity. This is Political Marketing in action!!!

By the way, FYI: the firm is Cambridge Analytica and I have zero connection with them nor is this line an endorsement in any way.

Does Political Marketing help Democracy?

This is a very difficult topic to discuss because there are so many different points of view. Political Marketing provides a plethora of new opportunities to connect with potential voters and shape public opinion, including cold calls, email campaigns, direct mail flyers, radio and TV spots, social media outreach, etc. If you have an excellent unknown candidate, Political Marketing will help democracy.

Did manipulating Brexit voters help advance democracy? If yes, how? Voting Market's Segmentation Strategies are real.

In Conclusion: Food for Thought

It is nice for us to think that our voting decisions are based solely on how well the messages & agendas (& promises) of each of the candidates aligns with our own individual set of beliefs, ideals and values.

I hope you understand by now that our election- ballots are cast based on the outcomes of carefully targeted and optimized political marketing campaigns. We all need to be aware that our actions are most likely prompted by the calculated promotional efforts of external entities.

Keep in mind that there are also many tools today available to gather all sorts of data on voters and 'design' effect political campaigns, with the desired end- results.

The importance of political marketing is in how much effective it is at spreading messaging and informing the voters. It thus can help foster or block democracy via its easily consumed  and now with social media easily shared too- political campaign messages and ideas. While this facilitates a better and possibly also a more organic way of raising awareness and generating a call to vote, join a campaign, lobby for a bill, etc., it is of paramount important that we know exercise our critical thinking and question all promises and information offered to us.

I had several friends, neighbours, family, colleagues recommending me to try a product or a service with which they were delighted and they were willing to 'stick and risk their reputation' behind that recommendation... yeap... the classic word- of- mouth. I never had so far someone recommending a politician the same way!!!

Let's not ignore the reality behind any political marketing action and don't let anyone manipulate our will.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all - John F. Kennedy.

Thank you,

Spiros

About the Author: Spiros Tsaltas, a Top-Tier Management Consultant and a former University Professor (RSM MBA, CUNY, etc), is a seasoned Technology & Operations Executive. Spiros has hands-on experience on setting up all sorts of Startups both in the US and in Europe. He is an active transformational leader and strategist with extensive experience on Boards of Advisors & Boards of Directors. He is currently assisting a couple of Ghanaian and other West African StartUps and SMEs with the setup of their Boards and Strategy items.

Spiros welcomes any feedback/ comments/ remarks/ suggestions via your email message to [email protected]

 2016 Spiros Tsaltas
The 2016 Presidential nominee of the Progressive Peoples' Party (PPP), Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, wants Ghanaians to reject President Mahama in the December polls due to what he says is his bad record in government.

According to him, President Mahama has failed to deliver on the promises that won him the 2012 elections. Speaking at the party's Don't waste your vote rally in Accra on Saturday, Dr. Nduom said the PPP is the only party that is ready to improve the lives of Ghanaians.

There is someone going around Ghana and he is asking Ghanaians that they should give him four more years, my friends, when you vote for someone, you vote for the President to bring you something good. He told us that when he comes dumsor will be a thing of the past. Where is Dumsor, Dumsor? It is here with us. The same man he told us, if you vote for me, I will build 200 schools. Where are the 200 schools? He told all Ghanaians if you vote for me, I will create millions of jobs, where are the jobs. When somebody promises and does not deliver, do they deserve four more years? No four more years, he said.

Various speakers including the National Chairman and Running Mate to the Flagbearer of the PPP, justified why a vote for both the NDC and the NPP will be a waste , adding that a vote for PPP will translate into incompetent incorruptible leadership, education, preventive healthcare and jobs.

The Don't Waste Your Vote national rally, which came off at the Nima Kawukudi Park, brought together the rank and file of the PPP around the country.



By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana
DECATUR  The sights and sounds that make the Childrens Museum of Illinois so engaging can be too much for children with sensory challenges related to autism.

Thats certainly true for Colton Sunderland, 2, of Decatur who was diagnosed in utero with a genetic disease called tuberous sclerosis complex.

The museum is pretty overwhelming, said his mother Stormy Sunderland, and its especially frustrating because he has a twin who loves it.

But thanks in part to efforts by a year-old organization called Not Forgotten, Inc., things are already changing at the museum so that the Sunderlands and others can enjoy it as a family.

A grant from the Junior Welfare Association let the museum add a social story option to their website so families can plan their visit in advance and to the facility some sound-reducing headphones, light reducing eyeglasses and picture schedules so children can understand which exhibits they're going to see and in what order.

This fall the museum will also try out some special hours on Sunday mornings with an eye toward making them a regular feature. During those hours, the classroom near the main entrance will be used as a quiet room for any children who need time and space to calm down.

"We truly want to be a museum for all children and all families," said Amber Kaylor, who became executive director Aug. 1.

Becky Harrelson, founder of Not Forgotten, said the group has also approached Scovill Zoo, Decatur Public Library and Carmike Strand about making similar accommodations, and all have been receptive. Staff training is currently being developed for the museum and library.

"At many places, all our families can do is come for five minutes or not at all," Harrelson said. "Small changes make a big difference to our kids."

The difference at the children's museum came after Abby Koester, education director, and Denice Love, assistant professor of elementary and special education at Millikin University, attended a training in Chicago to learn how to go about making a venue more user friendly.

Love has been helping Harrelson develop Not Forgotten, a nonprofit organization to assist children like her son Gabe, 9, who has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, to make the transition from school at age 22 to employment, to independent living and to social integration.

For more information about Not Forgotten, call (217) 358-8548 or (217) 420-6787, email notforgottenmaconcounty@gmail.com or find the organization on Facebook or Twitter.

The group meets at 7 p.m. on the first Thursday of the month and provides free child care.

Meanwhile Stormy Sunderland and her husband Matt are looking forward to spending more time at the Children's Museum of Illinois with both their children, Colton and his twin sister Canyon.

We've been working with Colton on planning our next visit, Sunderland said.
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Sept. 18, GNA - The Ghana Without Orphans (GWO), a Christian movement has embarked on a peace walk, to sensitise the public particularly politicians on the need to ensure peace before, during and after the December 7 general election.

The walk, which registered orphans from the various orphanage homes in the country, began from the entrance of the Efua Sutherland Park through the Liberation Road, the Ridge Roundabout, the Castle Road, then the Starlet 91 Street and back to the Park.

It was climaxed with activities such as bouncy castle, face painting, musical chairs, and pick and act games to entertain the children.

Addressing the media before the Walk, Master Elliot Hillary Dogbe, a Peace Ambassador from the Open Dove Children's Foundation, noted that if Ghana had come this far in building a nation for its children, then it must not be destroyed in a minute.

He said ahead of the December 7 polls, it is appropriate for them as children, to put their petition on record and as well register their concerns.

He said 'The children of Ghana have watched it on television, heard it on radio, what has happened to people in war zone countries.

'We the children of Ghana are saying it is time for our voices to be heard when the nation is talking about peace, because it matters most to us, because no amount of money can rebuild Ghana as we are seeing today,' he said.

Master Dogbe therefore, appealed to chiefs to enhance peace at the grassroots by ensuring that trivial matters do not worsen and to prevent quarrels from generating into violence.

He also urged chiefs not to involve themselves in politics.

He advised the youth not to be influenced by politicians to be involved in any form of election violence.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency, on the sideline of the event, Reverend George Abaidoo, the National Coordinator for GWO, described the organisation as a Christian movement advocating family based care and encouraging parents as well as churches to develop interest in foster parenting and adoption.

He explained that this had been the Ghanaian culture, where the traditional family setting took care of the orphans and vulnerable children in the society.

The National Coordinator said orphans are among the vulnerable in the society, hence, as part of their contribution to a peaceful 2016 election, and safeguarding the peace before, during and after, it was important to organise a peace walk, so that their voices could be heard.

Rev Abaidoo said the orphans are seeking for a place of love, hope and a sense of belonging within the Christian family environment; and as such, political instability would not make this possible.

He tasked politicians and the government to ensure that peace prevails in the forthcoming elections, adding: 'We need that assurance from them.'

Rev Abaidoo said the GWO has numerous projects to embark on to ensure that there are no orphans in Ghana, however lack of funds are among its major challenges.

He therefore, appealed to benevolent individuals, churches and government to support its activities.

GNA
Cape Coast, (C/R), Sept. 18, GNA - Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has called on Ghanaians to improve on their communications skills, to better integrate with their Francophone neighbours.

He explained that since Ghana is surrounded by Francophone nations it is important for the people to learn French to facilitate trade and other economic activities with its neighbours.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur was speaking at the inauguration of a modern Language Laboratory at the University of Cape Coast in the Central Region.

The new edifice, which has been named after Vice President Amissah-Arthur was started by the GETFund in 2004 but stalled.

However in 2011, the Bank of Ghana came out with a policy to use some of its income from its investments to support research and learning in the public universities.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur who was then the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) supported the idea and the Bank provided financial support for the completion of the Language Laboratory.

He said for Ghana to be party of the globalisation drive, the people need to improve on the learning of other languages

He said improving communications with the neighbouring countries is an important aspect of national policy.

He said if students from the neighbouring countries could come to Ghana to improve their English then Ghanaian students could also go and learn French.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur also gave the assurance that the government would continue to commit resources to support the facility.

He therefore charged the university authorities to put in place proper maintenance measures to enhance the lifespan of the facility.

Mr Millison Narh, Second Deputy Governor of the BoG said the country's import and export trading partners as well as foreign direct investments inflows are progressively originating from non-English speaking countries.

He said the nation is also witnessing a growing number of non-English speaking tourists who visit from time to time.

Mr Narh expressed the need for the creation of a cosmopolitan language environment to inculcate the desire for students to be multi-lingua and to position the country to maximise the benefits to be derive from the economic integration with the rest of the world.

He said students with multiple language skills could become international experts to facilitate trade transactions, contract negotiations and technological transfer between Ghana and the rest of the world through translation of documents and interpretations of discussions.

He said the modern language centre provides the University with the opportunity to interface with industry.

He said the BoG would want to further collaborate with the University in the area of financial literacy programmes and capacity development.

Professor Daniel D. Kuupole, Vice Chancellor of the University thanked Vice President Amissah-Arthur and the BoG for the support.

He appealed to the Bank of Ghana and GETFund to provide support to equip the Laboratory.

He said the Economics Department of University is collaborating with the BoG to run a programme in micro-finance to support micro-finance initiatives and businesses.

GNA
Accra, Sept. 18, GNA - Some Ghanaians have expressed worry about the ownership of media houses by politicians.

They were of the view that though journalists are doing well in their reports on the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections, some of them are biased based on the influence of their bosses.

A public Relation Officer, Bakari Lukman, told the Ghana News Agency in Accra that politicians should not own media houses since that would provide the platform for propaganda for the victory of a particular political party in Elections 2016.

He asked the National Media Commission and other regulatory bodies to provide measures to sanction such media houses to serve as deterrent to others.

According to a Public Servant, Mr Servannons Kojo, politicians should not own media houses because of the influence they would have on their employee journalists.

However, a cross section of Ghanaians believe politicians have the right to own media houses.

A worker at Beige Capital, a micro-finance company, who spoke on condition of anonymity said politicians should own media houses 'because they are businessmen'.

Mr Iddrisu Salam, a service personnel was also of the view that politicians could own media houses subject to independent professional work by their employee journalists.

GNA
Accra, Sept. 18, GNA - Olam Ghana Limited, a leading supply chain manager of agri-products and one of Ghana's top cocoa buying organisations, received a thumps up for its value additions to the cocoa industry in the country.

The Deputy CEO of Ghana COCOBOD, James Kofi Kutsoati, lauded Olam Ghana Limited, for its investment and sustained contribution to the cocoa industry in the country.

Speaking at Olam Ghana's Annual Cocoa Managers' conference in Accra, Mr Kutsoati was full of praises for Olam Ghana Limited for following set standards for practitioners in the industry.

He also commended the company for innovative wealth schemes designed to help farmers earn more for their efforts.

Mr Kotsoati said: 'Olam Ghana Ltd has continually ensured quality through adherence to standards and through its certification programmes with farmers, which now earn about 1,200 farmers' higher premiums.

'Olams' contribution to national development through community involvement and development in areas such as education is innovative and commendable.'

This year's Cocoa Managers Conference held on the theme: 'Innovate & Optimize to Scale New Heights,' was an opportunity for about 400 Managers and Management staff to review the business over the last one year and re-strategise for the future.

The Deputy Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing, Mr Sampson Ahi who was a guest at the event, called on Licensed Buying Companies to consider a special insurance scheme for cocoa farmers across the country.

This, he, said would protect them against losses, especially bush fires.

He urged Olam Ghana Limited to take the lead in the establishment of such a critically important farmer-focused insurance scheme.

He however decried the devastating impact of 'Galamsey' on the cocoa business in the country as the penchant for the illegal extraction of gold has done so much harm to the cocoa industry.

'Large tracts of cocoa farmlands have been sold to these illegal miners for money. As a result, productive farmlands have been degraded, water bodies have been polluted with heavy metals,' Mr Ahi said.

He urged the Cocoa Managers to advise farmers not to sacrifice permanent revenue for the short-term rewards of the illegal miners.

Mr Eric Asare Botwe, Manager of Olam's Cocoa Licensed Buying Company (LBC) business, spoke of the increasing fortunes of cocoa farmers doing business with Olam.

He disclosed that the company is 'paying out GH4 million in premiums to cocoa farmers for the 2015/2016 season - an amount, which represents a 100 per cent increase over the total premium of GH1.9 million paid to farmers last year'.

"As a company, we believe in growing responsibly by reinvesting in the people (farmers) and communities in which we operate and that was what informed the increase in premiums to GH15 per bag and the advance of a $ 1m interest-free loans to empower the farmers," he said at the closing ceremony.

He said Olam currently buys about 13 per cent of Ghana's total produce of 850,000 tons of Cocoa each year, making the company the third largest LBC in the country.

The Country Head and CEO of Olam Ghana, Amit Agrawal, noted that the global business has been witnessing growth on many front as Olam was adjudged the 23rd Best Company by Fortune Magazine for its responsible business in investing in people and the communities where it operates in Africa and Asia.

He said in Ghana, Olam paid more than GH200 million in total taxes to the government, aside other social investments it made in people and communities.

"Apart from our cocoa processing factory in Ghana, we are also the biggest biscuit producer in Ghana and largest tomato paste manufacturer in West Africa.

'This year also we are expanding our flour mill to produce 1,000 tons of flour per day in Ghana," Mr Agrawal said.

Olam Ghana, established in 1994, has invested almost GH1 billion in the cocoa sector alone, with more than 13 per cent market share in an industry populated with more than 50 LBCs.

The four -day conference was organised by the company as a platform to evaluate the past year's performance, sensitise managers and strategise for the next season.

The activities for this year's conference principally took place at the Bunsu Cocoa College in the Eastern Region, bringing together some 400 Olam Cocoa Managers from all the cocoa producing districts and regions.

GNA
A former minister of Lands and Natural Resources and now Minister of Roads and Highways Alahaji Inusah Fuseini has called for the licensing of galamsey operators in the country.

According to Alahaji Inusah Fuseini the move will ensure proper regulation of the activities of the miners.

Speaking to Citi Business News Alahaji Inusah Fuseini said Ghana will benefit immensely if the activities of galamsey operators are regularized and regulated.

How do you make illegal small scale mining unsustainable, make licensing easier to come by. Parcel out large portions of lands and declare them zones for small scale mining and give them out as concessions. And when you do so the next challenge they face is how to raise resources especially funding to get the equipment and mine appropriately.

Alahaji Inusah Fuseini further argued that though illegal small scale mining cannot be tolerated under any legal framework in Ghana people are drawn to illegal small scale mining because its provides an avenue for employment.

He attributed the large numbers of Ghanaian youth going into galamsey to the issue of unemployment facing the country.

He contends the country can only save its forest reserves and water bodies when the activates of the galamsey operators are highly regulated.

I think we must begin to consider bringing them together and licensing them because mining is capital intensive and we have moved away from pick axe and shovels but one has to use tractors and other heavy equipment as gold has moved from the surface to deep into the earth.

There has been heightened debate about the activities of illegal miners who are destroying aquatic life, polluting major rivers and streams, forest reserves and farms.

According to the Ghana Water Company Limited the development has lead to an in the cost of processing and producing water for homes.

Citi Business News have learnt that if the activities of the galamsey are not checked it could lead to the closure of some three water treatment plants in the country which are at Barekese, Kyebi and Daboase.

Some lands and farms have also been rendered useless due to chemicals used by the illegal miners in extracting gold.

Earlier the Director of the Institute of Environment and Sanitation at the University of Ghana, Dr. Chris Gordon, warned of far-reaching effects of illegal mining painting a gloomy picture of the health implications for the average Ghanaian.



By: Norvan Acquah  Hayford/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - A counter-attack by fighters loyal to Libya's UN-backed unity government aimed at retaking key eastern oil ports was repelled on Sunday by forces from a rival administration.

The operation came as three members of forces loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord were killed further west in a resumed offensive against Islamic State group holdouts in Sirte.

The GNA is the centrepiece of UN efforts to restore stability in Libya and forge a central authority capable of tackling the twin scourges of IS and rampant people trafficking across the Mediterranean to Europe.

But it has struggled to impose its authority amid opposition from a rival administration based in Libya's remote east.

Oil is Libya's key asset, and revenue from crude exports is vital if the GNA is to rebuild an economy and infrastructure ravaged by violence since the 2011 uprising that killed veteran dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

Last week, forces led by controversial military strongman Khalifa Haftar seized Ras Lanuf, Al-Sidra, Zuwaytina and Brega in the so-called "oil crescent" along the coast.

Map of Libya's Gulf of Sirte region, locating ports captured by forces hostile to the Tripoli-based government, as fighting resumes in the area Sunday.

They later handed the ports over to the National Oil Corporation, which said on Thursday that crude exports would resume "immediately" from Zuwaytina and Ras Lanuf.

The NOC says it is loyal to the GNA, but also to the internationally recognised parliament based in the east which supports Haftar's forces and has refused to give the GNA its vote of confidence.

Early Sunday, pro-GNA forces launched an offensive aimed at retaking Al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf, but after several hours of fighting Haftar's forces said they launched a counter-attack and repelled the loyalists.

"We repelled the attack and we are chasing them in the region," said Muftah al-Muqarief, who heads oil guards loyal to Haftar, adding that "some" assailants had been captured.

There was no independent confirmation from the oil crescent region of the fighting and the situation on the ground.

A Haftar spokesman, Mohamad Ibset, said earlier that guards loyal to the GNA had attacked.

Tanker withdrawn for safety

And Ali al-Hassi, a spokesman for the loyalist oil guards, said: "We attacked Al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf, and Haftar's forces are trying to hit us with their warplanes."

The counter-attack is a new blow to the unity government and NOC efforts to resume exports.

Children hold a banner reading "petrol belongs to all Libyans" at the Zueitina oil terminal

"We ask the combatants to avoid taking actions that could damage our vital national infrastructure," NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla said in a statement.

"Our national recovery depends on these ports being open and our oil flowing freely."

The NOC said Maltese-flagged tanker the Seadelta, which was due to load crude oil at Ras Lanuf for Italy, had to be "withdrawn to aaZ safe distance offshore" because of the fighting.

Meanwhile firefighters were trying to extinguish a blaze at Al-Sidra, where another storage tank already damaged in January fighting was set alight during Sunday's clashes.

Libya, with Africa's largest oil reserves estimated at 48 billion barrels, has exported only a few tankers of crude in recent months.

The GNA, created last year as a UN-brokered power-sharing government, still needs a vote of confidence from the rival parliament based in the east.

Libyan Army Chief, Gen. Khalifa Haftar pictured in 2015 drove jihadists out of most of second city Benghazi and is the most powerful backer of the rival administration in the east

Haftar, who sees himself as Libya's saviour after driving jihadists out of most of second city Benghazi, is the most powerful backer of the rival administration in the east.

Days after the ports fell under his control, the east-based parliament promoted him to field marshal from his previous rank of general.

Also on Sunday, pro-GNA forces renewed attacks on IS holdouts in Sirte after a two-week lull.

"Our forces are using heavy artillery to target the positions where Daesh (IS) holdouts are cowering," they said in a statement.

A field hospital on the outskirts of Sirte said three members of the loyalist forces were killed on Sunday.

More than 450 members of the loyalist forces have been killed and around 2,500 wounded since the operation began in May.

Pro-government forces have said the situation at Misrata Central Hospital where doctors have been overwhelmed by casualties is also delaying the final push in Sirte.

Italy has said it will set up a military field hospital in Misrata, following a request from the GNA.
Abidjan (AFP) - The brother-in-law of Ivory Coast's former first lady Simone Gbagbo who was a leading suspect in the disappearance of a French-Canadian journalist died Sunday, a source close to the country's former president told AFP.

Michel Legre was arrested in May 2004 over the kidnapping and killing of Guy-Andre Kieffer, a specialist in the cocoa industry who was writing about corruption and was last seen in a car park in Abidjan in April 2004 along with Legre. He was subsequently released without charge.

"(Legre) unfortunately died this morning. I don't know anything more," said Franck Anderson Kouassi, an ally of former president Laurent Gbagbo and representative of Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party.

"He died at his home," added a journalist close to the FPI, citing acquaintances of Legre.

Legre was also put under investigation by a French judge in October 2004 over Kieffer's disappearance.

A witness in the trial of Simone Gbagbo, who has been on trial since May 31 for alleged crimes against humanity committed during a post-electoral crisis in 2010-11, recently claimed that Kieffer was "executed and his body burnt" on the orders of the former first lady.

Simone Gbagbo is already serving a 20-year jail term after she was convicted last year of state security offences committed during the five months of conflict that followed the election that claimed more than 3,000 lives.
18.09.2016 LISTEN

Information gathered by Citi Business News indicates that government has commenced meetings with local investors to raise its first dollar denominated bond locally.

The Finance Minister, Seth Terkper met the investors in Accra last Friday to convince them invest in government's upcoming $100 million bond this month.

The bond, if successful will be used to restructure maturing debts as well as infrastructure development.

Earlier this month, government announced that it plans raising about GH25 billion through bonds and treasury bills for the rest of year.

The announcement was a revised issuance calendar indicating government's plan of borrow from August to December.

The report showed that about Gh24 billion of the funds raised will be used to clear previous bonds issued that are maturing, with the remaining going to support fresh commitments.

As part of the plans, a three-year bond will also be issued in November to raise GH700 million while it hopes to issue its first 10-year local bond of GH200 million.

According to government, the calendar aims at continuing the objective of lengthening the maturity profile by reducing short-term borrowing.

It adds that the 3, 5, and 10-year issues will be done per the calendar through the book-building method with settlement on the last Mondays of each month.

The amount of GH400.00 million for the 5-year bond in August 2016 will be raised through reopening of the existing 5-year bond (coupon of 24.75%) maturing July 19, 2021, with settlement on August 29, 2016.

The 5-year bond of GH1,000.00 million in September 2016 may be issued partly in a US Dollar equivalent bond, with settlements on September 12, 26, 2016 for the cedi and US dollar bonds, respectively.



By: Lawrence Segbefia/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
A Bank of Ghana (BoG) summary of Economic and Financial Data says Ghanas total public debt has hit almost GHC110 billion as at July this year. a

The Central Bank BoG released the Data after a meeting Friday, September 16 to review the health of the Ghanaian economy.

The meeting is expected to guide the announcement of a new policy rate announcement on September 19. The report shows that about GHC5 billion has been added to the public debt since May this year.

The GHC110 billion public debt, represents almost 66 percent of the total value of the economy or when you look it in terms Ghanas debt to GDP Ratio.

Almost GHC61 billion of the debt came from external borrowings whiles GHC49.2 billion came from domestic borrowings.

Finance Minister Seth Terkper earlier this year disclosed to JOYBUSINESS that, the public debt will pick up slightly, in the coming months, but will reduce significantly before the end of this year as a result of fast tracking the implementation of its debt management strategies.

The summary of Economic and Financial Data report revealed that governments expenditure as at June this year is going up in terms of its share of GDP domestic product, revenue was also not doing bad according to the report.

The Bank of Ghana puts the cedis depreciation from January to September at 4.1 percent, with the local currency currently trading at GHC3.96.

According to the Data, most commercial banks are still having challenges with Non Performing Loans. Average lending rate as at August this year stood at 33 percent, whiles the banks are lending among themselves at 25.5 percent.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com |Joy Business
Accra , Sept. 18, GNA - Energy Bank has welcomed 30 National Service personnel posted to the Bank for the 2016/17 service year, with a call on them to inculcate the values of integrity and excellence during their stay.

In an orientation programme/reception organised at the Bank's Spintex Head Office Annex, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Christiana Olaoye, advised the National Service staff to prepare themselves for their new assignments by being honest at all times and exhibit hard work as well as apply themselves with all due diligence.

'You must have a vision and passion for the work, develop skills and competence along the way, remain committed to the task, and ensure completion of set assignments,' she explained.

Mrs Olaoye noted that traditional banking had evolved over the years, and financial institutions ware innovating with digital solutions and products and services to suit the needs of consumers.

'We are, so far, satisfied with our business in Ghana. We believe banking is all about creating satisfaction for all stakeholders, contributing to the growth of the economy and impacting on the larger society.'

She said: 'We are evolving and creating compelling value propositions for our banking public, and we will not relent in our efforts to be a service-oriented and customer-centric institution.'

The Executive Director, Operations, Isaac Shedowo urged the service personnel to adapt quickly, learn fast and strive to become great leaders in the future.

He cautioned them to be truthful, reliable and committed in whatever they do.

Some Heads of Department, including Corporate Banking, Treasury, Commercial Banking, Retail Banking, Private Banking, Collections & E-Banking, Foreign Operations and Information Technology took turns to school the new personnel on their business processes and procedures.

Energy Bank Ghana presently has 11 branches and one agency situated in four regions of the country.

The bank's vision is to build a strong bank based on the timeless principles of loyalty and efficient customer service.

GNA
DECATUR -- When Bari Tarmon began creating unique photo-based images, he was advised to stick to one kind of picture.

You're not focused on one thing, you're all over the place, Tarmon was told.

But Tarmon decided that all over the place was exactly where he wanted to be.

If a guy takes pictures of fireflies in the forest and someone doesn't like fireflies in the forest, you're through, said Tarmon, a Wheaton resident who is showing his artwork at Arts in Central Park this weekend. People like different kinds of things.

Tarmon, a native of Israel who has lived in America for more than 40 years, creates each of his images from his own photographs. Then he decides whether to print them or transform them into something totally different.

The photo tells me which direction to go, said Tarmon, a first-time exhibitor in Decatur. Sometimes, I let it go completely abstract.

For example, it would be difficult to tell whether the image of an elderly man walking with a cane and a dog on a leash is a painting or a manipulated photograph. It is partly black-and-white, with a golden-colored dog, a blue sky and a splash of green on distant foliage.

Tarmon took the photo of his father, now 97, as he strolled through a village near Netanya, Israel.

I took the picture, ran the process to eliminate color, Tarmon said. That makes it more of an illustration.

To go along with the picture known as Dad and Lola, Tarmon snapped his shutter on a 93-year-old woman and her fluffy white dog, which he titled Sam and Dixon. Sam, a nickname, is a neighbor of Tarmon's who hails from Buckley.

No matter where I go I have some kind of connection, said Tarmon, referring to the Central Illinois origin of his neighbor.

But it took a word from a jewelry maker who lives 1,000 miles away in Florida to convince Tarmon to try his luck in Decatur. Ordinarily Tarmon sticks to shows in the Chicago area.

Herb Brown, a next-booth neighbor with Tarmon at a Naperville show, recommended the Decatur show, which attracts about 80 artists to Central Park each year.

Brown, who creates handmade necklaces, earrings and various other pieces from silver and precious or semi-precious stones, brought along his 24-year-old daughter, Bianca Gedeon, who assisted Saturday with sales and public relations.

I like the show, said Gedeon, a cheerful recent college graduate with a degree in biology. It's well set up. There is good music. It's fun.

Decatur Area Arts Council director Jerry Johnson said the turnout for the show on Saturday was strong, partly because of the favorable weather.

He said the show has a large number of activities for children, including helping to paint a van, special art shopping opportunities at reasonable prices at nearby Gallery 510, face painting and a caricature artist.

Glass artist Jim Downey, in his 14th year as an exhibitor, drew significant numbers of customers to his booth, well-stocked with vases, paperweights, ornaments, pumpkins and many other creations he formed in his Monticello studio.

I always do well here, Downey said. This is about the best of the shows. The people here treat me like family.

Even if he does not sell well on any given day, Downey believes it is time well spent to exhibit in Decatur, because he creates interest which may translate to sales at his gallery.

Monticello doesn't have an art festival, Downey said. This is as close as it gets to a hometown festival.
By Laudia Sawer, GNA

Tema, Sept. 18, GNA - The more than 4000 disgruntled ex-workers of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) who were retrenched in 2002, have threatened to boycott the 2016 general election if their issues are not critically looked at.

Mr Stephen Ashitey Adjei, Leader of the ex-workers, said it is about time politicians take them serious and address the issues of the poor.

Mr Adjei who is also a constituency executive of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), recounted the legal processes they have gone through since 2002 to get a befitting severance packages, at a news conference in Tema.

He added that even though they received a handshake of GHa 66.60 multiplied by the number of years worked with the Company, they do not consider that as severance pay.

He stated that the ex-workers are living in poverty due to the inability of politicians to take a bold decision for them to receive what was due them.

Mr Adjei explained that their decision not to vote was based on the refusal of President John Dramani Manama, Presidential Candidate of the NDC and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party to help them.

Mr Ashitey observed that just as the two candidates received their ex-gratia after serving in Parliament, they should have ensured that problem of the ex-workers is resolved.

He described as false allegations that the ex-workers were not covered by the Collective Bargaining Agreement of the Company.

According to him, they received bonuses, leave allowances, and had staff numbers just like the permanent workers.

He also called on GPHA to stop inflating the number of workers affected by the 2002 restructuring programme as evidence to back their claim that paying them would collapse the Company.

Mr Adjei also known as Moshake, debunked assertions in the media that he was not an ex-worker of the GPHA stating that he worked for three years at the Tema Port serving in the mechanical and civil engineering departments.

GNA
By Nana Osei Kyeretwie, GNA

Yamfo (B/A), Sept. 18, GNA - The College of Health - Yamfo is in dire need of residential and office accommodation for staff and lecture halls for students.

These infrastructural challenges have created doubt about the possibility of the institution's admission of students in the 2016/2017 academic year.

Mr Evans K. Danso, the Director of the College said at the maiden matriculation ceremony of the institution on the theme: 'Quality Health Training: A Tool for a Country's Health and Well-Being' at Yamfo in the Tano North District of the Brong-Ahafo Region.

Mr Danso therefore appealed to corporate bodies, charitable organisations and philanthropists to assist the College with donations either in cash or kind towards the building of a three-storey hostel facility that would house 400 female students.

Despite the lack of staff residential and offices facilities, the Director said, the institution is making progress in infrastructural developments as work on its three-storey lecture block.

It could take 400 students with an Information Communication and Technology Centre and a skills laboratory. The work commenced in 2015 and is about 30 per cent complete.

The dining hall, which is also about 85 per cent complete is expected to take 1000 students, he said.

He said the District Assembly had started two separate lecture halls for the College.

Mr Danso said Mrs Freda Prempeh, the Member of Parliament had also provided the institution with a borehole facility to ensure regular supply of water but 'these facilities are not sufficient to meet our expected growth in the immediate future'.

The Director reported that at its establishment in 2015, 589 qualified applicants applied for admission but the College was able to admit only 247, representing 42 per cent.

He said the number comprised 131 males, representing 53 per cent and 116 females indicating 47 per cent.

Mr. Danso said for the 2016/2017 academic year the College had projected to admit 250 students with at least 50 per cent females in line with women empowerment policy of the country.

Madam Monica Nkrumah, the Board Chair of Newmont Ahafo Development Foundation said the Foundation had spent GHa1,327,804.05 on the first phase of the construction of a two-storey lecture block and a dining/assembly hall for the College.

Mr. Apraku Lartey, the District Chief Executive on behalf of the Assembly donated a brand new double-cabin Nissan pick-up vehicle to the College to assist in its day-to-day administration.

Mrs. Prempeh gave the assurance of her continuous support to the institution through her health fund and advised the students to be humbled and submissive to authority and be prepared to serve the nation.

GNA
By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA

New Takoradi, Sept. 18, GNA - Thirty-one schools in the six coastal districts of the Western Region, have received hand washing facilities from Tullow and TEN Partners.

Some of the beneficiary schools are Poasi Methodist Primary and Junior High School (JHS), Nana Baidoo Bonsu M/A JHS and Rhyner Paul Anglican JHS at Ngyerisia.

They took delivery of 130 buckets to facilitate proper hand washing.

Mr Edmund Fiifi Enchill, Social Investment Supervisor for TEN Partners, who presented the items at a ceremony in New Takoradi, said the donation formed part of the TEN Partners' social investment initiative.

He said the facilities would support the work of the Ghana Education Service in promoting proper hand washing with soap and basic hygiene and sanitation practices under the School Health Education Programme.

Mr Enchill noted that UNICEF statistics revealed that globally, diarrheoa remains the second highest cause of under-five mortality with 600,000 children dying each year out of 1.7 billion cases.

Despite the life threatening consequences of diarrheoal diseases and respiratory infections, research has shown that the simple practice of hand washing with soap under clean running water is the most effective and efficient way to prevent diseases, he said.

He said: 'It has been proven that simple hand washing with soap can reduce diarrheoal infection by about 47 per cent and respiratory infection by nearly 25 per cent while clean water and effective hand washing may reduce the risk of stunted growth in children under-five years up to 15 per cent.'

Mr Enchill called for collective efforts from stakeholders to improve upon Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in schools and communities in order to reach out to the vulnerable children and families so that the pupils could achieve their full potentials.

Madam Enyonam Afi Amafuga, the Regional Director of Education, received the items on behalf of the beneficiary schools, and expressed gratitude to the TEN partners.

Mr George Dorgbetor, the Project Manager of the WASH-in Schools project, said it had targeted to reach out to 7,000 children to wash their hands during the Global Hand Washing Day in October 15.

However, the project had targeted 10,000 children in the first year of implementation.

Mr Dorgbetor encouraged teachers, parents and other stakeholders to support the cause of helping more children to acquire the habit of basic hygiene with proper hand washing with soap under running water.

He said the implementing organisation have held series of community engagements with beneficiary communities so that the people could imbibe sustainable behavioural change, and also avoid open defecation and indiscriminate littering on the environment.

The WASH project is being implemented by the Opportunities Industrialisation Centres International, a non-governmental organisation, and would be implemented within a period of one year with a yearly roll-out for five years.

The project is funded by Tullow Ghana Limited and TEN partners including Kosmos Energy, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Anadarko and Petro South Africa.

GNA
By D. I. Laary, GNA

Accra, Sept 18, GNA - Female student population in Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) grew 14 per cent more over the number of male students admitted to pursue various programmes for the 2016/2017 academic year, the Rector said on Saturday.

'Our total student population for the 2016/2017 academic year stands at 4,000 with males constituting 43 per cent compared with 57 per cent being females,' Dr Wilberforce Sefakor Dzisah said as he addressed a large crowd gathered to witness the graduation of 690 students in diploma and degree programmes.

'This figure is an improvement on the 2015/2016 student population which stood at 3,232 students.

'Successive governments have been working over the years to bridge a yarning gap in gender enrolment disparity in higher education in the country to meet global goals.

'The country's premier media educator successes come barely four months when the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection signed a deal April this year with Campaign for Female Education Ghana, to advance the course of girl's education and women empowerment.

'For today's congregation ceremony, we are graduating a total of 690 students, out of this number, 230 are from the diploma level.

'In the degree category, we have a total of 460 students,' he said.

Dr Dzisah announced that 20 of the students obtained first class honours, 242 had second class upper division, 170 got second class lower division while 29 of the graduates managed with third class.

'Clearly, this is a marked improvement over last year's performance.'

'The overall comments on both the journalism and public relations programmes which were examined by our eternal examiners testify to my assertion,' he said.

Dr Dzisah quoted the external examiners assessment of the institute's programmes and performance of students as: 'Having gone through the documents related to the Bachelor of Arts in communication studies for journalism and public relations programmes our overall assessment is that the programmes are well-designed and the courses are satisfactorily managed.'

'The programmes and the courses compares fairly well with other similar courses elsewhere. The programmes fully equip the students with knowledge and skills necessary for the profession of journalism and public relations and other related areas.'

'On the overall, the standard of dissertations are very good.'

Special awards were given to outstanding students in both diploma and degree programmes as well as in top-up courses.

GNA
18.09.2016 LISTEN

By D.I. Laary, GNA

Accra, Sept. 18, GNA - Journalists have been told to abide by their moral and professional obligations by demonstrating that they are independent of government, individuals and political influences in order to maintain public confidence and trust in the profession.

Dr Wilberforce Sefakor Dzisah, Rector of Ghana Institute of Journalism, gave the advice at the 10th congregation of the Institute where 690 students graduated.

Two hundred and thirty were awarded diploma 460 with degree certificates.

'As media educators and trainers, we are concerned about the quality of reportage,' he said.

He expressed confidence that reporters could live up to their ethical responsibilities and report accurately and objectively on matters bordering the country.

He said: 'We recognise the crucial role the media play in our day-to-day existence on this earth.'

'As the watchdog for society, the media has an onerous responsibility to ensure that the country remains in one piece before, during and beyond the December 7, 2016 elections.'

He noted that though the quality of reportage is of concern to media educators and trainers: 'We are equally confident that our media professionals would live up to their fundamental responsibility of upholding ethical principles by providing the country with undiluted coverage of all matters relating to the elections in a democratic and objective manner.'

Dr Dzisah, who also chairs the Ghana News Agency Board said for the media to retain the trust of the people on whose behalf they exercise their 'fourth power' function, then journalists ought to recreate and refine their operations to remain, what he called 'the guiding light of our people'.

'After all, the media has a responsibility to be answerable to society. We cannot claim to be the mirror of society if our reports are slanted, jaundiced and tainted with the very ills for which we berate others and try to hang them.'

'Media accountability must be both horizontal and vertical if our society is to make informed choices at the polls and beyond it.'

The theme for the congregation was: 'Media responsibility and democratic elections.'

Mr Eugene Baffoe-Bonne, Board Chairman of the National Communications Authority, highlighted the professional and personal responsibilities and influence of the media in democratic elections.

He said it is imperative for the media to disseminate accurate information and provide coverage that voters need concerning the political parties and the policies that they promote.

'The information that the media lays to the public during elections can potentially have a profound impact on voters decision-making as well as the election outcome.'

'Therefore, what is communicated by the media to the public should be done from a perspective of being unbiased,' he said.

GNA
Accra, Sept. 18, GNA - The World Trade Centre (WTC) Accra, is organising a trade and investment mission to China for 20 participants to explore business opportunities for the mutual benefits of the two countries.

The 12-day trip, from September 19 to October 1, would take the officials to tour four cities in China- Beijing, Shanghai, Shizen and Guangzhou.

Officials from the National Investment Bank and Ghana Commercial Bank are among participants on the trip.

At a pre-departure briefing in Accra, Mr Emmanuel Doni-Kwame, Managing Director, WTC Accra, said the trip is designed to enable the participants to seek new business opportunities, make connections with Chinese partners and thereafter increase business, form new partnerships and explore global markets.

He said it is also aimed at building a general culture of business and learn from experience to start Ghana's industrial revolution.

Mr Doni-Kwame said the engagement is expected to strengthen the collaboration between the two countries and foster business opportunities for trade investment.

He urged the companies to make strong presentations of their various businesses during the visit to attract investors into the country.

The Ghanaian officials would participate in breakout business sessions and hold one-on-one meetings.

Mr Bright Awuye of the Research Department of WTC, urged the participants to have a deep understanding of the Chinese business and cultural climate to be able to conduct a successful engagement with partners.

Since its establishment the Centre had organised successful trade missions to Brazil, the United States, Italy and Canada among others to enable Ghanaian companies to exhibit their products for business opportunities and investments.

GNA
By Samira Larbie, GNA

Accra, Sept. 18, GNA - The Conference of Heads of Training Institutions, (COHHETI) an organised health training body has launched its 10th anniversary celebrations in Accra to chalk out the successes of the association.

The anniversary seeks to promote and enhance the attainment of quality care towards a healthier nation.

Mrs Josephine Ansu-Gyeabour, the President of COHHETI recounted the fond memories of the association when it was established 10 years ago together with the various challenges.

The theme for the celebration is: 'COHHETI at 10: Achievements, Challenges and the Way forward.'

Mrs Ansu-Gyeabour said the focus of the theme is to enable members to evaluate their performance over the past years and chart the way forward for the success of the organisation.

'As we examine our achievements in this anniversary we will be able to identify activities that are positive and adopt more appropriate measures to ensure we soar higher.'

The climax of the celebration would be held in Wa in the Upper West Region on November 2.

She appealed to government to resource the health training institutes as well as build more of such schools to enable them deliver on their mandate since the number of students keep rising.

The President also asked that the institution should be provided with buses and pick-up trucks for their activities.

Mr Alex Segbefia, the Minister of Health encouraged the members not to use the celebration for much festivities but a solemn occasion to pause and look back at the 10 years journey.

Mr Segbefia gave the assurance that the Ministry would continue to play meaningful roles to strengthen relationship with the training institutions as efforts are underway to transform the sector.

He therefore urged COHHETI to make the progress of the training institutions its major priority.

He entreated stakeholders and other partners to give their maximum support and cooperation to sustain the initiative.

He added that government as part of efforts to eject efficiency and reposition the training of health personnel had established the Health Training Institution Secretariat to supervise, monitor and coordinate the activities of such bodies.

'Government will continue to provide your needs as training institutions, we are discussing your utility and feeding grant to reduce the burden on parents and principals.

'The Ministry is currently seeking for financial clearance for teaching and non-teaching staff for the various training institutions,' he said.

The Minister advised all training institutions to respect the policy guiding fees.

Mr Christopher Beyere, the Executive Secretary of the Health Training Institution, appealed to the Minister to tamper justice with mercy and pardon the three principals who have been sacked for charging exorbitant school fees.

He asked that they should be forgiven and called back to work.

The event was also used to unveil the anniversary cloth for the celebration.

GNA
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Sept. 18, GNA - President John Dramani Mahama has assured Ghanaians, foreign partners and well-wishers that the government would maintain the high credibility of Ghana's elections and would continue to do everything possible to safeguard the democracy process.

He appealed to Ghanaians to cooperate with the security services and the institutions charged with ensuring the success of the elections.

Speaking at the 2016 graduation of the Ghana Military Academy at Teshie in Accra, President Mahama said: "In all these areas of concern and indeed, in all our efforts towards our national transformational and development agenda, we need the presence of our gallant soldiers in strength across the country.

"The security services will continue to be re-tooled to enable them provide efficient security as part of our national effort for the creation of enabling environment for economic growth, in which the creation of jobs for our teaming youth is paramount," he added.

President Mahama, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) said: "It is our goal to create significant security presence in the country and this would be among others through the creation of military garrisons in each region of Ghana.

"I believe that this will widen the scope of our vigilance, reduce operational reaction time to security situations, and lessen administrative costs of military operations."

He said over the past four years, the government had established some elements of a Forward Operating Base at Ezilimbu in the Western Region, constructed new hangers for the Air Force Base, established the West African Maritime Zone 'F' and provided additional housing units for the GAF.

He announced that the government would within the next four years assist the GAF to establish a Flight Training School, which would be a Centre of Excellence in West Africa.

"We will also increase the numerical strength of the Ghana Armed Forces and continue to provide the needed up-to-date logistics to facilitate and enhance your performance."

He urged the graduating officers to live up to expectations and work together for the good of the country.

The graduation was held for cadres of the Regular Career Course (RCC) 56 and Short Service Commission/Special Duties Course 54 graduated into fully fledged officers.

The graduating officers for the RCC were 62; which consist of 29 officers from the Ghana Army, three from Benin and two from Guinea.

The rest are 17 Navy and 11 Air Force Officers from the Ghana Armed Forces.

The officers for the Short Service Commission/Special Duties Course 54 were 38, who were all from Ghana Armed Forces.

Their distribution were Army 21, Navy eight and Air force nine.

Special Senior under Officer Addo Larbi won the Sword of Honour Award.

The GMA was established on April 1, 1960 after years of reliance on foreign Military Academies to commission potential Ghanaian Officers for the Ghana Armed Forces.

The mission of GMA is to produce leaders of character for the defence of Ghana.

GNA
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Sept 18, GNA - President John Dramani Mahama has announced the introduction of a Ghana Government paid Leave Allowance of $ 700 to all military ranks on external peacekeeping operations.

Speaking at the 2016 graduation parade of the Ghana Military Academy (GMA) at Teshie in Accra, President Mahama, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces also announced that the Ration Allowance for uniformed personnel had also been increased to GHa 120 and Clothing Allowance for civilian employees has also been increased to GHa 40.

He explained that these adjustments take effect from September 1, and that government would continue to upwardly review other allowances at the right time.

He said government had taken note of some challenges confronting military personnel in the country and had taken various measures to address some of them.

The President recounted that over the past four years, government had taken pragmatic steps to improve the logistics, infrastructure, water supply-especially in Whistler and the Wajir Barracks; roads and sanitation situations in all garrisons.

President Mahama said government would in the next four years assist the Ghana Air Force to establish a flight training school which would be a centre of excellence in West Africa.

"We will also increase the numerical strength of the Ghana Armed Forces and continue to provide the needed up-to-date logistics to facilitate and enhance your performance," President Mahama said.

He urged the graduating officers to live up to expectations and work together for the good of the country.

The graduation was held for cadres of the Regular Career Course (RCC) 56 and Short Service Commission/Special Duties Course 54 graduated into fully fledged officers.

The graduating officers for the RCC were 62; which consist of 29 officers from the Ghana Army, three from Benin and two from Guinea.

The rest are 17 Navy and 11 Air Force Officers from the Ghana Armed Forces.

The officers for the Short Service Commission/Special Duties Course 54 were 38, who were all from Ghana Armed Forces.

Their distribution were Army 21, Navy eight and Air force nine.

Special Senior under Officer Addo Larbi won the Sword of Honour Award.

The GMA was established on April 1, 1960 after years of reliance on foreign Military Academies to commission potential Ghanaian Officers for the Ghana Armed Forces.

The mission of GMA is to produce leaders of character for the defence of Ghana.

GNA
Sunyani, Sept. 18, GNA - A four-day Christ For All Nations (CFAN) crusade would be held in Sunyani from November 3- November 6.

Apostle James Kofi Abbrey, Special Assistant Director for CFAN in Ghana, who announced this in Sunyani said the programme dubbed: ''Greater Peace Gospel Crusade,' is expected to usher in the spirit of peace and tranquillity before, during and after the December 7 general election.

He recalled the history of the formation of the CFAN, a worldwide gospel evangelistic ministry by a German international Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke in 1974 in Gaborone, Botswana.

He said its impact on especially the spiritual lives of Ghanaians and Africans in general had been very tremendous since the past 40 years.

Apostle Abbrey, also the Head Pastor of Divine Builders Bible Church, Accra said the crusade being organised in collaboration with various Christian denominations and associations in the Brong-Ahafo Region 'is divinely ordained to bring salvation, spiritual peace and progress to Ghana'.

They included the Ghana Pentecostal and Christian Council, National Association of Charismatic and Christian Churches, Local Council of Churches and Women's Aglow International.

GNA
DECATUR  Eden the sloth lay splayed out on the table, graceless and unconscious, as a team of people ran their hands over her body.

Veterinary students, visiting from the University of Illinois, felt her fur, lifted her limbs, checked her teeth. Their professor, Dr. Kenneth Welle, needed a couple of tries before he was able to draw blood.

It was all part of a routine physical for Eden, something that has become much easier with renovations and additions to Scovill Zoos treatment room. Those improvements were made possible by the donations of 89-year-old Ramona Borders, who was celebrated at a luncheon earlier this summer.

The only thing I love more than people is animals, she told a room full of zoo staff and friends. Im sorry, but you all take second place.

There was one person in particular that Borders wanted to recognize: her stepson, Mike Borders, who was the zoo director from 1974 to 2008. The room where Eden and the other animals now receive physicals, teeth cleanings and other medical care used to be his bedroom, back in the days when the zoo caretaker lived on site.

If those walls could talk, I think it would be amazing to hear what kind of stories they would tell, said current zoo director Ken Frye. After the room was Borders' bedroom, it became an office, where hirings, firings and animal-related transactions were likely conducted.

Living at the zoo sounds like a blast until someone locks their keys in the car at midnight and knocks on the door to use the phone, joked Borders, 63.

You were always on duty, he said. You were the night watchman, you closed the gates in the park, you opened them up in the morning, youd chase kids out who werent supposed to be in the park at night.

At the July 22 event, Ramona surprised Mike by revealing that the surgery room would be dedicated to him. A plaque hangs there, noting his service to the zoo for 34 years.

The updated room is one of many of Ramona's gifts to the zoo, where she met Mike's father, Joe, during the course of her volunteer work. Over time, she has contributed to the animal care building, fencing for the eagle exhibit, an additional camel, scholarships and more.

It really has been a situation of giving money, but what I really wanted to give was love. I love animals, and this is one of Decaturs greatest assets, she said. For the citizens and the children and everyone, it just gives me great joy to be a part of it and being able to help them keep it up and make improvements and do things.

The staff, I love them dearly. I would adopt every single one of them.

For Welle and the animals, the most recent gifts mean much less stress, faster results and greater convenience. He visits the zoo every two weeks to provide veterinary care.

One major difference: Smaller animals can be anesthesized for minor procedures, rather than being taken to University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Urbana.

There's so many things that we can't do with an awake animal, he said. Dental procedures on a chinchilla or a rabbit; anything with a hedgehog, because they roll up into a ball, and all you have is a ball of spikes.

The room now includes equipment to run the results of fecal and blood tests, so decisions can be made that day instead of waiting two weeks until the next visit. It was expanded during the second stage of renovations, so there is space to hold common medications and supplies.

The extra room also provides a less-cramped learning experience for the veterinary students who accompany Welle.

The room is now equivalent to a hospital treatment room: cleaner than the enclosure and well-suited for wound management and preventive care. Animals still need to be transported for more intense procedures that require a sterile environment.

I would say that its probably 25 percent addressing problems and 75 percent preventative, Welle said. Wed like to get it to 100 percent preventative if we could.
By Kamara Osman Faisal, GNA

Tamale, Sept. 18, GNA - Dotis Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, has donated various items to the Assemblies of God Church at Chogu in Tamale for the upkeep of widows in the mission.

The items, which included bags of rice, soft drinks, learning materials, and baby diapers, were valued at GH1000.

Ms Dorcas Abukari, Founder of Dotis Foundation, who presented the items to the Church in Tamale, said it formed part of her organisation's charity works to show unconditional love as well as address the needs of the underprivileged in the society.

Ms Abukari, a level 400 student of the University for Development Studies, said Dotis Foundation seeks to provide financial and material assistance in the areas of education, health care and social services to the underprivileged.

She spoke about other interventions by the Dotis Foundation, which included the Smile Project implemented in Wa and Karaga Districts where various writing equipment was donated to children, and the Dotis Street Feeding initiative held in Tamale where about 500 beggars were fed.

GNA
Ntronang (E/R), Sept. 18, GNA - Nana Asiedu Akora II, Chief of Ntronang had cut the sod for the construction of a modern kindergarten (KG) school block at the Ntronang Presbyterian Basic School in the Eastern Region.

The project would be undertaken by the Ntiamoah Foundation, a non-governmental organisation into occupational, health and education development in the country.

Mr Yao Atidiga, the Project Officer of the Foundation, told the Ghana News Agency that the school block would consist of classrooms, an office, resting room, storeroom, kitchen and lavatory to accommodate the crAche, KG '1' and '2' as well as a playground.

Mr Robert K. Asante, the Founder of the Ntiamoah Foundation in a speech delivered on his behalf said although some schools in the Birim North District need additional infrastructure, the Ntronang Presbyterian Basic School was more pressing hence the assistance.

Mr Emmanuel Kwabena Agbeko, the Headmaster of the School was thankful to the Chief and the Foundation, saying that the project when completed would boost the morale of the children in learning.

He said the school was established in 1981 with some few pupils but now has a population of about 620 children from the KG, primary and junior high school.

He said the KG alone has about 109 children.

Mr Benjamin Owusu, the Assistant District Director of the Inspectorate Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES) said the provision of the KG block is very important in view of the population of the children.

He commended the Chief for offering the land for the project and the Ntiamoah Foundation for its intervention to take away the burden of the GES in the provision the infrastructure.

GNA
President Buhari, Senate President Saraki & APC Leader Alhaji Tinubu: action, not prayers alone

19.09.2016 LISTEN

Not too long ago, the National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu pleaded with Nigerians to allow President Buhari use his first 100 days in office as his honeymoon period, to study the state of affairs in the country before executing his change agenda. And characteristically, they did. Nigerians would do anything their leaders request for them to have a life.

But now, most Nigerians are getting worried. Is the honeymoon not over yet?

So many things which should have happened to usher in the sort of change Nigerians dreamed about and voted for more than a year ago have not happened. And so many things which shouldnt have happened have happened in recent times  things that bring the seriousness of the change Nigerians voted for into deep question.

One thing is obvious though. The men and women Nigerians have so unfortunately saddled with the mantle of leadership, to take the responsibility of managing the affairs of the country, are a group of selfish party cronies whose only interest is in making money and more money and more money out of the sufferings and penury of their less fortunate countrymen and women. They are neither interested in building up a united nation where justice would reign, nor are they interested in the welfare of the ordinary citizens of their country.

Many Nigerians had expected that by now President Buhari would have put in place the first blocks towards a genuine unity of the country by building a bridge across the ethnic differences which made it difficult for Nigerians to merge properly all these years. No one knows this better than those in public office. They know that one simple but effective way to build that bridge is to legislate on the three main Nigerian languages being made compulsorily taught at primary school levels across the nation. In such a way, young Nigerian children will no longer be able to see themselves as Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba. And in about 10 years time, the foundation would have been laid for a meaningful, painless integration of the ethnic groups that Britain lumped together as Nigeria. That is one thing that should have happened to usher in the change that Nigerians dreamed of. But it has not happened.

Nigeria is the only country I know where the servicing of the needs of the people starts from up and flows down. In many other democratic countries, whatever money is available goes to service the lowest segment of the country first and moves systematically up. Public schools are serviced. Public libraries are serviced. Government ensures that roads, public transportations, water supply, electric supply and basic essentials like amusement parks are serviced and that the ordinary people lack nothing that would have made them happier and more confident in the government they voted to take care of their affairs. But in Nigeria, available funds first go to service the office of the President, then the Vice President, down to the senators and the members of the House of Representatives. Then it runs down to the office of the governor, and the members of the State Houses of Assembly. By the time it comes to servicing the needs of the ordinary citizens, the money has run out. And they are left to suffer as usual. That is the number two change Nigerians expected to happen. But it has not happened

Nigerian legislators are widely known as the highest paid in the world. Many people have asked them to deny or accept the allegation as true. They keep evading public knowledge of their income and how it is made up. In many democratic nations, they would either obey their constituents or their mandate would be withdrawn by the same people who voted them into power leaving no doubt that the voter is politically stronger than the voted. Why are Nigerian legislators afraid of making their income public knowledge? If by public estimation they are milking the national economy dry through their oversize wages, why would they be afraid of cutting their wages to a normal and nationally acceptable level. For instance, if they take the income of a legislator in America, one in the United Kingdom, one in Saudi Arabia, one in Australia, one in Israel and one in South Africa and take their average as the maximum pay for a Nigerian legislator, what could possibly be wrong with such an arrangement? That is the number three change Nigerians wanted to happen. But it has not happened.

Rather, President Buhari tells the world change should start from him. And the question is why? What is there to change in a man who has been there and practically seen it all  from being a military officer, to being an oil minister to being a military head of state and now a civilian head of state.

Since his inauguration, the President has been chasing after corrupt politicians and businessmen. No one knows after these months how much has been realised. No one knows where the money is meant to stay or what use the government wants to make of it. But Nigerians know that similar recoveries in the past have always gone back into the pockets of the ruling cabals. That is why the military kept striking, either for the greed of money or for power and the spoils that come with it, or for reprisal, to square up with a sworn opponent. But now, it has become necessary to remind President Buhari and his APC government that recovery of stolen money cannot be categorised as change by any stretch of the imagination. Recovery of stolen money was not exactly what Nigerians had at the back of their minds, or what they bargained for when they voted for change.

Oh yes! From the look of things, Nigerian leaders will eventually not implement the change Nigerians desired and voted for because they have a mission. They have a mission that is partly a legacy from the countrys military bosses who mastered the ropes after so many years of interference in the democratic evolution of the country. While, I do not wish to stoke any fire of discontent among Nigerian citizens, is it not necessary to observe for instance that ever since the case was made to investigate the Senate President on certain charges, nothing seems to be happening? Is anyone in doubt why this is the case? It is because birds of the same feather must congregate in unison. The mission is somewhat obvious. But the road is definitely more obvious.

Nigerian leaders know that if those in public office and their criminal-minded business accomplices balkanise the country by creating a two-class system of very rich families and very poor families, sooner than later they would hit their target. For the rich families, millions of naira or dollars or even pounds must be like peanuts. In such a way, they can always intimidate, bluff or swagger their way. In some instances, they could even apply the use of impunity to get what they want.

Those of us in the Diaspora who spend sleepless nights working ourselves out for a mere pittance know how it feels to save enough to be able to come back to Nigeria on vacation, just to see and be with our people for a few weeks. And we know that the leaders in Nigeria are not sincere about building a strong and united country. They are only serious about setting up a high class of very rich families and a low class of very poor families. And that is why the country has become a paradox  the richer the country is, the poorer the citizens. The money is shared up there.

Down there, the people have not only to accept their fate as God-ordained, they are also expected to sing the praises of the rich and influential in their society. The reason is what Professor Chinua Achebe rightly observed in his last book: There was a Country that once a people have been dispossessed and subjected to dictatorships for such a long time as in Nigerias case, the oppressive process also effectively strips away from the minds of the people the knowledge that they have rights.

After the bruises military interregnum inflicted on the country, Nigerian leaders still do not want to unite Nigeria despite their claim that to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be accomplished. I guess it is because it pays them to operate as sectional or ethnic leaders. Then they can negotiate. Then they can be paid off. Then they can stuff their pockets with plenty of money. For them, any talk of building a genuine one Nigeria with a central identity will rob them of wealth and they would not, even in their dreams, support such an idea.

So, who is deceiving who? The United Nations will soon host a meeting along with President Obama to find ways of appealing to freer nations to accommodate the over 64 million people worldwide who have been displaced from their homelands by insurgencies across the globe. Nigerian refugees could be among them, displaced by the activities of the dreaded monster they call Boko Haram.

If members of the UN knew what is actually going on in some of these countries as I believe they do, would merely appealing to nations do any good? They need to study the true situation of things closely to be able to find the right panacea.

In a country like Nigeria, since the ethnic type of leadership cannot go away, why should the Hausa, the Igbo and the Yoruba not go their separate ways and negotiate proper as ethnic identities? Since what is actually happening is that ethnic leaders are finding it impossible to break with their ethnic authority and allegiances, why must the international community not recognise the truth and stamp it with the authority of legality? Why must ethnic leadership continue to define Nigerias uncertain political terrain or for that matter, Buharis change agenda?
Florence Nightingale is the goddess of the nursing profession. She is profoundly referred to as the mother of nursing because she laid the foundation and standard for modern nursing and today she is celebrated and remembered for the many things she did in pioneering nursing. At her early age she began caring for sick people in the nearby villages of her parents home. At age 16 she knew nursing was her calling.

For her selfless love to care for the sick, her zeal to help the sick and her burning desire of unflinching compassion demonstrated to wounded soldiers and the sick in the war of Crimea, she was nicknamed the lady with the lamp and the angel of Crimea.

Florence Nightingale is a prototype of a good nurse and her biography explicitly and unequivocally embodies the saying that nursing is a call. She defines nursing as a calling because she had the inner desire and devoted herself to serving people and the sick.

Nursing is a calling because not everyone has a humane heart to be become a nurse.

The bad nuts who are defacing the image and dignity of the nursing profession are those who entered the profession by accident or as a stepping stone due to economic pressure or lack of job opportunities.

To become a nurse you have to have a deep desire to help people, love, care and compassion. You see people problems as your problems and always willing to help them irrespective of where they are coming from. You dont see others problems through religious lens, political lens or racial lens. Such are the intrinsic qualities to becoming a nurse. A true called nurse has a genuine clean heart and cares for his patients selflessly and whole-heartedly. A true nurse put himself in his patients shoes and feel their plights.

That is what the life of Florence Nightingale teaches nurses today. She earned the name the lady with the lamp because she cared so much that she carried a lamp and went round at night to check on her patients (wounded soldiers). Today nurses have world class smartphones with torchlights but what do we see when there is lights out during night shifts.

Nursing as a profession has evolved through many phases from the Nightingales era to the 21st century both theoretically and practically. The earlier female dominance in the profession as was known is almost a thing of the past. Nursing is no more thought to be a reserve for women only. Men are closing the gap even in midwifery, a specialty whose clients are only women, as far as childbirth and care of mothers are concerned.

There are many categories of nurses in contemporary times and taking Ghana as a case study, there are the psychiatric nurses, general nurses, midwives, community nurses, enrolled nurses and what have you. Some of these nurses can further their education and become EN&T nurses, nurse anaesthetists, ophthalmic nurses, nurse prescribers, physician assistants, public health nurses and many others.

Other nurses fall in the unspecified category. They are the products of the private mushroom nursing schools whose award is certificate in National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) in health. Nurses from these mushroom schools with certificate in NVTI have been described by some sections as wandering nurses.

Nurses play a major and crucial role in the health care delivery system. Despite their differences and specialties, they all work towards one goal; to prevent illness, to promote health and to ensure recovery and rehabilitation. Nurses are lifesavers.

Two categories of these descendants from Florence Nightingale is the concern of this musing. This article seeks to juxtapose the two sister nurses, the psychiatric nurses and the general nurses in their scope of work in an objective perspective without any shred of intend to downplay any category.

The comparison is not based on any scientific research than mere observation and experience.

These two category of nurses share some similarities in the area of medicine, surgery, public health, basic nursing, obstetrics and gynaecology, and psychiatry. But they differ in some aspect.

Both psychiatric nurses and general nurses spend three years in their course training to become fully fledged nurses with their licence to practice after qualifying the licensure exams conducted by their regulatory body, Nurses and Midwifery Council (NMC). They all go through additional one year mandatory national service in any part of the country before gaining employment.

The training of psychiatric nurses is an integrated one. The programme is a blend of general nursing and psychiatric nursing. Psychiatric nurses do not only learn psychiatry but are also taught in medicine, surgery, public health, basic nursing, obstetrics and gynaecology, etc. as well as the practical aspect of general nursing.

General Nurses also learn all the above courses in the three year programme with little time for psychiatry.

Whiles the psychiatric nurses learn about 80 percent of general nursing, general nurses lean about 10 percent of psychiatric nursing.

The general nurses work in general hospitals whiles the psychiatric nurses work in psychiatric hospitals and in the general hospital as well. Though general nurses also work in psychiatric hospitals, they are scarce as compared to the number of psychiatric nurses working in the general hospitals. Suffice it to say that the psychiatric nurse is a versatile nurse whose adaptability defies all nursing barriers. Psychiatric nurses can work in every environment as far as health care delivery is concerned.

Apart from working in the general wards, psychiatric nurses also work in psychiatric wings in the regional hospitals, community psychiatric units in health centres and district hospitals dotted across the country.

In terms of workload general nurses are confronted with more work than psychiatric nurses. They really perform and define basic nursing in the wards since most of their patients are either bedridden or vegetative. Some patients maybe unconscious or in coma. Patients who have undergone major surgeries are also confined to bed for healing process to take place. These patients are bed bathed, fed, given medications, wound dressing, served bedpan when they need to empty their bowels, take blood samples, change bed sheets when dirty or soiled with urine or faeces, collect vomitus, monitored closely and so forth all by the general nurse.

This make the general nurses highly prone to infections. The situation becomes dire in facilities where the word improvise is sung like Pentecost hymn. No gloves, no protective garment, no alternative source of light when there is lights out at night, yet the nurse is supposed to attend to those infectious patients. Sometimes two nurses on night duty against forty patients.

Psychiatric nurses on the other hand, though faces similar situations, such cases are rare like mice in a church room. They are also prone to infections and improvise more than the general nurses. But the case of general nurses outweighs that of psychiatric nurses. Most psychiatric patients can perform some chores by themselves but they need supervision by the nurse. Those that are unable are guided and guarded to perform. This is essential to ensure early recovery and reintegration. It also avert institutional neurosis, a situation where mental patients become dependable and passive due to long stay in a psychiatric hospital.

General nurses are prone to occupational stress whereas psychiatric nurses relatively release stress at work. Some mental patients in the acute wards can be a source of fun. The bizarre mannerisms, antics display and the pseudo-inflated ego of some deluded mental patients are irresistible to pop up ones cheeks. In the case of general nurses, the workload and many tasks to perform by few nurses especially in understaffed facilities induce stress.

Psychiatric nurses are more understandable and accommodating than general nurses. The general nurses deem their patients and relatives as normal persons thus expect them to behave but disease conditions can make patients frustrated and irritable. Some general nurses are not able to condone such splenetic jibes from patients and their relative and sometimes resort to applying Newtons third law of motion.

Unlike general nurses, psychiatric nurses are more tolerable and can take barrage of nonsense either from patients or their relative without a freak. The psychiatric nurse presumes every human as a mad person until proving otherwise. They understand human behaviour and hence believe that every behaviour is meaningful to the person exhibiting it. This is attributable to the fact that psychiatric nurses are trained in abnormal psychology and ought to understand human behaviour better.

Psychiatric nurses suffer stigma just like their patients. It is the perception of many that psychiatric nurses also develop mental illness once they care for mad people. Contrary, general nurses seem to earn more respect from the public than their sisters.

Both general nurses and psychiatric nurses care so much about their patients but psychiatric nurses seem to care more and have the extra patience to approach their patients and find out their problems. It is no joke when a mental patient refuses food and tells the nurse that he has no mouth or stomach to eat the food. The psychiatric nurse must move heaven and earth to conjure all the words to persuade him to eat.

Notwithstanding these minor differences, nurses in general, irrespective of the category and area of expertise remain an integral part of health care delivery system. Nurses are intelligent. They are the pillars that anchor patients health to recovery. No category of nurses is better or superior to the other. Each nurse is unique, innovative and creative and performs well at any given time and anywhere.

However a nurse output is determine by the facility and logistics to work with. Availability of basic logistics such as gloves, disinfectants, gauze and bandages, cotton, plasters, et cetera, good working condition and incentives boosts a nurse morale to give out his best.

God bless all nurses!

The writer, Malcolm Akatinga is a staff nurse at Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital, Cape Coast.

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: Malcolm Chibaro Ali

Malcolm Akatinga.
19.09.2016 LISTEN

Ghana-born actress and film producer Maame Adjei is off to South Africa to film the next season of her travel web series 'Girl Going Places'.

Adjei is better known for co-producing 'An African City' and starring as Zainab in the production dubbed the African version of Sex and the City. But the Ghanaian-American is also carving a name for herself as a bit of a travel guru. Her aim is to encourage more Africans to visit destinations within their home continent.

Travelling culture

Adjei believes Ghanaians do not tend to travel internally for pleasure or leisure because it is just not part of our culture, she said. My mother would never go to the north unless its for work or a funeral. You dont just get up one day and say: hey lets take a trip And thats an issue because when we have someone from say Norway who drops in Ghana gets on a trotro and next thing you know is in Tamale and tells a story about Tamale that you dont like, you cant blame them. Theyre telling it from their perspective  so how about you as a Ghanaian go to Tamale so you can tell your own story and own that story.

Destination Ghana

Girl Going Places first hit the web earlier this year and has already attracted a growing following. The first series consists of six episodes featuring a mix of Ghanaian destinations Adjei visited for the first time, her favourite eateries and spots for buying locally-made fashion. It is something like a guide for coming to Ghana, she said.

Although born in Ghana, Adjei moved to the UK in her teens and then to the US for university. She has a BA is Psychology and a MS in Healthcare/ Finance Administration. After over a decade in the US, she decided to return home for good, touching down on home soil in December 2012. From there, she cultivated a love for exploring the country of her birth.

I decided to take the rest of 2013 off after I moved and the only thing I wanted to do was travel around Ghana," she said. "As I started travelling, I started thinking I should document this because I was travelling around, I was telling my peers, my friends, my family who had no idea that these places existed - no idea where they were. So I thought it was a good idea to document it and reemphasise the importance of us travelling our own space first.

Favourite destination

Her first and favourite trip so far has been her visit to Likpe  a town in Ghanas Volta region. I loved it because I had no idea what to expect, she said. I knew that I was going to see caves but when I got there, I didnt realise it was a hike  an hour hike! When I finally got up the mountain, the views of Ghana from there were the most amazing views that Ive ever seen. And I just remember I kept standing there and thinking  Im in Ghanathis is my countrythis is my country for real! It was actually my first trip so that always stays with me - just recognising that there are just so many amazing, beautiful and dynamic spaces in my own country.

African cities

The first season has been well received and has already spurred some Ghanaians to explore their country.

Somebody actually got in their car and drove from Accra to Likpe to go and see the caves, she said. And I remember when I saw that I actually cried. This is the purpose. This is what I want. Even if one person says, this is crazy, Ive never been to Aburi and just after the show they do that  I feel my job is done.

Adjei is currently preparing for season two but viewers can expect a little twist. Next season, I will be going to eight different African cities. Ghana was sort of a pilot season now I want to its about the continent. she said.

She will be travelling to Durban in South Africa on 8 November as the first port of call with the other destinations following after.

Adjei has a lot of plans for Girl Going Places and although she wants her web series to continue having an online home, she hopes to turn it into a TV series.

Artistic handiwork

She also dabbles in reupholstering furniture, a hobby she cultivated as a 'mental health release' while living in Philadelphia, US.

I am a big fan of vintage so I was thrifting a lot and its something that I kind of fell into, she said. I started reupholstering furniture for myself throughout my house and people would come, see what Id done and ask me to do things for them. So when I came to Ghana, I think not too long after that the Chale Wote festival came around, an architect friend who was participating in the festival approached me about collaborating on something.

Chale Wote is an alternative platform that brings art, music, dance and performance out of the galleries and onto the streets of James Town in Accra.

For the 2013 event, I made giant chairs and then for 2014, I found these wooden crates that were used to hold mineral bottles back in the day. I found a whole crate of them that some lady was going to burn for firewood and I used those to create benches and put plants in them.

Adjei hasnt ruled out pursuing a project that harnesses these creative skills ... once she has more time on her hands. But for now, she is busy with 'An African City', which is entering its third season.

Dynamic characters

The programme, which is a co-production with Nicole Amarteifio launched in 2014. It charts the experiences of five successful and professional women who return to Ghana from the West to settle. The cast includes journalist Nana Yaa, Harvard graduate and marketing manager Sade, Ngozi, who works for an international development agency, Oxford graduate and lawyer Makena, and of course entrepreneur Zainab.

Adjei remains tight-lipped on what fans can expect moving forward, however.

Now we are in the process of writing season three. Hopefully we will start production soon. I cant tell you anything but it is going to feature more dynamic stories, new characters. Every season we want to introduce new characters that mingle within the dynamic of the five girls," she said.

Home sweet home

Like the characters in An African City, Adjei does not regret returning to Ghana. She said the turning point came when she landed in the US from a previous trip to Ghana and saw her car parked at the airport covered in ice. "I was in tears," she said. It is from there that she decided to return home. Her advice to others considering returning to their roots is simple.

Be clear on what it is you want to do," she said. "What in your wildest dreams would you want to accomplish in Ghana. "Once you know that just hit the ground running, fear nothing, if things are not moving at the pace that you are used to do not discouraged because you know we move at a different pace. Things take three times longer. Network, find people who are interested in what you are doing. But I think the biggest thing is not to give up because it is so easy to get frustrated and think, I cant find the money for this, I cant find somebody who can do this. So you just have to focus, dont give up and I think you will be fine.

Kirsty Osei-Bempong is a journalist and blogger at MisBeee Writes .
you are here:
WASHINGTON  Theres millions in campaign cash out there, sitting in limbo without a presidential campaign to call home.

Its the money raised by candidates such as Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who did not win their party nominations, and left behind when they dropped out.

So what happens to it? Can the candidate use it to buy a beach house? Give it to Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? Or use it for another campaign themselves?

My suspicion is that some of them are sitting on the money, said Larry Noble, former chief counsel of the Federal Election Commission and general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center.

Any presidential loser with money left in the bank can use it for a future bid for office, donate it to a charity or political party, or contribute it to another candidate.

Cruz transferred nearly $3 million from his presidential campaign to his Senate campaign committee. Sanders used leftover money to send delegates to the Democratic National Convention in late July.

They can also use it to wind down political operations, said Viveca Novak, editorial and communications director at the Center for Responsive Politics.

Sanders has by far the most money in the bank of the defeated candidates  more than $6 million as of July 31. Despite conceding to Hillary Clinton early in the month, Sanders raised more than $1.1 million from July 1 to 31, FEC records show.

While Sanders can go out and speak for other candidates such as Clinton, Noble said, he cannot simply transfer his campaign war chest to the Democratic nominees account.

While some candidates end up with cash left over, many run into debt by the time they choose to drop out of the race.

Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker all racked up debt since halting their presidential bids, although all except Bush are currently holding office, which makes it easier to raise funds.

They can try to raise contributions after they dropped out, but thats very hard to do, Noble said. What a lot of them do is carry the debt, and if they decide to run for another federal office they transfer the debt.

Clinton had nearly $25 million in debt after her failed presidential run in 2008. That sum was paid off in 2013, about 18 months before she formally declared her candidacy for 2016. Another presidential loser, Republican Newt Gingrich, will never pay $4.6 million in debt from his 2012 campaign. Gingrich will not face any civil or criminal action for stiffing businesses that provided services to his campaign like yard signs and phone-banking.

Its a rough situation for vendors, Noble said. If you have a losing campaign you may not get paid.

None of the 2016 candidates has as much debt as Clinton or Gingrich did.

Campaign committees are unable to accept contributions from super PACs, political entities that can raise unlimited amounts of money from well-heeled donors, to cancel their debts. That leaves millions of dollars floating around without any candidate to support.

Jeb Bushs super PAC, Right to Rise, had more than $3 million left in the bank as of July 31. It wouldnt be against the law for Bushs super PAC to throw a $3 million party for itself, but then the PACs founders would have to face the wrath of donors.

Some of them probably sit on the money, Noble said. They cannot give money to federal candidates but can give to state candidates. In some circumstances, they can give it to other party committees or they can keep the money in the super PAC.

For example, Rubios presidential super PAC transferred $800,000  and most of its staff  to a separate super PAC supporting his last-minute Senate bid in July.

In addition to Bushs super PAC, two super PACs supporting Paul have more than $2 million combined and seven other super PACs supporting other presidential also-rans each have at least six figures to spend.

Due to the rancor of the Republican primaries and candidates such as Bush publicly saying they wont support nominee Trump, Noble said that lots of super PAC money would sit around until the next election cycle, or go to super PACs not affiliated with the presidential race.

Vanquished candidate committees and their associated super PACs have one other option for unspent campaign donations.

They can always return it to the donors, Noble said.
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Sunny to partly cloudy. High 78F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. Low 53F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Hello Everyone,

My first film of my final day of screenings was PLANETARIUM  directed by Rebecca Zlotwoski and starring Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp. This is the story of two sisters who are mediums living in France and their relationship with a film producer. Though the concept is intriguing (sometimes you have to turn off the lights to see something was an early quote that had promise) and I liked moments of the film, this was the biggest mess I saw at TIFF. I dont know what happened, but about an hour in, I felt like there were several films happening at once  and not in a good way. There were also a couple moments where Portman let out laughs that seemed like she was becoming completely unhingednot her character, but Portman herself. Attempts at kinda sexy/kinda creepy were in full swing  but the results were mostly just on the creepy end of the spectrum, and I eventually couldnt wait for it to end. Heres a trailerbut youll have no idea whats in store.

THE SECRET SCRIPTURE, directed by Jim Sheridan, was my second film of the day. It was also Rooney Maras third film in this years festival. Though Rooney was the star of the film, it was Vanessa Redgrave who shined. This is the story of an older woman in a mental institution who has keep a journal in between the lines and in the margins of her Bible. One of the first quotes we get from her journal is I did not kill my child. Through a series of flashbacks, we see her as a younger woman in the 1940s. A true beauty, she turns heads everywhere she goes, and people in the town are quick to call her a whoreincluding the towns priest who is clearly infatuated with her. Though I felt the story got a little muddled, its ultimately beautifully told and will easily find fans. The Q&A with Jim Sheridan was a treat. With Irish accent seemed to forgive all of his foul-mouthed responses, and the stories of working with actors (Vanessa Redgrave and the children from IN AMERICA in particular) were fantastic and full of insight. Theres no trailer for this film yet, but heres a still.

My last film of the fest was THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM, directed by Juan Carlos Medina and starring Bill Nighy & Olivia Cooke (ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL). In Victorian-era London, a detective has been given his first murder case  a case that has the city on edge as a serial killer is performing more and more heinous acts. This beautifully styled period piece is a far cry from what youd expect given the costumes and set-pieces. With lots of blood and gory details of the crimes, its at times unsettling but ultimately rather predictable. There are some moments that should be bigbut the materials isnt thereso the decision was to over-score them  which actually ends up detracting from the scenes in question. I wanted to like this film more, but I came out feeling it was really quite average. Theres no trailer for this film yet, so heres a still. (Upon looking for images from the film, I found out that Alan Rickman was originally supposed to play the part of the detective  which would have added a different level of eeriness.)

And so my screenings have come to an end.

I saw 30 films (not counting the two I walked out of), I met several great folks in the industry, I saw numerous big stars and directors, and I ate a lot of poutine. In all, it was an incredible trip.

So heres the wrap-up. (All categories have films listed in the order in which I saw them.) My 3 favorites were: MOONLIGHT, NOCTURNAL ANIMALS and LA LA LAND. Close behind were JULIETA, LOVING and SOUVENIR (BIRTH OF A NATION would be on this list, but I actually saw it several weeks ago and not at TIFF). Some really good films that are 100% worth viewing but didnt make it to the very top of my list are MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, FRANTZ, LION, A UNITED KINGDOM, THEIR FINEST, MAUDIE, PATERSON, JACKIE, and UNKNOWN GIRL. For the other 15 films and how I felt about them, youll have to back-track through my blog.

Thanks so much for reading, and I appreciate your continued interest in THE NEON.

All the best,

Jonathan
The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Greater Dayton Region Chapter just announced the honorees to be celebrated at the 2016 National Philanthropy Day (NPD) Annual Awards Luncheon.

s the day that thousands of people around the world come together to both (1) put that word into action and (2) recognize the change that word has brought to our communities.

NPD is a celebration of philanthropygiving, volunteering and charitable engagementthat highlights the accomplishments, large and small, that philanthropyand all those involved in the philanthropic processmakes to our society and our world.

Outstanding Philanthropist: The Mills Family

As hosts of the Gala of Hope at their home in Beavercreek, The Mills hope to set cancer in the sunset. This event this year raised a record breaking $1.3 million dollars. Bob was named Man of the Year in 2011 for raising the most money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Barbara has led trips to Mexico with the charity Youth With a Mission. Just a glimpse at the generosity the Mills family shares with our community

Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser: Lisa Orr

A Dayton native and CJ Alum, Lisa has spent her career in banking, and much of her leisure time volunteering for her church, Aullwood, the Red Cross, Vandalia Butler Schools, the Vandalia Food Pantry and sits on the board of Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation Board and the Goodwill Easter seals Development Committee. She also chaired CJs 40th Reunion.



Outstanding Fundraising Executive: Jena Pado

Since moving back to Dayton 11 years ago, Jena has been dedicated to help Dayton Childrens raise millions of dollars to improve childrens health in the region. As the Chief Development Office she is leading the $25 million Reaching New Heights campaign, the largest in the hospitals history.

Outstanding Foundation: Yellow Springs Community Foundation

Founded in 1974 to benefit the citizens and community of Yellow Springs and Miami Township. They do so by helping the elderly, the young, the sick, and the socially disadvantaged; promoting the arts and other cultural activities; promoting scientific research; providing scholarships; supporting public recreation, conservation, and environmental improvement.



Outstanding Large Corporation: Heidelberg Distributing

From one man and one truck, this family owned Ohio business has grown through mergers, acquisitions and industry consolidation to now employing over 1600. They live their motto When you celebrate . . . were there! by supporting our communities not-for-profit organizations that work hard to bring services, arts, education, research and hope to our neighbors.



*Tie* Outstanding Small Corporation:

The Cornell/Nicholson Team at USB Financial Services

Over forty years ago, Tim Cornell launched his financial services career and in 1980, he convinced his cousin, Shaun Nicholson, to join his growing practice. Today, their team has grown to 17 members. Each year they partner with a charity of choice and dedicate a year of philanthropy to that organization. Theyve helped raise over $20,000 for A Special Wish Foundation and created the Catch A Rising Star gala for WDPR Classical Radio.

C-3 Group



This small but mighty team (their words) is passionate about driving results and over the years, theyve helped brands of all sorts, from local and international to corporate and non-profit, find success. In October 2013, they introduced the C-3 Cares initiative  a program to serve non-profits in the Dayton area by producing marketing materials such as websites, print pieces, social media training and consulting, branding, and more. Each year they sponsoring a pro bono project for a deserving and qualified Miami Valley charitable organization.To date, they have donated over $40,000 in award-winning projects and services under this program.

Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy

(18-23): Jessica Waters

(5-17): Owen Mockabee

Special Service Award: Lt. Gen (ret) Richard VanFleet Reynolds

The Dayton Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals will celebrate the winners during the annual National Philanthropy Day luncheon, which will be held on Tuesday, November 15th from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm at Sinclair Community College Ponitz Center (444 W 3rd St, Dayton, OH 45402)

Tickets can be purchased starting the week of September 19th at www.afpdayton.org/npd.html.

Sponsorships and tables are available as well. For sponsorship information, please contact Luke Dennis at ldennis@wyso.org or Michelle Cella at m.cella@gesmv.org. You can also visit the AFP Dayton website.

About the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater Dayton Region Chapter

Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), an association of professionals throughout the world, advances philanthropy by enabling people and organizations to practice ethical and effective fundraising. The core activities through which AFP fulfills this mission include education, training, mentoring, research, credentialing and advocacy. Since 1989, development professionals, consultants, board members and nonprofit executives alike have joined the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Greater Dayton Region Chapter in order to share best practices and stay up-to-date with current fundraising tactics, trends and strategies. AFP provides both local fundraisers and local funders the opportunity to connect and learn from each other as they work to improve the quality of life for everyone who lives, works and plays in the Greater Dayton Region.
By Amalya Margaryan

A Yerevan court has rejected parole for Alik Grigoryan, who has served 18 years imprisonment on charges of engaging in criminal activities as a member of the Armen Ter-Sahakyan gang.

In court, Grigoryan made the case that he has been a model prisoner and hasnt received any reprimands for the past five years.

Armen Petrosyan, a representative of the Nubarashen Penitentiary, where Grigoryan is serving a life sentence, noted that the convict had received two reprimands for violating prison rules in 2011.

Grigoryan told the court that he wants to be released in order to take care of his son, wounded by an Azerbaijani sniper.
NRG Energy won its bid of up to $188 million to acquire a massive West Texas solar farm and other renewable energy projects throughout the country from bankrupt SunEdison.

The deal still needs final approval in bankruptcy court, but NRG would acquire the 200-megawatt Buckthorn solar farm in Pecos County. The delayed solar project, which is slated for completion next year, would make the city of Georgetown, a community of 60,000 people, the largest municipality in the nation powered solely by renewable sources. One megawatt can typically power 200 homes on the hottest Texas days.

The $144 million deal, which would grow to $188 million if milestone benchmarks are met, also includes solar and wind projects in Utah, Washington, California, Maine and Hawaii. The discount for NRG is steep because most of the projects remain in development and require additional investment.

As for NRG, the Houston and New Jersey-based utility giant seemingly stepped back from renewable power in December when the chief executive, David Crane, was ousted. And, while NRG has backed off somewhat from Cranes pet projects for residential solar and electric car-charging stations, NRG is still investing in utility-scale solar and wind. New CEO Mauricio Gutierrez is adamant the company is dedicated to growing in green power.

NRG spokesman Erik Linden said in a statement the pending acquistion further reaffirms our ongoing leadership and commitment to renewable energy,

Although NRG already owns some wind projects in Texas, the deal would give NRG its first solar footprint in Texas.

Missouri-based SunEdison rapidly became the fastest-growing renewable power developer in the world, but the company grew too fast for its own good before many of its assets could become profitable. Hemorrhaging money, SunEdison filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April.

NRG warned the deal needs to get done quickly because Buckthorn is supposed to become operational in April 2017, and the deal with Georgetown is terminated if its not producing power by late October, 2017.

SunEdison scheduled two major solar projects in Texas to begin operations this year, but both were delayed at least into 2017. The other is the 116-megawatt Castle Gap solar farm in West Texas thats supposed to sell power to Dallas-based Luminant. But NRG isnt trying to buy that one as part of this deal.

SunEdison also is building the two phases of the 500-megawatt South Plains Wind farm in Floyd County near Lubbock, but its status is unclear. The Route 66 Wind project in the Texas Panhandle was completed this year, but SunEdison sold a majority stake in it to JPMorgan Asset Management.
Family members:Manuel, Alyssa, Leila (8), and Lola (4) Luna

1. How long have you lived in Midland?

Midland has been our home for the past four years.

2. Number of children (ages, grades and schools)?

We have two daughters. Leila is 8 and is a 3rd grader at Santa Rita Elementary. Lola is 4 and attends #1 Wee Care Learning Center's pre-k program.

3. Where do you work?

Alyssa works for the Chamber of Commerce as a Membership and Finance Specialist and I work for VisitMidland as a Sales Specialist.

4. Where did you grow up and what was education like in that community?

We both grew up in Odessa and both feel like education was a big part of our lives and the community. We were always encouraged by our parents to do well in school and to participate in extracurricular activities. Not only did our parents place an emphasis on education we felt like the community did as well. You could see that in the schools we attended, our teachers and around town.

5. How are you involved in your childrens education?

A few ways we are involved is that one of us sits down with our oldest to go over homework, listen to a story being read, or just talk to her on what she learned that day at school. We try to give the youngest something to do during that time as well. Whether it's coloring or writing on paper. We want to include her in the homework activities. We also review the graded work being sent home for both girls to ensure they understand the content being taught. Which helps us know the curriculum. We are involved at the school as well whether it's preparing a stage for a program, attending PTA meetings, fundraisers, or just encouraging the kids on field day.

Q & A

What are your thoughts about education in Midland right now?

The past four years we are thankful that our daughter has experienced passionate teachers who are invested in the children's lives that they teach. However, after attending an Educate Midland meeting we see that there is a need for improvement across all grades to meet and eventually exceed state performance standards.

What do your friends think about the TRE?

We have many friends that support the TRE and understand the impact it would make on the community.

What do you say to those who are undecided about voting?

We would say to them that this effects ALL Midlanders especially the children. Whether you have children in MISD or not it is imperative that all children receive a quality education. Not all students will attend college but with a quality education provided by the district they too will be able to contribute to this community. For those who wish to attend college they will have an education where they will be able to succeed at the next level with other students from across the state and country.

How has your attitude about education changed over the years?

Our parents have always made education a priority in our lives. Now that we have our own children we understand that even more so. But it's not only about our children's education but all children's. Education is the foundation for any community. If there is not a good education system in place, it will be hard to bring businesses to the area, which in return would create more jobs. It will also be difficult to recruit employees and their families for employment needs.

What do you say to those who have little confidence in the district due to academic performance issues?

We would say to them it is even more a reason to support the TRE. Our district faces many challenges and they need the support from the community. We want our situation to get better, not worse. We want to provide our teachers and students the best environment to excel. The way it can happen will be with smaller classrooms, retaining our teachers but creating a district where we can recruit quality educators. We have to provide an education system were our children can succeed in life.

What impact did the Scharbauer Foundations $10 million donation have on you?

It showed us that there are people in community that know the importance of education to Midland's future. Financially it took care of an immediate need. It rescued Midland by providing the district with funding so disastrous cuts would not have to be put in place. It also gave the community the opportunity to vote for .03 cents ($46.00 a year for a $200,000 property) to provide funding for our needs now and our future.

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Early Voting September 21st - October 4th

Election Day is October 8th
Nearly 200 yards long, the first of the new fleet of so-called dragon-class ships have begun shipping ethane derived from Texas shale gas to feed Europes struggling petrochemical sector.

The United States shale gas revolution created an oversupply of ethane despite a bevy of new chemical plants built along the Gulf Coast. Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners teamed with Switzerland-based Ineos to ship a lot of that excess ethane to plants in Europe and Asia.

Enterprise built the worlds largest ethane export terminal in Morgans Point and Ineos commissioned the construction of eight, long-but-lean ethane cargo ships. They were built in China and sport narrow, flowing frames reminiscent of Chinese dragon imagery.

The first of the ships, the Ineos Intrepid, left the Houston Ship Channel on Sept. 1 with its maiden shipment, 265,000 barrels bound for Norway. In large lettering along its hull, the Intrepid touts Shale gas for progress.

Ineos also will carry ethane to its facilities in Grangemouth, Scotland.

The dragon-class ships create a virtual pipeline across the Atlantic, said Steve Lewandowski, a senior director for chemicals at the IHS Markit research firm, in a new report this week.

Theyre designed long but thin so they can carry a lot of cargo but still squeeze into tight waterways. The engines can run on ethane as well.

Ethane is derived from natural gas and is used primarily to make ethylene, the primary building block of most plastics.

The ethane supply for the new terminal comes mostly from Enterprises natural gas liquids processing and storage complex in Mont Belvieu, from where its transported through a new 18-mile pipeline completed in February.
Midland ISD students who are fathers can now opt to join parenthood classes. The district launched the 24/7 Dad program Monday to provide support for teen dads until high school graduation.

Martin Castaneda, fatherhood engagement coordinator for First 5 Permian Basin at University of Texas of the Permian Basin, said there was a need to introduce a program for teen dads in Midland schools.

We found it was one of the most underserved demographics out there, Castaneda said. We thought we should help those guys, seeing that fathers have an impact on a childs life.

Any male MISD student who is expecting or has a child can voluntarily join the program. Sessions are offered once a week at Coleman, Lee and Midland high schools during rotating class periods. Discussion topics include pregnancy, discipline and relationships with female partners.

Castaneda is partnering with XY-Zone  a program for at-risk males in MISD  to incorporate sessions into class schedules. Mike Mills, XY-Zone director, said student dads benefited from gathering last week.

Theres not only a mentor they can come meet with, but peers as well, Mills said. They didnt know about each other. Its good for them to know theyre not going through it alone.

For the sessions, First 5 adapted curriculum from the National Fatherhood Initiatives 24/7 Dad program. Castaneda said his organization was the first in Texas to offer the program to fathers in high schools.

MISD had about 60 pregnancies last school year, according to a previous Reporter-Telegram article. That number was a drop from 156 pregnancies during the 2011-2012 school year, when the district introduced abstinence-based sex education programs.

Teen parenthood is a growing thing, Castaneda said. The numbers have gone down nationally, but in Texas, still, rates are high for teen pregnancies. Im hoping to get the message to those its too late for, and I hope they will pass it along to their friends.

Castaneda has used 24/7 Dad in Ector County ISD for two years and said hes noticed results for student fathers.

Weve seen improvement across many standards  grade improvement, dropout decreases, better relationships, Castaneda said. Its had a positive impact on everyone.

MISD already offered support for female students, but last year the district considered ways to engage teen dads. When the district looked for programs, the 24/7 Dad curriculum stood out.

We really liked the research-based aspect of it, said Bradi Simpson, pregnancy related services coordinator for MISD. Martin was very successful in Odessa schools. He came highly recommended.

The Life Center runs Mothering as Responsible Youth (MARY), a mentoring program for teen moms in the area. Misty Stewart, MARY coordinator, said she plans to encourage group members to tell the fathers of their children about 24/7 Dads.

Martin is working to keep dads in school, and Im doing the same with the moms, Stewart said. Thats good for their kids.

Coordinators for 24/7 Dad began interviewing student fathers Monday to inform them about the program. But Castaneda said its difficult to find participants. He encourages people who want to join to email him at castaneda_m@utpb.edu.

As men, we can hide pregnancies a lot easier than girls can, Castaneda said. Tracking down those guys is a lot of work.
Judge Barbara Culver always personified joie de vivre.

Ever cheerful, kind-hearted and encouraging in times of woe and gaiety or just ordinary times, this phenomenal and extraordinary person named Barbara Jaqueline Green Culver Clack is enduing, never to be forgotten.

Her spirit, her joy of life, lives on beyond earthly horizons.

She was all goodness and light when you were around her, said Judge Dean Rucker of Midland. You were happy in her presence. She was a wonderful woman.

As a jurist, Judge Culver was always extremely fair, very intelligent and presided graciously before all cases that came before her, said Midland community stalwart Joan Baskin. Barbara was widely admired throughout Midland and Texas.

She was wonderful, a great lady, lovely and gracious, (who) was instrumental in the Republican Party growth not only in Midland but in Texas, said Tom Craddick, Midlands representative in the Texas Legislature since the late 1960s.

Barbara Culver treated everybody with her respectful demeanor and genuine grace, said Midland County Judge Mike Bradford. She was a giant in the community, truly one of the treasures of Midland County.

Petite at 5 feet tall, the ever-charming, genuine and no-pretense Judge Culver -- as she is most familiarly addressed -- died Monday morning from heart complications. She was 90.

Heralded as a trailblazer in the Texas court system as jurist, judge and justice, Barbara Culver excelled famously in the courtroom and in conservative -- meaning Republican -- politics.

She has been a great example and inspiration for women going into law practice and onto the bench, said long-time Midland attorney Robert Bob Bledsoe, who deemed Judge Culver a jurist of whom we have been and are justifiably proud.

Her courtroom career takes in her 15-year tenure as Midland County judge beginning in 1963 and then her 10-year judgeship of the Texas 318th District Court and her year as Justice Culver on the Texas Supreme Court.

In 1962 at age 36, she became the first woman in Texas to be elected Judge on the Republican ticket, according to her 2012 resume. Furthermore, archives of Midland County and the Midland Reporter-Telegram attest she was the first woman elected county judge in the history of the 1885-founded Midland County.

She was electable, had a law degree, smart, had the credentials to do the job and had an outgoing personality that would ingratiate her to the people, said William Bill Heck, then, like Culver, a Barry Goldwater Republican in the 1964 presidential election.

I love Goldwater, Judge Culver once said, because he was saying what conservatives wanted to hear in language that made sense and represented a resurgence of Americas conservative political movement.

As a trailblazing jurist, she paved the way for women in the judiciary and in public service in general, said Rucker, who in 1988 succeeded Judge Culver as presiding judge of Midlands 318th District Court primarily for family-court issues.

Judge Culver was my hero and my mentor, said Rucker, who served 27 years on the court. She set a high standard for judges.

In 1988, Judge Culver was appointed, by then-Gov. Bill Clements, a Republican, to the Texas Supreme Court.

Ten years earlier, in 1978, the Democratic governor, Dolph Briscoe, appointed Judge Culver to the 318th District Court.

Back in those days, they could do things in a bipartisan fashion, said Rucker, 61.

Vibrant and convincingly genuine in conservative politics, Judge Culver was a jurist of compassion and forthrightness, he said.

She was a giant among Texans.

Justice Culver is a pioneer in the law, a pioneer in the judiciary and a trailblazer, Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Martinez Guzman said in 2015 in honoring Judge Culver in a Salute to Women for Justice hosted by the Midland County Republican Women.

The event also recognized Judge Elizabeth Leonard of the 238th District Court, Judge Robin Malone Darr of the 385th District Court and District Attorney Teresa Clingman.

Judge Culver was a trailblazer for women who wanted to enter the legal field, Leonard said. She just blew the door open for us (women). ... A person of grace and dignity, (she served in a) classy and dignified manner.

Barbara Culver Clack will always be the Queen Mother of women lawyers in Midland, said local attorney Mary Lou Cassidy. She was a pioneer, especially in the good old boy world of West Texas. But more important, she was a role model, a mentor, a source of strength and a dear friend to the ladies in the (legal) profession. She went from being asked how fast was her typing in her first law-firm interview to associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court. What a journey! What a lady!

As county judge, Judge Culver also was Midland Countys Juvenile Court judge when the Commissioners Court named the countys juvenile-detention center in her honor.

Originally called the Culver Youth Home, the center was expanded and re-named the Justice Barbara Culver Juvenile Justice Center.

She loved children, and she took great effort to ensure that their best interests were served, Rucker said.

Retired County Court-at-law Judge Al Walvoord, who served as Juvenile Court judge for 20 years, described Judge Culver as a wonderful lady and a dandy ... loved the kids and wanted them to be educated, rehabilitated and straightened out. We all loved Barbara.

Walvoord said of the legal community. She loved the lawyers and loved the community.

She was wonderful said Mark Dettman, a former county attorney who still practices law and is an ordained minister and chaplain who serves those who serve, such as law-enforcement officers and firefighters. I never heard her say an unpleasant word about anybody, he said.

She was always upbeat and pleasant, friendly and always positive about everything and everybody Dettman said. She made me feel at home. She was kind and patient with everyone.

Craddick was a 25-year-old doctoral student at Texas Tech University when he first met Judge Culver and was considering running for the Texas Legislature to succeed Frank Kell Cahoon, then one of those rare Republicans in a state dominated by Democrats.

We go way back, said Craddick, 72. She was very gracious, wonderful, a great lady, lovely, who was instrumental in the Republican Party growth not only in Midland but in Texas.

She took him to a Republican canvass committee meeting and assured him of her support in his campaign to represent Midland and environs in the Texas Legislature.

Born in Dallas in February 1926, Judge Culver excelled in her journalism studies at Texas Tech University (then Texas Technological College) and graduated in 1947 at age 21. She returned to Dallas where she reported for the Dallas Times Herald.

She married John Culver, a World War II veteran who had suffered eyesight injuries in combat, and read law books and other studies to him while he was working toward a law degree at Southern Methodist University. The couple graduated in 1951 and moved to Midland, where they opened their Culver & Culver law practice.

John Culver later established his popular Tejas Coin & Stamp Co.

Twice widowed, Judge Culver lost her first husband in 1981, and her second husband, Judge James Clack, in 2014. She and Clack, a Rudyard Kipling scholar adept in reciting poetry, often traveled to their haven in Costa Rica.

She had two sons, Lawrence Culver, who died at age 56 in 2006, and Bryson Culver, who died at age 60 in 2014.

Its not fair, she once lamented of outliving her husbands and her sons, who blessed her with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Her consummate traveling companion was her dear friend, Linda George. In their humor, George said of their bonding that one needed a lawyer and the other needed a counselor.

We were traveling buddies for years, George said. Barbara said she had two sisters by choice -- George and Evalyn Halvorsen, who was Judge Culvers girl Friday for six years when she was county judge.

Judge Culver was a trooper, said Republican loyalist Sue Brannon, and she knew the law, was willing to stand up for it. She was a fantastic lady, a dear friend.

Barbara loved her country, her God, her family and friends, Brannon said, and was a member of patriotic organizations, including Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

She was such an exceptional person and a wonderful lady and friend and leader, always happy, always positive and always a leader for what she believed in, said Ernest Angelo, an ardent Republican and former Midland mayor. She was courageous and willing to take difficult positions and be upfront. She always following her conscience and her heart.

Judge Culver leaves many legacies, said Midland community volunteer Debra Westmoreland. But most memorable is serving as a role model for women to seek leadership positions during a time when this was a rarity. She not only served her community, but she served it well.

When I was growing up (in the 1960s), my father (J. Frank Johnson) used Judge Culver as an example of what I could achieve in a career, Westmoreland, 60, said. He always told me I could do or be whatever I wished because of women like Judge Culver. Thats really true.
Four elderly residents of Byurakan, a community in Armenias Aragatzotn Province, cast their ballot in a car parked outside the polling station.

Election Committee President Artashes Mkrtchyan told this reporter that the four couldnt make it into the polling station due to mobility issues.

Committee member Narineh Tadevosyan said that Byurakan residents always turn out in large numbers for local elections and the crowds waiting to cast their ballots backed her up. Some voters are known to enter the voting booth with their spouses if they have trouble reading the ballot. Others bring friends or family members to help them cast their ballot. Many want to vote. This is the reason they bring assistants with them. Then too, this isnt Europe where all voting related problems have been solved, Mkrtchyan added.
We have been cursed with leaders ...
NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP)  Chris George is the executive director of the largest refugee resettlement agency in Connecticut. Hes also a recruiter.



The leader of the Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services in New Haven spends a lot of his time traveling across Connecticut to talk to community groups about co-sponsoring refugee families. Training such groups as partners, George said, has allowed his agency to double the number of refugees it serves.



The U.S. State Department says IRIS is at the leading edge of a trend that has seen the return of the co-sponsorship model, which was popular with refugee resettlement workers in the 1970s but fell out of favor as dual-income households became the norm and people had less time for volunteerism.



When you think about all of the things that must be done and goods that must be provided, the more people involved in that effort, the easier it is to consider greater numbers or even a better service or more depth of service, said Barbara Day, the U.S. State Departments domestic resettlement section chief.



George has been invited to attend President Barack Obamas summit on the refugee issue Tuesday and discuss his agencys efforts, including their co-sponsorship work, which now includes 34 different organizations.



We have devoted a lot of time to outreach, public information, getting the word out and telling the people of Connecticut that there is a need and we are keeping alive this great American tradition symbolized by the Statue of Liberty, George said.



IRIS expects to help resettle almost 500 of the 800 refugees who will come to Connecticut this year, many from Syria.



For many of those refugees, the agency handles most of their immediate needs, from housing to job search assistance to language classes. In the co-sponsorship model, volunteer organizations step up to handle all those refugee services for one or two families.



Start Fresh, a nonprofit group started last November, is one of the several dozen groups that has teamed with the agency. It is a coalition formed by churches and other organizations in southeastern Connecticut, such as the New London Islamic Center.



Cheryl Molina, a co-leader, said her group, like others, was moved by images of a Syrian boy whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey after a boat carrying refugees overturned.



Molina said the group now has about 100 volunteers and since June they have resettled a family from Syria with five children and a family of six from Sudan.



Ezairg El Nemair and his wife, Amna Slaim Ali, arrived in New London with their four children on July 27. They had fled their farm in the Nuba mountains of Sudan and lived in Egypt before being approved to come to the United States in 2014.



El Nemair says they were amazed to find Start Fresh had furnished an apartment for them with a refrigerator that was filled with halal food, all labeled in Arabic. Last week the group arranged for him to see a dentist for a tooth extraction.



All Ive felt since Ive come here are people of the finest character, quality and personality, he said through a translator. I feel blessed.



El Nemair and his wife are taking adult education classes in English, while his children have been enrolled in local schools, with the help of Start Fresh. He worked as a clothing salesman in Egypt and hopes to find a similar job here.



I have always stood on my own two feet and provided for my family, he said. I have no fear that I will be able to do that here.



Molina said the families have been extremely grateful, warm and eager to learn enough to be on their own and give back.



For each family, they raised about $4,000, which is designed to meet their needs for about four months.



Every time you walk in the door, there is no way you are getting out of there without them serving you a tray of cookies and a drink, Molina said. Its been a really great experience, just to get to know them as people.






MERIDEN  Components of the citys revitalization plan for downtown are coming together at different rates. As 24 Colony St. nears completion and readies for tenants, other proposed developments are in the process of applying for financing or still in the design phase.



Its a comprehensive plan and all of the pieces are really interlocking, so it may not be as easy for the public to see the process because a lot of it is behind the scenes, said Economic Development Director Juliet Burdelski.



New City Manager Guy Scaife is impressed with the scope of the plan.



This is a colossal amount of development that is all in close proximity and so it is clear that there is a lot of work in front of us, a lot of coordination, but the opportunity is immense, he said.



1. 24 Colony St.



The mixed-use complex will be the first major housing development to be completed. Construction is expected to finish by the end of the year.



All of the major construction is completed, now they are doing fit outs on the inside, brick work on the outside, said Burdelski.



The $22 million project consists of 63 apartments and 11,000-square-feet of retail space.



Of the 63 units, 90 percent will be affordable or low income and only six will be market rate. Twenty-four are Mills replacement units.



Developer Westmount Management Group is in the process of pre-leasing apartments and tenants will be moving into the building in January.



2. The Mills/Meriden Commons



The Mills apartment buildings could be demolished as early as spring of 2017 if the Housing Authority is able to relocate the remaining tenants, Burdelski said. So far 24 units have been vacated and tenants in 116 units need to be relocated.



The Meriden Housing Authority has submitted a relocation plan for the rest of the Mills tenants to the states Department Housing & Urban Development.



The city selected Pennrose Properties to redevelop the property.



The first phase of the redevelopment project will cost $24 million and construct 75 housing units to the east of the brook flowing through the Meriden Green. The brook, which currently flows under the existing Mills apartments, will be exposed after the buildings are razed and the park will be expanded around it.



Pennrose is also in the process of applying for financing for the second phase of that project, which calls for another 75 units.



3. Crown Street



The former Record-Journal Publishing Co. building at 11 Crown St. is expected to be razed in the next sixth months. Michaels Organization has been selected to redevelop the property into a 63-unit apartment building with 18 townhouses on the existing parking lot.



Its kind of a neat design because it takes advantage of the two levels of the lot, Burdelski said.



Of the 81 total units proposed, 57 will be affordable and 24 will be market rate.



The developer is in the process of applying for a low income tax credit for the $27 million project and will need to fund the rest, about $8 million, through private investors.



4. State and Pratt Street



Located essentially on the Meriden Green, the State and Pratt Street developments will be two higher-end housing options.



The City Council approved the Master Development Agreement with Pennrose on the project in June, giving the developer a year to come up with financing for the estimated $44 million project. The two-phase project will construct a 90-unit complex on State Street and an additional 80-unit building on Pratt Street.



Only about 20 percent of the units will be considered affordable housing. The rest will be market rate.



If financing is secured by next summer, ground could be broken by the project by the end of 2017 or by early 2018, Burdelski said.



5. Factory H/116 Cook Avenue



POKO Partners has proposed combining the former Factory H site and 116 Cook Avenue into one complex, Meriden Mews. The project, which is expected to cost at least $53 million, aims to rehabilitate the former mill at 116 Cook Avenue into a 64-unit apartment building in addition to constructing six additional buildings on the former Factory H site for a total of 184 units, 39 of which will be affordable. Of the 64 units in the Cook Avenue restoration, 51 will be market rate with 13 affordable units, while the new buildings on the Factory H site will have 94 market rate units and 26 affordable.



Burdelski said the project is still in the design phase.



Its pretty preliminary, Burdelski said. Theres more design work that needs to be done.



6. The hospital



The city is in the process of selecting a developer for the former Meriden/Wallingford hospital at 1 King Place. A partial clean up of the inside of 250,000-square-foot eyesore has been completed. Burdelski said to demolish the building would cost the city about $4 million. To avoid shouldering that cost, the city sought a developer to take over the site.



The city has identified one qualified developer, Diversified Financial Resources, LLC, out of Fairfield County. The group has completed a rehabilitation on a former hospital in Michigan.



What the developer has proposed would substantially save the building, Burdelski said.



Their concept plan is for a mixed use with some commercial, retail and medical space, Burdelski said.



City officials hope to schedule a formal interview with the developer in the coming weeks.



ltauss@record-journal.com 203-317-2231 Twitter: @LeighTaussRJ






MERIDEN  Gov. Dannel P. Malloy told a group of area business leaders Friday that residents are too critical of their state, adding that they need to better recognize the positive aspects of living and working in Connecticut.



He also preached patience and allowing for state investments in business, education, and transportation to improve the economy.



Malloys comments, delivered during a Midstate Chamber of Commerce meeting, stand in stark contrast to the image that Republicans and the Connecticut Business and Industry Association have portrayed.



Just last week, CBIA released the result of a study that found that less than half of Connecticut businesses were making job-growing investments in the state, even though 68-percent reported making a profit. A December 2015 Gallup poll, meanwhile, found almost half of residents said they would leave the state if they could.



Malloy said Connecticuts perception problem is largely caused by state residents.



I know we live in a state where the glass can never, ever, ever be half full, he said. I understand that, but we beat ourselves up sometimes to our detriment.



Malloy pointed to growth at Electric Boat and Pratt & Whitney as signs that the state is adding high-paying jobs. Later Friday morning, Pratt announced it plans to hire 8,000 more employees in Connecticut.



Pratt parent United Technologies Corp. agreed to expand facilities as part of a deal to keep $400 million in unused tax credits. The announcement comes four years after its former CEO said the company found anyplace but Connecticut better for investment.



Electric Boat also announced earlier this year that it plans to hire 4,000 employees in Connecticut and Rhode Island.



Malloy told the chamber he still expects slow growth for the foreseeable future, but he anticipates wages to increase at rates faster than in recent years. Elected officials have said slow wage growth is partly to blame for sluggish increases in state revenues since the 2008 recession.



The governor also said the state needs to continue to make investments, such as in manufacturing programs and transportation. In trying to fight against negative perceptions, Malloy again responded to ongoing criticism over General Electrics announcement in January that it will move its headquarters to Boston.



Republicans and CBIA have used the move as an indictment of both Connecticuts taxes and regulations.



Malloy, though, said GE wanted to move to a city that was more attractive to recent college graduates, and suggested Connecticut towns need to take note. He suggested municipalities embrace public transportation, including the Springfield-Hartford-New Haven rail line, as ways to attract young professionals.



msavino@record-journal.com 203-317-2266 Twitter: @reporter_savino






The Meriden Police and Fire departments held their fourth annual charity softball game Saturday night at Benjamin J. Nessing Memorial Park in Meriden. The groups squared off on the softball diamond to benefit the Back-to-School Expo the departments hold at the beginning of the school year. Proceeds from donations and food sales will go to the charity.



Its the fourth year for the Back-to-School Expo charity but we have done this for other causes. said retired Lt. Maggie Bender. We have come together for other families in need and various charities over the years.



Bender also served as a commentator, with Tom Cossette of the Meriden Police Department. Their banter kept the crowd entertained during play. Police capped off a comeback win in the ninth, besting the Fire Department 17 to 16.



 Justin Weekes






The perfume of charred pine curls through the expansive Ashurst Hall  now a room teeming with hundreds of blackened ponderosa poles. Hands stained with soot, installation artist Shawn Skabelund is arranging the visual component of a faceted conversation between sound and sculpture: Composition for Forests.

At the grand piano in the rooms center, collaborative pianist and Northern Arizona University professor Janice Chen-Ju Chiang will craft the shows auditory foundation. Challenging traditional performance, audiences will find a complete sensory experience in a forest overwhelmed with the possibility of catastrophic wildfire.

This unique recital and installation has spent years in the making, and will jumpstart the NAU School of Musics 10th season of the Horizons Concert Series, celebrating global and local issues.

Composition for Forests unfolds at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22; Saturday, Sept. 24; Monday, Sept. 26 and Wednesday, Sept. 28 in Ashurst Hall. Tickets are required for this free show. To learn more, call 523-3731 or visit Nau.edu/CAL/Music.

Spatial influence

This collaboration began when Chiang and Skabelund met at the opening of the artists award-winning 2013 exhibition, Virga: The Hunt for Water. Moved by its assembly and message, Chiang felt sculpture would fit in the progression of her interdisciplinary projects.

Skabelund then went to work designing the features of the space. True to his mission of environmental stewardship, audiences might recognize recycled elements from Virga, too, particularly an expanded flock from Corvus and the char of Standing at the Fires Edge.

With grant funding from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Puffin Foundation, the pair has been able to fulfill their shared vision: one that discusses the most pressing issues of our time while challenging both space and guests.

I think this production is, in a way, going to test the basic understanding of what performance is because it deconstructs audience; it deconstructs performance space, noted School of Music Director Todd Sullivan.

Settlement policy

Composition for Forests is also part of the Festival of Science events (Sept. 23-Oct. 2). The Science of Change theme parallels humanitys effect on forests.

Until the late 1990s, policy among fire management agencies sought to extinguish each and every blaze, regardless of its human or natural source. Hot and dry trends of climate change has experts noting, especially in the Southwest, devastating mega fires will soon ravage too-thick forests grown from the policy of suppression.

Colonial settlements effect on the forests  Manifest Destiny  is the heart of his conceptual work, noted Skabelund.

Fire, just like wolves and all these other things weve tried to get rid of, it was because of Manifest Destiny  how we settled this country, he said. How we settled this country by getting rid of fire is part of that 110 years of poor fire management.

Sound and fury

Taking into account the difference between catastrophic and slow-burning, cleansing fires is what informed both components of Composition for Forests.

Chiangs auditory design is divided into three movements  Nature, Fire, Love and Death  and augments the global theme with music from five continents and composers. Her fluid gestures at the piano communicate the charged emotion of the works that discuss the beauty of Mother Earth, symbolic ravens and a changing landscape.

The pianists concluding piece will complete the circle of the collaborative effort as audiences reflect on the emotive works set in a burnt forest.

At the same time, we dont know how theyll see what this is: a recital, art, something else, Chiang said of guests reactions. They are able to walk around as they choose. With the different angles while theyre seeing this and listening, Im pretty sure it will stimulate something different than just sitting in a traditional concert or going to a traditional art exhibition.

With a laugh, she added, You could say its an experiment.

And the experiment will continue to test itself against place and meaning in other forms. Skabelund, too, said it will take months to process exactly what will transpire  just as he regularly questions the validity of ongoing forest management.

Yes, theres this message you want to get to the public that fire needs to be brought back into the ecosystem, but what does it mean to have this circle of burnt timbers around someone playing the piano? Skabelund posited of entrenched meaning.

And just as the imprint of Virga has been lasting for Chiang, she noted this collaboration could offer even stronger reactions at the confluence of music and monuments.

She added, Combining these two things together could be a much more powerful tool.
1 Deadly crash: Four people died and more than 40 were injured Saturday in a charter bus crash near Rockingham, N.C., state troopers said. The injured were transported to hospitals, but the extent of their injuries was not immediately known. University of Gods Chosen coach Demetrius Hollingsworth said football players and coaches from Ramah Juco Academy were traveling from Rock Hill, S.C., to face UGC when their bus struck an overpass on Interstate 74 in Richmond County. The bus may have blown a front tire, the State Highway Patrol said. Images from the scene showed the sidewall of the bus almost sheared off. Rockingham is 70 miles southeast of Charlotte.

2 Officers shot: One of two police officers who were shot while responding to a reported suicide at a house in Fort Worth, Texas, was released Saturday from the hospital. Officer Ray Azucena was treated for a minor chest wound. Officer Xavier Serrano remained in the hospital in stable condition with wounds to his torso, arms and shoulder. The officers were shot while seeking a witness to a shooting that killed a man in his home Friday. The officers were directed to a backyard shed, from which a gunman started firing. The gunman later was found dead inside the shed, but Officer Daniel Segura said its not clear if he died from a police bullet or his own. The dead men were not identified.
One man is dead after a dispute between him and another tenant at a West Side motel complex ended in gunfire Saturday.

San Antonio Police Department Sgt. Thomas Haymaker confirmed that a man, who appeared to be in his mid- to late 20s, was fatally shot in the doorway of his motel room at about 5 p.m. in the InTown Suites Extended Stay, 7490 Culebra Road.
From tattoos to bumper stickers and bathing suits to Christmas tree ornaments, the Texas flag is iconic throughout the Lone Star state and across the nation.

Red, white and blue with a single star, the flag, thought to be the design of Senator William H. Wharton, dates back to the early days of the republic when the Texas Congress adopted the Lone Star flag on January 25, 1839.
Mildred L. Naegelin Babcock spent most of her life helping others and giving back to the community she loved.

Babcock died Sept. 10 at age 86.

Growing up on a farm in San Antonios rural North Side, Babcock was instilled with a sense of community and responsibility early on.

When she was growing up, if someone had a problem, the whole community rallied around them to help solve it, said Robert Babcock, her son.

This same dedication for helping others led her to becoming a registered nurse in 1950. During her education, she met her husband, Dexter B. Babcock Jr., who was in Air Force boot camp in San Antonio.

The nursing program Babcock was in prohibited students from getting married until they completed their degree. The pair wed after Babcock graduated valedictorian in the first nursing certification class at Baptist Memorial Hospital.

A dedicated wife and mother, Babcock maintained her career while the family moved around from base to base. With two sons, two daughters, and a husband often deployed to unknown locations, she worked her nursing shifts into everyone elses schedules.

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She accepted the military life without complaints and did her best to make it work for everyone, her son said. She was the definition of a Super Mom.

A deeply religious woman, Babcock believed strongly in celebrating her faith in her daily life. One of her favorite ways to display this was to keep her Christmas tree up in the living room year round, a tradition that started in 2000 and persists to this day. Her children would often send their mother ornaments from their international travels.

More Information Mildred L. Naegelin Babcock Born: April 17, 1930, San Antonio Died: September 10, 2016, San Antonio Preceded by: Parents, Frank J. and Dorothea M. Naegelin; sister E. Ruby Naegelin Kneupper; husband Dexter B. Babcock, Jr.; son, Jeffery A. Babcock Esq. Survived by: Children Christine L. Babcock, Robert A. Babcock and Dr. Jo Beth Oestreich and husband David E. Oestreich; sister Dorothy R. Naegelin Reed Joy; five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Services: 11 a.m. Tuesday at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery See More Collapse

Babcock worked as a nurse for 51 years until she could no longer make her rounds and had to stop at the age of 72. During that time, she commanded the respect and affinity of her colleagues, and was widely known for her no-nonsense attitude and immaculate nursing uniform.

In 1971, the family returned to Texas, moving back to San Antonios North Side. Even in her everyday activities, Babcock found ways to give back to her community. She often made a point to shop at local businesses, preferring the mom and pop stores to chains.

Several local businesses credit their start to Babcock, including DeWinnie Equipment Co., where she was one of their first customers.

She didnt have much, but what she did have often went towards helping others, Robert Babcock said.
Popular varieties of apples such as Honeycrisp and Cort-land labeled as cosmetically challenged are sold along with those that made it through the 2016 growing season unscarred at the quaint Door Creek Orchard in the town of Cottage Grove.

Unlike some orchards that prefer not to sell apples with blemishes  they go to the pile used to make cider or pies even though the blemishes dont affect taste or quality  those with slight blemishes have a place of honor at Door Creek. Customers that dont pick their own from trees can pick their own  blemished or not  from barrels inside the store.

Some apples for sale are ringed with a thin russet stripe courtesy of a hard frost in mid-May that affected fruit across parts of the southern half of the state and 30 percent of Door Creeks apple crop. The orchard also sells apples blemished from harmless diseases with scary names like Sooty Blotch because of the orchards reduced use of chemicals. They might not be as cosmetically pleasing as the ones you see at Woodmans but we are proud of them, said Tom Griffith, who co-owns Door Creek with his wife, Gretchen.

Door Creek, which grows 88 varieties of apples, has embraced an eat-ugly-apples campaign that explains to consumers that a blemish on an apple is normal and not an indicator that theres a worm inside.

The orchard is running a contest for the best photo of a customer posing with an ugly apple purchased at the orchard that is posted on Facebook or Instagram with a @doorcreekorchard tag and an #eatuglyapples hashtag. The winner gets a gallon of cider and a five-pound bag of apples.

We respect your choice not to buy them but we just want everyone to know that most cosmetically challenged apples are totally fine, said Liz Griffith, the daughter of the co-owners who helps run the orchard. Flavor and integrity are affected in some badly damaged apples and we dont sell those.

There are plenty of ugly apples in Wisconsin this fall because of the hard frost that struck last May. But, overall, the quality of the apples is excellent across the state and the harvest is on schedule, according to Amaya Atucha, an assistant professor in horticulture for UW-Madison and the state fruit specialist for UW Extension.

Theres a good crop out there. You can find the apples you are looking for, Atucha said.

State apple growers need a good harvest. In 2015, state apple production dipped 5.5 percent to 51.5 million pounds and the price per pound also dropped 5.5 percent to 57.8 cents in 2015, which led to a 10.8 percent drop to $27.8 million in value of utilized production, according to a report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Cortland, Gala, Fuji, Haralson, Empire and Honeycrisp are all in prime picking condition right now while Macintosh, another favorite, is coming to an end, according to Rami Aburomia, the manager of Eplegaarden orchard in Fitchburg. Consumers should have no problem finding pick-your-own apples.

The recent rain has really helped, Aburomia said. The apples size up the last two weeks of ripening and when you get lots of rain in that period they size up quite nicely.

A rainy August also led to more blemishes on apples in organic orchards or others, like Door Creek, that werent sprayed for harmless summer diseases, Aburomia said. It doesnt affect taste, it just affects the look, he said. But you cant sell those apples to the grocery store. They wont buy them.

Aburomia, who also owns an organic orchard near Mount Horeb, is a big fan of the eat-ugly-apples campaign. He pointed out that consumers buy other fruit and vegetables, like cucumbers, that are blemished or discolored, but an apple, for some reason, has to be absolutely perfect. I dont get that.

The eat-ugly-apples campaign was started by Eliza Greenman, a grower in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia who wrote in her blog that Americans need to be untrained from eating beautiful fruit and rejecting blemishes. Because we fear these harmless blemishes, millions of gallons of fungicides are sprayed on apples (organic and conventional) every year across the United States to make them go away, Greenman wrote.

Greenman told NPR that she conducted an unofficial experiment testing scabbed and unscabbed Parma apples, which are native to Virginia, and found the scabbed apples had a 2 to 5 percent higher sugar content than the unblemished ones from the same tree.

Thus, scabbed apples produce a tastier hard cider because more sugar means a higher alcohol content once fermented.

She also pointed to a study that shows blemished apples are more nutritious and have a higher antioxidant content. I believe stress can help create a super fruit, Greenman said.

Aburomia agreed and said trees release antioxidants when challenged by a frost or disease and that leads to a higher number of antioxidants in their apples. Theyre very good for you, he said.

Some of Eplegaardens apples were damaged by the frost last May, too, Aburomia said.

The orchard bags the apples not picked by customers, separates the blemished ones and sells them at a slightly reduced rate.

John and Karen Jaeschke, of Verona, bought a 20-pound bag of blemished Macintosh apples that Karen, 75, planned to use mostly for baking. But she also planned to eat a few for a snack because blemished apples dont scare her.

Weve been buying them for a long time, she said, and were still living.
The eminent retirements of three of San Antonios most celebrated trailblazers are in the news. Ricardo Romo, president of UTSA and Vanessa Hurd, CEO of the DoSeum, nee the Childrens Museum, are retiring with grace. Lou Agnese, president of the University of the Incarnate Word, was retired with blinding haste.

Agnese was dismissed by the UIW board of trustees, chaired by Charles Lutz and dominated by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, as a result of an anonymous complaint. This, after 31 years of service. In the opinion of many, including this writer, the boards actions were sloppy, callous and cowardly.

Anyone whos had the privilege to know these three leaders will tell you they are exceptional individuals who share many of the same characteristics:

All have accomplished the monumental task of catapulting their home-grown organizations into the stratosphere and the national spotlight.

From the beginning, all had a clear vision of what they wanted to accomplish and sold it to the community. Ricardo paved the way for Tier One status. Vanessa built a world-class museum and quadrupled attendance. Lou increased enrollment 10 times while boosting minority enrollment to reflect San Antonios ethnic mix.

Agnese, Hurd and Romo rose above the confines of their assigned bureaucracies to overcome whatever barriers came their way. They ignored the nay-sayers who suggested that theyd bitten off more than they could chew.

All three are confident, tireless and devoted workaholics who love their institutions with a fiery passion. All can raise the big bucks anytime their institutions need more money. They are all likable and fun to be around. Finally, and most important, each left an indelible legacy.

Heres the big question: Since, by all measures, Agnese was doing his job, why was he cut in such a sudden, awkward and uncharitable way?

As reported, Agnese was placed on medical leave and asked to undergo medical testing to explain the recent uncharacteristic behavior, surfaced in the anonymous complaint. But before a single medical assessment was performed, the board and nuns voted to remove him as president.

This action doesnt pass the smell test.

Even after 31 years, Agnese wanted to stay to see his ultimate vision realized: to complete the new medical school and become the largest private university in Texas. The UIW board isnt giving him that chance and several unsettling questions remain unanswered:

Why did the board put Agnese on a 90-day medical leave and not wait for the medical report to be presented before dismissing him?

If the medical report surfaces an incurable issue, is the board liable for the damage done to Agneses reputation?

If tests reveal that his uncharacteristic behavior is treatable and temporary, are the nuns and the board ready to apologize and make amends?

Lou may have made two mistakes. Perhaps he simply stayed on too long. Or perhaps he made the mistake (as Edward Speed surfaced in a column when the story broke) of thinking that the university belonged to him, instead of to the nuns. Had he followed Romos and Hurds approach and made a graceful exit while on top, things might be different. Lou is much like a Muhammad Ali or a Jersey Joe Walcott  fighters who stay in the arena because of their burning desire for one more win.

All of us who have worked with Lou Agnese and admire him for all his accomplishments, want real answers. We also want him and his wife, Mickey, to be healthy and happy.

The board should give us its real reasons for treating him so disgracefully. Then, they should thank Lou for the good hes done and treat him with the dignity and charity he deserves for his dedicated service.

Agnese not only saved the college. He re-invented it and made it live again. Lets just hope the nuns can keep the money coming in and the momentum going.
1 Venezuela woes: Economic and political problems are keeping world leaders away from a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement that was supposed to hit its full stride Saturday at Venezuelas Margarita Island. Only 12 heads of state have arrived for the two days of meetings, including the leaders of Iran, Cuba and Zimbabwe. More than 30 heads of state attended the last summit of the Cold War-era group in Iran in 2012. President Nicolas Maduro had touted the summit as an opportunity to increase international solidarity for his socialist government. Maduros opponents are pushing for a recall referendum to remove him from office before his term ends in 2019.

2 Asia storm: A powerful typhoon has caused at least 29 deaths in China and Taiwan just days before a second storm is expected to batter the region. Chinese authorities say 28 people have died in the eastern provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang since Typhoon Meranti made landfall Thursday, with another 15 people still missing. Taiwanese officials have reported one dead. A second typhoon, Malakas, is expected to hit Taiwan this weekend before moving on to China.
Laura Kiefert has spent the past few months reminding Jamaican authorities, hospitals and the FBI that her brother is still dead, and trying to track down the man she thinks profited from his death.

Her brother, David N. Thompson Sr., 52, of Madison went to Jamaica in April for some rest and recovery from an amputated toe. He had a stroke and died of a heart attack April 26 while supposedly being airlifted to a hospital in Florida. He never made it to the plane and there was never any evidence that a plane existed.

Kiefert learned that while her brother was dying, someone  she believes it was the medical evacuation service broker  raided his credit cards and wallet and then overcharged the credit cards of relatives who thought they were hiring the medical evacuation service. The toll was more than $30,000.

When the Wisconsin State Journal wrote about this on May 23, Kiefert was just beginning to rattle doorknobs: Most likely everyone involved allowed Dave to die in an effort to extort as much money as possible.

Duane Boise, owner of EMed Jamaica, called the charges absolutely untrue, and said there were no improprieties. But Kiefert uncovered many, including evidence Boise had represented himself as a doctor.

Since then, Kiefert has hired a lawyer in Montego Bay, Jamaica, to investigate and then file a lawsuit against Boise and make a complaint to health authorities. Kiefert said then she was just beginning to learn the lessons involved in getting medical care abroad, especially Jamaica.

Things arent working out so well, she said last week, when asked for an update.

We filed a legal claim and everyone was served except for Duane Boise, who appears to have fled Jamaica and set up shop in the Grand Cayman (Islands), said Kiefert. He is wanted for questioning by the police, too, she said, for investigation of fraud.

I have contacted every hospital in the Caribbean, every ambulance service in Florida, she said, where he has a criminal record. He apparently owns no planes, as he claims on his websites, employs no staff. He is just a broker.

His business really just arranges, or tries to arrange, medical transport, said Kiefert.

Kiefert has also contacted the references Boise names, including a Florida physician, who all tell her they have nothing to do with him.

She contacted the FBI a month ago, and was told Boises activities would be investigated.

Filing civil lawsuits against him here, I would be wasting my money. He has no property here, she said.

She estimates the cost so far to be about $50,000, including spending on her followups, shipping the body back to Wisconsin, and the money lost via credit card and theft. When her brother was dying, someone from the medical airlift company said payment of $17,000 had to be made in advance, so Kiefert and another brother paid with their credit cards. Another $6,000 cash and $7,000 in travelers checks was taken, and $2,500 was withdrawn from her dead brothers debit card.

What little her dead brother had in life insurance, less than $15,000, went to a disabled son, she said. Kiefert is trying to cover those losses and help her nephew with a GoFundMe account.

What this is about is that my brother is dead and he shouldnt be, she said. Instead, his ashes are in a box upstairs in my office. I dont want this to happen to any other families. This ambulance broker thing is a racket. His websites had multiple references that were untrue.

I have written or emailed every single hospital in the Carribean, warning them of this guy, she said. I dont think my legal intervention here is going to help me one bit, and I have been very careful to say, I believe this. He isnt fighting me because he knows I am right.

Her last contact with the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica included advice from a staff member who, when Kiefert wondered about the lack of regulation, said: You havent been to Jamaica before, have you? Things like that happen here.

In my heart, I feel like I failed my brother. I dont want to hear of another person feeling that way, said Kiefert, weeping, as she recounted the hours on the telephone last April believing she was arranging life-saving transport, as her brother lay dying.
Q What is a sister city, and what are Madisons?

A: According to Sister Cities International, a nonprofit founded by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, sister cities are two communities from different countries that formed a mutually beneficial partnership. What that partnership means depends on the agreement that the leaders from the two cities make with each other.

Madison has several sister cities across the world. Listed alphabetically, they are Ainaro, East Timor; Arcatao, El Salvador; Camaguey, Cuba; Freiburg, Germany; Mantova, Italy; Obihiro, Japan; Tepatitlan, Mexico; and Vilnius, Lithuania.

Frank Alfano, who coordinates one of Madisons sister cities partnerships, describes it as an exchange of people and ideas hosted by the city.

Alfano heads the Mantova, Italy, also known as Mantua, partnership, which will mark its 15th year in 2017. He said the partnership started when the Italian counsul general was visiting Madison and was reminded of Mantova, which is surrounded by three lakes. The mayor of Mantova wrote a letter to then-mayor Susan Bauman, and Bauman asked Alfano, then-president of the Italian Workmens Club, to lead the agreement.
Pam Beetham is a stickler when it comes to paying bills, especially her city property tax bill.

She works Downtown, so on July 27 she walked over to the City Treasurers office and wrote a check for $1,260.71 (one fourth of her total bill) and paid in person, beating the July 31 deadline and pocketing an official receipt.

Four weeks later, on Aug. 26, the U.S. Postal Service delivered to Beethams home a Notice of Real Estate Tax Due from the Dane County Treasurer, saying her payment was delinquent and that the $1,260.71 was due immediately and she owed $132.37 in penalties and interest. The interest was retroactive to February on the entire tax bill.

She paid again, and it didnt take long to find the culprit.

City Treasurer David Gawenda took the blame immediately.

On Aug. 2 we were notified by US Bank that BMO Harris had returned the check with the notation Unable to Locate Account, wrote Gawenda in an email to Dane County Treasurer Adam Gallagher and BMO banker Jacob Dankert. We ended up sending a poor quality image to US Bank.

And US Bank banker John Bayer put it even more clearly: The reason the check was returned was the result of a poor check image copy received from the City of Madison ... The original check was in perfect shape.

Not Beethams fault, but the county  not the city, which merely made the mistake  charged her a penalty and interest because technically the bill is not paid until the check clears all banks.

I am obligated to follow state law, said Gallagher, and the only exceptions allowed for interest and penalty on late payments are postal error in delivery and federal active military duty for 90 days or more during the payment period.

Gawenda said a refund is a matter for the county, and Gallagher said making Beethams refund is a matter for the city. BMO, on Beethams behalf, suggested the municipalities show some cooperation and compassion, even pointing out in an email: It is certainly not realistic to grant waivers whenever a taxpayer requests it. This is a very rare internal US Bank issue due to imaging. It is sort of outside the normal parameters. Is there any way we could make the rare exception?

Gawenda reiterated, in a telephone interview, that the city was at fault for sending a poor quality image to the bank. Usually, when a check is returned in an imaging error from the citys bank (US Bank), the code will reflect that and it will be resubmitted, he said. In this case, the code indicated that the account could not be located (by BMO), so the city, in that case, would try to solve it as humans.

That means a human (in the treasurers office) calls a human (Beetham) and says there is a problem. That didnt happen because there was no phone number on the check and, said Gawenda, it was too late to send a letter.

We owned up to the mistake, he said. The penalty and interest decision rested with the county or the banks.

(There is a debate about whether US Banks processing or BMOs rejection caused the problem.)

Gallagher, the county treasurer, would not budge.

There is nothing the county can do. We are paid what is due and it is what it is from our end. She (Beetham) can work with her bank and can also work with the city to see if either of them are interested, he said.

SOS also talked with the state tax experts at the Department of Revenue, where Valeah Foy, director of the bureau of local government services, said that without knowing the specifics in this instance, there is no state solution, and that the property owner has to work with the city or the county to resolve the issue.

Beetham said that she hopes to get her money back from the outfits who unfairly charged her for their mistakes, but in the meantime, BMO bank, which did not make a mistake, gave her the money as a gesture of goodwill to a longtime customer.

But it is no more (their mistake) to fix than it is mine to fix, she said, adding that if the city or county comes up with the $132.37 she will return it to the bank, which would only be fair.

Beetham said she didnt want to drop the issue because of that fairness question. Considering her persistence, the wrong person was penalized, in more ways than one.

She wrote to SOS: What happens to those who dont have the time, energy or ability to take on such a fight?

If they have an issue with providing their bank with poor quality images maybe its time for them to either get new equipment or monitor staff ... and make an attempt to contact the taxpayer should the city have such issues.
Meeting two months after the NATO Warsaw Summit, the Allied Chiefs of Defence (CHoDs) stressed the need for complete coherence throughout all military adaptation, the unity of effort and viewing threats in a global context. ''To protect our territory and populations, we must also project stability beyond our borders'', General Petr Pavel, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee said at the MC Conference in Split, Croatia.

Opening the Military Committee conference, the Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic highlighted the importance of the Military Committees work and echoed the importance of translating political decisions into military strategic guidance. ''In Wales, the NATO Heads of State and Government gave the initial guidance in an impressive show of unity among Allies and managed to maintain the momentum to Warsaw. Now it is the NATO Military Committees task to take us one step further in facing the challenges ahead of us. And those challenges are many'', said the President.

During the session on delivering coherence to military adaptation, the Chiefs of Defence reemphasized how crucial a credible defence and deterrence was in the ever-changing security environment. Conventional and non-conventional methods of warfare are being conducted by state and non-state actors and NATO must have the ability to provide a 360 degree response.

Speaking on the Readiness Action Plan Assurance Measures, the Chiefs of Defence affirmed that these defensive measures demonstrated the Alliancecollective solidarity and resolve to protect all Allies. They went on to say however that where, and when possible, cooperation with international organizations such as the European Union was essential in responding to global challenges.

NATO-led operations, missions and activities were the focus of the afternoons session. The Allied Chiefs welcomed the decision of Heads of States and Government commitment to sufficiently fund the RESOLUTE SUPPORT mission to train, advise and assist the Afghan Security Defence Forces until 2020. Discussing regional security in more detail, the Chiefs of Defence reiterated the stabilising effect KFOR has in the Western Balkan region and that any change to the force posture should be conditions-based. Concluding their discussions on training and capability building in Iraq, it was recognized how building the capacities of Iraqi defence and security forces was a way for NATO to project stability into the region.

General Petr Pavel remarked in the joint press conference with General Mirko Sundov, the Chief of Defence of Croatia, how the days meeting had allowed for frank and fruitful exchanges ahead of next months Defence Ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium.
Regular consumption of cranberries can inhibit the development of several types of cancerous tumors

Cranberries naturally rich in phytonutrients, vitamin C, fiber and salicylic acid

Why your heart craves cranberries

(NaturalNews) One of only three commercially grown fruits native to the United States, cranberries offer a multitude of health benefits that can help ward off cancer , heart disease, diabetes and bacterial infections.It is unsurprising that cranberries have so many health benefits, considering the fact that the cranberry plant is a close relative of the blueberry, another superfood known for its incredible healing properties.Most of the cranberries in the U.S. are derived from Massachusetts, which prides itself in being the nation's number one producer, thanks to 14,000 harvested acres of cranberry bogs, most of which are cultivated by small family farms.Like other berries, cranberries are very high in antioxidants, making them a great resource for boosting the immune system, particularly during the cold winter months when seemingly everybody is getting sick.Approximately 400 million pounds of cranberries are consumed each year in the U.S., with one fifth of them being eaten on Thanksgiving. These red pigmented tart berries have a long history in the U.S., as they were first used by Native Americans to fight scurvy , a disease brought on by vitamin C deficiencies Cranberries proved beneficial in earlier times, as they were used to dye porcupine quills for clothing and jewelry. Native Americans also used the berries for other medicinal purposes, including as a blood purifier, as laxatives, and to treat fever, stomach cramps and even childbirth-related injuries.Today cranberries are just as important, as they're routinely used to treat a variety of ailments due to their antibiotic qualities . Loaded with proanthocyanidins, or antioxidant compounds, cranberries are great for preventing urinary tract infections by preventing bacteria from binding itself to the cell walls of the bladder.These same compounds stop bacteria from multiplying, and actually flush them out of the body through urination. Studies show that regular intake can prevent recurring urinary tract infections in middle-aged and pregnant women.Cranberries have also been proven to inhibit tumor growth due to the presence of polyphenolic compounds. Phytochemicals found in cranberries have the ability to block the activity of cancer cells, preventing them from growing out of control.Scientists have identified five ways in which cranberries defeat cancer cells, three of which inhibit cancer-causing agents and two that simulate the destruction of tumor cells. Cranberries have the remarkable ability to suppress certain types of protein enzymes that cause inflammation, which if allowed to duplicate could lead to cancer cell growth.Cranberries are also able to block an enzyme called ornithine decarboxylase, which can lead to tumor growth, particularly causing breast cancer. Another way cranberries fight cancer is by unlocking certain enzymes that kill cancer cells.For example, antioxidant compounds found in these red pigmented berries kick-start the activity of a phase 2 detoxification enzyme called quinone reductase (QR), which offers protection against chemical carcinogenesis. Research has proven that cranberries are very effective at initiating apoptosis, or programmed death of tumor cells.Flavonoids found in cranberries are so rich in antioxidants that they may decrease the threat of atherosclerosis, a disease in which the arteries are narrowed due to a buildup of cholesterol, fat and calcium.This type of buildup can obstruct the body's oxygen flow, which may result in a stroke or heart attack. Cranberries' natural compounds have been shown to suppress the oxidation of low density lipoprotein (LDL) and beneficially stimulate the blood platelets, according to researchers.
Parents in San Ysidro told NBC 7 that they are taking extra precautions for their children after a San Diego teen was found dead in Tijuanashot seven times in the head.

Desteny Memory Hernandez, 18, was found dead last week, according to the Baja California Attorney Generals office. The Imperial Beach teenager had gone partying with her friends at a nightclub at a nightclub in Tijuana.

The legal drinking age in Mexico is 18-years oldan attraction point for many local teens who can easily get across the border.

NBC 7 spoke with some parents who say after this incident, they are worried about their kids safety.

I think between the ages of 18 and 22, they really don't know about the dangers in Mexicoin a different country, said parent Lorraine Bumbasi.

A mother of four, Bumbassi said her 22-year old daughter has traveled to Tijuana with friends but younger kids need to be informed of any possible dangers.

According to the La Frontera newspaper in Tijuana, Hernandez sent her friends text messages, saying she had met some guys and was heading to one of their houses in the El Florida neighborhood. Her body was found on Sept. 7.

"Just to let them know, warn them that it's just a different country, it's not safe, Bumbassi said. They don't have as good of a system to police people over there compared to the U.S. I think it's safer here in the U.S."

Bumbassi says she wants to see more regulations for teens that are going to Mexico, such as notifying parents when their kids cross the border during certain hours.

But another parent, who was born and raised in Tijuana, disagreed.

Miguel Garcia says its important to educate his daughters about safety but killing is not the norm for his hometown.

"It's a tragedy obviously but there's always good stuff happening there. Not only if you want to go down and have some fun, but there are also a lot of positive things going on down there as well, he said.

Garcia says he would be concerned if his daughters went to Tijuana under the age of 18 years old. But he would educate them on taking necessary safety precautions before they cross the border.

"I think it's an isolated thing. I don't think it's a general thing, Garcia said. I go there all the time and you can have fun as long as you don't hang out with the wrong people and the wrong crowds."

Meanwhile, local young women told NBC 7 that they are also taking precautions, like dressing down to avoid attracting a lot of attention.

Hernandes'z cause of death was determined to be gunshot wounds to the thorax, abdomen and head. Officials from the Tijuana medical examiners office said there were no signs of sexual assault.

Her brother, Francisco Hernandez told NBC 7, that she was a kind and loving girl.

Mexican homicide investigators are investigating the shooting. So far, no arrests have been made.
Police are asking for the public's help to identify a person who was caught on surveillance video Sunday afternoon in East Palo Alto vandalizing a memorial dedicated to the firefighters who died during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The memorial, which was set up outside the Menlo Park Fire Protection District's Fire Station 2 at 2290 University Ave., was vandalized on the 15th anniversary of the attacks, according to fire officials.

Firefighters returning from an emergency call discovered the memorial, which consisted of 343 small flags representing each firefighter who died while in the line of duty on Sept. 11, had been set on fire, fire officials said.

After reviewing surveillance video from the area, a person was spotted setting fire to the flags, around 1:40 p.m., according to police.

After starting the fire, the suspect then walked away, heading toward Runnymede Street, police said.

The flags were being held in a flag tray, which was built and paid for by the firefighters themselves. The memorial had been a tradition within the fire district since the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania, according to fire officials.

The surveillance video can be seen on Dropbox. Anyone with information about the identity of the suspect is urged to contact East Palo Alto police at (650) 409-6792 or epa@tipnow.org. Tips can also be texted to (650) 409-6792. Tipsters have the option of remaining anonymous.
U.S. Coast Guard officials are urging Bay Area boaters and beachgoers to take caution while along the coast Sunday because of a forecast of strong swells.

Very strong rip currents and large shore breaks are expected at all west- or northwest-facing beaches from Sonoma County all the way down to the Monterey Bay, according to the Coast Guard.

"Boaters and beachgoers should be especially cautious on and near the water over the next several days," Petty Officer 1st Class Jess LaRue said in a statement. "We're ready to respond if boaters and beachgoers find themselves in distress."

Coast Guard officials encourage boaters to always have a working VHF-FM radio and lifejackets for all passengers and to file a float plan with friends, family members or a local marina before heading on the water.

People taking their dogs to the beach should make sure to protect them from large waves and to not try to rescue the dog if it's in a surf zone, according to the Coast Guard.
Embracing moments of silence to honor their fallen colleagues, public safety agencies calling San Mateo County home paid tribute to their fallen comrades Sunday morning in Belmont.

The annual ceremony has been held for the past 15 years to commemorate the service and honor the sacrifice put forth by those professionals killed in the line of duty, according to a press released penned by Redwood City.

Police officers, firefighters and paramedics working in the county were just some of those public safety officials on hand to read the names of deceased colleagues who have dedicated years of hard work to the region, according to the press release.

Redwood City Fire Department Captain Greg Da Cunha has been leading the ceremony ever since his dear friend and comrade Matt Smith was killed in 2001, according to the press release.

Sunday's recognition took place inside the Cunningham Memorial Chapel at Notre Dame de Namur University, according to the press release.
Beyonce, also known as "Queen B," attracted quite the swarm of fans in the South Bay Saturday night, which also triggered a hefty security presence.

Despite the concert taking over Levi's Stadium on the same day that a pipe bomb exploded before the running of a 5K race in New Jersey and an explosion in New York City that injured 29 people, concertgoers seemed to be at ease with the security efforts in Santa Clara.

"I've worked here before as security and I've seen how strict and what they look for and so that's why I don't think there is any concerns," said Ariana Ayala, who drove from Fresno County to watch Beyonce live.

Fellow attendee Chasen Powell-Ramirez added that forking over a hefty amount for a ticket doesn't just go to his concert experience.

"They should have top security," he said. "We pay all this money for security too so it should be OK," he said.

Fans were only allowed to don small bags upon their entrance into the venue. Large bags and backpacks were prohibited.

After the blasts along the East Coast Saturday, the San Francisco Police Department reiterated to citizens to always be vigilant of their surroundings and report suspicious activity.
25 years since the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic, supporters, volunteers and activists gathered in San Francisco at a national memorial to pay tribute to those people troubled by the deadly disease.

The anniversary celebration was held Saturday at the National AIDS Memorial in Golden Gate Park, specifically at a spot known as "The Grove," a location that became the epicenter for community healing and victim remembrance a quarter-century ago, organizers said in a statement.

During the tribute ceremony held on the 10-acre site, the original founders of the memorial were recognized for their work in restoring the landscape and providing a peaceful place for those impacted by AIDS to find comfort, solace and solidarity, according to organizers.

"Today, this memorial has evolved into a national treasure for our entire country to remember, seek comfort and ensure that we always keep their memory alive in our hearts," Jack Porter, a volunteer who lost his partner to AIDS in 1989, said in the statement.

25,000 volunteers have dedicated more than 150,000 hours over the past 25 years upkeeping the landscape at the memorial during community volunteer workdays, organizers said.

An estimated 36.9 million people around the world are currently living with HIV/AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. Roughly 35 million have died from the disease's symptoms, according to the statement issued by event organizers.
The League of Woman Voters of Dane County will discuss recent court decisions and Wisconsin's new laws about campaign finance and ethics at a forum on Oct. 5.

The forum, called "Money in Politics" will feature a panel discussion with Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, and Kevin Kennedy, retired executive director of the state Government Accountability Board.

It will be held at 7 p.m. at the Capitol Lakes Grand Hall, 333 W. Dayton St., in Madison. The event is free and open to the public. For information, visit the League's website at www.lwvdanecounty.org.
A Richmond teenager died late Friday after being shot multiple times, police said.

Dispatch received reports of a shooting at the Bella Vista at Hilltop at 3400 Richmond Parkway around 10:30 p.m., according to police. At the scene, officers found 17-year-old Chrisean Nealy suffering from several gunshot wounds.

He was taken to an area hospital, police said, but did not survive his injuries.

Investigators believe that Nealy, though not a resident of the apartment complex, was the intended target of the shooting.

Police did not provide information about a suspect or suspects, saying only that they are following up on leads and interviewing possible witnesses. There is no word on a motive either.

People with information about the shooting are asked to call (510) 620-6860.
Hillary Clinton on Saturday implored black leaders to help protect the legacy of President Barack Obama, warning of a "dangerous and divisive vision" that could come under rival Donald Trump.

Clinton, speaking before Obama delivered his final keynote address to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, did not mention Trump by name but showered the president with praise and said the upcoming election would be a pivotal choice for the country.

"It's not about golf course promotions or birth certificates. It comes down to who will fight for the forgotten, who will invest in our children and who will really have your back in the White House," Clinton said.

"We need ideas not insults, real plans to help struggling Americans in communities that have been left out and left behind, not prejudice and paranoia. We can't let Barack Obama's legacy fall into the hands of someone who doesn't understand that, whose dangerous and divisive vision for our country will drag us backwards."

The dinner offered a symbolic passing of the torch to the person Obama hopes will succeed him next year. Clinton, his former secretary of state, was honored for becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major party.

The gala featuring nearly four dozen black members of Congress, underscored Clinton's need for a large turnout of black voters in November against Trump. In a tight presidential race, Clinton is hoping that African-Americans turn out like they did for Obama's two victories when they comprised 13 percent of the electorate.

Black voters were among Clinton's most loyal supporters during the Democratic primaries, powering her to a series of wins in the South that helped her build a delegate lead against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The dinner included warnings of a Trump presidency. Retiring Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who was honored for his service, said of the GOP nominee, "his hatred and his bigotry has pulled the rug off and the sheet off the Republican Party so we can see it for what it is."

The gathering came a day after Trump reversed himself on his long-held and false view that Obama was not born in the United States. The Republican presidential nominee said Obama was born in America, but then incorrectly suggested that Clinton had started the conspiracy theory during the 2008 presidential contest.

Clinton said of Obama: "Mr. President, not only do we know you are an American, you are a great American."

Obama pointed to progress during his two terms as president, praising Clinton as the candidate most likely to continue that work.
Five people were killed, including a pregnant woman, and at least 38 more were wounded in shootings across the city between Friday evening and Monday morning, police said.

The pregnant woman, 19, was gunned down about 6:10 p.m. Sunday in the South Chicago neighborhood.

She and a 26-year-old man were sitting in a car parked in the 8700 block of South Marquette when another vehicle pulled alongside them and a gunman with dreadlocks opened fire, according to Chicago Police. The woman was shot in the neck and the man suffered gunshot wounds to the neck and chest. They were both taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she died, police said. The Cook County medical examiners office did not immediately confirm the death. Law enforcement sources said the woman was about eight months pregnant, and that the baby was delivered. The man, who police said has documented gang ties, was in critical condition.

About 4 a.m. Sunday in the Old Town neighborhood, someone walked out of a fast food restaurant in the 100 block of West Division, opened fire on two men, and took off in a Chevrolet Tahoe south on Clark, police said. The men, 20 and 30, were shot in the back and taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where the younger man died, police said. The medical examiners office has not released his name. The other man was in serious condition. The block where the shooting occurred was the target of a recent undercover drug investigation, according to a statement from Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd).

Ninety minutes before that, a man was fatally shot in the Brainerd neighborhood on the South Side. Officers responding to a call of shots fired at 2:25 a.m. in the 8900 block of South Laflin found 24-year-old Kiev Dobbins dead with multiple gunshot wounds in a gangway, according to police and the medical examiners office. He lived a block south of where he was found. He was the fifth person shot in the neighborhood since last weekend.

Just before 2 a.m., a 36-year-old man was gunned down in Washington Park on the South Side. A dark-colored SUV pulled up to him in the 5100 block of South Indiana, and a gunman got out and shot him twice. The victim was dead at the scene, police said. His name has not been released.

The weekends first homicide happened about midnight Sunday in the Gage Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side. Tontriche Weathersby Jr., 20, was at a party in the 5800 block of South Maplewood Avenue when he got into an argument with someone who shot him in the chest, authorities said. Weathersby, of the 2100 block of West 91st Street in Evergreen Park, was taken to Holy Cross Hospital and pronounced dead at 12:20 a.m.

The most recent nonfatal attack happened at 1:03 a.m. Monday in the West Englewood neighborhood on the South Side. A 21-year-old man was standing on the sidewalk in the 6600 block of South Claremont when he heard shots and realized hed been shot in the chest, police said. He was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where his condition was stabilized.

At least 35 more people were wounded in other shootings between about 5:30 p.m. Friday and 1:30 a.m. Monday.
An off-duty Chicago Police officer was killed in a crash early Sunday in southwest suburban Forest View.

At 2:05 a.m., the officer was stopped on a motorcycle at a red light at the Central Avenue exit off the southbound Stevenson Expressway. As the light turned green, he drove forward and his motorcycle was struck by a northbound car, which ran a red light, Forest View Police Chief Steve Good said.

The officer, who was wearing a helmet, was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood where he was pronounced dead, Good said. The officer was later identified as 49-year-old Charles "Chuck" Barango, a 14-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department.

"First of all, just let me share my condolences, and my thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the officer," CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson said at a news conference Sunday morning. "He was off duty at the time he was struck by another vehicle and fatally injured."

The driver of the car was checked and treated at the scene but did not go to a hospital, Good said.

Charges against the driver are pending, according to Good.
Leave it to Stephen Colbert.

The "Late Show" host threw out the first pitch at the Cubs game against the Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field on Saturday, and he did it in true Colbert fashion.

Known for his satire performances, Colbert disguised himself as "Donny Franks," a long-haired hot dog vendor, selling frankfurters to fans in the stands and even Cubs' manager Joe Maddon himself.

Colbert was in Chicago filming a segment for "The Late Show." Eyewitnesses reported seeing Colbert interview other hot dog vendors before taking his act to the Cubs dugout and first baseman Anthony Rizzo. [[393846701, C]]

The Northwestern University alumni launched his career at Chicago's famous Second City improv and sketch comedy theatre. He's also a noted Cubs fan and even tried to bring the team good luck in July. [[393846831, C]]

This wasn't the first time Colbert attended a major event in disguise, and it wasn't the first time someone took in a Cubs game incognito either.

In July, the talk show host crashed the stage at the Republican National Convention dressed like an emcee from the "Hunger Games" series for the prank.

On Friday, Cubs President Theo Epstein was caught watching the game from the Wrigley bleachers while wearing a fake mustache.
To his family he was a husband and father, but to his community of Newington, Peter Lavery was their police officer. That was until he stepped in the line of fire while responding to a domestic disturbance.

Sunday, fellow officers, his family, and friends gathered at the Annual MPO Peter Lavery Memorial Run to remember a life lost 12 year ago, in December of 2004.

Some days it feels like just yesterday . Some days you wake up and feel like youre in that moment, said Pam Lavery, Peters wife.

Its a moment Pam Lavery wishes she didnt have to relive. Each year since that fateful day when Lavery was killed, the community of Newington gathers together to honor his sacrifice.

If you worked with Peter, if you knew Peter, youre here, said Jeanine Allen, a former police sergeant with the Newington Police Department.

Allen worked closely with Lavery. She volunteered to collect the $20 donation requested of riders as they pulled into Newingtons Churchill Park Sunday morning.

I love Peter, I love his family. Theres just no other place Id rather be at this time of year, she added.

His sisters and brothers in blue joined hundreds of others for a motorcycle ride through Connecticut, raising money for a cause near to Laverys heart.

He went to college late in life and always wanted to promote younger people to further their education, explained the Laverys son Ray.

The family said over the last twelve years theyve raised $130,000 for a scholarship fund helping students who want to study law enforcement or the criminal justice system.

He would be overwhelmed with this, said Pam.

It makes us feel great as a family that we have so much support from the community, but also that the community still believes in law enforcement here, Ray added.

Knowing that in his death, Peter Lavery is helping young people follow in his footsteps, to become police officers themselves, protecting their own communities, helps heal the hearts of those who knew this hometown hero.
Connecticut state police are looking to identify any suspect(s) involved in a theft at Progressive Data Systems in North Windham.

Police said a $5,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in this case.

On Monday Sept. 12 state police received a report of a burglary at Progressive Data Systems at 148 Club Road. Police believe the crime occurred over the weekend.

Computers, paintings by artist Christian Seidler, artwork by artist J. Kulgler and antique clocks were among the items reported missing. Police said the suspects used a crowbar to get in the back door.

[HAR] Items Stolen from Windham Business

Anyone with information on this crime is asked to contact Eastern District Major Crime detectives at (860) 465-5400, call the anonymous tip line at (860) 465-5469, or text TIP711 with the information to 274637.
A race to honor Dallas' first responders will take on special meaning this year.

This year's Freedom Run will honor the five officers killed on the July 7th attack in downtown Dallas and SMU police officer Mark McCullers who drowned in July.

The Freedom Run is put on by the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers. The event started after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a way to honor police and firefighters.

"We want to let them know that we are here supporting them and we appreciate what they do for the community," said Crystal Moore with DAYL.

Money raised from the 5K benefits the Assist the Officer Foundation. The non-profit helps cover costs when officers and their families face catastrophic injuries or illnesses.

ATO Representative Mike Mata said money raised for the run and future fundraisers will help provide critical counseling for officers and their families, including children, affected by the attack in downtown Dallas.

"A lot of our officers are having a very hard time with it and we have a counseling program within the department that has almost tripled in cost," said officer and ATO representative Mike Mata. "Those costs are increasing so much because I think now that things have slowed down a bit, reality is starting to set in with a lot of these officers and they're starting to realize, 'I'm not feeling well' and they're reaching out."

The ATO received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations following the attack that killed five officers and injured 11 in July.

Mata said all the donations earmarked for officers and families of the fallen will go to straight to those families.

The races begin Saturday, Sept. 24. Click here to read more online.
Dallas police say a homeowner shot a burglar he discovered inside his home late Saturday night. [[393896201, C]]

The man called police about a burglary at a home in the 1000 block of Burlywood Drive just before 11:30 p.m.

When officers arrived, they talked to the man who said he heard glass breaking and saw a man standing inside his home, so he shot at him and the burglar ran.

Police caught up with 30-year-old James Nero a short time later and officers say he confirmed he was involved in the home break-in.

Nero was treated for gunshot wound at a local hospital and then taken to Lew Sterrett Justice Center, according to police.




Though she considers herself a political person, Ursula Galonski said she was never very involved in political groups.

To her, they were just a way for people to talk about being angry with some other group of people. But Galonski said she found something different when a friend drove her down from Green Bay to attend Saturdays Fighting Bob Fest.

These people here bring out what I think is the best of human beings, Galonski said.

Fighting Bob Fest, named for former Wisconsin Gov. Robert La Follete, had its 15th annual gathering at Breese Stevens Field, bringing hundreds of self-proclaimed progressives onto the synthetic grass of the playing field.

The stage hosted speakers including Caroline Fredrickson, president of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, and Chicago public school principal Troy LaRaviere, a vocal opponent of the citys policies favoring charter schools.

Several tables and tents provided information from groups ranging from Madison For Hillary to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth to South Central Wisconsin United to Amend, a group dedicated to overturning the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that determined monetary donations are a form of free speech and corporations cannot be restricted in their spending for or against a political candidate.

Speakers detailed their stances on issues such as race inequality, education and workers rights, but much of the attendees focus was on the presidential election.

This election feels more important than most in recent history, Anne Koenig said. Theres more at stake.

Coming from the Fox Valley area, this was Koenigs first Fighting Bob Fest. She came for the atmos- phere of like-minded people and to spend time with friend Barbara Larsen.

Koenig said she will vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. An enthusiastic Clinton supporter  she voted for her in the primaries  Koenig said Clintons experience as former secretary of state makes her qualified for the presidency.

Others who said they would vote for Clinton werent as enthusiastic.

Dawn Collins, a retiree living in McFarland, said she will also cast her vote for Clinton, but with reluctance. Collins has come to Fighting Bob Fest most years for the last decade and has called herself a progressive for more than 15 years. The most important issues to her are raising the minimum wage and overturning the Citizens United decision.

I care about what happens to not just myself, but to other people, Collins said. Everyone is deserving of a really good life.

While Collins doesnt like Clintons ties to big banks and does not think Clinton is peaceful enough with foreign policy, she said voting for Clinton is the only way to defeat Republican candidate Donald Trump.

One star of the fest was former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, who is running against Sen. Ron Johnson, who defeated Feingold six years ago. Feingold, who spoke at the fest in the afternoon after attending a neighborhood barbecue in Milwaukee, was met by attendants wearing stickers supporting his campaign.

Sam Breidenbach, owner of TDS Custom Construction, said his main concern in politics is the environment. He said Feingold understands that the economy and clean energy are interlinked through the prospects of new jobs.

Galonski left Breese Stevens Field with a haul of yard signs, pamphlets, buttons and stickers. She already knew she was voting for Feingold and Clinton, but she said her allegiance does not lie along party lines.

If I havent seen that you made progress for me, Im voting you out, Galonski said.

That sentiment was echoed throughout the day.
Authorities say a 32-year-old woman was covered in blood when she was arrested in the apparent stabbing death of her mother.

Police say 58-year-old Virginia Gonzales was found dead at a home Sunday morning. Her daughter, Veronica Gonzales, was booked into jail Sunday on a murder charge.

Stephen Jimenez, a homicide investigator, says officers were called to the scene when the daughter turned up at a friend's house bloody and "in distress." Police then swarmed the suspect's home, about 2 miles away, and found the victim.

No other suspects are sought in the slaying. Police have not released any information on a motive.

Veronica Gonzales did not have any major injuries. She remained in jail in Houston Sunday. Bond hadn't been set. Jail records didn't list an attorney for her.
The San Diego Zoo has two new families of rare reptiles on its hands.

The eggs of two rare reptile species, the black tree monitor and the mossy leaf-tailed gecko, have hatched at the Zoo for the first time.

Black tree monitors are native to the humid forests and swamps of the Aru Islands off the coast of Papa New Guinea, but their livelihood has been threatened by continued loss of tree cover that they depend on for survival. The pet trade, and non-native predators, has also played a role in their diminishing population, but four new hatchlings at the Zoo could be the start of a rejuvenating breeding program.

Were thrilled to have black tree monitor hatchlings this year, as this is the first time they've successfully reproduced at the San Diego Zoo, said Dave Grubaugh, a reptile keeper at the San Diego Zoo. The parents have been with us for three years now, and we've just been patiently waiting for them to reach maturity and bond with each other. They are one part of a larger, fragile ecosystem where every piece is important.

The monitor hatchlings weigh about 11 grams.

Thanks to their unique scale adaptations, leaf-tailed geckos are very popular in the pet trade. They resemble leaves, making it hard for predators to identify them among the leafy forests of Madagascar, their native region.

The geckos have had their futures threatened by logging, agricultural growth, housing development and other human activity. According to San Diego Zoo Global, 80 percent of their natural habitat has been decimated.

In 2010, the Zoo received a confiscated batch of the geckos and has since helped the reptiles produce eight different hatchlings. The Zoo now has several generations thriving on site.

In the cases of both reptile species, keeping a healthy population remote from their native lands can be of extreme help in the defense against extinction.
The first permanent monument in the city of Los Angeles to memorialize the Armenian genocide was unveiled Saturday at Grand Park.

County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and Armenian community and clergy leaders marked the installation of the sculpture, created by Vahagn Thomasian, during a 5 p.m. ceremony.

The monument is sculpted out of black volcanic tuff rock from the Ararat Valley of Armenia. It will be placed permanently at Olive Court in Grand Park, to remember the Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks in a massacre that began April 24, 1915.

"This remarkable memorial honors the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide and Grand Park is a superb venue for reflection and solemn contemplation," Antonovich said in a statement.

Armenian genocide memorials are also in place or being planned for other parts of the county, including Montebello, which has had a monument since 1968.
Behind the urban scenery that California has grown to be known for rests vast forests that house different types of wildlife. But what happens when a curious critter gets injured in your own backyard?

California Wildlife Center is the hero injured animals need.

Ranging from scared squirrels to beaten birds, California Wildlife Center supports and heals urban animals that are found by people.

Just off Piuma Road in Calabasas, California Wildlife Center, whose motto is, "Rescue, rehabilitate and release," saves the state's native wildlife in an effort to preserve their well being.

Sherman Oaks resident Jay Steinberg took two baby raccoons to the Center in cat carriers.

"These two baby raccoons were making this absolutely pitiful sound, obviously in distress," he said.

His wife found them abandoned in their neighborhood.

"She called me in tears trying to figure out what to do," Steinberg said.

California's hot weather can be harsh on wildlife, who are bound to roam our neighborhoods in search for food and water.

According to state laws, it is illegal to keep or relocate predatory animals. They must be released in the same area or be euthanized.

"We tell people, 'put them in a dark box, keep them warm, bring them to us,'" said Jennifer Brent, the executive director of the California Wildlife Center.

A non-profit organization, California Wildlife Center is unique and is the only center in Los Angeles County that operates a fully staffed intake center, nursery, hospital and rehab center for urban animals.

The Center heavily depends on volunteers and interns who go through months of training in order to properly handle the critters. Volunteers admit it is difficult to not get attached to these creatures.

"Everything that comes in here, the goal is to release them," said Dennis Humen, the California Wildlife Center hospital manager.

For more information visit cawildlife.com. If you come across a sick or injured wild animal, call the California Wildlife Center Hospital at (310) 458-WILD.
A parade and festival in East Los Angeles Sunday marked the 206th anniversary of the day leaders of an insurrection declared Mexico's independence from Spain.

It marks the 70th anniversary of the annual East Los Angeles Mexican Independence Day and Parade, held at Belvedere Community Regional Park and presented by Comite Mexicano Civico Patriotico.

The one and a half-mile parade started at 10:30 a.m. at Cesar Chavez and Mednik avenues. The Gran Festival runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with performances throughout the day.

While the East Los Angeles festivities are on Sept. 18, the actual Mexican Independence Day is Sept. 16, 1810, when Father Miguel Hidalgo invited his parishioners to join him in taking up arms against the Spanish government.

He was aided by Ignacio Allende.

What an incredible parade! So much pride, love and patriotism for 2 beautiful countries! #MexicanIndependenceDay pic.twitter.com/9xdcC25pR5  Marin Austin (@MarinNBCLA) September 18, 2016

Both were captured by the Spanish army and put to death, but a succession of leaders led the peasant army to an eventual liberation agreement 11 years later.

NBC4's sister station Telemundo 52 is a partner of the event.

NBC4's Marin Austin contributed to this report.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti expressed support for East Coast residents in the wake of an explosion that injured 29 people in New York and two other unrelated incidents this weekend and vowed to remain vigilant in keeping local communities safe.

"Our thoughts are with everyone who has endured the violence in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia this weekend," Garcetti said in a statement issued late Saturday. "We condemn those responsible and offer our support to first responders and all those working tirelessly to tend to the injured, restore calm and investigate these senseless attacks."

A device authorities described as a makeshift explosive injured at least 29 people Saturday night on a crowded sidewalk in Manhattan's Chelsea district. A second unexploded device was also discovered.

New York Mayor Bill deBlasio has said an initial investigation indicates the devices were deliberately set, but do not appear to be terrorist-related.

Earlier Saturday an explosive went off in a garbage can near the boardwalk in New Jersey's Seaside Park. No injuries were reported.

On Friday night, a gunman went on a shooting spree in West Philadelphia that left one woman dead and two police officers injured.

Garcetti said Los Angeles police continue to monitor all three incidents and remain "dedicated to ensuring the safety and security of all of L.A.'s communities."
The lawyer representing a South Carolina teen charged with hitting a 5-year-old girl on a school bus says he has proof his client did not leave a slap mark the girl's face, NBC affiliate WAGT reported.

Jazmyn Peters' father took a picture of the mark after he picked her up from daycare a few weeks ago. Tavon Walters is charged with assault.

"Public and masses believe that this 17-year-old slapped this kid so hard, maliciously, violently, it left a mark on her face. I can see why they were so upset," attorney Carl Grant said.

Still, Grant says his client is not the person responsible for the mark left on Peters' face.

Grant believes the truth lies in statements from Jazmyn's teachers. They say the girl told them a boy hit her on the bus, and then another child hit her at daycare. Grant says the school resource officer told him the mark did not come from the bus incident.

Read more from WAGT
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted a warning for pregnant women to stay out of Wynwood altogether, but continued to caution them about traveling to the city and surrounding areas out of concerns for catching the virus, which can cause serious birth defects. In nearby Miami Beach, health officials have broadened their declared zone of active local transmission.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted a warning for pregnant women to stay out of Wynwood altogether, but continued to caution them about traveling to the city and surrounding areas out of concerns for catching the virus, which can cause serious birth defects.

The announcement came after a Monday morning press conference where Gov. Rick Scott was joined by City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, declaring that the Wynwood area north of Downtown Miami has not had a new case of the virus detected.

"We had an issue, everybody took it seriously, and we resolved it," Scott said.

Scott and CDC officials attributed the drop-off in infections in Wynwood to aggressive aerial spraying with naled, an insecticide that targets adult mosquitoes, and street-level spraying with another pesticide that kills mosquito larvae.

Scott said residents and business owners who kept their properties clear of standing water also helped.

Gimenez did say that spraying to combat the virus would continue in the Wynwood area  but no more flights will be done to drop pesticide on the area.

Scott continued his criticism of the federal government, who continue to disagree over funding to help Florida fight the virus. He also said the state has asked for more kits to help test pregnant women for Zika.

Officials also said that a "Dine Out Wynwood Day" would be held on September 30th to help businesses in the area that have been hurt during the crisis.

Scott's news comes just days after authorities expanded a local transmission area in nearby Miami Beach, which had seen their own outbreak of the virus in recent weeks.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced Friday that the Department of Health was expanding the area of local transmission on Miami Beach from 8th Street to 63rd Street.

Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Health announced there were two new non-travel related Zika cases in Miami-Dade. One was in Miami Beach and the department is investigating where the other case occurred.

Mayor Gimenez announced in a statement that local officials will continue "aggressive on-the-ground and truck spraying'' into next week in the entire affected area that still exists in Miami Beach. He said aerial spraying is not planned for the expanded area unless the CDC tells them to do so.

Hundreds of people in the state have become infected with the virus that can cause severe birth defects. Most of those who have the virus caught it while traveling, but 85 cases have not been travel related.

The governor on Friday authorized spending an additional $10 million in state funds for Zika response.
Dr. Jenna Sebranek, a freshly minted doctor at Richland Medical Center, entered a room to greet one of her first patients  and paused, because she recognized the face.

Weve met before, havent we? Sebranek, 31, asked Sandy Welte, 69, at the clinic for hip and knee pain.

Yes, the archery shop, on (Highway) 14, Welte said.

I was there as a kid, Sebranek said. My dad went there a lot.

Sebranek, who grew up near Richland Center, a city of about 5,000 people roughly 60 miles northwest of Madison, went back to her hometown this month to practice family medicine.

She is a graduate of the Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine, or WARM, a rural training program of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health designed to help ease the states doctor shortage in rural areas.

WARM, entering its 10th year, selects students from rural places or with an interest in rural practice and trains them in rural settings, with the hope that theyll work in similar locales after medical school.

The program, which enrolls 26 students a year, increased the medical schools class size from 150 to 176.

Now that the first graduates are starting their first jobs after finishing residencies, the years of training after medical school, WARM leaders are making an initial evaluation of the programs success.

The results are good, though they could be improved, said Dr. Byron Crouse, WARM director. Of 23 graduates who have completed residencies, 20 work in Wisconsin, 12 of them in rural areas  including Black River Falls, Oconto Falls, Rice Lake and Shawano.

Crouse said he is very proud that the vast majority of WARM doctors have remained in the state.

But while the percentage of WARM graduates working in rural areas is much higher than that of the general medical school before WARM started, hes not satisfied. He hopes at least two-thirds of WARM students end up in rural Wisconsin.

Is the glass half-full or half-empty? he said. Its both.

WARM students are encouraged to work in rural places and can get medical school loan forgiveness for doing so, but it is not required. We still live in a country that really believes in autonomy and independence, Crouse said.

Sebranek said some doctors prefer the prestige or higher salaries of working as specialists in bigger cities. But she wanted to return home and become a jack of all trades.

I always saw myself coming home and giving back to the community that raised me, said Sebranek, who treated her best friends father the same day she saw Welte. In family medicine, you have to know a little bit about everything. I think that can be harder than being really good at one thing.

One challenge to keeping WARM graduates in Wisconsin, especially in rural areas, is a lack of residencies in the state, Crouse said. For example, three WARM graduates left the state this year to pursue community-based residencies in obstetrics and gynecology because Wisconsin hospitals didnt offer one.

The UW medical school announced this month it will start a rural, community-based OB-GYN residency next year, with training in Monroe, Portage, Ripon, Waupun and Watertown.

The state of Wisconsin and Wisconsin health systems plan to add 73 residency positions in 11 programs within five years, according to a report in August by the Wisconsin Council on Medical Education.

The additional residencies, along with the Milwaukee-based Medical College of Wisconsin opening campuses in Green Bay last year and Wausau this year, should help alleviate Wisconsins doctor shortage, the report said. Still, the state faces a projected shortage of 833 to 3,756 doctors by 2035.

In rural Wisconsin, were starting to see a greater pool of physicians to draw on, but were also seeing a greater number of rural physicians approaching retirement age, Crouse said. The problem is not fully solved yet.

Relating to rural patients

Dr. David Rebedew, a WARM graduate, is doing his part to the meet the need in rural Green County, south of Madison. He started work last month at Monroe Clinic in Albany in his first job as a family medicine doctor.

The Fond du Lac native, who is 29, displayed rural credibility by using appropriate agriculture terminology this month with one of his first patients, Howard Berra.

Berra, 93, said he was a retired dairy farmer.

How many head? Rebedew asked. Berra said he had milked 100 cows near Brodhead.

Rebedew used patience and persistence to get medical information from August Keehn, 56, a farm equipment mechanic who had a stroke two years ago.

Rebedew asked if Keehn had chest pain. Well, Im not going to complain about that, Keehn said.

So, maybe? Rebedew said. Yes, Keehn allowed, even when sitting on the couch.

How often? Rededew asked. Every couple of days, Keehn replied.

Though Rebedew said he suspected gastric reflux, not heart disease, he ordered a cholesterol check and added a blood pressure drug to Keehns medications because his blood pressure remained high.

Rebedew said he likes the autonomy of being a small-town doctor. Its just two nurses, a front desk staff and myself, he said.

His wife, Katie Rebedew, who graduated with him from UW medical school but was not in the WARM program, also works at Monroe Clinic, as a pediatrician in New Glarus and Monroe.

Dr. Clay Dean, a WARM graduate who was featured in a 2010 series on rural health care in the Wisconsin State Journal, started this month as one of three general surgeons at Sauk Prairie Healthcare.

Dean, 33, said hes glad he found a job in a rural area, where he can do many kinds of surgeries, not far from the beef farm where he grew up near the village of Blue River.

It will give me the biggest opportunity to make the biggest impact on a community, he said. I want to have a broad scope of practice. In a bigger city, you have to get a niche.

Coming home as a doctor

Sebranek is reveling in her personal connections with many of her patients in Richland Center.

Youre not just the physician; youre part of the community, she said.

After two years at UW-Richland, Sebranek graduated from UW-Madison. Through WARM, she did clinical rotations in La Crosse and Tomah, getting opportunities at Tomah Memorial Hospital she likely wouldnt have had in Madison during medical school, such as assisting in a cesarean section delivery.

That would never happen in a million years in a larger setting, she said.

As one of 14 family medicine doctors at Richland Medical Center, Sebranek will deliver babies and see patients of all ages in the clinic, urgent care center, hospital and nursing home.

Its birth to death and everything in between, she said.

Last week, with patient Mary Novy, Sebranek had to think on the fly. A routine new patient visit quickly changed course when Novy complained of intense pain in her knee, where she developed an infection two years ago after a knee replacement.

Ive got big problems, said Novy, 75, who lives near Gotham, wincing.

Sebranek ordered an X-ray, an ultrasound and blood tests. The ultrasound ruled out a blood clot and one of the blood tests suggested a worsening infection, so Sebranek prescribed pain medication and another doctor drained fluid from the knee.

With Welte, who had Lyme disease last year, Sebranek prescribed antibiotics for another likely infection of the tick-borne disease, which can cause joint pain and is common in Richland County.

Sebranek and Welte have several connections. Not only did Sebranek and her father visit Weltes archery shop when Sebranek was a girl, her father bought part of the business when the Weltes sold it.

Sebraneks father went to school with Weltes younger brother. Sebraneks mother and the niece of Weltes husband are best friends.

Welte said having such ties with her doctor brings comfort. I feel reassured, she said.
The attorney for the slain suspect in a rampage shooting that left a woman dead and five others, including two police officers, injured, spoke to NBC10 about his former client.

You obviously never like to see anything like this happen, said Anthony Petrone, the attorney for Nicholas Glenn. A tragedy for the victims and Nicholas family. Not a complete surprise but nothing I could have predicted.

Police say Glenn, 25, walked up to Philadelphia Police Sergeant Sylvia Youngs marked police cruiser on 52nd and Sansom streets around 11:20 p.m. Friday, took out a Ruger Model SR9, 9mm semi-automatic pistol and opened fire, striking Young several times. He then continued on Sansom Street and went on a random shooting spree before he was eventually shot to death by responding police officers, investigators said. A 25-year-old woman died while Sergeant Young, a University of Pennsylvania police officer and three civilians were injured during the ordeal.

After Glenn was killed, police found a note in his possession with the headline, Doomed People. It included rambling, unclear statements that implied a hatred towards Glenns probation/parole officers as well as police.

"It is rambling," said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross. "It would be very difficult to glean anything from that. It's more about himself than it is about who he wanted to harm."

Police sources told NBC10 Glenn had a lengthy criminal record and was arrested more than a dozen times. During an interview with NBC10 Saturday night, Petrone described his former clients volatile time in jail.

He had some prison infractions for fighting, Petrone said. So he was in solitary for most of his time during what I remember was seven months up on State Road.

Petrone said he noticed a change in Glenn during his stint in jail.

I did notice with him a serious change in his attitude and overall demeanor during the period of time that he was incarcerated up in the county prison, Petrone said. I remember visiting him frequently and he had to be pulled out of solitary and I remember he was having a very difficult time in dealing with the solitary confinement.

Petrone said Glenn slowly became more and more despondent.

I was having more difficulty communicating with him during that period of time he was incarcerated, Petrone said. I kind of saw a change in his demeanor.

Police continue to investigate Glenns motive in the shooting but say at this point they dont believe he was affiliated with any group.




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As the deadly grip of the heroin and opioid addiction epidemic continues to hold in the Philadelphia region and across the nation, President Barack Obama last week declared this week, beginning Sunday, as Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week.

President Obama officially proclaimed Sept. 18 through Sept. 24, 2016 Opioid Epidemic Awareness Week on Friday. White House officials said that as part of the week, Cabinet members and federal agencies will focus on working to address the epidemic across the U.S.

The federal government has taken many measures recently aimed at combating the heroin and opioid epidemic by increasing funding for treatment, helping to make opioid overdose antidote naloxone more readily available to citizens and police officers, and urging doctors to take care in how they prescribe opioid painkillers.

President Obama has called on Congress to approve $1.1 billion in new funding to fight the epidemic. That funding has not yet been approved.

As part of Opioid Epidemic Awareness Week, the White House will host parents who have lost children to addiction, and U.S. Attorney's Offices throughout the country will participate in more than 160 different events, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

NBC10 earlier this year aired and published Generation Addicted, an in-depth special report exploring the heroin and opioid epidemic in the Philadelphia region and beyond. Learn more about Generation Addicted here, and stay with NBC10.com and the NBC10 app for continuing coverage of the fight against addiction in our region.
A day after a West Philadelphia shooting rampage left two police officers wounded, a woman dead and three other people injured, Philadelphia Police again found themselves facing gunfire late Saturday.

Officers stopped two men for investigation on downtown Philadelphia's South Street near 9th shortly before midnight Saturday, according to police, when they suspected the men of smoking marijuana. Police said when the officers approached the men, the pair fled, with officers on foot chasing them.

That's when police say at least one of the men pulled out a gun and fired at least four shots at the pursuing officers. Police did not return fire, and no injuries were reported. Officers managed to catch the two suspects and place them under arrest.

No official charges have been announced.
Donald Trump is hitting back at the former defense secretary who called him "beyond repair" when it comes to national security.

Robert Gates served under presidents of both parties. He wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday that Trump is "stubbornly uninformed" about the world.

Trump first swiped back on Twitter, then went further at an evening rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The Republican nominee suggests that Gates "probably has a problem we don't know about" and claims that he would be "so much better at what he's doing" than Gates.

Trump also called the former secretary of defense "a nasty guy" and "an absolute clown." And he said, "I don't like critics."

Earlier Saturday, Trump addressed the Remembrance Project in Houston. That's an organization founded to advocate for tougher immigration laws in honor of those killed by people in the country illegally. Trump says he is "shining a national spotlight" on Americans killed by immigrants living in the United States illegally.

The Republican nominee says "not one more American life should be given up in the name of open borders."

Trump told the group most "politicians ignore your cries, but I never will."

The Republican nominee has appeared with the group before and has made its cause part of his platform. But his position on immigration has shifted repeatedly in recent weeks.
A 5-year-old girl who suffered a concussion in a deadly DUI crash that killed her grandmother and 2-year-old sister last week has been released from the hospital, a Rady Childrens Hospital official confirmed Saturday.

The girl was released and is now at home with her family, the hospital said.

The Magat family would like to thank the community for all of the support they have received following that deadly crash, Carlos Delgado, Media Relations for Rady Childrens Hospital said in a statement.

Lina Nebrida, 64, and Keira Magat, 2, died when a suspected drunk driver hit their vehicle from behind the morning of September 10 on Interstate 15 near Scripps Poway Parkway and Mercy Road.

Their vehicle stalled in the middle of I-15 while the driver that struck their vehicle fled the scene, according to California Highway Patrol officers.

A few minutes later, another vehicle slammed into the family's car.

The 5-year-old was in ICU before being moved to a private room. Her mother, who was also injured in the crash, was at her daughters side while she recovered, according to a family spokesperson.

The suspect, Grant Thoren, 31, was arrested and booked on multiple charges, including first degree murder. He was arrested at a home in San Marcos after being turned in by a tow truck driver, who had towed his car from a gas station near the crash site.

The San Diego District Attorney says the case is "all under review."

Officials did not file charges against Thoren at his scheduled arraignment Wednesday, which was cancelled.

A spokeswoman with the DA says the office plans to file charges, but decisions on what those charges may be have not been made.
Dozens took to the streets in Vista on Saturday to protest the death of a man shot and killed by Sheriff's deputies last month.

Justice for Sergio Weick! was the cry from family members and police protesters during their march, more than one month after Weicks death.

Loved ones remembered Weick as a husband and father of five children who had kids as young as 18 months old and as old as 14 years old.

What they did was wrong, Weicks widow, Nena, said of the deputies involved. They have killed, they have murdered their father. They will go on with life without their father.

Nena marched through the streets with her five children and dozens of others protesting police brutality.

But San Diego County Sheriff's investigators paint a different picture of Weick, who was a documented gang member.

More than one month before Saturdays march though Vista, authorities say they had a warrant for Weicks arrest connected to a SWAT stand-off in 2015.

On August 11, 2016, deputies say they spotted Weick driving near the intersection of North Santa Fe Avenue and Knapp Drive. Deputies recognized the driver of the Lexus as a known gang member who had an active felony warrant for his arrest.

Investigators say Weick refused to pullover for the deputies, leading them on an 8-minute chase that ended in a town home complex in the 100 block of Bronze Way. Its still unclear exactly what happened next.

Authorities say Weick crashed and continued on foot and at some point along the narrow walkway, the suspect and deputies became involved in a confrontation, the original press release stated. During that confrontation, two deputies fired multiple rounds, striking the suspect several times.

Officials later identified those two Vista deputies as Peter Myers, an 8-year veteran on the San Diego Sheriffs Department, and Christopher Villanueva, who has been with the department for two months in addition to two years experience as a police officer with another law enforcement agency.

Weick went to the hospital in critical condition and later died. Homicide investigators say the autopsy report showed the cause of death was trauma from multiple gunshot wounds.

He didn't deserve to get shot down like he didn't matter, because he does, said Weicks cousin Johnny Hoyt.

Hoyt says deputies aren't telling the whole story and that they must be held accountable.

We need people out there upholding the law that we can turn to, that we can respect," he said. "People that respect life.

Shortly after the incident detectives completed their search of the car Weick was driving. They found a sawed-off shotgun, multiple knives, a sword, additional ammunition for the shotgun and drug paraphernalia inside the car.

The Vista Sheriff's Department will forever in my eyes be the Vista Savage Department, Hoyt said. He says Weicks body was riddled with 26 gunshot wounds, though investigators have not confirmed how many times he was shot or where.

We know what he was, we know what he was about but he was also our family member and we miss him, he said.

Hoyt and others are now pleading for witnesses of the shooting to come forward.

Sheriffs detectives with the Homicide Unit were not available Saturday to give any updates on the investigation.
More than 300 female founders and funders from the United States and Mexico have gathered at the second annual "Hera Venture Summit" at the University of San Diego on Saturday, to promote bi-national networking.

Officials said the event is set from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., at the Mother Rosalie Hill Hall: School of Leadership and Education Sciences. It's hosted by Dr. Silvia Mah, founding partner of Hera Fund and Hera Angels, and Felena Handson, founder and CEO of co-working space Hera Hub.

Its purpose is to foster relationships among female investors and funders working for Hera Angels, as well as encourage connections between the San Diego and Mexico start-up businesses, especially from the CaliBaja region, said Hera Venture officials.

At the event, women are discussing trends and resources related to start-ups and investing. There is also a showcase of San Diego products made by women featured on display, according to Hera Venture. Three women from San Diego have participated in a Shark Tank-like "Fast Pitch" contest, a game that encourages women to share their creative business ideas.

Attendees will be welcomed by Barbara Bry, a start-up advocate and candidate for San Diego City Council District 1, and Michael Lawless, clinical professor of management at the University of San Diego School of Business.

Some prominent business panelists at the event are Qualcomm's Navrina Singh, and Golden Sees angel investor Kim Kovacs.

Tickets are $239 at the door, with the exception of students, who are granted free admission.

Last year, the Hera Ventura Summit netted $100,000 in angel investing deals.
A 67-year-old man was struck by a vehicle while crossing the street on 2800 El Cajon Boulevard, according to San Diego police.

The driver, a 27-year-old man, was headed westbound at about 9:55 p.m. Friday evening and did not see the pedestrian before striking him, said SDPD Sgt. Brad O' Donnell.

Without heeding signs warning against pedestrian crossings, the victim attempted to cross the street, said Donnell. After he was taken to a local hospital, the man died from his injuries.

It was unclear whether speed or alcohol was a contributing factor in the collision. An investigation is being conducted by the San Diego Police Traffic Unit.

No other information was immediately available.
San Diego Sheriff's Deputies are on alert in Del Mar, making sure everyone stays safe during KAABOO, a music and arts festival.

For many visitors, security during the large festival is a concern.

But some nearby residents are more concerned about what happens outside the gates.

Greg Rolfsmeyer has lived just steps away from the Del Mar Fairgrounds for the past 25 years.

"There were years when they had motorcycle races down there, that was terrible," Rolfsmeyer said.

He said the noise from the live music isn't too big of a deal for him, but what is a big deal for him are the cars lining every street.

When visitors come back to their cars after a night of fun, they are not always the most considerate.

"They have a tendency to still be partying and kind of loud and sometimes they leave beer cans and bottles in the yard," he said.

Other Del Mar residents, like Andrew Berlin, says events like these only make Del Mar an even better place to live.

He has decided to embrace the event along with many of his neighbors, setting up shop in their backyard.

"Good music, a little bit late, what's the harm," Berlin said. "It's part of being a local and living here a while and knowing whats what."

DJs perform until the early morning hours. Organizers tell NBC 7 those shows are in tents to help cut down on the noise impact to nearby residents.

KAABOO runs Friday, Sept. 16 to Sunday, Sept. 18.
Fire up the grill!

Sunday is National Cheeseburger Day, and to celebrate, a number of restaurants are offering special promotions.

Here are just a few of the restaurants offering up free or discounted cheeseburgers (fries not included).

STK: At STK in Dupont Circle, customers who buy a Lil' BGR will get a free one.

Ruby Tuesday: The national chain is offering customers who but an entree a free burger. But there's a catch! You must be joined the restaurants "So Connected" email club.

Our favorite holiday of the year is tomorrow, #NationalCheeseburgerDay! You won't wanna miss it. pic.twitter.com/5XhRUpAkoh  BURGERFI (@BURGERFI) September 17, 2016

Burger-Fi: Customers can snag a double cheeseburgers for just $5.

Delta Airlines: Hitting the friendly skies Sunday? If you're flying with Delta Airlines from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, you can get a burger from Shake Shack during your flight.
Hundreds of bicyclists rode across Massachusetts on Saturday to honor police officers killed in the line of duty.

The fourth annual Ride to Remember started in Springfield at 7 a.m. and ended at the Massachusetts State House.

An estimated 350 riders started arriving at about 5 p.m., including one runner who started the 106 mile trek on Friday.

Watertown Police Officer Brandon O'Neil ran the entire route for his daughter Savannah, who lost her life due to an illness at 9 years old.

O' Neil also ran for State Police Trooper Thomas Clardy and Auburn Police Officer Ronald Tarentino who lost their lives in the line of duty earlier this year.

"I'm excited and I'm drained but I'm very excited that I made it," O' Neil said.

O'Neil was greeted at the state house by Gov. Charlie Baker and his family and friends.

"Men and women who work in law enforcement absolutely positively know that any day they put that uniform on could be one that's filled with horrible surprises," Baker said.

Springfield Police Sergeant John Delany said next year there will be another Ride to Remember.

"I hope this thing grows and grows and grows," he said. "The more people that do, it the more people that are aware that cops are human."

Following the ride, participants met at the Massachusetts Memorial to Fallen Heroes for a brief ceremony where Clardy and Tarentino's names will be added next week.

The annual ride has raised $250,000 since it began four years ago.
Massachusetts State Police said they are monitoring three national incidents that took place over the weekend with the help of the state's intelligence center.

On Saturday night, a device exploded in a dumpster in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, injuring 29 people. Just four blocks away, police said an unexploded pressure-cooker was found with wires and a cellphone attached to it.

Authorities said there didn't appear to be any link to international terrorism but that the dumpster explosion 'was intentional.'

Earlier on Saturday, a pipe bomb was detonated during a charity run in Ocean County, New Jersey. No injuries were reported.

Friday night, a man went on a shooting rampage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The man allegedly killed one woman and injured five people, including two police officers. The suspect was shot and killed by police.

Massachusetts State Police said the Commonwealth Fusion Center, which compiles and disseminates information about criminal and terrorist activity, is receiving updates on both incidents from the FBI and intelligence officials in other states. The CFC is sharing relevant information with law enforcement agencies throughout the Commonwealth.

So far, no connection has been made between any of the recent incidents or anyone in Massachusetts but the CFC says they will continue to monitor the investigations.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said intelligence gathering both in the Commonwealth and around the country has improved over the years due to incidents like the ones over the weekend and the Boston Marathon bombing.

"A number of times over the course of the past 12 months, people have been brought in and questioned or they've been intercepted on their way to an event," Baker said. "There was one in Los Angeles a couple weeks ago where law enforcement brought someone in with a car of explosives. I think that's going to continue to be our best opportunity to deal with this."

The attacks in Manhattan over the weekend reminded many around Boston of the attacks they suffered on Marathon Monday in 2013.

The New York thing hit home. My brother lives a few blocks away from the explosion, said Michelle Katz, who lives in Newton.

She and other parents gathered at the Newton Center Playground on Sunday for an event organized by Mayor Setti Warren. It was part of an effort to bring the community closer to its police department. Following Saturdays explosions, parents were more than happy to attend.

Its a different world we live in from when I grew up, said mom, Sarah Solomon. We just have to handle things different and be more aware of our surroundings and more vigilant.

For police, Saturday's incident in Manhattan also brought back memories.

Half our department was over in Watertown after the Boston Marathon, explained Newton Police Chief David MacDonald.

Since 9/11, MacDonald said police departments around the state and country have developed a different mindset, one that forces them to be more vigilant over their communities than ever before.

Every city and town is just one event away from a crazy situation, MacDonald said. So, this is a mindset that we are used to.

Given the evolving nature of threats cities are facing today, Warren said communities, like Newton, are always reevaluating the procedures they have in place.

Large cities, towns are going to have to be prepared to deal with this new age. Warren explained.
Police are investigating the stabbing of a teenager that took place Friday night in Melrose, Massachusetts.

Officers responded to the Melrose-Wakefield Hospital after a report that a 17-year-old boy had been stabbed just before 10 p.m.

Police learned that the teen had been outside the nearby Walgreens when a car with three men inside pulled up to him. The men then got out and allegedly stabbed the victim six times.

Authorities said the teen was later transported to Massachusetts General Hospital with non life threatening injuries.

The stabbing is under investigation but police believe the incident is isolated and that the victim and suspects knew one another.
125 YEARS AGO

Judge Layton has removed his office into the building adjoining the Coconino Sun office.

Post Master Cook is having a new sidewalk laid in front of the Post Office. The Post Office is to be enlarged to accommodate the rapidly increasing business.

There are now 475 names on the tax rolls of Coconino County.

There are two more Western Union clocks now in service at this place. The time is regulated hourly by the Master Clock at the local Western Union Office. Flagstaff now has the position of being the only town in the Territory that is supplied with one of these fine pieces.

100 YEARS AGO

James Gallagher broke 3 perfectly good ribs in an accident Friday night. He was traveling down Switzer Hill when his lights went out. His machine went into the ditch and rolled over catching him underneath along with Tyson Schwin. Tom Richardson was thrown free and being uninjured was able to get the others out from under. It was a lucky spill under the circumstances. The machine was not much injured.

Our Assistant Post Master has received a $100 per annum increase in salary. He believes he can use a considerable portion in maneuvering with the high cost of groceries and utilize the rest with a new pair of galoshes.

Good growing weather continues in Northern Arizona. Apples, Pears and late peaches are on the market. All the forage crops are making good growth. Beans are doing exceedingly well. Seeding of winter wheat and barley has begun and the range stock are in fine condition.

75 YEARS AGO

Paramount Movie officials were here this week seeking locations for filming Ernest Hemmingways  For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Power lines are being laid up on Mt. Elden preparing for the installation of the equipment needed for the Sheriff to have 2-way radios in patrol cars.

The Healthmobile of Arizona State Dept. of Health arrived on campus Monday to assist in giving physicals to students including an X-ray to determine if tuberculosis is present.

H.77 Mon. L. 30 Mon. No fires, thanks to the unseasonable rain.

1966 Sept. 3rd wk.

Former Office Manager for the Housing Authority has been arrested and charged with misappropriating $9529.67 in public funds. M. K. Mert Leadbetter, Director.

An estimated $800 damage was done to General Tire Co at 2400 E. 2nd Ave at about 2:30 am Saturday morning. A neighbor heard a crash as a vehicle rammed into the plate glass windows. The vehicle and its driver were gone by the time the police arrived.

Ponderosa Paper Products will cease operation for an indefinite period beginning Sept. 23 for economic reasons. Plant Manager, Hugo Trygo.

H. 75 Fri. L. 40 Tues. Rain Mon. Tues. & Thus. 0.30

50 YEARS AGO

About 100 Volunteer Litter Patrol students from NAU, working at Walnut Canyon, filled 6 dumpsters of 20 cu. ft each with assorted junk and Ben Fisk Director of the Flagstaff Street Dept. hauled away 5 junk cars. Mike Trauscht worked with Buffalo Fence to put up 1,300 feet of fence to deter motorists from venturing into the mix of Federal and State lands. They worked with the Arizona State Game and Fish on specifics so as not to interfere with or hinder the animals in the area. The National Park Service provided trucks to assist with this work.

The city council has approved the formation of a public-private economic entity with William Duffy, Economic Development Director, in charge with developer Steve Dingham to build a downtown parking garage on the old Empress Theatre property. It will be paid for by both taxpayers dollars and local businesses.

Fire danger is moderate. 78 Thurs. L. 44 Sat. Rain Sat. 0.13
Madison motorists, unite!

As a citizen who drives Downtown to work every day, I have met the enemy. Quite simply, the enemy is the parked car on the street.

Pulling out from any parking lot on West Washington Avenue or Regent Street Downtown may be the worst. It is impossible to see the oncoming traffic because of parked cars blocking your view. One is forced to creep out far enough to see traffic without getting clipped. It also requires inching over the sidewalk and blocking the path of pedestrians and rule-breaking bicyclists.

This has led to my car being slapped by the Spandex-wearing peddlers, or I get the angry honk of the oncoming motorist who gives you a look that says, Dont even think about it!

There is more fear and loathing when attempting to drive toward the state Capitol on West Washington in the morning. Two eastbound lanes are moving smoothly until the gaggle of parked cars hits you at about the 500 block. At this point you are forced to inch left to avoid death, only to be met with another angry honk of the horn by the driver on your left! That person would rather see me die in a fiery crash than have enough room to turn right into the parking lot for our studio where we do our radio show.

Try heading west on Regent Street just past Park Street. The car in front in the right lane hits the breaks because of a parked car. You are then stopped until the wagon train of vehicles finally passes. You then hug the center line never to be caught until the next time you are suckered into thinking there are two lanes of traffic going in the same direction.

Another potential death trap is Stewart Street running east of Fish Hatchery Road just south of the Beltline. Its an industrial park back there. After getting some body work done on my car about a mile down, the murderers row of parked cars makes it terrifying to pull back out onto the narrow street. You have to use all your senses to detect an oncoming car that usually goes about 20 mph over the speed limit. Prayer may be your only recourse.

Auto body shop owner Rich Hamre says, Businesses will park their cars on the street and that makes it impossible for a customer pulling out to see the traffic. Hamre adds, If someone creeps out and gets hit, it is that persons liability. Hamre says one option is to park in the driveway and walk out to take a peak. If the coast is clear you can try to run back in your car and pull out without getting hit. God forbid somebody pulls out from a closer parking lot and shatters your escape.

So what do we get from his honor the mayor in his proposed capital budget? We get a whopping $329.7 million plan that includes $26 million to renovate the Municipal Building. Most of us try to avoid going there at all costs, but its nice to think the workers may have a nice place to hang their hats. An additional $8.2 million is in the capital budget for bicycle and pedestrian improvements, and $6.4 million to move the Pinney library to Royster Commons on Cottage Grove Road. That doesnt include $1.2 million to do more planning for the long-held dream of a city market on East Washington.

Once again I refer you to Downtown visionary and architect Kenton Peters. He has a plan to more than double the parking in the Isthmus. He says the parked cars have become the face of our city. He proposes that the city buy one lot on each block. An enclosed surface lot would go there with low-income housing above it. That would move the 18 cars parked on that block into the parking lot.

The mayor wants to allocate $4.5 million for low-income housing in his capital budget anyway. Where there was once parking, there would be grass and trees. Dont worry, no driveways would be violated. And glory, glory hallelujah, this plan would eliminate the horrific odd/even parking ordinance. Peters says the plan would pay for itself by the city selling the air rights for moderate and low-income housing above the new off-street parking lots and by reducing the snow plowing by 50 percent.

Now on a lighter note, Downtown driving isnt any easier when you are an impatient moron like this writer. Forgetting the UW students were back to school about two weeks ago, I attempted to turn left toward the Capitol from Kelleys Mobil Station on West Washington. The wait was too much, so I turned right. I then made another right on Regent followed by a right on Park. Dayton was blocked off so I advanced to Johnson only to be stopped by a UW traffic quagmire. It took 30 minutes to go 400 yards.

Good things come to those who wait.
FITCHBURG  If you have an eye sore you go to an ophthalmologist, unless your eyesore is a billboard. Then, if youre Adams Outdoor Advertising Co., you go to a lawyer.

Adams lawyers efforts to bend the law to their will are not always successful, but they keep trying. In February, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess rejected Adams claim that partly obstructing the view of one of its billboards with an overpass on Madisons busy Beltline in Fitchburg was not an unlawful taking of private property, as Adams had contended.

Adams avoided lawsuits when it settled longstanding disputes with the city of Madison in 2011, but the settlements came at a cost to the public. While Adams agreed to remove two eyesores  one at Union Corners and the other at the Villager Shopping Center on the South Side  it was given the right to apply for five new billboards, as though Madisons ban on new billboards didnt exist. This is an example of how valuable billboards are  to the billboard companies.

Adams wanted to preserve that billboard infrastructure despite opposition by pesky neighbors, so it went to court to challenge the County Boards 18-16 vote, taken on April 7, against renewing a lease for a billboard on county land near the Dane County Regional Airport.

The real question isnt the legal technicality on which Adams wants to hang its hat, or its convoluted view of its rights. Its whether signing a billboard lease is like entering into a marriage contract until death do us part. According to the law unto Adams, once youve signed that lease, there may be no such thing as a divorce.

In fact, weve always had the right to view the natural landscape, and billboard companies have never had the right to impose their message between you and that natural landscape.

It all brings to mind the doggerel penned by Ogden Nash (with apologies to Joyce Kilmer):

I think that I shall never see/a billboard lovely as a tree./Perhaps, unless the billboards fall/Ill never see a tree at all.

Far-fetched? Not in Wisconsin, where state law gives billboard companies the right to cut trees on public property if they interfere with passing motorists view of a billboard.
WASHINGTON  Minimum wage proponents get no points for originality.

This fall, theyre dusting off their failed 2014 strategy which claims that U.S. Senate candidates should support a starter wage increase because it could make the difference in battleground states such as Wisconsin.

[U.S. senators] locked in close races could lose critical support  and even their seats  over opposition to raising [the minimum wage] ..., wrote Paul Sonn of the labor union-funded National Employment Law Project Action Fund recently.

The empty threat failed in 2014, and theres good reason to believe it will fail in November.

Some history: The 2014 elections featured several close Senate races, as well as some close gubernatorial contests. In the weeks leading up to the election, the left-of-center Public Policy Polling (PPP) firm came out with a survey claiming support for the minimum wage could be a decisive issue that could cost candidates as much as 30 points.

Those predictions turned out to be bogus. Of the six close 2014 election races looked at by PPP  in Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Iowa, Kentucky, and Louisiana  the candidate who was opposed to or skeptical of minimum wage increases won in every instance. Even beyond this group of six  from Colorado to West Virginia to Florida  opposition to the minimum wage wasnt a barrier to victory. It was the wedge issue that wasnt.

Now, its like deja vu all over again with starter wage proponents using a similar PPP poll to shop the same story. But digging into the poll a little deeper shows that candidates shouldnt worry about being on the right side of sound economics when opposing the minimum wage.

The PPP survey didnt measure the relative importance of a candidates position on the minimum wage to how a respondent would vote.

My organization used Googles consumer survey tool to poll 500 people who plan to vote in each of the seven battlegrounds states targeted by PPP and the union-funded NELP Action Fund. Across all seven battleground states, seven in 10 indicated that a candidates minimum wage opposition would have no impact on their vote, or increase their likelihood to vote for a candidate.

The PPP poll is further flawed because it only highlights the positive aspects of a minimum wage increase without mentioning their consequences, such as lost jobs. Its an unacceptable oversight: Economists at Trinity and Miami Universities used Congressional Budget Office methodology to conclude that over 24,000 jobs would be lost in Wisconsin at a $12 minimum wage.

In cities and states that have already pursued dramatic minimum wage increases, these consequences are being felt. After a dramatic wage hike in New York earlier this year, Bettys Diner in Buffalo, Longways Diner in Watertown, and Peppermill Restaurant in Rochester all reduced their hours of operation to cut down on unsustainable labor costs associated with the new wage requirement. McGirks Irish Pub in Binghamton, P.J. Clarkes in New York City, and Piggy Pats BBQ in New Hartford eliminated staff positions entirely to try to compensate for these costs.

And most recently, the Del Rio Diner in Brooklyn closed after 40 years in business because its blue collar customers couldnt afford the higher prices necessary to offset the cost of $15. These and other stories can be found on Facesof15.com.

In our poll, we asked respondents whether theyd support a $12 starter wage knowing about these side-effects. Among Wisconsin respondents, just 28 percent said theyd still support the increase.

While starter-wage proponents will continue to try to scare candidates into dropping principled opposition to these wage increases, whats really scary is the impact their policies would have on Wisconsins entry-level labor market.
I am Kerry Burgess. This is what I think.
Spotify Paid Subscribers Grow 33% in 6 Months To 40 Million, But Its A Dodgy Number

New numbers shared by Spotify CEO Daniel EK show the music streamer growing from 30 million paid subscribers 6 months ago to 40 million. The music streamer appears to be solidifying its dominate position, even as major competitors, including Pandora and Amazon, new ready services.

__________________________________________

Spotify now has 40 million paid subscribers, up from 30 million 6 months ago. The music streamer also has about 70 million additional users of a their free ad supported service.

The news came yesterday in a playful tweet from CEO Daniel Ek.

40 is the new 30.

Million. ????  Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) September 14, 2016

Wait, Its Not Really 40 Million Paying $9.99 Every Month

Spotify's claim of 40 million paid subscribers does not, however, mean that 40 million people are paying Spotify $9.99 or the local currency equivalent every month. Spotify's Family Plan allows up 6 users for a total of $14.99 per month. Each of those 6 is technically a paid subscribers, but if using the full 6 premium accounts, are effectively paying $2.50 each per month.

Spotify's popular Student plan at is just $4.99 per month, and the music streamer also regularly offers new subscribers (and creative existing ones) 3 months for 99 cents. With June the last 99 cent promotion in the US and Canada, anyone who signed up then is still paying 33 cents a month for 3 months, but could be included in Ek's tweeted 40 million.

Still, 40 million is an impressive number, and signals Spotify's growing dominance. By comparison, Apple Music has 17 million paid subscribers, Deezer six million, and both Rhapsody and Tidal are in the 3-4 million subscriber range.

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Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain for the afternoon. High 58F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low 54F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%.
New Delhi: Government is considering giving a one-year extension to SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya amid the lender's consolidation with its associate banks.



"There is a need for continuity at a time when the process of consolidation is going on," sources said.



In this regard, the government is looking at the proposal of granting extension to the current chairperson whose three-year term comes to an end this month, sources added.



The government has also received views of the Bank Board Bureau (BBB) on the extension issue and an order in this regard is expected in the next few days, according to sources.



Earlier this year, the Cabinet gave its nod for the merger of State Bank of India (SBI) and its associate lenders and Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) that would make the state-owned lender a global-sized bank.



SBI has five associate lenders -- State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Hyderabad.



Among the associate banks, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Travancore are listed.



The merged entity will become a banking behemoth, which could compete with the largest in the world, with an asset base of Rs 37 trillion (Rs 37 lakh crore) or over USD 555 billion, 22,500 branches and 58,000 ATMs. It will have over 50 crore customers.



SBI had said that all its associate banks and BMB will be merged into it that will add an additional Rs 8 lakh crore to its assets.



Presently, SBI has close to 16,500 branches, including 191 foreign offices across 36 countries.



SBI first merged State Bank of Saurashtra with itself in 2008. Two years later, State Bank of Indore was merged with it.






The residents of a posh South Kolkata multi-storeyed complex woke up on a Sunday morning to the horror of 70 cars being vandalized by a mob of around 100 people with bricks, stones and whatever they found in sight.Around 8:20 AM some residents who were downstairs taking a stroll were in for a shock when one of the men asked a lady regarding a certain person who lived in the complex."Before I could understand who they were referring to or reply, they started vandalizing the lobby and car," Says Mrs.Daga.The cause of the outrage was the death of a 24-year-old boy who was one of the three on a scooty which was hit by a Mercedes car in the adjacent Hazra area in the wee hours of Sunday morning around 2:55 AM.All three were taken to hospital where one died and two were injured while the accused behind the wheels fled. The family and friends of the victim believed the accused was from the Fort Oasis residential complex and went about vandalizing cars demanding the accused come forward.However the accused is not a resident of the complex. One resident who watched the horror unfold from her balcony says, "They had poured kerosene on a car and that is when the Police came in."The residents of the building were in shock till the evening as the mob protested again outside the building premises around 5PM and the Police shooed them away.Meanwhile at Hazra crossing close to where the accident took place, protesters had to be lathi-charged in the evening too when the body of the deceased was taken to the burning ghat.Police have detained 4 persons in the case of vandalizing cars and property.Residents however are unhappy at Police inaction, claiming Police came in almost an hour later. They will be holding protests to being the issue security lapse and demanding justice.On the other hand, the victim's family and friends still demand the accused be arrested. It is still not clear who was behind the wheels when the accident took place. The Police are not taking chances and have tightened security in and around the building premises.
New Delhi: The Cauvery Supervisory Committee, which is to scheduled to meet on Monday to decide on the quantum of water to be released, is analysing the data given by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and may defer its decision if the information provided is found to be "inadequate".



A source said Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have submitted to the committee data about withdrawal of water, its utilisation, variation in rainfall and its impact on the actual run-off over a period of 29 years in their respective Cauvery basin areas.



The panel, which has to take a decision on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu and other states, had sought the information from them in its last meeting on September 12.



The source said the data is being analysed by officials from the Union Water Resources Ministry and Central Water Commission.



"The states have made available information which the panel had sought during its last meeting and the same is being studied now.



"The panel will not pass an order in haste. The committee will have to defer its order, if the data turns out to be inadequate to arrive at a fact-based and right decision," the source said.



The panel had failed to arrive at a decision on the quantum of water to be released by Karnataka after September 20 during its last meeting for want of adequate information.



Therefore, it had asked them to provide the information by September 15.



In an interim order on September 5, Supreme Court had asked Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily for next 10 days to Tamil Nadu, leading to protests in parts of Karnataka.



The apex court had also asked Tamil Nadu government to approach the committee, headed by Union Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekhar, to decide on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states after the period of 10 days was over.



However, under pressure following the protests, the Karnataka government approached the Supreme Court on September 11 seeking modification of the interim order.



Hearing the plea, the SC then amended its order, directing Karnataka to release a reduced quantum of 12,000 cusecs of water daily to Tamil Nadu till September 20.



"We will take decision on the matter as directed by the Supreme Court on September 5 when it had asked us to stick to the language of Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal while deciding on the quantum of the water," the source added.








Porlamar: The strategic Chabahar port, which will give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, will be recalled as a "turning point" in Indo-Iran ties, Vice President Hamid Ansari told Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday as the two leaders held talks here.



Ansari and Rouhani discussed bilateral ties and ways to boost economic cooperation during talks held on the sidelines of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit.



Asked if Chabahar came up for discussion, Secretary (West) Sujata Mehta, while briefing reporters on the meeting, said, "certainly the subject of Chabahar came up and in fact, our Vice President said in the years to come this will certainly be recalled as a turning point in the bilateral relationship as a matter of great significance".



The Vice President said India and Iran were like two young friends who grew up together and then got busy with their own affairs, and now after some time they are coming together and discovering how close they are.



"It was a very warm meeting. They discussed the potential for economic cooperation - Chabahar figured largely. They also discussed regional issues," Mehta said.



A "milestone" pact on the strategic Chabahar port in southern Iran which will give India access to Afghanistan and Europe bypassing Pakistan was signed in May this year.



Besides the bilateral pact to develop the Chabahar port for which India will invest USD 500 million, a trilateral Agreement on Transport and Transit Corridor was also signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran.



Vice President Ansari, who is here to attend the 17th NAM Summit leading the Indian delegation in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also called on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after arriving here yesterday.



"President Maduro and the Vice President had an 'excellent'" and a very warm conversation. "President Maduro is personally influenced by India and he is attached to India and that came through in the conversation itself," Mehta told reporters.



There was some discussion yesterday evening on the importance of the Non-Aligned groups speaking on the issue of terrorism and that found reflection in President Maduro's statement this morning, she said.



"Other than the agenda of the conference that they discussed last evening, they also spoke about bilateral relations. They spoke about the extent of economic cooperation which has grown dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years. There was some discussion on the economic cooperation side. There was also discussion about the need to arrange an early meeting of the joint commission between the two countries which would then lead to other things," she said.



The two important areas of bilateral cooperation at this time are India buys a lot of oil from Venezuela and it is India's fourth largest supplier, Mehta noted.



"There was some discussion on this and some additional supplies being purchased... There was also some discussion on India's export of drugs and pharmaceuticals products to benefit Venezuela. This has been a substantial growth area for us for the last several years," Mehta said. PTI ASK






New Delhi: The chikungunya and dengue outbreak in the national capital has begun to impact travel and tourism sector ahead of the holiday season, with industry experts cautioning that if the health threat is not contained timely then it could result in losses to the economy.



Facing the twin viral onslaught, many Delhi residents are advising their friends and families in India and abroad to cancel or postpone visits to the city, which is seeing an upsurge of chikungunya after a gap of nearly 10 years.



"Our relatives from the US usually plan a trip to India around this time and they had even booked their tickets. But we asked them to postpone their trip because of the current situation in Delhi," said Rahul Desai, a corporate professional.



October-December is one of the peak travel seasons as festivals like Dussehra, Diwali and Christmas fall during it. This quarter, besides, April-June, is also seen as a major revenue-earning period for the travel sector.



Dengue and chikungunya have claimed at least 35 lives and over 2,800 people are down with mosquito-borne fever in the national capital.



"My friend from Mumbai was planning to visit Delhi with his family during this time. But I asked him to cancel his trip as Delhi is currently reeling under the impact of dengue and chikungunya," said Vijay Singh, a senior police officer.



The national capital registers "about 35 per cent" of India's total foreign tourist influx as it is used as a transit point during their travel.



"Delhi being hit the worst, the number of tourists visiting Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer and other locations in the western state is coming down drastically with the state government itself cautioning tourists against the disease," according to an assessment by ASSOCHAM.



The umbrella industry body has cautioned that the health crisis must be dealt with on a "war-footing" by the Centre and the state governments as the disease taking "epidemic proportion" is expected to result in a "loss to the tourism and aviation industries".



"With increasing cases of chikungunya and dengue and the kind of negative reaction on the tourists, the traffic is set to drop drastically, leaving a bruising impact on businesses such as hotels, airlines, taxi operators and restaurants.



"Many tour operators are now gearing up with precautionary steps for foreigners arriving in Delhi during the peak tourist season set to begin from October," says D S Rawat, Secretary General of ASSOCHAM.



"Children are falling sick so families are not travelling. One can perceive the visible fall in footfall. So, it has affected our business," a Delhi-based tour operator said.
New Delhi - Chief minister Siddaramaiah is set to take former minister KJ George back in the cabinet after the state CID cleared him of all charges in the death of police officer MK Ganapathi, sources close to the Karnataka CM said on Sunday.



The sources indicated this could happen as early as within a week, or at least in a month's time.



When asked about it George told News18 that it is "the prerogative of the chief minister to decide whom to include in the cabinet".



This comes a day after the CID submitted a report at the local court in Kodagu district giving a clean chit to George who had to quit as Bengaluru Development minister when a TV channel aired a video of DySP Ganapathi's statement - made shortly before he was found dead - naming the minister as one of persons harassing him.



The CM had to drop him and order a probe after Opposition parties stalled the Karnataka assembly, and former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa raised the issue in Parliament in July.



After George's resignation Siddaramaiah kept his portfolios with himself and, sources in the government indicate, there was an understanding he would get them back if his name was cleared in the CID probe.



George, who earlier handled the home portfolio, is considered close to Sonia Gandhi and acts as a link between Siddaramaiah and the Congress high command. He is also a very influential MLA from Bengaluru city with a big following.



Yeddyurappa, who is also the state BJP chief, has said his party will launch a state wide agitation against the clean chit to George and press the demand for a CBI probe.



DySP Ganapathi committed suicide in July alleging harassment from George and two senior IPS officers ADGP AM Prasad and IGP Pronab Mohanty. After George's resignation, these two officers were also transferred; but now they have also got a clean chit from the CID.


New Delhi: Government has extended the time frame for voluntary uniform code for pharma marketing practices (UCPMP) that prevents unethical operations such as drug makers offering favours to doctors to prescribe their medicines in return.



"It has been decided that the UCPMP also covering the medical devices industry which was implemented with effect from January 1, 2015 for a period of six months and which was last extended up to June 30, 2016 is hereby extended till further orders," Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) said in a notification.



The government had earlier this year said it was considering making the voluntary UCPMP compulsory.



In July, Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Ananth Kumar had admitted that voluntary UCPMP was not yielding the desired results.



"We are contemplating of making it compulsory," Kumar had said.



UCPMP aims to check unethical practice of many doctors who often prescribe a particular brand of medicine for personal gains.



Besides, as per the code, the companies can extend funding for medical research and study through approved institutions as per law and it should be fully disclosed.



The code also has stringent measures for audio or video promotional activities and for the supply of free samples of medicines.








Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Sunday slammed Pakistan over the terror attack on an army camp in Uri and said the neighbouring country was working only on disturbing the state.



Asked how terrorists could infiltrate India and carry out the attack, Singh said: "The border is long."



The minister also blamed the "situation during monsoons".



"It is a proxy war. A country that is Pakistan is focusing on how to disturb Jammu and Kashmir," he said.



Singh said that it was a "fidayeen" attack.



Heavily-armed militants attacked the army camp at Uri early in the morning, killing 17 soldiers and wounding many others. Security forces shot dead all four attackers and launched a mop-up operation.




Srinagar: Seventeen soldiers were killed in a militant attack on an army camp at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir early on Sunday that also left four terrorists dead, army officials said.

More than twenty soldiers were also injured in the attack which began at 5.30 am when a group of heavily-armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of the 12th Army brigade headquarters at Uri sector near the Line of Control (LoC).

Terrorist attack took place at 5:30 am this morning at army's Brigade HQ in Uri (J&K).

Presence of 3-4 terrorists suspected. Firing underway  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

The sneak attack triggered a massive gun battle that lasted well over two-and-a-half-hours, sending huge columns of black smoke rising into the sky.

This is reportedly the biggest terror attack on any army camp in Jammu and Kashmir in about a decade.

Special forces of Army airdrop at Uri where encounter is on: Official sources.  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 18, 2016

After the fighting died down, soldiers continued to comb the camp for other militants who may be hiding as well as explosives they may have planted, officials said.

No terror group claimed responsibility for the bloodbath, but some reports said the attackers had recently infiltrated into the Indian side of the LoC from Pakistan.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh postpones visit to Russia and the US due to Kashmir unrest.  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 18, 2016

The incident has raised several questions about the security of sensitive army installations in the country.

On January 2, 2016, six terrorists, believed to be from Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed attacked the Pathankot IAF airbase and held security forces in an encounter for four days before being killed.

Also read: Those Behind Uri Terror Attack Wont go Unpunished, Says PM Modi

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here.
Porlamar: Hitting out at Pakistan, India on Sunday said "one country" in its neighbourhood scuttled its proposal of setting up a working group on counter-terrorism within the NAM even as the final draft declaration of the bloc's summit strongly condemned terrorism and vowed to combat the scourge.



The final draft declaration of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement summit here in Venezuela also strongly pitched for decisive and coordinated action to prevent and combat the financing and illicit transfer of weapons.



The NAM Summit draft declaration reiterated that terrorism constitutes one of the most serious threats to internationalpeace and security.



Hence, the 120 NAM countries reaffirmed their firm condemnation of terrorist acts in all forms and manifestations, whatever their motivations, whenever and by whomsoever they are committed.



"They further condemned the destruction of cultural heritage and religious sites, as well as the commission of crimes against humanity by terrorist groups, among others, on the basis of their religion or beliefs," the draft that will be adopted as the 'Margarita Declaration' said.



"The way the NAM works is on consensus so we have to have consensus among all countries but that said we have been able to get references to terrorism (put in the declaration) which are purely and largely language suggested by India," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin, who is in this city of Margarita Island to take part in the deliberations of NAM, told reporters at a briefing. Asked about the working group on terrorism within NAM that India had proposed, Akbaruddin, without naming Pakistan, said there was "one country in our neighbourhood who did not allow consensus to be reached on this matter".



However, he said this was an issue Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has now put further on the agenda, saying that he will in his presidency outline this as one of his priorities.



"At this stage that (working group) is not reflected (in the draft declaration) as it could not gain consensus despite having support of the overwhelming majority but NAM rules provide for certain ways in arriving at decisions and it is regrettable that it did nothappen because of issues you are well aware of," he told reporters.



According to the draft declaration, the NAM countries recognised the threat posed nowadays by this "despicable scourge", particularly the activities carried out by terrorist groups such the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and its affiliated entities, Jabhat Al Nusra, Boko Haram and Al Shabbaab, and other entities designated by the UN.
Delhi: NSA Ajit Doval arrives at HM Rajnath Singh's residence to attend High level security meet pic.twitter.com/4sgGaEsLLa  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Delhi: High level security meet to take place at HM Rajnath Singh's residence shortly, MHA & MoD officials to attend pic.twitter.com/QZSTJo3vvL  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on terror attack at Army brigade headquarters in Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir.NSA Chief Ajit Doval, Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, Defence secretary G Mohan Kumar, CRPF DG, IB Chief will attend the meeting.Singh also postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States in the wake of the attack and called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the terror strike.Singh spoke to the Jammu and Kashmir Governor and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on the situation arising out of the terror strike in Uri.The Home Minister was scheduled to leave for Russia tonight for a four-day bilateral visit and later to the US on September 26 for a six-day tour to attend the Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue."Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US," he said in a statement here.The Home Minister said he has spoken to Governor N N Vohra and the Chief Minister and discussed with them the situation arising out of attack on a Army Brigade Headquarters in Uri and both of them apprised him of the overall situation in Jammu and Kashmir."I have given instructions to Home Secretary (Rajiv Mehrishi) and other officers in the Home Ministry to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir," he said.Terror struck an Army camp in North Kashmir's Uri town when militants stormed a battalion headquarters in the wee hours today, leaving at least 10 Army men injured. Four militants have also been killed.The Home Minister also called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the attack on the Brigade Headquarters in Uri.National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the Union Home Secretary, top Army, paramilitary and Home Ministry officials are attending it.Unrest in Kashmir Valley has been continuing for more than two months ever since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on July 8 in which nearly 80 people have lost their lives so far.This was for the second time that Singh has cancelled his trip to the US due to violence in Kashmir. Earlier, he was scheduled to leave for the US on July 17 for a week-long visit but it was postponed due to sudden eruption of violence in Kashmir after Wani's killing.(With PTI inputs)
Bengaluru: Even as the Cauvery Supervisory Committee is scheduled to meet in New Delhi on Monday to decide on the quantum of river water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states, anxiety prevails in Karnataka over its outcome.



Security has been beefed up in Mandya, Chamrajnagar, Mysuru, Bengaluru and other parts of the state ahead of the meeting, police said.



"The police, ahead of crucial Cauvery Supervisory Committee meeting On Monday, have taken necessary security steps to check any untoward incident," IGP (Central Range) Seemanth Kumar told reporters here.



Supreme Court on September 15 had taken Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments to task for failing to check violence following its order on the Cauvery dispute, asserting that its verdict "has to be complied with" and violent agitation would serve no purpose as those aggrieved were free to take legal recourse.



The apex court also had directed both states to ensure that there is no violence, agitation, destruction and damage to property following its order and asked them to maintain peace, calm and dignity for law.



Property worth several crore has been damaged in violence in the two states after the Supreme Court order.



Kumar said RAF and BSF platoons will be deployed in Bengaluru Rural and Kolar districts which share borders with Tamil Nadu.

Police would be deployed on national highways to check traffic disruptions likely to be made by pro-Kannada outfits in next two days.



Kannada Okkuta Leader Vatal Nagaraj on Saturday had threatened to disrupt vehicles at Attibele near Hosur, which falls in Tamil Nadu, tomorrow and the day after.
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Sunday that the killing of 17 soldiers by terrorists was aimed at creating a war-like situation between India and Pakistan.



"The attack was aimed at triggering fresh violence in Kashmir and creating a war-like situation in the region," Mufti said in a statement on her Facebook page.



She said those responsible for sponsoring and aiding violence must understand the futility of their exercise as it would yield nothing but misery for the people.



The Chief Minister condemned the sneak attack on an army camp in Uri in which over two dozen soldiers were also injured.



"The heightened tension in the wake of the Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid increasing India-Pakistan hostility," she warned.



The Chief Minister paid rich tributes to the martyred soldiers and expressed condolences with the bereaved families.



"Jammu and Kashmir has always been the worst victim of India-Pakistan hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for the same for the past over six decades," she said.
I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

The Pakistan Army on Sunday refuted India's charge that it was behind the terrorist attack in Uri town of Jammu & Kashmir that martyred 17 Indian soldiers and termed the allegations against its establishment as "unfounded and premature".Pakistan army spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa asked for 'actionable intelligence' on Uri attack after the Indian government went ballistic with a series of volleys against the neighbouring country."Refuting the unfounded and pre-mature Indian allegation, Pakistani DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence," Bajwa said.Earlier, Union Home minister Rajnath Singh attacked Pakistan on Twitter and held it directly responsible for the attack.Prime Minister Narendra Modi too condemned the terror attack and vowed to give a befitting reply to the perpetrators without naming anyone.Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh clearly said that the terrorists belonged to the Pakistan based group Jaish-e-Mohammed and the weapons recovered from the four dead terrorists had Pakistani markings.Also read: Nine Times Indian Armed Forces Fell Prey to Sneak Attacks By Pakistani Militants According to military sources, the terrorists entered the camp from the rear after cutting the barbed wire fencing -- without the sentries getting alerted.After entering the camp, the gunmen resorted to indiscriminate automatic gunfire from AK-47 rifles after quickly spreading in different directions inside to inflict maximum damage.They also hurled grenades at tents where soldiers were asleep, catching them unawares.Also read: Those Behind Uri Terror Attack Won't go Unpunished, Says PM Modi
Initial reports indicate the role of JeM. 4 AK47, grenades, grenade launchers etc have been recovered from the dead terrorists. They carried items with Pakistani markings," DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh added.



We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

The exact number of troops inside the camp at the time of the attack was not known but one source estimated there must have been around 200 because most of the infantry battalion is deployed on the LoC.



No guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the bloodbath. But some reports said the guerrillas had recently infiltrated into the Indian side of the LoC from Pakistan.



Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

: In one of the worst attacks on a military centre in J&K in a decade, four terrorists sneaked into an army camp in Uri town early on Sunday and martyred 17 soldiers even as the heavily-armed militants were killed at the end of a two-and-half hour gun battle.Over two dozen soldiers were also injured in the attack after the militants barged into the camp near Uri town at 5.30 a.m. and started firing indiscriminately, military officials said.DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh told the media that the terrorists belonged to the Pakistan based group Jaish-e-Mohammed.Singh said that he has already apprised the DGMO Pakistan about the incident and conveyed India's sentiments over the issue.According to Singh, 14 out of 17 soldiers were martyred after the militants hurled grenades at a tent in which the soldiers were sleeping.Uri is close to the Line of Control (LoC), which divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The camp is close to the headquarters of army's 12 Brigade.Echoing the nation's anguish, Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned the "cowardly terror attack" and assured "the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished".Modi refrained from saying who was to blame for the bloodbath but Home Minister Rajnath Singh held Pakistan responsible."I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," the minister tweeted.According to military sources, the terrorists entered the camp from the rear after cutting the barbed wire fencing -- without the sentries getting alerted.After entering the camp, the gunmen resorted to indiscriminate automatic gunfire from AK-47 rifles after quickly spreading in different directions inside to inflict maximum damage.They also hurled grenades at tents where soldiers were asleep, catching them unawares.The sneak attack sent huge columns of black smoke rising into the sky.A terse statement issued by the Northern Command based at Udhampur said "heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri.Read more: Uri Terror Attack Attempt to Destabilise Jammu & Kashmir: Govt "In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress. The administrative base had a large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifices of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement read.Unofficial sources said most of the dead soldiers were from the Bihar Regiment. Two soldiers of the Dogra Regiment also died.Read: Those Behind Uri Terror Attack Won't go Unpunished, Says PM Modi After the fighting died down, soldiers continued to comb the camp looking for other militants who may be hiding as well as explosives they may have planted.A military expert, retired Lt. Gen. Raj Kadyan, said it was time to teach Pakistan a lesson.Calling the attack the "most serious in the last decade", he said: "The response required today is a tough one. The army should launch a strike at a place and time of its choosing. Retribution should be quick and severe."Helicopters flew the injured soldiers from Uri to the army's base hospital in Srinagar, about 70 km away.Read: Uri Terror Attack: Pakistan Is a Terrorist State Says Rajnath Singh Within hours, army chief General Dalbir Singh and Defence minister Manohar Parrikar flew to Srinagar and then went to Uri.Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh cancelled his visit to the US and Russia. He later presided over a high-level meeting also attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.He also spoke to Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. "They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," he said.Meanwhile the political slugfest began following the attack with Opposition leaders targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not giving a befitting reply to Pakistan.RJD Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav fired the first salvo and said, "I condemn the terror attack. Our soldiers are dying due to the ignorance of Narendra Modi. This should be handled very firmly now. I salute all the martyrs. Narendra Modiji has failed."Congress leader Manish Tewari too questioned the government's Pakistan policy and said,"What has happened in Uri is wrong and condemnable. The Indian government should sit back and think about its various options being used. They need to rethink their strategy of isolating Pakistan."Condemning the attack, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said India cannot be "cowed down" by such incidents.Deputy Chief Minister and senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia too condemned the attack and termed the attack as a failure of diplomacy."This is a difficult time. The army still has the best means (to deal with such situation), but this is a grave failure of diplomacy. Someone should take responsibility for it," Sisodia said.Also read: Uri Terror Attack: 'There Were Specific Intelligence Alerts on Sept 15'
New Delhi: Several opposition leaders on Sunday sought to blame the Narendra Modi government for the terror attack on an army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir and attributed the assault to "lapses" in stalling the infiltration of militants.



Congress leader and former Defence Minister A.K. Antony said the attack that left 17 soldiers dead was "a serious security lapse".



Antony told media persons here that the Kashmir issue was "drifting and reaching dangerous propositions".



"This incident comes close on the heels of what happened in Pathankot. At both these places, the militants managed to enter military camps and this is a huge security lapse," he said.



Congress President Sonia Gandhi described the terror strike as a "cowardly attack as a deplorable affront on our national conscience".



She hoped that "the perpetrators of this dastardly act as also the forces behind them will be severely dealt with and brought to book".



In a tweet, former Home Minister P. Chidambaram said: "Government must mobilise all resources, manpower and material, to strengthen border defence to prevent infiltration of terrorists."



Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad went on to take a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said: "Soldiers are dying due to the failure and negligence of Modi; where is his 56-inch chest now."



He said Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India but the situation there is going out of control, thanks to "only big talk and no action" on the ground.



The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) also condemned the killing of 17 Indian army personnel and maintained that Pakistan "must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces".



"Despite the deployment of a large number of security personnel, the government has failed to stop the continuing infiltration of militants," the party said in a statement.



The CPI-M, which began its two-day Central Committee meet on Sunday in New Delhi, maintained that "for a longstanding solution of the Kashmir problem, political dialogue with all stakeholders as advocated by the all-Party delegation should be initiated without any further delay".



In a tweet, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi "condemned" the militant attack and said: "My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack."
New Delhi: The Indian Army on Sunday asserted that the four terrorists killed after they slaughtered 17 Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir were foreigners and belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit.



The Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, told reporters that some of the articles recovered from the slain terrorists by Indian army had "Pakistan markings".



"They were all foreigners and belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammed," Gen Ranbir Singh said.



Jaish-e-Mohammed was also blamed for the January attack on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot.







The DGMO said he spoke to his Pakistani counterpart and expressed concern over the Uri attack, one of the deadliest in Jammu and Kashmir in nearly three decades of insurgency.



Ranbir Singh said four AK-47 rifles and four under barrel grenade launchers and some other ammunition was recovered after the early morning attack.



He said 14 of the 17 deaths occurred due to a fire after militants hurled grenades at temporary structures.



(With inputs from IANS)
London: Married people are more likely to stay in shape than those who remain single, says a study by Japanese researchers.



The study also found that married men were less likely to suffer metabolic syndrome - a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity which damages the blood vessels - although the same did not apply to women, Daily Mail reported.



"Our findings show that being married and living with one's spouse reduced the risk of being overweight by approximately 50 per cent among patients with type two diabetes," lead study author Yoshinobu Kondo from Yokohama City University was quoted as saying.



"Men who were married and lived with their spouse also exhibited a risk reduction of 58 per cent for metabolic syndrome," Kondo said.



The researchers believe that people in relationships are more likely to eat healthily and take their medication.



The study involved 270 people with Type-2 diabetes - 180 married and 90 were single - with an average age of 65.



They calculated the body mass index of the participants and also measured the fat content of their body.



The married group were 50 per cent less likely to be overweight when compared to the single group, the findings showed.



The research was presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes meeting in Munich, Germany.




Mumbai: Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani has lashed out at the Bhatt camp of Bollywood, saying accusing the censor board ahead of the release of their films has become a "marketing tool" of sorts for them.



Recently, Vikram Bhatt had claimed the CBFC had told him to cut down the usage of the 'F' word from 32 to 16 in his latest horror film - the name of which Nihalani didn't want to be mentioned as it would give it publicity.



Alleging inconsistency on the CBFC's part, Bhatt also said the trailer, which was given a 'U/A' rating for theatres, was given an 'A' rating for television.



But Nihalani is unimpressed and unprovoked.



"Every time the Bhatts, and I include Vikram Bhatt among them, have a release around the corner, they target the CBFC and me for publicity. The censor board has become a marketing tool for them, specially when their releases are not generating much interest among audiences," Nihalani said.



"Tell me, why should the CBFC provide free publicity for the Bhatts or anyone else? This is exactly what they want. First lash out at the CBFC, and then watch us as we get provoked.



"Seriously, I am not bothered with how many kisses are there or not there in Vikram Bhatt's films," he added.


Lucknow: A senior scribe in Lucknow once sought out Mulayam's advice in the face of intense politicking in the press club. "Don't alienate anyone", Mulayam Singh Yadav told him. After a brief pause he added "You never know when, where and how you may need that person".



As he moved in to call truce between the warring factions in his party, Mulayam has again displayed inimitable dexterity in managing contradictions.



The final contours of detente are yet to be made public, but it seems Mulayam Singh Yadav has achieved what he had set out do.



As the crisis escalated, it was communicated within the family and party leadership that this was an unresolved matter between Akhilesh and Shivpal, and hence no one else should step in.



Did anyone see Azam Khan or any senior leader speak during the entire crisis?



Even cousin Ram Gopal left for the family village Sefai after launching a tirade against Amar Singh. He did not even once mention Shivpal's name.



That Shivpal was forced to take the extreme step after his first meeting with Mulayam and Akhilesh was an indication that the party supremo's brother felt he was being boxed into a corner.



Who has the authority to allocate tickets in the next elections remains the bone of contention after the turn of events.



Shivpal, having being made state unit chief, would have held sway over that. Akhilesh is still insisting that he - as the face of the campaign - should have the final word on that.



Mulayam knows all too well that he cannot afford to antagonise Shivpal just before the elections.



In a closed-door interaction with Akhilesh's supporters he gave a stern message: that it is the old guards like Shivpal who have made immense contribution in building the organisation.



Referring to the electoral debacle in 2014, Mulayam Singh Yadav made it apparent that party would need the services of Shivpal in election management, as his brother is seen to have a good rapport with the party cadre.



So the compromise now being worked out is to offer Akhilesh the top post in the state parliamentary board which is the top authority in ticket distribution in the state.



Akhilesh on his part has for the first time asserted his authority in the organisation.



In his interaction with the media on Saturday, he made it plain and clear that as the president of the state unit it was now Shivpal's responsibility to ensure the party does well in the state elections.

________________________________________
Lucknow: After assuming charge as Samajwadi Party Uttar Pradesh unit president, Shivpal Yadav on Sunday expelled a close relative of senior party leader Ram Gopal Yadav and another leader for their alleged involvement in land grabbing, a move that could once again fuel a war in the family.



In his first decision after taking charge as SP UP president, Shivpal expelled party MLC Arvind Pratap Yadav, who is nephew of Ram Gopal Yadav and former village head in Etawah Akhilesh Kumar Yadav for their alleged involvement in land grabbing and other such activities.



According to sources, there were a lot of complaints related to land grabbing and others against these two.



"Arvind has been expelled for making derogatory and indecent comments against party supremo Mulayam and his involvement in anti-party activities," SP state secretary S R S Yadav said.



Earlier, before reaching the office, Shivpal met Mulayam Singh Yadav at the airport before he left for Delhi.



The expulsion could fuel another war in the family as both of them were close to Ram Gopal.



The feud in Uttar Pradesh's first family had ended yesterday after Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav restored all but one portfolios of Shivpal Yadav and promised to support him as SP's state unit president, a post from which he was himself removed three days back triggering the power tussle with his uncle.



Addressing party workers, Shivpal said that as elections are near, everyone should gear up to strengthen the party to form majority government.



He also warned workers against groupism saying "there is no place of groupism in the party and those indulging in it will be treated strictly".



"If you all want to shout slogans, it should be first in favour of party, then Netaji (Mulayam) and then Chief Minister," he told workers.



On Mayawati's comment against the party, Shvipal said, "She should first take care of her party before commenting on others. Her party is going to be finished in next elections".
Peshawar: At least three policemen were killed on Sunday in Pakistan by unidentified gunmen in an ambush here, police said.



The police van was targeted by three armed assailants in Khazana area on the outskirts of Peshawar district.



The gunmen fired 12 bullets from a rifle, killing three cops, police said, adding that the killers escaped from scene after the incident.




Washington: President Barack Obama urged the African-American community to help stop Donald Trump, saying he would consider it a "personal insult" to his legacy if black voters did not back Hillary Clinton.



"If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn't matter who we elect -- read up on your history. It matters. We've got to get people to vote," Obama said on Saturday night while addressing the Congressional Black Caucus gala for the last time as president.



"I will consider it a personal insult -- an insult to my legacy -- if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote."



The President warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in the November 8 elections, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line, CNN reported.



According to analysts, Obama's Saturday night speech marked some of his harshest words yet about Republican presidential candidate Trump, as well as his most forceful call on the African-American community to support Democrat nominee Clinton.



Obama referred to the businessman as "somebody who has fought against civil rights and fought against equality and who has shown no regard for working people most of his life."



During his address, he also made fun of the so-called "birther" (if Obama was born in the US) controversy, saying "There's an extra spring in my step tonight. I don't know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole 'birther' thing is over."



"IS (Islamic State), North Korea, poverty, climate change -- none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate," Obama added.



Speaking before the President, Clinton lauded Obama and also took on the birther controversy, CNN noted.



"Mr. President, not only do we know you are an American, you are a great American," Clinton, who served as Obama's secretary of state (2009-2013), added.


Home News Sports Social Obituaries Events Letters Looking Back Health Jewels Stitch in Time Bonners Ferry to honor fallen firefighters September 17, 2016 The Bonners Ferry City Fire Department, Providence Bible Presbyterian Church and the Boundary County Chaplains Corps would like to remind everyone that every October, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) sponsors the official national tribute to all firefighters who died in the line of duty during the previous year.



The survivors of the fallen and thousands of fire service members gather for the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend in Emmitsburg, Maryland, to honor the lives and sacrifices of these heroes.



Firefighters possess an extraordinary blend of courage and compassion which allows them to willingly face tremendous risks to help those in need, said Chief Dennis Compton, Chairman of the NFFF Board of Directors. Each fall, we gather to reflect on the sacrifices of those who died in the line of duty and to let their families, friends and co-workers know they will never be forgotten.



Join the NFFF, the U.S. Fire Service, Boundary County Chaplain Corps and Boundary County fire service agencies in honoring the lives of 79 firefighters who died nationwide in the line of duty in 2015 and 33 firefighters who died in previous years during our local memorial service held at 2 p.m. Sunday, October 9, at Station 1 in downtown Bonners Ferry.



Although the number of firefighters honored this year is higher than in recent years, the number of line-of-duty deaths that occurred in 2015 is actually lower. The increase reflects the new ruling that Public Safety Officer Benefits recognize deaths caused by illnesses from 9/11 as line-of-duty. This year, the names of 22 FDNY members who died before 2015 and two who died in 2015 from 9/11-related illnesses will be added to the Memorial.



It is a time-honored tradition to ring bells during funerals and memorial services for firefighters.



Here in Bonners Ferry, a parade of fire apparatus will lead to City Fire's Main Station downtown at 2 p.m. on that Sunday afternoon to ring the fire house bells, reflect, read the list of those that lost their lives in the fire service last year, and encourage the living.

Everyone is invited to attend. Providence Bible Presbyterian Church is the official church sponsor of this event through the Bells Across America for Fallen Firefighters program, and all area churches are encouraged to participate by ringing their church bells at some time during the October 8-9 weekend. More information about the Bells Across America program may be found online at http://www.firehero.org/events/memorial-weekend/about/bells-across-america.



For more information about our local remembrance, or to volunteer to assist with the event, please contact City Fire Chaplain Len Pine at (208) 267-3327. Questions or comments about this article? Click here to e-mail!
Northern Arizona University President Emeritus Dr. Eugene Hughes has been selected as the 2016 recipient of the prestigious Distinguished Service Award at Coconino Community College.

Hughes was chosen for his outstanding contribution to the mission of Coconino Community College. He received the award at the Sept. 16 CCC Foundation annual meeting.

Hughes first came to NAU in 1970 to be Dean of Arts and Sciences. When President J. Lawrence Walkup retired as NAU's president in 1979, Hughes took over as president from 1979 to 1993. During that period, he was instrumental in helping with the formation of Coconino Community College in 1991.

In a book on CCC's history, Hughes said, "I myself am a graduate of community college and recognize the value of it. Had it not been for a community college in my hometown, I would not have been able to go to college."

After leaving NAU, Hughes went on to be president at Wichita State University in Kansas and interim president of Eastern Kentucky University. He spent more than 40 years in higher education before retiring.
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(Newser)  The latest salvo in the ongoing sex scandal involving multiple Bay Area police officers was a one-two punch on Friday, reports NBC News. Just hours after two cops became the first to be charged in the scandal, the 19-year-old woman who says that she had sexual contact with dozens of copsincluding some while she was a minorfiled a $66 million claim against the city of Oakland. Per the claim, members of the Oakland Police Department "continued to exploit her by trading money, information, and/or protection for sex. Instead of helping (her) find a way out of exploitation, they furthered and deepened her spiral down into the sex trade." The lawsuit contends that "these acts constitute unlawful forced labor," and that cops involved "either directly engaged in, stood by with a blind eye, or acted to cover up this modern-day slavery."

Cops LeRoy Johnson, who is retired, and Daniel Black were charged; the latter allegedly took the woman to dinner twice before engaging in sexual activity, telling her, "Just to be clear, I'm not paying you, but I will buy you dinner." Charges are reportedly coming for five other officers. The woman returned to California this week from Florida, where she underwent drug rehab, notes the East Bay Times; while there, she was jailed after biting a rehab center employee. The Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who has cycled rapidly through police chiefs in the mess, had no comment on pending litigation. (Read more Oakland stories.)
(Newser)  Syrian government warplanes and special forces on Sunday destroyed several positions of ISIS in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. The advance regained territory lost Saturday when Syrian troops were accidentally hit with airstrikes by the US-led coalition, reports the AP. The incident has threatened an already-fragile US and Russian-brokered ceasefire that has largely held despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides. The Syrian Foreign Ministry called the strikes a "dangerous and blatant aggression." The ministry's statement, sent to the presidents of the United Nations and the UN Security Council, said US warplanes repeatedly attacked Syrian army positions Saturday in strikes that were "on purpose and planned in advance," and killed dozens of soldiers.

Russia's military said at least 62 soldiers were killed in the Deir el-Zour air raid and more than 100 wounded. On Sunday, the state-run SANA news agency quoted an unnamed military official as saying that dozens of ISIS fighters were killed in the offensive on Tharda mountain under cover of Syrian airstrikes; ISIS had claimed its fighters captured Tharda mountain. The Syrian military official said government troops had regained control of areas the extremists captured, "as a result of the American aircraft aggression." Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS fighters shot down a Syrian warplane over Tharda mountain, adding that its pilot was killed. The Observatory said intense strikes by Russian warplanes have killed at least 38 ISIS fighters since Saturday. (Read more Syria stories.)
(Newser)  "It depends on your definition of terrorism. A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it's not linked to international terrorism," says Andrew Cuomo, via CNN. The New York governor says there's no evidence that an explosion that rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood, injuring 29 people, had any link to international terrorism, reports the AP. Cuomo spoke Sunday morning near the site of the Saturday night blast on West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood. Cuomo noted that the device in Manhattan appeared to be different than a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey and said he didn't believe the two were connected.

Authorities found a second device in Manhattan a few blocks away from the one that exploded and removed it. Cuomo says the injured have been released from the hospital, and that given the scope of the damage "we were really lucky that there were no fatalities." Most of the injuries were minor. The Democratic governor also said that 1,000 additional National Guard troops were being deployed "just to err on the side of caution. I want New Yorkers to be confident when they go back to work on Monday that New York is up and running and we're doing everything that we need to do." (Read more New York City stories.)
(Newser)  Authorities have not revealed the name of the man who stabbed nine people in a Minnesota mall on Saturday, but his family has identified him as 22-year-old Dahir Adan, reports the Star Tribune. Adan's father said he was a student at a local community college, adding that he had no knowledge of any ties his son might have had with terror groups. Adan was born in Africa but had lived in the US for the last 15 years, said his father, who was informed by police Saturday night that his son had been killed at the mall. The FBI has called the rampage in St. Cloud a "potential act of terrorism," while ISIS has claimed responsibility on behalf of its "soldier."

Authorities and witnesses say a man dressed as a security guard began stabbing people inside the mall, asking at least one victim beforehand if they were Muslim. The victims ranged in age from 15 to 53, and three remained hospitalized as of Sunday afternoon, including one with life-threatening injuries. A part-time officer from nearby Avon identified as Jason Falconer confronted the assailant during the attack and fatally shot him, reports CNN. Falconer, who was off-duty at the time, is now being described as a hero, though he tells the Star-Tribune that "I've been trying to stay away from it all, for the time being." (Read more Minnesota stories.)
New York:

Around 25 people were on Sunday injured in an explosion that rocked New Yorks busy and upscale neighbourhood also frequented by tourists, hours before world leaders arrive here for the high-level UN General Assembly session.

The explosion - which came hours after a pipe bomb went off in a garbage can in New Jersey - occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood at 23rd St. and 6th Avenue, a busy residential and commercial area frequented by tourists and city residents, around 8:30 pm (local time) yesterday.

The Fire Department of New York tweeted that 25 people have been injured and have been taken to hospitals in the area.

Authorities said none appear to be life-threatening at this time.

Personnel from the New York Police Department, FBI and counter-terrorism agencies are on the scene where restaurants and shops have been evacuated and subways in the area have been shut down. Mayor Bill de Blasio was also headed to the scene.

Assistant Commissioner for Communication and Public Information at the New York City Police Department J Peter Donald tweeted that authorities are responding to a report of an explosion at 23rd St. and 6th Avenue in Manhattan.

We will update you w/more when we have it, Donald said.

The explosion came hours after another explosion went off in a garbage can in a New Jersey beach town yesterday morning. Three pipe-bomb-type devices wired together were found near the boardwalk in Seaside Park, according to CNN. No injuries were reported and a four-block area was evacuated for most of the day, authorities said.

Security is already tight in the city as nearly 190 world leaders, including President Barack Obama, will arrive in the city for the about week-long high-level annual UN General Assembly session, beginning tomorrow.

Obama has been appraised of the explosion in New York City, a White House official said.

The president has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation. The president will be updated as additional information becomes available, a White House official said.

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Gurgaon:

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Saturady said the Mewat double murder cum gang-rape case and the beef controversy were trivial issues.

He was speaking to mediapersons here on the sidelines of an event Swarna Jayanti to mark 50 years of Haryana on November 1.

When asked about the beef biryani issue and CBI probe into the gang-grape case of two sisters in Mewat, Khattar said, These are trivial issues and I dont pay much attention to these small issues. Today we should be talking about Swarna Jayanti.

Collecting samples of beef biryani and double murder cum gang-rape case of two sisters is not an issue according to me. These were petty issues compared to golden jubilee celebrations and could take anywhere in the country.

A 20-year-old woman and her 14-year-old cousin were sexually assaulted by several men in their home in Mewat on August 24. Their uncle and aunt were tied up and then beaten to death.

The state government had last year enacted the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gau Samvardhan Act, making cow slaughter punishable with rigorous imprisonment up to 10 years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh.

Ahead of Eid on September 8, Haryana Cow Protection Task Force in Charge -DIG, Bharti Arora and Gau Sewa Aayog Chairman, Bhani Ram Mangla conducted a drive to check biryani and collected samples of it from Mewat.

Later, Haryana Minister Anil Vij said that all seven samples were found containing beef during testing at a laboratory in Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and the Animal Sciences in Hisar.

Mangla had claimed that there were reports of beef biryani being sold across Mewat, including villages such as Nuh, Ferozpur Jhirka, Nagina, Punhana, Bhadas, Shah Chokha and others.

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Srinagar:

Militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army at Uri, 102 kms from Srinagar, in the wee hours on Sunday, with explosions and heavy gunfire heard at the spot.

17 soldiers died in terrorist attack in Uri (J&K). Total four terrorists killed in the operation. Combing operations are in progress.

The attack began at around 0400 hours and the number of militants was believed to be three.

Immediately after the militants entered the camp, explosions and exchange of heavy fire were heard from inside, official sources said.

(For live updates, click here)

As it happened:

US strongly condemns #UriAttack. Our thoughts are with families of soldiers who lost their lives: US ambassador to India Richard Verma  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Jammu: Dogra Front workers stage a protest against Pakistan over #UriAttack. pic.twitter.com/KGKPWiY8Fg  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

# I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups: Home Minister Rajnath Singh

# Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such: Home Minister Rajnath Singh

Visuals from Uri: 17 soldiers lost their lives and 4 terrorists were gunned down in an encounter. (Visuals deferred) pic.twitter.com/2WbtTVc9me  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

# Delhi: MHA & MoD officials leave HM's residence after attending high level security meet chaired by HM Rajnath Singh

Pained by the mindless terror attack in Uri. I salute our brave soldiers for their supreme sacrifice & extend condolences to their families.  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) September 18, 2016

Terrorism is not the solution to Kashmir issue.Can only be solved through pol dialogue with all stakeholders-Yechury pic.twitter.com/8VRtdG1XXJ  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

# Army Chief General Dalbir Singh reaches Srinagar (J&K), will meet soldiers injured in Uri Attack

# #UriAttack shouldn't have happened.GoI needs to be a little more offensive in this regard: Goa CM Laxmikant Parsekar

#WATCH HM Rajnath Singh chairs high level security meet in Delhi. NSA, Home Secy,IB Chief present #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/vjpQPq9QTD  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

# Alert sounded in Punjab after terrorist attack in J&K's Uri, extra vigil along the international border.

Delhi: HM Rajnath Singh chairs high level security meet. NSA, Home Secy,IB Chief present (Inside Visuals) #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/MYUAiqa9ro  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Congress President, Smt. Sonia Gandhi has expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian Soldiers in the dastardly...  INC India (@INCIndia) September 18, 2016

MHA, Defence Ministry have taken this very seriously. We wont tolerate this: Hansraj Ahir, (MoS, Home) #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/DFvCfGszxY  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

# High level security meet to take place at HM Rajnath Singh's residence at shortly, MHA and MoD officials to attend

# Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issues alert for all airports across the country in wake of the terrorist attack in Uri Attack

It's time for GoI to take a practical approach, and react to this: SR Sinho,Defence Expert on Uri encounter pic.twitter.com/1ZADKlrUFz  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

We are with the forces, the protectors of our nation who keep it united: Former J&K CM Ghulam Nabi Azad #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/SNqZc21spE  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

# Administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary(ctd): Army

# Pakistan is irritated at the moment, because they failed in their attempt to execute such an activity here on Eid: Hansraj Ahir

# Defence Minister Parrikar to visit Srinagar today

# Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh to visit Kashmir in the wake of terror attack in Uri, in which 17 soldiers lost their lives.

# Four militants killed in Uri terror attack: Army

# Search operations are on in the area

# High level security meet to take place at HM Rajnath Singh's residence at 12:15pm, senior MHA and MoD officials to attend the meet

# Market in Uri has been closed due to the attack

# Rajnath Singh calls emergency meeting of IB, RAW, Home Ministry officials

# HM Rajnath Singh instructs Home Secretary and other senior officers in MHA to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir

# Home Minister Rajnath Singh speaks to Governor & CM of J&K regarding Uri terror attack, they apprised him of security situation in the state

#Home Minister Rajnath Singh calls an emergency meeting of concerned officials over the ongoing encounter in Uri

#Helicopters from the Army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla have been pressed into service

#Home Minister Rajnath Singh postpones visit to Russia and the US due to situation in Kashmir.

Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

I have given instructions to the Home Secretary and other senior officers in MHA to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

#Firstvisuals: Terrorist attack at army's Brigade Headquarter in Uri (J&K). Presence of 3-4 terrorists suspected. pic.twitter.com/4iRX0Rceff  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

#Firstvisuals: Terrorist attack at army's Brigade Headquarter in Uri (J&K). (Visuals deferred by unspecified time) pic.twitter.com/h2ydPw0lTR  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

#Firstvisuals:Terrorist attack at army's Brigade Headquarter in Uri (J&K).Para Commandos of the Army airdrop at site pic.twitter.com/SmJryLvgM3  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

#Firstvisuals: Terrorist attack at army's Brigade HQs in Uri (J&K). Encounter underway. (visuals deferred) pic.twitter.com/HGWNwjrAZb  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

(with PTI inputs)

Also Read: Uri attack: Home Minister Rajnath Singh postpones visit to Russia and US, calls emergency meeting

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New Delhi:

Due to severe health crisis engulfing the city, nearly 12 high-security diplomatic missions has been asked to provide municipal officials access to their premises for checking mosquito-breeding.

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) which has formed a task force to inspect various areas and spot mosquito-breeding, has also helped the embassies with fumigation in their premises.

As a precautionary measure, the civic body had written to embassies, requesting them to provide access to its staff for inspecting their premises.

"We had written to all embassies, foreign missions, chanceries and residences of ambassadors, requesting them to let our staff inspect their premises and check for mosquito-breeding. 12 of them have provided us access for inspection and remedial measures," RN Singh, Chief Medical Officer of NDMC told PTI.

The missions which have got the inspection and fumigation done include Pakistan High Commission, Embassies of Nepal, Sri Lanka, Serbia, China, Bangladesh, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Ethopia.

The council staff inspects all buildings in NDMC areas every year to check mosquito-breeding. Notices are issued in the first phase and the defaulters are asked to reply within a week about the measures taken by them to check it.

However, if in the second phase breeding is still found in their premises, NDMC issues challans to such violators.

As foreign diplomatic missions are not bound by law to allow the officials to check breeding, NDMC does not have any authority to issue any challan or notice to them. It can only help them with remedial measures.

"We do not have the authority to issue any challan or notice to the embassies or foreign missions but once we detect such conditions, we send our staff to take all remedial measures there including fumigation and destruction of larvae," Singh said.

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New Delhi:

A policy advocacy body has termed the Supreme Court's directive to the Centre to do away with sterilization camps within three years as a "landmark" judgement. It said that it will help in strengthening the implementation and monitoring of the family planning programme.

"PFI welcomes the SC judgement which we consider a landmark one. Providing quality services to and upholding the dignity of women will now be placed strongly on the national agenda.

"This judgement will help in ensuring that at the state and district levels as well, the judgement is taken seriously. This will also help to strengthen the implementation and monitoring of the family planning programme," said Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India (PFI).

The apex court had recently directed the Centre to do away with sterilisation camps within three years and strengthen the primary healthcare centre system, saying, "It is time that women and men are treated with respect and dignity and not as mere statistics in the sterilisation programme."

Referring to the Bilaspur sterilisation camp incident in 2014 where 16 women lost their lives, Muttreja said that a PFI report had demonstrated evidence on why the camps' approach should be ended and instead fixed date services instituted asthe norm for sterilisation services.

"Since Bilaspur, we have seen a very collaborative and supportive government at the Centre.

"In December 2014, the Health Ministry issued a directive to all principal secretaries for health at the state level toadhere to the guidelines and protocols to deliver qualityfamily planning services in a spirit of voluntarism and withina rights and accountability framework," Muttreja said. She noted that there were several positives as a resultof the judgement and the Ministry has been encouraged topromote gender equity in the family planning programmes.

"It has made clear that family planning is not just aboutwomen but also about men and the need for their increasedinvolvement in family planning, that the sterilisationprogramme cannot be primarily targeted towards women but mustalso actively include men as well.

"Looking at the bigger picture, the judgement makes astrong case for India to address itself to gender equity,directing it to ensure strict adherence to the guidelines andstandard operating procedures that it has issued in variousmanuals," Muttreja said.

She said the best part of the judgement is that itfosters collaboration between the Centre and the states tofind remedies to problems and improve the well being of itspeople and has the potential to to shape India's familyplanning program into a program of national significance.

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New Delhi:

Reiterating the governments commitment to deliver health services to each and every person, Union Minister J P Nadda has said the Centre intends to tie up with the private sector for it and a blueprint in this regard will be framed soon.

The Centre is working on an elaborate plan to roll out a blueprint for health services with the participation of the private sector in next two months and is committed to provide it to the last man of the society, Nadda said, delivering a lecture on Universal Healthcare: Forging Partnerships with the Private Sector here last evening.

The programme was organised by Y N Singh Memorial Foundation as a part of its second edition of the national lecture series on contemporary issues.

Referring to the availability of health infrastructure in the country, the Health and Family Welfare Minister said the major problem is not availability of resources but its poor implementation.

Citing an example, he said Uttar Pradesh was unable to spend Rs 7,500 crore and Bihar Rs 3,500 crore allocated to them under different schemes.

Finance is not a problem, but their rightful implementation is a major issue, Nadda said.

He said that in order to bring uniformity in health services across the country, the government has established the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in many states including Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Assam, West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir.

Besides, to improve health services, the government has identified 187 districts in the country where extension of existing services and capacity building will be done. Also, 58 districts hospitals were shortlisted for upgrading as medical colleges to deal with the problem of shortage of doctors and paramedical staff.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modis ambitious National Health Protection Scheme and National Dialysis Programme, Nadda said the government is launching dialysis programme in 400 select districts in the country under PPP model and would offer it free of cost to BPL (below poverty line) families and on a restricted amount to those above poverty line.

He said the introduction of ambulance services across the country was even praised by the Sri Lanka government and it has urged India to implement it in the island nation also.

Responding to a demand of clearing Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) payments on a fast pace, he said it will be done soon so that hospitals associated with it will not have to wait for long to get their dues.

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Porlamar:

Vice President Hamid Ansari held talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on 18th September while praising the strategic value of Chabahar port. Further, he told the Iranian president that the port will be recalled as a "turning point" in Indo-Iran ties as it provides India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan.

Ansari and Rouhani discussed bilateral ties and ways to boost economic cooperation during talks held on the sidelines of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit.

Asked if Chabahar came up for discussion, Secretary (West) Sujata Mehta, while briefing reporters on the meeting, said, "certainly the subject of Chabahar came up and in fact, our Vice President said in the years to come this will certainly be recalled as a turning point in the bilateral relationship as a matter of great significance".

The Vice President said India and Iran were like two young friends who grew up together and then got busy with their own affairs, and now after some time they are coming together and discovering how close they are.

"It was a very warm meeting. They discussed the potential for economic cooperation - Chabahar figured largely. They also discussed regional issues," Mehta said.

A "milestone" pact on the strategic Chabahar port in southern Iran which will give India access to Afghanistan and Europe bypassing Pakistan was signed in May this year.

Besides the bilateral pact to develop the Chabahar port for which India will invest USD 500 million, a trilateral Agreement on Transport and Transit Corridor was also signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran.

Vice President Ansari, who is here to attend the 17th NAM Summit leading the Indian delegation in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also called on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after arriving here yesterday.

"President Maduro and the Vice President had an 'excellent'" and a very warm conversation. "President Maduro is personally influenced by India and he is attached to India and that came through in the conversation itself," Mehta told reporters.

There was some discussion yesterday evening on the importance of the Non-Aligned groups speaking on the issue of terrorism and that found reflection in President Maduro's statement this morning, she said.

"Other than the agenda of the conference that they discussed last evening, they also spoke about bilateral relations. They spoke about the extent of economic cooperation which has grown dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years.

"There was some discussion on the economic cooperation side. There was also discussion about the need to arrange an early meeting of the joint commission between the two countries which would then lead to other things," she said.

The two important areas of bilateral cooperation at this time include: India buys a lot of oil from Venezuela and it is India's fourth largest supplier, Mehta noted. "There was some discussion on this and some additional supplies being purchased... There was also some discussion on India's export of drugs and pharmaceuticals products to benefit Venezuela. This has been a substantial growth area for us for the last several years," Mehta said.

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New Delhi:

The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has severely condemned the terrorist attack at the army base camp in Uri, South Kashmir that unfolded in the early hours of the day. The Prime Minister tweeted that those behind the gruesome attack shall not be spared and be given a befitting reply.



The PM hailed the supreme sacrifices made by the brave soldiers of the Indian army who were killed during the terrorist encounter. He said that the entire nation shall always remember the martyrs and be grateful for their supreme sacrifices made in defending the sovereign and territorial integrity of our nation .



Modi tweeted that has been apprised of the situation by both the Home and Defence Minister. The PM also said that the Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar shall go down to Kashmir to take stock of the situation on ground.

The Indian government has strongly condemned the brutal terror attack on an army base at Uri which has inflicted heavy casualties on the Indian Army. As per reports released by the army earlier in the day, 17 soldiers of the army were killed while 20 got injured in an encounter where four terrorists stormed into a military base in Uri at around 0400 hours.

Immediately after the militants entered the camp, explosions and exchange of heavy fire were heard from inside, official sources said. All the four terrorists have been nuetralized by the army.

This attack comes at a time when the Kashmir Valley has been brimming with unrest for more than two months ever since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on July 8 in which nearly 80 people have lost their lives so far.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation.

 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016





For more insights into this story, read:

















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New Delhi:

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has bashed Pakistan. He also said that Pakistan should be identified and isolated as a terrorist state. I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups, said Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

The Home Minister also said that there are definite & conclusive indications that perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.

Earlier, The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had severely condemned the terrorist attack at the army base camp in Uri, South Kashmir that unfolded in the early hours of the day. The Prime Minister tweeted that those behind the gruesome attack shall not be spared and be given a befitting reply.

Militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army at Uri, 102 kms from Srinagar, in the wee hours on Sunday, with explosions and heavy gunfire heard at the spot. 17 soldiers died in terrorist attack in Uri (J&K). Total four terrorists killed in the operation. Combing operations are in progress.

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New Delhi:

Addressing the media on Sunday evening, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, Unity of our country has been challenged by our neighbouring country.



In an international arena, Pak will be isolated if it continues to adopt such measures. It is clear that our neighbour is using terror to create menace in our country, which is also supported by some stone-pelters, said Jaitley.



Reiterating PM Modis statement earlier, Finance Minister said that ones behind these attacks will not be spared and brought to justice. He also informed the media that Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi will visit Jammu and Kashmir on Monday to meet top State officials.

Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar has reached Srinagar and has been briefed by Army Chief about the ground situation in Army base at Uri. According to DGMO, Defence Minister also visited injured soldiers.

Director General Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh on Sunday said that foreign terrorists are behind the attack on Army base camp in Uri, Kashmir, which left 17 army soldiers and 4 terrorists dead.

The initial reports indicate role of Jaish-e-Mohammed. Four AK47 recovered from 4 terrorists killed, DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said.

President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday strongly condemned the terrorist attack on Army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. President Mukherjee also paid tributes to brave soldiers who made supreme sacrifice, an official statement said.

"India will not be cowed down by such attacks, we will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers," President said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has severely condemned the terrorist attack at the army base camp in Uri, South Kashmir that unfolded in the early hours of the day. The Prime Minister tweeted that those behind the gruesome attack shall not be spared and be given a befitting reply.

"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," he tweetd.

"Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation."

Also read: PM Modi strongly condemns Uri attack, salutes the brave martyrs

Meanwhile, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that he is deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups.

Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such, Rajnath Singh said.

Also read: HM Rajnath Singh bashes Pakistan and calls it a terrorist state

Here are the live updates:

Reviewed situation in Kashmir following #UriAttack with Army Chief & Commanders. Instructed them to take firm action: Manohar Parrikar  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Visited injured in Hospital. Given necessary instruction to provide best medical support to them: Manohar Parrikar pic.twitter.com/xZ7MJiEg6e  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

The supreme sacrifice of 17 brave Soldiers will not go in vain. My salute to them: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar return back to Delhi after reviewing the overall security situation in Kashmir.  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Defence Min Manohar Parrikar & Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh visit Kashmir to review the overall security situation. pic.twitter.com/duE8IOXpTw  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi to visit J&K, tomorrow in wake of #UriAttack. He will be meeting top State officials.  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Like PM said that the ones behind these attacks will not be spared and brought to justice: Arun Jaitley #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/KMEZ1WMnib  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

It is clear that our neighbour is using terror to create menace in our country, which is also supported by some stone-pelters: Arun Jaitley  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

In an int'l arena, Pak will be isolated if it continues to adopt such measures: FM Arun Jaitley on #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/f7FguvjFDw  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

#UriAttack is condemnable. Unity of our country has been challenged by our neighbouring country: FM Arun Jaitley pic.twitter.com/NUbBpQULKI  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar briefed about Uri terror attack at Army's Srinagar headquarter, visits injured soldiers.  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 18, 2016

Defence Minister has landed in Srinagar & is being briefed by Army Chief about the ground situation: DGMO #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/IOD3E5sYqc  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

All intelligence agencies&security forces are working in close synergy & necessary action is being taken agnst various inputs received: DGMO  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Indian army has conducted the entire operation in a deliberate and professional manner: DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh pic.twitter.com/VRUQICV738  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

The Indian army is carrying out deliberate and methodical search of area in and around military complex in Uri: DGMO pic.twitter.com/2e3xd61f8J  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

I assure u that Indian army is prepared for any evil design by the adversary, & will give a befitting response: DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

17 soldiers lost their lives in #UriAttack. Of which 13-14 men died primarily because of tents & temporary shelters catching fire: DGMO  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Terrorists opened fire with incendiary ammunition, this led to tents and temporary shelters located inside the army camp catching fire: DGMO  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

13 to 14 casualties of the 17 killed primarily because of tents and temporary shelter catching fire:DGMO.  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 18, 2016

#Terorrists have objects have soem Pakistani amrkings on them: DGMO

#Indian millitary is still carrying on methodological operations in the area: DGMO

Indian DGMO speaks to his Pakistani counterpart, conveys serious concern over some of the equipment with terrorists having Pakistani marking  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 18, 2016

Foreign terrorists behind #UriAttack,initial reports indictae role of JeM. 4 AK recovered from 4 terrorists killed: DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

India will not be cowed down by such attacks, we will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) September 18, 2016

Heartfelt condolences to families of those bereaved in Uri terrorist attack; prayers for speedy recovery of injured #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) September 18, 2016

Strongly condemn outrageous terrorist attack on Army base in Uri; tributes to brave soldiers who made supreme sacrifice #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) September 18, 2016

No need to talk, now we should take some rigid actions. If it doesnt stop now people will turn against Govt: Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Pak is indulging in such proxy war for long. Must raise this issue in UN Security council: Ujwala Nikam #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/9sxyP3rhjn  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Afraid India-Pak on edge of war,if cross border infiltration continues,if security forces are attacked,there'll b reaction to this-SKashmiri

We dont believe that it is a terrorist attack, it is planned attack by Pak: Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena pic.twitter.com/sSaULodz2o  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

On one hand Pak says that they're fighting war against terrorism,on other hand their representative in UN glorifies 'Burhan Wani': SKashmiri  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Their only agenda is to kill. Civilian Govt in Pak is very weak: S Kashmiri, Chairman United Kashmir Ppl Nat'l Party pic.twitter.com/JTwMhYLF7J  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Their only agenda is to kill. Civilian Govt in Pak is very weak: S Kashmiri, Chairman United Kashmir Ppl Nat'l Party pic.twitter.com/JTwMhYLF7J  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Proxy war fought in Kashmir since 30-yr by extremists groups funded&supportd by Pak-Shaukat Kashmiri,Chairman United Kashmir Ppl Nat'l Party  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

J&K has always been worst victim of Indo-Pak hostility & its ppl have been paying a colossal price for same for past over 6 decades: J&K CM  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Heartfelt condolences to bereaved families and also pray for early recovery of those injured in the attack: J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti #Uri  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Strongly condemn #UriAttack. Attack seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region: J&K CM  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

#FLASH Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar leaves for Srinagar (J&K) to take stock of the situation #UriAttack  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Lucknow (UP): Special prayers being offered for soldiers who lost their life in #UriAttack. pic.twitter.com/cmz4lXQAE1  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) September 18, 2016

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh reaches Srinagar, will meet soldiers injured in #UriAttack (Pic source: Indian Army) pic.twitter.com/rc2L0osvLH  ANI (@ANI_news)

#WATCH Rahul Gandhi observes a 30 sec silence as mark of respect for 17 soldiers who lost their lives in #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/rf8GBeX1Rc  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016



Major parties and leaders on Sunday strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Uri, with the Congress expressing hope that the perpetrators and "the forces behind them" will be severely dealt with.



Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian soldiers in the dastardly terrorist attack in Uri, a party statement said.



In a statement, CPI(M) said Pakistan must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces as such activities are a big impediment to the peace process in the region. It also charged the government with failing to stop continued infiltration of militants despite deploying a large number of security personnel across the state.

Also read: Live Uri attack updates: Parties unite to condemn terrorist attack on Army base



Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmirs Uri town in the wee hours on Sunday, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.



Explosions and gunfire erupted as the militants attacked the camp, which is located barely few metres away from the Armys Brigade Headquarters in Uri town, 102 kms from here, around 4 AM, official sources said.



The jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks, the sources said.17 jawans were killed in the terror attack, the Northern Command of the Army said.



Nineteen other personnel were injured in the strike in which four militants were killed.



A group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, Kashmir. In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress, the Army said in a statement.



The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation, the statement said.



Helicopters from the Armys 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla have been pressed into service and the injured Army personnel have been evacuated from the encounter site, the sources said.



Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag are rushing to Kashmir in the wake of terror attack in Uri.



The Home Minister has also called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the terror attack.

Click here for more and lateat updates on Uri Attack

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New Delhi:

Major parties and leaders on Sunday strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Uri, with the Congress expressing hope that the perpetrators and the forces behind them will be severely dealt with.



Congress



Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian soldiers in the dastardly terrorist attack in Uri, a party statement said.



Terming the cowardly terror attack as a deplorable affront on our national conscience, Gandhi expressed hope that the perpetrators of this dastardly attack as also the forces behind them will be severely dealt with and brought to book.

(For live updates click here)



Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also condemned the attack. Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack, he said in a tweet.

Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) September 18, 2016

#WATCH Rahul Gandhi observes a 30 sec silence as mark of respect for 17 soldiers who lost their lives in #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/rf8GBeX1Rc  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

CPI(M)



The CPI(M) Central Committee, now in session here, asked Pakistan to stop aiding and abetting extremist forces, while strongly condemning the attack.



Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters that Pakistan must refrain from indulging in cross border terrorism and demanded that the matter should be taken up seriously.



In a statement, CPI(M) said Pakistan must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces as such activities are a big impediment to the peace process in the region.



It also charged the government with failing to stop continued infiltration of militants despite deploying a large number of security personnel across the state.

Pointing out that it has been consistently maintaining that terrorism is not the solution to the Kashmir issue, it said the CPI(M) would like to reiterate that for a long-standing solution of the Kashmir problem, the political dialogue with all stakeholders as advocated by the all Party delegation should be initiated without any further delay.

Attack in Uri condemned. Full statement of the Central Committee:https://t.co/JZxP434eTN pic.twitter.com/khEWtms5jG  Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) September 18, 2016

BJP



Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters in Bengaluru: It is absolutely condemnable ... They can continuously keep threatening us with these activities, but India is strong enough to take care of its internal security and no such threat is going to deter us from restoring peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir.



In a tweet, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani said Pained by the mindless terror attack in Uri. I salute our brave soldiers for their supreme sacrifice & extend condolences to their families.

Pained by the mindless terror attack in Uri. I salute our brave soldiers for their supreme sacrifice & extend condolences to their families.  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) September 18, 2016



In Ranchi, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das also condemned the terror strike and expressed deep grief at the loss of martrys.



Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das also condemned the terror strike and expressed deep grief at the loss of martyrs.

Also read:

HM Rajnath Singh bashes Pakistan and calls it a terrorist state

PM Modi strongly condemns Uri attack, salutes the brave martyrs



JDU



Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar strongly condemned the terror attack on an Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir which left 17 soldiers dead in the wee hours on Sunday.



The Chief Minister is deeply saddened by the martyrdom of 17 soldiers in a terror attack at headquarters of 12th Army Brigade near LOC in Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir, an official release said.



Condemning the attack, Kumar hailed the valour and dedication of the soldiers towards service to the nation by laying down their lives in the terror strike, the release said.



The country will always remember the supreme sacrifice made by those soldiers attaining martyrdom in the Uri terror attack, it said.

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New Delhi:

Heavily pained by the martyrdom of 17 soldiers, President Pranab Mukherjee strongly condemned the terrorist attack at Uri Army base (Jammu & Kashmir) on September 18 and claimed that India would not bow down to terrorists and their supporters at any cost.

"India will not be cowed down by such attacks, we will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers," the President said, without naming Pakistan.

Mukherjee, who is also the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces, strongly condemned the "outrageous terrorist attack on Army base in Uri".

Also read:

Watch Live Uri attack updates: Indian Army will give a befitting response to Uri attack, says DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh

Paying rich tributes to brave soldiers who made supreme sacrifice, the President expressed heartfelt condolences to the families of those who laid down their lives in the terror strike.

He also prayed for speedy recovery of those injured. Uri, a small town located 103 kms north of Srinagar, woke up to heavy gunfire when four terrorists of Jaish-e- Mohammed group entered the battalion headquarters of 10 Dogra regiment and killed 17 soldiers. All the four terrorists were eliminated.

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New Delhi:

Lt Governor Najeeb Jung on Sunday visited several hospitals across the city to take stock of their preparedness in dealing with the rising number of chikungunya and dengue cases in the national capital, and stressed on special attention to the elderly.

His visit came a day after the AAP government accused him of adopting a casual approach in dealing with the health crisis in the city.

Delhi is reeling under the viral onslaught of chikungunya and dengue, which have claimed at least 33 lives and affected over 2,800 people.

Jung, accompanied by Delhi Secretary Chandrakar Bharti and other top officials, visited fever clinics, laboratories at Lok Nayak Jaiprakash Hospital, Bara Hindu Rao Hospital and GTB Hospital. The team interacted with patients, doctors, medical superintendents, staff and other visitors to assess the situation.

He instructed the medical superintendents and doctors to ensure that patients with complications, particularly those who are elderly, should be attended to with greater care, a statement from the Raj Niwas said.

Jung also directed Delhi health secretary to help provide additional doctors, if required, seeing the surge of patients today.

The AAP government and the Lt Governor had a standoff yesterday after Health Minister Satyendar Jain and Water Minister Kapil Mishra went to meet the LG at his office to discuss the health crisis, but could not meet him as he was not present in his office.

While Jain questioned why Jung did not cut short his US visit even by one hour, the LGs office accused the AAP government of politicising the issue when the city was grappling with the health crisis.

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New Delhi:

A brutal terror attack on Indian Armys headquarter in Uri, Srinagar on Sunday claimed the lives of at least 17 soldiers as four terrorists stormed the base camp in wee hours. The terrorists were shot dead after a long encounter.



Director General Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh later confirmed that Pakistani markings were found on the objects obtained from the terrorists, hinting on the involvement of the Pak-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed.



India reacted strongly to the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency that sparked an outrage with Modi strongly condemning it.

(For live updates: Click here)



Here are the 10 main statements that you need to know:



Prime Minister Narendra Modi



Prime Minister Narendra Modi severely condemned the terrorist attack. The Prime Minister tweeted that those behind the gruesome attack shall not be spared and be given a befitting reply.



"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," he tweeted."Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation."



President Pranab Mukherjee



President Pranab Mukherjee strongly condemned the terrorist attack on Army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. President Mukherjee also paid tributes to brave soldiers who made supreme sacrifice, an official statement said.



"India will not be cowed down by such attacks, we will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers," President said.



Home Minister Rajnath Singh



Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that he is deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such, Rajnath Singh said.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar



Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar said that he condemns the cowardly terror attack on Army camp at Uri.



I salute the brave martyrs for their supreme sacrifice, on the way to Sringar, Defence Minister tweeted on Sunday afternoon. Since his statement, Parrikar has reached Srinagar and was swiftly briefed by Army Chief about the ground situation in Army base at Uri.



According to DGMO, Defence Minister also visited injured soldiers.



DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh



All four killed were foreign terrorists and had carried with them items which had Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-E-Mohammed tanzeem, Lt Gen Singh said in a brief statement to the media at South Block in Delhi.



He added that since some the terrorists had some items with Pakistani markings, I have spoken to Pakistan DGMO and conveyed our serious concern on the same.



He said that the terrorists had fired incendiary ammunition along with automatic fire of small arms that led to army tents and temporary shelters catching fire.



There have been a total of 17 Army fatal casualties. Of these, 13-14 casualties have been due to these tents/shelters having caught fire, he said.



Finance Minister Arun Jaitely

Addressing the media on Sunday evening, Finance Minister Arun Jaitely said, Unity of our country has been challenged by our neighbouring country.



In an international arena, Pak will be isolated if it continues to adopt such measures. It is clear that our neighbour is using terror to create menace in our country, which is also supported by some stone-pelters, said Jaitley.



Reiterating PM Modis statement earlier, Finance Minister said that ones behind these attacks will not be spared and brought to justice. He also informed the media that Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi will visit Jammu and Kashmir on Monday to meet top State officials.



Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti



The Uri terror strike is aimed at triggering fresh violence in Jammu and Kashmir and creating a war-like situation in the region, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said while strongly condemning the attack.



I strongly condemn the attack which seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region, Mehbooba said in a statement in Srinagar.



The Chief Minister said the heightened tension in the wake of the Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid growing strains in Indo-Pak ties.



Unfortunately, people in Jammu and Kashmir, who are already mired in an agonising situation, shall have to bear the maximum brunt of the fresh attempts being made to step up violence and trigger fresh bloodshed in the state, she said.



She said Jammu and Kashmir has always been the worst victim of Indo-Pak hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for the same for the past over six decades.



Mehbooba said the perpetrators of violence must understand that such methods have yielded nothing in the past nor would they yield anything in future except adding to the miseries of the people.



The Chief Minister while expressing anguish over the attack, paid rich tributes to the slain soldiers.



She extended heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and also prayed for early recovery of those injured in the attack.



National Conference: Omar Abdullah



Former chief minister Omar Abdullah also condemned the attack. Terrible news from Uri, 17 soldiers killed & many injured. May their souls rest in peace. Prayers for their families as also for the injured, Omar wrote on Twitter.



Congress: Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi



Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian soldiers in the dastardly terrorist attack in Uri, a party statement said.



Terming the cowardly terror attack as a deplorable affront on our national conscience, Gandhi expressed hope that the perpetrators of this dastardly attack as also the forces behind them will be severely dealt with and brought to book.



Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also condemned the attack. Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack, he said in a tweet.



CPIM: Sitaram Yechury



The CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters that Pakistan must refrain from indulging in cross border terrorism and demanded that the matter should be taken up seriously.



In a statement, CPI(M) said Pakistan must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces as such activities are a big impediment to the peace process in the region. It also charged the government with failing to stop continued infiltration of

militants despite deploying a large number of security personnel across the state.



Pointing out that it has been consistently maintaining that terrorism is not the solution to the Kashmir issue, it said the CPI(M) would like to reiterate that for a long-standing solution of the Kashmir problem, the political dialogue with all stakeholders as advocated by the all Party delegation should be initiated without any further delay.

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Islamabad:

Pakistan on Friday refuted as unfounded and premature Indias charge that it was behind the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmirs Uri that killed 17 soldiers, with its army demanding actionable intelligence to support New Delhis accusation.



Following the dawn attack, India blamed Pakistan for the latest attack on the Indian Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh directly attacked Pakistan saying it was a terrorist state and should be isolated.



Pakistan army spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said that following the attack Director General of Military Operation (DGMO) of the two countries discussed the situation along the Line of Control through hotline.



Refuting the unfounded and pre-mature Indian allegation, Pakistani DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence, Radio Pakistan reported citing an ISPR release.



Bajwa reiterated that no infiltration was allowed from the Pakistani soil because of water-tight arrangements in place on both sides of LoC and the Working Boundary.



Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmirs Uri town in the wee hours, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

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Mumbai:

A day after a fishing boat sank in the Arabian Sea, two divers deployed to locate the fishermen on board the vessel were rescued on Sunday, said Coast Guard officials.

The boat Dutta Sai, carrying 17 fishermen, had sunk about 30 nautical miles west of Mumbai in the sea at around 4 AM yesterday due to bad weather.

While 14 fishermen were rescued yesterday, two Naval divers were deployed to locate the others.

However, the divers also went missing last night amid the rough waters. They were rescued early morning, a release from the Indian Coast Guard said, adding the three fishermen are still missing.

MV Dependable, a merchant ship had rescued the 14 fishermen. The search and rescue operation was conducted by the units of Coast Guard, Navy and ONGC, it said.

During the search operation, INS Trishul spotted a fisherman in the evening, following which the ship lowered a boat and two divers went to pick up the survivor.

However, both the survivor and the divers could not be seen even at close range by the ship due to rain, bad weather and darkness, the release said. Search efforts have been stepped up to locate the three missing fishermen, it added.

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If Vincencia Adusei and Joel Green have a few things very much in common, both working in Bridgeport and focusing their careers on real estate, they can add one more as each joined last month the board of directors of the Fairfield Countys Community Foundation.

Their paths to the Norwalk-based organizations boards have otherwise been quite different  and that that is a major consideration for Juanita James in her role as CEO of the grant-making institution in terms of how Green and Adusei can help find the right footing for the foundation going forward.

If Fairfield Countys Community Foundation has a populous board with about 30 directors, a small army of people are directors at other nonprofits in the city  more than 1,000 board members in all as counted by Hearst Connecticut Media, a figure that does not include the boards of numerous family foundations in Norwalk run by relatives who have a vested interest in the finances and impact of those organizations.

Add in nonprofits located in the areas other cities and towns, and there are untold thousands more who make the commitment to help steer the work of staff and volunteers for organizations that work to make a difference for those who rely on them for services and support.

Fairfield Countys Community Foundation numbers among the nonprofits that touches many others through the financial grants it awards, as well as through its Center for Nonprofit Excellence that holds forums for people to learn how to better run their organizations, including one next Wednesday in Norwalk to school board chairs on the ever-more-intense requirements of their roles.

In August, Fairfield Countys Community Foundation added five people to its own board of directors, including Green, a partner with the Bridgeport law firm Green & Gross with a focus on land-use and housing. For Green, the new board seat is a culmination of sorts for a lifetime of service, all the way back to the encouragement and insistence of his parents growing up in the Bridgeport area, and a way to bring communities closer together.

I think there are a lot of people from Greenwich and Madison doing a lot of great things in Bridgeport, as well, Green said. We all need each other.

Prizing diversity

It is a reality long known by Juanita James, CEO of Fairfield Countys Community Foundation, who said her organization attempts to have its board reflect its mission.

I think one of the things I am most proud of about our board is it is incredibly diverse, James said. It is diverse economically, its diverse from age, gender, ethnically, perspective  we have businesspeople, we have educators, we have people who are professionals, volunteers who have a passion for each of the areas. When you meld it together, it is what we need. ... A community foundation is about lifting up all the communities that are part of our area.

Like Green, Adusei grew up in a family that emphasized giving back, in her case in her native Ghana. As president of Vase Construction in Bridgeport, Adusei says the ethic is reinforced many days on the job while out and about in Bridgeports neighborhoods.

What I love about boards and not-for-profits  the ones that Ive been involved in  is they take on things that help individuals, Adusei said. Whenever we go in to do a roof or do a whole renovation or lift a house, by the time weve left weve been able to ... talk to the families that are there  That gives me the insight in Bridgeport knowing that so many people need more help.

Time commitment

If there is no shortage of volunteer opportunities for area nonprofits, committing to board service takes things to a more demanding level, and it is not for everyone. And for those willing to make that commitment, not every board situation is the right one. Jennifer Pagnillo found her way to Fairfield Countys Community Foundation board having first considered opportunities at organizations involved with her own area of interest of animal welfare.

In her day job as co-chair of Day Pitneys tax-exempt organizations and charitable giving practice group in Greenwich, Pagnillo spends her days helping family foundations and other nonprofits with their tax planning. From her parents encouragement of little sojourns into volunteerism at an early age, she said it took finding something she could be passionate about before committing to the sustained input required of a board directors. And even then, it is not always a fit  for her part, Pagnillo has long supported animal causes, but has yet to take a board seat for any related organization.

If its not a cause that speaks to you deep inside, then I think its very hard to sustain the kind of ongoing commitment that you need to really try and make a difference, Pagnillo said. It takes finding the cause that you are passionate about, and then really getting to know the organization that you are thinking about becoming involved with, and being able to say at a particular point, You know what? Maybe this organization isnt the right one for me and maybe theres one thats better suited, thats a better fit  thats doing things more aligned with the things I want to do.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-354-1047; www.twitter.com/casoulman
New Fairfield police confirmed that law enforcement and firefighters had been dispatched to the scene of a major fire.

According to first Selectman Susan Chapman, it is a fully involved structure fire, with multiple towns giving mutual aid.
National POW/MIA Recognition Day, Sept. 16, is a day to pause and reflect as we remember our unrecovered prisoners of war, our missing Americans, and their families.

President Obama has made several trips to Asia, and has participated in the ASEAN conferences during his presidency. He must use his relationships to further pursue the question of live prisoners and more access to crash sites. How can he ignore the opportunity, 43 years after the war, as the first U.S. President to visit Laos, to negotiate a means for the repatriation of unrecovered POWs from the Vietnam War, while continuing to promote humanitarian cooperation between our nations?
President Obamas recent visit to Laos, unprecedented by any other sitting American president, detailed the U.S. military assault on this tiny country during the height of the Vietnam War.

Cloaked in secrecy and suppression, the U.S. did not publicly acknowledge its combat operation in Laos, which resulted in two million tons of a-bombs dropped on villages and entire valleys that were obliterated, inflicting horrific injuries and death to innocent women, men and children.
The nuclear industry can achieve the momentum required to create an additional 1000 GWe of new capacity by 2050, Agneta Rising, director general of the World Nuclear Association said. This target is essential, she said, if the world is to ensure the International Energy Agencys 2 Degree Scenario on climate change.

Connections of new nuclear power units doubled in 2015 to ten new reactors each year compared with five in 2014 and similar numbers in previous years.

Only nuclear power can ensure the clean, affordable and reliable electricity needed to meet increasing global energy demand whilst ensuring climate goals can also be achieved, Rising said.

She proposed the following schedule: 50 GWe of new capacity in 2016-2020, 125 GWe in 2021-2025 and 825 GWe in 2026-2050. That means a yearly connection rate of 10 GWe, 25 GWe and 33 GWe, respectively.

In the mid-80s, some 31 GWe of new nuclear capacity were delivered and connected each year, she noted. I am so sure that we can do better now. We have more technologies, more experience, more companies and a lot of need to have this low-carbon electricity that is so reliable.

The Associations World Nuclear Performance Report 2016 shows there have been a lot of reactor start-ups in the last 12 months in different parts of the world, including China, India, the USA, South Korea and Russia, Rising said.

Altogether they are delivering a connection rate of 11.3 GWe and the target for this period is 10 GWe, so already in the first year now we are delivering on that target. But there is much to do if we are going to ramp this up, she said.

And construction periods are getting shorter. Even in the industry, I hear people say that nuclear has long construction times. No. Construction times are coming down. There has been a 5.5 year average construction time for last five years. Of course there are examples where there have been big delays  delays in decision making and delays in construction, but overall, on average, its a very great result, she said.

In addition, each reactor built is delivering more and more electricity, she said. The capacity factor  what you deliver compared to what you are constructed to deliver  is climbing up. In the 80s, it was about 60% and now it is around 80%. These percentages are based on the International Atomic Energy Agencys Power Reactor Information System, or PRIS, database, which includes Japanese reactors even though they are not in operation currently. That means, if you look at the reactors that are running  the capacity factor is above 80%, Rising said. If you look at many of the other energy sources, I dont think there is any that has such high capacity factors as nuclear. For example, solar and wind have a capacity factor of 10-15% on average.

A level playing field for all low-carbon technologies would value not only the environmental qualities of an energy source, but also its reliability and grid system costs.

Markets should be reformed to, Rising said, to support capital investments, include grid system costs, eliminate nuclear-only taxes, reform subsidies, give credit for low-carbon emissions, value 24/7 reliability and support innovative finance solutions.

A level playing field for nuclear cannot be achieved as long as power markets are distorted, Rising said, with low wholesale prices reflecting renewables that are supported by subsidies. Current gas prices may be low in the USA, but this does not reflect the cost of emissions that fossil fuelled plants account for, she added.

SOURCE  World Nuclear News
Three of the 14 oil workers kidnapped along Omoku/ Elele road on September 2, have recently escaped from their abductors.

Three of the 14 oil workers kidnapped along Omoku/ Elele road on September 2, have recently escaped from their abductors.Four of the victims had initially escaped, leaving the number of those still in captivity, at seven.Speaking to Channels Television in Port Harcourt, two of the escaped victims said the constant movement of the kidnappers gave them the opportunity to escape.Citizens are therefore advised to remain highly security conscious, as it is believed that the last few months of the year, usually prove to be more dangerous with an increase in criminal activities.
The gunmen who kidnapped four residents of Isheri area of Lagos State, are asking the families to pay N300m each, before they can be rele...

The gunmen who kidnapped four residents of Isheri area of Lagos State, are asking the families to pay N300m each, before they can be released.The abductors, who established contact with the families earlier on Sunday, said the captives would be released once the monies were deposited at a designated point.Meanwhile the police have assured that they are on a massive manhunt for the kidnappers.The Ogun State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ahmed Iliasu told Channels Television that a combined team of 30 policemen have been deployed to the area in search of the kidnapped residents.The four victims were said to have been kidnapped during an aerobic session in the early hours of Saturday.An eyewitness said the three kidnappers who were all armed and masked, came in from the water side.Kidnappers seem to have gone on the rampage as several cases have been reported recently in states across Nigeria.
Former Delta State Governor, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, is set to launch fresh appeal against his conviction in London, following new cl...

Former Delta State Governor, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, is set to launch fresh appeal against his conviction in London, following new claims the Scotland Yard and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) covered up evidence of police corruption in a high-profile money-laundering case.Ibori, his lawyer and associates were sentenced to various terms in prison and all of them are about to serve out their sentences only for new information to emerge that the prosecution had taken bribes to suppress a substantial number of documents suggesting an officer did take bribes, according to the BBC.In a swift response, Head of Chief James Onanefe Iboris Media Office, Tony Eluemunor, Eluemunor said: The case demonstrates the truly shocking behaviour of the British Crown Prosecution Service. Despite the over whelming evidence of corruption by British anti-corruption officers, it continues to prosecute James Ibori and others when it now has in its possession evidence as to the source of his funds. It is believed that Ms. Saunderss position is now untenable.As the Director of Public Prosecutions she has engineered a shocking cover-up. Eluemunor added, surprisingly, the September 16, 2016 BBC report written by Mark Easton, Home editor, and entitled New evidence Supports Cover-up Claims in Ibori Case is totally different from what appeared in the Nigerian media. The BBC report monitored last night has said, The previously undisclosed material came to light after the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, demanded a review into the conviction of Nigerian politician James Ibori.The internal investigation followed allegations by defence lawyers that prosecutors had wilfully misled judges about the existence of evidence that could support corruption claims. Now defence solicitors are being sent previously unseen documents discovered during the review. In a statement the CPS reveals how the review team found material to support the assertion that a police officer received payment in return for information.The review team has now concluded that this material should have been disclosed to the defence and the process of disclosure to relevant parties is under way. Prosecutors had previously denied there was any undisclosed material to support the corruption allegations and the admission that considerable documentation exists and should have been handed over, represents an embarrassing climb-down for the CPS.
Mr Murtala Sodangi, a member of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, has appealed to Nigerians for patience with President Muhammadu Bu...

Mr Murtala Sodangi, a member of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, has appealed to Nigerians for patience with President Muhammadu Buhari as he strives to address the nations economic woes. Sodangi, who represents Nasarawa Central constituency (APC), made the appeal in an interview with newsmen. on Sunday in Nasarawa, Nasarawa Local Government Area of the state. The lawmaker also appealed to Nigerians not to lose faith in the party as it worked with the president to end the recession. He said that what was currently needed was ceaseless prayers for the countrys economy to improve and not apportioning blame.He added that as a lawmaker and the peoples representative, I want to appeal to my electorate and other Nigerians for more patience. We must not lose hope in President Buharis administration because of the present hardship the country is going through. As a lawmaker, I am telling Nigerians that it is not time to apportion blame to anybody over the present economic challenges.Rather, it is time for Nigerians to intensify prayers for Gods intervention in order to overcome both the economic challenges and security challenges facing some parts of the country. According to him, the Federal Government has many good policies on ground to address the challenges, and a little more patience and support is what the government needs to succeed. Sodangi assured his constituents of continued commitment to initiate people-oriented programmes in order to better their standard of living and solicited their support to enable him succeed.He advised the youths and other Nigerians to be law abiding, respect constituted authority and to shun negative tendencies in the interest of peace and the socio-economic development of the country. The lawmaker urged the people of the state and other Nigerians to live in peace and tolerate one another, irrespective of ethnicity, religion and political affiliation.
The Indigenous People of Biafra has said its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is critically ill in Kuje prison.

The Indigenous People of Biafra has said its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is critically ill in Kuje prison.The group said it got the information from Kanus lawyers who visited him recently,In a statement issued by the Publicity Secretary of IPOB, Emma Powerful, on Saturday, the group said Kanu was suffering from chest and abdominal pains as well as a violent cough.The group alleged that Kanus poor health might not be unconnected with the bad treatment he had been allegedly subjected to by prisons officials.It called on the international community to prevail on President Muhammadu Buhari to allow its leader to have access to medical treatment.The statement read, We have notified the international community about his present condition which include debilitating abdominal pains and occasional tightening of the chest resulting in cough, which has persisted.The Department of State Services has this information in its record and we suggest it makes it public for the world to know. Kanus loss of blood through bleeding from the nose prompted the agency to send in an external doctor to examine him while in their custody.The group also declared its support for the United States Republican Partys presidential candidate, Donald Trump.The group ranked Trump among other world leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and Angela Merkel of Germany.It said Americans and the world should be desirous to see Trump as the next US President.It also expressed hope that if Trump became the President of the US, he would address the plight of Biafrans.The statement added, We are calling on the international community, world leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Angela Merkel of Germany and Donald Trump, whom the good people of America, to come and make the US greater. These leaders and others who recognise the ideals of freedom for all should come to our rescue.The group decried the DSS declaration of the wife of its leader, Uchechi and one Powerful as wanted persons.The DSS should have known that IPOB is a non-violent organisation committed to the liberation of the people of Biafra and has not been involved in any violent act or crime during its protests in Nigeria and across the globe, the group added.
United States President, Barack Obama, will meet President Muhammadu Buhari on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Ass...

United States President, Barack Obama, will meet President Muhammadu Buhari on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly gathering this week.Obama will discuss with Buhari on US support for security and economic challenges in the country, as well the governments efforts to defeat Boko Haram.Nigeria and the US have pending agreement over the sale of US military equipment, especially attack helicopters to fight the insurgents.White House Deputy National Security Adviser, Ben Rhodes, added that Obama would hold separate sessions with Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider Al-Abadi; and Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos.Rhodes, however, said that Obama will not meet Philippines President, Rodrigo Duterte, who recently insulted the US President.The White House cancelled a meeting with Duterte during Obamas recent trip to Laos for a regional summit after Duterte insulted him.Duterte, who also slammed the UN and threatened to quit the world body after it criticised killings in its war on drugs, has not been scheduled to attend the General Assembly meeting.Duterte turned down a meeting with UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, at the Laos summit.Meanwhile, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Mr Femi Adesina, said in a statement that Buhari would deliver Nigerias statement at the opening of the general debate of the Assembly on The Sustainable Development Goals: A Universal Push to Transform Our World.Adesina stated that the President would also attend a high-level summit to be hosted by the UN, on large movements of refugees and migrants.He said, The summit, which is the first of its kind, is expected to come up with a blueprint for a better international response to enhance the protection of migrants and refugees.
The All Progressives Congress (APC), Enugu chapter, has stressed the need for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to join President Muham...

The All Progressives Congress (APC), Enugu chapter, has stressed the need for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to join President Muhammadu Buhari in laying solid foundation for a prosperous Nigeria. The states chapter of the party, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary Mrs Kate Ofor, decried plot by PDP to bring back unbridled corruption into Nigeria.The plot was exemplified by PDPs unwarranted propaganda against President Muhammadu Buhari. The statement explained that the scheme by PDP to bring back uncontrolled corruption made the party to keep heaping blame on President Buhari as the cause of the recession in the country.The APC state chapter said PDP smartly exonerated its leadership of lack of planning and squandering the resources of the nation in the last 16 years. According to it, the lack of planning and squandering of resources by the immediate past administration actually caused the present economic recession.PDP has the guts to call on President Buhari to resign for failing to fix the economy they battered during their 16 years leadership. The party recalled that it was during PDP government that billions of naira was stolen, thereby plunging the nation into the current economic challenge. In less than 20 months, PDP thought Nigerians are morons who forget so easily.The APC, however, assured Nigerians that Buhari was on course in its avowed determination to fight corruption and lay solid foundation for economic prosperity of the country. It stated that PDP was consciously or unconsciously reminding Nigerians of the economic fraud which pushed millions of Nigerians into poverty and at the same time produced the richest African. The governing party also called on political parties, civil society organisations and patriots to rally round the president to collectively search for solutions to the economic recession.
NEWARK -- A Madison resident was shot and killed in the city early Sunday, the third fatal shooting in city in as many days.

Adam P. Sismour, 34, was shot near South Orange and Maybaum avenues, said Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray and Newark Public Safety Director Anthony F. Ambrose said in a statement today.

They said Sismour was taken to University Hospital in Newark where he was pronounced dead at 1:48 a.m.

No other details of the shooting were immediately available, but authorities said the case is under investigation by the Prosecutor's Office Homicide / Major Crimes Task Force.

No suspects have been identified and no arrests have been made.

Authorities are asking that Anyone with information about the shooting to call Major Crimes Task Force tips line at 1-877-847-7432.

On Friday, Travis Swepson, 25, of Newark was found dead in a car Concord Street and Frelinghuysen Avenue Friday, authorities said. Officials have identified Travis Swepson, 25, of Newark, as the victim of that shooting.

Authorities said a man was shot and killed on Mt. Pleasant Avenue at around 4 a.m. Saturday. The victim has been identified as Wyneair Grandville, 32, of Newark.

Tom Haydon may be reached at thaydon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Tom_HaydonSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
NEWARK -- A city man is being held for the fatal shooting of a victim who was found dead in a car in an industrial section of the city.

Jose Soto, 43, was arrested for the killing of 25-year-old Travis Swepson, whose body was discovered in a car early Friday, said Katherine Carter, spokesman for the Essex County Prosecutor's Office.

Swepson's body was found at 8:10 a.m. in the car near Concord Street and Frelinghuysen Avenue.

Soto was charged with murder. He is being held at the Essex County jail on $1 million bail.

Swepson's killing was the first of three that occurred on three consecutive days.

Authorities said Wyneair Grandville, 32, of Newark, was shot and killed on Mt. Pleasant Avenue at around 4 a.m. Saturday.

Another man was killed in the early morning hours on Sunday.

Authorities said Adam Sismour, 34, of Madison was shot near South Orange and Maybaum avenues. Sismour was taken to University Hospital in Newark where he was pronounced dead at 1:48 a.m.

Tom Haydon may be reached at thaydon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Tom_HaydonSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- A four-alarm blaze ripped through a row of houses early Sunday morning on Wegman Parkway, destroying decades of memories for the families that lived in those homes.

The blaze was reported at about 3 a.m. at 98 Wegman Parkway, quickly spreading to the neighboring two homes. Four firefighters were injured battling the blaze and 20 residents were displaced, city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said.

Crews were still on the scene at 11 a.m. investigating the cause of the fire that residents say was no accident.

A 27-year-old Myrtle Avenue man, who asked that his name not be published, was standing outside of his step-mother's home that has been owned by the family for over 60 years. He said arson investigators told his family the fire appears to have been intentionally set, which the 27-year-old believes may have been a result of a former tenant dispute.

"It's beyond hard (to watch)," he said. "It's not just my family being affected it's everyone."

The 27-year-old said his mother went to Jersey City Medical Center following the blaze. As she arrived back to the house later Sunday morning, she was greeted with embraces from family and friends.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation confirmed the fire does appear to be suspicious.

Tanya, who declined to provide her last name, said her mother has owned one of the damaged homes on Wegman Parkway since 1970. She said the fire destroyed several family photo albums and irreplaceable pictures that hung on the wall.

Her mother woke up to people screaming there was a fire and didn't realize her own home was engulfed in flames. The blaze quickly spread to her home and soon had flames shooting from the roof.

The 53-year-old said she came rushing from Newark to get to the home that she grew up in. She said the flames were coming from above her mother's bedroom.

"It was a family house," she said.

She, too, was told the fire was suspicious and heard some kind of flammable fluid was found on the most heavily damaged home.

"I just hope that's not true," Tanya said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
This story is part of "The invisible workforce," an NJ Advance Media special report on New Jersey's temp industry.

NEW BRUNSWICK -- Sitting on his bed in the windowless garage that serves as his home, Rafael Sanchez says he's not sure how much longer he can work.

After years of manual labor, the 65-year-old native of Mexico says he is slowing down.

Sanchez has spent the past few years living in this cramped 9-by-14-foot room -- the detached garage of an old house on a littered dead-end street near the NJ Transit train tracks. He pays $320 a month in rent for the unheated space lit with a series of extension cords.

He spends his days at a factory near Trenton, standing for hours on a fast-moving assembly line.

If he's lucky, he will earn $15,000 this year.

As a temporary worker, he constantly worries he will lose his job.

Rafael Sanchez, a temp worker from Mexico, came to the U.S. illegally in 2001. He lives inside a small room built inside a garage on a dead end street in New Brunswick. (Andre Malok | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

It's not exactly the version of the American dream Sanchez says he envisioned when a "coyote" back in Mexico City offered to smuggle him across the border for $2,400 and bring him to New Brunswick. There, he was told, work was plentiful for new immigrants -- even those entering the country illegally.

Fifteen years later, Sanchez is still trying to eke out a living.

"I have nothing to hide. I recognize that I am illegal," Sanchez says in Spanish. "Those of us who are ilegales ... have restrictions on everything."

Those restrictions include finding permanent work.

Sanchez is among a growing army of workers employed by temporary agencies in New Jersey. Workers and activists say temp agencies in New Brunswick, Elizabeth, Union City and other municipalities are booming.

Many agencies set up storefront shops in Hispanic neighborhoods and hire large numbers of new immigrants and workers living in the country illegally, activists and workers say.

The workers, including Sanchez, are sent to low-paying jobs in warehouses and factories clustered along the New Jersey Turnpike in Central and North Jersey.

Some complain they face racial and sexual discrimination, unsafe working conditions, unpaid overtime and other alleged mistreatment. Because many are new or unauthorized immigrants, the temps are often afraid to report mistreatment to authorities or tell their stories, advocates say.

Rafael Sanchez, an unauthorized immigrant temp worker from Mexico, makes his daily walk from his home to a temp agency in New Brunswick before dawn. He takes a van to his $10-an-hour temp job in a factory near Trenton. (Andre Malok | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Now a member of the worker activist group New Labor, Sanchez agreed to allow NJ Advance Media to use his name and share his story to help shed light on the growing temporary employment agency industry in New Jersey.

"My voice is the voice of all the immigrants who come here illegally," Sanchez says.

He pulls out a pile of pay stubs from his temp agency. A recent stub says Sanchez earns $10 an hour, or $400 a week in gross pay. Then come the deductions: for federal income tax ($7.98), Social Security ($24.80), Medicare ($5.80), state taxes and deductions ($8.24) and for the temp agency's medical insurance plan ($12.69).

Another $45 a week is taken directly out of his paycheck by the agency for the van that transports the workers.

Sanchez's final paycheck is $295.49 for the week. If the temp work stays steady, he will make between $14,000 and $15,000 a year.

Some of the money taken out of his check for taxes, Medicare and Social Security represents cash and benefits he likely will never see. His Social Security number is either fake or stolen -- he is not sure which -- so he will never be able to retire with a Social Security check.

"I get none of the benefits," Sanchez says.

However, he recently began filing income tax returns each year with the IRS, using the Individual Tax Identification Number system set up for unauthorized immigrants, in hopes that he will someday obtain legal status.

Sanchez has documents showing that his federal taxes are up to date for each year he has been in the U.S. He paid off $1,800 in back taxes he owed several years ago. This year, he got a $400 refund.

Sanchez says his path to becoming a temp worker began in 2001 when he got into a smuggler's van in Mexico.

At the time, Sanchez, the son of a farm worker, had a job in Mexico City as a machine operator in a plastic-packaging factory. Each weekend he made the two-hour commute home to his wife and six sons in Tlaxcala, a state in central Mexico.

Rafael Sanchez, a temp worker living in New Brunswick, shows his hands. At age 65, Sanchez buys his own gloves and safety glasses to work in a $10-an-hour temp job in a factory near Trenton. (Andre Malok | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

But he was frustrated by the low pay in the factory and felt pressure to earn more to support his family -- especially his then-6-year-old son, who had mental and physical disabilities and needed constant care.

Sanchez says a friend in Mexico City told him about easy work in New Jersey.

"He started to tell me, 'You should come! You should come!' " Sanchez says.

Eventually, Sanchez agreed. At age 50, he took a chance on a better life as a temp worker in New Jersey.

With the help of a "coyote" or smuggler, Sanchez joined a group that drove to Sasabe, a town on the Mexico-Arizona border with a vast stretch of uninhabited desert known as a staging area for illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the U.S.

After their van broke down, the group walked in the dark through an unguarded section of the border and into Arizona. They walked all night and ended up near Tucson, where they spent several weeks waiting for their smuggler to secure a new van to take them to Los Angeles.

The group spent a few days in California before they were loaded into a third van that took them to their final destination: New Brunswick.

"As soon as I arrived, I didn't know anything," Sanchez says. "I didn't even know how to find a job. The people who helped me come here, they gave me a place to stay. They took me to the agencies."

He filled out an application at one of the numerous New Brunswick temp agencies lining French Street. He used his own name and a Social Security number supplied by his coyote. He was surprised he needed a number.

"No one tells us the requirements one should have in order to get a job. No one ever talked about the 'Socials,'" he says.

Sanchez says he was unsure if the Social Security number he was given -- and still uses -- was stolen, fake or belonged to a dead person.

In the end, it didn't matter.

No one at the now-defunct agency questioned his immigration status, and he quickly got a temp job unloading boxes at a local clothing warehouse, he says.

A temp agency van took him back and forth to the job, so he had no need for a car or a driver's license. The warehouse was filled with other Spanish-speaking temp workers and new immigrants, so there was no need to learn English.

Though the pay was lower than expected, Sanchez says he was able to slowly pay the $2,400 he owed his smuggler.

"Fortunately, it took me only eight months," he says.

Life working for the agency during his first year in New Jersey was difficult. Temp work offers no sick days, vacations or paid holidays. His assignment could end at any moment without explanation.

He left the agency after a few months and used his illegally obtained Social Security number to move to a permanent job at a factory.

That job ended abruptly after six years when a new owner bought the factory and changed personnel in 2007.

"(The new owner) didn't want illegals anymore. He let go of about 380 people. The manager said he was happy with our work, but the new owner didn't want this situation," Sanchez says.

So Sanchez went back to the temp agencies.

After hearing about plentiful work on horse ranches in Kentucky, he made his way there in 2008. But he was able to find only exhausting work harvesting tobacco, making $8 an hour and 10 cents for every bundle he brought in from the fields.

Realizing he had made a mistake, Sanchez gave up on Kentucky after less than three months and paid someone $500 to take him back to New Brunswick.

Sanchez found himself back at the New Brunswick temp agencies. After a series of warehouse jobs, he landed a long-term temp assignment on an assembly line in the factory near Trenton where he has worked the past six years.

Sitting in the garage that serves as his home, the soft-spoken Sanchez says his hands and eyes are still healthy, thanks to the work gloves and safety glasses he buys himself. He says neither his factory nor his temp agency supplies any safety equipment.

Standing 5 foot 4 with a thin frame, Sanchez says he is suffering from Addison's disease, an adrenal gland disorder that can cause extreme fatigue and weight loss. His family mails him his medication from Mexico, where the drugs are cheaper.

He lives in the cluttered garage with his possessions piled against the door. He sleeps on a bed under a painting of the Last Supper and other religious artifacts he keeps to remember his family.

Though his landlord lets him use the bathroom and kitchen in the main house, he eats most of his meals on his bed. He has a mini refrigerator and microwave hooked up to a series of extension cords strung across the garage room.

In his free time, he watches "Learn to Speak English" VHS tapes on the television at the foot of his bed. He spends his evenings attending meetings and events as a member of New Labor, Unity Square and other New Brunswick activist groups working to help immigrants.

He calls or texts his wife of nearly 40 years, Pilar, every week or so using his $20-a-month flip-style cellphone. He also wires about $63 or $64 a week -- about a fifth of his take-home pay -- back to Mexico, according to his receipts.

"Why am I still here?" Sanchez says. "With me being here, my kids won't find themselves needing to come here illegally. ... Even though they've wanted to come here, I have tried to keep them from coming, helping them financially as much as I can."

One of his six sons followed him to the U.S. in 2004, illegally crossing the border with the help of a coyote. Sanchez says his son, now 29, found work in a restaurant and lives in Hillsborough.

Temp work, though low-paying, is still more lucrative than anything he could find in Mexico, the elder Sanchez says. He sends home as much money as he can each week, especially for his wife and his disabled son, who is now 21.

He says he hopes the little money he sends to his other four adult sons keeps them from being tempted to become either sellers or buyers in the lucrative drug trade in his hometown of Calpulalpan, a small city of 33,000 people.

Sanchez is active in the workers' rights movement, led by the local activist groups New Labor and Unity Square, which helped introduce a sick-pay ordinance in New Brunswick last year that guarantees some temp workers up to three days' sick pay a year.

It is a small step, he says, toward better conditions.

Like many immigrants living in the country illegally, Sanchez says he hopes the small steps lead to something bigger. His ultimate hope is immigration reform that allows him to become a legal worker who can travel back and forth across the border to see his family.

"This country, even though we don't have legal residency here, has been a good country to us," Sanchez says. "And it doesn't matter if I stay here a long time or a shorter period, I will always be grateful to this country and its people."

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook.

Enrique Lavin may be reached at elavin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @enriquelavin.
UPDATE

:

An explosion rips apart a trash can in Seaside Park around 9:30 a.m. Saturday before the start of a Marine Corps charity run. Eleven hours later, in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, an explosion detonated on a city street injures 29 people.

No one was injured in the Seaside Park blast. And by Sunday morning, all 29 people injured in New York City were released from the hospital.

Local and federal officials, including the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, continued to investigate both incidents on Sunday. No arrests have been made nor a motive offered in either bombing as of Sunday afternoon.

Here's what we still don't know:

Are they connected?

Officials in both New York and New Jersey, including Gov. Chris Christie, have indicated the two incidents don't appear to be related. However, no official determination has been made as of Sunday afternoon.

A spokesman for the FBI's office in Newark told NJ Advance Media Sunday morning that "We can't speculate at this time."

Were they acts of foreign terrorism?

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that there was no evidence an international terror group like ISIS was responsible.

Officials in New Jersey have said considering the timing and location of the Seaside Park explosion -- it was near the site of a Seaside Semper Five 5K Run, an event to benefit members of the United States Marine Corps and their families -- the explosion was certainly not a prank.

"You can call them whatever you want, but they are terrorism, though," Christie said Sunday morning on CNN's "Inside Politics" with Jake Tapper.

Any arrests made or suspects identified?

Christie, during the same interview with Tapper, said there were "some promising leads" in the Seaside Park investigation, but no suspects have been identified. Still, federal officials said Saturday night there was no threat to the Seaside Park community, and authorities lifted all travel restrictions on Sunday morning.

NYPD Commissioner James P. O'Neill said at a news conference Sunday that there were no suspects in the Manhattan explosion.

What happens next in the investigation?

The FBI will study both devices used in both the Seaside Park and Manhattan explosions at its facilities in Quantico, Va. Both incidents remained active investigations on Sunday morning.

While the law-enforcement presence in Seaside Park had dwindled, New York City had road closures in the area as investigators scoured the area on Sunday morning.

Investigators will continue to collect video and information from tips and witnesses in both incidents. Anyone with information on the Seaside Park incident is asked to call 1-800-CALLFBI and select option 1. In New York City, the tip line is 800-577-TIPS.

How will security change?

The incidents in Seaside Park and Manhattan prompted Belmar Mayor Matthew Doherty to cancel the second day of the borough's annual San Gennaro festival Sunday. And police in other Shore towns also enhanced security measures at other events scheduled for Sunday.

"We are asking the public to stay vigilant," Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden said. "If you see something, say something."

In New York City, residents can expect more officers at large gatherings and in the city's transit areas. Subway riders can expect more bag checks, de Blasio said.

Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
NEW YORK CITY -- An explosion that

in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood was an "intentional act" but there was no indication the blast was linked to terrorism, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

"Tonight, New York City experienced a very serious incident," the mayor told reporters at a late Saturday press conference.

"There is no evidence at this point of a terror connection," de Blasio said, citing preliminary information.

Investigators also did not believe the New York City explosion was linked to a pipe-bomb style blast in Seaside Park on Saturday, the mayor added.

Officers on patrol spotted a large explosion in front of 131 West 23rd Street, said NYPD Commissioner James P. O'Neill. The blast apparently happened outside on the street around 8:30 p.m.

"The area around the explosion site is being treated as a crime scene," the police commissioner said.

The exact cause of the blast was not immediately determined, O'Neill told reporters. Police did not disclose the kind of explosive that went off.

Officials said 29 people were hurt in the blast around 8:30 p.m., including one serious injury. None of the injuries were life-threatening, according to the FDNY.

A "possible secondary device" was discovered on West 27th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues, the NYPD's Special Operations Division said on Twitter late Saturday.

A law enforcement source told The Associated Press the item on West 27th Street appeared to be a pressure cooker with wires and a cell phone attached inside a plastic bag. It was unclear what led police to the item, four blocks from the explosion scene.

Reports from witnesses on social media described a large blast that shattered windows in the area.

"I was on 23rd st #NewYorkcity and a huge explosion just rocked the street," Twitter user Itay Cohai posted.

A video shared on Twitter showed an official yelling for people to clear the street following the explosion.

"Everybody get off of the street," the shouted in the video as emergency vehicles arrived at the scene.

The NYPD asked anyone with information to call 1-800-577-TIPS.

Hours earlier, authorities said a device exploded near a military charity run in Seaside Park. There were no injuries and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force was investigating that case.

Huge explosion in Chelsea blew this dumpster ... pic.twitter.com/1lSIGjRyC8  Chris Duffy (@voicehalf) September 18, 2016

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- Security is being heightened at bi-state bridges and tunnels, the PATH commuter train, Newark Liberty International and the region's 2 other major airports, as well as the World Trade Center, following weekend bombings in Manhattan and on the Jersey Shore, officials said.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said Sunday that commuters and other travelers could expect to see more police than usual at its bi-state crossings, the trade center, shipping ports in New Jersey, Staten Island and Brooklyn, as well as at Newark Liberty, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports.



"There will be a heightened security presence at PATH and other Port Authority facilities," the agency said in a statement Sunday.



The Port Agency said PATH service would resume at 5 a.m. on Monday, following a weekend closure for safety upgrades. However, trains will bypass the 23rd Street Station.



The station is located in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, where an explosion Saturday night injured 29 people.



A Port Authority spokesman, Ron Marsico, said the heightened police presence would extend at least through the Monday morning rush hour.



At MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, the New Jersey State Police said it had bolstered security for Sunday afternoon's game between the Giants and the New Orleans Saints. The State Police asked that anyone who sees something they consider suspicious to call 1-800-4 SAFE NJ, OR 1-800-472-3365.



State Police briefly shut down some northbound lanes of the Garden State Parkway Toms River Toll Plaza on Sunday night just before 7 p.m., after someone reported a suspicious item on the shoulder. It turned out to be a suitcase, and posed no threat, said Sgt. Jeff Flynn, who said the person who saw it did the right thing.



"That's what we want people to do," said Flynn, adding that the suitcase may have fallen off the roof of a vehicle. "You'd be surprised at some of the things we find on the shoulder."



The Port Authority reopened PATH shuttle bus service Sunday afternoon between the World Trade Center and stops on the bi-state railway's 33rd Street line, after service was suspended following the Manhattan blast, which occurred at about 8:30 p.m.



The Chelsea blast was 11 hours after a pipe-bomb explosion Saturday morning in a public trash can in Seaside Park, just before the start of a Marine Corps benefit run in that Jersey Shore community. No injuries were reported in the New Jersey bombing. Officials said a second, unexploded pipe bomb was found nearby.



No arrests had been made in either blast as of Sunday evening. The FBI is leading the invtigation into both blasts.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York told CNN in an interview Sunday that he had spoken to Gov. Chris Christie and that it appeared there was no link between the two bombings. Cuomo and Christie also share control of the Port Authority.



"It could be just a coincidence," Cuomo told the cable news network.



Christie, a former federal prosecutor, cautioned against jumping to any conclusions about the bombings, for which no groups or individuals had claimed responsibility as of Sunday afternoon.



By contrast, the Islamic State, or ISIS, took credit for a mass stabbing Saturday at a Minnesota shopping mall, which injured 9 people.



Hillary Clinton issued a statement on Sunday condemning all three incidents as "apparent terrorist attacks." Donald Trump tweeted a reaction to the "horrible bombing" in New York.

I would like to express my warmest regards, best wishes and condolences to all of the families and victims of the horrible bombing in NYC.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 18, 2016

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Flagstaff City Council candidates have been given the chance to answer a weekly question in no more than 150 words. This weeks question: How bad is traffic congestion in Flagstaff and where and how should work begin to relieve it?

Council

Karla Brewster

Traffic is bad is Flagstaff, particularly, during certain times of the year that are usually around snow season and summer tourism. Fixing it is a long term problem that takes participation not just from Flagstaff, but also from ADOT, (Arizona Department of Transportation) who manages several of your most congested roads. Widening roads in town is one solution, but involves getting into not only right-of-ways, but into personal property if the right-of-ways arent wide enough. Timing of lights can help the flow of traffic. Using other sources of travel is also an option, such as buses, and bikes. Carpooling is an option for those who work at the same business. Having larger businesses use staggered working hours can help with congestion on our roads. Assigning dedicated lanes for just buses or just bikes can help the flow of all traffic. And dont forget foot traffic  getting people out of their cars and walking has many pluses.

Jim McCarthy

Flagstaff traffic is heavy, sometimes gridlocks, and with projects like the Hub, is getting worse. We need road widening projects, and especially need better traffic flow at our congested intersections.

We should first focus on restricted-intersection improvements. Computer coordinated traffic signals smooth traffic flow. Adding double left turn lanes at key intersections, like Route 66 at Humphreys, would significantly increase traffic flow, with less cost than total street redesigns.

The Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization proposed a list of street projects. It includes Lone Tree and Fourth Street improvements, and various road widenings, notably on Milton. We cant afford all of them, but we should get started.

We also need to encourage walking, biking, and bus use. The Mountain Line bus ridership recently reached 10,000 rides per day  a significant number of avoided car trips. I support Proposition 411, which will continue the existing support level for The Mountain Line.

Jeff Oravits

Over the next 18-24 months council will be working on sending the renewal of the transportation tax to the voters and deciding on, with a lot of community input, over $100,000,000 in transportation projects.

Projects may include widening the bridges over I-40 on 4th Street, a J.W.Powell to S. 4th Street corridor extension, enhanced bike and pedestrian safety. Stoplight synchronization needs to be reviewed to see what technologies (if any) can help move traffic more efficiently.

Coordinating with ADOT to improve ADOT controlled corridors such as Milton, 180 and 66 should also be a priority, starting with the addition of right turn lanes and limiting left turns (across 5 lanes of traffic) in the most accident prone/busy areas on Milton.

Some of these projects can be accomplished in fairly short order, others will require long term planning and collaboration that will require cooperation with our Federal and State partners.

Adam Shimoni

Flagstaff is a growing town, and as a result, traffic congestion is a growing issue. Council is looking into alternative routes to divert traffic from Milton, which is a great start. But in addition to building more roads we must come up with a comprehensive plan that continues to improve and promote alternative transportation. This includes working on increasing bus routes and services, including reinitiating the Kachina Mountainaire bus route discussion. It also includes looking into incentives for park and ride options, especially for NAU students to park in remote lots and take shuttles, as well as enhancing and improving bike lanes. Im eager to work with new housing developments somewhat far from NAU on providing tenant shuttle services. If elected, I will continue the city's work with staff, consultants and experts, as well as bring my own expertise as a bike commuter to find the best options moving forward.

Charlie Odegaard

It varies according to sector. A survey conducted just over two years ago found that the number one focus was south Milton Road. I believe the city should try to get more control (from ADOT) of south Milton. Its a bottleneck to vehicular traffic, and a route a majority of bicyclists consider too dangerous to use. With city control, and the cooperation of property and business owners, proposals for some widening and some turn lanes could be developed.

A follow-up survey found that 60 percent want improved choices such as personal vehicles, public transit, bike lanes, and trailsand that forty percent are concerned about preserving the environment. The consensus was that all of these features should be well maintained. We can't go back to a city road maintenance budget of less than one million dollars per year to take care of 660 miles of lanes within the city limits.

Jamie Whelan

Jamie Whelan did not submit a response this week.

Mayor

Jerry Nabours

Traffic is bad. Council is looking at plans for relief. The Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization, (FMPO) is supposed to lead the traffic planning but for many years it has failed to produce a definite plan. I was put on the Board about a year ago and made traffic relief, especially Milton, a priority.

We now have a citizen's commission working on a plan, which was presented to council a few months ago. Examples: Shifting traffic from Milton to Lone Tree; a new corridor from Lake Mary to 4th Street; widening the Fourth Street bridge over 1-40.

Once a plan is finalized, we will need funding. That funding comes from our sales tax. Twenty percent is designated for new roads. We are starting to get somewhere. It should have started years ago.

Coral Evans

Traffic congestion is an issue related to our growing population. Decisions made today about how we plan for growth determine our future. As a city we need to address the current traffic congestion and plan for the increased congestion that comes with growth.

Here are a few things we could do to address traffic congestion:

 Complete the JW Powell & 4th Street connection, creating an outer loop to pull traffic off of Milton.

 Finish the University & Beulah alignment.

 Create a pedestrian/bike underpass at Butler & Leroux.

 Reopen Beaver through NAU.

 Negotiate with ADOT to assume control of ADOT roadways within Flagstaff.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump. The nine-member panel sent a letter to the former president's lawyers on Friday, demanding his testimony under oath by mid-November and outlining a series of corresponding documents. The decision by lawmakers to exercise their subpoena power comes a week after the committee made its final case against the former president, who they say is the "central cause" of the multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It remains unclear how Trump and his legal team will respond to the subpoena, if at all.
The St George Illawarra Dragons have announced that second-rower Tyson Frizell has agreed to terms on a three-year contract extension that will see him remain at the club until at least the end of 2020.

The local Corrimal Cougars junior has played 79 first-grade games for the club since his arrival from the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in 2013 and has played 91 NRL games to date.

The NSW Blues representative featured twice for his state this season and has most recently been selection into the Australia Prime Ministers XIII team which will face the Papua New Guinea Kumuls in Port Moresby on Saturday.

"It was an easy decision for me to make being a local junior and playing for the club these past four seasons so when the opportunity arose I was more than happy to extend my contract," said Frizell.

"I believe that the club is moving forward and I want to be a part of that so the option to prolong my career here was an easy choice to make.

"I grew up supporting the team so extending my stay has capped-off a highlight year which has provided me the opportunity to play State of Origin and now represent Australia as part of the Prime Ministers XIII."

Read more at dragons.com.au
The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids.

These drugs are at the heart of a crisis that has cost 165,000 Americans their lives and pushed countless more to crippling addiction.

The drugmakers vow they're combating the addiction epidemic. But The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found they often employ a statehouse playbook of delay and defend that includes funding advocacy groups that use the veneer of independence to fight limits on the drugs, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl, the narcotic linked to Prince's death.

The mother of Cameron Weiss was no match for the industry's high-powered lobbyists when she plunged into the corridors of New Mexico's Legislature, crusading for a measure she fervently believed would have saved her son's life.

It was a heroin overdose that eventually killed Cameron, not long before he would have turned 19. But his slippery descent to death started a few years earlier, when a hospital sent him home with a bottle of Percocet after he broke his collarbone in wrestling practice.

Jennifer Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure.

They didn't speak up in legislative hearings. "They were going individually talking to senators and representatives one-on-one," Weiss-Burke said.

Unknowingly, she had taken on a political powerhouse that spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2006 through 2015  more than 200 times what those advocating for stricter policies spent  and more than eight times what the formidable gun lobby recorded for similar activities during that same period. Of that $880 million, nearly $2 million went to political candidates and parties in Indiana.

The pharmaceutical companies and allied groups have a number of legislative interests in addition to opioids that account for a portion of their political activity, but their steady presence in state capitals means they're poised to jump in quickly on any debate that affects them.

Collectively, the drugmakers and allied advocacy groups employed an annual average of 1,350 lobbyists in legislative hubs from 2006 through 2015, when opioids' addictive nature came under increasing scrutiny, the AP and the Center for Public Integrity found.

"The opioid lobby has been doing everything it can to preserve the status quo of aggressive prescribing," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and an outspoken advocate for opioid reform. "They are reaping enormous profits from aggressive prescribing."

The drug companies said they are committed to solving the problems linked to their painkillers. Major opioid-makers have launched initiatives to encourage more cautious prescribing, allow states to share databases of prescriptions and help stop drug dealers from obtaining pills.

And the industry and its allies have not been alone in fighting restrictions on opioids. Powerful doctors' groups are part of the fight in several states, arguing that lawmakers should not tell them how to practice medicine.

While drug regulation is usually handled at the federal level  where the makers of painkillers also have pushed back against attempts to impose restrictions  ordinary citizens struggling with the opioid crisis in their neighborhoods have looked to their state capitals for solutions.

Hundreds of opioid-related bills have been introduced at the state level just in the last several years. The few groups pleading for tighter prescription restrictions are mostly fledgling mom-and-pop organizations formed by families of young people killed by opioids. Together, they spent about $4 million nationwide at the state and federal level on political contributions and lobbying from 2006 through 2015 and employed an average of eight state lobbyists each year.

Prescription opioids are the synthetic cousins of heroin and morphine, prescribed to relieve pain. Sales of the drugs have boomed quadrupling from 1999 to 2010  and overdose deaths rose just as fast, totaling 165,000 this millennium. Last year, 227 million opioid prescriptions were doled out in the U.S., enough to hand a bottle of pills to nine out of every 10 American adults.

The drugmakers' revenues are robust, too: Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin and one of the largest opioid producers by sales, pulled in an estimated $2.4 billion from opioids last year alone, according to estimates from health care information company IMS Health.

That's even after executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about OxyContin's risk of addiction in 2007 and the company agreed to pay more than $600 million in fines.

Opioids can be dangerous even for people who follow doctors' orders, though they also help millions of people manage pain associated with cancer, injuries, surgeries and end-of-life care.

The industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America issued a statement saying, "We and our members stand with patients, providers, law enforcement, policymakers and others in calling for and supporting national policies and action to address opioid abuse."

And Purdue said: "Purdue does not oppose  either directly or indirectly  policies that improve the way opioids are prescribed, including when those policies may result in decreased opioid use."

One of the chief solutions the drugmakers actively promote now are new formulations that make their products harder to crush or dissolve, thwarting abusers who want to snort or inject painkillers. But the new versions also extend the life of their profits with fresh patents, and some experts question their overall effectiveness.

A FOCUS ON PAIN TREATMENT

An analysis of state records collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics provides a snapshot of the drugmakers' battles to limit opioids.

For instance, they show that pharmaceutical companies and their allies ramped up their lobbying and campaign contributions in New Mexico in 2012 as lawmakers considered  and ultimately killed  the bill backed by Cameron Weiss' mother.

But one of the drug companies' most powerful engines of political might isn't part of the public record  a largely unknown network of opioid-friendly nonprofits they help fund and meet with monthly known as the Pain Care Forum, formed more than a decade ago.

Combined, its participants contributed more than $24 million to 7,100 candidates for state-level offices from 2006 through 2015, with the largest amounts going to governors and the lawmakers who control legislative agendas, such as house speakers, senate presidents and health committee chairs.

They've gotten involved in nitty-gritty fights even beyond legislatures. After Washington state leaders drafted the nation's first set of medical guidelines urging doctors not to prescribe high doses of opioids in 2007, the Pain Care Forum hired a public relations firm to convince the state medical board that the guidelines would hurt patients with chronic pain.

A sizable slice of the drugmakers' battles are carried out by pharma-funded advocates spreading opioid-friendly narratives  with their links to drug companies going unmentioned  or by persuading pharma-friendly lawmakers to introduce legislation drafted by the industry.

Two years ago, it was a major patient organization receiving grants from the opioid industry, the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network, that led the fight against a measure in Tennessee aimed at reducing the number of babies born addicted to narcotics.

And in Maine last year, drugmakers persuaded a state representative to successfully push a bill  drafted by the industry  requiring insurers to cover so-called abuse-deterrent painkillers, the new forms of opioids that are harder to abuse.

Legislatures have begun considering limits on the length of first-time opioid prescriptions. But the new laws and proposals in states including Connecticut and Massachusetts carve out a common exception: They do not apply to chronic-pain patients. Drugmaker-funded pain groups, which can mobilize patients to appear at legislative hearings, advocate for the exceptions.

Many patients vouch that opioids have given them a better quality of life.

"There's such a hysteria going on" about those who have died from overdoses, said Barby Ingle, president of the International Pain Foundation, which receives pharmaceutical company funding. "There are millions who are living a better life who are on the medications long term."

That's contrary to what researchers are increasingly saying, however. Studies have shown weak or no evidence that opioids are effective ways to treat routine chronic pain. And one 2015 study from a hospital system in Pennsylvania found about 40 percent of chronic non-cancer pain patients receiving opioids had some signs of addiction and 4 percent had serious problems.

"You can create an awful lot of harm with seven days of opioid therapy," said Dr. David Juurlink, a toxicology expert at the University of Toronto.

"You can send people down the pathway to addiction when they never would have been sent there otherwise."

A SURPRISING OPPONENT

Letting advocacy groups do the talking can be an especially effective tactic in state legislatures, where many lawmakers serve only part time and juggle complicated issues.

Lawmakers in Massachusetts, for example, said they didn't hear directly from pharmaceutical lobbyists when they took up opioid prescribing issues this year. But they did hear from a patient advocate with ongoing back pain who works with and volunteers for groups that receive some of their funding from pharmaceutical companies. She also brought in patients to meet with them.

"A lot of times those legislators, they don't have the ability to really thoroughly look into who these organizations are and who's funding them," said Edward Walker of the University of California Los Angeles, who studies grassroots groups.

Nonprofit advocacy groups led the countercharge in Tennessee in 2014 when Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams began work to stanch the flow of prescription painkillers, alarmed by a rapidly rising number of drug-addicted babies, who suffer from withdrawal in their first weeks of life and complications long after they leave the hospital.

More than 900 babies had been born addicted in Tennessee the year before, many of them hooked on the prescription opioids their mothers had taken. That number had climbed steadily since 2001, when there were fewer than 100.

Whitney Moore and her husband adopted two girls born addicted to prescription opioids and other drugs in eastern Tennessee, and she still remembers her older daughter's cries in the hospital, "the most high-pitched scream you've ever heard in your life"  a common symptom in babies in the throes of withdrawal.

Doctors gave Moore's infant daughter morphine to ease her seizures, vomiting and diarrhea, and she stayed in a neonatal intensive care unit more than a month. Now 3 years old, she still suffers from gastrointestinal problems and remains sensitive to loud noises.

When Williams was mulling potential legislation, doctors told him that part of Tennessee's problem was a 2001 law  similar to measures on the books in more than a dozen states  that made it difficult to discipline doctors for dispensing opioids and allowed clinicians to refuse to prescribe powerful narcotics only if they steered patients to an opioid-friendly doctor.

The result, according to the experts Williams worked with, was a rash of prescribing, even for pregnant women. In 2014, Tennessee ranked third in the country for per-capita opioid prescriptions, with roughly 1.3 prescriptions doled out for every person in the state, according to an analysis of prescription data from IMS Health.

Williams' mission to repeal the law failed that year, and he was shocked by the group that came out in opposition  the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the advocacy arm of one of the country's biggest and best-known charities.

Two Cancer Society lobbyists worked against the bill, even though prescribing painkillers for cancer patients is a widely accepted medical practice that would have remained legal.

"We injected ourselves into the debate because we did not want cancer patients to not be able to have access to their medication," said Theodore Morrison, a lobbyist working for the network that year.

The society's annual ranks of about 200 lobbyists around the country have taken similar positions elsewhere, defending rules that some argue encourage extensive prescriptions and opposing opioid measures even if the proposed legislation specifically exempted cancer patients.

The Cancer Action Network listed four major opioid makers that provided funding of at least $100,000 in 2015, in addition to five that contributed at least $25,000. Companies that donate such sums get one-on-one meetings with the group's leaders and other chances to discuss policy.

The network said only 6 percent of its funding last year came from drugmakers and that its ties to drug companies do not influence the positions it takes. "ACS CAN's only constituents are cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones nationwide," spokesman Dave Woodmansee said.

The network said it advocates for certain measures despite exemptions for cancer, because some patients continue to experience pain even after their cancer is gone.

ACS CAN teamed up with another group to defend the Tennessee painkiller law  the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, an association of doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists and others who treat pain, until recently known as the American Academy of Pain Management. The group promotes access to pain drugs as well as non-pharmaceutical treatments such as acupuncture.

Seven of the academy's nine corporate council members listed online are opioid makers. The other two are Astrazeneca, which has invested heavily in a drug to treat opioid-induced constipation, and Medtronic, which makes implantable devices that deliver pain medicine.

The academy's executive director, Bob Twillman, said his organization receives 15 percent of its funding from pharmaceutical companies, not including revenue from advertisements in its publications. Its state advocacy project is 100 percent funded by drugmakers and their allies, but he said that does not mean it is beholden to pharmaceutical interests.

"We don't always do the things they want us to do," he said. "Most of the time we're saying, 'Gosh, yes, there should be some limits on opioid prescribing, reasonable limits,' but I don't think they would be in favor of that."

Both the academy and the cancer group have been active across the country, making the case that lawmakers should balance efforts to address the opioid crisis with the needs of chronic-pain patients. Between them, they have contacted legislators and other officials about opioid-related measures in at least 18 states.

In Massachusetts this year, they helped persuade lawmakers to soften strict proposals that would have limited first-time opioid prescriptions to three days' worth. They also have weighed in on how often doctors should be required to check prescription-monitoring databases, which can help crack down on prescription-shopping with multiple doctors.

The academy reported on its website that, since 2013, its state advocacy network had provided "extensive comments" on clinician guidelines in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Indiana and elsewhere; issued action alerts resulting in more than 300 emails and phone calls to more than 80 legislators in 2014 alone; and held teleconferences with more than 100 advocates.

Purdue, which gives to both the academy and the cancer network, said it contributes to a range of advocacy groups, including some with differing views on opioid policy.

"It is imperative that we have legitimate policy debates without trying to silence those with whom we disagree. That's the American political system at work," the company said in a statement.

As for Williams, he tried again last year to repeal Tennessee's intractable pain law  and won unanimous approval in both houses. The extra year had given Williams and his co-sponsor time to help educate their fellow lawmakers, he said, even though the Cancer Society still opposed the repeal.

LOBBYISTS 'WERE KILLING IT'

The tried-and-true tactics of lobbying and campaign contributions remain a major plank of the pharmaceutical playbook. In 2014 alone, for instance, participants in the Pain Care Forum spent at least $14 million nationwide on state-level lobbying.

Two years earlier facing the threat of limits on opioid-prescribing  forum members had upped their number of lobbyists in New Mexico, which is second only to West Virginia in per-capita deaths primarily due to prescription and illegal opioid drugs, according to the most recent federal data available.

The aim of the bill Jennifer Weiss-Burke backed was to limit initial prescriptions of opioids for acute pain to seven days to make addictions less likely and produce fewer leftover pills that could be peddled illegally.

After her son had left the hospital with his first bottle of Percocet in 2009 at age 16, the Albuquerque teen had suffered two more injuries and gotten two more prescriptions. He also took pills he found at his grandparents' house. Less than a year later, he started smoking heroin, which costs less than black-market prescription drugs.

He repeatedly went into rehab, and just as repeatedly relapsed. In August 2011, his mother found him at home, dead.

Weiss-Burke said she didn't realize how dangerous prescription pills could be until her son already had moved on to heroin, a tortuous progression mirrored by the downward spirals of tens of thousands of other people across the country.

Heeding concerns from the state medical society, the bill's sponsors amended it to allow the boards overseeing doctors and other prescribers to set their own limits. Still, the bill died in the House Judiciary Committee.

"The lobbyists behind the scenes were killing it," said Bernadette Sanchez, the Democratic state senator who sponsored the measure.

Lobbyists for three Pain Care Forum members declined to comment, saying they were not authorized to speak about their clients' work.

Forum participants had 15 lobbyists registered in New Mexico that year, up from nine the previous year. One was reported to be working out of the office of a high-ranking lawmaker; another was a former lawmaker himself.

Pfizer said that its two lobbyists in Santa Fe  up from one  reflected a change in firms, not an addition, and that the company did not lobby on opioid restrictions.

Still, the majority of the judiciary committee received drug industry contributions in 2012. Overall that year, drug companies and their employees contributed nearly $40,000 to New Mexico campaigns  roughly 70 percent more than in previous years with no governor's race on the ballot.

In New Mexico alone, opioid makers spent $32,000 lobbying in 2012  more than double their outlay the year before.

Restrictions like the ones considered in New Mexico did not become law anywhere until this year, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for even tighter restrictions.

In 2016, they have been adopted in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, all with exceptions for patients with chronic pain.

In 2013, the Indiana legislature passed a law ordering the Indiana Medical Licensing Board to develop emergency rules for prescribing opioids. Northwest Indiana lawmakers contacted by The Times say they didn't get any push back from lobbyists at the time that legislation was being considered.

"I have to date not been lobbied or heard from any of the major or minor pharmaceutical companies relative to their positions related to their pharmaceuticals," said state Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, a member of the House Public Health Committee.

State Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, who at the time was the chairman of the House Public Health Committee, said the only concerns he heard during the 2013 law's development were from physicians worried about the limitations being placed on their ability to treat patients.

State Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes, said limiting the prescribing of opioids simply hasn't been a contentious issue at the statehouse in Indianapolis.

"But I expect it's coming," she said.

THE NEXT FRONTIER

Now, pharmaceutical companies are directing their lobbying efforts to their new legislative frontier in the states  medicines known as abuse-deterrent formulations. These drugs ultimately are more lucrative, since they're protected by patent and do not yet have generic competitors. They cost insurers more than generic opioids without the tamper-resistant technology.

Skeptics warn that they carry the same risks of addiction as other opioid versions, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration noted that they don't prevent the most common form of abuse  swallowing pills whole.

"This is a way that the pharmaceutical industry can evade responsibility, get new patents and continue to pump pills into the system," said Dr. Anna Lembke, chief of addiction medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and author of a book on the opioid epidemic.

Opioid-makers have especially courted attorneys general, who have helped spread tamper-resistant opioid talking points.

Since 2006, Pain Care Forum participants have given more than $600,000 in campaign contributions to attorneys general candidates, and another $1.6 million to the Republican and Democratic attorneys general associations.

Purdue, with $100,000 in 2015 alone, tied with four other entities for top contributor to the Democratic Attorneys General Association; it was among the top 10 donors to the Republican group, giving more than $200,000.

In 2013, Alabama's Republican attorney general, Luther Strange, helped spearhead a letter to the FDA recommending the agency not approve new generic versions of opioids without tamper-resistant technology, which effectively would give the market to brand-name drug companies such as Purdue and Pfizer for several years. In all, 48 attorneys general, including Strange, signed the letter.

Strange has received $50,000 in campaign contributions from Pain Care Forum members, more than any other attorney general from 2006 through 2015, with more than $20,000 of that coming from Pfizer.

"As Attorney General, I will not apologize for my efforts to protect Alabamians from a drug abuse epidemic that is claiming more lives than automobile accidents in my state," Strange said.

More than 100 bills related to abuse-deterrent opioids have been introduced in various states thus far, at least 81 of them since January 2015, according to the legislative tracking service Quorum. At least 21 of the recent bills featured nearly identical language, and several of their sponsors said they received the wording from pharmaceutical lobbyists.

One of those 21 was introduced into the Indiana legislature last year by state Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis, but didn't make it out of committee.

"I believe in the American way of capitalism. Any company is more than welcome to make their product abuse-deterrent," said Merrick, who worked with Oxycontin-maker Purdue Pharma on the language of the bill. "Good for Purdue Pharma in stepping up and going this route. For those who are critical, go to work."

Merritt said his focus is on solving the state's opioid epidemic, and he plans to work to limit the number of opioids that are prescribed in Indiana. The governor's task force on drug abuse, of which Merritt is a part, plans to vote soon on recommended guidelines for the way painkillers are dispensed in emergency rooms.

"I believe we need to establish some goals for this state on less opiate or less pain medication pills being prescribed and being taken," he said. "I'll be interested in seeing if there's any kind of slap-back for that."

In Maine last year, a measure that required insurers to cover abuse-deterrent opioids at more favorable rates was introduced at the request of a lobbyist and sailed through the Legislature, after overdose deaths in the state hit a record peak.

Insurance lobbyists argued in vain against the measure, saying it would allow drug companies to raise prices and push up insurance premiums.

The bill's sponsor, Democratic Rep. Barry Hobbins, has a family member struggling with opioid addiction and said he was asked to introduce the bill by a longtime acquaintance who also lobbies for Pfizer.

"Everyone was trying to figure out a way to do anything they could to address this major health crisis," Hobbins said. "I was asked to sponsor that bill because of my personal family issues."

Pushing for the legislation was a team effort: Pfizer's director of U.S. policy testified in favor of the bill, citing a study that showed it would help curb abuse. But he neglected to say the study was co-authored by employees of Purdue, which also sent a lobbyist to push for the bill.

The drugmakers tried similar tactics in New Mexico earlier this year, with less success.

Randy Marshall, director of the New Mexico Medical Society, which represents doctors, said he turned down a request from a Purdue lobbyist that he introduce a measure calling for tamper-resistant drugs to be covered by insurers. He said he was told that if he testified, the company would lobby behind the scenes.

But the New Mexico Osteopathic Medical Association did help at the request of a Pfizer lobbyist, said the group's executive director, Ralph McClish.

In response to a question about its role in that legislation, Pfizer issued a statement that it "works with many different stakeholders on areas of mutual interest."

A Purdue statement acknowledged that the abuse-deterrent pills won't stop all misuse, but added, "They are an important part of the comprehensive approach needed to address this public health issue."

The New Mexico measure failed, and McClish said that the perceived self-interest of the drug companies was key to its defeat.

"People were sitting there going, 'Pharma is going to make a lot of money off of these drugs,' " he said.
Having made plenty of trips over the last couple of years to the Purdue Small Animal Hospital in West Lafayette with a sick dog, I have had time to reflect as a vegan on all the billboards along I-65 promoting Fair Oaks Farms.

The signs feature baby pigs and cows presented as though they are having the time of their lives at Fair Oaks. I will spare you the details here, but a simple Google search on the treatment of farmed animals will present quite a different picture than those featured on the farm's billboards.

I have often thought about how great it would be to put up a billboard in the area telling the other side of the story of farmed animals.

Well, turns out someone else was thinking the same thing.

There is now a billboard along the west side of I-65, just north of Fair Oaks Farms in Fair Oaks, Ind., that features a woman and pig affectionately staring into each other's eyes. The billboard reads, "Friends, Not Food."

The positioning is even better in that hangs just below a sign for Arby's fast food restaurant, which boasts about serving up to at least eight different types of meat.

The sign was the idea of a fellow Hoosier, who was troubled by Fair Oak's promotion of a "Pig Adventure" that ends in slaughter, according to a social media post by the Farm Sanctuary based in Watkins Glen, N.Y.

The woman wondered, "What if she put up a billboard above that interstate spreading a message of kindness, rather than cruelty," said Lindsay Morris, senior manager of communications and marketing at Farm Sanctuary.

The woman contacted Farm Sanctuary, which helped with the design and included its website as a source for more information, Morris said. The woman is funding the billboard for a year.

News of the billboard has made its way around social media and has attracted a favorable response, she said.

"Additionally, weve received inquiries from individuals who want to fund/put up other 'Friends, Not Food' billboards in Michigan, Illinois and South Dakota, as well as in South Bend," Morris said.

What excites Morris about the project is that it came about at the grassroots level, from an individual who was simply, "tired of seeing so many billboards celebrating cruelty and took action to put out a positive, compassionate message."

Bravo to all involved in this effort. It has made my trips to Purdue that much more satisfying.

The opinions expressed here are solely that of the author.
For years, Alsip Home and Nursery contained a pet shop within both the St. John and Frankfort locations. The owners were pet people, and saw it as a natural extension of their love for animals.

Over time, as more information became available on puppy mills and the way some animals were treated, the pet shops at both Alsip Nurseries became rescue centers.

Today, Alsip to the Rescue (ATTR) is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization that focuses on finding permanent homes for their rescued pets. To date, they have found safe homes for 2,368 dogs and cats.

Its been an incredible journey, says Kimberly Berryman, the director of ATTR. The transformation from a traditional pet shop to a rescue center has been absolutely amazing.

Berryman worked in the field of pet rescue for several years before she started at Alsip in 2014. Her contacts with numerous rescue operations provided plenty of dogs and cats in need of a good home.

ATTR is an all-breed dog and cat rescue specializing in saving litters of puppies and kittens, she explains. We also take in pregnant moms and special needs dogs.

All of the rescues at ATTR are fully vetted and age-appropriate vaccinated prior to adoption. In all cases a spay or neuter certificate goes home with the animals.

We urge all adopters to attend training classes with their newly adopted rescue and offer guidelines to ensure a smooth transition for the rescue and family, Berryman adds.

Part of the adoption process includes a 24-hour think it over period and a home visit from a member of the ATTR staff.

We want to make sure that the dog or cat is a good fit for the family, Berryman says. Sometimes a different breed or a different age group is better for the particular family. We have the pets best interest in mind.

All of the pets at Alsip came out of rescue operations. The ATTR team works with several groups located in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, and the rescue groups go into homes or barns and remove the dogs and cats that are in a bad situation.

Every city, town or county has laws about the number of pets a person can own, Berryman explains. When a rescue operation enters a property and find two dozen animals, they are always mistreated. People who hoard animals do not have the best interest of the animals on their mind.

Dogs and cats that end up at ATTR are under the care of a veterinarian until they are healthy enough for adoption. Animal Care Center of St. John leases space within Alsip.

ATTR has a program called Read to the Rescues. Children read to the animals while they learn how to interact with the rescues.

The kids get as much out of it as the dogs and cats, Berryman says. Its heartwarming for both sides.

Pet lovers are encouraged to stop by ATTR and see if they can find a good fit for their next dog or cat.

We never euthanize our rescues, Berryman says. Once they get to us, they will make it. The next step is to find them a stable, loving home.

Thats where you come in.
HEBRON  Decreasing enrollment was on the minds of administrators and board members at the Boone Township school boards September meeting Tuesday evening.

Superintendent Nathan Kleefisch said enrollment this year is down 31 students from last year.

Kleefisch reminded the group that the Indiana Department of Education uses the ADM count, or average daily membership, to determine state tuition support funding for each school corporation. ADM is measured twice, once in the fall and once in the spring.

No comments were offered at public hearings held at the meeting on the 2017 budget, the bus replacement plan, and the capital projects fund plan, all of which have been advertised in accordance with state regulations.

Bill Gall, of Educational Services Co., who provides financial consulting to the district, said the total advertised budget is more than $13 million. Gall said it is standard practice for school districts to advertise high because circuit breaker and other caps reduce the budget.

Chris Stalbaum, the districts information technology director, gave the board good news, announcing an upgrade to wireless coverage in the elementary school building thanks to a $54,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Education.

The board also recognized Hebron High School sophomore Breanna Hale. High school principal Mark Lutze said Hale received an award of excellence from the Congress of Future Medical Leaders when she recently attended a conference in Boston. The board also awarded Hale a certificate for her academic performance and leadership potential.

Breanna is another example of student success we have in our schools, said superintendent Nathan Kleefisch. We are so very proud of you and wish you the very best.
Shirley Heinze Land Trust will host an educational bus tour of its nature preserves from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 22. Staff, board members and guest speakers - including author Ken Schoon, and Mark Bouman, Chicago region program director at the Field Museum - will provide insights on land conservation and the ecology, geology and history of Northwest Indiana.

The bus will depart at 8 a.m. from the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center, 1215 N. Ind. 49, Porter. Twelve of the organizations nature preserves are included on the route through Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties. The bus will stop for brief hikes at three of those preserves, beginning with Seidner Dune & Swale in Hammond.

The bus will then travel to the Hobart Marsh project area, including a drive past Bur Oak Woods and Gordon & Faith Greiner Nature Preserve, both located along Liverpool Road in Hobart. From there, the tour will continue to nearby Cressmoor Prairie and stop for a short hike to see and hear about restoration efforts at this black-soil prairie.

The bus will then travel to Meadowbrook Conservation Center and Nature Preserve in Valparaiso for a lunch break, food provided by Third Coast Spice Cafe.

The afternoon portion of the tour will focus on several preserves in Porter and LaPorte counties, including a stop at Wykes - Plampin Nature Preserve in Chesterton to hear about the Little Calumet Conservation Corridor project and the restoration and public access improvements being performed there.

From there the bus will drive past two recently-acquired properties: a 165-acre property on the Little Calumet River adjacent to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshores Heron Rookery, and Meer Woods, a 19-acre addition to the Ambler Flatwoods project area. There will be a stop at Ambler Flatwoods Nature Preserve for a brief hike.

On the last leg of the tour, the bus will pass through the Beverly Shores project area for a glimpse of the Great Marsh. The tour will conclude back at the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center at 3:30 p.m.

The cost to attend the tour is $35 per person, or $60 per couple. Reservations are required and may be made by calling (219) 242-8558. The deadline for reservations is Oct. 17. Seating is limited, so early reservations are advised. The bus is restroom equipped.

Call (219) 242-8558.
HAMMOND  A project to build an intermodal center that would include a rail car repair and maintenance facility in the citys East Gibson Yard area still remains in limbo almost a year after construction was scheduled to begin.

The attorney for the citys Hammond Redevelopment Commission in March sent Thruport Intermodal, LLC, a notice that it was in breach of the development agreement calling for it to begin construction by October 2015. Six months later, the project has yet to get back on track.

Phil Taillon, executive director of the citys planning and development department, said a mediation meeting between the city and company representatives is scheduled for Oct. 26. Thruport officials are hoping a resolution can be reached ahead of that date.

They still believe the project can really move forward, Taillon said. They told us they just need one or more things to fall into place  which weve heard before.

Justin Murphy, chief executive officer of Thruport, is going to be meeting with investors Wednesday to see if they can move this thing forward.

We are at the point where we are looking for construction financing, said Murphy. Weve paid for the land and all the testing.

He said they have also paid for engineering work and design work for the project.

Murphy said city officials seemed to be agreeable to a later start date as long as they can be assured financing is in place.

The citys redevelopment commission has already issued $2.9 million in bonds for the project, although none of it has been given to the company to this point. The city was to pay the company $500,000 when the developer obtained all the construction permits, $900,000 when wetland mitigation was completed, and $1.5 million when 90 percent of the railroad track and buildings for the project were complete.

If the parties are not able to reach an agreement in mediation, Taillon said officials will have a hard decision to make.

The commission could terminate the agreement, he said, and determine whether it should seek to recover from the company the attorney fees and other issuance costs involved in the bond issuance.

The company did receive a $90,000 loan from the Hammond Development Corp.s Business Builders Revolving Loan fund, which it paid back with interest earlier this year.

The first phase of the proposed project was initially estimated to create about 50 jobs in the area between Cline and Kennedy avenues, south of U.S. 20, and involve a $15 million investment. The company said the second phase of the project in which large warehouse facilities would be constructed could mean an additional $75 million investment and create more than 200 jobs.
FABIUS TOWNSHIP, Michigan  A Highland man drowned Friday while boating on a Michigan lake, according to a news release from the St. Joseph County Sheriff's Department.

Witnesses told deputies they saw Clarence E. Payne, 55, fall off his boat and into Clear Lake, located in Fabius Township, according to the release. They tried to reach Payne but were unsuccessful.

The incident occurred about 4 p.m. Friday. Members of the St. Joseph County Sheriff Department's Dive Rescue and Recovery Team were able to quickly locate Payne after witnesses gave an accurate location of where he was last seen.

He was recovered in about eight feet of water and brought to shore, according to the release. Emergency personnel were unable to resuscitate Payne and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Deputies were assisted by local residents, St. Joseph County Dive Rescue and Recovery, Three Rivers Fire Department, Fabius Park Townships Fire Department and St. Joseph County Sheriff's Department Victim Services Unit.
MORGAN TOWNSHIP  What do a meat scientist, a high school home economics teacher and an Elvis impersonator judge have in common?

Each played a part in the success of the South County Cook Off on Saturday afternoon at the Porter County Expo Center Buggy Wheel Pavilion.

The 7th annual pork barbecue contest saw nine teams, sponsored by local businesses, slaving over hot smokers to come out champions in five categories: brisket, butts, baby back ribs, barbecue sauce and baked beans, while a record number of 24 apple pies vied for top honors as well.

Diners paid an entry fee, which entitled them to sample any and all meat and sides from all nine teams, as well as a slice of apple pie.

Proceeds from the meals and the contestants entry fees benefit Morgan Township and Kouts schools, and fire and police departments, said Chris Birky, who hosts the event on behalf of his charity, South County Love Your Neighborhood.

Kevin Pressel and Keith Goerl formed Smoke Road BBQ for their first year of competition. The men put the beef brisket in the smoker at 11:23 p.m. Friday evening, after which Pressel retired to his tent and Goerl curled up on a lawn chair in the cattle barn for a few hours of sleep.

It started raining hard and the wind started blowing, said Pressel, of Morgan Township. My feet got wet.

The team had an advantage because Goerl is a meat scientist by training with a degree from the University of Nebraska, where he learned all about raising, processing, and cooking meat.

Pressel came along for the ride.

I didnt know anything, but I had the right partner said Pressel. Weve had a lot of fun  Im glad we did this.

Fifteen of the pie entries  a record number  were baked by 36 Morgan Township school students in Laura Stoners consumer and family sciences class.

Stoner was familiar with the cook-off, and as a new teacher at the school, she wanted to find a way for her students to give back since part of the funds raised goes to the school.

We needed to participate, said Stoner. Its like a service project. The kids had a lot of fun.

Charlie Smith, who will serve as a judge in an Elvis impersonator contest in Portage next month, was a competitor last year in the cook off, winning first place in the ribs category.

I said this year, well let someone else win, said Smith, of Kouts. Theres so much food, and every one of them is so different.

Smiths friend, Lynn Johnson, said she had never heard of the event before, but was glad she came.

I thought it was excellent, said Johnson, of Porter. You cant go wrong.

In the end, judges ruled the OConnor Builders team champions in ribs and brisket, while Wireman BBQ took first in baked beans, barbecue sauce, and pork butt.

Birky said he wants as much money to go to the charities as possible, so he doesnt put a lot of money into advertising. The popularity of the event has grown by word of mouth.

Its exciting to see people come together and sit around the table together, said Birky. Its all about creating memories.
For 15 consecutive years, the Duneland community has hosted a prayer breakfast patterned after the National Prayer Breakfast gatherings in Washington, DC. This years event will be held on Oct. 12 at Trinity Hall at St. Patricks Catholic Church, 640 N. Calumet Road. The doors will open at 7 a.m. Breakfast starts promptly at 7:30 a.m.

This years speaker will be Ken Jennings, founder of the Gridiron Alliance. On October 8, 1988, when he was a junior at Simeon High School, Ken suffered a broken neck on the opening kickoff of a game against Corliss leaving him a quadriplegic. He faced a future unable to move anything from the neck down. Jennings, though, never views that day as the worst in his life. Quite the contrary. Instead of seeing himself as a victim, he chose to lift himself and others up through the grace of God.

The Community Prayer Breakfast is organized by a group of local men and women to provide a time of fellowship and reflection for people of all faiths in the midst of our ever changing world.

The cost for the 2016 Community Prayer Breakfast is $20 per person or $160 per table of eight. Tickets are available at Anton Insurance, Duneland Chamber of Commerce, Duneland Family YMCA and the Duneland Resale in Chesterton and Anton Insurance in Valparaiso. For more information, call Anton Insurance, (219) 926-8681.
VALPARAISO  Pastors Mark and Toby Mueller will celebrate the fulfillment of a long shared dream on Sunday. They will both be serving at the same church, First Presbyterian Church of Valparaiso.

Dr. Mark Mueller will be installed on Sunday as pastor and head of staff. Both have been working at a variety of churches over the past 20 years, but never at the same church.

The 400-member church will have an installation on Sunday, with a reception to follow at 3401 N. Valparaiso St.

Toby Mueller said she is looking forward to working with her husband.

I am looking forward to sharing ministry together, she said. And we get to be able to be fully engaged at the same time doing what we love.

While her husband is pastor, Toby Mueller is currently director of discipleship, education and community building at the church.

Our gifts will complement each other, she said.

I love Christian education, worship and fellowship, Toby Mueller said. Primarily Mark will be the usual preacher at the church.

In 2015, Mark Mueller was pastor and head of staff at First Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama, a large church with a not-so-large staff. He found himself devoting most of his time to purely administrative duties with little time to get to know the hundreds people to whom he was called to minister. At that time Toby was serving another church a few miles down the road.

I am absolutely looking forward to working at the same church as my wife, Mark Mueller said. My biggest challenge is growing the church. I need to keep the church at the forefront and that can be a large and daunting task.

Mueller agreed the gifts that he and his wife have fill a niche in their roles.

I love to interact with other people and she tends to be more administration, program related, he said. I love to see people in their homes and interact with people wherever they found themselves.

Though Mark Mueller will be installed on Sunday the two have been at the church since the beginning of this year.

The Muellers have two grown daughters. One is a Christian camp counselor and the other does mission work.

We are very thankful for what they do and are looking forward to our work at this church, Mark Mueller said.
SCHERERVILLE  For Donna Okleshen, her son's death came as a relief of sorts.

No longer would she have to worry about coming home to find him passed out on the floor, foaming at the mouth, overdosed on heroin.

The last time she discovered J.D. like that was truly the last time.

And with that came an eerie sense of stability her life had been lacking since he first tried heroin in the late 1990s.

"It's over," she said, during a recent interview at her Schererville home, J.D.'s daughters playing on the floor. "He's in a much better place now."

The last 15 years of her life had been a nightmare. J.D. was in and out of jail constantly. He overdosed too many times to count. She'd return from work at the end of the day wondering which of her valuables would be missing.

That all ended last Oct. 29, when she found his lifeless body in her bathroom, hugging one of his daughter's toys. The heroin finally won. Justin Dean Okleshen was 32 years old.

Unfortunately this story, in Northwest Indiana and the United States as a whole, is not unique. Since the beginning of 2012, 154 people in Lake County and 93 in Porter County have died from heroin overdoses, according to the respective county coroners. An additional 70 people have died of opioid painkiller overdoses in Porter County (Lake doesn't track those deaths).

The U.S. is experiencing an opioid overdose epidemic, with drugs such as heroin and opioid painkillers like OxyContin and fentanyl killing an estimated 78 Americans per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Experts blame the crisis on the overprescribing of painkillers  the CDC found that the number of prescription opioids sold in the U.S. has quadrupled since 1999, despite no change in the amount of pain Americans report  as well as the flood of cheap Mexican heroin into the U.S., for which Chicago is a regional hub. Heroin is the opioid of choice in Northwest Indiana.

Local, state and national officials have been trying to stem the tide of the opioid epidemic, by expanding access to the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, increasing funding for treatment programs and limiting painkiller prescribing, to varying degrees of success. Beyond that, the answers for how to address the epidemic perhaps lie in the stories of the addicts themselves.

Opioid abuse in the Region

Charles Hageman, of Highland, has been abusing opioids for roughly half his 51 years. He was originally prescribed Vicodin after injuring his ankle working out at a local gym. The leftover pills sat in his medicine cabinet for months until he accidentally cut himself one day.

He noticed the drug not only took away his physical pain, but also gave him energy and confidence. He eventually graduated to heroin, which is significantly cheaper on the street than prescription painkillers.

Two-and-a-half decades later, he finds himself in the Porter County Jail, on a charge of dealing Suboxone, a drug used to treat opioid addiction but that is susceptible to abuse.

During a recent interview at the facility, he reflected on the numerous jobs and relationships he's blown because of his addiction, all the years he's spent behind bars, his 21-year-old son who doesn't even talk to him.

Hageman recently completed the jail's new therapeutic community program, which the facility started thanks to a grant from the Indiana Department of Correction. The program tries to address the root causes of the inmates' addiction, and goes beyond the traditional 12-step model in teaching them parenting skills and career building.

He believes the timing is right this time around. You can offer all the treatment programs in the world, he said, but if an addict doesn't want to get clean it won't matter.

"The night before I got arrested, I told my girlfriend, 'I need to be in jail,'" Hageman said, his face pockmarked, his eyes glassy and tired, faded tattoos on his arms. "I was a mess."

At the end of therapeutic community, he wrote a parting letter to his former love. At the bottom, he originally wrote "Goodbye forever, heroin." Then, acknowledging the fickle nature of addiction, he crossed out "forever" in favor of, "one day at a time."

Down the hall, Shane Corneil and Bryan Hall, both of Valparaiso, were among the inmates currently participating in the therapeutic community.

Corneil, who is being jailed on charges of theft and burglary, started using heroin in 2001. Since then, he's spent a total of 7 1/2 years in prison. He even abused opioids behind bars; he says Suboxone is easier to get in prison than on the streets. That made any drug treatment he received from the Indiana Department of Correction pointless.

Hall's addiction began after high school, when he experimented with prescription painkillers. He later doctor-shopped for opioids; when they got too expensive he turned to heroin.

He just got out of jail June 30. Five days later, he overdosed on heroin. Paramedics revived him with naloxone. He was in intensive care for about a week.

That experience didn't slow him down. Two weeks after his release from the hospital, he was arrested on charges of possession of heroin and a hypodermic needle.

Like many Region addicts, Corneil, 33, and Hall, 29, got their heroin mostly from street corner dealers in Chicago. They both tried to get into treatment at local safety-net mental health centers, but ran into waiting lists. The longest each has held down a job is about six months.

They also both have kids from whose lives they've largely been absent. During a fathering class in the therapeutic community program at the jail, the instructor asked the 16 men how many had children. Most of their hands went up.

"I'm a dad. I'm not no father. I want to be a father," said Corneil, who has a tattooed tear drop and two piercings next to his right eye. He then listed some other life skills he lacks thanks to drug addiction: "I don't know how to do a resume. I don't know how to write a check. I don't know how to fill out an application correctly."

Recovery is another way out

Opioid addiction isn't a one-way ticket to the grave or a jail cell. Recovery is also possible.

Just ask Kevin Glisic. Three years ago, he was in the throes of heroin addiction. Now he's the executive director of Moraine House, a Valparaiso halfway house for recovering addicts.

He considers himself lucky, lucky that he faced charges in front of an empathetic judge who saw his potential. Rather than sentence Glisic to prison, the judge ordered him to Moraine House, which happened to have an open bed.

"I feel like sometimes God sends angels with badges," Glisic said. "I was on the path of destruction. I was going to kill myself or someone else. I believe God intervened and got me the help I needed."

Glisic, of North Judson, had used opioids for 20 years  he started as a teenager after being prescribed Vicodin for a bone injury  yet never sought treatment. Moraine House was his first shot at it.

It worked. The chores and curfews brought structure to his life. He participated in regular 12-step meetings. Prison loomed if he failed a drug test. He learned life skills like managing money and rebuilding his credit.

After his 180 days of treatment was over, Glisic was offered the position of assistant director. He moved into the staff quarters, where he still lives.

Glisic, 39, believes it's going to take more education to make a dent in the opioid epidemic.

"You've got to show the youth real facts, real images, shocking events, photos and stories," he said. "People have to share their stories and be open and honest about it."

One person who's doing that is Herb Stepherson, of Valparaiso. He speaks about his recovery before local civic organizations, drug treatment agencies and social workers. He blogs about his experiences with addiction at junkboxdiaries.com.

A year ago, as he marked a decade of opioid abuse, Stepherson wanted to die. He said he planned to get locked up in prison, and do enough drugs there to kill himself.

The judge in his case had a different idea, sentencing him to Respite House, another Valparaiso halfway house for addicts.

In a familiar refrain, Stepherson first tried opioids after finding painkillers in his parent's medicine cabinet. "Once the stash from taking them from my parents ran out, I was left wanting more, and the heroin supply is plentiful," he said.

The next decade was a nightmare. He stole to support his habit. He ended up homeless. He ate out of dumpsters. He was robbed at gunpoint multiple times. A staph infection from shooting dope almost caused his right foot to be amputated.

"You hear about 'Just say no' and 'Don't do drugs' and Scruff McGruff and 'This is your brain on drugs,'" he said. "I never had any inkling about what kind of absolute hell awaited me with addiction."

Stepherson said he tried to get help more than a dozen times, unsuccessfully, either because there were no open rehab beds, or local hospitals refused to do opioid detox.

"It's hard to get treatment," he said, "but dope dealers will always take a phone call."

Being around other people in recovery was what finally gave him hope. He is scheduled to be at Respite House through Jan. 11. After that, he plans to rent an apartment close to his 5-year-old son, with whom he hangs out every weekend. He recently got a job in sales and marketing.

He also intends to keep telling his story.

"The shame and taboo and silence that surround this disease of addiction are just as deadly as the disease itself," Stepherson said.

"We cannot treat addicts like lepers and pariahs and outcasts. We've got to show them some love and support and encouragement and bring some attention to the recovery community."

Too late for many addicts

Families like the Okleshens, though, are only left to wonder, What more could we have done?

J.D. Okleshen attempted to get treatment at one point but couldn't afford it. He detoxed at a local hospital once, but only after lying to the staff that he was suicidal. He was on methadone for a time until his girlfriend ran out of money to pay for it.

Now, two little girls are left without a father.

J.D.'s oldest daughter, Lilliana Stasak, at least has memories of him.

"We took pictures together. We played games, hide and seek. We took bubble baths," the 7-year-old said. "Dad used to push us on the swings. I like swings. They're my favorite. I like to jump off."

Despite the fact that he stole from her repeatedly, and made her life a living hell at times, Donna Okleshen doesn't think her son was a bad guy. He used, she believed, to cover up the lack of self-esteem from a medical condition that caused him to lose his hair, as well as the emotional pain from his father's suicide.

"When he's straight, he can be the best guy in the world. The best," she said, still talking about J.D. in the present tense.

"But that drug is just an evil, evil ... You don't even want to be around him. You don't even know him when he's on that crap. He acts so stupid."

"People say they make the choice to do it," added Kara Stasak, of Merrillville, the mother to J.D.'s two kids. "He made one bad choice. It made him an addict the rest of his life."

Nearby, Lilliana and her 5-year-old sister, Natalia Okleshen, played with Barbie dolls and a toy castle from the movie "Frozen," seemingly oblivious to the discussion their mother and grandmother were having.

Stasak said she had to leave J.D. in 2012, after he overdosed with his daughter in the car, causing Child Protective Services to investigate her.

Meanwhile, Donna Okleshen hopes his drug dealer, who was arrested in the spring, goes to prison for as long as possible, along with everyone else peddling dope in the Region.

The heroin the man sold J.D. was cut with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid said to be 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin. Fentanyl-laced heroin is driving the surge in overdose deaths both in Northwest Indiana and the country as a whole.

Donna, a 58-year-old retail employee, lives in a subdivision that looks like countless others in suburban America: duplex after duplex, all painted the same colors, plastic mailboxes, freshly cut lawns.

She said her friends and family don't really know what to say to her about J.D.'s death, so they just avoid her.

"I have to suffer this thing on my own," she said, looking emotionally and physically drained. "Nobody understands what we're going through. But it could happen to any of us: your child, anybody out there."
Someone is shot every two hours in Chicago. Someone is murdered every 11 hours and 42 seconds.

Chicago police officials say almost half the guns used to commit crimes in the city were purchased in Indiana.

There have been more than 520 homicides and 3,000 shootings in Chicago this year.

Does anyone in the Indiana Legislature care that some gang members are buying their guns at shows at the Lake County Fairgrounds?

Does anyone here feel guilt that little kids are being gunned down in Chicago with weapons bought through the gun-show loophole in Indiana?

For those who do care more about the lives of innocent kids and adults than the National Rifle Association, this is how it works at the Lake County Fairgrounds.

You can buy guns from federally licensed dealers after undergoing a background check.

Or, you can buy any gun imaginable from someone who neither cares nor has to check if you are eligible to own a gun.

Julie Quinn, a researcher for the Chicago Crime Lab at the University of Chicago, talked about the free flow of guns from Indiana.

I think that speaks to the regulations in Indiana and why its quite obvious why a gang member might go into Indiana where they can buy guns quite easily at a show or private sale, Quinn said.

Indiana likely will never ban gun shows. The Lake County Board of Commissioners wont ban the shows from the fairgrounds.

But the state ought to close the gun-show loophole.

Unfortunately, Indiana is going in the opposite direction. The Republican-controlled General Assembly last year legalized the possession and sale of sawed-off shotguns.

Apparently, some legislators thought it would be a good thing to make it easier for some to move about with a concealed shotgun.

When you call for the closure of the gun-show loophole, the NRA types  including Gov. Mike Pence  say you are advocating the elimination of the Second Amendment. Thats lame, but it does give NRA members an adrenaline rush.

Most of Indiana doesnt get Chicago television as we do here.

It seems it has become a weekly occurrence for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel or a high-ranking police officer to blame part of the citys homicide problem on Indianas weak gun laws. Makes you proud to be a Hoosier, doesnt it?

Whats really sad is that we love visiting Chicago, yet we seemingly dont want to make it safer.

Some 77.7 percent of Chicagos homicide victims are black, and 17.1 percent are Hispanic. Does black-on-black crime not matter to the majority of Indiana legislators? Is that the problem?

Or is the problem a fear that the NRA will draw a bead on their political futures?
An ideal Hoosier governor would understand that ideology takes a back seat in decision making and that science should inform policy.

The governor should be open to new ways of doing things and to changing course when results don't justify the procedure. He/she must be willing to work with members of all political parties and to compromise to achieve a goal. The welfare of Hoosiers is to be his/her mandate, not the furtherance of his political party's goals at all cost.

The governor should not be beholden to any outside business group so that his/her decisions in office are not affected by these business alliances. The governor must be forward looking and realize that industries from the past need to be replaced by modern ventures, sooner rather than later.

The governor must realize gerrymandering is unacceptable and needs to be rectified.

Dorrie Steele, Crown Point
As a small business owner, my ideal next governor would be someone with positive business and government experience. I want someone who treats taxpayer money like their own  a leader who is smart with our money and will not drive us into debt.

I am looking for someone who understands that owning a small business is no small undertaking and not for the faint of heart. We need someone who wants to help small businesses like mine grow.

Its important to create a welcoming business environment to make Indiana an even more inviting place in which to live and work. Indiana is a strong state, and I am proud of the progress that has been made.

Indiana has been wonderful at supporting small businesses. Many politicians dont understand that if small businesses arent thriving, neither is our state.

Ryan Wright, Valparaiso, owner, Zao Island
Bill Bratton, a lifelong law enforcement officer, made a name for himself as a no-nonsense cop  now that he's retiring, he looks back on a career with many accomplishments.

"Knuckleheads, nitwits, clowns  whatever you want to call them," Bratton said earlier this year in reference to groups of people riding unlicensed motorcylces in the city.

He was just as brash in his second go-round as police commissioner as he was in his first stint in the mid-1990s.

He backed up his words when it came to fighting crime, which fell drastically during his first reign as the city's top cop  and overall crime statistics decreased slightly when he headed the NYPD a second time.

However, there were blows to Bratton's and the department's image. The police chokehold death of Eric Garner in 2014 has remained in the news for more than two years.

And an alleged NYPD bribery scheme has been an embarrassment.

"It is not a particularly good day for the department," Bratton said when the scandal broke.

Four officers were arrested including three commanders. Five chiefs retired.

But Bratton said the department was better than ever. He pushed for and won the hiring of 1,300 additional cops.

He doubled the size of the counterterrorism unit, which now has more than 2,000 officers.

And he brought in new technology, including smart phones for all cops and shot spotter to pinpoint guns firing on the streets.

Tough talking Bratton has spent 46 years in law enforcement  beginning as a cop in his hometown of Boston. He became chief of the old New York City Transit Police in 1990, returned to Boston to be Police Commissioner, and then became the NYPD Commissioner in 1994.

He launched the CompStat program that uses computers to track crime patterns. But in two years he resigned after feuding with then Mayor Rudy Giuliani over who should get credit for crime reductions. He also served 7 years as Los Angeles' police chief.

And Bratton stands by his both controversial and celebrated practice of 'Broken Windows' policing, the belief that tackling small quality of life offenses prevents major crimes.

"I have helped to make the city of Boston safer, I have helped to make the city of Los Angeles safer. On two occasions, I have helped to make this city safer," Bratton said. "And believe me, I think I know what I am doing."

Bratton says he retired at the right time to take a private sector job and declares he will not be a police official again.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Saturday that an explosion that rocked Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood Saturday night is not thought to be an act of terror, hours before bomb squad members safely removed a second suspicious device found four blocks away from the blast.

The NYPD announced at around 2:30 a.m. Sunday that authorities had safely removed what appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone, which was discovered inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues.

It was unclear whether the materials comprised an explosive device or whether it was just someone's trash.

The discovery was made not long after an explosion on West 23rd Street, possibly in a dumpster, sent shock waves down the block between Sixth and Seventh avenues at around 8:30 p.m., injuring more than a dozen people.

In a press briefing shortly after 11 p.m. the mayor said the blast was not thought to be an act of terror -- but that authorities have deemed it "an intentional act."

NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill, in his first full day on the job following the departure Friday of long-time NYPD head Bill Bratton, said that the exact cause of the explosion has not been determined, but that the area around the site is being treated as a crime scene.

FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said that 29 people were injured in the blast, most of them suffering minor injuries with one serious.

"Tonight New York City experienced a very serious incident," de Blasio said. However, he said that "there is no evidence at this point of a terror connection."

Several businesses on 23rd Street shut down in the aftermath of the explosion, and authorities there cordoned off several buildings, eventually allowing residents back in several hours later.

ConEd crews were on the scene, as were officials with the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Preliminary reports point to the explosion happening inside of a dumpster or construction toolbox, but authorities would not confirm either possibility during their briefing.

Witnesses reported feeling the ground shake, and photos posted online showed broken glass in nearby buildings. Other witnesses say patrons were ushered out of nearby restaurants for their own safety after the blast occurred.

Authorities shut down 23rd Street between Fifth and Eighth avenues in the aftermath of the explosion.

Following the incident, the MTA stopped 1 and 2 train service between Penn Station and Chambers Street in both directions, but service was restored shortly before 11 p.m. M5, M7 and M23 buses were also detoured around the area.

Stay with NY1.com for more information on this developing story.
The ongoing investigation has left several streets closed to both vehicle and foot traffic. Tara Lynn Wagner spoke to people who live or work around 23rd Street to find out how the closures are affecting them and the area.

The emptiness of 23rd Street Sunday morning was a stark contrast from the chaos Saturday night.

"I saw people running toward us and they were injured, they were like full with blood," said witness Diana Shubaiev.

"People running, screaming, holding their heads," said Jonathan Avidor, who lives across the street from the explosion site.

Avidor lives directly across the street. He spent the night with friends and as of Sunday morning had yet to return to his apartment.

"(It) shook the house and threw the mirror off the wall onto the floor," Avidor said.

His block is a crime scene as the investigation into Saturday's explosion left much of West 23rd Street and several side streets completely closed. To gain entry, residents needed an escort, which some said was an inconvenience, but not a bother.

"Right now, it's ok," said neighborhood denizen Rake Rosenfeld. "I'm not complaining. I mean I can't get into my apartment so if anyone could complain it would be me but I'm okay with it as long as everyone is safe that's the main concern."

Anyone else was turned away, which meant no clients for local businesses, aside from a visit from the mayor and governor as they toured the site of the explosion. Some businesses stayed shuttered, leaving employees in the lurch.

"I work Sundays and it's a very important job for me for my support and basically I need to work you know," said Angel Padilla who works on 23rd Street.

Others allowed workers in, despite the lack of customers. And several shops approached first responders bearing coffee and gratitude. One restaurant provided a buffet lunch and the Caroline apartment building allowed command teams to use its event space.

"What they are actually doing here is truly amazing," said John DiPiola, manager of The Caroline. "They're doing a wonderful job keeping us all safe."

Residents too say they feel safe, despite what happened. Officials urged New Yorkers not to give in to fear and it seems the people of Chelsea are taking that to heart.

"It doesn't worry me that much I think it's just kind of the world we live in and you adjust to it and you stay comfortable with it," said resident Ira Platt.
Law enforcement officials are on the hunt for whoever is responsible for Saturday night's explosion in Chelsea  and sources say a "person of interest" appears in surveillance video taken near the location where a second unexploded device was found.

At least 29 people were injured in the blast, one seriously, when the explosion occurred on West 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues at around 8:30 Saturday night.

Meanwhile the Associated Press reported Sunday night that authorities had pulled over a "vehicle of interest" in connection with the explosion and were questioning its five occupants. However an FBI spokesperson told the AP that no charges had been filed.

Mayor de Blasio called the explosion "a deliberate act," but so far there are no links to terrorism  a position he reinforced Sunday at a press briefing.

"The early indications is that this was an intentional act," the mayor said. "We're going to have a lot more to say in the coming hours but we believe at this point in time that this was an intentional act. I want to assure all New Yorkers that the NYPD and all other agencies are at full alert."

At a media briefing at police headquarters Sunday, de Blasio said there will be a large police presence around the city.

"We know from everything we've seen so far that this was an intentional act," the mayor said Sunday. "I want to reaffirm what I said last night. But again, we do not know the motivation, we do not know the nature of it. That's what we have to figure out."

Governor Andrew Cuomo toured the area Sunday morning. He said all 29 people injured have been released from the hospital, adding that based on the damage he saw we are lucky no one was killed.

Transit officials said the blast did not damage subway structure at the 23rd Street station.

Cuomo said New York City subway and New Jersey Transit stations in the area could be open in time for Monday morning rush hour.

"The MTA is ready to be up and running as early as tomorrow to return to full service for those stations," he said Sunday at the site of the explosion.

On Sunday night, the MTA announced restored service on 1 trains which had been bypassing both 23rd and 28th streets. E and F trains are still bypassing 23rd Street.

Several roads are still blocked off to vehicular traffic as authorities continue to investigate.

Cuomo met with MTA officials and toured subway stations in the area Sunday morning.

The governor also said the state will be deploying close to 1,000 additional police and national guard officers to police transit hubs and airports.

Witnesses tell us fragments were sent flying when the blast went off.

Video surfaced on social media of the explosion going off on the street, sending people running.

Police say they also found a suspicious device just four blocks away on West 27th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues. Police say that device was rendered "safe" at an NYPD facility in the Bronx and taken to Virginia for FBI analysis.

The mayor has asked for patience while the investigation continues, and is encouraging New Yorkers to remain vigilant, while cautioning against the impulse to jump to conclusions.

"This was a very serious incident," the mayor said. "It's going to take a lot of careful investigation to get to the facts and to get to the truth. And one of the things we're going to say to you is today is we're going to very careful and patient to get to the full truth here. We are not gonna jump to conclusions, we're not going to offer you easy answers. We're going to make sure we have all the facts.
Despite all that and more the musical side of the performance went smoothly. The reception at the end was, if not exactly ecstatic, warm and welcoming from an audience that seemed more than pleased with the opera, as one can plainly hear from a broadcast transmission that preserves the entire occasion.

Surely everyone went home that night to await the reviews with relief that things had actually gone so well. The next morning Barber sailed for Italy, and only after he arrived in Europe did he realize that the press had more or less unanimously proclaimed his new opera a gigantic fiasco. Almost every important music critic in the world was there, and few had anything good to say. Barber never quite got over it, and for the rest of his life he virtually lost his will to compose.

The major villain of the piece has always been Franco Zeffirelli, who not only designed and directed the production but also prepared the libretto, adapting it from Shakespeares play. Barber may not have written a perfect opera, but there did at times seem to be another opera hidden beneath all the blinding glitter of a heaving extravaganza obviously meant to be the last word in operatic spectacle.

What I wrote and what I envisioned had nothing to do with what one saw on that stage, Barber later told the writer John Gruen.

But Mr. Zeffirelli had reasons for his approach, however they may have misfired. During an intermission chat with the Mets chief press officer, Francis Robinson, Mr. Zeffirelli explained that his production had three basic aims: to show how Shakespeare, through his incomparable poetry, depicts the clash of two mighty civilizations; to revel in the potential of opera to enlarge and enrich such a subject; and to celebrate the opening of the new Met itself by transforming the entire stage into a veritable extension of the houses capacity for generating glamour, energy and high-tech dazzle. Summing up his concept, Mr. Zeffirelli proudly characterized it as a pastiche of Elizabethan, Roman, Egyptian and modern  a baroque exuberance.
[ Our full report on the 2016 Emmy Awards | the list of Emmy winners | red carpet looks | our critics review of the show ]

The 68th Primetime Emmy Awards will take place on Sunday night. The ceremony at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, to be telecast on ABC, will begin at 8 p.m. (The red carpet begins at 7 p.m. on ABC and at 6 p.m. on E!) Jimmy Kimmel will host.
For snippets of some of the years best television and its stars, watch the 68th Emmy Awards. Bruce Springsteen talks about his new autobiography, Born to Run, on CBS Sunday Morning. And Royal Wives at War dramatizes the friction between the Queen Mother and the Duchess of Windsor.

Whats on TV

68TH EMMY AWARDS 8 p.m. on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel hosts this ceremony honoring the best in television, broadcast live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Aziz Ansari, Kristen Bell, Priyanka Chopra, James Corden, Laverne Cox, Taraji P. Henson, Keri Russell, Jeffrey Tambor, Kiefer Sutherland and Kerry Washington are among the presenters. Celebrate all night long with Countdown to the Red Carpet, at 4:30 on E!; Live From the Red Carpet, at 6 on E!; Countdown to the Emmy Awards, at 7 on ABC; and After Party, at 11 on E!
In 1965, Duane E. Graveline, a doctor who did pioneering research in space medicine, was awarded one of the most coveted jobs the government can bestow: astronaut. But he resigned less than two months later without ever being fitted for a spacesuit, let alone riding a rocket into space.

His tenure is believed to be the shortest of anyone in the astronaut program, a NASA spokeswoman said.

Dr. Graveline cited personal reasons for his resignation. In fact, NASA officials later said, he had been forced out because his marriage was coming apart and the agency, worried about tarnishing its image at a time when divorce was stigmatized, wanted to avoid embarrassment.

Dr. Graveline, who married five more times and became a prolific author but whose later career as a doctor was marred by scandal, died on Sept. 5 at 85 in a hospital near his home in Merritt Island, Fla.
WASHINGTON  When Donald J. Trump descended on the capital Friday, he was expected to finally concede that the racially tinged falsehood he had gleefully propagated, that President Obama was born outside of the United States, had in fact been a lie.

But before Mr. Trump got around to what was a grudging and terse admission, which itself included a falsehood about the provenance of so-called birtherism, he had some business to tend to.

Nice hotel, said Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, delighting in his newest property and the opportunity to plug it free on live television. He was holding his news conference at his new hotel in the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue, which, he promised, is going to be something very special.

He seemed untroubled in using an ostensible campaign event just a few blocks from the White House to openly promote his personal commercial interests 52 days before the election.
SEATTLE  A federal judge in Tacoma, Wash., has found a county in the southwestern part of the state liable for clearing out homeless encampments and seizing the residents belongings.

Judge Robert J. Bryan ruled on Friday that Clark Countys work crews had violated the constitutional rights of at least a half-dozen homeless residents by throwing out their tents, stoves, medication, documents and photographs during sweeps from 2012 to 2014. A trial will determine how much the county must pay in damages.

The only evidence in the record is that the countys employees took all unattended property and then immediately destroyed the property, regardless of whether the property was abandoned, the judge wrote. He declined to immediately rule on the merits of claims by two other campers, saying it was not clear who had taken their property.

Encampment sweeps have become increasingly controversial as officials have struggled with rising rates of homelessness around the country. The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocates for homeless people have filed recent lawsuits over sweeps in Denver, Honolulu, Los Angeles and other cities.
In the beginning I was very gung-ho on drugs. I did a lot of the early studies for drugs for PTSD. But we very quickly realized they dont work very well, he said. Every veteran since Homer has been doping himself up to keep his issues under wraps, but it doesnt help process the trauma.

In the 2000s Dr. van der Kolk published one of the first studies about the effects of yoga on PTSD. It had very good results. After eight weeks, six months, the positive effects are still there, he said. He has since made yoga a core part of his practice.

Long before medical researchers began trying to document benefits, veterans sought out the healing potential of the world beyond the doctors office. The first person to walk the entire Appalachian Trail, Earl Shaffer, had just come home from World War II and told friends he needed to walk the Army out of my system, both mentally and physically. After Vietnam, hundreds of veterans sought refuge in the wilderness.

Most of my work is being driven by the veterans, said Daniel Libby, a Yale-trained psychologist who teaches yoga at a veterans center in Oakland, Calif., run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. They dont want to be on medications. Yoga offers a therapy that is self-empowering. You dont have to rely on the medical system.

In 2010, Mr. Libby surveyed the departments health system and found that 28 percent of hospitals offered yoga. Now he estimates that it is more than 60 percent.

Dr. Barbara Rothbaum, a psychologist at Emory University who runs an intensive two-week PTSD treatment program, complements her traditional therapies with alternative ones.
[ The list of Emmy winners | red carpet looks | our critics review of the show ]

LOS ANGELES  It was business as usual in the two major categories at the Emmys on Sunday night, as HBOs Game of Thrones and Veep repeated as winners for best drama and comedy.

But for a ceremony that can be numbingly predictable, the Emmys were energized by a slew of first-time winners in the acting categories and a tour de force in the limited series category by FXs The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.

The success of the O.J. series set the theme for the evening as Sarah Paulson, Courtney B. Vance and Sterling K. Brown all scored their first Emmy victories. Rami Malek won his first Emmy as well in a wide-open race for best actor in a drama, for his role as the tortured hacker in USAs Mr. Robot. And in a big upset, Tatiana Maslany won as best actress in a drama for her numerous performances in BBC Americas Orphan Black, beating out the likes of Robin Wright, Claire Danes and last years winner, Viola Davis.
European leaders did not mince words on the state of the European Union as they headed into a meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Friday to chart the unions future after the British vote in June to leave the E.U. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany warned that Europe was in a critical situation, or what the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, called an existential crisis.

Reeling from terrorist attacks, an influx of refugees from Africa and the Middle East, and persistent high unemployment and low economic growth, millions of Europeans are coming to the conclusion that the E.U. has let them down. And they are turning in increasing numbers to populist movements and nationalist politicians who promise to protect their jobs, their way of life and their security by closing national borders and rejecting Pan-European solutions.
The Gabriels are as worried as you are. As one of them says, with a matter-of-factness that suggests long and weary acquaintance with a troublesome state of being, People are scared. Everyone I know is scared.

Sometimes, though, theres blessed comfort in being with people who share your anxieties. Even if  or perhaps especially if  whats on their minds is one of the last things they talk about directly.

Watching What Did You Expect? at the Public Theater, youre always aware of what characters, caught in the middle of a presidential election that seems almost too surreal and too important for words, are thinking. And you can tell how those thoughts inform every joke, sigh and anecdote that comes out of their mouths.

Embodied by a six-member cast that interacts with the chafing ease of real blood relatives, the title clan of Richard Nelsons The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family has returned to offer us a mirror of our frightened, fallible selves at this very fraught moment in American history. Directed by its author, What Did You Expect? is the second work in the second cycle of plays by Mr. Nelson that have quietly emerged as a sui generis triumph of civic theater.
ALBUQUERQUE  The 911 call to the Albuquerque police on March 16, 2014, sounded routine: A man had been illegally camping in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, just 100 yards from the callers backyard. Could an officer come by and take him away? But the man refused to comply.

Officers arrived in waves, a handful at first, then more of them, bringing stun guns on their belts, rifles on their shoulders and dogs by their leashes. The man, James Boyd, seemed angry, incoherent. He was wielding two knives, and when officers ordered him to drop them, Mr. Boyd bellowed, Dont attempt to give me, the Department of Defense, another directive.

Four hours into the standoff, two police officers fired six shots at Mr. Boyd, hitting him in the back and arms. On Monday, they will stand trial on charges of second-degree murder and, their lawyers said, both will testify in their own defense.

The prosecution of Keith Sandy, who has retired since the shooting, and Dominique Perez, who was fired after his indictment, is only the latest against police officers accused of killing civilians while on duty. Two other trials are underway, in Norfolk, Va., and Monroe, La., for the killings of men who were homeless or mentally ill, as was Mr. Boyd.
A report by a news agency linked to the Islamic State claimed on Sunday that a soldier of the Islamic State was behind a stabbing attack on Saturday night at a Minnesota shopping mall, an episode that the F.B.I. said it was investigating as a potential act of terrorism. Nine people were injured in the attack before an off-duty police officer fatally shot the knife-wielding man, the authorities in St. Cloud said.

The attacker, who was dressed in a security guard uniform, mentioned Allah and asked at least one victim if he was Muslim, the police said. All nine victims were expected to survive.

The Islamic State on Sunday claimed responsibility for the episode, but it was unclear whether the attacker, whom the police have not identified, was in fact acting in the name of the terror group. The Amaq News Agency, which acts as the Islamic States newswire, released a bulletin saying the executor of the stabbing attacks in #Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State.

The terror groups bulletin went on to say the attack was a response to the groups call to target citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition, a term referring to the United States-led coalition carrying out airstrikes against the group. The language of the bulletin  down to the reference to the perpetrator as a soldier of the Islamic State  mirrors claims of responsibility the group issued for numerous attacks in recent weeks.
New Hampshire is in the bottom quarter of states in terms of its electoral and popular votes in the United States presidential race. But no other place has more competitive races with national implications.

The presidential contest, a Senate race, both House seats and the election for governor are all up for grabs. The outcomes could shape the 2017 political map.

It is worth remembering the states crucial role in 2000. Despite all the attention to Florida, if Al Gore had taken New Hampshire  he lost by 7,000 votes  he would have won the electoral as well as the popular vote.

This year, the Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump, has advantages in the state. He won a huge victory in the February primary, while on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton was soundly defeated by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Only 4 percent of New Hampshires voters are minorities, a Democratic base, and almost 57 percent of the likely electorate is made up of noncollege-educated whites, the seventh-highest rate in the country for a group that tends to favor Mr. Trump.
NEW DELHI  In one of the deadliest attacks in the disputed region of Kashmir, heavily armed militants stormed an Indian Army base near the border with Pakistan early Sunday, killing 17 soldiers.

Indias home minister, Rajnath Singh, in a series of pointed comments on Twitter, appeared to accuse Pakistan of being behind the attack.

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups, he said.

Indias director general of military operations, Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, said in a televised statement that the militants were foreign terrorists carrying items with Pakistani markings. He said he had contacted his counterpart in the Pakistani Army to express our serious concerns.
AMATRICE, Italy  The rescuers worked tirelessly under a scorching sun. Wearing white masks to fight off the dust, they formed a human chain, passing from hand to hand all they could salvage from the gravelly destruction of the earthquake that struck this region in August. They had to work quickly, fearing the precariousness of an adjacent building splintered by wide fissures.

It was not lives they were saving on this recent day, nor corpses they were retrieving from the mounds of stone ruins, but the history of Amatrice itself. Working alongside firefighters, the team included a specialized art squad of Italys carabinieri police that had been deployed specifically to vacate the citys municipal archives  300 years in the making.

At least 296 people died in the violent shaking on Aug 24. Many more were left homeless and injured. But those few, fraught and devastating minutes also placed at risk thousands of books, dossiers and folders amassed since past earthquakes destroyed this town in 1639 and 1703. There were also countless pieces of art and artifacts in churches and museums across the earthquake zone, which touches towns in four Italian regions.
BERLIN  Chancellor Angela Merkels party suffered the latest in a string of defeats in German state elections on Sunday, when her Christian Democratic Union was ousted from power in Berlin after its worst showing in the capital since World War II, according to preliminary results.

Voters in Berlin turned out in higher numbers than in previous years, many responding to voter mobilization calls from the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party. The party is now poised to enter the city-states legislature for the first time, although its share of the vote, 14.2 percent in the preliminary results, was less than what it was two weeks ago in Ms. Merkels home state, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where it placed second.

Ms. Merkels party won 17.6 percent of the vote in Berlin, not enough to allow it to continue as the junior partner in a governing coalition with the Social Democrats. The center-left Social Democratic Party earned 21.6 percent of the vote and is expected to form a government with two other parties: the Left Party, with 15.6 percent, and the Greens, with 15.2.

We are all angry that the AfD got in, Michael Muller, Berlins mayor and the Social Democrats leading candidate, told cheering supporters in the capital, referring to the Alternative for Germany party. But I can assure you that Berlin will remain an international city, open to the world.
President Obama arrived in New York City on Sunday evening for three days that will mix election-year politics with a farewell to the world stage at the United Nations. But the visit comes against a suddenly tense backdrop, after a powerful explosion rocked a Manhattan street and a man claiming fealty to the Islamic State stabbed several people in a Minnesota shopping mall.

The presidents diplomatic schedule also got more complicated. The White House announced Sunday that he would hold meetings at the United Nations with leaders from Israel and China. Both will be closely watched for signs of friction in relationships that have been marked by tension during Mr. Obamas tenure.

On Wednesday, he is scheduled to confer with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at a time when he is weighing whether to propose his own framework for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians over Mr. Netanyahus objections. The two leaders have clashed repeatedly over the Iran nuclear agreement and Mr. Obamas pursuit of Middle East peace.

The meeting could be their last face-to-face encounter before Mr. Obamas term ends in January. Last week, the United States and Israel sealed a $38 billion, 10-year American security aid package to Israel, the largest ever granted to an ally. Officials in both countries have characterized the deal as proof that the American-Israeli relationship is enduring, whatever the strains between the two men.
You could be forgiven, after five years of Syrias war dominating front pages, for feeling lost.

It is easy to track the wars toll: It has killed 400,000 people, displaced millions, opened space for the Islamic State, and sucked in foreign powers, including the United States. It is harder to keep track of the how and why. The basics can seem even more confusing than the day-to-day details.

But those basics are crucial to understanding Syrias war  and they are far more complex than they might initially seem. As last weeks truce appears shaky after American planes bombed Syrian troops, here are straightforward answers to some of the fundamental questions about the conflict: an attempt to explain its origins, the broader context and how it relates to the refugee crisis and the rise of the Islamic State.

1. What is the Syrian civil war?

The war makes more sense if you think of it as four overlapping conflicts.

The core conflict is between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels who oppose him. Over time, both sides fractured into multiple militias, including local and foreign fighters, but their fundamental disagreement is over whether Mr. Assads government should stay in power.

This opened a second conflict: Syrias ethnic Kurdish minority took up arms amid the chaos. The Kurds carved out a de facto ministate and have gradually taken territory they see as Kurdish  sometimes with backing from the United States, which sees the Kurds as an ally against jihadist groups. While Mr. Assad has not focused on fighting the Kurdish groups, they are opposed by neighboring Turkey, which is in conflict with its own Kurdish minority.
Almost everybody has heard of the United Nations. But how many people know what it actually does? Or how it works? Or why, as world leaders gather to kick off the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, the institution has struggled to live up to the promise of its founders: making the world a better, more peaceful place?

Birth of the United Nations: When, Where and Why

The United Nations Charter was signed at a conference in San Francisco in June 1945, led by four countries: Britain, China, the Soviet Union and the United States.

When the Charter went into effect on Oct. 24 of that year, a global war had just ended. Much of Africa and Asia was still ruled by colonial powers.
Philando Castile. Eric Garner. Alton Sterling. It goes on and on. Terrifying displays of violence against innocent black men and communities of color are fueling national attention on racial inequality across the country. The criminal justice system, in particular, demonstrates these inequalities.

While disparate treatment by police has garnered the most attention, racial inequalities exist at every stage of the criminal justice process  all the way to the ultimate punishment: the imposition of the death penalty. This fall in California, the repercussions of racial disparities in death penalty sentencing could become much worse if voters enact a reckless ballot measure: Proposition 66.

Proposition 66 is a misleading initiative that will change death penalty procedures in several ways that will increase the states risk of executing innocent people. Prop. 66 would remove important legal protections that currently exist in California law to prevent the ultimate injustice. As with most criminal justice policies, Prop. 66 would disproportionately affect people of color. Black and Latino men, in particular, will be at greater risk of being executed for crimes they didnt commit. Of the 156 innocent people exonerated from death rows nationwide, 61 percent were people of color.

People of color account for more than half of those awaiting execution, while only representing one-third of the general population in the U.S. In California, these disparities are even more stark. Black people account for 57 percent of the folks on death row but only 7 percent of the general population. In 2015, 86 percent of new death sentences were given to people of color. One California study found that individuals who kill a white victim are three times more likely to get a death sentence than those who kill a Latino victim, and four times more likely to get a death sentence than those who kill an African American victim.

Systemic racial bias in the death penalty is also demonstrated by lack of diversity among prosecutors and juries. A 2015 study found that 95 percent of elected prosecutors in states that allow the death penalty are white. Even in a state as diverse as California, 83 percent of elected prosecutors are white. Research over the past several decades has demonstrated that people of color are excluded from serving on juries in capital cases at much higher rates.

If passed, Prop. 66 would make Californias death penalty laws more similar to Texas laws, which have resulted in the execution of at least two innocent people in recent memory. One of those people was Carlos De Luna. De Luna was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for murder, even though no blood, DNA or fingerprint evidence linked him to the crime. Due to Texas law, De Luna was unable to adequately present evidence of his innocence and was executed, despite the fact that another man who bared striking resemblance to De Luna admitted to the murder.

Prop. 66 would make it harder for defendants to introduce newly discovered evidence of their innocence. For all the reasons above, people of color would be most at risk of suffering adverse consequences. In this case, Prop. 66 literally could be the difference between life and death for innocent people.

As if increasing the risk of executing innocent people was not reason enough to vote no, Prop. 66 will vastly increase costs to Californians and strain scarce resources. The initiative is confusing, poorly written and lacks understanding of how the death penalty operates in California, which will lead to substantial burdens for taxpayers and government agencies. The states nonpartisan analysts estimate that Prop. 66 will increase costs to taxpayers by tens of millions of dollars plus even more unknown costs. The initiative will add more layers of government bureaucracy by requiring local county courts to adjudicate death penalty appeals (currently, the state Supreme Court handles these), creating the exact opposite of expediency and encumbering already overburdened agencies with life-and-death responsibilities they are not equipped to handle.

It is time to send a message that we will not tolerate racial bias in any aspect of the criminal justice system, including in the administration of the death penalty. We must oppose any and all measures that would increase the chance of executing innocent men and women. We have seen too many innocent people of color killed for no reason other than their skin color. People of color would be disproportionately affected by this reckless and ill-conceived measure. Californians must vote no on Prop. 66.

Van Jones is a CNN political contributor, attorney, and has founded and led numerous social enterprises engaged in social and environmental justice.
FARGO, N.D.  A federal appeals court has ordered a halt to construction of another section of the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in a ruling late Friday that it needs more time to consider the Standing Rock Sioux Tribes request for an emergency injunction. It said it will issue another order setting a date for oral arguments on the motion. The order should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion, the panel said.

The ruling stops construction within 20 miles on either side of Lake Oahe. The federal government on Sept. 9 ordered a halt to construction on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land under and around the lake after a U.S. District Judge James Boasberg rejected the tribes request for a preliminary injunction to halt construction of the $3.8 billion four-state pipeline. That led the tribe to ask for an emergency injunction.

Vicki Granado, spokeswoman for Dakota Access, said the company does not comment on pending litigation. Craig Stevens, spokesman for the MAIN Coalition, Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, called the ruling disappointing but said his group respects the panels decision.

Judge Boasberg, in his thoughtful and thorough opinion last week, confirmed that the Army Corps of Engineers did their jobs expertly and in accordance with the law, Stevens said in a statement. We are confident that another fair review of the corps work will render the same decision.

The corps also issued a ruling Friday granting the tribes a temporary permit that allows demonstrators to legally protest on federal lands managed by the agency. In turn, the tribe assumes responsibility for maintenance, damage and restoration costs, the security and safety of protesters, and liability insurance.

Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, North Dakotas lone member of the U.S. House, called the special permit a good compromise.

It protects the protesters right to assemble and free speech, while at the same time protecting legal commerce to go forward, Cramer said. It sets up parameters and certainly puts liability where liability belongs, with the protesters and the leaders of the protest movement.
When the 12th annual Laguna Dance Festival opens this week, Irvine native Andrea Andie Yorita, 26, will take the stage as a company member of BalletX and perform in front of people who helped get her there.

Whenever I see my grandma on visits home, she always asks me when I can come and dance here for her, Yorita said with a laugh, adding she has to explain to her grandmother that she doesnt make the tour schedule. Now its finally happening and I cant believe it. Im so excited.

Along with her family, Yoritas old dance teachers, friends from school and college professors will have a chance to see the success shes achieved in the dance world.

Its like Im fusing two chapters of my life, said Yorita. Im coming back full circle.

Before joining the Philadelphia-based company in 2013, Yorita studied at Academy of Dance in Santa Ana under Merle Sepel, then earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in dance at UC Irvine. It was there that Yorita met Laguna Dance Festival founder and Artistic Director Jodie Gates.

I consider (Yorita) one of my muses, said Gates, who was a professor at UCI when Yorita attended. Seeing students go beyond what you imagine is one of the perks of being an educator, and (Yorita) is an exquisite creature onstage  petite but mighty.

When BalletX performed at the Laguna Dance Festival four years ago, Yorita was finishing her senior year of college and Gates arranged for her to take a class with the company.

I remember watching them perform and thinking, There is no way theyre going to hire me, theyre so great, said Yorita. I nearly fell out of my chair a few months later when I heard they wanted to hire me.

In making her hometown visit this weekend, Yorita, with BalletX, will perform a versatile program of works that showcases the companys repertoire. BalletX is known to experiment with contemporary and modern movement while preserving rigorous classical ballet technique.

I think (BalletX) shows a different side of contemporary and its great to bring that to Orange County, Yorita said. Because of things like the Laguna Dance Festival, more and more dance is coming to the area. Way more than I remember growing up.

Along with BalletX, this years festival will present L.A.-based Bodytraffic as well as Kyle Abrahams Abraham.In.Motion from New York. Although each company hails from a different city, Gates said all represent the current wave of contemporary dance.

Yorita says that wave is fun to ride because it gives dancers like her an opportunity to try new and sometimes unexpected things.

The fact that contemporary dancers can go from doing something very balletic to then doing a piece with high-heeled boots keeps things interesting, said Yorita. Its exciting to be able to watch companies bring audiences in and get them to imagine things and feel things that are hard to put into words.

Starting this years evocative festival presentation will be Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motions Orange County premiere of the acclaimed work Pavement. Based on the 1991 film Boyz N The Hood and W.E.B. DuBois 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk, this piece examines the history of the African American struggle for equality in the 20th century.

After two nights of Abraham.In.Motions hip-hop-infused modern dance, BalletX and Bodytraffic will share a program of contemporary works.

In addition to presenting world-class dance, the Laguna Dance Festival hosts workshops for young students while the visiting companies are in town. In the next five years, Gates sees the festival moving to eventually present regular classes for adults at a pre-professional level.

The Laguna Dance Festival is obviously sustainable, given that weve survived this long, said Gates. Its exciting to think about how much more we can do.

Take Yorita, who first learned about BalletX through the festival and now is a member of the company. Gates said seeing her onstage will be a testament to the type of connections and exposure the Laguna Dance Festival can provide to companies and dancers alike.

The dance world is extremely small, Gates said. Watching it change through the years, we know the need for this festival is strong.

Contact the writer: 714-796-6026 or kwright@ocregister.com
As we head into wildfire season, theres a new worry for firefighters  as well as for all of us.

Hobby drones.

What started out as a toy and morphed into an awesome gizmo is on its way to becoming an aerial killing machine.

In Holy Jim Canyon this month, hobby drones stymied helicopters trying to snuff out a 155-acre wildfire.

From California to Alaska, according to officials, drones this year have impeded aerial firefighting at least a dozen times.

There have been drone incursions all over the state, Orange County Fire Authority Battalion Chief Craig Covey said. We get helicopters taken out all the time by birds.

If were worried about running into a bird, think about what a drone with four propellers could do.

Because of hot, fast-moving Santa Ana winds that typically blow during October and November, U.S. Forest Service officials warn the next two months are especially worrisome.

Were extra vigilant, said Jake Rodriguez, forest service public information officer. What weve seen this season so far, is very extreme fire behavior.

The long drought combined with beetle-infested trees has created particularly volatile fuel conditions.

Flames shot up as high as 100 feet during the Cajon Pass fire in mid-August, Rodriguez reported. Thirty-five square miles burned in a single day.

Department of Interior officials report that more than 30,000 wildfires this year have burned more than 2.7 million acres.

A drone that costs as little as $500 could cost you your home  or your life.

STOPPING FIREFIGHTERS

Putting a video camera on the belly of what amounts to a miniature helicopter may sound nuts, but it can be very cool.

Lifeguards use drones to watch for sharks. Businesses use drones for planning. Real estate agents use drones to market properties. Outdoor enthusiasts capture beautiful landscapes.

But no matter how tempting it may be to deploy a drone, civilian machines dont belong in a situation that requires police or firefighters.

One first responder echoed a common refrain, telling drone fans, If you fly, we cant.

Drones interrupted air efforts in three California fires, writes Mark Bathrick, director of aviation services for the Department of the Interior, including in Kern County, where a blaze destroyed more than 150 homes and killed an elderly couple.

Drones grounded aircraft five times on the Saddle fire in Utah in late June, Bathrick continued, as the blaze burned remote terrain inaccessible to ground forces, threatened communities and prompted the evacuation of 500 homes.

Last year, Bathrick said, a drone prompted firefighters to abandon aerial efforts while a fire burned over a California highway.

Drones can knock out an aircraft windshield, get sucked into an intake, Covey said. Drones compromise our ability to save lives and property.

Air support, the Orange County Fire Authority air operations chief explained, is often critical to fighting fires, especially in wildland areas. In the recent Holy Jim fire, helicopters held the line while ground crews worked their way into steep wilderness.

During the 2007 Santiago wildfire that burned 29,000 acres, a dozen firefighters had to deploy fire-resistant sacks when they became surrounded by flames. Without helicopters dropping water, Covey said, they could have died.

If drones existed then, the outcome would have been, well, lets not go there.

BEEFING UP LAWS

Almost as soon as a fire starts, something called a Temporary Flight Restriction is established by the Federal Aviation Administration. It means nothing without permission  including drones  can fly in a specified area.

Acreage varies, but typically an area will cover 5 square miles or more.

During the Holy Jim fire, Rodriguez said, There were drones flying over our helicopters at Dove Lake.

Choppers were prevented from scooping water out of the reservoir in Dove Canyon  not just once, but twice during the battle.

The FAA is still investigating the incidents. Regulations allow fines up to $20,000.

In Utah, legislators approved laws that allow first responders to stop drones, even if it means damaging the machine.

In Sacramento, two bills follow Utahs approach but remain unsigned by the governor. AB 1680 would make it a crime for the operator of a drone to interfere with efforts to fight fires. SB 807 would allow firefighters to damage drones that impede firefighting efforts.

The Orange County Fire Authority board supports the bills. Supervisor Todd Spitzer, a board member, noted, Drones completely jeopardize the safety of the pilot in the aircraft and, if a helicopter goes down, seriously jeopardize the people on the ground.

Spitzer, who represents canyon country below Saddleback Mountain among other areas, said he is anticipating a horrible fire season. The sooner we get on a fire with aircraft that can draw significant amounts of water, the better off we are.

VIRTUAL FENCING

According to the Interior Department, drones intruding into firefighting areas doubled from 2014 to 2015. But help might be on the way.

Interior Department officials said they are partnering with drone manufacturers to create virtual fences around wildfires.

The idea is a warning system that provides real-time alerts and geo-fencing alarms to prevent drone pilots from interfering with firefighting operations.

Law enforcement helicopters face problems as well.

With three helicopters and a fourth helicopter being made ready, the Orange County Sheriffs Department reports few problems with drones  so far. But with cheaper drones and the hobby growing more popular, challenges await.

Everybody it seems, said Sheriffs Reserve Deputy Jer Kahala, is buying them.

Kahala, a helicopter hoist operator, said, If we cant render aid because someones flying a drone, well, thats a life-and-death situation.

One of the biggest challenges for pilots dumping water and fire retardant, is that drones are so small they are nearly impossible to see.

Remember: If you fly, they cant.

Contact the writer: dwhiting@ocregister.com
When I was elected to represent the people of the 37th Senate District in Sacramento, I resolved to fix the things we could fix  the things that we must fix in order for California to have a prosperous future.

What I have observed is that there is an ongoing effort by many in Sacramento to fix the things we cannot, while ignoring the major issues that affect the lives of every single Californian, not only in my district but throughout this great state.

Recently, the state Legislature approved Senate Bill 32, a bill that takes aim at global warming by requiring California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2030.

This sounds like a worthy goal, but its a goal that is going to cost every California resident and business more money from their pockets. Californias contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is approximately 1 percent of the worldwide total. So, no matter how much California tightens its belt when it comes to reducing emissions, the fact is that the states global impact is next to nothing.

Many in Sacramento patted themselves on the back for passing a bill they believe will save the world. Meanwhile, my constituents are concerned with the more pressing issues  like Californias ticking time bomb, the public employee pension system. Or our retiree medical costs. Nationwide, California claims the top prize as having the largest unfunded liabilities for both, and continues to be the least economically competitive state in the nation.

And what about the mass exodus of businesses? Almost 9,000 of them, over the last seven years, have chosen to leave California and operate out of state. Youll find many of them in Texas.

My colleagues engaged in a passionate debate about global warming and the need for California to be the world leader on the issue, but where is the dialogue about fixing Californias balance sheet, which carries the largest unrestricted net deficit in the United States?

What this state desperately needs is balance and restraint, not more feel-good legislation and disconnects. Once the high of SB32 wears off, will the Legislature address the gorilla in the room? California must stop mortgaging its future and prepare for the next economic recession. Even Gov. Jerry Brown warned its coming.

Heres a disconnect: This year, legislative Democrats approved a 50 percent increase in the minimum wage, which will cause far too many small businesses to close their doors, costing jobs and hurting workers. Increasing electricity rates will also cost Californians more, and a new tax is on the table that would hike Californias gas prices by 17 cents per gallon.

Piling on more cost pressures and tax increases is not my idea of balance or restraint, and its not what California residents and businesses need.

The Legislature passed hundreds of bills in the final days of the legislative session, but it must remember that there is a looming fiscal downturn on the horizon for this state. Sacramento must show restraint and focus on its spending priorities.

Instead of passing feel-good legislation with little impact, like SB32, the Legislature needs to focus on the issues we can fix  issues like paying down debt, putting more money away in our states Rainy Day Fund and prioritizing practical transportation needs over a costly high-speed rail project and a severely mismanaged Caltrans.

Theres a reason for the story about the camel. I fear that SB32 is one more straw that will break Californias back.

John Moorlach is a state Senator representing the 37th District, which includes the communities of Costa Mesa, Irvine, Lake Forest, Laguna Beach, Laguna Woods, Newport Beach Tustin, Villa Park and portions of Anaheim, Huntington Beach and Orange.
The trash and human waste that led to a public health crisis being declared at the Santa Ana Civic Center plaza vanished on Saturday when a team of homeless people and neighbors joined forces to clean up the area.

Hosted by Operation Warm Wishes, a Tustin nonprofit, the clean-up saw five Orange County residents and about 20 homeless people collecting trash, sweeping and washing windows.

It was to be the first of these clean-up days at the civic center, now planned for every Saturday.

The effort was months in the making for TyRon Jackson, president and founder of Operation Warm Wishes, who coordinated the cleanup Saturday morning, broom in hand.

Jackson, 34, spent two years homeless as a teenager. For the last eight years, hes worked to help those living on the street  not by giving them food or clothes, but by providing a sense of purpose and direction.

Im an advocate. When I hear people saying Oh, theyre dirty, theyre gross, theyre schizophrenic, all of that, it hurts my feelings, Jackson said. The homeless here are wonderful people. I love every single one of them.

Aside from providing weekly laundry services, Jackson often pays the homeless to pitch in and do their part to keep local cities clean. Many times, they turn the money down, he said, adding that just being able to feel like they matter again is payment enough.

Its not a crime to be homeless, but we want to let them know to take ownership and responsibility, Jackson said. Theyve fallen down, but its getting up that matters.

One volunteer who turned down Jacksons payment was John Wiley, 58, who has been living among the civic centers homeless for three months. Long ago, he was a professional window washer for high-rise buildings in Arizona.

When Jackson approached him with the chance to wash the centers windows, Wileys eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. Within hours, he had done a sweep of the area, leaving spotless windows in his wake. He could have been paid for his work, but Wiley said he wasnt interested  he just wanted to give back to the civic center, he said.

Wiley said he loves cleaning glass, so getting to relive his window washing days was a big confidence boost. But theres more to it. Everybody pitching in can make a difference in how the homeless are perceived, he said.

The dignitaries or whoever calls the shots can walk in here and say Well, these guys are cleaning! It helps. It helps to change their outlook on homelessness, Wiley said. Homelessness is temporary for some people, its not permanent. But you have to have the motivation, confidence and self-esteem to get up out of here and do what you need to do.

Nazeeh Rashad, 46, is another of the civic center plazas residents, and has lived there for about nine months. When he became homeless, Rashad said, he chose to set up at the civic center because he saw an opportunity to help his fellow homeless while he figures his life out.

There was a need to upgrade the situation, to develop a negative into a positive picture, Rashad said. Were out here to let Orange County know that we care about whats going on here, because we reside here. Our efforts are very valuable in making sure things progress forward.

Earlier this month, the Santa Ana City Council declared a public health and safety homeless crisis and called for several measures to boost security around the Civic Center.

Among other things, a resolution directs City Manager David Cavazos to prepare a budget to improve lighting in the Civic Center area, ensure 24/7 police patrols, hire more security guards, relocate a needle exchange program, power wash regularly and boost staffing for departments that enforce code violations or prosecute crimes.

Contact the writer: jwinslow@ocregister.com
LOS ANGELES  Los Angeles police are searching for a gunman who shot two people dead and injured two others.

Officer Mike Lopez said Saturday the shooting in the East Hollywood neighborhood was reported shortly before 8 p.m. Friday.

Lopez said there were numerous rounds fired at a group congregated on the street and that two people died on the scene. The suspect fled on foot to an unknown location.

He says the shooting is believed to be gang related.

The two injured victims are being treated for gunshot wounds to the legs at a local hospital.

Police are asking for the publics help in identifying the suspect, described as a male in his 20s wearing black clothing.
BEIRUT  A U.S.-Russian cease-fire deal for Syria was on the brink of collapse Sunday after a week of mishaps and setbacks that exposed the fragility of the plan.

The cease-fire is premised on a series of trust-building exercises that were intended to culminate today in the launch of preparations between the United States and Russia for joint airstrikes against terrorist groups in Syria.

Instead, an errant strike Saturday by the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State that mistakenly killed dozens of Syrian government soldiers has exposed the deficit of trust between the two powers.

Whether U.S. warplanes conducted the attack is in question. The U.S.-led coalition is made up of 67 countries, more than a dozen of which carry out airstrikes against the militants.

But the strike sent tensions soaring between Moscow and Washington, the chief sponsors of the truce, casting further into doubt the likelihood that they will be able to work together to end Syrias war.

On Sunday, Russia continued its verbal assaults on the United States, with a Russian Foreign Ministry statement accusing the pilots who carried out the strikes of acting on the boundary between criminal negligence and connivance with Islamic State terrorists.

In Aleppo on Sunday, warplanes dropped barrel bombs on four residential neighborhoods, upending the relative calm that has prevailed there for a week. Aid convoys remained stalled on the Turkish border for a sixth consecutive day.

Russia and Syria asserted that 62 were killed and about 100 others were injured. Although the Central Command statement did not mention casualties, a senior administration official said the United States had relayed our regret through Russia for the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces fighting ISIL, an acronym for the Islamic State, and had launched an internal investigation.

Deir al-Zour, where the airstrike took place, is far from the populated western region, where the separate civil war that is the subject of the cease-fire is focused. The Islamic State controls much of the province, although there are some scattered Syrian military installations.
PARIS  A terminally ill minor has been helped to die in Belgium for the first time since the country did away with age restrictions on euthanasia two years ago, according to the senator who wrote the law.

Liberal Senator Jean-Jacques De Gucht confirmed the death of the sick juvenile to The Associated Press Saturday.

He said the minor was from Belgiums Flemish region, but declined to provide any further details about the patient to protect the privacy of the grieving family.

Belgium is the only country that allows minors of any age assistance in dying, De Gucht said. In Holland, the lower age limit for euthanasia is 12 years.

Its terrible when a youngster suffers, but it gives me some comfort to know that now there is a choice out there for children in the final terminal stages, De Gucht said. Its important that society doesnt neglect people in such pain.

The Belgian law has very strict rules for the euthanasia to be approved. It requires the minor to be in the final stages of a terminal illness, to understand the difference between life and death rationally and to have asked to end his or her life on repeated occasions. It also requires parental consent and finally the approval of two doctors, including a psychiatrist.

The law  one of the most far-reaching in the Western world  had wide public support when it was introduced in 2014, but was opposed by some pediatricians and the countrys Roman Catholic clergy.

Catholic teaching forbids euthanasia and the president of the Italian bishops conference on Saturday described the news of the euthanasia of a child as painful and worrisome.

It pains us as Christians but it also pains us as persons, Genoa Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco told Italian news agency ANSA.

As House of Representative members in Belgium cast their ballots in 2014 and an electronic tally board lit up with enough green lights to indicate the measure would carry, a lone protester in the chamber shouted assassins!

Socialist Hans Bonte at the time said no member of the House hoped the law would ever be used. But he said all Belgians, including minors, deserved the right to bid farewell to life in humane circumstances without having to fear they were breaking the law.

Some have questioned whether children should be allowed to make the choice between life and death. In 2014, a group of doctors  including pediatricians  signed a group letter to voice opposition to the measure.

A lot of people  in whatever profession  still have a problem coping with the idea that people can choose when they end their own life, De Gucht said.
It is annual test score time in Arizona, with AzMerit scores by school and grade released this week. (See tables for Flagstaff-area schools on Page A9)

Unlike the old AIMS tests, which had to be passed in order to graduate from high school, the newer tests dont have such high stakes -- yet. They are in their second year in Arizona, and, like states elsewhere that have adopted the Common Core curriculum, initial pass rates at many schools are well below 50 percent of the students.

Educators say to give AzMerit five years before the results offer a true reading of student achievement in math and English. In part thats because the tests are now administered online, not on paper, and the interactive format is new in most classrooms. Another reason is the new emphasis on problem-solving and critical thinking, not rote memorization.

Our concern, however, is that without targeted resources for students and schools that struggle, AzMerit will become another AIMS. In that scenario, pass rates even after five years did not get much above 50 percent in subjects like eighth-grade math, which meant many students were being promoted to high school on a track that would see them fail to graduate.

But rather than use the scores to funnel remedial help to those students, state officials watered down the high school tests to make it nearly impossible to fail. Employers complained that many applicants with an Arizona high school diploma still lacked basic computational and communications skills. Other states had gone the same route, and out of that frustration grew the more rigorous Common Core curriculum developed by educators from nearly all 50 states.

But given the recent track record of the Arizona Legislature, we dont see current funds being redistributed from high scorers to low scorers, much less new funds being generated. Prop. 123 taps mainly the state land trust fund for an extra 8 percent in school funding for the next 10 years, but the distribution formula will result mainly in across-the-board raises for teachers. If some of the yawning achievement gaps seen in the scores on A9 are to be closed, it will have to be by tapping local resources and raising money privately.

Thus, we were pleased to learn this past week that local leaders in a range of service groups and nonprofits have designated education as this regions top priority, with the United Way of Northern Arizona designated as the backbone organization for what has been dubbed LAUNCH Flagstaff. Major initial funding is from the Arizona Community Foundation and the Wharton Foundation.

The mission is to provide all children and youth, regardless of background or socio-economic status, with a cradle-to-career world-class education. Their goals include increasing the following:

 The number of children entering kindergarten ready for school

 The number of students reading at grade level at the end of the third grade

 The number of 8th grade students performing at grade level in math

 The number of students graduating from high school within four years; and

 The number of students entering college or technical training after high school.

Those are all key measures in student achievement and readiness, and they would be daunting even were the Legislature and governor to fully fund them. But Gov. Ducey, in calling Friday on Arizona to raise from 42 percent to 60 percent the number of students pursuing education after high school, made no mention of new funding. NAU is already doing its part by enrolling 1,000 more students at the Mountain Campus this year. But just to stay even with the state subsidies per student from last year, it would need an extra $3.5 million; instead, it is receiving $1.5 million.

So as noted above, Flagstaff cant count on the state to fill in local education gaps. Students in the college preparatory charters and similar programs at FUSD schools are doing fine. But when passing rates in some grades at some schools hover in the single digits, it unlikely that those students will come close to catching up in the next three years. We commend the LAUNCH organizers and look forward to learning more about its specific initiatives. One look at the tables on A9 makes it obvious that work cant begin too soon.
A gunman killed one person and wounded five others in a rampage Friday night in Philadelphia that began when he ambushed a police sergeant in her squad car.

Other law enforcement officers responding to the shooting ran after the suspect  identified by police as Nicholas Glenn, 25, of West Philadelphia  and cornered him in an alley, where he was shot and killed.

He was hellbent on hurting a lot of people, Commissioner Richard Ross Jr. of the Philadelphia Police Department said at a news conference Saturday afternoon. We still arent absolutely clear as to why.

The commissioner said that authorities had discovered a rambling note on Glenns body in which he expressed hatred for police and mentioned a particular probation officer by name. The letter was found inside an envelope labeled doomed, Ross said.

Its more about himself than it is about who he wanted to harm or anything like that, he said.

The violence began around 11:20p.m., police said, when Glenn approached Sgt. Sylvia Young, 46, who was seated in her parked vehicle in West Philadelphia. Without saying anything, the man began firing into her window, Ross told reporters. Young, a 19-year police veteran, survived after leaning into the passenger seat to shield herself, the commissioner said. Glenn fired 18 shots, police said.

Glenn fled after shooting at Young, police said, and along the way he fired five times into the open door of a bar, where he struck a security guard in the left leg.

He then grabbed a woman and used her as a shield before shooting her in the leg, police said.

Glenn continued running, firing 14 times into a car occupied by a man and a 25-year-old woman, police said. The woman died at a hospital around 2 a.m. Saturday.

Glenn ran into an alley, where he was pursued by a University of Pennsylvania police officer and two Philadelphia officers. He was fatally shot there, police said, but not before wounding the university officer.
SANTA ANA  Police arrested a man after chasing a stolen vehicle through the city on Saturday.

At 3:53 p.m., the Santa Ana Police Department received a call from the cars owner who spotted someone driving it near Fairview Street and Trask Avenue, Sgt. Jim Berwanger said.

Police cars and a helicopter responded and began pursuing the stolen vehicle, which crashed into a parked car near Camille and Shelton streets after about 10 to 15 minutes, Berwanger said.

The driver fled on foot, but officers caught him and took him into custody, Berwanger said. The mans identity wasnt available Saturday night.
Tustin  A 35-year-old woman from Orange was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and evading police officers after leading police on a 50-minute chase along two Orange County freeways.

The police chase began at 10:38 p.m. after the woman refused to stop for a Tustin Police officer at Red Hill Avenue and El Camino Real, said Tustin Police Sgt. Jeff Taylor.

She drove onto the northbound I-5 and then onto the 55 toward Orange. Two Tustin police patrol cars followed her on the freeways.

The pursuit ended at Tustin Avenue and 17th Street about 50 minutes later. The woman was taken into custody by the Orange Police Department, Taylor said.

She was taken back to the Tustin Police Department and booked into jail, Taylor said.
TOGLIATTI, Russia  The elderly voter out walking her Scottie in the rain last week in Togliatti, the home of the infamous Lada automobile, was delighted to encounter an opposition candidate distributing pamphlets that called on President Vladimir Putin to step down.

Where have you been? she fairly shrieked, grabbing a handful of the leaflets from Vitaly Yerkaev, 41, a beefy former homicide detective running for parliament in the Peoples Freedom Party, or Parnas. I was not sure that Parnas was even part of the election here.

That Parnas would be just about invisible is not surprising.

Throughout the campaign, most printing houses rejected Yerkaevs leaflets, and newspapers rejected his ads. The local government banned his posters and blocked him from television appearances mandated by law.

All we can do is put on our party T-shirts and hand out leaflets; that is it, he said.

Russians went to the polls today to vote for a new 450-seat parliament, or Duma, which Putin long ago reduced to a cheerleading squad that endorses his every move.

The Kremlin repeatedly has promised that the voting will be free and transparent, yet the campaign here in Togliatti, long a bastion of opposition to the dominant United Russia Party, illustrates the gap between the promise of fair elections and the reality.

Without a doubt, Kremlin administrators want the voting to be seen as fair and free. They want to exorcise the ghosts of the last Duma vote, in 2011, and the 2012 presidential election, when widespread perceptions of fraud galvanized mass street protests by the middle class.

More important, any suggestion that the election had been stolen would interfere with their paramount concern: the 2018 presidential election. Putin, 63, wants to capitalize on his popularity to win a resounding victory that will cement his legacy.

The Kremlin appointed a respected human rights advocate, Ella A. Pamfilova, to head the Central Electoral Commission. She warned officials suspect results would be nullified.
SANTA ANA  Authorities have identified a 15-year-old Santa Ana boy shot and killed Friday night in an apparent gang-related attack.

Henry Plascencia died around 10:05 p.m. at South Coast Global Medical Center in Santa Ana, according to the Orange County Coroners Department.

The victim sustained a single gunshot wound to the upper torso around 9:30 p.m. in the attack in the 400 block of South Birch Street, said Santa Ana police Sgt. S. Gatt.

A second teenage boy, who was not identified, was wounded. He was treated at South Coast Global Medical Center and released.

Police believe the pair were on a sidewalk when someone fired multiple shots at them, Gatt said.

No arrests had been made as of Saturday afternoon.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7767 sschwebke@scng.com
As I travel around Orange County, the people I represent have expressed their frustration with Washington. They witness the Obama administration making dangerous deals with our adversaries. They turn on the news to see a Congress depicted as partisan and gridlocked. They see a federal government that smothers small businesses in bureaucratic red tape. They see signs of an anemic economy. They see our veterans suffering because they are not receiving the care they have earned. The people I represent believe that our country is heading down a dangerous path, and they are rightly concerned about the future for their children and grandchildren.

I could not agree more. I, too, am unhappy with the direction our country is headed. I came to Congress to make the country safer, stronger and more prosperous for future generations, and that is my focus each day I serve the people of Californias 45th District.

While the media emphasize areas of partisan disagreement, this Congress has produced real, measurable progress. Since the start of this Congress in January 2015, the peoples house has been focused on improving life for the American people. House Republicans have demonstrated that they are doing just that, as we have been more effective and more efficient than previous Congresses.

Our committees have approved 740 bills, 601 of which have gone on to pass the full House of Representatives. To put that in perspective, we have moved 13 percent more bills out of committee and passed 28 percent more bills than the 25-year average. Of the bills passed by the House, 212 have also passed the Senate, a whopping 84 percent increase over the last Congress.

In spite of those statistics, Orange County residents have told me they believe Washington is broken and unproductive. I also share their frustration, because we have sent so many common-sense and productive solutions to the presidents desk, only to have them rejected. In order for the legislation we pass to become law, the president must sign those bills, yet President Obama has vetoed more legislation in the last 20 months than he did during the first six years of his administration combined. That is not just frustrating, it is also preventing our policy ideas from providing real solutions for the American people.

Despite this opposition, we have enacted laws that will make life easier for the American people. We have focused on growing our economy by encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation. We have worked to protect our communities by implementing legislation to combat the nationwide opioid epidemic and prevent human trafficking. We have strengthened our national security by bolstering our cybersecurity efforts, levying new sanctions against North Korea and blocking terrorists abilities to access financing and logistical support. We have fought for those who have fought for us by improving health care and other services for our veterans and securing cost-of-living raises for our troops.

While I am proud of what we have accomplished so far in the 114th Congress, we still have a great deal of work to do. I urge you to contact me on issues that are important to you, because the feedback I gather from you continues to be my greatest resource as I push for real results to create a stronger America for our children and grandchildren. If we may be of assistance to you in any way, do not hesitate to contact our office at walters.house.gov or at 949-263-8703.

Mimi Walters represents the 45th Congressional District, which includes the communities of Irvine, Tustin, North Tustin, Villa Park, Orange, Anaheim Hills, Laguna Hills, Lake Forest, Rancho Santa Margarita and Mission Viejo.
PALO ALTO  A Palo Alto advisory board has recommended the Northern California city refuse Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbergs plans to demolish and rebuild four homes around his property because of privacy concerns.

The Mercury News reports Zuckerberg bought the homes in 2013 for $30million after learning that a developer planned to build a house next door tall enough to have a view of his master bedroom.

Palo Altos Architectural Review Board voted Thursday 3-1 to recommend the city not approve Zuckerbergs plan, saying it wont support the building of a compound.

Kathy Scott, of the Walker-Warner Architects firm working with Zuckerberg, says the project seeks to expand her clients home space.

Board members say plans for all four homes meet architecture standards, but a single family using all four properties would create a compound and ruin the single-family home feel of the Crescent Park neighborhood.
PITTSBURGH  Facebooks mantra for its developers once was, Move fast and break things.

Its a common theme among young companies: Strive to attain as much new business as possible. Yet gearing for growth is easy to overlook, and its possible effects can cause irreversible damage.

Growth is fun, but growth is hard, said Lauren Gallagher, director of operations at Denali Groups Pittsburgh office, which now employs 55 people, up from 14 in 2013.

About 50 percent of new companies fail in their first five years, according to a 2014 Gallup report. Even for businesses that overcome early hurdles, new challenges await.

A Florida-based procurement and supply chain management company, Denali Group works with clients such as American Express, American Airlines and Microsoft Corp. On the corporate level, Denali has grown 400 percent in the past decade.

Denali added a talent manager to focus on recruiting, training and retaining employees. Theres now a sense of organizational maturity when it comes to compensation, timing, promotion, transparency and engaging with clients  something that wasnt there just a couple of years ago.

But there has been a cultural framework and willingness to mold, Gallagher explained.

We dont think were perfect, she said. Were always willing to change and adapt.

A more mature firm is expected to have established protocols, said Denalis manager within client delivery, Jon Bazzani. New hires have begun asking Bazzani, You have a process for this, right?

And while Denali has integrated those new processes, the entrepreneurial spirit that helped drive it past the startup phase is embedded in much of what it does, from impromptu floor meetings to brainstorming sessions to client engagement.

A couple of years ago, if an employee had an idea, the individual would be encouraged to pursue it on his or her own. Now employees are asked to consult with others. In small thought groups, Denali employees pause to ensure theyre still going in the right direction on projects.

Sometimes you have to pause, Gallagher explained. Its go, go, go. Stop. Where are we going? We do need to put the foot on the brake and make sure were all in the same direction.

In managing growth, Guttman Energy has had to alter the way it markets itself. When the Belle Vernon oil and fuel supplier launched its website two years ago, it did so with the goal of increasing visibility. A Fuel Matters blog post is published every weekday. The company hopes to soon enable customers to complete transactions with just a few clicks.

We stood back and said, What makes us different?  said Scott Cargile, Guttmans president and chief operating officer.

The company has known when to pump the brakes. In the last five years, it has concentrated some of its efforts, shedding business in heating oil and propane.

In 2013, it backed out of new business with retail electricity and natural gas, realizing the synergies it wanted werent there. That slashed into employment.

Yet even in an industry where margins are small and innovation is scarce, Guttman has grown steadily.

Compensating for additional business has been one of the biggest challenges for Sonny Bringol, president of mortgage lender Victorian Finance. Stretching employees to handle a healthy workload without exhausting them is a challenge he faces daily.

My worst fear is hiring too many people, then having a downturn and having to fire, he said.

A former chemical engineer, Bringol founded the company out of his house in 2003. In eight years, it grew to 50 employees. Now it has more than 150.

Still, Bringol wont hire salespeople until theres an established support staff to handle additional volume.

For many companies, hiring too many employees at too fast a rate can lead to trouble, said Robert Atkin, a clinical professor of management at the University of Pittsburgh. With growth, employees are given additional responsibilities  sometimes thrown into a new role thats not a good fit. Thats OK if its temporary, he said. Where firms find trouble is in the rush to hire.

Typically when you begin to hire, you dont know how to hire and you tend to hire for skill rather than for a combination of skill and fit, Atkin said.

For companies, making headway might mean careening off the runway at times.

The majority of our problems arent necessarily finance problems, Bringol said. Those are big, but the day to day is what makes us successful, guiding the Titanic every day.
An Omaha woman was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after fleeing from the scene of a four-vehicle crash Saturday night at 24th and Dodge Streets.

The 19-year-old woman was booked into the Douglas County Jail on suspicion of driving under the influence, leaving the scene of an injury accident, driving with a suspended license and violation of a red light. She was treated at the Nebraska Medical Center for minor injuries and released.

Omaha police said the suspect was northbound on 24th Street when her 2007 Jeep Cherokee ran a red light shortly after 11 p.m. The Jeep collided with a 2004 Subaru Forester and caused it to crash into two southbound Honda vehicles, a Civic and a CR-V.

The Jeeps driver got into another vehicle and fled from the scene but returned about an hour later, police said.

The driver of the Subaru, Christian C. Anderson, 19, and passenger Kimberly E. Kisicki, 19, both of Omaha, were taken to Creighton University Medical Center. Anderson was treated and released, while Kisicki was admitted for injuries to her abdomen that were not life-threatening, police said.

The two occupants of the Civic and the CR-V were treated at the scene for minor injuries.
NEW YORK (AP)  An explosion in a crowded Manhattan neighborhood on Saturday night left 29 people injured, and authorities said a second nearby site was also being investigated. Mayor Bill de Blasio called the blast an "intentional act," but said there was no terrorist connection.

"Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident," de Blasio said at a news conference near the scene in Chelsea. "We have no credible and specific threat at this moment. "

De Blasio said the blast was "an intentional act" and tried to calm any fears among nervous New Yorkers, saying the explosion had no terrorist connection and wasn't related to a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey at a charity run.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that a second device that officers were investigating four blocks from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation, said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the explosion appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation. New York officials said the incident was not due to a gas leak.

The blast happened on West 23rd street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe's supermarket. Witnesses say the explosion at about 8:30 p.m. blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris in the area. Officials said no evacuations were necessary.

Police spokesman J. Peter Donald said several people were taken to hospitals with injuries. One of the injured suffered a puncture wound that was considered serious. Officials said the other injuries were minor, described as scrapes and bruises.

Donald tweeted a warning to residents near the second site that officials are investigating, saying: "As a precautionary measure, we are asking residents who live on West 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan to stay away from windows facing 27th Street until we clear the suspicious."

A number of New York City subway routes were affected by the earlier explosion.

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.

"We felt it, we heard it, the restaurant went real quiet, the 26-year-old Gonzalez said. "It wasn't like jolting or anything, everyone just went quiet."

Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said he, at first, thought something large had fallen.

"It was an extremely loud noise, everything was shaking, the windows were shaking, it was crazy," he said. "It was extremely loud, almost like thunder, but louder."

The FBI and Homeland Security officials, along with the ATF arson and explosive task force are also at the scene.

The White House said President Barack Obama has been apprised of the explosion in New York City and will be updated as additional information becomes available.

In St. Cloud, Minnesota, police said multiple people were injured at a shopping mall Saturday evening in an attack that possibly involved both a shooting and stabbing. The suspect was believed to be dead.

Hillary Clinton says she has been briefed "about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attack in Minnesota."

She says the nation needs to support its first responders and "pray for the victims."

"We have to let this investigation unfold," she said.

The reports of a possible blast come hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners participated in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. No injuries were reported.

Copyright 2016 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
If voters arent careful, they easily could become confused and vote the opposite of their desires on the death penalty ballot issue that Nebraskans are being asked to consider this fall.

The Nov. 8 ballot will ask voters to choose retain or repeal, wording that is required by state law.

That sounds simple enough. But voters who havent studied up might find themselves rubbing their eyes in the booth when they reach the referendum.

A vote to retain would get rid of Nebraskas death penalty.

A vote to repeal would retain it.

If that sounds backward to you, youre not alone. Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse has been getting questions about the ballot language as he speaks to civic, business and neighborhood groups about the upcoming election. People tell Kruse the language is confusing. It happened again last week when the topic came up as he talked to the Douglas County Board.

Asked by County Commissioner Mike Boyle to explain the ballot item, Kruse started hesitatingly describing it, with Boyle and Commissioner Chris Rodgers weighing in to help.

Retain keeps it without the death penalty, repeal reinstates, Kruse told the board.

Its pretty confusing, but that happens, Boyle said.

It is, Kruse agreed.

Kruse, who was there to brief the board on preparations for Election Day, told members the same two things he told the Millard Business Association last week. One: Election commissioners dont write the ballots, they just print them. Two: The good thing is, theres plenty of time to be an informed voter.

In an interview, Kruse said, It will be very important that voters do educate themselves in terms of what their opinion is, and then which way to vote to express their opinion, Kruse said.

Or at least read the ballot language carefully. Merely scanning through it and then filling in the oval next to the word that seems to represent a voters opinion on the death penalty could lead to voting against their own views.

The retain and repeal wording has no nefarious intent. Rather, it is rooted in what the referendum is actually about, in statutory requirements for how ballot measures are worded, and in how we normally talk about the death penalty.

The referendum is about Legislative Bill 268. The Nebraska Legislature passed the bill in 2015, and overrode Gov. Pete Ricketts veto of it. The bill does away with capital punishment in Nebraska, replacing it with life in prison without parole for first-degree murder.

Death penalty supporters launched a petition drive to repeal LB 268. They collected enough signatures to put the question on this years general election ballot as a referendum. That placed enforcement of the bill on hold.

Voters are being asked to decide whether to ratify the Legislatures repeal of capital punishment.

State law proscribes how such a question must be put to the voters. It says the Nebraska attorney general must write the question, or ballot title, and an unbiased statement that explains the effect of a vote either way.

The ballot title shall be so worded that those in favor of retaining the measure shall vote Retain and those opposing the measure shall vote Repeal, the relevant law says.

Asked to explain how they arrived at the ballot language, the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office staff responded with a written statement.

Under Nebraska law, Neb. Rev. Stat. 32-1410(2), the attorney general is required to prepare a ballot title and explanatory statement for the referendum measure, Chief Deputy Attorney General David Bydalek wrote. The explanatory statement, which precedes the ballot title, is required to explain in clear and concise language the effect of a vote to retain and a vote to repeal the measure.

In this case the measure refers to the passage of LB 268 by the Nebraska Legislature over the veto of the governor. Given this requirement, the attorney general used clear and concise language as required by this statute so that voters would know that a vote to Repeal will keep the death penalty and a vote to Retain will eliminate the death penalty.

The language is a bit of a touchy subject. Death penalty opponents filed a lawsuit over the ballot language last fall against Attorney General Doug Peterson, a death penalty supporter. The suit claimed the language was misleading and unfair because Peterson included the word maximum.

The disputed language states: The purpose of Legislative Bill 268 ... is to eliminate the death penalty and change the maximum penalty for the crime of murder in the first degree to life imprisonment.

Death penalty foes argued that implies that those convicted of first-degree murder could be sentenced to less-than-life terms if voters retain the repeal.

Lancaster County Court Judge Lori Maret ruled that Petersons inclusion of the word maximum did not make the ballot language insufficient or unfair.

Aaron Duncan, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the ballot language itself is clear, if carefully read.

But the way the words are associated in our brains and the mental frame through which we view the language of the death penalty debate makes it look backward.

The national debate is typically repeal the death penalty, repeal the death penalty, or retain the death penalty, retain the death penalty,  Duncan said. If you read the wording closely, its clear. But if you just sort of think of the general frame of the way the debate has happened in our lifetime, then it feels like the sides are on the opposite sides.

It would be simpler to say, Support the death penalty, or ban the death penalty, Duncan said. Thats unfortunately not the way language on referendums works.

People who havent been following the news might not know that the Legislature had passed a law banning the death penalty. If they skim the ballot for key words, they could misunderstand why its on the ballot.

We really have to engage consciously, thoughtfully, and read every word, Duncan said. Thats not something that we do all that often. ... There will be voters on both sides who afterward find out that they voted the wrong way.

Advocates campaigning on both sides of the issue said they recognize that voters could be confused by the ballot language and some may end up darkening the wrong ovals.

I think most Nebraskans will be able to accurately vote the way they want to vote, said Dan Parsons, spokesman for Retain a Just Nebraska, the ballot organization that opposes the death penalty. Possible confusion over ballot language factored into the groups decision to change its name earlier this year from Nebraskans for Public Safety.

Meanwhile, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty recently launched a Vote Repeal campaign that includes a website and Internet video, said Bob Evnen, one of the groups founders.

We will be ramping up the public education campaign, he said.

World-Herald staff writer Joe Duggan contributed to this report.
Andrews, Clayton L. Age 96 Clayton L. Andrews of Norfolk, NE, passed away Thursday, September 15, 2016 at the Countryside Home in Madison, NE where he had been living since October 2015. Born May 5, 1920 in Brush, CO, Clayton was the son of A.R. and Alma (Zachert) Andrews. The family moved to Norfolk when Clayton was an infant. He was a graduate of Norfolk Senior High School and attended Wayne State College where he met and fell in love with a lovely and bright young woman from Wakefield, Vivian Felt. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, serving from 1942 to 1946 as a test officer and operational trouble shooter, and attained the rank of Major. He was stationed for several years at Eglin Air Base in Pensacola, FL, where Vivian joined him when they were married in 1943. After the war, they returned to Norfolk and raised two daughters, Jean and Jane. Clayton was just 14 when he started helping his father, A.R. Andrews, hauling baggage and packages from the Chicago and North Western depot in south Norfolk to businesses downtown. He rejoined the company after the war. He worked in every aspect of the business, including moving household goods, working in the warehouse, driving trucks, crating furniture, overhauling trucks, and working in the office. Inspired by a vision, he expanded the family business into an international moving company, Andrews Van Lines, which operates in fifty states and twenty one foreign countries. He was the president of the Nebraska Motor Carriers' Association, president of the Movers' and Warehousemen's Association of America and received many awards for his service to the industry. He was happy to have kept the business in Norfolk and attributed its success to the loyalty and hard work of his employees. He valued their devotion, as well as their friendship. He was actively involved in Andrews Van Lines until he sold it in 2013. Clayton always had an interest in helping to develop his hometown. He was one of the founders of Bank First and a member of its Board of Directors. He served as chairman of the Norfolk Airport Authority for thirteen years and served on the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce. He contributed to the development of Faith Regional Health Services and Grace Lutheran Church, of which he was a lifetime member. He was especially enthusiastic about being part of the founding and development of Lutheran High Northeast. At the age of 72, Clayton welcomed the opportunity to co-found Orphan Grain Train, a Christian volunteer non-profit organization that ships relief goods to needy countries as well as serving disaster areas in the United States. Using his transportation and leadership skills as vice president/CEO, he helped to grow Orphan Grain Train from one facility in Norfolk to nineteen satellites across the country. He often said that he had been exceptionally blessed in his life and that his work with Orphan Grain Train was his way of giving back and helping others. Until the age 95, he would be found everyday in coat and tie working in his office. Clayton was named Outstanding Citizen of Norfolk in 1993. In 2001, he was honored for his outstanding volunteer work at Orphan Grain Train with the Aquila Award from Concordia Publishing House. He was inducted into the Nebraska Business Hall of Fame by the State Chamber of Commerce in 2011. He was awarded the Lifetime Philanthropist Award by the Philanthropy Council of Northeast Nebraska in 2013. Although Clayton insisted that he didn't have time for hobbies, he kept himself busy with travel (especially in his motorhome), collecting antique cars and trucks, raising and showing horses, collecting and selling antique china and glass, flying small aircraft, and enjoying the family acreage outside of Norfolk. Through the years, family and friends would frequently notice that he seemed to be day dreaming, but they learned that he was always thinking about a new project. In Clayton's opinion, his life was ending too soon, as he had more enterprises and many adventures to come. Clayton is survived his two daughters and their spouses, Jean and Michael Kaliner of Bethesda, MD and Jane and Jess Graber of Aspen, CO; five grandchildren, Aaron (Michaela) Kaliner, Matthew (Melissa) Kaliner, Leslie (Sean) Santa, Annie Graber and Megan Graber; three great-grandchildren, Quinn and Declan Kaliner and Micah Santa; three sisters-in-law, Lorraine Hitz and Lavonne Felt both of Wakefield, and Lois Felt of Denver, CO; numerous nieces and nephews and many friends. He was preceded in death by his wife, Vivian, in 2002 and an infant daughter. The family is especially grateful to the staff at Countryside Home in Madison for their compassion and thoughtful care. FUNERAL SERVICE will be at 10:30am Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at Grace Lutheran Church in Norfolk. Reverend Ray Wilke and Reverend Christopher Asbury will officiate. Burial will be at Prospect Hill Cemetery in Norfolk. VISITATION will be Tuesday from 5pm - 7pm at Home for Funerals. Memorial donations are suggested to Orphan Grain Train, Lutheran High Northeast or Grace Lutheran Church. HOME FOR FUNERALS 1203 Norfolk Ave., Norfolk, NE 68701 402-371-3330
No question, advanced technology is an important part of modern farming and ranching.

GPS provides precise information to guide farm equipment. Combines gather data on crop yields. Producers use cellphones to direct center pivots.

Data analysis for many farms and ranches has reached extraordinary levels. Some producers use sophisticated sensors and even drones.

Change keeps coming. In May, ag-science researchers gathered in Indiana for a competition to demonstrate autonomous prototype robots for seeding.

In France, some vineyards use mechanical pickers to pluck grapes.

And now comes word that scientists in Australia have begun testing ... robot cowboys?

Its true. The prototype, called the SwagBot, was tested this summer in Australias Outback, where cattle operations can spread over enormous distances, such as the 988,421-acre Suplejack Downs ranch in Australias Northern Territory.

Not that the SwagBot looks anything like the kind of cowpoke one would see riding the range in the Nebraska Sand Hills. It doesnt look like a person at all, but instead consists of a large metal box connected by four legs to individual tires. Kind of like a high-tech bread box on wheels.

Researchers with the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney  which has developed robots for mining and aviation  say theyre pleased with the tests so far. The bot navigated around obstacles and operated on its own. Its able to pull a trailer.

It sort of herded cattle, by startling them.

The Australian researchers say they intend to equip the robot with temperature and motion sensors so it can monitor cattles health.

Over the next few months, well be looking at what algorithms we need to put together to allow the animal monitoring, one scientist said.

In Nebraska, its not algorithms but physical skill and independent judgment that have long guided real cowboys in handling their duties.

We dont minimize the importance of technological advances nor the practical value of robotics development, but in a state with 20,000 beef cow operations and 1.8 million head of beef cows, we do feel the need to ask:

Can a robot cowboy rope a steer? Can a robot cowboy lift a calf and free it after its gotten stuck in the mud? Can a cowboy robot fix a fence? Can a cowboy robot get a chuckle over these lines (and refrain from protesting over the bad grammar)? There never was a horse that couldnt be rode, Never was a cowboy who couldnt be throwed.

Can a robot cowboy set out early in the morning in the Sand Hills, look out over a herd moving through dew-covered grassland and appreciate being part of something remarkable?

That something is a Nebraska cattle culture that has shaped the state over the generations in powerful ways. A ranching culture whose traditions and evolution extend back deep in time and place, back to lands and cultures far from Nebraska, to times far removed from the 21st century.

Its true that Nebraskas cattle culture is ever- evolving. Will the day come when it has room for robots? Perhaps.

But surely it will always have room for cowboys.
I knew from the start that my passion for social justice was about to grow, wrote senior Maria Corpuz, blogging about her experience on this summers Creighton University Backpack Journalism trip to Nogales, Arizona, and Sonora, Mexico.

Backpack Journalism is a collaborative, immersive five-week program led by theology professor John OKeefe, Ph.D., and journalism professors Carol Zuegner, Ph.D., and Tim Guthrie, MFA, during which students produce a mini-documentary telling a story of marginalized people. Since 2010, Backpack Journalism has produced four award-winning documentaries. The 2016 film, in its production stages, is tentatively scheduled for screening this fall.

Nico Sandi, a 2015 Creighton graduate, first took part in Backpack Journalism as a student in 2014 and returned as the director of photography for the 2016 project. Sandi believes filmmaking can give a voice to the voiceless. He says the current film is meant to sensitize viewers to the complex issues around immigration.

Within that complexity, these people are human beings and they deserve fair treatment, and a dignified treatment, said Sandi, who will begin a two-year graduate program at Stanford University this fall producing documentaries.

Zuegner said students see the world differently after participating in Backpack Journalism. Corpuz said that during her two weeks in the Nogales region, she gained a deeper, more intimate understanding of the topic of migration and of migrant people.

I know that I will live differently by how I handle myself when encountering strangers, wrote Corpuz. I will meet them where they are and walk with them as my brothers and sisters.

Backpack Journalism recently received funding as part of the new Creighton Global Initiative (CGI)  an effort by Creighton University President the Rev. Daniel Hendrickson, S.J., Ph.D., to enrich and embrace the Universitys global focus.

Sophomore A.J. Olnes said he was inspired to join the 2016 Backpack Journalism trip after learning about the program as a member of the CGI Committee.

It was a privilege to serve on the committee and have an opportunity to help shape Creighton, said Olnes. And through Backpack Journalism, I had a real opportunity to create change through a truly amazing learning experience.

More than 30 campus proposals were awarded nearly $1.5 million in funding in April through CGI. Projects include research initiatives, faculty development, student immersion experiences, scholarships and lecture series.

The projects chosen are innovative and prompt special focus on pressing global issues, such as migration, refugees, climate change, disease and the use of natural resources, all in the interest of further internationalizing the Creighton campus.

Rene Padilla, Ph.D., executive director of global engagement at Creighton, said the Creighton Global Initiative is about global education  building relationships and connections, in an effort to foster greater global understanding.

Fr. Hendrickson said he hopes the Creighton Global Initiative not only provides students with a deeper, more personal perspective on global issues, but also inspires them to be more engaged in their own communities.

CGI will take more of Creighton out into the world, and it will bring more of the world to Creighton.
As a Creighton student majoring in psychology, Kitzi Hendricks was unsure of her career plans. But a senior-year service trip and an internship helped her discover her calling.

Upon graduating from Creighton in 2011, Hendricks, who is originally from El Dorado Hills, California, spent three years volunteering as a Franciscan lay missioner in Cochabamba, Bolivia, with the Franciscan Mission Service.

Hendricks served at a shelter for girls who had suffered abuse and as a human rights advocate for torture victims.

Hendricks initial interest in working with a Latino population began her senior year at Creighton during a service trip to El Paso, Texas. She then interned with the Omaha/Douglas County Victim Assistance Program, working with a victim advocate on domestic and sexual violence cases, the majority of which involved Spanish-speaking people.

I recognized the massive need for advocates who not only speak Spanish, but who understand the context of Latin America, she said.

While searching for postgraduate volunteer opportunities, she found the Franciscan Mission Service website, and discovered that its mission aligned with her interest to serve in Spanish-speaking communities.

I felt called to it, she said.

She spent her first year in Cochabamba volunteering at a shelter for adolescent girls who had experienced sexual, physical and emotional abuse. The next two years, she interviewed individuals who had been tortured during the countrys dictatorships and recorded their testimonies for historical purposes.

Working with torture survivors and consistently hearing so many graphic stories was emotionally draining. But she also felt thankful to be there for the survivors and to possibly play a role in their healing.

The people were so strong. And they confided in me to share their stories and pass them on.

She especially remembers one survivor, an elderly man who lived alone. During one of his interviews, he performed a moving song that he had written about his hurt and loneliness. He told Hendricks that he would like the song played at his funeral.

It was so sad; I had tears in my eyes, she said.

She credits Creighton for nurturing her interest in service and preparing her for mission work: Almost everyone I was surrounded by (at Creighton) had an interest in serving others. And she credits her experience in Bolivia with stoking a passion for service in her personal and professional life.

Hendricks is currently working on a masters degree in counseling psychology with an emphasis in Latino counseling at Santa Clara University. She plans to become a marriage and family therapist who focuses on Latino families, and refugees and immigrants who have experienced political torture and state violence.
In a first, two inmates of Institute of Mental Health tie the knot

TN: Techie Swathi's murderer Ram Kumar commits suicide

Chennai

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Chennai, Sept 18: P Ramkumar, the lone accused in the Infosys techie Swathy murder case has committed suicide in the Puzhal prison in Chennai this evening.

According to police, he bit a live electric wire from inside a switch board and got electrocuted. Following this incident, he was immediately rushed to Govt Royapettah hospital where he was declared brought dead.

Police is yet to announce the cause of the death officially. Incidentally, Ramkumar's bail plea was scheduled to be heard tomorrow.

An accused in the sensational murder case of Swathi, an Infosys employee, Ram Kumar attempted to slit his throat at the time of arrest from his temporary residence in Choolaimedu.

He was arrested by the police based on CCTV footage and circumstantial evidences, which pointed at his involvement in hacking Swathi to death at the Numgambakkam railway station where she was waiting to board a local train to reach her work place on June 24.

Police had recovered his blood-stained clothes and the mobile phone of the victim from his possession.

Meanwhile, according to The Hindu, police officials said, "Since Ramkumar had attempted to commit suicide at the time of his arrest, we arranged counselling at the Puzhal prison where he was remanded in judicial custody. We kept a close watch on his activities. He did not show any signs of depression or suicidal tendencies." They further added, "We are investigating the circumstances that led to the prisoner taking the extreme step."

Despite eyewitness accounts of Ram Kumar stalking Swathi on a regular basis, his famil had maintained that he was innocent and that he was not involved in the murder. An engineering college dropout, Ramkumar was staying in a mansion at Choolaimedu and looking for a job.

OneIndia News
Induction of Congress MLAs into BJP is death of Parrikar's legacy, says outgoing Goa deputy CM

Swaraj, Parrikar, Ananth Kumar: BJP has lost some of its tallest leaders recently

This Goa's Parra village suspends 'photography tax' imposed on Tourists for clicking photos

Goa Election 2022: Manohar Parrikar's son Utpal gets thumbs up from Shiv Sena, AAP

Defence Minister, Army chief to visit Uri

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Sep 18: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army chief General Dalbir Singh will on Sunday visit the army camp in Jammu and Kashmir where an audacious militant attack left 17 soldiers dead.

The early morning attack took place in Uri town.

Defence sources said that six soldiers were also injured in the attack who were airlifted to an army hospital in Srinagar.[Terror strikes at J&K: Rajnath cancels Russia visit]

"Terrorists attacked the rear base camp of an infantry battalion and not the headquarters of 12 Brigade in Uri today (Sunday) morning which is posted on the Line of Control (LoC)," the sources added.

IANS
In a first, two inmates of Institute of Mental Health tie the knot

DMK asks Centre to set up Cauvery Management Board

India

oi-PTI

Chennai, Sep 18: Condemning the recent violence in Karnataka over Cauvery river water issue, Tamil Nadu's main opposition party DMK today sought compensation for those affected by it and urged the Centre to set up Cauvery Management Board.

Asserting that the recent problems over Cauvery river water would not have risen if the Centre had set up Cauvery Management Board (CMB) as per the final award of the tribunal, DMK, in a resolution adopted at its district secretaries' meet, demanded the Centre "to set up CMB immediately."

It also blamed Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for pursuing an "autocratic, unilateral," approach over the issue whereas Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah convened an all-party meeting.

Hitting out at the AIADMK government for "not ensuring" timely inflow of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu for Samba crop cultivation by holding talks with Karnataka, DMK, in another resolution said "due to it, the farmers were pushed to launch agitations to seek water."

Protests began in Karnataka too which eventually resulted in strife and loss of properties, it said.

"This district secretaries meet strongly condemns the violent incidents in Karnataka and urges the state and Central governments to provide compensation to those who suffered losses," the resolution said.

The meet, presided by party chief Karunanidhi and attended by 65 district secretaries, debated on the local body elections as well which is expected to be held next month. Later, party general secretary K Anbazhagan named 29 party poll overseers to monitor civic poll related work in various districts.

On DMK announcing its stand over forging alliance for the civic polls, a senior party leader said the decision would be announced by the party chief later.

"The decision (on alliances) would be announced later by party chief Kalaignar (Karunanidhi) and general secretary Prof K Anbazhagan," a senior leader said. DMK had aligned with Congress besides other smaller parties for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections in May.

PTI
Such josh in there says Piyush Goyal while citing Uri in Budget 2019

India's fight against terrorism at a decisive stage: Amit Shah

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Sep 18: Virtually blaming Pakistan for the Uri terrorist attack, BJP President Amit Shah today said India's fight against terrorism has reached a decisive stage and the Modi government is moving in the right direction to ensure that the sacrifices of soldiers does not go waste.

"Pakistan is trying to cause instability in India by constantly trying to lend support to terrorism and terrorist outfits. India has been constantly fighting against terrorism and this fight is now in a decisive stage," he said in a statement.

Shah added, "The martyrdom of the brave sons of India would not be allowed to go waste and the Central government is moving in the right direction."

He made these remarks while expressing deep sorrow at the death of 17 soldiers in the attack. He paid his tributes to them and prayed for their soul to rest in peace.

PTI
Robots set to displace millions of more US jobs: US economist

'New technique may help zero in on Martian life'

India

oi-PTI

Washington, Sep 18 MIT scientists have developed a novel spectroscopic technique that may help NASA's new Mars rover, to be launched in 2020, find signs of present or former extraterrestrial life on the red planet.

In 2020, NASA plans to launch a new Mars rover that will be tasked with probing a region of the planet scientists believe could hold remnants of ancient microbial life.

The rover will collect samples of rocks and soil, and store them on the Martian surface; the samples would be returned to Earth sometime in the distant future so that scientists can meticulously analyse the samples for signs of present or former extraterrestrial life.

Now, scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US have developed a technique that will help the rover quickly and non-invasively identify sediments that are relatively unaltered, and that maintain much of their original composition.

Such "pristine" samples give scientists the best chance for identifying signs of former life, if they exist, as opposed to rocks whose histories have been wiped clean by geological processes such as excessive heating or radiation damage, researchers said.

The team's technique centres on a new way to interpret the results of Raman spectroscopy, a common, non-destructive process that geologists use to identify the chemical composition of ancient rocks.

Among its suite of scientific tools, the 2020 Mars rover includes SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals), an instrument that will acquire Raman spectra from samples on or just below the martian surface.

SHERLOC will be pivotal in determining whether life ever existed on Mars.

Roger Summons, professor at MIT, said the chemical picture that scientists have so far been able to discern using Raman spectroscopy has been "somewhat fuzzy." Nicola Ferralis, a research scientist at MIT, discovered hidden features in Raman spectra that can give a more informed picture of a sample's chemical makeup.

Specifically, the researchers were able to estimate the ratio of hydrogen to carbon atoms from the substructure of the peaks in Raman spectra.

This is important because the more heating any rock has experienced, the more the organic matter becomes altered, specifically through the loss of hydrogen in the form of methane, researchers said.

The improved technique enables scientists to more accurately interpret the meaning of existing Raman spectra, and quickly evaluate the ratio of hydrogen to carbon - thereby identifying the most pristine, ancient samples of rocks for further study.

Summons said this may also help scientists and engineers working with the SHERLOC instrument on the 2020 Mars rover to zero in on ideal Martian samples.

The research was published in the journal Carbon.

PTI
News Flash: No exchange of sweets at Wagah Border on Diwali

News Flash: Narendra Modi celebrates Diwali with jawans of the ITBP

News Flash: Compensation announced for family of security guard killed by SIMI men

News Flash: MK Stalin's car met with an accident in Tamil Nadu

News Flash: Govt of India has to respect its soldiers, says Rahul Gandhi

News flash: DMK asks Centre to set up Cauvery Management Board

News

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

Sep 18: Jammu and Kashmir witnessed another terrorist attaxt today at 5:30 am. the terrorists attacked army's Brigade HQ in Uri. presence of three to four terrorists is suspected.

Get all the latest news updates of the day:

12:00 am: Navy, Swaraj collaborate on Twitter to help a sick Indian

11:45 pm: Maharashtra CM embarks on 2-day US tour

11:30 pm: Militants snatch rifles from PDP leader's guards

11:15 pm:Nisha Biswal, US Assistant Secretary of State for S. Asia: The US strongly condemns the terror attack on the Indian military base in Uri and extend our deepest sympathies to the victims.The US is committed to partnering with India to combat terrorism which has claimed so many lives in India and the US: Nisha Biswal US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia.

11:00 pm: West Bengal: 'India unites for animals' organized a bike rally in Siliguri to save domestic animals.

Visited injured in Hospital. Given necessary instruction to provide best medical support to them: Manohar Parrikar pic.twitter.com/xZ7MJiEg6e  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

10:45 pm:

10:30 pm: Security beefed up in Karnataka ahead of Cauvery Supervisory

10:15 pm: Kushwaha names Bhudeo Choudhary as RLSP Bihar president

10:00 pm: DMK asks Centre to set up Cauvery Management Board

9:45 pm: Curfew imposed for 5th day in Rajouri

9:30 pm: Chikungunya outbreak in Delhi worst in last six years

9:15 pm: Bihar: Candle light vigil for soldiers who lost their life in #UriAttack carried out by youth wing of LJP in Patna.

9:00 pm: Defence Min Manohar Parrikar & Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh visit Kashmir to review the overall security situati

8:45 pm: Big blast, 29 injuries in NYC; pressure cooker device removed nearby.

8:30 pm: TMC takes over Behrampore municipality

8:15 pm: 13 dead in Thai river boat collision: rescuers

8:00 pm: Swaraj Abhiyan to set up district level legal bodies

7:45 pm: Goa Assembly polls: GFP in talks with Cong for an alliance

7:30 pm: Tamil Nadu: Chennai techie murder case accused Ramkumar who attempted to commit suicide in Puzhal prison, has died.

7:15 pm: Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi to visit J&K, tomorrow in wake of #UriAttack. He will be meeting top State Officials.

7:00 pm: Like PM said that the ones behind these attacks will not be spared and brought to justice

6:50 pm: In an int'l arena, Pak will be isolated if it continues to adopt such measures: FM Arun Jaitley on #UriAttack." It is clear that our neighbour is using terror to create menace in our country, which is also supported by some stone-pelters".

#UriAttack is condemnable. Unity of our country has been challenged by our neighbouring country: FM Arun Jaitley pic.twitter.com/NUbBpQULKI  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

6:45 pm:

6:30 pm: Senior Somali commander killed in suicide car bomb attack: Officials, witnesses (AFP)

6:15 pm: J&K High Court Bar Association, Jammu decides to suspend work in all courts including HC, tomorrow in protest over Uri Attack

6:00 pm: Tamil Nadu: Chennai techie murder case accused Ramkumar attempts to commit suicide in Puzhal prison.

5:45 pm: J&K Guv & J&K CM to meet the heads of Security Forces & Intelligence agencies at Raj Bhavan today to review security situation.

5:39 pm: UP SP President Shivpal Yadav sacks MLC Arvind Yadav due to his alleged involvement in illegal land seizing activities.

5:20 pm: Defence Minister has landed in Srinagar & is being briefed by Army Chief about the ground situation: DGMO

5:07 pm: All intelligence agencies&security forces are working in close synergy & necessary action is being taken agnst various inputs received: DGMO

4:50 pm: Indian army has conducted the entire operation in a deliberate and professional manner: DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh

4:44 pm: Uri attack: Most casualties caused due to fire in tent. 14 soldiers lost their lives due to fire. 4 AK-47 rifles recovered from terrorists who were killed.

4:40 pm: Investigations show that the terror attack at Jammu and Kashmir may have beem carried out by the Jaish-e-Mohammad.

4:36 pm: India will not be cowed down by such attacks, we will thwart the evil designs of terrorists & their backers: President Mukherjee.

4:20 pm: CPI(M) Central Committee asked Pak to stop aiding & abetting extremist forces, while strongly condemning.

4:09 pm: The Indian govt needs to rethink their strategy of isolating Pakistan: Manish Tewari on Uri Attack.

3:50 pm: Uri Terror Attack seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region: J&K CM.

3.30 pm: Security increased near Attari border for the Beating Retreat ceremony in the wake of on Uri Attack.

3.22 pm: Mulayam has made a statement, there is no one above him and we respect his decision: Amar Singh on rift in SP.

3.21 pm: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar leaves for Srinagar (J&K) to take stock of the situation on Uri Attack.

3.00 pm: Special prayers being offered for soldiers who lost their life in Uri Attack in Lucknow (UP).

2.55 pm: Army Chief General Dalbir Singh reaches Srinagar, will meet soldiers injured in #UriAttack (Pic source: Indian Army).

2.49 pm: Rahul Gandhi observes a 30 sec silence as mark of respect for 17 soldiers who lost their lives in Uri Attack.

2.44 pm: US strongly condemns #UriAttack. Our thoughts are with families of soldiers who lost their lives: US ambassador to India Richard Verma

2.39 pm: Jammu: Dogra Front workers stage a protest against Pakistan over #UriAttack.

2.36 pm: I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups: Home Minister Rajnath Singh

2.34 pm: There are definite & conclusive indications that perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped: HM.

2.32 pm: Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such: Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

17 soldiers lost their lives & 4 terrorists were gunned down in Uri (J&K) encounter. (Visuals deferred) pic.twitter.com/7Jo42gY05P  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

2.15 pm: If you term it as terror attack, you're misleading yourself.Only way to handle these attacks is to hit back:RK Singh.

2.14 pm: At 5:30 am in the morning,heard a blast like sound. Later we got to know that Army base was under attack:Uri resident.

2.14 pm: Terrorist groups are just front; these attacks are planned by ISI&Pak army. It's state-sponsored attack: Former home Secy RKSingh on Uri Attack.

2.11 pm: Heard heavy gunfire in early morning hours, and then I saw black smoke outside: Resident on Uri Attack.

2.03 pm: High level security meet at HM Rajnath Singh's residence in Delhi, ends. NSA, IB Chief, Home Secy, CRPF DG, DGMO were present on Uri Attack

2.00 pm: Indian cricket team practice session in Kanpur (UP) cancelled due to heavy rains

Visuals from Uri: 17 soldiers lost their lives and 4 terrorists were gunned down in an encounter. (Visuals deferred) pic.twitter.com/2WbtTVc9me  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

1.52 pm: Delhi: MHA & MoD officials leave HM's residence after attending high level security meet chaired by HM Rajnath Singh

1.39 pm: Kanpur (UP): Indian cricket team practice session ahead of India-New Zealand test match on Sep 22.

1.35 pm: Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation: PM Modi #UriAttack

1.34 pm: We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. Assure nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished: PM Modi

1.33 pm: Terrorism is not the solution to Kashmir issue.Can only be solved through pol dialogue with all stakeholders-Yechury

1.32 pm: Condemn the #UriAttack. Pak must refrain from indulging in cross border terrorism, it should be taken up seriously: Sitaram Yechury

1.27 pm: Govt should stop the diplomacy of sarees, biryanis, sweets & shawls,should send a hard hitting message to them (Pak) instead: Jitendra Singh

1.19 pm: #FLASH Army Chief General Dalbir Singh reaches Srinagar (J&K), will meet soldiers injured in #UriAttack.

1.17 pm: Nanded (Maharashtra): Locals hold a silent protest against Kopardi gang-rape, also demand Maratha reservation

1.12 pm: Govt should see that adequate measures are adopted so that such things do not happen: Goa CM Laxmikant Parsekar on #UriAttack

1.10 pm: #UriAttack shouldn't have happened.GoI needs to be a little more offensive in this regard: Goa CM Laxmikant Parsekar

1.09 pm: Only way to tackle this sending strong message to Pak. We have made blunders by trusting Pak in past: Jitendra Singh

1.08 pm: Condemn the attack. Our condolence to the family of the soldiers who have lost their lives: Jitendra Singh (Former MoS Defence) on Uri Attack.

1.04 pm: Rajnath Singh chairs high level security meet in Delhi. NSA, Home Secy,IB Chief present on Uri Attack.

12.56 pm: A high alert has been sounded in Punjab.

12.53 pm: Alert sounded in Punjab after terrorist attack in J&K's Uri, extra vigil along the international border on Uri Attack.

12.52 pm: Rajnath Singh chairs high level security meet. NSA, Home Secy,IB Chief present on Uri Attack.

12.47 pm: BJP will extend outside support to Pema Khandu's Govt.No plan of BJP-PPA merger yet- Himanta Sarma,Convener of NEDA.

12.31 pm: MHA, Defence Ministry have taken this very seriously. We won't tolerate this: Hansraj Ahir, (MoS, Home) on Uri Attack

12.30 pm: Firing stopped after 8. It is believed that all the terrorists have been neutralised. Now we're rushing to the venue: S Bhamre on Uri Attack.

12.20 pm: NSA Ajit Doval arrives at HM Rajnath Singh's residence to attend High level security meet.

12.20 pm: Unfortunately our 17 soldiers lost their lives; 4 terrorists killed, says MoS for Defence Subhash Bhamre on on Uri Attack.

12.10 pm: High level security meet to take place at HM Rajnath Singh's residence shortly, MHA and MoD officials to attend.

12.08 pm: Rajnath Singh briefs Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Uri attack.

12.07 pm: Separatists, militants, Pakistan part of a conspiracy against India, to create tension in our areas: Nirmal Singh.

12.06 pm: Nepal PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda visits Patanjali Yogpeeth Phase 2,Baba Ramdev also present in Uttarakhand.

12.04 pm: Govt very serious over infiltration in J&K from Pak. This is a big conspiracy against India, says Deputy J&K CM on Uri Attack.

12.01 pm: Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issues alert for all airports across the country in wake of the terrorist attack in Uri (J&K).

11.56 am: We are with the forces, the protectors of our nation who keep it united: Former J&K CM Ghulam Nabi Azad on Uri Attack.

11.39 am: Administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties in Uri (J&K). 17 soldiers have lost their lives in this operation: Army.

11.26 am: Law & order is the most important thing, it should be taken seriously: BS Hooda on Haryana CM's remark on beef controversy.

11.23 am: We are not tolerating such kind of things, & will not do so in the future. Giving appropriate response, says Hansraj Ahir.

11.21 am: Eight injured in Minnesota mall stabbing, suspect shot dead: police (source: AFP).

11.19 am: Defence Minister Parrikar to visit Srinagar today in wake of the terror attack in Uri (J&K), in which 17 soldiers lost their lives.

11.01 am: Jammu and Kashmir will remain on high alert.

11.00 am: 17 soldiers have died in the Uri attack. Four terrorists killed.

10.44 am: Himachal Pradesh: Work underway to rebuild Bailey bridge of Rohtang Tunnel project that recently collapsed.

10.29 am: There was one country in our neighbourhood who did not allow consensus to be reached on this matter: Syed Akbaruddin

10.27 am: Barring a few exceptions, all our neighbouring countries were in full support who spoke out for it: Syed Akbaruddin

10.27 am: US media on New York blast: 27th street device appears to be a pressure cooker with wires, phone and tape

10.25 am: Our suggestion was to have a platform, & we did suggest. Extremely satisfied with the response: Syed Akbaruddin, India's permanent rep at UN

10.22 am: Felt that it'll be useful to have a platform where NAM members can coordinate in terms of what is a major threat to all of us:Syed Akbaruddin

10.21 am: Our idea was to highlight terrorism as a growing & imp challenge to whole world and NAM countries: Syed Akbaruddin

10.15 am: All terrorists gunned down by Army, who attacked Rear Base of one of the unit deployed at Uri (J&K). Search operation on.15 am:

9.59 am: High level security meet to take place at HM Rajnath Singh's residence at 12:15pm, senior MHA and MoD officials to attend the meet

9.55 am: Search op intensified to locate 2 divers, 3 fishermen who went missing after a fishing boat sank off Mumbai coast y'day due to bad weather.

9.50 am: His tongue must have extended in length, because of amount of times he used to criticize Modiji. Now he has cropped it, trimmed it: Parrikar

9.47 am: Defence minister Manohar Parrikar comments on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's surgery, in Goa (September 17)

9.45 am: Home Minister Rajnath Singh personally monitoring situation in J&K, and is in touch with Home Secretary, state Governor and Chief Minister

9.44 am: Hi-Tech City(Hyderabad): 1 dead, 2 injured after a speeding car rams into a group of people working on road divider near Malaysian Township.

9.33 am: 14 were rescued by merchant ship MV Dependable;2 divers were sent after remaining 3 fishermen,bt due to darkness 5ofthem couldn't be located

9.25 am: 5 missing, 14 rescued after fishing Boat 'Dutta Sai' with 17 crew members on board sank 30 nautical miles from Mumbai yesterday due to bad weather

9.15 am: Officials suspect hand of Lashkar-e-Tayiba.

9.10 am: Two jawans reportedly killed. Terrorists were heavily armed. Attack launched at around 5.20 am.

9.08 am: Intelligence Bureau officials say terrorists confined to a particular area at army camp. Gun fire still on.

At least 16 army personnel injured as intense firing continues.

9.07 am: Home Minister Rajnath Singh to meet Manohar Parrikar.

9.06 am: HM Rajnath Singh instructs Home Secretary and other senior officers in MHA to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir #UriAttack

9.05 am: Home Minister Rajnath Singh speaks to Governor & CM of J&K regarding Uri terror attack, they apprised him of security situation in the state

9.01 am: Manhattan New York blast caused 29 injuries, none of them life-threatening: New York fire commissioner: Reuters

8.59 am: New York mayor says there is evidence that explosion was 'an intentional act' (source: Reuters)

8.57 am: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says there is no evidence that Manhattan explosion is connected to 'terrorism' (source: Reuters)

8.55 am: Possible second explosive device found near site of New York City blast: police official on Twitter (source: Reuters)

#Firstvisuals: Terrorist attack at army's Brigade HQs in Uri (J&K). Encounter underway. (visuals deferred) pic.twitter.com/HGWNwjrAZb  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

#Firstvisuals:Terrorist attack at army's Brigade Headquarter in Uri (J&K).Para Commandos of the Army airdrop at site pic.twitter.com/SmJryLvgM3  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

8.40 am: Home Minister Rajnath Singh calls an emergency meeting of concerned officials over the ongoing encounter in Uri (Jammu and Kashmir)

8.18 am: Para Commandos of the Army airdrop at Uri (J&K), where terrorist attack has taken place in army's Brigade Headquarters

8.15 am: Home Minister Rajnath Singh postpones visit to Russia and the US due to situation in Kashmir.

Visuals from the spot of explosion in a dumpster in Manhattan New York, injuring at least 26. pic.twitter.com/2OD43FM0Io  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

8.05 am: Telangana: 5 engineering students died after drowning in Darmasagar reservoir in Warangal yesterday while taking selfies.

7.38 am: Its a non issue. Could be an issue for you, but not a big issue for me: ML Khattar, Haryana CM on beef controversy

7.29 am: A car caught fire in Hyderabad last night, which was later doused.

7.27 am: UPDATE: At least 26 injured after explosion in a dumpster in Manhattan New York: US media

7.22 am: Terrorist attack took place at 5:30 am this morning at army's Brigade HQ in Uri (J&K).

Presence of 3-4 terrorists suspected. Firing underway

7.20 am: Manhattan New York, West 23 street 6 th Avenue, explosion in a dumpster, multiple injured: US media

6.23 am: FLASH: ]Terrorist attack on army camp in Baramulla's Uri (Jammu and Kashmir). More details awaited.

OneIndia News
Sitharaman condemns Uri attack

India

oi-PTI

Bengaluru, Sep 18: Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today condemned the terrorist attack on an Army battalion headquarters in Uri town and said no such threat is going to deter the country from restoring peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir.

"It is absolutely condemnable...They can continuously keep threatening us with these activities, but India is strong enough to take care of its internal security and no such threat is going to deter us from restoring peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir," she told reporters at the BJP's State Women's Executive Meeting here.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured as heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.

Asked about the recent demand of J&K BJP MLAs for "bombing" and destroying terror camps in Pakistan after an attack on a CRPF convoy in the valley that left eight personnel dead in June, Sitharaman said, "Both the Centre and the state government would work towards bringing normalcy and peace in the state."

"As regards the way in which (it) is going to be done, the central and state governments will strategise to work towards it," she said.

On the Cauvery water-sharing issue, Sitharaman said it would not be proper to seek Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention as the matter is under adjudication.

"I think our position was made very clear by our Karnataka BJP President B S Yedyurappaji that the matter is in the court and it is under adjudication. So, it may not be proper to ask the Prime Minister to intervene," she said.

PTI

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Story first published: Sunday, September 18, 2016, 14:58 [IST]
'Shaurya Diwas': Rajnath Singh says J&K entered new era of peace & prosperity after Article 370 abrogation

Pak committing atrocities against people in PoK, will have to bear consequences: Rajnath Singh

India's defence a notch higher with launch of 75 vital BRO projects in 6 states and 2 UTs, including J&K

Lack of development in J&K for decades was one of the reasons behind rise of terrorism: Rajnath Singh

Terror strikes at J&K: Rajnath cancels Russia visit

India

oi-Vicky

Srinagar, Sep 18: Four terrorists today carried out a fidayeen attack at an army installation in Uri Kashmir.10 persons injured in the attack have been airlifted to a hospital at Srinagar.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh who canceled his Russia visit has called for an emergency meeting. He also spoke with the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir while taking stock of the situation.

He has also instructed the administration at Jammu and Kashmir to monitor the situation.

The terrorists part of a suicide squad launched the attack at around 4 AM today.

They entered the administrative block of the camp and fired indiscriminately, officials say.

The attack is very similar to the one at Pathankot that lasted three days. The security forces are still engaged in a battle with the terrorists. The number of persons injured is 16 officials also say.

OneIndia

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Story first published: Sunday, September 18, 2016, 9:20 [IST]
UP ATS nabs 8 with links to al-Qaeda and its affiliate from UP, Uttarakhand

Uri terror hit took place amidst army changeover; death toll likely higher

India

oi-Vicky

New Delhi, Sept 18: The terrorists who struck at Uri today took full advantage of a change over of troops thst was taking place. A changeover was underway at the army base when the attack took place.

Uri, J&K attack: 21 soldiers make supreme sacrifice, 4 terrorists killed

In the attack 11 from the Doghra regiment were killed while 8 were from the Bihar regiment. Official sources say that 17 soldiers have died.

30 soldiers have been admitted to hospital and 20 are in a critical condition. Sources say that the death toll is likely to increase.

The changeover was taking place when the attack took place. Personnel of the Bihar regiment were to replace the Doghra regiment. At the time of the attack several personnel of the Bihar regiment were at the gate.

Intelligence Bureau officials say that the terrorists had entered esrly this morning. Terrorists cannot station themselves too long at the Uri sector as they tend to get reported by the public immediately.

The attack took place around 5.20 AM. A group of terrorists in Army uniform breached security and managed to enter the camp and started firing indiscriminately reportedly aiming at a tent where the jawans were sleeping.

Meanwhile a high level security meeting was held in New Delhi. The Prime MinisterNarendra Modi said that those behind this attack will not go unpunished.

At the high level meeting the next course of action was discussed. Defenece Minister Manohar Parrikar has rushed to Kashmir to take stock of the situation.

OneIndia News
Islamic State bomber detained in Russia for attempting attack in India was recruited through Telegram

Why India should get access to Islamic State bomber detained in Russia

Prosecutions story may be attractive but should be backed by evidence

8 ISIS militants held in Pak's Punjab

International

oi-PTI

Lahore, Sep 18: Pakistan police have arrested eight Islamic State militants who were planning "large-scale" terror attacks on government installations in Punjab province.

The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) spokesman said four members of the terrorist group were arrested yesterday from Lahore, following a tip-off that "terrorists belonging to the IS were planning to attack government installations on a large scale in Lahore and assassination of officials of intelligence agencies."

He said the arrested men also had links with "terrorists who had killed policemen in Lahore and Faisalabad" and they were attempting to trigger unrest in the province.

CTD seized 1,600-kg explosives, safety fuse and four non-electric detonators from them.

In another raid in Chan Qila Gujranwala district, about 80 kilometres from Lahore, CTD in collaboration with intelligence agency officials arrested four other IS members.

They seized weapons and explosives from their possession.

CTD said the arrested terrorists were planning to target officials of law enforcement agencies in Gujranwala.

The Pakistani government has regularly denied the presence of IS in the country, but law enforcement agencies have been arresting IS members from different parts of the country.

PTI

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Story first published: Sunday, September 18, 2016, 9:58 [IST]
Putin says Syrian army honouring truce, rebels 'regrouping'

International

oi-PTI

Moscow, Sep 18: Russian President Vladimir Putin today said Moscow is holding to its part of the Syria agreement, but accused the rebels of using it to "regroup" and called for more transparency from Washington.

"We see attempts to regroup among these terrorists, to switch one label for another, one name for another and keep their military capacity," he said in televised remarks while on a trip to Kyrgyzstan.

"This is what we are seeing and that is sad," he added, saying Washington is facing a "rather difficult problem... to separate the opposition (to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) from terrorists."

He said Washington apparently "has the desire to keep the capabilities to fight the lawful government of President Assad," calling it a "very dangerous path."

"I would like us to be honest with one another and that is how we can move toward our mutual goals (to fight terrorism and achieve peace in Syria)," he said.

"I don't really understand why we have to hide any agreements, but we will of course refrain from revealing any details until our American partners agree to this," he said.

Russia accused the United States of refusing to share details of the closed-door agreement on Syria with the UN Security Council yesterday, which had to cancel its urgent meeting that was supposed to endorse the deal.

"They don't want to make it public because the world community... will understand who is really not abiding to what," Putin said of the deal, in reference to "regrouping" rebels.

Putin said he remained "positive rather than negative" on the deal, which has also been tested by air strikes and clashes amid accusations that Bashar al-Assad's forces are blocking aid from reaching the ravaged central city of Aleppo.

The Russian president insisted Moscow is adhering to its part of the agreement.

"As for Russia, it is fully honouring its obligations," he said, adding Moscow reached relevant agreements with regime forces.

"We have reached agreements with the president (of Syria), with the government of Syria. As we see, Syrian forces are fully abiding by these agreements.

PTI

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Story first published: Sunday, September 18, 2016, 10:13 [IST]
US coalition air strike kills 62 Syrian soldiers, Russia slams US at emergency UNSC meeting

International

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

The US-led coalition on Saturday hit a Syrian army position, killing some 62 soldiers in the air strike and prompting Russia to call an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council and accusing the US of violating the recent US-Russia deal on Syria.

The US said it had mistaken the soldiers for ISIS fighters, AFP reported.

The strikes came with diplomatic tensions escalating between Moscow and Washington less than a week into a fragile ceasefire aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria's five-year civil war.

American officials said the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) group may have hit Syrian military positions.

"Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh (IS) fighting position," a Pentagon statement said, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group.

"The coalition air strike was halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military."

Washington said it was investigating the incident but dismissed Moscow's call for an urgent Security Council meeting as a "stunt".

"If we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention. And we of course regret the loss of life," US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power told journalists as the closed-door meeting got underway Saturday night.

Power described Russia's request for the meeting as a "stunt, replete with moralism and grandstanding," saying Moscow should instead demand a meeting with the Syrian regime to press for peace.

Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin returned by accusing the United States of violating agreements that it would not target Syrian positions.

The Russian military earlier said the situation was deteriorating, adding that the United States would be responsible if the fragile ceasefire in force since Monday collapses.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group gave a toll of 83 soldiers killed, as it confirmed the strikes were US-led coalition raids.

"Warplanes from the international anti-militant coalition carried out four air strikes today against Syrian forces surrounded by IS in the Deir Ezzor air base," a Russian army statement said.

"Sixty-two Syrian soldiers were killed and a hundred others were injured in these strikes."

A Syrian military source inside the Deir Ezzor airport told AFP US-led coalition strikes hit two hilltops near the airport.

Russian military officials meanwhile lashed out at both the United States and mainstream rebels in the strongest language yet over the ceasefire struck last week in Geneva, a last-ditch effort to stop the bloodshed in Syria.

"The situation in Syria is worsening," Russian General Vladimir Savchenko said in a televised briefing earlier.

"In the past 24 hours, the number of attacks have risen sharply," with 55 attacks on government positions and civilians, killing 12 civilians, he said.

In a statement, the Russian defence ministry accused what it termed "moderate rebels" of causing the ceasefire to fail.

Under the US-Russia deal, if the truce lasts seven days and humanitarian access is granted, Moscow and Washington are to work together to target militants including IS.

"If the American side does not take the necessary measures to carry out its obligations... a breakdown of the ceasefire will be on the United States," army general Viktor Poznikhir said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said earlier Saturday he remained "positive" about the truce but accused rebels of "attempts to regroup".

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Story first published: Sunday, September 18, 2016, 13:55 [IST]
US condemns terrorist attack in Pakistan

International

oi-PTI

Washington, Sep 18: The US has strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Mohmand agency of Pakistan, which has killed as many as 28 people and injured many more.

"This attack against civilians at a mosque during Friday prayers is an appalling reminder that terrorism threatens all countries in the region, and we send our deepest condolences to the loved ones of those killed as well as our thoughts and prayers to those injured," said Ned Price, spokesman of the national security council, White House.

The United States, he said, stands with the people of Pakistan against the scourge of terrorism and will continue to work with the government of Pakistan against those "who commit such outrageous attacks".

At least 28 people, including five children, were killed and 30 others injured when a Taliban suicide bomber shouting 'Allahu Akbar' blew himself up inside a mosque packed with worshippers for Friday prayers in Mohmand Agency in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region.

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Story first published: Sunday, September 18, 2016, 9:55 [IST]
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Reprinted from Reader Supported News

Prisoners across America went on strike last week to protest poor wages, a lack of adequate medical care, poor food, and the utter absence of any educational or training opportunities. This doesn't sound like a big deal. But it's unprecedented. Prisoners in the United States are forbidden by law from going on strike. And, indeed, federal Bureau of Prisons regulations prohibit strikes as "interfering with the smooth running of the institution," an offense punishable by immediate transfer to solitary confinement.

I had it pretty easy during the two years I spent in federal prison after blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program. Still, I wouldn't wish prison on anybody. It's dehumanizing, depressing, and as the "greatest country in the world," we should be utterly ashamed of the prison system we have.

Let's look at prisoners' demands.

Wages: The Wall Street Journal reports that many prisoners earn between $0.74 and $3.34 per day. I have news for them. When I worked as an orderly in the prison chapel in the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania, I earned $0.60 per month. That's right. Per month. That's normal in prisons across the country. There are far more prisoners than there are jobs, and there's even less money to pay them. Incidentally, for most prisoners, salaries come from commissary profits. So it's usually prisoner money paying for prisoner labor. But the matter is worse than that.

Many prisoners work full-time in something called "UNICOR," also known as Federal Prison Industries. It is in UNICOR that federal prisoners earn that dollar a day to build furniture, man call centers, and do any number of other jobs. This amounts to slave labor that somebody, somewhere, is making a profit on.

And there are even worse components to it. First, as an example, prisoners at Loretto were put to work making electronic cable for the U.S. Navy. But at a dollar a day, their hearts weren't in it. So much of the cable was deemed to be substandard that it had to be scrapped. Even without labor costs, it was a complete waste of the taxpayers' money.

Furthermore, paying prisoners subservient wages and forcing them to work in a commercial, for-profit enterprise puts other Americans out of work. How in the world can a small company compete with prison labor? It can't. And as a result, Americans are thrown out of work.

Food: My first full day in prison was a Friday. That's fish day in federal prisons across the country. As I was walking to the cafeteria, a fellow prisoner warned me, "Don't eat the fish. Ever. We call it 'sewer trout.'" I stayed away from the fish. But when I got down to the food line, I saw boxes stacked up. They were all marked, "Alaskan Cod. Product of China. Not for Human Consumption. Feed Use Only." It wasn't even human-grade food.

Just before I got to prison, a private food service company, John Soules Foods Inc., "accidentally" sold dog food to prisons to be fed to prisoners mismarked as "ground beef." There was no punishment for the company or its executives, other than a $392,000 fine, the cost of the investigation, paid to the U.S. Treasury. Prisoners got nothing. Not even an apology. And the shame of the story is that nobody could even tell that it was dog food. It tasted the same as everything else prisoners are served.

Medical care is probably the most important of the issues strikers want to see addressed. Certainly, volumes could be written about the abysmal state of healthcare in U.S. prisons. Four people died of preventable medical problems while I was at Loretto. Nobody in the administration cared. Holly Sterling, the wife of imprisoned CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, told me recently that a prisoner near Jeffrey last week asked permission to go to sick call because he wasn't feeling well. The corrections officer denied his request. The prisoner died two hours later of a heart attack.

Prisons routinely deny basic medications, access to a doctor, and any access to outside medical professionals or tests. Many prison officials will admit privately that, sentimentality aside, it is far cheaper for them to just let a prisoner die than to pay for expensive outside medical care.

Educational Opportunities: There are none. Period. In the federal system, educated prisoners teach other prisoners how to get their GEDs. But that's it. In the "good old days," prisoners could learn a skill -- plumbing, electrical, mechanics, etc. The idea was that if they had a skill, they could find a job upon release. That, in turn, would reduce recidivism. But that was in the good old days. Now there's nothing. It's no wonder that recidivism is so high.

I refrained from encouraging prisoners to go on strike last week. I didn't want to be responsible for anybody being sent to solitary confinement, which the United Nations has deemed to be a form of torture. But I support the strike 100 percent. I hope it's successful. And if it isn't, then maybe it ought to become a more permanent action.

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.
See original here

As the polls tighten and the con artist Donald Trump pulls ahead in Ohio and Florida, I am afraid for our planet. From the moment Trump came down his golden escalator with Neil Young's "Rocking in the Free World" playing in the background, he has been reaching out to the deplorable. I believe that even Donald Trump considers them deplorable, but to him they are votes.

The campaign really started five years ago, when Trump reached out to racist bigots for the first time. Donald Trump knew Barack Obama was a US citizen, but he knew if he became a leader in the birther movement he would be creating a base of support for this run for president.

I find racist, sexist, homophobic bigots deplorable, and that is the base of Donald Trump's support. Maybe half -- as Hillary claimed -- isn't accurate, but it might be. It is at least a significant percentage of his base. I know Trump supporters on both ends of the spectrum.

I had a landlord who supported Trump who was a gay man, who I don't think was racist. He was a prison guard who used to be a police officer. We never really discussed immigration, but he was a very compassionate human being who I think was buying into the anti-establishment, "make America great again" rhetoric. He would excuse the missteps and say that he thought Trump was wrong on certain things but it was time for a non-politician to get a chance.

I also had a regular Uber driver who seemed like a good guy. He would talk about Bernie getting screwed and how evil Hillary was. He would say that Trump was flawed but that we needed a business man who understood how taxes and regulations are strangling the economy. But as we dug deeper and he asked me why I thought Trump would be a disaster, the racism surfaced. When I said his involvement in the birther movement was calculated, and his initial refusal to condemn David Duke was a nod to racists voting the next day in the South, all I heard was how the blacks were dragging the country down. We didn't get to immigration.

So today as I sat in the doctor's office watching MSNBC, the only news on the planet was that Donald Trump was going to make a major announcement on Obama's immigration status. Once again, the carnival barker had the media eating out of his hands, waiting, with only a shot of the empty podium. Hillary did take advantage by calling on Trump to apologize to Obama and the country.

Trump spent an hour huddled with his advisers in a holding room at his new Pennsylvania Avenue hotel. He was only a few blocks from the president, who was meeting with John Kasich and other elected officials on the benefits of the TPP. Oooops, maybe the distraction was a good thing for progressives. Finally Trump emerged in a room full of military heroes. The staging was pure Trump. He had Medal of Honor winners and generals, and a Gold Star mom, whom he acknowledged. The vets who spoke were honoring Trump; it was not an event honoring the Medal of Honor winners. It was all about Trump.

The Donald is even blaming Hillary Clinton for one of the darkest episodes of his political career. It is true that in the 2008 presidential campaign, frustrated Clinton supporters were the first to raise the issue of whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States. But they had long since moved on before Donald Trump launched his political career by becoming a leader in the racist birther movement. The media had seen the birth certificate. We had already found the birth announcement in the Honolulu Star. It was already a settled question. It was never an issue for Hillary Clinton or anyone officially in her campaign.

It was a Pennsylvania attorney and former deputy state attorney general Phillip Berg who filed a lawsuit claiming Obama was born in Kenya. The case was dismissed as Berg was unable to show standing. If he had indeed been part of Clinton's campaign, he would have been able to show standing, because the campaign did have standing and would have been harmed if Obama was not an American citizen. So while it was a Clinton supporter, it was not Clinton or her campaign that raised the issue.

In 2009 the House of Representatives passed a unanimous resolution recognizing Hawaii as Obama's birthplace. Only Donald Trump and his racist, conspiracy theorist, birther movement haven't moved on. Trump didn't offer an explanation or an apology at his event. He wants the issue to go away but doesn't want to lose his racist base of support. If he apologized, his supporters would feel betrayed.

When Trump blames our nation's problems on Mexicans, Muslims, and other scapegoats, he is speaking to the same base. His opposition to the TPP comes from a nationalist bent, not a desire to help American workers. It's all a calculated attempt to reawaken Archie Bunker-like voters. The scary thing is it's working. My former landlord is a good guy. He is being conned by a great con artist. We must expose Trump for the fraud that he is.

Bernie is back on the campaign trail

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren headed to Ohio this weekend to help Hillary Clinton. Bernie also hit the cable news circuit and made his case for why we cannot let Donald Trump become president and why we should support Hillary Clinton. Once again, I agree with Bernie. We have already influenced Hillary Clinton's campaign. We have to pressure her after the election to make good on the Democratic platform. If Donald Trump wins, it will be the Archie Bunkers of our country who will have seats at the table. We can't let that happen.

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.
Global Dried Food Market 2016: Industry Analysis, Growth, Sales, Share, Regional Outlook, Forecast to 2022

Dried Food

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Bob McKean, Portland Public Schools interim superintendent, addresses the public.

(Bethany Barnes/The Oregonian)

Standing in the Montana woods this summer, years after retiring from east Portland's Centennial School District, Bob McKean took a call about a job he didn't know was open.

Would he consider working as Portland Public Schools' interim superintendent? He told one friend there was only a 5 percent chance he'd apply.

Oregon's largest school district was in trouble. A lead scandal had spotlighted not just tainted water and dangerous old buildings, but flaws in the central office. Two outside reviews had plainly stated the district lacked basic systems and accountability.

And even though he'd only have to spend 10 months warming the seat for a permanent superintendent, he would nonetheless make decisions about key hires, health and safety -- and, potentially, big budget cuts.

His wife saw something else: Something had been missing for the 70-year-old

s

ince he left as Centennial's superintendent in 2010. Soon, McKean saw it, too. The drawbacks were the draw, he decided. He took over Aug. 29.

"Superintendent work," he said, "is superintendent work."

Portland's pressures, however, have hardly waited to show themselves.

By McKean's second week, he'd endured a tension-filled board meeting over plans for a $750 million school bond. And his office had become a target for parents and students, mindful of the district's longtime struggles with equity, after a call to lock out Benson High School during a protest.

The events offered an early test of how McKean's unity-minded temperament and experience with leading long-term cultural changes might play in a district where time is short and the list of problems is long. They also hinted at McKean's handling of unrelenting scrutiny from activists and others at a time of deep mistrust.

McKean laughed when asked about his eventful first days.

"Can you quote a laugh?" he asked in an interview last week.

Then he grew serious.

"I knew the issues were compelling," McKean said. "I'm prepared to deal with them. I'm prepared to take them on, on behalf of the community."

Working in tandem

McKean was one of five semi-finalists, out of 11 applicants, brought before the school board in August. School board vice chair Amy Kohnstamm confirms she was one of two people who'd asked him to apply. McKean still wasn't sold. He told the board, during his first interview, there was just a 60 percent chance he'd take the job if offered.

But then he thought about another number, he said: the 49,000 kids served by Portland Public Schools. He realized that would mean more responsibility -- and more chances to make a difference -- than he'd ever known. The more he mulled it over, he said, the more he realized he wanted it.

It was the same pull that led McKean into education decades ago, leaving a job with what was then the U.S. Bureau of Customs after three well-paid years.

"I was such a small cog in such larger wheel. I didn't feel like I was seeing the end results of my work," McKean said. "It was the hardest decision I ever made to leave because it was so lucrative on the one hand and my career path was so good -- but on the other hand I just knew that it wasn't fulfilling."

In 1973, he became a teacher in Maryland, kicking off 15 years in the classroom.

In 1989, he became a principal at three Montana schools, and then an assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction in Missoula.

But his jump to Missoula's senior administration began with doubts. The district, created when two other districts merged, had "not a shred of curriculum."

He said he would accomplish what his predecessors couldn't: bring disparate voices on different subjects together on curriculum. One person said he would "never get the math people to agree."

But he put together a team. Once they had the math curriculum in hand and "walked down the aisle to the school board," every step afterward became a little easier, he said.

Later, McKean got his first taste of leading a district when Missoula's superintendent left and the vacancy wasn't filled with an interim.

McKean and another assistant superintendent lead the district for a year, working in what McKean called a "symbiotic relationship."

The arrangement harked back to the years he's spent fighting wildfires as a smokejumper. McKean says he likes to use a crosscut saw, where two people, each holding an end, cut in tandem.

Experience in Centennial

McKean said he moved west, to Centennial, thanks to an itching feeling that he could and should be doing more.

Jeff Dettmann, who served on the Centennial School Board, said McKean's biggest achievement was his ability to get divergent factions within the district moving in the same direction.

"Bob McKean is a very good, quality person," Dettmann said. "And in today's climate, with who is out there, and who is available, I'm sure by far the best candidate."

Although reading and math scores rose significantly on his watch, he ran Centennial during hard economic times. In 2008, the district tried and failed to pass a construction bond to pay for a new elementary school, new middle school, and make address safety concerns such as asbestos.

"The funding situation for education is ruinous," he told The Oregonian/OregonLive in 2009. "Basically, what it's doing is degrading the quality of education for kids. That's the fundamental challenge for every school district."

McKean's months in Portland, which is hoping to pass a $750 million construction bond, may echo his time in Centennial. That will be especially true if the district's revenues fall short, leading to cutbacks.

But Dettmann notes one important difference. He said McKean had support in Centennial from a unified school board. At times, tensions on Portland's school board have been high. Some members have sparred publicly while others pleaded for decorum.

"I don't know how the Portland school board is, how cohesive they are," Dettmann said. "The Centennial school board was a very functional, good school board."

Challenges in Portland

McKean refers to himself as "a builder," someone with a skill set that can change culture over years. Having to work on a short timetable in Portland will test his abilities, he said.

"There is really too much to finish in 10 months," McKean said. "The bottom line is to resolve issues or get them on track to be resolved so that the position will look attractive to top candidates."

McKean said he hopes to meet with each board member and to work with them to identify priorities.

How McKean handles a sometimes-fractious board will be a point of interest.

"The first thing they've agreed on is me. That's important," McKean said. "Because if they support the superintendent, perhaps the superintendent can be part of finding the areas where they agree."

This approach is already apparent.

At his first school board meeting students threatened a sit-in, forcing board members to publicly discuss why they wanted to push a $750 million construction bond from the November ballot to May.

The meeting laid bare tensions in a community McKean is trying to bring together. The board splintered in a 4-3 vote for May amid heated criticism from parents and booing from students.

McKean entered the fray, commending students but asking the public not to "vilify" board members and others.

"We're all here really for the same reasons and it's about those facilities nobody questions that they need to be rebuilt," McKean said. "They're in a dreadful state."

The next morning, students from Lincoln High School walked out of class and marched toward another high school, Benson, that would benefit from the bond.

McKean put Benson under lockout to ensure hundreds of Lincoln students didn't come inside -- a move that put him at odds with students and parents he'd yet to begin winning over.

The lockout meant students from an affluent, largely white school could protest with ease while police stood outside a school whose students are typically non-white and less-privileged.

Students and civil rights organizations said the district had violated free speech rights and demanded an apology. Parents, some who spent years tilting with Superintendent Carole Smith's administration, filed public records requests.

McKean said he'd talk about district policies, but has maintained students were free to leave Benson at all times.

"I don't think we made a mistake. I absolutely don't. We used the protocol we had," McKean told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "Was it perfect for the situation? That's the reason to talk and see if we can do it better."

Some students, however, remain flabbergasted that McKean continues to say Benson students could leave when signs said otherwise and a police stood guard.

"I truly respect Superintendent McKean and his efforts to right the events that happened," Lincoln student leader Marin Christensen, 17, told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an email. "However we cannot polish them up and serve them to the public as though they didn't happen."

McKean said he sees these moments of unease -- and those that likely no lie ahead -- as opportunities. Difficulties can be revealing about an organization, he said, and the lessons that emerge can lead to change.

"I feel pretty confident this is going to be OK, but the jury is going to be out for a while," McKean said. "I have a lot of hope here. I think this is going to work."

-- Bethany Barnes
Trump8.JPG

Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump

(AP Photo/File)

By Jennifer Rubin

Hillary Clinton got slammed by indignant conservatives and members of the media desperate to stir the pot after she said many Trumpkins are "deplorables." Then last Thursday, The Washington Post reported that Donald Trump would not acknowledge President Obama was born in the United States. ("I'll answer that question at the right time. I just don't want to answer it yet." Perhaps when he releases his tax returns?)

Clinton promptly and properly slammed him at a Latino event. "He was asked one more time where was President Obama born and he still wouldn't say Hawaii. He still wouldn't say America," Clinton said. "This man wants to be our next president? When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry?"

Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller then put out a hilarious and blatantly false statement, not even in Trump's name, that said Clinton had started the birtherism and Trump had gotten the birth certificate to put an end to the "ugly" (!) episode. NO, really. Miller had the temerity to write: "In 2011, Mr. Trump was finally able to bring this ugly incident to its conclusion by successfully compelling President Obama to release his birth certificate." The statement also said Trump now believes the first African-American president was born in the United States. (Trump has been asked several times about this in the past couple of weeks and refused to reject the birtherism hooey.) Reporters quickly resurfaced Trump tweets continuing the mantra of birtherism in 2015 and 2016.

Clinton hit Trump again at a gathering of African-American women last Friday morning:

"And we know who Donald is. For five years, he has led the birther movement to de-legitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history.

"Just yesterday, Trump again refused to say with his own words that the president was born in the United States. Now Donald's advisers had the temerity to say he's doing the country a "service" by pushing these lies. No, he isn't. He is feeding into the worst impulses, the bigotry and bias that lurks in our country. Barack Obama was born in America, plain and simple. And Donald Trump owes him and the American people an apology."

And finally on Friday, Trump lured the media to an opening of his new hotel in Washington, whereupon he got an extended plug for his hotels and a slew of endorsements from veterans. He then uttered a single line, "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period." In other words, he used the promise of explaining a five-year racist controversy to plug his hotel. It is always all about HIM. It might seem oh so clever, but it really isn't.

Let's count the problems Trump has made for himself.

1. Trump has proved Clinton's "deplorables" comment correct. We are reminded of his central role in the birtherism conspiracy and the enthusiasm of his fans for it. (One poll found about 60 percent of his supporters did not think Obama was born in the country.) If he won't acknowledge that he was wrong and apologize for being a central figure in a blatantly racist conspiracy, what are we to think of his followers?

2. He let Clinton get back on offense. It helps her re-energize the Democratic base, as we saw Thursday when she spoke to a Latino audience and again today to an African American audience.

3. He guarantees birtherism will come up in the debates.

4. It shows Trump will never admit he was wrong, let alone apologize. (Were you wrong to insist that the first African-American president prove he was born in the United States?) He won't acknowledge -- despite tweets, statements and interviews -- that he was the most prominent figure to fan the flames, not the one to put an end to the ludicrous accusation.

5. He is dead wrong that Clinton started birtherism. And if she did, boy, was he a sucker!

6. Miller's bizarrely awful statement will be fodder as well. We are supposed to thank Trump for his role in the birther nonsense?! ("Mr. Trump did a great service to the President and the country by bringing closure to the issue that Hillary Clinton and her team first raised. Unarguably, Donald J. Trump is a closer.") Was Miller trying to sound as though he thinks Americans are stupid?

7. Donald Trump Jr. -- whose gaffes are now a serious liability -- as late as 2014 praised Trump for his "moral conviction" in sticking to birtherism, which Miller now calls an ugly incident. Hmm. (Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. had his hands full Friday walking back his Holocaust joke.)

8. This gives members of the media a chance to course-correct their bizarre coverage over the past couple of weeks. They collectively can step back from their mock horror over Clinton's "deplorables" comment and her pneumonia. The media may now feel obligated to drop its phony equivalence in light of the confirmation that Trump is a pathological liar and demagogue.

9. It puts the spotlight back on President Obama, whose approval ratings are very high right now.

10. It reminds voters that Trump is a classic bully and coward -- he'll run from a personal confession of error, and then send staff to draft loopy excuses. He'll blame the victim, but never accept responsibility for heinous accusations.

(c) 2016, The Washington Post

Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.
By Ruth Marcus

WASHINGTON -- American voters have received, we are told, all they are going to get from their presidential candidates in the way of medical information. In light of Hillary Clinton's initially (and, if she had her way, permanently) undisclosed pneumonia, in light of Donald Trump's unhealthy body mass index and buffoonish physician, in light of both candidates' relatively advanced ages, this move-right-along admonition is unsettling and unsatisfying.

Experts have raised reasonable questions about Clinton's medical care and history, including her record of blood clots and the use of the blood thinner Coumadin to treat them. And you don't have to be an expert to know that there are reasonable questions about Trump's health, given the willingness of his doctor to issue the assurance that "unequivocally" Trump "will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." No one should trust a doctor like that.

One proposed solution would be for the candidates to submit to the "full McCain," a reference to the Arizona Republican senator's decision to allow reporters to review his full medical records, albeit for a single, three-hour window.

This approach is tempting. After all, running for president -- and being president -- essentially means giving up any claim to privacy. The unique power of the office, combined with the risk of a president suffering from undisclosed health issues and the history of presidents' hiding such problems, argues for tipping the scales in favor of more disclosure, not less.

And yet, the implications of making such disclosure a matter of routine expectation in the end tilt against such a demand. Medical records are more intimate and more susceptible to ignorant misinterpretation than tax returns. The totality of a candidate's medical history is not as important as his or her current health, including whether past issues raise the prospect of future problems.

Consider some scenarios. A future female presidential candidate has had an abortion. The decision to terminate her pregnancy has no bearing on her health, but could be politically explosive and is, in any event, a decision that she should be able to choose to keep private.

Or she has a history of miscarriages, about which she has never spoken publicly. Or a male candidate has a low sperm count or other problem that made it difficult for him to father a child and led the couple to use artificial insemination, something they have not previously revealed. Or he has erectile dysfunction. Are we really comfortable forcing such facts into public view?

How should we think about cosmetic surgery? Trump is reported to have had scalp reduction surgery to fix a bald spot. There's lots of unsupported online chatter about whether Clinton has had some work done. This information feels more prurient than informative.

Likewise, and even more difficult because of the strength of arguments either way, are matters of mental health. A female candidate was treated for postpartum depression. A candidate, male or female, sought marital counseling. Or treatment for depression or anxiety. Relevant or immaterial?

Do we really want to establish disincentives for would-be presidents (they have a history of thinking about this for decades in advance, after all) to seek appropriate help? At the same time, is there not some public interest in knowing whether a past history of mental health issues might be relevant to ability to perform in office?

What about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 percent of boys between 5 and 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. Have their parents just ruined their presidential chances? Assuming their grown-up selves are functioning effectively, with or without medication, is this information relevant?

One proposed and intriguing alternative to the full McCain is having a panel of esteemed and independent physicians conduct a thorough assessment of the nominees.

There may be an even easier way. Presidents routinely release the results of the physicals conducted by the White House physician, who is generally an active-duty military officer.

The candidates could have a similar checkup, consistent with what they would receive as president. A military physician would be considered an independent and trustworthy source, someone who could use his or her judgment to determine what in a candidate's medical history is relevant in the present.

Surely, the president has authority to order government resources dedicated to this enterprise. And surely the voters are entitled to more information, from a more trustworthy source, than they are now receiving.

Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcuswashpost.com.

(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group
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In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad, center, walks on a street with officials in a blockaded Damascus suburb in Syria, last Monday.

(SANA via AP)

By Colum Lynch

When Syria disclosed its long-secret chemical weapons program in December 2013, it presented international weapons inspectors with a hard-to-swallow story: One of the regime's premier chemical weapons facilities - an underground laboratory on the outskirts of Damascus that was designed to fill Scud missiles with a lethal nerve agent - had never in fact produced Sarin.

The inspectors decided they would have to check for themselves. In three visits to the site, known as Hafir 1, specialists from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons started to believe they had caught Syria lying about the extent of its secret chemical-weapons development.

Samples collected at the site revealed the unmistakable presence of Sarin in the equipment used to mix the banned warfare agent and pour it into Soviet-era Scud or Tochka tactical ballistic missiles. They also betrayed traces of precursors for another, even deadlier nerve agent, VX, that Syria did not initially acknowledge using at the site. More signatures of Sarin were detected in two mobile filling units parked aboveground at the complex.

Repeatedly pressed for answers over the last two-and-a-half years, Syrian officials have offered a series of evolving, and often contradictory, explanations that have only deepened the inspectors' doubts. Damascus also claimed to have destroyed virtually all original records detailing its development of chemical weapons, making it all all but impossible to verify Syria's chemical weapons claims.

In a meeting at The Hague with Syrian government officials in April 2016, the OPCW inspectors laid their cards on the table. The samples they collected at Hafir 1 "contain indicators of Sarin and VX, which suggests that chemical weapons may have been produced and weaponized in this facility," they told the Syrians, according to an account of the exchange in a highly confidential report by the OPCW's Declaration Assessment Team, or DAT. Foreign Policy has exclusively reviewed the 75-page report.

The inspections at Hafir 1 - which have never been publicly detailed - are part of a wider effort by the world's chemical weapons watchdog to determine whether Syria has really abided by a high-profile pledge it made three years ago to eliminate, under international supervision, a decades-old program designed to produce large quantities of mustard gas, Sarin, Soman, VX, and other lethal agents.

That agreement, brokered by the United States and Russia and so far seemingly upheld, became the Obama administration's lone bright spot in the five-odd years of Syrian carnage. In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic, President Barack Obama said he was "very proud" of his decision to step back from a decision to bomb Syria and take the deal. The removal of Syria's declared chemical weapons, added Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, constituted "the one ray of light in a very dark region."

But there's growing reason to be concerned that Syria hasn't come fully clean.

While Syria has destroyed the vast majority of its declared weapons program, busting up laboratories and vital production equipment and incinerating more than 1,300 tons of chemical weapons precursors, U.S. and European officials fear that Syria may have retained a limited reserve. Syria's repeated denials that it ever weaponized nerve agents, in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary, has only reinforced suspicions that Damascus may have retained some chemical weapons as a last line of insurance against a threat by the country's myriad armed opposition forces and terrorists.

The intensified scrutiny on Syria's chemical weapons program comes as Syrian forces are again accused of playing dirty. After promising to give up the use of banned chemical weapons as part of the 2013 deal, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has turned to the more common - and still legal to possess - chlorine gas for its chemical arsenal. This month, a U.N.-sanctioned team of experts confirmed that Syria used chlorine in attacks on opposition towns at least twice, while the Islamic State fired artillery shells filled with mustard gas into a contested opposition town. The team is expected to rule soon on whether the Syrian government was responsible for three other chlorine attacks.

The revelations about aspects of Syria's undeclared chemical weapons program are coming to light as the United States is trying to rally support in the U.N. Security Council for a resolution penalizing Syria for those ongoing chlorine attacks. The United States and its allies are also weighing whether to include a provision that would compel Syria to step up cooperation with the OPCW, including being more transparent about the nature of its work at Hafir 1.

But Western officials have cautioned that Russia, Syria's primary military backer and a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, is expected to push back on any significant effort to punish or pressure Syria.

The growing accumulation of physical, if not documentary, evidence of a larger-than-declared Syrian weapons program concerns weapons inspectors, because of Syria's possible future use and what it might confirm about Syria's alleged past use of the deadly agents.

Early Aug. 21, 2013, Syrian regime forces allegedly launched a barrage of at least a dozen Soviet-era, Sarin-filled, 140mm and 330mm artillery rockets at the Damascus suburb of al-Ghouta, killing as many as 1,400 people, according to U.S. estimates, and bringing Washington to the brink of military intervention in Syria. It was the largest use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein gassed Halabja in 1988.

There is no doubt that Sarin has been used. In al-Ghouta, U.N. investigators collected blood, hair, rocket fragments, and soil confirming its presence. But Syria denies having developed a line of artillery munitions capable of delivering a payload of Sarin, including the 140mm or 300mm rockets. The Syrian opposition, they claim, bears responsibility for the attack. Russia has backed that claim, as has the journalist Seymour Hersh in a highly controversial article in the London Review of Books.

But the United States, France, and other outside observers say the evidence points directly at Syria. Damascus has used similar rockets in previous conventional attacks on opposition forces, and it alone has the capability to produce the hundreds of liters of Sarin expended during the attack.

"The rocket that had been used in eastern Ghouta has only been seen in the hands of the government," said Nadim Houry of Human Rights Watch. "It could not have been a backyard operation. The rocket-delivery mechanism has not ever been seen being used by any opposition forces in Syria."

Regime fingerprints in attacks like the one in al-Ghouta explain the government's continued evasiveness about the scope of its chemical weapons program, some experts suggest.

"Clearly they are trying to avoid responsibility for that attack," said Gregory Koblentz, director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University. "Showing the OPCW that they have these munitions is kind of a smoking gun, since the presence of those munitions has been clearly associated with the delivery of [a] nerve agent on a civilian population."

It was concern over just that possibility of hidden munitions that prompted the OPCW to send a team to home in on the inconsistencies in Syria's claims in the wake of the 2013 deal. Syria declared that it had produced enough munitions to carry about 315 tons of mustard, Sarin, and VX; they were promptly destroyed. But Syria had produced five times that much precursor - what for, if there were no missiles or shells to pour it into? Syria subsequently admitted building an additional 2,000 aerial bombs for Sarin and VX. But that still left more than 800 tons of surplus chemical weapons precursors.

In 2014, the OPCW established the Declaration Assessment Team to dig into just that. The inspectors collected samples from soil, concrete, and metal scrap in a network of some 28 military and industrial labs and research facilities throughout the country and have had some success.

They found traces of chemical warfare agents at labs run by Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Center in Barzah and Jamrayah, facilities that Syria had never declared as chemical weapons sites. The inspectors coaxed Syria into acknowledging plans to weaponize Ricin, a toxin. Damascus at first denied it had, then conceded it experimented with weaponized Ricin on rats, but says it gave up and turned it into a medical research program.

Additionally, Syria acknowledged establishing an underground chemical weapons facility called Al Sayed, about 25 miles west of Homs. It was meant to mix the key ingredients of Sarin - methylphosphonyl difluoride, also known as DF, and isopropanol - and pour them into munitions. But, Syria said, the project was never completed.

On March 27, 2015, international inspectors visited Al Sayed to find out. They collected soil samples and found traces of Sarin's main ingredients, indicating that "the facility could have been used to weaponize Sarin and VX."

Pressed, Syria offered varying accounts. One explanation: International sanctions had compelled Syria to cannibalize equipment for Al-Sayed from other chemical weapons laboratories where limited experiments on the warfare agents had been undertaken. Or, the conflict forced Syria to move equipment around the country to prevent opposition fighters and extremists from getting their hands on it. Some traces of the lethal agents may have been tracked in by truck tires transporting material from other sites, the Syrians explained. Or maybe during all the unrest some isopropanol spilled on an old DF stain, Syrians suggested.

Syria's claims, the report stated, "did not seem scientifically plausible," the report stated.

Syria then tried another tack. In May 2016, officials in Damascus told inspectors they'd just learned about a top-secret 2005 experiment to combine Sarin and VX in a single explosive. They said the head of Syria's chemical weapons department carried out a test with a missile warhead. But all it produced was an eruption of the liquid ingredients, a large spill, and a cloud overhead. Maybe that's where the telltale samples came from, Syria suggested.

But the regime's officials provided no original documentation describing the alleged test and said the warhead had been subsequently destroyed, making verification impossible.

(c) 2016, Foreign Policy via The Washington Post
By Leonard Pitts Jr.

Late in the day, after most of the camera crews and reporters who turned out for a media preview of the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture have packed up their cameras and digital recorders and gone away, an unaccompanied Jesse Jackson comes walking through.

He is recognized by a few of the remaining reporters; They call out to him, but he affects not to hear, striding past at a brisk clip, the way famous people do when they don't want to be waylaid. When he is finally cornered by an intrepid young man for a photo, Jackson obliges - the graying, 74-year-old lion of the civil rights years posing next an image of his Afro'd and goateed younger self leading a march somewhere, some-when - but it seems pretty clear he'd rather be left alone.

Which is a mildly remarkable thing. Jackson, after all, is known in media circles as one of the more accessible public figures there is, a man who never met a camera he didn't like. But on this day, he exudes the palpable sense of a man who wishes he could just stand by himself in the miracle of this museum and take it all in.

Of course, the miracle is not yet finished. Work crews are still hustling back and forth, equipment carts are all over the place, some display cases are still empty, some videos play without sound, Emmett Till's casket has not yet been installed. The Museum hurtles toward its scheduled Sept. 24 unveiling on a wing and prayer.

But the fact that there will even be an opening is perhaps the biggest miracle of all. The push to celebrate African-American history on the National Mall began 101 years ago with a proposal by the Committee of Colored Citizens of the Grand Army of the Republic, a group of Civil War veterans. In 1988, then-freshman Congressman John Lewis introduced a bill to create the museum. It failed.

Lewis, a quietly stubborn bulldog of a man, reintroduced his bill every year for the next 15. He was repeatedly blocked by Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, the conservative segregationist. Eventually, Lewis simply outlasted him. Helms, beset with health problems, left the Senate in 2002. The next year, President George W. Bush signed Lewis' bill into law. In 2012, Bush's successor, President Barack Obama, participated in the groundbreaking. Both presidents will participate in the opening.

The facility they will celebrate stands out starkly from the white limestone, marble and granite structures that dominate the Mall. The Museum of African-American History and Culture is a three-tiered building covered by cast-aluminum panels colored a striking bronze. Inside, it seeks not simply to tell a story, but to frame a contradiction, a moral incongruity, that has defined...haunted, this country since before this country was:

How can America be both land of the free and home of the slave?

That contradiction is made vivid in a display depicting Thomas Jefferson and the founding of the United States. High on a wall behind the third president are his deathless words about the self-evident truth of human equality. In a display case to his left are shackles for the binding of human property. Stacked behind him are bricks bearing the names of the generations born from his defacto rape of Sally Hemings, a woman he owned.

To reach that display, you must pass through a series of dark, low-ceilinged chambers depicting the origins of the American custom of people buying. As you enter, you read the following 1788 quote from British poet William Cowper: "I admit I am sickened at the purchase of slaves, but I must be mumm, for how could we do without sugar or rum?"

The Museum marshals a fleet of statistics to illustrate the dimensions of the trade that so fleetingly troubled the poet's conscience. From 1649 to 1802, you learn, Denmark transported 85,000 slaves to the America. Between 1549 and 1818, France imported 1.4 million. Between 1562 and 1807, Great Britain brought in 3.3 million.

A quarter of a billion dollars is the "value of cotton produced by enslaved African Americans in 1861;" $3,059,000,000 is the "value assigned to enslaved African Americans in 1860." Those sums, keep in mind, represent 19th century dollars.

You are out of sight of Thomas Jefferson by the time you encounter those figures. You are one floor above him when you come across videos of the racial violence African Americans encountered in the years after Jefferson's contradiction burst like a boil into Civil War. There is no sound, so you watch in silence as a crowd in Marion, Indiana, poses in 1930 with the hanging bodies of Thomas Smith and Abram Shipp the way hunters might with a lion carcass, and a little white girl grimaces (or is that a smile?) up at the manacled body of Rubin Stacy in Fort Lauderdale in 1935.

And if capturing the contradiction of America is one of the museum's core challenges, here is another: how do you tell this story? How do you do it justice in a nation of historical illiterates wedded to conscience-salving myths of what they think the past was about and resentful of anyone who would deny them the comfort of their lies? How do you tell these ugly truths when so many white people recoil from black history because it makes them feel guilty and uncomfortable and so many black ones do the same because it makes them embarrassed and angry?

There is, after all, a reason the rapper Snoop Dogg railed against this year's remake of "Roots" and it had nothing to do with script, acting or production value. Some people, simply don't want to know these things.

Lonnie Bunch, the founding director of the museum, says he was aware of that challenge coming in. "We spent a lot of time the first two years interviewing people, what they knew, what they didn't want to know. People either wanted to know everything about slavery or nothing about slavery. What I felt was that our job was to give the public not just what it wanted, but what it needed. Therefore, we thought about, how do we tell stories that would allow us, (as) African Americans to, quite candidly, no longer be embarrassed by their slave ancestors, no longer be embarrassed by the struggles their community had?"

It was important, says Mary Elliott, co-curator of the Slavery to Freedom exhibition, not to give visitors a sugarcoated history. "I hope they really see the unvarnished truth of this story of slavery," she says. "We talk about the harsh reality of slavery, but it's juxtaposed against the resistance, the resilience and the survival of a people. It's also the story of how African Americans really helped to define the nation, shape the nation, physically, geographically, culturally, socially, politically, economically. We want people to see all that. And we want people to see that juxtaposition of profit and power against the human cost."

At the same time, she says, it is important to balance that painful truth with the thing that has always leavened and ennobled African-American struggle, including John Lewis' struggle to bring the museum itself into being. Meaning, the stubborn belief that hard work and faith will always, eventually, force the dawn. Martin Luther King spoke of the need to "hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope."

"It is not an exhibition of guilt or shame," says Elliott. "It's an exhibition about American history told through the African-American eye. It's for all of us to think about and to talk about so that we can get to the next stage."

It is, says Bunch, important "to be able to say , at the end of the presidency of Barack Obama, that this museum will be a safe space to have those conversations to help you understand what has gone on before, not simply to look back in nostalgia but to use that as a useful tool to understand the world we're living in today."

Indeed, this museum arrives at particularly pregnant moment. The triumphant election and re-election of the nation's first African-American president has ripped open a seam of racial bile. You would have to go back to the 1950s to find a period when African-American people felt more under siege.

In 2016, the Voting Rights Act lies in shambles courtesy of the Supreme Court, and the state of North Carolina was just caught trying to steal the ballot from black voters. Chicago is a daily heartbreak - and South Florida is not far behind. The War on Drugs has been unmasked as a war on African-American men, a program of mass incarceration seeking to reimpose Jim Crow under new management. A spate of unpunished killings of unarmed African Americans - Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin - has people marching and urban areas exploding like America hasn't seen in fifty years. It has become controversial to assert that "black lives matter." And it seems grimly fitting that the Republican Party has chosen a white supremacist to replace the first black president.

Into all of that comes this repository of the stories that have made us. And it is hard to fault Jesse Jackson or anyone else who just wants to stand and absorb, who finds value in being reminded, as the gospel song puts it, "how I got over."

So a bill of sale for a human being gives way to the two room house a pair of former slaves built to prove to themselves they were free, gives way to a segregated train car, gives way to the dress Carlotta LaNier wore when she tried to enroll at Central High in Little Rock, gives way to Richard and Mildred Loving going all the way to the Supreme Court just for the right to be married to one another.

In one gallery, The Temptations are singing

"The childhood part of my life wasn't very pretty,

See, I was born and raised in the slums of the city.":

In another, Malcolm X is making it plain:

"We declare our right on this Earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being, in this society, on this Earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary."

Projected on a wall, Bill Russell takes a sweeping hook shot. Muhammad Ali roars down at Sonny Liston. James Baldwin works at his typewriter, Barack Obama strides the columned walkway of a white mansion built by slaves.

And is it not true that a people who can go from the depths of a slave ship to the pinnacle of power can do pretty much anything? Therein lies the ultimate value of the building that has taken shape at 14th and Constitution within sight of the Washington Monument. It forces us to remember that, though these are besieged days, they are not the first such days we have known. The story is ongoing, African Americans still in the process of becoming.

Because the museum is not the only miracle that isn't finished yet.

(c) 2016, The Miami Herald

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald. He can be reached at lpitts@MiamiHerald.com
Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin

(Associated Press)

Separation of powers: Please explain to your readers that at the beginning of this republic the founders considered whether to make George Washington the king. Washington said he did not wish to do that. In the proceedings of the Constitutional convention, there is a discussion of how the founders put together a government specifically not to allow for a one-man rule.

The decision to have a separation of powers ensured that no one person could become the sort of leader that Vladimir Putin is in Russia. They worked very hard at it, and it has served this republic well for 240 years. Our system of government simply won't allow for it.

No presidential candidate should ever claim to admire a foreign strong leader and claim to want to emulate it here. It flies in the face of every fundamental American value since the Constitution was ratified. It is unconstitutional on its face. Anyone claiming that should never become president.

Don Homuth

Salem
Zoo should reflect our values: Dear Portland Community: Please do not support the Oregon Zoo in its decision to acquire Nora the polar bear or the construction of its upcoming new exhibit, Polar Passage. These misguided additions are a step backward for any progressive zoo.

We in the Pacific Northwest take pride in being national leaders for conservation and animal issues. Why is the Oregon Zoo not on the cutting edge of zoo innovation?

As we learn more about animal cognition and well-being, it becomes clear that polar bears are a species of concern in a captive setting. They are particularly prone to zoochosis -- obsessive and repetitive movements, such as pacing and head-bobbing. Zoos should be phasing out species prone to psychological problems, not adding more.

Species conservation is not an excuse, either. Nora was not born to be part of a captive breeding program to help her wild relatives. Habitat loss and climate change are the primary issues polar bears face, and this is where resources should be allocated, not in breeding more bears for zoos. More space, money and education should be placed into valid conservation programs. The California condor project is an excellent example of meaningful zoo focus.

People love the Oregon Zoo. We deeply care about the individual animals currently there and want to be part of a zoo that is not blindly following the status quo. We want real and substantial innovation on animal welfare and conservation issues. Let's urge our zoo to take leadership in the zoo community and reflect our values.

Michelle Mintmier

Beaverton
The proposed Bears Ears National Monument is a locally and nationally driven proposal to protect the invaluable resources of the canyon country in southern Utah. This area, near the Abajo Mountains and just North of the San Juan River is under significant threat from UT Representative Bishops Public Lands Initiative (PLI).

Not only will this ineffective and poorly designed legislation derail federal protection of this culturally and ecologically important resource; it will also set an alarming precedent. If the PLI moves forward, we may see a new era in land management in the west, in which short-sighted, narrow-minded, and irresponsible land uses will occur, with potentially serious effects on the plants, animals, and people of the region.

In fact, Bishops PLI will actually DECREASE the current amount of wilderness protection by removing 62% of inventoried lands, and rolls back 170,000 acres of existing Wilderness! Study Areas in other areas of Utah. Even more concerning, is the transfer of large blocks of federal land to the state of Utah, which contain significant oil and gas resources.

As cultural, scientific, and influential leaders of the Colorado Plateau, I urge the Flagstaff community to pay attention to this issue, as it will have a significant effect on our canyon headwaters, arid lands, and rural communities that depend heavily on the landscapes ecological integrity, its unparalleled beauty, and most importantly, the spiritual value of these lands to many cultures, both in the past, present, and future. for more information go to http://www.bearsearscoalition.org/proposal-overview/

CHRIS BENSON

Flagstaff
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Although Jack Hobey spent much of his early life in Midland, he had never heard of the 1937 robbery of the Chemical State Savings Bank on Main Street until a few years ago.

I would never have done anything with this if the bank robbery hadnt occurred in Midland, Michigan, Hobey said in a recent phone interview from his home between Boyne City and Petoskey. That intrigued me and I got into it.

In his new book, Lawless Years: The Tony Chebatoris and Jack Gracey Story, Hobey details the lives of the two men who robbed the bank on Sept. 29, 1937, and the notoriety that surrounded the case.

The story is primarily set in the 1920s and 1930s - Prohibition and the Depression, Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger  Its a very vibrant time in the history of this country, Hobey said.

The Midland bank robbery was one of many that occurred in the state during the period, but it was exceptional for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, a bystander, Henry Porter of Bay City, was shot by Chebatoris during the robbery and died the next month.

Gracey was shot and killed during the robbery by a dentist who had an office in the building next to the bank. Chebatoris was wounded but survived and was captured.

He was tried in federal court under a then-new bank robbery law and sentenced to death. The other distinctive feature of the case is that Chebatoris was hanged at the federal prison at Milan in 1938 - the only person executed in Michigan in the last 180 years.

It was that distinction that drew Hobeys attention to the story. He saw a mention of Chebatoris in a news story about an alleged murder in a national forest near Ludington. In that case, the alleged murderer could face the death penalty because the murder was committed on federal property - despite the fact that Michigan does not have the death penalty.

Hobey, who lived in Midland from 1952 to 1967, previously wrote Lost Boys: The Beulah Home Tragedy and Wish You Were Here: The Edward Beebe Story.

Lawless Years provides impressive detail on the backgrounds of Chebatoris and Gracey, who spent much of their young adulthood in prison. The men met at the state prison in Jackson and were both involved in an unsuccessful escape plan in 1928.

By 1937, both men were out of prison and Gracey had been involved in several bank robberies. He had been casing the Midland bank for about a month before the robbery. He and Chebatoris - both living in the Detroit area - met in a Hamtramck pool room in September 1937, where Gracey told Chebatoris about his experience in robbing banks. Gracey invited Chebatoris to join him in robbing the Chemical State Savings Bank (now known simply as Chemical Bank).

Chebatoris came to the Detroit area from western Pennsylvania - and Hobeys research took him there as well as other places.

I traveled to western Pennsylvania, the Detroit-Hamtramck area  obviously I spent time in the Tri-Cities, he said.

One factor in the story - particularly for Chebatoris - was inadequate advice from attorneys.

Its a story where you can definitely see the advantage of having good legal counsel as opposed to having bad legal counsel or no legal counsel, Hobey said.

For example, the court-appointed attorneys for Chebatoris told him he had no grounds to file an appeal after he had been sentenced to death - even though Hobey describes how prosecutors simplified, streamlined and trimmed the charges against Chebatoris to fit precisely within the framework of the 1934 National Bank Robbery Act.

His attorneys, Hobey writes, swore in court that they had no basis for making an appeal on behalf of Anthony Chebatoris, no reason to be involved any further with the man. The attorneys told reporters after his brief sentencing hearing that they hadnt even seen their client since his trial ended a month earlier, with one of them stating, There will be no appeal unless he gets some money and some new attorneys.

Another factor in the Chebatoris-Gracey story is the role of negative influences in their lives.

Gracey was in trouble early in life and was part of a gang by the time he was 15. Chebatoris was in prison by age 22.

One theme of the book is that the friends you choose, the associations you make when youre young have a great influence on your life, Hobey said. Particularly Gracey and those guys he hung out with, you can definitely see that influence.

The reader gets a feel for the difficult circumstances of their lives, as well as the problems caused by their running with a bad crowd. A factor in the path they chose, Hobey suggested, is that both went to prison for so long when they were so young.

Hobey dedicates the book to the Meadowbrook Boys 1957-1965, and although he wouldnt say too much about the group, he indicated that it shows how the company one keeps at a young age can have an influence for good.

There will be people who definitely will identify with that, he said.

The book is available for sale at www.barnesandnoble.com
Midland resident Tom Wright, who shared this photo from 70 years ago, said he was 8 when he started his afternoon Daily News paper route, servicing the area of Haley, Swede, Second (now Patrick Road) and Saginaw Road. There was no Virginia, no Ohio, just Maryland and Swede, he recalled. He used money earned from his 25-paper route to buy his Shetland pony, Annie. His brother, Jimmy, directed Annie while Tommy delivered the papers from the carriage. Wright said Haley was not yet paved in the photo. His paper route soared to 125 papers when service members returning to the United States moved into houses in Wrights delivery area. Wright said he also helped develop and deliver a route of other newspapers in the morning before school. He delivered newspapers until he was 18. Wright retired from The Dow Chemical Co., after 45 years of service. Wright, 83, manages a security agency now.
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Forty employees from The Dow Chemical Co., representing 25 sites in 16 different countries departed for Cebu, Philippines earlier this month to join NGOs, social entrepreneurs, universities and government agencies to address pressing local challenges.

The Dow employees are focusing their efforts on six distinct projects that seek to advance access to clean water, increase production of high-quality food crops and support product commercialization, among other challenges.

Five local Dow employees joined the effort  Anthony Mitchell, Cynthia Smith, Rebekah Feist, Anthony Mitus and Sadie Bell.

Bringing together Dows incredibly diverse talent and expertise with dedicated NGO, government and academic partners creates the perfect formula for addressing critical societal needs, said Andrew N. Liveris, Dow chairman and CEO. This type of collaboration demonstrates Dows commitment to redefine the role of business in society. It is the Human Element at its very best.

Employees spent one week in Cebu, a culmination to efforts that began in April with the six teams collaborating on the following local solutions:

 Increase access to sufficient and affordable safe water on the Buhisan Watershed, for personal consumption and ornamental plant production, which is the basis of their livelihood.

 Establish business solutions for branding, marketing and packaging of pork and milk products to make them competitive within the mainstream market, without compromising affordability for the current urban poor partners.

 Develop global linkages and networks with foreign universities and organizations to improve the professional employability of graduates of the agricultural programs, as well as develop partnerships with various industries for collaborative research and product development.

 Promote the production and commercialization of dried food products that are accepted by local and export market consumers through the development of a solar and boiler hybrid dryer.

 Educate farmers on techniques to increase the production of high-quality crops, reduce post-harvest loss and support their financial literacy.

 Develop recommendations for funding sources and methodologies to assess the water quality and volume of Tinago Creek as a pilot for subsequent river rehabilitations throughout the city of Cebu.

These projects are part of Dows commitment to global citizenship, its Leadership in Action program and the companys 2025 Sustainability Goals, specifically Dows pledge to cross-sector collaboration in order to advance a sustainable planet and society.

Dows work in the Philippines supports its strategy in the Asia Pacific region, where the company is growing its presence and impact. Beyond the tangible business benefits, however, are the intangibles gained by the employees who participate, including leadership development, changed perspectives and new insights into how people, products and skills can impact our world. While striving with others to deliver social benefit and business value, the Dow leaders become visionaries for new business opportunities and improved global citizenship.

Since its inception in 2013, 159 employees have participated in Leadership in Action, working with 29 NGOs to benefit communities near Accra, Ghana; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Surabaya, Indonesia.

Leadership in Action is an investment in the leaders of tomorrow, who in turn are making an investment in the Dow of tomorrow and in the future vitality of the community they are helping, said Johanna Soderstrom, corporate vice president of Dow Human Resources. For Dow to achieve its goal to redefine the role of business in society, our future leaders need to have a deep understanding of the critical needs of society.
Join the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library this fall as it pays tribute to several of the larger-than-life personalities and events that shaped our country with a series of four free programs.

The series, entitled Our Founding Fathers, will look at how those people and events still have an effect on where we are today.
The perfect storm hit Sanford Lake causing a serious algae problem. Earlier this month, lake residents were greeted with an algae bloom, causing lots of concern on the lake that is a enjoyed by many.

Fortunately, Progressive AE is scheduled to complete its annual survey this time of the year to gauge the overall health of the plants in the lake. A large part of that survey was concentrated on the algae problem.

Thursday, members of the Sanford Lake Improvement Board heard a report from consultant Progressives Paul Hausler regarding the algae problem.

Water sampling

On Wednesday, Hausler visited Sanford Lake and took samples, then delivered his report on Thursday to the Sanford Lake Improvement Board at Jerome Township Hall.

One positive he mentioned happened to be the not-so-popular early draw down of water by Boyce Hydro. Even though it cut short the boating season, it will help with the algae problem.

The good news is that they are doing this draw down now, and the algae is probably going to go downstream, Hausler said.

Hausler took samples at three depths: the surface, 15 feet and 27 feet. Most of those samples have been sent to a lab for definitive testing.

The 15 foot sample wasnt much different than the surface, but the 27 foot one was clearer, answered Hausler, when asked if the algae was down deep in the water.

Also taking samples was the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which was looking for microcystis algae, a blue-green algae. Microcystis is a health concern because it triggers the production of a toxin called microcystin, a bacteria in the water.

When it produces that toxin it can potentially cause health concerns usually for dogs or someone that is actually drinking or ingesting the water, Hausler said. A human would have to ingest gallons of water to be harmed by the microcystin. But, dogs can easily go down to the lake and drink water along with cattle or other animals.

One attendee asked how harmful toxins are to fish.

It doesnt do anything to the fish. The fish dont eat the algae, they spit it out, Hausler responded.

Causes

I think you had the Perfect Storm this summer. You had a mild winter, when the spring came you had above normal algae, Hausler said. What really enhances the bloom is the water temperature stays warm. Then you had an increase in phosphorous, which promotes algae growth with warm weather and sunshine.

Two major sources of phosphorous in the Sanford Lake area are septic tanks and run off from farm fields.

We dont have a sewer system around the lake. But, dont think that our septic fields, even though they are working well, are not contributing nutrients to the lake. They are, stated Doug Enos, Sanford Lake Improvement Board chairman and Midland County drain commissioner.

During the year, the Sanford Lake Association takes water samples, beginning in May, measuring the phosphorus.

Hausler stated that lakes are classified into three different classifications: less than 10 parts per billion is considered oligotrophic or a very clear lake such as Torch or Higgins lakes. Ten to 20 ppb is considered mesotrophic, above 20 is eutrophic and anything over 50 ppb is considered hypereutrophic.

The Sanford Lake Association measured Sanford Lake in the 20s during June, by July it was up to the upper 20s. August saw a spike into the 40s and 50s.

Hypereutrophic lakes typically dont have any plants in them because the algae shades the plants out. In a river situation, the phosphorous levels can fluctuate like they did this summer, Hausler said. If you sample phosphorous during a rain storm, with the runoff, it will be 10 times higher.

A lack of zebra mussels also may have contributed to the bloom.

What zebra mussels do is they filter the water, Hausler said. They eat a lot of the algae that is floating around in the water.

A study by the Kellogg Biological Station on Gull Lake found that zebra mussels die when the water temperature reaches the mid 80s for a three or four day stretch.

Just because they crashed this year, doesnt mean they wont come back next year, Hausler said.

Possible fixes

Hausler stated there is not a short term fix. Approximately two weeks ago, the Sanford Lake Improvement Board had no success when it added copper sulfate to the water in an attempt to remove the algae.

The long-term fix is to reduce nutrients coming into the system, but because there is such a large watershed, it is hard to get those under control, Hausler said.

Enos said that the other fix is to dredge two feet off the entire lake bottom to get to a more sandy soil than a topsoil.

But, acquiring a permit from the MDEQ would be difficult along with the cost that would exceed $1 billion.
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department.

Saturday, Sept. 17

1:22 a.m.  A motorist was arrested at the Ashman Circle and Jefferson Avenue for drunken driving.

1:57 a.m.  Police were called to an assault in the 4400 block of North Saginaw Road.

2:44 a.m.  Officers were sent to a report of a loud party in the 4900 block of Russell Street.

4:35 a.m.  A motorist was arrested in the 1800 block of South Saginaw Road for drunken driving.

Friday, Sept. 16

2:42 a.m.  Police made an arrested for drunken driving at Eastman Avenue and McGregor Street.

3:19 a.m.  A motorist was arrested at Smith and Isabella streets for drunken driving.

10:15 p.m.  Property in the 6900 block of Eastman Avenue was damaged.

Thursday, Sept. 15

8:16 a.m.  Officers were called to a domestic assault at a Hawthorne Hollow address.

5:17 p.m.  Police investigated a hit and run traffic crash in the 4100 block of Campus Ridge Drive.

Wednesday, Sept. 14

1:27 a.m.  Police were sent to the 1800 block of Ohio Street for a report of a loud party.

10:07 a.m.  Officers investigated a hit and run traffic crash in the 2500 block of Abbott Road.

12:46 p.m.  Police investigated a case of fraud in the 2000 block of Westbury Drive.

2:06 p.m.  Officers investigated a case of drug possession in the 4000 block of Whiting Drive.

5:14 p.m.  Officers were sent to East Lyon Road and Bayliss Street to investigate a hit and run traffic crash.

6:57 p.m.  Police investigated a case of fraud in the 6200 block of Countryside Drive.

8:24 p.m.  Officers were sent to a domestic assault at an Eastlawn Drive address.

8:52 p.m.  Property was stolen from the 4500 block of Hedgewood Drive.
Our country was shaped by several larger than life personalities and events. This fall, the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library in Midland is presenting a series of four free lectures, entitled Our Founding Fathers, that will look at how these people and events still have an effect on where we are today.

Please join us on Thursday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m. as Ryan Petersen from Delta College explains Who Were the Founding Fathers? Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton and the other founders were not shining stars, but imperfect human beings  much like us  who nevertheless achieved political greatness. While often viewed as a quarrelsome bunch, this group of lawyers, merchants, politicians and military men were able to transcend their differences and forge a new nation.

One of the most well-known of the founders was Thomas Jefferson. As crafter of the Declaration of Independence, the first Secretary of State and the third president of the United States, Jeffersons ideals of democracy are the basis for much of our government today. On Oct. 6, Gregory Havrilcsak from the University of Michigan-Flint will explore Thomas Jefferson: Conflicts & Ambiguities. His talk will highlight Jefferson the statesman, the writer, the scientist, the student of philosophy, and his role in the formation of our country.

On Nov. 3, we will be treated to a two-act play on the life of John and Abigail Adams entitled My Dearest Friend. Gary Mitchell and Mary Beth Quillin, from Gem Theatrics in Grand Rapids will make history come alive with their first-person account of the lives and love between John and Abigail Adams. With dialogue heavily based on letters between the couple, the play gives new insights into the strengths and struggles of their relationship during the trying times from the Declaration of Independence through the Revolutionary War and Adams presidency.

Certainly, the founder Alexander Hamilton has taken center stage, literally, as the subject of the Broadway play, Hamilton. But who was he really? Join us Dec. 1 and find out as Dr. Andrew Wehrman from Central Michigan University shares his story in, Alexander Hamilton: The Ten Dollar Founding Father. Drawing insights from Hamiltons extraordinary life and with tie-ins to the musical, Dr. Wehrman will help us understand how Hamilton came from obscurity to become one of our most influential founders. From his tremendous ambitions to overcome the disadvantages of his youth, Hamilton is remembered as a co-author of the Federalist Papers, establishing a national banking system, and losing his life in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr.

We hope that you can join us for this free lecture series. All the programs will begin at 7 p.m. in the Library Auditorium on the following Thursdays: Sept. 22, Oct. 6, Nov. 3; and Dec. 1. For students through seniors, the Founding Fathers have a tale worth telling.

Learning about these intriguing men of history can continue beyond the programs. The library offers many other resources on our Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence.

Jan Martz is reference librarian at the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library.
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.
Bloomington-Normal

Mickell Duncan; 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 8:30 a.m.-noon Sat., through Oct. 31, IAA Credit Union lobby, 808 IAA Drive, Bloomington; paintings; free.

ISU University Galleries; noon-4 p.m. Mon., 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Tue., 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun., Uptown Station, 11 Uptown Circle, Normal; rotating exhibits in three galleries; free; 309-438-8321.

Wonsook Kim: Lines of Enchantment; Sept. 20-Oct. 16, ISU University Galleries, see above; cast bronze outlines, paintings, prints and drawings. Opening reception, 5-7 p.m. Sept. 20; artist lecture, noon Sept. 21.

Placelessness: Marissa Lee Benedict & David Rueter and Sarah Rothberg; Sept. 20-Oct. 16, ISU University Galleries, see above; interactive installations. Opening reception, 5-7 p.m. Sept. 20; workshop, "Quotidian Infrastructure: Walking Normal," 4 p.m. Sept. 21.

Beyond the Norm: International Juried Print Exhibition; Sept. 20-Oct. 16, ISU University Galleries, see above; works by 54 artists. Opening reception, 5-7 p.m. Sept. 20, with juror talk at 4 p.m.

And There's the Humor of It: Shakespeare and the Four Humors; Sept. 19-Oct. 29, IWU Ames Library ground floor; six-panel touring exhibit exploring role of four humors in Shakespeare's work; free. Opening reception, 4-6 p.m. Sept. 22 in Beckman Auditorium.

IWU Merwin and Wakeley Galleries; school hours, noon-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun., 7-9 p.m. Tue.; 302 E. Graham St., Bloomington; rotating exhibits; free; 309-556-3391.

Functioning; through Sept. 29, IWU Merwin Gallery, see above; ceramics by Tim Kowalczyk.

Everyday Romances; through Sept. 29, IWU Wakeley Gallery, see above; paintings by Ryan Richey.

McLean County Arts Center; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tue., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-4 p.m. Sat.; 601 N. East St., Bloomington; rotating exhibits, sales, rentals, art classes and lectures; free; 309-829-0011.

40 Years NEW; through Oct. 22, McLean County Arts Center, see above; 40th anniversary retrospective of ISU's New Editions Workshop.

Behind Every Print; through Oct. 22, McLean County Arts Center, see above; works by ISU faculty and Normal Editions Workshop staff.

McLean County Museum of History; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. (until 9 p.m. Tue.), 200 N. Main St., Bloomington; permanent and rotating exhibits; adults $5, seniors $4, students, children under 12 and members free; 309-827-0428.

Challenges, Choices and Change: Making a Home; McLean County Museum of History, see above; new permanent exhibit exploring experiences of people from around the world who made McLean County their home.

Abraham Lincoln in McLean County; McLean County Museum of History, see above; new permanent exhibit on Lincoln's life in Bloomington.

Prairie Aviation Museum; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Thu.-Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun., 2929 E. Empire St., Bloomington; permanent and rotating exhibits and displays with aerial history themes; adults $5, ages 6-11 $3, 5 and under free; 309-663-7632.

Central Illinois

U of I Krannert Art Museum; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. (until 9 p.m. Thu. during fall and spring semesters), 2-5 p.m. Sun., 500 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign; paintings, porcelain, historical artifacts, traveling art exhibits; $3 donation suggested; 217-333-1861.

Borderline Collective: Northern Triangle; through Dec. 22, U of I Krannert Art Museum, see above; installation featuring art works and historical documents.

Amity Township Museum; 1-3 p.m. first Sun. of month or by appointment, 510 Main St., Cornell; displays and artifacts relating to history of Cornell and Amity Township; free; 815-358-2973.

Eureka College Burgess Hall Art Gallery; 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays and by appointment on weekends, third floor of Burgess Hall, Eureka College, Eureka; rotating exhibits; free; 309-467-6866.

Simpkins Military History Museum; 1-5 p.m. Tue., Thu., Sat., or by appointment; 605 E. Cole St., Heyworth; permanent and rotating military history exhibits; free (donations accepted); 309-473-3989.

The Vietnam War 50th Anniversary; through Nov. 30, Simpkins Military History Museum, see above.

Dickson Mounds Museum; 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, 10956 N. Dickson Mounds Road, Lewistown; displays, special exhibits; free; 309-547-3721.

Lincoln Heritage Museum; 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat., Lincoln Center at Lincoln College, 300 Keokuk St., Lincoln; Lincoln-era items, audio-visual displays, tours, exhibits, more; adults $7, children/tours $4; 217-735-7399.

Contemporary Art Center of Peoria; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., Riverfront Arts Center, 305 S.W. Water, Peoria; rotating exhibits in two galleries; free; 309-674-6822.

Building Space: The Objects of Adam G. Perschbacher; through Oct. 21, Contemporary Art Center of Peoria, see above; geometric abstractions.

Under, Above, Everywhere; through Oct. 28, Contemporary Art Center of Peoria, see above; paintings by Deborah Barlow, photographs by Kay Canavino, ceramics by Ramah Commanday.

Peoria Art Guild; Foster Arts Center, Harrison and Washington streets, Peoria; rotating exhibits, gift shop; free; 309-637-2787.

Peoria Riverfront Museum; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Wed. and Sat., 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thu.-Fri., noon-5 p.m. Sun., downtown riverfront Peoria; permanent and rotating exhibits, planetarium shows, Giant Screen Theater and events; $8-$11; 309-686-7000.

Changing Perspectives: The Landscapes of Harold Gregor; through Oct. 16, Peoria Riverfront Museum, see above; paintings.

Museum of the Gilding Arts; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sun., April-Oct., and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sun., Nov.-March, 217 N. Mill St., Pontiac; displays, history and hands-on exhibits dedicated to the art of gilding and gold beating; free (donations welcome); 815-842-1848.

Pontiac Community Art Center; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun., 103 W. Madison St., Pontiac; rotating exhibits; 815-844-5831.

Jane Diaz: The Artist That Knows Where to Draw the Line; through Sept. 30, Pontiac Community Art Center, see above; paintings.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sun., 212 N. Sixth St., Springfield; Lincoln-themed exhibits, historical displays, special events, more; adults $12, seniors and students $9, ages 5-15 $5, under 5 free; 217-558-8844.
In this age of genetically modified crops, once unimaginable corn yields topping 200-plus bushels per acre are now becoming the norm.

But it wasnt so long ago  as late as the mid-20th century  that 100 bushels of corn an acre, half of todays average yield, was considered a noteworthy achievement.

The first 100-bushel-per-acre yield in McLean County, accomplished on the Mecherle farm east of Bloomington, dates to 1931. By the early 1950s, the 100-bushel barrier was still a formidable one for area corn growers. But the ever-greater application of commercial fertilizers  nitrogen, phosphate and potash  would soon usher in an era of explosive growth in corn yields.

It was with an eye on boosting yields that Farm Adviser Eugene Mosbacher organized the McLean County 100 Bushel Corn Club in early 1952.

The club was not predicated on competition, noted Mosbacher, who served as farm adviser for the McLean County Farm Bureau from 1947-1983. Its an educational program and not a contest, he explained. Instead, the club aimed to grab attention and newspaper headlines  100 bushels per acre, wow!  all in order to increase interest in better corn yields, to learn methods of achieving high production and to keep abreast of the latest findings in good crop management. In other words, Mosbacher urged local farmers to first test in the field what worked and what didnt work, and then report back to the club so other corn growers could learn from both their successes and failures.

There was no membership fee to join the club, and no expectation that one had to reach or surpass the 100-bushel plateau. Instead, Mosbacher required members to keep detailed records, including field maps, notes on crop history, soil treatment reports and all details believed to be of help in producing more corn per acre. Farmers that reached the 100-bushel threshold (averaged over the entire farm, not just the most productive field or plot) then received special recognition at an annual wintertime banquet.

In the post-World War II era munitions factories were converted to the peacetime manufacture of fertilizers (nitrogen was a key component in high explosives). Emerging agribusiness giants then aggressively marketed the heavy use of commercial fertilizers as the savior of the American farmer. This was part of the rapid postwar industrialization of the Corn Belt that included the full embrace of the machine age and an ever-greater reliance on tractors, corn pickers, combines and the like.

Farmers were also turning to miracle pesticides such as DDT that proved effective against the corn borer, a pesky nemesis of Central Illinois farmers. Yet DDT proved so destructive to the natural world, especially birds, that the federal government banned its use in the early 1970s.

Improved yields were the easiest way farmers could offset steep increases in production costs resulting from the purchase of expensive new farm machinery and commercial inputs ranging from fertilizers to pesticides.

To his credit, Mosbacher stressed soil fertility by asking farmers the question, Are you putting back what you are taking out? Although he embraced modern commercial and industrial agriculture, he also recognized the storehouse of knowledge carried by several generations of Central Illinois corn belt farmers. The only thing wrong with manure is there isnt enough of it, went a typical Mosbacher observation, this one made at a March 1953 meeting of the 100 bushel club.

Slapping on the fertilizer is not enough to assure good yields, he said at another club gathering two years later. It must be applied as needed. And there are other details to attend to, such as stand (the number and condition of corn plants in the field), soil texture, moisture, insect and weed control, (and) planting time.

Yet the prevailing ethos in the 1950s was to boost yields quickly with commercial fertilizers.

The 100 Bushel Corn Club of McLean County held its first banquet on Feb. 4, 1953, with George W. Scarseth, director of the American Farm Research Association, as the guest speaker. The Bloomington Association of Commerce (today the McLean County Chamber of Commerce) co-sponsored the event and presented engraved certificates to the top-yielding farmers.

In the clubs first year, nine farmers reached the 100-bushel mark, with five others coming close enough to receive special recognition. Interestingly, six of the nine 100-bushel certificate recipients were tenant farmers, clear evidence that this area has always had a relatively high rate of farm tenancy.

Only two club members, both tenant farmers, reached the 100-bushel goal in the second year, 1953, though 12 others came close. Newell Henderson brought in 103.5 bushels per acre on a farm near Stanford, while Merle Keuhling reached a 102-bushel average on a farm outside of Arrowsmith (see accompanying photograph). Henderson applied 100 pounds of nitrogen per acre, 300 to 500 pounds of phosphate and 100 to 200 pounds of potash. He also added another 100 pounds of mixed fertilizer at planting time to give the crop a good start.

Glenn Klinger, operator of the farm at the Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Childrens School, was one of five corn growers to reach 100 or more bushels per acre in 1954 (the collections of the McLean County Museum of History include Klingers 100 Bushel Corn Club certificate). That year, the 63 club members averaged 80 bushels an acre in their combined 6,805 acres, which was well above the county-wide average of 59 bushels.

The club then eased conditions to earn 100-bushel certificates for the 1955 season. Instead of averaging the yield from all corn acreage on a farm, corn growers could aim to reach the mark on identified 10-, 20-, or 40-acre plots alone.

In a way, the 100 Bushel Corn Club was a victim of its own success. By the late 1950s the club had become inactive as high-yield practices among area farmers became near-universal. In 1962, McLean Countys average corn yield per acre topped 100 bushels for the first time.

Today, such an achievement seems quaint. In late August of this year, Soy Capital Ag Services predicted the 2016 McLean County corn crop would come in at a record 219 bushels an acre, besting the previous mark of 217 bushels from two years ago. Last year's yield was 199 bushels per acre.

Back on March 1, 1955, Dr. M.B. Russell, chief agronomist at the University of Illinois, was the guest speaker before a meeting of Mosbachers corn club. The 100 bushel yields you seek today will someday be commonplace, he told the 200 or so McLean County farmers in attendance.

Eugene Mosbacher knew that day was coming. His experience with the McLean County 100 Bushel Corn Club told him so. But 200 bushels an acre? In the mid-1950s, that seemed unlikely, even to the most forward-thinking agricultural researchers, educators and leaders.

Many longtime area residents will remember Mosbachers daily farm program on WJBC radio, which aired for 35 years. He passed away in 2002 at the age of 83.
BLOOMINGTON  William Wells walked out of a McLean County courtroom on Aug. 12 a free man, acquitted by a jury of rape charges that could have sent him to prison for 65 years.

Now, he wants to know where he goes to reclaim the education, business and reputation he lost during 187 days he spent in jail waiting for his trial on charges that, while unproven, have left a stain on his record that he must try to erase.

"It was pretty hard to swallow and go through," Wells said in a recent interview.

"The damage to my character, my education, and my business is something that will be very hard to come back from," said Wells, who returned to his home in Chicago after the trial.

A jury ruled that prosecutors did not meet their burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Wells, a 24-year-old senior at Illinois State University, had sexually assaulted a woman he'd been dating for several months before the Feb. 7 incident.

In her testimony, the 18-year-old accuser admitted that Wells had irritated her several times that weekend, starting with his failure to pick her up at the Normal bus station when she arrived from the college she attends in northern Illinois.

She was further insulted, she said, when Wells criticized the cologne she gave him for a gift. And when Wells changed his plans the next evening and went to Champaign for a fraternity event, forcing her to stay with a friend on campus, she sent a text message to a friend complaining that Wells had disrespected her, according to evidence at the trial.

The woman became so upset with Wells during a car ride to her friend's dorm that she took a pink taser from her purse and pulled the trigger, striking Wells as he drove the car. Wells left her and her belongings on the curb.

Wells and the woman offered conflicting accounts to police of the sexual activity they engaged in before leaving the apartment. He claims it was consensual; she said it was rape. The woman told her friend she had been sexually assaulted by Wells, an accusation she repeated to Normal police who went to Wells off-campus apartment looking for him, and evidence of a sex crime.

Wells has denied an NPD statement that an officer told him during a phone conversation that he should stay away from his apartment. Officers forced their way into the apartment after they saw Wells enter, and when he did not immediately come to the door.

Wells was taken to the Normal police station and questioned by a detective about his interaction with police at the apartment. Later in the interview, he was asked about a possible sexual assault, which he denied.

Last week, ISU officials told Wells the university would not reconsider its decision denying him to return to finish his final semester.

ISU Chief of Staff Jay Groves said he could not discuss specific student records, adding "the university's Student Code of Conduct process is much different from the court process and is confidential."

Dismissal from one university does not preclude a student from transferring to another school, said Groves. While another school may seek information about a transfer student as part of the admissions process, ISU does not include disciplinary information on a student's transcript, said Groves.

The jury convicted Wells of misdemeanor resisting arrest. A judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail, which he more than satisfied during his pre-trial stay. He also has an unrelated reckless driving and driving under the influence case pending.

Wells said he was unable to participate in an appeal of the ISU decision because he was incarcerated and was unaware of any provision of the code that allowed another person to appear on his behalf at a hearing. He plans to enroll in another college next semester.

False claims

The number of false rape claims filed each year in the U.S. is hard to come by because police use different methods to record such reports. Researchers have concluded that between 2 and 10 percent of sex assault claims are unfounded because the allegations were false.

Wells' defense lawyer, Stephanie Wong, told jurors that Normal police lacked solid proof that a sex crime had occurred and took the woman's word without considering all the factors in the couple's relationship.

Normal Police Chief Rick Bleichner said the initial obstruction of justice charge against Wells related to his arrest. The sex assault charges were filed after the alleged victim, who was 17 at the time, was interviewed two days at the Children's Advocacy Center, said Bleichner.

When an acquittal is returned, "we come back and do a debrief" to review how the case was handled, said Bleichner.

McLean County State's Attorney declined to talk specifically about the Wells verdict, but he noted that prosecutors talk with alleged victims about the issues a jury may have with certain facts of a case, including a prior relationship.

Of larger consequence for victims is the knowledge that some convicted sex offenders may receive short sentences, said Chambers.

"We had one victim tell us they were reluctant to proceed because they perceived that even after a guilty verdict, they were just going to be free to continue the conduct anyway," said Chambers.

Guilty verdicts are a challenge in cases where the victim and accused assailant are acquainted, said Hilary Pacha, senior director of prevention and empowerment services at the YWCA.

"It's very easy to get up in arms over a stranger rape or a violent rape, but when it doesn't meet their vision or standard for what a rape looks like, such as an acquaintance rape, jurors have a hard time rendering a guilty verdict," said Pacha.

For Wells, school and mending the financial damage done when he was forced to close a shoe store he owned in Normal are his priorities.

"I'm blessed and happy to be out. I have to dust my hands off, keep my head up and move forward," he said.

Six months in jail gave Wells a chance to reflect on what led to the claims that jurors rejected.

"It makes sense. I didn't give her what she wanted emotionally. She was so mad she wanted to hurt me, put her hands on me. She was livid and wanted revenge. She really wanted to damage my life. I understand that, but at the end of the day, there was no rape," he said.
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After the mishap that burned the Falcon 9, SpaceX announced on September 13 that their flights are going to be available again starting November of this year. The accident that took place recently also destroyed Space Communications Ltd., a satellite made for Israeli communications.

According to a report done by Reuters, SpaceX is only going to temporary cancel their flights in the next three months. The president of the company, Gwynne Shotwell made an official statement to the public about their plans for the company. She didn't mention the amount of damage that the previous rocket has experienced nor how much does the company need to fix it. The only assurance she gave was that they won't permanently close down just because of what happened.

A photo posted by SpaceX (@spacex) on Aug 13, 2016 at 11:26pm PDT

No one knows exactly what went down that totally set the Falcon 9 on fire, as everything is still under investigation. All that is known was that the Falcon 9 was being prepared for a prelaunch test on September 1 when it started acting up that it lead to its destruction. They were trying to fuel it up before the usual prelaunch test held at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which is located in Florida. That is the last time they saw the Falcon 9 functioning well until it exploded.

In a report by Tech Crunch, it is looking like SpaceX is not at all stopping in creating progress with their space shuttles. Their Mars Colonial Transporter is said to even go beyond Mars. This is a statement made by SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, in his recent Twitter post. He said that the company is thinking of creating a new name for their MCT.

What do you think would be a good name for the Mars Colonial Transporter? Share us your ideas in the comments section below.


GETTING TO KNOW YOU

A Meditation on Spiritual Community

Mitra Rahnema & James Ishmael Ford

18 September 2016

Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach

JAMES

An extremely long time ago, I believe there were still corners of the globe where dinosaurs lurked I was working in a large used bookstore in San Diego. Not long before that Id been an inmate in a Zen monastery up near Mount Shasta, so the owner of the bookstore assigned me to tend to the religion and metaphysical sections of the store which he referred to as the nutsy cuckoo area, at least when in a good mood.

I came to really like it. Actually, my favorite task was caring for a very large rack of pamphlet literature. All of those pamphlets were interesting, many of them quite old, and some seriously weird. I vividly recall the pamphlet that through a detailed study using pyramid inches applied to the structure of the pyramids, of course, to find otherwise hidden messages, of course, that established beyond any reasonable doubt that Kaiser Wilhelm II was in fact the antichrist predicted in the Book of Revelations. On that subject, well, of pyramids, anyway, my all time favorite of those pamphlets established, again, against any reasonable doubt that the actual Holy Land of Biblical fame was Ireland. The pamphlet detailed how a long ranging conspiracy between the Roman Empire and England, never trust a Brit, rewrote history to have it all take place in the Near East instead of the Emerald Isle. And in support their dastardly plan even moving the pyramids from their original location outside of Dublin, the real Jerusalem.

Okay, maybe not my favorite pamphlet. That would have to be one published in Boston, I forget now, something like a twentieth or thirtieth reprint dating to the eighteen nineties and published by the American Unitarian Association of Unitarian Christianity, also known as the Baltimore Sermon, preached in Baltimore, in 1819, by William Ellery Channing. To this day I remember holding the aging pamphlet in my hand, skimming through it, then borrowing it to take home and read more closely.

A few years ago I re-read it, and I have to admit Im not sure what it triggered for me, or, rather I recall that sense of a way back to my natal Christian religion, but stripped of all the things I found, well, that belonged with pyramid inches and conspiracies to move Jerusalem from Ireland to the near East. Actually Reverend Channing didnt do that, but he took some major steps in that direction. The very next Sunday I went to the local UU church. And the sermon lulled me into a very peaceful nap.

What was important, really important was meeting members of the congregation. Something happened on that Sunday, which changed the entire course of my life.

MITRA

We are all we have ever been  in this moment in time  we are.

Getting to know a person, a purpose, a span of one precious life is about learning the moments that defined the path taken. A long time ago I lived in a community of friends that I shared a dinner with at least three times a week for over five years. We did group vacations and house projects together. We shared our lives. Entering ministry changed that. Early in ministry, as I moved from place to place, I went through deep grief for the loss of people in my immediate life who knew me before ministry. They only knew what I was to them now.

For example, people I interacted with week by week didnt know I used to think I was butch, and before that a geek, and before that a hippie, and from birth I was a bitch. They never knew my curiosity solidified by a special childhood book about a girl required to complete various life puzzles. They didnt know that I was heartbroken by a girlfriend who left me for her uncle and then six months later left him for my best friend. Or that, with another woman I learned the depths of love and commitment. They didnt know that for years, day after day, I experienced the early morning quiet, watching the world light up, and building my inner life as I worked shaping loaves of bread or prepping breakfast specials. They didnt know that with very little experience or knowledge I volunteered to plan a California tour of artists/activists from the Amazon rainforest only to find out later that local environmental leaders were making bets that I would not be successful  I was hurt. They didnt know that I thought we could stop a war from becoming up until the moment the war started and I sat on the stairs of a gym crying. They didnt know about the first time some said  that was racism, or sexism, or homophobia, and that the naming of it calmed my heart. There are so many moments that they did not know  the moments that are the purpose and texture of our speaking, our interpreting, and who we are.

It is daunting not to have life reflected in the eyes of people around us. Those who were there when you told them about this ah-ha moment and tried something different, or those who loved you when you lost your way, or even those who werent embarrassed to hang out with you after that really bad haircut, or during the funky outfit phase, or those who kept you from buying those practical glasses that made you look like a socially scientist.

All these moments are what shape our beings  help us figure out who and why we are. When people give witness to our moments we are affirmed that we exist. When we lose those people due to death or distance that affirmation of our existence is different, more abstract, a little harder to recognize.

So, we tell our stories  we tell of the moments that mattered  to try and explain why we are here and to build new friendships. They are the stories about how we took another direction, how we felt pressure, how we broke free, how we came to make the decision that this is the best way for us. If we are lucky we meet people who offer witness to our stories, people who will hold them in love and allow them to be woven into new friendships. But we are very full people  and the older we get the more stories there are to hold  they can sometimes feel redundant  or overwhelming. So we try the best we can to seek resonance with our own  and love people for who they are in this moment in time.

For loving them for who they are is affirming that all they have ever been is present now and it matters to the relationships forged ahead. For it aint over yet.

JAMES

We have stories. We might even say we are stories.

My father was a charming rogue with a love of the drink and an unerring eye for the get rich scheme that would get him in terrible trouble. During my childhood he spent several stints in prison. And, I recall one Christmas that happened only because of the Firemen. At the same time he loved to read, particularly science fiction. And my mother, long suffering and never able to let go of the charming rogue and who followed him until he died, she love mysteries. So, wherever we were, house or apartment, or, briefly, but more than once, car, there we always books around. Perhaps of course, I dropped out of High School. But landed a job in a bookstore. Not the one where I found William Ellery Channing, and with him, Unitarian Universalism. That was later. But these bookstores would be the playground of my intellectual formation.

More important for me, or, equally, anyway, I was on a spiritual quest from as far back as I can remember I left my childhood Baptist tradition in adolescence, after a brief sidewise glance at Vedanta, I found Zen. A period in a monastery followed, two brief marriages, that bookstore where I found the UU world, and then finding Jan. After that, back to school, a lot of school, then twenty-five years of ministry, before we retired here to Long Beach as the perfect spot to be near Jans family and have our own lives.

I guess Id have to say about me is that Ive enjoyed some successes, I served some good churches, Ive published four, well five books depending on how you count such things. But, I also have some deep driving part in my heart that even all those years of Zen study havent cured, that I sometimes summarize as never being fully satisfied, never having enough degrees or publishing enough books. A hunger that extends from those childhood hurts.

What I find critical is how I can bring all of it here, how I can be both the accomplished minister and meditation teacher and the confused and hurt kid from far onto the wrong side of the tracks. And I can bring it here and be with Jan and you all and with Reverend Mitra, and all of us together in our strengths and our weaknesses, continue to grow deeper. Its the miracle of a gathering like this. Theres something in the intimacy of presence each of us to the other that opens something, that allows something. And, that breaks my heart and makes me so grateful.

In the Uppadha Sutta we are told. One day while walking quietly together, out of the silence the Buddhas attendant Ananda declared, Teacher, to have companions and comrades on the great way is so amazing! I have come to realize that friendship is fully half of an authentic spiritual life. They proceeded along quietly for a while more, before out of that silence the Holy One responded. No, dear one. Without companions and comrades, no one can live into the deep, finding the true harmonies of life, to achieve authentic wisdom. To say it simply, friendship is the whole of the spiritual life.

MITRA

All of us, no matter our age, have a story to tell about our lives. From the time we can first speak to the time of our last breath.

When we think about what brought us to this moment  to be sharing this hour of worship with one another  we might think about our morning or week and deciding to go to church this Sunday. Or we might think about the last month or couple of years, or even farther back and our learning of Unitarian Universalism. We might consider our spiritual quests, our search for community, our moments of rejection and moments of acceptance. All of it becomes a thread  that goes far back, and through the present, into the future. It is just one thread woven in the tapestry of each life that we can travel up and down in our minds eye. No longer are we just made up of moments, we are made of thousands of threads, that touch, overlap, and weave into this moment in time. That becomes our spiritual stories.

Just as no single cell can survive on its own, and no part of the body (the lung, the heart, arm or leg,) make up a human being, so too no moment makes up a life. It is the interaction of cell to cell, part to part, moment to moment, story to story that really defines who we are. And, so is true that our existence is defined by person to person, interaction to interaction. Sometimes the affirmation comes in the reflection in anothers eye, or word, or listening ear. Sometimes it is a mere presence of another. Friends and even strangers who we interact with define our existence. Which means we need one another.

We are all we have ever been. So, can we bring it all here? I imagine that is a question that many wonder. Will I be accepted for my gifts and my fears? It is a daunting task for a community to welcome the wholeness of each and all. But it is what we do  to know and allow ourselves to be known, to love and allow love in return. We strive for this  to honor the ministry of every single life. We may not always hit the mark but will we continue to try. We do so in order to live out the great covenant of mutuality  one that says we are made both stronger and gentler together.

I am thrilled to shepherd this congregations relationship with Rev. James and I am grateful to be in collegial relationship him and his ministry. He brings to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach a centering spirit, a joyful self-reflection, a teachers energy, a commitment to justice, an intellectual enthusiasm, and a deep spiritual practice that he shares with the world. I can imagine many ways for his ministry to enliven and enrich our community and I look forward to witnessing how it will unfold in the years to come. I hope you all will take time to get to know Rev. James, and to honor his ministry by sharing one of your stories.

Let us also remember that Rev. James is not the only one new to our community. So too are visitors, new members, new friends, new staff and so much more. On top of the newness there are long standing relationships which we can get to know deeper and deeper. So it is right that this September we remember our most welcoming self and think a little more about how we respectfully get to know one another. How we elicit and listen to the stories of another and how do we offer our stories so others can get to know us. Because, when we share one of our moments we are really saying to another  I believe you can hold this moment with me, and that is an honor. That is quite a huge blessing to give another  really it is the whole of our spiritual life. This fall may we all get to know one another a little more.

May it be so.
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NAM indisputable part of solutions to world crises: Iran's President Rouhani

09/18/16

Source: Press TV

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called for further cooperation among the member states of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), saying the bloc plays an undeniable role in resolving the crises across the world.



Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks at the opening ceremony of the 17th NAM summit

Source: Islamic Republic News Agency



At the current juncture, NAM member states more than ever require solidarity, convergence and coordination. The truth is that as a bloc that comprises about two-thirds of the United Nations members, we are an undeniable part of the solutions to the challenges facing todays world, Rouhani said at the opening ceremony of the 17th NAM summit on Margarita Island, Venezuela, on Saturday.

He said commitment to the founding principles of NAM guarantees the independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of all countries and will help promote the national interests, good-neighborliness, and sustainable security and development throughout the world.

By following these principles, many of the fundamental problems and challenges as well as serious existing crises can be resolved.

Rouhani described as concerning the international status quo, saying world peace is at threat. The violation of the national sovereignty of developing countries is being carried out under various covers and forms.

Touching upon the foreign-backed crises in the Middle East and North Africa in recent years, Rouhani said the Islamic Republic was the first country to warn of the global threat of Takfiri terrorism in Syria.

While a number of irresponsible countries in the Mideast and West were busy arming and training Takfiri terrorists, we stood by the Iraqi and Syrian nations and governments against one of the most violent terrorist groups.

He said the countries backing Takfiri terrorists decided to reluctantly form an inefficient coalition against terrorism only after the overflow of terrorist attacks across Syrian borders.

The Iranian president urged against pinning hope on big powers for the establishment of security, development and progress.

Not only have the major powers not helped the easing of these pains but play a considerable role in the persistence of poverty, violence, murder, war and the displacement of millions of people in developing countries, Rouhani said.

He said no country can individually resolve the crises in the region and called for diplomatic and collective approaches to resolve the woes.

The woes of the Middle East region are such that no country is by itself capable of creating sustainable stability and security in it.

National dialogue should take place with the participation of interested and legitimate parties without interference by foreign powers and the ballot box should ultimately determine the fate of these countries.

Rouhani added that fighting terrorism needs the sincere cooperation of world powers. He expressed regret that some of the bloc's member states are currently supporting terrorism.

Unfortunately, a few of the member states are contributing to disturbing the peace and meddling in the internal affairs of other members by trampling upon the movements basic principles and supporting terrorists.

However, the Iranian president said world challenges should not be allowed to divert attention from the plight of the Palestinians.

The Zionist regime seeks to devise and exploit the ongoing developments in the Middle East, particularly the emergence and spread of terrorist and extremist groups such as Daesh to overshadow its crimes against the oppressed Palestinian nation and others regional nations.

The international community has not achieved the least success in restoring the trampled rights of the Palestinian nation and ending the [Israeli] occupation.

At the end of his speech, the Iranian president officially submitted the bodys rotating presidency for three years to his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro and wished him success and expressed Iran's support for him.





Leaders of NAM member states pose for a group photo

(photo by Mona Hoonbefekr, ISNA)





The NAM meeting brought together heads of state and delegates from all the 120 member countries to discuss key regional and international issues.

NAM, an international organization with 120 member states and 21 observer countries, represents nearly two-thirds of the UN members. It is regarded as not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc.
Tabriz carpet, conveying message of peace and friendship, to be unveiled at WCC 2016 in Isfahan

09/18/16

Source: Tehran Times

TEHRAN - An exquisite Persian carpet currently being woven in the Iranian city of Tabriz is set to deliver the message of peace and friendship of the Iranian nation to people all around the world.





18th General Assembly of World Crafts Council

September 24-27, 2016 in Isfahan, Iran





The carpet being woven by Hamid Kazemnia under the auspices of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Organization will be unveiled at the 18th General Assembly of the World Crafts Council, which will be held in the city of Isfahan from September 24 to 27.

"The carpet will be complete with several symbolic knots to be tightened by high-ranking officials and attendees to the conference," the CHTN quoted Morteza Abdar, the director of East Azarbaijan Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Department, as saying on Saturday.

The carpet, made of pure silk, interweaves symbols of the five continents with traditional Iranian designs and patterns such as mythical birds, he added.

Last year, the World Crafts Council picked Isfahan and Tabriz as world cities of handicrafts and carpets, respectively.

The non-profit organization seeks to promote fellowship and foster the economic development of member states through income-generating craft-related activities.
Absolute distrust in US important part of Iran's soft power: Supreme Leader

09/18/16

Report by Press TV; photos by Islamic Republic News Agency

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says absolute distrust in hegemonic powers topped by the United States is an important component of Iran's soft power and this distrust must increase on a daily basis. The Leader made the remarks in a meeting on Sunday with commanders and high-ranking officials of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in Tehran on on Monday September 18, 2016.





Ayatollah Khamenei addresses commanders and top officials of IRGC



Ayatollah Khamenei referred to the issue of distorting the components of the Islamic establishments soft power and said, Absolute distrust in global hegemonic powers, which today are symbolized by America, is one of the elements of the Islamic Republic of Irans soft power.





The Leader added that absolute distrust in Washington was the outcome of rationality stemming from thought and experience, saying, We have seen the issue of Americas hostility during long years after the [victory] of the [1979 Islamic] Revolution and [also] during the recent nuclear negotiations and in other issues.

Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized that protecting the countrys security inside and outside Irans borders was one of the fundamental duties of the IRGC.









Noting that in addition to security and defense sectors, the IRGC also plays an important role in different other fields such as construction, development, providing aid to the needy as well as issues related to culture and art, Ayatollah Khamenei said such measures should continue to be taken and the general public must be informed of them.









The Leader stated that the IRGC must not be content with its progress in the fields of science and technology and must not stop breaking new grounds as the enemy keeps changing its means and making advances.

The Leader then described maintaining the countrys security as a very important issue, which prepares the ground for spiritual and material progress of the entire nation.

Protecting internal and foreign security is among the IRGCs [most important] duties and if there is no external security and the enemy is not stopped outside the borders, internal security would also be lost.









Ayatollah Khamenei stressed that the Iranian Armed Forces must boost their power on a daily basis in order to counter military threats against the Islamic Republic, saying, Defense and military power and striking fear and terror in the [heart of the] enemy have been and will be the only factors that fend off any military threat.

Mentioning faith as the main factor behind strengthening the countrys defense capability, the Leader said this is the real meaning of asymmetric warfare, because in spite of having state-of-the-art tools and equipment, it lacks faith.





Major General Qassem Soleimani (C), the IRGC Quds Force commander





Ayatollah Khamenei further stated that denying the concept of the countrys independence and considering it as equal with isolation were among major cases of distorting the components of the Islamic establishments soft power.

The main reason behind denying the concept of independence is to follow [regional] orders delineated by the arrogant powers, which unfortunately, some people are knowingly or unknowingly repeating this issue, the Leader added.











Stressing that independence, culture and [religious] beliefs shape a nations identity, Ayatollah Khamenei urged Iranian officials to remain vigilant in the face of the enemys plot to infiltrate into and dominate the country.

Americans insist that we negotiate with them on issues related to West Asia region, particularly [the ongoing situations in] Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. What is their real goal behind these requests for negotiation? They have no goal but to prevent the Islamic Republic of Irans presence in the region as the main factor behind Americas failures, the Leader said.







Referring to certain remarks about the need to negotiate with the United States about regional issues, Ayatollah Khamenei said, Negotiations with America are not only fruitless, but also harmful, because they will clear the way for US infiltration.

The Leader further stated that enemies are angry with the Iranian nation because the Islamic Republic is a source of inspiration, adding, despite all pressures, sanctions and threats, the movement of the Iranian nation has become more transparent and braver on a daily basis.
CORRECTION: The Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department did not specify the gender of the child. Because of a reporting error, the gender of the child was incorrect in a previous version of this story.

A 5-year-old child was in critical condition Saturday evening, Sept. 17, after nearly drowning at a home just east of Riverside, according to officials.

The near-drowning was reported shortly before 6 p.m. in the 20000 block of Westpoint Drive, according to a Cal Fire/Riverside County fire news release.

The release does not specify whether the child nearly drowned in a pool, tub or something else. The Riverside County Fire Department did not respond to requests for comment Saturday night.

An ambulance with two firefighter paramedics took the child to the hospital.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9693, agroves@scng.com or @AlexDGroves on Twitter.
The lengths some will go to for a good time.

Thousands of people made their way to Pala Raceway, just south of the Riverside County line, on Saturday, Sept. 17, to carry 40-pound bags of sand, throw spears, climb ropes and crawl under barbed wire.

Throw in about two dozen other demanding physical challenges scattered across a 12-mile course, and you have a Spartan Beast race.

Two years ago, when the event known as the SoCal Spartan Beast and Sprint Weekend was held at Vail Lake near Temecula, the temperature climbed above 100 degrees and a dozen people were hospitalized, leading organizers to cancel the following days sprint race.

According to the National Weather Service, high temperatures reached the mid-80s in the Pauma Valley on Saturday. But Sunday, the second day of the weekend event when the shorter sprint race (3-5 miles) is scheduled, they could get back into triple digits.

FORECAST: Hot Sunday, lightning possible Monday, Tuesday

Sundays going to be our big day for heat, said race director Lincoln Baker.

Baker, whose name could spark a hundred puns, said more than 15,000 entries were logged for the two days.

PALAS FIRST SPARTAN RACE

This is the first year Pala Raceway has hosted the Southern California stop of the international obstacle-course race series. It was moved there when the Rancho California Water District acquired the land surrounding Vail Lake in a bankruptcy proceeding, and banned the big races, which snarled traffic in the area, upsetting operators of the local wineries.

But a lot of people  like Sarah Johnson, 37, of Fullerton  who have competed in past events at Vail Lake were at the Pala Raceway this year.

Johnson was not running this time  shes 6 months pregnant  but she did bring her 7-year-old daughter Gabriella, who attended with three of her friends.

There are kids races, too  a 1-miler for ages 9-13 and a half-miler for ages 4-8.

The camararderie among the contestants, which Johnson has experienced participating in half-a-dozen Spartan events, is what brought her back.

Thats why were doing it, absolutely, said Johnson. Everyone stays active, has fun.

LOCAL CONTESTANT WINS

Glenn Racz, 36, of Temecula, won the elite mens race. A mechanical engineer and former contestant on American Ninja Warrior, Racz held off Shaun Stephens-Whale of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, down the stretch to win his first Spartan race.

Racz planned to run the sprint race two years ago at Vail Lake before it was canceled. A former runner, he began to build strength training into his routine three years ago after he failed miserably in the television series based on obstacle-course competition.

Im on the Spartan Race pro team and Ive traveled to do all their televised races the last three years, said Racz.

My last couple races I had to travel to the East Coast. This is great. I can sleep in my own bed.

A GREAT TIME

The only time that Jenna Guarneri did a Spartan Beast race, her brother told her she was going to love it.

He talked me into it, said Guarneri, 24, of Dallas.

About Mile 10, Guarneri said they looked at each other and said  What did we sign ourselves up for? She admits her brother was right.

It was a great time, said Guarneri. Me and my brother still laugh about it. I mean, afterwards you do, you feel like youre a superwoman.

Guarneri now works for Spartan Race Inc. as a volunteer coordinator. She said about 600 people were part of the crew on Saturday.

Your average person could run 10, 12 miles, said Guarneri. Your average person could do one of these obstacles on its own. But when you put it all together it takes a lot of mind over matter to get through. A lot of willpower and mental strength.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9682 or tsheridan@scng.com
Our protagonists are not without blame. But the baby was 9 months old, the husband was off to war in Iraq and the wife somehow overlooked the simple fact that her debit card number had changed.

Sherri Hutton kept driving Orange Countys toll roads, her FasTrak beeping  unaware that it was no longer linked to any bank account.

And so the violations piled up. For six months. More than a decade ago. Each pass through the toll plaza digging the hole deeper  and she passed through toll plazas more than 300 times.

With penalties and late fees, the bill ultimately exceeded $49,000.

There have been wage garnishments. Seizures of money from her bank account. The Toll Roads has recovered $10,765, plus a $5,000 credit she won by joining a class-action lawsuit against the Toll Roads alleging constitutionally excessive fines back in 2010.

So the Toll Roads recouped nearly $16,000 for what would have been about $2,000 in tolls had the transponder been configured properly, Hutton figures. An extremely expensive lesson, but one she thought had ended five years ago.

She was wrong. Lawyers for the Toll Roads are back in court, trying to collect the remaining $31,450 they say Hutton owes. So far, they are not amenable to compromise.

I am gobsmacked by this, said Catherine F. Lukehart, the Santa Ana attorney who stepped in last month when Hutton appealed to the Orange County Bar Association for help.

She will never ever be able to repay this.

Attorney Richard Marshack, whose Marshack Hayes LLP specializes in bankruptcy law, is outraged. Heres a woman with three kids, whose husband is active-duty military, he said. A $49,000 Toll Roads violation? Thats just crazy  absolutely crazy. Toll Roads penalties are just unconscionable. The law needs to be changed to prevent this.

In court papers, the Toll Roads argues that Huttons fines grew so large because she failed to respond to dozens of notices and made no voluntary payments on the judgment.

The Toll Roads said it couldnt comment on the specifics of this case, but welcomed the opportunity to explain its processes in general.

Violation notices typically get a customers attention, allowing us to resolve the issues and reinstate those accounts, Toll Roads CEO Mike Kraman said by email. In rare instances, we encounter truly egregious violators who do not respond and resist all of our efforts to resolve their unpaid tolls.

Since the tolls collected go towards paying off the debt incurred to build the roads, we must be a good steward of the public trust and we do pursue payment from these habitual violators. These efforts include taking the matter all the way to civil judgment; however, these cases are rare.

Here, then, is a tortured tale of toll road torment  and a warning to us all.

THE BEGINNING

Hutton has an easy laugh, which has come in handy lately. She grew up in Capistrano Beach, works in human resources administration and met her husband in San Clemente shortly after he returned from deployment in Japan.

Michael P. Hutton  now a master sergeant in the Marine Corps, who served two tours of duty in Iraq and two tours in Afghanistan  grew up as the only boy in a household with four sisters. Chivalry didnt die with him, said his wife: Hes an old-fashioned kind of guy, patriotic, passionate, a hard worker with a big heart. She had two sons from a previous marriage, and he embraced them as his own.

They married in 2002. Their son was born in January 2005. Michael Hutton deployed to Iraq that September, and the toll fiasco began in October. Hutton was juggling a full-time job, three children, volunteer duty as liaison to some 700 military families and a recent move to San Juan Capistrano, solo.

She wanted to minimize change for the kids, so kept her eldest son in Aliso Niguel High School rather than enroll him closer to their new home. She used a toll road to get to Aliso Viejo, then to work at Mutual of Omaha in Irvine, where she was an administrator in the group benefits department, and back again. There were often four tolls a day.

The Toll Roads mailed dozens of violation notices to various addresses it had for Hutton, it says in court paperwork. One address was correct, she said, but she doesnt remember seeing any of them.

In 2006, the Toll Roads petitioned the court for a $29,900 judgment against Hutton. All it had to do was file proof  its own accounting of the violations.

When someone files a regular old lawsuit against you for $29,900, youre served in person. But when an agency files a $29,900 judgment against you, youre notified by mail. Again, Hutton said she never saw any such notice.

THE MIDDLE

The first she learned about it was in 2007, when a wage garnishment notice was delivered by sheriffs deputies to her Mutual of Omaha office in Irvine, she said. She called the Toll Roads, aghast, trying to figure out what had happened  and said shed willingly pay for the missed tolls. The penalties, however, were absurd.

Toll Road officials wouldnt budge. It was, Too bad, so sad, you owe this and theres nothing you can do about it, Hutton said.

And so the Toll Roads continued to garnish her wages  $11,030, in total, with $265 going to the sheriff for delivering the garnishment notice  until her husbands military duty took the family to other posts and she left her job in 2008.

The Toll Roads tried to put her on a monthly payment plan, but she didnt have a job at the backwater where they were stationed, and no payments were made.

In 2009, Hutton joined a class-action lawsuit against the Toll Roads and the Orange County Transportation Authority, asserting that the penalties were constitutionally excessive and collection procedures violated due process.

The Toll Roads settled that case, agreeing to waive $41 million in penalties  a 29 percent reduction. That translated to a $5,000 credit for Hutton, which, as she calculates it, meant the Toll Roads recouped nearly $16,000 on the nearly $30,000 bill.

She thought that was the end of it.

The family spent years in Northern California and Twentynine Palms before Michael Hutton returned to duty at Camp Pendleton last year. The family moved to Oceanside. Sherri Hutton got a job on base, working for the Department of Defense fire department as an administrator and human resources liaison.

The Toll Roads caught up with them soon after.

Both were named in a renewal of the judgment filed in Superior Court last year. The Toll Roads grabbed money from Huttons bank account  something the aforementioned judgment allows it to do  and they are now appearing in court, trying to end the drama.

The Toll Roads has a patriotic policy exempting active-duty military and their spouses from penalties on unpaid tolls. If officials would apply that policy here, it would transform Huttons $31,450 debt into a credit of more than $8,000 in her favor, she said in her legal response.

TOLL ROADS SAYS

Yes, the Toll Roads does consider a persons status as active-duty military, the Toll Roads argued in court papers.

It adopted a program last year that features education for military families and penalty waivers for first-time violations. But this program was not in place when Huttons violations accumulated a decade ago, and thus doesnt apply.

The courtesy does not extend to situations of abuse and repeated violations, and certainly this courtesy does not apply to a situation where circumstances have led to and resulted in a civil judgment, CEO Kraman said. Our military partners are supportive of the program and share our position of preventing abuse.

The agency works with account holders to ensure it has accurate and up-to-date account information, Kraman said. It understands that people are busy and may forget to update credit card, contact or vehicle information  and thus it has a robust notification system that includes robo-calls, texts, emails and mailed letters to alert customers if theres a problem.

The vast majority update their account information in a timely manner even without these notifications, Kraman said. But in instances where a customer does not respond or take action to make a payment, it will suspend the account, resulting in a negative balance.

Once an account is suspended, the Toll Roads notifies the customer again, he said. If the customer keeps using the roads without payment, those trips become toll evasion violations.

The vast majority of users understand the rules, he said. And penalties are waived for first-time violators if the toll is paid within 30 days.

Its rare that overdue accounts transform into civil judgments  fewer than 20 per year, Kraman said.

FAIR?

The fairness of the Toll Roads fines and penalties  or lack thereof  is certainly not a new issue.

The agency has been targeted by a series of lawsuits in recent years, most citing unfair or excessive fines. One seeking class-action status was filed in the spring, after the Toll Roads eliminated cash collection booths. Some drivers without transponders have been flummoxed over how to pay tolls, racking up violations totaling thousands of dollars.

Kraman defended the system as just. (N)o court has ever ruled that the TCA penalties or toll violation enforcement procedures are unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful, he said. In fact, our violation penalties are lower than allowable under state law.

Huttons $49,000 judgment is not the agencys largest; that one was $112,000, Kraman said.

Will Huttons bill get that high before all this is worked out? Interest accumulates on the judgment even as the two sides argue over whats fair.

I had always had an account in good standing up until that point, and we now have an account in good standing, Hutton said. Shes due back in court next month, and hopes to work something out with the Toll Roads in the interim.

In the meantime, she has some words of wisdom for everyone who auto-pays with a debit or credit card: Dont. Do direct to your bank account instead.

Contact the writer: tsforza@scng.com
Many know about Wilson Creeks Almond Sparkling Wine, the annual balloon and wine festival and the regions reputation as a popular day trip for residents of Orange, San Diego and Los Angeles counties.

But Temecula Valley Wine Country, which is celebrating California Wine Month in September, has many more stories to tell.

Theres Audrey Cilurzo rustling up food for visitors at the familys namesake winery in the late 1970s. Marcelo Doffo, inspired by a great uncle in Italy, moving to the valley from Orange County to make hand-crafted wines.

Or the Peltzer family  mom, dad and the boys  working together to make their new winery on Calle Contento a home-spun affair.

OLDEST WINERY

This is a tricky one. Callaway Winery, near the Rancho California Road entrance to Wine Country, is the oldest commercial winery, started by textiles magnate Ely Callaway in the early 1970s.

The oldest commercial vineyard  according to Annette Brown of Visit Temecula, the regions convention and visitors bureau  is the Cilurzo family property, the former Yoder Ranch off what is now Calle Contento.

Vincent F. Cilurzo, a Hollywood lighting technician who died earlier this year, planted 40 acres on the property in the late 1960s. He and Audrey would open their namesake winery in 1978, setting the stage for what would become one of the most popular tourism destinations in Southern California.

The property is still producing wine but today it is the home base of the Bella Vista Winery.

MOST EXPENSIVE WINES

Doffo, an Italian by way of Argentina, started making wines at his Orange County home after visiting his great-uncle in Turin. The original idea was to make enough for family and friends, said Gayla Johnston, Doffos wine club manager.

Then it just kind of blossomed into people stopping by and wanting to taste his wines, she said.

He opened his namesake winery in the Temecula Valley in the late 1990s, carving out a reputation as a hands-on winemaker committed to small-production, limited-edition labels.

Some of the priciest include a late harvest port called Tiago that was barrel-aged for 10 years. It goes for $200 a bottle. The winery also has a $150 bottle of cabernet sauvignon and a 2012 Concreto Release that retails for $150.

Johnston said there are around 170 cases of that Concreto, which was released in June, available as of last week.

BIGGEST WINERY

The largest wine producer in the valley is Wilson Creek, which produces around 100,000 cases per year, Brown said.

The winerys calling card is its almond sparkling wine  which has been marketed as the Oh my gosh champagne  but it has racked up an impressive string of awards for many of its other releases, a long list that includes syrahs, merlots and zinfandels.

In 2011, Wall Street Journal food writer Charles Passy encountered the sparkling wine at the New York City Wine & Food Festival, which turned out pretty well for Wilson Creek.

We figured the latter had disaster written all over it  a good bubbly should stand on its own. But we were surprised how the almond flavor added a nice, subtly nutty touch to the sparkler. We could easily see enjoying this on another Sunday  preferably over brunch, he wrote.

ONLY WINERY WITH A WINE CAVE

There are other wine caves in Southern California but they werent built like the cave at Oak Mountain Winery, which was hollowed out of a large hill on the property.

Most of the other caves (not counting some small ones that are used for storage) are basically basements, dug into the ground and then covered. Oak Mountains owner, Steve Andrews, didnt want that sort of cave. He wanted something like the caves in Napa and Sonoma County, cool caverns that double as storage space and reception areas.

The front entrance to Oak Mountains cave is set off by a large bronze, mirrored door. There is another entrance to the north that connects to the winerys banquet area.

Andrews said that north entrance is popular with visitors who scoot their chairs close to the cave on warm days to get a break from the heat.

The vast majority of the caves floor space is used for storage but there is a section, which is set off by decorative light fixtures, that is reserved for parties and wedding receptions.

NEWEST WINERY

The Pelzter family on Calle Contento, which has hosted a popular pumpkin patch on its farm for the last 20 years, will be opening a winery later this month called Peltzer Family Cellars.

Lauren Owen, the familys spokesperson, said there will be a soft opening on the last week of September, which coincides with the opening of the pumpkin patch on Sept. 25.

People who sign up for the wine club  which features regional wines such as a rose and a barbera, will get a big pumpkin, she said.

The matriarch of the family, Carrie Peltzer, is an interior designer and Owen said she teamed with her husband and sons to turn a barn on the property, which has been dubbed the Crush House, into one of the more interesting tasting rooms in the region.

The men helped with putting in the flooring, which features reclaimed wood from a family friends barn in Ohio, and hanging the decorative elements, such as license plates and vineyard stakes. They even had one of the younger sons, Max, out there learning how to weld.

It really is a family labor of love, Owen said.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9698 or aclaverie@scng.com
Some supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), on Saturday, converged on the Sunyani Coronation Park for the partys manifesto launch, but had various objects to showcase, including a coffin, embossed with the pictures of the NPP Flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo.



It is unclear what message the supporters were seeking to communicate, particularly when some persons in the ruling party, have attempted to use the health status of Nana Addo as a campaign tool. The party has also said they will retire Nana Addo this year, to kill his dreams of leading the country.



Although President Mahama has stated categorically that he will not campaign on anybodys health status, some supporters of his party, have suggested that Nana Addo is not healthy to prosecute a vigorous campaign, let alone lead the country.



The speculations deepened when the Africa Watch Magazine recently published a report alleging that Nana Addo has caner. Nana Addos personal physician has however denied the report and described it as malicious.

Source: citifmonline.com









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Majority leader in Parliament, Mr. Alban Bagbin has cautioned members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) not to be complacent but vigilant in the 2016 elections.



According to Mr. Bagbin, he is confident of an NDC victry of no less than 57% of votes.



He said although the target was achievable, it requires the hard work of members in trumpeting the achievements of the NDC government as captured in the Green Book and the party manifesto.



With a galaxy of such messengers, our parliamentary candidates, led by an accomplished presidential candidate, John Mahama, I am more than confident that NDC will win with a large margin. The 57% target I want to assure all of you is achievable, yet we need to work hard, no complacency and we have to be vigilant on the Election Day, he said.



Speaking to party faithful at the Sunyani Coronation Park in the Brong Ahafo Region at the launch of the party's campaign manifesto, he said as a social democratic party the NDC remains committed to the pursuance of a common and cherished goal in order to advance the Better Ghana Agenda.

Source: Daily Graphic









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At least 25 people have been injured following an explosion in the New York City neighbourhood of Chelsea, although authorities have confirmed that at this stage, none of the injuries appears life-threatening.

25 injuries to civilians confirmed at 133 W 23 St #Chelsea. None appear to be life-threatening at this time  FDNY (@FDNY) September 18, 2016

Per New York Post reports, at approximately 8.40pm, a dumpster blew up outside a 14-storey residence for the blind, the lower windows of the structure blowing out as a result of the explosion.

Residents from nearby bars and restaurants flooded the streets, and Jakir Aussin, a local Dunkin Donuts employee, said:

It was a quiet night, and then I heard this deafening boom. My first thought was, Oh god, a bomb, so I got down on the floor  [Later on] I looked outside and its all broken glass, car alarms going off  I still dont know what happened.

Videos captured by bystanders show the confusion the immediate aftermath of the event:

Police radio transmissions indicate that people still inside the building were told to stay there as the investigation continued. The cause of the blast is not yet clear.

Source: NY Post.

Photo: Twitter.
Australian aircraft took part in a Coalition bombing run that unintentionally killed as many as 83 Syrian troops overnight, according to the Department of Defence.



In a statement released today, it was revealed the operation intended to target ISIL troops surrounding an airport in the Eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor.

Russian forces alerted the Coalition command centre, who halted the operation immediately.

While Syria remains a dynamic and complex operating environment, Australia would never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support Daesh (also known as ISIL), the statement reads.

Defence offers its condolences to the families of any Syrian personnel killed or wounded in this incident.

It is not yet known in what capacity Australian aircraft were involved in the incident.

Russian forces claimed to have tracked four jets flying from neighbouring Iraq to conduct the operation, however its not believed the Royal Australian Air Force operates aircraft of the kind identified.

The US-led operation is the latest event to build tension between Coalition forces, who back elements of Syrias anti-government rebellion movement, and Russia, which supports Bashar al-Assads Syrian government and its troops to combat ISIL in the region.

Russia has already claimed the incident aids Islamic State, who may now be able to claim Deir al-Zors Jebel Tharda airport. Syrian authorities also labelled the strike conclusive evidence of US support for ISIL.

In turn, American officials have criticised Russia for not alerting Coalition forces of Syrian troop locations, even though Russia was informed a Coalition operation would be taking place in the area.

The incident will be undergoing a full investigation.

Source: ABC / Sydney Morning Herald / Department Of Defence.

Photo: Handout / Getty Images.
NSW Police say that they have arrested 77 people for various drug offences and caught many more driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol following the Defqon.1 dance festival, held in Penrith on Saturday.

The festival drew a crowd of 24,500 people, and there was a heavy police presence at the Sydney International Rowing Centre all day, with officers and sniffer dogs patrolling.

Per a NSW Police press release, the extensive operation on-site primarily targeted anti-social behaviour, drug and alcohol offences and public safety.

Officers carried out a number of searches on individuals, and made 77 detections. Of those, six currently face charges of supplying a prohibited drug.

Police also say that they conducted 630 random breath tests during the festival, with eight people charged with drink driving, and 44 returning positive results for driving under the influence of drugs.

Upwards of 200 people received medical treatment for drug and heat-related illnesses through the day of the festival, and six of these were taken to Nepean Hospital for further treatment.

Source: NSW Police.

Photo: Instagram.
By Christine Flowers

When Gary Johnson had his Aleppo moment a week ago, I was among those who could not believe his absolute incompetence.

Christine M. Flowers (PennLive file)

I understand that Libertarians generally take an isolationist position when it comes to foreign affairs, but it was incredibly troubling to see someone who thought he was fit to lead this country show such a lack of interest or inquisitiveness.



I'm writing this week's column from a cafe in Piazza Barberini.

After the Aleppo incident, I will not assume everyone knows that Piazza Barberini, at least the most famous one, is in Rome (and, just so we're totally clear, that's Rome, Italy.)



Earlier today, I spent many hours walking through the Roman ruins. I toured the perimeter of the Colosseum and wandered around the Circus Maximus, conjuring Charlton Heston and his white stallions in my mind.



But the thing that almost brought me to my knees in awe and appreciation was the Forum.

I spent an hour and a half waiting under a metal-melting sun to buy a ticket, then spent another half-hour in another line waiting to pass a security checkpoint that would put the TSA to shame before I was admitted to the sacred ground.



The reason I call those hallowed and dusty ruins sacred is because of what they represent -- and what they promise.

Rome was once the mightiest empire in all of history, calling most of the known world its property and subjugating the greatest democracy - Greece - through martial power.



And yet it wasn't Rome's legions or military strategies that saved her for posterity.

It wasn't the victories on battlefields, the courage of its soldiers or even the brilliant, deadly manipulations of its Caesars.

What saved Rome was its laws, and its lawmakers, men such as Marcus Aurelius, Cato the Elder, and my personal hero, Cicero.

As I walked through the Forum, the idea that Cicero had put his feet on the same stones and raised his voice in defense of democracy in this same airspace and criticized despots in the shadow of the same statues and arches made me shudder. It was 95 degrees in the afternoon sun, and I had chills.



You might wonder what any of this has to do with Aleppo, or our presidential elections, or logic. You might even take issue with the fact that law saved Rome, because we all know what happened when the Visigoths came to town.



Rome is gone, yet it lives on.

Laws are still modeled after those enacted two millennia ago, and the principles of virtue, excellence, honesty, humanity and even harsh but appropriate punishment flowed from the work and philosophies of the men who still, in memory, haunt the ancient ruins.



As I wandered around lost in my thoughts, I realized that, no matter how bad it gets, democracy is resilient.

We will not win or lose civilization based on the personality we elevate to office. Caesar was assassinated, as were his assassins, and we still attribute great things to him. Cicero was murdered for dissenting, and he is considered the greatest writer of any generation.



We can and do try mightily to destroy the better parts of what we have created in this world, this Western legacy of a civilization left in rubble and reincarnated in the laws and philosophies of its descendants, but we ultimately can't kill it.



I guess the reason I was overcome with emotion at the Forum was this sense that neither Clinton nor Trump, flawed and unworthy as each might be, can destroy what is eternal about us, about democracy and civic virtue.

I will weep no matter who wins, but I am not so myopic as to believe that if either of those horrible, toxic people takes office, it will be the end of the world as we know it.



It took a trip outside of my country to see that, something Gary Johnson wouldn't appreciate.

It took a consideration of dynasties rotting from within or thugs and bullies running amok to see that one human being is ultimately incapable of killing democracy. Clinton and Trump can figure out what that means.



All that matters is that through suffering and struggle, democracy ultimately survives.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Her works appears on Sundays on PennLive. Readers may email her at cflowers1961@gmail.com.
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Two Navy divers who went to rescue the three missing crew members of the fishing boat too have gone untraceable.

By Vidya : In a dramatic turn of events Navy and Coast Guards are not just conducting search and rescue (SAR) operations for three missing fishermen but also for their own divers about 55 kilometers off Mumbai in Arabian sea.

Before day break on Saturday a fishing boat Datta Sai from Mumbai with 17 crew members started sinking about 55 kilometers west of Mumbai due to bad weather. An SOS was immediately launched and the nearest merchant vessel immediately came to the rescue. About 14 crew members were picked up by the ship MV Dependable.

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14 CREW MEMBERS RESCUED

Indian Coast Guard Ship Samudra Prahari which was on coastal patrol duty was diverted and reached the area in the afternoon. Samudra Prahari took over all rescued fishermen from MV Dependable, provided them first aid and food.

Coast Guard Dornier aircraft from Daman was also launched to undertake air search however three missing fisherman could not be spotted. Indian naval ships also joined the SAR.

In the evening one fisherman was sighted by INS Trishul. The ship lowered a boat and two divers plunged to pick up the survivor. Subsequently the survivor and the divers could not be seen even at close range by the ship due to rain, bad weather and darkness.

The sea continues to be extremely rough and challenging for search operations. The rescued fishermen are likely to arrive at Mumbai today.

MASSIVE SEARCH OPERATION LAUNCHED

On Sunday morning, the search efforts were stepped up to locate the two divers and three remaining fishermen. A massive SAR operation was launched by the Navy, Coast Guard and ONGC involving 10 ships and four aircrafts to locate the missing fishermen and the two brave naval divers. The naval divers went adrift last night during an attempt to rescue a missing fisherman from ill fated fishing boat 'Dutta Sai'.

The two divers reportedly survived the whole night in water under adverse weather and sea conditions and were picked up by a fishing boat 'Ram Dutta Sai' at 6 AM this morning. The SAR operation was closely coordinated between the Navy, Coast Guard, ONGC and Fishermen Association at Mumbai. The rescue operations still continue to look for the three missing fishermen.



Also read:

At least 8 fishermen dead, 7 missing after fishing boat capsizes in Bay of Bengal

Coast Guard rescues nine stranded fishermen

--- ENDS ---
According to the army, a group of militants believed to be suicide squad stormed an Army installation close to the 12th Brigade Headquarters at Uri today early morning and started firing indiscriminately

By Manjeet Negi, Naseer Ganai: 17 soldiers and four militants were killed after militants attacked on an Army installation near Uri Brigade headquarters, around 100 km north of Srinagar, close to Line of Control, the army said.

"Four terrorists killed in counter-terrorist operation at Uri. 17 soldiers make the supreme sacrifice. Combing ops in prog," Northern Comd.IA, the official Twitter Account of Northern Command, Indian Army, tweeted.

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According to the army, a group of militants believed to be suicide squad stormed an Army installation close to the 12th Brigade Headquarters at Uri today early morning and started firing indiscriminately. The Army rushed Para commandos sent in helicopters to zero in on the militants hiding inside the installation.

READ| Uri terror attack: 17 jawans, 4 terrorists killed, combing operations on



This is the first major attack on an Army installation in Uri sector in past two years. In December 2014, militants had stormed an Army camp at Mohra, Uri, and in the gun battle, eight soldiers, including a Lieutenant-Colonel, three Jammu and Kashmir policemen, and six militants were killed. Army has deployed choppers to evacuate the injured troopers.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in a series of Twitter posts that he had spoken to the region's political and military leadership and senior officials were monitoring the situation. He canceled planned trips to Russia and the United States.





--- ENDS ---
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Fox News Howard Kurtz asserts that Donald Trump now has a lower bar to clear certainly in terms of debates. This is ridiculous, because the debates are part of the test to determine who is better suited to be president of the United States. Foreign leaders will not set a lower bar for the president, or cut him any slack in negotiations because he is catastrophically unsuited to be leader of the worlds only remaining superpower.

Watch courtesy of Media Matters for America:

Well this race isnt over in Trumps favor any more than it was over in Hillarys favor a month ago when she had that ten to twelve point lead and a lot of people were just speculating about who shed have in her cabinet. So you know, Hillary Clinton still has the built-in Electoral College advantage, that will help. But in terms of, Rich makes a really good point which is Donald Trump now has a lower bar to clear certainly in terms of debates. A lot of people who might be expecting him to be fulminating, attacking Crooked Hillary might see a more sober figure if he chooses to go that way. I really think that Hillary Clinton has to fashion some kind of appeal to those white working class voters who are tempted by the Trump brand, who might ordinarily vote Democratic. She has to offer them something about improving their lives. But when she talks about policy, shes kind of boring and its hard for her to break through the static. She doesnt have the showmanship.

Just as the media has set a lower bar for Donald Trump, apparently debate moderators and audiences must now do the same for the debates.

However, previous media behavior is not any excuse for lowering the bar for the presidential debates. Americans must expect Trump to be better than Hillary, rather than graded on a curve. Kurtz claims Clinton is boring when she talks about policy without allowing for the fact that she actually has discernible policies. Trump is all over the place and impossible to pin down.

Fox News is well aware of how dangerous Donald Trump is to himself. He is going to blunder again and again, and the only protection they can offer is to argue that he shouldnt really be expected to offer anything of substance, just put on a good and entertaining show.
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By Joseph Ax

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters)  As he seeks re-election to his U.S. Senate seat this November, Pennsylvanias Pat Toomey can make an unusual claim. He is the sole Republican nationwide running with the endorsement of top U.S. gun control advocates Gabby Giffords and Michael Bloomberg.

That pair of endorsements could give the first-term senator an edge over Democratic challenger Katie McGinty, a former environmental official in the White House and the Pennsylvania governors office. The race is one of a handful of close contests on Nov. 8 that could determine whether Republicans, currently with a 54-46 majority, maintain control of the Senate.

Both candidates are targeting educated moderate voters, particularly in the Philadelphia suburbs, many of whom may be turned off by the rhetoric of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to political analysts in Pennsylvania.

McGinty, who calls her support of gun control measures stronger than Toomeys, is working hard to dismiss his endorsements from Giffords and Bloomberg, and has touted her own endorsement by a Pennsylvania anti-gun violence group.

Giffords, considered a hero by many gun control advocates, is a Democratic former U.S. congresswoman from Arizona who survived being shot in a 2011 assassination attempt and has become an activist for gun restrictions. Bloomberg is the billionaire former New York City mayor who considered a run for the presidency this year and, since leaving office, has focused much of his energy on gun control.

McGinty has called Toomeys commitment to gun safety paper thin and notes that the Republican incumbent received an A rating from the influential National Rifle Association gun rights lobbying group during his first Senate run in 2010.

The issue of gun rights is potent in a nation where the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in Constitutions Second Amendment. The NRA opposes candidates who support gun control efforts including restricting the types of firearms people can own or expanding background checks required for gun buyers. Many Republicans side with the NRA, while many Democrats support gun control.

Opinion polls show Toomeys race as virtually tied, even as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton leads Trump by several percentage points in a state that has voted Democratic in the past six presidential contests, starting in 1992.

Pennsylvania is home both to rural communities where hunting is a popular pastime and big cities including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh where crime and gun violence are major concerns. Shifting attitudes on guns in the state have emboldened both parties in Pennsylvania to distance themselves from the NRAs stance opposing almost any effort to restrict gun rights.

The states law mandating background checks for private handgun sales already goes beyond federal law, said Terry Madonna, director of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania has a very substantial hunting and fishing culture, Madonna said. But hunters arent opposed to that.

HARD THING TO DO

Toomeys position on guns sets him apart from most of his Republican U.S. Senate counterparts, as he tries to attract moderates while keeping conservative voters in his column.

In a telephone interview, Toomey said the Giffords and Bloomberg endorsements recognized that what I did was a very hard thing to do politically. He also emphasized his belief that most gun owners share his position.

Im a strong Second Amendment supporter, Toomey said. I see no contradiction between that support and insisting on background checks, so that people whove got no right to the Second Amendment because theyre dangerous criminals or theyre dangerously mentally ill or theyre terrorists, should be denied a firearm any way we can.

Giffords has also endorsed Illinois Senator Mark Kirk, another Republican running for re-election, though Bloomberg has not weighed in on that race.

In an email, McGinty told Reuters Toomey is no moderate when it comes to gun violence.

Time and again, he has sided with the gun lobby instead of doing whats right to keep communities safe, McGinty said. Pat Toomey has completely run away from legislation to expand background checks, since it failed to pass the Senate three years ago.

Toomey made headlines in 2013 following an elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, when he and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia introduced legislation to expand background checks for gun buyers nationwide.

That legislation, fiercely opposed by the NRA, failed in the Senate, but Toomey gained praise from Democrats for bucking the majority of his party.

He voted for a similar bill after the mass shooting last year in San Bernardino, California, and supported Republican-backed legislation in Congress this year following the Orlando nightclub shooting to restrict access to firearms for people on official terrorism watch lists.

McGinty backed a stricter Democratic-backed version. None of the measures passed.

McGinty, who called Toomeys gun control positions weak, favors more sweeping restrictions such as bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips that Toomey opposes.

In a recent television ad, McGinty used a clip of Toomey telling voters this summer that he had a perfect record with the NRA. The NRA has not yet released ratings or issued an endorsement in the race.

Toomey called McGinty a political opportunist and again pointed to his support from Giffords and Bloomberg.

The idea that somehow theyve all got it wrong and Katie McGinty, my opponent, has it right is just laughable, he said.

(This story corrects Senator Mark Kirks home state to Illinois from Ohio in 15th paragraph.)

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)
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By Jeff Mason

FAIRFAX, Va. (Reuters)  Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clintons campaign deployed a popular surrogate to gin up enthusiasm amid young voters who could be critical to victory on Nov. 8: Michelle Obama.

The U.S. first lady and wife of President Barack Obama, who won the White House in 2008 and 2012 with high levels of support from young voters, told a crowd of students in Virginia that they could mean the difference between a Clinton win or a loss to Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Lets be clear, elections arent just about who votes, but who doesnt vote. And that is especially true for young people like all of you, she said, noting that voters under the age of 30 provided the margin of victory for Obama in the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Virginia in 2012.

Without those votes, Barack would have lost those states and he definitely would have lost that election. Period, end of story, she said.

A New York Times/CBS poll this week showed Clinton with more support from people under 30 than Trump but still well below the levels Obama achieved.

Though she has not yet been a frequent presence on the 2016 campaign trail, Mrs. Obama has proven to be an especially powerful advocate for Clinton, her husbands one-time rival. Her speech in support of Clinton at the Democratic convention in July was praised as one of the best of that event.

Im inspired, she said, listing Clintons positions in public service and rejecting arguments that Clinton was not an inspiring figure. The current first lady praised the former first lady as one of the most qualified people for the office of president in history.

So we cannot afford to squander this opportunity, particularly given the alternative. Because here is what we know: that being president isnt anything like reality TV, Mrs. Obama said, referring to Trump, a former reality television host.

A president could not just pop off when making life or death decisions about war and peace, she said without naming Trump.

Mrs. Obama noted that the country was in a time of transition, just like her family, which was about to move into a new house. She joked that they had to make sure the White House was cleaned up so they could get their security deposit back.

Then she referred to the transition in 2008 with a dig at Trump for questioning whether Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. On Friday he finally conceded that Obama was U.S. born.

There were those who questioned, and continued to question for the past eight years, up through this very day, whether my husband was even born in this country, she said to boos.

I think Barack has answered those questions with the example hes set: by going high when they go low.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Chris Reese)
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Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates took to the Wall Street Journal to pen an op-ed in which he criticized both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but his harshest words were for Trump, of whom he said,

When it comes to credibility problems, though, Donald Trump is in a league of his own.

We have seen how Republicans want to set a lower bar for Donald Trump, but according to Gates, The world we confront is too perilous and too complex to have as president a man who believes he, and he alone, has all the answers and has no need to listen to anyone. He pointed out that,

A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander in chief is too great a risk for America.

Trumps response? To be that thin-skinned leader Gates had just criticized. Trump tweeted in response:

I never met former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He knows nothing about me. But look at the results under his guidance  a total disaster!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2016

Trump is more than willing to criticize people he doesnt know and has never met, but woe unto any who dare criticize Trump, even if they have met him. He had similar words for New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, tweeting Crazy Maureen Dowd, the wacky columnist for the failing @nytimes, pretends she knows me wellwrong!

Gates is right: Trump is willfully ignorant about the rest of the world, writing,



At least on national security, I believe Mr. Trump is beyond repair. He is stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform. He is unqualified and unfit to be commander in chief.

Trumps ignorance is matched only by his dishonesty, of course, inventing outright encounters in a black church at which reporters were present, inventing out of whole cloth a tale about Donald Trump the hero who single-handedly ended the curse of bitherism when he was its foremost proponent. The list is too long at this point to list in its entirety.

The only total disaster here is Donald Trump himself. And he makes that fact more obvious every day.
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Missouri Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jason Kander wins the TV ad of the week award, if we had one.

The current Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander served in Afghanistan with the Missouri National Guard, and he shot a video that blasted his Republican opponent incumbent Senator Roy Blunt for calling him out on gun control.

But its the way he did it that makes it the ad of the week. Blindfolded, the Democrat assembles an AR-15 while telling the viewer he supports background checks so terrorists cant get their hands on one.

watch here:

Im Jason Kander. Senator Blunt has been attacking me on guns. Well, in the Army, I learned how to use and respect my rifle, the blindfolded Kander says to the camera as he assembles the weapon.

In Afghanistan, Id volunteer to be an extra gun in a convoy of unarmored SUVs. And in the state legislature, I supported Second Amendment rights.

I also believe in background checks, so the terrorists cant get their hands on one of these.

I approve this message, because Id like to see Senator Blunt do this.

The this being the final click of the rifle as its fully assembled.

The gun expert, who understands the danger and responsibility of a weapon like the AR-15, supports background checks. Obvious stance should be obvious. But its not, because the NRA has spent untold millions ginning up hysteria about gun rights in order to monetarily benefit their industry and manufacturers.

Kander found a way to dramatically illustrate that being for background checks isnt being against the second amendment. Sure, this seems like a no-brainer since most of the country gets this, but elected Republicans and the NRA equate the two. In fact, Donald Trump equates the two in his inaccurate claims that Hillary Clinton wants to demolish the second amendment.

Democrats pushing for background checks are doing the bare minimum we should expect from our leaders and representatives. There is simply no logical, sane reason why we should continue to legally sell weapons to terrorists.

The Republican rallying whine that anyone who supports responsible gun ownership is going to destroy the second amendment needs to be shut down so that this country can better protect its citizens.

James Kander found a way to get this message across that is jarring and disturbing, but completely effective.

The race between Blunt and Kander is ranked a toss up by Real Clear Politics, with Blunt leading by +3.4.

If Americans want the most basic forms of gun control as badly as survey after survey shows they do, they need to vote Republicans out of Congress, where laws are made.
The AAP alleged that the committee's decision to come down heavily on Kejriwal was a ploy to defame the AAP government by the beneficiaries of the BJP.

By Mail Today Bureau: The Delhi government will challenge in the court the order of a Union government-appointed panel that indicted Arvind Kejriwal's dispensation for splurging exchequer's money on advertisements, as it questioned the committee's neutrality.

PLOY TO DEFAME GOVERNMENT

The AAP alleged that it was a ploy to defame the Kejriwal government by the beneficiaries of Modi government and the BJP. "The Delhi government will challenge the very composition of the committee and its biased findings since the Centre is an interested party. It has done a number of flip-flops in the case," said a government spokesperson.

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AAP leader Ashutosh said the Committee's remarks were an apt example of Congress and BJP coming together as the panel gave its report on the complaint filed by DPCC President Ajay Maken against the Delhi government.

The three-member committee, headed by former chief election commissioner B B Tandon, had been constituted by the I&B ministry on the directions of the Supreme Court to address issues related to content regulation in government advertising. The panel also comprised adman Piyush Pandey and journalist Rajat Sharma.

LACK OF NEUTRALITY ALLEGED

"The committee required people of impeccable neutrality and those who could do their job without showing any bias or partiality. But two members of the panel are either linked to the BJP or are beneficiaries of Modi. So, how can one expect a fair report?" Ashutosh alleged, even as he refrained from attacking Tandon.

The AAP leader alleged that of the two panel members, one is linked to BJP since his college days while the other chalked out a campaign for Modi during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. He also said the Delhi government will explain its stand before the Supreme Court. In its report, the committee came down heavily on the AAP government asking the ruling party to reimburse.

ALSO READ:

AAP in Ad Row, Congress demands CBI probe

Sexual harassment case: AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan to court arrest today

--- ENDS ---
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Youve been warned, America.

Donald Trumps Vice Presidential pick Governor Mike Pence told ABCs This Week he holds former Republican VP Dick Cheney in really high regard in his role as vice president and like Cheney, he aspires to be a very active vice president.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is widely regarded as the architect of the Iraq War.

Watch here:

Dick Cheney, the man who ran George W. Bush, is Pences role model.

I frankly hold Dick Cheney in really high regard in his role as vice president and as an American, Gov. Pence said in the walk and talk part of his ABC This Week interview.

Pence laid out why Cheney was a good role model, saying he hopes to be a very active vice president.

Vice President Cheney had experience in Congress as I do, and he was very active in working with members of the House and the Senate.

Martha Raddatz pointed out that Cheney was criticized for being too influential over Bush, and Pence replied that he admired vice presidents who take the vision of the president to those who craft policy so he can help Trump make America great again.

Cheney has widely been cited as the most influential vice president in history. NPR listed a few of the reasons why:

In the first term, Cheney reshaped national security law, expanded the prerogatives of the executive branch and orchestrated secret, warrantless domestic surveillance, circumventing a court set up by Congress specifically to oversee such surveillance. He presented the president with options that led to a shutdown of negotiations with North Korea, and played a major role in persuading President Bush to go to war against Iraq. On the domestic front, he screened potential Supreme Court nominees, presided over the budget, led the selection of personnel from Cabinet officers to key lower-level positions. Without the presidents knowledge, he engineered the rewriting of the presidents tax bill so it included a capital gains tax break that the president had initially rejected. With the presidents knowledge, he led an industry-friendly revamping of energy and environmental regulations.

Without the presidents knowledge, he rewrote the tax bill

Mike Pence is in no way going to be able to control Donald Trump like Dick Cheney controlled George w Bush, after all Pence couldnt even handle a Trump peddling birtherism question in the sit down portion of this interview. But here he is citing the power-grabbing Cheney as a role model.

Pence aspires to be Dick Cheney, which in and of itself should disqualify him from the VP position.

Pence doesnt view Congress as a separate branch, but rather a place he would park himself to shape Trump policy.

Former President George H. W. Bush criticized Dick Cheney as serving his son George W. Bush poorly, saying Cheney built his own empire and asserted too much hard-line influence.

Cheney was out there pushing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and used that as a reason to invade. Iraq did not have wmds. As experts acknowledge, The strategic mistake since going into Iraq was all theirs. The mistake was going in.

Going in was Cheneys mistake. And Pence wants to be like Cheney.

Dick Cheney may be a lot of things, but he is not an aspirational version of a vice president to anyone who values the three branches of government, freedom, liberty, American values, the Constitution, etc. He is simply not a role model anyone should admit to.

Basically the Trump Pence ticket is the ticket in which the presidential nominee admires the leadership of dictators and the vice presidential nominee admires the vice president who most resembled a power-mad dictator.
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By threatening to blackball Gov. John Kasich from ever running for president in the GOP again if he continues to refuse to support Donald Trump, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus may have just handed Ohio to Hillary Clinton.

Video:

Priebus said about Kasich and Bush, Were a private party. Were not a public entity. Those people need to get on board. And if theyre thinking theyre going to run again someday, you know, I think were going to evaluate the nomination process, and I dont think its going to be that easy for them. I think these are things that our partys going to look at in the process. I think people who gave us their word, used information from the RNC, should get on board.

Chairman Priebus was specifically asked about John Kasich potentially being penalized for not supporting Trump. He answered, People in our party are talking about what were going to do about this. Theres a ballot access issue in South Carolina. In order to be on the ballot in South Carolina, you actually have to pledge your support to the nominee  So whats the penalty for that? Its not a threat. Its just a question that we have a process in place and if a private entity has a process in place, and has agreement with the participants in that process, and those participants dont follow through with the promises that they made in that process. What should a private party do about that if those same people come around in four or eight years?

The odds are that Kasich will have a much longer future shelf life in the Republican Party than Reince Priebus.

The thinly veiled threats by the RNC come at a time when Gov. Kasich is not lifting a finger to help Donald Trump win Ohio. Priebuss comments highlight a shift in the Republican Party. Under Trump, the GOP has been transformed from a party that values individual liberty to a dictatorship where everyone must support the Supreme Orange Leader.

If Democrats win Ohio, Republicans can thank Reince Priebus and Donald Trump for potentially handing the state to Hillary Clinton through their inept strong-arming of John Kasich.
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The birther issue is dragging Trump down fast. A prime example of the sinking of Donald Trump under his own racist past came when Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway collapsed into babbling talking points when asked about birtherism on Meet The Press.

Video:

Transcript of part of the Todd/Conway exchange:

CHUCK TODD:

hang on a minute. You guys, in a press release on Friday, called Birtherism a smear. You used the word smear. So for five years, and you were doing it to try to attack Hillary Clinton, does that mean for five years Donald Trump was perpetuating a smear? So if he was, why didnt Donald Trump apologize to the president? Why didnt Donald Trump apologize to the family of somebody who died in a plane crash where he tweeted out innuendo that this person somehow was involved in some cover-up with the birth certificate? If your campaign believes its a smear, shouldnt Donald Trump apologize to the president?

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

We were reminding people where this started. It was used as a smear against Senator Obama by Clinton campaign associates. And by the way, not a bunch of summer interns who just got it all wrong and were a little bit too ambitious. These were chief strategists, pollsters, long-term confidence confidantes, who were pushing this.

CHUCK TODD:

Okay.

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

I respectfully disagree, it does matter where it started.

CHUCK TODD:

But Kellyanne, in in 2012, when he was thinking about running for president, he tweeted things like this: An extremely credible source has called my office and told me that Barack Obamas birth certificate is a fraud. Also in 2012, When I was 18, people called me Donald Trump. When he was 18, Barack Obama was Barry Soweto. Weird. Those are just a number of examples, when he was running for president, where he was bringing up this issue. So how can you just totally dismiss this as part of his political identity?

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

Chuck, I think the only people less obsessed about this are those still covering it. Mr. Trump made very clear, and we hardly get any kind of clarity from the Clinton campaign on very much. And he took to the podium and took maybe a minute or less to state three very crisp things. And now hes moved onto the issues people care about. I mean it just I have to say its remarkable to me, to be out there with people and hear what they want covered, Im looking at NBCs poll this morning, Chuck, and I dont see this issue anywhere in the top 40. So I mean top 20.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, look.

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

Is what I see, and you know

CHUCK TODD:

I get what youre deflecting. And if I were in your shoes, I understand why youre deflecting.

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

Im not deflecting.

CHUCK TODD:

You are deflecting.

Kellyanne Conway tried to lie about Trumps birther past, blame Clinton for Trumps birtherism, claim birtherism doesnt matter, then finally, she tried to deflect and change the subject.

Her interview was almost as bad as Mike Pences collapse when he was confronted with Trumps birtherism. The Trump campaign brought up the birther issue.

They suckered the media into covering a publicity stunt for Trumps new hotel with a promise of a press conference that never happened. The Trump campaign continues to lie about the Republican nominees long history of birtherism, and now they are being suffocated by Donald Trumps history of racism towards President Obama.

The campaign cant escape Trumps birtherism, and they have set the stage for Trumps history of racist treatment of nations first African-American president to be an issue in the first presidential debate.

The September Trump bump has turned into a pit of quicksand that is sinking his entire campaign.
Dear Answer Man, I drove past the Olmsted County human services campus the other day for the first time in a while and I thought something looked different. Later that day I went back and realized what was missing -- the water tower. When was that removed? Was that a county problem or RPU?

That tower came down in July and it was interesting to watch -- more interesting, really, than watching the construction of a new tower, such as the St. Bridget's tower that recently went up in the Shoppes on Maine area. (You may want to refresh your memory by rereading my Aug. 26 m asterpiece on that distinctively tan-colored tower.)

The old tower dated from 1949, when that campus was part of the Rochester State Hospital . RPU didn't need the tower, so down it came. It was a little tyke compared with RPU's newer behemoths -- 200,000 gallons versus the 500,000 gallons in the Apache Mall tower or the whopping 3.3 million gallons in the "hydropillar" on 50th Avenue Northwest.

The tower came down in a single day in July and went off to the recycler.

Those of you who are older than me, meaning most of you, may remember when the state hospital closed. That was in June 1982, and a year later, the federal government bought one-third of the property for what became the Federal Medical Center.

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Dear Answer Man, is a grocery store still in the plans for the Miracle Mile project that's going through the mill of the Planning and Zoning Commission? My husband and I are big fans of Whole Foods.

It sure does, if it ever gets out of that mill. The plan calls for a 30,460-square-foot grocery store -- don't bank on it being Whole Foods, but a comparable brand has been mentioned -- along with another 6,800 square feet of commercial space. On top would be four stories with 107 apartments, which for comparison would be half again as many as at the Metropolitan Market Place, the apartment-grocery project on First Avenue Southwest.

And that's just Phase One. The planning documents note that the rest of the shopping center is marked for "future phases." The documents say that for now, "It is expected that the tenants in the existing building will be relocated to currently vacant space" at the north end of the center.

Regarding the grocery store, the developer, Miracle Mile LLC, which reportedly is associated with Oronoco developer Javon Bea and was represented by another developer, Nate Stencil,at the recent P & Z meeting, has said the "anchor tenant" is ready to go but its name hasn't been divulged.

It's apparently a national brand, though, judging by a comment made in a public meeting regarding handicapped accessibility; the developer's rep said the tenant has experience nationally with such issues.

This week, the commission put off action on the project until Sept. 28, in part because the Kutzky Park neighborhood people aren't happy. It's due for a visit to the City Council on Oct. 3. The developer hopes to have it built and open for business by fall 2017.
With homelessness happening in communities across the nation, one author is highlighting how LGBTQ youth are more likely to find themselves without a home.

While working as a case worker in a group home for disowned LGBTQ teens in New York, Ryan Berg became aware if this "invisible issue": 40 percent of all homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Meanwhile, only 8 percent of the general population identifies as LGBTQ.

Berg will discuss his book "No Place to Call my Home: Love, Family, and Other Transgressions" at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Rochester Public Library. The book, a 2016 Minnesota Book Award winner in nonfiction, focuses on the lives, trauma and healing behind the statistics.

RPL Teen Librarian, Sarah Joynt, said the issue applies locally. "Homelessness happens in Rochester, and local teens need the same understanding and compassion that Berg talks about."

The discussion is free and open to the public.

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For more information visit http://bit.ly/nohouse or contact the library at 507-328-2346.
WASHINGTON -- At long last, Donald Trump has set himself free.

At a highly choreographed event Friday, the Republican candidate for president of the United States finally issued his verdict on the birthright of our two-term president, who, it turns out, is a real American!

"Barack Obama was born in the United States, period," Trump intoned to the great relief of no one.

Well, howdy-do. Welcome to planet Earth, son.

But Trump's announcement was merely a curtain call on a theatrical production otherwise known as Free Publicity for Trump. For the preceding 24 hours, Trump gleefully baited and dragged the media through Con Man's Swamp, first refusing to answer the question posed by The Washington Post's Robert Costa about whether Trump still thought Obama wasn't born in the U.S., then building suspense Friday morning that he would make a "big announcement."

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As reporters drummed their fingers and cameramen shifted their feet, Trump dilly-dallied, finally arriving late to the venue, which happened to be his very own new hotel in Washington. Awaiting him on the dais was a gathering of war heroes, who spent 20 minutes extolling Trump's virtues, many of which one has never before associated with the nominee -- his intellectual curiosity, his great temperament and his raw intelligence.

Only Trump could believe such things about himself -- and he obviously did. Nearly glistened from the mist of blown kisses, he beamed like a boy with a brand new toy.

Now, I don't doubt that those on the stage sincerely support the Republican candidate. And nothing I say about Trump is intended to reflect on these extraordinary Americans, especially not on Michael Thornton, a retired Navy SEAL, whom I single out because he happens to be a friend. I commend his remarkable story to anyone seeking perspective and inspiration.

My heart sank just a little when I saw Mike standing behind Trump, even though I'm aware that it's difficult for many battlefield veterans, especially those from the Vietnam era, to find a Clinton acceptable as commander in chief. Although no American women engaged in direct combat in Vietnam, thereby eliminating any expectation that Hillary should have served (we were saner then), she still bears the burden of Benghazi, justified or not. But Bill Clinton dodged the draft, while 58,000 members of his generation fought and died. To many Trump-supporting veterans, once a twofer always a twofer.

Seeing Trump wedged among men who had served heroically, several of whom risked their own lives to save others, had an effect more minimizing than elevating. Trump avoided the draft, too, with a doctor's excuse, often available to sons of the rich, and otherwise isn't qualified to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Medal of Honor recipients.

As I watched them dutifully take turns saluting Trump, I recalled something I had read several years ago about heroes. It was a column by military scribe W. Thomas Smith Jr., who was writing about Thornton and three other MoH recipients. Smith, also a vet, was describing what it takes to be a hero -- and those characteristics that would be antithetical to the heroic impulse.

He wrote: "Selfish men, bullies, and braggarts don't perform well in battle. And those believing in their own extraordinariness rarely if ever accomplish feats worthy of the MoH."

Indeed.

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Obviously, the commander in chief doesn't necessarily have to have participated in war to be effective. Nor will he or she ever physically act in war once elected, except in movies. But it does seem that qualities, values and virtues that we expect from our military troops and commanders -- and that we recognize in our heroes -- are no longer required of our political leaders.

In making his announcement, Trump also repeated two familiar refrains that are factually false. One, that Hillary Clinton first raised the question of Obama's birthright. Even though it was raised by at least one of her supporters in 2008, it was Trump who, for years, led the birther movement and then used the notoriety to launch his campaign.

Trump also said that, thanks to him, Obama was forced to provide his birth certificate. Wrong again. And, by the way, does anyone think that the Clinton machine wouldn't have produced contrary evidence of Obama's citizenship had it existed?

It's good that Trump has finally owned up, if way too late to make any difference. But one should keep in mind that the birther movement was racist to its core. And the man who would be president led the charge.

Kathleen Parker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post.
The current labor shortage caused by the denial of H-2B visa applications and extension requests have placed a spotlight on Guam's need for temporary labor. Legislation enacted in the last few years attempted to introduce a layer of transparency to the temporary worker program by requiring quarterly certification reports among other mandates. A common assumption is that foreign labor can be acquired cheaply  a misconception the Guam Department of Labor calls "a longtime myth."

"It has never been cheaper to hire foreign workers. ... An employer must pay airfare, housing, pay the prevailing wage ... all of which are not required when hiring a U.S. worker."

"It has never been cheaper to hire foreign workers," a department representative stated. "An employer must pay airfare, housing, pay the prevailing wage ... all of which are not required when hiring a U.S. worker."

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Ongoing reductions in Guam's temporary workforce is expected to place greater emphasis on hiring skilled U.S. labor for local contracts. Construction industry insiders say increased competition in the future for the island's limited pool of local labor and smaller companies may find it difficult to keep their heads above water as larger entities attract more workers with higher wages.

But there are no guarantees that any company  no matter the size  will be able to hold onto its workforce. As Black Construction Corp. Senior Vice President and General Manager Leonard Kaae told the Post, wages will be the determining factor. Longtime immigration attorney Ladd Baumann said he believes local workers will have leverage to request higher wages if hiring temporary workers continues to be a problem, but he added that it is difficult to compare expenses related to local and foreign labor.

"H-2B labor includes government fees, attorneys fees, recruitment fees, transportation, housing and other costs," Baumann said. "These costs can be substantial. A U.S. worker may not have any of these costs unless the U.S. worker is recruited from off island."

Little incentive

Wages in Hawaii and the U.S. mainland are at least double Guam's H-2B prevailing wages, Baumann said. Recruiting U.S. workers from off-island can be difficult; both Baumann and GDOL cite little incentive for mainland workers to travel several thousand miles for a temporary job when employment opportunities and higher paychecks are available back home. But a local employer may still prefer to pay a premium for off-island U.S. labor, Baumann said, in exchange for hiring workers with known skill levels.

Wages for Guam's local U.S. workers are significantly closer to its H-2B prevailing wages  which is a system designed to ensure that the employment of H-2B workers does not adversely affect the wages of U.S. workers and also to act as a disincentive to utilize foreign labor as opposed to developing local skilled workers. Employers who hire temporary workers must pay them at least the same wages as local workers for the same type of work.

According to the May 2015 Guam wage estimates from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average rate for a carpenter  one of the more common occupations in Guam's construction industry  was $14.29 per hour. This is somewhat higher than the prevailing wage rate up until February, which was $13.56. But the median rate for carpenters was even closer to the prevailing wage, which was $13.86. The average hourly wage rate for carpenters in the U.S. mainland was $22.49 in May 2015.

In February, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved updated prevailing wages for Guam, which increased rates in several construction occupations. Currently, the prevailing wage for carpenters is $14.20 per hour.

Just as employers may seek more expensive off-island U.S. workers, they may have several reasons to hire foreign workers, regardless of cost.

Cultural reasons

These include cultural reasons, such as hiring a temporary worker from an employer's home country, and reliability preferences, according to Baumann.

One local employer, who did not want to be named, said the cost to bring over a single H-2B worker  in addition to higher prevailing wages  may climb to several thousand dollars. Attorney's fees alone can cost $1,500 for just one individual. There is also a registration fee nearing $2,000.

"It's costly. If you have available and dependable local workers, I think it's wise for some companies to depend on them," he said. "But opinion wise ... bringing in H-2s is a lot more expensive  the only thing is you can depend on them."

Baumann said there is a certain amount of predictability and leverage that employers enjoy with an H-2B worker rather than with a U.S. worker. Unlike a U.S. worker, an H-2B worker cannot quit and change jobs easily because they are tied to their employer. This also means that the ability to remain on U.S. soil and earn wages higher than in their home countries is in the hands of the employer.

The local labor department encourages hiring local workers, according to the employer the Post spoke to, and there may be a desire by some contractors to hire local because it can be more cost-effective. But when it comes to meeting deadlines, a temporary worker  whose employment and stay on Guam is tied to the employer  can be more reliable than a local hire who can quit or refuse to work at any time, the employer added.
I have recently been employed as deputy general counsel of the Hopi Tribe and admittedly have not been involved in the Snowbowl matter since its inception. I write as a concerned individual and not in any official capacity. The Hopi Tribe has filed its notice of appeal of the dismissal of the Snowbowl case today because the San Francisco Peaks are the most sacred of all locations to the Hopi people. The Peaks are the heart of the Hopi people and their cathedral. I wish that every voter in Flagstaff could hear the elders of the Hopi Tribe, who are generally stoic and strong, cry as they describe the desecration of the Peaks by the reclaimed water being used to make snow by Snowbowl to satisfy the recreational and economic desires of the people of Flagstaff.

As the voters in the City of Flagstaff vote in the next election, I ask them to keep in mind that the City of Flagstaff and its residents frequently need the cooperation of the Indian tribes that are your neighbors. The Hopi Tribe has a long memory. I want to warn the voters that by preferring their recreational interests to the religious interests of the tribes that surround them, the City of Flagstaff is unlikely to ever obtain the cooperation of the tribes for anything in the future that the people of Flagstaff want or need. As the residents of Flagstaff decide who to vote for in the upcoming election, I ask them to keep in mind that if they vote into office a city council that opposes the settlement recommendation of the city staff that the Snowbowl matter be settled by agreeing to the more extensive filtration system previously proposed, they have only themselves to blame in the future when the tribes adamantly oppose and refuse to support anything wanted or needed by the people of the City of Flagstaff.
After spending one and half hour inside the police station, the MLA said, "It is the victory of common man, the police didn't arrest me because of public pressure".

Amanatullah Khan is facing a sexual harassment case filed by his sister-in-law who recorded her statement against him in Saket court.

By Parbina Purkayastha: "I love Amanatullah, arrest me too", hundreds of such placards were displayed by Amanatullah Khan's supporters when he went to the police to surrender himself.

PLANNED SUPPORT?

Khan reached Jamia Nagar police station at 1 pm today with a barrage of supporters after announcing that he would surrender.

After spending one and half hour inside the police station, the MLA said, "It is the victory of common man, the police didn't arrest me because of public pressure".

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UNDER PRESSURE

He had earlier said, that the police was "under pressure" to arrest him. After spending an hour with the police he changed his version and said the police succumbed under "public pressure".

The AAP MLA on Saturday alleged that the police wants to arrest him. "I am personally involved in fogging of my area and I requested the police to not arrest me, but they said they are under pressure".

Meanwhile, Amanatullah's sister-in-law filed another FIR in Jamia Nagar Police station, complaining of constant pressure to withdraw her complain.

Amanatullah Khan is facing a sexual harassment case filed by his sister-in-law who recorded her statement against him in Saket court.

--- ENDS ---
Congressional candidate Jim Moylan will not let truth or distortions stop him from saying anything to get elected. It is up to political analy Read morePolitical ploys at the last part of election?
One of the many chilling moments in the terrorism trial in Minneapolis this past May was the presentation of a piece of evidence that passed in a flash without comment. The evidence was a photograph of one of the defendants dressed in the uniform he wore when he worked as a security guard (pretty much whenever he wanted) in the Twin Cities.

I think the photograph must have had the same effect on the jury as it did on me. It made me reflect on the the Alice-in-Terrorland world we have in Minnesota.

In the news today are the apparently jihadist stabbing attacks committed by a security guard in the Crossroads Center shopping mall in St. Cloud last night. (The afternoon the Star Tribune raised the possibility that the assaults were perpetrated against Muslims rather than by a Muslim. ISIS has claimed the perpetrator was a soldier of the Islamic State.)

The security guard was killed inside the mall by an off-duty police officer. The Star Tribune reports the story here. Eight people were taken to the hospital after the attacks (one more took himself). This morning, according to the AP, as many as three remain hospitalized.

The security guard seems to have declared the motivation for his attack by shouting Allah and trying to spare Muslims from his rampage. St. Cloud Chief of Police William Blair Anderson nevertheless refrained from hazarding a conclusion about the perpetrators motivation:

Anderson declined to call the stabbing a terrorist attack, saying the motive for the attacks isnt known yet. We will be diligent and get to the bottom of this, Anderson said, adding that St. Cloud Police had prior contact with the suspect, but only related to traffic stops.

You can understand why Chief Anderson preferred not to say more. It was in St. Cloud last year when Governor Dayton warned Minnesotans concerned about our ever growing Somali population to pack up and move on. Dayton weirdly instructed white, B-plus, Minnesota-born citizens to suppress their qualms about immigrant resettlement in Minnesota. If they cant, they should find another state, he added. Chief Anderson wants to stay put.

UPDATE: The St. Cloud Times has just posted this detailed story on the stabbing rampage.

A St. Cloud attorney closely following these events writes to express his disagreement with my assessment of Chief Anderson: I got the impression from the Chief that he wanted everyone to know the identity of the perpetrator and confirm that there was an Islam-based motivation. I do not think it was unreasonable or cowardly to then allow the public to deduce from his statement of the facts the motivation for the attacks. I also thought it was reasonable to wait until the investigation was complete before he expressed his view of the motivation. He easily could have omitted the reference to the attackers reported comments about Allah; he included them. Having observed him up close, he adds that Chief Anderson has always come across as a straight shooter. He is very outgoing and is very visible.

And then we have this:
The mayor of St. Cloud just held a press conference with law enforcement authorities on the stabbing rampage at the Crossroads Center mall last night. Other than crediting the off-duty officer who killed the perpetrator (identified as Jason Falconer) with acting promptly at his own risk to to lives, the press conference was remarkably short on information. As late as noon today the Star Tribune seemed to be holding out hope that the perpetrator was not a Somali Muslim waging jihad but someone attacking Muslims (a suggestion now helpfully removed from the current Star Tribune story).

If that were the case, you can bet we would have heard about it at the press conference. The Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Minneapolis office allowed that the incident was being investigated as a potential terrorist attack. I assume theyll have it figured out before too long, but I inferred from the silence on this point that it was as we thought. Now the Star Tribune reports:

While law enforcement has yet to reveal the name of the suspect, his father identified him as Dahir A. Adan, 22, a student at St. Cloud Technical and Community College. Interviewed Sunday through a translator, Ahmed Aden said his son was born in Africa and had lived in the United States for 15 years. Police told Ahmed Aden at about 9 p.m. Saturday that his son had died at the mall. He said that he had no suspicion of his son being involved in any terror activity. The father added that police raided the apartment on St. Germain street Sunday morning and seized photos and other materials, but they said nothing to him about the stabbings at the mall.

The story wouldnt be complete without this:

Jaylani Hussein, executive director in Minnesota of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Sunday afternoon that we are definitely concerned about the potential for backlash in the community, both in the immediate run and the longer term. Hussein went on to call the attack an isolated incident, and we still dont know the full facts.

You may now carry on.

Quotable quote from Governor Mark Dayton: If true that [the attacks] were motivated by religious bigotry, I condemn them even more strongly.  I ask everyone in the St. Cloud area and throughout Minnesota to rise above this atrocity and act to make religious and racial tolerance one of the ways in which Minnesotans again lead our country. What an idiot.
Doyin Aduloju is the Chief Executive officer of Royal Icon salon, a hair-making venture in Wuse, Zone 2, Abuja.

Three years into her small business, Doyin tells PREMIUM TIMES how she works around the challenging economic environment, to meet customers satisfaction.

PT: When did you start salon business?

Doyin: I started six years ago. I started learning in Abuja, then I travelled to Lagos to improve myself. Since then, it has been awesome because I really have a passion for it.

PT: Why salon and not any other business?

Doyin: Before I chose salon, I started making beads since I was nine years old, and from then I realised that I enjoy doing things with my hands.

PT: How do you keep your customers?

Doyin: I tried to study them very closely. I take my time to study anyone that enters my salon to know the persons behaviour and who he is. If a customer comes to my salon and she doesnt look happy, I normally engage her in talking about such issues and subsequently help in finding solutions.

However some might not talk immediately but will call be back to appreciate my concerns about them.

The second way is I normally call my customers at beginning of every new month to wish them a happy new month.

PT: Would you work for the government if given the opportunity?

Doyin: For me business is better off than working for government. A lot of people do government job because of job security, but in business you can still get the same thing. You can decide to open one account that you can save for your future.

PT: Who is your dream husband?

Doyin: A god-fearing man is what I always pray for and I want a guy that I can trust with my everything because I am a very open person and I want somebody that can support me.

PT: What do you do at your leisure?

Doyin: Anytime I am not working, I am always in church and I skate, swim and I love to sit alone and think. In fact I love thinking.

PT: What are your dreams?

Doyin: In future, I want to have a home that will have all aspects of fashion: Spar, Salon, Tailoring, and so many things. I will love to have a gym house. And the major thing I love in life is I want to have a motherless home.

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Following reports of explosion of dozens of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 while charging, the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has issued a seven-day ultimatum to Samsung Electronics West Africa Limited to provide information on the full status of its compliance with the global directive of Samsung on the recall of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

The CPCs ultimatum, which came on the heels of recent global recall of the product following its defective battery, also demanded Samsung Electronics West Africa Limited to furnish it with other measures the company may have taken to safeguard the safety and interest of Nigerian consumers.

The Council, in a letter to the company dated September 14, 2016, signed by its Director General, Dupe Atoki, said the attention of the Council has been drawn to media reports indicating that the lithium-ion batteries for Samsung Galaxy Note 7 are prone to catching fire.

The agencys letter stated further that the said faulty batteries have reportedly caused the phone to explode in 35 separate incidents, sometimes bursting into flames, damaging property and leaking dangerous chemicals, expressing concern that some Nigerian consumers may already have purchased the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 for personal or other uses.

You are, therefore, directed to, within seven days of the receipt of this letter, furnish the Council with information on the full status of your compliance with the global directive of Samsung to recall the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 forthwith, including other measures you may have taken to safeguard the safety and interest of Nigerian consumers in this respect. it added.

Commenting on the situation, the Councils Director General, Dupe Atoki, said Nigerian consumers who may have purchased the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 should, as an interim measure, stop using the phone forthwith.

According to her, while awaiting the response of Samsung Electronics West Africa Limited in order to determine the number of affected consumers in Nigeria, there is an urgent need to avert whatever dangers that may be associated with the use of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in Nigeria.

Mrs. Atoki stated that in line with international best practices, the company should immediately issue a recall notice giving Nigerian consumers adequate information on the procedure for recall and the appropriate compensation being offered.

She urged the company to ensure that affected consumers either get a free replacement from Samsung, or a refund of their money, where necessary.

The Director General explained that Samsung had announced in the United States that consumers with Samsung Galaxy Note 7 can check whether or not their phones are affected and eligible for recall by entering the IMEI or serial number of their phone in a space provided on Samsung website, www.samsung.com/us/note/recall/, saying that Nigerian consumers can avail themselves of that facility.

CPC is the apex consumer protection agency of the Federal Government of Nigeria established by the CPC Act Cap 25, LFN 2004 to, among others, educate Nigerian consumers, remove hazardous products from the market, provide redress to consumer complaints and ban the sale of products which do not comply with safety or health regulations.
Most of our readers sent us pictures of how they spent their Sallah. And here are the best ten pictures we got from them.

From Bauchi, Khalil Abubakar sent pictures of Eid prayers which held in mosques because of heavy downpour. The Emir and the Governor performed prayers at the mosque in Gwallaga. There was also a traditional Durbar. Another Durbar took place on Thursday. In one of the pictures, there is a kid holding a life snake and another on a horse.

In the Zaria Sallah Durbar, there was the Emir of Zazzau procession and also a parade by various horse riders. The Sallah Durbar in Lere town also had the Sarkin Lere, Abubakar II, in procession.

Also in Bauchi, a non-governmental group, Save Bauchi State Organisation, donated a cow as Sallah gift to inmates at the Bauchi Prisons.
After losing three children and her 40-year-old husband to a bomb blast at Saint Teresas Catholic Church Madala, Niger state, 33-year-old Chioma Dike says her only prayer is that her two surviving children be strong enough to forge ahead with her.

The whole family was in the church vicinity on Christmas day in 2011 when the explosion by the Boko Haram struck.

When she was told by medical practitioners that her only surviving son had a secondary missile, more like a nail, inside his head, Mrs. Dike hoped for help from government and well-meaning Nigerians to end the sufferings of the 11-year-old.

Government gave us hope. They said they would treat us fully and in good hospitals, she said.

However, five years after the blast, Mrs. Dikes son still lives with the nail in his head.

Most times he suffers headaches and becomes dizzy as a result of the problem, she told PREMIUM TIMES.

Even in July this year I took him from Suleja to the National Hospital in Abuja for a treatment which I had to pay for from the meagre income I receive through the trading business I am managing.

One of the drugs cost N2, 800 for its singular purchase, said Mrs. Dike in a telephone conversation with PREMIUM TIMES.

The sad story shared countless times by Mrs. Dike is similar to that of other victims of bomb explosion in Nigeria.

However, it was not meant to be so as the Federal Government established a fund to support the victims; or so it seems.

THE VICTIMS SUPPORT FUND

In its bid to assist victims of the Boko Haram insurgency and rebuild destroyed communities, the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan put in place a Victims Support Fund, VSF.

The committee supervising the VSF, led by Theophilus Danjuma, a retired Army General, organised a fund raising in 2015 to address the challenges of those directly affected by the insurgency.

Over N54 billion was pledged as donations to the VSF.

According to the Executive Director of the Fund, Solomon Ochoche, about half of the pledge has so far been redeemed.

N28 billion has been redeemed out of N54 billion which was pledged, he told PREMIUM TIMES.

While recounting the expenditure, Mr. Ochoche said N3.8 billion has been spent on projects for the welfare of various victims of terror in Nigeria since the establishment of the VSF in 2015.

Of that sum, N227 million was shared among 14 hospitals across North-East Nigeria for the care of civilians affected by bomb explosions, he said.

Another N35 million was given to two military hospitals for the same purpose.

When asked about treatment of victims of the various bomb explosions that happened in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, and neighbouring states, the director said their treatment was not initially part of the Funds mandate.

At the beginning; the Victims Support Fund identified three areas of intervention; women economic empowerment, educational support for children and psycho-social support, he said.

Those were the areas identified and the needs in these areas are very broad. When we later identified the enormity of the needs of bomb blast victims; VSF decided to step in to help support the health challenges of the victims, he added while explaining that the funds largest expenditure was a N2 billion donation to the Safe School Initiative in the North East.

Mr. Ochoches explanation appears to contradict the aim of setting up the fund as espoused by ex-President Jonathan while inaugurating the committee.

Our gathering here today is to kick-start the process of providing succour to our people who have been directly affected one way or the other by acts of terrorism in the country, Mr. Jonathan had said.

VICTIMS UNIONISE

To ensure a more cohesive push for government attention, some of the victims of the various explosions formed the Bomb Blast Victims Association of Nigeria, BVAN.

The Chairman of the association, Kayode Olatunji, said the most fortunate of those affected by the bomb blasts were only assisted by government during the early stages of the incidents.

Every member of the BVAN will tell you, like it was the case with me, that they only got help for a while at the hospital, said Mr. Olatunji.

Mr. Olatunji who was affected by the April 8, 2011 bomb explosion at the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, office in Suleja explained that he still has some treatments pending for his eyes, ears and bones.

I was treated with assistance from government at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Gwagwalada, Abuja for four months and two weeks, after which I was made to fully continue the treatment, since help no longer came from government, he said.

One of my ears is still down; my left eye requires a cornea transplant while my right eye has been affected with cataract; all as a result of the incident, Mr. Olatunji told PREMIUM TIMES.

He said he still goes for treatment at the UTH in Gwagwalada and another hospital managed by the Evangelical Church of west Africa (ECWA), in Kano, with whatever funds he is personally able to come up with.

Mr. Olatunji also told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr. Ochoche had stated that money under the care of the fund was not meant for them.

All efforts to get funds from the VSF to help our members have failed, he said. Professor Ochoche asked us to find ways of getting government to listen to our problems, as funds under his care was not meant for us.

MORE VICTIMS LAMENT

Like Mrs. Dike, other victims of bomb explosions also lament their situation.

Favour Duke, whose husband was killed in the June 25, 2014 bomb blast at Emab plaza, said she joined BVAN so that she might be assisted with a job to feed her seven-year-old daughter.

My husband was the bread winner of the family. We were practically comfortable with what he provided, the Banking and Finance graduate told PREMIUM TIMES.

However since he died it has been one problem or the other. A couple of months back my daughter took ill and almost died. It took the grace of God with the assistance of the church I attend to provide over N200, 000 needed for her medication.

Even the house we live in has been due for the renewal of its rent, for almost two years now. The only reason we are still able to remain here is that the house currently has legal issues. Any time they demand that it should be demolished or sealed, I dont know where to go to, she said.

Mrs. Dike said her effort to start a day-care business was frustrated by the construction of a bridge around their house, which made it impossible for people to take their children to her home.

I live from day to day, anxious about what the next challenge might be, she told PREMIUM TIMES.

Another victim, Monica Solomon, narrated her experience after surviving the May 1, 2014 explosion in Nyanya, Abuja.

Mrs. Solomon, 38, sustained severe burns which affected both her hands and legs.

After initial reluctance, she narrated her ordeal.

I had gotten off that morning to go to work as usual. I boarded a bike from my house to the bus stop at Nyanya. After getting there I stood under the bridge, awaiting a taxi to take me to work.

There was a vehicle in front of me, but I never knew that the vehicle was loaded with a bomb. I had turned and decided to move to a different spot after I saw a man, whose appearance I didnt like.

Suddenly I heard a loud sound and lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was covered with the heat of fire.

They brought a police van that carried us to the Asokoro District Hospital, from where we were transferred to Garki, because the authorities at Asokoro said there was no bed.

The same complaint was made, also at Garki District Hospital and we were taken to that of Wuse, where I was kept for two weeks before I was taken to Teaching Hospital at Gwagwalada.

At Gwagwalada Teaching Hospital, Mrs. Solomon said she was faced with an entirely new policy, from that which obtained at Wuse hospital, where her medical bills were fully paid for.

At that point of her narration, her husband, Adebosun Solomon, who was present during the interview, interjected.

Mr. Solomon said even at the Wuse hospital, he had to foot some of the bills.

A day after the visit of the Minister, Bala Mohammed, I was made to pay for a cream that was to be applied on my wifes hand. The Hospital authorities at Wuse actually said they had the cream, but added that the person holding the keys to the place where the cream was kept, was not around.

The cream was N2,500. They also asked me to pay for an injection whose single dosage cost N3,500 and my wife had six of that injection at the time, he said.

Even the promise of feeding my wife for free was practically impossible, as we had to buy the kind of food that was good for my wife.

According to Mr. Solomon they began to fully foot the bills for every treatment when they arrived Gwagwalada Hospital.

He added that the situation got so bad that his wifes hands started stinking before he was advised to take her home and apply alternative or traditional methods of treatment which were more affordable.

Even now though the wounds have practically healed from the outside, the problem is still not over. Every evening from 7 p.m., we will not sleep. Her hand will become very itchy, he said.

According to Mrs. Solomon, all she has prayed for, since the incident is that some help will come to put her hands back in good shape, so that she can find another job and help her civil servant husband.

She explained that months after the explosion, her employer, Dumo Casino, a transport agency where she had worked for 21 years, laid her off with a severance pay of only N150, 000.

Her husband stated that he had to visit the companys office several times, before they released the money in two instalments of N50,000 and N100,000 respectively.

WE CANT EXTEND MANDATE

While many bomb victims continue to live in pain and helplessness, the VSF, which still has over N24 billion of unspent funds said it cannot do more.

It is not possible for the VSF to cater for all the people affected by these terror, Mr. Ochoche told PREMIUM TIMES.

The official said his agency had identified and provided funds for 14 hospitals to treat the victims.

When told that the identified hospitals often referred the victims to other hospitals not among the 14, Mr. Ochoche said his agency could no longer assist such victims.

If they go to hospitals that we have asked them to go to and they are referred to other hospitals, I am sorry but we cannot take responsibility for that. It is the hospitals that will know how to sort themselves out.

When asked how his agency planned to spend its remaining N24.2 billion, the VSF official said the funds are spent based on the determination of the committees short, medium and long term budgeting objectives.

You cannot just spend the money like that, he said. The expenses have to be determined by the committee and then after I have drafted the budget based on the short medium and long term needs, they will have to approve it before any expenses are made.
Previously, Amanatullah Khan's sister-in-law had approached Jamia Nagar Police station alleging that Khan had put pressure on her to get intimate with him. Now, Khan who had already tendered his resignation following allegations of sexual harassment, is likely to be put under arrest.

By Parbina Purkayastha, Himanshu Mishra: A battered but the still defiant AAP will get another jolt tomorrow as AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan is likely to court arrest for the harassment charges leveled at him.

VICTIM'S STATEMENT

Speaking exclusively to India today, Amanatullah's victim, his sister-in law, broke silence about the alleged harassment meted out to her since her marriage.

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"I was tortured from the third day of my marriage and the man who took maximum advantage of my strained marriage was Amanatullah Khan" said the victim.

"Once when my husband had gone out, he came to my flat and forced himself upon me. When I complained about this to my husband, at first he reacted angrily but after meeting his sister and Amanatullah, he explained how important it is to maintain good relation with the MLA"

She pleaded for justice but was denied. She was left in the lurch with her children, tortured and forced by Amanatullah everyday but neither her husband nor Amanatullah's wife intervened. Her husband rather forced her to compromise citing Amanatullah's influential voice in the society and how it will boost his business.

PRESSURISED TO SHUT UP

"My husband didn't take any action and reasoned with me by saying that if we are good to them, then my business will prosper. Amanatullah's wife didn't raise her voice and instead she threw me and my children out from her house."

Not only Amanatullah but also Amanatullah's wife and her own husband pressurised her for dowry and even forced her to remain mum on the various injustice meted out to her. She suffered in silence for years and faced disappointments from all fronts when she wanted to speak out.

SISODIA'S FAILURE TO INTERVENE

"Manish Sisodia said, it was a domestic affair and so they won't intervene. My question to the deputy CM is, if a public representative cannot handle a domestic affair, how is he suppose to take care of thousands of other women's issues" asks the victim.

" I would like to ask Chief Minister Kejriwal, Sisodia or the other ministers who has visited me, am I not a citizen of this country? Is my problem not an issue that needs to be addressed? As a leader shouldn't all citizens be same for them?"

"Manish Sisodia said an investigation report proved it was a domestic issue, can we see the report, who investigated it? anything concrete? asks the victim's brother, Yusuf.

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COMPLAINTS FELL ON DEAF EARS

"He is still not arrested and still roaming free. I am from Bareily, hence I appeal the people of Bareily and India to help me. Lets not be cowed into silence due to such pressures. I am in constant pressure to withdraw the complaint but I want to fight this battle" appealed the victim.

Previously, Khan's sister-in-law had approached Jamia Nagar Police station alleging that Khan had put pressure on her to get intimate with him. Now, Amanatullah Khan who had already tendered his resignation following allegations of sexual harassment, is likely to be put under arrest.

This will be another setback for AAP as another MLA gets inducted into the list of tained AAP MLAs. Already denounced for apathy towrads people of Delhi during a severe outbreak of dengue and chikungunya, AAP's house of cards seems to be getting dismantled with each passing day.



ALSO READ:

Sexual harassment case: AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan to court arrest today

AAP in Ad Row, Congress demands CBI probe



--- ENDS ---
A former Minister of National Guidance, Yusuf Maitama-Sule, has called for a ban on public officers convicted of looting public funds from partaking in partisan politics and holding public office.

Mr. Maitama-Sule told the News Agency of Nigeria in Kano on Sunday that the ban should be backed by law passed by the National Assembly.

This will be possible when there is a law to back it and we hope the law will be enacted soon to support the idea, he said.

He noted that the fear of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, by public officers was now the beginning of wisdom.

EFCC has done extremely well in the discharge of its responsibilities so far, as there are a lot of recovered looted funds now.

But the biggest challenge for EFCC is that it can investigate but it does not have the power to spend money and utilise it for other purposes.

Mr. Maitama-Sule, who is also Nigerias former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, also called for an enabling law for the government to utilise the recovered looted funds to improve the living standard of Nigerians, especially the common man.

He suggested the revitalisation of education, agriculture and power sectors in order to give the nations moribund industries a new lease of life using the recovered funds.

The elder statesman commended President Muhammadu Buhari for tackling insurgency, especially in the North-East.

We have to thank God Almighty for the peace that has since been restored in the country and we will continue to pray for its sustenance.

No meaningful development can be achieved in any country without peace and even the most diehard cynics know that President Buhari has done well in terms of restoration of peace in the country, he said.

Mr. Maitama-Sule urged Nigerians to continue to support and show understanding to the government in its determination to restore sanity in the country.

(NAN)
President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday morning arrived New York, United States of America, ahead of his participation at the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, UNGA.

Femi Adesina, the presidents Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Confirmed this development in his twitter page on Sunday.

President Buhari departed the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport on Saturday for the New York trip, where he would attend the UN General Assembly, slated to commence on Monday.

A statement earlier issued by Mr. Adesina in Abuja, said the president while in New York, would deliver Nigerias statement at the opening of the General Debate of the Assembly, on the theme: The Sustainable Development Goals: a Universal Push to Transform our World.

He said President Buhari would also deliver a keynote address on Taking Climate Action Towards Sustainable Development in Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin.

Mr. Adesina said the president would also attend a high-level summit, hosted by the UN, on Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants.

According to him, while in New York for the annual gathering of world leaders, President Buhari will also attend series of meetings as well as side events, which are of significant interest to Nigeria.

President Buhari and his US counterpart, President Barack Obama, will meet on Tuesday in New York, on the sidelines of the US leaders final appearance at the UN General Assembly session.

The 71st UN General session will be President Buharis second appearance since he assumed office as Nigerias president on May 29, 2015.
A Nigerian lawyer, Oluwakemi Makun, has advised young Nigerians who have just completed their first degree not to be in a hurry to do masters.

There is an additional advantage for a young graduate to first gain some work experience, know his strength and weakness, before deciding on area of interest and the type of education that would fit into his career choice, says Mrs. Makun, an expert in corporate and commercial law, and the principal of an Abuja law firm, Allianz Solicitors.

Mrs. Makun, who spoke from Abuja after finishing top of her class, with a cum laude and four distinctions, at the Executive MBA programme of the Business School Netherlands, Abuja, said she draws example from her personal experience.

Mrs. Makun and 72 other Nigerians who completed the programme in the country, in September, received their certificates at a ceremony at The Hague, Netherlands.

If I had gone for my masters immediately after graduating from the University, I probably would not have made any sense of it. Studying at this stage in my life makes more sense to me because I already know what I want and what I need, said Makun who has about 13 years of experience in legal practice, and is also a part time businesswoman.

As a lawyer, I should have gone for LLM, but over the years, I developed an interest in commercial law, business advisory, and development, she said. An MBA is just right for me.

Makun said she was one woman riot squad before enrolling for the MBA. She was using her car as a mobile law chambers, she said.

Determined to succeed by applying the right techniques to accomplish my goals, I knew I needed to be a master of the art of learning and knowing how to go about business development and management.

Today, Makun says, she and her business have been transformed. She now has an office and has employed a few staff. She said her thinking has been changed positively, and that she now has all that is needed for her to compete in the industry.

The programme was quite challenging for me, given that I had no business or management background I asked the most stupid questions in class because it was a strange area for me, she said of her experience in the MBA programme.

I guess those stupid questions paid off eventually.

I deprived myself of some unnecessary leisure such as watching TV because I had to read up all my books and articles. Being a mum, I also had to manage my primary duties with my study. I got a grip during my fourth module, by which time I had gotten used to it. You have to be determined.

She advised young people to be diligent and committed to whatever they are doing, for positive result would start showing before long. Failure is not an excuse to give up your dream. It is just an indication that you have done something wrong that needs to be fixed at the drawing board, she said.

She also has an advice for business owners and managers.

This period (of economic recession) is a blessing in disguise. Owners and managers of businesses can leverage on the situation in Nigeria to explore onshore outsourcing in place of offshore, patronize locally made products more, (and) avoid credits.
A Freedom of Information request has been issued to the Auditor-General of the Federation by the Civil Society Network Against Corruption, CSNAC, seeking a copy of the 2009-2014 audit report of the National Assembly.

The Chairman of CSNAC, Olanrewaju Suraju, disclosed the development on Sunday. He said public disclosure of the report would help the civil society hold the National Assembly to account.

Mr. Suraju said his groups FoI request was based on a September 11 story by PREMIUM TIMES, which reported contents of the audit report as they concerned the National Assembly.

This newspaper had reported how the National Assembly management failed to account for a total expenditure of over N9.4 billion in 2014, according to the audit report of Nigerian government bodies submitted to the Clerk of the legislative body in March.

The money included N9.39 billion for which no documentary evidence was provided and a N47 million to be returned to government coffers out of which only N360,000 was returned; giving a total of N9,440,844,572 (nine billion, four hundred and forty million, eight hundred and four thousand, five hundred and seventy two Naira).

In the light of the above, CSNAC is, pursuant to Sections 1, 2, 3 & 4 of the Freedom of Information Act 2011, requesting the Auditor General of the Federation for a copy of this audit report, Mr. Suraju said in the FoI request.

This information will assist us in exercising our mandate of collaborating with Governments in fighting corruption.

We look forward to receiving this information promptly, and in any event, within Seven (7) days of the receipt of this application as provided for in Section 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, 2011.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how the audit report indicted agencies like the National Assembly, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Ministry of Interior, Presidency, Central Bank of Nigeria and some foreign missions.

In May  after the audit report had been submitted to the National Assembly, the Senate Committee on Public Accounts led by Andy Uba (PDP-Anambra) held a public hearing during which a number of government bodies refuted certain findings of the audit report, particularly the disclosure that they didnt submit their internal audit reports between 2009 and 2014.

Some of the bodies that challenged aspects of the report were CBN, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) and Nigeria Pension Commission.

However, the National Assembly has not denied the findings of the audit report as they relate to the lawmaking body  though its committee castigated the then Auditor-General of the Federation, Samuel Ukura, for an unsatisfactory report, cashing in on complaints by other government bodies.

The law says the National Assembly should refer the audit report to its committee on Public Accounts for consideration.

After considering the report, the committee is empowered to pass a resolution to either publish the report in the National Assembly journal or governments official gazette.

Since the committee considered the report, it has not passed the resolution for its publication in either channel.

Since September 11, Mr. Uba has not responded to our request that he furnish us with details of actions taken to execute the provision of the law.

The National Assembly has N115 billion budget for this year, and had higher allocation in the previous years. But it has been widely criticized for being opaque as it does not disclose details of its budget even after repeated promises upon requests from the media and civil society.
The Publisher/Chief Executive Officer of Premium Times, Dapo Olorunyomi; Eze Onyekpere, Lead Director of Centre for Social Justice, CENSOJ; and Hassan Idayat, Executive Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD, West Africa, are among media and Civil Society Organization (CSO) eggheads to join other stakeholders to discuss reforms of the nations budgetary system.

The forum is the Gallery Colloquium organized by OrderPaper.ng, Nigerias premier independent parliamentary reporting newspaper set to hold on September 26 at the Abuja Sheraton Hotel in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

The colloquium is convened to address contentious issues on the budget and will bring together several top government officials from both arms of government to share ideas, perspectives and experiences on the Appropriation process as dictated by the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

The high-profile event will attract attendance and participation from critical stakeholders in the Executive, Legislature (National and State Assemblies), Academia, Media, Nigerias Development Partners, Civil Society Organizations, Community-based Organizations, Private Sector and other stakeholders, including political operators across partisan divides.

Mr. Olorunyomi, a multiple award-winning veteran journalist and social entrepreneur, will address issues relating to the role of the media in the budgetary process and general reportage and monitoring of Executive-Legislature relationship in Nigeria as watchdog of society. A recipient of the International Editor of the Year Award and winner of the Freedom to Write Award from PEN (West), he co-founded the News Magazine and was very prominent in the fight against military dictatorship in the late Gen. Sani Abacha days.

Mr. Olorunyomi, also a winner of the Press Freedom Awards from the National Association of Black Journalists in the United States, was enterprise editor at the defunct Next Newspapers, and founded the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ). He also worked as Director and chief of staff at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, from 2005 until 2008, under former Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu.

Mr. Onyekpere, development lawyer, human rights activist and highly regarded public policy/economic analyst, will bring his wealth of experience and versatile knowledge of the budgetary process of Nigeria to bear on the conversation. He is highly sought after in the area of public expenditure management and fiscal governance.

Idayat Hassan, on the other hand, is a renowned civil society activist and social commentator whose work has impacted significantly on the public policy debate in Nigeria. She will bring a robust CSO perspective to bear on the budget reforms conversation at the Colloquium.

The Colloquium will be chaired by Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, while the Speaker, of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, is among other top dignitaries from the National and State Assemblies as well as Executive arm of government confirmed to attend the event. A keynote address will be delivered by Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma.

According to Oke Epia, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of OrderPaper.ng, the theme of the Colloquium is deliberately chosen to shift the focus on the budget padding controversy towards reforms that will make the process work for the overall benefit of the majority of Nigerians.

The Colloquium, tagged The Gallery is a signature programme of OrderPaper.ng conceived to provide a platform for various stakeholders in the democratic project to cross-fertilize ideas and proffer suggestions and solutions on thorny issues bordering on the triumvirate of Legislature; the Executive; and the Electorate.

The broad objective of The Gallery is to provide a forum to smoothen rough edges towards better inter-governmental relations and improved cooperation for the ultimate benefit of democracy and the Nigerian nation in general.

OrderPaper.ng is Nigerias premier multi-platform media company dedicated to reporting, tracking and archiving activities of the legislature as an arm of government for the digital generation. As the first authentic and independently-driven online medium of interface between citizens and elected representatives, its mission is to deepen democratic growth and development.
The Nigerian military has rescued 43 abducted persons and recovered 500 cows from fleeing Boko Haram terrorists in Mafa.

The military operation for the mission occurred Sunday morning after eight suspected Boko Haram terrorists abducted some cattle rearers and livestock at gunpoint at Dalakalari general area, Mafa Local Government Area.

Some well meaning people informed the military who swung into action and pursued the terrorists.

The terrorists, sensing danger, ran and abandoned the livestock just before Panamri village and ran away.

The troops were able to rescue 43 persons and 500 cows taken by the terrorists.

The victims and the recovered cows have been handed over to the local authorities.
The Nigerian army says its troops from 13 Brigade, 82 Division, have arrested Victory Benjamin (aka Abuja Daddy and G3), said to be a high ranking militant kingpin in Cross River State.

The army spokesperson, Sani Usman, said in a release issued on Saturday that Abuja Daddy was arrested at Saint Joseph Hospital, Ikot Ene junction, Akpabuyo Local Government Area of the state, when he attempted to collect ransom from a relation of one of their kidnap victims.

Cross River has seen a spate of security threats this year, with multiple cases of kidnapping by suspected militants.

The troops also arrested three other militants while they were robbing their victims around refugee camp at Efut Isigi in Bakassi Local Government Area in the state, the army said.

A locally made pistol and some cartridges were recovered from the suspects, the army said.

The army said troops have cordoned off the resident of the most wanted militant kingpin aka G1, in the state, who is said to be at large.

The two arrested militants  G2 and G3  are currently providing useful information that could assist in the tracking down of other criminals in the region, the army said.
The Nigerian government on Friday in New York announced it would push for the creation of an agency to cater for the peculiar needs of youth in the world during the 71th United Nations General Assembly.

Speaking during a press briefing at the UN secretariat in New York, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said the country will push for the establishment of the organisation to provide more opportunities for youth and help counter their indoctrination by fundamental organisations.

Mr. Onyeama said the creation of such organisation will be particularly beneficial to the teeming Nigerian youth. According to the UN, more than 70 per cent of Nigerian population are under 35-years.

Nigeria will be pushing as part of the reform of the UN, the possibility of setting up an agency to deal with youth issues globally, he said.

Mr. Onyeama said the press briefing was intended to inform journalists of some of the areas the Nigeria delegation will be paying attention to during the event that brings leaders of the world together.

He said Nigerian will pay special attention to the refugee crisis in the north-east of the country caused by a seven-year insurgency led by the Boko Haram.

The issue of terrorism is one of the issues confronting Nigeria we would be pursuing.

As you know we have one of the deadliest terrorist groups, Boko Haram, that has absolutely caused havoc in our country. We have over 2 million internally displaced persons and between 60 and 70 thousand in neighbouring countries.

The situation is extremely dire because the area in which they are most prominent, people have not been able to farm for a number of years. We are dealing with real humanitarian crisis in the North East of the country.

We would be engaging a number of countries within Africa and outside Africa to come up with a strategy to engage this global phenomenon of terrorism.

Economy

Mr. Onyeama added that the government plans to seize the opportunity created by the General Assembly to woo officials and investors from across the world to invest the country. He lamented the devastating effect the drop of oil prices has had on the countrys economy.

He said the government is working to improve transparency in order to ease the burden of investors as well as working to diversify the Nigeria economy to break from its reliance of proceed from oil export.

This government came into power when the price of oil, our main export dropped dramatically from over $100 a barrel to just under $30 per barrel, so this has had a catastrophic effect on the economy.

It was extremely unfortunate, the timing. We already had good programmes for the country and you have your price of your main commodity just crashing like that.

Of course, it highlighted the mistake we have made as a country not to have diversify our economy. So we are diversifying and looking to attract foreign direct investment as much as possible into the country.

One of the main events we would be organising during this period would be a US/ Africa forum during which Nigeria is going to be one of the countries to be focused on and it would be an opportunity to have an investment drive and to showcase the benefits and advantages we as a country have to offer to foreign investors.

There will also be other side events our ministry of trade and investment agency will be in full force.

We are trying to change the climate of the country to make Nigeria a much more business environment to make Nigeria a more attractive place. We know for a fact it is one of the most profitable in the world to make return on investment.

Human rights

The minister said Nigeria will also be participating in the human rights events during the General Assembly in order to address the accusation of human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings against the military.

He said the government has created a human rights desk in the military and troops found to have committed abuses have been punished.

Human rights is an issue that often comes up with the mention of Nigeria and here again the government is determined to enthrone respect of human rights in the country. We are doing that in form of putting institutional mechanism to ensure, respect and promotion of human rights.

An area that has often been mentioned is in our fight in the north east with terrorists and Boko Haram. We are engaging with the military (and) we have put in a human rights desk embedded with the military and we have a human rights commission that is really independent and we are ready to address any human rights issues that comes up.

However, while the military may have sanctioned few soldiers for rights abuses, the government has largely failed to address impunity in the countrys armed forces.

Despite reports by groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights watch detailing widespread abuse by the military in the north-east and against pro-Biafran agitators in the South East, the military is yet to name and punish soldiers and top officers accused of operating detention camps, extra-judicial killings and the torture of civilians.

During the briefing, PREMIUM TIMES pressed Mr. Onyeama on why the leader of the Shiite Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Ibrahim El-Zazaky, and his wife were still being held in detention after over 300 of its members were massacred in Zaria and secretly buried by the military after an altercation over right of ways with some members of the group.

The minister said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is not willing to disrupt the process of inquiry initiated by the Kaduna State government and has decided to allow the full process of the law prevail in the case.

He however, said the government is in possession of the report of the judicial panel of inquiry into the killings and will soon take a decision based on the rule of law.

He said Mr. El-Zazaky is being well taken care of even as he did not say when he would be released or whether it was lawful for the government to continue to detain him in a secret location nine months after he was allegedly shot and wounded by soldiers who ransacked his house.

The government will study it, the Attorney General will look at the report and whatever measure needs to be take will be taken.

He (Mr El-Zazaky) is getting all the medical attention he requires. This I can say with certainty.

Climate Change

Mr. Onyeama said climate change is another area the government will pay particular attention to during the General Assembly. He announced that Mr. Buhari will sign the Paris agreement on climate change also known as the United Nations Climate Change Conference, (COP 21).

COP21 sets a goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. The agreement calls for zero net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to be reached during the second half of the 21st century. On 22 April, 2016, 174 countries signed the agreement with the commitment to carry out necessary legislations in their countries for its successful implementation.

We subscribe fully to COP and for us we are facing the reality of climate change such as desertification and flooding, soil erosion. We are fully committed and we are playing our part.
Gilbert Chagoury, billionaire businessman and owner of Eko Hotels in Lagos Nigeria has filed a legal action against the US government and its agencies for Privacy Act Violations.

The case filed on Friday is the first to be made under the Judicial Redress Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in February this year.

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that Mr. Chagoury, who was born in Nigeria and has dual citizenship, was barred from entering the United States and his visa request denied based on alleged links with a terrorist group.

Mr. Chagoury, who is also a big donor to the Clinton Foundation and has a home in Beverly Hills, California, was denied the visa on grounds that he gave financial support to a Lebanese politician, Michael Aoun.

According to the report, Aouns party is in political coalition with Hezbollah, tagged a terrorist organisation by the US.

Hezbollah terror tag stemmed from the double bombings in 1983, killing 63 at the U.S. embassy in Beirut and 241 at a Marine barracks later that year.

In 2013 an FBI intelligence report claimed Chagoury sent funds to Aoun, who, in turn, gave the money to Hezbollah. The report said the information was unverified from a source, who also said the Lebanese Christian politician was facilitating fundraising for Hezbollah.

In the filing before the court in the District of Columbia, Mr. Chagoury contends that the information is wrong and that he was injured by the US agencies which leaked it to the media.

According to a report by PRNewswire, Mr. Chagoury contends that the US agencies have caused great damage to his reputation and property, and denied his Constitutional right to due process.

The defendants in the case are the FBI, the Department of Justice, the National Counter Terrorism Center, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, and US Customs and Border Protection.

In the filing by his lawyers, Mr. Chagoury is said to have an exceptional record of public service and demonstrated commitment to core American values such as religious freedom.

His lawyer said despite Mr. Chagourys well-known love of the United States and his numerous, generous charitable contributions over 35 years of visiting America, he was denied a visa by the United States Department of State in 2015.

This decision was based on false information. This injustice was compounded when anonymous employees of the US Government leaked information to the media about the denial of Mr. Chagourys visa application, including the false information that led to the visa denial.

Because Gilbert Chagoury is a successful businessman, an influential advocate for religious freedom, a global philanthropist and a friend of prominent political leaders including many here in the United States, the LA Times published the story.

This was a deliberate, outrageous and unlawful leak of information and more importantly, misinformation about Gilbert Chagoury. It violated the Privacy Act, the Judicial Redress Act, and his right to due process. He is suing to recover his reputation and the property and business interests that have been unjustly harmed by this irresponsible action, said Stewart Baker of Steptoe and Johnson, LLP, attorney for Mr. Chagoury.

Pursuant to 5 U.S.C.  552a(b), the FBI, DOJ, NCTC, State Department, DHS, and CBP may not disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency unless certain exceptions apply. At no point in time did Mr. Chagoury provide the Government with either verbal or written consent to disclose any information or misinformation concerning him to third parties.

While US citizens have long been protected by the Privacy Act, until recently, foreign nationals have not had recourse under that statute when their privacy has been violated by the US Government. The Judicial Redress Act extends those Privacy Act protections to citizens of certain other countries.

Signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2016, the Judicial Redress Act allows foreign citizens in European countries to sue the United States for unlawful disclosure of personal information under the terms of the Privacy Act.

Mr. Chagoury, a citizen of the United Kingdom, is bringing the first suit under the Judicial Redress Act.

All of my life, from when I was a boy in Nigeria, I have loved America because it was the land of freedom and justice, Mr. Chagoury said.

I started coming to the United States over 35 years ago and have done everything I can to help America over my long career. I have close family members who are US citizens. To be falsely linked to terrorism and then have my reputation smeared in the media is an injustice that I could not allow to go unanswered.

I have always been told that American justice demands due process, yet I was given no explanation for having my visa revoked and no opportunity to rebut these falsehoods before my reputation was dragged through the mud. That is not the America I know and love. I only want to clear my name.

The lawyers said the intentional leak to the media of false information about Mr. Chagoury was a repeat of a similar unlawful incident from 2010, when he was wrongly placed on the no-fly list, without notice or opportunity to be heard, and his placement on the no-fly list was leaked to the media.

When challenged with facts, the U.S. Government reversed that decision, formally apologized and allowed him to travel to the United States, which he did multiple times without incident until recently.

As an important industrialist in Nigeria, and an ambassador to the Holy See and UNESCO, Mr. Chagoury has assisted the U.S. whenever possible, and U.S. Ambassadors and officials often call him to help solve their problems.

The Chagourys have been coming to Los Angeles for over 35 years. They frequently visit family members who are United States citizens and live in the United States.

Their love of America has led the Chagourys to give generously to several American charitable organizations including St. Judes Childrens Research Hospital and the Beverly Hills 9-11 Memorial.

Following a WikiLeaks publication, Mr. Chagourys name has also been an issue in Hillary Clinton campaign for US presidency, with Donald Trump, among others, using his link with the Clinton Foundation to accuse the Clintons of offering favours to the businessman.

The businessmans trouble with American security officials began in 2010, when he was pulled off a private jet in Teterboro, New Jersey, and questioned by Homeland Security officials for four hours because his name was now on the no-fly list within the United States.

Mr. Chagoury later received a letter that said his name was taken off the list and he was now considered a selectee, meaning he was allowed to fly, but would receive extra scrutiny.

Mr. Chagourys name was later added to a database used to screen passengers for terror links, a linkage he has denied.

Mr. Chagoury was born in 1946 in Nigeria to Lebanese parents, but was educated at the College des Freres in Lebanon.

He is married to Rose-Marie Chamchoum, also a Lebanese with links to Niger Republic.

The couple has four children, Ramez, Gilbert-Antoine, Christopher and Anne-Marie.

As a businessman, Mr. Chagoury has been a confidant of many African leaders and serves as ambassador of St Lucia, in the Americas.

His business empire has interests in construction, real estate, property development and hotels.

He co-founded the Chagoury Group with his younger brother Ronald Chagoury in 1971. Gilbert and Ronald Chagoury founded C & C Construction in the late 1970s, which was the forerunner of Hitech and ITB.

The family has an estimated wealth of $4.2 billion.
The Nigerian Government on Friday gave a reason for the continued detention of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, the leader of the Shiite Islamic Movement of Nigeria, IMN.

Speaking during a press briefing at the UN secretariat in New York, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said the Muhammadu Buhari administration is not willing to disrupt the process of inquiry initiated by the Kaduna State government and has decided to allow the full process of the law prevail in the case.

The Kaduna State government recently released the report of a panel its set up to investigate the clash which led to the massacre of over 300 members of the Shiite group by soldiers.

Mr. Onyeama, responding to a question by a PREMIUM TIMES reporter, said the federal government would study the report.

Government will study it, the Attorney General will look at the report and whatever measure needs to be taken will be taken, he said in New York.

Over 300 members of the IMN were killed between December 12 and 14 after the army accused them of blocking a major highway and plotting to kill the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai.

Hundreds of members of the sect including its leader, Mr. El-Zakzaky, and his wife, were subsequently arrested.

For several weeks, Mr. El-Zakzaky was prevented from seeing anyone include his doctors, lawyers or family members.

On April 5, the Islamic clerics lawyer who was finally allowed to see him, confirmed public rumours that the army had damaged Mr. Zakzakys eye.

As a result of the brutal attack, Sheikh Zakzaky lost his left eye while doctors are currently battling to save the right one, the lawyer, Femi Falana, said.

On Friday, Mr. Onyeama stated that the IMN leader was getting the required medical attention.

He (Mr. El-Zakzaky) is getting all the medical attention he requires. This I can say with certainty, the minister said.

A Federal High Court in Abuja in July denied an application for bail by Mr. El-Zakzaky.

According to the court, Mr. El-Zakzaky and his lawyers failed to seek the leave of the court to hear the application during the vacation period.

The Shiite massacre has been condemned by local and international groups including Amnesty International.
By PTI: Udaipur, Sept 16 (PTI) Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh today evaded questions on the ongoing feud in the party in Uttar Pradesh.

"As per a pre-decided schedule, I am here to attend a programme. I would say hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil," the Rajya Sabha MP told reporters here at a function.

He refused to comment on the ongoing tussle in the party. PTI Corr SDA SMJ SC SMJ

--- ENDS ---

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The Federal University, Lafia, has terminated the appointment of 35 of its non-teaching staff over the inability of the institution to pay their salaries.

Mohammed Sanusi-Liman, Vice Chancellor of the university, told journalists on Sunday in Lafia that the council took the decision due to paucity of funds.

Mr. Sanusi-Liman explained that the affected staff, who were employed by the institution earlier in the year, comprised 11 corps members who were retained after their service year and 24 others.

He said the council had directed the management to source for funds and pay off the affected staff since they had worked for over five months without being paid.

It would be inhuman to keep the staff working when we cannot pay them giving our poor budget and that is why the council decided that we should pay them off, he said.

According to him, the university has consistently encountered a shortfall of over N38 million in its allocation for several months, which had adversely affected the running of the institution.

He also confirmed that the management had uncovered a job racketeering syndicate in the university, which had offered illegal employment to some persons.

When we got wind of the matter, the management set up an investigative committee which turned in a report that was submitted to the council.

The university council referred the matter to its disciplinary committee for investigation and appropriate action, he said.

On the post UTME screening of candidates for admission into the university for the 2016/2017 academic session, the vice chancellor said that over 4,000 applicants had been screened.

He added that the council would meet to determine its carrying capacity before the admission list would be released.

He also announced that the university council approved the commencement of post-graduate programmes effective from the 2016/2017 academic session.

(NAN)
To ensure safety, enhance socio-economic activities and reduce road accidents, the Niger State Governor, Abubakar Bello, has pleaded with the Federal Government to complete the abandoned dualisation of Suleja-Minna Road.

Governor Sani Bello made the plea during an inspection visit and interaction with key officers of the company handling the project, Salini Nigeria Limited, and stakeholders , at a failed section of the road at Bonu Village in Gurara Local Government Area of the State.

The Governor, who expressed concern over the present condition of the federal road, said something urgent needed to be done to address the situation.

He explained that the state government has made several efforts in maintaining the road but did not yield the desired result due to volume of traffic, heavy duty vehicles and lack of routine maintenance of the road since it was constructed over two decades ago.

Even though it is a federal road, we have tried as a state government to fix it. Indeed, I directed continuous maintenance of the road, but due to high volume of traffic, heavy duty vehicles and age of the road, it didnt last long. It is clear that considering the strategic importance of the road, the final solution is for the federal government to complete the dualisation project started over 6 years ago. the governor appealed .

It is absolutely necessary that the federal government through ministry of works intervene as a matter of priority. Ordinarily, the journey from Minna to Abuja which is about 1 hour 30 minutes, now takes over 3 hours resulting in discomfort and waste of human resources.

Governor Sani Bello therefore appealed to the Federal Government to expedite action through adequate budgetary allocation to enable the contractor complete the road in record time.

Earlier in his explanation, the Project Manager, Paolo Campanella, disclosed that inadequate funding was responsible for slow pace of work. He added that only 20per cent has been released for the project since it started.

The project is suffering inadequate budgetary provision. Only 20 per cent of funds have so far been released. The total cost of the project Phase I and Phase II, is N34 billion naira, but in six years only N6 billion naira was released which is inadequate.

The project manager who expressed delight over the interest shown by Governor Sani Bello revealed that the project was designed to be completed in 3years.

This is a project of 30 months duration. Phase I was awarded at end of 2010 and suppose to be completed in July, 2013 now the time has elapsed redoubling the contract period.

Phase II was awarded in February 2015, although there was no mobilisation to kick-start the work and largely due to the outstanding debt we have in phase I, we couldnt go ahead with the project.

In their remarks, former caretaker Chairman, Gurara local government, Yakubu Garba, and District Head of Bonu, Ibrahim Baba Shaba, appreciated and applauded Governor Sani Bello for maintaining the road and assured of him their support to government policies and programmes.

Even though about 70 per cent of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, was carved out of Niger state, it is the only state close to Abuja which has not been linked by dual carriage way. Kaduna, Nasarawa and Kogi have all been linked to the FCT by dual carriage way.
The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has again criticized President Muhammadu Buhari over the countrys economic recession, describing him as the major problem of Nigeria.

Our President, through his actions and inactions is destroying everything that makes Nigeria a country and well-meaning Nigerians must stand-up to be counted in the crusade to save the country from going under, Mr. Fayose said in a statement signed by his media aide, Lere Olayinka.

He accused President Buhari of de-marketing Nigeria, by depicting her citizens before the international community as dishonest.

Which foreign investor will invest his money in a country of dishonest people? He asked.

Who made investors to leave Nigeria if not President Buhari, who created atmosphere of economic and political instability in the country by his acts of nepotism and vindictiveness?

According to Mr. Fayose, Nigerians will not measure his government on the basis of what his predecessors failed to do, but on what he did or failed to do between May 29, 2016 and May 29, 2019.

He said with the level of hunger in the country, President Buhari should rather get serious with governance, stop his blame game, and be innovative.

No nation has ever reached greatness by their leaders engaging in blame game, nepotism and vengeance as being done by President Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) government, he said.

Nigerians must begin to speak out now before the country is totally destroyed by this one-man government, which does not see any idea coming from those perceived as opposed to the government as worthy of consideration.

Like I said before, the main issue confronting Nigerians now is hunger and hunger does not speak the language of politics. It is therefore no longer about politics; it is about preventing hunger from killing Nigerians.

Governor Fayose said the federal government should stop deceiving Nigerians with stories of injecting funds into the economy, given that the economic problems facing the country had gone beyond talks of injecting N350 billion into the economy through execution of capital projects.

If they inject even N500 billion into the economy by paying contractors executing federal government capital projects, how does that affect the price of rice and other food items? How does it affect the price of basic drugs? he said.

Instead of unsustainable measures, what President Buhari should do is to bring economic experts in the country together not-minding their political and ethnic affiliations so that they can proffer lasting solutions to the countrys economic problems.
Albert Semerville follows a simple philosophy: With the right inspiration and enough determination, success will come.

Even with a lofty, fashionable goal. Even in South Jersey.

Semerville, of Egg Harbor Township, creates beautiful, wearable art: silk scarves that have earned him a following. He is becoming increasingly known by another name  VeVelle.

He grew up in Haiti as the son of a seamstress and a tailor, surrounded by the Caribbean culture known for its colorful art, food and symbolism. Being around fashion in one form or another all his life, Semerville found a way to embody this rich culture in his scarves.

Semerville will showcase VeVelle at Atlantic City Fashion Week, which runs Sept. 22-24. Both Atlantic City Fashion Week and VeVelle have grown in the past few years.

Semerville is pleased to be involved with the event, where this year his work will be featured in the main Friday evening show. Every year it is getting better and better, he said of Fashion Week.

But Semervilles journey into design wasnt without hard work and bumps. And his parents werent always crazy about the idea of his following in their fashion footsteps.

His first taste of fashion freedom came from convincing his father to let him to buy clothes from another tailor, allowing him to try different styles.

I was 15 years old, there were so many different styles coming out, and my dad didnt want to make them. I wanted to wear them; all the kids were wearing them. It was around 1974, all these pants with the bell bottoms, Semerville said.

Semerville said that while fashion was always around in his household, in Haiti, parents often urge their kids to enter careers in medicine, engineering or law.

You tell your parents you want to be a fashion designer and theyd say, Are you crazy, man? How will you survive? he said. My dad said, I dont want you falling in love with this. I want you to become bigger and bigger. Your parents want you to be something else other than a tailor.

That mentality comes partly from the fact that there wasnt a booming Caribbean fashion market. But Semerville was convinced the U.S. market was different, and that success would come if he was a good designer and if he believed in himself.

Even though he was inspired to follow fashion, Semerville spent two years in medical school in Haiti before he decided it wasnt the right path for him.

In 1984, Semerville made the move to New York. He taught information technology courses at CUNYs LaGuardia Community College and worked as a systems analyst and programmer on Wall Street. Eventually he decided that whatever he did next, he wanted to live in South Jersey.

After about 25 years in New York, Semerville didnt think Brooklyn was where he wanted to raise his three young children. His sister lived in Sicklerville in Camden County. He started looking at houses on weekends and fell in love with his development in Egg Harbor Township.

I said to my wife, I dont know how Im going to pay this, I dont know where Im going to go, but this is where Im going to live.

Semerville is nothing if not determined, and when he sets his mind to something, he simply makes it work.

For the next 14 years, Semerville made the commute from Egg Harbor Township to Wall Street. He eventually found a bus that would take him from Atlantic City casinos to Chinatown, and he walked the rest of the way.

Semerville got back to his fashionable roots in the fall of 2014 with the birth of VeVelle, the silk scarf line that has progressed from a handful of designs to about 50 in two years. He now also makes mens silk ties and pocket squares. The scarves are made of 100 percent silk in three types: silk twill, silk georgette and silk chiffon. They are made in Europe, Semerville said, because there are no major silk manufactures in the U.S.

Right now the powerhouse is France, Italy and the Indian market. Im doing batches of about 100. It costs me, but the quality is unbelievable, he said. Every scarf has a name, a title. Some names are in French. Some names are in English. Theres a reason for that: Its art.

Semerville said his Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook accounts have been a key to his success. He used his information technology background to build his online business himself.

I have a designer in Europe, Russia, Haiti. I can deal with all of these people around the world because of that. If I want to do a photo shoot, Ill do it in Egg Harbor Township. Ill do it in South Africa. Next week I have a photo shoot in Williamsburg, New York, he said. Ive done some in Galloway with local models. I have the flexibility of harnessing the resources that we have around the world. Otherwise it would be almost impossible to do this.

And while the company is growing every year, Semerville says he has a very specific future in mind for VeVelle.

My next thing is I want to target a few specialty stores who can carry it. I do not want to be, in other words, in Macys. Its for people looking for fine items. For now, I dont see myself creating a brick and mortar store. A store is for display. The way I see it, I have a piece of art. You can wear it how you want, you can store it. Its a wearable art.

Semerville is also celebrating another major success in the company: a collaboration with famous Dutch artist Christie van der Haak.

Van der Haak is well-known for her colorful, geometric designs that include paintings and large-scale textile designs. She is debuting an installation at Miami Beachs The Wolfsonian-FIU museum that will last from November to next June  a lengthy residency. After seeing Van der Haaks work, it makes sense that the pair would work together.

So how did a Dutch artist and American designer meet?

Van der Haak liked what she saw from VeVelle on Instagram.

From that like, a partnership was born. The two designers admire each others work and will now work together to create six scarves with Caribbean themes. The peacock  an important symbol in Caribbean culture  will appear on one. Now they are working on their third scarf design. The Wolfsonian-FIU museum has placed a large order for Semervilles scarves, which will be sold during Van der Haaks residency.

Theres lots of scarves, but theyre not created equal. This, youre buying a luxury item  a piece of art. Thats the investment, Semerville said.

Contact: 609-272-7209

Twitter @ACPressSchweder
SEASIDE PARK  Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday morning that investigators have promising leads on the perpetrators responsible for a pipe bomb explosion just before the start of a 5K race Saturday morning.

Speaking with Jake Tapper on CNN Sept. 18, Christie said that the FBI, New Jersey State Police and Office of Homeland Security dont believe that there are any connections to the explosion in Manhattan that injured 29 or the stabbing incident in Minnesota that injured eight on Saturday.

We have some promising leads, but no suspects at this time so we are continuing to work with the authorities to make sure that we bring whoever is responsible for this to justice as quickly as possible, Christie said.

Christie said that, like many people, he had suspicions of a connection.

You dont want to jump to conclusions and you dont want to put information out there that you dont know is absolutely true, he said, noting the number of incidents. You can call them whatever you want, they are terrorism though. There is no doubt about that. They are terrorism.

Clinton and Trump weigh in on Manhattan blast WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on the 2016 presidential campaign (all times EDT):

Christie said that who is responsible is something else and what the motive was is something else.

The fortunate thing here in New Jersey is that no one was injured. The race had not started yet down at the Jersey Shore. So we are very fortunate that no one is injured here and we pray for those people who were injured in those other attacks, Christie said.

The FBI, along with federal, state and local agencies, continued its investigation Sunday in Seaside Park.

A pipe bomb exploded around 9:30 a.m. just prior to the start of the third annual Semper Five run, which brought thousands of runners to the town. The charity race benefits Marines and sailors.

The pipe bomb was in a plastic garbage can at D Street and Ocean Avenue when it exploded, according to Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor's office.

No injuries were reported and no damage occurred to surrounding structures, Della Fave told reporters Saturday.

The FBI, which is the lead agency investigating, declined to discuss the matter or answer questions from reporters during a news conference on Saturday evening citing an ongoing investigation, the Associated Press reports.

The race had been scheduled to start shortly before the blast occurred, but it was delayed due to the large numbers of people registering for the race and reports of an unattended backpack being found, according to the Associated Press.

After the explosion, the race was canceled, the immediate area was put on lockdown and several homes were evacuated, according to the Associated Press.

Major events in the area were canceled this weekend due to the explosion including the San Gennaro Festival in Belmar and the Festival of the Sea in Point Pleasant. The beaches and boardwalk were reopened in Seaside Park on Sunday.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call 1-800-CALLFBI, and select Option 1.
STONE HARBOR  Several one-year-old diamondback terrapins were released into the wetlands Saturday as part of the Fall Migration Festival at the Wetlands Institute.

The annual Fall Migration Festival kicked off Saturday with a number of activities celebrating wetlands wildlife, including tours of nearby areas, a presentation on butterfly migration and an introduction for those interested in birding.

Volunteers placed the baby turtles into the grasses behind the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor after a demonstration by research scientist Allison Anholt.

She said the institute releases between 300 and 400 head-starter terrapins back into the wild every year. Head-starters are recovered eggs from adult female terrapins that have been crushed on roadways.

Then, Stockton University and other schools raise them for a year before the institute places them back in their natural habitat, Anholt said.

They [the terrapins] face a lot of hazards, namely getting hit by cars, Anholt said. Doing the releases really helps people understand the hazards that are facing diamondback terrapins.

Kathleen Allen, 70, of Rio Grande in Middle Township, is more into birds than turtles, and she said she comes to the event every year.

I like the open land, Allen said as she scanned the distance with her binoculars. I like the wildlife.

The Fall Migration Festival continues Sunday at the Wetlands Institute. Among the events scheduled is a live animal presentation by the Philadelphia Zoo at 11:30 a.m., a back bay kayak tour from 10 a.m. until noon and another terrapin release at 2:30 p.m.

One-day tickets to the festival cost $10 for adults, $8 for children and $30 for a family four-pack.
WILDWOOD -- The New Jersey State Firemen's Convention ended as it always does, with a parade down New Jersey Avenue.

Crowds lined the sidewalks, and many huddled in the few spots of shade or opened up an umbrella to protect themselves from the sun.

It was Ekam Robinson's first parade. The 2-year-old from Wildwood waved as fire trucks and other apparatus moved slowly down the street. Melody Robinson, 28, could barely keep up with her son.

"He's dancing all over the place," she said.

Layla Flaherty, 3, and her brother, 6-year-old Dylan, watched the parade near Rio Grand Avenue, waiting for a familiar face.

"Their uncle is in the parade as part of the Northfield Fire Department," Mary-Anne Flaherty, 29, also of Northfield, said.

Some traveled from out of state to attend the parade. Wendy Altland, 53, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, brought two of her friends to her shore house to watch the parade.

"You've got to support them," Altland said, noting that most of the firefighters who participated in the parade are volunteers.

The parade is the ceremonial end to the state firemen's convention, which is organized by a group representing more than 70,000 municipal firefighters. The weekend included two meetings and an expo featuring firefighting equipment.
EGG HARBOR CITY  On Sunday afternoon, Helene Young helped to lower a pole bearing the message of her sister, Peace Pilgrim, into the ground at the park in her sisters honor.

Egg Harbor City celebrates life and work of Peace Pilgrim EGG HARBOR CITY  The city will commemorate the life of local resident Mildred Lisette Norma

Young, 101, of Galloway Township, was one of about 20 participants that gathered for the second day of the citys ninth annual Peace Pilgrim Celebration, which began with yoga, a 2-mile walk and a potluck dinner Saturday, Sept. 17.

Born Mildred Lisette Norman, Peace Pilgrim was an Egg Harbor City resident who dedicated her life to walking the country spreading her message of peace.

She walked across the U.S. for more than 27 years, crossing the continent seven times, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food. She vowed to remain a wanderer until mankind learned the way of peace. She died in 1981.

For 40 years, I was an advocate for the March of Dimes, but now Im a peace activist, Young said. Im trying to perpetuate my sisters message.

How she did it, who knows. All my life I marveled at how she could do what she did, she said.

Young said that her advocacy work has opened up a new life for her.

Its been so inspiring to me to work with these people. Its just given me a whole new life, she said.

The Peace Pilgrim Pole planted on Sunday was inspired by the World Peace Prayer Societys Peace Pole.

Peace Pilgrim fans gather in Galloway Township home to remember Egg Harbor City woman GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP  They came from as far away as Arizona, and as close as down the block, t

According to Bruce Nichols of the nonprofit Friends of Peace Pilgrim, the pole bears the message of Peace Pilgrim, This is the way of peace. Overcome evil with good, overcome

falsehood with truth, overcome hatred with love.

Nichols, of Shelton, Connecticut, traveled to Egg Harbor City for the celebration, which he has attended almost every year.

Sundays celebration began with an Interfaith Spiritual Service under a grove of trees at the park on London Avenue, just behind City hall.

Quoting Peace Pilgrim, Nichols said, One little person giving all her time for peace makes news. Many people giving little bits of their time for peace makes history. He asked the attendees to think about what little steps toward peace we want to make.

Nichols was joined by Deacon Frank Jones of the New Life Fellowship in Egg Harbor City; Rev. DonnaChristine Park of Walk a Mile in My Shoes on the Path to Peace in Mesa, Arizona; Rev. Bruce Weaknecht of Moravian Church in Egg Harbor City; Rev. Jeanie Collins, director of Protestant Campus Ministry at Rutgers University; Robert Barnett of Friends Meeting in Galloway; and Rev. William Williams III of Asbury United Methodist Church in Atlantic City.

Through quite meditation and faithful reflection, the service asked attendees to strive for peace in every moment of their lives.

My prayer is that we may not get tired of walking, of moving, of agitating, of living, of taking those necessary steps of peace, Williams said.

The celebration was hosted by the Peace Pilgrim 100 Planning Committee, led by Barbara Reynolds of Egg Harbor City.

Contact: 609-272-7251
For more than 30 years, city officials received a tax windfall that was to be used for redevelopment to overcome blight and economic stagnation, but the extra funding hasn't bought the desired result.

For a change, we aren't talking about Atlantic City, but the 37 municipalities that get sales tax breaks and other benefits from their 32 Urban Enterprise Zones.

Gov. Chris Christie vetoed another extension of the UEZ program as last month ended, so if the veto stands, businesses in the zones will lose their right to charge 3 percent sales tax, half the levy in the rest of the state. A break on energy taxes, subsidy for unemployment insurance, business-to-business tax exemption and tax credits for hiring and investing will also disappear.

This will affect several South Jersey cities that remain economically challenged, with zones in Bridgeton, Millville/Vineland, the Wildwoods and Pleasantville. Since Bridgeton was among the first five cities to get UEZ zones, it will also be among the first to lose its zone, at the end of the year.

When the UEZ program was created in 1983, it was intended to be temporary, helping declining cities get back on their feet. The original law included a sunset provision ending the program after 20 years, but the state approved a "onetime" 15-year extension in 2001.

Now that extension is ending and legislators voted for another extension of 10 years.

In his veto message, Christie said the program wasn't intended to become a "permanent subsidy from all state taxpayers." He said state programs to help distressed municipalities should be temporary, helping them ultimately succeed on their own.

He also said the state needs the money - no surprise - which would amount to $2.3 billion in additional revenue the next decade if the UEZs resume charging the full 7 percent sales tax. Under Christie, the state already had ended the program's practice of sending even the 3 percent tax collected back to the UEZ municipalities to finance local improvements, low-interest business loans and sometimes even municipal salaries.

The conditional part of Christie's veto asked that the bill instead authorize an analysis of the UEZ program with a view toward finding a potentially more successful approach to helping distressed cities.

That seems reasonable. Making UEZ benefits in effect permanent would constitute such a fundamental change to the program that it should be considered a new approach anyway.

Legislators who want to give cities they represent UEZ benefits in perpetuity should make the case for doing so, and let that option compete with other proposals for urban renewal.

Our view
If reports are to be believed, Shibani did not exactly like being addressed as 'Anusha' by someone.

By India Today Web Desk: No love being lost between sisters isn't uncommon, but to outright deny the other's existence is a whole other thing.

Shibani Dandekar, who's currently seen hosting the second season of reality show, The Stage, on Colors Infinity, did not seem too happy about being addressed as 'Anusha' (Shibani's real sister and VJ) by a contestant.

According to reports, while shooting one of the episodes, Shibani addressed a contestant with the wrong name. But she realized her mistake immediately after and corrected herself after apologizing to the contestant.

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As a response, the contestant said, "It's okay, Anusha." Now, this did not go down very well with Shibani, and she retaliated with, "I am Shibani. Who's Anusha?"

This, however, did not hinder the proceedings of the shoot.

It's quite known in the industry that the two sisters are not very fond of each other, and this latest incident only reiterates the same.

--- ENDS ---
For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.

Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.

Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III.





to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever.





Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation.





View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union.

Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history.

Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words.




DUBAI, UAE, September 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Twenty students from Warwick University, UK visited the offices of Holborn Assets, a global financial advisory group headquartered in Dubai, on the 6th of September.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160601/374080LOGO )



(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160915/408266 )



Many of the students looking to intern abroad felt that Dubai offers valuable work experience in the financial services sector. As September is the month when most graduate and intern applications open, the students saw this as a perfect opportunity to learn more about Holborn Assets, which has been operating in Dubai for 16 years, and is licensed by the UAE Ministry of Economy and FCA-regulated in England and Wales. Holborn is also registered with the Insurance Authority (IA) of the UAE as an Insurance Broker.

Holborn's CEO Robert Parker formally welcomed the visitors. He congratulated the students on considering a career in financial services but warned them that the landscape is changing rapidly and some of the jobs they are interested in today may no longer exist in five years, whereas newer exciting opportunities are still to be dreamt up. He stressed that flexibility will be a critical skill in the future.

Jason Freeborn, Employee Benefits Associate conducted a session where he briefed the students on Holborn Assets as a company, services offered, and the process of becoming an Independent Financial Advisor (IFA). Michele Carby, Managing Partner joined the group for a fruitful Q&A session.

Adam Holland, a British student, who recently interned at the Dubai and Sri Lanka offices, provided an intern's perspective of working at Holborn, after which the students were taken on a tour of the Holborn Office at Barsha Heights, ending with lunch in the company cafeteria.

In 2015/16 Holborn hosted two British interns at their Sri Lanka offices, while the Dubai office also took two interns on board. The company, which is a family run business, is a firm believer in the importance of grooming the next generation in terms of professional and cultural exposure.

"Our previous annual career trips have taken us to Mumbai, Hong Kong, San Francisco and Singapore," said Will O'Farrell, President of Warwick International Venture, an annual event of Warwick Finance Societies, the largest student society in the UK with over 2650 members. "During our time in Dubai, we are hoping to visit a range of consultancy firms, investment banks, and law firms. The trip will provide a unique opportunity for our members to boost their employability, commercial awareness, networking ability, and understanding of various career paths."

Of the students who participated in the Dubai tour, approximately seventy percent were looking to work in the financial services sector with firms like Holborn Assets. They will be studying for finance-based degrees and also law and business. Most of the students were looking for either a summer internship opportunity or a graduate program. As a result most will be starting their penultimate or final year at university.

About Holborn Assets

Holborn Assets is an independently owned, global financial advisory group established in 1999 and headquartered in Dubai. The company caters primarily to expats with the objective of helping clients invest the right money in the right place at the right time. A holistic financial services provider, the group specialises in Personal and Corporate Wealth Management. Key service offerings include -- Mortgage, Wills and Estate, Education, Pensions and Insurance. The company has offices around the world and employs over 70 qualified financial advisors.

Media Contact

Karthi Ratnam

+94773506210

karthi@holbornassets.com



SOURCE Holborn Assets
DUBAI, UAE, September 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Twenty students from Warwick University, UK visited the offices of Holborn Assets, a global financial advisory group headquartered in Dubai, on the 6th of September.

Holborn Assets Hosts Potential Future IFAs from Warwick University at Dubai Headquarters (PRNewsFoto/Holborn Assets)

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160601/374080LOGO )



(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160915/408266 )



Many of the students looking to intern abroad felt that Dubai offers valuable work experience in the financial services sector. As September is the month when most graduate and intern applications open, the students saw this as a perfect opportunity to learn more about Holborn Assets, which has been operating in Dubai for 16 years, and is licensed by the UAE Ministry of Economy and FCA-regulated in England and Wales. Holborn is also registered with the Insurance Authority (IA) of the UAE as an Insurance Broker.

Holborn's CEO Robert Parker formally welcomed the visitors. He congratulated the students on considering a career in financial services but warned them that the landscape is changing rapidly and some of the jobs they are interested in today may no longer exist in five years, whereas newer exciting opportunities are still to be dreamt up. He stressed that flexibility will be a critical skill in the future.

Jason Freeborn, Employee Benefits Associate conducted a session where he briefed the students on Holborn Assets as a company, services offered, and the process of becoming an Independent Financial Advisor (IFA). Michele Carby, Managing Partner joined the group for a fruitful Q&A session.

Adam Holland, a British student, who recently interned at the Dubai and Sri Lanka offices, provided an intern's perspective of working at Holborn, after which the students were taken on a tour of the Holborn Office at Barsha Heights, ending with lunch in the company cafeteria.

In 2015/16 Holborn hosted two British interns at their Sri Lanka offices, while the Dubai office also took two interns on board. The company, which is a family run business, is a firm believer in the importance of grooming the next generation in terms of professional and cultural exposure.

"Our previous annual career trips have taken us to Mumbai, Hong Kong, San Francisco and Singapore," said Will O'Farrell, President of Warwick International Venture, an annual event of Warwick Finance Societies, the largest student society in the UK with over 2650 members. "During our time in Dubai, we are hoping to visit a range of consultancy firms, investment banks, and law firms. The trip will provide a unique opportunity for our members to boost their employability, commercial awareness, networking ability, and understanding of various career paths."

Of the students who participated in the Dubai tour, approximately seventy percent were looking to work in the financial services sector with firms like Holborn Assets. They will be studying for finance-based degrees and also law and business. Most of the students were looking for either a summer internship opportunity or a graduate program. As a result most will be starting their penultimate or final year at university.

About Holborn Assets

Holborn Assets is an independently owned, global financial advisory group established in 1999 and headquartered in Dubai. The company caters primarily to expats with the objective of helping clients invest the right money in the right place at the right time. A holistic financial services provider, the group specialises in Personal and Corporate Wealth Management. Key service offerings include -- Mortgage, Wills and Estate, Education, Pensions and Insurance. The company has offices around the world and employs over 70 qualified financial advisors.

Media Contact

Karthi Ratnam

+94773506210

[email protected]



SOURCE Holborn Assets
By PTI: Hyderabad, Sep 18 (PTI) Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will attend the first meeting of the Apex Council formed under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, to discuss irrigation projects on Krishna and Godavari rivers, in New Delhi on Wednesday.

"On September 21, the Apex Council is meeting under the Chairmanship of Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati which will be attended by Chief Ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh K Chandrasekhar Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu (respectively).

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"This meeting is aimed at resolution of disputes between two the Telugu states that has arisen out of the AP Reorganisation Act," Dattatreya was quoted as saying in an official release today.

After interaction with Telangana Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao, and Ministry of Water Resources Advisor Vedire Sri Ram, here, Dattatreya said the meeting of the two Chief Ministers is a welcome step and the irrigation projects in the two states have to be completed in a time-bound manner to keep the project budgets under control.

"Telangana is a backward state and the cultivation areas under projects are very less. Therefore, there is a need for doing justice to Telangana," he said.

"All these disputes could have been resolved during the combined state of Andhra Pradesh itself but it was due to (then ruling) Congress and lack of its proper approach, the disputes were not resolved," he claimed.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modis government is interested in doing justice to the two states. Today, water dispute is a sensitive issue... But Modijis government would act in a responsible manner to resolve the water disputes," Dattatreya said.

He also said the Telangana unit of BJP would soon meet the Prime Minister and request him to accord National project status to Kaleshwaram project. PTI VVK NRB NSD SRE

--- ENDS ---
VALLEY FORGE, Penn., Sept. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Vanguard announced today that the $59 billion Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund, including the world's largest emerging-markets ETF (ticker: VWO), has completed its transition to the FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index, effective with the opening of trading on September 19, 2016.

Since November 2015, the fund has tracked the FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Transition Index, as it gradually built exposure to small-capitalization and China A-shares stocks.

The fund's new index, the FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index, is a market-cap weighted benchmark representing the performance of large-, mid-, and small-cap companies in emerging markets.1 The index comprises approximately 3,561 securities from 22 countries, including exposure to 1,800 new small-cap stocks and 1,500 new China A-shares stocks.

Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund, is the first broad-based, market-cap weighted emerging-markets index fund to offer China A-shares and all-cap exposure.2

Addition of all-cap exposure

The new benchmark's 11% exposure to small-cap stocks brings the fund closer to full market-cap weightings and offers additional diversification. Improved market conditions have lowered the cost of investing in international small-capitalization stocks, making it an opportune time to provide investors with added exposure to all-capitalization stocks and broader diversification.

Inclusion of China A-shares

Additionally, the new benchmark features 5% exposure to China A-shares stocks. China A-shares are equity shares in mainland China companies that are traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges and are only available to foreign investors through regulated programs. China A-shares provide investors additional diversification via access to mainland Chinese companies that offer these shares.

China is one of the world's key emerging economies and the second-largest stock market in the world by market cap. With the world's second-largest GDP, China accounts for 16% of world GDP and had a 6.3% GDP growth rate through the first half of 2016.3 Vanguard believes access to this key market has the potential to offer significant long-term benefits for investors.

Final benchmark change

This benchmark move represents the last of four transitions to all-capitalization FTSE benchmarks announced by Vanguard in June 2015. Vanguard Developed Markets Index Fund, Vanguard European Stock Index Fund and Vanguard Pacific Stock Index Fund transitioned to their final benchmarks in late 2015 through 2016.

About Vanguard

Vanguard is one of the world's largest investment management companies. As of August 31, 2016, Vanguard managed more than $3.8 trillion in global assets. The firm, headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, offers more than 350 funds to its more than 20 million investors worldwide. For more information, visit www.vanguard.com.

1 FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index comprises large-, mid- and small-cap securities of the FTSE Emerging All Cap Index and FTSE China A All Cap Index. The weight of the FTSE China A All Cap Index in the FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index will be adjusted by the quota available to international investors.

2 Sources: Bloomberg and Morningstar

3 Sources: Quandl, 2015 and International Monetary Fund, 2016

All asset figures are as of August 31, 2016, unless otherwise noted. Source: Vanguard.

For more information on Vanguard funds, visit vanguard.com, or call 800-662-7447 to obtain a prospectus, or if available, a summary prospectus. Visit our website, call 800-662-7447, or contact your broker to obtain a prospectus, or if available, a summary prospectus for Vanguard ETF Shares. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

All investments are subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest. Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss. Prices of mid- and small-cap stocks often fluctuate more than those of large-company stocks.

Investments in stocks issued by non-U.S. companies are subject to risks including country/regional risk and currency risk. These risks are especially high in emerging markets, in particular, in countries where market controls may impede investment.

Vanguard ETF Shares are not redeemable with the issuing Fund other than in very large aggregations worth millions of dollars. Instead, investors must buy and sell Vanguard ETF Shares in the secondary market and hold those shares in a brokerage account. In doing so, the investor may incur brokerage commissions and may pay more than net asset value when buying and receive less than net asset value when selling.

U.S. Patent Nos. 6,879,964; 7,337,138; 7,720,749; 7,925,573; 8,090,646; and 8,417,623.

London Stock Exchange Group companies include FTSE International Limited ("FTSE"), Frank Russell Company ("Russell"), MTS Next Limited ("MTS"), and FTSE TMX Global Debt Capital Markets Inc. ("FTSE TMX"). All rights reserved. "FTSE", "Russell", "MTS", "FTSE TMX" and "FTSE Russell" and other service marks and trademarks related to the FTSE or Russell indexes are trademarks of the London Stock Exchange Group companies and are used by FTSE, MTS, FTSE TMX and Russell under licence. All information is provided for information purposes only. No responsibility or liability can be accepted by the London Stock Exchange Group companies nor its licensors for any errors or for any loss from use of this publication. Neither the London Stock Exchange Group companies nor any of its licensors make any claim, prediction, warranty or representation whatsoever, expressly or impliedly, either as to the results to be obtained from the use of the FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index, FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Transition Index or the fitness or suitability of the FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index, FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Transition Index for any particular purpose to which they might be put.

Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Distributor.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150225/177983LOGO

SOURCE Vanguard

Related Links

http://www.vanguard.com


If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The Ozone Cell of the Environment Ministry here celebrated International Ozone Day on Friday by awarding young schoolchildren for participating and winning in painting, poster-making and slogan writing competitions organised by the ministry.

The International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer is celebrated every year on September 16 to commemorate the day when several nations signed the Montreal Protocol, agreeing on the substances that deplete the ozone layer from the atmosphere and trying to banish them.

On this occasion, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change released a report 'The Montreal Protocol: India's Success Story', detailing the Indian endeavours in phasing out harmful CFC (Chlorofluorocarbons), used in electrical appliances.

"CFC has been replaced by HFC (Hydrocflourocarbon) completely. We have stopped using harmful gases... according to estimates we will have completely done away with HCFCs (Hydrochloroflourocarbon, an alternative of CFC) too, by the year 2025," said Ajay Mathur, Director-General, TERI (The Energy and Research Institute), who was present at the event as a chief guest.

"HFCs are good in that they don't contribute to ozone depletion, but they emit greenhouse gases, causing an increase in global warming. This increase will have a global impact, including India where floods and droughts will become more frequent, according to experts," he added.

CFC, HCFC and HFC are all compounds of gases used in refrigerants, coolants, solvents, contact lenses and foam industry among others -- the former two contain chlorine and flourine, two chemicals which are the major cause of ozone depletion, while HFC, though causing no harm to the ozone layer, contributes to global warming.

Mathur told IANS that there were other chemical compounds which are better alternatives to HFCs and HCFCs.

"The representatives of Indian government will discuss the possibilities of better, less polluting alternatives to what are available now during the meeting on Montreal Protocol in Kigali, Rwanda, next month. There are two chemicals so far, HFO (Hydrofluoroolefin) and propane, which have proven to be better replacements of other three," he told IANS.

He also praised corporates for doing their bit in restoring ozone levels in the atmosphere.

"The multilateral fund which our country has received has been very efficiently used, which was mostly spent on technology building. Our corporates too have used the funds very competently, adding 40 per cent from their pocket, of the total spent in technology building... Godrej has just started using propane as refrigerant... which is more ozone-friendly," he told IANS.

The event was also attended by M.K. Singh, Joint Secretary in the Environment Ministry.
Riyadh, Sep 18 : Saudi Arabia has agreed to form a company to develop and increase the capacity of the holy sites in Makkah and Medina, local Al Eqtisadiya news website reported on Saturday.

The proposed company, which will be owned by the government, was approved days after the kingdom announced the success of the Haj season that brought together more than 1.8 pilgrims.

The company will be in charge of enhancing the efficiency of utilities and services such as electricity, water, air-conditioning and cleanness. It will work to separate the routes of pedestrians and vehicles.

To generate money, the company will invest in the holy sites to be tourist attractions throughout the year, especially the religious archaeological sites.

The company is expected to generate thousands of job opportunities for local manpower.

The company is part of many initiatives the country are adopting to get ready for post-oil era by implementing various economic and investment projects.
Moscow, Sep 18 : Moscow has called an urgent UN Security Council meeting after US-led coalition hit Syrian forces, killing 62 soldiers and wounding 100 more. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman blasted Washington over the indiscriminate airstrike that she said serves the interests of the Islamic State.

"If previously we had suspicions that Al-Nusra Front is protected this way, now, after today's airstrikes on the Syrian army we come to a really terrifying conclusion for the entire world: The White House is defending the IS," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Rossiya 24.

"We demand a full and detailed explanation from Washington. That explanation must be given at the UN Security Council," Zakharova added.

The Foreign Ministry has demanded full and detailed explanation from Washington over the incident in Deir al-Zor, in which 62 Syrian troops were killed and over 100 injured.

Moscow stressed that it is concerned by the US airstrike targeting the Syrian army units which had been destroying the Islamic State militants.

The ministry added that the Russian side had never been notified of US plans to carry out bombings in the Deir al-Zor area.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that US air strikes against Syrian government forces jeopardize the Syrian ceasefire deal reached between Moscow and Washington on September 9.

Earlier on Saturday Russia's Defense Ministry said that four strikes against Syrian positions had been delivered by US-led coalition aircraft - two F-16 jet fighters and two A-10 support aircraft.

The Syrian military called the bombing a "serious and blatant aggression" against Syrian forces, and said it was "conclusive evidence" that the US and its allies support IS militants.

US Central Command later issued a statement, saying that the US-led "coalition would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit." It promised to look into the incident.
New York, Sep 18 : Several people have been wounded in an explosion in Manhattan, authorities said.

Fire trucks and ambulances converged on the scene after what witnesses described as a "deafening" blast in the Chelsea district of Manhattan around 9.00 p.m. on Sunday, BBC reported.

FBI and Homeland Security officials were at the scene, a local official told the US media.

The explosion comes just hours after a pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey town, shortly before thousands of runners were to participate in a charity race nearby.

No injuries were reported in the New Jersey blast.
Washington, Sep 18 : Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence's campaign on Saturday released a letter from his doctor that declared his health as excellent.

While Pence's father died of a heart attack, the letter noted that Pence, unlike his father who smoked cigarettes, neither smokes nor drinks alcohol and appears to have a "very good and strong heart", Xinhua news agency reported "You are medically able to maintain your high level of professional work and your physical activity programs without limitations," said the letter written by Michael Busk of the St. Vincent Health, Wellness and Preventative care Institute in Indianapolis.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign also released a new brief note from the real estate magnate's doctor earlier this week, claiming that the candidate was "in excellent physical health".

According to the five-paragraph note written by Trump's doctor Harold Bornstein, Trump, 70, is six feet two inches tall and weighs 107 kg.

"Trump was hospitalised only once, as a child of 11 years old for an appendectomy," said the note, adding that there is no family history of premature cardiac or neoplastic disease.

Trump has annual physical exam in the spring of every year, and his last colonoscopy, chest X-ray and cardiac evaluation were results. Trump also takes a low dose aspirin and a statin, rosuvastatin, used for lowering cholesterol.

It was the second time since last December that the Trump campaign had released public documentation about Trump's health.

In his last note about Trump's health in December 2015, Bornstein declared "unequivocally" that Trump would be the "healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."

It was later disclosed that Bornstein spent five minutes writing the note.

The physical fitness of presidential candidates was put in the limelight early this month after Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was videotaped being helped into a van while her feet appeared to be dragging on the ground during a 9/11 memorial in New York.

The Clinton campaign later acknowledged that the 68-year-old former US secretary of state had been diagnosed with non-contagious, bacterial pneumonia.
Washington, Sep 18 : President Barack Obama urged the African-American community to help stop Donald Trump, saying he would consider it a "personal insult" to his legacy if black voters did not back Hillary Clinton.

"If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn't matter who we elect -- read up on your history. It matters. We've got to get people to vote," Obama said on Saturday night while addressing the Congressional Black Caucus gala for the last time as president.

"I will consider it a personal insult -- an insult to my legacy -- if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote."

The President warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in the November 8 elections, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line, CNN reported.

According to analysts, Obama's Saturday night speech marked some of his harshest words yet about Republican presidential candidate Trump, as well as his most forceful call on the African-American community to support Democrat nominee Clinton.

Obama referred to the businessman as "somebody who has fought against civil rights and fought against equality and who has shown no regard for working people most of his life."

During his address, he also made fun of the so-called "birther" (if Obama was born in the US) controversy, saying "There's an extra spring in my step tonight. I don't know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole 'birther' thing is over."

"IS (Islamic State), North Korea, poverty, climate change -- none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate," Obama added.

Speaking before the President, Clinton lauded Obama and also took on the birther controversy, CNN noted.

"Mr. President, not only do we know you are an American, you are a great American," Clinton, who served as Obama's secretary of state (2009-2013), added.
Bengaluru police simply uploaded the man's PAN card details on Facebook and Twitter, what followed was an overwhelming response.

By India Today Web Desk: Bengaluru Police made an unlikely connection possible with the power of social media. The quick-thinking police department immediately put out the PAN card details of the unconscious man on Facebook and Twitter.

What followed was not only the overwhelming support from public, but also an incredible story of reunion.

It all happened when the Hanumantha Nagar police station received a phone call about a man who was found unconscious in the locality.

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The only lead they had was a PAN Card with a name Y Jayarama Bhat of the unconscious man. The police then put out the information on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

A person found unconscious @Hanumanthnagar.He s in Victoria hospital now for treatment.Rt 2 help find his relatives pic.twitter.com/gKvgs2puWC BengaluruCityPolice (@BlrCityPolice) September 16, 2016

According to the New Indian Express, Ganesh Kambar, a software professional, received a message on WhatsApp and had a rough idea about the man, he said, "I approached Hanumantha Nagar police station with my friend Keshava Bhat. Police took us to the hospital where Jayarama was admitted. There, I could confirm his identity. I later informed his younger brother, Chandrashekara Bhat, who stays in our village."

Coincidentally, it dawned upon Kambar that Y Jayarama Bhat was the tailor who stitched his first set of pants when he was joining class 10, nearly 28 years ago.

"Jayarama Bhat is probably seven years older to me and was newly married when he went missing from the village. He was around 23 years old then. They searched for him for a few days and gave up. His father and elder brother have passed away", he told the Express.

Kambar immediately got in touch with his brother Chandrashekara Bhat, who is all set to meet his sibling after 25 long years.



--- ENDS ---
Srinagar, Sep 18 : Two soldiers were killed and six others injured when militants attacked an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town on Sunday morning, said defence sources.

The sources said the six injured soldiers were airlifted from the border town to the army's base hospital in Srinagar city as heavy firing continued inside the camp which was attacked around 5.30 a.m. by fidayeen (suicide) militants.

"Terrorists attacked the rear base camp of an infantry battalion and not the headquarters of 12 Brigade in Uri today (Sunday) morning which is posted on the Line of Control (LoC)," the sources added.
The film version of the first of Leonard Wibberley\'s rib-tickling satires of the Cold War with Peter Sellers in three main roles Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi : There is one country that has militarily defeated the US -- and that too on its own soil -- stolen a march on both the US and USSR in space travel, severely dented American capitalists' confidence in their own capability, and finally saved the Western world in the aftermath of the 1970s energy crisis. But the name of Grand Fenwick doesn't occur in any history book, or show up in any atlas, unless it also maps Ruritania, Syldavia, Borduria, Oz or even Shangri-La.

For the minuscule duchy, located in the Alps between France and Switzerland, is only a literary creation, though now forgotten by all save some diligent aficionados of political satire -- or of the gifted Peter Sellers, who starred in the first book's film version.

Grand Fenwick's creator was prolific and versatile Irish journalist-turned-author Leonard Patrick O'Connor Wibberley (1915-83) who used its spectacular exploits to satirise the Cold War, especially as manifested in the arms and space races (and the hysteria they could generate).

But Wibberley, who became a full-time author after a quarter-century as a journalist in London, Trinidad, New York and California, didn't stop at this, but went on lampoon capitalism and the consumerism it spawned and thrived upon, and the greed of big business.

In this quintet, the most famous of his over 100 works, he also turned on the energy crisis that nearly brought the Western world to a grinding halt but was, in a way, self-inflicted by their governments' politics, ingrained economic and social habits, and predatory business practices. And every time, Grand Fenwick proved the saviour.

In "The Mouse That Roared" (1955), we find the nearly six-century-old duchy, now ruled by 22-year-old Gloriana the XIIth, facing an existential crisis. Only five miles long and three miles wide, and running on a pre-industrial economy with wine and wool as its only exports, the country, so far self-sufficient, now faces the pressure of population growth, and the extra expense it involves.

A proposal to water its renowned Pinot Grand Fenwick to increase revenues leads to a deadlock in its parliament, the Council of Freemen, between the Dilutionists, led by working class leader David Benter, and the Anti-Dilutionists, by the aristocratic, old-world Count of Mountjoy. Mulling various ways to raise funds, they resolve on a unique measure, suggested by contrarian maverick Tully Bascomb -- declaring war on the US.

But while the establishment aims to be defeated and then depend on US largesse for rehabilitation and development, things don't go the way planned. Bascomb, who leads the expeditionary force of three men-at-arms and 20 archers to New York, returns undefeated with six prisoners -- a US general, four New York policemen, and leading scientist Dr Kokintz and the only model of a devastating nuclear doomsday weapon he has designed. The US, which had so far ignored all declarations of war as pranks, has to concede defeat and the duchy is now the world's foremost power.

"Beware of the Mouse" (1958) is a prequel about how the duchy was founded and preserved its independence against the French, while gently making fun of courtly love and knightly honour in the Middle Ages before Wibberley returns to the present with "The Mouse on the Moon" (1962).

Mountjoy, seeking a way to find Gloriana a sable coat she has requested and install modern plumbing in the castle, approaches the US for a $5 million grant for space research. The count, forced to spend the $50 million he has instead received for the purpose outlined and via a superfuel discovered by Dr Kokintz becomes instrumental in the duchy beating both the superpowers to the moon. He however forgets the coat.

"The Mouse on Wall Street" (1969) is how Gloriana's futile attempts to squander the money the duchy is increasingly making, after a venture to distribute it among the people -- lessons for populist politicians here -- results in consequences other than anticipated. She hits on the stock market but sees returns multiply astronomically and a billion dollars accumulate. Finally, Mountjoy solves everything with a lit matchstick.

Coming over a decade later, "The Mouse that Saved the West" (1981) is a little darker. Time has moved on, the Duchess is now in her 40s and a widow (we never learn the circumstances of how Bascomb, whom she had married at the end of the first book, dies), and the duchy is also hit by the energy crisis hitting the West. How Mountjoy and a sharp, well-connected American businessman conspire to solve the issue but nature plays a further trick on them is the thrust.

The 'Mouse' series, as they came to be known, were written over a quarter of a century between the mid-1950s to the start of the 1980s but haven't dated at all -- have we put issues like superpower rivalry, nuclear weapons, space exploration, and the growing need of cheap, plentiful and reliable energy sources behind us?

Now easily available as e-books, they not only enchant with their humour but still have lessons to teach us.

(Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in )
Srinagar, Sep 18 : Two soldiers and four militants were killed on Sunday during an attack in an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town, said defence sources.

Colonel S.D. Goswami, spokesman of the army's Udhampur headquartered Northern Command told IANS, "Four terrorists who had entered the rear base camp of an infantry battalion in Uri town were killed," adding "search operation was continuing inside the camp".

The fidayeen (suicide) militants had entered the camp around 5.30 a.m.

Defence sources told IANS that six soldiers were also injured in the attack who were airlifted to an army hospital in Srinagar.

"Terrorists attacked the rear base camp of an infantry battalion and not the headquarters of 12 Brigade in Uri today (Sunday) morning which is posted on the Line of Control (LoC)," the sources added.

In New Delhi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is reported to have cancelled his visit to Russia and the US. He has called for a high-level meeting on Sunday to discuss the situation is Kashmir.
Jammu, Sep 18 : Seventeen soldiers were killed in an audacious militant attack on army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir early on Sunday that also left four terrorists dead, military officials said.

Over two dozen soldiers were also injured in the attack which began at 5.30 a.m. when a group of heavily-armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of the army unit, the officials said.

The sneak attack triggered a massive gun battle that lasted well over two-and-a-half-hours, sending huge columns of black smoke rising into the sky.

Unofficial sources said most of the dead soldiers were from the Bihar Regiment. It was reportedly the biggest terror attack on any army camp in Jammu and Kashmir in about a decade.

After the fighting died down, soldiers continued to comb the camp for other militants who may be hiding as well as explosives they may have planted, the officials said.

No guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the bloodbath. But some reports said the guerrillas had recently infiltrated into the Indian side of the Line of Control from Pakistan.

The Northern Command of the Army issued a terse statement: "In the early hours of September 18, a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, Kashmir.

"In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress.

"The administrative base had a large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire and resulted in heavy casualties.

"We salute the sacrifices of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation."

Helicopters flew the injured soldiers from Uri to the army's base hospital in Srinagar, about 70 km away.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army chief General Dalbir Singh immediately prepared to fly to Uri.

In a related development, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh cancelled his visit to the US and Russia. He called a high-level meeting later on Sunday to discuss the attack.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of the terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US," Rajnath Singh tweeted.

He said he spoken to Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.

"They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," he said.
Washington, Sep 18 : Eight persons were injured after a stabbing attack at a shopping mall in a city in Minnesota state, which ended with the suspected attacker being killed by the police.

The police responded to reports of the stabbings at the Crossroads Mall in St. Cloud city around 8.30 p.m., on Saturday, St. Cloud Times reported citing Fox News.

St. Cloud Police chief Blair Anderson said the attacker dressed in a private security uniform.

An off-duty police official from another jurisdiction shot and killed the attacker, Anderson added.

Anderson said the attacker, who was armed with a knife, reportedly made references to Allah during the attack and asked at least one person whether he was Muslim.

But the police chief declined to call the attacks an act of terrorism, saying the motive was not yet known.
New Delhi, Sep 18 : One of India's foremost couturiers, Suneet Varma says being a fashion designer doesn't mean he has to participate in every fashion event, as he believes creativity needs a lot of nurturing.

Apart from his own widely popular brand, Varma has multiple tie-ups with brands like BMW, Swarovski, Judith Leiber, arttd'inox and more.

"For me, even if we have fantastic tales to tell, brilliant reviews and best of shows in the country to offer, I will never be happy doing shows after shows. For me, my personal growth is more important than the commercial," Varma told IANS in an interaction here.

With a spurt in the number of fashion weeks and events, designers are often running from pillar to post trying to complete their lines within deadlines. But Varma prefers to do things at his own pace and in his own way.

"That can only happen when I do shows selectively, twice or thrice a year. Not when you want to do every fashion event -- whether it is bridal, couture, exhibition or trunk show. We are one person and creativity needs a lot of nurturing," he said.

Varma's brand exudes fantasy, sophistication and feminity for the woman of today. Associations with some of the strongest global brands make him a designer whose forte goes beyond a uni-dimensional profile.

The only international designer with Judith Leiber, the world's most renowned luxury brand for bejeweled handbags, he has garnered appreciation worldwide.

His signature bags are carried by the "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker and Hollywood divas Mariah Carey and Jenifer Lopez. His designs are also very popular amongst the leading ladies of Bollywood like Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut and Preity Zinta.

For the past decade, Varma has worked with international designers at Swarovski on clothing and interior projects. He is also associated with arttd'inox for a luxury home interior and table top accessories line.

Clearly, he has a busy schedule.

"I like to divide my time very carefully. I have a lot of commitments with my brands. The reason they remain with me is because I do things well, and also I do it with great dedication. Brands don't want to see any old rubbish and they don't want to repeat the line.

"I like to do things on my own time, very nicely, politely and quietly," said Varma, who feels one needs to build respect in the market with one's work, and not demand it.

"There is mutual respect between us (brands and me) and that only comes through a certain amount of time. We have to build respect as nobody can demand that. We have to earn it."

The designer recently showcased a line of beautiful couture outfits through a fashion show at DLF Emporio in the capital. He said there is a huge shift in the Indian market for couture ensembles.

"I find that the bridal market is very specific. It's not necessarily seasonal, but couture is seasonal and people watch everything today, thanks to social media and that has made it become so huge," he said.

(Nivedita can be contacted at Nivedita.s@ians.in)
Uri/New Delhi, Sep 18 : Terrorists of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) outfit attacked an army camp near a brigade headquarters here in Jammu and Kashmir early on Sunday in the worst attack on any military base in the state in a decade that left 17 soldiers dead, officials said.

Over two dozen soldiers were also injured in the audacious sneak attack, which Home Minister Rajnath Singh blamed on "terrorist state" Pakistan and called for its isolation. The death toll may rise as some of the wounded soldiers were critical and hospitalized in Srinagar, about 70 km away.

All four heavily-armed fidayeen or suicide attackers, who barged into the camp near Uri town at 5.30 a.m., were killed in a battle that raged for two-and-a-half hours, military officials said.

Echoing the nation's anguish, Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned the "cowardly terror attack" and assured "the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished".

Modi refrained from saying who was to blame for the bloodbath but Rajnath Singh did not mince words.

"I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," the minister tweeted.

The Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, said in Delhi that the army found some articles with "Pakistan markings" from the slain terrorists.

"They were all foreigners and belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammed," he said.

Uri is near the Line of Control (LoC), which divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The camp attacked on Sunday is close to the headquarters of the army's 12 Brigade.

According to military sources, the terrorists entered the camp from the rear after cutting the barbed wire fencing -- without the sentries getting alerted.

The gunmen then resorted to indiscriminate gunfire from AK-47 rifles after quickly spreading in different directions inside the camp.

They also hurled grenades at tents where soldiers were asleep, catching them unawares.

At least 14 of the 17 casualties, according to Gen Ranbir Singh, occurred due to a fire after militants hurled grenades at temporary structures in a mountainous terrain of Uri.

The exact number of troops inside the camp was not known but a source estimated there must have been around 200. Most of the infantry battalion is deployed on the LoC.

The attack sent huge columns of black smoke rising into the sky.

A statement from the Northern Command said "heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base at Uri" and that four terrorists died in the counter action.

"The base had a large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifices of 17 soldiers who were martyred."

Unofficial sources said most dead soldiers were from the Bihar Regiment. Two soldiers of the Dogra Regiment also died.

No guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The attack came amid an ongoing civilian unrest in the Kashmir Valley that has left nearly 90 persons dead in the last two and half months.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said the "attack was aimed at triggering fresh violence in Kashmir and creating a war-like situation in the region.

"The heightened tension in the wake of the Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid increasing India-Pakistan hostility," she warned.

Within hours, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh flew to Srinagar.

In a sign that Sunday's attack would further worsen the India-Pakistan relations, Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, said: "Not responding to such terror attacks will be cowardice."

A military expert, retired Lt. Gen. Raj Kadyan, said it was time to teach Pakistan a lesson.

Calling the attack the "most serious in the last decade", he said: "The response required is a tough one. The army should launch a strike at a place and time of its choosing. Retribution should be quick and severe."
New Delhi, Sep 18 : Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday blamed "terrorist state" Pakistan for the killing of 17 soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir and called for its isolation.

"I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," Rajnath Singh tweeted.

Heavily-armed terrorists sneaked into an army camp in Uri and slaughtered the 17 soldiers before all four attackers were killed.

The minister said there were "definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of (the) Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped".

He said he was "deeply distressed" and prayed "for the speedy recovery of the injured".

"My heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers. Those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice."

Rajnath Singh earlier presided over a security review meeting attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Home Secretary Rajiv Mehershi and senior civil and security officials.

The minister was briefed on various implications of the attack.

Officials shared intelligence inputs on "nefarious" activities planned by a "neighbouring country", sources privy to the meeting said.

They said the government believed that the attack "was a clear case of cross-border attack". However, no terror group was named.

Rajnath Singh also spoke to Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. He postponed his visits to Russia and the US.

Rajnath Singh was scheduled to visit to Russia to discuss India's campaign against terrorism, including on the role of Pakistan.

The minister was to begin from September 26 his week-long visit to the US for an Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue.
Lucknow, Sep 18 : Five persons of a family were hacked to death in Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, police said on Sunday.

An unidentified assailant a 50-year-old rag pickers, his elder son Vishal, 15, younger son Chotu, 10, and daughters Nandini, 9 Kavita, 7. His wife was admitted to a hospital as she was critically wounded.

A police official told IANS that a property related issue may be the motive behind the killings. Police detained two brothers of the family head for questioning.
New Delhi, Sep 18 : The Union Food Ministry has strongly favoured the slashing of duty on wheat imports to at least 15 per cent from the existing 25 per cent in order to boost domestic availability of the food grain.

"This move to bring about modest decline in import duty on wheat will be a precautionary step," a source here said on Sunday.

The Food Ministry's proposal for a modest drop in duty is now being considered by the government even as private flour millers have been demanding total withdrawal of import duty, sources said.

The Food Ministry is concerned about lower wheat purchase by state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) this year despite projection of higher output by the Agriculture Ministry.

The move would come even as the industry is demanding withdrawal of the import duty on wheat. Officials in the Food Ministry suggest that the import duty be brought down to 15 per cent if not to 10 per cent.

Wheat stocks with FCI are declining as private flour millers are buying grains from the corporation "apprehending shortages in the market".

For its part, the corporation is keen to maintain a buffer stock for the Public Distribution System and other welfare schemes.

Traders have started looking at the import route to procure the commodity. Last year also, private flour millers purchased about 5 lakh tonnes of wheat from Australia.

The state-owned FCI at present has a wheat stock of 24.2 million tonnes, the source said.

Last year's procurement of wheat was at about 31 million tonnes. This year there is a marginal decline to 25.6 million tonnes due to low arrival, a source said.

Officials say the domestic production has suffered this year due to drought and a long dry spell in several parts of the country.

The Agriculture Ministry has maintained that due to good monsoon in 2016, after two years of drought, the country can expect record foodgrain output, including for wheat, during the 2016-17 crop year.
Baloch Republican Students Organization's Germany chapter protested and raised slogans against Pakistan's atrocities on civilians in Balochistan.

By Anil Kumar: Baloch Republican Students Organization's (BRSO) Germany chapter held a demonstration in Berlin today against Pakistan's atrocities on civilians across Balochistan. The protesters also raised the slogan "Pakistan Murdabad, Thank You Modi".

They distributed pamphlets to spread awareness on Pakistan's occupation of Balochistan and violation of human rights.

ALSO READBalochistan: How PM Modi tore into Pakistan in a deliberate yet risky move



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The spokesperson of BRSO, in a statement, said that the objective of the protest was to highlight the state's atrocities on civilians across Balochistan, including Dera Bugti.

Protesters raised slogan

"Military operation has been escalating in Dera Bugti. Hundreds of Baloch civilians have been abducted and around 90 have been killed, mostly women and children, by the Pakistan army," the spokesperson said.



He said that human rights violations, abduction and killing of Baloch people by the Pakistan army have become a regular practice in Balochistan. "The human rights organization has been silent on this issue," he complained.

ALSO READ

Pakistan military on rampage in Balochistan, women and children tortured



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Los Angeles, Sep 18 : English filmmaker Guy Ritchie is in talks to direct the next James Bond movie.

The 48-year-old star is currently in Los Angeles where he is set to hold talks with producer Michael G. Wilson about taking over the franchise from Sam Mendes, reports mirror.co.uk.

A source said: "Guy has moved up the shortlist and is now the front runner. He's meeting Michael this week to try to do a deal and see if they can agree on a shared vision for the film."

"Guy is under serious consideration for 'Bond 25' and this LA trip should help take this further. He doesn't have Sam's artistry, but Guy is a fast-paced, stunt-based director who knows his stuff."

"He also has on his side the ability to keep calm and balance a big budget," the source added.

Mendes has directed "Skyfall" and "Spectre" in the spy franchise, but revealed in May that he will not return for another movie as he wants to work on something new.
New Delhi, Sep 18 : Rapidly growing multinational fast food chains in India are the largest contributors to hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) emissions and could add the equivalent of nearly one million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2020, says a new international study.

US-based McDonald's, Starbucks, Subway and Dunkin Donuts as well as India-based company Cafe Coffee Day and Britain-based Hindustan Unilever are among the eight fast food chains that could add the equivalent of nearly one million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2020, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said in its report "Transitioning HFCs in India: The opportunity for climate-friendly cooling in the fast food industry" released on Friday.

"Developing countries like India are expected to join a global HFC phase down, and it behoves multinational corporations to do their part for the climate," an official statement quoting EIA Global Climate Campaign Director Avipsa Mahapatra said.

"With climate friendly, cost effective technologies already available, these companies have no excuse to rely on super greenhouse gases."

"We call on these companies to recognise the enormous potential for emissions reductions in India by reducing their refrigeration footprint and publicly commit to not install HFC-based equipment in their new stores from 2019," Mahapatra said.

The Indian fast food industry is expected to grow from $15 billion in size to more than $50 billion over the next five years.

McDonald's, with more than 350 stores in India and growing, has not transitioned to climate friendly alternatives in India, but in its Europe facilities, has installed over 13,500 pieces of HFC-free equipment since 2010 and has piloted an entirely HFC-free store, says the EIA.

Subway, the largest fast food chain by store count in the world, uses hydrocarbons in back counter chillers in the Britain and Ireland, but has no stated intent of going HFC-free in India.

The EIA calls on the Indian government to ban the use of HFCs with a global warming potential higher than 1,000 in new food and beverage refrigeration equipment beginning January 1, 2018 in multinational food and beverage retailers.

The Parties to the Montreal Protocol will meet in October to reach an agreement on the global phase down of HFCs.

According to the EIA, a successful agreement has the potential to mitigate 100 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050.
New Delhi, Sep 18 : Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung on Sunday visited several government hospitals and issued directions to doctors there about handling vector-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya.

Jung visited fever wards and clinics at Lok Nayak, Bara Hindu Rao and GTB hospitals to oversee the arrangements there for handling the rush of patients.

He also interacted with the Medical Superintendents, doctors, patients, staff and other visitors to know first-hand the problems they faced.

J.S. Passey, Medical Superintendent (MS) at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital, told the L-G that 76 of the 200 beds earmarked for chikungunya and dengue patients were occupied.

Apart from one death last month, there had been no fatality due to these diseases, he said adding that chikungunya patients did not always require hospitalisation.

Passey said a dedicated fever clinic with sufficient testing kits was functioning at LNJP Hospital and test results were made available within an hour.

Coming across a number of elderly patients at these three hospitals, Jung directed authorities to ensure that patients with complications, particularly the elderly, should be attended to with utmost care and on a priority basis.

At Bara Hindu Rao Hospital, Jung visited its fever clinic where five doctors were on duty.

Bara Hindu Rao Hospital Medical Superintendent Ajit Goel told Jung that the round-the-clock fever clinic was getting approximately 1,000 patients daily, and at present had 163 patients of chikungunya, 72 of malaria and 50 of dengue admitted.

GTB Hospital Additional Medical Superintendent Vinaik Parwal told the L-G that 788 adult and 148 child patients were attended to the hospital in the last 24 hours and 117 units of blood transfused to patients suffering from dengue, chikungunya and malaria.

Jung directed the Secretary (Health and Welfare) to provide more doctors to hospitals, if needed.

The Lt. Governor stressed on ensuring better standards of cleanliness at the hospitals.
Chandigarh, Sep 18 : Punjab state Congress President Amarinder Singh on Sunday condemned the attack on an army camp near Uri town of Jammu and Kashmir by Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists and demanded tough action by the Indian government.

"We have given a long rope to Pakistan. Now is the time to take decisive action as the time for restraint is long past," he said in a statement here.

The former Punjab Chief Minister said the terror attack was an extremely outrageous and provocative action of Pakistan which must be taken seriously and reciprocated in the same vein.

"Brutal provocations demand equally brutal reprisals and we must not hesitate," the senior Congress leader said.

Four terrorists attacked the army base, killing 17 soldiers and injuring over 24 others. The four terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammed too were killed.

Questioning what he called the Centre's policy of appeasement, Singh said: "We as a nation need to tell Pakistan in simple and straightforward terms that enough is enough and we are not going to take it any more."
Varanasi, Sep 18 : Actress Kriti Sanon will be working with her "Heropanti" co-star Tiger Shroff on another project, which will be directed by filmmaker Anand L. Rai.

According to reports, Kriti and Tiger, who made their Bollywood debut in 2014 with the Sabbir Khan directorial, will next be seen in an advertisement.

Kriti took to Twitter on Sunday to share a photograph with Tiger and Rai from the set here.

"Shooting with Tiger and Anand sir in Banaras. Surprise surprise," Kriti captioned the image.

After "Heropanti", Kriti and Tiger featured in the video of the song "Chal wahan jaate hain", which released last year.

Rai has directed films like "Tanu Weds Manu", "Raanjhanaa", "Tanu Weds Manu: Returns".
New Delhi, Sep 18 : The Environment Ministry on Sunday asserted that its panel was competent in subjects relevant to safety evaluation of Genetically Engineered (GE) crops.

The government's assertion came in the backdrop of comments in a section of the media alleging that the sub-committee constituted by the Ministry's Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) for the approval of environmental release of GE Mustard for the development of new generation hybrids has "no health expert".

"The GEAC in its 126th Meeting held in January, constituted a sub-committee with expert scientists in specific subjects relevant to safety evaluation of GE Crops," said the Ministry in a statement released here.

According to the Ministry, the Sub-Committee consists of the health expert B. Sesikeran, who is an MD in pathology and is currently serving as Chairman of the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM).

"The Assessment of Food and Environmental Safety (AFES) for Environmental release of GE Mustard (Brassica juncea) hybrid DMH-11 and use of parental events for development of new generation hybrids was placed on the website on September 5 for comments by stakeholders and general public for a period of 30 days," said the Ministry.

"The full biosafety dossier is also available in the GEAC Secretariat," it added.
New Delhi, Sep 18 : External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday took up the cause of a sick Indian sailor on board a chemical tanker near Yemen and got him immediate help.

She tweeted that Devendra Singh, an Indian national, on board chemical tanker ship Nu Shi Nalini required emergency medical help, and tagged Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Indian Navy and the Defence Ministry spokesperson in her tweets.

"Indian national Devendra Singh on board Nu Shi Nalini of Elektrans Shipping +870773934314 presently near Port of Hodeidah Yemen requires emergency medical help," she tweeted.

The Navy soon responded that the matter had been taken up with the shipping company and that a doctor was in touch with the ship.

"Matter taken up thru DG Shipping with shipping company. Officers condition has improved & all assistance being provided by company," the navy spokesperson @indiannavy responded on Twitter.

"Company doctor in touch with ship. DG Shipping also monitoring the situation. Ship presently at Al Houdeydah port & officer recuperating onboard," the Navy said, adding that the ship was also in touch with the officer's wife and providing her updates.
New Delhi, Sep 18 : Former Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Bikram Singh (retd) on Sunday said the government response so far to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir which was sponsored by Pakistan, spells an "important strategic shift" .

"It is a question now perhaps to do something and that's what the government has been talking about. You have heard the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi), you have heard other senior leaders of national polity... which are very very strong statements. I think this spells very important strategic shift in our policy vis-a-vis Pakistan. That's a very positive development," Singh told TimesNow television news channel.

He said Pakistan was certainly behind the attack. "We know for almost 20 years now that Pakistan is doing it," he said, adding the guns and other weapons used by the terrorists were "actually supplied by Pakistan" and were something "which are not available off the shelf".

On the use of "incendiary" arms by the terrorists as claimed by Director General, military Operations, Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, he said: "Let's be very forthright. It has been supplied by Pakistan. It is ordinance ammunition made by the ordinance factory of the army and has white phosphorous content. It is not available off the shelf."

"Therefore it only supports the point that it (the attack) was supported and sponsored by Pakistani establishment," he added.
New Delhi, Sep 18 : The central government is likely to face heat on the issue of national security following Sunday's terror attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir, with the opposition expected to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP has prided itself as a strong nationalist force and its leaders had boasted how effectively Modi would respond to provocations from across the border if he were to take power.

The audacious attack on the army camp in Uri that left 17 soldiers dead and many injured has made the BJP vulnerable to attacks from an opposition itching to go on the offensive.

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Sunday took a dig at Modi and said his failure to tackle the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was to blame for the bloodbath at the army camp near Uri town.

"Modi ki laparwahi aur nakaami se jawan maare ja rahein hain. Kahan gaya Modi ka 56-inch ka seena? (Soldiers are dying due to Modi's failure and negligence. Where is his 56-inch chest?)" Lalu asked sarcastically.

Congress leader Manish Tewari took to Twitter to ask if Bharatiya Janata Party leaders would fulfil their claims of "taking care" of Pakistan.

"Outrage in Uri requires robust response PM. Can u walk rhetoric of muscularity? Biggest attack after 2002? Will India bleed in vain?" Tiwari said.

Pressure also mounted from within for the BJP.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological fountainhead of the party, said that "terrorists, their masters and their supporters should be dealt with firmly and conclusively".

The slaughter of 17 soldiers -- after the death of seven military personnel at Pathankot in January and nine months after Modi made a dramatic trip to Lahore to wish birthday greetings to his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif -- has put the BJP and Modi in a dilemma.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jatiley quickly blamed Pakistan for the killings. Pakistan denied the accusation while the US and Britain refrained from getting into blamegame even as they denounced the death of Indian soldiers.

Modi said those behind the Uri attack won't escape "unpunished" but political analysts said the government was likely to act in a manner that does not escalate into a conflict with Pakistan.

Political commentator S. Nihal Singh said the Modi government may go for a combination of military and diplomatic options.

"They will have to take some retaliatory step. They have to decide what kind of step it should be. On the diplomatic front, they have to decide whether to break off relations or not but that would be an extreme step," Nihal Singh told IANS.

He said the country expected some retaliation and that it has to come "reasonably soon", otherwise the "momentum will be gone". "How to calibrate a response without expanding the conflict. Basically, that is the problem."

Former diplomat Kuldip Nayar said the government may look for options that do not lead to war. Covert actions were possible.

"I don't think India will go to such an extent that they (Pakistan) are provoked into war," he said.

He did warn that the tense relationship with Pakistan would worsen after Sunday's killings.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been hit hard after Islamabad came out in support of the mass unrest in the Kashmir Valley following the killing of a militant in July.

And with Modi speaking aggressively in support of Baloch separatists in Pakistan, Islamabad and New Delhi appear to be in no mood to shake hands - for now.

If the BJP is not seen to be "punishing" Pakistan, the party will have a hard time explaining its nationalist credentials in assembly elections due next year in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarkhand and Goa.
New Delhi, September 18 : Minister for law A K Balan has said that the State government will file the review petition in the Soumya rape and murder case this week seeking the apex court to reconsider the verdict commuting death sentence of the accused in the case Govindachami.

He was speaking at a press conference in New Delhi shortly after holding talks with attorney general Mukul Rohatgi over the case. The latter will appear for the State in the case.

The minister said that the government would request for the review petition to be heard in an open court.

The supreme court had earlier this week commuted the death sentence awarded to Govindachami by a lower court  and upheld by the Kerala high court- on an appeal filed by the accused.

The apex court had taken the position that sec. 302 of the IPC dealing with punishment for murder could not be invoked against the accused since there was no conclusive evidence to prove his intention to murder Soumya.

Mr. Balan told reporters that the attorney general would strive to bring the case under the purview of sec. 302.

The charge against Govindachami is that he pushed 23-year-old Soumya out of a moving train, dragged her to a wooded area and raped the bleeding victim.

The LDF government decision to review the commutation of death sentence came in the wake of widespread criticism in the State against the alleged failure of the prosecution to present a strong case against the accused in the apex court.
A 3,000-year-old burnt clay pot has found its way into a museum in Denmark, and now archeologists are sweating over how it ended up in a garbage pit.

By India Today Web Desk: Some 3,000 years ago, somebody messed up a recipe. Today, that unfortunate dish has become an artifact.

Archaeologists in Denmark recently dug up a burnt pot dating back to the Scandinavian Bronze Age, and believe it provides evidence of the type of cooking mistakes people made in those times.

The clay pot was excavated in a near-mint condition in Jutland, Denmark, dumped in what was perhaps once a waste pit.

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"The pot is typical for cooking vessels in this region of Denmark. It was accompanied by several other objects fitting the dating," Museum Silkeborg's archaeologist, Kaj F Rasmussen told Discovery News, calling the discovery "a lucky breakthrough".

"Ordinarily clay pots will have been reduced to shards before deposition, or have been crushed by pressure from the covering earth," he said.

The 3,000-year-old burnt clay pot. Source: Museum Silkeborg



BURNT CHEESE 3,000 YEARS AGO, NOW A PIECE OF ART

Rasmussen said charred remains of food in pots usually turn black over the ages. But this clay pot is layered on the inside with a whitish-yellow crust, which, lab tests showed, had traces of "bovine fats".

This has led to the speculation that the cook was probably trying to make cheese in the pot, but ended up messing it up. And their best solution must have been to toss the pot in the garbage.

"The fat could be a part of the last traces of curds used during the original production of traditional hard cheese," Rasmussen told Science Nordic. "The whey is boiled down, and it contains a lot of sugars, which in this way can be preserved and stored for the winter."



"Shit, I fucked up this recipe. ...It's okay, no one will ever know."

3,000 Years later, in a national museum:https://t.co/DtmjQ80PmE Katherine Cross (@Quinnae_Moon) September 17, 2016



BUT WHY TOSS THE POT, WHY NOT WASH IT?

Yes, that's the question the archeologists are sweating over now. They are debating over the possibilities as to whether the pot was thrown away in a moment of anger or to get rid of evidence.

"I cannot help but wonder if someone had a guilty conscience. It's well and truly burnt and must have smelt terrible," Rasmussen said.

"Were there any hard feelings over the missing cheese? Perhaps there was a little family drama? You can almost imagine how quickly [the cheese maker] must have acted to get rid of that pot," Rasmussen wondered.

Believe us, sir, if ours weren't expensive stainless steel utensils, we'd too be tossing burnt pots and pans in the trash without breaking a sweat.



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Jerusalem, Sep 19 : Israeli Prime Minister's Office confirmed on Sunday that Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.

A statement released by Netanyahu's office said the two are likely to discuss "the challenges and opportunities in the Middle East and the way to promote peace and security together," Xinhua reported.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the meeting will be an opportunity to discuss "the need for genuine advancement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground".

The meeting will allow "an opportunity to discuss the stalwart ties between the US and Israel, as recently underscored by the finalization of our new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding with Israel, the single largest pledge of military assistance in US history," he said.

"Additionally, the leaders are likely to discuss continued implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and other regional security issues," Earnest added.

Last Wednesday, the two allies signed a military aid agreement, which is expected to give Israel as much as $38 billion a year over 10 years.
Belize's vibrant celebrations are attracting visitors from around the world To say weve come a long way is an understatement

With Belizes September celebrations underway, The Lodge at Chaa Creek says now is a perfect time to explore the little Caribbean country  and if you cant make it in person, visiting online is a viable and entertaining option, according to the Belizean eco-resorts social media administrator.

With so many things going on and so much enthusiasm throughout the country, September has always been a great time to experience Belize, Jared Bradley said, And now, thanks to the internet and social media, people from around the world can participate online, he added.

Mr Bradley also said that while Belizes month long September celebrations, which include St Georges Caye and Independence days, are becoming increasingly attractive to a global audience, they resonate particularly strongly with North American travellers.

People who visit Belize during September are struck by the colourful events, the music, dancing and enthusiasm the celebrations generate throughout the country, and for people from North America it seems to really strike a chord. Thats not surprising, considering how much we have in common, such as being English-speaking former British colonies sharing big independence days and other celebrations like Christmas and even Thanksgiving,  he said.

And with a large Garifuna diaspora settled in North America, Garifuna Settlement Day, on November 19th, is now also celebrated in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other northern cities. By using Google and other search engines, people are able to check out the festivities as theyve never done before, and were seeing a big uptick in visits to the Chaa Creek website and blog that will continue into the new year, he explained.

Interest in September is huge, and then we have a breather during October before momentum picks up with Garifuna Settlement Day and Thanksgiving that carries us into the very lively Christmas season and New Years parties, he added.

St Georges Caye Day, on September 10th, commemorates the battle of St Georges Caye, a tiny island off the coast near present day Belize City that is considered to be a defining moment in Belizes journey towards nationhood.

Around that date in 1798 a small band comprised of woodcutters, ship builders, African slaves and other early Belizeans repelled a much larger, professional Spanish invasion force, averting Spanish domination over the nascent settlement and paving the way towards the establishment of the crown colony of British Honduras.

On September 21st, 1981, Belize finally achieved full independence from Great Britain as a sovereign nation and is now a member of the Commonwealth and UN. Since that time the country has moved from a primarily agrarian economy to become one of the worlds most popular tourism destinations, Mr Bradley said.

To say weve come a long way is an understatement, and with independence still so fresh in everyones minds, its celebrated with a lot of enthusiasm, from the inland towns and villages out to Ambergris Caye and other islands along the Belize Great Barrier Reef, with official ceremonies in Belize City and the national capitol of Belmopan.

And now, thanks to the Internet and various forms of social media, people from all over the world can observe and take part, Mr Bradley said.

He added that Chaa Creeks website and Travel Blog both contain information about Belizean history and the September celebrations, and a wealth of information can be found using search engines and looking on YouTube.

And with Garifuna Settlement Day coming up in November, there was even an article in the New York Times September 15 2016 about Garifuna history and cuisine, with recipes of some of Belizes favourite dishes, so word is definitely getting out in the media, he said.

Mr Bradley also said Chaa Creek has a strong cultural component that has been attracting visitors for Belizes September celebrations since they began.

Chaa Creek started as Mick and Lucy Flemings small family farm on the banks of the Macal River, which became one of Belizes first eco-resorts when they began taking guests in 1981; just as Belize became independent. Since then its growth has matched Belizes, and now Chaa Creek features a wide range of accommodations including the new Ix Chel Villas that are setting a new standard for luxury lodgings in Belize.

Theres also the highly regarded Mariposa restaurant specialising in farm-to-table dining sourced from the onsite traditional Maya organic farm, the internationally recognised Hilltop Spa, infinity pool and other quality amenities as well as activities like canoeing down the Macal River and horseback, mountain bike riding and birding and nature walks along miles of trails crisscrossing a 400 acre private nature reserve, he said.

Mr Bradley suggested that travellers who miss this years Belize September celebrations look online and consider making reservations for next year, and said that there is still time to reserve a Chaa Creek Belizean Thanksgiving vacation.

For me, Thanksgiving sums up the relationship between Belize and North America. Throughout Belize, and especially at Chaa Creek, we serve the familiar Thanksgiving turkey dinners with all the trimmings like mashed potatoes, gravy, yams and pies, but you also find tamales, rice and beans and other dishes that reflect Belizes heritage from the ancient Maya right up to today. Its a unique combination of the familiar and the exotic.

And it goes to show what a small world it really is, Mr Bradley said.

The Lodge at Chaa Creek is a multi award winning eco resort set within a 400-acre private nature reserve along the banks of the Macal River in Belize.

ENDS
Servoy announced today the latest release of their platform, Servoy 8.1. Utilizing User Experience feedback as its focal point, Servoy 8.1 builds on 15 years of Rapid Application Development innovation and success culminating in a new core technology and even greater accelerated performance. Servoy further addressed the increased demand of time-to-market in a more complex technology driven environment by recognizing the need for DIY building/coding of HTML5 and Responsive apps in this latest version.

Servoy 8.1 builds on the success of our high-productivity, user-friendly development environment, said Ron van der Burg, CEO of Servoy. We work closely with ISVs to continuously enhance our platform so they can create outstanding applications easily and in record time. Servoy allows ISVs to build complex applications without limitations.

More powerful than ever

With Release 8.1, Servoy engineers used extensive customer feedback to rethink and optimize how forms are designed. Servoy 8.1 users will notice how fast, intuitive and productive the new form design functionality is, a must for responsive design. UI patterns that are reused multiple times now appear as components in a library. The Servoy engine can also flatten nested levels into one to eliminate complexity and performance issues.

The HTML5 client benefits from a drastically enhanced architecture to optimize performance. Servoy took the complexity out of creating and installing custom components. A simple screen allows users to install and update components, without the need to update the core engine. It reduces the risk of errors, saves time and allows users to iterate easily and as often as they need.

The Servoy platform is designed to facilitate the creation of an outstanding User Experience. It is backed by the Appsurance program ensuring developers have help when they need it to meet time-to-market deadlines. More information on the Servoy platform and the Appsurance program can be found at http://www.servoy.com.

Servoy has been reinventing application development since 2001. Today, Servoy continues to lead the industry in innovation with only one goal in mind: making it easy for ISVs to create their best and most competitive applications ever.
The honorees put the passion, commitment and the urgency into what needs to get done.

Six inspirational women from around the world were recognized for their leadership and achievement of local development efforts at the In Her Hands book launch and awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 13.

As government officials, educators, communicators and community leaders, these six women hailing from El Salvador, Honduras, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria represent a group of 14 honorees selected as Inspirational Women by Creative Associates International. Launched by Creatives Co-Founder and CEO Charito Kruvant, the initiative sought to identify and honor women around the world for their vision, energy and results related to the organizations mission. (http://www.CreativeAssociatesInternational.com)

Were here to celebrate the success of development at the most local level, said Kruvant, speaking at the event. The honorees put the passion, commitment and the urgency into what needs to get done.

Held at the Ronald Reagan Building, the event was attended by more than 120 development professionals, U.S. and foreign government representatives and others.

To read the honorees stories, visit http://inspirational.creativeassociatesinternational.com/.

Use #InHerHands to join the conversation on Twitter.

STRONG PARTNERSHIPS FOR A COMMON MISSION

As on-the-ground partners of projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development or U.S. State Department and implemented by Creative, these women are critical to the success and sustainability of education reform and peacebuilding initiatives.

But this cooperation goes beyond partnerships on paper, noted Kruvant.

Were all following a common mission, she said.

For example, the Mayor of Cojutepeque, El Salvador, Lupita Serrano, has made it her personal and professional mission to create alternative, positive pathways away from violence for the citys youth and spearhead a whole-of-community approach to crime reduction.

Her efforts have been strengthened by teaming up with the El Salvador Crime and Violence Prevention Projectfunded by USAID and implemented by Creative and local partners. Through citywide violence prevention activities, she has helped her city reduce its homicide rate and create more avenues for young people to build a future, off the streets and away from violence.

It is thanks to [USAID and Creative] that other mayors and I have been working in a better way so our citizens can live in safe and peaceful environments, said Serrano, as she accepted her award.

By supporting local leaders like Serrano to rally their communities for positive change, USAID, Creative and its partners are helping to ensure that progress is sustainable long after projects have closed.

In Jordan, honoree Mary Tadros has been at the helm of systemic change to the education system and policy to improve learning and teachingcarrying on efforts she undertook as part of the Education Reform Support Program. Thousands of Jordanian students have benefited from these reforms.

Mary herself was a major catalyst for this change, though she attributes much of her success to the collaboration with her international partners.

You have created a program that is sustainable and continues to serve the children of Jordan, she said, speaking to familiar faces at the event of those who had supported the program.

REPRESENTING A NEW FACE FOR THEIR COUNTRIES

Many of the honorees countries more often make international headlines for conflict and poverty than progress and prosperity. For them, being named one of Creatives Inspirational Women represents a chance to share a different, more positive narrative about their homes.

Hailing from Honduras most violent city, San Pedro Sula, honoree Miriam Canales is determined to change that reputation and to give young people a reason to be hopeful about their futures at home, rather than attempt a dangerous and uncertain migration north.

As the Northern Region Program Coordinator for Alianza Joven Honduras-USAIDfunded USAID and implemented by Creativeshe oversees 37 neighborhood youth Outreach Centers, which provide thousands of at-risk youth with opportunities for education, recreation, personal growth and job skills training off the streets and away from gang violence. She believes her tireless work in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods will help realize her dream for her countrys youth.

We want to be seen around the world in a different way with a different image, Canales said at the event. This award is not for me but for all the people who fight in their neighborhoods and who get up every day dreaming a different dream.

This dream is all too familiar to honoree Sarwat Jahan. A native of Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Jahan knows well the challenges of violent extremism facing her country and the international reputation this has earned her nation.

While it is not easy for anyone, let alone a woman, in her country to try to change traditional mindsets or extremist beliefs, Jahan is determined to spread messages of peace around Pakistan and build inclusivity rather than stoke divisions.

During nine-year career with Creative, Jahan was instrumental in linking the private sector, peace organizations and government officials with efforts to counter terrorism and extremism. In the process, she fought for womens empowerment by bringing women-led organizations into lead roles in these networks.

Extremism might make the news, but as Jahan stressed in her speech, this is only one side of the story.

Extremism is becoming a big challenge, but our country is full of good, loving people. My mission is to spread this message, she said, adding that the support from international partners buoys her efforts and those of other peacebuilders like her.

OVERCOMING THE ODDS, FIGHTING FOR OTHERS

Collectively, Creatives 14 honorees have changed tens of thousands of lives as they have transformed education systems, helped to stem crime and violence, expanded opportunities for women and youth, and amplified calls for peace in conflict-plagued areas.

More remarkably, they have achieved these successes despite conflict, significant obstacles and gender barriers in their communities and countries.

Speaking at the Sept. 13 ceremony, U.S. Representative Nita Lowey described the honorees as having courage.

In spite of all kinds of challenges and sadness and threats to their community, they become heroic to meet those challenges, Rep. Lowey said.

One honoree who has faced cultural and systemic challenges is Nigerias Rabia Eshak.

Throughout her more than 30-year career in education in Northern Nigeria, she has been an indefatigable advocate for providing all children access to quality educationdespite everything standing in the way, including most recently Boko Haram-inflicted violence and intimidation of teachers and students.

Nigeria also has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world. The average girl leaves the classroom when she is 9 years old.

Eshaks work has been instrumental in expanding access to quality of education to thousands of children, and especially young girls who are more likely than their male peers to drop out or never go to school.

As deputy director of the USAID-funded and Creative-implemented Northern Education Initiative, she worked to bring more girls into classrooms and improve education quality for children in Islamic schools, who too often are taught to recite the Quran but kept illiterate.

I have had opportunities to become what I am today because of education. Without education hardly anything can be done, said Eshak, accepting her award in Washington.

Syrian honoree Hala Khairalla also knows what its like to take on seemingly insurmountable challenges and work through conflict to support others.

She was a college student in March 2011 when civil war broke out. As residents lived in fear and without a reliable source of information, she started reporting critical news from the streets of Aleppo. She knew she was putting her life on the line to ensure that the story was heard around the world.

While covering a protest, she was shot by soldiers. Gravely wounded and under arrest, she recovered in a hospital. After authorities released her from the hospital, she resumed her reporting and today is the head of Radio Nasaeem, the first woman-owned independent radio station broadcasting in Syria.

My purpose was to get my voice to reach every person listening to radio in Syria, said Khairalla.

And despite the dangers faced by journalists daring to report accurate news and dispatch messages to civilians caught in the crossfire, Khairalla remains steadfastly committed to her work.

This award means a great deal to me because as I speak, there is a lot of violence and people are dying. I hope to end that, she said.

SHARING THEIR STORIES TO INSPIRE OTHERS

The honorees have inspired thousands in their communities. With the launch of In Her Hands, Creative aims to bring their inspirational stories to others striving for positive change across the globe.

This initiative celebrates the collective reach of these 14 women, as well as the millions of others whose stories are yet untold.

The notion of mankind has become wider, more diverse and inclusive toward social groups that until recently are underrepresented, marginalized and persecuted even, said Sharon Cooley, Director of Business Development at Creative, in her closing remarks. Women have been key to instituting these changes, and they continue to be key.

ABOUT CREATIVE ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL

Creative Associates International works with underserved communities by sharing expertise and experience in education, elections, economic growth, governance and transitions from conflict to peace. (http://www.CreativeAssociatesInternational.com)

Based in Washington, D.C., Creative has active projects in more than 25 countries. Since 1977, it has worked in nearly 90 countries and on almost every continent. Recognized for its ability to work rapidly, flexibly and effectively in conflict-affected environments, Creative is committed to generating long-term sustainable solutions to complex development problems.

Started by four enterprising women with diverse backgrounds, Creative has grown to become one of the leaders among the U.S. private sector implementers of global development projects. Creative is minority owned and operated.

To learn more about the honorees, please visit: http://inspirational.creativeassociatesinternational.com/

To learn more about Creative Associates International, please visit: http://www.CreativeAssociatesInternational.com
When students in the Systems Programming course at Brandon University (BU) are looking for feedback on their projects, theyll now be able to go right to the source.

A new partnership between BU and ACD Systems International will provide computer science students with valuable hands-on experience. The students will work with advanced code from ACD Systems for their Systems Programming projects.

This is an exciting opportunity for BU students, says Gautam Srivastava, an Assistant Professor in BUs Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. These are thirdyear students and theyre ready for a new challenge. Theyll be communicating with professionals in the industry and applying what theyve learned.

In the class, which runs during the fall and winter semesters, students will focus on developing code for sharing and syncing media between mobile devices as well as displaying media on a mobile device. In addition to Srivastavas supervision, they will have access to experts from ACD Systems, who will provide them with constructive criticism as well as suggestions on how to advance their projects.

We felt that Brandon University would be a good match for us based on the strength of their computer science program and their emphasis on teaching, said Martin Winstanley, Vice-President of ACD Systems International. Innovation is at the heart of what we do at ACD Systems, and Im looking forward to seeing the ideas that these students develop end up in a world-class software solution.

Formed in 1993 in Texas, ACD Systems produces software applications that range from editing and sharing of digital images, creation of technical illustrations and management of documents and media files on devices and over networks. Their clients include many companies of all sizes in the architecture, insurance, engineering, aerospace and automotive industries as well as millions of consumers around the globe.

There is a great demand for skilled university graduates in the tech industry, Srivastava said. There is a real push right now for computer science programs at universities to form industrial partnerships, because they provide students with learning opportunities and experience beyond what a professor can give them. This will be a real incentive for students to study at BU.

Brandon University, founded in 1899, promotes excellence in teaching, research, and scholarship, and educates students so that they can make a meaningful difference as engaged citizens and leaders
Tooligram is a colossal boost to any Instagram account, as it lets consumers take control of their social media.

It's time to take control of your Instagram account whether you are a brand or persona grande. With the newly launched to the U.S. markets, Tooligram, instead of attempting to endlessly "Follow" and "Like" other insta-users in order to gain your own population of followers, users can now rest assured and delegate this task to Tooligram. Tooligram is a revolutionary social marketing software that helps its users to customize their targets and goals by allowing them to localize their potential audience by geo-location and analytics of interests. This, in turn, optimizes the process of gaining real, engaging followers. Best of all, it features a 24/7 technical support team.

Having an Instagram account became somewhat of a necessity for people in the 21st century. Whether used for personal or business needs, Instagram occupied more mobile devices and online time than any other media. Tooligram is a colossal boost to any Instagram account, as it lets consumers take control of their social media. Instead of endlessly and manually searching for and interacting with targeted audience, Tooligram users are able to customize and filter their targeted audience from start to finish by setting their targeted geo-location, interests and even hashtags.

Launched by a Russian Entrepreneur and software developer Alexander Sokolovskiy, the founder of Media Jets, Tooligram features cutting-edge technology for gaining real, engaging followers. Tooligram is on a mission to speed up the process of gaining real followers and removing the hassle from the process of manually interacting with each potential follower, asking them to like or cross-promote certain content.

The Tooligram software is built in a way that allows users to set up their own daily goals on followers, likes and comments. Specifically, users can pre-set their targets and schedule automatic Tooligram activity on Instagram at the appropriate time based on the previously-selected audience criteria.

Business is all about time, efficiency and money. Tooligram has its users covered by offering a time-effective and cost-efficient solution of building up the social media account, which in effect makes it the easiest, most ideal business solution for even the most demanding and particular of users.
By PTI: Mumbai, Sep 18 (PTI) Buoyed by the Centres increased focus on renewable energy sector, solar solutions provider CleanMax Solar is looking to enhance its rooftop installed capacity by nearly eight-fold to about 400 MW in the next two years, a top company official said.

"With a current installed rooftop solar capacity of 55 MW across the major metros in the country, we are looking at increasing it to up to 400 MW in the next two years," companys Managing Director Kuldeep Singh told PTI here.

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He said the governments vision of 40,000 MW of installed rooftop solar capacity by 2022 gives the company a huge opportunity to grow.

"Along with this, a number of private and government entities are also coming forward where we provide bespoke rooftop solar solutions," he said.

The company, which enjoys nearly 28 per cent share in the total rooftop solar market, has presence in six metros including Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Jaipur, Chennai and Hyderabad.

When asked whether the governments ambitious target of 40,000 MW was achievable, Jain said, "The target is massive and we should not go much into the numbers. But the positive side to it is that there is improved activity and acceptability in this space."

CleanMax caters to clients across sectors like automotive/auto components, food and beverages, government establishments, academic institutions, IT/ ITeS and other manufacturing industries.

Founded in 2011, the company develops solar projects on a turnkey basis, providing power on a per-kWh basis, under long-term power purchase agreements, typically at rates cheaper than grid tariffs.

It also installs solar power plants on a capex basis, and can supply off-site solar power through open access in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. PTI PSK NRB MKJ JM

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The Delhi police arrested four drug traffickers and recovered 543 kg of marijuana worth a crore in two separate incidents.

By Himanshu Mishra: Delhi police recovered 543 kg of marijuana and arrested four drug traffickers in two separate cases.

In the first incident, police apprehended a resident of Kathputli colony, Daleep Kumar Yadav along with his associate Sanjay Kumar who were part of a drug syndicate that brought marijuana (Ganja) from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. They were arrested from Pragati Maidan with a 43 kg of drug consignment that they intended to supply further.

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In the second incident, Amrik Singh from Varanasi, a truck driver and Ram Kumar were arrested near Naharpur shamshan ghat in capital with 425 kg and 75 kg of marijuana found in their possession respectively.

Joint Commissioner of Police Ravinder Yadav said they have registered the cases and seized both vehicles.

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By PTI: New Delhi, Sep 18 (PTI) Delhi police has arrested four persons in two separate incidents and seized over 500 kg of ganja, worth more than Rs one crore, from their possession.

In the first incident on September 12, Daleep Kumar Yadav and Sanjay Kumar were arrested from the Pragati Maidan area and 43 kg of ganja, worth Rs six lakh, seized from their possession, police said.

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The duo used to procure the contraband from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh and bring it to Delhi by train, they added.

In another incident on September 14, acting on a tip-off, Crime Branch sleuths arrested Amrik Singh and Ram Kumar from Rohini and seized 500 kg of ganja, worth Rs one crore, from their possession, police said.

Two vehicles were also seized from the accused, they added.

Two cases under the NDPS Act have been registered in connection with the incidents, police said. PTI UK SLB RC RG RC

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G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now!
FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is still open to changes in his app-based set-top box (STB) plan, even as the scheduled 29 September vote on the overhaul remains on the calendar.

The proposal from the US broadcasting regulator advocates making content available in app form, which could be delivered to a range of third-party devices. This would be a scheme covering pay-TV content as well as over-the-top (OTT) offerings, and the hope is to create an off-the-shelf market for STBs that would result in lower costs for consumers as well as more innovation overall. The plan has sparked concerns around content security and copyright violations, the impact on those in the creative community, and the limits of FCC power in altering the competitive landscape to such a degree.At a Senate hearing last week, Wheeler said he was willing to consider alterations to the proposal thats on the table, as long as the final language fulfills the congressional mandate to create competition in the STB market.There are many changes that could be in play, including revising language around the FCCs role in arbitrating licensing contracts between content producers and their distribution partners. The Independent Film & Television Alliance, for instance, has made its concerns clear:The FCC creates an unacceptable and unworkable de facto compulsory licensing regime that requires creators to allow their work to be shared across multiple platforms without compensation and without regard to the creators rights to exclusively control their distribution, it said. Thats authority the FCC does not have. This one-sided proposal undermines the value of creative works, shrinks revenue streams from which creators make a living, and threatens the hard-fought wages and benefits of creative industry workers.In a Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing on Thursday, Sens. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) all expressed concerns about this potential impact on independent programmers. Wheeler noted that the proposal had support from the Writers Guild of America, but said he was willing to pull out the provision regarding contracts between programmers and MVPDs if necessary.FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel recently voiced concerns of her own over the proposal  and her Democrat vote will be critical to passing in since the Commissions Republicans are united against it. She has struck a wait and see tone, saying: "It has become clear the original proposal has real flaws and, as I have suggested before, is too complicated. We need to find another way forward More work needs to be done to streamline this proposal."She has however said: "I am glad that efforts are under way to hash out alternatives that provide consumers with more choice and more competition at lower cost set-top boxes are clunky and costly [and] consumers don't like them, and they don't like paying for them."And, the Copyright Office also has issues with the FCC proposal: As you know, the Copyright Office concluded that the original proposal could diminish the value of copyright-protected works by creating a 'new statutory licence that requires the entirety of copyrighted programming offered by MVPDs to be delivered to third parties including for commercial exploitation' without congressional authorisation, it stated.FCC press secretary Kim Hart, after the hearing, reiterated that "nothing in Chairman Wheelers proposal would create a compulsory licence. All of the programming will remain in the pay-TV app and will be distributed according to licensing agreements between programmers and pay-TV service providers. The only purpose of the licensing body is to develop a process third parties can follow to get the apps on their consumer devices."Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) originally proposed legislation to change STB competition, and backed up Wheeler at the hearing. Markey noted that the STB hadnt changed in decades, and characterised it as being in chains. He and Blumenthal both said that consumers were paying exorbitant rental fees brought on by a monopoly in the space (an estimated average of $231 annually), and that that lack of choice has to end now."In light of the ongoing controversy, 16 members of the House from both parties - including Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)  have called on the FCC to postpone the vote.Markey asked if Wheeler could find a solution in the next 14 days. Wheeler remains bullish, though, on the timeline, telling the Senate that the plan was 90% ready for the vote."Chairman Wheeler is looking forward to working with his colleagues on this proposal and expects it to be voted at the September meeting," said Hart.
By Sneha Agrawal: It's not every day that you set foot in a land where every tomb has a story that dates back to an enigmatic world, where every wall spins a tale that takes us back in time and where one can easily find Greek, Roman, Arabic and French culture, all together yet distinct. It is not every day that you land in Egypt.



Egyptians, one must know, are welcoming and known for their hospitality. They are very proud of their history and have made every effort to keep it alive. It is a land that has seen Pyramids, Cleopatra, Alexander, the Great, Tutakhamun. Needless to say, the country is a holy place not just for Muslims but also for Christians and Jews. An added attraction is the fact that they are a huge fan of Indian cinema. A civilisation that prospered on the Nile Valley, Egypt is now a perfect holiday destination for history, marine and landscape enthusiasts, in spite of the upheavals and turmoil that troubled the country recently

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HISTORY

If you want to cover the entire length and breadth of the country, you will need a month in hand --the historic monuments, beaches, deserts and oases will ensure that a month passes in the blink of an eye. However, in a short trip, you can cover Cairo, Ismalia, Alexandria, Luxor and Aswan. These cities form a historical trail that would acquaint you with 60 per cent of Egypt. Keep a budget of USD 500 to USD 1000 for this. Egypt offers 50 per cent discount to student travellers. Students should not forget their ID cards and if possible even carry a letter from the college and it is worth the effort. You can start your trip from Luxor, where you must drop by the Valley of Kings--it has tombs of various Egyptian rulers including that of Tutakhuman. The tombs are colourfully scripted in hieroglyphic alphabets and you cannot mask the chill that runs through your spine on spotting Tutakhuman's mummy preserved in the tomb he was buried in.





Photo: Mail Today

Also, visit the Luxor temple, Karnak and the Mummification Museum where you can find other mummified human beings and animals. From Luxor, take a luxurious cruise to Aswan where you must visit The Great Philae Temple or the Temple of Isis (Goddess of Friendship and Love) and the Aswan Dam built on the lake Nasser. You can even take a hot air balloon for an aero-view of Luxor.

Also Read: REVEALED: Two hidden rooms behind King Tutankhamun's burial chamber in Egypt!

It will cost you around USD 100 but it is totally worth it. In Cairo, besides the obvious Sphinx and Pyramids in Giza, go to the Cairo Museum that has more than 1,60,000 artefacts including the oldest documented stone and the oldest chessboard. One should also explore Old Cairothat has the Coptic church where Jesus supposedly took bath while on the run as an infant from Romans. In Giza, you can take a camel ride to go around the desert and the pyramids. The price for a camel ride begins at 100 Egyptian pounds and you can enter the Pyramids for a cost of 200 Egyptian pounds. The best way to spend your evening in Cairo is to go for a cruise dinner on the Nile river.





Photo: Mail Today Photo: Mail Today

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For a slice of elegance, dress up for the Nile Maxim Dinner Cruise. Operated by Marriott Hotels, the cruise boat dinner has exquisite dinner followed by performances by a belly dancer, a Tanoora show and a live band. From Cairo you can either take a train to Alexandria or travel on road. Alexandria was established by Alexander the Great. You can find Greek influence. Cleopatra grew up in the city. Alexandria is a famous weekend holiday destination.

You can also travel to Ismalia to see the Suez Canal. If you want to arrange a sail on the canal, put in a word with either Egypt Tourism or Indian Embassy in Egypt. Try to spend more time in Luxor, two days should be enough for Aswan and three days in Cairo.

FOOD

Egypt is a heaven for gluttons. You cannot have enough of it. The cuisine which is an amalgam of Mediterranean, Europen, African and the Middle Eastern is fit for vegetarians and non vegetarians. Vegetarians must try the popular falafel sandwiches and koshary that are primarily vegetarian cuisines. The food is cheap in Egpyt. You can get a falafel sandwich for two to eight Egyptian pounds. You cannot miss Koshary--pasta rice inspired from Indian khichdi. It is the national dish of Egypt and is a vegetarian cuisine that would cost you not over eight Egyptian pounds. Hog on one of the best sea food in the world, meat shawarma and pigeon meat.





Photo: Mail Today

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Each dish is served with fresh salad, hummus or Tahina and pita bread. You can begin your day with a bowl of healthy and delicious cious fava beans that hotels usually keep in their breakfast buffet. For coffee lovers, Turkish coffee is a must try and for teetotalers--Hibiscus juice cannot be missed. While Egyptians are fond of spices and herbs, the food joints and restaurants usually make the food bland and serve with the various spices that can be added as per taste.

Also Read: Visual tour of Egypt's Mount Moses

SHOPPING

Egypt is popular for its papyrus, ehtar and stones. However, before buying, ensure that you are making purchases only from government approved shops as tourists are taken for a ride with fake products. For papyrus, you can visit Old Cairo Papyrus Museum in Cairo. The starting range of a papyrus painting is around 300 Egyptian Pounds. Another interesting take away is the Ehtar (incense). Ehtar is different from India ittar as Ehtar is made from fermented juice of flowers while ittar is made from fresh flower juice. You can buy Ehtars from Golden Eagle Crystal in Giza. The range for a 30ml bottle of Ehtar would begin from a reasonable amount of USD 30. If you want to buy more, you may get discounts. When in Cairo, do not forget to visit the one of worlds oldest living markets Khan-el-Khalili. It dates back to the 14th century. It is just like Colaba causeway or Sarojini and Lajpat Nagar market. You can pick up some souvenirs, antiques and silver jewellery. It is a beautiful market with colourfully lit alleys with small cafes. You can even buy elegant hookas or shishas. But do make sure you put your bargaining skills to its best use.

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DOS AND DON'TS

It is important to respect the local culture. While Egypt is a liberal Islamic state, avoid wearing short dresses and have your shoulders covered. Egypt is dry and hot. Make sure you carry sunscreen and keep your head covered to protect yourself from the heatstroke. Keep water handy or you can also carry lime water. Do not plan to visit any site on Friday as it is a weekend for the country. Please keep a guide book at hand that is easily available at a local tourist information centre. Keep a track of opening times for places to visit so that you can make most from your trip. Do not forget to carry your camera.

PLANNING A TRIP?

If you are going through a travel agency, then you almost have your plan sorted. But for those making individual trips can write to Egypt Tourism and ask for assistance. The Egypt Tourism would not only help you find an economic travel option but also recommend choices for accommodation, conveyance and tour guides. You can write to Rehab Sameer, Egypt Tourism on Rehabsameer@egypt.travel or touristrelations@egypt.travel.



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Dancing Ledge Productions has launched a writer-in-residence programme, and first time writer and director Caroline Bartleet has won the inaugural award.

The residency lasts six months, and during that time the writer will be asked to develop a first episode script for a long-running series, for which DLP will have a first-look option.Bartleet has a BA in English from the University of Bristol. After graduating, she trained as an actress at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. She won the 2016 BAFTA for Best Short Film with her first film Operator, which stars Kate Dickie and Vicky McClure, and is currently developing several film and TV projects while completing an MA at the NFTS.Under the programme, UK literary agents are invited to send in sample material for new writers they represent, who must have had at least one piece produced in theatre or radio and no more than one in TV. The selected writer will be given a bursary of 6,000 and a desk, computer and phone in the company. They will be invited to attend in-house development meetings, read scripts in development and given access to writers the company is already working with.It is a wonderful opportunity to be part of a truly creative company, see what happens behind the scenes and develop my work with access to writers whose work I love, said Bartleet. Writing can be lonely and it is great to have a home in an office with such a welcoming team.Laurence Bowen, CEO, DLP, added: At a time when TV drama is going through a renaissance internationally, training and support for new writers is more important than ever. We wanted to put our money where our mouth is but also provide a bit of a nest for someone where they could feel part of a team, get feedback on their writing and also see first-hand how the business works.DLP launched three months ago with backing from FremantleMedia and a development deal with Martin Freeman. It is developing projects for the BBC, Channel 4, A&E, UKTV, Film 4 and working with Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Dr Who), Dan Sefton (Mr Selfridge, The Good Karma Hospital), Guy Hibbert (Eye in the Sky) and Simon Block (The Eichmann Show).
A loud explosion was heard in Manhattan a few hours ago. Several people have reportedly been injured and an explosive device has been found at the location.

By Reuters: An explosion rocked the Chelsea neighbourhood of Manhattan and caused at least 29 injuries on Saturday, the New York City Fire Department said, prompting emergency personnel to swarm one of the most bustling areas of the city on a cool autumn evening.

A law enforcement source said an initial investigation suggested the explosion occurred in a dumpster but the cause was still undetermined. CNN reported that law enforcement sources believe an improvised explosive device caused the blast.

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At least three people were seen being taken away from the scene of the blast in ambulances, but the severity of their injuries was not immediately clear. A car seen driving through the area had its rear window blown out.



BLAST OCCURRED ON 23RD STREET

The blast occurred at about 8:30 p.m. (0030 GMT Sunday) between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue on 23rd Street, a major east-west thoroughfare in the fashionable down-town neighbourhood of Chelsea, J. Peter Donald, a deputy commissioner with the New York Police Department, said in a Twitter message.

Representatives of the NYPD, the Fire Department of New York and other city agencies could not be reached immediately for further comment.

Twenty-five civilians were confirmed to have been injured in the blast, the New York City Fire Department said on Twitter.

The explosion, described by one neighbor as "deafening," happened outside the Associated Blind Housing facility at 135 W. 23rd Street. The facility provides housing, training and other services for the blind.



HUNDREDS SEEN FLEEING



Hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block on a cool early autumn evening, as police cordoned off the area.

"It was really loud, it hurt my eardrums. My 10-year-old boy was sat in the back seat of the car, and the explosion blew the back window out," said Tsi Tsi Mallett, who was in a car driving along 23rd Street when the explosion took place. Her son was not injured.

Neha Jain, 24, who lives in the neighborhood, said she was sitting in her room watching a movie when she suddenly heard a huge boom and everything shook.

"Pictures on my wall fell, the window curtain came flying as if there was a big gush of wind. Then we could smell smoke. Went downstairs to see what happened and firemen immediately told us to go back."

TRAFFIC DELAYS EXPECTED

New York City Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should "expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue" due to police activity there and asking the public to avoid the area.

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Earlier Saturday, a pipe bomb exploded in a plastic trash in along the route of a charity road race in the New Jersey beach town of Seaside Park, but no injuries were reported in what authorities believe was a deliberate attack.

Moments after the incident, New York mayor said that there was no evidence that explosion is connected to "terrorism".

Meanwhile, the New York police also recovered a second device.



BREAKING PHOTO! Here is the second device found by a NYSP Sgt. At 27 street and 7 Ave. investigation is ongoing pic.twitter.com/x7o9Rr30I3 New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) September 18, 2016

A social media user posted a video of the explosion on his Twitter account.

ALSO READ:

Pakistan: Terror attack in Peshawar's Christian Colony; 5 including 4 terrorists killed

Is France the new target of terror? PM warns of attacks, says 15,000 people on radar





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Property details:

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Price: $ 555 Seller State of Residence: California Property Address: Tule Lane State/Province: California City: Alturas Type: Homesite, Lot Zoning: Residential Zip/Postal Code: 96101 Location: 928**, Orange, California

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By PTI: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Sep 18 (PTI) Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called former Defence Secretary Robert Gates "an absolute clown", who helped in creating a "mess" in the Middle East.

The 70-year-old reality TV star told his supporters in North Carolina that he "does not like critics" after Gates - who served under two successive presidents of both the parties - attacked him in an op-ed, saying Trump is "beyond repair" when it comes to national security and is not fit to be the president of the country.

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"Were dealing with incompetent people, were dealing with stupid people, were dealing with people like Robert Gates that dont have a clue, and who when they leave office criticise everybody. I dont like critics. I dont like critics. I like people that get it done and get it done right," he said.

Trump also called the former secretary of defence "a nasty guy" and "an absolute clown."

The real estate tycoon said he has never met Gates and has only seen him on television.

Gates had called Trump "stubbornly uninformed" about the world in his article.

Trump reiterated that Gates is a "mess".

"Never met the guy, saw him on television, didnt like him. Hes a mess, okay, hes a mess. So he goes out and he says negative things about me. I never met him, I never talked to him. Believe me, I am so much better at what hes doing than he is, you wont even believe it," Trump said at an election rally in North Carolina. PTI LKJ UZM SAI UZM

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Some things get easier with practice. But saying goodbye just keeps getting harder.

I've been saying goodbye all my life. I'm pretty good at it. And fast, too. Sometimes I'm out the door and gone before anybody knows I'm leaving.

But I've never liked doing it. Unless I couldn't wait to leave. If you're eager to leave, it's not a goodbye; it's a "good riddance." A real goodbye is one you say to someone you love, or a place you want to stay, or to a time in your life when you are happy.

I've said my share of those kinds of goodbyes. I suspect you have said your share, too. Why do they keep getting harder?

As a child, after my parents divorced, I hated having to say goodbye to my daddy. He hated it as much as I did. So he came up with a plan to make it easier. Instead of saying "goodbye," he said, we'd say, "See you soon."

Grown-ups like to think they are clever. I didn't want to disappoint him, so I went along with it. It didn't make me miss him less. But it reminded me that we'd be together again. And that helped me feel less sad.

We said those words countless times when I was growing up. At the end of every visit. When I went off to college. When he walked me down the aisle at my wedding. When I saw him in the hospital after he had a stroke. And when he called me the last time, before he took his life.

The day he was buried, I stood by his grave and whispered, "See you soon, Daddy."

It didn't make me miss him less. But it reminded me that we would be together again. And I sorely needed to be reminded.

The hope of reunion is a small dose of comfort, but sometimes it's enough to help you get by.

When my three children were babies, I tried my best to make goodbyes easier for them.

I'd swear to them that I'd be back soon and that nothing  no power in heaven or earth  could ever separate them from my love. Then I'd say, with a big goofy grin, "See you soon."

It never worked. They'd cling to me like drowning cats, sinking their claws into my skin and howling hysterically.

Sometimes I miss those days. But the kids outgrew them and so, I guess, did I. By the time my oldest left home for college, we were taking goodbyes in stride. One long hug (when my boys hug you, you know you've been hugged) and a quick "I love you" and finally, "See you soon!"

I waved, dry-eyed and smiling, as he drove away. Then I sat on the curb and bawled like a calf.

That's my version of a refined goodbye. What's yours?

These days, it's especially hard to say goodbye to my grandkids. They aren't old enough to understand that goodbye doesn't mean forever. Actually, I don't quite understand it myself, but I'm trying. To make our goodbyes a little easier, I ask them three questions:

"How much do I love you?" I say, and they shout, "All."

Then, "Where is your nana when you can't see her?"

"In my heart."

Finally, I ask, "And where are you forever and always?"

"In your heart," they say.

They know grown-ups like to feel clever, so they go along with it. But this morning, Randy, who is 6, had another question.

I'd just spent three days with him and his family in their new home in Montana of all places. We'd had a grand time, but it was ending, as usual, with my heading back to Las Vegas.

"Nana?" he said, his green eyes and copper lashes fighting back tears. "How many days until I see you again?"

I held his face in my hands and told him the truth.

"I don't know exactly how many days. But I promise it will be just as soon as possible."

He studied me for a moment, then nodded and smiled. One last hug, one last "I love you," and finally, "See you soon."

If only soon were sooner.

Sharon Randall can be reached at P.O. Box 77394, Henderson, NV 89077 or on her website at www.sharonrandall.com.
FILE - In this June 12, 2013 file photo, a construction worker takes a measurement while installing a banister in a staircase in a home in Baltimore. Where you live plays a big role in staying independent as you age. Now researchers say an innovative program that combined home fix-ups and visits from occupational therapists and nurses improved low-income seniors' ability to care for themselves in their own homes. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

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By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON (AP)  Where you live plays a big role in staying independent as you age. Now researchers say an innovative program that combined home fix-ups and visits from occupational therapists and nurses improved low-income seniors' ability to care for themselves in their own homes.

Still to be answered is whether that better daily functioning also saves taxpayer dollars  by helping enough older adults with chronic health problems avoid costly hospital or nursing home stays.

"We're improving people's lives, improving their abilities," said Sarah Szanton, a Johns Hopkins University associate nursing professor who leads the experimental program reported Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs.

Surveys show most older adults want to live at home for as long as possible. Yet chronic diseases and their resulting disabilities  problems walking, bathing, dressing, cooking  can make that difficult in homes with steep stairs, doorways too narrow for walkers, and other obstacles.

And seniors who have trouble with those so-called activities of daily living are costly for Medicare and Medicaid, too often ending up in hospitals or nursing homes because they couldn't care for themselves at home, or had a bad fall while trying.

Szanton's team aims to help those seniors maintain their independence through CAPABLE  it stands for Community Aging in Place, Advancing Better Living for Elders  a program testing modest home modifications and strategies for daily living.

The fixes sound simple. A double banister let people rest their weight on both sides to get up and down stairs safely. Handymen fixed trip hazards, installed grab bars and lowered shelves so seniors could reach without climbing. Occupational therapists bought assistive devices to help people with tremors feed themselves, and taught the frail how to get in and out of high-sided tubs.

Even simple fixes can be life-changing, like the reaching gadget therapists gave Bertha Brickhouse to help tug on her socks and shoes.

"You just don't want to ask someone, 'Can you come to my house and help me put my boots on?'" said Brickhouse, 69, of Baltimore, who has diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and uses a cane for damaged knees. "It was like I was born all over again from their help, the things they did to make my life much easier."

In a demonstration project funded by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, the Hopkins researchers provided 234 Baltimore residents with 10 home visits by handymen, occupational therapists and nurses. Interventions were tailored to each senior's priorities: Did they want to bathe without help? Cook? Be able to climb the stairs, or make it out of the house to go to church or visit friends?

After completing the five-month program, three-quarters of participants improved their ability to take care of themselves  on average, able to perform two more tasks of daily living on their own compared to before receiving the care, Szanton reported Wednesday.

Two-thirds of participants also were better able to perform related tasks such as grocery shopping, and half experienced fewer symptoms of depression.

The aid cost about $2,825 per participant, including the home repair, home visits from health professionals, and assistive devices.

Szanton's team still is calculating if that translates into cost savings for Medicare or Medicaid. Separately, a more rigorous study funded by the National Institutes of Health is under way with an additional 300 Baltimore residents, to prove if the interventions really work.

Federal Medicare officials declined comment on Wednesday's findings. But state Medicaid and aging officials are closely watching the research.

Michigan has opened its own pilot project, testing a version of CAPABLE with more seriously disabled seniors who are eligible for a nursing home but don't want to move, said Sandra Spoelstra, an associate nursing dean at Grand Valley State University who is leading the study with state Medicaid officials.

"It's a different way of talking to people and listening to what they desire to make their life better," Spoelstra said.
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Q: What are the laws on deboning a bear or deer to pack out the meat? I don't know of any laws saying I cannot debone a deer or bear as long as I am able to prove that the quarters and heads are all part of the same animal. I'm just looking for clarity as I am heading into X9A for my first time and I plan on hiking into deep country on foot.  Brad P.

A: This is a legal practice as long as you can verify what animal the meat belongs to. The only problem that may arise is when people are packing out multiple animals at the same time. If that's the case, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) asks that hunters keep each animal separate to avoid any misunderstandings.

For deer, you must pack the antlers out with the meat to verify the sex, and the antlers must be tagged. With bears, you must pack the whole head out with the meat so that we can extract a tooth for aging purposes. You are not required to prove the sex of bears.

In addition, all hunters must comply with Fish and Game Code, section 4304, which prohibits needless waste of any portion of the meat that is usually eaten by humans.

Q: I am aware that a person must be able to judge the size of their take, but are there any regulations saying what types of devices the person must carry? For example, I recently observed a group that were crabbing and their only means of measurement was a cut zip tie, but it was indeed the correct minimum length.

 Katlyn G., Sausalito

A: It varies, but for crab the only requirement is that the device be capable of accurately measuring the minimum size of the species. But, sometimes the regulations are very specific about the type of measuring device that is required. Persons taking abalone, for example, "shall carry a fixed-caliper measuring gauge capable of accurately measuring seven inches. The measuring device shall have fixed opposing arms of sufficient length to measure the abalone by placing the gauge over the shell."

An object such as a ruler is capable of accurately measuring rock crab because size limits are "measured by the shortest distance through the body, from edge of shell to edge of shell at the widest part." For Dungeness crab though, the measurement is "five and three-quarter inches measured by the shortest distance through the body from edge of shell to edge of shell directly in front of and excluding the points (lateral spines)."

Because of the curvature of the Dungeness carapace, and the need to measure the straight line distance across a curved surface between the points, a measuring device such as a ruler or zip tie is not accurate. CDFW recommends using a fixed or adjustable caliper for Dungeness crab. It does not have to be commercially purchased and we have seen devices cut out of wood or plastic that work fine.

Q: Is it legal to sell pen-raised valley quail during the offseason to be used to train dogs? The pen-raised valley quail will have CDFW tags that I think only cost a few cents each.

 Matthew W., Santa Rosa

A: Interesting question since very few people raise California quail and instead raise bob white. However, the answer is yes, they can be sold if they were bred and raised under the authority of a CDFW Domesticated Game Breeder License. The birds will need to be marked with game bird tags to differentiate them from wild birds. These tags are sold to game bird breeders through our License and Revenue Branch for less than four cents each.

Q: If I'm out spearfishing with scuba gear, can I leave the scuba gear in the boat to also free dive for abalone?

 Anonymous

A: No. Sport divers are prohibited from using scuba or other surface-supplied air equipment to take abalone, and they cannot possess abalone on board any boat, vessel, or floating device in the water containing scuba or surface-supplied air. There is no problem transporting abalone and scuba gear together while on land. Divers working from boats, kayaks, float tubes or other floating devices who wish to use scuba equipment to spear fish or harvest sea urchins, rock scallops or crabs of the genus Cancer, will need to make a separate trip for abalone.

Carrie Wilson is a marine environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. While she cannot personally answer everyone's questions, she will select a few to answer each week in this column. Please contact her at CalOutdoors@wildlife.ca.gov.
SHARE Richard Donald Blanchard Jr. Date of birth: Nov. 14, 1970 Vitals: 6 feet, 2 inches; 220 pounds; blond hair, blue eyes Charge: Writing bad checks Gordon Melvin Moore Date of birth: Oct. 13, 1955 Vitals: 6 foot, 1 inch; 170 pounds; brown hair, blue eyes Charge: Shoplifting Elijah Allen Frye Date of birth: May 12, 1982 Vitals: 5 feet, 6 inches; 140 pounds; brown hair, blue eyes Charge: Assault with a deadly weapon Troy Arleigh Holladay Date of birth: May 2, 1972 Vitals: 5 feet, 8 inches; 180 pounds; brown hair, brown eyes Charge: Termination of probation

By Staff Reports

Shasta's Most Wanted, featured in the Record Searchlight in cooperation with local law enforcement agencies, targets people who have failed to show up in court for sentencing after being convicted.

As of Friday, a total of 687 arrests had been made through the Most Wanted program since it began in September 2013. Authorities say they have seen an increase in criminals failing to appear in court since the onset of Assembly Bill 109. Also known as prison realignment, the state program shifted certain state prison inmates to county supervision.

Redding Police Chief Robert Paoletti said court appearances have gone up since the rollout.

Five new people are added each week. Those caught will be held until at least their next court appearances. Shasta County Secret Witness is offering a reward of up to $250 for information leading to an arrest. Tips can be provided anonymously at 530-243-2319 or at www.scsecretwitness.com/home/submit-a-tip.

Anyone with information also can call SHASCOM at 245-6540. The feature appears Sundays in the Record Searchlight's Northern California section and on Redding.com.
This undated photo provided by Jennifer Weiss-Burke on Sept. 12, 2016 shows her and her son, Cameron Weiss. Weiss-Burke said his descent into drug addiction started with an opioid prescription a doctor wrote for him for a wrestling injury. After his death from a heroin overdose in 2011, Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure. (Courtesy Jennifer Weiss-Burke via AP)

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By Geoff Mulvihill, Liz Essley Whyte and Ben Wieder; The Associated Press and Center for Public Integrity

The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids, the drugs at the heart of a crisis that has cost 165,000 Americans their lives and pushed countless more to crippling addiction.

The drugmakers vow theyre combating the addiction epidemic, but The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found that they often employ a statehouse playbook of delay and defend that includes funding advocacy groups that use the veneer of independence to fight limits on the drugs, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl, the narcotic linked to Princes death.

The mother of Cameron Weiss was no match for the industrys high-powered lobbyists when she plunged into the corridors of New Mexicos Legislature, crusading for a measure she fervently believed would have saved her sons life.

It was a heroin overdose that eventually killed Cameron, not long before he would have turned 19. But his slippery descent to death started a few years earlier, when a hospital sent him home with a bottle of Percocet after he broke his collarbone in wrestling practice.

Jennifer Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure.

They didnt speak up in legislative hearings. They were going individually talking to senators and representatives one-on-one, Weiss-Burke said.

Unknowingly, she had taken on a political powerhouse that spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2006 through 2015  more than 200 times what those advocating for stricter policies spent and more than eight times what the formidable gun lobby recorded for similar activities during that same period.

The pharmaceutical companies and allied groups have a number of legislative interests in addition to opioids that account for a portion of their political activity, but their steady presence in state capitals means theyre poised to jump in quickly on any debate that affects them.

Collectively, the AP and the Center for Public Integrity found, the drugmakers and allied advocacy groups employed an annual average of 1,350 lobbyists in legislative hubs from 2006 through 2015, when opioids addictive nature came under increasing scrutiny.

The opioid lobby has been doing everything it can to preserve the status quo of aggressive prescribing, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and an outspoken advocate for opioid reform. They are reaping enormous profits from aggressive prescribing.

The drug companies say they are committed to solving the problems linked to their painkillers. Major opioid-makers have launched initiatives to, among other things, encourage more cautious prescribing, allow states to share databases of prescriptions and help stop drug dealers from obtaining pills.

And the industry and its allies have not been alone in fighting restrictions on opioids. Powerful doctors groups are part of the fight in several states, arguing that lawmakers should not tell them how to practice medicine.

While drug regulation is usually handled at the federal level  where the makers of painkillers also have pushed back against attempts to impose restrictions  ordinary citizens struggling with the opioid crisis in their neighborhoods have looked to their state capitals for solutions.

Hundreds of opioid-related bills have been introduced at the state level just in the last several years. The few groups pleading for tighter prescription restrictions are mostly fledgling mom-and-pop organizations formed by families of young people killed by opioids. Together, they spent about $4 million nationwide at the state and federal level on political contributions and lobbying from 2006 through 2015 and employed an average of eight state lobbyists each year.

Prescription opioids are the synthetic cousins of heroin and morphine, prescribed to relieve pain. Sales of the drugs have boomed  quadrupling from 1999 to 2010  and overdose deaths rose just as fast, totaling 165,000 this millennium. Last year, 227 million opioid prescriptions were doled out in the U.S., enough to hand a bottle of pills to nine out of every 10 American adults.

The drugmakers revenues are robust, too: Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin and one of the largest opioid producers by sales, pulled in an estimated $2.4 billion from opioids last year alone, according to estimates from health care information company IMS Health.

Thats even after executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about OxyContins risk of addiction in 2007 and the company agreed to pay more than $600 million in fines.

Opioids can be dangerous even for people who follow doctors orders, though they also help millions of people manage pain associated with cancer, injuries, surgeries and end-of-life care.

The industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America issued a statement saying, We and our members stand with patients, providers, law enforcement, policymakers and others in calling for and supporting national policies and action to address opioid abuse.

And Purdue said: Purdue does not oppose  either directly or indirectly  policies that improve the way opioids are prescribed, including when those policies may result in decreased opioid use.

One of the chief solutions the drugmakers actively promote now are new formulations that make their products harder to crush or dissolve, thwarting abusers who want to snort or inject painkillers. But the new versions also extend the life of their profits with fresh patents, and some experts question their overall effectiveness.

A FOCUS ON PAIN TREATMENT

An analysis of state records collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics provides a snapshot of the drugmakers battles to limit opioids. For instance, they show that pharmaceutical companies and their allies ramped up their lobbying and campaign contributions in New Mexico in 2012 as lawmakers considered  and ultimately killed  the bill backed by Cameron Weiss mother.

But one of the drug companies most powerful engines of political might isnt part of the public record  a largely unknown network of opioid-friendly nonprofits they help fund and meet with monthly known as the Pain Care Forum, formed more than a decade ago.

Combined, its participants contributed more than $24 million to 7,100 candidates for state-level offices from 2006 through 2015, with the largest amounts going to governors and the lawmakers who control legislative agendas, such as house speakers, senate presidents and health committee chairs.

Theyve gotten involved in nitty-gritty fights even beyond legislatures. After Washington state leaders drafted the nations first set of medical guidelines urging doctors not to prescribe high doses of opioids in 2007, the Pain Care Forum hired a public relations firm to convince the state medical board that the guidelines would hurt patients with chronic pain.

A sizable slice of the drugmakers battles are carried out by pharma-funded advocates spreading opioid-friendly narratives  with their links to drug companies going unmentioned  or by persuading pharma-friendly lawmakers to introduce legislation drafted by the industry.

Two years ago, it was a major patient organization receiving grants from the opioid industry, the American Cancer Societys Cancer Action Network, that led the fight against a measure in Tennessee aimed at reducing the number of babies born addicted to narcotics.

And in Maine last year, drugmakers persuaded a state representative to successfully push a bill  drafted by the industry  requiring insurers to cover so-called abuse-deterrent painkillers, the new forms of opioids that are harder to abuse.

Legislatures have begun considering limits on the length of first-time opioid prescriptions. But the new laws and proposals in states including Connecticut and Massachusetts carve out a common exception: They do not apply to chronic pain patients. Drugmaker-funded pain groups, which can mobilize patients to appear at legislative hearings, advocate for the exceptions.

A SURPRISING OPPONENT

Letting advocacy groups do the talking can be an especially effective tactic in state legislatures, where many lawmakers serve only part time and juggle complicated issues.

Lawmakers in Massachusetts, for example, said they didnt hear directly from pharmaceutical lobbyists when they took up opioid prescribing issues this year. But they did hear from a patient advocate with ongoing back pain who works with and volunteers for groups that receive some of their funding from pharmaceutical companies. She also brought in patients to meet with them.

A lot of times those legislators, they dont have the ability to really thoroughly look into who these organizations are and whos funding them, said Edward Walker of the University of California Los Angeles, who studies grass roots groups.

Nonprofit advocacy groups led the countercharge in Tennessee in 2014 when Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams began work to stanch the flow of prescription painkillers, alarmed by a rapidly rising number of drug-addicted babies, who suffer from withdrawal in their first weeks of life and complications long after they leave the hospital.

More than 900 babies had been born addicted in Tennessee the year before, many of them hooked on the prescription opioids their mothers had taken. That number had climbed steadily since 2001, when there were fewer than 100.

When Williams was mulling potential legislation, doctors told him that part of Tennessees problem was a 2001 law  similar to measures on the books in more than a dozen states  that made it difficult to discipline doctors for dispensing opioids and allowed clinicians to refuse to prescribe powerful narcotics only if they steered patients to an opioid-friendly doctor.

The result, according to the experts Williams worked with, was a rash of prescribing, even for pregnant women. In 2014, Tennessee ranked third in the country for per capita opioid prescriptions, with roughly 1.3 prescriptions doled out for every person in the state, according to an analysis of prescription data from IMS Health.

Williams mission to repeal the law failed that year, and he was shocked by the group that came out in opposition  the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the advocacy arm of one of the countrys biggest and best-known charities.

Two Cancer Society lobbyists worked against the bill, even though prescribing painkillers for cancer patients is a widely accepted medical practice that would have remained legal.

We injected ourselves into the debate because we did not want cancer patients to not be able to have access to their medication, said Theodore Morrison, a lobbyist working for the network that year.

The societys annual ranks of about 200 lobbyists around the country have taken similar positions elsewhere, defending rules that some argue encourage extensive prescriptions and opposing opioid measures even if the proposed legislation specifically exempted cancer patients.

The Cancer Action Network listed four major opioid makers that provided funding of at least $100,000 in 2015, in addition to five that contributed at least $25,000. Companies that donate such sums get one-on-one meetings with the groups leaders and other chances to discuss policy.

LOBBYISTS WERE KILLING IT

The tried-and-true tactics of lobbying and campaign contributions remain a major plank of the pharmaceutical playbook. In 2014 alone, for instance, participants in the Pain Care Forum spent at least $14 million nationwide on state-level lobbying.

Two years earlier  facing the threat of limits on opioid-prescribing  forum members had upped their number of lobbyists in New Mexico, which is second only to West Virginia in per capita deaths primarily due to prescription and illegal opioid drugs, according to the most recent federal data available.

The aim of the bill Jennifer Weiss-Burke backed was to limit initial prescriptions of opioids for acute pain to seven days to make addictions less likely and produce fewer leftover pills that could be peddled illegally.

After her son had left the hospital with his first bottle of Percocet in 2009 at the age of 16, the Albuquerque teen had suffered two more injuries and gotten two more prescriptions. He also took pills he found at his grandparents house. Less than a year later, he started smoking heroin, which costs less than black-market prescription drugs.

He repeatedly went into rehab, and just as repeatedly relapsed. In August 2011, his mother found him at home, dead.

Weiss-Burke said she didnt realize how dangerous prescription pills could be until her son already had moved on to heroin, a tortuous progression mirrored by the downward spirals of tens of thousands of other people across the country.

Heeding concerns from the state medical society, the bills sponsors amended it to allow the boards overseeing doctors and other prescribers to set their own limits. Still, the bill died in the House Judiciary Committee.

The lobbyists behind the scenes were killing it, said Bernadette Sanchez, the Democratic state senator who sponsored the measure.

THE NEXT FRONTIER

Now, pharmaceutical companies are directing their lobbying efforts to their new legislative frontier in the states  medicines known as abuse-deterrent formulations. These drugs ultimately are more lucrative, since theyre protected by patent and do not yet have generic competitors. They cost insurers more than generic opioids without the tamper-resistant technology.

Skeptics warn that they carry the same risks of addiction as other opioid versions, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration noted that they dont prevent the most common form of abuse  swallowing pills whole.

This is a way that the pharmaceutical industry can evade responsibility, get new patents and continue to pump pills into the system, said Dr. Anna Lembke, chief of addiction medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and author of a book on the opioid epidemic.

Opioid-makers have especially courted attorneys general, who have helped spread tamper-resistant opioid talking points.

Since 2006, Pain Care Forum participants have given more than $600,000 in campaign contributions to attorneys general candidates, and another $1.6 million to the Republican and Democratic attorneys general associations. Purdue, with $100,000 in 2015 alone, tied with four other entities for top contributor to the Democratic Attorneys General Association; it was among the top 10 donors to the Republican group, giving more than $200,000.
Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight

Tammy Brazil of the Queen of Dragons medical marijuana dispensary and organizer of the Canna We Talk event Saturday in Shasta Lake at the John Beaudet Community Center, greets Arthur Bastian, 6, of Redding. Bastian was with his sister-in-law, Cassondra Bastian, who said Arthur has cerebral palsy and used to have seizures that stopped when he started taking medical marijuana in the form a tincture of CBD.

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By Sean Longoria of the Redding Record Searchlight

SHASTA LAKE  A group of doctors spent several hours Saturday discussing medical cannabis, its benefits and other issues surrounding marijuana before an audience of about a hundred people.

The third Canna We Talk event was organized by Tammy Brazil, owner of the Queen of Dragons medical marijuana dispensary in Shasta Lake.

Among the many topics aired during the more than four hours of presentations were the positive effects of cannabis in medicine, including treatment for cancer, pain relief, post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions.

"This is not just sort of, fringe science," said Dr. Sunil Aggarwal. "This has been replicated over and over and over."

Also discussed at length  and particularly relevant to the North State  was the effect of cannabis on opioid addiction and treatment.

"I think a lot of people don't necessarily know that they have this choice, but i would like them to know it," Dr. Dustin Sulak said.

Opioid use and abuse has been rising locally. According to the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, the number of opioid-related hospitalizations in Shasta County in 2011 was 390, the following year it was 548, and in 2013 it was 631.

Aegis, a company that runs opioid treatment clinics throughout California, is looking to open a satellite facility to its Chico clinic in Redding. Local public health and law enforcement leaders have embraced the possibility of expanding treatment in the area to help people curb addictions and relate crimes.

"We have a really big problem in Shasta County with opiate addiction, with people going on opiates for a really long time," Brazil said.

Sulak, who founded a company that operates three medical facilities in New England, said cannabis can increase the pain-relieving effects of opioids with lesser doses. It's also safer and less likely to be abused than methadone and buprenorphine, the current go-to drugs for opioid addiction treatment, Sulak said.

"It's just incredible how safe this medicine is," he said.

Drs. Gregory Smith and David Bearman in addition to Rudy Roma, who founded 420 Insight, an online guide to medical marijuana treatments, spoke, covering topics that included treating Alzheimer's disease, education about cannabis and more.

Saturday's presentations also came as voters will soon be asked whether to approve a ballot measure that would decriminalize recreational use of marijuana. Proposition 64 would also establish new taxes on recreational marijuana, license and regulate the supply chain and potentially reduce sentences of those convicted of past marijuana crimes.

It would also allow local governments to continue restrictions of marijuana businesses. Shasta Lake is the only place in Shasta County that allows dispensaries.

Canna We Talk also featured a live band and booths from an eclectic group of community organizations, including local dispensaries and advocates for the state of Jefferson movement.

Visit The Queen of Dragons on Facebook for more information.
Stethoscope wrapped around hundred dollar bills

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By Bill Theobald, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON  State and federal California lawmakers received $10.9 million in contributions over a decade from drugmakers and their affiliates that have resisted efforts to reduce the use of painkillers.

Nine Californians in Congress received at least $100,000 from members of the Pain Care Forum from 2006 through 2015, topped by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield. McCarthy, House majority leader, received $389,400.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, received $1,000 during that period, among the least of any California member of Congress.

Two years ago he signed a letter along with 47 other members of the House urging the Health and Human Services to update regulations related to addiction and for an evaluation of strategies to address the opioid crisis.

The number of deaths attributed to drug overdoses (mostly opioids and heroin) has increased by nearly a third in California between 2006 and 2014, from 3,494 to 4,521. Still, the crisis is not as severe in California as it is in other states.

The state's rate of 11.7 deaths per 100,000 people in 2014 ranked 42nd and the per capita number of painkiller prescriptions written in California ranked the state second to last.

The state's two Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, received $81,750 and $33,650, respectively, from the pharmaceutical companies and affiliated groups.

Candidates for state office received $6.6 million from the members of the forum during that period, ranking California seventh. In addition, the state ranked eighth in the number of lobbyists employed by members of the Pain Care Forum for each year, 2006-2015, averaging 63.

This summer Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act.

The law, approved by wide margins in the House and Senate, features a variety of initiatives including a special panel to recommend improvements to how painkillers are prescribed. It also strengthens oversight of painkiller prescriptions. However, no funding was included in the bill.

Top state congressional recipients of drugmaker donations

1. Kevin McCarthy, R: $389,400

2. Ann Eshoo, D: $370,500

3. Xavier Becerra, D: $203,450

4. Mike Thompson, D: $202,250

5. Devin Nunes, R: $170,000

Donations, 2006-2015, from members of Pain Care Forum.

Source: Federal Election Commission
By PTI: From Sanjeev Chopra

Seoul, Sep 18 (PTI) Amid growing ethnic and politico- religious conflicts across the globe, several world leaders gathered here today to seek peace as they called upon governments to back a UN treaty on cessation of wars.

The gathering of religious, political, social and cultural leaders marks the commemoration of the second anniversary of the World Alliance of Religions Peace (WARP) summit which aims to promote global cooperation for enactment of an international law for world peace.

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Meeting under the aegis of Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), an international body engaged in global peace building, the leaders discussed ways to strengthen legislative activities by NGOs, governments and international organisations for bringing world peace by putting an end to ongoing wars.

The assembly was marked by a grand cultural festival of peace organised at the Jamsil Olympic Stadium in south Seoul, where thousands of youth, women, elderly and children joined hands to send a message of peace to the world.

The event assumes significance as it comes close on the heels of a nuclear test by North Korea which is attracting fresh UN sanctions.

The event saw several religious leaders debate the cause of conflicts and ways to address differences arising from these conflicts including from the ones rooted in religion.

They also dwelt on the oneness of religions and the peace seeking elements that bind together all faiths.

Former President of Croatia Ivo Josipovic, former Prime Minister of Armenia Hrant Bagrotyten, Great Supreme Patriarch of the Kingdom of Cambodia Tep Vong and many other religious heads also spoke and pledged their support for world peace and a treaty to stop wars.

On the occasion, children and youth carrying placards mounted an impressive show that brought out the history of the Korean war, Vietnam war as well as World Wars and their consequences for the mankind.

The event sought to bring different religions together by highlighting the high points of scriptures of each and calls upon faith leaders to use their influence to foster peace.

The International Womens Peace Group (IWPG) and the International Peace Youth Group (IPYG), woman and youth specific organisations working in the area are also part of the event.

In his commemorative address, HWPL Chairman Man Hee Lee said, "people of the earth are gathered, as well as the eyes, ears, and hearts of the global community. Let us urge them (heads of state and religious leaders) to sign their support for the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War and let us sign our support as well". PTI SKC CPS AKJ CPS

--- ENDS ---

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By Jenny Espino of the Redding Record Searchlight

With public safety funding a main political theme in this year's City Council election, Redding's cash reserves once again are under scrutiny by opponents of the half-cent sales tax Measures D and E.

The reserves, which are expected to be at just under $7 million by next June, will be talked about Tuesday by the City Council.

Mayor Missy McArthur said she requested that City Manager Kurt Starman address the topic because she has heard incumbent Councilman Gary Cadd and challenger Adam McElvain say there is money in the reserves to hire public safety personnel.

McArthur, a supporter of the sales tax, said any extra funds may already be spoken for, but wants the discussion for the public to hear.

"If there is more money and it could be spent, we should be looking at that," McArthur said. Starman "is a numbers person. Let's have him tell us where the pockets (of reserves) are and where they go. Let's be open and transparent about where the funding goes."

To be sure, city leaders are spending this budget cycle about $1.6 million annually from reserves to pay for four new officers, retain nine firefighters and a beefed-up code enforcement to crack down on troubled motels and clean up blight. The hiring of the four officers happened in 2015, allowing the force to roll out the neighborhood police unit at the start of this year.

Per council policy, the city is required to keep in reserve about 5 percent of the general fund, or roughly $4 million. The additional $3 million in reserve would indicate the city has more cash to spend.

But officials say that is far from the case and note how the reserve has been on a downward path since the close of fiscal year 2016, when financial reports showed $9.4 million in cash reserves.

That trend is expected to continue through fiscal year 2021 as the city pays more for pensions. The increased costs each year is about $1.5 million.

Because of the California Public Employees' Retirement System's changes in actuarial assumptions, rates are on the rise for vested cities, counties and state.

The city's 10-year plan for the general fund shows the reserve dropping down to the required $4 million in 2021 and staying flat over the next four years.

"This council and past council get credit for managing the public's money wisely," said Starman before turning his attention to critics' suggestions there is enough money in reserves for a public safety plan.

He called it mistaken and not realistic.

"If you want everything being contemplated in Measures D and E, we would spend it within a month and we would be in the red," he said. "Then you have no more money and you are broke and in a bad situation."

Measure D is the half of a percent sales tax to pay for an $11 million spending plan on more police officers, community service officers, firefighters and jail beds and a mental health needs over 10 years. Measure E is the companion piece that advises where the money should be directed.

If you go

What: Redding City Council meeting

When: 6 p.m., Tuesday

Where: Redding City Hall, 777 Cypress Ave.

About the meeting: The council will consider a $650,000 grant application that would pay for the extension of the Sacramento River Trail from the Sundial Bridge to the downtown and a 10-year contract extension to maintain two units at the Redding Power Plant. The council will hear a presentation to raise garbage, sewer and water rates next year and set a public hearing date to consider the new rates. In closed session, members will be briefed on a wrongful death suit filed in federal court by the family of Steven Motley, who died in 2013, several days after a struggle with police officers.
Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight

Melanie Whelchel talks to her son Jessen Whelchel about homework and playing with Legos after school Wednesday in their Chico home. Jessen, 6, has been cancer free for two years. He battled neuroblastoma, and the Chico family had to go to Sacramento and the Bay Area for treatment after his mother learned that no hospital in her area offers comprehensive pediatric cancer care.

SHARE Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Jessen plays with mud Wednesday in the backyard of his Chico home. His cancer treatment required 15 months of care and travel, including five surgeries, six rounds of chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, radiation and antibody treatments. Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Melanie Whelchel picks up her son Jessen from school Wednesday in Chico. Jessen, a first grader, has been cancer free for two years. He battled neuroblastoma and the Chico family had to go to Sacramento and the Bay Area for treatment. Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Melanie Whelchel hoses off the mud from her son, Jessen Whelchel, Wednesday at their Chico home. Jessen, six, has been cancer free for two years. He battled neuroblastoma and the Chico family had to go to Sacramento and the Bay Area for treatment. Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Melanie Whelchel helps her son, Jessen Whelchel, with his homework. Jessen, six and in the first grade has been cancer free for two years. He battled neuroblastoma and the Chico family had to go to Sacramento and the Bay Area for treatment.

By Elizabeth Zach, USC Center for Health Journalism Fellow

This article was produced as a project for the USC Center for Health Journalisms California Fellowship.

All children get stomachaches, Melanie Whelchel thought when her 3-year-old son Jessen suffered yet another one in 2013. At the time, she blamed a virus, although Jessen had been vomiting. Even an X-ray of a lump on Jessen's abdomen indicated harmless constipation.

But during one feverish middle-of-the-night attack, with Jessen curled up in agony, a frantic Whelchel rushed him to an emergency room in Chico, where they live. The next day, an ultrasound exam revealed a devastating diagnosis: stage 4 neuroblastoma, an advanced stage of a cancer that affects immature nerve cells and is one of the most common forms of cancer to strike young children.

Whelchel learned that no hospital in her area offers comprehensive pediatric cancer care. For that, she would have to drive two to three hours, to Sacramento and San Francisco.

"My father had died of leukemia just six months earlier, so I understood what was involved," Whelchel said. "A lot of hospital visits, a lot of time and patience."

The American Cancer Society estimates that 173,200 new cancer cases will be diagnosed in California in 2016. For residents in the state's vast rural areas, where nine hospitals have closed in the past decade, a cancer diagnosis can be especially frightening because the illness often requires frequent, lengthy and debilitating treatment, making travel to receive therapy an added stress at an already difficult time.

That travel can be especially challenging for low-income patients served by Medi-Cal, California's version of Medicaid. State lawmakers are now considering a bill that would require Medi-Cal to pay for transportation to and from doctor's appointments and other types of nonemergency care.

Rural areas lack support workers

The issue, often overlooked by policy-makers, prompted the journal Oncology late last year to publish the study "Challenges in Rural Cancer Care in the United States." While noting innovative methods for treating cancer patients in remote areas, including outreach clinics, virtual tumor boards and physician retention programs, the authors also highlighted a "projected increase in demand for cancer care due to the aging population" in rural America.

"Typically, a cancer center has social workers who see that patients are getting the support  emotional support, financial counseling  they need, or even transportation to treatments, organizing a place to stay," said Dr. Mary Carlson, the Oncology study's lead author. "But in rural areas, there just aren't many social workers, period, let alone an oncology social worker, to connect patients to resources. That was probably the biggest eye-opening thing for me."

Rosemary Cress, director of the Cancer Registry of Greater California, which tracks patients in 48 counties the registry identifies as rural, says that while mortality rates appear about even between rural and urban cancer patients, the burden of accessing screening and treatment centers remains a significant problem outside cities.

"I don't know that there is any simple answer to why mortality rates don't differ more between urban and rural areas," Cress says. "Despite distance from care, most patients seem to be able to access the care they need. There are people in rural areas who are able to travel to obtain care, and there are patients in urban areas who are unable to obtain good care because of financial barriers."

Long road to remission

Along with five painstaking surgeries to remove the tumor wrapped around Jessen Whelchel's left kidney and abdominal aorta, his treatment required six rounds of chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, radiation and antibody treatments  in all, 15 months of care and travel. He received chemotherapy at Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento, and the rest of his care at the University of California at San Francisco, where his mother continues to take him every six months for checkups. His disease is in remission, says his mother, adding that he is "a very happy child."

From the beginning, Whelchel  a single mother  was at her son's side. But she had to search for lodging in San Francisco during Jessen's treatments. Insurance didn't cover that. Her boss advised her to take short-term disability leave from her job as a child therapist with Colusa County. She sold her house to save money once she understood she would have to pay $1,000 per month for health insurance and moved in with her mother, who also offered her emotional support.

But most difficult, Whelchel says, was finding resources with no help.

"The American Cancer Society would give us $500 to pay for gas," she says, "but it took me a while to find out about that. I also had friends who held fundraisers, and some paid for me at one point to stay in a hotel in San Francisco for 2 weeks during one of Jessen's treatments. But there's no single resource to tell you what to do in this kind of situation."

Because cancer among children is rare, treatment centers are fewer.

"Pediatric oncology is so specific that to be able to recruit and retain a pediatric oncologist in a small rural community would not be feasible," explained Peggy Wheeler, vice president for rural health care at the California Hospital Association. "This is not just true of rural areas, but also of suburban areas, because the field is so unique a specialty.

"You place specialties where you will get volume. You would not be able to build a business model."

Better for adults

There are more options for adults undergoing cancer treatment in rural Northern California, said Lesley Camire, director of oncology services at Mercy Regional Cancer Center in Redding. The hospital serves nine counties and coordinates assistance for transportation, meals and lodging. It also organizes six support groups, four for patients and two for caregivers.

Polly Poerink, a breast cancer survivor in Red Bluff, moderated an informal cancer support group until a few years ago when, she says, participation dwindled. She reckons the internet has filled the void for many cancer patients living in remote areas who seek emotional support.

"If we were to have a patient who was maybe 45 to 90 minutes east or west of us," Poerink says, "it was often a problem for them to have one more thing to do following a radiation or chemotherapy treatment. You're exhausted."

Michele Woods, an oncology nurse at Mercy, and her colleague, Batina Balma, a social worker, said that while their hospital is in a rural area, services are plentiful and varied. Moreover, the hospital reaches out to patients immediately following their diagnoses.

"We helped reconnect one patient in Siskiyou County, a paraplegic man with kidney cancer, with his family as he underwent treatments," Woods said. "Another patient, a woman fighting bladder cancer, lived in a rat-infested house. We arranged for an exterminator, as well as volunteers to clean and paint the house exterior."

"We really do go to the mat for patients," Balma added.

Marcellus "Sonny" James received similar support in 2012 following his renal and prostate cancer diagnoses, although he notes the challenges of living in a rural area while battling chronic illness.

James, who at age 71 still ranches cattle "to make ends meet," lives in Porterville on the Tule River Indian Reservation in Tulare County. His wife drives him three hours each way to the University of Southern California Medical Center and Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for his oncology appointments, which have included three surgeries, chemotherapy and follow-up scans. The Indian Health Service covered James' treatment and gave him $100 for the fuel to get him to Los Angeles and back to Porterville.

"What I would like to see some day is that rural communities have access to the same level of care as in urban areas," said Peggy Wheeler of the California Hospital Association. "I would like to see that they have easier communication with all kinds of specialists, even via telemedicine."

Such services nearby, said James, would ease his burden. But for now, he said wearily one afternoon by phone as he and his wife prepared to leave Cedars Sinai for home, "I just keep putting one foot in front of the other."

Elizabeth Zach is the staff writer at the nonprofit Rural Community Assistance Corporation in Sacramento. This article was produced as a project for the USC Center for Health Journalisms California Fellowship.
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If Backpage.com limited its online classified advertising to core services  auto repair, second-hand merchandise sales and honest jobs  chances are that neither the Supreme Court nor the U.S. Senate would give a hoot about the company's activities. It's that "adult services" category involving porn film casting, massage providers and escort services that has won Backpage mountains of well-deserved scorn.

Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, have spent months pressing Backpage executives for answers about why the website keeps surfacing in criminal cases as a marketing venue for child sex traffickers around the country. The company refused to provide more than the 16,000 pages of documents already subpoenaed, until the Supreme Court ordered it to comply with a Senate demand for more information.

Backpage says the editorial functions of its website, which is tailored to local advertisers in cities around the country, are covered by First Amendment protections. It's a ludicrous argument. This isn't about the right to publish pornography. It's about whether the site helps enable illegal activities that victimize children and other exploited individuals.

The question has direct relevance in Shasta County, where officials say Redding's local Backpage site is a central marketplace for human trafficking and prostitution. Chief Rob Paoletti has often mentioned the site by name when talking about the illegal activity his department does not have the resources to pursue.

Paoletti has identified a vice unit as a key need for Redding, and made it part of his strategic plan. Members of the Northern California Anti-Trafficking Coalition also have criticized Backpage for enabling exploitation.

A federal appeals court on Sept. 2 ordered Backpage and its chief executive, Carl Ferrer, to comply with a Senate subpoena for documents that might help senators determine whether the website is aware of and profits from the illegal activities of its clients. The Supreme Court correctly ruled this week to sustain the Senate subpoena. Ferrer must comply.

Backpage places a note on its adult-related sites that users must agree to report any illegal activities, including "suspected exploitation of minors and/or human trafficking." But some of the sites' users specifically troll for minors and human-trafficking victims.

It remains unclear what McCaskill and Portman hope to find in the additional documents, or how they expect Backpage to verify that advertisers are not human traffickers. Any decent corporate citizen would get out of this business altogether. Decency is clearly not the goal in Backpage's adult section.

Much of the trafficking industry gravitates to conventions and big sporting events. Personnel working at such events can be on the alert for telltale signs, such as a quiet girl in the lobby accompanied by a much older man, or a young person who seems afraid to make eye contact.

Several major hotel chains and taxi services have pledged to carry out such training. Law enforcement needs all the help it can get to address the problem.

But everyone can get educated and learn the signs. If you're interested in taking part in the local fight against trafficking, the Northern California Anti-Trafficking Coalition can be found at www.ncatcoalition.org.

In the meantime, the Senate pressure at least drives home the message that the nation is tired of businesses that put profits ahead of the safety of exploited children and young adults.

This editorial originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It has been edited.
'The only effective defence against a suicide attack is 'pre-emptive' destruction of the attacker,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

In 1855, as troops of the East India Company massed for an attack on Tanjore, the priest to the king assured him that his mantra would stop the British. It did not and the rest is history or is it?

It is worth recalling the situation that India faced in 1991. It was not merely an economic crisis, but there was also a potent security threat as well.

Some evidence suggests that even our economic woes were due to the fact that we did not toe the line of the sole superpower. Many thinking Indians feared the fate that befell Baghdad (after the first Gulf War) could also be repeated in Mumbai!

'Cap, roll back and eliminate' was the constant theme of the United States as far as Indian nuclear capability was concerned.

Those were the days when the sole superpower was suggesting that the affairs of the Indian sub-continent be outsourced to China. A major insurgency began in Kashmir with open encouragement from Pakistan as well as the US. The Americans were on a spree of punishing all erstwhile Soviet Union friends.

In the light of these momentous changes taking place in the world there was an urgent need to review our nuclear posture of 'uncertainty' in vogue since 1974 when we tested our first nuclear weapon.

But as Indians we are so fond of 'tried and tested' mantras that the Delhi elite continued to chant the theme of 'nuclear ambiguity.' Some worthies even went so far as to promote a concept of 'recessed or hidden deterrence,' a contradiction in terms since deterrence has to be by definition an open credible threat of retaliation. It cannot be hidden.

It is in this situation of great national peril that the late Lieutenant General Eric Vas, a doyen of military thinkers, Major General K S Pendse and I came together and ran a campaign, both overt and covert, to convince the government of the day to reverse its policies and go for an open nuclear posture for national security.

We nearly succeeded in December 1995, but our preparations for a nuclear test were detected and we had to abandon testing. This fact has been corroborated by then defence minister (and now President) Pranab Mukerjee.

The reason to recall this history is to bring home the fact that in matters of nuclear strategy, there is an inherent inertia in Delhi and there is tendency to secure refuge in mantras.

The reason for this state of affairs is that very few in the politico-military-bureaucratic elite have the conceptual understanding of nuclear strategy and its linkage with the logic of use of force.

Since Pokhran II in May 1998 and the Indian embrace of nuclear weapons as part of its national security apparatus, minimum deterrence and no first use has been India's nuclear mantra.

The danger of a nuclear exchange in the sub-continent is real and if we are to avoid a fate similar to that which befell the Tanjore king, it is time to jettison the mantra and get real.

The reality of 2016 is that one of our adversaries, Pakistan, has dysfunctional entities (non-State actors), bordering on irrational and suicidal, who can trigger a nuclear exchange.

The two-person, non-zero sum game model of the Cold War is irrelevant today.

Minimum deterrence is an oxymoron. Deterrence is either effective or ineffective and is an absolute concept with no scope for minimum/maximum or partial failure/success.

Nuclear deterrence is based on assured and unacceptable damage on the adversary even if we are striking second in retaliation.

Assured damage capability is based on force that is survivable and fail safe as also the 'will' of the nation to act on its threat.

While we indeed have the physical capability, how do we square it off with the Gandhian ethos that we claim to follow and that rejects the Biblical 'eye for an eye' concept? Both cannot coexist.

Credibility is also a product of past behaviour. We failed to respond to the December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament, the July 7, 2006 Mumbai train attacks and the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai.

In the pre-nuclear era, then Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had on March 23, 1965 asserted that any attack on Kashmir would be regarded as an attack on India and India would retaliate in a manner, time and place of our choosing.

Yet in September 1965, barely two days before our attack across the international border, the self-styled Pakistan Field Marshal Ayub Khan told Air Marshal Asghar Khan that he did not believe that India would attack across the international border.

A very young Pakistani soldier once told me nearly 45 years ago, 'Saab, aap ka kaisa mulk hai? Agar hum aap jaise takatwar hote to pure Pakistan ke upar bulldozer chala dete (What kind of country is yours? If we were as powerful as you we would have bulldozed Pakistan)'

How do we establish the credibility of our retaliatory deterrence in light of this mindset?

The second problem area is the subjective concept of 'unacceptable damage.' For us loss of half our cities is unacceptable damage so it is for China. But is it so for Pakistan?

Will we be deterred from retaliation due to our humanitarian concerns, Gandhian ethos and fear of cross border radiation damage to our side of Punjab?

Can an unstable and violent Pakistan be deterred by the threat to its cities?

Is it time to think of producing enhanced radiation weapons to enhance our credibility?

Do we need retaliatory force that is capable of completely destroying Pakistani Punjab, the political heart of the Pakistani State and its army?

We have expanded our deterrence to cover all nuclear, chemical and biological attacks. How will we retaliate to a 'dirty' bomb attack on Indian population centres by a non-State actor?

The dysfunctional State of Pakistan tends to resemble a suicide bomber. The only effective defence against a suicide attack is 'Pre-emptive' destruction of the attacker.

Can we rule out a pre-emptive response? Will that not need a counter-force capability?

These are some of the pertinent questions that need to be asked and answers found. It is time we get real.

While issues like Kashmir may occupy the public mindspace for the moment, the real challenges to national security lie elsewhere.

Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) is coordinator of the Pune-based Initiative for Peace and Disarmament and co-author of Nuclear Menace: The SatyaGraha Approach, 1997.
'Knee jerk reactions are the worst in this kind of conflict situation.'

'The responses have to be thought through for strategic advantage rather than tactical satisfaction and ego,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), former commander of the Uri-based Kalapahar Brigade.

IMAGE: Smoke rises from the Uri Brigade camp during the September 18, 2016 terror attack. Photograph: Umar Ganie

An attack of a suicidal nature, sponsored and launched from across the LoC was expected any time before the Pakistan prime minister's speech at the UN General Assembly. Pakistan's Deep State did not disappoint.

That it would cause such a major loss to the Indian Army was probably not expected even by them. The situation was building up to this for a couple of reasons and the target being the Uri garrison had also occurred to the Indian Armys command channels.

How did the so-called fidayeen (actually sneak attackers) succeed and what can we expect now?

All this needs a brief analysis even as the embers of the burnt barracks in the Uri garrison are cooling. This brigade, the Kalapahar Brigade, has been commanded by me and much more illustrious commanders in the past. I therefore write with the experience and ground knowledge.

Pakistan has been sensing a defeat of its Kashmir strategy for some years with its inability to beat the vigilance of the Indian Army along the LoC.

The Indian Army's counter infiltration posture has progressively succeeded in ensuring that the strength of terrorists in the hinterland has reduced to less than 300.

Pakistan and its Deep State have been constantly seeking alternative ways of keeping the J&K campaign alive even in the face of the reduced terrorist presence.

Giving fillip to local militancy has been one of the ways and using non-military methods such as finance, drugs and ideology has been part of the strategy.

However, the killing of Burhan Wani and the subsequent street agitation presented a contingency to enhance turbulence, keep the security forces engaged and increase alienation manifold.

The Deep State looks upon the 70-day turbulence as an opportunity to regain the initiative by assisting the separatists and the street demonstrators.

By attempting a few terrorist attacks on convoys a small part of the intent was demonstrated; bigger attacks in the hinterland are not possible, given the kind of terrorist strength.

It perceived that it would meet the need if the installations in the vicinity of the LoC are attacked because it would be possible without risking deep infiltration and the impact would be as spectacular; spurring the agitators to continue their murderous agitation.

It had also resorted to following this strategy almost 18 months ago with attacks in Tangdhar. The Uri valley had also been the target of an attack in end 2014. An attempted terror attack on the Poonch Brigade HQ was foiled only recently with some loss.

The Uri garrison appeared a natural target for a similar attempt.

IMAGE: A soldier takes position during an encounter with terrorists at the Uri army camp, December 2014. Photograph: Umar Ganie

The Uri garrison is one of the Indian Army's oldest locations in Kashmir. The war of 1947 began here with the pillage of Uri by the Kabalis before they proceeded to Baramullah.

The garrison also houses the rear elements of the units deployed on the LoC. These are usually leave parties, logistics providers, heavy baggage and sentries for its security besides the vehicle fleet.

The garrison is located right next to Uri town, a comparatively friendly town which has escaped the stone throwing menace in the past and also this time.

The population is largely Pahari and Gujjar and its inclination is not towards Pakistan. There has been no resident militancy in the Jhelum valley almost right through the last 27 years; its mostly been transitory militancy.

This means that infiltration has been the major threat here with the presence of a large number of guides from these communities who do their job for a price and not for ideological reasons. The infiltrated terrorists then make their way to Baramullah, Rafiabad and Sopore.

Yet, the Uri garrison is also one of the easier military installations that can be targeted because there is no security wall and the highway to Muzaffarabad passes right through the centre of the garrison.

The strength inside is usually softer elements with frontline troops all deployed at the LoC. The approach from the south is a mere six km from the LoC and the LoC fence needs to be crossed by the terrorists; in this case it was obviously breached somewhere from this direction.

There are all kinds of responses on social media, calling for retribution and early action by the army. It does not work that way.

Knee jerk reactions are the worst in this kind of conflict situation which is hybrid in nature. The cause-effect needs greater analysis for a suitable response at the right time.

This is a campaign being fought and campaigns are not fought by one off responses to losses. The responses have to be thought through for relative strategic advantage rather than tactical satisfaction and ego.

The government and the army would obviously be contemplating that and the prime Mminister has done well in giving his mind early.

Direct action is good for public solace, but it is always the indirect method which has greater impact.

No doubt an army as experienced as the Indian Army is not going to sit on its haunches without a response.

The range of options will all be under analysis and the most suitable one will be chosen both by the army and the political leadership in due course.

Clearly Pakistan, which has been carefully calibrating the interference in Kashmir for all these years and attempting to keep it below the threshold of Indias tolerance, may have just crossed that line, the consequences of which it will have to bear.

Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), former GOC of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps, is now associated with the Vivekanand International Foundation and the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.
'For every act of terrorism on Indian territory for which there is credible evidence pointing to the Pakistan army and the ISI's involvement, carefully calibrated military strikes must be launched against the Pakistan army,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).

The Pakistan-sponsored fidayeen attack on an army camp in Uri on September 18, that resulted in the martyrdom of 17 soldiers, is the worst since 2002. Though all four fidayeen were killed, that is cold comfort for an army at the receiving end.

Such large-scale casualties must not go unpunished.

Clearly, India's carefully calibrated strategy to fight Pakistan's proxies within its own borders and on its own side of the LoC, in order to keep the level and the intensity of conflict low and maintain a stable environment for rapid economic growth, has not yielded the desired dividends.

The increasing attempts at infiltration across the LoC and the spurt in encounters with terrorists in the Kashmir valley recently show that Pakistan's proxy war against India is continuing unabated.

In order to reduce casualties and damage to property, India's response needs to be reviewed and upgraded to a more pro-active one that raises Pakistan's cost for waging a proxy war.

Despite facing seemingly insurmountable internal security challenges, the Pakistan army and the ISI -- together constituting the 'Deep State' -- have been engaged in a low-intensity limited war against India for almost three decades.

The Pakistan army believes that the balance of terror must be in its favour, especially when the balance of power is not.

Pakistan's Deep State continues to sponsor terrorist attacks not only in India but also against Indian assets in Afghanistan through extremist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Jaish-e-Mohamed.

Incidents like the terrorist strike at the Pathankot air base in January 2016 and Pakistan's proclivity to remain in denial even though hard evidence of the involvement of organs of the State is given to it, are exhausting Indian patience.

For the Pakistan army it is a low-cost, high-payoff option to keep several divisions of the Indian Army and a large number of personnel of the central armed police forces embroiled in conflict.

For India the opportunity costs have been prohibitively high in terms of the strain on the defence budget and slowing down of the rate of economic growth.

India should pursue a four-pronged strategy to gradually force Pakistan to stop waging a proxy war against India.

Firstly, the Pakistan army must be made to pay for sending LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists to strike army and civilian targets in India.

The army and the IAF should 'hit to hurt' the Pakistan army on the LoC where it is deployed in large numbers and can be easily reached.

For every act of terrorism on Indian territory for which there is credible evidence pointing to the involvement of the Pakistan army and the ISI, carefully calibrated military strikes must be launched against the Pakistan army.

These should include artillery strikes with guns firing in the 'pistol gun' mode to destroy bunkers on forward posts with minimum collateral damage; stand-off PGM strikes on brigade and battalion HQ, communications centres, logistics infrastructure, ammunition dumps and key bridges; and raids by Special Forces and border action teams.

Every Pakistan post through which infiltration takes place should be reduced to rubble by artillery fire.

Secondly, as Pakistan continues to drag its feet in bringing to justice the leaders of terrorist organisations against whom hard evidence has been provided by India, covert operations should be launched to bring them to justice.

These should be based on hard core 'actionable' intelligence and should be sanctioned at appropriate levels.

Covert operations are certainly a game that two can play, but the Deep State leaves India with few other options.

In any case, Pakistan's ISI has been conducting covert operations in India for long. Since Pakistan is not inclined to bring to justice the leaders of terrorist organisations like the LeT and the JeM, terrorists whom they call 'strategic assets', they must be neutralised through covert operations.

Thirdly, India should continue to engage the elected civilian leadership of Pakistan with a view to resolving the seemingly intractable disputes between the two countries and reducing the salience of the Pakistan army in the country's polity.

India should also engage members of Pakistan's civil society and senior veterans of its armed forces who are amenable to seeing reason as they wield considerable influence with the generals in command.

Efforts to further liberalise the visa regime, encourage people-to-people contacts and enhance trade should continue.

Finally, along with overt military measures and covert operations, India's growing diplomatic clout must be harnessed to influence the outcome by isolating the Pakistan army internationally as a rogue army for the acts of terrorism that it perpetuates along with the ISI.

The international community that is already tiring of Pakistan's shenanigans in Afghanistan will not need too much convincing to accept that the time has come to stop mollycoddling the Pakistan army on the grounds that it must be supported in order to ensure that its nuclear weapons do not fall into jihadi hands.

Instead of wining and dining the military leadership, the international community must censure the Pakistan army in the strictest possible terms and ensure that it stops attempting to destabilise its neighbours.

Failing satisfactory progress, the United Nations Security Council should be approached to approve an embargo on the sale of arms, ammunition and military equipment to Pakistan.

If the UNSC resolution is vetoed by China, as it well might be, India should use its buyers' clout in the military industrial complex to ensure that arms manufacturers that supply weapons and defence equipment to Pakistan stop doing so.

India should lobby extensively with the US political leadership and the members of the US Congress to apprise them of the fact that continuing US support for the Pakistan army is hurting the growing India-US strategic partnership.

US military aid strengthens the Pakistan army and gives it greater confidence to destabilise its neighbourhood with impunity.

This four-pronged strategy should succeed in bringing Pakistan's proxy war to an end in one to two years.

If it does not, it would be time to raise the ante and consider tougher measures such as the abrogation of the Indus Waters Treaty, as has been recommended by some analysts. However, such a drastic step may not be necessary.

Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd) is Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.
A powerful explosion struck a bustling upscale neighbourhood in New York injuring 29 people in what the mayor on Sunday described as an "intentional act" as police found a second explosive device nearby, a pressure cooker with wires, hours before world leaders descend in New York for the 71st United Nations General Assembly session.

IMAGE: Police investigate the scene where a man was shot by police in Manhattan. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

The explosion -- which happened shortly after a pipe bomb went off in a garbage can in New Jersey -- occurred in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood, a busy residential and commercial area frequented by tourists and city residents.

The impact damaged windows of nearby buildings and cars and sent crowds running from the scene. The blast seemed to shake the entire block, sending debris into the street.

There were no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast that occurred at 8:30 pm local time on Saturday, a busy time of the weekend for over 8 million New Yorkers, who just marked the 15th anniversary of the September 2001 attacks.

Police said they have a surveillance video from the scene, but it was too early to give out details except that the explosion was caused by an explosive device in a dumpster.

They were combing through the video that appears to show a person near the site of the blast, in an attempt to determine if that individual is connected to the blast, CNN reported.

Other reports said the second device was a pressure cooker resembling the one used in the deadly Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said all 29 victims have been released from hospitals. Many of the injuries were caused by shrapnel.

IMAGE: NYPD Chief of Counterterrorism tweeted this photograph of the mangled remains of the dumpster. Photograph: NYPD

He told reporters that 1,000 additional New York State Police officers and National Guard troops will be deployed to patrol bus terminals, airports and subway stations.

The deployment is "just to err on the side of caution," he said. "I want New Yorkers to be confident when they go back to work on Monday that New York is up and running and we're doing everything that we need to do."

"There is no evidence of an international terrorism link and no reason to believe there is any further immediate threat but the bottom line is whoever placed these bombs we will find them and they will be brought to justice and punished. Period," Cuomo said.

"(But) it depends on your definition of terrorism. A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it's not linked to international terrorism," he said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called the blast an "intentional act" but he too said there was no evidence of a terror link at this point. "We are not going to let anyone change us, intimidate us."

He said the city "experienced a very serious incident" but there was "no specific and credible threat at this time from any terror organisation."

Authorities said "extensive search" is being conducted in the area. Security was already tight in the American financial capital as nearly 190 world leaders are to arrive in the city for the nearly week-long 71st UN General Assembly session.

Eyewitnesses: 'It was super loud, like a semi hitting steel plates'

Cat Hess was on 22nd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues when she heard the explosion.

"I had my windows wide open and it just sounded like -- you know when large trucks hit steel plates in the street? It was super loud, like a semi hitting steel plates," she told Huffington Post. "But this was extra loud. I was waiting for something to happen after, but there was nothing."

A resident named Josh, who lives across the street from the dumpster, told local TV station NY1, "It was pretty forceful. We saw a big burst of light and it definitely shook us across the street."

Josh added that his windows were intact but the windows in the building across the street, near where the explosion happened, were blown out.

Javier Quintans, 33, a general manager at Francisco's Centro Vasco near Seventh avenue and 23rd street, said: "Just heard a loud boom in the restaurant and initially I thought something fell on our building," he told The Huffington Post.

"People were going outside and I followed and realized it was something up the block. We evacuated all the patrons and now we were being told to stay indoors or leave the area."

Deborah Griffin, a witness, told him she was shopping at Home Depot, seven doors away, when the blast happened.

It was "real loud", she said -- her first thought was that it was a gas explosion.

She described it as "like a volcano", she said: red at the centre, a wall of flames. "The explosion was so big -- people were running -- for their lives."
Stung by the deadliest ever attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir, Director General Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh on Sunday called up his counterpart in Pakistan expressing "serious concerns" over Pakistani markings found on the equipment used by four "foreign" terrorists suspected to be belonging to Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The attack at the administrative base of the 10 Dogra, which top army officials described as a "serious setback", was launched at 0530 hours and ended at 0830 hours with the killing of four terrorists and martyrdom of 17 soldiers.

At least 20 other soldiers are injured including some very seriously.

"All four killed were foreign terrorists and had carried with them items which had Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-e-Mohammed tanzeem," Lt Gen Singh said in a brief statement to the media at the South Block in New Delhi.

He added that since "the terrorists had some items with Pakistani markings, I have spoken to Pakistan DGMO and conveyed our serious concern on the same".

He said that the terrorists had fired incendiary ammunition along with automatic fire of small arms that led to army tents and temporary shelters catching fire.

"There have been a total of 17 Army fatal casualties. Of these, 13-14 casualties have been due to these tents/shelters having caught fire," he said.

The senior army officer, in charge of the force's operations, asserted that the Indian Army remains prepared to thwart any nefarious designs and any evil designs of the adversary shall be given a befitting reply.

The DGMO said that four AK 47 rifles and four under barrel grenade launchers along with a large number of other war like stores were recovered from the group of heavily armed terrorists.

He said that the operation for clearance of the area is still in progress and a very deliberate search is being carried out in the entire area around the military complex in Uri.

"As such, complete details of the operation are not yet available. However, the operation is being carried out by the Indian Army in a very professional manner and the army personnel have displayed exceptionally high standards of courage and gallantry while neutralising the terrorists," Lt Gen Singh said.

Amid reports that intelligence agencies had warned of a possible attack, he said all the intelligence agencies are working in close synergy with the security forces and regular intelligence inputs are received from concerned agencies and necessary action is being taken accordingly.

He said Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag has visited the site of operation and taken an "on the ground" assessment of the situation.

Defence Minister, who too visited Srinagar, will be updated by Suhag on the situation.

"We salute the supreme sacrifice made by our brave soldiers following the highest traditions of Indian Army," he said.

IMAGE: Director General Military Operations, Ranbir Singh addresses a press briefing on the Uri terror attack. Photograph: Shahbaz Khan
Images from the deadly terror attack in Uri and its aftermath.

In the deadliest attacks on the Indian Army in recent years, 17 soldiers were killed and 19 others injured at an army administrative base in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri sector near the Line of Control on Sunday, September 18, morning.

Four terrorists were killed in the attack.

This is the worst terrorist attack against the Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir since the Kaluchak attack in 2002.

IMAGE: Soldiers on their way to neutralise the terrorists. Photograph: Umar Ganie

IMAGE: Jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in tents which caught fire after an explosion set off by the terrorists. The fire engulfed the nearby barracks. Photograph: Umar Ganie

IMAGE: Three helicopters from the army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramullah airdropped Special Forces commandos into the area. Photograph: PTI

IMAGE: Jammu and Kashmir police's Special Operation Group personnel at the army camp during the terror attack in Uri. The injured soldiers were taken to the army's 92 base hospital in Srinagar. Photograph: PTI

IMAGE: Smoke rises from the army camp during the attack. The terrorists attacked the rear office of the infantry battalion force in Uri town at around 5 am. Photograph: PTI

IMAGE:Home Minister Rajnath Singh met National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the chiefs of the Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing, India's domestic and external intelligence agencies, Home Secretary Rajeev Mehrishi, senior army and paramilitary officers and home and defence ministries officials.

Singh, who postponed his visit to Russia and the US after news of the attck broke, attacked Pakistan, calling it a 'terrorist State'. Photograph: PTI

IMAGE: Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag arrived in Srinagar to meet the injured jawans Photograph: @adgpi/Twitter

IMAGE:The attack comes nearly two years after terrorists carried out a similar attack at Mohra in Uri. Ten security personnel were killed in the attack on December 5, 2014. Photograph: Umar Ganie
The accused in the sensational murder of 24-year-old IT professional Swathi on a railway platform allegedly committed suicide at the Puzhal Central prison in Chennai on Sunday, police said.

"He (Ram Kumar) committed suicide and the body is now in Royapettah Government Hospital," said a top police official.Swathi was hacked to death, allegedly by Kumar, an engineering graduate, on June 24 while she was waiting to board a train at a platform of Nungambakkam suburban railway station to her work place on the city outskirts, an incident which was caught on CCTV. When police traced him days later and came to arrest him, he had allegedly attempted to commit suicide.

On how he committed suicide in jail, the official said, "It is in the domain of prison authorities...it is said that he had bitten an electric wire in the jail dispensary," and had died subsequently.

Prison authorities declined to speak on Ram Kumar's death.
Google street view's decision to respect a cow's privacy by blurring its face has given the Internet a laugh attack.

By India Today Web Desk: Of all the things, Google's face-blurring software decided to hide the identity of a large cow. The google street view started panoramic views of places from the ground, back in 2008. To maintain privacy the search giant blurs license plates, people, some buildings and for some reason cows too.

Guardian US editor and writer David Shariatmadari tweeted an image of the anonymous cow on Monday with the message "Great to see Google takes cow privacy seriously."

Great to see Google takes cow privacy seriously pic.twitter.com/ACTBpDwno6 David Shariatmadari (@D_Shariatmadari) September 13, 2016

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The face-blurred-bovine chilling near a river in rural Cambridge, UK, has milked it's five minutes of online fame with a whopping 12,000 retweets.

When the BBC got in touch with Google, they gave in a pun-filled response saying, 'We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it's clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous.'



And what followed was a laughriot among Twitter users



@D_Shariatmadari @jazmasta Cows should dress more modestly so they don't have to have their faces blurred in shame. pic.twitter.com/dBkfvpVprR Rev. Howard Furst (@revhowardfurst) September 13, 2016

Also read: Baa, baa, blur me: UK police blurs sheep's faces to 'protect' their identity

--- ENDS ---
The Centre will oppose the triple talaq practice before the Supreme Court on grounds of women's rights, and assert that the issue should not be seen from the prism of Uniform Civil Code, a highly placed government functionary said on Sunday.

The Union law ministry will file a consolidated reply on the issue in the apex court by the end of this month.

The issue is being deliberated upon at the inter-ministerial level which includes ministries of home, finance and women and child development, apart from the law ministry.

"We shouldn't approach it from (the prism of) Uniform Civil Code. We need to talk in terms of rights of women. Our reply is going to be only on rights. A woman's rights are inalienable and according to the Constitution she has to have the same rights as men.

"Every court decision has slowly been taking us to these uniform rights. The practice of triple talaq doesn't exist even in Pakistan or Bangladesh. Only we have it," the senior functionary said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi met last week to deliberate on the government's possible stand to be taken in the Supreme Court on the issue of Muslim practices of polygamy, triple talaq (talaq-e-bidat) and 'nikah halala' (a practice where divorced women, in case they want to go back to their husbands, have to consummate a second marriage).

According to this source, there was a consensus among all the senior ministers present to look at the contentious issue through the prism of gender rights.

Early this month the Supreme Court gave the Centre four weeks to submit its reply to a batch of petitions on triple talaq.

The first among these pleas was filed by Shayara Bano from Uttarakhand who challenged the practices like triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halala as being unconstitutional.

Two women divorced through triple talaq from Jaipur and Kolkata also approached the court. Their petitions and a number of supportive pleas filed by Muslim women's organisations have all been bunched together.

Opposing these petitions in court are the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.

The AIMPLB had told the apex court earlier this month that personal laws can't be re-written in the name of reforms and that the validity of Muslim personal law "cannot be tested" as it derives from the Quran.

The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, which is also one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court, spearheaded a signature campaign earlier this year in which over 50,000 Muslim women and men participated and sought a ban on triple talaq.

The Centre will oppose the triple talaq practice before the Supreme Court on grounds of women's rights, and assert that the issue should not be seen from the prism of Uniform Civil Code, a highly placed government functionary said on Sunday.

The Union law ministry will file a consolidated reply on the issue in the apex court by the end of this month.

The issue is being deliberated upon at the inter-ministerial level which includes ministries of home, finance and women and child development, apart from the law ministry.

"We shouldn't approach it from (the prism of) Uniform Civil Code. We need to talk in terms of rights of women. Our reply is going to be only on rights. A woman's rights are inalienable and according to the Constitution she has to have the same rights as men.

"Every court decision has slowly been taking us to these uniform rights. The practice of triple talaq doesn't exist even in Pakistan or Bangladesh. Only we have it," the senior functionary said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi met last week to deliberate on the government's possible stand to be taken in the Supreme Court on the issue of Muslim practices of polygamy, triple talaq (talaq-e-bidat) and 'nikah halala' (a practice where divorced women, in case they want to go back to their husbands, have to consummate a second marriage).

According to this source, there was a consensus among all the senior ministers present to look at the contentious issue through the prism of gender rights.

Early this month the Supreme Court gave the Centre four weeks to submit its reply to a batch of petitions on triple talaq.

The first among these pleas was filed by Shayara Bano from Uttarakhand who challenged the practices like triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halala as being unconstitutional.

Two women divorced through triple talaq from Jaipur and Kolkata also approached the court. Their petitions and a number of supportive pleas filed by Muslim women's organisations have all been bunched together.

Opposing these petitions in court are the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.

The AIMPLB had told the apex court earlier this month that personal laws can't be re-written in the name of reforms and that the validity of Muslim personal law "cannot be tested" as it derives from the Quran.

The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, which is also one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court, spearheaded a signature campaign earlier this year in which over 50,000 Muslim women and men participated and sought a ban on triple talaq.

Image used for representational purposes only.
The Uri attack suspected to have been carried out by Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed on Sunday drew fierce condemnation across political spectrum with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing that those behind the "despicable and cowardly" act will not go unpunished.

The outrage sparked by the strike on an army base in Uri in which 17 jawans were killed was also reflected in President President Pranab Mukherjee's statement in which he declared that India will not be cowed down by such "outrageous" attacks and that it will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers.

Talking tough, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ram Madhav asserted that days of strategic restraint are over and suggested that "for one tooth, the complete jaw" should be the policy after the terror attack.

"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi tweeted.

Terming the attack as a "deplorable affront" on national conscience, Congress President Sonia Gandhi hoped that the perpetrators will be brought to book while her party colleague Capt Amarinder Singh said the "provocative" act by Pakistan must be taken up seriously and reciprocated in the same measure.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh pointed a finger directly at Pakistan, saying it is a "terrorist state" and should be isolated.

"Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," Singh said in a strongly worded statement after a hour-long review meeting in New Delhi.

"There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped," Singh said, vowing to identify those behind it.

Echoing the views of Modi and Singh, Union Minister Arun Jaitley asserted that the perepetrators of the Uri attack would be punished and that India will intensify diplomatic efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist Central Committee, now in session, said Pakistan should stop aiding and abetting extremist forces.

Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said Pakistan must refrain from indulging in cross-border terrorism and demanded that the matter be taken up "seriously."

The Uri terror strike is aimed at triggering fresh violence in Jammu and Kashmir and creating a "war-like" situation in the region, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said, adding Jammu and Kashmir has always been the worst victim of Indo-Pak hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for the same for the past over six decades.

Virtually blaming Pakistan for the Uri attack, BJP President Amit Shah said India's fight against terrorism has reached a decisive stage and the Modi government is moving in the right direction to ensure that the sacrifices of soldiers does not go waste.

Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh General Secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi said terrorists as well as their masters and supporters should be dealt with firmly and conclusively.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah while condemning the attack said better facilities including "fire retardant" tents should be given to the soldiers after it came to light that at least 13 jawans died due to the fire in their tents.

IMAGE: An army soldier takes position near army brigade camp during a terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. Photograph: S Irfan/PTI
Eleven flat owners of a Mumbai housing society have been booked for denying a Muslim family a flat in the building by passing a resolution.

By India Today Web Desk: Mumbai Police have registered an FIR against 11 members of a housing society for blocking sale of a flat to a Muslim family. The Happy Jivan Co-operative Society in Vasai passed a resolution on September 4 with majority vote to bar sale of flats to Muslims.

The housing society has 16 flat-members, including two Muslims families, who have been living in the 35-year-old building for nearly two decades. They were away when the resolution was passed by the housing society.

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The society houses a mix of Gujarati, Maharashtrian, north Indian, Punjabi and Mulsim families. The Gujaratis are in majority in the society with nine flats occupied by them.

HOW DID IT HAPPEN

One resident of the first floor of the building, Kantaben Patel decided to sell her flat to a Muslim businessman Vikar Ahmed Khan. But, 11 flat owners objected to the sale and passed a resolution, which barred Muslims from occupying a house in the society.

Khan lodged a complaint at the Manickpur police station. FIR was lodged against the 11 flat owners under relevant sections of the IPC for hurting religious sentiments and discriminating on the basis of religion.

Kantaben Patel's family also shot off letters to the sub-registrar of housing societies and the Manickpur police station complaining about the society's high-handedness.

ALSO READ:

Fire breaks out at Hiranandani Tower in Mumbai





--- ENDS ---
Shania Twain coming to Indianapolis on first tour in nearly five years
By PTI: From K J M Varma

Beijing, Sep 18 (PTI) Typhoon Malakas, the second typhoon to hit China in the last four days, and the huge tides generated by it have pushed the water level of Huangpu River above the warning line prompting officials to resort to emergency measures.

Malakas, the 16th typhoon in 2016, entered the southern part of the East China Sea yesterday, Chinas National Marine Environmental Forecasting Centre said.

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According to statistics by Shanghai Flood Risk Information Centre, water levels at the sections of Wusongkou, Suzhouhe and Mishidu all exceeded the warning line today.

Rising water levels forced local authorities to launch emergency response measures and shut all tidal gates today.

The local flood control headquarters has urged all related departments to stay alert.

Typhoon Malakas comes on the heels of Typhoon Meranti, which has left at least 28 people dead and another 15 missing in eastern China since it made landfall in Fujian last week.

Xiamen city government today announced primary schools and kindergartens as well as private schools would be closed for two or three days, as power supply and the transportation network are both patchy.

Meranti is the worlds strongest typhoon this year to hit Fujian since records began in 1949.

It brought heavy rain and gales of up to 48 meters per second when it made landfall early Thursday, which was the first day of Chinas three-day holiday marking the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The citys education authority said that the school closures would help lessen traffic pressure, while many soldiers, teachers and students parents are still taking part in relief efforts.

The citys power grid said the typhoon disrupted power supply to 620,000 households. So far, 70 per cent of the grid is back to normal.

The typhoon damaged more than 90 per cent of the citys urban green areas. PTI KJV AMS AKJ AMS

--- ENDS ---
SUNDAY

Chopper Madness

The Abilene Radio Control Society's annual Abilene Chopper Madness event will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Seabee Park on FM 600. Demonstration flights will begin at noon. For information, go to abilenercsociety.com. Free admission.

The Peddler Show

The Peddler Show: Perfect Street of Shops will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Abilene Civic Center, 1100 N. Sixth St. Admission is $7 for adults and free for children 12 and younger.

MONDAY

West Texas Book Festival

The West Texas Book Festival will begin with an author lunch program featuring Carl and Pixie Christensen at noon at the Abilene Public Library, 202 Cedar St. Participants are invited to bring a lunch or purchase one for $5. Admission is free.

Class for iPhones and iPads

Tom Miller will present a free class for iPhone and iPad users at 1 p.m. at the Mockingbird Branch of the Abilene Public Library, 1326 N. Mockingbird Lane. Registration will begin at 12:30 p.m. Information: 325-692-1087.

Other ...

AARP, 10 a.m., Rose Park Senior Citizens Center Room B.

Cancer Services Network's Auxiliary meeting, 10:30 a.m., 100 Chestnut St., Suite 100. 325-672-0040.

Overeaters Anonymous, noon, Hinds Square Building, 100 Chestnut St., Room 112.

Schizophrenia Support Group, 1-2 p.m., Mental Health Association of Abilene, 333 Orange St. 325-673-2300.

Free swim class for people with multiple sclerosis, 5:30 p.m., YMCA, 3250 State St.

Anorexics Bulimics Anonymous, 6 p.m., Shades of Hope, 402A Mulberry St., Buffalo Gap. 800-588-4673.

Abilene Area Aggie Moms' Club, 6:45 p.m., Willow Creek Chapel, 4357 S. Treadaway Blvd.

Central Texas Gem & Mineral Society of Abilene, 7 p.m., 7607 Highway 277 South. 325-692-0063.

Abilene Toastmaster's Club 1071, 7 p.m., Conference Center, Texas State Technical College, 650 E. Highway 80. 325-692-7325 or abilene.toastmastersclubs.org.

Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1501 N. Broadway, Ballinger. 817-689-2810 or 325-977-1007.

Mid-City Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First Christian Church. 325-670-4304.

Memory Men (4-part a cappella singing), 7 p.m., Calvary Baptist Church, 1165 Minter Lane. Park on east side, enter through kitchen. 325-676-SING.

Those Left To Cope, 7-8:30 p.m., First Baptist Church Ministry of Counseling and Enrichment, 1502 N. First St.

Abilene Community Band rehearsal, 7:30 p.m., Bynum Band Hall, McMurry University. 325-232-7383.

South Pioneer Al-Anon Group, 8 p.m., 3157 Russell Ave.

Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous, 8 p.m., Avoca United Methodist Church. 325-773-2611.

Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse Group. 325-676-1400.

TUESDAY

Interfaith discussion

The Abilene Interfaith Council will present a discussion featuring Dr. Dan Stiver, 'The Faith of the Founding Fathers: Another Look,' at noon at Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, 602 Meander St. A pot-luck lunch will be served. For information, call 325-692-3353.

West Texas Book Festival

The West Texas Book Festival will continue with an author lunch program featuring Glen Sample Ely at noon at the Abilene Public Library, 202 Cedar St. Participants are invited to bring a lunch or purchase one for $5. The Abilene Author Showcase, featuring area authors who have published a book in the last year, will be presented from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Admission to both events is free.

Public meeting

COLORADO CITY  TxDOT will conduct a public meeting regarding possible safety enhancements to the Interstate 20 corridor from 4-8 p.m. at St. Ann's Church, 2005 Walnut St.

Square dance workshop

TYE  The Key City Squares will conduct a square dancing workshop at 7:30 p.m. at the Wagon Wheel.

Other ...

Mission on the Move Soup Kitchen, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Southwest Drive Community United Methodist Church, 3025 Southwest Dr.

Abilene Southwest Rotary Club, noon, Beehive Restaurant, 442 Cedar St.

High Noon Al-Anon, noon, Southern Hills Church of Christ, 3666 Buffalo Gap Road (south end; follow the yellow signs).

Blood drive, noon to 3 p.m., Lueders-Avoca High School.

Stroke/Aphasia Recovery Program support group, 1:30-2:30 p.m. West Texas Rehabilitation Center boardroom, 4601 Hartford St. 325-793-3535.

Dystonia Support Group, 5:15-6:15 p.m., Not Without Us, 3301 N. First St. Suite 117.

Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS), 5:30 p.m., Brook Hollow Christian Church, 2310 S. Willis St. 325-232-7444.

Legacies Al-Anon Family Group, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Open Door Building, 3157 Russell Ave. 325-280-7584.

Family (of Mental Health Consumers) Support Group, 6-7 p.m., Mental Health Association in Abilene, 333 Orange St. 325-673-2300.

MHAA Bipolar/Depression Peer Support Group, 6-8 p.m., Ministry of Counseling & Enrichment, 1502 N. First St. 325-673-2300.

Free certified nurturing parent class (pregnancy to toddler), 6-8 p.m., Mission Church, North Third and Mockingbird streets. 325-672-9398.

Abilene Star Chorus, 6:15 p.m., Wisteria Place Chapel, 3202 S. Willis St. 325-829-1470.

Overeaters Anonymous, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Exodus Metropolitan Community Church, 1933 S. 27th St.

Family Support Group for parents with special needs children, 6:30-7:30 p.m., West Texas Rehabilitation Center boardroom, 4601 Hartford St. 325-793-3500.

Alzheimer's Association  North Central Texas Chapter, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Chisholm Place, 1450 E. N. 10th St. 325-672-2907.

Al-Anon Parents Group, 7 p.m., Hillcrest Church of Christ, 650 E. Ambler Ave. Use Church Street entrance.

Al-Anon, 7 p.m., Doug Meinzer Activity Center, Knox City. 940-658-3926.

Brigadier General John Sayles Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 366, 7 p.m., American Legion Building, 302 E.S. 11th St.

Abilene Society of Model Railroaders, 7-8:30 p.m., 2043 N. Second St.

Unity Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, 8 p.m., Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, 602 Meander St.

WEDNESDAY

West Texas Book Festival

The West Texas Book Festival will continue with an author lunch program featuring Dennis Roberson at noon at the Abilene Public Library, 202 Cedar St. Participants are invited to bring a lunch or purchase one for $5. Admission is free.

Square dance workshop

TYE  The Wagon Wheel Squares will conduct a square dancing workshop at 7 p.m. at the Wagon Wheel.

Other ...

Overeaters Anonymous, 8 a.m., Hinds Square Building, Room 112, 100 Chestnut St.

Blood drive, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Clyde High School.

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. $12 for lunch. Jo Ann Wilson, 325-677-6815.

Kiwanis Club of Abilene, noon, Abilene Country Club, 4039 S. Treadaway Blvd.

Clearly Speaking Toastmaster Club, noon, Westgate Church of Christ, 402 S. Pioneer Drive. 325-795-5570.

Alzheimer's Association Caregiver Support Group, 2-3 p.m., Western Hills Healthcare Residence, Comanche.

Alzheimer's disease support group, 5:15 p.m., Cedar Crest Care Center, 1901 W. Elliott, Breckenridge. Assists those who have a family member with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. 1-800-272-3900 or 254-559-3302.

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.
Working as a team, Abilene weathered challenges better than most cities

Texas fared well but Abilene actually worked toward its future rather than just trying to stay afloat
More than 400 participants made a two-mile trek Saturday to raise funds for the Alzheimer's Association during the annual Walk to End Alzheimer's at the Rose Park Senior Center.

Karen Rampy, director for the Abilene regional office, said 51 teams had registered, along with several individuals.

'We've already got pledges totaling more than $70,000,' Rampy said. 'We anticipate that number going up significantly toward our 2016 goal of $90,000. Last year, we raised more than $89,000.'

The Walk to End Alzheimer's is held in more than 600 cities across the United States and has been going on for more than 20 years.

'Monies raised during the walk go to fund care, support and education, as well as supporting advancements for treatments and a possible cure,' Rampy said. 'We are excited to see so many people out this year and grateful to the 50 volunteers it takes to handle the logistics of running an event of this size.'

Bob Hunter, senior vice president emeritus at Abilene Christian University, was the honorary chair for the event.

'The end of Alzheimer's Disease starts with each one of us,' he told the crowd before the beginning of the walk. 'We can defeat this disease, but it takes all of us working together. I'm so pleased to look out and see a sea of purple, people I know are committed to do their part.'

Elisa Henkel and her husband, Billy Henkel, were part of the six-person Team Henkel, which walked in honor of Billy's parents, who both had Alzheimer's disease.

'This is the first year we've participated in the walk,' Elisa said, noting that Billy's mother, Patsy, died in 2015. 'It is important to support and show others the importance of doing all we can to end Alzheimer's.'

Rampy said the money raised Saturday provides help for more than 48,000 people across 40 North Texas counties through support groups, care consultation, training, resources and research funding.
North Central Mexico, where designer Jan Barboglio grew up, inspired her designs out of necessity.

'I was raised on a ranch,' said the Dallas-based designer, who displayed some of her products Saturday at Casa Authentique. 'You made your own beauty.'

Barboglio is the child of an Italian father and a Scotch-Irish mother who ranched in Mexico. Barboglio still has a residence in Mexico, which she said she considered home.

Her home decor designs and furniture have a Mexican influence, but with a bit more elegance.

'I like to bring out the best of Mexico,' she said.

The best of Mexico, she said, is craftsmanship. Even ordinary items, such as a paper towel holder, are more substantial. In fact, one of the things you notice about Barboglio's work is how much the items weigh. Glassware is thick, heavy and etched. She feels that weight helps make pieces that appeal to both men and women.

'The sense of weight has a feminine and masculine dichotomy,' she said.

Barboglio's line runs counter to trends of mass-produced and cheaper products. Her line isn't cheap, but she said there is a segment of the market that is looking for quality.

'That's who our customers are, and they appreciate it,' she said.

Barboglio's first foray into design was in fashion. She and her sister created Barboglio Christina and Jan. It was that line that first made Lynn Roeder of Abilene aware of Barboglio.

'They were just fabulous,' said Roeder of the clothes.

The transition into furniture and home decor came when Barboglio was decorating her own home. She wanted things that reflected what she remembered of Mexico, but she wasn't satisfied with what she found. Her designs, she said, revolve around the spiritual side of Mexico, which she said is celebratory.

'Things revolve around celebrations,' she said. 'Births, weddings, confirmations and funerals. Everything is celebratory.'

Recurring themes in her work are angels, crosses and birds. The works usually are utilitarian, an aspect Barboglio said she put into the design.

'I do like the different uses. I like to see what people can do with them,' she said. 'It's elegant, eclectic and utilitarian.'

Barboglio's next direction in design will be jewelry, which she started making during the Great Recession of 2008. She decided to make 'blessing beads,' a twist on Rosary beads. She intended for them to be decorative pieces, ones that would lay on a table and could be picked up and handled.

'Then I saw one of my customers wear one as a necklace,' she said, picking up some of the beads and putting them around her neck. 'I thought it looked pretty good.'
If you've wanted to publish a book but weren't sure how to do it, a program at this week's West Texas Book Festival could provide some answers.

The 'Getting Published' workshop is scheduled from 2-3:30 p.m. Friday at the downtown library, 202 Cedar St. It will feature four panelists who are in the publishing business.

As a book columnist, author, bookstore owner and book festival chairman, I get called several times a year by folks aspiring to write a book. I can share my own experience, but I don't feel I'm really the expert on the subject. So this year, I've asked three Texas book publishers to join me on a panel and maybe we can help writers get the information and the inspiration they need to finish their book projects and see them in print.

The publishers on the panel are Dino Price of John M. Hardy Publishing in Houston, Callie Metler of Clear Fork Publishing in Stamford, and Billy Huckaby of Eakin Press and Wild Horse Media Group in Fort Worth. Together, they have formed the Texas Book Publishers Association to encourage other Texas publishers to work together in getting more Texas books on the market.

Metler is an author herself, having just published a wonderful collection of stories about her hometown of Stamford, titled 'Swensons, Penick, and the TCR: The History of Stamford through the Pages of the Stamford American.' Her book includes 50 stories about people, places and events in Stamford, especially the town's signature event, the Texas Cowboy Reunion.

She also publishes the newspaper and owns a bookstore there. So she knows the publishing business from several angles.

Huckaby purchased Eakin Press a couple of years ago and moved it to Fort Worth, but he's been involved with the book business for several years in sales and marketing. Eakin has a huge backlist of Texas books running the gamut from children's titles to history and biography. One of its most recent titles explored the leadership traits of Sam Houston.

Price owns John Hardy Publishing, which has made quite a name for itself regionally with books in a wide range of venues, including literary fiction, non-fiction, biography and travel. John Hardy recently published 'Tower Sniper,' a comprehensive account of the mass murderer Charles Whitman at the University of Texas tower in 1966.

If you come to the workshop, besides gaining useful information from these experts, you might also make a valuable contact that could be the key to getting your book published. I've known several writers who've said the first big step for them was attending a workshop or conference where they made personal contacts that eventually helped them get published.

Of course, the first step in getting published is actually writing the book. And probably rewriting it, maybe several times. But after the book is written, then what? Come by Friday and get some answers to your questions.

The slogan of the West Texas Book Festival, now in its 16th year, is 'A celebration of reading and writing.' We'll celebrate writers on Tuesday evening (5:30-7:30) at the library as we recognize Abilene and Taylor County authors who've published a book in the past year.

Next year, maybe one of those authors will be you.

Glenn Dromgoole is chairman of the West Texas Book Festival and the author of 30 books. His newest title is 'West Texas Stories.'
Today in history: On Sept. 18, 1945,Gen. Douglas MacArthur sets up headquarters in Tokyo for post-war conversion. MacArthur had been called back to duty as commanding general of the U.S. Army in the Pacific. His forces took a beating in the Philippines but after famously saying, 'I shall return,' he did. His forces were victorious in New Guinea and he took back the Philippines by first destroying the Japanese navy, then attacking inland. He signed Japan's formal surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri.
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This just in...
By PTI: From Asim Kamal

Porlamar (Venezuela), Sep 18 (PTI) Making a strong anti-terror pitch at the NAM Summit here, India today asserted that "concrete action" was needed in the fight against terrorism and asked the 120-nation group to set up a mechanism to ensure effective cooperation in combating the menace.

Vice President Hamid Ansari, who is leading the Indian delegation at the 17th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said terrorism is one of the "most egregious sources of human right violations today" and its use as an instrument of state policy is to be unequivocally condemned.

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The time has come "for our movement to recognise the need for concrete action in the fight against terrorism", Ansari said while addressing the plenary meeting of the bloc.

"We need to establish a mechanism within our movement that will ensure effective cooperation in combating terrorism, that is the main threat to security, sovereignty and development," he said.

Ansaris remarks came against the backdrop of India raising its concerns at various international fora over Pakistans support to cross-border terrorism. Prime Minister Modi had made clear references to Pakistans support to terrorism without naming it at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, at a BRICS meeting in Hangzhou and at the ASEAN and East Asia summits in Lao PDR.

Describing terrorism as the "biggest threat" to international peace and to the sovereignty of states, Ansari asserted that no cause justifies the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians as a means to achieve a political goal or change of policies.

He stated that terrorism has become a major impediment to development.

"It is therefore imperative for the Non-Aligned Movement to galvanise the international community to strengthen the international legal framework to address this menace, including by adopting the draft Comprehensive UN Convention on Terrorism, to ensure the closest cooperation amongst the international community to counter the scourge of terror," he said.

"We must also ensure that all existing structures that are the building blocks of UNs Global Counter Terrorism Strategy function in a non-partisan and professional manner," Ansari said.

Earlier, during NAMs Foreign Ministers meeting, Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar had also called on NAM to set up a "working group on terrorism" to safeguard world peace, stability and prosperity.

"Governments which think they can pay lip service to sanity at a NAM summit, and continue to arm, shelter and exploit terrorists in a war by other means, when they return home will learn that you cannot sip on poison and hope to live," Akbar had said in an apparent reference to Pakistan. MORE PTI ASK KIS

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UPDATED at 12:20 EST on 2016-09-19

A county police chief was killed and three officers are believed to have died in Chinas restive region of Xinjiang on Sept. 10 when a bomb exploded in a house they were searching, local police told RFAs Uyghur Service.

The police were raiding homes in a village in Guma (In Chinese, Pishan) County of Hotan (Hetian) Prefecture when a bomb exploded in the basement of a house they were searching that belonged to a family suspected of radical behavior, police from neighboring districts told RFA.

What I know is that Gheyret Mamut was leading a group of four officers in a house-to-house search of No.23 Village of Kokterek Township. The house they were searching belonged to a blacklisted family and there was nobody in the house, said Turup Abbas, deputy chief of Guma County Police Department.

When they entered the cellar at the center of the house, suddenly a bomb exploded, and Gheyret Mamut died on the spot. Three of the officers were heavily injured, said Turup Abbas.

I am not sure whether the three wounded policemen taken to the hospital are alive or dead. There has been no official announcement issued yet of a death toll, he added.

A second police officer in Muji told RFA that Gheyret Mamut, 45, was among the dead and described the same sequence of events leading to the explosion.

According to an oral announcement by our station chief, a group of police in Kokterek Township was conducting house-to-house searches in the village, and one or a bunch of homemade bombs exploded when they were checking the cellar of the house, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Don't spread rumors

A farmer from nearby No. 21 Village of Kokterek Township told RFA he attended a meeting early on Sunday at which the village Communist Party secretary discussed the explosion and urged villagers not to talk about it.

We were just warned not to say much about the incident, to avoid spreading rumors, to advise youth not to challenge the government and to call the police if strangers appear in the village, said the farmer.

From the neighbors I heard that the police chief died in the cellar, and the three police officers were dead when they arrived at the hospital, the farmer added.

Memet Eli, a police officer in Kokterek Township, said he did not know details about the explosion, but was familiar with the house where it took place and had interrogated a couple that lived there but did not remember their names.

The house belonged to the owner of a fast-food restaurant in Guma County that is located in front of a teachers college, he told RFA.

I have gone there several times to bring him to the police station for interrogation. I only remember that he has a four-year-old child and that he and his wife were about 30 years old and were blacklisted because of signs of extremism in their life, said Memet Eli.

The familys fate and whereabouts were unknown.

'Emergency situation'

The farmer from No. 21 Village said, however: Some people are saying that there was no one in the house other than police when the bombs exploded, but other people say the owner and his friends were hiding in the cellar when the police entered.

Meanwhile, an officer from Gumas neighboring Qarghiliq (Yecheng) County said his district was under an emergency situation now.

In order to prevent potential attacks or incidents, most of our officers are patrolling streets or guarding sensitive places like government buildings, or Han immigrant resident complexes, said the officer.

Kokterek Township was the hometown of the perpetrators of a May 2014 bombing at a market in Xinjiangs capital Urumqi that killed 43 people, including the four attackers.

China has vowed to crack down on what it calls religious extremism in Xinjiang, and regularly conducts strike hard campaigns including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.

While China blames Uyghur extremists for terrorist attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that the explosion happened on Sept. 17. The explosion occurred on Sept. 10.

Reported and translated by Shohret Hoshur for RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
Hundreds of supporters of an Azerbaijani opposition party rallied in the capital, demonstrating against a referendum later this month that seeks to strengthen President Ilham Aliyevs authority.

Baku city police reported no major problems with the September 18 rally by the Musavat party, which ended after about two hours.

"Azerbaijan now finds itself in a crisis situation due to the incorrect policies of the Aliyev regime. We urgently need reforms in the country," Arif Gadzhili, a top party leader, told the crowd holding Azerbaijani flags and photographs of people believed to be political prisoners.

"However, the Aliyev regime, which has concentrated power in one hand, is conducting policies that are aimed at putting yet more power in that hand," he added.

The rally had been authorized by government officials.

The September 26 referendum has generated sharp criticism from Azerbaijan's beleaguered opposition, as well as civil society activists, journalists, and others.

Critics say the referendum will tighten Aliyev's grip on power, which he has held since 2003 after inheriting the presidency from his father, Heydar.

The September 18 rally was a noticeable contrast to a demonstration held a day earlier in Baku, during which police and protesters clashed. The demonstrators were also protesting the upcoming referendum.

Several journalists were also detained by police during the clashes, including at least two freelancers working for RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service.

One RFE/RL journalist was taken from the scene of the protest in a bus with some 30 detainees.

With reporting by Interfax and RFE/RLs Azerbaijani Service


Russian President Vladimir Putin says the world faces the most dangerous decade since World War II and predicted that the historical period of the West's "undivided dominance over world affairs" is coming to an end.

Speaking on October 27 at a conference of international policy experts in Moscow, Putin said the decade ahead is "probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important...since the end of World War II."

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Putin laid the blame for the situation at the feet of Western countries, which he said have cast aside the norms of international affairs in order to maintain dominance and hold down countries they see as "second-class civilizations."

The Russian leader also said he had no regrets about sending troops into Ukraine and sought to explain the conflict as part of the efforts by Western countries to secure their global domination.

Putin claimed in his speech to the Valdai Discussion Club, a think tank, that the West had helped incite the conflict and also seeks to stoke a crisis over Taiwan in an attempt to enforce global dominance.

Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, triggering the biggest military conflict in Europe since World War II and driving relations with Western countries that back Ukraine and its drive to be part of the European Union and NATO to their lowest depths since the Cold War.

Putin cast the conflict in Ukraine as a battle between the West and Russia for the fate of the second-largest Eastern Slav country. It is partly a "civil war," he said, as Russians and Ukrainians are one people. Kyiv has flatly rejected both of those ideas.

The goal of what Russia refers to as a "special military operation" is to take the eastern Donbas region, Putin said, adding that in his view the region would "not have survived" on its own had Russia not intervened militarily in Ukraine.

WATCH: A local official told Russian conscripts "You are not cannon fodder" in a video published online recently. The men responded by angrily shouting that, actually, that's exactly what they are.

But the war has gone far beyond the Donbas region, with Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, and other nonmilitary structures, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians across the country.

Putin used the speech largely to rail against the West, saying it has nothing to offer to the world "except its own domination," and the goal of globalization "is neocolonialism to dominate the world." He said Russia is only trying to defend its right to exist in the face these Western efforts.

Putin also asserted that more and more nations refuse to follow Washington's demands and Russia will never accept the West's attempts to dominate the world.

Citing gay pride parades and the acceptance of transgender people in Western countries, Putin also defended "traditional values" and said "nobody can dictate to our people how to develop and what society we should build."

He also said Russia has never considered the West an enemy and has many things in common with it but will continue to oppose the diktat of Western neoliberal elites.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Putin's speech presented no new ideas.

"We don't believe that Mr. Putin's strategic goals have changed here. He doesn't want Ukraine to exist as a sovereign, independent nation state," Kirby said.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Putin's speech can be described as "for Freud," referring to psychoanalysis founder Sigmund Freud.



"The person who invaded a foreign country, annexed its land, and committed genocide accuses others of violating international law and the sovereignty of other countries? One truth: The person who started a wind will get a storm. The storm is coming," he said on Twitter.

Answering questions from journalists after his speech, Putin reiterated the Kremlin's assertion that Ukraine plans to use a so-called dirty bomb on its own territory. The claim has been dismissed as false by Ukraine and its allies, who say Russia may have raised the matter because it plans to use such a bomb in Ukraine as a pretext for escalation.

"It was me who ordered [Defense Minister Sergei] Shoigu to inform by phone all his colleagues about it," Putin said, adding that Russia does not need to use dirty bombs in Ukraine.

Putin also said he supported plans by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit Ukraine's nuclear power plants for inspections.

"It must be done as soon and as openly as possible because we know that Kyiv authorities are now working to cover up such [dirty-bomb attack] preparations," Putin said, without giving any exact information proving the claim.

Ukraine invited IAEA inspectors to visit its nuclear facilities after the Kremlin made its unsubstantiated claim about the preparation of a dirty bomb -- which would use the explosion of a conventional warhead to spread radioactive material or chemicals over a wide area.

Ukraine said it would welcome inspections because it had "nothing to hide."

According to Putin, Russia has never talked about the use of nuclear weapons in the war with Ukraine despite his own promise to defend Russian territory with any means at our disposal" and saying his words were "not a bluff."

"We see no need for [using nuclear weapons in Ukraine]," Putin told reporters. "There is no sense for that, neither political, nor military."
Displaced Iraqi residents of Fallujah began returning to the city on September 17 -- the first batch of returnees since the town was recaptured from Islamic State (IS) militants by Iraqi security forces in June.

Correspondents report that only 14 families accepted the offer from authorities to return to Fallujah.

That is far short of the hundreds that had been promised by Iraqi authorities.

Only a small number of neighborhoods in the city, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad, have been cleared of explosives and booby-traps left behind by IS militants.

The cleared areas are in the north of Fallujah, which were relatively spared during the weeks-long operation by government security forces and allied militia fighters to retake the city.

There was far more destruction in Fallujahs southern neighborhoods, and many areas in the south still need to be cleared of explosive devices before residents are allowed to return there.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP
Tensions between Russian and U.S. diplomats have spilled over at the United Nations Security Council after Russian officials demanded to know whether the United States intentionally supported Islamic State (IS) militants with air strikes that hit Syrian government troops.

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, walked out of the emergency meeting on September 17 -- protesting U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power's description of Russias call for the meeting as "a stunt."

Meanwhile, Power accused Russia of a "cynical and hypocritical' attempt at "cheap point scoring" and "grandstanding" by calling for the emergency session.

She said Moscow should, instead, demand a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in order to push for peace.

Power said Washington was investigating claims by Russia and Damascus that U.S. air strikes killed scores of Syrian government troops in the east of the country.

She said "if we determine that we did, indeed, strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention. And we of course regret the loss of life."

Russia said U.S. air strikes on September 17 killed at least 62 Syrian government soldiers and helped Islamic State militants seize a strategic hilltop overlooking a government-controlled air base near Deir al-Zor.

Churkin said the air strikes left "a very big question mark" over the future of a September 12 cease-fire deal brokered by Russia and the United States that is aimed at restarting Syria's peace process.

The deal includes a fragile nationwide truce, improved humanitarian aid access, and joint military targeting of banned Islamic militant groups by Russia and the United States.

Churkin said U.S. forces could have held off on air strikes near Deir al-Zor for two more days, when Moscow and Washington are meant to start joint military cooperation, instead of carrying out what he called a "reckless" operation.

But a Pentagon spokesman said that Russia had not expressed any concerns when initially informed that coalition forces would be operating in the area.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted by Russia's state-run TASS news agency as saying the Kremlin had "come to the terrible conclusion that the White House is defending the Islamic State."

A statement from the U.S. Central Command on September 17 said "coalition forces would not intentionally strike" Syrian government forces.

It said coalition air strikes were "halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military."

The London-based Syrian Observatory For Human Rights said it was unable to confirm who carried out the air strikes.

It said Russian jets had been carrying out bombing raids at the same time in the area in support of Syrian forces engaged in battle against IS militants at Jebel Tharda, which is near Deir al-Zor.

Sergei Rudskoy, head of the operations directorate of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff, denied the reports from the London-based monitoring group -- telling journalists in Moscow early on September 18 that Russian aircraft "were definitely not used in this region at this time."

Rudskoy said Russia thinks the incident "became possible because the United States does not know the situation and does not want to coordinate with Russia on fighting against terrorist groups in Syrian territory."

Syria called the air strikes a "serious and blatant attack on Syria and its military," and "firm proof" of U.S. support for IS militants "and other terrorist groups."

Russia and the United States have criticized each other for not following through on agreements that are part of the September 12 cease-fire deal.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa, TASS, and Interfax
MOSCOW -- Opposition activists alleged a slew of violations during voting in Russia's parliamentary elections despite efforts taken by the authorities to give the appearance of a clean vote.



Activists shared videos of suspect incidents online, making allegations of major violations such as ballot stuffing, while activist Leonid Volkov claimed that even President Vladimir Putin is powerless to stop what he called a "system" liable to fraud.



Ella Pamfilova, the new Central Election Commission chief who promised to resign in the event of fraudulent elections, said the vote was "entirely legitimate."

She said her organization recorded two times fewer violations than in earlier election campaigns, but that results will be annulled at three polling stations due to attempts at ballot stuffing.

"I am not euphoric or in a hat-throwing mood, let's wait for that, but in any case there is full certainty that the elections have been held entirely legitimately, and we have done a lot to make that happen," she was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.



Ahead of time, election officials and other authorities had made clear efforts to try and organize an election free of the fraud that had tainted previous votes.



Initial results showed the ruling United Russia party holding onto its dominant position in the 450-seat State Duma, with three other main parties also maintaining positions in legislature.



The outcome was unlikely to undermine Putin's grip on power, but the Kremlin was wary of a repeat of the December 2011 parliamentary elections where allegations of voter fraud ignited mass protests in Moscow and elsewhere.

In March, Putin appointed Pamfilova, a respected liberal politician, as the election chief, replacing Vladimir Churov who became known by his detractors as the "magician" during a controversial nine-year tenure.

But authorities also moved to restrict the ability of nongovernmental organizations and independent observers to monitor the vote.

The respected group Golos was designated a "foreign agent" -- an official label that echoes Soviet-era pressure tactics -- as was the survey group Levada Center, whose surveys had shown a drop in support for United Russia.

'Carousel' Voting

Throughout voting on September 18, Pamfilova responded to fraud allegations with tough rhetoric, even threatening to annul the results in the Siberian region of Barnaul if allegations of underhand practices were proved.



Vladimir Ryzhkov, an opposition politician running for the Yabloko party, alleged the widespread use in the region of "carousel" voting, whereby people are transported to multiple polling stations and vote under other people's names.



Golos, said it had logged 427 allegations of violations over its hotline by early evening, just hours before the polls closed.

The group also said 200 of the reports had come from Moscow and that they included possible violations such as carousel voting, ballot stuffing, forced voting, and irregularities involving absentee ballots.

Social Media Claims



Meanwhile online, social network users were poring over surveillance videos recorded at polling stations.



Beslan Uspanov, chief editor of Kavkaz Polit, posted several videos of separate incidents in which women nonchalantly posted multiple ballot papers into ballot boxes in the restive southern region of Dagestan:



Another video shared on Twitter by Golos showed an election official in Nizhny Novgorod surreptitiously produce a clutch of ballot papers from under her other papers and put them into the ballot box:



Nikolai Lyaskin, an ally of opposition leader and anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny, posted photographs of alleged carousel voters being transported in a bus in the Moscow district of Sviblovo:

Aleksei Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy who headed an election monitor in the capital, however, said that there were no serious violations in Moscow and not a single proven instance of carousel voting.

In St. Petersburg, a journalist for the Fontanka news site alleged that he had been able to obtain a ballot paper under a different name by employing an illegal technique used by carousel voters.



And two widely shared videos from a polling station in Rostov-on-Don appeared to show staff create a human wall in front of a ballot box to obscure it from view, while a women stuffed ballots papers into the box:



Sergei Yusov, the head of the Rostov Oblast Election Commission, reportedly promised an investigation that would be "seen through to the end."



But opposition activists like Volkov were skeptical, claiming that even Putin could not stamp out fraud because, he argued, it was in the interest of regional governors to falsify elections.



"In short, the voting system in Russia is built in such a way that there is no authority that could force the regional authorities to not falsify the elections," Volkov wrote on Facebook.

"Because at the very least, every governor knows that if he stupidly holds 'honest elections' he will end up with nothing, while all his neighbors who work 'as normal' will get a lot of [happiness]," he wrote.


Gay pride marchers have rallied in central Belgrade amid a massive turnout of riot police and security officials aimed at preventing unrest that had marred previous rallies.

Several hundred people carrying banners and flags marched through the Serbian capital on September 18 as helicopters flew above. Police with dogs secured the area, which was sealed off to traffic for hours ahead of time.

No incidents were reported and gay rights activist Boban Stojanovic said the march was held with less tension than in previous years, when far-right demonstrators clashed with police.

PHOTO GALLERY: Belgrade Pride March Passes Off Peacefully

In 2010, more than 100 officers and extremists were injured in rioting that damaged parts of central Belgrade.

Serbia has since sought to boost gay rights as part of its bid to join the European Union. An openly gay minister was appointed to the government for the first time last month.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters


Turkmenistan has opened a new $2.3 billion air terminal at Ashgabat International Airport as the former Soviet republics tries to become an international transport hub in Central Asia and reduce its dependence on revenues from natural gas exports.

President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said during the opening ceremony on September 17 that Turkmenistan has all the opportunities to become a transport bridge facilitating economic cooperation between Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and South Asia.

The government in Ashgabat has taken part in a railroad project connecting Central Asia to Iran.

It also is building a $2 billion port on the Caspian Sea and is involved in a project to build a railway through Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan has a strict visa policy and only attracts about 100,000 tourists a year.

But authorities there say they hope higher numbers of foreign visitors when Ashgabat hosts the Asian Indoor Games in 2017.

With reporting by Reuters
By Mayuresh Ganapatye: A massive search and rescue (SAR) operation was launched by the Navy, Coast Guard and ONGC involving 10 ships and four aircrafts to locate missing fishermen and naval divers. The naval divers went adrift last night during an attempt to rescue a missing fisherman from the ill-fated fishing boat Dutta Sai.

At around 4 AM on Saturday, the fishing boat Dutta Sai from Mumbai with 16 crew members sank approximately 30 nautical miles west of Mumbai, due to bad weather and rough sea conditions. 14 crew members were recovered in the morning by the ship MV Dependable, which was near the incident site. The INS Trishul on Saturday located one of the fishermen adrift in water. Efforts were made to recover this fisherman by all means such as by boat and ship's ladder, however he could not be recovered due to bad weather, heavy swell and hesitation of the fisherman in approaching the ship.

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Despite heavy swell of over 3 meters and adverse weather conditions, two Indian Navy divers Bipin Dahal, LEMP, and Ganshyam Patidhar, ME I, volunteered to rescue the fisherman by a procedure called recovery by free swimmers. In their valiant effort to approach the fisherman the line (rope) between the divers and the ship parted and they were set adrift. The divers could not thereafter be sighted by the ship due to bad weather and low light conditions. The divers continued to search for the fisherman, however due to poor light he could not be sighted.

The two divers survived the whole night (12 hours) in water under adverse weather and sea conditions and were picked up by a fishing boat Ram Dutta Sai at 6 AM this morning. The SAR operation was closely coordinated between the Navy, Coast Guard, ONGC and Fishermen Association. On reaching Mumbai, the two divers have been shifted to INHS Asvini and kept under observation. They were found to be medically fit and in high spirits.

The Indian Coast Guard Ship Samudra Prahari, which was on coastal patrol and was diverted to reach the area at 2.30 PM, has taken over all rescued fishermen from MV Dependable and provided them with first aid and food. Their condition is reported stable.



Also read: Mumbai: 14 rescued, five including two Navy divers missing after fishing boat sinks





--- ENDS ---
Right-wing protesters scuffled with police in Kyiv as dozens rallied outside the Russian Embassy, where a polling station was set up for Russian citizens to vote in their country's parliamentary elections.

Nationalist Svoboda party leader Ihor Miroshnichenko, who was among the demonstrators on September 18, said Ukraine should not allow the enemy and state aggressor to conduct illegal elections in Ukraine.

One demonstrator was detained in a scuffle with police after a few nationalists tried to stop Russian citizens from voting. It was unclear how many Russians actually did cast ballots by day's end.

Scuffles also broke out near the building of the Russian Consulate in Ukraine's Black Sea port city of Odesa.

WATCH: Scuffles At The Russian Consulate In Odesa (natural sound)

Russia is holding national elections for the lower house of parliament. The vote is also taking place on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, the first time since Moscow's annexation of the territory two years ago.

That has angered the Ukrainian government, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maryana Betsa saying voting in the Russian election could not take place in her country.

About 80,000 Russian voters live in Ukraine, Russian electoral officials say.

Based on reporting by AP, TASS, Interfax, and the BBC


Gay pride marchers have rallied in central Belgrade amid a massive turnout of riot police and security officials aimed at preventing unrest that had marred previous rallies.



Several hundred people carrying banners and flags marched through the Serbian capital on September 18 as helicopters flew above. Police with dogs secured the area, which was sealed off to traffic for hours ahead of time.



No incidents were reported and gay rights activist Boban Stojanovic said the march was held with less tension than in previous years, when far-right demonstrators clashed with police.



In 2010, more than 100 officers and extremists were injured in rioting that damaged parts of central Belgrade.



Serbia has since sought to boost gay rights as part of its bid to join the European Union. An openly gay minister was appointed to the government for the first time last month.



(Text based on reporting by AP and Reuters)
Leader of Opposition and DMK treasurer MK Stalin reacted to the information that Ramkumar committed suicide "by biting an electric wire", saying it was "shocking and mysterious".

By PTI: The accused in the sensational murder of 24-year-old IT professional Swathi on a railway platform allegedly committed suicide at the Puzhal Central prison in Chennai today, police said.

"He (Ramkumar) committed suicide and the body is now in Royapettah Government Hospital," a top police official said today.

Swathi was hacked to death, allegedly by Kumar, an engineering graduate, on June 24 while she was waiting to board a train at a platform of Nungambakkam suburban railway station to her work place on the city outskirts, an incident which was caught on CCTV. When police traced him days later and came to arrest him, he had allegedly attempted to commit suicide.

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ALSO READ | Infosys techie murder: Swathi's killer Ramkumar commits suicide in prison



On how he committed suicide in jail, the official rpt the official said, "It is in the domain of prison authorities...it is said that he had bitten an electric wire in the jail dispensary," and had died subsequently.

OPPOSITION DEMAND JUDICIAL PROBE



Prison authorities declined to speak on Ramkumar's death.

Government Royapettah Hospital authorities said Ramkumar was brought dead, adding that an autopsy will be conducted.

Meanwhile, the alleged suicide of Ramkumar has sparked a controversy with the Opposition parties demanding a judicial inquiry.

Leader of Opposition and DMK treasurer MK Stalin reacted to the information that Ramkumar committed suicide "by biting an electric wire", saying it was "shocking and mysterious".

ALSO READ | Why did you do this to my daughter? Swathi's father breaks down on seeing killer Ramkumar



Extending his condolences to the kin of Ramkumar, he said it was "not acceptable and believable" that he committed suicide in a high-security prison.

Slamming the prison authorities for being "unable to provide security" to the prisoner, Stalin said the death had led to several doubts.

"I urge for a judicial inquiry into the incident by a High Court judge," he said.

CPI(M) state secretary G Ramakrishnan too demanded a judicial inquiry by a sitting High Court judge. Recalling that Ramkumar had attempted suicide even at the time of his arrest, he said, "How can a person commit suicide in a prison? what were the prison authorities doing?"

He said the incident had also led to a doubt regarding "proper security" being provided by the prison administration to the prisoner.

VCK chief Thol Thirumavalavan said the Tamil Nadu government should own up responsibility for Ramkumars death and demanded a proper inquiry into the incident.



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Richmond police have arrested a man in a deadly shooting in Gilpin Court on Friday.

Mark A. Cephas, 27, has been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, police said Sunday. Other charges were under consideration.

Police did not have an address for Cephas.

James D. Williams, 31, of the 800 block of West Catherine Street, was found with an apparent gunshot wound shortly before 7:30 p.m. Friday in the 1100 block of St. Paul Street. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police believe the incident stemmed from an argument.

Williams death was the citys 42nd homicide of the year, according to police data. That surpasses last years total of 41.

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Major Crimes Detective Joe Fultz at (804) 646-3929 or Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000. Citizens also can text Crime Stoppers at 274637, using the keyword iTip followed by the tip.

Submit tips to GUN250 about people illegally possessing guns by texting Crime Stoppers at 274637 and using the keyword GUN250, followed by your tip. Rewards of up to $250 are possible.
Born from the idea to get more urban youth involved in the outdoors, Blue Sky Fund really started taking shape with its formation in 2007.

Since then, thousands of Richmond youth have experienced transformational outdoor experiences thanks to an organization that has become almost a household name in town.

Blue Sky Fund operates two-week summer Outdoor Leadership Institutes for boys and girls, which include a broad range of local high school students, and a five-day backpacking trip that crests the summit of Mount Rogers, the highest peak in Virginia.

During the school year, Blue Sky Fund runs several after-school outdoor adventure clubs, where students practice outdoor skills, including rock climbing, orienteering, fire-making and kayaking.

Blue Sky Funds Explorer Program will serve 1,600 Richmond elementary students during the 2016-17 school year. Second- through fifth-graders from eight schools will go on monthly field trips to James River Park, Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens and other wild areas in the city where they take science-based lessons that focus on skills that are among the SOL requirements.

Blue Sky also promotes outdoor activity for all members of the community.

On Oct. 15, Blue Sky Fund is hosting its annual Hike for Kids. In the past, this event has been located in the mountains, where participants hiked a half or full marathon. This year, the event will be held in the city, with hikes of 5-, 10- or 18-mile loops, each departing from Legend Brewing Company.

We wanted to bring it closer to home and make it more accessible, said Lawson Wijesooriya, executive director of Blue Sky Fund.

Wijesooriya hopes by holding the event in Richmond, it will have a broader appeal, and the hikes will be of interest to those who hike the trails often as well as those who might not be familiar with the city parks.

Wijesooriya said there will be plenty of local middle school students participating in the hike, as well as a crew of high school students volunteering.

Not only is Hike for Kids undergoing a transition this year, but Wijesooriya, who has served as the executive director of Blue Sky Fund since its inception, is stepping down to spend more time with family and explore other options in the community.

David Kunnen will take over for Wijesooriya later this fall.
By Pramod Madhav: Infosys techie Swathi's murder accused Ramkumar, reportedly committed suicide inside Puzal prison today.

He was rushed to Royapettah Hospital where he was pronounced brought dead. Sources say that Ramkumar committed suicide by biting an electric wire.

His father said prison authorities called and informed him that Ramkumar was being rushed to the hospital but did not tell him that his son was dead.

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Also read:Infosys techie's father to India Today: People watched while my daughter was hacked



The accused had initially attempted suicide when police had apprehended him.

Ramkumar's father and his lawyer suspect foul play in his death.

The body has been sent for autopsy.
It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try a search?

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For the moment, a 12-acre, panel-packed field near Philip Morris USAs Park 500 facility in Chesterfield County is the largest solar array in Virginia.

But it wont be for long, said Dominion Virginia Power officials, who on Friday gave media members a tour of the 8,000-panel, $4.9 million site. It is one of 10 facilities built as part of the utilitys Solar Partnership Program, which leases ground space at commercial, industrial and public facilities for solar panels.

The partnerships are designed to allow Dominion to experiment with the effects of solar energy on the existing grid.

Grid reliability is one of the big tenets of our culture, said Mike Gurganus, a project manager for new technology with Dominion. We need to make sure that we can blend that electricity into our grid.

The 2-megawatt facility, which opened in March, was built over about six months after Dominion approached Philip Morris about leasing the land near the companys tobacco processing facility on Bermuda Hundred Road.

The tobacco plant has increasingly focused on more sustainable and environmentally friendly practices, such as converting its onsite power plant to natural gas and building an engineered wetland system to help reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and other constituents in its wastewater before it is discharged into the James River.

Right off the bat, we thought it was a good fit for us, said Greg Ray, a senior vice president for manufacturing at Philip Morris, a subsidiary of Henrico County-based Altria Group.

At peak production, the solar array produces enough electricity to power 500 homes.

Were really proud of what weve done here and how we can learn from it, said Nathan Frost, a Dominion manager for new technology. What is the impact of a variable, intermittent resource on our customers?

Dominion has three other solar facilities under construction in Isle of Wight, Powhatan and Louisa counties that are projected to produce a total of 56 megawatts.

The Louisa facility will use 83,000 solar panels to produce 20 megawatts, enough to power 5,000 homes. The Powhatan site will have 77,000 panels producing 17 megawatts, and Isle of Wight will produce 19 megawatts from 80,000 panels.

Dominion also is in the process of developing a 260,000-panel facility near the Remington Power Plant in Fauquier County in a partnership with the state and Microsoft that is expected to come on line by next fall.

Its all part of the companys pledge to develop 400 megawatts of solar capacity by 2020.

However, according to report released in July by the Environment Virginia Research and Policy Center, Virginia still lags behind other states in solar capacity, ranking 39th of 50 states through 2015.
"Miscreants started circulating communal content leading to a variety of rumours. Internet services will remain suspended till next 48 hours," a senior officer associated with content monitoring said.

Four people have been killed in communal clashes after an eve-teasing incident on Friday.

By Shashank Shekhar: Internet services in UP's Bijnor district have been suspended till September 19 after communal tension gripped parts of western UP on Saturday. Four people have been killed and over a dozen injured in clashes between members of two communities after a schoolgirl was harassed on Friday.

INITIAL INCIDENT

According to police, the violence erupted after a schoolgirl was allegedly harassed by some youths in Bijnor's Pedda village. The girl and the accused are from different communities, which led to tension in the area. As the news of harassment spread, people from girl's side gathered to stage protest. Soon, there were groups taking positions on both sides. The incident boiled into a communal clash.

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People on both sides started pelting stones and the situation soon took an uglier turn. Guns were pulled out and shots were fired at one another. One youth died on the spot while two others, including a child, succumbed to their injuries during treatment in hospital. Later, one more person died taking the toll to four. Three of the four people killed are from the girl's family. More than a dozen were also injured in the clash. They were admitted to a nearby hospital.

MEASURES TAKEN

Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav rushed state home secretary Mani Prasad Mishra and additional director general (law and order) Daljeet Singh Chaudhary to the spot and announced Rs 20 lakh each compensation for the next of the victims' kin.

Seven companies of the PAC and additional police forces have been deployed in the area. A group of sleuths in Lucknow are monitoring the communal content circulated on the social.

"Miscreants started circulating communal content leading to a variety of rumours. Internet services will remain suspended till next 48 hours," a senior officer associated with content monitoring said.

ALSO READ:

4 dead as clash after eve-teasing takes communal turn in UP's Bijnor

Odisha: Section 144 imposed in three districts after communal clashes



--- ENDS ---
The Honorable James Pearce Brice, 90, of Roanoke, Va., died on Thursday, September 15, 2016. He was born on August 7, 1926, in Roanoke, Va., and raised during the Great Depression by a self-taught pharmacist who ran a small drugstore on Grandin Road next to the Grandin Theater.He entered Virginia Military Institute (VMI) at age 16, leaving immediately upon his 18th birthday to join the Merchant Marines, where he dodged torpedoes as a helmsman on an oil tanker in the North Atlantic. During this time, he lost his brother, 1st Lt Ranger Platoon Commander Robert Brice to a German bullet on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.Prior to the war's conclusion, he joined the United States Army and became a Japanese interrogator and translator. After the Japanese surrender, he served with distinction in the Army Counterintelligence Corps in northern Hokkaido, a dangerous duty station where he confronted Russian subversives and interrogated suspected Japanese loyalist.After leaving the Army, he obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia (UVA) and a Juris Doctorate (JD) from Washington and Lee Law School in 1954. His career took him from private practice, to the Veterans Administration, through the United States District Attorney's Office, and finally to the Roanoke General District Court, where he served as a judge from 1967 to 1987. There he became known as an even-handed jurist with a big heart. He retired in 1987 and then traveled as a substitute judge across the state, where he delighted in visiting obscure historical sites.After retirement, he traveled extensively, visiting modern Japan, Normandy and France with his wife of 62 years, Phyllis. He was also a life-long member of the Freemasons.Near the end, he was in the constant company of his sons, James, Stephen and his wife, Victoria, and Michael, and grandchildren, Taryn, Trey and Mellissa, who will all miss him terribly.A Service will be held at 1 p.m. on Monday, September 19, 2016, at Greene Memorial United Methodist Church followed by a luncheon. The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. on Sunday, September 18, 2016, at Oakey's Roanoke Chapel.In lieu of flowers, please contribute to Walter Reed Hospice, 7358 Main Street, Gloucester, VA 23061. Online condolences may be expressed to the family at www.oakeys.com.
"The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State", Amaq said in a statement.

By Reuters: An ISIS supporter carried out the stabbing attack that wounded at least eight people at a mall in the US state of Minnesota on Saturday, the militant group's Amaq news agency said.

"The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition," Amaq said in a statement.

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The authenticity of the claim wasn't verifible as of now.

A man wearing a private security uniform and armed with at least one knife stabbed eight people at the Crossroads Center mall before he was shot dead by an off-duty police officer, authorities said.

ALSO READ:

ISIS inspired youth stabs man in Austarlia

Baby girl born to Kerala family that joined ISIS





--- ENDS ---
In Belgium kids aged under 18, who are in the final stages of a terminal illness, must have their parents consent before being eligible to request death by euthanasia. According to the law passed by parliament only minors that are in unbearable physical suffering qualify for the procedure. In case of the first child to die by euthanasia in Belgium, the formed committee was informed about the critically ill condition that made the kid a candidate for this practice. Committee chair was Wim Distelmans. He and his team were informed about this first death by a local doctor who supervised the procedure.

On Saturday the head of Belgiums national committee for euthanasia discussed this case for the first time.

In neighbouring Netherlands euthanasia is presented as an option for a clean death to children aged at least 12 in similar conditions to Belgium.
Ace-filmmaker Mani Ratnam, who is currently shooting for his romantic drama Kaatru Veliyidai, will shoot some action sequence in Ladakh, say reports.

By India Today Web Desk: Filmmaker Mani Ratnam, who is currently busy wrapping up upcoming Tamil romantic-drama Kaatru Veliyidai, will shoot some important action sequences in Ladakh, where he's currently scouting for locations.

ALSO READ: Soundarya Rajinikanth confirms separation, says divorce talks are on

ALSO READ: Oppam- Kamal Haasan to reprise Mohanlal's role in the Tamil remake?

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A source close to the film's unit said, "Mani sir along with action director Shyam Kaushal is finalising locations in Ladakh. They're planning to shoot an action sequence - not the regular kind - but one that'll be very realistic."

Interestingly, Kaushal has previously worked with Ratnam in Raavan (2010).

The next schedule of the film will commence in Kashmir later this month or in early October.

"Major portion in this schedule will be shot in Kashmir, while some key scenes will be filmed in Ladakh. It'll be the second time Mani sir will be shooting in Ladakh after Dil Se," the source added.

Karthi, who is collaborating with Mani Ratnam for the first time, has worked as an assistant director to the latter in Ayutha Ezhuthu/ Yuva. Bollywood actor Aditi Hydari will play Karthi's love interest in the film.

Also starring RJ Balaji, Shraddha Srinath and Delhi Ganesh, the project features music by AR Rahman and cinematography by Ravi Varma.

--- ENDS ---
Consumer confidence in New Zealand picked up steam in the third quarter of 2016, the latest survey from Westpac Bank revealed on Monday with an index score of 108.0.

That's up from 106.0, and it moves further above the line of 100 that separates optimism from pessimism.

Middle and high income households saw a lift in confidence, the bank said, while lower income homes were more concerns about the economic outlook.

Rural regions showed particular concerns on economic outlook in the years to come, and there was still an air of nervousness about the 's trajectory, the bank said.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

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In attendance at India Today Mind Rocks 2016, Kangana Ranaut shared how one should speak up against all that makes them uncomfortable.

By Mail Today: Her journey in Bollywood has had many bumps but Kangana Ranaut says she has always considered herself an underdog.

"We do have bullies everywhere whether it's school, college or work. You come across a lot of bullies and there is nothing unusual about it and looking back I do believe that you grow that stamina to fight back", she said at the India Today Mind Rocks event.

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"I am not concerned what people say behind my back. My life is just about me. I am not concerned about what's happening behind my back. I prefer to look ahead."



Also Read: Kangana Ranaut on feminism and all it entails

The actress said that very early in her life she faced physical violence and learnt to fight for herself. "I am an underdog. But when I came, I faced giants, people who are ruling the industry."

The actress, 29, said as an adult she could handle what came her way but there was a lot of feminist pressure on her to fight during the recent spat with Hrithik Roshan.







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A first-of-its-kind journey along India and Pakistan border

What binds the two most talked about nations - India and Pakistan together? What makes the
By Ilma Hasan: This Sunday was a busy day for Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung. Not one to take accusations lightly, the LG went on a visit to several hospitals across the Capital to take stock of the situation in the wake of chikungunya and dengue outbreaks.

The visit follows the Aam Aadmi Party's allegation that the LG doesn't want to work on weekends.

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Over the past few days, the LG's office and the Delhi government have been sparring over the government's handling of the health crisis and the former even asking Education Minister Manish Sasodia to cut short his trip to Finland.

JUNG'S ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT



While doing a round of the hospitals, Jung said, "The government at the senior-most level must keep a close watch on the current surge in cases of chikungunya, dengue and malaria."

ALSO READDelhi: Dengue-chikungunya outbreak worries shoo away tourists

He asked Health and Family Welfare Secretary Chandrakar Bharti, who was accompanying him, to give him regular updates on the situation.

NO ONE DIED OF CHIKUNGUNYA



Meanwhile, the Delhi government issued a panel report today ruling out deaths due to chikungunya. Till Saturday, the number of deaths due to complications arising out of chikungunya stood at 15. A committee set up by the government to look into the recent deaths claimed that there had been no confirmed fatalities because of the vector-borne disease.

The panel said the patients suffered from other health complications and chikungunya aggravated their condition. The report listed co-morbidities such as sepsis, kidney injury and pneumonia as complications that may have led to the deaths.

UPDATES FROM THE GROUND LEVEL



The LG and his team on Sunday visited fever clinics, laboratories, emergency/casualty wards at Lok Nayak Hospital, Bara Hindu Rao Hospital, GTB Hospital. Jung spoke with medical superintendents, doctors, patients and hospital staff to assess the situation first-hand.

Jung asked medical superintendents to "ensure that patients with complications, particularly those who are elderly, are attended to with greater care".

On being apprised about the surge in patients on Sundays, the LG asked Bharti to "help provide additional doctors, if required".

ALSO READ

Chikungunya cases in Delhi rise to 560, 12 mobile fever clinics launched



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Last week, the special court under the MPIDA passed an order directing the EOW of Mumbai Police to complete its investigation in Rs 5,600 crore NSEL scam and submit its report, within six months.

By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: Last week, the special court under the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act (MPIDA) passed an order directing the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police to complete its investigation in Rs 5,600 crore National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) scam and submit its report, within six months.

Fact remains, the investigators are yet to submit any evidences, if they have retrieved from seized servers and hard disks of NSEL and Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL), now renamed 63 Moons Ltd, in last three years.

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The Court's deadline is likely to get breached and extension would be in pipeline by Mumbai Police, for the reason that forensic analysis of "huge data" obtained from NSEL-FTIL's servers has not started, till now.

Surprisingly, seeing the state government's attitude and pace of taking decision on one crucial proposal filed by the EOW in this case, the investigation would not get completed even in next six months.

In December 2013, the EOW had seized two servers with almost 40-50 hard disks from the premises of NSEL-FTIL, and were sent to the state forensic science laboratory in Kalina to recover the data. But Mumbai Police is yet to secure any evidence from the data it sent for analysis.

FORENSIC ANALYSTS-CUM-CHARTERED ACCOUNTS HIRED BUT NOTHING HAPPENED

During the course of investigation, forensic experts US Gandhi & Co and Chetan Dalal & Co were hired for the forensic audit and to submit report on brokers - Motilal Oswal, India Infoline, Anand Rathi, Systematix, Geojit, Phillip Commodities, Nirmal Bang, etc. The audit reports had taken three months to complete. Later, based on the audit report, fresh statements were recorded and three brokers were arrested.

Subsequently, both forensic analysts-cum-chartered accounts Dalal and Gandhi were hired for the forensic analysis of NSEL-FTIL servers. But nothing happened beyond. Sources says, both CAs sought a professional fees of at least one crore (per case) for the work, which was unacceptable to the Mumbai Police, who wanted to settle it in few lakhs of rupees.

It is believed that after few legal proceedings, the court directed Mumbai Police and state government to settle down the case by offering an attractive package to both CAs, in order to take this investigation to a logical end.

Some days back, the tight-lipped policemen had drafted a proposal for the state government to give "partial payments" of Rs 20 lakhs and Rs 10 lakhs, respectively, to Chetan Dalal and U S Gandhi. This proposal which has to be approved by the State Home Minister is still lying in Mantralaya, unattended.

NO COMMUNICATION FROM MANTRALAYA: EOW OFFICIALS

The EOW officials have confirmed Indiatoday.in that there has been "no communication from Mantralaya on this proposal", therefore, Mumbai Police is not in a position to direct both CAs to begin their forensic analysis.

Indiatoday.in spoke to Chetan Dalal and U S Gandhi, who are ready to cooperate with Mumbai Police and complete the forensic analysis within the deadline of six months, "if the payment proposal gets clear at the earliest and part payment comes in their hand."

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Chetan Dalal, said, "We have been appointed by Mumbai Police. Thus, it would not be appropriate to make any statement to Press, even if I would love to. It would be better and desirable to speak in presence of police." Dalal requested Indiatoday.in to organise a meeting with Mumbai Police to discuss the issue, but Mumbai Police declined to arrange any such meeting.

Dalal believed that it would be difficult to meet the deadline of six months, if proposal is not cleared soon. "We need to wait and watch. We have to go through proper procedure", Dalal said.

Whereas, U S Gandhi said that deadlines for auditing are not so hard and fast, it could be extended, if required by the Court. "Even if the approval comes by this week, deadline of six months is enough for us. It all depends on what data comes in", Gandhi said.

Gandhi further said, "Initial work has been done by the Kalina Forensic Laboratory, now, the analysis has to be done. The working copy needs to be examined with the mirror images. I understand the mirror copies of servers are available with the EOW. Only the issue is cooperation from borrowers and stakeholders involved in this scam, may or may not come. As they are tough nuts."

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However, both CAs declined to give details of the professional fees which were quoted to Mumbai Police.

Details of Server's data (As per the chargesheet filed by the EOW): Original audited balance sheet of NSEL, original IT returns, journal ledger of margin money, original of Grant Thorton forensic report, original warehouse receipts, annual report of FTIL, original files of membership details of 24 borrowers 22 hard disks (6 from server and 16 from storage) from the FTIL office 24 hard disks from NSEL servers A hard disk and a CPU from NSEL office at Palanpur, Gujarat One hard disk mirror image on blank hard disk each of FTIL, MCX and NSEL from Chennai office From Shah's residence bank statements, demat account number files, books of account, documents related to the IT returns, cash book, bank book, ledger, etc The server is believed to have stored important data related to mails between officials of NSEL and its parent entity FTIL

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MUMBAI POLICE EOW TAMPERED WITH NSEL-FTIL EMAIL SERVERS?

In addition, there were serious allegations on Mumbai Police EOW of tampering with NSEL-FTIL email servers maintained by FTIL. While earlier it was confirmed by the then additional commissioner of police and EOW chief - Rajvardhan Sinha that the mail server of NSEL/FTIL has crashed and has been sent to Bangalore for investigation.

In a surprising about turn now the Mumbai Police deny any such happening. When queries were sent to Sinha by Indiatoday.in, who is now Inspector General of Police (Prisons Department) in Mumbai, he replied back, "I do not remember where it was sent".

Sources within EOW confirm Indiatoday.in that, till now, no servers were sent to Bangalore. "All the initial forensic activities were done in Kalina laboratory". The EOW has obtained the mirror images of both servers, "but now it needs to be examined and analysed forensic by forensic experts".



ALSO READ:

Two company chiefs quizzed by ED in Rs 5,600-crore NSEL scam



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With sign language, I am equal.

This is the theme of the International Week of the Deaf 2016. The celebration will commence tomorrow.

In preparations for the event, the SENESE Inclusive Education Support Service revealed the activities for the week during a press conference on Friday.

Marie Bentin-Toalepaialii, the Director of SENESE, says the theme of this years celebration is fitting.

Next week, we will be having sign language training for selected government ministries and also non-governmental organizations, she said.

The government ministries include the Public Service Commission (P.S.C), Office of the Electoral Commissioner, Law Reform Commission and the Office of the Ombudsman.

The two N.G.Os are the Samoa National Youth Council and the Nuanua ole Alofa.

On Wednesday and Thursday, there will be stalls in front of the Government building to sell coffee, tea, water, and other items and people are asked to use sign language to make their orders.

And thats not all.

For the first time, the SENESE deaf services will be conducting Deaf and sign language awareness for staff and passengers on the lady Samoa Ferry, on Wednesday at 10am at the Mulifanua wharf.

The awareness is to educate our community about the basic signs for when buying tickets, and how to sign please and thank-you.

The purpose of this is mainly to empower the people who are deaf to use the ferry also for staff and the public to feel comfortable and confident to support persons who are deaf.

A sip and sign morning tea event will be held on Thursday everyone is invited to order coffee, water, niu or tea using sign languages from the selected cafes.

They are Coffee Bean, Bean Central, BNHQ, Home Cafe and Krush.

On Friday 23rd, an open day and forum will be held at the S.T.A fale to close the international deaf week.

This will be an opportunity for our people to witness and see people who are deaf in action, as they sign, act and perform based on the theme, said Marie.

Marie wanted to thank all the people and organizations who have offered their support to make the celebration possible.
NEW YORK (AP)  The United States, Japan and South Korea on Sunday roundly condemned North Korea's recent nuclear test and called for tough new measures to further isolate the communist state.

Meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers said the North Korean test earlier this month would not go unanswered. The test was North Korea's fifth and, along with recent ballistic missile launches, has been widely criticized as destabilizing to regional and international security.

Kerry said the U.S. remained deeply committed to its mutual defense obligations with Japan and South Korea and would not shirk in "rolling back the provocative, reckless behavior of" North Korea.

He said the U.S., Japan, South Korea and others would "make it clear to a reckless dictator that all he is doing through his actions is isolating his country, isolating his people and depriving his people of genuine economic opportunity."

"The global community will not be intimidated and will not pull back from our obligations," Kerry said. He called for North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un to freeze Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs immediately and return to denuclearization talks.

The South Korean foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, echoed Kerry's comments, calling North Korea's missile and nuclear tests a "ticking time bomb" and a threat to world safety. "What we see is a looming perfect storm that may not only pounce on Northeast Asia but sweep over the entire world," he said.

The Obama administration has been nudging allies Japan and South Korea to set aside historical differences and cooperate more closely in diplomacy and security as the threat posed by North Korea intensifies.

A statement provided by the office of Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said the three governments "explored ways to work together" to ensure countries fully implement existing U.N. sanctions on North Korea. They also discussed work in the Security Council to tighten the sanctions and the possibility of taking measures of their own to restrict revenue sources for the North's missile and nuclear programs.
Dear Editor

The current political problems in Fiji seem to stem from traditional lands with some political leaders thrown in police cells while meeting to discuss ways to use traditional lands for sugarcane plantations.

Traditional land was a major reason the coups happened in 1987.

The Fiji military position then and seems to be still the same now, is dont touch traditional lands.

The same players are involved, Baba, Chaudry, Rambuka and Fiji Military (Bani).

This is so similar to our own traditional lands which the government is in the process of putting outside of traditional ownership.

Several scenarios can happen with our land and I greatly applaud the work of the four chiefs who are fighting this out with the government and its cohorts.

Some of the Samoa Observers contributors to the Letter to the Editor are also relentless in their efforts highlighting the dangers of what the government is doing.

The conclusion is either the government has been poorly advised, or is ready to make the ultimate sacrifice upon the altar of poverty alleviation, something Banimarama and the Fiji Military are not allowing to happen in Fiji. Our current leaders should make sure our traditional land is ironclad.

Its not negotiable.

INL

Samoa
We know just how judgmental people can be in Samoa; they sit on their high chairs and look down on people without knowing their situation.

For Saumamao Hunkin from the village of Vaitoloa, there are many struggling people in Samoa and many of them resort to making money with whatever means necessary.

Right now I am hearing a lot of rubbish against parents in Samoa who do this work, she told the Village Voice.

According to Saumamao, even if a family is lazy and is living a poor life, it is still classified as poverty. She says that there is poverty in Samoa but you can always make your way out of it.

The way I see things, these days there is poverty in Samoa, she said.

But that doesnt mean you dont have options. Handicrafts are easy to make, with those skills you can make floor mats, different material, and so on; these things can help many people out there along with their families.

According to Saumamao, one of Samoas biggest problems nowadays is the high cost of life.

We are all facing a problem here in Samoa and that problem is the expensive cost of living, she said.

The price of everything has gone up and that is one of the causes of poverty in Samoa. Right now its just really hard to get what you need because of costs.

Thats why I believe that we should return to the old ways and to our village to make things like the handicrafts I have displayed here. It will surely help us a lot with our lives.

Returning to the old way of life is seen by Saumamao as Samoas best hope of getting back on track.

If we return to the old ways then we can make all sorts of things with what we have available to us and we will see just how easy life can be, she said.

You can use them for your house and you can also sell them for money. If you have no money then its a great way to start out and then you go along and find other ways to make money.

So thats why I am still doing these handicrafts; its good money, I can teach it to my children and anyone else who is struggling and needs something like this.
Twenty four year old Tanimo Peto of Sinamoga walked free from the Supreme Court yesterday after Justice Lesatele Vaai decided not to impose a custodial sentence on him.

Despite Prosecution seeking a custodial penalty of 18 months, Justice Lesatele decided not to send Peto to jail but to take into account his fathers request to impose a monetary penalty.

Peto appeared for sentencing yesterday after pleading guilty to a charge of grievous bodily harm.

Also in court was his father, Mr Peto Laifai of Sinamoga who asked for the courts leniency not to impose a custodial penalty for his son.

I humbly ask for a monetary penalty for my son and not to send him to prison because he and his wife are the only ones looking after me at home, pleaded Mr Laifai.

Peto was in tears as he told the court that he is deeply remorseful for what happened and being in custody had taught him a big lesson because he said, that place is not a good place for him.

Your Honour, I cant afford to go back to jail but I can afford to pay any fine given to me.

Justice Lesatele said this kind of offence is becoming very common in Samoa.

He told the accused that his victim had been taken to the hospital as a result of his actions, and he has had to report to the hospital every week for four weeks.

You didnt offer to apologize, to pay any of those expenses or apologize to the victim and this shows a lack of remorse from you.

However, some of the mitigating factors that the court took into account in favour of the accused were the fact he is a first offender, his age and his ability to pay a substantial fine.

Peto is 24 years of age, was in steady employment before this incident happened and the court also considered his fathers plea.

I have decided not to give a custodial sentencing but will give a penalty to reflect the seriousness of this kind of offence.

Tanimo Peto was convicted and sentenced to 12 months probation. He was also ordered to attend any anger management programme conducted by the Probation Office and any other related programmes.

Peto was ordered to pay a fine of $1000 for police costs through the Probation Office to be paid $200 monthly with the first payment to be made on the 20th September 2016.
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Californias decision to go soft on crime has been hard on its homeless population, and perhaps soon on the rest of us.

Police, social workers and street people agree on one thing: Criminals are flooding into the homeless population, lifting the numbers of both perpetrators and victims inside this most-vulnerable segment of the community.

One major cause appears to be Proposition 47, a statewide initiative approved by voters in 2014 that converted a slew of nonviolent felony crimes into misdemeanors, including possession of heroin, methamphetamine and other highly addictive drugs. Now patrol officers essentially write tickets to people who would have faced prison time. Critics call it catch and release.

The basic logic was sound. For the recreational drug user or nascent thief, theres little sense in resorting first to a felony conviction, which worsens the odds in lifes lottery for achieving everything from secure employment to successful marriage. Besides, keeping people in prison is expensive.

However, the laws authors got key details badly wrong. For openers, light penalties stay light, instead of escalating for repeat offenders. Prop. 47 treats chronic addicts and occasional users essentially the same. And promised state funding for rehabilitation remains just that, a promise.

The result is an increase in squalor and hopelessness, in plain view on San Diego streets.

Im a felon, and people dont want to hire a felon, said Amanda Wandersee, an HIV-infected addict who lives in a tent in downtown San Diegos East Village.

Wandersee said she kicked drugs during a 2010 prison term and stayed sober for three years, during which she held a job and attended community college with a goal to work as a recovery counselor.

But she relapsed in 2014. Now shes stuck.

If I could get a job Id be alright, she said during our recent chat, both of us ignoring the capped hypodermic needles sticking out of her bra. I dont want to keep selling drugs. Its not a career.

Two years ago, merely possessing small amounts of a hard drug like heroin and meth carried the threat of jail term. The convicted user was given a stark choice: Go to jail or submit to a court-supervised treatment program for a year or more.

Prop. 47 has removed the threat of prison, so addicts increasingly lack motivation to bother with rehab  to dramatic effect on society.

Crime trends usually take shape over years, with change coming gradually. Not this time.

From January through June, San Diego police booked about half as many adults into jail on narcotics charges as they did two years ago (from 3,014 to 1,609). Some of the plunge is explained by rising misdemeanor citations (from 398 to 1,320 over six months), but not all.

Either way, the figures suggest that 3,000 or so heavy drug users will avoid significant jail time this year, just in the city of San Diego. Misdemeanors dont send people to prison.

In theory, this could be a good thing. Prison is brutal, costly and life-altering.

The problem is that drug addicts tend to steal, and Prop. 47 also sharply reduced consequences for grand theft, forgery, shoplifting and other crimes if they involved less than $950.

This change, too, is showing up with astonishing speed in statistics that measure the crimes of opportunity favored by addicts trying to stay loaded.

Consider the first six months of this year, compared to the same period in 2015: Larceny was up 6 percent, residential burglary up 10 percent, car prowls up 17 percent, and motor vehicle theft was 21 percent higher.

Violent crimes that get more public attention  murder, rape and robbery  have surged by double-digits, too. However, their numbers are smaller, so experts caution against drawing conclusions.

Fuzzy statistics are typical in the early stages of major changes to law enforcement policy. Even though conditions are worsening rapidly on some urban streets, most of us live in safer neighborhoods. Its too soon to tell if disorder will spread to the rest of society. Maybe.

I think the only honest answer at this point is that nobody really knows how (Prop. 47) has worked out, said Elliott Currie, a professor of criminology and law at UC Irvine.

Currie points out that Californias tough-on-crime pendulum has been swinging toward leniency for more than a decade.

In 2000, Proposition 36 sent nonviolent addicts to drug courts that could divert people from jail terms to probation, provided they completed a licensed treatment program.

That idea seemed to work. One study found the change saved taxpayers $2.50 for every $1 of public spending, although another study found high rates of re-arrest.

Drug courts are a pretty good intervention, Currie said, with the caveat that theyve never gotten enough funding. Before, we had far more people wanting treatment than we had treatment.

Next came realignment, a series of court rulings and legislation that, starting in 2011, has pushed tens of thousands of criminals from crowded prisons to crowded county jails, which in turn released similar numbers into communities. Many of those people had nowhere to go.

In the short term, less crowding lets officials keep more of the really bad guys to serve their full sentences. However, the broken windows theory of policing suggests that substantial increases in low-level crime can eventually lead to far worse problems.

We are frustrated, because some of the tools in our toolbox were taken away, and they were not replaced, said San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman.

Symptoms of rising disorder are readily apparent in my neighborhood in coastal Oceanside. Bicycle thefts are soaring. Victims reported 152 car break-ins in a single month this summer in the otherwise touristy downtown area.

Ive talked to a dozen or so patrol officers, and they exhibit frustration that borders on hopelessness. Sure, they can haul a truly deranged, violent meth addict to jail. But busting anybody at a lesser level of abuse is truly a waste of time.

Every cop, it seems, has a story of losing half a patrol shift to processing citation paperwork only to see the suspect a few hours later riding a stolen bike down the street.

Theres also a troubling harbinger. In the old days, detectives relied heavily on informants, usually addicts trying to avoid jail. Now snitches are rare, because everybody knows a possession arrest is no big deal.

In the meantime, other parts of the legal system are overwhelmed, as Prop. 47 shifts thousands of cases from county prosecutors to city attorneys more accustomed to code violations and civil lawsuits, with just a smattering of misdemeanors.

Officials with the San Diego city attorneys office recently told its city council that in 2015 drug charges jumped by 38 percent, thefts by 65 percent, and combinations of the two charges by 184 percent.

Repeat offenders are more common and brazen. Many pick up new charges before a first court appearance. One defendant racked up 10 drug cases in 15 months that prompted 59 hearings.

By having fewer crimes defined as felonies, Prop. 47 also has pushed down the number of cases the district attorneys office handles. How much isnt clear, because San Diego County officials dont track drug felonies separately.

In rapidly gentrifying downtown San Diego, friction among new residents and the homeless is intensifying.

You dont want to see someone shooting heroin if you are walking down the street with your kids, said Bahija Hamraz, the former head of Clean & Safe, a nonprofit that works to improve conditions downtown.

At Father Joes Villages, the sprawling service agency for the homeless, veteran social workers say the mood is palpably darker.

Street people report more beatings from suburban thrill seekers. Kids drive downtown to shoot the homeless with paint balls.

Crimes between street people is rising. Welfare recipients have trouble protecting cash. Wheelchairs, which can sell for $100 apiece, are easy targets.

Some predation hardly seems rational. I recently met a guy the day after somebody stole his prosthetic leg.

Zimmerman, the police chief, said there is a harder edge in the homeless population.

The most horrific recent example is potentially more confusing than illuminating.

Beginning on the night of July 6, police say, Jon David Guerrero began attacking homeless men in San Diego while they slept, using a hammer to drive railroad stakes into their chests or skulls before setting some on fire. Before police arrested him in August, they said he killed three homeless men and badly injured two others.

Yet Guerrero, a former street resident with mental illness, was among the few getting plenty of help. Hed been living in subsidized housing for about two years, where he got psychiatric treatment that included powerful anti-psychotic medication.

No change in state law can explain the behavior of which Guerrero is accused. One lesson is that terrible violence will always be with us, despite everybodys best efforts.

Still, the odds are getting worse. San Diegos downtown population of homeless living outdoors has surged 71 percent since 2014. Suburbs are seeing less dramatic, but still worrisome, increases.

It may be too soon to know whether cutting the population inside our jails is the primary cause, but the evidence is accumulating.

Zimmerman says that her departments calls related to mental health (including substance abuse) are up 100 percent over the last couple of years.

Always tough, policing is getting tougher. Assaults on officers are up, while the pool of recruits is shrinking.

Over the years, Ive learned to consider crime statistics with great care. As violent crime fell for 20 years until 2015 in most cities, fear of crime actually increased, according to national polls.

Politicians over-reacted to public opinion with a historic incarceration binge. Automatically defaulting to prison for mere possession makes no sense.

So far, state lawmakers are largely waiting to gauge the overall effects of Prop. 47. Last year, legislators confined adjustments to beefing up sentences for stealing a gun or using date-rape drugs.

In theory, such restraint is wise. Yet the real world calls for action from Sacramento.

I suggest a long talk with Zimmerman, followed by lunch at Father Joes. A night in a Skid Row tent in downtown Los Angeles wouldnt hurt.

Californias latest big policy experiment is landing hard on our streets.
San Diegos waterfront is facing a dramatic makeover as a result of key decisions by the port board in the last nine months.

Most recently, the San Diego Unified Port District commissioners approved OliverMcMillan and Sunroad Enterprises to redevelop the eastern part of Harbor Island and the former rental car lots on Harbor Drive.

Earlier they greenlighted the redevelopment of Seaport Village into a mixed-use complex of hotels, shops and tourist attractions; the replacement of Anthonys Fish Grotto with a Brigantine set of restaurants and bars; and a rebooting of a 45-story hotel proposal behind the San Diego Convention Center.

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All this is follows the 2013 approval of a 50-year vision for San Diego Bay and precedes a new master plan expected in the next two or three years.

The bayfront is coming alive with all these wonderful land uses, said Port Chairman Marshall Merrifield. We couldnt be more excited about connecting that vision with reality.

Added Port President and CEO Randa Coniglio: I think we have more going on all at once than we probably have ever had in the ports history in terms of contemplated development.

If all projects planned, proposed and approved are built, the port could see billions of dollars in new development and millions more it receives in rent from the state tidelands it oversees.

Some critics say the port should finish its master plan before approving these and other major projects. They call the current approach a continuation of the ports habit of piecemeal planning, reflected in the 38 amendments to the ports 1980 master plan.

But Jason Giffen, the ports top planner, said the approach being taken reflects both hopes for the future and the practical side of what the private sector is interested in doing. Ultimately the California Coastal Commission will have to approve a new master plan with all the new developments included.

Were able to test ideas by looking strategically around the bay for areas ripe for development, activation or new infusion of planning, Giffen said.

The port has more than 100 big and small projects and improvements in the works. Here are 19 high-profile ones from north to south (see interactive map for locations) and where they stand.

Key port projects: An update

1. Shelter Island: A $9.5 million boat launch was approved last month to handle the 50,000 and growing launches a year, believed the busiest such facility in the state. Construction is due to begin early next year. More broadly, the port is considering more dramatic improvements to the man-made peninsula built in the 1950s. Forums with nearby residents and businesses are expected to be a key feature.

2. Harbor Island: The ports approval of OliverMcMillan and Sunroad Enterprises as dual developers for 57 acres of land and water of Harbor Island East means both companies will have to return with revised plans before they sign exclusive negotiating agreements. Two key changes are likely the elimination of a high-rise hotel at the so-called elbow of land that connects the man-made peninsula with Harbor Drive; a low-rise hotel is more likely, given previous California Coastal Commission preferences; and the elimination of a new port headquarters building in light of the projected $60 million cost. That site could be reconfigured for another or larger hotel. No date has been set for when new plans are ready for port consideration.

3. Grape Street piers: The so-called Crescent, where Harbor Drive bends to the south, has wooden piers that need to be replaced and various ideas to increase recreational opportunities, such as the inclusion of a man-made beach. The look and function of Harbor Drive south of Grape Street also figures into what will happen.

The Solar Turbines parking lot has been looked at a possible hostel site. (Roger Showley/UT )

4. Solar Turbines parking lot: The port previously considered replacing the lot with a low-cost hostel facility. Port President Randa Coniglio says the goal is to move parking off the bayfront but replacement parking and mobility issues remain unclear. An ad hoc port board committee is looking at these issues. Meanwhile, a new project on the lot has yet to be formally sought.

5. North Embarcadero Visionary Plan: The port completed the $30 million first phase between B Street Pier and Broadway Pier last year, but the end to redevelopment financing makes it problematic to move forward on the next phase. The port plans to reopen discussions, starting with the joint powers authority of the port, city and Civic San Diego and perhaps bringing back the Navy and county government as planning partners.

6. B Street Pier: The cruise ship terminal will get a $1 million escalator to improve passenger access but the long-term replacement of the old warehouse will have to await long-term commitments to cruise ship companies to home porting in San Diego. Its hard to consider, relative to all other things were doing, to spend tens of millions of dollars when the cruise ship industry is so volatile, Coniglio said.

7. Anthonys/Brigantine: The port entered exclusive negotiations with Brigantine Restaurants last year to replace Anthonys Fish Grotto, a 70-year fixture on the bay, with a $13 million Portside Pier, which includes a steak-and-seafood Brigantine, Miguels Mexican and Ketch Grill & Taps plus an expanded dock-and-dine pier. Opening is expected in 2018.

The Navy Facilities Engineering Command offices at 1220 Pacific Highway date back to the 1940s. (Roger Showley/UT )

8. Navy Facilities Engineering Command: The Navy occupies 1940s-era buildings at 1220 Pacific Highway, squeezed between the Wyndham Hotel and the recently opened Lane Field hotels with 400 rooms by Marriott, Residence Inn and SpringHillSuites. The Navy once sought $26.5 million in relocation payments and discussions have proceeded behind the scenes to negotiate a change. The Navy holds a lease on the location that doesnt expire until 2049.

9. Lane Field InterContinental Hotel: Construction began earlier this year on the 18-story, $215 million, 400-room hotel, a twin to the Marriott hotels building to the north. Completion is expected in 2018.

10. Navy Pier: The USS Midway Museum proposed turning the pier into Veterans Park on an elevated landscaped deck, above surface parking, and inclusion of an iconic 500-foot-high sculpture, Wings of Freedom, that resembles sails or wings. This idea, along with a Ferris wheel proposed by several companies, prompted the port to set aside individual project proposals and to embark on a comprehensive rewrite of its master plan. The look and function of the pier are expected to be addressed in the plan.

11. Seaport Village: The port board voted in July to focus on the team proposing the $1.3 billion Seaport San Diego redevelopment. If exclusive negotiations commence following an October board update, then developers represented by Yehudi Gaf Gaffen propose to replace the 36-year-old specialty shopping center with hotels, shops, restaurants, a beach, aquarium and 480-foot observation tower, The Spire. Pending final board and California Coastal Commission approval, the first phase could open in 2020.

12. San Diego Convention Center and Fifth Avenue Landing hotel: Future expansion of the 27-year-old center hinges in part on the Nov. 8 ballot Measure C, championed by the Chargers, and Measure D, the Citizens Plan, which both have to do with convention and stadium planning. Meanwhile, the port has approved more than $20 million in infrastructure bank loans to repair the Sails Pavilion on the roof. Behind the center, the port authorized environmental review for the Fifth Avenue Landing hotel for up to 850 rooms and a 565-bed low-priced hotel.

13. 10th Avenue Marine Terminal: The port is nearing completion on environmental review of a reconfiguration of the terminal to remove two cargo sheds and build more flexibility in the break-bulk, refrigerated container and bulk cargo operations.

14. San Diego-Coronado Bridge: A proposed lighting project is moving forward toward a possible completion 2019, the 50th anniversary of the bridge and 250th anniversary of the founding of San Diego. About $500,000 has been raised to start a feasibility study and confirm if the original $8 million budget is accurate. The port hopes to fund the project from port tenant art budgets.

15. Bay cleanup: Contaminant and pollution removal has made the bay the cleanest its been in 15 years, port planners say, and continued efforts aim to make it fishable, swimmable and ecologically healthy. Increased use of paddle boards, kayaks and other hand-launched watercraft would be possible from new piers and beaches.

Thousands of cars wait to be distributed at the National City Marine Terminal where Pasha Automotive Services takes in and ships out cars via land sea and rail. (John Gibbins/UT )

16. National City Marina District: The 60 acres encompassing the National City Marine Terminal, operated by Pasha Automotive Services, Pier 32 marina and Pepper Park would be rebalanced to increase the park by 50 percent and widen the maritime acreage through street closures and reconfiguration. The environmental analysis, authorized in April, will take up to 24 months.

17. Chula Vista Bayfront: The port is negotiating with RIDA Development in 2015 to build a resort hotel and convention facility on the 535-acre site. Earlier this year the port and Pacifica Companies agreed to a land swap to allow Pacifica to build the 1,500 units, 15,000 square feet of retail and a 250-room hotel. The port received an environmentally sensitive area in return.

18. Artificial oyster reef: An artificial reef is being considered for the area south of the Chula Vista Marina and nonedible oysters would be planted to help clean bay water. Elsewhere in the bay the port is looking for places to lease for aquaculture farming.

19. Pond 20: The port selected a consultant earlier this year to plan the creation of a wetlands mitigation bank. Developers mitigation for their projects impact elsewhere would benefit the restoration of the 84-acre along Palm Avenue.

roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the Mewat gang-rape case and the beef sample collection controversy are trivial issues

By Press Trust of India: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar dismissed the Mewat double murder cum gang-rape case and the beef controversy as "trivial issues".

The CM made this statement while speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of the 'Swarna Jayanti' event to mark 50 years of Haryana on Saturday.

THESE ARE NO ISSUES



Asked about the beef biryani issue and the CBI probe into the gang rape of two sisters in Mewat, Khattar said, "These are trivial issues and I don't pay much attention to these small issues. Today, we should be talking about Swarna Jayanti."

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ALSO READ

Mewat murder and gangrape: Yechury writes to Rajnath, seeks action against cow vigilantes



Khattar said such cases can happen anywhere in the country. "Collecting samples of beef biryani and double murder cum gang-rape case of two sisters is not an issue according to me. These were petty issues compared to the golden jubilee celebrations and could take anywhere in the country," the minister said.

HOUR OF SHAME

A 20-year-old woman and her 14-year-old cousin were sexually assaulted by several men at their home in Mewat on August 24. Their uncle and aunt were tied up and beaten to death.

Ahead of Eid, Haryana Cow Protection Task Force in Charge-DIG Bharti Arora and Gau Sewa Aayog Chairman Bhani Ram Mangla had conducted a drive to check biryani and collected samples from Mewat on September 8.

Later, Haryana minister Anil Vij said that all seven samples contained beef.

ALSO READ

Mewat: Police taking bribes from vendors to allow sale of beef biryani



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DEL MAR  Woodstock was never like this.

KAABOO Del Mar, which concludes its second annual three-day run Sunday at the Del Mar Racetrack and fairgrounds, is a uniquely mud-free, muss-free festival. While its open to all ages, its target audience is older, well-heeled music fans who enjoy the finer things in life and dont mind paying extra for VIP perks.

Those perks include: a pool overlooking the festivals second largest outdoor stage; corporate cabanas; concierge service; wine tastings; hot air balloon rides; on-stage access to watch such KAABOO headlining acts as Jimmy Buffett, Lenny Kravitz and Aerosmith; and more. There are also meet-and-greets with performers and celebrity chefs, surfing lessons from a legend, poker lessons and chauffeured Mercedes-Benz rides for festival attendees staying in area hotels.

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The cost for such amenities isnt cheap: Hang Ten passes for KAABOO, the most expensive VIP option, cost $2,499 each. Those sold out well in advance.

This isnt just a music festival, said KAABOO founder Bryan E. Gordon, the Denver-based chairman of The Madison Companies LLC, the multibillion-dollar private investment firm he co-founded in 1996. Its a comedy festival, a food festival, a drink festival and a lifestyle festival.

KAABOO also boasts an enormous indoor spa area, where attendees can get their hair and nails done, enjoy a hot shave, and be pampered in ways that would have been unthinkable at the fabled 1969 Woodstock festival in upstate New York  which famously had no infrastructure, no security, no ticket-takers and monsoon-like rains that created a mass mud bath.

This isnt like other festivals. They have massages! a suitably impressed Buffett told the overflow audience at his Friday night performance.

That performance, incidentally, took place on the Mercedes-Benz Sunset Cliffs Stage. And, yes, for potential luxury car-buyers, there was a sleek fleet of new Mercedes parked facing the stage.

KAABOO representatives declined to release attendance figures. But thanks largely to Saturdays lineup including the first appearance anywhere in a year by Aerosmith and a performance by hot young buzz act The Chainsmokers  attendance for Saturday was estimated at nearly 40,000, the events legal daily capacity.

Weve experienced incredible progress on every front, Gordon said. We have met or exceeded just about every metric weve set for ourselves.

Gordon designed KAABOO to appeal to all ages, but with a particular emphasis on attracting older, more affluent festivalgoers who like being pampered. He also hopes his upscale event can fill the void left by Street Scene, the homegrown San Diego music festival that was launched in 1984, grew and thrived for two decades, then fell victim to declining attendance and financial losses before folding 2009.

So how does KAABOO stack up for Rob Hagey, Street Scenes founder and producer?

Theyre doing a wonderful job, said Hagey, who also attended KAABOO last year. It cost a lot to appeal to an older audience like this, and they do an excellent job.

Hagey smiled as he gestured toward two gray-haired male attendees, one in a Billy Joel T-shirt, the other in a Return to Forever T-shirt.

Youd never see people wearing those T-shirts at another festival, he said, before citing a more important distinction for KAABOO.

Its rare to see acts like Jimmy Buffett and Aerosmith perform at any festival. KAABOO really took the extra steps, and the expense, to get a lineup that stands out  and that appeals to an older audience. Its a long way from Woodstock!

Except, that is, in the enormous building at KAABOO that houses art work, including paintings by Grace Slick, who performed at Woodstock as a member of the San Francisco band Jefferson Airplane.

One of her pieces, which depicts a large white rabbit in a vest holding a pocket watch, is priced at $4,500. Another of her paintings, titled Queens Table, is priced at $12,500  $5,000 more than the Airplane was paid to perform at Woodstock.

Twitter @georgevarga

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

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An Oceanside woman was sentenced to 21 years to life in prison for intentionally drowning her toddler son after learning shed have to split custody of the boy with his father.

Veronica Rivas, 30, pleaded guilty in Vista Superior Court last month  three weeks before trial  to second-degree murder and willful cruelty to a child.

In September 2014, Rivas placed 21-month-old Elijah in the bathtub of her familys Oceanside condo and held his head underwater until he stopped fighting, authorities said. When the boy regained consciousness, she called her estranged boyfriend  the childs father  to ask him to give up his custody rights. When he said no, Rivas held the child underwater again until he died, prosecutors said.

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In court Friday, the boys father, Marine Sgt. Juan Concha, addressed Rivas as he clutched a blue stuffed elephant  the toy his son had slept with.

Remember this? the 30-year-old asked, holding a long stare at Rivas.How do you kill a 2-year-old? How do you hold Elijahs head underwater?

He told Rivas that young, innocent Elijah didnt do anything to you. He wished her a long life, adding I hope you think about it every night and every morning.

Rivas remained mostly expressionless while he spoke. Concha said he should have been getting ready to celebrate his sons birthday  Elijah would have been 4 this November  not speaking at the sentencing for his murder.

How do you kill a kid? Concha asked. How do you hold Elijahs head underwater not once, but twice? Do you even care?

After a tense and quiet moment, Concha wiped his eyes, picked up the toy and walked away.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Claudia Grasso told Judge Richard Monroy that Rivas actions were all committed out of revenge and spite.

From the beginning, this baby was a pawn to her that she used to get back at Mr. Concha, Grasso said. The minute he moved on  she would not allow him to see the baby.

Five days after Concha formally asked for custody, Rivas told police she suspected he was abusing the boy, the prosecutor said. The ensuing investigation by three agencies, including Oceanside police and child social workers, found no merit to the allegation.

The day after she learned she would have to share custody of Elijah, Rivas drowned him.

She was about to pick up her son from his baby-sitters home around noon on Sept. 10 when she decided to kill him, Grasso said. Rivas told police: I had to put him down for his own protection.

At her familys home, Rivas poured herself a drink and filled the tub in an upstairs bathroom as the toddler ran around in his diaper, Grasso said. She then put him in the tub and held his face down. But he was a sturdy little guy, who fought, who struggled, Grasso said.

Rivas thought Elijah was dead, but he regained consciousness.

And instead of feeling that remorse  she called Mr. Concha to continue the fight, Grasso said.

After they hung up, out of anger, out of spite, out of revenge, she got the baby a second time and immersed him in the tub until she killed him, the prosecutor said. Revenge, spite, thats all it was.

Veronica Rivas was sentenced to 21 years to life in the murder of her 21-month old son. (John Gibbins/San Diego Union-Tribune)

Rivas did not make a statement during the hearing. Last month, public defense attorney Daniel Segura said his client was tremendously remorseful. When she was arrested two years ago, her arraignment was delayed as she was on suicide watch.

Her family attended Fridays hearing, but did not comment.

Rivas must serve 21 years  she has already served two as she waiting for trial  before she is eligible for parole.

Concha said the stuffed toy is the only item of his sons that he has. The sergeant, who is from New York, said he hopes to permanently remain in California for one reason: My son is buried here.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

Figueroa writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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A powerful explosion Saturday night in New York City and another one earlier in the day in the nearby resort town of Seaside Park, N.J., set nerves on edge.

The explosion in New Yorks Chelsea district caused 29 injuries, one serious. Authorities said that the blast was apparently intentional, but that there was no immediate evidence of terrorism.

The explosion in New Jersey was caused by a pipe bomb planted along the route of a charity 5-kilometer race.

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The blasts do not appear to be linked.

In a late-night news conference, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, joined by local and federal law enforcement officials, said there was no evidence connecting the Chelsea blast to terrorism.

There is no specific and credible threat against New York City from any terror organization, De Blasio said.

The explosion occurred about 8:30 p.m. on 23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. None of the injuries appear to be life-threatening.

The cause was unclear, though authorities ruled out a natural gas blast.

De Blasio said there was no evidence linking the blast to the pipe bomb in New Jersey.

The New York Daily News reported that police were investigating a possible second device in a pressure cooker found a few blocks away on 27th Street.

It had to be a bomb, said Steven Ochs, 43, who was eating paella inside a Spanish restaurant when the blast hit. There was just one big explosion, no smoke or fire, but the smell of gunpowder was present. There was one big, big explosion. Then there were all these dust particles swirling around. It was a scene of chaos and madness.

The blast, Ochs said, appeared to come from street level  consistent with reports that it came from a dumpster  and it blew out the windows of passing cars and an adjacent mid-rise apartment building.

Ochs saw one older man who was bleeding, apparently injured by flying glass. A video he took on his phone showed traffic stanchions and garbage blowing around the street as though in a whirlpool.

Police cordoned off six square blocks of the fashionable Chelsea neighborhood and closed some subway lines.

It is very unsettling after everything that has happened in New York, said Chandler Buning, 23, who stood shivering in a sundress near the roadblock, unable to get back to the Hilton Hotel where she had been staying.

Buning said she and her friends had heard the explosion from inside the hotel. It was this very loud noise that wasnt your typical New York kind of noise. At first we didnt take it seriously, but then we heard the sirens and the helicopters overhead.

About an hour after the New York explosion, before authorities had discussed the incident, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told supporters at a Colorado rally that a bomb went off and America must get tough on terrorism.

I must tell you that just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows exactly whats going on. But, boy, we are really in a time  we better get very tough, folks, Trump said in Colorado Springs.

No injuries were reported in the blast that shook Seaside Park around 9:30 a.m., shortly before thousands of runners were to participate in the race to benefit Marines and sailors.

According to the Associated Press, officials would not say whether they believe the incident was terrorism-related. The pipe bomb was in a plastic garbage can when it exploded.

The race had been scheduled to start shortly before the blast occurred, but it was delayed because of the large number of people registering and reports of an unattended backpack. Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County prosecutors office, told AP that if the race had started on time, a good number of people would have been running past the area where the explosion occurred.

barbara.demick@latimes.com

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

Demick reported from New York and Finnegan from Colorado Springs.

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UPDATES:

10:35 p.m.: This article was updated with eyewitness accounts and other details.

9:25 p.m.: This article was updated with more information and to report 29 people were injured in the New York explosion

8:25 p.m.: This article was updated with more information about the investigation.

8 p.m.: This article was updated with an account from a witness and other details.

7:20 p.m.: This article was updated with the number of people injured.

6:45 p.m.: This article was updated with a City Council member saying the FBI was on scene.

This article was originally published at 6:30 p.m.
Thousands of volunteers from Oceanside to Imperial Beach descended on San Diegos coastline and an array of sites inland on Saturday for a laudable and yucky reason:

Picking up trash.

The volunteers collected cigarette butts, bottles, cans, plastics of all kinds  lots of plastics  that litter the beach areas and inland spots such as lakes and rivers along the countys 70 miles of coastline.

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This was the 32 annual Coastal Cleanup Day cleanup and was coordinated by the longtime coastal advocacy group I Love A Clean San Diego.

An estimated 7,500 volunteers made their way to ocean beaches as well as inland spots such as Lake Hodges in Escondido, Paradise Creek in National City and Miramar Lake to clean up.

Similar scenes occurred in more than 50 nations around the world on International Coastal Cleanup Day. It has become the largest single-day volunteer event in California, said Nicole Ahlering, marketing director for I Love A Clean San Diego.

At the 114 designated sites volunteers collected about 75 tons of trash, organizers said. Among the items collected: a car fender, vinyl records, several couches, and even dentures.

At Torrey Pines State Beach some 250 people signed up, donned gloves and carried bags or plastic buckets to collect debris.

I would say over 50 percent of what we find is plastic, said Wainwright Hester, the site captain for the beach cleanup who coordinates the volunteers.

In all, volunteers at the Torrey Pines site will typically collect between 150 and 200 pounds of trash during the three-hour long event, he said.

Its great that we get people out there who are willing to take their time, he said. Its sad we have to it.

Marci Stewart of Rancho Bernardo and her 9-year-old daughter Kaylee came to the beach as part of a project for their Girl Scouts troop.

Just after 10 a.m. the haul from patrolling the area wasnt huge.

Plastic bags, birthday candles, cigarette butts, she said, ticking off the most prevalent items they found. Im actually surprised its cleaner.

She said the family has done this before  her husband and daughter were also on hand to clean up  and planned to do it again.

Good weather, it gets you outside and to the beach, she said. Its a good family event, and youre doing something that will benefit everyone. We plan on doing it again next year.

The message of a cleaner beach, and the inland areas that form the larger watershed that eventually ends up on the coast, appears to be working.

The 94 tons of trash collected in 2015 though substantial was actually down from the 102 tons collected in 2014, Ahlering said.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
Three men were stabbed when a fight broke out at an Oak Park party early Saturday, San Diego police said.

Two men in their 20s were suspected in the assaults, but were not immediately arrested.

The party was being held at a home on Caminito Mindy. Police were called about 12:20 a.m. after a 21-year-old man was stabbed several times in the torso and legs, police Sgt. Ray Battrick said.

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Another victim, age 23, suffered a minor leg wound.

Paramedics took both men to hospitals. The younger man had major wounds but is expected to survive, Battrick said.

The third victim, 21, turned up at a hospital with a stab wound to his abdomen.

Battrick said there were reports that a gun was fired during the fight, but no gunshot victims or evidence were found.

Police did not know what sparked the fight.
By PTI: Srinagar, Sep 18 (PTI) Militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army at Uri, 102 kms from here, in the wee hours today, with explosions and heavy gunfire heard at the spot.

Though it was not immediately known if there was any casualty, sources said that some army men suffered burn injuries.

The attack began at around 0400 hours and the number of militants was believed to be three.

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Immediately after the militants entered the camp, explosions and exchange of heavy fire were heard from inside, official sources said.

Initially, the attack was understood to be at the Brigade Headquarters but sources in the Army said it was at the rear formation of a battalion that was deployed at the Line of Control (LoC).

Helicopters were pressed into service to deploy Special Forces of the Army and to evacuate the injured.

The injured army men have been rushed to Army base hospital in Srinagar, the sources said.PTI MIJ SKL KIS DV

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Anahuacs famous Gatorfest, a weekend of entrainment, education and fun, is not only an event to celebrate the end of alligator hunting season
Samajwadi Party's comeback man Amar Singh seems to have survived the political storm of the Mulayam family as the party chief threw his weight behind him in the teeth of opposition from UP chief minster Akhilesh Yadav and a number of senior leaders.

By Javed M. Ansari : All the big wigs in the Samajwadi Party were ranged against him. UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and senior SP leader Prof Ram Gopal Yadav have seldom been on the same page with the powerful and unpredictable UP minister Azam Khan, but were united in their desire to push Amar Singh out of the party. As were a large number of other senior party leaders.

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Many predicted that he would be the collateral damage in the current round of infighting within the Yadav family. But the irrepressible Amar Singh has emerged unscathed, with Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav backing him to the hilt.

"I am not in a habit of ditching friends. He (Amar Singh) stood by me in my worst times and I cannot dump him now," said the SP chief on Sunday.

MULAYAM ROCK SOLID BEHIND AMAR SINGH

Mulayam's vote of confidence could not have come at a better time for the beleaguered Amar Singh. He was being blamed for the current round of infighting in the family and of instigating the SP chief against his son, Akhilesh Yadav.

Ram Gopal Yadav, Azam Khan and the chief minister made little attempt to disguise their antipathy for him by describing him as the "outsider". Akhilesh even made it clear that he would no longer refer to him as uncle.

But Amar Singh appears to have survived all attempts to push him out and to get Netaji, as Mulayam Singh Yadav is popularly known, to disown him. The combined efforts of Amar Singh's detractors have had the opposite affect, it earned him a ringing endorsement from the SP chief.

LOW BUT NOT OUT

Mulayam Singh reinducted Amar Singh into the party in the teeth of opposition from cousin Ram Gopal, son Akhilesh and loyalist Azam khan. Unlike the unbridled power and access that he enjoyed in his earlier avtaar in the party, Amar Singh has had to maintain a low profile in the party ever since his re-entry.

Amar Singh has been largely ignored by his party in the Rajya Sabha, and relegated to one of the back rows in the house. He has had to suffer the mortification of not being given a chance to speak on behalf of the party in parliament.

Despite all this, Amar Singh soldiered on with support from UP SP chief Shivpal Yadav. Mulayam Singh's unequivocal endorsement at a time when most of the senior leaders in his party were baying for his blood, should put an end to speculation about his position and future in the Samajwadi Party at least for now.

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Akhilesh Yadav hands back Shivpal his portfolios, assures Gayatri Prajapatis induction in Cabinet

SP leaders blame outsider Amar Singh for pushing party to brink of collapse

Amar Singh is a daga kartoos, not returning to Samajwadi Party, says Azam Khan







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Amid tons of rumors floating about Microsoft's alleged Surface Phone 2016 release date, specs and pricing details, the Redmond might have just dropped the biggest hint teasing the existence of the highly anticipated Surface Phone 2016.

According to Express.co.uk, Microsoft Australia accidentally posted a picture on its official Twitter account which showcased a rectangular silhouette, which is expected to be of the Surface Phone 2016, along with the Surface Pro 4 tablet and Surface Book laptop. The promotional image had a caption which read "New One in Surface family!" It is to be noted that the picture had the official Microsoft logo stamped on it. The fact that the alleged picture came from one of Microsoft's official regional Twitter page adds some sort of legitimacy to the leak. The picture has been already deleted from the account.

There are also reports which claim that Microsoft's upcoming line of Surface Phone 2016 will replace the Lumia series. The software giant is rumored to end the production of Lumia smartphones by the end of 2016. Notably, the company is yet to officially announce the discontinuation of the Lumia series smartphones.

Talking about Microsoft Surface Phone 2016 specs, the handset is expected to get rolled out in three different variants, each with a host of impressive hardware configurations and features. The first of the lot is rumored to feature 3GB of RAM, while, the second midrange variant is expected to come with 6GB of RAM. Last but not the least, the high-end variant is rumored to get a massive 8GB of RAM and 512GB of built-in storage.

Among other specs, the Microsoft Surface Phone 2016 handsets are expected to come preinstalled with Microsoft Windows 10 mobile OS and run either Intel's newest Kaby Lake processor or Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 821 or 830. The smartphones are rumored to feature a 5.5-inch AMOLED display, a 20-megapixel Carl Zeiss rear camera, Surface Pen functionality, a fingerprint reader, continuum support, USB Type-C connectivity and liquid cooling technology. The Microsoft Surface Phones 2016 price range is expected to remain between $700-$1100. As far as Microsoft Surface Phone 2016 release date is concerned, the Redmond is expected to announce the handsets at an event sometime next month.

Stay tuned to SWR for more updates on Microsoft Surface Phone 2016 release date, specs and price details.
HARTSVILLE, S.C.  Darlington Countys new fire chief, Ricky Flowers, said he is ready to take on his new role with plans to improve aspects of the fire district before the year is out.

Flowers was promoted to chief on Aug. 26 after Kenney Stratton announced his retirement earlier this year. Flowers said he was both nervous and excited when he learned he would be groomed to sit in Strattons chair, but knew his experiences had prepared him for the job.

I was excited because its obviously going to be a huge challenge, Flowers said. I was a little nervous, a lot nervous actually, because at 30 years old Im being handed the reins of a fire department that is very well established.

Now at the helm, Flowers has set both short-term and long-term goals for the Darlington County Fire District, starting with a large push for volunteer recruitment. Even with 160 volunteers currently working at 13 different stations, Flowers said, the district could always use more.

The goal by the end of this year is to have 200 volunteers, Flowers said. Thats the backbone of our fire service. We would like to have every one of our stations staffed with at least 25 volunteers.

Increasing community involvement is Flowers next objective with plans to conduct more public safety training and education. Flowers said the district will host more open houses and media days so Darlington County residents can become more aware of what the fire department does.

Getting the public involved again is going to be the main concept over the next couple of years, Flowers said. We definitely want them to be a part of our fire department. We want them to be able to come to us and tell us whats going on in their communities.

In the long term, Flowers is working to update the fire districts equipment, including an aging tanker fleet with some dating back to 1988. He is also pushing for more junior firefighter recruitment by going into various Darlington County schools and talking to kids about the junior firefighter program.

From the age of 14 to 18, you can come up here, you can take classes, you can be a part of a junior organization that meets twice a month and they do the same training we do, Flowers said. Thats been a huge recruitment tool for us and we want to keep using that.

Flowers said his first three weeks as chief have been hectic with the NASCAR race, tropical storm and demanding emergency calls. He is looking forward to the future, however, as his fellow firefighters have shown him nothing but support from the start.

Ive realized since Ive taken this position the type of leaders we have in this department and it makes me feel so good, Flowers said. Ive been very lucky to have had great chiefs, great captains, great people that put me in the direction to go here.

Personally, Flowers said, he really only has one objective.

I want to leave everywhere better than it was when I got there, Flower said.

I feel like were on the right path here already.
FLORENCE, S.C.  Cities across South Carolina have faced a problem for decades known as doughnut-hole annexation; a method that allows properties to be surrounded by city limits yet remain under county services.

Florence is no different. There are hundreds of properties surrounded by or adjacent to several properties within city limits but remaining in the county. A glaring example of this is the Windsor Forest neighborhood near Hoffmeyer Road.

This type of annexation creates a wonky system in which city and county services overlap.

You can drive through somewhere like Windsor Forest and be in the city one second and out of the city the next, said Phillip Lookadoo, director of Florence city planning, research and development. That becomes an issue with water, sewer, sanitation, emergency services, a whole myriad of issues as far as response. Who gets the call?

Currently there are no state mandates for these types of properties.

Lookadoo said state legislation would help tremendously.

I think it would be a huge step to at least be able to annex properties that are completely surrounded, he said. That way we can provide services in a fair and consistent way, as well as improve the overall image of the city.

Scott Slatton, the legislative and public policy advocate for the South Carolina Municipal Association, said there is movement in the state legislature to try to remedy the doughnut-hole problem.

Most recently there was a bill that would allow an enclave or a doughnut to be annexed in automatically, he said. There are conditions, however. The doughnut hole would have to be 25 acres or less and have to be surrounded by the city for at least five years.

Slatton said its not an attempt to force property owners into a city for the sake of city growth; its about public safety and fiscal responsibility.

There are numerous examples where emergency service were delayed later because county responders had to come from far out, through the city, when city resources were much closer, he said. Enclaves create a public safety problem first and foremost, and an equity issue for city residents versus county residents who benefit from city services without paying for them.

This isnt a problem unique to Florence. Slatton said the Municipal Association held 10 meetings around the state this summer to seek information from cities on their biggest issues. Doughnut-hole annexation was mentioned at every one.

There are more cities with enclaves in South Carolina than there are without, he said. It is a common and long standing problem that city officials have been dealing with for a very long time.
By PTI: New Delhi, Sep 18 (PTI) The Indian Navy today swung into action to help a sick Indian on board a merchant vessel in a Yemeni port after a tweet by one of his relatives to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Tulika Singh tweeted to Swaraj saying that her cousin, an electrical officer on board an India registered ship was not well and at a Yemeni port.

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Swaraj tweeted the matter tagging Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and the Indian Navy.

The Navy promptly got in touch with Singh seeking details over Twitter.

"Matter taken up thru DG Shipping with shipping company. Officers condition has improved & all assistance being provided by company," it tweeted tagging Swaraj too.

It added that the company doctor was in touch with ship over satellite and that DG Shipping was also monitoring the situation.

Navy sources said the individual has been taken off duty by the private company and would be evacuated tomorrow. PTI SAP IKA RG IKA

--- ENDS ---
No easy solutions? In his column published Monday in the Morning News, Clarence Page shouldn't have been quite so modest!

After attempting to diminish the problem by pointing out that there have been worse years and there are cities with similar problems, Page then points out that the same genesis that leads to these huge murder rates (poverty, crime, opiate addiction, and out-of-wedlock births) are growing among poor whites (but haven't yet had the same results)!

But then he dropped in the observation that he obviously thinks is a grand solution to the problem. He related that since New York Mayor Bill de Blasio pulled back on the city's stop-and-frisk profiling policy, homicides have declined.

Aha! That's the solution! Be nice to the gangbangers and homicides decline!

Coupled with its strict gun control laws, Chicago should be a model law-abiding city! Of course, it may require some cooperation from the currently deaf, dumb and blind community, but if anybody can convince them to cooperate, it's Clarence!

JOHN MAGURN

Florence
By PTI: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Sep 18 (PTI) Nepal today began three-day celebrations on the first anniversary of the promulgation of its new Constitution, a year marred by crippling protests by Madhesis demanding key amendments to the statute.

The main celebrations will be organised tomorrow for which the government has declared a public holiday.

President Bidya Bhandari in her message to the nation today said that the occasion would bring joy, peace, progress and prosperity for all Nepalese people.

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Nepals Parliament had promulgated the first constitution of the country written by the peoples representatives on September 20, 2015, which falls on Asoj 3, 2072 B.S. as per the Bikram Era (Hindu) calendar.

However, the Madhesi parties, the ethnic group representing southern Nepal, had walked out of the Parliament while then President Rambaran Yadav promulgated the statuette last year.

Since then, over 50 people have died in the months-long agitation by the Madhesis, who are protesting the seven- province federal model enshrined in the Constitution which, they say, will marginalise them politically.

The Federal Democratic Alliance, that includes the Madhesis, has decided to organise a black flag demonstration tomorrow in Maitighar Mandala near the Singhdurbar secretariat, the main administrative building of the government that also houses Prime Ministers office.

The government held a few rounds of talks to resolve the issue and Prime Minister Prachanda had assured that he would address the Madhesi demands through constitutional amendments after he returns from India.

Prachanda returned home earlier today concluding his four day official visit to India.

In a joint statement issued by both the governments on conclusion of the visit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has welcomed the efforts made by Nepal government to take all sections of the society on board for effective implementation of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the US President Barack Obama also congratulated Nepal on the occasion of the first Constitution Day of Nepal.

Obama wrote to his Nepali counterpart President Bhandari on the eve of Constitution day extending his wishes, according to a statement issued by the US Embassy here. PTI SBP SUA AKJ SUA

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Sep 18 (PTI) Main opposition party CPN-UML today opposed the 25 point agreement Nepal and India reached during the official visit of Prime Minister Prachanda, saying it "undermined" the independence of the country.

CPN-UML Chairman and former prime minister KP Sharma Oli said his party would not accept the 25 point joint communiqueissued by Nepali and Indian governments on Friday.

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Oli said: "The statement undermined theindependence of Nepal as it just reflected Indias views and the Nepal governments submission to the southern neighbour."

Oli was addressing his cadres in Pokhara of Kaski district in western Nepal today after inaugurating the first meeting of UML Province Organisational Committee.

During the Prime Ministers state visit to India, the two neighbours had issued the joint communique.

"Nepal (in the statement) has agreed with the Indian view that imperfections of the Constitution should be redressed through an amendment," Oli said.

Oli said that his party was committed to implementing the new Constitution.

"It is UMLs responsibility to implement and protect the Constitution," he said.

Therefore, the party would also launch anti-government protests if the government did not introduce timely plans to ensure elections at local, provincial and federal level by January 2018, he warned.

Oli reiterated that his government was toppled as the CPN Maoist Centre was envious of its popularity.

Similarly, resistance to directives issued by foreign forces also contributed to it, he said without naming any country.

Olis year-long premiership was marred by the months-long Madhesi protests that crippled the land-locked countrys economy already under strain owing to the post-earthquake reconstruction work. PTI SBP SUA AKJ SUA

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Taking a jibe at the recent infighting that rocked the Yadav clan, Nitish Kumar advised Akhilesh Yadav to impose prohibition in state like Bihar if the family feud was over.

Nitish urged the women of UP to keep fighting for prohibition in their state. Photo: Reuters

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday took pot shots at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav over the infighting that rocked Yadav clan earlier this week.

"There is so much infighting in the Yadav family, everyone has seen this", commented Nitish.

IMPOSE PROHIBITION: NITISH TO AKHILESH

Speaking in Deoria at Janata Dal United's political workers meet, Nitish urged UP Chief Minister to impose prohibition in his state on the lines of Bihar. Taking jibe at the family fued, Nitish said prohibition in UP would ensure Akhilesh's return to power.

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"I appeal Akhilesh Yadav to impose prohibition in Uttar Pradesh. He was busy in family fight recently. Now that he is free, he should impose prohibition in Uttar Pradesh. Then he would not need support of any other to return back to power", said Nitish Kumar.

Nitish further took a dig at Samajwadi Party chief Maulayam Singh Yadav claiming that he ran away from Janta parivaar after it was forged ahead of the Bihar assembly elections.

WOMEN SHOULD DEMAND PROHIBITION: NITISH

"We tried to forge Janta Parivaar before Bihar elections and we also announced Mulayam Singh Yadav as Chairman of Janta Parivaar but I don't know why Mulayam ran away and fielded candidates against us in Bihar elections?", remarked Nitish.

Bihar Chief Minister said at the gathering that UP politics was seeing a phase of downfall and if things did not improve, country's development would be jeopardized. Nitish urged the women of UP to keep fighting for prohibition in their state.

"Those who used to speak against prohibition are now appreciating my move to impose prohibition in Bihar. Women should continue with their fight for prohibition. If they continue with their struggle, the UP government would have to bow before the demand", said the Bihar Chief Minister.

Nitish said he was in favour of Sangh Mukt Bharat and Sharaab Mukt Samaaj.

--- ENDS ---
Latin is what's known as a dead language, in that there are no living native speakers. But it's not totally extinct, which would indicate that it's no longer in use. In fact, Latin is used all over the world in law, medicine and various classification systems. How is that Latin has earned this enduring second life?

As Jules Suzdaltsev explains in today's DNews dispatch, the reasons for this are both historical and practical.

First, the history: When the Christian church teamed up with the Roman Empire, the church's favorite language, Latin, was exported around the world. Over time, Latin was established as the lingua franca of religion and knowledge. Everything that was worth knowing -- science, law, medicine -- was written down in Latin. If you wanted to be someone in the Empire, you needed to speak, read and write the language.

When the Roman Empire collapsed, Latin broke apart into the Romance languages -- French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. Classical Latin stopped being used as an everyday language.

RELATED: How Did Latin Become A Dead Language?

It was retained in scholarly pursuits, however, for very practical reasons. Since the language was no longer being spoken, it was no longer shifting and changing. That, plus its formality and precision, made Latin perfect for classification systems like biological taxonomy.

As such, and to the delight of biology majors around the world, all species have a two-part scientific designation, called binomial nomenclature or Latin name. The polar bear, for instance, is known to science as Ursus maritimus. The first name is called the "generic epithet" and is usually the genus, while the second is a "specific epithet" or the species.

Regardless of the language you speak otherwise, that's the technical term for that big white thing on the ice floe, with the pointy bits on five of its six ends. The Latin name protects against vagaries of the living language, too. Pop culture is an unpredictable beast, and in a few years, polar bear might become a slang term for something untoward. Science shall not fret, though, because: Ursus maritimus.

Check out Jules' report for more details. Also, quick note if you're in the market for an impressive conversational trivia drop: The application of these names is governed by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN).

-- Glenn McDonald

Learn More:

The History Of English: What is a Global Language?

WWF: Scientific Nomenclature: How do we give scientific names?

Saylor Academy: Christianity and the Roman Empire
Press Release

September 17, 2016 Drilon says committee has power to grant protective custody Senate President Pro-Tempore Franklin M. Drilon today defended the power of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights to place witnesses under its own protective custody, saying that such a move does not require the approval of the Senate leadership. Drilon, who has been Senate President four times including during the last Congress, said that it is an inherent power of every Senate committee to provide protective custody to any of its witnesses or resource persons, whose testimonies are crucial in the exercise of their functions. "Such power cannot be vetoed by the Senate President," Drilon said in a radio interview. But the use of the Senate premises in providing protection to a witness, Drilon clarified, "is subject to the discretion and approval of the Senate President." "It is within the power and discretion of Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III to decide whether or not to place witnesses under protection within Senate premises," Drilon said. "The Senate President has the control over the premises of the Senate," he added. "Senate President Pimentel has the discretion whether or not to place a person inside the premises of the Senate. But as whether or not one is placed under the committee's protective custody is within the power of the committee," Drilon emphasized. "The committee also has the power, and can opt to, provide protection to its witnesses even outside of the Senate," he said. He added that the power of every committee to grant protective custody is akin to its innate power to cite a witness in contempt and to order an arrest. "That is a long-standing practice in the Senate," he added. Drilon said that in fact, the Senate President could not reject this power of Senate committees to issue protection for their witnesses. He said that there have been various precedents where committees have exercised their power to protect witnesses, and the Senate leadership had always respected such actions. Meanwhile, Drilon said that it is prudent to hold judgment on Matobato's testimonies, citing the gravity and seriousness of his allegations. "At this point, it is too early to assess," Drilon said. "We cannot say, at this point, that he was lying, but neither can we accept that his testimony is the whole truth," said Drilon, a lawyer and former justice secretary. "We should allow the Committee on Justice and Human Rights to continue with its hearing and come up with a report," Drilon concluded.
Press Release

September 17, 2016 AFTER YEAR'S MOST POWERFUL TYPHOON 'FERDIE' THEN 'GENER' HIT BATANES, RELIEF AND REPAIR DONATIONS SOUGHT MANILA -- After the year's most powerful typhoon Ferdie (international name: Meranti) followed by typhoon Gener (international name: Malakas) battered Batanes this week, Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan on Saturday called for relief and repair donations for the most affected provinces. Citing the September 17 report of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), Pangilinan said Batanes, which has been declared under a state of calamity on September 15, needs food items, potable drinking water, generator sets for water pump, transformers, galvanized iron sheets and other construction materials, and ropes. "Donations may be brought to 46 A. Eugenio Lopez Drive corner Samar Street, South Triangle, Quezon City (about 100 meters from EDSA). For details, get in touch with Marco at 0998988546 or Nonna at 09183322954," the senator said. "Maaaring 'di natin masyadong nadama ang lakas ni super typhoon Ferdie dito sa Metro Manila, pero ayon sa Japan Meteorological Agency, ito ang pinamalakas na bagyo ngayon taon at isa sa tatlong pinakamalakas sa record. At muli, tinatawag tayo upang magtulong-tulungan (We may not have felt the destructive power of Super Typhoon Ferdie here in Metro Manila, but according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, it is this year's strongest typhoon, and one of the three most powerful ever recorded. And again, we are called upon to help each other)," Pangilinan said. "Ang balita namin, hanggang ngayon, wala pa silang kuryente (From what we gathered, they still don't have electricity)," he added. The senator also sought for the immediate release and use of relief and calamity funds. "Agarang tulong ang kailangan ng ating mga kababayang naapektuhan ng sunod-sunod na pagbagyo. Malaki ang epekto nito lalo na sa ating mga magsasaka na nasiraan ng pananim at mga mangingisda na hindi makapalaot dahil sa masamang panahon. Kinakailangang mabilis na mapaabot ang calamity assistance sa kanila upang sila ay makabangon muli (Immediate help is needed by our fellow Filipinos affected by one typhoon after another. This greatly affects them, especially the farmers whose crops have been destroyed and the fishermen who cannot go out to sea due to bad weather. Calamity assistance must reach them immediately so that they can rebuild their lives)," Pangilinan said. The super typhoon disrupted the lives of 10,344 people or 2,710 families, who had to move to evacuation centers or with families, as 1,165 houses were partially or totally damaged, the NDRRMC said. Ferdie alone caused damages to vegetables and root crops in Batanes worth a total of P37.7 million. Damage to public infrastructure included the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) building, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) office, Basco Central School, Batanes National Science High School, Provincial Capitol building, Sto. Domingo Church, and the Batanes General Hospital, including its administrative office and medical equipment. On September 13, tropical cyclone warning signal no. 4 was raised over Batanes Group of Islands, and signal no. 3 over the Babuyan Group of Islands, signal no. 2 over Ilocos Norte, Apayao, and Northern Cagayan, and signal no. 1 over the rest of Cagayan, Northern Isabela, Kalinga, Abra, and Ilocos Norte, the NDRRMC said. On September 14, after it made landfall over Itbayat, Batanes at past midnight, super typhoon Ferdie had maximum sustained winds of up to 220 kilometers per hour near the center and gustiness of up to 255 kph by 7 a.m. As it passed Taiwan, the super typhoon gained more strength and had sustained winds of 290 kph, and gusts of 350 kph. On September 17, typhoon Gener has intensified as it was located 350 north-northwest of Basco, Batanes. It is expected to exit the Philippine Area of Responsibility tomorrow, September 18. Over the past week, 16 flights to and from the provinces have been suspended, rendering the province isolated.
Press Release

September 18, 2016 Start computing cost of peace, BBL, turning Reds into green army - Recto Government should start "running the numbers" on the financial cost of an "all-out peace" with Moro and Communist rebels, which may include "transforming the Red army into a Green army" that will guard the country's diminishing forestlands. Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto said parallel to talks between the government negotiators and their counterparts in the various Moro secessionist groups and the National Democratic Front (NDF) "is the conduct of a study that will compute the cost of transitioning former combatants to civilian life." Recto said "this might be seen by others as putting the cart before the horse, but for this great opportunity for peace to succeed," government should anticipate what it would require to realize "peace in our time." "On the part of the government, there should be strategic thinking on forward budget estimates on the cost of demobilization. Para 'yung panel natin, alam ang parameters kung ano ang pwede i-alok. We have to start drawing up scenarios," he said. "Whatever the bottomline is in terms of financing, I know that it will be less than the cost of war," Recto said. "Yes, pounding swords into plowshares is less costly but we must know the exact figures." Recto cited, as an example, the challenge of "demobilizing combatants" as a major point of discussion in any peace negotiation plus the creation of a mechanism that will ensure that peace is sustained. Other potential expenditures which can be the subject of "forward estimates" are social reform projects needed to uproot the causes of insurgency, Recto said. He said the Senate minority "squarely backs the ongoing multiple peace initiatives" of the Duterte administration and "is ready to contribute to its success, especially on how to finance the end of war and the start of peace." Recto said one area which the GPH-NDF panel can consider in the future is how "to eventually deputize the parts of the New People's Army (NPA)" as guardians of the forest, "on the possibility of the Red army becoming a Green army." Recto said the nation's forests need reinforcements, as there is only one government guard per 3,376 hectares. "The lack of forest guards has made our timberlands prone to fires, poachers, and destruction," he said. In 2014, it was reported that there were only three full-time forest guards patrolling the 11,000-hectare Mount Banahaw protected area in Southern Tagalog while about two dozen guards protect the 6,600-hectare Ipo Watershed in Bulacan, which supplies 97% of Metro Manila's water. Even the 54,965-hectare Mount Apo National Park, which was hit by fires last summer, has only 16 regular forest rangers, Recto lamented. As to how to fund this future recommended role for the NPA as "ecological warriors", Recto said if the government will continue the National Greening Program of the past administration, "then we have an annual source of funds." Recto was referring to the massive program which reportedly reforested 1,125,701 hectares from 2011 to 2015 at a cost of P24 billion. "So pwede silang magbantay at magtanim. Hindi simpleng gawain ito. Kailangan din ito ng ating bayan at ng susunod na henerasyon. Siguro mas maganda ang implementasyon kung sila ang mangunguna," he said. On another peace front, in the South, forging lasting peace with Bangsamoro rebels would also require funding, the senator said. For our economic managers to have an idea of the "price tag of peace," there should be a study conducted this early, Recto said. "Kahit premilinary, basta may idea tayo sa numerong pinaguusapan." It will be recalled that based on a Department of Budget and Management estimate presented to the House of Representatives in May 2015, the areas planned to be covered by the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) would get as much as P337 billion in funding in a span of five years. The funds include the annual block grant; Internal Revenue Allotment, special development fund; transition fund; certain national internal revenue tax collections in the Bangsamoro; and other retained income and appropriated funds. The BBL is among the priority bills the Palace is pushing based on the legislative agenda it released last week.
By PTI: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Sep 18 (PTI) US President Barack Obama will meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to discuss a wide range of issues including North Korean provocative actions, the White House said today.

Obama would discuss North Korean provocative actions with Keqiang tomorrow, while Israeli security would top the agenda of his talks with Netanyahu, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said before the US President was scheduled to leave the White House for New York.

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"President Obama will have a pull-aside with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, September 19. The two leaders will discuss steps to deepen the US-China relationship, while addressing issues of bilateral and regional concern, including North Koreas provocations," Earnest said.

North Korea fired three ballistic missiles on September 5 towards the Sea of Japan, drawing widespread criticism with the UN security council strongly threatening "further significant measures" if the Pyongyang regime continued its missile and nuclear weapons development work.

On Wednesday, September 21 - also on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York City - Obama will take part in a bilateral meeting with Netanyahu, he said.

"The meeting between the President and Prime Minister will afford them an opportunity to discuss the strong ties between the US and Israel, as recently underscored by the finalisation of a new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding with Israel, the single largest pledge of military assistance in US history.

"The meeting also will be an opportunity to discuss the need for genuine advancement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground. Additionally, the leaders are likely to discuss continued implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and other regional security issues," Earnest added.

The meeting between Obama and Netanyahu will take about a week after the US and Israel signed an unprecedented new security agreement that will give the Israeli military USD 38 billion over 10 years, the largest such agreement America has ever had with any country. PTI LKJ CPS

--- ENDS ---
Villar SIPAG sponsors training on haircutting and beauty care

for distressed OFWs

The Villar SIPAG (Social Institute for Poverty Alleviation and Governance) sponsored a 2-day training on haircutting and beauty care for distressed overseas Filipino workers.

In partnership with Reyes Haircutters, Inc., 80 participants coming from Taguig, Muntinlupa, Pateros, Mandaluyong, San Juan, Pasig, Caloocan, Valenzuela and Las Pinas were trained on basic haircutting and beauty care (foot spa, manicure, pedicure).

"Tuloy-tuloy po ang ating programa para matulungan ang mga OFW na nais magkaroon ng kabuhayan sa Pilipinas. Ito ang tulong natin sa mga OFW na nagkaroon man ng masamang karanasan sa ibang bansa ay nagkaroon ng oportunidad na makapagsimula muli," Sen. Cynthia Villar, director of Villar SIPAG, addressed the trainees at the Laurel House in Mandaluyong City.

After the 2-day program, trainees will have the option to continue as Reyes Learning Institute scholars for 20-day courses. Those who will complete the intensive training will be guaranteed a job by Reyes Haircutters in branches preferred by the beneficiary or may opt to start their own salon business.

The training program is open to previously distressed OFW; victims of illegal recruitment and human trafficking; currently unemployed or does not engage in any business; and have not availed of any livelihood assistance from government agencies like the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Department of Labor and Employment, National Reintegration Center for OFWs, Department of Social Welfare and Development, etc.

Villar SIPAG, the foundation initiated by the Villar Family and also the corporate social responsibility arm of real estate giant Vista Land, has been providing repatriation, livelihood, financial and medical assistance to OFWs in distress.

At the Senate, Villar authored Senate Bill No. 146 or the bill seeking to create the Department of Migration and Development that will put in one roof the agencies mandated to support 12 million Filipinos overseas.

The bill also seeks to create the P1-billion Special Assistance Revolving Fund for Filipino Migrants, including both documented and undocumented. It will be used for emergency repatriation; medical expenses; immigration penalties; legal assistance; payment of blood money; humanitarian assistance to families left behind; scholarships for children of Filipinos overseas; maintenance and operational expenses including capital outlay for the establishment of One-Stop Migrant Processing and Assistance Centers.
San Franciscos homelessness director wants them. A local developer is hot to build them, academics love them, and unions are open to the idea.

All that stands in the way of the construction of hundreds of tiny, modular apartments for hard-core homeless people in San Francisco  something that could sharply reduce the number of indigents on the citys streets  is getting everyone involved to agree to some compromises. But thats proving to be a tough task.

For the past year, developer Patrick Kennedy has been pitching City Hall on his plan to use metal shipping container-style boxes in quickie-construction projects that can be turned into supportive housing for the homeless  complexes that offer services for people in addition to a roof. Such housing, Kennedy says, can be built far faster than conventional structures, for half the cost.

Kennedy has proposed building as many as 200 units above a city-owned parking lot at Highway 101 and Cesar Chavez Street, and he says he can quickly construct thousands more around the city.

Separately, Community Housing Partnership, one of the biggest supportive-housing developers in the city, is exploring building a 100-unit complex of modular units made of wood, which would also be cheaper and quicker than conventional construction.

In its June series on possible solutions to the citys homelessness problem, The Chronicle explored the urgent need to add to San Franciscos stock of 6,000 supportive housing units and showed how building modular units could be a useful technique.

Mayor Ed Lee has pledged to spend $1 billion over his second term to house 8,000 homeless people. He said earlier this year that he liked the concept of modular housing, but that details had to be worked out by city staff  and thats where the hurdles have appeared.

The main construction unions that would be involved are balking at the fact that Kennedys metal boxes would be built in China, not by American union workers, and say they believe building-code requirements are less stringent for modular construction. And Jeff Kositsky, head of Lees newly created Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, is resistant to Kennedys proposal to build on city-owned land, saying there are already too many demands being made on scarce public property.

Kennedy, owner of Panoramic Interests, says those concerns can be addressed. Hes going to begin displaying a full model of one of his microunits in front of his office at Ninth and Mission streets on Oct. 21, and he hopes the reality version of his vision will kick the discussions into higher gear.

Weve been kind of holding on back pushing the subject further until we have something concrete for people to come see and experience, he said. But after we get this unit in front of my office, I want to talk more.

Santiago Mejia/Special to The Chronicle

Gail Gilman, head of Community Housing Partnership, said her wooden units would be built in Idaho, avoiding the import debate. But one disadvantage of wooden units is that they are more costly and time-consuming to put together than the metal project Kennedy has in mind.

Gilman is exploring sites and says shes eager to work out details with the unions and the city.

We should really have the city rally and come together to say, Lets try a couple of modular projects and see how it goes  because homelessness is a crisis here, and we need to try things, Gilman said.

Kositsky said that if details can be worked out over such matters as location and the union issues, he could be on board.

There are at least 6,700 homeless people in San Francisco, according to the citys 2015 point-in-time count. The city is under increasing pressure to house them, particularly the estimated 1,500 chronically indigent who are the most troubled  those erecting tent colonies, using drugs in the open and requiring about $80,000 per person each year in emergency services.

Hard-core street people need not just housing, but apartments with counseling  the support in supportive housing  in the same building to help them get over their addictions or other dysfunctions. Kositskys challenge is finding a way to put roofs over people in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country.

Only a few modular housing complexes for the homeless have been built in the United States, and all of those are in New York and Los Angeles. Those are wood-framed  no such housing has been constructed out of metal, as Kennedy hopes to do. The technique is often called Lego housing because of the way the units can stack.

I love the idea, Kositsky said. The city is interested in finding ways to lower construction costs and the length of time it takes to build, and modular housing is certainly a promising development  and not just for homeless housing, but all housing.

He said modular construction is not by definition low-quality housing  there is plenty, used for hotels and dorms and more, that has been high-quality. The luxury, metal-modular citizenM Hotel in Amsterdam is an often-cited example of well-done modular construction, as is the 2-year-old, wooden Star Apartments supportive housing complex in Los Angeles.

Kennedys proposal for 200 units atop a parking lot at Highway 101 and Cesar Chavez Street would leave the parking intact while bolting the apartments together above it. If the city wont lease him the land, Kennedy said, hell look for a privately owned site to purchase, though that would increase the cost.

His plan is to pay for construction himself, then lease the complex to the city for $1,000 a month per unit. Working with private land instead of public land would raise the lease cost to about $1,200 a unit.

Kennedy and city officials agree that either option would be cheaper than many alternatives for constructing housing for the homeless. Conventional affordable housing costs about $400,000 per apartment to build. Kennedy says his Lego units would cost about $200,000 each, and that he would absorb the up-front expense.

And theyre a fast build. Kennedy says he could complete construction in nine months, compared with as long as five years for more conventional buildings.

The units are tiny, at 160 square feet, but thats about the same size as many of the renovated residential hotel rooms that the city leases for homeless people. According to Kennedys architectural plans, once theyve been finished with drywall, glass and paint, they will look no different from typical construction.

Michael Theriault, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, said his unions are not fundamentally opposed to modular housing. But wed rather they be constructed here instead of China so they dont undercut wages and conditions. And we want them built under local building code and inspected by local inspectors.

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.

Unions worked with Kennedy three years ago to build a small, market-rate complex of larger wooden modular units south of Market Street. And last year, unions worked with developer Rick Holliday to erect a 136-unit apartment complex in the Bayview with wooden modulars. Units for both projects were made at the same now-defunct factory in Sacramento.

We should be able to work things out, Kennedy said.

Kositsky said, Im willing to sit down and talk if it meets code, provides good jobs, and if hes not talking about using public land  that land is precious, and we have to be good stewards of it. Were already master leasing from private landlords (of residential hotels). Why not this, too?

Carol Galante, a UC Berkeley professor who specializes in affordable housing and urban policy, said its worth working out differences because modular housing shows great promise.

Modular construction saves time and money  at least 20 percent in construction costs and 40 percent in time  thats been proven, Galante said. We can do this.

Down in Los Angeles County, where 57,000 people live on the streets, Kennedys microunit idea is getting a smoother reception.

Marc Trotz, director of housing for the homeless for the Los Angeles Department of Health Services, wants to create 10,000 units of supportive housing over the next few years  and he has had serious talks with Kennedy and others about contracting for complexes of metal units.

I am totally jazzed about what Patrick is doing, said Trotz, who created some of San Franciscos most successful supportive housing before going to Los Angeles several years ago. There has to be something between a cardboard box on the street and a $400,000 unit that we can do. We have to start innovating, and modular housing is very exciting.

About 30 miles south of Los Angeles, the nations first supportive housing complex constructed of metal stacking units will begin being assembled this week in Midway City (Orange County).

American Family Housings 16 apartments for homeless veterans each consist of three metal boxes bolted together, not just one box per apartment as in Kennedys plan, but they are the same concept. The kicker? They are actual metal shipping containers, made in China and sold secondhand as surplus over here.

Begun in May, the project is penciled in to take nine months to build, at half the cost of regular construction.

American Family Housing is trying to innovate and change the way permanent supportive housing is done, said company President Donna Gallup. If the rest of the world did housing this fast, wed be able to end homelessness a heck of a lot quicker.

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron
The concept of rent control, once found mostly in large cities, is spreading to the Bay Areas suburbs, even though virtually every economist thinks its a bad idea.

Six Bay Area cities have measures on the November ballot that would protect existing tenants from the stratospheric rent increases that are a result of job growth far outstripping housing creation.

In San Mateo, Burlingame, Mountain View, Alameda and Richmond, voter initiatives would establish rent and eviction controls.

In Mountain View and Alameda, voters will face dueling ballot measures  the voter initiative and another placed on the ballot by their respective city councils that would continue the mediation and arbitration programs that each city started this year to hear disputes over rent increases exceeding certain amounts. In Oakland, the City Council placed a measure on the ballot to make its existing Rent Adjustment Program more favorable for tenants.

Since 2010, the average asking rent for units of all sizes in the nine-county Bay Area has risen by roughly $1,000, or 66 percent, to $2,504, according to Novato research firm Real Answers.

The rent crisis is tearing apart our communities, displacing people up and down the economic ladder and uprooting them from, in some cases, decades of living in the community, said Jennifer Martinez, executive director of Faith in Action Bay Area, which sponsored Measure Q in San Mateo.

Diane Fjelstad said she helped gather signatures for Measure Q after her new landlord raised the rent on her two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in a family-owned building near downtown San Mateo from $1,850 to $2,850 a month in October. Her previous landlord had not raised the rate since she took up residence in 2002, and actually reduced it when Fjelstads daughter turned 18 and she lost child support.

Fjelstad was expecting a rent increase when the landlord died and another family member took over, but not $1,000. Im a retired psychiatric worker, living on a (state) pension. Im 63 years old and have a daughter living with me who is working full time. To pay the additional rent, I took out Social Security early, Fjelstad said. Because we dont have renter protections, if he raises the rent again, I will be displaced. Im already cost-burdened, with about 35 percent of my income going to rent.

Economists are sympathetic but say rent control is unfair. In California, it helps incumbent tenants in rent-controlled units but does nothing to encourage housing creation.

A 2012 survey by the University of Chicagos Booth School of Business asked respected economists if they agreed that rent-control ordinances in cities such as New York and San Francisco have improved the quantity and quality of affordable rental housing over the past three decades. Eighty-one percent disagreed, 2 percent agreed and 9 percent were uncertain or had no opinion.

In 2013, Peter Tatian of the Urban Institute reviewed academic research on rent control and found very little evidence that rent control is a good policy. The strongest finding of one comprehensive survey was that tenants in noncontrolled units pay higher rents than they would without the presence of rent control; one reason being that landlords need to make up the difference for lower rents in controlled units.

Rent control puts the burden of housing affordability on the backs of a few people, said Christopher Palmer, assistant professor of real estate at UC Berkeleys Haas School of Business. Its a way to say housing is unaffordable, we want to help so we are going to stick it to the man  absentee landlords with tons of capital. Its not clear they should be the ones having to pay for the affordability mess we are in, Palmer said.

Or even that they will. Essex Property Trust, based in San Mateo, is a publicly traded company that owns many large complexes in the Bay Area. In a call with analysts last month, its CEO said that rent-control measures will have limited impact on Essex, primarily because the vast majority of our properties are newer than the rent-control cut-off dates. He added that renewals at below-market rates are partially mitigated by higher rents on new leases, reflecting the unintended secondary effect of rent control.

Palmer pointed out that not all landlords are rich. He knows a couple in Oakland  a public school teacher and his wife  who own rent-controlled apartments occupied by tenants who earn more than they do.

Likewise, rent control protects high-income tenants as well as working-class ones. Not one of these rent-control measures on the ballot have any means testing. You can be making $150,000 a year, and if you are in a rent-controlled unit, you are never going to leave. All of a sudden there is no trickle effect. No working-class family will ever get that unit, said Thomas Bannon, CEO of the California Apartment Association, which represents landlords.

In a report issued in February, Californias Legislative Analysts Office warned that rent control could encourage property owners to cut back on maintenance and repairs. Over time, this can result in a decline in the overall quality of a communitys housing stock, it said.

Juliet Brodie, who directs the Stanford Community Law Clinic and helped draft what became Measure V in Mountain View, acknowledges that rent control, like any public policy, has shortcomings. What it prevents is landlords evicting moderate-income tenants and replacing them with people paying twice as much, she said. I would be perfectly happy to tolerate lucky Google employees who decided to lease up at the right time and have $1,700 (a month) rent to protect families who are being kicked out in the middle of the school year.

To understand the arguments for and against these measures, it helps to understand how rent control works in California.

In cities without rent control, landlords can charge whatever the market will bear, raise the rent when the lease is up and evict tenants for any reason, with proper notice.

Cities with rent control typically limit not just annual rent increases (which is what most people think of as rent control). They also restrict the circumstances under which landlords can evict tenants, even when their lease is up, to certain just causes, such as nonpayment of rent and criminal activity on the property. In these cities, landlords must go to court to prove just cause and get a judgment to evict them, Bannon said.

If a city only limited rent increases, landlords could simply evict tenants when their lease is up and charge the next one market rates.

Two state laws place some limits on both rent control and eviction control.

The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act exempts multifamily apartments built after Feb. 1, 1995  and all single-family homes and condos, whenever built  from limits on rent increases. It also said that when tenants voluntarily vacate a rent-controlled unit, owners can charge the next tenant market rates, but after that it becomes subject to the annual rent control limit.

Costa-Hawkins does not prevent cities from imposing eviction controls on any type of rental housing  including single-family homes and apartments of any age. That allows cities to limit evictions to specified just causes, including those allowed under a 1985 law known as the Ellis Act.

The Ellis Act says cities cannot prevent owners from evicting tenants from a unit so the owner or a family member can move in. Nor can they prohibit owners from evicting all tenants from a building so they can go out of the rental business. However, cities can impose certain rules on Ellis Act evictions and require landlords to compensate tenants, up to a limit, who are displaced under the law.

All of the rent-control measures on the November ballot exempt multifamily homes built after February 1995 and single-family homes from price controls, as required by law. Some of these measures also exempt single-family homes and newer condos from eviction controls.

Whether these measures can get the simple majority needed to pass could depend on the percentage of households that rent in each city, Palmer said. According to 2014 U.S. Census Bureau data, renter percentages were about 45 percent in San Mateo, 52 percent in Burlingame, 53 percent in Alameda, 55 percent in Richmond, 60 percent in Mountain View and 61 percent in Oakland.

Owners and renters wondering how the measures would affect them should read them carefully before casting a vote.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender

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Rent-control proposals on November ballots

Burlingame

Measure R. Voter initiative. Limits rent increases on pre-1995 multifamily buildings to the Consumer Price Index increase (but not less than 1 or more than 4 percent). Establishes just-cause eviction rules for all rental property including single-family homes, condos and multi-family units, whenever constructed.

San Mateo

Measure Q. Voter initiative. Limits rent increases on pre-1995 multifamily buildings to CPI increase (but not less than 1 or more than 4 percent). Establishes just-cause eviction rules for all mutlifamily units constructed before the measure takes effect. Single-family homes and condos exempt from rent and eviction control.

Mountain View

Measure W: Placed on ballot by City Council. Would amend rent program that the city started in April to require binding arbitration for rent increases exceeding 5 percent on pre-1995 buildings. Also limits evictions to just causes, unless landlord complies with the citys Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance.

Measure V: Voter initiative. Rolls back rents on pre-1995 multifamily units to October 2015 levels, limits future increases to CPI increase (but not less than 2 or more than 5 percent). Limits evictions on multifamily units constructed before the measure takes effect. Exempts single-family homes and condos from rent and eviction controls.

Alameda

Measure L1: Placed on ballot by City Council. Would continue program that the city started in March that requires mediation on increases above 5 percent (mediation is binding only for multifamily homes built before February 1995) and limits evictions on all rental property.

Measure M1: Voter initiative. Rolls back rents on pre-1995 multifamily buildings to May 2015 levels and limits future increases to 65 percent of the CPI increase. Establishes eviction controls on all rental property, including single-family homes, condos and multifamily units built since 1995.

Richmond

Measure L: Voter initiative rolls back rents on pre-1995 multifamily apartments to July 2015 levels and limits future increases to the CPI. Imposes eviction controls on all rental units.

Oakland

Measure JJ: Placed on ballot by City Council. Would amend Oaklands Rent Adjustment Program. Requires owners of multiunit apartments built before Jan. 1, 1983 to get city approval before raising rents by more than the CPI increase. Also extends just-cause eviction protections to buildings constructed through Dec. 31, 1995; existing cutoff is Oct. 14, 1980.

Note: Find links to the full ballot measures and analyses in the online version of this story at www.sfchronicle.com.
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San Franciscos Office of Citizen Complaints is on the ballot again, with Supervisor Malia Cohen hoping to ride momentum from the June election to further strengthen the civilian police oversight agency.

Proposition G seeks to rebrand the office that looks into complaints of police misconduct as the Department of Police Accountability, giving the agency its own budget independent of the Police Department and the authority to conduct audits every two years of how the police force is managing and disciplining officers.

We need to support measures that bring accountability and transparency to law enforcement, Cohen said.

The measure on the Nov. 8 ballot comes after the earlier passage of Proposition D, which required the Office of Citizen Complaints, or OCC, to investigate every officer-involved shooting, rather than only those shootings that spur complaints.

Cohen said the agency would gain autonomy with its own budget, and power with the ability to audit law enforcement policies and practices on a regular basis.

Prior to the Mario Woods shooting, we hadnt touched our use-of-force policies in 20 years, Cohen said, referring to the video-recorded December shooting of a stabbing suspect in the Bayview neighborhood that prompted outrage and a departmental review by the U.S. Department of Justice.

We need to be more diligent on evaluating all of our policies, she said. That is why this department is important.

Prop. G has drawn little opposition amid a national debate around racial profiling and police accountability. The city police officers union, which had supported Prop. D, has taken no stance on the measure. Suzy Loftus, president of the Police Commission, said, Having a healthy OCC means having a healthy Police Department.

Some of the only criticism of the initiative has come from activists fighting for major police reforms, who believe civilian oversight should be broadened much more.

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The problem with Props. D and G are that they may create a perception of reform far greater than the reality of reform, said David Carlos Salaverry of San Franciscans for Police Accountability. As first steps, fine. If they end up as the final steps, well have more SFPD street executions and more impunity.

Prop. G was nearly upended by political infighting on the Board of Supervisors. In July, Supervisor John Avalos tried to bring Cohens measure under the umbrella of Supervisor David Campos proposal to create a city public advocate.

The dispute blew over and the measures advanced separately. But if both pass, the public advocate would appoint the director of the Department of Police Accountability.

What concerns me is I want to create a department that has oversight and is independent of politics as much as possible, Cohen said. I am cautious. I dont know if the appointment authority of the public advocate will truly yield a process that is not political. Time will tell.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
By PTI: Haridwar, Sep 18 (PTI) Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal today visited the Patanjali Yogpeeth and met Yoga guru Ramdev.

Accompanied by his wife Sita and son Prakash, Prachanda met the yoga guru who informed the Nepalese Prime Minister that a Patanjali Food and Herbal Park would also be set up in Nepal.

The work for the food park would start from November, Ramdev said.

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Prachanda said the food park would act as a strong link between both the countries and it would help in strengthening the financial condition of Nepal.

The two also agreed on the construction of a University for which the Yoga guru and his aide Balkrishna would visit Nepal.

The Nepalese premier also inspected the park and urged Ramdev to start a similar project in Nepal so that the youth can get employment and the economic condition of the country is improved. PTI DPT RCB RG RCB

--- ENDS ---
With auto burglary and theft surging in San Francisco along with complaints about street encampments, its no surprise that one of many measures on the citys November ballot aims to reduce so-called quality-of-life crimes that make people feel less safe in their own neighborhoods.

But critics of Proposition R say Supervisor Scott Wieners proposal is a misguided play at residents fears that shifts power over day-to-day crime-fighting strategy from the Police Department to City Hall.

The measure would force police to create a special Neighborhood Crime Unit that would respond to both 911 and 311 calls, while focusing on offenses including robberies, break-ins, bike thefts, vandalism, aggressive panhandling and blocking sidewalks with tents.

If passed Nov. 8, the ordinance wouldnt kick in until the Police Department hired more people and met the City Charters mandate of 1,971 officers  which could happen next year. At that point, at least 3 percent of the force, or roughly 60 officers, would be assigned to the Neighborhood Crime Unit.

The unit would support district stations to investigate crime, work with outreach workers to get homeless people off the streets, and communicate with neighborhood residents about how things are going.

Such staffing decisions are typically left to police chiefs, but Wiener said the proposition is an accountability mechanism to ensure that as we staff the department up, we actually have true community policing.

He referred to San Franciscos well-publicized epidemic of property crime. In 2015, the looting of parked cars jumped 31 percent from 2014 and nearly tripled when compared with 2010, according to city figures. The city took 25,899 reports of car break-ins last year  more than 70 per day on average.

We have remarkably little traffic enforcement and very few walking beats anymore, Wiener said. We see the impacts of the latter every day with the explosion in auto break-ins and auto robberies and bike thefts and burglaries and vandalism.

The measures overhaul of police decision-making, though, troubles critics such as Tony Ribera, a former San Francisco police chief who directs the International Institute of Law Enforcement Leadership at the University of San Francisco. He said Prop. R would bind the hands of not only the police chief, but also district captains responsible for ensuring safe neighborhoods.

The priorities of the Police Department in terms of crime-fighting change constantly, Ribera said. This year, it seems like property crimes, vehicle break-ins and burglaries are the top priorities. We need to address that, but next year it could be something totally different, and our chief needs to have the flexibility to commit resources on a contemporary, as-needed basis.

As voters mull the measure, San Francisco is without a permanent chief after the resignation of Greg Suhr in May. The police force is also undergoing a top-to-bottom review by the U.S. Department of Justice, which will issue recommendations for change.

Though Wiener said the focus of the new crime unit would be to increase community policing, some critics say it would do the opposite. The unit would be based out of headquarters in Mission Bay, a move that runs directly counter to all modern community policing and practice, said John Crew, a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney and police watchdog.

The whole theory of community policing is you place the decision-making as close to the neighborhood as possible, Crew said. Hes calling it a neighborhood unit, but hes taking resources from the district stations and putting it under the control of people on Third Street. That makes no sense.

Opponents have also taken exception to a ballot argument that states the measure will boost bike patrols. The proposed ordinance seeks foot patrols, but does not specifically address bike cops.

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The initiative gained the approval of the department and the officers union, along with support from Mayor Ed Lee. While acting Police Chief Toney Chaplin declined to comment in detail on the measure  saying only, Were going to back the will of the voters  Wiener worked with members of the command staff on the details.

Union President Martin Halloran said he supports Prop. R because it mandates the department to reach full strength per the Charter.

Wiener, who is running for state Senate against progressive Supervisor Jane Kim, has been a longtime ally of the police force, one of few supervisors who fought to beef up staffing levels. According to Crew and other opponents of the measure, department and union officials had little choice but to back it even if they privately disagreed with the concept.

I think the intent is good, and I think Scott Wiener is trying to do the right thing, but Scott is not an expert on law enforcement, Ribera said. Were spending all this money and time and effort to get an outstanding police chief, and then were going to tell him or her how to do his or her job? Thats not how it works.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo

More online

Find The Chronicles campaign coverage on all the races, plus endorsements: www.sfchronicle.com/election/2016
Some conspiracy buffs believe that the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing never happened, that the government faked it with the help of director Stanley Kubrick. In the Canadian mockumentary Operation Avalanche, director/co-writer Matt Johnson plays a newbie CIA analyst and AV nerd named Matt Johnson who seizes a major role in the enterprise.

By using Kubricks type of special effects, vintage lenses, 16mm film (actual and transferred) and materials of the era (some provided by San Franciscos Prelinger Archives) and shooting at places like NASA and Englands Shepperton Studios, where Kubrick shot part of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Johnson was able to make a film that seems like a relic of the 1960s.

We wanted to do it as if were reality, said Johnson at the Sundance Film Festival, where Operation Avalanche had its world premiere. I do not think the moon landing was faked. I know thats impossible, but I think this is as about as plausible a version of it as you could have.

The CIA does so many insane things, like the exploding cigars to kill Fidel Castro, the Bay of Pigs, all of these wacky missions.

Operation Avalanche is its own type of wacky mission, particularly Johnson and his crews forays into NASA and Shepperton. One guesses that NASA will be revisiting its security protocols after they successfully infiltrated the agency by pretending to be a film school documentary unit. Shepperton was more of a guerrilla operation: They were able to shoot for five hours before being thrown off the lot after being mistaken for paparazzi out to steal footage of Avengers: Age of Ultron, then filming there.

We shot on (Kubricks) exact set, says Johnson. It is a very scary place, old rusted chains everywhere, abandoned buildings, tunnels that lead to nowhere, weird buildings built on top of buildings where you can see that theyre kind of collapsing. It would be really great to spend a lot more time there, shooting more things. But with this kind of shooting, you can only do so much before the police show up.

Lionsgate Premiere

In Operation Avalanches Shepperton scenes, Stanley Kubrick appears to be part of the movie as visual effects supervisor Tristan Zerafa and his team make it seem as though Johnson and his co-stars are part of history. It sells the conceit of the documentary, but fact and fiction melding together also recalls one of Johnsons earliest and most beloved movie memories.

Johnson named his production company Zapruder Films, a reference to Abraham Zapruders home movie that caught the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and spawned a thousand conspiracy theories. It was a clip that Johnson first saw as a little boy when he watched Oliver Stones 1991 film JFK.

I only knew about the Zapruder film because of JFK, Johnson says. I loved the way that movie used archival film just to connect you so much with this moment in history. That was one of the first movies I saw. I guess I was 9 or 10 years old, maybe younger, and I was like, Oh my God! Movies are magic. This is crazy.

I didnt even know what was happening to me, but I believed everything the movie told me. I believed everything. I believed the whole JFK conspiracy. I was like, Oh yeah, of course.

Johnson remains a great fan of conspiracy movies, reeling off JFK, the original Manchurian Candidate, All the Presidents Men and Chinatown as among his favorites. He loves the way that the audience gets to play detective along with the central character, figuring the puzzle out with each successive clue.

Lionsgate Premiere

Operation Avalanche is something that Johnson and his producer Matt Miller hit on while discussing what their next project would be after Johnsons 2013 debut feature, The Dirties.

I think I just mentioned, Oh, we should do it about the moon landing, Johnson says. Then all of a sudden we just knew that that was the perfect thing for these characters to be doing, because its a movie about a movie. And not only is it a movie about a movie, but its the ultimate movie.

We thought Matt Johnson, the egomaniacal psycho, of course he wants to make that movie. So lets show the story of how he actually makes the greatest movie of all time.

Pam Grady is a Bay Area freelance writer.

Operation Avalanche (R) opens Friday, Sept. 23, at Bay Area theaters.

To see a trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ6IPQ2lTeQ.
It was a whirlwind visit that Bay Area Catholics wouldnt soon forget.

The Chronicles front page from Sept. 18, 1987, covers the popes stay in San Francisco, including a stop near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Pope John Paul II looked into the face of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco yesterday and embraced its victims, the story read. The first papal visit in the citys history came on a day of drama played out before disappointing crowds.

The shot by Chronicle photographer Steve Ringman is a classic. The bridge rises against a backdrop of fog with the Roman Catholic holy leader framed amid Archbishop Pio Laghi, San Francisco Archibishop John Quinn, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli and Archbishop Eduardo Martinez.

The papal visit was a historic religious moment for San Francisco, but the turnout wasnt as big as predicted.

Only 50,000 people  a fraction of the numbers expected  lined Geary Boulevard to get a glimpse of the pontiff as he drove by in his bulletproof popemobile, after a quick stop at the Golden Gate Bridge, current Native Son columnist Carl Nolte wrote 29 years ago. But Mission Dolores Basilica was packed to its ornate rafters when the pope arrived a little while later for a face-to-face meeting with a congregation that included 100 people with AIDS and AIDS-Related Complex.

He walked slowly up the aisle, blessing, touching and reaching out to the congregation.

The pontiff held and kissed a 4-year-old child who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, and blessed and talked to many others who suffer from the fatal disease.

God loves you all, without distinction, without limit, the pope said.

See more front pages: Go to SFChronicle.com/covers to search a database of hundreds of Chronicle Covers articles that showcase the newspapers history.

More from the Archive The Vault Home of the San Francisco Chronicle's archive and more than 150 years of journalism covering the Bay Area and beyond.

Chronicle Covers highlights one classic Chronicle newspaper page from our archive for 366 days. Library director Bill Van Niekerken and producers Kimberly Chua, Michelle Devera and Jillian Sullivan contributed to the project. Tim O'Rourke is the executive producer of SFChronicle.com. Email: torourke@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TimothyORourke

(Click to enlarge)




By PTI: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Sep 18 (PTI) Hillary Clintons campaign today acknowledged the sudden surge of rival Donald Trump and said that the race to the White House is now tightening while the Republican party said its campaign has gained momentum.

Such comments from the two campaigns came as RealClearPolitics ? which keeps track of all major national polls ? said that the lead of Clinton over Trump for the first time dropped below one percentage point and her advantage over the GOP nominee is quickly slipping away in some of the key battleground states.

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Immediately after the two back-to-back conventions in July, Clintons lead was touching almost double digit and she as leading in almost all of the battleground states.

"The race is about where it was when we went into the two conventions. It was essentially dead-heated into the two conventions. After the second convention, we got a lift, which you always do out of the convention. But it has tightened up because...we are a divided nation," said Senator Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

"We are politically very divided. And that is reflected again and again in so many of our elections and maybe again, especially because I come from Virginia, which is one of those battleground states where its been awful close recently, this is just who we are as a country," Kaine told ABC News.

"And that puts the burden on our shoulders to make the best positive case we can over the next 50 plus days,"he said.

The presidential elections are scheduled to be held on November 8.The first of the series of three presidential debates begins on September 26.

Kaine said he hopes to regain the momentum by bringing some basic questions on the table like climate change and LGBT equality.

Appearing on the same talk show, the Republican vice presidential nominee, Governor Mike Pence from Indiana said, "The momentum in this campaign is really overwhelming and I think its because Donald Trump has been focusing on issues that the American people really cared about. He brought that issue to an end this week".

"But I have to be honest with you, other than many in the national media, and certainly in Hillary Clintons campaign, as I campaign all across this country with Donald Trump and for Donald Trump, the American people arent focused on the debates of the past, theyre focused on their future. Theyre focused on the challenges that were facing at home and abroad," he asserted.

"Hes offering real solutions and the kind of strong leadership that the American people know will make America great again," Pence said. PTI LKJ KUN

--- ENDS ---

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California has more billionaires than any other state and an abundance of direct democracy. Those two facts intersect during election season, when spending by wealthy donors helps determine which initiatives make it on the ballot, and how many TV commercials and mailers campaigns can buy.

Their donations carry the potential to influence state policy for years to come. Heres a look at three high rollers influencing Californias statewide ballot in November.

Tom Steyer: The San Francisco billionaire, who left the hedge-fund world a few years ago to devote himself to Democratic politics and environmental causes, is now the biggest individual donor to a super PAC in the nation. Hes put $38 million into a committee running ads against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and working to register new voters in battleground states.

Even though blue California isnt a swing state, Steyer is digging deep here, too. Hes spent $1.6 million on a drive to register new voters, including young adults and people of color, whose lack of participation Steyer calls a threat to democracy.

Theres speculation that he plans to run for governor in two years. Steyer said hell make that call after the election.

In a state with a long list of liberal ballot measures, Steyer and his political organization, NextGen Climate group, are boosting some of the most progressive causes. He has given $1 million to Proposition 56, which would raise cigarette taxes by $2 a pack to fund the Medi-Cal health plan for the poor, and $50,000 to Proposition 67, which would ban plastic shopping bags.

NextGen even gave $61,000 to a campaign opposing money in politics. Proposition 59 asks voters if they want elected officials to take steps to repeal Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed unions and corporations to spend unlimited sums on political campaigns.

Charles Munger Jr.: A physicist who lives in Palo Alto, Munger is Californias biggest Republican donor and the son of a corporate billionaire.

Brian Baer/Sacramento Bee

In addition to funding GOP candidates, Munger has a history of supporting ballot measures that have gradually altered the states political landscape by chipping away at power held by Democrats and their allies in organized labor. He contributed to measures that created a neutral body to redraw legislative and congressional districts and paved the way for the states open primary system.

This year, Munger has poured $7.9 million into Proposition 54, which goes after the Legislatures practice of writing and passing some bills at the last minute without giving the public much chance to weigh in. The measure would require that all bills be published at least 72 hours before a vote.

No one citizen benefits from transparency so much that they would take the Legislature on over this, but everyone will benefit considerably, so its worthwhile doing this as a form of philanthropy, Munger said.

Munger is the sole financial donor to Prop. 54, prompting critics to say that the measure is not about philanthropy but about evening the political playing field for Republicans and their business allies. With Democrats holding a solid majority in the Legislature, last-minute maneuvers typically pass despite Republican objections.

Munger noted that in 2006, when Republicans controlled the U.S. Senate, a Democratic senator wrote a bill to require that all legislation be in print for 72 hours before a vote. That senator? Barack Obama.

Sean Parker: The billionaire founder of Napster and first president of Facebook, Parker has contributed $400,000 to Proposition 63, a gun-control measure, and $7.5 million to support Proposition 64, which would legalize recreational marijuana.

Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Both initiatives are backed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was a guest at Parkers 2013 wedding  a lavish Big Sur bash that infuriated environmentalists because it involved building a dance floor and other construction near an ancient redwood forest. Parker has given Newsom more than $56,000 for his 2018 run for governor.

Parker did not respond to an interview request. Prop. 64 spokesman Jason Kinney said in a statement that Parker supports making marijuana use legal for adults as an important cause for social justice.

CALmatters is a nonprofit journalism venture dedicated to exploring state policies and politics. For more stories by Laurel Rosenhall, go to www.calmatters.org/newsanalysis.
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The smell of sunscreen filled the air as the 200 partially clad participants of the 25th annual Leather Walk gathered under cloudless skies in the Castro neighborhood Sunday to celebrate community and kinky fetishes.

The event kicked off Leather Week in San Francisco, which will culminate with the Folsom Street Fair on Sunday.

This is an opportunity for the leather community to come together outside a bar setting, said Demetri Moshoyannis, executive director of Folsom Street Events, which sponsors the Leather Walk, the fair and other events over the next week.

Moshoyannis declared the weather perfect for the event, with temperatures well into the 80s by early afternoon, ideal for those baring shoulders, chests and buttocks.

People will leave with harness tan lines today, he said.

The event celebrates the leather community, which includes a wide range of personal choices in attire and sexual activities, said Edwin Morales, 35.

While leather  in the form of vests, pants, hats, harnesses, straps and G-strings  was the most popular choice, there was also neoprene, denim and fur.

Its men and women and everything in between, Morales said.

For Vicente Montoya, 37, who wore imitation leather shorts over a pleather wrestling singlet, the event offered a space to let your freak flag fly, whatever that is.

David Hyman was among the few wearing latex. A member of the Rubber Men of San Francisco club, he chose a full catsuit, with see-through sections on his chest, back and legs.

Wasnt it hot in there, like really hot?

Being a little sweaty is part of the fun, he said.

While fun was the order of the day, the annual event is also a fundraiser for the AIDS Emergency Fund and Breast Cancer Emergency Fund. Organizers expected to raise at least $20,000 this year.

Supervisor Scott Wiener stopped by to say hello to the crowd, looking out of place in a lavender button-up shirt, slacks and dress shoes. He had two speaking events at churches, he said by way of explanation.

This event, Leather Week, means a lot, he said. The leather community is at the heart of the LGBT community, a group of people deeply affected by the AIDS epidemic.

It was and is a key part of fighting this epidemic.

As the participants started to line up for the walk, Wiener smiled.

Church this week, he said. Full leather attire next week.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker
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Phil Tracy, a journalist whose 1977 expose of the Peoples Temple led Jim Jones and his followers to flee San Francisco for South America, died Thursday of complications from lung cancer. He was 74.

A former reporter for the Village Voice, Mr. Tracy teamed with The Chronicles Marshall Kilduff to interview former Temple members who had grown disillusioned with and frightened of Jones, at the time a powerful figure in San Francisco politics.

Jones, who had tried to stop their storys publication in New West magazine, received a telephone call the night before it ran, reading him the contents. He promptly fled the city for Guyana, along with hundreds of his followers. Most of them would die little more than a year later, on Nov. 18, 1978, when Jones cult committed mass suicide at his command.

Phil felt that the highest calling of a journalist was to expose this guy who everybody thought was a good guy, said former Chronicle reporter Mike Weiss, a longtime friend of Mr. Tracy.

The Jonestown Massacre, as the event came to be known, scarred Mr. Tracy, Weiss said.

He said, How can I ever do an investigation again if this is the consequence, all these dead children? Weiss said. Everyone said, Youre crazy, man  its not your fault. But he felt it was.

Philip John Tracy was born Jan. 14, 1942, in New York City to Frank and Catherine Tracy and grew up with his parents and brother in the Inwood neighborhood at Manhattans northern end. He attended St. Francis College in Brooklyn, majoring in philosophy, and became involved in the Civil Rights Movement. His brother, Frank Jr., recalls him getting arrested on a Freedom Ride.

After a brief, miserable stint doing social work, Mr. Tracy landed a job as the Albany correspondent for the Village Voice.

He knew a lot about city politics, a lot about state politics, and he was a quintessential New Yorker, said former Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll, who was also working at the Voice at the time. He was very funny in the sarcastic way youd think a New York reporter should be.

Carroll took a job at New West magazine and recruited Mr. Tracy to join him. The native New Yorker agreed, telling Carroll he was ready for a change.

Jim Jones at the time was a rising figure in San Francisco who had for years made a point of cultivating connections with the citys political elite, including Mayor George Moscone. And yet few people knew much about the man, beyond his ability to mobilize Temple members to attend political rallies and canvass door to door for his allies.

Kilduff, then a reporter at The Chronicle, was interested in finding out more. But Jones connections extended into the newsroom as well.

The city editor at that time really liked Jim Jones, said Kilduff, now on The Chronicles editorial board. Hed been to the church and thought Jones was a good guy. And I couldnt get him to do a story.

So Kilduff approached New West and ended up teamed with Mr. Tracy. They began talking to people who had left the Temple. The story they finally published on Aug. 1, 1977, revealed the physical and emotional abuse of Temple members, with details provided by former members willing to be named and photographed. The article also detailed how, for months, New West had received a barrage of phone calls and letters from the Temples supporters  including Californias lieutenant governor at the time  urging the magazine to drop its investigation.

Jones fled to an agricultural camp the Temple had already established in Guyana. Mr. Tracy worked on follow-up stories, talking with more disaffected Temple members who had stayed in the United States. But he decided against going to Guyana himself.

He came home and said, I cant do any more without going to South America, and if I go, theyll kill me, said Penny Post, with whom he had fallen in love while living in New York and married in January 1978. So I said, Dont go.

But others did. California Rep. Leo Ryan flew to Jonestown on Nov. 14, 1978, with a delegation that included journalists from The Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, NBC and the Washington Post. Ryan and four others were killed trying to leave with defectors from the camp. Back at the camp itself, more than 900 people died from ingesting cyanide.

I heard it on the radio and went screaming into the back room and said, Theyve done it, theyve killed a congressman, Post said.

Post said she isnt certain that Mr. Tracy took the massacre personally. But he did become increasingly depressed, she said. They broke up in January 1983.

Mr. Tracy stayed in journalism for a time, becoming managing editor of L.A. Weekly. He later took a job with the San Francisco Study Center, which provides research and editorial services to Bay Area nonprofits. Post recalls finding an article he wrote for the center online, and being pleased to see his old voice returning.

It was Philip in his good form, said Post, who called Mr. Tracy the love of her life. He always wanted to make the world a better place.

His brother, Frank Jr., says Mr. Tracy retired about 11 years ago. He spent his most recent years living in Palo Alto, Weiss said.

He was a great storyteller, a great raconteur, Post said. He had a sense of irony and the absurd like no one Ive ever known.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF
A former San Francisco restaurant owner has admitted failing to pay 46 employees more than $90,000 in back wages and lying about it to federal labor officials.

Ming Lian Zhou, 58, pleaded guilty Friday to a felony charge of concealing a material fact from a government agency.
STARCAST: That ultimate fun couple, Venus--everybody's sweetheart--and generous, expansive Uncle Jupiter whirl and twirl majestically in Libra. Call it the Wondrous Waltz. Taste and distinction pay off now. Love is also part of the story. It doesn't get much better than that, so make the most this week's inviting opportunities.

ARIES (March 20-April 18)

Jupiter (the godfather) and Venus (that Cosmopolitan girl) slip into your relationship house to search for new ways to surprise and please partners. Meanwhile the sun continues to favor contracts. How's that for inspiration? If anyone has cause to be happy as fabulous fall approaches, it's you, Ari.

TAURUS (April l9-May 19)

"Just a job" can morph into a super allah gorgous career this fall. Of course that means more money but also new perks, not to mention power with a capital P. We're talking Applause! Applause! (The Goddess only knows how much you deserve it.)

GEMINI (May 20-June 20)

Think creativity as Jupiter and Venus romp and play in your fun house. Books and plays will get written, children will be born (or begun). Additionally, a playful sun brings exciting breakthroughs where least expected.

CANCER (June 21-July 21)

Venus, the cosmic party girl, dons a frilly apron to sashay 'round your home center. That mad, man-about-town, Jupiter, also drops by. Think capital G glitz while tweaking your digs with an eye to entertaining. The sun encourages you to indulge yourself--as only you can.

LEO (July 22-Aug. 22)

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. Pick up your cell, dumbie! Jupiter and Venus make for a dynamic duo as they man your personal switchboard. In other news: Be prepared for a sibling saga. (Not necessarily a bad thing.) You'll know when the fat lady sings.

VIRGO (Aug. 22-Sept. 21)

With those merry pranksters, Jupiter and Venus, in your counting house, you won't want to deny yourself anything, but be selective. Spend money to make money. The time's come to make a statement about who and what you are. (And that includes how you look.)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Venus and Jupiter are a fun couple if there ever was one. And isn't it just too, too marvelous that they've designated your sign as Party Central? Romp and play, Lib, romp and play! You don't get a bonanza like this every day--nor even every season.

SCORPIO (Oct. 22-Nov. 20)

You think a lot about the one that got away. "If I knew then what I know now". . . that sort of thing. Is love really better the second time around? Only one way to find out. But, for now, put your considerable energies into existing relationships and creative work.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20)

A friend can morph into something much more this week. Now, is this is a good thing? Love stuff aside, friends and colleagues currently come to bat for you. Time to establish priorities, preferably a group oriented venture.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 21-Dec. 20)

Take a good long look at the Ram's starcast because it applies to you as well. Do you two know each other? If not, why not? You two firecrackers just could take over the world. Jupiter and Venus have turned your office chair into a loveseat. Their dreamy musings spell capital S success for you. Get with the program.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 18)

With Venus in the sack with Jupiter anything goes. One couldn't ask for livelier bedfellows especially now as they rock and roll in your travel zone. Time to holiday with your honey; and, if not already "taken," look for a soul mate while navigating the cobblestones in San Miguel, cruising the China Sea or rowing in Golden Gate Park.

AQUARIUS (Dec. 21-Jan. 18

Intimacy issues run silent and deep for you Aquarians. You may say the trip's more interesting than the destination, but do you really believe it? All this while Jupiter and Venus rally round your counting house. Try to be kind to the little people as you tap dance your way to the top.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19)

Mighty Jupiter and vital Venus slip into your relationship house to search for new ways to surprise and delight partners. Meanwhile the sun continues to favor contracts. How's that for inspiration? If anyone has cause to be happy as fall grows ever more fabulous, it's you, Pi.

MINERVA'S MAILBAG:

Quetion: I've just taken my first full time job. It's in a big office. The boss lady is, I discovered, a Scorpio. I'm a Virgo. Should I be scared?

ANSWER: NO! At first she may appear cool and reserved?and to a point, she is all of that; but as time pass, you'll discover her humor and discernment. Do your job well, be honest about what you don't know and don't be afraid to ask questions. You'll find her a fair boss and eventually a fun one.
As a youngster, Samuel Fuller sold newspapers on the street before becoming a copy boy and then a teenage crime reporter for the New York Evening Graphic. He left the paper to freelance, crossing the country and covering the Great Depression, eventually arriving in San Francisco in time to cover the bloody 1934 general strike for The Chronicle.

By the 1940s, he was a novelist and screenwriter, but when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, he joined the infantry, earning Bronze and Silver stars as well as the Purple Heart. He took part in campaigns in Africa, Sicily and Normandy, where he was part of the third wave on Omaha Beach on D-Day, and participated in the liberation of Falkenau concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.

But Fuller, who died at age 85 in 1997, is chiefly known for his work after World War II as a writer and director of such films as The Steel Helmet, Pickup on South Street, The Crimson Kimono and Shock Corridor.

All of those films and more, including the rarely seen Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street, a 1972 drama starring wife Christa Lang Fuller, and White Dog, a 1982 drama shelved by Paramount for its supposedly controversial content, will be on display Friday through next Sunday, Sept. 23-25, during Samuel Fuller: A Fuller Life at the Roxie Theatre and Smith Rafael Film Center.

Christa Fuller and daughter Samantha Fuller will attend many of the retrospectives screenings. Also on the bill is Samanthas documentary A Fuller Life, a distillation of her fathers autobiography A Third Face, shot in Samuel Fullers crammed Laurel Canyon work space known as the Shack. Excerpts are read by a gallery of famous faces, including The Big Red One co-stars Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine and Kelly Ward, and directors Wim Wenders and Joe Dante.

I honestly could have made a saga documentary in 10 parts of his life, Samantha Fuller says. I chose to condense it, 80 minutes, and keep it punchy, because that is the spirit of his films. Theyre to the point. Thats what we did. Its straightforward, and we pretty much zip through his life. But we keep this intensity that I believe he lived through.

A master of genre, including Western, noir and war films, and an auteur who knew how to make the most of low budgets and who used genre to critique war, racism and sexism, Fuller was embraced by fellow filmmakers, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.

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(Christa Fuller remembers meeting the 22-year-old Spielberg at a dinner party at actor Barry Sullivans house and being delighted that he not only knew her husbands work but also was carrying around a copy of Fullers 1954 Cold War drama Hell or High Water in his trunk.)

But the work could also be misunderstood. Paramounts shelving of White Dog is one example; the film about the titular hound, which has been trained to attack black people, was a commentary on racism. The studio thought it might be perceived as racist. That he was a World War II veteran who made war movies also led some people to assume that Fuller was pro-war. He wasnt.

Theres no one more antiwar than someone who fought in a war, says Christa Fuller. Sam did not know when he volunteered  he volunteered in World War II to fight for democracy. He was the son of immigrants, and he wanted to give something back to this country. He volunteered, and little did he know the horrors and nightmares. Sam suffered from PTSD all of his life.

Films like The Steel Helmet and Pickup on South Street, a Cold War noir in which Richard Widmarks pickpocket unwittingly lifts microfilm, earned Fuller the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. But Christa Fuller says that things were never that simple with her husband.

Sam was called an anticommunist fascist for the same picture, while the right called him a communist, she says.

Samuel Fuller was 63 when his daughter was born. He would tell her about the party they would have when he turned 100 in 2012, but he died before that milestone. A Fuller Life is her centennial present to her father. She furnished the Shack with cigars and whiskey for the readers who wanted them. Her mother served as executive producer and cooked dinners. Her cousin Paul Alexander-Fuller wrote the documentarys score.

We pretty much invited (the cast) as we were inviting them up to the house to have a drink and relax and read passages from his autobiography, Samantha Fuller says. It wasnt an intense role to play, although everyone I feel channeled my father rightfully.

Pam Grady is a Bay Area freelance writer.

Samuel Fuller: A Fuller Life: Friday, Sept. 23. Through next Sunday, Sept. 25. www.roxie.com, http://rafaelfilm.cafilm.org

Selected trailers:

A Fuller Life: www.youtube.com/watch?v=f41vkreGttc

Pickup on South Street: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x03NXUVaBi8

Shock Corridor: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m2RY7ln-wI

White Dog: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0U_SWhoebY
A senior doctor from the hospital told Mail Today, "This is the time when all the hospitals are overloaded with the patients and even doctors are falling ill due to surge in viral infections. Wasting doctors on this VIP room is not a smart move."

By Baishali Adak, Astha Saxena: It's like an oasis in the middle of a disease desert, though for the common man it might as well be a mirage. While the Capital grapples with outbreaks of dengue and chikungunya and patients are forced to either share beds or endure endless waits at medical centres, a room at the government-run Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital lies unused for five years with doctors monitoring it at all times.

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UNUSED CHAMBER

The chamber has been dedicated to the treatment of former prime ministers. Doctors from the RML and Safdarjung hospitals as well as Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) are assigned duties to look after the room round the clock. "This is the time when all the hospitals are overloaded with the patients and even doctors are falling ill due to surge in viral infections.," a senior doctor from the hospital told Mail Today. "Wasting doctors on this VIP room is not a smart move.", he added.

Chikungunya and dengue are running riot in the Capital, claiming at least 33 lives and affecting nearly 3,000 people, after heavier than-usual monsoon rains caused flooding in some areas and created stagnant pools of water for mosquitoes to breed.

VIP PATIENTS

RML has a dedicated nursing home for VIP patients. The clinic includes rooms for Members of Parliament (MPs), beneficiaries of the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) and other important people. On Friday, the Centre decided to allot 1,000 more beds for dengue and chikungunya patients in all its hospitals where a large number of patients from outside Delhi visits daily.

"We are trying our level best to manage the patient load," said Dr VK Sinha, spokesperson of RML. "The room is in the nursing home and does not affect the functioning of the hospital." Delhi reported two more chikungunya-related deaths on Saturday, taking the toll to 15.

PATIENTS FORCED TO WAIT

Mail Today examined the preparedness of the hospital and found that patients in critical condition from other diseases are made to wait endlessly for beds. Meena Pathak brought her fouryear-old son Anubhav for dialysis. They came all the way from Agra at 5.30 am. They were carrying a referral card from a private hospital, which read "emergency patient".

Yet, they were waiting till 11 am at the entrance of RML before being turned away. "We first went to AIIMS, then Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital, LNJP, and finally RML. Everywhere we have been told that there are no beds. Perhaps they have no sympathy for my child. He may die at any time," she said.

ALSO READ:

Blood racket unearthed in top Delhi hospitals amid dengue outbreak

A government on sick leave



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ST. CLOUD, Minn.  A man in a private security uniform stabbed nine people at a Minnesota shopping mall, reportedly asking one victim if they were Muslim before an off-duty police officer shot and killed him in an attack the Islamic State group claimed as its own.

None of the nine people who were stabbed in Saturday nights attack received life-threatening wounds, St. Cloud police Chief Blair Anderson said. He said it doesnt appear that anyone else was involved in the attack at the Crossroads Center in St. Cloud, which began at around 8 p.m. and was over within minutes.

At a news conference Sunday, FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Rick Thornton said the attack was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism and that agents were examining the attackers background and possible motives.

An Islamic State-run news agency, Rasd, said Sunday that the attacker was a soldier of the Islamic State who had heeded the groups calls for attacks in countries that are part of a U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition.

It was not immediately clear if the extremist group had planned the attack or even knew about it beforehand. Islamic State has encouraged lone wolf attacks. It has also claimed past attacks that are not believed to have been planned by its central leadership.

Authorities didnt identify the attacker, but the Star Tribune of Minneapolis said the mans father identified him as Dahir Adan, 22. Speaking to the newspaper through an interpreter, Ahmed Adan, whose family is Somali, said his son was born in Africa and had lived in the U.S. for 15 years.

A spokesman for St. Cloud State University confirmed that Adan was a student there, but had not been enrolled since the spring semester.

Ahmed Adan said police told him at around 9 p.m. Saturday that his son had died at the mall, and that police had raided the familys apartment, seizing photos and other materials. He said police said nothing to him about the mall attack, and that he had no suspicion that his son had been involved in terrorist activity, the newspaper reported.

Anderson said police had had three previous encounters with the attacker, mostly for minor traffic violations.

According to Anderson, the attacker, dressed in a security uniform and wielding what appeared to be a kitchen knife, began attacking people after entering the mall, stabbing them in several locations, including corridors, businesses and common areas.

Five minutes after authorities received the first 911 call, Jason Falconer, a part-time officer in the city of Avon, shot and killed the attacker. Anderson said Falconer fired as the attacker was lunging at him with the knife.

He clearly prevented additional injuries and potential loss of life, Anderson said. Officer Falconer was there at the right time and the right place.

Anderson earlier said the man reportedly made at least one reference to Allah and asked a victim if they were Muslim before attacking them.

The mall remained closed Sunday. Of the nine victims  seven men, a woman and a 15-year-old girl  three remained hospitalized, officials said.
By PTI: Earlier yesterday, crisis-hit Venezuela assumed NAMs presidency as leaders of the 120-nation group, including Ansari, began deliberations on contemporary issues like UN reform and terrorism with the bloc seeking relevance in the post-Cold War world.

Venezuela, an OPEC member and home to one of the worlds largest oil reserves, assumed the movements rotating presidency from Iran which had hosted the blocs summit in 2012.

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, while opening the 17th meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), said the member countries have the opportunity to discuss the concerns and the developments at the bilateral and international level.

During the past four years under Irans presidency NAM was involved in many activities at the UN. There have been meetings on disarmament, maintaining peace and human rights and several rounds of negotiations were held with the north countries, Rouhani noted.

"This summit is convening at a time when peace is being threatened in all its aspects across the world and the national sovereignty of developing states is being constantly violated in various forms and methods. Members of our movement, more than any other time, are in need of solidarity, unity and coordination," he asserted.

"What unfolds in the contemporary international order, is worrying if we adopt a realistic perspective. In todays global relations, hegemonic and domineering inclinations are incontrovertible reality. Alignment towards military polarisations and blocks is another dominant feature in the mentality and behaviours of some of the players," he said.

Arms race, warmongering, intensification of conflicts and violence and interfering in the domestic affairs of developing nations by the holders of power and wealth, overtly or covertly, are only examples of such behaviour which cannot be interpreted unless with the logic of hegemony-seeking and predominance, the Iranian President said.

Talking about the situation in Iraq and Syria, Rouhani said Iran was the first country which warned against the global danger of "Takfiri terrorism" in Syria.

"While a number of irresponsible groups in the Middle East and the West were busy equipping and training Takfiri terrorists, Iran stood against Iraq and Syria to confront alone with one of the most brutal terrorist organisations of history," he said.

NAM countries should not pin their hopes on big powers to achieve development and growth, he asserted.

The "zionest regime" is trying to exploit the situation in the Middle East, the Iranian President said, adding that Iran supports the cause of the Palestinians.

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accepted the presidency and vowed to strengthen the bloc. He said Irans presidency of the movement had given a "new dynamism" to the movement.

The summit in Venezuela comes amid anti-government protests in the South American country. A number of people were arrested there earlier this month after President Maduro was greeted by pot-banging demonstrators during a visit to the Margarita island. PTI ASK KIS

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The waning days of summer are set to near the triple-digit mark, while dangerous waves slam the coast and hot, stagnant air could become unhealthy around the Bay Area, forecasters said Sunday.

The hotter-than-normal conditions will spike Sunday before things start to cool down.

It will be warm, said Brian Mejia, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. And the farther east you go, the hotter it will get.

Inland areas in the East Bay like Livermore and Concord are forecast to reach the upper 90s and even up to 100 degrees Sunday, Mejia said.

In downtown San Francisco, temperatures will rise into the upper 70s where the normal high for this time of year is 70 degrees. In Oakland, temperatures will be in the mid 80s and the South Bay will get into the 90s.

We have some high pressure in the area making things compressed, Mejia said. There was no cloud cover in the morning compared with normal days this time of year, and thats pushing the marine layer out.

The ridge of high pressure will begin to weaken this week when temperatures will drop as much as 20 degrees in some areas.

But chances of any record-breaking Sunday heat are unlikely. Records for this time of year are a good 10 degrees higher than whats on deck for the day, forecasters said.

As things heat up around the region, those seeking refuge on the coast were warned about huge waves that will slam the shoreline from Sonoma to Monterey counties.

Up to 10-foot swells will wallop the coast, increasing rip currents and making it hazardous for beachgoers, who were cautioned to keep their distance from the waters edge, forecasters said.

Sundays clear and sunny skies were making for unhealthy air quality, prompting the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to issue a Spare the Air Alert.

Stagnant air and hot temperatures will increase air pollution throughout the day, and residents were asked to avoid driving and using gas-powered mowers. Those sensitive to unhealthy air should try to stay inside, officials said.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
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The ongoing rift between the Yadavs is not just a family fued, it is a tussle between the Samajwadi Party and the government.

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: More than an ongoing feud in the Yadav family in Uttar Pradesh, it is a fight between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the government being ruled by it in the state.

To be more precise, it is a fight for succession between SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger brother Shivpal Yadav and son Akhilesh Yadav.

In this 'Mahabharat', Mulayam is seen trying to douse the fire by brokering peace between the two warring factions. His cousin brother and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav, meanwhile, is evidently backing Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

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The three main protagonists in the "drama" have their own power bases which sometimes are clashing with each another.



MULAYAM SINGH YADAV



The Samajwadi Party was founded by Mulayam in Lucknow on October 4, 1992. The patriarch is a charismatic figure for the masses, particularly for those belonging to the Yadav community. He is their undisputed leader just as RJD chief Lalu Prasad is in Bihar.

Also read: Uttar Pradesh's Game of Thrones: SWOT analysis of each neta



Muslims constitute another component of SP's vote bank. With this formidable Muslim-Yadav (MY) combination, Mulayam went on to become the UP chief minister in 1993. Subsequently, he occupied the chief minister's again in 2003. His SP won the 2012 Assembly polls and this time he appointed his son Akhilesh as the chief minister.

The Yadavs have generally stood behind the SP. With Mulayam's magic formula, his Socialist party has ridden to power in the state whenever the Muslims have backed it. Hence, he is the SP's patriarch whose word is final.

SHIVPAL YADAV





The newly-appointed president of SP's UP unit was nursed by his elder brother Mulayam in politics much before Akhilesh had even appeared on the political horizon. When the SP grew, Mulayam moved to Delhi to play a role in Central politics. In his absence, it was left to Shivpal to take care of the party in UP.

The farther Mulayam got from his constituents, Shivpal's grip over the party grew stronger. He developed a personal rapport with the party workers at the grassroots level. Despite this, Shivpal always represented Mulayam. He could not grow beyond his elder brother's shadow.

Also read: After Mulayam slams Akhilesh, UP CM pledges full support to Shivpal



As the situation exists now, the SP supporters are for Mulayam but they do not know him personally. On the other hand, they personally know Shivpal but they are not for him. They are for the party's patriarch.

But Shivpal perhaps fails to realise this. He has become ambitious. He apparently thinks he, and not Akhilesh, has a right over the chief minister's chair.

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It is a unique case. In the matter of the Bahujan Samaj Party, its chief Mayawati does not have any anyone like Shivpal who knows everyone in the party. There are different people who know a section of the supporters.

Also read: Samajwadi Party feud: What happened beyond public gaze



Whether Shivpal's claim is right or wrong is debatable. But succession in politics - right from Ramayana and Mahabharata days to Maurya and Gupta dynasty to the Mughal period - has been bloody.

WHO'S DONE WHAT



Shivpal may be justified in thinking that he has a right to succeed Mulayam as the SP's boss. Till Akhilesh joined politics, it was Shivpal who assisted Mulayam. He stood by his elder brother in his thick and thin. After Mulayam, it was he who worked hard for the strengthening and expansion of the party.

On the other hand, Akhilesh is much junior to him in politics. He has not worked among the masses. He was selected to be UP chief minister just by virtue of being the SP supremo's son. Otherwise, next to Mulayam, Shivpal had all the claims for the top post of the state.

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Also read: Akhilesh Yadav hands back Shivpal his portfolios, assures Gayatri Prajapati's induction in Cabinet

Like any other succession story, Shivpal does have a right to think about his future. Having toiled in the party and being its face on the ground, he will want his progeny to be the heir to the dynastic party.

Otherwise, after Akhilesh, it would be his son and so on and so forth. The line of succession will belong to Mulayam and not Shivpal. If Shivpal remains a 'Bharat' for Akhilesh as 'Ram', his son would also remain the same for Akhilesh's son. Shivpal wishes to change this and, hence, this feud.AKHILESH YADAV





If Shivpal has a claim to the throne, so does Akhilesh. After all, he is the son of Mulayam who created the party and made it a formidable force. He is the prince, the heir apparent by the traditional rule of succession.



Till he became the chief minister in 2012, he did not have much to his credit except that he was Mulayam's son. Whatever image he has built, it has been after getting anointed to the top post in the state.

Also read: Patriarch Mulayam claims no Shivpal-Akhilesh rift even as Pari-War implodes



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Even for the first four years, he was generally seen playing a role junior to Shivpal. But with elections drawing closer, he has started asserting himself.

He considers himself to be the face of the government on whose image the party will go to the polls. Whether defeat or victory, it will go in Akhilesh's account. Shivpal will not count there.

However, Shivpal's case is different. For him, if the SP loses in 2017, it will be the defeat of the government. But if the SP wins, it will be the victory of the party.

FIGHT TO LURE MAXIMUM SUPORTERS



Hence, the fight between Shivpal and Akhilesh is for distributing maximum tickets to their respective supporters. In case of the party forms the next government, the one having more MLAs will lay claim to the CM's post.

This is the situation which Akhilesh is struggling to avoid. He wants to be the unchallenged leader.

But his authority has been challenged by Shivpal who knows that he is indispensable to the party at this stage. Neither Mulayam nor Akhilesh has enough time to connect to the cadre because the Assembly elections are barely six months away.

Also read: All is well in family and SP govt, claims Shivpal after 4-hour long meeting with Mulayam



Any corrective measure, such as reducing the dependence of Mulayam and Akhilesh on Shivpal, can happen only in the next term. But for the upcoming polls, the father-son duo has to bank on him. This is the reason why Shivpal is being pampered by Mulayam while the former is having his say.

Though the nephew stripped the uncle of all the significant portfolios, the elder brother struck back. He replaced his son with his younger brother as the state party chief. He even got the portfolios returned to his brother. Like a typical palace intrigue, this round surely goes to Shivpal because of his indispensability.

Also read: Shivpal says Mulayam's word is final, ready to sacrifice for him





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Rose Pak, a Chinatown dynamo who died Sunday at the age of 68, hated being called a power broker.

If I was white, theyd call me a civic leader, she would rasp, with absolutely no sign she was joking.

A spokesman said Ms. Pak died of natural causes in her home Sunday morning. Friends and family said she seemed healthy after recently spending several months in China after a kidney transplant.

Calling Ms. Pak, a native of Hunan, China, who moved to San Francisco in 1967, an activist or community advocate doesnt begin to describe her decades-long role in turning Chinatown and the citys fast-growing Asian American population into a political power in the city.

Ms. Pak never held an elective office or sat on a city commission, but she helped change the political face of San Francisco, largely by recognizing it was changing. As the citys Asian American population exploded, she worked to involve her community more directly in city politics.

She was strong and fearless, said San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who ordered city flags flown at half-staff in honor of Ms. Pak. Whether she was right or wrong, she grounded herself in representing the community. She really wanted to make sure Chinatown as a whole was respected.

Ms. Pak rose to prominence in an era when men held most of the political clout and women, especially Asian American women, were expected to be soft-spoken and self-effacing. She was anything but. Occasionally bawdy, often profane and always outspoken, she was a fighter for her causes, unafraid to mix it up with anyone who got in her way.

You cant be so afraid of offending anyone that you dont do anything, Ms. Pak told The Chronicle in 2010. If people take positions I dont agree with, am I just going to roll over and pretend to be dead? No, Im going to fight.

Born in 1948, Ms. Pak, her mother and sisters fled Communist China to British Hong Kong in the early 1950s. She was educated at Catholic boarding schools there and in Portuguese Macao before coming to California on a scholarship to study communications at the San Francisco College for Women.

After receiving her masters degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York City, Ms. Pak returned to San Francisco in 1974 to work as a reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle and immerse herself in the citys Asian community.

As the newspapers only Cantonese-speaking reporter, Ms. Pak found herself on the never-too-well-defined Chinatown beat, covering everything from the Chinese New Year Parade and local business stories to tales of crime and gang warfare.

She made her own news as a 24-year-old reporter when a local lawyer was in court on battery charges in 1972 after throwing a punch at Ms. Pak during an interview at her home.

Ms. Pak is an extremely pushy person, the attorney said during his misdemeanor trial.

That wasnt the way she saw it, however. I was trained to be persistent, Ms. Pak said on the witness stand.

That persistence stayed with her as she moved from writing about the news to making it.

Rose Pak was willing and eager to work, and a fun and funny person, said Carl Nolte, a Chronicle reporter who worked with Ms. Pak. But she started going her own way and moved away from the newspaper.

Unlike many Bay Area activists, Ms. Paks concerns were less about specific issues than about a specific area, her adopted home of Chinatown. Whether it was housing, development, the local economy or city politics, she came to it all with a single filter: Whats best for Chinatown and the people who live there?

In the late 1970s, she was in the middle of the efforts to save Chinese Hospital, a small, underfunded medical center that served the poor, Cantonese-speaking people in and around Chinatown with physicians and medical professionals who spoke their language and knew their community. A few years back, when there was a desperate need to find more than $100 million to rebuild the aging facility, Ms. Pak took over the fundraising effort.

I dont know if Im the best person, but someone had to do it, she said.

Workers are now putting the finishing touches on the hospitals new eight-story, $180 million building called the Patient Tower, which is set to officially open this month.

Even when she moved a bit farther afield, Chinatown was on her mind.

Her support for the Embarcaderos controversial 8 Washington condominium project, for example, might have had something to do with her friendship with developer Simon Snellgrove, but probably had much more to do with millions of dollars the project could have provided for affordable housing being built on Stockton Street by the nonprofit Chinatown Community Development Center, a longtime ally.

Ms. Paks time as a reporter gave her an inside look at how San Francisco really worked. It wasnt the polite give-and-take between thoughtful politicians and deserving local interests that good-government types like to see, but a raucous back-and-forth struggle between groups that wanted something from the city and politicians who wanted to know why they should give it.

From her perch as the decades-long consultant to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Ms. Pak helped make Chinatown an ever-stronger player in San Franciscos political world. She raised money for her preferred politicians, gave them introductions into the fast-growing Asian community and provided them with support and campaign workers, all the time reminding them of the work she wanted to see done.

She built a network of political and social connections over decades and was never shy about calling on them.

She was a fierce opponent in empowering people in the various commissions that effect public policy, and the way she did it was a classic political strategy, former Mayor Art Agnos said. She was a classic gatekeeper, but she did it for the good of her community.

She backed Agnos and Willie Brown in their runs for mayor and was more than willing to tell who should  and who shouldnt  be in their administrations. She pushed to have Ed Lee, whom she had known since his days in the 1980s as a young Asian Law Caucus attorney in Chinatown, appointed interim mayor to replace Gavin Newsom in 2011. Then she started the Run, Ed, Run campaign, successfully persuading Lee to give up his pledge to be a short-time placeholder and run for a full four-year term.

If Ed Lee did not seize that opportunity, it might be years or decades before we have such an opportune time to have a Chinese American in there, Ms. Pak said in a 2013 KQED radio interview. Of course everything in this city is political, I would be remiss if I saw this opportunity and did not seize it.

It wasnt until 1977 that San Francisco elected its first Asian American supervisor, and Gordon Lau was ousted in another election just two years later. But today, the mayor is Asian American, as are four of the citys 11 supervisors, both assemblymen and the local member of the state Board of Equalization.

Politics was a bloodsport to Ms. Pak, but she liked the sport part a lot. When shed hold court at Chinatown hotels and restaurants with friends, allies, reporters and others, shed gleefully gossip about the citys political figures, often in language that could never be used in a family newspaper.

And her allies werent spared her sharp tongue. When Lee appointed Julie Christensen, a Nob Hill community activist, to the supervisorial seat for Chinatown over Ms. Paks choice, Planning Commissioner Cindy Wu, Ms. Pak had some harsh words for her decades-long friend.

You might want to take a bathroom break before you hear what I have to say, she said at a fundraiser for the mayors re-election campaign, then proceeded to slam him for the appointment.

Of course she also delivered more than $200,000 in $500 checks to the mayor at the same event, because thats politics, too.

Ms. Pak then helped engineer the return of San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin with an aggressive ground game throughout Chinatown that ultimately tilted the board to a 6-5 progressive majority.

Obviously we dont see eye to eye on a number things, Lee said from Napa on Sunday. But right up to the last moment I saw her often, and we worked together. While we suffer a loss, our community has been strengthened by her.

Ms. Pak seldom let personal battles get in the way of her political wars. She fought with Agnos over the mayors efforts to tear down the Embarcadero Freeway, arguing that its loss would be a transportation and economic disaster for Chinatown merchants.

But when the freeway came down, Ms. Pak quickly worked to persuade city officials to sign off on construction of the Central Subway, extending the Third Street light rail from the Caltrain station at Fourth and King underground to Chinatown.

While opponents of the plan called the 1.7-mile project too expensive and an unneeded political giveaway to Chinatown interests, Ms. Pak helped keep the project moving. Its now set to open in 2019.

In her final showing of political might, Ms. Pak blasted an effort by Union Square merchants to make part of Stockton Street into a permanent pedestrian space once the subway is complete. In a letter to Municipal Transportation Agency head Ed Reskin, Ms. Pak argued the street is a vital link to Chinatown and pledged an all-out fight if plans continued.

Ms. Pak always shrugged off claims that she was a City Hall power broker, a woman who could give thumbs-up and thumbs-down on city projects  or politicians.

Power is an illusion, she said in an interview. If people think you have it, you have it.

Ms. Pak was single her entire life and had no children. She lived modestly and said that she never even had health insurance until she was in her 50s.

This is a loss never previously felt by this community, Brown said. Nobody was more devoted than Rose Pak. She took no prisoners when it came to her devotion. I dont know how she can be replaced.

Brown was joined by other top city political figures, including Peskin and fellow supervisor Jane Kim, both of whom were tearful while paying respects at what the family said was Ms. Paks Chinatown home Sunday on Jackson Street near an alley renamed this year in her honor.

People give me more power than I really have, she said in a 2013 Chronicle interview, and half of the crap Im not even remotely interested in. All Im interested in is advancing my community.

Funeral services are pending.

Chronicle staff writers Lizzie Johnson and Evan Sernoffsky contributed

to this report.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth
By PTI: Panaji, Sep 18 (PTI) A year after contesting the municipal elections, several leaders from then BJP-backed panel in Margao town have joined Goa Forward Party ahead of the state Assembly elections scheduled early next year.

Goa Forward Party president Prabhakar Timble yesterday welcomed the leaders in the party fold in presence of Independent MLA from Fatorda constituency, Vijai Sardessai.

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The elections for the municipal councils was held in October last year.

Among those who joined the party were Sujay Lotlikar and Raju Naik, who were earlier in the BJP. Naik was ex- councilor from Pajifond.

Others who joined the local party were ex-councilor Ramdas Hazare, Charlton Baretto, Vitorino Tavares, Custodio Dias, Mayur Naik and Florindo Miranda.

Sardesai welcomed the new entrants into the party and said unity is the key to a developed Fatorda.

"BJP might have star campaigners and central ministers to campaign and canvas for them in election but our strength lies in our local leaders who understand the sentiment of the local people," he said.

On the occasion, Timble said Goa Forward is a movement providing opportunities for Goans to be political and social leaders. PTI RPS ARS

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Sources said that four cities out of Agra, Aligarh, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad and Jhansi might feature in the list of 27 cities set to be included in the Smart City Mission.

By Kumar Vikram: It's raining infrastructure projects in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh! After getting multiple highway projects last week, four cities of the state might be gifted with smart cities next week. The Ministry of Urban Development is set to announce the next set of 27 cities under the Modi-government's flagship Smart City Mission.

DEVELOPMENT AS AN ELECTION ISSUE

Sources said that four cities out of Agra, Aligarh, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad and Jhansi might feature in the list. UP is set to witness the political battle early next year and the BJP is looking to unseat Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, who has already started campaigning on the development plank. However, the BJP does not want to be left behind in the race.

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Sources said that so far, only Lucknow has been selected in the first set of smart cities. In July last year, a total of 14 names were given to the Centre by the UP government to be developed as smart cities and only Lucknow could fulfill the criteria.

Of the rest, Agra, Kanpur and Aligarh stood at 35th, 41st and 52nd position in the list of 100 cities.

PM Narendra Modi's constituency of Varanasi was at the bottom at the 97th position. Sources said that this time, the administration of these cities have sent fresh plans for development to the Centre, so that they could be included in the next set of smart cities. Interestingly, Rai Bareli and Meerut had the same ranking and their names were sent back to the state.

NO POLITICAL MOTIVE

The state administration was told to send only one name out of the two. An official said that due to delay from the state government, a decision could not be arrived at. Officials said that the cities are selected only if they meet certain parameters and there is no political motive in their selection. "There are tough parameters and the state administration and municipal bodies have to come up with detailed plans of development," said an official.

"Finally, they are evaluated by a committee involving a panel of national and international experts, organisations and institutions. Cities from other states including Maharashtra, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand will also be part of the next set of cities," the official added. So far, 33 cities (20 in the first and 13 in the supplementary round) have been selected by the Centre for development as smart cities.

The government has to choose 100 cities for the first phase which has to be completed by 2019-20. An outlay of Rs 48,000 crore has been kept aside for the flagship programme over a period of five years.

ALSO READ:

UP seems headed for a hung Assembly in next years polls

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UNDP to assist in developing Dharamshala as Smart City



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By PTI: New Delhi, Sep 18 (PTI) The Environment Ministry today said the sub-committee constituted by the countrys biotech regulator GEAC to examine the bio-safety data on GM mustard had in it experts on subjects relevant to safety evaluation of the hybrid, including a health expert.

The statement came days after an anti-GM group alleged that sub-committee formed by Genetic Engineering Approval Committee did not have any health expert and three of its members have conflict of interest.

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The Ministry in its clarification said that B Sesikeran was in the sub-committee as a health expert. He is an MD in pathology and former Director, National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), it said.

The activists opposed to the GM mustard had alleged that Sesikeran had serious conflict of interest.

"The GEAC in its 126th meeting held on January 4 this year constituted a sub-committee with expert scientists in specific subjects relevant to safety evaluation of Genetically Engineered (GE) Crops.

"The sub-committee also consists of a health expert, B Sesikeran, who is an MD in pathology and former Director, National Institute of Nutrition Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and is currently serving as chairman, Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation," an official statement said.

Reacting to the clarification, anti-GM group, Coalition for a GM-Free India, which had levelled the accusations, said it repeats what it had said in its recent report on the matter of this sub-committee and the "lack of reliability" on its assessment processes.

"Sesikeran was missing from GEAC including in the crucial meeting of the sub-committee in which the sub-committee created its report in February 2016, which was submitted to GEAC in its 127th meeting," Kavitha Kuruganti from the Coalition told PTI.

The Coalition had alleged that B Sesikeran, was the former Director of National Institute of Nutrition, a board member of International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) which has Bayer, BASF, Monsanto and others as members.

"It is important to note that he (Sesikeran) was a member of the expert committee headed by Anupam Verma for the CGMCP project, advising on what studies to take up for health safety assessment of GM mustard.

"...also he conducted the studies as former director of NIN, he also gave a green signal as chairperson of RCGM in DBT and now sits in GEAC as a member and was included in the sub-committee! He however did not attend the February 2 meeting. From all information available, he did not take part in the sub-committee processes," the Coalition had alleged. PTI TDS SAP TIR RG TIR

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If you've been wondering why Sumona has not been seen on the show of late, here's your answer.

By India Today Web Desk: The last few episodes of The Kapil Sharma show have had one very interesting element missing--Doctor Mashiir Gulati's daughter, Sumona Chakravarti.

Even though Sumona has been essaying this role for a wife, we guess it would be a while before people stop referring to her as 'Kapil ki Biwi'.

In a report published in the Times of India, Sumona talks about why she's been missing from The Kapil Sharma Show for the past few episodes.

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"Honestly, I don't know. We have shot many gags and there are many of my episodes in the bank. I had also gone to Switzerland, so I missed quite a few episodes when Salman Khan and other celebrities were on the show. When they will air my slot is a call the creative guys will take. I just love my work and don't think of anything else."

Picture courtesy: Instagram/sumonachakravarty

When asked if she's happy still being referred to as 'Kapil ki Biwi', she says, "Yes, why not? But audiences will not attach me to that name forever. Earlier, I was known as Ram (Kapoor) ki bahen and now, Kapil ki biwi. At the end of the day, it's your work that people acknowledge you for."

We hope to see you back on the show really soon, Sumona!

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Deputy CM today said that Nitish Kumar was more experienced and capable than PM Modi and Rahul Gandhi.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav said that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was more experienced and capable than PM Narendra Modi. Speaking to the media on Sunday, Tejaswi asserted that Narendra Modi will not be re-elected as Prime Minister in 2019.

Tejaswi Yadav's support to Nitish Kumar for PM candidate comes just couple of days after Congress, which is an alliance partner in the Bihar government said that their vice president Rahul Gandhi will be the PM candidate of the anti-BJP front.



NEED A PM FROM BIHAR

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"Who will not be happy if a person from Bihar becomes PM of the country? Will the state unit of the Congress or its state president Ashok Chowdhary not be happy if Nitish Kumar becomes PM?" asked Tejaswi.

Tejaswi said Congress state president Ashok Chowdhary was working as education minister in Nitish Kumar's government and he would very well be aware of Nitish's capability and qualification for country's PM post.

However, Tejaswi said Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi too is capable to lead the country.



CONGRESS YET TO NAME ITS PM CANDIDATE



"The Congress has officially not named its PM candidate till now. Every party believes that their tallest leader is best suited for the PM post. Rahul is working hard and has capability to become PM," said the deputy CM.

Tejaswi though said that general elections 2019 was still far away and who will become PM then depends on prevailing circumstances then. He maintained that several regional parties have strong leaders who have their own PM candidates.

Tejaswi, 26, is the youngest son of former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav who was once the arch rival of Nitish Kumar.

Also read:

Tejaswi defends brother Tej Pratap over pictures with Shahabuddins sharpshooters



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Winery tourism is increasingly popular in the up-and-coming Sierra Nevada region, with more organized events like the Sierra Vintners Regional Wine Trail open house and festival taking place Saturday, Sept. 24. Wineries such as Double Oak, Sierra Sky and Solune host food and wine samplings, and the event is so popular that the vintners group is planning similar open houses for next spring and summer.

Part of the appeal of these festivals is the homespun mood, where winery owners and winemakers are on hand for meet-and-greets. Year-round, though, the Nevada County wines are the draw.

 Carey Sweet, travel@sfchronicle.com

Nevada City Winery

Founded by Alan Haley in 1980 and now co-owned by Nevada City resident Susan Bavo, this is the oldest winery in Nevada County. The group purchases all of its grapes, mostly from local growers, and the company is now the countys largest wine producer/custom crush facility. Yet theres still a charming, personal mood to be enjoyed in the historic wood-and-stone building that was formerly the Miners Foundry Garage in the quaint downtown. In fact, the old garage facade remains, adjoining the newer wood cottage entry.

Standing at the wood-paneled tasting bar is nice, but various cozy alcoves beckon for more comfort, set with chaises and plush armchairs next to walls of local, monthly changing art. The best seats are on the back deck, sipping six pours ($5) from a selection of Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Gewurztraminer, Barbera, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Petite Sirah, Sangiovese, a Rough and Ready Red blend, a Sonata white blend, and sparkling Brut.

Winemaker Mark Foster also fashions a Rudiger Red (Zinfandel), and Rudiger White (Chardonnay), donating 10 percent of the proceeds to the Nevada County Canine Association, which funds Rudiger, the Nevada City Police Departments K9 patrol dog.

Add a Wheyward Girl cheese plate to your wine lineup for $10  the creamery opened last year as Nevada Citys only cheese store.

321 Spring St., Grass Valley. Noon-5 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; noon-7 p.m. Friday and Saturday. (530) 265-9463. www.ncwinery.com

Coufos Cellars

Set on a 20-acre former dairy farm in the remote historic town of Rough and Ready, the all-estate-grown grapes feature interesting varieties like Marsanne, Roussanne and Cinsaut. And when owners-winemakers Janet Wheeling and Henry Coufos converted the propertys old blacksmith shop into a tasting room in 2006, they were careful to maintain the charm  the old wood barns and outbuildings were kept, now converted into winemaking facilities.

This is a quintessential countryside experience, and the free tastings amplify the friendly mood. On a recent stop-in, eight wines were on offer, including the standout Gatti Rouge blend of Syrah, Petite Syrah, Mourvedre, Grenache, Cinsaut and Viognier.

10065 Rough and Ready Road, Rough and Ready. Noon-5 p.m. Saturday or by appointment. (530) 274-2923. www.coufoscellars.com

Pilot Peak Vineyard

and Winery

This would be a fancy tasting experience even in Napa or Sonoma, made all the more remarkable because there are no fees at this sophisticated spot that opened 10 years ago. We are greeted at the bar to sample white wines like Viognier and a sparkling Grand Cuvee Brut of Chardonnay and Semillon. Then were escorted to the winerys sprawling stone terraces for a comparative tasting of red wines paired with a small appetizer plate.

Though estate grapes are limited to Sauvignon Blanc and Mourvedre, winemaker Lynn Wilson sources 98 percent of the grapes from within 5 miles of the winery. So we sip selections like a recent array of Petite Sirah, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Primitivo, Livedo Lot 7 (Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Petite Verdot and Petite Sirah) and Paramour (a Rhone blend of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre and Petite Sirah). The tasting came with Truckee sourdough olive loaf, tapenade, salami and cheese, and homemade pepper jelly.

12888 Spenceville Road, Penn Valley. 1-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. (530) 432-3321. www.pilotpeak.com

Katoa Cellars

The newest winery in Sierra Valley, this unique spot opened in July of last year and immediately garnered attention for its unusual roots. Winemaker and co-owner Riki Pollock is Maori (the indigenous Polynesian people) from New Zealand, and he partnered with co-owners Andrea Tiernan-Pollock (his wife) and Laurie Zoulas to create a New Zealand-style tasting room in an old cottage.

Katoa is the native New Zealand word for everyone, so this is a broad-reaching experience. Grapes are purchased from Lake County, Mendocino County and the Russian River Valley, to deliver a tasting lineup that recently included 2013 and 2014 Lake County Zinfandels, a 2013 Lake County Barbera and a 2014 Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon. Theres no tasting fee, the deck overlooking the old red barn demands a picnic, and Pollock is an entertainer  he jokes that it helps to have an interesting accent as he shares stories with his customers.

14556 Powerline Road, Grass Valley. Noon-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, or by appointment. (530) 574-1048. www.katoacellars.com

Avanguardia Wines

Rob and Marilyn Chrisman have created a lovely salon that feels as much like a boutique shop as a tasting room. Set on the main drag, it has brick walls lined with shelves of gifts and wine accessories, like the pretty bubble decanters hosts use to aerate wine pours.

The claim to fame is the rare grapes, such as Cristallo, Friulano, Peverella, Teroldego and the American hybrid Carmine  in fact, Rob says he worked with UC Davis in the late 1970s to introduce Russian and Italian varieties to the United States. The wines are blends crafted from two to six grape varieties.

209 W. Main St., Grass Valley. Noon-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. (530) 274-9911. www.avanguardiawines.com
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SRINAGAR, India  Suspected rebels using guns and grenades sneaked into a crucial army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir early Sunday and killed at least 17 soldiers in the deadliest attack on a military base in the disputed Himalayan region in recent years, the army said.

Four rebels were killed as the soldiers returned gunfire after the surprise assault before dawn on the base, located near the highly militarized Line of Control dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Loud explosions were heard and several barracks caught fire in the initial hours of the attack. Afterward, military helicopters hovered over the base as the army conducted what it described as mopping up operations.

Officials said at least 30 soldiers were wounded in the attack, including about a dozen who were in critical condition.

The casualties were high because a large number of soldiers were turning over the base to new units and were stationed in tents and temporary shelters that caught fire in the attack, the army said in a statement. The base, located in the town of Uri, west of the regions main city of Srinagar, houses the Indian armys regional brigade headquarters.

Soldiers were conducting searches in the area, but army officials said it appeared that they had killed all four rebels involved in the attack.

Army officials said the rebels had infiltrated into the Indian side of Kashmir from the Pakistani-controlled part.

Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, the armys director general of military operations, said that all four gunmen were foreign terrorists, and that initial investigations suggested they belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a militant group that has been active in Kashmir for more than 15 years.

India blames the outlawed group, which is based in Pakistan, for a series of attacks in the Himalayan region and Indian cities.

Singh said the gunmen were carrying some items that had Pakistani markings.

Pakistans army said in a statement that the allegations were unfounded and premature, reiterating Islamabads stance that no infiltration is allowed from Pakistani soil.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, but is claimed by both in its entirety. Most people in the Indian-controlled portion favor independence or a merger with Pakistan.
INDANAN, Philippines  A Norwegian man freed by militants after a year of jungle captivity in the southern Philippines described the ordeal Sunday as devastating, carrying a backpack with a bullet hole as a reminder of a near-death experience that included the beheadings of the two Canadians kidnapped with him.

Kjartan Sekkingstad was freed by his Abu Sayyaf captors on Saturday to rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which has signed a peace deal with the Philippine government and helped negotiate his release. On Sunday, he was handed over to Philippine authorities, along with three Indonesian fishermen freed separately by the Abu Sayyaf.

Aside from the horror of constantly being warned that he would be the next to be beheaded by the brutal extremists, Sekkingstad said he survived more than a dozen clashes between Philippine forces and his captors in Sulu province.

In one battle, in which the forces fired from assault helicopters and from the ground, he said he felt a thud in his back and thought he was hit by gunfire. After the fighting eased, he discovered that he wasnt hit, and that his green, army-style backpack had been pierced by the gunfire instead.

On Sunday, the heavily bearded Sekkingstad, clad in a rebel camouflage uniform and muddy combat boots, was asked how he would describe his experience. Devastating, devastating, he said, still clutching the backpack.

Philippine presidential adviser Jesus Dureza, who received Sekkingstad and the three freed Indonesians from Moro National Liberation Front rebel chief Nur Misuari in Misuaris rural stronghold near Sulus Indanan town, accompanied the Norwegian on a flight to southern Davao city, where the ex-hostage met President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte told Sekkingstad that his travails were over. Sekkingstad, newly shaved but looking gaunt in a loose polo shirt, thanked all those who worked for his freedom.

I am very happy to be alive and free, he said. Its a beautiful feeling.

Sekkingstad was kidnapped from a yacht club he helped managed on southern Samal Island on Sept. 21, 2015, along with Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall and Halls Filipino girlfriend, Marites Flor, sparking a massive land and sea search by Philippine forces.

The Abu Sayyaf demanded a huge ransom for the release of the foreigners, and released videos in which they threatened the captives in a jungle clearing where they displayed Islamic State group-style black flags.

Ridsdel was beheaded in April and Hall was decapitated in June after ransom deadlines lapsed. When Flor was freed in June, she recounted in horror how the militants rejoiced while watching the beheadings.

Sekkingstad said he and his fellow captives were forced to carry the militants belongings and were kept in the dark on what was happening around them.

We were treated like slaves, he said.
UNITED NATIONS  World leaders meeting at the United Nations starting Monday will try to make progress on two intractable problems at the top of the global agenda  the biggest refugee crisis since World War II and the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year that has claimed over 300,000 lives.

Against a backdrop of rising ethnic and religious tensions, fighting elsewhere in the Mideast and Africa, extremist attacks across the world and a warming planet, there are plenty of issues for the 135 heads of state and government expected to attend to try to tackle.

Its no secret theres a lot of fear out there, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said Thursday, citing the uncertainties sparked by Britains vote to leave the European Union, the threat posed by the Islamic State extremist group, and attacks in many parts of the world.

But Syria, where a tense cease-fire brokered by Moscow and Washington went into effect last Monday, remains at the top of the agenda at the U.N. General Assemblys annual ministerial meeting.

With the truce still fragile, no sign yet of humanitarian aid deliveries, and supporters and opponents of the Syrian government trading accusations, diplomats said there may be a meeting Tuesday of some 20 key countries on both sides who are part of the International Syria Support Group to chart the next steps.

The spotlight during the week is also certain to shine on three leaders, who are all scheduled to speak at the assemblys opening ministerial session on Tuesday morning.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who steps down on Dec. 31, and President Obama, who will leave office in January, will address the 193-member world body for the last time. And British Prime Minister Theresa May will be making her debut on the world stage less than three months after the vote to leave the European Union.

In one of the weeks highlights, the secretary-general has invited leaders to a first-ever U.N. Summit on Refugees and Migrants on Monday.

According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, an unprecedented 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, an increase of more than 5 million from a year earlier and the highest number since World War II. They include 21.3 million refugees, 3.2 million asylum seekers, and 40.8 million people internally displaced within their own countries.
Militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army at Uri, 102 kms from Srinagar, in the wee hours today, with explosions and heavy gunfire heard at the spot.

By India Today Web Desk: Seventeen soldiers and four militants were killed today during an attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town, defence officials said.

According to the officials, the gunfight has stopped and now search operations were on to scour the area for more possible militants.



Militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army at Uri, 102 kms from Srinagar, in the wee hours today, with explosions and heavy gunfire heard at the spot.

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READ: What went wrong in Kashmir and how to fix it



The attack began at around 0400 hours and the number of militants was believed to be four.



Initially, the attack was understood to be at the 12 Brigade Headquarters but sources in the Army said it was at the rear formation of a battalion that was deployed at the Line of Control (LoC), reported PTI.

READ: How Burhan Wani's killing made the Kashmir rebellion go viral



Photo: ANI

HERE ARE THE UPDATES:



Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar leaves for Srinagar.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag reaches Srinagar, will meet injured soldiers.

PM Modi condemns attack, says those behind the despicable attack won't go unpunished.

Terrorists belonged to LeT: Army sources



UAVs deployed over the area for search operations.



17 jawans killed in the attack.

4 terrorists eliminated by Army in Uri. Search operation is going on: Sources

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar has called a meeting in the evening to review the situation. Army chief and other top defence officials will attend the meeting.



Rajnath Singh speaks to Governor and CM of J-K regarding terror attack.

Rajnath Singh calls an emergency meeting of concerned officials over the ongoing encounter.

The injured army men have been rushed to Army base hospital in Srinagar.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh postpones visit to Russia and US due to situation in Kashmir.



Special forces of Army airdrop at Uri where encounter is on.

Loud explosions were heard in the area.



Helicopters from the Army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla have been pressed into service.



Some barracks caught fire in the encounter.



Immediately after the militants entered the camp, explosions and exchange of heavy fire were heard from inside, official sources said.

Photo: ANI

The attack comes two years after militants had carried out a similar type of attack at Mohra in the same area. Ten security personnel were killed in the attack that took place on December 5, 2014.

READ| Operation Calm Down: Army introduces bullet-proof vehicles to counter Kashmir stone pelters

It is believed that the attack was the handiwork of a freshly infiltrated group of militants who could have entered along the Salamabad Nallah into the town.

The entire area has been sealed off.

Watch the video here:





Also read: Hurriyat hawks exposed: How funds flow from Pakistan to fuel Kashmir unrest

Lashkar, Hizbul collecting money to finance terrorism in Kashmir, intelligence agencies tell MHA

Kashmir: 1 civilian killed, 9 cops injured in grenade attack in Pulwama



--- ENDS ---
Modi saluted the soldiers who were martyred in the Uri attack and said their service to the nation will always be remembered. In pics: Combing operations in Uri post fidayeen attack

By PTI: Condemning the "cowardly" terror attack on an Army camp in Uri, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today assured the nation that those behind the "despicable" strike wont go unpunished.

In pics: Combing operations in Uri post fidayeen attack



He saluted the soldiers who were martyred in the attack and said their service to the nation will always be remembered.

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READ| Uri attack: Deeply disappointed with Pak's continued, direct support to terrorism, says Rajnath Singh

"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi tweeted on the incident in which 17 soldiers were killed and 19 injured.

He said he has spoken to Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on the situation in the wake of the terror attack.

Parrikar is on his way to Kashmir to take stock of the situation.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmirs Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said that in an international arena, Pakistan will be isolated if it continues to adopt such measures.

URI TERROR ATTACK: WHO SAID WHAT

Home Minister Rajnath Singh

- Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated

- There are definite and conclusive indications that perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped

- I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups

- Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such

- My heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers. Those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice

BJP president Amit Shah

-Pakistan is trying to cause instability in India by constantly trying to lend support to terrorism and terrorist outfits. India has been constantly fighting against terrorism and this fight is now in a decisive stage.

-The martyrdom of the brave sons of India would not be allowed to go waste and the Central government is moving in the right direction.

Mehbooba Mufti

- The attack seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region

- The heightened tension in the wake of Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid increasing India-Pakistan hostility

- The perpetrators of violence must understand that violent methods have yielded nothing in the past nor will these yield anything in future except adding to the miseries of the people

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Omar Abdullah

-Better facilities including "fire retardant" tents should be given to the soldiers.

-The mess will be fancy, the auditorium more modern, officers quarters more comfortable but the jawan will be taken for granted.

- I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred jawans who have lost their lives and pray for the speedy recovery of those who have sustained injuries in the attack.



Shaukat Kashmiri, Chairman, United Kashmir People's National Party



-We have always condemned terrorism. Terrorism is not the way forward, violence is not the way forward, and extremism is not the way forward and especially non-Kashmiris are coming from Pakistan in organizations like Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba they are not helping.

- Those who are testing India's patience will get a befitting response..The Ministry of Defence will take an appropriate call: Jitender Singh

- If you term it as terror attack, you're misleading yourself. Only way to handle these attacks is to hit back: Former Home Secy RK Singh

- Strongly condemn cowardly attack at Uri in which 17 soldiers lost lives. India cannot be cowed down by such attacks: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

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-The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir during the early morning of September 18. We extend our condolences to the victims and their families. The United States is committed to our strong partnership with the Indian government to combat terrorism: John Kirby, Assistant Secretary and Department Spokesperson, Bureau of Public Affairs, USA

- Our thoughts are with families of soldiers who lost their lives: US ambassador to India Richard Verma

Also Read:

Uri terror attack: 17 jawans killed, all terrorists neutralised, search operations on

What went wrong in Kashmir and how to fix it

How Burhan Wani's killing made the Kashmir rebellion go viral











--- ENDS ---
Home Minister Rajnath Singh today cancelled his visit to Russia and United States after the Uri terror attack that killed 17 Army men. In pics: Combing operations in Uri post fidayeen attack

By Press Trust of India: Home Minister Rajnath Singh today postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States in the wake of the attack in Uri and the unrest in Jammu and Kashmir and called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the terror strike.

In pics: Combing operations in Uri post fidayeen attack



Singh also spoke to the Jammu and Kashmir Governor and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on the situation arising out of the terror strike in Uri.

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READ: What went wrong in Kashmir and how to fix it



The Home Minister was scheduled to leave for Russia tonight for a four-day bilateral visit and later to the US on September 26 for a six-day tour to attend the Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US," he said in a statement here.



Delhi: HM Rajnath Singh chairs high level security meet. NSA, Home Secy,IB Chief present (Inside Visuals) #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/MYUAiqa9roANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

The Home Minister said he has spoken to Governor N N Vohra and the Chief Minister and discussed with them the situation arising out of attack on a Army Brigade Headquarters in Uri and both of them apprised him of the overall situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

"I have given instructions to Home Secretary (Rajiv Mehrishi) and other officers in the Home Ministry to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

Also read: Uri terror attack: 17 jawans killed, all terrorists neutralised, search operations on



Terror struck an Army camp in North Kashmir's Uri town when militants stormed a battalion headquarters in the wee hours today, leaving at least 17 Army men dead. Four militants have also been killed. All terrorists were neutralised by the security forces.



HOME MINISTER CALLED EMERGENCY MEET



The Home Minister also called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the attack on the Brigade Headquarters in Uri.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the Union Home Secretary, top Army, paramilitary and Home Ministry officials are attending it.

Unrest in Kashmir Valley has been continuing for more than two months ever since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on July 8 in which nearly 80 people have lost their lives so far.

This was for the second time that Singh has cancelled his trip to the US due to violence in Kashmir. Earlier, he was scheduled to leave for the US on July 17 for a week-long visit but it was postponed due to sudden eruption of violence in Kashmir after Wani's killing.

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READ: How Burhan Wani's killing made the Kashmir rebellion go viral



--- ENDS ---
17 jawans were martyred and four terrorists were gunned down in the attack that shook Kashmir this morning.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has directed that the mortal remains of all the martyrs would be transported directly to their respective hometowns for which arrangements are being made.

By Shuja-ul-Haq : Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh visited Kashmir to take stock of the ongoing operations and review the overall security situation in light of the Uri attack in which four terrorists were killed and 17 soldiers martyred.

They were briefed by the Northern Army and Chinar Corps Commanders Lt Gen DS Hooda and Lt Gen Satish Dua respectively at Srinagar on the Uri attack and the operation launched to neutralise the terrorists. While three of the four heavily armed terrorists were eliminated within the initial fifteen minutes of establishing contact, the fourth was neutralised later and four AK 47 rifles and equal number of UBGLs along with other ammunition were recovered from them. Unfortunately, 17 soldiers were martyred in the operation. 13 of these soldiers died as they were trapped in the tents and shelters that caught fire due to the explosives used by the terrorists.

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PARRIKAR BRIEF ABOUT SECURITY GRID IN LoC

The defence minister was briefed about the security grid along the LoC and the hinterland also covering the deployment and employment of the additional forces that have been recently inducted into the Valley. The need for heightened vigil both on the LoC and hinterland and to remain prepared for any developing was stressed upon. There have been a number of infiltration attempts that the Army has foiled recently. It may be recalled that in the last one week itself, three such attempts were foiled in Kupwara Sector when four terrorists were killed and another group of four terrorists was eliminated in Poonch.

On being briefed about the internal security situation in the hinterland, the Army Chief reiterated the importance of complete synergy amongst all security, intelligence and other government agencies to ensure calm and prevent the terrorists and other inimical forces from moving with impunity and intimidating the populace.

ARMY CHIEF VISITS URI

Earlier the Army Chief also visited Uri to get a first hand account where he was briefed on the latest situation by the Commanders on ground.

The Defence Minister and Chief later met the casualties at the Army Base Hospital in BB Cantt. Saluting the martyrs, they expressed their deep grief and condolences over the loss and wished speedy recovery to the injured. The Defence Minister has directed that the mortal remains of all the martyrs would be transported directly to their respective hometowns for which arrangements are being made.

Also read: Uri attack: An inside story of how did it happen



--- ENDS ---
Army recovered a map from slain terrorists on which markings were made in Pashtun language leaving no doubt that they were trained in Pakistan and sent across the LoC to launch suicide attacks.

Smoke rises from the Army Brigade camp during a terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. (PTI Photo)

By Manjeet Negi: Four terrorists attacked 12th Brigade of the army in Uri sector on Sunday. At around 5.15 am, terrorists attacked the administrative block of the army. Unarmed soldiers were there, refilling diesel in barrels from fuel tanks.

Springing a surprise, terrorists lobbed 17 grenades in 3 minutes. This caused a massive fire in the barracks and tents in about 150-metre radius, where 13 jawans were burnt alive instantaneously. Many others received severe burns.

An Army chopper at surveillance during a terror attack at the Army Brigade camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. (PTI Photo)

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SEE PICS: Combing operations in Uri post fidayeen attack

ALSO READ | Those behind 'cowardly' Uri terror attack won't go unpunished, says PM Modi



Four jawans succumbed to their injuries later in army hospital. After the six-hour gun-battle all the four terrorists were eliminated. More than 20 jawans were injured, who were sent to hospital for treatment.

Indian Army chief General Dalbir Singh and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar arrived in Srinagar on Sunday afternoon.

This was the biggest terrorist attack on an army camp in 26 years.

PASHTUN SPEAKING TERRORISTS

The army recovered a map from the slain terrorists revealing their detailed plan of action. The map was elaborately marked and locations were indicated in Pashtun language.

Pashtun is one the tribal languages spoken in Pakistan.

TERRORISTS HAD THEIR HOMEWORK DONE

The timing of the attack shows that the terrorists had good idea about the routine of the army camp. The fidayeens launched the attack when battalions were changing duty.

ALSO READ | 17 jawans killed, all LeT terrorists dead; Army Chief reaches Srinagar



Sources said that the terrorists' original plan was to kill unarmed troops, storm Medical Aid Unit near Brigade Administration Area. And, then they planned to explode themselves after entering officers' mess.

(Photo courtesy: ANI)

HOW TERRORISTS WERE NEUTRALISED

The moment diesel dump exploded due to smog and subsequent explosion militants got disoriented and headed straight towards soldiers' barracks.

One militant was gunned down by a 19-year-old Dogra soldier, who also challenged the remaining three militants. The soldier also sustained severe head injury, when a bullet hit his Helmet. He was later evacuated by his colleagues.

Since the barracks were empty, militants took defensive position inside the barracks on the second floor, which has 16 rooms. They kept firing from the barracks till four Para-commandoes stormed the building and killed the three terrorists.

JAISH-E-MOHAMMED BEHIND ATTACK

Briefing about the terror attack on the army camp in Uri, Director General of Military Operations Lt General Ranbir Singh said that all the four killed were foreign terrorists. The slain terrorists had some items, which had Pakistani markings.

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Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-e-Mohammed tanzeem, said the DGMO. Four AK-47 rifles and four Under Barrel Grenade Launchers along with a large number of other war like ammunitions were recovered from them.

(Photo courtesy: ANI)

DGMO SPEAKS TO HIS COUNTERPART

Since, the terrorists had some items with Pakistani markings, Lt General Singh said that he spoke to Pakistan's DGMO and conveyed "our serious concerns" on the matter.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar visited Srinagar and met injured jawans in the hospital. Meanwhile, the Army chief General Dalbir Singh visited the site of operation to take an 'on the ground' assessment of the situation.

PAKISTAN'S DGMO DENIES INDIA'S CLAIMS

In the backdrop of Uri terrorist attack, Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh established hotline contact with his Pakistani counterpart on Sunday afternoon and conveyed India's serious concerns on the issue.

However, Pakistan DGMO termed India's claim as "unfounded and pre-mature". He also reiterated that no infiltration is allowed from Pakistani soil and water tight arrangements were in place on both sides of the LoC. On the other hand, the Pakistan DGMO asked Singh to share with him actionable intelligence.



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ALSO READ:

EXCLUSIVE | Uri attack: There was specific intelligence inputs; IB alerted army units on Thursday





--- ENDS ---
The chief minister added that such violence achieves nothing, but only adds to the suffering of the people.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti extended heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and also prayed for early recovery of those injured in the attack. (Photo: PTI)

By Shuja-ul-Haq : Strongly condemning the deadly militant attack on an army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said that the attack seems to be aimed at triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region.

Expressing anguish over the attack, Mufti paid tribute to the slain soldiers. She extended heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and also prayed for early recovery of those injured in the attack.

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Mufti said that the heightened tension in the wake of the Uri attack is set to further vitiate the atmosphere in and around Jammu and Kashmir amid increasing Indo-Pak hostility. "Unfortunately, people in Jammu and Kashmir, who are already mired in an agonizing situation shall have to bear the maximum brunt of the fresh attempts being made to step up violence and trigger fresh bloodshed in the state," she said, adding that Jammu and Kashmir has always been the worst victim of Indo-Pak hostility and its people have been paying a colossal price for the same for over six decades.

Mufti said that the perpetrators of violence must understand that violent methods have yielded nothing in the past nor will these yield anything in future except adding to the miseries of the people.

Also read: Stop sending love letters to Pakistan, says Bihar deputy CM Tejaswi to PM Modi



--- ENDS ---
LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The first-year Wagner College men's water polo team dropped both of its matches on the first day of the Bucknell University's Bison Invitational on Saturday, falling to No. 9 Harvard 12-6 in the opening match, before battling No. 14 Brown to the wire in a 10-8 defeat in the nightcap.

In the opener, Devin O'Donnell was the lone multiple scorer for the Seahawks with two goals.



Ciaran Wolohan, James Grady, reigning CWPA Rookie of the Week Oscar Nomura and Matthew Miller scored the other goals.

In the nightcap, the Seahawks nearly pulled off the upset.

The Seahawks took an early 2-0 lead on goals from Wolohan and Miller. However, the Bears answered with back-to-back goals to end the first quarter tied 2-2.



Entering the final stanza trailing 9-7, the Wagner defense again held tough but the Seahawks managed just a lone fourth-quarter tally by Nomura as the Bears held on for the 10-8 win.



Wagner (1-7) returns to Kinney Natatorium Sunday at 10:30 am and 3:30 pm when the Seahawks face No.18 St. Francis Brooklyn and the University of Toronto, respectively.
There was specific input about Uri army installation being a target and yet the terrorists succeeded in their nefarious design. In pics: Combing operations in Uri post fidayeen attack

By India Today Web Desk: It has emerged that there was specific intelligence about terrorists planning to strike army formations close to the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir. Intelligence Bureau is learnt to have alerted the security agencies including the army command units in the state in advance.

In pics: Combing operations in Uri post fidayeen attack



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On September 12 and 13, the IB had given infiltration inputs for the Uri sector. The intelligence agency followed it up with a detailed alert on September 15 about a suicide terror attack in the region. The IB alert had mentioned about two specific things that a suicide attack could be mounted on an army installation and that it could be carried out by a BAT team (Border Action Team of Pakistan).

READ: 17 jawans killed, all LeT terrorists dead; Army Chief reaches Srinagar

THREE FIDAYEEN SQUADS

There intelligence input about three fidayeen squads launched by Pakistan from PoK. One squad reached Uri and attacked a battalion location under Uri Brigade.

Another squad went to Poonch, where it was spotted by army and police. The squad was engaged by the security forces.

The third squad was still untraceable. Intelligence sources said that the third squad could be looking for its target along Srinagar highway. They suspect that any army, CRPF, BSF location or their convoy could be a soft target either in north or south Kashmir.

The intelligence sources said that there could three to five terrorists in the third squad. The terrorists are suspected to be armed to teeth and traveling together.

DGMO Lt. Gen Ranbir Singh. (Photo: ANI) DGMO Lt. Gen Ranbir Singh. (Photo: ANI)

DGMO Lt. Gen Ranbir Singh today briefed about the Uri Terror attack at 129 D South block. Here are the updates: The four terrorists belonged to JeM We recovered 4 AK 47 rifles, 4 Under Barrel Grenade Launchers and other war like stores from the 4 slain terrorists Terrorists opened fire with incendiary ammunition, this led to tents and temporary shelters located inside the army camp catching fire Since terrorists had some items which had Pak marking on that, I've spoken to Pak DGMO on same raising concern 17 soldiers lost their lives in Uri attack. Of which 13-14 men died primarily because tents and temporary shelters caught fire I have spoken to Pakistan DGMO and conveyed our displeasure. I assure you that Indian army is prepared for any evil design by the adversary, and will give a befitting response Defence Minister has landed in Srinagar and is being briefed by Army Chief about the ground situation All intelligence agencies and security forces are working in close synergy and necessary action is being taken against various inputs received Indian army has conducted the entire operation in a deliberate and professional manner The Indian army is carrying out deliberate and methodical search of area in and around military complex in Uri

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ALSO READ:



Uri attack: Rajnath Singh calls high-level meet, says deeply disappointed with Pak's continued, direct support to terrorism

What went wrong in Kashmir and how to fix it









--- ENDS ---
UPDATE, 11:59 p.m.: This story was updated following Mayor Bill de Blasio's press conference.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.

-- Twenty-nine people were injured in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on Saturday night by an explosion that the mayor called an "intentional act."

At approximately 8:30 p.m., police officers on routine patrol witnessed a large explosion in front of 131 W. 23rd St., police said.

Additional police units and the

FDNY

responded, as did the

NYPD

Bomb Squad and the

FBI

Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Shortly after 11 p.m., Mayor Bill de Blasio, new Police Commissioner James P.

O'N

eill and Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro held a press conference regarding the explosion.

"There is no evidence of a terror connection," de Blasio said, adding that the incident appeared to be an "intentional act."

The mayor stressed that there have been no specific or credible threats against New York City.

"Tonight, New York City experienced a very serious incident," the mayor said. "Injuries are significant -- but none of those injured are likely to die."

Nigro said that 29 people were injured. Twenty-four of them were taken to area hospitals to be treated, including one victim who suffered a serious puncture wound, officials said.

"The exact cause of the explosion has not been determined," said

O'N

eill on his first full day as police commissioner following the retirement of Bill Bratton.

O'N

eill added that the

NYPD

has video of the explosion and that it was being reviewed.

Surveillance video purportedly taken at the scene of the incident was being shared on social media Saturday night. The video appears to show the moment the blast occurred.

CNN

reported that a law enforcement source said preliminary signs suggest the explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED).

However, the mayor and other officials said the incident was under investigation and that it was too soon to say whether an

IED

was involved.

According to emergency radio transmissions, the device was found in a garbage container.

As of midnight,

NYPD

officials were investigating a possible secondary device on 27th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues.

Earlier in the day,

De Blasio said Saturday night that there was no immediate evidence that the two incidents were connected.

Anyone with information about the Chelsea explosion is asked to call the

NYPD

CrimeStoppers' hotline at 800-577-TIPS.

Several people at the scene of the Chelsea explosion took to social media following the incident.

NEW: NYPD Commissioner: At least 29 people injured in NYC explosion; 1 injury may be serious https://t.co/qQddGqlD0s https://t.co/e1poKIQI0r  World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) September 18, 2016

Video shows moment of IED Explosion at W 23 St & 6th Ave in Manhattan pic.twitter.com/O270bZWOzF  New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) September 18, 2016

WATCH LIVE: Authorities in #NYC address possible explosion that injured at least 26. https://t.co/AinBbccNeV pic.twitter.com/KOsoxzdZqG  ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) September 18, 2016

A possible secondary device has been located @ 27th Street, 6th - 7th Avenues. #NYPD nvestigations are ongoing. Avoid the area @NYPD13Pct  NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) September 18, 2016

NYPD has increased security across New York City as a precaution after explosion https://t.co/oumiOXNjAu https://t.co/PFQhftPB4e  CNN (@CNN) September 18, 2016

UPDATED: White House responds after explosion injures dozens in New York City https://t.co/4RJZv9D5DM pic.twitter.com/21HIgt1jlX  Business Insider (@businessinsider) September 18, 2016

Video shows the aftermath of #Manhattan explosion, which has left at least 25 injured https://t.co/lwFl96s62K pic.twitter.com/yzA3v45Qe4  Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) September 18, 2016

UPDATE: What we know on 23rd St Explosion:

* Gas/utilities ruled out



* 25 injured



* Subways disrupted.https://t.co/tkWz9duUHW  DNAinfo New York (@DNAinfoNY) September 18, 2016

Gas has been ruled out as the cause of the New York explosion. https://t.co/LNAJBK7PjT pic.twitter.com/5TJkyBf6XM  CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) September 18, 2016

Law enforcement source: preliminary signs suggest NYC explosion caused by improvised explosive device. See NA-73SA.  CNN Newsource (@CNNNewsource) September 18, 2016

Law enforcement source tells @CNN, gas has been ruled out as the cause of the #chelsea explosion.  Anthony DiLorenzo (@ADiLorenzoTV) September 18, 2016

Mayor @BilldeBlasio headed to scene of explosion on 23rd and 6th. More info to come.  NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) September 18, 2016

#BREAKING: police dogs searching for secondary device; #FDNY confirms 25 injuries; 24 minor 1 serious. pic.twitter.com/K29leIuufC  Josh Einiger (@JoshEiniger7) September 18, 2016

Stay tuned for updates as they are made available.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.--New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday buses and trains should run on schedule Monday, while 1,000 additional state police and members of the National Guard will be deployed to keep watch of subway terminals and airports.



"We're going to endure in New York and we're going to go back to work tomorrow, like we do any other morning," Cuomo said at an 10:15 a.m. press conference Sunday near the scene of the explosion in Chelsea Saturday night. "This is freedom. This is democracy, and we're not going to allow them to take that from us."



Cuomo said all 29 people who suffered injuries as a result of the explosion on Saturday night have been released from the hospital.

"When you see the amount of damage, we really are very lucky there were no fatalities," he said. "New York is up and running and we're doing everything we need to do."

Meanwhile, authorities continue to review surveillance video and inspect devices found in New Jersey and New York. He added the materials used in the device that exploded in Chelsea are similar to those used in the suspicious device found hours later on West 27th Street.



Cuomo said he spoke to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and they are "coordinating resources between New York and New Jersey." But he said the pipe bombs used in New Jersey appear to be different than the devices found in Manhattan.

After a walk-through of the aftermath, he said there was significant property damage to nearby buildings, and although there was no structural damage to the subway system there might be entrances and exits closed Monday near the site of the incident due to the ongoing investigation.

He assured New Yorkers to go about their regular routine Monday.

"We will find who planted these explosions and they will be punished," Cuomo said. "We will not allow these type of people and these type of threats to disrupt our life in New York."

He said evidence from the explosions in New York and New Jersey are being sent to Quantico for further investigation.

When asked if the explosion in Chelsea was an act of terrorism, Cuomo said, "A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it's not linked to international terrorism."

For information on which subway entrances and exits might be closed Monday, see the MTA website.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.--In the wake of the Chelsea bomb blast Saturday and suspicious device found Sunday, Mayor de Blasio urged New Yorkers to be cautious and to call in any information they have about the incidents to authorities.

NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill spoke to the ongoing investigation of the explosion in Chelsea Saturday night at a press conference Sunday held by Mayor de Blasio. (Staten Island Advance/NYC.gov)

"For all New Yorkers a central message we want to give today is to be vigilant," said de Blasio, who spoke at a press conference Sunday afternoon along with NYPD, FDNY and FBI authorities.

"Here's what we know," said de Blasio, "It was intentional. It was a violent act and it was a criminal act."

DeBlasio said that the motivation for the incident was not yet determined.

"We don't know the intention," he said. "What kind of motivation was behind this-- political? Personal? We don't know that yet. That work must go on."

New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill urged all New Yorkers to be patient while authorities "get to the bottom of what happened here."

"The NYPD is using its full capacity to find anyone who was involved and bring them to justice," O'Neill said.

An inspection of buildings near the explosion found no structural damage, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.

Mayor de Blasio said he spoke to those who live and work in the neighborhood surrounding the explosion and they were going to go about their regular schedules today, despite the incident.

"I want to commend my fellow New Yorkers who deal with challenges with incredible resiliency....who are not intimated by anything," de Blasio said.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Bob Boyce said police are reviewing surveillance footage of possible suspects in the area of the explosion prior to the blast, which could take up to three days.

According to authorities, materials used in the device that exploded in front of 131 W. 23rd St. were similar to a device found on West 27th street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, authorities said.

As of Sunday afternoon, authorities said the pipe bombs that exploded Saturday morning in Seaside Park, N.J. did not resemble the devices found in Manhattan.

Bill Sweeney, FBI assistant director in charge of the NY division, said evidence collection will continue for four to five hours in the area of the explosion.

In the meantime, authorities said there will be enhanced bag checks at transportation hubs, an increased NYPD K-9 presence and heavy weapons teams stationed throughout the city.

An increased police presence is due not only to the incident Saturday but also events throughout the city this weekend and the upcoming United Nations General Assembly week.

Mayor De Blasio, along with other city officials, urged anyone with information about the explosion to call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-8477 (TIPS), submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers' website or by text their tips to CRIMES (274637), then enter TIP577.
The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

By Reuters: US-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency UN Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.

The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

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The United States relayed its "regret" through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement that Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area.

READ: Putin questions US commitment to Syria cease-fire



The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardizing the Syria deal.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move.

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power told reporters.

She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life."

When asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark."

"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin told reporters.

READ: Key Islamic State leader killed in apparent US strike in Syria

Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the jihadist militants.

"We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.

Power said Zakharova should be embarassed by that claim. Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the United States colluding with Islamic State militants.

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Zakharova said the strikes threatened to undermine the ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, which has been aiding Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, and the United States, which has backed some rebel groups.

The Russian Defence Ministry said US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 80 Syrian soldiers had been killed.

READ: IS 'information minister' killed by airstrike in Syria: Pentagon

The ceasefire, which took effect on Monday, is the most significant peacemaking effort in Syria for months, but has been undermined by repeated accusations of violations on both sides and by a failure to bring humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

Apart from the US and Russian involvement, Assad is supported by Iran and Arab Shi'ite militias, while Sunni rebels seeking to unseat him are backed by Turkey and Gulf Arab states.

All the warring parties are also sworn enemies of Islamic State, whose territory extends along the Euphrates valley from the Iraqi border, including around Deir al-Zor, up to land near Syria's frontier with Turkey.

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In its sixth year, the conflict has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced half of Syria's pre-war population, prompted a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe and inspired a wave of jihadist attacks across the world.

Syria's army said the US-led strikes, which took place at around 5 pm local time (1400 GMT) were "conclusive evidence" of US support for Islamic State, calling them "dangerous and blatant aggression".

The US military said in its statement that Syria was a "complex situation" but that "coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit".

Islamic State said via its Amaq news channel it had taken complete control of Jebel Tharda, where the bombed position was located, which would have allowed it to overlook government-held areas of Deir al-Zor.

The city's airport and some districts have been entirely surrounded by Islamic State since last year, with the airport providing their only external access.

However, Russia and Syrian state media said the Syrian army later recaptured positions it had lost. The Observatory monitoring group said at least 20 Islamic State fighters were killed in heavy Russian air strikes during that fighting.

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The incident also threatens to undermine proposed joint targeting by the United States and Russia of Islamic State and some other jihadist groups across Syria.

SHAKY TRUCE

Earlier on Saturday, Russia and Syrian rebels cast doubt over the prospects for the increasingly shaky ceasefire, with Moscow saying the situation was worsening and a senior insurgent warning that the truce "will not hold out".

While the ceasefire has reduced fighting, some violence has persisted across Syria. Meanwhile, there has been little movement on promised aid deliveries to besieged areas and both sides have accused the other of bad faith.

Russia's Defence Ministry said conditions in Syria were deteriorating, adding that it believed the ceasefire had been breached 199 times by rebels and saying the United States would be responsible if it were to collapse.

READ: US, Russia reach deal for Syria ceasefire, truce soon

After the Deir al-Zor attack, it said Moscow had told the United States to rein in the Syrian opposition and make sure it did not launch a new offensive, adding that it had informed Washington about a concentration of rebels north of Hama.

Insurgents say they only reluctantly accepted the initial deal, which they believe is skewed against them, because it could relieve the dire humanitarian situation in besieged areas they control, and blamed Russia for undermining the truce.

"The truce, as we have warned, and we told the (US) State Department - will not hold out," a senior rebel official in Aleppo said, pointing to the continued presence of a UN aid convoy at the Turkish border awaiting permission to enter.

Rebels have also accused Russia of using the ceasefire to give the Syrian army and allied Shi'ite militias a chance to regroup and deploy forces ready for their own offensives.

OVERNIGHT SHELLING

Both sides have accused the other of being responsible for aid deliveries being stuck far from Aleppo, where army and rebel forces were supposed to pull back from the Castello Road which leads into besieged, insurgent-held eastern districts.

Russia on Friday said the Syrian army had initially withdrawn but returned to its positions after being fired on by rebels, who in turn say they saw no sign of government forces ever leaving their positions.

"There is no change," Zakariya Malahifji, an official for a rebel group in Aleppo, said on Saturday when asked whether there had been any move by the army to withdraw from positions along the road.

Syria's government said it was doing all that was necessary for the arrival of aid to those in need in all parts of the country, particularly eastern Aleppo.

"All the permissions the Syrian government was supposed to give have been given for humanitarian supplies to reach people in need in various parts of Syria and that the humanitarian convoy to eastern Aleppo is supposed to leave tomorrow morning," Churkin said.

Two convoys of aid for Aleppo have been waiting at the Turkish border for days. The UN has said both sides in the war are to blame for the delay of aid to Aleppo, where neither has yet withdrawn from the Castello Road.

The government said the road was being fired on by rebels, so it could not give convoys a guarantee of safety. The rebels deny the accusation.

Senior UN officials have accused the government of failing to provide letters to allow convoys to reach other besieged areas in Syria.

Also Read:

Israel denies any warplanes were shot down after attack on Syrian army position

35 dead in Damascus after serial blasts in Syria

IS genocide in Iraq and Syria exposed: Terrorists buried thousands in 72 mass graves



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By PTI: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and a Trump confidant

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and a Trump confidant said that the issue is now a thing of the past.

"I made my position on it really clear a long time ago. And Donald has now made his position on it clear, which is that, after the president presented his birth certificate, Donald has said he was born in the US, and thats the end of the issue.

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"It was a contentious issue and an issue that Patti Solis Doyle of the Clinton campaign in 2008 has recently admitted was an issue that Mrs Clinton also injected into her campaign in 2008 in a very quiet, but direct way, against then Senator Obama," Christie alleged.

"The birther issue is a done issue. I have said it is a done issue for a long time. And Donald Trump has said it is a done issue now. And so we need to move on to the issues that are really important to the American people," Christie added. PTI LKJ CPS

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In his blog post, Masters described the recommendation as a response to an "emergency" of horse overgrazing that will have "devastating effects that can last far beyond my lifetime." He described the board's visit to an area in Nevada that is home to more than 3,000 horses, or well over 10 times the government says the land can support. It was rife with invasive plants that horses and wildlife can't eat, he wrote, and practically devoid of water. Fred Woehl, an Arkansas horse trainer and educator who chairs the advisory board, said in an interview Thursday that the group saw horse carcasses near a dried up watering hole.
The Syrian military said the deadly airstrike hit a base in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour that is surrounded by the Islamic State, allowing the extremists to advance and overrun Syrian army positions in the area. Russia's military said it was told by the Syrian army that at least 62 soldiers were killed in the air raid and more than 100 wounded.
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Canberra's disappearing lake has emerged again after one of the wettest winters on record.

After a season's worth of soaking rain, water, birds and even fish have returned to mercurial Lake George, often maligned as little more than a damp paddock.

Tom Osborne, 11, splashes through the shallows of Lake George. Credit:Karleen Minney

Just months ago, Tarago grazier Luke Osborne was fattening his Angus cattle where a sheet of water stretching as far as the eye can see now laps at his feet.

The return of water to the lake has been welcomed by Mr Osborne, whose family have lived on the eastern shore for 150 years.
Canberra's largest private hospital provider is testing support for a private emergency department to take pressure off overcrowded public hospitals.

Emails seen by Fairfax Media show a number of emergency medicine specialists have indicated they would work at the clinic, which would be attached to the Calvary John James Hospital.

Could Canberra get a private emergency department? Credit:Gabrielle Charotte

Calvary John James Hospital chief executive Shaune Gillespie said a feasibility study would test community support for the private emergency department, which would charge patients for treatment.

"We have had a number of people ask whether we would look at this as a way to take pressure off the public system and to give people another choice," he said.
A waste of time. A waste of money. A dreadful and dangerous idea.

These are just some of the terms Canberra's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community have used to describe the federal government's proposed plebiscite on same-sex marriage.

As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull introduced legislation to Parliament this week that would see Australians vote on the issue on February 11, LGBT groups in the ACT have spoken out against the plebiscite, saying it will unleash vitriol and homophobia on the community.

Dianne Hinton is the president of Parents and Friends of Lesbian and Gays (PFLAG) Capital Region and said members of the group are willing to wait longer for marriage equality in Australia, rather than potentially have it in five months' time after a public vote.
Australia will move on and pursue other trade deals in Asia if the Trans-Pacific Partnership collapses, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says.

The future of the 12-nation deal is in doubt with both US presidential presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump opposed to it.

Australia wants the TPP to succeed, says Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Credit:Penny Stephens

Australia and New Zealand are both signatories to the deal, along with Canada, Malaysia, Brunei, Chile, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, Mexico and Peru.

But the agreement could die if President Barack Obama fails to guide it through Congress before he leaves the White House in January.
Britain is losing its appeal for Poles seeking work abroad.

While Britain is still home to more Polish expatriates than any other European country, Germany has become more of a lure, with about 41,000 moving there in 2015. That's the fourth consecutive year that Europe's biggest economy has been more attractive to them than Britain, and Brexit is likely to accelerate this trend.

A European Union flag hung behind the statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill, as part of pro-Europe protests in London. Credit:PA/AP

In some ways, Germany's desirability should be obvious. It shares a border with Poland, and the capitals Warsaw and Berlin are linked by intercity trains. That's much easier than a plane or bus ride to Britain, especially for temporary employees who shuttle there and back frequently.

But Britain has the advantage of language  Poles are much more likely to learn English at school than German  and wages that are generally about 30 per cent higher. The so-called snowball effect also pushes family and friends to follow the path of the pioneers who've succeeded abroad.
Bollywood actor Vidya Balan is down with dengue and is taking rest at her house. Now, the BMC has served notice to neighbours, actor Shahid Kapoor and Meera Patel for failing to prevent breeding of mosquito inside their apartments in Juhu.

By Mustafa Shaikh, Vidya : In Mumbai, there are more than 1500 suspected cases of dengue this month and one such victim is Bollywood actor Vidya Balan, who has been diagnosed with dengue and advised bed rest. The actor is not in a serious condition but doctors are monitoring her health at home.

Praneta Apartments, the ground plus four building cut a lonely picture even as the waves hit its walls during high tide. As soon as the news of Balan being infected with dengue broke, BMC officials swooped down and checked not just Balan's apartment but also her neighbours. The officials did not find any mosquito larvae in Balan's residence but found more than a couple of spots in her neighbour's residence.

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ALSO READ: Mind Rocks 2016- Sushant Singh Rajput opens up on playing MS Dhoni, dares youth to dream

ALSO READ: Mind Rocks 2016- Varun Dhawan admits that he is dramatic

One of Balan's neighbour who was infected is none other than Bollywood star Shahid Kapoor. Notably, Balan has worked with Shahid Kapoor in Kismat Konnection. Kapoor, who lives on the ground floor, has a swimming pool which was not used much. During the heavy monsoon, the pool had collected rain water which became the breeding ground for the larvae.

BMC also noticed flower pots in Meera Patel's residence, who is another neighbour of Balan and the BMC officials prosecuted Meera Patel for the same. BMC's insecticide inspector, Rajan Naringrekar, said, "We are surprised that in spite of repeated awareness programmes, people are negligent about the breeding spots for mosquitoes."

BMC has conducted searches inside the residences of Bollywood stars like Salman Khan, Waheeda Rehman and Amitabh Bachchan but nothing was found.

According to Naringrekar, Shahid Kapoor and Meera Patel have been prosecuted under section 381 (B) of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act.

As per Section 381 (B) of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, a person can be prosecuted for creating a situation that will create trouble for others by not taking preventive measures. A person can be prosecuted before a metropolitan magistrate, who can be imposed with a penalty of Rs 2000 to Rs 5000.

Meanwhile, Shahid Kapoor whose wife recently delivered a baby, has expressed her concern over dengue larvae found at his apartment. Kapoor's spokesperson said, "Shahid is concerned about the findings of BMC in his building and the locality. Especially so with the presence of a newborn baby in the house. He is also thankful to BMC for the check up that they conducted in the locality which is vulnerable during the rainy season and due to its proximity to the beach."

When director Yash Chopra succumbed to dengue in 2012, the BMC done similar checks and found dengue larvae inside Chopra's office.

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The resulting industry code is intended to guide manufacturers, retailers, importers and online suppliers in their supply and use of button batteries, highlighting that in many cases, deaths and injuries "may have been prevented" if the device had a secured battery enclosure, or caregivers had known to store and dispose of new button batteries securely out of reach of children.

A new industry code advises warnings to be placed adjacent to the instruction for replacing batteries on packaging. Credit:ACCC

"This industry code is fantastic because the people involved are all the big retailers," Ms Rickard said.

"Right now the code is voluntary, and our hope is that by bigger suppliers driving quality we will see that filter through. But if at the end of two years we aren't seeing big changes, we will look at whether we need to implement regulation in the sector  I don't think this is an area where we can be complacent."

Two years ago Francesca Lever experienced her worst nightmare, when she found out her 9-month-old son Leo had swallowed a button battery, which remained lodged in his oesophagus for six days before it was identified.
Korean nationals working in Australia are being ripped off so often that the workplace ombudsman has enlisted community groups to help end the exploitative practices.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has written to bodies including the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Melbourne, the NSW Australian Korean Welfare Association and the Korean consulate-general, after it ruled on more than two dozen cases involving Korean workers being underpaid in the past 18 months.

Natalie James: It is important for business people operating here to understand and apply Australian laws. Credit:Arsineh Houspian

Ombudsman Natalie James said a number of exploited workers had told her office the Korean-run businesses were ignoring minimum rates and instead paying a "going rate" for migrant workers.

"While I understand there are cultural challenges and vastly different laws in other parts of the world, it is important for business people operating here to understand and apply Australian laws," Ms James said.
Investors are tipped to come out in force this week when a range of properties, worth more than $50 million combined, come up for auction.

The demand for bricks and mortar is escalating as investors seek out higher returns than the cash market offers and avoid the volatile sharemarket.

The former Bates Milk Bar site at 124 Campbell Parade is being sold via auction this week.

According to Colliers International, which is holding the auction on Wednesday, momentum is building in the commercial sphere thanks to increased leasing and investment activity, which has underpinned a rise in effective rents and compression in yields.

According to the latest data from Colliers International's Metro Office research report, some of these factors include a historically high infrastructure spend with the state and federal government's commitment of $78.4 billion allocated over the next four years and the substantial withdrawals for residential and infrastructure projects which have forced tenants back into the market to vie for a diminishing availability of space.
Australia's biggest private health insurer Medibank Private has joined many of its peers in offering free annual dental checkups for its 2.7 million "extras" policyholders.

Fresh from an executive shake-up, legal action from the consumer watchdog, and troubles sending out tax statements to members, Medibank on Sunday said its new policy would cost $40 million over three years and save a family of four up to $400 a year.

Dentists in demand: Medibank to provide free annual dental checkup to "extras" policyholders. Credit:Joe Armao

"Our customers tell us they want to get more value from their health insurance, and we're listening," said Medibank chief customer officer David Koczkar.

The announcement follows a poll showing that almost 70 per cent of Australians with private health insurance have considered ditching or downgrading their cover in the last year in the face of relentless price rises and diminishing value for money.
Criminal charges against Australians with links to the Panama Papers could take years to eventuate, ATO deputy commissioner Mark Konza says.

The Australian Taxation Office earlier this month revealed that its serious financial crime taskforce, which also involves the Australian Federal Police and AUSTRAC, had executed search warrants and unannounced visits across properties in Victoria and Queensland for allegedly serious offences including money laundering and other criminal activity.

All up 1000 entities, involving hundreds of taxpayers  many of which include high-wealth individuals and their lawyers and accountants  are under investigation by the Australian Taxation Office.

The raids followed AUSTRAC identifying suspicious cross-border movement of funds between Australia and other countries amounting to $2.5 billion linked to more than 1000 Australian entities.
In just under a month Canberrans will again go to the polls. An important consideration for all voters should be what the leaders and their parties have on offer to secure our economy, jobs and prosperity.

That's why it was a great opportunity for Canberra's property industry participants to hear directly from Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Hanson at the robust and frank ACT Property Council's Leaders' Debate.

The leaders' debate was an opportunity to show where each party will take the capital. Credit:Graham Tidy

The leaders made the most of the opportunity to speak directly to the industry about their 'big ideas' for Canberra, how they might improve housing affordability and development confidence in the ACT as well as what they would do in relation to important policy areas like tax reform.

While the leaders' visions are very different in many respects, they were united in their commitment to ensuring the ACT has the right policy settings to attract greater national and international investment.
That must be those members of the public who can salt away $100k per year. And good luck to them, but letting them convert their vast wealth into tax-free income is hardly fair, or in the interest of Australians as a whole. As with repealing the carbon tax, and trying to minimise corporate tax generally, it's simply the party for people with lots of money taking care of its constituents, the "real" public. (Mr) R. Neville, Fraser Doing US bidding The Murdoch-owned Australian featured a front-page interview in which the US Ambassador (John) Berry expressed his "alarm" at Beijing's "involvement" in Australia's domestic politics. Good God. Ishe serious?

Australia has been doing America's bidding since World War II, through Korea, Vietnam and all the other military dalliances that have taken their hegemonic fancy. Rex Williams, Ainslie It wasn't Gough As much as I applaud L. Parker Doyle's letter (September 15), he/she is wrong to credit Gough Whitlam as being responsible for bringing the troops home from Vietnam. The troops started to come home under John Gorton's Prime Ministership in late 1970. The last Battalion left NuiDat in December 1972 (themonth Federal Labor waselected).

The only combat troops remaining in Vietnam were a platoon guarding the Australian Embassy in Saigon. This was withdrawn in June 1973, when Gough was prime minister. The sooner we put an end to this fallacy about Gough the better. John Perkins, Cooma, NSW Bring in asylum seekers It is indeed reassuring that both the federal government and Labor are getting on with the job of budget repair, with $6.3 billion expected to be saved over the next four years. There is something else they could do. According to Save the Children and UNICEF Australia, keeping asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru will cost $5.7 billion over the same period (they estimate that off-shore processing has already cost $9.6 billion over the past three years).

Why not bring these benighted people here and even if resettlement costs half of what it costs to keep them in purgatory, the budget will be a further $2.85 billion better off. Ann Darbyshire, Gunning, NSW Deplorable situation It has long been clear that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection is incompetent when "managing" the refugee situation. The recent Commonwealth Auditor-General's report ("Audit slams immigration 'persistent' shortcomings", September 19, p3) has emphasised the paucity of professionalism, now formally recognised nationally and widely internationally. The concentration camps on Manus and Nauru have destroyed the lives of hundreds of refugees legally seeking asylum. The children, women and men are abused both physically and mentally.

There are no excuses for this bastardry. Indefinite detention makes a complete mockery of justice and fairness. It is no different to that meted out to convicted terrorists. This is inept policy and it is simply stupid to punish the victims of people smuggling crime and is appalling. Couple this to the very high level of secrecy surrounding refugees and the picture gets more opaque. What is happening? This Auditor-General's report offers some clues. It emphasised that important records could not be found and government procurement processes were not followed.

Billions of dollars have been used or processed through Nauru and Manus but clearly not all for the management, care and rehabilitation of refugees or ancillary activities. It is not believable that the reported more than half a million dollars is spent on each refugee. An additional $50 million disappeared into the corrupt Cambodian government for repatriation of refugees and again it did not happen. Additionally, who audits the cash handouts to people smugglers to turn back the boats? The reconciliation of those funds will never be done because they are not traceable ... funny that. Dr K. Williams, Bonython Burning issues to address

Where's that Green, Shane Rattenbury, when you need him? Too busy spruiking the tram up north to notice the oil refinery and its reactors proposed down south in Hume that will produce fuel to be burnt ("Proposed fuel factory sparks emission fears from residents", September 11, p4), increasing Canberra's carbon emissions by 10 per cent and leave gentleman Simon Corbell's environmental targets for the ACT in shreds. Where's the Minister for Planning Mick Gentleman, who should be ensuring all of Canberra has a say on heavy industry that will produce 66 million litres of diesel and petrol a year, only to be burnt off in ACTION's buses and leave a huge carbon footprint for our kids to clean up? Comments on the Environmental Impact Statement close September 23, at the Environment and Planning Directorate, in case you missed the single public consultation meeting a few weeks prior. Dugald Holmes, Isaacs Gas ban startling

I was startled to read in CT last week that the ACT Greens, if elected, will ban natural gas supply infrastructure in new Canberra suburbs, and only allow electric appliances as replacement for gas ones in existing suburbs. Aside from the question of choice (any cook knows that a gas stovetop is quicker and more responsive for heating a saucepan or frypan than an electric stovetop), there is also the question of competition: electricity suppliers and appliance makers will be freed from more price-increase restraints when the whole home-heating and cooking monopoly is theirs. Given the disclosure of Shane Rattenbury's negatively geared investment properties close to the proposed tram route, perhaps we should ask if there's been full disclosure of all Greens candidates' financial interests in electricity companies, renewables and otherwise? Rex Simmons, Mawson Barr's pig-headed plans

In 300 finely honed words, Murray Upton (Letters, September 16) has exposed the Barr government as a dissembling mob. In reading Murray's compendium of cack-handed blunderings I suddenly realised Barr and Co had adopted their beliefs from a line in the Blackadder TV series: "If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through." Bill O'Connell Waramanga Wildlife backer needed The Labor and Liberal Parties, and possibly the Greens, are not interested in protecting Canberra's environment and open space.

Large-scale development is taking place close to Canberra's river corridors. Development in the Molonglo Valley, the Riverview development, and the plans for the development in Tuggeranong show a complete disregard for the natural environment, and the flora and fauna. The river corridors have far higher biodiversity than Mulligan's Flat will ever have. The open spaces and bushland that have made our city unique are fast disappearing as the government looks at the money they can make from land development. Environmental impact statements do not appear to have any effect, with the parts the developers don't like being ignored. Riverview will destroy the last territory of Little Eagles in the Belconnen area, and destroy the homes of Rosenberg's Monitors living there.

The idea that degraded areas of land can be given as trade-offs for the destruction of richer habitat is laughable. Is there anyone standing for election willing to stand up for Canberra's wildlife and environment? Susan Trost, Cook Route impressions A light rail route between Civic and Woden via Parliament House and Kent Street Deakin and Hughes as proposed by Tom Cooke (Letters, September 7) shows much merit and is worthy of further consideration and perhaps concept development.

Not only would this proposed route through West Deakin pass by or close to hospitals and medical services facilities, as acknowledged by Mr Cooke, but also would pass through, or near to, numerous residential and retail precincts, work places in West Deakin and as many as six schools and a college. Accordingly, such a route would deliver accessible public transport and connectivity immediately adjacent to where many in our community live, work and attend school. Another benefit is that this suburban route for light rail vehicles would leave in place the Blue Rapid express bus service along Yarra Glen and Adelaide Avenue for those commuters who want and need a faster connection between Tuggeranong, Woden and the City. A portion of this light rail route would require some on-road alignment for the tracks (more appropriately part of a later detailed design development), but this should not be used now to prevent or stagnate a desirable, broadminded community discussion about the intrinsic social and environmental values of the light rail network heading to Woden. David Flannery, Torrens

Artist impressions of the Gungahlin light rail deliberately or otherwise fail to include the associated overhead power lines and supporting poles which are needed to power the light rail. We are assured that the more than 800 mature trees on the route, including those on Northbourne Avenue, will be replaced by more saplings, but what is more certain is that they will be replaced by an even greater number of power poles and lines. Northbourne will become an unsightly avenue of power poles and not a public boulevard and fitting for the entrance to the national capital. Craig Penney , Gowrie TO THE POINT HANSON STRIKES FEAR

Message to Pauline Hanson: I am not afraid of Muslims. I am very afraid of people like you who would divide our country and usurp our flag for your narrow brand of patriotism rather than the symbol of an accepting, inclusive nation. Ruth McLucas, Weetangera FLAG'S FADED, CHILL OUT Dear David Willenborg (Letters, September 15), be vexed no longer  the flag's faded. Sean Allan, Kambah

ALL POWERFUL GG I suppose Gary Wilson (Letters, September 15) must be right when he says the Governor-General can do as he sees fit. I seem to recall from a brief brush with the constitution many years ago that the GG is actually in charge of everything. Wasn't it Joh Bjelke-Peterson who was roundly derided decades ago for the innocent question "what separation of powers?". S.W. Davey, Torrens EXPLAIN PEDLAR RATING As a local who visits the Pedlar at least once a week I agreed with everything in your review "Long-awaited pub a winner", Good Food, September 13, p3)  great food, good friendly service, excellent value for money, fantastic addition to the neighbourhood etc. But how on earth does that equate to a rating of only 13.5? Pedlar fans (and there are many) need an explanation.

Rosemary Matley, Reid WORLD HEATING UP? September 15th, not a blowfly was to be seen and everybody in Canberra was freezing. Seems normal to me. Global warming theorists  please explain! Jeff Day, Greenway TIME TO ACCEPT RAIL

A. Smith (Letters, September 16) is willing to accept light rail when the population density exceeds 2800. Braddon, Palmerston, Ngunnawal, Harrison, Franklin, Gungahlin already exceed this density, and we can confidently predict City, Ainslie, Dickson, Lyneham, O'Connor, Turner, Downer, Watson, Moncrief, and Amaroo to soon be well over 2800. Kevin Cox, Ngunnawal HARD RIGHT, BAD MOVE Ross Fitzgerald ("Turnbull can arrest his drift, but he'll need to follow a 10-point action plan", Comment, September 15, pp16-17) seems to be saying the PM needs to yield completely to the hard right and abandon any moderate principles he still has. This might endear him to the rump of his party, but would surely get him thrown out at the next election. Mark Chapman, Palmerston
Ernst Neizvestny, a sculptor whose ventures into modernism put him at odds with the Soviet cultural authorities and led to a memorable confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev in 1962, has died in Stony Brook, New York. He was 91.

As cultural policy in the post-Stalin era began to loosen, Neizvestny and a dozen abstract painters were invited to show their work at a large exhibition in Moscow to mark the 30th anniversary of the Moscow section of the Soviet Artists' Union.

Ernst Neizvestny, Russian sculptor who clashed with Khrushchev. Credit:Mediaxpress

One visitor was Khrushchev, whose irritation at being dragged to an event in which he had no interest  agricultural machinery was more to his taste  grew into incandescent rage when he beheld the work of Neizvestny and his fellow avant-gardeists. Cursing, Khrushchev pronounced the work degenerate and incompetent. He asked to speak to the most important artist at the show. Neizvestny was pushed forward.

"He started shouting at me," Neizvestny wrote in 1979. "I said that I would only talk about my own work, and turned away to go into the room where my work was on display, not imagining that Khrushchev would follow me.
Malcolm Turnbull has introduced the Plebiscite (Same-Sex Marriage) Bill 2016 into the federal Parliament. The bill has been overshadowed by the debate over whether a plebiscite is desirable in the first place. Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, his bill strengthens the case of those who reject the national vote. It is flawed in key respects, and could be challenged in the High Court.

The plebiscite bill proposes that Australians be asked a simple question: "Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?" This is the wrong question. It fails to capture the full extent of how the marriage act would be changed.

Many bills have been introduced into the federal Parliament to bring about same-sex marriage. These typically extend marriage rights not only to same-sex couples, but also to intersex people. The wider change is needed because same-sex marriage does not necessarily encompass people unable to identify as being either male or female.

An example is the Marriage Legislation Amendment Bill 2015, sponsored by a cross-party group of MPs including Coalition member Warren Entsch. It sought "to allow couples to marry, and to have their marriages recognised, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status". It went beyond the proposed plebiscite question in defining marriage not in terms of heterosexual or same-sex relationships, but as "the union of two people to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life".
What a time to be a blowhard, to be a presumptuous bragger  especially if often and egregiously wrong. It's an era for those who covet attention, and who will do anything to get it except cite evidence  unless its distortion happens to support whatever words are flowing from their mouths.

From George Christensen to Pete Evans to Donald Trump, the loud expression of feelings is the appreciating currency in public debate. Factual arguments and humility haven't left the stage, but they've been pushed to the back, where they anguish over how to fight for a speaking part.

Hollow political bluster afflicts both the right and the left in Australia, but the right has a noticeable talent for it.

Take Queensland MP George Christensen, who blunders from wrongly attributing crime to Islamic extremism without waiting for the facts to opposing the equal age of consent.
By PTI: London, Sep 18 (PTI) A 33-year-old woman in the UK has been left blind in one eye after two teenagers targeted her in a laser pen attack.

Police are searching for two teenage boys after one of them shone a laser into a womans eye in Clydebank, leaving her blind in one eye.

The incident happened as the woman walked under a railway bridge on September 10.

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Both boys were described as being white, aged about 14 or 15 and wearing dark-coloured sportswear. One of them had brown hair in a quiff, the BBC reported today.

The woman was taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital for treatment and later reported the incident to police.

Detective Sergeant Kevin Mulvenna, of Police Scotland, said: "This was a completely unprovoked and senseless attack on this woman, which has left her blind in one eye. The youths responsible must be caught as soon as possible.

"To point a laser pen at someone is highly irresponsible. Extensive inquiries are ongoing to trace the two boys, with officers carrying out inquiries in the local area and studying CCTV footage to identify them."

He asked anyone with information to contact police. PTI AKJ AKJ

--- ENDS ---
Attorney-General George Brandis has said the government will be open to compromising with Labor on the structure of the same-sex marriage plebiscite, if it means getting the vote through Parliament.

His comments come just two days after Malcolm Turnbull also spoke of the need to negotiate on issues, given the make-up of the 45th Parliament, where neither major party holds a majority in the Senate.

Attorney-General George Brandis is embroiled in a matter so esoteric we can't afford the legal advice to explain it here. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

While a spokeswoman for Mr Turnbull clarified after the Prime Minister spoke that there would be no changes to the plebiscite policy, its question or the $15 million in public funding for the yes and no campaigns, Senator Brandis told Sky News on Sunday that "the byword of the 45th Parliament is compromise".

"We have a package which was developed after very, very extensive consultation with people who both favour change in the LGBTI community and people who are opposed to change, particularly among the Christian churches," he said
The Turnbull government is set to embark on a major independent review of the nation's intelligence agencies as Australia faces an unprecedented array of security challenges ranging from terrorism to the rise of China and cyber-spying.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's department has confirmed that it is putting in place arrangements for the first major intelligence review since 2011 and the third since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US, which prompted a reshaping of intelligence efforts in Australia and among its allies.

The review is expected to tackle the unprecedented need for the nation's six intelligence agencies to balance immediate security intelligence requirements to combat terrorism including "lone wolves" with longer-term considerations about geo-strategic changes flowing from the shift in power and wealth to the Indo-Pacific region.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which is setting up the review, told Fairfax Media: "We are working through a proposal for a periodic review and the details involved. It is expected that these considerations will take at least several weeks."
NEW YORK: Malcolm Turnbull has acknowledged Australian warplanes were part of an ill-directed airstrike that went wrong in Syria on Saturday killing a claimed 60 Syrian government troops instead of the intended Islamic State fighters, while also threatening a delicate ceasefire in that war-torn country.

But though a circumspect Mr Turnbull expressed regret for the deaths during the action in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, he also hinted that there were blatant "contradictions" behind Russia's UN grandstanding on the bungled sorties by US-led coalition countries.

"I can confirm that Australian aircraft were involved in the sortie that's been the subject of the recent news reporting," he said during a Central Park press conference ahead of this week's UN General Assembly and global refugee talks.

"I can say that as soon as the coalition commanders were advised by the Russian command in the region that Syrian forces had been affected, that sortie was discontinued.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has defended Nauru and Manus Island detention centres by saying they are much better than the sprawling, makeshift refugee camps that fringe war-torn Syria.

His comments came as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull lauded Australia's border protection system as the "best in the world" ahead of a major United Nations summit in New York that will be dominated by the issue of refugees.

Peter Dutton says Australia is in "discussions" in a bid to resettle people found to be refugees.

Mr Dutton, speaking on ABC's Insiders program, suggested that Nauru and Manus could be favourably measured against camps such as Zaatari in Jordan where an estimated 80,000 Syrian refugees are living.

"I've been to Zaatari in Jordan and I've seen the devastation coming out of Syria and I've been to Lebanon seeing the situation there with many people who are living in desperate, desperate situations having been displaced," Mr Dutton said.
Australian RAAF planes were involved in the accidental bombing of dozens of Syrian troops in a mistake that may have helped Islamic State fighters and exacerbated tensions as a fragile ceasefire continues to unravel.

Defence has not specified whether it was Australian Hornets that launched the strikes or just supporting planes that were involved.

Russia, which blamed the strikes for the death of 62 Syrian government troops, called an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council in response  a move the US branded a stunt given the scant regard Moscow or Damascus have shown even for civilian deaths previously.

The mishap came at a delicate time for the US-led effort against the Islamic State terror group, with a week-old ceasefire brokered by Washington and Moscow already teetering.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has told a group of European conservatives the migrant crisis afflicting the continent has the "look of a peaceful invasion" as he urged European leaders to adopt Australia's strict turn-back policy.

In an address to the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists in Prague on Saturday night, Mr Abbott said it was "more important than ever to be brave" and a post-Brexit Britain and Europe needed to consider immigration changes.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott wants 'much less factionalism within the Liberal Party'. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Abbott said a country that could not control who entered its territory "will eventually lose control of its future".

"That need not end free movement  but it would end uncontrolled movement  and why shouldn't each country keep the final say over who can enter," Mr Abbott said in the speech, which he posted to his website on Sunday.
What causes us distress may not be what we expect. Take our health, for example. "You would think overall health would affect our overall wellbeing more than it does," Weinberg says. "People adjust very well to physical health conditions." She describes a study she was involved with several years ago on people receiving dialysis for "end-stage kidney disease". While their satisfaction with their health was lower than the rest of population, as we might expect, their health wasn't the primary factor affecting their wellbeing. Rather, it was the absence of a sense of meaning. "They were spending a lot of time managing their condition and sitting in a dialysis ward so they didn't feel like they were actually doing anything with their lives," Weinberg explains.

"It's very easy when you think of someone with a health condition to think 'oh they must be miserable' ... but for them, that's often what they're used to  that's their life and they adjust to that in most cases." Similarly, Weinberg says we often consider that "those who have the most money in the world would have the best lives, but you hear stories of their troubles as well". Rather, one thing that causes us distress is the quality of our relationships and connection with others. "Loneliness has a bigger effect on wellbeing than stress or anxiety," says Weinberg, noting that our sense of social support has a significant effect on our sense of wellbeing. "Even just feeling a little bit lonely has a big impact on our wellbeing." Ongoing loneliness, distress and a lack of meaning throw our wellbeing thermostat way out, but "negative" feelings are not something to fear. In fact, allowing ourselves to feel the natural range of emotions when life throws us curve balls is healthy.

"We don't always have to change and go from sad to happy all of a sudden  sometimes we feel down and sometimes that's OK," Weinberg says. "There's a lot of research that says that there are some good reasons why we don't always feel happy all the time. "There are some benefits to being in what's called a mildly negative mood sometime  we shouldn't feel pressured to always be happy, but if we find that we try things and they don't work and we notice that we really haven't been happy for some time, then it's time to seek help and reach out." Weinberg says that the overarching research has highlighted how strong we tend to be. "What we have learned from this project is that we are as humans inherently resilient," she says. "When bad things happen we do have this internal process that acts to try and help us get better. The analogy is that if your body temp drops, you will start to shiver which is its attempt to restore itself, but sometimes that shivering isn't enough, sometimes you might need to put on a layer of clothing and if it gets really bad, you might need to seek help." What is wellbeing?

Wellbeing is not Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch in a crazed state of ecstasy, Weinberg explains. "If you imagine that we have a set point, where we're meant to be and that's in this positive, mildly alert state  it's a happiness, but not a joyful, over-the-top happiness  it's more a state of contentment," she says. "If you think of our anchor  that's where we're trying to be  yes, there are times when we might feel lonely, yes, there are times when we might feel sad, but our body's actually always trying to bring us back to that set point of happiness." How's your wellbeing? "The simplest and best way to measure subjective wellbeing is a single question 'when you think about your life in general, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole?' " Weinberg says. "It's a question about satisfaction. Then we break that down further by asking about the different domains of life that contribute to your overall life satisfaction." These domains include relationships, what you're achieving in life (work/family/volunteering etc) and health.

Who is struggling the most? "We did a big project a couple of years ago where we explored the subjective wellbeing of informal carers," says Weinberg, explaining that informal means unpaid carers. The 4000 people studied, who generally became carers because a family member or friend had experienced a severe health condition and needed care, had the lowest measure of wellbeing of any group, including the person they were caring for, including people who earn a very low income, or people who were unemployed. "Usually, in a carer's situation, there are two ways out of it  one is that you leave the person and the other is that the person dies and neither is a good outcome," Weinberg explains. "People think that caring is a really altruistic thing to do, but caring is really taxing on a person, it's really really hard work and we really need people to care for the carers." How do the Wellbeing Index findings help us?
There is a huge range of fees across the various school systems. Although many Catholic schools have relatively low fees, the most expensive schools in Sydney and Melbourne charge more than $30,000 a year. The true cost is much higher after the costs of books and uniforms, laptops and extracurricular activities are included. Even with public education, there's the cost of extracurricular activities, voluntary contributions, uniforms and shoes. And then there is university. The idea behind the School Ready site is that by starting early, parents have more time to save and can use investments with higher risk but higher rewards, such as shares.

Of course, it's not always possible. Cathy says it would have been good to start a savings fund when the children were born. Instead she chose to stay at home full time when the children were very young. With the family on a single income it would have been impossible to save, she says. Public v private Whether a private school education is worth the fees and other costs has no simple answer. It very much depends on the individual child, says Peter Goss, school education program director at think-tank the Grattan Institute.

While his research released this year showed the brightest students at disadvantaged schools lag 2 years behind their peers at wealthier schools, the gap is not necessarily a reflection on the schools themselves. "Many schools across the country are achieving remarkable results with students from low-education backgrounds," Dr Goss says. John Velegrinis, the chief executive of Australian Scholarships Group, says education is broader than curriculum-based outcomes. "What's most important in choosing a school is focusing on the 'right' school for your child," he says. "Those are the schools that match as closely as possible both your child's needs and your education preferences."

Financial planner Tim Mackay of Quantum Financial Services in Sydney has clients who choose to not send their children to private schools. "They use the money they would have spent on fees on tutoring for their children and extra-curricular activities and on holidays for the family," Mackay says. He says expensive schools are not necessarily better and there is little point in stretching the family finances to such an extent that your standard of living is radically compromised. Sometimes the school-fee burden can mean parents fail to make voluntary contributions to their superannuation or pay off the mortgage before retirement. "You may feel like you are doing the best thing for your children, but if they have to help support you in retirement that's not putting them in the best position," Mackay says.

Saving early For all but the wealthiest parents, paying for school fees and other education costs is most likely going to be achieved through a combination of strategies. Parents who have their children attend public primary schools have more time to save. Perhaps one of the parents will increase their hours of paid work if and when the children start private secondary school. There are a couple of education savings plans available, of which Australian Scholarships Group is the oldest.

The not-for-profit organisation has a number of savings programs, which help parents save for private primary, secondary and tertiary education and training costs. Quantum's Mackay says where both parents are on high incomes and have long investment timeframes, insurance bonds could be an option. Tax is paid at the 30 per cent corporate tax rate and the money can be withdrawn after 10 years with no further tax paid. That's a lower tax rate than the highest marginal income tax rate of higher-earning parents. The underlying investment options range from the more aggressive with high exposures to shares to conservative options.
You might never notice the difference but across NSW money is being spent changing the logo that sits atop your rates bill.

Some newly merged councils are investing in new brands.

Tender documents show the new Canterbury-Bankstown council has allocated $375,000 to "develop, create and activate" a new branding strategy.

Redfern agency The Frost Collective will undertake a "brand audit" and develop new "brand architecture".
NSW Labor leader Luke Foley has offered bipartisan support for legislation to strip taxpayer-funded benefits for MPs found guilty of misconduct while in office, such as corrupt former minister Eddie Obeid.

Obeid was convicted in late June of wilful misconduct in public office but may still continue to receive up to $120,000 a year in taxpayer-funded entitlements.

After the verdict, Premier Mike Baird said he was seeking urgent advice on whether action could be taken to rescind any benefits Obeid might be claiming.

But in a letter on Sunday, Mr Foley asked for a copy of that legal advice and offered to support legislative changes that would deny former MPs such as Obeid taxpayer-funded benefits.
While shooting for an upcoming sequence in Switzerland, actors of Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai clearly had a lot of fun!

By India Today Web Desk: It's always nice to see our favourite stars get out of their sets and costumes and be themselves--albeit only through social media!

The latest glimpses we got were of the actors of one of the longest-running shows on television, Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai, who are currently shooting in Switzerland for an upcoming sequence.

Day1..Landes Museum,Zurich #zurich#landesmuseum#shooting#yrkkh#inlovewithswithswitzerland A photo posted by Anshul pandey (@anshulpandey123) on Sep 14, 2016 at 5:29am PDT

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The plot of the sequence being shot in Zurich is going to center around Karthik (Mohsin Khan), Naira (Shivangi Joshi) and Gayatri (Kanchi Singh), according to a report in the Times of India.

Day2..Rhine Falls!! #shooting#shoot#switzerland#inlovewithswitzerland#zrich#zurich#beautiful#bliss A photo posted by Anshul pandey (@anshulpandey123) on Sep 16, 2016 at 3:18am PDT

And all the actors just seem to be having so much fun out there! You can't really blame them, it's Zurich!

#heaven?? #titlismountainswiss???? A photo posted by Kanchi Singh (@kanchisingh09) on Sep 16, 2016 at 6:54am PDT

The serial was in the news of late for Karan Mehra aka Naitik's exit from the show after seven years. Though the actor cited health issues for his exit, rumours of problems with co-star Hina Khan were rife.

--- ENDS ---
Two NSW members of the outlaw motorcycle gang, the Nomads, have been charged with trafficking $750,000 worth of ecstasy after a tip off that the drugs were being flown as freight on a flight between Darwin and Sydney.

Northern Territory police arrested a 58-year-old man from Newcastle who they say is a high-ranking Nomads member.

Two members, one high-ranking, of Nomads OMCG have been charged over the alleged interstate freighting of illegal drugs. Credit:Nathan Patterson

He has been charged with a NSW warrant for supplying a large commercial quantity of drug.

NSW Gangs Squad officers travelled to Darwin where they applied for, and were granted, his extradition after he was arrested in an outer Darwin suburb.
A fight between two women outside a Queanbeyan club has ended with one of them in hospital after she was allegedly "glassed", police say.

NSW police are appealing for witnesses to the incident, which happened about 12.20am Sunday outside a club on Brown Street, Queanbeyan, when a group of people were leaving the building.

"Police from Monaro Local Area Command have been told a 35-year-old woman was allegedly knocked to the ground; she was then allegedly hit by another woman with a beer bottle, causing a cut over her left eye," NSW police said in a statement.

"The crowd dispersed when police and paramedics arrived at the scene. The woman was taken to Queanbeyan Hospital where she is undergoing treatment; the injury is not considered life-threatening."

Police ask anyone with information about the incident to contact Queanbeyan Police Station or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Cutting edge 3D-printing technology could be used to create new biofabricated ears for children with microtia, a condition in which the outer ear was underdeveloped, within a few years.

First, however, the Queensland University of Technology and the Brisbane-based Hear and Say Centre must perfect the art of creating prosthetic ears.

Ole Walton, who was born with microtia, with Brisbane Roar's Thomas Broich at the Hear and Say Centre. Credit:Cameron Atfield

But a lack of government support has forced them to try crowdfunding as a means to realise their vision.

QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation associate professor Mia Woodruff said the innovative research had simply fallen though the federal government's funding cracks.
A man has been charged with assault, after allegedly punching a 66-year-old driver following a near miss on a Deagon road on Saturday afternoon.

Police said a sedan was reversing out of a driveway on Adams Street about 2.15pm when it narrowly missed into a ute travelling along the road.

Police have charged a a 30-year-old North Booval man with assault, after a road rage incident in Deagon on Saturday afternoon.

The 30-year-old sedan driver allegedly followed the ute to the intersection of Board and Braun streets, where he got out of his car and began arguing with the other driver, a 66-year-old man.

Police said the alleged attacker then punched the victim multiple times in the face before fleeing.
Charges have been laid after a man was allegedly assaulted, robbed, forced into the boot of a car and dumped on the side of the road north of Brisbane.

About 5am Sunday, three men got into an argument at a Caboolture home, with two of them allegedly stealing the other's credit cards in what police believed might have been a drug-related disagreement.

Police believe drugs may be linked to an assault north of Brisbane on Sunday. Credit:Glenn Hunt

Police said the men left the Miles Street home but returned shortly after, tying the 33-year-old East Brisbane man up and punching and kicking him repeatedly in the boot of a car.

They allegedly drove the car around before dumping the 33-year-old, who police described as an associate, on the side of the road about 20 kilometres away in Woodford about 6.30am.
The small business sector is well aware that big business has little regard for its cash flow problems. It also knows big corporations deliberately delay payments. The facts are in: SMEs are collectively owed $26 billion, according to a late payments study by PayPal and Intuit Australia in November 2015.

Nearly three-quarters of all business invoices are paid late, with payment terms extending to 61-90 days outstanding, rising by 22 per cent, according to the ACCC. The latest trade payments analysis from Dun & Bradstreet shows businesses are waiting an average of 44.9 days for payment.

Colin Porter from Creditor Watch.

Recent examples include cereal giant Kellogg's and New Zealand's Fonterra  both have now stretched their payment terms out to 120 days. Unilever and Nestle are already on 90 days.

So if these are the overwhelming facts, and nothing looks likely to change any time soon, what can small businesses do to rectify the problem?
It's a waterfront dispute that's typically Brighton: well-heeled and highly educated residents versus their local council and a lifesaving club stuck in the middle, whose membership is desperate for better clubrooms.

Bayside Council says Brighton Lifesaving Club, built before Melbourne's 1956 Olympic Games, needs a complete rebuild.

Resident and local historian Weston Bate in front of the existing Brighton Lifesaving Club on Sunday. Credit:Jason South

But locals argue the ageing clubrooms next to Brighton's iconic beach boxes need a revamp, not a knock-down redevelopment.

They're concerned a bigger complex could see the area swamped, bringing even more tourists to visit the beach.
The Anglican priest whose provocative signs have become an internet sensation has torn strips off Pauline Hanson at a speech in Melbourne, accusing the One Nation leader of representing a "radicalised Christianity" that has no place in Australia.

Father Rod Bower, from the Gosford Anglican Church on the NSW central coast, has thousands of social followers thanks to his outspoken billboards chastising politicians over everything from asylum seekers to Australia's racial discrimination laws.

Recent messages include "Hell exists and it's on Nauru" and "Equality shouldn't cost $160 million". A picture of the anti-plebiscite message has been liked by more than 9000 people on Facebook, and shared more than 5700 times.

The signs have even sparked a Facebook 'appreciation society' with more than 4000 members from across Australia.
* 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.
There's a dead body in the car park of a block of flats. She died three hours ago. But instead of people standing around horrified and the police being called, everyone is chanting prayers and throwing flowers over the body.

I'm in Mumbai, and people living in the flats are coming home from work, but without batting an eyelid they just walk on by and use another entrance. This is just another event in the cycle of life and death in India.

Buddhist nuns at lunch. Credit:Kerry van der Jagt

The last time I saw a dead body in India was in a Buddhist monastery down south when a high lama passed away. It was the strangest experience. The air seemed heavy and his body had a scent thick with sweet honey and flowers.

Buddhists, as well as the Hindus I met in Mumbai that evening, do not shy away from speaking about death. We're heading towards death the moment we are born. Our death is inevitable, so we might as well plan the best we can for it.
"In the post-Borders world there is a great opportunity for good bookstores to thrive," Redfern says. "People have realised that going to a local bookshop  with great stock and knowledgeable staff  is a cultural experience, a curated experience. We select books and we talk to people about them."

Redfern  who has been selling books to Melburnians since 1986  has just opened a third shop, in Swan Street, Richmond, on the site of the now-closed BookTalk Cafe. He thinks the real-world bookshop definitely has a future.

Reading between the lines: Chris Redfern in his new bookshop in Richmond. Credit:Simon Schluter

Read all about it: Mark Rubbo's Readings chain has seen off plenty of mass market competitors. Credit:Penny Stephens

"On the day we opened we had people coming in all day who were rapt to have us in their neighbourhood."

Joel Becker, CEO of the Australian Booksellers Association, says, "There is something about Melbourne, a strong sense of high streets as places to shop at community-based businesses." Local bookshops fit into that really well.

One of the strengths of local bookshops such as Avenue, Becker says, is their customer service: "It's about listening to people coming into the shop  what they are interested in, what they have enjoyed reading  and putting something in their hands: not just to make a sale, but so the customer leaves satisfied."

Online bookstores such as Amazon and Book Depository can't do that. "A couple of years ago major shudders ran through the industry. E-books were going to be 50 per cent of the market according to some people. In fact they have settled in the low 20 per cent," says Becker. "A lot of e-readers are in bottom drawers alongside the breadmakers."
Parts of the road from Lorne to Skenes Creek remain closed. Credit:VicRoads "The level is expected to drop below the major flood level of 7 metres by Sunday afternoon," an SES spokesman said. Despite news reports that 80 residents had to be evacuated from Charlton, the spokesman said there were actually no reports of above floor flooding and no one was evacuated. Great Ocean Road weather damage on Wednesday. Credit:Chris Ridd In Donald the Richardson River was predicted to peak on Sunday evening, but the SES said there would not be any major flooding.

Three properties were thought to have been under threat in Panmure, but the town's Mount Emu Creek peaked on Saturday night and there were no reports of flooding. Daunts Bend in flood, near Toolamba, Shepparton. Credit:Hayden Thomson The water levels at Panmure were beginning to drop on Sunday afternoon. Allanford's major flood warning was also downgraded, the Hopkins River peaked on Sunday morning and there were no reports of above flood flooding, by 11am that river was also receding. Member for Corangamite Sarah Henderson on the Great Ocean Road. Credit:Justin McManus

On Sunday afternoon Horsham was bracing for the potential of flooding as the Wimmera River had peaked and was continuing to rise. "The Wimmera River at Horsham is currently at 3.28 metres and rising," the SES warning said. "The Wimmera River is likely to reach the major flood level (3.60m) Sunday evening." Parkland on the edge of the Avoca River, as the flood waters rose at Charlton on Friday. Credit:Joe Armao By Monday morning the river peaked near 3.7 metres, with the potential closure of more roads, bridges and flooded farmland.

The SES has received 1300 calls for assistance since last Sunday and three rescues were performed over the weekend. A community meeting a Charlton informing the residents of the flood risk due to the rising Avoca River on Thursday. Credit:Joe Armao Holidaymakers can now access part of the Great Ocean Road, which was closed for four days after landslides and falling rocks and trees. Communities that have already been inundated by floodwaters could be hit again, with more rainfall predicted across the state this week. Part of the famous Great Ocean Road, between Eastern View and Lorne, was reopened about 5pm on Saturday, but the road remains closed between Lorne and Skenes Creek.

"There is no local access along this stretch. Motorists can also access Lorne via Deans Marsh-Lorne Road. Princes Highway is an alternative route," a VicRoads spokesman said. The State Emergency Services worked with VicRoads to reopen the section "after extensive clearing and repair of damage caused by landslides during the past week", a SES spokesman said. Motorists heading to the area should take care, and note the 40km/h speed limits that are in place. Due to structural damage to the road, the section from Lorne to Skenes Creek may remain closed in the coming days. "A watch and act is still in place, there's still some unstable sections on there that haven't slid yet," the SES spokesman said. "VicRoads still have a fair bit of work to get the road restored."

About 250 roads remained closed on Sunday morning, following floods across Victoria. On Saturday the state government announced a range of disaster assistance for 22 flood-affected parts of Victoria. The SES said the Avoca River is likely to have peaked around 7.55 metres on Saturday afternoon, in the small town of Charlton, which was "on edge" on Saturday. "The water is moving down stream slowly and is likely to remain at this height for at least the next 24 hours," the spokesman said.

"The work that SES and CFA crews have done with local communities to sandbag and prepare properties has helped avoid impacts to home and assets in Charlton and at 2pm on Saturday there had been no reports of homes being inundated. "These crews are still in place to support the community if required." Charlton has been inundated by rainfall. In the first 17 days of September it received 109.2 millimetres. About 80 homes were door-knocked by the SES and the main street in town was sand-bagged on Friday. A fourth town meeting will be held in Charlton on Monday morning to discuss the flooding, but the SES spokesman said there were fears for predicted rain on Tuesday. Major flood warnings also remain for the Loddon, Wimmera-Avon, Hopkins, Ovens and Murray-Riverina river catchments.

Community meetings to discuss the floods will also be held on Monday morning in towns including Donald, Kerang, Quambatook, Bridgewater and Carisbrook. Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Peter Newham said a cold front from the west would hit Victoria on Tuesday and Wednesday, bringing isolated showers to parts of flooded west Victoria. He said it was not yet known where will be hit with the most rain on Tuesday, but some areas in the west of the state could receive up to 20 millimetres. Scattered showers are predicted for around the state on Sunday and patchy showers for Monday. Mr Newham said it was difficult to predict when Victoria would have another dry day as another cold front would hit the state next weekend.

In a video on Twitter, Victoria's emergency management commissioner, Craig Lapsley, said it was "important to remember that our rivers are full". "Those communities who have experienced floodwater are now in clean-up mode, some are planning for it to ... happen to them in the next number of days," he said. "On top of that we could have further rain in the coming week that will see further flooding in some rivers that aren't even flooding now. "We are looking at floods across September."
While floodwaters began retreating from water-logged Charlton, officials cautioned that Victoria's flood threat was far from over: further rain was coming and parts of the Great Ocean Road were at risk from landslides.

A cold front will hit Victoria on Tuesday and Wednesday, bringing isolated showers to the flooded west, said Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Peter Newham.

Some areas could receive up to 20 millimetres of rainfall, he said.

Do you have weather photos or videos? Send them to scoop@theage.com.au
A husband and wife have died after the car they were travelling in was hit by a vehicle, earlier involved in a high-speed chase with police.

Police aborted its chase of a Ford Falcon, driven by a 16-year-old boy, alleging the teenager was driving erratically along Warwick Road, Warwick at about 7.30pm.

The Ford then sped off and collided with a Nissan Pulsar at the intersection of Warwick and Ballatine Roads.

The two passengers inside the Nissan - a 66-year-old man and 60-year-woman - died due to the injuries suffered in the crash.
Tucson, Arizona: After a long, scary trek through three countries to escape the gang violence in El Salvador, a 15-year-old boy found himself scared again a few months back, this time in a federal immigration court here.

There was an immigration judge in front of him and a federal prosecutor to his right. But there was no one helping him understand the charges against him.

"I was afraid I was going to make a mistake," the boy said in Spanish from his uncle's living room, in a modest cinder-block house on the south side of this city. "When the judge asked me questions, I just shook my head 'yes' and 'no'. I didn't want to say the wrong thing."

Every week in immigration courts around the country, thousands of children act as their own lawyers, pleading for asylum or other type of relief in a legal system they do not understand.




In the dawn of 1848, the East India Company was planning a project that was nothing short of industrial espionage. If the Companys scheme was successful, the largest multinational corporation in the world, the East India Company, would enact the greatest theft of trade secrets in the history of mankind (p. 38).

In 1857, the US Patent Office hired Fortune to bring tea seeds to America. He was offered his standing rate-500 pounds a year and all expenses paidto commit espionage for Washington. Caught up in the frenzy of industrialization, the Patent Office believed American engineers could harness steam power to automate the processing of teaAs soon as the cases arrived in Washington, the Commissioner of US Patents unceremoniously fired Fortune. . Fortune spent much of the Civil War trying to recoup his lost fee from the Patent Officewhich, it seems, he never accomplished.

While IP rights often require the balancing of private and public interests, they seldom give rise to basic moral issues. The mostgraphic exception is the purloining of the commercial trade secrets of one nation to help the economy of another. This Kat has previously described the 19-century escapades of Samuel Slater , revered in the US but reviled in his UK homeland (Slater the Traitor) for sharing the technological secrets of the English cotton-spinning industry, and Henry Wickham , for enabling the rise of the Southeast Asia rubber industry by running off with the secrets of the Brazilian rubber tree. Against that background, the next time that Kat readers sip their favorite first flush Darjeeling tea , they should think of the following words of Sarah Rose from her enjoyable 2009 book , For All the Tea in ChinaWithout this espionage, it is argued, the Darjeeling tea we so enjoy today may never have come to pass. Read on.By the 1830s, a significant feature of economic life of the British Empire was about opium and tea. Opium was raised in the Indian east and delivered, mainly by inland waterways, to the Indian west coast (think Calcutta), and from there smuggled for sale in China, despite the protestations of the Emperor. With the proceeds, the English purchased quality Chinese tea, which it then brought home ([n]early one in every ten pounds sterling collected by the government came from the import and sale of tea (p. 1). The English loved their tea, but all agreed that Chinese tea was far superior to what was being produced in India. However, the Chinese took careful measures to keep secret their tea industry, including control both of the tea plants and their means of production.This worked well enough for a while, but one side-effect of the First first Opium War (1839-1942), which opened up Chinese markets to English traders, was that China began to raise locally the poppy seeds from which opium was derived. Should this continue, England would have less Indian-sourced opium to sell, meaning it would have less revenues from which to purchase Chinese tea. The solution: develop an Indian-based tea industry that would produce tea of Chinese quality. To do this, they needed to find tea terroir similar to that in China (think the Darjeeling area and the Himalayan foothills). More importantly, they had to learn as much as possible about the secrets of the Chinese tea industry. The person tasked with this mission was a Scottish botanist/adventurer named Robert Fortune In swashbuckling fashion (if Fortunes travelogues are to be believed), including pirates and gun battles, Fortune ventured into the Chinese tea-growing interior and, in 1848, succeeded, by disguising himself as a Chinese mandarin, in acquiring more than 20,000 tea plants. (In so doing, Fortune discovered that green and black tea are both derived from the same plant, camellia sinensis , contrary to the then current understanding.) However, the journey back to the proposed tea estate area in India, especially the route from Calcutta onwards, was largely unsuccessful, due mainly to mistakes (not of Fortunes making, it would seem) regarding such things as tampering with the containers, misuse of irrigation and the general incompetency of the English staff.A second expedition, in 1849, was much more successful and paved the way for the establishment of the quality tea industry in India. As well, Fortune managed to smuggle out of China a critical number of persons connected to the Chinese tea industry, some of whom provided invaluable insights into tea-growing and production. Stated otherwise, Fortune had purloined both the trade secrets embodied in the plants themselves and the know-how and show-how of the industry to jump-start the world of high quality Indian tea. (As Queen Victoria was quoted as saying: We hope you get your tea from India as an encouragement to the Empire. We should all do so.)But Fortunes escapades did not only serve the interests of his homeland. It turns out that the United States Patent Office sought to make use of his tea-pirating services. As Rose notesThe tea industry did not succeed in the U.S. and Fortune was out of pocket for his efforts (although Kat readers should not feel too sorry for him, as he died a wealthy man).As Rose suggests, perhaps with a degree of hyperbole, there is a bit of delicious irony in all of this, given the current lamentations of theWest about claims of Chinese trade secret espionage. Be that as it may, for this Kat, Fortunes tale raises a fundamental question about trade secrets as an instrument of national policy. Rose has been criticized for overstating the role of Fortune in the transfer of tea-growing technology to India (and ultimately elsewhere). Fortune may have been unusual but one senses that he was not unique. If Fortune had not done it, someone else would walked off with the secrets of the Chinese tea industry for the benefit of India and the Empire.Stated otherwise, the leakage of Chinese tea technology was inevitable; that is how countries act and that is the ultimate fate of confidential technology and know-how as an instrument of national policy. At this level, the first-mover advantage , a defining characteristic of trade secrets as practiced by individuals, is irrelevant. But what about the ethics of trade secret misappropriation?, you ask, as you pass me another cup of Darjeeling tea.For an interview with Sarah Rose on National Public Radio, here
5 seats up for election on St. Joseph County Council, majority at stake

Five of the nine seats on the St. Joseph County Council are up for election
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 NCRI members who sent message of congratulations include national champion Moslim Iskandar Filabi, Ms. Mahin Meshkinfam, and Messrs. Reza Olia, Hossein Farshid and Ibrahim Mazandarani.

Mr. Moslim Iskandar Filabi and Ms. Mahin Meshkinfam, in a joint statement, said: This great victory was not achieved easily. In the past 14 years, the tireless efforts of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi and perseverance of the PMOI (MEK) members as well as daily struggle of the PMOI (MEK) supporters around the world took apart the Iranian regimes conspiracies and plots. Finally, honor prevailed over dishonor, patriotism over treason, and law over lawlessness. No doubt this victory will go forward until freedom in Iran and peace in the region are achieved.

Reza Olia said: Congratulations on the auspicious and great victory of the Resistance and PMOI (MEK) heroes and made a beautiful painting to illustrate their victory.

Mr. Hossein Farshids message stated: No doubt Irans history will talk about this victory forever and remember it as an example of the victory of self-sacrificing heroes over criminal dictators. Salute and greetings of the Iranian people and all freedom-loving people in the world to you the Mojahed (MEK) heroes. The impossible become possible. The anti-human mullahs regime received a major strategic blow and the Iranian Resistance harvested a qualitative leap towards the overthrow of the ruling clerics.

Ibrahim Mazandaranis message on behalf of the Monotheistic Trades Association was: There is no doubt that with this victory we have reached a new phase of our human, national and revolutionary responsibilities. Undoubtedly, the morning of victory is near and we must continue the path with all our might all the way. I have no doubt that someday people of Iran will throw flowers at your feet and we will sing the anthem of victory at the tomb of our martyrs in Khavaran and elsewhere.

Hossein Jahansouz pointed out that the successful and victorious relocation of the PMOI (MEK) is another step that towards regime change in Iran. Hossein Saidian sent his congratulations on the triumphant relocation project and affirmed that the PMOI (MEK) will certainly continue in the struggle for freedom and democracy for the Iranian people. Hamidreza Taherzadeh said that the MEK relocation is the dawn of beginning of the end of Iran regime and is a victory of Iranian peoples just resistance.

Hamid Azimi also offered his congratulations on the successful relocation of PMOI (MEK) and stated that the Iranian people with their organized resistance will witness more wins.

Emphasising the perseverance of the PMOI (MEK) during these fourteen years, Bahram Maveddat and Firouzeh Ojagh congratulated all those who have supported the PMOI (MEK) in the steps that have led to this successful relocation.

Manshour Varasteh who paid tribute to the martyrs of the resistance and PMOI (MEK) said that the most important victory of Iranian resistance has been achieved and that the end of religious fascism is closer than ever.
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On Thursday, German commentators weighed in on the issue.

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"If the German justice minister had any gumption, she would send out criminal investigators to this country's Church offices to confiscate the personnel files of every priest who has committed sexual violence against children. The justice system must do this to stop the planned obstruction of justice by the perpetrating organization, the Church."

"The Church had the invaluable opportunity to better understand itself and to win back the trust of the people. There are a few clever people within the Church who were ready for this, because they understand that although the Church is in crisis, it has potentially important spiritual offerings for the third millennium."

"But there are also reactionary forces who want to continue acting as though it's still the Middle Ages. They thwarted the inquiry with the argument that personnel files are private. Of course they are, but no one was after the names. It was not about criminal prosecution, but about discovering the extent of the structures contributing to sexual violence against children."

"What remains is mistrust in an institution whose main business is trust. The merciful spiritual compass that is the Church has a black hole in its heart."

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"From the outside it's difficult to judge who is to blame for the failure of the scientific study of the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. The Association of German Dioceses (VDD) and the Lower Saxony Criminological Research Institute (KFN) are blaming each other. But it is clear which party will be the loser in the end: the Church."

"One side is fighting for the freedom and purity of science, while the other side is already on the defensive because it has perpetrators in its ranks -- not just those who committed crimes, but also those who undoubtedly took part in covering them up."

"The Church had to know that when an inquiry was placed in the hands of scholars, it would lose control over the interpretation of the facts. The issues of privacy and due diligence being used to justify the cancellation of the contract with Pfeiffer's institute sound like equivocations...."

"This is a setback for those in the Church who support an uncompromising clarification of this issue, and one that will also lead to an overall loss of credibility for the Church. The Pope's calls for a new spirituality ring hollow, because they can once again be interpreted as an attempt to escape from a world that the Church itself has yet to reconcile itself with."

The center-left Suddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Problems with a system can only rarely be recognized and remedied from the inside. And the sexual violence in the Catholic Church also has intrinsic systemic causes. It is driven by a perception that an institution, pure on its own, has been tainted by perpetrators and only has to be purified again. That it is fueled by the loneliness and overwork of many priests. The problem will remain unresolved as long as the overriding question is: 'How are we perceived?'"

"This view from the outside cannot purify the church. On the contrary, it will only strengthen the awareness of its own problems. But only when the church recognizes these problems will it turn from its own reflection to focusing on the victims, who have been largely ignored in this whole fight. And then to the people, in order to make the church credible again for their sake."

The conservative daily Die Welt writes:

"Serious damage has once again been inflicted on the process of examining sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. After the agreement between the Association of German Dioceses (VDD) and the Lower Saxony Criminological Research Institute (KFN) on a study about the crimes broke down, suspicion and silence once again took over when truth and openness were necessary."

"How many cases were there? What were the causes? How were the perpetrators and victims dealt with? What needs to change? It is disturbing, that the answers to these questions will remain in semi-darkness, and that the outrage ... remains."
George Washingtons biracial family tree has officially been recognized and will be now part of an exhibition called Lives Bound Together in Arlington House and Mount Vernon.

In a statement issued by the National Park Service and the nonprofit that runs Washingtons Mount Vernon estate, it was revealed that starting in the fall; they will acknowledge that George Washington Parke Custis, the historical figures adopted son, had children with two slaves.

John Jacky Parke Custis was the son of Martha Washington (nee Dandridge) and Daniel Parke Custis. After the death of Parke Custis, Dandridge married George Washington, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

While Martha and George Washington did not have any children together, the nations first president adopted and raised his wifes children  Daniel Parke Custis, Jr. and John Parke Custis  as his own.

Washington also adopted his step-grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, who was the son of John Parke Custis and Eleanor Calvert Custis.

George Washington Parke Custis, who was given the nickname Wash, was considered a problem child much like his biological father. He was also a failure in school and attended several colleges and never graduated. George Washington Parke Custis went to Germantown Academy, the College of New Jersey, and St. Johns College.

Washington often shared his frustration about the young man in his letters. George Washington once wrote:

He appears to me to be moped and Stupid, says nothing, and is always in some hole or corner excluded from the Company.

George Washingtons adopted son married Mary Lee Fitzhugh, a Caucasian Episcopal lay leader in Alexandria County. George Washington Parke Custis and Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis only surviving daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, married American Confederate Army general Robert E. Lee.

However, he also fathered children with two black slaves  Arianna Carter and Caroline Branham. Parke Custis likely fathered a girl named Lucy with Branham.

Matthew Penrod, a National Park Service ranger and programs manager at Arlington House, said this is the place where the lives of the Washingtons, their slaves and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee all converged. Penrod explained:

We fully recognize that the first family of this country was much more than what it appeared on the surface.

Penrod confessed that in the past 26 years, tour guides at Arlington House were asked to describe slave dwellings as servants quarters and the focus was on Lee, to honor him and show him in the most positive light.

Penrod stated that they have no new scientific evidence to confirm George Washingtons biracial family tree, but they have made the changes to reflect a growing sense that African-American history cannot be disregarded and that Arlington House represents more than Lees legacy. For a scientific proof, DNA testing will have to involve descendants of Lee, Carter and Branham.

Some family records are kept at Robert E. Lees birthplace, Stratford Hall, but research director Judy Hynson said she knows of none that acknowledge Parke Custis fathered children with slaves. Hynson said.

Thats not something you would write down in your family Bible.

Carter and Branhams descendants were thrilled to learn the news, and the same can not be said for Robert E. Lees lineage. Stephen Hammond, of Reston, a Carter-Syphax descendant said the Park Services recognition is gratifying. Hammond said:

Its become a passion of mine, figuring out where we fit in American history.

Hammond stated he and his cousins have not yet decided to approach the Lee descendants for genetic tests, and many of them are not interested and have refused to comment on this story. Branham descendants ZSun-nee Miller-Matema, of Hagerstown, Md., said:

My aunt told me that if the truth of our family was known, it would topple the first families of Virginia. As a kid I would always tell people I was related to George Washington, but no one would believe me.

She traced her ancestry to Caroline Branham, who appears in documents written in the first presidents own hand. She added:

I just couldnt believe it. Gen. Washington was taking notes on my Caroline?

Donna Kunkel, who is related to Carter, said while she knows that slaves could not refuse the sexual advances of the plantation owner, she tries not to think of the acts as rape. Kunkel explained:

I try to focus on the outcome. He treated Maria with respect after the fact.

Miller-Matema added:

Incorporating these family histories into the nations shared story is particularly important at a time of renewed racial tension. Were all so much a part of each other. It just makes no sense any more to be a house divided.

In June, the Park Service re-enacted the 1821 wedding of Maria Carter to Charles Syphax at Arlington House. A new family tree was unveiled at the event and listed Parke Custis and Arianna Carter as Maria Carters parents.
New York, September 18, 2016 (SPS) - The United Nations has proposed the exclusive presence of the peacekeeping forces of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) in Guerguerat area, southwest of Western Sahara, where Polisario Front and Moroccan troops are separated from each other by only 120 metres.

The UN has proposed the withdrawal of all armed elements of Polisario Front and Morocco from the buffer strip and the exclusive deployment of MINURSO peacekeeping forces, said the UN Secretary General's spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric during his daily press briefing.

To a question on UN chief's proposal on the construction by Morocco of a road crossing the Polisario Front-controlled territory, Dujarric said that "it (the proposal) would include the withdrawal by both parties of all armed elements and MINURSO would retain the exclusive presence in the area."

The proposal must be approved by both parties to the conflict, Polisario Front and Morocco, he said, adding that the resumption of hostilities is not in the interest of either party.(SPS)

062/090/700
Tolls are taxes.

We are overtaxed already in Connecticut.We dont need more levies, revenue enhancements, or user fees.

And we most certainly dont need tolls on Interstate-84 in Danbury.

Every year, like clockwork, the call arises from under the Gold Dome in Hartford for border tolls. Those calls are made by legislators who  you will be shocked to learn  do not live anywhere near a state border.

Lets face it. Its easy for those politicians to float the border tolls trial balloon. The taxpayers they represent wouldnt be impacted like greater Danbury residents and businesses would. The people they speak for in Hartford would not have to deal with the safety issues, the traffic slow-downs and the barriers for businesses which inevitably come with tolls.

Imagine how tolls would impact the Danbury Mall, Danbury Hospital or any of our other major economic drivers. And how about the thousands of western Connecticut working families who cross the New York border multiple times every day to make a living? Their burden will be heavy. It will be targeted to our communities. And thats unfair.

And while were on the topic of tolls and taxes, lets talk about revenue.

Those gas taxes you pay at the pump all get pumped into fixing our roads and bridges, right?

Guess again. Millions and millions of those tax dollars get intercepted and misdirected. They instead go to balancing the Connecticut state budget. It happens year after year.

So do you still trust your elected officials to keep their hands off potential toll money?

Lets talk about avoidance. Its only natural for people to avoid an unpleasant option. In the case of border tolls, that means taking alternative routes. Who will deal with those new traffic safety issues, and who will be on the hook to pay for that new wear and tear? You will.

And what about all the federal transportation dollars Connecticut currently gets for not having tolls? Installing tolls could result in the loss of that funding. Washington politicians would gladly send our transportation grant funds to another state. That loss will put Connecticut in an immediate and new budgetary hole which would take time to crawl out of.

Republicans and I put forth a widely acclaimed line-by-line alternative state budget plan which prioritized transportation spending, contained no new taxes and required no tolls. Check it out at www.SenatorMcLachlan.com. Tolls dont have to be our job-killing destiny.

Those who dont think we are taxed enough in Connecticut might want to note the July 3 words of the Connecticut legislatures Democratic senate leader, who said, At this point, we arent looking at any tax increases.

At this point, indeed.

State Sen. Michael McLachlan represents the 24th senatorial district which includes Bethel, Danbury, New Fairfield, and Sherman.
A police officer had his arm broken when a thief hurled their stolen moped at him in an east London street.

Hackney officers had been called out to Culford Road in Dalston last night after a tip-off that a group of men were tampering with mopeds parked on the street.

Once they arrived, police challenged one of the thieves who appeared to be trying to steal a vehicle.

But, instead of giving himself up, the man picked up the moped and hurled it towards one of the officers.

The flung vehicle slammed into the policeman's arm while the suspect fled up the road with his friends.

Other police chased the men but lost them in the darkened streets.

The officer was assessed by paramedics and taken to a local hospital suffering from a broken arm.

A spokesman for Hackney police said: "Hackney CID are currently making enquiries to identify the suspects.

"No arrests have been made."
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a man was stabbed to death in west London.

Police were called by paramedics to Baker House in Nightingale Road, Hanwell, at 11pm yesterday after reports a man had been stabbed.

Officers found a 25-year-old suffering from a knife wound inside one of the flats.

He was rushed to hospital but, despite the efforts of doctors who battled to save his life, was pronounced dead just before midnight.

A spokesman for the Met Police said: A 27-year-old woman was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder.

She was taken to a north London police station where she remains in custody.

Detectives from the Homicide and Major Crime Command are investigating the killing.

Anyone with information should call the incident room on 0208 721 4205 or contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
A man was rushed to hospital after a stabbing in north London.

Metropolitan Police were called to Laycock Street in Islington after a 21-year-old man was found with stab wounds.

He was rushed to a hospital in east London just after 4.30pm this afternoon.

His condition is not currently known, police said.

Stab wounds: A man was found injured by paramedics from London Ambulance Service / Mark Cockroft/Twitter

Dramatic images show a police cordon around a large stretch of the road close to Upper Street.

A Met Police spokesman said: Police were called to Laycock Street at approximately 4.30pm on 18 September by London Ambulance Service to reports of stabbing.

A 21-year-old man was taken east London hospital with injuries.

No arrests have been made and enquiries continue.
A predator who sexually assaulted two pregnant women as part of a campaign of abuse against a dozen victims in south west London has been jailed for five years.

George Hadzhiiliev targeted lone females over a three week period in the Twickenham and Wandsworth area, including one offence committed while he was out on bail.

The 29-year-old's mode of attack was to grab his victims from behind and sexually assault them.

His first attack took place around 12.15pm near Turnham Green Station where Hadzhiiliev groped a woman.

He then followed a woman walking to a beauty salon on Kew Road, Richmond on January 26, and sexually assaulted her.

The following nine assaults all took place in just over two hours on January 27 between 8am and 11am.

After being spotted by officers on foot patrol near Kew Road, Hadzhiiliev was released on bail from Kingston Police Station on January 29.

But on February 9 at 10.50am, he assaulted a 12th woman on Seeley Road, Tooting, following her along the road and touching her from behind.

He was arrested at the Tooting Working Men's Progressive Club on the same day and interviewed for the second time.

After pleading guilty to 12 counts of sexual assault, Hadzhiiliev, from Mitcham, was imprisoned for five years and three months at Kingston Crown Court on Monday.

DI Suzanne Jordan from the Mets Sapphire Command said: This series of sexual assaults sparked concern to the local community and it was clear that there was a serious risk to women with Hadzhiiliev roaming the streets.

Hadzhiiliev was quickly identified and arrested and I hope that seeing him convicted provides some comfort for the victims.
L ondon community projects and charities are offering refugees and asylum seekers free bikes to help them travel around the city.

Over 20,000 bikes are abandoned in London each year and these projects capitalise on that, collecting, repairing and then donating them.

Some also offer the chance for people to attend bike workshops which equip them with the practical skills to be able to maintain their own bikes.

The London Welcome Project is a once-weekly social centre set up in 2013 after organisers realised that drop-in centres and public places for asylum seekers were closed on Sundays.

Mechanic skills: The London Welcome Project has weekly workshops / LWP

As well as running cooking sessions and activities for children, it holds a bike workshop each week where mechanics are on hand to help.

One of the project coordinators, Sophie, explained: It is open to local people in the community, as well as refugees and asylum seekers.

Travelling around London on public transport is really expensive. The bikes mean they have a free way to travel around to jobs  for those who have jobs - or appointments and important meetings.

The Bike Project, founded in 2013, is based in south London, aiming to combat the high cost of transport in the city for asylum seekers and refugees.

One of its projects works specifically with women.

Bike Project: Operations manager Claire, left, and a member of the workshop / The Bike Project

When the charity was set up it did not have many women taking part, often because they had come from societies where they are not encouraged to ride a bike  some cultures consider it too dangerous and other believe it is inappropriate.

So The Bike Project began having specific classes, in Wapping, to help women feel more comfortable about it.

Operations manager, Claire Donaldson, said: We have always found that very few women come to the workshop to get bikes  and upon asking women we met at other refugee service centres, we found that this was largely because in the countries they grew up in, women riding bikes was either very much not ok, or simply not a priority.

Life skills: The projects are about health and happinness as much as free travel / LWP

Women are less confident in trying to ride a bike alone, and have often grown up with cultural barriers in place that men from the same places have not experienced.

A large proportion of the women I have worked with are overweight and suffering from afflictions such as arthritis, and really struggle to find a non-impact form of exercise that is inexpensive, and doesnt require getting undressed like with something like swimming.

Free transport: The bikes are all donated or rescued off the streets

As well as providing people with practical skills and free transport, both organisations aim to create a safe space for people to socialise.

With the uncertainty surrounding being an asylum seeker, many value the opportunity to get to know local people and feel part of a community.

Sophie added: Our main mission is to offer a welcoming space to socialise and build solidarity with and among migrants.
L abour are set to vote on new rules to make racism and anti-Semitism as punishable as supporting another party.

Jeremy Corbyn said plans put forward by the Jewish Labour Movement to put racial discrimination on an equal footing with disloyalty will come to the floor at a party conference in Liverpool, which begins on Sunday.

Speaking at a Jewish community leadership hustings in north London, the Labour leader said: "Yes it will be going to conference and it follows on from the general anti-racism statement I proposed to the National Executive (Committee) some months ago which was actually unanimously agreed by the NEC."

He added: "There's something really sad that we're the only political party that's ever had a statement of general anti-racism."

Mr Corbyn's leadership rival Owen Smith said he would also back the new rule and suggested it was particularly relevant.

"I think particularly the way in which the rule change has been framed does make a very stark point," Mr Smith said.

"Really I felt it very sharply that we have previously treated supporting an alternative party as a more serious offence than articulating anti-Semitic or other racist or homophobic, for example, views.

"That cannot be right."

Labour has been dogged by allegations of anti-Semitism since Mr Corbyn took over as leader, with one row leading to the suspension of former London mayor Ken Livingstone and temporary suspension of MP Naz Shah.

A subsequent review of racism in the party by former Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti, who has since been given a peerage by the Labour leader, was criticised by Jewish leaders and MPs after it found the Labour Party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism".

The final leadership hustings held at a Jewish community centre in Finchley Road and touched on themes which have been at the centre of scandal in recent months.

Mr Corbyn was heckled for apparently avoiding a question about the sharp decline in Jewish Labour voters.

"Why aren't Jews supporting Labour?" and "He hasn't answered," were shouted from the audience.

Pushed by moderator Lucy Manning, of the BBC, he said some of the issues "pre-dated" his leadership.

He added: "I want everyone to understand this: there is no place in the Labour party for anti-Semitism of any sort."
U kip's new leader has confirmed one of her political heroes is Russian supremo Vladimir Putin.

Diane James was asked on BBC One's Sunday Politics who, "other than Vladimir Putin", were her political heroes, and she named the two former British prime ministers.

When asked to confirm whether her heroes were "Putin, Churchill and Thatcher", she replied in the affirmative.

The questioning stemmed from a 2015 interview in which Ms James described the Russian president as "a strong leader" who stands up for his country.

Mr Putin has attracted international criticism after the Russian annexation of Crimea, incursion into Ukraine and his support for the brutal Bashar Assad regime in Syria.

But Ms James said in the 2015 interview: "Nigel (Farage) went on record saying if you provoke the Russian bear you get a reaction.

"I admire him from the point of view that he's standing up for his country. He is very nationalist.

Nigel Farage -The highs and lows of his Ukip leadership

"He is a very strong leader. He is putting Russia first, and he has issues with the way the EU encouraged a change of government in the Ukraine which he felt put at risk a Russian population in that country."

Ms James won the race to succeed Mr Farage as Ukip leader on Friday, taking the top job with 8,451 votes.
C abin crew members are being forced to act as night-club bouncers as figures show alcohol and drug related air rage has peaked.

Flight attendants have demanded action to curb bad behaviour on aeroplanes as new statistics show one serious incident on a UK airline happens every day.

Incidents involving disruptive passengers increased four-fold between 2013 and 2015, research from the BBCs 5 Live Investigates showed.

Any event that can endanger an aircraft, its occupants or any other person must be reported to the Civil Aviation Authority.

The organisations data shows 386 such incidents were reported in 2015, compared with just 85 in 2013.

The figures do not include foreign airlines, including Ryanair  which carries around one-fifth of UK passengers.

A senior member of cabin crew for a leading budget airline told The Independent: Cabin crew have had enough. Were having to perform as night-club bouncers, and were not standing for it any more.

Most incidents are reported to have involved alcohol and in many cases, disruptive passengers were already drunk before boarding.

Jet2s managing director Phil Ward, told 5 Live that pre-loading was a serious issue:

He said: It's not normal to drink a pint at six in the morning and that then manifests itself on board the airplane where the alcohol takes a greater effect.

His airline has banned on-board sales of drink before 8am.

At Gatwick airport, Sussex Police are providing leaflets to bars, warning passengers of the possible consequences of being drunk on board a plane.

Adrian Goldberg, the presenter of 5 Live Investigates, said: Airlines are working towards a Banned from one, banned from all policy.

This week a group of four women were removed from a Monarch flight from Manchester to Ibiza before it took off.


A t least eight people have been taken to hospital after a stabbing rampage at an American shopping mall by a knifeman who made references to Allah.

The attacker, who was was wearing a private security uniform when he struck in St Cloud, Minnesota, was shot dead by an off-duty officer, authorities said.

St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said the knifeman made references to Allah during his attack and asked at least one person if they were a muslim.

He told the St Cloud Times: We will be diligent and get to the bottom of this.

Mr Anderson added that no one else was thought to be involved in the violence at Crossroads Center mall and the FBI had offered to help investigate.

Police are currently not linking the stabbings to terrorism.

Shopper Sydney Weires told the paper: I saw this security guard sprinting down the hallway toward Target.

"He was yelling, 'Call the cops! Call the cops!'

Harley Exsted said: "All of a sudden I heard pop, pop, pop

"I thought someone tipped over a shelf. All of a sudden these people started running. I just saw everybody running our way."

The incident was first reported at 8.15pm local time, police said. It came on the same evening as last night's explosion in New York City.
I sis has claimed responsibility for yesterday's knife rampage in Minnesota.

An attacker wearing a private security uniform launched an attack on shoppers in St Cloud at around 8.15pm.

Eight people were injured before the attacker, who was heard referencing Allah, was shot dead by an off-duty policeman

A statement issued by the groups official news agency read: The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition.

St Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said the attacker asked at least one person if they were Muslim before attacking.

He added: The individual made some references to Allah and we have confirmed that he asked at least one person if they were Muslim before he assaulted them.

"We do know that there were approximately eight people transported to the St. Cloud Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. That suspect was confronted by an off duty police officer and summarily shot and killed.

Police said the incident is not currently being treated as terror related but investigations are ongoing.

A spokeswoman for St Cloud hospital said none of the eight patients transported there were suffering from life-threatening injuries.
A t least 29 people have been injured in an explosion outside a home for the blind in New York.

A second device - said to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a mobile phone - was also found in the Chelsea section of Manhattan and taken away, officials have confirmed.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has said authorities believe the explosion was an "intentional act" but is not linked to terrorism.

The explosion in a busy neighbourhood happened at about 8.30pm New York time on Saturday (1.30am Sunday UK time) on West 23rd Street, leaving one person seriously hurt.

The rest of the victims are believed to have suffered minor injuries.

Mr de Blasio said: "Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident.

Help: A police officer escorts an injured man away from the scene (AP Photo/Nico Maounis) / Nico Maounis/AP

"We have no credible and specific threat at this moment."

He said the blast was "an intentional act" but tried to calm any fears among nervous New Yorkers, saying there was no evidence of a link to terrorism, and no connection with a pipe bomb explosion earlier on Saturday at a New Jersey charity run.

The blast happened on West 23rd Street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe's supermarket.

Loading....

A law enforcement official said the it appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. New York officials said the incident was not due to a gas leak, as some initial reports had suggested.

Photos from the scene show a twisted and crumpled black metal box.

The official told The Associated Press the second device that officers were investigating four blocks was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street.

Reaction: Firefighters arrive in West 23rd Street (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki) / Andres Kudacki/AP

Witnesses say the explosion blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris in the area. Officials said no evacuations were necessary.

Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said several people were taken to hospital with injuries.

One of those hurt suffered a puncture wound that was considered serious. He said the other injuries were described as scrapes and bruises.

Police spokesman J Peter Donald tweeted a warning to residents near the second site that officials are investigating, saying: "As a precautionary measure, we are asking residents who live on West 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan to stay away from windows facing 27th Street until we clear the suspicious."

A number of New York City subway routes were affected by the explosion.

Explosion: Police have cordoned off part of the area (AP) / Andres Kudacki/AP

Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.

"We felt it, we heard it, the restaurant went real quiet, the 26-year-old said. "It wasn't like jolting or anything, everyone just went quiet."

Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said he, at first, thought something large had fallen.

Emergency: Police and firefighters work near the scene of an apparent explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood (AP) / Andres Kudacki/AP

"It was an extremely loud noise, everything was shaking, the windows were shaking, it was crazy," he said. "It was extremely loud, almost like thunder, but louder."

The FBI and Homeland Security officials, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arson and explosive task force are also at the scene.

New York: Firefighters at the scene (REUTERS) / Rashid Umar Abbasi/Reuters

The White House said President Barack Obama has been told of the explosion and will be updated as additional information becomes available.

The blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners participated in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors.

No-one was hurt.

Meanwhile, in St Cloud, Minnesota, police said multiple people were injured at a shopping mall on Saturday evening in an attack that possibly involved both a shooting and stabbing. The suspect was believed to be dead.

Hillary Clinton said she has been briefed "about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attack in Minnesota."

The Democratic presidential candidate said the nation needs to support its first responders and "pray for the victims".

She said: "We have to let this investigation unfold."

Reaction: Hillary Clinton talks to reporters / REUTERS

Her Republican rival Donald Trump declared a "bomb went off" in New York before officials had released details.

He made the announcement minutes after stepping off his plane during a rally at an airport hangar in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Trump says bomb went off in New York

"I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows what's going on," Mr Trump said.

He continued: "But boy we are living in a time - we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant."

The reports of a possible blast come hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners participated in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. No injuries were reported.

This story is being updated

Additional reporting by the Press Association
A 15-year-old boy has been arrested after getting stuck in the chimney of a house he was allegedly trying to break into.

The teen was caught when the owner of the house heard his screams coming from the roof of their home in Louisiana.

The homeowner called Baton Rouge police department who arrested the boy on Friday.

He was taken to a juvenile detention centre where he is being held on a charge of attempted burglary.

Sergeant L'Jean McKneely claimed the teen had been stuck in the chimney for about an hour before authorities arrived.

American news outlet WBRZ streamed the rescue live on Facebook.



Footage showed fire crews using a rope to hoist the boy from the chimney.
SINCE THE RAPTURE OCCURS BEFORE THE FUTURE 7 YR TREATY IS SIGNED, I WONT BE AROUND TO HAVE THE ACTUAL TREATY SIGNING. BUT UNTIL THEN THIS SITE IS DEDICATED TO THE BEGININGS OF THE ISRAELI / ARAB PEACE PROCESS. AND AS CLOSE TO THE 7 YEAR SIGNING THAT WE GET BEFORE THE RAPTURE OF THE SAVED TO HEAVEN. UNTIL WE MEET JESUS IN THE CLOUDS BODILY, AND COME TO EARTH 7 YRS LATER.
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When Whitney Gilbert and Shadese (DeeDee) Griffith began dating more than a year ago, neither could have expected that they and their family w
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Imagine a lush park and pathway that winds along the Mississippi River and cuts through downtown St. Louis, held above the traffic and grit below by a rehabilitated 100-year-old train trestle.

Now go raise $60 million to pay for it.

Thats what Great Rivers Greenway announced it would do five years ago through a combination of tax dollars and private contributions. The taxing district for parks and trails, created by voters in 2000, was ready to put $20 million toward the Iron Horse trestle project, but the group had never done its own fundraising.

After struggling to win interest from major donors in a city known for huge philanthropy projects, the group shelved the trestle in 2014 and went back to the drawing board.

We learned we werent in a position to go out with individual projects and raise money for them, said Mike Sorth, director of conservation and community for Great Rivers Greenway.

They lacked the sophistication other local groups have been developing for years. The group wasnt well-known to the public at large, didnt have the data to support its pitch and had to compete for donors with other major capital campaigns that did.

One of the challenges in raising money is it takes money, said Yinka Faleti, vice president of philanthropy for the United Way of Greater St. Louis.

Major fundraisers and donors in St. Louis say the challenges of the nonprofit world continue to grow in the years after the Great Recession. Although annual giving to nonprofits nationwide has only dipped twice since 1987  in 2008 and 2009, according to Giving USA  theres more competition for dollars because theres a greater desire from donors for transparency and efficiency.

Total giving nationwide was $373.25 billion in 2015, a 4.1 percent increase over 2014, according to Giving USAs 2016 annual report.

An informal 2015 survey of St. Louis nonprofits by the Rome Group, a local fundraising consulting firm, found 62 percent had reached their annual fundraising goals.

Were all out there going for the same set of dollars and only so much to go around, said Bret Heinrich, past president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in St. Louis and chief development officer at St. Andrews Charitable Foundation. The competition becomes, how can I get the message out about my organization and broaden our base?

Human services nonprofits have had the hardest time since the Great Recession. Faleti said the 170 regional organizations receiving funding from United Way have seen a combined 10 percent cut in government funding for things such as job training and homeless services.

The Great Recessions impact on giving didnt affect the amount of money as much as it did the donors expectations, especially for corporate donors that increasingly want nonprofits to align on joint projects and demand more information on how the groups spend their money.

If youre a corporate donor, youre very familiar with a return-on-investment mentality, said Deb Dubin, CEO and president of the Gateway Center for Giving, a nonprofit that connects area donors to different causes. We want to see a demonstrated set of outcomes.

Aligning work and money

On the flip side, advisers to nonprofits warn them not to go after every big money contribution without being certain the donor and the expectations match their mission. Those in the industry call it mission creep, arrangements that can deter nonprofits from their mission and hurt individual support long-term.

An organization may hear about a funding opportunity and initially want to pursue but determine that it is not a good fit because it would not fund their key program areas, Ellen Howe, managing director of the nonprofit consulting firm the Rome Group, said.

Corporate and private foundation donors also want to see cooperation between similar nonprofits as part of a strategic approach to the regions issues as whole.

Dubin said the fallout from the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and subsequent events in 2014 accelerated that mentality in St. Louis.

It exposed our problems with equity and inclusion, and suddenly more donors wanted to see very robust programming where nonprofits could align themselves to create results, she said.

Those events and the results of a study by the Ferguson Commission appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon led to more than 100 calls to action for improving racial equity in the region. Those efforts are now being spearheaded by the nonprofit Forward Through Ferguson in collaboration with other groups.

Funders are looking at specific objectives and asking, How does your work align with this? Dubin said.

For the nonprofits, Howe said they should be asking how specific donations help fulfill their mission and how well the donors own image and work matches their cause.

Another thing organizations want to avoid is being too dependent upon one donor or one source of funds, she said. Healthy nonprofits have diverse funding streams.

Growing the givers

Over the last two decades, individual donors have become even more important as more corporations based in St. Louis have closed or moved elsewhere.

Corporate giving in St. Louis years ago accounted for about 20 percent of all giving, and thats just no longer the case, Howe said. A big piece of the funding pie has changed.

The Rome Groups research shows many individuals give to multiple organizations annually, which eases the sense of competition.

There is competition, but for most donors its not like theyre going to pick one and no one else, Howe said.

Howe said relying on large contributions from a handful of sources isnt a sustainable model for many, so the focus should be on a constantly growing base of individual donors and volunteers.

She said nonprofits will also struggle if they dont know what motivates their funders and when the best times are to go asking.

For example, the $380 million Gateway Arch renovations and park expansion included $250 million in private contributions largely collected from 2013 through the end of 2015.

That wouldnt have been a good time to go after these corporations, and I think some were in a quiet phase of campaigning who realized it was better to wait, Howe said.

Then there are times when one groups fundraising can open doors for others.

The 170 regional organizations affiliated with the United Way arent to raise money during that groups annual September to October campaign, because the money ultimately goes back to those groups. Its a poorly kept secret that smaller nonprofits step up their fundraising during that time.

Its a good time for those organizations to get out there, Howe said.

At Great Rivers Greenway, Sorth says theyve created a foundation to handle fundraising, publicity and communication in anticipation of projects that would cost less than the trestle. But their long-term goal is to see the trestle done.

Were getting our fundraising house in order, he said.
Theres a joke among energy experts that electrical infrastructure is so outdated Thomas Edison would know his way around a modern-day substation.

Problem is, it might be true.

Across Missouri  and, indeed, around the country  electrical utilities are grappling with ways to modernize the grid, much of which is showing its age.

Some substations will be 90 years old when theyre replaced, says Tom Byrne, Ameren Missouris senior director of regulatory affairs, if the current pace of replacement continues. Underground electrical infrastructure in downtown St. Louis, he said, may even reach 100 years in age by the time its updated with modern technology.

The challenge, as Byrne will tell you, is how to pay for those improvements in a timely manner. As state-regulated monopolies, utilities must seek approval for the rate increases needed for infrastructure and other costs. In Missouri, however, the regulatory approval process can make it years from the time a project is completed until its costs are recovered.

That delay is called regulatory lag, and it was one of the main topics of discussion in Jefferson City on Tuesday, when utility insiders, regulators and other experts came together at a meeting hosted by the state Public Service Commission to assess what policy levers can be adjusted to improve Missouris energy landscape.

Negative load growth

Utility representatives described the difficulties of funding improvements in their industry  a problem that they say has been compounded by declining revenue from their customer base, as technologies such as energy-efficient appliances and rooftop solar panels have helped reduce overall electrical demand, or load.

We cant rely on load growth to pay for new facilities, said Byrne. He said Ameren has experienced negative load growth in each of the last nine years, not including usage by Noranda Aluminum, formerly the states largest energy consumer, which closed its New Madrid smelter earlier this year.

So that utilities  and, by extension, the grid  dont end up effectively being punished for growing trends in efficiency, many say new regulatory and revenue models should be explored. Policy tools exist that state officials may look to borrow from in the upcoming legislative session.

Some of the main options discussed Tuesday include alternate funding structures aimed to combat regulatory lag. Missouri, for instance, does not allow utilities to recover their costs until after projects are completed and in service. Some states do the opposite, granting rate increases to utilities in anticipation of funding planned improvements to the grid. Most states have at least some system in place to buffer against lag.

Dont invest

Ashok Gupta, a Kansas City-based senior energy economist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Missouri is one of the handful of states that handles rate cases solely on a retroactive basis and that also has to process them so frequently. Gupta says those distinguishing features, and the lack of certainty they create for utilities, send a clear signal: Dont invest in Missouri.

While some are pushing for a full reversal of that system, developing hybrid pricing models based on a combination of utilities historic and projected costs is a compromise that has generated interest from multiple players. Use of interim rates during rate cases was another alternative receiving some vocal support.

Another technique mentioned, called decoupling, would change incentives for utilities, aiming to break the direct link between revenue and electricity sales. Decoupling could also be part of a system where annual rate adjustments are made if utilities meet certain metrics for factors like reliability and efficiency.

Rob Hack, a representative of Kansas City Power & Light, said decoupling must be a part of any change. He said Kansas City Power & Light fell short of its authorized earnings by $340 million from 2006 to 2015, blaming the gap on the broader trend of declining use per customer.

Reducing demand

Others say financial incentives for efficiency shouldnt target utilities alone, but should also seek to further reduce energy demand from the customers side of the meter.

We should be valuing investments on the customer side just like investments on the utility side, Gupta said, adding that consumer-oriented incentives may be much more cost effective.

He said he has seen progress in the states approach to energy efficiency overall, with Public Service Commission Chairman Daniel Hall proposing minimum efficiency requirements be implemented  something Gupta said Missouri has not yet tried.

But not everyone sees regulatory lag as a purely negative thing. James Owen, the director of the state Office of Public Counsel, is open to reform, but says the current system provides watchdogs such as his office with the time necessary to police utility finances and ensure that fair prices are set for consumers.

It gives us a chance to open their books, said Owen. There are inefficiencies. There is improper management. Im not saying its intentional  it happens.

Other regulators from the Office of Public Counsel and the Public Service Commission disputed some of the assertions made by utilities at the meeting, such as the systemic effect of regulatory lag on revenue and the extent of declining load growth in the state.

To some experts, Tuesdays summit raised broader questions about what regulators should incentivize the utilities to aim for. Some said a change is needed to give utilities the certainty needed to plan investments for the long run without the constant stop-and-go of backward-looking rate cases.

Do you want a regulatory structure that provides little incentive for investment? asked Byrne.

No certainty

A long-term plan of state energy goals, Gupta said, would be a good place to start.

It just freezes you when you dont have clarity or certainty, said Gupta. Things dont happen at random, theyre part of a plan. I know some people dont like the word plan, but with infrastructure, you need one.

He is optimistic that conditions in Missouri are ripe for change, especially once a new governor takes office.

Im a believer that we need more change rather than less and I think were more likely to see it in the first year of a new administration rather than the last year of an old administration, Gupta said.
You dont often see the terms Wall Street and forgoing profit in the same sentence.

But a decision made by the Vanguard mutual fund house decades ago to forgo profits is a key reason index funds are now a multitrillion-dollar factor on Wall Street, and continue to gobble up market share.

The idea that forgoing profit can be good business is an important lesson that we should all take from the recent celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Aug. 31, 1976, launch of what is now known as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund.

That fund, pushed by Vanguard founder Jack Bogle, was designed to mimic the S&P 500, not to outperform it. A fund that replicates an index is much cheaper to run than an active fund, which needs to hire analysts and managers and engage in extensive research to try to outperform the index.

Now, to the forgoing profit part.

Unlike a mutual fund house owned by profit-seeking shareholders, Vanguard is owned by the investors in its mutual funds. These holders (who include my family and me) dont have any meaningful ownership privileges  we dont get cash dividends, for example, and have no say in choosing Vanguards leadership.

But the owned-by-the-customers structure, another Bogle innovation, means that Vanguard isnt focused on increasing profits and paying cash dividends. Instead, Vanguard plows its profits back into the business by reducing the fees it charges shareholders.

Its a question of allocating those profits to Main Street rather to Wall Street, Bogle told me in a telephone interview. The profits go to the funds investors, not to the managers.

Consider these amazing cost-reduction numbers.

In the first year after its launch, Vanguard says, its S&P fund charged investors 0.43 of 1 percent of their average balance as a management fee, plus a $6 annual charge.

This means that if you had $10,000 in the fund, Vanguard charged you $49 a year  a $43 management fee plus the six-buck annual charge.

The current fee for a $10,000 investor: $5, with no annual charge. Thats right, the fee today is almost 90 percent below what Vanguard charged 40 years ago for the same-size investment.

If you have less than $10,000 in your account, your fee is 0.16 percent. For someone with a $3,000 balance  the minimum required to open an account  the fee is $4.80 a year, and no annual charge. Thats more than 60 percent less than the $12.90 it would have cost in 1976.

Because an index fund charges investors less than active funds do, it will outperform the average actively managed fund. The more that Vanguard cut index fund fees, the higher the funds climbed in shareholder-return rankings, and the more money poured in. Its whats known as a virtuous cycle.

Pressure from Vanguard has forced other firms to offer low fees to compete. For example Fidelity, owned by its employees and its founding Johnson family, told me that its index funds charge less than the equivalent Vanguard funds. Fidelity says it charges 0.09 percent (as opposed to Vanguards 0.16) for holders with less than $10,000 in its S&P 500 fund, and 0.045 percent (as opposed to Vanguards 0.5) for accounts with more than $10,000.

What this means, of course, is that the forgoing-profit model has saved billions of dollars not only for Vanguards index investors, but for index investors in other fund companies, as well.

One final note. Even though index funds are my biggest individual stock holdings, theres a lot to be said for well-managed relatively low-cost active funds. Both Dan Wiener, editor of The Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors newsletter, and Fidelity spokesman Vince LoPorchio told me about active funds that have outperformed their benchmarks for extended periods.

But for people without the time, inclination or skill to pick individual stocks or funds, index funds offer a cheap, simple, efficient alternative. So millions of people have profited from Vanguard forgoing profits. Isnt life interesting?

Sloan is a columnist for The Washington Post.
Robinson: "I did everything a rape victim is supposed to do. I reported it. I allowed the rape kit to be taken. I gave a statement. I cooperated with law enforcement and the Title IX office." (WRAL, 9/14/2016)

"Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said a crime lab director confirmed that the lab is in possession of the rape kit, which was submitted months ago and is being tested." (WRAL, 9/14/2016)

"NCDOJ: Law enforcement/ DA never requested State Crime Lab analysis of rape kit collected from UNCstudent." (Andrea Blanford, ABC11, 9/13/2016)

"The test results are still not back" (WNCN, 9/13/2016) http://wncn.com/2016/09/13/unc-student-says-rape-investigation-ineffective/

Roy Cooper's crime lab "was plagued by scandal during the first half of his tenure and still experiences long processing times..." (WRAL, 9/9/2016) http://www.wral.com/fact-check-is-it-true-cooper-fixed-the-problems-at-the-crime-lab-/15991330/

Contact: NCGOP Communications

NCGOP Communications communications@ncgop.org

Roy Cooper's campaign launched another dishonest TV ad in defense of his inexcusable crime lab delays, backlogs and failures. He again falsely claims he fixed problems in the crime lab......But long delays in the crime lab are still impacting law enforcement's ability to solve crimes and deliver justice for victims today.Over 6 Months After Alleged Valentines Day Rape, UNC Sophomore Still Waiting For Test Results From Roy Cooper's Crime LabImmediately after going to authorities, 19-year-old UNC Sophomore Delaney Robinson of Apex had a rape kit conducted to gather evidence on the alleged rape.The Orange County DA says the rape kit was submitted to Roy Cooper's crime lab months ago for testing.But Roy Cooper's office says they never tested the rape kit.Six months after the alleged rape was reported, Delaney's rape kit still hasn't been tested and they are still waiting.In his gubernatorial campaign, Roy Cooper claims he "cleared the backlog" of untested rape kits and "fixed the problems at the crime lab." These claims have already been proven false by independent fact checkers. (WRAL, 9/9/2016)The campaign seeks to bring officials at the local, state and federal level together to work towards the goal of testing every rape kit connected to a victim within 15 to 30 days and set up a comprehensive rape kit tracking system to ensure victims don't fall through the cracks. https://governor.nc.gov/press-release/governor-mccrory-endorses-steps-ensure-justice-sexual-assault-victims Disclaimer: The NCGOP respects the privacy and safety of all people, especially those who are victims of sexual assault or who are in ongoing investigation in rape and sexual assault cases. The following names are only used as they have already made themselves known to the public by way of press conferences and availabilities. It is our sincere desire for them to be taken in the utmost seriousness and that justice will finally be served.
Want to take a guess at the No. 1 baby names in Illinois last year? If were to say Olivia for girls and Liam for boys, you'd be correct, but probably not surprised.
Police investigate the scene of Jimmy Michael's murder by car bombing on Sept. 17, 1980. He had lunch downtown and was driving south on Interstate 55 to his home in Mehlville when a bomb shattered his Chrysler Cordoba just short of the Reavis Barracks Road exit. Michaels was 75 when he was killed. Paul Leisure's gang had set the bomb and detonated it by remote control from a van they used to follow Michael's car. (Kathy Kuper/Post-Dispatch)

Anthony Giordano was hard to find at his old haunts around town. The man known and feared as "Tony G" didn't look so good.

"Aw, hell, I came down with that ... cancer," the profane mobster told a reporter outside the federal courthouse downtown in 1978. "I'm taking the cure, but I don't know how it's going to turn out."

Giordano had been in the crime business since the 1930s, when police dismissed him as a "cheap street hood with patches on his pants." Rising through local organized-crime ranks, he could afford flashy suits and hats. After becoming mob boss in the 1960s, he toned down his wardrobe, lest he draw more attention from FBI snoops.

Giordano's legitimate businesses were the Metropolitan Towing Co., where he was alleged to have threatened a priest with a shotgun, and the Banana Distributing Co. on the city's Produce Row. His rap sheet included convictions for income-tax evasion and conspiring to hide casino ownership in Las Vegas.

Unlike so many others in his trade, Giordano, 67, died peacefully on Aug. 29, 1980, in his modest home at 5966 Finkman Street, south of Francis Park. He had suffered from lung cancer for two years. About 200 people attended a brief memorial inside the mausoleum at Calvary Cemetery. No graveside service or funeral Mass was conducted.

Shortly before his death, mob leaders had recruited John J. Vitale, the old consiglieri (counselor), to come out of retirement and smooth the transition. Police investigators took bets on which of Giordano's nephews would take over.

But peaceful transitions are hard to come by in the crime trade. One of Giordano's longtime allies had been James A. Michaels Sr. But mob enforcer Paul J. Leisure, a former Giordano bodyguard, held a grudge against Michaels over the murder of Leisure's older brother in 1964. Leisure believed Michaels let the killers skip town.

The quiet after Giordano's death lasted 19 days. On Sept. 17, 1980, Michaels got into his Chrysler Cordoba after lunch downtown and headed home to Mehlville. A bomb shattered his car on Interstate 55 near the Reavis Barracks Road exit. Leisure began calling himself No. 1.

The bombing set off St. Louis' last big-time gang war. Leisure was critically injured on Aug. 11, 1981, when a bomb destroyed his own car outside his home. Two weeks later, George "Sonny" Faheen Jr, a nephew of Michaels, was blown up in his Volkswagen in a downtown garage.

The bloodshed unnerved some of Leisure's gang members, who provided the FBI with crucial information. During the trials, tapes of federal buggings proved that real mobsters talk like the ones in the movies. Paul Leisure died in a federal prison hospital in 2000.
A man is in custody after police, negotiators and the St. Charles County Regional SWAT Team ended a stand-off Saturday night in the Diamond Pointe subdivision in O'Fallon after the man barricaded himself in a home for several hours.

O'Fallon Police responded to the home in the 700 block of Diamond Pointe Court around 7 p.m. for a domestic call with several gun shots fired, said Chief Roy Joachimstaler.

Responding O'Fallon officers first used a ladder from a neighbor's home to help the man's wife, 52, escape through a window in the master bedroom where she had barricaded herself. Police said the husband had fired several shots through the door of the bedroom before they arrived. The woman was not hit by the bullets.

Police then tried to negotiate with the man identified as Douglas Daniel Tenbarge, 54. After he turned off his cellphone, they used a bull horn to try to broker a surrender, Joachimstaler said.

During the the stand-off police said Tenbarge came to the door several times armed with a handgun, but did not brandish the weapon at officers. Police eventually fired non-lethal rounds which struck the man. He went back inside the home briefly before surrendering around 9:45 p.m., Joachimstaler said.

Tenbarge was charged with first degree domestic assault and armed criminal action. Cash only bond was set at $100,000.
The Madison County Sheriff's Department is searching for a 13-year-old girl and her 2-week-old son whom they believe are traveling with the teen's stepfather after they vanished Sunday morning.

Katherine Elizabeth Derleth and her infant son, Christopher Ray Derleth, went missing from a guardian's home, authorities said.

Sheriff's officials believe they may be with Katherine's stepfather, Christopher M. Derleth. Authorities issued an endangered missing person advisory for Katherine and her son on Sunday afternoon but did not give further details of the situation.

They may be traveling to West Virginia in a green 1997 Mercury Villager minivan with Illinois license plate E833210, authorities said.

Authorities described the elder Derleth as an avid camper and said he and the children may be at a rural camp ground or motel.

Katherine is described as a 4-foot-8 inches tall, 95 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. She has three birthmarks on her right knee. Her father is 6-foot-1 and weighs 160 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes.

Anyone with information regarding where they can be found is asked to call the Madison County Sheriff Department at 618-692-4433 or CrimeStoppers at 866-371-8477.
Before she was a teacher, Esther Goff was one of the few children in Paris, Ill., in the 1910s and 1920s who could read.

Other children would gather around to listen to her tell of the adventures of knights and other fantasies taking place in lands far away from eastern Illinois. Eventually she made a career of it, teaching literature to generations of students at Normandy High School beginning in 1945.

My parents were farmers, and my father taught me to read because he never had that opportunity as a child, Goff, now 103, said. It connected me to all sorts of worlds.

She retired in the 1970s after more than 30 years, but her impact on students continued well after that. Dozens would reconnect with her over the years, telling her how she changed their lives through literature.

I was a quirky kid who could get into trouble, William Stoecker, class of 1964, said. She knew me well enough to assign me Don Quixote, and that theme of how someone can have all these beliefs and keep them up despite crashing down really stuck with me.

About eight years ago, Wayne Brasler, 75, organized a lunch to celebrate her birthday with other Normandy alumni. Theyve been getting together around her ever since, with about 20 at Saturdays lunch at Plaza Frontenac.

Brasler moved to Chicago 52 years ago but could never forget how much Goffs emphasis on the values of the characters she taught and the lives of the authors themselves shaped his appreciation of literature.

She was a very demanding teacher but a very creative teacher, he said.

Lynn Morrissey, a class of 1969 graduate who is now a writer herself, remembered walking into Goffs class senior year and being surprised to see the desks in a circle facing each other.

I had no idea what was going on, but I realized that was symbolic of her embrace of all her students, Morrissey said. We were all equal to her, all of our opinions mattered when we talked about literature.

Morrissey said reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte in the class inspired her to stand by her views and values when dealing with her peers.

That gave me the courage as a young woman to speak my mind, she said.

Goff also welcomed groups of students into her home on weekends to talk about literature, life and meringue pies. Laura Holmes Abatgis, who was a student and Miss Missouri in 1953, credits Goff with helping her find her voice.

She said, If youre thinking something, just write it down,  Abatgis said.  Then try to make sense of it. 

Goff traveled to Europe, Asia and South America in the summers.

I spent most of my money doing it, but I always had that urge to understand other people and hear their stories, Goff said.

Goff doesnt read anymore. Her eyes play tricks on her, she says, and the classic lines by William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens she once could recite from memory are now lost somewhere.

Reading is like solving a puzzle now, Goff said. Im glad I could teach it to other people before I lost doing it myself.

Lee Layton, class of 1953, is still trying to find his own words for how Goff turned him from a student who hated school to one who couldnt wait to go to his sophomore English class.

The magic I felt, I still keep trying to figure out what it is, Layton said. Meeting her started everything that turned it around.

Laytons classmate Patricia Comegys Caen said it was Dickens A Tale of Two Cities and Goffs lessons that still stand out.

She was animated, she walked around the room talking about the time and place and people, Caen said. She was excited by stories, and she made everything come alive.

Goff deflects the praise, saying its good literature that has changed peoples lives the most.

I think reading good literature helps someone find the things that make life worthwhile, she said.
The trip  The couple spent a week in Peru climbing Machu Picchu and visiting the sites around the Incan villages. Then, they cruised South America for two weeks.

Contribute  Email your photo to stlpost@gmail.com. Include the full names of everyone in the photo, including where they are from and where you are standing in the photo. Also include your address and phone number. Please also tell us a little about the trip and a travel tip. Were looking for interesting, well-composed, well-lighted photos.
When Jim Reid checks into a Westin hotel, he inevitably catches a whiff of a woody cedar and vanilla scent called White Tea. Its a pleasant smell to most guests, but not to him.

I have (had) a headache for about a day, says Reid, who works for a transportation services company in Washington, D.C. He suspects hes having a reaction to a chemical in the hotels signature scent, but he isnt sure, because the hotel wont tell him whats in the diffuser, beyond cedar and vanilla.

He has a simple request for Westin: Lay off the White Tea, please.

Customers like Reid ask hotels to change the way they do business every day. They complain about everything from the smells in the lobby to refund policies. Normally, hotels are happy to accommodate small requests. But theres a bright red line that they almost never cross, and you need to know where it is before you start asking favors of your hotel.

Smells, it turns out, are non-negotiable for Westin. It would not unplug the scent, probably because these trademark smells are proven to elevate the mood of guests and prod them into spending more.

If the scents at Sheraton and Westin properties are uncomfortable, a representative wrote Reid in an email, we would encourage you to try another one of our brands.

Not all hotels turn up their nose at guest requests, though.

Hotels are happy to comply with small, relatively inexpensive changes. For example, when guests told innkeepers at the Claiborne House bed-and-breakfast in Virginias Blue Ridge Mountains that they didnt like having a 10 p.m. curfew, the owners responded by installing a keypad, which allowed guests to come and go as they pleased.

They did not want to be treated like they were staying at Grandmas house, says Shellie Leete, the Claibornes co-owner. (As a bonus, it meant that she didnt have to wait up for the guests, either.)

At the Normandy Hotel in the District, customers griped about the closets. Guests were having trouble hanging clothes in the closets, explains hotel general manager John Paul Wood. The rooms safe was in the way. So the hotel relocated the safes to a top shelf.

And at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, travelers asked for dark washcloths for makeup removal, according to Jim Carmody, the propertys general manager. The hotel complied. We are changing many of our exterior doors to sliders for easier entry and exit in response to guest comments, too, he adds.

How do you get a hotel to grant your wishes? You have to say something at the right time and in the right place.

In some instances, weve made changes based on feedback from guests who are still at the property, and in other instances, weve made changes based on guest feedback provided in online reviews, says Stephen Fofanoff, the innkeeper for Domaine Madeleine Bed and Breakfast in Port Angeles, Wash. The hotel recently loosened its refund policy, reversing the room charges if a room is resold. (Most hotels have cancellation fees or charge for a full night.)

But bigger requests from guests are routinely denied or ignored by hotels. For example, when properties are asked to change their restrictive refund policies, they rarely do what the Domaine Madeleine did. If the fees are considered to be nonrefundable, it doesnt matter whether the property can resell the room  the hotel keeps the money.

Indeed, if theres a common thread in the dozens of interviews I conducted with hoteliers, its that they are proud to comply with smaller requests. But generally, theyre not open to larger ones.

There are workarounds. Reid could still stay at a Westin, but away from the smell. While Westin refuses to unplug its diffusers, it offers allergy-friendly rooms at some of its properties for travelers that suffer from asthma and allergies triggered by seasonal and environmental microscopic allergens. At the Westin Southfield Detroit, for example, the rooms have filtration systems. They also treat surfaces to minimize the growth of bacteria.

Unhappy guests can also take to social media and ask a hotel to stop a practice or policy, but the request has to be reasonable. A property making millions of dollars a year with a restrictive refund policy isnt about to surrender that revenue, even if it is called out on Facebook and Twitter every day.

However, if Reid and some of his friends banded together to create the Concerned Guests Against White Tea movement, they might be able to persuade Westin to dial down the smell.
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/18/16 -- As one of Australia's premier cybersecurity companies, several representatives of QuintessenceLabs were in attendance at the SINET 61 global cybersecurity event in Sydney on September 13th when they were delighted to hear the company singled out by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in his introductory video address to the event.

"Our Cyber Security Growth Centre, co-chaired by Data 61's Adrian Turner, will create the right environment for cybersecurity innovation to flourish and benefit everyone," said the Prime Minister who was 4,759 kilometers away at the Pacific Islands Forum on Pohnpei in Micronesia. "Australian companies are thriving. Nuix, Bugcrowd, Quintessence and Strata Key are examples to be proud of and we want more to follow in their footsteps."

"We were honored to be mentioned in the Prime Minister's address," said Vikram Sharma, CEO and Co-Founder of QuintessenceLabs, on hand to participate in a panel discussion later that day. "But more important than the acknowledgement of QuintessenceLabs or any one company is the recognition by the PM that cybersecurity is one of the great challenges faced by both the public and private sectors today."

Sharma's appearance on the "Aussie Success Stories" panel was only his first appearance at a SINET event last week. As CEO of a Canberra-based company with a branch office in Silicon Valley, he was also able to share his informed perspective on "Why Are Some Australian Based Early Stage Companies Moving to the United States," the topic of the discussion at his second panel appearance at the SINET Global Investor Series in Melbourne on the 15th.

"It is so important that organizations like SINET offers forums such as SINET61 and the Global Investor Series," said Sharma. "These events enable us to show forward-thinking people that quantum cybersecurity technologies are effective in addressing some of today's critical data security issues, and shielding against the increasingly sophisticated threats."

QuintessenceLabs TSF is a highly secure platform, incorporating the security of a FIPS 140-2 Level 3 hardware security module with advanced key and policy management, and a high-speed true random number generator from a quantum source, delivering the strongest foundation for encryption and data security. The TSF works seamlessly with most encryption products, making implementation of security deployments easy and cost-effective. TSF is one of the innovative solutions that SINET believes may help secure the many countries' and businesses' critical infrastructure.

SINET is an organization focused on advancing cybersecurity innovation through public-private collaboration.

For more information on QuintessenceLabs or its Trusted Security Foundation, visit www.quintessencelabs.com, or follow the company on Twitter at twitter.com/quintessencelab.

About QuintessenceLabs QuintessenceLabs is a global leader in quantum security. At the forefront of the commercial development of quantum security solutions, we deliver unique solutions integrating high-value cybersecurity with advances in quantum technology. These include the world's fastest true random number generator; advanced key and policy manager and integrated encryption solutions for on premise or in-cloud implementations.

About SINET SINET is a super-connector that accelerates Cybersecurity innovation into the global marketplace by providing trusted platforms for the business of Cyber to take place between investors, entrepreneurs and industry and government buyers. SINET events, membership program and strategic advisory services have delivered unsurpassed value within the ecosystem of the entrepreneur, from academia, science, private industry, investment banking, system integration, policy, innovators, and venture capital to the Federal Government and its civilian, military and intelligence agencies.

Kevin Lewis for QuintessenceLabs [email protected] 415-317-5113

Source: QuintessenceLabs
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Ranking Member of House Foreign Affairs Committee, to Speak

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) has released an updated agenda for its 2016 Iran Risk Summit, a full-day, public event with a complimentary lunch, featuring a distinguished lineup of current and former foreign leaders, lawmakers, and Iran experts to be held on Monday, September 19 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York.

The day-long public event of interviews and discussions will examine the political and economic environment since the signing of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Comprised of former diplomats and lawmakers, UANI is spearheading a global education campaign focused on the risks of doing business with Iran, warning hundreds of international companies that may be contemplating Tehran as a new investment opportunity.

To RSVP, please follow this link.

Media interested in covering this event should email Steven Cohen at [email protected].

Iran Risk Summit 2016 Monday, September 19, 2016 Roosevelt Hotel, New York City 45 East 45th Street

8:00 - 9:00 AM Coffee & Registration 9:00 - 10:00 AM The Iran Nuclear Deal After One Year: The View from the United Arab Emirates Speaker:His Excellency Yousef Al OtaibaUnited Arab Emirates Ambassador to the United States Moderator: Ambassador Mark D. Wallace UANI CEO and Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform 10:30 - 11:30 AM The Iranian Market: A New Gold Rush? Speakers: Governor Bill Richardson UANI Advisory Board Member; Former U.S. Secretary of Energy; Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; and Former Governor of New Mexico Dr. August Hanning UANI Advisory Board Member; Former Director of the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany Dr. Matthew Levitt Fromer-Wexler Fellow and Director, Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence The Washington Institute for Near East Policy Moderator: Nicolle Wallace Political Analyst, MSNBC Former White House Director of Communications 11:50 AM - 1:00 PM The Future of the Iranian Nuclear Deal Speakers: The Honorable Eliot Engel (D-NY) Ranking Member, House Foreign Affairs Committee U.S. Representative for the 16th Congressional District Dr. Gary Samore UANI Advisory Board Member Former UANI President Former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction under President Obama 1:00 - 2:30 PM Iran's Destabilizing Role in the Middle East* Speakers: Dr. Ray Takeyh UANI Advisory Board Member Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations Former Senior Advisor on Iran, U.S. Department of State Tony Badran Research Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Mohammed Khalid Alyahya Research Fellow, Gulf Research Center Non-Resident Fellow, The Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East Moderator: Dr. Michael Makovsky CEO, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs *A complimentary buffet lunch will be provided to Summit attendees during this session. 2:30 - 3:30 PM The Iran Nuclear Deal After One Year: Has Iran's Behavior Changed? Speakers: MK Tzipi Livni Co-Head, Zionist Union Party, State of Israel Former Israeli Foreign Minister and Justice Minister Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa Legal Advisor in the Kingdom of Bahrain Former President of the United Nations General Assembly and Former Bahraini Ambassador to France, Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland Radosaw Sikorski UANI Advisory Board Member Former Polish Foreign Minister; Defense Minister; and Marshal of the Sejm Moderator: The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman UANI Chairman and Former U.S. Senator (I-CT) 3:30 - 5:00 PM TBA

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160918005045/en/

UANI

Steven Cohen, 212-922-0063

[email protected]

Source: United Against Nuclear Iran
By Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Bosnia's top court upheld a ban on a "discriminatory" national holiday in the country's autonomous Serb Republic, setting the regional government on a collision course with the deeply divided country's central authorities in Sarajevo.

The Constitutional Court ruled that January 9, the date on which Statehood Day is held, discriminated against the region's Muslims Bosniaks and Catholic Croats since it coincides with a Serbian Orthodox Christian holiday.

January 9 is the date when Bosnian Serbs declared independence from Bosnia, precipitating a three-year war that claimed 100,000 lives when rival forces carved ethnically pure statelets out of multi-ethnic Bosnia with the backing of their kin in neighboring Serbia and Croatia.

The court also ordered a halt to next Sunday's regional referendum on holding the holiday. Many see the vote as a dress-rehearsal for a threatened 2018 plebiscite on full secession for the region. The court said the vote harmed the constitutional order.

The Serb Republic said it would push on with the poll in defiance of the court, drawing fire from Western officials who said the referendum was directly challenging the national judiciary and would be considered a threat to the rule of law and stability of the country.

"They cannot halt our decision," said Milorad Dodik, President of the Serb Republic. "We will vote in the referendum. We will show that the citizens of the Serb Republic stand by its holiday."

Bosnian Serbs commemorate Statehood Day by hanging out flags and holding religious ceremonies. But non-Serbs say celebrating it on a religious holiday violates their country's constitutional principle of secularism and pluralism.

Bosnia's international peace envoy Valentin Inzko, who has powers to impose laws or sack officials seen as obstructing the Dayton peace accords that ended the Bosnian war, said disrespect of the court's decisions would "constitute a direct and serious violation" of the U.S.-brokered peace accords.

"The Dayton Peace Agreement is an international peace treaty that cannot be challenged without consequences," the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia said in a statement.

Russia, a traditional ally of Serbs both in Serbia and in Bosnia, has backed it.

(Editing by Thomas Escritt and Dominic Evans)
The best way to recognise the significance of the suffragists achievement 123 years ago is to engage and participate in the democratic process today, says Minister for Women Louise Upston.

Womens right to vote was a massive step towards gender equality and should never be considered lightly.

On September 19, 1893, New Zealand became the first nation in the world to grant women the right to vote.

The upcoming local elections are a perfect time to remind women to exercise their democratic right and, in so doing, honour the suffragists who battled long and hard to give us a political voice, Ms Upston said.

Local elections are conducted by post. You need to complete and return your papers in the freepost envelope provided no later than noon on 8 October 2016.

Louise says d New Zealand could be proud of the fact that there were many indicators that showed were making progress towards gender equality.

More women are working, gaining tertiary qualifications, and studying or working in high growth sectors than ever before.

We can also be proud of our reputation as a nation that empowers women to lead independent and self-determining lives.

However, our legacy of gender equality relies on our ability to improve the lives of all New Zealand women, now and into the future.

Source: Office of Louise Upston.
suspect1.jpg

ReaQwan U. Stover, 19, of Schnectady, N.Y., was charged with murder in the slaying of Medina Knowles, 17.

(Schenectady Police Department)

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- A teenage mother was fatally shot in her Schenectady home, and police Saturday arrested the victim's boyfriend in the killing.

Medina Knowles, 17, was shot in the head at 11:30 p.m. Thursday in her family's second-floor apartment at 524 Schenectady St.

On Saturday, police arrested ReaQwan Stover, 19, of Schenectady on charges of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon, the Times Union of Albany reported. Police said they believed the girl was shot once in the head.

It's not clear if Stover, who turned himself in, has an attorney who could speak for him.

Knowles was a Schenectady High school student and the mother of a 2-year-old boy, Jahsiy.

Knowles and Stover had been dating, police said. But authorities said they had only been seeing each other a short period of time, so police don't believe he is the father of her son, according to the Times Union.

Stover is being held in the city lockup and will be arraigned Sunday morning in city court, according to police.

The National Desk contributed to this report.
Jimmy Kimmel

In this March 8, 2015, file photo, Jimmy Kimmel arrives at the 32nd Annual Paleyfest : "Scandal" held at The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

(Richard Shotwell | Invision | AP)

What TV channel is the Emmy Awards on? Who will win on "Television's Biggest Night?"

The 2016 Emmys air live tonight (Sunday, Sept. 18) at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel will host the broadcast live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

Below are the channel numbers for ABC in the Syracuse area:

Time Warner: Channel 1200 (SD & HD) and channel 9 for non-digital customers

Verizon Fios: Channel 509 (HD) and 9 (SD)

DirectTV: Channel 9 (SD & HD)

Dish Network: Channel 5 (SD &HD)

New Visions: Channel 609 (HD) and 9 (SD)

Red carpet coverage starts at 4:30 p.m. ET on the E! channel with the network's "E! Countdown to the Red Carpet: The 2016 Primetime Emmy Awards" and "On the Red Carpet." Giuliana Rancic and Brad Goreski kick off the evening's pregame fun; most celebrities begin arriving in their finest evening wear at 6 p.m. ET.

ABC kicks off its own "Countdown to the Emmy Awards: Red Carpet Live" with Lara Spencer and Chris Harrison starting at 7 p.m. Expect lots of questions about who they're wearing and what being nominated means to them.

The awards ceremony, beginning at 8 p.m., will be available for live streaming online through ABC's livestream page if you log in with your TV provider. ABC will also stream the Emmys on its app.

"Game of Thrones" lead this year's Emmy nominees with 23 nods, including best drama, while the true crime drama "The People v. O.J. Simpson," was close behind with 22 nominations. "Black-ish," "Veep," "Mr. Robot," "Better Call Saul," ''Homeland," ''House of Cards," ''The Americans" and the final season of "Downton Abbey" are also up for major awards.

Presenters include Anthony Anderson, Tom Hiddleston, Joel McHale, Kit Harington, Taraji P. Henson, Larry David, Chris Rock, Priyanka Chopra, Kristen Bell, Matt LeBlanc, Randall Park, Constance Wu, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jeffrey Tambor, Kerry Washington and, James Corden. Henry Winkler will lead an In Memoriam segment honoring director Garry Marshall and other stars who died this year, including Gene Wilder and Garry Shandling.
Samsung's special Galaxy Note 7 IMEI tool is now live, allowing device owners to check whether their Galaxy Note 7 has a defective battery.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 global recall over exploding batteries has been making headlines worldwide recently, yet not all those who purchased the device agreed to exchange it. In fact, Galaxy Note 7 usage rates remained stable despite the recall. In the United States, Samsung received 130,000 Galaxy Note 7 units for replacement.

Samsung came up with a quick fix for those who wouldn't trade in their Galaxy Note 7, limiting the device charging to 60 percent tops. It's still safer to replace the device, however, and more people may do so now if they can check to see if it's really necessary.

Various unofficial IMEI tools have already been making rounds online, promising to let users check whether their Galaxy Note 7 packs a defective battery unit, but the real Galaxy Note 7 IMEI tool from Samsung has only now gone live.

To see if your device is included in the recall or not, all you have to do is head over to Samsung's official recall page and enter your Galaxy Note 7's IMEI number. You can find the IMEI either on the retail box or in the phone's settings menu, under the About section.

If the device has a defective battery that may be prone to explode, the recall page will display a message prompting users to turn off the smartphone immediately. If this is the case, it's best to comply and send the phone for replacement as soon as possible.

Even without the IMEI checker, Samsung still recommends that all users who bought the Galaxy Note 7 before Sept. 15 send it back for replacement.

Samsung recently confirmed that Galaxy Note 7 replacement units will start arriving in the country by Sept. 21, so users who decide to turn in their device after all will not have to wait too long until they receive a new one.

The exchange program has received approval from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and will cover Galaxy Note 7 units sold in the United States from August to Sept. 15, 2016.

If you're still not convinced whether you should send in your Galaxy Note 7 for replacement, keep in mind that exploding units have recently set a jeep on fire, injured a 6-year-old, caused third-degree burns and more.

It may be hard to part with your smartphone after spending time setting it up and getting used to it, but it's better to be safe than sorry. At the very least, use the new Galaxy Note 7 IMEI tool to check whether you're at risk.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Square Enix keeps the hype up for the Final Fantasy XV by releasing a new English-subtitled trailer for Final Fantasy XV that was showcased during the Tokyo Game Show 2016. The cinematic gives a peek at how the plot develops, introduces new characters and summons.

The four-and-a-half-minute clip starts off with a messy-haired, scarf-wearing guy walking up to Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum, who sounded like he was struggling, and telling him to claim the crystal's power and arise as the true king. A cutscene later, Noctis, along with the rest of his group, is shown to have met up with the same guy while on their way to board a boat back to Insomnia, the capital city of Lucis  the last remaining kingdom in the world with control over crystals.

The messy-haired, scarf-wearing guy was later revealed to be Ardyn Izunia, the imperial chancellor.

The crew then discovers through a newspaper that Insomnia has fallen and that the king was found dead after negotiations in the treaty room went sour. The article they were reading also said that Noctis died.

Outside the city, the enraged Noctis talks with Cor Leonis over the phone to clarify what he read in the paper. The guy confirms that his father, the King, is indeed dead. It was then revealed that what happened was not a one-sided attack, but that the king "waged war" with whoever he was negotiating with.

After a few melodramatic lines about his father and the role of a king, along with some encouraging lines from Cid, Noctis is shown to be confronted by Ravus Nox Fleuret, Luna's older brother. Ravus called him foolish and feeble, beat up Gladiolus and thus, the Prince readied for a fight.

A flashback where Gentiana lectures a young Noctis about the oracle and king standing together to protect the kingdom was also shown. The scene then shifts to Luna's speech about banishing evil.

The trailer then proceeds to a scene inside a train where Gladiolus confronts a melodramatic Noctis. Gladiolus tells him to get his act together and calls him a spoiled brat. The four of them were then shown running in an open field before they set up camp and ate cup noodles while seated around a bonfire. The group then takes off in their flying car.

So the story pretty much revolves on Noctis avenging his father and reclaiming his throne with the help of his crew and Luna. Since Ardyn Izunia is a new character, details regarding him are scarce and his intentions are unknown. It's also worth noting that scene in the new trailer shows him slapping Luna.

Of course, summons will not be out of the picture. The trailer includes the familiar faces of Leviathan and Ramuh. It also introduces what seems to be Shiva. She's not yet confirmed though. The other confirmed ones are Ifrit, Titan and Carbuncle.

Final Fantasy XV is slated for a simultaneous release on Nov. 29 for both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Samsung is currently in hot water due to the problems facing the company's Galaxy Note 7 smartphones. The device has been automatically catching fire, and has already caused several damages and injuries in the United States.

As expected, such an issue would have called for a lawsuit, and that is exactly what is about to happen. A man is now suing Samsung after his Galaxy Note 7 exploded and caused severe third-degree burns on his leg and thigh, and second-degree burns on his fingers.

The victim, known as Jonathan Strobel, claims that his thigh had been burnt so badly that the injury was almost the size of the device itself.

This is a huge blow for Samsung because the Galaxy Note 7 was doing very well after release. Samsung was even forced to boost production, but these incidents have no doubt cast a shadow on the company's success.

Other folks have reported similar, albeit less serious, incidents of explosions involving the Galaxy Note 7.

The big question right now: how will this problem affect Samsung's future and the sales of the Galaxy Note 7, as well as those of other Galaxy smartphones and tablets?

Negative issues, such as this PR nightmare for Samsung, tend to generate more buzz than positive ones. The negatives also tend to be more easily remembered, and we expect these explosions to be talked about for quite a long time. Word of mouth is also another factor, and no doubt consumers, as seen in various internet forums, will be telling others not to purchase a Galaxy Note 7 because of the incidents they have heard about on the news.

These problems will likely affect sales of the Note 7 and push some consumers to adopt the new Apple iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus instead.

While Apple's launch of the new smartphones have been planned months ago, the unveiling comes at a time when rival Samsung is going through a rough patch. Thus, it is the perfect time to catch the attention of fans of Samsung and transform them into longtime Apple fans.

When Samsung releases its next batch of Galaxy devices in 2017, consumers might still have lingering feelings of whether the new handsets would explode. Uncertainty over the products' performance and quality would remain. And chances are, consumers might not want to take that risk by again purchasing from Samsung.

They might decide to buy a different brand of Android handset, or just move over to an iPhone.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Google released version 53 of its Chrome browser just a couple of days ago for Mac, Windows and Linux, but mobile users on Android need not worry. The company has a special place in its heart for its mobile OS - in fact, the Google Chrome Beta for Android version 54 is now available.

With version 54, Google introduced a handful of updates to Chrome Beta. The new version introduces a handful of features that include background video and playback and a redesigned new tab page, among others.

Playing Videos In The Background

Among the features that are packed in the said beta version, background video playback is perhaps the most significant.

In older iterations of Chrome, including version 53, videos will get paused once a new app is opened or after switching to the home screen. In version 54 beta, the videos will still get paused automatically but Android users are provided with an option to resume them via a media notification. Audio from the video will continuously be heard while using other apps.

This new feature works with mobile web and will detect pages running in the background. Users will receive the same notification when playing videos on video-hosting and video-sharing sites such as YouTube via mobile web.

Audio streams, on the other hand, are handled differently. Even when opening another app or switching to the home screen, the tracks will continue playing.

Note that the ability to play videos in the background used to be native to YouTube Red, a paid subscription service. Hence, there's a chance that this feature will be removed once Chrome for Android version 54 gets released.

Below is a video demonstration of this new feature. Hat tip to 9TO5Google for surfacing the demo.

Redesigned New Tab Page

While the Google logo, search bar and frequently viewed pages remain untouched, the redesigned new tab page no longer shows the Bookmarks and the Recent Tabs shortcuts. Both will now have to be accessed through a drop-down menu at the upper right of the UI.

Google also added a recommendations section, which Android Police describes as something akin to what Google Now offers.

"Interestingly, none of the articles were recommended to me through Google Now, so they don't seem to draw data from the same source," comments Android Police.

Aside from the two that are detailed, version 54 also brings Broadcast API and Custom Elements V1 for developers.

Before installing Chrome Beta for Android, bear in mind that this app is Google's testing dummy for new features and as such, it can be a little rough around the edges.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Microsoft is pushing through with its announced layoffs. Hundreds of employees in both Redmond and London will lose their jobs.

The Redmond-based tech company announced last July that it plans to lay off 2,850 employees in 2017. In line with Microsoft's announcement, the Fiscal Times reported of the company's plan to shut down its Skype offices in London.

Roughly 220 jobs will be lost once the London offices get shut down.

"A Microsoft spokesperson with whom I spoke today characterized the London cuts as a consolidation of some engineering positions that affected both Skype and Yammer," writes Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet.

A Microsoft spokesman revealed that the shutdown is part of the company's plan to move its London-based employees to Paddington.

"As part of this effort, Microsoft reviewed some London-based roles and made the decision to unify some engineering positions," says a Microsoft spokesperson. "Microsoft will be entering into a consultation process and offer new opportunities, where possible."

During the past week, Microsoft laid off 300 employees worldwide. Most of the layoffs happened within the state of Washington. Some employees based in Redmond in which Microsoft is headquartered were also reported to have lost their jobs. Some took to social media to air their comments about losing their jobs.

Microsoft's History Of Job Cuts

In July 2014, Microsoft announced that it will cut 18,000 jobs in 2015. Most of the affected employees were those who were part of Nokia prior to its acquisition by Microsoft, which was completed in April 2014. Microsoft then followed up the biggest layoff in the company's history with even more job cuts.

In July 2015, Microsoft revealed its plans to cut an additional 7,400 more employees, most of which were part of its phone hardware business. In February 2016, the company made additional cuts that are outside of the announced 7,400.

Microsoft sold its feature phone business to FIH Mobile Ltd. and HMD Global, Oy back in May 2016 and displaced 4,500 employees in the process. Later in the month, Microsoft announced its plan for another round of job cuts, which involved 1,850 jobs.

Microsoft's Acquisition Of Skype, Yammer And Nokia

Microsoft announced its plans to acquire Nokia in Q3 of 2013. The acquisition, as stated above, was completed in April 2014 and cost Microsoft $7.2 billion.

The company's planned acquisition of Skype was officially disclosed back in May 2011. The deal was finalized and closed by October 2013 in which Microsoft paid $8.5 billion in cash.

The Yammer acquisition happened a year earlier. Microsoft and Yammer entered into a definitive agreement for the acquisition in June 2012. The deal, which had Microsoft shell out $1.2 billion, was completed in July 2012.

Photo: Karlis Dambrans | Flickr

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
France is saying goodbye to plastic dishes, cups and utensils as a new law that will be fully implemented in 2020 bans the use of disposable dishes unless they are made from biologically sourced materials and are compostable.

The measure, which sets France as the first country in the world to ban the use of plastic dishware, was passed in August this year but businesses are given until 2020 to comply.

France has also banned plastic bags in July earlier this year and while other countries have made this move as well, France is the first country to extend the plastic ban to dishes and cutlery.

The initiative is part of the French environmental initiative Energy Transition for Green Growth, which aims to tackle climate change. Moves against the use of disposable plastic products have been gaining momentum worldwide over environmental issues.

Many of the plastic wastes end up in the ocean, where these are broken down into tiny fragments that can impact marine life. Plastic debris can survive for many years in the ocean and the plastic fragments can get into the food chain as birds and fishes eat the debris that float in the sea.

A 2015 study has shown that in 2010, countries dumped about 8 million tons of plastic in the ocean. This amount could increase by 10 times in the next decade if countries fail to find a feasible way to collect and manage garbage.

France's new initiative may help address such concerns but it is also met with opposition. Organizations that represent packaging manufacturers are fighting the ban, saying it violates the commerce rules of the European Union.

Eamonn Bates, secretary general of Brussels-based Pack2Go Europe that represents European packaging manufacturers, called for the European Commission to take legal action against France.

He said that there is no proof that biologically sourced materials are more environmentally beneficial and that the ban could even worsen the litter problem because people would think that the packaging that they leave in the countryside would be biodegradable.

"We are urging the European Commission to do the right thing and to take legal action against France for infringing European law," Bates said.

Besides France, some municipalities in the United States, which include New York City, San Jose and Hawaii, also banned or regulated the use of plastic bags.

Some companies have already started producing alternatives to plasticware. These products are derived from processed plant starch, bioplastics and old paper.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
With notoriously forced smiles and no crowd to cheer him on, the far-right politician Bolsonar walked in and out of the polling place in Rio de Janeiro. | Read More
The cellphone videos of the July 5 confrontation that left Alton Sterling dead in the Triple S Food Mart parking lot are graphic, showing a Baton Rouge policeman kneeling on top of him open fire from point-blank range.

The clips, caught on two different phones by witnesses to Sterling's death and which run 48 and 35 seconds long, sparked several nights of protests in Baton Rouge and across the country, prompting a federal investigation into the shooting and placing the Baton Rouge Police Department under international scrutiny.

Five policing experts who reviewed the videos for The Advocate said the videos raised serious questions about the shooting, but most said it appeared unlikely that there's enough evidence to successfully bring a criminal case against Baton Rouge police officer Blane Salamoni, identified by a source as the policeman who fired the shots.

Four of the five experts expressed concerns about the apparent aggressiveness of the officers in dealing with Sterling, a CD peddler outside the shop who police were informed was armed, with the fifth stressing that not enough has been publicly released to draw any conclusions. Several also questioned why officers fired stun guns and tackled Sterling, moves that potentially put the policemen in far greater danger and left them with no ability to safely retreat.

But all said that without viewing the large amount of as-yet unreleased evidence  including 911 tapes, witness statements and several additional videos  it's impossible to draw definitive conclusions on the killing.

"There's no way to tell yet. There's so much we don't have yet," said Ronal Serpas, a Loyola University professor and former New Orleans Police Department superintendent. "We don't know what other angles are out there, what happened when they first approached him, what were the first words that were said, what were the first actions that were taken."

Federal officials last week refused to comment on the status of their criminal civil rights investigation or when the results of the probe that they began just days after the incident might be released. Although the August floods that ravaged the region displaced tens of thousands and focused both public attention and law enforcement resources on a new set of challenges in the Baton Rouge area, U.S. Attorney Walt Green said the floods didn't affect federal cases in the region "across the board."

When federal and state prosecutors begin to weigh the results of the FBI's investigation and decide whether to pursue criminal charges against the officers  Salamoni and Howie Lake II, who also wrestled with Sterling but isn't believed to have fired his weapon during the encounter  they'll consider a fairly narrow question, several experts said. That question would be: Did Salamoni reasonably fear for his life in the final seconds of Sterling's life?

"The question of a justified shooting comes down to that final moment," said Dennis Kenney, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a former police officer. "The benefit of the doubt in these kinds of cases generally goes to the police, and I think they'll have a very difficult time getting a conviction."

Philip Stinson, a former Ohio policeman and current professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University, said the legal evaluation of whether Salamoni was justified in the killing largely hinges on the movements of Sterling's right hand, obscured from view in both publicly released videos.

"If he was going for his gun, then it was a justified shooting," said Stinson, who nonetheless called the incident the result of "incredibly bad" police work. "It still raises questions as to whether it was appropriate for the officers to get themselves in that situation."

Even if another video angle appears to contradict police claims, Stinson said, it remains unlikely Salamoni or Lake would face prison time without clear-cut evidence against them.

"I don't believe the officers are going to be charged in this case because they got a call about a man with a gun, he had a gun and (the officers) used Tasers," Stinson said. "Even if there were charges to be brought, in my experience, juries are very reluctant to second-guess a police officer who's making a split-second life or death decision, especially in a street encounter with a gun."

Crucial questions about the shooting center around what happened between the officers and Sterling before the brief cellphone videos start. Triple S Food Mart owner Abdullah Muflahi, who witnessed the shooting and shot the second video, said he started recording about a minute after officers arrived. Muflahi described police as the clear aggressors and said Sterling appeared confused  repeatedly asking why the officers were approaching him  but didn't physically resist the officers.

Video showing fatal confrontation circulates at protest over shooting by Baton Rouge officer A 37-year old man who sold CDs was shot and killed by a Baton Rouge police officer Tuesday m

The entire interaction was captured on the store's surveillance cameras, though that footage, as well as video from the officers' dashboard cameras, has not been publicly released. Both officers were wearing body cameras that fell off during the struggle, according to police. The footage and audio from those cameras has likewise not been released.

If the other videos showed Sterling "did nothing overtly aggressive toward police and, in the course of the struggle, made no movement toward his pocket where the gun was, that would be very damning evidence. That would create a reasonable argument that the police are aggressors," Kenney said. "It would have to be fairly clear evidence they were the aggressors and he made no movement that could be viewed as aggressive to them."

Ken Williams, a police use of force expert and former homicide detective in Massachusetts, said watching the two videos raised a number of red flags.

"Unlike most people in America, I've been involved in taking guns off of people, I've been shot at in the line of duty and I've had to shoot someone trying to take my life," said Williams, who now works as an expert witness. "Based on what's been released now, I don't like what I'm seeing."

But Williams said that unless other unreleased recordings show the officers making derogatory comments, using racial epithets or callously speaking about Sterling's shooting  which might suggest criminal intent  he said both will likely face, at most, non-criminal administrative punishment. Without very clear evidence, Williams said, a prosecution in the shooting would be extremely difficult under standards set by the U.S. Supreme Court on what constitutes unlawful police conduct.

Serpas, a longtime New Orleans police officer who also headed up the Washington State Patrol and the Nashville Police Department, said he's withholding any kind of judgment on the shooting until the full investigation is released.

Barbara Attard, a police oversight and practices consultant in California who's worked with a number of civilian oversight agencies, likewise said the videos don't offer enough information to determine if the shooting was justified. But, like a number of those interviewed for this story, Attard said the officers actions in the brief clip were alarming.

All of those interviewed beside Serpas said the videos suggest a series of bad decisions and poor tactics from the officers. The Baton Rouge Police Department and the president of the Baton Rouge police union both declined to comment on the criminal investigation. Attorneys presenting each officer declined to comment for this story, and detailed messages left for Salamoni and Lake were not returned.

Needless escalation?

Although Supreme Court precedent largely dictates that the question of whether a shooting is justified hinges on whether the officers acted reasonably in the final seconds, most of the interviewed experts said there are at least some indications the officers escalated the situation.

"It's certainly bad police work. I think any reasonable conclusion is it was badly handled  but that's very different than criminally handled," said Kenney. "Did they needlessly put themselves in the position where they had that fear?"

Kenney said the limited video evidence didn't show Sterling resisting the officers before being Tased.

"It's not entirely clear to me why they needed a physical response to begin with," Kenney said. "From them the little that I saw, it seems like there are a lot of things that could have and should have been done differently."

Attard said the simple fact that Sterling had a handgun in his pocket didn't necessarily justify the police officers' use of force in taking him to the ground and firing stun guns, given Louisiana's permissive firearms laws. It's unclear whether Salamoni or Lake knew Sterling or that Sterling had a criminal background  a previous felony conviction barred him by law from carrying a gun  or had reason to believe the weapon was being illegally carried.

And even if Salamoni and Lake were making a proper arrest, Attard said, taking a possibly dangerous man with a weapon to the ground created a potentially deadly situation.

"Because of the limited perspective, it's hard to really draw conclusions, but the two officers rushing in on someone who supposedly had a gun, taking them to the ground while not knowing where a weapon might be  I think that's dangerous," Attard said. "I think there are some real questions to be asked, coming from a video with a limited perspective."

Sterling's body movements  shoulders largely flat on the ground, left hand unclenched  as well as the spray of blood from the gunshots both suggested he wasn't trying to fight the officers on top of him, according to Williams.

Williams also questioned whether officers needed to immediately arrest Sterling, saying their tactics in doing so departed from anything he'd seen in training.

"They've just used the Taser and now they're closing in on someone they believe to have a gun," Williams said. "You want to make sure you're neutralizing the threat but making sure you don't have to shoot this person. It makes no sense to me from a tactical standpoint to rush in, bear hug the guy and take him to the ground if you believe he has a weapon."

Stinson had a similar take.

"If they knew they had somebody reportedly with a gun, they put themselves in the danger zone being about three feet away from him," he said. "I don't know how that happened."

Other prosecutions

Looming large over any decision may be the failure this summer of criminal prosecutions in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody in April 2015 after being left shackled and unrestrained in the back of a police van. Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby moved swiftly amid widespread unrest over Gray's death to bring charges against six officers  only to watch those cases disintegrate. Baltimore prosecutors dropped all charges at the end of July after three of the officers were acquitted in trials before judges and a fourth's trial ended in a hung jury.

"The inability to sustain any of the charges in Baltimore is going to have a big impact on prosecutors," Kenney said.

In order to win a criminal case against police shootings, testimony from fellow police officers questioning a defendant's actions is often necessary to convince a judge or jury, said Stinson, who's studied such cases.

"What often happens when officers are charged is another officer comes forward and says it wasn't justified or they didn't perceive a threat," Stinson said.

Such was the case in the fatal shooting of 6-year-old Jeremy Mardis last November in by deputy city marshals Derrick Stafford and Norris Greenhouse Jr. A Marksville police officer, Sgt. Kenneth Parnell III, captured the shooting on his body camera. Authorities say he told investigators he never drew his weapon and "didn't fear for his life" during the encounter, which also left Jeremy's father wounded. Stafford and Greenhouse are both awaiting trial in state court on counts of second-degree murder.

About a week after the final charges in the Freddie Gray case were dropped in Baltimore, a jury convicted Wesley Cagle, a 46-year-old Baltimore police officer, of first-degree assault for shooting a wounded man in the groin. Prosecutors there said the case against Cagle rested on the testimony of two other Baltimore officers who testified against him.

Even as federal authorities continue their criminal review of the shooting, Baton Rouge police internal affairs investigators are conducting their own inquiry into whether the officers violated departmental policies or strayed from their training at any point during the encounter with Sterling.

That review potentially takes in a far broader set of considerations  beginning with decisions by dispatchers about what information to pass on to the officers and including their initial interactions with Sterling  and carries a lower bar of proof.

The police chief can mete out discipline for officers based on a lesser set of evidence than might be required to prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

"If the chief feels there's evidence officers violated policies and procedures, at that point he'll make the decision to punish or terminate the officers," said Lt. Jonny Dunnam, a Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman. But Dunnam noted that the decision by the police chief can be appealed to the Civil Service Board which, in the past, has overturned firings and other punishments for some officers.

"Ultimately, he [the chief] doesn't really have the final word  civil service does," Dunnam said.

Dunnam, a former internal affairs officer, said the ongoing review will look at the entire incident  from the initial 911 call to the officers actions after the fatal shots were fired  to see whether the policemen violated department policies.

Among the evidence in the internal affairs investigation will be compelled statements from the officers involved  questioning inadmissible in a criminal case because of 5th Amendment protections against forced self-incrimination.

Under state law, internal affairs investigators have 60 days to complete their review of the shooting  though under certain circumstances, that window can be extended, as has happened in this case with the agreement of the officers, Dunnam said. He also said the chief may wait for the results of the FBI's investigation before rendering a final decision.
With three physicians in the U.S. House and one in the Senate, Louisiana has twice as many doctors in Congress as California  a state with almost nine times more people and 47 more congressmen.

They prefer to be addressed as Doctor. Their press releases and staff rarely say Rep. John Fleming or Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Theyre all Republican, oppose the Affordable Care Act, and three of the four have taken campaign dollars from cigarette manufacturers.

For instance, Congressman Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, has taken $96,100  $28,100, or 1 percent of his contributions in this election cycle alone  from PACs and employees of the largest three cigarette manufacturers, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, of Washington, D.C.

A cardiothoracic surgeon, Boustany specialized in surgical procedures of the heart, lungs, esophagus and other organs in the chest. When asked why, as a doctor, Boustany would accept any money from an industry whose products cause diseases that he personally has treated, his press spokesman Jack Pandol responded: "Dr. Boustany is supported by a wide variety of industries because of his work to lower overall tax rates, simplify the tax code, reduce burdensome regulations, and put Americans back to work."

To be fair, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, is the Louisiana politician who has taken the most dollars from big tobacco. But he is not a physician and is the third-highest-ranking member of the U.S. House.

Republican Cassidy, a Baton Rouge gastroenterologist, received $5,000 in his 2014 run for the U.S. Senate. Fleming, another of the 24 candidates running the Senate this year, received $1,500 in 2010, but nothing since.

Fleming, who practiced family medicine in Minden, released a statement saying he has not actively solicited donations from the tobacco industry. The overwhelming amount he has raised has been from individuals who donate to him because of his conservative convictions and record, not special interests who hope to buy his vote despite any personal reservations he would have about their product or industry, said Matthew E. Beynon, his campaigns spokesman.

Louisiana's Senate candidates square off on top issues; Boustany allegations not addressed THIBODAUX, La. (AP)  Four top candidates in Louisiana's U.S. Senate race drew greater disti

Only Republican Rep. Ralph Abraham, who had practiced family medicine in Mangham, hasnt received tobacco money. But thats more because the U.S. House Lung Cancer Caucus member says he hasnt really sought the money, rather than any hard objection to receiving those contributions from an industry whose products have proven associated health risks, his spokesman said.

Federal candidates are not the only recipients of tobacco largesse. In terms of total dollars donated to state-level politicians, Louisiana ranked sixth in the nation. Apart from a small triangle along the Mississippi River, Louisiana grows no tobacco.

Over the past decade, for instance, Richmond, Virginia.-based Altria Group, the worlds largest cigarette manufacturer (they make Marlboros and Virginia Slims), has donated $589,984 to Louisiana legislators. In the last election, 44 of the sitting 105 state lawmakers received money.

Altrias media office did not respond to requests for comment last week.

+5 US Senate candidates start reporting campaign fundraising Most of the campaign finance reports are not public yet, but several of candidates staffs a

While Louisiana may lead the nation in the number of doctors in Congress, the state also is considered the least healthy, according to Americas Health Rankings. And the annual survey says smoking is the number one reason for early death in Louisiana  more than obesity, way more than violent crime.

For Tonia Moore, who has been fighting for years to reduce smoking, the reason is plain. Its a lack of having a strong policy within the state, she said.

Evidence shows that higher prices work far better than patches and gum for people wanting to quit smoking, said the associate director of the New Orleans-based Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco Free Living. But the effort to do that has had limited success  pushing state taxes up to $1.08 per pack. The national average is $1.61.

Back in the 1990s, when anti-smoking legislation was all the rage in Congress, some candidates refused tobacco money, including prominent senators at the time like Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, and Kit Bond, R-Missouri, according to The Washington Post. "You don't really want to be associated with an industry that consistently lied to Congress and the American people," U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, told the Post in 1998.

But that was then.

Big tobaccos donations dont carry the same stigma anymore.

As long as the elected officials know where that money comes from and what it means, then its a legal donation, said Lydia Kykendahl, of American Cancer Society  Cancer Action Network. Whether or not they should is entirely up to them.
Louisiana health officials and St. Tammany Parish leaders are urging residents and visitors to avoid the Bogue Chitto River after approximately 6 million gallons of stormwater-diluted sewage spilled into it upriver in Brookhaven, Mississippi.
Canberra's largest private hospital provider is testing support for a private emergency department to take pressure off overcrowded public hospitals.

WHAT'S ON TODAY:

Discover two million years of human history in the one room with A History of the World in 100 Objects from the British Museum, now on show at the National Museum of Australia. Until January 29.

Tom Osborne, 11, splashes around in Lake George. Credit:Karleen Minney

The Wharf Revue's irresistible blend of vitriol and vaudeville returns to Canberra Theatre Centre from September 13 to 24. Tickets from $45 for adults.
Get free footy news alerts sent to your mobile phone. Click here

The AFL is standing by its decision to allow Greater Western Sydney to host their preliminary final at Spotless Stadium despite fears Western Bulldogs fans will be left disappointed.

The Dogs defeated Hawthorn in front of 87,823 fans at the MCG to advance to a preliminary final that will be held at Giants' 24,000-seat stadium on Saturday.

The Giants have a membership base of around 16,000 while the Bulldogs have approximately 40,000 members.
A decorated country netball player accused of defrauding the Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation has admitted to taking $240,000 of the company's funds for her own personal use.

Ballarat-based accountant Kelly Anne Howard made the admission in her defence filed in the Supreme Court of Victoria in response to civil action brought against her by Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation which manages Aboriginal heritage values and culture within Wadawurrung country  a stretch of land that takes in Ballarat, Melton, Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula.

Uncle Bryon Powell stood down as chair of the Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation earlier this year. Credit:Justin McManus

Business Day revealed in July that Ms Howard and her company Kelly Howard Pty Ltd had been accused of defrauding the organisation of more than $475,357.59 over six years.

The accusations came after an audit found scores of payments to Ms Howard's company.
Although John Charlton, owner of Spend-less Shoes, studied as a teacher, he never made it into the classroom. Instead, his casual job ended up setting him up for a career in retail  or more specifically, shoes.

"I was working in David Jones while I was studying. I wanted to work in the records department, because that's where the women were, but they put me in men's shoes," he says.

Owner of Spend-less Shoes John Charlton started his career selling shoes at David Jones.

Turns out, Charlton was good at selling footwear, and it was eventually noticed. In those days, stores like David Jones had department-specific buyers in each state and suppliers would come to visit major stores.

When a major shoe manufacturer visiting the Adelaide store where Charlton worked heard he'd sold five pairs of their product that morning, he offered him a job selling their high-end shoes. Within a few years, Charlton leveraged that role into his own stores (John Charlton's Shoe Boutique), before eventually a customer helped steer him towards his next business move.
"A person is not to be regarded as an Agent of Influence merely because he does or says things publicly or privately, favourable to a particular foreign power, or because he has been persuaded to do so by the available material about that power," he said. "Clandestinity of persuasion is a hallmark of this type of operation, coupled with secrecy about its success on the part of the 'agent'." Hope revived the concept again when he was called to conduct the 1983 Royal Commission into the Combe/Ivanov affair, where David Combe, the former National Secretary of the Labor Party, was alleged to have compromised Australia's national security by dealing with Soviet agent Valery Ivanov. Hope found that Combe had been targeted but concluded that there was no evidence of intelligence breaches or security threats. In the course of this process huge personal damage was done to David Combe and others around him. Today the Agent of Influence is back in vogue thanks to Labor Senator Sam Dastyari who solicited donations from a Chinese business to cover personal expenses. The allegation is that this led him to adopt a more pro-Chinese position on competing country claims in the South China Sea.

The issue has been given added impetus by a report quoting the US Ambassador John Berry saying that the US government is alarmed by Chinese donations and Chinese influence in Australia's domestic politics and wants reform of our electoral system. Foremost among those demonising Chinese activities in Australia is Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Last month Jennings told us that the Chinese embassy and consulate in Australia was mobilising community groups to protest against The Hague international tribunal ruling against Chinese claims over waters in the South China Sea. He referred to the chairman and key funder of the Australia-Chinese Relations Institute at University of Technology, Sydney, Xiangmo Huang, who advised against knee-jerk reactions. But is Jennings himself free from foreign influence?

Former head of the Prime Minister's Department, John Menadue, has pointed out the close links between Jennings' think-tank, ASPI, and the Australia/US Defence and Intelligence Complex. ASPI's 2014-15 annual report reveals that 56 per cent of its $5.9 million funding came from the Department of Defence. Of the rest, 22 per cent came from sponsors including corporations heavily involved in supplying military hardware or services across the world, such as Airbus Group, BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Thales. Jennings is a former senior defence official who headed the technical advisory panel for the defence white paper. He is also a strong advocate for the submarine contract the Australian government recently awarded to France. (An article by him in The Australian earlier this year was headed "Vive the choice of French sub.")

The French certainly appreciate his contribution. ASPI's website tells us that in February 2016 he was awarded the French decoration of Knight in the National Order of Legion d'Honneur. One can only assume that not all his discussions with the French that led to him winning this honour were in public. So the question arises: Would any private discussions satisfy Justice Hope's "clandestinity" criterion to make him an Agent of Influence? In truth the whole concept is cold-war McCarthyist nonsense. In a democracy we're all entitled to try to influence each other in private and public discussions.

There is no shortage of "think-tanks" trotting out the US line and no shortage of academics, journalists and officials who have had a junket or all-expenses-paid posting to a US institution. Contrary to what these advocates appear to believe, US interests do not always coincide with those of Australia. Dastyari should not have been so greedy as to ask for his expenses to be paid by someone else. But far more worrying than his subsequent reported comments on the South China Sea were those of then Labor Defence spokesman, Stephen Conroy, who said Australia should authorise its forces to both sail and fly over Chinese artificial islands in the region. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop rightly responded that Australia should be working to reduce tensions in the region, not increase them. South East Asian leaders meeting at the recent East Asia Summit also wisely chose not to highlight the matter, allowing for calmer private discussions to resolve their differences with China.
An Afghan refugee sent to Nauru by the Australian government remains on the Pacific island nearly three weeks after a doctor advised he needed to be urgently evacuated to treat a potentially fatal heart condition.

The 42-year-old man, known by the pseudonym Abdullah, was taken to the Nauru Hospital on August 29 after suffering severe pain in his chest and numbness in his left arm.

The Australian-funded asylum seeker processing centre on Nauru.

Abdullah said the pain had him writhing "like a snake" on his bed in his home, a converted shipping container, before he was taken to hospital by ambulance.

He was told he needed to be flown to Australia or Papua New Guinea for treatment, but discharged himself because there was no one else to care for his sons, aged 12 and 13.
For many people considering downsizing their home there can be a major drawback  the funds released may well downsize their pension entitlement too. This is why preparing for January's pension changes is crucial.

Under existing rules a person or couple who exceed the asset test threshold have their pension reduced by $1.50 a fortnight for every $1000 of assets over the threshold. On January 1, there will be an increase in the asset test threshold, enabling some pensioners to receive more pension. But for those who exceed the new threshold their pension will be reduced by $3 a fortnight for every $1000 of assets.

Illustration: Michael Mucci

The new asset test thresholds for when you start to lose the full pension will be $250,000 for a single home owner, and $375,000 for a home-owning couple. The pension will be lost completely when the assets exceed $542,500 for a single home owner, and $816,000 for a couple. Higher thresholds apply to non home owners.

The effect is greatest for downsizers because they often pay less for their new home than they get for their old one  banking the proceeds. However, the loss of pension, particularly after January 1, often cannot be compensated for through the returns available in cash and fixed-interest investments.
Disability in prisons is invisible and mostly ignored For the first time, researchers are compiling figures on the number of disabled prisoners. This group is largely invisible in official records and experts argue that with little support inside, they are less able to cope with jail and are virtually guaranteed to end up back inside, effectively a double punishment. Previous research found about 42 per cent of male prisoners had an acquired brain injury, compared with about 2 per cent in the general population. Another study found that more than 40 per cent of Victorian prisoners had a psychiatric risk rating, indicating that they had a mental health issue. New research has also found that young Indigenous people with foetal alcohol spectrum are greatly over-represented in prisons. Professor Stuart Kinner, of Griffith University's Criminology Institute and its Menzies Health Institute, said in 2015 for the first time the standard disability flag was added to national data collected every three years on the health of people moving through the prisons system. The measure of disability is based on a World Health Organisation definition and assesses the functional impact of having a disability, such as difficulty participating in education and work.

Early data using the standard disability flag has found 30 per cent of prisoners have long-term health conditions or disability that restrict their ability to participate in employment and education and limit their general activities. Almost two-fifths (38 per cent) of prisoners aged 35-54 had limited activity or participation in work or education, compared with 14 per cent of the general population. Kinner said there was little evidence of programs for disabled prisoners and because prisons are state-based there was no requirement for co-ordination. "We are not picking up people who have significant needs in the prisons system. This has major implications for their ability to follow instructions, take medication  for their day-to-day functioning. Making sure we identify those people is critical to their appropriate management in prison." He said people with mild to moderate disability are particularly over-represented in prisons. "These may be people who are falling through the cracks, and this has contributed to them ending up in prison in the first place."

Kinner said such disabilities often involved complex health needs that were not being met in the corrections system. "There's a large number of people who experience significant functional impairment, with a range of health problems and learning challenges. They may have a life-time's experience at how to cover these up. There's a strong incentive to cover up some disability in prisons, it can make you quite vulnerable." The 2015 Ombudsman's report found that Prisons Victoria was not routinely screening people who come into prisons for disability, including cognitive and psychiatric disabilities. The Ombudsman also found that many prisoners were not getting special help for their disability. The report highlighted the example of a special unit for people with intellectual disability at the Port Phillip Prisons, Marborough Wing. While the specialist wing has 35 beds the Ombudsman found there were 95 people registered in that prison with an intellectual disability. Disabled prisoners vulnerable

Michelle McDonnell, spokesperson for the Smart Justice Project, led by the federation of community legal centres, said prisoners with an intellectual disability were particularly vulnerable to bullying and harassment and when their condition had not been formally diagnosed their behaviour was often seen by staff as disobedience and they may be punished. McDonnell said there was also evidence that people with disabilities spent longer in prison because they were less able to access parole because of barriers such as difficulty getting secure accommodation and problems negotiating the justice system. "We've had a 68 per cent increase in the prison population [over 10 years to 2014], that's why all the money has gone on infrastructure and not on services. If we really want to reduce the reoffending rate it makes sense to support people with disability both inside and outside prison." Researchers at Melbourne University's School of Population and Global Health, who screened people for intellectual disability after their release from jail, found that those with this impairment were significantly less able to manage their own health care after their time in jail. Rudey is taking part in a project jointly run by Jesuit Social Services and RMIT's Centre for Innovative Justice, which aims to support ex-prisoners with an ABI and provide recommendations about how the criminal justice system can improve its awareness of this disability. The researchers have been working with a group of ex-prisoners with ABI for the past year.
Temporary government workers may have their contracts extended for up to three years as part of reforms introduced by Australian Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd.

The changes, designed to reduce administrative burden and attract new talent, have been criticised by workplace unions concerned by a casualisation of the public service.

Australian Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd. Credit:Jesse Marlow

Mr Lloyd announced the changes in his latest directions, which also foreshadowed changes to merit based selection, affirmative action for indigenous disabled employees and the sharing of talent lists.

The changes allow departments to extend temporary contracts from 12 months to 18 months without a competitive selection process. In certain cases, the contracts may be extended to three years.
Northside rail commuters will face delays until at least Friday as preparations swing into full gear for the long-awaited opening of the Redcliffe Peninsula line.

The new link, from Petrie to Kippa-Ring, was due to open on October 4.

In the meantime, services between Caboolture and Zillmere stations will be out of service until 2am on Friday, to allow for vital signals tests.

Replacement buses have been hired to run in both directions between those stations, running every 10 minutes in peak times and every 15 minutes off-peak.
A man has suffered multiple stab wounds after being attacked with a knife at a Gold Coast unit on Saturday evening.

Police said the 47-year-old victim opened the front door of his Worendo Street unit in Southport about 5.30pm.

Police are searching for a man armed with a knife after a stabbing at a Southport unit on Saturday evening.

He was stabbed several times in the torso and arm, before being taken to Gold Coast University Hospital in a serious condition.

Police are searching for his attacker is described as a Caucasian man, approximately 180cms tall with a proportionate build, short black hair, facial tattoos and dressed all in black.
Two men are on the run after a violent crime spree that saw a female pub worker and a teenage girl assaulted.

Police released images of the pair on Monday morning after a string of linked incidents north of Brisbane on Sunday night.

The men entered a North Lakes tavern about 8.20pm, before one of them allegedly jumped the bar and kicked the woman while demanding money.

They couldn't get the cash register open but stole her jewellery and phone.
But there may be hidden costs to this "shoot and save" approach. A 2014 study found people who photographed a museum tour remembered fewer objects and fewer details (such as what the Tang dynasty warrior had in his hands) than when simply observing the pieces. And a 2011 study found factoids such as "an ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain" were less likely to be remembered if the person knew they would be saved to a PC. Dr Adrian Ward, assistant professor in the Department of Marketing at the University of Texas, sees a critical downside to putting experiences in storage. "One idea of the self hinges on being able to integrate experiences from the past to who you are in the present and projecting that into the future. This autobiographical memory is crucial to identity and to using the past to predict the future," he says.

Whether it's decoding a friend's newfound abruptness or waiting for that light bulb moment of scientific discovery, internal memory is where dots are joined and ideas formed. "If you are not storing this knowledge internally then you are not developing those ideas," says Ward. Of course, e-memories can always be dragged out of the cloud and into your biography, but technology is reshaping how we do this too. At the end of 2014 Facebook introduced its "Year in Review", a collage of users' most "significant" photos culled from their own snaps and ones they're tagged in. Regrettably, the original algorithm dredged up a man's deceased daughter, unwanted photos of exes, and blocked friends; missteps Facebook pledged to reverse.

But the potential for Facebook's retrieval algorithms to diverge from our own was made even starker in a 2014 study that secretly manipulated the feelings of nearly 700,000 users by crimping the emotional content of their news feeds. People who had posts with positive words removed from their feeds became less chirpy in their own status updates, while others who had negative feed posts deleted became more sanguine. Dr Christopher Madan, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology at Boston College, is wary of the power of social networks to shape memory. "Facebook and Twitter clearly have their own algorithms and their own interests, which can influence us. There is a kind of black box element to what they are doing," says Madan. Concerns multiply when you consider our striking ability to take on other people's recollections as our own. As neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux has blogged, this is particularly unnerving when eyewitnesses testify to what they read in the newspaper rather than what they witnessed at the crime.

Madan has similar worries about the smartphone. "As people look at their phones more, and as videos increase on social media, remembering what is your memory versus thinking 'I was there' when you weren't really, those boundaries will become even less clear," says Madan. "And how that information is being prioritised through some external source before it gets to you is an important issue." But if you're worried about mistaking someone else's memory for your own, perhaps find solace in the fact that humans have been sharing their lives since the Stone Age. "The ability to store and retrieve information outside of an individual mind is a terrifically adaptive characteristic of the human species," says Finley.

"You can learn from the experiences of others. With cave drawings, oral tradition, legend, the written word, you can pass information to future generations so they don't have to learn from scratch. Knowledge becomes cumulative." But on the shared memory platform that is the internet, dodgy websites abound and results get skewed by search engine optimisation. Ward's research adds further heavy caveats to the "knowledge" we glean from the web. He had people answer trivia questions such as "Coffee is only produced in one US state. What is it?" with or without access to the internet. Amazingly, people who sourced solutions from the internet and even regurgitated them verbatim were inveigled into thinking they came up with the answers solo. They also thought they were smarter. "Not only do people say they know it, they can forget that they ever went on line," says Ward.

And this overconfidence can skew decision-making. In ongoing research, Ward has found people who get a rapid answer to the search question, "What is a bear market?" have an inflated sense of their ability to pick a good stock. Artificially slowing the internet to old-fashioned dial-up speeds can temper that overconfidence. "The internet is so fast we don't realise what we don't know," says Ward. But while some memories may be finding a permanent home on the internet, there is a growing movement to vastly expand our personal cache of recollections. Gordon Bell is an emeritus researcher at Microsoft and in the 1980s led the National Science Foundation team that developed the blueprint for the Internet. He is also a seminal "lifelogger".

Inspired by a 1945 article in The Atlantic describing a futuristic memory-extending "Memex" machine, Bell made it his mission in the late 1990s to save his life to the hard drive. He began by storing all his emails, phone calls and web pages he had visited. In 2004, Bell started adding thousands of photos to the database, using a miniaturised wearable digital camera called a SenseCam that automatically takes pictures at set time intervals or when it senses body heat or a change in light. The odyssey is documented in his book Your Life, Uploaded co-authored with Jim Gemmell. "I believe there will be a memory that is infinite so you can store your whole life. It will be as big or bigger than your bio-memory and can store everything you can encode digitally," says Bell. According to Bell's taxonomy, our bio-memory will become something of a serf-like tool for browsing the digital leviathan that will be the e-memory. "Bio-memory is just the URLs and metadata for e-memory. E-memory is the true memory," says Bell.

And as data storage has multiplied, Bell thinks the pressing problem now is how to retrieve it all. "We are asking people to be librarians of their lives and they don't have a concept of that. We went to the librarians and asked them, 'How do you organise a person's life?' and they said, 'We've never had that problem'," says Bell. With the rise of Google Glass-type spectacles, wearable cameras can now record HD video while tracking the user's actual point of view. And a slew of apps have appeared to organise all that e-memory, including Evernote, Memory Miner and Narrative for the new Narrative Clip 2 camera. The Evernote tagline is "remember everything".

This may be Orwellian overreach, but it raises the question of what might be lost if every memory could be viewed in crisp HD, a conundrum explored in the 2011 television series Black Mirror. "Some argue it is adaptive to forget, because we would simply be overwhelmed if we were to remember every single detail of every moment we lived," says Finley. Finley also suggests another positive to our notoriously sketchy memories. "If you remembered every single experience separately it would be difficult to learn lessons. If a certain person tends to annoy you, in order to learn the lesson 'I don't like that person', you need to have those episodes merge together so you have a more general representation of that person," he says.

Dr Cathal Gurrin, a senior lecturer at the School of Computing at Dublin City University, is researching ways to make, explore and retrieve e-memories that mimic bio-memory. Gurrin is an "extreme lifelogger" capturing more than 16 million images with a SenseCam over nine years. He also wears a watch that records galvanic skin response (GSR)  a measure of perspiration  and his heart rate, which can both be tagged to photos to indicate stress. "We can identify the most stressful or the most memorable aspects of a period of time just by looking at the spikes in the GSR," says Gurrin. "For example, there were two clear spikes of data in the week I was giving a talk at the European Commission in Tokyo. One was giving the talk and the other was when the trains were cancelled and I worried I couldn't get back to Tokyo." Gurrin also has team members view their lifelog photos wearing an EEG to record brainwaves.

"The EEG often spikes to faces that are novel or interesting to you, maybe the face of a girl you met in a bar. It is the uniqueness of the event that tends to make it interesting," says Gurrin. Like a sci-fi copycat of human memory, events that are personally salient are tagged for easier "recall" via the group's search algorithms. Apps like Emocam offer a watered-down version for smartphone users, who can stamp images with their heart rate and an emoticon. Gurrin's team also codes images with a single colour that reflects the dominant hues, grey tones and brightness of the photographed scene. Images are displayed as tiny squares of colour on a touchscreen timeline known as the Colour of Life Wall, which looks a bit like a pixellated Bayeux Tapestry. You just tap a coloured thumbnail to enlarge the image.

The wall teaches people the "colours of their lives", for example, that "purple" is office time or "brown" is time spent outside. Gurrin even has a project to let e-memory make the kinds of associations now limited to human memory, for example, linking particular friends with a shared activity, such as having coffee or playing sport. "The value of a digital memory is not just as a sequential listing of the things you did. It is actually this densely hyperlinked, rich multimedia archive of your life experience," says Gurrin. If we are all to become lifeloggers we may well be taking Gurrin's lead to make sense of our personal data troves, a challenge that has tested even pioneers like Gordon Bell. Bell bought the Narrative Clip 2 camera three months ago but admits he hasn't used it yet. Why not?
Glance once at Teisha Rose; you'll see a dark-haired woman walking alongside the glossy, silvered expanse of the bay, a little terrier on a lead.

Look twice, and you might notice the slim black cane she uses for support on longer walks, or when she's having a tough day.

Twenty years ago, Rose was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a condition of the central nervous system that interferes with nerve impulses. During her relapses Rose has been bedridden in hospital, or in a wheelchair, with little mobility.

But aside from a short stint on the disability pension as a student years ago, Rose did not receive any disability support until the National Disability Insurance Scheme trial started in her area in 2014.
A 72-year-old woman has died after being struck by a car as she crossed a four-lane road in Melbourne's western suburbs.

The woman was walking across McIntyre Road in Sunshine North with another woman, 74, when they were hit by a Ford ute around 7.10pm on Sunday, police said.

The first woman, from Sunshine West, was taken to hospital but died a short time later while the second woman, from Sunshine North, suffered serious injuries.

The pair had just started crossing the road, at the intersection with Suffolk Road, when the collision occurred with the northbound vehicle, a police spokesman said.
Repeat drink drivers in Western Australia will be forced to install "alcohol interlock devices" from the end of October in a new campaign to crackdown on serious offenders.

The device, which requires a breath test for cars to start, will also be paid for by offenders at a cost of $1600.

Alcohol interlocks will be installed in the cars of drink drivers from October.

Deputy Premier and Road Safety Minister Liza Harvey said on Sunday the devices would be fitted to vehicles once drivers had served drink driving suspensions and would remain in place for at least six months.

As part of the new legislation Ms Harvey launched a public education campaign on the devices in the lead up to the law coming in to force on October 24.
Transport Minister Dean Nalder has quit Cabinet. Credit:Emma Young "And how things will roll out in the next 48 hours, I have no idea." Mr Nalder initially said if he didn't get the numbers after a spill motion, that would be the end of the matter, before saying "it's not one shot in the locker". Local Government Minister Tony Simpson has resigned from state cabinet sparking a new leadership crisis for Premier Colin Barnett. Credit:Photo:ABC "I think there needs to be a robust discussion in the party room and I think the party room needs to make its decision," he said.

On Sunday morning, a number of Liberal insiders told WAtoday Mr Nalder doesn't have the numbers to oust the Premier. "There is no doubt Simpson and Nalder have done some serious damage to the party as they walked out the door," the source said. "But if there is a spill it's not going to be Nalder. If I was a betting person I would say it's between ][Liza] Harvey and [Joe] Francis. Earlier in the day, Mr Barnett questioned the "integrity and courage" of two of his now former ministers but has refused to stand down in the face of an apparent rebellion. The clearly rattled Premier made it clear he was not planning to quit.

"I am the leader, I am the premier of Western Australia and I intend to stay there," Mr Barnett told reporters in Perth on Sunday. "As for the future, I've got unfinished business, ive got a job to finish." "There is no challenger to my knowledge. I am the leader, I am the Premier of Western Australia and intend to stay there." He also took a swipe at both Simpson and Nalder for their decision to publicly resign, rather than speak to him personally. "I am extremely disappointed in both Tony Simpson and Dean Nalder that they didn't have the courage or integrity to tell me of their decision face-to face or over the telephone," Barnett said

"I mean why would you suddenly resign over a weekend, there is something orchestrated about this, I don't know what the plan or the plot is but I simply get on with my job and that's what im doing." Tensions were high between Nalder and Barnett after the Premier encouraged the former cabinet minister to take leave - after allegations he was involved in a ReachTel poll that seemed to undermine the Premier's chances of re-election next year. And at the conference Barnett said he had given Nalder an "extraordinary" opportunity in politics, which he has now walked away from. "There have been quite extraordinary events over the last couple of days... With respect to Dean he has only been a minister for a little over two years. "I gave him extraordinary opportunities, two major portfolios where a minster can make a very significant difference.

"Most members of Parliament never get that opportunity in their career and Dean's walked away from it. "I really don't know why you would give up that opportunity, but he has simply walked away from it." Both ministers have said they have no confidence in Mr Barnett, who was elected premier eight years ago this month. "Colin is making irrational decisions without consultation with respect to ministers or cabinet," Mr Nalder, who is considered a leadership aspirant, told The Sunday Times on Saturday. Mr Simpson also said on Saturday he no longer supported the premier, adding the state government had lost its way.
Sembara Oktafian was in the engine room of a tugboat chugging toward the Philippines when there was shouting on deck, and shots. Gunmen had boarded, and their message was clear: Come with us, or we will kill you. They shot one crew member and kidnapped four others.

"I thought they were going to kill us all, but they only took my friends," Mr Sembara said.

Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have agreed to allow 'hot pursuits' of pirates in one another's territory. Credit:Getty Images

The April attack, in the Celebes Sea south of the Philippines, was not isolated, or even out of the ordinary. Southeast Asia now accounts for the majority of seafaring attacks globally, surpassing the Horn of Africa, according to the International Maritime Bureau. And governments in the region are scrambling to combat the problem.

"In Somalia, the attacks have gone down," said Noel Choong, the head of the maritime bureau's piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. "In Nigeria, the numbers are still there, but not as much as in Asia."
ST CLOUD The man in the security guard uniform strode into the Minnesota mall just after 8pm somewhere near Sears. He flashed a knife "big enough to hurt someone," police said, and asked his would-be victim a question: Are you Muslim?

In the ensuing minutes, police say, nine people were stabbed in the Saturday night attack at the Crossroads Center mall. Their attacker was ultimately shot and killed by an off-duty police officer.

Authorities in St Cloud called the assaults a "potential terrorist attack," citing the incomplete investigation at the sprawling crime scene.

They say the assailant, who has not been identified, made reference to Allah and asked at least one victim if he was Muslim.
When Tonn Ostergard shared a note with colleagues at Crete Carrier Corp. last week, informing them that chairman Duane Acklie was near death, the responses astounded him.

One note came from a truck driver with 17 years on the road, recounting a cold and blustery evening from years ago. He had pulled in for the night to fuel up his truck. But when he stepped out, someone was already filling it with fuel.

An attendant, he assumed, striking up a conversation only to learn that the man hunched over his truck's fuel tank was Acklie, the man credited for building one of the largest trucking firms in the country.

Acklie, who also played a key role in Republican politics and led business groups at the local, state and national levels, died Saturday morning in Lincoln. He was 84.

Duanes story and that of Crete Carrier is what we hope is the story of all small businesses in Lincoln, a journey from small startup to community leader, said Wendy Birdsall, president of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce. Duane was an incredible advocate for Lincoln and will be greatly missed.

Acklies motto was, Always be a country boy, a statement that Ostergard thinks describes a connection to his roots as a kid growing up in Madison County. He soared in his business and political ambitions but always treated people as his equals.

Its a rare person who has the ability to have vision, reach for the stars but keep a foot on the ground and stay connected, said Ostergard, his son-in-law and the company's chief executive. Always be a country boy was his anthem.

Acklie wasnt above fueling a truck for an employee on a cold night, and was always available to help local politicians even as he advised presidents, including George Bush. He worked hard for the Republican leaders he believed in, Ostergard said, and that included government at the local level.

Theres that saying that all politics is local, and I think thats what endeared him and he worked hard with a candidate in whatever office they were seeking, Ostergard added. He was a kind person who treated everyone with the same dignity and respect.

In a statement, U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer saluted Acklie as a family man and business leader.

Duane Acklie was a loving husband, a caring father, and a successful businessman who built a business from the ground up," the statement said. "He loved his state, and he was an active member of his community. I was fortunate to have Duane as a longtime friend; I will miss him dearly.

U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse also issued a statement on Acklie, saying "Duane built the modern Nebraskan Republican Party, always exuding the integrity and humility that we all knew so well.

"He will be deeply missed, but we do not grieve as those who have no hope -- for we know that we will see our brother Duane again."

Acklie was an attorney who became general counsel of Crete Carrier when the business started in 1966. In 1971, Acklie and his wife, Phyllis, bought the business, and in 1973, they moved it to Lincoln.

When the Acklies bought the company, it had revenue of $6 million, a little over 100 people working for it and around 100 tractors and trailers.

At the end of 2015, the company had revenue of just over $1 billion and ranked as the 33rd largest trucking company in the U.S., according to Transport Topics. Crete Carrier currently has more than 5,000 drivers, nearly 1,000 office and shop employees, more than 5,000 tractors and nearly 13,000 trailers.

Acklie earned his Bachelors and law degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, spent two years in Germany as an Army officer, and after returning to the U.S., practiced law in Lincoln for 12 years. His business career included not only truck transportation but banking, real estate and related businesses.

He led the Lincoln and Nebraska Chambers of Commerce, American Trucking Associations and other organizations and headed many charitable fund drives.

Acklie was honored with the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the highest civilian award given for public service.

Gov. Pete Ricketts noted Acklie's achievements in a statement released Saturday evening.

"Duane was an entrepreneur, well-respected businessman, and a leader who had a tremendous impact on our state. As a dedicated Republican, he championed many of our party's causes from local races to presidential campaigns. Susanne and I send our thoughts and prayers to Phyllis and the entire Acklie family."

Congressman Jeff Fortenberry said Duane Acklie was an extraordinary person, with a profound spirit of generosity and humility. He used his multiple accomplishments in business and politics to be a good steward of the values of our community. He was always so kind to me and my family. He was a true gentleman, a fatherly advisor, and most importantly, my friend. These words do not adequately convey what an incredible man he was.

Acklie is survived by his wife of 62 years, daughter and son-in-law Dr. Laura and Jeff Schumacher, and daughter Holly Ostergard and husband Tonn.

A funeral service will be 10:30 a.m. Thursday at First-Plymouth Church.
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi...
Golds young bull market has totally stalled out in the past couple months. This major loss of momentum following golds powerful surges in 2016s first half is really souring sentiment and vexing traders. They are trying to figure out if golds recent consolidation drift is the dawn of a new bearish trend or a healthy pause within an ongoing bull. The likely answer comes from understanding whats causing golds high consolidation.

Back in mid-December right after the Feds first rate hike in 9.5 years, gold slumped to a miserable new 6.1-year secular low. That was driven by heavy gold-futures selling from speculators, who were utterly convinced higher rates are golds mortal nemesis. But with bearishness so extraordinary and investors gold allocations so low, a mighty mean reversion higher for gold was very likely in 2016.

Indeed that soon came to pass. As the grossly-distorted stock markets artificially levitated by the Feds extreme easings rolled over in January, investors started remembering the wisdom of diversifying some of their portfolios into gold. As a unique asset tending to move counter to stock markets, gold remains the leading diversifier to mitigate downside risks in stock-heavy portfolios. Gold was finally off to the races.

By early March gold formally entered bull-market territory for the first time since mid-2011, surging 20%+ off its deep secular lows. Golds enormous 16.1% gain in Q116 made for its best quarter in 30 years, since Q386! Such a blistering pace of ascent wasnt sustainable, and gold started faltering in Q216. But heavy investment buying was soon rekindled, starting with a colossal US-monthly-jobs miss in early June.

Then in late June, gold rocketed higher again after the surprise success of the British people voting to overthrow the tyranny of those unelected, unaccountable EU bureaucrats. But golds newfound post-Brexit strength was short-lived, as it topped at $1365 in early July. In just 6.7 months, gold had blasted an astounding 29.9% higher! So a breather was certainly overdue, especially inside golds summer doldrums.

Summer has always been the weakest time of the year seasonally for gold, as its devoid of the outsized demand spikes driven by income-cycle and cultural factors that gold enjoys much of the rest of the year. And indeed between that early-July peak and the end of August, gold pulled back 4.1% to $1308. This metal has been drifting in the mid-to-low $1300s for over 9 weeks now, breeding mounting bearishness.

Until last Friday, this summers unbelievable stock-market levitation to new record highs offered some cover for golds lethargy. As recent years proved in spades, gold investment demand wanes when the stock markets apparently do nothing but rise indefinitely thanks to endless central-bank easing. Why diversify into gold if stocks seemingly never sell off materially? But that levitation finally started to fracture.

A week ago the flagship S&P 500 plummeted in a massive 2.5% single-day loss! That was a stunning wake-up call to the legions of hyper-complacent stock bulls. Yet there was no accompanying surge in gold investment demand for prudent portfolio diversification. The worlds dominant leading gold ETF, the American GLD SPDR Gold Shares, actually suffered a major 1.1% draw that day stock markets rolled over!

So what the heck is going on with gold here? If not even the biggest stock-market down day by far since that late-June Friday when the Brexit-vote results became known could spark some life in gold, what will? The longer gold remains stalled, the more investors and speculators concerns mount about the health of its young bull. Understanding whats been holding gold back is critical to gaming its next major move.

Golds young bull has stalled due to an interplay between investors gold demand, speculators gold-futures trading, this summers lofty US stock markets, and typical weak mid-year seasonals. Since this years powerful gold bull has been driven almost exclusively by investment buying, thats the place to start. This chart looks at GLDs gold-bullion holdings overlaid on the gold price during the past couple years.

As gold slumped to last years major secular lows, its investment demand as evidenced by builds and draws in GLDs physical gold bullion held in trust for its shareholders waned dramatically. The very day that gold bottomed in mid-December immediately after the Feds first rate hike in nearly a decade, GLDs holdings hit their lowest level in 7.3 years! American stock investors had abandoned gold, leaving it for dead.

But this dire trend soon reversed right out of the gates in early 2016. Thanks to a sharp stock-market selloff, which would snowball to the biggest in 4.4 years for the benchmark S&P 500, investors finally started returning to gold. They began aggressively adding gold exposure via GLD shares, which is the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way by far for mutual funds and hedge funds to buy gold. GLD demand just skyrocketed.

GLD is a tracking ETF, its designed to mirror the price of gold. But GLD-share supply and demand is totally independent from golds own supply and demand. Thus GLD-share prices always threaten to decouple from gold prices. Theres only one way to neutralize this inherent conflict. Excess GLD-share supply or demand has to be directly shunted into underlying physical gold bullion itself, to equalize any pressures.

So when American stock investors buy GLD shares faster than gold itself is being bought, their prices will soon break away from golds to the upside. GLDs managers have to intervene to maintain tracking. So they issue enough new GLD shares to supply and offset the excess demand, keeping GLDs price in line with golds. Then they immediately deploy the capital raised from these share sales by buying gold bars.

GLD necessarily acts as a direct conduit between the vast pools of stock-market capital and the global physical gold market. So daily builds in GLDs holdings showing this ETF is buying gold bullion reveal stock-market capital flowing into gold. Heading into February, differential GLD-share demand from big American stock investors, overwhelmingly funds, exploded higher as the stock markets kept tanking.

Take careful note of the timing. In January, GLDs holdings grew by 4.2% or 26.9 metric tons. But in February they rocketed 16.1% higher in a gigantic 108.0t build! This is a critical lesson for today. Last Fridays sharp S&P 500 selloff was merely the beginning of stock markets rolling over. Selling pressure has to be sustained, becoming a trend, before stock investors complacency crumbles so they once again seek gold.

So far in this latest stock-levitation rollover, weve only seen 2 major S&P 500 down days. Last Fridays 2.5% and this past Tuesdays 1.5%. While no doubt steep in light of recent months record-low volatility, thats not enough selling to convince stock investors the prevailing trend has decayed to down. We will probably need a couple weeks of selling before they get worried enough to start re-diversifying into gold again.

Back in the first 10 trading days of January, the S&P 500 saw no fewer than 6 major down days! They included daily drops of 1.5%, 1.3%, 2.4%, 1.1%, 2.5%, and 2.2%. Gold investment demand didnt pick up dramatically until stock investors were really getting spooked by an ongoing hammering. The differential demand for GLD shares forcing holdings builds that drive up global gold prices didnt come until after that.

So a couple days of material stock-market selling so far in September probably hasnt been enough yet to shift stock-investor psychology away from this summers hyper-complacency. If the stock markets keep grinding lower on balance as they certainly ought to after such an extreme Fed-conjured levitation to new record highs, gold will inevitably catch another major investment bid sooner or later here. Be patient.

And the importance of GLD-share buying by American funds for this gold bull cannot be overstated, it is staggering. In Q116, gold surged 16.1% higher on a 27.5% or 176.9t build in GLDs holdings. The best research available on golds actual underlying physical supply and demand comes from the venerable World Gold Council, in its indispensable Gold Demand Trends reports that are published once a quarter.

Back in May the WGC released its Q116 GDT. It reported that global gold demand climbed 20.5% year-over-year, or a 219.4t gain. Incredibly, that first-quarter 176.9t build in GLDs holdings alone accounted for a staggering 80.6% of the total worldwide growth in gold demand! That compares to traditional bar-and-coin demand only rising a trivial 1.7t YoY. GLD gold-bullion buying was the whole story of Q116.

2016s new gold bull exists solely because large American stock investors decided to flood back into gold via GLD shares after neglecting reasonable portfolio allocations to it for years. Gold rocketed up in the first quarter not because small investors were buying bars and coins, but because big ones were buying ETF shares. This gold bulls incredible dominance by GLD-share buying actually intensified in Q216!

In August the WGC released its Q216 GDT report, revealing worldwide gold demand surged up another 15.4% or 139.8t YoY. GLDs Q216 holdings build alone of 130.8t accounts for a whopping 93.6% of this total global increase in gold demand! Again world bar-and-coin demand was dead flat, up a trivial 2.5t in the second quarter. Golds entire new bull market has been overwhelmingly driven by differential GLD buying!

Now odds are this anomalous GLD-dominating trend wont persist. As this gold bull lasts longer and marches higher, traditional demand for jewelry in Asia and bars and coins in the West will start growing and flourishing again. ETF buying commandingly led by GLD will hand off the gold-buying baton to other investors. But for now, this entire gold bull is built on the back of GLD. And thats why gold has stalled.

Differential GLD-share demand has totally evaporated in this almost-over third quarter. As of the data cutoff for this essay on Wednesday, GLDs holdings had actually fallen 1.5% or 14.6t so far in Q316! This modest GLD draw, or more accurately the lack of big ongoing GLD builds, is why gold is dead flat quarter-to-date. Without large American stock investors buying GLD, the entire impetus of golds bull has vanished.

There are a few reasons. Differential GLD-share demand was extremely strong after that Brexit vote in late June into early July. Early in quarters is when hedge funds often position capital for those entire quarters. That big fund buying wasnt sustainable, and soon petered out. That was exacerbated by both the market summer and the shocking resumption of the stock-market levitation back up to new record highs.

All throughout the markets there is a big summer lull as traders attention naturally shifts to vacations and leisure. Kids are out of school, the sun is warm and welcoming, so the majority of traders including big fund managers leisurely drift through summer. They loosely watch the markets, but dont often make major allocation decisions unless forced to. Thats one reason gold has always languished in summer doldrums.

On top of that, the US stock markets surged to new record highs again soon after that pro-Brexit vote that was long-prophesied to spell doom. Gold topped on July 8th, and the very next trading day the S&P 500 edged up to its first new record high in 13.7 months. The failing stock bull was suddenly alive and well again despite the feared Brexit coming to pass. The day after that GLD suffered a major 1.6% draw.

Over two weeks in mid-July, the S&P 500 climbed to new all-time highs in 7 out of 10 trading days! That kind of thing breeds epic complacency, rekindling the stocks-can-rally-forever myth of recent years fed by extreme central-bank easings and jawboning. So with stocks back in vogue in a major way, the allure of counter-moving gold for portfolio diversification evaporated. Just like it had during the past couple years.

Now I fully expect this love-stocks-hate-gold trend to reverse again just like it did back in January. But we first need to see the stock markets sell off for long enough to worry investors that their trend is once again lower. The sharp S&P 500 drops over this past week are a great start, but odds are well need to see a couple weeks of lower stock markets before investors start actively diversifying portfolios into gold again.

They remain radically underinvested. GLD is the best proxy by far for stock-market capital invested in gold. Back in late August, its total physical gold-bullion holdings held in trust for its shareholders were worth $40.3b. Meanwhile the collective market capitalization of all 500 elite S&P 500 stocks was way up at $20,063.4b. So gold investment represented just 0.2% of stock investors portfolios by this particular metric!

Thats absurdly low, practically nonexistent. For millennia, the worlds smartest and most-successful investors have advocated having at least 5% of every portfolio invested in gold. And while that bare-minimum goal is likely far too lofty for American stock investors brainwashed into believing gold has no use in the modern world economy, their gold holdings are still very low even by their own recent standards.

The last normal years before this latest artificial stock-market levitation driven by the Feds open-ended QE3 campaign ran from 2009 to 2012. During that span, the ratio of the value of GLDs holdings relative to the total market cap of all S&P 500 components averaged 0.475%. So American stock investors are woefully underinvested in gold today even by their own pathetic precedent, running at just 3/7ths normal levels.

This ongoing radical gold underinvestment despite this years huge GLD holdings build is glaringly obvious in this chart. It divides the total value of GLDs holdings by the collective market capitalization of the S&P 500, or SPX. American stock investors investment-capital inflows into gold are only beginning, with the lions share yet to come when this artificially-extended stock bull inevitably rolls over into a new bear.

In late August, American stock investors had only 0.198% of their portfolios allocated to gold per this GLD/SPX ratio! Thats really low relative to their own precedent after GLDs early-adoption years, which averaged 2.4x higher in that post-panic pre-QE3 normal-year span between 2009 to 2012. So they have vast GLD buying still left to do even from here merely to mean revert and normalize their gold exposure.

This young gold bulls overwhelmingly-dominant driver, heavy differential GLD-share demand from large American stock investors, is far from over. Once normal stock-market cycles driven by valuations again overpower central banks false assertion that theyve been eradicated, gold investment demand will come roaring back. And that will ignite and fuel golds next major upleg, likely again led by GLD inflows.

While GLD isnt the whole story of golds young new bull, its certainly the vast majority. The remainder has been driven by gold-futures trading by American speculators. As I warned back in mid-July, these guys added new long-side bets so aggressively last summer that they soared to all-time records. That made for a record gold-futures selling overhang that has really dogged gold in recent months, truncating any rallies.

With speculators hyper-leveraged gold-futures longs remaining at near-record levels ever since then, this elite group of traders hasnt had sufficient dry powder to bid gold higher. This too has contributed to the stalling gold prices in recent months. But digging into whats going on in gold futures in depth would require another whole essay. While important, the gold-futures developments take a back seat to GLD buying.

Gold stalled out in this third quarter because large American stock investors halted their diversification into gold via GLD shares. The miraculous resurgence of the long-in-the-tooth stock bull to a streak of new records this summer despite the Brexit votes success rekindled recent years love affair with stocks. But when these lofty overvalued stock markets unavoidably roll over, gold investment demand will soar again.

Investors can certainly play golds coming next upleg with GLD shares or physical gold coins. Gold is essential for all portfolios, as its tendency to move counter to stock markets provides a critical hedge for the rest of portfolios. But once that foundation is in place, golds gains will be dwarfed by those of the elite gold miners stocks. Their profits greatly leverage rising gold prices, yielding stock-price gains many times golds own.

The bottom line is golds young new bull market has stalled because American stock investors ceased aggressively buying GLD shares in the third quarter. The stunning new stock-market record highs soon after the long-feared Brexit vote this summer shifted attention away from gold back to stocks. Investment demand for gold wanes when stocks apparently do nothing but rally indefinitely, as recent years proved in spades.

But as these lofty, overvalued, central-bank-goosed stock markets inevitably roll over, American stock investors will once again look to counter-trending gold for prudent portfolio diversification. It was their heavy differential buying of GLD shares that catapulted gold sharply higher in the first half of 2016, so their return to gold buying will also ignite and fuel golds next major upleg. Get deployed now, before it arrives.

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 Copyright 2000-2015, Zeal Research (www.zealllc.com). Zeal Research is a US-based investment research company  you can visit their website at http://www.zealllc.com/. Zeals principals are lifelong contrarian students of the markets who live for studying and trading them. They employ innovative cutting-edge technical analysis as well as deep fundamental analysis to inform and educate people on how to grow and protect their capital through all market conditions. All views expressed in this article are those of the author, not those of TheBull.com.au. Please seek advice relating to your personal circumstances before making any investment decisions.
At the Human Rights Campaigns national dinner, Sen. Tim Kaine explained how he reconciled his support of marriage equality with Roman Catholic faith. Then he made a bold prediction: that the church will one day follow his lead.

I think its going to change because my church also teaches me about a creator who, in the first chapter of Genesis, surveyed the entire world, including mankind, and said, It is very good, said Kaine at the Sept.10 dinner, which he keynoted.

I want to add: Who am I to challenge God for the beautiful diversity of the human family? he continued. I think were supposed to celebrate it, not challenge it.

The answer from Catholic leaders came quickly: nope.

Kaines bishop, Francis DiLorenzo of the Richmond diocese, released a statement on Tuesday countering Kaines predictionbut without specifically mentioning the vice presidential candidate.

More than a year after the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling on marriage, and despite recent statements from the campaign trail, the Catholic Churchs 2000-year-old teaching to the truth about what constitutes marriage remains unchanged and resolute, the bishop said.

Marriage is the only institution uniting one man and one woman with each other and with any child who comes from their union, the statement added. Redefining marriage furthers no ones rights, least of all those of children, who should not purposely be deprived of the right to be nurtured and loved by a mother and a father.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement on Sept. 14 from two of its prominent membersthe bishops of Buffalo and Detroitreaffirming the churchs teaching: that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman.

The Catholic Churchs teaching on marriage as exclusively the permanent, faithful, and fruitful union of one man and one woman cannot change, their statement said.

The attempt to redefine the essential meaning of marriage is acting against the Creator, they added.

Other Catholic figures also ripped him for the remarks.

Kaine is simply preaching the gospel of another faithand it isn't the Catholic Faith, wrote Catholic World Report editor Carl Olson.

And Maureen Ferguson, a senior policy advisor at The Catholic Association, pointed out that Kaines hoped-for change wont happen on Pope Franciss watch.

If Sen. Kaine wants to go beyond politics to opine on the theology of the Catholic Church, he should at least consult Pope Francis most recent exhortation Amoris Laetitia, she said in a statement, in which Francis states, There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to Gods plan for marriage and family.

Kaine, who is a practicing Catholic, didnt always differ from his church on the marriage issue. When a Massachusetts court decision made it the first state to let same-sex couples marry, in 2003, Kaine released a statement saying marriage between a man and a woman is the building block of the family and a keystone of our civil society, and criticizing the ruling. And when he ran for governor of Virginia in 2005, he aired radio ads describing himself as a conservative on issues of personal responsibility and saying he opposed gay marriage.

His position since then has changed, and in 2013 he announced he supported marriage rights for same-sex couples. LGBTQ Nations John Gallagher described it as a finger-in-the-wind approach.

And marriage isnt the only issue where his positions diverge from the Catholic churchs teachings. Rome is unflinching in its opposition to abortion. And for much of his political career, Kaine took a comparatively moderate stance on the issue, backing a variety of policiesincluding parental notification for minors seeking abortionsthat pro-choice activists oppose. But since becoming Clintons running mate, he has suggested he might support a repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which would let taxpayer dollars pay for abortion procedures. For the most part, Catholic leaders are unequivocally opposed to this stance.

It isnt unusual for Catholic Democrats to face scrutiny as they aim to reconcile their religious beliefs with their partys stance on abortion rights and same-sex marriage. Catholic leaders regularly criticized Nancy Pelosi for her pro-choice stance. And then-Pope Benedict told her in person to back policies that protect human life at all stages of its development, the New York Times reported.

Vice President Joe Biden has also drawn criticism for supporting same-sex marriage. Three bishops criticized him, though not by name, a few days after he officiated a same-sex wedding last month, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

If Kaine stays as outspoken as hes been about his distaste for Romes teachings on marriage, he can expect to face plenty more heat from the bishops. But hell have company.
Looking at homicide cases from this year, Tom Casady doesnt see much of a telling pattern.

Probably the significant thing about this, to me, is that two of these were the result of drug dealings, Lincolns public safety director said recently. Three of them look like perpetrators with significant mental health issues.

Casady calls 2016 an unusual year for Lincoln. Last year, the city had one homicide; this year, it had nine by Aug. 1.

Four of them happened in the Belmont area, two just a week apart.

One Belmont homeowner, who didn't want to be named, said a meeting between police and area residents helped put people at ease. About 100 showed up for a community meeting with police at the beginning of August.

Northwest Lincoln Police Capt. Anthony Butler said police are spending more time in the area on patrol and on two projects: one on enforcement and the other on building relationships with residents.

"We want to ensure the public that lives in the area surrounding Portia and Knox and 14th and Adams that we continue to recognize that there has been an increase in high-profile incidents this year, including homicides," Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister said Tuesday. "Although there is a continued decrease in the overall violent crime, we are making strategic, intentional decisions in order to try and prevent criminal activity from occurring."

With each homicide, Lincolnites have asked the same question: Why? And they're worried that Lincoln is becoming more like bigger cities.

Answering the why isnt easy, Casady said, and being concerned is a natural reaction.

When you have small numbers, the incidents that happen arent indicative of a trend. (The number) bounces around from zero to 10 for 75 years, he said.  I think it's good people are concerned, but to assert were becoming like Chicago is out there.

The last year Lincoln had homicides in the double digits was 1987. Four of those deaths happened at once, when 53-year-old lawyer Stan Gushard, apparently provoked by financial problems, killed his wife and three children before shooting himself.

Also that year, a 4-year-old died as a result of child abuse, a man burned to death inside a building that was set on fire by his partner, a man died after an argument over a stolen coat, one person was killed in a robbery, a shooter thought he was exterminating the devil by killing a person, and someone was stabbed during an argument.

The reasons varied drastically, Casady noted, leaving people with no good answer why that year was so deadly compared with others. He pointed to mental health issues or domestic violence involved in at least seven of the 1987 killings.

Nine people were killed in 1992 and again in 1998.

This has been a very unusual year for us, Casady said. Last year we had one homicide that involved drug dealing. Im concerned about people involved in the high-risk behavior of selling and or buying drugs, setting themselves up to become victims.

Last year, 19-year-old Richard Randall was killed Nov. 29 during a botched drug deal. Police said Randall wasnt involved in the deal and was shot when he went to a friends apartment after the deal was over and the assailants returned.

Casady said Lincoln is just one of a handful of cities with more than 200,000 residents that consistently stays in the single digits for homicide statistics.

The other (cities) tend to be upper-income suburbs of larger metro areas, he said. In some ways, you can look among them and say were unique among real cities in having low homicide rates.

* Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Madison, Wisconsin, have population sizes just under Lincolns with an estimated 260,000 and 249,000 residents for 2015, respectively.

In 2014, Fort Wayne and Allen County reported 16 homicides. In 2015, there were 12. So far this year, the Indiana county's law enforcement has investigated 27 criminal deaths.

* Eight people were killed in Madison and Dade County in 2014. Last year, 11 people were killed and so far this year, seven have been killed.

* Toledo, Ohio, with a population of just a few more thousand than Lincoln, had 22 homicides in 2014, 24 in 2015 and 19 so far this year.

All three cities have more officers per capita than Lincoln, according to individual police department records.

Despite our small size, we do a good job focusing in the places and on the people that are most problematic, Casady said. The police department is part of that, but demographics are another part. ... We seem to have a stable population, we have a strong economy and I think that helps tremendously.

Its a lot of government, education, health care, he said. We have no explosive growth industries, no smokestack industries. The social construct is called 'collective efficacy,' people sense their sense of empowerment.

With just more than 320 sworn officers, Lincoln has about 12.5 per 10,000 residents. But no matter how large the department is, Casady said, murders are inherently reactive crimes.

They dont cluster here in Lincoln in time or in space, he said. They dont have a common cause that is amendable to direct police action. Many of them occur in closed spaces, homes and apartments where the police cant be and the police cant see. Murder is a difficult kind of crime to prevent, as very few murders happen out in the street.

On the other hand, there are nonviolent crimes that police can prevent. For example, if someone involved in selling narcotics is in jail for that crime, he or she cant be shot during a botched robbery, Casady said.

Adequate mental health care could have prevented other killings in 1987 and this year, he said.

Lincoln police officers responded to more than 1,500 mental health calls from Jan. 1 to July 25. That's more than three times the number of violent crimes that have occurred in the same time period, Casady said.

If you respond to domestic violence or gangs or drug dealings, you can directly impact homicides in that way, he said. I think we do a good job at that. ... One of our strong suits is our ability to use our resources efficiently.

Those resources include technological advancements and detailed crime tracking, but one of the most invaluable resources is the community itself.

We generate huge numbers of tips here, Casady said. Our Crime Stoppers program is very effective.

In 1987, the anonymous system received 608 calls, which led to 172 clear cases and 133 arrests.

Last year, Crime Stoppers got 1,953 tips, with 240 cases cleared and 340 arrests.

As of July 28 this year, at least 1,161 tips were received, clearing 82 cases and leading to 141 arrests, all thanks to the community, Casady said.

We have strong blocks, strong neighborhood associations, tight-knit neighborhoods and lots of neighbors who know each other really well, he said. They watch out for each other.

Lincoln has 416 active Neighborhood Watch groups and 490 business watch members, according to Officer Katie Flood.

Its very different to develop that sense in a rent-by-the-month motel, said Casady. People dont know one another. There isnt anybody looking out for your children. Lincoln has a lot of neighborhoods that are good to the core and care about their neighbors. They do something when theres something going wrong and theyre willing to report things that need to be fixed.
This past month, as Americans triumphed in the (sometimes) glistening waters in Rio, other Americans many thousands of them  once again waded through sludgy, knee-high and deeper inundations to rescue their families, their neighbors, and their cherished belongings. While the countrys attention bobbed between the Olympics and this endless tabloid election, Louisiana families paddled in the darkness  not only was the power out, the medias bright lights failed to illuminate Louisianas struggle and story. The failure to chronicle one of natures most powerful acts was pronounced enough that The New York Times public editor declared that papers coverage too little, too late.

Louisiana took on 10.4 million Olympic-size swimming pools worth of wateralmost three times the rain that fell during Katrina. Those nearly seven trillion gallons of water were focused in just one-third of the states parishes, overrunning small tributaries and causing larger ones to swell into sprawling lakes. An estimated 150,000 Louisianians have filed for relief from FEMA. Nearly 160,000 structures were damaged, including more than 55,000 homes and more than 19,000 businesses. More than 20,000 people were rescued by brave first responders and volunteers, including the Cajun Navy. As of this past week, FEMA was still housing more than 1,500 families in shelters.

Beyond the fearsome toll on property, we are most concerned with the impact this disaster will have on the families and children of Louisiana. We know more than 32 schools have been temporarily closed, just as the new academic year was to begin. That means 17,335 children whose lives and communities have been washed out must now contend with a major disruption in their education. Research has long shown that children experience disaster-induced trauma in even more profound and concerning dimensions than adults do.

The short-term post-traumatic stress suffered after disasters like this one might also rouse long-term behavioral health issues in children. Furthermore, access to health and mental health services for children has been impacted by physical damage to health facilities, as well as displacement of families and providers. More than 400 critical in-home nursing visits for at-risk families have been missed, along with dozens of health facilities with flood-impacted staffs and limited operating capability.

These are the heartbreaking realities for the victims and survivors of the Louisiana floods. But the scale of the disaster and the monumental recovery effort that will be required have yet to be acknowledged by an equally profound interest from the media. Unfortunately, the pattern of disaster coverage is all too familiar, often beginning with a deluge only to slow to a drip as the hard work of recovery begins to grind forward.

The coverage of Sandy, the hurricane the media deemed a superstorm  that struck the Northeast coast may be an exception to the usual pattern, making it no surprise that Congress appropriated nearly $5 billion in much needed recovery aid for communities affected by it.

Although the Red Cross called the 2016 floods the biggest disaster to hit this country since Sandy, the Louisiana catastrophe received barely half as much media coverage. We are concerned that as what attention there has been wanes, so will pressure on Congress to make sure that the state gets the assistance required to help every devastated community get back to a somewhat normal state as rapidly as possible.

A recent analysis of coverage by Columbia Universitys National Center for Disaster Preparedness showed a 24-hour spike in news stories about the Louisiana floods when Candidate Donald Trump showed up on August 19 for a photo-op at a relief supply station. Another somewhat more sustained wave of stories accompanied a site visit by President Obama four days later.

Unfortunately, in both cases the news stories  both in print and broadcast seemed to focus mostly on the political implications of those high-profile appearances, rather than the massive recovery effort that will severely challenge Louisianas citizens and its resources.

Recovery will likely be measured in years, not months. While Louisianas irrepressibly courageous citizens continue to struggle forward, we are concerned that the media has lost interest just when focus needs to be intensified.

Admittedly, covering recovery is not an easy assignment for a journalist. Getting a handle on the scope and complexity of rebuilding communities is not simple by any measure; following the recovery money trail requires determination and dogged persistence.

But the lives and well-being of many people in Louisiana are on the line, and its only the media that can make sure that they are not forgotten by a Congress that seems more distracted by presidential politics than recognizing and responding to the urgent needs of citizens in the aftermath of a major disaster.

Rebekah Gee, M.D. is Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health. Irwin Redlener, MD is president of the Childrens Health Fund and professor at the Mailman School of Public Health and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University
Nothing dismantles claims of post-racial colorblindness quite like white Christian schoolchildren casually debating how to say the n-word. A student from the First Academy in Orlando, Florida, was criticized recently on social media for an Instagram post asking whether it was more respectful to use the n-word with an er or an a at the end.

While the question was originally posted in June, it got renewed attention earlier this month when a New York Daily News columnist posted it on Twitter. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement quickly spread it, decrying the post as another example of the racism bubbling up across America. The furor prompted the private Christian school to release a statement on race relations.

Sadly, the Instagram post is not that surprising, given the typical racial makeup of many Christian schools and their history of segregation.

While Catholic schools have existed throughout U.S. history, private Christian schools emerged en masse in the aftermath of the civil-rights movement. The Supreme Court declared public-school segregation unconstitutional in its unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. Many school systems, particularly across the South, resisted compliance while some families saw the handwriting on the wall and decided to act.

Fearful at the thought of their children mingling with black students, many white Christian families founded private segregation academies to skirt the law. Many were Christian institutions, and fundamentalist evangelicals founded several of the most prominent ones. Non-Catholic Christian schools doubled their enrollments between 1961 and 71.

Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, for example, started Lynchburg Christian Academy in 1967, when his towns public schools integrated. Because Brown did not apply to private schools, institutions like Falwells could practice segregation while still receiving federal tax benefits. But all of this changed with the series of Supreme Court decisions in the late 60s and early 70s that forced public schools to integrate and declared racially discriminatory private schools ineligible for tax-exempt status.

Despite pressure from the government, these private Christian schools refused to go quietly into the night. Some refused to cooperate with IRS inquiries, hiding their internal operations behind the banner of religious freedom. Others, such as Bob Jones University, proudly declared their racist policies. But most knew they needed to change their rhetoric in order to survive.

During this period, private Christian schools had to construct a bigger rationale for their existence than wanting an all-white classroom, says Seth Dowland, a religion professor and author of Family Values and the Rise of the Religious Right. Leaders outside the South helped construct the rationale as combating secular humanism and their inculcating secularism and liberalism, even though the racial component was a huge part of the story as well.

This anti-liberalism line was enough to provide cover for these private Christian schools. Only a few actually incurred penalties from the IRS. And similar institutions flooded the American marketplace, positioning themselves as viable alternatives to public education for white families.

Between 1970 and 1980, enrollment in non-Catholic religious schools more than doubled, to 1.3 million from 561,000. And by the early 1980s, religious right leaders like Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye, bragged that evangelical Christians were opening new schools at a rate of three per day. While they figured out how to win the culture wars, these white Christian leaders figured they could retreat to private schools where they could teach children as they pleased.

These schools thrived throughout the following decades with predominately white student bodies and leadership. In a sweeping survey of Christian schools, journalist Paul Parsons estimated that minorities constituted less than 3 percent of the student population in most of these schools during the mid-1980s. In 1987, the Association for Christian Schools Internationals executive board included 29 white people and exactly zero racial minorities.

That history has proven difficult to shake for todays private Christian schools. The institutions are still overwhelmingly attended by children from wealthy white families. Forty-three percent of these private schools have student bodies that are at least 90 percent white. In many Southern Christian schools, not a single black person can be found. At others, only a handful of minority children attend.

These students are shaped by Christian schools curricula that purport to teach traditional values. Randall Balmer, a historian of religion at Dartmouth College and author of The Making of Evangelicalism, said many popular textbooks used in Christian schools teach American history in ways that privilege white culture. For example, the books often downplay the displacement of Native Americans or minimize slavery by noting its positive effects, such as introducing slaves to Christianity.

Ideas matter, and they have consequences, Balmer says. If children are taught to heroicize European settlement in North America, it is inevitable that youre going to have a particular view of people who are not a part of that wave of settlement.

Dowland also surveyed major Christian school curriculum publishers and found complaints about multiculturalism as a goal of public education. As the University of New Hampshire historian Jason Sokol noted, [Christian school] supporters wanted to create a world where racial tensions did not exist, so they built schools where racial differences had no place.

While the civil-rights movement forced most Americans to deal with our distinctions and tensions, the advent of private Christian schools often allowed children to avoid confronting it. This doesnt mean that Christian schools today teach racism or overtly try to promote white privilege, but their homogenous classroom and curricula often incubate these attitudes.

We assume that a racist is a bad, old bigot. Thats not how racism operates. It happens because whiteness is the unnamed water we sit in, says Dowland. So you have these largely homogenous student bodies where you dont get defiant segregation like you might have in the 1960s, but whiteness is still quietly privileged in these settings.

Children are not born racist. But the words kids hear from their parents and authority figures can instill prejudice. And walled fortresses that keep children from interacting with children of other races can, too.

Perhaps the most telling part of the First Academy students racist post was the way other students casually weighed in with their opinions. One student commented, Lmao both. If youre best friends, you can say it with a hard r. But if you regularly chill, then you just say nia. Which prompted another student to respond, Ya. But if youre driving down the road and you see a dark person, what would you say?

After the Daily News Shaun King posted the thread on Twitter, he received a flood of letters from First Academy alums and former students revealing a deep-seated bigotry. The student body is very racist, one First Academy student said. They, for example, hang Confederate flags from their cars, and place them as their iPhone backgrounds. They even, believe it or not, sculpt them and submit them into TFA art shows.

The First Academy incident is not an isolated case of one immature student posting insensitive ideas online. It is a stark illustration of how racism can echo across generations, and a call for private and Christian schools to become more diligent in promoting diversity and policing students prejudice. It is also a reminder that Americans are not as colorblind as some assume. Even the most pious among us have quite a way to go.
On the morning of March 11th, 2004, ten bombs exploded during the morning commute at Madrids Atocha train station. One hundred and ninety-two people were murdered and over 2,000 injured. Three days later, the government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar lost power in an election that swung suddenly to the Socialist Party.

The attack, the deadliest in Spains history, was seen by many as an al-Qaeda-inspired retaliation for the Aznar governments support for the already unpopular U.S. invasion of Iraq. In jihadist lore, this is a legendary success story: a terror attack that inspired enough fear to swing a Western election.

This story has been kicking around the back of my cabeza since Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, and I thought of it again after the explosion Saturday night in Chelsea. Demographic math and a basic failure by the celebrity demagogue to reach out beyond his base makes a general election win unlikely but hardly impossible. Trump cant be counted out until all the votes are counted.

Though hes a uniquely unqualified candidate, Ive been concerned about an outside X-Factor event suddenly changing the emotional calculus of the electorate in ways that we would later regret. This could be a sudden economic collapse or a cyber October-surprise. But terrorism has always seemed the prime known-unknown.

After all, terrorism is now a depressingly regular feature of American life. While no attacks have rivaled 9/11, we saw at least 45 thwarted terror plots in the first ten years after the destruction of the World Trade Center and in the last year alone suffered horrific losses in the San Bernardino and Orlando slaughters. But we have no template for the impact of an attack just before an American election.

We are in a long war, a generational struggle against radical jihadist terrorism, as Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said. Many attacks have been the result of lone wolves, darkly inspired rather directed by centralized terror organizations, like the Boston bombing. This risk wont evaporate overnight, no matter who is elected president in less than two months.

Trump has based his campaign on fear and anger of the other, most infamously pledging to at least temporarily stop Muslim immigration to the United States (later dialed back to an ambiguous regional restriction). Fear of immigration, especially Muslim immigration, has been a mainstay not only of Trumps campaign but also his European dopplegangers in UKIP and Le Pens National Front Party, which has been buoyed by repeated horrific jihadist attacks from Paris to Nice.

Trump rarely loses an opportunity to exploit terror. Within minutes of initial fog-of-war reports about Saturday nights explosion in Chelsea, Trump told a crowd in Colorado Springs that a bomb had gone off in New York and while nobody knows exactly what's going on but, boy we are really in a timewe better get tough folks." Always classy, he then touted a new poll showing him 4-points up.

He has previously tried to make political hay of the San Bernardino and Orlando attacks, with less than successful results. But now were 50 days from the election and polls show the race is tightening. To some extent, thats to be expected.

But after months of primaries and analytic navel-gazing this is real time, with 29 people injured by an explosion in the heart of New York, just a few blocks from The Daily Beasts headquarters. This came hours after an apparent IED exploded in Seaside, New Jersey, on the site of a U.S. Marine charity race, which had been mercifully delayed, curtailing casualties. There is still much we dont know about both detonations, but New York City Mayor Bill de Blasios statement calling the Chelsea bomb was an intentional act but adding we do not see a link to terrorism. A Saturday night stabbing of eight people at a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, by a man in a security guard uniform was claimed by ISIS on Sunday morning, which issued a statement describing the assailant as "a soldier of the Islamic State." This dark trifecta of weekend incidents one week after the anniversary of 9/11 all add to the drumbeat of anxiety which has driven many voters into the arms of Trump, someone they see as a strong man in chaotic times.

More detailed information will come in over the coming hours and days. But theres reason to fear this pattern could continue between now and November. Whether it is the work of lone wolves or something more coordinated, it doesnt take Nostradamus to see that terrorists view President Trump as an asset in their efforts to portray America as discredited and in decline. His divisive instincts play perfectly into ISIS attempts to recast what used to be called The War on Terror as a war between America and Islam everywhere, rather than a rag-tag band of extremists, many radicalized remotely, parading under the broad banner of an apocalyptic death cult.

If this pattern continuing sounds unlikely, consider the fact that Americas two biggest geo-political competitors, Russia and China, have been cheering the prospect of a Trump presidency, presumably because they see it as a harbinger of American decline and retreat from the world, despite all the tough guy rhetoric. Its a helpful bit of historical symmetry that America First has consistently symbolized a flag-waving acquiescence to overseas dictators with bloody expansionist ambitions.

The fact that so many of the Republican Partys national security mandarins have declared Donald Trump unfit for office, should offer a reality check for reflexive Republicans and open-minded independents alike. The latest respected figure to join this chorus was former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal, on national security, I believe Mr. Trump is beyond repair. He is stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniformHe is unqualified and unfit to be commander in chief."

Against this unflattering backdrop, its tempting to say that the hawkish former Secretary of States Hillary Clinton could be in a better position to benefit if, God forbid, terror attacks continue through the election. After all, she has a demonstrated record on national security and far more detailed policy proposals on how to deal with ISIS, (which admittedly isnt hard given Trumps laughable talk of a secret plan to the win the war.)

But sexism impacts negative perceptions of Hillary Clinton just as racism fueled many of the unhinged criticisms of President Obama, especially the Birther conspiracy theories that Trump did so much to pump up over the past five years. We have no national template for a Golda Meir-type leader in our country. There will be many who are susceptible to the idea that an older woman cant possible be as tough on terrorism as a blustery old man who loves to declare that hell bomb the shit out of ISIS. "Strong and wrong" leaders have real emotional appeal during times of crisis. The certainty of the demagogue can be more compelling than the sober strategies offered by statesmen and stateswomen.

As we get more information, it may be that these incidents are not connected with terrorism but the ensuing drumbeat of anxiety only adds to Trumps desire to declare himself a prophet who warned about terrorism and immigration before it was cool. This all falls into his fear-based wheelhouse.

Terrorism is one of the defining fights of our time. But terror, of course, is designed to elicit fear and change policy and behavior in ways that benefits terrorists. We unfortunately know that a precedent exists for terrorists impacting a western governments elections. Well need to steel ourselves and hope that Americans vote with their head as well as heart on November 8th.
The most notorious part of Donald Trumps campaign platform during the Republican primary was his promise to deport eleven million illegal immigrants from the United States. Its a bold and alarming policy, but hes not the first to use forced migration as political strategy. From forcing others into exile or foreign labor, displacing large groups during warfare, taking prisoners of war, or even enslaving others, forced migration has taken a number of shapes and forms in the past. While the only constant here is the devastating impact it has on the lives of those involved, it doesnt always turn out well for the oppressors either.

In the sixth century BCE the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar swept through the kingdom of Judah and besieged the city of Jerusalem. After the city fell in 597 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar took the pro-Babylonian King Jehoiakim, his family, and aristocrats from the royal court to Babylon. There they remained for two generations until the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great sent the people back to the land of Israel. The trauma that surrounds the Babylonian Captivity is felt throughout the pages of the Hebrew Bible. A mere generation later the Persians would conquer Babylon and send the exiles home. For his role in this, the book of Isaiah names Cyrus the Great the messiah.

If the Babylonian exile was about a foreign force moving the Israelites to their capital city, there were a number of other foreign powers (the Romans, the Spanish, almost every Western European country) that wanted to expel Jews from within their borders. In 1290, King Edward I issued the Edict of Expulsion, a legal measure that forced Jews  around 2,000 in all  out of England. In many ways the Edict was the culmination of two centuries of rising anti-Jewish sentiment, sentiments that included myths of blood-libel, accusations of extortion, rising taxation, and the requirement that Jews wear an identifying mark.
It boggles the mind, but New York Times columnist Maureen Dowdwhos been on the case for the past 21 years and won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for commentaryclaims her lofty perch on the Op-Ed page occasionally causes panic attacks.

Not just in the politicians she laceratesbut also in her.

I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes in terror, Dowd told me while promoting her latest book, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics, a collection of her reported pieces and opinion columns dating back to the early 1990s as well as several freshly-written book-worthy essays. This job is such a huge responsibility, and I think, why do I have it?

Thats a question that probably also occurs to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trumpfrequent objects of Dowds pitiless, skewering gazeto say nothing of presidents Bill Clinton, both George Bushes, and Barack Obama. (Dowd won her Pulitzer for a series of columns on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.)

Indeed, Bush 43s vice president, Dick Cheney, once told an interviewer concerning a just-published Dowd column, I thought Maureen was out to lunch, as she frequently is, and when his wife Lynne chimed in, That was off the record, the Veep corrected her, No it wasnt.

As for Obama, he has little use for Dowd, and the White House pointedly excludes her from the off-the-record briefings that the president occasionally holds with important Washington pundits to explain his thinking behind various policy choices.

Former top Obama aide David Axelrod revealed in his 2015 memoir Believer that when Dowd interviewed the then-senator aboard his 2008 campaign plane, Obama proceeded to blister her for a previous column she had written. No one got under Baracks skin more than Maureen He was patronizing and disrespectful

After that awkward encounter, Axelrod continued, she seemed to take particular delight in psychoanalyzing Barack and belittling him in print, which only deepened his contempt Why are you friends with her? he would demand after Maureen sent one of her acid darts his way.

Dowds new book, her third, is an often-alarming examination of Trump and the Clintonsplus a meditation on the Bush dynasty and what she describes as her screwball comedy relationship with the old manand her close encounters with each over the decades.

The youngest of five children of a police inspector-father and a witty news junkie-mother, with whom Dowd was exceedingly close until her death at age 97, Dowd attended Catholic schools in Washington, D.C., and began her career as an editorial assistant in 1974 at the now-defunct Washington Star; she later worked as staff writer for Time magazine before joining the Times as a metro reporter in 1983, eventually becoming the papers White House correspondent.

In her book, she finds the reality television real estate mogul an oddly charming sexist, megalomaniac and narcissist, ill-informed yet supremely confident. She finds the former senator and secretary of state a public-spirited idealist, meticulously steeped in policy details, yet damaged by a discordant and self-defeating penchant for secrecy and greed.

The blustery Trump, at least in one respecthis thoroughgoing ignorance of the issuesis not unique, she says. While policy-oriented politicians like the late New York governor Mario Cuomo, the son of Italian immigrants, always wondered if he was worthy of the presidency, Dowd said, people like Trump and Sarah Palin and Dubya and [former vice president Dan] Quayle dont agonize at all. Theyre just like, Yeah! Im ready! And they dont study at all.

With Trumplike Bush 43, Quayle and Palinyoud think that if somehow you fell into clover and youre on your partys ticket, you would get a tutor and study 12 hours a day. But they never do. Palin didnt know where Iraq was, and Dubya didnt know about Medicare, and Trump doesnt know anything. If you get rewarded for a lack of something, you dont think of fixing it, and it would never have occurred to any of them to think about worthiness.

Dowd has dissected Trump plenty in her column, and her book includes not only essays in anguished support of the often outrageous nominee by her Republican older siblings, Kevin and Peggy, but also a merciless takedown of Trump by Dowds friend Rita Beamish, who covered the first Bush White House for the Associated Press, and writes that the GOP standard bearer is indefensible and dangerous. (Kevin Dowd, Maureen said, begged to have his essay killed after Trump attacked the Gold Star Kahn family, but the manuscript was already at the printing press.)

A lot of my friends wont read my interviews with Trump because theyre like, You shouldnt be talking to him! and giving him space to say anything, Dowd confided. Rita has a very finely tuned moral compass, so I told her, OK, give it your best shot. Rita is a righteous voice.

And doesnt Maureen Dowd have a finely tuned moral compass?

I dont know, she dodged.

Yet she clearly does. When it comes to Trump vs. Clinton, Dowd is an equal opportunity faultfinder. I know its hard for Times readers to understand this, but I dont do an ideological column. My columns are not from the left or the right. I dont choose a team and then support it all the way.

She added: There is plenty to reproach Trump for, and I do. But that doesnt mean that Hillary is above reproach. I think its really bad for democracythis idea that she should get a pass, that no one should say anything critical about her because the alternative is the abyss, as she said at a fundraiser. I dont think thats a healthy attitude.

Dowd remains censorious of Clintons 2002 Senate vote to authorize military action in Iraqa vote the Democratic nominee has admitted was a mistake. Hillary is Miss Homework, but she didnt do her homework, Dowd said. She didnt read the National Intelligence Estimatethe nonpartisan document that cast doubt on whether Saddam Hussein indeed possessed weapons of mass destruction, as the Bush White House claimedand thats something she does have to answer for.

Dowd steadfastly refuses to say who she prefers as Leader of the Free World, not even as a citizen. I dont ever say who Im voting for.

Dowds victims (as they might consider themselves) would no doubt be surprised to learn that she considers herself the sort of bundle of insecurities that she regularly diagnoses in them as part of her role as the establishments resident shrink, as former Politico executive Jim VandeHei called her in his recent review of her book in Dowds paper.

Thats funny, she said about the shrink description. Once, at a movie screening of [Oliver Stones] Nixon, Bob Woodward was talking about how he was like a shrink to Nixon like I was to Clinton, and said, Every president gets the psychoanalyst he deserves.

Dowd, with her working-class Irish-Catholic roots, resists being tagged as a member of the Washington establishment. It doesnt sound that attractive to be called the establishment person or the elite person. I guess I am because I have an amazing perch at the New York Times. But I hope I try to keep a sort of rebellious spirit going.

Dowd, who grew up in a household that revered John F. Kennedy, said she makes it a point never to befriend the politicians she writes about, even Bush 41, with whom she has enjoyed free and frank epistolary relationship (chronicled for the first time in The Year of Voting Dangerously.)

People always ask me, Do you like this politician? Do you dislike him? I dont think of them that way, Dowd said. Im not trying to get to dinner parties and being friends with them. I think checks and balances are importantmore so when Dick Cheney was trying to take them awayand Im not trying to cozy up to them.

Still, Dowd concedes that there are certain politicians, like Arizona Sen. John McCain and Poppy, as she tends to call Bush the elder in print, using his preppy nickname, who are difficult to resist.

When a politician has so much charm, you really feel drawn to them, and it was hard not to feel that way about John McCain and the first President Bush. But I take my professional responsibilities seriously. He would write me a lot of letters agonizing about the fact that I was being hard on his son.

And when it comes to agonizing, Dowd can empathize.

Its really stressful, she said about her column, which last year went from twice to once a week on Saturdays online and Sundays in the paper when Dowd returned to long-form journalism as a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine.

When I first got the column [in 1995, after a dozen years in the Times Washington bureau], my skin was breaking out and my hair was falling out and I was curled up on the floor of my house. I remember one night after I finished writing I stopped by Popeyes to get some fried chicken, and I went to put on Clearasil and looked in the mirror and I thought, Wow. This is not how [fellow Times columnist] William Safire spends his nights!

After six months of such agony, Dowd went to then-editorial page editor Howell Raines and suggested that maybe she wasnt temperamentally suited to be writing a column for the Times. He said, Ok, you can go back and be a Metro reporter, and I said, Ok, Ill try it a little longer.

Dowd explained: Its kind of like a yin-yang thing. Im a yin personality. Im really shy. But the dilemma is that I have a yang job designed to grab attention.

Dowda striking redhead with a deceptively kittenish demeanor, and the subject of multiple magazine profiles over the yearsis one of the most recognizable figures in the journalism biz, and shes been practically living on cable and network television this past week as part of seven-city national book tour that will last until after the Nov. 8 election.

Yet she vehemently, if not persuasively, denies that shes a celebrity.

No, I dont think so, Dowd insisted, pointing out that in order to be famous in this country, one has to be a television fixture. Im usually not on TV. Im terrible and its terrifying.

She recalled an early appearance on NBC at the 2004 Republican convention to tout her first book Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk. I was on with Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert and I absolutely began hyperventilating. My family doctorwho was anti-drugs, and wouldnt prescribe any kind of anti-depressantscalled me and said, I think you need to come in and get some Xanax or something, because you are fatootsedthe Yiddish expression for driven to distraction.

Another time, one of her girlfriendspossibly the Times Alessandra Stanley, Dowd recallsgave her a beta blocker to calm her down before a radio appearance. Suddenly I said to the host, Where am I? And who am I? I couldnt even remember who I was.

A subsequent appearance on CBSs Late Show with David Letterman was the most terrifying thing ever, Dowd recalled. He was really sweet but I couldnt even remember what I said afterwards. I was just happy that words were coming out, but probably not coming out in any good order.

Ive known Dowd for more than three decades, since the days when I worked for The Washington Post and she was a feature writer for The Star, and she told me she never imagined herself in those days as a famous figure of Powertown.

She laughed when I asked about her futureif she had any idea what would happen first, getting married or writing her memoir.

Neither, I guess, said Dowd, who is single like her late friend Mary McGrory, the legendary newspaper columnist for whom Dowd regularly helped out at McGrorys cocktail parties, serving Teddy Kennedy his daiquiris.

I would like to get married. Would you put a want ad at the end of your piece? joked Dowd, who in years past has been linked to such luminaries as Michael Douglas, Aaron Sorkin and even Howell Raines. You know I dont discuss my personal life.

And the memoir?

One time, I was talking to my mom about a friend of mine who was going to write a memoir, and my mom said, Of whom?

Dowd added: Ive always thought mystery was an interesting quality, and Im going to try to keep as much of that as I can.
Theres a moment in Raw, the fiercely confident debut from French helmer Julia Ducournau, that makes the stomach turn with such finely tuned revulsion its no wonder multiple patrons fled for the aisles with the gurgles mid-movie this week in Toronto. After introducing us to her young protagonist Justine (Garance Marillier), a wide-eyed vegetarian virgin whose hunger for flesh has just been awoken in her first year of veterinary school, we feel the silent pull within her for just a taste, then a nibble, of the most forbidden of foodstuffs. Within seconds shes devouring her first morsel of finger-lickin human like its a chicken wing. The nausea we feel? Its the repulsion of recognition.

Raw (French title: Grave) took home the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes where the gory French-Belgian picture world premiered in May, but it scored even higher compliments at the Toronto Film Festival: It made audience members faint from shock, or at least thats how its legend will go down in the annals of horror cinema. Ive heard the patrons felled by Raws more outre scenes, in a film filled with gaping flesh wounds and at least one sensual eyeball-licking, were men, which only underscores the films power as a feminist fable: Women can withstand a great deal when it comes to real-life body horrors, all the more reason to teach new generations to embrace their cravings and desires before the self-suppression becomes the horror in itself.

Unfortunately, thats a lesson Justine has to learn the hard way. We meet her rejecting a mouthful of mashed potatoes, finding an errant and offensive piece of sausage mixed into her plate. Her parents, both veterinarians and vegetarians, have raised her to just say no to meat. The timid but bookish teen has a bleeding heart for animals, too, so it makes sense that shed follow in the footsteps of her family and head for vet school, where her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) is already studying.

At 16, the timid Justine is a church mouse in a den of predators entering her first week of veterinary college. Stuck with a hot gay roommate named Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella) as sexually frank as she is naive, she wanders into a series of college hazing rituals like a deer in headlightscorralled in her underwear with her fellow coeds like cattle, doused in animal blood, humiliated in the hallways by senior students, Justine gets no help from her older sister Alexia, a cool girl living her own outsized party life.

But everything changes the day Justine is peer pressured into eating a raw rabbits kidney, despite her protestations of vegetarianism. The ramifications are physical, not philosophical, starting with deftly conceived, small-scale Cronenbergian horrors that start to manifest in her body. Even here, the realistic gore effects make you wince like a paper cut: When a campus doctor determines it must have been something Justine ate, Ducournau teases her audience by peeling patches of her heroines flaky epidermis off, like a snake shedding its skin.

Ducournaus stylistic flourishes reflect Justines animalistic transformation even before Justine catches on to whats happening to her. At first she tries to fight the hunger, confused and repulsed by her own impulses. Matter-of-fact flashes of life around the vet school become increasingly invasive, reflecting her internal transformation. We glimpse a horse on a treadmill, rodents floating in formaldehyde in jars, and Alexia in class, elbow deep in a cows rectum. Soon Justines coldly slicing open a dog cadaver, spilling its guts as Adrien gapes on at the unrecognizable creature before him.

Set in the hallways, dorm rooms, and wide quads of an almost dystopian cemented campus, Raw makes the most of its college setting. As the first drops of liberation dance upon Justines tongue, she experiments as college freshmen are wont to do with drinking, partying, and sex. The problem is she has no idea how to manage her esoteric new tastes. Like many a freshman on their own for the first time, she takes overzealous bites where she can, overcompensating for years of inhibition with increasingly dangerous results and tanking her social life and studies in the process.

Justines dark evolution is played astonishingly well by Marillier, who sells Justines awakening with such beautifully naked naivete we feel every desire, thirst, and emotion. She has the look of a French Saoirse Ronan and the capability to play Justines bewildered panic with the sparest of glimpses. As Justines hunger escalates beyond her own comprehension, Marillier plays it with the quiet shame of an addict: First, a hamburger patty. Then a nighttime bite of raw chicken. Soon the boys in class are starting to look a new kind of tasty. By the time Justine realizes what it is she craves Marillier transforms herself with a feral power that emanates in her physicality and her eyes, a predator hiding in a young girls body.

Oufella (recently seen, appropriately enough, in Girlhood) makes a strong impact as Adrien, the roommate whose own sexual awakening allows him to see Justines struggle but whose compassion comes back to bite him. Through his friendship Justine gets to explore her truest self, and the payoff as she hungrily explodes in a bloody burst of S&M sex is dangerous, sexy, and almost cathartic. But its Justines relationship with Alexia, the only other person who sees her for who she is, that propels the film forward to its bloody conclusion. If Raw is a feminist sexual parable, the toxic rivalry between the sisters is just as pointedif harder to untangle.

Ducournau acutely understands the dark dynamics of female and sibling rivalryparticularly between sisters so close in ageas well as the importance of women teaching each other not only how to survive in the world, but to process the disorienting emotions of entering young adulthood. Alexia begrudgingly teaches her square sis how to pee while standing and what to wear to look slutty, but shes not interested in helping her sister figure out her own internal agonies. That failure leads to Raws centerpiece scene, one that begins with Alexia administering Justines first bikini wax and ends in a breathtaking escalation of absurdly wicked horror.

This cannibal coming-of-age drama is a helluva horror story that joins the ranks of the modern pop feminist nightmares that have come before: What Ginger Snaps did with lycanthropy and The Craft did with its witchy teens, Raw does for the cannibal subgenre by aligning Justines burgeoning appetite with her sexual awakening. Vegetarians may not care for its anti-veggie agendaits really quite a pro-animal film, if you really think about itbut Ducournau risks offending them for the greater good: To encourage young women to embrace their natural desires, to tell them its okay to hunger for sinful delights (lest they be overtaken by them). Justines journey to becoming cinemas most sympathetic cannibal coed is a delicious and maybe even necessary one for those strong enough to stomach it.
You dont have to be a member of the media to go read Hillary Diane Rodhams senior thesis. You just have to get yourself up to Wellesley and do it in person. And I should warn you that the cab from Logan ran me $75, without tip.

They get a lot of calls about it, the nice people at Wellesley told me, but when the callers are informed that they have to come read it in person, few follow through. I assume that most of the callers are Hillary haters, on the prowl for evidence of her plot to destroy America

Spoiler alert: If you go there searching for sentences like Comrade Alinsky has shown us the one true way to overthrow the existing order, you will come away disappointed. The Hillary who comes across in the thesis 74 pages is basically the Hillary we know, albeit a slightly farther left, college-age version. And like the Hillary we know now, the young woman who wrote this paper is hesitant to reveal much about herself, except in one striking sentence at the end, which well get to.

It was fascinating just to see it, in a way. Christopher Hennessy of media relations walked me up to the archives room and introduced me to Mary Yearl, who was behind the desk; she pointed to a slim, hard- bound manuscript cradled on two foam wedges atop a conference table. There it is, she said.

If youre young, youre wondering what Im banging on about. But if youre of a certain age or are a true Clinton-scandal connoisseur, you know that back in the 1990s, this little document was purported to contain all the clues needed to crack the case of Clintons well-concealed radicalism.

Why indeed did she even choose as her subject Saul Alinsky, the organizer of poor peoples campaigns who proudly proclaimed himself a radical? I seem also to remember some craziness about how shed had every copy burned or something. The thesis, in the right-wing fever swamps, was the Red Rosetta Stone. (This is the conspiracy theory Ben Carson revived, with quite a twist, at the Republican Convention, when he veered off script to tie Clinton, through Alinsky, to Lucifer.)

So what is it actually? Its called There Is Only One Fight: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model. The title comes from an Eliot poem that serves as the epigram. Theres a short, cheeky Acknowledgments paragraph (Although I have no loving wife to thank for keeping the children away while I wrote...), and a specific date, rendered as 2 May, 1969, three weeks after 300 Harvard students seized the administration building, which our coed would surely have been watching closely.

Basically, Clinton seems to have been interested in two questions, one concrete and one abstract. The concrete one was: Can poor people be organized into a powerful political force? The abstract one, which was in the water on college campuses in those days, could be put something like: What do these words like radical and democracy even mean, and can we challenge their currently understood meanings in ways that might distribute power more broadly to those who dont have it? Heres a short but representative passage:

This faith in democracy and in the peoples ability to make it is peculiarly American and many might doubt its radicalness. Yet, Alinskys belief and devotion is radical; democracy is still a radical idea in a world where we often confuse images with realities, words with actions.

Her musings on the abstract question go back and forth between endorsing a more confrontational posture here and one more rooted in consensus there. Theres a long discussion of conflict theory, which was pretty au courant at the time, and which held that conflicts between groups that have unequal power are inevitable and necessary and can provide the necessary group cohesion to spur the less powerful group to action. Put more simply, that conflict can serve a social function. She cites the sociologist Lewis Coser a lot, who strikes me as a very Hillary sort of person to citehe was of the left but also a critic of the left.

The longest chapter looks at three case studies of Alinsky organizing projects and why they succeeded (in the first case) and failed (in the other two). The first case was the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago, where Alinskys efforts were successful in bringing jobs and opportunity to the neighborhood in part because the people there were white ethnic Catholics who had real representation in City Hall, including in the form of Mayor Richard J. Daley himself. The two other cases, in Chicagos Woodlawn neighborhood and in Rochester, New York, didnt work out so well; the reason, of course, was race. In Rochester, Alinsky formed a group in the black neighborhood called FIGHT. The Kodak Corporation at first was actually cooperative, even promising to build a plant there, which it never did, at least as of May 1969.

The Woodlawn effort collapsed after the group Alinsky formed got a $900,000 War on Poverty grant, some of which went to gang leaders who were persuaded to take on organizing roles. These payments were derided as bribes to gangs (black, needless to say) and led to congressional hearings and an investigation. Clinton writes: There is about [the Woodlawn] fiascoan incredible naivete. Nathan Glazer has explained it saying that it is as if someone had been convinced by a sociologist that change and reform are spurred by conflict and decided that, since all good things can come from the American government, it ought to provide conflict, too.

Theres a fair amount of anti-government rhetoric in the papercriticism of the War on Poverty, notably. This might seem surprising at first blush, but if you understand Alinskyism, it makes perfect sense, because Alinsky was all about local control. He was very suspicious of the feds butting in, and Clinton imbibed some of that from him.

This section of the paper also includes a short critique of Daniel Patrick Moynihaninteresting in light of the fact that three decades later, Moynihan would welcome her to New York and she would win his Senate seat. Clinton thought that Moynihan, a Harvard scholar and Nixon adviser then, was naive about the willingness of Congress to fund initiatives for the poor. But she does conclude her discussion of the War on Poverty by quoting old Pat approvingly:

All too often the War on Poverty with confused intentions and armed with misinterpreted social theory fulfilled Moynihans concluding description of the community action programs: the soaring rhetoric, the minimum performance; the feigned constancy, the private betrayal; in the endthe sell-out.

So what do we learn from all this? We learn some things about what she thought then. Im not sure to what extent we can ascribe these things to her all these years later. She found much to admire in Alinsky, who sat down for two interviews with her and showed her around his Chicago. Heres the papers concluding paragraph:

If the ideals Alinsky espouses were actualized, the result would be social revolution. Ironically, this is not a disjunctive projection if considered in the tradition of Western democratic theory. If the first chapter it was pointed out that Alinsky is regarded by many as the proponent of a dangerous socio/political philosophy. As such, he has been fearedjust as Eugene Debs or Walt Whitman or Martin Luther King has been feared, because each embrace the most radical of political faithsdemocracy.

But her admiration went only so far, which brings us to the projects sole genuinely revealing sentence. It doesnt appear in the body of the paper, but under Primary Sources, where she describes how generous Alinsky was with his time and even then offered her a job. She writes: His offer of a place in the new Institute was tempting but after spending a year trying to make sense out of his inconsistency, I need three years of legal rigor.

The barricades werent for her. If theres some plan to bring down America in these pages, it was, and has remained, very well concealed.
Julia Roberts Says MLK Jr. Paid Hospital Bill For Her Birth

YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT

The actress said her parents were friends with King and his wife, and the couple helped out when they couldn't afford the bill.
Four and a half years.

Thats the time doctors told Duane Holmes he had left to live in 2012 -- the year he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Holmes had problems urinating, prompting the examination that led to the news that his cancer had already spread.

However, Holmes, now 64, remains optimistic when it comes to treatment.

Theres some great research being done, Holmes said on Sunday. My oncologist was being a little conservative on purpose when he told me my time left, because like he said, we dont wanna shoot all of our bullets from our gun -- we dont have much ammunition left.

"Well now, in three and a half years, they have come up with new things. And thats what our hope is here.

Here is where Holmes and other men and their families hit hard by prostate cancer gathered Sunday morning for the third annual ZERO Prostate Cancer Run/Walk at Pioneers Park.

ZERO, a national group working to end prostate cancer, and Urology P.C. of Lincoln hosted the event focused on saving the lives of the one in seven men who are diagnosed. More than 250 people registered, and the groups raised close to $60,000.

Half of the funds will go to a local organization chosen by Urology P.C., and the rest to ZERO, a national nonprofit that works to promote awareness and education. ZERO also helps men struggling financially by coming up with different treatment options and helping to cover required co-payments.

Jenna Stratman, office manager at Urology P.C. and Sunday's co-race director, said the event hopefully is a push for men to do their research.

Our biggest plug is just to make sure that men get tested, Stratman said. Typically its age 50 that they need to be tested, but sometimes its a little bit earlier if theres a family history or if theyre African-American.

Stratman has participated in the event every year, but this time around hit home. Her father-in-law was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer.

This day lets the actual prostate cancer survivor and their families know theyre not alone, she said. Were here to help them. We truly do want to abolish prostate cancer. We want ZERO prostate cancer in the end.

Family and friends cheering and yelling as participants crossed the finish line is the kind of support men need, said ZERO director of operations Josh Craddock.

I dont know whether its a pride thing, but traditionally men have a hard time going to the doctor or being open to talking about their health, Craddock said. Thats where the women in our lives come in and are extremely important, because theyre generally the reason, the people, who push us to go talk to our doctors.

For Holmes, its his wife and caregiver, Pam, who nudges him forward. Pam Holmes and others in his family sported Doing It For Du t-shirts at the event.

Pams father died with prostate cancer, and her forcus is the time she and Duane have together. This summer they crossed adventures off their bucket list including seeing Yellowstone National Park, a Barbra Streisand concert and Kansas City Royals games.

Said Pam: Were just trying to enjoy every minute we get."
A lifetime of public service has taught me that you always do your job, even when you dont like the result. City Council members must also do their job. They need to approve funding for our city budget at the required level.

John Hendry is a former Chief Justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court and former Lincoln City Attorney. He is one of the most respected legal minds in the state. While serving as City Attorney he wrote, ... the Council will have a ministerial duty, required by law, to adopt the subsequent tax levy authorizing the increase.

The current city attorney agrees that the City Council must pass the property tax levy necessary to fund the adopted budget. Its the law.

But instead, the council majority is planning to ignore the law and vote in their own property tax levy. That is not the job they were given in the City Charter. They are not following the Charter process for how a budget disagreement is lawfully resolved.

Four elected officials of the councils majority supported the councils budget. And four elected officials, the council minority and I, supported the administrations budget. We were deadlocked. The vetoed budget returned to the City Council agenda, giving the council the opportunity to break the deadlock with five votes to override the mayors veto.

The council did not have five votes to break the deadlock. The law states that in this circumstance, the administrations version of the budget is the lawfully adopted budget AND is the basis for the property tax rates for the ensuing biennial period.

Ignoring the law will create the kind of gridlock that slows down progress. We cant move forward on funding important city services if budget funding sits in legal limbo. We need to get started hiring the budgets new police officers and funding the new ambulance to speed response times. We need to prepare for the emerald ash borer and begin replacement of aging playground equipment.

The mayor and the City Council are both sworn to uphold the law. If the council chooses to ignore the law, we will have to ask the District Court to issue a Writ of Mandamus to ensure they properly fulfill their legal duties as government officials. It is a regrettable and unnecessary diversion from our job of making government work to serve our community.

The City Council had an opportunity to adopt its budget by overriding my veto. They did not have the votes to accomplish that. Now, we all must respect and follow the law. Council members do not get to choose a different tax rate simply because they dont like the law.

Its time for City Council members to do their jobs, pass the correct levy, and let us get back to continuing the amazing progress we have all enjoyed over the past 10 years.
SAN DIEGO -- Twenty-three years ago, over lunch in a Basque restaurant in Fresno, my longtime friend and mentor -- the great Mexican-American essayist Richard Rodriguez -- offered an interesting thought about what was driving the transformation of the United States into a Latino country.

(That reminds me. I should let you know that the nation's 54 million Latinos had a meeting and took a vote. The new country will be named: "Latino-landia." You'll get used to it.)

Rodriguez talked about how he had recently interviewed a white supremacist who absolutely loved Mexican food.

"People always think that culture is going to arrive in an evening gown," he said. "It's coming in a taco."

As we say in Spanish, dicho y hecho. Said and done.

In the 1940s, Mexican-American students who brought tacos to school for lunch would eat them in a corner so as not to be teased by classmates. Today, white parents in the suburbs fill their kids' backpacks with prepacked lunch meals -- some of which contain chips, salsa and, yes, tacos.

And we have a new paradox in this country: There are many Americans who don't like Mexicans but they love Mexican food.

So you wouldn't expect these folks to get too worked up over the apocalyptic scenario envisioned by Marco Gutierrez, founder of "Latinos for Trump."

Really? Why not "Chickens for Colonel Sanders"?

Having migrated to the United States from Mexico as a young man in 1991, Gutierrez fired up the cultural wars recently when -- during an appearance on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes" -- he told guest host Joy Reid that uncontrolled immigration would lead to "taco trucks [on] every corner."

Many people laughed. Others pondered one of life's big questions: beef or chicken? MSNBC's Joe Scarborough chuckled that a nation flooded with taco trucks "sounds like an America that I want to live in."

Shows how much the smarty-pants in the elite media know about the modern immigration debate, where the impact of food -- along with other aspects of culture such as language, ethnic holidays, the Mexican flag, etc. -- is no joke. What everyday people see, hear and taste drives much of the anxiety that non-Latinos (and, in a disturbing development, even some Latinos) experience as a result of changing demographics.

I saw the revolution up close in the late 1990s. While I was living in Phoenix and working as a metro columnist for the Arizona Republic, the nation's fifth-largest city became embroiled in a messy food fight.

City officials began fielding complaints from neighborhood groups about mobile food vendors in their midst. The response was an ordinance that included a 10 p.m. curfew and a musical-chairs requirement that vendors not remain in the same place for days at a time.

Supposedly, the residents were concerned about litter, loud music, bright lights, late hours and an unsavory clientele. But it was no coincidence that the neighborhood groups were mostly white and the vendors were usually Mexican immigrants who spoke little or no English. The taco trucks were a proxy for something bigger.

Fearing the new restrictions would put them out of business and leave them with no way to feed their families, the taqueros (as they became known) fought back. Nearly a hundred of them organized, marched and -- with the help of an immigrant-rights organization -- convinced a prominent Yale-educated Mexican-American civil rights attorney to file an appeal against the ordinance. It worked. Eventually, the city relented.

One of the images I remember most clearly from those days is that of a taco vendor named Jose Moreno, who worked 12-hour days in his sweltering truck to support his wife and three kids. As he marched in front of city hall wearing an apron and a sombrero, he had strong words for city officials.

"They want to take away our right to work," Moreno told me. "Why don't they go after the drug dealers who do business in the same neighborhoods where we work? Why are they picking on us?"

Partly because they thought they could. And partly because taco trucks became for some people a frightening symbol of what Phoenix, the Southwest and the rest of America was becoming, and those people wanted to push back.

In 2016, that fears lives on, and it's helping to fuel the Trump campaign in all its hideousness. There is nothing funny about that.
The Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) will be holding its 26th Annual Conference, in Sacramento, CA, on September 21-25, 2016. California has a 1,100-mile-long coastline. From the heights of Mount Whitney to the depths of Death Valley, the Golden State offers some of the most breathtaking landscapes around the globe.



California is also known for earthquakes, droughts, wildfires and floods. And, among the U.S. states, California has the largest population, biggest economy and some of the most daunting environmental challenges.

Forward thinking political leaders and remarkable natural diversity make California the proving ground for tests and solutions on water supply, energy, sustainable agriculture, air quality, climate change and more.

For all of the reasons outlined above SEJ had opted to hold this conference in California. This is the third time in more than a quarter century that the SEJ conference is being held in the state.

This time it is being held in Sacramento, the states seat of political power. This vibrant city, lauded as one of the most ethnically integrated in the world, is not your typical government town. Situated in Californias Central Valley, the Sacramento region is surrounded by farming and agriculture (the expanse of which is visible when you fly into Sacramento International Airport).

A nexus for the farm-to-fork movement, the city has a thriving food culture deeply connected to these farmlands, which has attracted lots of great restaurants and nationally known chefs!

But its not just about the food. Sacramento is ground zero for a magnitude of global issues.

California is a bellwether state: the states energy and environmental laws serve as models for other states, the nation and other governments.

All of this makes Sacramento the ideal location for SEJ2016.

As a conference co-host UC Davis will supply top-notch scientists and laboratories that will help you answer and solve environmental problems.

There will also be a retrospective on some of the best environmental photojournalism ever and the best environmental reporting of 2015, in a newly dressed-up SEJ Awards Friday luncheon celebration.

The conference will also explore technologys role and limitations in addressing environmental challenges.

Some of the local issues that will be addressed include:

The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the hotly contested hub of the states water system

Lake Tahoe, the High Sierra jewel with lessons on water quality, snowpack research and pressures of development

Lake Tahoe, the High Sierra jewel with lessons on water quality, snowpack research and pressures of development The UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory and emerging ocean issues

Food and agriculture (and wines)

Wildfire issues.

Food and agriculture (and wines) Wildfire issues. Californias ambitious renewable energy and clean transportation programs

Climate change impacts, mitigation and adaption

Climate change impacts, mitigation and adaption Environmental health and justice

Legacy pollution

Energy

Water resources and supply

There will be ride-and-drive opportunities and green buses and alternative vehicles will shuttle you across the city.

On Saturday afternoon attendees can tour UC Davis energy, transportation, food and agriculture labs. Sunday morning science fiction writers will share their thoughts.

Finally, theres a post-conference tour of three national parks  Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon  celebrating 100 years of National Park Service history.

Click here to register.

#SEJ2016
Iowa organizations earn grants from A Community Thrives initiative

Seven Iowa organizations receive grants from the USA TODAY Network to support families in need, local initiatives.
More than 800,000 people are now on the nationwide list of registered sex offenders, a number that has grown dramatically in recent years and continues to climb.

Most of them are on the list for life, carrying the stigma and onerous restrictions of a registered sex offender with no chance of ever getting off the list. All offenders are treated the same, whether they are first-time, misdemeanor offender for, say, indecent exposure or serial rapists.

That stigma created by the public listing has, in a way, made it much harder for all offenders -- even less dangerous ones -- to become productive citizens. They are targeted for vigilante attacks and unable to get jobs or find a place to live.

Those facts have led defense attorneys and judges across the country to call for changes in way the lists are made and used and to allow, in some cases, an offender to be removed from the list after a period of time, most often 10 years.

Those recommendations include treating offenders differently based on the crime for which they have been convicted, modifying residency and public place restrictions as well as establishing a process for an offender to have the possibility of being removed from the list.

They are sensible ideas, do not endanger the public and need to be considered by state legislatures and enacted.

So does a U.S. Justice Department recommendation that all 50 states adopt uniform registration requirements as part of a single, nationwide database. Only 17 states have done so.

The national database, federal officials say, improves tracking of sex offenders, especially those who have moved from their home state, and allows investigators to more quickly identify potential sex-crime suspects and find those who have fled their states.

There is no question that the sex offenders registries have been valuable tools for law enforcement and, as a source of information, to the community since the federal laws requiring state offender registries were enacted in 1994 and 1996.

But, as court cases across the country challenge aspects of the registry on a state by state basic, it is clear that those 20-year-old laws need some reforms before the registry and judicial treatment of sex offenders becomes the same kind of tangled mess as drug enforcement and punishment.
Businesses that regularly receive calls from customers realize how difficult it can be to provide 24/7 support. Keeping friendly, skilled representatives on hand around-the-clock can quickly drain a business's payroll. Yet, cutting corners by hiring unhelpful employees will send customers directly to competitors.

Knowledge bases are a great way to give customers the help they need without having to pick up the phone or wait for regular business hours. When done correctly, you'll create a positive user experience and save your help desk team a phone call. Here are five ways you can create an effective knowledge base.

1. Make it easy to find.

User-friendliness should be at the top of your priority list as you develop your knowledge base. If customers get frustrated, the resource will be useless. Offer access to your knowledge base through a "Help" button available on every page of your site.

When customers click on that button, make sure the knowledge base is featured as an option. Some businesses merely set up a search box for customers to enter their issue, leading them to relevant knowledge base articles. If they can't find the appropriate answer, they can then see the option to contact your help desk directly.

Another option is to offer a subscription to your knowledge base, which provides opt-in options like an email alert. You can also consider adding a blog post macros to your knowledge base home page that then lists the latest information posted and offers visitors the opportunity to subscribe to new alerts through RSS.

Within your knowledge base, also make sure that visitors can find exactly what they are looking for by adding a labels list macro that then allows them to search by a label or topic. This makes it easy to quickly locate an area of interest, keeping visitors within your knowledge base for a longer period of time.

Related: How to Maintain Institutional Knowledge When Your Company Depends on Freelancers

2. Fully stock it.

Your knowledge base is only good if it contains the information that customers need. In the early stages, focus on populating the database with content, refining it later. Ask your help desk technicians to enter each resolved ticket into the database, including both the issue and the solution.

Appropriate employees can review the content and correct any grammatical errors or inconsistencies. You can also copy from past help desk tickets, using the information employees have entered in the resolution field. Also consider creating templates that can be used to more efficiently and consistently enter the information in a way that follows a standard and approved format for your company.

Related: The 4 Rs of Content Management

3. Match common requests.

If you've been taking calls for a while, you already have an extensive databank of common issues with your products or services. In addition to extracting this information and including it in your knowledge base, you can also ask your help desk representatives which issues they face most often.

Create a list of top-mentioned issues and work with your team to brainstorm other items that might need to be included. This information can truly enhance your knowledge base because you are focusing on some of the most relevant information related to your company's products or services.

4. Use visuals.

When a customer clicks over to read an article in your knowledge base, long blocks of text can be daunting. Visuals help break up that text, making your information more pleasing to the eye. You can add videos to your knowledge base although it's best to create a transcript or explanatory content to go with it. Without that information, your video won't be as searchable as other articles within your knowledge base.

You don't have to spend a fortune on professional photography or videography. Simply use screen-capture software or shoot a smartphone video of a knowledgeable team member explaining a concept. You can also pull great pictures from your company's Instagram account if you have one or encourage employees to take their own pictures or create other types of visuals that can be added that will enhance the written content.

5. Monitor searches.

Once your knowledge base is in use, consistently monitor activity to determine its effectiveness. If you notice customers are contacting your help desk on specific issues because they can't find the information they want, spend extra time beefing up that section.

Note common searches and make sure customers get the answers they want from the articles you've uploaded. You can use analytical tools that include monitoring video interaction with your knowledge base, determining what search terms failed so you can address these issues, and cataloging the top articles and categories most searched to know where more content is necessary.

Related Book: Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars by Mitch Meyerson

Keep your knowledge base active.

A knowledge base can help you provide a better experience to your customers who need help. It may take time to build it, but once you've stocked it with initial content, your own employees will be able to add to it as new issues emerge. Just remember to avoid neglecting your knowledge base once you have it in place since outdated information can cause customers to discredit the content. As long as your team keeps it active, your knowledge base can serve as a valuable resource for your business, creating loyal customers, and reducing the number of calls your own employees must take.

Related:



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NORWALK  City officials are looking for help and additional time to review a length environmental impact report concerning the states upcoming replacement of the Walk Bridge.

On Sept. 6, the Connecticut Department of Transportation published its Environmental Assessment/Environmental Impact Evaluation on the project, which it plans to begin in mid-2018.

The release of the lengthy report opened a 45-day comment period for local residents, stakeholders and officials to weigh in on the project.

Its a very thick document and there seems to be some glaring deficiencies that we want to analyze, Mayor Harry W. Rilling said Friday. The response time is very short for a document of that size. Id like to get 30 to 60 (additional) days.

In addition, Rilling said the city intends to hire a consultant to review the report, monitor the bridge replacement and protect the citys interests.

Were going to hire a consultant to work with us going over that study and to work with us throughout the project to make sure the citys interests are being protected, Rilling said. Were looking at available firms.

Rilling said the citys law department and the Department of Public Works have a list of firms that could serve the role.

Were looking at outside firms to work with the city to review the report, said Norwalk Director of Public Works Bruce J. Chimento. A really good environmental law firm, thats what we really want to do first to review the environmental impact statement.

The plan to hire a consultant and seek additional time to review the DOT report come amid growing concern about the local impacts of the bridge replacement project on Norwalk.

On Sept. 7, nearly 200 people rallied outside A.J. Penna & Son Excavating Contractors at 10 Goldstein Place, urging the DOT to consider other staging areas and smaller designs for the new bridge.

Tony DAndrea, former Norwalk Harbor Management Commission chairman and co-owner of Select Plastics, a Liberty Square business that had been slated for taking to accommodate the bridge replacement, is among those who have asked for a third-party review of the report.

Last Wednesday evening, transportation engineer Samuel I. Schwartz, also known as Gridlock Sam, discussed his new book and shared his initial impressions of the Walk Bridge replacement project during a talk at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk.

Schwartz, who was invited to Norwalk by Spinnaker Real Estate Partners and Beinfield Architecture, PC advised residents and officials to weigh in during the public comment period in order to get a signature bridge for Norwalk. Before speaking at the Aquarium, Schwartz met with city officials at City Hall.

Architect Bruce Beinfield described the meeting as introductory in nature.

I do not know if the city or any of the private parties impacted by the Walk Bridge project will have an interest in retaining Sams services as a consultant, Beinfield said Thursday.

Former Norwalk Mayor Bill Collins, also chairman of the SoNo Comeback Task Force, was among about four-dozen people attending Schwartz presentation and question-and-answer session at the Aquarium last Wednesday. He welcomed Schwartz advice that residents engage themselves in the Walk Bridge project and expressed support for hiring a consultant. He doubts, however, that Schwartz will seek the job.

The city does need a consultant to deal with the state on the issue of the appearance and the design of the Walk Bridge because for that much money and all of the disruption and pain Norwalk is going to go through, we should at least get a landmark, signature type of bridge that will make Norwalk stand out architecturally, Collins said. I dont think Sam Schwartz would apply for that job because its a bridge engineer that you would need.

The DOT has scheduled a public hearing on the environmental impact report for Oct. 6 at City Hall. The report and other information about the Walk Bridge replacement project can be found at walkbridgect.com.

rkoch@hearstmediact.com
Tom Brandt's recent letter voiced opposition to the SCC bond vote on the November ballot ("Vote 'No' on SCC bond," Aug. 28). He suggested no property tax be used to support community college education and voiced other concerns.

I am a member of the SCC Board of Governors and serve on the Finance/ Facilities committee. Our funding comes from a combination of property taxes, tuition and state aid. We have expanded online learning as suggested in the letter and will be able to provide more remote learning opportunities in rural areas through our new learning centers in York, Plattsmouth, Falls City, Hebron, Nebraska City and Wahoo that will be helped by passage of the SCC bonds.

We will use the bond proceeds to foster workforce development, and help small towns attract new employers by providing locally trained graduates in welding, construction, health, agriculture and many other occupations. The 15-county area established by state law supports all our programming and all our campuses. Lincoln taxpayers pay for education in Milford, Beatrice, Hebron and more, just like all SCC taxpayers. The Career Academy in Lincoln was 50 percent financed by SCC and by Lincoln Public Schools.

Our tuition is 70 percent lower than UNL but cannot be subsidized by a bond or other capital fund. The writer believes SCC does a good job as a community college. We will continue to make SCC a system that for which we can all be proud.

Jim Garver, Lincoln
A Bit Of History: Griggorie and a Mystery Woman

John Gregory (also known as John Griggorie) was born in 1612 and lived until Aug. 15, 1689. He was a founding settler of Norwalk; a deputy of the General Court of the Connecticut Colony serving in many sessions from October 1659 through later years.

He was born in Nottinghamshire, England, the son of Henry Gregory and Mary Goody Gregory. He came to America with his father in the early 1630s and lived in the New Haven Colony between 1639 and 1646. In 1644, he was admitted to the New Haven Court. His sons, Joseph and Thomas were born in New Haven in 1646 and 1648.

Roger Ludlow purchased the land that would become Norwalk in 1640. Ludlow contracted with 14 men for the original planting of Norwalk. In 1649, Richard Olmsted and Nathaniel Ely became the first two settlers. One of the 14 was Richard Webb, whose wife was John Gregorys sister.

John Gregory lived in the East Norwalk section of Norwalk, along what is now East Avenue. He was an active member of the community, holding office almost continuously during his life in Norwalk.

When the New Haven Colony was absorbed into the Connecticut Colony in 1662, many of the Puritan settlers were displeased at the fact that the new colonys constitution didnt include certain restrictions on non-Puritan settlers. The New Haven colonists believed that only members of the Puritan church should be allowed to vote, and that only the children of church members could be baptized. As a consequence, the New Haven Puritans sent Robert Treat and John Gregory to meet with Philip Carteret, the new Royal Governor of New Jersey. The group chose the present day site of Newark for a new settlement. In May 1666, the Puritan settlers, led by Treat, purchased the land directly from the Hackensack Indians. Matthew Canfield was among the Norwalk settlers who left to settle Newark.

As to the Mystery Woman  Widow Morgan was also a founding settler of Norwalk. There is very little information in the historical records about her. She is listed among the Ludlow Agreement settlers in 1650.

In A Discourse of the Two-Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of Norwalk by Reverence Nathaniel Bouton and published in 1851, a reference is included as follows:

23. MORGAN, WIDOW.  Mr. Savage says: to the Widow Morgan I can give no tenderness, and have some doubt whether she be not an impostor; that is that the record was mistaken by the Hall. [That the widow was a real person, whose name is on the record, the writer can testify, having seen it with his own eyes.]

Both John Gregory and Widow Morgan are listed on the Founders Stone bearing the names of the founding settlers of Norwalk in the East Norwalk Historical Cemetery.

September is Library Card Sign Up Month

That is not to say that you cant get a library card except in September  quite the contrary. Any day and every day the East Norwalk Association Library is open you can apply for a library card.

Carl Sagan  the American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences  put it this way about a library card:

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, a city neighborhood that included houses, lampposts, walls, and bushes. But with an early bedtime in the winter, I could look out my window and see the stars, and the stars were not like anything else in my neighborhood. [At age 5] I didnt know what they were. [At age 9] my mother  said to me, You have a library card now, and you know how to read. Take the streetcar to the library and get a book on stars.

No streetcars in Norwalk, but you can walk, bike ride, drive or get driven, and get a library card at the East Norwalk Association Library and borrow a book on stars and most every other subject from A to Z.

Its simple: Library cards are issued free of charge; you must have a valid Connecticut License or ID, with a recent postmarked piece of mail showing residence. (Like a phone bill or gas bill or letter). If the address on the mail and ID do not match, then two pieces of mail are required. Children and young adults under the age of 18 may receive a library card based upon their application by a parent or caregiver.

So, join Carl Sagan in your quest for information, visit the East Norwalk Association Library and get YOUR library card!

Our Local Elementary School  Marvin

With about 500 students in grades from preschool to 5, Marvin Elementary School continually receives high marks from the parents of the students (current and those already moved on to middle school), the students themselves, and so very many in the community.

In her Start of School Year letter to the parents, and students, Principal Sue-Ellen Barrett OShea, said, in part: I hope you are all well rested and ready for the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year! I look forward to having the building filled with our returning students and I extend a warm welcome those of you who are new to the Marvin community. I encourage all parents to play an active role in your childs education. You can become involved in a variety of ways: join the PTO, volunteer to help in the classroom, and/or come to one of the many family friendly events we have planned!

And, of the PTO (Parent-Teacher Organization) whether you have, or had, a child at the Marvin School, check out the Marvin PTO page on Facebook. Just another feather in the East Norwalk community cap.

Business Spotlight: Cappello Realty Shoreline Properties

Linda Cappello heads this full-service real estate company at 21 1st St., in East Norwalk, specializing in serving all of Norwalk, and a well-known experience throughout Fairfield County. The groups Realtors each specializes in their particular area of expertise, which enables their clientele to be assured of having an agent who is familiar with the market area of the clients interest. Cappello enjoys a network of local professionals including attorneys, mortgage brokers, insurance agents, home inspectors, and sub-contractors for the convenience of their clients  a one-stop real estate firm. A Cappello Realty listing offers complimentary design and home staging consultation and can even include of an estate sale as may be necessary. Cappello Realty offers their clients all the tools required to conclude a successful and smooth real estate transaction and they continue to keep in touch long after the sale.

For more information, call: 2036049595; email, Linda@CappelloRealty.com; or visit their website at www.cappellorealtygroup.com

Visit The East Norwalk Association library on the Web or in person

See the East Norwalk Association Library on the web at www.eastnorwalklibrary.org. Like our Facebook page (search for East Norwalk Library) and youll be privy to happenings, and other bits of information regarding the East Norwalk Library and the community it serves.

The East Norwalk Association Library hours are Monday through Friday, 12:30 to 5:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; closed Sunday and holidays.

If theres some East Norwalk happening or other East Norwalk news or features you would like to share with the readers, email: stan@eastnorwalklibrary.org, or call 203-249-6293.
In our year-long course on music at Wyoming Catholic College, students read and discuss a chapter from Joseph Ratzingers book A New Song for the Lord, The Image of the World and of Human Beings in the Liturgy and Its Expression in Church Music,[1] one of the best things ever written about church music. Ratzinger masterfully shows how the music we employ in church always embodies and communicates an ecclesiology, a Christology, and an anthropologyit is that significant! There is no escaping it: Every bit of music we perform in church is expressing a vision of the whole and inculcating it in those who listen. This is why church musicians will have much glory or great shame on the day of judgment.

A question always comes up in connection with this reading. It seems that the missionaries who went to the New World were able to take up elements of the culture of the people they encountered, including something from their music. Vatican II tells us that we should do the same thing wherever the Gospel is preached. Why can we not take up elements of todays popular culture around us, such as rock or pop styles of music, and turn them into vehicles for evangelizing our contemporaries?

My answerat least as far as the realm of the liturgy is concernedis a resounding no, for the following reasons.

Inculturation, correctly understood, is the process of carefully discerning and integrating harmonious elements of an indigenous culture into the teaching and practice of the Faith, so as to make the Faith at home in a culture. In this way the people to whom it is being introduced experience it not as something completely foreign to them but as something that completes and elevates the good already present in their midst. The Church does indeed promote inculturation understood in this way:

Since the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world (cf. Jn 18:36), however, the Church or People of God in establishing that Kingdom takes nothing away from the temporal welfare of any people, but on the contrary, it fosters and takes to itself the abilities, riches, and customs of each people, insofar as they are good, and by taking them up, purifies, strengthens, and ennobles them. The Church in this is mindful that she must bring together the nations for that king to whom they were given as an inheritance (cf. Ps 2:8), and to whose city they bring gifts and offerings (Ps 71[72]:10; Is 60:47; Rev 21:24). This characteristic of universality, which adorns the People of God, is a gift from the Lord Himself, by reason of which the Catholic Church effectively and continually strives to bring all humanity with all its good things back to their source in Christ, under His Headship, in the unity of His Spirit.[2]

With prudent sensitivity, the great missionaries adopted and adapted some of the customs and art forms they found, in order to evangelize the pagans more effectively and to enrich the Churchs treasury with the gold of Sheba. We can see examples of such inculturation in vestments, architecture, and music. New Liturgical Movement has run several pieces about how the Chinese and Japanese missions intelligently promoted this approach.[3] Marvelous examples of inculturation can be found in the fusion of European chant and polyphony with native American instruments and texts.[4]

On the basis of the foregoing model, then, arent we supposed to find ways to embody the Faith in the surrounding secular culture so that we can more effectively reach our contemporaries? Isnt this what the missionaries did? There are, however, crucial differences between this and what the original missionaries did.

First of all, there is the overwhelming and undeniable fact that when Catholic missionaries came to native peoples in the Age of Exploration, they brought with them a fully realized religion, founded on fixed dogmas, issuing in definitive moral teachings, crowned and nourished by a stable sacred liturgy, all intertwined with a rich culture of art and thought. They fully intended to plant this religion and its culture on foreign soil and to win over the pagans to its truth and superiority.[5] The Catholic Faith, in all its specificity and plenitude, was the non-negotiable controlling paradigm by which indigenous elements had to be judged and into which they had to be fitted. It played the dominant role; like form in the philosophy of Aristotle, it was to be imparted to the receptive matter. In this way the missionaries never balked at the scandal of the particular: They were preaching Jesus of Nazareth and establishing the Church of Rome.

This precedence of a universal and traditional Catholic orthodoxy and orthopraxythe doctrine of the Council of Trent, let us say, and the organically developed sacramental rites of the Roman Church, replete with Gregorian chantis not what proponents of a modernizing inculturation assume; in fact, they are more likely to ignore, marginalize, or exclude such things, failing to see how they could ever be relevant to our contemporaries. In this way, they run the risk of no longer inculturating the Catholic Faith. They might even end up fashioning new micro-religions, somewhat like the proliferation of local craft beers (no offense to craft brewers!).

Second, when the missionaries came to the pagans, the latter had no Christian heritage at all. They were a blank slate in this regard, although they were disposed, better or worse, to hear the Gospel due to their pre-existing religious beliefs, sentiments, and rituals. True pagans are not scientific atheists, elegant agnostics, smug liberals, or materialistic consumers; they believe in one god or many gods, they fear and placate them, and are ripe for conversion to a more divine and more humane religion. Coming to such religious non-Christians, the missionaries could make a discernment about which elements to take up from a genuinely pagan milieu, all the while remembering that the message they brought was authoritative and controlling.

Todays Westerners, in contrast, are post-Christian aliens, estranged from their own history and the great cultural synthesis that could and should be theirs. The history of modern music, whether atonal or jazz or rock or pop, is a history of deliberate rebellion and revolt against the great tradition of Western music, against its high art forms, its slowly-developed musical language, its explicitly or implicitly Christian message. In its origins and its inner meaning, much of modern Western music is a rejection of the Catholic (and European) tradition. As a result, it is not morally, intellectually, or culturally neutral; it is already laden with an anti-institutional, anti-sacral, anti-traditional significance. This music is not naive raw material waiting to be Christianized, but highly articulate anti-Christian propaganda. It rejects the ideals of lofty beauty and grandeur, spiritual seriousness, evocation of the divine, openness to the transcendent, and artistic discipline, in favor of vapidity, frivolity, profanity, sensuality, and banality. As David Clayton aptly observes:

The dominant contemporary culture of the West today is the secular culture of anti-culture. It defines itself not by what it is, but by what it isnt. It is founded on a reaction against Christianity. Therefore, it is a distortion of it and as such is parasitical upon it.[6]

Given the specific requirements and expectations that go along with the cultus Dei, to admit such music into the temple is to profane the temple, to violate its sacredness. We are looking not at inculturation but at exculturation, in which what is proper to a unified, historical religion is diluted or obliterated by its opposite.

Third, the pagans had a genuine folk culturea culture that was, so to speak, of the people, by the people, and for the people. It was vital, personal, immediate. When the missionaries worked on and with this culture, they were working with something organic, spontaneous, and, in a sense, disinterested. In stark contrast, todays pagans are largely passive consumers of mass-produced, low-quality sonic junk food that earns huge profits for capitalist corporations who know how to manipulate the feelings of poorly educated, emotionally volatile audiences.[7]

What the pagans had to offer, then, were local traditions of truly human dimensions, expressive of their identity and creativity as a people, not todays monotonous, artistically shallow epiphenomena of cancer-phase capitalism. In those fortunate pagan cultures that were not in thrall to demon worship and ritual violence, the missionaries were confronted with anthropologically rich soil for planting the seed of the Gospel, which they proceeded to do with confident zeal. What they found permitted actual enrichments of devotion and worship. Todays popular culture, on the other hand, to the extent that it has grown up in revolt against the unifying principles, certainties, and demands of Christianity, is a veritable melting pot of conflicting fashionable ideologies, a volatile mishmash of tribalism, globalism, and techno-barbarism. Its underlying anthropology is suited not for saints and heroes, but for narcissists and manipulators.

Consequently, the prevailing Western popular culture is impervious to and, at times, subversive of, the process of Christian inculturation. What I mean by subversive is this: It is not the secularism that ends up Christianized by the attempt at a merger, but the Christianity that ends up secularized. It is not the vast empire of mediocrity that will be molded and transformed, but the Catholic Faith. The only hope lies in calm resistance, pursuing a course so obviously opposed to that of the world that we will not cease to be a light shining in the darkness, which cannot overcome us as long as we remain truly light. This is why Pope John Paul II said in Veritatis Splendor: It is urgent that Christians should rediscover the newness of the faith and its power to judge a prevalent and all-intrusive culture.[8] He was speaking about our contemporary culture of liberalism, relativism, and hedonism.

Clayton has vividly outlined the problem:

So much pop or rock music is of a form that has developed specifically to reflect the culture of hedonism. [T]o ignore this aspect of the style of the music altogether and just change the words to those of Christian hymns runs the grave risk of communicating something very bad regardless of how pious or holy the words of the song may be. Because worship of God is the activity in which we bare our souls the most, it is where we are most vulnerable to adverse influence. I suggest that we should be more conservative and less inclined to take risks in the choice of music in the liturgy than in the local dance hall. The music of our worship should be rooted in the Christian tradition so that it naturally becomes the standard to which all else points. If we make the secular forms the standard by which the liturgical [forms]are measured, the hierarchy has been inverted and the result is disaster for both culturesthe culture of faith and contemporary culture.[9]

In sum: Due to its origins in a repudiation of the Christian cultural inheritance, its continual appeal to the appetites of the flesh, its negation of the dimension of mystery, and its consequent poverty of artistic expression, contemporary popular music cannot be suitable matter for the process of inculturation; rather, it is a formidable obstacle to the conversion of souls and the creation of a true Christian culture.

Republished with gracious permission from OnePeterFive.

The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politicswe approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.

Notes:

[1] In Joseph Ratzinger, A New Song for the Lord, trans. Martha M. Matesich (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 11127; also in Collected Works, vol. XI, Theology of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 44360.

[2] Lumen Gentium, 13.

[3] See, inter alia, Historical Examples of Inculturation in Catholic China, Liturgical Arts Quarterly 1935, and Japanese Madonnas. The artwork of Daniel Mitsui today draws upon oriental designs with great effectiveness; see, for instance, this Second Dream of St. Joseph.

[4] The San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (SAVAE) has done some wonderful recordings of Catholic missionary music from central America. Listen to some samples here.

[5] For further thoughts along these lines, see my essay Confusions about Inculturation.

[6] The Way of Beauty: Liturgy, Education, and Inspiration for Family, School, and College (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2015), 48.

[7] See Thomas Storck, Popular Culture and Mass Culture. [PDF Link]

[8] Veritatis Splendor, 88.

[9] Clayton, Way of Beauty, 41.
Donald Trump calls immigrants criminals. Donald Trump asserts that, because of immigrants, living in America is dangerous. Consider these conclusions from the American Immigration Council in a report entitled, "The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States," from July, 2015. The following facts are not skewed statistics due to higher population of native born versus immigrants. Statistics from the study are percentages of criminals in specific populations. First, it shows higher-immigration is associated with lower crime rates. Second, it shows immigrants are less likely than native-born citizens to be behind bars. Third, it shows immigrants are less likely than the native-born to engage in criminal behavior. You're lyin', Donald.
Hillary Clinton has a long history of hiding the whole truth about herself. The latest example  declining to reveal for 48 hours that she was suffering from pneumonia  was a serious mistake that chewed another chunk out of her already shaky credibility.

But the controversy surrounding Clintons illness overshadowed a fascinating moment when she overcame her penchant for privacy and gave a revealing interview to the website Humans of New York (HONY). Just days before she stumbled, literally and figuratively, on a New York sidewalk, Clinton told the story of taking a law school admissions test as a college senior during the height of the Vietnam War.

One of only a few women in a big classroom at Harvard, she described the scene: While were waiting for the exam to start, a group of men began to yell things like: You dont need to be here. And Theres plenty else you can do. It turned into a real pile on.

One of them even said: If you take my spot, Ill get drafted, and Ill go to Vietnam, and Ill die. And they werent kidding around. It was intense. It got very personal. But I couldnt respond. I couldnt afford to get distracted because I didnt want to mess up the test.

That experience, she went on, helps explain one of her biggest political weaknesses. I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions, she said. And thats a hard path to walk. Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you dont want to seem walled off. And sometimes I think I come across more in the walled off arena.

Clintons interview was posted minutes before Steve taught a class at George Washington University called Media, Politics and Government. The laptops and cellphones of his students immediately pinged and swooshed as dozens of their friends shared the post. Her words ignited a level of interest in Clintons campaign that has been painfully lacking among younger voters.

The HONY post seemed to reach my peers in a more personal way, said one female student, who received 26 links to the interview. Hillary sharing an anecdote about being a senior in college really worked, if her goal was to reach seniors in college and other millennial women.

The episode says a lot about Clintons continuing struggle to find a narrative that connects to the hearts and hopes of ordinary voters. One of the main reasons she lost to Obama eight years ago was his brilliant ability to tell stories that conveyed a strong but simple message: Im just like you. And as she said in the HONY interview, she might not have that talent, but she knows it when she sees it.

Im not Barack Obama. Im not Bill Clinton, she said. Both of them carry themselves with a naturalness that is very appealing to audiences. Its hard work to present yourself in the best possible way. ...

And that can be more difficult for a woman, she added. Because who are your models? If you want to run for the Senate, or run for the presidency, most of your role models are going to be men. And what works for them wont work for you. Women are seen through a different lens.

Of course they are, and many commentators on the HONY interview echoed Clintons lament. Women all over the world know this as fact, all too much, posted Michelle Jenkins. Be quiet, but not too quiet. Be smart, but not too smart ... it goes on and on. Added Robin Kennedy: Be pretty, but not too pretty ... be firm, but not too bitchy ... on and on.

Clinton knows how important it is to tell compelling stories, and shes tried out several during the campaign: her immigrant grandfather working in a Scranton, Pa., lace mill; her mother running away from an abusive home at 14; Facetiming with her granddaughter, Charlotte.

But those anecdotes have not connected with many younger voters. The Washington Post, for example, reports a tightening race in Pennsylvania, and quotes one pollsters explanation: We know who is not turning out: the college students and the minorities.

If Steves students are any guide, Clintons tale of being berated by hostile men who didnt think she belonged in law school touched a chord of recognition, especially with the younger women she needs to energize. The lesson: Leave her walled off fortress more often, and tell stories that reveal both her struggles and her strength.
In the walls of the cubicle there were three

orifices. ... Similar slits existed in thousands or

tens of thousands throughout the building. ... For

some reason they were nicknamed memory holes.

 George Orwell, 1984

WASHINGTON  Documents inconvenient to the regime went into the Ministry of Truths slits and down to enormous furnaces. Modern tyrannies depend on state control of national memories  retroactive truths established by government fiat. Which is why Russias Supreme Court recently upheld the conviction of a blogger for violating Article 354.1 of Russias criminal code.

This May 2014 provision criminalizes the Rehabilitation of Nazism. The bloggers crime was to write: The communists and Germany jointly invaded Poland, sparking off the Second World War. The secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact have gone down one of Vladimir Putins memory holes.

The pact was signed Aug. 23, 1939. On Sept. 1, Germany invaded Poland. Sixteen days later, the Soviet Union invaded from the east. Poland was carved up in accordance with the secret protocols, and about six months later Soviet occupiers were conducting the Katyn Forest Massacre of 25,700 Polish military officers, officials, priests and intellectuals.

Although in 2009 Putin denounced the pact as collusion to solve ones problems at others expense, in 2015 he defended it as Stalins means of buying time to prepare for the Nazi onslaught. This fable is refuted by, among other facts, this: Stalin did not prepare. When Germanys ambassador in Moscow informed Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov that their nations were now at war, a stunned Molotov asked, What have we done to deserve this?

The Russian Supreme Courts Orwellian ruling was that the blogger denied facts established by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. It convicted leading Nazis of waging aggressive war against, among others, Poland, but, in an act of victors justice, made no judgment against the Soviet regime, representatives of which sat on the tribunal. This accommodation to postwar political reality was necessary to enable the tribunal to function, which was necessary for civilizing vengeance. The tribunal ignored, but did not deny, the patent fact of Soviet aggression.

The Russian courts ruling is a window into the sinister continuity of Putins Russia and the Soviet system that incubated him. So, if the former secretary of state who aspires to the American presidency has time to read a book before Jan. 20, she should make it The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin by Steven Lee Myers of The New York Times. It is a study of the volatile nostalgia of a man seething with resentments acquired as a KGB operative  a devoted officer of a dying empire  during the Soviet Unions final years. It is a pointillist portrait painted with telling details that should cause sobriety to supplant dreams of happy policy resets with Russia:

As a senior security official in post-Soviet Russia, Putin kept on his desk a bronze statue of Iron Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police and terror apparatus. At Putins May 7, 2000, presidential inauguration, a choir sang a composition written in 1836 to celebrate a soldiers death in the war against Poland and rewritten in Soviet times ... to remove the homage to the tsar. For Putin, the choir sang the Soviet verses. There was the 2006 assassination in Moscow, on Putins 54th birthday, of the troublesome journalist Anna Politkovskaya. (Asked about the frequent deaths of anti-Putin journalists, Donald Trump breezily said, I think our country does plenty of killing.) And the 2006 poisoning in London of Putins antagonist Alexander Litvinenko using radioactive polonium-210.

Domestically, Putins managed democracy is Stalinism leavened by kleptomania, as in the looting of the energy giant Yukos. In foreign policy, Putins Russia is unambiguously and unapologetically revanchist. The Soviet Union was likened to a burglar creeping down a hotel corridor until he finds an unlocked door. Putin, who found Crimea unlocked (when he honeymooned there in 1983, it seemed a magical, sacred place to him, writes Myers), is pushing on the door of what remains of Ukraine.

The Democratic presidential nominee fundamentally misread Putins thugocracy, and her opponent admires the thug because at least hes a leader. As the Russian bloggers fate demonstrates, Putin practices what Orwell wrote: Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

Back in the day, some analysts prophesied a convergence between the Soviet Union and the United States, two industrial societies becoming more alike. In our day, there is indeed a growing similarity: In both places, post-factual politics are normal.
If Gov. Pete Ricketts is a movie fan, I recommend The American President.

The film stars Michael Douglas as ficticious President Andrew Shepard.

Ricketts will have to put his partisanship aside  Shepard is a Democrat  but if he can, one scene will prove instructive in the ongoing prison debate.

When Sydney Allen Wade, Shepards love interest, is about to give the First Boyfriend his walking papers over a political decision, he says:

Sydney. Please. I dont want to lose you over this.

Mr. President, you got bigger problems than losing me. You just lost my vote.

To whit: Gov. Ricketts, youve got bigger problems than a special legislative committee grilling your corrections director. Youre about to lose the inheritance pass we gave you 18 months ago.

Corrections Director Scott Frakes recently took some pointed incoming rounds from the committee, which is looking into the mounting troubles in the states prison system.

We get that the 800-pound gorilla Ricketts found in his inbox on day one was fed and nurtured by previous administrations.

So we gave the governor a temporary pass on prisons.

He inherited a system bursting at 159 percent of capacity, a number high enough to catch federal scrutiny.

Factor in, too, a political climate, some of which Ricketts fostered and rode into office. Much of the public and some state legislators want to nab bad guys and give them long sentences, but they are loathe to increase spending to do it  especially housing and rehabilitating them safely for both staff and inmates.

The reality of all this is an enormous turnover rate among woefully understaffed and underpaid prison guards and a spiking trend in inmate assaults on all prison employees.

Throw in a riot that claimed two lives last year, an inexplicable, mid-morning prison break in Lincoln and a dubious legacy of prison problems, and tough questions thrown at the corrections director should be the least of the governors worries.

His pass on prisons has run out.

Taking time

While the private sector has for some time been awash in the business model of doing more with less, its framework fits state prisons.

Nebraska is one of about 20 states where overcrowding could warrant federal intervention. In 2011 the Supreme Court upheld a decision to force California to reduce its prison population by 30,000 over two years.

Nor is the Legislature completely free to throw stones at the governor. Its own, single house has plenty of glass when it comes to Corrections.

Senators have also had 18 months to enact meaningful laws and policies to change both the operation of the prison system and its culture.

Yes, I know. Charting a new course in Corrections takes time.

But with each new assault on staff, with each new graphic on guard turnover, with each new lockdown, Nebraskans are right to want measurable progress and a detailed plan, however devilish it may prove to be.

Math problem

While Ricketts et al are clearly front and center on this one  as they should be  none of the problems in Corrections should come as a surprise to any of them.

That said, public sentiment, rightly so, has been fixated on law and order, keeping our streets and neighborhoods safe from crime and discord.

Which brings us to the math problem of more for less.

Nebraskas prison population has grown from 1,402 in 1980 to 5,347 in 2014.

According to the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics and the FBI, during nearly the same time period (1980-2012), Nebraskas violent crime rate and property crime rate, aside from a noticeable spike in the late 1990s, has shown only a modest uptick while the states population increased by almost 300,000.

Longer mandatory sentences, getting tough especially on drug offenders, and the public and political hue and cry for law and order all impact the numbers.

The result is more  people who are sentenced to prison.

Working against this narrative is our wont to cut taxes and generally operate government as inexpensively as possible.

Which adds up to less.

(By the way, if youre thinking a run-prisons-like-a-business solution is out there, in August the federal government announced it would phase out contracts with private prisons, finding them unsafe, expensive and ineffective in reducing recidivism.)

In the movies, things often just magically work out, all in about two hours.

In real life  or 18 months  not so much.

For those charged with finding solutions on prisons, the time is now.
Nebraska law enforcement officials want to make it easier for military police officers to become civilian cops.

A rule change under consideration by the Nebraska Crime Commission would allow the state's four law enforcement academies to fast-track certification for former MPs whose past training is substantially consistent with what Nebraska requires.

The proposal would give the state's police departments and sheriff's offices another recruiting tool at a sensitive time for law enforcement across the U.S., and with low unemployment driving high demand for qualified labor.

"Anything that helps the process to be a little bit more streamlined," said Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner.

His office is trying to find replacements for three deputies who will retire in six months.

Hiring and training new recruits can take nine months to a year, but the proposed rule change would make it easier for MPs and officers from other states or federal agencies to bypass much of the 16-week training course at the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center in Grand Island, a requirement for every sheriff's deputy in the state.

"That would shorten the whole process down by four months," Wagner said.

The Grand Island academy trains all Nebraska law enforcement except Lincoln and Omaha police and troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol.

Those agencies, which run their own academies, will have to decide how to proceed if the new rules are approved, said Crime Commission Executive Director Darrell Fisher.

An estimated 99 Nebraskans work as military police officers among the four armed services branches, Fisher said, citing data from the state Department of Labor.

Some of those might be stationed at Offutt Air Force Base or are winding down their careers after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nebraska already provides some reciprocity for MPs and outside law enforcement looking to work here, but with significant limitations.

Recruits either qualify for full reciprocity or they don't, with no middle option for those who need additional training in just a single subject area, said Bill Muldoon, director of the Grand Island academy.

The new rules would allow qualified recruits to skip all but certain portions of basic training identified by the academy as necessary.

A public hearing on the proposal is set for 9:30 a.m. Oct. 14 on the lower level of the State Office Building, 301 Centennial Mall South. It won't require a law change, but is part of the state's formal rules and regulations process, and must be approved by the governor and attorney general.

All hires, even those with extensive outside experience, will still be required to complete training on Nebraska's criminal, use of force, and search and seizure laws.

And each case will still be reviewed individually to ensure recruits are getting the training they need, Muldoon said.

"We don't want to short-change the citizens of Nebraska, either, by rushing somebody through that really needed the full basic."
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Linkedin Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 17 2016

The government-backed micro loan program may see its budget cut next year after a Finance Ministry review showed that only 15 percent of its full-year budget had been disbursed so far this year, although many remain confident about the program.



The Finance Ministry estimates that the subsidy for the loan program, dubbed the micro credit program (KUR), will be reduced to Rp 9.5 trillion (US$723.2 million) in the 2017 state budget from Rp 10.5 trillion in 2016.



Deputy Finance Minister Mardiasmo said the reduction was based on the ministrys assessment that the subsidy absorption would only reach 50 percent, or about Rp 5 trillion, of the total allocation this year as disbursement was weak.



Of the total Rp 10.5 trillion allocated this year, realization only reached Rp 1.5 trillion as of today. So, we predict the outlook by year-end will be Rp 5 trillion, he said after a meeting on KUR with other ministries on Friday.



The meeting, held at the Office of the Coordinating Economic Ministry, was also attended by Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Anak Agung Gede Ngurah Puspayoga and Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita in an effort to refurbish the loan program.



However, Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution said the government had yet to decide anything on KUR lending rate and its subsidy as it planned to continue discussion on the matter in a meeting next month.



He said he was convinced that disbursement for overall KUR loans could reach the targeted Rp 120 trillion this year as realization had reached 65 percent as of August, but most of the funds went to the trading sector instead of priority sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and manufacturing.



In order to ensure the funds channeled to targeted sectors, he said the government was planning to include cooperatives in the program as they had better networks to micro-business owners in rural areas. However, there will be some prerequisites in terms of financial health for cooperatives wishing to get involved in the program, he added.



Executives of banks participating in the KUR program said there would be no problem if the government went ahead with the plan to reduce subsidies, as they could step up efforts to reduce the cost of funds in order to support the program and stay profitable.



The government also plans to reduce the KUR rate to 7 percent next year from 9 percent at present. The current rate is the result of a cut from the previous 12 percent in 2015 and 22 percent over the past few years.



Should the government cut the subsidy and also reduce the KUR lending rate to 7 percent next year, the cost of funds at participating banks will need to be further pressed down in order to maintain margins. This is because a 7 percent rate is far lower than the current average lending rate of around 11 to 12 percent for retail loans and between 18 and 20 percent for micro-credit loans.



We need to see whether the government decides to cut the rate or the subsidy volume. If the rate is cut to 7 percent, each BPD will calculate according to their capacity in disbursing KUR loans so that it will not too burdensome for them, said Kresno Sediarsi, chairman of the Association of Regional Development Banks (Asbanda).



Meanwhile, Muhammad Irfan, director for business and small and medium enterprise at state-owned lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), was convinced that a rate subsidy cut in the KUR program would not be a significant burden on participating lenders as sufficient allocated funds would remain.



The reduction will probably only occur in the budget [for the subsidy], but the terms and conditions may be unchanged. It is because the budget for the KUR subsidy this year will not fully be absorbed, he said.



BRI president director Asmawi Syam was convinced that the bank, a KUR participant with the largest allocation and portfolio, would reach its target of Rp 67 trillion this year as it had already disbursed Rp 48 trillion as of August.



 Prima Wirayani contributed to the story.

________________________________

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Linkedin Sagara Kusuma (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 17 2016

Whether you are Muslim, Catholic, Buddhist or an agnostic Indonesian student, today you can be a part of any clique. Barring high school drama, students now make friends and help each other out regardless of faith and religious beliefs.

At least this was the message gleaned from a discussion at the British School Jakarta on Sept. 9 at the inaugural Inspire Me conference, which featured slogans such as internationalism through nationalism and nationalism and tolerance.

The students invited Yenny Wahid, daughter of former president Abdurrahman Gus Dur Wahid, who quoted her fathers teachings, it does not matter what religious beliefs you hold [] if you can do something good for everyone, no one will ask about your religion.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post)  Sat, September 17 2016

Carotid Ultrasound is a simple and non-invasive test that screens for plaque build up on the artery wall for early signs of stroke

On a recent interview, J+ had the opportunity to discuss strokes further with dr. Girianto Tjandrawidjaja. He is a respected senior doctor who has been working at Siloam Hospitals Lippo Village, the first hospital in Indonesia to be internationally accredited by JCI, since 1996. During the interview, he explained the importance of detecting strokes early. Understanding what stroke is, including its risks and causes, can reduce a persons chances of getting stroke.

A stroke occurs when the blood supply to an area of the brain is interrupted or reduced, causing oxygen deprivation. This medical condition can happen to anyone, both males and females. According to WHO Country Health Profiles 2012: Indonesia, Stroke is the number one cause of death among the top 10 causes of death in Indonesia. From this statistic, we can see that many Indonesians are still unaware of the risks associated with stroke.

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Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Boyolali, Central Java  Sun, September 18, 2016

High earnings seem a distant thing for tobacco farmers in the mountainous Merapi-Merbabu areas in Cepogo and Selo districts, Boyolali, Central Java, although they have already begun harvesting. This years wet dry season has threatened to reduce the quality of their tobacco leaves, which may lead to severe price drops.

This years tobacco harvest yields are far from our expectations. Dried chopped leaves of tobacco were priced at Rp 80,000 [US$6.07] per kilogram, but now they are selling at only Rp 60,000, said Sarmudi, 56, a resident of Sanden village in Cepogo, Boyolali.

Other tobacco farmers also shared similar concerns. Taryono, 58, predicted all tobacco farmers would suffer losses in this years harvest. In a good harvest, he could get profits of more than Rp 20 million, but this year he predicted he would earn no more than Rp 5 million.

We have no choice. If we dont immediately harvest our tobacco leaves, we will suffer greater losses because we have to allocate more treatment costs, said Taryono.

After harvesting tobacco leaves, farmers must chop and dry them by spreading them out in the sun to dry. Unfortunately, the skies over the slopes of the Merapi and Merbabu mountains are often cloudy and tobacco leaves must be dried on the same day they are chopped. Chopped tobacco leaves will suffer damage if they are not dried within a day and their worth declines further.

In many cases, farmers must seek places with enough sunlight, usually in urban areas. They dry their chopped tobacco leaves on fields or roadsides. They also often have to rent the yard of residents houses to put their chopped tobacco in the sun to dry.

These increase our production costs. To dry 1 ton of wet tobacco leaves, we have to spend around Rp 1 million to pay workers. This does not yet include transportation costs from Cepogo to drying places in those areas, said Taryono.

Ironically, farmers cannot yet sell their dried chopped leaves to cigarette companies because so far no company has opened warehouses to store them.

Unlike Taryono, Sarwoto, 50, chose to delay his harvest because of ongoing heavy rainfall, which made the curing process more difficult. Uncertain weather might lead to a 50 percent drop both in harvest yields and tobacco quality, he said.

Its a wet weather now; thus, not many farmers are willing to chop tobacco leaves. On the other hand, cigarette factories have not yet started to bargain over prices, he said.

The head of the Boyolali Agriculture, Plantation and Forestry Agencys plantation unit, Widodo, said the wet dry season had decreased the production of dried tobacco in Boyolali to only about six to seven quintals per hectare. In 2015, the production could reach nine to 10 quintals, he said.

Widodo said for this year, 3,000 hectares of tobacco had been planted in Boyolali, spread across areas on the slopes of the Merapi and Merbabu mountains, such as in Ampel, Cepogo, Mojosongo, Musuk and Selo.

Chopped Boyolali tobacco leaves are sold to big cigarette companies. Farmers usually sell their harvests to traders, who partner with the cigarette companies, said Widodo. (ebf)
Species Expansion & Endangered Species

My father owned a corner grocery store. There used to be lots of corner grocery stores. My grandfather owned 3 of them (did not operate them but rented them out). His 3 rented stores were located within a 4 block area. Did I say there used to be lots of them?



My father could have been rich if he had known how to properly price his Cheez-Its.



I don't mean to be critical of him but he sold his boxes of Cheez-Its for $.19 a box. If he had sold them for the $3.15+ they are being sold for today, his family could have been wealthy.



I guess he did alright because he did put my brother and me through college and we owned a 1951 Desoto but I always wished he had not traded in his 1941 Packard.



I am certain that all of you see the absolutely unassailable logic of my premise that he was Pricing Maximization Challenged, so now I will get into today's Foolishness..Or Is It?.



-------------------- Cheez-Its used to come in one flavor . It was called Cheese Flavored. Some called it Cheez-It Flavored. Today we are covered up in different flavors or varieties of products that once came in one color, one size, one flavor, etc.



Today "they" (whoever "they" are) keep pumping out different versions of their products and we keep buying up their "new" offerings. I once heard an acquaintance of mine say, "I have 2 laptops but I don't have a blue one". (You probably think I made this one up but I did not...Or did I?)



Let's get back to Cheez-Its. Cheez-Its now come in many different flavors, sizes and combinations. My local Publix has darn near an entire aisle devoted to Cheez-Its. If you are intending to purchase Cheez-Its during any visit to this store, it can be a dizzying and confusing experience. Here is what I saw the other day:



The Original Flavor (but it was hard to find), White Cheddar, Scrabble Junior, Colby, Mozzarella, Baby Swiss, Italian Four Cheese, Reduced Fat, Reduced Fat with Cheddar, Cars, Big (original) and Big (Monterey Jack), Hot & Spicy, Pepper Jack, 2 different DUOZ (2 flavors in one box), Cheddar Jack, Whole Grain, Snack Mix, Snack Mix Double Cheese, 12 Pack Boxes of Small Bags and Various Larger Family Size Boxes.



And Sunshine's Web Site tells me they come in many sizes:

6 ct/3 oz, 2 oz vend, 4.5 oz, 2 ct/24 oz, 3 oz, 2 ct/9 oz, 9 oz, 21 oz, 13.7 oz, 7 oz



I feel fairly certain that the Cheez-Its Rep is constantly browbeating my Publix Manager about getting more shelf space so he can win that trip to Hawaii that his wife is browbeating him about winning.

--------------------

Now for the Endangered Species part of the above subject of this Foolishness...Or Is It. This part has to do with Politics.



In Politics, historically, there have always been two kinds of Politician. There was the Honest Politician and there was the Dishonest Politician. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one is the Endangered Species.



Would I kid u?

Smartfella


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Linkedin Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara  Sun, September 18, 2016

Virginia tobacco farmers in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), are hoping that the government can intervene by setting a price floor for leaves in this years harvest period so that prices will not drop further.

East Lombok-chapter Indonesian Tobacco Farmers Association (APTI) chairman Apifuddin said the government had not yet determined the base price of Virginia tobacco leaves for this year.

The current selling price still refers to last years price, whereas production costs have increased for farmers, he told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.

Apifuddin said tobacco growers in East Lombok and NTB in general were facing a difficult situation this year because of extreme climate change and a wet dry season, during which there has been more rainfall than usual.

As the result, he further said, the quality of the Virginia tobacco leaves produced was not good as they contained excess water.

This high water level has lowered the quality of tobacco leaves because they cannot dry optimally during the curing process. Tobacco companies can push down tobacco prices down further. Without government intervention, many farmers will suffer losses, said Apifuddin.

Based on APTI data, at least 3,000 tobacco farmers in East Lombok currently partner with 13 cigarette companies. More than 18,000 other farmers work independently.

Ideally, dried tobacco leaves are priced at at least Rp 45,000 [US$3.42] per kilogram for the best quality, but now, grade-A dried tobacco can sell at only Rp 35,000 per kg while in fact, its difficult for farmers to get the best quality tobacco because of the weather, said Apifuddin. (ebf)
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, September 18, 2016

Former deputy foreign minister Dino Patti Djalal has urged Indonesia to unite with the world's middle-power countries and strengthen diplomacy to compete with major powers in global political and economic affairs.

The current trend of deteriorating relations between major powers marked a chance for Indonesia and other middle-power countries, such as India, Australia and South Korea, to strengthen cooperation and be versatile in order to increase their strategic relevance and play a greater role in international relations, Dino said.

More than half of the G20 economies were middle-powers countries that had the potential to be game changers on a global scale, Dino said at the sidelines of the 2016 Conference on Indonesian Foreign Policy in Jakarta on Saturday.

"Indonesia should be an effective and agile middle-power country, not only a country listed as a middle power. Because if middle-power countries can use their power and diplomacy effectively, they can be agents of change in international system," Dino told the journalists.

The basic problem with the relations between middle powers was that the countries were not united, as they had their own agendas.

However, Dino stressed that Indonesia should also aim to maintain close ties with the world's major powers, including the US and China. (evi)

Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly described Dino Patti Djalal as a former foreign minister. Dino served as deputy foreign minister for a few months in 2014 and as Indonesian Ambassador to the US from 2010 to 2013. We apologize for the error. Editor
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Linkedin Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara  Sun, September 18, 2016

The West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) administration continues to monitor the purchasing process of Virginia tobacco leaves produced by local farmers despite a signed agreement that aims to protect them and their partner cigarette companies from suffering losses, an official has said.

In price discussion meetings, we are invited by cigarette companies to act as an observer and this is mandatory because of the governments roles as both regulator and mediator, the NTB Plantation Agencys business development head, Retty Wimartini, said in a recent interview.

Based on NTB Plantation Agency data, 13 cigarette companies operating in Lombok have partnered with local farmers. Of the total, only six companies have set a base price for the purchasing of Virginia tobacco leaves in the regency.

Retty said a price agreement between cigarette companies and their partner tobacco growers had been mandated in NTB Regional Regulation (Perda) No. 4/2006 on Virginia tobacco cultivation and business partnership.

The NTB administration later issued NTB Governor Regulation No. 2/2007 as an implementing regulation of Perda No.4, she said.

Based on an agreement, the base price of the best quality Virginia tobacco is Rp 39,000 [US$2.96] per kilogram. Several other companies have decided on lower prices ranging between Rp 34,000 and Rp 35,000, but based on our observations, those prices are not yet inflicting losses on the farmers, said Retty.

The data revealed that in this years growing period local farmers have planted 15,000 hectares with Virginia tobacco, producing about 30,000 tons, about two tons per hectare. (ebf)
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Linkedin Michael Balsamo and Bruce Shipkowski (Associated Press) Seaside Park, NJ  Sun, September 18, 2016

A pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey shore town Saturday shortly before thousands of runners were to participate in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors, authorities said.

No injuries were reported in the blast in Seaside Park around 9:30 a.m. Saturday, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor's office. He said no surrounding structures were damaged.

The FBI has taken over as the lead agency in the investigation. But officials would not say whether they believe the incident was terror-related or if they suspected participants in the third annual Semper Five run were targeted.

Brad Cohen, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Newark, declined to discuss the matter at length during a brief news conference staged Saturday evening. He also declined to take questions from reporters, citing the "active, ongoing" investigation.

The race had been scheduled to start shortly before the blast occurred, but it was delayed due to the large numbers of people registering for the race and reports of an unattended backpack being found. Della Fave noted that if the race had started on time, a "good number of people" would have been running past the area where the explosion occurred.

The race was canceled, and the immediate area was put on lockdown. Several homes near the scene were evacuated as a precaution, though those residents were allowed to return home early Saturday night. However, authorities said several beaches in the area would remain closed until further notice.

The pipe bomb was in a plastic garbage can when it exploded, Della Fave said, but the immediate area where the blast occurred was mostly empty at the time. Authorities immediately cleared the boardwalk and beach area, and bomb-sniffing dogs were used to search the area.

Shortly after the blast occurred, Della Fave told reporters at the scene that preliminary reports said there may have been other devices connected to the pipe bomb, but those devices apparently had not gone off.

New Jersey State Police said later in the day that bomb technicians "rendered safe" items located in a plastic trash can where the explosion occurred; they did not specify what those items were or provide further details, citing the ongoing investigation. They also said there was nothing to reports of another explosive device near the site of the explosion.

Chad Ruedin, who happened to be walking along the boardwalk when the blast occurred, told News12 New Jersey that when he heard the explosion, he initially thought it was the start of the charity race. But after thinking about it for a minute, Ruedin said he thought to himself "that was one hell of a start to a race."

Ruedin said he soon saw smoke coming from the garbage can and saw other debris in the area, though he didn't know if those items were parts of the can and/or trash that had been in the receptacle.

Numerous state and federal law enforcement agencies were involved in the investigation. Attorney General Christopher Porrino and Col. Rick Fuentes, superintendent of the state police, briefed Gov. Chris Christie on the investigation.

"Working with the FBI and ATF, we are taking every step to ensure the safety of the public and to determine who was responsible for this explosion, which occurred at a time when runners in this charity race could have been in harm's way," Porrino said in a statement. "We are grateful that nobody was injured, but this is a serious act of violence against the people of New Jersey. We will not rest until we find the person or persons responsible."

Congressman Tom MacArthur, who represents the area that includes Burlington and Ocean counties, described the person responsible for the incident as "mentally unhinged."

He described the community as military centered, with lots of veterans and active duty military personnel. He said those in the area have been through a lot, with Superstorm Sandy and its aftermath, and now the bomb blast.

He said he's confident law enforcement will find the person responsible. MacArthur said that person needs to be "tracked down and brought to justice."

It wasn't clear when the boardwalk and beach would reopen. Some other community events went on as planned in nearby towns on Saturday, though officials said security at those sites had been stepped up in the wake of the blast.

It wasn't immediately clear if the charity race would be rescheduled.

___

Shipkowski reported from Trenton.
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Linkedin Andi Hajramurni (The Jakarta Post) Makassar, South Sulawesi  Sun, September 18, 2016

The South Sulawesi Police have declared they will maintain the status quo in a conflict between Gowa Regent Adnan Purichta Ichsan Yasin Limpo and the Gowa royal family.

The police said they took control of Balla Lompoa, the Gowa Kingdoms palace, on Friday to prevent a deeper conflict between the two parties.

We conveyed to both parties that we would maintain the status quo in Balla Lompoa and they agreed. Starting from today [Friday], the palace will be guarded by police personnel, supported by Public Order Agency officers, South Sulawesi Police chief Insp.Gen. Anton Charliyan in Makassar.

Heirloom objects belonging to the Gowa Kingdom are now under police guard as well. Those objects, such as a salokoa (a gold crown inlaid with precious stones), rings, pins and kris (a kind of wavy-bladed dagger), are still being kept in the Tamalate Palace, which is located inside the Balla Lompoa compound, but police said they may move them if necessary.

Currently, all of those heirloom objects are still in Balla Lompoa and under the tight monitoring of police personnel. Well see to their condition. If their safety is threatened, we will move them to safer places, such as to banks or other safe places, because these are heirloom objects and we must protect them, said Anton.

Concerns over the safety of these objects emerged after Adnan was inaugurated as the head of the Gowa Customary Institution (LAD) on Sept. 9 based on Gowa Bylaw No. 5/2016 on the restructuring of traditions and culture in Gowa regency.

The bylaw stipulates that the head of the LAD will play the role and undertake the functions of the sombaya (king) of Gowa. Within a day of his inauguration, Adnan reportedly ordered the seizure of various heirloom objects that were under the protection of Andi Maddusila Andi Idjo, the son of the 36th king of Gowa, Andi Idjo Daeng Mattawang. Maddusila was himself inaugurated as the 37th king of Gowa several months ago.

The Gowa royal family reported that a safe the then reigning queen of the Netherlands, Wilhelmina, gave to the kingdom in 1936 had been forcefully opened using a crowbar. Several heirloom objects kept in the safe were taken and moved to a strongbox provided by the LAD.

The conflicts culminated during the celebration of Idul Adha, the Muslim Day of Sacrifice, on Sept. 12. Adnan took over the organizing of the Accera Kalompoang, a ceremony involving the washing of heirloom objects traditionally conducted by the Gowa royal family. Adnan claimed that since he had been inaugurated as the head of the LAD head, the preservation of traditions and heirloom objects had become his responsibility.

The Gowa regent said the LAD was established because the regency administration wanted to preserve Gowa's traditions, culture and historic assets. He later declared Balla Lompoa and the Gowa Kingdoms heirloom objects were now assets of Gowa. These are Gowa assets and their preservation must be protect by the LAD head, said Adnan.

Andi Baso Machmud, a member of the Gowa Kingdoms customary council, said both the palace and the heirloom objects were the inheritance of the Gowa kings and they should have been automatically passed onto their successive generation. (ebf)
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, September 18, 2016

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called on the young generation of Indonesian diplomats to learn about the importance of preventive diplomacy, so that when things get rough, they can contribute to deescalate conflicts with other countries.

"Everyone should understand and practice the art of diplomacy, with a purpose of achieving peace in the world, so we can build a better place for our future generation," the sixth president of Indonesia said Saturday at the closing session of the 2016 Conference on Indonesian Foreign Policy.

While Indonesian foreign policy should consistently aim to secure national interests to improve public welfare, diplomats should maintain all possible good relations with other nations, as the founding fathers had mandated the country contribute to guarding peace and stability of the world order, Yudhoyono said.

Meanwhile, former Timor Leste President Xanana Gusmao, who joined Yudhoyono in the session, said youths were key to promoting a more peaceful world order with greater tolerance for diversity, as long as they were willing to realize their potential.

"The world needs all the young diplomats, who bring new spirit and vision. I see youth-to-youth diplomacy playing a great role in making the world better," Gusmao said.

He added he wished Indonesian youths would strengthen ties with Timorese youngsters to develop bilateral relations between the neighboring countries for the future. (evi)
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Linkedin N.Adri (The Jakarta Post) Balikpapan  Sun, September 18, 2016

The local administration in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, has agreed to become the supplier of organic waste to state-owned fertilizer producer PT Pupuk Indonesia, which will use it as a raw material for the manufacture of organic fertilizer.

Balikpapan has quite a high potential for organic waste production, amounting to 63 million tons per year, Pupuk Indonesia president director Aas Asikin Idat said in a recent interview in Balikpapan.

Data shows Balikpapan produces a total of 93 million tons of organic and non-organic waste every year. Most of the waste ends up in the Manggar landfill site (TPA), about 30 kilometers from the citys downtown.

We will take a role as the sorter of the waste, Balikpapan mayor Rizal Effendi said. Only selected waste would be provided as raw material for the organic material.

The Balikpapan administration and PT Pupuk Indonesia has signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate, expecting that the project would be up and running within a year.

Through its several subsidiaries, such as PT Pupuk Kalimantan Timur, PT Pupuk Sriwijaya and PT Petrokimia Gresik, Pupuk Indonesia has the capacity to process up to 2 million tons of organic fertilizer per year, Aas said.

Half of the companys total annual production is used to make the subsidized organic fertilizer required by Agriculture Minister Regulation No. 60/2015.

Indonesia needs 6.9 million tons of organic fertilizer per year. This is based on a calculation of the amount of the countrys active agricultural areas and a fertilizing pattern of 5:3:2, or 500 kilograms of organic fertilizer, 300 kg of urea and 200 kg of NPK per hectare. (ebf)
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Linkedin Edith M Lederer (Associated Press) United Nations  Sun, September 18, 2016

World leaders meeting at the United Nations starting Monday will be trying to make progress on two intractable problems at the top of the global agenda  the biggest refugee crisis since World War II and the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year which has claimed over 300,000 lives.

Against a backdrop of rising ethnic and religious tension, fighting elsewhere in the Mideast and Africa, extremist attacks across theworld and a warming planet, there are plenty of other issues for the 135 heads of state and government and more than 50 ministers expected to attend to try to tackle.

"It's no secret there's a lot of fear out there," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told reporters Thursday, citing the uncertainties sparked by Britain's vote to leave the European Union, the threat posed by the Islamic State extremist group, and attacks in many parts of the world by IS and other terrorist groups.

But Syria, where a tense cease-fire brokered by Moscow and Washington went into effect last Monday, remains at the top of the agenda at the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting. An apparently errant airstrike on Saturday in which the U.S. military may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against the Islamic State group could deal a crushing blow to the U.S.-Russian-brokered cease-fire. The cease-fire, which does not apply to attacks on IS, has largely held for five days despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides.

The U.N. Security Council scheduled a closed emergency meeting Saturday night at Russia's request to discuss the airstrike.

The Security Council earlier had scheduled a ministerial meeting on Syria for Wednesday. Russia was pushing for a resolution to endorse the cessation of hostilities and look ahead, but the U.S. refused to make public details of the cease-fire deal citing "operational security." Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called the U.S. uncooperative and said most likely "we're not going to have a resolution."

With the truce still fragile, no sign yet of humanitarian aid deliveries, and supporters and opponents of the Syrian government trading accusations, diplomats said there may be a meeting Tuesday of some 20 key countries on both sides who are part of the International Syria Support Group to chart the next steps.

The spotlight during the week is also certain to shine on three leaders, who are all scheduled to speak at the assembly's opening ministerial session on Tuesday morning.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who steps down on Dec. 31, and U.S. President Barack Obama who will leave office in January, will be addressing the 193-member world body for the last time. And British Prime Minister Theresa May will be making her debut on the world stage less than three months after the vote to leave the European Union.

In U.N. corridors and at private meetings, the question of Ban's successor will be a hot topic. Portugal's former Prime Minister Antonio Guterres has topped all four informal polls in the Security Council but he could be vetoed, possibly by Russia, and there are constant rumors of new candidates throwing their hats in the ring.

The U.S. presidential race is already a hot topic at the U.N., and no doubt leaders will be privately discussing the impact of a victory by Hillary Clinton, and especially Donald Trump, on the United Nations where the United States is the largest financial contributor and has veto-wielding power in the Security Council.

In one of the week's highlights, the secretary-general has invited leaders to a first-ever U.N. Summit on Refugees and Migrants on Monday.

According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, an "unprecedented" 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, an increase of more than 5 million from a year earlier and the highest number since World War II. They include 21.3 million refugees, 3.2 million asylum seekers, and 40.8 million people internally displaced within their own countries.

"''More countries must resettle more people who have been forced from their homes," Ban told reporters Wednesday. "And everyone, everywhere, must stand up against the animosity that so many refugees, migrants and minority communities face."

The political declaration set to be adopted calls for separate Global Compacts for refugees and migrants to be adopted within two years. But human rights groups complained that it was watered down, eliminating Ban's proposal to resettle 10 percent of the world'srefugees annually.

At a follow-up summit on Tuesday called by Obama, at least 45 countries are expected to make pledges that will meet or exceed U.S. goals of increasing humanitarian aid by $3 billion, doubling resettlement and lawful admission spots, and increasing access to education for one million youngsters and access to employment by one million, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the summit.

"We are not going to solve the refugee crisis on Tuesday," U.S. envoy Power said, "but I think you'll see an important show of political will from leaders around the world."

According to the United Nations, 545 meetings have been requested and Ban will take part in 62 events.

The U.N. chief, who has made climate change a top priority, has organized an event Wednesday for countries to deliver their ratifications of the Paris Declaration to tackle global warming. He is hoping to get the required 55 countries representing 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, if not Wednesday, by the end of the year.

Nigeria's Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama, whose government is battling the confronting the Boko Haram Islamic extremists, told reporters Friday that addressing "this global phenomenon of terrorism" will be high on his country's agenda along with tackling the U.N. development goals for 2030 and promoting a new U.N. body to focus on youth.

The Security Council is holding a ministerial meeting Thursday on improving aviation security, and it could meet again if agreement is reached on a resolution to support the nuclear test ban treaty which will likely single out North Korea, the only country to conduct tests in the 21st century.

The parties to the Iran nuclear deal are also scheduled to meet Thursday as well as the Quartet of Mideast mediators  the U.S., U.N., EU and Russia  who are trying to get Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, September 18, 2016

Indonesia should further assert its leadership in ASEAN to maintain unity amid the internal challenges that potentially threaten the regional body's vision of forming an integrated community, former foreign minister Dino Patti Djalal says.

According to Dino, some ASEAN member states are currently going through political changes, including the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand, and their internal situations have created some distractions that affect cooperation in the regional body.

As a country that had been playing a central role in the region, Indonesia should therefore be able to encourage ASEAN member states to get re-energized and to reaffirm their goals to ensure that the regional body moves in the right direction, Dino said.

"ASEAN centrality needs to be earned and thus it is important for us to take the lead [...] Indonesia is the natural leader of ASEAN and other member states seem to regard us as so," Dino told journalists in Saturday.

Speaking at the sidelines of the 2016 Conference on Indonesian Foreign Policy in Jakarta, Dino also said ASEAN should further unify and discuss a suitable joint strategy to make the regional body able to face global challenges in the years ahead. (evi)
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Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, September 18, 2016

Getting the most affordable airfare may be tricky, as proven by the query about the best time to book a flight, a top Google Search question in July. However, travelers who want to get the best deal without having to check the price for their desired flight periodically may now consider Traveloka's new Price Alerts feature.

Price Alerts provides a convenient booking experience, where travelers do not need to monitor their options frequently. Whats more, they will be the first to know the best time to book a flight, because they will get a notification once the price of their desired flight has either dropped or matches their budget, explains Traveloka head of marketing Dannis Muhammad in a press release.

Price Alerts provides a convenient booking experience for travelers seeking a good price for a specific flight(Traveloka/File)

(Read also: Hospitality: dREAMSCAPE to host Dreams Around the World luxury travel show)

Travelers only need to sign in to the app to use the feature. After choosing Price Alerts in the My Account menu, they need to fill in some details, such as the flight, alert type and frequency, before clicking the save button. Once it is set up, they will get alerts in form of emails or push notifications.

Launched in August this year, Price Alerts has already helped numerous travelers for both domestic and international flight, especially those flying to Denpasar, Bali, or Singapore, as the top destinations. (asw)
When I first told people I was headed for Romania, I received mixed responses.

For most, it seems, Romania conjures only vague images of a faraway, post-communist nation and Bram Stokers infamous, aquiline-nosed Dracula. In hindsight, I wonder why more Americans dont visit Romania, or Eastern Europe, for that matter. Eastern Europes mix of quaint cottages, hip cafes, cultural festivals, quirky nightlife and bustling outdoor markets offers all the glamour and culture of the west at a fraction of the cost and with shorter lines and fewer tourists.

One look at a map dispels some ambiguities about Romania. It is the 12th largest nation in Europe, and its capital city, Bucharest, boasts a population of over 2 million. The city hosts a striking juxtaposition of stately stone buildings, posh modern bars and dilapidated Communist apartment blocks. Under former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, many of Bucharests old neighborhoods were demolished to make way for grim, standardized blocks, and they remain as a quiet but omnipresent reminder.

This year, Ceausescus home opened for public tours. Still complete with the familys clothing and furniture, a replica of Marie Antoinettes bedroom and an indoor cinema, the house is eerie and shockingly modern. Ceausescu and his wife were tried and shot by military tribunal in December 1989. The history is so recent that most Romanians lived through his reign, during which citizens were only allotted two hours of television a day and had to wait in long lines for necessities like bread and toilet paper.

But amidst this grappling with the past comes a frenzy for the future. The Old Town is home to dozens of modern dance clubs and restaurants, the metro is clean and reliable, and Bucharest is a very safe city with negligible violent crime rates. All of this comes at an incredibly low price. At Caru cu Bere, a local and tourist favorite, I feasted on sarmale (cabbage rolls stuffed with meat), mamaliga (cornmeal porridge) and a large house beer for the equivalent of about $12. With my student ID, many museums cost less than $1 to enter, but the quality didnt suffer. My personal favorite is the Dmitri Gusti Village Museum, an open-air collection of over 272 traditional Romanian peasant homes and churches.

The train ride to towns outside Bucharest is a worthwhile journey. One man I met on the train described looking out the window at the countryside as watching a movie. The crumpled orange roofs, horse-drawn carts and endless hills made way to the small Saxon town of Sighisoara. Known for its ancient clock tower and Germanic architecture, the town was straight out of a fairytale, and the Romanian cuisine was authentic and inexpensive.

The northern city, Cluj-Napoca, is replete with chic students, bookstores and coffee shops on every corner. There, I stumbled into an art exhibit that was not to open until that evening. When a chaperone came to notify me, the artist herself appeared and personally invited me to look around and attend the opening that night.

My last evening in Budapest, I walked across the Chain Bridge as the sun set, so that I could stand on the banks of the Danube and watch the lights on the Hungarian Parliament Building blink to life, its facade melting into the river before it.

For around $6, I frequently enjoyed langos, Hungarian fried flatbread, usually covered in meat, cheese and cream.

Housed in what once was an abandoned warehouse, Szimpla Kert is Budapests most famous ruin pub. The open-air bar and dance club hosts rooms decorated by a multitude of artists in varying whacky styles, each full of antiques and oddities. On one wall, I scratched a few favorite Wordsworth lines with my name and the date for the city to remember me by.

In Bratislava, Slovakia, $7 will take you atop the UFO bridge, above which a circular outerspace-themed bar boasts panoramic views of the city. For fans of the macabre, Eastern Europe offers a trip to Draculas Castle in Bran, Romania, a drink aboard an alien bridge, and, of course, the famous Wawel dragon of Krakow.

Krakow, Poland is a tourist favorite thanks to the architectural magnificence of the Mariacki church in the main square, the lively Jewish Kazimierz district, and Wawel Castle and Cathedral. Legend relays that a dragon once lived on the bank of the Vistula River in Krakow, and today, at the entrance of the Wawel Cathedral, several Pleistocene bones hang to remind visitors of the citys mythic history.

During World War II, Nazis used Krakow as the capital of German government, so its old buildings were spared the destruction that flattened much of Warsaw. Warsaw, however, makes up for it with modern shopping centers, streets lined in vegan bakeries, and, Chopin fans rejoice; while his body is in Paris at the Pere Lachaise, Chopins heart rests in Warsaws Holy Cross Church, just a 20-minute walk from the beautifully curated National Museum of Art.

For a departure from Polish architecture old or new, I traveled north to Gdansk, part of the Tricity area. There, the Vistula River flows between rows of colorful Dutch Renaissance buildings, including Dom Uphagena, a preserved 18th century home complete with tour guides in period dress. I enjoyed homemade hot chocolate during a panoramic ride on the city Ferris wheel at dusk. From the top, I could see Gdansks famous amber jewelry displays, as well as textile vendors and coffee carts. In short, think a cheaper, less touristy Copenhagen.

I undertook this journey alone thanks to a generous OneTraveler grant, and created my own agenda and budget. Traveling independently allowed me to maintain my own schedule, explore lesser-traveled destinations and spend time meeting locals. To anyone considering either Eastern European or solo travel, cast all doubts aside. Keep a sharp eye out for pickpockets in crowded areas, but otherwise expect fair prices, friendly locals and a safe, unique visit to these bastions of both recent and ancient history.
Ahead of London Fashion Week, designers from across the world are gearing up to prepare for the highly anticipated week of fashion shows and events.

On Thursday 15th September, the eve of London Fashion Week, On|Off celebrated emerging fashion talent, showing works by designers who are both on and off the official London Fashion Week schedule. On Thursday 15th September, the eve of London Fashion Week, On|Off celebrated emerging fashion talent, showing works by designers who are both on and off the official London Fashion Week schedule.

MA Fashion Design students from Winchester School of Art are amongst the emerging designers taking part in the Tomorrows Talent showcase for On|Off, held at the Vinyl Factory.

I had the personal pleasure of interviewing four MA students, Gavin Guo, Yan Zhao, Zoey Huang and Lanna Lu from Winchester School of Art, to find out how they were feeling in the days leading up to the Tomorrows Talent show.

Gavin considers it to be a huge honour to be one of Tomorrows Talent.

I cant wait for the show!".

He was not that into fashion before coming to university, but was encouraged by others to study fashion design as his hometown in China is known for its garments industry. To his suprise an interest and passion for the subject took a fierce hold of him, from studying fashion history, and reading fashion magazines, he fell in love with the subject and came to crave an opportunity to broach the industry. He is now interested in everything about fashion, listing amongst his interests fashion design, but also fashion photography, styling, fashion management and so on.

Gavin describes his garments as interesting and funny, based on the narrative of two girls visiting a museum: I created a conversation between these two girls. One... cant help to say amazing, gorgeous and so on. The other girl asks her to shut up, preferring to walk around the museum in silence.

The inspiration for the collections concept comes from his interest in British museum culture: Museums offer me endless inspiration.

In her designs, Yan explores fashion psychology by using the theme of confusion as her main source of inspiration to create unique, expressive garments. Within her collection are references to punk culture, and she focused her research on steampunk and Victorian fashion.

The more Yan studies fashion, the more she loves it. With still much knowledge of fashion that I dont know, Yan hopes to continue learning, developing and furthering her creative abilities.

As she continues working towards a career in fashion design, Yan hopes to learn the market, the whole industry environment, [and] customers through interning and working for fashion brands following her masters study.

Finding Winchester to be a beautiful place and Winchester School of Arts study environment to be very happy and comfortable, Yan describes her year studying at Winchester School of Art as a very useful and important experience.

Having been working hard on finishing touches for the On|Off show, Zoey told me that she is so excited.

With a minimalist shape and using fine fabrics I like to make the look more feminine to refresh work clothes, Zoey told me. For inspiration, she looks towards the iconically classic style of Yves Saint Laurent.

The minimalism of Zoeys designs is reflective of her focus on designing ready-to-wear garments in previous collections which require simpler designs and a heavier emphasis on pattern-making in the design process.

Aware of the challenges of being a designer in the fast-paced fashion industry, Zoey seems prepared for the challanges posed by her chosen career path. I detect in her tone an understated awareness of what it takes to keep up with the constantly changing trends to succeed in contemporary fashion.

In comparison to her BA Fashion Design degree at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, Zoey has found her studies at Winchester School of Art to be, not only a more complex and in-depth study of fashion, but also a much more free and personal approach to fashion education. As an MA student, Zoey feels less restricted by the teaching and has delighted in being able to explore her own individual style.

As she looks forward to the On|Off show, Lanna told me that she feels fantastic.

Lanna has been working on the collection due to be displayed at the On|Off show for around three months. She will have four outfits on display, all of which are inspired by traditional Asian culture and dress, focusing on Japanese and Chinese fashion designs.

Lanna talks highly of her time at Winchester School of Art. Unsure whether to return to China, where she is from, or to stay in the UK, Lanna hopes to continue studying fashion following her MA Fashion Design degree at Winchester School of Art. She is also considering doing internships to further her fashion education and gain more direct experience within the industry.

She describes Winchester School of Art as a great experience and recommends it to any prospective fashion students.

With each student having a distinctive style and an individual approach to fashion design, they are sure to have made an impact at the Tomorrow's Talent showcase .
There is No Future for leather, fur and wool - at least accoding to PETA activists, who held a protest outside London Fashion Weeks headquarters on Brewer Street on Friday.

Celebrating 40 years of punk, PETA sparked its own Vegan Fashion Revolution with four models dressed in vegan clothing.

The tough, edgy look was made up with faux leather, floaty tulle and tartan.

Causing a riot, placards stated Fur is Dead, Leather is Dead and Wool is Dead and declared that the future of fashion lays in eco and animal friendly vegan designs.

"Every scrap of fur, leather, or wool means a lifetime of suffering and a terrifying death for a fox, cow, or sheep", says PETA Director Elisa Allen.

"PETA is calling for a fashion revolution because with all the high-quality, innovative vegan fabrics available, there is simply no excuse for wearing animal skins."

PETAs motto states that animals are not ours to wear, bringing light to the conditions that foxes, rabbits, mink, cows and sheep are confined to before theyre killed for their fur, leather and wool.

A recent expose by PETA also revealed a thriving dog-leather industry in China.
If youve never heard of the Great Big Bacon Picnic, and all you want most mornings is a juicy bacon sandwich, prepare yourselves  youre about to salivate, probably an embarrassing amount.

Held at The Old Pfizer Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (just a short cab ride from Manhattan), the massive indoor/outdoor festival returns on September 24-25 for a second year.

Heres a taste of what the event looked like last time and yes, that is spreadable bacon you can see.

If you still need persuading that The Great Big Bacon Picnic is the best thing to ever happen to mankind, just take note that youll find unlimited (yes, unlimited) bacon and booze there. The festival hosts more than 100 chefs, brew masters and craft distillers.

Foods definitely not to miss at the festival include the black-pepper thick-cut bacon with horseradish glaze from Tellers. When it comes to sweet stuff to try, what about the bacon-butter-crunch toffee from Roni-Sues Chocolates?

You should probably also make sure any visit takes in the Bacon Bar, where there will be piles of nine different flavour rashers to choose from.

There are three different sessions at the festival  brunch on the Saturday from 12  2.30pm, happy hour from 5.30 until 8 and brunch on the Sunday from 1 until 3.30.

which will set you back between $79 and $249 (60  191) Should you happen to be in New York next weekend you can buy tickets, here , and while doing so you can check out the full list of participants.

Oh, and just so you know, the festival will only have bacon from an actual pig so, definitely no soy bacon to be seen.
Twenty-nine people were injured in an explosion in the Chelsea area of Manhattan on Saturday night.

Another suspicious device was later found nearby and removed by authorities.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called the blast, which happened at about 8.30pm on West 23rd street, an intentional act.

He said: Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident. We have no credible and specific threat at this moment.

De Blasio said the explosion had no terrorist connection and wasnt related to a pipe bomb explosion earlier on Saturday at a charity run in New Jersey.

Its not clear at the moment who was behind the blast and what motivated it.

We do think this was an intentional act. You can help your #NYPD. If you saw/heard something, please call 800-577-TIPS and/or 888-NYC-SAFE.  Commissioner O'Neill (@NYPDONeill) September 18, 2016



A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that a second device officers investigated appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a mobile phone.

The source said the device was found inside a plastic bag on West 27th Street.

(Maria Sanminiatelli/AP)

The device was removed with a robot and taken to the department firing range in the Bronx, officials said.

When officers were investigating the second site, police spokesman J Peter Donald tweeted a warning to residents to stay away from windows facing 27th Street.

Update on West 27th Street in Manhattan pic.twitter.com/PHjcTCXoER  J. Peter Donald (@JPeterDonald) September 18, 2016



The law enforcement official also said the explosion on West 23rd street appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a residence for the blind. Photos from the scene show a twisted and crumpled black metal box.

Witnesses say the explosion blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris in the area, but officials said no evacuations were necessary.

(Andres Kudacki/AP)

Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said several people were taken to hospitals with injuries.

One person suffered a puncture wound that was considered serious, but he said the other injuries were minor, described as scrapes and bruises.
Dear Doctor K: I'm the primary caregiver for my ill, elderly father. I'm exhausted and upset all the time. What can I do to lighten my load without costing us much? Neither of us is well off.

Dear Reader: You're not alone. Approximately one in five American adults helps an elderly or disabled family member with the daily tasks of life. This caregiving runs the gamut from grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning house, to helping with baths and personal hygiene or providing hands-on medical care. That's often in addition to caring for other family members and holding down a paid job.

Caregiving may be one of the most worthwhile jobs you'll ever undertake, but it can be exhausting. It can cause immense strain, which may lead to depression and health problems.

Here are some budget-conscious tips to help you take care of yourself:

* Always accept help when it's offered. Create a list of very specific things that you would love to have help with, so you can request something specific when help is offered.

* Tap into religious communities. A religious or spiritual community can be a strong source of assistance if you or the person you are caring for belongs to one.

* Support groups are a good place to share ideas and experiences with other caregivers. There are quite a number of support groups for caregivers on the internet. Just type "caregiving support groups" into a search engine.

* Look for government-supported services. You might be surprised by how many services your father may be eligible for. These are services provided by local or state governments, or by the federal government. Ask your doctor for the name of a social worker who can work with the two of you. Particularly if your father is on Medicare, he may be eligible for help in cleaning the home, personal hygiene, and even "Meals on Wheels" delivered to the home.

* Stay connected. Catch up with friends regularly. Establish a weekly walk with a friend or an occasional lunch or movie.

* Clear your schedule. Set aside a regular time to spend with your partner or family, away from home.

* Stay active. Try to get 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day, most days of the week.

* Enjoy yourself. Listen to music, enjoy a luxurious bath, take a yoga class or do a jigsaw puzzle. Regular time off can renew your spirit and energy. If you don't take care of yourself, you won't be in very good shape to take care of your father.

* Ease stress. Learn meditation or other relaxation techniques.

I have never had to be a caregiver for a member of my family, but many of my patients have been in that position. Their personal sacrifice and dedication inspire me. But sometimes they need help to lighten their load. Often that help is available, but they have to be proactive to find it.

(This column ran originally in October 2013.)
Former chancellor George Osborne has said that Theresa May had a wobble over his Northern Powerhouse project after she became Prime Minister.

Osbornes comment, as he launched a new think-tank to drive the scheme forward, is the clearest indication yet that he had to fight to keep his flagship policy on track after being sacked from the Government in July.

George Osborne said he sweated blood to get a mayor for Birmingham (Matthew Horwood/PA)

He announced that he has recruited the former mayor of New York, billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg, to advise the powerful new elected metro mayors being created in city regions including Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield.

Osborne will chair the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, an independent group, including politicians and business leaders, to help push the agenda of greater powers and investment for the regions to boost jobs and growth.

The future of the initiative, launched by Mr Osborne in 2014, came under question after Mrs Mays arrival in 10 Downing Street in July.

She initially appeared reluctant to use the phrase Northern Powerhouse, speaking instead of a broader nationwide industrial strategy, rather than a regional focus solely on the north.

Osborne told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: I think, to be honest, there was a little bit of a wobble when we had the new administration about whether they were still committed to the concept of the Northern Powerhouse.

He added: Im the first to say we need economic development across the whole of the country. I sweated blood to get a mayor for Birmingham. That was one of the most difficult things I pulled off in office. Im passionate about building out the engine of the West Midlands.

But in the North of England, there is a particular opportunity because the cities are close together.

Osborne sits in the cabin of a Chinese bullet train, similar to those he wishes to introduce to northern cities (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Plans included new investment in north-south high-speed rail, HS2, and an east-west version, HS3, linking the belt of northern cities from Liverpool to Hull, via Manchester and Leeds.

The plans also included the election of metro mayors for bigger city regions, including for Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield.

But Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, both MPs and Labours candidates for the mayoral elections in Manchester and Liverpool, recently warned Mrs May that pulling the plug on the Northern Powerhouse agenda would be as big a betrayal as the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher pulled the plug on our industries.

Osborne insisted: The Northern Powerhouse is here to stay.
Swedens Court of Appeal has refused a bid by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to have his case set aside, ruling that no new information has emerged.

The computer programmer and publisher has been seeking refuge in Londons Ecuadoran embassy since August 2012, after a Swedish court ruled to extradite him on charges of sexual assault and rape.

Supporters believe that Assange could face deportation to the United States if he is made to face trial in Sweden (John Stillwell/PA)

Assange claims that the decision could lead to a politically motivated deportation to the United States, where he is wanted in connection with charges of espionage following WikiLeaks public dissemination of classified American military information.

The appeal court said that after reviewing material in the case it found that the Australian was still a suspect in a sex allegation, which he has always denied.

In May, a Stockholm district court upheld an arrest warrant against Assange, who filed an appeal at Swedens Court of Appeal, arguing that Sweden must comply with the UN groups findings that his deprivation of liberty was unlawful and that Sweden must release and compensate him for the harm caused.

Concerns have been raised about Assanges health, after spending four years in Londons Ecuadoran embassy (John Stillwell/PA)

WikiLeaks points out that the UK Government refuses to give any guarantees that Assange will not be extradited to the United States if he leaves the embassy.

The FBI and US Department of Justice informed a federal court in the United States that prosecutive efforts remain underway against WikiLeaks.
School careers officers could suggest prostitution as a line of work for pupils, the Lib Dem conference has heard.

Dennis Parsons, the chairman of Cheltenham Liberal Democrats, floated the idea at a special session on sex work.

The Lib Dem said careers officers are not allowed to suggest prostitution, but added: Why shouldnt they?

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron distanced himself from the remarks, but insisted he would not slap down the councillor for making them because people needed to be allowed to say shocking things.

(Steve Parsons / PA)

During a discussion on how to combat the stigma attached to sex work, Parsons compared prostitution with accountancy.

He said: The fact that we are asking should we seek to prevent people entering sex work? is part of the problem. You wouldnt ask the question should we prevent people becoming accountants? Youd just take it for granted.

There is a stronger case, probably, for that than there is for preventing sex work.

We have had a chap suggest that one of the areas we need to be concerned about was families coercing people to go into the sex trade. Well, again, you wouldnt protest at families urging and coercing people into becoming accountants.

He continued: And even in this room full of liberals we have got a huge cultural problem that we do see sex work as different, and we see it as something a little bit tacky, and not quite nice, and not the sort of thing that we would want our sons and daughters to get involved in.

We talk about schools  how many schools are going to have careers officers say to people, have you thought about prostitution?

Its not going to happen. And thats a cultural thing. Why shouldnt they? Why shouldnt they?

Farron told the Press Association: It is a wonderful thing that we are in a party where those sort of views can be expressed and you can have that sort of exchange. They are certainly not my views.

Rally about to start at #LDConf - #LibDemNewbies here in force! pic.twitter.com/O9VqS30Iy7  Lib Dem Newbies UK (@LibDemNewbiesUK) September 17, 2016



Drawing the equivalence between sex work and accountancy is not one that I share.

I think we are in a position where we are a liberal party and its not for me to go telling anyone that they cant have views and share them. Thats how you get to the bottom of these things.

Actually, if you believe in education  were talking about careers  then what you really want is for people to be able to explore ideas, and that means sometimes saying things that are quite shocking, really.

So, no, Im not going to go slapping people down. The whole point of having a debate is that you test different opinions and you come out with, on the basis of the evidence, the right solution.

Delegates heard that decriminalising prostitution would raise 1 billion a year for the Treasury in taxes.
Thousands of people have taken to the streets of London chanting refugees are welcome here in a bid to urge the Government to take more action on the migrant crisis.

Organised by Solidarity with Refugees, groups such as Amnesty International, Oxfam, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Refugee Council and Stop the War Coalition joined forces for the Refugees Welcome demonstration.

On Monday, the UN Summit for refugees and migrants hosted by Barack Obama will be held in New York and is set to be attended by Prime Minister Theresa May.

Lots of @RefugeeAction supporters at the Refugees Welcome here March #westandwithyou https://t.co/UQDHlYIxGK  Refugee Action (@RefugeeAction) September 17, 2016



The capitals Park Lane came alive with a sea of colourful placards carrying slogans such as no-one is illegal, stop the drowning,choose love and be human, as protesters began the procession.

In a nod to the imminent summit, they chanted: Theresa May, you will say refugees are welcome here.

And a number of people also took to Twitter to share their pictures of the march, and some passionate placards.

Love these guys drumming as we march #WeStandWithYou pic.twitter.com/V0PRyyR4Oq  Esther Elliott (@EstherMElliott) September 17, 2016



Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here #WeStandWithYou pic.twitter.com/PtzHDcUTuj  Patrick Jenkins (@PatrickJenkins9) September 17, 2016



Solidarity with Refugees director Ros Ereira said so far she thinks there has been a lack of leadership over taking action on the issue.

Speaking to the Press Association, she said: This week is going to be Theresa Mays first opportunity as our Prime Minister to represent us at a global summit.

I really hope she is going to set the tone for what kind of a country we can be post Brexit and with her new leadership.

Hopefully she will want to portray us as an open, tolerant, welcoming society that wants to play an important role on the global stage and lead an appropriate global humanitarian response.

(Tim Ireland/AP)

According to the UNs refugee agency, more than 3,200 people have died or gone missing attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year.

Figures show a total of almost 300,000 people have attempted the journey and thousands remain stranded in Greece and Italy in poor living conditions.

The Government agreed to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020 after last years rally. But Ereira said progress since then has been much too slow.

We were really excited to hear the agreement was made we would be settling 20,000 over five years, she said.

A Syrian woman at Ritsona refugee camp north of Athens, which hosts about 600 refugees and migrants (Petros Giannakouris/AP)

Obviously I was always going to wish it would be more and better than that  but it was a huge step in the right direction.

We are not on track to be meeting that commitment at the moment and of course we need to be doing more.

The situation is growing, it is not decreasing  it is not going away and there are people dying and we need to stop that happening.
Nine out of 10 women and trans men experience pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) and there are over 100 different symptoms, including insomnia, swelling, difficulty concentrating, and weight gain. The most common aspect of PMS, however, is period pain - and the medical community isn't taking it seriously enough.

According to John Guillebaud, a professor of reproductive health at University College London, period pain can be as bad as having a heart attack. Yet despite the fact PMS is experienced by the majority of menstruating women, as well as many trans men, and period pain is a crippling side effect most have probably experienced, scientists still haven't found a cure. If you've ever wondered why, the answer is simple: sexism. According to John Guillebaud, a professor of reproductive health at University College London, period pain can be as bad as having a heart attack. Yet despite the fact PMS is experienced by the majority of menstruating women, as well as many trans men, and period pain is a crippling side effect most have probably experienced, scientists still haven't found a cure. If you've ever wondered why, the answer is simple: sexism.

Research into PMS and period pain is paltry, because, quite frankly, its not taken seriously enough. The attitude towards periods is a one-size fits all remedy: pop a few Ibuprofen and get yourself a hot water bottle. This isn't good enough, especially for those who suffer from extreme period pain - called pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, which causes around 15% of sufferers to attempt suicide.

The big problem is that research funding for menstrual issues just isn't there. Richard Legro, from Penn State College of Medicine, has found evidence that Viagra could help treat period pain - however, he can't find anyone willing to fund his research.

Speaking to Quartz, he said: Ive applied three or four times but it always gets rejected. I think the bottom line is that nobody thinks menstrual cramps is an important public health issue.

Compare this with the research thats put into men's issues. 19% of men suffer erectile dysfunction, while 90% of women and trans men suffer PMS. Yet there is five times the amount of research put into erectile dysfunction than PMS. The differences are shocking.

Since non-sterol anti-inflammatory drugs like Ibuprofen and Aspirin were invented research into period pain has slowed down significantly, as many scientists see these pain relief medications as solutions to the problem. This just isn't good enough. Period pain forces many suffers to miss school and work. According to the Daily Mail, in a survey of 600 women, 10% said they were regularly bedridden by their period pains, four out of ten said pain effected their concentration at work, while some claimed their period pains negatively impacted their careers.

Period pain and PMS in general is treated with a sort of mysticism; something that happens because of Mother Nature but isn't taken seriously enough in the medical science world to research properly. Kathleen Lustyk, a psychologist from the University of Washington, suggests this lack of focus is because researchers simply don't believe PMS exists. As ridiculous as that seems, Lustyk has had medical reviews turned down on the basis that the reviewers didn't believe PMS was real.

Speaking to ResearchGate she explained how they suggested PMS was merely a product of our society or culture that has painted a natural process in a negative light and that, given its monthly predictability, leads to suffering through anticipation." It's something that she claims is a fancy way of saying its really just in a womans head.

Anyone who has suffered period pain or PMS will know how very real these symptoms are, and how more often then not popping an Ibuprofen isn't effective. Gender bias in science is far too prevalent, and until that changes its unlikely period pain and PMS will be taken seriously by the medical science world.
Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Mullikin of 29918 Meadow Drive, Burlington, will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary with family attending St. Johns Evangelical Lutheran Church, Burlington, on Sunday, Sept. 18, followed by a luncheon at Michaels on the Lake.

Mullikin and the former Beverly P. Buchholz were married on Sept. 19, 1956, in St. Pauls Lutheran Church, Dubuque, Iowa.

The couple met in high school in Barron, and graduated in 1956.

On their first date, they went to the Barron Butter Festival in the summer of 1955.

Mullikin was an over-the-road truck driver for Quality Carriers/Lloyd Transportation for more than 40 years, retiring in 2000. He served in the U.S. Army from 1961 to 1963. Mullikin worked for Thomas Bus Service in Burlington for 15 years as a school bus driver and is also retired after 27 years as a volunteer fireman on Company 3 in the Town of Burlington. He loves working on his antique tractor.

Mrs. Mullikin was a school bus driver for 40 years for Thomas Bus Service and is a homemaker. She enjoys playing canasta with her card club friends.

Mullikin, 78, and Mrs. Mullikin, 77, have lived in Burlington for 59 years and enjoy spending time with family and friends.

When asked what has kept them together all these years, they wrote: We love and respect each other, not only as husband and wife, but as best friends, always being there for each other and enjoying life together.

They are members of St. Johns Evangelical Lutheran Church, Burlington.

The Mullikins have four children: Kevin (Lana) of Waterford; Shelly (Ed) Foreman of Muldrow, Okla.; Tyler (Melissa) of Oak Creek; and Peggy Lynn Mullikin of Burlington. They have five grandchildren.

Their advice to young people getting married today: Communicate, never stop talking to each other.
Culture: Why Me? A Buddhist approach to dealing with depression and melancholy

Why Me? Its a question that many people ask themselves. In fact, Id wager every person walking this Earth has asked themselves that questionat least once. A wise singer once intoned his Western-tinged insight on this eternal question: Hard times come, hard times go and in between you hope and pray the scars dont show. Cause life is strange and so unsure; youre really not alone you know, cause everybody says, why me?



By Jason Jellison

Sunday 18 September 2016, 10:00AM

Studying the Galapagos tortoises gave Darwin an insight into the nature of life. Photo by Sara Yeomans

Although poetic and sage, this lyric doesnt quite answer the question. In the West, Charles Darwin probably got the closest to providing an answer. One day, as Darwin was studying the wonderous creatures on the isolated shores of the Galapagos Islands, he pondered how so many and varied forms of life could be found in such an remote location.

The answer that he struck upon was that all life needs resources to live. However, he extrapolated, left to their own devices any singular species would eventually exhaust all of its resources. Therefore, competition is a necessary part of life, preventing one species from dominating and thus having nothing to stop it from consuming all its resources.

The answer that narrowly escaped Darwins clutches could be found in the East. Buddha actually answered this question with the most critical insight on life ever discovered by man. The answer to why me? is this: The very conditions that give rise to life are the same conditions that give rise to suffering.

In other words, life is suffering. I know that many Westerners might angrily reject this theory and decry it as harsh. They will brand this idea with the words fatalistic or cynical. They will claim that life is a happy place and that you should always look on the bright side of life.

Buddha would argue that you should simply see life as it is; not how you wish it to be. The Christian Bible got it right when it declared that, left to his own devices, man would destroy himself. On a more base level, Darwin also got it right when he realised that one form of life cannot exist as a lone, solitary tenant on Earth. The only part where either source went awry was in failing to walk this further intellectual step: If competition is required to regulate life, then suffering is inevitable.

Buddhists believe that we suffer because we live. We tend to think that the only way to end the suffering is to exit the circle of life. Exiting the circle of life means exiting the cycle of rebirth... and therein lies the rub. You see, Buddhists believe that life is not a one-shot deal. As a Buddhist, I believe that we keep coming back here until we get it right. By getting it right, I mean finding Enlightenment. The cycle of rebirth is called samsara and it holds that death is not the end of life. It is simply the end of the body.

Much like buying a car, the next vehicle we get all depends on what we have to spend. We accumulate currency towards our next body based on the sum total of the actions we took in the previous body. Much as in capitalism, we can choose to either invest wisely or dwindle it all away.

Often, Westerners get the answer to this question wrong. We fail to see that lifes many tragedies are part and parcel of mans very existence. Some people conclude that suicide is an easy way to end the pain, but if you are thinking of jumping from a tall building I must ask you a question: Did it ever dawn on you that you may simply jump only to land here yet again?

There is no short-cutting the system. If you try to block the circle of rebirth, it will steamroll you straight into the pavement. The inevitable end of your life is simply its start anew. Life is a serenade of change and in that singsong a sole, benevolent voice warbles right: Although youre suffering now, your luck could change overnight.

All About Buddhism is a monthly column in The Phuket News where I take readers on my exotic journey into Thai Buddhism and debunk a number of myths about Buddhism, as well as take readers to exotic temples that few of us have gotten to see.




Phuket Opinion: A non-uniform way to fight corruption

PHUKET: It is clear that since taking control of the country on May 22, 2014, the military government is taking action to clean up what many see as a corrupt country. However the main point of focus seems to be political graft.

opinionpolicecorruptionmilitarypolitics

By The Phuket News

Sunday 18 September 2016, 08:00AM

PM Prayut on Sept 11, a day that marked national anti-corruption day, announced that Thailand will be free of corruption in 20 years. Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot

Ms Yingluck and her governments alleged corruption in the rice-pledging scheme are still going through the court process in a bid to recoup the money the government lost.

More recently, Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra was suspended without pay until further notice after allegations of corruption in office. This order was signed by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha after he invoked Section 44 of the interim charter to deal with the matter.

Even more recently, PM Prayut last Sunday (Sept 11), a day that marked national anti-corruption day, announced that Thailand will be free of corruption in 20 years.

It cannot be disputed that PM Prayut and his team are seen to be doing their utmost to clean up corruption when it comes to politics, but there is one area where it is known that corruption exists that is steadfastly ignored.

It would be of greater benefit to the public, and any ruling government, if the Royal Thai Police were seen to be clean of corruption.

It is likely that nearly all residents in Thailand, albeit that not all of them are aware of it, know of someone who has made some kind of payment to avoid being criminally charged with an act of unlawfulness, whether that be within the Royal Thai Police or even the Immigration Bureau.

But these departments appear to be off the radar as far as the war on corruption goes.

Examples of corruption shown to those in attendance at last Sundays ceremony included the above mentioned rice-pledging scheme and a B4.3-billion case of value-added tax fraud.

But there was not one mention of corruption being involved in any criminal case despite many believing that in some cases, such as the Red Bull heir killing an off-duty policeman while driving his Ferrari, corruption was involved.

During the said ceremony, the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand called on Thais to be active citizens in curbing graft. But if they want that to happen, surely transparency in cases where the public believe corruption has played a role should be explained and relevant departments should be active citizens in proving that it has not.
Shiny new buses challenge chaotic old ways in Tanzania

TANZANIA: Sweaty passengers crammed into battered buses and stuck in traffic jams look on enviously as Tanzanias shiny new commuter buses fly by on the pristine asphalt of dedicated highway lanes.



By AFP

Sunday 18 September 2016, 11:00AM

A Dar Rapid Transit (DART) bus travels down a street in Dar es Salaam. Photo: Said Khalfan/AFP

In Dar es Salaam, the East African countrys biggest city of five million people, rush hour has always meant chaos, until now.

The first phase of a new bus rapid transit system opened earlier this year offering a swift, clean alternative to the traditional dala dala buses, a twist on the English word dollar coined in the 1970s when the system started as an answer to inadequate public transport.

The new route cuts through 20 kilometres of the seaside city with two lanes of tarmac running down the middle of the existing highway.

When completed the route will extend for 130km, separated from the traffic by a crash barrier that prevents motorists from taking advantage of its free-flowing smoothness.

Every day, hundreds of thousands of people lose time, and therefore money, in traffic jams, which have become a very big problem in Dar es Salaam, says Robert Lwakatare, head of the government agency responsible for overseeing the Dar Rapid Transit (DART) project.

A recent study estimated that traffic jams cost the Tanzanian economy $188 million (B6.55bn) a year.

Its amazing, says one young passenger who gave just her first name Judy, as a Chinese-made bus with bright blue-tinted windows pulls up to the platform.

There are 140 buses and 27 new stations in the transit system, enough to meet demand for the time being.

Before I took two to two and a half hours to go into the centre of Dar es Salaam, and now it takes me 30 minutes, Judy said after scanning her ticket at an automated gate.

This might seem normal in Europe, but its not in our countries, says Lwakatare. All this is unique in East Africa.

The clean vehicles themselves are a far cry from the dilapidated dala dalas, of which there are 7,000 registered in Dar es Salaam today, according to African Development Bank figures.

The drivers on the new buses wear short-sleeved shirts, ties and neatly pressed trousers and politely ask passengers to sit before starting off. Aboard the dala dalas, passengers find any space they can, while drivers shout and conductors hang precariously from open doors.

The first phase of construction cost $290mn (B10.1bn), mostly funded by a World Bank loan, and Tanzania is relying on the African Development Bank to fund the remainder of the project. Lwakatare says that around 100,000 people already use the new buses every day, a figure predicted to rise to 300,000 in the months ahead.

Costing 400-800 Tanzanian shillings (B6) the ticket price is a little more expensive than on the dala dalas, which are destined to be phased out as the new system comes online.

Part of the budget is earmarked for compensating dala dala owners, who have also been included in a private sector consortium to operate the network in partnership with the government DART agency.

A dala dala tout named Justin, in faded jeans and an old green and grey jumper, views the new buses and what they mean for his future with equanimity.

For the moment, people still need us because the blue bus does not go everywhere and are a bit more expensive.

Later, well see, he says with a shrug, but I think there will always be a need for a cheaper service.
11AAA semis will be awesome and more from HS football quarterfinals

high-school-sports
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.
RACINE  Buildings have a sense of maintaining the memories of those who occupied them in the past. And when those buildings are torn down or sold, it often puts the final ending on those memories.

For Don Lotharius, one such building is the old Teamsters Local 200 building at 1624 Yout St.

That was always my dads office, Lotharius said. Thats where he worked every day.

Lothariuss father, Leo, was president of the Teamsters local from 1954-79.

Being a truck driver, he had to join the Teamsters, Lotharius said, adding his father became a union representative before being elected president of the chapter. He built the membership up from probably a thousand, maybe a little less, of members at the time, to about 6,000 members.

As a kid, Lotharius often visited his father at work after school.

I would sit at his desk and do homework but I could hear the union meeting down the hall, he said. Going there was pretty cool. My dad knew a lot of people.

Being president required Leo Lotharius to be active in local politics.

He was involved in political rallies and things of that nature, Lotharius said. I remember as a little, little kid meeting (Sen.) Hubert Humphrey when he ran against (John) Kennedy in 1960 (Democratic primary).

Leo Lotharius passed away in 1990.

New use for property

Two years ago, Lotharius drove by the old Teamsters building and saw it was for sale. Since his dads time as president of the local, things had changed  union membership was down and many jobs had left Racine.

It seemed like life wouldnt fill the walls again until recently, when Veterans Outreach of Wisconsin proposed to purchase the property to build the James A. Peterson Veteran Village for homeless veterans. The organizations plan is to provide a place for veterans to address any personal issues and build 15 tiny houses to give veterans temporary shelter.

According to Jeff Gustin, co-founder of Veterans Outreach, the organization has submitted land surveys to the City of Racine and is waiting to have its proposal placed on the City Council agenda for consideration. Veterans Outreach also has raised more than $100,000 for the tiny-house village and plans to have seven tiny houses, currently being built offsite on a farm in Mount Pleasant, by the end of this month.

This touched a spot in Don Lotharius heart. Before his father became president of the local Teamsters chapter, before he became a union representative, before he became a truck driver, he served in the Army during the final years of World War II.

Lotharius said his father fought in the famous Battle of the Bulge in Belgium and was wounded in several battles.

He saw a lot of action, Lotharius said, adding his father was a squad leader. He led the first patrol into Heinrich Himmlers house, the head of the SS.

The Schutzstaffel (SS) was a paramilitary organization in Nazi Germany, which, among other duties, gathered intelligence and oversaw Adolf Hitlers concentration camps in which 6 million Jews were killed.

Concern for fellow vets

Growing up, Lotharius only heard snippets of his fathers time in the military, but he recognized his father would help every veteran he could.

Whenever a veteran came to my dads office looking for work, he always made sure they had a job, Lotharius said. He made a few phone calls and he had them a job somewhere  they never went away empty-handed, because he had a soft spot for veterans.

Lotharius said he was thrilled when he heard Veterans Outreach was trying to obtain his fathers old workplace.

I couldnt think of a better organization to take over the old union hall, Lotharius said. He put his heart and soul in that local  Im sure hes smiling down.
SOMERS  In 2012, a series of election-related events at the University of Wisconsin-Parksides went so well it was credited for helping land a campaign stop by Vice President Joe Biden.

Four years later, UW-Parksides Election Experience is back, with a slew of speakers, brown-bag lunches and other events lined up to get students and area residents ready for the Nov. 8 presidential contest.

It was a massive success four years ago and we had so much involvement, not only from our students, but from the community, said Peggy James, dean of the College of Social Sciences and Professional Studies.

In the coming weeks, the college hopes to spark engagement around the election and present a broad look at the American political process.

That includes the weekly brown bag lunches, in which a university professor will relate the election to his or her area of expertise. An economics professor, for example, will discuss whats happened since the Recession and key indicators of the recovery.

James hosted her own presentation Wednesday about the historic negative polling numbers of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The university will also hold live events during the debates, allowing attendees to weigh in on the discussion. And, as part of the program, displays with historic newspaper headlines and presidential losers have been placed on campus.

Scheduled speakers include: Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette University Law School poll; John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation and Capital Times associate editor; and Mike McCabe, founder of Blue Jean Nation and former executive director of campaign finance watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Officials make a concerted effort not to be partisan or advocate for a candidate, but rather compare candidates views and evaluate how the campaign is going, James said.

All events are open to the public, not just Parkside students, she said.

Anything we have on campus is always open to the community, but we especially welcome the community on this because its a good opportunity for people from various sorts of perspectives to engage in a good discussion, James said.

Past success

Parkside has long been a politically active campus, with high voter turnout among students, James said. She cited a study on voting behavior she said showed Parkside 15 percent higher than the average of some 850 schools studied.

The university was buoyed by the Election Experience in 2012, particularly after the Biden campaign rally on Oct. 26, 2012. His team later told university staff that while scouting locations for an event, it was impressed by the Election Experience and the energy on campus, James said.

We were really pleased with it and we decided that we should do it every four years, James said.
A few days ago, I wrote an article in which I expressed surprise that none of my critics had publicly commented on my documentary film, UFOs and Nukes: The Secret Link Revealed, which has been available at Vimeo On Demand since April.



A search of the Internet reveals the extent to which some debunkers have attacked me over the years, following the 2008 publication of my book UFOs and Nukes, in which I present dozens of incidents involving UFO activity at American nuclear weapons sites, as reported in declassified files and military witness testimony. Consequently, I was expecting more of the same once the film was released.

By Robert Hastings

The UFO Chronicles

9-16-16 By Robert HastingsThe UFO Chronicles9-16-16

Robert Kaminski

- click and or right click on image(s) to enlarge









Shortly after my article appeared online, one of those skeptics, Tim Hebert, wrote a critique which, not surprisingly, contains a number of factual errors, convenient omissions and other misrepresentations.For example, he writes, There is little to no information offered to the viewer that numerous pages of documents are available that tell an entire different story, or when the highlighted document segments are shown in context to the full document itself, a different interpretation takes shape that has nothing to do with UFOs.This is wishful thinking on Heberts part. There are hundreds of declassified U.S. government files concerning UFO incursions at ICBM sites, weapons storage facilities, bomb and missile test ranges, and other nukes-related sites. The film presents excerpts from 16 of those documentsmade public by the U.S. Air Force, FBI and CIA in response to FOIA requests15 of which explicitly and entirely concern UFO activity at nuclear weapons locations. Additionally, two Soviet Army documents, smuggled out of Russia, detail UFO incidents at that countrys ICBM sites or nukes storage facilities.The one American document that doesopenly mention UFO activity is a military teletype message, known as a TWX, sent from Malmstrom AFB, Montana in March 1967, concerning the mysterious full-flight shutdown of ten Minuteman ICBMs at Echo Flight. Because the message was only the initial report of an event, prior to any investigation of it, no mention of UFOs is made.However, two U.S. Air Force veteransCol. Walter Figel and TSgt. Henry Barlowhave stated for the record that a UFO was reported near one of the missiles moments before all ten dropped-off alert status. Both men appear in the filmthe former on audio tapeand make startling admissions.Figel confirms that a missile security guard had called him in the Echo Launch Control Capsule to report a large, round object hovering directly over one of the ICBMs. Further, during my lengthy interview with himnot shown in the filmFigel stated that he had sent out two Security Alert Teams to investigate, one of which confirmed the presence of the UFO. Figel also revealed that he and his missile commander, Captain Eric Carlson, were later debriefed back at Malmstrom by everybody and his brother and ordered not to talk about the incident.Figels first taped telephone interview with me, recorded in 2008, may be heard in its entirety. It should be noted that the colonel has never disputed the accuracy of the recording or asked me to remove it from my website. Two other telephone interviews with Figel, taped in 2009 and 2010 , are also available. (These three audio files are not available ondevices.)Tim Hebert and Eric Carlsons son, James, have repeatedly denied or misrepresented Figels comments to me. Unfortunately for them, I have our conversations on tape. The reader may listen to them and judge for him/herself the nature and importance of Figels candid remarks.The other veteran who discusses the Echo Flight incident in the film, former Electro-Mechanical Technician Henry Barlow, was involved in bringing up some of the stricken missiles. On the way to the first ICBM silo, he and his team member were told by radio to keep their eyes open because UFO activity had been reported in the area. Barlow was later told that a disc-shaped UFO had been spotted hovering over the missile designated Echo-2 just before the full-flight shutdown occurred.In any case, Heberts characterization of the documents presented in the filmwhich he claims are misleading because they are either not pertinent or are taken out of contextis simply inaccurate. One may go to my websites Documents page and leisurely read several of the declassified files that, of necessity, only briefly appear in the documentary.Also presented in the film are confirmatory revelations about the Echo Flight incident by the Boeing engineer who investigated it, Robert Kaminski, who has written (see below) that his team could find no known technical explanation for the missile shutdown and further mentions that a Boeing-Air Force liaison later informed him that Air Force personnel had categorized the incident as a UFO event.Further confirmation in the film comes from retired Lt. Col. Dwynne Arneson, who was the Officer-In-Charge of the 28th Air Divisions Communications Center at Malmstrom at the time of the incident. Speaking at my 2010 press conference in Washington D.C., Arneson told the media that he had once read another classified TWX, in March 1967, which unequivocally stated that a UFO had shut down several missile silos in Montana.In short, the one document in the film that does not mention UFOs per se, only an alarming full-flight missile shutdown event, nevertheless has multiple, credible witnesses confirming that the incident mentioned in it was indeed UFO-related. Not surprisingly, Hebert fails to mention any of this in his critiquewhile at the same time accusing me of being unfairly selective when presenting my evidence.Hebert has long referred to the claim that UFOs are interested in our nukes as Hastings theory. Actually, Im only reporting on what has been said by high-level government officials and hundreds of military eyewitnesses. For example, in the film I present a CIA memorandum from December 2, 1952, in which the Assistant Director of the agencys Office of Scientific Intelligence, Dr. H. Marshall Chadwell, writes, Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and travelling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles.Other declassified CIA, FBI and USAF documents confirm that UFOs had been sighted at Oak Ridge, Hanford, and Savannah Riverall nuclear weapons facilitiesduring the seven-month period preceding Chadwells statement. Indeed, as mentioned in the film, USAF Project Blue Book chief, Captain Edward Ruppelt, once referred to the ominous correlation between UFO sightings and atomic bomb production, testing and deployment sites.Hebert complains that the military witness interviews in the film are too short. Well, if the documentary were three hours long, instead of its current 48-minute length, all of the full-length interviews with the veterans would have been presented, instead of the brief snippets that appear in it. However, anyone buying the documentary at Vimeo also gains access to extended interviews with six of the former USAF missileers. (It cost the films producer, Jared Tarbell, several thousand dollars to fly those witnesses to Albuquerque, and put them up in hotels, during the extended interview process.)Hebert also writes, [Hastings claims] ICBM launch officers are contacted by above ground security personnel and told of UFO sightings. The officers themselves see nothing (they're 60 to 100 feet underground) but the security personnel are treated to bizarre aerial performances that are not of this world. Where are the on camera testimonies from those security personnel?Actually, I have dozens of USAF missile security policemen on audiotape, describing in great detail the dramatic aerial displays they had witnessed at one base or another. Those verbatim testimonies appear in my book and in several articles at my website. When deciding which veterans to re-interview on video, given the high cost involved, I concluded that the missile launch and targeting officers offered the most comprehensive summaries of the UFO events at their missile flights and, therefore, included those individuals in the film.I suppose I could go on here but theres really no point. Those who strongly believe that I am full of shit probably wont utilize even one of the many links provided in this rebuttal, while those who know that I document my public statements about nukes-related UFO activity, as best as possible, have already read or viewed many of the items I have posted over the years. Regardless, one may view my documentary film here
P. Ramkumar, the accused in the brutal murder of a woman techie at a suburban railway station in Chennai in June, committed suicide on Sunday at the Puzhal prison where he has been lodged.

Sources said Ramkumar, who allegedly climbed up and bit a live electricity wire in the high security prison, was rushed to the Royapettah government hospital where he was declared brought dead.

The autopsy will be conducted on monday in the presence of the judicial magistrate.

According to reports, Ramkumar's lawyer Ramraj blamed the judiciary for his death. "I spoke to him for an hour even yesterday. He did not show signs of suicidal tendencies and was in a healthy state of mind. The prison officials are responsible for his death," Ramraj was quoted as saying by TV channels. Ramkumar was to be produced before a judicial magistrate court on Monday as his judicial custody comes to an end.

VCK leader Thol. Thirumavalavan demanded a CBI enquiry into the incident. The Tamil Nadu Government has to take the responsibility and should clarify the suspicion behind Ramkumar's death," he said.

This was the second attempt of the 22-year-old to kill himself after being identified as the accused in the sensational case. He had earlier tried to end his life by slitting his throat when the police came to capture him in Tirunelveli near Kanyakumari.

In the shocking incident which sparked off a debate on the issue of stalking, Swathi, a 24-year-old woman employee of Infosys, was hacked to death allegedly by Ramkumar on June 24 at the Nungambakkam railway station.

The incident took place when Swathi, a resident of Choolaimedu near the station, was waiting to board a train to reach her office as per her routine.

The accused was arrested a week after from Tirunelveli after Chennai police launched a massive manhunt.

According to the police, Ramkumar had arrived in Chennai on April 3 looking for a job and had been stalking the victim for more than two months. He allegedly hacked her to death after she rejected his advances.

The case has seen many twists and turns with Ramkumar first denying the crime and later confessing to it. I've made a huge mistake. I shouldn't have killed her. I loved her so much . . . he reportedly told police during the interrogation.

The Chennai police claimed that they had gathered all the necessary evidences required to prove Ramkumar's guilt.
Kaycie and Victor Marcial are settling into a new Billings West End space for their Mexican restaurant, El Corral, and theyre looking forward to big changes to grow the business.

We definitely like it because its a lot newer, Kaycie Marcial, 39, said last week during the lunch rush at 1431 Country Manor Blvd., next to Atlantis Casino.

The Marcials moved July 27 from their former home of nine years at 4907 Southgate Drive, which is now home to 4Bs.

The restaurant was profitable at that location, said Kaycie Marcial, but was unable to get a liquor license at the property owned by Won $800 Casino. The Marcials say they plan to serve alcohol under the Altantis Casinos license, but they arent announcing a date to start service.

El Corral has 11 employees operating in the 1,600-square-foot space, which faces the stretch of Grand Avenue that was widened and improved this summer.

Kaycie and Victor Marcial, 37, launched the restaurant in 2007. Victor is the main cook, making enchiladas, tostadas, chimichangas and other dishes from his native Guadalajara region in Mexico.

His recipes come from his grandmother, Julia Marcial, whose photo is on the front wall, along with other relatives from the old country.

El Corral is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends. The restaurants seats 67. The phone number is 839-9073.

Accounting firm moves

A longtime Billings accounting firm has moved to a new home in a growing West End strip mall.

Able Tax and Accounting, formerly Able Accounting Services, moved Sept. 1 to 3133 Central Ave., Suite 3, at the Central Avenue Plaza, according to a receptionist.

The business, owned by Sherman Watkins, had operated for about 15 years in a smaller space at 514 Grand Ave.

Ables current space was built about two years ago. Central Avenue is best known as the home of Great Harvest Bread Co.s second location. Other professionals occupy most of the space.

Able Tax is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Haikus from the valley

Sure sounded like a great concert last week.

Pyromania

at MetraPark. And Billings
11 best performers bag the International Schools Award

British Council Nepal, on Thursday, held the International Schools Award under the Connecting Classrooms project to 11 dozen private and community schools from different parts of the country for excelling in nurturing global citizenship among their students and enhancing the teaching and learning environment in their schools.
Union minister Maneka Gandhi has lashed out at a Kerala businessman, a councillor of Piravom municipality and a member of Njarakkal panchayat in Ernakulam district for mindlessly culling stray dogs. In an exclusive chat with THE WEEK, Maneka said that strict action should be taken against people who killed dogs and those who led such bizarre and ruthless activities.

She said, "It is strange that the state government cannot control its own local bodies and panchayats. On one hand, they are providing funds and infrastructure for the only scientific and legal solution, which is sterilisation, and on the other, a businessman is paying money openly to flout the law. The councillors are listening to him instead of the government. This has never happened in any other state in India."

In Piravom, a group of people, led by councillor Gils Periappuram, searched several areas of the municipality and killed many stray dogs. These dogs were asphyxiated using a noose with the help of a dog catcher. Businessman Kochouseph Chittilappilly is said to have facilitated the service of the dog catcher following a request from the councillor.

Said Maneka, "The dogs that were killed in recent days were mostly the ones owned by people. They were stolen and killed. Three of the dogs that were killed were pregnant. If they can kill a pregnant helpless animal, what will they do to human beings?"

The minister said a businessman, who rewards criminals and councillors, seems to be running the state. "The government seems too helpless to act," she added.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday blamed "terrorist state" Pakistan for the killing of 17 soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir and called for its isolation.

"I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," Rajnath Singh tweeted.

Heavily-armed terrorists sneaked into an army camp in Uri and slaughtered the 17 soldiers before all four attackers were killed.

The minister said there were "definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of (the) Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped".

He said he was "deeply distressed" and prayed "for the speedy recovery of the injured".

"My heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers. Those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice."

Rajnath Singh earlier presided over a security review meeting attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Home Secretary Rajiv Mehershi and senior civil and security officials.

The minister was briefed on various implications of the attack.

Officials shared intelligence inputs on "nefarious" activities planned by a "neighbouring country", sources privy to the meeting said.

They said the government believed that the attack "was a clear case of cross-border attack". However, no terror group was named.

Rajnath Singh also spoke to Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. He postponed his visits to Russia and the US.

Rajnath Singh was scheduled to visit to Russia to discuss India's campaign against terrorism, including on the role of Pakistan.

The minister was to begin from September 26 his week-long visit to the US for an Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue.
Militants attacked an Indian army brigade headquarters near the de factor border with Pakistan on Sunday, killing 17 soldiers in the most deadly such attack in the northern region of Kashmir since 2014.

Four "fidayeen"or commando-style gunmen willing to fight to the deathhad been confirmed killed after penetrating the base in Uri near the Line of Control with Pakistan, an Indian army spokesman said.

The army deployed helicopters to evacuate 20 soldiers who had been injured in the dawn attack that was followed by an hours-long gunfight, army sources had said earlier, adding the toll may rise.

The raid comes amid heightened tension in India's only Muslim-majority region, which has faced more than two months of protests following the July 8 killing of a popular separatist field commander.

At least 78 civilians have been killed and thousands injured in street clashes with the Indian security forces, who have been criticised by human rights groups for using excessive force including shotguns that fire pellets that have blinded people.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in a series of Twitter posts that he had spoken to the region's political and military leadership and had instructed senior officials to monitor the situation.

He canceled planned trips to Russia and the United States.

"We have activated the entire force in and around Uri sector to step up security and launch combing operations," a senior Home Ministry official told Reuters.

"It is clearly a case of cross-border terror attack. We don't know which militant group is involved," this official added.

There has been no independent claim of responsibility.

The military death toll was the worst in Indian-ruled Kashmir since a raid in December 2014, also near Uri which is to the west of the region's main city of Srinagar, in which eight soldiers and three police were killed.

India accuses Pakistan of supporting militant attacks in its northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule only in part.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently raised the stakes in their decades-old feud by expressing support for separatists within Pakistan.

Pakistan denies any role in cross-border terrorism, and has called on the United Nations and the international community to investigate atrocities it alleges have been committed by the security forces in Indian-ruled Kashmir.

Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors have been on edge since a New-Year attack on an Indian air force base in Punjab, near the border with Pakistan, that killed seven uniformed men.

India has blamed a Pakistan-based militant group for that attack but, after initial progress, an attempt to conduct a joint investigation has lost momentum.

The two sides have frozen a tentative peace dialogue.
The son of a respected Bangladeshi imam, murdered by Islamic State (IS) supporters, fears that terrorist sympathisers were radicalising youngsters in Rochdale area of Britain while posing as charity workers, a media report said.

Saleh Al Arif spoke out after Mohammed Syeedy, 21, was jailed for 24 years over the murder of Jalal Uddin, 71, who was bludgeoned to death in a children's playground in February, The Guardian reported on Sunday.

He said: "I spoke to some members of the community. They are really worried about the IS supporters. They believe there are a lot of supporters in the Bengali community. From the outside, it's like they are doing something good, charitable work and other things."

"They believe they are just trying to make a good impression and they are radicalising the young people in the community and they simply don't want to see that. They are very scared and they believe they have some kind of link with the IS. They just want to get rid of it and they want help from the police," Arif added.

Jalal Uddin was murdered by Syeedy and Mohammed Abdul Kadir, 24, because the elderly scholar practised a form of Islamic healing in which he gave away amulets, called taweez, to the sick -- a practice denounced as black magic by the IS.

The trial at Manchester crown court heard that Syeedy, Kadir and their friends surveiled Jalal Uddin for 18 months before he was murdered on February 18. Kadir was being sought by police after he flew to Istanbul, Turkey, three days after the killing.

In an interview with Sky News, Arif said he believes others were also involved in his father's murder who "knew what's going to happen", although they did not participate in the attack.

"Someone should be keeping an eye on these people. It should be investigated properly," he said, while also praising the police investigation.

"He was very religious, very peaceful and very knowledgeable. He had no political views but he had strong religious views and what he believed he tried to practise it to the death," he added.

In a victim impact statement read to court on Friday, Arif said his father told him two days before he was killed that he planned to return to Bangladesh later this year for the first time in 15 years.

Jalal Uddin had not seen his wife, children or grandchildren since he left Bangladesh for Britain in 2002.
President Barack Obama urged the African-American community to help stop Donald Trump, saying he would consider it a "personal insult" to his legacy if black voters did not back Hillary Clinton.

"If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn't matter who we elect, read up on your history. It matters. We've got to get people to vote," Obama said on Saturday night while addressing the Congressional Black Caucus gala for the last time as president.

"I will consider it a personal insultan insult to my legacyif this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote."

The President warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in the November 8 elections, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line, CNN reported.

According to analysts, Obama's Saturday night speech marked some of his harshest words yet about Republican presidential candidate Trump, as well as his most forceful call on the African-American community to support Democrat nominee Clinton.

Obama referred to the businessman as "somebody who has fought against civil rights and fought against equality and who has shown no regard for working people most of his life."

During his address, he also made fun of the so-called "birther" (if Obama was born in the US) controversy, saying "There's an extra spring in my step tonight. I don't know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole 'birther' thing is over."

"IS (Islamic State), North Korea, poverty, climate changenone of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate," Obama added.

Speaking before the President, Clinton lauded Obama and also took on the 'birther' controversy, CNN noted.

"Mr. President, not only do we know you are an American, you are a great American," Clinton, who served as Obama's secretary of state (2009-2013), added.
Absolute dearth of roles for women: Daniel Radcliffe

Actor Daniel Radcliffe strongly believes Hollywood needs to step up and fix gender bias as he feels there's a lack of roles for women in the industry.
[By Rabbi Yair Hoffman]

To suppress or not to suppress?  that is the question.

Do we sweep a major rise in heroin usage in a Jewish community under the rug, or do we expose it publicly to warn the masses so that protective measures can be taken?

This past week both an Ohio police department and the Five Towns Jewish Times made the decision not to suppress and rather to expose it publicly in an effort to raise awareness and hopefully save lives.

The poison known as heroin has made huge inroads since 2010 in communities across the country  even in orthodox Jewish communities.

Last week, the East Liverpool police department in Ohio decided to distribute a photograph of an unconscious man and woman in a car with a four year old child as part of a heroin awareness initiative. The photo was taken by a police officer.

According to the police, the couple would have died had the police not intervened. The photo shows the woman and man passed out, apparently from an overdose of heroin. In the picture, a 4-year-old boy in the back of the vehicle, still strapped in his car seat, looks out the window.

Paramedics were called and administered Narcan, an opiate reversal agent, to the woman, who was turning blue.

The police administrators felt that the benefits of using the photo to raise awareness about the perils of heroin outweighed any concerns about the childs reputation. East Liverpool Police Chief John Lane remarked to CNN, The whole ordeal will help the child in the long run.

He further added, Itll get him the help that he needs, get him out of that environment and get him where he needs to be  in a safe environment, in a loving environment.

By the same token, the Five Towns Jewish Times and Amudim decided to publicize the case of a young woman, a granddaughter of an illustrious Rabbinic family, who recently passed away from an overdose.

But what is the halacha in such cases? Should we suppress or publicize?

PROOF FROM PILEGESH BGIVAH

Rav Moshe Feinstein ztl (Igros Moshe YD II #150) has a fascinating explanation of the very disturbing story of Pileges bGivah found at the end of Sefer Shoftim.

If we recall, a man and his concubine were traveling. As night approached they opted to stay in the safer city of Givah in the area of Benjamin. They were taken in by the only hospitable man in the city, but soon the townspeople abuse the concubine until morning, killing her. The man cuts up the corpse into twelve pieces, and sent each of the pieces to all the tribes of Israel.

Aside from the shocking behavior of the men of Binyomin, the mans act of cutting was horrific as well. What about the prohibition of nivul hamais  desecration of the deceased? What about the prohibition of delaying burial? Rav Feinstein explains that the latter prohibition was set aside because of the need to create a Roshem al hatzibbur  an impact on the congregation. The first prohibition is somewhat mitigated by the fact that she was already in a state of desecration. Rav Feinstein further writes that the man who did the cutting is to be considered a Kasher  an upright individual.

APPLICATION

The point is that we see, on rare occasions  in order to make an impression on the congregation, it is sometimes permissible to negate a prohibition. Here, in publicizing the issue  there is no prohibition per se, but rather it is a sensitivity to the observant public. That being the case, in order to possible preserve human life, it would be permitted, indeed, warranted to develop an awareness campaign.

Now while other Meforshim do not necessarily share Rav Feinsteins view that he was an upright individual, that does not mean that they disagree with Rav Feinsteins logic in the situation.

Suppressing the necessary information of how to recognize and be aware of how to deal with this addiction may also be a violation of Lo Saamod Al Dam Rayacha. mentioned both in Shulchan Aruch (CM 426:1) and in the Rambam.

The verse in Parshas Ki Taytzai (Dvarim 22:2) discusses the Mitzvah of Hashavas Aveida  returning an object with the words, Vahashaivoso lo  and you shall return it to him. The Gemorah in Sanhedrin (73a), however, includes within its understanding of these words the obligation of returning his own life to him as well. Recognizing and treating a potential addict is certainly a fulfillment of this Mitzvah.

Lo Suchal lhisalaym

There is yet another negative commandment associated with the positive commandment of Hashavas Aveida, and that is the verse in Dvarim (22:3), You cannot shut your eyes to it. This verse comes directly after the Mitzvah of Hashavas Aveidah. The Netziv (HeEmek Sheailah) refers to this Mitzvah as well.

VAhavta lRayacha Kamocha

The Ramban, Toras haAdam Shaar HaSakana (p42-43) understands the verse of And love thy neighbor as yourself as a directive to save him from danger as well. Although he discusses the issue of medical danger,

it is clear that this is an example, and it would apply to an addiction danger as well. Even without the Ramban, however, it is clear that defending and protecting someone from drug dangers is a fulfillment of this Mitzvah.

LOCAL POSKIM

This author has also consulted with one of the leading Poskim in the Five Towns community, Rav Binyomin Forst Shlita, who expressed the opinion that the information should not be suppressed and that the community should be made aware of this growing tragedy. Askanim and Rabbonim in the community should unite to decide upon a plan of action.

OUR COMMUNITY

In our community alone, according to Tzvi Gluck of Amudim, heroin overdoses exceed the combined deaths by homicide and by motor vehicles. According to current trends, in the United States alone there will be 16,000 heroinAnd statistics indicate this trend will only increase.

It affects our children, our families, our neighbors, our friends and our colleagues. Many of us are unaware that this happens where we live, but heroin use statistics make it painfully obvious that heroin knows no bounds.

HOW DO THEY START?

Heroin use can start off innocently  for adults it can begin with a prescription for opiate-based painkillers to manage pain after injury or surgery. When the pills run out, the need may not. For younger adults it is often the next drug  one used with cocaine and or marijuana.

PREVENTION

Prevention is the key. We need to educate our communities, our shul members, and ourselves. We should bring in experts in our shuls so that we can know the warning signs of heroin use and what to do to take action. The signs of a heroin addict are hidden in plain sight, but unfortunately sometimes we miss them.

Being aware of these signs can help detour a path to addiction and save lives

True, addictions are powerful and relentless, but they can be treated. Awareness, education and making the necessary resources available are critical to saving the lives of our children and brethren.

The author can be reached at [email protected]
With each scripted speech, shift in policy and attempt to whitewash his past behavior, Donald Trump is brazenly betting that voters now settling on their choice for president are willing to shove aside all that came before his late-in-the-campaign recalibration.

Its a deeply uncertain proposition given Trumps staggeringly negative standing with most Americans. Polls find more than half believe the Republican nominee is unqualified to be president, and is biased against women and minorities.

But his strategy doesnt require moving huge segments of the electorate.

Seven weeks from the Nov. 8 election and with absentee ballots already available in a few states, Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton are fighting for a small sliver of undecided voters who, in many cases, simply cant stomach either.

What these candidates are trying to convince the voters of is, Im not as bad as the other one,' said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster.

In recent weeks, Trumps attempts to make that case have sometimes left him looking like a candidate with little resemblance to the one who stunned the Republican Party during the primaries.

He now largely reads speeches off teleprompters despite casting aspersions on other politicians for relying on the devices. Hes rolled out proposals on policies in which hes shown no previous interest, including child care and paid family leave. And hes made overtures to minorities, including blacks and Hispanics, groups with whom he has minimal support.

Trumps latest attempt to convince voters that hes the lesser of two evils came Friday, when he abruptly reversed course on his lie that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Trumps role as chief promoter of the conspiracy theory about the nations first black president has left him with almost no support among African-Americans and has turned off moderates who bristle at its racist undertones.

Trumps newfound acceptance of Obamas birthplace seems unlikely to sway many of those voters. He offered no apology for pushing the falsehood for years and instead said the rumors originated with Clinton, another inaccurate claim.

Despite what his campaign strategists told him to say today, I think he still believes that the president wasnt born in America, said Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama adviser who was tasked with releasing the presidents long-form birth certificate to reporters in 2011.

Clinton advisers say their data show no fundamental shift in the publics perception of Trump, despite preference polls that are tightening nationally and in some battleground states. They believe a summer spent blasting the airwaves with television ads highlighting Trumps bellicose behavior and questionable business practices, as well as a series of sharply critical speeches from Clinton, have largely cemented voters negative view of the real estate mogul and made it impossible for his pivot to take hold.

Trump has been defined, said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. She said thats particularly true among women, who think hes the worst date theyve ever been on.

A recent Quinnipiac poll found 59 percent of likely voters believe the way Trump talks appeals to bigotry. Among likely women voters, 62 percent held that view.

Clintons strategy has echoes of the approach Obama used to define Mitt Romney in 2012. Obamas campaign spent the summer pummeling the Republican challenger with negative ads painting him as a cold-hearted businessman with little regard for middle-class Americans.

Romney was hamstrung by his inability to access general election money until after the GOP convention in late August, and had few ways to defend himself and never recovered.

Obama also had a distinct advantage over Clinton: His own favorability rating was solid, making him an appealing alternative for voters turned off by Democrats portrayal of Romney.

Clinton doesnt have that same reservoir of goodwill and her standing with voters is as shaky as Trumps, though her chief weakness is trustworthiness.

Trump aides have long believed voters doubts about Clinton created an opening for the Republican, if he could control his worst political impulses. He showed no ability to do that throughout the summer, but was finally persuaded by a new team of advisers who presented him with plummeting polls and a stark warning that he was on the path to defeat.

Aides say the tightening polls have validated the new approach in Trumps eyes. He also has benefited from a rough patch for Clinton, including her campaigns secretive handling of her recent pneumonia diagnosis and a steady drip of revelations about her use of a private email system at the State Department.

Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who worked for Florida Sen. Marco Rubios presidential campaign, said the narrowing appears to be more a reflection of Clintons troubles than a sign that Trump is improving his standing with the public.

Its hard to believe that impressions of 15 months are just going to go away because the candidate says, nevermind, said Ayres, calling the publics assessment of Trump burned in.

If some voters are willing to be persuaded, theres no certainty Trump can stay on the more measured, policy-focused path his aides have devised. His belated acceptance of Obamas birthplace was vintage Trump, a media circus that he also used as a branding opportunity for his new hotel in Washington.

And hours later, Trump appeared to slip off the teleprompter during a speech in Miami when he said Clintons Secret Service agents should be stripped of their firearms.

In an aside that Clintons campaign blasted as out of bounds, and the sort of flippant comment his own team has tried to wring from his routine, Trump said, Lets see what happens to her.

(AP)
Donald Trump was making his usual sarcastic call for Hillary Clintons Secret Service agents to be stripped of their firearms when he added an aside to his rally remarks: Lets see what happens to her.

Soon after, Clintons campaign said such a reference to violence was out of bounds.

Trump has long incorrectly suggested his Democratic opponent wants to overturn the Second Amendment and take away Americans right to own guns. In Miami on Friday, his riff about confiscating the agents guns went further.

I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm, right? Trump asked the crowd. Take their guns away, she doesnt want guns. Take their  and lets see what happens to her. Take their guns away. OK, it would be very dangerous.

Trumps meaning was not immediately clear and a campaign spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for an elaboration.

But the Clinton campaign had a quick reaction. Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, released a statement saying Trump has a pattern of inciting people to violence. Whether this is done to provoke protesters at a rally or casually or even as a joke, it is an unacceptable quality in anyone seeking the job of Commander in Chief.

This kind of talk should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate, Mook wrote.

A Secret Service spokeswoman declined to comment.

The seemingly ominous comment evoked a remark Trump made last month that many Democrats condemned as a call for Clintons assassination. Speaking at a rally in North Carolina, the Republican nominee erroneously said his opponent wants to abolish, essentially, the Second Amendment.

He continued: By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dont know.

Within minutes, the Clinton campaign condemned the remark. Mook said then, A person seeking to be the president of the United States should not suggest violence in any way.

Trump later disputed that criticism, saying everyone in his audience knew he was referring to the power of voters and there can be no other interpretation.

Trump, who has the endorsement of the National Rifle Association, eventually took to Twitter to say the Secret Service had not contacted him about the remarks.

The comments Friday in Miami came hours after Trump finally reversed his long-held position that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Appearing in Washington, he said Obama was born in the United States but then incorrectly suggested that the Clinton campaign had started the conspiracy theory.

Trump ignored questions from reporters about his switch and has yet to explain why he abandoned the birther stance that fueled his political fame and was viewed by critics as an attempt to delegitimize the nations first African-American president.

While campaigning in South Florida, which has a large Cuban-American population, Trump also said that if hes elected president, he will reverse Obamas efforts to normalize relations with Cuba  unless the country abides by certain demands. Among those, he said, would be religious and political freedom for the Cuban people and the freeing of all political prisoners.

Trump says hell stand with the Cuban people in their fight against communist oppression.

The comment marks yet another reversal for the GOP candidate, who previously said he supported the idea of normalized relations, but wished the U.S. had negotiated a better deal.

Trump also said the U.S. has a broader obligation to stand with oppressed people  a comment that seems at odds with his America first mantra. The next president of the United States must stand in solidarity with all people oppressed in our hemisphere, and we will stand with oppressed people, and there are many, he said.

He added that the people of Venezuela are yearning to be free, they are yearning for help. The system is bad. But the people are great.

Trump has often cited the country as a model of a failed state, warning that if Clinton is elected, shell turn the U.S. into Venezuela.

(AP)
An explosive device went off in a garbage pail Saturday morning along the route of a 5K run and walk to benefit military soldiers.

Multiple devices were also found wired together in the same garbage pail, but they did not detonate, according to Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutors Office.

The explosion occurred along the route of the Seaside Semper Five Marine Corps Charity 5K at around 9:30 a.m.

The device is being described as a pipe bomb-style device based on a preliminary investigation by officials from the New Jersey State Police Bomb Squad, Della Fave said.

No one was injured in the blast, but the area is on lock down while bomb dogs search of additional devices, according to a statement from the county prosecutors office. At least one other device was found, the statement said.

Federal and state law enforcement agencies were deployed to investigate the scene, including officials from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the state police bomb squad and the county prosecutors office, Della Fave said.

(AP)


7:01AM IL: Soldiers in the Gush Etzion community of Efrat detected suspicious movement in the Beit HaZayit area at about 1:40AM on Sunday morning (motzei Shabbos to Sunday, 15 Elul). They began searching the area which continued for a number of hours. At about 6:00AM, a lone terrorist attacked an officer with a knife, wounding him moderately. The terrorist was shot dead.

The soldier was transported to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital where he is reported in moderate-to-serious condition.

7:38AM IL: Following the attack, the all clear was given and residents were told they may leave their homes and resume their regular routines. Schools will open on schedule in the community and Arab laborers will be prohibited from entering Efrat all of Sunday.

The terrorist is reportedly in very serious condition, transported to the trauma unit of Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photos: Media Resource Group)
[VIDEO AND PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

12:26PM IL: A female Palestinian terrorist armed with a knife was apprehended in the Shomron a short time ago.

The incident occurred between IDF Base 3 and Itamar.

The Palestinian woman appeared suspicious to IDF soldiers and when they approached to inspect her, she threw her knife down.

The female terrorist was taken into custody without incident.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photos & Video: Shomron Council spokesman unit via Media Resource Group)
The Ministry of Education Chareidi Unit announced last week it was getting tough with schools that discriminate, announcing it would be holding back school funding for four schools, as reported by YWN-ISRAEL.

As a result of state involvement in chareidi education an urgent gathering has been announced for principals of Beis Yaakov high schools, being held on Sunday night 15 Elul. The Union of Seminaries (frum girls high schools) is arranging the urgent assembly, reportedly at the behest of HaGaon HaRav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman Shlita.

The event is set for Sunday night at 6:15PM in the Ganei HaZayit Hall on Yitzchak Nissim Street to discuss how to respond to the states involvement regarding who is and is not accepted to schools.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Air Kasthamandap crash caused by engine failure: Probe report

The crash of an Air Kasthamandap plane at Chilkhaya in Kalikot last February was caused by engine failure, a probe report has revealed. Both pilots were killed while the nine passengers on the charter flight survived.
There are people in Israel whom are classified by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel as unsuited to get married ( ), usually those unable to prove their Jewish roots.

A new and growing trend has been discovered in which rabbonim conduct fictitious chupahs for couples, who are married in Cyprus in a civil ceremony.

Rabbonim who certified by the Chief Rabbinate to perform a chupah are being paid to conduct a fictitious chupah and under the guise of being fictitious hope to avoid getting in hot water for marrying such a couple. This couple however needs to find a way to be recognized as a couple in the Ministry of the Interior, and this is accomplished by flying to Cyprus and having a civil ceremony. Hence, a couple wishing to be married halachically as well as being recognized by the Interior Ministry can do so.

After Channel 2 News reported on the fictitious chupahs, the Chief Rabbinate announced it is launching a probe into the matter.

It is reported that these couple are married civilly in Cyprus, which has them registered by the state as a couple but they still have social pressure from friends. This led to the chupah in which they tell a rav authorized by the Chief Rabbinate to conduct a chupah as if it were real. The Channel 2 report does not address the matter of making brachos and using Hashems name or not.

Channel 2 sent out their own couple, and secretly recorded the rav explaining I am placing my career at risk with this since the Rabbinate does not permit such a chupah and if I am caught, I am done. I will bring a kesuva and everything necessary, and the chupah will be real to the smallest detail. No one will realize it is not real. The rav reportedly asked NIS 3,000 for his services.

The Chief Rabbinate promises an investigation.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
It was recently reported that a number of rabbonim who were appointed as rav over a city are being probed to determine if they obtained their certification for the position legally. There are allegations that some of the rabbonim were rubber stamped and given certification without going through the lengthy process, which takes about five years. These rabbonim are now being probed for possible fraud.

A letter was sent to the legal advisor of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel by attorney Naftali Peles in the name of a senior rabbinate official who requests to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the matter seeking to probe the matter.

Attorney Peles explains the rav who does not wish to reveal his name has passed these exams, difficult exams that are six hours each. These rabbonim are being probed amid claims they have passed up to four exams which were taken simultaneously, which anyone familiar with the content involved realizes is highly doubtful and actually close to impossible, Peles points out.

Peles requests to have the names of these rabbis to give them the proper kovod for being capable of passing four such exams simultaneously.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday, 15 Elul, prior to the weekly cabinet meeting, instructed Minister of Welfare (Likud) Chaim Katz to dress appropriately before entering the forum.

Mr. Netanyahu was displeased with his minister who decided to forgo the dress shirt and appear for the cabinet meeting in a striped polo shirt, earning himself a rebuke for arriving in inappropriate attire.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo:   via Media Resource Group)
[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

Once again, protestors arrived in Kiryat Gat to protest outside the home of HaGaon HaRav Moshe Havlin Shlita, the citys chief rabbi and a member of the Chabad Beis Din in Eretz Yisrael.

The rabbi is under attack for being one of the signatories on the agreement signed between Chabad and the IDF by which bochrim must serve in the IDF after limud in 770 and yeshiva gevoha.

Some of the sikrikim that took part in a home invasion of the ravs home recently were indicted.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has recently spoken out harshly against protestors, calling on authorities to protect the rabbi and his rebitzen, who have bridged the gap as Lieberman views it, signing an agreement compelling talmidim to serve in the IDF. He warns that the attacks against the rabbi represent crossing a red line and persons guilty of this would be dealt with harshly.

Commando police armed with riot-control adjuncts were assigned to Sundays protest to maintain order.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photos: Media Resource Group)
President Barack Obama plans to meet this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while both are in New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

The leaders will hold talks Wednesday, about a week after the U.S. and Israel signed an unprecedented new security agreement that will give the Israeli military $38 billion over 10 years. Its the largest such agreement the U.S. has ever had with any country.

The White House says the leaders will discuss advancing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iran nuclear deal and other regional security issues. Netanyahu vehemently opposed the Iran agreement.

On Monday, Obama will hold a brief meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

Obama heads to New York on Sunday afternoon.

(AP)
Baidya Maoist objects to some points of joint statement

The CPN-Maoist led by Mohan Baidya has objected to some points of the joint statement between Nepal and India during the India visit of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
Bus service for students in BNP in view of rising tusker attacks

The Bardia National Park (BNP) has started a free bus service to ferry students to a local school after one of the students was killed in an elephant attack on Thursday.
A flagship Boots store on Oxford Street in central London has been snapped up by Norways sovereign wealth fund as it hunted for bargains after the Brexit vote.

The four-storey shop was sold by Aberdeen Asset Management in July, just five days after coming to market. Aberdeen was forced to act as panicking investors tried to take their money out of its property fund after the Brexit vote.

Walk on by: Buyer Norges Bank Real Estate Management said the 124m deal was one of the fastest it had ever completed

Along with several other investment groups, it temporarily blocked withdrawals to buy time to raise extra cash.

Buyer Norges Bank Real Estate Management said the 124m deal was one of the fastest it had ever completed, and boasted that it had secured a significant discount.
Failed oil producer Afren is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.

The firm, which counted Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi as an adviser, collapsed into administration last year with debts of 1.3bn.

End of the road: Afren collapsed into administration last year with debts of 1.3bn

This came after an internal investigation alleged former chief executive Osman Shahenshah set up an offshore vehicle to pay him and other executives millions in hidden bonuses. The group called themselves the A Team.

Administrator AlixPartners said it was working with UK law enforcement agencies in their inquiries into the groups affairs and the past conduct of management. This is thought to include the SFO, which declined to comment.
Companies are to be nudged to make a named non-executive director on their boards responsible for employees and diversity.

The plans, set to be announced as early as this week, follow a pledge by Prime Minister Theresa May to reform business.

But the proposals are likely to be seen as a climbdown from suggestions that companies would be forced to have worker representatives on their boards.

Climbdown? The plans are set to be announced following a pledge by Prime Minister Theresa May to reform business

It is understood that No 10 wants to issue a consultation document imminently and at least before the Tory party conference in a fortnight.

When May launched her leadership campaign in July, she said: If Im Prime Minister were going to have not just consumers represented on company boards, but workers as well.

The comments prompted fears among some businesses that boards might be legally forced to include workers representatives, but it is understood the Government would rather urge firms to take employees and diversity more seriously, rather than bring in changes to the Companies Act.

It is thought that firms could be encouraged to volunteer to appoint a non-executive to be in charge of corporate social responsibility issues.

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy declined to comment.

Simon Walker, director-general of the Institute of Directors, said: Directors must fully engage in this debate.
One of the countrys largest housebuilders has warned that cutting off the supply of EU workers to Britains building sites could halve the number of homes being built.

The warning adds to fears that curbing migration as part of Brexit plans could worsen Britains already chronic housing crisis and blow a hole in the last Governments ambitions to build one million houses in the next five years.

Rob Perrins, chief executive of housebuilder Berkeley Group, said: Half the workers who build Britains homes are European nationals. So if we get migration wrong, costs will go up and well probably deliver half as many homes. The debate about work permits is one of the single most important issues during the negotiations to leave.

Warning: Cutting off the supply of EU workers to Britains building sites could halve the number of homes being built

The latest official figures show that 144,000 homes were started during the year to June. The number of homes being built has been declining for decades since a peak in 1968 when more than 400,000 houses were constructed in a year. House prices have been soaring  particularly in the capital.

The warning from Perrins came after construction industry groups wrote to Brexit Secretary David Davis last week to warn of the dire consequences of a loss of migrant labour.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Chartered Institute of Building and the Royal Town Planning Institute said: Britain could stop building.

RICS president Amanda Clack told The Mail on Sunday: We are in the grip of our worst construction skills crisis in almost 20 years.

'Before June we had a construction skills crisis. Post June it is even more important that we focus on the issue.

She said Britain needs an extra 220,000 workers to join the construction industry in the period between 2015 and 2019. Last year there were just 17,000 new apprenticeships in the sector.

The Department for Education said it was committed to developing the skilled workforce our construction industry needs and

was supporting construction employers through the new apprenticeship levy.

The Prime Minister has been clear that she wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living here, it added.

Berkeley itself has committed to getting 1,500 people into apprenticeships and training by May 2018, 15 per cent of its workforce.

Earlier this year 52 per cent of contractors reported having difficulties hiring bricklayers, while 48 per cent struggled to take on carpenters and 44 per cent experienced problems signing up plasterers.

The Recruitment & Employment Confederation says bricklayers in London can earn almost 50,000 a year.
Britain's biggest freight port has been accused of profiteering from the recent multi-billion pound collapse of shipping giant Hanjin.

The Port of Felixstowe has raised the price of handling the Korean groups containers in a move that could add to importers bills  costs that may be passed on to shoppers.

Hanjin, one of the worlds biggest shipping groups, collapsed into bankruptcy two weeks ago. The news was described by some as shippings equivalent to the fall of Lehman Brothers bank in 2008.

All at sea: Many Hanjin ships are unable to dock

It has left 97 Hanjin ships in a legal limbo. While some have been able to dock, many are circling the open seas holding an estimated 11 billion of goods. The bankruptcy has also sparked a number of legal battles over ownership and fees.

The Port of Felixstowe, which receives nearly half of all containers arriving in the UK, has now imposed big fees on freight firms for each of the hundreds of Hanjin containers they have to deliver from the Suffolk port to their destination, sparking fury.

David Snell, head of Atlantic International Freight Services, said: The port is charging us 460 per container, whereas normally we pay the shipping company 130. I think it is profiteering from the situation.

The Port of Felixstowe has also levied a 2,000 fee for every Hanjin container leaving the docks, though this is refunded when the container is returned. This contrasts with London Gateway, Britains second largest container port, which is charging a release fee of 130 per container.

In a statement, London Gateway said: While protecting our interests, our focus is limiting disruption for customers to continue the smooth flow of goods across our network.

The British International Freight Association has sought advice over legal action against Felixstowe. It said: A number of members feel the 460 fee and 2,000 deposit is arbitrary and unfair. The trade body concluded any legal action would be uneconomic but a Dutch court ruled that the fees of 1,000 to 1,500 (850 to 1,300) charged by Rotterdam terminal ECT per Hanjin container were excessive and unlawful.
While banks are closing hundreds of branches, Newcastle Building Society is fighting back by opening a new one  inside a library.

The single counter has been put at the back of the library in Yarm, Stockton-on-Tees and is the 28th branch to be opened by the Newcastle. It will be officially open to customers next month.

The opening is part of a 10 million investment by the building society into its branch network to get more involved with local communities  and offers a stark contrast to major high street banks which are axing hundreds of branches to cut down on costs and force customers to use the internet.

ADVENTURE: Layla Tempest at the Alice-themed opening of the branch in Yarm

Sharon Roberts, 41, from Ingleby Barwick in Stockton-on-Tees, visited the library last week with daughter Layla, three. She has another daughter Isabella, six.

The medical secretary says: The building society was holding an Alices Adventures In Wonderland themed party to celebrate the branch opening in the library so we went for the fun.

She adds: Although the idea is unusual, it seems to work.

I am now going to open a couple of savings accounts for the children because it enables me to bank in a friendly environment where the family can also sit down and enjoy a good book.

The building society insists the move is not a gimmick but a bid to adapt to the changing demands of banking services in the 21st Century.

Andrew Haigh, chief executive at the Newcastle, says: It is all about people  and the relationship banks and building societies have with their community. The local council told us that a revamp of the library had opened up free space. We were all too happy to use it to open a new branch.

He adds: We are hoping the new arrangement will provide a win-win for everyone  encouraging more people to visit the library and also enabling us to better serve customers in a friendly environment.

The plan to open new branches is in contrast to the closures preferred by most high street banks  amid a 40 per cent fall in branch usage in the last five years as customers turn to internet banking.

HSBC is closing more than 200 branches this year  three-quarters of which have already been axed. Lloyds is culling at least 60 this year with a further 200 being shut in 2017.

Royal Bank of Scotland  which owns the NatWest brand  is shutting at least 50 this year and 100 closed in 2015. Barclays has cost-cutting plans that could see the axe wielded on 400 branches over the next five years.

1,000 BANKS SHUT IN JUST FIVE YEARS Over the past five years more than 1,000 bank branches have closed  400 being the last bank in town. During the past 25 years more than 8,000 have closed and fewer than 9,000 survive. HSBC holds the dubious honour of shutting down more branches than any other. It has closed 400 over the past decade but is believed to have earmarked up to 200 for the chop this year. Just 1,100 survive. RBS has axed more than 150 branches over the past couple of years  many of them NatWest branches it owns. 1,300 are still open. LLOYDS TSB as a single bank shut more than 300 branches over a decade before splitting up three years ago. Lloyds has about 1,100 branches and TSB 630. Lloyds is shutting at least 60 outlets this year but closing 200 more, including Bank of Scotland and Halifax branches, by the end of next year. BARCLAYS closed 171 branches in one day in 2000. It is to close as many as 400 more of its 1,500-strong network over five years.

Although not stopping the tide of closures, RBS claimed it has found its own innovative way to serve 600 communities using mobile branches. It has 38 bank vans  15 branded NatWest and 23 branded Royal Bank of Scotland. Meanwhile Bank of Scotland has seven travelling bank vans.

Newcastle is not the only player that believes customers value their high street branches. Nationwide Building Society is investing 500 million to revamp its 700-strong network while South East challenger bank Metro Bank has opened 42 outlets since launch in 2000 and is opening six more this year.
Small Business Saturday UK, the annual campaign to encourage shopping at small, independent firms, is taking to the road again with a bus tour.

Ahead of the day itself on December 3, the tour will begin on October 24 in Aberdeen and conclude in Bournemouth on November 25. The bus will host workshops and seminars.

Relationships: Ben and Emma Robson buy from family wineries

National campaign director Michelle Ovens said: Small Business Saturday is not just a campaign to raise awareness of our diverse and innovative small business sector, but also a vehicle from which small firms that make use of the campaign can derive tangible benefit.

The bus tour is a visible way for us to meet small businesses and show them how they can become involved, as well as drum up consumer interest.

Last year, spending at small firms on the day rose 24 per cent to an estimated 623 million. Around three-quarters of local authorities backed the campaign.

Meanwhile, a husband and wife-owned wine merchant in Oakham, Rutland, which imports from Italy, is one of the 100 small firms to be celebrated by Small Business Saturday  one a day in the run up to the day itself.

Campaign: The bus will offer workshops and seminars

Ben and Emma Robson founded Bat and Bottle in 1994 from home just after getting married. Small Business Saturday is promoting the firm online today.
Leaving: Laura Wade-Gery has quit M&S after maternity leave

Business leaders have called for greater Government support over parental leave after the boss of a small firm admitted to her fear of female employees becoming pregnant.

Julie Simpson, managing director of ResourceiT, a marketing consultancy to the IT sector whose clients have included Microsoft and Hitachi, said: I run a small business and  I cannot help it  as much as I believe in balance in the workplace, I cannot adequately compensate young women who are going to go on maternity leave in my business to a level that will enable them to maintain a fulfilling career.

Simpsons comments, at a women in business roundtable event chaired by former Minister Baroness Warsi at the House of Lords this month, came as M&S announced that one of its directors, Laura Wade-Gery would not be returning to the group after taking a years maternity break. Wade-Gery left M&S with a 540,000 pay-off.

Simpson said small business owners could not afford the cost of maternity cover and needed support from the Government to be able to hire women on an equal basis.

Theres no help from the Government to compensate these people. So if Im faced with two people and ones a guy and ones a woman, what am I going to do? As a business owner I will make the decision that the guy will get the job because I cant afford to have someone out for six months and compensate them on their salary. If they go off on maternity leave, theyre on statutory maternity pay which just isnt a feasible amount of money.

She added: About 66 per cent of my workforce are women. The reality is small businesses are under pressure to be profitable. When faced with a choice, I cant take that thought out of my head even though I am passionate about women in technology.

James Cliffe, head of business banking at HSBC Commercial Banking, responded: Its a responsibility for everyone, whether youre a business owner, a professional, supporting businesses or a politician  weve got to create an environment where people can succeed. And if that means fiscal support then maybe politicians need to look at that.

Dr Adam Marshall, acting director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, this month called for better childcare, and said: Sustained investment in high-quality, affordable childcare provision would be transformational for the gender pay gap, for parents career prospects, for the success of their company.

Meanwhile, Julie Deane, founder of the Cambridge Satchel Company, has said maternity and adoption benefits for the self-employed should be brought in line with statutory pay for the employed.

But James Maunder, director of IT at the Institute of Directors, said: I find it depressing that were still talking about women having babies.

At Unilever, one thing I learned was recognise your own biases and put them to one side, and then interview the person for the role.
High street retailers outside London hoping for business rates cuts of as much as 44 per cent could wait for years before they feel the full benefit, say experts.

The Government will release its initial view of revised charges at the end of the month and bills are expected to be sent out in March.

Struggle: High street retailers outside London hoping for business rates cuts of as much as 44 per cent could wait for years

But transitional rate relief designed to protect those facing hikes, and which could be tapered over several years, could also mean those expecting cuts will foot the bill.

Tim Attridge, senior director for rating at property advisor CBRE, said: The upward relief would be phased in, possibly over years, and help retailers cope in places where there will be big increases.

'But the Government then has to recover what it loses from within the system, which means other areas could carry the burden.

Smaller businesses might well suffer if there is a transitional delay.
Tika R Pradhan is a senior political correspondent for the Post, covering politics, parliament, judiciary and social affairs. Pradhan joined the Post in 2016 after working at The Himalayan Times for more than a decade.
The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation provides a range of financial products and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through Securities Services, Market and Wealth Services, Investment and Wealth Management, and Other segments. The Securities Services segment offers custody, trust and depositary, accounting, exchange-traded funds, middle-office solutions, transfer agency, services for private equity and real estate funds, foreign exchange, securities lending, liquidity/lending services, prime brokerage, and data analytics. This segment also provides trustee, paying agency, fiduciary, escrow and other financial, issuer, and support services for brokers and investors. The Market and Wealth Services segment offers clearing and custody, investment, wealth and retirement solutions, technology and enterprise data management, trading, and prime brokerage services; and clearance and collateral management services. This segment also provides integrated cash management solutions, including payments, foreign exchange, liquidity management, receivables processing and payables management, and trade finance and processing services. The Investment and Wealth Management segment offers investment management strategies and distribution of investment products, investment management, custody, wealth and estate planning, private banking, investment, and information management services. The Other segment engages in the provision of leasing, corporate treasury, derivative and other trading, corporate and bank-owned life insurance, renewable energy investment, and business exit services. It serves central banks and sovereigns, financial institutions, asset managers, insurance companies, corporations, local authorities and high net-worth individuals, and family offices. The company was founded in 1784 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Wells Fargo & Company, a diversified financial services company, provides banking, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance products and services in the United States and internationally. It operates through four segments: Consumer Banking and Lending; Commercial Banking; Corporate and Investment Banking; and Wealth and Investment Management. The Consumer Banking and Lending segment offers diversified financial products and services for consumers and small businesses. Its financial products and services include checking and savings accounts, and credit and debit cards, as well as home, auto, personal, and small business lending services. The Commercial Banking segment provides financial solutions to private, family owned, and certain public companies. Its products and services include banking and credit products across various industry sectors and municipalities, secured lending and lease products, and treasury management services. The Corporate and Investment Banking segment offers a suite of capital markets, banking, and financial products and services to corporate, commercial real estate, government, and institutional clients. Its products and services comprise corporate banking, investment banking, treasury management, commercial real estate lending and servicing, equity, and fixed income solutions, as well as sales, trading, and research capabilities services. The Wealth and Investment Management segment provides personalized wealth management, brokerage, financial planning, lending, private banking, and trust and fiduciary products and services to affluent, high-net worth, and ultra-high-net worth clients. It also operates through financial advisors. Wells Fargo & Company was founded in 1852 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Williams-Sonoma, Inc. operates as an omni-channel specialty retailer of various products for home. It offers cooking, dining, and entertaining products, such as cookware, tools, electrics, cutlery, tabletop and bar, outdoor, furniture, and a library of cookbooks under the Williams Sonoma Home brand, as well as home furnishings and decorative accessories under the Williams Sonoma lifestyle brand; and furniture, bedding, lighting, rugs, table essentials, and decorative accessories under the Pottery Barn brand. The company also provides home decor products under the West Elm brand; kids accessories under the Pottery Barn Kids brand; and an organic bedding to multi-purpose furniture under the Pottery Barn Teen brand. In addition, it offers made-to-order lighting, hardware, furniture, and home decors inspired by history under the Rejuvenation brand; and women's and men's accessories, travel, entertaining and bar, home decor, and seasonal items under the Mark and Graham brand, as well as operates a 3-D imaging and augmented reality platform for the home furnishings and decor industry. The company markets its products through e-commerce websites, direct-mail catalogs, and retail stores. It operates 544 stores comprising 502 stores in 41states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico; 20 stores in Canada; 19 stores in Australia; 3 stores in the United Kingdom; and 139 franchised stores, as well as e-commerce websites in various countries in the Middle East, the Philippines, Mexico, South Korea, and India. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Creating future global citizens

The British Council International School Award (ISA) is a motivational framework that guides schools through their international work and supports the school in embedding international learning into the curriculum.
Bancolombia S.A. provides banking products and services in Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. The company operates through nine segments: Banking Colombia, Banking Panama, Banking El Salvador, Banking Guatemala, Trust, Investment Banking, Brokerage, International Banking, and All Other. It offers checking and savings accounts, fixed term deposits, and investment products; trade financing, loans funded by domestic development banks, working capital loans, credit cards, personal and vehicle loans, payroll loans, and overdrafts; financial support to real estate developers and mortgages for individuals and companies; factoring; and financial and operating leasing services. The company also provides hedging instruments, including futures, forwards, options, and swaps; and brokerage, investment advisory, and private banking services, including selling and distributing equities, futures, foreign currencies, fixed income securities, mutual funds, and structured products. In addition, it offers cash management services; foreign currency transaction services; life, auto, commercial, and homeowner's insurance products; and online and computer banking services. Further, the company provides project and acquisition finance, debt and equity capital markets, principal investments, M&A, hedging strategies, restructurings, and structured financing; money market accounts, mutual and pension funds, private equity funds, payment and corporate trust, and custody; internet-based trading platform; inter-bank lending and repurchase agreements; managing escrow accounts, and investment and real estate funds; and transportation, securities brokerage, maintenance and remodeling, and outsourcing services. As of December 31, 2021, it operated 1,015 branches; 28,676 banking correspondents; 529 PAMs; 210 kiosks in El Salvador and 187 in Colombia; and 6,094 ATMs. Bancolombia S.A. was incorporated in 1945 and is headquartered in Medellin, Colombia.
Culture of silence

Common peoples ability to speak out against injustices has qualitatively declined over the years
Emergent BioSolutions Inc., a life sciences company, focuses on the provision of preparedness and response solutions that address accidental, deliberate, and naturally occurring public health threats (PHTs) in the United States. The company's products address PHTs, which include chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives; emerging infectious diseases; travel health; and emerging health crises and acute/emergency care. It offers BioThrax, an anthrax vaccine; ACAM2000, a smallpox vaccine; Botulism Antitoxin Heptavalent to treat botulinum disease; vaccinia immune globulin intravenous that addresses complications from smallpox vaccine; raxibacumab for the treatment and prophylaxis of inhalational anthrax; Anthrasil to for inhalational anthrax; reactive skin decontamination lotion kits; and Trobigard, a combination drug-device auto injector product candidate; and Trobigard, a combination drug-device auto injector product candidate. The company also provides NARCAN, a nasal spray for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose; Vivotif, an oral vaccine for typhoid fever; and Vaxchora, a single-dose oral vaccine to treat cholera. In addition, it is developing AP003, a Naloxone multidose nasal spray; AP007, a sustained release Nalmefene injection for treatment of opioid use disorder; AV7909, an anthrax vaccine; CGRD-001, a pralidoxime chloride/atropine auto-injector; CHIKV VLP, a chikungunya virus VLP vaccine; COVID-HIG for the treatment of SARS-CoV2; EGRD-001, a diazepam auto-injector; SIAN, an antidote for the initial treatment of acute poisoning of cyanide; and UniFlu, a universal influenza vaccine. Further, the company provides contract development and manufacturing services comprising drug substance and product manufacturing, and packaging, as well as technology transfer, process, and analytical development services. The company was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
American Water Works Company, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides water and wastewater services in the United States. It offers water and wastewater services to approximately 1,700 communities in 14 states serving approximately 3.4 million active customers. The company serves residential customers; commercial customers, including food and beverage providers, commercial property developers and proprietors, and energy suppliers; fire service and private fire customers; industrial customers, such as large-scale manufacturers, mining, and production operations; public authorities comprising government buildings and other public sector facilities, such as schools and universities; and other utilities and community water and wastewater systems. It also provides water and wastewater services on various military installations; and undertakes contracts with municipal customers, primarily to operate and manage water and wastewater facilities, as well as offers other related services. In addition, the company operates approximately 80 surface water treatment plants; 480 groundwater treatment plants; 160 wastewater treatment plants; 52,500 miles of transmission, distribution, and collection mains and pipes; 1,100 groundwater wells; 1,700 water and wastewater pumping stations; 1,300 treated water storage facilities; and 76 dams. It serves approximately 14 million people with drinking water, wastewater, and other related services in 24 states. American Water Works Company, Inc. was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Camden, New Jersey.
Dr KC warns another hunger strike from Monday

Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) professor and senior orthopaedic surgeon Dr Govinda KC has warned to begin another strike from Monday if the government fails to implement past deals.
Johnson & Johnson have agreed to purchase the eye-surgery equipment business of Abbott Laboratories for the price of $4.33 billion, which moves the giant in healthcare towards its set goal of increasing all three of its core businesses.

This deal should close during the first three months of 2017 said each company in separate released statements late last week.

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The unit, known as Abbott Medical Optics, is the maker of equipment used during surgeries for cataracts and in the Lasik procedures that improve vision, along with eye drops and other solutions. In 2015, the unit generated sales of more than $1.13 billion.

J&J is the largest maker of healthcare products in the world and has chased deals for its three main businesses to increase growth as well as offset possible competition for its prescription medicines, which is the biggest unit at the company based in New Jersey.

For Abbott, this divestiture is one more step in CEO Miles Whites plan to refocus the business after spinning off AbbVie back in 2013, this year agreeing to the acquisition of Alere Inc, a company specializing in medical testing and device maker St. Jude Medical.

Abbotts unit for optics is self contained with little synergy amongst other units in it device portfolio said one industry analyst. The company wants its device division more towards products that are more sophisticated like the ones offered by St. Jude, added the analyst.

J&Js diagnostics and medical devices business represented 36% of its overall 2015 revenue, which was down from a 2012 figure of 41%. J&Js third big unit, Consumer products, represented 19% of the sales the company generated in 2015.

Abbott paid over $2.8 billion for this same unit back in 2009. This sale gives Abbott a much needed injection of cash. It is purchasing St. Jude Medical for more than $25 billion and Alere for over $5.8 billion, a purchase running into many roadblocks since being announced back in February.

CEO White said he had the financing in place to finish both the deals, though it might involve issuing more equity, a moved frowned upon by investors.

The additional cash through the sale of the eye care company will ease the financial demand the company currently has.

Currently, Abbott is focused on the building of a position of leadership in the cardiovascular devices as well as growing diagnostics.

In addition, Alere is the top maker of devices that treat heart failure.
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.
Elsewhere in Rimrock Mall, a womens plus size clothing store, Torrid, is scheduled to open by late October in a portion of the former Herbergers space at the north end.

Torrid will occupy 2,701 square feet. Mall spokesman Daron Olson said Rimrock and its owner, Starwood Retail Partners, are negotiating with other tenants to fill that area.

The space became vacant after Herbergers expanded last fall into the former Scheels Sporting Goods space on the malls south end. Swedish retailer H&M took over the largest portion, 23,000 square feet, of the former Herbergers spot in April. About 20,000 square feet were left over, and Torrid will take part of that space.

California-based Torrid opened its first store in 2001 as an offshoot of designer brand Hot Topic. Both brands were acquired by investment fund Sycamore Partners Management in 2013 when Hot Topic went private.

The Rimrock store will be Torrids first in Montana. Torrid is the second plus-size womens clothing store to open within the last year after Lane Bryant opened last September.
Govt to review SC verdicts before freeing arrestees

The government will begin reviewing past verdicts of the Supreme Court before granting amnesty to people arrested on various charges during the Tarai movement.
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By Gina Martinez

A 22-year-old Jamaica man pleaded guilty to sex trafficking and promoting prostitution charges for forcing a 16-year-old girl into the sex trade in September 2014, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

His friend and co-defendant also pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution, the DA said.

Robert Homer, 22, and Kenyon Sultan, 21, have been held in jail since their September 2014 arrest in lieu of $250,000 bail. The defendants appeared before Queens Supreme Court Judge Richard Butcher Tuesday and pleaded guilty to felony sex charges, according to the DA. The judge scheduled Homers sentencing for October and indicated that he would sentence him to between 2 1/2 and 7 1/2 years in prison and Sultan to one to three years, according to Brown.

By pleading guilty the defendants admitted that they forced a very vulnerable teenager to work as a sex slave for their financial gain, Brown said. The defendants guilty pleas ensure that the defendants will be held accountable for their actions and allows the victim to move forward with her life. It also sends a clear message that such crimes will not be tolerated in Queens County.

According to the criminal charges, Homer was introduced to a 16-year-old girl by a 17-year-old he was already pimping on Sept. 4 2014. Homer and Sultan brought the victim to a hotel room on North Conduit Avenue and forced her to prostitute herself and turn over the money. The two men waited in the hotel bathroom while the victim had sex and then turned the money over to them, Brown said.

Homer and Sultan brought the two underage girls to several hotels between Sept. 4, 2014 and Sept. 11, 2014 and forced them to have oral sex and intercourse with several men in exchange for money and then hand over the money, DA Brown said. Homer told the 16-year-old to make at least $500 a day and to call him Daddy as he also posted prostitution ads on backp age.com , according to the DAs office.

When the victim asked to leave and stop the prostitution, Homer told her no and brought her back to the North Conduit hotel and would take turns with Sultan to watch her as she slept so she would not escape, the DA said.

On Sept. 11, 2014 an undercover NYPD officer responded to the backp age.com ad, which led officers to the North Conduit hotel. Once inside the hotel room the undercover officer met the victim and the 17-year-old , both of whom agreed to have sex for $100, Brown said. Both girls were subsequently arrested and police found Homer and Sultan were hiding in the bathroom.

When pleading guilty, Homer admitted to pimping the 16-year-old and 17-year-old as prostitutes and admitted to having sex with the 16-year-old.

Prosecutors declined to prosecute the 16-year-old victim and charges against the 17-year-old were dismissed.
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By Bill Parry

A former editor of the Bayside Times hosted a unique panel discussion at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in East Elmhurst last week leading into Sundays 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Tom Murphy, author of Reclaiming the Sky; 9/11 and the Untold Story of the Men and Women Who Kept America Flying in 2006, invited aviation employees who worked during the time of the attacks shared there stories with military veterans with Vaughn students learning from their experiences.

I hope that this gives them some tools, some ideas for them so that maybe if one day theyre in that position, theyll go, Wow, I remember their stories, United Airlines flight attendant Debbie Roland said.

Murphy, who edited the Bayside Times after graduating from college in the early 80s before becoming an aviation consultant, wrote his book on the resiliency of aviation workers in New York, Boston and Washington, DC who rose up after Sept. 11 after losing friend and colleagues in the hijackings.

Mary McKenna of Breezy Point talked of being walking zombies after 9/11 only to lose more friends when Flight 587 crashed weeks later in the Rockaways.

We learned that if you could talk about the loss, it could make it easier, she said.

Lt. Dan Carbonaro, who retired from the Port Authority Police Department after 34 years, responded with eight other officers to the World Trade Center. Only four came back.

We lost 37 officers in those attacks, the most of any police force in U.S. history, said Carbonaro, a 1965 graduate of Aviation High School in Long Island City and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. As we approached Tower Two started coming down, I got buried, but I dug myself out, dusted myself off and got going. And then Tower One came down. I dusted myself off and got going again.
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.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, left, and Republican presidential candidate Donal Trump in these 2016 file photos. Clinton and Trump offer voters distinct choices this fall on issues that shape everyday lives. Actual ideas are in play, as difficult as it can be to see them through the surreal layers of the 2016 presidential campaign. But decisions to be made by President Trump or President Clinton are going to matter to home and hearth. (AP Photo)

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Less than 50 days remain before Americans decide between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton for president.

When it comes to each candidate's energy policy, there are plenty of differences.

Trump wants to make the U.S. energy independent.

Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources in Oklahoma City, advises Trump regarding energy policy. Hamm also served as energy adviser to Mitt Romney during his presidential campaign four years ago, and he led the successful charge to lift the ban on crude oil exports last year.

Trump has talked about America's "Energy Renaissance", and the many regulatory roadblocks to energy independence that have been set up by the Obama administration since 2008.

When U.S. oil production peaked at 9.7 million barrels per day in April 2015, the nation was within 5 million barrels per day of being entirely self-sufficient in crude oil. Oil production has declined to 8.9 million barrels per day in April 2016 because of low prices, a decline in activity, and burdensome regulation.

At the height of the renaissance, employment in the petroleum industry was rising at a record pace. Net imports of petroleum liquids fell to 25 percent of U.S. consumption; Liquefied Natural Gas facilities that were originally designed to import LNG have been retrofitted to export LNG because America now produces excess natural gas, resulting in a nationwide oversupply. Trump believes each barrel of oil produced in the U.S. creates jobs, pays taxes, builds the economy, and replaces another barrel of oil that must be imported.

Domestic oil production enhances national security, he said.

He points out that building a strong domestic energy industry would "make America great again."

Clinton hasn't talked much about energy, but has said she supports increasing wind and solar power through policies restricting the usage and production of fossil fuels. She emphasizes the importance of expanding the implementation of exotic energy sources, and wants to have 500 million solar panels installed by 2025.

Clinton believes America can and should reduce greenhouse gases by reducing its consumption of coal and oil, but has also acknowledged that natural gas should be a "bridge fuel" to facilitate increased use of wind and solar.

She stated during a town hall meeting that she's "going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."

The Democratic National Committee has formally adopted a proposal calling for an America "run entirely on clean energy by midcentury."

Regarding oil and gas drilling in the U.S., Clinton said in a March debate that if elected president, she "[does] not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place."
Indian goodwill a must for statute implementation: PM

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said on Saturday that Indias support and goodwill was crucial for the implementation of the constitution.
Montague County investigators, FBI agents honored for work on Howard case

Two veteran law enforcement investigators from Montague County were honored along with two FBI agents with the U.S. Attorneys Award of Excellence.
photos by Lauren Roberts/Times Record News RIGHT: Alicia Gracia (left) and her sister Carmen Raygoza hold a plate of duros con cueritos at Fiestas Patrias Jamaica on Saturday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.

SHARE Carmen Raygoza prepares orders of tacos de papa at Fiestas Patrias Jamaica at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. This is the first year Raygoza and her sister set up a booth to sell food to benefit the church. BELOW: Leticia Ruddy recieves her order of duros con cueritos at Fiestas Patrias Jamaica on Saturday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Lauren Roberts/Times Record News Dancers from Nuestras Raices dancers dance the santa rita at Fiestas Patrias Jamaica Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Lauren Roberts/Times Record News A girl plays the Tip-A-Troll game at Fiestas Patrias Jamaica Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Related Photos GALLERY: Fiestas Patrias Jamaica 2016 (Sept. 17, 2016)

By Lauren Roberts, lauren.roberts@timesrecordnews.com

At the continued celebration of Mexico's independence from Spain on Saturday, Fiestas Patrias Jamaica, organized by Our Lady of Guadalupe church, authentic handmade Mexican food, music and dancing shared Mexican culture with everyone who attended, along with helping to fund the church.

Carmen Raygoza is from Guadalajara and has lived in Wichita Falls for about 25 years. After all those years Raygoza decided that she was going a work a booth to help raise money to help fund Our Lady of Guadalupe's renovation. Raygoza decided to make a dish from Guadalajara called duros con cueritos along with tacos de papa to sell.

"I made it at home and one day. I woke up and asked my husband if I could sell the duros con cueritos and the potatoes. My husband said, yeah. Then I asked him if he would help me and he said, yes I will. Then I asked my sister for help and she said yes."

Friday night Raygoza and her sister got to work cutting all the vegetables and preparing the food to sell at the celebration.

"For 20 years we would go from booth to booth trying the food and looking at everything," Alicia Gracia, Raygoza's sister, said, "But this year we aren't doing any of that. We're staying right here."

To kick off the evening activities the national anthems of Mexico and the United States were sung and the Shout of Dolores was recited. All the proceeds from Raygoza's booth and others will go towards the renovation costs at Our Lady of Guadalupe. The pews and flooring will be replaced and a fresh coat of paint will be applied inside.
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Marcus Scarbrough, Iowa Park

Columnist Jonah Goldberg's article quotes the Universities of Michigan and Tennessee's research program studying carbon, greenhouse gas, released by the burning of biofuels exceeds that of petroleum or coal. The article should be required reading by our Congress because it may motivate them to get the Federal Government out of the moonshine business.

Goldberg's article did not include the Federal government's research of the cost of ethanol. Their research found it takes 1.2 gallon of gasoline to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. The research included the fuel used to cultivate the land, plant the corn, harvest the corn, transport it to the ethanol facilities and the fuel used to distill the corn into ethanol. In addition to the production cost we taxpayers are subsidizing the ethanol industry over $2 billion per year. Our Congress is controlled by the ethanol lobbyists.
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An old joke about lawyers starts with someone saying divers found 500 of them on the bottom of the ocean. "It's a start," goes the reply. Now let's turn to journalists. What if you found 500 of them on the bottom of the ocean? That's easy. You had always figured they would devise a means to sink even lower.

After all, they are not lazy, even if their actions are at times questionable. You can't call Sean Hannity lazy, can you? I mean he is boiling over with energy as he gives Donald Trump verbal hugs, reinterprets his fumbles to make them brilliant insights and somehow espies depths where the water is too shallow to dampen the soles of your shoes. Has he signed on as campaign manager yet? Does he love Trump more than Trump's own children do?

I don't mean to be picking on Fox News, which has fine journalists in such people as Brit Hume and Chris Wallace, for instance. It is often more balanced than people suspect and remains a needed antidote to the progressive leanings of the mainstream networks.

Hannity is a commentator and is not bound by the rules of straight-news reporters, but he is still going overboard. I've always figured him for a good, honest, capable guy, but temper it, fellow, temper it.

Right now he is almost outdoing Bill O'Reilly. Awhile back, the excellent columnist Charles Krauthammer tried to tell the Fox News TV host it was not permissible for Trump to say in a nationally televised debate that he planned to kill the families of Islamic State members. O'Reilly said it was not so awful because Trump was just doing it to win the election. Maybe his next book will be called "Killing Reflectiveness."

"PBS NewsHour" is one of my favorite news shows except that it is right now giving me grief. It is acting little different from all the commercial outlets that devote endless attention to who is or is not ahead in the polls, what the strategy of the day is, and what is working or not working in the campaigns. All of that can be interesting if it is not overdone, but issues of character, competence and policies matter so much more than guesses about outcomes.

The "NewsHour" still does worthy stuff, of course, as do so many other news outlets that then go overboard time and again, as in supposing Trump's talk about President Barack Obama being the "founder" of the Islamic State was meant to be taken literally when he would immediately follow up by saying that Obama made things easier for the terrorist group by withdrawing troops from Iraq. "Founder" was a metaphor, although not a good one. Trump stumbles about in the use of language. A better metaphor would have been to say Obama "opened the door."

Trump daily shoots himself in the foot, and for the media to shoot him there when he doesn't is not exactly adherence to high standards. Nor is the effort of some to say there are no serious ethical and other implications about the Clinton emails and the Clinton Foundation. Maybe this election year is so crazy that it inspires the condition in all who pay attention.

The latest nuttiness is journalists apparently thinking that their kin serving as moderators in a presidential debate should correct the perceived missteps of the candidates. That may be their role in journalistic interviews, but it is not their role as moderators. It is up to the candidates themselves. Cool the self-deification, folks.

Government is only trusted by 19 percent of the people. Journalism does better. It is trusted by 22 percent. There is far more good than bad in an enterprise that overall shines, but let's stick the bad in a bag, OK?

Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Readers may email him at speaktojay@aol.com.
COLONIE  A family of three in Colonie was displaced from their home after a small fire in one of the bedrooms Friday, according to the West Albany Fire Department.

The Northeastern New York Chapter of the American Red Cross is providing financial assistance for shelter, food and clothing for a couple and their two year old child.
Tampa, Fla.

Hillary Clinton has vastly outspent Donald Trump on TV ads in Florida. Her 57 campaign offices dwarf Trump's afterthought of a ground game. And Trump is deeply unpopular among Hispanics, who account for nearly one in five Florida voters.

Despite these advantages, Clinton is struggling in the Sunshine State, unable to assemble the coalition that gave Barack Obama two victories here, and offering Trump a broad opening in a road to the White House that not long ago seemed closed to him. Trump is pressing down hard to win the state, campaigning in Miami on Friday and in Fort Myers on Monday, after a rally in Pensacola recently.

Recent polls show Clinton is not earning the same support among Hispanics, young people or white voters that Obama captured when he eked out a Florida victory four years ago in the country's most hard-fought swing state.

Clinton could afford to lose here and still find other routes to victory. Trump's electoral map is narrower; he must have Florida in his column. But as the most populous and one of the most racially diverse battleground states, Florida is also a bellwether for the nation: a candidate's struggles here often are mirrored elsewhere.

Polling in swing states that Clinton once led, prompting predictions a month ago of an Election Day romp, now show Trump closing the gap or slightly ahead, including in Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Nevada.

"If she underperforms what Obama did in '12, she's not going to carry Florida," said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic strategist in Miami. A poll his firm conducted for Univision, released last week, showed Clinton winning 53 percent of Florida Hispanics, compared with the 60 percent who voted for Obama four years ago.

After several weeks in which Trump attempted to sand off some of his rough edges and attacked Clinton for portraying half his supporters as "deplorables," the share of Florida voters who view the candidates unfavorably is now the same for Trump as for Clinton, according to a CNN/ORC poll.

In Miami on Friday, Trump departed from scripted remarks and said Clinton's bodyguards should disarm and "see what happens to her," a comment that could renew voters' doubts about his fitness for the presidency.

With 20 million people and 10 major media markets, Florida is a place of vast diversity and contrasts that is a challenging puzzle for any statewide campaign.

The traditional playbook has been for Democrats to run up the score in South Florida, with its large nonwhite population, and for Republicans to rack up votes in the conservative northern panhandle.

That leaves Central Florida, and especially Tampa on the Gulf Coast, as one of the state's most contested swing areas. The booming region has the largest share of registered voters statewide, with one in four voters in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, registered as independents.

"The old saying is: 'As goes Hillsborough County, so goes Florida,'" said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at South Florida University in Tampa. No candidate since 1960 has won Florida without carrying the county.

Some strategists believe the pool of persuadable voters this year is shallower than in the past, which may explain why the tens of millions in TV ads run by Clinton and her allies in the state have failed to give her a noticeable advantage. (Trump and outside supporters have spent about $8 million.)

Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, D-Fla., said recently that the Clinton advertising push was a failure.

"You give us $22 million, and I'll produce more votes for you than a damn television ad," Hastings told a meeting of Democrats, arguing that television does not reach young voters.

Clinton's bulwark is her vast organizing effort, currently focused on registering new voters and signing up volunteers. But Republicans have not been idle: Field teams working for the Republican National Committee and state party have cut the Democrats' advantage with registered voters in half since 2012. It is now just 258,000 active voters.
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The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids, the drugs at the heart of a crisis that has cost 165,000 Americans their lives and pushed countless more to crippling addiction.

The drugmakers vow they're combatting the addiction epidemic, but The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found that they often employ a statehouse playbook of delay and defend that includes funding advocacy groups that use the veneer of independence to fight limits on their drugs, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl, the narcotic linked to Prince's death.

The industry and its allies spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2006 through 2015  more than 200 times what those advocating for stricter policies spent and eight times more than the influential gun lobby recorded for similar activities during that same period, the AP and Center for Public Integrity found.

The drugmakers and allied advocacy groups  such as the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network  also employed an annual average of 1,350 lobbyists in state capitals from Olympia, Wash., to Tallahassee, Fla., during that span, when opioids' addictive nature came under increasing scrutiny.

More Information Pain policy lobby in New York state Pharmaceutical and allied members of the pro-opioid Pain Care Forum contributed $3.5 million to New York state political parties and candidates for state office between 2006 and 2015, according to data compiled by the Center for Public Integrity. Yet the governor and two influential state lawmakers - the heads of health committees in the Senate and Assembly - said they did not feel the group's influence. "No contribution of any size has any influence on a government action, period," said Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who received nearly $80,000 from Pain Care Forum members over the last decade. In addressing the opioid crisis, the Democratic governor most recently convened a task force in May that made recommendations in June leading to the signing of a package of bills to combat the epidemic. Sen. Kemp Hannon, chair of the Senate Health Committee, also pointed to his record as proof the $52,900 he received from Pain Care Forum members did not sway him. Among the Long Island Republican's efforts were support since 2012 for two initiatives signed by Gov. Cuomo this year, one to limit initial opioid prescriptions to seven days, another to require doctors to be educated on opioid use and misuse. Hannon also played a key role in passage of 2012 legislation to require doctors to check an electronic database of prescriptions for controlled substances, to prevent patients from conning multiple physicians into writing them painkiller scripts. (Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who received no contributions from Pain Care Forum members in the last decade, led the charge to enact that prescription monitoring program, known as the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing, or I-STOP.) Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat who received $9,000 from Pain Care Forum members over the last decade, said he has not felt serious pressure from drug companies in recent years on opioid-related bills. Significant pushback has come from other sources, he said: doctors, "who don't want government to tell them what to do," and insurance companies, "who don't want government to tell them what to pay for." Those are the positions that doctors and insurance companies take on most health legislation, Gottfried said. State lawmakers have been active in proposing opioid-related legislation over the last four years. Almost one-fifth of the 1,264 opioid-related bills introduced in statehouses around the nation between 2013-2016 were in New York, according to Quorum, a legislative tracking service. - Claire Hughes Opioid overdoses Inpatient and outpatient visits for opioid-related conditions statewide. These include poisonings from prescription drugs, heroin and other narcotics. 20106,424 20117,273 20127,810 20138,672 20149,568 201512,629 Source: New York State Department of Health, Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System PCF contributions to select New York state candidates* CandidateContributions Andrew Cuomo$79,700 Kemp Hannon$52,900 Jim Tedisco$14,800 Richard Gottfried$9,000 Neil Breslin$4,125 George Amedore$2,000 Patricia Fahy$1,400 John McDonald$1,125 Phil Steck $250 Eric Schneiderman$0 *For 2006-2015 Sources: National Institute on Money in State Politics, Center for Responsive Politics and the Federal Election Commission See More Collapse

The pharmaceutical companies and allied groups have a number of legislative interests in addition to opioids that account for a portion of their political activity, but their steady presence in state capitals means they're poised to jump in quickly on any debate that affects them.

"The opioid lobby has been doing everything it can to preserve the status quo of aggressive prescribing," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, an outspoken advocate for opioid reform. "They are reaping enormous profits from aggressive prescribing."

Prescription opioids are the cousins of heroin, prescribed to relieve pain. Sales of the drugs quadrupled from 1999 to 2010, rising in tandem with overdose deaths. Last year, 227 million opioid prescriptions were doled out in the U.S., enough to hand a bottle of pills to nine out of every 10 American adults.

The industry says it's committed to solving the problems linked to its painkillers. Major opioid-makers have launched initiatives to, among other things, encourage more cautious prescribing.

"We and our members stand with patients, providers, law enforcement, policymakers and others in calling for and supporting national policies and action to address opioid abuse," the industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said.

Doctors continue to prescribe opioids for ailments such as back pain and headaches, even though studies have shown weak or no evidence that the drugs are effective ways to treat routine chronic pain  and even though they come with the risk of addiction.

In 2007, executives at Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, pleaded guilty to misleading the public about the drug's addictive nature and agreed to pay $600 million in fines.

Lawmakers across the country have started attempting to limit the flood of prescribing and prevent overdoses. In 2012, for example, New Mexico considered a bill to limit initial prescriptions of opioids for acute pain to seven days to make addictions less likely and produce fewer leftover pills that could be peddled illegally. The bill died in the House Judiciary Committee.

"The lobbyists behind the scenes were killing it," said Bernadette Sanchez, the Democratic state senator who sponsored the measure.

Lobbyists for opioidmakers and their allies declined to comment. But those groups had 15 lobbyists registered in New Mexico that year, up from nine the previous year. Among them were longtime players considered among the most influential advocates in Santa Fe.

Most judiciary committee members received drug industry contributions in 2012. Overall that year, drug companies and their employees contributed nearly $40,000 to New Mexico campaigns  roughly 70 percent more than in previous years with no governor's race on the ballot.

Restrictions like the ones considered in New Mexico did not become law anywhere until this year, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for even tighter restrictions. In 2016, they have been adopted in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, all with exceptions for patients with chronic pain.

Pharmaceutical lobbyists are now pushing bills to fight opioid abuse that also promote a new product that pads their bottom lines: patent-protected abuse-deterrent opioids. They lobby for laws requiring insurers and pharmacists to give preferential treatment to the drugs, even though some experts say their abuse-deterrent qualities  they are not easily snorted or injected because they are difficult to crush  are easily circumvented.

So far, lawmakers have introduced scores of bills on the topic, with at least 21 using nearly identical language  some of it supplied by lobbyists. New York is one of the 21 states. The Senate sponsor of that bill, Republican Health Committee Chairman Kemp Hannon, said he did not know the origin of the bill's language. It may have come from a national group like the Council of State Governments, which offers already crafted bills for state lawmakers to consider, Hannon said.

The bill passed both the Senate and Assembly this year, and is awaiting action by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Local representatives Sen. George Amedore and Assemblyman John McDonald held a press conference on Aug. 31 calling for the governor's signature on the bill. Cuomo vetoed similar legislation last year.

One of the drugmakers' most powerful political engines is their financial support for opioid-friendly advocacy groups.

Such groups led the countercharge in Tennessee in 2014 when Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams began work to stanch the flow of prescription painkillers, alarmed by a rising number of drug-addicted babies. More than 900 were born the year before, nine times the amount in 2001, many of them hooked on the prescription opioids their mothers had taken.

Doctors told Williams that part of Tennessee's problem was a 2001 law that allowed clinicians to refuse to prescribe powerful narcotics only if they steered patients to an opioid-friendly doctor.

Williams' mission to repeal the law failed that year, after lobbying from the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and the Academy of Integrative Pain Management  opposition that surprised Williams since prescribing painkillers for cancer patients would have remained legal.

Both the academy and the cancer group have been active across the country, making the case that lawmakers should balance efforts to address the opioid crisis with the needs of chronic pain patients. Between them, they have contacted legislators and other officials about opioid-related measures in at least 18 states.

The society's annual ranks of about 200 lobbyists around the country opposed opioid restrictions even in some cases where they specifically exempted cancer patients.

The Cancer Action Network listed four major opioid makers who donated at least $100,000 in 2015 and five more who gave at least $25,000. Companies that offer such sums get one-on-one meetings with the group's leaders.

The network said 6 percent of its funding last year came from drugmakers. "ACS CAN's only constituents are cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones nationwide," spokesman David Woodmansee said.

The academy, until recently known as the American Academy of Pain Management, receives 15 percent of its funding from pharmaceutical companies, according to Executive Director Bob Twillman. Its state advocacy project is 100 percent funded by drugmakers, but he said that does not mean it is beholden to pharmaceutical interests.

"Most of the time we're saying, 'Gosh, yes, there should be some limits on opioid prescribing, reasonable limits,'" Twillman said, "but I don't think they would be in favor of that."

Purdue Pharma  the maker of OxyContin and one of the largest opioid producers by sales  gives to both groups. The company said in a statement that it contributes to a range of advocates, including some with differing views on opioid policy.

"It is imperative that we have legitimate policy debates without trying to silence those with whom we disagree," the statement said.

As for Williams, he tried again last year to repeal Tennessee's opioid prescribing law  and succeeded, even though the cancer network still opposed the repeal. The extra year had given Williams and his co-sponsor time to help educate their fellow lawmakers, he said.

Times Union health reporter Claire Hughes and Associated Press health reporter Matthew Perrone contributed to this report.
Lack of relocation plan puts victims on a slippery slope

A majority of the earthquake-displaced families are likely to rebuild their homes in unsafe locations as the government has not come up with a relocation plan for the areas that experts have identified as uninhabitable in the wake of last years 7.8-magnitude tremor.
Lagos, Nigeria

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari apologized Saturday for plagiarizing President Barack Obama's 2008 victory speech and said he will punish those responsible.

The announcement came as Obama is set to meet Buhari, the leader of Africa's largest economy and most populous country, next week in New York.

Adeola Akinremi in her Friday column for ThisDay newspaper denounced "the moral problem of plagiarism on a day Mr. President launched a campaign to demand honesty and integrity."

Several lines were almost identical to Obama's in a speech Buhari made Sept. 8 launching his campaign "Change Begins With Me." The campaign promotes a new way of thinking to rid Nigeria of widespread corruption.

Buhari said, "We must resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country for so long. Let us summon a new spirit of responsibility, spirit of service, of patriotism and sacrifice. Let us all resolve to pitch in and work hard and look after, not only ourselves, but one another."

Obama said, "So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. ... Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. "
Seaside Park, N.J.

A pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey shore town Saturday shortly before thousands of runners were to participate in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors, authorities said.

No injuries were reported in the blast in Seaside Park around 9:30 a.m. Saturday, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor's office. He said no surrounding structures were damaged.

The FBI has taken over as the lead agency in the investigation. But officials would not say whether they believe the incident was terror-related or if they suspected participants in the third annual Semper Five run were targeted.

Brad Cohen, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Newark, declined to discuss the matter at length during a brief news conference staged Saturday evening. He also declined to take questions from reporters, citing the "active, ongoing" investigation.

The race had been scheduled to start shortly before the blast occurred, but it was delayed due to the large numbers of people registering for the race and reports of an unattended backpack being found. Della Fave noted that if the race had started on time, a "good number of people" would have been running past the area where the explosion occurred.

The race was canceled, and the immediate area was put on lockdown. Several homes near the scene were evacuated as a precaution, though those residents were allowed to return home early Saturday night. However, authorities said several beaches in the area would remain closed until further notice.
Miami

An accused al-Qaida bomb-maker who went to college in Arizona told military officials at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he believed an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family was part of an effort to recruit him for violent extremist acts before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a newly released transcript says.

Ghassan Abdallah al-Sharbi said a religious figure in Saudi Arabia used the term "your highness" during a telephone conversation with a man, just before urging al-Sharbi to return to the U.S. and take part in a plot against the U.S. that would involve learning to fly a plane.

The Sept. 11 commission found no evidence to show the Saudi government as an institution or Saudi senior officials individually supported the attacks, and the kingdom's government has consistently denied it had any role.

It was early 2001, and al-Sharbi had only recently returned from the U.S., where he took flight courses in Phoenix with two men who would become 9/11 hijackers.

Al-Sharbi described the conversation in June to the Periodic Review Board, which assesses if Guantanamo prisoners can be released. The Pentagon Thursday posted a transcript, with parts blacked out, on the board website, which includes representatives from six U.S. agencies and departments.
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Buffalo

Two nonprofit development corporations which act as the real estate arms of the SUNY Polytechnic Institute operated for years without rules commonly used by government agencies to discourage favoritism and seek the best deals for taxpayers when choosing companies to do business with.

An Investigative Post analysis found the corporations used unusually loose procurement policies to select developers for multimillion dollar projects.

The Fort Schuyler and Fuller Road Management corporations administer many of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's most ambitious initiatives to boost the upstate economy, from a solar-panel factory nearing completion in Buffalo, to high-tech hubs in Albany, Utica, Syracuse and Rochester.

The development corporations say they follow guidelines from their parent organization, the Research Foundation for the State University of New York, but their business practices are often out of step with the procurement practices of the Research Foundation and other state entities.

For instance, the two non-profits often failed to ensure the minimum level of competition required and in at least three cases awarded contracts to companies who were the lone bidder.

The development corporations also have given contracts to developers who are among Cuomo's largest campaign contributors, raising questions about whether bid specifications were written to favor certain companies.

The development corporations' records indicate a lack of consistency in the way Fort Schuyler and Fuller Road advertised and awarded lucrative contracts to developers. Sometimes, the selection process was clearly competitive with a detailed evaluation of a number of firms who submitted proposals. On other projects, officials chose from only a handful of companies  or, in several cases, just one.

"The absence of a procurement policy that's robust and written in a way that ensures fair bidding is a huge problem," said John Kaehny, executive director of good government group Reinvent Albany.

Officials from SUNY Poly did not respond to requests for comment. David Doyle, the college's vice president for public policy, has previously said that SUNY Poly and its affiliated development corporations "follow New York state government's well-established and legally defined procurement procedures  to the letter."

But a lawyer for the development corporations stated in a response to a request for records that Fort Schuyler and Fuller Road "utilize the procurement policies promulgated by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York as guidelines."

The development corporations have made changes to their procurement practices over the past year and now behave more like state agencies. Those changes came after the public disclosure of state and federal investigations into potential bid-rigging and improper lobbying  and after much of the money allocated for major projects had been spent.

For years, Fort Schuyler and Fuller Road used public money while insisting they are private nonprofits and, therefore, exempt from state Freedom of Information and Open Meetings laws. Control over construction projects worth millions of dollars has come with limited oversight compared to state agencies. The state comptroller's office does not review or approve their contracting.

Initially, the development corporations were created as nonprofits to get around rules that prohibited the state university system from leasing space to private companies. The development corporations equip and lease multiple high-tech facilities to private companies like General Electric and IBM, who invest in research and development and create hundreds of jobs.

The development corporations expanded their reach across upstate after Cuomo took office in 2011.

SUNY Poly's founding president, Alain Kaloyeros, is regarded as Cuomo's point person on many of the state's largest economic development projects. Both development corporations say they follow the SUNY Research Foundation's procurement policies only "as guidelines," and it's clear they sometimes depart from those guidelines.

The Research Foundation's procurement policy requires at least three written proposals for any contract worth more than $100,000. Fort Schuyler and Fuller Road have failed to establish this minimum level of competition on some far larger contracts.

In Albany, another preferred-developer contract went to another Cuomo donor, Columbia Development, whose president, Joseph Nicolla, and LLCs connected to the company have given the governor at least $210,000 over the past six years. In 2014, Columbia was the only firm to submit a complete proposal. Documents suggest that Columbia has so far only received a relatively small amount of work under the contract. A year later, when Columbia was the only company to respond to a request to build student housing, Fuller Road awarded them the contract. The request for proposals or RFP included a preference for a site within a 10-minute walk of SUNY Poly's campus. As the Times Union reported, Columbia was buying property in the area months before the request for proposals went out.

The project was later rebid; the original selection process is currently the subject of an investigation into potential bid-rigging by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

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Like other contracts for professional services, these developer contracts aren't simply awarded to the lowest bidder; a company's past experience, qualifications and track record are also taken into account.

Best practices still call for a competitive selection process. Instead of soliciting proposals from a wide range of companies, however, the development corporations appear to have done little to encourage competition for work on major projects.

SUNY Poly says using the nonprofits is "required by federal and state rules, including IRS rules that prohibit hosting private corporations on state-owned lands."

"When they were created as the children of the SUNY Research Foundation, they chose not to adopt the exact same practices and procedures  there's a reason for that," said Kaehny, of Reinvent Albany.

At Fuller Road's most recent meeting, the first to be open to the public, board members scrambled to praise the transparency and fairness of the corporation's procurement practices. Just a few months earlier, however, board members at both development corporations had been raising their own concerns about the entities' procurement rules.

At a Fuller Road meeting in January, one board member said that the corporation should "adopt a clear procurement process." A month later, Fuller Road's President Walter Barber, who has since retired, told board members that the corporation's auditors had recommended that they document their procurement practices more thoroughly. Even as board members proclaim a new era of transparency, the development corporations won't fully concede that they are bound by the same rules as state agencies.

At the end of the August meeting, board members voted to go into executive session, "guided by" the state Open Meetings law. Board member Michael Castellana wanted to check: "We're quoting that law as a guideline to our behavior, not as a requirement for Fuller Road Management, is that correct?"

The corporation's general counsel, confirmed: it's just a guideline.

Charlotte Keith is a reporter for Investigative Post (www.investigativepost.org), a nonprofit investigative reporting center based in Buffalo.
THE ISSUE:

Federal airline regulators ignore a host of safety recommendations stemming from a famous near disaster.

THE STAKES:

The next time, passengers might not be so lucky.

More Information To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion See More Collapse

The Federal Aviation Administration deals with jets and planes, but there's much it could learn from boats and trains.

In a disturbing revelation, The Associated Press reports that the FAA has rejected most of the safety recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board stemming from the emergency landing in the Hudson River of US Airways Flight 1549 in 2009. That drama incident, dubbed the "Miracle on the Hudson," is the topic of a new movie, "Sully," named for pilot Chesley Sullenberger, who landed the crippled airliner with no loss of life.

The NTSB offered 35 recommendations to improve safety, but the FAA ignored all but six. Nor did the FAA even want to hear the recommendations, says Tom Haueter, the NTSB's head of aviation safety at the time: "The FAA was very upset back then that we made any recommendations at all," he recalls. "They thought this was a success story."

Among the concerns, investigators noted that it was only by chance that there were rafts, life preservers and other flotation devices on the aircraft; they're not required on flights that aren't considered "extended overwater." Life preservers were also difficult to easily find and use, and most people left them behind in the rush to get out of the plane.

Moreover, with one end of the plane submerged, the rafts stowed in the rear were unreachable, and those in the front could fit only 110 people, 45 short of the number on board.

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The shortage brings to mind the situation on the Titanic, the famous ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912 on its maiden voyage, claiming more than 1,500 lives. The ship, considered unsinkable, had only 20 lifeboats with room for 1,178 people  far fewer than the more than 2,200 on board. Following that disaster, laws were changed to require ships to carry adequate numbers of lifeboats for everyone on board.

The FAA's response? It prefers to leave such issues as flotation devices up to the airline industry.

Which in turn brings to mind the regulatory approach to the railroad industry, which for years has been slow to implement new safety measures. Congress in 2008 had given the industry a 2015 deadline to have in place a system called "positive train control," which can help stop trains and avoid accidents. But rail companies failed to meet the deadline, and Congress' response was to give them at least a three-year extension.

Maybe it's all those complaints from some politicians and industry lobbyists about onerous regulations and heavy-handed regulatory agencies that leads to this sort of laissez-faire attitude toward safety. The idea of letting profit-driven corporations decide what's best for consumers is ludicrous, especially in the case of an airline industry that is in the midst of enjoying sky-high profits from low fuel prices yet returning little if any of the savings to consumers. It seems as determined as ever to pack people more and more uncomfortably into their seats and soak them for extra charges.

The FAA needs to take a more serious look at the NTSB recommendations. The next big story might not be a heartwarming miracle, but a needless tragedy.
Maoists response to come today

The Maoist Centre says it will come up with its response to the CIAA move after party Chairman and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahals return from India today
[September 17, 2016]

Strategy Analytics: Consumers Showing Less Interest in Autonomous Driving Systems

BOSTON, Sept. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- After reaching an all-time high in 2015, consumers' interest in autonomous driving systems has fallen in 2016, reflecting hesitance about the reliance of self-driving technology, according to a recent survey from the In-Vehicle UX (IVX) group at Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com).

Click here for the report: http://bit.ly/2caCwm0

According to the report ("Consumer Interest in Advanced Safety Features Cools in Europe and US"), consumer interest in a variety of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) has fallen from 2015, though willingness to pay for certain systems like blind spot detection remains strong at low prce points.







Derek Viita, senior analyst and report author, commented that although advanced safety systems are spreading into more models, and media coverage of self-driving systems is becoming more widespread, "general consumer interest in many ADAS features has hit a roadblock. Media stories of consumers complaining about (and even deactivating) features such as lane departure warning are clearly having a negative impact."

Chris Schreiner, director of IVX, added, "Our research on autonomous parking and driving systems shows that these features are riddled with poor HMI and in some cases add minimal value for the driver. The decrease in consumer interest for these features suggests that the word is getting out, and early implementations of these features are not meeting consumer expectations."

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Briggs: Elkharts RV workers are only essential until a recession

RV sales are great for job security in Elkhart, yet horrible for human bodies.
MFIs work on new banking platform

Thirty-four Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) have come together to invest in an IT companyNepal Finsoft Limitedto launch a world-class core banking and management information system (MIS) solutions platform.
Missouri House Democrats: LEGISLATURE OVERRIDES ANOTHER 13 NIXON VETOES

inspires a quick look back at the veto session according to our favorite. . . 2nd favorite if we're counting Filipinos . . .Missourians could soon need government-issued photo identification to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Carrying a concealed firearm, however, will require no documentation whatsoever.Imposing new legal barriers to voting while further easing the states already lax laws on the possession and use of guns topped the agenda of the Missouri General Assemblys annual veto on Sept. 14, but the Republican-dominated legislature took one final opportunity to run up the score against Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat who is leaving office after his final term ends in January, by overriding 13 of his vetoes from earlier this year.Nixon has been prolific in exercising the veto power during his nearly eight years as governor, rejecting a total of 159 bills. While Nixon was overridden just twice in his first term, Republicans have held veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers for most of his second, which resulted in another 47 bill overrides, for 49 total. Overrides require 23 votes in the Senate and 109 in the House of Representatives.Despite pleas from Missouri law enforcement groups that it would put the lives of both officers and the public in danger, Republicans overruled Nixons rejection of legislation that will allow Missourians to carry concealed firearms without a permit  or undergoing the safety training and background checks currently required to get one. The measure, Senate Bill 656, also makes it easier to invoke self-defense as a legal justification for using deadly force, along with numerous other changes to gun laws.Although Republicans overrode the veto on the photo voter ID measure, House Bill 1631, it wont actually become law unless Missouri voters approve a companion constitutional amendment later this fall. GOP lawmakers have been seeking to impose a photo voter ID requirement for a decade as a means of suppressing Democratic voters but have been thwarted by a 2006 Missouri Supreme Court decision holding that such a requirement violates the voting rights provision of the state constitution.Amendment 6 on the Nov. 8 statewide ballot asks voters to grant lawmakers the constitutional power to impose a photo voter ID requirement. There has never been a reported case of voter impersonation fraud in Missouri, which is the only type of fraud a photo ID requirement could prevent. However, key Democratic constituencies, including racial and ethnic minorities, are among the groups most likely to not have a photo ID. As a result, a photo ID requirement could disenfranchise thousands of legally registered, and mostly Democratic, voters . . .###############There's more . . .You decide . . .
SHOULD VOTERS RENEW THE JACKSON COUNTY COMBAT TAX GIVEN SO MANY PROBLEMS AT THE COUNTY, A MOVE TOWARD MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY AND THE RISING LEVEL OF LOCAL VIOLENCE???

COMBAT stays winning because it pays out so much cash to community groups and politically affiliated locals in return for ongoing support.

After two decades there's not much new that proponents of thecan tell voters.It has basically evolved into yet another anti-violence program that doesn't seem to be working right now.And so, better than faking debate betwixt boring politicos . . . We think it's better to ask our blog community . . .Like every other tax, elected officials will argue for it's reinstatement and use scare tactics to carry their message further.But, in tax weary Kansas City the voting reality on this one is well known but unspoken. . .And so, the real question might not be the election or murder or drugs but how voters can get aboard this gravy train in return for their support like just about every advocate who touts the tax in spite of the obvious lack effectiveness or local benefit.You decide . . .
Every kid who ever took a history class has sat there, looking at the images in their textbook, and wondered: what would it have been like to be there? Imagine growing up with a Civil War hero for a father, or what life must have been like at the paranoid center of the Nazi regime. Imagine being able to tell people you took your first breaths in the 19th century. What if?

Well, for some people, these imaginings are far from hypothetical. Theyre day-to-day reality. Despite the passage of time, there are still people out there who are living links to a bygone age. Links to events weve firmly placed in the box in our brains marked history. People like

10. The Last Person Born in the 19th Century

As the 21st century has rolled inexorably onward, our fascination with the 19th century has grown. Steampunk. Victorian detective shows. The return of glorious moustaches. For most of us, theyre a harmless fantasy; things as unconnected to our real lives as Narnia or Hogwarts. But not for Emma Morano. At 116, the Italian Supercentenarian is the last person alive to have been born in the 19th century.

Born in northern Italy on November 29, 1899, Morano doesnt actually remember anything that happened in the 19th century. Yet that doesnt make her story any less romantic. On that evening, baby Emma entered a world where Queen Victoria and Oscar Wilde were still alive. A world that had never known global war, and where the automobile was still a fancy toy for rich folk. No human had ever successfully flown a plane. At that moment, Emma was closer in time to the Battle of Waterloo than she was to her twilight years in 2016.

Incredibly, this last fragment to our past may still have a few years left in her. The oldest living person on record died aged 122. If Emma follows suit, our last connection with the 19th century may not be broken until 2022.

9. The Last Civil War Pensioner

When the US Civil War ended in 1865, a grateful government promised a monthly stipend to the wives and children of Yankee soldiers. Even in their wildest dreams, they couldnt have foreseen how long theyd be doling out that cash for. Fast forward 151 years to 2016, and Irene Triplett is still pulling down her Civil War pension.

How its even possible that a woman in 2016 can be cashing Civil War checks involves two very long lifespans, and one marriage with a heck of an age difference. In the 1920s, Mose Triplett  a Confederate soldier who had defected to the Union in 1862  married Irenes mother. At the time, Mose was pushing 80. His new wife, by contrast, was barely 30. Nonetheless, Mose managed to father a daughter with her. That child was Irene, and she would go on to be as stubbornly long-lived as her father.

Interestingly, Irene isnt the only US citizen to pull down a pension from a war that ended outside living memory. Currently, around 15 children of veterans from the Spanish-American War of 1898 still receive benefits.

8. Joseph Goebbels Secretary

Brunhilde Pomsel has a disturbingly unique claim to fame. At the age of 105, shes likely the last person on the face of the Earth with a memory of life in the Nazi inner-circle. Even crazier, she had an intimate, friendly relationship with one of the biggest monsters of the Second World War. Brunhilde was Joseph Goebbels personal secretary.

She got the job in 1942, aged 31. She happily took it, despite having a Jewish friend whod just been spirited away to a concentration camp. Her recollections of those days are the height of weirdness. She still talks warmly of Goebbels elegance, his gentlemanly conduct, and how nice his wife was to all the secretaries. She even remembers playing with the Goebbels children. Despite saying she knew nothing about the Nazi atrocities, she was chosen to accompany Goebbels to the bunker in 1945. She was one of the first people to hear of Hitlers death.

Although she says she is unrepentant, Brunhilde has also publically said she hopes to die sooner rather than later. When she does, shell take with her the last intimate memories of day-to-day life at the heart of a monstrous regime.

7. The Last Remnants of the Baader-Meinhoff Gang

In the 1960s, Germany was hit by an explosion of leftwing terror. Marxist groups carried out kidnappings, bombings, executions, robberies. The most-notorious of all was the Baader-Meinhoff Gang. Also known as the Red Army Faction, the group caused millions of dollars worth of destruction and around 30 deaths.

After their leaders died in prison, the group eventually disbanded in the mid-80s. From there they sank into the mire of history. When the last of their number was released from prison in 2007, many were surprised to find any Baader-Meinhoff remnants were still alive.

Then, in 2016, came an even-weirder story. Not only were some members of the gang still alive, they were still carrying out attacks on German soil.

It turns out a tiny hardcore segment of the gang never went away. They just ran out of funds and became so small and incompetent that German police didnt even notice their existence. It was only when investigating a string of bungled robberies over the past few years that German intelligence realized the Red Army Faction had never really gone away.

Craziest of all, these guys are still fighting a pro-Communist battle, despite Communism itself being little more than a historical relic in Europe.

6. The Last Subject Born Under Queen Victoria

When Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, she was head of a vast empire. Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, Jamaica and many more were all under British rule. Britain was the most-powerful country in the world. London was the biggest city, the beating heart of an empire on which the sun never set. It was into this world that Violet Brown was born.

Currently the second oldest-living person on Earth, Violet just missed out being born in the 19th century by three months (she was born March 1900). Unlike Italys Emma Morano, though, Violet was Jamaican. That makes her the last living person to have been born as a subject of Queen Victoria.

In turn, that makes Violet a direct link to the life of one of the longest-reigning monarchs in British history. The Victorian times were an era of profound change. Railways unfurled across the Empire. Womans suffrage became a cause celebre. Bicycles were invented. Huge tracts of Africa were mapped for the first time. The Northwest Passage was discovered. It was a time of discovery. A time when Britain was on top of the world like never before or since. And when Violet goes, our last living link to it will vanish forever.

5. The Last Crewman at the Bombing of Hiroshima

When Russell Gackenbach removed his dark glasses and peered out the airplane window, the city below him had vanished. In its place was a vast mushroom cloud, slowly unfurling over the island of Japan. Far, far below, 70,000 lives had just been extinguished in a burst of fire. Gackenbach calmly raised his camera and took a picture. He knew hed just witnessed one of the most-important events of the 20th century: the atom bombing of Hiroshima.

A photographer aboard the Necessary Evil, Gackenbach wasnt one of the crewmen who actually delivered the bomb. But he was there above Hiroshima the moment it exploded, an immediate witness to the dawn of the atomic age. Of all those thousands still alive who can remember that exact moment, Gackenbach is the only one who came from the US side. The rest of the crews of Enola Gay and Necessary Evil are dead. For the Japanese survivors, the bombing presents a very different memory indeed.

4. The Last Nuremberg Prosecutor

At the age of 27, Benjamin Ferencz was given an unenviable task. A co-founder of the US Armys War Crimes division, he was to bring the Einsatzgruppen to justice. A gang of SS soldiers who drove from town to town in Eastern Europe, mass-executing Jews, they were responsible for up to a million deaths. Aged 97, he still recalls winning his case against their leader. Hes the last Nuremberg Prosecutor left alive.

In the wake of WWII, the Nuremberg Trials meted out justice to 24 of the most-important leaders of the Third Reich. While a couple were acquitted, the vast majority were found guilty, imprisoned and hanged. It was a milestone in world history, laying the foundations for tribunals like that for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the modern International Criminal Court (ICC). Aside from punishing Nazis, these follow-on courts have stopped Serbian butchers, Rwandan killers and African warlords from escaping justice. And Ferencz was a vital part of it.

Fast approaching 100, Ferencz will soon no longer be with us. When he passes, well lose the last of a team of prosecutors who changed the world.

3. The Last Survivors of the Armenian Genocide

In 1915, the Ottoman Empire embarked on the 20th Centurys first genocide. One and a half million Armenians were ethnically cleansed from their homelands, sent on death marches across burning deserts, shot en-masse, or herded into caves that were filled with noxious fumes. That anyone survived at all is remarkable. That some of those survivors are still living now, in 2016, is nothing short of a miracle.

The Armenian government currently recognizes around 30 genocide survivors, many of whom live close to one another in small villages. The vast majority of them are well over 100. Astonishingly, some still have vivid memories of Turkish soldiers dragging them from their homes at gunpoint and sending them off into the desert to starve.

The continued existence of these survivors is perhaps the most political item on our list. Turkey continues to deny the Armenian Genocide, and fewer than 50 countries have formally recognized it. That this small group still remembers in detail what happened makes them the last witnesses to one of historys great atrocities.

2. The Last POW in the Real Great Escape

Before it was a classic film, The Great Escape was a real-life attempt by inmates of Stalag Luft III to escape their Nazi prisoners. Those involved were largely British or Commonwealth forces members who concocted a plan to tunnel out and escape into the dense surrounding forests. Eventually, 76 would make it outside the camp. All but 3 were recaptured. In gory reprisals, the Nazis executed 50 of them.

Those 26 survivors became the stuff of legend. Over time, their numbers dwindled, as age and fate took their toll. Fast forward to 2016, and theres only one Great Escapee left: Dick Churchill.

Although he was unrelated to the British Prime Minister, the Nazis evidently thought Dick Churchill and Winston Churchill were family. As a result, Dick was spared execution. He made it through the War, then through the rest of the 20th century, and on into the present. This year now marks the 72nd anniversary of his daring escape attempt. To this day, Dick is proud of his role in humiliating the Nazis and their local prison guards.

1. The Historic Criminals of Americas Prison System

Some people are so intimately connected to a specific time or place that it can be remarkable to learn their still alive. Terry Nichols is one such example. The second Oklahoma City bomber, he has been locked away since the mid-90s, all but forgotten by the general public. But Nichols committed his heinous act only a mere 21 years ago. There are others in Americas prison system whose notoriety stemmed from much earlier.

One example is Charles Manson. The cult leader is forever linked to life in late 60s California, where he had his disciples butcher Sharon Tate and others at her house. Yet he remains very much alive, passing away his time behind bars. Hes in the company of another famous mid-20th century killer: the Son of Sam, who shot New Yorkers dead during the summer of 76 on orders from his dog.

The list goes on. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, first attacked in 1978. At the age of 74, hes still alive and well. He even shares a jail with the mastermind behind the 1993 WTC Bombing, and the Atlanta Olympic Park bomber. Proof, if needed, that what seems to be ancient history is often closer than we think.

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will meet at 18:00 (local) with Bank of Greece governor Yiannis Stournaras, at Maximos Mansion

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will meet at 18:00 (local) with Bank of Greece governor Yiannis Stournaras, at Maximos Mansion.

On Thursday, a prosecutor raided the offices of Stournaras wife, Lina Nikolopoulou-Stournaras, as part of an ongoing investigation into a contract signed between her communications firm and a public health entity. Following the raid, Stournaras called Tsipras to inform him of the development.

During that call, they agreed to meet after Tsipras returned from the summit meeting in Bratislava.

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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 government and the Bank of Greece are working to ensure the proper functioning of the countrys banking system

Relations between the Bank of Greece (BoG) and the government were never soured, its governor Yiannis Stournaras told reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Saturday.

Talks between the two focused on the Greek banking system and developments in the economy and not on his wifes case, he added. Asked by journalists if theres a plan to kick him out of the Bank of Greece, he said there isnt one.

On Thursday, a prosecutor raided the offices of Stournaras wife, Lina Nikolopoulou-Stournaras, as part of an ongoing investigation into a contract signed between her communications firm and a public health entity.

Asked about his wifes case, Stournaras said: My wife, with whom Ive lived for 40 years  I can assure you she is the most honest, sincere, creative and loving person on this planet. She has been tainted for a long time with this story; shes defending herself alone, with her capable lawyer, and will continue to do so.

He also said she has his complete support on this issue and that this cannot cast any shadows on the relation between the government and the Bank of Greece. My wife has full confidence in Justice and will handle this issue alone.

Asked whether theres a report on Attica Bank and the loans it granted, Stournaras said the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and the central bank have completed their review and the report, which stretches over a long period, will be delivered to the prosecutor in the next days.

Commenting on the same meeting, a government source noted that the government and the Bank of Greece are working to ensure the proper functioning of the countrys banking system as the economy starts showing signs of recovery.

Tsipras stressed to Stournaras the importance placed by the government in the independent role of the governor of the central bank, noting that no shadows should be formed in the institutional cooperation between the two sides, it added.

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
Militants attack Indian army base in Kashmir 'killing 17'

Militants have attacked an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing at least 17 soldiers, the army says.
Wages in the military will not be cut any further, Alternate Defence Minister Dimitris Vitsas said in an interview with newspaper Agora on Saturday

Wages in the military will not be cut any further, Alternate Defence Minister Dimitris Vitsas said in an interview with newspaper Agora on Saturday.

Changes that will be made concern a rationalization of a situation characterized by several special payrolls and not a new reduction of the already clipped wages for those in the Defence ministrys payroll, Vitsas was quoted as saying.

He also said the ministry is working on measures to improve the position of officers, such as reforming the transfer system.

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

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: SSGT ANDY DUNAWAY License: CC-BY-SA
Tsipouro or raki is a pomace brandy produced in Greece and in particular Thessaly (Tsipouro Tyrnavou), Epirus, Macedonia, Mani, and the island of Crete

Tsipouro or raki is a pomace brandy produced in Greece and in particular Thessaly (Tsipouro Tyrnavou), Epirus, Macedonia, Mani, and the island of Crete. It is a strong distilled spirit containing 40-45% alcohol by volume and is produced from the pomace (the residue of the wine press). There are two types of Tsipouro, the pure and the anise-flavored.

The production of tsipouro was the result of the poverty and ingenuity of locals, who used the remnants of wine production in order to create the special Greek drink. Raki was soon turned into a symbol of pride, dignity and manliness for ordinary people.

In modern history, the production of tsipouro was associated with certain tavernas, known as tsipouradika, which first appeared in the city of Volos and where usually owned by refugees from Asia Minor.

At first, the Greek spirit was mainly produced in Tyrnavos and the villages of Pelion, while it was consumed through small shot glasses without any food or with small appetizers, such as salted food, lakerda, tomatoes, cucumber, olives and sardines. The refugees brought with them the love and habit of eating seafood appetizers and snacking while drinking tsipouro and thus the tradition was born.

In the authentic tsipouradika of Volos, patrons never order, they just make sure to let the servers know how much tsipouro they need, and if they want it with anise or not. The tsipouradiko owners take care of the rest. Numerous delicacies are sent over to each table, ranging from pickled vegetables to fried seafood. As the clients order more tsipouro the dishes become more complex.

Some of the delicacies offered in the tsipouradika of Volos are: salted olives, peppers or anchovies, marinated sardines, lakerda, fried cheese squid, anchovy, cod, meatballs, or eggplants, stuffed vine leaves, pastrami, spetsofai, strong flavored cheese and seafood prepared with various recipes.

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

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Klearchos Kapoutsis License: CC-BY-SA
Investcorp, a leading provider and manager of alternative investment products, today announced that its US-based real estate arm has purchased a 41-storey, Class A office building in Seattle, Washington, for approximately $223.5 million.



This acquisition is consistent with Investcorps new initiative of acquiring top-quality, well-occupied, cash-flowing properties in key gateway markets in the US and represents the second acquisition under this strategy.



In February, Investcorp acquired 733 Tenth Street, a Class A office building in Washington, D C, for approximately $180 million.



The new property - 901 Fifth Avenue -- is a 540,589-sq-ft, multi-tenanted office building located in Seattles central business district.



The property is 90 per cent occupied by a diverse roster of 46 tenants, involved in a broad spectrum of businesses, including technology, legal services and professional services. Seattle is one of the most desirable gateway markets for real estate investments in the US, and has one of the lowest vacancy and highest projected rent growth rates. The region has an annual employment growth rate of 2.8 per cent compared to the national rate of 1.9, and strong growth has been projected for the region over the next five years.



Babak Sultani, real estate specialist at Investcorp, said: We believe 901 Fifth Avenue offers a stable, long-term investment in one of the most dynamic gateway markets in the western United States. In the past year, we have exceeded $400 million in gross asset values with this strategy and this acquisition further exemplifies our strategy of identifying alternative investment opportunities that we believe can deliver superior returns for Investcorp. What we liked about this property is that it is easily accessible via the regions primary freeways and public transportation options, and is within walking distance to high-end restaurants, retail outlets, hotels, cultural attractions and Seattles court houses, which we believe fuels significant demand for office space from legal, professional services and technology firms.



Investcorp purchased the property with its joint venture partner Schnitzer West, an experienced real estate investment, development, and management firm with a current portfolio of 5.3 million sq ft in the Seattle metropolitan area. - TradeArabia News Service
Egyptian government has earmarked E330 million ($37.6 million) for the redevelopment of slums in the Red Sea cities, said a report.



The development scheme will include Ras Gharib, Hurghada, Safaga, and Al-Qusayr cities, reported Amwal Alghad.



Around 250 homes will be built in Rawada district in Hurghada besides 30 new buildings as well as 174 homes and three buildings in Safaga, stated the report citing the Minister of Housing Moustafa Madbouly.



Also 36 housing units will be constructed along with two new buildings in Al Qusayr city, it added.


Bahrain-based Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions (HCE) has announced that it is rebranding its flagship event gulfBID, the GCC region's premium annual expo for construction and building materials, to Gulf Construction Expo.



Gulf Construction Expo 2017 will be held from May 9 to 11 under the patronage of HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the Prime Minister of Bahrain, at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre.



The 2017 show has partnered closely with the regions leading construction magazine - Gulf Construction - to develop a greater concentration on promoting the construction and building materials sectors, said a statement from the event organisers HCE.



"Gulf Construction Expo will build on the successful foundations set by gulfBID for over 10 years, by continuing to deliver the Northern Gulfs showcase for the construction sector to a targeted visitor base of property developers, interior designers, architects, consultants and contractors, procurement managers and investors from around the GCC," said Jubran Abdulrahman, the managing director of HCE.



Gulf Construction Expo, he stated, will remain an innovative showcase for the construction sector through its added value benefits and virtual exhibition.



"The change in name is a strategic branding opportunity to tie in the goodwill of the GCCs most successful construction journal Gulf Construction, which has for over 35 years been the publication of choice for the construction industry not just in the GCC but internationally," he added.



Gulf Construction Expo is supported by AHK Chambers of Commerce in Germany, PHD Chambers in India, British Expertise and a host of media partners.



Gulf Construction Expo 2017 takes place in conjunction with two other major events  Gulf Interiors and Gulf Property Show providing the biggest integrated business-to-business showcase for the construction, interiors and property sectors ever to be staged in the Northern Gulf.-TradeArabia News Service
Emirates SkyPharma, Emirates SkyCargos new purpose-built facility dedicated exclusively to the timely and secure transport of temperature sensitive pharmaceutical shipments at Dubai International Airport (DXB), was officially opened today.



The facility was inaugurated by Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and chief executive of Emirates Airline and Group.



Abdul Rahman Al Owais, UAE's Minister of Health, and Humaid Mohammed Obaid Al Qatami, chairman of the board and director-general of Dubai Health Authority (DHA) were also present at the event.



Pharmaceuticals are one of the most important products we transport because of the impact on peoples lives and communities across the world, said Nabil Sultan, Emirates divisional senior vice president, Cargo.



As a leader in the global air cargo industry we decided that it was not only important for us to build state-of- the-art cool chain facilities for the transport of pharma products but to also go the extra mile and ensure the compliance of our operations against the highest international standards. Our customers can continue to rest easy knowing that shipping their high-value and temperature-sensitive goods with Emirates SkyCargo is a safe and efficient choice for their business and end customers, he said.



First GDP certified multi-airport hub

The new purpose-built Emirates SkyPharma facility, part of the new 11,000-sq-m extension of Emirates SkyCentral terminal at Dubai International Airport, offers 4,000 sq m of space dedicated to pharmaceutical cargo. It also features temperature controlled zones (2-8 degree Celsius and 15- 25 degree Celsius), 88 temperature controlled individual positions in the automated ULD (aircraft pallet) handling system and 5 temperature controlled acceptance and delivery truck docks.



Emirates SkyCargo has also been awarded the certification of compliance under the EU Good Distribution Practice guidelines (GDP) for medicinal products for human use by Bureau Veritas following an audit conducted by the certification agencys team from Germany. The certification validates the carriers adherence to the strict guidelines on the transport and handling of pharmaceutical products and covers all Emirates SkyCargo handling activities for pharmaceutical products at its hub in Dubai.



Emirates SkyCargo is the first cargo airline in the world that has obtained GDP certification for its hub operations covering two airports and the 24/7 bonded trucking service that connects cargo between them. The carrier also operates the largest GDP certified area in the world offering a total area of 8,600 sq m of combined handling space dedicated for pharmaceutical products at Dubai International Airport and Dubai World Central, the airline said.



The Good Distribution Practice guidelines outlined by the European Commission have been designed to ensure that the quality and integrity of pharmaceutical products are maintained during transportation. As part of its audit process, Bureau Veritas, well known around the world for their high standards, subject knowledge and experience, scrutinised all aspects of the handling and storage of pharmaceutical shipments through Emirates SkyCargos dual hubs in Dubai to ensure compliance with GDP guidelines on a number of subjects including quality management, product integrity, security and training of staff handling pharmaceutical products.



Throughout the audit process we found strong evidence of Emirates SkyCargos commitment across all levels to delivering high quality and secure transportation for pharmaceutical products. We are pleased to certify Emirates SkyCargos facilities at Dubai International airport, at Dubai World Central and the bonded road service between its hubs as GDP compliant, said Ahmad Chaouk, vice president, sales and marketing, Middle East, India, Caspian Sea and Africa Operating Group, Bureau Veritas.



The new Emirates SkyPharma facility at Dubai International airport works in conjunction with Emirates SkyCentral DWC, the carriers freighter hub in Dubai World Central which offers 4,600 sq m of dedicated area for pharmaceutical cargo. Both facilities complement the range of innovative cool chain products and solutions offered by Emirates SkyCargo including the Cool Dolly, the White Container and White Cover Advanced, all of which are designed to prevent temperature fluctuations or spikes from occurring during any part of the transportation process, it said.



Emirates SkyCargos pharma handling capabilities at its dual hubs further consolidate Dubais position as a leading destination for healthcare and pharma logistics, it added.



In 2015 Emirates SkyCargo shipped close to 11,000 tonnes of pharmaceutical products across its global network through its hub in Dubai. The top pharmaceutical products shipped include critical medication for diabetes and cancer, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), blood derivatives and vaccines, the statement added.



Emirates SkyCargo is the largest international airline cargo operator in the world connecting cargo customers to over 150 cities across 82 countries in six continents. Emirates SkyCargos cargo hold capacity comprises Emirates fleet of more than 250 aircraft, including 15 freighters  13 Boeing 777-Fs and two B747-400ERFs. - TradeArabia News Service
The UAE Space Agency has announced it will participate in the 67th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), set to take place at the Expo Guadalajara in Mexico, from September 26 to 30.



The UAE Space Agency will use the platform as an opportunity to share experiences, challenges, and insights in space research, technology, education, and regulation.



Organised by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) and hosted this year by the Mexican Space Agency (AEM), IAC is one of the worlds premier space events. Attracting more than 3,000 participants every year, IAC covers all space sectors and topics, offering everyone the latest space information and developments in academia and industry, as well as excellent networking and partnership opportunities.



This year IAC is being held under the theme of Making space accessible and affordable to all countries and will be attended by a wide range of individuals from space policy-makers and industry representatives to students and the general public.



Participants and attendees will discuss scientific and technological breakthroughs, trends in space science and research, and the latest developments in space exploration, regulation, and education. The event also encourages dialogue that can contribute to the formation of international partnerships between entities in developed and emerging countries.



Dr Khalifa Mohammed Al Romaithi, chairman of UAE Space Agency, said: Through our participation in this event we look forward to raising awareness of our Agencys role, activities, and main achievements in the international arena.



This will include the latest initiatives undertaken in the fields of space science, research, exploration, and other sectors including the Hope Probe mission to Mars. We are also looking forward to meeting with various stakeholders from international institutions to firms specializing in the space industry, he added.



Being among this international gathering is consistent with the Agencys plan to continuously develop partnerships and strengthen relations with major international bodies. We aim to support the space sector in the UAE with the latest international developments, which will be reflected on existing and future projects in accordance with the Agencys strategic plans, added Dr Al Romaithi.



Dr Mohammed Nasser Al Ahbabi, director general of UAE Space Agency, said: The Agencys participation in this international space event is a necessity, given the rapidly evolving nature of space science and exploration.



Additionally, since the Agency is responsible for funding and supervising the Hope Probe Mars mission, we need to remain informed of all the latest developments in the field of space exploration. This event is a chance to develop an in-depth understanding of the most recent innovations and technologies within the international space sector, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Egypt's new supply minister has sacked the chairman of the Egyptian Holding Company for Silos and Storage and the head of the country's internal trade development agency, the official Mena news agency said on Sunday.



The minister, Major General Mohamed El-Sheikh, said the changes were intended to bring in new blood to develop and drive forward the ministry's companies and departments.



El-Sheikh was appointed earlier this month after his predecessor Khaled Hanafi stepped down under pressure from parliament, which has launched an investigation into allegations that millions of dollars intended to subsidise farmers were used to purchase more wheat on paper than was found in silos. - Reuters
Opec secretary-general Mohammed Barkindo said the meeting of Opec members and non-Opec producers in Algiers this month would be an informal meeting for consultations and not for decision making, Algerian state news agency APS said on Satuday.



Algeria's energy minister has said there is a consensus among Opec and non-Opec producers about the need to stabilise the oil market to support prices.



"It will be an informal meeting, it is not a meeting for making decisions," Barkindo said during a visit to Algiers, according to APS agency, referring to an energy conference between Sept. 26 and Sept. 28.



"We met in June, it is September now and a lot of things happened between the two dates," he said.



His comments appeared to play down suggestions of a major decision at the Algiers meeting where Russia, Iran and other major oil producers were due to meet on the sidelines.



Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed this month to cooperate in oil markets, saying they could limit future output. That pushed up prices on the view in markets that the two top oil producers would be working together to tackle oversupply.



Several Opec producers have called for an output freeze to rein in the glut, which arose as supplies from high-cost producers such as the United States soared. A price collapse in the last two years has hit the revenues of major producers.



Opec's de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, has also signalled willingness to cooperate as it faces such pressures.



But any deal between Opec and non-Opec producer Russia would be the first in 15 years. Moscow agreed to cut output in tandem with Opec at the turn of the millennium, although Russia never followed through on that promise.  Reuters
Morcha to mark Constitution Day as black day

Political experts in the districts say the Morcha reached a deal with the governing parties as a face-saving move
Iran aims to generate 20,000 MW of nuclear power as a long-range goal, a senior official was quoted as saying in an Iran Daily report.



The Islamic Republic is banking on Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and two other proposed power plants in Bushehr for which contracts have been signed with Russia recently, Ali-Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), was quoted in the report, which cited Shana.



Iran is ready for partnership and cooperation with the Gulf states to develop nuclear energy, he added, speaking at the World Nuclear Association Symposium 2016 in London on Friday.
Iran has been told that the United States will issue export licences within weeks to facilitate the purchase of Boeing and Airbus jets and European ATR turboprop planes, a senior Iranian official said on Sunday.



Approval had been expected by the end of August, but that has been pushed back to the end of September, Deputy Roads and Urban Development Minister Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan said.



"Today we are expecting that (approval) by the end of September for Boeing, Airbus and ATR," he told the CAPA Iran Aviation Finance Summit in Tehran.



The US Treasury can veto sales of modern aircraft to Iran, including non-US ones, due to the high proportion of US parts.



Failure to issue the required US approval would breach an agreement between Tehran and world powers to ease sanctions in return for curbs on Iran's nuclear activities, Kashan said.



An Iranair official said the airline is meanwhile looking to acquire second-hand aircraft or hire crewed aircraft to help meet its most urgent needs.  Reuters
Exhibitors and visitors alike spoke of excitement heading into day two of the 2016 Hotel and Leisure Shows after a busy opening day flush with international dignitaries and leading hospitality industry experts and professionals.



Majid Saif Al Ghurair, chairman of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, officially opened the 2016 editions. Local and international dignitaries from as far as Germany and the Philippines also explored the 600 exhibitor stands on display from more than 50 countries.



Sheikha Dr Hind bint Abdulaziz Al Qassimi opened the DA International Interior Design stand in support of the arts and interiors company, as well as its local and international artists on display.



The key industry events  also co-located with Piscine Middle East for the first time this year  are set to run until September 19 at the Dubai World Trade Centre.



Today the shows welcomed both Ambassador of Ireland, Patrick Hennessy, and Christian Watts, Consul General of Switzerland.



Hennessy visited to celebrate the global launch of two new products by Irish firm Capital ISS Group including SafeBox Auto, the first fully automated safety deposit box system, and Safe Place Live, a ground-breaking safety and security management system that can account for thousands of people in the event of an evacuation within minutes. He commented: Im here today to provide my full support to Capital ISS Group, who are representative of the top class technological innovations coming out of Ireland these days. Dubai is an important shop window not just for the UAE but for the rest of the world, and it makes me hugely proud to see an Irish firm showcasing on such a global scale at an event like this.



Poly Products, one of the oldest and largest bedding manufacturers in the region  responsible for furnishing more than 500,000 hotel rooms  has been exhibiting with The Hotel Show for 17 years. Syed Anwar Ahsan, its general manager, said: We had a busy first day. We saw clients from Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries extend EID holidays in Dubai to be at The Hotel Show.



As well as hundreds of stands, the shows incorporate a busy schedule of expert led discussions and hands-on workshops. On the 2nd day of the Vision Conference, experts from Deloitte, Tophotelprojects and TNS took to the stage, alongside hoteliers from the brand new W Dubai  Al Habtoor City and Nikki Beach Resort & Spa Dubai.



For the first time this year, The Hotel Show also plays host to a number of fascinating interactive features, including the live painting of two incredible art installations  a collaboration between 17A Art Consultants and Bagnodesign, focused on the future of hospitality and bathroom design  and the on-site manufacturing of hospitality uniforms by industry-leading A. Ronai. Two huge food trucks also help visitors discover and explore the current influence of street art and culture on hotel and restaurant design. - TradeArabia News Service
Some posts on this site contain affiliate links, meaning if you book or buy something through one of these links, we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you).

It was just before 6:00am when my alarm went off. Early mornings are generally not my friends, and it took me a minute to remember where I was. As the haze cleared from my brain, I realized I was in Parma. And it was time for cheese!

After a quick breakfast, we headed out for a short drive through the Italian countryside. Unseasonably cool for a mid-summer morning, a bit of fog hung over the wheat fields as we wound our way toward the dairy. Almost immediately after arriving at Caseificio San Pier Damiani, the reason for our early wake up call was clearthe milk was here, and it was time to make Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Donning our coverings before heading into the dairy

While the milk truck started to offload its precious cargo, we properly outfitted ourselves with smocks and shoe covers to enter the dairy. From a viewing platform above the action, we were able to watch as the giant vats filled with milk and were heated. The same steps take place every morning just this way, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. In fact, minus the trucks and some of the gadgets, the process of making Parmigiano-Reggiano has happened much in the same fashion for nearly 1000 years and will continue as long as there are dairies to do it.

The delivery of the first milk of the day

Prepping for the days activities in the dairy

Parmigiano-Reggiano is one of the specialty foods of Emilia-Romagna. In Europe, it is a protected product with clear guidelines about its origin, ingredients, and how it is made. As Champagne is to France, Parmigiano-Reggiano is to Italy.

The hard, slightly salty cheesesometimes referred to as Parmesancan only come from Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, and parts of Bologna and Mantua. It can include only milk, salt, and an enzyme called rennet, which activates the curdling process. There are also restrictions about the time between milking the cows and making the cheese as well as procedures for determining which wheels are worthy of getting the DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) stamp of approval.

Curds starting to form within the milk

As we continued to watch, the cheese maker and his staff stirred and mixed the heated milk and enzymes waiting for the moment the curds would appear. There is an art to mixing everything in just the right way and keeping the timing and temperatures precise. For many, cheese making is a family calling that is passed down through the generations, like so many things in Italy that require precision, finesse, and love of the craft.

Everything is coming together to form the cheese

Soon, the giant hunks that would become Parmigiano-Reggiano were lifted to the surface and removed from their liquid home. That was our cue to make our way to the star of the dairy, the cheese aging room.

The cheese is stamped with the date and code of the dairy before a saltwater bath

Floor-to-ceiling cheese is pretty much my idea of heaven. After a stop in a saltwater bath, the wheels age in this room for at least 12 months according to DOP rules. Some stay here for up to two or three years and beyond. All the wheels of cheese are monitored as they mature to ensure their quality. Interestingly, this is done by tapping the cheese with a hammer that lets the monitor hear whether there are imperfections within the cheese.

Listening to the wheel of cheese to ensure it meets quality standards

Trying the fruits of the dairys labor

The last stop on our visit was the most delicious room in the dairythe tasting room and gift shop. We tried cheese aged 12, 22, and 40 months. Each one had a slightly nuttier, stronger flavor than the last, but they were all enjoyable in their own way and worth getting up early for.

We visited Parma as part of the Blogville project in coordination with the Emilia-Romagna Tourism Board and iambassador. All opinions of the artisan and cheesy are our own.
Nepali expectations

Timely completion of development projects will earn India respect from common Nepalis
New Delhi EPG meeting to enter substantive agenda

Eminent Persons Group has mandate to look into political relations, government-to-government ties, development cooperation, economic exchanges and cultural relations
One killed, one missing after flash flood

A flash flood in Pokhara downtown triggered by heavy torrential rainfall since Saturday evening has killed one while another has gone missing.
New Delhi, September 18

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will be leaving for the US early next month to attend the annual meeting of IMF-World Bank, where issues like the global economic situation will be discussed.

The three-day annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will begin on October 7 in Washington.

The new Reserve Bank Governor Urjit Patel is also likely to attend the Fund Bank meeting, sources said.

Besides Jaitley and Patel, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das will attend the annual meet, they added.

In addition to taking stock of the global economic situation, the annual meetings are also likely to discuss IMF quota reforms, exchange rate fluctuation, infrastructure financing, fall out of Britains exit from the EU and the role of trade in supporting global growth.

Finance Ministers of Brics countries are also likely to deliberate on the economic issues on the sidelines of the Fund Bank meeting.

Ahead of the meeting, IMF will come out with its World Economic Outlook, which will provide analysis of the current global economic situation. Besides, a Global Financial Stability Report will also be unveiled.

In July, IMF had cut global growth forecast for the year 2017 by 0.1 percentage point to 3.4 per cent citing substantial increase in economic, political, and institutional uncertainty following Brexit which could have negative macroeconomic consequences.

The global economy is projected to expand 3.1 per cent this year and 3.4 per cent in 2017.

It had also trimmed Indias growth forecast by 0.1 percentage point to 7.4 per cent for 2016 and 2017, attributing it to a sluggish investment recovery.  PTI
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 18

Two days after a woman and her 21-year-old daughter were attacked with a knife by a man after they refused to give him water for liquor at Colony No. 4 in the Industrial Area, Phase I, the girl succumbed to her injuries.

Police sources said accused Raj Kumar and Ajay, neighbours of Salma (41) and her daughter Balaxa, were taking liquor nearby. The accused went to their house to demanded water around 10 pm on September 15.

The victims refused to give them water that led to an altercation. Raj Kumar then attacked the woman and her daughter. In the meantime, Salmas husband and other relatives arrived and thrashed Raj Kumar with blunt weapons.

The mother and the daughter received injuries in their abdomen. They were admitted to the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, from where they got themselves discharged on September 16.

Raj Kumar received severe head injuries. He was also admitted to the hospital. Raj Kumar was later arrested and produced before the court on September 16, which remanded him in judicial custody.

Inspector Davinder Singh, SHO of the Industrial Area police station, confirmed that one of the victims had succumbed to her injuries. The victims condition deteriorated following which she was rushed to the hospital where she died, the SHO said.

Kin of the victim and local residents staged a protest today at the police beat box near Colony No. 4 and later gathered outside the Industrial Area police station.

Following a complaint made by the victims kin, Ajays name was also added to the FIR. A murder case has been registered against Raj Kumar and Ajay. The police said Ajay was at large and raids were being conducted to nab him.
Tribune News Service

Patiala, September 18

We are abusing our environment, said Dr Mehar Singh Gill, Professor and former Head, Department of Geography, Punjabi University, Patiala, and visiting professor at Malaya University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

He was speaking at a function organised by the NSS Department of University College, Ghanaur, in collaboration with the College Department of Geography.

Under the guidance of principal in-charge Dr Kulwinder Singh, programme officers Assistant Professors Sarbjeet Kaur, Harpreet Chahal and Manjeet Singh, along with Head of the College Department of Geography Assistant Professor Navdeep Kaur, organised a special function to celebrate World Ozone Day. Dr Mehar Singh Gill was the chief guest on the occasion.

Welcoming the guests, Dr Kulwinder Singh reiterated that the college organised such events so as to help in the holistic cognitive growth of its students. The presence of scholars such as Dr Mehar Singh Gill at the college was indeed a boon for students.

While addressing the gathering, Dr Gill said: Our physical environment consisted of living as well as non-living beings that constantly affect each other. He commented upon the ways in which man is spoiling the eco-system, largely due to corporate greed, increasing population and illiteracy.

Citing Vandana Shivas book, The Violence of Green Revolution, he talked about the leniency in environmental protection laws post-Green Revolution in India.

Assistant Professor Navdeep Kaur elaborated upon the ozone layer, its use and the harmful effects of its depletion. She said: If we wish to protect the ozone layer, we must bring down the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Assistant Professor Sarbjeet Kaur told students about the future plans of the NSS, which included a one-day camp, a seven-day camp, distribution of clothes among the poor, planting trees and escorting college students to schools of mentally challenged and autistic children.

Parveen Kaur, a BA final-year student, presented a paper on the formation and breakdown of the ozone layer. A poster-making competition was also held in which a number of students participated.
Gagan K Teja

Tribune News Service

Patiala, September 17

Shortage of Class IV employees at Government Rajindra Hospital has become a cause of concern for the hospital authorities. While they are struggling to keep the hospital functioning on track, the fact that the remaining employees have proceeded on strike has caused further jolt to the authorities.

The vacancy position in the hospital is so bad that the attendants of patents themselves have to carry out the tasks that are supposed to be done by the Class IV employees. Out of over 600 sanctioned posts of Class IV employees, almost 50 per cent are vacant and the situation is getting worse with each passing month.

Ram Kishan, president of the Class IV Government Employees Union, said: The last recruitment for Class IV employees was done in 2006, that, too, on a contractual basis. While about 100 of these employees are awaiting regularisation for the past 10 years, almost three-four employees are retiring on a monthly basis, making things worse.

He said the department had recently made promotions and several Class IV employees had even been transferred and the onus had fallen on the remaining employees.

The hospital, which ideally should be completely hygienic, is in a mess since the hospital is short of 150 safai sewaks. So you can well imagine the situation. All requests pertaining to regularisation and fulfilment of posts are falling on deaf ears, he rued.

Meanwhile, after the employees had locked the gates of operation theatres of the hospital yesterday demanding filling their posts, college principal BL Bhardwaj had got their meeting arranged with the Director, Research and Medical Education, Dr MK Mohi and Secretary Vikas Partap in this regard.

The employees held a meeting with the Director, Research and Medical Education yesterday evening and were assured that their demands would be fulfilled soon. They would

now meet the secretary on Monday in this regard. However, the employees boycotted the work today also.
Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 18

The UT Administration has recommended to hold the MC poll, scheduled for December this year, as per the 2011 census.

The Local Self Government Department, UT, has forwarded the file to the UT Administrator to issue a notification in this regard.

The number of MC wards will remain 26. Reservation of wards for the Scheduled Castes and women (including SCs) for the MC poll will be on the basis of the 2011 census and not the 2001 census.

Confirming the development, UT Home Secretary-cum Secretary, Local Self Government, Anurag Aggarwal said after consulting the State Election Commission, the proposal had been forwarded to the UT Administrator. The UT would issue a notification in a day or two in connection with reservation of wards for the MC poll, he said.

He said the UT Administration had made recommendations as per the 2011 census.

The ruling BJP was also pushing for reservation of wards as per the latest 2011 census.

Trouble for Congress

As per the 2011 census, three sitting Congress councillors wards  former mayors Subhash Chawla, Poonam Sharma and councillor Darshan Garg  are all set to be reserved for the Scheduled Castes. Besides, BSP councillor Jannat Jahan and BJP councillor Sat Parkash Aggarwals wards are also set to be reserved for SC candidates on the basis of the highest percentage of SC population in these wards.

Relief for BJP-SAD leaders

Had the 2001 census been the basis, wards of four senior BJP-SAD councillors  Mayor Arun Sood, Deputy Mayor and SAD councillor Hardeep Singh and BJP councilors Satinder Singh and Deshraj Gupta  would have been reserved.

EC also for poll as per 2011 census

The State Election Commission, UT, Chandigarh, has already written to the Secretary, Local Self-Government, UT, recommending that the MC poll should be conducted as per the 2011 census. Since 2013, the commission has sent a number of reminders to the UT to carry out delimitation of wards as per the 2011 census. However, the UT Administration has so far not made any official announcement on the number of wards and reserved wards for SCs and women.

Delimitation of wards

The delimitation of wards for the MC poll is an exercise under which the authorities decide whether or not to extend the area under the civic body. The authorities also decide on the number of wards as per the latest census figures. The last delimitation of wards was done in 2006 as per the 2001 census. In Chandigarh, the final authority is with the UT Administrator and not with the Election Commission.
Shelley Walia

IHEN Aheda Zanetti designed the burkini in 2004, little did she know that it would become the flashpoint in a struggle to thwart the creeping encroachment of Islam into what the French hold to be sacred: laicite or their secular public life. Since January 2015, France has been racked by terrorist assaults beginning with that on Charlie Hebdo, and most recently the massacre on Bastille Day celebration in Nice. These have all been perpetrated by individuals swearing allegiance to Islamic terrorist organisations. France with the largest Muslim population in Europe has faced a challenging task of trying to integrate them into the liberal French way of life. But the policies adopted towards this effort have been counter-productive: the ban on wearing religious symbols like the hijab in schools, followed by the ban on the burkini have drawn indignation from the community and further isolated them. As Mary Beard, the Cambridge classicist, would say, They do what they do for a cause; because they are at war.

The very foundation of the French Republic is predicated on the freedom of both sexes so that they might live peacefully despite the difference of their bodies. Thus nuns in full habit are permitted to romp freely on the beaches of France, but the ban on the burkini contradicts this freedom. Ironically, the burkini that was designed to help the Muslim women interface with the mainstream, now symbolises cultural hostility.

The issue appears to be a storm in a teacup, but can be underpinned by a much more complex cultural conflict. The question is how one decides on a case-by-case basis as to what is acceptable in a society and what is not. The French panic from what is seemingly an assault on their way of life, while the Muslims are equally strident in what they perceive to be an attack upon their identity. In a multicultural society the obligation expected of the marginalised to adapt and adopt applies as well to the French. The burkini ban is thus clearly Frances awkward resolve to assimilate through the invocation of liberalism the massive Muslim population inherited from its former colonies.

As we see across the world, there is proliferating anti-immigrant sentiment with the right-wing exploiting the issues of terrorism and security to its benefit. Former President Sarkozy doggedly resorts to politically self-serving electoral politics and raves about French secularity that supposedly sustains the countrys political and cultural identity in the face of the Islamic onslaught. Yes, it is fraught with the current election fever that appropriately uses the progressive-sounding rationale to view the burkini as an orthodox practice in need of a corrective to liberate women from centuries of enslavement. But this is merely the civilising colonial discourse, which in the words of Chomsky, is underscored with the virulent secular religions of state worship, often disguised in the rhetoric of exceptionalism and noble intent.

Frances highest court, the French Council of State, has declared that the ban imposed in Villeneuve-Loubet near Nice is illegal, constrained as it is by a worldwide uproar and condemnation. But liberal-minded France remains at the mercy of a wave of combative notions of freedom which camouflages a hypocrisy that is jingoist and anti-Islamic. While it is inappropriate to conflate the seemingly innocuous issue of clothing with the threat of encroachment of a retrograde culture, it cannot be quelled. The problem lies not with the garb itself; the French are beset with the deeper fear: if they accept this today, what next? However, the ban clearly violates fundamental freedoms which in no way endanger the law and order situation. The tyranny of secularism cannot demolish civil liberties through fashioning an Islam based on French values. However, every episode of this kind of enforcement will further alienate. The French, profoundly fearful of Islam penetrating every aspect of their life, use the patriotic rhetoric veiling their true perceptions of themselves and the world, thereby posing major threats to humanity.

This hyper-patriotic promulgation of the right juxtaposed with an equally rigid intent on the part of the immigrants not to adhere to the French way of life results in a volatile situation, undercut by a much deeper discontent of countries like France, strained for resources, economically down-and-out, yet obligated to provide for all its immigrants. The serious socio-economic situation enables the politicians to feed the frenzy. Unemployment spirals and the immigrants become the scapegoat. France roils with escalating problems of race and class.

The thorniest issue before the French, living as they are in a polyglot and multiracial world, is to find ways of ushering a more peaceful life of coexistence. I agree with the French policy that the face not be covered for reasons of masquerading. But if they bring their cultural restrictions to the beach they must not be blind to the rise of intense radicalisation as its natural consequence. Its obligatory on both to bend and adjust. And it doesnt come with the right to perpetrate violence or with the outpouring of a narrative on how we are good and they are evil.

Secular values undoubtedly are sacred but respect for individual choice is a fundamental right guaranteed to each citizen of a country. If Sikhs choose to wear turbans or dress up in a religious apparel, that is not the states business. And if Muslim women desire to wear the burkini no laicite or state religion can stop them. Secularism has to treat religion as a belief and the French must learn this fast. If they are so serious about baring their skin, no idea of neutrality or public order can take away from the Muslim their belief in not baring in public. Invasive surveillance, cultural hostility or the enforcement of a dress code can only feed the appetite of extremism. Isnt free self-expression the whole point of social progressivism? Grand national narratives and the predominant right-wing dogmatism not only impede the imagination but spur sensitivities to reach a peak. Being targeted is to be downgraded and this is provocation. Civil society must learn to disagree without being hurtful.

The writer is a Professor of English in Panjab University, Chandigarh.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 17

There is no need to panic. The government has adequate arrangement for treatment of dengue and chikungunya patients, said Health Minister, Satyendra Jain today.

He said, I have visited LNJP hospital where a number of beds are still lying vacant. The patients are being given proper treatment. Medicines are also being given from hospitals pharmacy.

I also met union Health Minister JP Nadda and requested him to spare 10 per cent of the total beds in all the hospitals of the Central Government like AIIMS, RML, Lady Harding and others. The Union Health Minister has agreed to my request and a total of about 1,000 beds are now available for the dengue and chikungunya patients, he said.

He also said dengue fever had been notified and they were also going to notify chikungunya.

The minister said prevention was better than cure. People should make sure that there should not be water in open pots in their surroundings.

He said, I appeal to the citizens of the city with folded hands to give just thirty minutes on Sunday to clean their surroundings, roof tops, coolers, including tyres, cups etc. There are 42 lakh households in Delhi and if all of you cooperate then we can together root out dengue and chikungunya from the city.

Fogging is being done everywhere in the city. The National Communicable Disease Centre has been asked to prepare a report of chikungunya, but it is under the Central government.

At least 15 people have died due to chikungunya complication and 18 have succumbed to dengue this season. Over 1,700 cases of chikungunya have been reported in the national Capital while dengue has affected more than 1,100 people.
Every aspect of Ernest Hemingways colorful life has been scrutinized and analyzed since his suicide in 1961, yet Billings natives Robert K. Elder and Aaron Vetch, discovered a trove of unexamined objects  including a poem to a lost love  when they visited his archives in Oak Park, Ill.

Three years ago, Elder made the pitch to Vetch to collaborate on a book focused on the Hemingway archives, an intimate look into the hundreds of objects the famous author left behind. The result is the 230-page book Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park, published last month by Kent State University Press.

The two have been friends since meeting in French class at Lewis and Clark Middle School.

"It's nice to work with your best friend," Elder said. "I've been his best man twice, and he's the godfather of one of my twins."

Elder, a newspaperman and author of six previous books, lives in Oak Park, Ill., where Hemingway grew up. At one time, Elder was editor-in-chief of Oak Leaves, a newspaper that Hemingway delivered as a boy. And one final coincidence is that Elder was born at St. Vincent Healthcare where Hemingway was treated for a broken arm.

More into Vonnegut

Yet Elder never appreciated Hemingways work until he started this project. The more he looked into Hemingways life, the more Elder gained respect for his work ethic and interest in his short stories.

I was more into Kurt Vonnegut, John Steinbeck and Harlan Ellison. This was a project born out of civic pride. But you do the work, and in the process you become a fan, Elder said.

Vetch, who lives in Seattle, has worked as a copy editor for some of Elders previous books. He, too, gained an appreciation for Hemingway through the project. He first read Hemingway's short story "Indian Camp" in Mrs. Smith's English class at Senior High.

The story is a stark reflection on death that, taken in the context of Hemingway's life with his father, Ed, committing suicide and two of his siblings, becomes even sadder, Vetch said.

Visiting the four archives located in Oak Park, Elder and Vetch discovered a love poem Hemingway wrote as a teenager with the lines, I would gladly walk thru hell with you/or give my life.

Elder tracked down the family of Annette DeVoe, the poems intended recipient, and the family confirmed that Hemingway had a crush on Annette. This changed Hemingways biography because it has always been written that Hemingway's first love was Agnes von Kurowsky, the nurse who treated him in Italy during World War I. Catherine Barkley from A Farewell to Arms is based on von Kurowsky.

Even his classmates said he was more interested in hunting and fishing," Elder said. "But we found out that Annette was this woman who had this clandestine relationship with Hemingway."

Lost love

Elder said there was evidence that the infatuation was a bit one-sided, and DeVoes family quoted Annette as saying Hemingway was a kook.

Von Kurowskys break-up letter is also included in the book.

A previously unpublished photo of Hemingway wearing a World War I uniform and pointing a pistol toward the camera reveals Hemingway's fibs to make himself more heroic. Although Hemingway was an ambulance driver in World War I, he liked to embellish his stories by implying he was a soldier. Hemingway was badly wounded in the war by a mortar round while delivering chocolates and cigarettes to the troops, and his leg had hundreds of holes in it.

Vetch said he was struck by the fact that Hemingway felt compelled to stretch the truth about his service in the war. It was a big enough deal that he was so badly wounded serving the troops, but Hemingway wanted to pass himself off a war hero.

He was just a kid, a teenager, when he was wounded. I dont agree with him on so many things, but I look up to Hemingway. He never stopped working, Vetch said.

Many of the photographs of Hemingway show him looking macho, posing with a gun, a fish or a dead animal, but Vetch was drawn to a photograph of Hemingway hamming with his friend, Morris Musselman, in 1916 when they were teens.

This picture shows Hemingway unguarded, Vetch said. It reminded me of some of the road trips Rob and I would take. I remember breaking down on the side of the road on our way to Yellowtail Dam and staging scenes in the middle of the road to pass the time.

The archives also revealed a sad beginning to Hemingways life when his mother, Grace, used to dress Hemingway as a girl to pretend that he and his older sister Marcelline, were twins. She held Marcelline back from kindergarten so the two could start school together to further her attempt to pass them off as twins.

'Twinning'

One photo from 1901 shows the siblings dressed in frilly dresses with fancy hats and holding flowers. It was found in a family scrapbook with the caption, Two summer girls with their peonies.

Grace was still trying to pass the siblings off as twins when they were second-graders. One particularly sad photo in the book shows Marcelline wearing a baby bonnet sitting beside Hemingway, who is wearing boys clothes. The photo depicts Marcellines punishment for having a friend cut her hair short to stop Graces twinning. Grace made Marcelline wear the baby bonnet to school for two weeks before a teacher intervened.

Elder described Hemingway as a packrat because he kept every piece of paper that touched his hand.

That made the digging all the more complicated.

What we tried to do is tell his life story through objects, Elder said. If there was something that was interesting but didnt help tell the story, we left it out.

Kent State University Press agreed to publish the book, but wanted the authors to work with Hemingway scholar Mark Cirino. Cirino is associate professor of English at the University of Evansville.

Vetch said Cirinos expertise and guidance on the project were invaluable.

Elder is the director of digital product development and strategy at Crain Communications ,and Vetch is a copy editor and writer who worked with Elder on Last Words of the Executed and The Best Film Youve Never Seen.
Pancheshwar authority likely to miss DPR deadline

The Pancheshwar Development Authority (PDA) is unlikely to meet the October deadline to finalise the detailed project report (DPR) of the much-talked-about bi-national Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project, as the Energy Ministry of Nepal is taking extra time to send feedback on the draft DPR presented by the PDA.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 17

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia will return to the city from Finland tomorrow as scheduled, notwithstanding the Lt Governors order to cut short his visit in the wake of sudden spurt in dengue and chikungunya cases in the national Capital.

Lt Governor Najeeb Jung had yesterday asked Sisodia to cut short his trip to Finland and immediately return to Delhi in view of the outbreak of chikungunya and dengue which trigged further tussle between the Kejriwal government and the LG office.

On the directions of Jung, Chief Secretary KK Sharma had sent an urgent fax to the Deputy Chief Minister, saying Your kind presence is required in the NCT of Delhi to deal with emergent administrative matters.

However, a senior government official said as per his schedule, the Deputy Chief Minister will return to Delhi tomorrow.

Refuting the allegation of the opposition that he was holidaying in Finland, Sisodia yesterday said it was not a sin to study the schooling system of other countries to fix the problems in Delhis education system.
Sat Singh

Tribune News Service

Charkhi Dadri, September 18

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today announced Charkhi Dadri as 22nd district of Haryana. He fulfilled the two-decade-old demand of residents at the vikas rally at the new grain market here.

At present, Charkhi Dadri is part of Bhiwani, the states largest district carved out on December 22, 1972.

The BJP had made Charkhi Dadri its organisational district in 1992. I was in charge of Bhiwani and Dadri then, Khattar said. Charkhi Dadri was treated as a district in 1992 when I looked after the affairs of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

On when the announcement would materialise, he said the process would be set in motion soon. Once Charkhi Dadri becomes a district, development will gather pace, Khattar said.

It is a matter of pride for me to declare Charkhi Dadri as the 22nd district of Haryana in keeping with the demands and aspirations of the people. It is difficult to understand why previous governments did not make Dadri a district? They created Panchkula, Yamunanagar and Palwal districts, so why not Dadri? he said.

Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankhar, who was the chairman of a Cabinet sub-committee on re-organisation of districts, told The Tribune Charkhi Dadri cleared all parameters to be a district. The new district will have two Assembly constituencies  Dadri and Badhra  under its jurisdiction.

A team headed by the Financial Commissioner, Revenue, would soon visit Dadri to demarcate the area of the district and approach panchayats to be part of it, Dhankar said.

The CM laid the foundation stones of welfare projects worth Rs150 crore. He announced Rs5 crore for Nagar Palika, Dadri; Rs10 crore for the Charkhi Dadri Assembly constituency; and Rs10 crore for the Badhra constituency.

Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu was also present at the rally.
Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 18

Haryana Police had alerts for the past one week that a terrorist strike on the lines that occurred at Uri in Kashmir on Sunday could happen in the state and it had put all military and paramilitary installations in the state on alert.

Haryana Director General of Police KP Singh said this on the sidelines of a function to release a book Travel: Here  There - Elsewhere penned by ADGP (Human Rights and Litigation) Rajbir Deswal.

We had alerts for the past week. Even all military and paramilitary installations like Ambala and Hisar Army Cantonments, Air Force Station, Sirsa, BSF, Hisar, Dappar Ammunition depot and installations of the state police had also been alerted a week back and again repeatedly in the past two and three days, the DGP said.

He said attacks like this could happen despite alerts because all the terrorist groups needed was an opportunity to strike and inflict damage.

Singh said similar alerts were given by the central agencies to Delhi, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and some other neighbouing states too.
Vishal Joshi

Tribune News Service

Kurukshetra, September 18

Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Justice SJ Vazifdar today showed concern over farmer suicides and stressed the need to spread awareness among crop growers of various free legal remedial measures they could use to avail government benefits.

Speaking at the 7th annual students legal literacy mission function at Kurukshetra University, Vazifdar said legal aid clubs comprising committed students and teachers could play an important role in sensitiing the underprivileged sections to obtain their legal rights.

Farmer suicide is a very sensitive issue. It must be communicated to farmers that being under debt for any reason is not shameful. There are several government schemes and policies for the debt-ridden farmers, but the beneficiaries do not know how to avail it and get out of the situation. Here, the legal aid authorities have an important role to play, said Vazidfar, also the patron-in-chief of the Haryana State Legal Aid Service Authority (HSLASA).

He said it was observed that even the well-qualified and professionals were unfamiliar with legal ways to get justice.

He said though the SLASAs had resources and legal intellect to support the marginlised sections, stakeholders of society should also join hands to ensure justice to farmers.

He also showed concern over crime against women.

Court orders in vernaculars

In his address, Supreme Court judge Justice KS Khehar suggested the state government to coordinate with the judicial system for the delivery of copies of court verdicts translated in Hindi.

Since courts were already overburdened with cases, the state government should facilitate teams for the task of translating court orders in the vernaculars, he said.

Justice Khehar was reacting to an advice tabled by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in this regard in his speech.

Khattar said it was widely felt that owing to the linguistic barrier, a considerable section of society was unable to understand the justice delivered.

It will be fair on part of the judiciary if the court orders are delivered in Hindi or other local language. A section of litigants are forced to approach lawyers to understand and interpret judgments, Khattar said, while addressing the gathering.
Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 18

In one of the bloodiest terror attacks on an Army installation in Kashmir, at least 17 soldiers and four militants were killed before the gunfight ended in north Kashmir's border town of Uri this morning.

Sources said that a group of militants stormed a military base close to Army's 12th brigade headquarters in Uri at 4 am on Sunday. The brigade headquarters is nearly 100 km from Srinagar.

"Four terrorists killed in counter-terrorist operations at Uri. Seventeen soldiers made the supreme sacrifice, Army spokesman said.

Fifteen of those killed belonged to 6 Bihar and two from 10 Dogra regiments.

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The Army deployed its elite Para commandoes and military helicopters.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said the attack was aimed at sparking renewed violence and creating a war-like situation in the state.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh was in Srinagar on Sunday afternoon. Defence Minister Manhohar Parrikar is also scheduled to arrive.

Sources said the militants  all believed to be foreigners  may have infiltrated the sector late on Saturday night.

This is a first major attack on an Army installation in Uri in nearly two years. In December 2014, some militants had stormed an Army camp at Mohra Uri.

Eight Army men  among them a Lieutenant Colonel  three Jammu and Kashmir policemen and all the six militants were killed in the gunbattle that followed the attack.

Read:
That the situation has deteriorated in Kashmir is now an understatement. The bitter and bigger truth is that it is getting out of hand, where the reverse of what was promised has been happening. There are more boots on the ground than pre-July 2016.

This happened because the situation has crossed the threshold. Since July 8, when militant commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter- something that is a regular feature in a situation where militancy and counter-insurgency operations form an important ingredient - Kashmir has added some unforeseen chapters in its gory history of the past 26 years. The armed militancy turned into a civil resistance and now the doomsayers are being taken seriously, particularly after Sundays attack at garrison in Uri in north-west Kashmir in which 17 soldiers and four fidayeen were killed.

Kashmirs political leadership had been insisting that Delhi should not view Kashmir through a security prism  that is to devise means to counter Pakistans firing from across the border and intensifying anti-militancy operations  as it is a human and political problem. But that narrative has suffered in the past over two months and Kashmir is in sharper focus because of the security concerns owing to the street unrest and the mounting fidayeen attacks

A host of overenthusiastic protagonists in their zeal to legitimise the unfulfilled political aspirations of a section of the Valley residents and also to make themselves relevant after having been edged out of centre-stage, lapped onto the July 8 encounter to launch their violent campaign against the people. Yes, people. They picked up the poster boy of social media militancy to stir a debate, whether he should have been killed or allowed to have a safe passage. Others were keen to own him as our martyr, in a perfect scheme of things to unleash a reign of violence, arson and killings, inviting an equally ruthless reaction from the police and the CRPF.

That became obvious without even an iota of doubt when Pakistani establishment and its so-called non-state actors like Hafiz Saeed ardently made it out as if their own boy was martyred. Pakistan knew its plan was coming to fruition. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hailed the militant as martyr and a catalyst of the new movement in Kashmir. When one Sharif spoke, other Sharif (General Raheel) could not have stayed behind. He spoke of Kashmir as Pakistans jugular vein, a slogan that Pakistan has invented to counter Indias integral part claim. There was no dearth of mainstream politicians drawn from the National Conference, Congress, CPM and also the PDP who inadvertently led credence to Rawalpindis laudatory profile of Burhan.

The violence followed a pattern, defying all templates of the past. Tral, the native town of Burhan, witnessed a huge flow of mourners and slogan-shouting militants and their sympathisers. But the violence erupted in an unnatural fashion. The protesters straightway headed to Army camps, police stations, armed with stones, petrol bombs, and erected barricades with timber logs and boulders to make it difficult for the security forces to move in for the assistance of their besieged colleagues. It was surprising. In the past, people would come out to join the funeral processions of the slain militants, and would use stones and slogans to disrupt anti-militancy operations. Post-killing, this brought to the fore the execution of the plot that was woven months ago. Here, dots need to be connected.

Unheeded advice to look into the alarming signs of consolidation of sentiment against the Indian establishment and accumulation of arms and ammunition broadcast more rumours than truth.

Pakistan accelerated it, as per its plan, by observing black day and petitioning the United Nations Secretary General with twin themes to intervene and resolve the K- issue by implementing the UNSC resolutions (rendered obsolete decades ago) and to check the human rights violations. Islamabad and Rawalpindi acted like vultures , the simile used by CPM leader Sitaram Yechury.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who succeeded his illustrious predecessors like Kofi Annan, was a pathetic figure of helplessness. His own words, disappointment, say he had not been able to curb North Korea from conducting nuclear explosions threatening his own country South Korea. In other words, he admitted to his failure as head of the world body. Against this backdrop, his keenness to facilitate the Kashmir solution and the UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Raad Al Husseins bubbling passion to see the human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir were an exercise to superimpose their images on the trouble.

Ban Ki-moon should have considered the conflicts and spread of the ISIS under his watch as Secretary General of the UN, but he is more interested in needling India, universally acknowledged as the largest democracy in the world. Zeid is a Jordanian and he was just trying to extend his role that he had played in the Organisation of Islamic Conference.

By any stretch of imagination, it is not to suggest that Kashmir is anywhere close to peace. The idea is to tell that everything is not what the world is being told  a mix of truth and half-truths.

Tragically, Kashmir has once again become a security issue with much challenging dimensions than seen ever before. So the security prism is back to the centre-stage, courtesy the politicians who left the sage advice unheeded of seeking peace first and to shun the inciting populism. If they fail to become part of the restore-peace efforts, they will have no option but to find themselves at the end of their innings in politics sooner than expected.
Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 18

The militant attack at Uri in northern Kashmir on Sunday morning has caused among the largest number of casualties for Indian Army troops in recent years. It is being suspected that terrorists managed to hide themselves for a few hours inside the military camp during the night before launching the attack around 5am.

India is expected to respond to the attack in its own fashion and at a place and time of its choosing and not allow Pakistan to wash its hands of the responsibility for the outrageous attempt. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief Dalbir Singh Suhag have rushed off to Srinagar to assess the situation. The Northern Army Commander, Lt Gen DS Hooda, and his team will brief Parrikar and General Suhag.

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As many as 17 soldiers have been killed and another 30 injured in the attack, one of the biggest in J&K in the past 10 years. In June last year, 18 soldiers were martyred and 11 injured in an attack by NSCN (K) militants in Chandel district of Manipur.

At Uri, 10 Dogra Regiment was in the process of being relieved by 6 Bihar Regiment when troops of both came under attack. In the past too Pakistan-backed and trained militants have attacked when a new regiment arrives at a location along the LoC.

The attack at Uri is just 6 km from the 749 km Line of Control (LoC) and it occurred at a time when troops were sleeping. It was not inside the Brigade Headquarters at Uri, the Army has clarified.

The sentries had not noticed any movement prior to the attack, indicating that the terrorists were hiding inside the camp or at the edge of it and caught the troops by total surprise as most of them were asleep. The maximum casualties occurred in the first burst of fire from the terrorists. It is near impossible to kill 17 soldiers in one go by just four armed terrorists. The camp is located close to a hillock and it is suspected that the terrorists came down the hillock and hid themselves unnoticed.

It was a full-moon night, and therefore not dark, which is not an ideal condition for an attack. Yet the terrorists mounted the attack, which suggests they had prior information of the change of regiments, and took the risk of crossing the LoC to target the troops.

Terrorists on their own would have no prior intimation of a regiment getting relieved. But Pakistan-based military commanders keep an eye using satellite imagery and ground-based human intelligence; thus the Pakistan military link.

But as the recently retired Western Army Commander, Lt Gen KJ Singh (retd), puts it: It is too early for a postmortem of the attack. The Army has a mechanism to deal with any and all issues.
Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 18

Uri attack in which 17 soldiers were killed by four fidayeen on Sunday has served a lot of uninspiring messages to the country, and Kashmir in particular.

The fidayeen who come with a high degree of commitment to die, deeply motivated, are not easy to neutralise. Invariably, they have inflicted more casualties than suffered. It happened on Sunday too.

It is no secret that the attack had the familiar soundtrack of Pakistans deep involvement in this attack, for it is keen to mount as much pressure on India on Kashmir, internally and externally as it can. The state and the so-called non-state actors work in tandem. Uri was the reconfirmation of Pakistan using such audacious attacks as its foreign policy tool to achieve its targets.

Since 1999, it is at predawn hour when attacks are mounted with grenades and gunfire from assault rifles on the bleary-eyed guards and soldiers. The necessary lessons, how to foil such attacks, are forgotten immediately after the alarm bells fade into the background.

With the infiltration having gone up, and Pakistan committing more support to Kashmiris in their resistance against India and its non-state actors announcing mayhem, this attack was not unexpected. Militants had rehearsed it in Poonch just a few days ago. Poonch and Uri are border areas close to the Line of Control that divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

The loud noises that there was a full preparation to face any eventuality, despite the recurring images of the wreath-laying ceremonies of soldiers and paramilitaries presented a false sense of everything being hunky-dory.

There are severe lapses, both in the intelligence network, counter-infiltration grid and the lack of response to the sudden assaults. That the infiltration was peaking and Uri has been a traditional route of infiltrators since the late 80s, the alert level appeared to be wanting.

There are suggestions of the timings and the sabotage, which cannot be ruled out because in all the previous fidayeen attacks, there were more concertina wires on the front and the rear, more height was added to the boundary walls, but till date the human failures were not detected nor an attempt was made to find out what went wrong and how. The attack on the Pathankot airbase in January is just one example. The stress was on rituals rather than in zeroing in on the lapses.

Militants were determined to strike in a big way after the big noises were made about the deployment of more troops in south Kashmir, reckoned as the nerve centre of the over two-month-long unrest which has consumed 80 lives and left thousands more injured. The virtue of secrecy was subjugated to the sound bites.

The fallout of this attack would be that the agitators who have kept the unrest alive in Kashmir would get emboldened. Militants used guns, the protesters will use stones with furious intensity.

The Uri attack, one of the deadliest, targeting the Army in recent decades, will also be a test to how New Delhi deals with this situation. Will its reaction be restricted to issuing usual statements, or will it go for an offensive  diplomatic or otherwise.
New Delhi, September 19

Enraged over the terror attack on an army battalion in Uri, former army generals on Sunday sought urgent action against Pakistan, including keeping the military option open to deal with terror from its soil.

We must have our military option open, if required to strike at certain places, Lt Gen (Retd) B S Jaswal said here.

Bring pickets, which have launch pad to the ground, raze them to the ground. The reason is that till the time it does not hurt Pakistan physically, they would not respect our decency, Jaswal, who was GOC-in-C of the Northern Command, said.

Pakistan keeps doing it (terror strikes) again and again knowing that we would not take any action, Major (Retd) Gaurav Arya said.

The problems in Kashmir are systematically manufactured at the GHQ in Rawalpindi, he alleged, adding We must take immediate action. Stop trade with Pakistan, downgrade (its) Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status. The world must know we are serious.

Questioning the absence of two service chiefs at the meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh to take stock of the situation after the attack, former army chief Gen Shankar Roy Chowdhury said these actions were coming from Pakistan.

We have this meeting chaired by No 2 in the Government that is the Home Minister, where the RAW chief and CRPF chief are present. Who is doing these actions (terror attacks)? It is coming from across the border, from Pakistan, he said.

Is the CRPF chief going to look at Pakistan? Where are the Chief of Army and Chief of Naval Staff? Why they were not available to give (advice on) strategic action to the Government, he asked.  PTI
Party to celebrate statute anniversary

The 43rd Standing Committee meeting of the CPN-UML that concluded on Thursday decided to celebrate the first Constitution Day on September 19 across the country with much fanfare.
Mukesh Ranjan



Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 18

Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday called Pakistan a "terrorist state" and said it should be "isolated", hours after a deadly militant strike at a military installation in north Kashmirs Uri sector left 17 soldiers dead.

In a series of strongly worded tweets, Singh wrote: "I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such".

Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Singh's comments came after he chaired a high-level security review meeting. Sources claimed Singh directed security forces to intensify offensive against militants operating in the Valley.

National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Director General of Military Operation (DGMO)Ranbir Singh, DG CRPF Durga Prasad, IB Chief Dineswar Sharma , RAW Chief Rajinder Khanna and other senior security officials attended the meeting held at Singh's residence in the national capital.

After the meeting, he drove down to 7-RCR, the official residence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to brief him about counter-terrorism operations and security situation in troubled Kashmir.

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Later, in an official statement the Home Minister offered his condolences to bereaved families and said that those behind the act of terrorism "would be brought to justice".

The home minister postponed his planned trips to Russia and the US earlier in the day. In a series of tweets on Sunday, Singh announced his decision.

The home minister also spoke to J&K Governor NN Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti about the developments.

#WATCH HM Rajnath Singh chairs high level security meet in Delhi. NSA, Home Secy,IB Chief present #UriAttack pic.twitter.com/vjpQPq9QTD  ANI (@ANI_news) September 18, 2016

Singh was scheduled to begin his Russian tour on Sunday. He was to leave for the US on September 25.

Seventeen soldiers were killed and dozens were reported injured in a militant strike at a military installation in north Kashmir's border town of Uri.

All four militants were killed in the gunbattle that followed the attack.  (With inputs from agencies)
New Delhi/Islamabad, September 18

Stung by the deadliest ever attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir, DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh on Sunday called up his counterpart in Pakistan expressing "serious concerns" over Pakistani markings found on the equipment used by four "foreign" terrorists suspected to be belonging to Pakistan-based terror group JeM.

Pakistan, however, refuted as "unfounded and premature" India's charge that it was behind the Uri terrorist attack, with its army demanding "actionable intelligence" to support New Delhi's accusation.

Initial reports suggest the four terrorists killed in the Uri attack were from Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Director General Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said in a brief statement to the media at the South Block in New Delhi.

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He added that since "the terrorists had some items with Pakistani markings, I have spoken to Pakistan DGMO and conveyed our serious concern on the same".

He said the terrorists had fired incendiary ammunition along with automatic fire of small arms that led to army tents and temporary shelters catching fire.

"There have been a total of 17 Army fatal casualties. Of these, 13-14 casualties have been due to these tents/shelters having caught fire," he said.

The senior Army officer, in charge of the force's operations, asserted that the Indian Army remains prepared to thwart any nefarious designs and any evil designs of the adversary shall be given a befitting reply.

The DGMO said that four AK 47 rifles and four Under Barrel Grenade Launchers along with a large number of other war-like stores were recovered from the group of heavily armed terrorists.

He said the operation for clearance of the area is still in progress and a very deliberate search is being carried out in the entire area around the military complex in Uri.

"As such, complete details of the operation are not yet available. However, the operation is being carried out by the Indian Army in a very professional manner and the Army personnel have displayed exceptionally high standards of courage and gallantry while neutralising the terrorists," Lt Gen Singh said.

Amid reports that intelligence agencies had warned of a possible attack, he said all the intelligence agencies are working in close synergy with the security forces and regular intelligence inputs are received from concerned agencies and necessary action is being taken accordingly.

He said Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag has visited the site of operation and taken an "on the ground" assessment of the situation.

Defence Minister, who too visited Srinagar, will be updated by Suhag on the situation.

"We salute the supreme sacrifice made by our brave soldiers following the highest traditions of Indian Army," he said.

Pakistan army spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said following the Uri attack DGMOs of the two countries discussed the situation along the Line of Control through hotline.

"Refuting the unfounded and pre-mature Indian allegation, Pakistani DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence," Radio Pakistan reported citing an ISPR release.

Bajwa reiterated that no infiltration was allowed from the Pakistani soil because of "water-tight arrangements" in place on both sides of LoC and the Working Boundary.  TNS/PTI
Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 18

The number of casualties in the Uri attack could have been prevented as two buildings at the same military station were vacant, but the advance party of the Bihar Regiment was staying in tents pitched in the open, that too just 6 km from the volatile Line of Control (LoC).

Fourteen of the 17 soldiers were killed as grenades lobbed by four Pakistan-trained terrorists led to fire in tents. Twelve bodies were burnt badly and four of them couldn't even be recognised forcing a DNA test, sources said. Troops of the 6 Bihar Regiment were to replace the 10 Dogra Regiment at Uri just outside the headquarters of the 12 Brigade of the Army.

Sources confirmed that the advance party (30-35 persons, including a Major) of the Bihar Regiment arrived on September 16 to start the administrative work before the rest of the regiment could arrive. Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said, The tents located in the complex were to house additional troops inducted due to routine turnover of units. There have been a total of 17 Army fatal casualties. Of these, 14 casualties have been due to these tents/shelters having caught fire.

It is being suspected that terrorists managed to hide themselves for a few hours inside the military camp during the night before launching the attack around 5.30 am and they were aware of the troops living in tents.

The terrorists hiding inside the camp or at the edge of it caught the troops by total surprise as most of them were asleep inside the tents.

It was a full-moon night, therefore not dark, which is not an ideal condition for an attack. Yet the terrorists mounted the attack, which suggests they had prior information of the change of regiments and took the risk of crossing the LoC to target the troops staying in tents.

Terrorists on their own would have no prior intimation of a regiment getting relieved and some men living in tents. However, Pakistan-based military commanders keep an eye using satellite imagery and ground-based human intelligence, hence the Pakistan military link.

But as recently retired Western Command chief Lt Gen KJ Singh puts it: It is too early for a postmortem of the attack. The Army has a mechanism to deal with all such issues.

Defence Minister, Army Chief review security in Kashmir

Srinagar: In view of the Uri attack, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag on Sunday took stock of the ongoing operations and reviewed the overall security situation in Kashmir. Parrikar rushed to Srinagar this evening and General Suhag reached earlier on Sunday to review the situation. An Army spokesman said they were briefed by the Northern Command chief Lt Gen DS Hooda and Chinar Corps commander Lt Gen Satish Dua in Srinagar on the Uri attack. The Defence Minister was briefed about the security grid along the Line of Control and the hinterland. tns

US with India in anti-terror fight

Washington: The US is committed to building a strong partnership with India to combat terrorism, the White House said on Sunday as it condemned the Uri attack. The US strongly condemns the terrorist attack, State Department Spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. Meanwhile, US Ambassador to India Richard Verma also condemned the attack. We condemn the attack in Uri. Our thoughts are with the families of the soldiers who lost their lives #UriAttack, Verma tweeted in Delhi. PTI

Pak scoffs at unfounded charge

Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday refuted as unfounded and premature Indias charge that it was behind the terrorist attack in Uri, with its army demanding actionable intelligence to support New Delhis accusation. Pakistan army spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said following the attack Director General of Military Operation (DGMO) of the two countries discussed the situation along the LoC through hotline. Refuting the allegation, Pakistani DGMO asked his counterpart to share any actionable intelligence, Radio Pakistan reported citing an Inter-Services Public Relations release. Bajwa said no infiltration was allowed from the Pakistani soil because of water-tight arrangements in place on both sides of the LoC. PTI

Jitendra warns of befitting response

New Delhi: Blaming Pakistan for the Uri attack, Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday said those trying to test Indias security and confidence would be given a befitting response. We have known long enough who are behind sponsoring terrorism against India particularly in Jammu and Kashmir. I think time has come to call their bluff and give them a befitting reply, the Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office told reporters. PTi

Union Home Secy to visit today

New Delhi: Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi will visit Srinagar on Monday to review the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Following a directive of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Mehrishi will visit Srinagar and attend a series of meetings with officials of the state government, Army, police and paramilitary force and take stock of the situation in the state, official sources said. He is expected to meet Governor NN Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti over the situation in J&K. PTI

Governor speaks to Generals

Srinagar: After the fidayeen attack at an Army camp in Uri, Governor NN Vohra on Sunday called Lt Gen DS Hooda, Northern Command chief, and Lt Gen Satish Dua, GOC 15 Corps, and conveyed his heartfelt sympathies on the loss of lives of brave soldiers. He saluted the martyrs and wished early recovery to the injured. TNS

Major fidayeen attacks

June 26, 2016 Pampore: Eight CRPF men and two fidayeens die after CRPF convoy attacked

Feb 20, 2016 Pampore: Three Army men, three fidayeens and a civilian killed in long gunfight

Dec 5, 2014 Baramulla: Eight Army men and three policemen killed at Army base in Mohra Uri

Sept 25, 2013 Jammu: Twin attacks in Samba and Kathua leave nine persons dead

June 24, 2013 Srinagar: Eight soldiers killed as Army convoy attacked on outskirts of the city

March 31, 2013 Srinagar: Five jawans, two militants dead after CRPF camp targetted

October 5, 2006 Srinagar: Five policemen, two CRPF men and two fidayeens killed at Budshah Chowk

July 22, 2003 Akhnoor: Eight men, including a Brigadier, lose lives at Army camp

May 14, 2002 Jammu: 31 killed, 48 injured in Army Cantonment at Kaluchak

Sept 17, 2001 Handwara: Nine policemen die as a camp of the Special Operations Group of the J&K Police attacked

July 13, 1999 Bandipora: A DIG and four BSF personnel killed

Nov 3, 1999 Srinagar: Eight Army men killed at 15 Corps Headquarters

 Compiled by Majid Jahangir

What they said

Pakistan must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces as such activities are a big impediment to the peace process in the region. The Central Government has failed to stop infiltration of militants.  Sitaram Yechury, CPM general secretary

We have given a long rope to Pakistan. Now is the time to take decisive action as the time for restraint is long past. Brutal provocations demand equally brutal reprisals.  Capt Amarinder Singh, Punjab state Congress president

India cannot be cowed down by such attacks. I strongly condemn the cowardly attack at Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of those martyred in Uri.  Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi Chief Minister

India will not be cowed down by such attacks. We will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers. I salute and pay tributes to the martyrs.  Pranab Mukherjee, President

The current situation of unrest in the Valley is the result of the proxy war in which Pakistan has been indulging since ages. They [Pakistan] are doing everything in their power to create havoc in Kashmir.  Nirmal Singh, J&K Deputy Chief Minister

Such attacks are the result of use of cross-border terrorism by one country in our region. We shall deal with such provocations in a befitting manner.  Hamid Ansari, Vice-President

Deepest condolences to families of #UriAttack martyrs who sacrificed their lives for motherland. The perpetrators will be made to pay for it.  Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home

Modi ki laparwahi aur nakaami se jawan marae ja rahein hain. Kahan gaya Modi ka 56-inch ka seena? (Soldiers are dying due to the failure and negligence of Modi; where is his 56-inch chest now?). The Centre has to take tough action.  Lalu Prasad, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief

The government must mobilise all resources, manpower and material to strengthen border defence to prevent infiltration of terrorists.  P Chidambaram, former Home Minister
Porlamar, September 18

The strategic Chabahar port, which will give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, will be recalled as a "turning point" in Indo-Iran ties, Vice-President Hamid Ansari told Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday as the two leaders held talks here.

Ansari and Rouhani discussed bilateral ties and ways to boost economic cooperation during talks held on the sidelines of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit.

Asked if Chabahar came up for discussion, Secretary (West) Sujata Mehta, while briefing reporters on the meeting, said: "Certainly the subject of Chabahar came up and in fact, our Vice-President said in the years to come this will certainly be recalled as a turning point in the bilateral relationship as a matter of great significance".

Ansari said India and Iran were like two young friends who grew up together and then got busy with their own affairs, and now got back together to discover how close they are.

"It was a very warm meeting. They discussed the potential for economic cooperation - Chabahar figured largely. They also discussed regional issues," Mehta said.

A "milestone" pact on the strategic Chabahar port in southern Iran that will give India access to Afghanistan and Europe bypassing Pakistan was signed in May this year.

Besides the bilateral pact to develop the Chabahar port for which India will invest $ 500 million, a trilateral Agreement on Transport and Transit Corridor was also signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran.

Vice-President Ansari, who is here to attend the 17th NAM Summit leading the Indian delegation in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also called on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after arriving here on Saturday.

"President Maduro and the Vice-President had an excellent" conversation. "President Maduro is personally influenced by India and he is attached to India and that came through in the conversation itself," Mehta told reporters.

There was some discussion on Saturday evening on the importance of the Non-Aligned groups speaking on the issue of terrorism and that found reflection in President Maduro's statement this morning, she said.

"Other than the agenda of the conference that they discussed last evening, they also spoke about bilateral relations. They spoke about the extent of economic cooperation that has grown dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years.

"There was some discussion on the economic cooperation side. There was also discussion about the need to arrange an early meeting of the joint commission between the two countries which would then lead to other things," she said. PTI
Sandeep Dikshit

tribune news service

Margarita Island (Venezuela), September 18

India has asked the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to urgently add counter-terrorism on the top of its bucket list of priorities because the indiscriminate killing of civilians to achieve political aims harmed the worlds second largest organisations basic aim of promoting peace, sovereignty and development.

The need of the hour is to set up a working group within NAM on the issue of counter-terrorism, and to task the (NAM) Coordinating Bureau in New York to pursue global counter-terrorism as its foremost priority, Vice-President Hamid Ansari suggested at the NAM summit here.

He also took a dig at the selective, and even politicised, manner in which terrorist leaders are identified by asking all existing structures of global counter-terrorism to function in a non-partisan and professional manner.

Ansaris nuanced definition of terrorism that would exclude national liberation movements from getting bracketed with terrorism, and his stress on continuity with change was an oasis of serenity amidst fiery speeches by the new NAM chair Venezuela and several other nations currently out of favour with the West. Iran did not target the US but acknowledged NAMs unfailing support for peaceful negotiations on the nuclear issue that helped it slide into the global mainstream. All of them, however, made common cause with India on reforming the UN. Venezuela is hosting the NAM summit in a divisive environment due to low oil prices that have badly hit its generous social safety net set up by its iconic former President Hugo Sanchez.

Cheer, despair for India

The references to terrorism adopted in the Margarita Declaration gave India some reason to cheer and some cause to feel let down. We tried to push up terrorism on the agenda to the extent possible, Indias Permanent Representative at the United Nations Syed Akbaruddin told newspersons.

The NAM format allows resolutions to be passed only on the basis of complete consensus. And one country in our neighbourhood (code for Pakistan) managed to block Indias proposal for setting up of a NAM working group on counter-terrorism. But we were able to get the reference to terrorism passed purely and largely on the basis of the language suggested by India, he observed.

NAMs observation on terror did not specifically mention LeT, nor did it criticise the countries offering a safe haven for terrorists. But it backed the India-initiated Comprehensive Convention for Combating International Terrorism at the UN though its support was not as equivocal as South Block would have wished.

Ansari meets Rouhani

The strategic Chabahar port, which will give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, will be recalled as a turning point in Indo-Iran ties, Vice President Hamid Ansari told Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as the two met.
Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 18

The small units of highly trained and heavily armed militants that storm into security installations like the one which stormed an Army base in north Kashmirs Uri sector this morning are the most lethal discovery of Kashmirs decades-old insurgency.

These militants, known as fidayeen, carry an important advantage  the element of surprise, which allows them to choose the location, timing and inflict damage in the initial assault before they are detected and killed.

The introduction of fidayeen in Kashmir insurgency came in the aftermath of the 1999 Kargil war and instantly changed the arithmetic of the conflict. Fewer militants who made up a fidayeen unit mounted heavy casualties on security forces. They attacked anywhere, almost everywhere.

The first fidayeen attack was launched on a BSF camp in July 1999 and a Deputy Inspector General and four soldiers of the paramilitary force were killed. In August 1999, three fidayeen attacks were launched in which a Colonel, Major, two Junior Commissioned Officers and six soldiers were killed.

In 1999, at least 11 fidayeen attacks shook the counter-insurgency grid as militant units stormed into fortified symbols like the Armys Srinagar-based Headquarters and the main base of the Jammu and Kashmir Polices Special Operations Group in which 12 personnel, including an officer, were killed.

The Lashkar-e-Toiba, one of the few foreign groups to operate in Kashmir, was the pioneer in carrying out fidayeen attacks in the Valley. The Jaish-e-Mohammed soon followed and also introduced suicide bombers, the first among whom crashed an explosive-packed car into the gate of the Armys Srinagar-based Corps Headquarters.

As Pakistan banned the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the US, several fidayeen attacks were owned by the little-known outfits like the Shuhada Brigade, Medina Regiment, Al Mansoorian and the Al Nasireen.

Most of the fidayeen militants are foreigners, mainly Pakistanis and at least one British, and a few have been from Kashmir. The fidayeen militants continued to attack security installations in Jammu and Kashmir through the early years of the last decade even as they launched several attacks outside the state, one unit targeting the Red Fort, another associated with the Jaish-e-Mohammed which attacked Parliament.

A retired Army officer, who has served in Kashmir, described the fidayeen as part of a hybrid war, where the whole intention is to cause exasperation. Fidayeen are small teams who want to do something and who have the initiative, the officer said.
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 18

The Uri attack today has more or less sealed the deal for the India-Pakistan dialogue. Whatever hope or room was left for the government to wriggle in and make a plea for talks with a neighbour that is behind consistent terror attacks against India, Uri today has destroyed that hope.

The government faces an increasingly hostile line of questioning from people, both from the worlds of diplomacy and military, as to why this government is shying away from action against Pakistan. The Pathankot attack in January this year was a nasty shock for India, coming especially after Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to Lahore in December and reached out to Pakistan.

Uri, nine months later, has brought the nation back to square one and makes one question the rationale behind the governments Pakistan policy. Many have questioned the policy in the past and with a hint of sarcasm have even referred to it as a confused policy since India seemed caught in responding to the transgressions from across the border rather than having a plan to deal with Pakistan.

The situation in Kashmir has helped Pakistan make a song and dance about the alleged human rights abuse in the Valley at international forums. The government has responded by raking up the Balochistan issue, but many ask why is India leaving everything at rhetoric and not taking any concrete follow-up steps.

Hardeep Puri, who served as Indias permanent representative to the UN, pointed out that with the Uri attack, the inflection point with Pakistan has been reached. Pakistans consistent plea that it has no control over its non-state military actors makes dialogue a non-stater, he said. He further added that the policy of bilateral engagement is incompatible if the other party uses terror as an instrument of policy.

For once, the military experts seemed to agree with diplomats and military strategist Col Anil Bhatt said these attacks must start hurting Pakistan. He said the government needs to follow a three-step policy towards dealing with Pakistan. The first step has to be retaliation. The other two steps involve using the social media smartly to inform people about what the Pakistan army has been doing in Jammu and Kashmir and secondly to put separatist in jails outside the state.

What seems to have emerged as a consensus from all sides is that it is time for India to shun rhetoric and take some tough action that will make Pakistan realise that it cant get away with attacks on Indian Air Force and military bases that easily.
New Delhi, September 18

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday returned to the national capital from Bengaluru after having undergone a throat surgery for persistent cough.

He had had gone to Bengaluru on September 13 and the surgery took place the next day to correct an anatomical abnormality of his oral-pharyngeal and palatal area.

Before leaving for Delhi, Kejriwal thanked doctors of the hospital where he underwent the surgery.

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"Discharged today after surgery. Thank u so much Kiranji, Dr Shetty n Dr Paul. Can't express my gratitude in words (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted.

Discharged today after surgery. Thank u so much Kiranji, Dr Shetty n Dr Paul. Can't express my gratitude in words.  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) September 18, 2016

BJP and Congress have criticised Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia for "being away" from the national capital at a time when Delhi is grappling with the outbreak of dengue and chikungunya.

Sisodia is also scheduled to return today to Delhi from Finland where he had gone to understand its education system.

(Read: Parrikar gets tongue lashing from AAP over Kejriwal comments)

Earlier this week, Congress had observed 'Bhagoda Diwas', saying Kejriwal and half of his cabinet were "absent" from Delhi.

"He is doing well, there is no problem. He is able to talk, but we are restricting him," officials at the Narayana Health City had said after the surgery.  PTI
Sandeep Dikshit

Margarita Island (Venezuela), September 18

The references to terrorism adopted in the Margarita Declaration of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit gave India some reason to cheer and some cause to feel let down.

We tried to push up terrorism on the agenda to the extent possible,' India's Permanent Representative at the United Nations (UNPR) Syed Akbaruddin told newspersons on Saturday.

The NAM format allows resolutions to be passed only on the basis of complete consensus. And one country in our neighbourhood, code for Pakistan, managed to block India's proposal for the setting up of a NAM working group on counter-terrorism. But were able to get the reference to terrorism passed purely and largely on the basis of the language suggested by India, he observed.

The NAMs three-para observation on terror did not specifically mention the Lashkar-e-Toiba nor did it criticise the countries offering a safe haven for terrorists. But it backed the India-initiated Comprehensive Convention for Combating International Terrorism (CCCIT) at the United Nations though its support was not as equivocal as South Block would have wished.

The NAM resolution named the Taliban, al-Qaida, ISIS (Daesh) and its affiliated entities and could have left the door open for naming LeT in the future by criticising other entities designated by the UN, including the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters.

At the recent G-20 summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken of one nation in South Asia responsible for spreading terror. Pakistans sponsorship of terrorism gets tremendous popular support in India and Afghanistan but the world seems to make a subtle distinction between the near-continuous mayhem by the likes of ISIS and the India-focused LeT.

Among other issues, Vice-President Hamid Ansari had called for support to the CCCIT which has failed to get off the ground at the UN. NAM has stated that the adoption of a CCCIT could complement the set of existing international legal instruments.
PM Dahal returns home

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal returned home after completing his four-day state visit to India on Sunday.
Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News service

New Delhi, September 18

Declaring Pakistan a terrorist state, Home Minister Rajnath Singh today called for recognising it and also isolating it. Launching a scathing attack on Pakistan for its repeated involvement in several of the terror attacks in India, Singh said the terrorists who carried out the attack at the Army Brigade Headquarters in Uri were highly trained and heavily armed.

Vowing to hunt down those behind fidayeen attackers, the Home Minister, after holding an hour-long high-level security review meeting here at his residence, expressed his deep disappointment with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such, he said, adding: There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.

After an hour-long reviewed meeting convened in the wake of the Uri incident, Mr Singh, who postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States, said he had briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the deliberations. He was scheduled to leave for Russia today and the US on September 25.

The meeting was attended by National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar, Director General of Military Operation (DGMO) Ranbir Singh, DG CRPF Durga Prasad, IB Chief Dineswar Sharma, RAW Chief Rajinder Khanna and other senior security officials.

Meanwhile, Singh has directed the Home Secretary to visit Srinagar tomorrow to review the security situation in the state. Sources said, Mehrishi will attend a series of meetings with officials of the state government, Army, police and paramilitary forces and take stock of the situation in the state. He is also expected to meet Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and discuss with them the law and order situation in the state.
Sandeep Rawat

Tribune News Service

Haridwar, September 18

Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Chand Dahal Prachanda said here today that he had fruitful talks with PM Narendra Modi and that would be instrumental in restoring normalcy to the relations between the two neighbouring countries.

Prachanda said this while addressing a gathering during a felicitation function organised by Yog guru Ramdev in his honour at Patanjali Yogpeeth here.

He said he expected to take back lots of gains and possibilities from his four-day visit to India that would go a long way to bridge the gap in relationship between the two countries that cropped up in the recent times.

We went through a political turmoil recently but now Nepal is moving towards political stability. It has a lot to learn from Indias economic progress and as always India is willing to assist, aid, collaborate, cooperate and strengthen us, said Prachanda.

The Nepalese PM said, No one can disturb the bonding of people of the two countries. Governments come and go but the harmony and love that exists between the people of India and Nepal is strong like the Himalayas.

Earlier, Prachanda visited Patanjali Yogpeeth, Patanjali Herbal and Food Park and Acharyakulam school, with Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishan. He urged Ramdev to set up a food park in Nepal too. Ramdev assured Prachanda that not only Patanjali food park, but also an ayurvedic university and an Acharyakulam school would be opened in Nepal.
New Delhi, September 18

Condemning the cowardly terror attack on an Army camp in Uri, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday assured the nation that those behind the despicable strike wont go unpunished.

He saluted the soldiers who were martyred in the attack and said their service to the nation will always be remembered.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished, Modi tweeted on the incident in which 17 soldiers were killed and 19 injured.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

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Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

He said he has spoken to Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on the situation in the wake of the terror attack.

We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Parrikar is on his way to Kashmir to take stock of the situation.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmirs Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.  PTI
Tribune News Service

New Delhi/Srinagar, September 18

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday night issued instructions to the Army to take a 'firm action' against those responsible for the attack on a military camp at Uri in northern part of Kashmir.

Parrikar who was in Srinagar during the day arrived back tonight.

At the meeting, Parrikar asked the Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag and senior Commanders to take action.

Later in the night, Parrikar took to micro-blogging site twitter and said, Instructed (the Army)to take firm action against those responsible.

Earlier, Parrikar was briefed by the army officials about the counter-operation in the wake of the Uri attack. The supreme sacrifice of 17 brave soldiers will not go in vain, he said.

Parrikar also visited the injured jawans at the hospital. He had rushed to Srinagar to take stock of the situation after four suspected Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists struck the administrative base of the army's 10 Dogra regiment at Uri in Baramulla district.

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"The Defence Minister was briefed about the Uri terror attack and the counter-operation in which the terrorists were neutralised," an army official said.

Parrikar arrived at the Chinar Corps Headquarters of the army at Badami Bagh in the evening where senior army officials briefed him, he added.

The Defence Minister also visited the 92 Base Hospital of the army where he was briefed about the condition of the injured soldiers who were undergoing treatment there.

An army spokesman said Parrikar and Chief of the Army Staff Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag visited the Valley to take stock of the operations and review the overall security situation.

"They were briefed by Northern Army and Chinar Corps Commanders Lt Gen DS Hooda and Lt Gen Satish Dua respectively at Srinagar on the Uri terror attack and the operation launched to neutralise the terrorists," he said.

The Defence Minister was briefed about the security grid along the Line of Control (LoC) and the hinterland, covering the deployment and employment of additional forces that have recently been inducted into the Valley.

The Army chief also visited Uri to get a first-hand account of the operation. There, he was briefed on the latest situation by the commanders on ground.

The Defence Minister has directed that the mortal remains of the martyrs be transported directly to their respective hometowns for which arrangements were being made, he added.  With PTI inputs
Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 18

Notwithstanding the tall claims made by the Akali-BJP government on the states fiscal health, about 70,000 bills worth over Rs 3,300 crore were returned due to low balance in the treasury during the previous financial year (2015-16).

Of these, just 212 bills raised before the treasury were over Rs 1 crore. According to sources, the most common bills returned were those of companies contracted by the government for providing various services, medical reimbursements, withdrawals from Provident Fund and other claims etc. In March, bills amounting to Rs 2,169 crore were returned.

Bills worth Rs 440 crore were returned in December 2015 and bills worth Rs 253 crore were returned in February 2016 and Rs 160 crore in September 2015. The returning of bills in such a way and at such a large scale is not just a financial matter, but it also raises a question over the authority of the state legislature. According to economic experts, the returning of the bill is not just a matter of the previous year but has a cascading effect on the coming year also. Experts said that the amount of Rs 3,398 crore is the governments liability for which they would have to keep provision in the next budget.

Experts see a serious fiscal problem. Fiscally, it is irresponsible behaviour. It indicates that you are living beyond your means, said Dr Yoginder K Alagh, noted economist and former Union minister.

States like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu are fiscally more conservative. Their management is better, he said, adding that when bills start returning from the treasury, it commonly leads to corruption as operators get active to get the bills passed early. A financial expert, who wished not to be quoted, said that it indicates a financial emergency.

Every Drawing and Disbursing Officer is allocated a budget which is approved by the Vidhan Sabha. On the basis of that budget allocation, he gets the work executed. If the treasury returns bills in such a way, it raises a question over the sanctity of the budget approved in the Vidhan Sabha, he said.

APS Virk, Director, Treasury and Accounts, Punjab, refused to comment, saying that he doesnt have any such data.

DP Reddy, Principal Secretary, Finance, also declined to comment.
The courtroom scenes are always a significant part of any drama. Judge banging his gavel, last-minute witnesses, blindfolded statue of justice and the main guys  lawyers! Lets take a look at lawyers who amused us.

Truth vs lies

Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani in Jolly LLB  Jolly LLB was a full-on courtroom drama with two power-packed lawyers Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani. Arshad played a small time prosecuting lawyer who finally becomes popular as he uncovers and portrays the truth in a major case of manipulation. Boman Irani was outstanding as a manipulator who tries to get desired results through corruption but is unable to stop the truth from coming out.

The ball is in the court

Akshay Kumar in Rustom  The recently released Rustom is one of the best courtroom dramas of all time. Akshay Kumar who played Rustom, a decorated Navy officer, fights the court case to show he is more of a patriot than a killer. And proves that he is not guilty.

A mothers battle

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Jazbaa In Jazbaa, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan played a lawyer and a mother, threatened to fight the case of a criminal, who is guilty of rape and murder. The actress has said that she could relate with the character as it was her comeback movie post motherhood.

A good role played well

Paresh Rawal in Oh My GodIn the movie Oh My God, Paresh Rawal provides a mature performance through his thought-provoking comments and logical facts as he handles a very sensitive issue inside the court defending his own case.

The iconic lawyer of Bollywood

Sunny Deol in Damini Well, he is the lawyer who spoke the million dollar dialogue. Meenakshi Sheshadri starrer Damini revolved around the case of a maids rape that no lawyer wanted to touch. Then came in a drunk lawyer Govind, who was hard on his luck. Played by none other than Sunny Deol. He even won a National Award for this film.

Soft, yet strong

Rani Mukherjee in Veer Zaara  One of the most soft-looking yet strong headed lawyers, Rani Mukherjee in Veer Zaara was simply fantastic. She played the role of a sensitive Pakistani lawyer who successfully fights for the justice of Veer Pratap Singh, played by Shah Rukh Khan.

Personal fight

Anil Kapoor in Meri Jung Another popular and typical Bollywood film. Anil Kapoor grows up as a lawyer in the film Meri Jung whose father was wrongly sentenced to death. He prosecutes criminal lawyer GD Thakral, played by Amrish Puri. The one thing which keeps ticking throughout the film was the popular piano music.

A wifes revenge

Kareena Kapoor Khan in Aitraaz Kareena Kapoor Khan played the role of a loving wife who is a degree holder in law in the film Aitraaz. She defends her husband who was stuck in a case of sexual harassment by boss Priyanka Chopra. Kareena portrays her brilliance in cross-examination scenes and proves her husbands innocence.
PM's 25-pt joint communique with India shames nation: Oli

CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli has accused Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal of shaming the country by signing a 25-point joint communique during his state visit to India. He claimed the agreements were against national interest.
SMA KAZMI

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, September 18

Despite indications that a third front can do well in the forthcoming Assembly elections scheduled to be held in 2017, there are no efforts to form a group to take on the well-entrenched BJP and Congress.

Rather than attempting to unite various smaller parties and groups in a viable third alternative, more than six groups and formations have announced to fight the coming Assembly poll on their own.

The people of the state are disillusioned with both mainstream political parties, which had ruled the state in the past 16 years, following the political developments since March 2016 in the state.

The political developments which started with switching of loyalty of nine Congress legislators to the BJP during the Budget session in March this year and subsequent imposition of President rule followed by the quashing of the same by the High Court and the Supreme Court has left the people of the state wondering about the conduct of the politicians belonging to the Congress as well as the BJP. The sting operations involving senior officials and Chief Minister Harish Rawat himself and allegations of large scale corruption further added to the disillusionment of the people.

A survey conducted by a web portal indicates that a third alternative can do well in the Assembly polls for the first time in Uttarakhand. However, except the three Left parties, namely CPI, CPM and CPI (ML), which has formed a coalition to fight the polls, there is no serious attempt by any other group to join hands. The Left parties have already announced to join hands with like-minded groups.

Interestingly, there is no scope of any unification of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) which is divided into several groups. Two of the major factions led by Pushpesh Tripathi and Trivendra Singh Panwar have announced to fight the polls independently and even announced candidates on some of the seats.

The UKD, which played a stellar role in the fight for the formation of the separate state of Uttarakhand, has been pushed to the background with rapid decline of its stature amongst common voters since the formation of the state. Lack of clarity, over ambitious leaders and failure to take on the BJP and the Congress have resulted in its decimation.

Another political outfit, Uttarakhand Parivartan Party led by PC Tewari, which started a fight against the state Congress government on the issue of allotment of village panchayat land to the Jindal group at Nainisar in Almora, has also announced to go it alone.

The Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha, which had fought the 2012 Assembly election, also plans to enter the poll fray once again with Dr VK Bahuguna, a former DG of ICFRE.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is in tatters with its former state president Anoop Nautiyal quitting the party and forming his own outfit named Hamara Uttarakhand Jan Manch (HUM). The AAP is undecided on fighting Assembly poll.

The Swaraj Abhiyan, another splinter group of AAP, has also announced to turn into a political party and fight the state Assembly poll with Kamla Pant as its state chief and some other eminent public figures in it. There are other smaller groups which have also shown interest in fighting Assembly poll. But there is no practical talks or any initiative to unite all these groups to fight as a third alternative. The situation is conducive for both the Congress and the BJP.
Sandeep Rawat

Tribune News Service

Haridwar, September 18

Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Chand Dahal Prachanda said here today that he had fruitful talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that would be instrumental in restoring normalcy to the relations between the two neighbouring countries.

Prachanda said this while addressing a gathering during a felicitation function organised by Yog guru Swami Ramdev in his honour at Patanjali Yogpeeth here.

Prachanda said he expected to take back lots of gains and possibilities from his four-day visit to India that would go a long way to bridge the gap in relationship between the two countries that cropped up in the recent times. He was overwhelmed by an open and detailed discussion with Modi.

We went through a political turmoil recently but now Nepal is moving towards political stability. Nepal has a lot to learn from Indias economic progress and as always India is willing to assist, aid, collaborate, cooperate and strengthen us, said Prachanda.

The Nepalese Prime Minister said, No one can disturb the bonding of people of the two countries. Governments come and go but the harmony and love that exists between the people of India and Nepal is strong like the Himalayas. Historically, culturally, traditionally, ecologically and ideologically, India and Nepal have much in common, he added.

Earlier, Prachanda visited Patanjali Yogpeeth, Patanjali Herbal and Food Park and Acharyakulam school, with Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishan. He urged Ramdev to set up a food park in Nepal too so that they could also gain economic progress through ayurveda, herbs and yoga. Ramdev assured Prachanda that not only Patanjali food park but also an ayurvedic university and an Acharyakulam school would be opened in Nepal.

Swami ji (Ramdev) is doing a noble cause by combining yoga, ayurveda and natural herbs with production. Normally, saints refrain from social presence but Swami ji has linked yoga and ayurveda with industrial progress, which is a unique thing that has benefited billions of people. I have grown up with a communist ideology but I find that no discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, religion and country is done at Patanjali Yogpeeth. Products of pure and high quality are being produced by workers belonging to different sects and regions for global consumers. This is a communist way of economic progress, said Prachanda.

Nepalese Foreign Minister Dr Prakash, Transport Minister Ramesh Lekhak, and parliamentarians Padma Narayan, Lalbabu and Yogendra Chaudhary, besides PMs wife Sita Dahal and Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Ray also accompanied the visiting delegation.
NEW YORK, September 18

An explosion rocked the bustling Chelsea district of Manhattan on Saturday night, injuring at least 29 people in what authorities described as a deliberate, criminal act, while saying investigators had turned up no evidence of a "terror connection".

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials said investigators had ruled out a gas leak as the cause of the blast, but they stopped short of calling it a bombing and declined to specify precisely what they believed may have triggered the explosion.

Neha Jain, 24, who lives in the neighborhood, said she was sitting at home watching a movie when she heard a huge boom and everything shook.

"Pictures on my wall fell, the window curtain came flying as if there was a big gush of wind," she told Reuters. "Then we could smell smoke. We went downstairs to see what happened, and firemen immediately told us to go back."

Police said a sweep of the neighborhood following the blast had turned up a possible "secondary device" four blocks away consisting of a pressure cooker with wires attached to it and connected to a cell phone.

CNN, citing law enforcement sources, reported that a piece of paper with writing on it was found nearby.

Residents living nearby were advised to stay away from windows facing the street as a precaution, and the item was later safely moved to a police firing range for further examination, officer Christopher Pisano said.

Pressure cookers packed with explosives and detonated with timing devices were used by two Massachusetts brothers in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260.

The latest blast came less than a week after law enforcement agencies around the country were on heightened alert for the 15th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, airline-hijacking attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Remaining circumspect about the exact nature of the explosion in Chelsea, De Blasio said early indications were that it was "an intentional act". He added that the site of the blast, outside on a major thoroughfare in the fashionable lower West Side Manhattan neighborhood, was being treated as a crime scene.

"There is no evidence at this point of a terror connection," the mayor said at a news conference about three hours after the blast. "There is no specific and credible threat against New York City at this point in time from any terror organization." The mayor also said investigators did not believe there was any link to a pipe bomb that exploded earlier on Saturday in the New Jersey beach town of Seaside Park. No injuries were reported in that blast, from a device planted in a plastic trashcan along the route of a charity foot race.

But a US official said that a Joint Terrorism Task Force, an interagency group of federal, state and local officials, was called to investigate the Chelsea blast, suggesting authorities have not ruled out the possibility of a terror connection.

A joint task force also took the lead in investigating the New Jersey incident.

One person seriously injured

A law enforcement official said an initial investigation suggested the Chelsea explosion occurred in a dumpster. CNN cited law enforcement sources as saying they believed an improvised explosive device caused the blast.

President Barack Obama, attending a congressional dinner in Washington, "has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation," a White House official said.

New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said 29 people were hurt in the blast, and 24 of them had been taken to hospitals, including one he described as seriously injured. The rest suffered various cuts, scrapes and other minor injuries, Nigro said.

The explosion, described by one neighbor as "deafening," happened outside the Associated Blind Housing facility at 135 W.

23rd Street. The facility provides housing, training and other services for the blind.

Hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block as police rushed to cordon off the area.

Tsi Tsi Mallett, who was driving along 23rd Street when the explosion took place, told Reuters the blast blew out her vehicle's rear window. Her 10-year-old son in the back seat was unhurt, she said.

"It was really loud, it hurt my eardrums," she said.

Even before the explosion, New York was tightening security for the start of this week's UN General Assembly session, which is expected to bring 135 world leaders and dozens of foreign government ministers to the city.

The explosion quickly became an issue in the presidential race, with Republican candidate Donald Trump remarking about the explosion when he appeared at a Colorado rally.

"Just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York, and nobody knows exactly what's going on," Trump said a hours before New York officials spoke publicly about the blast.

"We better get very tough, folks."

Democratic rival Hillary Clinton made a statement on her campaign plane on the ground in New York, saying she had been briefed on "the bombings in New York and New Jersey." But she said she would wait until she had more information before commenting further.  Reuters
Washington, September 18

Barack Obama on Sunday took a dig at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying he is relieved that the birther issue is over after the real estate tycoon admitted that the outgoing American President was born in the US.

Theres an extra spring in my step tonight, Obama said in his address to the Congressional Black Caucus dinner here as the invited guests at the dinner burst into laughter.

I dont know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole birther thing is over, he said.

Trump had on Friday said Obama was born in the US, putting an end to the controversy surrounding his birth place.

Obama had earlier said he is shocked that a question of his birth place would come up at a time when other pressing issues are facing the nation.

I mean, ISIL, North Korea, poverty, climate changenone of those things weighed on my mindlike the validity of my birth certificate, he said today amidst another round of laughter.

To think that with just 124 days to go, under the wire, we got that resolved. I mean, thats a boost for me in the home stretch. In other breaking news, the world is round, not flat, he said as the audience again burst into laughter.

Obamas second and last four-year term comes to an end January 20, 2017, when he would be replaced by either Trump or his former secretary of state Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

During these eight years, Obama said he and the First Lady Michelle Obama, have tried to be role models.

When we began this journey coming on 10 years now, we said this was not about us. It wasnt about me. It wasnt about Michelle. It wasnt just to be a black President, or the President of black America. We understood the power of the symbol. We know what it means for a generation of children, of all races, to see folks like us in the White House, he said.

As Michelle says, weve tried to be role models, not just for our own girls, but for all children, because we know they watch everything we do as adults. They look to us as an example. So weve taken that responsibility seriously. And Ive been so blessed to have a wife and a partner on this journey who makes it look so easy, he said.

Referring to the comments made by Trump on African- Americans Obama said he will educate him.

You may have heard Hillarys opponent in this election say that theres never been a worse time to be a black person.

I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery and Jim Crow but weve got a museum for him to visit. So he can tune in. We will educate him, Obama said amidst applause.

He (Trump) says we got nothing left to lose, so we might as well support somebody who has fought against civil rights, and fought against equality, and who has shown no regard for working people for most of his life. Well, we do have challenges, but were not stupid, Obama said.  PTI
Washington, September 18

President Barack Obama urged the African-American community to help stop Donald Trump, saying he would consider it a personal insult to his legacy if black voters did not back Hillary Clinton.

If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesnt matter who we elect  read up on your history. It matters. Weve got to get people to vote, Obama said on Saturday night while addressing the Congressional Black Caucus gala for the last time as President.

I will consider it a personal insult  an insult to my legacy  if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote. The President warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in the November 8 elections, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line, CNN reported.

According to analysts, Obamas Saturday night speech marked some of his harshest words yet about Republican presidential candidate Trump, as well as his most forceful call on the African-American community to support Democrat nominee Clinton.

Obama referred to the businessman as somebody who has fought against civil rights and fought against equality and who has shown no regard for working people most of his life. During his address, he also made fun of the so-called birther (if Obama was born in the US) controversy, saying Theres an extra spring in my step tonight. I dont know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole birther thing is over.

The Islamic State (IS), North Korea, poverty, climate change  none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate. And to think: that with just a 124 days to go, under the wire, we got that resolved., Obama added.

Speaking before the President, Clinton lauded Obama and also took on the birther controversy, CNN noted. The President, not only do we know you are an American, you are a great American, said Clinton, who served as Obamas secretary of state (2009-2013). IANS
Moscow, September 18

Russians voted today in parliamentary polls, with parties loyal to President Vladimir Putin expected to maintain their dominance despite the longest economic crisis of his rule.

The nationwide election follows a tumultuous few years that have seen the country seize the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine, plunge into its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War and start a military operation in Syria.

But the Kremlin exerts near-total control and, after a campaign dubbed the most boring in recent memory, a trouble-free victory for ruling United Russia would help smooth the way for Putin to claim a fourth term as President in 2018.

I knew who to vote for. Surely you must be aware, Putin quipped to journalists after casting his vote in Moscow, agencies reported.

Looming large is the spectre of mass protests over vote rigging that followed the last legislative polls five years ago and grew into the biggest challenge to Putin since he took charge in 2000.

This time, the authorities have made a show of cleaning up the vote by replacing the former scandal-tainted election chief and allowing more genuine opposition candidates to take part.

But critics insist the Kremlin's media dominance means the vote can never be fair and  with the 450-member State Duma viewed as a rubber-stamp body that slavishly toes the Kremlins line  apathy is widespread.

The poll is predictable," Dmitry Pribytkov, 47, said after voting in the second city of Saint Petersburg.  AFP
London, Sept ember 18

Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, has become the first member of the British royal family to come out as gay.

Mountbatten, who has three children with ex-wife Penelope (Penny) Thompson, told the Mail newspaper on Sunday he had struggled with his sexuality but was happy to now be in a partnership with James Coyle, an airline cabin services director.

Penny was aware before we got married. I told her I was bisexual, that my attraction went both ways. She was understanding and I will always be grateful to her, said Mountbatten, who is the great-great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria.

Coming out is such a funny phrase but its what I suppose I did in a rather roundabout way, emerging to a place Im happy to be. I have struggled with my sexuality and in some ways I still do; it has been a real journey to reach this point.  Reuters
BEIRUT/MOSCOW, September 17

US-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency UN Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.

The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

The United States relayed its "regret" through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement that Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area.

The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardising the Syria deal.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move.

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power told reporters.

She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life".

When asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark".

"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin told reporters.

Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the jihadist militants.

"We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: that the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.

Power said Zakharova should be embarrassed by that claim.

Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the United States colluding with Islamic State militants.

Zakharova said the strikes threatened to undermine the ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, which has been aiding Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, and the United States, which has backed some rebel groups.

The Russian Defence Ministry said US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 80 Syrian soldiers had been killed.

The ceasefire, which took effect on Monday, is the most significant peacemaking effort in Syria for months, but has been undermined by repeated accusations of violations on both sides and by a failure to bring humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

Apart from the US and Russian involvement, Assad is supported by Iran and Arab Shi'ite militias, while Sunni rebels seeking to unseat him are backed by Turkey and Gulf Arab states.

All the warring parties are also sworn enemies of Islamic State, whose territory extends along the Euphrates valley from the Iraqi border, including around Deir al-Zor, up to land near Syria's frontier with Turkey.

In its sixth year, the conflict has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced half of Syria's pre-war population, prompted a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe and inspired a wave of jihadist attacks across the world.

Syria's army said the US-led strikes, which took place at around 5 pm local time (1400 GMT) were "conclusive evidence" of US support for Islamic State, calling them "dangerous and blatant aggression".

The US military said in its statement that Syria was a "complex situation" but that "coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit".

Islamic State said via its Amaq news channel it had taken complete control of Jebel Tharda, where the bombed position was located, which would have allowed it to overlook government-held areas of Deir al-Zor.

The city's airport and some districts have been entirely surrounded by Islamic State since last year, with the airport providing their only external access.

However, Russia and Syrian state media said the Syrian army later recaptured positions it had lost. The Observatory monitoring group said at least 20 Islamic State fighters were killed in heavy Russian air strikes during that fighting.

The incident also threatens to undermine proposed joint targeting by the United States and Russia of Islamic State and some other jihadist groups across Syria.  Reuters
President Bhadari attends Constitution Day celebration

President Bidya Devi Bhandari reached the Constituent Assembly (CA) Building at New Baneshwar on Sunday and attended a special celebration marking the first anniversary of the promulgation of the Nepal Constitution.
A city of Tulsa memo details ethical violations with paying-for-rank practices within the police department, saying the arrangements do not support a preservation of public trust in the government.

The memo apparently led to Mayor Dewey Bartletts executive order in June that halted the practices.

The issue is currently before the Civil Service Commission. At its meeting next month, the panel could change the citys promotion policies and ultimately end the ability for police officers to engage in the deals.

A city Human Resources Department investigation into the Ethics Code and police promotions led to a memo in May that found clear violations of several ethics rules.

The practice of paying superior officers to retire in order for subordinates to promote before the promotion list expires must be stopped, according to the memo written by Ken Factor, manager of compensation and policy administration. No matter whether any investigation goes forward, this practice exists to the detriment of the police department and the city of Tulsa.

The practice is tied to the police departments priority list of officers who most qualify for promotion, which is updated annually.

How it works: An officer at the top of the list pays a soon-to-retire superior the balance they would lose in stepping down early  basically guaranteeing a promotion to the junior officer before the list resets at the end of the year.

The Human Resources Department memo details several sections of the citys Ethics Code covering gifts, benefits and gains ruled out for public officials to give or obtain.

It also outlines sections from the City Charter, Tulsa Police Department Rules and Regulations and City Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual.

The findings of the investigation conclude that paying for rank directly violates various stipulations in each of the documents.

It is critical for efficient municipal government that there is a preservation of public trust, according to the memo. The violations described in this report do not support a preservation of public trust and do not support the perception of integrity with all aspects of the promotional system of the Tulsa Police Department.

Bartlett, in a statement regarding the investigation, said he requested the human resources investigation into the practice.

The mayor said he does not plan an investigation into current officers who benefited from the practice before his order.

Retroactive investigations into alleged practices that occurred before a policy against such allegations existed is not planned, Bartlett said in his statement. Everything I have done is meant to end the practice from the time of the Executive Order going forward, and I will defend my order and the new promotions policy so that it is assured to never happen again.

The Civil Service Commission has asked city attorneys to evaluate whether a policy change would violate the police unions contract, said Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Stephens.

Stephens said he believes the issue should be addressed through the current negotiations over the police officers annual contract  not the Civil Service Commission.

Im all for making changes, Stephens said. Right now were in contract negotiations, and Im open for whatever they feel like needs to be changed at the negotiation table. Weve said it before, and well say it again: Bring it to the negotiation table. Thats the venue.

Stephens said his and the unions support of the practice still stands, despite the memos stance that the practice violates multiple ethics stipulations.

Im not trying to back away from that, but Im saying, right now were in negotiations, Stephens said. The crux of what Im saying is that these changes, whether we support them or not, the appropriate venue is in negotiations.
A quagmire of incompetency, investigations and court action has resulted in 2016 becoming the first year since 1994 that Oklahoma has not carried out an execution.

Four months after a grand jury released a highly critical report on the execution of Charles Warner and Richard Glossips near-execution, the public still knows little about whats next for capital punishment in the state.

In a 106-page report released in May on its investigation of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, the multicounty grand jury used terms such as careless and cavalier to describe the actions of some state officials. The jury said the execution protocol should be revised again and needs to require verification at every step of the process.

Attorney General Scott Pruitt said previously he will not request execution dates until at least five months after the DOCs updated lethal injection protocol is finalized, which means Oklahomas earliest possible execution date will be in 2017.

The DOC has declined to provide information about what it will change about its execution protocol and has not discussed the matter at any subsequent meetings of its governing board. The Attorney Generals Office says nothing in its monthly status reports required by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals  which put an indefinite stay on executions in effect  except to inform the justices there are no updates.

The Governors Office refused as recently as Friday to comment about the work still needed to resume executions in Oklahoma.

When asked for comment last week, Pruitts office released a statement indicating he wanted to assure families of victims that the review process will continue to be both deliberate and empirical.

I am confident that the Department of Corrections, under the leadership of Director (Joe) Allbaugh, is taking the appropriate time needed to ensure the execution protocols are fully in place and without error in the most efficient way possible, Pruitt said.

The state will have 150 days after the DOC finalizes its protocol to set execution dates for Glossip and other death-row inmates, and the new protocol will likely be litigated at the federal level.

Glossip, whose scheduled execution last September was stayed, and five others are listed in ongoing litigation with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, as they have exhausted their appeals and are eligible to be scheduled for execution.

Lack of transparency

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., said during an interview Friday that it is disheartening that there appears to be continuing secrecy in Oklahomas reform process. The organization does not take an official stance on capital punishment.

The level of administrative incompetence and reckless disregard for the law that was exhibited during the three execution botches (of Clayton Lockett, Warner and Glossip) is unparalleled in the United States, Dunham said. The grand jury report indicated massive systemic failures and said essentially that there wasnt a single person involved in the process that did their jobs properly.

The report found that officials should have noticed Warner had been executed using potassium acetate, rather than the protocols requirement of potassium chloride, but did not pay enough attention to execution policies. Records previously provided to the World show the DOC and the Attorney Generals Office received a copy of Warners autopsy as early as March 2015 but did not raise concerns about how he had died until late August 2015 despite it proving there was a drug mix-up.

The fallout from Glossips Sept. 30, 2015, stay of execution  which Gov. Mary Fallin ordered because her office learned the DOC again received an incorrect drug  eventually resulted in the retirement of Oklahoma State Penitentiary Warden Anita Trammell, as well as the resignation of Fallin's then-general counsel Steve Mullins and then-DOC Director Robert Patton.

The grand jury report raised hopes that the executive branch would step back and carefully consider what had gone wrong and learn lessons from that, Dunham said. We dont know what the protocol is ultimately going to be, but lack of transparency thus far does not instill confidence that the state has learned anything from the experience.

Attorney fees add up

State agencies have paid more than $45,000 in legal fees to two attorneys who provided legal services related to a multicounty grand jurys investigation into Oklahomas use of the death penalty.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections provided information to the Tulsa World on Friday indicating it paid former Attorney General Drew Edmondson $26,379 to advise DOC employees connected with the inquiry into the agencys handling of the January 2015 execution of Charles Warner and the scheduled September 2015 execution of Glossip.

Edmondsons contract, which a DOC spokesman said Thursday was allowed to expire June 30, indicates that Edmondson would receive $300 per hour beginning Oct. 9, 2015, and that an assistant would receive $150 per hour. Their travel rates were $150 and $75, respectively. The DOC did not say when Edmondson stopped providing outside legal services.

Fallin paid attorney Robert McCampbell $18,794.50 for legal services and advice about the grand jury in October and November 2015, according to a copy of the final invoice billed to her office by his firm.

Fallin apparently hired McCampbell for those months at a rate of $250 per hour because her then-general counsel, Mullins, was a subject of the jury investigation, and the Attorney Generals Office  which she would normally turn to for legal needs  oversees the multicounty grand jury unit.

The Oklahoma Attorney Generals Office told the World it would be nearly impossible to easily calculate how many hours were spent on the DOC investigation because the grand jury looked into other unrelated matters simultaneously.

State Question 776

State Question 776, which will be on the Nov. 8 ballot, would add language regarding the death penalty to the Oklahoma Constitution.

It would give the Legislature the power to designate an execution method of its choosing, prohibit a death sentence from being reduced because a method is declared invalid and bar the courts from ruling the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment.

Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, and Rep. Mike Christian, R-Oklahoma City, wrote the measure last year, citing overwhelming support in Oklahoma for the death penalty. Christian told the World last August that he predicted it would pass with more than 70 percent of the vote, while Sykes noted it had large bipartisan support in the Legislature.

But the question has drawn opposition over its constitutionality from people as varied as Rep. Regina Goodwin, D-Tulsa, former Tulsa Police Chief Drew Diamond and Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

All three were represented at a Wednesday gathering outside the Tulsa County Courthouse urging voters to say no to the measure.

This measure will not limit the death penaltys brokenness one bit, Marc Hyden, a representative with the conservative group, told reporters. Instead, it may exacerbate the underlying problems.

Goodwin, in her remarks, asked why the state would ask people to vote for something that she believes will fail legal challenges. She said supporters have characterized the question to voters as being about whether they support the death penalty, and pointed out it will not change existing statute on the matter.

What this state question will do, though, is allow for it to be very difficult for the judicial branch to do its job, she said.

Dunham said the ballot question appears to want to make the death penalty above legal reproach and told the World it seems premature to discuss it before a bipartisan Blue Ribbon Commission headed by former Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry completes its ongoing review of Oklahomas use of capital punishment.

That report is set to be released next year.

The ballot question appears to be a reflexive response by death penalty proponents to protect a practice that is increasingly seen as illegitimate and which they increasingly see as under siege, he said.

With respect particularly to death penalty practices, theres nothing that the ballot question does that the Legislature could not accomplish on its own simply by passing statutes. The only use is to impair judicial review and significantly magnify the risk that unfair, unreliable and unconstitutional death penalties would go uncorrected.
Try to push Jennifer Hawkins to a firm opinion on curly questions and she is one diplomatic step ahead of you.

Question: Americas Top Model has had male contestants since 2013. Should Australias Top Model include them?

Im not sure to be honest, she replies. Id be happy either way. It depends on a lot of things. Its a question for Foxtel.

Question: Donald Trump was instrumental to your early career. Do you support his run for the Presidency?

I havent really said either way, because its a sensitive subject, she cautions. Whatever you say people will blow it up. I obviously knew him 10 years ago when I was so green coming into the industry. He was a businessman but now its a completely different area that Im not familiar with.

In the years since she has shot to prominence, Hawkins has surely learned a lot, including pesky journo questions and paparazzi. When you are a former Miss Universe media every step -indeed every catwalk slip- has the potential to be a headline. Top Model colleague Megan Gale knows all about it too. Media have run plenty of copy on a perceived rivalry between two successful women.

They did in the past and we saw it for what it was. But we just laugh at it now. We just did a Marie Claire cover together and we got asked about the apparent rivalry, Hawkins continues.

But theres definitely no rivalry.

The brand is so respected and iconic

ANTM marks the first time both have worked together. Together with stalwart Alex Perry, mentors Jordan and Zac Stenmark and Cheyenne Tozzi they are again on the hunt for an unknown to be catapulted to catwalks and magazine covers. Say what you will about Reality talent shows, this is one that has an impressive list of working graduates.

So why does the fashion industry take the brand so seriously when other TV talent shows have mixed fortunes?

Tyra Banks was the founder but with Australian Top Model all the past contestants have gone on to have very successful careers. So I guess people see that and respect it, and they know if theyre watching the show its not just a bit of fluff. These girls actually go out and make a career for themselves, due to the fact theyve been on the show, Hawkins suggests.

All of them at least get more work than they did before the show and / or have massive careers. It depends on how much drive they have.

The brand is so respected and iconic, so it puts them at another level even before they go out into the real world. They get through thousands of auditions to get to the Top 13.

Its a competition so things do get a bit heated sometimes

In its 10th year ANTM kicks off with 13 girls aged 16-25, one of whom will win a one-year modelling contract, a trip to New York Fashion Week, a new car and an editorial magazine spread. But first they will have to survive the scrutiny of Reality TV cameras, photo shoots and challenges designed to test them.

And they have to survive the other 12 girls. On that point at least, Hawkins has a firm view.

Its a competition so things do get a bit heated sometimes with the girls, she warns.

But they know what theyre signing up for.

Theres a lot of break-downs and anxiety because theres so much pressure, put upon themselves.

The girls are the crux of the show. Fans like to get invested in the girls and their stories, so once they fall in love with our Top 13 thats what its all about. But over and above that our guests are so amazing this year. We have Elle Macpherson, Miranda Kerr and Gemma Ward. They all get to have one or one time with the girls rather than just judging them on the panel.

The guest judges didnt really get to do that last season, so now the girls can ask them for advice, so its great.

Australias Next Top Model airs 7:30pm Tuesdays on FOX8.
Provision draws flak

The provision on preferential treatment for Nepali contractors has been incorporated in the draft of the Public Procurement Regulation, which was forwarded to Cabinet for approval last week
The FedEx Performance Zone tracks the form of all the players in the UEFA Europa League group stage; check out the stars of matchday one.



1st: Giuliano (Zenit)

Zenit's amazing comeback from 3-0 down to win 4-3 was in no small part thanks to their Brazil winger, who scored the equaliser and set up the Russian side's other three goals in a truly inspired display. The 26-year-old has also netted four times in as many Russian Premier League appearances since his summer move from Gremio.

"That was incredible," said Giuliano. "It is difficult to explain what went on in those first 77 minutes. Our opponents were better than us during this period. The key was our second goal  after that we believed in ourselves again and started to play much better. I have five goals and four assists already, which represents a great start to my Zenit career."

AFP/Getty Images

2nd: Leon Bailey (Genk)

The Jamaican, 19, moved up nine places with his two goals, which proved to be in vain for his team in their 3-2 loss at Rapid Wien. He now has five goals in his last five UEFA Europa League games in addition to one scored in the Eerste Klasse this term.

3rd: Alexander Grunwald (Austria Wien)

The captain and playmaker leapt 31 places courtesy of a superb strike and assist  along with a 78% pass completion rate  in the Violets' 3-2 triumph at Astra Giurgiu.

On the rise

11th: Haris Medunjanin (Maccabi Tel-Aviv)

A fantastic performance by the midfielder was highlighted by two goals in Maccabi's dramatic reversal against Zenit. He jumps a massive 156 places and his all-round play was strong with a solid 82% pass completion rate and three crosses which found a team-mate.

13th: Alexandre Pato (Villarreal)

The former Milan forward chipped in with a goal and an assist to help the Yellow Submarine to a 2-1 victory over Zurich. His link-up play was just as impressive as he connected with a team-mate with 27 of his 32 passes  a high completion rate (84%) given most were in the attacking third.

Honourable mention

23rd: Jan Sykora (Liberec)

He may not be a fast climber, but the midfielder registered the fastest goal in UEFA Europa League history  his strike at Qarabag coming after just 10.69 seconds. It elevated him 84 places.
Senior citizens facing hard time

The government has started distributing housing reconstruction aid to those who lost their houses in earthquakes last year.
Indian Bank targets to disperse loans amounting Rs 2500 cr

(rpt, correcting figure in para 2, line 2)

Hyderabad, Sep 18 (UNI) Indian Bank Executive Director A S Rajeev today said the Bank has targeted to disperse loans to the tune of Rs 2500 crore during the two-day mega loan mela conducted across the country.

Talking to media persons after launching the second day of mega loan mela at Visweshwarayy Bhavan, here Mr Rajeev said the Bank has dispersed Rs 1200 crore yesterday and hoped to reach the mark of Rs 2500 crore today. The Bank has dispersed Rs 125 crore in Hyderabad.

The number of retail and MSME vertical branches will be increased to 80, each segment to 40 by the end of March 2016. All the branches are digitised and end-to-end solutions are available, he said.

UNI VV PY 1435
Syria conflict: US air strikes 'kill dozens of government troops'

The US-led coalition has admitted its planes carried out an attack in eastern Syria that the Russian army says killed at least 62 Syrian troops fighting IS.
Maryanne Trump Barry, the 78-year old sister of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, donated $4 Million to Fairfield University in Connecticut last Wednesday. Donald Trump's sister, Maryanne, is a 3rd United States Circuit Court of Appeals federal judge in Pennsylvania.

According to ABC News, the Jesuit university in Connecticut released a statement indicating that she gave the gift as a sign of gratitude to Rev. Jeffrey P. von Arx and his accomplishments - specifically, the Center for Ignatian Spirituality that was founded in 2014 - as Fairfield's president for twelve years, who is now stepping down.

Maryanne Barry said, "I am sad for this loss to Fairfield and pray for the continuation of the Jesuit mission and the Jesuit identity, which Father von Arx has not only preserved, but has so successfully championed over these twelve years."

"My gifts to causes in which I believe have almost always been anonymous," she said. "I make a rare exception here because I have been so moved by the difference that Father von Arx and his presidency have made in so many ways in the lives of so many young people, and because I believe that, in founding the Center for Ignatian Spirituality in 2014, Father von Arx has assured that Ignatian spirituality will guide those at Fairfield, and even worldwide, who seek the gift it so uniquely can provide, while it continues to inform and influence the environment of learning at Fairfield."

Primarily, the donation will finance the Center for Ignatian Spirituality and coincide scholarships for students enrolling in Fairfield University.

"I am truly honored and humbled by Judge Barry's gift," Rev. von Arx said. "The scholarships make possible the dreams of many worthy young men and women, and the Center will help meet the needs of today's world, while renewing the formative prayer tradition at the heart of the mission of the Society of Jesus; indeed, the mission of the Center is to provide spiritual direction to the community, and to train spiritual directors - both lay and religious - in the tradition of Ignatian prayer," as stated by CT Post.

Barry is a long time supporter of the university, in where she received an honorary degree, and a Jesuit teaching advocate.
Trumps of Nepal

Every country has political leaders like Donald Trump and Nepal is no exception
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION MIRAMAR, CA -- The Corps' ability to win on the battlefield remains strong; however, its post-9/11 enemies in operational environments like in Iraq and Afghanistan have been, by and large, a technologically inferior force. And while the Corps may need to only refine its maneuver warfare skills, there is a new battle space that is sure to dominate the next major armed conflict: cyberspace.



As the U.S. has drawn down its military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, America's force in readiness is preparing for the next big fight. Technical, tactical, and technological superiority is never given  it is earned through tough, realistic training.

August 22, 2016 - Marines with I Marine Expeditionary Force and sailors with 553 Cyber Protection Team, monitor network activity during I MEF Large Scale Exercise 2016 at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, CA. The overall purpose of the exercise was to practice the deployment of a fighting force of more than 50,000 military personnel to a partner nation and incorporate both live-fire and simulated combat scenarios against a near-peer enemy force. 553-CPT is a team of cyber defense specialists with Fleet Cyber Command. The team advised I MEF while setting up the command element's network. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Garrett White) Marines and sailors with I Marine Expeditionary Force conducted I MEF Large Scale Exercise 2016 (August 10 - 22) across several locations in Southern California in part to hone its cyber defense capabilities.



The overall purpose of the exercise was to practice the deployment of a fighting force of more than 50,000 military personnel to a partner nation and incorporate both live-fire and simulated combat scenarios against a near-peer enemy force.



What we are working on in the joint force across the national-defense establishment is finding our way into this new domain of warfare that we call the cyber domain, said Maj. Gen. David Coffman, deputy commanding general, I MEF. The ones and zeroes in the computers can go around the world, up into space, et cetera, this is a problem we are attacking in this exercise.



Coffman added that one area the force focused on was the defense of its forward computer networks. Because the exercise included establishing a forward-operating base for the command element, security doesn't stop at the area's entry control point.



The scenario gives us the opportunity to exercise against a force with advanced cyber capabilities, said Capt. Curtis Miller, cyber network operations planner, I MEF. What that means to me is we have to stand up a defensive posture to enable the operators to fight through and accomplish the objective.



Miller explained that what makes an advanced cyber capability is less the kind of attacks that can be leveraged against us but how those attacks occur. Once they get into the network, their ability to maintain a persistent presence makes it difficult to detect and respond to their attacks.



As I MEF began to return to conducting force-level training exercises against near-peer adversaries, it has remained proactive in identifying and improving its cyber capabilities.



I MEF also reached out to other military services to achieve its training objectives.



Our mission is to assist the Marines in conducting defensive cyber operations and identifying any gaps in conducting defensive cyber operations, said Chief Petty Officer Marco Fernandez, cryptologic technician for networks, 553 Cyber Protection Team, a team of cyber defense specialists with Fleet Cyber Command, 10th Fleet. 553-CPT attached to I MEF to act as advisors while setting up the command element's networks.



Fernandez said attacks can be expected from various adversaries and a multitude of attack vectors an opponent can use including phishing scams and specialized malicious software. He said the ultimate goal of most adversaries is to footprint an organization and figure out its capabilities.



With the assistance of 553-CPT, the Marines of I MEF were able to codify new and improved techniques, tactics and procedures, keeping classified and unclassified computer systems secure.



To me, it comes down to planning, Miller said. We have to develop a (defensive cyber operations) plan that takes all things into consideration in how to prevent, how to protect and how to respond to a cyberattack. Being able to train our guys and have the tools and understand where we can leverage recourses to win that type of fight and gain that information advantage is what every commander should be able to have in his tool kit.



The training benefited the Marines of I MEF and helped strengthen the U.S. military as a whole.



I think it's a win-win for the Corps as a service, as well as (U.S. Cyber Command) because you have a multi-service team working jointly to reach a goal, Fernandez said. So I think we are in a great position to shape the future of defensive cyber operations. By U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Garrett White

Marine Corps News

Copyright 2016 The U.S. Marines | Comment on this article
Sierra, Hotel, India, Echo, Lima, Delta -- SHIELD: the most infamous words in WWE History. When this song played, the WWE universe knew someone was gonna have to face Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. However, in 2014, after a fued with Evolution, Triple H revealed his plan B for dealing with the Shield. Seth Rollins took a chair and destroyed The Shield.

The Night The Shield Died (Photo:VoicesofWrestling.com)

From a United Unit to Singles Superstardom

Since that night Ambrose, Reigns and Rollins have all gone onto become hugely successful singles wrestlers. All have been WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Also, all three of these guys are currently working as Babyfaces and it is now the right time for the deadliest group in WWE to rise up from its ashes.

The Enemy of My Enemy is my Friend?

These former best friends have not seen eye to eye since the ending of The Shield. However, with that being said, following the events of the WWE Universal Title Match a few weeks ago on RAW, it looks as though Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns may have a common enemy in the form of Triple H, who screwed both men out of an opportunity of becoming the WWE Universal Champion.

When will The Shield Reunion Happen?

According to multiple sources, the WWE has been considering a reunion for The Shield for a while now. However, the WWE has been discussing the idea of a Shield reunion spot taking place at an upcoming dual-brand PPV similar to the Survivor Series or Royal Rumble in the coming months.

Let us what you think about a possible reunion of the Shieldby tweeting us @Vavel_Wrestling. Do you even want to see it happen? And what would even happen if they do actually reunite?


Actor Ken Davitian attended Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth last week at MGM Grand Las Vegas. Following the show, the Borat star joined Tyson on stage for photos.
Up to 228 Vietnamese fishermen being held for illegal fishing in Indonesian waters were released yesterday and arrived safely in Vung Tau City in the southern coastal province of Ba Ria  Vung Tau. Photo tuoitre.vn

This was the largest number of Vietnamese fishermen ever to be released by Indonesia.

The fishermen were transported by fisheries surveillance vessel KN 490, then delivered to representatives of the localities hosting them, the Foreign Ministry said.

Previously, upon Indonesias promise to return the fishermen in September, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc assigned relevant ministries and localities to work together to bring the fishermen home as soon as possible, ensuring their safety.

The Foreign Ministry, related ministries, and Vietnamese representatives and offices abroad joined hands to protect the rights of the fishermen when they were caught and put on trial.

The agencies have been working to strengthen management and to monitor fishing activities of Vietnamese fishermen to ensure that they abide by international laws.

Last week Indonesian Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Susi Pudjiastuti, met with the Vietnamese Ambassador to Indonesia in Jakarta to discuss the pending repatriations.

The Indonesian Minister said the return of the fishermen was the result of cooperation between the two nations. She expressed hope that the two nations would continue collaborating to return the remaining Vietnamese fishermen detained in Indonesia to their home country.

Minister Susi also highlighted Viet Nams potential for aquaculture and seafood processing and urged localities in Natuna to foster cooperation with Vietnamese enterprises in these areas.

Ambassador Hoang Tuan Anh expressed his gratitude to the Government of Indonesia and to the Minister for their contributions to the agreement which allowed the 228 fishermen to return home.

"Vietnam has taken numerous measures to prevent its fishermen from violating Indonesias waters," he said. He indicated that efforts were hampered by fishermens poor awareness of the laws and by their disadvantaged economic circumstances.

Indonesia has said it is currently detaining around 312 more Vietnamese fishermen.
US President Obama wishes Nepal on Constitution Day

United States President Barack Obama has congratulated Nepali people on the occasion of the Constitution Day.
Belgium first allowed euthanasia in 2002. (AFP/Etienne Ansotte)

"The euthanasia has taken place," Jacqueline Herremans, a member of Belgium's federal euthanasia commission, told AFP. She added that the assisted death had taken place according to Belgian law.

Wim Distelmans, head of the euthanasia commission, gave no details of the minor involved beyond saying it was an exceptional case of a child with a terminal illness, the Het Nieuwsblad newspaper reported.

VRT public television said the incident involved an adolescent who was about to turn 18.

"Fortunately there are very few children who are considered (for euthanasia) but that does not mean we should refuse them the right to a dignified death," Wim Distelmans told the newspaper.

Since 2014, when its euthanasia legislation was amended, Belgium has been the only country in the world that allows terminally-ill children of any age to choose to end their suffering - as long as they are conscious and capable of making rational decisions.

The Netherlands also allows mercy killings for children, but only for those aged over 12.



Belgium first allowed euthanasia in 2002. (AFP Photo)

VERY CONTROLLED

The Belgian amendment, which was passed after heated debate - notably over the meaning of a required "capacity of discernment" - offers the possibility of euthanasia to children "in a hopeless medical situation of constant and unbearable suffering that cannot be eased and which will cause death in the short term".

Any request for euthanasia must be made by the minor, be studied by a team of doctors and an independent psychiatrist or psychologist and have parental consent.

When amending the law, Belgian legislators had decided not to include psychological suffering in the list of factors determining whether euthanasia may be allowed for minors, though it is admissable for adults.

The 2014 vote was passed by 86 lawmakers in favour and a 44 against, in the traditionally Catholic nation.

A poll which was taken a few months before the final parliamentary vote indicated that three-quarters of Belgians were in favour of extending euthanasia to minors.

Since the law was changed, there have been other euthanasia requests from minors but none had previously been granted, said Herremans.

The whole process is "very controlled" and "often very long" and particularly difficult when it concerns a minor, she added.

Altogether over 2,000 mercy killings were declared in Belgium last year, a record number since the practice was made legal in 2002.

Last weekend Belgian Paralympian Marieke Vervoort said in Rio that she is considering euthanasia to escape a life of unbearable physical pain - only not quite yet.

Vervoort, who won silver in the 400m wheelchair race at the Paralympic Games, played down earlier reports that she planned to be euthanised after her return from Brazil.

"I have my (euthanasia) papers in my hand, but I'm still enjoying every little moment. When the moment comes when I have more bad days than good days, then I have my euthanasia papers, but the time is not there yet," she told a news conference in Rio, Brazil, where the Paralympic Games are taking place.

After the Netherlands and Belgium, Luxembourg approved euthanasia but for adults only in 2009. In Switzerland, doctors can assist a patient seeking to die but euthanasia itself is illegal.
The HCM City Peoples Committee has asked for permission from the government to appoint investors for the Thu Thiem Bridge 4 project under the BT (build-transfer) model.- Photo motthegioi.vn

The city proposed three investors, Phat at Corporation Real Estate Development, Investment Corporation 620, and 168 Construction Development Investment JSC.

The 2.16-km, six-lane bridge connecting District 2 and 7 is expected to have a vertical clearance of 45 metres, similar to that of Phu My Bridge. The clearance would ensure traffic flow of waterway vehicles.

The cost of building a tall bridge is expensive, according to the Ministry of Transport.

If Thu Thiem Bridge 4 were to have a lower vertical clearance, construction costs could be reduced. But traffic flows from Tan Thuan ong Port to pier K12, K12A, and K12B of Sai Gon Port would be negatively affected, it said.

According to the zoning plan for ports in the Southeastern region between 2020 and 2030, 11 ports and piers designed for 20,000-30,000-tonne boats on the Sai Gon River will be relocated. Piers K12, K12A and K12B are not included.

The committee has suggested that the government include piers K12, K12A and K12B in the plan and move them to Hiep Phuoc Port area because of heavy traffic from vehicles and container trucks carrying goods from nearby ports and piers in District 4 and 7.

This would free the hotspots such as the Nguyen Van Linh  Huynh Tan Phat intersection, Nguyen Van Linh  Tan Thuan Bridge 2 intersection, Nguyen Tat Thanh Street and others from serious traffic problems.

It would also be more convenient for construction of Thu Thiem Bridge 4. Since traffic would no longer travel from piers K12, K12A and K12B, the bridge could be built with a lower clearance, thus saving construction costs.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at The Remembrance Project luncheon in Houston, Texas. The Remembrance Project is a support group for families with relatives killed by illegal aliens. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP)

With polls showing a tightening race just over seven weeks before the Nov 8 election, the Republican candidate turned up the vitriol, saying that as president, his Democratic rival would virtually end border enforcement and place the country "in grave peril."

Trump was speaking a day after a much-hyped televised event in which, after years of questioning whether Barack Obama was an American citizen, he finally declared that the president "was born in the United States, period."

But he also made the surprising charge - refuted by fact-checkers - that it was Clinton who originated the "birther" theories about Obama.

On Saturday, speaking before a sympathetic audience that included people who said their friends or family members had been killed by undocumented immigrants, Trump continued his sharp attacks on Clinton.

The immigration issue has been central to Trump's campaign since he said last summer that many Mexican immigrants were drug smugglers and rapists. The candidate made it clear Saturday that he is not about to give up on the attack line, even at the risk of offending many Hispanic voters.

CONTINUING ATTACKS

Trump asserted that Clinton would "implement amnesty by executive order, violating our constitution and putting the entire nation in grave peril."

Clinton has called for a softening of immigration practices, saying she would deport only violent criminals and terrorists, a position in stark contrast to Trump's vow to build a border wall and deport huge numbers of the undocumented.

His suggestion that immigrants are disproportionally responsible for serious crime appears unfounded, according to several studies.

However, Trump insisted on Saturday that Americans are being killed on a daily basis by the undocumented.

"Every day our border remains open, innocent Americans are needlessly victimized and killed," he said. "Every day we fail to enforce our laws ... a loving parent is at risk of losing their child."

While he repeated his charge that Clinton would introduce "total amnesty in the first 100 days, which means Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare for illegal immigrants," her website does not mention amnesty.

It does promise to "introduce comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to full and equal citizenship within (the) first 100 days," lifting the threat of deportation in many cases.

TIGHTENING RACE

Clinton, who returned to the campaign trail on Thursday after a bout with pneumonia, has pressed the theme that her Republican rival is unfit to be president.

"His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie" about Obama's birth, she said. "There is no erasing it in history. He's feeding into the worst impulses, the bigotry and bias that lurks in our country."

Democrats are increasingly worried about poll numbers during a week that Clinton lost momentum.

She fell ill last week during a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York, where she was seen stumbling limp-legged into her vehicle, an episode that raised tough questions about her overall health and her campaign's transparency.

Polls show the lead she has held over Trump narrowing quickly. One survey gave her just a two-point margin, down sharply in a matter of weeks, boosting worries she is ceding the stage to Trump as time runs out on the campaign clock.

Two of the Democrats' liberal stars, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, were campaigning for Clinton in Ohio on Saturday to drum up support among the young people whose votes she needs on election day.

Sanders ripped into Trump about the "birther" controversy. "What they were trying to do," he said at a rally, "is to de-legitimise the presidency of the first African-American president we have ever had."

Employing a different line of attack on Friday, Trump again raised the threat of violence against Clinton, suggesting during a rally in Miami that Clinton's Secret Service guards voluntarily disarm and "see what happens to her."

"I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons," the real estate billionaire told a cheering rally. "Take their guns away. She doesn't want guns. Take them. Let's see what happens to her ... It will be very dangerous."

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook condemned Trump's widely criticised remarks, saying they "should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate."
"Yo! The Air B&B we're staying at is so nice, the neighbors thought we were robbing the place & called the cops!" That caption accompanied a selfie photo posted by Stefan Grant on October 9, 2015, featuring himself, an African American friend, and two Atlanta, Georgia police officers in the background.

Grant and a few friends had rented the house for the weekend during a music festival. On the web page of Noirbnb, a travel startup headed by Grant and partner Ronnia Cherry, the founders explain that "apparently the neighbors saw a bunch of Black people in the house and assumed they were robbing the place."

The situation ended with an amicable conversation between Grant's group and the police, who confirmed that the group had actually rented the place. The photo, posted on Grant's Twitter account (@STEFis DOPE), went viral, and after some less-than-satisfactory talks about the situation with Airbnb, he and Cherry recognized a business opportunity.

Noirbnb is geared toward people of color who have found Airbnb less than welcoming. Their mission statement says Noirbnb is meant "to not only provide safe and welcoming spaces for Black travelers to rent," but also to "connect the African Diaspora in each corner of the world. We want to ensure that our community feels welcome, wherever they choose to travel and never have to face discrimination on their journey."

The founders of Noirbnb note their link to history: a publication known as the Green Book, printed between the years of 1936 and 1966, when travel for African-Americans was difficult and unwelcoming in many parts of the United States. It began as The Negro Motorist's Green Book and was later changed to The Negro Traveler's Green Book, when it expanded to add air and rail travel. The book was named after its author, New York City postal worker Victor Green, who compiled the Green Book annually until his death in 1960.

"Many people have said, 'We had no idea this existed. We kind of wish we had this book today.' We hear that a lot," says Becky Wible Searles, director and co-producer, with author Calvin Alexander Ramsey, of a documentary film called "The Green Book Chronicles."

"It started small," she says of the guide, which listed motels and restaurants that welcomed black travelers at a time when many businesses did not. It was a cultural touchstone to many blacks, but unknown to many others.

Wible Searles, an animation professor with the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, says the documentary team has found that people are eager to share their Green Book stories.

A line in Green's book said the guide was meant to help black travelers avoid "embarrassment" while traveling. Left unsaid was the fact that black travelers, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, could face far worse.

One woman they met in Harlem, a historically black neighborhood in New York City, illustrated the dangers African Americans underwent when they traveled by car through so-called "sundown towns," where blacks were warned by highway signs to leave city limits before nightfall.

Paula Wynter, now a New York City artist, told the filmmakers that during the 1950s, her family once hid in the family Buick all night in a sundown town in North Carolina, trying to escape the notice of the local sheriff searching for them. "My sister was crying," she said. "My mother was hysterical."

"Green loved saving people from humiliation, hardship, and physical violence, but Green's dream was that the book would not be needed one day," author Ramsey told the New York Times in 2015. "He was hoping equality would mean his company would go out of business."

The Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, was passed in 1964. The Green Book ceased publication in 1966.

Meanwhile the founders of Noirbnb are mindful of their past. Starting a company to cater to minorities makes sense, Stefan Grant says in an email to VOA.

"In many ways, the Black community has to create spaces and solutions to our issues in regard to every aspect of our lives," he says. "That is what I believe the future of Blackness will be: us uniting as a people to solve our problems and make the world a better place for ourselves and for future generations."
A senior Somali military official was killed in a car bomb explosion in Somalias capital Mogadishu on Sunday.



General Mohamed Roble Jimale aka Goobaale and six of his bodyguards died when their convoy was hit by a car loaded with explosives near the entrance of Somalias ministry of defense headquarters in Mogadishu, Abdifitah Omar Halane, a spokesman for the Mogadishu regional administration told VOA.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack.



The general was the head of the 3rd battalion in the Somali army and was also a leading officer in the fight against the Somali militant group.

Al-Shabab was pushed out of Mogadishu by African Union peacekeeping forces in 2011 but has remained a potent antagonist in Somalia, launching frequent attacks aimed at overthrowing the Western-backed government.
Rohan Gilkes, an African-American entrepreneur, tried to book lodging for his summer vacation this July through Airbnb, a popular worldwide home-sharing company that allows people to rent their rooms, apartments or entire homes on a short-term basis to travelers, through one-on-one transactions. When an Airbnb host declined his request for a reservation, Gilkes was surprised.

"I had heard about #AirbnbWhileBlack," he says, mentioning a Twitter hashtag that circulated widely after African-American users complained publicly about racial discrimination by Airbnb hosts. "So I got one of my [white] friends to apply, and they were approved right away."

Airbnb transactions are confirmed using photographs and personal profiles to identify prospective renters and connect them with apartment hosts.

Gilkes was surprised and dismayed by his experience. What was more upsetting, however, was that when he contacted Airbnb about what he saw as discrimination, he said the firm offered little in the way of support. So he wrote down his story and put it online. It went viral.

"I woke up to 2,000 emails," he said, from other people who had experienced the same thing. "That's when I realized it was a systemic problem."

And no small one. Airbnb says it serves 60 million clients and has more than two million listings in 191 countries.

#AirbnbWhileBlack came to national attention several months ago when a lawsuit was filed by Gregory Selden, an African-American man in his 20s from Washington, D.C., who tried to book accommodation last year in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Selden was told by a property owner that the space he wanted to rent was unavailable, but when he altered his Airbnb profile using pictures of a white man's face, his rental was accepted for the same dates.

Like Gilkes, Selden complained to Airbnb and was dissatisfied with the result. He initiated a class-action lawsuit, citing complaints from other Airbnb users of color who had had difficulty finding a host who would accept them. Airbnb users must sign a class-action waiver in order to use the service, which could negate the legal action; the case is still pending.

Airbnb has been hit by discrimination complaints in the past. A working paper published by Harvard University this month found that not only was it harder for black people to find accommodation through Airbnb, but even black Airbnb hosts were more likely to refuse a black person than white hosts. The finding held true not only for people who were obviously black in their profile photographs, but also people with names that are more common to black people than whites.



"The difference persists whether the host is African-American or white, male or female. The difference also persists whether the host shares the property with the guest or not, and whether the property is cheap or expensive," according to the Harvard study, prepared by Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca and Dan Svirsky.

The experts also noted that discrimination costs hosts money: they found that hosts who rejected black guests were only able to find replacement guests 35 percent of the time.

Enter Airbnb's new anti-discrimination policy, promised in June and delivered, as promised, in September. Critics say it doesn't go far enough.

Many people familiar with the AirbnbWhileBlack phenomenon say user profile pictures are a major source of the discrimination problem.

Airbnb has not promised to eliminate use of profile photos, as some of its critics have proposed, but instead says it will work on "reducing the prominence of guest photos in the booking process." The company said photographs are an important element in building trust between hosts and guests.

The home-sharing company also says it will encourage customers to use its "instant book" listings, an automatic service that makes reservations without prior host approval of specific guests, based on a pre-approved calendar. And it says it is improving the diversity of its own staff and putting better customer-service policies in place for discrimination complaints.

Airbnb's policy statement issued this month promises, "If a guest is not able to book a listing because they have been discriminated against, Airbnb will ensure the guest finds a place to stay." In addition, Airbnb says it recognizes the need to expand its host opportunities in communities of color.

But the new policy has its limits. "You can't pass a law or policy to change somebody's mind," says Reid Breitman of Kuzyk Law in Los Angeles. "You can't make somebody trust somebody."

Real estate analyst Emile L'Eplattenier of Fit Small Business in New York says Airbnb hosts have good reason to be choosy about their renters. "There have been many stories in the news of Airbnb guests trashing their hosts' apartments, having wild parties, or using them for drug-fueled trysts. Every single one of those guests technically was vetted by Airbnb. Why shouldn't hosts be able to use their own judgment when renting their homes to strangers from the internet?"

Meanwhile, Gilkes says, people of color remain underserved. He and a business partner, Zakkiyah Myers, are about four weeks away from opening their own business designed to provide a more welcoming experience to people of color. Their website, Innclusive, looks very similar to Airbnb's, but Gilkes says there are some important differences. For one, hosts and guests won't see pictures of each other until after the booking is made.

"If you show photographs before the person accepts the guests, you're introducing bias into the platform," Gilkes says. "People are making decisions based on how they look ... not whether they'd be good potential guests." Another thing they'll do, something Airbnb has picked up as well, is to close dates to subsequent requests if a host rejects a guest for a particular set of dates.

In addition, Gilkes says, Innclusive is working on a platform that will cooperate with Airbnb's booking system so hosts can list their properties on both sites without fear of double-booking.

Innclusive will also pick up one of Airbnb's strong trust-building features, reviews of both guests and hosts. Those reviews, and not racial profiling, Gilkes says, are the right place to go for information on whether guests and hosts have the same standards of behavior.


It had been years since Mary Ann Plettenberg could use her left hand to comfortably hold a coffee cup, cleanly write her name or draw clear and sharp straight lines and spirals.

But on the morning of Sept. 7 the 68-year-old Helena woman did all of those things while lying in an operating room bed, after her second deep brain stimulation surgery at St. Vincent Healthcare.

"I couldn't even hold it with my left hand before," Plettenberg said of the coffee cup, still wearing the halo used to stabilize her head while doctors drilled into her skull less than 30 minutes earlier.

For decades, she'd suffered from a shaking in both arms and hands, as well as her head, caused by benign essential tremors, a nervous system disorder that causes involuntary shaking.

What started as a bit of a tremor in one hand as a young woman eventually turned into a nearly debilitating problem.

"It's been going on for a long time," Plettenberg said. "I remember shaking a little bit after I got married and then after I had my kids, I shook a little more. As the years would go by, it increased more and more."

She couldn't carry any open containers with liquids because the shaking would splash them. She'd spill or accidentally flip over trays.

In recent years, a combination of medication and the constant stress on her body from the tremors forced her to give up her two favorite activities  sewing and selling items at the Helena farmers market, and going to the movies with her friends  because of the shaking and a tendency to fall asleep.

"I was at the point where my head would shake so bad that I could've used two more hands just to hold my head while I was sewing," she said.

But in the spring of 2015, she was in Billings and decided to give going to the movies another shot. Before the film, she saw an ad featuring a man who had the same condition as her and who talked about the benefits of DBS before showing the impact it had on him.

"He shook as bad as I did," she said. "I thought, 'Oh my God.'"

Plettenberg did a quick online search, which led her to connect with St. Vincent neurosurgeon Dr. Stuart Goodman.

Goodman had, at the time, performed the deep brain stimulation surgery about 500 times  Plettenberg's second surgery on Sept. 7 was his 523rd  over the course of several decades, and the two decided it might be a good option for her.

Deep brain stimulation surgery is used to treat essential tremors, Parkinson's and another disabling movement disorder called dystonia. In the procedure, surgeons place flexible electrodes called leads in the patient's brain, which connect to a battery-operated device similar to cardiac pacemaker implanted beneath the skin in their chest.

The device sends electrical impulses to the leads, which stimulate the area of the brain that helps control movement and helps reduce the tremors.

"I think of it as a flashing red light at an intersection that slows the traffic down," Goodman said.

It's not for everybody and doesn't always work, but has shown a good amount of success.

Some patients can manage their tremors with medication or in other ways, but Goodman said it needs to be decided on a patient-by-patient basis and that he has a simple benchmark for those who might be eligible.

"It's a matter of whether or not it's affecting their daily living," he said. "It might sound silly, but it's if they can't drink soup with a spoon; they're so shaky that they can't eat, they can't drink. Some people can't do their work with their hands shaking like that."

In addition, it can, in some but not all cases, help patients lessen their medication use.

"Most are able to reduce their medications, if not stop using them entirely," Goodman said.

Plettenberg decided that it was the right thing for her and in November 2015, had the procedure to help the shaking on her right side, which involved implanting the leads in the left side of her brain.

Shortly before her second surgery, she held up both hands to show the impact the first one had. Her right sat out steady and calm in front of her, while the left shook rhythmically.

"I still shake, but nothing like I did," she said.

The Sept. 7 surgery went much as the first, only Goodman implanted the leads on the right side of Plettenberg's brain to help the tremors on her left side and, hopefully, the shaking of her head.

Goodman and a medical team started by shaving Plettenberg's scalp and numbing the top of her head. Using a drill, they made a small hole in her skull before carefully and slowly guiding the leads about 85 millimeters into her brain and then putting a small cap over the hole in her skull.

All the while, Plettenberg was awake and talking with the staff, occasionally answering questions with "I'm alright" or "OK." She said that, like in the first, she didn't feel much during the procedure except at her scalp, which felt "kind of like when you go to the dentist, when he drills."

As Goodman inserted the lead, Dr. Arturo Echeverri stood next to Plettenberg to monitor her reactions. Every few seconds, he'd ask her to hold up her hand, touch her nose or touch the tip of her index finger to his.

And each time, as the leads neared their target, the shaking appeared to decrease a little. Goodman said that sometimes just the act of inserting the leads can cut tremors but that he'll connect them to the chest device and calibrate the pulses at an upcoming follow-up meeting after she heals a little.

Plettenberg said she feels comfortable with Goodman, who after more than 500 such surgeries was recently named one of the top 50 surgeons in the country performing deep brain stimulation by Medtronic, which is the only company that makes some of the equipment used in the procedure.

While the final effects of the second procedure won't be known until the chest implant is calibrated, Plettenberg said she's been so encouraged by the results of the first that she's recommended it to others who might benefit.

"There's help out there, and I don't think everybody realizes that," she said. "More people need to know about it."

Since St. Vincent began offering deep brain stimulation 15 years ago, doctors there have done the surgery more than 700 times. Goodman said that a well-trained and responsive staff has helped ensure the procedures have gone smoothly over the years.

It's one of just two hospitals in Montana, with the other in Kalispell, offering the procedure and it sees patients from all over the state, South Dakota and Wyoming and from as far away as Massachusetts and Tennessee.

"The program here is great," Goodman said. "The nurses and staff here are great. There's maybe 100 steps in the surgery, and you can't skip a single step. It's nice having staff that knows all of that."

Plettenberg hopes that the recent, and final, surgery is just the start for her.

Shortly before the surgery, staff had her write her name and draw a straight line and a spiral on a piece of paper, all of which showed up with squiggles and waves caused by the tremors. They compared it to the ones she did afterward, and the differences, especially in the name and the spiral, were noticeable.

With those tasks out of the way, she hopes to soon be able to strike a few more from the list.

"The first time, they came in with a little table and I wrote my name," she said. "I haven't seen my name look that good in years. I had to make a line, and it was straight. I didn't think I'd be able to do that again.

"Now I would like to get back to going to the market. I would like to get back to going to the movies with my friends. Like I used to."
Where are the witches?

Boksi ko Ghar works as a play not because it brings to us a new story. It works because it draws our eyes to the regularity with which witch-hunts still happen in this part of the world
The man who stabbed nine people at a mall in the northern U.S. state of Minnesota has been identified as a 22-year-old Somali-American.

The leader of the Somali community in the state told VOA Somali service that the suspect, who was shot and killed by police during the attack Saturday, was Dahir Adan.

Abdul Kulane said Adan was known to the community, was working as a part-time security officer, and was a smart and reliable person.

Kulane said he did not know the motives or the full picture behind the attack. He said he thought the stabbings had no links with terrorism, despite a claim by an Islamic-run news agency that the attack was carried out by a soldier of the Islamic State.

Adan's father, Ahmed Adan, told the Star Tribune newspaper that police told him Saturday night his son, Dahir, died at Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud. He said police didn't mention the attack on the mall, but they seized photos and other materials from the family's apartment.



Authorities have not publicly identified the attacker, whom they say was killed by an off-duty policeman. None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

FBI investigation



The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the stabbings as a potential act of terrorism.

Police Chief William Blair Anderson said the assailant made references to Allah during the knife attack at the Crossroads Center, and even asked if one person was a Muslim.

Anderson stopped short of calling the attack an act of terrorism, saying the motive is not yet clear. "We will be diligent and get to the bottom of this," he said.

IS has encouraged so-called lone wolf attacks, but it also has claimed past attacks that are not believed to have been planned by the group.

St. Cloud is about 110 kilometers northwest of Minneapolis, the state's largest city.
Ciham Ali Abdu of Eritrea was 15 years old when she was arrested as she tried to cross the border into Sudan. Born in Los Angeles, California, she is the only American citizen imprisoned in Eritrea.

Her family, friends and the representatives from the U.S. Embassy in Asmara have had no news about her whereabouts or her health for the nearly four years she has been in prison.

Ciham is also a unique case. She is the daughter of Ali Abdu, the former minister of information of Eritrea who was one of the closest advisors to the countrys president, Isaias Afwerki. When he fled the country in December of 2012, it sent shockwaves across the nation since he was believed to be unfalteringly loyal to the regime.

Alis then 87-year-old father, Abdu Ahmed Younis, his brother Hassen Abdu Ahmed and Ciham were all arrested shortly after his departure and many believe they were punished as retribution for Alis decision to flee.

Last week, Cihams fate was one of the topics raised at a subcommittee hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives convened by the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee titled Eritrea: A Neglected Regional Threat.

Linda ThomasGreenfield, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, said the United States raises the issue of Ciham with Eritrean officials during joint meetings, but have received no information.

Eric Whitaker, the former Charge dAffairs at the U.S. Embassy in Asmara, said Eritrean officials do not acknowledge that Ciham is a U.S. citizen. Weve asked for consular access repeatedly and not been granted it. We are concerned regarding the case, he said. The answers we get are typically vague or note that such individual is an Eritrean citizen.

Ciham left the United States when she was one or two years old, her uncle said. VOA contacted Eritreas Minister of Information Yemane Gebremeskel and he declined to comment. In Twitter comments about the hearings he dismissed the U.S. House proceedings as perfunctory and a rehash of old information.

Cihams uncle, Saleh Younis, said the family is desperate for news about her and their other imprisoned family members. He said this was the first time he had heard details about the U.S. embassys efforts to get information about Ciham and he is disappointed that they havent put more pressure on the Eritrean government.

He also noted that most people caught at the border trying to flee Eritrea are detained for several months or a maximum of two years, making it clear that Ciham is being held indefinitely as a punishment for her fathers actions. Its a country without rules, without a system, Saleh said. Its a country where the president and his small clique do whatever they want to do. When were talking about human rights violations its not in the abstract that were talking about, it is these kinds of agonies people go through.

Saleh is the editor of awate.com, an Eritrean news website that is opposed to the government and its policies.

Ali Abdu is currently in Australia where he is seeking asylum. In an affidavit submitted to the government in support of his case which has been widely posted online Ali said he is suffering from insomnia and heart pains and has suicidal thoughts. He said he fears for his family in Eritrea and fears that a member of the Eritrean diaspora could seek to harm him in Australia.

The more I talk about my secrets the more I am worried and shivering about my safety because I know what crazy things the president can do to me. Even in Melbourne I am very recognizable and I fear that government supporters are following me, he said.

Chairman of the House Subcommittee, Chris Smith, Republican Representative from New Jersey, cited figures from a former U.S. ambassador indicating that about 48 Eritrean national employees of the embassy were arrested or detained between 2001 and 2010 and it is unclear how many remain in detention. Smith requested additional information relating to those employees and relating to Ciham.

Thomas-Greenfield said the embassy has asked for access and information relating to these cases. We have had over the years our foreign service nationals harassed. Some arrested and some who are still currently being held by the government, she said. We never miss an opportunity to raise this with the government of Eritrea encouraging them to release the American citizen but also to release our employees who have been arrested and to discontinue the harassment of our employees.
The Islamic State terror group has been steadily losing territory in Iraq and Syria. But as the Caliphate shrinks, the group is shifting its emphasis to spreading its ideology, establishing outposts around the world, and attacking high-casualty, soft targets and economic infrastructure.



Is the group succeeding in its broader struggle to build a resilient movement that endures despite its battlefield losses?



Sometimes answering a simple question is a complicated task.



Islamic State losing territory, money



According to the latest IHS Conflict Monitor report, Islamic State lost about 12 percent of its territory from January to June of 2016, after losing 14 percent of its territory in 2015. The group still controls about 70,000 square kilometers; roughly the size of Ireland.



Islamic State finances have also shrunk. Earlier this year, the U.S. Congressional Research Service reported that the terrorist group paid its soldiers from $400-$1,200 a month, as well as a further $50 for each wife and $25 for each child.



Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in early September, Senator Bob Casey said, ISIS has had to reduce its salaries to pay their fighters in recent months. He also quoted Major General Peter Gersten, deputy commander of the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, that ISIS ability to finance [its] war through oil refineries has been destroyed.





According to some estimates, in 2015 Islamic State's assets were worth roughly $2 billion, which made it the wealthiest terrorist organization in history. However, after the U.S.-led coalition targeted its oil and gas infrastructure, financial networks and banks, the groups revenue has dropped by at least 30 percent.



Support is rising



Despite this loss of territory and income at home, IS still inspires like-minded factions abroad. Terrorist groups such as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in Egypt, Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, Ansar al-Sharia in Libya and Tunisia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Caucasus Emirate in Russia, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, along with many others, have all pledged allegiance to Islamic State.



The U.S. National Counter-Terrorism Center estimates that IS now has at least 18 operational affiliates in 18 countries  twice as many as the U.S. Department of State estimated two years ago.



In addition to gaining affiliates, IS has also increasingly organized or inspired terrorist attacks around the world, including in Paris, Brussels, Nice, Ansbach, Orlando and San Bernardino.



Islamic State winning, or losing?



Douglas Ollivant, senior vice president of the Mantid International Global Strategic Consulting Group and former director for Iraq at the U.S. National Security Council, believes Islamic State will completely lose all of its territory by the end of this calendar year.



Peter Bergen, vice president of the New America Foundation, agrees. The two argued at a recent event organized by the McCain Institute for International Leadership that those who believe IS is winning are falling into the trap of believing Islamic State's own propaganda. They believe if the group loses territory, it will lose the war.



"ISIS is a geographic entity. Thats why they have attracted so many foreign fighters, Bergen said.



Ollivant attributes increased attacks by the group  especially in the West  to Islamic State's diminished capabilities. The only aspect in which ISIS has gained traction is in suicide bombings and inspired attacksThis is a sign of weakness, not strength, Ollivant stated.



Conventional thinking wrong?



Sebastian Gorka, vice president of the Institute of World Politics, disagrees, saying any attempt to measure success against Islamic State in conventional military terms is misguided. He said IS is a sophisticated, worldwide insurgency that measures success in terms of ideology, permanence and legitimacy  not territory.



Gorka also noted that while fighting IS on the ground, its financial capabilities continue to be underestimated. The attacks of September 11, 2001, cost barely $500,000. ISIS makes that in six hours! Do you feel safe?"



In an interview with VOA, former assistant secretary of defense Mary Beth Long said such conventional thinking is leading us towards the wrong conclusions. The terror group continues to be successful in using the internet, social media and an online magazine to strengthen its brand, expand its influence and recruit new members.

At its core, ISIS is ideological. The battlefield is just one manifestation of how they see a return to the pure Caliphate and pure Islam, she said. You cannot claim to have defeated them on a battlefield as long as you have the continued existence of the ideology globally, said Long.



ISIS has polluted our minds, she added. According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, of 110 Americans who tried to join ISIS and were detained, some 60 percent were between the ages of 15 and 25, and were inspired through online recruitment by Islamic State.



They are on the internet. They are on Twitter. They are raising ISIS cubs  children who know nothing but violence and purity of Islam. They will grow up to be people that we could not even communicate with, she added.



Long believes that the United States needs to have a strategy to fight Islamic State ideologically.



At the end of the day, [this] would be the fight to win, the fight that would matter.



For now, the fight drawing the most attention is the one in Syria and Iraq, where despite its battlefield losses, Islamic State still retains its prized strongholds of Raqaa and Mosul.



While the war there grinds on, the debate in the United States continues about whether battlefield successes will translate into victories in the global struggle to eradicate the group's violent ideology.
Seventeen Indian soldiers have been killed and nearly 20 wounded in the deadliest attack mounted by militants in two decades on an Indian army base in Kashmir, close to the border with Pakistan.



Officials say four heavily armed commandos using guns and grenades stormed the army camp early Sunday in Uri, which lies west of Indian Kashmirs capital, Srinagar.



An army statement said four militants were killed. A search is under way for others possibly hiding in the area.

The gunbattle lasted for several hours and explosions could be heard throughout, according to local reporters.

In a series of tweets, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned what he called the "cowardly terror attack." He said "I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished."

The U.S. also strongly condemned the attack.

Army officials said casualties were heavy because many of the soldiers died in a fire that engulfed the tents and temporary shelters where they were housed.



Helicopters evacuated the wounded soldiers to hospitals in Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir.



Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted that in wake of the terror attack in Uri, he has postponed planned upcoming visits to Russia and the United States.



The assault comes as Indian Kashmir reels under violent protests that have left nearly 80 civilians dead.



The attack Sunday could further heighten tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, which both claim all of the Himalayan region.



Hours after the attack, India's deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Nirmal Singh, accused Pakistan. This is a proxy war. Pakistan is trying to find ways to foment trouble in Kashmir, said Singh.



Sundays assault took place nine months after a militant raid on an air base in Pathankot in Punjab state killed seven Indian soldiers. That attack brought relations between India and Pakistan to a low point as New Delhi blamed that attack on Pakistan-based militants. Islamabad denies any role in supporting cross border terrorism.



Former major general Dipankar Banerjee, who heads the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi, called Sundays attack a major concern. This government unlike in the past has committed themselves to a response on such provocative acts and therefore the response will be harsh. There will be escalations of tensions along the line of control in Kashmir, he said.



Kashmir is a heavily militarized region that has been the trigger for two of the three wars between India and Pakistan.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says people will have to patient to get the full story behind Saturday night's bombing in Manhattan that injured 29 people in one of the city's busiest neighborhoods.

"We have more work to do to be able to say what kind of motivation was behind this. Was it a political motivation? A personal motivation...we don't know yet."

A law enforcement official told the Associated Presses that investigators are not putting much stock into a claim of responsibility posted earlier Sunday on the Tumblr social media website.

Tumbler has since taken down the post and has not made any comments.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the blast was an "act of terrorism," but said there is no evidence of "international terrorism."

Cuomo said another 1,000 police and National Guard troops will patrol New York's subway system "just to err on the side of caution."

Meanwhile, all 29 people hurt in the blast are out of the hospital.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted his "warmest regards, best wishes and condolences to all of the families and victims of the horrible bombing." He had earlier said it is time to get "tough, smart, and vigilant."

Democrat Hillary Clinton strongly condemned the New York bombing along with other "apparent terrorist attacks" Saturday in Minnesota and New Jersey.

"I am confident we will once again choose resolve over fear," she said.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson again reminded people that they can also fight terrorism by reporting anything suspicious to police, repeating the slogan "if you see something, say something."

Saturday's apparent bomb exploded outside a building in New York's Chelsea neighborhood, where some of the city's most popular restaurants and bars are located.

The blast left the streets covered with glass and debris. A closed circuit television picture showed windows being blown out of storefronts and parked cars while pedestrians ran for safety.

It is unclear why the Chelsea neighborhood was targeted.



Much of Manhattan has been especially busy with residents and tourists taking advantage of the late summer weather, and hundreds of world leaders and dignitaries arriving this week for the United Nations General Assembly.



United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric told VOA that officials assess security needs inside the U.N. complex on a daily basis.

"Outside of the gates, we are in the hands of the host country, at the federal and local levels, he said. We appreciate their work and, no doubt, they are doing their utmost to keep everyone safe, he added.

What We Know About the NY Blast New York and New Jersey Bombs: What We Know So Far A 28-year old man wanted in connection with bombings in New York and New Jersey has been taken into custody following what reports described as a shootout in Linden, New Jersey.

The FBI said Ahmad Khan Rahami was wanted for questioning in the blast that injured 29 people in the neighborhood of Chelsea around 8:30 p.m. Saturday.

Police say Rahami was also being sought for questioning in another bombing hours before the Manhattan explosion, about 135 kilometers south of New York City. Explosives detonated in a trash bin in Seaside Park just before a 5-kilometer foot race began. No one was hurt in that blast.

Police say Rahami, a U.S. citizen of Afghan descent, was last known to live in Elizabeth, New Jersey, about 6 km from where he was detained in Linden. His family ran a restaurant there on the first floor of their home, according to local media reports.

Chelsea resident Michelle Katz told VOA she was in bed when something sounded "like a bomb exploding or a truck driving into a building."

Two minutes later, "there were endless sirens," Katz told VOA.

Another witness, Denise Coles, said the bomb went off as she was pulling into a parking place.

"I turned the car off and that's when we heard the explosion. It was like you could feel it inside of you. I looked down the block and I saw the smoke coming out."

"We're fortunate that this didn't happen during the week, like a work day, a Monday or Tuesday," said Steven Faria, who works at a nearby veterans' hospital. "With all the people that work in this area, I think the casualties would have been twice as many people."

City and federal law enforcement also are investigating an unexploded device found just a few blocks from the Chelsea bomb. Police say it looks like a pressure cooker attached to a cell phone and wires in a plastic bag.

The New York blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in a trash bin in a New Jersey beach town Saturday 135 kilometers away, forcing the cancellation of a charity foot race involving thousands of runners. No one was hurt and De Blasio and Cuomo have said there is no evidence linking the two incidents.

VOA reporters Margaret Besheer, Esha Sarai, Ramon Taylor, Steve Herman, and Celia Mendoza contributed to this report from New York.
"You want to give me a good send off?," outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama said Saturday night. "Go vote."

Speaking at the annual dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington, Obama stressed the importance of going to the polls to vote for a new president in November.

"Hope is on the ballot and fear is on the ballot, too," the president said about voters' choices in the upcoming election between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

Obama said there are some people "who are still trying to deny people the right to vote . . . Right now, in multiple states, Republicans are actively and openly trying to prevent people from voting . . ." He said "This should be a national scandal . . . We're the only advanced democracy in the world that is actively discouraging people from voting. It's a shame."

The president noted that between 2000 and 2012, there were only 10 cases of voter impersonation nationwide.

Obama said he would be personally insulted if the African American community did not turn out to vote in the November poll. He said he thinks about the people who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement and all that they went through so "they could pull the lever" of a voting machine.

"Read up on your history," he implored. "Get people registered to vote."

In a more lighthearted mood, Obama said there is more pep in his step now that the validity of his birth certificate is a non-issue, following Trump's admission Friday that Obama was born in the U.S. after years of says the president, who was born in Hawaii, was likely not born in the U.S.

Obama sarcastically said of Trump's turnaround: "In other breaking news, the world is round, not flat."

Clinton spoke before Obama at the dinner. She said of Obama, "Mr. President, not only do we know you are an American, you are a great American."

Without mentioning her rival's name, Clinton told the crowd "We need ideas not insults. Real plans to help struggling Americans in communities that have been left behind, not prejudice and paranoia. We can't let Barack Obama's legacy fall into the hands of someone who doesn't understand that. Whose dangerous and divisive vision for our country will drag us backwards."

Clinton was honored at the dinner for becoming the first woman to receive the presidential nomination of a major party.

Her last admonition to the audience was "And no matter what, remember this, love trumps hate."
A legal charity in Pakistan is pressing authorities to halt the imminent execution of a mentally ill death row prisoner, saying medical experts have already declared him an insane person.

Imdad Ali, 50, was sentenced to death in 2002 for murdering a religious teacher and the country's Supreme Court recently upheld his conviction.

Officials in a jail in Pakistan's largest province of Punjab have received orders to carry out the execution at dawn Tuesday, according to a legal charity based in Lahore.

The orders were issued despite a medical report commissioned by prison authorities that diagnosed him with schizophrenia, a chronic and disabling mental illness, the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) warned Sunday.

During his 16 years on death row, his mental illness has worsened. He has spent the last three years in solitary confinement after fellow inmates complained of his manic episodes in which he would speak loudly and uncontrollably, the charity said.

The organization says that 14 psychiatrists working in different government departments have jointly written an open letter to the president of Pakistan calling for Alis imminent execution to be halted, according to JPP.

JPP chief executive, Sarah Bilal, asserted that mounting medical evidence warrants a reopening of the case, not a wrongful execution. Bilal warned hanging Ali would violate the countrys legal obligations to uphold the dignity of the mentally disabled, saying Pakistan has singed international agreements banning the execution of mentally ill prisoners.

But legal experts note Pakistani laws are silent on how to handle cases involving mentally unfit death row convicts.

JPP says that around 8,000 prisoners are on death row in Pakistan, including some suffering from mental illness.

The government re-instated the death penalty two years ago to deter terrorism and more than 400 prisoners on death row have since been executed. But only one in 10 executed prisoners had possible links to terrorism, says JPP.
Islamic State militants have claimed the assassination of three Pakistan military personnel in the countrys northwestern city of Peshawar.

Provincial authorities say that the slain soldiers were traveling on a narrow road in the Khazana area Sunday when armed motorcyclists ambushed their vehicle.

Authorities have launched an investigation and several suspects have also been taken into custody in connection with the fatal attack.

A website linked to IS claimed responsibly for what appears to be the first assault on the powerful Pakistan military by the Middle East-based group.

IS, which controls areas in Syria and Iraq, has claimed several other attacks around the country since launching its extremist activities in the region early last year.

Sundays attack came days after the military announced it has forestalled IS expansion into Pakistan and arrested more than 300 of its operatives, including Syrians and Afghans.

"They tried to make an ingress, and they failed and they have been apprehended so far, according to the army spokesman, Lieutenant General Asiam Bajaw.

He told reporters earlier this month the detainees were plotting attacks on government, diplomatic and civilians targets.

Meanwhile, Jamaatul Ahrar (JuA), a breakaway faction of the anti-state Pakistani Taliban, has also claimed it was behind the violence. VOA could not immediately verify either claims.

The attack took place in an area of Peshawar that is close to the volatile Mohmand Agency, one of the seven semiautonomous tribal districts on the Afghan border.

On Friday, a suicide blast ripped through a crowded mosque in Mohmand, killing more than 30 people and wounding dozens others.

JuA claimed it carried out the bloodshed.

Last month, the United States designated JuA a global terrorist organization, saying the group has staged multiple attacks on civilians, religious minorities, military personnel and law enforcement, and was responsible for the killing of two Pakistani employees of the U.S. consulate in Peshawar in early March.

Pakistani officials allege the terrorist group operates out of Afghan border areas and receives support from the intelligence agency of the neighboring country, charges Kabul denies.
Early election results show Russia's ruling party has won Sunday's parliamentary election, amid reports of election violations and visible voter apathy in the country's two largest cities.

With nearly all votes counted, President Vladimir Putins United Russia Party has more than 54 percent of the vote, with the Liberal Democrat Party and the Communists trailing with about 13 percent each, and A Just Russia with 6 percent.

The chief of the Russian Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, said in a televised briefing that she sees no reason to nullify results in any location in the country, despite reports of election fraud.

Pamfilova conceded, however, that the election was not sterile, adding that reports of ballot stuffing were confirmed in three polling stations.

As expected, the ruling United Russia Party will retain its absolute majority in Russia's lower house, State Duma.

United Russia, led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a loyalist of President Putin, currently has 238 of 450 Duma seats and dominates the more than 80 regional parliaments. The party is likely to gain another 100 seats in the Duma.

The election for lawmakers comes 18 months ahead of the next presidential election.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe sent more than 400 observers to Russia to monitor the election, about double that of 2011 when the OSCE sent 215 to monitor the parliamentary poll.

Analysts have seen the voting as a likely referendum on Putin's expected 2018 run for re-election.

Putin and United Russia were riding a wave of nationalist support over Crimea and ongoing military actions, with state-run media ignoring critics or branding them as traitors.

Kremlin supporters have so far valued what is seen as tough leadership more than concerns about which direction that authority is taking Russia.



Half of parliament will be decided by people voting for individuals, with the other half drawn from party lists. The last parliament was elected on party lists alone.

The perceived fairness of the election could be a critical factor in whether protests arise following the voting. Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, challenging authorities with their size and persistence.

Complaints of election violations already were increasing Sunday as voting was proceeding across a country with approximately 110 million registered voters and 11 time zones.

WATCH: Voting in Grozny, Chechnya

While casting his ballot, the leader of Russian opposition People's Freedom party or PARNAS Mikhail Kasyanov said he expected multiple cases of election fraud to be registered during the poll.

"This is not surprising although the authorities promised and swore it to be the most fair, the best election, he said. But it is not so, it is as we expected. Let's see what the level of fraud will be, I expect it to be high.

The Interfax news agency quoted Ilya Shablinsky, a coordinator of observers for the presidential Council on Human Rights, saying that information about violations was coming constantly from various regions.

An election monitoring group, Golos, also said it was receiving complaints of violations. A video posted on YouTube appeared to show a poll worker in the southern Rostov region dropping multiple sheets of paper into a ballot box.
2 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials mark the ground near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, injuring 29 people late Saturday. Authorities called the blast "an intentional act."
Workers elated as crushers resume ops

Crusher industry workers in Dhading are elated after the plants came back into operation from last week.
French Muslims are broadly comfortable with their nations secular crede, but a significant minority have deeply conservative and sometimes hostile views about the French state and society, with more than one-quarter believing Islams Sharia law supersedes state laws, according to a new study by the Paris-based Montaigne Institute.

The survey by polling agency IFOP, whose main findings were published Sunday in Frances Journal du Dimanche weekly, paints a fractured portrait of the countrys largely young, Muslim community, in the crosshairs of searing debates over the veil and body-covering burkini, not to mention the series of terrorist attacks that have hit the country since January 2015.



There is no single Muslim community. There are Muslims who are very different and who are increasingly different, says report author Hakim El Karoui. He describes the study as a wake-up call for action on the part of Muslims and the state to build a healthier relationship with France's second largest religion.

The institute estimates Frances Muslim population, the largest in western Europe and equally divided between native and foreign born, at under four million, significantly smaller than previous estimates of about five million or more.

France forbids collecting official statistics on race, ethnicity or religious affiliation, making it difficult to assess exact numbers.

Religious not national identity

Polling more than 1,000 Muslims out of a sample population of more than 15,000, it also finds the majority of French Muslims are under 50 and keep a low profile both politically and socially. Only a tiny minority participate in Muslim associations, and only about one-third vote.

While most consider religion important, less than one-third go to the mosque on a weekly basis. But Islam penetrates their views and habits. Seven in 10 say they eat Halal, and a strong majority support womens right to wear the veil, although they are against the wearing of the face-covering niqab or burka, a political flashpoint.

Perhaps the most troubling findings surround those who hold more extremist views, about 28 percent of the Muslim population, according to the Montaigne survey. Most are young, poorly educated and hail from the countrys neglected suburbs and other working-class areas.

They are in revolt. They could have been punk rockers in another era, El Karoui says. They feel rejected by society and they cant identify with their countries of origin, so they use Islam as their identity.

Only a small fraction of this group include the extremists who have launched terror attacks in France, he says. Yet many use Islam as a rallying point, even if they remain deeply ignorant of the religion and its dictates.

I think we need to quickly transform this situation, which is unacceptable, El Karoui adds. We cant let a part of French society use religion as a means of rebellion. Its not the role of religion and its very dangerous.

The study comes amid sharp debates over Islam in public life, waged over summer bans of the body covering burkini on some beaches, but also over matters like the veil and face-covering niqab, halal slaughtering practices, and same-sex public swimming pools.

Possible change

A business executive and former political speechwriter, El Karoui helped launch a petition in July with several dozen prominent French Muslims calling for a reorganization of Frances Islamic community, which is deeply divided along ethnic lines, with leaders supported by different North African countries and Turkey carving out their own spheres of influence.

The French state has long campaigned a a French Islam, free from foreign influence and embracing the countrys secular principles.

Yet a newly formed Foundation for Islam in France, aimed to improve relations between the state and the Muslim community and to finance mosques, is deeply controversial, as is the appointment of non-Muslim French politician, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, to head it.

The Montaigne study outlines its own ideas for shaping a French Islam, including more unusual ones, such as teaching Arabic in public schools and rethinking Frances foreign policy to stem Wahabi influences from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Strikingly it calls on France's Muslim community to get more involved politically and socially.

"The message is they have to engage," El Karoui says, "to show that Islam isn't what the fundamentalists make it out to be."
A senior U.S. official says it is up to Russia to demonstrate that a cease-fire plan for Syria can still work.

The official said high-level meetings were planned with Russia "to try to get a sense from them about where they think this can go from here." Consultations were also ongoing with envoys from the 19-nation International Syria Support Group and the U.N. Security Council.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who was due to to attend an ISSG meeting Tuesday, said the U.S.-Russian cease-fire deal remains the only hope to resolve the conflict."

The truce was meant to pause fighting between the Syrian government and rebels, limit Syrian airstrikes that in the past have been blamed for killing civilians, and to allow for delivery of humanitarian aid. But as with earlier agreements, both sides accused the other of violations and the pact had largely fallen apart after a week.

On Monday the United Nations said a joint aid convoy with the Syrian Red Crescent was bombed west of the city of Aleppo.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies spokesman Benoit Carpentier told reporters Tuesday in Geneva that one aid official and several civilians were confirmed dead in the strikes that destroyed multiple trucks and a warehouse.

Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian aid office, said all convoys have been suspended pending a review of the security situation. But he also stressed a commitment to "stay and deliver to everyone in need in Syria."

The agency's head, Stephen O'Brien, issued a statement that said if the strikes are found to have been deliberate, they would amount to a war crime.

It remains unclear whose aircraft struck the convoy. The Pentagon said the U.S.-led coalition was not involved, and a senior U.S. official said there were only two other possibilities, referring to Syria and Russia.

"What took place today, unfortunately, is fundamentally consistent with a pattern and a practice that we have seen going back for a number of months and even years in which the Syrian regime has taken strikes against not only on people and civilians but opposition groups that are protected by the cessation of hostilities, and made life miserable and extraordinarily difficult for aid workers trying to provide assistance to the Syrian population," the official said.

Agreements involving the Syrian conflict have often been based on the idea that Russia would help push its ally Syria to comply, while the United States would do the same with the rebels it has backed. The latest agreement included a plan for the U.S. and Russia to set up a cooperative effort to target Islamic State militants, if the cease-fire endured for a week.

Russia's defense ministry said rebel violations made it "pointless" for government troops to uphold the truce.

Syrian state media quoted President Bashar al-Assad as saying airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition that hit Syrian army positions near Deir Ezzor on Saturday were a "flagrant aggression" that showed support for terrorists. The U.S. has expressed condolences for the strike and is still working to determine exactly what happened.
At least 20 people have been killed in the Central African Republic, an official said Sunday.

Villagers in Ndomete, about 350 kilometers from the town of Kaga-Bandoro, were attacked by armed men from the former rebel coalition Seleka, according to presidential spokesperson Albert Mokpeme.

The Seleka [rebels] went door to door  The village chief was among the victims  It was a massacre, Mokpeme said.

The Central African Republic descended into chaos in March 2013 when mainly Muslim Seleka fighters seized power, triggering reprisal attacks by Christian anti-Balaka militias.

A fifth of the population fled their homes due to violence. The country remains largely divided along religious lines and controlled by warlords.

More than 400,000 people have been internally displaced, and some half-a-million have fled to neighboring countries such as Chad, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United Nations says aid access in the country is hindered by insecurity and violence, and there have more than a dozen attacks against aid workers.

After killings were reported, the countrys U.N. peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, dispatched troops to the area.

MINUSCA regrets the loss of human life and the wounded that were recorded and also denounces attacks against the humanitarian community and United Nations personnel, a U.N. statement said.

Mass violence and looting have been reported following tensions between the Seleka fighters and rival anti-Balaka militia members.

The U.N. mission also said Sunday it has "decided to strengthen its military presence in Kaga Bandoro and Ndomete to prevent any deterioration of the situation."
Nine days after North Koreas latest nuclear test, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday expressed a continued willingness to try to revive dialogue with Pyongyang if it freezes its atomic weapons and ballistic weapons development programs.

Serious negotiation about the future could occur if Pyongyang does not engage in any more provocative actions, Kerry told his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.

A multi-national forum intended to denuclearize the Korean peninsula was set up in 2003, but the parties (both Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States) have not met since December 2008, when talks stalled over verification issues.

Sundays three-way meeting followed North Koreas fifth underground nuclear test and an increased pace of regular missile firings  the latest reckless choices Kim Jong Un has made, Kerry said.

Analysts, reviewing open source satellite imagery, say the impoverished country may have completed preparations for three more nuclear tests that could occur at any time.

South Koreas foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, appeared in no mood Sunday to consider negotiations with his countrys arch-rival, in view of Pyongyangs repeated defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and sanctions.

Yun called for the current U.N. General Assembly to send out a united and forceful message, and impose even more robust sanctions on North Korea as it is now at the final stage of nuclear weaponization.

Yun warned that Pyongyangs weapons are a looming perfect storm that may not only pounce on Northeast Asia but sweep over the entire world,

and said South Korea, the United States and Japan need to put a full stop and permanently roll back North Koreas nuclear programs by whatever means we have.

Japans foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, also called on stronger pressure to be applied on Pyongyang through the U.N. Security Council including further sanctions, as well as taking our measures respectively.

Kishida, hosting the Sunday meeting, also said in light of the threat from North Korea now being totally different in dimension, the international community is required to initiate a different response accordingly. However, he gave no specifics while reporters were allowed in the room for the opening remarks.

A joint statement issued by the three countries following their meeting also revealed no specifics. It noted the ministers explored ways to work together to ensure that all countries fully and effectively implement all their obligations and commitments under U.N. Security Council 2270, which imposed the strongest sanctions ever placed upon North Korea.

Broadcasts from Pyongyang and commentaries carried in the state-run press in recent weeks have warned Washington and Seoul that if they take any military action threatening North Koreas survival, it would immediately fire its nuclear warheads.
The U.S.-Russia negotiated cease-fire in Syria that was negotiated over the heads of militias battling to oust President Bashar al-Assad appears Sunday to be all but dead.

Insurgent leaders and observers of the Syrian conflict warn the legacy of the truce will be to add to the increasingly poisonous relations between the rebels and Washington. They argue the consequences of the cease-fire will be to diminish what scant leverage the United States has left with moderate and Islamist rebels, driving them into closer collaboration with militant groups.

The cease-fire deal has backfired, they say, when it comes to trying to separate Western-approved rebel militias from one of the two jihadist groups Washington and Moscow agreed to target, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra before are branding and formal break with al-Qaida.

Under the cease-fire terms the United States and Russia were to this week begin a joint air campaign against Fateh al-Sham, a group rebels credit as essential in the defense of besieged Aleppo.

On the eve of the cease-fire going into effect, an airstrike, presumed by rebels to have been made by American warplanes, struck a meeting of rebel leaders and killing, among others, Abu Omar Saraqib, a major Fateh al-Sham commander.

Goals vs. consequences

Moscow has been pressing Washington publicly to do more, with Russian General Viktor Poznikhir accusing the Americans of not taking the necessary measures to carry out its obligations, and warning that a breakdown of the cease-fire will be on the United States.

For U.S. officials it is the blocking of international aid by the Assad regime that is wrecking the cease-fire.

But some analysts say the truce never had a chance from the start.

The focus on al Nusra was a disastrous decision, whatever one thinks of them, says Lebanese-American journalist Michael Young, opinion editor of Lebanons Daily Star newspaper. By targeting the most effective force in the anti-Assad coalition, the U.S. has put itself in a position where it is seen by the Syrian rebels as collaborating with the Assad regime.And in all honesty is that not what they really want? A decisive shift in the military balance that can end this war?

Many rebel leaders suspect the cease-fire displays a U.S. desire for the war to end on any terms or at least with a begrudging acceptance of Assad remaining as president.

U.S. officials deny the claim. They maintain that in agreeing to the truce deal they were seeking to alleviate a dire humanitarian crisis by trying to get international aid to 250,000 people in the encircled parts of rebel held eastern Aleppo and to an estimated six million people in other besieged areas of Syria.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, says the cease-fire plan was misconceived from the start.

The agreement was based on a false premise, that the U.S. has more control over the armed opposition than it in fact does, and in that way it gave credence to Russian views that we control the opposition, he said. This isnt the Cold War or the 19th century, where all the major players in armed conflicts like this are the pawns of Great Powers. Russia can obviously influence the Assad regime, but the U.S. has very little control over the opposition.

Washington control likely lessened

Rebel groups were meeting Sunday to decide their next steps, but they say they would be weakened considerably on the battlefield, if they were to separate from Fateh al-Sham and its allies.And they question what Washington wants them to do, walk away from territory they control jointly with Fateh al-Sham, which would give Assad a military opening, or start fighting them when they are better armed?

What the U.S. doesnt understand is that Fateh al-Shams formal break with al-Qaida has satisfied many rebel groups, says General Salim Idris, a former commander-in-chief of the Western-approved Free Syrian Army.I don't trust the break is genuine, I think it came far too late in this war.But many others do trust them.

With aid not reaching Aleppo, Idris, says the cease-fires days are numbered and it would be hard for the United States to re-build trust with rebels.

What happens when or if the cease-fire breaks down?Aron Lund, an analyst with the Carnegie Middle East Program, says, Whether it would be much different than before the truce deal would, I imagine, depends on how the breakdown happens and what that would do to U.S.-Russian diplomacy, which has been absolutely central to the international discussions about how to handle Syria.

Michael Young reckons in the aftermath of a formal breakdown in the cease-fire, Syria will return to the war logic that preceded the truce, which he argues Damascus was never really interested in.
Police in New York are appealing to the public for information after an explosion in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea injured 29 people late Saturday. Authorities called the blast "an intentional act."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo labeled the incident an "act of terrorism" at a news conference on Sunday morning, but specified that there is no evidence of "international terrorism." New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio described the explosion as "deliberate."

An additional 1,000 police and National Guard troops will be patrolling the city's public transportation system "just to err on the side of caution," Cuomo said.

He added that all 29 victims have been released from the hospital.

IN PICTURES: From the scene of the New York blast

The explosion outside 131 West 23rd Street around 8:30 p.m. left debris and glass strewn throughout the streets and caused significant property damage. Images from the scene and from closed circuit cameras around the blast show the windows blown out of cars and storefronts as pedestrians scrambled for safety.

The bomb detonated in a bustling neighborhood filled with bars, restaurants and residences during an especially busy time for the most populated city in the U.S., as world leaders arrive in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly this week. Police have restricted foot traffic through the scene.

Area resident Michelle Katz said she was in bed when something sounded "like a bomb exploding or a truck driving into a building."

Two minutes later, "there were endless sirens," Katz told VOA.

Subway and bus service passing the area was halted, and police closed off a large area of midtown Manhattan to all traffic. Hundreds of police and firefighters were at the scene of the explosion.

Police said they had video of the explosion recorded by surveillance cameras, but they did not discuss details of the images.

New York authorities are also investigating an unexploded device found at West 27th Street, blocks from where the explosion occurred. Bomb squad personnel safely removed a device that appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to a cell phone and wires in a plastic bag.

The New York blast came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in a trash bin in a New Jersey beach town Saturday 135 kilometers away, forcing the cancellation of a charity foot race involving thousands of runners.

DeBlasio and Cuomo have said the two incidents were unrelated. No injuries were reported in Seaside Park, New Jersey, but race organizers called off the five-kilometer race meant to raise money for U.S. military personnel. Authorities said three pipe-bomb-type devices wired together were found near the boardwalk. Only one of the devices is believed to have detonated.

Cuomo said authorities "will prosecute" the New York explosion as a terrorist activity.

"We're fortunate that this didn't happen during the week, like a work day, a Monday or Tuesday," said Steven Faria, who works at a veterans' hospital nearby and came from his home in Queens to see the scene of the blast on his day off. "With all the people that work in this area, I think the casualties would have been twice as many people."

"I walk by here virtually every day. You just don't know what's going to happen anymore. You could be walking by, there could be explosions, you could get hit by debris... who knows," Faria added. "It's a scary time."
The Movement for Democratic Change led by Morgan Tsvangirai says the United Nations, Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union should intervene in Zimbabwe following the brutalization of hundreds of protesters in various cities and towns by suspected state security agents and suspected Zanu PF activists during nationwide peaceful marches calling for the reformation of the electoral system.

In a statement, Tsvangirais MDC-T said President Robert Mugabes government has declared a deface state of emergency in the country where political parties under the umbrella of the National Electoral Reform Agenda on Saturday staged protests in almost all parts of the nation demanding sweeping electoral reforms ahead of the 2018 elections.

The MDC, once again, calls upon SADC, the AU and even the United Nations, to urgently place Zimbabwe back on the agenda. The prevailing security and political situation in the country is untenable, particularly considering the fact that (Mr.) Mugabe himself recently threatened to unleash terror and brutality on all leading opposition politicians such as MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai.



(Mr.) Mugabe is smelling blood. He is spoiling for a fight. In these circumstances, therefore, Zimbabwe could quickly slide into anarchy and state - sponsored banditry and terrorism if SADC, the AU and the UN do not promptly intervene to find a lasting and sustainable solution to the long - standing Zimbabwean political and socio - economic crisis.



The MDC-T said the toiling masses of Zimbabwe are crying out to be heard by both the regional and the international community. (President) Robert Mugabe and his rogue, politically delinquent and paranoid Zanu PF regime shouldn't be allowed to continue holding Zimbabweans to ransom.

Mr. Mugabe recently warned that his government wont tolerate any protests against his rule saying state security agents were ready to crush protesters, who are urging the 92-year old president to step down for allegedly failing to properly run Zimbabwe.

Pastor Evan Mawarires #thisflag movement, Tajamuka-Sesijikile Campaign, #thisgown and several other civic society groups have staged peaceful protests demanding that the Zanu PF government should address serious social and economic problems facing the nation.

In turn, state security agents have turned on the heat on protesters resulting in the arrest of scores of people, including on Saturday when some MDC-T lawmakers and other peaceful marchers in Harare, Chinhoyi, Kadoma, Gweru, Gwanda, Gutu and other places were beaten up and arrested by the police.

According to the MDC-T, some of the people allegedly victimizing protesters are Zanu PF youth that have of late been threatening to take the law into their own hands saying the police are treating them with kid gloves.

The youth asked for permission from President Mugabe to be embedded with the police and other state security agents. It is not clear whether this was given the green light by the president and his ruling party.

Party spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo was not reachable for comment.

The MDC-T believes that Zanu PF youth are part of the state machinery brutalizing protesters.

The MDC has established irrefutable evidence to the effect that thousands of Zanu PF thugs and hoodlums, employed as so - called youth officers throughout the country, are actually being given ZRP uniforms so that they can masquerade as duly attested members of the police force. Thus, we would like to call upon the Commissioner - General of police, Augustine Chihuri, to come out in the open and publicly dissociate the legitimate members of the ZRP from these marauding Zanu PF thugs and hooligans.

Throughout the length and breadth of the country, armed police officers and hundreds of Zanu PF thugs and hooligans were deployed specifically to harass, intimidate and assault people who were peacefully engaged in public demonstrations demanding the adoption of electoral reforms, amongst other key demands from the toiling masses of Zimbabwe.

The opposition party said the government has declared a defacto state of emergency. Police were not reachable for comment.
A pipe bomb exploded in a trash bin in a New Jersey beach town Saturday, forcing cancellation of a charity foot race involving thousands of runners.

No injuries were reported, but authorities in Seaside Park called off the "Seaside Semper Five," a five-kilometer race meant to raise money for U.S. military personnel. The event was hosted by members of the U.S. Marine Corps.

The FBI was leading the investigation, but officials hadn't said whether they thought the blast was an act of terrorism. Authorities said three pipe-bomb-type devices wired together had been found near the boardwalk. Only one of the devices was thought to have detonated.

Brad Cohen, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI office in Newark, New Jersey, told reporters Saturday that federal, state and local law enforcement officers were "working together to conduct a thorough investigation to find out who is responsible."

Following the explosion, the area was put on lockdown. Several homes in the neighborhood were evacuated. Residents were later allowed to return home, but several nearby beaches remained closed.

A man walking along the boardwalk when the blast occurred told a local news station that after hearing the blast he thought, "That was one hell of a start to a race."

Officials have not said whether the race will be rescheduled.
Scores of people, including Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) Members of Parliament, were arrested Saturday when hundreds of people staged peaceful protests in various parts of Zimbabwe demanding sweeping electoral reforms before the 2018 general elections.

Several parties  the MDC-T, Zimbabwe People First led by former Vice President Joice Mujuru, Tendai Bitis Peoples Democratic Party, Transform Zimbabwe, MDC led by Professor Welshman Ncube and several others  staged the peaceful protests under a coalition known as then National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA).

MDC-T vice president, Nelson Chamisa, told VOA Studio 7 that his Kuwadzana constituency in Harare resembled a war zone as police beat up protesters.

MDC-T lawmaker Ronia Bunjira was arrested in the capital citys Waterfalls suburb together with several others who were staging a peaceful march at Parktown Shopping Center.

In Bulawayo, MDC-T vice president Thokozani Khupe led the protest while in Mutare, Manicaland province, Mutasa MDC-T lawmaker Trevor Saruvaka was arrested by the police for leading the street march.

At the same time, human rights lawyers groups, Abammeli and the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, teamed up and managed to initiate the release of several people who were picked up by the police for engaging in similar protests in Gwanda.

Gwanda Central MDC-T Member of Parliament was among people who were arrested by the police in the Matabeleland South provincial capital.

Some protesters were also arrested in the Midlands provinces Gweru and Zvishavane towns and other urban areas, including Kadoma, Chinhoyi and Chinhoyi.
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The Oso Musical organization is offering a free music class for children with special needs at 6:45 p.m. Monday in Room 114 of Baylor Universitys McCrary Music Building.

The class, open to ages 5 to 18, will meet every Monday through Dec. 5.

Instructor Elisa Crowder and Baylor music-student volunteers will teach participants fun and diverse music lessons.

Families can register their students at http://osomusicalbaylor.wixsite.com/osomusical; by email at osomusicalbaylor@gmail.com; or in person before the class.

For more information, call 710-1193.

Lane closures

The Texas Department of Transportation will temporarily close lanes in the Farm-to-Market Road 1637 construction project area from 7 p.m. Monday to 7 a.m. Tuesday.

The closures, at the intersection of F.M. 3434, also known as Pioneer Parkway, and F.M. 1637, also known as China Spring Highway, will allow contractors to install storm sewer drainage at that location.

Motorists can expect to encounter flaggers and temporary delays during the closure.

WHS open house

The Waco High School Parent-Teacher-Student Association will have an open house program from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday at Waco High School, 2020 N. 42nd St.

The event will include a brief meeting, after which parents can visit classrooms.

For more information, call Lisa Saxenian at 776-1150.

CRRC dinner program

The Community Race Relations Coalition will have its quarterly meeting from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Parish Hall of St. Albans Episcopal Church, 305 N. 30th St.

The program Racial Reconciliation: What Can I Do? will include interactive activities to help each person assess what he or she can do to promote reconciliation and unity.

Dinner will be provided, with donations accepted.

The event is free, but a reservation is required.

For reservations, call 717-7903 or email Jo_Welter@hotmail.com.

Rotary Club of Waco

The Rotary Club of Waco will meet at noon Monday at the Lions Den, 1716 N. 42nd St.

Guest speaker Fernando Arroyo, president of the Sanger Heights Neighborhood Association, will present a program titled Sanger Heights Struggles and Success.

Cost is $10 for a catered lunch from Blaneks.

For more information, call 776-2115.

Submit items for Briefly in printed or typed form to Briefly, P.O. Box 2588, Waco 76702-2588; fax to 757-0302; or email to goingson@wacotrib.com at least one week before an event.
Betsy Frix, of Waco, will turn 100 years old on Thursday.

Born in Gainesville, Texas, on Sept. 22, 1916, she was the second of 10 children born to DeWitt Talmage and Bertha Dickinson Millican.

She graduated from Brownwood High School and attended one year of business school.

She married Forrest Frix in 1935. They became parents of two children, Glenda and Arlena. Over the years her family has grown to include five grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren.

Betsy moved with her children to Waco in 1942, and with the death of her mother that same year, she also became a vital source of support for three of her younger sisters.

She worked for Behrens Drug Co. for 42 years, then for 10 years at Jack and Jill Kindergarten.

Betsy joined the Church of the Nazarene when she was 9 years old, and continues to remain active in the church. She continues to read to the children in the nursery every Sunday, and encourages young people to attend Sunday School. She also enjoys participating in a weekly senior group at her church.

She attends the Harrison Senior Center, usually three days a week, to exercise, play games and have lunch.

She has fulfilled two lifelong dreams in her 70s, traveling to England and then to Germany, where she viewed the Oberammergau Passion Play.
McLennan Countys top law enforcement officer says he didnt know the objectives or purpose of the Black Lives Matters movement when he bought a full-page ad in the Sept. 2 issue of the Hometown News that says All Lives Matter.

Sheriff Parnell McNamara and State Rep. Charles Doc Anderson, R-Waco, each bought ads with the phrase, though both said they were unaware of the others purchase at the time.

McNamara said he bought the ad because thats what he believes.

I remember talking to someone about All Lives Matter, because it aggravated me when someone said All Lives Matter is a racial slur. All lives matter. Your life matters, mine, police, John Q citizen. It doesnt matter what color you are. Every human being has a right to live.

Jo Welter, Community Race Relations Coalition board chairman, said it does matter what color someones skin is, because of unequal treatment.

Welter said she tries to ignore All Lives Matter rhetoric.

You can say, All lives matter, but the fact is throughout our history, and even currently, we do not value black lives as much as we do other lives, Welter said.

Of all of the unarmed people shot and killed by police in the United States in 2015, 40 percent of them were black men, according to The Washington Post. Black men make up 6 percent of the nations population.

McNamara said people can disagree with him all they want.

Thats my opinion. Thats the way I feel, McNamara said.

Anderson said he bought his ad because with the 9/11 anniversary approaching, he wanted to remind people the importance of pulling together in a communal mindset and brotherhood.

This seems to be the trend, or not the trend, but that vernacular in this day and age, Anderson said about selecting that phrase.

Black Lives Matter is divisive and counterproductive, Anderson said.

It doesnt help the issues. Its inflammatory, and I think its intended to be so, he said. Most members of the black community realize that all lives matter.

Please count us

When police officers commit what appear to be crimes against blacks and face no consequences, it looks as if black lives dont matter, Waco NAACP President Peaches Henry said.

Henry and the Waco NAACP have called for local law enforcement agencies to use body cameras and implement citizen review boards and other measures that would allow more public oversight and communication with police.

Given the actions that are going on in our community, it doesnt appear to us that African-American lives matter, and so what we are saying is please count us in humanity as well, she said.

According to The Washington Post, black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers. Since January 2015, about 13 percent of all black people who were fatally shot by police officers were unarmed, compared with 7 percent of all white people.

Waco leaders pushing for equal treatment also have been explicit about condemning retaliation or violence against police.

In July, Waco Black Poets Society members organized a vigil that attracted about 100 people to Heritage Square in downtown Waco in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and to stand in solidarity after recent killings of black men and police officers.

The event fell on the day after a lone gunman ambushed and killed five police officers working a Dallas protest aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement. The Waco event had been scheduled before the Dallas shooting, and organizers said at the time the events in Dallas changed the tone of the vigil.

Organizers spoke to dispel messages that the movement for civil rights supports violence against police officers. Instead, it campaigns against police mistreatment of black people.

Sharol Henning was one of several to speak that day.

Black Lives Matter became a movement because black people felt their lives werent being treated on the same level as others, Henning said. She is manager at Home Depot, a Tarleton State University student and a member of the Waco Poets Society and the Black Poets Society.

If all lives mattered, Black Lives Matter wouldnt even exist, she said this week.

Black Lives Matter started as a social media hashtag.

In 2013, George Zimmerman was found not guilty of wrongdoing in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida, and Black Lives Matter began trending. That hashtag has since grown into an organization with more than 20 chapters across the United States and Canada. It wasnt until after the phrase Black Lives Matter became common that the phrase All Lives Matter grew to prominence.

While the movement may have taken hold in with the trial, Zimmermans auctioning of the weapon he used in the shooting of Martin lit a new fire in it, Henning said.

Black Lives Matters works for a world where black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise, according to the organizations website.

Denial of history

Overall, Welter said, shes disappointed the elected officials felt the need to purchase the ads saying All Lives Matter. The advertisements are an obvious denial of history, she said.

But I also think its really, really, really hard for white men to get this, said Welter, who is white.

The movement against police is atrocious, McNamara said.

When asked if he means the Black Lives Matter movement, McNamara said he means rhetoric against good police. Its disheartening to see individuals equate serving as a police officer to being a bad person, McNamara said.

I know of no police officer that puts his badge and gun on in the morning and goes to work wanting to hurt someone or kill someone, he said. We have black police officers that have been killed. Its a movement against police out there thats absolutely wrong.

McNamara said he doesnt believe All Lives Matter is a retaliation against Black Lives Matter.

Im saying that every persons life matters, and you quote me on that, he said.

Henry said she hopes his statement is genuine and hopes that when officers break the law or do not uphold that standard, they are also held up to the law and judged accordingly.

I would hope that when he says that, that he does mean that when he says All Lives Matter. I am hoping that he means all African-American lives matter, that police officers lives matter, that Caucasian lives matter and Hispanic lives matter, she said.

Welter said shes never spoken to anyone involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, or who has been a victim of policy brutality because of the color of their skin, who does not value police officers lives.

Henry said Black Lives Matter is a cry of outrage, a cry of anger, to ask people to see that black lives do matter and that their lives cant be taken without consequence.

Its Black Lives Matter too, not Black Lives Matter more than other lives, she said.

McNamara said he couldnt speak to what the Black Lives Matter movement, message or purpose is because he doesnt know it.

What theyre trying to say, Im not going to get into that because I really dont know, he said. I know theyre concerned about African-Americans. Were concerned about everybody, including African-Americans. Absolutely.

A Pew Research Center study released in July found that about 1 in 5 Americans support the Black Lives Matter movement. But, about a third of Americans familiar with Black Lives Matter said they dont understand the goals of the movement.

Welter said of course all lives matter, but the Black Lives Matter movement is needed because black lives havent mattered as much as white lives.

White people want to say race is not an issue anymore, and it is, Welter said.

Sheriffs office Sgt. Lionel McGee, who is black, said circumstances surrounding the founding of Black Lives Matter and some of its methods have deterred him from supporting it. Some people in the movement will never support law enforcement, he said.

Done the same thing

I tell people all the time, the incident that sparked all this with Michael Brown in Ferguson, I probably would have done the same thing. You know, thats what started it. The deal with (Eric) Garner in New York. He was 300-something pounds. I had this argument with my own sister. How come Mr. Garner couldnt have said, Hey, yall caught me selling illegal cigarettes on the street. You got me and put my hands behind my back, and lets go to jail. Hed still be alive today.

If somebodys fighting and struggling with you and youre trying to arrest them and youre doing everything in your power to arrest them, and that person dont want to go and they happen to die or get injured or get seriously hurt, I cant see that as being my fault.

Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed in August 2014 by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, Missouri. Wilson was twice exonerated of criminal wrongdoing. Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, died in July 2014 after a white New York City officer, Daniel Pantaleo, put him in a chokehold. A grand jury decided to not indict Pantaleo.

McGee said he has had conversations with family and friends about the issue and sometimes they agree to disagree.

McGee, who has been in law enforcement 33 years, said he believes in supporting All Lives Matter. McGee said he never hears his community discussing black-on-black crime. Some people jump on bandwagons and not always for the right reason, McGee said.

I think a lot of these folks put themselves in these situations, and thats why I disagree when they talk about Black Lives Matter, McGee said. These guys were criminals, they had committed a crime. Police were there for a reason. They just didnt indiscriminately stop somebody and go, Oh Im going to mess with this guy today. They were called there for a reason.

McNamara said he has many African-American friends, and the worst person hes ever dealt with was white and he saw him executed.

I helped put him there, he said.

McNamara said Waco doesnt have the problems that exist up north. Local law enforcement officials are color blind, he said.

We dont tolerate racism in this department, McNamara said. We just dont. We treat everybody fairly.

Heart to heart

Emotions dictate behavior, Welter said. She tells other members of the coalition theyll never know what it is they say or do that will trigger someone to change their behavior.

Welter said she had a black woman at a meeting explain that People of color can never ever relax because they are always representing their group. Always.

She said a 3 a.m. trip to Walgreens for a prescription requires getting fully dressed up for fear she might give individuals the opportunity to treat her less because of the color of her skin.

Those listening were dumbfounded, Welter said.

It doesnt mean they are going to go up tomorrow and have a glowing halo over their heads. When people have an emotional reaction to something it changes their behavior, she said. When one heart changes it has a profound effect.

Welter said she believes McNamara has a good heart. His unintended message, like others, stems from ignorance or misunderstanding about the issue, she said. People are so deeply affected by racist teachings ingrained in society they can unconsciously do offensive things, she said. Racism is a difficult subject.

McNamara has attended one of the coalitions workshops on undoing racism, she said, adding she appreciated he came out for that.

The community should be working more to pull together and not divide itself further for political gain, Anderson, the state representative said. Anderson said he wanted to reinforce that all lives matter, whether they are black, white, male, female, police lives or the unborn.

Henning said whats important is that if a person recognizes Black Lives Matter, its important they represent that every day and not just when a black person is killed unjustly.

Any movement can be misrepresented or hurt by people who dont take the time to educate themselves on the matter, Henning said. Its not a call to be anti-cop, she said. Its to call out the social injustices that occur when people who are under the oath to serve and protect dont uphold that duty.
The days following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks brought America together and sparked a feeling of unity, patriotism and a desire across the nation to help in some way. For some, it was a call to arms. At least it was for Hewitt resident Jon Ker, 69, who wanted to be in on the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Ker knew about war. He had served with the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) in Vietnam. Being a soldier was something hed always dreamed of.

I just always loved the military, the Dallas native said. Whenever we played as kids, it was always army. That was natural since his father had served as a company commander during World War II.

After three semesters of college, Ker decided to join the Army. The song, The Ballad of the Green Berets, was wildly popular. It left many young men yearning to join the Green Berets, Ker included.

In February 1967 he enlisted. Because of his college background, he was sent to Officer Candidate School, becoming a 2nd lieutenant. Even so, he had to apply to get into the Special Forces, the official designation for the Green Berets.

Ker ended up in Vietnam with the 5th Special Forces Group Airborne, helping to train, equip and lead the

native Montagnards (Mountain Yards) in counter-

insurgency measures against the North Vietnamese Army. There were between 400 to 500 Montagnards working with the Special Forces while Ker was there from January 1969 to January 1970.

Stationed at Dak Seang Special Forces camp close to the tri-border area of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, a detachment of 10 Special Forces members  two to a team  would each lead about 100 Yards (as they were nicknamed) on nightly stealth missions, where they would engage small factions of enemy forces.

We were called ground-pounders, Ker said. We walked wherever we needed to go.

Unseen enemy in dense jungle

There were numerous battles. Planes equipped with motion sensors could detect movement in the jungle and report when NVA forces were active. Special Forces teams would then go out and engage the enemy in the dense foliage. At times, they ran into ambushes, but the U.S. had superior air coverage and could radio for artillery support when necessary.

Ker was on radio watch one night when Ben Het, another nearby Special Forces camp, came under siege in a three-tank attack in March 1969. Shortly afterward, he was moved there. It had been the first battle commanded by the South Vietnamese and the second-longest battle in Vietnam up to that point, he said.

Landing by helicopter, Ker said the enemy was dug in on the other side of an airport about 150 meters away.

Front for artillery attack

I had to run from the helipad up the hill to get underground, he said. In fact, his was the last helicopter in, as artillery started dropping all around.

One strike knocked Ker out of the helicopter as it was about to land. I knew I wasnt wounded  I could still run, he said. I never ran so fast in my life. It was the first artillery attack hed experienced up close.

In spite of having several thousand enemy fighting in two regiments, the NVA was finally driven back. What broke their resolve was the B-52 strikes, Ker said.

After he came out of Ben Het, he was riding in an armored personnel carrier in a large convoy that came under attack. He used every bit of firepower on him until there was nothing left. Luckily, three Cobra helicopters came to the rescue.

I loved Cobra pilots after that, he said.

Ker finished up his deployment at Firebase 6, where he commanded a platoon of Mountain Yards and South Vietnamese troops in charge of perimeter security.

He returned to the States and remained on active duty for another year before he entered the reserves.

He remained a reservist when he returned to school. Ker earned his juris doctorate and entered into general law practice in 1982. He married Terri Anderson in 1985 and eventually left the reserves in 2003.

On Sept. 11, 2001, he was entering the base at Fort Gordon, Georgia, when the terrorist attacks occurred.

They shut the post down, he said. Terri was stuck in a hotel, while he was stranded at Fort Gordon.

I told her right then I was going to war again, Ker said. She knew before I ever said it. Shes always been very supportive of me. He was 54 at the time.

The question remained: Would the Army be willing to send a man that age into battle?

NEXT WEEK: Ker, as a lieutenant colonel, readies for active duty in Iraq. He serves in Jordan and Baghdad before finally retiring as a full colonel.

Voices of Valor, featuring stories about Central Texas veterans, publishes every Sunday in the Waco Trib. To suggest a story about a Central Texas veteran, email voicesofvalor@wacotrib.com. Voices of Valor is proudly sponsored by Johnson Roofing.
If you are the status quo candidate in a change election in which the national mood is sour and two-thirds of the electorate think the country is on the wrong track, what do you do? Attack. Relentlessly. Paint your opponent as extremist, volatile, clueless, unfit, dangerous. Indeed, Hillary Clintons latest national ad, featuring major Republican politicians echoing that indictment of Donald Trump, ends thus: Unfit. Dangerous. Even for Republicans.

That was the theme of Clintons famous open alt-right speech and of much of her $100 million worth of ads.

Problem is, its not working.

Over the last month, Trumps new team, led by Kellyanne Conway, has worked single-mindedly to blunt that line of attack on the theory that if he can just cross the threshold of acceptability, he wins. In an act of brazen rebranding, they set out to endow him with stature and empathy.

Stature was acquired in Mexico whose president inexplicably gave Trump the opportunity to stand on the world stage with a national leader and more than hold his own. Its the same stature booster Sen. Barack Obama pulled off when he stood with the French president at a news conference in Paris in 2008.

That was part one: Trump the statesman. Part two: the kinder gentler Trump.

Nervy. Can you really repackage the boasting, bullying, bombastic, insulting, insensitive Trump into a mellow and caring version? With two months to go? In a digital age in which every past outrage is preserved on imperishable video?

Turns out, yes. How? Deflect and deny  and pretend it never happened. Where are they now  the birtherism, the deportation force, the scorn for teleprompters, the mocking of candidates who take outside money? Down the memory hole.

Orwell was wrong. You dont need repression. You need only the sensory overload of an age of numbingly ephemeral social media. In this surreal election season, there is no past.

Clinton ads keep showing actual Trump sound bites meant to shock. Yet her numbers are dropping, his rising.

How? Trump never goes on the defensive. He merely creates new Trumps. Hence:

The African-American blitz: Its a new pose and the novelty shows. Trump is not very familiar with the language. He occasionally slips, for example, into referring to the blacks. And his argument that African-Americans inhabit a living hell and therefore have nothing to lose by voting for him hovers somewhere between condescension and insult.

But, as every living commentator has noted, the foray into African-American precincts was not aimed at winning black votes but at countering Trumps general image as the bigoted candidate of white people.

Result? A curious dynamic in which Clinton keeps upping the accusatory ante just as Trump keeps softening his tone  until she finds herself way over the top, landing in a basket of deplorables, a phrase that will haunt her until Election Day. (Politics 101: Never attack the voter.)

The immigration wobble: A week of nonstop word salad about illegal immigration left everyone confused about what Trump really believes. Genius. The only message to emerge from the rhetorical fog is that he is done talking about deportation and/or legalization. The very discussion is off the table until years down the road.

Case closed. Toxic issue detoxified.

Again, thats not going to win him the Hispanic vote. But that wasnt the point. The point was to soften his image in the Philadelphia suburbs, pundit shorthand for white college-educated women that Republicans have to win (and where Trump trails Romney 2012 by 10 points). Which brings us to:

The blockbuster childcare proposal: Unveiled Tuesday, it is liberalism at its best, Big Government at its biggest: tax deductions, tax rebates (i.e. cash) and a federal mandate of six weeks of paid maternity leave. The biggest entitlement since, well, Obamacare.

But wait. Didnt Trumps acolytes assure us that he spoke for those betrayed by the sold-out, elitist, GOP establishment that for years refused to stand up to Obamas overweening mandates, Big Government profligacy and budget-busting entitlements?

No matter. That was yesterday. There is no past. Nor a future  at least for Ivanka-care. It would never get through the GOP House.

Nor is it meant to. It is meant to signal what George H.W. Bush once memorably read off a cue card. Message: I care.

And where do you think Trump gave this dish-the-Whigs cradle-to-college entitlement speech? Why, the Philadelphia suburbs!

Cant get more transparent than that. Or shameless. Or brilliant.

And its working.

Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, a regular contributor to Fox News, is also author of the bestseller Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics.
The right choice

On the last night of the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump praised the audience for its applause for one of the speakers before him who said he was proud of being gay. When God calls homosexuality an abomination and worthy of his most severe judgment, how then is voting for Trump any different than voting for someone who believes in abortion?

When Trump promises to put conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court and to build a wall that challenges anyone to try scaling it, and I vote for him because of these promises, what is the ultimate cost of my vote? One of those costs is the new Republican leadership will almost certainly try to assimilate this sinful lifestyle into the American mainstream. And when we say that Trump is the lesser of two evils, then what do we vote for? Answer: Evil.

That being our choice, can God be blamed when his people are oppressed by a spiritually destitute government?

Ted Cruz is a viable candidate, a man who has a proven record of putting God first. A write-in vote for him would require this election be viewed through the eyes of faith. Because the Republican Party is divided, the possibility of living under the tyranny of Clinton is strong. That would be most unfortunate, but isnt that part and parcel of what faith is all about? Making difficult choices, the right choice? Yes, that would seem to fit the definition of faith pretty well, the sort that sends a message to the party and others. So before we cast our ballot this November, we should consider that a good measure of our own faith can be seen in who it is we are voting for.

Bart Masiero, Granbury

Right to be poor

Time for working and young folks to wake up. Workers have been convinced they no longer need a retirement pension from their jobs. The Republican-controlled Congress tells them all they need to do is save money and send it to their friends on Wall Street who invest in a 401(k) or whatever.

States such as Texas do not want unions in the state because they bring laws that require workers be paid well and treated fairly, so states pass right-to-work laws. What that really means is they give you the right to work for less money and benefits. States with right-to-work laws all pay less than others with unions. Most folks do not make enough to save for retirement.

If youre one of those, you better start betting on the Democrats who have provided every program Americans need such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, food stamps and housing. Try to name even one program Republicans have helped working people with.

In fact, Republicans want to cut or privatize all of these programs. Even the post office is in danger of being privatized by the Republicans. Wise up, folks, and think about what is best for you and your family  and not what is best for the wealthy.

Jim Denton, Gatesville
The National Broadband Network is sold in five speed tiers, with download rates ranging from 12 megabits per second (Mbps) to 100Mbps. The faster the speed, the more expensive a package is likely to be. Under the NBN, unlimited plans are still relatively uncommon, but many higher speed plans also include larger download quotas. NBN's footprint currently includes roughly 3.8 million premises. However, only 1.6 million premises have activated their connection. "The issue facing consumers...is the actual speed that will be delivered via copper (fibre-to-the-node) won't be known for sure until the NBN connection is actually installed," said Laurie Patton, CEO of Internet Australia. "So we suspect that some ISPs might be suggesting their customers order a low speed package rather than risk complaints about not providing the speed promised. The best way to resolve this problem is to revert to a fibre-based NBN."

How do I know I am getting what I paid for? "The real trick is to test regularly. Just one individual speed test will typically give a peak speed at that point in time and may not be representative of experience over time," said Mr Kidman. Sites such as Speedtest.net, Speedof.me and TestMy.net are all useful resources for anyone looking to check their internet speed. "They will give you a straight upload and download, showing peaks and troughsThen you can match that against the deal for which you are paying."

Mr Kidman said the definition of an acceptable speed varied from household to household, but consumers should expect "about 75 per cent of the advertised speed, most of the time". He was unaware of any internet service provider (ISP) advertising a minimum connection speed. "Check and save that data, so if there is an infrastructure problem you can prove it," he said. Dominic Green, principal lawyer at Sydney law firm Green & Associates, said consumers should always check the terms of their contract.

"Regulations require ISPs to provide consumers with a Critical Information Summary (CIS) at the time of sign up. It generally relates to charges but also has a clear description of service." The CIS is designed for the average person as a short, concise document. However, even if a consumer does not read the CIS, they are still protected by the industry code and consumer law. Mr Kidman said the most common mistake in purchasing internet packages was focusing on the "two big numbers" advertised: price and the top maximum speed. "Top max speeds are always 'up to' speeds...but a relatively low percentage of Australians would currently reach the top speed, and those that did would be exclusively NBN-connected or part of the existing cable structure," he said. Can I leave my contract early?

In its 2015 ISP Satisfaction Survey, consumer group Choice revealed that respondents with Internode, Westnet, TPG and iiNet were less likely than average to report problems. Telstra users were more likely to report problems, including very slow speed, disconnections, failure to connect and unexpectedly high bills. So what rights do consumers have if their internet is consistently underperforming? "Put blankly, you have a right to terminate the contract if there is a breach, like consistent drop-outs, or slow service," Mr Green said, adding that the biggest consumer misconception was that contract terms were absolute and binding. "That is not the case. Often people put terms in contracts, whether or not they know they are enforceable, as a scare tactic."
Last month, a notoriously obnoxious blogger  the type that rips people apart on a personal level, rather than focusing on politics  aimed fire at my volunteer team. I won't name the blogger in question because no-one deserves notoriety for abuse.

We fight for social change because we're often recipients of violence and vitriol  and if not us, then our partners, friends or kids. For the sake of my argument, I'll let you in on a bit of this vitriol.

I interact with the LGBT community a lot through my work with Archer Magazine . In many ways, we're similar to other communities: we discuss the world, and how to make it work better for us. We talk about Netflix, work, fashion, tax reform, and how to barbecue the best spuds. A lot of us also donate time and energy to argue for social change. For those of us that fight, our activism is usually unpaid, so we do it outside work hours, motivated by a belief that the world could be better.

The word "pride" has particular resonance for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. We have pride parades around the world. The rainbow flag was developed as a symbol of LGBT pride, by a mate of Harvey Milk's back in the '70s. But LGBT pride is more than a symbol, or a defence mechanism, or an ideal we're working towards. It's a real, genuine and current feeling that persists through prejudice.

I will say that he expertly avoided any direct liability by simply blogging the link to our team page, which includes the names and faces of the young volunteers that help publish Archer Magazine  and threw us to his hungry pack of abusive commenters. We're a diverse bunch, and that's kind of the point: we donate our time to make the world feel a little bit safer for folk who feel different. The trolls attacked our appearances, our clothes, our work and our identities, and roared about the hideousness of difference. It was drivel, of course, but it was violent, personal, sinister drivel.

I contacted my team and their responses were tougher and more resilient than I could ever be. One team member said "right-wing hate-speech always feels like a notch in the belt". Another said we must be doing good work, if people are taking notice. Over email, the team expressed care and concern for each other, offered jokes to re-establish the tone, and marvelled at what sort of people spend their time attacking the appearances of a bunch of unpaid young activists.

This small team of fighters is more robust than I will ever be. Reading their responses, I felt proud, but it's a bittersweet show of strength: in truth, these young adults have learned to take violent attacks gracefully because they've lived with them for so long.

I have a background in publishing, so I contacted an older journo to gauge his response. He told me to report the incident, and I had to educate him that this level of online abuse is directed at queer and female writers every day, sometimes relentlessly. If these incidents were all reported, we'd spend more time writing to the Australian Press Council than producing anything meaningful.

Other mates told me to ignore the comments, saying some men are scared because the world is changing. I thought about the blokes who feel they've lost their level of privilege, and the privilege that was promised for their children, and wondered how that might feel. That's the way it goes for oppressed people: we empathise with our attackers, to figure out why we're being targeted. But trying to understand perpetrators of abuse is like forgiving someone who hasn't even apologised.
In 1997, Pauline Hanson's book The Truth envisioned that by halfway through the 21st century, Australia would be ruled by an Asian lesbian cyborg called Poona Li Hung.

The notion  since disowned by its putative author, who now testifies that the first time she read The Truth was after it had been printed and bound under her name  is one of those stray pieces of Hansonilia that might have been forgotten forever had the lady not got herself re-elected to Parliament (where presumably she keeps a watching brief on Labor Senate leader Penny Wong for latent signs of automatism).

On Wednesday night, Senator Hanson celebrated her return to politics with a speech full of verve and contumely.

Listening to the speech, I was reminded of a hoax email that has been circulating around the United States for years. In it, an Australian Prime Minister (sometimes it's John Howard, sometimes Kevin Rudd, sometimes Julia Gillard) addresses these remarks to Australian Muslims:
Today show co-host Karl Stefanovic has reportedly separated from his wife after 21 years of marriage.

The 42-year-old moved out of the family home he shares with his wife, Cassandra Thorburn, 44, and three children in recent weeks, according to News Limited.

He is staying at his friend James Packer's Bondi apartment, the report stated.

Friends of the couple were quoted as saying they were 'stunned by the separation'.
He's cut a swathe through Melbourne's coffee scene, owns a cafe in Jakarta, and has a stake in an experimental farm in Colombia. But now coffee entrepreneur Salvatore Malatesta is taking on his biggest global challenge yet  the US of A.

His company, St Ali, recently raised $15 million to follow what Malatesta describes as a "10-burger opportunity".

In Australia, St Ali has a "family" of businesses, including its South Melbourne flagship cafe, wholesale business, online store and cafes including Sensory Lab and Plantation.

For the past eight months, one of his staff members has been on secondment in the US, scoping out potential sites and deals for St Ali's planned American invasion. However Malatesta admits the company's expansion plans have been an uphill battle.
Dean Nalder does not have the numbers to overthrow Premier Colin Barnett, according to sources within the Liberal Party.

The former transport minister sensationally quit Cabinet on Saturday night, hours after party colleague Tony Simpson handed in his resignation.

As flagged by WAtoday on Radio 6PR on Friday afternoon, there is the real prospect of a leadership vote at a Liberal partyroom meeting on Tuesday.

But a number of Liberal insiders told WAtoday on Sunday morning, Mr Nalder would be lucky to get 10 votes if a leadership spill was called.
Hundreds of thousands of people rallied across Germany and Austria on Saturday to urge their governments not to sign new agreements being negotiated for European Union trade deals with the United States and Canada.

The proposed deals have been bitterly contested since the European Union and Washington agreed in 2013 to try to form a new free-trade area with a market of more than 800 million people.

Protesters against the TTIP and CETA free-trade agreements in Berlin. Credit:Getty Images

Beyond eliminating the remaining trade barriers and tariffs, one declared aim is ensuring that US and European consumer regulations - rather than the perceived lower standards in rising markets like China and India - become the standards worldwide.

Although Germany's economy is heavily dependent on exports, opposition to the proposed pacts with the US and Canada has swelled from the start, uniting a coalition of churches, trade unions, intellectuals and left-wing parties. That coalition called for Saturday's protests in seven German cities.
Even with 5-0 lead, Verlander can't get 1st World Series win
Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/09/2016 (2234 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Milk, the kind from cows, is still Americans favourite complement to a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. But its feeling the heat from milk, the kind from almonds.

You can tell by the trash talk.

You cant get milk from an almond, said Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation. You have to add a lot of other ingredients to make it look like milk.

No XMP or IPTC Header Found

Galens correct, of course, as anyone whos ever attempted to milk an almond can attest. Almond milk usually contains only two per cent almonds, with a lot of water, vitamins and gelling agents mixed in.

But the numbers dont lie. U.S. sales of almond milk rose 4.2 per cent last year to within sniffing distance of US$1 billion, according to IRI data. At the same time, while Americans are drinking more organic and full-fat cows milk, low-fat varieties are plunging, with skim milk consumption down 13 per cent from a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agricultures June data.

But the real blow to dairy is the widespread replacement of cows for almond groves.

California is tops in the U.S. for both dairy production (about one-third more than No. 2 Wisconsin) and almonds (80 per cent of global output). Land in the state devoted to almond groves has been steadily rising  350,000 acres added over the last decade, enough to double the crop to more than two billion pounds, according to Rabobank International  while the state lost about 10,000 milk cows this year through July, a 0.6 per cent drop from 2015.

Among the culprits: Californias new higher minimum wage, which is crimping profit margins at labour-intensive dairies more than the groves, and mandatory water restrictions in the fertile Central Valley amid a years-long drought. Thats pushed almond cultivation to places its been rare before. Such as dairy farms.

Richard Wagner, whose father started the family dairy in Escalon, Calif., already has almond trees but is putting in about 300 acres more this year. Hes taking land away from growing alfalfa and corn for feeding cows.

Back in the 1950s, there were no almond trees in our area, he said. Now there are almond trees everywhere. The economics for the trees has been very good. Dairymen have a decision.

Chances are, pressure for weaker California dairies to sell out to nut producers will continue over the next five years, and those who dont sell will be installing groves, said Vernon Crowder, a Fresno, Calif.,-based senior vice-president at Rabobank International.

Demand for nuts has gone insane. Asian countries import almonds in the shell. In the U.S., half the almonds sold are shaved into everything from ice cream to salads and tucked into energy bars. The other half of the market consists of whole-nut snacks. And snacking on nuts is increasing, reports Chicago-based research firm Technomic.

Almond milk is boosting the nuts popularity, too. Last year, Americans bought US$890 million of the stuff, three times the amount of soy milks US$286 million, IRI reports. Retailers have caught on. Starbucks is adding almond milk to its lineup of non-milk alternatives, which already includes coconut and soy milk. And as of last month, Dunkin Donuts offers it in all its stores.

Milk alternatives have faced scrutiny for not containing very many nuts or natural ingredients. The Silk brand of almond milk, for example, also contains sugar, salt, gellan gum and sunflower lecithin.

A lawsuit filed last year against Blue Diamond Growers, which supplies Dunkin Donuts, said its almond milk contained just two per cent almonds. Blue Diamonds U.K. website confirms the products almond content. Water and sugar are listed as ingredients before almonds. Alicia Rockwell, a company spokeswoman, declined to comment.

The National Milk Producers Federation has been trying to get federal regulators to enforce laws on the books that say the word milk is reserved for lactation from a mammal. But theyre losing that battle, too, as almond milk gets turned into other imitation dairy products such as cheese and yogurt.

 Bloomberg News
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/09/2016 (2233 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation has really made its presence felt in the last three years with a website and storefront office in the Exchange District. It has also found itself becoming a repository for models, drawings and opening-day ephemera of many of the citys iconic modernist buildings.

The foundation was created in 1996 to organize the annual Association for Preservation Technology conference in Winnipeg. The event proved to be a success, leaving behind a small legacy fund for the local organization.

Susan Algie, one of the foundations founders, who now serves as its director, says the group decided to keep the organization going in order to conduct research and public education about the citys built environment.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Susan Algie, director of the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, and Jeffrey Thorsteinson, a researcher and writer with the foundation.

The group made a conscious decision to focus much of their attention on the modernist era, from 1945 to 1975.

Algie explains: In Winnipeg, over the years the three levels of government have been involved in doing research on the more historic buildings the 1910 buildings and the buildings of the Exchange (District) and so on, and there was a lot of knowledge and expertise about them. But virtually nobody had looked at the modern era, so we thought it was a good fit for us.

The group began creating a database of Winnipeg buildings from this modernist era. After looking at the downtown and a cross-city survey of places of worship and schools, they identified more than 600 buildings and started researching their backgrounds.

Algie says early in their research, We realized that Winnipeg (architects) played such an important role during that time period, but it hadnt really been explored and acknowledged. This led the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation to start compiling profiles and oral histories of the architects and architectural firms active during that period.

She notes many of these architects were not imports from other provinces but graduates of the University of Manitobas faculty of architecture who honed their skills here and soon began attracting national and international clients.

Its a slow process to get people to understand that we could respect all the different eras Susan Algie, director of the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation

After retiring as a heritage resource planner with Parks Canada in 2011, Algie took on the volunteer role as director of the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation and set out to get the organizations research out of her basement and accessible to the public.

The group started by digitizing the material they had already compiled and launched a website, www.winnipegarchitecture.ca, in 2013. It now contains entries on 2,700 buildings and 150 architects and firms.

More entries are being added every month as the foundation has turned its attention to the citys modernist suburbs, including Silver Heights, Niakwa Park and Fort Richmond, taking a selection of houses, churches and commercial buildings from each. Though not thought of as bastions of grand architecture, Algie feels it is important to also take joy in the buildings we see every day.

With the information digitized, the foundation began sorting it into various self-guided tours. Currently there are seven of them, including St. Georges Anglican Church, A Terra Cotta Tour, Broadway Modern, University of Winnipeg Modern, University of Manitoba Modern and A Brutalist Tour. Their latest offering, The Forks: A Meeting Place Transformed, was launched last month.

In 2014, the foundation opened a storefront office on the main floor of the 5468796 Architecture offices on McDermot Avenue. It has become the hub for its research files, a small library on modernist architecture and its merchandise, which ranges from pocket-book versions of its publications to mugs and aprons featuring some of Winnipegs iconic buildings.

UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA ARCHIVES, HENRY KALEN COLLECTION The Monarch Life Building, now the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba building, at 333 Broadway. It was built in 1960-61.

The decision to locate in the Exchange District was a good move for the foundation. It participates in First Fridays, the Exchange Districts late-night cultural open house, and hosts Canadas only film festival dedicated to architecture and design at Cinematheque.

Earlier this year, they published Exchange Marks the Spot, a childrens activity guide to the area, with an accompanying resource guide for parents and teachers. (Both are available at their website free of charge.)

The foundation has also ramped up the number of guided tours it hosts. This year, there will be a dozen of them between June and October.

Projects the foundation is working on include in-depth research on architectural firms Smith Carter and GBR (formerly Green, Blankstein, Russell), and the latter will become a book and an exhibit. Also, there will be a tour of the architectural use of Tyndall stone, the Manitoba product that, thanks to Manitoba firms such as Smith Carter and GBR, is now featured in prominent buildings across the country.

As their profile has grown, the foundation found itself becoming a repository for archival material donated by firms, architects and their estates. Their eclectic collection includes original drawings for Rae & Jerrys Steak House, a cardboard model of the Richardson Building and planning documents used in the closure of Portage and Main to pedestrians.

UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA ARCHIVES, HENRY KALEN COLLECTION St. George's Anglican Church, located at 168 Wilton St., was built in 1957.

Algie is excited about a collection of films lent to them by the estate of Dennis Carter of Smith Carter Architects. They show every stage of construction of some of the firms signature buildings, including the circa-1960 Monarch Life Building  now the Workers Compensation Board building  on Broadway.

It will be a long-term project for the volunteer organization, which has no core funding, to catalogue and digitize the films and other material for its collection, then hope to find a proper archives to hold the original items.

When asked what it is like trying to build an appreciation for modernist architecture in a city best known for its abundance of top-rate, century-old building stock, Algie admits, Its a challenge. Its a slow process to get people to understand that we could respect all the different eras and that the best cities (architecturally speaking) have all of these eras represented.

Algie hopes the foundations public education isnt all about studying the past, but that it will pay dividends in the future.

Many modernist buildings are now reaching the age when decisions have to be made about their renovation or reuse.

BERNARD BROWN / GBR ARCHITECTS A design sketch of the city hall complex (built 1962-63), as seen from Main Street.

I think it is really important to see that many of the buildings that were built in the 1960s and 70s to serve as libraries and other city services are still completely useful buildings, and many of them were designed by significant architects of the time, Algie says.

I think its really important to find ways to find uses to repurpose those buildings.

She also hopes this appreciation will influence public debate about what is built in the city in the years to come.

(Its) about getting people to look and think and appreciate what they see. And the more they do that, then the more demanding and discerning they will be when we are building new libraries, new schools and new churches, Algie says.

Christian Cassidy writes about local history on his blog, West End Dumplings.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The foundation has become a repository for donated archival material, such as a cardboard model of the Richardson Building from its final design phase. UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA ARCHIVES, HENRY KALEN COLLECTION The interior of the Monarch Life Building, which was a 1964 finalist for the Massey Medal for Architecture, a national award recognizing excellence in architecture.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/09/2016 (2234 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two men are facing sexual assault charges after one allegedly rammed a police cruiser while trying to escape officers in a stolen vehicle and then fled on foot.

Police were called to the scene of the alleged sexual assault in a hotel in the 1700 block of Wellington Avenue at about 12:30 a.m. Friday.

Officers arrested a 29-year-old man getting into a stolen vehicle. A second man entered another vehicle, which was also previously stolen, and tried to drive away at a high rate of speed, the Winnipeg Police Service said in a news release Saturday. In doing so, he rammed a police cruiser, struck a parked vehicle and then ran away.

Police chased the 33-year-old man and arrested him in the area of the 1300 block of McDermot Avenue at approximately 1:05 a.m.

Police say a group of people were drinking in a hotel room when a dispute erupted and two male suspects began assaulting an 18-year-old woman. The woman was threatened with a shotgun at one point, police said, and a serious sexual assault occurred.

Tristan Provinciano, 29, has been charged with sexual assault and robbery. Danny Morgado, 33, has been charged with sexual assault, robbery, assault causing bodily harm and forcible confinement. Both men also face numerous weapon-related charges.

Both men were remanded into custody.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and Republican challenger Greg Gianforte will debate in Billings on Monday.

Bullock, a Democrat, and Gianforte will meet at Montana State University Billings' Petro Theater for a 7 p.m. debate sponsored by the Billings Gazette, KULR8-TV and Yellowstone Public Radio.

The debate will be moderated by KULR8 journalist Becky Hillier. The candidates will take questions from Tom Lutey of the Billings Gazette, KULR8's Greg LaMotte and YPR's Jackie Yamanaka.

Doors open to the public at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free. The debate will be televised and also broadcast on YPR and Northern Broadcasting.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/09/2016 (2233 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Before their recent meeting  and I suspect a few times after  Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.

He wasnt the first to do so, even in his own country. Vicente Fox, a former president of Mexico, has also compared Trump to Hitler. Cher has compared Trump to Hitler. Abraham Foxman, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League, has compared Trump to Hitler (although in fairness, thats kind of his whole brand). Even Glenn Beck compared Trump to Hitler. Well no doubt hear it again many times before the U.S. presidential election is over, and, to be honest, its a comparison that bothers me for two reasons.

I am a Jew  a New York Writer Liberal Jew, the scariest Jew of all  and from a very young age, I was taught about an unimaginable horror called the Holocaust and about an evil man named Adolf Hitler. The elderly man who sat beside me every Saturday morning in synagogue was a Holocaust survivor, as was his wife. And so the first reason the comparison of Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler bothers me is not because it belittles the deaths of millions of innocents, but because, frankly, it belittles Adolf Hitler.

Hitler believed Jews were the cause of every problem. He believed extermination was the solution. He believed the Spear of Destiny, the spear the Romans used to poke Jesus on the cross, would give him magical powers. He had an elaborately developed, hideous, deplorable theory of how things worked, and he believed in it deeply.

Trump doesnt.

Hitler was a psychopath. Trump is just a con man.

Hitler had some opinions, he had some plans. They were monstrous and evil, and reason enough for even an avowed atheist to consider the existence of Satan. But I dont recall Hitler flip-flopping. I dont see him saying one morning, Im going to invade Poland, and then softening his stance that afternoon after meeting with Sean Hannity. He didnt decide to kill the Jews, then change his mind when his new campaign manager arrived. I said the kill the Jew  singular, one Jew, not all the Jews. Just the bad ones. Hitler was a megalomaniacal psychopath who should burn in hell for eternity who actually believed in something.

Theres a difference. Trump is a two-bit con man. Hes playing the fools.

Whether hes jacking up room rates 400 per cent when his campaign uses his hotels, spending campaign money to buy his own books, blowing racial dog whistles and then accusing his rival of being a bigot, lying about crime rates to win African-American votes or just plain old running out on his bills, it is all, top to bottom, one long con. A scheme. A grift. To make a buck, to get out of hock, to get some fame, to get his own TV network  the ignominious ends always justify the ignoble means. Even his run for president is a con, a way to gain even more power than this millionaires son was already born with. It certainly isnt to implement any deeply felt ideas. It cant be. He hasnt got any. Its all about the con.

And give the man credit, by the way  hes good at it. He is, as he says, the best. The white nationalists are eating it up, and they are a tough, tough room. The guy is a fantastic con man.

But hes no Hitler. Not even close.

Am I praising Hitler? No. Im saying if you absolutely had to find just one thing to say about Hitler that was positive  if you could somehow siphon out all the festering, maggot-infested sewage that filled his soul to reveal one razor-thin sliver to point to in his favour  you could possibly say, well, at least he believed what he said.

Which you cant say about Donald Trump. Is Trump a megalomaniacal demagogue? Yes. Is he a sociopath? Undoubtedly. Is he dangerous? Maybe.

Which bring me to the second reason the comparison of Trump to Hitler bothers me: this isnt the comparison that matters. Its the easy comparison, the one that leaves us  We the People  safe from criticism.

The comparison that matters is not, Is Donald Trump like Hitler? but, Are we like Hitlers willing executioners?

Will we look the other way, say we didnt know, stand silently by while millions of our neighbours are rounded up, while women who get abortions are punished, while immigrants are given ideology tests and our leader heaps praise on oppressive tyrants?

Well? Will we? Are we that terrified? Are we that hateful? Are we that frightened, that cowardly, that selfish, that helpless, that cold-hearted, that dumb, that easily manipulated, that easily provoked? Are we so bereft of answers, so pathetically hopeless, that all we can come up with is easy scapegoating and blind fealty to Our Great Leader? Are We the People really going to fall for the dumbest, oldest, easiest trick in the book?

Because if we are, then we wont need an Adolf Hitler to embrace that darkness. Even a two-bit con man such as Donald Trump will be enough.

Shalom Auslander is the author of Hope: A Tragedy and was the creator/writer of the Showtime series Happyish.

 Washington Post
The beauty of Winonas river landscape is a feature that must be protected.

Those involved in the Mississippi River Revival Cleanup event understand that, and took initiative Saturday by setting out on and along the water to clean up the shores for the annual event.

The more people that see the river as a treasure, the better they treat it, said Revival member and Cochrane-Fountain City High School teacher Sol Simon. Its nice to see that the rivers getting cleaner and more people are enjoying it and taking care of it.

The trash along the shores took many forms, some of which proved more challenging to volunteers than others.

All the garbage bags, once all the wind and floods come in, it just gets all buried under here and sometimes you cant find them. Thats kind of the sad part about it, Winona Senior High School senior Brogan Reutzel said. Once you get out here, you realize its whats you got to do to save this place.

Carrying on this annual tradition has spurred good results. The Mississippi River Revival has been cleaning up the river for 33 years, said member Joe Morse, with attendees working the shores on foot and in boats, bringing in and packing up everything that doesnt belong.

Morse noted the event also has an added bonus.

A lot of times it gives people a chance to go out on the river that dont usually get out on the river, he said.

It also, said Saint Marys University biology professor Josh Lallaman, educates participants on the need to keep Winonas natural landscapes clean  and on just what kind of trash people choose to leave along a river.

Awareness is a big part of it, he said, getting people out here to see, Oh, maybe I shouldnt throw stuff away here, or I shouldnt just toss it.

He said he uses the annual event as a type of community service for his students, many of whom are studying environmental biology.

It gets them out into nature and makes them more aware that this is an issue, he said. This is a good indication of how we really treat our environment.

The volunteers hauled in several bags of assorted waste, including worn tires, bundles of rusty springs from mattresses, plastic tarps, bottles, cups, bags, and barrels that had to be cut in half with an electric saw in order to be properly disposed of.

One volunteer even discovered something likely discarded by accident: A quart-size Mason jar with a severely rusted cap, filled with what clearly appeared to be marijuana. Organizers hadnt planned on involving law enforcement in the event, but called to have an officer come pick up the jar.

Simon said one of the things he appreciates most about the event is how it brings together volunteers of all ages to pursue a common cause.

It gets people involved, they get on the river, they see what a cool place it is, and they realize they can make a difference by working together with other people, he said.

The more people that see the river as a treasure, the better they treat it. Sol Simon
WASHINGTON (AP)  In one of his last major appearances on the world stage, President Barack Obama will try to define how his leadership has made the planet safer and more prosperous when he gives his farewell speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

Obamas challenge at the annual gathering of world leaders is to cast the past eight years as ones of overall progress, without glossing over the profound problems that have eluded his diplomacy. His successes in galvanizing action on climate change and encouraging democratic changes in Cuba and Myanmar are tempered by crises across the Middle East and North Koreas nuclear threat, which has only strengthened.

Obamas U.N. ambassador, Samantha Power, said that when Obama came into office in early 2009, the U.S. was isolated. She said Obama had told fellow leaders he planned a new era of engagement that recognized countries must address common threats together.

I think its hard to overstate the transformative effect that this approach has had, Power said.

After raising money for Democrats on Sunday in New York, Obama planned to open his week of diplomacy by meeting with Iraqs prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, on Monday. Obama is counting on the Baghdad government to bridge sectarian divides and help fight the Islamic State group.

On Tuesday, Obama will deliver his U.N. address, attend a lunch with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, meet with CEOs and host a summit on refugees. The U.S. has urged other nations to take in more migrants and help address the unprecedented refugee crisis stemming from Syrias civil war.

Obama is scheduled to meet on Tuesday with President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, an African country struggling with a homegrown threat from the IS-linked extremist group Boko Haram. On Wednesday, Obama will participate in a U.S.-Africa forum and meet with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos before returning to Washington.

Back in 2009, when Obama first stood in the General Assembly Hall, he was the fresh-faced leader whose status as Americas first black president had inspired hopes for a post-racial world. From the podium, Obama said he was fully aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency across the globe.

These expectations are not about me, Obama said. Rather, they are rooted, I believe, in a discontent with a status quo that has allowed us to be increasingly defined by our differences, and outpaced by our problems. But they are also rooted in hope: the hope that real change is possible, and the hope that America will be a leader in bringing about such change.

He spoke of winding down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting climate change, and pursuing his goal of a world without nuclear weapons. Obama would return to that third theme just three months later while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, an honor that the former Nobel chief would later acknowledge had been premature.

In the years since, Obama brokered a global emissions-cutting agreement, brought the vast majority of U.S. troops home from war zones, and secured an historic deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

The list of foreign trouble spots is just as long.

In Syria, a civil war has killed roughly half a million people. Though the U.S. has pursued a diplomatic course, including most recently a deal with Russia, Obama has come under heavy criticism for refusing to consider sending in U.S. troops.

His refugee summit appeared partly designed to blunt criticism that Obama is insufficiently disturbed by the millions of displaced Syrians.

The U.S. has been largely unable to get Russia to stop menacing in Ukraine or give back Crimea. Fresh conflicts have broken out in Libya and Yemen, and Obama has acknowledged that defeating IS will be an incomplete project the next president will inherit.
People pray.

Whether as an ardent believer in a personal, responsive God or as a spiritualist who nudges a cosmic consciousness or as an atheist in a fox hole with nowhere else to turn or as a non-believer who expresses best wishes for others and hopeful desires for a better world: Prayers are the breath of the soul.

People pray their personally formulated prayers to express what is on their mind and in their heart as well as use formal prayers provided by church, synagogue, temple or mosque. Prayers can be made up on the spot, like Abraham Lincolns ardent prayer on his knees during the Battle of Gettysburg (a prayer which he could not remember to repeat as he wished he could do in a letter to one of his officers afterwards); or they may be borrowed from tradition, crafted by others more eloquent or famous, like St. Francis prayer Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

The most famous and most used prayer in the Christianized population around the world is the Lords Prayer. This is a bit ironic due to the fact that it is a perfectly crafted Jewish prayer taught to others by an itinerant rabbi during Roman occupation of Palestine. Regardless of its origins and also regardless of its historic usage, the Lords Prayer is truly a prayer for everyone in any age. It doesnt matter what language in which it is uttered or what form of English it is memorized. This prayer manages to address all for which one should pray; it also prompts one into prayer when one is at a loss how to pray or what to pray for.

Do you want to know Gods relationship with you? Then, pray Our Father.

Do you want to do what is right with your life? Then, pray your will be done.

Do you want to let go of recurring anxiety? Then, pray give us today our daily bread.

Do you want freedom from your regrets? Then, pray forgive us our sins.

Do you want restored relationships? Then pray as we forgive those who sin against us.

Do you want to overcome your temptations? Then pray save us from the time of trial.

Do you want courage to face down evil when it crosses your path? Then pray deliver us from evil.

Do you want to live beyond self-interest and find a greater meaning for your life? Then pray for the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours.

Do you want your todays to be connected to your tomorrows with a consistent, honorable narrative? Then pray now and forever.

Did Jesus know what he was doing when he gave these words to his inquisitive disciples? You will discover the answer when you pray these words mindfully. Mindfulness gives full, present attention to the freight that these words carry. Never rattle the Lords Prayer off as the next item on your check list before you go to sleep or as an incantation against fear like a magic formula to ward off danger, or as a religious ritual because it is what you do when gathered together. It is too precious a prayer to squander on empty-minded habit.

For Jew, Christian, Muslim, spiritualist, searcher, questioner, these prayerful words can express the deep stirrings of the soul and when they arise silently or out loud, alone or with others, can lead one to an appointment with life.

(Mark J. Molldrem is a writer, community volunteer, and daily host of Joy in the Morning on WBEV. He lives in Beaver Dam with his wife, Shirley. WordPowerSolutions@gmail.com)
Plans for a $125 million College of Osteopathic Medicine in Jefferson continue, even though the state Legislature didnt pass a bill this year seeking a $25 million construction grant.

The school, which could help reduce a projected doctor shortage in Wisconsin, especially in rural areas, is set to open in 2018 or 2019, said Mark Lefebvre, one of the main organizers.

Leaders of the states two medical schools, UW School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison and Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, oppose the plan for a third school.

They say their schools have expanded to meet the need, and there arent enough residencies in the state for the training required after medical school.

Lefebvre said he is talking to private organizations about funding new residencies in community settings, such as family practice clinics.

He expects the bill seeking $25 million to be introduced again next session.

Were continuing to have great interest and considerable momentum, he said.

Osteopathic doctors are like other doctors, but they often focus on disease prevention and sometimes do hands-on manipulations.

A separate plan for a Wisconsin College of Osteopathic Medicine in Jefferson was dropped in 2013 after financial troubles and leadership changes.
The following companies are subsidiares of Pfizer: AH Robins LLC, AHP Holdings B.V., AHP Manufacturing B.V., Agouron Pharmaceuticals LLC, Alacer, Alpharma Holdings LLC, Alpharma Pharmaceuticals LLC, Alpharma Specialty Pharma LLC, Alpharma USHP LLC, American Food Industries LLC, Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc., Angiosyn, Array BioPharma, Ayerst-Wyeth Pharmaceuticals LLC, BIND Therapeutics Inc., BINESA 2002 S.L., Bamboo Therapeutics, Bamboo Therapeutics Inc., Baxter International - Marketed Vaccines, BioRexis, Bioren, Bioren LLC, Blue Whale Re Ltd., C.E. Commercial Holdings C.V., C.E. Commercial Investments C.V., C.P. Pharmaceuticals International C.V., CICL Corporation, COC I Corporation, Catapult Genetics, Coley Pharmaceutical GmbH, Coley Pharmaceutical Group, Coley Pharmaceutical Group Inc., Continental Pharma Inc., Covx, Covx Technologies Ireland Limited, Cyanamid Inter-American Corporation, Cyanamid de Argentina S.A., Cyanamid de Colombia S.A., Distribuidora Mercantil Centro Americana S.A., Encysive Pharmaceuticals, Encysive Pharmaceuticals Inc., Esperion LUV Development Inc., Esperion Therapeutics, Excaliard Pharmaceuticals, Excaliard Pharmaceuticals Inc., Farminova Produtos Farmaceuticos de Inovacao Lda., Farmogene Productos Farmaceuticos Lda, Ferrosan A/S, Ferrosan International A/S, Ferrosan S.R.L., FoldRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Foldrx Pharmaceuticals, Fort Dodge Manufatura Ltda., G. D. Searle & Co. Limited, G. D. Searle International Capital LLC, G. D. Searle LLC, GI Europe Inc., GI Japan Inc., GenTrac Inc., Genetics Institute LLC, Greenstone LLC, Haptogen Limited, Hospira, Hospira (China) Enterprise Management Co. Ltd., Hospira Adelaide Pty Ltd, Hospira Aseptic Services Limited, Hospira Australia Pty Ltd, Hospira Benelux BVBA, Hospira Chile Limitada, Hospira Deutschland GmbH, Hospira Enterprises B.V., Hospira France SAS, Hospira Healthcare B.V., Hospira Healthcare Corporation, Hospira Healthcare India Private Limited, Hospira Holdings (S.A.) Pty Ltd, Hospira Inc., Hospira Invicta S.A., Hospira Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, Hospira Ireland Sales Limited, Hospira Japan G.K., Hospira Limited, Hospira Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Hospira NZ Limited, Hospira Nordic AB, Hospira Philippines Inc., Hospira Portugal LDA, Hospira Produtos Hospitalares Ltda., Hospira Pte. Ltd., Hospira Pty Limited, Hospira Puerto Rico LLC, Hospira Singapore Pte Ltd, Hospira UK Limited, Hospira Worldwide LLC, Hospira Zagreb d.o.o., ICAgen, Idun Pharmaceuticals, Industrial Santa Agape S.A., InnoPharma, InnoPharma Inc., International Affiliated Corporation LLC, JMI-Daniels Pharmaceuticals Inc., John Wyeth & Brother Limited, Kiinteisto oy Espoon Pellavaniementie 14, King Pharmaceuticals Holdings LLC, King Pharmaceuticals LLC, King Pharmaceuticals Research and Development LLC, Korea Pharma Holding Company Limited, Laboratoires Pfizer S.A., Laboratorios Parke Davis S.L., Laboratorios Pfizer Ltda., Laboratorios Wyeth LLC, Laboratorios Wyeth S.A., Laboratorios Pfizer Lda., MTG Divestitures LLC, Mayne Pharma IP Holdings (Euro) Pty Ltd, Medivation, Medivation Field Solutions LLC, Medivation LLC, Medivation Neurology LLC, Medivation Prostate Therapeutics LLC, Medivation Services LLC, Medivation Technologies LLC, Meridian Medical Technologies Inc., Meridian Medical Technologies Limited, Monarch Pharmaceuticals LLC, Neusentis Limited, NextWave Pharmaceuticals, NextWave Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, P-D Co. LLC, PAH USA IN8 LLC, PF Americas Holding C.V., PF Asia Manufacturing B.V., PF PR Holdings C.V., PF PRISM C.V., PF PRISM Holdings S.a.r.l., PF Prism S.a.r.l., PFE Holdings G.K., PFE PHAC Holdings 1 LLC, PFE Pfizer Holdings 1 LLC, PFE Wyeth Holdings LLC, PFE Wyeth-Ayerst (Asia) LLC, PHILCO Holdings S.a r.l., PHIVCO Corp., PHIVCO Holdco S.a r.l., PHIVCO Luxembourg S.a r.l., PN Mexico LLC, PT. Pfizer Parke Davis, Parke Davis & Company LLC, Parke Davis Limited, Parke Davis Productos Farmaceuticos Lda, Parke-Davis Manufacturing Corp., Parkedale Pharmaceuticals Inc., Peak Enterprises LLC, Pfizer, Pfizer (China) Research and Development Co. Ltd., Pfizer (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Pfizer (Perth) Pty Limited, Pfizer (Thailand) Limited, Pfizer (Wuhan) Research and Development Co. Ltd., Pfizer AB, Pfizer AG, Pfizer AS, Pfizer Africa & Middle East for Pharmaceuticals Veterinarian Products & Chemicals S.A.E., Pfizer Anti-Infectives AB, Pfizer ApS, Pfizer Asia Manufacturing Pte. Ltd., Pfizer Asia Pacific Pte Ltd., Pfizer Atlantic Holdings S.a.r.l., Pfizer Australia Holdings B.V., Pfizer Australia Holdings Pty Limited, Pfizer Australia Investments Pty. Ltd., Pfizer Australia Pty Limited, Pfizer B.V., Pfizer BH D.o.o., Pfizer Baltic Holdings B.V., Pfizer Biofarmaceutica Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Pfizer Biologics (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd, Pfizer Biologics Ireland Holdings Limited, Pfizer Biotech Corporation, Pfizer Bolivia S.A., Pfizer Canada Inc., Pfizer CentreSource Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Pfizer Chile S.A., Pfizer Cia. Ltda., Pfizer Colombia Spinco I LLC, Pfizer Commercial Holdings Cooperatief U.A., Pfizer Commercial Holdings TRAE Kft., Pfizer Commercial TRAE Trading Kft., Pfizer Consumer Healthcare AB, Pfizer Consumer Healthcare GmbH, Pfizer Consumer Healthcare Ltd., Pfizer Consumer Manufacturing Italy S.r.l., Pfizer Corporation, Pfizer Corporation Austria Gesellschaft m.b.H., Pfizer Corporation Hong Kong Limited, Pfizer Croatia d.o.o., Pfizer Deutschland GmbH, Pfizer Development LP, Pfizer Development Services (UK) Limited, Pfizer Domestic Ventures Limited, Pfizer Dominicana S.R.L, Pfizer ESP Pty Ltd, Pfizer East India B.V., Pfizer Eastern Investments B.V., Pfizer Egypt S.A.E., Pfizer Enterprise Holdings B.V., Pfizer Enterprises LLC, Pfizer Enterprises SARL, Pfizer Europe Finance B.V., Pfizer Export B.V., Pfizer Export Company, Pfizer Export Holding Company B.V, Pfizer Finance Share Service (Dalian) Co. Ltd., Pfizer Financial Services N.V./S.A., Pfizer France International Investments, Pfizer Free Zone Panama S. de R.L., Pfizer GEP S.L., Pfizer Global Holdings B.V., Pfizer Global Supply Japan Inc., Pfizer Global Trading, Pfizer Group Luxembourg Sarl, Pfizer Gulf FZ-LLC, Pfizer H.C.P. Corporation, Pfizer HK Service Company Limited, Pfizer Health AB, Pfizer Health Solutions Inc., Pfizer Healthcare Ireland, Pfizer Hellas A.E., Pfizer Himalaya Holdings Cooperatief U.A., Pfizer Holding France, Pfizer Holding Ventures, Pfizer Holdings Corporation, Pfizer Holdings Europe Unlimited Company, Pfizer Holdings G.K., Pfizer Holdings International Corporation, Pfizer Holdings International Luxembourg (PHIL) Sarl, Pfizer Holdings North America SARL, Pfizer Hungary Holdings TRAE Kft., Pfizer Inc., Pfizer Innovations AB, Pfizer Innovations LLC, Pfizer Innovative Supply Point International BVBA, Pfizer International LLC, Pfizer International Markets Cooperatief U.A., Pfizer International Operations, Pfizer International S. de R.L., Pfizer International Trading (Shanghai) Limited, Pfizer Investment Capital Unlimited Company, Pfizer Investment Co. Ltd., Pfizer Investment Holdings S.a.r.l., Pfizer Ireland Investments Limited, Pfizer Ireland PFE Holding 1 LLC, Pfizer Ireland PFE Holding 2 LLC, Pfizer Ireland Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer Ireland Ventures Unlimited Company, Pfizer Italia S.r.l., Pfizer Italy Group Holding S.r.l., Pfizer Japan Inc., Pfizer LLC, Pfizer Laboratories (Pty) Limited, Pfizer Laboratories Limited, Pfizer Laboratories PFE (Pty) Ltd, Pfizer Leasing Ireland Limited, Pfizer Leasing UK Limited, Pfizer Limitada, Pfizer Limited, Pfizer Luxco Holdings SARL, Pfizer Luxembourg Global Holdings S.a r.l., Pfizer Luxembourg SARL, Pfizer MAP Holding Inc., Pfizer Manufacturing Austria G.m.b.H., Pfizer Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Pfizer Manufacturing Deutschland GmbH, Pfizer Manufacturing Deutschland Grundbesitz GmbH & Co. KG, Pfizer Manufacturing Holdings LLC, Pfizer Manufacturing Ireland Unlimited Company, Pfizer Manufacturing LLC, Pfizer Manufacturing Services, Pfizer Medical Technology Group (Belgium) N.V., Pfizer Medicamentos Genericos e Participacoes Ltda., Pfizer Mexico Luxco SARL, Pfizer Mexico S.A. de C.V., Pfizer Middle East for Pharmaceuticals Animal Health and Chemicals S.A.E., Pfizer New Zealand Limited, Pfizer Norge AS, Pfizer North American Holdings Inc., Pfizer OTC B.V., Pfizer Overseas LLC, Pfizer Oy, Pfizer PFE ApS, Pfizer PFE AsiaPac Holding B.V., Pfizer PFE Australia Holding B.V., Pfizer PFE Australia Pty Ltd, Pfizer PFE B.V., Pfizer PFE Baltic Holdings B.V., Pfizer PFE Belgium SPRL, Pfizer PFE Brazil Holding S.a r.l., Pfizer PFE CIA. Ltda., Pfizer PFE Chile Holding LLC, Pfizer PFE Colombia Holding Corp., Pfizer PFE Colombia S.A.S, Pfizer PFE Commercial Holdings LLC, Pfizer PFE Croatia Holding B.V., Pfizer PFE Eastern Investments B.V., Pfizer PFE Finland Oy, Pfizer PFE France, Pfizer PFE Global Holdings B.V., Pfizer PFE Ireland Pharmaceuticals Holding 1 B.V., Pfizer PFE Italy Holdco 2 S.a r.l., Pfizer PFE Italy Holdco S.a r.l., Pfizer PFE Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Pfizer PFE Limited, Pfizer PFE Luxembourg S.a r.l., Pfizer PFE Mexico Holding 3 LLC, Pfizer PFE Netherlands Holding 1 C.V., Pfizer PFE New Zealand, Pfizer PFE New Zealand Holding B.V., Pfizer PFE Norway Holding S.a r.l., Pfizer PFE PILSA Holdco S.a r.l., Pfizer PFE Peru Holding LLC, Pfizer PFE Peru S.R.L., Pfizer PFE Pharmaceuticals Israel Holding LLC, Pfizer PFE Pharmaceuticals Israel Ltd., Pfizer PFE Private Limited, Pfizer PFE S.R.L, Pfizer PFE Service Company Holding Cooperatief U.A., Pfizer PFE Singapore Holding B.V., Pfizer PFE Singapore Pte. Ltd., Pfizer PFE Spain B.V., Pfizer PFE Spain Holding S.L., Pfizer PFE Sweden Holding 2 S.a.r.l., Pfizer PFE Sweden Holding S.a.r.l., Pfizer PFE Switzerland GmbH, Pfizer PFE Turkey Holding 1 B.V., Pfizer PFE Turkey Holding 2 B.V., Pfizer PFE UK Holding 4 LP, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 1 LLC, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 2 LLC, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 3 LLC, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 4 LLC, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 5 LLC, Pfizer PFE spol. s r.o., Pfizer PFE Ilaclar Anonim Sirketi, Pfizer Pakistan Limited, Pfizer Parke Davis (Thailand) Ltd., Pfizer Parke Davis Inc., Pfizer Parke Davis Sdn. Bhd., Pfizer Pharm Algerie, Pfizer Pharma GmbH, Pfizer Pharma PFE GmbH, Pfizer Pharmaceutical (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Pfizer Pharmaceutical Trading Limited Liability Company (a/k/a Pfizer Kft. or Pfizer LLC), Pfizer Pharmaceuticals B.V., Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Global B.V., Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Israel Ltd., Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Korea Limited, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals LLC, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Pfizer Pigments Inc., Pfizer Polska Sp. z.o.o., Pfizer Private Limited, Pfizer Production LLC, Pfizer Products Inc., Pfizer Products India Private Limited, Pfizer Research (NC) Inc., Pfizer Romania SRL, Pfizer S.A., Pfizer S.A., Pfizer S.A. (Belgium), Pfizer S.A. de C.V., Pfizer S.A.S., Pfizer S.G.P.S. Lda., Pfizer S.L., Pfizer S.R.L., Pfizer SRB d.o.o., Pfizer Saidal Manufacturing, Pfizer Sante Familiale, Pfizer Saudi Limited, Pfizer Seiyaku K.K., Pfizer Service Company BVBA, Pfizer Service Company Ireland Unlimited Company, Pfizer Services 1, Pfizer Services LLC, Pfizer Shared Services Unlimited Company, Pfizer Shareholdings Intermediate SARL, Pfizer Singapore Holding Pte. Ltd., Pfizer Singapore Trading Pte. Ltd., Pfizer Spain Holdings Cooperatief U.A., Pfizer Specialties Limited, Pfizer Strategic Investment Holdings LLC, Pfizer Sweden Partnership KB, Pfizer TRAE Holdings Kft., Pfizer Trading Polska sp.z.o.o., Pfizer Transactions Ireland Unlimited Company, Pfizer Transactions LLC, Pfizer Transactions Luxembourg SARL, Pfizer Transport LLC, Pfizer Ukraine LLC, Pfizer Vaccines LLC, Pfizer Venezuela S.A., Pfizer Venture Investments LLC, Pfizer Ventures LLC, Pfizer Worldwide Services Unlimited Company, Pfizer Zona Franca S.A., Pfizer spol. s r.o., Pharmacia, Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc., Pharmacia & Upjohn Company LLC, Pharmacia & Upjohn LLC, Pharmacia & Upjohn S.A. de C.V., Pharmacia Brasil Ltda., Pharmacia Hepar LLC, Pharmacia Holding AB, Pharmacia Inter-American LLC, Pharmacia International B.V., Pharmacia LLC, Pharmacia Limited, Pharmacia Nostrum S.A., Pharmacia South Africa (Pty) Ltd, PowderJect Research Limited, PowderMed, Purepac Pharmaceutical Holdings LLC, Redvax, Renrall LLC, Rinat Neuroscience, Rinat Neuroscience Corp., Roerig Produtos Farmaceuticos Lda., Roerig S.A., Sao Cristovao Participacoes Ltda., Searle Laboratorios Lda., Serenex, Servicios P&U S. de R.L. de C.V., Shiley LLC, Sinergis Farma-Produtos Farmaceuticos Lda., Site Realty Inc., Solinor LLC, Sugen LLC, Tabor LLC, The Pfizer Incubator LLC, Therachon, Thiakis Limited, Treerly Health Co. Ltd, US Oral Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd, Upjohn Laboratorios Lda., Vesteralens Naturprodukter A/S, Vesteralens Naturprodukter AB, Vesteralens Naturprodukter AS, Vesteralens Naturprodukter OY, Vicuron Holdings LLC, Vinci Farma S.A., W-L LLC, Warner Lambert, Warner Lambert Ilac Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Warner Lambert del Uruguay S.A., Warner-Lambert (Thailand) Limited, Warner-Lambert Company AG, Warner-Lambert Company LLC, Warner-Lambert Guatemala Sociedad Anonima, Warner-Lambert S.A., Whitehall International Inc., Whitehall Laboratories Inc., Wyeth (Thailand) Ltd., Wyeth AB, Wyeth Australia Pty. Limited, Wyeth Ayerst Inc., Wyeth Ayerst S.a r.l., Wyeth Biopharma, Wyeth Canada ULC, Wyeth Consumer Healthcare LLC, Wyeth Europa Limited, Wyeth Farma S.A., Wyeth Holdings LLC, Wyeth Industria Farmaceutica Ltda., Wyeth KFT., Wyeth LLC, Wyeth Lederle S.r.l., Wyeth Lederle Vaccines S.A., Wyeth Pakistan Limited, Wyeth Pharmaceutical Co. 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The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets railroad freight car equipment in North America, Europe, and South America. It operates through three segments: Manufacturing; Wheels, Repair & Parts; and Leasing & Services. The Manufacturing segment offers conventional railcars, such as covered hopper cars, boxcars, center partition cars, and bulkhead flat cars; tank cars; double-stack intermodal railcars; auto-max and multi-max products for the transportation of light vehicles; pressurized tank cars, non-pressurized tank cars, flat cars, coil cars, gondolas, sliding wall cars, and automobile transporter cars; and marine vessels. The Wheels, Repair & Parts segment provides wheel services, including reconditioning of wheels and axles, new axle machining and finishing, and downsizing; operates a railcar repair, refurbishment, and maintenance network; and reconditions and manufactures railcar cushioning units, couplers, yokes, side frames, bolsters, and various other parts, as well as produces roofs, doors, and associated parts for boxcars. The Leasing & Services segment offers operating leases and 'per diem' leases for a fleet of approximately 8,800 railcars; and management services comprising railcar maintenance management, railcar accounting services, fleet management and logistics, administration, and railcar remarketing. This segment owns or provides management services to a fleet of approximately 444,000 railcars for railroads, shippers, carriers, institutional investors, and other leasing and transportation companies. The company serves railroads, leasing companies, financial institutions, shippers, carriers, and transportation companies. The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. was founded in 1974 and is headquartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
Companhia Brasileira de Distribuicao engages in the retail of food, clothing, home appliances, electronics, and other products through its chain of supermarkets, specialized stores, and department stores in Brazil. It operates in Brazilian Retail, Grupo Exito, and Other Businesses segments. The company sells non-perishables, beverages, fruits, vegetables, meat, breads, cold cuts, dairy products, cleaning products, disposable products, and personal care products; and home appliances and other non-food products, such as clothing and baby items, shoes and accessories, household articles, books, magazines, CDs and DVDs, stationery, toys, sports and camping gears, furniture, mobile phones, mattresses, pet products, and gardening equipment and tools, as well as electronic products, including personal computers, software, computer accessories, and sound and image systems. It also offers medications and cosmetics at its drugstores; and non-food products at gas stations, as well as rents commercial spaces and e-commerce sales. The company operates its supermarkets under the banners of Pao de Acucar, Extra Supermercado, Mercado Extra, and Compre Bem; hypermarkets under the banner of Extra Hiper; and proximity stores under the banners of Mini Extra, Minuto Pao de Acucar, Pao de Acucar Adega, and Aliados Minimercado; and gas stations and drugstores under the banners of Extra and Pao de Acucar, as well as sells its products through its Websites. As of December 31, 2021, it operated 667 stores, 74 gas stations, and 68 drugstores in 16 Brazilian states and the Federal District, as well as 15 distribution centers and warehouses across Brazil. The company was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Companhia Brasileira de Distribuicao operates as a subsidiary of Casino, Guichard-Perrachon S.A.
Luxfer Holdings PLC, together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and supplies high-performance materials, components, and high-pressure gas containment devices for defense and emergency response, healthcare, transportation, and general industrial end-market applications. It operates in two segments, Elektron and Gas Cylinders. The Elektron segment focuses on specialty materials based on magnesium and zirconium. It provides magnesium alloys for use in variety of industries; magnesium powders for use in countermeasure flares, as well as heater meals; photoengraving plates for graphic arts; and zirconium-based materials and oxides used as catalysts and in the manufacture of advanced ceramics, fiber-optic fuel cells, and other performance products. The Gas Cylinders segment manufactures and markets specialized products using carbon composites and aluminum, including pressurized cylinders for use in various applications comprising self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) for firefighters, containment of oxygen, and other medical gases for healthcare, alternative fuel vehicles, and general industrial. Luxfer Holdings PLC has operations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, rest of Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company was founded in 1898 and is based in Manchester, the United Kingdom.




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The founder and chief executive of Good African coffee, Mr. Andrew Rugasira has announced his intention to run for president of the Uganda National Chamber of Commerce at the coming Annual General Meeting in 2016.

Rugasira, a member of the chamber seeks to replace Mrs Olive Kigongo who has been at the helm of the oldest private sector body since 2001. The Uganda National Chamber of Commerce was set up in 1933 as an umbrella institution to bring businesses together, promote trade and investment, and enhance business networking and partnerships among others.

Addressing journalists at the Kampala Serena hotel on Sunday, Rugasira said I would like to recognize the many years of service and contribution that the current president Mrs. Olive Kigongo has made at the chamber. It is my intention to build on that contribution and transform the chamber to better serve its members and the wide private sector community.

However, the entrepreneur says the chamber today is a far cry from its original mandate. It is institutionally ineffective and it has fundamentally failed to deliver on the expectations of its members, he said.

It is a tragedy that this historic institution has been allowed to degenerate this far because of poor leadership, weak governance and bad management and yet the country is faced with several crucial challenges like very high unemployment rate, a big skills gap in the labour force, high cost of doing business among others, he says.

Rugasira says he want to borrow a leaf from other economies in the world which have achieved success by harnessing their private sector potential and spirit. The American chamber of commerce has over 3 million members and raises $200m in annual membership fees and is at the fore front of job creation. The south African chamber has 20,000 small and medium enterprises and is significant in development of the country, he says.

Mr. Ramadhan Ggoobi an economics lecturer and researcher from Makerere University Business School says the private sector is key to development of any economy and as such a united and strong private sector can easily better address the issues facing the country. And as such he says the chamber needs reforms that can better address the issues affecting businesses today.

Mr. Amos Wekesa, the chief executive officer of the Great Lakes Safaris urged the private sector to seize opportunities and sign deals with other foreign investors. The chamber of commerce should be at the forefront of advising the president and also signing contracts with foreign business when they come or visit other countries, he said.

Mrs Olive Kigongo the current president of the chamber however says they are yet to seat down as board and agree on dates and guidelines for the elections of the president of the chamber. If you look at the chamber today, you will appreciate where we came from when I took over as president, she said. Adding; We shall announce proper guidelines and channels to be followed by those who wish to contest for president during the forth coming AGM to be held at an announced date.

Story By Jonathan Adengo
A Palestinian terrorist stabbed a reservist officer at a guard post in the settlement of Efrat early Sunday morning, following a weekend surge in Palestinian attacks that shattered weeks of relative calm.

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Efrat, following the stabbing on Sunday. (: tps)

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The 30-year-old company commander in reserves suffered stab wounds to his upper body. He was taken to the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem's Ein Karem in moderate-to-serious condition.

Other IDF soldiers who were on the scene shot and moderately wounded the terrorist, identified as 20-year-old Baha Aldeen Awda. He took was taken to Hadassah for further treatment.

The knives used by the attack, and the scene of the attack (Photos: TPS, Efrat Council)

IDF forces were searching the area for any possible accomplices.

At 1:42am Sunday, the settlement's electronic security system identified movement of a figure somewhere within 400 meters from the settlement. The settlement's civilian security squad along with military forces were sent to the scene to search for the suspicious individual. The system once again alerted to the presence of a suspicious figure at around 4am.

Efrat's security cameras identify the terrorist (:  )

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At around 6am, the assailant, who was hiding in the bushes, jumped out and stabbed the officer using two knives.
Militants attacked an Indian army brigade headquarters near the de factor border with Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least nine soldiers in the most deadly such attack in the northern region of Kashmir since 2014.

Four "fidayeen" - or commando-style gunmen willing to fight to the death - had been confirmed killed after penetrating the base in Uri near the Line of Control with Pakistan, an Indian army spokesman said.

The army deployed helicopters to evacuate 20 soldiers who had been injured in the dawn attack that was followed by an hours-long gunfight, army sources had said earlier, adding the toll may rise.
High ranking officials in the Israeli-Arab political party Balad are under suspicion for corruption, the Israel Police reported on Sunday.

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"The National Unit of the Israel Police, in conjunction with various other police forces, have carried out searches and have detained more than 20 people throughout the country. Amongst those detained were high ranking members of the Balad party, lawyers, and accountants. They have been arrested on suspicion of their involvement in several cases of fraud concerning monies obtained and used for campaign financing."

"It is suspected that the people involved in fundraising were hiding the sources of funding, while at the same time committing various offenses which centered around aggravated fraud, falsifying corporate documents, forgery, use of forged documents, money laundering, and Violations of the Party Financing Law and Local Authorities Law, amongst others," the police continued.

Balad primaries in 2015

The case, called case 274, was discovered following the State Comptroller's Report.

The Israel Police said that its forces carried out "a search of the suspects' houses and offices, including Balad party offices, and obtained documents and materials, as well as assets and bank accounts related to those involved for further requests and forfeiture purposes."

The police also said that "a State Comptroller's Audit, which was carried out in conjunction with an undercover investigation by the National Unit of the Israel Police, formed the basis of the indictment against the Balad officials and members. They, together with other lawyers and accountants, allegedly managed a system whereby they were able to hide the origins of millions of shekels of Balad Party money which they used to fund their projects. They did all of this while committing fraud against the authorities and the state comptroller."

"The party allegedly received millions of shekels from donors from within Israel and from abroad, and fraudulently reported the amount of funding from hundreds of donors from within Israel."

"The investigation began with the approval of former Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein in accordance with the state prosecutor's recommendation," the police's statement continued.

"The investigation has been handled by the State Prosecutor's Office from the outset, and the State Prosecutor's Office and the Attorney General were updated as to all developments throughout the investigation. Investigations requiring the utmost discretion were brought up for approval by the Attorney General."

Balad party officials responded by saying "Balad condemns in the harshest possible terms the arrest of dozens of its activists, and stresses that this is a dangerous escalation, and constitutes yet another layer in the campaign to politically persecute the Arab minority (in Israel) in general, and the (Arab) political movements in particular."

The party strongly rejects the allegations against it, and stresses that it conducts its party and financial manners in accordance with the law. They argue that these fraud allegations are being done to cover up the fact that the Israeli government wants to silence Balad, and to impair Balad's role as a "spearhead of the struggle against oppression and discrimination and the denial of rights."

In April, Balad MK Hanin Zoabi said during a panel discussion in Nazareth that her and her party views Israeli-Arabs as "part of the overall Palestinian nation, and that Balad views itself as part of the Palestinian national cause - not part of the Israeli left - and that it was at the forefront of the national Palestinian liberation project."

Balad further stresses that it's not clear why the issue of party funding warranted a wave of arrests in the middle of the night. The statement argued that these arrests can be viewed as a way to frighten and intimidate (supporters), and to tarnish the party's name.

They claimed that these arrests were done with a fascist air about them, and out of racism against the Arab public as a whole.

The party further said that any attempt to persecute Balad will fail, and that the entire issue is just a "storm in a teacup."
US-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency UN Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated

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The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be ISIS positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

The United States relayed its "regret" through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement that Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area.

The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardizing the Syria deal.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move.

Trying to salvage a shaky truce in Syria. (Archive photo: Reuters)

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power told reporters.

She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life."

When asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said, "This is a very big question mark."

"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin told reporters.

Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed ISIS fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the jihadist militants.

"We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending ISIS. Now there can be no doubts about that," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.

Power said Zakharova should be embarrassed by that claim. Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the United States colluding with ISIS militants.

US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. "Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring." (Photo: EPA)

Zakharova said the strikes threatened to undermine the ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, which has been aiding Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, and the United States, which has backed some rebel groups.

The Russian Defence Ministry said US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 80 Syrian soldiers had been killed.

The ceasefire, which took effect on Monday, is the most significant peacemaking effort in Syria for months, but has been undermined by repeated accusations of violations on both sides and by a failure to bring humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

Apart from the US and Russian involvement, Assad is supported by Iran and Arab Shi'ite militias, while Sunni rebels seeking to unseat him are backed by Turkey and Gulf Arab states.

All the warring parties are also sworn enemies of ISIS, whose territory extends along the Euphrates valley from the Iraqi border, including around Deir al-Zor, up to land near Syria's frontier with Turkey.

In its sixth year, the conflict has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced half of Syria's pre-war population, prompted a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe and inspired a wave of jihadist attacks across the world.

Syria's army said the US-led strikes, which took place at around 5 pm local time (1400 GMT) were "conclusive evidence" of US support for ISIS, calling them "dangerous and blatant aggression".

The US military said in its statement that Syria was a "complex situation" but that "coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit".

ISIS said via its Amaq news channel it had taken complete control of Jebel Tharda, where the bombed position was located, which would have allowed it to overlook government-held areas of Deir al-Zor.

The city's airport and some districts have been entirely surrounded by Islamic State since last year, with the airport providing their only external access.

However, Russia and Syrian state media said the Syrian army later recaptured positions it had lost. The Observatory monitoring group said at least 20 ISIS fighters were killed in heavy Russian air strikes during that fighting.

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin. "This is a very big question mark." (Photo: AFP)

The incident also threatens to undermine proposed joint targeting by the United States and Russia of ISIS and some other jihadist groups across Syria.

Australia offers condolences

The Australian Department of Defence has offered its condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded in the bombing campaign, in which Australia participated.

The Australian Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that it would fully cooperate with a Coalition review of the incident.

"While Syria remains a dynamic and complex operating environment, Australia would never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support ISIS," the ministry said in a statement.
Raghad Khaddour, the fiancee of terrorist Fares Khaddour who attempted to carry out a vehicular attack in Kiryat Arba on Friday , left a note to her family saying she was going to commit a terror attack with her lover to "clear her name."

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Fares, 18 from Bani Na'im, tried to ram his car into Israelis standing at the bus station at the Elias Junction. He was shot to death by IDF soldiers securing the station. Three Israeli teenagers were treated for shock but were physically unharmed.

Raghad, also 18 from Bani Na'im, joined him in an effort to atone for the affair she had with him. She was seriously wounded and taken to the hospital for treatment.

The vehicle used for the attack at the Elias Junction (Photo: Kiryat Arba Council)

According to Palestinian reports, Raghad's sister, Majd Khaddour, committed a similar attack at the same junction in June and was shot dead by Israeli forces.

After the attack, the IDF set up roadblocks at the entrances to Bani Na'im to stop any other possible attackers from leaving the town.

The attack outside Kiryat Arba was the second on Friday, after a Jordanian national tried to stab a Border Polcieman in Jerusalem's Old City. It was followed by two additional attacks on Friday, another one Saturday and a sixth one on Sunday.

In light of the resumption of violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the IDF decided to send reinforcements to the Hebron area.
The truth must be told: No one in the defense establishment can explain why a wave of six continuous terror attacks broke out in different areas over the past weekend and early Sunday morning. But this is yet another reminder that the recent calm in the West Bank is a false one, under which there is a sizzling lava of a young generation ready to carry out self-sacrifice attacks.

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The latest lone wolf attacks are only the tip of the iceberg. They are not yet the growing main threat, which has been detected by the Shin Bet in the past year: Terror cells inspired by the Islamic State, mainly in the Jerusalem area and in northern Samaria. Dozens of young people who were arrested by the Shin Bet this year had planned to carry out attacks like the ones we saw in Europe recently, such as indiscriminately firing on population centers, suicide bombings and vehicular attacks like the truck in Nice, France.

In previous years, these young people were looking for a way to reach Syria. Recently, the road to Syria has been blocked, and they are venting by making plans to carry out attacks inside Israel. They are much fanatic than Hamas's men. We are no longer dealing with the backyard of terror in the territories; ISIS is reaching us through the front door.

The lone wolf terrorist in Hebron may be - according to the IDF's deterioration scenario - the catalyst of the chain of explosion (Photo: AFP)

The weekend's event are unrelated to ISIS, but serve as an alarm bell which we must not take lightly. One of the reasonable scenarios for the eruption of an armed conflict between Israel and its enemies starts with a wave of violence in the West Bank or Jerusalem, which spills over into the Gaza Strip and creates a military conflict vis-a-vis the strip, lighting up the Lebanon front as well. When the Home Front Command chief talks about 2,3000 rockets hitting Israel a day, that lone wolf terrorist in Hebron may beaccording to the IDF's deterioration scenariothe catalyst of the chain of explosion.

The wave of lone wolf attackswhich began on October 1, 2015was curbed in April. A total of 2,563 attacks were recorded in 2015, and 1,030 were recorded in 2016 by mid Septemberfrom nearly 500 attacks in October 2015 to some 80 attacks last August.

The Shin Bet and IDF appear to have found the formula. The significant development in the ability to infiltrate social media led to an unprecedented achievement: The Shin Bet succeeded in detecting and stopping about 70 percent of the potential lone wolf terrorists, who framed themselves in messages and chats. The army also changed the technique for locating these terrorists on the routes and at the roadblocks, allowing soldiers to make an accurate distinction between a terrorist and an innocent citizen.

And so, 373 attacks were thwarted in the first half of 2016, including 160 stabbing attacks, compared to 342 thwarted attacks throughout 2015. The Shin Bet and Central Command arrest some 60 Palestinians a week, and most are taken in for interrogation and put in administrative detention.

Nonetheless, warnings of 50-60 potential lone wolf terrorists are received at any given time. There are about 15 local cells running around the West Bank that have carried out or are about to carry out shooting attacks. These cells, some of which are based on Hamas infrastructures, carry the potential for terror attacks in the coming days and during the upcoming Jewish holidays.

The IDF and Shin Bet's formula will not be able to curb the situation on the ground if the diplomatic-economic-political conditions reach a boiling point. When the Palestinian Authority accuses Israel of murdering the five terrorists, this is incitement which could light up the ground. Hamas is also making an effort to inflame the situation, on the backdrop of an internal Palestinian election campaign which could blow up as well.

The incitement on the Palestinian side is being curbed, for now, by the Israeli decision not to hurt the entire population. Following the recent series of attacks in the Hebron area, the IDF carried out activities with a minimum level of collective punishment. A curfew was imposed only on the town of Bani Na'im, home of the two terrorists who carried out the vehicular attack in Kiryat Arba. The forces visited the other terrorists' homes for interrogation purposes, but the ground was not flooded, apart from one battalion that arrived for reinforcement purposes in the Hebron area.
Twenty-five of the Likud Party's 30 Knesset members signed a petition on Saturday evening calling for the passing of a bill that would give the outpost of Amona legal standing.

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Such a move would allow the residents of Amona to keep their homes, which were ruled by the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) to be illegally built, since they were constructed on privately-owned Palestinian land.

The petition was started by activists against the evacuation of Amona, and was signed by 25 of the Likud's MKs on Saturday, nine of whom are also ministers. The five Likud MKs to not sign the petition are MKs Benny Begin, Avi Dichter, and Anat Berko, Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Will Amona be 'regularized?' (Photo: Tal Shahar)

"The bill is meant to regulate the homes of residents in a legal manner and prevent a moral, humane, and social distortion that would be created by the evacuation of hundreds and thousands of families who have built their homes with the support and assistance of various Israeli governments. The petition's signatories have committed to act in pushing this important and moral legislation," the petition reads.

The Knesset "regulation bill" has relevance beyond Amona. It seeks to retroactively legalize any Jewish structures built on privately-owned Palestinian landsas long as they were built with no intention of breaking the lawwhile offering generous compensation to those who prove they are the lands' owners.

Current estimates say that the regulation bill's chance of being passed is slim. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has already given his opinion saying the bill in its currents formulations is unconstitutional. His official opinion was given to the Knesset's Ministerial Committee for Legislation after the HCJ ruled on the matter; thus, the bill is in fact intended as a court-circumventing measure.
Hezbollah claimed that an Israeli drone attacked a National Defense Forces (NDF) outpost in the Khan Arnabeh area on the Israeli-Syrian border on its twitter account on Saturday.

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The Shiite terror group said that one person was killed and several were injured in the airstrike.

The NDF is a pro-regime militia, where volunteers serve on a semi-regular basis. It is seen as an auxiliary to the Syrian Army.

Regime soldiers fire a grad rocket in the Hama region (Photo: Reuters)

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on an Israeli airstrike originating from Israeli airspace on a regime artillery position.

The IDF responded by saying that it is unaware of these strikes.

The Iron Dome missile defense system was activated twice over the weekend following rocket fire towards the Golan Heights over the weekend. The IDF determined that the activation of the system on Saturday was due to artillery fire coming from Syrian, and not from rockets as was previously believed.

The artillery fire was allegedly aimed at rebels inside of Syria, and not at Israel. The Iron Dome operators decided to try and shoot down the artillery projectiles as the projectiles could have hit a populated area, and they didn't want to take the risk of that happening.

The Iron Dome battery was set up in the Golan Heights two weeks ago. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit said that "the IDF detected high trajectory fire over the northern Golan Heights which was intercepted by the Iron Dome. There is no damage or injury reported."

This artillery fire is the 10th instance of mortar or artillery fire emanating from Syria into Israel over the past two weeks. The mortars and artillery rounds fell in open areas next to various communities the last eight times.
Syria's state news agency is reporting that troops have regained control of areas they lost to the Islamic State group in the east of the country after an airstrike by the US-led coalition.

SANA quotes an unnamed military official as saying Sunday that dozens of IS fighters were killed in the offensive under the cover of Syrian airstrikes.

The Syrian military official said government troops had regained control of areas the extremists captured, "as a result of the American aircraft aggression."

The US military said it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against IS on Saturday.
Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry says unknown gunmen killed two security officers in the eastern city of Dammam, an area heavily populated by Shiites.

The ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said in a statement carried Sunday by the official Saudi Press Agency that a patrol in Dammam's al-Khudariya district came under fire late Saturday night.

Last month, Dammam police arrested two men, one Saudi and the other Syrian, in possession of a firearm and an explosive vest who were allegedly recruited by the Islamic State group to carry out a suicide attack. Two other Syrians were also arrested.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened up his cabinet meeting on Sunday by addressing the criticism he received over the US aid deal, especially from former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

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"I'm hearing so much background noise and disinformation regarding the agreement," the prime minister said. "I would like to clarify  we couldn't have gotten more  not even another dollar. We also weren't offered any special technologies. These are distortions and fabrications by people who have an interest (in providing disinformation)."

Netanyahu thanks the US for the historic aid deal (Photo: EPA)

Netanyahu added that "last week we signed a security aid agreement with the US which will last the next 10 years. Israel will receive $38 billion to strengthen our military power, and also to strengthen our anti-missile defense systems. I would like to thank President Obama, the US Congress, and the American people. The support Israel receives from the US is stronger than ever before, is bi-partisan, encompasses the length and breadth of the US, and is reflected in this agreement."

"This is the largest aid package to any country in US history. This agreement proves the depth and the strength of the relationship between Israel and the US."

On critics of the agreement, Netanyahu said "either they aren't away of the facts or they are twisting the facts. They are also displaying their ungratefulness, and that to me is the saddest thing  ungratefulness towards a biggest and our best friend; the US. This is an agreement which will strengthen Israeli security, and we should bless it and express our gratitude to the US.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak fiercely criticized the agreement. In an op-ed published in the Washington Post and various interviews in the Israeli media, Barak said "(Netanyahu's) reckless behavior is endangering Israel's security. The damage which he has caused to our relations with the White House due to this irresponsible behavior have been undeniably revealed."
In early September, Border Police chief Deputy Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai called Ofer Cohen and informed him that his daughter was to be given a posthumous Medal of Distinguished Service (one of Israel's three highest decorations). Cohen's Daughter, Border Police Corporal Hadar Cohen , was critically wounded while stopping a terrorist attack at Jerusalem's Damascus gate in February. She later died of her wounds in the hospital.

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"I accepted it with a lot of love, but it brings no comfort," the bereaved father said. "It's a feeling of pride, mixed with a lot of sorrow. She should have accepted it with usbut sadly, she won't. If Hadar hadn't prevented this attack, it could have ended with many people being killed."

Cpl. Hadar Cohen. A posthumous Medal of Distinguished Service. (Photo: Police Spokesperson)

Cpl. Cohen's family is set to receive her medal at a police commendation ceremony on Thursday at the National Police Academy in Beit Shemesh. Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, and President Reuven Rivlin will all be present. Thirteen policewomen and policemen are set to receive a Medal of Distinguished Service, with 32 to be awarded the Commissioner's Citation.

The activities of the Yamam (the Israel Border Police's special counter-terrorism unit) will be recognized with a unit citation, and five civilians will receive a special civilian citation.

The number of commendation recipients this year is particularly high in the Border Policeattesting to its soldiers' efforts at the forefront of combating the past year's twave of terror. Twenty of those being commendednearly half of all recipientswill be from among its ranks.

Among the six civilians receiving special citations, albeit posthumously, is Rabbi Nahmia Lavi, who was killed by a terrorist in October 2015 when, after realizing that a stabbing attack was taking place, ran out of his home to help the victims before himself being stabbed to death.





Yamam fighters with President Rivlin. A unit citation. (Photo: Police Spokesperson)

Two other recipients of civilian citations are Hagai Klein and Eliran Shua, who will be recognized for their brave actions in fighting the terrorists during the deadly shooting attack at Tel Aviv's Sarona Market in June.
Moscow stepped up its war of words with Washington on Sunday, saying air strikes by a US-led coalition on the Syrian army threatened the implementation of a US-Russian ceasefire plan for Syria and bordered on connivance with Islamic State.

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The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 90 Syrian soldiers had been killed.

Smoke rises following strikes on Aleppo (Photo: AP)

Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a strongly worded statement that the United States' position on the incident was "unconstructive and inarticulate".

"The actions of coalition pilots - if they, as we hope, were not taken on an order from Washington - are on the boundary between criminal negligence and connivance with ISIS terrorists," the ministry said.

"We strongly urge Washington to exert the needed pressure on the illegal armed groups under its patronage to implement the ceasefire plan unconditionally. Otherwise the implementation of the entire package of the US-Russian accords reached in Geneva on Sept. 9 may be jeopardized."

Russia has repeatedly called on the United States to push units of moderate Syrian opposition to separate from ISIS and other "terrorist groups".

The Foreign Ministry said Saturday's incident was a result of Washington's "stubborn refusal" to cooperate with Moscow in fighting ISIS, the Nusra Front - now renamed Jabhat Fatah al Sham - and "other terrorist groups".

US Special Forces in Syria (Photo: AFP)

The US military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be ISIS positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

Washington further unnerved Moscow when its envoy to the United Nations abruptly left her seat as the Russian representative took the floor to condemn the air strikes at an emergency US Security Council meeting.

"We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending ISIS. Now there can be no doubts about that," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in comments aired by state TV.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Zakharova should be embarrassed by that claim. Russia's UN representative Vitaly Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the US colluding with ISIS militants.

The diplomatic row is likely to further complicate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria, including its largest pre-war city of Aleppo where the situation remains especially tense and the fragile truce has been repeatedly violated.

The UN told Reuters aid trucks that had been expected to move to Aleppo on Sunday morning were once again being delayed.

"It's a tough moment," one top aid official in Geneva told Reuters. "The UN convoys are highly politicized."

UN humanitarian aid convoys are still held up on the border with Turkey

Russia's Defense Ministry said conditions in Syria were deteriorating.

Insurgents say they only reluctantly accepted the initial deal, which they believe is skewed against them, because it could relieve the dire humanitarian situation in besieged areas they control, and blamed Russia for undermining the truce.

"The truce, as we have warned, and we told the (US) State Department - will not hold out," a senior rebel official in Aleppo said, pointing to the continued presence of a UN aid convoy at the Turkish border awaiting permission to enter.

Rebels have also accused Russia of using the ceasefire to give the Syrian army and allied Shiite militias a chance to regroup and deploy forces ready for their own offensives.
Suspected rebels using guns and grenades sneaked into a crucial army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir early Sunday and killed at least 17 soldiers in the deadliest attack on a military base in the disputed Himalayan region in recent years, the army said.

Four rebels were killed as the soldiers returned gunfire after the surprise assault before dawn on the base, located near the highly militarized Line of Control dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Loud explosions were heard and several barracks caught fire in the initial hours of the attack. Afterward, military helicopters hovered over the base as the army conducted what it described as "mopping up" operations.
President Barack Obama will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on Wednesday, a day before the Israeli leader addresses the UN General Assembly before Palestinian PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

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The meeting was agreed upon following talks between the Prime Minister's Office and the White House and was confirmed after the signing of the new US-Israel military aid package. It will be the first meeting between the two leaders since November 2015 and likely be the last as Obama approaches the conclusion of his presidency.

PM Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama (Photo: MCT)

With the new US aid deal set to be at the center of the talks, the White House has indicated that Obama will also be placing additional emphasis on a two-state solution.

"The meeting also will be an opportunity to discuss the need for genuine advancement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The statement echoed that of President Obama shortly after the US aid deal was signed last week.

Following the ceremony, the president said that the aid will make a significant contribution to Israels security in what remains a dangerous neighborhood. He also stated his intention to press for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite deeply troubling trends on the ground that undermine this goal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened up his cabinet meeting on Sunday by addressing the criticism he received over the US aid deal, especially from former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Prof. Uzi Arad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former national security advisor.

"I'm hearing so much background noise and disinformation regarding the agreement," the prime minister said. "I would like to clarify  we couldn't have gotten more  not even another dollar. We also weren't offered any special technologies. These are distortions and fabrications by people who have interest (in providing disinformation)."
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Police investigators suspect that a portion of the illegal funds, which went toward funding the Israeli-Arab political party Balad campaign, were smuggled into the country from abroad in suitcases filled with cash. The suspicion comes in the wake of arrests made against high ranking officials in the party who are being investigated for corruption.

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In the coming days, Knesset members are expected to give testimony to police following confirmation from Attorney General Avihay Mandelblitt. Meanwhile, the magistrate court in Haifa extended the remand of Izz al-Din Badran and Murad Haddad for another five days. The court also extended the detention of a Balad lawyer, Abd al-Fattah until Wednesday.

The investigation began following information received from a State Comptroller report and culminated om Sunday with the arrests of 20 individuals connected to the Balad party, including six lawyers. The party and organizers are suspected of using funds which arrived from Arab countries, such as Qatar, to finance political activities.

Balad press conference

According to information obtained by investigators, millions of shekels made their way to the party's coffers from various organizations around the Arab world. The money was smuggled into Israel by a variety of means, including suitcases full of cash.

According to investigators from the Fraud Investigations Unit, the party created a fake registry of donations for thousands of families who gave so-called "contributions," despite never having done so. Investigators allege this fake registry was used to conceal the illegal funds which arrived in Israel in an effort to create an appearance of innocuous contributions. Evidence of the illicit activities were strengthened by the testimonies provided by families contacted by police who stated that they never made a donation and were unaware that their names made it to the registry.
A young Palestinian boy was found in possession of two Molotov Cocktails and a knife on Sunday afternoon during a search conducted by Israel Border Policemen.

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The boy aroused the security personnels suspicion after they spotted him watching them at a base located in the Jordan Valley. The police believe that the boy intended to carry out an attack against Israel Border Policemen situated in the area.

Molotov Cocktails and knife discovered (Photo: Police Spokesperson's Unit)

The suspect, a resident of Aqabat Jabera Palestinian refugee camp in the Jericho Governoratewas taken in for questioning.

The discovery comes just hours after a Palestinian terrorist stabbed a reservist officer at a guard post in the settlement of Efrat early Sunday morning, following a weekend surge in Palestinian attacks that shattered weeks of relative calm.

Following an incident which took place over the weekend, Israel presented further video evidence to Jordanian officials showing terrorist Sayid Amro brandishing two knives and threatening civilians passing by at the Damascus Gate on Friday.

The new footage was presented to the Jordanians following their accusation that "the killing was an act of barbarism."

Terrorist brandishing 2 knives at Damascus Gate

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The Jordanian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the body of Sayid Amro was transferred to Jordan and will be turned over to the terrorist's family for burial.

According to Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Sabah al-Rifai, "We are continuing to follow every detail of the occupation army shooting incident."

In light of the latest upsurge in terror attacks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing for the Jewish High Holidays on Sunday during which he decided to increase the police presence in Jerusalems Old City and on the Temple Mount. He said that the aim was to act decisively against any attempt to disturb order.

He also requested that the Speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein, continue to act to prevent MKs and Ministers from visiting the Temple Mount.

During the meeting, the Prime Minister also directed personnel to continue to act against Palestinian incitement on social media, including Facebook and other platforms. Furthermore, Netanyahu requested a response team be set up to counter disinformation regarding Israeli policy on the Temple Mount.
US Secretary of State John Kerry says Russia needs to stop Syrian President Bashar Assad from bombing the opposition and force him to allow aid into besieged areas.

Kerry told CNN on Sunday that Assad is a "spoiler" in the process, and called on Russia to "stop the grandstanding, stop the showboating, and get the humanitarian assistance going."
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - On Friday evening, at about 10:10 pm several gunshots were heard coming from the area of 8th Street and Magnolia Avenue. A crime scene consisting of several shell casings was found near 7th Street and 19th Avenue. There were no reported injuries.

Officers were able to contact a vehicle involved in this incident. Upon police contact, the occupants of the vehicle fled into an apartment in the area of 4th Place and Avenue B. A suspect, believed to be involved in the shooting, was taken into custody.

The Yuma Police Department encourages anyone with any information about this case to please call Officer L. Jones with the YPD Special Operations Group at (928) 373-5000 Extension 6005 or 78-Crime at (928) 782-7463 to remain anonymous. Remember if your information leads to an arrest you may receive up to a $1,000 cash reward.
Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business.
Chonmipem Horam `Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent`- Victor Hugo Can you imagine a life void of music? Absolutely NOT! Whether you admit it or not, music permeates our daily life, weaving its beauty and emotion through our thoughts, activities and memories. Music is harmony and music is beauty. Music has the quality of expressing the inexpressible. One cannot approach music with ones own peculiar likes, dislikes or tastes, which are all a part of ones own conditioning. Music is something both extraordinarily complex and incredibly simple at the same time.Roots of World Music day World Music Day also known as Fete de la Musique, was a music festival that began in France in 1982.The idea was conceived by French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang in 1981. Since then June 21st has been celebrated every year as World Music Day. Today, it has spread to Argentina, Australia, Britain, Luxemburg, Germany, Switzerland, Costa Rica, China, India, Lebanon, Pakistan and many other countries. On this day, the musicians perform for free in open areas. Free concerts are organized in parks, museums, train stations, castles etc. This is done to promote music, making all genres of music accessible to the public. It gives an opportunity to communicate and share special bond through music. The term World Music includes traditional as well as non-western music. It is folk music of any culture, created and played by indigenous people. It is a classical form of music accompanied by traditional ethnic instruments, some prominent forms are  Japanese Koto music, India raga music, Tibetan chants and South African `township music`. Genres India, being a land of unity in diversity with various cultures, traditions, art forms, every region has its own unique musical form. While there are various genres, Indian classical music has been divided into North Indian tradition known as Hindustani music and Carnatic music belonging to South India. But apart from these, there are varied forms such as  Bhangra, Bhajans or devotional, Ghazals and Qawwalis, Indi-pop, Folk, Tribal, Film songs, Remixes, Fusion. While, Bhangra is a dance oriented folk music, Bhavageete (literally `devotional song`) is a form of expressionist poetry and light music. Qawwali is a Sufi form of devotional music based on Hindustani classical. And in the West, we have Metal, Punk, Rock, Hip-Hop, Hard Rock, alternative, Experimental, Country, Disco, Funk, Classical, Progressive, Trance, Techno, Ska, Reggae music. Trance Music was developed in early quarters of 20th century and is generally played in club houses and dance floors. Indigenous Country Music born of the US is in form of folk, Celtic, church, gospels and tribal music, while, Pop Music is both classical and folk. Reggae is a music genre developed in late 1960`s. Its lyrics deal with faith, love, sexuality, relationships, injustice etc. Hip-hop is both a cultural movement and genre of music developed in New York City in 1970`s by African Americans and Latin Americans.The good, the bad and the ugly Music is an important form of communication. Its a reflection of society in a particular time and place. Music needs no boundaries, it bonds us irrespective of who we are, and where are we from. Not only its a source of entertainment but it also acts as a medium to convey messages, of how things are, and what lies ahead in the future. Michael Jackson`s song `Heal the world sounds beautiful as well as inspiring as it echoes noble thoughts. There`s A Place In Your Heart, And I Know That It Is Love, And This Place Could Be Much Brighter Than Tomorrow, And If You Really Try You`ll Find There`s No Need To Cry,In This Place You`ll Feel There`s No Hurt Or Sorrow There Are Ways To Get There If You Care Enough For The Living Make A Little Space, Make A Better Place... Heal The World, Make It A Better Place, For You And For Me And The Entire Human Race There Are People Dying, If You Care Enough For The Living, Make A Better Place For You And For Me If You Want To Know Why There`s A Love That Cannot Lie Love Is Strong, It Only Cares For Joyful Giving If We Try, We Shall See In This Bliss We Cannot Feel, Fear Or Dread We Stop Existing And Start Living Then It Feels That Always Love`s Enough For Us Growing So Make A Better World Make A Better World... And The Dream We Were Conceived In, Will Reveal A Joyful Face And The World We Once Believed In Will Shine Again In Grace Then Why Do We Keep Strangling Life Wound This Earth, Crucify Its Soul Though It`s Plain To See, This World Is Heavenly Be God`s Glow We Could Fly So High Let Our Spirits Never Die In My Heart, I Feel You Are All My Brothers Create A World With No Fear Together We`ll Cry Happy Tears See The Nations Turn their Swords Into Plowshares We Could Really Get There If You Cared Enough for The Living Make A Little Space, To Make A Better Place... You And For Me Music also grants us the freedom of expression. Like in late 1980`s and 90`s, young black Americans coming out of the Civil Rights Movement used this to show the limitation of the movement. It used Hip-hop to voice their issues. It lets them the world to be noticed. But inspite of all these social impacts, there have been negative aspects as well. Some of the most popular songs in Hip-hop genre have negatively influenced violence, drugs, alcohol, sex and disrespect for authorities, which is detrimental to the lives and education of the youngsters.Festivals There are many World Music festivals and jazz/folk/roots/new age crossover events. The Ariano Folkfestival is the biggest World Music festival in southern Italy, is held in mid August. The California World Music Festival is held each July at Nevada County Fairgrounds. The World Sacred Music Festival is held annually in Olympia, Washington State. FloydFest in Floyd, Virginia, USA. The Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance in Trumansburg, New York, USA. Rainforest World Music Festival is another world music festival held in Malaysia. Stern Grove festival is a San Francisco celebration of musical and cultural diversity. The Starwood Festival in New York has been held in July every year since 1981.
LIVE-2 Inning |30-34

INDIA VS SOUTH AFRICA

IND 133/9 VS 8/2 SA

South Africa need 126 runs in 105 balls at 7.2 rpo
LIVE-2 Inning |30-34

INDIA VS SOUTH AFRICA

IND 133/9 VS 9/2 SA

South Africa need 125 runs in 102 balls at 7.35 rpo
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa: The death toll from a Taliban suicide bomb attack on a mosque in northwest tribal Pakistan has risen to 36, including eight children, officials said on Sunday.

The Friday attack targeted a mosque in the Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan where the army has been fighting against Taliban militants.

"We have now compiled a list of victims of the blast which includes 36 dead and 27 injured. At least eight children below the age of 10 years are among the dead" Naveed Akbar, deputy chief of the Mohmand tribal district administration, told AFP.

"Many children were hit in the blast because they were praying in the last rows in the mosque where the bomber struck," Akbar said.

The bomber came in as Friday prayers were in progress and blew himself up in the main hall. A curfew has been imposed in the area since the bombing.

Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out to avenge the deaths of 13 of its members and arrests of others by a local vigilante force in 2009.

Since 2007 the government has encouraged vigilante forces comprising tribesmen -- locally known as peace committees -- to defend their villages against the Taliban.

Pakistan`s deadliest ever attack occurred in Peshawar in December 2014, when Taliban militants stormed a school killing more than 150 people, mostly children.

The army launched an operation in June 2014 in a bid to wipe out militant bases in the northwestern tribal areas and so bring an end to the bloody insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives since 2004.

Last year, the country recorded its lowest number of killings since 2007, when the Pakistani Taliban was formed.
East Noble schools stop-arm camera system, which is attached near the bottom of the bus under the arm in this file photo from April, has helped catch about 20 drivers who have ignored the sign on the road this year. The district is upgrading more buses with the cameras, while Central Noble and West Noble research the systems.

Steve Garbacz
Margarita Island: Continuing with its efforts to internationalise the Kashmir issue, Pakistan on Sunday raised the matter here at the NAM summit, saying the 120-nation group should be outraged by the situation there.

Aziz, in his address here as the Pakistan delegation head, said peace in South Asia cannot be achieved without the settlement of the issue of Jammu and Kahmir in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council.

"It is tragic that 60 years after being promised, the people of Jammu and Kashmir are still waiting to exercise their inalienable right to self determination and Kashmir along with Palestine has become one of the longstanding items on the UN agenda," Aziz said.

"We should also be outraged by the horrific images of innocent Kashmiris being killed, maimed and blinded by the use of boot force in Kashmir in the last two months," he said.

Aziz also stated that Pakistan strongly endorses the agreement of heads of state and government in Venezuela to undertake measures to oppose "attempts to equate legitimate struggle for self-determination and national liberation with terrorism".

Aziz asserted that Pakistan fully endorses the NAM position on terrorism and violent extremism.

"We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. ..Pakistan has lost tens of thousands of lives in this fight yet are resolve is firm, our commitment unflinching and our actions tougher and more wide-ranging than ever," Aziz said.

Pakistan has acquired valuable experience in successfully tackling the menace of terrorism in the past three years and therefore is ready to share this experience with other members of NAM, he said.

"My government's focus has been on building a peaceful neighbourhood and regional connectivity and ensuring an environment that fosters cooperation and development. However, in our view peace in South Asia cannot be achieved without the settlement of the issue of Jammu and Kahmir in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council," he said.

His comments came on a day when 17 Indian soldiers where killed in a terror attack on an army base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir by suspected Pakistan-based militants.
Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday conducted an aerial survey to take stock of the scale of erosion caused by floods in Gopalganj district.

Later, Kumar reviewed the flood situation, erosion and drought at a high-level meeting in Gopalganj, an official release said here.

The meeting was attended by state Water Resources Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, Art and Culture Minister Shivchandra Ram, Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and other senior officials.

During the meeting, the CM said water was receding and this may lead to erosion. He also reviewed the steps and preparedness to deal with erosion.

Meanwhile, flood situation has eased in Bihar with almost all major rivers except four flowing below danger-level, further mitigating the chance of threat of floods, the release said.

The four rivers which are still flowing above the danger mark are Punpun, Baghmati, Kamlabalan and Kosi.

Flood waters had entered a few villages of Punpun block of Patna district after seepage at its sluice gate on September 13 following heavy rains.

But the seepage was blocked the same night, and flood waters stopped entering the villages, the release said, adding Punpun is witnessing a receding trend.

As per the Central Water Commission report, water level of Punpun was flowing 96 cm above the danger mark of 50.6 meters.

Baghmati is flowing 46 cm above danger mark in Benibad area of Muzaffarpur district, Kamlabalan is 63 cm above danger mark in Jhanjharpur and Kosi is flowing 85 cm above danger mark at Baltara in Khagaria district.
Banka: At least six Maoist were suspected to be injured in a clash with police in Hardiya Padariya jungles under Anandpur police outpost of Bihar's Banka district on Sunday, a senior police officer said.

The injured Naxalites managed to escape but bloodstains found at several places indicated that they were injuredduring the encounter, Superintendent of Police Rajiv Ranjansaid.

Around a hundred rounds were fired from both sides during the encounter, the SP said, adding that police destroyed a bunker of the rebels.

The police seized half a dozen detonators, 100 cartridges, 12 mobile phone sets and Naxal literature from the site.
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday denounced the terrorist killing of 17 soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir and said "India cannot be cowed down by such attacks".

"I strongly condemn the cowardly attack at Uri in which 17 soldiers lost thier lives," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader tweeted. "My heartfelt condolences to the families of those martyred in Uri."

Another AAP leader, Ashish Khetan, added: "We stand in solidarity with the government."

Terrorists barged into an army camp at Uri early on Sunday and killed the 17 soldiers and wounded many others. All four attackers were killed.


Panaji: A year after contesting the municipal elections, several leaders from then BJP-backed panel in Margao town have joined Goa Forward Party ahead of the state Assembly elections scheduled early next year.

Goa Forward Party president Prabhakar Timble yesterday welcomed the leaders in the party fold in presence of Independent MLA from Fatorda constituency, Vijai Sardessai.

The elections for the municipal councils was held in October last year.

Among those who joined the party were Sujay Lotlikar and Raju Naik, who were earlier in the BJP. Naik was ex- councilor from Pajifond.

Others who joined the local party were ex-councilor Ramdas Hazare, Charlton Baretto, Vitorino Tavares, Custodio Dias, Mayur Naik and Florindo Miranda.

Sardesai welcomed the new entrants into the party and said unity is the key to a developed Fatorda.

"BJP might have star campaigners and central ministers to campaign and canvas for them in election but our strength lies in our local leaders who understand the sentiment of the local people," he said.

On the occasion, Timble said Goa Forward is a movement providing opportunities for Goans to be political and social leaders.
Vadodara: Gujarat government will continue to distribute LED bulbs in the state after Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the scheme aimed at conserving electricity, Energy Minister Chimanbhai Shapariya has said.

"The government has distributed 2.25 LED bulbs in the state so far after launch of the Central scheme in this regard. Gujarat is now leading in terms of LED distribution across the nation," he told PTI by phone on Sunday.

The BJP government will continue with the scheme after the Prime Minister lauded its efforts in conserving power through distribution of energy-saving LED bulbs, he said.

The state government has set a target of providing LED bulbs to 1.21 crore households more at subsidised rates across the state in the next one year, he said.

The main objective of the scheme is to encourage people to adopt sustainable energy options to save and reduce energy costs and consumption, the minister said.

Shapariya thanked Modi for praising the state government's efforts.

Modi, speaking at Limkheda in Dahod district, about 140 km from here, yesterday said, "There is competition between states to outdo each other in terms of LED distribution. Gujarat, ever since joining the Centre's 'Unnat Jyoti' scheme on May last year, has distributed 2.25 crore LED bulbs so far."
Chandigarh: An alert has been sounded in Punjab's border districts of Pathankot and Gurdaspur following the terror strike on an Army camp at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of 17 jawans.

Tight vigil is being maintained near key installations including the Pathankot Airforce base, that had come under attack by militants earlier this year, and near Indo-Pak border areas, police said.

"An alert has been sounded in border districts of Pathankot and Gurdaspur in light of the terror attack in Uri," Pathankot SSP Rakesh Kaushal said today.

Police patrolling has been strengthened near sensitive areas in and around the city and vehicles coming from and going towards Jammu are being thoroughly checked, police said.

"Security around Pathankot Airforce base has also been tightened," the SSP said.

"We have also increased the number of police checkpoints in and outer parts of the city to keep a check on anti-social elements," he further said.

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

Earlier this year, terrorists who had sneaked in from across the border had attacked Pathankot air base on the intervening night of January 1-2 while Dinanagar in Gurdaspur was targeted on July 27 last year.

The Pathankot attack had claimed the lives of seven security personnel while four terrorists were killed.

Three heavily-armed terrorists wearing army fatigues had stormed a police station in Dinanagar town in Gurdaspur district last year killing seven persons, including a Superintendent of Police, before they were gunned down during a day-long operation.

Meanwhile, Punjab Governor and Administrator, UT, Chandigarh, V P Singh Badnore today strongly condemned the terror strike on the Uri Army camp.
Imphal: All four MLAs of the Trinamool Congress, including TMC state President Thounaojam Shyamkumar, joined the ruling Congress in Manipur on Sunday.

Shyamkumar said: "We took the decision to leave the TMC as the national leaders have neglected us. We have to consolidate our position since we are accountable to the people."

"The demand for implementation of the Inner Line Permit has been disrupting normal life in Manipur. Ten persons have been killed... Despite our requests, TMC MPs refused to take up the issue in Parliament. It shows the party has no concern for the people of Manipur," he said.

In 2012, six Trinamool candidates were elected to the Manipur assembly. Three of them were disqualified by Speaker Thokchom Lokeshwar Singh in 2015. But one was allowed to attend the house.

The decision of the four MLAs to join the Congress comes as a morale booster to the party after a Congress MLA, Yumkham Erabot, joined the BJP on September 12.
Itanagar: The BJP will support the People`s Party of Arunachal (PPA) government in Arunachal Pradesh from outside as of now and the decision on joining the government will be taken in near future, a senior leader said on Sunday.

"As of now, the BJP is going to support Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu-led PPA government from outside. However, the party leadership will take the decision whether the BJP will join the government or not," said Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Sarma, who is the convener of the BJP-led anti-Congress alliance, North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), was addressing a press conference in Itanagar, Arunchal Pradesh capital city.

The BJP has 11 legislators in the 60-member Arunachal Pradesh assembly.

"The PPA is a constituent of NEDA and so, the government in Arunachal Pradesh will be known as NEDA government," Sarma said.

He also hinted that the issue of the BJP joining the government in Arunachal Pradesh may be taken up for discussion at the forthcoming national executive of the party in Kerala later this week.

Sarma reiterated that the BJP has no role in the decision of the Congress legislators to merge with the PPA on Friday.

"The BJP or the NEDA came to know about this only after the merger took place. I got a call from Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Friday evening and informed this to my national (BJP) president Amit Shah," Sarma said.

"PPA is already a member of the NEDA and Chief Minister Khandu also expressed his desire to be a member of the NEDA," he added.

"NEDA was formed in May this year for the sake of development in the northeastern region. Now with a stable government in place in Arunachal Pradesh under the leadership of Chief Minister Pema Khandu, I hope the NEDA government will usher in a new dimension of development in Arunachal Pradesh," he added.

Pema Khandu, who was also present in the press conference, said that the decision of the Congress legislators to merge with the People`s Party of Arunachal (PPA) was taken considering the demand of the people for a regional party-led government in the state.

"There has been a demand from the grassroots people for a regional party-led government in Arunachal Pradesh for the sake of development. The people here have seen the development works initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, particularly in the region, and so we unanimously decided to merge with the PPA," Khandu said.
Porlamar: The strategic Chabahar port, which will give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, will be recalled as a "turning point" in Indo-Iran ties, Vice President Hamid Ansari told Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday as the two leaders held talks here.

Ansari and Rouhani discussed bilateral ties and ways to boost economic cooperation during talks held on the sidelines of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit.

Asked if Chabahar came up for discussion, Secretary (West) Sujata Mehta, while briefing reporters on the meeting, said, "certainly the subject of Chabahar came up and in fact, our Vice President said in the years to come this will certainly be recalled as a turning point in the bilateral relationship as a matter of great significance".

The Vice President said India and Iran were like two young friends who grew up together and then got busy with their own affairs, and now after some time they are coming together and discovering how close they are.

"It was a very warm meeting. They discussed the potential for economic cooperation - Chabahar figured largely. They also discussed regional issues," Mehta said.

A "milestone" pact on the strategic Chabahar port in southern Iran which will give India access to Afghanistan and Europe bypassing Pakistan was signed in May this year.

Besides the bilateral pact to develop the Chabahar port for which India will invest USD 500 million, a trilateral Agreement on Transport and Transit Corridor was also signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran.

Vice President Ansari, who is here to attend the 17th NAM Summit leading the Indian delegation in the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also called on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after arriving here yesterday.

"President Maduro and the Vice President had an 'excellent'" and a very warm conversation. "President Maduro is personally influenced by India and he is attached to India and that came through in the conversation itself," Mehta told reporters.

There was some discussion yesterday evening on the importance of the Non-Aligned groups speaking on the issue of terrorism and that found reflection in President Maduro's statement this morning, she said.

"Other than the agenda of the conference that they discussed last evening, they also spoke about bilateral relations. They spoke about the extent of economic cooperation which has grown dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years.

"There was some discussion on the economic cooperation side. There was also discussion about the need to arrange an early meeting of the joint commission between the two countries which would then lead to other things," she said.

The two important areas of bilateral cooperation at this time are ? India buys a lot of oil from Venezuela and it is India's fourth largest supplier, Mehta noted.

"There was some discussion on this and some additional supplies being purchased... There was also some discussion on India's export of drugs and pharmaceuticals products to benefit Venezuela. This has been a substantial growth area for us for the last several years," Mehta said.


New Delhi: Central Vigilance Commissioner KV Chowdary will attend a meeting of anti-corruption agencies of SAARC nations in Pakistan later this month, when such a meeting is being held for the first time.

The meeting is intended to discuss cooperation and assistance in probing corruption cases among eight SAARC countries, official sources said on Sunday.

Pakistan's apex anti-corruption body -- National Accountability Bureau -- is coordinating the meeting to be held between September 25 and 27 in Islamabad.

This will be the first meeting where the authorities will discuss ways to set up 'SAARC anti-corruption forum', they said.

The Ministry of External Affairs is understood to have given its approval for India's representation in the meeting.

"The CVC will be attending the meeting on SAARC anti-corruption forum in Islamabad. The members will meet to discuss and resolve against corruption by creating public awareness and taking other matters," a source said.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is a grouping of eight member countries -- India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The meeting assumes significance as there is no body for the SAARC nations to take help from any member nation in corruption matters. Usually, any request for such probes are processed via Home Ministry under Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), the sources said.

The members will try to work out ways to extend cooperation to each other in matters related to anti-corruption and black money, among others, they said.
New Delhi: Without naming Pakistan, India used the foremost South-South cooperation forum to take action against terrorism and called for support to New Delhi's initiative of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that was tabled at the UN.

"Today, the biggest threat to international peace, and to the sovereignty of states, is the phenomenon of terrorism," Vice President Hamid Ansari said in his address at the 17th Non-Aligned Summit (NAM) in the Venezuelan island of Margarita on Saturday.

"No cause justifies the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians as a means to achieve a political goal or change of policies," he said.

Stating that terrorism is one of the most egregious sources of human right violations today, he said "its use as an instrument of state policy is to be unequivocally condemned".

"It has become a major impediment to development," Ansari said.

"It is therefore imperative for the Non-Aligned Movement to galvanise the international community to strengthen the international legal framework to address this menace,including by adopting the draft Comprehensive UN Convention on Terrorism, to ensure the closest cooperation amongst the international community to counter the scourge of terror," he stated.

"We must also ensure that all existing structures that are the building blocks of UN's Global Counter Terrorism Strategy function in a non-partisan and professional manner."

The Vice President called for "concrete action in the fight against terrorism" and the need to establish a mechanism within NAM that would ensure "effective cooperation in combating terrorism, that is the main threat to security, sovereignty and development".

Ansari is leading the Indian delegation to the foremost summit of developing nations being hosted by the South American country.

He called for development cooperation as it was an essential means of promoting and developing international solidarity and putting a human face on the impact of economic globalisation.

"This becomes all the more important in the light of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Agenda 2030 which, if implemented successfully, will transform the lives of all our citizens," the Vice President said.

"It would be a reaffirmation of our commitment as a Movement to ensure the dignity and development of all humankind."

NAM comprises 53 countries from Africa, 39 from Asia, 26 from Latin America and the Caribbean and two from Europe.

There are 17 countries and 10 international organisations that are observers at NAM, which came into being 55 years ago when leaders of 25 developing countries met at the 1961 Belgrade Conference.

India, one of the founding members of the Movement, hosted the 7th NAM Summit in 1983 in New Delhi. The last NAM Summit was hosted by Iran in 2012.
Delhi: In wake of the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday blasted Pakistan saying that it was a terrorist state and should be isolated.

The HM posted on micro-blogging site Twitter - "Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such."

In another post he wrote, "There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped."

He also tweeted, "I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups."

Deeply distressed at the terror incident in Uri and the loss of 17 brave soldiers martyred. I pray for the speedy recovery of the injured.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

My heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers. Those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

I have apprised the PM Shri @narendramodi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting held at my residence this afternoon  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

Singh has postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States in the wake of the attack in J&K.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, 17 jawans were killed as heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in North Kashmir in the wee hours today.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.

Explosions and gunfire erupted as the militants attacked the camp, which is located barely few metres away from the Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town, 102 kms from here, around 4 am, official sources said.

The jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks, the sources said.

It is believed that the attack was the handiwork of a group of freshly infiltrated militants who could have entered from an area along the Salamabad Nallah, the sources said, as per PTI.

17 jawans were killed in the terror attack, the Northern Command of the Army said.

Nineteen other personnel were injured in the strike in which four militants were killed.

Defence sources said that this is one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years.

In January, seven military personnel were killed when six terrorists attacked the Pathankot air base.

The attack comes two years after militants had carried out a similar type of attack at Mohra in the same area. Ten security personnel were killed in the attack that took place on December 5, 2014.

Giving details of the attack, the Army said in a statement, "A group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, Kashmir. In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress" The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement said.

(With PTI inputs)
Srinagar: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was on Sunday briefed here by army officials about the counter-operation in Uri where a deadly terror attack left 17 jawans dead and 20 injured.

The minister also visited the injured jawans at the hospital. Parrikar had rushed to Srinagar to take stock of the situation after four suspected Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists struck the administrative base of the army's 10 Dogra regiment at Uri in Baramulla district.

"The Defence Minister was briefed about the Uri terror attack and the counter-operation in which the terrorists were neutralised," an army official said.

Parrikar arrived at the Chinar Corps Headquarters of the army at Badami Bagh in the evening where senior army officials briefed him, he added.

The Defence Minister also visited the 92 Base Hospital of the army where he was briefed about the condition of the injured soldiers who were undergoing treatment there.

Four terrorists, believed to have infiltrated from across the Line of Control (LoC), targeted the army base camp in the wee hours in one of the deadliest attacks on the security establishment in recent times.

All four were neutralised in a counter-operation by the army.
Delhi: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday postponed his visit to Russia and the US after terror attack at an Army camp in North Kashmir's Uri town.

Militants stormed a battalion headquarters in the wee hours today, leaving at least 10 Army men injured.

Intense firing was going on with reports about presence of three militants inside the Army camp which is located barely few metres away from the Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town, 102 kms from here, official sources said.

Helicopters from the Army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla have been pressed into service and so far 10 Army personnel with burn and bullet injuries have been evacuated from the encounter site, the sources said, as per PTI.Baramulla have been pressed into service and so far 10 Army personnel with burn and bullet injuries have been evacuated from the encounter site, the sources said, as per PTI.

The attack comes two years after militants had carried out a similar type of attack at Mohra in the same area. Ten security personnel were killed in the attack that took place on December 5, 2014.

It is believed that the attack was the handiwork of a freshly infiltrated group of militants who could have entered along the Salamabad Nallah into the town.

The entire area has been sealed off.

Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016

I have given instructions to the Home Secretary and other senior officers in MHA to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 18, 2016
Jalandhar: Asserting that the perepetrators of the Uri attack would be punished, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said India will intensify diplomatic efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally.

Holding Pakistan responsible for the attack, in which 17 armymen were killed and 19 injured, he said "since independence, Pakistan has not accepted Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of India and this is the reason that terror attacks happen in the country with its support."

"These are challenges to our security," Jaitley said, condemning the terrorist attack on a camp at Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri that left 17 security personnel dead.

".. Pathankot and Uri (terror attacks) appear to indicate that these (fidayeen attacks) have restarted again. And I think this is a major challenge which I am sure our security forces will gear up to respond," he told reporters here.

Later, he tweeted "Perpetrators of Uri terror attack shall be punished. My thoughts & prayers are with families of our soldiers injured & martyred."

"Uri terror attack is a highly condemnable act of cowardice. Salute to our soldiers who gave supreme sacrifice to protect the motherland."

Earlier, Jaitley said in recent years there had been an increasing reliance "on activities like stone throwing agitations" which were instigated from across the border.

He said the terror attacks "have nothing to do with complexion of the governments in power at the Centre."

Replying to a question, he said, "such (like Uri attack) security situations are handled by security forces... On the basis of political statements, response is not given".

Asked about a recent statement of Pakistan Defence Minister that if his country needs to use nuclear weapons for their survival they will, Jaitley said "this is an irresponsible statement. Such statements are condemnable and the world also does not accept such threats."

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the strike in which four ultras were neutralised.
Srinagar: Seventeen jawans were martyred early on Sunday when a group of four heavily-armed militants launched a pre-dawn attack on an Army camp in Uri, Kashmir. Initial reports point Pakistan-based JeM's hand in the attack.

Here are the ten latest developments:

1. The Army base, where the attack took place, is located barely a few kilometres from the Line of Control (LoC) and some 70 km from Srinagar.

2. The attack took place around 5.30 am at the administrative base of the 10 Dogra regiment. It took three hours to neutralise all four terrorists.

3. Most of the casualties resulted from the fire in tents in which jawans were sleeping. The jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks.

4. The camp is located barely few metres away from the Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town.

5. Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag rushed to Uri followed soon by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who cut short his Goa visit. Parrikar was briefed at the Army's headquarters in Srinagar.

5. DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh called up his counterpart in Pakistan expressing "serious concerns" over Pakistani marking found on the equipment used by four "foreign" terrorists.

6. Lt Gen Singh said that all four killed were foreign terrorists and had carried with them items which had Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-E-Mohammed tanzeem.

7. Leaders across the political spectrum, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi, condemned the attack.

8. Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed those responsible "will not go unpunished.

9. Blaming Pakistan for the attack, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said it is a "terrorist state" and should be isolated.

10. President Pranab Mukherjee said India will not be cowed down by such attacks and that it will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers.
Uri (J&K): In the worst attack on the Army in many years, heavily armed militants suspected to be from Pakistan-based JeM stormed an army base in Uri in Kashmir killing 17 jawans early today, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to assert that those responsible "will not go "unpunished.

Located barely a few kilometres from the Line of Control (LoC) and some 70 km from Srinagar, the base was subjected to the brazen attack by four terrorists at around 5.30 AM, causing heavy casualties in the Dogra regiment which lost 17 of its men. 20 more army personnel were injured, some critically, and were airlifted to the army base hospital in Srinagar.

After the three-hour gunbattle, four terrorists were killed and army was combing to ensure there were no other militants. Most of the army casualties resulted from the fire in tents in which jawans were sleeping.

India reacted strongly to the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency that sparked an outrage with Modi strongly condemning it.

"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi tweeted.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh pointed a finger directly at Pakistan, saying it is a "terrorist state" and should be isolated while BJP leader Ram Madhav said days of strategic restraint are over and suggested that "for one tooth, the complete jaw" should be the policy after the attack.

Soon after the news of the attack broke, Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag rushed to Uri followed soon by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who cut short his Goa visit. Parrikar was briefed at Army's headqqarters in Srinagar.

Leaders across the political spectrum including Congress President Sonia Gandhi condemned the attack. President Pranab Mukherjee said India will not be cowed down by such attacks and that it will thwart the evil designs of terrorists and their backers.

The attack at the administrative base of the 10 Dogra, which top Army officials described as a "serious setback", was launched at 0530 hours and ended at 0830 hours with the killing of four terrorists and martyrdom of 17 soldiers.

Explosions and gunfire erupted as the militants attacked the camp, which is located barely few metres away from the Army's Brigade Headquarters in Uri town.

The jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks, official sources said.

DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh called up his counterpart in Pakistan expressing "serious concerns" over Pakistani marking found on the equipment used by four "foreign" terrorists.

"All four killed were foreign terrorists and had carried with them items which had Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-E-Mohammed tanzeem," Lt Gen Singh said in a brief statement to the media at South Block in Delhi.

He added that since "some the terrorists had some items with Pakistani markings, I have spoken to Pakistan DGMO and conveyed our serious concern on the same".

He said that the terrorists had fired incendiary ammunition along with automatic fire of small arms that led to army tents and temporary shelters catching fire.

"There have been a total of 17 Army fatal casualties. Of these, 13-14 casualties have been due to these tents/shelters having caught fire," he said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh also called an emergency

meeting in Delhi.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said that four AK 47 rifles and four Under Barrel Grenade Launchers along with a large number of other war like stores were recovered from the group of heavily armed terrorists.

He said that the operation for clearance of the area is still in progress and a very deliberate search is being carried out in the entire area around the military complex in Uri.

"As such, complete details of the operation are not yet available. However, the operation is being carried out by the Indian Army in a very professional manner and the Army personnel have displayed exceptionally high standards of courage and gallantry while neutralising the terrorists," Lt Gen Singh said.

Amid reports that intelligence agencies had warned of a possible attack, he said all the intelligence agencies are working in close synergy with the security forces and regular intelligence inputs are received from concerned agencies and necessary action is being taken accordingly.

He said Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag has visited the site of operation and taken an "on the ground" assessment of the situation.

"We salute the supreme sacrifice made by our brave soldiers following the highest traditions of Indian Army," he said.

The Army in a statement earlier in the day said a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri.

"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement added.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday condemned the tragic Uri terror attack in a series of Tweets. He also assured the nation that perpetrators will not go unpunished.

PM Modi mentioned that the country will always remember the martyrs and also lent his support to their brave families.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Seventeen soldiers were killed in an audacious militant attack on army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir early on Sunday that also left four terrorists dead, military officials said.

Over two dozen soldiers were also injured in the attack which began at 5.30 a.m. when a group of heavily-armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of the army unit, the officials said.

The sneak attack triggered a massive gun battle that lasted well over two-and-a-half-hours, sending huge columns of black smoke rising into the sky.

Unofficial sources said most of the dead soldiers were from the Bihar Regiment. It was reportedly the biggest terror attack on any army camp in Jammu and Kashmir in about a decade.

After the fighting died down, soldiers continued to comb the camp for other militants who may be hiding as well as explosives they may have planted, the officials said.

No guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the bloodbath. But some reports said the guerrillas had recently infiltrated into the Indian side of the Line of Control from Pakistan.

(With IANS inputs)
Srinagar: In a set back to the ruling PDP, party leader Nisar Ahmad Mandoo today resigned from the party saying he cannot side with "bloodbath" of Kashmiris, the second prominent leader to resign in the wake of the ongoing unrest in Kashmir.

"I am resigning from the basic membership of the PDP as I cannot side with the bloodbath of Kashmiris," Mandoo, who was senior vice president of the party's Srinagar unit, told reporters here.

Mandoo also cited "anti-people" policies of BJP-PDP coalition in the state as a reason for his resignation.

"I have been associated with PDP for the past 16 years. The party was formed to protect the lives and political dignity of people but today the party has deviated from these principles," he said.

Mandoo is the second prominent leader of the ruling party to resign in the wake of the ongoing unrest in Kashmir that has left 81 persons dead and thousands of others injured.

Tariq Hameed Karra, founding member of the PDP and Lok Sabha member from Srinagar constituency, resigned from the party as well as the Parliament seat on September 15 over civilians' killings.
Srinagar: Curfew remained in force in parts of Kashmir, including in some areas of Srinagar, on Sunday in view of the separatists call for a march to the three districts of Bandipora, Ganderbal and Shopian, even as normal life in the Valley remained disrupted for the 72nd straight day.

Curfew has been imposed in Shopian district, while it remains in force in five police station areas of downtown (interior city) and Batamaloo in Srinagar, a police official said.

He said curfew-like restrictions on the movement of people have been imposed in the towns of Bandipora and Ganderbal, while the restrictions on the assembly of people continued to remain in force in the rest of the Valley.

The official said the curbs have been imposed to maintain law and order in view of the separatists call for a march to the three districts.

The separatists have called for a march to the three districts Bandipora (in north Kashmir), Ganderbal (in central Kashmir) and Shopian (in south Kashmir) today.

Meanwhile, normal life continued to remain paralysed in Kashmir for the 72nd consecutive day due to restrictions and the separatist-sponsored strike. The separatists have extended the protest programme till September 22.

They have not announced any relaxation in the strike even in the evening hours for the week.

Shops, business establishments and petrol pumps continued to remain shut, while public transport was off the roads.

Mobile telephony, except the postpaid connections of BSNL, and the mobile internet services continued to remain snapped across the Valley.

The broadband services were restored late last night after working journalists yesterday protested against the communication 'gag'. These services had remained snapped across the Valley for five days.

As many as 81 people, including two cops, have been killed in the unrest that broke out a day after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces in South Kashmir on July 8.
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Sunday slammed Pakistan over the terror attack on an army camp in Uri and said the neighbouring country was working only on disturbing the state.

Asked how terrorists could infiltrate India and carry out the attack, Singh said: "The border is long."

The minister also blamed the "situation during monsoons".

"It is a proxy war. A country that is Pakistan is focusing on how to disturb Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

Singh said that it was a "fidayeen" attack.

Heavily-armed militants attacked the army camp at Uri early in the morning, killing 17 soldiers and wounding many others. Security forces shot dead all four attackers and launched a mop-up operation.


Srinagar: More than 50 youths, suspected to be involved in stone pelting incidents during the ongoing unrest in Kashmir, have been arrested since yesterday as part of the police's effort to restore normalcy in the Valley.

"Continuing its drive against the trouble mongers involved in damaging civilian vehicles, shops, houses and placing obstructions on roads, police arrested 56 miscreants during the last 24 hours," a police spokesman said today.

More than 1500 youths were arrested by police for their alleged involvement in disruptive activities in the first couple of weeks of the unrest, which erupted after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces on July 8.

The police spokesman also said overall situation in the Valley is under control today.

"Apart from few stone pelting incidents in Kulgam, Kupwara and Awantipora, overall situation remained under control across the Valley. There was increased vehicular movement on city roads as well as between various districts and towns," he said.

The spokesman said restriction under section 144 of CrPC remained in force in the valley.

"However, curfew was imposed under the areas of some police stations in Srinagar city and in Shopian town," he said.

Minor incidents of stone pelting were reported from Sadoora in Kulgam, Padgampora in Awantipora and Panzgam in Kupwara, he said.

"At these places miscreants assembled on roads and pelted stones on police and security force deployments. They were dispersed by using mild force," he added.
New Delhi: Major parties and leaders on Sunday strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Uri, with the Congress expressing hope that the perpetrators and "the forces behind them" will be severely dealt with.

"Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expressed shock and deep distress over the martyrdom of Indian soldiers in the dastardly terrorist attack in Uri," a party statement said.

Terming the "cowardly" terror attack as a "deplorable affront on our national conscience", Gandhi expressed hope that "the perpetrators of this dastardly attack as also the forces behind them will be severely dealt with and brought to book."

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also condemned the attack. "Strongly condemn the militant attack on Army base in Uri. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the bravehearts martyred in the attack," he said in a tweet.

The CPI(M) Central Committee, now in session here, asked Pakistan to stop aiding and abetting extremist forces, while strongly condemning the attack.

Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters that Pakistan must refrain from indulging in cross border terrorism and demanded that the matter "should be taken up seriously."

In a statement, CPI(M) said Pakistan must stop aiding and abetting the extremist forces as such activities are a big impediment to the peace process in the region. It also charged the government with failing to stop continued infiltration of militants despite deploying a large number of security personnel across the state.

Pointing out that it has been consistently maintaining that terrorism is not the solution to the Kashmir issue, it said "the CPI(M) would like to reiterate that for a long- standing solution of the Kashmir problem, the political dialogue with all stakeholders as advocated by the all Party delegation should be initiated without any further delay.

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters in Bengaluru: "It is absolutely condemnable ... They can continuously keep threatening us with these activities, but India is strong enough to take care of its internal security and no such threat is going to deter us from restoring peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir."

In a tweet, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani said "Pained by the mindless terror attack in Uri. I salute our brave soldiers for their supreme sacrifice & extend condolences to their families."

In Ranchi, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das also condemned the terror strike and expressed deep grief at the loss of martrys.
Srinagar: Militants attacked army`s brigade headquarters in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri town on Sunday morning.

Police said militants, whom number and identity was yet unknown, attacked the headquarters of the 12 Brigade around 5.30 a.m.

"Militants seem to have entered the camp where intense firing and explosions were going on", a senior police officer said.

The brigade headquarters is situated in Uri town of north Kashmir Baramulla district close to the Line of Control.

"If the militants responsible for the attack have recently infiltrated into the Indian side of the LoC from Pakistan or have been part of an existing group here is being established", the officer added.
New Delhi: Coming down heavily on Pakistan for the Uri terror attack, the Congress on Sunday said a multi-pronged strong response is required to completely isolate Islamabad globally.

"A multi-pronged strong response is required which will completely isolate Pakistan globally. Also, I don't think anybody can dispute the fact that the perpetrators direct and indirect overt and proxy must be made to bleed and suffer and realize the cost of what they are doing," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told ANI.

"It makes my blood boil if I find that Pakistan or terrorists gloating over the death of 17 of our brave jawans. In particular, my blood boils because it appears that they were virtually killed while sleeping because the tents caught fire. It's tragic that they have become collateral damage because of fire," he added.

Singhvi said the time has come when India has to take very strong and punitive steps to minimize the numbers if an attack is inevitable."The time has of course come long ago to expose Pakistan every day with detailed dossiers of identification and markings to isolate it and shape it internationally," he added.

Resonating similar sentiments, another Congress leader Manish Tewari told ANI that the government should sit back and introspect what it should do and what is the menu available to calibrate a response to the latest terrorist outrage.

"Pakistan has been perpetrating a proxy war against India for the last 36 years. Their philosophy of bleeding India with a thousand cuts is not dissipating in any manner. So, therefore rather than the usual knee-jerk reaction that we will isolate Pakistan, Pakistan should be declared a terrorist state, the time has come for the Indian establishment to seriously think through the menu of options that we have qua Pakistan," he added.

At least 17 soldiers were killed in the gun battle at the base, which is around 100 km from state capital Srinagar.

Combing operations are currently underway to ensure no untoward element still persists in the Army perimeters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also condemned the attack and assured the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has expressed his heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers and said those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice.

The Home Minister also apprised Prime Minister Modi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting held at his official residence this afternoon.

Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials to closely monitor the situation in the valley.
Srinagar: In the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir, heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir's Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 20 other personnel.

Here is a timeline of the major attacks that have taken place in Jammu and Kashmir since 1999 till date.

3 November, 1999: Ten army personnel killed in fidayeen attack on 15 Corps Headquarters at Srinagar's Badami Bagh.

14 May, 2002: 36 persons are killed and 48 others injured in a fidayeen attack on an army cantonment in Kaluchak, Jammu. Most of the killed were family members.

22 July, 2003: A three-member team storms an army camp killing eight security force personnel, including a Brigadier, and injuring 12 others in Akhnoor.

6 April, 2005: A day before the bus from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir is to be flagged off, two suicide squad terrorists attack the Tourist Reception Centre

5 October, 2006: Terrorists attack at Budshah Chowk, in heart of Srinagar, killing five JKP personnel, two CRPF soldiers and one civilian.

31 March, 2013: Attack on CRPF camp in Srinagar kills five.

24 June, 2013: Eight soldiers killed in attack on military convoy at Hyderpora, Srinagar.

September 26, 2013: At least 13 killed in twin suicide attacks Jammu and Kashmir. A total of 10 people, apart from three militants, were killed during the attacks.

The dead include four policemen and two civilians in Kathua District and four Army personnel, including Lieutenant Colonel Bikramjeet Singh in Samba District.

November 27, 2014: 10 persons, including four civilians, three Army soldiers and three militants were killed in day-long encounter at border village of Kathaar in Arnia sector, close to the International Border, of Jammu District.

December 5, 2014: A group of heavily armed militants stormed into an Army's 31 Field Regiment Ordinance Camp located at Mohra in Uri Sector of Baramulla District near the LoC.

One Lieutenant Colonel and seven soldiers of the Army, one ASI and two constables of Jammu and Kashmir Police were killed. Six militants were also killed in the operation.

March 20, 2015: A fidayeen squad of militants in Army

fatigues stormed a Police Station in Kathua District killing seven persons, including three SF personnel, two civilian and two militants while 12 persons, including eight CRPF personnel, three Policemen and a civilian were also injured in the incident.

March 21, 2015: Two terrorists were killed during a fidayeen attack at the Army camp on Jammu-Pathankot National Highway in Samba District. Three persons including one civilian, a Major and an Army jawan were also injured during the attack.

May 31, 2015: Army foils attack on its Brigade headquarters in Tanghdar sector of Kupwara District by killing four members of six heavily armed militants.

November 18, 2015: A Colonel with the Army's elite Para Commando unit was killed in an encounter with militants in the forests of Kupwara.

November 25, 2015: Three JeM militants and a generator operator of MES were killed when a group of militants attacked an Army camp near LoC at Tanghdar in North Kashmir's Kupwara District.

December 7, 2015: Six CRPF personnel were injured when militants opened firing on their convoy near Green Tunnel at Samthan in Bijbehara in South Kashmir's Anantnag District.

February 21, 2016: Three army commandos, including two Captains and a militant, were killed in a fierce gunfight with a group of terrorists holed up inside a government building on the outskirts of Srinagar, raising the toll to seven in the encounter that began a day earlier.

June 25, 2016: Eight CRPF personnel were killed and 20 others injured when militants attacked their convoy at Frestbal near Pampore in Srinagar on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway.
New Delhi: The Army on Sunday said the four terrorists killed after they slaughtered 17 soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir were foreigners and belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit.

The Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, told reporters here the army had recovered some articles with "Pakistan markings" from the slain terrorists.

"They were all foreigners and belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammed," Gen Ranbir Singh said.

Jaish-e-Mohammed was also blamed for the January attack on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot.

The DGMO said he spoke to his Pakistani counterpart and expressed concern over the Uri attack, one of the deadliest in Jammu and Kashmir in nearly three decades of insurgency.

Ranbir Singh said four AK-47 rifles and four under barrel grenade launchers and some other ammunition was recovered after the early morning attack.

He said 14 of the 17 deaths occurred due to a fire after militants hurled grenades at temporary structures.
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday reviewed the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir in the wake of the terror attack at an Army Brigade Headquarters in Uri in which 17 soliders were killed.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar and other senior officials of Army and paramilitary forces briefed Rajnath on the prevailing situation in the state following the terror strike.

The Home Minister directed that security forces should mount an all out offensive against terrorists operating in the Valley, sources said.

Those who attended the meeting include chiefs of Intelligence Bureau, RA&W, Directors General of Military Operations and Military Intelligence.

The Home Minister has already postponed his visit to Russia and the US in the wake of the deadly terror attack in Uri and the continuing unrest in the Kashmir Valley for more than two months after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on July 8.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Army in recent years, 17 jawans were killed and 19 others injured as heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in the wee hours today.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Army.
New Delhi: The Cauvery Supervisory Committee, which is to meet here on Monday to decide on the quantum of water to be released, is analysing the data given by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and may defer its decision if the information provided is found to be "inadequate".

A source said Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have submitted to the committee data about withdrawal of water, its utilisation, variation in rainfall and its impact on the actual run-off over a period of 29 years in their respective Cauvery basin areas.

The panel, which has to take a decision on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu and other states, had sought the information from them in its last meeting on September 12.

The source said the data is being analysed by officials from the Union Water Resources Ministry and Central Water Commission.

"The states have made available information which the panel had sought during its last meeting and the same is being studied now.

"The panel will not pass an order in haste. The committee will have to defer its order, if the data turns out to be inadequate to arrive at a fact-based and right decision," the source said.

The panel had failed to arrive at a decision on the quantum of water to be released by Karnataka after September 20 during its last meeting for want of adequate information.

Therefore, it had asked them to provide the information by September 15.

In an interim order on September 5, Supreme Court had asked Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily for next 10 days to Tamil Nadu, leading to protests in parts of Karnataka.

The apex court had also asked Tamil Nadu government to approach the committee, headed by Union Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekhar, to decide on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states after the period of 10 days was over.

However, under pressure following the protests, the Karnataka government approached the Supreme Court on September 11 seeking modification of the interim order.

Hearing the plea, the SC then amended its order, directing Karnataka to release a reduced quantum of 12,000 cusecs of water daily to Tamil Nadu till September 20.

"We will take decision on the matter as directed by the Supreme Court on September 5 when it had asked us to stick to the language of Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal while deciding on the quantum of the water," the source added.
Itanagar: Keeping BJP's option open to be a part of the PPA government in Arunachal Pradesh, North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said the party will decide its future course of action during the national executive meeting.

"It will be decided at the BJP National Executive meeting at Calicut this week on whether BJP will continue to extend its outside support or be a part of the PPA government led by Chief Minister Pema Khandu," Sarma told reporters here.

Sarma, who is Assam's Health and Education Minister, arrived here in the morning and convened a joint legislature party meeting with 43 Peoples' Party of Arunachal (PPA) MLAs, 11 BJP MLAs and two Independents.

He said discussions on proper coordination between BJP and PPA were made where it was decided that BJP would extend outside support to the government along with two Independent members.

"Since PPA is an alliance partner of NEDA, a conglomeration of BJP and other regional parties of North East, the government in Arunachal Pradesh will be known as NEDA government," Sarma said.

He further said that he had discussed with party President Amit Shah on September 16 about willingness of Khandu to be a part of NEDA and accordingly the party chief had given go ahead signal.

"Chief Minister Khandu will be one of the patrons of the political platform," Sarma added.

NEDA was formed on May 24 in Guwahati with an intention to make North East Congress-free.

Sarma further said that the chief ministers under NEDA would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the first week of October to apprise him of the problems faced by all the states of the region.

"We will work together to bring development in the region especially, Arunachal," he said.

Asked about NEDA's stand over bringing a permanent solution to the decades-old boundary dispute between Assam and Arunachal, Sarma categorically said that NEDA would create a platform where inter-state problems would be resolved amicably.

"There are many common problems of the region which need to be raised with the Centre. NEDA will do its best to resolve all the problems of the region including boundary disputes," he said adding, all the chief ministers under NEDA would collectively take up the issues of the region with the Prime Minister for the development of the region including financial deficit faced by various states.

Sarma further added that the NEDA has initiated a meeting between all its chief ministers in Northeast and ambassadors of nine countries to facilitate investment in various sectors.

On Congress' allegations that the Arunachal episode was a handiwork of the BJP to make the country free from Congress, Sarma asserted that the decision of 43 Congress MLAs in the state to join the PPA was "an indigenous" development and BJP had no role in it.

"We have nothing to do with the internal matter of the Congress. The party will fall in the state automatically when development process will start under the NDA government at the Centre," he said.

Earlier only 30 Congress MLAs in the state joined the PPA but now 43 have joined which is a clear indication that they are more happy with the plan and policies of the NDA, he claimed.

Chief Minister Pema Khandu, Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein, PPA Working Committee Chairman Kamen Ringu and President Kahfa Bengia were also present at the press conference.
Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government is mulling to approach the Supreme Court for setting up of a tribunal under the law on inter-state water disputes to resolve the Mahanadi dispute with Chhattisgarh, an official statement said on Saturday.

We will explore all options. We will leave no stone unturned to protect the interests of Odisha. That would certainly include the legal option of approaching the apex court for setting up of Tribunal under Interstate Water Dispute Act 1956, said a state government release quoting Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who was in New Delhi for a tripartite meeting convened by Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti between the two Chief Ministers to resolve the dispute.

The meet remained inconclusive.

The serious environment threats posed by these projects will be decisively challenged in all suitable forums including National Green Tribunal (NGT), said the statement.

It quoted Patnaik as saying that he had called a meeting of the cabinet in Bhubaneswar on Sunday, where they will decide steps to take. We will leave no stone unturned in the interest of people of Odisha.

He said that he wanted Chhattisgarh to immediately stop work on its barrages, but his demand was not accepted at the meeting.

Government of Chhattisgarh, despite all persuasive efforts, remained adamant at not agreeing to the just and equitable demands of Odisha, said the release.

It said Uma Bharti could not prevail upon Chhattisgarh to agree to the just concerns of Odisha and stated that the Union Ministry can at best play an advisory role and not issue any binding directions.

Hence, the tripartite meeting could not succeed, leaving Government of Odisha with no option than to explore other options for the livelihood and wellbeing of about two-third of Odishas population dependent on agriculture and directly or indirectly impacted by Mahanadi, said the release.

We made it very clear that the ongoing projects on the upstream of Hirakud are absolutely unacceptable to us. These projects pose serious threats to the fragile ecological hot spots of Odisha and to the livelihood in 16 districts and 65 per cent of our population.

As these projects have inter-state ramifications, Odisha should have been consulted; and any clearances at any level should have taken the ecological and economic ramifications into account. But this has not taken place.

Hence, we wanted immediate stopping of all ongoing works and revisiting of the whole issue in a transparent manner, it added.
Chennai: P Ramkumar, the accused in the sensational S Swathi murder case, committed suicide on Sunday in jail by biting a power cable, police said.

According to police, Ramkumar bit a power cable in the Puzhal prison to kill himself. His act detected, he was taken to the Government Hospital in Royapettah here but he died on the way.

Swathi. 24, an IT professional with Infosys, was stabbed to death at the suburban Nungambakkam railway station here on June 24 allegedly by Ramkumar, who had been stalking her.

Police zeroed on Ramkumar, 22, an unemployed graduate on basis of CCTV footage and signals from Swathi`s phone which he had taken and arrested him from the state`s Tirunelveli district on July 2. When he was about to be arrested, police said that he tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat with a blade.
Hanamkonda: BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday slammed Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for not celebrating Hyderabad Liberation Day, saying he was afraid of AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi.

He said that if the BJP comes to power in Telangana state, they would celebrate the Hyderabad Liberation Day without being afraid of anyone. He said it was shameful that Rao is supporting a party that was founded by Kasim Razvi.

He also targeted Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government for not allowing the schemes launched by the central government from reaching the people in the state and alleged that the ruling party is spending the money to buy MLAs from other parties.

Shah was addressing a public meeting in this town in Warangal district to mark Hyderabad 'Liberation day', marking the day in 1948 that erstwhile Hyderabad State had merged with the Indian Union following "Police Action", as the Indian military operation against Nizam's army is popularly called.

Shah said Karnataka, Marathwada and Telangana had to wait a year longer for independence as Nizam let loose his army of 'Razakars' on the people. He said the 'Razakars' committed excesses and killed thousands of people in villages.

"While Maharashtra and Karnataka officially celebrate liberation day, it is unfortunate that Telangana Chief Minister KCR feels ashamed to celebrate it," he said.

Shah said KCR was afraid of Owaisi and was doing vote bank politics. "KCR feels Owaisi will help him in remaining in power. KCR should understand people's sentiment. People of Telangana have made you CM and not Owaisi," he added.
Etah: A person was Sunday arrested for allegedly robbing and murdering a man in this district, police said.

Pushpendra was arrested from Sidhpura crossing of the district for allegedly robbing and murdering Sarvesh on September 10, they said.

Police also seized 900 looted mobiles, sharp-edged weapon and blood stained clothes from his house.

On interrogation, the accused confessed to the crime, police claimed.
Lucknow: Even as the feud in Uttar Pradesh's first family ended, with Chief Minister restoring all but one portfolios of Shivpal Yadav on Saturday night and promising to support him as SP's state unit president, Mulayam Singh Yadav is believed to have questioned Akhilesh Yadav's contribution towards the political success of the party.

Mulayam reportedly said that Shivpal was opposed to Akhilesh being made CM after the 2012 polls and had suggested that he should be elevated to the position only after 2014 General Elections elections, as per a media report.

But later everybody agreed and Akhilesh became the UP CM.

"What happened despite his being the CM? Only five members from the family won. If I had listened to Shivpal, we would have won 30-35 seats and I would have been the PM. If Akhilesh is unhappy with Shivpal because of this (appointment of the latter as theSP state chief+ ), he should remember that people have accepted him as CM because he is my son. He never had any individual standing in politics," Mulayam supposedly told SP workers at the party headquarters, as quoted by The Times of India.

The SP chief added that Akhilesh won the 2012 elections because of the promising party manifesto drafted by him along with Shivpal and cousin Ram Gopal Yadav.

The Daily further quoted Mulayam as saying, "Almost all the schemes he talks about were launched by me, be it Kanya Vidya Dhan, free power to farmers for irrigation, or free medicine to poor. Today, Akhilesh holds the important post of CM and he should know how to take everybody along."

Meanwhile, as per the compromise worked out by Mulayam, Akhilesh's demand of having a say in ticket distribution was met as he would be made the head of the state parliamentary board, which makes final decisions on deciding the candidates, party sources had said, as per PTI.

On the other hand, Akhilesh restored Shivpal's key portfolios including Irrigation and Cooperative which were taken away. Shivpal was also given additional portfolios of Minor Irrigation and Medical Education.

However, Public Works Department, which was among the portfolios taken away from Shivpal, was kept by the CM with himself.

The CM also sought time from the Raj Bhawan for oath of sacked minister Gayatri Prajapati.

Akhilesh had stripped Shivpal of the portfolios and sacked Prajapati after he was replaced by his uncle as the party's state unit head, triggering a full blown war in the family.

Subsequently, Shivpal had tendered his resignation from the Cabinet as well as party post.

(With Agency inputs)
Midnappore: An 18-year-old youth was today beaten to death allegedly by a mob after his bike collided with a two-wheeler at Golbazar in Kharagpur area of West Midnapore district tonight, police said.

Rohit Tanti's motorbike collided with another two-wheeler at Golbazar and an altercation began between the two riders at around 10 PM, they said.

Police said that some people who were nearby joined the quarrel and started beating Rohit, who eventually died. Today was his birthday.

When police tried to intervene, they were attacked by the mob following which the police lobbed tear gas shells to control the situation.

Some shops were also set on fire in the locality, the police said, adding tension prevailed in the area.
Washington: Eight persons were injured after a stabbing attack at a shopping mall in a city in Minnesota state, which ended with the suspected attacker being killed by the police.

The police responded to reports of the stabbings at the Crossroads Mall in St Cloud city around 8.30 pm, on Saturday, St. Cloud Times reported citing Fox News.

St. Cloud Police chief Blair Anderson said the attacker dressed in a private security uniform.

An off-duty police official from another jurisdiction shot and killed the attacker, Anderson added.

Anderson said the attacker, who was armed with a knife, reportedly made references to Allah during the attack and asked at least one person whether he was Muslim.

But the police chief declined to call the attacks an act of terrorism, saying the motive was not yet known.


New York: Around 25 people were on Sunday injured in an explosion that rocked New York's busy and upscale neighbourhood also frequented by tourists, hours before world leaders arrive here for the high-level UN General Assembly session.

The explosion - which came hours after a pipe bomb went off in a garbage can in New Jersey - occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood at 23rd St. And 6th Avenue, a busy residential and commercial area frequented by tourists and city residents, around 8:30 pm (local time) yesterday.

The Fire Department of New York tweeted that 25 people have been injured and have been taken to hospitals in the area.

Authorities said "none appear to be life-threatening at this time".

Personnel from the New York Police Department, FBI and counter-terrorism agencies are on the scene where restaurants and shops have been evacuated and subways in the area have been shut down. Mayor Bill de Blasio was also headed to the scene.

Assistant Commissioner for Communication and Public Information at the New York City Police Department J Peter Donald tweeted that authorities are responding to a report of an explosion at 23rd St. And 6th Avenue in Manhattan.

"We will update you w/more when we have it," Donald said.

The explosion came hours after another explosion went off in a garbage can in a New Jersey beach town yesterday morning. Three pipe-bomb-type devices wired together were found near the boardwalk in Seaside Park, according to CNN. No injuries were reported and a four-block area was evacuated for most of the day, authorities said.

Security is already tight in the city as nearly 190 world leaders, including President Barack Obama, will arrive in the city for the about week-long high-level annual UN General Assembly session, beginning tomorrow.

Obama has been appraised of the explosion in New York City, a White House official said.

"The president has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation. The president will be updated as additional information becomes available," a White House official said.

US President Barack Obama was today apprised of the explosion in New York in which at least 25 people were injured, hours before his arrival in the city for the high-level UN General Assembly session.

An explosion rocked New York's Chelsea neighbourhood, a busy residential and commercial area in the city. More than two dozen people have been injured as a result of the explosion.

"The President has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation. The president will be updated as additional information becomes available," a White House official said.

Obama is scheduled to travel to New York today and stay in the city for the next several days to attend the United Nations General Assembly session beginning tomorrow.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, was also briefed about the New York explosion.

She was in the Washington DC addressing the Congressional Black Caucus dinner.

Referring to the explosion, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said tough measures needs to be taken.

"We better get very tough. We'll find out. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world and in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant. We'll see what it is," Trump said.
SAN JOSE, Calif.  Kyle R. Sasse, 45, passed away Sunday, July 24, 2016, in San Jose. Kyle was born Jan. 5, 1971, in La Crosse, son of Bert Sasse and Patricia McGuire. He and his mother moved to Indianapolis in 1974, where he attended grade school and high school. Kyle received a bachelors degree in industrial engineering from University of Cincinnati. While in college he worked with the Cincinnati Fire Dept., Hillshire Farms, Cummins Desel, and then Intel Corp. He was employed by Intel for 18 years. His job took him to many parts of the world. Kyle received many honors while employed at Intel. He retired in 2013, and pursued many interests such as music, cooking, writing, and home repairs. Kyle was currently writing a book on engineering. Kyle was a very humble and generous man and helped many friends, family members, and members of his community. He left us way too soon. His memory will live on. Thank you for all you did and those you touched, Kyle. He is survived by his father, Bert; stepmother, Judy Sasse of Onalaska; three stepsisters; and a stepbrother. He was preceded in death by his mother. Internment will be in Morman Coulee Cemetery. A small gathering of family and close friends will take place at a later date.
Washington: Four US police officers and four civilians were shot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Fort Worth, Texas, authorities said.

In Philadelphia, sergeant Sylvia Young, 19, was ambushed late Friday night and shot a number of times in her left arm and protective vest, said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross. Xinhua reported.

The suspect later wounded Ed Miller, a former police officer who is now a member of the security force at the University of Pennsylvania, Ross said.

During the police chase, a woman was killed and three other civilians were injured by the suspect, before he was cornered in an alley and fatally shot by the police.

Young and Miller were rushed to hospital and were in stable condition early Saturday, Ross said.

In another incident in Fort Worth, two police officers were responding to a suicide call at a house Friday night.

When they entered the house, a suspect inside the backyard shed began shooting, local media reported.

One officer was shot several times and in critical condition, while the suspect was later found dead by the police.
State of New York: US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday urged North Korea to freeze its nuclear program as a first step toward starting serious negotiations with the United States and the world about its future.

Speaking at a meeting with the Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers, Kerry said the United States remains "deeply committed" to mutual defense and to "rolling back the provocative, reckless behavior" of North Korea.

The United States is ready to hold talks with Pyongyang to discuss peace on the Korean peninsula, ending North Korea`s isolation and economic development if it agrees to denuclearization, he said.

"The immediate need is for them to freeze where they are, to agree to freeze and not to engage in any more provocative actions, not engage in more testing, particularly in order to bring countries together and to begin a serious negotiation about the future," said Kerry.

North Korea this month carried out its fifth and biggest nuclear test, which followed a series of missile launches in violation of UN resolutions barring Pyongyang from developing nuclear and missile technology.

China, Pyongyang`s ally, has been pushing for re-starting the six-party talks on North Korea`s nuclear program that would also involve the United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party suffered a bruising loss in Berlin state elections Sunday while the right-wing populist AfD again gained support, capitalising on anger over her open-door refugee policy.

The anti-Islam Alternative for Germany party won around 12 percent, according to broadcasters` exit polls in the capital, which prides itself on being a hip, multicultural city -- gaining seats in the tenth of Germany`s 16 states a year ahead of national elections.

Merkel`s Christian Democratic Union won just 18 percent -- its worst post-war result in the city, before or after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall -- according to the exit polls, likely spelling the end of its term as junior coalition partner to the Social Democrats, who won 23 percent.

The election in the chronically indebted city-state of 3.5 million people was dominated by many local issues including poor public services, crumbling schools, late trains and a housing shortage, as well as how to cope with the migrant influx.

Nonetheless, the vote marked another milestone for the upstart AfD, which has campaigned on a xenophobic platform, similar to France`s National Front or far-right populists in Austria and the Netherlands, and gained support especially in Berlin`s poor eastern fringe districts.

A strong showing in Germany`s biggest city means it "doesn`t just benefit from discontent in rural areas but can establish itself ... in a city of millions that is known for its open lifestyle," said the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.

Germany took in one million asylum seekers last year, and over 70,000 of them came to Berlin, with many housed in the cavernous hangars of the Nazi-built former Tempelhof airport, once the hub for the Cold War-era Berlin airlift.

Merkel -- who was booed this week by right-wing activists shouting "get lost" -- before the election conceded it was hard to reach the "protest voters" who have turned their backs on mainstream parties.

Berlin`s SPD Mayor Michael Mueller dramatically warned on the eve of the election that a strong AfD result would be "seen throughout the world as a sign of the resurgence of the right and of Nazis in Germany".Merkel`s CDU has a national majority -- but in Berlin it has served as junior coalition partner to Mueller`s SPD, traditionally the strongest party in the city.

As Mueller has rejected a new coalition with the CDU, Merkel`s party may be cast out of the Berlin government altogether.

The SPD was seen likely to team up with the ecologist Greens and the far-left Die Linke party, both of whom scored more than 16 percent support, according to ARD and ZDF exit polls.

Such a "red-red-green" coalition, its member hope, could one day be replicated at the national level.

Merkel meanwhile will face further pressure "to explain her political strategy", said Gero Neugebauer of Berlin`s Free University.

"The more fearful within her party might be increasingly scared of losing power in 2017," he told the Handelsblatt business daily.

Another analyst, Kai Arzheimer of Mainz University, also predicted tensions would rise between the CDU and its Bavarian sister party the CSU, but he stressed the CDU was unlikely to change its top candidate, Merkel.

"To ask this question one year before federal elections would be suicidal, especially since in the CDU there is no credible successor," he said.In Berlin -- a city famously dubbed "poor but sexy" by its previous mayor, bon vivant Klaus Wowereit -- the election campaign was dominated not just by migrant policies but also widespread frustration over poor public services.

With little industry and an above-national average jobless rate of 10 percent, Europe`s techno party capital is chronically broke and known for its shambolic city offices.

Often seen as an amusingly chaotic exception in otherwise orderly and punctual Germany, Berlin became a national laughing stock for a grand BER airport project that is now five years behind schedule and three times over budget.

In another debacle, thousands of refugees were left waiting for days and weeks last year at Berlin`s then hopelessly overwhelmed Lageso central migrant registration centre, with many forced to sleep in the dirt outside.

Casting his ballot on Sunday, police officer Tobias Ludley, 27, said he worried about Berlin`s cash-strapped public services, as well as its "little building site", the BER.

He also voiced concern about the AfD, a party he labelled "the wolf in sheep`s clothing".

"The AfD is appealing to people who otherwise wouldn`t vote, the protest voters," he said, worried about the party gaining ground in a city which was normally "a shining example of multiculturalism".
Moscow: Russians voted on Sunday in parliamentary polls, with parties loyal to President Vladimir Putin expected to maintain their dominance despite the longest economic crisis of his rule.

The nationwide election follows a tumultuous few years that have seen the country seize the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine, plunge into its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War and start a military operation in Syria.

But the Kremlin exerts near-total control and, after a campaign dubbed the most boring in recent memory, a trouble-free victory for ruling United Russia would help smooth the way for Putin to claim a fourth term as president in 2018.

"I knew who to vote for. Surely you must be aware," Putin quipped to journalists after casting his vote in Moscow, Russian agencies reported.

Looming large is the spectre of mass protests over vote rigging that followed the last legislative polls five years ago and grew into the biggest challenge to Putin since he took charge in 2000.

This time round the authorities have made a show of cleaning up the vote by replacing the former scandal-tainted election chief and allowing more genuine opposition candidates to take part.

But critics insist the Kremlin's media dominance means the vote can never be fair and -- with the 450-member State Duma viewed as a rubber-stamp body that slavishly toes the Kremlin's line -- apathy is widespread.

"The elections are absolutely predictable," Dmitry Pribytkov, 47, told AFP after voting in the second city of Saint Petersburg.

"But this is my country and I have to express my opinion."

Officials said that by 1500 Moscow time the nationwide turnout stood at almost 33 per cent.

Despite the authorities pledging to crack down on vote-rigging, observers and opposition candidates from around the country posted claims of possible violations including "cruise-voting" -- where people are bussed to vote at multiple polling stations -- and ballot stuffing.

Electoral commission head Ella Pamfilova dismissed claims of widespread fraud but said authorities were probing allegations in the Siberian Altai region and threatened to annul the vote there.

Although the country is suffering its longest recession of Putin's rule due to low oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine the Kremlin strongman boasts an approval rating of around 80 per cent.

While United Russia had slipped in the polls ahead of the vote it still looks set to scoop the largest chunk of the vote ahead of other parties loyal to the authorities like the Communists and ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party.
Beirut: Syria's ceasefire was hanging by a thread on Sunday, after tensions escalated between Moscow and Washington over a US-led coalition air strike that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers battling jihadists.

The truce saw violence drop across Syria for several days after it came into force Monday, but fighting has since erupted on several fronts and besieged civilians are still waiting desperately for promised aid deliveries.

The ceasefire`s co-sponsors, Russia and the United States, have traded accusations over the fraying deal, with relations strained even further after the US-led raid killed scores of Syrian soldiers on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 soldiers were killed in the strike. Damascus ally Moscow put the death toll at 62.

The Syrian army said the raid had allowed Islamic State group fighters to gain ground around the key eastern airbase of Deir Ezzor, but a military source said government forces were back on the offensive on Sunday.

"The army has retaken most of its positions on Jabal Therdeh with Russian and Syrian air support," the source said.

He was referring to hilltop positions that overlook the airbase. Retaking them is vital for the army to prevent IS using them to fire on aircraft taking off from or landing at the base.

The base and adjacent government-held neighbourhoods of Deir Ezzor city have been under siege since 2012 and have been dependent on resupply by air.Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said Russian warplanes pounded IS positions around Deir Ezzor late Saturday as fierce clashes broke out between IS and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

At least 38 jihadist fighters were killed and clashes were ongoing, Abdel Rahman told AFP.

On Sunday, the IS-linked Amaq news agency said IS shot down a Syrian warplane. Abdel Rahman confirmed the attack and said the pilot was killed.

Hours after the coalition strike on Saturday, the Pentagon admitted US-led pilots may have hit Assad`s forces but said that they "believed they were striking a Daesh (IS) fighting position."

The statement said coalition forces "would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit" and that an investigation was underway.

Australia, which said it was one of several coalition countries whose aircraft took part, offered its "condolences to the families of any Syrian personnel killed or wounded."

Russia called an emergency UN Security Council meeting late Saturday to demand an explanation from the US.

US ambassador Samantha Power said that Washington regretted the loss of life, but that Moscow`s request for the meeting was "a "stunt, replete with moralism and grandstanding."

In an exchange reminiscent of Cold War-era verbal jousting, Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin accused the US of violating agreements that it would not target Syrian army positions.

He called the strike a "bad omen" for a US-Russian deal on halting the war in Syria, which has left more than 300,000 people dead since it erupted in March 2011.

"These strikes endanger everything that has been done so far by the international community" to end the conflict, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. The truce agreement -- negotiated by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov -- came into force on Monday evening.

The Britain-based Observatory, which has a broad network of sources across Syria, reported a drop in violence across all major fronts in the country where IS was not present.

But fighting began to build up again late last week, including in the central provinces of Homs and Hama, and the rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus.

The front line remained quiet in divided second city Aleppo, but civilians have yet to see any aid deliveries -- a key component of the truce deal.

The head of Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda, said late Saturday that "neither we nor rebel groups will allow the siege of Aleppo to continue."

In an interview broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Abu Mohamed al-Jolani said negotiations were under way for anti-regime groups to band together in a single organisation.

Such a merger would throw a major wrench in the US-Russia deal, which foresaw cooperation between the two world powers against jihadist groups, including Fateh al-Sham as well as IS, if the truce holds for a week.
United Nations: The issue of what to do about the world's 65.3 million displaced people takes center stage at the United Nations General Assembly Monday when leaders from around the globe converge on New York for the first-ever summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants.

With more people forced to flee their homes than at any time since World War II, leaders and diplomats are expected to approve a document aimed at unifying the UN's 193 member states behind a more coordinated approach that protects the human rights of refugees and migrants.

"It's very interesting because if we are able to translate that paper into a response in which many actors are going to participate, we will solve a lot of problems in emergency responses and in long-term refugee situations like the Syrian situation," Fillipo Grandi, the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees told The Associated Press.

That may prove an uphill struggle, however, as the document is not legally binding and comes at a time that refugees and migrants have become a divisive issue in Europe and the United States.

A number of countries rejected an earlier draft of the agreement that called on nations to resettle 10 percent of the refugee population each year, something that has led a number of human rights groups to criticize the document as a missed opportunity.

The US and a number of other countries also objected to language in the original draft that said children should never be detained, so the agreement now says children should seldom, if ever, be detained.

"Instead of sharing responsibility, world leaders shirked it. The UN summit has been sabotaged by states acting in self-interest, leaving millions of refugees in dire situations around the world on the edge of a precipice," Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty said in a statement.

Shetty said the agreement merely kicks the can down the road by calling for separate global compacts for refugees and migrants to be adopted within two years.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whose report on refugees and migrants laid the basis for the summit document, said he was aware of the criticism from non-governmental groups.

"While we all wish it could be a stronger outcome document ... All 193 member states had to agree on their commitment. As you will see, my report was a strong one," Ban said. "I hope that, as the two compacts are adopted over the coming year and a half, some stronger language and commitment and elements from the report will reappear in the course of this negotiation,".
Moscow: Russia's ruling party on Sunday looked set to dominate a new parliament made up of Kremlin loyalists after a state exit poll gave it almost 45 percent in nationwide elections.

Russian state pollster VTsIOM put President Vladimir Putin's United Russia on 44.5 percent, ahead of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party on 15.3 percent, the Communists on 14.9 and A Just Russia on 8.1.

"We can confidently say that United Russia has won," Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on state television, adding that the party would have an "absolute majority" in the new legislature.

The four leading parties -- which made up the last parliament and all back the Kremlin -- were the only ones that cleared the five percent bar to claim half the seats up for grabs.

After a change to the election law the other half of the deputies in the 450-seat legislature are being elected on a constituency basis, with the pro-Kremlin parties also expected to dominate.

As of 1815 GMT, United Russia MPs had won in 66 of 76 constituencies, the central election commission said.

Opposition party Yabloko received 3.5 percent of the vote, missing the threshold required to enter parliament.

The Parnas opposition party, headed by former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, got 1.2 percent of the vote.

The turnout of the vote three hours before polls closed stood at just under 40 percent, significantly down from the last parliamentary elections in 2011.
Credit and debit cards have modern flair, but cold, hard cash is still an international travelers best friend.

But how do you even get foreign currency these days? How much cash should you take? And whatever happened to travelers checks? We talked with currency expert Bruce Beattie, owner of Foreign Currency Exchange in Birmingham, Mich., who keeps close watch on travel money issues around the world.

Question: Why would an international traveler need cash at all? Isnt cash old-fashioned?

Answer: Cash is still critical for emergencies and for smaller purchases where you cant use a debit or credit card, he says. Have some foreign currency so if you arrive at an airport and cant find an ATM, you have enough money for a taxi, train or a bottle of water at least.

Q: Cant I just use my debit or credit card abroad? I have one with no foreign transaction fees.

A: U.S. credit cards still do not work everywhere in the world or work in strange ways, he says. For instance, Germany is still largely a cash country even though it is the biggest euro zone, he says. You cant charge a cup of coffee there. They want cash for anything under $30, basically.

Sometimes, even a no-fee credit card will register overseas as a cash advance, incurring fees. Sometimes, your credit card simply wont work, even if it has chip and pin technology. Always take backup cards. And, of course, cash.

Q: Whatever happened to travelers checks?

A: They still exist, but almost no one uses them. It got to the point that counterfeiters figured out how to make them, says Beattie. In one famous case in Milan, $40,000 of fake travelers checks were passed. Then nobody wanted to take them anymore. We stopped selling them in 2007. People would tell us they couldnt cash them anywhere.

If you still have them, deposit them into your bank account. They are still good.

Q: If you dont bring enough foreign currency, where can you get it abroad?

A: Currency exchange windows at airports, railway stations and hotels have the worst rates, and cruise ships, too, because you are a captive audience, he says. Instead, use a bank or bank-owned ATM, preferably one inside of a bank for the best rates and safest transaction. If you use an independent ATM you are at risk of skimming machines (that criminals install to commit fraud). Also, privately owned ATMs can charge as much as 10 percent in fees, plus the regular exchange fee.

Q: What about changing money on the street?

A: Not a great idea. You might pay a bit more at a bank, but it is worth it. We had a travel agent take a group to Tanzania. They bought old Tanzania dollars on the street that turned out to be worthless, he says. They got taken.

Q: You sell foreign currency. Im sure a lot of people take only like $500, but do some people carry a lot of cash, like tens of thousands?

A: Yes, says Beattie, who sells to everyone from experienced business travelers to first-time study-abroad students. I always ask people, what is your comfort level with carrying cash? If it is not high, dont carry too much because you will be worried about it. If you do carry cash, split it up and keep most of it in the hotel safe. Be sure you know rules on how much cash is allowed to be taken in and out of the countries you plan to visit.

Q: Why is the exchange rate I get never as good as what I see on currency information sites such as www.xe.com?

A: Those are rates for large currency market transactions and midpoint between buy/sell rates, he says. Still, published rates give you a rough idea of the true retail exchange rate. With the euro, we are (selling it) about 3 to 4 percent above the XE rate, says Beattie. The rates on some more exotic (unusual) currency can be different.

Q: What if you find yourself without any cash or credit cards?

A: Someone can wire you money via Moneygram or Western Union. In our experience, transit time, depending on where you are, is 10 minutes to a week. Sometimes someone takes a cut of it along the way, he says.

Q: What about a prepaid credit card where you can add value to it?

A: Be careful. Some prepaid cards you buy are actually like gift cards and can only be used in the United States, he says. However, a card such as the prepaid VISA Travel Money card or Travelex Cash Passport prepaid Mastercard is reloadable and usable in other countries, making it good for students studying abroad.

Q: If you buy too much foreign currency, can you change it back into U.S. dollars when you get home?

A: Yes. But you will get less for it than you paid for it.

Q: What about old foreign currency? Can I still use it when I travel or trade it in?

A: It depends on the currency itself. Some have a window in which you can turn it in. For instance, Germany uses the euro. But the old German mark has not closed the window for exchange; it still has value. But the Italian lira and French franc, those countries stopped honoring that currency a few years ago.

Q: So if I have old French francs are they worthless?

A: Pretty much, except to the secondary market of collectors. Some people collect old foreign currency. It has to be in pristine shape, he says. But a lot of currency has the same problem. In Switzerland, any currency prior to the past two issues have been de-monetized. It has no value. Sometimes I have people come in, maybe their father has passed away and they open a safe deposit box and find this old currency, maybe 4 grand worth of old Swiss francs, and I have to tell them it has no value.

Q: What countries have money that never expires?

A: The U.S. and just a couple others. The euro (which the public began using in 2002) does not expire (at least yet). Most currency expires. Brazil, for example, has had three or four currency changes since the 70s, he says.

Q: Some places in the world accept tips in U.S. dollars but they ask for crisp new bills. Why?

A: So the bills can more easily be verified as real and be accepted for exchange at their banks, Beattie says. Once he was traveling in Asia and tried to exchange a bill that had a sharp crease on the face of the president. After a long examination, the bank clerk finally took it.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull recently said:

China has more freedom to invest in Australia, indeed all foreigners have more freedom to invest in Australia, than almost any other country.

But is this true? We asked two experts to discuss the evidence for and against this statement.

Gennadi Kazakevitch argues Turnbull is right given Australias ranking as a free and open market, while Jeffrey Wilson presents evidence to show Australias foreign investment regime has become much more closed in recent years.

Gennadi Kazakevitch:

I think Mr Turnbull is right.

One measure to support this is the well-established inter-country comparison of economic freedom regularly published by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal. This measure also looks specifically at foreign investment freedom.

The economic freedom measure ranks countries according to rule of law, government size, regulatory efficiency and  of most relevance to this discussion  market openness. This includes trade freedom, investment freedom, and financial freedom.

In terms of general economic freedom, Australia ranked fifth behind Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, and Switzerland in 2016. Within the Open Market component of the index, Australia scores 80 out 100 for investment freedom, putting us among the most free of the 200 countries ranked.

To score a perfect 100, according to the index, a country would have to have no constraints on the flow of investment capital. Individuals and firms would be allowed to move their resources into and out of specific activities, both internally and across the countrys borders, without restriction.

Points are deducted for different sorts of freedom imperfections. For Australia, one imperfection is the regime of foreign investment review which requires government approval of investment amounts above a particular level. But Australias current review regime does not discriminate against China or indeed any other country.

Story continues

Jeffrey Wilson:

Australias foreign investment regime is more open than many other countries. However, it also remains the case that it has become much more closed in recent years.

Since taking office in September 2013, the Liberal-National Coalition government has imposed several new barriers to foreign investment coming into Australia. These policies include:

The LNP Coalition government has also rejected a number of foreign investment applications on controversial grounds:

Archer Daniels Midland (US) takeover bid for GrainCorp, 2013. The former head of the FIRB has claimed the deal was killed for political reasons.

Dakang Holdings and Pengxin Group (China) bids for Kidman cattle properties, 2016. The bidders appear to have been rejected simply because no Australian buyer made a competitive offer.

China State Grid bid for Ausgrid in NSW privatisation program, 2016. Treasurer Scott Morrison refused to explain the full reasons for the rejection, citing national security and confidentiality concerns.

Tellingly, in its entire six-year term in office, the Rudd/Gillard ALP governments rejected only a single large foreign investment application: A bid by the Shanghai Stock Exchange to acquire the ASX in 2011.

As a result of these policy changes and investment decisions, the Australian foreign investment regime is now less open than it has been for over 20 years.

The prime ministers claim was about the freedom of Chinese companies to make foreign investments into Australia. Unfortunately, there is no quantifiable metric that measures the openness of a countrys foreign investment regime specifically. The Economic Freedom statistics Gennadi cites are instead a broader measure of economic openness and transparency. Thus, they cannot be used to evaluate the prime ministers claim.

Gennadi Kazakevitch:

The investment freedom component of the economic freedom index is not a perfect measure, but it is sophisticated. It allows for comparing apples with apples based on eight qualitative characteristics: national treatment of foreign investments; transparency; policy implementation; restrictions on land ownership; sectoral restrictions; expropriation of investments without fair compensation; foreign exchange controls; and capital controls. For each of those characteristics, there is a breakdown into several levels of restrictions, rules or practices.

It is true that in the most resent years (2012-2016) the investment freedom score for Australia has decreased from 83.7 to 80. But it is also true that Australia remains within a cluster of free economies.

It would be easy to attribute the decline in Australias score to the recent changes to regulation rules and practices. However, those changes have not critically affected the investment freedom index for Australia, nor are they discriminatory against a particular country. Therefore, Mr Turnbulls statement is quite justified.

The six years of Rudd/Gillard ALP governments Jeffrey is referring to was business as usual as far as foreign investment was concerned. However, it is not business as usual any anymore. The most recent cases, such as the Port of Darwin, the Kidman station, and the Ausgrid power transmission business in NSW, have alerted the government and public to national security issues, and rightfully so.

As I proposed in my submission to the Senate inquiry on the foreign investment review framework, the world has changed dramatically since the current regulation was established in 1975.

Until the late 1980s, Australias investing partners were mostly persons and companies from developed market economies with similar values and similar foreign investment perceptions of independent entrepreneurship. Economic transition in communist countries, market reforms in one-party controlled countries, and emerging developing market economies have created a variety of economic systems with very different sovereign involvement in running economies and companies. Therefore a foreign interest independence test and security risk assessment should be done that takes into account which country the foreign investor is from.

If Australia eventually goes down this path, freedom of investment might be further compromised. If so it will arguably be for a good reason.

Jeffrey Wilson:

It is certainly true Australias foreign investment partners have changed many times through history. Prior to the 1950s the main foreign investor was Great Britain, which remains a major investor to this date. But progressive waves of new investors have also arrived: America during the 1960s; Japan in the 1970s; Singapore and Hong Kong in the 1990s; and more recently Chinese investors since 2005.

The arrival of each of these groups has presented Australia with distinct political tension. American investors faced accusations of neo-imperialism and threats to Australias independence in the world. Japanese investors faced considerable xenophobia, particularly as a result of war memories. And today, we are dealing with the fact that many Chinese investors are state-owned corporations, which pose their own unique political and regulatory challenges.

However, these are arguably issues to be managed rather than reasons to reject foreign investment. Australia is a small open economy, which depends on foreign investment to bring in the capital, technology, skills and marketing channels critical for 21st century industries.

In each previous wave, Australian governments have had to devise novel solutions for how to remain open to foreign investment, while managing their distinct political sensitivities. This has been successful in previous years, and there is no reason it should not be possible with Chinese investors today.

The Conversation

Jeffrey Wilson, Fellow of the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University and Gennadi Kazakevitch, Deputy Head, Department of Economics, Monash University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Brad Kearns has two striking tattoos on either side of his neck. The tiny hand prints are a tribute to his stillborn son Buddy.

The daddy blogger and father of two shared the image along with a touching post on Facebook in early September (when Australia celebrated Fathers Day), and it has since gone viral, garnering over 1,500 likes and 151 shares.

These are the hands of our first son. His name was Buddy, writes Kearns, who describes the hands as positioned like an eternal cuddle.

Writing the post as he laid on the floor of his two sons bedroom, Kearns reflects on his years of fatherhood.

Do you remember the first time you touched your childs hands? he asks. You rubbed your thumb across the top of their fingers as they hold onto yours. You grab their entire hand and holdout in your fist. You give it a little squeeze to let them know that youre there; and you sit in awe of their vulnerability.

And at that moment you make your silent promise. A promise to protect them. To care for them. To give them your all. A promise to be the best parent you can be.

He explains that Buddy wasnt always going to be his sons name but it seemed right at the time.

From that day forward I was a dad. The fact that we couldnt take him home with us didnt change a thing, he writes. The fact I would never teach him to kick a ball didnt matter. We held his hands and we called him our own. He was the first little boy I ever made that promise to.

He also recalls how moved he felt on the Fathers Day after his loss when he received a card and a few text messages.

I was still a dad. It meant the world to me. It made my promise real, he writes.



Since sharing that post, Kearns describes the response hes received as overwhelming.

He says he shared the intimate post to create awareness and hopes others will do the same.

If you have a story. Dont wait for the right time Create your own awareness. Give yourself permission, he writes. If you connect with just one person, youve created awareness. And thats a big deal.

What do you think of Kearns tattoos? Let us know by tweeting us @YahooStyleCA.
pill medicine

So far, our pharmaceutical solutions to skyrocketing overdose deaths from legal painkillers have focused on one thing: Making pain pills that are harder to abuse.

With little evidence that these "adult-proof" painkillers will be enough to curb deaths, a handful of researchers are stepping in to try something new.

They are making pain-relieving drugs that don't get you high in the first place.

"We have a chance here to actually separate analgesia [pain-relief] from euphoria [the 'high']," Dr. Stephen K. Doberstein, the senior vice president and chief scientific officer of a company called Nektar Therapeutics, told Business Insider. "We should do that."

Abuse-deterrents may not actually deter abuse

The problem, as Doberstein sees it, is simple: "There's almost no new development of new opioid molecules. Everyone just wants to figure out how to lock it up in a pill better," he said.

pills

Indeed since 2010, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a handful of "abuse deterrent" drug formulations  drugs that are designed so they can't be melted down and injected or smashed and snorted. Some 30 more are currently in development.

In a March address to a panel of advisers, FDA commissioner Dr. Robert Califf focused on these drugs as one of the biggest solutions to curbing the overdose epidemic.

But there's little evidence that these drugs alone will be enough to stem the tide of overdose deaths. Overstating the benefits of abuse-resistant drugs could encourage doctors to continue overprescribing them. Plus, we still don't know that the new pills will actually reduce overdoses or deaths. Most of them can still be abused simply when swallowed.

"I am not convinced that we can engineer our way out of this epidemic, and I would caution against over-relying on abuse-deterrent formulations to do so," Dr. Caleb Alexander, an associate professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins and the founding codirector of the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness, told the Associated Press shortly after Califf's address.

Story continues

NKTR-181: The drug that enters the brain too slowly to get you high

So instead of trying to design a drug that would simply be tougher to abuse, Nektar researchers based in San Francisco are building a drug that Doberstein says addresses the real problem. Their medication would enter the brain too slowly to cause a high.

brain

"It's a medicine that Im very passionate about," Doberstein said. "We have a chance to really positively impact medicine here."

Tests of NKTR-181 in recreational drug users have so far yielded promising results.

"We gave the drug to a set of patients and we asked them, 'How high do you feel right now? Would you pay money to have this experience again?' And what we found was that in most doses, the 181 was essentially indistinguishable to a placebo. They weren't feeling anything with respect to getting high," said Doberstein.

"That was really a remarkable finding," said Doberstein. "I don't think we've seen anything like that in the literature for these types of drugs before."

In tests of the same group of people designed to determine if the drug was working for temporary pain relief against a placebo or sugar pill, the drug performed well. Now the company needs to show that the drug can work for chronic, severe pain. The company began Phase III tests of NKTR-181 in people with chronic low-back pain in February of last year. Those results are expected this coming spring.

PZM21: The drug that won't trigger a feel-good surge

Across the US but primarily in Eastern states hit the hardest in recent months by the the opioid epidemic, many people are becoming addicted to painkillers because of the complex set of effects they can have on the brain in people who are predisposed to addiction. The results are often tragic.

drug overdose opioid epidemic

"What we're seeing here in New Hampshire is people get hooked on opioids and then they switch to heroin because it's easier to get," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) said on a call with reporters in June. "We're losing more than a person a day due to overdose deaths," she added.

The way opioids work to relieve pain is often described by experts as a double-edged sword. While they can reduce the burning sensation of an aching back or a stinging wound, they also act in the brain in ways that can affect complex emotions like desire and pleasure.

So a brand-new company called Epiodyne, started by a research team at the University of San Francisco's School of Pharmacy, is designing a drug that wouldn't trigger a surge in dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain that is involved in emotions like desire and pleasure.

The reason we feel good when we eat a good meal or have sex, for example, can be chalked up to a series of naturally produced keys ("ligands") and keyholes ("receptors") that fit together to switch on our brain's natural reward system. Opioids mimic the natural keys in our brain. When they click in, we can feel an overwhelming sense of euphoria.

More importantly, though, when prescription painkillers act on our brain's pleasure and reward centers, they can work to reinforce behavior, which in some people can trigger a repeated desire to use.

Epiodyne thinks its drug candidate, which some have said is as powerful as morphine, could help avoid this problem. But it's still too early to say if the drug, known only as PZM21, might help people  so far it's only been tested in mice.

"What we know is that mice don't seem to like it, meaning they don't go back for more if given the choice. That gives us hope that it might not be addictive," Dr. Brian Shoichet, the chief scientist behind the drug who also runs the Shoichet Lab at the University of California at San Francisco, told Business Insider.

He and his team have a steep hill to climb. Drugs like these tend to followed a pretty dismal pattern of development: They make it to animal testing but never get past that stage to be tried in humans. At best, the odds seem to be 1 in 10, Pinar Karaca-Mandic, a health-policy researcher at the University of Minnesota, recently told Reuters.

Still, one of the characteristics of PZM21 that could put it a step ahead of NKTR-181  if its promising results are borne out in extended trials  is that it is fundamentally different from traditional opioids in two major ways: First, it doesn't appear to slow breathing like traditional opioids; and second, it only affects a type of pain called affective pain, which refers to chronic pain that's typically felt consistently, like the ache of a sore back. Conversely, it appears to have no impact on something called reflex pain, the type of pain that is recognized immediately, like the painful heat of your hand on a hot stove.

This could be a big benefit that the drug would have against other traditional painkillers, since it ideally wouldn't block people's ability to respond to a sudden shock of pain in their environment. "You don't want someone doped up on pain-relief medication and not being able to feel a hot stove," Shoichet pointed out.

Taken together, all of these observed effects suggest that PZM21 is fundamentally different from traditional opioids. And that's a big deal.

"That's completely unprecedented. That says this molecule is working in ways that no other molecule has," said Shoichet.





More From Business Insider


Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.

This is probably the best known variant of last words attributed to dying actor Edmund Gwenn back in 1959. The origin of the statement is arguable, with some saying it came from Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean, who died in 1833. But that is neither here nor there. Well just attribute it to Edmund and let it go at that.

Since I cant speak to dying, my variant of that quote is, Working is easy. Retiring is hard. Now I dont believe that working is easy, even if you are a Type A workaholic who loves your job. There are always going to be glitches: A deadline missed, a shipment lost, an extremely difficult client or simply too much on your plate  even if your plate is the size of the huge round trays used in restaurants to carry multiple meals at once. But it is easy to fall into the routine of it, the cyclical nature of it.

But I can attest that retiring is hard. Even if you have been counting down the days for the last decade or so (not that I have). Its not hard because there wont be enough things to do. Anyone who has ever listened to an AARP commercial knows that.

It was hard because for me, change in general is hard, even when you know that change is for the better. Familiarity is comfortable; the 12 known demons are preferable to the one unknown. Pardon me while I wax philosophical for a moment.

It was had to sort through 12 years worth of pieces of me that covered my desk and sometimes spilled over to other parts of the office  the things that helped me get through bad days and occasionally brought a smile or two to co-workers. Part of that problem was solved by holding a liquidation sale: Everything must go! Free or best offer!

It was especially hard because it meant saying goodbye to a group of people with whom I have spent from 20 to 40 hours a week for anywhere from one year to more than a decade at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. I miss them already. No offense to anyone, but some more than others. We have pledged ourselves to keeping in touch. Starting with a martini at the Starlite Lounge.

Dont get me wrong. I might sound a bit maudlin or at least wistful, but I am a happy camper! I dont have specific plans, but I have ideas. I might not have specific destinations, but Ill go on journeys. For a while at least, I want to just let life happen. And I have an incredible feeling of freedom.

This week I located a self-proclaimed classic chow mein recipe, at dinnerthendessert.com. It is much simpler than the recipes in previous columns. It calls for no onion, celery, mushrooms, water chestnuts, spinach or snow peas, all of which showed up in one or more of the other recipes we have received. But it calls for shredded cabbage, which none of the other recipes did.

It also calls for something I had never heard of before: kecap manis, also known as ketjab manis or kecap manis sedang. No matter how you say it, it is an Indonesian sweet soy sauce. In Indonesia it is made with palm sugar, but apparently brown sugar works as a substitute. The sauce is used as flavoring in both hot and cold dishes, and works in sesame dipping sauce as well as in marinades and as a condiment.

I found both of the following kecap manis recipes at allrecipes.com. Spy Glass, who contributed one of them, says kecap manis makes or breaks an Indonesian recipe, and says to remember that no matter what size batch you are making, keep a ratio of 1:1 soy sauce to sugar; 2:3 soy sauce to water, and tons of bay leaves. Spy glass believes the bay leaves are one of the key subtle flavors in Indonesian cooking. Kecap manis will last almost indefinitely in the refrigerator (at least 3 months), but do not freeze it. The second recipe was shared by Rocky, who brought the recipe back from a trip to Indonesia.

This chow mein recipe is meatless, but you could chop up a couple of cups of leftover or rotisserie chicken and add it at the very end, so it would heat through but not get tough. I seriously doubt that this is the type of chow mein served at the former Dragon restaurant here in La Crosse, but it is interesting enough that I might just give it a try, and I hope Becky P., who made the chow mein request, will give it a try as well.

It occurred to me recently that I have not included any more of the healthy lunch-in-a-hurry recipes from Prevention Magazine for a while, so I am including some today. There will be two more installments. I hope they are helping you see that you can put together and enjoy a satisfying lunch even when you are in a hurry to get out the door in the morning.

Chicken chow mein, pickled/marinated mushrooms and black bean burgers are the objects of our searches right now. There are vegan, gluten free and Brussels sprouts recipes on reserve for when I need something to fall back on.

Dont forget to send in any holiday/Christmas requests soon, so that with turnaround time, well still have them in plenty of time for the holidays.

Classic chow mein

2 tablespoons canola oil

 head cabbage, thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced

2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce (kecap manis) *see note for substitute

2 tablespoons soy sauce

4 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 cup water

12 ounces chow mein noodles, cooked 1 minute less than directed

6 ounces bean sprouts (optional)

Sesame seeds for garnish (optional)

Heat a large pan or wok on high. Add two tablespoons canola oil to pan; cook cabbage. Cook 2 to 3 minutes until wilted; add garlic and cook an additional 30 seconds. Add soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce and water; bring to a boil for 1 minute. Add pasta and bean sprouts; toss to coat. Serve immediately.

*Homemade kecap manis substitute: Add 1  teaspoons soy sauce and 1  teaspoons molasses or dark brown sugar with a tiny pinch of ground anise. This is a decent substitute, but if you can get the original, the flavor will be even deeper. (dinnerthendessert.com)

Kecap manis

23 cup soy sauce

1 cup water

23 cup brown sugar

8 bay leaves

Stir the water, soy sauce, and sugar together in a saucepan; add the bay leaves and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer until thickened, about 30 minutes. (Shared with all recipes.com by Spy Glass)

Kecap manis II

2  cups white sugar

3 cups dark soy sauce

 cup water

 star anise pod

2 fresh curry leaves

1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger root, sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

Heat sugar in a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar becomes light brown. Slowly stir in soy sauce. Once the sugar and soy sauce are combined, stir in the water, star anise, curry leaves, ginger, and garlic. Increase heat and bring to a boil. Simmer until the sugar is dissolved, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Strain sauce and pour into a lidded bottle or jar. Store in the refrigerator. (Recipe by: Rocky from allrecipes.com)

Quick, healthy lunches

Mango walnut salad: Top 3 cups spinach with  cup chopped mango,  cup sliced red bell pepper, 4 chopped baby carrots, 2 tablespoons walnuts, 2 tablespoons vinaigrette, and 1 tablespoon raisins. Eat with  large whole wheat pita. 395 calories (prevention.com)

Sesame slaw: Mix 2 cups broccoli slaw with  cup red bell pepper slices,  cup chopped canned water chestnuts, 1 segmented medium orange, 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, and 1 tablespoon sesame oil. 348 calories (prevention.com)

Southwest veggie burger: Fill 1 whole-wheat bun with 1 black-bean veggie burger, 1 cup mixed baby greens,  cup canned corn,  cup sliced avocado, and 2 tablespoons salsa. 383calories (prevention.com)
LISLE, Ill., Sept. 18, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eckrich, the makers of naturally hardwood smoked sausage and savory deli meats, partnered with Richard Petty Motorsports driver, Aric Almirola, Jewel-Osco and Operation Homefront, a national nonprofit whose mission is to build strong, stable, and secure military families, to honor a Crown Pointe, Ind. military family Friday.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c27ae278-1651-42a1-868a-ca6bb7073bed

Eckrich and Almirola surprised the Shepherd family with race tickets to Sundays race event at the track in Joliet, Ill. In addition to meeting Almirola and personally being handed tickets to Sundays race, Almirola helped present the family with free groceries for one year on behalf of Eckrich.

Eckrich, Almirola and Richard Petty Motorsports have been partnering to honor U.S. military families since 2012.

Today continues our partnership with Eckrich and their support of military families, said Almirola. Eckrich has always given back to military families and its important we say thanks and honor them. We cant race without their sacrifice. In the grand scheme, this is a small token of our appreciation and we hope they enjoy the race and their free groceries for one year.

Matthew Shepherd served as an infantryman in the United States Army during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. His wife, Jennifer, is his caregiver and a member of Operation Homefronts Hearts of Valor program, a network of more than 3,000 caregivers for wounded, ill or injured service members and provides caregivers with annual retreats, support groups and online communities. The family has four children.

This means so much for a family of six, said Matthew Shepherd. Something like this is a big opportunity for a family like us to get through months easier. We need support from our family, friends and companies and organizations like Eckrich, Operation Homefront and Jewel-Osco. It makes a big difference.

The surprise is part of the ongoing campaign by Eckrich to honor, thank and support military families through its partnership with Operation Homefront.

Eckrich, in its fifth year of partnership with Operation Homefront, has donated more than $2.5 million to the organization since 2012.

Eckrich is proud to again partner with Richard Petty Motorsports and Aric Almirola to help us honor our military families, said Jennifer Zmrhal, Senior Director, Marketing, Smithfield Foods. Aric has shown his commitment to supporting our campaign and were grateful that he can help us make these events so special for the military families being honored. We also appreciate the support of Jewel-Osco as we continue in our mission to thank and honor military families across the country. We thank the Shepherd family for their service and sacrifice and are proud to present them with one year of free groceries.

For more information about Eckrich, please visit www.eckrich.com.

Eckrich is a brand of Smithfield Foods.

About Eckrich

Founded by Peter Eckrich in 1894, Eckrich has a rich heritage starting from a small meat market in Fort Wayne, Ind. Through it all, Eckrich meats have been recognized for their great taste and supreme quality, craftsmanship, care and pride. For more information, visit www.eckrich.com.

About Smithfield Foods

Smithfield Foods is a $14 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathan's Famous, Farmland, Armour, John Morrell, Cook's, Kretschmar, Gwaltney, Curly's, Margherita, Carando, Healthy Ones, Krakus, Morliny, and Berlinki. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com.

About Operation Homefront

A national nonprofit, Operation Homefront builds strong, stable, and secure military families so that they can thrive in the communities they have worked so hard to protect. With more than 3,200 volunteers nationwide, Operation Homefront has provided assistance to tens of thousands of military families its inception shortly after 9/11. Recognized for superior performance by leading independent charity oversight groups, 92 percent of Operation Homefronts expenditures go directly to programs that provide support to our military families. For more information, go to www.OperationHomefront.net.

About Richard Petty Motorsports

A performance and marketing driven company, Richard Petty Motorsports, co-owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty and successful business entrepreneur Andrew Murstein, is one of the most recognized brands in all of motorsports. With a history of over 200 wins and business partnerships with national and global leaders, today the race operation fields two teams in competition in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with drivers Aric Almirola and Brian Scott. Almirola will return to the iconic No. 43 Ford with partners Smithfield Foods, STP, United States Air Force and the Fresh From Florida campaign. Scott will make his debut with the team and drive the Petty Family No. 44 Ford. Albertsons Companies, Shore Lodge, Twisted Tea and GoBowling.com will join Scott as he competes for Rookie of the Year in his first full-time season in the Sprint Cup Series. The team is headquartered in Mooresville, N.C.
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I recently survived a cruise to Canada with 15 other adults and three children, and no one got hurt. No, really!

To add to the drama, two of them had food allergies and Im prone to motion sickness.

No, really!

I slapped on a ReliefBand ($89 on Amazon, and I swear by it) and we alerted the crew ahead of time to the possible food-related medical emergencies, then headed out.

The idea of spending five days in the middle of the Pacific with that many family members might sound  daunting. Possibly nightmarish. But I actually had a blast.

I kept one rule of thumb in mind the whole time, which is what really saved me. But here are a few tips before you call up all your cousins.

First, go for a one-way cruise. Sound crazy? Hear me out.

We departed Long Beach, Calif., on the Ruby Princess on a Tuesday in May. We were at sea  meaning we saw no land  for two days. On Friday, we docked in Victoria, British Columbia. We spent the afternoon sightseeing and had enough time for a long lunch before getting back on the ship. By dinnertime, the ship departed; we arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Saturday, where we disembarked and spent the weekend. On Monday morning, we took a flight back to Orange County.

It was like having three mini vacations in one, and we werent even gone a whole week.

Plan ahead

Checking into a hotel on land is cake compared to cruise registrations, but the internet helps. Princess Cruises has 18 ships with multiple worldwide destinations, but once youve put in your personal info online, youre able to customize preferences such as extra pillows and whether you want a robe (I, of course, did). This is also where you choose dinner table reservations, which means its your first chance to warn them that youre a picky eater  or like my cousin Barbara, allergic to gluten.

If youre an avid traveler, this might be a no-brainer, but for a large group vacation, you absolutely need an itinerary. It needs specific departing and arrival times as well as addresses, because one of you might try to lose the grumpy brother-in-law, and hell need to be able to find his way back to the hotel in time for dinner.

We rented vans to tour Victoria, but it took a small bus to cart all of us and our luggage from the ship to the hotel in Vancouver. For such a large group, trying to hail a taxi or car service on command isnt feasible  unless of course your Uber guy is really good at Tetris.

When youre on the ship, youll get detailed info about cruise activities. Let your group know which ones youll be at, so they can avoid you if you forget to pack deodorant. (Seriously though, they sell deodorant in the duty-free shops.)

Take heed: Kid center time is cruise-speak for grown-up drink time. You should absolutely take advantage of this amenity, which means you just drop off your offspring for a few hours. When you get them back, prepare to ooh and ahh over their paper-plate art projects.

Communicate

When youre out in the middle of the ocean, you lose cell service.

Let me repeat: You. Will. Not. Have. Cell. Service.

Princess Cruises offers a messaging app via its onboard website. It does not send your phone a notification when you have a message, but it can still be useful if everyone in your group knows to check it periodically. (Just dont expect Aunt Karen to ever get the hang of it.)

Otherwise, you just need prearranged meet-up spots.

Our ship had 19 decks and I could never remember which way to turn off the elevators to get to our cabin. The only reason I knew forward was because I quickly developed a habit of looking outside to see the direction of the waves. Its like wandering the halls of a hotel, except there are multiple lobbies and no exit doors. I logged an average of 12,000 steps on my Fitbit every day of the cruise, and Im certain half of them were because I got turned around trying to get from 12th deck port side to top deck starboard bow for more pizza. So make multiple meeting locations, and give yourself at least 10-15 minutes to get to and from places.

You should also develop a rapport with the servers and crew members. The servers were the same for every dinner we had on the ship, so they easily got to know us and were able to accommodate our requests for gluten-free, low-sodium or kid-friendly feasts.

Recreate

A band was performing in a lounge one night, and we took up a large chunk of the seating area next to the dance floor. The kids were dancing, the adults were being goofy and eventually our party became the party. Strangers started joining in. We brought the crowd!

For bingo  a very serious and very necessary part of your cruise experience  we would show up early and stake out multiple tables. Youre supposed to be quiet during bingo, so be respectful, but theres really nothing better than wasting away an afternoon on a boat, sipping a Bloody Mary while hoping the Aussie bingo caller with the punny jokes will say G-14 so you can stand up and claim your prize before Uncle Mark wins again.

Get alone time

Within a few days (or maybe a few hours, depending on your tolerance level), youre going to need a break from your cousins whining and your aunts tendency to overshare details about the 70s, so make sure to plan a break from the group.

After 10 p.m., the ship goes pretty quiet, so my partner and I would explore. We strolled around outside when it wasnt too cold, and sat at a bar for a drink when we needed to warm up.

Mostly it was just nice to feel alone on a ship you knew was actually packed with people.

My absolute favorite activity was movies under the stars. A huge movie screen loomed over one of the pools on the top deck. During the day they played family-friendly flicks, but on some nights they screened grown-up movies. We watched The Martian while cuddled up under soft, red blankets and being served warm popcorn and chocolate-chip cookies.

Be flexible

If you take just one piece of advice from me, take this: Be willing to go with the flow (pun intended!). In large groups you might never have a say. But if you hate what youre doing, just excuse yourself. Being missing for an hour is better than sitting there being grumpy (Im looking at you, Uncle Chris).

Allow yourself some time to do absolutely nothing, and dont plan out every single meal together  that way you can opt for ice cream for lunch if you want.

My overall saving grace, though, was simple: I was on a ship! A massive, 960-foot-long vessel floating in the ocean. Anything I did, no matter how ordinary on land, just seemed infinitely more fun to do on a ship. Tipsy by 2 in the afternoon? Shrug. Im on a ship! Eating burgers by the pool? So fun. Im on a ship!

Laughing over dinner with a bunch of my favorite people? Wonderful. Im on a ship!
Q: Our son is having a rocky start in middle school. Its thrown him completely off balance. He forgets assignments and cant manage time. The counselor thinks he needs better executive functioning skills and says to work with him. What are they?

A: Executive functioning concerns the numerous mental processes and skills (that) help us plan for  and respond to  the tasks, challenges and opportunities we face, writes Kristen Stanberry, an education writer who became interested in the topic after helping her son navigate the demands of high school.

Students with strong executive functioning skills have impulse and emotional control and can keep track of time, prioritize, plan and finish work on schedule. They can apply previously learned information to new problems. Theyre good at analyzing ideas. They know where and when to look for help when they get stuck.

For an in-depth look at these skills, go to Stanberrys excellent article, Executive function: a new lens for viewing your child, at GreatSchools.org.

A rough transition to middle school isnt unusual, says Jan Abraham, a Naples, N.Y., middle school math teacher who has taught in the U.S. and abroad.

First, she says, Determine where your son needs help. For some, its as simple as establishing and practicing routines that make days go smoothly. For example, getting ready at night for the following day (i.e., preparing his backpack with his homework in the proper folders, putting his trumpet next to his backpack for band practice, setting his alarm and so on).

Some students are overscheduled and parents need to discuss prioritizing time: What choices will they make if priorities compete?

Others need to learn how to use the schools web portal and school planner. I ask students to add to their planner everything they know theyll do during the school year, from Grandmas birthday party in December to robotics on Tuesdays in January and February, explains Abraham. We discuss how to record and monitor assignments. They need to know and own their schedule.

Many students benefit from explicit instruction in how to plan. They are surprised to learn that there are actual steps to follow to get things done  whether its writing a report or building a fort, Abraham says.

She teaches six steps using real-life projects that match students interests:

1) Analyze the task. Describe what needs to be done.

2) Plan. How will you handle the task?

3) Get organized. Break down the plan into steps.

4) Figure out the time needed. Plot hours, days or months for each step. Set aside the time on your calendar. Set alerts.

5) Make adjustments. Stuff happens; be flexible and regroup.

6) Finish the task in the time allotted. If you cant, analyze why not. Was it poor planning, or factors outside of your control? How would you do it differently?

Projects can be as simple as planning a movie outing or as complex as that of an avid skateboarder who wants to build a half-pipe.

A disorganized student doesnt become an efficient whiz overnight, says Abraham, but if you model and make him practice, hell master skills that will give him a leg up all his life.

Do you have a question about your childs education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.
WASHINGTON (TNS)  Of all the rules of politics that Donald Trump has broken in his run for the White House, his way with words may top the list.

Perhaps not since Sarah Palin gave Americans her tossed-word salads has a candidates speech pattern been so debated, celebrated and mocked.

But Trump is more than just a free-style rambler. Experts say he employs a very deliberate, effective communications approach unlike any other presidential candidate in memory.

The Trumpisms  Believe me, People say, Sad!  have become so well known they are the subject of spoofs. But like a savvy salesman or break-through advertising campaign, Trumps techniques carry a quiet power.

Heres a breakdown of Trump-speak.

The art of the insult

Little Marco. Lyin Ted. Crooked Hillary. Even in the rough-and-tumble world of presidential politics, Trump has taken the art of the insult to a new level.

Trumps name-calling may sound like simple bullying. But labeling his opponents with cutting nicknames also creates simple frames  catchphrases  that stick in voters minds, often because they reinforce existing perceptions.

George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at the University of California Berkeley who has written extensively about political speech, says studies show that 98 percent of thought is unconscious. Creating those nicknames is a way to make the broader message resonate with voters long after the rallies have ended  like a good advertising jingle.

Even if he loses the election, Trump will have changed the brains of millions of Americans, with future consequences, Lakoff writes on his blog.

As a businessman, Trump learned that speaking in an irreverent, shock-jock manner often won him free media attention. Now some Trump supporters are cheering that same willingness to give voice to politically incorrect opinions that they may secretly share, but would never say out loud.

Say it; repeat it; say it again

Its a crescendo of almost every Trump rally, the call-and-response moment when Trump promises to build a great wall along the Southern border. Whos going to pay for it? he asks. Mexico! the crowd answers.

Of course, the Mexican president has said unequivocally that his country will not be paying for Trumps wall. But that hardly matters. In Trumps world, repeating something makes it seem true, even when its demonstrably not.

For example, Trump continues to insist that he warned against entering the 2003 Iraq War, despite a 2002 audio clip of him voicing support. He has repeatedly claimed to have watched TV footage of Muslims in New Jersey cheering on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, despite no evidence of such an event.

He often repeats false claims that inner-city crime is at record highs or that neighbors of the San Bernardino terrorists saw bomb-making materials in their apartment but did not report it.

The more a word is heard, the more the circuit is activated and the stronger it gets, and so the easier it is to fire again, Lakoff writes. Trump repeats. Win. Win. Win. Were gonna win so much youll get tired of winning.

Believe me

With this two-word imperative, Trump draws voters in, hoping to inspire confidence, create intimacy and form a bond of trust with voters. Its a connection that has often eluded Hillary Clinton, with her multi-point solutions to the nations problems.

He often uses it to reassure his audience that he has the answers to the nations problems or to allay doubts about his abilities.

I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me.

We are going to get rid of the criminals, he says about his immigration plan, and its going to happen within one hour after I take office.  Believe me.

Experts say it plays to listeners desire for a strong leader with easy solutions. Trump becomes like someone who is huddling close to tell a secret, or like a salesman giving you the inside scoop on a deal.

But Jennifer M. Sclafani, associate teaching professor in linguistics at Georgetown University and author of the forthcoming book Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style, Metadiscourse, and Political Identity, said what people interpret from this particular command is ambiguous.

That makes believe me a double-edged sword for Trump, she said. For Trumps supporters, it reinforces what they already believe about Trump. But skeptics are likely to interpret this phrase as coming from an untrustworthy candidate who needs to command his audience to believe him, because he is naturally unbelievable.

People say ...

One of Trumps signature constructs comes when hes about to say something controversial  even conspiratorial  but wants to lean on others to do it.

Many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the U.S. because of Hillary Clintons hacked emails, Trump tweeted last month, though such a conspiracy theory was easily debunked.

After the Orlando nightclub shooting, Trump implied President Barack Obama did not want to stop terrorists, but tried to take cover by putting the offensive remark in the mouths of others. There are a lot of people that think maybe he doesnt want to get it, Trump said on the Today show. A lot of people think maybe he doesnt want to know about it.

The people say construct allows him to float an idea without taking full ownership or blame.

What hes doing is making use of principles that people use all day every day  to get across ideas that are not true, Lakoff said.

Never say youre sorry

Trump rarely issues a public apology, no matter how wrong he is proven to be or how strong the public pressure.

He insisted he did not regret anything about his attacks on the Gold Star Khan family. He refused to back down from his claims that an American-born judge overseeing the Trump University fraud lawsuit could not be fair due to his Mexican heritage.

He wont apologize for leading the so-called birther movement questioning Obamas citizenship, even though advisers say it might help him win over African-American voters.

I like not to regret anything, he told radio host Don Imus earlier this year when asked if he regretted questioning whether Sen. John McCain of Arizona, captured during the Vietnam War, should be considered a war hero.

His one and only public expression of regret came last month, but even that was vague and included the verbal architecture of an Im-sorry-if-you-were-offended apology.

Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you dont choose the right words or you say the wrong thing, Trump told a crowd in North Carolina. I have done that, and I regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain.

Keep it simple

One of Trumps biggest strengths with voters has been his ability to speak plainly and to simplify  some would say oversimplify  complex issues.

Build the wall to stop illegal immigration. Bring back coal and steel-manufacturing jobs. Defeat the terrorists so fast your head will spin. He convinces supporters that simple solutions would work and intractable problems linger only because of the stupidity of U.S. leaders.

In contrast, Clinton is often criticized for sounding too scripted, too poll-tested, too detail-oriented. Obama, too, seemed sometimes paralyzed by the complexity of challenges.

Trumps tweeting is a prime example, mastering the ability to boil down talking points and policy views to 140 characters or less.

Lakoff says that Trumps simple solutions appeal to those who see direct cause-effect of problems, but not those who view the world in more complex terms.

Clinton is very careful about what she says. But when she does that, that means shes not engaging in normal everyday conversation, Lakoff said. Hes using all of these mechanisms: Its what you hear, not what you say. He has just taken it to the extremes and run with it.

Say it bigly

Trumps plans are tremendous. His victories HUUUGE. Exaggeration and hyperbole are hallmarks of Trumps communication style.

His financial disclosure statement used all capital letters to boast his wealth: TEN BILLION DOLLARS. Though he is the first presidential candidate in decades to refuse to release his tax returns, he insisted recently that he has released the most extensive financial review of anybody in the history of politics.

The Clinton Foundation is not merely a scandal, according to Trump, its the most corrupt enterprise in political history.

And then theres bigly.

Were going to win bigly, Trump said in a victory address in Indiana after becoming the presumptive nominee.

Much has been said and written about bigly  if its a word and if its what Trump is saying. Dictionaries say bigly exists in one of those old-timey ways that hasnt been in fashion for 100 years or so.

But Trumps spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, told Slate magazine its not bigly at all. Trump, she said, is saying, big league.

Like much of Trumps speech, it seems open for interpretation.

Even if he loses the election, Trump will have changed the brains of millions of Americans, with future consequences. George Lakoff, linguistics professor at the University of California Berkeley
LA CRESCENT, Minn.  Applefest goers got a taste of orchard life Saturday afternoon, sampling freshly picked apples, watching the fruit make its way down the antique packing line and taking a trip through the trees of Van Lin Orchards.

Rick Van Lin led the tour, telling about 30 people the history of the farm and the complex process of growing and harvesting apples on the 40 acres. Originally a dairy farm, Ricks parents bought the land in 1959, and the couple planted every tree themselves. It was five years before any apples were produced, but the business grew swiftly and was eventually purchased by Rick, who lives on the property with his three children, and one of his brothers, Dan.

Tour goers had plenty of questions for Rick about growing techniques and varieties, with children fascinated by the 40-year-old apple sorting conveyor belt. The machine pulls apples from a vat of water, polishing them and sorting by size. The machine is rarely used today, as most of the packing is outsourced, but it was a mainstay in earlier years.

Rick discussed the the history of the Honeycrisp (created by the University of Minnesota in the late 1980s) and the future of the universitys M55 apple, a yet unnamed Sweet Tango hybrid developed for summer harvest.

This summers heat wave was not kind to the crops, according to Rick. Temperatures above 88 degrees can cause the apples to stop growing and ripen prematurely.

The orchard uses the Brix scale to measure fructose content in order to pick the apples at their peak.

Many people on the tour were curious about the rows of wires crossing through the 10 varieties of apple trees. Rick explained the goal is to keep the trees small for better quality apples.

The purpose of the first three years is to grow the trees up, not out, Rick explained. Were trying to grow apples, not trees, and were always chasing after the best varieties. Honey crisps expanded the market and got people interested in apples again.

Ricks daughter, Leah Van Lin, 8, helped dole out slices of Riverbelle and Pazazz apples, her favorite part of the afternoon.

I pretty much enjoyed the tour because I got to steal some apples, Leah said. Im going to have to say RiverBelles are my favorite because I gave samples and its really good. I pick em and eat em.

Tour-goer Satish Jeejula of La Crosse brought 3-year-old twins Adarsh and Asish to the orchard after hearing La Crescent was the Apple Capital of Minnesota.

Having it so close to La Crosse, 15 minutes away, I couldnt resist, Jeejula said. In India (where Jeejula grew up), the orchards are hundreds of miles away. Ive always been eating apples, but I never knew the whole process of how they grew. It was very interesting to learn, and the land is so beautiful here with the rolling hills.

And the kids are having a great time, he added. They ate about an entire apple of samples each.

Applefest continues today, and starting at 7 a.m. Van Lin Orchards will offer tours and wagon rides on Sundays throughout the fall. To schedule a tour, call 507-895-4492.
When Donald Trump unveiled his child-care proposal last week, he made a claim that seemed absurd on its face.

He said Hillary Clinton has no child-care plan.

He repeated the charge on his website, carping that Clinton claims she wants to cap a familys child care expense at 10 percent of income, but provides no details.

Journalists and Clinton sympathizers called the statement crazy, noting that Clinton released a bold, detailed policy ages ago. The Clinton campaign likewise tweeted a snarky retort to the accusation that she had no plan, saying: Its literally right here, with a link to her website.

But if you click that link, youll discover that Trump is ... not wrong.

Hey, every once in a while even a blind squirrel finds a nut.

Befuddlingly, Clinton hasnt ever explained how shed achieve her breathlessly praised promise to cap child-care expenses at 10 percent of family income. Shes merely declared she would, somehow. Precise plan TBD.

Its like promising to cure cancer by curing cancer, or to reduce the deficit by reducing the deficit, or to  ahem  destroy the Islamic State by destroying the Islamic State. (Maybe she has a secret plan she doesnt want the enemy to know.)

This should have been a slam-dunk for Clinton. She has fought on behalf of children her entire career, as she frequently reminds voters. Helping working mothers is one of her signature issues. And shes supposed to be the policy wonk in the race, the one who sweat[s] the specifics because they matter, whose math adds up.

Clinton first made this very-precise-sounding 10 percent pledge in May. At the time, she said only that the 10 percent cap would be realized by significantly increasing the federal governments investment in child care subsidies and providing tax relief for the cost of child care to working families.

Details about what the mix of subsidies and tax cuts would look like would come later, her campaign said.

For months, whenever I asked for those details, I was again told later. Wednesday, in my most recent conversation with campaign aides, I was informed that the 10 percent was not an explicit hard cap but rather a general goal that could be achieved through other policies Clinton has laid out.

These include paid family leave, universal pre-K, and scholarships for student-parents (who, while a worthy population, hardly constitute all parents struggling with child care).

Of course, Clinton proposed those ideas back in May. If they were sufficient to reach that 10 percent goal, why did the campaign say then that details of the 10 percent plan would arrive later, I asked?

The campaign then referred me to some of Clintons more recent, still-vague comments about expanding the child-care tax credit and state block grants for child care. But again, it provided no details or numbers that would enable anyone to check whether the 10 percent goal was successfully achieved; how much the plan would cost; how it would be paid for; or whether it would be a big giveaway to rich people (often a risk with subsidies administered through the tax code, which Clintons plan may or may not be).

Maybe it sounds persnickety to ask for details. But even the chronically policy-averse Trump has managed to release details of his child-care proposals, which rely exclusively on tax breaks.

In fact, those details are how we know Trumps plan is bad.

We can tell from what hes released, for example, that his policy will primarily help the rich, despite his claims to the contrary. And we can tell that his way of paying for the tax breaks  additional economic growth  is fantasy.

Goals are easy. Figuring out how to achieve them is hard. But thats supposed to be the part Clinton really digs. Or, rather, sweats.

For all the complaints that Trump is graded on a curve and Clinton held to a higher standard, its unclear why shes been able to get away with never substantiating her widely publicized promise, and why its enjoyed so much eager praise. Maybe weve let her skate because on so many other issues she has released detailed, thoughtful white papers. Maybe everyone reflexively assumes that on child care, a signature campaign issue, there must be a densely footnoted white paper hiding out somewhere, too.

Here, shes been given benefit of the doubt that wouldnt be afforded Trump, because hes previously expressed disdain for policy specifics. Strange to see the candidates reading from each others scripts.
Wisconsins roads need more than engineering and concrete.

They need leadership and courage.

They dont need delays. They dont need answers that only pretend to suit the political whims of today instead of the needs of today and tomorrow.

We need leadership  the type that requires difficult, potentially unpopular decisions if were truly going to serve the future of our states roads and bridges.

If Wisconsin is open for business and tourism, we need to make sure our roads are, too.

Gov. Scott Walker announced plans last week to delay road projects in Wisconsin. Sadly, thats not what our road system needs.

The states Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates the state needs $939 million to pay for projects that have already been approved.

The governor wants to give more money to local governments for road work, but it barely will patch the pothole. Heres an example of his solution and the problem: Under Walkers plan, La Crosse County would receive $127,000 during the next two years. The problem is, La Crosse County has an $89 million to-do list of work that includes failing pavements, bridges in need of replacement, resurfacing and stormwater issues, County Highway Commissioner Ron Chamberlain said.

A bandage and a lollipop wont help.

Lets look at an opportunity weve already lost  and a possible solution going forward.

For 20 years beginning in 1986, Wisconsin raised revenue by automatically indexing its fuel tax each year by a small amount per gallon.

Yes, that raised the tax. It also raised millions of dollars to improve our roads.

In 2005, the Legislature and then-Gov. Jim Doyle agreed to repeal that automatic annual increase. It was an easy, popular quick fix  and even some conservative Republicans said it was short-sighted.

How much did that cost our transportation fund in revenue?

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported in March 2015 that the transportation fund had lost more than $1 billion because of the change, which took effect after April 2006.

So, you do the math: The state needs $939 million to complete approved projects, and weve lost out on $1 billion because we lacked the leadership and courage to continue the adjustment on a tax that is paid by all who use the roads, including tourists and many other non-Wisconsin residents.

Our state has a heritage of appointing bipartisan, blue-ribbon committees to improve operations, such as the Kettl Commission, charged more than 15 years ago with studying ways of restructuring government in our state.

Since Walker has been governor, we havent seen that type of collaborative problem-solving, only divide and conquer.

Now would be an excellent time to pull together businesses and transportation executives to help policy-makers make sound decisions on funding and fixing Wisconsin roads.

Were encouraged that members of both the Republican and Democratic caucuses are unhappy with the governors approach to fixing our road problem.

But will they have the leadership and the courage to do something about it? Will they be able to override a veto from the governor? Will they be able to work together on a solution?

Were not optimistic.

The Transportation Development Authority will convene constituents throughout the state Sept. 29 to call attention to the problem. Its an excellent opportunity to speak out.

TDA Executive Director Craig Thompson said the governors proposal does not provide a coherent plan or vision for the state. It would provide, for the next two years, needed investment at the local level, but at the expense of important economic corridors. Crucial safety improvements called for by WisDOT on some of the busiest stretches of interstate in Wisconsin would not proceed. The question is: If we are not going to rebuild 60-year-old segments of the interstate system now, when are we?

Thats exactly the question: If not now, when?

During a TDA meeting in Onalaska this summer, businesses like Kwik Trip talked about the increased cost of maintenance and replacement caused by deteriorating roads.

Jeff Reichling, Kwik Trips superintendent of petroleum transportation, said during that meeting: This will only continue to grow as a problem.

The safety of our residents and the vibrancy of commerce and tourism are at stake.

Its time to find a long-term solution  even if it hurts.
WASHINGTON (TNS)  House Speaker Paul Ryan has managed to do something John Boehner never did: tame a restive band of conservative Republicans, at least for now.

Ryan, after nearly a year as House speaker, has a firmer grip on his chamber than his predecessor, who was practically run out of town by the ultra-right-wing group of conservatives, known as the Freedom Caucus.

The latest incident came late Wednesday night, when conservatives postponed an effort to force a vote on impeaching John Koskinen, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, settling in the interim for his testimony next Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

The outcome worked out for both Ryan and the Freedom Caucus: The speaker was able to delay a controversial vote, while conservatives get to put Koskinen before the Judiciary Committee, where several Freedom Caucus members, including its chairman, Jim Jordan of Ohio, will get to question him.

Negotiations over a stopgap spending measure that funds the government after Sept. 30 have also been smoother than usual so far, with conservatives resigned to accept the kind of measure they bristled at under Boehner.

Theres always going to be difficulties no matter who is speaker, said Rep. Peter King of New York. But he seems to be doing a good job at balancing demands. The conservatives seem to be willing to work with Paul more than they did John.

Republicans within the Freedom Caucuss 40 or so members, as well as other House members outside the group, describe Ryan as benefiting from a number of factors.

Those include Ryans status as a national conservative leader and former vice presidential candidate, as well as lawmakers election-year desire to avoid stunts that could backfire and hurt the partys prospects in November elections.

Other Republicans say the blame-game approach to demonizing their partys own leaders, rather than focusing on making government work, is starting to wear thin with some voters.

Ryan, 46, of Wisconsin, is described by his colleagues as a speaker who makes more of an effort than Boehner to reach out and get input from everybody.

We meet with the speaker, talk to him every week, says Jordan. Thats something good. Im sure I meet with Paul more than I met with Speaker Boehner. And I think the speaker has done a good job communicating our vision.

The Boehner problem for Paul Ryan  if there is one  actually isnt a relationship here with conservatives, said Dave Schweikert of Arizona, another Freedom Caucus member. I can walk into his office and get listened to. I dont always get what I want, but I have had more opportunities to move amendments, more of a voice in the last year than Ive had in the last four years.

Ryans more inclusive approach has mollified conservatives, and it also comes as many Republicans are focused on projecting a more positive image of the partys accomplishments.

You can only go home so many times and say, Well, this chairmans bad, this persons bad, this speakers bad, says Devin Nunes of California, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a close Boehner ally. If I went home the last five years saying that, right now I think my constituency will probably have had enough and tell me, Wait a minute, maybe youre the problem.

Rather, Nunes said he believes the conservatives who gave Boehner so much trouble  many of whom arrived in the tea party wave election of 2010  have come to realize that theyve got to start playing a different tune in Washington.

When youre new, its all fun and games. But now youve been here, youve had a chance to make a difference, he said. What difference have they really made at this point?

Things could still flare up. On the IRS impeachment effort, Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who lost his primary race for re-election, said Thursday that he doesnt know of any agreement to delay a vote until November and that he plans to press for a floor vote next week.

While negotiations over the stopgap spending measure havent yet produced public threats to shut down the government, as in previous years, conservatives like Freedom Caucus co-founder Mark Meadows of North Carolina say they want a spending bill that would last until early next year. Republicans leaders are pushing for a bill that would last through Dec. 9, but conservatives say they want to avoid potential lame-duck chicanery with a giant omnibus package of 11 or 12 spending bills in a post-election session.

When the new Congress meets next year, Ryan will face another election to retain his speakership. Nunes is seeking to change House rules next year to make it more difficult for a small group of lawmakers to try to force a new election for speaker at almost any time, requiring such a move to first get the approval of a majority of the entire Republican conference.

Nunes said the potential for a long-shot motion to remove Boehner as speaker based on language from The Jefferson Manual, written by Thomas Jefferson when he was vice president  and used by the House as a supplement to its standing rules  hung like a sword over Boehners head and was politically embarrassing.

We have a responsibility to take these gimmicks away, said Nunes.

Meadows, a conservative who filed such a motion in 2015, disputed that the move was a gimmick and said the Freedom Caucus would oppose changing the rule.

Why would we change something in Jeffersons Manual? he asked.

Theres always going to be difficulties no matter who is speaker. But he seems to be doing a good job at balancing demands. The conservatives seem to be willing to work with Paul more than they did John. Rep. Peter King, R-New York.
ST. PAUL, Minn.  As politicians ponder how Donald Trump will affect down-ballot races big and small, two Congressional races in Minnesota offer a case study in how the brash businessman and presidential nominee could hurt or help his fellow Republicans.

Democrats are eyeing an upset in Minneapolis western suburbs, where theyve recruited an unusually strong challenger and hope that the areas well-educated and wealthy voters put off by Trump will drag down the districts popular GOP incumbent. The script is flipped in northeastern Minnesota, where Republicans are trying hard to unseat a Democratic incumbent in a labor stronghold by banking that Trumps economic populism will resonate in iron mining towns where unemployment has soared.

The challengers to Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan and Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen concede that ousting them will be difficult, no matter who is at the top of the ballot. But with the distaste for Trump in some corners of the GOP and Hillary Clintons own vulnerabilities among Democrats, once implausible victories now seem within reach.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside political spending have already flowed into Minnesotas 8th and 3rd congressional districts, with millions more in attack ads on the way. Its strange territory for Paulsen, a no-nonsense Republican who hasnt faced a serious challenger since he was first elected in 2008.

But Trumps poor performance in the 3rd district in the March 1 caucuses has Democrats feeling unexpectedly confident. Years of trying to recruit conservative Democratic state Sen. Terri Bonoff finally paid off as Trump tightened his grip on the Republican nomination this spring, prompting a lesser-known candidate to step aside.

While the mild-mannered Paulsen has little in common with Trump, national Democrats havent hesitated to link the pair, equating the congressmans prior pledge to vote for his partys nominee to his outright support of Trump. Bonoff, a former businesswoman who served 10 years in the Legislature, is also confident that Trumps brand wont fly in the district, which is one of the nations most-educated and wealthiest and which voted for President Barack Obama twice. Case in point: Her first television spot closes by saying shell stand up to Trump, yet doesnt mention Paulsen.

During a visit to a senior living center last week, Bonoff rattled off Trumps positions and statements that she considered unacceptable, such as his questioning of the importance of standing with the countrys NATO allies and his feuds with female reporters. She then turned her attention to Paulsen.

My own congressman doesnt stand up and say ... that man is not fit to lead. He doesnt do that, she told a crowd of 30 senior citizens in Bloomington. Him not standing up to Donald Trump is a symptom of everything hes done.

Paulsen is playing it careful, insisting that Trump still must earn his vote while promoting his legislative accomplishments, including laws he helped pass to combat sex trafficking and to repeal the medical device tax, which is a major issue in the district.

Im like a lot of voters: Theyre not happy with either Trump or Clinton. Unlike my opponent, I havent endorsed either one of them, he said.

Its a different story in the 8th District, where Trump notched a stronger finish in the states Super Tuesday caucuses. In a rematch from 2014, Republican challenger Stewart Mills hasnt shied away from Trump like other many other Republicans in Minnesota and elsewhere.

Especially on trade, I think Donald Trump is on message, Mills said last month.

Trade is key issue in the district, where local steelworks blame thousands of layoffs in the last year on an influx of foreign steel imports. Thats partly what powered Sen. Bernie Sanders resounding victory in the districts Democratic caucus and has bolstered Republican hopes of an upset in November.

Normally a reliable Democratic district in presidential years thanks to surging voter turnout, Nolan and the Democrats are on their heels this year. Nolan is stressing his work to curb that illegal steel dumping and his support from mining unions and executives alike.

Those kind of layoffs send a lot of concern and nervousness, even among all those that are working, said Nolan, who is seeking his third term, including a stint in the mid-1970s. The anti-trade, anti-elite, anti-Wall Street sentiment is strong, and it runs deep. I understand it.
CargoLogic Air load one of their mega all cargo aircraft. In addition to purpose built frighters, many end of first lease, state-of-the-art wide-bodied passenger aircraft are currently being snapped up and rapidly re-purposed for all cargo operation. As the 21st Century trend is away from airport hub/spoke operation - apparently Heathrow [LHR] is yet to get the memo -and towards single aisle narrow bodied passenger/cargo hold aircraft, working point to point schedules continues apace ...

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MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Troops loyal to the Tobruk-based eastern administration ousted forces of the UN-backed government of national accord (GNA) this week, prompting condemnation from the United Nations.

Militants, allied with the unity government in Tripoli, have launched a counterattack against the rival forces in control of oil facilities, French television channel iTele reported quoting its source.

The Tobruk-based parliament accused the GNA of distributing oil sale revenues unfairly. It said Libyan armed forces had acted to protect the source of national income and end political blackmail that cost Libya $100 billion over the past three years.
RAJMA (Sputnik)  The forces led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the armed forces loyal to Libya's Tobruk-based parliament, have repelled an offensive by militants against an area known as Libya's oil crescent with its major oil terminals located on the Mediterranean shore, the general's spokesman Khalifa Obeidi told Sputnik on Sunday.

"A sleeping jihadist cell has become active in Ras Lanuf [Mediterranean town in northern Libya] not far from the port. The armed forces have responded to its actions," Obeidi said adding that militants have failed to capture any areas and the oil crescent has remained under Haftar's army control.

Earlier in September, Haftar gained full control of the oil crescent area, though, militant groups, allied with the unity government in Tripoli, have launched a counterattack.
RAJMAH (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, the spokesman said that eastern Libyan forces, led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar, repelled a jihadist attack in Libya's oil crescent on the Mediterranean shore where its major oil terminals are located. Haftar gained full control of the oil crescent area earlier in September.

"The armed forces were able to take control of the Bin Jawad area after clashes with armed groups and radicals. Troops were able to advance into the area after the groups attempted to attack Ras Lanuf," Obeidi said.

Libya has been in a state of turmoil since 2011, when longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown after several months of civil war. The country was later contested by two rival governments, the internationally-recognized Council of Deputies and the Tripoli-based General National Congress.
Earlier this week, typhoon Meranti slammed East Asia, leaving 28 people dead and 15 missing in Fujian and Zhejiang Chinese provinces. It sustained winds of 180 mph, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which made it the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale. So far, Meranti was the strongest storm of 2016 and one of three most powerful typhoons ever recorded.

A research study, conducted by the University of North Carolina, shows that in the Western Pacific typhoons increased in strength over the past 40 years.

As the author of the research, climate scientist Wei Mei said, "In 2016 so far, there have been six typhoons in the northwestern Pacific. Three have already made it to category 4 or 5. In the late 1970s, only about one-quarter of typhoons reached that strength. Now about half do."
Initially, Rajnath Singh intended to arrive in Russia on September 18 with a five-day visit to hold talks with Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. The minister has also postponed his visit to the United States scheduled for September 26.

The region of Kashmir has been disputed by India and Pakistan since the dissolution of British India and the establishment of the two states in 1947. Some local residents, especially those residing in the Kashmir Valley, call for greater autonomy or even independence from India.
NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, the death toll stood at three.

"The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the Indian Army was quoted as saying by the Asian News International.
Mentioning the possibility of a compromise reached between the Okinawans and the central government, Ryan said that he didnt think so because whenever the government wants to relocate US Marines or expand an airstrip, it does so.

Last year there was a horrible rape and murder of a Japanese woman by a contractor from one of these military bases and this really turned public sentiment against the base expansion because of the behavior of some of the American servicemen. They just do not want them there. Most people would not want foreign military bases. You couldnt see Americans allowing foreign military bases on their territory on their island or in their home town.

The Japanese pay the bill. Its weird because it is in the US interest to have bases in Okinawa. It should be the Americans paying Japan for the use of its territory in their own interests. Its not in Japans interest, Dawson emphasized.

The US wants to have its bases in Okinawa because it is close to Taiwan. The excuse for the Americans maintaining their bases in Japan and South Korea since WWII has always been North Korea, and before that the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The Cold War is gone now, along with the Soviet Union, so it is just North Korea.

To have bases in Okinawa just because of North Korea is kind of ridiculous. You dont really have a good pretext to maintain bases in Okinawa other than letting Lockheed-Martin, Boeing and a lot of giant aerospace companies sell their toys there and it really boils down to military profiteering. Its not really helping defense, its not helping the people of Okinawa and these rape cases and murders are turning the people against the Japanese government, and they also give a bad image to America, Ryan Dawson said in conclusion.

More than half of the 47,000 American troops in Japan are stationed on the island of Okinawa, which hosts about 75 percent of all US bases in Japan (by land area).

The US command planned to relocate the Okinawa base from a densely populated area of the island to a more deserted one, but had to abolish the plan because of strong local resistance.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Four terrorists reportedly attacked the Army Brigade's headquarters in Kashmir's Uri at 5:30 a.m. local time (00:00 GMT). The attackers were later killed, and the military is currently carrying out operation to find possible terrorists' accomplices.

"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi wrote in his Twitter account.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack so far. The Army has no information whether these men were local militants or infiltrators across the India-Pakistan Line of Control.
NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  He did not, however, specify whether the terrorists were local militants or infiltrators across the India-Pakistan Line of Control.

"Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such. I am deeply disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups," Singh wrote in his Twitter account.

Four terrorists reportedly attacked the Army Brigade's headquarters in Kashmir's Uri at 5:30 a.m. local time (00:00 GMT). No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack so far.
China is winning mainly because China has got a great financial and economic backup in the contest, which the US hasnt, Majid said.

While the US is still a predominant investor in the region, China is actually the overwhelming trading partner for the region and its economic relationship with the region is growing fast despite its slowing economic growth, the expert said.

Majid further spoke about the investments China has made in the region, such as the AIIB bank and multiple infrastructure investments.

Whereas, the US has mainly talked about intellectual issues of the region such as human rights, transparency, better governance etc., the expert said.

When you pile up the intellectual arguments against real economic financial arguments, on the other side, you can just imagine which one wins. I am not saying one or the other is better but it is a fact of life.

Talking about Myanmar, the specialist said that the country has an intellectual predisposition which is now quite western. But considering its geopolitical location, Myanmar needs to be more realistic about who it deals with, Majid said.

Myanmar's access to trade benefits for poorer nations was suspended in 1989 over human rights abuses. Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, should now be allowed to benefit from preferential tariffs after the country emerges from decades of military rule.

However, some sanctions will remain in place. Companies and individuals linked to former military junta members will not enjoy lower tariffs. This also applies to trade in jade and rubies.

In terms of intellectual and realistic things, in time the more realistic things will predominate, the expert concluded.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The double-deck boat was carrying some 150 Muslim tourists returning from a trip to the city of Ayutthaya when it hit a bridge on the Chao Praya River and partially submerged, the Bangkok Times newspaper said.

The outlet quoted police who said there were six men, six women and a child among the dead, although the exact number of passengers was still to be determined. The skipper reportedly fled after the boat began to sink.
As keeping martime order in the South China Sea is a shared duty of the regions coastal states, the huge interest an outsider like Japan has shown in following in the footsteps of the United States can hardly be justified, said the editorial questioning Tokyos motives.

Whether Japan is truly seeking regional peace and security or just fishing in the troubled waters by increasing military presence in the South China Sea is not a hard question to answer, the editorial continued.
Despite its long overdue sovereign debt Ukraine has been promised over $17 billion in small instalments in order to encourage them to go ahead with structural reforms. Part of these funds are being stolen, while everything the people there can see is utility bills going through the roof and people becoming poorer every day, Kovalev said.

He added that the IMFs decision to give Kiev just $1 billion instead of the originally promised $1.7 means that the Fund wants to have a safety cushion by denying any further money to Kiev if it realizes that Ukraine will never be able to repay this debt.

Mentioning the $3 billion Kiev still owes Russia, Kovalev said that Ukraine would return to the negotiation table but only to put forward more demands unacceptable to Moscow.

Kiev originally wanted this debt to be restructured just like corporate debts normally are, but these rules never apply to sovereign debts, thats why Russia turned this down. It is clear that chances for any breakthrough here are next to nil and that the matter will have to be decided on a court floor, Igor Kovalev said in conclusion.

The High Court of Justice in London is going to hear the case of Ukraines $3 billion debt to Russia on January 17-20.

Moscow filed a lawsuit against Ukraine in the London High Court in February after Kiev defaulted on repayment of a $3 billion loan that Russia granted to Ukraine in 2013.
The mounting debt is a result of the fact that the US economy grows on foreign borrowings, said Vladimir Shapovalov from the Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities.

"The reasons behind the current situation are the lack of domestic resources and other countries willingness to buy American assets which are very reliable," the expert said.

However, the US may face serious financial risks, he said.

"Other countries could withdraw their money from American assets. For example, China has invested a lot into US Treasuries. If China returns the money this could result in a crisis in the US," Shapovalov said.
General Richard Barrons admitted that the British Army would be overwhelmed by a Russian air campaign, the Financial Times reported Saturday. "Neither the UK homeland nor a deployed force  let alone both concurrently  could be protected from a concerted Russian air effort," he wrote in his 10 page private memorandum to Michael Fallon, defense minister.

He said, "There is no top-to-bottom command and control mechanism, preparation or training in place for the UK armed forces [to defend home territory] . . . let alone to do so with Nato."

UK has been using military as a foreign policy tool at the expense of insurance policy. "So far there is a lot of talk about deterrence across Nato but what really matters is whether it is credible, certainly as far as Russia is concerned," Barrons said.
Several people have already managed to vote, the Russians are allowed to enter the embassy only with a passport.

Over 111 million voters are eligible to vote in Russia, with 1.87 million of these currently abroad. Some 95,000 polling stations will be open across Russia throughout election day, while another 371 have been set up in Russian diplomatic missions in 145 countries.
The pressure on the German Chancellor has sharply risen over the last few months. According to German political expert Alexander Rahr, Merkel's fate at the upcoming 2017 elections will, among other things, depend on whether Ankara will abide by the EU-Turkey deal on migrants.

"The fate of Ms. Merkel could be changed by Erdogan if he sticks to the agreements with the EU. If he continues to keep the border between Turkey and the EU closed, then it will be positive for the German Chancellor," Rahr said.

Some experts also believe that the refugee crisis in Europe and Merkel's decision to resolve it directly affect the mood of the German population and, consequently, the election results.

"The Germans are dissatisfied with decisions on migration policy in the first place. Ordinary people are very concerned about the uncontrolled growth of migration flows and an increase in crimes []," Russian political expert Nikolay Topornin told RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy wished on Sunday a speedy recovery to his predecessor Jacques Chirac, who was reportedly rushed to hospital after falling ill overnight.

Je pense en ce moment a Jacques #Chirac. Je lui souhaite de se retablir au plus vite. NS  Nicolas Sarkozy (@NicolasSarkozy) 18  2016 .

"My thoughts are with Jacques Chirac. I wish him a speedy recovery."
DOWNERS GROVE, Ill.  Before the start of first grade four years ago, Owen Chaidez excitedly waited on the playground at Hillcrest Elementary School in Downers Grove. But when the bell rang and his friends ran inside, the boy, who uses a wheelchair, became stuck in the wood chips covering the playgrounds surface. His mother found him moments later, crying and alone.

The more he tried to dig out of it  the deeper he was getting in the wood chips, Peg Chaidez said. I promised him that day I would do something to make a difference.

Last month, the 46-year-old mother made good on her promise when Owen cut the ribbon welcoming the public to Owens Playground. The new $600,000, fully accessible playground at the District 58 school is designed to be used by all students  including those with physical and cognitive disabilities.

With extra wide ramps, rubberized flooring, sensory stations and other custom-designed features, the playground is the latest in a wave of inclusive playgrounds being constructed across the Chicago area in recent years. The passionate parents and nonprofit organizations behind them say they couldnt wait for cash-strapped communities and school districts to find the time and money to follow rules laid out in the Americans with Disabilities Act. The act requires all playgrounds to offer equipment, materials and designs that provide children with disabilities the same play opportunities as other children.

For many communities and many school districts, theyre working hard to accommodate students in the classroom. said Heather Binder, development and outreach manager for Rebuilding Together Aurora. Sometimes they dont have enough bandwidth to look beyond those four walls.

So the nonprofit partnered with a local volunteer project, Gateway to Laughter, and last month, completed an inclusive playground at John Gates Elementary School, the hub for students with disabilities in the East Aurora school district. Before the playground was remodeled, five classrooms of students with disabilities were regularly left on the sidelines at recess, Binder said.

Today, they play alongside their classmates on six pieces of equipment built by volunteer contractors and laborers. The structures, from spinning contraptions to musical stations, were designed to be accessible for both typical children and those with mobility impairment or cognitive challenges, Binder said.

Just like any move toward equality, its a slow march sometimes, Binder said. We just felt really compelled to go above and beyond.

For many decades, there were no enforceable standards for playgrounds across the country. In 2010, a section was added to the Americans with Disabilities Act that for first time required new or remodeled playgrounds to include, among other guidelines, low-sitting structures for someone using a wheelchair, according to Sherril York, executive director of the National Center on Accessibility.

In roughly the same amount of time, York said she has noticed a growing number of playground equipment manufacturers offer products that take into account children and caregivers with special needs, she said.

Chicago playgrounds all meet the latest ADA standards, with offerings such as bucket seating on swings for children who may not be able to sit upright, said Jessica Maxey-Faulkner, spokeswoman for the Chicago Park District.

And once parents of children with disabilities  or caregivers with special needs themselves  learned of the new requirements and possibilities, grass-roots efforts to construct state-of-the-art playgrounds grew across the country, as it has in the Chicago area, York said.

In Elmhurst, Ill., the communitys Park District is scheduled to open The Playground for Everyone in November, after years of partnering with nonprofits for fundraisers and planning. The municipality each year designates $350,000 to remodel one of its 18 playgrounds. That sum covers the design and construction of a playground that meets ADA standards, such as smooth surfaces and low structures.

But advocates for people with special needs in Elmhurst dreamed of a playground that would go beyond the bare minimum: extra handicapped parking spaces nearby, double-wide ramps where children using wheelchairs could pass each other and ample seating for caregivers who are often left without a place to rest, said Ginger Wade, marketing director for the Elmhurst Park District.

Together with a nonprofit group called Special Kids Day, as well as several other community groups, the Park District raised another $250,000 for the creation of The Playground for Everyone, which is now under construction.

Weve always had playgrounds that were accessible, but this is kind of taking that to the next level, said Wade, who noted similar projects in Wheaton and South Elgin. Its like when you go to the restaurant and they have one thing thats gluten-free. This is where its all gluten-free. The specialty becomes the standard. Now I think its becoming more and more expected.

York, of the National Center on Accessibility, which is considered by advocates as the leading authority on access issues unique to park and recreation programs and facilities, said she has been encouraged to see playground organizers interested in addressing more than the needs of children with physical disabilities. The new parks are also geared toward caregivers with disabilities and children with autism spectrum disorders, vision loss and hearing impairments.

Theyre thinking about individuals with all different types of needs on the playground and trying to make sure that its not just this special playground that sits there all by itself with individuals with disabilities, York said.

At Hillcrest, Principal Michelle Rzepka said her student body of 380 enjoys the playground several times a day, and visitors come to Owens Playground after school from all parts of the Chicago area.

We dont have the wood chips or the barriers that we once did. Instead of seeing kids on the sidelines, were seeing kids integrating together and playing together, Rzepka said. It is well-loved.

Its a sight that Chaidez, who spearheaded the Downers Grove project while working full-time as a digital analyst for an advertising agency, at times worried she would never see.

Owen, now a 10-year-old fifth-grader, was born with a rare condition called arthrogryposis multiplex congenita that affected his joints and left him able to walk short distances only with assistance. He mostly uses a wheelchair.

He encouraged his mothers work on Owens Playground by repeating a lesson shes taught him many times.

As much as I would start to get discouraged, he would always say, You can do it, Mom. You can do anything, said Chaidez, who is now fielding calls from all over the country and Canada about how to build accessible playgrounds in their own communities.

He thinks I can do no wrong, she said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The statement was made following the meeting of the NATO leaders in Croatia's Split this weekend.

"With these four battle groups, we are not talking exclusively about a training presence. This force is to serve as a deterrent and if necessary as a fighting force. The rules will be different," Pavel said cited by The Wall Street Journal adding that the deployment will be carried out by May 2017.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The EU leaders summit in the Slovak capital Bratislava ended last Friday in a joint declaration that pledged to make success of the 27-nation union after Brexit and prevent the 2015 migrant crisis from repeating.

But Renzi argued that the rest of EU leaders had missed an opportunity to agree concrete measures on tackling immigration and boosting economic growth, saying "Europe is not an asylum."

"In Bratislava, we had a nice cruise on the Danube," he told Corriere della Sera. "But I was hoping to find answers to the crisis caused by Brexit."
ODESA (Sputnik)  Anti-Russia protesters gathered near the consulate, hosting a polling station for the Russian nationals voting in the parliamentary elections, earlier in the day and were mainly peaceful until some nationalists began attacking the building.

Police then pushed the attackers away from the building's vicinity and clashes ceased for some time before resuming again later in the day. The nationalists then fled along a nearby street, at which point police officers followed and began detaining people. Clashes are ongoing.

A police spokesperson said that two people had been apprehended in connection with violence. A woman was wounded in the skirmishes and carried away by demonstrators.
The main problem is that if the EU members will not find a solution to these challenges in the near future, the European Union might be destroyed from within, the expert stated.

As de facto leader of the European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a politician who should work out a long-term strategy in the first place, Shevin-Coetzee said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

According to the expert, the European Union faces four major challenges that threaten the unity of the bloc and may lead to its collapse.

"First, it is the growth of regional blocs. The variety of European crises urged member states to set priorities and consider possible responses to them on a geographical basis," the analyst said.
KIEV (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, clashes broke out between Ukrainian police and radicals near the Russian consulate in Odessa after the building was pelted with stones. Scuffles broke out outside the Russian Embassy in Kiev late Saturday and continued into Sunday. Both the embassy and the consulate were hosting a polling station for the Russian nationals voting in the parliamentary election on Sunday.

"According to preliminary data, 369 people voted in the Russian State Duma election in Ukraine. Preliminary data: Kiev  155 people, Lviv  38, Odessa  120, Kharkiv  56," a representative of the Russian Embassy in Ukraine told RIA Novosti.

Over 111 million voters are eligible to vote in Russia, with 1.87 million of these currently abroad. Some 95,000 polling stations opened across Russia on Sunday, while another 371 have been set up in Russian diplomatic missions in 145 countries.
The purpose of the report appeared to be a criticism of the British militarys failure to provide a sufficient number of trained personnel relying too heavily on technological innovation rather than a skilled fighting force, but the report also singles out Russia as a potential adversary in a full-scale war.

"The current Army has grown used to oprating from safe bases in the middle of its operating area, against opponents who do not maneuver at scale, have no protected mobility, no air defense, no substantial artillery, no electronic warfare capability, nor  especially  an air force or recourse to conventional ballistic or cruise missiles," state the memo suggesting the UK would have difficulty transitioning from its counterterrorism posture to a conventional warfare situation.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On Sunday, Russians voted to elect 450 members of parliament for the next five years. Late on Saturday, scuffles broke out outside the Russian Embassy in Kiev and the Russian consulate in Odesa was briefly besieged by anti-Russian radicals on Sunday.

"It appears to be the only case abroad whereby Russian nationals signaled about violations," Moskalkova said.

The commissioner added that she had sent letters regarding the situation to her Ukrainian counterpart, the UN and Council of Europe human rights commissioners and the EU representative in Russia.
Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon have also gained top spots as refugee destinations amid the ongoing civil war in Syria. The three countries are now hosting a third of the world's cross-border refugees, with Syria topping the list of countries with the highest share of their populations displaced.

SOLUTION BLUEPRINT

Monday's summit will seek to outline an international response to the problem, according to the summit's website.

"This is the first time the General Assembly has called for a summit at the Heads of State and Government level on large movements of refugees and migrants and it is a historic opportunity to come up with a blueprint for a better international response," the United Nations said.

Summit participants will gain the opportunity to strengthen global control over migration flows, with the blueprint aiming to devise a system which places more emphasis on responsibility and predictability.

The summit comes after the UN secretary general's May report titled "In Safety and Dignity: Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants," which called for a new comprehensive framework to be set up to deal with migration.

PARTICIPANTS
Our interest is that Bosnia and Herzegovina wont turn into a haven for terrorism, and if necessary we [NATO] should take measures in this regard," he stressed, adding that the EU managed to tackle the inflow of migrants through the Balkan route.

The general said that NATO should remain flexible in this new political environment, specifying in particular that cooperation with Moscow shouldnt be ruled out.

Such Balkan nations as Albania, Slovenia and Croatia are current members of NATO. In May, Montenegro signed a protocol for joining the bloc, which is now being ratified by all the alliances members. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a NATO membership candidate. However, Republika Srpska, a part of the federative nation, opposes integration to the bloc.

On February 12, the Serbian Parliament ratified a document on diplomatic immunity for NATO representatives in the country that once suffered under the bombs of the defense alliances jets. In March 2015, NATO and Serbia signed a document called Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), which suggests technical cooperation between the sides, joint military drills, and creation of positive image of the alliance in Serbia.
MOSCOW(Sputnik)  According to the Daily Sabah newspapers Sunday report, 23 addresses in the Fatih district were raided, with police seizing documents and digital materials related to Daesh group. The suspects are reportedly nationals of Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some of the detainees had returned from conflict sites in Syria, the media outlet reported.

Daesh militant jihadist group, which is outlawed in numerous countries including Russia, seized territory in Syria in 2014 and has been using the porous border with Turkey to smuggle foreign fighters, weapons and munitions.
Its a wall with over 58,000 names, but they all have their own unique  and ultimately tragic  stories to tell.

Two of those names carry special meaning for Bob and Lynda Smith of Sparta. They were among the visitors to The Moving Wall, a 250-foot long wall that bears the name of every American soldier who died in the Vietnam War. The wall was set up for five days at the Tomah Veterans Administration Hospital.

Lynda Smith found the name of Byron C. Tucker of Sparta, an Army warrant officer who died in an air crash at age 22 just one week after arriving in Vietnam in 1968. The couple had been married just eight months.

He was a my high school sweetheart, she said. He was a sweet, soft-spoken guy. We were just kids.

She later married Bob Smith, who also served in Vietnam. He found the name of his childhood friend Charles (Chuck) McLeish.

Bob Smith described McLeish as a young man who graduated number-one in his high school class in Monona and became an Air Force captain. He died at age 25 in 1970 while flying a combat mission.

He was a really nice guy, Bob Smith said. He had kind of a baby face, but as he got older, he looked like Rock Hudson, Bob Smith said.

He said McLeish married a woman who had been crowned Miss Philippines.

I didnt a meet her until the funeral, he said.

In addition to the Moving Wall, there was the indoor display of Wisconsin Remembers: A Face for Every Name. The exhibit has photos of the 1,161 Wisconsin soldiers who died in Vietnam. Wisconsin was the fifth state in the country to find a photo for every soldier listed on the wall.

The Moving Wall was intended to be the backdrop for the VAs annual POW/MIA ceremony, but the commemoration was moved indoors due to rain.

Lynda Smith said finding the names was a moving experience.

I look at those 58,000 names and think about how sad it is that theyre not with us, she said.
During the emergency UN Security Council meeting on Saturday called by Russia only hours after a US-led airstrike degraded Syrian Army positions leading to the death of some 80 soldiers and "paving the way" for a major Daesh offensive, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations refused to offer remorse but instead laid the blame for the crisis in Syria directly at the feet of the Russian Aerospace Forces who she says is "bombing civilians" and the Assad regime who she claims gave rise to Daesh.

"Why are we having this meeting tonight? It is a diversion from what is happening on the ground. If you don't like what is happening on the ground then you distract. It is a magician's trick we encourage the Russian Federation to have emergency meetings with the Assad regime and deliver them to this deal," said an aggressive Samantha Power.

"What Russia is alleging tonight is that somehow the United States is undermining the fighting against ISIL. The Russian spokesperson even said that the United States might be complicit in this attack This is not a game," said the diplomat before going into details on the United States fight against the terror group.
The UN humanitarian aid will be delivered through "Castello" road, which connects the eastern and western parts of the city of Aleppo.

A very complicated scheme was developed for Castello Road, so it could be used for humanitarian deliveries at first, and then, as other preparations are made,  it could be used for other traffic, a Russian diplomat said after the UN Security Council meeting.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The attacks by the coalition planes near the Deir ez-Zor airport were first reported by the Syrian army earlier on Saturday. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the attacks saying they killed 62 servicemen and injured 100 more.

It may well be, and this is just a conjecture, that the United States is trying to hide a fact that they are actually not in control of the situation, that they allow the situation to get out of control, Churkin said after the UN Security Council meeting on Syria.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The attacks by the coalition planes near the Deir ez-Zor airport were first reported by the Syrian army earlier on Saturday. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the attacks saying they killed 62 servicemen and injured 100 more.

The coalition air operations center earlier in the day notified Russian officials that coalition aircraft would be operating in that area, and no concerns were voiced at that time, the statement said.

The statement added that the coalition remains focused on delivering ISIL (Islamic State, or Daesh in Arabic, outlawed in Russia) a lasting defeat.
Speaking about the ongoing Saudi and US airstrikes against innocent women and children in Yemen, Hossein Sheikholeslam said that they are being personally ordered by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

And this man calls himself the keeper of two shrines and the messenger of grace and peace after what he has also done in Syria and Iraq! Hossein Sheikholeslam said.

The tragic loss of 7,000 lives, including almost 500 Iranian citizens during last years hajj in the Mina Valley, laid bare the utter incompetence displayed by the Saudi authorities who failed to ensure the security of the pilgrims. They even failed to supply enough water for the people which would have prevented such a terrible loss of life, preferring to just throw it down from helicopters, Hossein Sheikholeslam continued, adding that Saudi Arabias absolute dictatorship was unable to accept any criticism or assume responsibility for its actions.
MOSCOW, September 18 (Sputnik)  The warplane was downed while on a combat mission against Daesh positions, a military source told Syrias state news agency SANA.

There was no immediate information about the possible attackers.

The Syrian government has been carrying out airstrikes against Daesh hideouts in the neighborhoods of al-Tharda Mountain, al-Orfi, al-Kanamat, and Panorama, according to the outlet.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  A US army soldier serving as part of the Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria and Iraq has died in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a result of a non-combat-related incident, the US Department of Defense said Sunday.

"Warrant Officer Travis R. Tamayo, 32, of Brownsville, Texas, died Sept. 16 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in a non-combat-related incident. The incident is under investigation," the Department of Defense said in a statement published on its website.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The US-led coalition has carried out 12 strikes against Daesh in Syria, the US Department of Defense said Sunday.

"U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq yesterdayAttack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 12 strikes in Syria," the Department of Defense said in a statement, citing Operation Inherent Resolve officials.

Three of the strikes, which were conducted on Saturday, were carried out in Deir ez-Zor, destroying Daesh oil trucks and damaging several supply routes, according to the statement.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The situation is especially grave in Aleppo, where militants have used the lull in fighting to relocate military equipment and combatants, he added, noting that movements of armored vehicles and cars have been recorded in the besieged eastern Aleppo and in the city's suburbs.

"Only Syrian government forces have adhered to the ceasefire over the past six days since it came into effect. There has not been a single contact regarding the ceasefire with so-called moderate opposition representatives. All our appeals to the United States to provide us with moderate opposition contacts or to influence them have not yielded any results. On the contrary, the number of militant attacks against Syrian army positions and against residential areas is increasing," Konashenkov said.

These developments confirm Russia's warnings about terrorists regrouping to prepare for another large-scale offensive, Konashenkov stressed, accusing the United States of failing to separate terrorists from moderate opposition and to exert influence on the latter.
TEL AVIV (Sputnik)  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday dismissed media speculations stating that Israel failed to get more military aid from Washington in the framework of the recently signed bilateral memorandum of understanding (MOU) due to his poor personal relations with US President Barack Obama.

"I hear all kinds of background noise and disinformation about the agreement. I would like to make it clear: we have never been offered more. We have not been offered more money, not even one dollar, and we have never been offered advanced technologies. These are distortions and fabrications and, this is the saddest thing of all, that it is ingratitude to our greatest and best friend, the United States," Netanyahu said at a weekly cabinet meeting.
Two Monroe County Jail inmates believed to be suicidal were referred to the Monroe County District Attorney in separate incidents for allegedly assaulting jail staff.

The first incident occurred Aug. 17, when jailers responded to a report that Anthony C. Cox, 20, Sparta, had threatened to kill himself. Officers escorted Cox to the jails booking area to be placed on suicide watch. Upon seeing a suicide prevention smock, Cox reportedly resisted officers and attempted to break free. He allegedly continued to resist and attempted to kick officers after being taken to the ground.

The report says Cox directed multiple threats toward officers and spit at an officer after being placed in a restraint chair. It also says Cox continued to cry and scream hysterically and claimed officers had broken his wrist and knee.

The second incident occurred Aug. 23, when Anthony Krosinski, 19, Black River Falls, reportedly threatened to stab himself with a pencil. Officers pointed a Taser at Krosinski, who reportedly responded by holding a jail-issued tote as a shield.

After an officer ripped the tote from Krosinskis hands, he allegedly brought his hands up in a threatening manner, and the officer pushed him against a wall. The report says Krosinski was covered in hair gel and toothpaste, which made it difficult for officers to execute a compliance hold. Krosinski was able to slip away and jumped onto a bunk bed before officers were finally able to get his hands behind his back and handcuff him.

Both Cox and Krosinkski were referred for resisting arrest, discharging bodily fluids at an officer and disorderly conduct.

Krosinski was also referred to the district attorney for disorderly conduct pursuant to an Aug. 16 incident in the jail. He allegedly filled a jail tote with water and dumped it in his cell.

In other sheriffs office news:

Dwight Carter, 49, Tomah, and Turner D. Wood, 22, New Lisbon, were referred to the district attorney after an altercation in the county jail.

According to the report, Wood was applying a chokehold to Carter when jail staff arrived. The argument reportedly began when Carter became upset that Wood was loud and boisterous as he was attempting to make a telephone call. Carter allegedly confronted Wood, and a video shows both inmates exchanging blows. The report says Carter sustained a cut lip and swollen jaw.

Both were referred for battery by a prisoner and disorderly conduct.

Brittany A. Rasmussen, 23, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for battery and disorderly conduct after an Aug. 29 domestic incident in the town of Ridgeville.

A woman told police that the two got into an argument and that Rasmussen struck her three times in the face with a closed fist.

Bobbie Raines, 41, La Crosse, was referred to the district attorney for criminal damage to property while housed as an inmate in the county jail. She is accused of vandalizing a sprinkler in her cell.

Vincent G. Ehlert, Norwalk, was referred for bail jumping after a traffic stop in the town of Angelo. Police pulled over a vehicle with defective license plates lamps shortly after 11 p.m. Aug. 26. Ehlert, the driver, had a bond condition which established a curfew between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., which triggered the bail jumping referral.
The attacks by the coalition planes near the Deir ez-Zor airport were first reported by the Syrian army on Saturday. Later in the day, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the attacks saying they killed 62 servicemen and injured 100 more. The US Central Command later said that Syrian troops were mistaken for Daesh terrorist group.
"We still dont have contacts with representatives of the moderate opposition for the ceasefire. We have asked the United States to give us contacts of moderate opposition groups or pressure them, but there is still no result. Moreover, shelling of residential areas and positions of the Syrian Army by militants is intensifying," Konashenkov said.

According to him, the most complicated situation is now in Aleppo.

"Militants are using the ceasefire and the fact that the army is not responding to shelling. In areas they control militants move personnel and equipment at daytime and nighttime," he added.
They are paid an increased salary of $200 instead of $130 and offered the best places to live, Greenwood noted.

However, as Daesh faced a number of military setbacks, local militants started to complain of unfair accusations from foreigners, which, they say, do not provide them with sufficient military support, and tend to use them as cannon fodder.

The journalist believes, that it may be just a matter of time until Daesh falls apart without any external efforts.

"Perhaps the 59 countries of the anti-terrorist coalition should just be patient and wait until the internal conflicts destroy Daesh and eliminate the already weak support of the locals," the journalist concluded.
On Saturday, Chinese and Russian naval forces carried out joint air defense and anti-submarine drills in the South China Sea near Guangdong Province as part of an eight-day naval war game, Joint Sea-2016, the largest naval military exercise ever between the two countries.

The drills featured a number of warships including a missile destroyer, anti-submarine vessels and conventional submarines joined in part by helicopters flying overhead.

A senior officer told Chinas Xinhua news agency that the drill was carried out under a "background of actual combat." The official went on to say that the objective of the naval drill was successfully accomplished.
The Obama administration offered a formal apology for the "unintentional loss of life" after an airstrike conducted against Syrian forces on Saturday killing at least 80 soldiers loyal to the Assad regime. The airstrike came only five days into the breakthrough ceasefire agreement between the United States and Russia that called for the two parties to coordinate strikes and for the Obama administration to levy more pressure against the so-called moderate rebels to disband from al-Nusra Front terrorists.

The attack was immediately condemned by both the Russian and Syrian Foreign Ministry, but the diplomatic row intensified after the US Central Command released a statement saying that while the airstrike was unintentional, they had previously notified Russia of the intent to strike.

Russia vehemently denies the claim that they were notified that a strike was pending against the Syrian Army base in Deir Ez-Zor.
During the Republican primary contest all 17 candidates for President signed a "loyalty pledge" vowing to support the eventual Republican nominee, but a number of high-profile politicians reneged on their promise after it became clear that the former reality television star had stolen the show.

"People in our party are talking about what were going to do about [the loyalty pledge]. I mean theres a ballot access issue in South Carolina. In order to be on the ballot in South Carolina, you actually have to pledge your support to the nominee, no matter who that person is," said Priebus. "So whats the penalty for that? Its not a threat, but thats just the question that we have a process in place."

"And if a private entity puts forward a process and has agreement with the participants in that process, and those participants dont follow through with the promises that they made in that process, what  what should a private party do about that if those same people come around in four or eight years?" asked Priebus rhetorically.
Klintsevich explained that policymakers in the US pursue a single goal in Syria . "They want to depose President Bashar al-Assad, bring the opposition to power and maintain their economic interests," he said.

The senator also suggested that the attack could have been "a provocation, a desire to see how we will react." Klintsevich further said that the United States is not really interested in destroying the brutal group that still controls large parts of Iraq and Syria.

'Suspicious timing'

Russian envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin was wary of the timing of the attack. "It is highly suspicious that the United States chose to conduct this particular air strike at this time," he said.

If the US wanted to help Damascus-led forces defending Deir ez-Zor, "it could have waited several days until the agreement reached by Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry in Geneva on the joint implementation center entered force," the diplomat noted.

Churkin also said that "some aspects of the situation suggest that it could have well been a provocation." However, he also said that the attack did not mean that the ceasefire deal was over.

The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, noted that if the airstrike was an accident, it was "a direct consequence of the US' unwillingness to coordinate its actions against terrorist groups with Russia."
TEL AVIV (Sputnik)  Russian nationals in Israel are voting at 13 polling stations in the Russian parliamentary elections on Sunday, the Russian embassy in Israel said.

"Russian nationals living or temporary staying in Israel have the right to vote in the elections 13 polling stations have been opened for vote in Israeli cities," the embassy said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The ministry expressed concern that the attacks by the coalition planes in Deir ez-Zor "had taken place amid numerous documented ceasefire violations by the illegal armed groups of the Syrian opposition, which had joined the ceasefire regime, according to the US side."

"We insistently urge Washington to put necessary pressure on the illegal armed groups under its patronage to make them fully comply with the ceasefire conditions. Otherwise, the implementation of the full set of the Russia-US agreements, reached in Geneva on September 9, may be put under threat and it will contradict the interests of the whole international community," the ministry's statement reads.
"The subgroup that did this supposedly is Ahrar al-Sham, which is a really nasty piece of work. It is as Wahhabist, as radical, as violent as [al-Nusra Front] or [Daesh]," former US diplomat Jim Jatras told RT.

Interestingly, Washington blocked Moscow's initiative to add Ahrar al-Sham, who often conducts joint operations with al-Nusra Front, to the UN Security Council's terrorist list, claiming that they are in fact moderate rebels and should be treated as a legitimate opposition to the government in Damascus.

"I don't see any evidence that there are any [moderates in Syria]," Jatras said. "What you have is a variety of Wahhabist terrorist groups some of which are maybe slightly less terrorist than others but I don't know how you measure that exactly. Who are the moderates? Where are the moderates?"
A new branch of Mill Haven, a New Lisbon-based dry dairy powder manufacturer, is coming to Tomah.

With land annexation and a builders agreement approved at last weeks city council meeting, Mill Haven plans to break ground sometime in October.

Plans for a new facility have been in the works for about a year. Mill Haven met with Tomah officials in the middle of May about purchasing land, said owner/CEO Brian Slater.

We needed another facility to accommodate business, so were doing it in Tomah, Brian Slater said. Were basically duplicating what we do (in New Lisbon) at another location.

The $6.5 million facility will cover roughly 77,000 square feet over eight acres of land.

City administrator Roger Gorius said theyre now in the permitting process.

Weve already started the wetland delineation, he said. So now we just have to go ahead and move forward with that. Town and Country (the citys engineer) will be handling the land and permitting.

Location was key in choosing to build in Tomah, Slater said.

(It was) the prefect spot, he said. I mean its right off the Interstate.

Tomah also has positive employment opportunities, said Mill Haven president Hollie Slater.

Were hoping to gain a better candidacy pool from Tomah, she said. Tomah also was really great to work with, finding us a really nice chunk of land for future expansion.

Gorius said expansion is expected.

The city has always worked from the concept that Mill Haven has asked to have land for expansion upon it so that if they decide to expand, he said.

Construction will be done in phases, Brian Slater said. The first phase will be the initial facility and will bring in 15 jobs.

Hollie Slater said they dont want to do too much at once.

We just need to get that first basic clientele in so we get it off and running and go from there, she said. We dont want to bite off more than we can chew, we want to grow at a nice, steady pace thats manageable for everyone.

The facility will be beneficial for Tomah, Gorius said.

Its huge, he said. Everything weve heard about Mill Haven has been good  theyve very interactive with the community, theyre extremely generous, I would say, theyve been great to work with. ... But as far as the job potential and obviously income that comes to the city through taxation through greater build, its what we need to do.

Mill Haven will also sign a developers agreement in New Lisbon today (Monday) to expand its existing site. Brian Slater said the New Lisbon site also needs more space.

Our lab that we have there is too small and our locker rooms and things like that, he said. Weve outgrown it, so we had to do some things there to update our facility at that location.

It will also include a new training facility and break room.

Theres a lot of things what weve outgrown that we kind of had to do in this next expansion, he said.

Hollie Slater said this is not the first expansion in New Lisbon.

Weve been in business ... six years and expanded five times already she said.

Both construction projects will begin in October, Brian Slater said. New Lisbon should be complete by next spring.

Doors on the Tomah facility should open about a year after they break ground.

Gorius said no other construction is expected on land near Mill Havens Tomah site.

When I entered into conversations with the Slaters, we made it understood that this land was pretty much there for them to construct this facility on and then we would look at it in the future after that, he said We have to see what their needs are and see whats left over on it and if we can put something thats compatible. ... Conversations with them is that were not going to put any industry out there thats competitive or combative with them. They make a food product. We dont need to be putting any asphalt plants of anything like that out there.

Everything weve heard about Mill Haven has been good  theyve very interactive with the community, theyre extremely generous.Tomah city administrator Roger Gorius
In the next year, Germany will hold parliament elections and France will hold its presidential election. If there is no progress over Ukraine this will be a heavy blow to the ruling parties of both countries, he explained.

The new strategy is based on step-by-step principles. The Minks agreements cannot be implemented taking into account the current level of mistrust between the parties involved. The new plan presumes that one side takes a step and the other side responds, the expert explained.

However, he underscored, Kiev has not demonstrated so far that it is ready to implement the agreements.

"Chances are slim to implement the French-German strategy. But hope is the last to die," Pogrebinsky said.

As for the United States, the new initiative is likely to have been approved by Washington.

"Washington is now focused on the upcoming presidential election. The US is ready to support any proposals from its French and German partners, making them responsible for the situation," the analyst said.

France and Germany are mounting efforts in imposing the Minsk Agreements, said Bogdan Bezpalko, deputy head of the Center for Ukrainian Studies at the Moscow State University.

"A new round political and diplomatic struggle is coming in the Ukrainian settlement. It will include Berlin and Paris," he said.
On Saturday, two F-16 fighter jets and two A-10 ground attack aircraft entered Syrian airspace without authorization from the Syrian government. They bombed positions of the Syrian Army near Deir ez-Zor, leaving at least 62 personnel killed.

Later, the US Central Command acknowledged responsibility for the attack but claimed that the attack was an accident, with the intended target being Daesh militants.

"This mistake could be very costly. Now it is important to find out whether it was intentionally or accidentally," Deputy Speaker of the Russian Senate Ilyas Umakhanov told RIA Novosti.
"Geopolitical configuration has forced the United States to hold on to Europe like to no other part of the world," he said. "This is what allows Washington to control North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, let alone trade routes across the Atlantic Ocean that yield more than $4 billion per year."

The only way for the US to "keep tabs" on its allies in Europe is to be present in the region, the analyst added. The fact that Washington pays the largest share of NATO's military budget is not enough.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The adviser to the Supreme Leader also urged US-supporters to learn a lesson from the US airstrikes.

"[Such actions unveil] real goals masked by the truce plan," Haddad Adel told Fars News Agency.

"Those who remain optimistic about the Americans and trust them, should learn a lesson from this aggression. The Americans would never refuse to break the promises," Adel added.
"I do not even know what that means. I'll bet you people have even forgotten the name Saddam Hussein. I'm telling you. People would need to understand that our society, with our news cycle, they have the attention span of a gnat," the media analyst said.

Lionel referred to the comparison as a "hoary and old reference," as well as a waste of time since this is not what voters want to here.

Americans are concerned with domestic issues. They want the president or the candidates to say what the next US leader is "going to do for me now, for my family in the future now," Lionel said. "More importantly, I say again, the number one issue on every news show, on every blog, on every alternative foreign media is Hillary Clinton's health. That is the issue," he observed.

Obama's remarks came after Trump called Putin a stronger leader than the current US president, sparking a firestorm in the Democratic camp. Former Pentagon official Michael Maloof called these comments "a very spiteful statement."
Moscow insists on disclosing the documents to the public in order to prevent speculations and misinterpretations. The US has not yet decided whether to publish the text of the agreement or not.

On Friday, a UN Security Council meeting on Syria was expected but Russia decided to cancel it due to Washingtons unwillingness to make the deal public.

In addition, Churkin expressed doubts that the UNSC would pass a resolution to support the deal.

"Russia and the US are going to take joint efforts to stabilize the situation in Syria, including special measures near Aleppo. The priorities are separating territories controlled by Daesh and al-Nusra Front from territories controlled by moderate opposition forces, as well as separating moderate rebels from al-Nusra Front militants," Churkin cited the agreement.

He also cited extracts from a document agreed between Washington and Moscow in July.

"The goal of a Joint Implementation Group is establishing broad coordination between the United States and the Russian Federation. The parties, the US and Russia, will work together within the framework of a Joint Implementation Group in order to defeat al-Nusra Front and Daesh. They will work in order to maintain a ceasefire and support a political transition process described in Resolution 2254 by the UN Security Council," Churkin said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The residents of Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Territory and the Chukotka Autonomous Area were the first to vote as polling stations opened nine hours ago at 23:00 Moscow time (20:00 GMT) on Saturday. The Kaliningrad Region's voters will close the day's voting at 21:00 Moscow time later on Sunday. Polling stations are open between 08:00 and 20:00 local time across of Russia's time zones.

Over 111 million voters are eligible to vote in Russia, with 1.87 million of these currently abroad. Some 95,000 polling stations will be open across Russia throughout election day, while another 371 have been set up in Russian diplomatic missions in 145 countries.

Most polling stations are located in schools and other education facilities. Some may also be set up inside military facilities and court buildings, as well as on vessels, at polar research stations, in hospitals, holiday resorts, airports, train stations and detention facilities.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss the priorities of the demographic and social policies for 2017 and the three-year period at a meeting with the Cabinet members on Monday, the Kremlin's press service said Sunday.

"On September 19, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will hold a regular meeting with the members of the Russian government. The main issue of the meeting will be the priorities of demographic and social policies of the government for 2017 and the three-year period," the statement said.

Besides, the Russian leader will meet on Monday with the members of the Russian National Paralympic Team.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Leader of the United Russia party, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced on Sunday the victory of his party in the 2016 parliamentary elections.

"I would like to thank all the citizens of our country who came to ballot stations today, demonstrated their civil position and voted. Moreover, a significant portion of them voted for United Russia," Medvedev said at a meeting with the partys activists.

"It is safe to say that our party has won," Medvedev announced.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  As of 13:00 local time (17:00 GMT), some 700 voters cast their ballot in Washington, as well as external voting stations in Miami and Chicago, according to the local polling station's election commission.

"Judging by the last elections, we expect up to 3,000 people," the election commission vice head said.

Votes will be counted after voting ends at 20:00 local time.
My past work as a government watchdog led me to spend more time than I liked in the State Capitol. With seemingly each passing day, I found the place increasingly unpleasant. Just setting foot in the building had a way of dampening my spirits. Its a beautiful setting, but theres growing ugliness in what goes on inside.

Since joining with others from around the state to give birth to Blue Jean Nation about a year and a half ago, Ive been in the Capitol only three times, and none of the visits was my idea. Ive made a point of staying away from the Capitol and hitting the road instead.

On a few occasions my recent travels have taken me outside Wisconsins borders. But for the most part, Ive criss-crossed the countryside in my home state. Community events and gatherings from Argyle to Appleton to Ashland, from Waukesha to Waterloo to Wausau. Sometimes its bigger towns like Eau Claire, Green Bay, Janesville or La Crosse. Other times small towns like Lake Mills, Darlington, Viroqua, Elkhorn and Owen. For every trip to Milwaukee there have been visits to Menasha and Menomonie, Hayward and Hudson, Brookfield and Baraboo, Portage and Prairie du Chien. And dozens of other locales. Plans have me heading soon to Tomah, Waupun and New Glarus, among other places.

Ive met with local residents in churches, coffee shops, cafes, bowling alleys, libraries, taverns, barns, feed mills, town halls and community centers. Ive been invited into high school classrooms and to college campuses. Everywhere I go, I talk politics with those I meet. What I hear varies from place to place but at the same time is strikingly similar. Distill all the stories down and common themes emerge.

People are reluctant to talk politics, but you can tell they want to. Political discussions have been too painful lately.

The most commonly used word to describe both the economy and the political system has got to be rigged. It amazes me how often that word is chosen.

Pessimism is rampant. People seem afraid of what the future holds. Many are beaten down. No matter how hard they work, they see themselves falling behind. They have a hard time imagining how thats going to change. This leads not only to intense frustration but also a strong suspicion that Americas best days are behind her.

Optimism is dormant but not dead. People want to believe things can get better, and are on the lookout for signs we might be turning the corner. Leadership is craved.

Few see themselves being the ones able to satisfy the craving. Most see leadership coming from someone else.

Someone else isnt leading.

The word Democrat is toxic most everywhere outside of Madison and Milwaukee.

Most people living in small towns or out in the country are Republicans, but only because they despise Democrats. Few actually seem to like the Republicans deep down.

Most people can tell you what Republicans believe in, whether they agree with it or not. Most struggle to put into words what Democrats stand for. What they do say isnt flattering.

Young people are not nearly as apathetic as older people think they are. They know whats going on. They care. They may feel powerless, but thats different than not caring.

People of every age tell you whos to blame for the mess thats been made, but then they say something that hints at understanding of how all the resentment and scapegoating lead nowhere good.

These are things you never hear in the State Capitol. And doesnt that say something revealing about the Capitol?
Stepanov delivered a well-received lecture as part of Sputniks working partnership with the London Design Biennale, which hosted a Russian Design Day on Saturday. It offered a full-day lecture program looking at the last 100 years of design development from the pre-revolutionary to the Soviet period though to contemporary Russian design trends. Speakers included specialists in the history of the avant-garde and the development of the Soviet state design system, as well as contemporary Russian design practitioners. Stepanov spoke about the importance of visualization and analysis during periods of social change, using examples from Russian history to support his case.

We appear to be the only ones at the London Biennale who decided to revisit the history of their design, Stepanov told Sputnik. Soviet design was, in many respects, an unfulfilled Utopia but the accumulated energy and ideas have the potential to bear very interesting fruit now and in the future.

Stepanovs presentation took the audience back to the days of Imperial Russia to reveal that what was considered to be a backward country pioneered infographics as a means of communicating with the public.
Over a third of French Muslims  37 percent  believe that girls need to be allowed to wear full-body veils such as the burka and the niqab at schools and universities.

Halal meat consumption appears to be an important issue for Muslims in France, with 80 percent of practicing and 67 of less religious Muslims believing that children should be eating halal in school canteens, the study said.
Fox News reported that the second explosive device is made of a pressure cooker. A source told CNN that the device had wires attached and appeared to be connected to a cell phone.

BREAKING PHOTO! Here is the second device found by a NYSP Sgt. At 27 street and 7 Ave. investigation is ongoing pic.twitter.com/x7o9Rr30I3  New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) 18  2016 .

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said to reporters that the blast was intentional. However, he noted that it's early to talk about the connection between the New York blast and that that occurred earlier on Saturday in New Jersey.

There is no specific and credible threat against New York city at this point in time from any terror organization, he underscored.

The explosion occurred at 8:30 PM at 135 23rd St. in downtown Manhattan between 6th and 7th avenue.

The robot is now moving across 27th St now back toward the police unit on 7th Av #Chelsea #ChelseaExplosion pic.twitter.com/nc1Z9Uw07W  KarlaZabs (@karlazabs) 18  2016 . The blast caused 29 injuries with none of them life threatening, the city's Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said at a press conference. The Russian consulate general in the US reported that no Russian citizens were injured in the explosion.
NEW-YORK (Sputnik)  Security measures at the Russian consulate-general in New York, which is to host the Russian parliamentary election on Sunday, have been enhanced following a recent blast in city, a spokesperson for the diplomatic mission said.

"Due to the blast, the security measures at the Russian consulate-general [in New York], where Russian nationals are expected to vote on Sunday, have been enhanced," the spokesperson told RIA Novosti.
Investigators ruled out a gas leak as the cause of the incident. The NYPD described the incident as "an intentional act" not linked to an earlier incident in New Jersey that saw a pipe bomb explode in the beach town of Seaside Park.

The NYPD Bomb Squad and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force were requested at the scene, fueling concerns that officials have not ruled our terrorism as a possible cause of the blast. Mayor de Blasio said that there was "no evidence at this point of a terror connection."

Other suspicious devices

Investigators found a second device that appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone wrapped in a plastic bag on West 27th Street. It has been taken to a firing range in the Bronx.

UPDATE: The suspicious device on West 27 Street in Chelsea has been safely removed by the NYPD Bomb Squad.  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) 18  2016 .

In addition, local police are said to have found a third explosive device two blocks away from 23rd street.

Casualties

The explosion left 29 people injured, the NYPD reported. Twenty-four people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, including scrapes and bruises. However, one person received a puncture wound that was considered serious.

As of now there are 29 injuries, one considered serious.  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) 18  2016 .

Reaction

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was one of the first to comment on the explosion in Chelsea. "I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows what's going on," he said at approximately 9:10 p.m.

"But boy we are living in a time We better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant," he said.

Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton said that the US needs to support its first responders and "pray for the victims," adding that "we have to let this investigation unfold."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that no connection to terrorism had been found regarding the last evenings blast in Manhattan.

"I have been briefed by all the relevant agencies. At this time there is no evidence of an international terrorism connection with this incident. But it very, very early in the investigation," Cuomo told reporters.

Gov. Cuomo said additional police and military personnel would be deployed to New York City following the bombing.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, an off-duty police officer shot dead a suspected attacker who stabbed eight people inside a Minnesota mall. None of the victims died.

The terrorist group stated that the attacker had responded on Daesh call to target civilians living in countries currently involved in the anti-Daesh military campaign in Syria and Iraq, media reports said.

Daesh, which is an extremist jihadist group outlawed in the United States and Russia, took over large swathes of Syria and Iraq amid the ongoing Syrian civil war. The US-led coalition started its anti-Daesh campaign in 2014.
Yet the poll result strangely coincides with a period of time when the Clinton campaign looked to smear Trump by claiming that he was sympathetic to white supremacist groups as well as a week driven by the revival of the racist "birther" controversy  a conspiracy theory regarding whether President Obama was really born in the United States that Trump was the lead booster of for years.

Nonetheless, the attempts to smear Trump by using bots pushing a Twitter trend with the name of the former Imperial Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan may have potentially backfired on the Clinton team given its offensive nature and the Republican nominee did say unequivocally this week that President Obama was born in the United States although he did not apologize for pushing the theory.

Other factors that may have contributed to the result were revelations, almost completely without mention by the media (except to call to it "false claim"), that Hillary Clintons top advisor Sidney Blumenthal originated the "birther" conspiracy theory during the 2008 election which is evidenced by the fact that the McClatchy news service even sent a reporter to Kenya following a conversation with Blumenthal.
Not only did the former Senate President of Haiti suggest that Bill Clinton attempted to bribe him in 2012, but he also said that the Clinton Foundation withheld billions of dollars in donations from Haiti.

It is impossible to determine whether these allegations are true because the Clinton Foundation has never undergone an independent audit of their finances such that it could be determined that all of the proceeds reported as donated and transferred to various charities represents a full accounting of receipts.

The Clinton Foundation has frequently faced allegations of malfeasance for their work in 2010, during which time Hillary Clinton served as the Secretary of State, after reportedly raising $30 million for Haiti relief projects that many locals say never fully materialized while others point to luxury hotels that were allegedly constructed with relief funds in order to benefit the countrys ruling establishment.

The Daily Caller reports that the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton have not responded to the serious allegations levied by the Haitian politician.


An explosion erupted overnight Saturday in Manhattan's busy Chelsea neighborhood, injuring 29 people. According to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, all those injured have since been released from hospitals.

Earlier on Saturday, a bomb exploded near a US Marine Corps charity race in the city of Seaside Park, New Jersey, about 82 miles south of New York City. Runners had been scheduled to run by the area at the time when the bomb exploded, but had been delayed. A spokesperson for the Ocean City Prosecutors Office said as many as three other devices that were wired to the pipe bomb did not go off.
The bombs that exploded in New York City and New Jersey on Saturday were from the "same person" according to a Fox News law enforcement source raising concern that a serial bomber remains on the loose in New York City or along the East Coast.

Both bomb attacks were nearly identical in their methodology with an explosive device placed in a trashcan that authorities say was detonated in both instances by a cellphone. In New Jersey, the bomb blast occurred along the route where thousands of runners prepare for the 5K Marine Corps charity race, but fortunately nobody was injured in this attack.

Fox News (@FoxNews) September 18, 2016

On Saturday night, the bomber struck again in the downtown Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea injuring 29 people. Police and authorities identified a second explosive less than a mile from the initial blast that failed to explode and identified it as a relatively unsophisticated pressure cooker bomb.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Daesh militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in Minnesota.

"I strongly condemn the apparent terrorist attacks in Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York. I pray for all of those who were wounded, and for their families," Clinton said in a statement Sunday, as quoted by the Boston Globe newspaper.

"ISIS [Daesh] has claimed responsibility for the attack in Minnesota, and this should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS [Daesh] and other terrorist groups," Clinton said.
The aerospace organization refuses to comment on what the image is suggesting that it may simply be an irregularity in the image or a heaping load of space junk that has caught the fancy of alien enthusiasts, but the four-armed illuminated flying object has been repeatedly captured by SOHO cameras with similar images captured several different times over the past five years.

The SOHO satellite, managed by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), hovers in the orbit around L-1 transmitting to Earth real-time data about solar activity in order to enable researchers to predict space weather  such as meteor showers or other disturbances that could influence the worlds satellite systems.
Russia then called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. Russia is deeply concerned by the airstrikes carried out by US jets on Syrian army positions and regrets Washingtons unconstructive stance at the UN Security Council meeting, the Russian Foreign Ministry added.

"We urge our US partners to conducta thorough investigation and take measures to avoid any future incidents of the kind. In this regard, we regret that the United States took an unconstructive and inarticulate stance at the urgent UNSC meeting called by Russia," the ministry said in a statement.

"US representatives not only failed to adequately explain their actions but tried, as usual, to turn everything on its head," it continued.

The Russian Foreign Ministry again urged Washington to use its influence on the so-called moderate opposition forces on the ground and pressure them into carrying out their obligations under the terms of the truce that was brokered by Moscow and Washington in Geneva last week.

"Otherwise, the implementation of the entire complex of US-Russian arrangements, agreed in Geneva on September 9, will be in danger, which is contrary to the interests of the international community," the Ministry warned in a statement.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The attacks by the coalition planes near the Deir ez-Zor airport were first reported by the Syrian army on Saturday. Later in the day, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the attacks saying they killed 62 servicemen and injured 100 more. The US Central Command said that Syrian forces were mistaken for Daesh fighters.

"The moment the American planes struck the Syrian army, the terrorists came from the same side that the Americans struck, and occupied the place [that] the Syrian army was in. So it was obvious to anyone in the field that there is an absolute coordination between the American planes who shelled the Syrian army and the terrorists who came in place of the Syrian army," Shaaban said in an interview with the RT channel.

The United States should be ashamed of killing Syrian troops, who have been defending Deir ez-Zor from Daesh attacks since 2014, in case it is committed to fighting terrorism in Syria, she stressed, adding that US airstrikes surprisingly stopped after Russia's warning signal instead of turning on Daesh militants who took over the Deir ez-Zor airport in the wake of the attack.
The United States violated its obligations given to Damascus two years ago at the start of its military operation in Syria and chose rather a strange time to carry out airstrikes near Deir Ez-Zor, which made it hard to believe that the coalition forces missed out, Churkin added.

According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, the strikes, which allowed Daesh militants to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir er-Zor airport, proved that the United States has been helping the extremists.

"If earlier we had suspicions that the Nusra Front is protected this way, now, after todays airstrikes on the Syrian army, we come to a really terrifying conclusion for the entire world: the White House is defending IS," Zakharova said in a statement.

Russia demands "a full and detailed explanation" from Washington, Zakharova said. According to the spokeswoman, the explanation was expected at the UNSC meeting.

INSULT EXCHANGE BETWEEN POWER, ZAKHAROVA

In a statement made before the UNSC meeting, Power harshly criticized the claims made by the Russian spokeswoman.

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power said.

According to Power, Zakharova should be "ashamed" for her words on the alleged US support for Daesh group.

"Indeed, the Russian spokesperson, I believe, came out and thought somehow that we were complicit and that we were even trying to protect ISIL. Really?  This is serious for us; it is not a game. And that spokesperson who suggested complicity really should be embarrassed," Power said.

On her Facebook page, the Russian spokeswoman responded saying that, instead of rubbing shoulders with terrorists and the so-called "moderate opposition" in Syria, Power should go there to meet ordinary Syrians who are still alive "despite the almost six-year-old bloody experiment being staged on them with Washingtons active participation."

AUSTRALIAN PARTICIPATION
Credit: Microsoft

(Tech Xplore)The languages that we speak: how pervasive will they be in the computing of tomorrow? We are often being told that we are getting closer and closer to computers understanding our words as easily as a human beside us.

Now Microsoft researchers have every reason to feel especially proud. According to reports, Microsoft has stepped in front in the race for supremacy in speech recognition.

The company has claimed a significant test result in their quest for machines to understand speech. The study describing their work has been posted arXiv server. The title is "The Microsoft 2016 Conversational Speech Recognition System." Authors are eight: W. Xiong, J. Droppo, X. Huang, F. Seide, M. Seltzer, A. Stolcke, D. Yu, G. Zweig.

Wall Street Pit had a report about their work, one of a number of sites paying attention to what Microsoft researchers achieved. The Microsoft team turned to "a conversational telephone speech recognition test used as an industry standard," said Wall Street Pit. That test is the "US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 2000 Switchboard speech recognition task."

Chief speech scientist for Microsoft, Xuedong Huang, said their researchers achieved a word error rate (WER) of 6.3%, considered the lowest in the industry.

Richard Eckel posted a piece about it, too, on the Microsoft site. The posting noted some features of their efforts. Earlier this year, Microsoft researchers won a computer vision challenge by using "a deep residual neural net system that utilized a new kind of cross-layer network connection."

It also said that "Another critical component to Microsoft researchers' recent success is the Computational Network Toolkit. CNTK implements sophisticated optimizations that enable deep learning algorithms to run an order of magnitude faster than before. A key step forward was a breakthrough for parallel training on graphics processing units, or GPUs."

(GPUs are known for computer graphics, but researchers find they are also very good for processing complex algorithms such as the ones used to understand speech, the posting said.)

As for the significance of the error rate, "Last weekend, the international conference speech communication and technology called 'Interspeech' was held in San Francisco," said Wall Street Pit. "During the event, IBM proudly announced that it was able to reach a WER of only 6.6%. Over two decades ago, the top error rate of the best published research system for computer speech recognition was at 43%."

The authors stated, "Our best single system achieves an error rate of 6.9% on the NIST 2000 Switchboard set. We believe this is the best performance reported to date for a recognition system not based on system combination. "

Liam Tung in ZDNet noted progress in this field. Tung wrote that "20 years ago the lowest error rate in speech recognition was 43 percent and that was achieved by IBM in 1995. By 2004, IBM had cut its error rate to 15.2 percent."

Tung noted that "However, these days with more research funds being funnelled into deep neural networks, tech giants are boasting error rates of well below 10 percent, but not quite at a level that exceeds human-level accuracy, which IBM estimates to be at about four percent."

In describing the system, the authors said, "Inspired by machine learning ensemble techniques, the system uses a range of convolutional and recurrent neural networks."

What distinguishes their work from previous work was explained in the paper. "Compared to earlier applications of CNNs to speech recognition, our networks are much deeper, and use linear bypass connections across convolutional layers."

Tung remarked that "Like its rivals, Microsoft has made artificial intelligence a key plank in its strategy for human-computer interaction with voice-based platforms such as Cortana set to play a key role in enabling computing in wearables, mobile, the home, vehicles, and the enterprise."

Explore further Speech recognition faster at texting

More information: Blog: Blog: blogs.microsoft.com/next/2016/  22keqx103m2j5pa2aoeg Paper: The Microsoft 2016 Conversational Speech Recognition System, arXiv:1609.03528 [cs.CL] arxiv.org/abs/1609.03528 Abstract

We describe Microsoft's conversational speech recognition system, in which we combine recent developments in neural-network-based acoustic and language modeling to advance the state of the art on the Switchboard recognition task. Inspired by machine learning ensemble techniques, the system uses a range of convolutional and recurrent neural networks. I-vector modeling and lattice-free MMI training provide significant gains for all acoustic model architectures. Language model rescoring with multiple forward and backward running RNNLMs, and word posterior-based system combination provide a 20% boost. The best single system uses a ResNet architecture acoustic model with RNNLM rescoring, and achieves a word error rate of 6.9% on the NIST 2000 Switchboard task. The combined system has an error rate of 6.3%, representing an improvement over previously reported results on this benchmark task.

 2016 Tech Xplore
Reuters

Unsold shares left with underwriters in Monte dei Paschi di Siena's (MPS) capital increase are expected to total less than 100 million euros ($100 million), two people close to the transaction said. A group of eight banks led by global coordinators Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Mediobanca, plus London-based fund Algebris have agreed to absorb up to 857 million euros in unsold stock. To offset expected losses given the small discount MPS offered on the new shares due to its shrunken market value in relation to the cash call's size, the underwriters are being paid much higher fees than normal.
Governor of the Central Bank of Greece Yannis Stournaras presents the new 20 Euro banknote at the institution's Museum in Athens, Greece, November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis - RTX1VKSU

ATHENS (Reuters) - The governor of the Central Bank of Greece denied on Saturday friction in relations with the government, against the backdrop of an anti-corruption probe which has targeted his wife's business activities.

Yannis Stournaras, who represents Greece on the Governing Council of the European Central Bank and is not an appointee of the present left-led administration, said relations with the government had "never been ruptured".

"There is no plan to sideline me," Stournaras told reporters in response to a question after a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Saturday evening.

He said he and Tspiras had a "very good discussion about the banking system and the economy".

Prosecutors earlier in the week carried out a raid at the offices of a business run by Stournaras's wife. The inquiry at the advertising company was part of a broader probe into the finances of a government-funded entity on disease control and contracts they procured on public information campaigns.

The raid coincided with a Central Bank decision to block the appointment of a chief executive and board members of state-controlled Attica Bank, a small lender which has struggled to plug capital shortfalls this year.

Stournaras's spouse, Lina Nikolopoulou-Stournaras, denied any wrongdoing and said the probe was an attempt to smear her husband, a widely respected economist who has led the Central Bank of Greece since June 2014..

"I can assure you my wife is the most honest, sincere, creative and caring person on the face of the planet," he said.

(Reporting By Renee Maltezou, writing by Michele Kambas; editing by Dominic Evans)
Iranian flags are seen at a petrol station in Tehran, Iran, January 25, 2016. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi/TIMA

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran supports any move to stabilize the global oil market and lift prices, the Iranian oil ministry news agency SHANA quoted him as saying on Sunday.

"Instability and falling oil prices are harmful to all countries, especially oil producers," Rouhani was quoted as saying by SHANA.

"Tehran welcomes any move aimed at market stability and improvement of oil prices based on justice, fairness and fair quota of all the oil producers," the president said, referring to a meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Algeria next week, SHANA said.

Rouhani was speaking to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Venezuela on Saturday, SHANA reported.

Iran, OPEC's third-largest producer, has been boosting its oil output after the lifting of Western sanctions in January. Tehran refused to join a previous attempt this year by OPEC and non-members such as Russia to stabilize production, and talks collapsed in April.

OPEC members will meet on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum (IEF), which groups producers and consumers, in Algeria on Sept. 26-28. Non-OPEC producer Russia is also attending the forum.

OPEC will probably revive talks on freezing oil production levels when it meets non-OPEC nations in Algeria, sources have told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed this month to cooperate in oil markets, saying they could limit future output.

However, on Saturday, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo appeared to play down suggestions of a major agreement by saying the Algiers meeting would be an informal meeting for consultations and not for decision making, Algerian state news agency APS reported.

(Reporting by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte makes a

Since the Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte took office in July, he has threatened to eat Filipino rebels, encouraged vigilante violence, disparaged US President Barack Obama, and overseen a bloody crackdown on drug use that has left more than 2,000 people dead.

While his brash words and actions at home have earned him international criticism, Duterte also appears to be advancing a foreign policy that could have outsize implications for the region and for himself.

Since assuming office Duterte has taken a much more antagonistic stance toward the US and its legacy in the Philippines, while at the same time making overtures to China. In light of ongoing tensions over the South China Sea, the Philippine president appears to be walking a fine line between the two most powerful countries in the region.

Duterte's blunt comments directed at Obama brought much of the world's focus to him, but the statement (Duterte's remarks were translated as calling Obama a "son of a whore") fits with Duterte's rhetorical style, and it was reflective of how the new Philippine president would approach relations with the US.

"He's got a sort of deeply held suspicion of the United States, which dates back to his time as mayor of Davao City. He's an avowed socialist as well," Prashanth Parameswaran, the associate editor at The Diplomat, said during the magazine's Asia Geopolitics podcast, adding:

"If you look at the statement that was issued where he expressed regret following the remarks, it states there that despite the fact that regret was expressed, the Philippines is trying to chart a more independent foreign policy for itself. And you can read that in various ways, but the major one is ... it does want to pursue a closer relationship with China, and it's a little bit more cautious in terms of how it approaches the United States."

Story continues

After inveighing against Obama, Duterte did meet with the US president on the sidelines of the ASEAN regional summit in Laos earlier this month, but since then he appears to have reiterated his wariness of the US, calling for US military trainers to depart the country, which he said was for concerns about their safety.

Ash Carter US Philippines military alliance cooperation

There are only a few such military trainers in the country, and "Demanding they leave is especially odd given that [Duterte] has repeatedly talked about modernizing the Armed Forces of the Philippines and counterterrorism as his key security focuses  both of which are assisted by U.S. Special Forces training," Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Business Insider.

No US soldier has been kidnapped by any terrorist organization in the southern Philippines, Poling said. "The Philippine military, at least, seems to be skeptical that this was more than bluster," he added, "as theyve said no official order to throw out the American trainers has been issued by the government." And as of earlier this week, US officials had gotten no such order.

The current Philippine foreign minister has added to the tension, saying that while his country would respect alliances, it wouldn't accept being treated as "the little brown brothers of America."

map south china sea

Duterte has coupled these rebuffs of US personnel with statements about reducing cooperation with the US.

This week he said his country shouldn't take part in joint patrols of the South China Sea  in the Philippines exclusive economic zone, the foreign minister clarified  in order to avoid a "hostile act."

Thus far, Duterte hasn't taken concrete action to undermine US-Philippine cooperation  he doesn't appear to have mentioned the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Act, which gives US troops access to Philippine bases  but he has also made overtures to China and Russia, suggesting wavering commitment to US rebalancing efforts against Chinese ambitions in East Asia.

Duterte has been open to Chinese investment in Philippine infrastructure, saying prior to his election and to a July 12 international court ruling that dismissed China's claims in the South China Sea that he would be willing to "shut up" about disputes in the sea if China provided aid.

In the wake of that July 12 decision, which China rejected, Duterte voiced interest in bilateral talks with China, saying the ruling put the Philippines in a better negotiating position. In August, former Philippine President Fidel Ramos went to Hong Kong for informal talks with Chinese officials. The US, for its part, encouraged the resumption of talks between Manila and Beijing (though the Philippine foreign minister recently cast doubt on those talks).

"I think something we need to keep in mind is also the external stimuli that China is providing here, and I think China has been very good in reading Duterte," Ankit Panda, an editor at The Diplomat, said on the magazine's Asia Geopolitics podcast.

Li Keqiang and Rodrigo Duterte

"And essentially the overtures we've seen after the July 12 ruling has been in big part enabled by the fact that China hasn't really pushed to change facts on the water in the South China Sea, which might force Duterte to take some sort of drastic action," Panda added.

More recently, Duterte expressed interest in buying weapons from Russia and China, saying that even though he didn't want to cut the "umbilical cord" with allies, he wanted to purchase arms "where they are cheap and where there are no strings attached and it is transparent."

Duterte also said his defense secretary would visit Beijing and Moscow "and see what's best," a move that suggests he's doubling down on his break from US policy in the region.

The Philippine president is a little over three months into his term, and while a July poll found him with 91% support, the numerous initiatives he has advanced  the war on drugs, talks with rebels groups, reassessing ties with China  and the bluster with which he has advanced them could pose a risk to the political capital he has accrued.

"Duterte's early moves are, in part, an attempt to consolidate power in Manila," the geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor wrote in late August. "He is capitalizing on his present popularity while laying the foundation he thinks is key to the country's long-term modernization."

It's possible that Duterte is trying to play the US and China against each other to wring favorable terms from both of them. Going forward, however, he could find himself in an increasingly perilous position, having antagonized both a longstanding but at times overbearing ally in the US and a growing world power with little incentive to make concessions in China.

At home, fractious relations with the US, which has supplied about 75% of the country's arms imports since 1950 and extensive military support, could alienate Duterte from the Philippine military leadership, a group he needs in his fold if negotiations with communist rebels are to advance.

afp duterte threatens to pull philippines out of un

Elsewhere, Duterte's emphasis on enforcing tax collection and other regulations could run afoul of the Philippines' business interests, and powerful figures involved in illegal narcotics may soon find his crackdown on the drug trade discomfiting.

In Manila, the "primary risk is that Duterte will open up power struggles on too many fronts and find himself at odds with too many powerful enemies," Stratfor noted.

Moreover, coming terms with China could backfire on Duterte if those terms are seen as unfavorable by Filipinos.

"It's possible that could really hurt him at home," Panda said during The Diplomat podcast. "This is a raw nerve, and I think there's a lot of constituencies in the Philippines that want to see a resolution that really doesn't concede anything to China."

And while the US is loathe to let longstanding relations with the Philippines wither, if Duterte holds to his current line, US-Philippine ties will certainly suffer.

"As for the long-term balance, that will depend on whether Duterte climbs down from this constant stream of anti-American rhetoric that weve seen over the last week," Poling, of CSIS, told Business Insider.

"The U.S. is not willing to walk away from the alliance, but fears are growing that Duterte is determined to severely degrade it. If that happens, the Philippines will find itself in a much worse position in the face of Chinese bullying."

NOW WATCH: Obama canceled a meeting with the Philippines president after he called him a 'son of a b----'





More From Business Insider


An Albuquerque woman says her 18-year-old son was recently fooled by an Apple-looking text that threatened interruption of service unless he turned over personal information.

He did, providing his Apple ID password, birth date, Social Security number and bank account information.

A few minutes later, he realized it was a scam, she says.

The woman says the faked Apple text looked genuine, and she and her husband could understand why their son was fooled. Fortunately, they were able to act quickly enough to stop any immediate theft attempts by contacting the bank. His account was shut down a new one was opened, she said.

Apple says when it sends notifications, it is with an email or push notification. It does not notify customers by text or iMessage.

However, telling the difference between a text message and a push can be confusing. The best advice to be completely safe is to contact Apple independently to double-check any notifications you receive on your phone.

Can an election thats dragged on forever become any more exasperating?

The answer is yes, and the reason is this: fake campaign workers who call you for money.

Scammers love to take advantage of major news events, the Better Business Bureau said in an alert. This year, nothing is a bigger story in the United States than the 2016 presidential election. Watch out for cons that prey on would-be political donors.

In these scams, callers might just generally say theyre collecting for a political candidate, but some are citing specific groups as well. For example, one caller claimed to be collecting for a candidate on behalf of a veterans group, the BBB says.

This might seem a no-brainer: dont give out your credit card number, name or address, especially if the caller is aggressive and threatening.

Instead, donate directly to a campaign office that you contact on your own.

Also, be aware that legitimate polling companies dont offer prizes. Hang up on callers that offer you one.

As the Oct. 17 deadline approaches for extension tax filers, the Internal Revenue Service is warning tax professionals about a new wave of attacks.

The agency says there have been at least two dozen cases of identity thieves filing fraudulent tax returns by remotely taking over tax professionals computers. The IRS first warned of this kind of remote computer take-over just before the April 15 deadline for regular filing, another peak period for such businesses.

Thieves do their dirty work by accessing a tax preparers computer and getting into client data. Once they have done that, they can complete and file returns in the taxpayers name but direct refunds to the hackers own account.

Victims in the tax community learned of these thefts while reconciling e-file acknowledgements, the IRS says.

The agency urges the following measures for tax professionals:

Run a security deep scan to search for viruses and malware;

Strengthen passwords for both computer access and software access; make sure your password is a minimum of eight digits (more is better) with a mix of numbers, letters and special characters;

Be alert for phishing scams: do not click on links or open attachments from unknown senders.

Ellen Marks is assistant business editor at the Albuquerque Journal. Contact her at emarks@abqjournal.com or 505-823-3842 if you are aware of what sounds like a scam. To report a scam to law enforcement, contact the New Mexico Consumer Protection Division toll-free at 1-866-657-3249.
AT BOOKWORKS: John J. Kania & Alan Blaugrund will talk about Antique Native American Basketry of Western North America: A Comprehensive Guide to Identification at 3 today.

This book is a comprehensive guide to the identification of antique Native American baskets, specifically the basket-making tribes of western North American.

Shannon Baker will sign Stripped Bare at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20.

Kate Fox is living the dream. Shes married to Grand County Sheriff Ted Conner, the heir to her beloved Nebraska Sandhills cattle ranch, where they live with Kates orphaned teenage niece, Carly. Teds re-election as Grand County Sheriff is virtually assured. That leaves Kate to the solitude and satisfaction of Frog Creek, her own slice of heaven.

Robert Wilder will discuss Nickel at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22.

Coy is a quirky teenage boy and his best friend Monroe is a girl who is just as odd and funny and obsessed with 80s culture as he is. So when Monroe comes down with a mysterious illness, his inner turmoil only grows.

Greg Mays will sign New Mexico Cocktails at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24.

New Mexico may appear to be the land of 1,000 margaritas, and its distilleries and historic cocktail are complex enough to satisfy even the most discerning palate.

Cocktail enthusiast Mays explores a boozy history spiked with anecdotes and garnished with more than 100 simple recipes for the home bartender.

Bookworks is at 4022 Rio Grande NW. Call 344-8139.

AT COLLECTED WORKS: Michael Campbell and Jeff Bingaman will sign  Jack M. Campbell: The Autobiography of New Mexicos First Modern Governor at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20.

Jack M. Campbell (19161999) was elected governor of New Mexico in 1962 and re-elected in 1964, the first New Mexico governor in 12 years to win a second term. Campbell traces his life story across major historical events in the country and state.

Kevin Wolf will discuss The Homeplace: A Mystery at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22.

Chase Ford was the first of four generations of Ford men to leave Comanche County, Colo. For Chase, leaving saved the best and hid the worst. But now, he has come home. His friends are right there waiting for him. And so are his enemies.

John Nichols will sign The Annual Big Arsenic Fishing Contest at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24.

On the surface, this book spins a fishermans tall tale about a ribald angling contest among three middle-aged friends who love (and perhaps hate) each other: a preppy trilingual Machiavelli, an intellectual ghetto pool shark, and a brawny Texan who defies his own macho stereotype. All professional writers, the men have met every autumn for 18 years at the Big Arsenic Springs on the Rio Grande to fly-cast for trout and argue about life, literature, marriage, and eco-Armageddon.

Collected Works is at 202 Galisteo St. in Santa Fe. Call 505-988-4226.
Gosh, golly, gee whiz and 23 skidoo, the Albuquerque Museum showcases an American icon that was born in 1926 and died in 1985, only to be resurrected as a national treasure now 90 years old.

Yes, friends, I am referring to Route 66: Radiance, Rust and Revival on the Mother Road, an extravaganza of excess Americana, the whole kitsch and caboodle of the western migration, including antique cars, motorcycles, souvenirs, fictitious and real Indian lore and enough neon to placate the most ardent Nikola Tesla fan. Tesla is the inventor of neon signs, alternating current, hydroelectric generation and much more.

The biggest and best neon sign is the El Vado Auto Court Motel a rainbow-hued restoration of the original built in the 1950s. There are several other smaller neon signs that emblemize milestones along the historic Route 66 through Albuquerque.

But let us not neglect the meat of the show. This multimedia installation is filled with symbols of the romantic notion of personal freedom to change your circumstances, move away from problems like the Dust Bowl and seek a better life.

Horace Greeley once said, Go west, young man, go west, and millions did just that. Men, women and children packed up belongings and took the Mother Road to better their lot or just to have a great adventure.

The television series Route 66 (1960-64) represented the adventuresome side of Mother Road travels in glorious black-and-white for 116 episodes.

This gobsmacking exhibition is billed as a history show but is so chock-full of fine art, crafts and the narrative created by the vicissitudes of time, weathering and quotidian use, that the show itself is a wonderful work of art. Hats off to exhibition designer Tom Antreasian and his installation crew for an imaginative display of residuals from our most beloved national highway.

Route 66: Radiance Rust and Revival on the Mother Road is filled with nooks and crannies that represent such concepts as peregrination, commercial enterprise and cultural concerns from artifacts to zeitgeist.

The whole enchilada includes a rusty but nice circa 1930 Chevy pickup parked in a vintage gas station, a 1940 Harley-Davidson used to collect pueblo pottery, images of cowboy songster Jules Allen, film star Roy Rogers and works by artists including Charles Craig, one-time New Mexico resident Stanley Mouse, Jackson Pollock, Tim Prythero, Bill Tondreau, William Warder and Andy Warhol.

Though the Chevy pickup vignette is full-scale, Prytheros impeccably wrought miniature Juanitas Taco Wagon tells an even more complex narrative. The bread truck-style body of the fast-food vehicle has all the dings, dents and scrapes of a real-life work truck that regularly squeezes past dumpsters through narrow alleys behind businesses with enough hungry employees to cover the days expenses.

The entrepreneurial truck is parked behind a well-patched red-brick wall featuring aging signage and a series of quick fixes. If you can imagine the best scale-model railroad layout you have ever seen, you will be about tenfold behind Prytheros breathtaking quality of execution and attention to detail.

When Prythero finishes one of his pieces, he adds another poetic chapter to Americas Westward Ho saga. Put your wagons in a circle  theyre a comin over the rise!

Contemporary Albuquerque inspires Oscar-winning photographer Tondreau in Kellys Brew Pub, 2012 a stunning multi-image digital print that looks too much like a painting not to be one, but that is Tondreaus magic.

The show also brims with jewelry, pottery, memorabilia, vernacular and professional photography and trinkets for travelers of every stripe. I dont recall a rubber tomahawk, but I did see a Western-themed souvenir vest with fringes and an ashtray.

Come on down for the time of your life and pick up a history lesson way more fun than you ever had in school. There are no yawns allowed in this pedal-to-the-rusty-metal spectacular.

WHAT: Route 66: Radiance, Rust and Revival on the Mother Road a multimedia installation

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays through Oct. 2.

WHERE: Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, 2000 Mountain NE

HOW MUCH: Free with museum admission: $4 adults, $3 New Mexico residents with photo ID, $2 seniors and $1 for children ages 4-12.
Evelyn Cisneros still moves with the willowed grace of a prima ballerina.

A copy of Edgar Degas famous Little Dancer sculpture sits on her desk. The magazine covers and photographs of a 23-year career frame her National Dance Institute office like rock posters.

The artistic director of New Mexico NDI since 2013, Cisneros was a principal dancer for the San Francisco Ballet, taking lead roles in Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and countless others. World-renowned choreographers penned ballets for her.

She performed at the White House.

She danced in Carlos Santanas Supernatural DVD.

She was the first Hispanic prima ballerina in the U.S.

To reach that artistic pinnacle, she battled obstacles that would have shattered less determined dancers. She overcame physical problems as well as prejudice. A ballet master forced her to paint her skin to look as pale as the other dancers.

NDI Director Russell Baker once lived in the Bay Area and regularly attended Cisneros performances.

If you went to the San Francisco Ballet, you hoped Evelyn would dance the lead role, he said. She was beloved.

Today she leads young dancers in New Mexicos mushrooming NDI program. Cisneros and her family arrived in New Mexico just three years ago, but she says she already feels at home.

Taking the first step

Cisneros grew up in Huntington Beach, Calif., the schoolgirl too shy to raise her hand in class. Her mother thought taking ballet would help and took her to a strip-mall studio.

At first, I didnt like it, Cisneros said. I had a different teacher every week. We agreed I would do it for a year.

Then the right teacher, Phyllis Cyr, appeared. Cisneros was just 7.

She influenced me in the joy of moving to music, Cisneros said.

Her parents took her to see the Bolshoi Ballet perform Swan Lake when she was 10.

I told my mother I would be happy just to be one of the girls in the back. I was smitten.

From then on, Cisneros focused on ballet like a life raft. Soon she was demonstrating moves to the younger dancers for cash.

I didnt know I had everything it took to be a professional dancer, but I knew I wanted to try.

Cisneros was a pigeon-toed swan. Her left hip was too tight and her left foot was pigeon-toed  potential career-enders because ballet is grounded in outward rotation. She overcame what could have become a disability through a brutal work ethic.

In high school, she took seven classes in a row without a lunch break so she could attend ballet class. At 14, she won a scholarship to study with the San Francisco Ballet. She also danced on weekends with a small company, still managing to maintain a 3.86 grade point average. She never went on a date.

Her parents instilled that drive for excellence.

My grandparents all emigrated from Mexico, she said. We were always told and expected to act as role models for the country of Mexico. I think it served us so well. I was always so sensitive, especially to the little ones who were brown like me.

Building a career

The ballet made her an apprentice at 16. She finished high school early, then moved eight hours away from home to San Francisco.

The company placed her in a residential house that included two meals a day. She lived on $200 a month, plus $5 for every dance. She first danced to a highly complex George Balanchine piece. The choreographer is considered the founder of American ballet.

I remember kneeling down on the bathroom floor and saying, Oh, Lord, please let me do this, she said. I had just turned 17.

When Cisneros was still in the corps, the ballet master told her to lighten her dark skin with makeup. She painted her neck, her chest, her arms and her face  every inch of exposed skin.

It was what I had to do, she said quietly. I remember saying, I dont want to look like everybody else. It made me more determined to not to be in the corps. He humiliated me in front of the whole company. I thought, OK, you will not make me cry and you will not make me quit. 

All demands to lighten her skin dissolved once she rose to principal.

Co-artistic director Michael Smuin, who worked on Broadway and choreographed the cantina scene in the original Star Wars, began creating dances for her.

He became my mentor, and I became his muse, Cisneros said.

I went out with George (Lucas) once, she added. He was so shy.

She tap-danced to Stravinsky at the White House after being introduced by Gene Kelly and Beverly Sills. Ronald and Nancy Reagan sat in the front row.

He was lovely, Cisneros said of the late president. He was warm, he was friendly. He was so engaged because his son Ronnie danced at the Joffrey.

Former San Francisco principal dancer Anthony Randazzo was Cisneros partner for 10 years.

We could take a lot of risks together because there was trust, he said in a telephone interview from Boston, where he works as the Boston Ballet master. We wouldnt let each other down. She translated across the orchestra pit. I think people felt they knew her.

Cisneros tried to move to other companies at least three times, but after each interview, the competing company withdrew her contract. She discovered later the San Francisco board had told the director he could not lose her.

Life after performing

In 1996, she married fellow principal dancer Stephen Legate and wanted children. The doctors told her to gain weight, eat fat and stop exercising, all anathema to a professional dancer. In 1999, she decided to spend a year saying goodbye to all her favorite roles.

She and Legate moved to Boston, where Cisneros led the Boston Ballet school from 32 to 360 students.

But they both longed to move West.

Today the prima ballerina oversees all of NDIs after-school programming and teaches ballet. The nonprofit offers free dance lessons to nearly 9,500 students across the state through the Hiland Theater, the Santa Fe Dance Barns and the public schools.

The family (she now has two children) moved to Albuquerque in 2013. A trip to Alamogordo cemented a familial link, because her mother was born there. Cisneros found the house where her mother had grown up.

I came here and I went, Oh my God, I feel at home, she said.

Its a tough career, but I wouldnt change it for anything. I had my feet on my faith.
Speaking for many of the people involved in last years unanimous repeal of civil asset forfeiture by the New Mexico Legislature, I want to compliment you on your editorial.

Whether drug dealers or drunken drivers, convicted criminals should be deprived of the profits and instrumentality of their crimes.

As a part of the repeal of civil forfeiture, New Mexico enacted one of the cleanest, strongest and clearest criminal forfeiture statutes in the country.

Ten states have followed New Mexicos example of repealing civil forfeiture in the last year, including Nebraska last month and California last week. Unfortunately, the U.S. Justice Department and some states like Oklahoma are addicted to the billions of dollars they take yearly from citizens, 90 percent of whom are not charged with, or convicted of, any crime.

Did you know DOJ forfeits more each year than is stolen in all residential burglaries in the country? Perhaps updating the old joke is in order: Dont steal, the IRS hates competition.

Taking money from people by the roadside and then letting them go free is like a Third-World highway robbery shakedown. It undercuts citizens respect for the judicial system and reinforces the idea that people with money can get away with whatever.

Yes, Albuquerque is also addicted to their little shakedown scheme, having specifically budgeted the target amount that the program is supposed to generate for the city general fund, after paying the salaries and overhead of the city forfeiture lawyers.

Sort of like a traffic ticket quota?

I would only take exception to a small legal point in your editorial.

You are absolutely right that the lack of a statute of limitations in the ordinance is a flaw. But more than that, it has to do with due process, the concept that a citizen must be afforded all of his natural rights under the Constitution before he can be convicted, and that he cannot be punished without a conviction.

You further mentioned that in April 2015, a judge ruled that the city ordinance is not preempted by the new state law. The new law was not even effective until July 2015.

The Institute of Justice and I represented Sens. Lisa Torraco and Daniel Ivey Soto in suing the city to stop this abusive program . In May 2016 the case was dismissed when the judge ruled that the senators did not have standing to sue, since they had not personally lost a car.

So now the Institute of Justice is helping one of the hundreds of innocent, angry citizens who have had their car stolen by the city raise the same claims.

In the senators case, the city never argued that there was binding legal authority for circumventing the new state law. What legal research showed was that almost all cases cited by the city were instances of where poor people without lawyers had their property taken by default.

Hardly a fair fight.

In fact, the entire concept of civil asset forfeiture is hardly a fair fight.

Criminals need to be punished, but there are two ways of doing it: the American way and the second-rate, Third-World way.

Why cant the city just do it the right way? Justice will be better served.

Brad Cates is a former member of the New Mexico House of Representatives.
As someone who has been active in New Mexicos business community for decades, its clear that our state faces urgent budget and financial challenges. The largest oil and gas crash in recent memory has cost New Mexico more than 6,500 energy industry jobs in just the last year, and state government potentially faces a budget shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Most of us feel the oil and gas crash by paying less at the pump. But what is good for wallets is devastating to our state budget.

Our elected leaders must act, and they must do so with a responsible plan that puts New Mexicos future first. Its a shame that some short-sighted politicians are using this as an excuse to raise taxes.

Thats not leadership. Every day in New Mexico, working families and small businesses have to live within their means, and state government can and should do the same.

Our budget challenges, while serious, could be much worse. Our neighbors in Oklahoma face a shortfall that could be as much as $1.3 billion. Ours is most likely a quarter of that.

Why? Because our governor didnt let the Legislature go on a spending spree. Instead, we built reserves to be prepared for a situation like this.

While the previous administration left cash reserves at irresponsible and risky levels, often below 5 percent, now weve had several straight years of not only balanced budgets but surpluses as well, and cash reserves maintained around a healthy level of 10 percent.

Responsible spending and sound fiscal management means that New Mexico is much better positioned than other oil- and gas-producing states to ride out the historic downturn in the energy industry  without raising taxes on job creators and hard-working New Mexicans.

While our leaders work together to address these challenges, they must bear in mind how far weve come in making New Mexico more competitive with surrounding states for jobs and investment. In forging a deal to meet the impending budget shortfall, we must preserve our valuable tools, resources, and reforms that have helped us recruit new businesses and jobs to New Mexico.

Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) money is known as our closing fund, which stands at nearly $56 million. It helps communities invest in needed infrastructure to assist new, growing or expanding businesses.

Its a valuable tool for both companies already here and those looking to relocate to New Mexico as well.

And our Job Training Incentive Program (JTIP), which has been recognized as one of the best in the country, helps businesses hire and train more New Mexico workers as they expand and grow. Weve fought hard to build up tools like these over the last few years, and now is not the time to tie the hands of our businesses.

While the oil and gas industry continues to struggle, were seeing encouraging news from other sectors of our economy  not only in our urban areas, but in rural communities as well.

Were certainly also welcoming household names and industry leaders like FedEx, Fidelity Investments and Safelite AutoGlass to our metro areas.

And when you look at the rest of the economy outside the energy sector, New Mexicos over-the-year private-sector job growth is the best in a decade.

But were also encouraged to see growth in more rural communities throughout the state as well.

Green energy company Solaro is growing in Socorro; Southwest Cheese is expanding in Clovis; Ready Roast is adding jobs in Portales. There are many other examples throughout the state  48 percent of the closing funds dollars went to support projects in rural areas of New Mexico.

And recent news reports tell us Las Lunas will host Facebooks new data center.

An official for a rival potential site even told a newspaper: Obviously, Utah didnt roll out the red carpet in the way New Mexico did. Were competing with surrounding states, now more than ever before.

The fiscal challenges we face are no doubt serious. But as our leaders work to find a solution, they must not put the burden on our families and businesses. We all live within our means every day  state government must lead by this example.
Its exciting that a company with the social buzz of Facebook is building a $250 million data center in New Mexico  a project that will be powered by three new solar facilities and in its first phase create hundreds of construction jobs, along with 30 to 50 permanent jobs, at a Los Lunas facility.

And its important that legislative, business, community and regulatory leaders capitalize on this positive momentum by continuing to like the cooperation needed to diversify the states economy  augmenting the government and oil and gas sectors with expanding private-sector industries that bring new money into the state.

The heavy lifting here was done over 13 months by Gov. Susana Martinez and Economic Development chief Jon Barela, with PNM, Albuquerque Economic Development and the Public Regulation Commission playing important roles. But it couldnt have been done without the changes the Legislature has made and the incentive tools lawmakers have approved.

Thats good, because the likely alternative is an economic death spiral, according to a bipartisan Jobs Council data analysis.

Skeptics need look no further than that analysis to see the state needs 147,177 economic-base jobs just to bring employment to pre-recession levels. Economic-base jobs bring in most of their money from outside New Mexico, introducing new wealth into the economy instead of circulating existing money around.

Trying to make do by recirculating existing money is the social-engineering approach preferred by poverty-industry advocates, the one used annually to justify planned raids on state permanent funds and the one that has gotten New Mexico to the precipice of said death spiral. Just last week:

n Oil prices plummeted with the news global oil demand growth is slowing by more than previously thought  bad news for a state already facing a $589 million budget shortfall with no cash reserves left because oil and natural gas prices have already brought in less of the revenue the state relies on.

n Moodys Investor Service said it could downgrade the states top rating for general obligation bonds  as well as for the states universities  because of the budgets structural imbalance, making borrowing more expensive.

n The state Human Services Department said it needs between $60 million and $80 million new dollars to cover Medicaid expansion as New Mexico enrollment closes in on half the population while federal funding scales back.

n The president of the states flagship university announced a freeze on staff hiring, a more stringent review on faculty hiring, and a 5 percent cut because of the shrinking state budget.

n The chief justice of the state Supreme Court and the chief public defender gave dire warnings  echoed by lawmakers from both parties  about the effect budget cuts would have on the legal system.

These are financial problems that can not be ignored and cannot be solved by gutting hard-fought economic development incentives or digging into what is supposed to be a permanent fund to keep New Mexico schools running.

Taking away Local Economic Development Act, Job Training Incentive Program and closing funds and raiding permanent funds so that you 1.) dont have to make prudent cuts or 2.) can expand vague early childhood programs that have little to do with education and lots to do with social work, simply mortgages a financial future that is already in serious jeopardy.

New Mexico is spending significant sums on early childhood programs already, and thats the right thing to do. But there is a real question of whether we can spend more effectively. And even in the best-case scenario, those programs havent proven they will move the needle on education, and they wont bring the jobs and investment New Mexico needs to step back from the edge of ultimate insolvency.

What will work is the approach that landed Facebook: Martinez and other state officials visiting the companys California headquarters; the Los Lunas Village Council approving up to $30 billion in industrial revenue bonds; the state ponying up $10 million in Legislature-approved LEDA funds and up to $3 million in JTIP funding; the village agreeing to hand over a monthly chunk of its share of gross-receipts tax revenues generated by the project; and PNM agreeing to build and run, and the Public Regulation Commission approving, the clean power source Facebook wants in an expedited manner.

Theres an awful lot to like about the myriad efforts that went into landing the new plant for Los Lunas. They are the perfect example of what Mark Lautman, the Jobs Councils lead program consultant, told New Mexicans last week: You need all the stakeholders involved. Thats the only way its going to work.

As Sen. Clemente Sanchez, D-Grants, said, It takes time for some of these policy changes to work, but I think theyre starting to come to fruition.

And thats whats going to put New Mexicans to work and work for New Mexico. Recirculating what the state has now  half the population poor enough that it qualifies for Medicaid, one in four residents on food stamps, a 6.4 percent unemployment rate with many more residents who have simply given up looking for a good job  does not.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
https://youtu.be/Xz1-wfimyu0

Albuquerque police have used deadly force in more than 30 on-duty shootings since 2010.

Typically, the officers involved have been formally exonerated. Only in the death of No. 22  James Boyd  has there been a criminal prosecution.

On March 16, 2014, the homeless, mentally ill man was fatally shot in the Sandia foothills after Albuquerque police say he brandished knives and threatened a K-9 police officer in the waning hours of sunlight.

Beginning Monday, the two former officers who shot Boyd will be tried on second-degree murder and manslaughter charges. A six-man, six-woman jury selected last week will hear the case.

It marks the first time in at least 50 years that police officers have been criminally prosecuted for an on-duty shooting.

Boyds case might simply have been added to the list of APD deadly shootings that in part led to the citys signing an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to implement reforms curbing excessive and unnecessary force and changing the way officers deal with the mentally ill.

But in Boyds case  and increasingly nationwide  a video camera documented police actions.

Boyd, who had been in and out of jail for two decades, refused to leave his illegal campsite when APD Open Space officers responded to a call from a nearby resident. The subsequent four-hour standoff involved 19 officers at the end.

The police helmet camera video showed a bearded man on a mountainside, arguing mostly nonsense, then finally picking up his backpack and other belongings in what appeared to be an effort to surrender.

Do it, an officer yells. A flash-bang grenade explodes. Taser fire erupts, and a police dog is unleashed. As Boyd turns away, the video shows him shot in the back and twice in the arm, falling face down and never getting back up. At least one of his hands still gripped his pocketknife.

Though the details of the highly publicized case have been aired, debated and spurred sometimes violent public protests in the city, testimony in the trial is expected to offer new insight into whether police were justified in using deadly force and, if so, why?

Attorneys for former officers Keith Sandy, who has since retired, and Dominique Perez, who lost his job after criminal charges were filed in the case, say their clients are not guilty and should never have been prosecuted.

Since Boyds death, five police officers in New Mexico have been shot and killed in the line of duty  including one in Albuquerque and one in Rio Rancho.

With national interest spurred by the graphic police video, the outcome of the case is being tracked around the country.

I dont think they would have been charged if there werent video evidence, said Philip Stinson, a criminologist and associate professor at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. But that doesnt mean its an open-and-shut case or a slam dunk for the prosecutor. Theyve got their work cut out for them, because a jury could well conclude the officers were completely justified.

Since 2005, 75 police officers around the country, including Perez and Sandy, have been charged with murder or manslaughter for on-duty fatal shootings, Stinson said. Thats still a small number of the 1,000 or so cases each year in which on-duty police officers shoot and kill people, he said.

Roughly 30 percent of such prosecutions have resulted in convictions, Stinson told the Journal. Of the 26 officers convicted since 2005, 13 were found guilty by a jury and 13 pleaded guilty.

Out of the 75, juries appear to be very reluctant to second guess split-second, life-threatening decisions in street encounters, said Stinson, who has worked as a consultant for the National Institute of Justice.

Video footage of such encounters can be helpful, he said, but it only tells one part of the story, it only gives one angle. And sometimes it raises more questions than it answers.

If convicted of second-degree murder, the defendants could be sentenced to up to 15 years. A voluntary manslaughter conviction carries a maximum six-year prison sentence.

Complicated case

The decision to file criminal charges came with its own complications.

For years, Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg exonerated police officers involved in fatal on-duty shootings.

However, she announced she would personally review the Boyd shooting for possible prosecution and, in January 2015, filed a criminal information charging Sandy and Perez with first-degree murder.

Brandenburg was disqualified months later, and a special prosecutor appointed, after revelations became public that Brandenburg had an appearance of a conflict of interest.

While she had the case under review, APD had been investigating her for allegedly intimidating or bribing witnesses in an unrelated criminal investigation of her son on burglary charges. The APD investigation of Brandenburg was turned over to the state Attorney General, who found no basis for prosecution.

In the two and a half years since Boyds death, the city paid his family $5 million to settle a civil wrongful death lawsuit that alleged in part there was a lack of command and control over the police officers who showed up to the scene before the shooting.

Testimony in the criminal case is expected to include that from several police experts, as well as testimony from other police officers, but the issue of Boyds criminal history isnt likely to be fully explored. District Judge Alicia Hadfield has ruled that the jury will be allowed to know solely what the defendants knew about Boyds criminal past at the time of the shooting.

Court records show that, since 1993, Boyd had been charged at least 14 times with offenses typically involving battery or violence against police or corrections officers. Several of those were dismissed because Boyd was found to be incompetent to stand trial.

He was involuntarily committed to the state mental hospital in Las Vegas at least three times.

His last felony criminal charge  for unlawful assault on a jail employee  was dismissed seven months before his death, after he was once again found incompetent to stand trial.

Healing a community

The FBI, meanwhile, announced just weeks after the 2014 shooting that it was opening a civil rights investigation into Boyds death. Last week, FBI spokesman Frank Fisher told the Journal in an email that the investigation was ongoing.

Stinson said the Justice Department typically tends to wait until state charges have been resolved before deciding whether to file federal criminal civil rights deprivation charges. Usually, that occurs if a state prosecution isnt successful.

Less than a month after the Boyd shooting, the Department of Justice released a report that found Albuquerque police had a pattern of excessive force and a culture of aggression. The city, while not admitting to the DOJs findings, entered into a settlement agreement and is putting in place a series of court-enforceable reforms aimed at correcting the problems outlined in the report.

One of those reforms calls for Albuquerque police officers to complete training so they are better equipped to deal with people who are suffering from a mental illness or are in crisis.

Stinson said bringing controversial police shootings to a public trial can heal a community that mistrusts the criminal justice process. Appointing a special prosecutor is also a good idea, he added.

Theres a demand for accountability, Stinson told the Journal . But Im OK with these cases that end in acquittals, because then the justice systems worked.
AIDA Cruises has released updated deployment spanning from March 2017 to April 2018, with a number of major adjustments.

First, the new AIDAprima will be pulled out of its year-round deployment in Hamburg at the end of 2017 in favor of the Canaries and Madeira, according to a statement. Passengers will be able to embark in Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife on a seven-day cruise program also calling in Madeira, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote.

The cruise line has also officially announced more on the new AIDAperla, which will start revenue service as the 12th member of the AIDA fleet on Sept. 1, 2017, offering four different Mediterranean itineraries. Two deployment options will leave from Palma de Mallorca and Barcelona; sailing to Corsica, Livorno and Civitavecchia in addition to Mallorca.

The other two cruise options on the new ship will feature the same ports, but also add in an overnight in Marseille.

AIDA is strengthening its AIDA Selection program, which offers exceptional cruises on its first generation of ships. These itineraries feature new regions and ports, and extensive shore excursion programs.

The AIDAcara will sail the companys first world cruise from Hamburg as part of AIDA Selection, leaving on Oct. 17, 2017, sailing 116 days to 41 ports in 23 countries.

AIDA will also follow Costa into the Indian Ocean, also under the AIDA Selection program, debuting a Mauritius, Seychelles and Madagascar cruise on the AIDAaura, also calling at Reunion Island. The ship will stay overnight in Mahe (Seychelles), Saint-Denis (Reunion) and Port Louis (Mauritius). In Madagascar, AIDAaura will call at three different ports, Nosy Be, Antsiranana and Toamasina. The port of departure is Mauritius.

AIDA cited demand in a prepared released for an expanded program in the Western Mediterranean aboard the AIDAbella, which will sail the Pearls of the Mediterranean cruise program from Palma de Mallorca and Barcelona. The ship will then head to Dubai later in the year ahead of a Southeast Asia winter, and return to Europe in time for 2018. A previous deployment to China has been delayed.
HARRISBURG, Pa.  The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection reports that conservation districts in 29 counties in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed have successfully applied to conduct farm inspections aimed at reducing agricultural runoff into local streams and rivers and the bay.

Nine conservation districts failed to meet application criteria or have declined to participate.

Conservation districts were asked to conduct certain farm inspections on the DEPs behalf, in exchange for funding to support bay technician staff.

Shifting roles

Conservation districts had previously worked with farmers and landowners on a mostly voluntary basis  and some district were concerned that doing inspections would cross the line between helping farmers and enforcing compliance.

At first, the inspections will be limited to ensuring that farmers have completed nutrient/manure management plans, and agricultural erosion and sediment control plans.

Both plans have been required in Pennsylvania since at least 1985.

Were pleased that 70 percent of the conservation districts are on board to protect the health of our local waterways and help ensure that Pennsylvania meets its federal mandate to reduce the pollutants it sends into Chesapeake Bay, said DEP Acting Secretary Patrick McDonnell, in a statement. Reducing farm runoff is key to restoring water quality both locally in Pennsylvania and in the Bay, and we hope that, in time, all of the districts will be able to participate.

Half of Pennsylvania drains into the Chesapeake Bay. In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated that Pennsylvania reduce the amount of nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment it sends into the Chesapeake Bay by 2025.

Sources include wastewater treatment systems, urban stormwater, and agricultural runoff. Bank erosion carries sediment and manure carries nitrogen and phosphorous into streams and rivers.

Inspection program

As part of Gov. Tom Wolfs Bay Reboot strategy, 10 percent of Pennsylvania farms in the Bay watershed will be inspected annually to ensure they have written plans for manure or nutrient management and erosion control.

The participating conservation districts will be inspecting 50 farms per full-time person funded in each county. The goal is to start inspections by the beginning of October.

Inspections start

DEP Regional staff have already started inspections in some of the counties that have chosen not to participate.

County conservation districts participating in the farm inspection program are: Adams, Bedford, Berks, Blair, Cambria, Centre, Chester, Clearfield, Clinton, Columbia, Cumberland, Fulton, Huntingdon, Indiana (covered in agreement with Cambria), Juniata, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lycoming, Mifflin, Montour, Potter, Schuylkill, Snyder, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Union and Wyoming.

The remaining three counties in the Chesapeake Bay watershed have such a small portion of the watershed they have not received funding for a Bay technician in the past. Farms in the Bay watershed in these counties will be covered by DEP personnel.

For more information, see the Pennsylvania Chesapeake Bay Strategy.
September 16 - Palestine Legal wrote the University of California Berkeley today (see PDF) to challenge the schools suspension of a student-led course, Ethnic Studies 198: Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis, after dozens of Israel advocacy groups and Israeli government officials complained. The courses student-facilitator, Paul Hadweh, a senior Peace and Conflicts Studies major, learned from media reports that his class was cancelled a week after the course started.

I felt like I was being censored because Im a Palestinian teaching about the history of Palestine, said Paul Hadweh, whose family is originally from Bethlehem. I felt humiliated, Berkeley didnt even have the courtesy to contact me before publicly condemning me and suspending my course.Palestine Legals letter explains that UC Berkeleys censorship based on complaints from Israel advocacy groups violated the First Amendment and principles of academic freedom. The course was approved through all the required academic channels, and was summarily suspended by a dean who lacked the expertise to make determinations about the academic value of a course. In a statement, Chancellor Dirks' office expressed concern that Hadwehs course espoused a single political viewpoint and appeared to offer a forum for political organizing.It goes without saying that a Marxism course does not include readings by Milton Friedman, and Human Trafficking doesnt have pro-trafficking perspectives -- nor should they be obligated to, said Palestine Legal staff attorney Liz Jackson. In singling out a course on Palestinian history for censorship, UC Berkeley is violating principles of academic freedom to which it is legally obligated to adhere.The letter notes other student-led courses at UC Berkeley that have not received similar scrutiny, including Copwatch: Community -Based Police Accountability, The Invisible Forces of Mass Incarceration, Film Making for Activists, Human Trafficking Prevention Education, Helping the Navajo Rebuild with Project Pueblo, and Marxism and its Discontents.This incident comes at a time of a well-documented and widespread suppression of Palestinian rights advocacy across the country. Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights documented hundreds of such incidents in a report released in 2015, "The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the U.S."In a similar incident in spring 2015, many of the same Israel advocacy organizations urged UC Riverside to cancel a student-led course titled Palestinian Voices. That same semester, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) threatened Columbia University with legal action if it allowed a teachers workshop by Professor Katherine Franke titled Citizenship and Nationality in Israel/Palestine to go forward.More recently, in New York, the state senate voted to cut $485 million dollars in funding to the City University of New York after the ZOA falsely accused Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) of anti-Semitism -- claims that were rebuked last week after a 6-month independent investigation conducted by a former federal judge and prosecutor.Palestine Legal responded to nearly 600 such incidents since January 2014, 85% of which targeted students and scholars. These tactics set a dangerous precedent and have a detrimental effect on higher education by censoring and punishing open debate and free speech, said Liz Jackson.Palestine Legal is an independent organization dedicated to protecting the civil and constitutional rights of people in the US who speak out for Palestinian freedom.Palestine Legal
Author Larry Shoup talks about his now book "Wall Streets Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976-2014" and the AFL-CIO

The CFR, Unions And US Foreign Policy: Presentation By Larry ShoupLarry Shoup, author of Rulers & Rebels: A Peoples History of Early California, 1769-1901, talks about his new book "Wall Streets Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976-2014". Shoup looks at the history of the AFL-CIO in relationship to the CFI and how this has affected US labors foreign policy.The CFI was set up by the biggest capitalists and ideologues to develop the imperial economic interests of US multi-nationals, and Shoup will examine how the AFL-CIO has been involved in this organization and what it has meant concretely for workers in the US and around the world.The AFL-CIO has taken tens of millions of dollars from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the US government for international labor work around the world. It was also been involved in supporting a military coup in Venezuela and other countries. The government funded AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, and its predecessor organizations, African-American Labor Center (AALC), American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), and Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI), were involved in setting up and supporting pro-corporate trade unions that supported privatization, deregulation and free trade, which was being pushed by the US government and US multi-nationals.While the unions here are fighting NAFTA, CAFTA, and TPP, the Democrats, Republicans and US government are pushing deregulation, privatization and free trade zones around the world.Shoup will look at the ideology of the CFR and how this continues to intersect the agenda of the AFL-CIOs international perspective. This presentation was made on July 28, 2016 in San Francisco as part of LaborFest.netAdditional media:For more information on Larry ShoupProduction of Labor Video Project
- Bishop Abraham Chris Udeh says it would be very painful if Nnamdi Kanu would be in prison to celebrate this years Christmas

- The cleric charges the UN and United States of America to rise to the occasion and mount pressure on the Nigerian government to release the Biafra leader

Bishop Abraham Chris Udeh, the general overseer of Mount Zion Faith Global Ministries Inc, aka (By Fire By Fire), has berated the international community over its silence in the continued imprisonment of the Director of Radio Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

According to Udeh, Kanu is still in prison because of the lack of interest of the international community, especially Britain in assisting the Indigenous People of Biafra gain their independence.

Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of IPOB

Speaking to The Sun, Bishop Udeh said that if the United Nations (UN) as a body, as well as America and Britain had shown interest in Kanus freedom, and had questioned the Nigerian government over his continued detention, he would have been released by now.

The cleric said that the British government was only trying to protect her economic interests in Nigeria so as not to sever her relationship with the Nigerian government.

READ ALSO: EXCLUSIVE: Nnamdi Kanu raises alarm over relatives prolonged detention

Bishop Udeh however charged the UN and United States of America to rise to the occasion and mount pressure on the Nigerian government to release Nnamdi Kanu between now and December, 2016.

He noted that it would be a very painful thing to the people of South East and South South, if Kanu would be in prison to celebrate this years Christmas.

Udeh claimed that the international community had folded their hands with the excuse that Nigeria is a sovereign nation while Nnamdi Kanu, a freedom fighter, continued to remain behind the bars for no just cause.

This comes even as he said that Fulani herdsmen had been on rampage killing and maiming people here and there with reckless abandon and have gone scot-free.

The federal government has not told us how those herdsmen acquired the AK47 and other arms and ammunition they use to attack innocent Nigerians. But only someone who talks about freedom of his people verbally, without weapons, would be thrown into jail and denied his freedom since October, 2015, he said.

Bishop Udeh's call for Nnmadi Kanu release comes hours after the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) raised an alarm over an alleged plot by the federal government to assassinate its leader, Nnamdi Kanu inside the prison custody on October 1.

The group in a statement issued by its spokespersons, Emma Nmezu and Dr. Clifford Iroanya, on Thursday, September 15, queried the federal government for abandoning its prosecution of Kanu and going for the option of his alleged assassination on Nigerias 56th independent anniversary celebration.

Source: Legit.ng
- Abubakar Shekau was conspicuously missing in Boko Haram new video on Wednesday, September 14

- Source claims he was nursing the fatal wound he recently sustained from the Nigerian Army, hence his absence

- Army claims the factional Boko Haram leader is indisposed

There are indications that Abubakar Shekau, the factional leader of Boko Haram, was clearly missing in the new video released by the insurgents group on Wednesday, September 14, because he was nursing the fatal wound he recently sustained.

According to a source, who has been following the insurgents video since 2014, Shekau might be ill, The Sun reports.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau

From all indications and from my checks, the man is ill. He was not also in the audio released by the group in the first week of August. All is not well with him, the source said.

READ ALSO: Shekau is dead - Nigerian Army

Also commenting on the observed absence of Shekau, the media coordinator of the counter-insurgency operation in the northeast, Operation Lafiya Dole, Air Commodore Dele Alonge said the video confirmed claims by the military that Shekau is indisposed.

He said: For the past one month, how many of the Boko Haram terrorists have seen either the first Shekau, second or the person cloning him? We have said earlier and we maintained that Shekau or the man cloning him is fatally wounded from our troops bombardment. That was why he wasnt in their video.

He also said the video was a mere propaganda device to sustain their terror act, adding, We wont give them space.

A new video released by Boko Haram last Wednesday showed a crowd of insurgents purportedly observing the Eid Kabir without their leader, Shekau, who the military claimed was fatally wounded during an air raid on August 19.

The insurgents in the video threatened to capture President Muhammadu Buhari.

The threat has left residents of Maiduguri warning the authorities and the military not to take the insurgents for granted. A religious leader who preferred anonymity urged the military not to view the threat as mere propaganda, noting that the terrorists group may have used the presidents name to divert the attention of the security to cause havoc somewhere.

We shouldnt treat the Boko Haram threat to capture the president alive as mere propaganda as the military want us believe. The threat should be taken seriously because of its implication. Boko Haram may be issuing the threat to direct the attention and energy of our security to the protection of the presidential villa and other senior government officials only to target vulnerable areas, the cleric said.

Since his emergence in 2009, Shekau has been declared dead by the Nigerian Army on several occasions, though it has never been solidly confirmed.

Shekau took over as leader of Boko Haram after the founder, Mohammed Yusuf, was paraded and then executed in front of a crowd by Nigerian security forces.

The Boko Haram leader has been reported killed but manages to return with video clips to show hes still alive. Under his leadership, Boko Haram has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million.

Recently, report surfaced on Tuesday, Augusts 23, that Shekau was fatally wounded during an unprecedented and spectacular air raid.

Those Boko Haram terrorists commanders confirmed dead include Abubakar Mubi, Malam Nuhu and Malam Hamman, amongst others, while their leader, the so-called Abubakar Shekau, is believed to be fatally wounded on his shoulders. Several other terrorists were also wounded, Sani Kukasheka Usman, spokesman of the army, had said.

Source: Legit.ng
- The Ijaw People Development Initiative has called on soldiers to stop destroying local refineries

- They argued that these refineries were not illegal

- The group called on the federal government to support the growth of these refineries by making them legal

The Ijaw People Development Initiative (IPDI) has sent a message to the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government to stop the destruction of local refineries in the Niger Delta region and argued that they were not illegal.

The military-led Operation Crocodile Tears in the Niger Delta region has been geared towards reducing militancy in the region and also destroying local refineries.

Vanguard reports that Austin Ozobo who is the national president of (IPDI) argued that local refineries help in controlling price and availability of petroleum and that military officials should stop destroying.

READ ALSO: Annkio Briggs says Nigerian leaders are confused

He said instead, they should be legalised and allowed to function properly.

The local refineries help in controlling price and availability of petroleum, diesel and kerosene products in the country and government should regulate, rather than destroy the technology.

It is, therefore, unfair to describe its operation illegal, what is illegal about it, no innovation is illegal, and no technology is illegal in the world. The government can regulate its operation and earn revenue from it. It is subject to improvement.

They should think of improving the robust local technology and stop destroying them. The army and navy, which destroy stolen crude or locally refined products are another set of economic saboteurs against the nation economic. They are not different from oil thieves and vandals because both efforts gear towards bleeding the nations economy.

That local refineries are not owned by government do not make them illegal. The government is sectional and lopsided, that is why they fail to see the beauty of this local technology.

Local refineries in the country complement other refineries in the country. They help in controlling price and availability of petroleum products in the country, such as petroleum, diesel and kerosene products. Nigeria government does not see the beauty of it because it is being operated by people of the most neglected Niger Delta. But it would have been welcomed if it were operated by the northerners.

Local refinery bunkering business has created thousands of jobs for interested jobless persons and young school leavers all over the Niger- Delta region and the western part of this country and had drastically reduced crime rate in the region. The activities of local refinery have reduced poverty among aborigines in these regions.

The so- called illegal refineries could be converted to Modula refineries. If the govt think it is illegal, let the govt legalize it by either issuing operational lichens or permit. It can be regulated in such a way that the operators will be buying raw crude direct from NNPC at local price.

Of what importance is the destruction of impounded stolen crude, it is unfair to destroy it, looking at its economic importance. Whether stolen or impounded, such does not reduce or devalue the crude or other locally- refined products. If the government is wise, such impounded products can be converted to assist the dying economy. Instead of burning it or wasting it, it is better to allow citizen to use it to develop themselves if the government is not being wicked.

READ ALSO: 23 feared killed as soldiers, militants engage in gun battle

The local refineries help to checkmate activities of militancy and piracies in the region as thousands of jobless persons now earn a living from it. Operators of local refineries are not oil thieves, neither pipeline vandals, they buy to refine.

They are different from oil thieves and vandals and saboteurs, who are seeking pipeline repair and surveillance contracts. Oil thieves are those, who use vessels and barges to siphon crude from pipeline and export it, these group of persons include NNPC top staff, top politicians, top army and navy officers.

Local refinery operators buy remnants or spill over from such cartels to refine. They buy to refine and do not siphon from pipelines to get their products. The government of Buhari, its military and navy should have a rethink and stop further destruction of the nations economic products.

Source: Legit.ng
- FG says it is not willing to disrupt the process of inquiry initiated by the Kaduna state government to investigate the clash between Shiite group and soldiers

- The govt says El-Zakzaky is getting all the medical attention he requires in prison

The Nigerian government on Friday, September 16, gave a reason for the continued detention of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, the leader of the Shiite Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN).

Speaking during a press briefing at the UN secretariat in New York, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said the Muhammadu Buhari administration is not willing to disrupt the process of inquiry initiated by the Kaduna state government and has decided to allow the full process of the law prevail in the case, Premium Times reports.

READ ALSO: Shi'ites promise tragedy if Zakzaky goes blind

Ibrahim El-Zakzaky is still in detention

It would be recalled that the Kaduna state government recently released the report of a panel its set up to investigate the clash which led to the massacre of over 300 members of the Shiite group by soldiers.

And according to Onyeama, the federal government would study the report before making its next move.

Government will study it, the Attorney General will look at the report and whatever measure needs to be taken will be taken, he said in New York.

However, Onyeama stated that the IMN leader was getting the required medical attention, after the Islamic cleric's lawyer confirmed public rumours that the army had damaged one of his eyes.

As a result of the brutal attack, Sheikh Zakzaky lost his left eye while doctors are currently battling to save the right one, the lawyer, Femi Falana said on April 5.

READ ALSO: Army found guilty of using excessive force against Shia group

Reacting to this, Onyeama said: He (El-Zakzaky) is getting all the medical attention he requires. This I can say with certainty."

Over 300 members of the IMN were killed between December 12 and 14 after the army accused them of blocking a major highway and plotting to kill the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai.

Hundreds of members of the sect including its leader, El-Zakzaky, and his wife, were subsequently arrested.

A Federal High Court in Abuja in July denied an application for bail by El-Zakzaky.

According to the court, El-Zakzaky and his lawyers failed to seek the leave of the court to hear the application during the vacation period.

Source: Legit.ng
- New evidence showing there was a corruption cover-up has rocked James Ibori's case

- He is expected to appeal his conviction

- The former governor was convicted of corruption-related charges

It seems Chief James Ibori is getting tired of prison life as he is set to launch fresh appeals against his conviction in London.

The former governor of Delta who had earlier escaped conviction in Nigeria was sentenced in the UK after he was found guilty of money-laundering charges alongside his associates.

READ ALSO: Twitter user claims James Ibori is in Nigeria

In a report by BBC however, it was disclosed that Scotland Yard and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) covered up evidence of police corruption regarding the Ibori case.

James Ibori is planning to appeal his conviction

Vanguard reports that Tony Eluemunor who is the head of Iboris media team said that the behaviour of the British Crown Prosecution Service was shocking.

The case demonstrates the truly shocking behaviour of the British Crown Prosecution Service.

Despite the over whelming evidence of corruption by British anti-corruption officers, it continues to prosecute James Ibori and others when it now has in its possession evidence as to the source of his funds. It is believed that Ms. Saunderss position is now untenable. As the Director of Public Prosecutions she has engineered a shocking cover-up.

In a BBC reports, it revealed that Iboris defence claimed the prosecutor had misled judges about evidence that support Iboris corruption.

The previously undisclosed material came to light after the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, demanded a review into the conviction of Nigerian politician James Ibori.

The internal investigation followed allegations by defence lawyers that prosecutors had wilfully misled judges about the existence of evidence that could support corruption claims. Now defence solicitors are being sent previously unseen documents discovered during the review.

READ ALSO: UK court speaks on Iboris conviction as fresh evidence emerged

In a statement the CPS reveals how the review team found material to support the assertion that a police officer received payment in return for information.

The review team has now concluded that this material should have been disclosed to the defence and the process of disclosure to relevant parties is under way.

Prosecutors had previously denied there was any undisclosed material to support the corruption allegations and the admission that considerable documentation exists and should have been handed over, represents an embarrassing climb-down for the CPS.

Source: Legit.ng
Editor's note: In this piece, Okanga Agila from Benue state writes about the recent plagiarism incident over President Muhammadu Buhari's "change begins with me" campaign speech.

Agila also writes on the need of positive reports on incidents happening in Nigeria.

Mamman Daura

It is in human nature to seek benefits even from disasters, which explains why owners of funeral homes see profits to be made from deaths that leave the bereaved mournful.

It is consequently not out of place for Sahara Reporters, an online content platform, to attempt making gains from the plagiarism mishap experienced by the presidency. Such moves is consistent with the scavenging tendencies of Sahara Reporters, whose owners wrongly perceive as the alpha predator in the mudslinging business.

The gain Sahara Reporters seek to derive from the unfortunate incidence is nauseous. It is revolting not because the platform is again disparaging the presidency.

That is to be expected from an entity whose sole joy is to depict Nigeria as an irredeemable case and has made it a standing policy to denigrate our nationhood.

READ ALSO: Plagiarism: Read how much Buharis speech writer earns

Its latest gain seeking outing is revolting for the very fact that it sunken lower than human expectations can envisage to sustain its attack on Mallam Mamman Daura.

To the unsuspecting reader, SR presented myth that was made to read like an exclusive story. The tell tale signs that it is delivering a hatchet job is its inability to hide its disdain by branding Daura as President Muhammadu Buharis nephew before creating the impression that he does the job for which civil servants and political appointees are drawing salaries.

In advancing this falsehood, the goons behind SR omitted to mention that Mamman Daura, in addition to being related to Nigerias number one citizens happens to be a human with the requisite intellect to contribute to national growth.

The attack on this gentleman is not a one off. The SRs servers are replete with cooked up fables about Daura to the extent that all they have written about him will make a bound volume if printed in hard copies.

Yet not one page of all they have ever published about him hold one paragraph of truth that is not tainted by the bile of hatred or coloured with the greed arising from paid character assassination on the part of those churning out this garbage.

Apparently they did not read the lies put out by their affiliate publications, probably bankrolled by the same client, which claimed Daura has been sent packing out of the Presidential Villa.

READ ALSO: Controversy: Fayose deals Buhari dirty blow

Had they been up to date with the hatchet jobs their other colleagues were doing they would have perhaps been able to advise their client that this latest report should have been deferred to a later time while the country deals with the more pressing issues impacting the populace.

But these are not people who care what the global economic contagion is doing to other Nigerians. All that is of concern to them is to collect their mess of pottage, malign whosoever they have paid to malign and wait for the next order for a dirty job.

If SR is truly interested in reporting to make Nigeria a better place as it want to claim then it should focus on the real issues and leave individuals alone. Its attacks on Daura has nothing in them geared towards engendering good governance.

Instead it is part of a larger scheme to harass President Buharis government into succumbing to what is now its blackmail of successive governments. The pattern has been consistent.

SR demonizes a sitting government to arm twist its officials for money and tunes down its attacks once some of them pay up. It then revives its attacks once there is delay in agreed scheduled payment.

The rabidity with which the Buhari administrations officials are being vilified suggests no one has agreed to play along in this government in line with the change agenda. By now, citizens are beginning to see through the tricks of SR.

READ ALSO: Buhari moves to clip wings of his kinsman causing him trouble in Aso Rock

In case someone thinks Nigerians are not awake to the trick at play here, it is fast becoming stuff that the average right thinking person on the street knows.

That is how a certain online publisher who has his address abroad sneaks into the country at regular intervals for the schedule collections for job done and the ones to be done.

To those who know, the scheme SR is implementing becomes more frightening when one realize that it has funding that is connected to neocon entities that would like to see Nigeria become a failed state.

The knowledge of this should get the many Nigerians who swear by SRs lies to reassess what they believe in and how much of their decisions they based on falsehood.

This is because if Sahara Reporter is allowed to cause trouble in Nigeria its publisher would simply seat back and enjoy his loot in the United States while those it incited remain here in Nigeria to face the fallout of their gullibility.

As the slush funds that used to flow to the guys at SR dry up with the change agenda to hold, Nigerians should be prepared to see a desperate platform that would become increasingly rabid in its mudslinging. It will target not just President Buhari but also his family members and administration officials. What will serve Nigerians best is not to go mad with this rabble rousing outlet.

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Source: Legit.ng
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has defied the more careful statements of NYC mayor Bill de Blasio, calling the bombing in Manhattan an act of terrorism, while also stating that there did not appear to be any evidence that it was linked to any international group like ISIS.

.@NYGovCuomo: No link to international terrorism, but a bomb exploding in NY is obviously an act of terrorism https://t.co/smb1zdp0xR  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 18, 2016

A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but its not linked to international terrorism. In other words, we find no ISIS connection, et cetera, said Cuomo.

We have no reason to believe at this time that there is any further immediate threat, he continued.

The bomb exploded in a dumpster outside the Townhouse Inn in Chelsea, at around 8:30pm on Saturday. 29 people were wounded in the explosion  at least one seriously  but all are expected to make a recovery.

The New York Post today reports, courtesy of apparent sources in the New York law enforcement community, that a 911 call was placed at the time of the bombing by an unidentified male who promised further explosions. Im looking at the explosion down the block. There will be more, the caller reportedly said.

A second bomb  in the form of a crude device fashioned from a pressure cooker  was found on 27th Street, but it was dealt with by a bomb squad and did not detonate.

Malcolm Turnbull, who is in New York City, spoke to reporters in Central Park and praised the resolve of New Yorkers. We dont know what the motivations were, Turnbull said.

But it was clearly a deliberate explosion.

The one thing we cant do is let people who seek to do us harm, whatever their motivations may be, to coward us. We defy them by going about our lives in the normal way.

Source: News.com.au.

Photo: Getty Images.
By: Scholars American International School

Contact

Dimple Menezes,

Yardstick Marketing

dimple@yardstick- marketing.com Dimple Menezes,Yardstick Marketing

End

-- - Scholars American International School (SAIS) provides an American-based curriculum within the framework of traditional Islamic values- The school will start its first year in Abu Dhabi in September 2016.- The school offers an environment to learn and grow, with a multicultural staff with vast experiences- Admissions forms for KG1 to Grade Six are available at the school: Sharjah American International School (SAIS) Group announces operations of its fourth school,, in Abu Dhabi. The staff consists of highly trained educators with considerable experience in education, including a social worker and Special Education teacher. The teachers hail from diverse nationalities and cultural backgrounds, and are an excellent mix to provide a Western education balanced within local traditions. The school will start its first year in Abu Dhabi in September 2016.Established in 1997, SAIS has a reputation of providing quality education in Sharjah, Dubai and Umm Al Quwain. In Abu Dhabi, with an aim to continue providing academic excellence throughout the region, the school will support an inclusive learning environment to mold students of all ability levels to embrace the dynamic trends of the 21century and beyond.Commenting on the launchsaid,We are extremely pleased on the new launch. In today's culture, it is imperative that values are instilled at the foundation level, in order to prepare future adults for working together to achieve cultural understanding and peace. Our aspiration is to create an open, collaborative school community that fosters the growth of responsible, confident, and productive, critical thinkers, who are concerned about the issues within their local communities and throughout society and are able and willing to respond to different challenges.said,The UAE is a melting pot of varied cultures, so we have ensured, our teaching staff represent varied cultures and have extensive experience. SAIS prides itself in providing a Western education within a context that respects local traditions. Our new campus in Abu Dhabi is designed in a way that encourages students to learn and actively participate in extracurricular activities that we believe are essential for every child's developmentThe bright new campus is fully equipped with activity rooms, libraries, state-of-the-art laboratories, gyms, swimming pools, and outdoor play areas along with art and music rooms and medical clinics. The subjects offered include Art, Music, and Physical Education, along with a full core of MOE subjects (Arabic, Islamic and Social Studies) and an American core of English, Math, Science, and Social Studies.Contact Details for Admissions: 02 5861222 or 0562227758Established in 1997, Sharjah American International School, founded by Dr. Aysha Ali Bin Sayyar and Dr. Nawaf Mohamed Fawaz, provides an American-based curriculum within the framework of traditional Islamic values. The primary purpose of the schools is to develop responsible and well-rounded multilingual students who will be able to meet the global challenges of the 21century with confidence and excellence. SAIS has campuses in Sharjah (1997), Dubai (2005), Umm Al Quwain (2014) and Abu Dhabi (2016).
By: Vision Strike Wear

Contact

Vision Strike Wear

***@vision-strike- wear.com Vision Strike Wear

End

-- Celebrate the distinguished history of the United States Air Force in style. Vision Strike Wear is releasing newly designed custome coins and t-shirts to honor this great service and its members. Whether you are currently active, an Air Force veteran, or just want to give some love to someone you know these coins and t-shirts make a great gift and turn heads.Each t-shirt has been designed to stand out and make people take notice. The quality is second to none as all of our shirts are Made in the USA. We want to bring American made and designed products to our site, and support American businesses while also honoring our vets and the services.One of our newest coinsis the Air Force Pararescue coin. This coin is 2 inches in length and completely stunning. It brandishes the phrase "That others may live" on both sides of the coin. This phrase is an excerpt from the PJ creed from the PJ creed of:"It is my duty as a Pararescueman to save life and to aid the injured. I will be prepared at all times to perform my assigned duties quickly and efficiently, placing these duties before personal desires and comforts. These things we (I) do, that others may live"We hope that you appreciate these designs and products as much as we appreciate the members who serve in our Air Force.Thank you for your consideration.
The CEO of Wesgro, Tim Harris, UCLG-A's Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi are heading up an exciting line-up of headline experts from around Africa that will address the African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit in Cape Town in November.

By: African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit

African cities to connect with developers, investors and planners

Media Contact

African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit

annemarie.roodbol@ spintelligent.com

+27217003558 African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit+27217003558

End

-- The CEO of Wesgro, Tim Harris, the Executive Director of Kampala's Capital City Authority, Dr Jennifer Musisi, the UCLG-A Secretary General, Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, and Business Botswana Director Lekwalo Mosienyane are heading up an exciting line-up of headline experts from around Africa that will address the African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit in Cape Town from 2-3 November 2016.*UCLG-A: United Cities and Local Governments of AfricaThe African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit will gather the full spectrum of the continent's real estate sector and will assist African cities and governments to secure international investment for commercial real estate development and infrastructure projects that will contribute to Urban Development Plans (UDPs).Summit programme highlights include: Opening keynote: "Developing the Future of African Cities"Africa's population of roughly 1.1 billion is expected to double by 2050.Keynote speakers :Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, Secretary General UCLG-A, MoroccoNana Kwame Bediako, President, Founder & CEO, Petronia, Ghana*Lekwalo Mosienyane, Director, Mosienyane and Partners Int. & President, Business Botswana, Botswana "Future Cities revealed  Urban Development Plans"Some of the continent's leading cities, including Lusaka, Kigali, Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, have been invited to showcase their UDPs in a discussion format. This will allow for delegates and exhibitors to understand the future plans of developing cities and build business relationships with key city officials including: city managers, city mayors, city council members, town planners, town clerks, district officials and city and finance directors amongst others. Africa's finest: A review of successful city development projects- Building a new face for Kampala  A case study of how good governance, improved city revenue collection and service delivery are transforming Kampala into a vibrant, attractive and sustainable city.Speaker: Dr Jennifer Musisi, Executive Director, Kampala, Capital City Authority, Uganda- Kigali developments  A case study on master planning work in Kigali for a significant new residential/mixed use developmentSpeaker: Guy Briggs, Director/ Head of Urban Design, dhk, South Africa- What makes an $800-billion project in Africa: Modernising Luanda  the international award winning General Master Plan for Luanda City (2030 Luanda Plan) outlines the sustainable transformation and development plans. How intelligent city planning can bring about real improvements in the lives of Angolan citizens.Speakers:Eng. Neusa Ingles,Project Manager, Urbinveste, AngolaPhil Bonds, Director of Urban Design, Broadway Malyan, United KingdomEng. Jose Miranda, Regional Director Africa, Aurecon, South Africa "The Western Cape: The new hub for local and international investment"Cape Town is fast becoming a destination of choice for foreign investors looking to expand their operations in Africa. How the market is shaping towards international investment and which opportunities are available.Speaker: Tim Harris, CEO, Wesgro, South Africa "Making African cities of tomorrow inclusive"More than half the world's population now live in cities, and this proportion will continue to increase rapidly to reach 70% by 2050. How cities are created that are inclusive of all those who live in them through their design, layout, technological innovations and social impact.Speakers:- Albert Smuts, Director, Fieldworks Design Group, South Africa- Mokena Makeka, Founder & Principal, Makeka Design Lab, South Africa- Kecia Rust, Director & Founder, Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa / Secretariat to the African Union for Housing Finance, UN Habitat, South Africa- Vanessa Watson, Professor of City and Regional Planning, School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics, University of Cape Town, South Africa- Amine Turki, Secretary General, Africa Union of Architects, Tunisia- Moderated by: Tim Harris, CEO, WesgroThe African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit is organised by Spintelligent, leading Cape Town-based trade exhibition and conference organiser, and the African office of Clarion Events Ltd, based in the UK.Spintelligent is well known for organising exhibitions and conferences across the continent in the infrastructure, energy, mining, agriculture and education sectors. Longstanding flagship events by Spintelligent include African Utility Week, East African Power Industry Convention (EAPIC), West African Power Industry Convention (WAPIC), Agritech Expo, DRC Mining Week and EduWeek.UCLG AfricaThe UCLG Africa is the patron of the upcoming African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit in Cape Town. The UCLG AFRICA is the umbrella organisation and the united voice and representative of local government in Africa. It is an institution that gathers 40 national associations of local governments from all regions of Africa as well as the 2000 cities that have more than 100.000 inhabitants. Therefore UCLG AFRICA represents nearly 350 million Africans citizens.Dates for African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit 2016:Showcase and conference: 2-3 November 2016Location: CTICC, Cape Town, South AfricaWebsite: http://www.african- real-estate- summit.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ ARES_Summit Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8518271Media contact:Senior communications manager: Annemarie RoodbolTelephone: +27 21 700 3558Mobile: +27 82 562 7844Email: annemarie.roodbol@spintelligent.com
A wrongfully-accused man learns what he's truly capable of in "On the Run"

Contact

Izai Amorim

***@izaiamorim.com Izai Amorim

End

-- Izai Amorim's upcoming novel,, offers an intriguing look into conflicting worlds: rich and poor, North and Latin America, rational and esoteric, and how these worlds mix, match and clash.Pablo is a young, educated, rich man in New York City who sees his entire life turn around when he's accused of crimes he didn't commit. Desperate to survive, he embraces the very drug trade that threatened his life in the first place. As he adapts to this new world, he needs to create a new identity, and he starts to wonder who he truly is, and what he's capable of.In a voice that is sometimes funny, sometimes mean and merciless, Pablo tells his story in On The Run: the story of his life, and of his journey to self-discovery.will be published on Tuesday, September 20. Review copies are still available at Netgalley, where it has received glowing reviews."Very interesting read. Pablo is an intriguing character. He is not as merciless as the description gives him. It is an unbelievable tale; but I enjoyed reading it."Barbara C., Educator - United States"Not my usual kind of book but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The characters are interesting and I liked the writing style. Will keep an eye out more books from this author."Vicki J., Reviewer - United Kingdom"The book is well researched, hilarious and thrilling... Highly recommended reading! I would highly recommend the book for thriller seekers and also those wanting a good laugh."Lata S., Reviewer - India"Amorim's writing style is unlike anything I have ever encountered previously."Zoie C., Reviewer - United States"Did love the read. Read it in a day. The writing keeps you wanting more..."William K., Reviewer - United Kingdom"This novel is unusual, deviating from other books of similar nature... I consider this book to show political satire, philosophical reasoning which is questionable at times. I did enjoy this book, and would recommend it. Keep an open mind when reading."Linda Z., Reviewer - United StatesReview copies can be requested here:Izai Amorim has great interest in the interplay of media, information and politics in a globalized world, and the quest for identity and borders in a worldwide cultural melting pot. He was born and raised in Brazil, but spent most of his adult life abroad, briefly in the USA, mostly in Germany.
Hardly a few weeks after the high profile high speed crash of Mercedes G 63 AMG which resulted in the death of two, comes yet another shocking incident. The latest accident took place in Madurai.

As per eye witness, the car was being driven by a probably customer who had just taken the car from a Nexa showroom in Madurai for a test drive. Apparently the driver of the car was driving at high speed, which resulted in him losing control of the car.

Once out of control, the car thrashed into a tree on the side of the road. The impact of this was such that the car got split into two parts. Sadly, two people inside the car died on the spot in this mishap. The Nexa executive, who was sitting in the rear seat, has survived. He is currently battling for life in a hospital.

Watch the video of the aftermath below.

This is not the first time a high speed crash has resulted in the death of occupants. A few months ago, 6 college students all aged between 18-24 were killed when their car crashed at high speed.

The students were apparently returning from Mumbai, in the early hours of the morning when the driver lost control causing the Maruti Suzuki Ciaz in which they were travelling to turn turtle. The accident took place on the Mumbai  Pune expressway.

The 6 youngsters have been identified as Aditya Deepak Bhandarkar (18), of Bavdhan in Pune, Abhishek Arunkumar Roy (21), of Pashan, Yash Ajay Shirali (18) of Bavdhan, Akshay Dattatray Bhilare (20), of Kothrud, Jokim John Samuel (19), of Punawale in Mulshi and Umesh Girish Patil (24), of Kothrud.

The accident took place at Kamshet while initial examination of the vehicle found traces of color from another vehicle indicating that the Ciaz grazed past another vehicle, got out of control and somersaulted a few times before coming to a halt.

Five of the six occupants were declared dead when they were shifted to a health center while the sixth person was shifted to Lokmanya Hospital in Nigdi where he succumbed to his injuries. Investigations into the cause of the accident do not point to any of the 6 occupants being under the influence of alcohol or any narcotic substance.

Accidents across the Mumbai-Pune Expressway have been increasing in frequency. It is noted that a large percentage of these accidents occur in the early hours of the morning when drivers tend to be drowsy or when visibility is low.

A proposal for speed regulations during the night is in the offing. Time taken to travel between two toll booths will be ascertained and if time taken is less than that prescribed, the drivers will be fined heavily. More rumblers along the route to keep drivers awake, parking bays and refreshment centers are also being planned.
<p>YouTube</p>

In June, Canada mourned the loss of fallen Mountie Dave Ross, who was gunned down in a standoff alongside two of his colleagues. But no one mourned the loss quite like Ross's service dog, Danny, a German Shepherd who stood by the RCMP officer's side during his time on the force. Photos from the state funeral show Danny standing anxiously next to Ross's casket, where he reportedly sat whimpering throughout the service.

Dodo Shows Faith = Restored Rescued Wild Horse Loves To Play With A Little Donkey

The Canadian Press The German Shepherd's grief is not only real and deep, but also matched by numerous other dogs around the world who -- like us -- never fully recover from the loss of a loved one. Here are the stories of five other devoted, mournful dogs, who have paid heart-wrenching homages to their deceased owners. 1) Hachiko

Wikimedia Commons A national icon in Japan, Hachiko was an Akita who would wait to greet his owner after work at the same spot near the local train station. When Hachiko's owner died suddenly and failed to show up at the train one day, the Akita was distraught. But, even in his grief, Hachiko kept returning to his spot near the train station day after day -- for nine years, until his death in 1935. 2) Capitan

La Voz In 2005, Miguel Guzman decided to get a pet for his son, a German Shepherd named Capitan. Although Capitan might have been meant for Damian, he quickly took to Guzman. When Guzman died suddenly the following year, Capitan disappeared shortly after... and turned up at the cemetery where Guzman had been buried, lying atop his dead owner's grave and whimpering. Capitan refused to come home lives at the cemetery full time. 3) Hawkeye

Like Danny, a Labrador retriever named Hawkeye lost his owner to service in 2011 and couldn't quite keep it together during the funeral. When 1,500 mourners met to bid farewell to Navy Seal Jon Tumilson, the soldier's despairing dog stood out among the crowd, dropping to the ground with a sigh during the eulogies. Photos and reports show Hawkeye laying defeated next to Tuilson's casket for the remainder of the funeral service. 4) Leao

One of the most haunting images to come out of the tragic flooding that devastated Rio de Janeiro in 2011, the photo of a clay-colored dog resting next to a freshly sealed grave put a face to the country's distress. Leao, a mixed-breed puppy, held a one-dog, multi-day vigil for his owner, Cristina Maria Cesario Santana, one of an estimated 900 people that died during the floods.

5) Spot
CALGARYThe company that runs the Air Miles loyalty rewards program is the target of a proposed class-action lawsuit.

A statement of claim filed with the Court of Queens Bench this week alleges LoyaltyOne Co. made unfair and unilateral changes to the programs terms and conditions, including that miles racked up before Dec. 31, 2011, expire at the end of this year and miles collected after that are to expire five years after they are earned.

The proposed suit, which has not been certified, claims users were not given adequate notice of the changes and that the company has made it difficult for miles to be redeemed before their expiry.

The net result is that Air Miles conduct will result in a large number of the class members miles expiring, resulting in a significant loss to the class, and a corresponding large windfall for Air Miles, the claim states.

Air Miles are earned by shopping at participating retailers and are meant to be exchanged for flights and other rewards. The suit estimates 10 million Canadian households belong to the program.

The representative plaintiff in the case is David Helm, a Red Deer, Alta., man who had been saving up miles since 1990 for a dream trip to the South Pacific that he otherwise could not afford.

The statement of claim says Helm found out about his Air Miles impending expiry from a neighbour in 2014.

As a result of the expiry of his miles, Mr. Helm realized he would not be able to earn enough miles in time for his dream vacation, despite the fact he had been earning them for many years.

The statement of claim says users wanting to redeem points before they expire have had problems doing so because of unduly long wait times on the phone. As well, it says the website displayed reward items users did not have enough miles to purchase, but not those that were within reach.

The amount of miles required for an item seems to be escalating so that theyre always close but not quite there, said Andrew Wilson, a partner at JSS Barristers, the Calgary law firm handling the proposed class action.

They go out and get further miles and then when they come back in to get the same item, it has gone up yet again, requiring them to go out and get even more miles.

Should the case be successful, Wilson said LoyaltyOne should reinstate expired miles.

Failing that, some form of monetary compensation for the lost miles and perhaps some form of monetary compensation for the annoyance that program members have faced when attempting to redeem their miles over the past six months or so, he said.

LoyaltyOne did not immediately respond to an interview request.

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Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. sued Netflix Inc., claiming the internet movie and TV service poached its employees.

Netflix, in an emailed response, challenged the legality of Foxs employment contracts and said it will defend it actions.

The suit, filed Friday in Los Angeles by two units of 21st Century Fox Inc., alleges the Los Gatos, California-based streaming company illegally induced several executives to breach fixed-term employment contracts. Fox highlighted the departure of two officials in promotions and creative businesses for jobs at Netflix.

We filed this lawsuit because we believe Netflix is defiantly flouting the law by soliciting and inducing employees to break their contracts, Fox said in a statement. We intend to seek all available remedies to enforce our rights and hold Netflix accountable for its wrongful behaviour.

Netflix said it plans to fight the lawsuit vigorously.

We do not believe Foxs use of fixed-term employment contracts in this manner is enforceable, the company said. We believe in employee mobility and will fight for the right to hire great colleagues no matter where they work.

Netflix Budget

Hollywood has a love-hate relationship with Netflix, owner of the most popular paid online TV network in the world. The company has contributed to the erosion in viewership of live television with its on-demand service. Yet media companies happily sell shows to Netflix, which spends billions of dollars a year licensing programs and movies from companies like Fox.

In July, Fox sold Netflix exclusive rights to its hit show American Crime Story, a drama about the downfall of O.J. Simpson, as part of their first global licensing deal. Netflix said at the end of June it will spend more than $5 billion (U.S.) on programming in the coming year and has more than $13 billion in total content obligations.

While Californias courts favour letting employees move freely, the right to defect from one company to another depends on specific contractual provisions.

Fixed-term contracts are generally enforceable under California law as opposed to non-compete clauses that take effect after an employee has already left, said Devin McRae, a litigator with Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP in Los Angeles.

Still, McRae pointed to what he called a conspicuous lack of detail in Foxs complaint about how Netflix knew that the two Fox executives had a fixed-term contract or how it might have induced them to break their contracts.

It appears that the plaintiff didnt really know what happened, McRae said in a telephone interview. Was it really Netflix that caused them to leave or were they going to leave anyway?

One of the employees cited in Fridays complaint allegedly agreed to serve as Foxs vice president of promotions for a two-year period starting in January 2015 under a contract that gave the company the right to extend the term another two years. Instead, after Netflix induced him to breach his contract, he told Fox in November 2015 that he was leaving for Netflix. Fox sued him in Los Angeles in February, claiming he broke his contract.

The case against Netflix is Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. v. Netflix Inc., SC12643, California Superior Court, Los Angeles County (Los Angeles).

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Ontario should lift the veil of secrecy from its new autism advisory panel so policy decisions affecting children are transparent and openly debated, an autism advocacy group says.

In a letter, the Ontario Autism Coalition asked Childrens Minister Michael Coteau to waive confidentiality agreements it says will muzzle panel members and limit their ability to hold the government to account.

Its time to restore some trust between the government and the autism community by permitting a full and open discussion about how we help kids with autism in Ontario, said the letter sent late last week.

The newly launched Ontario autism program advisory committee includes parents, educators and experts. It was set up this summer to oversee rollout of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services new autism plan. Coalition president Bruce McIntosh of Thornhill, who has two teenagers on the autism spectrum, is among its 16 members.

The groups letter to Coteau came in the wake of a Star story that revealed that a different ministry panel  a committee of clinical experts on autism appointed in 2012  stayed publicly silent about its serious reservations regarding the revised autism program announced last March.

The program sparked an immediate uproar because the plan was to reduce long wait times for treatment by making children aged 5 and older no longer eligible for intensive behavioural intervention (IBI). The move affected 3,500 children on wait-lists or in treatment, many of whom had waited years to get it.

In a letter to Coteaus predecessor, Tracy MacCharles, three weeks after the age cap was announced, the expert committee cautioned the move would be detrimental to vulnerable children.

The three-page letter, dated April 18, was obtained by the Star under freedom of information legislation, along with other email correspondence between the committee and the ministry in the two-month period following the announcement.

When contacted by the Star last week, some committee members declined to comment, citing the confidentiality agreements. Others referred questions to panel chair Susan Honeyman and vice-chair Dr. Wendy Roberts, who also refused requests, saying they were bound by the agreements.

The Ontario Autism Coalition says secrecy imposed by such agreements is troubling, especially for families plagued by uncertainty and wary of government promises.

Last spring, McIntosh was at the forefront of grassroots protests against the age cut-off. He played a role in the ministrys decision to amend its plans last June, when Coteau took over the childrens services portfolio in a cabinet shuffle and announced that there would be funding for kids taken off wait-lists to cover the costs of a years treatment. He also accelerated the program rollout, vowing services would be in place by 2017.

The new advisory panel McIntosh sits on is one of the few formal avenues for families to have their voices heard. The coalition also includes people on the autism spectrum and professionals in the field. It relies on regular input from a group of 50 young adults with the condition and has also been pushing for people with autism to be included in government advisory roles.

But to join the panel, members had to sign confidentiality agreements that prohibit them from directly or indirectly engaging in public commentary on the panels undertakings without explicit written consent from the ministry. The agreements also stipulate that any requests for public comment should be deferred to the ministry.

McIntosh says he signed in June despite his own reservations and objections from other parents, who worried it was going to be a muzzle and limit my effectiveness.

After the Star story last week, he and coalition colleagues had a change of heart, fearing the restrictions would rob them of the ability to speak up on key issues and ensure that their opinions are accurately interpreted and portrayed to the public.

Our nervousness has now turned to very justified worry and anger, the coalition wrote in its letter to Coteau.

Those concerns are legitimate, says Amir Attaran, a professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa.

Good for them, he said, after hearing about the coalitions stance on what he calls overzealous restraints imposed by confidentiality agreements.

Attaran, who has been uninvited from panels after crossing out selected phrases in such agreements before signing, calls it grotesquely inappropriate for governments to try to prevent panel members from publicly sharing their personal views.

Dissent is an important part of decision-making and should be an open part of the process, he says.

While restricting members from sharing proprietorial information or input from others is appropriate, deliberations and opinions belong to the people doing the deliberating and (expressing of) opinions, he said.

How dare the ministry suppress that?

In an emailed statement, the childrens ministry said confidentiality agreements are common for advisory panels, so that individual members feel they can provide open and honest input as part of their work.

The ministry does not stand in the way of CEC (clinical expert committee) members speaking to the media, it said.

However, multiple emails sent to committee members from ministry staff last spring before and after the autism program was announced  and obtained in the freedom of information request  stress that questions from the media should be redirected to the ministry.

The ministry says the expert committee was one of many groups that helped shape its new autism plan. The experts mandate is to advise the government on evidence-based research and clinical practice, though it doesnt play a direct role in policy or funding decisions.

In announcing the autism program last March, the Liberals cited the panel and a report it completed in 2013 that mapped out what a complete continuum of services could look like for children from infancy through the school years. That report was simultaneously released on the ministry website.

In the ensuing weeks of criticism and rallies at Queens Park, the Liberals continued to defend the plan and reference its expert panel, even after the groups April 18 letter stated the new program was not in keeping with the (2013) report recommendations as a whole.

The letter from the eight panel members also said:

The autism program was initiated prematurely, without sufficient consultation and should have been developed and tested first.

While IBI is most effective for children ages 2 to 5, there is no evidence it is ineffective for children older than 5.

Redirecting IBI to younger ages should only happen once ample services are in place for kids over 5, including robust school supports and an enhanced and scientifically evaluated applied behaviour analysis (ABA) program. But the plan as outlined falls short of meeting the needs of those children.

Because panel members will not comment, their views on changes announced by Coteau in June are unclear. Many parents, however, worry the new program will not meet their childrens needs.

On May 17, deputy premier Deb Matthews was among cabinet ministers continuing to defend the program in the legislature. Responding to an opposition question, she read aloud an endorsement from a March 29 ministry press release attributed to Dr. Wendy Roberts, a developmental pediatrician, autism researcher at Sick Kids and clinical expert committee member.

In an email Roberts sent to two ministry officials the following day, she wrote, I am very concerned about the ongoing reaction to the reference to my name in the house and misrepresentation of my perspective as I learned the details of the (autism program) rollout.

Two days later, Roberts asked in another email, is there a lag in having my endorsement and my name in news releases being removed from the MCYS (ministry) website?

Roberts did not respond to the Stars requests for comment on the emails.

Her endorsement no longer appears on the ministrys website.

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This story is not about me, said Gretta Vosper, the self-described atheist and United Church of Canada minister, as she pointed to rows of empty chairs that had just been packed by a small crowd, seemingly all who had been sitting there to support her.

This story is about that group of people, because clergy who dont believe are all over the place, they just dont have a community that allows them to speak honestly about their beliefs.

At Thursdays hearing in Toronto, Vosper, members of her congregation  West Hill United  as well as her supporters in the United Churchs Toronto Southeast Presbytery had a chance to respond to a report released last week by a review committee. The committee deemed that Vosper was not suitable to keep her job because she doesnt believe in God and should be defrocked.

Now, taking into account the feedback given at the hearing at their offices, a United Church Toronto Conference sub-executive committee is deciding what to do about the recommendations that report made  including bringing the matter to a formal hearing to determine if Vosper should be put on a disciplinary Discontinued Service List.

But the idea of doing that and the process that has led to addressing this question has drawn criticism from many involved.

An online petition is circulating urging that the reports recommendations be rejected. It criticizes the report for expressing dissent, failing to consult more broadly and suggests that Vosper and her beliefs be addressed as a matter for dialogue and not a matter for discipline.

By Thursday evening, it had more than 750 signatures.

Speaking at the meeting, Randy Bowes, chair of the West Hill United Church board, asked that Vosper be recognized as an effective minister. He presented testimony from churchgoers who felt strongly that she had made a strong and positive impact on their lives.

Bowes says that regardless of the decision that gets made, he hopes that West Hill and Vosper have been able to start a discussion that continues on.

I hope that the United Church gets stronger from this and that this does not become too divisive and administrative, he said.

To the surprise of Vosper and her lawyer, the Toronto Southeast Presbytery executive came out in support of the recommendations.

Part of the reason this seems so weird is that typically when reviewing a minister it is because the minister has been accused of engaging in some kind of bad behaviour, said Martha ter Kuile, the past chair of the Toronto Southeast Presbytery.

Thats never been the question here. . . . We are trying to follow a process that has been specified but this is absolutely a precedent.

Julian Falconer, Vospers lawyer, says the scope of the issue goes far beyond his client. Its the essence of the United Church and how big the tent is. Thats not a trial about a person  those are bigger ideas, he said.

Rev. David Allen, executive secretary of the Toronto Conference, said Thursdays meeting was respectful, and that what was raised there will influence the discussions and decision expected to follow.

We believe that the process has been fair all along, he said. But we certainly have heard the criticism and so that will be something we will take into the deliberations.

A decision was expected in the coming days.

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Believing in un-believing.

Oh Lord, its come to this for the United Church.

There is no God. Wait, what?

So Gretta Vosper, popular minister at West Hill United in Toronto, should not be defrocked as a self-described atheist. Wait, what?

Churches are ipso facto in the God business. To deny Gods existence logically means youre in the wrong business. Like Bill Gates swearing on a stack of handwritten computer code. Or Alcoholics Anonymous hosting a pub crawl.

Its always dicey, commenting on the closed-shop of religious observation outside ones own creed. But surely the bottom-line of faith leadership is keeping the faith. Unless the United Church has come to stand for nothing at all: The Church of Do Your Own Thing.

Growing up in a Catholic family  except for a Seventh Day Adventist great-aunt whose preaching I abided because she always came over bearing gifts, games and jigsaw puzzles  I rather envied United Church congregants. It was a church that seemed to find very little sinful in a doctrinaire way. That struck me as preferable to no-meat-on-Friday and weekly confession (Bless me father and these are my sins: pinched my baby brother, put only half my money in the collection plate, said s--t ) and guardian angels that fled in shame if I wanted to sleep in the nude on hot summer nights. Though even at a young age I suspected some of these Commandments were just my mom making up dumb stuff. Finish your vegetables  its a sin to leave food on the plate. Go put on an undershirt  its a sin to show your nipples. Take that cat back where you got it from  its a sin to bring stray animals into the house.

Protestants didnt believe in the Virgin Mary and that was just about the worst sin of all.

The United Church, to me, was English Canada. As indeed it was the largest Protestant denomination in the country. And it was so easy; demanded almost nothing of its adherents. Abortion was OK, gay was OK, divorce was OK, female ordination was OK, eventually same-sex marriage was OK. Really quite ahead of the curve, progressive and inclusive. Ministered to U.S. draft dodgers during the Vietnam War. Not so warm and fuzzy about Israel, however, just last year passing a resolution at its 42nd general council encouraging divestment, and earlier this year opposing a House of Commons motion to reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement so dear to the WERE NOT ANTI-SEMITIC anti-Israel crowd.

A proudly activist big-tent church. Although smaller and smaller tents are required for the shrinking number of churchgoers, as membership has dropped off from 1.1 million in 1962 to well under half a million according to most recent statistics. Of course, church attendance across the religious board has dropped off everywhere.

Even Mother Teresa  elevated to sainthood by Pope Francis a couple of weeks ago  struggled with doubt, convicting emptiness through much of her life, as revealed in a compilation of private letters and musings published in 2007. But Vosper is absolute in her conviction that there is no supernatural God. Which is, when so forthrightly and publicly expressed, singularly unacceptable for an ordained minister, as  in a split decision  the churchs Toronto Conference Review Committee concluded in a 39-page report released last week, recommending that Vosper be kicked off her pulpit.

She is not suitable to continue in ordained ministry because she does not believe in God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit, the report states. Ms. Vosper does not recognize the primacy of scripture, she will not conduct the sacraments, and she is no longer in essential agreement with the state of doctrine of the United Church of Canada.

Scripture and sacraments are the glue that holds a shared-faith belief system together. Vospers rejection of the churchs central tenets  an extremist anti-orthodoxy  puts her well outside the minimum required of her ministry. And maybe shes right when she told Metro Morning on Friday, the United Church has always been about ethos, it has not been about belief.

Thats the United Church that many people have been drawn to.

Like I said, a church of easy, undemanding theology. The nicely-nicely church. But heresy is a diversity too far, even for so broadly accommodating canons.

Vospers resolution position must have traction within the congregation she leads, as many spoke in her defence at a Thursday meeting, churchgoers arguing that shed made a strong and positive impact on their lives. An online petition steadily gathering signatures urges repudiation of the reports recommendations  including that the matter be brought before a formal hearing to decide whether Vosper should be placed on a disciplinary Discontinued Service List. It will be for a United Church Toronto Conference sub-executive committee to make an administrative call within the next few days. At her first service after the report was released, Vosper received a standing-pew ovation.

Vosper may indeed be a wonderful person, beloved by her flock. But she is fundamentally irreligious in the most meaningful sense. Yet Vosper doesnt see this as a deal-breaker.

She can, of course, cleave to her radical un-beliefs. Even devil-worshippers are welcome to step into any church if they simply dig the hymns. Churches are communal and largely ecumenical environments.

But the United Church isnt the Y. It isnt a country club. Spiritual lives matter. God matters  or whats the point?

This shepherdess should be stripped of her crook.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Correction - September 19, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version to update the photo caption.



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Money: its the major challenge highlighted in a Toronto Police Service report recommending body cameras for front-line officers. How will the force find the money to pay for the program and keep it afloat?

The report, released Thursday after a year-long pilot project, calls for equipping roughly 3,200 cops with body cams. But that would cost about $85 million over 10 years, which strikes some as too steep, given that a mayor-approved task force is currently looking for ways to trim $100 million from the $1-billion-plus annual police budget over three years.

Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack told the Star the ship has sailed on trying to stop the push for body-worn cameras, but he questioned the outsized price tag for a feel-good project.

Theres no cost-benefit analysis that would warrant this. Its that people want to feel good about what the police are doing and that Big Brother is watching the police, he said.

Body cameras have emerged across North America as a popular means of improving police accountability and public trust in law enforcement. Advocates argue that video recordings of police interactions with community members can provide a clearer picture of what happened in a controversial incident  such as alleged over-the-top use of force. The report mentions such benefits, but cautions that the limited, one-year study of body-cam use was too narrow to be definitive. The report also mentions potential drawbacks  including the time lost from duties when officers must upload video from their cameras.

Dhun Noria, a doctor at the Scarborough Hospital who sits on the Toronto Police Board, said introducing new technology such as body cameras is part of modernizing the police force. Its too early to know exactly how much it would cost, since buying cameras would involve a bidding process among technology companies, and its not known how many servers would be required to store the data. But Noria said the cost could come down as technology improves and becomes cheaper.

Its worth the expense, she added, because of the benefits, particularly in building public trust, even as the city looks for ways to save money in the police budget.

Youll have to find the savings elsewhere, she said.

Shelley Carroll, a Toronto city councillor who also sits on the board, agreed Friday that the estimated $85-million cost would be worth it if the cameras built public trust and deterred excessive use of force. But the report so far hasnt convinced her.

I need a deeper dive into the pilot (project) to know that down the road thats actually going to happen, she said.

Councillor Michael Thompson, a former member of the police board, said what drives up the cost is the number of police personnel. The $85-million estimate, he said, is a dramatic number that he expects would come down.

Defence lawyer and onetime mayoral candidate Ari Goldkind, who pushed for body cameras during his electoral campaign, echoed others in predicting a price drop. But he argued that a sizeable investment would be worthwhile overall because cameras could provide evidence that would make court proceedings and legal matters stemming from police action go more smoothly and quickly.

There is literally no negative to this, he said. And the kicker is, good police officers want these cameras.

But some question the efficacy of body-worn cameras. Laura Berger, director of the public safety program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said its not clear whether their touted benefits would actually play out in Toronto. Given the limited scope of the pilot project, there are no hard metrics, she said.

Berger argued that any decision to invest in cameras should be made in the context of the Ontario governments current review of police accountability and transparency. There should be clear rules about how cameras are used, when officers are allowed to turn them off, and how the privacy of the public will be respected and preserved.

Theyre not a substitute for other forms of increased accountability, she said. We should be cautious of the assumption that new technology will be a panacea.

With files from Betsy Powell

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Going into week three of the school year, the two major school boards in Toronto still have not solved their bus problems. If you missed it, they  and thousands of the students who travel to and from school on board-contracted buses  were shocked to find, on the first day of school, that there were not enough drivers to serve all the routes in the city.

Students and their parents found this out, for the most part, by standing outside waiting for buses that came up to an hour late, or never came at all. In the first week, boards were scrambling, and information on when or if buses were coming was difficult to come by.

More than a week later, getting the problem solved was still a work in progress: the Toronto District School Board reported about 685 of their students remained directly affected (about half as many as the previous week), while the Toronto Catholic District School Board said 1,297 students remained affected (down from 1,569). New drivers completing training are entering the pool of available drivers.

Some parents have been given temporary revised bus schedules for their schools, as some buses cover multiple routes. My own childrens morning bus, for example, is now scheduled to pick them up 15 minutes after the school day begins, so they arrive in their classrooms a little under half an hour late. Thats not a good situation, obviously, but at least the information allows us to plan on taking our kids directly to school on time rather than relying on the bus and being frustrated.

Next week it is going to get better on a daily basis, and it is my hope that by the week after that well be down to isolated cases, TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird said. While waiting for regular service to resume, there are no routes without any service at all, Bird says  if parents call to alert the bus consortium that a student is waiting, a bus will eventually be sent.

In the meantime, Ive heard from lots of people  parents, school bus drivers, company owners, and others  about the problem, and about who is to blame.

I heard a lot that these types of basic reliability problems though exceptionally widespread and evident in past weeks  are not new, something that matches my own six years of experience with the school busing of my own kids. Buses will regularly not show up, or show up more than 15 or 20 minutes late, and when that happens  often in the dead of winter  schools and bus companies will seldom be able to warn you that anything is amiss or give you information about when to expect a bus to come.

What this start-of-the-year driver shortage has exposed in dramatic fashion is a longer-term persistent problem: the service thousands of children depend upon to safely and regularly get them safely to and from school, and one around which school boards advise parents to plan their workdays and child care arrangements, is reliably unreliable, and is usually an information vacuum.

Many of the drivers and industry people who spoke to me suggested one key problem is money, especially the wages of drivers. They are typically paid only a little more than minimum wage, and they work only a few hours a day, on a weird split shift. A driver has to drive in Toronto rush hour traffic, while trying to control a vehicle filled with fist-fighting 11-year-olds and screaming 4-year-olds who wont stay in their seats, and deal with parents angry when buses are late. This means that there is a lot of churn in the driver employee pool that causes problems.

Kevin Hodgkinson, the manager who oversees the bus contractors for both the Catholic and public school boards in Toronto, told me last week that the boards had recognized this problem and tried to account for it by paying more to allow higher wages in its most recent contract. Nonetheless, theyre competing with Tim Hortons and Walmart and those other sorts of part-time jobs, he said of bus company recruitment. You really have to be a dedicated person to be a school bus driver, and thats part of the problem  we have a lot of bus drivers who start the route, and two days later say: Not for me.

Another thing that came up a lot were complaints about the competitive bidding process the province demands all boards use, which creates chaos whenever new companies take over  which is what happened this year in Toronto. Unions and independent bus company owners say this process leads to fundamental instability, in transferring routes to new companies that need to scale up, throwing reliable drivers from losing companies out of work, and also forcing everyone involved to adopt a lowest-bid, bare-bones approach. Responding to this line of thought, Hodgkinson said Torontos boards have been using this process for 15 years without this kind of major incident before.

To some of my other, longer-standing complaints, Hodgkinson himself suggests resources are an issue: GPS tracking of buses that would make information available to parents and schools is possible, because all buses now have units in them to allow it. But thats on the to-do list, he says. Things like that are coming up, we dont have the luxury of doing right away.

Theres a common thread here: money. It appears that a provincial education ministry and its school boards  who are always proud to proclaim a lockdown when a stranger looks at a school sideways or declare zero-tolerance for roughhousing because safety of kids is a priority  has consistently decided to cheap out when it comes to finding reliable drivers to carry kids to and from school, or even providing information about where the buses theyre driving are.

Perhaps thats the politics of this. I heard from plenty of other people who said theres no reason buses should carry my kids to school at all; that I should get off my lazy duff and take them myself. Which is, of course, what I have been doing these past two weeks. And fair enough.

But not everyone is in the position Im in  for some people with disabilities, for instance, this service is more of a necessity than a luxury. Beyond that, the debate about whether the service should be provided is a sideline. The fact is the service is provided. Parents are told they can plan around its being there. And when it is provided inconsistently and poorly, it not only undermines my confidence in the ability of the schools to do other important things I might not be able to observe as directly, but also disrupts peoples lives, and puts the safety and educational achievement of the kids in jeopardy.

The provincial minister of education, the school board trustees and the managers in charge should fix this, and answer for it. And the voters and taxpayers they depend on should ensure they do.

Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca . Follow: @thekeenanwire

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I awoke with a stuffed nose, massive headache and severe body ache: oh no, I had the flu.

But I still had 105 desolate kilometres of hard riding before I reached the next city. With the wind screaming in the Pampas of Rio Grande do Sul, the last thing I wanted to do was jump into the saddle. But like many times before, I had to cowboy up.

While I fed the mares, I wondered why Cluck Norris  a rooster I received as a present a month ago  was not crowing. Every day he woke me up at 4 a.m. with his raspy call. But on this grey morning, he was silent.

I headed to the stall where I had left Clucks cage. When I arrived, my heart sank. Golden-brown feathers covered the stalls floor. The door of the cage was wide open. Cluck had been savagely killed by a wild dog during the night. I stared at the empty cage in disbelief as a deep sadness washed over me.

Out here on the lonely road, even a rooster can become a friend. And with my buddy Mark Maw having returned to Canada a week ago for a one-month break, a friend is what I needed. With a lump in my throat, I began the four-day ride to reach the Uruguayan border on my way to completing my 8,000-kilometre journey from Barretos, Brazil, to the Argentine town of Ushuaia in Patagonia.

My sinus headache got worse with the trek. Every morning it was harder to rise from my uncomfortable saddle-blanket bed, and I ended each day more exhausted. By the time I rode into Santana do Livramento, the last town in Brazil before entering Uruguay, I was a zombie.

The flu was in full effect. Even breathing was a painful endeavour. I found a farm where I could rest the mares, Doll and Life. After taking care of them, I went into hibernation in a cheap hotel, in a real bed: I slept 14 hours straight. I woke up only to feed the girls and went back to the cheap motel to sleep again. After three days spent under the covers, I felt a little better.

Having travelled 2,200 kilometres in four and a half months, it was now time to figure out how to cross our first imaginary line of the journey.

During my earlier trek from Canada to Brazil in 2012 to 2014, I learned the world is no longer fit for a long rider. At the borders of all 10 countries I crossed, I experienced problems getting the horses across. Money, forms, stamps, signatures, exams, importation taxes, bribes  the bureaucracy I encountered was exhausting, almost putting an end to my trip more than once.

Well, this journey is proving to be worse.

In order to ride my mares into Uruguay, the Ministry of Agriculture is demanding I quarantine them for 60 days and pay more than $2,000 (U.S.) per mare in importation taxes. Lacking both time and money, its starting to look like I will have to leave Life and Doll in Brazil and borrow two new horses to cross Uruguay and then two more to ride through Argentina.

The thought of continuing without my girls is killing me. We have come so far from Barretos together: bridges, mountains, cities and giant pot holes  we have crossed them all and they have matured before my eyes. After spending more than 150 intense days together we have become our own herd  a family.

As of this dispatch, I am still fighting to continue the ride with my girls. I contacted Brazils agriculture ministry for help, made friends with powerful Uruguayan politicians and have written too many emails to count.

Now I have to play the waiting game and hope for the best, prepare for the worst and take what comes.

Filipe Masetti Leite is a filmmaker, Ryerson University journalism graduate and cowboy en route to Tierra del Fuego. He is filing monthly reports to the Star from the trail. Dispatches from both this yearlong trip and his 2012 journey from Calgary to Brazil can be found at http://www.outwildtv.com/expeditions.

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LOS ANGELESRodney Kings daughter was just 7 when her father was beaten bloody by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department.

She was eating breakfast when it came on the morning news  video footage showing LAPD officers kicking and hitting her unarmed father dozens of times with batons. It gave her nightmares for years.

In a striking scene that stood in sharp contrast to the 1991 beating, the now 32-year-old Lora King stood shoulder to shoulder with about a dozen LAPD officers Thursday, hugging many of them. She was there to join them in a talk to young people who have had their own run-ins with police.

Her message: its more important to build bridges with officers than to stand against them.

Thats actually what my dad stood for, so Im following in his footsteps. He had no hatred in his heart for police, King said ahead of her talk with about 50 young adults with the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, which provides at-risk youth with job training, education and work.

King, an administrative assistant at an accounting firm, said shes had her own negative interactions with police. Despite that and her fathers beating, she said a whole police department cant be judged by the actions of a few.

It is hard to trust, she said. But its not going to get anything resolved by hating.

More than anything, officers need to listen to the community and the community needs to keep an open mind, she said.

Rodney King died at the age of 47 after he accidentally drowned in 2012.

His beating was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the history of the U.S. The 1992 riots lasted three days and left 55 people dead, more than 2,000 injured and swaths of Los Angeles on fire. At the height of the violence, King pleaded on television: Can we all get along?

Lora King said her fathers beating was an eye-opener at the time, but its like everyone dozed off again.

Concern over police tactics has been mounting in recent years in the wake of a number of deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of officers across the country. Police have increasingly become targets themselves, most notably when a sniper killed five officers in Dallas in July.

King sat next to LAPD officers as they spoke with young adults about interacting with police, discussing what they can do to help diffuse situations and how police can improve.

Lovis Bell was among them.

The 23-year-old landscaper, who is black, first learned of Rodney Kings beating when he was 14. He said hes had his own negative interactions with police that he believes were racially motivated, including once being slammed up against a gate, leaving scars on his chest.

But Bell said Lora Kings message was powerful and struck a chord.

Im still mad, but theres no point, he said. Theres no room for hate inside my heart.

Senior Lead Officer Rashad Sharif, who is black, was still a rookie with LAPD when King was beaten and was in the thick of the riots the following year.

He said Lora Kings willingness to join the department to reach out to young people shows just how much LAPD has evolved in the past 25 years.

Thats a lot of courage to come here and be like, Thats the same uniform that put my dad in the hospital,  Sharif said. Having her here is like full circle . . . I just wish I could have met her dad to say, Hey, Im sorry, too. 

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NEW YORKIt was a lovely evening for a drink and a dog on the front patio of a Brooklyn bar one recent Thursday.

Beneath a table at Mission Dolores sat Finn, a 5-month-old pit bull pup with expressively floppy ears, curled at the feet of his master and mistress.

He has a little separation anxiety, said Finns grateful owner, Jason Miller, 30. So we look for places we can bring him.

It has been a great summer for bar-going dogs, thanks to a new state law that allows them into some outdoor areas of bars and restaurants.

Already, though, the nights grow cool. Soon the outdoor tables will be abandoned and the dogs and their best friends will have to part ways at the saloon door.

Legally, that is.

For there is still a place in this city where a permanent fur coat is no obstacle to entry: the speakeasy underworld of the dog bar.

The imminent demise of New York Citys venerable dog bars was heralded several years ago, after the city began letter-grading restaurants and bars and subjecting them to much closer scrutiny. By all accounts, dog bars have grown less common. But more than a few persist, through resourcefulness or audacity, paying the odd $350 fine and soldiering on.

Two recent evenings spent sniffing out leads and following the scent from one spot to the next turned up no fewer than nine establishments with at least a winking attitude toward canine patrons. Almost all were in Brooklyn, or among the unrepentant dives of Manhattan, but presumably a wider search would unearth more.

They run from quiet watering holes where dogs are welcome as long as they are discreet, to a few rowdier establishments where the dogs do everything but play poker.

At one of those brazen places, a canine circus was in full effect that same Thursday night. A burly pit bull and a big tan mutt wrestled on the floor as the music blared. A dachshund named Leroy stood in his owners lap with his front paws up on the bar, barking loudly. He wants another drink, his owner said. When Leroy went to the back yard for a bathroom break, a schnauzery-looking dame named Mia took his place on the bar stool.

In the East Village, there is a bar, cramped and narrow but filled with laughter and easy friendship, that has a mascot named Spitfire, a red-spotted Australian cattle dog with a grudge against skateboarders. His owner, Frank, brings him in twice a day.

We keep a dog dish behind the bar for him, Lisa the bartender said last Sunday night. When he comes back for his water, I sneak him bits of beef taco.

To keep the peace, some social rituals have evolved for the bars four-footed regulars. Spitfire has no love for Michael Mosleys pug, Winston. We have a shift, said Mosley, 44, a web programmer. If Frank comes in with Spitfire, Ill leave.

Often, Mosley and Winston will decamp to a tonier bar several blocks away. The walls are unblemished, the floors are slate and the chalk-drawn menu touts coconut martinis and chipotle mules. But the hospitality is the same.

We allow any dog in here, any size, Morgan Green, the bartender, said.

At a dive between Avenues A and B, the policy was stated less explicitly.

Officially, said the bartender, we dont allow dogs. Seconds later, Linda Devitt came out of the bathroom leading her aged pug, Rain.

At some dog bars, inevitably, there are service interruptions.

At a time of year when we know the health inspectors are due, said one Brooklyn bartender, we ask our regulars to not bring their dogs for a month or two, until we get our A back. Then were fine.

But even the health inspector can be outwitted. On a Friday, this reporter, posing as a civilian, placed a call to another noted dog-friendly bar.

Hey, I have a dog. Is it OK if I bring him?

Actually, said the woman on the line, were expecting the health department within the next couple of days. Are you comfortable saying its a service dog?

Ah, the service-animal ruse. If it can get an alpaca into a drugstore, as a New Yorker reporter demonstrated a couple of years ago, why not a dog into a bar?

According to the Americans With Disabilities Act, neither barkeep nor government agent may ask you to furnish proof that your dog is a service animal.

If someone says its a service dog, thats the end of it, said a bartender at Mission Dolores.

At one of those Brooklyn bars one recent evening, Captain Trigger of Ludlow, a 9-year-old golden retriever, was sprawled comfortably on the concrete back patio  a no-no because he had to walk through the bar to get there. His owner, Simon Noble, 50, wistfully recalled Triggers puppyhood, when he took Trigger and his 6-week-old littermates to a bar that has since shut its doors to dogs.

We used to go around to different dog bars, but theres none around anymore, said Noble, a research scientist.

Noble went into the bar to get another beer. Trigger went in with him, and waited patiently at his feet.

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BEIRUTThe U.S. military said it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against Daesh on Saturday, which, if confirmed, would mark the first known direct American strike on President Bashar Assads forces.

U.S. Central Command said the strike was immediately halted when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military.

The Syrian military said the airstrike hit a base in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour that is surrounded by Daesh (also known as ISIS and ISIL), allowing the extremists to advance. Russias military said it was told by the Syrian army that at least 62 soldiers were killed in the air raid and more than 100 wounded.

The apparently errant strike could deal a crushing blow to a fragile U.S. and Russian-brokered ceasefire that has largely held for five days despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides. The ceasefire, which does not apply to attacks on Daesh, has already been the subject of disputes between Moscow and Washington, with each accusing the other of failing to fully implement it.

Coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit, the military statement said.

The U.S. air raid prompted Russia to call for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council.

Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow is demanding full and detailed explanations about whether this was deliberate support of the Islamic State or another mistake.

Zakharova was quoted by the state news agency Tass as saying that after todays attack on the Syrian army, we come to the terrible conclusion that the White House is defending the Islamic State.

The Syrian military said the airstrikes enabled a Daesh advance on a hill overlooking the airbase. It called the strike a serious and blatant attack on Syria and its military, and firm proof of the U.S. support of Daesh and other terrorist groups. Assads government views all those fighting against it as terrorists, and has long accused the U.S. and other rebel supporters of backing extremists.

A Russian defence ministry official said Syria has informed them that 62 of its soldiers were killed in the airstrike. Russia has been waging a year-old air campaign on behalf of Assads forces and closely co-ordinates with them.

Defence Ministry spokesman Maj.-Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the airstrike near Deir el-Zour airport was conducted by two F-16s and two A-10s. He did not identify the planes country affiliation, but said they were part of the international coalition.

Konashenkov said Syrian authorities reported another 100 wounded. The planes came from the direction of the Iraqi border, he added.

He said Daesh militants surrounding the airbase launched an attack on the Syrian army positions after the airstrike. He added that if the coalition attack was launched by mistake, the reason for it was a stubborn reluctance by the American side to co-ordinate its action against terrorist groups in Syria with Russia.

Daesh has repeatedly attacked the government-held airbase, which is an isolated enclave deep in extremist-held territory.

The U.S.-led coalition has carried out thousands of airstrikes against Daesh in Syria and Iraq over the past two years, allowing allied forces on the ground to liberate several towns and cities from the extremist group. Russia also carries out attacks against Daesh targets, in Deir el-Zour and other parts of Syria.

The coalition will review this strike and the circumstances surrounding it to see if any lessons can be learned, the U.S. Central Command statement said.

The ceasefire took effect on Monday, and despite reports of violations, it has largely held. However, aid convoys have been unable to enter rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo, a key component of the deal.

Earlier on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned the U.S. commitment to ceasefire, suggesting that Washington wasnt prepared to break with terrorist elements battling Assads forces.

Russia has accused Washington of failing to rein in the rebels, and on Saturday Putin asked why the United States has insisted on not releasing a written copy of the agreement.

This comes from the problems the U.S. is facing on the Syrian track  they still cannot separate the so-called healthy part of the opposition from the half-criminal and terrorist elements, Putin said during a trip to Kyrgyzstan.

In my opinion, this comes from the desire to keep the combat potential in fighting the legitimate government of Bashar Assad. But this is a very dangerous route.

He appeared to be referring to the Fatah al-Sham Front, an Al Qaeda-linked group previously known as the Nusra Front, which is deeply embedded in rebel-held areas and fights alongside more moderate groups. Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of the group, condemned the ceasefire agreement in an interview with Al Jazeera TV that aired Saturday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed Putins remarks during a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Lavrov noted the refusal by an array of illegal armed groups to join the ceasefire, and Washingtons obligation to separate units of the moderate opposition from terrorist groupings, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Under the ceasefire agreement, the U.S. and Russia would work together to target the Fatah al-Sham Front, as well as Daesh, while Assads forces refrain from striking opposition-held areas.

But Washington has warned Russia that unless aid is delivered to Aleppo, it will not move ahead with the formation of the joint co-ordination centre.

The UN has accused Assads government of obstructing aid access to the contested city. The Russian military says insurgents have held up the delivery by firing on government positions along the main route leading into besieged, rebel-held districts, in violation of the ceasefire.

The Syrian government said it has done all that is necessary to facilitate the entry of aid convoys to Aleppo, but that armed groups have failed to withdraw from the supply routes and are committing dangerous, provocative acts.

Russias military said Syrian rebels violated the ceasefire dozens of times over the past day, including with strikes on military and civilian targets in Aleppo. Syrian activists said government forces killed five civilians in separate attacks on Saturday.

Syrias conflict has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced half the countrys population since March 2011.

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WASHINGTONRepublican presidential nominee Donald Trump delivered two speeches on Saturday.

The first was to The Remembrance Project, a group for the family members of people killed by illegal immigrants. The second was to a rally in Colorado Springs.

He made 12 false statements. Heres a fact check:

Speech on immigration to The Remembrance Project

Falsely said, Her plan calls for...ignoring visa overstays, closing detention centres. (Clinton is not calling to ignore visa overstays. She wants to close only privately owned detention centres, not all detention centres.)

Falsely said, Hillary Clinton is the first person to ever run for the presidency of a country effectively proposing to abolish the borders around the country that shes supposed to be representing.

Falsely said, According to the federal governments own data, there are more than 2 million convicted-criminal illegal immigrants inside the United States right now. (That figure  1.9 million  refers to the number of non-citizens, illegal AND legal, with convictions. The number of illegal immigrants with convictions is much smaller.)

Falsely said, The government knows a lot about the people that did it, but they dont go after them. Theyve killed people, they dont go after them.

Falsely said, Hundreds of individuals who have been given visas and refugee  think of this, theyve been given, theyre refugee admissions into this country, subsequently were charged with terrorism, and nobody does anything about it. (This figure is incorrect. I have seen no evidence that there are scores of recent migrants charged with terrorism, Rand Corps Seth Jones told the Washington Post.

Falsely said, Were admitting people here with no idea who they are. (Refugees undergo extensive screening.)

Speech to rally in Colorado Springs

Falsely said, Were going to have a massive tax reduction, big league tax reduction, for working and middle-class families. (Trumps bracket changes would give middle-class families an income boost of 0.5 per cent or less, according to the conservative Tax Foundation.)

Falsely said, Destroyed her phones  and think of this: with a hammer! Boom. Thirteen of them. (Two of Clintons phones were destroyed with a hammer.)

Falsely accused Clinton of selling government favours and access. (There is no evidence of this.)

Falsely said, Since President Obama came into office, another 2 million Hispanic Americans have fallen into poverty. (This figure begins the count during George W. Bushs last year; when the count begins in 2009, the figure is less than 1 million. It is also highly misleading to use a raw number; the poverty rate for Hispanics has fallen.)

Falsely said, Hillary Clinton is going to raise your taxes very, very substantially. (Clintons tax hike only applies to the top 1 per cent of earners.)

Falsely said, We have a trade deficit of $800 billion a year. (The trade deficit in goods alone $763 billion  but there was a trade surplus in services of $227 billion, putting the total deficit well below $600 billion.)

Misleadingly said, 58 per cent of African-American youth are not employed. (This figure counts millions of 16-to-19-year-olds who are not looking for work, including high school students and the children of black millionaires.)

MORE ON THESTAR.COM

A list of things Donald Trump said on Friday

A list of things Donald Trump said on Thursday

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INDANAN, PHILIPPINESA Norwegian man freed by militants after a year of jungle captivity in the southern Philippines described the ordeal Sunday as devastating, carrying a backpack with a bullet hole as a reminder of a near-death experience that included the beheadings of the two Canadians kidnapped with him.

Kjartan Sekkingstad was freed by his Abu Sayyaf captors on Saturday to rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which has signed a peace deal with the Philippine government and helped negotiate his release. On Sunday, he was handed over to Philippine authorities, along with three Indonesian fishermen freed separately by the Abu Sayyaf.

Aside from the horror of constantly being warned he would be the next to be beheaded by the brutal extremists, Sekkingstad said he survived more than a dozen clashes between Philippine forces and his captors in the lush jungles of Sulu province.

In one intense battle, in which the forces opened fire from assault helicopters and from the ground, he said he felt a thud in his back and thought he was hit by gunfire. After the fighting eased, he discovered that he wasnt hit, and that his green, army-style backpack had been pierced by the gunfire instead.

Sekkingstad was carrying the damaged backpack when he walked to freedom Saturday somewhere in the thick jungle off Sulus mountainous Patikul town.

On Sunday, the heavily bearded Sekkingstad, clad in a rebel camouflage uniform and muddy combat boots, was asked how he would describe his horrific experience.

Devastating, devastating, he said, still clutching the backpack.

Philippine presidential adviser Jesus Dureza, who received Sekkingstad and the three freed Indonesians from Moro National Liberation Front rebel chief Nur Misuari in Misuaris rural stronghold near Sulus Indanan town, accompanied the Norwegian on a flight to the southern city of Davao, where the ex-hostage was to meet President Rodrigo Duterte.

Sekkingstad was kidnapped from a yacht club he helped managed on southern Samal Island on Sept. 21, 2015, along with Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall and Halls Filipino girlfriend, Marites Flor, sparking a massive land and sea search by Philippine forces.

The Abu Sayyaf demanded a huge ransom for the release of the foreigners, and released videos in which they threatened the captives in a jungle clearing where they displayed Daesh group-style black flags.

The Daesh group is also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Ridsdel was beheaded in April and Hall was decapitated in June after ransom deadlines lapsed. When Flor was freed in June, she recounted in horror how the militants rejoiced while watching the beheadings.

Sekkingstad said he and his fellow captives were forced to carry the militants belongings and were kept in the dark on what was happening around them. At one point, he said, their heavily armed captors numbered more than 300.

We were treated like slaves, he said.

After the militants decapitated Ridsdel, Sekkingstad was threatened by the militants, who repeatedly told him, Youre next.

When the negotiations for his release began in recent months, Sekkingstad said the rebels began treating him better.

It was not immediately clear whether Sekkingstad had been ransomed off. Duterte suggested at a news conference last month that 50 million pesos ($1 million) had been paid to the militants, but that they continued to hold on to him. The military said Saturday that relentless assaults forced the extremists to release the hostage.

In Norway, Prime Minister Erna Solberg confirmed that Sekkingstad had been brought to safety after his release.

Solberg said the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, police and diplomats have done a great deal of work to have Sekkingstad released, and thanked Duterte and Dureza.

In a statement posted on the Norwegian government website, Solberg said Norway supports the Philippines in their fight against terrorism and for peaceful outcome in the south of the country. Solberg told national news agency NTB that Norwegian officials had not participated in any payment of ransom or made any concessions in the matter.

Philippine forces launched a major offensive against the Abu Sayyaf after the beheadings of the Canadians sparked condemnations from then-Philippine President Benigno Aquino III and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called on other nations not to pay ransoms if their citizens are abducted to discourage the militants from carrying out more kidnappings.

The three Indonesian fishermen freed by the Abu Sayyaf were kidnapped in July off Lahad Datu district in Malaysias Sabah state, according to regional Philippine military spokesman Maj. Filemon Tan. Their release came as Indonesian Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu was visiting the Philippines to meet with his Philippine counterpart and top military commanders.

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Last week, viewers of Masterpiece Theatre, were riveted to a beautifully acted historical-biography entitled Churchills Secret. The drama portrayed real and imagined characters who were involved in a coverup concerning the health of Churchill in the summer of 1953.

While still Prime Minister of the U.K., Churchill had suffered a debilitating stroke at a private diplomatic dinner party. A Canadian, Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook) the powerful media baron was summoned and asked that the whole scenario be kept quiet. Churchills condition was never revealed to the public.

The personal and political stakes for Churchill were high. His rival, Antony Eden, also his deputy and Foreign Secretary, was vying to take his place. Churchill, as he valiantly struggled to regain his health, did not want to resign. Instead, he chose to keep buggering on; one of his favourite phrases.

Fast forward to September, 2016. Like Churchill, Hillary Clinton hid her recent diagnosis of illness and resolved, to power on. But unlike Churchill, Clinton was not fortunate enough to be secluded at a dinner party. She publicly and physically stumbled, collapsing in the brutal glare of mainstream media, social media and voters.

Both these scenarios, 63 years apart, provoke questions. What is the publics right to know about a leaders illness? Does a politician have a right to privacy? In light of recent events, can we discern a changing attitude when illness intersects with politics? Could illness, once seen as a weakness, become a strength?

From the perspective of both Churchill and Clinton, sensitive political timing was an argument for non disclosure. However, what was successful in 1953 did not work in 2016. Not only was the decision politically unwise, it unfortunately fed into the narrative of a secretive candidate.

But honesty was not the only elephant in the room. The second issue was about strength and leadership. Historically seen as brute, physical force, strength comes in many disguises. Confronting illness, whether mental or physical, requires stamina and courage  necessary leadership qualities.

Colleen Flood, a University of Ottawa professor and former Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy notes illness is not a character flaw. Nor should we treat it as one, because illness certainly does not mean a lack of passion, of intelligence and dedication.

Last week, an article by Andrew Cohen, a Fulbright scholar at Washingtons Woodrow Wilson International Center, described the many American presidents, who, in spite of serious health obstacles, exhibited astounding leadership skills.

For example, Woodrow Wilson was promoting the League of Nations in 1919 when he was stricken by a stroke. In spite of an early diagnosis of polio, Franklin Roosevelt led his country with vigour and strength in very difficult times. And John F. Kennedys legendary need for pain medication to battle his many ailments, did not stop him from resolving the Bay of Pigs crisis in 1961.

Furthermore, revelations of health challenges, far from belittling a politician, often result in admiration and respect from voters.

In the winter of 1994, Lucien Bouchard, who subsequently became the charismatic leader of the Bloc Quebecois, required leg amputation after contracting a case of flesh-eating disease. Bouchard returned to a heros welcome in the House of Commons.

Jack Layton, the revered former leader of the NDP federal Opposition, revealed his diagnosis of prostate cancer in 2010. After a gruelling election in 2011, it became shockingly clear in a press conference that Layton was terribly ill and to needed to step aside. The country stood unreservedly by him, cheering him on in his struggle.

Just recently, MP Mauril Belangers courageous battle with Lou Gehrigs disease won the respect, love and admiration of everyone as he let nothing stand in his way (even the loss of his voice) for his support for a gender-neutral anthem.

None of these politicians hid away. Instead, they brought the country to their personal bedside, realizing that their own personal expectation of privacy was trumped by causes greater than themselves.

And just this week, Celina Caesar-Chavannes, the MP for Whitby and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, disclosed in a brutally honest column, that at times she suffers from overwhelming depression that requires medication.

Hiding health challenges worked in the past. But the future is open, responsive and ready to redefine past notions of health and leadership. If politicians cant have privacy when they are hit with health challenges, lets at least support them. I dare say, even Churchill would tell us to bugger on  but this time, out in the open.

Penny Collenette is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Ottawa and was a senior director of the Prime Ministers Office for Jean Chretien.

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Re: Dispensing fees exceed drug cost in seniors homes, Sept. 10

Dispensing fees exceed drug cost in seniors homes, Sept. 10

Throughout much of the 20th century the word monopoly held very bad connotations, that monopolies stifled trade and gouged customers, and that monopolists were rapacious hoarders of wealth. Strong efforts were made by Canada, the U.S. and most other Western democracies to end these evil practices by breaking up monopolies into smaller, openly competing units. Then the world changed.

Capitalists said that they had learned their lessons. They assured us that they could behave themselves, even self-govern their practices, so that regulations against monopolies were no longer needed because they had the unintended consequence of weakening globalization of industry and finance. They convinced the politicians to set them free, Now, we are hearing more and more about the negative effects of monopolies on the public, again.

This story is about pharmacies having monopolies on the nursing home business, collecting more in dispensing fees than for the cost of the actual drugs. A few weeks ago we learned that the milk marketing board, another monopoly, was raising the price of industrial milk for the second time this year. Why? Because sales had fallen off due to international competition.

Who other than a monopoly could react by gouging customers to make up for losses elsewhere? Other recent examples include the astronomical price increases for epipens and long-standing prescription drugs.

Monopolies were bad before. They are bad again. The remedies are tried and true  both regulation and competition  and need to be re-instated.

David Kister, Toronto

It was misleading to lead this article with a comparison of the dispensing fee to the drug cost. The dispensing fee is the same regardless of the drug cost  high or low. That fee is paying for the professional service, drug procurement and storage, delivery, administration, etc., but, not the drug itself.

The real question is whether weekly dispensing and the associated cost is truly warranted from either a safety perspective or an economic one. There may be an important argument for safety in an environment where there are a large number of medications being dispensed to a large number of residents. Let those doing this work explain those considerations if they exist.

From an economic point of view, it would seem to be relatively easy to look at the actual frequency of changes to residents prescriptions and determine what the cost of discarded medications would actually have been had there been, for example, monthly dispensing. Compare that to the cost of weekly dispensing. A more systematic approach to the economics of this would be more revealing of the actual facts.

Bob Sauls, Mississauga

That the health minister refuses to see excessive drug dispensing fees charged to the government as an issue shows how out of touch the Liberal government is with the people. This is the latest example of a government that was purportedly progressive but has turned out to be helping business milk us taxpayers.

The Liberal government promised us lower auto insurance rates. Instead we ended up paying more when it allowed the insurance companies to cut coverage. On hydro, consumers didnt get the break while business got it. We paid higher hydro so that business could be more profitable at our expense.

The Liberal government is no better than the Conservatives. I hope that the third party will become a true progressive party so that voters will have a true choice in the next election.

Salmon Lee, Mississauga

It is quite distressing to read this article. Worse yet is the last paragraph that states that Ontarios Health Minister Eric Hoskins stands by the pharmacy practice to charge weekly dispensing fees, claiming, The ability to allow weekly dispensing of drugs over a monthly model not only reduces drug waste from changing prescriptions, but it also allows the long-term-care home and its residents to establish a stronger, more consistent relationship with their pharmacist.

Please, Dr. Hoskins, read this article! If 83 per cent of senior home residents do not require weekly dispensed drugs then why are you permitting this outrageous waste to continue?

Indeed, if the dispensing fees as stated are exceeding the cost of the actual drugs by $200 million annually, then please stop using Liberal math in a futile attempt to defend the indefensible.

It is definitely not drug waste that needs reducing, it is the dispensing fee waste.

J. Brunins, Britt

As a physician who has been caring for patients in long-term care homes for over 40 years, I take great offence to the allegations made by Moira Welsh in her recent story.

Long-term care home residents are among the most frail and vulnerable in our society; on that point we are in agreement. The average age of a patient living in a long-term care home in Ontario is 85 and, with increasing demand on the limited number of beds available, those who are entering these facilities are frailer and more likely to have multiple medical conditions than even just five years ago.

The average patient is on 8 to 10 medications to assist in stabilizing their health and comfort. As a long-term care physician and medical director for three long-term homes, I visit all of the homes with patients under my care at least once a week. These visits involve a review of the patients health and when necessary, which is quite often, I am required to make changes to their medications in order to ensure their continued health and wellbeing.

Many patients due to their underlying co-morbidities and medical conditions, will require multiple modifications to their treatments during their trajectory in long-term care.

We are fortunate that the Ontario government has made it a priority to have a program that funds weekly dispensing of medications for residents of long-term care homes. To take that away would compromise the health of the most vulnerable in our society.

Dr. Stuart Egier, Toronto

I have worked in long-term care for over 20 years and after reading this article by Moira Welsh, I found it necessary to clarify the role of the long-term care pharmacy.

They are not just fill sites with no regard for the well-being of our residents who live in long-term care. The pharmacist consultant that is provided to the home is a valuable member of the inter-displinary team. They provide consultation to the physicians and nursing staff about medications and interactions, complete comprehensive medication reviews, participate on our professional advisory committee and will drop in or call our residents or their families any time upon request.

Our pharmacy also provides us with the latest in technology to ensure that our medication administration practices are not only compliant with all regulations but reduce the amount of risk to our residents and packaging medications in the weekly

strip for each resident is one of the many ways this is accomplished.

The pharmacy also provides a quality auditor who performs regular audits on site to identify areas for improvement. I simply cant imagine comparing all of these services with your local plaza pharmacy services.

I leave you with this thought at the end of the day, we are both running a business and if I waived my right to charge those residents living in private accommodation the co-pay the government says I can in long- term care, I would not be able to provide the type of services I do to all my residents and I may even have to close my doors.

Cynthia Diotte, CEO, Chester Village, Toronto

As Minister of Health, Dr. Eric Hoskins should not be parroting drug distributors defence of unnecessary dispensing and co-payment fees but leading the way to reduce bloated costs and inflated distributor profits which are costing taxpayers and individual millions of dollars annually.

The facts suggest that weekly dispensing fees are unnecessary because the vast majority (83 per cent in the Medisystem Toronto area) of prescriptions are not changed weekly with quarterly reviews the standard.

The other costly claim of covering professional service fees (another $90 million) is already paid to the distributors and not actually an actual additional consulting cost on a day-to-day basis.

On a retail basis, the Ontario pharmacies have eliminated the $2 co-pay dispensing fee without affecting their profitability because of competitive pressure. My recollection is that Loblaws drug stores began the elimination and that Shoppers Drug was the last major pharmacy chain to do so. Then Shoppers Drug was taken over by Loblaws/Weston who now also own MediSystem which has not eliminated the dispensing fee in their long-term care business.

Is that because they have no pressure from other distributors and have been able to quietly continue the fees with the acquiescence of your Ministry of Health.

T.A. Bryk, Toronto

Reporter Moira Welsh has provided readers with a comprehensive account of the wanton misuse of our provinces scarce funds by pharmacies that have brazenly taken full advantage of the serious lack of oversight by Ontarios Ministry of Health (MOH). We must all rise in protest for the disconcerting lack of responsibility shown by our Ontarios MOH on this important issue that affects us all.

It is rather shocking to know that over $1 billion were paid out by the MOH to Ontario pharmacies to dispense $800 million in drugs  taking full advantage of the loopholes by which dispensing fees were charged weekly. It is very disturbing to learn that pharmacies were permitted to charge people living in nursing homes in Ontario four times the usual dispensing fees per drug each month.

The great majority of medications dispensed to seniors are for chronic therapy. Hence these drug prescriptions can be renewed every three months  which would greatly reduce costs. In this context it is very surprising to understand the very naive response given by Eric Hoskins, Ontario Minister of Health, in his recent emailed statement which reads The ability to allow weekly dispensing of drugs over a monthly model not only reduces drug waste from changing prescriptions. Unconvincing logic used here, Minister Hoskins!

The above shows lack of accountability by the Minister of Health and also indifference to the serious financial constraints for the proper utilization of our provinces scarce resources. How then can Ontario citizens feel a sense of confidence in the ability of our MOH to become a judicious custodian of the $50+ billion spent annually on health care in Ontario?

By his cavalier stance on, and his inconsiderate response to, this pillage of our funds, Hoskins has forfeited the confidence of Ontarians in effectively managing this critical health ministry.

Rudy Fernandes, president, Global Health Strategy Inc, Mississauga

I can only speak as a community pharmacist that provides the service of more frequent dispensing for patients that are unable to manage their own medications. Often times these patients are given medications in a weekly blister pack dosette at no extra cost that outlines what they are taking on any given day and time; the patient or caregiver simply pops the bubble at the appropriate time of day.

Ask any patient or caregiver that has had the pleasure of setting up their dosette for week; its labour intensive and requires an innate understanding of the patients medication regimen. While more frequent dispensing of medication increases dispensing fees, it helps to ensure that patients are taking their medication as intended.

This ultimately keeps patients healthier and eases the strain on other parts of our healthcare system. Overall, weekly dispensing reduces medication waste, accounts for prescriber changes in a timely manner and reduces medication administration errors from patients, caregivers and nursing home staff.

In regards to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care not addressing these excessive costs, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care has been working diligently behind the scenes negotiating with drug manufacturers to give Ontarians some of the lowest costs for their medications.

More importantly, among the handful of cuts effective October 1st, 2015, the dispensing fee for pharmacies dispensing to residents of Long Term Care homes have already been reduced by $1.26 per prescription. Unlike our colleagues in other medical professions, there was no membership vote or public outcry for support. Ontario pharmacists and pharmacies have been quietly accepting our role in reducing healthcare costs in this province and are providing Ontarians excellent value for money.

Although the article highlights that most pharmacies have the practice of waiving the $2 co-payment, I urge patients to consider the opportunity cost. Most pharmacies would be willing to waive the $2 co-payment in favour of the less labour intensive 1 month supply (or more) in a bottle. Consider the burden now placed upon patients, caregivers and nursing home staff on managing these complex medication regimens. Take into account delivery service provided at no extra. If anything else, understand that in order to account for the increased labour costs, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care provides pharmacies the right to charge the co-payment every week, as opposed to once a month in the case the article mentions. For too long have pharmacies in Ontario have been afraid to charge patients for services provided that are not included in the dispensing fee such as blister pack dosettes, cutting tablets or delivery. Compare this to your own experiences with other professionals that charge for sick notes, receiving faxes or filling out forms. I can say with certainty that any further cuts will result in pharmacies finding creative ways for charging patients for these enhanced services.

Its time for Ontarians to stop seeing the trip to the pharmacy as a place to just to get their prescriptions and start seeing pharmacists as providers of clinical services supported by the medications they dispense. If $2 is enough to question the value of the pharmacist behind the counter and the time and effort that they have put into filling your prescription, I urge you to find a pharmacist that can provide you the standard of care that you need and have come to expect.

Henry Yu, pharmacist, Richmond Hill

My husband was in a seniors home for respite care for four weeks. Medical pharmacies sent two statements during this time period for his diabetic and related medications. All prescriptions were dispensed at the maximum rate of $6.11. The retirement home did not indicate that this company would dispense his pharmaceuticals; their requirement was the name of the local pharmacy which we provided, but they failed to disclose that there would be a change of pharmacies. There was no information or consultation with anyone from Medical Pharmacies regarding any of these medications.

I contacted Medical Pharmacies about these charges and was told that they dispense all medications to retirement homes in Ontario and are allowed to charge the maximum fee. When my husband left the retirement home and I asked for his medications, most importantly his insulin, no one could find his meds, and the cartridge insulin dispensers, which we had been billed for, had been replaced by a old fashioned syringe which wasnt his at all. The Ministry of Health should investigate how pharmaceuticals are dispensed and handled within Ontario nursing homes. Cheers to Margaret Calver and the Star for their investigation of how much money Ontario pharmacies are making from this lock on drugs for senior homes, and the terrific cost to Ontarios Health Care System.

C. Liddy, Aurora

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Re: Knees together' judge apologizes, Sept. 10

Knees together' judge apologizes, Sept. 10

Federal Court Justice Robin Camp would like to retain his position in the judicial system, even though he made a great and disturbing mistake.

By comparison, in 2013 Chris Spence, the director of the Toronto District School Board, was discovered to have plagiarized and he resigned his position. We are TDSB teachers and we can retain respect for Dr. Spence and trust in the education system because he acknowledged his error and took an appropriate course of action. He resigned.

Justice Robin Camp made comments to a rape victim that were wholly inappropriate, especially for a person with a justices position and the power that it wields. Camps transgression is far worse than plagiarism. While Camp considers his comments insensitive, rude and stupid, we call them immature, misogynistic and irresponsible. In fact, the rape victim that he commented to contemplated suicide.

How can we trust the judicial system, if someone like Justice Camp can retain his position and power? Hes 64. Shouldnt he know better? Shouldnt he have learned before this? We hope that Justice Camp has a sober second thought about what unforgivable means and resigns.

Leslie Chiswell and John Goodyear, Toronto

Unbelievable! Judge Robin Camp calls a raped, homeless, indigenous young woman the accused. He asks her why she didnt keep her knees together, and why she allowed sex if she didnt want it. That is unconscionable.

And instead of being promptly dismissed from the bench, he is promoted to the Federal Court? What world is this? And what can we think of Manitoba Judge Deborah McCawley, who supports him?

The Canadian Judicial Council in Calgary plans to contemplate whether Camp should keep his job  a definite no brainer for me.

Janet Sherman, Toronto

There are several things that concern me about Justice Robin Camp. Aside from his sexism and discourtesy at the trial in question, he seemed to lack basic knowledge of important aspects of criminal law. Why he would seek or accept an appointment to the criminal division of the Alberta provincial court is a puzzle to me. He should have been more conscious of his own limitations and offered to serve in a different division.

Bruce Couchman, Ottawa

This man should not be responsible for judgments affecting peoples lives. Perhaps a 12-year-old, using a harmful and demeaning statement, can be taught better ways. This judge? Using such a woman-hating statement  has he learned nothing in the past 20 years? Hes trying to weasel out of his bad behaviour.

I shudder to think of his probable similar errors toward girls and women, in the past. Cant Ontario do better than this?

Pat Irwin Lycett, Bowmanville

I think we all understand, the position of judge is not an on-the-job-training program. You do need to have some basic skills. You need to know the law, have a solid sense of ethics and most important  you need to be impartial.

Mr. Camp can parade a team of experts that have helped him become a better person, so it seems, almost overnight, doesnt this exercise in training also indicate that he was ill-suited for the position to begin with?

And what about the victim in the case? She cant un-hear the words spoken to her at trial nor can she un-experience that moment  when she was told she was at fault.

Thats why language is both so powerful and so dangerous. A judge needs to be more aware of this than anyone else  what is a court proceeding if not the organization of carefully chosen words?

Getting retroactive help after the fact is like getting flying lessons after crashing the plane. It doesnt change the facts  the plane still crashed.

The Judicial Council can send a clear and honourable message by recommending the immediate removal of Mr. Camp.

Stephan Robichaud-Tobin, Orleans

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Judging from recent webcam imagery, activity has decreased again at the volcano although the On-take crater continues to produce a significant steam plume and occasional ash emissions, but much less vigorous than earlier this month. Only week glow if any can be seen at night. ...
Stories of interest to readers in Prince William County that appeared Sept. 11 to 16 in The Washington Post.

TUESDAY, SEPT. 13

Washington home sales hit biggest numbers since 2006

Presidential elections typically cause a lull in the Washington-area housing market, but that hasnt been the case this year. Home sales in the region climbed to their highest level for August since 2006, the height of the housing boom. Manassas Citys median home price grew to $324,900, an increase of 12.4 percent from this time last year. Prince William Countys median price grew to $339,900, a 6.2 percent increase. Manassas Parks median price was $290,000, a 3.6 percent increase.

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 14

More Virginia schools earn accreditation this year

More than 4 in 5 Virginia schools received full accreditation, a modest boost from last year that reflects a rise in test scores and a new state law that eases accreditation standards for schools that have strong track records. A schools accreditation rating is based on the proportion of students who pass state standardized tests. For high schools, graduation rates are also a factor. Schools that persistently miss the mark lose accreditation and receive state interventions. Prince William County had nine schools fail to receive full accreditation, up from six. We still have room for improvement, and these results pinpoint where we need to focus, Superintendent Steven L. Walts said.

THURSDAY, SEPT. 15

Shootings wound three in Prince William County

Three people were wounded by gunfire Wednesday night in the 9800 block of Maury Lane in Manassas, according to the Manassas City Police. A juvenile, a man and a woman were struck by gunfire, police said. They were all taken to area hospitals for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening. Police said they are looking for possible suspects who were driving a dark-gray Mercedes and a dark-colored Honda sedan that had a loud exhaust system.

Second teenager charged in prescription drug death

Daniel Armando Urrego, 19, of Manassas was arrested and charged with distributing a morphine pill that Alexia Springer, 17, got from a classmate at Centreville High School and took at a Clifton, Va., party in February. Springer died after taking a mix of prescription drugs and drinking at the house party. The arrest comes after the classmate, David Evers, 18, of Centreville, pleaded guilty last week to giving Springer the pill in exchange for an oxycodone.
Three candidates for mayor of Leesburg faced off Thursday evening in a public forum that focused on issues such as the revitalization of downtown, taxes and whether the town should consider seeking city status.

Mayor David S. Butler, Vice Mayor Kelly Burk and former town council member Kevin D. Wright expressed differences on some issues in a discussion that revealed how each would govern if elected.

The candidates are vying for the seat that had been occupied by Kristen C. Umstattd from 2002 until her election to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors last year. Each candidate has served multiple terms on the town council, which in February appointed Butler to serve the rest of Umstattds term.

The candidates, who know one another well, avoided direct criticism of one another. Burk emphasized her experience on the council and Board of Supervisors; Wright focused on a desire to create a civil environment to engage the public in solving problems; and Butler talked of his ability to get things done.

The revitalization of downtown Leesburg was a main topic. Burk characterized it as vibrant, saying it has moved forward in recent years. Butler said that downtown is not at the place where it needs to be and that the council should look into tax credits and other incentives for businesses.

Downtown is moving more toward nights and weekends, less during the days, Butler said, referring to efforts to stimulate arts and nightlife. We have to improve that and incentivize the businesses.

Wright said he would try to reduce red tape and support businesses without getting in their way, adding that he hears from people who think not all businesses are treated the same.

Theres a set of rules for those that are kind of well liked by some of the council, and theres a set of rules that maybe apply to everybody else, he said. We need to make sure that we have one set of rules and that we are applying them fairly and equally.

Butler favors looking into the possibility of Leesburg being designated a city instead of a town, which, he said, could lower overall taxes for residents. Wright said that undertaking such a study would fracture the towns relationship with the county and that he would rather focus on eliminating duplications between town and county services.

The forum revealed different approaches the candidates would take as mayor.

Burk, a retired teacher, said she could devote more time to the position because the other candidates would have to balance mayoral responsibilities with full-time jobs.

Butler and Wright said that devoting time to both wont be a problem. Wright added that having another job helps him see things from the perspective of other residents.

Butler asked that he be judged on his performance as mayor this year  what Ive done and how Ive acted and how Ive run meetings.

The council is too often afraid to say yes, and were too reactive, he said.

Burk and Wright referred several times to the need to change the tone of council meetings.

We always need to have an environment where were listening, where were learning, where people feel welcome and engaged, Wright said.

Things arent very clear and very open and very honest at this point, Burk said. I want to make sure that the public feels welcome, feels involved. I will never, ever, ever make fun of or criticize a speaker that comes before the council, because the public is our boss.

After the forum, when asked about her comment, Burk said certain council members sometimes fail to treat residents with respect. She said Butler had gotten angry with a group of residents who had come to speak about the noise ordinance, and referred to them in a very unflattering manner during the meeting.

Butler responded in an interview that the meeting occurred a couple of years ago, before he was mayor, and that he had been angry at other council members, not the residents who spoke.

I encourage anybody to go look at all of the tapes, Butler said. Theres been nothing like that since Ive been mayor.
BLOOD DONATIONS

BLOOD DRIVES Oct. 7, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m., Loudoun County Fire and Rescue, 801 Sycolin Rd., Leesburg, 800-733-2767; Oct. 15, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Leesburg Public Safety Center, 65 Plaza St., Leesburg, 800-733-2767; Oct. 15, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Brambleton Community Association, 42645 Regal Wood Dr., Ashburn, 800-733-2767; Oct. 15, 8:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Sterling United Methodist Church, 304 E. Church Rd., Sterling, 800-733-2767.

INOVA BLOOD DONOR CENTER Mondays noon-8 p.m., Tuesdays 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Fridays 6 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sundays noon-4 p.m. Dulles Town Center, 45745 Nokes Blvd., Sterling. 866-256-6372 or inova.org/donateblood.

FIRST AID

FIRST AID/ADULT, INFANT AND CHILD CPR/AED Fauquier Hospital Medical Office Building, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Call for schedule. 540-316-3588. $85. Registration required.

HEARING

DISABILITY RESOURCE CENTER Technical assistance through the Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and presentations to businesses, civic groups and schools. Third Tuesdays 2-5 p.m., Workplace, 205 Keith St., Warrenton. Call for an appointment, 800-648-6324; TDD, 540-373-5890. Free.

FREE HEARING TESTS Age 18 and older. Mondays-Thursdays 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center, 19465 Deerfield Ave., Suite 201, Lansdowne. 703-858-7620. Registration required.

HEARING LOSS, TINNITUS AND MENIERES SYNDROME SUPPORT For all ages, including parents of children with hearing loss. First Fridays at 2 p.m., Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-430-2906.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING Age 18 and older, second Tuesdays 10 a.m., Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400.

HEARING LOSS OUTREACH Free referrals. Fourth Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Loudoun County Workforce Center, 102 Heritage Way, Leesburg; third Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. Free appointments: 703-430-2906 or nvrcloudoun@aol.com .

MENTAL HEALTH

COUNSELING FOR SEXUAL VIOLENCE SURVIVORS Provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice. 703-771-9020.

CRISISLINK Suicide and crisis intervention. The organization provides community education, has a volunteer crisis response team and offers CareRing, a daily telephone outreach program for the elderly and disabled. 703-527-6016, volunteer@crisislink.org or crisislink.org.

PIEDMONT CHAPTER, NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS Serves Fauquier, Orange, Madison and Rappahannock counties. Support group, education classes and events for people living with mental illness and their family members. First Wednesdays 7-9 p.m. Fauquier Hospital, 500, Hospital Dr., Sycamore Room A, Warrenton. 571-426-8213.

MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID A public education program offered by the Loudoun County Department of Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Developmental Services that can help communities understand mental illness seek intervention and save lives. For information, go to loudoun.gov/mhfirstaid.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA CHAPTER, NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS A support group, classes and programs for people living with mental illness and their family members. naminorthernvirginia.org.

PREGNANCY, PARENTING

ADOPTIVE FAMILY PRESERVATION Adoptive families discuss common experiences; registration required. Third Tuesdays 12_2 p.m., Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd. Call 703-941-9008, Ext. 23, or email jmellario@umfs.org .

BIRTHRIGHT OF LOUDOUN COUNTY Free pregnancy tests, baby clothing, transportation and support throughout pregnancy, 823 S. King St., Leesburg. 703-777-7272.

BOND BETWEEN US A nonprofit organization that offers support to birth parents when children have been placed for adoption. Fourth Tuesdays 7:30 p.m. Call for location. 703-771-7844.

BREASTFEEDING SUPPORT Mondays 9:30-10:30 a.m., Fauquier Hospital Family Birthing Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588.

DAD SUPPORT New and expectant fathers share ideas. First Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. 703-858-6360.

FOR THE CHILDRENS SAKE A group for separating or divorcing parents to share advice. Four-hour session weekly. Information: 703-391-8599 or fitsfoundation.org.

LA LECHE LEAGUE Mother-to-mother support and breastfeeding information. 10 a.m. second Wednesdays in Warrenton, 540-351-6103. Third Fridays 10:15-11:45 a.m., call for location, 703-444-7386. Second Fridays 10:15 a.m., Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd., 703-829-0349; Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Panera Bread, 43670 Greenway Corp. Dr., Ashburn, email lllashburn@gmail.com. Third Fridays 10:15 a.m., Christ the Redeemer Church, 46833 Harry F. Byrd. Hwy., Sterling, 540-338-4637.

LOUDOUN FATHERHOOD PROGRAM Fathers discuss the joys and challenges of being a parent. Meets every other Saturday for two hours for four months; sponsored by Northern Virginia Family Service. 571-748-2796. Free.

LOUDOUN NURTURING PARENTING PROGRAM Positive parenting techniques; children attend with parents. Registration required. Call 703-771-3973, Ext. 27, or email nurturingprogram@lcsj.org. Free.

MOTHERNET/HEALTHY FAMILIES LOUDOUN Program links first-time parents with medical, social and educational resources to give children a socially and physically healthy start in life. Family support workers meet with participants in homes. English-Spanish translation provided. 703-444-4477, Ext. 217 , or inmed.org.

NEW MOTHERS SUPPORT Wednesdays 9:30-11:30 a.m. Inova Loudoun Medical Pavilion, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg, main entrance. Babies welcome. 703-858-6360.

YOUNG PARENT SERVICES Support for teenage parents. Loudoun County Department of Family Social Services, 52 Sycolin Rd., Leesburg. Call for times. 703-771-5375.

ONLINE CHILDBIRTH EDUCATION PROGRAM Inova Loudoun Hospitals Web-based program uses animation, videos and interactive activities to guide users through the basics of childbirth, breastfeeding and caring for newborns. 703-858-6360. thebirthinginn.org/classes.

PARENTING ALONE GROUP For parents of school-age children who have lost a spouse or partner to cancer. Second Tuesdays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-698-2536 or email jennifer.eckert@inova.org .

PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH SUPPORT Childbirth Solutions Resource Center, 8393 W. Main St., Marshall. 571-344-0438.

SENIORS

EXERCISE EQUIPMENT: Weights, treadmills, bikes and a cardio-glide. Instruction provided. Age 55 and older. Weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

FLU SHOTS Age 55 and older. Oct. 6 from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. Take yur Medicare part B card for payment of plan to pay $34 for standard shot or $52 for the high dose. 571-258-3400.

FITNESS FOR PEOPLE 55 AND OLDER Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 1-1:45 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400. $36, 12-visit card.

EYE CARE LensCrafters staff members will clean glasses and make minor repairs. Second Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-430-2397. Free.

INOVA LOUDOUN MOBILE VAN Blood pressure checks. Second and fourth Tuesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling, 571-258-3280; first Wednesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039.

LAUGHING YOGA FOR SENIORS I mprove flexibility and balance. Thursdays 9:30-10 :30 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

LOUDOUN ADULT DAY CENTERS For seniors with physical limitations or memory loss, a safe and social environment, therapeutic activities, individualized care and respite for caregivers. Limited transportation. Sliding-scale fees. Weekdays in Leesburg, 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., 703-771-5334; Purcellville, 571-258-3402; and Ashburn-Sterling, 571-258-3232.

SENIOR OUTREACH SERVICES Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Senior Center at Cascades. First and third Wednesdays 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280.

SENIOR OUTREACH SERVICES Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Sign up in the Leesburg Senior Center lobby. Second and fourth Thursdays 11 a.m.-noon and 12:30-4:30 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

SENIOR OUTREACH SERVICES Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Carver Center. First and third Mondays, 12:30-5 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 703-737-8741. Free.

ZUMBA: For people 55 and older who are learning Zumba for the first time, or those who prefer a lower-impact version. The fitness program combines Latin and international music with dance.Thursdays 11 a.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280. $12.

TAI CHI Stretching and strengthening movements. Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

ZUMBA GOLD CLASS Age 55 and older. Wear rubber-soled shoes and comfortable clothing; bring water and a towel. Tuesdays 11 a.m., Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 p.m. Senior Center of Leesburg, 102 North St. NW, Leesburg. 703-737-8039. $24 per month.

SUPPORT GROUPS

AL-ANON SERVICE CENTER OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA A volunteer is available 24 hours with information for spouses, family members and friends of problem drinkers. 703-534-4357 or 877-339-8350. Mondays 8 p.m. Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 125 W. Washington St., Middleburg, 540-554-2747; Tuesdays 7:30 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. NW, Leesburg, 877-339-8350; Fridays 8:30 p.m. Grace Episcopal Church, 6507 Main St., The Plains, 800-344-2666; Tuesdays 12:15 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, Route 29 N., 540-347-7448; Tuesdays 7 p.m. and Saturdays 8:30 p.m. Warrenton Presbyterian Church, 91 Main St. 800-344-2666.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS Various meeting times and locations in Loudoun County. 800-208-8649 or 703-876-6166. nvintergroup.org.

ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVER SUPPORT For those who care for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Fourth Wednesdays 4-5:30 p.m. The Villa at Suffield Meadows, 6735 Suffield Lane, Warrenton. 540-316-3800.

ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVERS SUPPORT For those caring for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Second Mondays 7-8:30 p.m. Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-430-9229. galileeumc.org.

ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVER SUPPORT Emotional, educational and social support for family members and friends of people with the disease. Third Saturdays 10 a.m. Loudoun County Area Agency on Aging, 20145 Ashbrook Pl., Ashburn. Call 703-771-5407 or email lesley.katz@loudoun.gov.

ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVER SUPPORT GROUP Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 540-903-6831 or alz.org.

ALZHEIMERS SUPPORT First Tuesdays 10-11 a.m. Spring Arbor Assisted Living, 237 Fairview St. NW, Leesburg. 540-338-6520.

ALZHEIMERS SUPPORT First Wednesdays 4 p.m. Leesburg Adult Day Center, 16501 Meadowview Ct., Leesburg. 703-771-5334.

ALZHEIMERS SUPPORT Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400.

TALK ABOUT CURING AUTISM A nonprofit organization educating and supporting families affected by autism. tacanow.org.

AUTOIMMUNE SUPPORT Last Thursdays 6:30-7:30 p.m. Jackson Building, 209 Gibson St., Leesburg. Email autoimmunesupport@hotmail.com .

BEREAVED PARENT SUPPORT One-on-one counseling is available. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. scsm.tv.

BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT For those experiencing loss because of the death of a loved one. Age 18 and older. Third Mondays 1 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-957-1800.

BREAST CANCER SUPPORT Fourth Tuesdays 7-8 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Tower, Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-0588.

BREAST CANCER SUPPORT For those with new diagnoses or starting treatment. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 5-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857.

BREAST CANCER SUPPORT For those who have finished treatment, have had a recurrence or metastatic breast cancer. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857. Free.

BREAST CANCER SUPPORT ASSISTANCE FUND Loudoun County residents who have received a diagnosis or have undergone treatment in the past 12 months are eligible to apply for financial assistance. Areas included are wigs, bras, puffs and prostheses, mammograms and medical bills, food and help with utilities, rent or mortgage, and transportation costs. The Pink Assistance Fund has been established by the Loudoun Breast Health Network. lbhn.org.

CANCER SUPPORT Oncology nurses, social workers and spiritual care providers offer education and support to patients, families and caregivers. Second Mondays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2273.

CANCER SUPPORT Life with Cancer, for patients, family members and friends. Second Thursdays 7 p.m. Ashburn Presbyterian Church, Room 202, 20962 Ashburn Rd. 703-729-2012. ashburnpresbyterian.org.

CAREGIVER SUPPORT Provides emotional, educational and social support. Encourages caregivers to maintain their personal, physical and emotional health while caring for people with demenita or other chronic illness. Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 540-903-6831.

CAREGIVER SUPPORT AND RESOURCE GROUP Wednesdays 10:30 a.m.-noon (no meeting first Wednesdays), Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. scsm.tv.

CARING FOR AGING PARENTS Support group. Confidential. Fourth Wednesdays 7:30 p.m., Family Focus Counseling Service, 20-B John Marshall St., Warrenton. 540-349-4537.

CHADD PARENTS SUPPORT For parents of children with ADD/ADHD. Fourth Sundays 3 p.m. KinderCare, 44051 Ashburn Village Shopping Plaza. chadd.nova loudoun@gmail. com .

CHRONIC ILLNESS SUPPORT Tuesdays 10:30-11:30 a.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministries, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814 or scsm.tv.

COFFEE AND CONVERSATION: Support for those discouraged because of illness, bereavement, caregiving or a loved one in the military. Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814.

COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS For parents who have experienced the death of a child. First Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. NW, Leesburg. 540-882-9707.

CREATING AND CONNECTING Two-hour art therapy and relaxation workshop for cancer patients. Every other month, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-858-8850.

DEPRESSION BIPOLAR SUPPORT ALLIANCE OF WESTERN LOUDOUN Saturdays 3 p.m. Purcellville Library, 220 E. Main St., Carruthers Room. Call 703-431-7160 or email kathy@dbsanca.org.

DROP-IN GRIEF SUPPORT For those coping with a death. Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. St. Davids Episcopal Church, 43600 Russell Branch Pkwy., Ashburn. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-597-1781.

FAMILIES OVERCOMING DRUG ADDICTION SUPPORT First and third Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-9221 or email myfodafamily@gmail.com.

GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER YOUTH AND PARENT SUPPORT A group in partnership with Metro DC PFLAG. Fourth Sundays 4-6 p.m. Unitarian Universalist Church, 22135 Davis Dr., Sterling. 703-328-6518.

GRIEFSHARE Open to anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one. Tuesdays through Dec. 6 from 7-8:30 p.m. Purcellville Baptist Church, 601 Yaxley Dr., Purcellville. Call 540-338-0918 or email caring@purbap.org . Workbook, $15.

GRIEFSHARE Nondenominational seminar and support group. Tuesdays 7:30-9 p.m., and Wednesdays, 1-2:30 p.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. Free.

GRIEF SUPPORT Sponsored by Hospice Support of Fauquier County. Individual counseling available. First and third Thursdays 3:30-5 p.m. Hospice Support Office, 42 N. Fifth St., Warrenton. Registration required. Call 540-347-5922 or email hospicesupport@verizon.net.

GRIEF SUPPORT Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon, Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814.

HOSPICE SUPPORT Free medical-equipment loan facility for Fauquier County residents. Especially needed are donations of wheelchairs, bedside commodes, rolling walkers, electric hospital beds, shower benches and chairs, adult diapers, lift chairs, Ensure and hospital bed mattresses. 540-347-5922.

LOOK GOOD, FEEL BETTER For women undergoing or emerging from cancer treatment. Every other month, 6:45 to 9 p.m. ,Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-776-2820. Free.

LOUDOUN CHADD SUPPORT Led by Children and Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Third Thursdays 7 p.m. Leesburg Town Hall, lower-level conference room, 25 W. Market St. 703-669-2445.

LOUDOUN INTERGROUP OF OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS Fellowship and support. For locations and times, call 571-420-2012. oa.org.

LYME DISEASE SUPPORT Fourth Sundays 2-4 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Conference Room A and B, Leesburg. Go to natcaplyme.org or email loudounlymeadvocates@gmail.com.

LYME DISEASE SUPPORT Third Thursdays at 7 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, 6398 Lee Hwy. Access Road, Warrenton. 540-347-7265 or email lymeinfauquier@gmail.com.

LYME DISEASE SUPPORT Third Thursdays at 7 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, 6398 Lee Hwy. Access Road, Warrenton. 540-347-7265 or email lymeinfauquier@gmail.com.

LYME DISEASE SUPPORT Age 18 and older. First Tuesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. Email charphealy@yahoo.com.

MADD LOUDOUN VICTIM SUPPORT For those who have been affected by drunken driving. Third Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. 210 Wirt St., Leesburg. 540-338-6491.

MAN-TO-MAN CANCER SUPPORT Sponsored by Loudoun Cancer Care Center, for prostate cancer patients and their families. Second Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. Call 703-858-8857 or email karen.archer@inova.org.

MENDED HEARTS Northern Virginia chapter, for heart surgery patients and families and friends of heart disease patients. Third Saturdays 11 a.m., Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg (Patient Information Lounge) . 703-924-6244 or mendedhearts200.org.

MENOPAUSE SUPPORT Third Thursdays 6:30-9 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg (second floor, Patient Education Room). 703-858-8060.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SUPPORT Saturdays 10:30 a.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-2826.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SUPPORT Last Sundays 2-4 p.m. Cascades Library, 21030 Whitfield Pl., Potomac Falls. 703-771-4256.

NAR-ANON FAMILY SUPPORT For those affected by loved ones with addiction. Meaningful Mondays, 7-8 p.m., Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-203-9792; Wisdom Wednesdays 7-8 p.m., St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, 37730 St. Francis Ct., Purcellville, 703-606-7125; Serenity Thursdays, 7-8 p.m. Leesburg Presbyterian Church, 207 W. Market St., Leesburg, 703-606-7125.

PARKINSON'S SUPPORT Open to those with Parkinson's disease, their family members and caregivers. First Tuesdays 1:30-3 p.m. Call for Ashburn location. 571-442-8851.

POST-PARTUM SUPPORT Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Cornwall Campus, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg. 703-909-9877. Email lamckeough@gmail.com. Registration required.

REACH TO RECOVERY Home visit program for mastectomy and lumpectomy patients. Temporary prostheses, exercise instruction and encouragement. 703-938-5550.

SEXUAL ASSAULT AND INCEST SURVIVORS GROUP COUNSELING Services provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice and the Loudoun Abused Womens Shelter are free and confidential. 703-771-9020.

SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVORS EMPOWERMENT SUPPORT Sponsored by Sexual Assault Victims Volunteer Initiative. Child care available with 48-hours notice. Mondays; call for times and locations. 540-349-7720.

SPIRITUAL SUPPORT GROUP For cancer patients, family members and friends. Third Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8850.

STROKE SURVIVORS AND CAREGIVERS SUPPORT Second Wednesdays 11 a.m.-noon, Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second floor, Patient Education Room. 703-858-6667 or robynthomson@inova.org.

SUICIDE COUNSELING Third Wednesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Leesburg Town Office, Conference Room 2, lower level, 25 W. Market St., Leesburg. 703-587-1618 or survivorsofsuicidelossleesburg@gmail.com.

WOMENS SUPPORT Sponsored by Services to Abused Families. Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Confidential location. 540-825-8876.

WIDOW AND WIDOWER SUPPORT Third Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039.

WOMENS CANCER SUPPORT Woman to Woman, first Wednesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Registration required. 703-858-8850.

MISCELLANEOUS

BRAIN TRAUMA SURVIVORS BROWN BAG LUNCH For survivors and caregivers, first Tuesdays, noon-1:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second-floor Patient Education Room. Call 703-737-3150 or email jberg@braininjurysvcs.org. Free.

ASK THE EXPERT LECTURE Robotic Joint Replacement: Whats New in Hip and Knees? Sept. 27 at 6 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, Conference Rooms A and B, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. A presentation by Nauman Akhtar, orthopedic surgeon and medical director of Inova Loudoun Hospitals joint replacement program. 855-694-6682. Free. Registration required.

CHILD DEVELOPMENTAL SCREENINGS For ages 2-5. Children may not be kindergarten-age-eligible. Sponsored by the Loudoun County public schools Child Find Center. 571-252 - 2180.

CHOLESTEROL PANEL DISCUSSION Take Care of Your Heart, Oct. 15 at 9 a.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Blood pressure, BMI and non-fasting cholesterol screenings will be offered and the lecture. Call 540-316-3588 or go to fauquerhealth.org. Free. Register.

CHOLESTEROL SCREENINGS Weekdays 6 a.m.-8 p.m. Fauquier Health LIFE Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2640. Registration required. $35.

COMMUNITY LECTURE Stroke and Transient Ischemic Attack, Oct. 12 at noon, Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. A presentation by Rana Kayal, neurologist. 540-316-3588. Free. Register.

EMERGENCY FOOD SUPPLIES Loudoun residents who are in need can receive a free three-day supply of groceries. Supplies are distributed Mondays through Saturdays by Loudoun Interfaith Relief. 703-777-5911 or interfaithrelief.org.

FAUQUIER FREE WALK-IN MEDICAL CLINIC Patients must call Thursdays from 12:30 to 1 p.m. to register for the clinic, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Patients are also seen by appointment Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Fauquier and Rappahannock residents only. Bring proof of address for the first visit. Patients cannot have Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance. Information: 540-347-0394 Tuesdays or Thursdays, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

FAUQUIER HOSPITAL BISTRO SENIOR SUPPER CLUB Nutritious meals and fellowship for people 55 and older. Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Bistro on the Hill, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. $5.49.

HEROES (Hometown Enabling Relationships, Opportunities and Empowerment through Support) is a program for military families. A trained volunteer provides support to military members and their families, from pre-deployment up to two years post-deployment. Assistance includes financial help, job placement, family care and mental health services. heroescare.org or email caring@purbap.org .

LOUDOUN CARES INFORMATION AND REFERRAL HELP LINE Call for help in finding resources for county residents who are dealing with rent eviction, utility cut-offs, needed health care, employment and more. 703-669-4636.

MARSHALL HEALTH FAIR Oct. 1 from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Marshall Community Center, 4133 Rectortown Rd., Marshall. Free and reduced health screenings, health and fitness demonstrations, childrens activities and giveaways. 540-422-8582.

MOTOR SKILL SCREENINGS Birth to 21 months. First Thursdays, Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center, 19465 Deerfield Ave., Suite 201, Lansdowne. Call for an appointment. 703-858-7620. Free.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA LONG-TERM CARE OMBUDSMAN Call for help in resolving complaints related to long-term-care facilities. 703-324-5861.

PREVENTING FALLS, WORKSHOP AND SCREENING Balance, Balance and More Balance, Sept. 28 at 10:30 a.m. Loudoun County Area Agency on Aging, 20145 Ashbrook Pl., Suite 170, Ashburn. 703-771-5407. aaasupport@loudoun.gov. Free.

ROAD TO RECOVERY For cancer patients who need rides to appointments. 410-781-6909. Email jen.burdette@cancer.org. Free.

SAFE SITTER CLASSES For girls and boys ages 11-14. First Saturdays except for holiday weekends. 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. To receive a Safe Sitter Certificate, students must pass practical and written tests on babysitting concepts and handling an emergency. Take a lunch from home or buy lunch in the cafeteria. $70, includes handbook and snacks during the day. Registration required. Call 703-858-8818 or email charlene.martin@inova.org.

SEVEN LOAVES FOOD PANTRY Individuals and families can receive a three-day supply of food, distributed Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 10 a.m.-noon. 540-687-3489 or sevenloavesmiddleburg.org.

TREE OF LIFE FOOD PANTRY Serving western Loudoun County. Food is delivered Wednesdays and Saturdays. 703-554-3595.

 Compiled by Sandy Mauck

TO SUBMIT AN ITEM

Email: ldliving@washpost.com

Fax: 703-777-8437

Mail: Health Calendar, The Washington Post, 104 Dry Mill Rd. SW, Suite 101, Leesburg, Va. 20175

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar
Public invited to screening of addiction documentary

As part of the Department of Justices National Opioid and Heroin Awareness Week, Briar Woods High School will host a free screening of the 45-minute documentary Chasing the Dragon: The Life of an Opiate Addict on Tuesday at 7 p.m., 22525 Belmont Ridge Rd., Ashburn.

The documentary, developed by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, is intended to inform students and young adults about the growing epidemic of prescription drug and heroin abuse. The film will be followed by a panel discussion hosted by NBC-4 reporter Julie Carey. Panelists will include officials from the DEA and the Loudoun County Sheriffs Office, local treatment and recovery experts, and educators and families affected by opiate addiction. Pizza will be available before the screening; quantities will be limited.

For information, call 703-777-0625.

DMV mobile center to park in Purcellville on Wednesday

The Department of Motor Vehicless mobile customer service center, DMV2Go, will provide service Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the parking lot of Firemans Field/Bush Tabernacle, 250 S. Nursery Ave.

The mobile center handles all DMV transactions, including applying for and renewing drivers licenses, ID cards, vital records and veterans ID cards. Road and knowledge tests are available, and applicants can have their pictures taken. To determine the documents you need to have with you, go to dmvnow.com.

Workforce Resource Center to host fair Thursday

The Loudoun Workforce Resource Center, which provides free employment services to job seekers and employers, will have an employment fair Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the center, 102 Heritage Way NE, Leesburg.

The fair will promote workforce development organizations throughout Loudoun that offer programs and services to assist job hunters. Resume critiques will be offered by representatives of the Society of Human Resource Professionals.

The fair is free and open to the public. Advance registration is not required. For information, email the Workforce Resource Center at wrc@loudoun.gov or call 703-777-0350.

 Compiled by Sandy Mauck
Event encourages drivers to use other transit options

The eighth annual Try Transit Week begins Monday. The week-long educational event, organized by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, is designed to reduce the use of single-occupancy vehicles in favor of buses, trains, van pools and ferries.

Additionally, the worldwide Car Free Day falls within Try Transit Week. On Thursday, motorists are encouraged to give up their cars for a day and use alternative modes of travel.

Commuters who pledge to take part in the events will be entered into drawings to win prizes, including a grand prize pair of round-trip tickets aboard Amtraks Northeast Regional trains. The Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission will give away three SmarTrip cards pre-loaded with $25 or $50.

For information, visit trytransitweek.org or carfreemetrodc.org.

Donations needed for community book drive

The Manassas Lioness Lions Club is collecting books for its annual community book drive.

Books in good condition suitable for students in kindergarten through 12th grade (including audiobooks and books in Braille) will be accepted through Nov. 15 at the following locations: the Manassas City Police Department, 9518 Fairview Ave., Manassas; Grace United Methodist Church, 9750 Wellington Rd., Manassas; Gainesville United Methodist Church, 13710 Milestone Ct., Gainesville; and Manassas Park Community Center, 99 Adams St., Manassas Park. Marked boxes will be in the lobby of each location.

The club will sort and distribute the books to area schools.

For information, call Pat at 703-335-2607 or email nuhse4u@verizon.net .

Meeting Oct. 3 to address proposed eastern elementary school

A public meeting on a proposed elementary school near the Prince William Parkway and Chinn Park Regional Library is scheduled for Oct. 3 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Woodbridge Middle School, 2201 York Dr., Woodbridge.

Prince William County Public Schools Office of Facilities Services invites residents to attend the presentation and comment on the school plan.

The elementary school is expected to relieve overcrowding at Vaughan, Kerrydale, and Westridge elementary schools, as well as at other eastern elementary schools.

For information, call 703-791-7568.

Parkside Middle offers educators Cambridge certification

Parkside Middle School in Manassas has been named a Cambridge Professional Development Center. It is the first and only school in the United States to have this designation.

Teachers who complete the development program will earn the Cambridge Professional Development Qualifications Certificate, accredited by University College Londons Institute of Education, which was ranked No. 1 for education worldwide in the 2014 and 2015 QS World University rankings. The program is open to educators across the school division.

Parkside Middle School became a Cambridge International School in January 2013.
Evidence markers are scattered around the crime scene on Birney Place SE, where nine people were shot Saturday night. (Faiz Siddiqui/The Washington Post)

It was a cool, late-summer Saturday evening, and about 150 people had congregated in the Barry Farm neighborhood of Southeast Washington for an annual tradition: Dorsey Day, in honor of a late resident who was known for his community involvement. Some residents were barbecuing while children played in bounce houses and dozens danced to hip-hop and listened to go-go bands.

Around 8:20 p.m., a hail of gunfire brought festivities to an abrupt halt. Attendees scattered, rushing to cars parked along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. One wounded victim fled to find help while private cars sped off with others who had been shot; parents sprinted to the scene to check on loved ones.

Images of evidence markers at the scene suggested that at least 30 shots had been fired.

I just heard gunshots and all of the crowd ran this way, said Tiffany Curry, 40, pointing down Birney Place SE, where she lives. Curry had rushed to check on her 17-year-old daughter. It was grown men pushing kids, stepping on, trampling on kids. Bodies on the ground. It was people all over this daggone area that were shot.

[Two killed, six wounded in Southeast D.C. shooting]

The crime scene is adjacent to several churches in the Barry Farm neighborhood of Southeast, including Holy Temple Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE. (Faiz Siddiqui/The Washington Post)

Two men were killed and seven others, including a boy thought to be about 8, were wounded, authorities said Sunday. All seven  four men, two women and the child  suffered injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening, police said. Authorities said the boy was talking at the hospital.

Police initially said six people had been wounded, but they raised the number to seven Sunday, saying the seventh victim had fled to a nearby firehouse for help.

Interim D.C. police chief Peter Newsham said Saturday night that he thought the gunfire came from at least two people.

The men who were killed were identified Sunday as Scorpio-Rodney Alonzo Phillips, 31, and Zoruan Otto Harris, 18, both of Southeast. Police have not identified a motive or a suspect.

Phillips was a landscaper and sports fanatic who loved the Redskins, family members said. His daughter had just entered first grade, said his aunt Danita Gray, 50, of Bladensburg, Md.

He was a nice, loving, caring person, and he loved his mother to death, Gray said. His mother, Phyllis Gray, was too distraught to speak.

I just want justice, pleaded his sister, Tanisha Phillips, 18. Where was the police?

Harris had been captain of the football team at National Collegiate Preparatory Public Charter High School in Southeast, from which he graduated. The school described him as a great kid and role model who was a freshman this year at the University of the District of Columbia. He held two jobs and was a responsible father to his young son, the school said.

The founder and executive director of National Prep, Jennifer Ross, said in a statement that the school is completely devastated over the loss of one of our most esteemed leaders who did everything right and was in the right place (a positive community event) at the wrong time.

[Outgoing police chief decries Districts broken criminal justice system]

The shooting frightened residents in the Anacostia-Barry Farm neighborhood, some of whom said they were accustomed to violence but were shocked by the callousness of targeting a community event billed as a back-to-school gathering.

It is just sickening that you cant bring your kids out to enjoy themselves without them being put innocently in harms way, said Keisha Johnson, 38, a mother of three children ages 20, 13 and 4, who lives in the neighborhood.

The block-long shooting scene was littered with evidence markers, about a dozen clustered in one spot, giving a sense of where the shooting was concentrated. Forensics analysts swept the area for clues Sunday. Meanwhile, residents wondered why police hadnt done more to thwart a confrontation.

Paul Trantham, an Advisory Neighborhood Commission member in Southeast, was outraged about what he perceived as a lack of a police presence for a planned event. D.C. police did not immediately respond to a query regarding the events permitting requirements and whether police were monitoring the large crowd.

[Lanier eliminates many plainclothes drug units to focus on top dealers]

Trantham advocated the return of vice squads, the enforcement units made up of plainclothes officers, to monitor drug activity. The program was ended two years ago under former chief Cathy L. Lanier, who resigned this month to take a job at the National Football League.

Them refusing to do so is allowing these bad boys to continue to parade around our communities shooting anything and everyone, Trantham said. It must stop. And the mayor and the interim chief of police can stop it.

At a briefing Saturday night, Newsham said the gunfire was prompted by a dispute. But officials did not say what the dispute was about or whether it had arisen during or before the event.

Police later said that the organizers should have had a permit and security plan for the event.

We had a big event here on private property in a private parking lot, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said Saturday, calling on community residents to help police with information that could bring people with illegal guns to justice.

[Assistant Chief Peter Newsham chosen as interim D.C. police chief]

Phillips and Harris suffered gunshot wounds to the head. The seven other victims fled the scene to multiple addresses, with some being transported to hospitals in private vehicles, police said.

Ambulances arrived within 10 minutes of the shooting and transported two victims to hospitals, D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services logs show.

The other victims had left by the time paramedics arrived, fire officials said.

Nate Payne, a field technician at Verizon who lives in the neighborhood, said the event had begun around 11 a.m. or noon. The crowd grew as the day wore on, with about 150 people barbecuing, drinking and taking in the music. He said he was struck by the lack of security. At some point, two suspicious-seeming cars pulled up, he said. Then shots rang out.

Everybody scattered, Payne said. It was just something too good that was going on for too long.

Birney Place, about a quarter-mile south of the Anacostia Metro station, is a U-shaped residential street lined with apartment buildings. It intersects Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue at an uphill slope dotted by churches.

At nearby Holy Temple Church, a childrens choir that had been practicing Saturday rushed inside, said one congregant in attendance who declined to give his name. Solid Rock Baptist Church, another house of worship adjacent to the shooting scene, was mourning the deaths Sunday.

Its terrifying, but there are so many guns that are available, said the Rev. Millie Brown. Were hoping and praying that things will get better.

Curry, whose daughter emerged from the chaos bruised but mostly unharmed, mourned with Phillipss family Sunday. She said she couldnt remember so many people getting shot at once in her four years living in the neighborhood, or in the two decades her family has lived in the area.

Ive never in my life seen anything like this, she said.

To whoever was responsible, she said: Your days going to come. That boy was somebodys father. Youre going to reap what you sowed.

This story has been updated.

Clarence Williams and Martin Weil contributed to this report.
If confronted by robbers, authorities say, its wisest to surrender what is demanded. However, in the District a number of people have tried recently to struggle, flee or refuse, with mixed results.

On Friday, a man suspected of having a gun tried to rob a bank in the 3200 block of Pennsylvania Avenue SE, police said. He was given nothing and fled.

On Thursday morning, an assailant grabbed someone in the 1400 block of Fourth Street SW and demanded money. The robbery target refused, police said, and the assailant ran off.

On Sept. 13 in the 1000 block of H Street NW, in the downtown area, would-be robbers tried to snatch a cellphone.

Police said the female owner struggled with them, and they fled without the item. Four teenagers were arrested, police said.

Demonstrating the hazards of fleeing from a holdup, police said a victim was shot in the neck Sept. 11 as he tried to run from a robber in the unit block of T Street NE.

But even if not resisted, robbery carries an inherent threat. About 12:30 a.m. Saturday in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, at Ontario and Kalorama roads, a passenger robbed and cut a cabdriver, causing minor injuries, a D.C. police official said.

There is no indication that the driver resisted, the official said. An arrest was made and a knife was seized, he said.
Security is expected to be tight, and delays extensive, as President Obama and tens of thousands of people attend the gala opening Saturday of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

In addition to the president and first lady Michelle Obama, former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush will join members of Congress, the Supreme Court and visitors from across the country on the Mall.

Museum officials said they expect about 20,000 people to attend the opening and related events.

Streets around the museum, at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW in downtown Washington, will be closed, and security access points will be in place.

Parking near the site is prohibited, and visitors are encouraged to use Metro and other public transportation. The nearest Metro stops are Smithsonian and Federal Triangle.





Security will be a wonderfully collaborative effort with [the] Smithsonian, with the Park Service, with the Secret Service, Founding Museum Director Lonnie G. Bunch III said last week.

We recognize that there will be unprecedented crowds and security, he said. We feel very comfortable that weve got a process in place to handle that.

The event will pale in terms of crowds beside Obamas first inauguration in 2009, which drew a record 1.8 million people to the Mall, and for the visit of Pope Francis in September 2015, which produced one of the largest and most complex security cordons attempted in Washington.

[The artifacts and stories that brought the African American museum to life]

Still, Sgt. Anna Rose, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Park Police, which handles security on the Mall, said, We expect to have quite a few visitors. She noted that a festival connected to the museums opening will have high attendance.

Rose said police at this time . . . do not have any credible threats, and no threats that I know of, period. She said authorities have been planning security for the event for several months.

The outdoor ceremony begins with a gathering and musical prelude at 8 a.m. The dedication of the newest Smithsonian Institution museum is set for 10 a.m. The ceremony will be live-streamed on the Internet at nmaahc.si.edu.

Among other VIPs, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a veteran of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., chancellor of the Smithsonian, are expected to attend the dedication.

The museum opens to the public at 1 p.m. But timed passes are required, and, because of high demand, none are available until November.

The free timed passes for November and December are available through the museums website.

On Saturday the public will not be allowed onto the museum grounds, but can watch from the grounds of the Washington Monument and on large television screens.

Visitors will have to go through security screening checkpoints at 17th Street NW, Constitution Avenue NW, 17th Street SW and Independence Avenue SW.

Items prohibited include alcohol, ammunition, pets, balloons, bicycles, fireworks, guns, knives of any type, folding tables, tents, chairs, tripods, glass containers, soda cans, hard-shell coolers, laser pointers, pepper spray, scissors, screwdrivers, razor blades and needles.

Screening and bag checks will also be in place for the free music festival, Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration, on the grounds of the Washington Monument, Friday through Sunday.

Festival entrances also will be at 17th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, and 17th Street and Independence Avenue SW.

On Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m, featured performers include Living Colour, Public Enemy and the Roots. A host of musicians, storytellers and dancers will perform throughout the weekend.

Artifacts from some of the performers  Public Enemy and jazz bassist Stanley Clarke  are on display inside the museum.

[Museum opening amid fanfare, street closures]

Some streets may close from 7 p.m. Friday through 10 p.m. Sunday. They include:

Both directions of Constitution Avenue from 12th Street NW to 18th Street NW. Traffic will be diverted onto 12th, 17th and 18th streets. The 12th Street tunnel will remain open.

15th Street from Pennsylvania Avenue NW to Maine Avenue SW.

14th Street from Pennsylvania Avenue NW to Independence Avenue SW. Access to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center from 13th Street NW.

Madison Drive NW from Seventh Street NW to 15th Street NW.

Jefferson Drive SW from Seventh Street SW to 15th Street SW.


Muslim men prepare to hold Friday afternoon prayers in a temporary worship space in Culpeper. The Justice Department is investigating whether this group was discriminated against by Culpeper officials in the denial of a sewage permit that would allow a mosque to be built on a lot nearby. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

The small Muslim community here used to pray in the historic Amtrak station, where Lyndon B. Johnson kicked off a 1960 whistle-stop tour. When a local history museum moved into the space in 2014, they shifted to an empty home next to an auto business.

After years of drifting, the group of about 12 to 20 Muslims who show up regularly for Friday prayers want a more permanent place of worship. So they set out to build a mosque in a more rural area outside town.

But those plans were put on hold in April, when the county denied them a permit to haul waste from the property, which is too undeveloped for sewer service. Now the Justice Department is investigating whether that decision was based on more than the technicalities of development  and amounts to illegal religious discrimination.

We just want our rights to be fulfilled, said Fuad Abu-Taleb, who leads Culpepers Muslim prayers.

The investigation is one of 14 being conducted by the Justice Department into potential discrimination by state and local governments involving land use or jails. While the agency declined to provide details of those, more than a third of Justice Department investigations into land or institutional religious discrimination in the past six years involve Muslims  a striking statistic given that Muslims make up about 1 percent of the U.S. population.

In a similar case in July, the Justice Department filed suit against a township in Pennsylvania, alleging that it discriminated when it denied zoning approval to a group that wanted to build a mosque.

In June, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, noted that the department sometimes sees overt animus toward religious groups seeking to build. But we also see people organizing to try to block construction of minority places of worship often adopting more subtle tactics, she said.

There is no question that the decision on what would normally be a little-noticed development matter in Culpeper got a lot of attention. A crowd packed the county government meeting and cheered when the motion to deny the permit was introduced. Board members reported receiving scores of calls and emails on the normally obscure land-use concern. The decision, made in a 4-to-3 vote, was celebrated on anti-Islam websites.

Ira Lupu, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said the federal investigators will conduct interviews and examine the record to look for anything to suggest that they have granted these permits in cases where theres no animosity towards the people applying, and maybe even a preference.

County Administrator John Egertson said he was very confident that when they finish their review, they will find that we are completely compliant. The board, he said, acted within their policy, and they acted fairly and consistently.

The board members who opposed the Islamic Center said they did so on technical grounds. Opponents noted that although county staff recommended approval, the pump-and-haul permits are designed for situations where no other option exists. The Islamic group had not yet finished buying the land where the mosque would sit; the board members who voted against them argued that they could simply find a different site.



The sun sets over the main streets in Culpeper. The county has fewer than 50,000 residents. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Bill Chase is a member of the county board who is opposed to issuing a sewage permit that would allow the construction of the Islamic Center. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Im not anti-anybody  I served with every race and every religion in the Army, and everybody bleeds red blood, said Bill Chase, who proposed the motion to deny the permit. This request was from land that had not been bought . . . it wasnt an emergency situation; it wasnt an existing structure.

A review of pump-and-haul permit decisions dating to 1992 shows that most were granted to existing buildings, mostly churches, on land that could not accommodate normal septic systems. But several went to organizations that had not yet built on or bought land. One was a church that in 1993 said it needed the permit to move forward on buying a site. One was a construction company that in 1995 wanted to buy a property and turn it into an office. Chase argued for that permit, which was approved unanimously. Another was to build an office trailer for a companys disabled worker. Again, Chase advocated for the permit despite opposition from county staff. So did Steve Walker, who was one of three other board members who opposed the mosques permit.

In nearly every case, there was no clear date for sewer service to be extended. In most, it was expected within a few years, as is the case for the mosques proposed location. Only one of the past 19 pump-and-haul permit requests has been rejected.

County board member Sue Hansohn, who voted to grant the permit, has expressed concerns that fear of religious extremism in the wake of terrorist attacks abroad influenced the push for a denial.

The majority of the calls and emails I had was because of the religion, not because its a pump and haul or environmental reasons, Hansohn said before the vote. I understand people who are so afraid because of what has happened in Europe, I understand that totally. But I dont think in our country we should turn down somebody because of religion reasons.

The two other board members who supported the mosque also publicly talked about issues of religious freedom and discrimination and noted that such permits had been fairly freely given in the past.

Walker said his opposition to the mosque stemmed entirely from the fact that the group did not yet own the property. He was not on the board, he said, when previous applicants had gotten permits without owning land.

I try to keep it real simple, he said. Noting that the Islamic Center has since closed on the property, he said, They have the right to reapply.

That appears likely. While Islamic Center leaders said in April that they would hire lawyers, they now say they hope to win approval without legal action.



Every Muslim community starts with a hard time, said Mohammad Nawabe, who owns an auto dealership and the home where his fellow Muslims worship. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Maybe they will change their minds, said Mohammad Nawabe, who owns the auto dealership next to where his fellow Muslims worship. Every Muslim community starts with a hard time.

Several local Muslims said they had experienced discrimination in the area but did not want to be named because they feared retribution in a county with fewer than 50,000 residents. Seventy-one percent of those residents are non-Hispanic whites, according to recent census data; the nonwhite population is mostly Hispanic and black.

The county sheriff has previously come under fire for hosting a seminar on Jihadi Networks in America led by a former FBI agent who claims terrorists control most leading American Muslim groups. The sheriff advertised that he would host a similar seminar on Saturday , featuring the same ex-agent and a former pastor who says mosques lead to the destruction of Western culture.

One resident, who said he did not want to hurt his business by discussing religious tensions openly, said someone had made an obscene gesture at his wife when she wore a headscarf into Walmart. Now, when she shops there, she takes it off.

Its not like Northern Virginia, like Fairfax or Alexandria here, he said. Here, youre going back to the 1950s.

However, Nawabe emphasized that he has also seen an outpouring of support since the rejection. A native of Afghanistan, the 54-year-old has lived in the county for six years and Virginia for several decades.

I love Culpeper; I love Virginia, he said. Im a country boy.

Its not clear how long the Justice Departments investigation will take. If it concludes there was discrimination, the federal government can sue Culpeper.

According to the Justice Department, the vast majority of similar investigations involving non-Muslims are resolved by an agreement between the federal government and the locality before any legal action is taken. But only 1 in 5 cases involving Muslims is resolved without a lawsuit.

Optimistically, the Islamic group is continuing to prepare the site for building. A ramshackle home on their land has been torn down and the land cleared of debris.

Roger Southard, 54, lives with three tiny but territorial dogs in a house just behind the site.

I dont have a problem with it; its a free country, he said of the potential mosque. But, he added, Im afraid if they do build it, that maybe one of the people that may not care for it, Im actually scared that people might shoot at it.

Meanwhile, weekly services continue in the home by the auto dealership. On a recent Friday afternoon, 17 men clustered in a living room stripped of furniture and painted white. The theme of the sermon: sabr, or patience.
Spiro Agnew is remembered for pleading no contest to tax-evasion charges related to bribery and resigning as Richard Nixons vice president. But his signal political achievement was igniting a campaign that endured for more than four decades painting the mainstream media as biased, liberal and elitist.

Anti-media sentiment had long been bubbling on the right when Agnew targeted what were then the Big Three television networks for representing a concentration of power over American public opinion unknown in history.

The American people would rightly not tolerate this kind of concentration of power in government, Agnew declared in a 1969 speech in Des Moines. Is it not fair and relevant to question its concentration in the hands of a tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government?

Agnew was unrelenting. With help from William Safire and Pat Buchanan, gifted Nixon speechwriters (and, later, columnists), he coined many memorable phrases, including the alliterative nattering nabobs of negativism.

Rarely has a concerted political effort been more successful. Ever since, reporters, editors and producers have incessantly looked over their right shoulders, fearing theyd be assailed as secret carriers of the liberal virus.

1 of 60 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail View Photos The GOP presidential nominee is out on the trail ahead of the general election in November. Caption The GOP presidential nominee is pressing his case ahead of Election Day. Nov. 7, 2016 Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at SNHU Arena in Manchester, N.H. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

But the 2016 campaign has brought an intense progressive counterattack on media timidity toward the right. Coverage of Donald Trump has become the occasion for a new crisis of credibility.

There is the matter of Trumps outsize access to television time during the primaries that dwarfed the attention given to his competitors. Liberals insist further that Trump is being held to a much lower standard than is Hillary Clinton, which, in turn, means that while relatively short shrift is given to each new Trump scandal, the same old Clinton scandals get covered again and again.

[Greg Sargent: The Republican Party is now institutionally defending Trumps racism]

Allowing Trump to dominate television time during the primary campaign has nothing directly to do with the liberal-conservative argument, but its something the media will have to answer for. This disadvantaged other Republican presidential candidates and reflected a hunger for ratings that overcame any concern for balance.

But the coverage of Trump and Clinton does suggest that a media exquisitely sensitive to conservative criticism now overcompensates against the other side. Josh Marshall, the founder of the Talking Points Memo blog, offered one of the clearest statements of the problem. Theres little doubt, he wrote last week, that the scrutiny of The Clinton Foundation and Clintons emails has had a repetitive, hyper-skeptical and saturation coverage that hasnt been close to matched by any investigative story about Donald Trump. Its not remotely close.

The issue is not asking the media to shy away from holding Clinton accountable. But journalists need to ask whether they have created a narrative about Clinton that paints her as less trustworthy than Trump even though the factual evidence is overwhelming that he lies far more than she does.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof pointed to PolitiFacts finding that while 53 percent of the Trump statements it checked were False or Pants on Fire howlers, only 13 percent of Clintons were. Theres no comparison with Trump, Kristof wrote.

Donald Trump spent a lot of time raising doubts over President Obama's birth certificate in 2011. He finally admitted Obama was born in the U.S. on Sept. 16, but falsely accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of starting the rumor. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Ideological concerns aside, Marshall argued that Trumps repeated false statements were so brazen and repetitive as to put all of the medias traditional rules and practices under strain. Trump keeps saying that he opposed the Iraq War when the evidence from 2002 and 2003 shows he supported it. And the birther in chief who made his name on the right by insinuating for years that Barack Obama was ineligible to be president had the effrontery to say, falsely, that Clinton had started the whole thing.

[Jennifer Rubin: The GOP died this weekend]

Journalists have been reluctant to call Trump a liar, even when he lies. But the manipulative nature of his birther announcement unleashed what Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan called some long overdue indignation among reporters. There was evidence, in the headlines and the news stories, that the remaining resistance to using the word lie with reference to Trump was ebbing.

Liberals complaints about the media are themselves typically dismissed as partisan, and sure, the liberals are furious. Theyre furious that the rights own partisan media campaign has intimidated journalistic institutions. Theyre furious that Clintons shortcomings are magnified and harped on while negative stories about Trump often get report-once-and-move-on treatment. And theyre furious when Trumps lies arent called lies.

But critics motives shouldnt matter. What counts is whether their complaints are justified. For the first time since Agnew kicked off the great conservative campaign against the media, those who run our journalistic institutions are being systematically challenged as to whether they are so worried about condemnation from the right that theyre now demonstrably biased against the Democratic candidate for president.

Thus has media criticism  finally  become fair and balanced.

Read more from E.J. Dionnes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
The Draken Harald Harfagre, a large Viking ship modeled after Norwegian boat-building traditions, crosses New York Harbor on Saturday. The vessel, which set sail from Norway in April, has retraced a historic route used by the Norse Vikings. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)

NORTH CAROLINA

Four dead, dozens injured in bus crash

State troopers say four people have died and more than 40 were injured in a charter bus crash Saturday near Rockingham, N.C.

Between 40 and 50 people were hurt in the crash, and all have been transported to hospitals, Hamlet Fire and Rescue Chief Calvin White told WBTV in Charlotte. The extent of their injuries was not immediately known.

University of Gods Chosen Coach Demetrius Hollingsworth said that football players and coaches from Ramah Jucco Academy were traveling from Rock Hill, S.C., to Raeford, N.C., to face UGC when their charter bus struck an overpass about 3 p.m. on Interstate 74 in Richmond County, WRAL-TV reported.

The bus may have blown a front tire, the State Highway Patrol told WRAL.

 Associated Press

NEW JERSEY

Bomb explodes near route of charity race

Authorities are investigating a pipe bomb that exploded in a Jersey Shore garbage can Saturday morning, shortly before hundreds of people were expected to run through the area in a charity race benefiting U.S. Marines and Navy sailors.

The blast occurred at about 9:35 a.m. Saturday near the boardwalk in Seaside Park, along the route of the Seaside Semper Five Marine Corps Charity 5K, the Ocean County Prosecutors Office said.

There were no reported injuries or damages to surrounding buildings, and the area was immediately placed on lockdown while bomb-sniffing dogs searched for other explosive devices, the prosecutors office said.

Race organizers canceled the run at the last minute.

The Associated Press reported that the FBI has taken over as the lead agency in the investigation, but officials would not say whether they believe the incident was terrorism-related.

 Amy B Wang

La. officer charged with kicking suspect: A police officer in the New Orleans suburb of Gretna was arrested in connection with a surveillance video that showed him repeatedly kicking a handcuffed burglary suspect earlier this year. The suspect was lying facedown on the ground as he was kicked. Officer Robert Wallow was fired Thursday and arrested Friday on malfeasance and simple battery charges.

Two Texas officers wounded: A gunman hiding in a backyard shed in Fort Worth opened fire on two officers and wounded them after they had come to the home to check on a suicide report, police said Saturday. Officers later found the suspect dead in the shed. It was not immediately clear whether the suspect died from a police bullet or his own.

 From news services
In the battle for Hispanic representation, these two politicians may mark a new generation of Latino leaders. (Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post)

In the battle for Hispanic representation, these two politicians may mark a new generation of Latino leaders. (Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post)

Lagging support among Hispanic voters for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and congressional candidates in crucial races has stoked deep concern that the party and the presidential campaign are doing too little to galvanize a key constituency.

While Clinton holds a significant lead over Republican rival Donald Trump in every poll of Hispanic voters, less clear is whether these voters will turn out in numbers that Democrats are counting on to win. Clinton trails President Obamas 2012 performance in several Latino-rich states, including Florida, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona. In those same states, on which Democrats prospects of retaking the Senate hinge, some down-ballot Democrats remain unknown to many Hispanic voters.

That reality has prompted a flurry of criticism of Clintons and the partys Hispanic strategies. Despite a uniquely favorable environment with Trumps repeated attacks on undocumented immigrants, Democrats are increasingly worried that the opportunity is slipping away to meet a long-standing party goal of marshaling the nations growing Hispanic population into a permanent electoral force. The concerns are compounded by Trumps recent surge in several battleground states.

[Trump surges in battlegrounds, now leads in Florida, Ohio and Iowa]

Were not seeing the Democratic Party take advantage of this moment in time, really looking to leverage more engagement in a more strategic way with our community, said Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza.

One top criticism is that Clinton waited until this month to launch a sustained campaign of traditional, Spanish-language ads in key markets. Previously, the campaigns Hispanic strategy centered on reaching millennial voters through new media such as Facebook and YouTube. Its television outreach was produced primarily in English and aimed at bilingual households. According to critics, Clinton missed a chance to deploy a broader effort to target the Hispanic electorate such as the one that Obama pioneered four years ago.

This approach may end up being vindicated on Election Day, said Fernand Amandi, a veteran strategist who led Obamas research, messaging and paid media operation for the Hispanic vote in 2012. I just find it to be more risky than replicating what we know worked, which is the sustained approach that the Obama campaign put in place.

Clinton aides and her allies insist that they are facing a very different opponent than Obamas, along with new challenges posed by a Hispanic electorate that grows younger and less reliant on traditional modes of communication with each passing cycle.

The dispute goes to the heart of a debate among Hispanic operatives about how much emphasis should be placed on newer ways of reaching younger Hispanics, who like millennials overall are more resistant to backing Clinton than older Latinos.

A lot of it has evolved to include outreach that isnt obvious to people who are used to doing it old school, said veteran Democratic strategist Maria Cardona. The Clinton campaign and the DNC are very strategically focused on Latino millennials.

Much of the upset is also focused on down-ballot House and Senate races. Even Clinton has said any hope that Democrats can retake majorities rests on Hispanic turnout. Yet neither the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee nor the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee employ Hispanic outreach coordinators, according to Albert Morales, who held that job until March for the Democratic National Committee.

The DSCC has never really had a robust or a Hispanic engagement effort that I ever coordinated with, and thats saying a lot being at the DNC under three different chairmen, Morales said. I couldnt name one. If you were to ask me, name a Hispanic staffer whos been at the DSCC, I couldnt name it. Thats pretty sad.

As a result, critics say, the party is failing to capitalize on anger at Trump in a way that would help down-ballot candidates.

For instance: According to recent polls, just 40 percent of Hispanic voters say they believe that Trump will make good on his campaign pledge to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants. That means that a key argument of the Democrats case against him isnt sinking in.

What really scares me is the non-motivation down-ballot of targeting Latinos for Senate and congressional races, said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic political consultant who worked on the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

In Florida, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has a seven-point edge among Latinos against Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy, according to a poll released by Univision News last week. Rubios Cuban American heritage may be Murphys biggest hurdle, but Murphy is also widely unknown among Hispanics: 6 in 10 said they didnt know enough about him to register an opinion, the poll said.

Arizona tells a similar story. Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who is hoping to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. John McCain, is unknown by 4 in 10 Hispanics, even though she leads 50 percent to 35 percent among them, according to the same Univision survey.

In Nevada, where former Democratic attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto hopes to become the first Latina elected to the Senate, shes leading Rep. Joseph J. Heck (R) among Hispanics 58 percent to 24 percent  but 38 percent of Hispanics dont know enough about her to register an opinion.

You can never do too much, theres more to be done, yes, said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). I think theres more to do around the country, but its just expensive.

DSCC spokeswoman Lauren Passalacqua said the committee is rolling out a more focused strategy in the closing weeks in key states. She also noted that Cortez Masto and Kirkpatrick are already airing Spanish TV ads.

According to the DCCC, which coordinates House races for Democrats, Spanish-language television and radio ads are on the air in a House race in Texas and another in Florida, with more likely to go up soon. The committees biggest effort this cycle has been to hire local, Spanish-speaking organizers earlier than ever to register and turn out voters in key districts.

This is a new approach that we believe will work, said Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), the first Latino chairman of the committee.

Also of concern to Rocha and others is the lack of messaging on bread-and-butter topics beyond immigration such as the economy, education and health care  issues that are important to most voters, including Hispanics.

In contrast, Obamas first Spanish-language ads in 2012 were focused on health care and education, including Head Start and Pell Grants, which provide aid to poor students who attend college.

Being part of the Bernie team for so long and seeing how the message of free college and raising the minimum wage resonated, I just dont see that out there now that Im working on these races where theres a lot of Latinos, Rocha said.

Obama also targeted the intricacies of the Latino community, according to Freddy Balsera, a Miami-based political consultant who crafted much of Obamas Spanish-language advertising campaign in 2008.

When we were talking to a Latino voter in Colorado, we were discussing issues that mattered to them there. We did the same thing in Florida and took it a step further by talking to South Florida Hispanics with an announcer who was more Cuban-sounding. It was a more Puerto Rican-sounding voice in Orlando, Balsera said. We really, really localized the message and understood theres not a pan-Hispanic community. And as such, theres no universal pan-Hispanic messages.

Veterans of Obamas 2012 race said the campaign determined in early 2011 that they needed an aggressive strategy to turn out minority voters  especially Hispanics  in anticipation of a drop-off in support among white voters. It involved early, heavy advertising on Spanish-language television, including one voiced in Spanish by Obama and others by Cristina Saralegui, who has been described as the Spanish Oprah. Those efforts were paired with targeted grass-roots outreach and an aggressive field program.

Clinton aides said they began putting Latino organizers on the ground in May, both in Hispanic-rich battlegrounds and in other states with smaller but potentially pivotal Latino populations, including Wisconsin, Iowa, Georgia, Ohio and Nebraska.

The effort includes programs targeting various groups within the Hispanic community, including undocumented immigrant children, or dreamers, and their families, small-business owners, and a program targeted at Latino faith leaders.

Soon, the campaign plans to bus Puerto Rican supporters from New York into Pennsylvania, where they will canvass in towns and neighborhoods, including Bethlehem, Lancaster and North Philadelphia, that are full of Puerto Rican transplants. Also under consideration is flying Puerto Ricans from the island to knock on doors in Florida.

But in the general election, the campaigns investment in the kind of targeted advertising that was pioneered in 2012 has been smaller and has come later. And the question of language has been a key spark in the debate.

Until recently, much of Clintons television advertising to Hispanic voters has been in English, a concerted decision aimed at reaching bilingual households.

All of these tactics complement each other. One part of course is Spanish-language ads. But the other part targets English-dominant Hispanics, said Lorella Praeli, Clintons director of Latino Outreach. Were also very comfortable spending time in the Spanglish space  thats the way that we communicate.

A new Spanish-language radio ad released this week and airing in Florida, Nevada and Ohio, is voiced by Clintons running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). In Spanish, Kaine touts his work as a Jesuit missionary in Honduras  part of the senators backstory that Clinton campaign aides believe will resonate with Hispanics, who are predominantly Catholic and who generally revere Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pontiff.

That kind of Spanish delivery can matter, said Federico de Jesus, who served as Obamas Hispanic communications director during the 2008 campaign, noting that they received positive feedback in 2008 when Obamas Spanish ads included him approving the ad in Spanish: Soy Barack Obama y yo apruebo este mensaje.

This year, Clintons Spanish ads only have her saying, Soy Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.

Its fine that she did only part of it, but its different, de Jesus said.

Amandi, the veteran strategist of Obamas 2012 campaign, questioned the wisdom of waiting to engage in Spanish until the end.

The question I would ask is what message does that send to the Spanish-dominant Hispanic voters? Amandi asked. That theyre not as important as the English-language Hispanic voters by waiting this late in the cycle to engage with them?
Donald Trumps campaign praises the Republican presidential nominee for ending the birther controversy while his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton says he must apologize to President Obama. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Donald Trumps campaign praises the Republican presidential nominee for ending the birther controversy while his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton says he must apologize to President Obama. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Donald Trumps effort to end the controversy he helped stoke over President Obamas citizenship has handed Democrats a fresh opportunity to motivate voters, particularly African Americans, who are offended by an issue that had faded to the recesses of the campaign.

Black lawmakers, who listened to Obama gleefully mock the Republican nominees evolving views on his birth certificate during a gala dinner Saturday night, plan to take their condemnation of Trump on the road in the coming weeks.

Democrats are already fundraising off the issue. They seized on the topic during the Sunday talk shows. And Trumps opponent, Hillary Clinton, is widely sharing views on the topic from her supporters and newspaper editorials.

This isnt just a wacky guy saying something wacky, Clintons running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, said on CNNs State of the Union. Explaining the pre-Civil War period when blacks were not considered U.S. citizens, Kaine said: When Donald Trump says that the first African American president is not a citizen, that is so painful to so many people who still have deep feelings about that dark chapter in American life.

The resurrection of the birther issue comes as polls have shown a tightening race between Clinton and Trump and Democrats are worried about turnout among black voters  a key constituency that helped fuel Obamas historic wins in 2008 and 2012.

Donald Trump, the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, spoke at the Trump International Hotel in Washington on Friday, where he declared, after years suggesting the opposite, that President Obama was born in the U.S. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

[Trump surges in battlegrounds, now leads in Florida, Ohio and Iowa]

Fresh attention to Trumps long-running and false accusations questioning Obamas citizenship could also inspire others from the Obama coalition, which included young voters, Hispanics and college-educated whites, to turn out for less-popular Clinton.

For a lot of people, its brought up that anger again, and that anger is not going to dissipate before the election, said Kweisi Mfume, a former congressman from Maryland and former president of the NAACP. This is another reason to get up and vote against Donald Trump.

Campaigning on Clintons behalf in Cleveland on Sunday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a darling of the partys left wing, was even more blunt.

For years, Donald Trump led the charge on the birther movement, she said. Only when his handlers tied him down and made him did he finally admit that it wasnt true. What kind of man does that? A man with a dark and ugly soul.

Trumps aim on Friday was to put the issue behind him by declaring that President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period. That view contradicted multiple Trump statements over the past five years; he also added to the controversy by claiming that Clinton and her campaign started the birther movement during the 2008 nominating contest against Obama. He took credit for forcing Obama to offer proof of his citizenship.

Trumps surrogates continued to push those views on the Sunday talk shows, and they also tried to argue that there was no need to keep talking about the issue. Democrats, they argued, were doing so only to deflect from Clintons slide in the polls.

The birther issue is a done issue, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), Trumps transition chairman, said on CNN. If you think that anyone is going to vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton or against either one of them based upon this issue, then I think theres a fundamental misunderstanding of the concerns of the American people. Lets move on to the real issues.

Trumps running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), seemed to struggle to answer questions on ABC Newss This Week about Trumps role in the birther movement, repeatedly trying to change the topic of conversation.

Pence said there are news reporters who trace the birther movement all the way back to Hillary Clintons campaign in 2008 and that the facts speak for themselves, although he wouldnt list any such facts.

At one point, ABCs Martha Raddatz asked Pence: Why did it take him so long to put it to an end?

Its over, Pence responded.

To that, Raddatz said: Its not over.

Obama clearly wasnt ready to move on Saturday night during his final appearance before an annual dinner hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington.

The president began his remarks by saying sarcastically that he had an extra spring in my step given that Trump had finally acknowledged that he is an American citizen.

And to think with just 124 days to go, under the wire, we got that thing resolved, Obama said to laughter from the predominantly African American audience. In other breaking news, the world is round, not flat.

The president used the balance of a feisty speech to urge black voters to turn out in large numbers for Clinton, saying it would be a personal insult to him if they dont help carry out his legacy by electing his choice for president.

Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), who was among those in the audience, said that members of the Congressional Black Caucus are preparing to travel to presidential battleground states including Ohio, North Carolina and Florida to make the case against Trump and for Clinton. The birther comments will feature prominently in the effort, he said.

The birther issue is the straw that broke the camels back, said Meeks, who chairs the groups political action committee. I think the closer we get to Election Day, the more enthusiasm there will be.

Within hours of Trumps comments on Friday, the group of black lawmakers had already mobilized to hold a news conference during which, one after another, they condemned Trump.

We will not elect a chief bigot of the United States of America, said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.).

Donald Trump is nothing more than a two-bit racial arsonist, said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Hes a hater. Hes a bigot and hes racist, said Val Deming, a former Orlando police chief running for Congress in Florida. Ive learned as a law enforcement officer to call it like I see it.

Clinton, who has stopped short of calling Trump a racist, has stepped up her criticism of the birther issue as well, saying Friday that he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president and there is no erasing it in history.

Her campaign issued news releases with high-profile supporters from key swing states, including Virginia and Florida, chastising Trump for his past views. The Clinton campaign also widely circulated editorials from newspapers in North Carolina and Pennsylvania that were critical of the latest episode with Trump.

The arm of the party that helps elect Democrats to Congress was already focused on making Trump an issue in swing districts, pushing Republicans to say whether they agree with divisive statements the Republican nominee has made.

On Friday, the group fired off a fundraising letter referring to Trump as this racist man, part of an effort to inspire Obama loyalists to step up contributions.

Democrats also hope that younger voters, many of whom are not fired up about Clinton, can be motivated by wanting to stop Trump from reaching the White House.

During a Saturday swing through northeast Ohio, Bernie Sanders reminded two audiences, largely composed of college students, that Trump had spent years questioning the presidents citizenship.

You cannot elect a president of the United States whose campaign is based on bigotry, said Sanders, the runner-up in this years Democratic primaries, at Kent State University. What they were trying to do, led by Donald Trump, was delegitimize the presidency of the first black president weve ever had.

There has been evidence that such arguments are already resonating.

At a Sunday rally headlined by Warren, several black women in attendance noted that Trump did not apologize Friday for pushing a discredited theory about Obama for five years.

They should have insisted that he apologize, said Annie Thompson, 76.

It was so disrespectful, said Carolyn Starks, 70. Hatred follows that man wherever he goes.

Trumps argument that Clinton had secretly been responsible for the birther conspiracy fell just as flat.

Lie, lie, lie, said Starks. People that lie all the time like that  I think they have mental problems.

Jenna Johnson in Washington and David Weigel in Cleveland and Kent, Ohio, contributed to this report.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told the American Legion National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Sept. 1 that if he is elected he would be uncompromising in defense of U.S., end the era of nation-building and craft foreign policy focused on destroying radical Islamic terrorism. (Ty Wright/Bloomberg)

The foreign-policy establishment remains overwhelmingly opposed to Donald Trumps bid for the White House, unifying around Hillary Clinton as the only responsible option despite ideological differences  support that has been brought into sharper focus in the week since North Korea defiantly launched its fifth nuclear test.

As Kim Jong Uns authoritarian regime remains belligerently committed to developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, several international security experts warn that the next president will probably face the culmination of those efforts. And they worry that Trump is ill equipped to navigate the complicated geopolitical forces at play.

Eliot Cohen, an active anti-Trump voice, said that he has never seen foreign-policy professionals so stridently hostile to a candidate.

He is not only an ignoramus, but hes a dangerous ignoramus who doesnt know the first thing about foreign policy and doesnt care and has some very dangerous instincts, Cohen, who served in the George W. Bush administration, told The Washington Post in a recent interview. Part of what is so dangerous about him is not just his ignorance and contempt for our alliances, but his failure to understand how important these have been to our security since 1945. And he has already done a lot of damage. Our allies are deeply shaken by this election.

On the campaign trail, Trump has regularly signaled that he would consider pulling American support away from traditional allies  naming Japan and South Korea in particular  and out of mutual-defense alliances such as NATO. He has insisted that NATO members are not paying their fair share for American protection. On several occasions, he also has floated the idea that Japan should perhaps develop its own nuclear deterrents to deal with threats in the region.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's foreign policy leadership during the Values Voter Summit on Sept. 9, saying she led to the "massive failure" in North Korea and Iran. (The Washington Post)

Those suggestions, which were widely panned, fly in the face of a consensus on American defense and nonproliferation dating back to World War II.

Despite the deep skepticism about their candidate, the Trump campaign has sought to undermine Clintons experience as secretary of state, pinning diplomatic failures in North Korea on her policies. Trumps campaign said Friday that North Koreas latest nuclear test is a referendum on Clintons diplomatic efforts as secretary of state, which he said was full of catastrophic failures. In a statement, spokesman Jason Miller said that the North Korean nuclear program grew in sophistication under her watch.

Trump himself blasted Clinton on the stump: Just today it was announced that North Korea performed its fifth nuclear test, its fourth since Hillary Clinton became secretary of state. Its just one more massive failure from a failed secretary of state. Shes failed at everything, Trump said during a campaign event in Washington. Her policies have also put Iran onto a path of nuclear weapons. And I have to say, made them, overnight, an absolute power. They were dying three years ago.

That accusation is part of a broader effort by the Republican Party to turn Clintons strength and expertise on foreign policy against her  aided by a drumbeat of controversy over her improper use of a private email server during her tenure at the State Department.

Trump also has blasted her judgment for supporting interventions in Iraq and Libya, despite advocating similar views at the time.

While political strategists have fought over whose administration is to blame over North Koreas continued march toward intercontinental nuclear capabilities  the first nuclear test was launched during the Bush administration  foreign policy experts have been more measured in their assessments.

In conversations with The Post, several said that suggesting theres a singular person to blame for the North Korean nuclear problem ignores the complicated geopolitical realities making the situation almost unworkable.

1 of 60 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail View Photos The GOP presidential nominee is out on the trail ahead of the general election in November. Caption The GOP presidential nominee is pressing his case ahead of Election Day. Nov. 7, 2016 Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at SNHU Arena in Manchester, N.H. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

Were worried about our own interest and protecting our own interests, having to worry about protecting the interests of our allies, and it cant be seen as undercutting our allies, said Toby Dalton, co-director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. All of these relationships are nested in ways that make it very difficult to come to the table with clear objectives that are agreed on, and to work in a process that somehow satisfies all of the interests.

The Clinton campaign has, meanwhile, used the situation in North Korea to urge voters to think carefully about who they want making high-stakes foreign-policy decisions. Clintons messaging has been overt in suggesting that she is uniquely positioned to manage a diplomatic resolution amid likely escalation of the stakes  and that Trump is simply unqualified.

This is another reminder that America must elect a president who can confront the threats we face with steadiness and strength. . . . And we need a president committed to reducing  not increasing  the number of nuclear weapons and nuclear states in the world, Clinton said, in a clear reference to Trump. More countries with nuclear weapons in Northeast Asia would increase the chances of the unthinkable happening. We cannot take the risk.

In several interviews, Clinton said that she believes the situation in North Korea has reached a turning point. She has called on the United States to strengthen its security alliances with South Korea and Japan  which she called critical to our missile defense system  even while insisting that China will need to play a role and escalate its pressure on North Korea.

I think we have an opening here that we havent had for the last seven years that I intend to do everything I can to take advantage of, she said.

The Trump campaign has not delivered such policy prescriptions, though Trump said in January that he would force China to take ownership of the situation. But he has also spoken in favorable terms of the North Korean dictator  to the great discomfort of many, even within his own party.

If you look at North Korea, this guy, I mean, hes like a maniac, okay? And youve got to give him credit, Trump said in January during a campaign event. He goes in, he takes over, and hes the boss. Its incredible. He wiped out the uncle. He wiped out this one, that one.

Trumps campaign and surrogates have remained committed to blaming Clinton. In a statement released by the Trump campaign, retired Maj. Gen. Bert Mizusawa suggested that Clinton and Obama have been too weak in handling nuclear talks with North Korea and Iran: Clintons failed policies allowed threats to us and our allies to thrive around the world, including emboldening Iran and North Korea to accelerate their development of nuclear capabilities with impunity.

But outside the campaign, even those who have been critical of Obama  including Cohen  have been mindful to look at the events in their totality.

The Obama administration really hasnt done anything about it. Three of the five nuclear tests have been under their watch, but I cant say that any other administration were able to slow them down in any way, Cohen said. And thats what its going to come down to, are you going to consider under certain circumstances direct action, or are you just going to have to live with it?
A U.S.-Russian cease-fire deal for Syria was on the brink of collapse Sunday after a week of mishaps and setbacks that exposed the fragility of the plan.

The cease-fire is premised on a series of trust-building exercises that were intended to culminate Monday in the launch of preparations between the United States and Russia for joint airstrikes against terrorist groups in Syria.

Instead, the violence ticked up Sunday, promised deliveries of aid failed to materialize and an errant strike Saturday by the U.S.-led coalition that killed dozens of Syrian government soldiers exposed the deficit of trust between the two powers.

Which countries were involved in the attack, which Russia said killed 62 Syrian soldiers, is unclear. The U.S.-led coalition comprises 67 countries, more than a dozen of which carry out airstrikes against the militants.

[U.S. admits carrying out airstrike that Russia says killed Syrian soldiers]

The Australian Defense Ministry, which is among those contributing to the effort, acknowledged in a statement Sunday that its warplanes had participated in a strike Saturday in Deir al-Zour, the eastern Syrian city where the attack occurred, on a front line between the Syrian army and the Islamic State that has changed hands many times.

The strike sent tensions soaring between Moscow and Washington, the chief sponsors of the truce, casting further into doubt the likelihood that they will be able to work together to end Syrias war.

Russia sustained its verbal assaults on the United States on Sunday, with a Foreign Ministry statement accusing the pilots who carried out the strikes of acting on the boundary between criminal negligence and connivance with Islamic State terrorists.

The statement stopped short of accusing the United States of deliberately ordering the attack to assist the Islamic State, but the main spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry had earlier made the allegation in televised comments, underscoring the depth of mistrust.

We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: that the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that, the spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said in comments broadcast by state television Saturday.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United States is pursuing the defeat of the Islamic State. Any suggestion to the contrary flies in the face of the evidence, he said.

The tensions erupted publicly Saturday evening at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, summoned by Russia, with the U.S. and Russian ambassadors walking out of each others speeches to the council to deliver scathing criticisms to reporters.

Yet although the strike was by far the biggest impediment to emerge since the shaky cease-fire went into effect a week ago, the truce was already not going well.

The terms had envisioned a seven-day period of calm during which the fighting would pause and humanitarian aid would flow unimpeded to stricken civilians living in areas under siege, and especially those living in rebel-controlled Aleppo.

[Syrian government preventing aid from reaching Aleppo, U.N. official says]

As of Sunday, the sixth day of the cease-fire, trucks piled with food destined for rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo still had not been granted permission by the Syrian government to cross the Turkish border.

Meanwhile, warplanes presumed to be either Syrian or Russian returned to the skies over eastern Aleppo and dropped bombs on residential neighborhoods, killing at least one person, a child, and injuring several more people. Two children were among eight victims of a separate strike in a rebel-controlled area in the southern province of Daraa.

Weve seen reports of renewed airstrikes by the regime today in and around Aleppo, Kirby said. Obviously, if true, it is yet one more example of the Assad regimes brutality and intent to use this period of reduced violence for territorial gain. We continue to urge Russia to use its influence on [Syrian President Bashar al-

Assad] to stop attacks on the moderate opposition and civilian targets, as well as to allow access to U.N. relief convoys to besieged areas.

The Russian Defense Ministry accused the United States of failing to fulfill another key element of the plan  the delineation of territories controlled by moderate rebels and Islamist extremists, who in some places operate close to each other.

Instead of the separation of the terrorists from the opposition promised by the United States, the militants are using the cease-fire regime to lick their wounds, restore the forces and prepare to resume the hostilities, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, said in comments quoted by Russias Interfax news agency.

The faltering truce is expected to be a focus of discussions at the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, set to begin Monday. The truce was the result of months of intense negotiations between Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and the gathering may afford an opportunity for them to put the deal back on track.

DeYoung and Loveluck reported from Washington. Zakaria Zakaria in Istanbul and Carol Morello in New York contributed to this report.

Read more

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Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Heavily armed militants attacked a mountainous Indian army base near the de facto border with Pakistan on Sunday and killed 17 soldiers in the deadliest attack in Kashmir in more than a decade.

At the time of the attack, the army base in the heavily forested garrison town of Uri had a large number of troops because soldiers were handing over duties to a new battalion, the Indian army said in a statement.

More than 20 soldiers were injured, according to the army.

Militants barged into the fortified base through the rear gate just before dawn Sunday, threw grenades at the tents and temporary barracks where many soldiers were sleeping, and began shooting. The tents caught fire. In the ensuing gun battle, which lasted several hours, all four militants were killed, officials said. At least 13 of the 17 soldiers killed died in the fire.

It was the largest number of casualties suffered by the Indian army in a single Kashmir attack in more than two decades.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished, tweeted Indias prime minister, Narendra Modi.

In Washington, the State Department said, The United States strongly condemns the terror attack.

Militants probably infiltrated from Pakistan during the night, said S.P. Vaid, a senior police officer in Kashmir. He said that a state of high alert has been declared in the state in the wake of the attack

Vaid described Uri as an active infiltration route for militants.

The base in Uri houses supplies for soldiers who are posted at the border with Pakistan, a senior defense official in Kashmir said.

I woke up early to the sound of gunfire. We could not go back to sleep after that, said Irfan Wadoo, a 28-year-old student in Uri who lives close to the army base. The rattle of gunshots lasted for over four hours. Now, the army has stopped the movement of residents here after the attack.

In a similar attack in January, armed men had scaled the compound wall and entered a front-line air base in the northern state of Punjab, near the border with Pakistan. Seven Indian security officers had died in the attack.

Indian forces this year have foiled at least half a dozen attempts by militants to infiltrate from across the border, officials said.

Indias defense minister, Manohar Parrikar, and the army chief is scheduled to visit Uri to inspect the site of the attack. Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted that he has postponed his trip to Russia and the United States to monitor the situation.

Singh also tweeted that there are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of the Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped.

No group has claimed responsibility for Sundays attack. But Singh said he is disappointed with Pakistans continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups.

Other Indian political figures voiced outrage.

For one tooth, the complete jaw, Ram Madhav, general secretary of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, posted on Facebook. Days of so-called strategic restraint are over. If terrorism is the instrument of the weak and coward, restraint in the face of repeated terrorist attacks betrays inefficiency and incompetence. India should prove otherwise.

Amid rising calls for tough counteraction by Indians, Ranbir Singh, the director general of military operations, said the army is prepared and any evil designs of the adversary shall be given a befitting reply by us.

The officer said four grenade launchers, four AK-47 rifles and a large number of grenades were recovered from the dead militants. He said initial reports showed that they belonged to the group Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistan-based Islamist group that has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department since 2001.

India and Pakistan, nuclear-armed foes, both claim Kashmir. Many Indian observers have accused Pakistan of supporting an armed separatist movement in the region for decades.

Sundays attack comes after more than two months of violent protests in Kashmir. More than 75 people have been killed and thousands more wounded by police fire, according to news reports. The angry, rock-throwing demonstrations erupted after Indian security forces killed a popular militant in July. Pellet guns used by police have caused more than 500 eye injuries; about 100 people have been permanently blinded.

In recent weeks, tensions have risen between India and Pakistan over the unrest in Kashmir. New Delhi accused Pakistan-based groups of fomenting the protests, a charge that Islamabad denies. The neighbors have fought two of three wars over the region since 1947.

Media reports said that Pakistans prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, is likely to raise the issue of Kashmir at this weeks U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.

Read more

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Ishfaq Naseem in Srinagar, Kashmir, contributed to this report.
Fathi Hammad speaks during a press conference at his home in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. (Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images)

Fathi Hammad said that he is pleased to be named a global terrorist by the United States.

On Friday, the State Department branded the senior Hamas leader a specially designated global terrorist. That is a rarefied list of international enemies belonging to organizations such as al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hezbollah, the Taliban, the Jewish Kahane group, Algerian Salafists, the Islamic State and Hamas, among others.

On Saturday, Hammad told The Washington Post: The decision only makes me more confident about my path. The threat of killing or arrest? It doesnt freak me out, not at all. I am looking forward to it.

Hammad said, I feel proud that I managed to anger America.

Then he added, I dont know why they picked me.

The United States charged that Hammad, 55, a former interior minister for the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, coordinated terrorist cells. No evidence was presented. The designation also said that Hammad is a director of Al-Aqsa TV, which is a primary Hamas media outlet with programs designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood.

Why the State Department decided to name Hammad as a global terrorist now is unclear. It is well known that Hammad founded the TV station, but it went on the air soon after Hamas, an Islamist militant group, took control of the coastal enclave in 2007.

Now Hammad is a man back in the news, for all the wrong reasons.

Over the past two years, Israeli media have reported that Hammad fled Gaza (untrue) after the war with Israel in the summer of 2014.

The Israeli media said the reason for his flight was that Hammad was working for the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. (Hammad strenuously denied this.) There are few things worse for a resident of Gaza than to be accused of collaborating with the Israelis  a crime that can lead to a secretive trial and public execution.

Then, last year, Israeli newspapers reported that a Palestinian informant told Israels domestic security agency, Shin Bet, during an interrogation that Hammad was responsible for organizing terrorist cells in the West Bank to kidnap Israeli soldiers.

Hammad, in a statement, called that assertion completely detached from reality.

The Times of Israel in 2015 called Hammad one of the most radical figures in Hamas today.

In Gaza, Hammad has predicted that Israel would cease to exist by 2022.

Many in Gaza view him as powerful but extreme  and something of a loose cannon. Even some in Hamas keep Hammad at arms length.

Hammad gave a news conference Saturday night at his walled four-story home in Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Afterward in his salon, Hammad sat on a couch and spoke with The Post.

I dont know why they pick me. You should ask the Americans about this, not me, Hammad said. I am a founder of Al-Aqsa TV, and I was the minister of the interior, and I cant understand whats wrong with that.

He said, The Americans always claim that they stand by oppressed people and they stand by the Palestinians, but in reality, they do not.

I would like to deliver a message to the American people, he continued. Your administration is cheating you, the president is lying to you. They are taking your money, money that should spent on health care, on education, on poor people, and they give it to Israel, which is the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world.

Hammad was referring specifically to the announcement last week that the United States was awarding Israel a 10-year, $38 billion military aid package, the largest in U.S. history.

Hammad spent six years in an Israeli prison, from 1988 to 1994. He also has been arrested three times by the Palestinian Authority, Hamass rivals who run the West Bank, and has spent almost two years in Palestinian jails.

Now that he is labeled a global terrorist, his freedom of travel and his financial transactions will be even more limited, the State Department said.

Booth reported from Jerusalem.

Read more

Israel, U.S. sign massive military aid package

Doctors say ex-Israeli leader Shimon Peres in serious but stable condition

Gaza was really looking forward to elections. Now voters feel robbed.

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Parties aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin were poised late Sunday evening to win a commanding victory in national parliamentary elections, maintaining the Kremlins stranglehold on Russias State Duma during a period of budgetary belt-tightening and growing international ambitions.

With just over 30 percent of the ballots counted, United Russia, the ruling party founded by Putin, had taken more than 52 percent of the overall vote, and it was within striking distance of a two-thirds, or constitutional, majority of seats in Russias next parliament. Three other political parties will also cross the 5 percent threshold to enter the new parliament. None oppose Putin.

While seeking a new mandate, the Kremlin wanted to make sure that Sundays vote was devoid of drama, particularly the images of widespread voter fraud that provoked anti-Putin street protests in the last parliamentary vote in 2011. Journalists and activists did post videos and reports of ballot stuffing Sunday, although it was not clear whether protests would follow.

Critics noted Sundays historically low turnout, which officials said was just over 40 percent after polls closed, as a sign of waning support for United Russia, a party whose strongest attribute is its association with Putin.

Nonetheless, Putin said Sunday evening that the party had achieved a very good result. They have won.

Portraits of candidates are posted at a polling station during parliamentary elections in Moscow on Sunday. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images)

The results show that people see that United Russia is really working for the people, Putin said. Maybe it doesnt always works out but they work honestly and work as effectively as possible.

Under Putin, the parliament has largely come to be seen as a rubber stamp, nearly unanimously passing legislation to limit public demonstrations, ban foreign adoptions, and increase surveillance of Russian citizens and religious groups under a counterterrorism law passed in June. The other parties returning to the State Duma are the Communist Party, the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and the left-leaning A Just Russia party.

[Putin signs new anti-terror law in Russia. Edward Snowden is upset.]

A troubled economy and a budget hit by falling oil prices, which have prevented the indexation of pensions and has delayed paychecks across the country, would normally spell disaster for a ruling party, and, indeed, United Russias popularity has fallen below 50 percent in recent months. But the party is expected to retain a majority of the 450 seats in the State Duma, or lower house, partially by domination of public media and administrative resources, which puts the power of local and regional governments behind the party, and partially by a strong showing in new single-mandate districts, where voters choose individual officeholders, as in the United States, rather than voting for a political party.

But United Russias greatest advantage is that, in a political arena dominated by Putin, there is not much of an alternative.

The presidents party, who else would I vote for? said Nadezhda Osetinskaya, a 67-year-old pensioner and former nurse who lined up before polls opened at 8 a.m. at a school in northwest Moscow.

Osetinskaya had her share of complaints. Prices for food and medicine are increasing, she said, and she required support from her children to live on her $250 monthly pension. She was unhappy with the quality of care at a hospital where she receives treatment for a kidney ailment. The city had carried out years of road work, she said, but the potholes on her neighborhood streets are legion, probably the result of corruption.

But on broader questions, she enthusiastically supported Putin, lauding the recent annexation of Crimea and blaming Russias economic difficulties on a Western conspiracy. Voting for United Russia was a way to support Putin, she reiterated.

Soon, things will turn around, but for now, we need to stand by our president, she said. Hell remember that we did.

Many of those voting early were pensioners, as well as workers from schools, the local government administration and other jobs paid for by the city. Out of 20 people approached at one polling station, one man, who gave his name as Mikhail, said he would vote for the liberal Yabloko party.

Im still voting against the party of crooks and thieves, he said, a reference to a protest slogan against United Russia from 2011, when viral videos of ballot stuffing brought more than 50,000 Muscovites onto the frigid streets to chant, Russia without Putin! The protest movement petered out in 2012 because of internal differences among the protesters and a government crackdown.

The Kremlins strategy during this election cycle has been to emphasize legitimacy, installing Ella Pamfilova, a well-regarded former human rights ombudsman, as the elections chief.

At a news conference last week, Pamfilova said that she will resign if the elections are marred by fraud and that the primary culprits in vote-rigging are generally local power-brokers seeking to please the Kremlin.

Sundays vote marks the first time that Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, will take part in Russian parliamentary elections, eliciting protests from Ukraine and the United States.
By 2020, France will not allow these plastic items for a really good reason

By 2020, France will not allow these plastic items for a really good reason

Come 2020, all disposable plastic dishes sold in France will be banned, reported the Associated Press. From then on, theyll have to be made from biologically sourced materials that can be composted.

logo tv applause

Can you imagine?! A plastic-free country?

cw yay

The Europe Ecologie-Greens Party first introduced the proposal, reported Mashable.

And, last year, Paris hosted the Climate Change Conference, and a ban on plastic bags went into effect in France this past July. Other countries and cities have plastic bag bans in effect, too, but France will be the first to ban disposable plastic.

Some packaging industry lobbyists are not happy with the news, as you can imagine.

fox 500 days

They say the ban violates European Union rules on the free movement of goods, the AP reported.

Pack2Go Europe, a Brussels-based organization representing European packaging manufacturers, is an example.

We are urging the European Commission to do the right thing and to take legal action against France for infringing European law, Pack2Go Europe secretary general Eamonn Bates told the Associated Press. If they dont, we will.

We think its exciting: Less plastic is obvs way better for the environment.

And thats def a big win.

fox last man on earth

The post By 2020, France will not allow these plastic items for a really good reason appeared first on HelloGiggles.
At least 29 people were injured in an explosion Saturday night in the high-end Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, law enforcement officials reported.

Authorities did not immediately know the cause of the explosion, which authorities said occurred around 8:30 p.m. ET. No fatalities were reported and none of the injuries initially appeared to be life-threatening. By Sunday morning, authorities said that all of those injured had been treated and released from the hospital.

There is no specific and credible threat against New York City at this time from any terror organization, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a televised speech later Saturday night. This is preliminary information  it is something we will be investigating very carefully  but there is no evidence at this point of a terror connection.

De Blasio did describe the blast as an intentional act.

At a televised news conference on Sunday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, We really were very lucky that there were no fatalities.

Also Read: 9 Stars Who Have Been 9/11 Conspiracy Truthers (Photos)

The explosion occurred on West 23rd Street between 6th and 7th avenues, in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.

The explosion was initially reported by law enforcement as originating in a dumpster outside a 14-story residential home for the blind which has been under renovation. The New York Post reported that windows on lower floors of the building were blown out by the blast.

Nearby buildings were also evacuated.

It was deafening, one witness told the Post. Residents living several blocks away also reported hearing a very loud explosion.

Also Read: 9/11 Diary: A Mother's Loss and Friend's Incredible Sacrifice

This is exactly the kind of blast you would have inside a dumpster, Jim Cavanaugh, retired ATF Special Agent, told MSNBC. What you get is this cannon effect because its an all-metal container.

Earlier on Saturday, a pipe bomb exploded in New Jersey near a race for charity being held by the Marine Corps. That incident left no injuries but was under investigation by the FBI.

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I also want to affirm that based on what we know at this hour, there is no specific connection to the incident in New Jersey, De Blasio said Saturday night.

25 injuries to civilians confirmed at 133 W 23 St #Chelsea. None appear to be life-threatening at this time  FDNY (@FDNY) September 18, 2016

Officials are on the scene of an explosion on West 23 St in Manhattan at least 26 people injured. An unknown device was inside a dumpster.  SBA (@SBANYPD) September 18, 2016

One loud long boom NYC explosion. Never heard anything like it pic.twitter.com/CB83TVQHru  Liz Mandel (@elisabetherapy) September 18, 2016

Related stories from TheWrap:

Mattress Store That Ran 9/11-Themed Ad to Re-Open With 'New Staff and Training'

9/11 Diary: A Mother's Loss and Friend's Incredible Sacrifice

9 Stars Who Have Been 9/11 Conspiracy Truthers (Photos)


The average American throws away about 84 kilos of plastic every year.

Much of that ends up in the ocean, according to the marine research group Algalita. Almost half is thrown away after just one use.

And the plastic in the ocean does not go away. Instead, it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. Then the fish and other marine life eat it. That can make them become sick, or even die.

National Geographic reported in 2015 that there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris, or trash, in the ocean.

Paul Tasner is an industrial engineer. He spent most of his career making plastic. He made blister packs, the plastic wrap around consumer products that are very hard to open, even with scissors.

The packs help protect products during shipping, and help prevent goods from being stolen.

Then one day, Tasner had a moment that changed his life.

My wife came back from a big box retailer with a pair of these industrial-strength shears for opening packages. Thats what is said on the package: you know, For opening those hard to open plastic blister packages. The shears were called, Open it.

He says the funny -- and crazy -- part was that the shears to open the blister packs were packed -- in a blister pack.

This gave him an idea.

That idea was to create environmentally friendly, biodegradable packaging.

Tasner lost his job during the economic recession years ago. He was 64 years old and he did not want to retire. So he decided to start his own company.

His aim was to create a product that was similar to regular plastic, but able to be composted into soil. That means that when the product is put in the ground after use, it will break down quickly into the soil.

Regular plastic ends up in oceans or in landfills, where it can remain for thousands of years before breaking down into soil.

Elena Olivari is an architect. She has experience in engineering and design. She was looking for something new to do. She decided to join Tasner in his start-up or newbusiness.

For Olivari, a family members death from cancer had a strong effect on her.

There are links of plastic-related cancer, so even doing something that can reduce that number of people that are harmed by the plastic and reducing the amount of plastic in the world, which is becoming absolutely too big to deal with. Were doing something that made me feel like, well, you know, even if we can make a small difference its better than nothing.

Tasner and Olivari named their company PulpWorks. It launched in August 2011. They worked together to create a product called Karta-Pack to replace the plastic blister packs.

The PulpWorks website says that the company turns garbage into safe, planet-friendly products.

Tasner admits that the technology they use is not new.

Karta-Pack is similar to some kinds of egg cartonsthe packaging that protects eggs in the store. Some egg cartons are made from recycled newspaper.

Karta-Pack is also made from recycled newspapers, as well as cardboard and different kinds of agricultural fibers, Tasner says. These are plant-based materials.

The company has six business partners in five countries that only use local material. Tasner says his partners in China use bamboo and sugar cane. His business partner in Canada uses wheat straw. He uses all of these materials to create Karta-Pack packaging.

So, by having a wide variety of geography, you have a wide variety of raw materials.

Since it launched in 2011, PulpWorks has become a leader of green packaging. The company makes packaging for some of the biggest companies in the world, including T-Mobile, Burts Bees cosmetic products, Max Factor and Cover Girl cosmetics, and Leapfrog toys.

Every package that we produce replaces a piece of plastic that is not going into a landfill. What could be better than that? Except to do it a billion times over, really, and thats our goal.

The company plans to expand its use of local agricultural fibers to more countries and continents, including Africa.

I'm Anne Ball.

Jan Sluizer reported this story for VOANews.com. Anne Ball wrote her report for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, and look us up on our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

marine  adj. having to do with the sea or ocean

debris  n. trash

big box retailer  n. large store, part of a national group

shears  n. scissors, a tool to cut things with

biodegradable  adj. of a substance or object capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms

composte  n. decayed mixture of plants used to improve the soil

landfill  n. an area where waste is buried under the ground

architect  n. a person who designs buildings

fiber - n. plant material made into thin threads

geography  n. the natural features (such as rivers,soil, mountains, etc.) of a place
SAN SEBASTIAN  Movistar Plus, the pay-TV arm of Spains Telefonica, one of Europes biggest telcos, held a round table Saturday at the San Sebastian festival to present its first six original TV series.

Six things we learned about the series, which confirm Movistar Plus as one of the key drivers, with Sky and Frances Canal Plus, of higher-end premium drama production in Europe:

1. NETFLIX, HBO ET ALBEWARE

Netflix, HBO or any other digital platform which launches in Spain looks set to face formidable opposition. At the round table, Domingo Corral, Movistar Plus original production director, confirmed that the company has 20 series in development. They will begin to be made available on Movistar Plus linear Series channel and Yomvi catch-up/pay-per-view service from September 2017, kicking off with La Zona, by brothers Jorge and Alberto Sanchez-Cabezudo.

Luis Miguel Gilperez, president of Telefonica Espana, recently announced that Telefonica will plow about 70 million ($79 million) a year into original productions. That figure takes in original TV series, though Movistar Plus is studying the possibility of financing original movie production as well, Corral said. Last March, Netflix announced its first original series commission for Spain, Las chicas del cable, (literally, Cable girls) from top Spanish TV production Bambu Producciones, co-owned by Studiocanal. But its Spanish-series production looks set, in immediate terms at least, to pale beside Telefonicas.

2. THE TALENT CUP RUNNETH OVER

Telefonicas premium TV drama drive is not just about volume, which is increasing to at least 60% of the 79 hours of original series productions by Sky in 2015. Its also about the caliber of its talent. The eight panelists at the round table Saturday, all Movistar Plus series writer or directors, were Cesc Gay, whose feature Truman swept the 2016 Goya Awards; Rafael Cobos, co-screenwriter of Marshland, the 2015 Goya winner; Fernando Gonzalez-Molina, director of Palm Trees in the Snow, the highest-grossing Spanish movie in Spain this year; Jorge and Alberto Sanchez-Cabezudo, creators of Crematorium, a rare  and hit  premium TV series made by Spanish premium pay-TV operator Canal Plus before its purchase by Telefonica; and Juan Cavestany and Alvaro Fernandez-Armero, highly regarded directors of offbeat, often edgier Spanish comedies such as Cavestanys 2013 cult movie People in Places.

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3. THE TV SLATE IS STILL GROWING

Movistar Plus revealed that it has placed an order for Carta al padre, a four-part Barcelona-set miniseries from Mar Coll, a Goya-winning best first feature director in 2009 for Three Days With the Family. It is co-written with Valentina Viso and Perus Diego Vega, co-director of Cannes Un Certain Regard and Locarno winners October, and El Mudo.

4. FOR SPAIN, THE PREMIUM FICTION PUSH MARKS A MILESTONE

One talking point at Saturdays panel was what set Movistar Plus series apart, compared to many free-TV productions in Spain. One factor looks like the length of the creative process: the Sanchez-Cabezudo brothers revealed, for example, that writing La Zona will take them 16 months.

Another difference: All the Movistar series will go into production will their screenplays locked, a practice much more common in film than TV to date in Spain. Im not saying our series are better. It was created thinking about audiences who had seen a lot of [international] quality series, however, said Fernandez Armero of Shame. For Fernandez Molina, if there is a premium TV touch to his series, it will be in its cinematographic look, the way he shoots it, more than anything else.

5. NETFLIX  RAISING THE BAR OF WORLD FICTION

It would cost an arm and a tooth for any digital platform to compete with Telefonica on its volume of Spanish production, said one analyst. But Netflix does looks set to raise the bar of original production in Spain. Writing drama for free-to-air TV, Spaniards are competing in part with each other. Writing for Movistar Plus, they are competing with the best in the world, of which they are very conscious. That requires bigger budgets, lengthier development, and larger ambition.

6. INTERNATIONAL MARKETS

Movistar Plus series will also adopt the international 50-minutes-per-episode format of international series, Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo pointed out. Shot in Spanish, many look set to drink deep at the well of Spanish culture.

Shame will be framed like the traditional Spanish comedies of the 1950s onwards, said Fernandez Armero. Having your own voice is crucial, said Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo, suggesting he can best do that, for the moment at least, working out of Spain. The series will be personal. We want to narrate our obsessions, fears, phobias and stories, said Coll.

International audiences will be looking for precisely that  series that, though dealing in universal psychology, have a Spanish or Catalan specificity to them when they do. That local touch is part of the fascination of Nordic Noir. Positioning as the new home of premium Spanish fiction, Movistar Plus series are likely to appeal more, not less, to international markets.

AND NOW THEY ARE SIX:

MOVISTAR PLUS FIRST SIX ORIGINAL TV SERIES PRODUCTIONS

CARTA AL PADRE (Mar Coll). Confirmed Saturday at San Sebastian, Carta al padre turns on a completely dysfunctional obsessive father, who loves his children so much that he makes their lives impossible. Its a story of control, and the impossibility of carrying that out, Coll commented.

DIME QUIEN SOY (Fernando Gonzalez Molina). Produced by Banijays DLO in Spain, adapting journalist-turned-author Julia Navarros tale of the tumultuous life of a Spanish woman from its 1930s Republic to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

FELIX (Cesc Gay). A human humor-laced thriller, said Gay, set in Andorras Pyrenees mountains with a Hitchcock-style setup: an innocent man embroiled in a tax-evasion scam. Ive always loved Hitchcock, never had the chance to make a film in that style, thought Id try with this series, said Gay.

LA PESTE (Alberto Rodriguez). Produced by Jose Antonios Atipica, a procedural thriller set in bustling 16th-century Seville  part imperial splendor, part mud-grimed peasantry  from Rodriguez, whose Smoke & Mirrors plays in the San Sebastian competition and Marshland, a film noir, sold worldwide.

SHAME (Alvaro Fernandez Armero, Juan Cavestany). Created, written and directed by Fernandez Armero (Sidetracked) and Cavestany (Dispongo de barcos), Movistar Plus first sitcom, described by them as an irreverent, romantic dramedy. Production wraps next week.

LA ZONA (Jorge and Alberto Sanchez-Cabezudo). The Sanchez-Cabezudo brothers have already proved they can create premium TV fiction, writing and directing Crematorium, a property development thriller which delivered a searing indictment of influence peddling and graft on the Mediterranean coast. La Zona is a procedural thriller unspooling on the margins of a nuclear accident no-go area.

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NBC Sports Philadelphia

The big hit eluded the Phillies in Game 2 of the World Series against Astros lefty Framber Valdez, who was filthy. Was he, perhaps, too filthy? Here's what the Phils had to say about Valdez' curious mannerisms on the mound. By Corey Seidman
For somebody so amazingly adept at hiding behind her roles, Amanda Plummer arrived at the Oldenburg International Film Festival with a vibrant personality of her own.

The actress on Friday was the recipient of the fest's lifetime achievement award for her body of work, which was celebrated with screenings of Pulp Fiction, The Fisher King and Butterfly Kiss.

Disarmingly unpretentious, Plummer quickly won over the hearts and minds of festival staff, guests and onlookers alike, recounting (and re-enacting) her first meeting with Sir Laurence Olivier - her hair caught fire, prompting the legendary thespian to give her the ultimate actor's compliment: "You've upstaged me" - or simply joining in the fun at any of the festival's many parties and receptions.

Read more: Oldenburg: How the Indie Film Fest Is (Slowly) Going Mainstream

German director Linus de Paoli, who introduced Plummer onstage at Oldenburg's state theater for her award, recalled the advice the actress gave him when they shot his first feature, Dr. Ketel: "'Don't be afraid to fall. We'll fall together and see what happens.'"

De Paoli credits these creative nudges (and Plummer's willingness to take a part in a no-budget film without pay) with allowing him to overcome his first-feature fears. The result was the winner of Oldenburg's best film honor, the German Independence Award, in 2011.

Returning to Germany's leading indie film festival this year, Plummer took the stage to thunderous applause. After singling out French director Christophe Honore, who had also just received an award for his body of work, she thanked the audience and, in a broad sweep, "people in the arts, or not."

Humble, gracious and charming at once, she won over the room.

Read more: Nicolas Cage Doubly Honored at Oldenburg Film Festival
mike pence

ABC anchor Martha Raddatz grilled Indiana Gov. Mike Pence over Donald Trump's previous longstanding belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the US.

During an interview on ABC that aired for over six minutes on Sunday, Raddatz repeatedly questioned Pence about why the Republican presidential nominee continued to peddle the discredited conspiracy theory despite overwhelming evidence that Obama was born in the US.

"I know you say you want to talk about issues. But Mr. Trump could've put this issue to bed a long time ago," Raddatz said.

She added: "He kept this issue going. Why did it take him so long to say that the president was born in the United States, which is a fact?"

The ABC anchor continued to press Pence after he acknowledged "without hesitation" that Obama was born in the US, but characterized the questions as a "sidebar debate."

"This is not what the American people are talking about. Donald Trump put this to an end yesterday in Washington. It's over," Pence said.

"Why did it take him so long to put it to an end? It's not over," Raddatz replied.

Raddatz accused Trump of perpetuating falsehoods about Obama's birthplace that "fueled conspiracy theories," asking Pence whether Trump was wrong to stand by his birther questions for years.

Pence doubled down, arguing that Hillary Clinton's "defenders in the national media" were attempting to "distract attention from her dishonest and her disastrous record on the foreign stage."

"Our campaign just really isn't focused on the past," Pence said.

The interview came days after the real-estate magnate finally acknowledged that Obama was indeed born in the US. Trump unapologetically questioned Obama's birthplace in the face of evidence that he was born in Hawaii, even after the president released his long-form birth certificate.

Watch the interview below:

NOW WATCH: 'We'll see what happens to her': Trump says Clinton's 'armed bodyguards' should 'disarm immediately'





More From Business Insider


BAMAKO (Reuters) - Around 10 people have been killed in northern Mali in fighting between a pro-government militia and a rebel coalition dominated by ethnic Tuaregs, the deputy secretary general for the pro-government Gatia militia said on Sunday. The clash between Gatia and the Tuareg separatist Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) shows the fragility of a U.N.-backed deal signed last year between the government and northern armed groups meant to end a cycle of uprisings. "The clash took place around 80 km north east of Kidal. People from the CMA captured two members of Gatia. They were pursued as far as Intachdayte northeast of Kidal and there was an exchange of fire," said Haballa Ag Hamzata of Gatia. He said around 10 people from CMA died in the clashes, which took place on Friday and Saturday, while others were wounded including five from Gatia. Vehicles and guns were recovered, he said. Sidi Ould Ibrahim Sidat, of the CMA's peace committee said four people died, adding that this was not confirmed. Reuters could not reach other CMA leaders. Kidal is a stronghold of rebels claiming a Tuareg homeland they call Azawad, but the CMA and pro-government Gatia militia had peacefully shared control of Kidal since February. Islamist militant groups, some with links to al Qaeda, hijacked a Tuareg uprising in 2012 and seized northern Mali until a French-led intervention drove them back a year later. The peace deal was intended to ease long-standing tensions in the north and allow the army to concentrate on fighting jihadist groups. (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
By Harry Pearl SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Australian Department of Defence has offered its condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded in a U.S.-led bombing campaign on Saturday, in which Australia participated and Russia said hit Syrian military personnel and vehicles. Australian aircraft were among the warplanes that struck what were believed to be Islamic State fighting positions around Deir al-Zor in Eastern Syria. However, shortly after the bombing started Russian officials advised the multinational Combined Air Operations Centre that the targets may have been Syrian military personnel. The Australian Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that it would fully cooperate with a Coalition review of the incident. "While Syria remains a dynamic and complex operating environment, Australia would never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support Daesh (also known as ISIL)," the ministry said in a statement. "Defence offers its condolences to the families of any Syrian personnel killed or wounded in this incident," the ministry said on Sunday. (Reporting by Harry Pearl; Editing by Eric Meijer)
Police and members of the FBI were examining the scene of an explosion on West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City on September 18. The rose window of the St Vincent de Paul Church is seen shattered, boarding along a sidewalk has been blasted away, and debris is seen on the street.

The blast occurred at around 8:30pm the evening before, according to police. The blast went off outside 131 West 23rd Street, injuring 29 people, according to information provided by Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner James ONeal in a press conference. One person had a serious puncture wound, according to ONeal. All 29 were released from hospital on September 18, according to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

De Blasio and ONeal said the cause of the blast was unknown, but that, based on preliminary information, they had ruled out terrorism and natural gas, and the incident was not connected to a blast in New Jersey earlier that day. Mayor Bill de Blasio did say we believe this was an intentional act. Cuomo on September 18 said that a bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but said there was no evidence of a link to international terrorism.

A second device was located on 27th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenue. Reports said the device was a pressure cooker attached to a phone with wires attached. Credit: Anonymous
As charges were also filed against two former officers in connection with the sexual misconduct scandal that's hit law enforcement agencies around the Bay Area, the woman at the center of it all filed a $66 million lawsuit against the city of Oakland.
On November 8 this year, Americans across the country will vote for president. But the candidate who wins the most votes will not necessarily be the winner.

Instead, the U.S. has a complicated system called the Electoral College. In that system, each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia casts votes for the president.

Under the Electoral College, not every state is equally important. In the 2016 election  as in past elections  only a few states will really matter.

Not the biggest states. Not the most heavily populated states. The swing states.

Swing states vs. safe states

In the last four elections, eighty percent of U.S. states selected the presidential candidate from the same political party every time.

For example, the majority of voters in the states of Alaska and Idaho consistently voted for the Republican presidential candidate. The majority of voters in the states of Minnesota and New York consistently voted for the Democrat.

As a result, the candidates do not usually spend much time or money campaigning in those safe states. Instead, they focus on the swing states, where no one knows which candidate is likely to win.

In 2016, the swing states are: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

None is more important than Ohio. That state has voted for every winning presidential candidate since 1964.

Of course, most voters will mark ballots in safe states, not swing states. And because all but two states follow a winner-takes-all rule, most states go to the candidate whom the majority of voters choose.

So, a voter in Minnesota could mark a ballot for Republican Donald Trump. But, most other Minnesota voters will probably choose Democrat Hillary Clinton. As a result, all of Minnesotas 10 electoral votes will go to Clinton, and the Republican voters ballot will not really do anything to help Trump.

However, the voter's other choices may affect candidates for state and local offices. So it is important that people in safe states vote, too.

Are the Democrats one swing state away from winning?

At this moment in history, the Electoral College system helps the Democrats. That is because states with the largest populations have recently voted for the Democratic presidential candidate. And, the more people a state has, the more votes it gets in the Electoral College.

The Washington Post newspaper notes that the Democratic nominee begins at a significant advantage over the Republican one. It says the Democrats have the advantage no matter who the partys candidate is.

Consider the numbers. A candidate needs 270 out of 538 Electoral College votes to become president.

In the last six presidential elections, the Democratic candidate has won the same 19 states plus Washington, DC each time. Those areas together carry 242 Electoral College votes.

If Democrat Hillary Clinton can win those areas this year, plus the swing state of Florida, she will earn 271 Electoral College votes one more than she needs to win the presidency.

Republican Donald Trump has a harder path to victory. Thirteen states voted for the Republican candidate in each of the last six presidential elections. But many of them are small states. They have a total of only 102 electoral votes.

As a result, Donald Trump must not only win those 13 states. He must also win several swing states  or even some traditionally Democratic states  to reach the 270 electoral votes he needs to win.

Will Donald Trump change the map this year?

Some Republicans are worried that Trumps path to victory may be even harder than that. The website TheWeek.com noted that Trump may do worse than lose the swing states this year. He may also lose some of the states that Republicans have historically won.

You see, although Trump is very popular with some voters, he is equally unpopular with others. As a result, some voters who usually choose the Republican candidate may choose the Democrat.

The Washington Post newspaper reports that some political experts are preparing to blame Donald Trump if the Republicans fail to win the presidency. But Post writer Chris Cillizza says the Republican Party has a problem that goes deeper than Trump -- or any one candidate.

Cillizza says the real reason may be that the Republican Party has not been able to convince the increasing number of nonwhites in the U.S. to vote for its presidential candidates. He writes: What has become increasingly clear is that any state with a large or growing nonwhite population has become more and more difficult for Republicans to win.

Im Christopher Jones-Cruise.

VOA Correspondent Christopher Jones-Cruise reported this story from Washington and wrote it in 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

cast  v. to make (a vote) formally

consistently  adv. always acting or behaving in the same way

winner-takes-all  expression a system in which the winner of the most votes in a state wins all of the electoral votes from that state
Now that Blair Witch, the abysmal shaky-cam horror sequel that no one was waiting for, has come and bombed, you might be tempted to say that a certain genre is ready to lay down and die. But youd be wrong. In the megaplex, of course, the found-footage horror film enjoyed a quick rise, a brief reign, and (now) a spectacular fall. It was launched, in 1999, with The Blair Witch Project, which in addition to being a highly original and  yes  unsettling movie became a fascinating phenomenon in two ways. First off, its success was beyond staggering, and not just because its $140 million domestic gross gave it the greatest budget-to-profit ratio of any movie ever made. Budget aside, The Blair Witch Project put more butts in seats than Pulp Fiction did. Clearly, that had something to do with the dread and intrigue generated by the uniquely austere thriller up onscreen, and everything that people said about it. It triumphed because it was truly a movie to see.

Yet the second way that The Blair Witch Project was a fascinating phenom is that it quickly became the most reviled big-hit indie movie of all time. As in: If I had a nickel for every person who saw The Blair Witch Project and wanted to tar and feather the projectionist

Many loved it; a great many hated it. That can happen, of course, but there was a singular and notable line-in-the-sand quality to the reaction that swirled around and against The Blair Witch Project. You might say that it was the first blue-state-vs.-red-state indie movie (I mean that metaphorically rather than in any literal political way), the quirk being that the members of both states were seated right next to each other. The blue staters saw a tense and tingly nightmare that unfolded not just in the usual darkness but in genuine godforsaken night, with a cackling revelation  the spectre of the witch  always waiting just around the corner. The red staters saw a movie that was all foreplay and no climax, with endless tedious handheld camerawork, a threadbare ramble that devolved into a murky technological tease.

Seventeen years later, Im tempted to say that both sides were right. I loved The Blair Witch Project the first time I saw it  I was swept up in its look, its mood, its night-bloom existential terror  but even as a fan, I admit its not a horror film you can really go back to the way you can to Psycho or Carrie or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or Audition, to revel in its scary glory a second time. Its an extraordinary stunt, one thats meant to be consumed  perhaps  just one time only. Thats okay; some movies are like that. But its been the peculiar destiny of The Blair Witch Project to be the most influential horror film since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It was that 1974 classic that spawned the slasher genre. (Yes, there were other influences, going back to Psycho, but Michael Myers in Halloween was simply Leatherface with a suburban makeover.) Likewise, Blair Witch revolutionized the found-footage genre for the digital-recorder era. The paradox  a poetically perfect one  is that its a genre that was spawned, and has largely remained, underground.

It really started, of course, in 1980, with Cannibal Holocaust, the deservedly infamous Italian shocker that was banned in several countries, in part because some people thought it was real. In one way, it was: No human beings were killed during the making of the movie, but some animals were, and that crossed a line that should never have been crossed, one that helped to lend the entire film its murderous edge.

The reality factor of Cannibal Holocaust was, in its way, a deliberate extension of the mood struck by the opening title of Chain Saw, with its implication that the story it was about had actually happened. In Cannibal Holocaust, we arent just watching a wormy gruesome exploitation horror movie about a film crew that burrows into the Amazon rain forest in 1979 to shoot a documentary about tribes that practice cannibalism. Were watching the raw footage they shot of their expedition, which places a disquieting frame of reality around the most hideous acts of violence. In horror, the this is really happening! era had begun, a form and mood that was at once genuinely artful and worthy of P.T. Barnum.

Cannibal Holocaust is a cult film that never lost its glow of danger because it remained, for most moviegoers, under the radar. It took 19 years for The Blair Witch Project to drag the found-footage concept into the light, and though the movie created what is arguably the most virulent backlash in the history of cinema, once the form got pushed out there, it spread and mutated, and mainstream audiences had a shivery love affair with it, though it was a while before the relationship took hold.

Cloverfield, the first found-footage hit after Blair Witch, didnt come out until eight years later. It was basically a grabby artless gimmick, a Godzilla movie in glossy concocted found-footage drag, which now had the semi-official imprimatur of being a millennial form. The first two questions on any film executives mind  is there an audience? And what is the audience?  could now be comfortably answered by any film executives proverbial favorite answer: The kids will eat it up! And they did, though whether or not they actually liked it is another story. As a movie, Cloverfield was flashy and consumable and not all that good for you, like a fast-food binge.

The genre might have headed for oblivion were it not for the little film that jump-started it, reinvented it, and actually improved it. Seven years ago this week, Paranormal Activity upped the ante on the whole found-footage thing by taking it out of the streets and placing it in the suburban bedroom (and  thank God  locking down the hand-held camera). The movie, and its surprisingly good sequels, reconfigured the history of the haunted-house thriller by feeding it through the snap, crackle, and electromagnetic pop of 21st-century surveillance technology. Weve had one Paranormal Activity movie every year since (except for 2013  they must have figured that would be bad luck). And though theres none scheduled for this year, perhaps we can count Olivier Assayas upcoming Personal Shopper, a sleek but terrifyingly oblique ghost story, starring Kristen Stewart, that I have already dubbed Paranormal Inactivity. (Forget the malls; Im not even sure this one will levitate in art houses.)

The Paranormal Activity films, coming like clockwork once a year at Halloween, absorbed all the mainstream found-footage mojo. They soaked up and wrung out the genre, to the point that Blair Witch, this weekend, became the ultimate too-little-too-late sequel. Of course, it didnt help that the movie was as bad as it gets. It had nothing new up its tattered video sleeve, and zero fear factor. It was also the last nail in the coffin for two aspects of the form. The handheld camera? This movie would make you sick from it even if you dont get vertigo. Sick from the pointless wavery monotony, and from the infamous elephant in the room thats been hanging over the genre ever since The Blair Witch Project  namely, who the hell is still holding the camera, and why? At one point in Blair Witch, a freaked-out character climbs a pine tree, branch upon branch, and the notion that a camera is still somehow recording her movements crosses over from the absurd to the insane.

The other genre-killer is, of course, the bad acting. The 17 years since The Blair Witch Project have overlapped almost exactly with of the age of reality TV, a period in which audiences have become highly accustomed to deconstructing layers of staged authenticity. In found-footage movies, theres almost always a gaping disconnect between the alleged spooky rawness of the style and the image of lousy good-looking young actors trying to convince us that theyre actual people by doing that odd thing of overacting their underacting. Look, everybody! This is a real home movie! And Im just, like, another dude named Jason! Yes, dude, you are. Another mediocre actor named Jason who cant fool us for a second.

It sounds like Im writing an epitaph for the genre. Except for one thing: Despite the fade-out of its two reigning franchises, the genre is far from dead  in many ways, its thriving. You just have to look under the carpet, or maybe under a rock, to see that its still a wriggling life form. It has the potential to blow the minds of mainstream audiences all over again, the moment that a really smart filmmaker  and I guarantee you this will happen  figures out how to lift it to the next level.

A lot of moviegoers  most  wouldnt know it, but a bit off the beaten path, were still in the early high renaissance era of found-footage horror. In the demimonde of creepy low-budget independent cinema, weve had found-footage zombie horror (starting with [REC] and culminating in George Romeros little-seen Diary of the Dead), found-footage outer-space horror (Europa Report, Apollo 18), the cyber-found-footage movie (The Den, Unfriended, Nightmare Code), the found-footage demonic-possession film (The Last Exorcism, The Devil Inside, the is-it-Alzheimers-or-Satan? The Taking of Deborah Logan), the post-Cloverfield found-footage Norwegian giant-monster movie (Trollhunter), the found-footage doomsday-cult nightmare movie (Apocalyptic, The Sacrament), the found-footage serial-killer meta-thriller (The Last Horror Movie), not to mention oddballs like the psychotic found-footage ghoulfest Grave Encounters.

The reason these movies, and dozens I havent mentioned, even exist is that all the original elements that fused into found-footage horror arent going away. The omnipresence of technology, coupled with our increasing compulsion to document every aspect of our lives. The idea that all those personal images are recordings that conceal as much as they reveal. And, of course, the belief, embedded deep in our central nervous systems, that ghosts and monsters really exist, and that they will always find new ways to frighten us, from the moment the old ways are used up. The deep reality of found-footage horror is that its such a pure extension of the movies themselves: a way to reveal that the beast is out there, that hes not just part of some cornball scare story, and that if you just look close enough, that if you look right into the film, youll really, truly see him.

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By Alastair Macdonald BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - The "Brexit cruise" didn't get very far. EU leaders drifted down the Danube for an hour, said little about Britain over a leisurely shipboard lunch, then circled back to Bratislava to resume Friday's summit. Beneath the surface, though, things have been stirring on Brexit. Summit chairman Donald Tusk later stirred them up more by saying Britain's poker-faced prime minister, Theresa May, had let him glimpse her cards, indicating divorce talks prompted by June's referendum may start in four to five months. Britain's plan to leave the European Union was at the heart of the meeting of the 27 other member states in Slovakia, where May was the notable absentee. But it seemed an empty heart. Book-ended by talks ashore on repairing the loss of trust in the EU exposed by the British vote, the cruise conversation was minimal, according to Tusk. This left leaders back where they started - waiting for Mrs May and, when the summit ended, bickering with each other over migrants and economics. Tusk and others repeated their mantra of "no negotiation without notification" - that the EU will not so much as talk to the British until May triggers a two-year countdown to Brexit by formally saying Britain will leave under Article 50 of the EU treaty. The legal mechanics, written to discourage anyone quitting, mean that triggering it flips negotiating power from London to Brussels by binding Britain to a deadline to strike a deal or lose favored access to its main export market. That poses dilemmas for both sides of how much to talk and when. Diplomats speak of a "chicken and egg situation". Tusk's apparently casual reference to a conversation with May from which he concluded she was "quite likely" to be ready to invoke Article 50 in January or February - a timing she herself is loath to commit to as her government wrestles over strategy - was in line with EU efforts to hurry her along. PRE-NEGOTIATIONS? EU officials and governments are keen for Britain be out by early 2019, partly to curb economic uncertainty, partly to avoid a mess if the country is still a reluctant member when the Union chooses a new parliament and executive in mid-2019 and negotiates a seven-year budget to take effect for 2021. For now, the two sides are entrenched. But there are signs, EU diplomats and officials say, that some discreet talking is getting under way to sound out compromises. Some continental officials told Reuters that they could be open to breaking the current EU embargo on "pre-negotiations" before Article 50. "We don't mind discussing things informally. We are not dogmatic, we don't feel the need to wait for Article 50," an official dealing with Brexit for an EU government said. "We are friendly towards the Brits and we want to help them along." For London, an ideal outcome could be to retain free access to EU markets while stopping so many Poles and other EU citizens coming to work in Britain - one of the main demands of the leave side during the referendum campaign. And it would love to reach such a deal before setting the Article 50 clock ticking. Against this, Brussels is repeating two things: no freedom of access for British goods, services and finance without free movement for EU workers into Britain; and no talks before Article 50 is invoked. A third mantra is EU unity. If not, as European Parliament speaker Martin Schulz said last week, Britain "would play us off against each other and that would be fatal for the EU". A mix of fear and admiration for Britain's ability to divide and confuse continentals into webs of shifting alliances appears to be as commonplace in 2016 as it was when French and Germans fumed over "perfidious Albion" two centuries ago: "They have the best diplomats in the world," a senior EU official told Reuters. "If we don't stick together, they'll eat us alive." DIFFERENT VIEWS There are already some differences. Some countries, notably among Britain's northern, free-trading allies, reckon London has to be given some idea of a "landing zone" - what kind of deal it might get - before it hurls itself off the cliff of Article 50. Others are anxious that Britain would exploit such talks to go on negotiating as much as it could without weakening its hand by starting the two-year clock ticking. They insist on radio silence and hope that demands in Britain itself for faster progress on Brexit will pressure May into action. Germany is in the former camp for now. The biggest power in the latter is France, which sees pain for Britain as a price worth paying to discourage French voters from taking the Brexit lead and backing Marine Le Pen, leader of the eurosceptic National Front, in April's presidential election. Paris and Berlin are united, however, in wanting Britain out swiftly, officials say. They accept that May needs time to agree a strategy with a cabinet that includes leading Brexiteers as well as those like herself who campaigned against leaving. But that patience will run out fast after the new year. "INFORMAL SOUNDINGS" Some EU diplomats say they have been encouraged by recent contacts. One said British officials had sought "guidelines" on what his country's government might accept, to help London formulate its demands when triggering Article 50. Though "tricky", such informal talks were possible and a fair idea. British ministers say they are open to informal talks. But a British diplomat denied a campaign of soundings was under way. A senior official in another major EU country said: "It is still not a coherent, organized attempt to read what would be acceptable. It seems to be rather a lack of ideas in London." A diplomat from another said: "We are in constant touch with the Brits. But these are not informal negotiations. We just want to help them build a rational negotiating position." Another, who said he had not been approached, said: "There will have to be informal soundings but it has to be up to the UK first to come up with a sense of what they what they want. Before that it is very difficult to enter into any such conversation. They have to get their own act together first." As May fills the gaps in her Brexit puzzle, the EU will have to shift gear in response after months of cruising. Brussels officials will run the negotiations. But Europe's big powers will ultimately be looking after their own interests. Tusk chaired Friday's "Brexit lunch" aboard a German ship, the Regina Danubia - Danube Queen. And when it was over, the EU 27 were led briskly back ashore by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski, Francesco Guarascio and Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels, Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Elizabeth Piper in London and Tatiana Jancarikova in Bratislava; editing by David Stamp)
By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is not expected to attend the trial this week of two former associates charged in the 2013 "Bridgegate" scandal, but the failed Republican presidential hopeful's shadow will loom over the proceedings. Opening statements are scheduled for Monday in federal court in Newark, New Jersey. Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly are charged with conspiracy and fraud in a nine-count indictment alleging they arranged lane closings that caused gridlock on the heavily traveled George Washington Bridge. The resulting traffic delayed commuters for hours and left emergency vehicles slow in responding to 911 calls. Prosecutors said the two defendants planned the lane closures to take revenge on a mayor who refused to endorse Christie for re-election. The governor, at one time a leading Republican presidential hopeful, has not been charged in the scandal that nevertheless helped torpedo his hopes for nomination to the White House in 2016. In the three years since the scandal broke, Christie has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the plan to disrupt traffic on the world's busiest road bridge, despite speculation to the contrary. The trial could finally provide a definitive answer to the question of whether he knew about the alleged plot, and if so, when. "Bridgegate" took place after Democratic Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich declined to endorse the governor's reelection campaign in 2013. Christie was seeking support from local mayors to demonstrate bipartisan backing for a Republican governor in a Democratic-leaning state, part of an effort to position himself for a 2016 White House bid. Prosecutors say the lane closures were ordered in September 2013 by Kelly, Christie's then deputy chief of staff; Baroni, then deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; and David Wildstein, another Christie ally at the Port Authority who has since pleaded guilty. The GW carries more than 250,000 vehicles a day across the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan. The trio concocted a cover story, saying the closure was part of a traffic study, prosecutors contend. The shutdown lasted four days, while Baroni and Wildstein ignored increasingly frantic messages from the mayor, according to prosecutors. The ruse fell apart under scrutiny from journalists and the Democratic-controlled state legislature. In January 2014, emails and text messages were publicly disclosed that showed the officials' involvement, including an Aug. 13, 2013, email in which Kelly told Wildstein: "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee." Wildstein, who is expected to be a star government witness, has previously said there is evidence that Christie was aware of the lane closures when they occurred. Jurors also may hear from Kelly and Baroni, as lawyers for both defendants have said they plan to testify in their own defense. The defense has suggested it will point the finger at others, including Christie, in arguing that Kelly and Baroni would never have acted on their own. In a pretrial motion, a lawyer for Baroni revealed that a former Christie aide said in a text message that the governor "flat-out lied" when he said during a 2013 press conference that none of his senior staff were involved in the scandal. A spokesman for the governor has said the text message does not disprove Christie's contention that he was unaware of the plot. Since abandoning his own candidacy for president, Christie has become one of Republican nominee Donald Trump's most visible supporters. (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone and David Gregorio)
With a new venue for an established pre-Emmy party, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts celebrated small-screen nominees Saturday at the London Hotels Boxwood restaurant in West Hollywood.

Downton Abbeys Julian Fellowes held court with co-stars Joanne Froggatt and Laura Carmichael and a circle of admirers in one of the crowded rooms. Im always excited about the Emmys, he said. As for Downton, he said that he would write a novel about it, but couldnt decide if it would be a prequel or sequel. Meanwhile, his new show, The Gilded Age is going well, he added.

Nominee Keegan-Michael Key revealed to Variety a superstition for awards season. He said, Just before they open the envelope I say, Uh Key & Peele in my mind, and then I say another word. Maybe one day that will work. Last week I didnt do it and we won make up at the Creative Arts Emmys. So maybe I should distract myself or something as theyre reading the names.

Black-ish star Yara Shahidi doesnt have any superstitions, but, I feel like were gonna win. Tomorrow morning, when I wake up, Im going to play my favorite playlist.

Simon Helberg of The Big Bang Theory, meanwhile, said hell be watching the Emmys in his air-conditioned house.

BAFTA/LAs chairman of the board Kieran Breen while welcoming guests, congratulated the nominees. Nowhere is the special relationship between British and American talent more tangible than in the constantly evolving space of television, he said. Were here to salute the talent that is at the top of their career, but a big part of BAFTAs job is to look forward and to nurture the next generation of award winners. And through our master classes and seminars and our social outreach and student programs we hope to be able to identify and nurture that next generation of award winners. So events like today are crucial for us in fundraising to support those very important programs that BAFTA runs.

Among the talent that mingled with BAFTA/LAs Chantal Rickards, Matthew Wiseman and British consul in Los Angeles Chris OConnor were Beau Willimon, Tony Hale, Niecy Nash, Kate Walsh, Cuba Gooding Jr., Emilia Clarke and Sela Ward.

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What do Americans want from the countrys foreign policy? The same things that most countries want: security first and foremost, followed by prosperity, and (if possible) the sense that the country is advancing desirable political or moral values. Some Americans also think its nice if the United States wins a lot of medals at the Olympics, enjoys a certain status as leader of the free world, and even stages a few spectacular symbolic events like landing a live human on the moon. But mostly they want to be safe, reasonably comfortable, and to believe their country is on the side of the angels.

But as I look back at the last three presidential administrations and I contemplate the utterly bizarre campaign that is going on before our disbelieving eyes, what strikes me is how each of the three post-Cold War presidents failed to give the American people the foreign policy that they promised when they ran for office. In each case, in fact, the candidate promised a more restrained, sensible  dare I say realist?  foreign policy, and in each case they delivered an overly ambitious, decidedly unrealistic, and largely unsuccessful product. Some failed worse than others (see under: George W. Bush) but none gave the American people the foreign policy they promised or that the people seem to have wanted.

Think back to 1992. Running against George H.W. Bush, whose foreign-policy credentials and achievements were undeniably impressive, Bill Clinton told Americans its the economy, stupid and promised to spend the peace dividend here at home. But once in office, he couldnt resist the siren song of liberal hegemony. He expanded NATO eastward, which just gave America more weak countries to protect and did little to enhance U.S. security, and he embraced dual containment in the Persian Gulf, which added even more to U.S. defense burdens and helped persuade Osama bin Laden to direct his attention toward the far enemy and put the country on the path toward 9/11.

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To be sure, Clinton was wary of costly international quagmires and refused to send U.S. ground troops anywhere really dangerous. His strategy of engagement and enlargement rested on the assumption that spreading democracy and expanding U.S. security guarantees would be cost-free, because democracies wouldnt fight each other, Russia would remain weak forever, and all those new multilateral guarantees would never have to be honored. Clinton also got lucky, insofar as the consequences of some of his missteps (such as 9/11 and Russian revanchism) didnt come home to roost until he was safely out of the White House.

Next, consider the 2000 election. Running against Vice President Al Gore and lacking foreign-policy experience, George W. Bush sounded a modest and realistic note throughout the campaign and relied on the so-called Vulcans, several of whom had decidedly realist pedigrees. He promised Americans a foreign policy that would be strong but humble, and both he and his advisors chided Clinton and Gore for their misguided efforts at nation-building. In short, Americans were told that Bush would focus on great power politics, avoid messy quagmires in countries of marginal strategic importance, and keep our powder dry.

Bushs good intentions were blown off course completely by two distinct factors. First, instead of relying on realists from the Brent Scowcroft/Colin Powell wing of the Republican Party, he allowed Dick Cheney to populate his administration with neoconservatives who had greater ambitions and even worse judgment than the Clintonites. Second, the 9/11 attacks allowed the neocons to convert Bush to their misguided worldview and pave the way to the disastrous quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of giving Americans the foreign policy they had voted for, Bush, Cheney, and the neocons gave them the absurd goal of trying to transform the Middle East and then spread liberty throughout the world. We all know how well that worked.

Fast forward to 2008. A little-known senator from Illinois runs a successful upstart campaign, based in part on his undeniable eloquence but also on the singular fact that he had opposed the Iraq war from the start. He vows to end that war and, more importantly, to rebuild Americas troubled relations with the rest of the world by embracing a more sensible, farsighted, and realistic foreign policy. Given what had happened in Iraq and also Afghanistan, surely he would heed the wishes of the American people (and the lessons of these latest experiments in nation-building) and not repeat his predecessors errors. And surely this former lecturer in constitutional law would correct the excesses of the Bush/Cheney era: closing Gitmo, ending torture, halting warrantless surveillance, reducing secrecy, and running a transparent and accountable government.

But that didnt happen, either. Obama gave some great speeches, and his eloquence and evident idealism did win over publics in a number of places (and especially the Norwegian Nobel Committee). To his credit, he also led partly successful efforts to address climate change, nuclear security, and Irans nuclear program. But he increased U.S. reliance on targeted killings, prosecuted more whistleblowers than Bush did, and refused to hold top official national security officials accountable when they deceived the public. He approved an ill-conceived surge in Afghanistan to no good purpose, waffled in his response to the Arab Spring, backed a foolish intervention in Libya that created a failed state, and has been unable to fully disengage from the tar baby in Iraq. His efforts to advance an Israeli-Palestinian peace came to naught for the same reason that the previous 20 years of U.S. peace processing had failed: AIPAC and the rest of the Israeli lobby made it impossible for Washington to be a genuine, honest broker or to halt the endless expansion of Israeli settlements.

To be sure, Obama kept the United States out of Syria and has taken a measured approach toward the crisis in Ukraine. This good judgment has led hawks to criticize him for weakness and to claim that excessive U.S. restraint is creating a more dangerous world. Predictably, such views are echoed by client states that have become accustomed to Uncle Suckers protection and that are quick to complain about our credibility whenever Washington refused to do their bidding. But as Daniel Larison points out, the claim that the United States is retreating makes the slightest sense if the point of comparison is the height of the Iraq war 10 years ago, and even then its risible. Will Ruger unpacks the charge and demolishes it:

[T]he United States under Obama has continued to pursue a variant of primacy despite what [Robert] Lieber and others keep saying in their critiques. The United States is still committed to defending over 60 other countries and commanding the global commons. It still has a forward-deployed military living on a globe-girdling network of hundreds of military bases. In fact, it has recently sent more troops and equipment to Iraq, Eastern Europe, and even Australia. The United States still enjoys the worlds strongest military force, costing taxpayers around $600 billion a year. This sum represents nearly a third of all global spending and is equal to that of at least the next 10 countries combined. Its nearest competitor, China, spends far less, about $150 billion. And during the Obama years, the United States surged forces in Afghanistan, fought a war against Libya that led to regime change, re-entered Iraq and engaged (even if tepidly) in Syria, supported Saudi Arabias dubious fight in Yemen, continued to conduct drone strikes abroad, became unprofitably enmeshed diplomatically in Ukraines troubles, and continued to exert its power and influence in Asia. And just recently the U.S. again bombed targets in Libya. Retreat, you say?

In short, Obama has hardly run a left-wing foreign policy, or one that departed from the broad establishment consensus about American exceptionalism and its alleged indispensability as the provider of global order.

Which brings us to 2016. Once again, the American people seem to want a foreign policy that is less hyperactive and a lot more effective. A Pew Research Center survey in April found that 57 percent of Americans think the United States should deal with its own problems and let other countries deal with theirs the best they can, and 41 percent thought the country was doing too much in world affairs while only 27 percent thought it was doing too little. And as was the case in 1992, 2000, and 2008, we have one candidate (Trump) suggesting  however incoherently  that hed do a bunch of things differently. Hed stop allies from free-riding, stay out of the nation-building business, and (supposedly) browbeat friends and foes alike on the force of his personality alone. This might sound good at first hearing, but anyone who believes hed do any of these things effectively is precisely the sort of gullible customer that Trump has conned throughout his checkered business career. Caveat emptor.

And then theres Hillary Clinton. Shes been a hawkish internationalist throughout her political career, and believes it is better for the United States to try and fail than not to try at all. And her large foreign policy team is chock-full of bright-eyed liberal internationalists who are convinced the United States can solve lots of vexing international problems in places it doesnt understand if only they get the chance.

But even Clinton recognizes that support for liberal hegemony is soft, which is why she told an audience last week that the United States would never send ground troops back into Iraq. But one may question whether shed stick to that statement  especially if she continues to listen to the people who have advised her in the past and are likely to do so in the future.

So why dont Americans get the foreign policy they want? One could argue that it is because the American people dont know enough about foreign policy, and so they have to leave it to the experts in the foreign-policy establishment. That is certainly possible, but this explanation would be a lot more persuasive if that same establishment hadnt blown it big-time repeatedly in recent years, and for the same reasons (inflating threats, exaggerating the utility of military force, being too deferential to allies of little strategic value, and letting domestic politics override broader strategic considerations).

The real reasons Americans dont get the foreign policy they want are threefold.

First, because the country is still so wealthy and so secure, it is mostly immune from the consequences of its foreign-policy follies. Other countries may suffer grievous harm when the United States miscalculates, but most Americans dont.

Second, the United States built a lot of global institutions, took on a lot of global burdens, and created a large set of national security organizations during the Cold War. The status quo is well-entrenched, and that helps explain why U.S. leaders are loath to abandon attitudes, commitments, and policies that have been in place for decades, even though the condition of the world has changed in a number of important respects.

Third, Americas foreign-policy establishment  to include the usual government bureaucracies, interest groups, think tanks, schools of public policy, charitable foundations, and a lot of the media  is deeply committed to liberal hegemony both for idealistic reasons and because it maximizes their own power and status. Dissenting voices do exist (as this column often proves), but they are a distinct minority. Or as scholars Benjamin Page and Marshall Bouton observed some years ago, there is a persistent disconnect between elite and mass opinion on foreign policy, and official U.S. foreign policy often differs from the policies most Americans want. And in American politics, when a well-positioned minority believes strongly in a particular approach and the public at large is indifferent or only intermittently engaged by the issue, the minority usually wins.

And that, my fellow Americans, is why you arent getting the foreign policy you want or deserve.

Photo credit: ALEX WONG/Getty Images
Lagos (AFP) - Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has come under fire from critics after admitting part of his recent "Change Begins With Me" speech was copied from US President Barack Obama's 2008 victory speech.

Buhari announced the social initiative earlier this month urging Nigerians to stop bribing and littering in a programme that continues his "war against indiscipline" launched while serving as military ruler in the 1980's.

"We must resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country for so long," Buhari said at a ceremony held in the nation's capital of Abuja.

The presidency was forced to issue a statement late Friday night acknowledging that the line was lifted from Obama.

"It was observed that the similarities between a paragraph in President Obamas 2008 victory speech...are too close to be passed as coincidence," presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said in a statement, adding that an "overzealous" speech writer will face "appropriate sanction".

Critics questioned whether Buhari was reading his speeches before delivering them, and worried that the flub was tarnishing Nigeria's image abroad as international leaders prepare to meet in New York this week for the UN General Assembly.

"The president and his aides just have to do better," opposition party member Adeyanju Deji said in a Twitter post. "We plead guys, stop embarrassing our great nation."

This isn't the first time that Buhari's team has borrowed from American campaigns.

Another one of the president's lines has been "make Nigeria great again" a copy of "make America great again", the slogan used by US presidential candidate Donald Trump and before him by Ronald Reagan.
By Allison Lampert MONTREAL (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking days after a Canadian man was released from prison in China, said on Saturday there was "tremendous potential" for stronger and more stable ties with the Asian country. Trudeau won a diplomatic coup last week after China deported Kevin Garratt, who had been detained for two years on allegations of spying. The release came shortly after Trudeau's official visit to China earlier this month and ahead of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's arrival in Canada next week. Asked whether Canada is open to more investment from China, which is seeking a free trade deal with Canada and more relaxed investment rules, Trudeau said there was scope for closer ties. "What we have demonstrated (with the official visits) is that there is tremendous potential for a stronger, more stable relationship with China than there has been for Canada in the past," he told reporters on the sidelines of a global health conference. Garratt, who was arrested in 2014, was charged in January with spying and stealing state secrets, convicted on Tuesday, released on bail and then deported to Canada on Thursday. (Reporting by Allison Lampert; Editing by Paul Simao)
(Reuters) - A Canadian police officer was in stable condition after being injured in a violent altercation at a shopping mall in the western city of Calgary that left a second person with more serious wounds, emergency responders and media reports said. A witness told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp that she saw a confrontation involving three men and a woman unfold outside at the Marlborough Mall. One of the men was brandishing a large knife, chasing the others, but he ran into the shopping center when police arrived. Shoppers later told the CBC that they saw paramedics taking a man out of the complex on a stretcher. Nate Pike, a spokesman for Calgary EMS, told reporters that the officer sustained non-life-threatening injuries while the second individual was in critical condition. Pike declined to comment on the nature of the wounds or provide any further information about the incident. Representatives of the Calgary Police Service could not be reached immediately for comment. Pike, seen on a video posted on media websites, spoke from the parking lot of the mall, which houses more than 100 stores. Photographs posted on the internet showed multiple squad cars and mounted officers gathered outside the entrance to a Sears store, one of the shopping center's anchor tenants. A Calgary EMS duty officer later declined further comment, referring to all inquiries to police. (Reporting By Frank McGurty in New York)
Northwest Tire assists schools

Northwest Tire, headquartered in Bismarck, plans to contribute $10,775 to schools.

The money raised through a Smart Start tire sales campaign last month will go to 93 public and private schools in Bowman, Dickinson, Bismarck, Minot, Jamestown, Grand Forks and Bemidji, Minn.

ICA headquarters in new location

Investment Centers of America Inc. has a new corporate headquarters at 3231 Greensboro Drive in Bismarck.

In a statement, Jim Komoszewski, ICA president and CEO, called it an innovative space.

Komoszewski was appointed president and CEO in May, replacing Greg Gunderson, who retired.

In August, Scott Romine was named president and CEO for National Planning Holdings, ICAs broker-dealer network.
Adelanto (United States) (AFP) - Two years ago, the city of Adelanto, a crumbling outpost in California's Mojave desert, was facing a bleak future as it teetered on the brink of bankruptcy and struggled with double-digit unemployment.

"We were about to vanish, to be incorporated into another city," says councilman John "Bug" Woodard Jr. "The place was dying and in total despair."

Today, however, the once-desolate town is firmly back on the map, having joined a handful of communities in California in embracing large-scale commercial cannabis cultivation -- a move that smells of success as the state prepares to vote in November on legalizing the use of recreational marijuana.

Though California already allows the use of medical marijuana, the initiative to fully legalize the drug -- seen as likely to succeed -- is expected to transform the most populous state in the US and one of the world's largest economies into a new epicenter for cannabis, bringing in billions in revenue.

According to the Arcview Group, a cannabis investment and research firm based in California, medical and recreational marijuana sales are expected to more than double to $6.5 billion in the Golden State by 2020 if the drug becomes fully legal after November.

Nationwide, the legal cannabis market -- which stood at about $5.7 billion in 2015 -- is projected to reach more than $23 billion by 2020, according to Arcview.

Apart from California, several other states including Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada will also vote on legalizing recreational marijuana on November 8, at the same time as casting ballots in the presidential race.

A similar ballot measure in California failed in 2010 but support has grown since, with Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker among backers of the latest initiative, which has the support of 58 percent of voters according to a recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.

- Celebrities join scramble -

Story continues

For Adelanto, the signs pointed to an opportunity too good to pass up.

Last November, the town became among the first in California to permit medical marijuana cultivation.

The decision to welcome marijuana growers led to a flood of high-end investors rushing to the town of 32,000 residents to buy up warehouses and plots of land in two so-called "green zones" earmarked for cannabis cultivation, local officials say.

"All of a sudden, we have people driving over here in Bentleys to look at property," said Woodard, 57, a real-estate agent with wispy shoulder-length hair who organizes an annual jazz festival in the desert.

"Here you have a building that was bought for $725,000 a couple years ago and now it's worth four million," he added, pointing to an expanse of land dotted with warehouses surrounded by Joshua trees and brush.

"When you say Adelanto now, everybody knows where it is."

Among the celebrities who have reportedly joined the mad scramble to snag a producer license in the city, Woodard says, are rapper Snoop Dogg, one of reggae legend Bob Marley's sons, Ky-Mani Marley, and actor Tommy Chong, of cult comedy duo "Cheech & Chong."

City officials said they expect cannabis production to easily reach 100 tons annually once farming gets fully underway, bringing in much-needed tax revenue to the decrepit town until now known more for its three prisons than for being pot-friendly.

- Blossoming industry -

"We are on the precipice of taking over the industry," Jermaine Wright, a former pastor and member of the city council, said assuredly. "We're doing what no other city has done when it comes to marijuana and this is going to bring in other businesses and manufacturing."

The city's cannabis ordinance stipulates that 40 to 50 percent of the workforce must be drawn from the local population, a measure that should significantly reduce unemployment, local officials say.

So far Adelanto, which means progress in English, has issued 35 licenses to grow cannabis and expects to hand out more in coming months, Woodard said.

Dan Olson, who owns a company that manufactures air filtration equipment in one of the "green zones," said he has seen the town transform as it prepares for the expected windfall from cannabis farming.

"I go out for a walk in the desert every morning and I can see the change," said Olson, whose company has been in the city for 12 years. "You now see all these cars with black tinted windows driving around and you see all these warehouses where the weeds have been pulled and you know it's going cultivation."

Christopher Goodman, 59, who is in the process of purchasing several warehouses in the city, said he expects to reap millions from his investment.

"The demand is here and the more people get educated about cannabis the more people will use it," said Goodman, who was in the auto business before turning to cannabis farming several years ago.

"I'll tell you what, I'd much rather smoke cannabis than drink beer and I mean that wholeheartedly."
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Early on at Mashable's seventh-annual Social Good Summit in New York City, the audience was treated to an informative and funny conversation with Chelsea Handler.

The comedian discussed the global impact of her Netflix series Chelsea, the presidential election and the importance of using her media platform to make a difference.

While Chelsea Lately, Handler's former late-night talk show on E!, focused on celebrity gossip, her new Netflix show Chelsea addresses a slew of other issues. When moderator Saba Hamedy asked Handler why she wanted to move on from covering Hollywood scoop, Handler replied, "Because it was boring."

SEE ALSO: 'Stranger Things' Barb actress surprises cast at 'Chelsea' talk show





Image: Christopher Gregory/mashable

Chelsea on Netflix and its global impact

Handler went into more detail on growing out of her Chelsea Lately persona and how she wanted Chelsea to be more meaningful.

Because Chelsea airs in 190 countries and 22 languages, Handler explained how she has had to take on new responsibility and acknowledge the differences of other countries, all while striving to be informative and entertaining.

As part of the show, Handler gets to travel the world and visit a variety of countries, which has taught her about the surprising uniformity across the globe.

"The biggest takeaway is always how similar we all are, that we're all human beings, that everybody's got a family that they love," she said. "There's more sameness than there is difference, always."

"If I can do a show where I can do that in a comedic way then, you know, all my dreams have come true. And remain single  all my dreams have come true."

Image: Christopher Gregory/mashable

Reaching her audience

While some have warned Handler that pushing her political ideologies in her show could narrow her audience, Handler is not concerned.

Handler has quite a large soapbox with her Netflix show, and she is taking the utmost advantage of it  she said her show aims to make world issues digestible to people who don't understand them.

Story continues

"The contribution I want to make is through my show and talking about issues that people are scared to tackle," Handler said.

"I want to make people more educated. And not only educate them, but ... inform people on how to get involved with something that they really care about."

Image: CHRISTOPHER GREGORY/MASHABLe

How Handler thinks others can make a difference

Handler encouraged people to get involved with making a difference by taking advantage of whatever soapbox they make have.

"You've got to tap into your inner voice, because what's the point of being here?" she said.

"You know deep down what the right thing to do is. And you should do it, and make sure you believe in what you're doing, and you feel strong about your opinion. And you're informed about your opinion and you're willing to learn."

"It's a waste of time to just be a passerby. That's no good for anybody. You're not making an impression and you're not leaving an impression."


Credit: Rachel Murray/Getty

If you ever had any doubts that Chrissy Teigen and John Legend were total #goals, this picture will prove it once and for all.

The first time mom took to Instagram today to share a never-before-seen photo from the day that the couple's 5-month-old daughter Luna Simone Stevens was born, and it will melt your heart. In the image, the model-turned-cookbook author holds the couple's little girl as she lays in a hospital bed while her musician husband holds her arms and looks lovingly at his wife and child.

Teigen simply captioned the snap with "#flashbackfriday" and the double pink heart emoji.

#flashbackfriday  A photo posted by chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) on Sep 16, 2016 at 3:24pm PDT

And although this is seemingly the first time that Teigen has shared a photo of Luna from the day of her birth, she's posted a multitude of snaps of Luna since then. Just this week, the 30-year-old 'grammed a video that shows the newborn smiling and giggling as she plays with a stuffed animal-adorned mobile while laying on a soft fuzzy blanket.

RELATED: Chrissy Teigen's Video of Her Daughter Luna Giggling Is the Sweetest Thing Ever

We're officially obsessed with this trio.
El Diamante (Colombie) (AFP) - The leader of Colombia's FARC rebels said Sunday a historic peace accord with the government has received the guerrillas' "total support" at a conference where they will vote on the deal.

"We're feeling very strong backing for all the work we've done," said Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre, Timoleon "Timochenko" Jimenez, on the second day of a week-long meeting that leaders hope will be the Marxist rebels' last wartime conference.

After 52 years at war with the Colombian government, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) will wrap up the conference with a vote on the peace deal concluded on August 24.

If they ratify it, as they are expected to do, they will then relaunch themselves as a political party.

"The FARC are for peace. The FARC are thinking about converting ourselves into a political movement," said Londono, dressed in a white polo shirt stamped with the image of leftist revolutionary icon Che Guevara.

The statements amounted to an implicit denial of rumors that dissident factions within the FARC, which has an estimated 7,500 fighters, may not sign on to the peace process.

The guerrillas' chief peace negotiator, Ivan Marquez, said the conference was an "extraordinary success."

Some 500 FARC commanders and representatives of the rank and file are meeting in the group's traditional stronghold in Caguan, in southeast Colombia.

Most were sporting white T-shirts with the logo of the conference -- the guerrillas' 10th -- rather than their traditional combat fatigues.

Once the FARC give their blessing to the deal brought home by their negotiators after nearly four years of talks in Cuba, Londono and President Juan Manuel Santos will sign it on September 26.

It will then be put to a vote by the Colombian people in a decisive referendum on October 2.

Recent polls indicate it is likely to pass, though the level of support has fluctuated broadly.

Colombians are anxious to end a conflict that has drawn in various left- and right-wing armed groups and drug traffickers across the decades, leaving 260,000 people dead and 45,000 missing.
Coolio has been arrested.

The 53-year-old rapper, whose real rale is Artis Leon Ivy Jr., was arrested for possession of a loaded firearm at Los Angeles International Airport, ET can confirm.

WATCH: Tygas Arrest Warrant Has Been Recalled After Reaching Settlement Over Unpaid Rent

Los Angeles Airport Police responded to Terminal 3 for a report of a prohibited item at TSA screening, read a statement released by the Los Angeles Airport Police department on Saturday.

Upon arrival, Airport Police immediately took possession of a carryon bag in the x-ray screening belt, and detained a 39-year-old black male who claimed possession of the bag, the statement continued, referring to an unidentified man traveling with Coolio. Further investigation revealed that the bag contained items belonging to one of the suspects traveling companions, who left the screening area and boarded an aircraft for departure.

Airport Police detained the second suspect, a 53-year-old black male, who upon questioning claimed ownership and possession of the carryon bag, the statement continued. Both suspects were arrested for possession of a stolen loaded firearm.

Hours after the incident, Coolio posted a video thanking his fans for their concern.

Whats up everybody? This is Coolio. Just wanted to say something about the little misunderstanding at the airport today, he began the short clip. Everythings fine. As you can see, Im at P.F. Changs having a meal, and having a few drinks.

I mean, I dont know whats going to be the result of this in the future, but for now Im fine, and I appreciate everybodys concern.

See the full video below:

ET has reached out to Coolios rep for comment.

WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Ray J Calls Chris Browns Arrest Wrong and 'Sad: 'Find the Facts Out First

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Coolio was arrested Saturday at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) after a loaded firearm was discovered in the rapper's carry-on bag during a security screening. Coolio was charged with both possession of a firearm by a felon and suspicion of possessing a stolen loaded firearm after it was determined that the gun involved had been reported stolen, TMZ reports.

According to police, Coolio, born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., actually boarded the plane after passing through security at LAX's Terminal 3 when the firearm was discovered in his carry-on bag, which the rapper's bodyguard attempted to pass through security.



"Upon arrival airport police immediately took possession of a carry-on bag in the X-ray screening belt," airport police Officer Alicia Hernandez told the Los Angeles Daily News. "They also detained a 39-year-old man [Coolio's bodyguard] who claimed to own the bag. Further investigation revealed that the bag contained items belonging to one of the suspect's traveling companions who left the screening area and boarded an aircraft for departure."



Police soon determined that the carry-on bag, and the firearm, belonged to Coolio. Police detained both the rapper and his bodyguard, but after questioning Coolio, authorities released the bodyguard without charges.

Coolio was booked into Los Angeles Police Departments Pacific Station Saturday and released on $37,808 bail. He didn't remain in jail for long as, on Saturday night, Coolio posted a video statement addressing the incident while dining at a P.F. Chang's.





"Just wanted to say something about the little misunderstanding at the airport today. Everything's fine, I'm fine," the rapper said. "I don't know what's going to be the result of this in the future but for now, I'm fine and I appreciate everyone's concern."



Coolio is scheduled to perform tonight at Indio, California's Empire Polo Club on a bill with Salt-N-Pepa and Vanilla Ice as part of the I Love the 90s Tour.

Related Content:
The death toll from a Taliban suicide bomb attack on a mosque in northwest tribal Pakistan has risen to 36, including eight children, officials said Sunday.

The Friday attack targeted a mosque in the Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan where the army has been fighting Taliban militants.

"We have now compiled a list of victims of the blast which includes 36 dead and 27 injured. At least eight children below the age of 10 are among the dead," Naveed Akbar, deputy chief of the Mohmand tribal district administration, told AFP.

"Many children were hit in the blast because they were praying in the last rows in the mosque where the bomber struck," Akbar said.

The bomber came in as Friday prayers were in progress and blew himself up in the main hall. A curfew has been imposed in the area since the bombing.

Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out to avenge the deaths of 13 of its members and arrests of others by a local vigilante force in 2009.

Meanwhile three people were killed in the outskirts of Peshawar city on Sunday when four motorbike gunmen sprayed a van with bullets.

JuA also claimed responsibility for this attack, telling journalists in an email they had killed three soldiers. But officials said they were still checking the identity of the deceased.

Since 2007 the government has encouraged vigilante forces comprising tribesmen -- locally known as peace committees -- to defend their villages against the Taliban.

Pakistan's deadliest ever attack occurred in Peshawar in December 2014, when Taliban militants stormed a school killing more than 150 people, mostly children.

The army launched an operation in June 2014 to wipe out militant bases in the northwestern tribal areas and end the bloody insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives.

Last year, the country recorded its lowest number of killings since 2007, when the Pakistani Taliban was formed.
Xyza Bacanis works are partly a product of the isolation she felt while working as a domestic worker in Hong Kong. (Photo: Xyza Bacani)

Singaporeans will soon be treated to an up-close look at the black-and-white works of Filipina photographer Xyza Bacani.

She will be in Singapore next month for the Women In Film and Photography showcase, which features the work of 16 photographers. The month-long group exhibition, co-presented with the Magnum Foundation, will take place at Objectifs in Middle Road.

The 29-year-olds work focuses on street shots taken in Hong Kong, which are partly a product of the isolation she felt while working as a domestic worker there. Unlike other domestic workers who were free on the weekends, Bacani had her days off on weekdays.



Being alone gave me the opportunity to just roam around. When you have no one to talk to, you just go out and shoot everything thats happening. You become an observer, she explained to Yahoo Singapore over the phone from Hong Kong, where she worked for a decade.



Its like the world of the lonely, but I realised that I liked being alone.

Bacani began shooting in 2011 with a Nikon DSLR camera that she purchased with a loan from her employer. (Photo: Xyza Bacani)

A change of vocation

Bacani made headlines last year when she won a prestigious scholarship from the Magnum Foundation, which gave her the opportunity to take up an intensive, six-week-long programme at New York University.

She first began shooting in 2011 with a Nikon DSLR camera she purchased with a loan from her employer.



Since winning the Magnum scholarship, she has been living out of a suitcase, dividing her time between New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and other Asian locations for talks and exhibitions.



Street photography is one of Bacanis key interests. In every city she travels to, she reaches out to migrant workers and survivors of human trafficking. In May, she put on a solo exhibition in Hong Kong entitled Modern Slavery, which focused on the survivors of human trafficking.

Story continues

Bacani won a scholarship from the Magnum Foundation last year, which allowed her to take up an intensive programme at New York University. (Photo: Xyza Bacani)



Be your own hero

Asked what she has to say to migrant workers who may be caught in a bad situation, Bacani acknowledged that they are often afraid to lose their jobs.

I always say that they need to be their own hero. They need to take control of their own situation, even if they are in a situation of abuse or ill treatment.

Bacani remains close to her former employer, whom she describes as a cool lady. My employer is a really good person who respected me. She treated me as a human being, and gave me dignity. Not everyone has that, and I was lucky, she said.



Whenever she is back in Hong Kong, she even stays over at her former boss home to save on the cost of a hotel.

Whenever Im here, I still help with the chores. Its good to remember your roots so that you can fly. I think my former employer taught me that, she said.

Exhibition details:

Location: Chapel Gallery, Objectifs, 155 Middle Road, Singapore 188977

Date: 19 Oct to 20 Nov 2016; Tue to Sat: 12pm to 7pm / Sun: 12pm to 4pm

Opening Reception: 19 Oct (Wed), 7pm

Artist Talk: 20 Oct (Thu), 7pm


Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told a crowd at a rally that a bomb went off in New York City before any confirmation came from official sources about what caused an explosion in Manhattan on Saturday night.

I must tell you that just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York. And nobody knows exactly whats going on. But boy, we are living in a time  we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough, Trump told his supporters in Colorado Springs, Colo.

It just happened, he added. So well find out, but its a terrible thing going on in our world and in our country. And we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant. And were going to end it. Were going to end it. Well see what it is. Well see what it is.

Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Photo: Mike Segar/Reuters)

About two hours later, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference that the explosion on 23rd Street appeared to be the result of an intentional act and that there was no indication it was linked to terrorism. According to de Blasio, it was too early to say whether a bomb caused the explosion. The NYPD is also investigating a second location on 27th Street.

Trump, who made the remarks at the start of his speech, quickly pivoted to tout his poll numbers. Trumps campaign has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Yahoo News about how he may have obtained information about the cause of the explosion that was not publicly available.

Officials said 29 people were injured, one seriously. An official source in New York City who was briefed by first responders told Yahoo News the explosion occurred in a dumpster. The NYPD Counterterrorism unit tweeted out a photo of the site of the explosion that seemed to show a mangled dumpster.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told reporters later on Saturday night that she had been briefed on the bombings in New York and New Jersey. Another explosion had occurred earlier in the day at a charity race in Seaside Park, N.J.

Story continues

Hillary Clinton, on her campaign plane, responds to explosion in NYC pic.twitter.com/4tfyUE2vNc  Liz Kreutz (@ABCLiz) September 18, 2016

This story was last updated at 12:02 a.m., Sept. 18.



Slideshow: Explosion in New York Citys Chelsea neighborhood >>>
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has taken to Twitter today to warn The New York Times of a pending lawsuit he says he might have planned.

In a tweet, Trump said "My lawyers want to sue the failing @nytimes so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting."

Earlier in the day, Trump continued his anti-media comments made online with a series of tweets against The New York Times and columnist Maureen Dowd, saying that she "makes up things that I never said for her boring interviews and column. A neurotic dope!"

In an interview with CNN on Saturday, Dowd said she had confronted Trump throughout his campaign, warning him about the violence at his rallies and events, but he told her that "he thought the violence added a frisson of excitement."

Calling her a "wacky columnist for the failing @nytimes," Trump went on to tweet that Dowd "pretends she knows me well - wrong!"

Though Trump has threatened media outlets including the Times and CNN before, there is no legal claim of "irresponsible intent."

See his tweets below.

Read more: Hitler-Joke Historian on How Late-Night Comics Should Handle Trump
As the Air Force beefs up its drone warfare squadrons, it has opened the door for more enlisted personnel to be trained as pilots of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used for surveillance and targeted killings. But the war against ISIS has increased the demand for drone pilots, and training will take time.

The Air Forces answer to the shortage of those who can operate what are also called remotely piloted aircraft (RPA): Hire civilian contractors.

Related: As Drones Take Over, the Air Force Finds Its Pilots of the Future

The New York Times said last week that hundreds of contractors are being used by the Air Force to operate drones performing reconnaissance and providing live feeds of firefights and special ops missions. According to Air Force officials quoted by The Times, the contractors operate in the areas where the UAVs are flying and are not legally allowed to control so-called killer drones that have been used to terminate ISIS fighters and members of other terrorist groups.

Many of the contractors are former pilots or drone pilots, the story said, and they are being paid twice or three times military salaries.

Now Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, a Democrat who serves on both the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, is raising questions about the use of contractors to pilot drones.

One reason she cited in a letter to Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James released this week is the pay disparity between contractors and Air Force personnel. Because UAV contractors are typically paid far higher than service members, their use may actually encourage trained Air Force UAV operators to seek more lucrative opportunities in the private sector, aggravating and even prolonging the current shortage, she said.

Related: More Killer Drones, Please: The Air Force Places a $371 Million Order

McCaskill may have a point. According to current Air Force requirements, drone pilots must stay on active duty for six years after they are trained. But the intensity of operating a drone has already led to a high dropout rate, and the potential for considerably higher pay as a contractor pilot could lead to more defections.

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Perhaps more important, the senator says she worries about the military holding contractors accountable. I want to ensure that the lessons we have learned are applied as the battlefield changes, she wrote in an apparent reference to incidents involving military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan that turned into major black eyes for the U.S. Perhaps the most notorious incident involved Blackwater contractors who killed 17 people in Baghdad in 2007, including women and children. Four contractors were convicted in those killings, with one sentenced to life in prison; the other three got 30 years apiece.

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When Washington state made one of the first major moves to place limits on opioid painkiller prescriptions, pharmaceutical companies fought back  using the Pain Care Forum, a national network of drug companies and opioid-friendly nonprofits, many of them funded by drugmakers.

Alarm bells rang at the forum in 2007 after Washington states agency medical directors  spurred by overdose deaths of patients in the workers compensation system  drafted guidelines that would require pain specialists to approve high doses of opioids.

Worried the guidelines would create a domino effect of other states adopting restrictive policies, the forum agreed to pay a public relations consultant $85,000 to prep speakers, draft patient testimonials and coordinate an educational initiative focused on elected officials and the state medical board, documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press reveal.

The core message of the campaign: Patients should have access to painkillers.

Purdue Pharma also wrote one of the Washington medical directors, calling the new proposed guidelines too tough. The company knew the role painkillers have played in Americas addiction crisis: Its executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about their drug OxyContins risk of addiction that year.

The same internal memos show that advocates affiliated with the Pain Care Forum met with the Washington governors chief health adviser to discuss the "unintended consequences" of the guidelines. They also helped defeat a resolution from the state medical association, which represents doctors, that would have supported the guidelines.

The state medical board, which oversees doctors, also agreed to do something the Pain Care Forum wanted: send doctors a book on opioid prescribing produced by the Federation of State Medical Boards, a group that has received some funding from pharmaceutical companies.

Related story: Politics of pain: Drugmakers fought state opioid limits amid crisis

This story is part of Whos Calling the Shots in State Politics?. The Center exposes the powerful special interests that drive elections and policy in the states. Click here to read more stories in this series.

Don't miss another Politics investigation: Sign up for the Center for Public Integrity's Watchdog email.

Drugmakers paid $825,000 to distribute the book in dozens of states, according to information the FSMB provided as part of a U.S. Senate investigation. FSMB guidelines, which some doctors said were too lax, were enshrined by medical boards in at least 35 states as of 2013.

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Lisa Robin, FSMBs chief advocacy officer, said those guidelines reflected the best practices at the time. The federation has since updated both those and the prescribing book, and no longer receives funding from pharmaceutical companies, she said.

The drug industry relied upon lobbyists and political contributions when the guidelines went before the Washington Legislature in 2010. Though Purdue spent next to nothing in prior years, state records show it laid out more than $62,500 that year on lobbying. It also gave $800 each to five state senators; four of them voted against the dosing limits.

Still, the guidelines passed.

I think we kind of caught them with their pants down, said Democratic Rep. Jim Moeller, the bills sponsor. They didnt expect this was going to have any legs.

Related: About this project

Purdue said that it does not oppose measures that improve the way opioids are prescribed, even when they could reduce opioid sales, but did not respond to questions about its activities in Washington.

After the guidelines became state law, the advocacy groups fight continued. The American Pain Foundation, a member of the Pain Care Forum that received most of its funding from the industry, asked at least one pharmaceutical company for money in 2011, warning that other states could soon follow Washington. A week later, the company sent a check for $75,000.

The state has seen a slower increase in overdose deaths than nearly all others since the policy was implemented. Some patients have had difficulty finding pain specialists in rural areas, however.

Overall, the episode didnt lead to a total loss for opioid makers: Few other states have adopted Washingtons approach discouraging high doses of the drugs.

This story was co-published with The Associated Press.

Related story: Pharma lobbying held deep influence over opioid policies

Related story: Pro-painkiller echo chamber shaped policy amid drug epidemic

This story is part of Whos Calling the Shots in State Politics?. The Center exposes the powerful special interests that drive elections and policy in the states. Click here to read more stories in this series.

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Copyright 2016 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
Washington (AFP) - A man making "some references to Allah" stabbed and injured eight people in a shopping mall in the US state of Minnesota, before being shot dead by an off-duty officer, police said.

The suspect "asked at least one person if they were Muslim before he assaulted them," Blair Anderson, the police chief in the city of St. Cloud where the attack took place, told journalists.

But he emphasized that the assailant's motivation remained unclear and said "whether that was a terrorist attack or not, I'm not willing to say that right now because we just don't know."

The attack came as 29 people were injured in a deliberate explosion in a busy New York neighborhood Saturday. Mayor Bill de Blasio said there was no known link to terror at this stage.

Anderson said the armed suspect entered the Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud -- a city of about 67,000 people some 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Minneapolis -- and attacked at least eight people.

The lone suspect was wearing a private security uniform and had at least one knife, and "made some references to Allah," the police chief said.

"That suspect was confronted by an off-duty police officer and summarily shot and killed," he said.

Anderson said the eight people injured were taken to a hospital, where one is expected to remain.

The suspect had a history of minor traffic violations, Anderson said, adding that police do not currently have reason to believe the attack was connected to any other incident.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she had been briefed about the Minnesota stabbing as well as Saturday's explosions in New York and a pipe bomb blast hours earlier in a trash can in New Jersey in which no one was injured.

The St. Cloud mall was put on lockdown in the aftermath of the attack, with local media reporting that people were being allowed to leave late Saturday. The facility will remain closed as police continue their investigation.

"It's an awful day," Anderson said. "Starting tomorrow things won't be the same here."
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck has issued a warning to Emmy goers and Rams fans in light of separate bombs discovered in New York and New Jersey garbage receptacles.

We ask everyone to stay vigilant and remember, If you see something, say something!' he said in a statement issued on Sunday, urging citizens to download use the iWATCH LA app if needed.

The Rams game is happening in the citys Coliseum venue and the Emmy Awards are taking place nearby at Staples Center.

Also Read: At Least 29 Injured in Explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea Neighborhood

Here is Chief Becks full statement:

As you wake up this morning to the troubling events in New York and New Jersey, please rest assured we have been monitoring the situation throughout the night. As of this hour there are no known, specific, or credible threats here in Los Angeles. The LAPD and its law enforcement partners here in California and at the Federal level are constantly assessing threat levels to ensure the safety of LA residents. We have a number of high profile events in Los Angeles today with the return of the Rams to the Coliseum and the Emmys at Staples Center. People attending these events can most certainly feel safe, as our LAPD officers and other city partners have taken every step to ensure a secure environment. Nevertheless, we ask everyone to stay vigilant and remember If you see something, say something! Also dont forget to download the iWATCH LA app for your smart phone. This empowers all LA residents to report any suspicious activity from their mobile device.
Eva Longoria has some tattoo regrets.

The 41-year-old actress paid a visit to Dr. Tattoff in Los Angeles on Thursday for a little tattoo removal, and documental the whole thing on Snapchat.

WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Eva Longoria Reveals How She Kept Her Star-Studded Wedding Under Wraps

This is a tale for all young kids, Longoria told her followers. It hurts to get a tattoo, but its 10 times worse getting it off!

The actress took her followers through the whole process from start to finish.

Im about to zap these suckers off, she announced, showing off her wrist wrapped with numbing cream.

Snapchat

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Here we go! she said in another snap, before directing the camera towards the small star tattoo she would be getting removed.

Snapchat

Snapchat

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Longoria took hold of a small green stress ball throughout the treatment, which didnt seem to do much for the pain.

Snapchat

Oh my god. Why is there such delayed pain? she screamed out. It comes in like a wave, a wave of pain.

Snapchat

WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Eva Longoria Reveals She Cut Honeymoon Short to Make Hillary Clinton Fundraiser

The former Desperate Housewives star offered up another piece of advice at the end of the treatment: Dont think you can zap off a tattoo in one session!

In addition to the small star on her wrist, and cross on her back that shes currently getting lasered at Dr. Tattoff, the actress had previously removed a tattoo of ex Tony Parkers number on her neck, one of their wedding date on her wrist, as well as an inking of Parkers initials.

Longoria may have removed tattoos of her ex, but shes clearly very much in love with new husband, Jose Antonio Baston.

The newlywed couldnt stop gushing about her recent wedding just a few months ago.

Watch below:

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CAMBRIDGE, MA - JUNE 5: A Harvard University graduate takes a picture at commencement ceremonies June 5, 2008, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. J.K. Rowling, who wrote the popular Harry Potter books, was the commencement speaker. (Photo by Robert Spencer/Getty Images)

Reddit hosted an AMA, or Ask Me Anything, that featured former Cornell admissions officer Nelson Urena answering questions about the admissions process at the Ivy League school.

Urena, now a cofounder of college-mentor-application company Mentorverse, provided his honest answer to a student who asked if he should withhold the fact that he's an Asian applicant, considering his ACT score was low.

Urena stops short of telling the student what he should do, but he seems to imply that it may be beneficial to withhold his race from the application.

Here's the inside scoop Urena provided:

To get to your question about race, given the way that the admissions process works at many schools, often times for the sake of CONTEXT, demographic data is used to aggregate students into pools with similarities along certain demographic statistics.

The honest fact is that, it is often the case that Asian and Asian American students often have relatively high test scores and so your application would fall (depending on how the individual school reading your application creates their applicant pools) in a pool with peers who have relatively high test scores.

In your context your score of 28 is relatively low compared with Asian applicants to some of the more selective schools. I will let you read between the lines here and come to your own conclusions about whether or not you wish to report your race.

I would also mention that if there are ways in which you stand out from others within the context of your demographic grouping then it would be smart to highlight those ways in which you stand out.

NOW WATCH: Tom Hardy makes a crazy transformation playing identical twins in this new gangster movie





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DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 18, 2016 / Some have suggested that this shows that the President does not value law and order. I disagree. I applaud what he has done, and I believe his commutations promote fairness, justice, and respect for our criminal justice system, adds Dallas federal drug defense attorney John Helms.

First, it is important to understand what commuting a sentence means. Commuting a sentence is different from a pardon. A pardon means that the person's conviction is wiped off the records. A commutation means that the person is freed from prison before their sentence has ended, but they still have a conviction on their record.

To understand why the commutations were necessary, it is important to understand some background on federal drug sentences. For many years, the federal system effectively required inordinately long sentences for people who participated in drug trafficking, even if their involvement was relatively minor and there was no violence. Judges also had little discretion to give shorter sentences, even if the facts called for them. Almost everyone who actually works in the federal criminal justice system realized that the system was broken reveals drug trafficking lawyer Helms.

Over the last several years, there have been a number of reforms that have made significant improvements. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which are no longer mandatory, have been modified to make recommended drug sentences more reasonable. The U.S. Justice Department has also implemented policies that federal prosecutors follow that increase fairness for the accused in drug cases. In the last few years, sentences in federal drug cases have therefore been more fair and reasonable than they were in the past.

But those reforms did not address sentences handed down before the reforms. President Obama's commutations do. The commutations apply the principles of the reforms to past sentences by effectively reducing them. In other words, we have addressed the problem going forward, and the President is attempting to right the wrongs of the past by freeing people after they have already served a lengthy sentence, but before they have completed it.

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Now that a wider range of punishment options are possible in federal drug cases, the efforts of a criminal defense lawyer can have even more impact on the final sentence. It is, therefore, more important than ever for drug defendants to hire a skilled and experienced federal drug defense lawyer. As a former federal prosecutor with a number of recent federal drug sentencing successes, I welcome the opportunity to help those accused of federal drug crimes when they need it most.

If you or someone you know has been charged with a federal drug crime or are facing any other criminal charges, contact John Helms federal drug defense attorney in Dallas immediately. Call 214-666-8010.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/102874298661508534943/+JohnHelmsLawFirmDallas

Press Contact:

John Helms

214-666-8010

source: http://johnhelms.attorney/federal-drug-defense-attorney-john-helms-defends-obamas-sentence-commutations/

SOURCE: John Helms Law Firm
Only slightly more compelling than those stiffly staged dramatic reenactments that alternate with talking-heads commentary in second-rate cable-TV docudramas, Finding Altamira relies heavily on the dynamic underplaying of Antonio Banderas to sustain interest during a respectful yet unexciting slog through an obscure historical episode. Director by Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire  but, on the other hand, Revolution) attempts to imbue this attractively mounted period piece with the sort of socially-conscious gravity that was a hallmark of Stanley Kramers prestige pictures of the 1950s and 60s. Unfortunately, Hudson also peppers his film  which details the remarkable 1879 unearthing of cave paintings dating back to the Paleolithic Era in Cantabria, Spain  with fantasy sequences involving the bison represented in those paintings. Quite inadvertently, these scenes, meant to be the product of a precocious childs imagination, come off as not entirely unwelcome comic relief.

Banderas plays Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, a well-to-do amateur archaeologist and prehistorian whose insatiable curiosity and acceptance of Darwinian principles often place him at odds with his loving but devoutly religious wife, Conchita (Golshifteh Farahani), and a dogmatic local monsignor (Rupert Everett). When Marcelino and Maria (Allegra Allen), his worshipful 9-year-old daughter, find millennia-old paintings of bison in the Altamira cave on his property, he is thrilled by what he deduces is evidence that prehistoric humans attained intellectual prowess thousands of years earlier than 19th-century scientists had heretofore theorized. Much to his dismay, however, his discovery brings him more pain than acclaim.

Marcelino is denounced as hubristic, if not downright heretical, by the monsignor, causing Conchita no end of distress. (Galileo is pointedly referenced during a key early scene.) Worse, the enthusiastic amateur is publicly humiliated by implacable experts  chief among them the noted Emile Cartailhac (Clement Sibony), one of Marcelinos scientific idols  and accused of faking the cave paintings with the help of a young artist (Pierre Niney) who, not incidentally, may be in love with Conchita.

In the midst of all this turmoil  actually, even before her dad gets brickbats tossed his way  Maria repeatedly imagines the bison angrily stampeding off the cave ceiling, and at one point gathering just outside her bedroom door. Its easy to admire the special effects employed to animate these fantasies, but rather more difficult to refrain from laughing out loud at them.

Banderas labors under the handicap of having to convey Marcelinos sagacity with clumps of stilted dialogue provided by scriptwriters Olivia Hetreed and Jose Luis Lopez Linares. (It is impossible to ask too many questions, as long as you pay attention to the answers.) Still, he acquits himself admirably with his restrained yet subtly detailed portrayal of an intelligent man subjected to the stings of intolerant attitudes and professional jealousies.

The supporting players, sporting a variety of accents, range from adroit (especially Farahani and Allen) to over-the-top. As the ineffably sinister monsignor, Everett  whose shaven head and self-satisfied grimaces suggest a cross between Benito Mussolini and Marlon Brandos Col. Kurtz  very likely gave Hudson exactly what the director asked for. But thats no excuse.

It should be noted, by the way, that much of Finding Altamira was handsomely filmed by Jose Luis Alcaine in many of the actual locations (including the Altamira cave itself) where the true-life drama unfolded more than 130 years ago. Indeed, despite the unevenness of the movie as a whole, the behind-the-scenes talents  including production designer Benjamin Fernandez, composers Mark Knopfler and Evelyn Glennie, and costumer Benjamin Fernandez  deserve credit for doing more than their fair share of the heavy lifting.

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Beirut (AFP) - Four air strikes hit rebel-held parts of Syria's Aleppo on Sunday, a monitor said, in the first raids on the battered city since a truce came into force.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several people were wounded but could not immediately give details about casualties or identify who carried out the strikes.
Cementing her status as style icon, first lady Michelle Obama once again stole the spotlight as the Congressional Black Caucus' Annual Phoenix Awards, where Barack Obama was speaking on Saturday evening for the final time as president.

The event, held in Washington, D.C., pays tribute to the legacy and achievements of individuals who have positively impacted the African-American experience. The evening's honorees included Hillary Clinton, recipient of the Trailblazer Award.

MORE: Barack and Michelle Obama Open Up About Life After the White House

Wearing a strapless gold Naeem Khan ball gown with hand-painted gold leaf on black tulle, it was hard to take your eyes of the first lady -- and even the president had to acknowledge his wife.

"I've been so blessed to have a wife and a partner on this journey who makes it look so easy," Obama said to applause as he spoke about their 10-year journey from the Senate to the White House. "And is so strong answer so honest and so beautiful and so smart."

Getty Images

The evening look is just the latest in a series of stunning outfits, including Obama's understatement silk blue dress custom-designed by Christian Siriano that she wore at the Democratic National Convention in July.

Siriano, who had a headline-making summer, told ET about working with the first lady. "We make a dress [and] we hope it works," he says. "It's really funny when I have sometimes been working with younger actresses and they are so intense. I'm like, 'I've had less fittings on the first lady's dress than on you.'"

MORE: Michelle Obama Channels Lady Gaga in Stunning White Gown at State Dinner

As stress-free as designing for Obama may have been, it was still a huge moment to have a dress on the first lady as she delivered a stirring speech about the importance of female and black role models while declaring, "I'm with her."

"It's super important. She supports American designers, which is really great," Siriano says, "and that's what we're all here to do: We're here to make women feel their best."

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London (AFP) - Premier League leaders Manchester City continue to impress under Pep Guardiola, but Jose Mourinho has problems at Manchester United after a third consecutive defeat in all competitions.

Here are five things we learnt this weekend.

Pogba emblematic of Man United's problems

As the standard-bearers of Jose Mourinho's Manchester United revolution, it was instructive to note the differing reactions of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba to their embarrassing 3-1 loss at Watford. After a chastening afternoon that saw United suffer their third successive defeat, Ibrahimovic could barely disguise his disgust as he grimaced and cursed at the final whistle. Pogba, in contrast, did not look unduly bothered by United's troubles as he strolled off following another tepid personal display. To date, Pogba has not come close to justifying the world-record 89 million pounds ($115.7 million, 103.7 million euros) fee United paid to sign him from Juventus. He seems misused in a deep-lying role and produced just one moment of note, rattling the crossbar with a 25-yard shot. If United are to challenge for their first English title since 2013, Mourinho must get much more from Pogba, as well as making sure Ibrahimovic's competitive streak rubs off on the rest of the team.

De Bruyne plugs Aguero gap for Man City

Manchester City have been without striker Sergio Aguero for their last two league games, but they have not missed him thanks to the superb form of attacking midfielder Kevin De Bruyne. The Belgium international scored one goal and helped make another in last weekend's 2-1 win at Manchester United and was equally influential in the 4-0 victory over Bournemouth. He opened the scoring by cleverly stroking a free-kick beneath the jumping defensive wall and had a hand in all of City's other goals. "Maybe Messi can sit alone at the table. But that table aside, Kevin can stay there," said City manager Pep Guardiola. "He sees absolutely everything."

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Things are happening at Everton

Everton beat Middlesbrough 3-1, giving them their best start to an English top-flight season since 1978 and leaving them two points behind Manchester City in second place. Manager Ronald Koeman has hit the ground running since succeeding Roberto Martinez as manager and new signings Ashley Williams, Idrissa Gueye and Yannick Bolasie are bedding in quickly. "(Koeman) has kept things pretty simple," said midfielder Gareth Barry, who marked his 600th Premier League appearance with Everton's equaliser. "We've taken on board the manager's instructions this season and the team is playing with confidence."

The big teams need fear Liverpool

Liverpool have wasted no time flexing their muscles this season, beating Arsenal, Leicester City -- last season's top two -- and 2015 champions Chelsea in their first five games. Friday's 2-1 win at Chelsea was another lesson in asphyxiating intensity and breathless endeavour. Dejan Lovren's volley and Jordan Henderson's superb long-range curler put the visitors in control and although Diego Costa reduced the arrears, the margin of victory was misleading -- Liverpool were never in trouble. Jurgen Klopp's side look a match for any team in the division, but as their 2-0 loss at Burnley demonstrated, they can struggle when opponents sit back and force them to take the initiative. It may be matches such as next weekend's home fixture with Hull City, rather than the glamour games in which they have already excelled, that dictate whether Liverpool can go the distance.

Stoke aren't very Stoke anymore

Stoke City manager Mark Hughes was applauded for introducing a slicker playing style at the club last season, with talented forwards Xherdan Shaqiri, Marko Arnautovic and Bojan Krkic delighting neutrals. They finished ninth, but have made a dreadful start to the current campaign and were left bottom of the table after losing 4-1 at Crystal Palace. Palace's first three goals all stemmed from set-pieces -- exactly the kind of goal Stoke were renowned for not conceding under Hughes's no-nonsense predecessor Tony Pulis.
Vatican City (AFP) - The former exorcist of the Vatican and the Diocese of Rome, Gabriele Amorth, has died aged 91, Italian media on Sunday quoted his entourage as saying.

Amorth, who had been suffering from pulmonary problems, entered the priesthood in 1954 and was soon seconded to Father Candido Amantini, whom he succeeded in his post as the Vatican's chief exorcist in 1990.

He also founded the International Exorcists' Association (AIE), which he oversaw until his retirement in 2000 and which today has some 250 exorcists working in 30 countries.

In 2013, a French publishing house quoted him as saying he had performed 160,000 cases of exorcism -- including prayer rituals as opposed to the casting out of demons "possessing" people.

Several cases of casting out evil spirits are ascribed to Jesus himself in the Gospels.

Amorth's work, "The Last Exorcist -- My Fight Against Satan," was published in France in 2013.

The Vatican officially recognised the AIE in 2014, some in the Roman Catholic Church having viewed exorcism as a questionable practice.

Amorth was famously asked several years ago if the Devil, to whom he often referred, was present inside the Vatican, to which he responded: "He has tried already," referring notably to the 1981 assassination attempt against John Paul II and also sex scandals within the Church.

He also spoke out against Harry Potter books, indicating reading that reading them encourages children to believe in black magic.

Pope Francis has often referred to the "Devil," demons and "Satan" being at work and cited the need to fight against evil.

Last week, the pontiff, asserted that killing in the name of God was "satanic" as he paid homage during a mass to mark the memory of French priest Jacques Hamel, murdered by Islamic extremists in France in July.
By Nellie Andreeva

We can reveal exclusively details about the premise of CBS All Access much anticipated The Good Wife spinoff series, which has added a fan favorite. Sarah Steele, who recurred on the mothership series, will co-star opposite Christine Baranski and Cush Jumbo in the spinoff, co-created and executive produced by The Good Wife creators Robert and Michelle King.

As previously announced, the spinoff will pick up one year after the events of the final episode of The Good Wife, with Baranski and Quinn reprising their roles as Diane Lockhart and Lucca Quinn, respectively. Here is the news  the spinoff series will center around an enormous financial scam that has destroyed the reputation of a young lawyer, while simultaneously wiping out her mentor Diane Lockharts savings. Forced out of Lockhart & Lee, they join Lucca Quinn at one of Chicagos pre-eminent law firms.

Steele will reprise her role as Ari Golds smart and outspoken daughter Marissa Gold. In the spinoff, she is a brilliant but scattered millennial who begins as Diane Lockharts secretary, but finds she has a knack for investigating. The character will continue the original series tradition of strong and sassy female investigators, following in the footsteps of Kalinda and Robyn.

Were absolutely thrilled that Sarah will be joining the show, Robert and Michelle King told Deadline. Shes a magnificent comedian with the dramatic skill to keep every scene real.





Steele was the first original cast member besides Baranski and Jumbo to be offered a series regular spot on the spinoff series after the project was announced in May.



The negotiations were complicated by Steeles limited availability because of her co-starring role in the Broadway hit The Humans, which won the Tony for best play. The stage show was supposed to end its run on July 24 but instead it moved to another theater starting Aug. 9. It was announced earlier this week that the current run will end Jan. 15. After a couple of months of touch-and-go talks, the scheduling issues were recently resolved, paving the way for Steele to join the cast of The Good Wife offshoot.



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Steele is the first non-series regular from the original series to join the spinoff but she was a standout on the CBS show since her character was first introduced in the second season when Steele was still in college, quickly becoming a fan favorite. Steele is repped by Gersh and Station 3.

The 10-episode The Good Wife spinoff will premiere in February on CBS  its original network  before its episodes are released on CBS SVOD and live streaming platform All Access. Robert and Michelle King, who co-wrote the opening episode of the spinoff with Phil Alden Robinson, recently boarded the series as full-time showrunners/executive producers, a role they had on the original series for its entire seven-season run.

The Good Wife spinoff is executive produced by Robert and Michelle King, Ridley Scott, David Zucker, Liz Glotzer and Brooke Kennedy. CBS TV Studios is the studio.

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Ahead of this months Fed meeting, Harvard Business School (HBS) Dean Nitin Nohria says that policy changes from the government are urgent.

Were living at a point in which the one gear that we seem to have been using post the financial crisis, which is quantitative easing, seems to be running out of runway, Nohria said. Theres just not that much more room left. So once I think we get past these short-term quantitative easing measures and start to think more about fundamentals, that the mood shifts to fiscal policy.

In its recently-released report on competitiveness, HBS professors, led by Michael Porter, stressed the urgency of key structural reform, especially regarding corporate tax policy.

Politicians are completely missing the key issues

Nohria said politicians are latching onto the ideas they find most convenient, as opposed to working to solve underlying issues.

You think about America today, its not that its a world in which you can say its only strengths and only weaknesses. We have some of both, Nohria said. In politics, you latch onto the argument that you want to make, so each side can make an argument.

In contrast, HBS is trying to take an objective approach, he said.

I think that scholars like us and schools like ours have the responsibility that we have since were not actually beholden to any political party, he said. From the very first day, one of our goals in this study was to make sure that it was a non-partisan study. If you look at surveys, its quite hard to figure out where people with different political orientations lean. And weve tried to find the things that people on both sides of the political spectrum would agree with.

Politics aside, the study has focused on what works well in America and what needs to be fixed.

We have to stop being in this blame game, Nohria said.

With the aim of getting input from people from all parts of the political spectrum, the study was grounded by a survey of alumni as well as the general public. Nohria said he has focused on answering important questions and aims for these to be implemented in policy measures.

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For more on the US competitiveness study, please see below:

Harvard economist never thought his new study would take him where it did

Harvard professor identifies the worst nightmare in America right now

Harvard study singles out a game-changing economic opportunity: TAX REFORM

Theres a silver lining behind the dark clouds hanging over US businesses

Harvard Business dean tells us what this huge 5-year study is all about

How improved infrastructure could end Americas vicious cycle of poverty

Some companies have taken the next obvious step to filling jobs that sit vacant

Theres one piece of tax reform that would have a real impact with little resistance

Americas outdated education system isnt producing the workers companies need



Revitalizing small businesses is key to drive Americas economic growth
DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 18, 2016 / Last week, in a federal court in Detroit, James Robert Liang pleaded guilty to wire fraud and criminal violation of U.S. environmental laws in connection with the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal, reports John Helms a wire fraud attorney in Dallas. Mr. Liang worked at VW's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. He admitted that he and others installed software in VW diesel models, called a "defeat device," that would detect when the car was undergoing emissions testing and turn on emission controls, but turn the controls off at all other times, like when the car was being driven normally. He says he did it because VW engineers realized they could not meet emissions goals at the performance levels the company wanted. The defeat device was installed in over 500,000 vehicles sold in the U.S.

Mr. Liang is cooperating with federal prosecutors and law enforcement. He is the consummate insider. He knows who else was involved at the corporate headquarters and, at least to a point, how high in the company knowledge went. In return for his cooperation, he will probably get a reduced sentence, opines wire fraud lawyer Helms.

Mr. Liang happened to be living in the U.S. when he was indicted. It remains to be seen whether any other VW employees can be prosecuted in the United States, but you can bet that U.S. law enforcement is working with prosecutors in Germany who will be able to bring charges against responsible German citizens.

As a practicing wire fraud lawyer, I have written elsewhere that the best strategy for a federal criminal defendant is sometimes to cooperate with the government in order to get, hopefully, a reduced sentence. The prosecution of Mr. Liang is a great example of how a defendant can sometimes get a lot of credit just for providing information.

To get credit for information, it must be things the government does not already know, and it must be valuable. Mr. Liang surely knows almost everyone who was involved in creating, installing, and covering up the use of the defeat device. He has already disclosed, for example, code names for it that engineers used when communicating with each other, like "the acoustic function." This and other information he can provide will help law enforcement and prosecutors understand cryptic emails and documents. Even if Mr. Liang never has to testify against anyone, he can prove to be an invaluable resource and give prosecutors leverage in charging other wrongdoers. Given the scope of what he did, Mr. Liang is unlikely to avoid prison time, but it will probably be far less than if he had not cooperated.

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If you or someone you know has been charged with a fraud or are facing any other criminal charges, contact John Helms wire fraud attorney in Dallas immediately. Call 214-666-8010 .

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Dallas Criminal Lawyer John Helms

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source: http://johnhelms.attorney/helping-vw-prosecutor-may-reduce-jail-time-says-wire-fraud-attorney-dallas/

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HIMYMs Ashley Williams talks super openly about her miscarriage at Whole Foods

HIMYMs Ashley Williams talks super openly about her miscarriage at Whole Foods

Miscarriage is a subject that isnt often talked about, and because of that, its widely believed thats its uncommon. But its not. Miscarriages happen in 10 to 25 percent of pregnancies, according to the American Pregnancy Association.

Its a devastatingly emotional and painful process to endure alone  without a community of people to offer support.

Which is why were so thankful that How I Met Your Mother actress Ashley Williams has opened up about her recent miscarriage and the stigma surrounding it.

Last Friday, Williams wrote about her experience for the The Human Development Project with the hopes of normalizing it. Because it unfortunately is a part of life.

Williams had a miscarriage while grabbing pizza from Whole Foods with her almost two-year-old son.

I had an instinct that the cramps I had been feeling all morning were miraculous evidence of new life, she wrote. I tried to smile. The baby is nesting today. And, this kids powerful. Then I felt something on my leg.

A photo posted by Ashley Williams (@imthesmash) on Jul 4, 2016 at 6:54pm PDT

She immediately knew what was happening.

A heavy, dark, and slow stream of blood made its way down my left inner thigh, she added. Without thinking, I swiped it. My fingertips came up wet.

The most surprising part about having miscarriage for Williams was that it happens to one in four women her age, according to her midwife. Which means that 25 percent of her friends would be experiencing the same trauma she just experienced  so why wasnt she prepared?

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A photo posted by Ashley Williams (@imthesmash) on May 10, 2015 at 9:52pm PDT

Why dont we talk about it? she asked. Why was I feeling embarrassed, broken, like a walking wound? I live on the Upper West Side, the new stroller capital of Manhattan. How many other women have experienced a miscarriage in that very same Whole Foods?

She reached out to some of her friends and discovered that many of them had also miscarried at least once. But they never openly discussed it.

A photo posted by Ashley Williams (@imthesmash) on May 3, 2016 at 7:01am PDT

Perhaps because most miscarriages occur before 12 week gestation, and at that point, you probably havent told many people to begin with. But Williams believes the reason is much deeper than that.

My (still bloated) gut feeling is that something even more painful silences us  the fear that we, as women, are failures, she wrote. Procreation, the driving purpose in our constructed notion of womanhood, is broken by this sudden trauma. Medical confirmations of the lost pregnancy from OBs, chiropractors, and my acupuncturist use jargon that feeds more self-sabotaging thoughts that I am deficient. Abnormality Defect Incapable Incomplete Not viable.

A photo posted by Ashley Williams (@imthesmash) on Apr 3, 2015 at 9:13pm PDT

And shes doing something about it, and were completely on board.

I invite you to start, with me, a vocal army of the 25 percenters who can normalize miscarriage in the social sphere. You are not broken. You did nothing wrong. You are strong, you are brave, and there is hope. I was right there next to you at Whole Foods, bleeding out of my shorts. Now Im well. Im a survivor. Healed, I will try again.

We love you, Ashley. Thank you for sharing your story.

The post HIMYMs Ashley Williams talks super openly about her miscarriage at Whole Foods appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Homeland recently was renewed by Showtime through Season 8 with a pickup of two more seasons beyond the upcoming sixth. And the Emmy-winning series executive producer/showrunner Alex Gansa is plotting that as the dramas final chapter. Gansa told Deadline at Showtimes pre-Emmy party on Saturday that his team would be writing an ending to the series in Season 8. He was quick to point out that it ultimately will be Showtimes decision when to wrap the series, but indicated that he would be done after Season 8, if Im still standing. Gansa (pictured with Homeland star Claire Danes and exec producer/director Lesli Linka Glatter) talked of the toll it takes working on a dense series like Homeland that has to reinvent itself almost every season, an experience that has been very rewarding but also extremely stressful and taxing.

Showtime is a long ways off from making a decision on Homelands future beyond Season 8 but it is expected to do it in full coordination with Gansa.

So far, Homeland has filmed a season in South Africa and a season in Germany. Gansa said that his dream is to film one of the next two seasons in Israel, ideally the likely final Season 8. That would allow the series to come full circle as it originated as an adaptation of the Israeli drama Prisoners of War.

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TEHRAN, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Iran has been told that the United States will issue export licences within weeks to facilitate the purchase of Boeing and Airbus jets and European ATR turboprop planes, a senior Iranian official said on Sunday.

Approval had been expected by the end of August, but that has been pushed back to the end of September, Deputy Roads and Urban Development Minister Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan said.

"Today we are expecting that (approval) by the end of September for Boeing, Airbus and ATR," he told the CAPA Iran Aviation Finance Summit in Tehran.

The U.S. Treasury can veto sales of modern aircraft to Iran, including non-U.S. ones, due to the high proportion of U.S. parts.

Failure to issue the required U.S. approval would breach an agreement between Tehran and world powers to ease sanctions in return for curbs on Iran's nuclear activities, Kashan said.

An Iranair official said the airline is meanwhile looking to acquire second-hand aircraft or hire crewed aircraft to help meet its most urgent needs.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by David French)
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran may adopt a key international agreement that would protect the rights of foreign leasing companies as it seeks to renew its elderly fleet of passenger jets, the country's transport minister said on Sunday.

The 2001 Cape Town Convention makes it easier to attract foreign leasing companies by protecting their rights to re-possess aircraft if airlines go bankrupt and is widely considered a benchmark for the international jet market.

"We are studying that. If we come to a (positive) conclusion, we will certainly process it," Roads and Urban Development Minister Abbas Akhoundi told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the CAPA Iran Aviation Finance Summit.

Deputy Roads and Urban Development Ashgar Fakhrieh said the ministry was in the process of getting internal approval to join the pact, subject to a decision in parliament.

Industry sources say a decision to adopt the agreement could make it easier to finance aircraft deals, including a provisional deal to buy more than 100 jets from Airbus.

To finance the deal, Iranair is expected to sell most of the jets to two leasing companies and buy them back.

Two people familiar with the matter said the airline is in advanced negotiations with leasing company Dubai Aerospace for the bulk of the deal. The company declined to comment.

The Cape Town pact also allows airlines to receive Western export credit for new aircraft at discounted rates.

However, a raft of other regulatory and financial hurdles remain before the Airbus deal, or a similar aircraft purchase from Boeing, can be finalised as many banks remain wary of the legal risks of doing business in Iran.

(Reporting By Tim Hepher; Editing by Noah Browning and Raissa Kasolowsky)
Tehran (AFP) - Iran's supreme leader said the Islamic republic must stand strong against Washington on the region's conflicts, in an address Sunday to commanders of the elite Republican Guards force.

"The Americans insist we negotiate with them on regional issues, especially on Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in the speech published on his official website.

"What is their main goal for requesting these talks? They have no aim but to prevent the presence in the region of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the main factor of America's failures," said Khamenei.

Major generals Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Revolutionary Guards chief, and Qassem Suleimani, head of its foreign operations wing, the Quds Force, were among hundreds of members who attended the speech.

Khamenei, whose country has not had diplomatic relations with Washington since 1980, stressed that military power and intimidation were the most effective means to keep foreign threats at bay.

"In past years, some officials have said the removal of military threat and war were due to certain measures, but it's not true," he said.

"The sole factor of removing military threats has been and will remain military and defence power and the creation of fear in the enemy."
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran supports any move to stabilize the global oil market and lift prices, the Iranian oil ministry news agency SHANA quoted him as saying on Sunday.

"Instability and falling oil prices are harmful to all countries, especially oil producers," Rouhani was quoted as saying by SHANA.

"Tehran welcomes any move aimed at market stability and improvement of oil prices based on justice, fairness and fair quota of all the oil producers," the president said, referring to a meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Algeria next week, SHANA said.

Rouhani was speaking to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Venezuela on Saturday, SHANA reported.

Iran, OPEC's third-largest producer, has been boosting its oil output after the lifting of Western sanctions in January. Tehran refused to join a previous attempt this year by OPEC and non-members such as Russia to stabilize production, and talks collapsed in April.

OPEC members will meet on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum (IEF), which groups producers and consumers, in Algeria on Sept. 26-28. Non-OPEC producer Russia is also attending the forum.

OPEC will probably revive talks on freezing oil production levels when it meets non-OPEC nations in Algeria, sources have told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed this month to cooperate in oil markets, saying they could limit future output.

However, on Saturday, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo appeared to play down suggestions of a major agreement by saying the Algiers meeting would be an informal meeting for consultations and not for decision making, Algerian state news agency APS reported.

(Reporting by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Susan Fenton)
(Adds quotes, details)

By Tim Hepher

TEHRAN, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Iran urged the United States on Sunday to remove remaining obstacles to buying passenger planes following the lifting of international sanctions and it spread out the welcome mat to foreign investors as it seeks to boost its aviation sector.

Iran provisionally agreed earlier this year to buy over 200 jets worth $50 billion at list prices from Airbus and Boeing under an agreement between Tehran and world powers to ease sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear activities.

Both deals hinge on a longer-than-expected process of winning U.S. Treasury approval, which is needed because of the high proportion of U.S. parts in virtually all modern jetliners, including those made by Europe's Airbus.

There have also been delays in getting European banks to finance the deals because of restrictions over the use of U.S. dollars and concerns over legal risks if sanctions are re-imposed.

Roads and Urban Development Minister Abbas Akhoundi told an aviation conference that Iran was complying with its obligations and continued to negotiate with other planemakers.

"We are negotiating with all those big names. ... There are a lot of obstacles but I am sure that because we have respected all the international rules and regulations, all those problems are going to be resolved," he told the CAPA Aviation Finance Summit, the second large gathering of aviation leaders in Tehran since sanctions were lifted in January.

Critics in the U.S. Congress argue that Iran could use passenger jets for military purposes such as transporting fighters to battle U.S. troops or allies in Syria or transfer the aircraft to airlines still under U.S. sanctions.

U.S. critics of the nuclear deal also say it could allow Iran to skirt remaining sanctions by transferring jets acquired by national carrier IranAir to airlines that remain on a U.S. blacklist, such as the country's largest carrier, Mahan Air.

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In an interview with Reuters, Akhoundi dismissed the concerns.

"We are committed to any contract that we sign," he said.

CLOSE TO FINALISING AIRBUS DEAL

He also told a news conference that the Tehran event, attended by dozens of foreign firms, proved aviation was international in scope and "the U.S. government cannot stand against it," according to a translation of his remarks.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed two amendments in July that would stop the aircraft sales, although to become law, they need to be approved by the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama.

Iran estimates it will need at least 400 aircraft to renew and expand its fleet, including some 250 in the next 10 years.

It is close to finalising its deal to buy over 100 Airbus jets, subject to the granting of U.S. licences, Akhoundi said.

"Yes, we are in agreement with them. We are discussing," he said.

Iran previously held out against finalising the deal as long as questions remained over U.S. approval, but now appears ready to sign a conditional contract, industry sources said.

Iran is also negotiating with Brazilian jetmaker Embraer , a senior Iranian official said. It is in negotiations with the rail-making unit of Canada's Bombardier , although not with its aircraft unit, he told Reuters.

Iran is dangling the prospect of significant business for Western companies including nationwide airport expansion as it emerges from decades of sanctions, although such deals face domestic criticism from conservatives opposed to Iran's greater openness under pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani.

Akhoundi urged investors attending the conference to invest in Iran's airports, which are operating beyond capacity.

"They are all ready to attract investors, who are welcome to invest in any part," he told the conference at Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport, which plans a $2.8 billion expansion.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Peter Cooney)
By Jibran Ahmad PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in an ambush in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday, militants said, in an attack for which both Islamic State and a Pakistani Taliban faction claimed responsibility. Militants said they ambushed an unmarked vehicle ferrying soldiers on Sunday morning near the congested Daudzai area of Peshawar. Military sources confirmed the attack but said the killed men were army employees and not soldiers. The Pakistan army often uses unmarked vehicles for transportation of soldiers and other employees in volatile areas around Peshawar to avoid being identified and attacked. "They were traveling in a civil van when unknown armed men opened fire at them," said a security official who declined to be named. "Three of them died on the spot." Pakistan's military this month declared that it had foiled Islamic State's attempts to establish operations in the country. But the group's Amaq news agency said Islamic State was behind the ambush, also claimed by Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, an offshoot of the Islamist militant Pakistani Taliban group. Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, which carried out the Easter Sunday bombing in Lahore in which 70 people were killed, at one time swore fealty to Islamic State's Middle East leadership, but later switched back to the Taliban. The two groups also both claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a hospital in the Pakistani city of Quetta that killed 74 people last month. Pakistan's military said on Sept. 1 it had arrested more than 300 Islamic State militants and sympathizers, thwarting the ultra-hardline group's attempts to expand there. But concern has been growing that Islamic State - which controls parts of Iraq and Syria and is known for especially brutal treatment of religious minorities - might replicate their model in Pakistan, especially after Islamic State loyalists seized small pieces of territory in neighboring Afghanistan. On Friday, Pakistani authorities said they arrested four Islamic State militants plotting attacks in the city of Lahore. The four men had 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) of explosives as well as fuses and detonators, officials said. Most Islamic State recruits in the region are believed to be Pakistani or Afghan defectors from other Islamist movements. Pakistan is home to several militant groups including the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda and the Haqqani network, giving Islamic State both a rich pool of potential recruits but also fierce competition. Islamic State last year declared Afghanistan and Pakistan as the state of "Khorasan", part of its self-declared global caliphate, and appointed longtime militant Hafiz Saeed Khan as its regional leader. A U.S. drone strike killed Khan last month in eastern Afghanistan. (Writing by Mehreen Zahra-Malik; editing by Drazen Jorgic and Ros Russell)
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian military on Sunday said one of its war planes had been downed in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor during an operation against Islamic state, where the militant group has been under intense air strikes in the past 24 hours. The jet came down in the Jebel Tharda area which overlooks the government's Deir al Zor military airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, said. On Saturday U.S.-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers in Jebel Tharda, endangering a U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated. A Syrian military statement said the plane had come down during an operation against Islamic State in Deir al-Zor and the pilot had died. Islamic State-affiliated media said it had shot the jet down. "A Syrian warplane belonging to the Syrian regime was brought down when targeted by fighters from the Islamic State in the city of Deir al-Zor," Amaq said in an online statement. The city's military airport and some government-held districts have been entirely surrounded by Islamic State since last year, with the airport providing the only external access. Intense air strikes over the past 24 hours have hit Islamic State controlled areas near Deir al Zor city, the Observatory and Syrian state media said. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; Editing by Toby Chopra and Raissa Kasolowsky)
Jerusalem (AFP) - Doctors for Israel's former president, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, plan to gradually reduce his sedation and respiratory support with the 93-year-old showing improvement but still critical Sunday.

Peres has seen "very slow, moderate improvement" although he was still in critical but stable condition after suffering a major stroke, his personal physician and son-in-law Rafi Walden told AFP.

Doctors now plan "to gradually reduce the respiratory support as well as the level of anaesthesia" he has been receiving, Peres's office said in a statement.

Walden called it a "regular method of treatment" for patients in his condition.

"We gradually reduce support and expect the patient to respond," he said.

Peres suffered a major stroke with internal bleeding on Tuesday and is in hospital near Tel Aviv.

He has been under sedation and breathing with the help of a respirator, though he has responded to prompts when his sedation has been reduced temporarily.

Peres has held nearly every major office in Israel, serving twice as prime minister. He was president, a mostly ceremonial role, from 2007 to 2014.

He won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for his role in negotiating the Oslo Accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state.

The former hawk turned dove is widely respected both in Israel and abroad, regularly meeting world leaders and celebrities.
By Gavin Jones ROME (Reuters) - Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi, one of the most prominent faces of Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, had hoped that recruiting a former magistrate would restore some order to her chaotic city government. What happened shows how the party must change if it is ever to rule the country successfully. Raffaele De Dominicis, whom she named as finance chief, was supposed to undo the legal tangles and bureaucratic blunders that had beset the first two months of rule in Rome by 5-Star - whose electoral appeal rests on voters' weariness with rampant corruption in the political establishment. So when De Dominicis acknowledged just four days into the job that he himself was the subject of a judicial inquiry, the mayor felt obliged to sack him. "That phone call with De Dominicis was a real low point," said a close Raggi aide, who asked not to be named. "She was very shocked and bitter." Raggi, 38, has been beset by resignations, infighting and scandals since her landslide election victory in June - a record that risks undermining 5-Star's ambitions to win power nationally and offers a warning of the difficulties it is likely to face if it does. When De Dominicis departed on Sept. 8, he became the second finance officer and sixth top official Raggi had lost within barely a week. Rome's problems with services such as rubbish collection and public transport long pre-date Raggi, and 5-Star is successfully running the large northern city of Turin, its other major victory at the June elections. But the Rome mayor's missteps in getting her administration off the ground still underline the challenges faced by anti-establishment parties across Europe in turning from protest movements into a permanent political presence. So far, opinion polls suggest the damage to 5-Star has been modest. It remains easily the strongest challenger to center-left Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and its hopes of winning the next parliamentary election due in 2018 appear intact, for now. For millions of Italians - especially the young - Raggi's setbacks bear no comparison with the corruption exposed in other parties. For them, 5-Star still remains the country's only hope for more honest and open government. Analysts say that for Italy, a victory for the movement founded seven years ago would unnerve investors due to its inexperience of government and its promise to hold a non-binding referendum on whether to leave the euro zone. 5-Star insiders admit they have been shaken by the debacle in Rome, but believe it can be a spur to reform the movement and make it more resilient. "We need to reorganize and expand our leadership structure," Barbara Lezzi, a prominent 5-Star senator, told Reuters. "We have grown too big to be run by just a handful of people." She called for the five-member "directorate" which has run the movement for the last two years to be broadened to up to 40 lawmakers, mayors and regional councillors. SHALLOW TALENT POOL Critics say 5-Star's problem is not only the size of its leadership, but also the lack of clarity over how it is selected and a very shallow talent pool. Some of its candidates, like Raggi, are chosen by members in internet ballots - in line with the party's credo of direct democracy - while others are selected more informally at "meet-ups" of local branches. The national directorate was picked by the movement's founders: comedian Beppe Grillo and internet guru Roberto Casaleggio, who died in April. The appointments were then rubber-stamped by an on-line vote. "5-Star has to evolve into a more traditional kind of party," said Raffaele De Mucci, politics professor at Rome's LUISS University. "It cannot carry on with an informal organization of power, without any proper rules." Raggi found she had a dearth of 5-Star members with administrative expertise to draw on when she tried to form a cabinet, and she also found few experienced civil servants willing to lend their services to the upstart movement. Her false starts began as soon as her victory party was over. Internal bickering delayed the formation of her city government and then five top officials quit in a chain reaction after Italy's anti-corruption authority said she had not followed correct procedures in choosing her chief of staff. A few days later her councillor responsible for tackling Rome's chronic trash collection problems admitted she had known since July she was under investigation for alleged malpractice in her last job, despite previous staunch denials. At that point 5-Star went into a tailspin, with accusations flying over which national leaders knew about the investigation and when, all fanned by a hostile media. EXPANDED LEADERSHIP Alessandro Di Battista, a member of the national directorate, said the body would soon be expanded, but he added that at the local level in Rome the problem was that too many people had been involved in decision making, not too few. Desperate to make Rome a success, the party set up a team of its more experienced politicians to advise the new mayor. Raggi and her councillors even agreed to sign a contract binding them to pay a fine of 150,000 euros ($167,000) to the movement if they betrayed its principles. The Rome "sub-directorate" has already been disbanded, and the contract is widely mocked as unenforceable. The contrast with Turin has been striking. There Mayor Chiara Appendino, left far more to her own devices, had her new team in place in a matter of days and has been running the city with scarcely a trace of controversy. "Lots of people wanted to lend a hand in Rome and that was a mistake because it created confusion," Di Battista told Reuters. "But now Virginia is totally autonomous, with all the weight on her shoulders that that entails." That is a daunting responsibility. Rome has a long history of corruption, suffers from regular garbage crises when the bins overflow and its public transport system grinds to a halt every time it rains heavily. It is also saddled with 13 billion euros of debt which makes the problems hard to fix. The city's woes are so entrenched that before the election Italians joked that the mainstream parties wanted 5-Star to win and take on a poisoned chalice that could prove its undoing. That seems a greater risk than ever. Raggi is still looking for a new finance officer and chief of staff, and has made enemies among senior party figures. The 68-year-old Grillo, who had played little public role in 5-Star for the last two years, has returned to try to unite his bickering creation. On Thursday he was forced to publish a post on his blog, still the 5-Star's official mouthpiece, defending Raggi from internal attacks. "Leave Virginia Raggi alone," he wrote. "She has my full confidence and the whole of 5-Star supports her so that she can carry out the program the Romans voted for." For now, the chances of Raggi being left alone, or succeeding, do not seem very high. (editing by David Stamp)
Don't worry about Jimmy Kimmel's opening monologue at the 2016 Emmy Awards! The late night host got some expert help on Saturday while preparing for the annual show.

"Last minute #Emmys punch up with my best joke writer," Kimmel captioned a picture with his 2-year-old daughter, Jane.

WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Host Jimmy Kimmel Previews What to Expect From the Emmy Awards

In the photo, Jane is holding a pen while sitting on Kimmel's lap and pointing to his notepad.

last minute #Emmys punch up with my best joke writer pic.twitter.com/gBenQrKYXw  Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) September 18, 2016

The father of three is busy preparing to host the Emmys on Sunday, and recently gave ET an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the show.

Though he will happily poke fun at plenty of A-listers, Kimmel probably won't be mocking the recent Hiddleswift split with actor Tom Hiddleston in the room.

MORE: Emmys 2016 Cheat Sheet: Everything You Need to Know About TV's Biggest Night!

"Not really, I don't know. I think it's a little bit weird when somebody goes through a breakup and suddenly they're on camera and everyone's making fun of them," Kimmel told ET's Nischelle Turner. "It's one of the strangest things about Hollywood."

For more on Kimmel's Emmys prep, watch the exclusive video below!

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The two-night limited series premieres Sunday, Sept. 18 at 8:30 p.m. (Credit: CBS)

Retired FBI agent James Fitzgerald  an expert in forensic linguistics who was key in ferreting out Ted Kaczynski as the Unabomber and who has been an advisor on Criminal Minds and Sleepy Hollow  has been working on the JonBenet Ramsey murder case since the six-year-olds body was found in her familys Boulder, Colorado home the day after Christmas in 1996.

Fitzgerald and half a dozen fellow investigators spent months re-investigating the Ramsey case earlier this year. Their findings, and most notably, their potentially explosive conclusion, was filmed for CBSs two-night, four-hour limited series The Case Of: JonBenet Ramsey, which premieres Sept. 18.

Fitzgeralds specific area of expertise in the Ramsey case is the ransom note, and he talked to Yahoo TV about its significance in the crime, how he interpreted it, which clues revealed the most about the person  or people  involved in JonBenets murder, and, yes, how he and his cohorts will end the CBS series by naming the person they believe killed JonBenet Ramsey, as well as those who may have helped that individual get away with murder until now?

Whats the history of your involvement with the JonBenet investigation?

I was involved about 19  years ago as an FBI profiler and a fledgling forensic linguist when the Boulder PD investigators came to Quantico. That was my initiation, if you will, with this case. They came back at least one or two other times, and I was certainly in touch with them over the phone. My role then was as a profiler, but they knew of my success in the Unabomber case, looking at the manifesto and the writings of Ted Kaczynski. They asked me to focus on the ransom note, the three-page note. Thats kind of where I ran with it. We had other profilers running with the crime scene and the behavior involved, which I participated in, too, but I was the main guy in the FBI looking at the note. That was then. When I came back into it with this team, a few months ago when we started filming, I re-assumed that role.

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Related: Ken Tucker Reviews The Case of JonBenet Ramsey

Forensic linguistics had played an invaluable role in the Unabomber case, right?

Yes, I learned a lot about language analysis, language assessment, and how people do communicate similarly within themselves over the course of time. If they wrote something 10 years ago, youre going to see some of those writing features come to play in present or future writings. I took that with me to the Ramsey investigation and said, Were going to get some [samples] with [JonBenets parents], Patsy and John, and any other suspect you have in the case. Not just handwriting I said, Handwriting analysis is great, but its not what I do. Linguistic analysis is more about the content  the context, style, which includes punctuation and spelling and all these other features. I was the first one to suggest that on the case. We proceeded from that point on.

A lab technician gets ready for an examination of the ransom note (Credit: Michele Crowe/CBS)

At that time, when you were investigating the ransom note, what things struck you as unusual or interesting about it?

The first thing was the very first two words, which said: Listen carefully! This is a written communication meant to be visually comprehended, but here someone is using an audible reference. Right away, I said, This doesnt even make sense. Grammatically its correct, the words were spelled right, but it was an unusual way to begin an alleged ransom communication. This whole foreign faction thing and whether someone is a foreigner or not do you consider yourself a foreigner when youre in someone elses country? Would you give that information away to the police? Right after the word foreign, they misspelled two words: business and possession. I believe both words were misspelled on purpose, because they both had to do with the double consonant s. If youre going to misspell one word, youre probably going to, almost by accident, get the other word right. Right then, I knew we had someone pretending to be someone other than who they really are. Within the first three sentences, quite frankly, I was convinced that this was not an authentic kidnapper. It was not an authentic crime syndicate or terrorist group or anything like that. This was someone doing his or her best to make themselves appear to be one of those entities, but it was clear that that was not the case.

What about the amount the alleged kidnapper asked for, $118,000? The amount seems so oddly specific, and it seems like such a low amount for the ransom of a child from a wealthy family.

Youre absolutely right, on both counts. We found out later the Ramseys could have easily come up with a million dollars that next day. They had the wherewithal, financially, to do that. It wasnt a coincidence that the amount, $118,000, was chosen, because that happened to be the [amount of the] bonus that John Ramsey was awarded that year at his software company. I believe that was a red herring by the author to make it look like, in fact, it was an inside job of some sort. What I think the picture they completed was, that it was truly an inside job  very much inside, in terms of that particular feature right there.

Related: JonBenet Ramsey: Postmurder Interview Tapes With Brother Unearthed on Dr. Phil

What was your conclusion at that time, about the note and what it might mean in terms of who was involved with the murder?

To be a profiler, to be a linguist, when youre studying these types of crimes and cases, you have to be a student of history, too. Ever since I was a young kid, I read about the Lindbergh kidnapping and the few other for-profit, stranger-related, kidnappings in the U.S. Theres been very few of them. I knew the Lindbergh kidnapping note was maybe 60 or 70 words. Other notes over the years are 50, 60 words, some even much shorter. All of a sudden, measuring nothing else at this point except quantitatively, we have about 385 words in the [Ramsey] ransom note. Way too much information. Way too much evidence. Its clear that all of it could have been written in about three sentences. We have your daughter. We want $118,000 or well kill her. Well call tomorrow. Thats all that was needed. This thing, instead, read like a Stephen King novelette, with people being beheaded and all kinds of nasty things happening to people. The person who was writing this was truly out of his or her element, in terms of trying to be a real criminal or a real kidnapper.

One of the things you can do via forensic linguistics is try to focus in on the age or the gender of the writer of a note, maybe where theyre from, the significance of certain phrases that they use. Was there anything like that in that note?

Yeah, in forensic linguistics there is an aspect to it of linguistic profiling. We look for demographics, we look for personality traits, and yes, in some cases, depending on the style of the author, you can actually come into an age bracket, maybe within 10 years. You can actually come into gender. You can actually relate to issues such as nativeness  are they native English speakers or not, or natives of any language. That is what we did with this particular letter. Youll see it in [The Case Of], that I spend a solid 10-15 minutes breaking the letter down, almost sentence by sentence, and also painting a picture of what kind of a person may have done this. I did actually say, We linguists, were very conservative when we render opinions like this. There are a lot of mitigating factors with language. Gender, of course, is kind of on a continuum. Its not just black and white, man/woman. Were conscious of that when rendering decisions about gender or the sex of the author. In this particular case, what I wound up saying was that [the note] has a maternalistic sound to it. If you want to make that into female, you can certainly do that. Theres about five or six examples coming out on the show, which almost comes across as a mother talking to one of her children, so maybe that, subconsciously, was in fact happening here.

When you look at the note now, as you have done more recently, did anything strike you differently than it did 20 years ago?

No, not really. I was not an official linguist when I first looked at the note in the late 90s, but I went back and got my second masters degree at Georgetown University, this one in the science of linguistics. I can now look at the language features from more of a scientific, quantifiable perspective, and compare them to other letters and other corpora. I just have more of a scientific approach to what it is I do now. [But] I think I pretty much broke down the note pretty well back then, in terms of the evidentiary features of it and what we needed to look for, if we had some known writings from any suspect. We put some of that together on the show Sunday and Monday night.

You created the CTAD, which is a database of all of the words that should be looked at, if you are profiling a note or a letter?

Youre in the right church. In the FBI, yes, I created the CTAD: the Communicated Threat Assessment Database. Essentially, for the first time in the FBI, we had one specific location where we would have digital versions of every kind of threatening or criminally oriented or problematic communication that the FBI would be handling: bank robbery notes, the very rare ransom letters of kidnappings, many threats, many extortions, much harassment and stalking. I built that up from zero letters to thousands by the time I retired. Now its approaching half a million different types of communications  emails, blog entries, old school letters  that are all in there. This wasnt around when the Ramsey case started, but I made sure that [ransom note] was included in it. A ransom letter like this, which really was never a ransom letter  it was part of a staged crime scene  is now in there, and it can be assessed and compared to other types of communications.

Related: A JonBenet Ramsey TV Primer: Whats the Difference Between the (Many) Shows Devoted to the Famous Cold Case?

How different is the crime-solving technology you had to work with in re-investigating this case, versus where it was 20 years ago? Is it dramatically better?

Yes, it is. The internet has certainly helped in many ways, and various corpora, bodies of documents that can be digitally searched. I think if a linguist would have been brought into the Ramsey case within days  and even with the then relatively new thing called the internet, some searches could have been done  I think we could have convinced the police, Lets ask them this question, lets ask them that question. Perhaps the matter could have been resolved back then. Yeah, technology really, with the ways in which we can digitize and search these various types of criminally-oriented communications and compare them to other existing ones out there, makes a real big difference and really speeds up the kind of work forensic linguists do.

In the trailer for The Case Of, you say, This little girls homicide to this date has not been resolved. In my opinion, I think we can change that right now. In the end, were you able to do that with this re-investigation?

The answer is yes, with a caveat that putting handcuffs on someone, in my estimation, would be the ultimate end, and, of course, convicting that person in a court of law. Whether that happens or not is up to other people above and beyond the seven experts who worked on this show. I feel safe and very confident to say that when the seven of us sat around the table in the final day of shooting, and we put all of our information together  all the evidence we learned, some old, some brand new, some reinforced by newer technologies and science  we feel very firm and very much convinced [about] who it is were going to name at the end.

You are going to name who you think committed this crime?

Yes.

Thats pretty amazing, after all this time.

Well, we have seven of the best experts in the country, if not the world, working this case  for the second time in some cases. We had the archival information, the historical information, and we also had all the new evidence that was gathered over the years and even in the last few months, in preparation for this show. If it existed out there in the way of evidence, either inculpatory or exculpatory, we had it. We feel very firm in rendering an opinion within the last 15 minutes of the show.

Why is it so important to provide closure at this point? Some people may say, Its 20 years later, why are so many resources being devoted to this particular cold case? Does it maybe deter other crimes from happening, if a case is solved this far past when it occurred?

If we as a species, as human beings, cant protect the youngest and the most innocent among us, then we fail. Short of protecting them, when something bad does happen to them, death or an assault of some sort, then we owe it to that victim, and we owe it to every other child or innocent victim out there, to bring justice. Of all people, a six-year-old girl who had a lot to live for and did absolutely nothing wrong  I mean, no six-year-old could bring murder upon herself  she was, in fact, murdered. For these almost 20 years, theres been a person out there who knows exactly what happened and maybe some other people who did some things to cover the tracks there. Were going to put it out there and make it public. It depends on how you define whether justice is served or not, but this is going to be the closest we can get, or anyone has gotten as far as Im concerned, in the conclusion of Monday nights show.

The Case Of: JonBenet Ramsey premieres Sept. 18 at 8:30 p.m. on CBS, and concludes Sept. 19 at 9 p.m.
By Alana Wise WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine on Sunday accused Donald Trump of inciting violence against Hillary Clinton after the Republican candidate said Clinton's security detail should be disarmed given her support for tighter gun rules. Kaine, speaking on Fox News Sunday, called Trump's remarks irresponsible. "When you look at a series of these comments that he's making, I do believe it is an incite or at a minimum an expression of indifference to whether violence would occur," he said. On Friday, Trump said at a campaign rally that Clinton's "bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm." "Take their guns away, she doesn't want guns. Take them, let's see what happens to her. Take their guns away, okay. It will be very dangerous," he added. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a top adviser to Trump, told Fox News Sunday that Trump's comments had been misinterpreted and demanded that Kaine apologize to Trump for suggesting he had a malicious intent. "Senator Kaine should be ashamed of himself for saying that Donald Trump would like to have violence perpetrated against Hillary Clinton but it just shows how desperate and scared the Clinton-Kaine campaign is now because this race now is a dead heat and they can't believe it," Christie said. Trump's vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, called any interpretation of Trump's Friday remarks as a call to violence "absolute nonsense." "His comment was that if she didn't have all that security, she'd change her attitude about the right to keep and bear arms. And I'll bet that's probably true, Pence said on ABC's "This Week. Trump was criticized by opponents last month when he suggested that gun rights activists could act to stop Clinton from nominating liberal U.S. Supreme Court justices, a comment some interpreted as encouraging a political assassination. "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks," Trump told a rally in North Carolina on Aug. 9. "Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dont know," he said. In that case, Trump's campaign also insisted that his comments were not intended to incite violence. (Reporting by Alana Wise, Rick Cowan and Dustin Volz; Editing by Caren Bohan and James Dalgleish)
Kate Middleton encourages a schoolgirl to believe in herself, inspires us all

Kate Middleton encourages a schoolgirl to believe in herself, inspires us all

Kate Middleton had big shoes to fill when she became Princess Kate. After all, the princess before her was her late mother-in-law Princess Diana, the peoples princess. And yet, she continues to win our hearts with her honesty and compassion. She amazed us again during her and Prince Williams recent trip to the school Stewards Academy in Harlow, north of London.

According to People, Prince William and Princess Kate were visiting Stewards Academy to discuss how educators and parents can support children through difficult times in school, especially at the start of the new academic year.

As Prince William wrote in the blog Heads Together:

For many young people, the changing schools or starting a new academic year is really difficult to deal with. Catherine and I have young children who will be going through this themselves in a short period of time, and like all parents we will want to make sure that our children are not just able to achieve their academic potential at school but are also happy and emotionally supported.

We have no doubt that their own children will be very happy and emotionally supported thanks to the awesomeness of their parents. He continued:

All of us who are adults remember how daunting it was, but we sometimes take it for granted that children will be able to cope with the change.

We cant imagine what it must be like to be a royal child battling the whims of school children! Its hard enough being a kid of any background. Were so glad the royal couple are using their fame to shine light on the emotional trials of being a child.

The Duke & Duchess Of Cambridge Visits Stewards Academy With Heads Together

In fact, Princess Kate continued to help the emotional growth of children by sharing some encouraging words with 15-year-old Hannah, who had given a speech to the royal family during their visit (and was understandably nervous!).

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As Hannah told People:

The princess said to me that I should always keep performing and I should never give up on my dreams. That is going to stay with me for the rest of my life. I think the fact that they came here is going to help a lot of people be able to speak up about how theyre feeling.

Meanwhile, Klaudia, age twelve, believes:

Their visit will help, a lot of people open their eyes to the fact that if you do feel worried and scared its not unusual, and its okay to talk about. They said its important because one day their children are going to school. They thought its important for them, so it should be important to everyone.

The Duke & Duchess Of Cambridge Visits Stewards Academy With Heads Together

The Brits, especially the royals, are notoriously famous for keeping tight-lipped about emotional concerns. But with the changing of the guard, it seems that theyre realizing the importance of sharing their personal experiences and becoming more relatable.

As Dr. Fiona Pienaar of Place2Be, a mental health charity for kids, explains:

The other thing [Princess Kate] does really well, and I think they both do, is how they talk to young people. They share their experiences, and I think that shows how they really connect with young people. I imagine having their own children has also brought issues to the fore for them.

Princess Kate and Prince Williamcould you guys be any cooler? Thank you for sharing your personal experiences with all of us, young and old. It helps us feel less alone.

The post Kate Middleton encourages a schoolgirl to believe in herself, inspires us all appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Toronto (Canada) (AFP) - The bewitching musical "La La Land" starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone won the coveted Toronto film festival audience prize on Sunday, giving it a leg up on the competition as the Oscars race takes shape.

The joyful, quirky film by Damien Chazelle about a struggling jazz pianist and his actress girlfriend in Los Angeles pays tribute to the Golden Age of American musicals, honoring classics from "Top Hat" to "Singing in the Rain" to "Grease."

It also reunites Gosling and Stone, who starred together in the 2011 romantic comedy "Crazy, Stupid, Love" -- but with oodles of singing this time.

Stone plays Mia, a wide-eyed romantic who goes from audition to audition -- often failed -- in her quest to make it big, while Gosling is Sebastian, a jazz pianist with a mission to save the medium, but who struggles to pay his bills.

The pair meet -- in one of LA's famous traffic jams and then at a bawdy celebrity party -- before wooing each other in tap- and ballroom-dancing sequences reminiscent of Hollywood icons Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

"Now more than ever we need hope and romance on the big screen," said Chazelle, 31, a former jazz musician whose film "Whiplash" (2014) took home three Oscars out of five nominations.

"There's something about musicals. They are movies as a dreamland, expressing a world in which you break into song, in which you can violate the rules of reality," said Chazelle, the film's writer and director.

"La La Land" opened the Venice film festival in late August, earning accolades from critics and moviegoers, before screening in Toronto -- a bellwether for Oscar-conscious studios and distributors.

The picture bursts with enthusiasm and happiness from the opening scene: a big dance number on a freeway with men and women dressed in sun-kissed yellows, rich reds and blues dancing on their cars.

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Chazelle said he had brought the love story into the modern day by setting it in Los Angeles, whose nickname La-La Land also refers to a euphoric, dreamlike mental state.

Chazelle, who has lived in the sprawling southern California metropolis for almost a decade, said it was "a city of loneliness when you first live there, not a city that offers itself up."

- Road to Oscars -

In past years, films such as "12 Years a Slave," "The King's Speech" and "Slumdog Millionaire" went on from winning the Toronto film festival people's choice award for best picture to take the top honor at the Oscars.

Earlier this year, Toronto audience favorite "Spotlight" beat all predictions to win best picture at the Academy Awards.

Runners-up for the Toronto prize this year were first-time filmmaker Garth Davis's "Lion," and Mira Nair's "Queen of Katwe" starring Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o.

"Queen of Katwe" chronicles the true story of a Ugandan girl who pursues her dream of becoming an international chess champion.

"Lion," another powerful real-life tale, follows a young Indian boy on a 25-year journey to find his family after being separated and lost nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from home.

Adapted from Saroo Brierley's autobiography "A Long Way Home," the film stars Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara.

Toronto jury prizes also went to Pablo Larrain for "Jackie," Maysaloun Hamoud's "In Between," Mbithi Masya for "Kati Kati," and Feng Xiaogang for "I Am Not Madame Bovary."
By Ayman al-Warfalli BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - A Libyan force ousted a week ago from key oil ports counter attacked on Sunday, taking back control of Es Sider terminal and triggering clashes near Ras Lanuf port, a spokesman for the force, Ali al-Hassi, and a port worker said. Es Sider and Ras Lanuf were among four ports seized by forces loyal to eastern commander Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) on Sept. 11-12 from a Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) faction led by Ibrahim Jathran. Control of the ports remained unclear though with the LNA saying it repelled PFG forces at one port. But the fighting came as the state-run National Oil Corporation prepared to restart oil exports at the ports that have been closed for nearly two years by clashes among rival armed factions. A spokesman for a guard force loyal to the LNA, Miftah Magariaf, said Jathran's PFG had been repelled from Ras Lanuf with the help of LNA air strikes and that LNA-aligned forces were preparing to recapture Es Sider. An LNA official said there was a fire at a tank in Es Sider. The LNA's seizure of the ports took place as the Muslim holiday of Eid was starting and faced little resistance, with a senior tribal leader calling on Jathran's men to switch allegiances. After moving into Es Sider, Ras Lanuf, Zueitina and Brega, the LNA said it was handing over control of the terminals to the National Oil Corporation (NOC) so that exports could resume. Jathran had long blockaded the ports of Es Sider, Ras Lanuf and Zueitina, and a recent deal between him and the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli showed little sign of progress. On Thursday, the NOC announced it was lifting "force majeure" contractual clauses at the blockaded ports and that exports would restart immediately at Zueitina and Ras Lanuf. It said they would start as soon as possible at Es Sider, and would continue at Brega, which had remained open. Conflict since Libya's 2011 uprising has reduced its oil output to a fraction of the 1.6 million barrels per day the OPEC member once produced. (Additional reporting by Libby George; Writing by Aidan Lewis; editing by Patrick Markey)
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government on Sunday battled Islamic State militants in their last hideouts in the city of Sirte, in a renewed push after a break in fighting for the Muslim celebrations of Eid. At least two were killed in clashes after self-government forces shelled neighborhoods inside the city, targeting militants who have been holding on in a last section of Sirte after months of street-to-street fighting. U.S. air strikes and helicopter raids along with small teams of Western special forces have helped the Libyan troops advance in Sirte and losing the city would be a major blow for the militant group depriving it of its North African stronghold. "Our forces targeted on Sunday hideouts of Daesh in Neighbourhood No.3's 600 block area and Geza Bahriya with heavy artillery shelling," said Mohamed Ghasri, a spokesman for the forces, said using an Arabic term for militants. Akram Gliwan, a spokesman for Misrata central hospital, told Reuters two fighters had been killed and six more were wounded and were brought to the hospital. Mostly from Misrata city, 230 km (145 miles) to the north west, the government-allied forces say some commanders from Islamic State and fighters may have escaped and fled south or to the Tunisia border before Sirte was encircled. But Ghasri said two Islamic State commanders, Hassan Karami and Walid Ferjani, had been killed in fighting inside the city, without giving details. Misrata commanders have said in the past Karami had been killed, but they have not indicated whether any body had been positively identified with DNA. Western governments are supporting the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli as the best option to bring together Libya's rival armed factions to stabilize the country, end Islamist State threats and stop illegal migrant smugglers. But it has faced opposition from hardliners, especially in the east, where Gen. Khalifa Haftar has been carrying out his own campaign against militants in Benghazi. Haftar's forces a week ago took control of major oil ports. (Reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Ros Russell)
By Simon Webb

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An explosion rocked the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday night, injuring at least 29 people, authorities said, adding that they are investigating the blast as a criminal act not immediately linked to any terror organization.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said early indications were that blast was intentional. He said the site of the explosion, outside on a major thoroughfare of a fashionable enclave in one of the most bustling areas of New York City, was being treated as a crime scene.

But he said there was no evidence of a credible and specific threat to the city. We do not see a link to terrorism, he added.

It is too early to determine what the incident was caused by. We believe it was intentional. A full investigation is under way.

A law enforcement source said an initial investigation suggested the explosion occurred in a dumpster but the cause was still undetermined. The head of the New York Police Departments special operations division said on Twitter that a possible secondary device has been located in the same general area.

CNN reported that law enforcement sources believe an improvised explosive device caused the blast.

_____

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(Reporting by Simon Webb in New York; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Angela Moon in New York and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Mary Milliken and Paul Simao)
- By Ryan Vanzo





Whether you like or not, marijuana represents a growing opportunity for investors. Last year, the legal cannabis market grew by 17% to $5.4 billion. This year, growth estimates have expanded to 25% to reach $6.7 billion.

So far, four U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of cannabis. This is in addition to the 24 states that permit medical marijuana. Nine more states will vote on legalization this November (North Dakota was not able to garner enough signatures for the issue to be put on the ballot).





According to Bank of America's (BAC) Merrill Lynch division, the market " could at least double" if some of these states pass legalization this year. That could be great news for companies like AbbVie (ABBV) which has exposure to cannabinoids medication, Cara Therapeutics (CARA) which has experience developing drugs that target CB2 receptors and GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH), which is already licensed to grow marijuana plants by the U.K. government.

Here are the five biggest states voting, along with the likelihood that the motions pass.

1. California

The Public Policy Institute of California found that 60% of voters favored recreational legalization. Just 37% opposed the initiative, a big margin. Its previous poll found just 54% favored recreational marijuana, so the momentum is towards legalization.

2. Nevada

The Las Vegas Review-Journal revealed an 88% support for recreational marijuana's legalization.

3. Maine

A Marijuana Policy Project survey showed that 55% favor the legalization of recreational marijuana. Opposition came in at 41%.

4. Massachusetts

Massachusetts is where the legalization train will likely end. A Suffolk University/ Boston Globe poll found that just 43% favored legalizing recreational marijuana compared to 46% that opposed it. Their 2014 poll found that 48% of respondents favored legalization and 47% opposed it, so momentum is not on the side of legalization.

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5. Arizona

The odds of legalization drop off considerably with Arizona. O.H. Predictive Insights found that 39% of Arizonans support recreational cannabis compared to 53% that oppose it.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any of the stocks mentioned above and no intention to initiate a position in the next 72 hours.

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This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Berlin (AFP) - German voters went to the polls Sunday in Berlin regional elections with the anti-immigration AfD party hoping to capitalise on anger against Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcome to refugees.

The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany has mobilised xenophobic and anti-Islam sentiment to win seats in nine of the country's 16 state assemblies and is especially popular in the ex-communist east.

Fresh gains for the AfD -- particularly in hip and multicultural Berlin, where it has been polling up to 14 percent -- would spell another setback for Merkel, a year ahead of national elections.

It would prove that the protest party "doesn't just benefit from discontent in rural areas but can establish itself ... in a city of millions that is known for its open lifestyle," said the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.

Germany took in one million asylum seekers last year, and over 70,000 of them came to Berlin, with many housed in the cavernous hangars of the Nazi-built former Tempelhof airport, once the hub for the Cold War-era Berlin airlift.

Merkel -- who was booed this week by right-wing activists shouting "get lost" -- later conceded it was hard to reach the "protest voters" who have turned their backs on mainstream parties.

The AfD, breaking a taboo in post-war German politics, has an openly anti-immigration platform, similar to France's National Front or far-right populists in Austria and the Netherlands.

Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller of the Social Democrats (SPD) dramatically warned on the eve of the election that a strong AfD result would be "seen throughout the world as a sign of the resurgence of the right and of Nazis in Germany".

- 'Suicidal' -

Polls in Berlin opened at 0600 GMT and were to close at 1600 GMT, with some 2.5 million eligible voters to chose a new assembly. With sunny skies, turnout around noon looked to be higher than in 2011, when it reached 60 percent.

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Merkel's centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) have a national majority -- but in the city-state of Berlin they serve as junior coalition partner to Mueller's SPD, traditionally the strongest party in the city of 3.5 million.

As Mueller has rejected a new coalition with the CDU, Merkel's party may be cast out of the Berlin government altogether with the SPD seen likely to team up with the ecologist Greens and the far-left Die Linke party.

This would heap further pressure on Merkel "to explain her political strategy", said Gero Neugebauer of Berlin's Free University.

"The more fearful within her party might be increasingly scared of losing power in 2017," he told the Handelsblatt business daily.

Another analyst, Kai Arzheimer of Mainz University, also predicted tensions would rise between the CDU and its Bavarian sister party the CSU, but he stressed the CDU was unlikely to change its top candidate, Merkel.

"To ask this question one year before federal elections would be suicidal, especially since in the CDU there is no credible successor," he said.

- 'Poor but sexy' -

In Berlin -- a city famously dubbed "poor but sexy" by its previous mayor, bon vivant Klaus Wowereit -- the election campaign was dominated not just by migrant policies but also widespread frustration over poor public services.

With little industry and an above-national average jobless rate of 10 percent, Europe's techno party capital is chronically broke and known for its crumbling schools, late trains and shambolic city offices.

Often seen as an amusingly chaotic exception in otherwise orderly and punctual Germany, Berlin became a national laughing stock for a grand BER airport project that is now five years behind schedule and three times over budget.

In another debacle, thousands of refugees were left waiting for days and weeks last year at Berlin's then hopelessly overwhelmed Lageso central migrant registration centre, with many forced to sleep in the dirt outside.

Casting his ballot early on Sunday, police officer Tobias Ludley, 27, said he worried about Berlin's cash-strapped public services, as well as its "little building site", the BER.

But he also voiced concern about the AfD, a party he labelled "the wolf in sheep's clothing".

"The AfD is appealing to people who otherwise wouldn't vote, the protest voters," he said, worried that the party could gain ground in a city which was normally "a shining example of multiculturalism".

Another voter, Franziska Ersil, 38, who works in advertising, agreed that "many big-city problems just aren't being solved".

"We worry about education, a housing shortage, and the fact that they just can't get a handle on the refugee crisis... that a multicultural city like Berlin can't adequately welcome, house and integrate them."
mike pence martha raddatz

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said his vice-presidential role model would be Dick Cheney.

"I frankly hold Dick Cheney in very high regard in his role as vice president," Pence said when asked in an interview with ABC that aired on Sunday who his vice-presidential role model would be.

Donald Trump's running mate asserted that he would be "a very active vice president" like Cheney, who served under President George W. bush.

The governor said that he respected how Cheney channeled his own experiences as a member of the House of Representatives to help push through pieces of legislation.

"What I admire most in vice presidents is when they're able to take the vision of the president and champion that vision on Capitol Hill," Pence said.

Cheney is largely regarded as one of the more powerful vice presidents in recent history. He played a prominent role in reshaping America's national-security apparatus and foreign-policy vision following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, but also fleshed out the details of many of Bush's domestic-policy initiatives, occasionally without his knowledge.

Though a prominent voice in most high-level decisions, Cheney's role in the Bush administration diminished over the course of the eight years President Bush was in office.

Still, it's unclear whether many Americans feel positively about Cheney's tenure.

The last Gallup poll taken of Cheney's popularity in 2010 found that only 36% of Americans had a favorable opinion of Cheney, compared to 56% who held negative views of the former vice president. That was a slight improvement over the 30% of Americans who found him favorable two months after he left office.

NOW WATCH: JESSE VENTURA: 3 ways professional wrestling prepared me for politics





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CHICAGO (AP) -- A year ago, Kyle Hendricks might have been satisfied giving up a couple runs in a start.

Now, as a Cy Young candidate, Hendricks expects more from himself.

Hendricks, the major league ERA leader, allowed two runs in six innings and remained stuck on 15 victories as the Milwaukee Brewers beat the NL Central champion Chicago Cubs 3-1 Sunday.

''It definitely means my mentality is just in a different place,'' Hendricks said. ''This game last year, I probably would have been a lot happier with it. Resulting in a loss, I feel like I could have done a little more just with the tools I have available to me, where I'm at this year.''

Hendricks (15-8), making his first start since losing a no-hit bid in the ninth inning at St. Louis, struck out nine and gave up six hits. His ERA rose from 2.03 to 2.06 as he lost for the first time since July 26 at the White Sox.

Last year, he went 8-7 with a 3.95 ERA in his second season.

''We have not supported him run-wise a lot this year, and there's another great example today,'' Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. ''He definitely pitched well enough to win, and we only came up with the one run, so it's just unfortunate. He didn't have his best stuff, but nine punchouts and two runs in six, pretty good day.''

Tyler Thornburg struck out Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo with two on in the ninth to earn his 11th save in 16 chances.

The Cubs have lost four of six and are trying to secure home-field advantage in the playoffs. They resumed playing their regulars after clinching the division Thursday. The Cubs went 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position.

''We hit the ball well,'' Maddon said. ''This is one of those days (with) the culmination of the wind blowing in and their defense played well. We had good at-bats.''

Chris Carter homered and Martin Maldonado and pitcher Wily Peralta (7-10) added RBI singles for the Brewers, who took three of four games from the Cubs.

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Milwaukee slugger Ryan Braun got a scheduled day off after hitting two home runs Saturday.

''As much as anything, it just speaks to them finishing the season and finishing it strong and continuing to play at a high level,'' Brewers manager Craig Counsell said.

Hendricks hasn't allowed more than two earned runs in a home start since April 15 against Colorado. In each of his last 21 starts, he has surrendered three or fewer earned runs.

''Fastball command just wasn't great,'' Hendricks said. ''So it's something I've got to hone back in this week in my bullpens. But that happens from time to time. It shouldn't be too much of an adjustment.''

The right-hander struck out the first three batters before allowing a single to Hernan Perez to start the second inning. The Brewers hit three straight singles to score two runs.

''They're playing good baseball right now,'' Hendricks said. ''Their lineup, everybody is putting together good at-bats. They're aggressive, but then they'll surprise you at times when they're patient.''

Carter hit his 36th home run, a solo shot, off Felix Pena in the eighth.

Tommy La Stella pinch hit for Hendricks in the sixth and doubled in a run. Anthony Rizzo missed a game-tying home run when he flied out to the right-field warning track in the seventh.

Peralta gave up a run on nine hits and struck out five in six innings.

LOOKING AHEAD

Beyond home-field advantage in the playoffs, Maddon wants to reach 100 victories. They're at 94 right now. ''It's a pretty neat number. I've never done that before,'' said Maddon, who won 97 in 2008 with Tampa and last year with Chicago.

A CHANGE

LHP Mike Montgomery will return to the bullpen after pitching as the sixth starter, Maddon said. The Cubs are expected to use a ''bullpen day'' during their Pittsburgh series Sept. 26-29.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Cubs: OF Jorge Soler (tight side) is day-to-day after he underwent an MRI, Maddon said. Soler could resume playing Monday or Tuesday after taking swings in the batting cage.

UP NEXT

Brewers: After a day off Monday, RHP Matt Garza (5-7, 4.22 ERA) is to start the opener of a three-game series against the visiting Pirates.

Cubs: RHP Jason Hammel (14-9, 3.60) is scheduled to start the opener of a three-game set against the visiting Reds, who are expected to start RHP Tim Adleman (2-4, 4.21).
By Nichola Groom and Valerie Volcovici LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON(Reuters) - The 27 states challenging Obamas Clean Power Plan in court say the lower emissions levels it would impose are an undue burden. But most are likely to hit them anyway. Already, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Dakota appear to be meeting the CPP's early targets. And changes in the power market, along with policies favoring clean generation, are propelling most of the rest toward timely compliance, according to researchers, power producers and officials, as well as government filings reviewed by Reuters. We are seeing reductions earlier than we ever expected, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said in an interview. Its a great sign that the market has already shifted and people are invested in the newer technologies, even while we are in litigation. States engaged in the legal battle that is set for an appellate court hearing later this month say their concerns go beyond whether they can meet the mandate. The states, most of them led by Republican governors, say they object to what they view as federal overreach by Obama and the Democrats and want to maintain flexibility to make energy decisions at the state level that reflect changing market conditions. Cynthia Coffman, attorney general of Colorado, said her states likely ability to comply with the CPPs mandate truly is not the issue." "We don't have anything against clean air," Coffman said. "That really doesn't factor into my decision to say the federal government has gone beyond its legal authority. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said that he sees the Clean Power Plan as a form of federal coercion and commandeering of energy policy and that the state should have sovereignty to make decisions for its own markets. The Obama administration finalized the Clean Power Plan in 2015 as a central part of meeting U.S. obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed implementation of the rule pending resolution of the states litigation. Later this month, a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case. (For a map showing which U.S. states are on target to meet the EPA's goals, and which states have sued the EPA, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2cfD4K6 ) The CPP sets carbon-reduction goals for each state, but allows states to decide how to meet them. During the early years of implementation, the goals are guidelines intended to put states on track to meet the final deadline of 2030. If a state fails to submit a plan to the EPA by interim deadlines, the agency can impose its own plan on that state's power producers. Failure to comply by 2030 could open a state up to administrative penalties and lawsuits. To be sure, some states fighting the mandate would have to drastically change course to meet it. West Virginia, which is leading the legal challenge with Texas, still relies largely on carbon-spewing, coal-fired power. And Wisconsin, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming have large gaps between their current emissions and the plan's mandates. But, in a reflection of how rapidly the power market is shifting, the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration earlier this year reduced its forecast for 2030 power plant carbon emissions by nearly 11 percent, without factoring in reductions that may be generated by the Clean Power Plan. The projection for the nation as a whole would be nearly two-thirds of the CPPs target by 2030, even if the law never takes effect. A 2015 analysis by consulting firm M.J. Bradley & Associates for the Environmental Defense Fund found that 21 of the 27 states suing to block the Clean Power Plan are on track to meet its 2024 targets with existing plants and planned investments. Eighteen states are on track to hit the 2030 targets with no changes to current plans, according to the Bradley analysis, which was filed with the court as part of an amicus brief from the Environmental Defense Fund in support of the government. And the outlook has improved for some states since the Bradley forecast. It didn't expect Arkansas, for example, to meet the 2024 target. But in 2015, after shifting significant energy generation from coal to natural gas, the state reported power plant emissions for the year that were below the 2030 requirement. Some of the states contesting the rules say they object to strict timelines. "The CPP is very dramatic in the speed at which it would require things to happen," said Chris Nelson, chairman of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. "If you let the market play out, those things take care of themselves." Texas also has protested the CPP's timetable, saying it would require the construction of transmission lines that could raise costs for consumers. But the state already has moved heavily into wind and solar in recent years, and is nearing its 2030 goals. John Hall, Texas director for EDF and a former environmental regulator for the state, said Texas could profit from the rule, noting the state ranks at the top of the list of wind energy producers and is making big moves into solar. The CPP would enable Texas to make money by exporting wind and solar electricity, he said. States that export coal or gas-fired power, on the other hand, are concerned about their ability to keep doing so. It is very important that we dont get caught in the fray of an EPA energy policy that dictates what we do as an exporting state, said Stuart Spencer, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Associate Director. Whatever happens in court, energy policy will remain a highly charged political issue. Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed to the administrations attempts to curb carbon emissions. When I ran for office, I promised I would do everything in my power to protect coal miners jobs, said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in a statement to Reuters. I have followed through on that promise. (Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles and Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Sue Horton and Lisa Girion)
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday returned to the national capital from Bengaluru after having undergone a throat surgery for persistent cough.

He had had gone to Bengaluru on 13 September and the surgery took place the next day to correct an anatomical abnormality of his oral-pharyngeal and palatal area.

Before leaving for Delhi, Kejriwal thanked doctors of the hospital where he underwent the surgery.

"Discharged today after surgery. Thank u so much Kiranji, Dr Shetty n Dr Paul. Can't express my gratitude in words (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted.

BJP and Congress have criticised Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia for "being away" from the national capital at a time when Delhi is grappling with the outbreak of dengue and chikungunya.

Sisodia is also scheduled to return on Sunday to Delhi from Finland where he had gone to understand its education system.

Earlier this week, Congress had observed 'Bhagoda Diwas', saying Kejriwal and half of his cabinet were "absent" from Delhi.

"He is doing well, there is no problem. He is able to talk, but we are restricting him," officials at the Narayana Health City had said after the surgery.
SINGAPORE, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Formula One's governing body is to investigate an incident that saw cars cleared to race while a marshal was still on track following a Singapore Grand Prix safety car period on Sunday. The International Automobile Federation (FIA) said a report would be carried out to ensure such a situation was not repeated. Autosport.com quoted a spokesman saying procedures were not "properly executed" by the clerk of the course and team of officials. The marshal was helping remove track debris after the safety car was deployed at the end of the first lap following Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg's crash into the pitwall at the start. The cars were released again at the start of lap three but, despite race control confirming three times with the clerk of the course that the track was clear of people and material, a marshal was still out there. Pictures showed him sprinting to the side of the circuit as the field, led by the Mercedes' race winner Nico Rosberg, bore down on him. "It was very dangerous," Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff told reporters. "I'm really happy it ended up with nobody being hurt." The Austrian said race control had been asked to re-start races sooner, rather than cars having to spend too long behind the safety car, and that request had been heard. Rosberg said the incident had been 'pretty hairy'. "I think just as we didn't expect the re-start, he didn't either because the re-start was somehow pretty abrupt. Luckily he got out of the way just about in time so it was OK." It was the second year in a row that concern had been raised by someone on the track. Last year, a lone intruder ambled across the floodlit track midway through the race and then strolled by the metal fences as cars came past. A 27-year-old British national was later sentenced to six weeks in jail for breaching the security fences. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Ken Ferris)
All eyes are on Mulberry, to see if the house's new designer Johnny Coca can work the same magic on the British heritage house as he did on Celine, where he was the accessories director, and created the famed Trapeze bag.

For his second collection presented at London Fashion Week, the Seville-born designer kept the theme close to home, his new home, that is. Coca looked at British uniforms in public schools, high society and the military for inspiration.

Read more: London Fashion Week: What You Need to Know About This Season

Stripes, as worn by British students in grade school and college, were a main ingredient in the collection, in oxblood, navy and hunter green, while khaki separates in masculine silhouettes referenced the "Land Girls" of the '40s (women who worked in agriculture, replacing men headed to the military). Mitford Girl-inspired dresses were decorated with ruffles and baby florals in pastel hues. Velvet, the must-have fabric for fall - and spring, too - also had its moment on the runway, designed to have a "wet-look, to evoke debutantes caught in a decidedly English summer shower," and paired with patent-leather raincoats.

"The concept was in line with uniform, in military and school," Coca told Pret-a-Reporter post-show at Printworks, a former printing factory. "The colors were important for me to play with [...] the other thing that was important to play out was proportion, in terms of movement - how to make something feminine feel masculine and in the meantime quite sophisticated."

MULBERRY MUSES: Models on the Mulberry spring 2017 runway. (Photos: Courtesy)

For example, the slip-on square-toed pumps decorated with ruffles or bold stripes. Coca also punched up the timeless Piccadilly bag (a larger version of the Bayswater that first launched in 2003) with colored stripes.

Given the rave reviews Coca received for his first Mulberry collection, we wondered if he felt pressure for his second offering.

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"You never have to stress - everything you do you do because you're doing it with love," he explained. "I'm so happy to be doing this. It's just important to do what feels right."

Read more: Versus Versace Returns to London Fashion Week With Donatella at the Helm

Perhaps for Coca, a Spanish designer who moved to Paris as a student before joining Celine, it was the right time to pay homage to Britishness, especially post-Brexit when all eyes are on the nation's new independence.

When asked about his thoughts on Brexit, Coca said, "We'll have to see how it goes in six months after there has been more action. I would say, 'Let's see,' because sometimes people would say, 'that's a disaster,' but let's take time to see what happens and then we can figure it out."

Land of hope and glory, indeed.
Some youngsters from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston got the opportunity to chat with an astronaut as she floated 250 miles above the earth in a spacesuit designed by their fellow patients.

Expedition 49 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins, who has a degree in cancer biology, answered questions and posed for several of the young artists on Friday from the International Space Station as part of the US Space Suit Art Project, which has turned the handiwork of creative young patients into actual spacesuits.

In the fall of 2015, MD Anderson Cancer Center partnered with NASAs Johnson Space Center to design a hand-painted spacesuit decorated by patients recovering at the hospital to raise awareness about the benefits of pairing art with medicine, NASA wrote in a statement.

Read: NASA Astronaut Returns to Earth After Setting Record For Longest Time Spent in Space

Rubins, retired astronaut Nicole Stott, and other NASA personnel have lent their artistic talents to this project and worked as mentors to the patients over the past year.

"This project has really inspired me," said Rubins during the chat. "It was an amazing opportunity to get a chance to paint with you guys. I remember this suit when it was just a blank canvas and all of you guys painted on it."

Thanks to the lack of gravity where she's currently spending her days, Rubins was able to do an impressive 360 degree forward roll to give the full effect of the colorful space garb.

Read: Astronaut Scott Kelly Was 2 Inches Taller When He Arrived Home From Year in Space

"When we were unpacking all the cargo, I said let us look out for this spacesuit. This is so important and all of these kids have made some beautiful art," said Rubins.

Three spacesuits, HOPE, COURAGE and UNITY, were created during the project. Spacesuit UNITY was created at cancer hospitals in Germany, Russia, and Japan with collaboration from astronauts from NASAs international partners, ESA (European Space Agency), the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

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Rubins wore the COURAGE suit during the conversation.

Watch: SpaceX Makes History by Successfully Landing a Rocket After Launch

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We have never loved Maisie Williams more than in this incredible Halloween/Space dress

We have never loved Maisie Williams more than in this incredible Halloween/Space dress

All hail Maisie Williams and her killer red carpet style! The Game of Thrones actress slayed yet another red carpet on Saturday, when she rocked this incredible orange/pink frock that just screams Halloween!

On Saturday, Williams attended the BBC America BAFTA TV Tea Party in Los Angeles and we still cant stop talking about her ensemble.

The 19-year-old actress looked stunning as she posed on the carpet wearing a short, silk, House of Holland dress that had both spaceship and star drawings on it.

Williams, who plays tomboy, Arya Stark, on GoT, stepped up her fashion game by rocking this flirty and fun printed dress while celebrating TV at The London Hotel.

The pattern is SO freaking cool.

Not only are there spaceships and stars, but there are even rocket ships throughout the frock. Wed love to wear this sexy dress to our Halloween party this year for an out-of-this-world ensemble that everyone will go gaga over.

Even Williams accessories were space-tastic. The British actress wore all gold jewelry and kept it simple with her makeup, wearing a light blush and pink lipstick.

Her best accessory however, was her clutch, which you couldve seen from space (okay not really, but it did stand out in photos). Her triangular clutch perfectly matched her metallic heels for an additional pop of both glitz and glam.

In addition to ruling the red carpet, Williams also revealed the meaning behind her matching tattoo with Sophie Turner, who plays her sister, Sansa Stark, on the HBO series.

The two did in fact get matching tats, which further bonded them as BFFs and marked the best day of both of their lives thus far.

The tattoo, which reads, 07.08.09 is inked on Williams left inner arm and its very special to both her and Turner. Its the 7th of August and not the 8th of July  because in the UK we put our dates the other way around, Williams explained to Yahoo Beauty at the event. It was the day I found out I got the part in Game of Thrones.

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Got to tattoo these gorgeous girlies today Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner from game of thrones ^_^ Posted by Miss kat Paine on Tuesday, September 13, 2016

[Sophie] found out then as well but we didnt know each other then so its quite a prominent date for both of us, she added. Its a day that both of our lives changed forever. You go girls!

The post We have never loved Maisie Williams more than in this incredible Halloween/Space dress appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Williston (United States) (AFP) - In the chilly air before dawn, a handful of men and women huddle in front of a small, one-story building on the outskirts of Williston.

They are waiting for Central Command, a temporary work agency, to open.

Workers in this oil town in the US state of North Dakota, just an hour from the Canada border, once had their pick of jobs. Many are now looking for any work they can find.

"They don't have very many jobs for us right now," said Heather Scallion, who traveled some 1,300 miles (2,100 km) from Arkansas, thinking there was still low-skilled work here.

"Hurting for money, honestly," she explained.

Nearby, a ragged man in his 30s slept on a couch. Scallion was fairly certain he was homeless, because he slept on the same spot every day, wearing the same clothes.

Just minutes from this temporary work site, at the state-run employment agency Job Service North Dakota, it is a far different world. There is a shortage of workers for highly skilled positions in drilling and oil pump maintenance, among others.

"There were layoffs when oil really tanked," said Cindy Sanford, who heads the agency's Williston branch. "Now what's happening is those companies are bringing people back."

North Dakota is now seeing hints of a recovery from the bust. As crude prices have rebounded to the $40 range after a stunning crash, there are signs that the industry is slowly regaining its footing.

But the recovery has been uneven, a distinct case of the haves and the have-nots, as skilled laborers see their prospects improving, while the less desirable workforce feels little optimism.

- Oil boomtown -

The Command Center offices are just across from the train tracks that used to ferry coal, livestock and grains, but now shoulder trains loaded with crude from the vast oil and gas deposits that lie deep underfoot, known as the Bakken and Three Forks formations.

When hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling techniques made those deposits easier to reach, Williston became the epicenter of North Dakota's oil production.

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The industry turned the sparsely populated state into a buzzing hub of investment and hiring starting in 2010, while the rest of the US economy was still stuck in low gear.

At the height of the boom in 2014, Sanford said that they could be so desperate to recruit workers they just had to make sure candidates were alive.

"We'd laugh and we'd say, 'Breathe into the mirror. Oh, it didn't fog up. Try again,'" said Sanford.

In those heady days, low-skilled workers could easily earn $18 an hour. Williston doubled in size in about four years, to roughly 30,000 people.

Then, the price of oil plummeted, from highs above $100 a barrel to below $30, forcing many drillers to shut down their operations and lay off tens of thousands. Booming Williston went bust.

- Hints of recovery -

From his truck, Monty Besler points to so-called "man camps," make-shift mobile housing developments once buzzing with out-of-town workers. They now sit empty.

"We've lost a lot of companies," said Besler, an oil industry consultant, whose license plate reads "Fracn8r" - as in "frackenator," a nickname given to him by colleagues.

Besler has seen boom and bust cycles before.

"We'll have a winnowing, and in the process the stronger companies will survive," he said.

He has reason for such optimism.

While oil production still continues to decline, analysts expect it to stabilize next year. Meanwhile, the number of active oil rigs is rising again and they have become more efficient and productive, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

"The industry is going to resume a very modest, but positive, growth in supply in 2017," said Raoul LeBlanc, a US energy analyst at IHS.

He cautioned that even though jobs are starting to return, salaries are generally lower than in boom times. "We may never get back to the levels of employment that we had," LeBlanc said.

But Besler believes the industry can rise again. If prices can be sustained in the $50-60 per barrel range, Besler said, "that starts to bring the outside money back in, the investment groups that were pouring money into the Bakken before."

The city of Williston is anticipating that Bakken will power the local economy for decades to come, budgeting $1 billion on roads, bridges, and a new airport.

Companies are once again competing for workers. A recent job fair had 56 companies planning to fill 300 positions.

This is all cold comfort at the Command Center, where few of those jobs are expected to reach low-skilled workers any time soon. Kyle Tennessen, the center's manager, is certain he will continue to have more people lining up for work every morning than the number of jobs he can offer them.

"There's going to be another boom. When is the giant question mark," Tennessen said.
A Norwegian former hostage on Sunday described his psychological torture as he heard his friends being beheaded by Islamic militants during a year-long captivity in the southern Philippines.

A heavily bearded and gaunt Kjartan Sekkingstad, who was released on Saturday by the feared Abu Sayyaf group, also said he narrowly survived military attacks against his captors, with a bullet piercing his backpack.

"Basically, I've been treated like a slave, carrying their stuff around, time to time abused," a frail-looking Sekkingstad said as he was received by a government envoy in the town of Indanan on the forested island of Jolo.

Also released were three Indonesians held by the group, who were also turned over to envoy Jesus Dureza.

Sekkingstad told reporters he endured "psychological pressure", with the Abu Sayyaf threatening several times to behead him.

Sekkingstad, then aged 56, was abducted in September 2015 from the high-end Philippine tourist resort which he managed and was taken to Jolo by the Abu Sayyaf.

Two Canadian resort guests captured with him, John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, were later beheaded by the group after a ransom demand of about 300 million pesos ($6.5 million) was not met.

Sekkingstad said that during the separate killings in April and June, the two handcuffed Canadians were escorted out of sight, "but still close enough that you could hear their cries when it happened."

"It was devastating," the visibly shaken Norwegian said.

Sekkingstad said he also survived numerous military attacks on his captors and even saved as a souvenir a bullet that went through his backpack.

The Abu Sayyaf handed the Norwegian over to another Muslim rebel leader Nur Misuari, whose group assisted in the release and at whose camp he spent the night, according to the government.

- Ransom mystery -

Escorted by a small contingent of Jolo police on Sunday, Misuari handed him and the Indonesians over to Dureza at a meeting guarded by hundreds of Misuari's fighters from the Moro National Liberation Front.

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Sekkingstad and Dureza then flew to the southern city of Davao to meet Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The three Indonesians were taken to the nearby city of Zamboanga where a retired Indonesian general was waiting to pick them up.

The Indonesians were kidnapped off Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysia in July, a regional military spokesman said.

At a press forum with Duterte later, a now-clean shaven Sekkingstad thanked the president and all those who helped obtain his freedom.

It was unclear if any ransom was paid and, if so, by whom.

A spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf was quoted in a local newspaper on Sunday as saying the group received 30 million pesos (about $625,000) for the Norwegian.

Norwegian foreign affairs communications chief Frode Andersen told AFP by phone that "the Norwegian government does not pay ransom in this case or any other case".

And Duterte's spokesman Martin Andanar also said in Manila that "the (Philippine) government maintains the no-ransom policy".

"Now, if there is a third party like family that paid, we do not know anything about that," he told reporters.

The Abu Sayyaf was formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

Based in remote Muslim-populated southern islands of the mainly Catholic Philippines, its kidnappings for ransom -- often of foreigners -- have earned it millions.

While its leaders have in recent years pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, analysts say the Abu Sayyaf is mainly focused on crime rather than religious ideology.

The group is blamed for the worst terror attacks in Philippine history and is listed by the United States as a terrorist organisation.
The streets of New York are on high alert after an explosion in the Chelsea area of Manhattan happened Saturday (Sept. 17) evening. Mayor Bill de Blasio called the bombing an intentional act and Gov. Andrew Cuomo says there currently no signs connecting the incident to an international act of terrorism.

At this time there is no evidence of an international terrorism connection with this incident, but it is very, very early in the investigation, he said during Sundays (Sept. 18) press conference, The New York Times reports. This is one of the nightmare scenarios, he said. We really were very lucky that there were no fatalities.

Video shows moment of IED Explosion at W 23 St & 6th Ave in Manhattan pic.twitter.com/O270bZWOzF  New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) September 18, 2016

The explosion happened Saturday evening shortly after 8:30 p.m. on West 23rd Street. Two homemade pressure cooker bombs were found by police. One was placed in a dumpster while the other was found on West 27th Street between the Avenue of Americas and Seventh Avenue three hours after the first detonation.

BREAKING PHOTO! Here is the second device found by a NYSP Sgt. At 27 street and 7 Ave. investigation is ongoing pic.twitter.com/x7o9Rr30I3  New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) September 18, 2016

The second device was taken to the departments firing range where it will be inspected by robots. CNN reports the device featured colored wiring, bound together with duct tape and a cell phone. A piece of paper was also found close to the device.

Many of the injures stemmed from shrapnel and all 29 victims have been released from the hospital. Gov. Cuomo told reporters damages to buildings included shattered windows and flying debris. The device holds the same tools used in the devastating acts of the 2013 Boston Bombing. Police also confirmed the incident in Chelsea was not connected to a garbage bomb that went off before a Marine Corps race in New Jersey earlier that day.

For now, 14th Street to 32nd Street will be closed as well as eastbound and westbound traffic between Fifth and Eighth Avenues. A motive hasnt been determined in the bombing. Whatever the cause, Mr. de Blasio said, New Yorkers will not be intimidated.
Wetzstein achieves

Danielle Wetzstein of Country Travel, Bismarck, was recognized as top sales consultant with Delta Vacations to Cancun, Mexico, out of more than 600 agents.

Thiem included

Rebecca S. Thiem, an attorney with Serkland Law Firm, Bismarck, has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2017 in the practice areas of arbitration and commercial litigation. Inclusion in Best Lawyers is based on a peer-review survey.

Bartending awards

Blaze Montana and Kate Gerwin, who work at Humpback Sallys in Bismarck, earned four awards in the Texas Flair Bartending Competition last month.

Montana placed second in the accuracy and craft categories and third in the flair round in the semi-pro division.

Gerwin took first in craft.

Gallagher named

Deb Gallagher has been appointed by Gov. Jack Dalrymple to a five-year term on the North Dakota State Credit Union Board.

Gallagher has been the president/CEO of Capital Credit Union in Bismarck since 1994. She holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in management and is a graduate of CUNA Management School.

Three gain title

Paulette Johnson, John Carlson and Angie Keller, with EMC Insurance Bismarck Branch, received the chartered property casualty underwriter designation.

The designation requires coursework and national exams and meeting ethics and experience requirements.

Johnson started with EMC Insurance in 2014 as the underwriting manager at the Bismarck branch. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado.

Carlson, a graduate of Idaho State University, started with EMC Insurance in 2015 as a commercial lines underwriter III at the Bismarck branch.

Keller, a commercial lines underwriter II, joined the Bismarck branch in 2001. She is a graduate of Bismarck State College.

New jobs at bank

Kevin Dykema has been named Bismarck regional president for American Bank Center, a job previously held by Jonus Elston. Elston is now chief credit officer.

Dykema has more than 20 years of banking and supervisory experience and most recently was the vice president of business banking for American Bank Center.

Originally from Linton, he earned his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of North Dakota and is a graduate of the Graduate School of Banking in Madison, Wis.

Elston, originally from Sanborn, has a masters degree in business administration from the University of Mary.

Two with Cornerstone

Casey Schulz and Kathleen Sayler have joined Cornerstone Bank as customer service representatives in Bismarck.

Schulz is originally from the Bismarck-Mandan area and has more than eight years of customer service experience.

Sayler is originally from Bismarck and has more than 20 years of customer service experience.

Geer among top

Jed Geer, Bismarck, was a top-5 producer of life insurance sales for Farmers Union Insurance during July.

Bouley on staff

Kristina Bouley has been hired as an occupational therapist at Pediatric Therapy Partners in Bismarck.

Bouley earned a master of occupational therapy degree from the University of North Dakota and has experience at a therapy center, pediatric developmental therapy facility and in home health care.

She is certified in therapeutic listening, Beckman Oral Motor, Handwriting Without Tear (level 1 tutor) and as an AmTryke evaluating therapist.

Mickelson joins

Scot Mickelson has joined CHI St. Alexius Health Mandan Medical Plaza.

Mickelson received his osteopathy degree from Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences in Kansas City, Kan., and is board eligible in family medicine by the American Academy of Family Physicians
President Barack Obama delivered a stirring speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner in Washington on Saturday night, saying hed be offended if African-American voters dont turn out and vote for Hillary Clinton in November.

I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy, if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election, Obama said. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote.

If you care about our legacy, realize everything we stand for is at stake  all the progress weve made is at stake in this election, Obama said. My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot. Tolerance is on the ballot.

The president, whose historic elections in 2008 and 2012 were propelled by a record turnout of black voters, urged attendees to do the same for Clinton.

Hope is on the ballot, he said. And fear is on the ballot, too.

The presidents remarks came a day after Republican nominee Donald Trump publicly ended the birther conspiracy he had kept up for five years, finally admitting Obama was born in the United States.

Theres an extra spring in my step tonight, Obama joked. I dont know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole birther thing is over. I mean, ISIL, North Korea, poverty, climate change  none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate. And to think that with just 124 days to go, under the wire, we got that resolved. I mean, thats a boost for me in the home stretch. In other breaking news, the world is round, not flat. Lord.

Obama skewered Trumps assertion that African-Americans are worse off under the presidents administration than ever before.

You may have heard Hillarys opponent in this election say that theres never been a worse time to be a black person, Obama said. I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery and Jim Crow.

Obama also ripped the pitch Trump made last month to black voters.

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What the hell do you have to lose? Trump said at a rally before a predominantly white crowd in Ohio on Aug. 22. Give me a chance. Ill straighten it out.

He says we got nothing left to lose, Obama said, so we might as well support somebody who has fought against civil rights and fought against equality, and who has shown no regard for working people for most of his life. Well, we do have challenges, but were not stupid.

Clinton also spoke at the event, warning that a Trump presidency would undo the progress Obama has made.

We need ideas, not insults. Real plans to help struggling Americans in communities that have been left out and left behind  not prejudice and paranoia, Clinton said. We cant let Barack Obamas legacy fall into the hands of someone who doesnt understand that, whose dangerous and divisive vision for our country will drag us backwards.

She also mocked the birther issue while addressing Obama.

Mr. President, not only do we know you are an American, she said, you are a great American.
This weeks annual United Nations gathering of global leaders will bid farewell to the age of U.S. President Barack Obama, an era that began with high hopes for multilateralism but is ending in frustration over the worlds inability to solve some of the most intractable problems from Syrias civil war to the most acute refugee crisis since World War II.

In a poignant sign of the limits of international cooperation, U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday will jump-start the session with a summit to tackle a refugee and migration crisis that has displaced more than 65 million people  and to coax countries around the world into accepting more of them. The initial idea was modeled on the landmark Indochina refugee conferences of 1979 and 1989, which resulted in the resettlement of several hundred thousand Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Laotian refugees. The same, some U.N. officials hoped, could be achieved for refugees in the Middle East and North Africa.

But governments have been unwilling to agree on any bold commitments for the Monday summits final document, the so-called New York Declaration. Early last month, a U.N. proposal to have governments pledge to annually resettle just 10 percent of the worlds 21 million refugees was dropped. Instead, the 25-page documents high-minded, if somewhat vague, invocations to aid those most in need fall short of concrete targets and solutions, and governments will be asked to go back to the drawing board for another two years.

My God, cant we do anything more of significance as the international community? said Joel Charny, founding director of the U.S. branch of the Norwegian Refugee Council. We were promised something groundbreaking. In the grand scheme of things, I dont think it amounts to very much.

Indeed, the Monday summit is facing formidable anti-immigration headwinds around the world, including from the United States and Europe. The American presidential Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has galvanized his support with a message of keeping foreigners, including Mexicans and Muslims, out of the United States.

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Britains Prime Minister Theresa May, who crested to power alongside a wave of British anxiety over migrants, will make the case for keeping refugees closer to home. The rationale is that keeping them close from where they came  whether in the Middle East or North Africa  would increase the chances they could one day return to their homelands. Some observers say that while U.K. policy may appear self-serving, it does make sense to devote greater resources in the developing world, where nearly 90 percent of the worlds refugees reside. But some critics see it as an effort to put a humane face on a cold-hearted policy to keep refugees out of Europe.

The U.S. has placed little stock in the U.N. session. Frustrated by the lack of concrete targets, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power announced last September that Obama would convene his own summit Tuesday on refugees and migrants. Its aim: To move away from what the administration sees as increasingly irrelevant talk fests, and into an event to compel attendees to pay to play with commitments to increase funding to humanitarian relief efforts for the displaced, absorb more refugees, and strengthen legal avenues for refugees seeking a safe harbor and access to jobs and education.

The function of the meeting is to prod people to step up with concrete, new and significant pledges, Power told reporters Thursday. We are not going to solve the refugee crisis on Tuesday. But I think you will see an important show of political will from leaders around the world.that will bring about a tangible improvement in peoples lives.

But even the U.S. is seen as falling short. The worlds wealthiest nation has taken in only a tiny fraction of Syrian refugees  10,000 in the last year  and Republicans in the U.S. Congress have vowed to block the White Houses plan to invite 110,000 refugees from around the world in 2017. Thats compared to countries like Turkey, which has absorbed over 2 million; Lebanon, where one in every five people is a refugee; Germany, which absorbed 1.1 million asylum seekers last year; and Jordan, which has taken in at least 650,000 Syrian refugees. Its clear why diplomats, especially from Europe, have questioned Washingtons right to urge other countries to action. Its a bit rich to hear the Americans lecture about the crisis when theyre taking in so few people, one European diplomat told FP.

U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del), who will attend the summit, said theres nothing rich or laughable about the U.S. trying to convene world powers to address the global refugee crisis. While we have taken in very few refugees compared to Germany or Lebanon or Jordan, we have been the leading funder of humanitarian relief in countries like Jordan or Lebanon, he told FP.

Despite the setbacks, U.S. and U.N. officials point to a number of crises where concerted action resulted in big diplomatic gains.

The Iran nuclear deal, which requires Tehran to dismantle its most sensitive nuclear activities in exchange for an end to economic sanctions, is viewed by diplomats at U.N. headquarters in New York as a monumental achievement. Big emitters of greenhouse gases, including the United States and China, in December 2015, struck a landmark agreement in Paris on climate change.

U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said Obama will use his final address at the General Assembly, scheduled for Tuesday, to highlight achievements of the past eight years  from the stabilization of the global financial system and the Iranian nuclear deal, to the signing of the Paris agreement on climate change and the recent peace deal in Colombia. The U.N. session, Rhodes said, would also set the stage for the worlds most famous former political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi, to address the General Assembly as Myanmars democratically elected leader.

But many of the U.N.s toughest diplomatic and security challenges  including the effort to get North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons  have proven intractable. The peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority has stalled. And, as a main driver to the refugee crisis, efforts to restore peace have failed in Syria after more than five years of violence that have left at least 400,000 dead and destabilized the region.

That crisis entered a new phase Saturday as American warplanes bombed Syrian troops in Deir Ezzor, prompting Russia to call for an emergency meeting of the U.S. Security Council. Moscow maintains the strikes killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers and injured about 100 more.

Addressing reporters before the meeting late Saturday, Power went on the offensive, calling the decision to hold the meeting a cynical and hypocritical stunt by Moscow to distract attention from its Syrian-backed campaign to murder and starve opposition towns around Aleppo into submission. Russia, meanwhile, suggested that the U.S. attack was intentional.

Seizing on reports of divisions between the White House and Pentagon over the wisdom of a U.S.-Russia pact to coordinate the fight against terrorists in Syria, Russias U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin, hinted the U.S. military may have conducted the strike to undermine the deal. Who is in charge in Washington? he told reporters. Is it the White House or the Pentagon?

Ban has also cited the nuclear crisis in North Korea, where Kim Jong Un has routinely tested ballistic missiles and detonated increasingly powerful nuclear devices, as singularly vexing.

It has been a decade of progress and setbacks, said Ban, who took a break this week from summit preparations to reflect on his tenth and final year as the U.N. chief. He said the Paris climate pact, the conclusion of negotiations on an accord aimed at sharply reducing extreme poverty by 2030, and the creation U.N. Women, a new agency dedicated to empowering women worldwide, are the highlights of his tenure.

Still, the inability to resolve several protracted conflicts has been a source of tremendous pain, Ban said.

Ban and Obama both will use the General Assemblys bully pulpit to urge world leaders to put the 2015 Paris climate change accord into legal force by the end of the year. They want to lock all the signatory countries into the agreement for the next four years, before the next U.S. president takes office in January. The push follows statements by Trump that climate change is a hoax, and talk of tearing the agreement to shreds.

The summit wont be devoid of U.S. electoral politics. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has scheduled meetings with world leaders on the sidelines of the summit, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, according to her campaign.

Trump had not initially scheduled any public meetings with world leaders  and a spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment  but he will also meet with Sisi, according to the MENA state news agency. For many, Trump embodies the anxieties that so many world leaders harbor over a post-Obama world order. But Trump is an easy fall guy.

Europe, which underwent its own refugee crisis in World War II, has experienced its own backlash against refugees, with Eastern European countries sealing their borders to prevent desperate Syrian refugees from entering their countries. Hungarys Prime Minister Viktor Orban has demonized the refugees as a public security and terror risk and refused European Union calls to accept fewer than 3,000 asylum seekers.

On the eve of Mondays U.N. refugee summit, the British anti-poverty organization Oxfam scolded governments for watering down the final declaration to make it harder for refugees to make their way to Europe. European governments performed the role of spoilers in the negotiations on the New York declaration, according to Alexander Betts, a scholar at Oxford Universitys Refugee Studies Center, who has closely tracked the talks.

In the corridors of Brussels, governments are quietly celebrating having scuppered the possibility of a strong final summit declaration, he said.

This article has been updated.

Photo credit: ANDREW BURTON/Getty Images
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday in New York on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly to discuss a recently agreed deal on U.S. military aid, the White House said. "The meeting also will be an opportunity to discuss the need for genuine advancement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. Obama will also meet on Monday with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to discuss ways to deepen the U.S.-China relationship and to address "provocations" by North Korea, he said. (Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Washington (AFP) - President Barack Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the White House said Sunday.

The two leaders will have a bilateral meeting Wednesday, with discussion topics likely to include the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

Earnest said the meeting would afford Obama and Netanyahu an opportunity to discuss "the strong ties between the United States and Israel."

The two allies signed a new 10-year agreement last Wednesday in Washington. It calls for the United States to provide Israel $38 billion of defense aid, beginning in 2019, the single-largest pledge of military assistance in US history.

Netanyahu "will personally thank President Obama for the military aid agreement signed last week," the Israeli leader's office said in a statement.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu will discuss with President Obama the challenges in the Middle East and the ways to advance progress in peace and security," it said.

Obama and Netanyahu, who both took office in 2009, have had a notoriously difficult relationship, underscored by a series of incidents reflecting their strains.

The latest was Netanyahu's last-minute cancellation of a White House visit in March. The US president, who learned of the cancellation through the media, did not hide his annoyance.

Obama is expected to arrive late Sunday in New York for his final attendance at the UN General Assembly before he leaves office in January.

His schedule includes numerous bilateral meetings, including with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.
hillary clinton

Hillary Clinton called for calm Sunday in the face of a series of terror attacks the day before that left several dozen people injured in New York and Minnesota.

Within the course of several hours on Saturday, a pipe bomb exploded near a Marine Corps charity race in New Jersey, an improvised explosive device was detonated in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood, and a man was shot dead after stabbing eight people in a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Authorities have so far said the incidents were unrelated. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack in Minnesota.

In a statement Sunday afternoon, Clinton condemned the attacks, praised law enforcement, and suggested that the US needs to do more to identify potential future terrorist-attackers online with the help of the tech industry.

"Law-enforcement officials are working to identify who was behind the attacks in New York and New Jersey, and we should give them the support they need to finish the job and bring those responsible to justice," the Democratic presidential nominee said. "We will not rest until that happens."

The statement continued: "ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack in Minnesota, and this should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups."

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump briefly addressed the bombing in New York during a rally on Saturday in Colorado, assuring the crowd that he was going to be "very tough" on terrorists if elected, though not specifying how.

"I must tell you that just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York. And nobody knows exactly what's going on," Trump said.

"We better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough," he added.

Read Clinton's full statement below:

"I strongly condemn the apparent terrorist attacks in Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York. I pray for all of those who were wounded, and for their families. Once again, we saw the bravery of our first responders who run toward danger to help others. Their quick actions saved lives.

Story continues

Law enforcement officials are working to identify who was behind the attacks in New York and New Jersey and we should give them the support they need to finish the job and bring those responsible to justice - we will not rest until that happens. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack in Minnesota, and this should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups. I have laid out a comprehensive plan to do that. This includes launching an intelligence surge to help identify and thwart attacks before they can be carried out, and to spot lone wolf attackers.

We also need to work with Silicon Valley to counter propaganda and recruitment efforts online. Americans have faced threats before, and our resilience in the face of them only makes us stronger. I am confident we will once again choose resolve over fear."

NOW WATCH: 'We'll see what happens to her': Trump says Clinton's 'armed bodyguards' should 'disarm immediately'





More From Business Insider


Norwegian Air Shuttle Boeing 787

Norwegian Air is making waves in the airline industry.

Recently, Norwegian Air Chief Commercial Officer Thomas Ramdahl told Business Insider in an interview his airline plans to launch $69 fares on trans-Atlantic flights starting next year.

As a long-time Boeing customer, Norwegian selected the new generation 737 MAX 8 to launch the new fare.

In fact, the airline, which currently operates a fleet made up exclusively of more than 100 Boeing jets, has 100 of the planes on order.

But there's more to this story.

Even though the 737 Max has a range of about 4,000 miles, there are routes where Norwegian will need greater range than the plane can deliver but won't require the services of a pricey wide-body jet.

In other words, Norwegian is in need of a 'tweener.

Traditionally, those routes have been the domain of Boeing's 757. However, Boeing discontinued the controversial plane in 2004 and still does not have an aircraft capable of matching its capabilities, although Boeing did tell Business Insider that it is currently studying the possibility of a 757 replacement.

Airbus A321neo

That's where the 30 A321neo LR jets Norwegian ordered from Boeing's arch rival, Airbus, come into play.

"From the figures I've seen so far, the A321neo LR will have longer range than the MAX, so that gives us opportunities in smaller cities where frequency is more important than having a large wide-body jet," Ramdahl said.

While some airlines are holding onto their aging fleets of 757s, Norwegian seems to believe that it may have found a worthy successor for the long-serving jet.

"It's difficult to say yes or no, but I think so," Ramdahl told us when asked if the A321neo LR is a true replacement for the 757. "It's interesting to see if Boeing is coming up with a replacement for the 757 as well, because they'll need to if the LR does what Airbus is saying it will do."

In fact, Ramdahl told us that the A321neo offers 10% to 15% lower costs per seat than a wide-body jet.

Story continues

Based on Airbus' projected range of more than 4,600 miles, the A321neo LR should be able to match or beat the 757's range, the Norwegian executive told Business Insider. In addition, Norwegian Air's A321's are expected to be equipped with 220 to 230 seats  which is on par with the capacity of the 757-200.

Boeing 757 La Compagnie

This is potentially distressing news for Boeing.

Even though the segment traditionally occupied by the 757 is not as large as the 737s or as profitable as the large wide-bodies, there is still plenty of demand for airplanes of its type. With the LR outselling its Boeing rival  the 737 MAX 9  5 to 1, it looks like Airbus is the only one with a truly competitive product on offer in the segment.

And if a major, long-time customer like Norwegian is willing to defect, then it certainly stacks the deck against Boeing when it comes to drawing customers.

The 737 MAX jets features new fuel-efficient CFM LEAP-1B engines, upgraded avionics, and aerodynamics. It's one of the most advanced and efficient airliners in the world. The A321neo LR also features upgraded avionics and aerodynamics but is equipped with a more powerful CFM LEAP-1A engine.

However, Boeing is not in a position to simply bolt on larger engines to match the A321neo LR's range, because there is a direct correlation between the diameter of a turbofan engine's fan blades and the amount of thrust the engine can produce. For example, the more powerful 1A engine's fan blades have a diameter of 78 inches  9 more than the 1B.

Boeing 737Max Norwegian

An upgrade to a larger engine will likely involve a redesign of the 737's landing gear. That's because the 737 was designed in the 1960s to be powered by Pratt & Whitney's JT8D engine with a much more compact fan diameter of 49 inches.

Since then, Boeing has been bolting larger and larger engines onto the 737, but the under-wing space has not changed. The 737 has essentially maxed out on the engine size that can fit under its wings. As a result, Boeing will have to raise and relocate the plane's landing gear.

This means that whether it decides to modify the 737 or to build a new plane from scratch, it'll be a move that will likely cost billions.

Norwegian expects to take delivery of its 737 MAX 8 in 2017, with the first A321neo LR expected in 2019.

NOW WATCH: These are the safest airlines in the world





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By Hamid Ould Ahmed

ALGIERS (Reuters) - OPEC members may call an extraordinary meeting to discuss oil prices if they reach consensus at an informal gathering in Algiers this month, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said during a visit to Algeria, the country's state news agency APS reported on Sunday.

Barkindo said he was optimistic about the meeting in Algeria on Sept. 26-28. He has previously said discussions in Algiers will be consultations and no major decisions will be made during talks with OPEC and non-OPEC producers.

"The informal gathering was proposed as a move to having an extraordinary meeting with the aim of taking decisions to stabilise the market," Barkindo said.

Algeria's Energy Minister Noureddine Bouterfa last week said there was a consensus among OPEC and non-OPEC members about the need to stabilise the oil market, and has been pushing for a price around $50 to $60 a barrel.

"Algeria has a proposal for participants in the Algiers meeting. Consultations with our partners show there is a consensus around the need to stabilise the market. That is already a positive," Bouterfa said.

The secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has said the group is not seeking a definite price range for oil but stability for the market.

Russia, Iran and other major oil producers are due to take part in the Algiers meeting.

Several OPEC producers have called for an output freeze to rein in an oil glut that triggered a price collapse in the last two years, hitting the revenues of major producers.

Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC member Russia agreed this month to cooperate in oil markets, saying they could limit future output.

(This corrected version of the story changes source of second quote to minister).

(Reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Susan Fenton and Dale Hudson)
Srinagar: Militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army at Uri, 102 kms from Srinagar, in the wee hours on Sunday, with explosions and heavy gunfire heard at the spot.

Though it was not immediately known if there was any casualty, sources said that some army men suffered burn injuries.

The attack began at around 0400 hours and the number of militants was believed to be three.

Immediately after the militants entered the camp, explosions and exchange of heavy fire were heard from inside, official sources said.

Initially, the attack was understood to be at the Brigade Headquarters but sources in the Army said it was at the rear formation of a battalion that was deployed at the Line of Control (LoC).

Helicopters were pressed into service to deploy Special Forces of the Army and to evacuate the injured.

The injured army men have been rushed to Army base hospital in Srinagar, the sources said.
Frejus (France) (AFP) - French far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday vowed to give her country back control over its laws, currency and borders if elected president next year on an anti-EU, anti-immigration platform.

Addressing around 3,000 party faithful in the town of Frejus on the Cote d'Azur, Le Pen aimed to set the tone for her campaign, declaring in her speech: "The time of the nation state has come again."

The FN leader, who has pledged to hold a referendum on France's future in the EU if elected and bring back the French franc, said she was closely watching developments in Britain since it voted to leave the bloc.

"We too are keen on winning back our freedom.... We want a free France that is the master of its own laws and currency and the guardian of its borders."

Polls consistently show Le Pen among the top two candidates in the two-stage presidential elections to take place in April and May.

But while the polls show her easily winning a place in the run-off they also show the French rallying around her as-yet-unknown conservative opponent in order to block her victory in the final duel.

In Frejus, Le Pen sought to sanitise her image, continuing a process of "de-demonisation" that has paid off handsomely at the ballot box since she took over the FN leadership from her ex-paratrooper father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2011.

"I am the candidate of the people and I want to talk to you about France, because that is what unites us," the 48-year-old politician said in a speech that avoided any reference to the FN which is seen as more taboo than its leader.

She also avoided any attacks on her rivals, preferring to remain above the fray as her arch-nemesis, former president Nicolas Sarkozy, and other candidates battle it out for their parties' nominations.

- 'Our land' -

Le Pen said French voters were never given a say on the "biggest change in a century in the nation: the opening up to mass immigration".

Story continues

Immigration, she said, had "swept aside the benefits of secularism, women's liberation and the Republican pact", bringing in "people with beliefs, customs and practises that are not ours".

Her speech was regularly interrupted by her supporters chanting "On est chez nous" ("This is our land") and waving French flags.

But she devoted relatively little time to the FN's stock themes of Islam and national identity, focusing instead on sovereignty.

Accusing foreign masters in Brussels, Berlin and Washington of calling the tune in France, she called for greater protectionism and "economic patriotism" to restore World War II hero General de Gaulle's vision of a "free France".

Analysts say Le Pen's more inclusive approach is aimed at taking the fear factor out of a National Front presidency.

They have attributed her relative silence on the jihadist attacks of this summer -- contrasting with Sarkozy's glut of hardline declarations on national identity and security -- to her attempt to appear "presidential".

Former prime minister Francois Fillon, who is one of Sarkozy's challengers for the presidential nod of the Republicans party, rejected the notion that the FN had changed.

"Everyone sees the FN, with its absurd economic policy and its positioning which incites confrontation and hate," Fillon told Europe 1 radio, insisting: "It's a far-right party."
These pics of Anna Camp and Skyler Astins honeymoon are making us infinitely jealous

These pics of Anna Camp and Skyler Astins honeymoon are making us infinitely jealous

Anna Camp and Skylar Astin are on their honeymoon in Italy right now, and it looks aca-mazing.

We are hardcore living vicariously through Instagram posts of the duo frolicking around some of Italys most picturesque spots and slurping up spaghetti. The lovebirds tied the knot last weekend, after first meeting on the set of Pitch Perfect in 2011, and look like theyre already having the best time as an official married couple.

Whether theyre taking a quiet break in a picturesque alley

#BTS A photo posted by Skylar Astin (@skylarastin) on Sep 17, 2016 at 9:48am PDT

Carbing up for a day full of honeymoon adventures

A photo posted by Skylar Astin (@skylarastin) on Sep 17, 2016 at 2:18am PDT

Getting in on the tourist action

 A photo posted by Anna Camp (@therealannacamp) on Sep 16, 2016 at 3:35pm PDT

Or marveling at Italys incredible architecture and artwork

Stunning A photo posted by Anna Camp (@therealannacamp) on Sep 16, 2016 at 3:32pm PDT

They are definitely doing this wedding-bliss-honeymoon thing right!

The couple actually didnt have any scenes together in the first film, but still hit it off regardless, E! News noted. When they first met, Astin was actually dating someone else and Camp was in the middle of a divorce, so they started as close confidants before circumstances became right for them to date.

We were friends first and just hit it off, Camp told Glamour. Hes just so great, and hes a Libra too. We didnt really have a scene together, but hes just such a fun guy. Hes great.

The two certainly look like theyre taking Italy by storm as newlyweds with an amazing honeymoon, and we cant wait for more photos. Ahhhh, Italy! Ahhhh, Love!

The post These pics of Anna Camp and Skyler Astins honeymoon are making us infinitely jealous appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Editor's note: This is the first installment of a two-day series. Day two explores how a loose coalition of drugmakers and industry-backed nonprofits shaped the federal response to the opioid crisis.

The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids, the drugs at the heart of a crisis that has cost 165,000 Americans their lives and pushed countless more to crippling addiction.

The drugmakers vow theyre combating the addiction epidemic, but The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found that they often employ a statehouse playbook of delay and defend that includes funding advocacy groups that use the veneer of independence to fight limits on the drugs, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl, the narcotic linked to Princes death.

The mother of Cameron Weiss was no match for the industrys high-powered lobbyists when she plunged into the corridors of New Mexicos Legislature, crusading for a measure she fervently believed would have saved her sons life.

It was a heroin overdose that eventually killed Cameron, not long before he would have turned 19. But his slippery descent to death started a few years earlier, when a hospital sent him home with a bottle of Percocet after he broke his collarbone in wrestling practice.

Jennifer Weiss-Burke pushed for a bill limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers for acute pain to seven days. The bill exempted people with chronic pain, but opponents still fought back, with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry quietly mobilizing in increased numbers to quash the measure.

They didnt speak up in legislative hearings. They were going individually talking to senators and representatives one-on-one, Weiss-Burke said.

Unknowingly, she had taken on a political powerhouse that spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2006 through 2015  more than 200 times what those advocating for stricter policies spent and more than eight times what the formidable gun lobby recorded for similar activities during that same period.

Story continues

This story is part of Whos Calling the Shots in State Politics?. The Center exposes the powerful special interests that drive elections and policy in the states. Click here to read more stories in this series.

Don't miss another Politics investigation: Sign up for the Center for Public Integrity's Watchdog email.

The pharmaceutical companies and allied groups have a number of legislative interests in addition to opioids that account for a portion of their political activity, but their steady presence in state capitals means theyre poised to jump in quickly on any debate that affects them.

Collectively, the AP and the Center for Public Integrity found, the drugmakers and allied advocacy groups employed an annual average of 1,350 lobbyists in legislative hubs from 2006 through 2015, when opioids addictive nature came under increasing scrutiny.

The opioid lobby has been doing everything it can to preserve the status quo of aggressive prescribing, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and an outspoken advocate for opioid reform. They are reaping enormous profits from aggressive prescribing.

The drug companies say they are committed to solving the problems linked to their painkillers. Major opioid-makers have launched initiatives to, among other things, encourage more cautious prescribing, allow states to share databases of prescriptions and help stop drug dealers from obtaining pills.

And the industry and its allies have not been alone in fighting restrictions on opioids. Powerful doctors groups are part of the fight in several states, arguing that lawmakers should not tell them how to practice medicine.

While drug regulation is usually handled at the federal level  where the makers of painkillers also have pushed back against attempts to impose restrictions  ordinary citizens struggling with the opioid crisis in their neighborhoods have looked to their state capitals for solutions.

Hundreds of opioid-related bills have been introduced at the state level just in the last several years. The few groups pleading for tighter prescription restrictions are mostly fledgling mom-and-pop organizations formed by families of young people killed by opioids. Together, they spent about $4 million nationwide at the state and federal level on political contributions and lobbying from 2006 through 2015 and employed an average of eight state lobbyists each year.

Prescription opioids are the synthetic cousins of heroin and morphine, prescribed to relieve pain. Sales of the drugs have boomed  quadrupling from 1999 to 2010  and overdose deaths rose just as fast, totaling 165,000 this millennium. Last year, 227 million opioid prescriptions were doled out in the U.S., enough to hand a bottle of pills to nine out of every 10 American adults.

The drugmakers revenues are robust, too: Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin and one of the largest opioid producers by sales, pulled in an estimated $2.4 billion from opioids last year alone, according to estimates from health care information company IMS Health.

Thats even after executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about OxyContins risk of addiction in 2007 and the company agreed to pay more than $600 million in fines.

Related: About this project

Opioids can be dangerous even for people who follow doctors orders, though they also help millions of people manage pain associated with cancer, injuries, surgeries and end-of-life care.

The industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America issued a statement saying, We and our members stand with patients, providers, law enforcement, policymakers and others in calling for and supporting national policies and action to address opioid abuse.

And Purdue said: Purdue does not oppose  either directly or indirectly  policies that improve the way opioids are prescribed, including when those policies may result in decreased opioid use.

One of the chief solutions the drugmakers actively promote now are new formulations that make their products harder to crush or dissolve, thwarting abusers who want to snort or inject painkillers. But the new versions also extend the life of their profits with fresh patents, and some experts question their overall effectiveness.

A focus on pain treatment

An analysis of state records collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics provides a snapshot of the drugmakers battles to limit opioids. For instance, they show that pharmaceutical companies and their allies ramped up their lobbying and campaign contributions in New Mexico in 2012 as lawmakers considered  and ultimately killed  the bill backed by Cameron Weiss mother.

But one of the drug companies most powerful engines of political might isnt part of the public record  a largely unknown network of opioid-friendly nonprofits they help fund and meet with monthly known as the Pain Care Forum, formed more than a decade ago.

Combined, its participants contributed more than $24 million to 7,100 candidates for state-level offices from 2006 through 2015, with the largest amounts going to governors and the lawmakers who control legislative agendas, such as house speakers, senate presidents and health committee chairs.

Related: Politics of pain by the numbers

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Theyve gotten involved in nitty-gritty fights even beyond legislatures. After Washington state leaders drafted the nations first set of medical guidelines urging doctors not to prescribe high doses of opioids in 2007, the Pain Care Forum hired a public relations firm to convince the state medical board that the guidelines would hurt patients with chronic pain.

A sizable slice of the drugmakers battles are carried out by pharma-funded advocates spreading opioid-friendly narratives  with their links to drug companies going unmentioned  or by persuading pharma-friendly lawmakers to introduce legislation drafted by the industry.

Two years ago, it was a major patient organization receiving grants from the opioid industry, the American Cancer Societys Cancer Action Network, that led the fight against a measure in Tennessee aimed at reducing the number of babies born addicted to narcotics.

And in Maine last year, drugmakers persuaded a state representative to successfully push a bill  drafted by the industry  requiring insurers to cover so-called abuse-deterrent painkillers, the new forms of opioids that are harder to abuse.

Legislatures have begun considering limits on the length of first-time opioid prescriptions. But the new laws and proposals in states including Connecticut and Massachusetts carve out a common exception: They do not apply to chronic pain patients. Drugmaker-funded pain groups, which can mobilize patients to appear at legislative hearings, advocate for the exceptions.

Many patients vouch that opioids have given them a better quality of life.

Theres such a hysteria going on about those who have died from overdoses, said Barby Ingle, president of the International Pain Foundation, which receives pharmaceutical company funding. There are millions who are living a better life who are on the medications long term.

Thats contrary to what researchers are increasingly saying, however. Studies have shown weak or no evidence that opioids are effective ways to treat routine chronic pain. And one 2015 study from a hospital system in Pennsylvania found about 40 percent of chronic non-cancer pain patients receiving opioids had some signs of addiction and 4 percent had serious problems.

You can create an awful lot of harm with seven days of opioid therapy, said Dr. David Juurlink, a toxicology expert at the University of Toronto. You can send people down the pathway to addiction  when they never would have been sent there otherwise.

A surprising opponent

Letting advocacy groups do the talking can be an especially effective tactic in state legislatures, where many lawmakers serve only part time and juggle complicated issues.

Lawmakers in Massachusetts, for example, said they didnt hear directly from pharmaceutical lobbyists when they took up opioid prescribing issues this year. But they did hear from a patient advocate with ongoing back pain who works with and volunteers for groups that receive some of their funding from pharmaceutical companies. She also brought in patients to meet with them.

A lot of times those legislators, they dont have the ability to really thoroughly look into who these organizations are and whos funding them, said Edward Walker of the University of California Los Angeles, who studies grassroots groups.

Nonprofit advocacy groups led the countercharge in Tennessee in 2014 when Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams began work to stanch the flow of prescription painkillers, alarmed by a rapidly rising number of drug-addicted babies, who suffer from withdrawal in their first weeks of life and complications long after they leave the hospital.

More than 900 babies had been born addicted in Tennessee the year before, many of them hooked on the prescription opioids their mothers had taken. That number had climbed steadily since 2001, when there were fewer than 100.

Whitney Moore and her husband adopted two girls born addicted to prescription opioids and other drugs in eastern Tennessee, and she still remembers her older daughters cries in the hospital, the most high-pitched scream youve ever heard in your life a common symptom in babies in the throes of withdrawal.

Doctors gave Moores infant daughter morphine to ease her seizures, vomiting and diarrhea, and she stayed in a neonatal intensive care unit more than a month. Now 3 years old, she still suffers from gastrointestinal problems and remains sensitive to loud noises.

When Williams was mulling potential legislation, doctors told him that part of Tennessees problem was a 2001 law  similar to measures on the books in more than a dozen states  that made it difficult to discipline doctors for dispensing opioids and allowed clinicians to refuse to prescribe powerful narcotics only if they steered patients to an opioid-friendly doctor.

The result, according to the experts Williams worked with, was a rash of prescribing, even for pregnant women. In 2014, Tennessee ranked third in the country for per-capita opioid prescriptions, with roughly 1.3 prescriptions doled out for every person in the state, according to an analysis of prescription data from IMS Health.

Williams mission to repeal the law failed that year, and he was shocked by the group that came out in opposition  the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the advocacy arm of one of the countrys biggest and best-known charities.

Related story: Drugmakers fought domino effect of Washington opioid limits

Two Cancer Society lobbyists worked against the bill, even though prescribing painkillers for cancer patients is a widely accepted medical practice that would have remained legal.

We injected ourselves into the debate because we did not want cancer patients to not be able to have access to their medication, said Theodore Morrison, a lobbyist working for the network that year.

The societys annual ranks of about 200 lobbyists around the country have taken similar positions elsewhere, defending rules that some argue encourage extensive prescriptions and opposing opioid measures even if the proposed legislation specifically exempted cancer patients.

The Cancer Action Network listed four major opioid makers that provided funding of at least $100,000 in 2015, in addition to five that contributed at least $25,000. Companies that donate such sums get one-on-one meetings with the groups leaders and other chances to discuss policy.

The network said only 6 percent of its funding last year came from drugmakers and that its ties to drug companies do not influence the positions it takes. ACS CANs only constituents are cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones nationwide, spokesman Dave Woodmansee said.

The network said it advocates for certain measures despite exemptions for cancer because some patients continue to experience pain even after their cancer is gone.

ACS CAN teamed up with another group to defend the Tennessee painkiller law  the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, an association of doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists and others who treat pain, until recently known as the American Academy of Pain Management. The group promotes access to pain drugs as well as non-pharmaceutical treatments such as acupuncture.

Seven of the academys nine corporate council members listed online are opioid makers. The other two are AstraZeneca, which has invested heavily in a drug to treat opioid-induced constipation, and Medtronic, which makes implantable devices that deliver pain medicine.

The academys executive director, Bob Twillman, said his organization receives 15 percent of its funding from pharmaceutical companies, not including revenue from advertisements in its publications. Its state advocacy project is 100 percent funded by drugmakers and their allies, but he said that does not mean it is beholden to pharmaceutical interests.

We dont always do the things they want us to do, he said. Most of the time were saying, Gosh, yes, there should be some limits on opioid prescribing, reasonable limits, but I dont think they would be in favor of that.

Both the academy and the cancer group have been active across the country, making the case that lawmakers should balance efforts to address the opioid crisis with the needs of chronic pain patients. Between them, they have contacted legislators and other officials about opioid-related measures in at least 18 states.

In Massachusetts this year, they helped persuade lawmakers to soften strict proposals that would have limited first-time opioid prescriptions to three days worth. They also have weighed in on how often doctors should be required to check prescription-monitoring databases, which can help crack down on prescription-shopping with multiple doctors.

The academy reported on its website that, since 2013, its state advocacy network had provided extensive comments on clinician guidelines in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Indiana and elsewhere; issued action alerts resulting in more than 300 emails and phone calls to more than 80 legislators in 2014 alone; and held teleconferences with more than 100 advocates.

Purdue, which gives to both the academy and the cancer network, said it contributes to a range of advocacy groups, including some with differing views on opioid policy. It is imperative that we have legitimate policy debates without trying to silence those with whom we disagree. Thats the American political system at work, the company said in a statement.

As for Williams, he tried again last year to repeal Tennessees intractable pain law  and won unanimous approval in both houses. The extra year had given Williams and his co-sponsor time to help educate their fellow lawmakers, he said, even though the Cancer Society still opposed the repeal.

Lobbyists were killing it

The tried-and-true tactics of lobbying and campaign contributions remain a major plank of the pharmaceutical playbook. In 2014 alone, for instance, participants in the Pain Care Forum spent at least $14 million nationwide on state-level lobbying.

Two years earlier  facing the threat of limits on opioid-prescribing  forum members had upped their number of lobbyists in New Mexico, which is second only to West Virginia in per-capita deaths primarily due to prescription and illegal opioid drugs, according to the most recent federal data available.

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The aim of the bill Jennifer Weiss-Burke backed was to limit initial prescriptions of opioids for acute pain to seven days to make addictions less likely and produce fewer leftover pills that could be peddled illegally.

After her son had left the hospital with his first bottle of Percocet in 2009 at the age of 16, the Albuquerque teen had suffered two more injuries and gotten two more prescriptions. He also took pills he found at his grandparents house. Less than a year later, he started smoking heroin, which costs less than black-market prescription drugs.

He repeatedly went into rehab, and just as repeatedly relapsed. In August 2011, his mother found him at home, dead.

Weiss-Burke said she didnt realize how dangerous prescription pills could be until her son already had moved on to heroin, a tortuous progression mirrored by the downward spirals of tens of thousands of other people across the country.

Heeding concerns from the state medical society, the bills sponsors amended it to allow the boards overseeing doctors and other prescribers to set their own limits. Still, the bill died in the House Judiciary Committee.

The lobbyists behind the scenes were killing it, said Bernadette Sanchez, the Democratic state senator who sponsored the measure.

Lobbyists for three Pain Care Forum members declined to comment, saying they were not authorized to speak about their clients work.

Forum participants had 15 lobbyists registered in New Mexico that year, up from nine the previous year. One was reported to be working out of the office of a high-ranking lawmaker; another was a former lawmaker himself.

Pfizer said that its two lobbyists in Santa Fe  up from one  reflected a change in firms, not an addition, and that the company did not lobby on opioid restrictions.

Still, the majority of the judiciary committee received drug industry contributions in 2012. Overall that year, drug companies and their employees contributed nearly $40,000 to New Mexico campaigns  roughly 70 percent more than in previous years with no governors race on the ballot.

In New Mexico alone, opioid makers spent $32,000 lobbying in 2012  more than double their outlay the year before.

Restrictions like the ones considered in New Mexico did not become law anywhere until this year, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for even tighter restrictions. In 2016, they have been adopted in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, all with exceptions for patients with chronic pain.

The next frontier

Now, pharmaceutical companies are directing their lobbying efforts to their new legislative frontier in the states  medicines known as abuse-deterrent formulations. These drugs ultimately are more lucrative, since theyre protected by patent and do not yet have generic competitors. They cost insurers more than generic opioids without the tamper-resistant technology.

Skeptics warn that they carry the same risks of addiction as other opioid versions, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration noted that they dont prevent the most common form of abuse  swallowing pills whole.

This is a way that the pharmaceutical industry can evade responsibility, get new patents and continue to pump pills into the system, said Dr. Anna Lembke, chief of addiction medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and author of a book on the opioid epidemic.

Opioid-makers have especially courted attorneys general, who have helped spread tamper-resistant opioid talking points.

Since 2006, Pain Care Forum participants have given more than $600,000 in campaign contributions to attorneys general candidates, and another $1.6 million to the Republican and Democratic attorneys general associations. Purdue, with $100,000 in 2015 alone, tied with four other entities for top contributor to the Democratic Attorneys General Association; it was among the top 10 donors to the Republican group, giving more than $200,000.

In 2013, Alabamas Republican attorney general, Luther Strange, helped spearhead a letter to the FDA recommending the agency not approve new generic versions of opioids without tamper-resistant technology, which effectively would give the market to brand-name drug companies such as Purdue and Pfizer for several years. In all, 48 attorneys general, including Strange, signed the letter.

Strange has received $50,000 in campaign contributions from Pain Care Forum members, more than any other attorney general from 2006 through 2015, with more than $20,000 of that coming from Pfizer.

As Attorney General, I will not apologize for my efforts to protect Alabamians from a drug abuse epidemic that is claiming more lives than automobile accidents in my state, Strange said.

Related story: Pro-painkiller echo chamber shaped policy amid drug epidemic

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More than 100 bills related to abuse-deterrent opioids have been introduced in various states thus far, at least 81 of them since January 2015, according to the legislative tracking service Quorum. At least 21 of the recent bills featured nearly identical language, and several of their sponsors said they received the wording from pharmaceutical lobbyists.

In Maine last year, a measure that required insurers to cover abuse-deterrent opioids at more favorable rates was introduced at the request of a lobbyist and sailed through the Legislature, after overdose deaths in the state hit a record peak.

Insurance lobbyists argued in vain against the measure, saying it would allow drug companies to raise prices and push up insurance premiums.

The bills sponsor, Democratic Rep. Barry Hobbins, has a family member struggling with opioid addiction and said he was asked to introduce the bill by a longtime acquaintance who also lobbies for Pfizer.

Everyone was trying to figure out a way to do anything they could to address this major health crisis, Hobbins said. I was asked to sponsor that bill because of my personal family issues.

Pushing for the legislation was a team effort: Pfizers director of U.S. policy testified in favor of the bill, citing a study that showed it would help curb abuse. But he neglected to say the study was co-authored by employees of Purdue, which also sent a lobbyist to push for the bill.

The drugmakers tried similar tactics in New Mexico earlier this year, with less success.

Randy Marshall, director of the New Mexico Medical Society, which represents doctors, said he turned down a request from a Purdue lobbyist that he introduce a measure calling for tamper-resistant drugs to be covered by insurers. He said he was told that if he testified, the company would lobby behind the scenes.

But the New Mexico Osteopathic Medical Association did help at the request of a Pfizer lobbyist, said the groups executive director, Ralph McClish.

In response to a question about its role in that legislation, Pfizer issued a statement that it works with many different stakeholders on areas of mutual interest.

A Purdue statement acknowledged that the abuse-deterrent pills wont stop all misuse, but added, They are an important part of the comprehensive approach needed to address this public health issue.

The New Mexico measure failed, and McClish said that the perceived self-interest of the drug companies was key to its defeat.

People were sitting there going, Pharma is going to make a lot of money off of these drugs, he said.

Associated Press health reporter Matthew Perrone contributed to this article.

This story was co-published with The Associated Press.

Related story: Pharma lobbying held deep influence over opioid policies

This story is part of Whos Calling the Shots in State Politics?. The Center exposes the powerful special interests that drive elections and policy in the states. Click here to read more stories in this series.

Related stories

Copyright 2016 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
Simferopol (AFP) - Crimea went to the polls Sunday to elect deputies to Russia's parliament for the first time since the region was annexed by Moscow -- stirring pride in some, but pushing others to protest.

A total of 1,164 polling stations opened across the region, according to its electoral commission, two-and-a-half years after the strategic Black Sea peninsula was seized from Ukraine by the Kremlin.

In the regional capital Simferopol, mainly elderly residents flocked to busy polling stations in the city centre.

"I went to vote, and all my relatives and neighbours are going," said pensioner Valentina. "We are for Russia."

She said she cast her ballot for Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov because he is backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"If Putin likes him, then we all like him. We are for Putin, God give him health."

The new elite that has taken over the peninsula since Russian rule has called for a high turnout in polls to confirm loyalty to the Kremlin as they look to cement their own grip over the region.

But even some of those who welcomed Moscow's annexation of Crimea said they felt let down by those who subsequently took control.

"Look what they've done to Crimea -- food is dearer than in Moscow," said pensioner Ivan, calling the new leaders "bandits".

"Medicines are like gold and pensions and wages aren't enough even for food."

In the port city of Sevastopol -- the home of Russia's Black Sea fleet -- while some backed the ruling United Russia party, many complained about daily life in the city where the economy has been hit hard by punishing Western sanctions.

"I'm not happy with the prices in the city and the bureaucracy," said Vladimir, a retired nuclear physicist, adding that he had voted Communist.

- 'Don't want to lose my job' -

But elsewhere in Simferopol, polling stations in areas with more minority Crimean Tatars were emptier. Tatars have largely opposed Russia's takeover, with community leaders calling for a boycott of the polls after Russian authorities closed their governing body and television channel while detaining, searching and prosecuting activists.

Story continues

Refat Chubarov, the head of the banned Tatars' Mejlis assembly who lives in exile in Kiev, wrote on Facebook that the polls "held by the occupiers in Crimea are illegal and criminal".

He urged the Tatars -- who make up around 14 percent of the population -- to "find the strength and courage not to give into scare tactics and blackmail".

At Simferopol's Kuibyshevsky market, Crimean Tatar traders said the management had threatened to fire them if they did not vote.

"I'm afraid they'll take away my work, but how can I go to vote? My children will stop respecting me, my neighbours won't say hello to me," said one trader, Muniver.

In the village of Kamenka in north Crimea, teacher Nadzhiye, a Crimean Tatar woman in her mid-30s, said "the school's administration threatened to fire the Crimean Tatar staff if they don't come to vote".

"What can I do? I don't want to lose my job," she said.

Another villager, who gave his name as Zeitulla, said it was unthinkable to vote for people he saw as oppressors.

"How can you go and vote for authorities that abduct, intimidate and arrest Crimean Tatars and force their way into our mosques?"

The vote in Crimea has also stirred anger in Ukraine, sparking protests in Kiev.

Several dozen protesters, including some from the nationalist Svoboda party, rallied outside the Russian embassy as it hosted voting for expatriates, clashing with police and would-be voters.

Three people were detained during the demonstration, police told AFP.

Activists carried a figure of Putin on a gallows and trampled a Russian flag.
By Andrew Osborn and Gleb Stolyarov MOSCOW/SARANSK, Russia (Reuters) - The ruling United Russia party won 44.5 percent in a parliamentary election on Sunday, an exit poll showed, slightly down on the last election but still enough to preserve the dominance of President Vladimir Putin's allies in parliament. The nationalist LDPR party was in second place with 15.3 percent, according to the exit poll by state-run pollster VTsIOM. The Communists were in third on 14.9 percent and the Just Russia party was fourth with 8.1 percent. Liberal opposition parties, the only grouping openly critical of Putin, failed to get over the five percent threshold needed for party representation, the exit poll showed. Some of their candidates could still make it into parliament in constituency races. In the last election for the Duma, or lower house of parliament, in 2011, United Russia won 49 percent of the vote. The vote this time around is being seen as a dry run for Putin's expected presidential campaign in 2018. It is also a test of how well the Kremlin can oversee trouble-free elections. After the 2011 election, allegations of ballot-rigging sparked big protests against Putin in the capital. Voting got under way at 2000 GMT on Saturday on Russia's Chukotka Peninsula across the Bering Strait from Alaska. By 1800 GMT on Sunday all polling stations in Russia were scheduled to close. Yevgeny Korsak, a 65-year-old pensioner in the city of Saransk, 600 km (375 miles) south-east of Moscow, said he had voted for United Russia "because it is strong and powerful." A middle-aged man in the town of Velikiye Luki in western Russia, who declined to give his name, told Reuters: "Of course I voted for United Russia .. We don't need other parties here. At least they (United Russia) have done their stealing." United Russia, led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin loyalist, has 238 of 450 Duma seats, dominates the more than 80 regional parliaments, and is routinely depicted in a favourable light by state television, where most Russians get their news. The party is able to draw on the support of the other three parties in parliament, and benefits from its association with 63-year-old Putin, who after 17 years in power as either president or prime minister, enjoys a personal approval rating of about 80 percent. Putin does not belong to any party. By contrast, liberal opposition politicians, who currently have just one sympathetic member in the Duma, complain they are starved of air time, vilified by state media, and their campaigns systematically disrupted by pro-Kremlin provocateurs. Pro-Kremlin politicians deny that charge. (Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow, Jack Stubbs, Olga Sychkar and Svetlana Burmistrova in Ufa, Andrei Kuzmin in Velikiye Luki, Gleb Stolyarov, Alex Winning and Vladimir Soldatkin in Saransk, Anton Zverev in the Tula Region, Anastasia Teterevleva in the Moscow Region, Maria Tsvetkova, Kira Zavalyova and by Gleb Garanich in Kiev; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
LONDON (Reuters) - Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, has become the first member of the British royal family to come out as gay. Mountbatten, who has three children with ex-wife Penelope (Penny) Thompson, told the Mail on Sunday newspaper he had struggled with his sexuality but was happy to now be in a partnership with James Coyle, an airline cabin services director. "Penny was aware before we got married. I told her I was bisexual, that my attraction went both ways. She was understanding and I will always be grateful to her," said Mountbatten, who is the great-great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria. "'Coming out' is such a funny phrase but it's what I suppose I did in a rather roundabout way, emerging to a place I'm happy to be. I have struggled with my sexuality and in some ways I still do; it has been a real journey to reach this point." (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Toby Chopra)
Kevin Harvick got caught on pit road when a caution came out for a loose wheel (Getty)

Throughout 2016 we may have way too many quick thoughts for our post-race posts. Sometimes the post may have a theme. Sometimes it may just be a mess of unrelated thoughts. Make sure you tweet us your thoughts after the race or email your post-race rants via the link in the signature line below.

 NASCAR was very quick to call for a caution flag because of a tire in the infield during the first round of pit stops in Sundays race at Chicago.

The tire rolled from a teams pit box and came to rest in the infield grass as teams were heading to pit road under green flag conditions. Not long after the tire found its resting spot, NASCAR deemed it was a safety hazard and threw a yellow.

As many teams had not come to pit road, the caution jumbled up the running order. Most notably, Kevin Harvick fell a lap down and ended up 20th after being unable to make his lap back for the rest of the day.

[Related: Martin Truex Jr. wins at Chicago]

While were always appreciative of proactivity in the name of safety, NASCARs quick trigger on the caution flag did make us wonder. The sanctioning body has had patient tendencies during green flag pit stop cycles before, waiting until all lead cars have pitted before throwing cautions for debris. And you dont have to go too far back to find a very similar tire circumstance where NASCAR waited to throw a caution flag until all cars had pitted.

In the 2015 race at Las Vegas, a tire rolled into the infield grass on lap 135 during green-flag stops. NASCAR didnt throw a caution until lap 140 for the tire, making sure other cars had a chance to pit. Why? Well, because the caution would have jumbled up the running order and potentially trapped some cars a lap down for a very fluky reason.

[Related: Truex wonders about consistency of laser inspection station]

Fast-forward to Sunday, the first race of the 2016 Chase, where the running order (and potentially the rest of the first round of the Chase) got all jumbled up because of a tire on pit road. Perhaps the caution call was because Sundays tire was closer to the entrance of pit road, where a driver could spin and hit the tire. Or maybe it was for a different reason altogether.

Story continues

But given the increased importance of Chase races, its fair to entertain the idea that NASCAR should have used the same patience it did 18 months ago.

 As we said in our race post, NASCARs call to action meant this was the second time in three Chase races that pit road scoring lines significantly alter a races outcome. Hopefully this isnt a trend.

Over the course of a 36-race season, cautions during green-flag pit stops are inevitable. And in those moments, teams are going to inadvertently get caught a lap down or perhaps inherit the race lead or a better position on the track. Theres no way of stopping fluky things from happening.

But the small sample size of the Chases elimination format adds way too much importance to those fluky moments. Because Harvick went a lap down during that caution by a matter of feet, his whole race was ruined because of a tire on pit road. And now he cant have another poor finish (without a win) over the next two races if he wants to move on in the Chase.

It is imperative to note that Harvick was in the position to lose a lap on pit road because he was forced to start at the rear of the field for unapproved pre-race changes to his car. But while that circumstance was of the No. 4 teams own doing, there was no denying Harvicks charge through the field was the most compelling part of the first run of the race.

To be frank, the charge  where he went from 38th to the top 10 before pitting for the first time  was a moment that NASCAR wants the Chase to be all about. A champion driver with a fast car picking his way through the field in one of the biggest races of the year. That run was instead negated by a goofy circumstance and the biggest story of Harvicks race became his location on pit road when officials in the control tower decided to throw a caution for a tire.

 Jimmie Johnson finished 12th after he was running second before the races final set of green-flag pit stops.

He lost the track position because he sped on pit road. NASCAR deemed Johnson was too fast exiting his pit stall and the six-time champion was forced to come back down pit road under green to serve his penalty.

Johnson accepted the blame for the mistake after the race but still didnt seem convinced he committed an infraction.

Im making adjustments and I was dumbfounded that happened, Johnson said. You cant argue it. Maybe a mistake on our part somewhere, definitely a mistake on my side, but I by no way shape or form thought that I was speeding.

Wouldnt it be great if NASCAR had a public service like MLBs GameDay app or StatTracker service that gave fans access to live pit road speeds and advanced scoring? The transparency would only help to serve NASCAR in explaining its scoring and penalty decisions and would allow fans to see just how fast their driver was going on pit road. Theres no drawback, other than NASCAR losing the confidentiality of its own data.

NASCAR officials occasionally show the monitors in race control that display where a given driver sped on pit road, but a service like this would mean fans could have that insight during every race. While NASCAR continually touts its social media outreach and engagement, a real-time advanced statistical service would be a tangible contribution to the growth and understanding of the sport.

      

Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Moscow (AFP) - Andrei Kuznetsov's win against Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan in Moscow on Sunday secured Russia's return to the Davis Cup World Group after a four-year absence.

Kuznetsov's 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 win lifted Russia into an unassailable 3-1 lead and into the elite group for the first time since 2012.

Kuznetsov, ranked 47th in the world, broke Kukushkin's serve twice in both the first and second sets for a commanding two-set lead after just over an hour on court.

In the third set, the 25-year-old Russian broke his opponent twice.

"I managed to keep concentration throughout the match," Kuznetsov said in interview on Russian television.

"And we will all be happy to play for our country in the World Group next year."

Earlier, Konstantin Kravchuk and Andrey Rublev beat Kazakhstan's Aleksandr Nedovyesov and Andrey Golubev 6-3, 6-7 (3/7), 6-2, 7-5 in under three hours in the doubles

In the fourth set the visitors broke early, but the Russian pair broke back twice to take the set and match in just under three hours.

"We were all nervous because it was a very important match for both teams," Kravchuk said.

"We made plenty of mistakes today but luckily managed to win."

Earlier Kukushkin levelled the score, beating Russia's Evgeny Donskoy in a tough five-setter.

The 28-year-old won 6-7 (7/9), 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 in a game held over due to bad light with the score at two sets all on Saturday.

"I had no choice but to be at my best from the start because only one set was left," Kukushkin said. "Luckily, everything went my way."

On Saturday Kuznetsov put Russia in the lead with a confident win over Nedovyesov 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5 after rain had delayed the start of the tie.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian Defence Ministry said on Saturday that U.S.-led coalition planes had bombed Syrian troops fighting Islamic State militants near the airport in Deir al-Zor, killing 62 soldiers and wounding about 100 more. If the strikes were a targeting error, the ministry said the bombings were evidence of Washington's refusal to consult Russia over its military action in Syria. Russia has bitterly complained about what it says is a U.S. reluctance to abide by the terms of a shaky ceasefire brokered by Moscow and Washington which it says made provision for joint targeting of Islamic State and other militant groups. "If this air strike was the result of a targeting error, it is a direct consequence of the U.S. side's stubborn unwillingness to coordinate its action against terrorist groups on Syrian territory with Russia," the defence ministry said in a statement. It said that Islamic State militants had immediately gone on the offensive after the strikes and that a fierce battle between them and the Syrian army was now under way in the area, where it said local residents had previously been receiving humanitarian aid by parachute over an extended period. The ministry said the strikes had been carried out between 1700 and 1750 local time by two F-16s and two A-10s, which had entered Syrian air space from the direction of Iraq. (Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Louise Ireland and Dominic Evans)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Defense is gathering information on an air strike in Syria that was halted on Saturday after coalition forces were told they were targeting the Syrian military, a spokesman said. "While we are still trying to determine all the facts, if we mistakenly struck a Syrian military position we regret doing so, especially the loss of lives," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement. Cook also said Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Paul Simao)
By Dmitry Solovyov and Lisa Barrington MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Moscow stepped up its war of words with Washington on Sunday, saying air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition on the Syrian army threatened the implementation of a U.S.-Russian ceasefire plan for Syria and bordered on connivance with Islamic State. The diplomatic row heated up on the last day of a seven-day ceasefire marred by a surge of violence as warplanes hit the strategic northern city of Aleppo for the first time since the truce came into effect. On Saturday, the Russian defence ministry said U.S. jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor in four air strikes by two F-16 and two A-10 fighter jets coming from the direction of Iraq. Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari charged that U.S.-led strikes were aimed at torpedoing the ceasefire, but France's foreign minister, speaking in New York, placed the main blame for truce violations on the government of President Bashar al Assad. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 90 Syrian soldiers had been killed in the four air strikes. Russia's foreign ministry denounced the U.S. position on the incident as "unconstructive and inarticulate". "The actions of coalition pilots - if they, as we hope, were not taken on an order from Washington - are on the boundary between criminal negligence and connivance with Islamic State terrorists," it said in a strongly-worded statement. "We strongly urge Washington to exert the needed pressure on the illegal armed groups under its patronage to implement the ceasefire plan unconditionally. Otherwise the implementation of the entire package of the U.S.-Russian accords reached in Geneva on Sept. 9 may be jeopardised." ACCUSATIONS AGAINST WASHINGTON Russia, which along with Iran supports Syria's Assad, has called on the United States to press units of the moderate Syrian opposition to separate themselves from Islamic State and other "terrorist groups". Iran also condemned the U.S. military action. "Such moves indicate America supports terrorist groups in Syria," a foreign ministry spokesman said, according to Iranian news agencies. In Venezuela where he was attending a summit, Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said the U.S.-led coalition strikes were intended to sink the ceasefire. But French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that despite the U.S.-led coalition air strikes on the Syrian army, it was Syrian government forces which were principally behind the truce violations. "We have to hold on to this accord and keep it alive at all costs so we need to get over the events of the last few hours," Ayrault told reporters at a ceremony at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York. "But while there were these incidents ... we shouldn't forget that what has harmed the American-Russian ceasefire is firstly the regime. It is always the regime of Bashar al-Assad." The U.S. military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit. "The White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in comments aired by state TV. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Zakharova should be embarrassed by that claim. Russia's U.N. representative Vitaly Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the U.S. colluding with Islamic State militants. The diplomatic row should further complicate humanitarian aid deliveries to Syria, including its largest pre-war city Aleppo where the fragile truce is under threat. Aleppo was hit by air strikes for the first time since the truce began. Moscow said militants there were preparing for large-scale military actions against Syria's army. HEAVY CLASHES Heavy clashes continued on Sunday east of Damascus in the rebel-held Jobar suburb, the Observatory and a witness said. The al-Rahman Legion, part of a Free Syrian Army rebel alliance there, said its fighters had destroyed a government tank and killed soldiers after government forces tried to storm Jobar for the second time this week. The Observatory said at least eight people died and many were seriously injured when helicopters dropped barrel bombs onto a town in a rebel-held part of the southern Syrian province of Daraa on Sunday. Insurgents say they only reluctantly accepted the initial deal to relieve the dire humanitarian situation in besieged areas they control, and blamed Russia for undermining the truce. "The truce ... will not hold out," a senior rebel official in Aleppo said. Rebels have also accused Russia of using the ceasefire to give the Syrian army and allied Shi'ite militias a chance to regroup and deploy forces ready for their own offensives. ISLAMIC STATE Islamic State is excluded from the truce. Separate U.S.-led, Damascus-led and Turkey-backed operations against the militants have continued throughout the ceasefire on various fronts. One Turkish soldier and six Syrian rebels were wounded on Sunday in clashes with Islamic State near the Syrian border town of al-Rai as Turkey-backed Syrian rebels pushed south towards the IS-held town of al-Bab, Turkey's Dogan News agency reported. Turkey hit Islamic State targets within Syria with warplanes, according to Dogan, the Observatory and a rebel commander. On Sunday, Islamic State said it had shot down a warplane in Deir al-Zor with "anti-aircraft" guns, in the same area as the U.S.-led coalition strikes hit the Syrian military on Saturday. The Syrian military confirmed the loss of a warplane it said was carrying out an operation against rebels. (Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow and Lisa Barrington in Beirut. Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul, Tom Perry in Beirut, Polina Devitt in Moscow, John Irish in New York, Deisy Buitrago in Venezuela and the Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Tom Heneghan and Richard Balmforth)
Syria's fragile ceasefire is under further threat after a series on new airstrikes in the country.

It comes amid a tense diplomatic spat between Moscow and Washington over four US-led airstrikes which mistakenly killed around 60 Syrian soldiers on Saturday.

America apologised for the bombing which occurred on a base near the eastern Deir al Zor airport, insisting their intended target was Islamic State fighters.

Russia's foreign ministry said the strike jeopardised the US-Russian brokered truce and accused the coalition of being on the "boundary between criminal negligence and direct connivance with Islamic State terrorists".

It added that the strike was a result of Washington's "stubborn refusal" to co-operate with Moscow in fighting Islamic State and other terror groups.

Meanwhile, the IS stronghold of Aleppo has been hit by its first aerial raids in nearly a week.

The barrage of airstrikes on the city's rebel-held districts risks reigniting battlefronts there and could be the most serious threat to the ceasefire so far.

In southern Syria, government helicopters dropped barrels bombs on a rebel-held village, killing eight people.

The Syrian military called the airstrikes on the base in Deir el Zour, which is surrounded by Islamic State militants, a "serious and blatant attack on Syria and its military" and "firm proof of the US support of Daesh (IS) and other terrorist groups".

Russia's defence ministry said more than 60 Syrian soldiers were killed and around 100 wounded in four strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s.

A senior White House official said the US has relayed "regret" through the Russian government for the unintentional loss of life to Syrian forces.

US Central Command said the strike was immediately halted "when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military".

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A US military official told Reuters news agency the strike was carried out using US intelligence, and added that the possible targets had been followed for days.

Australia has said its aircraft participated in the airstrike and offered its condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded.

The Syrian military said the damage caused by the strike has allowed the IS extremists to advance their position on to a hill overlooking the base.

Three tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles, four mortars and an anti-aircraft gun were destroyed, a Syrian military spokesman said according to Russia's TASS news agency reported.

Following the strike, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting overnight at the request of the Kremlin.

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, rebuked Russia for the move.

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Ms Power said.

She said the US was investigating the airstrike and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life".

When asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark.

"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble."

He said he had never seen "such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness" as displayed by Ms Power at the acrimonious meeting.

The fragile ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia has largely held for five days, despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides.

It began on Monday, but aid convoys have been unable to enter rebel-held parts of the city of Aleppo - a key part of the deal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already questioned US commitment to the ceasefire, claiming Washington was not prepared to break with "terrorist elements" battling Bashar al Assad's forces.
By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States accused Russia of grandstanding on Saturday by calling a U.N. Security Council meeting over U.S.-led coalition air strikes in Syria, as Russia said the attacks killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and could endanger a truce deal between Moscow and Washington. The 15-member council met for an hour on Saturday evening after Russia and a war monitoring group said coalition jets bombed a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Washington was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life." She said Russia's decision to call a council meeting was "cynical and hypocritical" as Moscow had never expressed such outrage at the killing of civilians by Syrian government forces during more than five years of conflict. "Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power told reporters. The deal reached last Saturday aims to put Syria's peace process back on track. It included a fragile nationwide truce, improved humanitarian aid access and joint military targeting of banned Islamist groups. When asked if Saturday's air strikes spelled the end of the deal, Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark." "I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin told reporters. Churkin said it was a crucial time in the efforts to bring peace to Syria and the fight against terrorism. He said the United States could have waited until Moscow and Washington were to start joint military cooperation in two days instead of carrying out a "reckless" operation. "Who is in charge in Washington? Is it the White House or the Pentagon? Because we have heard statements from the Pentagon which simply fly in the face of what we have heard from President Obama and Secretary Kerry," he said. Both parties to the Syrian conflict have accused each other of being responsible for aid deliveries being stuck far from Aleppo. "All the permissions the Syrian government was supposed to give have been given for humanitarian supplies to reach people in need in various parts of Syria and that the humanitarian convoy to eastern Aleppo is supposed to leave tomorrow morning," Churkin said. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Paul Simao)
The Los Angeles Police Department is keeping alert.

The 2016 Emmy Awards take place on Sunday night, and in light of the explosions in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan and New Jersey over the weekend, the LAPD has taken steps to ensure the safety of the attendees.

"As you wake up this morning to the troubling events in New York and New Jersey, please rest assured we have been monitoring the situation throughout the night," police chief Charlie Beck told ET in a statement on Sunday. "As of this hour there are no known, specific, or credible threats here in Los Angeles."

"We have a number of high profile events in Los Angeles today with the return of the Rams to the Coliseum and the Emmys at Staples Center," he added. "People attending these events can most certainly feel safe, as our LAPD officers and other city partners have taken every step to ensure a secure environment."

RELATED: Lady Gaga, Laverne Cox, and More Stars React to New York Explosion

"Nevertheless, we ask everyone to stay vigilante and remember, 'If you see something, say something!'" said Beck.

The police chief also took to Twitter to reassure L.A. residents, writing, "#LAPD continues to work tirelessly to insure the safety of our communities and visitors in LA in light of the events in NYC and everyday."

#LAPD continues to work tirelessly to insure the safety of our communities and visitors in LA in light of the events in NYC and everyday.  Chief Charlie Beck (@LAPDChiefBeck) September 18, 2016

The Chelsea bombing left 29 injured, while a suspicious device reportedly found just blocks away. The same day, a bomb went off near a New Jersey Marine Corps charity event, and a man stabbed nine people in a Minnesota mall.

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Prague (AFP) - Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico on Sunday said he hoped a new border and coastguard force would be deployed on the European Union's outer frontiers by the end of 2016.

His statement came after European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker called earlier this week for a new EU border and coastguard force to start work quickly with 200 guards and 50 vehicles deployed in Bulgaria by October.

"The goal is very clear: to put into action European border guards and coastguards by the end of the year, with all that that entails," Fico told Czech television channel CT.

"All the legislative procedures concerning the matter have been carried out," he said, adding that his country would offer its full support to ensure the force was deployed.

Fico's statement came two days after European leaders gathered for a post-Brexit summit in the Slovak capital Bratislava.

The leaders agreed to forge a new "vision" within six months to restore faith and unity in the bloc which has been rocked by problems such as mass migration, security and a faltering economy.

"The summit proved that as far as the migration wave was concerned, EU policy was a failure," Fico said.

"That's what we were saying from the start," he said, referring to Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic -- known together as the Visegrad Group.

"Let's protect the outer borders and forbid the entry of illegal migrants, that's the only way," he said.

"We faced criticism for that. But today, that is the EU's official policy."
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A couple were watching TV at home Saturday night, when a single engine plane crashed into their house in Glibert, Arizona. Amazingly, the pair have escaped unharmed.

Local police say the small aircraft was part of a demonstration for the annual Constitutional Fair, and crashed around 7:30 p.m. MDT Saturday night after catching fire mid-air.

It was a crazy stroke of luck for the skydivers on board too, who were left equally unharmed after ejecting from the plane before it crashed.

The pilot also ejected before landing, but was not so lucky, being transported for treatment after suffering burns.

SEE ALSO: Hero saves smallest kitten ever on busy highway

Fire Captain says nothing short of a miracle that the couple watching TV @ the time of the crash are totally unharmed. @FOX10Phoenix  Marcy Jones (@MarcyJonesFox10) September 18, 2016

Initial footage of the incident was captured by local young people in the area, who were understandably very freaked out by the dangerous and Donnie Darko-esque event unfolding before them.

House fire: 400 block of E Baylor on-Aircraft crashed into house. pic.twitter.com/xo9rIj1wMJ  Gilbert Fire Rescue (@GilbertFireDept) September 18, 2016

Bystanders also captured footage of the skydivers and pilot, who landed nearby post-parachuting to safety.

Not something you see in the suburbs everyday.
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's anti-corruption watchdog has interviewed Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas as part of an investigation into whether President Jacob Zuma was influenced by the wealthy Gupta family in making government appointments, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. The paper said Public Protector Thuli Madonsela had written to Zuma informing him of her investigation into whether he breached the executive code of conduct. Madonsela has already interviewed Gordhan, his predecessor Nhlanhla Nene and deputy finance minister Jonas and will interview at least 20 other top officials and members of Zuma's cabinet, the paper said. "Partly the reason we subpoenaed them is because they shouldn't be seen as sell-outs but as law abiding citizens who are complying with the lawful order from an authorized institution," Madonsela told the paper, without elaborating. Presidency spokesman Bongani Ngqulunga confirmed to the paper that Zuma had received the letter from Madonsela and that it was "being processed." Madonsela said in June she would investigate "specifically whether or not the government of South Africa and specifically the president unlawfully allowed the Gupta family to choose ministers and other occupants of high office." The scandal surrounding the Gupta family took a dramatic turn earlier this year after Jonas said the Guptas had offered him his boss's job, an allegation that led to calls for Zuma to resign. Zuma has denied Jonas' claims, saying only the president appointed ministers, in line with the constitution. The Guptas have denied influencing Zuma, saying they were pawns in a political plot against the president. The Guptas, who moved to South Africa from India after apartheid fell in 1994, run businesses ranging from uranium and coal mining to media and information technology. Madonsela, whose term as public protector ends in October, previously received public support in South Africa for taking Zuma to task over the spending of 240 million rand ($16.94 million) of state money on upgrading his private home. She was vindicated in March when the Constitutional Court, the country's highest court, said Zuma had breached the constitution by ignoring her recommendation that he repay some money that was spent on non-security upgrades. Zuma handed back some of the funds.($1 = 14.1681 rand) (Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Susan Fenton)
TORONTO (Reuters) - Contract negotiations between Canada's Unifor union and General Motors Co were scheduled to continue around the clock on Sunday ahead of a Monday night strike deadline, the union said, with the two sides still far apart on the key issue of investment.

Unifor GM bargaining committee chair Greg Moffatt said the union and the company were still "miles apart on the key issue - product."

The automaker and the union representing its Canadian manufacturing workers have been divided over union demands that GM commit to new vehicle models at its Oshawa, Ontario, plant.

"I'm feeling much better today than I did yesterday but I'm still not feeling great," Unifor National President Jerry Dias told the Globe and Mail newspaper earlier on Sunday, calling the talks "constructive."

GM did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday evening.

A four-year contract covering the workers of GM, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ford Motor Co in the province of Ontario expires on Monday. The union chose GM as its strike target for contract talks, with any deal setting the pattern for the next round of talks with the other manufacturers.

Contract talks could save 2,500 jobs at GM's Oshawa car assembly or take the plant one step closer to closure. The automaker was already on the verge of shutting one of two assembly lines at its Oshawa plant, with several vehicles either produced in another country or expected to move in 2017.

There are no obvious products that would go into the Oshawa plant, and the automaker said previously it would only make future product decisions after a labor deal.

Canada has been struggling to get new investment from automakers in its once-thriving car industry, losing out to the Southern United States and lower-cost Mexico.

Between 2001 and 2013, some 14,300 jobs were lost in vehicle manufacturing in Canada, according to the Automotive Policy Research Center in Hamilton, Ontario.

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Still, the union has said it will not sign without a vehicle commitment, calling it pivotal for the future of Canada's auto industry. Pensions and wages are also on the table.

Without a deal, the union's 3,900 GM members would legally be considered on strike at midnight (0400 GMT) on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Ethan Lou and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Bill Trott and Sandra Maler)
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan said on Sunday it would close its border with South Sudan within days if its neighbor did not expel militant groups, the government told state media. Sudan regularly accuses its neighbor of backing insurgents in the Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions that run along its southern border. South Sudan split away from Sudan in 2011 after decades of civil war fueled by ethnic divides and disputes over oil. The border, regularly crossed by traders and pastoralists, was closed after the 2011 split and only re-opened last January. Speaking to state media on Sunday, Kamal Ismail, a minister of state in the foreign ministry, said that South Sudan had pledged to expel the militant groups within 21 days during a visit last month. Khartoum would re-seal the border if its neighbor did not meet this promise, Ismail said. The position of the border, particularly in the contested Abyei area, has been a constant source of tension, as has the legal status of southerners left living in the north and vice versa. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
By Feisal Omar and Abdi Sheikh MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A Somali general and at least seven of his bodyguards were killed on Sunday when their vehicle was rammed by a car bomb driven by an al Shabaab suicide attacker in the capital, police and the Islamist group said. Al Shabaab, which frequently launches attacks on officials in Mogadishu, staged this attack in the build-up to a vote for a new parliament and president, part of efforts to rebuild a nation that has been shattered by two decades of war and chaos. "Military General Mohamed Roble Jimale and at least seven of his bodyguards died," police colonel Abdikadir Farah told Reuters. "The suicide car bomb hit the car they were in. May God rest their souls." The general was known by the name Goobaanle. Somalis often have a nickname that is as commonly used as their proper name. Somalia's Andalus radio, which is linked to al Shabaab, said "a mujahid (fighter) was martyred as his suicide car bomb killed General Goobaanle." It said further details would follow later. Al Shabaab, which once ruled much of Somalia, wants to topple the Western-backed government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who is seeking re-election in the upcoming vote. Voting for the 275-seat parliament is scheduled to start on Sept. 25 and end on Oct. 10, with new lawmakers sworn in on Oct. 30. Those lawmakers will, in turn, pick a president on Oct. 30. Due to security concerns, including the continuing al Shabaab insurgency, voting will not be based on one-person-one-vote but instead about 14,000 people representing federal states across the nation will choose members of the legislative assembly. That is a fraction of Somalia's 11 million people, but is more than the 135 elders who picked the outgoing parliament in 2012. (Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Porlamar (Venezuela) (AFP) - Syria's UN ambassador accused the United States on Sunday of seeking the failure of a ceasefire in his country and backing the Islamic State group with a US-led coalition strike on Syrian soldiers.

"The objective of this US aggression is to bring about the failure of the truce agreed between Russia and the United States," said Bashar Jaafari, Syria's ambassador to the United Nations, speaking to journalists through an interpreter at a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Venezuela.

The US-Russian deal to halt a five-year war that has killed more than 300,000 people is on the brink of collapse after US-led airstrikes killed scores of Syrian soldiers on Saturday and a barrage of bombing raids hit rebel-held districts in the city of Aleppo on Sunday.

The Pentagon has admitted US-led pilots may have hit Syrian government forces, but it said they believed they were targeting an IS position.

In an address to the summit, Jaafari called the strikes "evidence of support by the United States and its allies for Daesh (IS) and other armed terrorist groups."

He said the strikes enabled IS to "immediately" take over the army position on a strategic hill near the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.

"That clearly proves there is a link," he said.

Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, and the United States, which leads a coalition fighting IS in the region, had heated exchanges over the fraying of the ceasefire at an emergency UN Security Council meeting Saturday.

The meeting produced "zero" results, Jaafari said, because the US, Britain and France refused to "take measures" to atone for Saturday's air strikes.

"US policy, in general terms, has committed dozens of similar mistakes," he told journalists.

"The United States attacks and violates countries' sovereignty with lies."

He said Syria planned to pressure for further Security Council meetings to hold Washington accountable.

"This won't stop here. Our friends on the Security Council, China and Russia, won't leave the matter at that," he said.

"US aggression must be dealt with immediately to avoid the spread of fighting in the region and put a stop to American hypocrisy and lies."
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday postponed his scheduled visit to Russia and the United States in the wake of the attack in Uri and the unrest in Jammu and Kashmir and called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the terror strike.

Singh also spoke to the Jammu and Kashmir Governor and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on the situation arising out of the terror strike in Uri.

The Home Minister was scheduled to leave for Russia tonight for a four-day bilateral visit and later to the US on 26 September for a six-day tour to attend the Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue.

"Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US," he said in a statement here.

The Home Minister said he has spoken to Governor NN Vohra and the Chief Minister and discussed with them the situation arising out of attack on a Army Brigade Headquarters in Uri and both of them apprised him of the overall situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

"I have given instructions to Home Secretary (Rajiv Mehrishi) and other officers in the Home Ministry to closely monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

Terror struck an Army camp in North Kashmir's Uri town when militants stormed a battalion headquarters in the wee hours of Sunday, leaving at least 10 Army men injured. Four militants have also been killed.

The Home Minister also called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the attack on the Brigade Headquarters in Uri.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the Union Home Secretary, top Army, paramilitary and Home Ministry officials are attending it.

Unrest in Kashmir Valley has been continuing for more than two months ever since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on 8 July in which nearly 80 people have lost their lives so far.

This was for the second time that Singh has cancelled his trip to the US due to violence in Kashmir. Earlier, he was scheduled to leave for the US on 17 July for a week-long visit but it was postponed due to sudden eruption of violence in Kashmir after Wani's killing.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The governor of Homs said hundreds of Syrian rebels would be evacuated from the last rebel-held area of the city on Monday, prompting rebels to warn that would amount to Damascus declaring the end of a truce. The tension over the district of al-Waer, the opposition's last foothold in Homs city, piled more pressure on the widely violated ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia that has been in effect since last Monday. The government has been seeking to conclude local agreements with rebels in besieged areas to give them safe passage to the insurgent stronghold of Idlib in northwestern Syria. The opposition to President Bashar al-Assad says such local agreements are part of a policy of forced displacement imposed on besieged populations after years of blockade and bombardment. Talal Barazi, the governor of Homs, told Reuters that between 250 to 300 fighters were due to leave Waer on Monday. He said an agreement now in its third phase would be complete within weeks. "At the end of it, Waer will be empty of weapons and gunmen," he said. A rebel statement signed by prominent groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner and the powerful Islamist faction Ahrar al-Sham said the opposition would fight on if an evacuation went ahead. "If any person is evacuated from al-Waer (district) or any other besieged district in Syria ... the regime will have clearly ended its commitment to any proposed truce, and all the revolutionary factions will continue in their legitimate right to fight it," the statement said. Waer is home to some 60,000 people. Some 300 insurgents left Waer for Idlib as part of an agreement concluded last December. The opposition was dealt a major blow last month when a local agreement resulted in the effective surrender of the insurgent-held Damascus suburb of Daraya to the government. The rebel statement said the opposition would review the entire political process if "international impotence" continued toward areas besieged by the government. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a number of fighters and people needing medical attention were expected to be evacuated from Waer on Monday. (Reporting by Tom Perry and Linda Barrington in Beirut and Kinda Makieh in Damascus; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
(Photo: Yahoo Newsroom)

Former presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bock has responded to comments made by Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam on changes to the Elected Presidency (EP), asking if there is some truth after all that the changes in the rules were to make sure l would not be eligible for the 2017 Presidential Election.



In a Facebook post on Saturday (17 September), Tan referred to a Channel NewsAsia report on a public dialogue session held on Thursday (15 September) to discuss the changes to the EP, following the governments release of a White Paper on the same day.

Shanmugam, who attended the session at South East CDC, brought up Tans name in response to a question regarding whether all these changes (to the EP) are just to ensure that some individuals will not get elected.

You might as well mention the name of Tan Cheng Bock Dr Tan wont qualify (under the new eligibility rules) because he didnt actually run a company. He was (a) non-executive. And of course the company is not S$500m shareholders equity, said the minister.



Under the proposed EP changes, presidential candidates would be required to be top executives from companies with $500 million in shareholders equity, a significantly higher amount than the current benchmark of $100 million in paid-up capital.

Tan, who had announced his intention to run in the 2017 presidential polls in March, responded to the comments, asking: Has he (Shanmugam) decided that the White Paper is law ahead of parliament debate?

It would be a sad day for Singaporeans if a Constitutional change was made because of an individual, he added.



Also raised during the dialogue session were issues such as mixed-race candidates and when the government could trigger a reserved election for a racial group that has not been represented in the presidential office for five consecutive terms.
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said a tanker that had been loading at the port of Ras Lanuf had withdrawn to a safe distance as rival forces clashed nearby on Sunday. "We understand the port of Ras Lanuf itself has not been affected by the fighting so far, though the situation is in flux," the NOC said in a statement. The NOC said a previously damaged oil storage tank in the neighboring port of Es Sider had been set on fire, but firefighting teams were expected to control the blaze shortly. (Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Patrick Markey)
Disabled people are being treated like second-class citizens by taxi firms, according to a cerebral palsy suffered who was recently quoted over 100 for a five-mile journey.



Nathan Popple hit out at taxi and private hire firms after he claims he was quoted 108 for a one-way journey of just 5.6 miles in a wheelchair accessible car.

The 18-year-old said his home town of Leeds feels like a no-go area for disabled people and has set up a website to rate services in the city and how they cater for disabled people.

Mr Popple claims he has been rejected travel by private hire drivers and that drivers of Hackney carriages or black cabs often fail to stop for him or help him in or out of vehicles.

The quote of over 100 from Adel in Leeds to Armley forms part of a complaint sent to operators, MPs and Leeds City Council leaders, that has sparked a council investigation.

Prices - Mr Popple says prices are awful for disabled people (Picture: Getty)

In the complaint, Mr Popple said despite advertisements from private hire firms claiming their vehicles are wheelchair accessible, prices are awful for disabled people.

He said: Complaints about these companies need to be taken seriously and real action needs to be taken against them. At the minute Leeds feels like a no-go area for disabled people.

MORE: William To The Rescue! Duke Of Cambridge Helps Out Elderly Dignitary Who Fell During Royal Appearance

MORE: Moby Was Visited By His Dead Father

Mr Popple claimed other firms offered the trip he was quoted 108 for as a return trip for 60 or 30 but offered either limited times or refused advanced bookings.

He added: There are endless stories of taxis not showing up, driving away or refusing to stop for disabled people, refusing to state a collection time or simply overcharging.

Fair - Mr Popple says he doesnt want special treatment, just fairness (Picture: SWNS)

Disabled people have a massive amount to give to our city. I am not asking for special treatment, I am asking for fairness.



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A spokeswoman for Leeds City Council said they were very concerned to hear about Mr Popples complaints.

She said: We are always very concerned to hear about taxi and private hire drivers in Leeds who do not treat all passengers equally and will be investigating Mr Popples complaints.



(Top picture: SWNS)
Jerusalem (AFP) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday Israel was boosting security ahead of the upcoming Jewish high holidays after the past few days saw a surge in violence.

Netanyahu's comments came after what Israeli authorities said was the fifth attack on security forces or civilians since Friday following a three-week lull.

The violence over the past few days came as Palestinians wrapped up the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting Sunday that the army and police "are boosting their forces" ahead of the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah, or Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur in October.

"The security forces are on heightened alert and I will meet with them today in order to ensure that we will be ready to defend our people during this sensitive period," he said.

Earlier Sunday, an assailant believed to be Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli officer in a West Bank settlement before being shot by forces at the scene, the army said.

It said a "terrorist carried out a stabbing attack in Efrat and wounded an officer".

Both were evacuated to the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, which said the perpetrator was in moderate condition after suffering a gunshot to his head, while the soldier, also in moderate condition, had been stabbed in the armpit.

Efrat is a short distance from the flashpoint city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, where a Palestinian stabbed a soldier on Saturday before being shot dead, Israeli authorities say.

On Friday, two Palestinians rammed a car into a bus stop used by Israelis near the adjacent Kiryat Arba settlement, causing injuries before troops killed one of the assailants, Israeli authorities said.

The same day, a Jordanian tried to stab a police officer in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem before being shot dead, according to Israeli authorities.

Jordan called the shooting a "barbaric act" and alleged that the man killed was part of a group of tourists.

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The Israeli army announced on Saturday it was deploying an additional battalion to reinforce the Hebron area following the uptick in violence around the city.

Violence since last October has killed 227 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, one Eritrean and a Sudanese, according to an AFP count.

Israeli forces say most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks. Others were shot dead during protests and clashes or killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Many analysts say Palestinian frustration with the Israeli occupation and settlement-building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have fed the unrest.

Israel says incitement by Palestinian leaders and media is a leading cause of the violence.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since capturing it in the Six-Day War of 1967.
MANILA (Reuters) - Three Indonesian fishermen held by Islamic State-linked rebels in the Philippines have been released, a Philippine military spokesman said on Sunday, just hours after the militias freed a Norwegian man after a year-long ordeal. The Indonesians - identified as Lorence Koten, Teo Doros Kofong, and Emmanuel Arakian - were released by the Abu Sayyaf group on Saturday night at an undisclosed place in Sulu in the Southwest Philippines, said spokesman Major Filemon Tan. They were taken on July 9 this year from the Malaysian state of Sabah, he said. The Indonesians were set free just hours after the same group notorious for kidnappings, beheadings and extortion released Norwegian captive Kjartan Sekkingstad, who met President Rodrigo Duterte in Davao City on Sunday evening. Sekkingstad was taken from an upscale resort on Samal island in Davao del Norte along with a Filipina, who has already been freed, and two Canadians, whom the militants later executed. While it is widely believed that no captives are released by the Abu Sayyaf without the payment of ransom, the Philippine government said it did not pay the group and was unaware of any payment made by other parties for the release of the victims. "I would like to reiterate that the government maintains the no-ransom policy," Communications Minister Martin Andanar said. Now if there was a third party who made the payment, if it's the family (of those kidnapped), we are not aware of that." The Philippine military insists the release of the kidnap victims was a result of the ongoing intensified military operations against the Abu Sayyaf, with the assistance of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), one of the two major Muslim rebel groups based in the south of the mainly Catholic nation. In a media briefing in Davao City, Duterte lauded the efforts of his peace adviser Jesus Dureza, former Sulu Governor Abdusakur Mahail Tan, and MNLF leader Nur Misuari. Dureza confirmed the release of the Indonesian captives. Duterte told Sekkingstad and the Norwegian government that justice would be sought for his abduction. "I am very happy to be alive and free," Sekkingstad said at the briefing. A new round of peace talks between the Philippine government and the Maoist-led rebels resumed in Norway in August to end nearly five decades of conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people. (Reporting by Enrico dela Cruz and Manuel Mogato; Editing by Eric Meijer and Elaine Hardcastle)
New York (AFP) - US police found multiple improvised explosive devices in New Jersey, one of which detonated, the FBI said Monday as investigators probed three attacks carried out on US soil in one day.

Authorities say there is no evidence the attacks were coordinated but their timing in less than 24 hours raised fears about security -- already a major issue in the country's deeply divisive presidential election battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

In the latest incident, "there was a suspicious package with multiple improvised explosive devices" found at the Elizabeth, New Jersey train station, tweeted the FBI's Newark office after the devices were found late Sunday.

"In the course of rendering one of the devices safe, it detonated," the FBI said, adding that nobody was injured.

Earlier the mayor of the city of Elizabeth, Chris Bollwage, told journalists that two men had found the package late Sunday and informed authorities after noticing "wires and a pipe."

Police had already been investigating a Manhattan bombing, a Minnesota mass stabbing and a New Jersey pipe bomb blast.

New York went on full alert, deploying nearly 1,000 extra state police and National Guardsmen to airports, bus terminals and subway stations as President Barack Obama arrived in the city ahead of Tuesday's opening of the UN General Assembly.

- NYC bomb injures 29 -

Twenty-nine people were injured when a bomb exploded in New York's upmarket Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday night, damaging buildings, shattering glass and sending shrapnel flying across the street.

Police uncovered a second bomb four blocks away and defused it safely, before sending it to the FBI in Virginia for forensic examination.

Both bombs were filled with shrapnel and made with pressure cookers, flip phones, Christmas lights and explosive compound, The New York Times reported late Sunday, citing law enforcement officials.

The paper also said, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, that federal authorities detained and were questioning five people with possible links to the New York bombing.

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The FBI's New York branch tweeted that officers "did a traffic stop of a vehicle of interest" but "no one has been charged with any crime."

In New Jersey on Saturday, a pipe bomb exploded in a trash can on the route of a Marine Corps run before the start of the race, causing no injuries but forcing its cancellation.

On Sunday, rail services in that state were suspended between Newark airport and Elizabeth as reports of the suspicious package there emerged.

In the Midwest, an assailant reported to be Somali-American went on a stabbing spree in a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, injuring nine people before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer.

US authorities said the motive of all three attacks was unclear, but officials quickly identified them as terror-related.

"If you look at a number of these incidents, you can call them whatever you want: they are terrorism though," New Jersey's Republican Governor Chris Christie, a member of the Trump campaign, told CNN.

- 'No ISIS connection' -

"A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it's not linked to international terrorism," Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday after touring the scene of the explosion in Chelsea.

"In other words, we find no ISIS connection, etcetera," said Cuomo in reference to the Islamic State group. But he also stressed the lack of an international terror link was preliminary.

There was no claim for the bombings in Manhattan or New Jersey, but a jihadist-linked news agency, Amaq, claimed that an IS "soldier" carried out the Minnesota stabbings.

Clinton, whose lead in the polls has taken a dip, condemned what she called "apparent terrorist attacks."

Trump meanwhile tweeted his "best wishes and condolences to all of the families and victims of the horrible bombing."

- 'References to Allah' -

Fifteen years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, officials stress that the United States is safer from terror plots that originate from overseas but more at risk from the lone-wolf attack perpetrated by individuals who may be inspired by IS or Al-Qaeda propaganda.

In Minnesota, FBI agent Rick Thornton confirmed that federal agents were investigating the stabbing as "a potential act of terrorism," as local media identified the suspect as a 22-year-old Somali-American.

Police confirmed that the assailant asked some victims whether they were Muslim before attacking them and made "references to Allah."

"In many of these cases, we don't know until two, three or four days later whether or not there is a terrorist link," warned New York Congressman Peter King in a CBS television interview.
By Andrei Makhovsky MINSK (Reuters) - The election in Belarus of lawmakers critical of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has split pro-democracy activists in the ex-Soviet republic once dubbed Europe's last dictatorship. Many argue that the appointments are a token gesture to the West from Lukashenko aimed at improving ties at a time of economic crisis and strained relations with main ally, Russia. Others say it offers a small chance for the beleaguered opposition to pull itself out of the shadows. On Sept. 11, Anna Kanopatskaya, a little-known member of the pro-Western United Civil Party, won a place in parliament - the first time a member of an opposition party has won a seat in 20 years. Independent candidate Alena Anisim, who has links to the opposition, was also elected. Several senior opposition figures, including Nikolai Statkevich who ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 presidential race, said the pair should turn down the seats in protest at the election process. Foreign observers said the election was broadly undemocratic, citing falsifications of voter turnout and lack of transparency with early vote counting. "It's a matter of conscience. They have been appointed, like all the others. We don't have elected MPs," said Statkevich, who was imprisoned for nearly five years for organizing opposition protests. But Kanopatskaya, who has been a member of her party since 1994, said it would be unwise to turn down the opportunity to improve the visibility of the opposition movement. "We have been in the shadows too long. If this chance has fallen into our laps, we need to use it," she told Reuters, describing her shock when she heard she had won the seat. The opposition in Belarus is made up of about a dozen parties and groups that have struggled to popularize their cause in the face of government repression. They say they have thousands of supporters, but in recent years rallies have attracted only a few dozen protesters. Lukashenko has run Belarus along Soviet-style command lines since 1994 and the powers of the Belarussian parliament are limited by the constitution. Its members are government officials, managers of state firms and presidential allies, but as a lawmaker Kanopatskaya will have a legal platform from which to voice dissent. "For the opposition this is a success. It's clear that they (Kanopatskaya and Anisim) were appointed, but this is a chance to return to the political system," said political analyst Aleksandr Klaskovsky. "The election showed that the opposition can be a player, but only if it plays." OVERTURES TO THE WEST Kanopatskaya, 39, is the director of a law firm and the daughter of Belarus's first millionaire businessman, who was a close friend of former Prime Minister Mikhail Chigir. Chigir resigned in 1996 in protest at Lukashenko's move to consolidate power. In the intervening years, Lukashenko, a former collective farm manager, kept critics on a tight rein and Belarus in close alliance with Russia, benefiting from cheap gas and oil, loans and a large market for exports. However, some cracks appeared in the relationship following Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Since then Minsk has made overtures to the West, seeking improved trade ties and foreign loans and investment to shore up its economy, which contracted 3.9 percent in 2015 partly due to contagion from a protracted recession in Russia. Granting the opposition some political representation is a calculated move from Lukashenko to suggest he is heeding Western calls for democracy, said Vladimir Neklyayev, who also ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 election. "Two or three opposition lawmakers were the conditions of the West ... Lukashenko has rolled over for the West," he said. The election results follow the release of political prisoners last August, long-demanded by the West. Lukashenko's role in hosting Ukraine-Russia peace talks also eased international criticism of the veteran leader. The European Union ended five years of sanctions against Belarus in February. The United States has also relaxed some of its restrictions on Minsk and said the authorities' handling of the lastest election would be a factor in an upcoming review of sanctions. While foreign observers have welcomed the election of opposition candidates, they made clear Belarus still has a long way to go in democratic terms. "Citizen's right to a free and fair election continued to be abused in the grip of entrenched repressive laws and institutions," said Miklos Haraszti, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus. Kanopatskaya's appointment is a "lipstick measure on a face of violations," he said. (Writing by Alessandra Prentice; editing by Anna Willard)
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in La La Land (Photo: Venice Film Festival)

Damien Chazelles La La Land has joined the search for the next Oscar front-runner out of the Toronto Film Festival after picking up the top Peoples Choice award on Sunday.

La La Land, which stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone and bowed in Venice, was named the top audience prize winner in Toronto, which is often a barometer of future Academy Award nominations. The Peoples Choice award is voted on by ordinary Toronto fest-goers, either with their ticket stubs placed in a box in a theater or with an online vote.

Related: La La Land: Venice Review



Chazelles follow-up to Whiplash is an L.A.-set musical about a couple of Hollywood strivers who fall in love. The Summit/Lionsgate release is set for a December opening.

Chazelle in a statement said he was overwhelmed by La La Land taking the top audience award in Toronto. To make this movie was a dream come true, and to see it connect with Toronto audiences in this way is deeply gratifying. I wanted this film to speak in a way that even the most far-fetched dreams can guide us, and everything about this moment feels surreal, he said.

Toronto ballots have traditionally chimed with the Academy voting, as previous Toronto Film Festival audience award winners like 12 Years a Slave, Slumdog Millionaire, and the Brie Larson-starrer Room last year rode a wave out of Toronto to Academy Awards glory after earning the Peoples Choice award.

The first runner-up for the top audience award was the Dev Patel-starrer Lion, directed by Garth Davis and which bowed in Toronto, and the second runner up was Mira Nairs Queen Of Katwe. Chazelles La La Land opened the Venice festival and had the coveted Friday afternoon Patron Preview slot in Telluride before arriving in Toronto, and gathered award season buzz along the way.

Related: Queen of Katwe: Toronto Review

The Peoples Choice award for best Midnight Madness sidebar title went to Ben Wheatleys Free Fire, which stars Brie Larson. The first runner up was Andre vredals The Autopsy of Jane Doe, and the second runner up was Julia Ducournaus Raw.

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And the top audience award for a documentary was picked up by Raoul Pecks I Am Not Your Negro, which is based on an unfinished James Baldwin novel. The second runner up was Fisher Stevens Before the Flood, and the first runner up is Steve James ABACUS: Small Enough to Jail.

Elsewhere, the Platform award for best international film was picked up by Jackie, by Pablo Larrain and starring Natalie Portman. And the NETPAC award for the best Asian film receiving a world or international premiere in Toronto was given to Maysaloun Hamouds In Between, an Arabic and Israeli language film about three Palestinian women living in Tel Aviv.

Mbithi Masyas Kati Kati, a Kenya-Germany co-production, nabbed the FIPRESCI critics prize for the best title in the Discovery sidebar. And the FIPRESCI jurys best Special Presentations program title went to I Am Not Madame Bovary, by Chinese director Fen Xiaogang, who accepted the prize via video link alongside lead Fan Bingbing from the San Sebastian festival.

Related: Lion: Toronto Review

The best Canadian feature film trophy went to Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves, a three hour drama about a radical Quebec leftist cell in Montreal by directors Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie that had its world bow in Toronto.

And the best Canadian first feature film award was grabbed by Old Stone, a Mandarin language drama directed by Johnny Ma that debuted in Berlin and had a North American premiere in Toronto. The best Canadian short-film award went to Alexandre Dosties Mutants, while the best short film in the TIFF lineup was Imago, a first film by director Raymund Ribay Gutierrez.

La La Land: Watch a trailer:


Just when you thought the disease-of-the-week genre had run out of diseases, along comes Brain on Fire, a made-for-TV-style look at anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, an extremely rare autoimmune disorder that transforms an ambitious (but otherwise supremely uninteresting) young New York Post reporter into a raving psychotic. Based on the bestselling memoir by Susannah Cahalan, played here by Chloe Grace Moretz as a teeth-gnashing, plate-smashing nut case in apparent need of an exorcism, this embarrassingly earnest film  produced by Charlize Theron  argues for the importance of doctors going the extra mile, when textbook diagnoses wont do. Its the sort of role for which the Razzies were invented, and what little audience it finds will almost certainly be heckling as they watch Moretz implode.

If ever there was a movie for Lindsay Lohan  who followed a similar path of promise, meltdown, and tentative recovery  this is it, though the role was originally earmarked for Dakota Fanning. Moretz is a fine actress who comes across as little more than a puffy-looking Cabbage Patch Kid here: a bland, doll-faced blonde whos tired of writing softball stories about social media, but wants to make a name for herself at work. On the continuum of young female characters determined to break into the unforgiving New York shark tank, Susannah falls somewhere between Anne Hathaways entitled The Devil Wears Prada assistant and the no-boundaries young journalist Morgan Saylor plays in the infinitely edgier White Girl  though shes lucky to have a wise-cracking desk-mate (Jenny Slate) and compassionate editor (Tyler Perry!) in her corner.

She has also snagged New Yorks most vanilla boyfriend, a relatively ambitionless musician played by Thomas Mann, who serenades her in the buff and seems to get along just fine with her divorced parents (Richard Armitage and Carrie-Anne Moss). We meet the latter, along with their new flames, at a confusing birthday picnic, when 24-year-old Susannah notices the first symptom that something isnt right: She cant blow out the candles on her own cake. Soon, shes hearing voices, vacantly clutching her forehead, and stepping in front of taxi cabs  basically, acting like that first character to be infected in a zombie movie, the one who takes half an hour to realize whats happening to her brain, but powerless to reverse the process. If the movie were better written, the effect would be no less horror-movie-worthy, since, for all intents and purposes, no one can identify whats wrong with her.

A doctor with 20 years experience (Vincent Gale) takes one look and dismisses it as a standard case of partying too hard. Susannahs parents arent too sure, demanding that the medical establishment do its job. Meanwhile, Moretz plays the characters mounting paranoia like something out of daytime television, persecuted by water dripping in the sink at home (What!? Do it again! she challenges the offending faucet) or climbing on cabinets and shrieking at her colleagues at work. All of this feels far removed from director Gerard Barretts sphere of comfort. What distinguished the Irish helmers first two features  Pilgrim Hill and Glassland, in which Toni Collette plunged alcoholisms raw rock bottom  was precisely his ability to resist the kind of cutesy melodrama hes cooked up here.

After decades of celebrating the commitment of actors for sensitively portraying physical and mental disorders on-screen, audiences have become wary of indulgent (and worse, patronizing) stunt performances, a la Gary Oldmans turn as a dwarf in Tiptoes or Rosie ODonnell playing it slow in Riding the Bus with My Sister. We live in an era of ironic detachment  the age of snark  in which jaded audiences have an increasingly hard time keeping a straight face when confronted with such superficial bids for empathy. (Contrast that with another Toronto film festival premiere, Maudie, which practically ignores its protagonists crippling arthritis in an attempt to capture her soul instead.) But who is the real Susannah Cahalan? Apart from her ailment, why should we care? This film suggests that all she needed was a good doctor (played here by Navid Negahban) to restore her otherwise perfect life, though any script doctor can tell you the films problems run deeper than that, and chances are, if you could cut past the glib first-person narration, Cahalan has a far more compelling story to tell.

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This Immigrant Doctor Is Reimagining Health in the American City

For many members of the trans community, adopting a new name that corresponds with their gender identity is a momentous step toward living a more authentic life. But for some trans residents of Indiana, that step is out of reach because of their citizenship status.

This week, the Transgender Law Center and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of John Doe, a trans immigrant who has kept his name anonymous to ensure privacy. The suit challenges a law that prohibits noncitizens from changing their legal names.

I want to use a name that is in line with my true identity, Doe said in a press release. He lives in Indiana legally but is not a citizen. Without a legal name change, I am forced to use an ID that is inconsistent with who I am and puts me in danger of harassment, violence, and being outed as transgender whenever I present it.

Doe, a 31-year-old Mexican citizen, moved to Indiana with his parents when he was six years old. Doe was first granted Deferred Action for Early Childhood Arrivals status and received asylum because of his gender identity last year.

Doe has lived his entire adult life as a man, and all of his official documents identify his sex as male. Because he has a traditionally female name, the authenticity of his ID is often questioned, and hes forced to reveal his gender identity to strangers. He will be able to apply for citizenship within the next five years, but in the meantime, Doe risks violence and harassment.

But for [John Does] noncitizenship status, hed be able to fully transition, to be a man living in the United States, Matthew Barragan, a staff attorney at MALDEF, told TakePart.

The complaint argues that barring a legal name change is in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits discrimination based on citizenship.

The complaint lists Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and other state officials as defendants. Pences office did not respond to TakeParts request for comment.

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In 2010, the Indiana legislature passed a law that bars noncitizens, including those living in the U.S. legally, from changing their names. The authors of the bill argued that it would prevent immigrants from committing identity theft. MALDEF has found that Indiana is the only state in the nation with a law that prohibits the changing of names by noncitizens.

Transgender immigrants arent the only people affected by Indianas law. In the days since the complaint was filed, Barragan has heard from a number of Indiana residents who are unable to change their names, including refugees whose names were copied down improperly when they fled their home countries. They are unable to correct errors that create conflicting names on their legal documents and thus cause additional barriers to gaining legal residency.

[The legislature] believed that immigrants were more likely to commit fraud and illegal activity, Barragan said. We find that law to be discriminatory and unjust and have no rational basis.

Ironically, for John Doe, maintaining a female name that does not match his gender expression has led to accusations of fraud.

When he goes to bars hes had experience with bartenders or managers thinking his ID is fake because it says male and it has a feminine name, and he presents as male, Barragan explained. Those of us who have a name that corresponds to our gender marker dont have an issue with that.

The complaint also details an encounter in an emergency room during which Doe was forced to reveal that he was transgender, only to have hospital staff gawk and laugh at him before he received care.

That type of treatment has been common for him, Barragan said. Hes not able to live his life the way he wants, and hes always forced to make this explanation to people he doesnt really know. He doesnt know if theyll be friendly. He feels he shouldnt have to do that, and we agree with him.

Take the Pledge: Dont Be Silent: Take the Pledge to Be an Ally for Racial Justice

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Original article from TakePart
Donald Trump states that he believes President Obama was born in the United States at a campaign event in Washington, D.C., Sept. 16, 2016. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

The Donald Trump campaign fanned out across the television airwaves on Sunday morning, insisting the birther issue was put to rest long before the Republican nominee publicly admitted President Obama was born in the United States.

It wasnt like he was talking about it on a regular basis, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on CNNs State of the Union Sunday. And when the issue was raised, he made very clear the other day what his position is.

Christie said Trump had accepted that Obama was an American citizen in 2011 when the president released his long-form birth certificate  despite the fact that Trump fueled the conspiracy theory in interviews and on Twitter for at least five more years.

An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012

Its just not true that he kept it up for five years, Christie said.

Sure it is, CNNs Jake Tapper replied.

In a January interview with Tappers colleague Wolf Blitzer, Trump said hed reveal his theory on Obamas birthplace in a book.

Who knows about Obama?  Who knows, who knows? Who cares right now? Trump said. I have my own theory on Obama. Someday, I will write a book. I will do another book, and it will do very successfully.

On Friday, Trump offered no apology for his part in leading the birther movement. Instead, he wrongly took credit for ending the issue  something Obama himself did when he released his birth certificate  while falsely blaming Hillary Clinton of first raising questions about Obamas birthplace in 2008.

Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy, Trump said without taking questions from reporters. I finished it.

This started with Hillary Clintons campaign, No. 1, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told CBS Face the Nation. No. 2, it was Donald Trump who put the issue to rest when he got President Obama to release his birth certificate years later.

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Christie said birtherism was an issue that Mrs. Clinton also injected into her campaign in 2008 in a very quiet but direct way.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Trumps running mate, said on ABCs This Week that the birther movement can be traced all the way back to Hillary Clintons campaign  the facts speak for themselves. When pressed, Pence declined to elaborate.

Conway said that in 2007 and 2008 while the Clintons were pushing this theory, Trump was a successful businessman who was building things.

But there is no evidence the Clintons played any role in pushing birtherism.

Patti Solis Doyle, who worked for the Clinton campaign in 2008, told CNN on Friday that a volunteer in Iowa who had forwarded a memo during the Democratic primary suggesting Obama was secretly a Muslim was quickly fired.

Team Trump also tried to blame the media for reviving the birther issue.

This is not what the American people are talking about, Pence said, calling it a sidebar debate Trump is no longer interested in having.

He hasnt been talking about it, Pence said.

Why did it take him so long to put it to an end? ABCs Martha Raddatz asked.

Its over, Pence replied.

Its not over, Raddatz said.

Its certainly not over for the Clinton campaign, which is hoping voters  particularly African-Americans  dont forget Trumps role in perpetuating the conspiracy.

For five years, he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president, Clinton said on Friday before Trumps admission. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie.

She added, There is no erasing it in history.
By Alana Wise WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump's vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, said he views former vice president Dick Cheney as a role model for the No. 2 job in the administration. "I frankly hold Dick Cheney in really high regard in his role as vice president and as an American," Pence said in an interview on ABC's "This Week" that was taped on Saturday and aired on Sunday. "Vice President Cheney had experience in Congress as I do and he was very active in working with members of the House and the Senate," Pence said. Cheney, vice president to Republican George W. Bush, was known for wielding strong influence in the administration, particularly in Bush's first term. Cheney was a forceful advocate of the decision to invade Iraq and some aides to Bush have said they believed he wielded too much power. Pence said he had spoken with Trump about areas he would focus on as vice president but said he did not want to discuss their private conversations. Cheney has said he will support Trump in the Nov. 8 election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. (Reporting by Alana Wise; Editing by Caren Bohan and Bill Trott)
Johannesburg (AFP) - Spiralling debt, massive losses and a widely-criticised boss.

For many, the problems besetting South African Airways (SAA), the state-owned national airline, are emblematic of issues roiling President Jacob Zuma's government and fuelling unease among foreign investors.

SAA is "on the brink of disaster", Mmusi Maimane, head of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party, said in a blunt summary of the situation this week.

The airline was going through "serious challenges, including governance and financial difficulties," agreed Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, who says that without government support SAA is technically insolvent.

Financial reports presented to parliament on Thursday -- some of them two years late -- paint a grim picture: in 2014-2015, the airline made a 4.7-billion rand ($330 million) loss.

While the scale of the problem is beyond question, the cause of the rot is subject to fierce political debate.

Gordhan this month approved an application for a loan guarantee worth 4.7 billion rand -- bringing the total in state guarantees to the airline up to 19 billion rand -- with a strict list of requirements.

"It will not be business as usual," said Gordhan, who is seen as engaged in a battle with Zuma over the treasury's control of economic policy.

SAA has been compelled to publish its overdue annual reports, name a chief financial officer as the position was vacant since November, close unprofitable routes and aggressively cut costs.

- Misuse of public funds? -

"The primary focus of the board must be to return the airline to financial sustainability," Gordhan said.

The required measures are considerable, but some doubt they will be enough to turn the floundering company around.

The opposition alleges that SAA suffers from an ailment, which it claims, afflicts many of the country's state-owned enterprises: the misuse of public funds by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

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It accuses the airline's chairwoman Dudu Myeni of alleged incompetence.

Critics allege she has a close personal relationship with Zuma -- a claim the president was forced to deny last year -- but that did not stop Myeni being recently reappointed to her post despite fierce objections.

"Dudu Myeni has wrecked SAA and the cabinet decision to reappoint her as chairperson was irrational," the DA claimed.

The decision was also seen as a snub to Gordhan, who opposed Myeni's reappointment and who has clashed with a long list of Zuma loyalists after vowing to battle poor governance and graft.

Without naming Myeni directly, Gordhan fired back earlier this year, denouncing "individuals" who abuse state entities "as if it's their personal toy from which you can extract money when you feel like it".

The president, for his part, has in public tried to stay above the fray.

In parliament this week, he reaffirmed his confidence in Myeni, saying "I have seen her working", while also saying "there is no war between the presidency and the treasury".

- 'Symptom of broad problem' -

The threat of an investment downgrade by ratings agencies has loomed ominously on the horizon throughout the year, and the battle for control of South Africa's public enterprises has investors worried.

A recent cabinet decision to entrust the president with oversight of state-owned companies -- a task which has previously fallen to ministers -- has done little to calm their fears.

Shortly afterwards, South African asset manager Futuregrowth announced that it would stop lending to six of the largest "parastatals", including state power provider Eskom.

Futuregrowth said it was concerned with how the companies were being run, as well as with "government infighting and threats to the independence of the finance ministry".

The fate of SAA "is a symptom of a broad problem across state-owned enterprises," Nick Binedell, a professor at the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria told AFP.

"The scale of the financial challenge now does put SAA and the country brand in a difficult position."
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Foreign ministers for the United States, Japan and South Korea met in New York on Sunday, ahead of U.N. meetings, to discuss stepped-up measures against North Korea and expand collaboration with one another after Pyongyang's fifth and largest nuclear test. The Sept. 9 blast was in defiance of U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March. The meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and their South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, was the first since the latest nuclear test. It will be one of the main issues discussed by world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week. In a joint statement, the ministers said North North's disregard for multiple U.N. resolutions prohibiting its missile and nuclear programs called for even stronger international pressure. North Korea has been testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at an unprecedented rate this year under leader Kim Jong Un. "They discussed the important work currently taking place in the Security Council to further sanction North Korea and considered other possible measures of their own, in particular ways to further restrict revenue sources for the DPRK's missile and nuclear programs, including through illicit activities," the ministers' statement said. "They reaffirmed that they remain open to credible and authentic talks aimed at full and verifiable denuclearization of the DPRK," the statement said, referring to the country's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The United States has said it is willing to negotiate with the North if the country commits to denuclearization, which Pyongyang has refused to do. Washington has pressed Beijing, which is Pyongyang's most important diplomatic backer and trading partner, to do more to rein in North Korea. China has expressed anger with North Korea for its largest nuclear test to date, but has not said directly whether it will support tougher sanctions. It has said it believes sanctions are not the ultimate answer and called for a return to talks. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Peter Cooney)
By Angus McDowall and Andrew Osborn BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition air strikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire and prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated. The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit. The United States relayed its "regret" through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement that Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area. The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardizing the Syria deal. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move. "Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power told reporters. She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life." When asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark." "I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin told reporters. Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping the jihadist militants. "We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying. Power said Zakharova should be embarrassed by that claim. Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the United States colluding with Islamic State militants. Zakharova said the strikes threatened to undermine the ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, which has been aiding Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, and the United States, which has backed some rebel groups. The Russian Defence Ministry said U.S. jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 90 Syrian soldiers had been killed. Australia also participated in the strikes and the Australian Department of Defence offered its condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded in the incident. The ceasefire, which took effect on Monday, is the most significant peacemaking effort in Syria for months, but has been undermined by repeated accusations of violations on both sides and by a failure to bring humanitarian aid to besieged areas. Apart from the U.S. and Russian involvement, Assad is supported by Iran and Arab Shi'ite militias, while Sunni rebels seeking to unseat him are backed by Turkey and Gulf Arab states. All the warring parties are also sworn enemies of Islamic State, whose territory extends along the Euphrates valley from the Iraqi border, including around Deir al-Zor, up to land near Syria's frontier with Turkey. In its sixth year, the conflict has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced half of Syria's pre-war population, prompted a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe and inspired a wave of jihadist attacks across the world. Syria's army said the U.S.-led strikes, which took place at around 5 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) were "conclusive evidence" of U.S. support for Islamic State, calling them "dangerous and blatant aggression". The U.S. military said in its statement that Syria was a "complex situation" but that "coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit". Islamic State said via its Amaq news channel it had taken complete control of Jebel Tharda, where the bombed position was located, which would have allowed it to overlook government-held areas of Deir al-Zor. The city's airport and some districts have been entirely surrounded by Islamic State since last year, with the airport providing their only external access. However, Russia and Syrian state media said the Syrian army later recaptured positions it had lost. The Observatory monitoring group said at least 30 Islamic State fighters were killed in heavy Russian air strikes during that fighting. The incident also threatens to undermine proposed joint targeting by the United States and Russia of Islamic State and some other jihadist groups across Syria. SHAKY TRUCE Earlier on Saturday, Russia and Syrian rebels cast doubt over the prospects for the increasingly shaky ceasefire, with Moscow saying the situation was worsening and a senior insurgent warning that the truce "will not hold out". While the ceasefire has reduced fighting, some violence has persisted across Syria. Meanwhile, there has been little movement on promised aid deliveries to besieged areas and both sides have accused the other of bad faith. The U.N. told Reuters aid trucks which had been expected to move to Aleppo on Sunday morning, were once again being delayed. "Obviously the humanitarian community is very frustrated by this. We have hoped to go today with the convoys," David Swanson, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. "We stand ready to begin the response effort as soon as we get the green light." Russia's Defence Ministry said conditions in Syria were deteriorating, adding that it believed the ceasefire had been breached 199 times by rebels and saying the United States would be responsible if it were to collapse. After the Deir al-Zor attack, it said Moscow had told the United States to rein in the Syrian opposition and make sure it did not launch a new offensive, adding that it had informed Washington about a concentration of rebels north of Hama. Insurgents say they only reluctantly accepted the initial deal, which they believe is skewed against them, because it could relieve the dire humanitarian situation in besieged areas they control, and blamed Russia for undermining the truce. "The truce, as we have warned, and we told the (U.S.) State Department - will not hold out," a senior rebel official in Aleppo said, pointing to the continued presence of a U.N. aid convoy at the Turkish border awaiting permission to enter. Rebels have also accused Russia of using the ceasefire to give the Syrian army and allied Shi'ite militias a chance to regroup and deploy forces ready for their own offensives. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Katya Golubkova and Andrew Osborn in Moscow, Olesya Astakhova in Bishkek, Phil Stewart in Split, Croatia, Patricia Zengerle in Washington, Michelle Nichols in New York, Humeyra Pamuk and Yesim Dikmen in Istanbul and Harry Pearl in Sydney.; Editing by Dominic Evans and Toby Chopra)
BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition jets bombed a Syrian army position at Jebel Tharda near Deir al-Zor airport on Saturday, killing dozens of Syrian soldiers, Russia and a war monitor said, paving the way for Islamic State to briefly overrun it. The U.S. military, in an apparent admission that it may have hit the position, said in a statement that coalition air strikes near Deir al-Zor had been halted when Russia told coalition officials they may have hit the Syrian army. Syria's army general command said in a statement that the air strike was "conclusive evidence" of U.S. support for Islamic State, noting that the strike was "dangerous and blatant aggression". Islamic State said in a statement on its Amaq news channel that it had gained "complete control" over Jebel Tharda but both Syrian state television and Russian state media said the positions lost to the militant group were later recaptured. The defence ministry in Russia, which has been aiding Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, said U.S. jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq. "Syria is a complex situation with various military forces and militias in close proximity, but coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit," U.S. officials said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group with contacts across the country, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying that at least 80 Syrian soldiers had been killed in the strike. Russia's Defence Ministry said that if the coalition bombing was a mistake, it was evidence of Washington's "stubborn refusal" to coordinate its actions with Russia's government. The U.S.-led coalition has been conducting air strikes against Islamic State since September 2014 and is also supporting rebels against Assad elsewhere in Syria. The Observatory said that Russian jets had been conducting bombing in the area at the same time, and that violent clashes took place afterwards between Islamic State and the Syrian army around the position. Syria's army controls Deir al-Zor airport and parts of the city which are otherwise entirely surrounded by territory held by Islamic State. The United States and Russia agreed a deal on Syria last week, involving a ceasefire which came into effect on Monday, aid deliveries to besieged areas and eventual joint targeting of militant jihadist groups if the truce works out. Syria's war between Assad and rebels seeking to topple him has drawn in regional and global powers and allowed militant jihadist groups including Islamic State to gain territory and inspire attacks. (Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Louise Ireland and Dominic Evans)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has relayed "regret" through the Russian government for the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in a coalition strike on Saturday, a senior Obama administration official said. The United States will continue to pursue compliance with a ceasefire in Syria as it continues military action against Islamic State and al Qaeda, the official said in an emailed statement. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Mary Milliken)
In caves deep underground in France's Champagne region lie thousands of shells that are 45 million years old, a site researchers describe as "rare and exceptional" -- and which may have influenced the flavour of the local bubbly.

"It's my paradise," says Patrice Legrand, a champagne producer and owner of the "Cave aux Coquillages" or Shell Cave, in the Montagne de Reims regional park in northeastern France.

Legrand, 55, who is also an amateur paleontologist, acquired the vineyard in the early 1990s and set about excavating the caves, which are now open to the public.

Trapped in a thick layer of limestone, in around 250 metres (820 feet) of underground galeries, are thousands of shells that have been untouched since their sudden disappearance for reasons that are still unknown.

Apart from cephalopods and tiny seashells, some of them microscopic, which Legrand has painstakingly cleaned and catalogued, the star of the visit is undoubtedly the Campaniles giganteum -- gastropods with spiral tube-shaped shells that are 40 to 60 centimeters (16 to 24 inches) long.

In the Lutetian age, or between 47.8 and 41.2 million years ago -- and some 40 million years before the emergence of Homo Sapiens -- "the Champagne region was covered by a warm sea and it enjoyed a tropical climate," Legrand said in the winding galeries which are up to 28 metres (60 feet) underground.

"These are not fossils as such, as in reality they are not fossilised. The homogeneity of the calcified rock and the impermeable clay layer led to this conservation," says Legrand, pointing to the shells, which are smooth inside and have a pearly sheen outside.

-- 'Link to champagne' --

Legrand has catalogued some 300 species. And his work has attracted the attention of French and Belgian researchers.

"This site has given us a look at the past," says Didier Merle of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, who has visited the site several times.

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"It's exceptional because you can find a large quantity of Campaniles giganteum. We have thus been able to better understand the evolution of the shellfish, the environment and the biodiversity of the era."

He says there "are no longer many sites from this era due to urbanisation. This one is rare from the point of view of the geological heritage and we must preserve it."

The caves, where ancient shells have replaced champagne bottles, attracted about 7,000 visitors last year.

In some places, the shells are stuck together in a tangled lump.

"You need patience when you find shells: you take them out in a block, it's the best way not to damage them," says Legrand, who has been excavating tirelessly since 1997, with the help of some basic tools such as an electric jackhammer.

"The Digger" as his neighbours call him, spends his days in the cool subterranean galeries like "a real kid" dazzled by the profusion of shells.

The shells are "inexhaustible, even frightening. I will never have time to dig them all out, I will leave them for future generations."

Besides guided visits, tourists can receive tastings aimed at showing the link between the marine sediments, the vines and the champagnes of that particular part of the region, including the owner's own Legrand Latour brand.

"Shells hold the marine iodine and only release it when it dissolves," explains Legrand, who has developed a champagne with a low level of sugar that is specific to the region.

"And that goes very well with shellfish, like oysters," he adds with a smile.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - US Ambassador Samantha Power expressed regret over the US-led coalition strike on a Syrian army post, but dismissed Russia's call for an emergency Security Council meeting as a "stunt."

Russia called the urgent meeting to demand an explanation from the United States after the bombing killed at least 62 soldiers in eastern Syria, near the Islamic State group-controlled town of Deir Ezzor.

"We are investigating the incident," Power told journalists as the closed door meeting got under way.

"If we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention. And we of course regret the loss of life," she added.

Power went on to describe Russia's request for the urgent meeting as a "stunt, replete with moralism and grandstanding," saying Moscow should instead demand a meeting with the Assad regime to press for peace.

In an exchange reminiscent of Cold War-era verbal jousting, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin returned by accusing the United States of violating agreements that it would not target Syrian positions and said the action was a "bad omen" for a US-Russian deal on halting the fighting in Syria.

Washington and Moscow reached an agreement in September that calls for a ceasefire, the delivery of aid and the joint targeting of Islamist rebels in Syria.

The ceasefire went into effect on Monday, but convoys of aid have yet to reach civilians besieged by Syrian forces in the battleground city of Aleppo.

Asked if the air strike on the Syrian army would kill off the US-Russian deal, Churkin said "this is a very big question mark."

"I do hope that they will find a way to convince us and everybody else that they are serious about political settlement in Syria, serious about fighting terrorists," he said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are due on Wednesday to attend a special Security Council meeting on Syria, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting.
New York (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday urged North Korea to freeze its nuclear program as a first step toward starting serious negotiations with the United States and the world about its future.

Speaking at a meeting with the Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers, Kerry said the United States remains "deeply committed" to mutual defense and to "rolling back the provocative, reckless behavior" of North Korea.

The United States is ready to hold talks with Pyongyang to discuss peace on the Korean peninsula, ending North Korea's isolation and economic development if it agrees to denuclearization, he said.

"The immediate need is for them to freeze where they are, to agree to freeze and not to engage in any more provocative actions, not engage in more testing, particularly in order to bring countries together and to begin a serious negotiation about the future," said Kerry.

North Korea this month carried out its fifth and biggest nuclear test, which followed a series of missile launches in violation of UN resolutions barring Pyongyang from developing nuclear and missile technology.

China, Pyongyang's ally, has been pushing for re-starting the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program that would also involve the United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
A different trend has taken over the current literary scene in Assam. What was once considered hate speech is now a proud badge a literary practitioner can wear. 'Miyah' (or, 'Miya') poetry and performance is the new trail being blazed by a group of young scholars, teachers and professionals. The common force between them is that they are poets and writers, and very angry. Commonly, Miyah refers to Bengali-origin Muslims of Assam, long a sordidly marginalised group.

Abdul Kalam Azad, secretary of Jhai Foundation, an NGO working in the chars (silt banks) of Barpeta, Assam, and Jamia Millia Islamia research scholar Shalim Hussain were meeting in the latters rented house in Delhi last year. Pained and enraged by the term Miyah hurled by the Assamese at the Muslim populace, they spent sleepless nights debating the stigma and rejection embedded in this identity tag.

Let me confess that Im neither a poet nor a critic: Im involved in the Miyah poetry series as a campaigner in a straight-forward political campaign for assertion of rights, entitlements and dignity, Azad says.

Journalist M Reyaz wrote not too long ago that Muslims  particularly the Bengali-speaking Muslims  in Assam have been at the centre of politics for all the wrong reasons. They have grown up being labeled foreigner or Bangladeshi. Past their own struggles and repercussions from hate mongering, the July-August 2015 Bodo-Muslim clashes was the last straw for them. It was the maximum that the new generation of Muslims could take, wrote Reyaz.

According to Reyaz, rich, educated Muslims never wanted to identify with their poorer cousins who wore lungis, pulled rickshaws or worked as labour. Once educated and upwardly mobile, they tended to integrate more in a society where they are often seen with suspicion of being foreigners.

For example, Muslims from the districts of Barak valley did not fail to mention their heritage in the state, (and) often took pride in how different they are from Muslims who hail from the Char region in western Assam, wrote Reyaz.

While in conversation with Hussain, Azad was not at all convinced that asserting themselves as Miyah would help them socially, economically or even politically.

But it was not a simple calculation of profit and loss  it was all about telling our own utterly painful stories which our story telling friends have been conveniently skipping for ages. The Miyah poetry series is a tip of an iceberg, the undercurrent is real and its running high.

Hussain protests in these incisive words:

And a 10% literacy rate

See me shrug my shoulders curl my hair

Read two lines of poetry one formula of maths

Read confusion when the bullies call me Bangladeshi

And tell my revolutionary heart

But I am a Miya

He not only portrays the socio-economic condition of his community, he also sees an almost impossible dream:

See me catch a plane get a Visa catch a bullet train

Catch a bullet

Catch your drift

Catch a rocket

Wear a lungi to space

And there where no one can hear you scream,

Thunder

I am Miya

I am proud

As a genre, Miyah poetry is not drawn from any known literary tradition. The first poem in this series Write down I am a Miyah was written in English by Hafiz Ahmed, a teacher and president of Char Chapori Sahitya Parishad.

Azad asserts that for us language is not important  suffering, agony and apathy is. As Siraj Khan says:

Ami char thaika sahare gelei/ jigay oi tur bhaxa ki?/ poshu poxir bhashar jemun kunu boi nai/ amar bhasharo kunu eskul nai,/ mayer mukher bhashay bhatiali gai,/ dhukkher shure shur dhoira/ desher bhasha buhe noiya/ charer bhasha ghore koi,/ matir bhashatu jogot loiya ektai

When I leave the char for the city/ They ask me, Whats your language?/ Just as birds and beasts have no books/ My language has no school/ I breathe my grief through my mothers words/ And sing in Bhatiali/ I hold the language of the state close to my chest/ And speak the language of the chars at home/ The language of the earth is the same everywhere

Miyah poetry is not a new trend, says Hussain, but thanks to the Internet, it is a more visible trend. Within the larger category of Bengal-origin Assamese poets, there have been some who have claimed the Miyah identity for themselves.

Khabir Ahmed and Dr Hafiz Ahmed were doing it way back in the mid 80s. Unfortunately, due to several factors including the lack of translations, these poems were confined to small circles only.

Hussain agrees with Abdul on the fact that the genre doesnt consciously follow any precedent but individual poets do take inspiration from other marginalised discourses.

Were open to emulating the poetry of black, feminist and queer writers. As far as aesthetics is considered, we are open to borrowing from all.

As for the language of Miyah poetry  its semantics being at the crux of the protest mode this genre advocates  Azad does not call it Bhatiali, a term others have used.

The river is an integral part of our life as is the boatmans song, he says, as are many other songs and cultural expressions in the Miyah community. Farmers sing jhaari gaan while weeding their paddy fields. Now that the mighty Brahmaputra has eroded their land you can listen to the specter of jhaari gaan in construction sites in Guwahati and other metro cities including Delhi. These stories are definitely getting reflected on Miyah poetry. Hence I think, calling them Bhatiali is not appropriate.

Hussain feels it is difficult to answer this question correctly because there is little relevant literature to base his response on.

Dr Hafiz Ahmed, Abdul and I belong to the micro-community Bhatiya within the larger Bengal-origin Assamese community. Hence I call the poems and songs I write in our dialect Bhatiya poems and songs. However, we also write poems and songs in English and Assamese which are thematically similar to the ones we write in Bhatiya.

The question of language defining this body of work challenges known theories.

I personally think Miyah poetry is a far more apt term but this is a personal view. If any other Miyah writer writing on themes similar to ours wants to classify their work under a different head, we are willing to consider that too.

So far an ugly hate term, no Miyah has ever loved being addressed as Miyah. The term has been used to incite strife, riots and the institutional rejection of a community. But Azad is optimistic.

Miyah being seen as derogatory will hit most and will hit directly at their heart, he says, and quotes Langston Hughes:

I am a Negro:

Black as the night black,

Black like the depths of my Africa.

I have been a slave:

Caeser told me to keep his door steps clean.

I brushed the boots of Washington.

I have been a worker:

Under my hand the pyramids arose.

I made mortar for the Woolworth Building. (From Negro)

In a similar vein, Rezwan Hussain has written:

Amago tumra gail paro

Parle latthio maro

Amra kintu nirobe tumago attalika, rasta, dolong banaite thakum.

tumago ghorer kala marvel goisa chakchaka banamo

You abuse us

If necessary you kick us too

But we will silently keep building build your homes, roads and bridges

We will polish your marble floors until they sparkle

Azad looks up to Shalim Hussains hard-hitting adaptation of the famous Gil Scott-Heron poem The Revolution will Not be Televised:

Amago ei biplobe banduk lagbona, buma barodh o lagbona

Amago ei biplop tumago ontor jalabo purabo..

Puira charkhar korbo (Ei Biplob TVte Dehabona)

Our revolution will not need guns, grenades or dynamite

Our revolution will singe, burn,

Reduce your souls to ashes

Hussain perceives Miyah as a matter of pride.

Mahakashe amar lungi dehuin

Aar jene amar daak keo huna na hare

Hene amare chillaite dehuin

Je ami Miyah

Ami gorbito

See my lungi in space

And there where no one can hear me scream,

See me thunder

I am Miyah

I am proud

Let us look at our history of loss. We are a community descended from impoverished low-caste Hindus who converted to Islam. Our ancestors moved to Assam with little else but just clothes on their back. Even before the borders were drawn we began losing touch with Bengal. We are not a diasporic community with a nostalgic attachment to our place of origin. We have no standing monuments, no venerable ancestors, nothing. This might sound bleak but I consider it quite liberating because minus the baggage of chauvinism and jingoism, we have the freedom to be as hybrid as we want to, says Hussain.

He speaks of a fascinating symbolism the Miyah literature enthusiasts have adopted.

Our mothers and fathers broke the rock-solid earth with itamugurs and softened it for agriculture.

The itamugur or a heavy wooden mallet, not quite a hammer or a pestle, and used in agriculture and construction, is strong enough to strike a hard surface to cause cracks.

We carry metaphorical itamugurs to schools, colleges and workplaces. For every stone a regular Indian breaks, we are compelled to level a mountain just to remain in the race. So if Im proud of anything it is our potential, Hussain says.

The poet and performer in Hussain sees My lungi in space with the hope that someday there will be a Miyah astronaut. The Miyah identity is built on self-identification but the markers of Miyahness are not self-chosen, he stresses.

For example, the lungi as a symbol of the Miyah community has been forced on us: we havent chosen it. But as writers I believe it is our responsibility to take the lungi and other similar symbols, divest them of their negative connotations and give them new meanings.

Apart from poetry, there has been an upsurge in other mediums as well. Miyah writers have started telling their stories.

There are many folk tales like Rahim Rupban still alive among Miyah community. Late Elim Dewan published a collection of such folk tales, says Azad.

In all this heady semantic shifting in a society where such communal rifts are decently covered up but run deep, Azad says he doesnt know where Miyah poetry and performance is heading. However, it seems the only option is to tell the stories in whatever form it may be.

Yes, it is a highly political. The assertion that our stories of suffering, misery and perpetual indifference need to be told is in itself a highly political act.

This is politics of empathy, emphasises Azad, and not of hate mongering. The fight between us and them is to have the mainstream realize its historical apathy and acknowledge the rights, entitlements and existence of the Miyah community.

If one knows well the internecine politics and identity clashes in Assams history, the question to be asked naturally is, when did this new trend become a modern tradition? According to Hussain, the Miyah poetry series began as recently in May 2016, and it began spontaneously sans any facilitator. Very quickly it spread over social media, attracting attention.

Over the last four months, a number of poets have written in their own individual capacity and that, I think, is the direction Miyah poetry is going to take.

Armed with a voice and the vocabulary to communicate, Miyah poetry now looks to foster discussions.

And as we appeal to the rest of the world to listen to us, we have also begun to listen to each other: this was part of our political agenda and so far it has been successful.

So far, the other poets of the series are Aman Wadud, an advocate and civil rights activist; Shajahan Ali Ahmad, a student leader, and Sultan Mahmud Mirdha, journalist and web and graphic designer  all diehard fans of Assamese language and literature. The hope is while theyre suddenly asserting their identity, they remain as Assamese as the others. The identity assertion is only a timely cry for justice, as seen in Hafiz Ahmeds lines from April 29, 2016:

Write

write Down

I am a Miya

My serial number in NRC is 200543

I have two children

Another is coming

In the next summer,

would you hate him

As you hate me?

And Shalim Hussains response to it:

Nana I have written attested countersigned

And been verified by a public notary

That I am a Miya

While Wadud has responded with anger:

You murdered me in Nellie

Because I am Miya

You murdered me in Khagrabari

Because I am Miya

You abused me by calling me Bangladeshi

Because I am Miya.

A second phase following the success of the poems is being planned. This will be a series of videos on YouTube, a page called Itamugur curated by Azad, photographer and aspiring film maker Kazi Neel, and Hussain. Assamese literature is witnessing its new wave. The best would be to clear off from the silts and banks and see the river flow on.
lowebot

The rise of automation in the fast-food industry has made headlines in recent months, as chains such as Panera and McDonald's have heavily invested in tech that threatens to eventually replace human workers. Robots can make sushi, noodles, burgers, and pancakes.

Now the grocery and retail industry is looking to get in on automation as well.

Walmart recently patented a system of self-driving shopping carts with mini robots that can complete a long list of duties once reserved for human employees. These motorized units can potentially move containers; scan, retrieve, and deliver products; check inventory; retrieve trash; and even connect with customers.

All this may sound like science fiction, but the automation of retail jobs isn't so far off.

In late August, Lowe's announced that, starting this fall, 11 locations in the San Francisco Bay Area will feature LoweBots, which are multilingual, autonomous customer assistance robots.

In the grocery industry, self-checkout stands have become standard. And the industry is now looking for more ways to use tech to streamline shopping and minimize the need for human employees.

365

Whole Foods 365 stores, for example, have iPad kiosks that let customers order food from the on-site kitchen, iPads with digital scanners to provide details about wine, digital scales for weighing foods, and digital price tags. The reliance on tech over employees is intended to both cut costs  allowing for lower prices and appeal to millennial shoppers.

Retailers like Walmart say one of the major advantages of automation is a better customer experience.

"In a modern retail store environment, there is a need to improve the customer experience and/or convenience for the customer," Walmart's patent reads.

Walmart patent

Walmart's patent notes that robots could help solve some of its major challenges, like insufficient staffing during peak hours, workers who are undertrained because of high turnover rates, messy aisles, and theft  all things that could be addressed by using robots.

Story continues

Robots also make good workers  they never need a vacation, never get sick, and arrive at work 100% trained.

Customer experience is especially important for brick-and-mortar retailers in 2016, thanks to the growth of e-commerce sites such as Amazon. The online retailer is aiming to take over sectors from clothing to grocery  and companies are scared.

"With increasing competition from nontraditional shopping mechanisms, such as online shopping provided by e-commerce merchants and alternative store formats, it can be important for 'brick and mortar' retailers to focus on improving the overall customer experience and/or convenience," Walmart's patent reads.

Amazon's lack of physical stores has helped it thrive, as the company can avoid issues  like long lines, lack of customer service, and stocking problems  that retailers have to deal with.

Amazon has arguably led the charge toward automation. In 2014, the online retailer deployed Kiva robots across its warehouses to automate the retrieving and packaging process. Deutsche Bank says the machines save the company roughly $22 million at each fulfillment center.

At brick-and-mortar locations, automation also has the bonus of appealing to younger customers  a group that retailers are eager to attract.

Nearly a third of people ages 18 to 24 would rather order from the drive-thru at restaurants because "they don't feel like dealing with people," according to a recent study by Frisch's Restaurants, which owns and franchises 120 Big Boy Restaurants.

365

That's part of the reason that retailers are investing in automation. Whole Foods' 365 brand intends to win over millennials.

"There are a lot more options for people these days  whether it's groceries or restaurants or convenience stores  and 365 is our way of evolving," Jeff Turnas, president of 365 by Whole Foods Market, told Business Insider in April.

While there are some clear benefits for investing in automation, the rise of the robot may cause problems for workers.

A recent study from market research company Forrester predicts that by 2021, robots will have eliminated 6% of all jobs in the US, The Guardian reports.

Walmart

The benefits of a more automated store are getting more and more appealing as labor costs rise, according to analysts.

Walmart told Business Insider that any predictions about how investment in automation would affect workers was premature.

However, as companies across the grocery and retail space invest in this technology, it is inevitable that shopping will involve more and more robots. And, as times goes on, that's likely to mean fewer and fewer human employees.

Are you a retail worker or shopper that has been affected by automation? Contact the author of this story at ktaylor@businessinsider.com.

NOW WATCH: Robots are invading big box stores and want to help you shop





More From Business Insider


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Warplanes struck the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday for the first time since a seven-day ceasefire came into effect almost a week ago, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Rockets hit the neighborhoods of Karam al-Jabal, Karam al-Beek, Sakhour and Sheikh Hadar. There were reports of injuries, the war monitor said. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Toby Chopra)
Wells Fargo may have thought that firing 5,300 employees and paying $185 million in fines for opening some 1.5 million unauthorized accounts and filing 565,000 credit card applications without customers knowledge would make its scandal go away, but in an election year that has seen rage over perceived Wall Street greed reflected in the campaign of Bernie Sanders and to some extent the populist rise of Donald Trump, the bank may have miscalculated.

Related: Wells Fargo Hit With $185 Million Fine for Creating Sham Accounts

Not only does the bane of big banks, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have Wells in her sights, but The Wall Street Journal said Wednesday that two U.S. Attorneys Offices are looking into its sales tactics. In addition, CEO John Stumpf has been called to appear before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday, and the House Financial Services Committee on Friday opened a fraud investigation.

Of the fines Wells Fargo paid, $100 million was imposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, marking the agencys highest levy since it began operations in 2011.

Warren, who was instrumental in creating the CFPB, was asked on Thursday if the root cause of the problem at the bank was bigness per se.

She told Tyler Mathisen of CNBC that there is a serious problem with senior management at Wells Fargo. Look, were talking about a scandal here that involves thousands of their employees cheating tens of thousands of customers out of money and making millions of dollars doing it for the bank.

Warren said if senior management really didnt know what was going on then this is a bank thats too big to manage.

And if senior management did know what was going on, she said, they need to be held personally responsible. I would feel a lot better about Wells Fargo if I heard someone in a position of authority like the CEO step up and say I take responsibility and Im not keeping my job and Im not keeping my bonus over this.

Story continues

Related: Wells Fargos CEO: The Buck Stops With My Workers

The larger message of the scandal at Wells Fargo, Warren said, is that enormous structural problems remain on Wall Street, with giant financial institutions still thinking they can build profit models by cheating the American people.

By Friday, the scandal had knocked about $19 billion off the market value of the bank, but the fines were a drop in the $23 billion bucket of profits that Wells Fargo amassed last year.

Still, while the sham accounts likely would have drawn criticism of Stumpf whenever they were revealed, the political timing for Wells Fargo is particularly problematic. One of the central themes of the insurgent candidacy of Vermont Sen. Sanders, a progressive soul mate of Warrens, as he sought the Democratic presidential nomination, was the greed of Wall Street and the need to break up the big banks. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, a reliable ally of the financial community when she was a New York senator, now echoes Sanders call for putting the banks and the Street on a tighter leash. And while its hard to pin down exactly where Trump stands, he and GOP leaders such as House Speaker Paul Ryan have called for a dismantling of the CFPB.

On Sept. 9, Clinton tweeted:

Appalling behavior from Wells Fargo. This is exactly why we need a strong @CFPBand can't let Trump dismantle it. https://t.co/tTA2jz7unf  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 9, 2016

But, surprisingly, the Republican Party platform approved at the convention that nominated Trump in July advocates reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act, which could lead to the breakup of big banks were it to happen. Glass-Steagall, which separated commercial and investment banking, was eviscerated during the administration of President Bill Clinton. Many believe that helped create too-big-to-fail banks.

Related: The Real Scandal at Wells Fargo: Execs Got Rich by Sandbagging Clients

On Tuesday, Jim Cramer of CNBCs Mad Money, said in an interview with Stumpf: There are a lot of people who tell me that you have to hold yourself accountable. And to do that, it may mean, some people say, that you have to resign.

Well, Jim, Stumpf replied, I think the best thing I could do right now is lead this company and lead this company forward.

Stumpf became evasive when Cramer asked about the one person who might be most influential in deciding whether the CEO gets to stay and do that.

Have you gotten a call from Warren Buffett? Cramer asked.

Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company controlled by Buffett, has about a 10 percent stake in Wells. The value of that stake has dropped about $1.4 billion since the scandal broke.

You know, I talk to a lot of our constituents, Stumpf said.

But Warren, I mean, he would obviously be very important, Cramer said. If I knew that he backed you, I would personally feel better telling people to own the stock.

Jim, again, I'm not gonna talk about any conversation with any one investor, Stumpf said. But I'm talking to a lot of constituents, and I'm working hard to lead our company through this.

In the conversation with Mathisen, Warren was asked about the golden handshake being given to Carrie Tolstedt, the Wells Fargo executive in charge of community banking, the unit in which the allegedly fraudulent activity occurred. Tolstedt, who stepped down in July, will walk with a reported $95 million in stock and options accumulated over her years with the bank.

Talk about something that tells you whats wrong with Wall Street, Warren said. When someone can be the person responsible and then they get to stuff their pockets with money and walk out the door while everyone else gets fired  thats just fundamentally wrong.

She was talking about Tolstedt, but she may have been thinking about Stumpf.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Wes Welker with Patriots fans.(Bleacher Reports Twitter)

So remember last week, when a super creepy Fake Brady showed up at University of Phoenix Stadium for the New England Patriots-Arizona Cardinals game?

Well hes back this week, and was touring the parking lots outside Gillette Stadium before the Patriots home opener against the Miami Dolphins.

One twist this time, though: under the mask was a very familiar face to Patriots fans.

Former New England receiver Wes Welker, who last played for the team in 2012, was under the mask for Bleacher Report, surprising tailgaters when he showed his face.

Whos under the mask this week? Its none other than #FakeBrady pic.twitter.com/bMlpRV5d1r  Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) September 18, 2016

Welker said earlier this week that he reached out to Tom Brady, who is serving a four-game suspension, to have the two get dinner but instead Brady told him to bring his cleats to Massachusetts and the two would work out together.

Related New England Patriots coverage on Yahoo Sports:


Right-wing protesters clashed with Ukrainian police near the Russian embassy in Kiev on Sunday, September 18, as Russian citizens were voting for Crimeas representatives to the Russian parliament. National Svoboda party leader Ihor Miroshnichenko, among the demonstrators, said that the enemy and state aggressor Russia should not be allowed to hold elections in Ukraine for the territory it annexed. One demonstrator was arrested.

Protests took place at Russian diplomatic sites in other Ukrainian cities as well. Credit: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Editor: Mary Milliken + 1 213 955 6735

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(All times GMT/ET)

TOP STORIES

U.S. investigators probe terror link in trio of weekend attacks

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON - Federal investigators are probing any terror links in a series of three attacks carried out across the United States this weekend, including a pair of bombings around New York and a stabbing rampage at a Minnesota shopping mall. (USA-ATTACKS/ (WRAPUP 1, PIX, TV), by Daniel Trotta and Dustin Volz, 800 words, expect by 2300 GMT/7 P.M. ET)

See also:

+ (NEW YORK-BLAST/PEOPLE (PIX, TV), by Robert MacMillan and David Ingram, 519 words)

Moscow says strikes on Syria army threaten U.S.-Russia ceasefire plan

MOSCOW/BEIRUT - Moscow stepped up its war of words with Washington, saying air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition on the Syrian army threatened the implementation of a U.S.-Russian ceasefire plan for Syria and bordered on connivance with Islamic State. (MIDEAST-CRISIS/SYRIA-RUSSIA (UPDATE 6, PIX), by Dmitry Solovyov and Lisa Barrington, 940 words)

See also:

+ (MIDEAST-CRISIS/SYRIA-FRANCE (UPDATE 1), by John Irish, 387 words)

Pro-Putin party wins 44.5 pct in parliament vote: exit poll

MOSCOW/SARANSK - Allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin comfortably won a parliamentary election but early indications were that turnout was low, suggesting a softening of enthusiasm for the ruling elite 18 months away from the next presidential election. (RUSSIA-ELECTION/ (UPDATE 6, TV,PIX), by Polina Devitt and Gleb Stolyarov, 861 words)

India blames Pakistan as Kashmir attack kills 17 soldiers

SRINAGAR, India - India accuses Pakistan of being behind Sunday's separatist attack on an army base near their disputed frontier that kills 17 soldiers, in one of the deadliest attacks in Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency. (INDIA-KASHMIR/ (UPDATE 7, PIX, TV), moved, by Fayaz Bukhari, 866 words)

BREXIT

Mission accomplished? Britain's anti-EU party fights to retain influence

Story continues

BOURNEMOUTH, England - "We won!" was the anti-European Union UK Independence Party's rallying cry at its annual conference as members celebrated Britain's vote to leave the EU, but underneath the euphoria lurked a fresh anxiety: what now? (BRITAIN-EU/UKIP, moved, by William James, 892 words)

Brexit? What Brexit? EU on cruise control

BRATISLAVA - The "Brexit cruise" didn't get very far. EU leaders drifted down the Danube for an hour, said little about Britain over a leisurely shipboard lunch, then circled back to Bratislava to resume Friday's summit. (BRITAIN-EU/CRUISE (ANALYSIS, TV, PIX), moved, by Alastair Macdonald, 1119 words)

U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Kaine accuses Trump of inciting violence against Clinton

WASHINGTON - U.S. Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine accused Donald Trump of inciting violence against Hillary Clinton after the Republican candidate said Clinton's security detail should be disarmed given her support for tighter gun rules. (USA-ELECTION/KAINE (PIX, TV, GRAPHIC), by Alana Wise, 351 words)

See also:

+ (USA-ELECTION/PENCE-CHENEY (PIX, TV, GRAPHIC), by Alana Wise, 182 words)

EMMYS

O.J. Simpson drama set to sweep Emmys in big year for TV diversity

LOS ANGELES - The dramatization of O.J. Simpson's sensational 1995 double murder trial looks set to sweep Sunday's Emmy Awards, crowning an extraordinary year for American television and actors of multiple ethnic hues. (AWARDS-EMMYS/ (UPDATE 1), TV, PIX, expect by expect by 0000 GMT/8 P.M. ET) , by Jill Serjeant, 480 words)

EUROPE

Merkel's party suffers rout in Berlin in migrant policy backlash

BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party suffered its second electoral blow in two weeks, slumping to its lowest level since 1990 in a Berlin state vote that rejected her open-door refugee policy. (GERMANY-ELECTION/ (UPDATE 4, PIX, TV), by Michael Nienaber and Madeline Chambers, 580 words)

In Hungary's migrant vote, only the turnout is in doubt

ASOTTHALOM, Hungary - With only weeks left until an Oct. 2 referendum on whether Hungary should reject EU migrant quotas, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who opposes immigration into the EU, has largely managed to seal the Serbia-Hungary border to migrants. (EUROPE-MIGRANTS/HUNGARY-REFERENDUM (ANALYSIS, TV, PIX), moved, by Marton Dunai and Krisztina Than, 746 words)

'Token' Belarussian MP hopes to give opposition a voice

MINSK - The election in Belarus of lawmakers critical of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has split pro-democracy activists in the ex-Soviet republic once dubbed Europe's last dictatorship. (BELARUS-OPPOSITION/ (PIX), moved, by Andrei Makhovsky, 744 words)

AFRICA

Clashes at Libyan oil ports as counter-attack repelled - officials

BENGHAZI, Libya - Eastern Libyan forces say they have reestablished control over two oil ports where an ousted faction launched a counter-attack on Sunday, briefly seizing one of the terminals. (LIBYA-SECURITY/OIL (UPDATE 5), moved, by Ayman al-Warfalli, 583 words)

AMERICAS

From cars to college town, Canada's Motor City grows despite GM woes

OSHAWA - As GM Oshawa workers fight for the plant's survival and face what could be the first Canadian auto strike since 1996, the rest of the once-company town has moved on.(CANADA-AUTOS/OSHAWA (FEATURE, PIX), by Allison Martell, 712 words)

Hate drove gunman to shoot Philadelphia police -officials

A gunman who wounded two Philadelphia police officers and three civilians and killed a fourth civilian appears to have been driven by hatred for the police but had no known ties to any militant groups, officials say. (PENNSYLVANIA-CRIME/ (UPDATE 2), moved, 461 words)

HEALTH

Global fund raises $12.9 bln to fight AIDS, TB and malaria

MONTREAL - A global fund has raised over $12.9 billion from international donors as part of a campaign aimed at effectively eradicating AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis by 2030, conference organizers say. (HEALTH-AIDS/FUNDRAISING (UPDATE 2), by Allison Lampert, 240 words)

ASIA

At least 12 dead in Thailand as tourist boat capsizes, dozens missing

BANGKOK - At least 12 people have died and dozens are missing in Thailand after a boat carrying 150 Thai Muslims capsized in the ancient tourist city of Ayutthaya, officials say. (THAILAND-BOAT/ (TV, PIX), moved, 233 words)

ENTERTAINMENT

'La La Land' musical takes top prize at Toronto film festival

TORONTO - "La La Land," a musical tale of star-crossed lovers chasing their dreams in Hollywood, won the top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival. (FILMFESTIVAL-TIFF/ (UPDATE 1, PIX, TV), by Ethan Lou, 407 words)

'Liesl' of 'The Sound of Music' dead at 73

LOS ANGELES -Charmian Carr, the actress beloved for playing Liesl Von Trapp in the movie "The Sound of Music" has died at the age of 73, her family said on Sunday. (PEOPLE-CHARMIANCARR/, TV, moving shortly, 260 words)
By Susan Taylor and Nicole Mordant

TORONTO/DENVER, Sept 18 (Reuters) - The world's biggest gold miners are taking a cautious approach in their hunt for bullion, spending more money to explore around existing mines rather than new territory in a strategy that may have short-term gains but risks future production growth.

Top producers are relying more than ever on small companies to do the heavy lifting of searching for new deposits and increasingly taking 10 to 20 percent equity stakes in the junior miners.

Exploring close to home is more cost efficient and improves the odds of discoveries. But the chances of making major new finds are limited, diminishing global gold output, which is expected to decline by nearly 9 percent in the next three years.

"It only makes sense to be looking in your own backyard first before exploring elsewhere," said Paul Rollinson, Chief Executive of Kinross Gold, which spends about 90 percent of its exploration budget around existing sites.

"We focus on areas we already know, with existing infrastructure nearby, in jurisdictions we are comfortable with."

The world's 10 biggest gold miners are bumping up the share of exploration budgets earmarked for land around existing mines, or brownfield exploration, increasing the spending to 56 percent in 2015 from 45 percent in 2013.

In the meantime, they curbed spending on greenfield exploration in new territory to 21 percent from 25 percent of their budgets, data from SNL Metals & Mining, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, shows.

"They say the best place to discover a mine is in the shadow of a headframe," atop mine shafts, said Maria Smirnova, portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management.

"The rate of failure in exploration is staggering, so it is always better to try and improve what you have already."

SCREWS ON SPENDING

Barrick Gold, the world's largest producer by output, looks to near-mine discoveries because plants and equipment are already in place and the deposit is well known, said its president, Kelvin Dushnisky.

Story continues

Finding affordable and reliable deposits became vital in the last three years as miners slashed spending amid a slump in gold prices. Miners have kept a lid on spending this year despite a partial recovery in bullion prices and income.

Exploration spending by the world's 10 biggest gold miners, such as South Africa's AngloGold Ashanti, sank 37 percent to $1.075 billion between 2013 and 2015, the last year for which data is available, SNL Metals & Mining data shows.

Newmont Mining the world's top gold miner by market valuation, cut its exploration budget by nearly 40 percent in 2013 and prioritized areas expected to deliver higher-margin ounces, said Chief Executive Gary Goldberg.

"That's first of all around our existing operations," he said, adding that Newmont has earmarked about 80 percent of its approximately $200 million budget in 2016 for brownfield exploration.

Longer-term, Newmont is eyeing Ethiopia, Cote d'Ivoire and Queensland, Australia for greenfield exploration, he said.

"Any management team in the industry would consider brownfields expansions first," before committing to big new projects, given capital is still limited, said David J. Christensen, CEO of mining fund ASA Gold & Precious Metals.

Goldcorp Chief Executive David Garofalo said there was little available to throw even that limited capital at.

"We are a supply-challenged industry," he said. "We've had a very poor track record over the last few years of exploration success."

Global gold mine production peaked in 2015 and is estimated to fall nearly 9 percent by 2018, to 2,903 tonnes, Thomson Reuters GFMS data shows.

Big gold miners have always relied on small exploration companies for discoveries, acquiring them to access their big finds. But they are increasingly hedging their bets with 10-20 percent equity stakes in juniors, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Sam Crittenden in a report earlier this year.

Barrick plans to be more active partnering with juniors going forward, Executive Vice President for Exploration and Growth, Rob Krcmarov, said in June.

Mid-tier producer Agnico Eagle Mines, which has bucked the industry trend by boosting its drilling budget over the past five years, plans to continue investing in juniors even as it adds to its drilling budget.

Agnico last week increased its gold estimate for its Amaruq project, a new deposit close to its existing Meadowbank mine in Canada's Arctic, by 13 percent to 3.71 million ounces.

"Greenfields is tough. I think the general consensus amongst gold producers is that the real greenfields is best left to the juniors," said Chief Executive Sean Boyd.

($1 = 1.3206 Canadian dollars)

(Editing by Chris Reese)
(Corrects date reported when government asked banks to prevent central bank officials from using state funds)

SANAA, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Yemen's exiled president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi appointed Finance Minister Monasser Al Quaiti as head of the country's central bank on Sunday, the state-run sabanew.net news agency reported.

The decree announcing the appointment included a decision to move the bank's headquarters from the capital Sanaa to the southern port city of Aden, according to the report.

Hadi also appointed Ahmed Obaid Al Fadhli to replace Al Quaiti as finance minister, it said.

The central bank has been the last bastion of the impoverished country's financial system amid a civil war and is effectively running the economy, according to central bank officials, diplomats and Yemenis on both sides of the war.

Hadi is backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition, which has been waging an offensive trying to roll back gains made by the Iran-aligned Houthi forces since 2014.

His government asked international financial institutions last month to prevent central bank officials from accessing state funds held in overseas banks, sabanew.net reported on August 6.

The government has accused the Iran-allied Houthis of squandering some $4 billion on the war effort from central bank reserves, but the Houthis say the funds were used to finance imports of food and medicine.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Hadeel Al Sayegh; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
UPDATED: An explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City has injured at least 29 people, according to the New York Fire Department.

The blast happened around Saturday night at 8:30pm local time at the intersection of West 23rd Street and 6th Avenue. The NYPD Counterterrorism Unit says one of the 29 injuries may be critical. Some of the injured were transferred to Bellevue Hospital.

There are now 29 injuries being reported. One may be critical. We remain on the scene. #NYPD #Chelsea #Vigilant  NYPDCounterterrorism (@NYPDCT) September 18, 2016

A law enforcement source told CNN that the preliminary cause of the explosion is an IED (improvised explosive device) in or near a trash dumpster, but the cause is still under investigation. Gas has been ruled out as a cause.

Tonight New York City experienced a very serious incident, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference later on Saturday. There is no evidence of a terror connection to the incident.

There is no significant or credible threat to New York City from any terror organization, he added. Early indications are this was an intentional act.

As of this time, the exact cause of the explosion has not been determined, Police commissioner James ONeill said Saturday night. There have been 29 injuries reported. One of these injuries can be considered serious.

The area has been closed off while law enforcement sweeps for any additional devices and removes debris. The local subway station has been closed as well. According to eyewitnesses, many car and building windows have been blown out. Bomb sniffing dogs are searching the neighborhood and beyond for additional devices.

Story continues

The NYC explosion follows another that happened in Seaside Park, New Jersey. A pipe bomb exploded in a trash can near a Marine Corp race. No one was injured. The FBI is investigating the New Jersey explosion. There does not appear to be a connection between the two explosions at this time.

President Obama has been briefed on the explosion.

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New York (AFP) - A bomb that exploded in New York wounding 29 people and causing significant damage was under investigation Sunday as an act of terror, although officials say there is no overseas link.

The blast tore through Chelsea, one of the most fashionable district of Manhattan packed with bars, restaurants and luxury apartment buildings, late Saturday at around 8:30 pm local time (0130 GMT Sunday).

Police later discovered a second bomb four blocks away, which was safely defused and taken away for analysis.

The attack put New York on full alert, just one day before world leaders are due to gather in the city for the UN General Assembly.

It came as a jihadist-linked news agency claimed that an Islamic State group soldier carried out a stabbing attack in a shopping mall in Minnesota that left eight people injured also late Saturday.

Local police said the attack made some references to Allah, but the motivation of the attack was unclear. The attacker was shot dead by an off-duty police officer.

In New York, police and law enforcement have sealed off the traffic for five blocks around the scene and dozens of officers were out in force Sunday.

An AFP photographer said there was lots of debris, including rubble and glass on 23rd Street, where the explosion happened.

Whoever placed these bombs, we will find and they will be brought to justice, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters at the scene.

A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but its not linked to international terrorism. In other words, we find no ISIS connection, et cetera, said Cuomo in reference to the Islamic State extremist group based in Iraq and Syria.

- No further threat -

But a bomb going off is generically a terrorist activity. Thats how well consider it. And thats how we will prosecute it, he added.

An extra 1,000 state police and National Guard will deploy to airports, bus terminals and subway stations to reassure New Yorkers returning to work on Monday that the city is up and running, he said.

Story continues

We have no reason to believe at this time that there is any further immediate threat, Cuomo said.

Slideshow:

Explosion in New York Citys Chelsea neighborhood >>>

Slideshow:

Pipe bomb explodes at Jersey Shore >>>

Slideshow:

9/11: Then and now - 15 years later >>>

He said that while there was no evidence of an international terror link at this time, it was still very early in the investigation.

The explosion outside a building on 23rd Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, caused significant property damage with glass and shrapnel everywhere, the governor said.

- Trump, Clinton wade in -

While the two devices planted in Manhattan appear to be similar, at this stage they seem to be different than a pipe bomb that exploded in the neighboring state of New Jersey on Saturday, he said.

The New Jersey blast occurred in Seaside Park during a Marine Corps charity run and caused no injuries.

There were up to four timed explosives but only one detonated, Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the Ocean County prosecutor, told CNN.

Of the 29 people who sustained injuries in New York, 24 were taken to hospital with various degrees of scrapes and abrasions from glass and metal, said Fire Department commissioner Daniel Nigro.

Witnesses living three blocks away told AFP they heard a large boom from their fifth floor apartment, followed by the sound of sirens.

New York lauds itself as the safest big city in the United States. Violent crime has become rare in Manhattan and stringent security checks the norm in many areas since the 2001 Al-Qaeda hijackings destroyed the Twin Towers.

The explosion in New York, the countrys largest city, its financial and entertainment capital as well as home to the two presidential candidates, could impact Americas divisive presidential election.

I would like to express my warmest regards, best wishes and condolences to all of the families and victims of the horrible bombing in NYC, Republican nominee Donald Trump tweeted Sunday.

On Saturday, way before officials confirmed the cause of the explosion, Trump said it had been a bomb.

His Democratic rival Hillary Clinton immediately took swipe at her opponent, although later also used the word bombings to refer to what had happened in New York and New Jersey.

New York Mayor Bill De Blasio said that police, law enforcement and the citys anti-terror capacity in particular was on full alert.

The city routinely goes on extra security alert following attacks in other American cities or in Europe, and police claim to have foiled multiple alleged terror plots since September 11, 2001 when nearly 3,000 people were killed.
A photo posted by Topshop (@topshop) on Sep 18, 2016 at 6:30am PDT

Topshop Unique lived up to its name in more ways than one with its new collection. First off, its one of the only high street brands to host a runway show at London Fashion Week  and all of fashion month, for that matter. (Even J.Crew hosts a still presentation in New York.) And for the first time ever, its experimenting with a see now, buy now model.

Topshops e-commerce site live streamed the show Sunday afternoon, along with an announcement that some of the pieces shown would be available to purchase online immediately after the last model left the catwalk.

But seeing as there were 36 complete looks that walked, the actual runway-to-retail aspect of the show really only included a small portion of the collection. Current campaign girl Taylor Hill kicked things off, wearing what was later revealed to be one of the 10 items now for sale on Topshops site: A silky, funnel neck blouse in a navy and black zebra print and chevron pattern, which retails for $250. (Prices of the available pieces range from $98 for a viscose mock neck top to $500 for a silk midi dress.)

???? Another #TopshopUnique show complete, another wish list full  #TopshopStyle #TopshopUnique styled by @bethfenton_ A photo posted by Topshop (@topshop) on Sep 18, 2016 at 6:49am PDT

The clothes themselves skewed mostly towards the 80s: Power shoulders are back, along with ruffled blouses, high-waisted peg trousers, super shiny patent leather, and even some Teen Witch-inspired big hair. Neon fuchsia and a neat, abstract zebra print also popped up in several looks.

Basically, if a Robert Palmer (RIP) video were remade today, the backing band girls would be wearing Topshop Unique  and everyone else would be trying to emulate them.

Alas, Topshop brought us back to modern-day at the end of it all, closing out the show with three mesh-laden dresses just begging for wardrobe malfunctions. Question: In 2016, is a fashion show even a fashion show without at least one underwear window?

The final looks at Topshop Unique. Photo: Screengrab/Topshop.com

Yahoo Style is live from #LFW! Keep it here for your front row view of the best looks and buzziest moments of London Fashion Week.
Harare (AFP) - Zimbabwe police on Sunday denied using bullets to disperse protests against President Robert Mugabe at the weekend, as activists called for electoral reforms ahead of general elections in 2018.

"For the record no firearm or live bullets were used in the perceived protests throughout the country," police spokesman Paul Nyathi said in a statement.

"As police we reiterate that anyone who claims that live bullets were fired at protesters should come forward with evidence."

A coalition of opposition parties under the banner of the National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) had planned country-wide demonstrations on Saturday demanding reform ahead of the 2018 election, when 92-year-old Mugabe plans to stand again.

A month-long protest ban and a massive police deployment, in Harare, however, saw the event fizzle out before it started.

But activists charged the police with intimidation, firing against small groups demonstrating in the suburbs of the capital and arresting close to 100 protesters, a number the police disputed.

"Only 21 people were arrested by the Zimbabwe Republic Police throughout the country... for engaging in acts of disorderly conduct of blocking the smooth flow of traffic and intimidating the general public to side with them and partake in illegal activities," said the police statement.

Nyathi said the arrested activists included members of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) "who were openly agitating for violence".

NERA on Saturday said about 100 activists were arrested while others were heavily assaulted by law the enforcement agents.

Campaigners said they would challenge the protest ban through the courts, which had overturned a similar order earlier this month.

Mugabe has vowed a crackdown on dissent and blasted judges for "reckless" rulings allowing previous demonstrations. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party won the last general elections in 2013, which were marred by electoral fraud.

Story continues

Opposition to the ageing leaders 36-year rule has grown in recent months with a surge of public demonstrations, triggered by an economic crisis that has left banks short of cash and the government struggling to pay its workers.

Mugabe has often used brutal force to silence his opponents and warned the protestors last week they were "playing a dangerous game".

Unemployment is about 90 percent in Zimbabwe, which has been in the grips of a cash shortage worsened by a severe regional drought.

NERA has promised more demonstrations in the coming weeks until the government gives in to their demands.
Samsung Electronics is the world's top smartphone maker and also manufactures memory chips, TVs and home appliances (AFP Photo/Jung Yeon-Je) (AFP)

Seoul (AFP) - Samsung Electronics said Sunday it had sold shares it held in four technology companies including US chipmaker Rambus and Japan's Sharp to free up money and focus on its main business.

The South Korean tech giant also sold shares in Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASLM and US hard drive maker Seagate, it said in a statement.

Samsung -- the world's top smartphone maker which also manufactures memory chips, TVs and home appliances -- has for years bought shares in other tech firms in semiconductor or display panel industries.

"It was aimed at focusing on our core business by efficiently managing the investments made in the past in line with changes in business environments," Samsung said.

The news of the sales came as the firm is mired in a major recall of its flagship smartphone over a series of battery explosions.

The global recall of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone raised alarm among air carriers and aviation safety authorities worldwide that banned the device on flights.

Samsung sold off half of a 3-percent stake it held in ASML, and its entire stakes in the other three companies for "efficient management of assets," it said.

It had held a 4.5-percent stake in Rambus, 0.7 percent of Sharp and a 4.2-percent stake in Seagate.

The firm did not elaborate on the timing or the value of the sales.

Yonhap news agency estimated the value to be about 1 trillion won ($890 million), including 600 billion won from the sale of the ASML shares.

Samsung and its sister firms have in recent years divested from non-core operations as the parent Samsung Group sought to streamline business amid a generational power transfer in the founding Lee family.

The group's current chairman Lee Kun-Hee has been bedridden since suffering a heart attack in 2014 with his son, J.Y. Lee, widely believed to take over.

The junior Lee, currently the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, was nominated last week by the firm's board as a new board member.
David Letterman transforms into a more overtly environmentally conscious (and beardier) television personality by tackling clean energy in the National Geographic Channels docu-series Years of Living Dangerously.

The project is Lettermans first on-air showing since he left Late Night in 2015.

The series, now in its second season, features celebrity hosts who are dedicated to fighting global warming. Producers of the series David Gelber and Joel Bach said they sought out Letterman because they could see his enthusiasm talking about clean energy and felt hes definitely invested in this issue.

In his episode, Letterman will travel to meet with Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other important figures to talk about making clean energy a reality.

My goal here is a conversation. Containing several points both personal and with regard to environmental issues and climate change, Letterman said in a behind-the-scenes video, as he prepares to interview.

If the world helps me with technology, helps me with resources, I will be the very first person to switch over to clean energy completely, Modi said after Letterman asked how he could bring solar power to millions of people in India without it.

Other Season 2 guests of the Emmy-award-winning show include America Ferrera, Sigourney Weaver, Ian Somerhalder and Don Cheadle.

The episode featuring David Letterman, titled Into The Light, will air Oct. 30.

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We know that First Families can do no wrong. Not even if their abilities to win elections with the leadership they have, as with the Gandhi Family, are poor. Solutions are searched for within the party. If not Rahul Gandhi, then the party cadre is willing to root for Priyanka, his sibling. It is a family that has sacrificed for the nation.

That puts first families ahead of the party, and as is the case now in Uttar Pradesh, ahead of the state. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has said that if outsiders interfere in party family matters, how can we tolerate it? That is an unambiguous a statement of how the family is of primacy. No wonder, since in 2014 elections, only members of the Yadav family got elected to Lok Sabha.

The father, Mulayam Singh Yadav was as pointed too. In the elections to the Lok Sabha in 2014, he unabashedly has underlined during the on-going crisis, that only the members of the family got elected, apparently because they alone had the merit to find the voters approbation. So, when a family is party, and thus controls the resources of a large state, things unravel differently.

Imagine Akhilesh Yadav not being of The Family. Could he have thumbed his nose at the party supremo, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the way he has? In any party, such a rebel would have been unceremoniously thrown out. Here, one would imagine, the leader had to balance the demands of the family and the party that is the family.

Sometime ago I had written about how the parliamentary party could perhaps have a full quorum if the elected from Samajwadi Party met at the family dinner table. The party posts, the parliamentary seats, the government offices they hold, overlap ever so nicely that it is not unusual for the son, Akhilesh Yadav to refer to father Mulayam Singh not as papa or daddy or pitaji but Netaji. That about sums it up.

Yesterday, the elder Yadav fumed about the younger Yadav thus: What happened despite his being the CM? Only five members of the family won. If I had listened to Shivpal (Yadav, brother), we would have won 30-35 seats and I would have been the PM. Filial bonds keep the machete away and the CM who did not help the father-cum-party supremo grab the highest office, it is only a jumla.

Yet, such a son-cum-chief minister who has been scolded publicly by Mulayam, will now have the right, as per the peace formula, to choose candidates for the forthcoming elections to the UP Legislative Assembly. But here comes the contradiction: Yesterday, the elder Yadav said that Akhilesh should remember that people have accepted him as CM because he is my son.

He never had any individual standing in politics, said Mulayam, which again underscores the point: a person, according to Mulayam, is good enough to steward a state, by virtue of lineage. It is not my view that Akhilesh is unfit for the post he holds, but it is disheartening to see people in key positions, including having dreamt of prime ministership, argue for or against on the basis of their DNAs.

Of course, there are other families across the country which hold sway in politics of a state  the Pawars of Maharashtra, the Lalu Yadav family of Bihar, and if you sit with a paper and pen, can easily draw up a list of families that count in parties and the states. They may not be in power, but there, lineage has precedence over other considerations. It could be at the taluk or even the district level.
On Gateway council

The Gateway to Science board of directors recently appointed several people to serve on a new statewide advisory council. Members of the council were recruited from across the state, representing industries related to science, technology, engineering and math, education and the public sector. Council members will advocate for Gateway to Science within their sectors and help the organization form connections with their communities.

Council members were appointed by the board, and their first meeting was held in July: Mark Braun, owner, Advantage Appliance, Bismarck; Sarah Fox, teacher, Glen Ullin School District; Jared Graetz, Trail King Industries, Fargo; Gerald McGillivray, Williston State College; Laura Munske, director, Dakota Science Center, Grand Forks; Dennis Pozarnsky, retired engineer, Carrington; Jared Pozarnsky, Great River Energy, Benedict; Michelle Solensky, professor, University of Jamestown; and Joseph Vacek, professor, University of North Dakota.

One council position remains open in the Devils Lake region. Interested applicants should contact Beth Demke, executive director via email at beth@gscience.org.

Employees honored

Gov. Jack Dalrymple presented six state employees with the Governors Award for Excellence in Public Service in recognition of their dedication and contributions to the people of North Dakota. The awards were presented during a luncheon at the Capitol in Bismarck, kicking off State Employee Recognition Week.

Jesse Hanson was recognized in the executive and administration category. He is the director of the planning division for the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department in Bismarck.

Sandy Eichhorn was recognized in the professional category. She is a customer service specialist for Job Service North Dakota in the Wahpeton Customer Service Office.

Christie Massen was recognized in the technical and paraprofessional category. She is the assistant director for the division of laboratory services-microbiology for the North Dakota Department of Health in Bismarck.

Jean Hagen was recognized in the office support category. She is an administrative assistant with aerospace studies at North Dakota State University.

Dorothy Wilson was recognized in the services category. She is a member of the dining services team at NDSU.

Jim Stalboerger was recognized in the trades and crafts category. He is a maintenance and repair technician with facilities management at NDSU.

The award recipients were nominated by their peers and selected by a committee of judges who reviewed and scored the nominations. Nominees were rated on their overall job performance, contributions to their department, commitment to customer service, working relationship with fellow workers and involvement in their community.

State Fair results

The results of the North Dakota State Fair competitions can be found online at www.ndstatefair.com/exhibit/results/.
Peshawar: Two gunmen on a motorcycle killed three soldiers Sunday near the northwestern city of Peshawar, police said.

The gunmen struck in Garhi Sohbat Khan on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, attacking a private vehicle carrying the three soldiers, said Shaukat Khan, a senior police officer.

The attackers used handguns to target the soldiers, who were returning from a military dairy farm after fetching milk for officers, Khan said.

Jamaatul Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. Ahsanullah Ahsan, spokesman for the group, said in a statement that the three soldiers were targeted by the group to avenge the "military's animosity with mosques."

Islamic militants have been involved in multiple such attacks in and around the provincial capital surrounded by lawless tribal regions.

Dad Mohammad, another area police officer, said the incident was second such attack in this area  which is close to Mohmand tribal region. Last week gunmen shot and killed a prominent physician who was instrumental in anti-polio campaigns, he said.

The Mohmand tribal region had been a longtime hotbed for Islamic militants and the Pakistani army has carried out several operations to eliminate militant hideouts.

But the militants have repeatedly struck back. Last Friday, a suicide bomber killed 36 worshippers in a mosque during weekly prayers in the Ambar area of Mohmand. Jamaatul Ahrar claimed responsibility for that attack too.
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been honored as the 2016 humanitarian of the year by students and faculty at the Harvard Foundation. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate gained international prominence as the General Secretary of the newly formed National League for Democracy in Myanmar in 1990. She became one of the worlds most well-known political prisoners during her 15 years of house arrest for participating in anti-government protests.

Gunmen kill 3 army soldiers in Pakistan

Two gunmen on a motorcycle killed three soldiers Sunday near the northwestern city of Peshawar, police said. The gunmen struck in Garhi Sohbat Khan on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, attacking a private vehicle carrying the three soldiers, said Shaukat Khan, a senior police officer.
Scholar Alan Baxter has recently returned to the territory after being away to lecture at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil for over five years. The former director (between 2007 and 2011) of the department of Portuguese at the University of Macau returned to the territory to lead the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Saint Joseph (USJ).

Baxter was attracted by the possibility of working in a smaller dimension and more flexible institution, he said on the sidelines of a two-day conference on language contact in Asia and the Pacific held by the University of Macau (UM).

I spent almost six years at the Federal University of Bahia which is an institution that I have been connected to since 1985, but to work in a university that has about 40,000 undergraduate students and may have between 15,000 and 20,000 of post-graduates with well establish programs and lots of fixed things that you cant move or change or any change is subjected to a lot of bureaucracy [that] is complicated, he said. According to the scholar, what brought him back to Macau was the possibility of working in a different environment;more flexible is very attractive. Baxter said. But I wont deny that my return also has to do with the fact that I was longing for closer contact with the Malacca community, he said.

But those are not the only motives, as professor Baxter revealed that there are other projects related with Patua language, and also an interest regarding East Timor that might be interesting in my research, he said.

Baxter was one of the presenters at the two-day conference held by UM last week, where he presented a paper addressing the current ecology of the surviving varieties of Asian Creole Portuguese.

In the paper, Baxter discusses the role of the non-governmental (NGO) and governmental organizations working on the field that, he believes, has done little for the preservation of the creole languages.

digital archive of patua to be created at um

On the sidelines of the two-day conference on language contact in Asia and the Pacific, one of the conference organizers, Professor Mario Pinharanda Nunes from the Department of Portuguese language of the University of Macau (UM) has announced that the university will create a digital archive of Patua by the end of this year. Nunes holds a PhD in Linguistics in Creole Studies which is related to the Patua language. According to Nunes, the digital archive can be used for a number of functions, ranging from a heritage mark and memory to supporting post-graduation students works. Help to create the archive will also from the local theater group Doci Papiacam di Macau.
China said Friday that a Canadian citizen it detained for two years over spying allegations was allowed to leave the country after a local court issued a verdict in his case, but it refused to say what the verdict was or why he was detained at all.

Kevin Garratts return to Canada was announced last week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said he had pressed Garratts case with top Chinese officials.

Garratt had been indicted by prosecutors in Dandong, a city on the North Korean border where he and his wife ran a popular coffee shop and conducted Christian aid work for North Koreans. He and his wife, Julia, were arrested in August 2014 by the state security bureau. While his wife was released on bail, Garratt remained in custody.

Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a faxed statement Friday, said Garratt had been treated according to law. It said China fully guaranteed all kinds of procedural rights of Kevin Garratt, and fully respected and implemented the consular rights of the Canadian side, the ministry said.

But the ministry declined to say what investigators found or what the outcome of the trial was. A person who answered the phone at the court on Friday, a Chinese state holiday, said officials were not available to discuss the case.

Chinese state media have previously reported that authorities found evidence that implicated Garratt in accepting tasks from Canadian espionage agencies to gather intelligence in China.

Courts in China are widely seen as a tool of the ruling Communist Party and issue decisions in line with the governments thinking on a case.

Garratts release comes as both sides pledged to strengthen economic ties during Trudeaus visit to China earlier this month for the Group of 20 economic summit, and one week before Premier Li Keqiang is to visit Canada for talks with Trudeau. AP
A Cause for Claws Thrift Store (701-751-5828)  Seeks volunteers to sort, test, repair and set up store displays. All profits support a low-cost spay and neuter clinic.

Abused Adult Resource Center (701-222-8370)  Volunteers advocates needed to help answer the crisis calls in the evenings and on weekends. An advocates role is to listen, offer support and give options. Free training provided.

AID Inc. (701-663-2122 or 701-663-1274)  Adults to sort clothing, sort other donations, pricing, cashiering, cleaning, organizing, hanging clothes, sorting, testing and repairing electrical items and other various tasks.

American Cancer Society (701-433-7582)  Volunteer drivers for Road to Recovery Program.

American Red Cross (701-223-6700)  Disaster and Health and Safety Services to teach CPR/first aid courses, aid in disaster response locally and nationwide, training provided. Adults and youth 16 and older.

Arc of Bismarck (701-222-1854)  Work in the thrift store.

Baptist Health Care Center (701-223-3040)  Assist residents with clinic appointments, activities, meals, chapel on Sunday and bingo.

Big Brothers Big Sisters (701-222-0797)  Be a mentor for youth.

Bismarck-Mandan Chapter of SCORE (701-328-5861)  Volunteer management counselors to provide free and confidential mentoring and counseling for those who wish to start a small business. Call or stop by the office at the Bank of North Dakota building on Memorial Highway.

Buckstop Junction/Missouri Valley Historical Society (701-250-8575)  Conduct tours of historic buildings, help with The Shoppe, building or grounds maintenance, general office work, Corn Feed/Old Settlers Day, publicity or adopt a building.

Burleigh County Senior Adult Program (701-255-4648)  Deliver meals to homebound elderly individuals and assist as nutrition servers, gift shop attendants, Wii bowling scorekeeper and answering phones.

Central Dakota Humane Society (701-667-2020)  Provide companionship, exercise and socialization to the dogs and cats; assist with basic animal care; assist with special events.

Charles Hall Youth Services (701-255-2773, ext. 303)  Volunteer mentors needed to commit to supporting, guiding and mentoring at-risk youth. Mentors serve as positive role models, teaching youth healthy and safe ways to have fun and to meet positive academic, career and personal goals. Mentors must be minimum of 21 years of age. Training provided.

CHI St. Alexius Health (701-530-7159)  Deliver mail and flowers, escort patients, help with the gift shop.

CHI St. Alexius Home Health & Hospice (701-530-4500)  Share your time, energy and compassion while enriching your own life and lives of others. Help with a variety of activities such as companionship, errands, respite care, administrative and bereavement support. Volunteers who are a veteran, can play an instrument for music therapy and/or perform pet therapy are particularly needed.

Community Action (701-258-2240)  Help in the donation center and the food pantry.

Cystic Fibrosis Association (701-222-3998)  Help with mailings and fundraising events.

Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch (701-223-7979)  Help in thrift store and perform janitorial duties.

Dakota Zoo (701-223-7543)  Accepting applications for adult volunteers to provide animal conservation programs and animal handling for educational programs. Training provided. Also looking for general volunteers for light building and repair projects. Carpentry, mechanical and fencing skills are a plus but not needed.

Foster Grandparent Program (701-258-5436)  Provide one-on-one assistance to children in schools, Head Start and child care centers. Listen to children read, assist with homework, etc.

Good Samaritan Society (701-323-3274)  Volunteers needed.

Lutheran Social Services Senior Companions (701-838-7800)  Seniors 55 and older who are healthy, active and interested in helping their older neighbors.

Make-A-Wish (701-280-9474)  Help with upcoming special events.

Manchester House (701-223-5600)  Be a mentor for youth. Must be at least 18.

Mandan Golden Age Services (701-663-6528)  Pick up prepared meals at Mandan Senior Center and deliver them to the homes of the elderly.

McLean Family Resource Center (701-462-8643)  Assist with crisis line.

Mental Health America of North Dakota (701-255-3692)  Help with data entry, various office duties.

Neighbors Network Program (701-323-4277)  Volunteers with pickups to help move donated furniture items to clients homes.

New Song Church (701-258-5683)  Janitorial and light maintenance work. For details, email erickson.e.michael@gmail.com.

North Dakota Operation Lifesaver (701-223-6372)  Help spread the message about railroad safety.

Pride Inc. (701-258-7838)  Support people with disabilities in social and recreational activities, especially between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. daily, Monday-Friday, also evenings and weekends. Staff on site to assist at all times.

Public Health Emergency Volunteer Reserve Corps/Medical Reserve Corps (701-328-1334)  Accepting registration of volunteers to assist with public health emergencies. Medical and non-medical volunteers needed. Choose to help only in own county, in the surrounding counties, statewide or anywhere in the U.S. Register at www.ndhealth.gov/EPR/volunteer.

RSVP+ Central North Dakota (701-258-5436)  RSVP+ will connect volunteers of all ages to a variety of volunteer opportunities throughout the community.

Ruth Meiers House (701-222-2108)  Sorting donations, stocking food pantry shelves, dining room servers, childrens learning center aides, baby boutique program assistants and special event help. More information: www.ruthmeiers.org.

St. Vincents Care Center (701-323-1974)  Entertainers for background music for Sunday social events.

Salvation Army (701-223-1889)  Assist with meals, activities and tutoring in the youth program; stock food pantry shelves; light maintenance work.

Sanford Health (701-323-6011)  Greet and assist visitors in the surgical waiting room, deliver flowers, help in the Gift Shoppe and Koffee Korner and assist with special projects.

Sanford Health Hospice (701-323-8400)  Volunteers needed to assist terminally ill patients. Assistance commonly includes visiting, reading and taking walks; child care assistance; bereavement support; and administrative/clerical work. Orientation, training and support provided.

Seeds of Hope store (701-222-8370)  Greeters, price clothes, stock and straighten shelves, Diggers Delight and more. Creative people needed for designing gift baskets and store displays.

Tracys Sanctuary House (701-258-5889)  Perform daily housekeeping tasks, answer phones, stock kitchen and food pantry.

Volunteer Care Givers for the Elderly (701-223-9290)  Assist with transportation, yardwork, light housekeeping, respite care, errands and shopping and other companionship activities with the elderly.

Welcome House Inc. (701-391-5184)  Assist with food pantry, kitchen and front desk.
China General Nuclear Power Corp., the countrys biggest nuclear power operator, has been invited to make a second-round bid for Chevron Corp.s Asian geothermal energy assets, which could fetch USD3 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Jakarta-based PT Medco Power Indonesia is considering joining a separate shortlisted consortium that includes Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp. and Philippine energy producer Aboitiz Power Corp., said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Citigroup Inc., Chevrons adviser on the sale, will call for second-round bids later this month, the people said.

Chevron, the largest U.S. oil producer after Exxon Mobil Corp., has slashed jobs, canceled drilling projects and sought assets sales to counter a slump in energy prices. The San Ramon, California-

based company is aiming to sell its main Asian geothermal holdings, which generate energy from the earths heat, in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Chevrons Indonesia Salak field, one of the worlds largest geothermal operations, supplies a power plant that has 377 megawatts of total capacity, according to its website. It also has a 40 percent stake in Philippine Geothermal Production Co.

Medco Group is considering partnering with a Japanese company and a Philippine company, Medco Power President Director Fazil Alfitri said by phone Friday. He declined to name the potential partners.

Representatives for Marubeni, Aboitiz and Citigroup declined to comment, while a representative for China General Nuclear didnt respond to a Bloomberg inquiry. A Singapore-based spokesman for Chevron said the company doesnt comment on market rumor or speculation concerning mergers, acquisitions, or divestitures of its assets.

Aboitiz said earlier this month that it partnered with Marubeni, while Medco said in August the Indonesian firm had submitted a bid to buy a stake in the Chevron assets. Sovereign fund China Investment Corp., Malaysias power producer Malakoff Corp., Japans Mitsubishi Corp. and Ormat Technologies Inc. were among companies that considered making offers, people familiar with the situation said in April.

Chevron has said it plans to raise $5 billion to $10 billion through next year from sales including the geothermal unit and assets in Hawaii, Canada, Myanmar and South Africa.

In July, the company reported its third straight quarterly loss, the longest slump since at least 1989, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The industry is struggling with a persistent glut of oil thats sunk prices and forced companies to shrink drilling programs and cut spending. Vinicy Chan, Dinesh Nair and Fathiya Dahrul, Bloomberg
Cinematheque Passion will organize a lecture titled Film Marketing: How to Sell Your Story on September 24, where the Secretary General of the Guangdong Film Industry Association, Zheng Dawei, will be invited to analyze the key elements of successful commercial films.

Zheng is also due to present the development of film production in mainland China, as well the selection procedures, analysis, approval and finally evaluation of film projects.

Having graduated in Film Literature at the Research Institute of the Arts of Television and Cinema of the National Academy of the Arts of China and having served in the industry for more than three decades, Zheng has experience working in the audiovisual industry as a producer, director and editor-in-chief.

According to a statement from the Cultural Affairs Bureau, the speaker has significant other experience working both behind the scenes and on the front lines of contemporary film production in China.

The lecture is organized for this Saturday between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Free online registration is now open for the 60 seats of the lecture, which will be assigned in order of registration.
A Vietnamese association has revealed that there have been several reported cases of Vietnamese domestic workers facing difficulties in communicating with their employers in the region.

The head of the Macau Vietnam Communal Association, Mon Peng, pointed out that the language barrier and cultural differences are two of the most common hurdles that Vietnamese domestic helpers are facing. The association has called for support in resolving problems that its members are experiencing.

As cited in TDM, Peng told reporters that it is a challenge for household workers to communicate with their employers, thus its association is offering them assistance.

The employers of Macau, maybe due to language or culture problems, have poor communication with the helpers. This causes our association to help them voluntarily. There are around 100 to 200 cases in a year, she said.

Peng noted that such conflicts are not difficult to solve as long as both parties are willing to resolve the issue.

According to the association, Vietnamese domestic workers earn an average monthly salary of MOP4,000, while meals and accommodation are provided by their employers.

As of May 2016, Vietnamese non-resident workers in the region totaled over 14,500.
The Philippine Consulate General in the region has re-commenced its consular services on Sundays, after several Filipino associations demanded its service to operate on weekends.

The consulate, including its attached agencies, will operate on Sundays for a trial period lasting until the end of 2016.

Several associations in the region had called for the consulate to provide services on Sundays due to a majority of the community having time available at this point of the week.

Early this year, the consulate documented its dialogue with some members of Migrante Macau and sent it to Manila. The document requesting for the Consulate to open on Sundays included 2,832 signatures from Filipinos in the region.

The Times visited the embassy yesterday and several Filipinos said they are pleased that the consulate had finally heeded to their long-time request.

The opening of the consulate on Sundays is such a big help to our fellow. Its now similar to the [Filipino] consulate in Hong Kong which is also open on Sundays said one resident.

Sundays are the only chance for the [domestic] workers to seek services from the consulate. Most of the workers have no time during weekdays, said another.

Although a few were unaware that the Sunday operation is only on trial, many hoped that the embassy would continue to serve the Filipino community during the weekend.

Meanwhile, Migrante Macau president Emerlina de Lina said the association is very happy, however she noted that they are quite disappointed that the new arrangement is not permanent.

Were really trying our best to prove that there are several workers that need their services on Sundays, she explained.

People just kept coming, non-

stop, from morning until afternoon so its not true that the demand for their services is low on the weekend.

The Philippines Consul General in the region, Lilybeth Deapera previously said that the consulate opened its doors on Sundays a few years ago, but only a few local Filipino migrants requested services over the weekend.

She also explained in a previous report that the green light to operate on Sundays is obtained from the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs.

Depending on the outcome of the three-month trial period, Deapera told TDM they would consult with authorities from Manila to decide whether its operations on Sundays should be permanent.

However, de Lina said Macau-based Filipino associations would continually organize petitions and dialogues in the event that the consulate decides to end the arrangement this year.
Three people have sustained injuries in a multiple-vehicle collision in Coloane which occurred yesterday around 11 a.m., sources from the Public Security Police Force (PSP) told the Times.

According to the source, the accident occurred at Estrada de Cheoc Van near the Pousada de Coloane area, where there was a head-to-head collision between a motorcycle and a van travelling in the opposite direction.

The accident resulted in a domino effect when two motorcyclists, who were travelling in a group behind the first motorcycle, failed to stop in time after the initial crash.

A total of four vehicles were involved in the accident which has resulted in three people (two of the motorcycle riders (one in a severe condition) and the vans driver) being transported to the hospital after sustaining injuries.

The police are still investigating the cause of the accident but the primary investigation indicated that one of the motorists failed to control their vehicle in the traffic lane and crossed the continuous line, crashing with the other vehicle that was travelling in the opposite direction.

Another collision also occurred in the early hours of yesterday morning. Around 3 a.m., a van and a light vehicle collided near the above mentioned location at Estrada de Hac Sa.

According to the police report, this accident resulted in three people sustaining injuries, two of them were reported as being in the car.

The driver was trapped in the vehicle and was only removed with the help of the fire services.

Both the driver and passenger have sustained serious injuries and are currently receiving treatment at the intensive care unit. RM
JAPAN Two aides to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the nation is planning to bring in more overseas workers to bolster the shrinking labor force. Masahiko Shibayama, a lawmaker in Abes ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker who serves as a special adviser to the prime minister, said in an interview in Singapore on Friday that policies under consideration may result in a doubling of foreign workers in Japan.

THAILAND at least 13 people were killed when a double-decker passenger boat carrying more than 100 people capsized in the Chao Phraya River north of Bangkok. Some people were still missing after the accident, which occurred when the boat was involved in a collision yesterday afternoon, but it was not immediately clear how many. No foreigners were reported to be among the victims.

FRANCE Officials say former French President Jacques Chirac has been hospitalized with a lung infection. Jocelyne Gastellu of the Paris Hospitals Foundation confirmed yesterday that the 83-year-old was admitted to a hospital in Paris but could not confirm local media reports that it followed a visit to Morocco.

SERBIA Thousands riot police cordoned off central Belgrade yesterday for a gay pride march which was held amid fears of attacks from extremists in the predominantly conservative Balkan country. Holding banners and flags, several hundred people marched in the downtown area as helicopters flew above. Police with dogs secured the zone that was sealed off for traffic for hours before the planned start of the event.

SOMALIA A powerful car bomb killed a Somali military general and five of his bodyguards in the capital yesterday, according to a Somali police officer. Gen. Mohamed Roble Jimale Gobanle and his bodyguards were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle next to the generals car near Somalias defense ministry compound in Mogadishu, said Capt. Ali Nur. Gobanle was the commander of the Somali armys 3rd Brigade, a combat team fighting the al-Shabab Islamic extremists in southern Somalia.
TWIN FALLS  The unemployment rate has dropped again across the Magic Valley, further pressuring economic development leaders to focus on recruiting workers to the area.

The Idaho Department of Labor announced Friday its estimates that unemployment in August stayed at 3.8 percent statewide. The Magic Valley dropped one-tenth of a percent to 3.2 percent, as only one county  Blaine  saw any increase at all.

A shortage of laborers has meant Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization has had to shift gears over the last 18 months, focusing on work force recruitment.

Theres still many businesses out there that have had four or five job openings for four or five months, SIEDO Executive Director Jeff Hough said.

While many businesses are still having trouble finding workers, that hasnt stopped economic development efforts.

Its been a tricky balancing act for economic development officials to recruit more businesses but not so many there arent enough workers to meet their demands. Its important to keep momentum, Hough said, but at the same time, you have to be careful. More announcements about new businesses in the area are anticipated to come in the next month or so but for companies that dont have large job requirements.

Weve got three to four companies that are looking at the region and are very interested, Hough said.

In the meantime, SIEDO continues reworking its website to better provide information about the area to potential workers and meet work force demands.

Is the Magic Valley boom slowing down?

Some recent numbers have local analysts such as Department of Labor Regional Economist Jan Roeser concerned that things may be slowing down.

The civilian labor force in August rose 1.1 percent, about half the increase seen in the previous August. Furthermore, job listings are down  and have fallen an estimated 10 percent just from June.

Weve had a lot of construction, and it seems thats slowed a little bit, Roeser said.

Drops from last year in agricultural commodity prices are also likely to have some repercussions, she said.

But its still early to tell. September and October typically show the lowest unemployment rates of the year, Roeser said.

Twin Falls and Cassia counties saw no change in unemployment from July, at 3.4 percent and 3.1 percent respectively. Compared with a year ago, every county in the region but one has dropped in unemployment  Lincoln County was the same at 4.2 percent.

The civilian labor force in the Magic Valley increased from July by about 400 people, with 3,149 of 98,035 unemployed.

For the sixth time this year, Idaho ranked first in the nation for over-the-year job growth, the Department of Labor reported. An additional 22,000 jobs  a 3.3 percent increase  was driven by gains in all industries. Construction grew the fastest with a 9.2 percent increase followed by growth in financial activities, other services and information.

Madison and Jerome counties experienced the lowest rates in the state at 2.5 percent and 2.8 percent. Lewis County had the highest rate at 7.7 percent.
The man most responsible for making Cream of Wheat the top-selling hot breakfast cereal in America had earlier been a North Dakota farmer and newspaper editor.

Emery Mapes co-founded the Cream of Wheat company and, through his genius as a promoter, created an marketing campaign that revolutionized how many advertisements were produced.

Emery Cordenio Mapes Jr. was born Sept. 24, 1853, in Aurora, Ill., to Emery and Laura (Severance) Mapes. The younger Mapes received his public education in rural Minnesota schools and graduated from Ripon College.

Mapes moved to northern Dakota Territory in 1882 to engage in the newspaper business and founded the weekly Nelson County News in Lakota. In anticipation of the arrival of the Great Northern Railroad, Mapes purchased land midway between Lakota and Tolna and laid out a town site on Stump Lake that he named Wamduska. On July 11, a post office was established, and Mapes was named postmaster.

In 1883, when it became apparent that the Great Northern would be bypassing the town 10 miles to the north, Mapes founded another town 4 miles east of Lakota. The town of Mapes thrived at the beginning, but, after many fires, most citizens relocated. With the decline in population, the Great Northern no longer stopped at Mapes, which intensified the out-migration process. Ambitious to make his fortune, Mapes became interested in milling.

On July 11, 1889, the opportunity to purchase a mill occurred when the Diamond Flour Mill at Lake Crystal, near Mankato, Minn., burned and was not insured. Most of the machinery was saved and, to recover some of their investment, the owners sold the operating equipment.

Mapes and George Bull, a Grand Forks farm manager, purchased the machinery and had it shipped to Grand Forks. Together, they started the Diamond Flour Mill, though neither man knew anything about milling. Tom Amidon, an experienced miller from Jamestown, was hired to supervise the operation of the facility. The business venture almost folded before it got started when Amidon, after inspecting the flour mill, informed the two partners that the machinery was almost useless. It had become warped from the fire, and much of it needed to be retooled.

The three men believed in their enterprise and brought in George Clifford, a local banker and attorney, as another partner in order to raise the necessary capital. Bull also convinced Grand Forks banker S. S. Titus and 10 others to invest in the company. Because Cream of Wheat later became a main staple of the breakfast cereal industry, the initial investment of $40,000 made all of the original stockholders very wealthy.

The Diamond Flour Mill ran into more tough times when the Panic of 1893 wiped out many American enterprises. Fortunately, Amidon came up with an idea that not only saved the company, but also launched a popular new cereal. He gathered the farina, the whitest part of the wheat, which he took home and cooked into a cereal. The taste was delicious and the texture was smooth. Through persistence, Amidon convinced Bull and Mapes to send some samples to their New York brokers.

Believing they had a superb product, the partners now needed to employ proper marketing techniques. The owners located some rough strawboard and, with the use of jackknives, fashioned boxes for the cereal. Mapes reproduced colorful images for the boxes giving them life and appeal. Everything was now ready with the exception of a name for their new cereal. George Cliffords brother, Fred, worked in the office at the mill and believed that the name needed to focus on the fact that the whitest part of the wheat was used in the cereal. After a discussion, it was determined that the name of the cereal would be Cream of Wheat.

On Oct. 6, 1893, the partners of the Diamond Flour Mill sent 360 boxes of Cream of Wheat to New York, along with a carload of milled flour. Within three hours of the boxcars arriving, the brokers sent a telegram to the Grand Forks mill stating, Never mind shipping us your flour. Send us a carload of Cream of Wheat.

To gear up to fill this order of nearly 2,000 boxes and even larger shipments in the future, the owners of the Diamond Flour Mill needed to organize a strategic plan. The mill was renamed the Cream of Wheat Factory, and an assembly line was implemented so that many boxes of cereal could be churned out each day. Melvin Brannon, a biology professor at the University of North Dakota, developed an electrolysis treatment that eliminated contaminants and provided longer shelf life for the cereal.

To create national interest in the new product, Mapes began running ads for Cream of Wheat in the Ladies Home Journal in November of 1896. The demand for this new cereal was extraordinary. By 1897, it became apparent that the company needed a better location for a distribution center. The owners chose Minneapolis as the new site for the bigger and better Cream of Wheat Factory as they prepared to become a major player in the growing cereal market.
AMERICAN FALLS  The Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $1.7 million construction contract to Rexburg-based Yale Creek Inc. for an improvement project on the American Falls Reservoir.

The project involves rehabilitation of the West Side boat ramp, parking area and restroom facilities, adjacent to American Falls Dam.

After more than 55 years of continual use and exposure to the elements, the West Side boat ramp has reached the end of its functional life, a Reclamation release said. The ramp and parking area are showing considerable signs of deterioration and need replacement.

We are excited to see this project move forward, said Ryan Newman, Upper Snake Field Office assistant manager. The new ramp will provide for improved, safe, reservoir access and should accommodate the publics needs.

On-site work is expected to begin this fall, with completion in March 2018.

American Falls Dam, originally completed in 1928, is part of the Minidoka Project and is on the Snake River near American Falls. In 1978, the dam was reconstructed and replaced.
I have to start out this week and give a happy anniversary (17 years today) shout out to my wife. She is a wonderful cops wife.

Q: Is there anything I can do that might help me get out of getting a ticket? -Luke

A: Yes, do not break the law and it will help you avoid getting any tickets (Insert rim shot here).

One thing I would like to mention here is that when or if you get stopped, please for officer safety, dont get out of your vehicle unless asked or demanded to. Officers have enough to worry about when making the stop. Officers are skilled people but E.S.P. has never been one of our strong points. Besides we dont know if you are coming back to tell us police lives matter and to compliment our uniform, or to ask us if we like your new Smith and Wesson 357 you are carrying fully loaded.

It would also be helpful it if you would not move around in your vehicle prior to us making contact. We have no problems waiting for you to unbuckle your seatbelt and then reach into your glove box for your vehicle information after weve made contact with you.

I will tell you that if I stop you and you have your seatbelt on theres a chance youll get a warning or given a less costly citation. Sometimes seatbelts not only save lives but they might also save a driver some money loss.

We, in law enforcement, know that, in this P.C. world (not probable cause) we cant write what we really want to say in our reports, so here are some ways to interpret what a police report said and what it actually meant.

 Said-The accident scene and the safety of the victims prevented this officer from doing traffic control.

 Meant- It was raining.

 Said- The motorist was cited for multiple traffic violations.

 Meant- I wrote one citation for each swear word he used.

 Said- The motorist was operating his vehicle in a reckless manner

 Meant- He had a bumper sticker that said SLOW DOWN-DONT FEED THE PIGS

 Said- Can I see your pilots license?

 Meant- You were really flying down the road

Officer down:

Please put these officers, killed in the line of duty, and their families in your prayers. They fought the good fight, now may they rest in peace. God bless these heroes.

Police Lieutenant Waldemar Rivera-Santiago, Puerto Rico Police, Puerto Rico

Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Maltby, Eastland County Sheriff, Texas

Master Deputy Sheriff Brandon Collins, Johnson County Sheriff, Kansas

Have a question for Policeman Dan? Email your question(s) to policemandan@yahoo.com or look for Ask Policemandan on Facebook and click the like button. Mail to: Box 147, Heyburn, Idaho 83336
TWIN FALLS  Forty-two years ago this month, Robert Evel Knievel Sr. famously failed to launch himself over the Snake River Canyon in a steam-powered rocket.

On Friday, Hollywood stuntman Eddie Braun fulfilled Knievels dream by propelling himself over the canyon in a replica of Knievels X-2 Skycycle, built by Scott Truax, the son of Knievels rocket designer, Robert Truax.

In the decades since Knievels failed attempt in 1974, numerous daredevils  including Knievels son Robbie  talked about recreating the jump.

Several years ago, as the clock ticked close to the 40th anniversary of Knievels jump, a handful of rocketeers vied for the opportunity to use Knievels dirt ramp, still piled on city-owned property on the canyon rim, to do what Knievel couldnt.

But only one team, called Return to the Snake River, ever came close to pointing a rocket over the canyon.

That rocket, the Evel Spirit, stood Friday afternoon with its nose to the sky, waiting for commands from inside the supervan where the team prepared for the stunt of Brauns lifetime  flying three-quarters of a mile through the air at 430 mph.

Mad Mike Hughes, who calls himself the King of the Daredevils and had pitched his own jump of the canyon to the Twin Falls City Council, doubted Braun would succeed.

I wish him the best, but this is beyond scary, Hughes said Friday morning. I wouldnt blame the guy if he walks away before the jump.

Hughes launched a similar rocket  the X-3 Skylimo  1,374 feet in January, 2014, near Winkelman, Ariz. Braun needed to fly 1,600 feet to cross the Snake River Canyon safely.

Texas daredevil Big Ed Beckley, whose unfulfilled plan to jump the canyon from Knievels dirt ramp cost him $1.7 million, still harbors feelings of resentment toward Twin Falls and the Idaho Department of Lands, but had kind words for Braun Friday morning.

I pray that Eddie will be successful and healthy, Beckley said.

Beckley obtained a landing site by paying nearly $1 million to the state for a two-year lease along the canyon rim in Jerome County. The lease, he said, was contingent on his receiving the required permits from all other agencies, including the city of Twin Falls. Twin Falls eventually pulled out of Beckleys jump, which was scheduled for September 2014.

Idaho needs to give me my money back, Beckley said.

Where it all started

Evel Knievel made a living defying death. So does Eddie Braun.

But thats where the similarities between the two men end.

Knievel, a motorcycle daredevil, was larger than life. And when he announced that he would attempt to jump the canyon in 1974, the quiet town of Twin Falls, at the time population 22,000, would never be the same.

Bobby Knievel took our breath away. Our innocence soon followed. Times-News columnist Steve Crump wrote on the jumps 20-year anniversary.

Knievel wasnt a newcomer to Twin Falls; hed been hanging out with locals off and on for years. He had one eye on the Snake River Canyon long before he got the idea to jump the Grand Canyon, an idea that was quickly squelched by authorities.

Knievel lived in Boise in his early 20s and hung out with the biker crowd. Boise biker fan Alan McIntire gave him the nickname Evel.

Before his failed canyon jump, national reporter Geraldo Rivera declared Knievel more popular than Ted Kennedy, David Cassidy or John Lennon.

Evel Knievel was the ultimate showman  a superhero, cape and all, said the 54-year-old Braun, a 30-year veteran of film and television. Knievel inspired a generation. I wanted to be him.

But the towns enthusiasm turned to shock when Knievel came to town, followed by some 25,000  mostly unruly  fans.

Bikers hijacked a Twin Falls firetruck and took over the police station. Fans set afire 200 portable toilets and the cross at Shoshone Falls, tipped over a beer truck, and stole 2,600 cases of beer from the Jaycees.

An Akron, Ohio, man, in town to watch Knievel jump, made his own dive into the Snake River prior to Knievels fall into the canyon.

Tom Rauckhorst, 21, leaped from rocks 200 feet above the river, crushing three vertabrae when he hit the water. Rauckhorst swam to shore and climbed the canyon wall, where he found two campers who rushed him to the hospital on a motorcycle.

Many came to town to watch Knievel succeed or die. He did neither. The Skycycles chute deployed on the ramp and dragged Knievel into the canyon, disappointing fans and the 100,000 closed-circuit viewers who had paid to see it.

The stunt was an exclamation without a point, the Times-News editorialized.

When Knievel and the rocket disappeared into the canyon, about 1,500 bikers broke through the safety fence and rushed the canyon rim. One woman went over the edge but fell only 10 feet to a ledge below.

Knievels jump was, quite simply, the damnedest thing Twin Falls had ever seen, Crump wrote.

Picture-perfect launch

Evels daughter Alicia Knievel Vincent of Butte, Mont., saw the Snake River Canyon for the first time on Friday.

I was just a twinkle in my dads eyes in 1974, she said as she shared some of her familys memories of the jump.

Dad was terrified, Vincent said. He truly thought he was going to die, but he was too far into it and couldnt back out.

Braun, on the other hand, was calm and collected.

He and Scott Truax kept Fridays launch under the radar to prevent a reccurence of the 1974 fiasco.

Eddies hearts in the right place, said Chuck Coiner, who watched the jump from his nearby shop. He didnt want a spectacle.

The Evel Spirit floated down on land Braun leased from Coiner, a former state senator, and Coiners sister, Karen Lindemer.

It was a good event, Coiner said Saturday, something we can be proud of.

Coiner and Lindemer donated much of Brauns payment to the Hansen School District.

When the city of Twin Falls first backed Beckleys jump over Brauns, his team said, Lets go get our own land. Thats what Evel would do. Thats when the Braun quietly secured land about 7 miles upstream from the Knievels ramp.

Many of Knievels cronies were part of Fridays launch. Gary Davis, Knievels own stuntman, was the stunt coordinator. Stunt engineer Craig Adams was also part of the 1974 attempt. Knievels widow, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel, and many of the Knievel family came to support Braun.

Braun idolized Knievel when he was a young boy, and even broke his arm jumping his Schwinn bicycle over garbage cans imitating him. He met the daredevil when he was 12.

I have the chance to fulfill the dream of my hero, he said, holding back tears. When I say Im going to do something, I do it.

And do it, he did. The launch itself was flawless.

Knievels autograph with the message Happy landings went over the canyon with him. So did a vial containing the ashes of Todd Swayze, one of Knievels biggest fans.

Tamara Swayze, from Calgary, Alberta, said her husband met Braun at Evel Knievel Days in Butte, Mont., about 4 years ago, and they became fast friends. He was to help Braun with the launch, but Swayze died of cancer in February.

When Braun returned to the launch site after the jump, he was greeted by cheering friends and fans.

He told Knievels daughter-in-law Shelli Knievel that he blacked out from coming off the ramp, but he came to shortly seconds later.

I realized I was still in the rocket, Braun said. At that point I told myself, I got this.

Were you scared? asked one of Knievels young grandchildren.

Braun replied simply.

Very scared.
TWIN FALLS  Idaho has a low teacher starting salary but a high rating for school working conditions, according to a new study by the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group.

Most U.S. states, including Idaho, are struggling with a teacher shortage. That affects thousands of students just in the Magic Valley alone.

School districts are having trouble finding employees to fill vacancies, often resorting to substitutes and individuals who are not prepared to teach, the institute said in a statement, released Wednesday.

The resulting churn undermines student achievement as a function of teacher inexperience, under preparation, and overall instability, the report states.

The 16-page report  A Common Crisis in Teaching? Teacher Supply, Demand, and Shortages in the U.S.  includes data from all 50 states and policy recommendations.

Idaho ranks among the lowest 10 states for the average teacher starting salary in 2013, at $31,159.

The Twin Falls School District  and many others across south-central Idaho  often try to boost teacher pay beyond what it receives in state funding.

We want to attract the best and brightest, Superintendent Wiley Dobbs said.

One step toward improving pay: Idahos career ladder law, which took effect in July 2015. Over five years, pay increases are designed to help attract and retain teachers.

In the new study, Idaho had a worse teacher-to-pupil ratio in 2014 than many other states, with about 20 students per teacher.

And it was among the 10 states with the highest percentage of teachers in 2012 who wanted to leave the profession, at 8.9 percent.

Data from four years ago may be a reflection of funding challenges and an unpopular state superintendent at the time, Dobbs said.

The economic recession, which started around 2009, led to major budget cuts for Idaho schools.

Also, then-state superintendent Tom Luna implemented a package of three education reform laws, Students Come First, which were overturned by voters in 2012.

Dobbs said he thinks the situation with education politics in Idaho has improved since.

Were being asked for input more than were being told, he said. I think that professional courtesy goes a long way.

Another category in the report: the teacher turnover rate. Idahos rate  13.2 percent  was in the middle of the pack, based on 2013 data.

Idaho scored among the top 10 states for two measures in the working conditions category.

About 57 percent of teachers in 2012 reported feeling supported by their school administrator. And 43.3 percent reported good staff cooperation.

But here in Idaho and nationwide, its getting harder to find qualified teachers.

Magic Valley schools have struggled for years to fill special education, math and science teaching jobs. But now, its becoming common to have unfilled openings for more mainstream jobs like elementary school teachers.

The Idaho Department of Education recognizes theres a teacher shortage, spokesman Jeff Church wrote in an email to the Times-News. We have seen evidence of this through discussing the issue with superintendents across the state when they are seeking to fill positions moving into the new school year.

State officials are working to understand where teacher shortages are occurring, help school districts, and remove barriers for people to become teachers, he wrote.

The Learning Policy Institute has policy recommendations, including competitive compensation packages so teachers can make a reasonable living. It also recommends incentives such as assistance with housing and child care.

Recommendations also seek to address a lack of people going into the teaching profession.

Across Idaho, fewer students have enrolled in teaching preparation programs over the last several years, Church wrote.

And thats a nationwide trend. Within five years, the number of students in teaching preparation programs has dropped 35 percent, according to the institutes report.

Last school year, tens of thousands of teachers were hired nationwide on emergency credentials, the report states.

Some of the most hard-to-fill positions are in special education, mathematics, science and English as a second language.

If the teacher shortage continues, there will be an annual shortfall of 316,000 teachers by 2025, the report says. But the number of students is expected to climb by 3 million in the next decade.

The Learning Policy Institute report calls for increasing access to teacher preparation programs by offering scholarships, forgivable loans, and creating teacher residency programs in rural and urban areas where teachers pledge to stay for three to five years.

Another recommendation: developing strong mentoring programs for teachers.

Dobbs said the Twin Falls district does exceptionally well with its mentoring program. The district hires retired teachers to help first-year teachers.

That has received really high marks for the teachers who are new to our district, he said.

And each school has a team of teachers at the same grade level or subject who support each other, Dobbs said.

Twin Falls also has a community thats exceptionally supportive of children, he added.

He pointed to voters approving a nearly $74 million bond in 2014 to build three new schools. I think that helps retainment in our district.
Oct. 17, 1938: Robert Craig Knievel is born in Butte, Mont.

July 9, 1967: Evel Knievel soars over 13 autos in a demonstration at Lewis County Fairgrounds near Centralia, Wash.

Dec. 31, 1967: Knievel vaults his motorcycle 141 feet over the fountains of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and crashes spectacularly. He suffers a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist, and both ankles and a concussion.

October 23, 1971: Knievel sets world indoor record by jumping 14 cars at Portland Memorial Coliseum; fractures his left hand.

Sept. 8, 1974: Knievel makes Twin Falls the center of the universe for a day by attempting to launch his X-2 Skycycle, designed by Robert Truax, over the Snake River Canyon.

May 26, 1975: Knievel jumps over 10 single-decker buses in Londons Wembley Stadium.

Oct. 15, 1975: Knievel clears 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island theme park in Ohio  the longest successful jump of his career and with no injuries.

1980: Knievel is forced to retire; tells reporters that he is nothing but scar tissue and surgical steel.

Nov. 30, 2007: Knievel dies at age 69 of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in Clearwater, Fla.
One of the hardest things for a foreigner to understand in U.S. politics, especially its rather extreme 2016 version, is the willingness of voters to support candidates they deemed unacceptable earlier in the campaign. Because the U.S. presidential election narrows to a two-candidate race, the calculus of voters and political operatives shifts in spectacular ways.

Plenty of this was on display in New Hampshire this week. On Wednesday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was in the state, which gave him his best performance of the primary season  7.4 percent of the vote  to push a simple message to Republicans. "If you are a Republican and you are not working for Donald Trump over the next 55 days, you are working for Hillary Clinton," he said at a party "unity breakfast."

This is the man who summed up his attitude toward Trump in December 2015 by saying, "We do not need reality TV in the Oval Office right now. President of the United States is not a place for an entertainer." I saw him on the stump in New Hampshire seven months ago, and he was dismissive of Trump. Then, it seemed that the group of pragmatic, traditional conservatives with strong management experience  John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Christie  still had a chance to surge ahead of the showman.

Michael Biundo, a veteran Republican consultant who worked for Rand Paul and then Kasich in the early stages of the campaign and who then mocked Trump on the social networks, has been the nominee's point man in the state since June. He's credited with setting up a genuine Trump ground game, with volunteers knocking on doors, a development that many analysts believed impossible just a few months ago.

I asked the political consultant Patrick Hynes, of Laconia, about the apparent turnarounds. Hynes worked for Bush during the primaries, and for John McCain and Mitt Romney in the 2012 race. These are all traditional conservatives who have made known their visceral dislike of Trump. Hynes says the billionaire is not his first choice, yet he plans to vote for Trump in November and says the state's Republican machine has fallen in line, too.

"In the U.S., it always gets down to two," Hynes said. "There's Coca-Cola and there's Pepsi, and RC Cola goes the way of the dinosaurs. There's Ford and Chevy, and Chrysler is a distant third. There's McDonald's and Burger King, and Wendy's is a distant third."

Americans, of course, shouldn't act all that differently from people of other nationalities when it comes to making decisions. People like to reduce complexity, and binary decisions are the simplest. Research by Eldar Shafir, Itamar Simonson and Amos Tversky has shown, though, that sometimes having a third, middle option can simplify the choice thanks to a phenomenon called "extremeness aversion": As Simonson described it, "within an offered set, options with extreme values are relatively less attractive than options with intermediate values."

New Hampshire provides a prime example of this kind of thinking. Joe McQuaid, the publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, the state's most influential newspaper, has long crusaded against Trump, whom he compared to Biff, the bully from the "Back to the Future" movies (Trump called him a "lowlife" in response). The Union Leader, which has been staunchly Republican for more than a century, endorsed Christie in the primary, and McQuaid has claimed that the New Jersey governor promised him he wouldn't endorse Trump if he dropped out (Christie denies that). Now that Christie has reverted to the binary logic, McQuaid has not.

In an editorial this week, he endorsed the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and his running-mate Bill Weld because "in today's dark times, they are a bright light of hope and reason." To the conservative publisher, both Clinton and Trump represent extremes.

McQuaid appears genuinely optimistic that a third option could be viable in New Hampshire. When I asked him what he hoped to achieve by endorsing Johnson when Republican voters are mainly united behind Trump, he replied that he didn't "see a lot of evidence one way or the other." "Most of the big office-holders are doing the we-are-concentrating-on-state-races line," he said in an e-mail. "As for Trump, his primary vote total here was not huge."

Trump, however, won the New Hampshire primary in New Hampshire, with 35.3 percent, or more than 100,000 votes, more than twice as many as the runner-up, Kasich. There's little chance that Johnson will make a dent here: Everyone else I talked to said they planned to back their party nominee, and both Hynes and an operative close to the Trump campaign confirmed that the state's Republican machine was working single-mindedly for Trump.

This is probably occurring because this election's stark belligerence makes it more about rejection than selection. McQuaid's approach is to pick a candidate to support "without holding your nose." This year, many Republicans "have a sense of dread and despair, a sense that Washington is broken and cannot be fixed, that everybody is a crook," Hynes says. So to them, the election is about not voting for Clinton, who embodies the status quo.

Under such circumstances, Shafir, Simonson and Tversky wrote, a candidate's negative features become more important than positives: "We propose that the positive features of options (their pros) will loom larger when choosing, whereas the negative features of options (their cons) will be weighted more heavily when rejecting. It is natural to select an option because of its positive features, and to reject an option because of its negative features."

Trump has Clinton and her strong negatives to thank for the somewhat reluctant unity of his backers here.
Two South Dakota female juveniles were taken into custody early Sunday morning after leading police on a chase in a stolen van from Mandan to Bismarck before crashing it.

A Bismarck police official said two females, ages 15 and 16, were driving what was identified as a stolen vehicle early Sunday morning.

The two juveniles were pursued by Mandan police and crossed over into Bismarck, where police pursued them until they crashed the van.

The two are being held at the Youth Correctional Center in Mandan. Bismarck police didnt have the full list of charges they were arrested on.
The Egyptian foreign ministry Friday expressed Egypts support for Marshal Khalifa Haftar as it welcomed the Libyan army veterans takeover of the Libyan oil crescent, controlled by the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).

Haftars forces [Libyan National Army] had snatched Libyas main oil terminals from the GNA causing frustration in the west.

Washington and its European allies condemned the takeover calling Haftars forces to immediately withdraw.

Haftar and his political wing, the House of Representatives (HoR), based in Tobruk said they handed the oil ports to the unified National Oil Corporation.

Egypts Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, speaking to Egyptian state-owned MENA agency called Haftars move legitimate as it secures the countrys oil wealth and preserves stability and security.

The Egyptian top diplomat also stressed Cairos support for the LNA while chiding the wests condemnation, which, he said, was overhasty.

Egypt has repeatedly thrown its backing behind the LNA while calling on political protagonists to stick to the political agreement signed in Morocco, in December.

Haftar, who rose to the rank of Marshal following last week-end action, said in a recent interview with Russian Sputnik that he was receiving support from Egypt and Chad.
New business

Kendra Johnston Rebish has opened Sapphire Mountain Insurance. Rebish previously worked at AAA Insurance where she offered insurance from multiple companies. Sapphire Mountain Insurance offers all insurance needs including auto, home, business, recreational vehicles, and life. Rebish has a B.S. in business administration, finance and marketing. She was AAA rookie of the year and a "five diamond agent of the year." She can be reached at 406-546-5474 or kendra@sapphiremountaininsurance.com.

New associates

Anthony and Heather LaPlante have joined Ink Realty Group. Phone 406-728-8270.

Adam Berguem has joined Logisys as an Implementation Support Specialists. Prior to Logisys, Berguem was a chronic support specialist at DirecTV, assisting customers in finding solutions to repeated issues. He graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in management information systems. During his college career, on top of being a member of various organizations, he was a brand ambassador for Coca-Cola and helped distribute products and market on campus.

Jedediah Brodie, an ecologist and conservation biologist, will join the University of Montana Wildlife Biology Program as the next John J. Craighead Chair of Wildlife Biology. Brodie will join the College of Humanities and Sciences faculty this fall. He was previously an assistant professor of conservation ecology at the University of British Columbia. The endowed chair position was established to honor the accomplishments of Craighead, who pioneered many areas of wildlife biology research. Brodie received a Ph.D. in biology from UM in 2007. He was a David H. Smith Postdoctoral Fellow with the Wildlife Conservation Society from 2007 to 2009 and a Fulbright Research Fellow to Malaysia from 2011 to 2012. He studies mammal population ecology, landscape connectivity and species interactions. Much of his research takes place in Southeast Asia  mostly in Borneo  where he studies the metacommunity of mammals living in increasingly altered habitats, as well as the ecological importance of species interactions involving mammals. He is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Asia-Pacific Assessment, a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission, scientific adviser to the International Conservation Fund of Canada, and a research associate with the Denver Zoological Foundation.

Jason C. Harby has joined St. Peter Law Offices as an associate attorney. Harbys practice emphasizes general estate planning as well as federal estate tax, gift tax, and generation skipping transfer tax planning, estate and trust administration, entity formation and taxation, business planning, corporate and commercial transactions, employee benefits, general tax planning, and tax controversies and procedure. He is admitted to practice before the Montana Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the state of Montana, and the United States Tax Court. Harby is a 2015 graduate of the University of Montana School of Law. He obtained a Masters of Law in Taxation with honors from the University of Washington School of Law in 2016. He graduated with high honors from the University of Montana in 2010 with a degree in Economics. During law school, he interned at both Datsopoulos, MacDonald and Lind and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation where he took part in a variety of transactional and tax compliance projects. He can be contacted at St. Peter Law Offices, 2620 Radio Way, 406-728-8282 or jason@stplawoffices.com.

New shareholder

Michael O'Brien has become a shareholder at St. Peter Law Offices. OBrien serves clients in all facets of litigation, including contract disputes, estate proceedings, and probate litigation. Prior to joining St. Peter in 2014, he oversaw the Business Services Division in the Montana Secretary of States office and has expertise in small business legal issues, including corporate, limited liability company, and business entity formation, UCC filings, and business regulation. He is admitted to practice before the Montana Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the state of Montana, the Blackfeet Tribal Court and Salish Kootenai Tribal Court. O'Brien earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Montana School of Law in 2013 and received his Political Science and Public Administration degrees from Carroll College in 2002. He served the Hon. Robert G. Olson as a law clerk in Glacier, Toole, Pondera and Teton counties from 2013-2014. He can be reached at 406-728-8282 or mike@stplawoffices.com.

Name change

The Rocky Mountain Hospice program serving Missoula and the surrounding communities will take on the Compassus. The name change is part of a rebranding initiative following Compassus purchase of substantially all Genesis home health and hospice programs, including 10 community-based hospice programs and seven home care programs, earlier this year. This acquisition brought together two highly respected providers of compassionate post-acute care, creating one of the nations largest private independent providers of home health, palliative and hospice services. Compassus mission is to provide hospice care to terminally ill patients and their families with compassion, integrity and excellence. Last year, Compassus acquired both Hospice Advantage and Life Choice Hospice, expanding the companys services to 150 locations in 28 states. With the Genesis acquisition, Compassus entered markets in two new states, including Idaho and Montana. Phone 406-549-2766.

Recognition

The ERA Lambros top producers in August were Ed Coffman and Karen Reyner for commercial, Annelise Hedahl for residential, Catherine Taylor for the Hamilton office, Brian Beck for the Kalispell office, Rod Delaney for the Libby office, Tony and Tillie Marshall for the Polson office and Bessie Evans for the Florence office.
The Mandan Progress Organization is holding its fourth annual Oktober Fest from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sept. 24.

The festival at Mandan's Dykshoorn Park celebrates the regions German heritage with a variety of food booths, family activities, live music and a brau haus or beer tent. Other features include fall crafters. Admission is $5 and those ages 12 and younger are admitted free.

Food vendors will offer German favorites, including fleishkuechle, knoephla soup, kuchen, blachinda, kase knoephla, cabbage rolls, brats and German burgers, plus there will be American favorites, such as burgers and hot dogs.

Oktober Fest childrens activities, taking place from noon to 4 p.m., include a straw bale maze, pumpkin bowling and balloon animals.

Oktober Fest also offers live music, including the Jim Geiger Band from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Dakota Keys featuring 10 accordionists from 2 to 4 p.m. and Johnny Green and the Greenmen from 7 to 10 p.m.

The Hop Brau Haus beer tent will feature a craft beer tasting from 4 to 7 p.m. hosted by Jerome Distributing and McQuade Distributing with additional contributions from Bird Dog Brewery, Buffalo Commons Brewery and Laughing Sun Brewing Company. Nearly 30 craft beers will be available.

For details about Oktober Fest, visit www.mandanprogress.org or call 751-2983.
ANACONDA  In a world of glued-on soles and cheap vinyl flats, Joe Lynch practices what many would consider a dying craft  cobbling.

Last September the Anaconda resident opened Lynchs Boot and Shoe Repair on East Third Street in the Smelter City.

However, Lynch says this isnt his first time at the rodeo when it comes to repairing shoes.

For 31 years he owned and operated Glenns Shoe repair in Kalispell with his wife Niki Lynch, until he moved to Anaconda because, he said, he wanted a change of pace.

It was getting to be overwhelming, said Lynch. Kalispell was just getting a little too big and too hectic.

Arguably for as long as shoes have existed people have been repairing them, and the first recorded mention of the word cobbler by the Oxford English Dictionary goes back to the 1300s.

However, today there are fewer and fewer shoe-repair specialists.

When Lynch started in Kalispell, he said, there were eight cobblers in the Flathead Valley, but by the time he left his and another shop were the only two left in the region.

Lynch said one reason for the declining numbers is that people have become accustomed to throwing away inexpensive shoes.

But even inexpensive shoes can be repaired, Lynch said, and often at a lesser cost than buying a pair of new ones.

However, Lynch doesnt just repair shoes and boots  he also makes them.

In Kalispell he made custom boots for clients, but today he just makes them for friends and family members.

Lynch said he learned how to make boots after attending a trade school in Oklahoma in the 1980s.

The part I did was shoe, boot and saddle, said Lynch. I went down there to learn how to make saddles and I started watching them making cowboy boots. I got into that and never did learn how to make a saddle.

Before going to the trade school, Lynch said he studied two years to become an accountant, but ultimately decided a life of crunching numbers wasnt for him.

I met a guy that had been to the school in Oklahoma, Lynch said. I had done some leather work just as a hobby and I just signed up, and I took off and went.

Lynch said he enjoys working with leather and repairing worn-out shoes because of the creativity involved and the satisfaction the goes along with bringing something back to life.

What I like about boot making is creating the different patterns and building something from scratch, said Lynch. The repairs are the same. You take something thats worn out and bring it back.

Lynch said he works with just about every kind of boot or shoe, with some exceptions.

Most everything can be repaired, but some things arent feasible, said Lynch, adding that he also works with bags, purses, belts and other leather items.

Tools of the trade include both electrical and mechanical sewing machines, Lynch said. But since his move to Anaconda, he said hes decided to go strictly vintage.

He pointed out a circa-1960s sewing machine to the Montana Standard, along with a harness machine from the late 1800s that can sew through leather as thick as an inch.

My shop in Kalispell is still full of the newer stuff. But I like working with the old ones, so I brought old, said Lynch. Those you can keep rebuilding.

Like Lynchs vintage machines, you can also keep rebuilding a pair of shoes.

Lynch said he has some clients who repeatedly bring in the same pair. The reason, he said, is often because repair is more cost effective than buying new, but more often than not its because some people get attached to their shoes.

Ive had people that bring in shoes that probably cost them $10 and have me put in $45-worth of work into them, said Lynch. A lot of times (its) because its just a favorite shoe.
Here's a poem by Debra Nystrom about what it feels like to be a schoolgirl in rural America. No loud laughter echoing in the shopping mall for these young women. The poet lives in Virginia and this is from her book "Night Sky Frequencies" from Sheep Meadow Press.

Restless After School

Nothing to do but scuff down

the graveyard road behind the playground,

past the name-stones lined up in rows

beneath their guardian pines,

on out into the long, low waves of plains

that dissolved time. We'd angle off

from fence and telephone line, through

ribbon-grass that closed behind as though

we'd never been, and drift toward the bluff

above the river-bend where the junked pickup

moored with its load of locust-skeletons.

Stretched across the blistered hood, we let

our dresses catch the wind while clouds above

dimmed their pink to purple, then shadow-blue 

So slow, we listened to our own bones grow.
Being a parent is always full of ups and downs, of course, but being the parent of an autistic child, Carolyn Parkhurst writes in her splendid new novel, is a lot like riding a roller coaster that never stops to let you off and catch your breath. Sometimes you marvel at your childs brilliance. Often, though, you are exhausted by her behavior. You may be prone, like Alexandra Hammond in Parkhursts Harmony, to compare your growing helplessness to the proliferation of bedbugs in your house.

Its like a metaphor come to life, your home polluted with invaders you cant even see. And what if  you suppose this is the real source of anxiety for most people  what if the invasion goes even deeper than that? Youve been to the fringe parenting websites and the homeopathy section at Whole Foods. You know that there are people out there who will tell you that its too late, that our bodies are already tainted. That were overrun with mucus or bacteria or spreading fungal growth.  Has depression ever been this widespread, or autism or infertility or food allergies? Somethings changed, even if its just our own method of record-keeping.

In Harmony, the Hammonds  Alexandra, her husband Josh, and their two daughters, Iris and Tilly, the fiery star around which the family satellites revolve  leave their home in Washington, D.C., for a remote communal camp in New Hampshire, and to Parkhursts credit you never question their wisdom in making the move. Their desperation is real, their actions evidence of their need for hope.

Tilly, 13, has been diagnosed with an unspecified pervasive developmental disorder, a diagnosis of exclusion, nothing more than the doctors throwing up their hands and saying Somethings going on here, but we cant say exactly what. 

Like many children on the autism spectrum, Tilly displays genius-level intelligence and creativity; on a shopping trip to buy a birthday gift for a cousin, she suggests a machine that sings songs to you when youre sad. It knows when youre sad, because it has eye-recognition technology, and it can see when theres a tear. But she struggles picking up on social cues, is prone to obsessive behavior, and is unable to fit herself into adult expectations (one school asks her to leave because she cant stop licking the walls). Her parents dont know what to do.

Then one night at a Chinese restaurant, Alexandra spots a flier on the bulletin board. Do You Have a Challenging Kid? it asks. Does she! Its her introduction to Scott Bean, whos seeking families with children on the autism spectrum to join him in a communal living experiment called Harmony. The community will be self-sustaining; guest families will arrive each week for a seven-day stay. But the Hammonds and two other families, plus Scott, will be full-timers, forging a new, hopeful, better future. Most people would be skeptical, and the Hammonds are. But need outweighs caution.

A mother of two with a son on the autism spectrum, Parkhurst is especially deft at examining the complexities facing parents of autistic children. She doesnt resurrect the disproven vaccines-are-the-cause argument, but she makes clear how frustrated parents, even educated ones, might grasp at any explanation for what has changed their lives so drastically. The lack of answers weighs heavy on them. There are too many people with the same story for it not to mean anything, although it may not have anything to do with mercury or thimerosal or the MMR vaccine. It may be years before anyone finally figures out whats going on, but theres something there. Its going to come to light eventually. And who knows what itll be?

The story is narrated mostly by Alexandra, who chronicles the events that drove the Hammonds to Harmony, and Iris, 11, who writes about life at the compound (which she mostly likes, despite the lack of iPhones and iPads). Iris is smart and observant, quicker than the distracted adults to pick up on Scotts odd inconsistencies. Tilly also weighs in enigmatically from time to time, adding to the books growing sense of dread.

Parkhurst has created memorable characters before, particularly in The Dogs of Babel, about a grieving widower who decides to teach his dog how to communicate, but here she truly excels at bringing Alexandra and Iris to life, her terrific prose matched by compassion and a sense of humor. She nails Iris complicated love for Tilly as well as her flashes of pettiness  Iris knows shell never get the attention her sister gets, and shes not always happy about that. Parkhurst also understands every moment of Alexandras anguish and fear and delight and how weathering the demands of society and her family drive her to seek escape  in computer games, online erotica, even alcohol.

Also the author of the novels Lost and Found and The Nobodies Album, Parkhurst as has always been an engaging and thoughtful writer, but the beautifully written Harmony is her best work, a haunting, creepy but ultimately moving story of love and family. Some days youre an idiot, Alexandra thinks to herself, and some days youre a f    idiot. Most times, though, Parkhursts Hammonds are nothing more than thrillingly human.
NEW YORK  After satirizing everything from "radical chic" to 20th-century architecture, Tom Wolfe is now mining the mystery of language and the reputation of the most influential linguist of our time, Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky, in turn, has some thoughts about Wolfe, the celebrated New Journalist and author of such classics as "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "The Right Stuff."

In his new book, "The Kingdom of Speech," Wolfe examines how scholars have attempted to discern the roots of verbal communication. He reviews the debates between Charles Darwin, who likened speech to the "sounds uttered by birds," and other 19th century evolutionists. He notes how modern understanding centers on Chomsky's revolutionary theory that humans have an innate knowledge of language.

Wolfe duly acknowledges Chomsky's breakthrough, but sees a man so used to dominance in his field that he scorns or evades those who challenge his research. He also suggests his stature as a linguist is tied to his years as an activist and left-wing thinker. He cites Chomsky's 1967 publication "The Responsibility of Intellectuals," a landmark essay in The New York Review of Books that assailed the Vietnam War and accused intellectuals of failing "to speak the truth and to expose lies."

The timing was absolutely perfect, according to Wolfe.

"Chomsky's audacity and his Old World, Eastern European slant on life were things most intellectuals found charming, since by then, 1967, opposition to the war in Vietnam had become something stronger than a passion ... namely, a fashion, a certification that one had risen above the herd," he writes.

"Chomsky's politics enhanced his reputation as a great linguist, and his reputation as a great linguist enhanced his reputation as a political solon, and his reputation as a political solon inflated his reputation from great linguist to an all-around genius, and the genius inflated the solon into a veritable Voltaire, and the veritable Voltaire inflated the genius of geniuses into a philosophical giant ... Noam Chomsky."

Chomsky, a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that that he read an excerpt of the book in Harper's magazine and found "egregious errors."

He dismissed Wolfe's portrait of himself and other MIT faculty members as captives of air-conditioned campus buildings, uninterested in field work or new ideas. He strongly questioned Wolfe's grasp of linguistics. And he objected to Wolfe's suggestion that he was an activist who "arranges to get arrested in the morning so that he can get out in time to make it to New York nightspots to show off his bravery," Chomsky told the AP.

"I'm sure Wolfe would very much enjoy a few days in the Washington cell block or facing a likely long prison sentence, not to speak of constant demonstrations, half a dozen or more talks a day to all sorts of groups, meetings to plan serious resistance activities, extensive travel for talks and demonstrations, enjoying the pleasures of tear-gassing and mace, organizing national tax resistance, and a lot more that constitutes real activism," Chomsky said.

Wolfe, who interviewed Chomsky by phone for his book, declined to respond. He did say that Chomsky's opposition to the war was "very sincere."

Winner of the National Book Award and numerous other honors, Wolfe has angered his subjects before. His mockery of avant-garde art in "The Painted Word" hit the "the art world like a really bad, MSG-headache-producing, Chinese lunch," critic Rosalind E. Krauss wrote at the time. His book on architecture, "From Bauhaus to Our House," led Time reviewer Robert Hughes to conclude that Wolfe held "a kind of supercilious rancor and a free-floating hostility toward the intelligentsia."

During a recent interview in his spacious apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side, where he wore his customary white suit, the 85-year-old Wolfe said he wrote "Kingdom of Speech" out of "real curiosity" because no one "has ever been able to explain (human) language." Wolfe himself doesn't have the answer, but calls speech the greatest gift of civilization.

"Bango!" he writes in his book. "There is a cardinal distinction between man and animal, a sheerly dividing line as abrupt and immovable as a cliff: namely, speech."

Speech is the book's primary subject, but status has been the running theme of Wolfe's work from the astronauts in "The Right Stuff" to campus life in "I Am Charlotte Simmons," and it's a subplot for "Kingdom of Speech." He doesn't only take on Chomsky, but portrays Darwin as a competitive, would-be aristocrat striving for "honor as a Gentleman and a scholar."

"Kingdom of Speech" is a short work, under 200 pages, more on par with "The Painted Word" than the 19th-century scale of "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "A Man in Full." His books have sold millions of copies, but Wolfe reasons that "if you write more than 150 pages about anything that says 'evolution' you're in for it. Nobody's going to stick with you."
Instruments rattle in the back seat as Tim Aston bounces around town in the Blue Pony.

Its the name of his truck, which has logged countless miles over the years as hes driven from school to school every day, teaching band to all of Missoula County Public Schools fifth-graders.

After 27 years in Missoula, hes retiring at the end of this school year.

The morning of Sept. 8, he and his new partner, fifth-grade orchestra teacher Ryan Belski, were running  Cold Springs to Chief Charlo to Paxson to their office  for the annual bow and blow. Its a chance for kids to try out instruments before lessons begin.

What youre going to see today is my own form of insanity, Aston said, hopping into the Blue Pony and taking off for the first school of the day, Cold Springs.

Well, first a pit-stop at Meadow Hill Middle School. A pit-stop turned mosh pit.

The seventh-graders swirled around Aston, hugging him and cracking jokes. The biggest jokester of them all stood on the edge of the chaos: Randy Zschaechner, Meadow Hills band director, holding a life-size cut-out of Aston.

Hes almost on another level, like a local celebrity, Zschaechner said.

***

Aston didnt start in Montana. It wasnt even on his radar.

He grew up in Connecticut, graduating from Central Connecticut State College (now university) with a bachelors in music education in 1975.

His first job was cut short after the previous, long-time teacher came back for the position. He substitute taught for a year, and taught privately. Finally, he turned to a Chicago agency that helped music educators find jobs.

They sent him to Poplar, Montana, in 1978. Within one week of moving, his wife had their third child. It was a surprise home birth assisted by their neighbor, a nurse who hopped the fence in her bunny slippers (quite a feat, from Astons retelling) to help.

When they first moved, Aston figured he would gain experience to head back east and be competitive in the job market. But he fell in love with Montana.

This place isnt so bad, even though theres a lot of space in between people, Aston said he thought at the time.

In 1990, a job opened up in Missoula.

For 17 years, he taught band at C.S. Porter Middle School. That was when the middle school band teachers would also teach band at the feeder elementary schools.

Ten years ago, John Schuberg retired from teaching fifth-grade band at Rattlesnake Middle School (when it was still a middle school).

The position transformed into what it is today: a traveling fifth-grade band teacher. Aston leapt at the opportunity.

Ive always wanted to do this, just fifth-grade, he said. Yeah, you lose the wonderful music experience of seventh grade band, playing really good music, but you trade it for the enthusiasm, the This is so cool! of fifth-graders.

***

His energy feeds their enthusiasm.

There are 602 fifth-graders this year. Every year, about 90 percent of the fifth-grade class joins band or orchestra.

The first week of school, Aston and Belski traveled to each elementary school, playing all of the instruments so kids get an idea of what they want to play.

In week two, its time for bow and blow.

They race to all 18 fifth-grade classes, with less than half an hour at each stop. Unpack the trucks. Lug the instruments inside. Put them together. Lead the kids into a circle. Give quick instructions. Pass out instruments. You have 30 seconds to hoot, toot, scritch, scratch, bow and blow! Pass the instrument to the left. Get in line and head back to class. Pack up the instruments. Dash to the next school.

Its pandemonium: a cacophony of bad sounds.

It boils down to how much do you want this, Aston said. It doesnt matter if theyre the best player, cause theyve got to be excited about it.

Cold Springs Gabrielle Nicholson was going hard on the tuba, blowing until her cheeks poofed out. But her mind was made up.

I want to play the saxophone, she said. Last year the jazz band came and played and I liked the sound of it  but I didnt get to play today.

Aston found out she didnt get a shot at the sax. Right before the kids filed out, he grabbed her and let her blow one note. She beamed up at him.

Its what he did for Sentinel High band director Lewis Nelson years ago. Nelson was in fifth grade at Emma Dickinson School when he met Aston.

I didnt even know what the sax was at the time, Nelson said. I went to band because girls were in band, to be perfectly honest. Once I got to Mr. Aston, it just blew up. Everything just clicked.

And Aston will never forget Nelson.

That kid ate, slept and breathed his saxophone, he said. I had to kick him out so I could go home.

***

Astons first instrument, 55 years ago, was the trombone.

No one else picked it up, so Aston gave it a go. It clicked for him when he was 15. The assistant band director played the trombone.

He was happy most of the time and it looked like so much fun, Aston said.

Aston wasnt the best student in high school. Finally in his senior year of college, he got all As  except, ironically, in trombone. He got a C, because I didnt have time to practice.

Standing in the circle at Chief Charlo  and giving a stern, under-the-eyebrows look to one boy who couldnt stop blasting the trumpet  Aston emphasized the importance of at least showing up to their first lesson. Thats when you learn how to put it together, how to hold it correctly and most importantly, how to make the correct tone.

Even if you dont know what you want to play or if you dont have an instrument, come to the lesson, he said. Its so important. This is your one chance in fifth grade to get to do this, where its built into your schedule. Not a lot of schools have this.

Aston is a goofball. His ponytail is long  hes had it except for a couple of times when previous jobs made him chop it  and he goes off on tangents. Rocketing toward Paxson, and talking about his career, he spots a jet boat in a driveway. That takes him on a winding tale about one of his trips, and the power of jet boats. Theyre not for him, though. He'll stick with floating the river, hiking and hunting.

Something changes when Aston strides into a classroom. He commands kids' attention, and strikes the perfect balance between fun and strict. When they get it, its magical: You can hear their eyeballs click."

He was basically the same then as he is now, Nelson said of his memories of Aston as his teacher. Hes the most energetic guy Ive ever met in my life. Hes a firecracker.

***

Aston taught many of the current band directors when they were kids, and as their colleague now, offers valuable advice.

He has the perfect answer for everything, Nelson said. Hes gold for a young teacher like me.

Hes also a good sport, particularly with Zschaechners jokes.

Hes been very patient over the years with me, Zschaechner said, laughing. Im always trying to do new things to keep Tim young, on the edge of his seat.

Hes earned several nicknames, including Dr. Whoopie.

I had him over one night at my house and he started standing on my dining room chair, Zschaechner said. Why, I have no idea. He proceeded to start playing rhythms on my ceiling fan and proclaimed, I am Dr. Whoopie! Most of the kids, they dont believe me when I say that, but thats really how it happened.

Hes earned his own salute. Slap your forehead, slide your hand to the back of your head, back to the front and yell: All hail, Dr. Whoopie!

The nickname led to the bands own currency: Whoopie bucks. About five years ago, the teachers were looking for a better way to motivate kids; they were tired of handing out Oreos. Zschaechner made Whoopie bucks, adorned with Astons face. Kids redeemed them for autographed posters of Aston, keepsakes he had no idea Zschaechner was making.

That first year, Astons percussion class saved up their Whoopie bucks for one of the posters. They signed it themselves, and gave it to him as a gift.

No one wants to see him go. Zschaechner is happy for him, but said its a part of my childhood disappearing.

Come on, youve got another year in you, Belski told Aston as they pieced together instruments at Chief Charlo.

Probably, but its time.

Its my passion, it really is, Aston said. Theres not a lot of people who get to do for their living what their passion is, and thats powerful stuff, man.

For the end of my career, this has been a hoot. Its absolutely nuts.
Habitat for Humanity is adding seven new homes for low-income families in a two-block area of the Franklin to the Fort neighborhood in central Missoula.

On Friday, more than a dozen volunteers from the Washington Corporation were busy cutting insulation, painting trim and pounding nails on two houses on Burlington Street. They soon will house two families, both with single parents and children with special needs.

Across the street, Habitat of Missoula has secured space to build two larger homes for bigger families. And a short distance away, they got a great deal on land from Lambros Real Estate to build three more homes on a lot that once stored Christmas decorations for Southgate Mall.

Permanent, affordable housing is something thats out of reach for many low-income families because of bad credit history or medical bills. These projects will ensure that people can establish themselves in the community and give stability to children who need to focus on succeeding in school.

Habitat for Humanity in Missoula started in 1991, and the two under-construction houses will be the nonprofits 50th and 51st houses in the county. That means 125 children who had been living out of a car or bouncing from one temporary living space to another now have a permanent shelter to call their own.

It doesnt take a lot to understand that when kids have a stable home, when theyre not being bounced around or living in a vehicle and you actually create a stable environment for a child, theyre eight times more likely to have improved grades and study habits, said Habitats executive director Noreen Humes. Theyre more likely to graduate high school, and theyre seven times more likely to own a home themselves as an adult.

Humes said there are lot of misconceptions about what Habitat does. First and foremost, they arent giving away the homes for free.

A lot of people dont know that we do sell the mortgage, she explained. They are actually buying their homes just like any normal person if they can afford it. We build affordable homes for low-income families and we go through a pretty stringent application period for families to buy. They have to fall within a certain income bracket. What makes it affordable for the families is we have them sign a 30-year, interest-free mortgage.

The organization also is able to subsidize that mortgage a little bit if the family is still at an income level where they cant make the payment.

We try to stick around 25 percent of someones take-home pay to make a mortgage payment, she said.

Humes is extremely pleased about the land the organization was able to purchase on Burlington Street. One of the empty lots used to be blighted, and so the neighbors are excited for a new project.

Were really helping transform that particular neighborhood in a couple-block area, Humes said. If youve driven around there, theres some new smaller apartment complexes and renovations, but its a pretty run-down area and needs some new help. We certainly feel like a part of transforming the neighborhood. Were putting in literally seven homes in two blocks, and that just kind of landed in our lap."

She said they got great deals on the two newest lots, and it all happened in five months.

"Its crazy how that happened, but also valuable for neighborhood, she added.

Habitat gets its funding from a variety of sources, including grants and private local donations. Theyve only gotten donated land once, but they are usually able to purchase buildable lots for a good price.

Many local contractors, from electrical workers to builders, donate labor hours and materials. Then volunteers help with the construction. The homeowner is required to put in 500 sweat equity hours, and 100 of that has to be on the construction. The organization only has one paid staff member who supervises construction.

There is a misperception that we get a significant amount of national corporate sponsorship, which is not true, Humes said. We do get a couple donations from national corporations for building materials. We get paint from Valspar, insulation from Dow Chemical and appliances from Whirlpool.

Local electricians from Anchor Electric were out this week working on the new houses.

Missoula continues to be incredibly generous," Humes said. "Most of our funding is local and we get in-kind donations from a lot of local contractors."

She said many people who live in Habitat homes have had a bankruptcy or large medical bills in their past. They have no credit, and these homes are the only way they can get out of the endless cycle of renting or begging for help.

The housing market locally and nationally is "wonky" at the moment, Hume said. "So we are able to really provide affordable home ownership for those people who typically fall through the cracks.''

They are people who are sometimes working two or three jobs just to make ends meet. Almost all of our families have children. They ... cannot get a traditional mortgage in any way.

"So its a pretty important mission. We feel like were really helping Missoula housing and those low-income families to come home.

Humes said she ran into a bank teller recently who told her he grew up in a Habitat home and he wouldnt have graduated high school if it didnt happen.

Those are the kinds of stories that remind us why this is so important, she said.

Habitat also operates a ReStore in East Missoula that sells appliances and building materials. The organization here in Missoula is one of 1,400 affiliates in the U.S., and there are branches in 70 countries.

Last year, the organization in Missoula had more than 250 volunteers put in 4,400 hours on a four-bedroom home. In 2014, 500 volunteers put in 7,200 hours.

We are providing stability and homeownership, Humes said. Residents become prideful of what they have and take ownership. Theyre 80 percent more likely to be engaged in their community on a very different level.

"We have two particular families who have just recently gone to dinner at a downtown establishment for the first time ever, and theyve lived here for a long time," she added. "So theyre able to engage in the community in a different way. Theyre able to shop and dine at businesses, and thats good for the whole community.

For more information visit habitatmsla.org.
I am writing in support of Wills Curdy for House District 98. I met Curdy for the first time when he was campaigning, and at the time didnt think too much about my local legislators and how they serve their constituents. I never really paid that much attention to who represented me until now.

Last spring, I had an issue that involved one of the state agencies which I couldnt seem to get resolved. I finally contacted Curdy and he responded immediately to me and was able to assist me in resolving the issue. His diligence and follow through was very much appreciated.

I found Curdy to be a supportive professional who worked quickly to assist me in resolving my issue. After meeting him, I find him to care deeply for the people of Montana, especially his constituents and takes the time to learn about issues that the people of Montana face and wants to find solutions. He will be an asset to the people of Montana.

Please join me in supporting Willis Curdy for House District 98.

Joan Bartkowski,

Missoula
Hopefully many of you watched the Commander in Chief Forum on NBC Sept. 7 to become better informed about the candidates for president.

There was a striking similarity to the information I learned when taking U.S. history in high school and world history in college. Adolph Hitler convinced the German people that he was the only person capable of making Germany "great again. Donald Trump's claim that he is the only person able to make America "great again certainly parallels that thinking.

When Hitler seized leadership of Germany, he expunged the military and government officials of all who did not agree with his conspiracy and replaced them with his chosen Nazi party members. Trump was critical of the American generals, stating that they have been reduced to rubble and he knew more than the generals about ISIS. He also stated, when I am president there will probably be different generals. Without question, he meant selected by himself.

The Associated Press reported that ahead of the forum, Trump rolled out a new plan to boost military spending buy tens of billions of dollars, including major increases in the number of active troops, fighter planes, Navy ships and submarines. We have the largest military and defense budget in the world. I also learned in my history classes that when a country builds a huge military machine, as Hitler did, they use it.

Is it any wonder that the rest of the world is frightened by Donald Trump? He definitely mirrors Hitler's takeover of the German government before World War II. Trump's relationship with dictator Vladimir Putin resembles Hitler's relationship with dictator Benito Mussolini.

Trump has changed his party registration several times from Republican to Democrat and back again. It appears that he is making this effort to become president for his own egotistical self-interest.

Jerry Reckin,

Kalispell
BROWNING  What many European visitors to the United States encounter on their first trip to America, the woman from Croatia noted, is New York City.

One of the first things Maja Vasilijevic saw on her first trip to the U.S. was a little different than the bright lights and teeming crowds of Times Square. No, one of Vasilijevics first encounters with America included a large herd of bison thundering across a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 2 on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

Its unique, said Vasilijevic, who had never in her life seen one of the animals in person. Not only the bison  the whole landscape.

The grand peaks of Glacier National Park, and not Manhattan skyscrapers, formed the skyline Vasilijevic viewed behind the Montana prairie on a warm and sun-splashed Wednesday afternoon. The bison, a domesticated herd being transferred from one pasture to another, were appropriately anxious to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the ATV that was herding them out an open gate.

About 20 minutes later, Vasilijevic  and a host of other foreign visitors  saw a different kind of bison in another field on the reservation.

A wild herd.

***

These 88 animals, unlike the domesticated ones, may one day freely roam in and out of Glacier Park.

Cooler yet, they descend from the handful of bison calves a Pend dOreille Indian named Latati rescued from this area and brought to the Flathead Indian Reservation in the 1870s when Americans were hunting the bison to near-extinction.

Those calves were the beginning of what became the Pablo-Allard herd, which eventually was sold to the Canadian government after the 1904 Flathead Allotment Act radically reduced the pasture lands available to tribal bison herds.

Most of those bison ended up in Elk Island National Park east of Edmonton, Alberta, and thats where the Blackfeet Tribe acquired them this spring.

It took 140-some years for Latatis calves to come full circle, and it likely will take several more before tourists in Glacier Park may be craning their necks to see one.

Youre talking about reintroducing a transboundary bison herd that would neither know nor understand invisible lines separating tribal lands, federal parks, private lands and even nations, Glacier Park Superintendent Jeff Mow said. It will be a process.

Such processes are what Vasilijevic and the other foreign visitors who gathered at Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier this week wrestle with back in their home countries.

She and Kevan Zunckel of South Africa, two of the organizers of the Hands Across Borders workshop, are transboundary specialists who volunteer for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Their group grilled Keith Aune, director of the Bison Conservation Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Leona Tracey of the Iinnii Initiative and Blackfeet Nation Buffalo Program, with a seemingly endless number of questions about bison and their connection to this land and its people.

***

The visitors conservation projects are diverse, but their interest in each others work is high.

In the basement of Glacier Park Lodge this week, you could find people like these:

 Gidon Bromberg of EcoPeace Middle East, an organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists to work to protect the shared environmental heritage in one of the most divided places in the world.

 Morris Zororai Mtsambiwa, executive director of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, one of the worlds largest conservation areas, spanning five nations in southern Africa.

 Jodi Hilti of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, which envisions more than 300 partners  parks, conservation groups, landowners, businesses, government agencies and Indian tribes  working together to secure the long-term ecological health of a vast region that stretches more than 2,000 miles across two nations, from Alaska, through Canada and to Wyoming.

 Jorg Ostrowski of the Silk Road to Peace, a transcontinental project which proposes 13 peace parks in 15 countries from Iran to China.

They gathered at the large lodge in the small community of East Glacier this week, conservationists from every continent save Antarctica, to share their successes and challenges, and to brainstorm solutions for the latter.

It is, Vasilijevic said, the first time such a workshop has been conducted in the United States.

***

They didnt wind up in Montana, rather than the more easily accessed New York City, by accident. Nor did they come specifically to see bison  that was just an available field trip that seemed to tickle people who, back home, may work on behalf of rhinoceros, pelicans or Cross River gorillas.

What drew conservationists here was the fact that Glacier, and nearby Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada, are the first border-divided peace park in the world.

Theyve been that way for 84 years.

Its very symbolic because it was the first, Vasilijevic said. And at first it was mostly symbolic, representing the friendship between the United States and Canada when the two nations linked them together in 1932.

Today, boundary-ignoring peace parks and protected areas are more the result of shared goals of protecting and preserving cultures, landscapes and wildlife that dont recognize lines on a map drawn by man.

The connections between Glacier and Waterton Lakes have moved that direction over the years as well. On Wednesday, Mow, Glaciers superintendent, and Ifan Thomas, superintendent of the Canadian national park across the border, shared a seat on one of the buses that carried their guests from around the globe to see the Blackfeet bison.

The symbolism, that our two countries have been good neighbors for so long, is very meaningful, Thomas said. But these days, he added, People are intrigued with the way the two parks work together.

Glacier and Waterton Lakes collaborate on efforts to curtail the human-introduced fungal disease called blister rust that is decimating whitebark pine stands in both parks and far beyond. They work together, and with the governments of Alberta and Montana, to try to keep destructive quagga and zebra mussels out of both parks waters.

Interpretive rangers from both parks regularly cross the border to assist in educational programs for visitors to both parks.

And I think about the fire we responded to last year, when you guys were dealing with a whole bunch of fires down here, Thomas said.

Winds out of the south threatened to push the wildfire north through heavy fuels toward the Waterton townsite, where residents and visitors were put on evacuation notice  but it was still an American fire that began on the other side of the border, near Goat Haunt.

I coordinated with Jeff, and he coordinated with your Department of the Interior, so that we could respond, Thomas said.

***

The Canadian national park Thomas oversees actually already contains bison. But the small herd is confined to a relatively small area by a fence that both keeps them in, and keeps predators out.

Watertons bison are there to acknowledge the animals historic existence in and around the park, and give visitors who make the 10- to 15-minute drive on the one-way Bison Paddock Loop Road a chance to see, more than experience, them.

Thomas called the proposal for a free-roaming wild herd near the U.S.-Canadian border intriguing.

I just dont know where its going to go, he said. There are lots of questions about how it would unfold. Weve had meetings with the Blackfoot in Canada, and I know bison are as important to the Blackfoot up there as they are to the Blackfeet down here.

Another Canadian park, Banff, may answer some of those questions this winter, when bison are reintroduced to its landscape.

It will be a soft release, said Harvey Locke, one of the workshop organizers and a part of the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative as well. What that means is theyll be placed in a big corral  I mean, one that covers acres  and theyll be kept in that space till they drop their calves. Then theyll be given more time to bond with the landscape.

The final step of the reintroduction wont be dramatic at all. Theyll just take down the fence, Locke said.

Some of us dream of a herd that goes from here to Banff, Locke said. Of course, that will be up to the Blackfeet people and Glacier Park. But my ancestors participated in the disappearance of the bison, and Id like to participate in their return.

Mow, Thomass counterpart in Glacier, said privately owned bison would be no more welcome inside the park than any other domesticated livestock, but a wild herd would be another matter, especially since bison were part of Glaciers ecosystem long before it became a national park in 1910.

We now have bison at hand, and opportunities on a small scale to find ground we can all agree on, Mow said. Its been over 100 years since bison were on this landscape, but working with a small herd in a small area, we can see what they would do and where theyd go.

Even thats probably several years away, the superintendent acknowledged. But as he joined conservationists from around the world to observe the Blackfeets herd, which arrived in April, he couldnt help making one more observation.

Look at them, on this landscape, Mow said. Its entirely clear they go together.
Im beginning to think this whole sordid campaign is being blown along by an acrid gust of distrust. The two main candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, are remarkably distrustful. They have set the modern standards for withholding information  his not releasing tax and health records, her not holding regular news conferences or quickly disclosing her pneumonia diagnosis. Both have a problem with spontaneous, reciprocal communication with a hint of vulnerability.

Both ultimately hew to a distrustful, stark, combative, zero-sum view of life  the idea that making it in this world is an unforgiving slog and that, given other peoples selfish natures, vulnerability is dangerous.

Trumps convention speech was the perfect embodiment of the politics of distrust. American families, he argued, are under threat from foreigners who are as violent and menacing as they are insidious. Clintons Basket of Deplorables riff comes from the same spiritual place. We have in our country, she jibed, millions of bigots, racists, xenophobes and haters  people who are so blackhearted that they are, as she put it, irredeemable.

The parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, felt that even the man who murdered their close friends was redeemable, but Clinton has written off vast chunks of her fellow citizens as beyond hope and redemption.

But these nominees didnt emerge in a vacuum. Distrustful politicians were nominated by an increasingly distrustful nation. A generation ago about half of all Americans felt they could trust the people around them, but now less than a third think other people are trustworthy.

Young people are the most distrustful of all; only about 19 percent of millennials believe other people can be trusted. But across all age groups there is a rising culture of paranoia and conspiracy-mongering. We set out a decade ago to democratize the Middle East, but weve ended up Middle Easternizing our democracy.

The true thing about distrust, in politics and in life generally, is that it is self-destructive. Distrustful people end up isolating themselves, alienating others and corroding their inner natures.

Over the past few decades, the decline in social trust has correlated to an epidemic of loneliness. In 1985, 10 percent of Americans said they had no close friend with whom they could discuss important matters. By 2004, 25 percent had no such friend.

When you refuse to lay yourself before others, others wont lay themselves before you. An AARP study of Americans ages 45 and up found that 35 percent suffer from chronic loneliness, compared with 20 percent in a similar survey a decade ago. Suicide rates, which closely correlate with loneliness, have been spiking since 1999. The culture of distrust isnt the only isolating factor, but it plays a role.

The rise of distrust correlates with a decline in community bonds and a surge of unmerited cynicism. Only 31 percent of millennials say there is a great deal of difference between the two political parties. Only 52 percent of adults say they are extremely proud to be Americans, down from 70 percent in 2003.

The rise of distrust has corroded intimacy. When you go on social media you see people who long for friendship. People are posting and liking private photos on public places like Snapchat and Facebook.

But the pervasive atmosphere of distrust undermines actual intimacy, which involves progressive self-disclosure, vulnerability, emotional risk and spontaneous and unpredictable face-to-face conversations.

Instead, what you see in social media is often the illusion of intimacy. The sharing is tightly curated  in a way carefully designed to mitigate unpredictability, danger, vulnerability and actual intimacy. There is, as Stephen Marche once put it, a phony nonchalance. Its possible to have weeks of affirming online banter without ever doing a trust-fall into anothers arms.

As Garry Shandling once joked, My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem, but they dont really know me.

Distrust leads to these self-reinforcing spirals. As Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University observed recently, in distrustful societies parents are less likely to teach their children about tolerance and respect for others. More distrust leads to tighter regulations, which leads to slower growth, which leads to sour mentalities and more distrust.

Furthermore, fear is the great enemy of intimacy. But the loss of intimacy makes society more isolated. Isolation leads to more fear. More fear leads to fear-mongering leaders. And before long you wind up in this death spiral.

The great religions and the wisest political philosophies have always counseled going the other way. Theyve always advised that real strength is found in comradeship, and theres no possibility of that if you are building walls. They have generally championed the paradoxical leap  that even in the midst of an avalanche of calumny, somebodys got to greet distrust with vulnerability, skepticism with innocence, cynicism with faith and hostility with affection.

Our candidates arent doing it, but that really is the realistic path to strength.
CORRECTED VERSION:

Democrats have raised more money than Republicans in three of five campaigns for statewide office during an election season on track to set new spending records, according to campaign filings.

Republican leaders have asked supporters to step up their game.

The truth is, were being outgunned by the Democrats in terms of money and field support, GOP Chairman Jeff Essman wrote in a recent email to party supporters. In an interview, he later added, Its OK to raise a little fear in your own supporters to get them motivated.

It is tough to tell until elections are over how much the money mattered and to what degree the calls for more contributions were born out of desperation rather than a simple motivational tactic. Nonetheless, political scientists monitor fundraising as a barometer of support for candidates and watch for loans or personal contributions that might suggest a struggling campaign.

The degree to which opposing campaigns raise similar funds or approach historical records also can signal how competitive a particular race is and whether one name will flood TVs and mailboxes more than another. Who has independently spent money to support candidates also can reveal how a state competition fits into a partys or an industrys national strategy.

I suspect both parties will have sufficient funds for their candidates to get their names out, Carroll College political scientist Jeremy Johnson said. Its hard, especially in a presidential election year, to get voters focused on down-ticket races.

He said the fact Democrats are competitive with Republicans in so many top-of-the-ticket races fits a larger national trend.

Go back to the 1980s, Republicans had a large advantage over Democrats nationally in fundraising, he said. Thats going away  even with the overturning of various campaign finance laws.

Through the end of August, candidates for governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor and superintendent of public instruction have collected more than $8.2 million in contributions and have spent $5.8 million of it. As a whole, the collections are split almost evenly between each party, but Democrats have twice as much left in the bank to spend before Election Day.

Four independent committees also have reported spending another $2.2 million through the end of August to influence partisan, statewide races.

The most expensive race is between incumbent Democrat, Gov. Steve Bullock, and Bozeman businessman Greg Gianforte, a Republican. Collectively, the candidates are on track to almost double the states previous fundraising record for a gubernatorial race.

In 2012, Bullock and Republican Rick Hill spent $3.9 million in a heated open contest. With two months to go, Bullock and Gianforte have raised almost $7 million. Bullock holds an advantage heading toward Election Day with almost $1.3 million left in his war chest compared to the $342,994 Gianforte still has in the bank.

Gianforte has raised $100,000 more than Bullock since announcing his candidacy a year ago, although he has relied heavily on his own money. Of the $3.4 million in contributions reported by Gianforte through the end of August, $1.6 million came from the candidate himself, a mix of cash and in-kind contributions such as the use of his personal airplane. Gianforte also has loaned his campaign $200,000, which has yet to be paid back.

A little less than half of his financial support, $1.6 million, has come from nearly 6,000 individual contributions from almost as many households, according to campaign finance records and an analysis of home addresses. By comparison, about 67 percent of Bullocks campaign cash, about $2.2 million, has come from about 14,000 contributions from about 6,100 households.

Montana Democratic Party Executive Director Nancy Keenan criticized Gianfortes reliance on his personal fortune, as well as other candidates who have made personal contributions or taken out loans.

If you talk to Montanans, theyre tired of people thinking they can buy elections, she said.

Campaign Manager Amy Lunde defended Gianfortes decision to match dollar-for-dollar the individual contributions made to his campaign and shot down accusations that he was trying to buy the race.

Thats a typical response, she said. Greg obviously has been a successful businessman and wanted to show hes just as invested as everyone hes asking to support his candidacy.

Essman fired back at the Democratic Party with an attack that has featured prominently in the governors race, among others.

Obviously, a lot of outside interest groups, extremist environmental groups, labor unions, big corporations, big Wall Street corporations have dropped money into the campaigns of Montana Democrats, he said.

Gianforte has declined to accept any contributions from outside groups such as unions or business organizations. To date, Bullocks campaign has collected almost $110,000 from such groups directly, which is about 3 percent of his total fundraising.

Its a bogus argument in the sense that all of it is reportable, all of it is legal, Keenan said. And oftentimes when people are making minimum wage and work for a union, its a way for them to gather their resources and have a little bit of impact. Its very different someone being able to go to their personal bank account.

State records show contributions to Bullocks campaign have come from a variety of advocacy organizations, unions and the political committees of companies, such as: Montana Conservation Voters, the Montana Gas and Oil PAC, the unions of construction workers and teachers, company committees ranging from Microsoft and Pfizer to Conocophillips and the Corrections Corporation of America.

While Gianforte is not accepting money from such groups, nothing stops those donors from contributing to independent committees, which can support his candidacy with fewer spending limits so long as it does not coordinate with his campaign.

The biggest such spenders this cycle include a PAC affiliated with the Republican Governors Association, which has raised almost $60 million to spend in campaigns nationwide this election cycle, according to IRS records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. In Montana, it has spent more than $458,000 on ads that attack Bullocks record as governor.

Similarly, the Democratic Governors Association, for which Bullock had raised millions as its previous president, has built up $35 million to spend in this election. More than $1.5 million has been used to purchase anti-Gianforte advertising and research.

Top contributors to the Republican group include a number of corporations, often those with ties to party super donors, such as Koch Industries run by Charles and David Koch; Sheldon Adelsons Las Vegas Sands; Mountaire Corp, an agricultural processing company owned by Ron Cameron; Alliance Coal; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Democrats heaviest contributors include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Wal-Mart Stores; Duke Energy; and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Of the top 20 donors to each of the governors organizations, six were the same: Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Pfizer, the American Beverage Association, Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, Rail Services Company and Comprehensive Health Management.

The next largest chunk of independent spending in a statewide race also has been in the contest with the closest fundraising footrace.

The MEA-MFT, Montanas union for educators, has reported spending more than $163,000 on billboard, television, radio and Facebook advertising to support Helena teacher and Democrat Melissa Romanos bid to become state superintendent in her first run for public office.

At about $451,000 collected to-date, only the gubernatorial candidates have raised more than Romano and Republican Elsie Arntzen, a state legislator and former Billings teacher.

Romanos filings show she has edged out Arntzen in overall fundraising, although she has less money left in the bank for the final two months of the campaign. Her latest filings show she has raised just $1,000 more overall but only has about $70,000 left.

Arntzen reported having about $105,000 still available at the start of the month. Unlike her opponent, she has taken out $58,000 in loans to fund her campaign, which will erase her cash-in-bank lead without additional significant fundraising.

The next most expensive contest is the battle between Republican Matt Rosendale of Glendive and Democrat Jesse Laslovich of Helena to become state auditor, a post that does not actually audit state agencies but regulates the insurance and securities industries.

Rosendale, a former Maryland real estate developer who moved to Glendive in 2002, served as the Senate Majority Leader in the last legislative session. He has pulled in almost $77,000, about $53,000 of which he still has left to spend. The vast majority of that came from 271 individual contributors, but he also has been supported with more than $10,000 from seven county GOP groups.

Laslovich, who is chief legal counsel for the current state auditor, has raised more than Rosendale, most of which he has not yet reported spending. He reports having $223,357 left in the bank of the more than $266,000 he has collected. Most of his campaign cash came from 1,783 individual contributions while $17,750 of it was donated by unions and the political committees of insurance companies such as Liberty Mutual and Allstate.

Big money also remains to be spent in the Secretary of State race, whose candidates have collectively amassed more than $325,000.

State Auditor Monica Lindeen, a Democrat who is term limited from seeking that office again, reported collecting more than $173,000 compared to the roughly $153,000 raised by Corey Stapleton, a Billings financial adviser who has previously served in the Legislature. But Lindeen only has $47,000 left, while Stapleton has nearly $130,000 to spend before Election Day.

The only partisan statewide race that many political observers do not consider financially competitive is the Attorney General contest.

Incumbent Tim Fox has not campaigned as heavily as other Republicans at the top of the state ballot, but has still collected much more than his opponent, Larry Jent, an attorney and former state legislator. Fox reports having about $209,000 left of the more than $280,000 he has raised, while Jent has about $27,000 left out of $35,000 collected.

Johnson, the political scientist, said the fundraising this cycle has stacked up to be one of the most competitive in recent memory across multiple campaigns.

But just because you have the most money doesnt mean youre going to win the election, he said. It gives you an advantage, but its not the end all be all. There are plenty of candidates who raised the most money and have gone on to lose."

An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the cash on hand for Attorney General Tim Fox's campaign.
EAST HELENA  For one little girl at Radley Elementary School, the last day of August was one of terrifying back-to-school jitters.

It's moments like this when principal Joe McMahon knows he can call on Governor.

There's nothing like a lick on the hand, a friendly nudge and a wagging tail to chase a child's tears and anxiety away.

Now 7 months old, Governor, who started at the school last year, is already a beloved staff member.

On the first day of school, he was in Vashti Teders' special education classroom, Room 24, sticking his head out the door for friendly greets and meets.

But once he's on call, he dons his blue service vest and he's all business, which is helping kids get through hard, emotional times.

Dressed in his vest, he padded down to the front door with Teders to greet the little girl.

As Teders gently spoke with her and introduced Governor, the girl gradually relaxed enough to walk down the hall to Room 24.

Ten minutes later, she was able to tell Governor to sit, pet his head and give him treats.

A wobbly smile finally flitted across the girl's face.

As Governor worked his magic, fifth grade teacher Liz Townsend looked on from the hallway.

"Isn't that cool?" she said. "The kids get around him and calm down immediately. He's a very popular fellow."

Within a few minutes, the girl was able to walk Governor down the hall to her classroom and then walk in on her own.

Governor sits by children during school assemblies to help them calm down, said McMahon.

And when children are screaming, crying or striking out, Governor can walk in and calm them much faster than any of the staff, said Teders.

Some children used to take 45 minutes or longer to calm down, say Teders and McMahon, but Governor can do it within about 5 minutes.

"It is phenomenal to watch," said Teders. "He has an innate ability to comfort people.

"It's been a great experience," she added. "He's been here since he was 10 weeks old. He loves coming to work. He's probably the most excited employee here.

"My job is to think outside of the box," said Teders. "I have to be a Mary Poppins. I love that about my job."

Governor just happened to be one of her out-of-the-box ideas that two Carroll College Anthrozoology students and the Helena Kennel Club made happen.

"We had to be open that it may not work," Teders said, but he's exceeded all expectations.

Governor and his job description seem to be unique in Helena area schools, say both Teders and Erica Feuerbacher, a professor in the Carroll College Anthrozoology Department. In fact, Teders can't find any school district in Montana using a dog like Governor.

Teders calls him a "facility dog." He's not really a "service dog" because he works with all of the students as needed, instead of one specific person.

And he's not quite a "therapy dog," she said, because he learns specific tasks for special needs. So he's more a blend of a service and a therapy dog, thus his special job description.

"He does amazing things," said para educator Debbie Dunlap. "It's just instinct. He seems to know when kids need extra reassurance. He's such a blessing to us."
I am lured only by what precedes me, he writes, by the numberless moments when I was not: the non-born. From that perspective, he looks at the world with new eyes, and gains a deeper understanding of himself: I have never taken myself for a being. A noncitizen, a marginal type, a nothing who exists only by the excess, by the superabundance of his nothingness.

Cioran was a man of unusual tastes. He took a liking to the Thracians because they wept over the newborn, and to the Gnostic sect of Bogomils, who, in order to justify God, held Satan responsible for the infamy of Creation.

All of this raises an obvious question: Why do anything? Why multiply the cosmic failure, the infamy of creation?

Idleness, as we know, has a bad rap in Western culture, but it can be a philosophical experience in its own right. Bertrand Russell wrote a long essay in praise of it, and Oscar Wilde thought that to do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world as well as the most intellectual. The great, consummate idlers of literature (Ivan Goncharovs Oblomov or Melvilles Bartleby) are figures of metaphysical quest: They exemplify ways of being human with unusual complexity.

Idleness, then, reveals an experience of nothingness. While nothingness tends to occupy a central position in Eastern traditions like Buddhism and Taoism, we in the West typically shun it; after all, one of the most characteristic branches of Western philosophy is ontology, the study of that which exists.

Yet, even if we do not choose to embrace nothingness, nothingness itself may choose to embrace us. It may not be that we dont have anything to do, or that were bored, or that we would rather do it later, but just that we dont see the point of it all. In our idleness we intuit a cosmic meaninglessness, which comes along with the realization that, with every action, we get only more entangled in the universal farce.

Perhaps the most intriguing form of idleness is one nearly all of us are intimately familiar with: procrastination. Idleness is difficult to find in a pure state. Indeed, in a certain sense, it eludes us because, at its most radical, idleness tends to devour its devotees (again, Oblomov and Bartleby). But procrastination is a different business altogether: It is not only more available, but also more dynamic, just as the procrastinator is a more dramatic figure than the idler, who is as ascetic and immobile as a pillar saint.
In an expression of trauma shared by many survivors, he cant stand any light, or anyone cleaning, said Ms. Shaul of the Jewish support foundation. The fear of change or loss of home means that institutionalizing the survivors is not an option. The former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe also lack nursing home facilities comparable to those in the United States, Australia or Israel, making home care all the more important.

The recent political shift to the right across much of Eastern Europe has exacerbated jealousies among neighbors, like the family living next door to Mrs. Varga, who threw rocks through her window after realizing she was receiving special services because she is Jewish. Under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Hungary has become more tolerant of anti-Semitism, and Ms. Shaul said the foundation had seen an increase in episodes targeting survivors across the country.

Even for survivors who are more financially secure, like Agnes Bartha, 94, who lives in an airy eighth-floor apartment with a balcony, caregivers are like family. After a stroke last year, she needs a walker to move around and a caregiver to cook, clean and help her make sense of the 30 pills she must take daily.

Gone are the days when she could travel to Germany or visit Hungarian schools to tell children her story. Now, she relies on the internet to tell younger generations how in 1944 she was marched from Hungary to the Ravensbruck concentration camp, how she shocked an SS officer by insisting to him in fluent German that her friend join her as a slave laborer for Daimler-Benz, or how the biggest present of my life was a cup of tea handed to her after she escaped in the final days of World War II.

For a woman whose life depended on her perseverance and her ability to get by on her wit and fortitude, it is difficult to admit that she can no longer live independently.

Because of my past and my physical condition, I need more and more help, she said, leaning on her walker, decorated with a Mercedes-Benz star recovered from the archives of the Genshagen forced labor camp. It is not easy when you lose your strength.
In a world of glued-on soles and cheap vinyl flats, Joe Lynch practices what many would consider a dying craft  cobbling.

Last September the Anaconda resident opened Lynchs Boot and Shoe Repair on East 3rd Street in the Smelter City.

However, Lynch says this isnt his first time at the rodeo when it comes to repairing shoes.

For 31 years he owned and operated Glenns Shoe repair in Kalispell with his wife Niki Lynch, until he moved to Anaconda because, he said, he wanted a change of pace.

It was getting to be overwhelming, said Lynch. Kalispell was just getting a little too big and too hectic.

Arguably for as long as shoes have existed people have been repairing them, and the first recorded mention of the word cobbler by the Oxford English Dictionary goes back to the 1300s.

However, today there are fewer and fewer shoe-repair specialists.

When Lynch started in Kalispell, he said, there were eight cobblers in the Flathead Valley, but by the time he left his and another shop were the only two left in the region.

Lynch said one reason for the declining numbers is that people have become accustomed to throwing away inexpensive shoes.

But even inexpensive shoes can be repaired, Lynch said, and often at a lesser cost than buying a pair of new ones.

However, Lynch doesnt just repair shoes and boots  he also makes them.

In Kalispell he made custom boots for clients, but today he just makes them for friends and family members.

Lynch said he learned how to make boots after attending a trade school in Oklahoma in the 1980s.

The part I did was shoe, boot and saddle, said Lynch. I went down there to learn how to make saddles and I started watching them making cowboy boots. I got into that and never did learn how to make a saddle.

Before going to the trade school, Lynch said he studied two years to become an accountant, but ultimately decided a life of crunching numbers wasnt for him.

I met a guy that had been to the school in Oklahoma, Lynch said. I had done some leather work just as a hobby and I just signed up, and I took off and went.

Lynch said he enjoys working with leather and repairing worn-out shoes because of the creativity involved and the satisfaction the goes along with bringing something back to life.

What I like about boot making is creating the different patterns and building something from scratch, said Lynch. The repairs are the same. You take something thats worn out and bring it back.

Lynch said he works with just about every kind of boot or shoe, with some exceptions.

Most everything can be repaired, but some things arent feasible, said Lynch, adding that he also works with bags, purses, belts and other leather items.

Tools of the trade include both electrical and mechanical sewing machines, Lynch said. But since his move to Anaconda, he said hes decided to go strictly vintage.

He pointed out a circa-1960s sewing machine to The Montana Standard, along with a harness machine from the late 1800s that can sew through leather as thick as an inch.

My shop in Kalispell is still full of the newer stuff. But I like working with the old ones, so I brought old, said Lynch. Those you can keep rebuilding.

Like Lynchs vintage machines, you can also keep rebuilding a pair of shoes.

Lynch said he has some clients who repeatedly bring in the same pair. The reason, he said, is often because repair is more cost effective than buying new, but more often than not its because some people get attached to their shoes.

Ive had people that bring in shoes that probably cost them $10 and have me put in $45-worth of work into them, said Lynch. A lot of times (its) because its just a favorite shoe.
Eastern Orthodox believers are patiently moving forward with plans to build a monastery in Montana.

Though the timetable will depend on issues such as funding, members of St. Anthony the Great Orthodox Church in Bozeman already have donated land near the base of Montanas Tobacco Root Mountains especially for the monastery. The property is near Harrison on Harrison Lake, also known as Willow Creek Reservoir.

Its already in a conservation easement which stipulates that nothing can be built on the land other than an Eastern Orthodox monastery, said David Hicks, a member of St. Anthony the Great Orthodox Church in Bozeman. The property is a 1,000-acre tract on the north shore of the lake.

West of the Moon

David Hicks and his wife, Betsy, gave the parcel from what they called their West of the Moon ranch for the purpose of building St. Peters Monastery, as it is called. The West of the Moon name of the ranch comes from an old jazz standard East of the Sun (and West of the Moon), written by Princeton undergraduate Brooks Bowman and published in 1934, Hicks explained.

The monastery was formally established in 2014 and the St. Peters Monastery Foundation, which is guiding the effort to build it, is recognized by the state of Montana as a tax-exempt 501(c)3 foundation.

We have been so blessed to live at West of the Moon and in our beautiful state, Hicks told the Missoulian in an email. No one owns anything anyway. That's just a fiction to appease the ego. It's all on temporary loan. We are just the stewards in the parables told by Jesus, someday to give an account to the owner.

Hicks, who is secretary of the foundation, noted that in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the new monastery may start out as a skete  essentially a little monastery associated with a larger one.

A website at stpetersmonastery.com discusses details.

Alone with God in wilderness

Father Hieromonk Innocent, the superior of St. John Monastery in Manton, California, has led three delegations of monks to Harrison in recent years to get work started on the actual building of the monastery. Innocent said Montana is in line with what monasteries have traditionally been in Orthodox tradition.

In the history of monasteries, the monks were actually trying to flee from the cities in order to be alone with God in the wilderness, he said.

The monks will be praying for the good of America, for Montana and for people everywhere, Innocent said.

And he added that as of now, the Orthodox Church has not yet formally released any monks to come to Montana to live permanently.

I would venture to estimate that within four or five years, we may be able to do that, but its in Gods hands, he said.

He added that the plan is for the monks to support themselves by making fine furniture, since there is a master craftsman in the Bozeman congregation who can teach them.

Architects view

Also in the Bozeman congregation of St. Anthony the Great Orthodox Church is an architect, Mark Headley. Hes the architect for the new library in Bozeman and his latest project is the new Missoula College building in Missoula. He also designed the Don Anderson Hall on the University of Montana campus, as well as UMs Interdisciplinary Science Building.

Headley converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2008 and has done the design work for St. Peters Monastery after visiting the famous Mount Athos Monastery in Greece.

There are five or six or seven distinct architectural Orthodox styles around the world, Russian, Georgian, Serbian, etcetera, but this one will be particularly Greek, Headley said. We will use a lot of rock at the base that is collected at the site. It is kind of classical in its organization. The building creates a square, enclosed courtyard. So it will be protected from the winter winds which are very, very strong out there.

It is on a sloped part of the site so the architectural design makes use of that site in placing the church sanctuary itself at the top of the site.

The symbolism there is that the Orthodox believe that the faith is not a one-time thing. They dont believe in an instantaneous salvation and youre saved forever, they believe its a lifelong struggle and lasts until your last breath. Its truly an ascent to God, and thats the very obvious reason that temples are placed like that, Headley said.

Life of prayer

Father David Morrison of St. Anthony the Great Orthodox Church in Bozeman noted that its only about a 45-minute drive from Bozeman to the site of the monastery. That means it will be close enough for Orthodox believers from the Bozeman congregation or from elsewhere to visit for spiritual encouragement, as many do.

It also will be open for people of other faiths to visit, if they choose. Such visitors will be welcome, he said.

Its my experience that there are plenty of people who are Protestants who are trying to find that sacred space and are willing to cross those lines, Morrison said. Our understanding of monasticism and monasteries is that its an essential aspect of Christianity. People in those monasteries have given themselves to pray for the life of the world. In setting apart land, there is space on the planet that is dedicated to prayer.
The Big Hole Watershed Committee wanted to build an earthen dam at Twin Lakes, south and west of Wisdom, years ago to help with low flows and high water temperatures that plague the Big Hole by late summer.

Big Hole Watershed Committee President Randy Smith said the committee spent years working on the idea in the 1990s. They met with the congressional delegation and various state agencies to seek money for such a project.

But they ran into so many issues  water rights, liability, hazards, and money  that the committee gave up.

Smith said snowpack is the most important element to the Big Hole. Thats why the committee would like to see some sort of river storage built, to hold water and keep it from running downstream too fast.

With the past three summers breaking heat records globally, snowpack is melting earlier, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Smith said that members of the committee would still like to see a larger water storage diversion built on the Big Hole, but unless government gets involved, he doesnt see a bigger project like that happening.

Conservationists have also recently called for the proposal to be reconsidered.

I dont think its impossible, but we need somebody bigger than us behind it, Smith said. We need government. Thats what it takes to get that sort of support. Maybe itll take the river drying up.
Terrorists groups in Central Africa have for years made war on children -- kidnapping them, raping them, murdering them, strapping bombs on their bodies and blowing them up. When ONE family is able to escape and get their children to the United States, Congressman Ryan Zinke tells them that they are not welcome here! THEY MUST GO BACK! What makes me embarrassed -- no ashamed -- of Montana is that people in the audience cheered at this barbarity.
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Even though failures happen, pipelines are still the safest method for transporting large volumes of oil across the country. The hazards of rail cars have been clearly demonstrated.

While we may believe that Dakota Access is the best option for moving Bakken oil, the international conflagration at Standing Rock cannot be resolved by treating it as a superficial legal proceeding or as an act of civil disobedience.

The situation demands that we temper white man arrogance with understanding because this uprising is about more than a pipeline. It is rooted in history.

Its about the promise in the Laramie Treaty of 1868 to respect Sioux sovereignty of 2.5 million acres of dedicated land in Black Hills country, only to have it pared down by aggressive whites to less than one million acres.

It is about General George Custer violating Indian sovereignty by going into the Black Hills in 1874 to verify the discovery of gold, thereby starting a gold rush that swept aside the Treaty and the rights of the Sioux.

It is about herding a subjugated people onto reservations, slaughtering their buffalo, and promising food and shelter to sustain them on barren stretches of hostile land. We made them dependents in the 1800s and then abhor this dependence in 2016.

It is about the killing of Sitting Bull on the Standing Rock reservation in 1890 for participating in the Ghost Dance when he was not a threat to the white society or the U. S. military.

It is about the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 in which 62 women and children were killed along with over 200 other Native Americans. In todays world, that is called genocide.

Its about Lakes Sakakawea and Oahe backing over thousands of acres of Indian lands.

Its about a deaf state government that has always used the lack of money as an excuse for not funding Indian programs because the priorities of infrastructure, white social needs and tax cuts always came first.

Its about the Sioux perception that the white Bismarck folks couldnt be jeopardized by a pipeline break but Indian people downstream could.

We may not like this litany of convicting truths but in order to understand the protest it is necessary to acknowledge the historical facts that have brought us to this clash of two cultures.

If we had treated Native Americans fairly, paid for the land, delivered on promises, kept the treaties, provided the same programs as given to whites, we would have receptive friends with whom we could negotiate.

The partnership of Great Britain and the United States in the Iraq invasion is a case in point. Even though the British had reservations, they went along because we have always been loyal partners in war and peace. Our relationship created an environment of deference and compromise.

On the other hand, our relationship with Native Americans has always been hostile. Now when we need their friendship and consent, we dont have it.

This brings to mind the Old Testament narrative about the return of Jacob after he had stolen Esaus birthright. He sent three waves of goats, sheep, camels, cows and donkeys ahead as peace offerings to the brother who had vowed to kill him. They were reconciled.

I dont know what the white man could send to Native Americans to demonstrate regret but pointing to certificates, hearings and court decisions will not be enough to assuage generations of pain.

Dakota Access may not be willing to give the modern equivalent of three waves of goats, sheep, camels, cows and donkeys to win reconciliation. Circumstances demand that the pipeline be finished but lets hope some reconciliation comes first.
A single-engine airplane was forced to make an emergency landing in a field west of Missoula on Friday. Both occupants walked away unscathed.

Pilot Roy "Skip" Owings and his wife Judy, both local residents, had just left the Missoula Airport in the Cessna and were about 10 miles north of Evaro when Roy noticed a little vibration in the engine and saw that he had lost all his oil pressure.

"When he uttered the word Mayday to the control tower, that put more than an alert in my thinking and I commenced to pray ardently," Judy Owings said. "Probably my first thought was hes an amazing pilot and so thorough in all his pre-flight (inspections). I knew that if something was awry, it was not his negligence at all."

Roy decided the plane wasn't going to make it back to the airport, so he picked a field near the Wye that didn't have any trees. Other than the engine damage, the plane was fine.

"It was no rougher than a rocky landing strip in Idaho," Owings said. "I'm thankful I have an incredibly calm wife and Im very thankful that God was watching out for us.''

He said he has "been very diligent about rehearsing this kind of stuff in my mind for years and years and years. Its almost like clockwork." And on Friday, it paid off.

Judy said that when she realized that they were going to have to land in a field, she was confident in her husbands ability.

I knew he could do it, she said. Hes very calm. He was concerned about bushes or something and he asked me if I was OK. I knew that whatever happened it would be OK.

She said the landing was very bumpy.

When we were first in touch with the control tower, he thought probably we could make it in and they cleared us to land, Judy recalled. But the plane was dropping sooner than we expected. And they suggested Highway 93 and there was way too much traffic.''

Her husband had been scouting for options. "He said, 'Theres a field we could land in, theres another one. And then he said, 'This is the one, and so he picked it.

Owings first got his pilots license in Seattle in 1974 and has more than 700 hours of flying experience. They owned an equipment company in Missoula, but Owings now works for Halliburton.

They were headed to Kalispell to visit his mother. Owings said he flew the plane from Utah the day before for work, and everything was fine.

Firefighters from the Frenchtown Rural Fire Department were on the scene shortly after the landing at about 11:30 a.m., and the Missoula County Sheriffs Department responded as well. The plane did not start a grass fire.

Judy said shes never heard her husband say the word Mayday before.

He was very resolute and looking for what he should do next, and very calm, she said. Since he started flying, and I love flying with him, he has always learned to be looking for a place to land if we might need to. Hes probably the most conscientious pilot I know. Theres a lot of people I wouldnt fly with.

Roy Owings said the FAA will have to conduct an investigation, and the plane is going to have to get towed out.

We wont be flying it, he said. Not for a while.

He said hes never had to declare an emergency before.

I knew I could set it down, he said. It was a good landing.
Democrats have raised more money than Republicans in three of five campaigns for statewide office during a campaign season on track to set new spending records, according to campaign filings.

Republican leaders have asked supporters to step up their game.

"The truth is, we're being outgunned by the Democrats in terms of money and field support," GOP Chairman Jeff Essman wrote in a recent email to party supporters. In an interview, he later added, "It's OK to raise a little fear in your own supporters to get them motivated."

It is tough to tell until elections are over how much the money mattered and to what degree the calls for more contributions were born out of desperation rather than a simple motivational tactic. Nonetheless, political scientists monitor fundraising as a barometer of support for candidates and watch for loans or personal contributions that might suggest a struggling campaign.

The degree to which opposing campaigns raise similar funds or approach historical records also can signal how competitive a particular race is and whether one name will flood TVs and mailboxes more than another. Who has independently spent money to support candidates also can reveal how a state competition fits into a party's or an industry's national strategy.

"I suspect both parties will have sufficient funds for their candidates to get their names out," Carroll College Political Scientist Jeremy Johnson said. "It's hard, especially in a presidential election year, to get voters focused on down-ticket races."

Nonetheless, he said the fact Democrats are competitive with Republicans in so many top-of-the-ticket races fits a larger national trend.

"Go back to the 1980s, Republicans had a large advantage over Democrats nationally in fundraising," he said. "That's going away  even with the overturning of various campaign finance laws."

Through the end of August, candidates for governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor, and superintendent of public instruction have collected more than $8.2 million in contributions and have spent $5.8 million of it. As a whole, the collections are split almost evenly between each party, but Democrats have twice as much left in the bank to spend before Election Day.

Four independent committees also have reported spending another $2.2 million through the end of August to influence partisan statewide races.

Bullock vs. Gianforte

The most expensive race is between incumbent Democrat Gov. Steve Bullock and Bozeman businessman Greg Gianforte, a Republican. Collectively, the candidates are on track to almost double the state's previous fundraising record for a gubernatorial race.

In 2012, Bullock and Republican Rick Hill spent $3.9 million in a heated open contest. With two months to go, Bullock and Gianforte have raised almost $7 million. Bullock holds an advantage heading toward Election Day with almost $1.3 million left in his war chest compared to the $342,994 Gianforte still has in the bank.

Gianforte has raised $100,000 more than Bullock since announcing his candidacy a year ago, although he has relied heavily on his own money. Of the $3.4 million in contributions reported by Gianforte through the end of August, $1.6 million came from the candidate himself, a mix of cash and in-kind contributions such as the use of his personal airplane. Gianforte also has loaned his campaign $200,000, which has yet to be paid back.

A little less than half of his financial support, $1.6 million, has come from nearly 6,000 individual contributions from almost as many households, according to campaign finance records and an analysis of home addresses. By comparison, about 67 percent of Bullock's campaign cash, about $2.2 million, has come from about 14,000 contributions from about 6,100 households.

Montana Democratic Party Executive Director Nancy Keenan criticized Gianforte's reliance on his personal fortune as well as other candidates who have made personal contributions or taken out loans.

"If you talk to Montanans, they're tired of people thinking they can buy elections," she said.

Campaign Manager Amy Lunde defended Gianforte's decision to match dollar-for-dollar the individual contributions made to his campaign and shot down accusations that he was trying to buy the race.

"That's a typical response," she said. "Greg obviously has been a successful businessman and wanted to show he's just as invested as everyone he's asking to support his candidacy."

Essman fired back at the Democratic party with an attack that has featured prominently in the governor's race, among others.

"Obviously a lot of outside interest groups, extremist environmental groups, labor unions, big corporations, big Wall Street corporations have dropped money into the campaigns of Montana Democrats," he said.

Gianforte has declined to accept any contributions from outside groups such as unions or business organizations. To date, Bullock's campaign has collected almost $110,000 from such groups directly, which is about 3 percent of his total fundraising.

"It's a bogus argument in the sense that all of it is reportable, all of it is legal," Keenan said. "And oftentimes when people are making minimum wage and work for a union, it's a way for them to gather their resources and have a little bit of impact. It's very different (from) someone being able to go to their personal bank account."

State records show contributions to Bullock's campaign have come from a variety of advocacy organizations, unions, and the political committees of companies such as Montana Conservation Voters, the Montana Gas and Oil PAC, the unions of construction workers and teachers, company committees ranging from Microsoft and Pfizer to ConocoPhillips, and the Corrections Corporation of America.

While Gianforte is not accepting money from such groups, nothing stops those donors from contributing to independent committees, which can support his candidacy with fewer spending limits so long as they do not coordinate with his campaign.

The biggest such spenders this cycle include a PAC affiliated with the Republican Governors Association, which has raised almost $60 million to spend in campaigns nationwide this election cycle, according to IRS records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. In Montana, it has spent more than $458,000 on ads that attack Bullock's record as governor.

Similarly, the Democratic Governors Association, for which Bullock had raised millions as its previous president, has built up $35 million to spend in this election. More than $1.5 million has been used to purchase anti-Gianforte advertising and research.

Top contributors to the Republican group include a number of corporations, often those with ties to party super donors such as Koch Industries, run by Charles and David Koch; Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands; Mountaire Corp, an agricultural processing company owned by Ron Cameron; Alliance Coal; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Democrats' heaviest contributors include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Wal Mart Stores; Duke Energy; and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Of the top 20 donors to each of the governor's organizations, six were the same: Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Pfizer, the American Beverage Association, Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, Rail Services Company, and Comprehensive Health Management.

Arntzen vs. Romano

The next largest chunk of independent spending in a statewide race has also been in the contest with the closest fundraising footrace.

The MEA-MFT, Montana's union for educators, has reported spending more than $163,000 on billboard, television, radio, and Facebook advertising to support Helena teacher and Democrat Melissa Romano's bid to become State Superintendent in her first run for public office.

At about $451,000 collected to date, only the gubernatorial candidates have raised more than Romano and Republican Elsie Arntzen, a state legislator and former Billings teacher.

Romano's filings show she has edged out Arntzen in overall fundraising, although she has less money left in the bank for the final two months of the campaign. Her latest filings show she has raised just $1,000 more overall but only has about $70,000 left.

Arntzen reported having about $105,000 still available at the start of the month. Unlike her opponent, she has taken out $58,000 in loans to fund her campaign, which will erase her cash-in-bank lead without additional significant fundraising.

Laslovich vs. Rosendale

The next most expensive contest is the battle between Republican Matt Rosendale of Glendive and Democrat Jesse Laslovich of Helena to become state auditor, a post that does not actually audit state agencies but regulates the insurance and securities industries.

Rosendale, a former Maryland real estate developer who moved to Glendive in 2002, served as the Senate Majority Leader in the last legislative session. He has pulled in almost $77,000, about $53,000 of which he still has left to spend. The vast majority of that came from 271 individual contributors, but he also has been supported with more than $10,000 from seven county GOP groups.

Laslovich, who is chief legal counsel for the current state auditor, has raised more than Rosendale, most of which he has not yet reported spending. He reports having $223,357 left in the bank of the more than $266,000 he has collected. Most of his campaign cash came from 1,783 individual contributions while $17,750 of it was donated by unions and the political committees of insurance companies such as Liberty Mutual and Allstate.

Lindeen vs. Stapleton

Big money also remains to be spent in the Secretary of State race, whose candidates have collectively amassed more than $325,000.

State Auditor Monica Lindeen, a Democrat who is term-limited from seeking that office again, reported collecting more than $173,000 compared to the roughly $153,000 raised by Corey Stapleton, a Billings financial adviser who has previously served in the Legislature. But Lindeen only has $47,000 left, while Stapleton has nearly $130,000 to spend before Election Day.

The only partisan statewide race that many political observers do not consider financially competitive is the Attorney General contest.

Fox vs. Jent

Incumbent Tim Fox has not campaigned as heavily as other Republicans at the top of the state ballot but has still collected much more than his opponent, Larry Jent, an attorney and former state legislator. Fox reports having about $84,000 left of the more than $280,000 he has raised, while Jent has about $27,000 left out of $35,000 collected.

Johnson, the political scientist, said the fundraising this cycle has stacked up to be one of the most competitive in recent memory across multiple campaigns.

"But just because you have the most money doesn't mean you're going to win the election," he said. "It gives you an advantage, but it's not the end-all, be-all. There are plenty of candidates who raised the most money and have gone on to lose.
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 []
Its no longer just about the oil leaking into the water. It was no secret some, not all, of the protesters south of Mandan were opposed to oil drilling and it became official last week when they expanded the protests beyond the Cannon Ball area to New Salem and Glen Ullin.

They want to create delays in the construction work by Dakota Access Pipeline and they want to cost the company money. They dont mind if state and local law enforcement run up bills, in fact thats their goal. They want to up the costs in an effort of making the project unfeasible by delaying the work and driving away investors. Protesters want to make protecting workers and making arrests cost prohibitive.

So now Morton County plans to consider felony charges when making arrests instead of misdemeanors. Those convicted could face jail time and bigger fines.

The stakes have gotten higher on both sides with the Dakota Access Pipeline in a battle to complete the project. Few people gave the protesters much chance of diverting, let alone stopping, the pipeline. They now seem to have a shot at doing it.

If nothing else its going to be costly for the state and company.

On Wednesday, the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services asked for permission to borrow up to $6 million from the Bank of North Dakota to offset the cost of helping law enforcement deal with the protests. So far, the state estimates the cost of assisting law enforcement at $1.8 million. About $1.08 million is from DES for overtime pay and resources, plus $700,000 in North Dakota Highway Patrol costs.

DES spokeswoman Cecily Fong said the $6 million figure came from watching the size of the camp and estimating how long it will remain active. Officials are hoping that as the weather gets colder the camps will thin out. Protest leaders, however, vow to continue the fight. A resolution to the conflict doesnt appear near.

Thats why its important that the federal agencies that stopped some of the work on the project decide as quickly as possible. The agencies, the departments of the Army, Justice and Interior, want to decide whether any of their previous decisions regarding construction and its compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws should be reconsidered. The courts also need to act on appeals before them.

We cant have a situation where protests continue along with arrests and the possibility of jail time for offenders. The protesters may be winning public support throughout the country, but they are losing the public opinion battle in North Dakota. We dont need a situation where someone gets hurt or where a number of people are jailed.

We need the departments and courts to act so the state, federal departments and protesters have a framework to reach an agreement. Otherwise its going to be a long winter of discontent on the part of everyone.
South Africa is going to face multiple challenges as more devices are connected to the Internet, with many of them using wireless technologies.

Thats according to Mike Silber, the head of legal and commercial at Liquid Telecom, who was addressing delegates at SATNAC 2016.

The challenges include expanding wireless network capacity and introducing technical innovation for wireless networking, due to the complexity of allocating new frequency spectrum in the country.

[South Africas] spectrum process is byzantine, and I would argue even Kafkaesque, said Silber.

This impairs South Africas ability to drive Internet of Things innovation, specifically with regards to local technology, where local innovators can drive adoption, said Silber.

South Africa tends to be a passive consumer waiting for the latest smart devices to be imported, hoping they are compatible, he said.

Silber used sensor networks as an example, explaining that they face significant battery life challenges  specifically in remote areas or places where power is a challenge.

Sub-gigahertz spectrum is ideal for wireless applications requiring long range and low power consumption. Narrowband transmissions can transmit data to distant hubs, often several kilometres away, without hopping from node to node.

This long-range transmission capability reduces the need for multiple base stations or repeaters, said Silber.

There are also large numbers of 2.4GHz devices based on standards such as ZigBee, Bluetooth Smart, and Wi-Fi, including the 802.15.4 standard for wireless sensor networks.

Unfortunately, the history of spectrum licensing in South Africa does not provide much hope that ICASA will be able to face these challenges in a timely and flexible way.

Considering South Africas spectrum licensing history, Silbers assessment is one that rings true.

More on South Africas spectrum fight

ICASA spectrum fight, the courts must decide: Minister

Spectrum court case will provide clarity for South Africa

Telkom considers suing Icasa over spectrum

Telecommunications Ministry files legal suit to block sale of spectrum

The BEE and speed requirements of South Africas R12-billion spectrum auction
BEMIDJI, Minn. -- A patch of earth west of Bemidjis city limits is surrounded by bright orange fencing, dug up this week for oil pipeline maintenance.

The work is to service Enbridge's Line 3, an area oil pipeline the company hopes to replace in the next few years along a different route. However, this type of maintenance work, what Enbridge describes as integrity digs, will continue until the proposed replacement pipeline is built.

Fridays integrity work came after internal scanning tools discovered corrosion on the exterior of a section of the pipeline.

According to Barry Simonson, director of Enbridge's Line 3 Replacement Program, the company periodically sends internal tools through the pipes, which then send back data regarding the structural integrity of the pipeline. If the data determines a repair is needed, the pipe section is then excavated.

After a section is excavated, as was done Friday, coating on the structure is removed for closer inspection. In some cases, the pipe is cleaned and coating is repaired so early signs of corrosion are stopped. However, in other cases, the pipe section will be replaced or a permanent repair is done by installing a sleeve.

The work being done Friday was for a section Simonson said had been determined to need a sleeve -- two pipe halves placed around the existing line and welded together.

While Enbridge's integrity dig near Bemidji just started, assistant construction manager Bruce Larson said the process begins far in advance. Before any ground can be broken, Larson said Enbridge first has to have the work cleared environmentally, while also obtaining approvals from nearby landowners.

"From there we have a sweep crew that comes in and sets up the borders, both for access and the job site itself," Larson said. "Then we come in, positively ID all of the other lines in the right-of-way and then start excavation."

"The size of the dig itself is dependent on what work needs to be done," Simonson said. "These projects can also vary by land. This dig, for example, is on higher ground, but other terrain can be different. There are areas where can be difficult to get equipment in and there's also times that dewatering is needed, there are many factors in it."

Simonson said the length of time it will take to bring in the sleeve equipment, weld it and recoat could take an estimated five days. Once repairs are finished, crews will be able to backfill the area and restore the affected landscape.

While the existing Line 3 pipeline is undergoing maintenance treatment, Enbridge is also in the process of readying its replacement.

That project aims to replace all of Line 3, which runs from Alberta, Canada, to Superior, Wis., and was put into service in 1968. The Canadian-based Enbridge estimates costs at $7.5 billion, with the American portion priced at $2.6 billion.
REGENT  A new edition to the Enchanted Highway is in the works. However, it wont be a giant spider web like many who donated to a Kickstarter campaign expected last year.

Gary Greff, the creator of the Enchanted Highway, is working on a knight and dragon sculpture that will be placed in front of the Enchanted Castle in Regent. It'd be the first sculpture of the tourist attraction to actually be in the town.

I thought that sort of fits the castle theme and also kids love knights and dragons, Greff said. I just thought thats a great sculpture for probably at the end of the Enchanted Highway.

Greff had originally planned to construct a 70-by-70-foot spider web when he started a Kickstarter online fundraising campaign with the help of Jackson Ridl, an intern for Emerging Prairie in Fargo. The campaign had 411 people who donated money to the Enchanted Highway and raised more than $20,700 in just over a month.

But the spider web project hit a roadblock not too long after when Greff said he couldnt find a piece of land for the web to be placed between the deer and the grasshopper.

Im sort of at the mercy of the landowners, Greff said. I dont want their best land. Just give me a piece of land and I can fill it in if its a low piece, if its a hill or whatever. I just need it near the highway though.

Enchanted Castle restaurant manager Bill Anderson said it can be a bit frustrating to find locations for the sculptures.

Its become increasingly hard to find places where you can put these sculptures and it (the knight and dragon sculpture) will help our traffic as well, he said.

Kickstarter encouraged Greff to find a way to still use the money that he was given for the spider web. He said the backers just wanted to see something get built. So, he decided to construct the knight and dragon.

If you do nothing, theyre going to say, What did we give the money for? I mean we gave it for nothing and its still waiting, Greff said.

The knight will stand at 35-feet tall, while holding a sword, and the dragon will be about 40-feet tall. Greff said he hopes to have the knight set by the end of the fall, but it ultimately depends on how much material he can get and what sort of help he can get to put the whole thing together.

Greff said the money he received from the Kickstarter campaign wont be enough to cover the entire project, but he said it will give them a nice start.

Looking for legislative help

Greff has been working on the Enchanted Highway for more than 28 years and has self-funded a majority of it, including the upkeep that comes along with maintaining all of the sculptures. He said the money from a gift shop on Regents Main Street hasnt been able to raise enough funds to cover many of the costs maintaining all of the Enchanted Highway sculptures.

Greff said he isnt sure how much longer he can continue to do the project and is worried that he may have to tear down pieces just to save himself money in the long run. He said he plans to go to the state Legislature in January to see if lawmakers would be willing to find ways to help the projects longevity.

I know the oil is not good right now, but in the same token if they think I can make it on my own, I cant make it on my own right now, Greff said. Its going to have to be either a state project to help me out, or else Im going to have to -- all I can think of is Ill have to cut some of them down to keep it within my budget.

Greff said he has talked with many state agencies, including the North Dakota Department of Tourism and the state Department of Commerce. He said its all just a matter if any department says it would be willing to pick the project up.

Its not state-run, he said. Its Gary Greff-run and I dont have enough to make it happen anymore. Its gotten bigger than what I anticipated being.
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The first Napa native in space is set to return to the Earth on Saturday after nearly four months in orbit.
When Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Chile in October to attend an international conference on ocean preservation, he carried something that had nothing to do with environmental collaboration. The computer disk he brought contained 282 newly-declassified records on Gen. Augusto Pinochet's role in a brazen act of international terrorism in Washington, D.C. The car bombing in Sheridan Circle that occurred 40 years ago this week took the lives of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 25-year old colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Kerry personally handed the disk of documents to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

Last month, when Kerry flew to Buenos Aires for trade talks, he carried another disk, this one loaded with 1,078 pages of records on the Argentine "dirty war" of repression during the military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. Kerry gave those documents to President Mauricio Macri and promised "more to come in the future."

Alongside the traditional instruments of statecraft, the Obama administration has developed an entirely new tool: declassifying decades-old secrets of state to share with other governments and their societies. President Barack Obama has used this declassification diplomacy to mend fences with other countries, advance the cause of human rights and even redress the dark history of Washington's support for repression abroad. Allies are grateful and historians are delighted. And given the depth and range of still-secret U.S. Cold War records, declassified diplomacy has the potential to go much, much further.

Obama's very first decree as president was intended to strengthen access to information. Executive Order 13489 rescinded restrictions on the Presidential Records Act imposed by his predecessor, George W. Bush. "For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city," the new president declared on Jan. 21, 2009. "This administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known" - an admirable goal but one his administration has not always advanced, especially with regard to Freedom of Information Act requests from reporters.

Among those who have sought to know what information remains withheld in the secret vaults of the U.S. national security agencies are Latin American countries such as Brazil, Chile and Argentina, where human rights advocates, lawyers and judges continue the quest for accountability for crimes against humanity committed by past military regimes. Just as thousands of victims were "disappeared" by those regimes, the military dictatorships managed to "disappear" the documentation of their atrocities. Vast troves of evidence remained beyond their destructive reach, however - in the United States. Indeed, the only positive outcome of the dark role the United States often played in the repressive histories of these and other nations is the detailed paper trail now residing in the vaults of the CIA, the FBI, and the Defense and State departments.

The Clinton administration was the first to recognize the political currency of these secret records and to use the president's executive authority to declassify them. After The Washington Post published a major expose on the Reagan administration's approval of military massacres and death-squad operations in El Salvador, President Bill Clinton ordered more than 15,000 confidential documents released, creating a new, publicly accessible archive of information on the U.S. role in El Salvador's infamous counterinsurgency war. After the New York Times broke the story of CIA support for a Guatemalan colonel who ordered the killing of an American hotel owner living in Guatemala, as well as the torture and disappearance of a guerrilla leader who was the husband of another U.S. citizen, the Clinton administration released several thousand more secret records relating to that scandal and the U.S.-backed counterinsurgency efforts in that country.

After the October 1998 detention of Chilean Gen. Pinochet in London, Clinton responded to demands from the families of Pinochet's victims, human rights advocates and the U.S. Congress by authorizing the Chile Declassification Project, an 18-month multi-agency review of secret U.S. documents dated between 1968 and 1991. It yielded about 23,000 never-seen-before records on repression during the Pinochet regime - as well as on the covert CIA intervention that helped bring him to power. "We declassified more documents than any other administration," Clinton proudly told me years later.

The Bush administration was not nearly as zealous about access to information. The State Department released more than 4,000 records on Argentina's "dirty war," but the project had been initiated in the final months of Clinton's presidency. The State Department's Latin America bureau also expedited a small release of documents on Ecuador, as a positive gesture to the often hostile government of Rafael Correa.

While Clinton employed his executive declassification authority in response to major scandals and events, the Obama administration has used declassified records as a tool of statecraft. Take the example of Brazil: In 2012, Brazil's National Truth Commission, newly created to investigate human rights violations during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, asked the White House for relevant papers. Officials planned to have Obama provide them to then-President Dilma Rousseff during a White House state dinner scheduled for October 2013. But after Edward Snowden's files showed that the United States had tapped her cellphone, Rousseff canceled her visit to Washington.

Relations between the two countries were tense until the next June, when Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Brazil to try and mend the breach. As a peace offering, he gave Rousseff a disk of declassified documents on repression in Brazil. "I hope that in taking steps to come to grips with our past, we can find a way to focus on the immense promise of the future," Biden told Rousseff, who, as a young leftist, was tortured and imprisoned in the 1970s by her country's military dictatorship.

The Obama administration also took dramatic steps for Chile, a nation that Washington has tried to cultivate as an economic, environmental and political ally in the region. In early 2015, the White House agreed to a formal request from the government of Bachelet - who was also a victim of human rights abuses during the military era - for still-secret records relating to Pinochet's role in the September 1976 car bombing that killed Letelier and Moffitt, in downtown Washington. Under the direction of David McKean (now ambassador to Luxembourg), the State Department's policy planning office expedited the declassification of hundreds of detailed records on this act of international terrorism - in time for Kerry to personally carry them to Santiago last October.

Among the documents was a secret 1987 memorandum titled "Pinochet and the Letelier-Moffitt Murders: Implications for US Policy," from Secretary of State George Shultz to President Ronald Reagan. In an intelligence review, the CIA had compiled "convincing evidence that President Pinochet personally ordered his intelligence chief to carry out the murders," Shultz advised the president. "This is a blatant example of a chief of state's direct involvement in an act of state terrorism, one that is particularly disturbing both because it occurred in our capital and since his government is generally considered to be friendly." The CIA's stark conclusion about Pinochet's role in a savage act of international terrorism created an uproar in Chile and generated headlines around the world.

The impact of this new diplomatic tool depends partly on the keepers of secrets in the U.S. intelligence community. Because the CIA cares more about protecting the covert nature of its operations than about diplomacy and the accuracy of the historical record, the agency has not been eager to cooperate in these declassification projects. During Clinton's declassification on Chile, for example, the CIA twice reneged on its commitment to release its records on covert operations against the elected government of Salvador Allende. Only after Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, personally interceded with CIA Director George Tenet did the agency finally comply. To date, the CIA has rejected Freedom of Information Act efforts by my organization, the National Security Archive, to release even one sentence of the secret intelligence review on Pinochet that Shultz cited in his dramatic memorandum to Reagan on the Letelier assassination. Without that document, the historical record on an act of terrorism in downtown Washington will remain incomplete. The CIA seems not to have gotten Obama's directive that "no information may remain classified indefinitely."

That position will be tested by Obama's special declassification project on Argentina. During his trip to that country in March, Obama put his presidential imprimatur on the practice of declassification diplomacy. Just before he left for South America, he authorized a major declassification review of hundreds of intelligence-community and Defense Department records relating to the massive human rights violations committed by the Argentine military between 1976 and 1983. "I believe we have a responsibility to confront the past with honesty and transparency," Obama stated during a visit with human rights activists and victims in Buenos Aires on March 24, the 40th anniversary of the military coup that, with U.S. support, ushered in seven years of the most brutal repression ever seen in the southern half of the continent.

If the intelligence community cooperates with this project, the release promises to supply evidence for ongoing human rights cases in Argentina. The documents are also likely to shed light on U.S. policy toward the coup and the repression that followed. Their declassification will provide not only the "honesty and transparency" Obama advocates but a modicum of historical atonement for the support his predecessors gave to the Argentine military in the days and months after the coup.

There are plenty of other countries for which a special declassification of U.S. records would help heal the wounds of history and advance an alliance - among them Laos and Japan, where Obama recently visited; U.S. efforts to rebuild relations with Iran might similarly benefit. Indeed, in his final few months in office, Obama faces plenty of opportunities to expand the practice of declassification diplomacy. A special declassification on Colombia's counterinsurgency war would help local officials implement the recently signed peace accord between the government in Bogota and the FARC rebels. The ongoing rapprochement with Cuba could benefit from a gesture of declassification regarding key Cold War conflicts between Washington and Havana.

Even the Chileans are hoping for another round of documents when Bachelet visits the monument to Letelier and Moffitt in Sheridan Circle this coming week to commemorate their assassination 40 years ago. Pinochet is no longer alive to be judged in a court of law. But declassified records would help provide the lasting judgement of history.

Kornbluh is a senior analyst at the National Security Archive and the author of "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability."
More than 700,000 Americans are released from prison each year. We expect them to re-enter society and be law-abiding, but we make it extremely difficult for anyone who has served time to ever become gainfully employed, even though they have paid their debt to society. A barrier that needs to be removed is that box on standard job applications that asks, Have you ever been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor?

If you check yes, you will likely never to hear from the potential employer again. It wont matter how qualified or motivated you are. And with extremely limited legitimate earning options, the formerly incarcerated often re-offend and are re-incarcerated within a few years.

This destructive cycle not only devastates individuals, families and communities, its a recurring, ever-growing expense for taxpayers. The cost of keeping and guarding inmates now averages $31,286 per inmate per year. Each inmate represents tax money that could otherwise be spent on programs to grow the economy, and each inmate is one less employee whose consumer spending would spur growth for all kinds of companies. The U.S. incarcerates more individuals than any other nation, and 70 million Americans have some sort of criminal record  almost one in three Americans of working age. This revolving door system is unsustainable. One simple step can be a solution.

More than 100 cities, 20 states (including California) and the federal government have passed laws that ban the box. Ban the Box simply defers the question about a candidates criminal history until such time that a conditional job offer is made. And for certain jobs, such as those working with children, employers may still ask about relevant criminal history.

Ban the Box ensures that potential hires are evaluated based on experience, skills and future potential, not past mistakes for which theyve already paid and that dont relate to their current efforts to make a fresh start.

This change is small, but the potential value is enormous, especially to candidates in chronically disadvantaged communities. To break the cycle of poverty caused by lack of job opportunities, individuals need and deserve a chance to start fresh. And we need farsighted companies to implement inclusive hiring models.

I recently joined 18 other business leaders at the White House to launch the Fair Chance Business Pledge. This pledge calls on all businesses to improve our communities by creating a path to a second chance for people with a criminal record. Companies signing the pledge included big names like American Airlines, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Georgia Pacific, Google, Koch Industries and Xerox. So this isnt something the business community is that scared of.

For more than 30 years, Greyston Bakery has been giving anyone willing to work hard a chance at employment. Our Open Hiring model focuses on a job candidates potential by providing employment opportunities, regardless of background or work history, while facilitating services and support to help employees succeed in the workplace and thrive in the community. Some of our productive and dedicated team members were formerly incarcerated, spent months or years searching for legitimate work, and were rejected by almost all other companies.

Weve been practicing Open Hiring since 1982 because it works. Our employees are successful, hardworking and loyal, and we make high quality brownies for discerning customers like Ben & Jerrys and Whole Foods Market. Its safe to say it hasnt hurt us.

Our society needs more companies to adopt more inclusive hiring policies. We all want to hire the best person for each job, and Ban the Box will ensure that potential hires are evaluated on skills, experience and potential rather than a mistake for which they have already paid.

A job is obviously essential for supporting oneself and ones family, but it also provides confidence, dignity and self-worth, which has an encouraging ripple effect throughout any community. Lets ban the box nationwide so hardworking individuals, ready to work, have a real chance to be a contributing member of society.
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"Our soldiers are being killed because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's negligence. Jammu and Kashmir is the integral part of our country which is gradually slipping out of control," Prasad alleged.





The BJP reacted sharply to Prasad's comments and suggested him not to politicise such tragic incident.





"It (the terror attack) is a very tragic and sad incident. There are people from Bihar among those who were killed in the attack.





The prime minister has taken the incident as a challenge and said that he will take revenge," Leader of Opposition in Bihar's Upper House Sushil Modi said.





"Don't politicise it and make statements as the issue concerns our nation's identity and security," he appealed to Prasad.

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Sunday condemned the terror attack on the Army camp in Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir in which at least 17 jawans were killed and 20 injured and held Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "negligence" responsible for the turn of events.
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Patricia Zavella, UC Santa Cruz professor of Latin American and Latino studies, has been named winner of the 2016 Distinguished Career Award from the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists, a section of the American Anthropological Association.

The award is scheduled to be presented when the American Anthropological Association holds its annual meeting in Minneapolis in November.

Zavella was previously announced as winner of the AAA's Committee on Gender Equity in Anthropology Award to be presented at the same meeting.

Your scholarship and service to the field of anthropology and to Latino anthropology are extraordinary, said Ana Aparicio, the ALLA president, in a letter to Zavella.

The Association of Latino and Latina Anthropologists was founded in 1990.

Zavella joined UC Santa Cruz in 1984 and served as chair of the Latin America and Latino studies department from 2007-2011 and again from 2014 until June 30, 2016. She also previously served as director of the Chicano/Latino Research Center.

She was a co-winner of the 2010 Prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America given by the Society for the Anthropology of North America. In 2008, her UCSC colleagues chose her to deliver the Faculty Research Lecture.

She received her undergraduate degree from Pitzer College, and her masters and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. She had a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford's Center for Chicano Research before joining the UCSC faculty.
Death toll of the suicide blast which hit a mosque in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region of Mohmand Agency on Friday afternoon has risen to 36, an official report said on Saturday evening. According to local administrator's report. After 13 injured succumbed in different hospitals, the death toll rose from 23 to 36 during the last 24 hours. The report said that at least 16 others were also injured in this blast and a number of them are still in the critical condition. Deputy administrator of the region, Naveed Akbar, said the incident arised as long as a suicide bomber entered the mosque and exploded his vest, targeting at the people who were offering Friday prayer in Paye Khan village in Anbar area of Mohmand Agency, Pakistan's northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Around 200 people were offering prayer in the mosque when the blast took place in this remote village which has no proper telecommunication and road infrastructure. According to the report, 35 of the victims are under the 30 years old, while 16 of them are from 9 to 17. Bomb disposal squad said that around 5-7 kilograms of ball bearings was used in the blast. Jamat-ul-Ahrar, a banned fraction of outlawed Pakistani Taliban, claimed that they are fully responsible for this attack, which targeting at the pro-government people in the mosque. Security forces has imposed curfew in Mohmand Agency's Anbar area and launched a searching operation, Akbar said. The local administration also announced a compensation of 300,000 Pakistani rupees ($2,857) for each dead of the families,and Rs 100,000 Pakistani rupees ($952) for each injured. According to a hospital official,the death toll could be stopped, if the injured were taken to the hospitals in time, but unfortunately the injured could not get first aid due to unavailability of rescue teams and transportation. Earlier on September 2, at least 14 people including six lawyers and two policemen were killed and 52 others injured in a suicide attack at district courts in Pakistan's northwest district of Mardan. --IANS ahm/ ( 350 Words) 2016-09-18-01:28:07 (IANS)
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty ImagesThe start of Green Day's new tour has been pushed back for several days due to "illness affecting several members of the band and its crew," according to a statement.

The first three dates of the North American tour in support of the band's upcoming album Revolution Radio have been postponed: that includes shows in St. Louis on September 20, Chicago on the 21st and Detroit on the 24th. In addition, the Toronto, Ontario show scheduled for the 23rd, has been canceled. All dates except Toronto will be rescheduled and tickets will be honored for the new shows.

In a statement, the band said, "We're so sad to announce we have to postpone three shows and cancel Toronto. Many of us have been battling this infection for days on end to be ready, and it just got the best of us."

The rescheduled dates will be announced soon. Fans can also get refunds at the original point of purchase. Revolution Radio is due October 7.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Terrorists sneaked into an army camp here in Jammu and Kashmir early on Friday and slaughtered 17 soldiers in the worst attack on a military centre in the state in a decade. Over two dozen soldiers were also injured in the audacious attack that left all four heavily-armed militants who barged into the camp near Uri town at 5.30 a.m. dead after two-and-a-half hours, military officials said. Echoing the nation's anguish, Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned the "cowardly terror attack" and assured "the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished". Modi refrained from saying who was to blame for the bloodbath but Home Minister Rajnath Singh held Pakistan responsible. "I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups. Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," the minister tweeted. Uri is close to the Line of Control (LoC), which divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The camp is close to the headquarters of army's 12 Brigade. According to military sources, the terrorists entered the camp from the rear after cutting the barbed wire fencing -- without the sentries getting alerted. After entering the camp, the gunmen resorted to indiscriminate automatic gunfire from AK-47 rifles after quickly spreading in different directions inside to inflict maximum damage. They also hurled grenades at tents where soldiers were asleep, catching them unawares. The maximum casualties were reportedly caused not by AK-47s but after the grenades set off explosives stored inside the tented accommodation. The exact number of troops inside the camp at the time of the attack was not known but one source estimated there must have been around 200 because most of the infantry battalion is deployed on the LoC. The sneak attack sent huge columns of black smoke rising into the sky. A terse statement issued by the Northern Command based at Udhampur said "heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri. "In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress. "The administrative base had a large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire and resulted in heavy casualties. "We salute the sacrifices of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation." Unofficial sources said most of the dead soldiers were from the Bihar Regiment. Two soldiers of the Dogra Regiment also died. After the fighting died down, soldiers continued to comb the camp looking for other militants who may be hiding as well as explosives they may have planted. No guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the bloodbath. But some reports said the guerrillas had recently infiltrated into the Indian side of the LoC from Pakistan. A military expert, retired Lt. Gen. Raj Kadyan, said it was time to teach Pakistan a lesson. Calling the attack the "most serious in the last decade", he said: "The response required today is a tough one. The army should launch a strike at a place and time of its choosing. Retribution should be quick and severe." Helicopters flew the injured soldiers from Uri to the army's base hospital in Srinagar, about 70 km away. Within hours, army chief General Dalbir Singh flew to Srinagar and then went to Uri. In a related development, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh cancelled his visit to the US and Russia. He later presided over a high-level meeting also attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. "Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of the terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US." He also spoke to Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. "They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," he said. --IANS sq-team/mr/sar ( 666 Words) 2016-09-18-14:56:07 (IANS)
Strengthening its portfolio of jewellery brands, Myntra today announces the launch of Tribe by Amrapali on its platform. A Jaipur based jewellery major; Amrapali is known both in India and abroad for its elegant personification of India's heritage through its boutique and handcrafted jewellery. Amrapali Jewels' loyal clientele include royalty, corporate honcho's and celebrities from across the globe. Launching on Myntra will be the 'Tribe by Amrapali' collection, which houses the brand's silver and gold plated offerings across multiple product categories. Since its launch, it has presented iconic collections that have received immense appreciation from people, especially from leading Hollywood and Bollywood celebrities. Products of the collection will be available at a price point ranging from Rs. 500 to Rs. 50,000 on Myntra. There has been a consistent growth in jewellery e-commerce, spurring several popular jewellery brands to make online forays. The association between Myntra and Tribe by Amrapali offers the exotic and popular line up from the famed jewellery house, access to the widest reach across India. Other popular collections will be introduced on Myntra in the coming months. "We have recently forayed into boutique jewellery and are extremely delighted with this association. Known for its traditional and handcrafted jewellery with a contemporary twist, our association with Tribe by Amrapali will provide ease of access and enable customers spread across the country to purchase the collection from the comforts of their homes," said CMO and Head, International Brands Business Myntra, Gunjan Soni. "We are very happy to partner with Myntra to bring Tribe by Amrapali online. Myntra's forte in fashion is unquestionable, and their curated and design-focused approach in retailing jewellery makes them the perfect partner for our brand. We look forward to bringing the unique charm of The Tribe collection to more and more people through Myntra," said Director Tribe by Amrapali, Tarang Arora. Currently, Myntra hosts over 40 fashion and boutique jewellery brands. With the introduction of a wide collection of curated styles and a special emphasis on handcrafted designs, Myntra aims to appeal to a wide range of customers. (ANI)
Actress Esha Gupta, who recently walked the ramp at the India Runway Week, season seven Winter/Festive edition, spoke about the progress of her upcoming flick Vidyut Jamwal starrer flick 'Commando 2' and informed that the shoot is almost done. "We are on our last league of our schedule. Tomorrow onwards, I will again start shooting for it and it has turned out really well. It is going really well and will be releasing on January 6," she told ANI. With this, the 30-year-old actress added that she has "Baadshaho in the pipeline." The actress, who turned showstopper for debut designer Yoshita Yadav's pre-bridal lehnga collection, even spoke about the responses she got for playing Priti Makhija in Akshay Kumar's recently released film 'Rustom.' "I got a lot of positive responses for 'Rustom' but I think it is the look people are appreciating more," she said. Further during the interview, while discussing about a recent much discussed-topic 'body shaming,' Esha said, "I think staying healthy is more important than being thin. All you need to do is be comfortable. If you are comfortable, you will look confident, if you are not then do something about it. But don't let others tell you what's right or wrong." Yoshita showcased her collection on the second day of the fashion-event, inspired by the royalty of Lucknow, which remains the fashion capital of Northern India. While talking about the collection, the young designer said in a statement, "In this season's collection, we at Yoshita Couture have used 100 per cent. Indian woven Raw Silks, woven in Varanasi and Bengaluru, depending on colour specifications In this collection, one can see a vivid representation of motifs taken from most famous Mughal monuments of Bara Imambara, ChhotaImambara, and the Rumi Darwaza." The second day started with the designs of the students from Appejay Design Institute. The other designers, who graced the ramp on the day two were Disha Doshi Gandhi, Payal and Zinal, Stuti Shah, Shruti and Rohan, Manika Sureka, Mithi Kalra, Ravneet Toor, Foram Rambhia, Ashfaque Ahmed, Yasmeen Mehra, Radhika Jindal, Shalini. (ANI)
Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Saturday said that he had a very fruitful meeting with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to address the security concerns and t they have decided to move forward collectively. "Today I had a very fruitful meeting Home Minister Rajnath Singh and discussed the security concerns of both the countries and committed to move forwards collectively," Dahal said at an interactive session. On being asked about how he plans to maintain a balanced relationship with both India and China, Dahal said that he has already taken the initiative for the same by sending his special envoys to the two countries. "I have already taken initiatives for a balanced relationship by sending special envoy to India and China," said Dahal. He had earlier sent his Deputy Prime Ministers Bimalendra Nidhi and Krishna Bahadur Mahara as special envoys to India and China to maintain cordial relations with the neighbours. On being asked about disputes with China and reports of Chinese leaders not visiting Nepal, Dahal said, "We don't have any dispute with China. Talks for high level visits with China are still ongoing and we hope a decision will be made soon." Dahal, who today completed the final leg of his three day visit to India met with many Indian leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Pranab Mukherjee, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and many others. In these meetings, he expressed willingness to explore newer areas of mutual cooperation and partnerships between both nations, while adding that his visit to India demonstrates the importance that the government of Nepal attaches to its relations with New Delhi. In a joint statement issued after the meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Dahal stated that his visit to India demonstrates the importance that the Government of Nepal attaches to relations with India as the two countries share an ancient, deep-rooted and vibrant friendship based on a shared cultural and civilizational ethos. He also thanked the Indian Government for the prompt and extensive assistance provided to Nepal in the aftermath of the devastating earthquakes of April 25 and May12, 2015. According to the joint statement, both Dahal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted the progress in promoting sub-regional cooperation, and agreed that the two governments should explore ways to further enhance it, particularly in the areas of trade, transit, connectivity and power. They also stressed the importance of enhancing regional cooperation within the framework of the SAARC and the BIMSTEC. The two heads also noted that the first meeting of the Eminent Persons Group on Nepal-India Relations was held in Kathmandu in July 2016, and hoped that the Group would work intensively and look into the totality of India-Nepal relations from independent perspective and suggest measures to consolidate and further expand the close and multi-faceted ties between the two countries. Sharing developments in Nepal with Prime Minister Modi, Dahal said that the promulgation of the Constitution last year is a historic event in institutionalizing federal democratic republic. He also shared the efforts made by the present Government to take all sections of Nepali society on board for the effective implementation of the constitution. (ANI)
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has blamed the sheer deficit of 'leadership' with the Congress party as the key reason behind the collapse of the latter's government in Arunachal Pradesh, and added that the entire situation is a clear case of people jumping off a sinking ship. Speaking to ANI here, BJP leader Sambit Patra, said, "Several leaders have always asked for appointments from Rahul Gandhi seeking an opportunity, but he has always declined to meet them, and the consequences are quite visible. This is a classic case of people jumping out of a sinking ship." Earlier, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu said the decision to resign from the Congress along with 42 MLAs was unanimous, and added that the aspirations of the people of state is very regional in character and it was necessary to have a synergy between the two. "It was a unanimous decision of all the Congress legislators to merge with the regional political party, Peoples Party of Arunachal (PPA)," Khandu said in a statement. "We must face the fact that the aspirations of the people of Arunachal Pradesh are very high and these aspirations are very regional in character. The politics of the state has, therefore, to be in tune with the aspirations of our people all of us, in the true spirit of Team Arunachal," he added. This is the second time in seven months that the PPA has been gifted a government in the frontier state. In the 60-member House with an effective strength of 58, the Congress had the support of 47 MLAs, including two Independents, while Opposition BJP has 11 members. Khandu was sworn-in as the ninth Arunachal Chief Minister on July 17. In a dramatic turnaround in this land-locked state on July 16, Congress replaced Nabam Tuki by choosing Khandu as the new Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader, who staked claim to power on the basis of support of 45 party MLAs along with two Independents. (ANI)
People of the northeast have always been inclined towards fashion. Fashion designers from the region have already outshone their contemporaries from other parts of the country in this field. One such name doing the rounds is Dipankar Kashyap of Assam, who has set a fashion designing benchmark by giving a new dimension. Known for his versatility, Dipankar has carved out a space for himself with his astounding sense of design. Kashyap completed his post graduation in English literature from the University of Pune, but as luck would have it, he chose fashion designing as a career. His journey began when he arrived in New Delhi in 2007 to work as a stylist. Later, he went on to hold fashion shows, showcasing some of his unique designs, a marriage of traditional colours and designs of the northeast. Ever since, he has showcased his work at numerous national level shows. Kashyap told ANI,"Initially, when I wanted to be a designer there were lots of no's at home, they were just wondering after so much of education, why I needed to be a designer or a tailor, those days there were very few designers from the northeast. In fact, there were none. People were like why I wanted to be designer, but I proved to them that by being a designer you can earn your livelihood too." "But I didn't lose my base. I have launched myself as a designer and have been organising shows, and apart from that, I concentrate on three departments -- designing, styling and choreography," added Dipankar. Being associated with the fashion industry in one way or the other for the past 25 years, Kashyap has styled some of the most beautiful women in the country, including former Mrs. World, Aditi Gowatrikar; former Miss World, Priyanka Chopra; actress Raima Sen; and model-actress Koena Mitra, among others. He stands out for his penchant for blending north eastern fabrics and textures, especially those from Assam, including hand-woven cotton, muga, pat (mulberry silk) and eri (endi). Kashyap designs for both men and women. "In Assam, when we talked about Mekhela Chador from the time of Mahatma Gandhi, also Mahatma Gandhi said 'Weavers of Assam weave dreams in their looms'. So taking that further, the design, the motives, there has been lots of modification in the traditional designs also, and Mekhela chador, I would say looks more beautiful than a saree when a woman wears it," said Kashyap He added that national and international acclaimed designers are experimenting with the fabrics of Assam. They make kurtis, gowns and the fabrics and silk of Assam has been turned into different outfits, the Muga has been handloomed and has become very expensive. There have been lots of modification of Muga also. In fact, I myself have done so much of modification in Muga. I have designed tube dresses, gowns, Nehru jackets out of it. Muga and pat of Assam has gained immense popularity and outsiders really appreciate it. The multi-faceted Dipankar has also choreographed several fashion shows at the international level. He has also worked as a model coordinator for various campaigns, which has contributed to his sound robust understanding of the industry. When asked about his style mantra, Kashyap told ANI that carrying of a particular look confidently is very important and today's girls also should wear something which they are comfortable in. "Everyone doesn't want to be dressy or look nice all the time; the best option is a white t-shirt or a shirt with a pair of denims; that is the best option if you don't know what to wear, wear only that, anything in white looks good," he said. Kashyap also plays an integral part in the Northeast India Fashion Week and often organises shows for it. Apart from all this, Kashyap also has an exclusive line of club shirts called 'Look No Further' which has been attracting youngsters desiring funky styles. "People have liked my exclusive brand of shirts and brought a lot. I had Michael Jackson printed shirts and one of my friends brought a few shirts for Tiger shroff as he is a big fan of Michael Jackson", added Dipankar. Currently Kashyap is supervising a grooming school in New Delhi 'Walking Toes', run by Lalit Sharma in collaboration with Gagan Joshi. It is worth mentioning that Bollywood actresses Zareen Khan and Koina Mitra have also walked the ramp wearing some of the outfits designed by Dipankar. Besides these, Kashyap has also directed a film called 'Tides' in English and Hindi, based on human relationships from a woman's point of view. The film made Kashyap the first fashion designer to venture into filmmaking from the region. He has also directed Assamese films featuring some of the renowned actors of the industry like Zerifa Wahid, Ravi Sharma, Kopil Bora, Hira Neog, Chetana Das and Mridula Baruah. Kashyap is keen to place the northeast firmly on the national and international fashion map. His work is also likely to give a major boost to Assamese weavers and highlight the lesser-known ethnic tribal designs of the region. (ANI)
Asserting that the Uttar Pradesh government has been "hijacked" by the Yadav family of the Samajwadi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said that those who seek votes in the name of democracy have actually converted the entire state government into a family affair. Speaking to ANI here, BJP leader Sudesh Verma said every adult linked to SP chief Mulayam Yadav is occupying one post or another, be it that of a minister or chairman. "Those who used to talk of socialism have now converted the entire process to casteism. We see this entire drama that has unfolded as an attempt for image makeover, because they know the UP electorate are going to reject them," he said. Further stating that the people of UP are watching and taking everything in stock, Verma added that they are simply waiting for an opportunity to give a befitting reply to the Yadav family. Meanwhile, the ongoing rift inside the Yadav family appears to have ended with Akhilesh Yadav restoring two of the three portfolios held by his uncle Shivpal Yadav, except the PWD department. Shivpal will also continue as the Samajwadi Party state unit chief. Akhilesh has kept the PWD department with himself and returned Shivpal his previous departments and a few others including medical, education and minor irrigation. In total, Shivpal would be looking after 13 departments, two more than what he used to look earlier. The announcements can be seen as per the compromise formula worked out by party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who asserted that "There can be no division in the party, till I am alive." In a move signalling attempts to bring some calm in the recent turbulence in the Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh has announced that his uncle would get back all his previous ministerial portfolios. Gayatri Prajapat, who was sacked as mines minister, would also be re-inducted into the cabinet and would soon be taking the oath. Shivpal had resigned on Friday night as a minister and as state party unit head. "Netaji (Mulayam) has heard all of us. He will talk to some others if he wants and will take decision by tomorrow," Shivpal yesterday. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said at a function that he has rejected the resignation of Shivpal and he will comply with whatever his father directs. "Netaji (Mulayam) will find a solution (to the current crisis) and everyone will accept it," he said. Mulayam met Akhilesh and Shivpal at his Lucknow residence and reportedly brokered a peace deal between the two. Akhilesh had earlier divested Shivpal of all important ministerial portfolios including PWD, irrigation, cooperative, flood control and revenue and handed him the social welfare department. Prior to it, Shivpal had replaced him as its new chief of the state unit of the Samajwadi Party. Disagreements between Akhilesh and his uncle have been reported on several occasions, including on the choice of official to be appointed as the state's chief secretary after Alok Ranjan's term ended and the postponement of Quami Ekta Dal's merger with the Samajwadi Party. (ANI)
Continuing their political assault on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for its lackadaisical attitude towards dealing with the vector borne disease outbreak in the national capital, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday asserted that while Delhi is turning into hell because of Dengue and Chikungunya, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia continues to remain abroad. "As far as Chikungunya, malaria and dengue are concerned, these are very sensitive issues and have to be handled sensibly. Delhi is turning into hell as far as diseases are concerned. Delhi is sinking," BJP leader Sambit Patra told ANI here. Talking about the Lieutenant Governor writing to Sisodia, asking him to come back from his Helsinki tour, he further said that there was nothing wrong with him making such a request, as the people of Delhi needed every help possible. Yesterday, Sisodia responded to the charges that he was 'holidaying' in Helsinki by asserting that he was on an educational tour. "I'm in Finland. We need to learn a lot from their education system, the best in the world. I have visited approx a dozen schools, colleges, skill centers and universities in the last 3 days. Have met senior officials of Education Ministry, Educators, Principals, Teachers, students and others. We have worked hard in Delhi on improving education and now we're here to see what more needs to be done," he said in a series of tweets. Yesterday, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain issued an order declaring Chikungunya as 'dangerous' and directed the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to keep a record of all such cases and alert the city government. Chikungunya and dengue have reportedly claimed 30 lives so far. (ANI)
The sources said the six injured soldiers were airlifted from the border town to the army's base hospital in Srinagar city as heavy firing continued inside the camp which was attacked around 5.30 a.m. by fidayeen (suicide) militants.

"Terrorists attacked the rear base camp of an infantry battalion and not the headquarters of 12 Brigade in Uri today (Sunday) morning which is posted on the Line of Control (LoC)," the sources added.

In New Delhi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is reported to have cancelled his visit to Russia and the US. He has called for a high-level meeting on Sunday to discuss the situation is Kashmir.

--IANS sq/ss/ksk

( 147 Words)

2016-09-18-09:20:06 (IANS)
Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag is also reaching Srinagar.

Sources in the Defence Ministry said Mr Parrikar will arrive here from Goa in the afternoon and immediately after landing he will be taking flight to Srinagar.

The Defence Minister and the Army Chief would also meet the soldiers injured during the terrorist attack.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is holding a high level meeting with top officials, including intelligence chiefs to discuss the situation in wake of terror attack.

The high causality of soldiers in the attack has shocked the defence and security establishment here.

Four heavily armed terrorists have attacked the army base at a time, when a large strength of troops of units was stationed in tents and temporary shelters after turning over their duties, which resulted in heavy casualties. UNI MK PY ADG 1148

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Seventeen soldiers were killed before all the four fidayeen, believed to be foreigners, were gunned down after they stormed into an Army headquarter near Line of Control (LoC) in Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir. This was the first major attack on Army since the eruption of militancy in early 90s. The operation is over as there is no firing now, official sources told UNI . They said that a group of four militants, believed to be infiltrators, entered 12 Brigade headquarters of Army at Uri, about 100 km from here near LoC in Baramulla district at 0500 hrs under the cover of darkness. They said the militants had stormed into the camp after using cutters to cut the barbed wire. Militants later resorted to indiscriminate firing and also set on fire a barrack. MORE UNI BAS ADG 1125 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-938610.Xml
Authorities today imposed curfew and restrictions to foil " freedom march" in three districts of Shopian, Bandipora and Ganderbal in the Kashmir valley, where 83 persons, mostly youths, were killed in security force action since July 9, a day after Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) commander Burhan Wani and two other militants were killed in an encounter in Anantnag.Police said curfew has been imposed in entire Shopian district in south Kashmir to prevent any violence following ''freedom march'', called by separatists today. All the main roads were closed with barbed wire to prevent any march. Paramilitary forces and state police, besides Army and ITBP personnel had been deployed to strictly implement the curfew restrictions. Deputy Commissioner, Shopian, said the curfew has been imposed as a precautionary measures to prevent any violence in the district. People in the main Shopian town alleged that they were not even allowed to purchase milk and bread besides medicine by the security forces deployed near main gates of their houses since early this morning. Both the factions of the Hurriyat Conference (HC) and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), spearheading the present agitation since July 9, in a latest protest calendar had extended the strike till September 22. The separatists had today called ''freedom march'' in Shopian in south, Ganderbal in central and Bandipora in north Kashmir today. Though police said restrictions on assembly of people under Section 144 CrPC continued in Ganderbal and Bandipora, the situation on the ground was totally different. Residents of main town Ganderbal alleged that they were being direct to remain indoors as curfew has been imposed. In fact all roads are closed with barbed wire and nobody is being allowed to enter Ganderbal from Srinagar or other areas, including Kangan. There were clashes between stone pelting demonstrators and security forces at several places in the district, official source said, adding today strict restrictions are being implemented to prevent any march or demonstration. Large number of paramilitary forces and state police personnel remained deployed in Bandipora, where majority roads are closed and people are being directed to remain indoors. Security forces are not allowing people from outskirts to enter the main Bandipora town. UNI ABS SV ADG PM1115 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-938554.Xml
With 17 Army soldiers being killed in a major encounter with terrorists in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Sunday blamed Pakistan for the terror attack, saying that this was a massive controversy against India, adding that the Centre is looking into Islamabad's role in the matter. Speaking to ANI here, Singh stated that the current situation of unrest in the Valley is the result of the proxy war, in which Pakistan has been indulging since ages. "They [Pakistan] are doing everything in their power to create havoc in Kashmir. The Centre is serious over Pakistan directly sending militants into Kashmir, and is taking this very seriously. This is a very big conspiracy against India, in which terrorists and separatists are active," he said. In a statement, the Army said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress. "The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the statement added. Meanwhile, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh will visit the Valley to take stock of the situation. After postponing his forthcoming visits to the United States and Russia in the wake of the encounter in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the situation in the Valley. A high level security meet was held at Rajnath's residence, in which senior MHA and MoD officials were present. "Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the USA . Spoke to Governor & CM of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," Rajnath said in a series of tweets. Around four terrorists attacked the Army Brigade's headquarters in Uri to which the security forces gave a fitting reply. The entire town has been sealed and security on the vital roads connecting Line of Control (LOC) has been beefed up. The Army sent three choppers from army's 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla to Uri. Reportedly six soldiers have been injured out of which three have been airlifted to the nearest hospital. Para Commando troops were airdropped into the conflict zone to fortify the response by the defence. Intense firing and explosions were heard in the area and the encounter site is nearly 90 kilometres north of Srinagar. (ANI)
Life remained crippled as clashes, arrests besides curfew, restrictions and strike continued for the 72nd day today in Kashmir valley, where 83 persons, mostly youths, were killed and over 9,000 injured in security force action since July 9, a day after Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) commander Burhan Wani and two other militants were killed in an encounter in Anantnag. Police said curfew will continue in several areas while elsewhere in the summer capital, Srinagar, security forces and police personnel remained deployed to strictly implement restrictions on assembly of people under Section 144 CrPC. Curfew also continued in Shopian in south Kashmir to prevent any violence following call for "freedom march" today by the separatists. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the valley, police said restrictions on assembly of people under Section 144 CrPC will continue. However, situation was entirely different in some of the major towns and tehsil headquarters as people alleged that they were not being allowed to move out of their houses. Both the factions of the Hurriyat Conference (HC) and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), spearheading the present agitation, in the latest protest calendar have extended strike till September 22. They have also asked people to take out "freedom march" in Shopian in south, Ganderbal in central and Bandipora in north Kashmir, demanding right to self determination. Meanwhile, chairman of hardline HC Syed Ali Shah Geelani remained under house arrest while chairman of moderate HC Mirwaiz Omar Farooq has been ledged in sub jail Cheshmashahi and JKLF chief Mohammad Yaseen Malik in central jail, Srinagar. Thousands of security forces and state police personnel remained deployed across Kashmir valley, including summer capital, Srinagar, to strictly implement the curfew restrictions since early this morning. At some places, particularly in south Kashmir and on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway, Army had been deployed to prevent any law and order problem on the lifeline of the valley. Though police said curfew will remain in force in SeK and Batmaloo area of the city only, but all roads leading to historic Lal Chowk and Ganta Ghar, the nerve centre of the summer capital, remained closed with barbed wire. The busy Amira Kadal bridge on river Jhelum, leading to historic Chowk, also remained closed with barbed wire from both ends. The foot bridge on the river, also leading to Lal Chowk, remained closed for any movement.MORE UNI ABS SV ADG PM1323 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-938679.Xml
Indian Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh arrived here on Sunday afternoon on his way to the army camp in Uri where militants killed 17 soldiers early in the morning. Gen Singh will take stock of the security situation at army installations and camps near the Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir and the alertness of the soldiers along the Line of Control (LoC). --IANS sq/mr/ksk ( 72 Words) 2016-09-18-13:32:07 (IANS)
As the countdown for the five-day annual extravaganza--the Durga Puja begins, Kumartuli, the world's largest idol workshop, are working round the clock to to give final touches to the Maa Durga idols to charming statues of the Goddess of Shakti, to be installed at various puja pandals in the city. Kolkata Kumartuli, a traditionally potters' quarter in northern Kolkata, is more than three centuries old. The term "Kumar" means potter and "tuli" a locality. By virtue of their artistic productions these potters have moved from obscurity to prominence, emerging virtually as an independent international brand of Durga-image makers. Steeped in history and traditions Kumartuli came into existence when a group of Patuas from the bank of Ganges came to reside in the small hamlet. ''Once plague broke out in this area and the superstitious localities started offering puja to the Gods and Goddesses. Gradually a group of patuas came to reside in the area and was known as the patua para who earned their living from idol-making,'' nonagenarian idol maker Ashok Pal said as he journeyed down memory lane. "I have been working here since childhood. My father used to be an idol maker but age doesn't permit him to do so much of hard work these days," he said. 'The younger generation is not that keen to pursue idol-making as a profession as there is less social recognition and monetary benefits,' he lamented, adding that government subsidies could have bettered the situation. Succumbing to commercialism, the new-generation of idol makers now defy many of the age-old traditions. "Earlier, Chakku Daan (painting of the eye) was done only on Saptami. But now owing to huge demands we usually do it according to our convenience," another idol-maker at Kumartuli confessed. The most interesting part of visiting Kumartuli is to see the workers toiling away the clay in hands. How their expert hands curving, trimming and chipping away. Even when they pause to look up and answer the interrupter their hands hardly stop, they keep at it, rubbing, shaping, patting the clay and add water bit by bit. Making jewelries and dresses of Devi Durga is another astonishing art of Kumartuli. A large section of artists of this area involve in this work. They make dazzling and shiny accessories with amazing skills and conceptions that makes the idol of goddess Durga more bright and vibrant. The accessories are always compatible with the sculptures, as there are so many types of accessories. In Bengali it has been called 'Saaj', such as 'Daaker Saaj', 'Aat-Banglar Saaj', 'Bangla Saaj' and so many and so forth. There are about 200 studios in Kumartuli which serve as both workplace and home. The potters who make these images are called kumars and they often have the surname Pal or Paul. It is one of the wonders of Kolkata. These artisans works day and night to create idols of various shapes and sizes, to deliver across the country. Usually one idol takes around 10-15 days to be finished. These artists comes from various parts of the state of West Bengal to earn there livelihood. In recent times idols made of fibreglass are also been produced and exported to various parts of the country and the world. Despite the threat of 'theme artists', where the idols they make are formed of metals or wood rather than the traditional clay, majority of the organisers believe in old school artwork and most of the artisans hold family business, which has been passed on from generation to generations, ahead. This potter's town supplies images to more than 90 countries worldwide with new nations joining the list every year. Many East European countries, where religious ceremonies were previously banned, have started buying images from KumartuliMORE UNI BM PY 1355 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0298-938626.Xml
Vice-President Hamid Ansari in his address to the plenary meeting of the 17th NAM summit at Margarita islands in Venezuela, underlined that no cause could justify the mindless violence as a means to achieve a political goal.

''Terrorism is one of the most egregious sources of human right violations today, and its use as an instrument of State policy is to be unequivocally condemned. It has become a major impediment to development,'' the Vice-President said.

Mr Ansari said it was imperative for the Non-Aligned Movement to galvanise the international community to strengthen the international legal framework to address this menace, including by adopting the draft Comprehensive UN Convention on Terrorism.

He said it must also ensure that all existing structures that were the building blocks of UN's Global Counter Terrorism Strategy functioned in a non-partisan and professional manner. More UNI NAZ SV ADG 1345

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Major crackdown against those allegedly involved in stone pelting continued in Kashmir valley, where majority of the separatist leaders remained under house arrest or detained since July 9, a day after Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) commander Burhan Wani and two other militants were killed in an encounter in Anantnag.Police arrested about 60 people, involved in violence yesterday in the Valley, where life remained crippled for the past 72 days, a day after the killing of Burhan. Violence so far has claimed the lives of 83 persons, mostly youths, in security force and police action.Both the factions of the Hurriyat Conference (HC) and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), spearheading the present agitation, in a fresh protest calendars extended the strike till September 22, demanding right to self determination.Chairman of moderate HC Syed Ali Shah Geelani remained under house since his return from New Delhi in April. However, he was taken into custody several times after he defied restrictions though he was released in the evenings every time.Security forces and police personnel remained deployed outside his Hyderpora residence of Mr Geelani.Chairman of moderate HC Mirwaiz Moulvi Omar Farooq remained lodged in sub jail, Chehmashahi after his arrest in August from Nigeen when he defied house arrest restrictions to lead a march to Eidgah. This is for the first time Mirwaiz has been lodged in a jail for longer period.JKLF chairman Malik, who was arrested on July 9, was shifted to central Jail on July 30. Earlier, he was lodged in police station Kothibagh. Meanwhile, over 2000 people, mostly youths, have been arrested on charges of stone pelting and disturbing peace in the Kashmir valley since the eruption of violence after the death of Burhan.About 200 have been booked under PSA and shifted to jails outside the valley.Meanwhile, a police spokesman said 58 people have been arrested for allegedly damaging civilian vehicles, shops, houses and causing obstruction on roads and lanes in Kashmir valley yesterday. Police during the intervening night of September 17 and 18 raided the house of chairman of Islamic Tanzeem-e-Azadi (ITeA) Abdul Samad Inquilabi at Ganasthan in Bandipora district.Inquilabi alleged that since he was not present in the house, police arrested his three brothers Mohammad Yousuf, Abdul Majid and Nazir Ahmad.He further alleged that police also damaged his house and other household items.UNI ABS MYK PY ADG VN1417 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-938743.Xml
Lt Governor Najeeb Jung along with senior government officials paid a visit to several hospitals across Delhi today to take stock of the situation emerging out of increase in number of cases of Chikungunya, Dengue and other vector-borne diseases in the recent days. The Lt Governor, along with his team, went to Fever Clinics and Emergency wards in Lok Nayak Hospital, Bara Hindu Rao Hospital, GTB Hospital and interacted with doctors, patients and staff to assess the situation first hand.At Lok Nayak Hospital, the Lt Governor was apprised that out of 200 beds dedicated to Chikungunya/Dengue patients, 76 were occupied. Most patients come to the hospital from Central Delhi with 10 per cent of the patients being from adjacent states, including Uttar Pradesh, he was told.The LG was informed that apart from one death last month, there have been no fatalities and that Chikungunya patients do not always require hospitalisation. He was also told that as per their data, the ratio of Chikungunya to Dengue patients this year is 4:1.The LG instructed the doctors to ensure that patients with complications, particularly the elderly, were attended to with greater care. Mr Jung also visited the MCD-run Bara Hindu Rao Hospital which was currently running a 'One Stop Centre' for all fever patients with laboratory tests being conducted inside the clinic. Hospital authorities said so far, they have had 163 Chikungunya, 72 Malaria and 50 Dengue cases in their hospital. There has been one death at the hospital.The LG then went to fever clinics at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital which informed him that in the past 24 hours, they have attended 788 adults and 148 children and that 117 units of blood have been used for patients suffering from Dengue, Chikungunya and Malaria. Seeing the surge of patients even on a Sunday, he directed the Secy (Health & Family Welfare) to help provide additional doctors if required. Mr Jung also stressed on maintaining cleanliness and said though the hospital was hard pressed at the moment but it must ensure that better standards of cleanliness were maintained at the hospital.UNI SY RSA AE 1450 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0093-938830.Xml
Terming Pakistan a terrorist state, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the situation in North Kashmir's Uri sector after a fidayeen attack on the Indian Army brigade headquarters, killing 17 soldiers in the most deadly such onslaught in recent times. Pakistan, Mr Singh said, should be identified and isolated. The Home Minister, in a series of tweets, said, ''My heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers. Those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice. ''Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such. I have apprised PM Narendra Modi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting held at my residence this afternoon.''The Home Minister added that the attackers were heavily armed and well equipped. There are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped, he affirmed.Mr Singh said, ''I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups.'' The Home Minister postponed his visit to Russia and the US in the wake of the attack and called an emergency meeting of high officials. The consultations were attended by officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs and Defence and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. UNI ASH RSA RP1600 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0388-938911.Xml
Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani today hit out at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for ignoring the people of his constituency. "Rahul was so busy in his khaat sabha that he has ignored all the plights of the people of his constituency. He is not doing anything for the people of Amethi," Ms Irani alleged. She said people of Amethi have given all support to the Congress since long but they could not find any relief so far. She questioned, "do you need to become a Lok Sabha member from a place to work there?" The Union Minister claimed that though Mr Gandhi did not spare a word to attack RSS but now it was that organisation which is serving the people of Amethi the most. She was indirectly referring to Bhawrao Deoras Trust which is working in Amethi. Talking to media here at Haliyapur during her day long visit to Amethi, Ms Irani did nor spare Mr Gandhi for attacking the Samajwadi Party. "The Congress came to power at the Centre last time by riding on the bicycle but now the Yuvraj is saying that the bicycle had punctured," she commented."It shows his opportunist attitude," she said. When asked about the recent dispute within the ruling Samajwadi Party in UP, Ms Irani said, "this fight has created more problems for the people." "This bickering in the family will hit the people of the state most," she added. The Union Minister was, however, peeved over the unsupportive attitude of the district administration of Amethi. "We had given seven ambulances to the district but they are not using it," she alleged.UNI XC-MB PS AE 1533 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-938895.Xml
A 35-year-old tribal woman from Wada has been arrested by the district police on the alleged charges of brutally killing her husband, police said today. PI Ravindra Naik of the Wada police station told the correspondent that the couple used to quarrel frequently over petty issues. The husband also beat up his 15-year-old daughter which was not liked by his wife. Moreover, husband used to ask for money for boozing which was refused by her. Yesterday morning once again the couple fought and the angry wife picked up the sickle and hit the man badly due to which he died later, police said. The couple lived in Waveghar of the Taluka district. The wife has been arrested and the body of the deceased was sent for the postmortem. The deceased was identified as Chandrakant Bhoir (42) and the wife as Chandrakala Bhoir ( 35). An offence under Sections 302 of the IPC has been registered against the wife, the police said.The accused was produced in the court, which remanded her police custody till September 20, the police added. UNI XR PS AE VN1534 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-938806.Xml
After receiving a secret information about smuggling of heroin in the jail, the Superintendent directed the staff to conduct a search in the jail premises.

During the search, jail staff recovered 270 grams heroin from a secret cavity in the shoes of Nigerian national Falex Odemole, lodged in the jail.

A release issued by the Jail Superintendent said that the recovered contraband was handed over to State Special Operations Cell, Amritsar for registration of a case and for investigating the origin of the heroin.

A case under sections 21,29,61/85 NDPS Act has been registered in this connection.

It is also being ascertained that how the heroin made its way into the jail and how it was to be disposed off. More arrest are likely to be made.UNI DB VS AE RK1628

-- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-938920.Xml
Recognising Gujarat's potential to expand its economic relations with global players, Canadian Parliamentarian Yasmin Ratansi has said Gujarat and Canada should capitalise on the diaspora and the people-to-people lineage. Ms Ratansi was in Gujarat to take stock of progress work for the 8th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, 2017. Speaking about her visit to Gujarat, Ms Ratansi, Member of Parliament, Canada said, "It is important that both Gujarat and Canada capitalise on the diaspora and the people-to-people lineage. Gujarat has the ability and we are set for better times together." Canada will be a partner country for the third consecutive year for Vibrant Gujarat Summit next year. UNI ASH RSA AE 1738 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0388-939056.Xml
The agitation was to protest the tearing of the banners erected by the BJP volunteers at Keezhputhupet in Tamil Nadu in connection with the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Police held talks with them and persuaded them to call off the agitation to restore traffic.

Meanwhile,traffic at Thiruvandarkoil here was also was affected for one hour following a road blockade by PMK and Vanniyar Sangham volunteers.

This was also to protest the burning of the banner erected by them to mark the "Veera Vanakka Naal"(Martyrs Day).

As many as 21 Vanniyar Sangham volunteers were killed in police firing in 1987 when they organised a road blockade demanding 20 per cent reservation for the backward class in Tamil Nadu and every year the day is being observed as "Veera Vannakka Naal" by the Vanniyar Sangham and PMK.

The banners erected at Thiruvandarkoil on the Puducherry-Villippuram highway to mark the 29th anniversary of the 'Veera vanakka Naal' was set on fire by some miscreants. To condemn this action and demanding their arrest,they resorted to the road blockade. Police held talks with them and forced them to call off their stir.UNI PAB PS AE 1706

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-938955.Xml
Slamming the Congress party for dividing people on communal lines, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today said Congress has always pursued the policy of 'divide and rule' to attain power in the state. Addressing the public gathering during sangat darshan in Amargarh assembly segment here today, he said that Congress have always propped up the issues of religion, region and sects for its political survival. He said that such dangerous politics of Congress had proved very fatal for the state which had suffered due to black days of terrorism. Mr Badal said in dearth of any issue against the state government, the Congress party was again resorting to its age old policy to divide the people but the wise people of the state would not fall prey to its divisive agenda. The Chief Minister said due to "anti-farmer" policies of the successive Congress governments at the Centre, the hard working and resilient farmer of the state was today reeling under whopping debt. He said owing to wrong policies of the Congress governments agriculture was no longer a profitable venture. He said that the farmers were facing acute agrarian crisis due to ever escalating farm inputs and non remunerative Minimum Support Price (MSP). Likewise, Mr Badal said the Congress has ruined the industry of the state. He said the Central governments of the Congress gave huge industrial concessions to neighboring states as a result of which mass exodus of industry took place from the state to other states. He said that Congress party was inimical to the state and was least bothered towards the interests of its people. Training guns at Captain Amarinder Singh for 'day dreaming' to assume power in the state, the Chief Minister said Capt Singh had planned all the celebrations to form government after 2012 polls but the people of state outrightly rejected his style of politics and gave mandate to the Akali-BJP alliance. But he said Capt Singh has learnt nothing from his past experience and was resorting to same kind of politics.More UNI DB AE BD1737 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-938981.Xml
Strongly condemning the terror attack on security forces in Uri, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said Pakistan was instigating militancy from across the border and is needed to be isolated on this issue at the international level.Interacting with the media today, Mr Jaitley directly accused Pakistan for the 'fidayeen' attack on the Army camp, killing 17 Army men. He said first it was Pathankot airbase and now Army camp had been targeted by the Pakistan-sponsored militant outfits.He said it was a big threat to the security of the nation and security forces as well. Security forces needed to be kept ready to thwart fidayeen attacks on military camps, he added.MORE UNI XC DB AE VN1733 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-939065.Xml
Just hours after a major militant attack on an Army headquarters in Uri sector that left 17 soldiers dead and 19 others wounded, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Chief of Army Staff General Dalbir Singh today rushed here to take stock of the situation.The Defence Minister and the Army Chief rushed to the Valley in the wake of the attack which came when 71st UN General Assembly is in session.Official sources here this afternoon said the Defence Minister, who arrived here just hours after the first major attack on the Army since the eruption of militancy in early 90s, was briefed at the headquarter of 15 Corps.They said the Army Chief, who arrived here in the afternoon, visited the Army headquarters in Uri Sector, about 100 km from here in north Kashmir district of Baramulla, and took a firsthand stock of the security situation there.They said a group of four militants, believed to be infiltrators, entered 12 Brigade headquarters of Army at Uri, at 0500 hrs under the cover of darkness.Seventeen soldiers were killed and 19 others injured in the attack, adding all four militants involved were gunned down. "Four AK-47 rifles and UBGs were recovered from the slain militants," they added.UNI ABS YSS AE VN1750 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-939082.Xml
Additional Police Superintendent (Operation) Rajesh Kumar said here today that two extremists of outlawed CPI (Maoist) were nabbed from their hideout in the village following a tip-off late last night.

The nabbed outlaws were identified as Bhagirath Musahar and Dhruv Musahar.

Both of them were involved in a number of unlawful activities. UNI XC-DH AKM VS AE BD1804

-- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0213-939115.Xml
Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh today condemned the brutal attack on an Indian army installation in Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir by the Pakistani trained terrorists. "Perhaps the time has come when we need to make it categorically clear to Pakistan that in 1971 you survived by half and in 2017 you may cease to survive even," he asserted, while adding, "we have really given a long rope to Pakistan and now is the time to take a decisive action as the time for restraint is long past". In a statement here today, the former Chief Minister said this was an extremely outrageous and provocative act by Pakistan which must be taken up seriously and reciprocated in the same measure. "Brutal provocations demand equally brutal reprisals and we must not hesitate," he said, while adding, "let us stop seeking excuse and justification for non-action in the name of restraint and maintain peace." "Four terrorists, who infiltrated from LOC the same night, attacking Indian army base killing 17 and injuring 24 others is completely unacceptable and it deserves to be retaliated and reciprocated in same measure," he said. Questioning the policy of appeasement resorted to by the Modi government, both towards Pakistan and handling terrorism in Kashmir, he said, "we as a nation need to tell it to Pakistan in simple and straight terms that enough is enough and we are not going to take it any more."UNI DB AE RAI1851 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-939070.Xml
Union Minister for Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur today challenged the Congerss and AAP to list their achievements for the welfare of farmers in Punjab and other states. While inaugurating development projects at village Mana in this district, Ms Badal said that the Congress and AAP which has never done anything for the betterment of the farmers are now playing petty politics in the name of farmers just to get political ground on false promises nearing elections. She said that Captain imposed the electricity bills on the tubewells of farmers whereas SAD-BJP alliance is continuously providing free power to farmers for irrigation of Rs 5000 Crores annualy. She said that SAD-BJP launched various welfare schemes for the welfare of farmers which include doubling crop compensation, health insurance cover, provided Rs 644 crore for the cotton crop damaged due to whitefly. Commenting on Punjab Congress President Capt Amrinder Singh, she said that earlier Captain betrayed the Patialvis and now people of Sri Amritsar Sahib. She said that Captain's performance in Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha has been zero. Interacting with persons at Mansa today, Ms Badal said that Captain Amarinder Singh will join hands with fourth front and AAP to form government. She said SAD-BJP alliance will go into the elections with agenda of development and will not tie up with any other party. She claimed that SAD-BJP alliance will form government in the state for the third consecutive term on the development agenda. She said that Congress and AAP are same sides of the coin and their past shows that they joined hands in Delhi to keep BJP out of power. She said that AAP is a product of Congress, which broughtthem to keep BJP out of power. She said that only agenda of AAP is to mislead people with the false propaganda. UNI DB CJ AE RAI1843 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-939186.Xml
Nepal's premier Pushp Kamal 'Prachanda' has described his meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi as fruitful, successful and satisfactory and assured his countrymen that all sections of Nepalese society, especially the Madhesis, would be given their due place in constitution as per their aspirations. Mr Prachanda told select mediapersons here that he had cordial and trustworthy talks with Mr Modi. He was quite satisfied with his visit to India. On the Madhesi agitation in Nepal, Prachanda said he has never linked the revolt to any second country and never issued any comment on it. Prachanda said his government has initiated talks with the sidelined communities such as Madhesis, Tharus and Himal and their problems will be resolved within the ambit of the Nepalese constitution. He told reporters that one day prior to coming to India, he held talks with Madhesi agitators. Soon the deadlock will be resolved but he refused to give the deadline. On Chinese President Xi Jinping's Nepal's journey, Mr Prachanda said full preparations are on for his visit to Nepal and till now the date of his trip has not been decided yet so there is no question of deferring it. About maintaining balance in ties between China and India, he said on gaining power, he had dispatched his emissaries to both the nations. He himself went on India visit and high level relations are being maintained with the Chinese side too. Nepal enjoys good and cordial ties with both the countries. On the outcome of his India visit, Mr Prachanda said, his detailed Saturday talks with Mr Modi centered around cooperation between the two nations in mutually beneficial areas. ''We agreed upon completion of developmental schemes within deadlines and examined rail link, search posts and postal road schemes.The leaders also agreed for a provision of open market in the field of hydroelectricity between the two nations,'' he added.UNI SY AE RP2002 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0093-939368.Xml
The Coastal Security Group (CSG) of Tamil Nadu Marine Police today seized 250 kilograms of Sea Cucumbers, an endangered marine species at Mandapam north seashore near Rameswaram, here today. Police said a CSG team during routine patrol found gunny bags were being loaded into a fishing trawler by a man in a suspicious manner. The police team rounded up the boat and during verification, the marine species valued Rs five lakhs was found packed in the gunny bags. One Suresh Kumar, hailing from Mandapam coastal hamlet was arrested for attempting to smuggle the sea cucumbers to Sri Lanka. Investigations revealed that he procured the sea cucumbers from the local fishermen. Sea Cucumbers, listed in Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 was prohibited under the International law and poaching of these marine species was banned in India and several foreign countries. UNI GSM CJ 2315 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0441-939618.Xml
Condemning this morning's attack on an Army camp in Uri, Bharatiya Janata Party Spokesman Syed Shanawaz Hussain held Pakistan entirely responsible and said that India's western neighbour should be declared a terrorist state. "Pakistan is failing to comprehend the language of affection. Premier Narendra Modi has also adopted a firm stance and that country will now receive a response in a tongue that it understands. Pakistan is restless since the Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir issues were raised," he told UNI during a visit to the Madhya Pradesh capital and also referred to the Pathankot assault. Alleging that the Pakistan Army is resorting to extremism owing to its incapability for "open battle," the politician added that numerous militants were neutralised in the past few months.UNI PKJ-AC CJ 2231 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0044-939597.Xml
Cleanliness drive also launched in other stations of Sealdah, Howrah, Asansol and Malda divisions in which a large number of officers and staff have participated.

Mr Singh took part in the cleanliness drive at Sealdah station this afternoon at passenger area, platforms of Main and South stations along with volunteers of Bharat Sevashram Sangh.

DRM/Sealdah Basudeb Panda and other senior divisional officers also took part in this cleanliness drive.

Later, the General Manager inspected the Pantry Car of Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and interacted with the passengers.UNI BM CJ 2215

-- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0214-939559.Xml
The visit will come in the wake of the terror attack in Uri town and the directives from Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Seventeen army soldiers and four militants killed in the dastardly attack carried out allegedly by Jaish-e-Mohammad militants.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh blamed Pakistan for the attack and said that Islamabad should be isolated.

Home Secretary will also call on the state Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and Governor N.N. Vohra.

Mehrishi is expected to attend a series of meetings with officials of the state government, army, police and paramilitary forces, the source added.

--IANS nd/ahm/

( 141 Words)

2016-09-19-03:50:08 (IANS)
"Today, in areas close to the Deir ez-Zor Airport, the aircraft from the international anti-Islamic State coalition carried out four air-strikes against units of the Syrian government troops surrounded by terrorists," the ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

The operation left 62 Syrian servicemen dead and about 100 injured, the spokesman said, adding that the warplanes entered the airspace of Syria from the Iraqi border.

Syria's national TV also confirmed the killing of Syrian servicemen by the US-led coalition.

A monitor group, however, reported that the airstrikes have killed over 30 Syrian soldiers,.

--IANS ahm/

( 144 Words)

2016-09-18-00:54:08 (IANS)
President Barack Obama urged the African-American community to help stop Donald Trump, saying he would consider it a "personal insult" to his legacy if black voters did not back Hillary Clinton. "If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn't matter who we elect -- read up on your history. It matters. We've got to get people to vote," Obama said on Saturday night while addressing the Congressional Black Caucus gala for the last time as president. "I will consider it a personal insult -- an insult to my legacy -- if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote." The President warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in the November 8 elections, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line, CNN reported. According to analysts, Obama's Saturday night speech marked some of his harshest words yet about Republican presidential candidate Trump, as well as his most forceful call on the African-American community to support Democrat nominee Clinton. Obama referred to the businessman as "somebody who has fought against civil rights and fought against equality and who has shown no regard for working people most of his life." During his address, he also made fun of the so-called "birther" (if Obama was born in the US) controversy, saying "There's an extra spring in my step tonight. I don't know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole 'birther' thing is over." "IS (Islamic State), North Korea, poverty, climate change -- none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate," Obama added. Speaking before the President, Clinton lauded Obama and also took on the birther controversy, CNN noted. "Mr. President, not only do we know you are an American, you are a great American," Clinton, who served as Obama's secretary of state (2009-2013), added. --IANS ksk ( 347 Words) 2016-09-18-08:38:08 (IANS)
A global public-private partnership has reached its goal of raising 13 billion dollars from international donors to combat AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today.During an international conference in Montreal, the Global Fund asked government, faith-based and private-sector donors to raise a total of 13 billion dollars over the next three years, starting in 2017.The fund, the world's largest aimed at fighting the three diseases, is credited with saving 20 million lives since it was established in 2002."The impact of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria is far-reaching, and we know that these diseases disproportionately affect the world's poorest and most vulnerable, especially women and children." Trudeau said in a news release."These commitments will save millions of lives," said Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, whose foundation donated 600 million dollars to the fund.The United States, the fund's largest donor, in August pledged up to 4.3 billion dollars through 2019. The amount is subject to congressional approval.The three diseases targeted by the fund are believed to kill more than 8,000 people a day. REUTERS DS0047 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-938453.Xml
The Russian Defence Ministry said today that US-led coalition planes had bombed Syrian troops fighting Islamic State militants near the airport in Deir Al-Zor, killing 62 soldiers and wounding about 100 more.If the strikes were a targeting error, the ministry said the bombings were evidence of Washington's stubborn refusal to coordinate its military action in Syria with Russia.A fierce battle between the Syrian army and Islamic state militants was now under way, it said. REUTERS DS0020 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-938454.Xml
Bosnia's top court upheld a ban on a "discriminatory" national holiday in the country's autonomous Serb Republic, setting the regional government on a collision course with the deeply divided country's central authorities in Sarajevo.The Constitutional Court ruled that January 9, the date on which Statehood Day is held, discriminated against the region's Muslims Bosniaks and Catholic Croats since it coincides with a Serbian Orthodox Christian holiday.January 9 is the date when Bosnian Serbs declared independence from Bosnia, precipitating a three-year war that claimed 100,000 lives when rival forces carved ethnically pure statelets out of multi-ethnic Bosnia with the backing of their kin in neighbouring Serbia and Croatia.The court also ordered a halt to next Sunday's regional referendum on holding the holiday. Many see the vote as a dress-rehearsal for a threatened 2018 plebiscite on full secession for the region. The court said the vote harmed the constitutional order.The Serb Republic said it would push on with the poll in defiance of the court, drawing fire from Western officials who said the referendum was directly challenging the national judiciary and would be considered a threat to the rule of law and stability of the country."They cannot halt our decision," said Milorad Dodik, President of the Serb Republic. "We will vote in the referendum. We will show that the citizens of the Serb Republic stand by its holiday."Bosnian Serbs commemorate Statehood Day by hanging out flags and holding religious ceremonies. But non-Serbs say celebrating it on a religious holiday violates their country's constitutional principle of secularism and pluralism.Bosnia's international peace envoy Valentin Inzko, who has powers to impose laws or sack officials seen as obstructing the Dayton peace accords that ended the Bosnian war, said disrespect of the court's decisions would "constitute a direct and serious violation" of the US-brokered peace accords."The Dayton Peace Agreement is an international peace treaty that cannot be challenged without consequences," the US Embassy in Bosnia said in a statement.Russia, a traditional ally of Serbs both in Serbia and in Bosnia, has backed it. REUTERS DS0114 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-938455.Xml
The United Nations Security Council is likely to meet today at the request of Russia, diplomats said, to discuss air strikes by the US-led coalition in Syria, which Moscow said had targeted and killed Syrian military personnel.Russia and a war monitoring group said coalition jets bombed a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport on Saturday, killing dozens of Syrian soldiers.REUTERS DS0245 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-938478.Xml
The Baloch Republican Students Organization (BRSO) activists held a protest here with an objective to highlight state atrocities on Baloch civilians across Balochistan. The protestors were seen raising 'Baloch wants freedom', 'Pakistan Murdabad', 'Thankyou Modi' and 'We want freedom' slogans. BRSO spokesperson told ANI, "Post (Indian) Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks on genocide in Balochistan, Pakistan has stepped up its operation there. In the last 10 days they have killed around 90 people, but no one is raising voice against it or reporting it. They are forcibly shutting down our book shops where people go to read our literature and are raiding houses and kidnapping the family members of our activists." He said that for now neither the Pakistani media nor the international human rights organisations are taking up these violations seriously. "The aim of this protest is to highlight the atrocities and call upon international attention to pressurize Pakistan to respect international human rights laws," he added. The spokesperson further said that the United States providing military aid and support to Pakistan is further strengthening Islamabad's confidence. "Even after so many of our people have died, the United States is providing strategic and military support to Pakistan, which it uses for conducting genocide against its own people," he said. "We request Prime Minister Modi to form a committee that could represent the issue of Balochistan in the United Nations and want to thank him and the Indian media for highlighting the issue," said BRSO spokesperson. During the protest, the activists also distributed pamphlets to spread awareness among the people about the situation in Balochistan (ANI)
Asian Human Rights Commission researcher Baseer Naveed condemned the Uri terrorist attack on Sunday that killed 17 Indian Army soldiers and said there is no denying the fact that Pakistan sponsored terrorism exists in Kashmir, even though Islamabad may not be involved in this particular case. "We very much condemn this attack as innocent people are being killed. There is no respect for human life. I'm not saying that this act is by Pakistan but there is Pakistan sponsored terrorism in Kashmir. We can't say that the state is involved but the state policies are behind the uncontrollable terrorism," Naveed told ANI. "We have been saying that the Pakistani security institutions and the state itself has the ideology to promote terrorism. Now, they are claiming that they are going to control terrorism but now they cannot, as the ideology of killing others is so deep rooted and when security forces have already invested so much in terrorism," he added. Naveed said that Pakistani fundamentalist and terrorists organizations are operating freely and that is why they can easily cross into the Indian side even when there is so much security adding that the Pakistan intelligence agencies are not even able to control terrorism within the country. When asked about the existence of terrorist camps in Pakistan, he said, "Of course there are terrorist camps in Pakistan and this has been reported internationally. There are camps in Pakistan as well as India, else how can they cross into India if there is no base." 17 Indian Army soldiers were killed today in an encounter with the terrorists at the Army Brigade headquarters in Uri. This is the highest casualty the army has suffered in a single attack in years. All four terrorists have been killed in what has emerged as worse than the attack on the Pathankot air base earlier in January this year, in which seven army men were killed. In a statement, the Aamy said that a group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, and in the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress. (ANI)
Moscow stepped up its war of words with Washington today, saying air strikes by a US-led coalition on the Syrian army threatened the implementation of a US-Russian ceasefire plan for Syria and bordered on connivance with Islamic State.The Russian Defence Ministry said today that US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 90 Syrian soldiers had been killed.Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a strongly worded statement that the United States' position on the incident was "unconstructive and inarticulate"."The actions of coalition pilots - if they, as we hope, were not taken on an order from Washington - are on the boundary between criminal negligence and connivance with Islamic State terrorists," the ministry said."We strongly urge Washington to exert the needed pressure on the illegal armed groups under its patronage to implement the ceasefire plan unconditionally. Otherwise the implementation of the entire package of the US-Russian accords reached in Geneva on Sept. 9 may be jeopardized."Russia has repeatedly called on the United States to push units of moderate Syrian opposition to separate from Islamic State and other "terrorist groups".The Foreign Ministry said yesterday's incident was a result of Washington's "stubborn refusal" to cooperate with Moscow in fighting Islamic State, the Nusra Front - now renamed Jabhat Fatah al Sham - and "other terrorist groups".The US military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.Washington further unnerved Moscow when its envoy to the United Nations abruptly left her seat as the Russian representative took the floor to condemn the air strikes at an emergency US Security Council meeting."We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in comments aired by state TV.The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Zakharova should be embarrassed by that claim. Russia's UN representative Vitaly Churkin said Russia had no "specific evidence" of the US colluding with Islamic State militants.The diplomatic row is likely to further complicate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria, including its largest pre-war city of Aleppo where the situation remains especially tense and the fragile truce has been repeatedly violated.The UN told Reuters aid trucks that had been expected to move to Aleppo today morning were once again being delayed."It's a tough moment," one top aid official in Geneva told Reuters. "The UN convoys are highly politicised."Russia's Defence Ministry said conditions in Syria were deteriorating.Insurgents say they only reluctantly accepted the initial deal, which they believe is skewed against them, because it could relieve the dire humanitarian situation in besieged areas they control, and blamed Russia for undermining the truce."The truce, as we have warned, and we told the (US) State Department - will not hold out," a senior rebel official in Aleppo said, pointing to the continued presence of a UN aid convoy at the Turkish border awaiting permission to enter.Rebels have also accused Russia of using the ceasefire to give the Syrian army and allied Shi'ite militias a chance to regroup and deploy forces ready for their own offensives.REUTERS SDR VN1715 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-939068.Xml
A Somali general and at least seven of his bodyguards were killed today when their military convoy was hit by a suspected car bomb, a police officer said today."Military General Mohamed Roble Jimale and at least seven of his bodyguards died," police colonel Abdikadir Farah told Reuters. The general was also known by the name Goobaanle. Many Somalis have a nickname often as commonly used as their proper name.Farah said the suspected car bomb hit the vehicle in which the general was travelling. Another police officer blamed the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab. REUTERS SDR BD1744 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-939111.Xml
Hitting out at Islamabad in wake of the terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, where 17 soldiers of the Indian Army were martyred, Shaukat Kashmiri, the chairman of United Kashmir People's National Party (UKPNP) on Sunday said that the Pakistan Government is very weak and has no writ, adding in the name of terrorism army operations are being conducted in some selected areas against those who raise their voice for the change of system there. On the Kashmir issue, Kashmiri said that religious motivated extremist groups are funded and supported by Pakistan. "You can say that for the past 30 years there is a proxy war inside Kashmir and those religious motivated extremist groups are present are funded and supported by Pakistan. They keep doing something or the other. Sometimes they target civilians, army, police and scholars," Kashmiri told ANI. He also pointed that on one hand, Pakistan talks about fighting a war against terrorism but then they attack the people in Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Balochistan. "On one side they say that they are fighting a war against terrorism and there are few areas in FATA where they are using airstrikes. On the other hand in Balochistan they are using helicopters, guns and long range weapons against the Baloch fighters," he said. Lambasting Pakistan, he highlighted that the Pakistani representative to the United Nations is glorifying Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani at the floor of the UN and presenting him as a great freedom fighter in the floor of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He pointed out that the purpose of Hurriyat is not to let peace prevail in the region. "See that whenever the civilian government of Pakistan and India agree for peaceful agreement and major confidence building working group is being formed and then such situation is being created and is done in purpose by the Hurriyat. Their agenda is to not let peace take place," he added. Kashmiri was of the opinion that peace is being targeted and he fears that India and Pakistan are standing at the doors of war. He, however, quoted Pakistan's scholars and retired army officials that Pakistan has initiated all the wars against India. "Pakistan has always carried out adventures be it Kargil. Even if we talk about wars than then Pakistan's scholars and retired Air Marshal Asghar Khan in his interview said that four wars against India was initiated by them. This is no more a secret. Pakistan's Nazir Naji, Ajam Sethi, Hamid Mir are finding that how Kashmiris have been fuelled into war," he added. He also maintained Taliban and terrorists have infrastructure in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). "Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin with its troops are raising the slogans of jihad 'holy war' in Muzaffarabad. Every day people are being motivated and the people who do not agree to their opinion are being kidnapped and killed," he added. (ANI)
Dr. Shabir Choudhry, founder member of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), on Sunday condemned the terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, where 17 soldiers of the Indian Army were killed. "We have always condemned terrorism. Terrorism is not the way forward, violence is not the way forward, and extremism is not the way forward and especially non -Kashmiris are coming from Pakistan in organizations like Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba they are not helping," Choudhry, told ANI. He said that they are only aggravating the matter and giving the wrong message. At least 17 soldiers were killed in the gun battle at the base, which is around 100 km from state capital Srinagar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also condemned the attack and assured the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished. "We salute all those martyred in Uri. Their service to the nation will always be remembered. My thoughts are with the bereaved families," Prime Minister Modi tweeted. "Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation," he said in a series of tweets. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has expressed his heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyred soldiers and said those behind this terror incident would be brought to justice. The Home Minister also apprised Prime Minister Modi regarding the deliberations of the security review meeting held at his official residence this afternoon. Singh has instructed Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials to closely monitor the situation in the valley. (ANI)
Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in an ambush in the northwestern city of Peshawar today, militants said, in an attack for which both Islamic State and a Taliban faction claimed responsibility.Militants said they ambushed an unmarked vehicle ferrying soldiers today morning near the congested Daudzai area of Peshawar. Military sources confirmed the attack but said the killed men were army employees and not soldiers.The Pakistan army often uses unmarked vehicles for transportation of soldiers and other employees in volatile areas around Peshawar to avoid being identified and attacked."They were travelling in a civil van when unknown armed men opened fire at them," said a security official who declined to be named. "Three of them died on the spot."Pakistan's military this month declared that it had foiled Islamic State's attempts to establish operations in the country. But the group's Amaq news agency said Islamic State was behind the ambush, also claimed by Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, an offshoot of the Islamist militant Pakistani Taliban group.Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, which carried out the Easter Sunday bombing in Lahore in which 70 people were killed, at one time swore fealty to Islamic State's Middle East leadership, but later switched back to the Taliban.The two groups also both claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a hospital in the Pakistani city of Quetta that killed 74 people last month.Pakistan's military said on Sept. 1 it had arrested more than 300 Islamic State militants and sympathisers, thwarting the ultra-hardline group's attempts to expand there.But concern has been growing that Islamic State - which controls parts of Iraq and Syria and is known for especially brutal treatment of religious minorities - might replicate their model in Pakistan, especially after Islamic State loyalists seized small pieces of territory in neighbouring Afghanistan.On Friday, Pakistani authorities said they arrested four Islamic State militants plotting attacks in the city of Lahore. The four men had 1.6 kg of explosives as well as fuses and detonators, officials said.Most Islamic State recruits in the region are believed to be Pakistani or Afghan defectors from other Islamist movements.Pakistan is home to several militant groups including the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda and the Haqqani network, giving Islamic State both a rich pool of potential recruits but also fierce competition.Islamic State last year declared Afghanistan and Pakistan as the state of "Khorasan", part of its self-declared global caliphate, and appointed longtime militant Hafiz Saeed Khan as its regional leader.A US drone strike killed Khan last month in eastern Afghanistan.REUTERS SDR RP1920 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-939318.Xml
SOFIA, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Bulgarian officials have signed a deal on export of Bulgarian dairy products to China.

The Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) signed the protocol here on Friday, officials confirmed Saturday.

"The protocol on veterinary and health requirements for dairy products creates conditions for the export of Bulgarian dairy products," the Bulgarian ministry said in a statement on its website.

Desislava Taneva, Bulgarian Minister of Agriculture and Food, said that currently Bulgaria has 28 approval procedures for the export of certain types of food and feed to China, the statement said.

According to the statement, Taneva expressed hope that the procedures for the export of tobacco and compound feed, as well as those related to animals, would be completed soon.

Zhang Qinrong, Vice Minister of the AQSIQ, said in turn that Bulgaria is an important country in the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and has a significant role in deepening cooperation between China and CEE.

Zhang said that the AQSIQ and its Bulgarian counterparts have achieved good results, and she hoped the two sides would expand cooperation.
Policemen stand guard at the scene of a briefing in Paris, capital of France, on Sept. 17, 2016. Paris police announced on Saturday afternoon the end of a police operation, saying "no danger to report." According to earlier reports of local media, an anti-terrorist operation was underway on Saturday afternoon in the popular Les Halles district in the 1st arrondissement in Paris. (Xinhua/Li Genxing)



PARIS, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Paris police announced on Saturday afternoon the end of a police operation, saying "no danger to report."

On his tweeter account, the police prefecture of Paris wrote at 4:48 p.m. local time (0228 GMT): "End of the intervention of the security forces - Removal of doubt, no danger to report."

According to earlier reports of local media, an anti-terrorist operation was underway on Saturday afternoon around 4 p.m. local time (0200 GMT) in the popular Les Halles district in the 1st arrondissement in Paris.
CAPE TOWN, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- South Africa will continue to raise concern regarding the strength of the institutions of global governance, including the United Nations (UN), specifically the Security Council, the Presidency said on Saturday.

The Presidency issued the statement as President Jacob Zuma arrived in New York to attend the General Debate of the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA71).

The General Debate presents an opportunity for member states to take stock of the effectiveness of the UN, and it is expected that member states will use the General Debate to chart a way forward to improve the organisation's efficiency and relevance by making it more democratic, responsive and transparent.

Deliberations are expected to focus on UN reform, including on the revitalization of the UNGA, improvement of the work of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and most importantly, the substantive reform of the UN Security Council (UNSC).

"South Africa will use the opportunity to communicate progress made towards achieving Africa's development, including the industrialization and regional integration drives, with the aim of achieving a better life for South Africans and all in the continent," said presidential spokesperson Bongani Ngqulunga.

A high-level meeting of the Plenary of the General Assembly on addressing large movements of refugees and migrants will also be held on the margins of the General Debate.

This is the first time that the General Assembly will be holding a summit on large movements of refugees and migrants, and it is a historic opportunity to develop an international response to this challenge, Ngqulunga said.

"The meeting is particularly important for South Africa, as the African continent is one of the most affected regions experiencing large movement of refugees and migrants," added the spokesperson.
SKOPJE, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The ministry of finance of Macedonia has submitted the draft budget for 2017 to the government while the latter is expected to discuss it Saturday evening or Sunday.

The adoption of the draft budget for next year will be transparent while the Macedonian finance minister is going to make an overview of the main priorities for 2017, government spokesperson Aleksandar Gjorgjiev told local media Saturday.

Following the discussions and adoption of the draft budget 2017 in the government, it will be sent for approval to parliament, the government spokesperson told reporters.

Meantime, Finance Minister Kiril Minovski said Friday evening that the ministry of finance and the government are obliged to submit the draft budget to Parliament, and the MPs will decide whether to vote or not.

The adoption of the budget for next year is a recommendation of the international financial institutions, the finance minister explained. Enditem
Elephants seen roaming free in Amboseli park on Jan. 3, 2016 in Kenya. (Xinhua/Zhu Shaobin)

JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Office in South Africa, Cecilia Kinuthia-Njenga, on Saturday encouraged countries taking part in the upcoming World Wildlife Conference to work towards reaching a consensus on how to sustainably manage wildlife.

The World Wildlife Conference, officially known as 17th Conference of Parties (Cop17) of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), will be held in Johannesburg from Sept. 23 to Oct. 5.

There will be much lobbying on the plenary, behind the scenes and even on social networks about nature conservation, Kinuthia-Njenga told Xinhua in an interview.

Kinuthia-Njenga, who is also the UNEP's Regional Programme Coordinator in Southern Africa, lamented that African countries go to the conference with divergent views.

She said South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia have proposed for international trade in elephant ivory, while other 29 African countries are against the idea.

"We hope they will come up with a resolution which protects our wildlife heritage. I also hope that African countries will find a common agreement on managing African elephants and reach consensus on sustainable management of wildlife," she said.

The UNEP official said the number of elephants in Africa has been reduced due to poaching.

Poaching is a huge challenge in the management of wildlife, and Africa should expect consuming countries to cooperate in seeking sustainable solutions, she said.

Meanwhile, Swaziland is also lobbying for the legalization of the sale of rhino horns. Kinuthia-Njenga said there will be slim chances for the proposals to succeed.

"The UN definitely hopes for a resolution on sustainable management of wildlife, and is optimistic about that," Kinuthia-Njenga said.

"We will be neutral as UN in the conference, but will provide the technical and expertise so that member states come to resolutions based on scientific research," she added.

Kinuthia-Njenga also called for concerted efforts in fighting the depletion of national resources, which she said, would impoverish local communities, therefore causing hunger and inequity.

The CITES conference will be attended by delegates from over 180 countries. The participants will get an update on actions taken after the last conference in Bangkok three years ago.
BERLIN, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of thousands of protesters against two free trade deals across the Atlantic took to streets in seven German cities on Saturday, showing their great concerns about interests losses.

Under the slogan "For a fair world trade", the demonstrators took to streets in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Leipzig, Munich and Stuttgart.

Organizers estimated that 320,000 people would participate the rallies, while the police said the real turnout was smaller.

Waving banners reading "STOP TTIP", "STOP CETA", protesters expressed their worries about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a free trade pact between the United States and the European Union (EU), and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), a deal between the EU and Canada.

Opponents feared that the deals would lower consumer and environment protection standards in Europe, and lead to job losses.

Meanwhile, the business believed free trade deals across the Atlantic would benefit economies on both sides of the ocean as they could reduce red tape and lower transaction costs.

"Most of the objections were unjustified from the outset. We continue to see great opportunities offered by the creation of the largest free trade area in the world for our country," said Anton F. Boerner, head of German exporters' association BGA, referring to the TTIP agreement which was scheduled to start a new round of negotiations in October.

The CETA agreement was reached in 2014, and set to be signed next month.

A recent survey found that about 28 percent of Germans doubted the two agreements' benefits. 52 percent believed they would weaken standards and result in the import of defective products.
CAIRO, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian team investigating the crashed EgyptAir flight MS804 did not receive any new evidence related to TNT traces on the flight wreckage from French investigators, an Egyptian official was quoted by state-run Ahram Online website as saying on Saturday.

The remarks came one day after French newspaper Le Figaro reported that French investigators found traces of TNT on the flight wreckage.

"The investigation committee has not received any technical reports on investigation results from the (interior ministry's) criminal lab or the general prosecution on the matter," the Egyptian civil aviation ministry's media department head Bassem Samy told Ahram Online.

The crashed plane went missing from radar screens on May 19 en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people onboard, including 30 Egyptians and 15 French.

Le Figaro also reported that Egyptian judicial authorities prevented investigators from further examination of the wreckage.

"The committee is still working to identify the technical causes of the crash," Samy said, adding that any new results of the probe will be announced once verified.

In July, the investigation committee said the black boxes of the crashed plane suggested a fire on board. The probe is still ongoing with all theories on the table, yet without a strong clue for any.
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Death toll of the suicide blast which hit a mosque in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region of Mohmand Agency on Friday afternoon has risen to 36, an official report said on Saturday evening.

According to local administrator's report. After 13 injured succumbed in different hospitals, the death toll rose from 23 to 36 during the last 24 hours.

The report said that at least 16 others were also injured in this blast and a number of them are still in the critical condition.

Deputy administrator of the region, Naveed Akbar, said the incident arised as long as a suicide bomber entered the mosque and exploded his vest, targeting at the people who were offering Friday prayer in Paye Khan village in Anbar area of Mohmand Agency, Pakistan's northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Around 200 people were offering prayer in the mosque when the blast took place in this remote village which has no proper telecommunication and road infrastructure.

According to the report, 35 of the victims are under the 30 years old, while 16 of them are from 9 to 17.

Bomb disposal squad said that around 5-7 kilograms of ball bearings was used in the blast.

Jamat-ul-Ahrar, a banned fraction of outlawed Pakistani Taliban, claimed that they are fully responsible for this attack, which targeting at the pro-government people in the mosque.

Security forces has imposed curfew in Mohmand Agency's Anbar area and launched a searching operation, Akbar said.

The local administration also announced a compensation of 300,000 Pakistani rupees (2,857 US dollars) for each dead of the families,and Rs100,000 Pakistani rupees ($952 US dollars) for each injured.

According to a hospital official,the death toll could be stopped, if the injured were taken to the hospitals in time, but unfortunately the injured could not get first aid due to unavailability of rescue teams and transportation.

Earlier on Sept.2nd, at least 14 people including six lawyers and two policemen were killed and 52 others injured in a suicide attack at district courts in Pakistan's northwest district of Mardan.
DAMASCUS, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- More than 30 Syrian soldiers were killed on Saturday evening by the airstrikes of the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition against Syrian military positions in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, a monitor group reported.

The airstrikes targeted the artillery and rockets battalion in the al-Tharda Mountain, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog group said the Syrian soldiers abandoned their positions following the strikes, which facilitated an attack by the Islamic State (IS) group.

The IS captured the positions, prompting the Syrian army to send reinforcements to the al-Tharda Mountain, located just 10 kilometers from the city of Deir al-Zour.

Local Syrian media said the Syrian air force then struck the IS positions in al-Tharda.

The general-command of the Syrian army accused the U.S. of supporting the IS in the attack in Deir al-Zour.

Some Russian reports placed the death toll of the slain Syrian soldiers at over 60.

Meanwhile, Syria's al-Ekhbarya TV said the Syrian air force was planning an operation on the IS-held areas that would help retaking Deir al-Zour city, where 50,000 civilians have been besieged by the IS since 2014.

The plan aimed at opening a road between Deir al-Zour and Palmyra in central Syria, but the U.S.-led airstrikes thwarted the plan and enabled the IS to advance.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the U.S.-led air raids enabled the IS of capturing al-Tharda Mountain.

The incident marks the first U.S.-led attack on a government forces' positions since the coalition started striking IS positions in Syria in late 2014.
KHARTOUM, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Sudanese government on Saturday said it would not negotiate with opposition forces, whether civilian or military, after end of the national dialogue conference, according to a senior Sudanese official.

"Despite the government's attempts to reach permanent peace and achieve security and stability, the opposition forces, which are driven by foreign agenda, are not serious in their endeavors to reach the aspired peace," said Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid, Sudanese Presidential Assistant, when addressing a meeting for the parties' affairs council Saturday.

He noted the opposition forces stick to weak excuses and repeatedly work to abort the negotiations despite the concessions presented by the government during the negotiation rounds to reach peace.

"No party is allowed to reach power by force of arms, save for through the ballot boxes," he added.

In January 2014, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir launched the national dialogue conference which started in October 2015 and concluded in February 2016 with its recommendations to be approved by a general assembly, slated for next October.

Major Sudanese political parties such as the opposition National Umma Party refused to participate in the conference.

The armed groups in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions also refused to participate in the conference.

The opposition insisted that based on the decisions by the AU Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council, a conference should be held to bring together all the Sudanese political forces to initiate an equitable dialogue with the government, a demand that the Sudanese government rejected.

The most recent round of talks between the government and the opposition ended last August in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa without reaching a peace deal.
MOSCOW, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Moscow will convene an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to discuss the U.S.-led coalition airstrikers against the Syrian army, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"Russia's permanent envoy to the UN has been charged to convene an emergency Security Council session on the issue," Zakharova told the Rossiya 24 TV channel, referring to the airstrikes on Syrian troops near Deir al-Zour.

The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier Saturday the U.S.-led coalition killed 62 Syrian government troops and injured some 100 others in a round of airstrikes in eastern Syria's province of Deir al-Zour.

"We demand a full and detailed explanation from Washington. These explanations must be given at the UN Security Council," she added.
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.
A Syrian boy carries a toy gun past a destroyed building in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli on September 13, 2016 as a truce brokered by Russia and the United States saw guns fall silent at sundown the previous night. (AFP/Xinhua)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Saturday evening on Syria after the U.S.-led coalition staged airstrikes on Syrian military positions, diplomatic sources told Xinhua.

The meeting is scheduled to start at 19:30 EDT (2330 GMT) at the request of the Russian Federation, one of the five permanent members of the 15-nation UN council, the sources said.

"The meeting will take place behind closed doors," the sources said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier Saturday the U.S.-led coalition killed 62 Syrian government troops and injured some 100 others in a round of airstrikes in eastern Syria's province of Deir al-Zour.

"Today, in areas close to the Deir al-Zour Airport, the aircraft from the international anti-Islamic State coalition carried out four airstrikes against units of the Syrian government troops surrounded by terrorists," the ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

The warplanes entered the airspace of Syria from the Iraqi border, the spokesman said.

The U.S. Defense Ministry said on Saturday that a U.S.-led coalition airstrike against the Islamic State may have unintentionally targeted Syrian government forces.

"Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh fighting position," said a Pentagon statement, referring to the extremist group in its Arabic acronym.

The general command of the Syrian army accused the U.S. of supporting the IS in the attack in Deir al-Zour.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the U.S.-led air raids enabled the IS to capture al-Tharda Mountain.

The incident marks the first U.S.-led attack on a government forces' positions since the coalition started striking IS positions in Syria in 2014.

Related:

Syria accuses U.S. of supporting IS after striking Syrian army positions in Deir al-Zour

DAMASCUS, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Syria's Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused the U.S. of supporting the Islamic State (IS) group, after a U.S.-led airstrike killed 62 Syrian soldiers in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

"This cowered American act is an unequivocal evidence on the U.S. support to the IS," said the ministry. Full story

Pentagon says coalition airstrike may have struck Syrian military

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Pentagon said on Saturday a U.S.-led coalition airstrike against the Islamic State may have unintentionally targeted Syrian government forces.

"Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh fighting position," said a Pentagon statement, referring to the extremist group in its Arabic acronym. Full story

Russia says U.S.-led airstrikes kill 62 Syrian government troops

MOSCOW, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led coalition killed 62 Syrian government troops and injured some 100 others in a round of airstrikes in eastern Syria's province of Deir al-Zour, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday.

"Today, in areas close to the Deir ez-Zor Airport, the aircraft from the international anti-Islamic State coalition carried out four air-strikes against units of the Syrian government troops surrounded by terrorists," the ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement. Full story

U.S.-led airstrikes kill over 30 Syrian soldiers in Deir al-Zour

DAMASCUS, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- More than 30 Syrian soldiers were killed on Saturday evening by the airstrikes of the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition against Syrian military positions in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, a monitor group reported.
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Researchers have found a way to arrest the development of flowers in poplar trees, so as to control the unintentional spread of engineered or non-native tree species.

In their work published this week in Nature Biotechnology, lead author Amy Klocko, postdoctoral researcher in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University (OSU), and her colleagues used a technique known as RNA interference to suppress a gene, called LEAFY, that is known to play a central role in the development of flowers in poplars and many other plants.

The researchers grew trees that LEAFY was still present, but RNA interference was applied to slow down the gene's activity in experimental field trials authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, of the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Before the trees flowered, the researchers collected hundreds of small twigs containing flower buds and studied the flowers that emerged in the laboratory.

"We noticed that some of the reproductive parts were tiny," Klocko was quoted as saying by a news release from OSU. "And we wondered if the flowers would have that same feature when they opened in the plantation. And they did."

By studying genetic activity in those trees, the researchers showed that the undeveloped flowers could be traced to the impact of RNA interference on the LEAFY gene.

"Our goal isn't to make reproductively modified trees just to have that trait," said Klocko. "It's to prevent genetically modified or non-native trees from spreading, either to wild forests or to other plantations. This would help alleviate concerns over gene flow, whether for scientific or ethical reasons."

The finding, according to the researchers, could be applied to commercial plantations of fast-growing hybrid poplars, which are not genetically engineered in the United States.

Other reproductively modified trees, such as bananas, seedless oranges and many ornamentals, are commonly grown in agriculture and landscaping, but these trees have been produced using conventional forms of breeding such as hybridization and intentionally induced changes to DNA.

LEAFY has been known to be key to flower development for more than two decades. The use of RNA interference to change the expression of LEAFY is the first time genetic engineering technology has been used to produce a seedless forest tree of any kind, noted Steve Strauss, an OSU distinguished professor of forestry and a co-author on the paper.

And it is the first to show what would happen in a tree with modified LEAFY activity and grown in the field over several years,

"People have made pollen-free male plants before, including trees," said Strauss. "But the approach we used is based on detailed knowledge of the genes that direct the production of flowers in nature, and the trees are designed to be completely incapable of producing pollen or seeds. We've turned down a gene that is essential for all flowering."

While data show that the trees are identical in appearance and do not differ in growth rates from unmodified trees, the researchers are analyzing tree growth rates and other characteristics to see if slowing down LEAFY has consequences beyond flower development, and are studying similar gene containment mechanisms in apple, sweetgum and eucalypt trees, as Strauss put it that "the principle applies everywhere."

"We are hopeful that this technology, or the related technology of gene editing applied to this gene, will reduce tensions and regulatory obstacles to the use of highly productive, genetically engineered or exotic trees," said Strauss.

"There is no question that advanced genetic engineering methods, used responsibly, can increase productivity and sustainability of plantations, but the question of when and if to allow gene dispersal is a real point of contention for both scientists and society. We hope this technology helps us to get beyond this longstanding concern."
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- A new study showed that as oceans warm, physical forces like wave strength and water flow influence which reefs thrive and which die.

The study, led by Justin Rogers, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University's Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, and published this week in a report in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, offers new insight into how climate change will affect reefs on a local level.

"We have known for a while that high water temperatures are harmful to coral reefs," Rogers said. "What this paper illuminates for the first time is how waves can lower the water temperature and create better conditions for coral reefs to thrive."

The results, according to the researchers, hint at steps conservationists can take to reduce the impact of warming on these fragile ecosystems.

As coral reefs host thousands of marine species to support sustainable fisheries and are among the world's biodiversity hotspots, their towering structures help to protect vulnerable coastal areas from storm waves.

To understand how forces driving ocean water circulation would affect reef temperatures and, by extension, reef health, Rogers and his colleagues deployed a series of instruments in the waters surrounding the South Pacific atoll of Palmyra, including temperature sensors, velocity sensors to track wave speed and pressure sensors to measure the strength of incoming waves and tides.

"The idea was just to get a huge coverage over the reef," Rogers was quoted as saying in a Stanford news release.

After placing the instruments, the researchers monitored them for about three years to collect data. And while analyzing their atoll data, they realized that the health of particular reef zones was closely tied to the temperature, wave and pressure dynamics in those areas.

For instance, the reefs that did best over time were the ones that received an ample flow of cooler water from the ocean further offshore.

The researchers found that both waves and tides in nearby waters drive the flow rate around these high-performing reefs, with waves being the most significant factor. "High temperature is very stressful to corals," Rogers said. "If there's not enough exchange of water from the open ocean, those areas do not do well."

Conversely, in reef zones around the atoll that had less moving water, coral cover was much sparser, since there was little cool inflow to offset rising water temperatures.

In addition, the researchers found that coral health suffered when there was high wave stress around the outer edges of reefs, where heavy pounding inflicts physical damage. High wave stress may become more common as climate change proceeds and sea levels rise.

Reefs in stagnating water zones and those exposed to heavy wave pounding may be among the first to go. "Areas of the reef that are not stressed will suddenly become stressed," Rogers said.

Corals can withstand brief water temperature fluctuations, he added, but their resistance wanes when average temperatures remain high for weeks or months at a time, as they do in areas with low ocean inflow.

While the prognosis may be grim in a warming world, Rogers suggested that limited conservation funding is best directed to reefs with high ocean inflow, which still have a fighting chance.
BERLIN, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Eintracht Frankfurt have extended the contract with defender Marco Russ, the "Eagles" confirmed on Saturday.

The 31-year-old defender, who was diagnosed with a malignant tumour following a routine anti-doping test in May 2016, extended his current contract for another two years to stay with Eintracht Frankfurt until June 2019.

"I am pleased and proud to be able to continue playing here until 2019," Russ said. "I have to thank those responsible who have given me their trust despite my current situation."

Russ plays since 1996, including a short spell at Wolfsburg, for Eintracht Frankfurt where he made 256 competitive outings to score 22 goals overall.

"Marco is a role model with the right attitude and a home grown Frankfurt player," Frankfurt's sporting director Bruno Huebner said. "We wish him all the best for his recovery."

Eintracht Frankfurt sit on the 7th place of the Bundesliga standings after securing two wins and one defeat in three games.
YANGON, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar military has tightened security measures in Laukkai, capital of Kokang region in northern Shan state, following an explosion in a house in the town, official media reported Sunday.

The house belongs to the former leader of the Kokang self-administered zone.

A search of the damaged house in Thursday blast led to discovery of five pieces of a propelled explosive round, the report said.

Further investigation revealed that the projectile had been launched from a hill, 1.6 kilometers northwest of Laukkai and the pieces belonged to a 107mm rocket launcher.

The security forces also found suspicious package comprising night-vision binoculars, 107mm rocket launchers and grenades around a hill, 3.2 kilometers northwest of Laukkai, the report added.

On Nov. 18, 2015, Myanmar government announced lifting military administration order imposed in the Kokang self-administered zone, once torn by armed clashes between the government forces and Kokang's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in February of the year.

The government claimed that it has brought the Kokang region under its control following the heavy clashes.

MNDAA unilaterally declared ceasefire in June of the year for the sake of stability and peace along the border and in view of the fact that the country's 2015 November general election was then approaching.

MNDAA was not invited by the government in peace deal although the government has initially signed the Nationwide Cease fire Accord (NCA) with eight armed groups on Oct. 15, 2015.

The ethnic side proposed MNDAA for inclusion in the signing process but the government suggested to have separate talks with the group before it is done.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro (R) greets his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas at the Hugo Chavez Frias Convention Center in Margarita Island, Venezuela, on Sept. 17, 2016. Iran officially handed over the three-year rotating presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to Venezuela at the 17th NAM Summit held Saturday in Venezuela's Margarita Island. (Xinhua/Boris Vergara)

CARACAS, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Iran officially handed over the three-year rotating presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to Venezuela at the 17th NAM Summit held Saturday in Venezuela's Margarita Island.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani congratulated Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, saying that as NAM's head until 2019, he could "count on the support of the Iranian delegation."

Rouhani highlighted the challenges facing the world today, including the struggle of smaller countries to forge an independent path despite pressure from global powers.

Maduro underscored the movement's importance as a bloc that champions equality between states and rejects domination by a single power.

"With the emergence of new blocs of power and the rise of a new global geopolitics, our movement ... is gaining strength," said Maduro.

At least 14 presidents and prime ministers, as well as vice presidents and high-level representatives from the group's 120 member nations attended the summit.

NAM was founded in Belgrade in 1961. Its members share the goals of fighting imperialism, colonialism and oppression, but are not formally aligned.
CANBERRA, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has hailed his government's border protection policy as the "best in the world", ahead of an international summit on migration and refugees in New York.

Speaking to reporters before jetting off to the United States on Sunday, Turnbull said that Australia's "stop the boats" philosophy, coupled with its humanitarian and refugee intake programs, were the "right responses" to the growing challenges posed by refugees and those seeking to flee conflict and persecution.

"Our policy on border protection is the best in the world," Turnbull told the press on Sunday.

"Public opinion will not accept a generous humanitarian program, a substantial migration program, unless the government is seen to be in command of its borders."

The Prime Minister said while the government was criticized for its seemingly harsh offshore detention policy and its refugee intake which is well below that of other Western nations such as Canada, Turnbull added that Australia had avoided evidence of 'uncontrolled migration flows' which, in turn, have caused destabilization in places such as Germany and France.

Although Turnbull talked up Australia's policies, he said he would not be "telling anyone else how to run their country".

The PM's comments have come at an interesting time, as his Immigration Minister admitted the government made mistakes when setting up its controversial offshore detention center.

Last week, a report from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) laid out concerns over the government's lack of consideration while it hastily set up detention centers on Nauru.

It detailed a number of concerns about the contracting of welfare, catering, security and cleaning services. It said the Immigration Department chose to accept a contract with Broadspectrum which ended up over-budget by more than 750 million U.S dollars. It also said the government refused to seek alternative quotes.

On Sunday, Dutton admitted the government did make mistakes, but said the it had just a "couple of weeks" to set up the centers as a result of the previous, Gillard government's policy.

"(Former PM Julia) Gillard at the time made an announcement that people would go to Nauru and things had to be set up within a couple of weeks," Dutton told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Sunday.

"So let's put it in context... yes I'm sure mistakes were made and decisions were rushed."

Turnbull will discuss refugees with other leaders at the United Nations (UN) meeting in New York on Monday.
BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will attend the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly and pay official visits to Canada and Cuba, during a trip on Sept. 18-28.

The visit will mark several "firsts," namely Li's first appearance at the UN General Assembly, the initial trip under the annual dialogue mechanism between Chinese premier and Canadian prime minister, and the first official visit to Cuba by a Chinese premier in 56 years since the two countries established diplomatic ties.

It is expected that Li will present Chinese solutions to various global challenges, and bolster ties with both Canada and Cuba during the upcoming trip.

UN APPEARANCE: CHINESE SOLUTIONS IN SPOTLIGHT

The 71st session of the UN General Assembly was kicked off on Sept.13, involving representatives from 193 UN members, to discuss a wide range of global issues including sustainable development, the implementation of the Paris Climate Pact, terrorism and the anti-globalization trend, among others.

Against such a backdrop and in a year which marks the 45th anniversary of transferring China's seat in the UN to the government of the People's Republic of China, Li's first appearance at the General Assembly has drawn intensive global attention.

His packed itinerary in the UN includes addressing the general debate of the UN General Assembly session, attending a symposium on 2030 sustainable development agenda, two meetings on refugee issues and several bilateral meetings.

"President Xi Jinping, while attending activities commemorating the 70th anniversary of the UN last year, presented a raft of measures and promises in support of the multilateral organization, and Premier Li is expected to give an update on the implementation of these measures and promises," said Yang Xiyu, a researcher from the China Institute of International Studies.

Apart from being a follow-up on Xi's UN pledges last year, Li's UN tour is also expected to shed light on China's diplomatic policies and its stance on various issues, said Yang, adding that this part will allow the world to know China better.

The Chinese premier will also meet with representatives from the finance sector, think tanks, and media organizations in the United States.

"The arrangement showcases the innovation and strategic thinking by a new generation of Chinese leaders in conducting public diplomacy," commented Yang.

DEBUT OF CHINA-CANADA PM DIALOGUE: NEW ERA FOR BILATERAL TIES

Li's tour is the first visit by a Chinese premier to "the country of maple leaf" in 13 years. Moreover, it is the one to start an annual PM dialogue between the two countries.

The annual dialogue is a mechanism established in the end of August when Li met with his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau in Beijing.

Their exchange of visits in less than a month is a sign of "fast warming" bilateral relations, according to a number of analysts. The dialogue to be unveiled, from its topics to results, is drawing an intensive attention as what Li's Canada trip is about.

Li is scheduled to attend more than 20 events during his stay in cities from Ottawa to Montreal, ranging from political talks, economic and trade forums to people-to-people or cultural exchanges, which are expected to enhance China-Canada political mutual trust and practical cooperation.

Participation in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is "clearly Canada's best choice," Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau has commented. In fact, it is in the best interests of both countries to jointly make bigger the cake of win-win cooperation between them.

China is Canada's second largest trading partner, source of imports and market of exports. Their economies are highly complemented, with huge potential to be tapped in sectors particularly of high-tech, agriculture, energy resources as well as third party cooperation.

Trudeau has expressed the belief that a strengthened bilateral relationship will bring new opportunities for Canadian enterprises and for Chinese companies to expand business in Canada.

"Overall, China is doing clever work in building a multipole economic and diplomatic framework featuring positive interaction, mutual benefit and win-win result, through cooperation in different fields and with different focuses with such developed powers as Germany, France and Canada," Yang said.

CUBA-CHINA FRIENDSHIP DEEPENED

Premier Li's trip to Cuba is the first official visit by a Chinese premier since the two countries established diplomatic relations 56 years ago.

Ruben Zardoya, a professor at the University of Havana, described the visit as a "major event" in the relationship between Cuba and China.

He also expressed his hopes that Li's visit could bring "new investment, technology and closer ties with the outside world" to Cuba.

China and Cuba are "good friends, brothers and comrades," and their relationship has become sound and mature after having been developing for over half a century.

Bilateral relationship is now facing new development opportunities at a time when Cuba, which is striving to update its economic growth mode and seeking a diversified diplomatic strategy, places more value on its ties with China.

During his visit, Li is expected to attend the welcome ceremony held by President of the Cuban Council of State and Council of Ministers Raul Castro Ruz and exchange views with him on issues of common concern.

The two countries are also expected to sign more than 30 cooperation documents in such fields as economy, technology, financing, industrial capacity, quality control and environmental protection.

China is Cuba's second largest trading partner, while Cuba is China's largest trading partner in the Caribbean region.

Xu Shicheng, a researcher with the Latin America Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that trade and economic ties between China and Cuba have been growing rapidly, but the total volume of bilateral trade is not very large.

"The people and government of Cuba hope that Premier Li's visit could give a strong boost to the development of Cuba-China trade and economic ties," Xu said.

Cuba's manufacturing sector and infrastructure, which are relatively under-developed, are in need of China's machines, equipment and technical staff, the researcher said. "Industrial capacity cooperation between the two countries enjoys big potential."
SAN JOSE, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- In pursuing development, China crafted a plan according to its own needs, and this is the lesson Latin America should learn from the Asian giant, Costa Rica's former ambassador Marco Vinicio Ruiz told Xinhua.

Cookie-cutter solutions are rarely as effective as tailored plans, and in that sense Costa Rica and China have something in common, said Ruiz, who is also former minister of foreign trade.

"I believe we have not strictly followed what others told us (and) neither did China .... They decided what they wanted to do and they have made enormous progress in different areas, especially in lifting many of the people out of poverty," said Ruiz.

Costa Rica's formula has been promoting education and a skilled work force, said Ruiz.

"Costa Rica is an example of a country that has promoted development in the past 30 years by investing in our people, in education, in developing a culture of sustainable development," said Ruiz.

When devising their own development programs, regional countries can learn from China's experience, said Ruiz, who helped broker the free-trade agreement between China and Costa Rica.

"China's example, in certain ways, is very important for Latin America. They have done a terrific job in trying to develop less developed areas, such as bringing people from the countryside into the industrial age and at the same time improving their quality of life. That's the reality," said Ruiz.

"We have to find ways for people to really progress -- that is the only way any political system can be sustained -- and China has done that for the past 30 years. That sets a good example," he added.

"In terms of infrastructure, China has shown that it is much better to build infrastructure first, and then development will follow. That is what you can see anywhere you go in China," he said.

"In Costa Rica, we strongly believe that one of the advantages of having ties with China is so we can learn a lot from its development," said Ruiz.

Inspired by China, Costa Rica is studying the feasibility of establishing special economic development zones, "similar to the ones China has built along its eastern and southern coasts," said Ruiz.

"That's a good example of how we can collaborate, learning from China's experience," he said.
The photo taken on Sept. 17, 2016 shows policemen on duty near the site of an explosion in New York, the United States. A total of 25 people have been injured in an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday evening, and the cause of the blast is under investigation, the New York City Fire Department said. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

NEW YORK, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said Saturday that there is "no evidence at this point of a terror connection".

The mayor made the remarks at a news conference Saturday night.

Twenty-nine people were injured in an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York on Saturday evening.

Authorities said police are investigating the blast as a criminal act not immediately linked to any terror organization.

The incident occurred just three days before the opening of 71st Session of the UN General Assembly in the UN Headquarters in New York. The host city of the world body is already on high alert to guarantee the security of visiting heads of state or government.

Right opposit to the UN Headquarters on Manhattan's 1st Avenue, four police officers on duty told Xinhua that they have been in position since 4 p.m. Saturday. But they said that they didn't get any special alert or instructions following the Chelsea blast.

White House said President Obama has been briefed about New York blast.

Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should "expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue" and ask the public to avoid entering the area.
YANGON, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- A total of 17 countries and regions involving 79 companies have invested in Myanmar's Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ), official report quoted the economic zone authorities as reporting Sunday.

Foreign investment in the Thilawa SEZ also hit 838.3 million U.S. dollars as of July with Singapore-based companies topping the investors in the SEZ with 372.147 million U.S. dollars, disclosed the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA) of Myanmar.

The Thilawa SEZ, located at 2,400 hectares' land in the outskirt of Yangon, represents the very first of its kind being developed in Myanmar with the other two, namely Dawei and Kyaukphyu SEZs being in progress.

Myanmar and Japan entered into an agreement on Oct.29, 2013 to implement the Thilawa SEZ with Zone-A being brought into operation on Sept 23, 2015 and construction of Phase-1 of Zone-B is expected start in November 2016.

Zones A and B, when both completed, will be able to house up to 150 factories and employ 40,000 workers, according to the SEZ authorities.

The Thilawa SEZ has been operated by Myanmar-Japan Thilawa Development Company, a joint venture between Myanmar and Japan, since 2013, formed by two Myanmar companies and two Japanese companies sharing a ratio of 51 to 49.
EL DIAMANTE, Colombia, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group on Friday gathered for what is expected to be their last convention as a rebel army before their demobilization.

The FARC's top commander, Rodrigo Londono Echeverri, whose nom de guerre is "Timochenko" or "Timoleon Jimenez," inaugurated the 10th National Guerrilla Conference in a remote rural enclave called El Diamante in southeast Colombia.

"More than 1,000 rebels from all over the country," according to Colombia's Caracol news website, gathered to discuss the group's transition from an armed guerrilla force to a political party or movement, following a peace agreement to be signed with the government on Sept. 26.

The deal "makes very clear that in this war there are no winners or losers," Timochenko told the crowd.

A video of the event posted by Caracol showed a smiling Timochenko addressing the crowd, a giant screen mounted on the stage behind him broadcasting his image for those seated in the back rows.

The FARC leader acknowledged that some rebels have been skeptical of the nearly four-year peace talks and the final agreement.

"Those who still have doubts about our struggle, we hope you approach us," said Timochenko.

Average Colombians will also have a chance to reject or accept the peace deal at a referendum scheduled for Oct. 2.

The conflict between the Colombian government and the rebel group started in the 1960s as an uprising for land rights. It has left about 220,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly 7 million displaced.
NEW DELHI, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least three soliders have been killed and 18 others injured in a terror attack on an Army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir Sunday, a defense official said.

"The attack took place in the morning when four terrorists entered the Army base in the northern state's Uri sector, which is near the Line of Control. A gunbattle is on between the Army and two militants, while two other militants have been neutralised," he said, on condition of anonymity.

The injured have been airlifted to an Army hospital in state capital Srinagar, about 70 km away, where the condition of two are said to be critical, the official added.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh has cancelled his trip to Russia and the U.S. because of the terror attack. "Spoke to Governor and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," he tweeted.

Local TV channels reported, quoting sources, that this is a suicide attack by the militants who may have had entered this country from across the border.

Kashmir has been on the boil since the killing of 22-year-old militant commander Burhan Wani by Indian security forces in July. More than 80 people have been killed and over 10,000 others injured in violence in the aftermath of the killing.

This is also the second major terror attack at a defense base in northern India, the first being in January this year when some six terrorists entered the high security Pathankot air base in Punjab and opened fire, killing seven military personnel.
By Xinhua writers Liu Wei, Dai Ying

BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- A decade ago when she was just 19, Feng Jiamei had the world at her feet.

She travelled 250 kilometers from her hometown in Sichuan to its capital Chengdu for a TV talent show called "Super Girls" .

She came fourth, but with her good looks and singing talent, celebrity followed.

She released three singles and starred in a few movies.

However, with opportunities to release an album and sign a contract with a movie studio, her destiny suddenly took a tragic - but ultimately more fulfilling - course.

A short-lived dream

On April 24, 2015, Feng put a post on her Weibo microblog and her 200,000 followers learned how her beloved daughter, Meier, had died of the rare genetic condition spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) the year before.

The post went viral in 24 hours.

"I spent one and a half years walking through her death and wondering how to tell the public," Feng recalls through tears.

"I was so desperate to find a partner and have a child," Feng says.

She daydreamed about buying clothes and dressing her daughter when she was pregnant at 25.

When her baby was born, Feng felt as if all her dreams were fulfilled. But the joy of raising her "little angel" was short-lived. At just 4 months, Meier was unable to hold up her head, roll over or sit up without assistance.

"We took her to hospital and she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy," recalls Feng. But the symptoms did not match the diagnosis. A local hospital in Chengdu made another misdiagnosis that resulted in painful physiotherapy, including limb-stretching and electric shock treatments, for more than half a year.

Eventually a blood test report from Beijing confirmed Meier' s condition as SMA.

SMA affects the part of the nervous system that controls voluntary muscle movement. It has wide variability in age of onset, symptoms and rate of progression. Feng later learned that the earlier the age of onset, the greater the impact on motor function. Children like Meier, who display symptoms at birth or in infancy, typically have the lowest level of functioning and they rarely live to 2 years.

In 2013, Feng flitted between Chengdu, Beijing and Hong Kong to seek medical help. Not a single doctor prescribed one pill - they just advised her to take care of her daughter. "I felt so hopeless for my angel," says Feng.

Eventually, Meier was hospitalized as a result of respiratory failure and her family took turns to watch her around the clock.

Feng went into denial over Meier' s death: "I could only think that I should wait - maybe next year there would be a life-saving medicine and she would fully recover. We could visit relatives and friends again."

Then her marriage ended too.

Facing the future

After she posted the news of her daughter' s death, Feng found she was not alone in her despair. Messages arrived, asking for help: "My child has SMA too - what can I do?"

She began to wonder how she could help these desperate parents.

The estimated 30,000 to 50,000 SMA patients are a drop in the ocean of China' s 1.37 billion population. The families felt too insignificant to be heard.

Feng learned more about the disease and its medical experts from Ma Bin, who only learned he had the disease in 1993 when he was 20.

"I often stumbled when I ran at the age of four; nobody knew what was wrong," says Ma. "Even in 2002, you could find nothing about the disease on a Chinese search engine."

He started to translate research and treatment files from English and put Chinese articles on his website. By 2011, fsmachina.org was an online home to more than 400 parents of SMA patients.

Apart from providing information, Ma thought he could do little for these families.

But Feng, as a public figure, could make a difference. Together they set up the Meier Advocacy & Support Center for SMA (MASC) in 2016.

"I was thinking of raising funds for more respirators at the beginning because the most common cause of SMA deaths is respiratory failure, but most families cannot afford such a device," says Feng.

However, respirators are highly technical medical devices, not household appliances. She and Ma decided to focus on introducing SMA to ordinary people and sharing day-to-day care techniques with patients' parents.

The disease has no cure, but massage and helping children to eat and sleep can increase their lifespan and improve their quality of life. "An SMA Handbook is much needed in China," says Feng.

On August 6, 2016, China' s first SMA meeting was held in Beijing. It was attended by experts from home and abroad and many Chinese SMA families.

"I was a mother and I' m very happy to see these children still with their families," says Feng. "I could do nothing for my daughter, but now I' m full of strength for their future."

One mission of the MASC is to make simple wishes come true for SMA children - a trip to the seashore and playing in the sand, for instance. "These kids cannot travel long distances because a common cold could kill them and their parents can' t take risks. But we will provide a professional team to keep them safe," says Feng.

A choice for all

"She is brave enough to tell her own story so many more people can learn about SMA and these children' s parents can also face the future," says Ma.

Feng is hailed as a "Super Mum" by the SMA parents for her dedication to helping them. They connect through Feng online or offline, and support each other, especially when a much-loved child loses the battle against the disease.

To Feng' s delight, a drug called Nusinersen from the United States is now being trialled as a treatment and creator Professor Kathryn Swoboda, of Massachusetts General Hospital, expects it could be released into the market next year.

This is an exciting news for SMA families who hope the drug will be sold in China.

However, Feng understands that such a drug for a rare disease is not listed in China' s critical illness insurance program as it is so expensive and only serves a small group of people.

Gene screening before marriage and in pregnancy is the best method to prevent SMA. The technology is already available in major hospitals and it simply needs 2 to 3 milliliters of blood. MASC is cooperating with a dozen maternity and child health care hospitals across China to collect data of SMA gene carriers.

"If I had known how Meier would suffer, I would have aborted the pregnancy," says Feng.

Every family has the right to make such a choice, says Feng. She once met a couple from a remote mountain area. When their first SMA child was born, they thought it was bad luck, yet they ended up with two more sick children because they were unaware of their SMA gene.

"Feng is a carrier, so we' d recommend her relatives at child-bearing age take the test," says Ma. If no SMA gene is found in either one of a couple, their children are safe. If it' s found in both, the defective gene could be edited out before an embryo is implanted.

"I don' t know if I will remarry or bear another child," says Feng. "But I have a dream that one day our care center will be gone and people don' t have to fear SMA, just as we no longer fear tuberculosis."
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- A 20-member Taliban group including a notorious commander Mullah Daud alias Habash has given up fighting and surrundered to government in the southern Helmand province, provincial governor Hayatullah Hayat said Sunday.

"A total of 20 insurgents including Taliban notorious commander Mullah Daud alias Habash laid down arms and surrendered to government yesterday," Hayat told Xinhua.

Commander Habash and his fighters were involved in anti-government activities in Washir district over the past couple of years, the official said, adding his surrender to government would inspire more militants to follow the step and give up fighting.

Karim Atal, the head of Helmand's provincial council has also confirmed that Mullah Habash along with 19 armed men handed over their weapons to government and vowed to struggle for returning peace in the restive province.

Taliban militants are yet to make comment on the report.
A Syrian boy carries a toy gun past a destroyed building in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli on September 13, 2016 as a truce brokered by Russia and the United States saw guns fall silent at sundown the previous night. (AFP/Xinhua)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Russia on Saturday accused the United States of violating their bilateral agreement which called for a cease-fire in Syria, saying the U.S.-led air strikes on Syrian military positions was a "bad omen" for the Russian-U.S. accord.

"Having conducted this airstrike, the United States has violated two of its commitments: one is the commitment to the Cessation of Hostilities, which the U.S. undertook together with us in February, and which we reconfirmed just a few days ago, and the other is the commitment the U.S. gave to the government of Syria when the U.S. started its air campaign two years ago," Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters here after a closed-door emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

The council meeting, which took place here Saturday night, was held at the request of Russia after the U.S.-led coalition staged air strikes on Syrian military positions.

More than 60 Syrian soldiers were killed on Saturday evening by the air strikes of the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition against Syrian military positions in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, reports said.

At the council meeting, Churkin said that he was sharing Russian "analysis and frustration over the situation in Syria."

"In fact, this is a very serious concern that we wanted to and we did share today with the members of the Security Council," he said.

The Saturday meeting was held as tensions between the United States and Russia escalated.

Before the beginning of the council meeting at around 19:30 EDT (2330 GMT), U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power told reporters here that she dismissed the Russian request for an emergency council meeting as a "stunt."

"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power said.

"As Ambassador Power walked in, first thing she said, she was not interested in what I had to say because what I was saying is a stunt," Churkin said. "So, there's no point in my listening to Ambassador Power. So, I decided to leave the room, my delegation is there, and to share my reflections with you."

Asked by reporters here whether the air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition in Syria would put an end to the truce deal, which enabled the cease-fire to take effect on Monday, Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark."

"I would be very interested to see how Washington is reacting," he said.

In Geneva last Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced a landmark agreement on a nationwide cease-fire in Syria, which they hope would lead to their countries' military cooperation to end more than five years of bloodshed there.

An UK-based watchdog group said the Syrian soldiers abandoned their positions following the strikes, which facilitated an attack by the Islamic State (IS) group.

The IS captured the positions, prompting the Syrian army to send reinforcements to the al-Tharda Mountain, located just 10 km from the city of Deir al-Zour.

The general-command of the Syrian army accused the U.S. of supporting the IS in the attack in Deir al-Zour.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the U.S.-led air raids enabled the IS to capture al-Tharda Mountain.

The incident marks the first U.S.-led coalition attacked a government forces' positions since it started striking IS positions in Syria in late 2014.

Related:

UN Security Council to hold emergency session on Syria, diplomatic sources say

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Saturday evening on Syria after the U.S.-led coalition staged airstrikes on Syrian military positions, diplomatic sources told Xinhua. Full story

Syria accuses U.S. of supporting IS after striking Syrian army positions in Deir al-Zour

DAMASCUS, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Syria's Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused the U.S. of supporting the Islamic State (IS) group, after a U.S.-led airstrike killed 62 Syrian soldiers in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

"This cowered American act is an unequivocal evidence on the U.S. support to the IS," said the ministry. Full story

Pentagon says coalition airstrike may have struck Syrian military

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Pentagon said on Saturday a U.S.-led coalition airstrike against the Islamic State may have unintentionally targeted Syrian government forces.

"Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh fighting position," said a Pentagon statement, referring to the extremist group in its Arabic acronym. Full story

Russia says U.S.-led airstrikes kill 62 Syrian government troops

MOSCOW, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led coalition killed 62 Syrian government troops and injured some 100 others in a round of airstrikes in eastern Syria's province of Deir al-Zour, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday.
CHENGDU, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Two drones are being used to help monitor traffic flow and violators on highways in southwest China's Sichuan Province, according to the provincial public security department Sunday.

The drones, which can travel up to 100 km per hour, were first used, which is usually when roads are crowded with returning travelers.

The drones flew over two highways, one connecting the cities of Chengdu and Zigong, and the other connecting Chengdu with Mianyang. More than 90 traffic incidents were caught on camera by the drones.

The drones can recognize license plates from 100 meters away. The pictures and videos are sent back to ground staff, so the police can take efficient measures to direct traffic flow.

With a flight radius of 15 km, the drones can fly for up to one hour at a time, and can complete a 30 km round trip in 40 minutes.

The drones' activity was broadcasted live through the provincial traffic police's official Weibo account.

The traffic police will now use drones more regularly.
COLOMBO, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's main international airport and the Colombo Port have been placed on high alert to prevent the spread of the Zika virus and Chikungunya, which is raging in Asia, a local media report said here on Sunday.

"The airport's health desks have been told to caution passengers travelling to the affected countries," Quarantine Director, Dr Palitha Karunaperuma said.

The Sri Lankan government said that the island nation faced a threat from the two deadly diseases, adding that state hospitals were being geared to cope with it.

According to the local media report, the warnings of Chikungunya and Zika was issued after two deaths were reported in Chilaw, 84 km away from Colombo, last week. Both victims were admitted to the Chilaw state hospital after suffering a high temperature. Both had returned from India in the same week.

Health officials said further investigations was underway.

Increasing cases of Zika and Chikungunya have been reported from many Asian countries including Singapore, India and Thailand and airlines operating in these countries have been informed to exercise caution and report to health authorities if there were any sick passengers.
NEW DELHI, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 17 soldiers have been killed and more than 30 others injured in a major terror attack at an Army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir Sunday. All the four terrorists involved in the attack were also killed.

This is the highest casualty that the Indian Army has suffered in a single terror attack in the past 26 years and worse than the militant strike at the Pathankot air base in the neighboring state of Punjab in January, in which seven Army men lost their lives.

The attack took place early this morning when four terrorists, suspected to have sneaked into this country from across the border Saturday evening, entered the Indian Army's administrative base in the northern state's Uri sector, which is near the Line of Control.

"In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation," the Indian Army said in a statement.

All the 30 injured have been airlifted to an Army hospital in state capital Srinagar, about 70 km away, where the condition of two are said to be critical, a senior defense official said, adding the Indian Army chief General Dalbir Singh is on its way to the Army base.

Meanwhile, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh has cancelled his trip to Russia and the U.S. because of the terror attack. "Spoke to Governor and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir regarding the terror attack in Uri. They have apprised me of the security situation in the state," he tweeted.

Kashmir has been on the boil since the killing of 22-year-old militant commander Burhan Wani by Indian security forces in July. More than 80 people have been killed and over 10,000 others injured in violence in the aftermath of the killing.

India and Pakistan have already had a bitter war of words over the civilian deaths and unrest in Kashmir, a disputed region over which both the countries have fought at least three major wars with both claiming stake to it.
RIYADH, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi Interior Ministry said on Sunday that two policemen were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Dammam in the Eastern Province, Saudi Press Agency reported.

The shooting attack occurred on Saturday night when the policemen were patrolling a busy neighborhood in the city of Dammam, the report said, adding the two policemen died on the way to hospital.

An investigation was launched.

In August, a Yemeni, suspected to kill a policeman in Bisha in southwestern Saudi Arabia, was arrested. He confessed being a member of Islamic State militant group.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a phone talk with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sept. 17, 2016. (Russian Foreign Ministry Photo)

MOSCOW, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday urged the United States to more actively participate in the Syrian truce process and to pressurize militants to expand the humanitarian access in the war-raged country, the RussianForeign Ministry said in a statement.

The Russian top diplomat discussed in a phone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry the recent Russia-U.S. agreement on a nationwide cease-fire in Syria, which both sides hope would lead to their countries' military cooperation to end more than five years of bloodshed there.

The week-long truce, which started on Monday, demands all warring sides in Syria stop attacks and airstrikes, and allow access to besieged areas, including the northern city of Aleppo.

Lavrov once again called on the United States to make the deal public in order to avoid any ambiguities in its implementation.

The two diplomats also discussed the situation in Syria over phone on Friday, during which Lavrov urged his U.S. counterpart to unveil those document. But so far Washington has shown no interest in doing so.

Earlier Saturday, Lavrov held a phone talk with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, during which the latter voiced Paris' support for Moscow's proposal to make those documents public.
Exhibitors prepare for their booths at Xinjiang International Convention & Exhibition Center, in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Sept. 18, 2016. The 5th China-Eurasia Expo will kick off in Urumqi on Sept. 20. (Xinhua/Wang Fei)

URUMQI, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The fifth China-Eurasia Expo will be held in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, authorities said Sunday.

The expo, set to open Tuesday in the regional capital of Urumqi, will draw 2,192 company participants from 57 countries and regions. There will be 3,500 professional purchasers at this year's event, a record high, according to the organizer.

A total of 15 ministerial forums and activities will be held, with about 200 domestic and foreign ministerial-level guests to attend the six-day international fair.

The fourth expo saw more than 6 billion U.S. dollars' worth of foreign trade contracts signed with Chinese companies.
A Saudi security helcopter flies over the tents of Muslim pilgrims on the second day of Eid al-Adha in Mina, near the holy city of Mecca, during the annual haj pilgrimage September 13, 2016.(REUTERS)

RIYADH, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi Interior Ministry said on Sunday that two policemen were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Dammam in the Eastern Province, Saudi Press Agency reported.

The shooting attack occurred on Saturday night when the policemen were patrolling a busy neighborhood in the city of Dammam, the report said, adding the two policemen died on the way to hospital.

An investigation was launched.

In August, a Yemeni, suspected to kill a policeman in Bisha in southwestern Saudi Arabia, was arrested. He confessed being a member of Islamic State militant group.
RAMALLAH, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian was seriously injured Sunday by Israeli gunfire after allegedly stabbing an Israeli military officer with a knife near Bethlehem in the West Bank, local sources said.

Palestinian sources said that the young man was shot near Efrat settlement entrance, south of Bethlehem, and then he was arrested by Israeli forces.

Israeli liaison office informed its Palestinian counterpart that he was arrested in critical condition.

Israeli public radio reported that a military officer was lightly injured after being stabbed by the Palestinian who was shot and arrested.

The radio reported that both were hospitalized in an Israeli hospital and Palestinian workers were banned from entering the settlement after the incident.

Israeli sources announced that the Israeli army is reinforcing its forces in the West Bank ahead of upcoming Jewish holidays.

Last Friday, three Palestinians and a Jordanian citizen were killed by Israeli forces that claimed they attempted to carry out ramming or stabbing attacks in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem.

A wave of tensions has been mounting between Israelis and Palestinians since last October. Official figures say that at least 227 Palestinians and 40 Israelis have been killed.
Sierra Leonian students gather for a protest on Aug. 16, 2016 in Kabala. (AFP/Stringer)

FREETOWN, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Sierra Leone's Minister of Internal Affairs has said the government would start implementing the death penalty to crack down on recent increase in gang-related killings in the country.

"We will kill when the state demands it," Palo Conteh said on early this week. "I have called on the Director of Prisons to clean the gallows so that we will not be found wanting when the situation arises."

The gallows at the Male Correctional Center (Prisons) in Freetown have not been used since 1998 because President Koroma had put a moratorium on the death penalty, Conteh said.

"The death penalty is still in our law books and if any one is found guilty of murder we will not hesitate to enforce the law," he said.

Conteh pointed out that his ministry has instituted several methods to curb violence and the rampant killings in the country, in particular Freetown.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Leone police have started the "stop and search" raids in communities that are presumed to engage in violence activities. The ministry of internal affairs has also set up special units comprising Operational Support Division Officers together with detectives to go after thugs and cliques.

The minister also asked for the cooperation of the public with the police by informing them of any unusual activity in their community.
Photo taken on Sept. 1, 2016 shows a construction site of the Standard gauge railway (SGR) project, in Mombasa, Kenya. The 480-kilometer SGR line in Kenya, being built by Chinese firm, will run from Mombasa on the eastern coast to the capital Nairobi. (Xinhua/Pan Siwei)

NAIROBI, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road initiative being championed by China will unleash global prosperity through increased cross border trade, cultural interactions and skills transfer, a Kenyan scribe said on Friday.

Charles Kerich, an editor with a local daily, The Star Newspaper, said in a commentary that China's Belt and Road initiative will have profound impact on economies and livelihoods across a large swathe of Africa, Middle East, Europe and Asia.

Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 launched the initiative to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes.

Kerich, who recently visited China, hailed China's move to revive the ancient trade routes that underpinned global prosperity in the middle ages.

A laborer works at the Mombasa port station of the Standard gauge railway (SGR) project, in Mombasa, Kenya, on Aug. 31, 2016. (Xinhua/Pan Siwei)

The China-funded standard gauge railway (SGR) in Kenya and its future stretches in other East African nations are part of the Belt and Road initiative, he said.

China-funded mega infrastructure projects like the SGR, sea ports and highways will catalyze industrial transformation in Kenya and the larger Eastern African region, he said.

China has as of June this year signed inter-governmental cooperative agreements or memorandums of understanding with more than 40 countries and international organizations on Belt and Road projects.

Kerich said that around half of the world's population will benefit from the Belt and Road initiative, lauding China's commitment to the speedy implementation of the initiative.
MANILA, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine government said Sunday that it adheres to no ransom policy after a Norwegian hostage was reportedly released by Abu Sayyaf Group.

It was reported that 30 million pesos (630,000 U.S. dollars) was paid to the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group for the safe release of Kjartan Sekkingstad, who has been taken hostage for almost a year.

"I would like to reiterate that the government maintains the no ransom policy," Presidential Communications Office Secretary Martin Andanar said in an interview over a state-run radio station.

However, he said, "now, if a third party paid (ransom), if the family paid, we do not know."

He even challenged the media to inform the government where they got the information that money exchanged hands for the release of the Norwegian, one of the four hostages seized by the bandits on September 21 last year in a resort in Samal Island in southern province of Davao del Norte.

The two other Canadian hostages were both beheaded earlier this year after failure to pay ransom, while a female Filipino was also freed late June.

The military has said that around 20 other Filipino and foreign hostages have remained on the hands of the bandits in southern Philippines.
CANBERRA, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Australian Department of Defense issued a statement on Sunday, confirming that Australian aircraft involved in the U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria which killed more than 60 Syrian military personnel.

"Overnight Coalition aircraft were conducting airstrikes in Eastern Syria against what was believed to be a Daesh fighting position that the Coalition had been tracking for some time," the statement said.

"However, shortly after the bombing commenced, Russian officials advised the Combined Air Operations Center that the targets may have been Syrian military personnel."

"Bombing ceased immediately," it said.

It confirmed that Australian aircraft were among a number of international aircraft taking part in this Coalition operation around Dayr Az Zawr.

The Defense Department argued that Australian "would never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support Daesh (also known as IS)."

"Defence offers its condolences to the families of any Syrian personnel killed or wounded in this incident," the statement said.

"As Australians would expect, the U.S.-led Coalition will review this incident thoroughly and Australia will cooperate fully with this review."

More than 60 Syrian soldiers were killed on Saturday evening by the airstrikes of the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition against Syrian military positions in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, reports said.

At the request of Russia, the United Nations Security Council held a closed-door emergency meeting on this issue on Saturday.

Russia accused the United States of violating their bilateral agreement which called for a cease-fire in Syria, saying the U.S.-led air strikes on Syrian military positions was a "bad omen" for the Russian-U.S. accord.
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Sept. 18(Xinhua) -- Brunei's exports in July rose 34.5 percent on month to 677.9 million Brunei dollars (495.6 million U.S. dollars), according to the latest International Merchandise Trade Statistics released by Brunei's Department of Economic Planning and Development(JPKE).

July's mineral fuels exports including crude oil and liquefied natural gas exports, recorded the highest contribution at 472.6 million Brunei dollars (345.5 million U.S. dollars) of total exports followed by chemicals at 168.7 million Brunei dollars (123.3 million U.S. dollars), The JPKE was quoted by local media as saying Sunday.

Most of Brunei's exports continued to go to Japan, which accounted for 26.1 percent of the country's export market, followed by Singapore with 24.3 percent, India with 10.6 percent and Australia with 8.6 percent.

Meanwhile, Brunei's imports of goods in July decreased by 22.9 percent monthly to 260.1 million Brunei dollars (190.1 million U.S. dollars).

More than 20 percent of Brunei's imports came from Malaysia, which was followed by China at 18.1 percent, Singapore at 16.1 percent and the United States at 8.1 percent.

The trade balance for the month of July was recorded at 417.8 million Brunei dollars (305.4 million U.S. dollars), up more than 150 percent from the previous month.
DHAKA, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh police have filed a case against 10 people over the disastrous factory fire that left 34 workers dead.

Ajay Kumar Chakrabarty, a police officer, filed the case over the deadly fire at the food and cigarette packaging factory in Tongi on the outskirts of capital Dhaka.

A boiler explosion resulted in the devastating fire in the Tampaco Foils Ltd on Sept. 10 at about 6:00 a.m.( local time).

Officials said 10 people including the factory's owner Syed Mokbul Hussain and his wife were named in the case.

Harun Or Rashid, a senior police officer, told journalists that investigators probing the fire incident have found "proof of negligence" by the owner in ensuring the factory's safety.

"We're going to arrest him."

In 2012, at least 112 workers were killed in a fire that razed the eight-storey Tazreen Fashion Limited, where some global brands, including U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart, were manufactured.

Months after the fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory, Bangladesh suffered a fresh blow in April 24, 2013. At least 1,131 people, mostly garment workers, were confirmed dead as an eight-story building -- Rana Plaza -- housing five garment factories collapsed at Savar on the outskirts of capital Dhaka.

Owners of both Rana Plaza and Tazreen were also charged by negligence, among other offenses.
The Burma Army stopped four trucks loaded with rice, cooking oil and beans donated by the WFP from leaving Namhkam to go to Man Win IDP Camp in Kachin State.

A local Christian priest who is helping the IDPs in Man Win IDP Camp said that over 3,000 people in the camp now do not have enough rice to make rice porridge because they have not received their monthly supply of rice from the WFP.

He said that the rice was still in a warehouse in Namhkam, where it had been for over 20 days.

Man Win IDP Camp is made up of four smaller camps. They are KBC-1 and KBC-2, which are under the charge of the Kachin Baptist Convention and RCM-1 and RCM-2, which are under the charge of the Roman Catholic Mission (RCM).

Many IDPs have also been taking refuge in the homes of relatives in the village of Man Win.

Groups providing assistance to the IDPs told K.N.G. that the WFP food supplies destined for Man Win IDP Camp had been seized due to joint instructions issued by the Burma Army commanders of the North Eastern Command and the Northern Command.

There have been rumours claiming that the Burma Army believed that the rice was going to ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) and that there is no longer any need for rice at Man Win IDP Camp because the IDPs have left the camp.

Similarly, on 25 August the Burma Army prevented a KBC vehicle from delivering medicines donated by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) to four Kachin IDP on the Burmese side of the border with China. They stopped the vehicle at the Sinlum camp on Myitkyina-Lwal Jal Road and confiscated some of the medicines.

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI
Rescue workers search for victims on the Chao Phraya River in Thailand's Ayuttaya, Sept. 18, 2016. A ship carrying about 100 people capsized on the Chao Phraya River in Thailand's Ayuttaya on Sunday afternoon, and four people have been confirmed dead. (Xinhua)

BANGKOK, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- A ship carrying about 100 people capsized on the Chao Phraya River in Thailand's Ayuttaya on Sunday afternoon, and four people have been confirmed dead.

Local officials said they cannot confirm the number of the wounded and missing passengers.

Ayutthaya provincial governor Prayoon Rattanaseni said he was informed of the incident at about 16:00 local time, and the ship might crash into the river bank and thus capsized, according to Thai media TNN.

The river flows rapidly at the scene, which makes it more difficult for the rescue work.

Passengers of the ship, mainly Thai Muslims from Nonthaburi province, were on their way to attend the opening ceremony of a newly-built mosque, Prayoon said.
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang is to attend the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 18-21, and to offer the Chinese measures to help promote peace and development of the international community, said a Chinese diplomate here on Sunday.

Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, said during an interview with Xinhua that, as the world's most authoritative and representative intergovernmental organization, the UN has been contributing heavily to safeguarding world peace and promoting common development since its founding in 1945.

"Against the backdrop of the current complicated international situation, the role of the UN has never been so important," said Liu.

This year also marks the 45 anniversary of the restoration of China's seat in the UN. As a firm supporter and practitioner of multilateralism, China will contribute its efforts in protecting world peace and motivating development, the Chinese diplomat said.

First, China will lead international development and cooperation, and promote implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

"As the world's largest developing country, China has a unique advantage in implementing creative, harmonious, green, open and shared development, as well as promoting development and cooperation among countries," the Chinese envoy pointed out.

In early September, China successfully hosted the Group of 20 Summit. For the first time China put the issue of development on top of its world policy agenda, thus injecting vigor in global development, Liu recalled.

Second, China plans to play a bigger role in safeguarding international peace and security.

"Among UN Security Council permanent members, China sends the largest group of peacekeepers to overseas posts," Liu said, "China is also the second largest peacekeeping funder."

"China has always been proposing to peacefully solve disputes through dialogue and negotiation, and safeguard security through joint, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable efforts," he added.

Third, China firmly supports a "strong and robust" role for the UN.

China is one of the founding members of the UN, and the third largest fee payers among UN members, Liu said. Since the restoration of China's seat in the UN in 1971, China has always been defending the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

"Under the banner of peace, development, cooperation, and win-for-all, China adamantly supports the multilateral cooperative work of the UN, and helps push its work in various fields to move forward," the Chinese diplomat said.

During the UN's 70th anniversary summit last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China will establish a 1-billion-dollar China-UN peace and development fund to support the UN's work, creating a new scenario of China-UN cooperation, Liu noted.

"China's endeavor of keeping international peace and promoting common development is always on the way, and will not stop," the Chinese envoy concluded.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (front, C) gives a news conference as New York Police Department Commissioner James O'Neill (front, 1st R) stands aside near the blast site in New York, U.S., Sept. 17, 2016. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said Saturday that there is "no evidence at this point of a terror connection" to an explosion in New York Saturday evening. (Xinhua/Wu Rong)

NEW YORK, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-nine people were injured in an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City Saturday evening, and the city mayor said there has so far been no evidence of a terror connection.

"Early indications are that this was an intentional act," New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said, adding that "there is no specific and credible threat against New York City at this point in time from any terror organization."

Law enforcement sources have reportedly said they found a device that appeared to be pressure cooker near the explosion site.

Also on Saturday night, a man wearing a private security company uniform stabbed eight people at a mall in the northern U.S. state of Minnesota before an off-duty police officer shot him dead.

The stabbings occurred in multiple locations inside the mall, including in the common area and several stores, according to local police.

"All of a sudden I heard pop pop pop, I thought someone tipped over a shelf. All of sudden these people started running. I just saw everybody running our way," Harley Exsted, who was at the scene, told the local newspaper St. Cloud Times.

Seven of the wounded were treated and released while one victim remains hospitalized. None of their injuries are life-threatening, the CNN quoted police chief William B. Anderson as saying.

"The individual we believe to be responsible for the victim's stab wounds is currently deceased inside the mall," police told the CNN.

The two incidents happened just one day after four U.S. police officers and four civilians were shot in separate incidents in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Fort Worth, Texas, authorities said.

In the eastern U.S. city of Philadelphia, Sergeant Sylvia Young, 19, was ambushed late Friday night and shot a number of times in her left arm and protective vest, said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross.

The suspect later wounded Ed Miller, a former police officer who is now a member of the security force at the University of Pennsylvania, Ross said.

During the police chase, a woman was killed and three other civilians were injured by the suspect, before he was cornered in an alley and fatally shot by the police.

Young and Miller were rushed to hospital and were in stable condition early Saturday, Ross said.

In another incident in Fort Worth, a city located in north central Texas, two police officers were responding to a suicide call at a house Friday night.

When they entered the house, a suspect inside the backyard shed began shooting, local media reported.

One officer was shot several times and in critical condition, while the suspect was later found dead by the police.
BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Weather forecasters issued an orange alert for waves and a yellow alert for storms on Sunday as Typhoon Malakas moved along the east coast of the Chinese mainland.

Typhoon Malakas was at sea off southeastern coast of Zhejiang Province at 8 a.m. Sunday, said China's National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center.

From Sunday to Monday, the typhoon is expected to bring up to nine meter waves in the East China Sea. Waves up to four meters are expected near the Diaoyu Islands, in the Huanghai Sea, Taiwan Strait, and off the coast of Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Fujian.

Storm surges of up to 100 centimeters are expected in coastal areas in parts of Jiangsu and Fujian provinces.

The center issued an orange alert for waves and storms on Saturday.

In China's four-tier severe weather warning system red is the most serious alert, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
TEHRAN, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday urged close cooperation among OPEC member states in the upcoming meeting of the cartel in Algeria to stabilize the oil market, Iran's Petro Energy Information Network (SHANA) reported.

"I hope, through close cooperation and engagement, effective steps will be taken for the collective interests in the upcoming OPEC meeting," Rouhani said, adding that "this is a need for oil market stability and fair prices."

Earlier, SHANA reported that Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh would take part in a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Algeria in September.

In the meeting, the Iranian delegation would encourage the OPEC member states for an agreement on the curb of oil output aimed to create balance in the market.

Oil prices in the market have fallen to around 50 U.S. dollars a barrel from some 100 dollars in 2014.

The OPEC members will meet on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Algeria on Sept. 26-28.

The OPEC will probably revive talks on freezing oil production levels when it meets non-OPEC nations in Algeria, according to SHANA.
DAMASCUS, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS) group downed a Syrian warplane in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour on Sunday, the Syrian national TV said, adding that the pilot was "martyred."

The Syrian warplane was engaged in striking the IS positions in al-Tharda Mountain when it was shot down, said the report.

A day earlier, the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition struck Syrian military positions in al-Tharda, killing 90 Syrian soldiers and injuring 110 others, which enabled the IS terrorists of taking over the mountain.

Later in the evening, the Syrian army under Russian air cover succeeded to recapture all fallen bases in al-Tharda, according to the state TV.

The Syrian government accused the United States of supporting the IS, urging the international community to condemn the attack.

The U.S. strike marked the first U.S.-led attack on Syrian army positions since the coalition started its operations in Syria in late 2014.

The Pentagon said the U.S. strike has unintentionally targeted the Syrian government forces.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the U.S.-led airstrikes targeted government positions for over 40 minutes, adding that the Russian counter offensive against the IS militants in al-Tharda killed 38 IS militants.

The UK-based watchdog group said al-Tharda Mountain was the most important base of the Syrian army, adding that if it wasn't recaptured, the regime forces would have started collapsing in areas under their control in Deir al-Zour.
BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, has criticized the United States as the "source of turmoil in the world."

The newspaper on Sunday published three articles by Chinese scholars to analyze the causes of expansive and hegemonic moves by the United States from systemic, ideological and strategic perspectives.

An editor's note on the page said that U.S. interventions are behind unrest and disputes in many places, including the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the South China Sea.

"The United States is keen to make messes in the world, cast shadows on order and stability in multiple regions and jeopardize peace and development in relevant countries," the note said.

An article by Yang Guangbin, a professor of politics at Renmin University, pointed out that the "military-industrial complex," which former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against, is "kidnapping U.S. domestic and diplomatic policy."

The "military-industrial complex" naturally demands war and military expansion, resulting in the Iraq war, "Arab Spring" uprisings and growing tensions with Russia and China, Yang said.

Yang also criticized the United States for selling its ideology, which has brainwashed the elite in some non-Western countries.

"Countries that have followed American-style 'liberty and democracy' are not turning into American-style states. Instead, their lives remain the same, or even become worse," the article said.

Yang said remarks by American diplomat George F. Kennan, who said the Soviet system "moves inexorably along the prescribed path, like a persistent toy automobile wound up and headed in a given direction, stopping only when it meets with some unanswerable force," is now applicable to the U.S. system.

"Over the years, the United States has developed a 'chariot system' like a perpetual motion machine driven by the 'monster' of capital power," the scholar wrote.

The article further criticized the opinions judging China based on a so-called "mainstream theory" and called for a greater voice for China that is commensurate with its standing in international society.

Another article by Li Wen, a researcher with an institute for the study of the theoretical system of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that the United States' eagerness to make trouble around the world is due to its "hegemonic anxiety."

It is "to a large degree, a reflection of a twisted mentality of an empire moving downhill," according to the article.

The United States no longer tends to build and protect world order and peace in order to improve its international status. Instead, it has turned into a disrupter of order and peace to maintain its status quo, the article read.

The United States is making mischief in the world to sustain the U.S. dollar's supremacy and the country's hegemony in military, political and cultural fields, the article said.

The scholar also denounced the United States' measures to contain China by causing trouble in East Asia.

A third article by Lin Hongyu, a professor at Huaqiao University, said U.S. maneuvers in the Asia-Pacific region are just part of its overseas expansion and interventionist diplomacy to maintain its leading international role.

The article called on Chinese authorities to manage disputes between China and the United States in a constructive way and to build a new type of major-country relationship together.
YAOUNDE, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The new clashes in Central African Republic (CAR) have left at least 20 people killed, said an official source.

An official from CAR Public Security Ministry who declined to be named told Xinhua Sunday that the clashes took place in Kaga-Bandoro, a town in central CAR from Friday night to Saturday.

"The former rebel Seleka attacked the town and neighboring villages, leaving at least 20 killed, but the reason behind the clashes is not known at the moment," said the official.

A civil war in CAR broke out on Dec. 10, 2012 between Seleka rebel coalition and government forces.

Seleka took power from former President Francois Bozize in March 2013 and the rebel's leader Michel Djotodia declared himself as president.

Later Christian anti-balaka group started war against Muslim Seleka, leading to the resignation of Djotodia. A National Transitional council was established and elected Catherine Samba-Panza as provisional president until the second round of the new election on Feb. 14, 2016, in which Faustin Archange Touadera was elected as the president.
JERUSALEM, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese-Israeli relations have witnessed healthy and stable development in recent years as a result of joint efforts by both sides, with notable achievements recorded in various fields, Chinese Ambassador to Israel Zhan Yongxin told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Israel is a key country in the Middle East and China attaches great importance to the development of Chinese-Israeli relations, Zhan said, adding that the exchanges of high-level visits since 2013 have injected a strong impetus into the development of bilateral ties.

The two countries made steady progress in building mechanisms for bilateral cooperation, such as the establishment of the inter-governmental economic and technological cooperation mechanism and the joint committee on innovation cooperation, thus providing a guarantee for the expansion of their pragmatic cooperation, he said.

Noting that the exchanges between China's National People's Congress (NPC) and Israel's parliament Knesset are a major component of the political relations between the two countries, Zhan predicted that the upcoming visit to Israel by Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC's Standing Committee, will certainly increase mutual trust, deepen practical cooperation, expand people-to-people friendship and push forward the development of bilateral ties in an all-round way.

Zhang, who will visit Israel and Palestine from Sept. 19 to 22, will be the highest ranking Chinese leader to visit Israel since April 2000. During his stay in Israel, he is scheduled to hold separate talks with President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and meet with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on legislation practices by the legislatures of the two countries.

Recent years have witnessed constant growth of bilateral trade, with China becoming Israel's largest trading partner in Asia and the third largest in the world, only after the United States and Europe, the Chinese ambassador said, revealing that China and Israel will soon start their first round of free trade talks.

While the global economy slowed down and the total volume of China's imports and exports decreased slightly in 2015, trade between China and Israel bucked the trend by growing 5 percent to 11.4 billion U.S. dollars, according to Zhan.

Chinese investment in Israel maintained a robust upward trend, particularly in food, chemical and high-tech sectors, with the aggregated investment exceeding 6 billion dollars by the end of last year. Chinese enterprises won 1.86 billion dollars worth of infrastructure contracts in Israel last year.

China and Israel have signed a series of cooperation agreements, including a three-year action plan on bilateral innovation cooperation, launched an innovation park in Changzhou city in eastern China, and conducted fruitful cooperation in various fields such as the management of water resources as well as nano technology and biomedicine.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong and Netanyahu co-chaired the second meeting of the China-Israel innovation cooperation joint committee in Jerusalem in March 2016, which further broadened the practical cooperation between the two countries, Zhan noted.

Zhan also highlighted some major steps taken by China and Israel to boost their people-to-people exchanges, such as the signing of a 10-year multiple entry visa deal in March and the launching of a direct flight route between Beijing and Israel's Tel Aviv city by China's Hainan Airlines in April.

Figures from the Israeli Tourism Ministry showed that the number of Chinese tourists to Israel jumped 53 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year. In 2015, more than 47,000 Chinese tourists travelled to Israel, an increase of 43 percent over 2014.

In the meantime, Zhan said, more and more Israelis started to learn Chinese, both Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University have Confucius Institute, and there are currently around 200 Israeli primary and secondary schools offering Chinese language courses.

China and Israel will mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations next year, he said, expressing the hope that the two countries will seize this opportunity to push their relations to a new height.
Fireworks light up the sky above the West Lake in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 4, 2016. The 11thG20 summit was held in Hangzhou from Sept. 4 to 5. (Xinhua/Xu Yu)

by Alessandra Cardone

ROME, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The G20 summit held in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou showed the strength and quality of China's leadership, and proved to be a possible new model in terms of global economic governance, according to Italian experts.

"In the past, it has often been said China was a major economic power, yet unable to play a global leadership commensurate with its new status," Paolo Garonna, professor of political economy with LUISS University in Rome, said.

"Well, all of us in Hangzhou have seen the Chinese leadership in action, in terms of strength and quality, and its ability to deliver results," said Garonna.

The expert made his remarks during a conference on the theme "The G20 in Hangzhou and the Sino-Italian cooperation" held at the Chinese Embassy in Rome earlier this week.

Along with Chinese Ambassador to Italy Li Ruiyu, several Italian economic and political analysts attended the event.

China-hosted G20 took place on Sept. 4-5, and closed with the adoption of a final statement expressing a common will of the world's 20 top economies to promote a more efficient global governance.

Great emphasis was given to innovation and cooperation as major drivers of growth, yet on the basis of sustainable and inclusive long-term measures.

Furthermore, the Chinese presidency highlighted the G20 could serve as a "new starting point", and it firmly brought the two topics of development and inclusiveness into the focus of the summit.

Such a move could possibly help the G20 in itself, as a relatively young entity still trying to find a role, according to the Italian economist.

"From this point of view, China's emphasis on the 'new starting' was a strong signal," Garonna said.

Whereas other international organizations were born in the 20th century, the G20 was a more a contemporary entity.

"As such, many of these forums of international cooperation reflect a social, economic, and political equilibrium that no longer exists."

"With the new starting evoked by the Chinese presidency, the hope is now for the G20 to give impetus to a global governance more suited to the reality of the 21st century," he explained.

China's hosting of the G20 also proved the country's new confidence in facing the multiple challenges of the globalized world, other analysts noted.

Indeed, the summit in Hangzhou took place at a particular time, according to Antonio Cascio, head of the Office for Relations with Civil Society and Non-Governmental Organizations at the Italian Foreign Ministry.

"The global economy is certainly recovering, but the growth is still slow and unable to meet the needs of the world population," he told the conference.

"In addition, there are global phenomena, such as the terrorism threat, the immigration crisis, and the climate change, which has serious repercussions on the global governance."

"Innovation and inclusiveness were the two 'answers' on which the G20 focused," Cascio said.

Innovation was clearly defined as the essential driver for a stable and sustainable growth. Yet, the summit also showed a clear awareness that growth alone was not enough, since the fruits of economic development have been, more often than not, unequally distributed, according to the official.

"This is a risk we cannot afford: it would not bring a sustainable growth, and would have negative consequences at political level, in terms of a rise in populist movements that are against the very core of the current global economic system," he explained.

The Foreign Ministry councillor agreed with other experts that the G20 in Hangzhou distinguished itself for its approach.

"Even on the most controversial issues, it was possible to find an agreement on the text (of final statements)," Cascio noted.

Finally, Italian analysts also highlighted that official consultations were extended to include several developing countries, and several topics most dear to these economies.

"The attention went well beyond the common topics of a G20 agenda: it focused on inclusiveness, sustainability, and on the urgency of delivering concrete answers to the people's needs," Garonna pointed out.

"Consultations on these issues were not mere talks: the G20 did enter into sensitive issues on which countries have different positions."

Yet, the Chinese presidency made it possible to face them, and "make progress, maybe small but concrete," the economist concluded.